As Nova watched Sandman rush off to the cave entrance, he sighed and crossed his arms across his chest lightly, he felt slightly like he was given the short end of the stick this mission, with him having to be so talkative with others-it frankly tired the fuck out of him.

But he shrugged it off, and while he didn't show it on his calm face, he was just as worried about Artemis as Sandman was, but he could only sit and wait and hope everything went okay.

Nova watched Sandman round a bend of rock and vanish as he heard Samia walking back to their tent.

He tilted his head backwards a slight amount and began to report the situation to the leader, when he heard a pistol's hammer slide back.

Immediately on edge, he quickly turned around as he heard the sound.

The entire scene confused him.

Why?

Because Samia now held a pistol-an old revolver to be exact, directly at Jenvis's head.

"Samia-what the hell are you doing!?" asked Nova, his own hand moving to his own holstered side arm out of sub-conscious habit.

Samia merely chuckled.

"Fool..all I had to do was wait till it was just you, and now your all alone, you really thought we wanted you to get those three idiots out for us?" asked Samia with a creepy-wide grin.

"Of course you only wanted the book, it's all you ever wanted from the beginning." Nova responded casually.

Samia narrowed his eyes.

"And how would you know that we were after the manifest all along?" he asked skeptically.

"because even before we got here, we knew there was a mole in the village, how else would those bandits of known your location?, how else would they of known that the manifest was found so quickly?" he said quietly.

"your smarter then you look..but alas you still are vastly out numbered, you may be NSCR, but even you can't defeat us all and save the poor elf here" he said arrogantly.

As if to prove his point, two things happened in rapid succession.

Behind him a figure appeared quickly grappling him from behind and putting him in a chokehold, aiming a pistol at the side of his head.

To nail down the point even quicker,  Samia smiled as he pulled the trigger, firing a round at point blank range into Jenvis, killing him instantly, resulting in a tiny bit of blood landing on Samia's chin.

"Alas you have failed, and we have the book, and you will soon join your friend here in death!" Samia said in victory.

However his smile soon melted as Nova simply let a grin show and a chuckle to boot.

"What are you laughing about fool!?" he asked.

"You just killed the only person in this village that I was charged with protecting, which means I now have nothing to lose" he said in return.

"huh?" replied Samia.

Without another word, Nova's eye's lit to a bright orange, flames suddenly leapt from his skin, covering his would be killer in flames.

The man screamed as his body began to burn, he patted his sleeves in vain as Nova put him out of his misery by a blindingly quick and well placed knife to the forehead.

Samia in a panic quickly grabbed the manifest and ran off as several other villages appeared, each holding crude weapons.

As Nova retracted his knife, he counted five in front of him, two armed with old assault rifle, whilst the other three were armed with makeshift melee weapons, one carrying a rusty shovel, one carried what seemed to be a old pitchfork, and the third held a pair of knives in his hands.

Smirking to himself, he waited as the first villager-the one with the shovel, charged him with a yell.

Noticing the other two villages beside him joined in with yells of their own, weapons raised with an intent to kill.

With reflexes akin to a snake, he lowered his body and casually side-stepped the downwards swing of the shovel-wielding villager, quickly stepping inside his guard and besides him, and in the blink of an eye, had stabbed his combat knife through the back of his throat.

The man gave a gargled response as he dropped his shovel and soon he to dropped limp.

The pitchfork villager charged him, to which he easily back-stepped and drew his free arm back, quickly taking out his full-length sword and swung it upwards, slicing the prongs off of the handle.

The man looked on in surprise and could hardly react as Nova sliced the knife across his jugular, taking him out of the fight as he slowly fell to the ground.

The knife-wielding villager charged him next, to which Nova simply used his sword to catch and block both his knives, before spinning around and stabbing the man in the back.

Taking his knife out, he noticed the man still alive and standing.

"hmm, you actually can take a punch-" he said as the man shakily swing another knife at him.

Blocking it again with his sword, he narrowed his eyes as he quickly released his block movement, and instead quickly spun the sword around, slicing off both of his arms at the elbow.

As the man opened his mouth to scream in his pain, Nova spun around again and simply sliced off his head, he was ruthless as a fighter yes-but he wasn't cruel in that regard.

Turning around he found the two villages armed with rifles wide eyed and beginning to back up, after seeing him kill three of their fellow villagers with such little issue, their rifles were shaking in their grips as on began to wildly fire off his weapon at the NSCR warlord.

In a blur of motion, Nova's arm moved so that the few bullets that actually flew towards him, were deflected by his swords blade.

Without a word he swung his sword forward, killing the one to his right as he side-stepped and slice the gun in half, before backtracking his movements and slicing down the final attacker.

Quickly looking around, he took in the sounds of more approaching villagers, they were moving slowly-preparing to ambush him it seems.

Letting a smirk show, he sheathed his sword and quick as a viper, drew his pistol.

Two villagers were hiding behind a tent, their outlines faintly visible to him as he fired two shots, killing both of them instantly.

This sudden attack caused a few more attackers to lose their composure, one broke from her cover, and Nova showed her the cost of her mistake, ending her life with a quick shot to the head.

A second villager-this one a strong muscular individual- Trend, Nova remembered who was one of Samia's second in commands here.

Trent yelled.

"You will never take the book from our true master!" 

Nova knit his brows in confusion.

""Your master?"" he repeated.

"He is the flaming one, the one locked away from all-he has been wronged and requests us to make amends, we will deliver the manifest to him, he will lead us into a new age!" Trent cried out, a crazed look in his eye as he opened fire with the machine gun he was holding.

In a flash Nova summoned a wall of fire around him, causing the bullets to melt and fizzle out before they could touch the man.

Trent looked on in surprise as the fire shield deflected every round, Nova taking no time to press the window he now had, slamming the shield into the muscle-bound man, scorching his skin and knocking him over into a tent-which also promptly caught fire.

Nova fired a single shot into the man to put an end to his suffering as he spotted Samia-still clutching the book in his traitorous hands, running towards a large tent at the back of the village.

He noticed at least a dozen villagers gather in front of him, some with crude melee weapons, others with various small-arms weapons.

They formed a line in front of him and he sighed-he had no time for this.

He withdrew his pistol and combat knife, before reaching onto his back and clutching the stock of his shotgun, drawing it out slowly.

He tapped the bottom of it's drum mag once to make sure it was fully loaded-which it was.

Giving the group one last small grin, he lowered his head, fire appearing around his body-and charged.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sandman reached the cave entrance fairly quickly, and activated his night vision goggles, his eyes peeled for any movement that he could detect in the caves.

At first he spotted nothing, but soon began to hear what sounds like distant thumps and clangs.

Gunfire he realized quickly and resumed his sprint down into the caves.

The gunfire quickly drew louder as strange screams began to be heard.

"What the fuck is going on down here?" he asked himself.

Turning a corner he soon found his answer, spying the group, he found the source of the screaming.

A large number of skeletons were charging the group, letting out almost demonic screeches as Raven, Scanner and Oni fought back as best as they could.

As the three were each clutching a body in their grasp, Oni and Scanner could only elect to use their sidearms, whilst Raven who was dragging a downed Artemis, could only use a single gauntlet to defend herself, despite having Artemis's rifle strapped to her back.

They were managing to stave off the attackers from getting to close, every strike they sent to their foe met with at least one skeleton going down in a crumple.

Raven knocked the skull of a would be attacker side-ways with a back hand as she dragged Artemis behind her, Oni and Scanner holding the remains of who must of been Gregix and Karina.

Despite managing to avoid getting swarmed, they were moving painfully slow, in a bout a minute they really could only travel five feet.

Not waiting around any longer, he lifted his assault rifle and began to fire off rounds of his own.

The group hadn't noticed his arrival-much to occupied with the horde of undead attacking them, so they all nearly jumped in surprise when his 7.92mm rounds began to tear apart the skeletons closest to the group.

"wha-Sandman!?" said Oni, looking back at him in surprise.

"Aye, got your message, I'll hold them off- get them out of here!" he replied moving in front of them to prove his point.

Oni looked at him for a moment before nodding and looking to to her comrades.

"alright you heard him-let's get the fuck out of this cave!" she said, holstering her pistol and finally being able to carry Karina far quicker then before.

The other members nodded and began to make far quicker progress out of the caves.

Firing in short controlled bursts, Sandman took down several skeletons in short order, dodging the strike of one before jumping back and sitting it directly in the skull.

As the skull shattered and it feel without a sound he smashed the butt of his rifle into the ribs of another, causing it to break apart quickly.

A boney hand smashed into the rock next to him as he narrowly dodged a blow from what seemed to be an Orc skeleton-a bit of variety here it seemed at last, thought Sandman as he rolled backwards.

Drawing his bladed shovel-a survival tool, he swung it wide and decapitated two more skeletons.

As his arm lowered, he drew a sidearm and using his arm as a brace fired off several shots into the Orc skeleton, causing heavy damage to its bones, but it still stood and roared in what seemed to be anger.

Dodging to the side, he swung his tool into the rear of the knee join of the skeleton, dismembering the leg as it fell to the ground with another growl.

Shooting it three times in the head, it's skull shattered and it fell apart, hopefully putting the orc's soul to rest.

Reacting on pure instinct, he swung his tool once more upwards and practically slice a skeleton in half vertically.

Withdrawing his pistol and tool, he drew his rifle again and reloaded its empty mag, in about two seconds flat, he had it fully loaded again.

Firing a few more bursts to take down the closest skeletons, he heard a distant voice.

"Sandman we're out!"-it sounded like Oni's voice.

Nodding-not that they could see his nod anyway, but he quickly turned around and began to run full sprint to leave the cave, the skeletons following close behind.

Quickly reaching the entrance he dived and rolled forwards, landing just behind the group who could finally put down their cargo, allowing them to fight again at full strength.

Several Skeletons went down when Scanner noticed something on the edge of her vision, turning her head quickly she felt her blood slowly chill.

A massive horde of skeletons had rose out of the sand, hundreds of them, charging in a fury.

Even with their superhuman powers, they knew they wouldn't last long against a group that size without support.

Uttering a loud cursed as she turned and pointed them out to the group.

"We need support-now!" she said as the group at once caught their breaths at the sight of the massive horde.

"where the fuck does it get all these boney fuckers" said Sandman as he raised his rifle once more.

"You've fought well warriors, but I'm afraid I must finish with you and find my manifest.." said the guardian from what seemed to be one of the skeletons.

"Wait-we know where the manifest is!, we are not your enemy!" said Raven.

"Ah..fallen herald, I believe you mean true, but alas, you do not have it, however I will be considerate and give you an ultimatum..defeat this horde and I'll let you live.." the guardian
mused.

"That's damn near impossible with our current status-" she said, ignoring the "fallen herald" comment.

"That's why you have us" said a new female voice.

Before anyone got a chance to respond the sand around the horde of skeletons began to shift and move, as if something was forcibly shifting the very ground beneath them.

The skeletons seemed to notice this too, as they slowed down and began to scan the area as a slight tremor made itself known.

Before the skeletons could move again however, the sand erupted and a new force made itself known.

Leaping out of the ground like a fish out of water, was a large four legged beast, clad in yellow and silver armor, it had a feline body, with a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth, with two especially large fangs adorning the front of its mouth.

This was Jaggedjaw, an ancient biomechanical beast from Chaknaka's ancient past, she along with various other beasts were believed to of been created by an unknown sorcerer from the time of the seven kings, however he feared their power and they were forced into a hibernation like state for eons until they were found by some miners, it is believe they tried to take control of the beasts and that caused them to revolt and wonder aimlessly for a period of time, before Fotus found them and brought them new meaning.

Besides the saber-tooth style beast, a second beast emerged-Earthape, this one with the same silver and yellow armor, with black portions every so often, with two bright red eyes, but the biggest difference being that Jaggedjaw was cat-shaped, Earthape was modeled after a large silverback gorilla.

The two beasts emerged out of the sand like a surfacing whale, slamming down onto the horde of skeletons before they could react.

A dozen were crushed instantly, but they weren't done yet, as a golden pulse shot out from the wrists of the two beasts, before the ground in front of them shattered into shards.

Within five seconds the remaining skeletons-that had numbered over 100 easily-were reduced to fragments and shards.

"W-what-..the elemental beasts..I thought they were lost..to..history" the voice spoke in response, genuine surprise in its words as the two beasts greeted the group with a nod before Jaggedjaw responded to it.

"Not so lost we are guardian, these warriors are true to their words-they do not meant you harm, they are not your true enemies here" she said calmly.

The voice was quiet, and it seemed to be thinking before it asked simply

"Then who is?"

Before anyone could answer it Sandman's radio sparkled to life.

"Sandman-we got a major problem!" he said.

Sandman quickly responded.

"Nova?, what is it?, is that-gunfire?" he asked quickly.

"yes it is, the fucking villagers are traitors, Samia was the mole, they never wanted us to save those three, they only wanted the book-that's all they ever wanted!, Jenvis is dead-Samia fucking shot him, in hot pursuit, I've already informed Fotus of the situation" he responded before a gunshot rang out on the other end-likely Nova's own sidearm.

"fuck..fuckfuck, alright, we're be there as fast as we can" he cursed and turned to the rest of the group.

"what is it?" asked Oni, concern in her eye's.

"The fucking villagers are traitors, Samia was the mole, he tipped off those bandits that Tomb breaker engaged earlier, he only wanted us to recover the book, he didn't care if Jenvis, Gregix and Karina were alive or not, Nova is pursuing and engaging them as we speak" he said.

The group felt their eye's burn in anger, if there was one thing the NSCR didn't like-it was traitors.

The NSCR was known for being fairly peace-loving-peaceful even, they normally would try and reach a more diplomatic solutions, but their military was powerful-considered on the of the top ten strongest on chaknaka, however despite their reputation, they were known for being utterly ruthless to those who betray their comrades-especially out of greed or self-interest.

"copy that, let's move and get that bastard." said Oni simply.

"We will watch Artemis and those two's remains while you complete your mission" said Jaggedjaw, with Earthape nodding gruffly behind her.

The group nodded and Raven gently laid Artemis down, the poor girl having been rendered unconscious due to shock.

Patting her gentle and wiping a bit of blood off her heavily scratched face to clean it, she uttered a quiet prayer to her before standing up again, drawing her sword, she said to the others.

"let's go"

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The group of villagers before him tore apart like butter as a tidal wave of high-caliber shotgun shells, spreading a gory mess all in front of him, limbs flew and blood splattered everywhere.

Sensing more on their way, he lit his body on fire and leapt into a tent just to the right of him.

Nova tore through the tent, taking down only the one-hundredth villager who tried to attack him, his flaming skin burning a hole through the tend with no issue at all as he withdrew the sword he had impaled through the man.

Letting a growl emerge as he saw Samia slip out of view yet again still making his way to the largest tent at the back of the villager.

Nova would've caught him by now if he didn't have to deal with all these damned goons in front of him.

Rolling to the side to evade a trail of gunfire from a rifle-carrying villager, he fire off to shots, scoring one hit in the knee with the second bullet going through his neck, taking him down for good as he whipped around and smashed the bottom of the pistols grip into the side of another's skull, knocking him down, a third shot finished him off well enough.

It had only been a few minutes after he had reported the turn of events to Fotus and Sandman, he knew help was coming, but he wasn't about to let that slow him down.

Reacting quickly, he drew his shotgun up again and shot two more villagers, instantly killing them both as he ran past their mangled bodies.

Finally, he was starting to gain ground on Samia, who vanished into a smaller tent not far ahead of him.

For a second he was tempted to just burn the tent down, but then he remembered the manifest and he thought better of it, simply sprinting to the entrance he kept his gun raised and level.

"Samia, come out, it's over, most of your men are dead, and more of my comrades are making their way as we speak, it's over, you've lost" he stated in his usual calm voice.

"I've won nothing you NSCR dog!" he yelled back as a strange groaning sound began to make itself known.

After listening to it for a second, he hissed in surprise and jumped back.

A large bipedal robot tore its way out of the tent, it's four cybernetic eyes glowing red as it focused on nova, standing about eight feet tall and boasting what seemed to be potent armor protection.

"huh..so you have a security bot hidden away.." he mused as the bot swung on of its large arms.

Nova ducked the first swing but tanked the second, he would've been smashed in half if it wasn't for his enhanced durability due to being a metahuman, but it did send him back a few feet.

Tumbling slightly backwards, he backwards summersaulted into a crouching position.

He raised his shotgun quickly to fire off a shot, but it was knocked out of his hands by the bots fists.

Ignoring that for the moment, he ducked down and spun to the left, drawing his combat knife as he did so, jabbing it into one of the rear joints of the bots leg.

A few sparks flew out as it jumped to the side, narrowly dodging another strike from Nova as it leapt backwards several feet.

It stood still like a statue, except for some minor twitches here and there, as it scanned the area in front of it before it began to spread its arms out as if to ready itself to charge.

Nova glanced at his shotgun laying on the ground nearby, he wanted to grab it but judging the distance in his head, he wouldn't have enough space to grab it before he'd be tackled and torn apart by the machine.

So instead he drew his sword and siphoned some fire into it's blade, lighting it up and making it glow as he prepared to charge.

However he didn't have to as a red and black blur appeared behind the machine, the machine barely had time to react as a red blade released a pulse of blood red energy, slicing off both it's arms in the blink of an eye.

The machine stumbled and seemed to reel in confusion as another swing sliced its head off.

Oil and other fluids flickered out of its internal wiring before it stumbled to the ground in a heap.

Nova lowered his guard as Raven stood over the remains of the machine.

"Seems you were busy Nova" said Raven light heartedly.

"You shouldn't leave me along here..shit tends to go wrong" said Nova in a rare attempt to make a joke.

Raven chuckled slightly as Oni, Sandman and Scanner appeared besides her.

Nova quickly asked as he turned around.

"Where's Artemis?"

"Jaggedjaw and Earthape got her and the remains of the other two, don't worry, their safe" replied Sandman.

Nodding slightly, he spied Samia entering into the largest tent in the village.

"We need to move before he makes a break for it!" said Nova quickly grabbing his shotgun off the ground and running ahead.

The other three ran to catch up with Nova, but only got a few steps as a new sound made itself known.

Samia burst out of the tent within the drivers seat of a buggy, it was unarmed and had virtually no protection, but judging by the speed in which it tore out of the tent-it was meant purely to get something-or someone out of an area as quickly as possible.

His laughter could be heard as he began to tear across the area in front of them.

"Sandman we're detecting an unknown vehicle hauling ass just from your position-is that you?" said Tomb breaker suddenly.

"Negative negative-it's Samia, the bastards bolting-we can't follow him on foot!" replied Sandman.

"copy-we can fire a disabling shot from here, over" said the pilot as the dropship appeared over them and began to track it.

"no wait we can't risk it!, he has the manifest" replied Nova.

The pilot cursed as he seemed to focus in on something on his reader.

"Seems like we won't have to anyway" he said with a chuckle.

The group was confused, but the sound of a high-powered engine made itself known.

Samia was bolting up a small sand dune, apparently that sound didn't come from his machine.

The answer was shown a moment later as a large shadow loomed over the top of the dune, and a large machine shown itself in its place.

An MXA4 Lion main battle tank, one of the main battle tanks of the NSCR, designed to be especially effective in desert operations drove over the top of the dune-and directly onto the front of the buggy.

A short and loud CRUNCH was heard as the weight of the tank crushed the front engine of the buggy, quickly and efficiently causing the buggy to come to a complete stop.

The impact was enough that Samia was knocked out cold.

The buggy turned out to of had a passenger, who attempted to draw a pistol and fire at who had just attacked them-but upon seeing the Lion's 120mm main gun aimed right at the buggy at point blank range, served to be an effective deterrent.

Several armored personnel carriers appeared alongside the Lion, their slightly boxy designs in contrast to the somewhat more sleeker design to the Lion.

"That works-" said Oni.

The group nodded and approached the new allies as the tank's commander hatched opened up.

Even though he was operating a tank, the commander of the tank was decked out in full Warsuit.

"seems we missed all the fun eh?" he asked resting on of his arms against the turret of his tank.

"afraid so, luckily you appeared when you did" said Sandman looking up at the man

The man just chuckled as Nova approached the side of the buggy.

As he got close the passenger reacted and seemed to prepare to fire the pistol he was holding.

Nova stood there, not even having his weapon raised as he commented plainly at the passengers defiance.

"mate, you are surrounded by four NSCR warlords, one of which has demon powers, one has a magic sword, one has a shovel, and this one just killed most of your comrades, not to mention your trapped in a destroyed vehicle, with several APC's armed with autocannons aimed at you, and did I forget the mention the 120mm gun that can destroy individual targets from miles away..my brother in the goddess do not throw your life away like that." he stated flatly.

After a few seconds the man lowered his gun in a defeated manner.

Oni pulled Samia out of the wreckage as Scanner gently picked up the manifest.

As she did so, the guardian began to speak to her.

"you..saved it..you saved my masters work.." said the guardian.

The group stiffened as Oni replied.

"No thanks to you." she hissed.

"No..let me apologize for my actions....I thought you were consumed like greed like the others had been, I did not realize that you were not allied with them..I wounded your comrade and for that I am sorry.." it continued.

Oni began to speak again but was quieted by Raven who raised a hand slowly.

"If you are truly sorry, then release the souls of those you have killed over the centuries, and reveal your true form to us" she said carefully.

After a few minutes of silence the guardian replied.

"very..well..consider it what I owe you...as for my true form..well..my true form is lost to time..and cannot be perceived by most..but I can take on a form that you can perceive with the naked eye.." it explained.

"very well then" replied Raven evenly.

A few moments later a small cloud of black mist began to gather in front of the group, shortly after two glowing dots shown themselves after the mist took on a vaguely humanoid shape.

The guardian now revealed itself looked at the group, before looking at the fallen shapes of Samia and the passenger, before looking at the tank and its escorts, and finally the manifest itself.

"so..this is you more or less?" asked Sandman.

The guardian responded with a nod.

"yes...this is me..I see you have..friends..with you too.." he mused

"So..now what?" asked Oni.

"I mean..all our objectives are complete, we found the remains of Gregix and Karina, we found the manifest and prevented it from falling into enemy hands.." Sandman's voice trailed off.

The guardian sighed and responded.

"As the guardian of the manifest..I will allow you to take it back to your leader, I can sense you never wanted to sell it off for material gains..or any truly selfish reason..and you did save it frm falling into corrupt hands..so you may take it with you..but I am bound to the book..so I will have to come with you.."

The group looked at each other with Nova responding with a raised brow.

"Fotus is gonna like this.." he mused.

Oddly the guardian seemed to almost..react to the mention of Fotus's name, both Raven and Oni noticed this, but decided against it for now, after all their mission was complete and Artemis still needed medical assistance, so the questions could wait for now.

"alright..Oni contact Tomb breaker, Jaggedjaw and Earthape, Nova let's also claim Jenvis's remains, he wasn't a part of their band, he doesn't deserve to rest with them" said Sandman.

Nova merely nodded and walked off, with Oni activating her communicator.

"Tomb breaker this is Oni, mission complete, we got the manifest and are preparing to load precious cargo, confirm?" she said.

"Tomb breaker acknowledges, en-route ten seconds" responded the pilot.

"Tomb..breaker..?" asked the guardian confused

Oni nodded as the dropship appeared overhead, it's engines lowering into hover mode as it came to land ten feet away from their position.

Turning to the tank commander, Sandman asked.

"You boys gonna be alright out here?, bandits may still be around" he asked.

The commander nodded.

"don't worry about us bro, we're on our way back to FOB Foxhole just twenty miles south of here, we simply took a detour to help you guys out" he responded casually.

"Well we thank you for your assistance, but we're gotta get going now, we got injured and gotta get them home" said Sandman in response.

The commander nodded.

"copy, safe travels, over and out" he said easily before diving back into the tank turret and closing the hatch again, the tank easily rolling of the flattened front end of the bunker

With that the group began to secure the manifest, as well as tying up Samia and his passenger now known as "Takawa" and securing them for transport.

roughly five minutes later all were on board the drop ship, the guardian-still in his "physical" form looked around the interior of the dropship in what seemed to be curiosity.

"such..interesting..machines.."

This comment led to a collective chuckle at his expense as Sandman looked out of the open side door of the aircraft, spying the tell tail signs of Jaggedjaw and Earthape traveling under the sand, a small number of fires still burnt within the camp, no doubt set to light the entire thing ablaze.

Good. Sandman thought as he spied the still smoking wreckage of the bandit gunship that had attacked them earlier, it's ruined hull laying atop the cliffs without a sound.

In the distance he spotted the Lion MBT and it's Recon escorts driving in a single file line into the open desert, they were reaching a healthy speed of 60 km/h, so it wouldn't take them to long to reach their destination.

Giving them a slight salute-even though they couldn't see him do the action anyway, he sat down on the side of the door, watching as at long last that dreaded cave entrance faded from view.

Hearing some minor conversations spark up between his comrades-or rather his friends and the Guardian, he paid them no mind for the time being, simply electing to watch the scene go by and the SDS's afterburners kicked into ignition and the aircraft smoothly sped up and before he knew it they were well on their way to the one place they all looked forward too.

Home.