-BEN-

  They met in the center of the room with a flurry of blows. The Chintari woman, though small, swung her mace with ferocious power.

  Ben danced out its reach, noting how it tore through the walls like paper. Even with his mana reinforcement, that thing might shred his skin and bones if it hit him.

  She swung again, and Ben dodged backwards. As he did, he saw the handle of the mace elongate. His reflexes kicked in, and he crouched. The spiked weapon flew over his head.

  ‘So she can change its length,’ he thought to himself. That made things tricky. And that wasn’t all. She was doing something else with the weapon.

  The woman grabbed the handle of the mace with both hands and pulled it like she was separating intertwined strings.

  The handle transformed into a long chain. Its links were formed from spiky, hard bone. The mace tip hung from the end of the chain, transforming what had been a mace into a flail. Flails were difficult weapons. Anyone who wielded one intentionally was confident, and very skillful.

  The Chintari woman whirled the chain around, then whipped the spiked end at Ben. He dodged just in time, and had to dance out of the reach of further swings.

  He was barely keeping up. She was too skillful to deal with using simple mana reinforcement. He needed something else. Ben activated gladiator mode. His shield and blade formed in his hands.

  He raised the shield just in time to block an attack that would have otherwise smashed into his shoulder. The blow pushed him into the air, and he used the momentum to somersault and landed on his feet.

  The woman relented in her attacks. She took heavy breaths as she gathered her chain. She gave him a dirty look. It was anger mixed with frustration.

  She probably hadn't expected the fight to drag this long. She was strong but the chain was heavy, and swinging it required her entire body as leverage. Having said that, it should have been relatively easy with mana reinforcement.

  ‘Her colleague was right,’ Ben realised. She shouldn’t have used the mana cannon first. She had done it to be cautious, but it seemed the move had eaten away a ton of her mana. Ben wasn’t sure he would have been able to hold off the two of them, if she had attacked the house with the Zeraku, instead of using the cannon.

  Her caution had backfired.

  They began to circle each other. The woman’s weapon changed shape again. This time the chain disintegrated and shortened till it became a set six slim knives which she tucked between each knuckle.

  Ben could tell from the look in her eyes that she intended to end the fight in the next exchange, which was fine with him. He also wanted to end things quickly. He knew the others were alive, but he didn’t know what state they were in.

  At the moment, it seemed Kalo’s mother was unconscious. Hopefully she didn’t have a significant head injury, and hopefully, the others were in a better state. The earlier the fight ended, the earlier Ben could get to them and attempt to deliver first aid.

  He was especially worried about Saya. Amara may have been able to protect the others, but Saya had been in an entirely different room. She may have experienced the full brunt of the explosion.

  Ben gathered Vector Force energy around his shield, and waited for the woman to make the first move. He didn't have to wait long.

  The dawn trooper glanced around the room, then spoke in a low, controlled tone. "There are five people buried beneath this rubble," she said. "I couldn’t sense them before, but now my mana is recovering. I can sense them all. They're alive, but not for long. I have 6 daggers that will change that very quickly."

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  She brandished her bone daggers and narrowed her eyes. "I heard you Order of the First Light people think of yourselves as great heroes. Can you be their hero I wonder? Can you save their lives? Or will you decide to save yourself?"

  She flung out her hands, sending the daggers flying in all directions, but Ben was ready. Just before she threw the daggers, he released the Vector Force wave over his shield. The wave rapidly pulsed through the room, knocking each knife off trajectory and pushing the Chintari woman back.

  She had been positioning herself to leap at Ben with the last dagger which remained in her hand, but the wave disoriented her slightly.

  That created enough of an opening for Ben. He exploded forward and plunged his sword through her abdominal armour.

  She gasped and dropped the knife in her hand. Their eyes met and she grabbed his shoulders. Ben saw fear and disbelief in her expression. Her grip slipped, and she clutched his sword arm to steady herself. She looked him in the eyes one last time. That same fear and disbelief remained.

  Ben had seen it several times. They were the eyes of someone who had thought themselves invincible; the eyes of someone who had planned tomorrow, not knowing their life would be cut short today.

  The light slowly drained from her eyes and she fell. Ben let the sword fall with her. She hit the ground with a thud and blood began to pool beneath her. Her lightless eyes remained open.

  A thought passed through Ben’s mind. ‘Nale Vitham had been stronger.’

  Ben dismissed his weapons and did a scan for mana. He sensed everyone. Kalo, her mother, Lalo, Amara and Saya. They were all still alive. Ben breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted to sit and catch his breath for a moment, but there was no time. He could still hear Kalo's faint whimpers.

  "Mommy..."

  Ben moved towards the sound and carefully lifted up a large piece of the crumpled roof. Underneath it, he found Kalo, curled up in a small ball next to her mother's body.

  Kalo's skin was covered in scrapes but she looked otherwise well. Her mother’s case was different. The older Chintari woman's eyes were closed and her chest rose and fell slowly. Her silvery hair was matted with blood and her right leg was bent at an impossible angle. Ben could see the bone sticking out.

  Luckily, she seemed to have stopped bleeding, and her airway seemed intact. Ben would have to splint the wound but first, it would be wise to move Kalo and put her somewhere safe.

  He reached out and touched the Chintari child on her shoulder, but she flinched and drew away. He heard something shuffle behind him.

  "Let me."

  Ben turned to see Lalo hobbling towards him. Her right arm was covered with streaks of blood and hung limply next to her. The right side of her face was marred by a long, deep ghastly cut that narrowly missed his eye.

  Ben rushed to her side, but Lalo raised her good hand to stop him. He could only watch as she struggled by and knelt next to her mother's body.

  She whispered to her sister. "Hey Kalo. It's me."

  Kalo peeked through a crack in her hands and sobbed when she saw her sister. Lalo smiled softly and gently pulled her little sister into a hug.

  "It's okay Kalo," she whispered, as she rubbed the small girl's head. "It's okay. The bad people are gone now. Mother will be fine."

  Ben heard someone else moving close by.

  It was Amara.

  She had fared much better than the Chintari. She didn't seem to have any broken or otherwise unusable limbs; her skin bore only a few scrapes.

  Her eyes widened when she saw the bodies of the two attackers lying on the ground. She glanced at Ben, and he nodded. Amara shook her head and walked over to stand next to him. Her eyes were now glued on the Chintari family.

  "This is our fault, isn't it?" she whispered to Ben. "We brought this to them."

  The question seemed rhetorical so Ben didn't answer.

  "I'm going to get Saya," he said.

  "She's fine." Amara replied.

  Ben couldn’t stop the surprise from reaching his face. The explosion had been massive and unlike the Priestess, Saya hadn't had a barrier to protect her.

  Amara saw his confusion and shrugged. "Her black thing… it covered her, protected her. I saw it. I think it activated automatically."

  "Oh…" Ben said. Well that was one less thing to worry about.

  Amara looked back at the bodies of the intruders. "Who were they?"

  "I don't know," Ben replied. "But we need to find out."

  There was one more thing he needed to do. He walked over to the female dawn trooper’s body and rolled it over. Her bone armour was very fragile now, so Ben was able to peel it away. The woman wore a smart uniform beneath it.

  He heard Amara make a sound of disgust as he rummaged through the woman’s pockets, but he didn’t care. It would either be here or back on their ship.

  He found what he was looking for, and pulled it out.

  The mana crystal glistened in the rays of the sun. It was an expertly crafted thing. Cut in ways that would channel mana perfectly.

  Something like this would cost a lot of money, even in underground markets.

  Ben spoke to it.

  “Assimilate.”

  The mana crystal shimmered then vanished. He wasn’t sure what he would do with it yet, but it would definitely come in handy later.