Hades saw a blinding white-and-red light brightened the miserable afternoon. With both his arms extended, Hades reached Reiner and Bertrand and tossed them as far as he could from the grenade.

But it was only a stunt grenade, not a highly explosive one like he thought, whose bright light Hades was staring at through the protection of his face shield.

When the dust had settled and air had calmed and his vision had stabilized, Hades helped them got to their feet.

“Are you guys okay?” came a familiar voice from the squad’s open channel.

“Thanks, Leeno,” said Bertrand, “but you still shot me in the back.”

“Sorry,” Leeno said, who just stopped Bertrand’s death and was now walking toward them. “But two out of three shots, at an on-going fight, it wasn’t that bad.”

Hades scoffed. Leeno had always been a good marksman.

“Were there any more soldiers on your way here, Leeno?” said Reiner, who was watching their backs and whose eyes were particularly set on the groaning and waking soldiers they beat up.

“I sort of…got rid of them on my way here,” said Leeno.

“Alright, then.” Reined nodded as he faced Hades. “What now?”

Hades blinked. Bertrand looked at him now. He blinked again. “What?” he said.

“What’s the next step?” asked Leeno.

“How the fuck should I know?” replied Hades. “I’ve done some thinking. Now your turn.”

“Fair point,” said Bertrand before Reiner can bark back at Hades. “Let’s head back and check on the package. We managed to drive that woman away, so all we have to do now is to stay alive and wait for the Interversity to fetch us.”

“The stringcrosser,” Hades meant the sniper, “she’ll be back. And who knows how many more bombings and men she has.”

“Then let’s call for back-up. I’m gonna send emergency beacon to Instructor Sen Heng,” Bertrand said while checking her tablet. “In the meantime, let’s not have our guard down.”

Oh, but they were doing exactly just that.

Dusts scattered abruptly as the wind blew hard around them. The little grass growing wildly on the ground wavered when the air around the cadets pulsed under heavy beating of a large vulture. And after surfing the roofs, the creature with blue eyes landed on behind Leeno and Hades.

Then it stabbed Leeno with its metallic beak, piercing through the armour just below his ribcage.

During the ensuing, sudden silence, Hades noticed the colour of the bird–the entire colour that included the feathers, head, and talons–changed after its beak penetrated Leeno. In a split second, the bird had appeared out of nowhere, stabbed his squadmate in the back, and went invisible.

The kompanion, Hades thought.

“Eh?” Leeno sighed.

“NO!” Reiner, the first one to act and followed quickly by Bertrand, opened fire at the vulture, whose bloody beak was the only thing they could see.

But kompanions were made to be bulletproof and able to withstand standard Interversity weapons.

And right at this moment, Hades’s brain froze. Still too stunned to realize what had happened next to him. Didn’t even think of firing his blasters as his squad tried driving the bird away.

Only when Leeno fell did Hades act. His reflex went to work and caught Leeno, He knelt, his mate cradled in his arms. With the sound of firing blasters and sharp slashes of the wind deafening the air on the intersection, Hades had his attention set on dying Leeno only.

“Fuck,” Hades breathed out. Leeno’s wheezing filled his ears as his helmet tried scanning his mate. “Leeno, you’ll be alright, man.”

The wheezing continued until it was the only thing Hades could hear. The firing had stopped. As Bertrand and Reiner recharged their guns, the bird hovered above them. Hades looked up to see two shining blue lights looking down at them.

Then the vulture’s eyes blinked and each of the cadet’s tablet blew up.

Hades heard both Reiner and Bertrand swore as all four cadets had their armour system down and fried. His own helmet went dark; the sensors flickered once and stayed dead as the system failed to reboot.

“The kompanion fried our tablets!” Bertrand shrilled.

“You managed to call for reinforcement?” asked Reiner.

Bertrand shook her head in frustration. “It..It happened so quickly,” she said, “I had no time.”

“Where is the vulture?” Hades asked.

“What do you think? It’s gone away,” she said.

“We have to move,” Reiner said. “Let’s go.”

He was helping Hades carrying Leeno when the wounded and the woken soldiers they beat up opened fire at them.

“FUCK!” Hades let out his frustration, too. “Staman, put him on my back.” Hades hoisted Leeno’s arm around his neck and, with all his might and Reiner’s help, readied his core strength to receive Leeno’s weight.

The militia were now shouting for back-up.

“Cover me,” Hades said to the rest of his team. Then, amidst the gunfire and chaos, he ran.