Sara can’t help but be amused at the amount of energy Shura is having. As an Esper, she is very easy to talk to, and she is mostly bright like a hyper kid with a good amount of curiosity. Penelope, who always acts as her ‘big sister’, can only sigh and shake her head whenever Shura is crowding Amara. Amara doesn’t seem to mind and answers everything that Shura asks with that gentle voice of hers.

They walk in two rows, Shura and Amara take the back while Sara and Penelope secures the front. The road itself is solid concrete compared to sandy terrain near the riverbank. There are not many things to see, only roofless brick houses and sometimes tall buildings that look like an old shed. The more they thread near the checkpoint, more houses in sight. Some of them are quite modern like ones in Capital, with large glass windows and sturdy metal panels, but it’s far illegible with tear, likely coming from passing monsters.

“S-So how is it?”

“How’s what, Miss Penelope?”

“I-I take it you’re on good terms with Miss Angkara?”

Behind them, Shura is praising Amara (again) in a loud voice, and Amara laughs it off.

“We’re always on good terms? I mean, we’re a team?” Sara tries to answer, though it doesn’t seem that it’s the answer that Penelope wants to hear as the black-haired Guide crunches her forehead.

“D-Does she treat you well?” Penelope repeats her question, though Sara is lost to answer it.

“... Well, sometimes she just forgets that there's an available Guide for Guiding.” Sara shrugs. “What about it, Miss Penelope?”

Penelope blinks, her lips pursed as though disappointed, “I-I see.”

They’re soon to reach the checkpoint after passing the housing area that seems to have seen better days. The road is narrow because of the fallen blocks of concrete and remnants of cars and other vehicles littered the area. It looks more like a waste area rather than a once livable place.

“Miss Khalida, wait. Do you … smell that?”

Penelope turns to Amara as Sara is alerted. It’s that scent of blood and oil. The four stops before a space where cars stacked up, forming a pile that caked with rust and decay. Penelope and Shura look around as Amara and Sara try to pinpoint the source of scent.

“At four o’clock, ov-overhead! S-Shura!”

“Got it!”

Shura teleports the used car door near her feet to the air, making it as a makeshift shield as she deflects something that comes to them from above in volley. The car door collides with stone as big as a boulder, clanking in loud noise.

“S-Should we secure a higher vantage?”

“No,” Amara turns to her side. “We’re going to a less cramped area. Go!”

They scramble, avoiding the rubble rain coming their way until Amara yells for them to stop. The four of them are in open space, surrounded by ruins formed of unused buses, trucks, tires, and whatnots. When the next concentrated volley comes again, Shura uses Shura uses the biggest part she can find from a nearby truck as a shield, like a shell of the front head.

“Scatter!” Shura shouts, and they form a cross formation, securing four wind directions. The destroyed truck parts explodes mid-air, they duck slightly and avoid the leftover debris rain.

The oil stench intensifies as enemies in the form of half-finished tricycle beckons closer, letting out a splitting roar that sounds like a cry of broken engine. There’s no sign of a bigger Sentinel, but Sara surmises that this large pool of enemies can be taxing to handle only by the four of them.

Though as they secure the terrain, the enemies can’t come from the ‘pile’ of buses from their right side, but quickly gather up to their left.

“I have a plan.” Amara raises her voice as everyone ready their weapons. “This will be slightly taxing to you, Miss Shura, will you be okay with it?”

“Aye,” Shura says, without a moment of hesitation. “Just tell me what to do!”

“I need you to teleport any small piece of concrete you can find. It can be shiny rocks, or perhaps colored bricks, within our ten to twenty meter radius,” Amara points to a space in front of her. “Right in front of me.”

Amara then gestures to a good hundred meters between them and the coming enemies.  

“But before that, I need you to teleport enough pillars and parts from nearby buildings to act as our barrier stakes.”

“Miss Angkara, they’re coming.” Sara alerts her.

“Miss Penelope, Miss Khalida, I’m sorry but I need your powers to keep the stray enemies or attacks at bay while I concentrate.”

“T-That’s fine, Miss Angkara!” With her hand steady on her sword grip, Penelope stands tall.

With Shura already teleported away to do her bidding, both Penelope and Sara act as a wall before Amara, charging forward when the tricycle enemies barrel to their way. Sara takes a deep breath, surging the current she can muster from her muscle to her batons until both of them flashes in dancing sparks. As Sara repels the enemies, Penelope is unseen as she swings her sword in quick succession, breaking one monster after another with her Speed affinity.

As they manage the wave, slowly the area around them is filled with ‘trash’ that Shura collects, forming a makeshift ‘barrier’ wall that’s tall enough for the tricycle monster not to pass.

“Move behind the barrier, now!” Amara commands, and Penelope and Sara jump back. 

The tricycle enemies slow down to see the roadblock formed near them, it is when Amara climbs up to the tallest part of the barrier that Shura has generously provided.

Shura teleports back to the group, bringing with herself as much bricks she can muster to bring. When she turns to Amara for confirmation, Amara nods.

“Incoming projectile! Left wing, right wing. Miss Penelope, Miss Khalida, please!” Amara yells.

Another monster batch sighted a bit far from the stopping tricycle. Sara can’t discern the shape, but they have a mechanical body with four tire legs and a mechanical arm that acts like a thrower.

Penelope unsheaths her sword and stands on Amara’s west side, as Sara joins from Amara’s east wing. When projectiles from monsters are about to reach them, they both repel it, while the advancing enemies are blocked with the makeshift pillar stakes.

“Miss Shura!” Amara raises her hand. “Teleport the brick now!”

The monster throws their next stone pillar, but Amara seems fearless in the face of it.

Shura teleports her first bricks in front of Amara. Amara ushers the current around her, pushing the brick the moment it falls in front of her with the might of supersonic wind, and throws it to the crowd like a homing bullet. The ‘bullet’ then pierces on the thrower monster crowd, literally clearing them in one fell swoop as both the force of wind and the speeding brick ‘explodes’ as it meets the pillar, clashing with monster’s Aether.

Both Sara and Penelope don’t blink as it happens, they stay on alert but also awed.

“Wooow! It’s like she’s having a psychokinesis!” Shura pumps her fists.

“S-Shura, pipe down! C-C-Concentrate on assisting Miss Amara!”

“Another incoming!” Amara speaks again, flexing her hand as she concentrates wind to gather on her fist. “Miss Shura, a bigger concrete, please! Miss Penelope, Miss Khalida, your support when the tricycle monster passes the breach, please!”

The explosion keeps on going with a ‘punch’ of Amara’s bricks versus the stones, as though the measly brick is made of explosives. They keep on with the offensive and defensive for a few waves until the monster reading is cleared, leaving the vehicle grave with sand, debris, and fizzling remnants of Aether.

Shura drops herself to her knees beside the barrier as the tablet finally pings that their situation is cleared, quite spent. Sara breathes out a long sigh of relief, her hands slightly numb from gripping her batons.

Amara, meanwhile, still stands on the top of the barrier pillar, alerted, though she quickly joins the others as the situation is cleared.

“Pene, I’m okay, wait, I just need to catch my breath—”

“Ugh, t-this kid!”

Penelope doesn’t give Shura another buts as she helps the Esper up. Sara notices that Shura flinches when Penelope touches her, like a knee-jerk reaction. Penelope gives the younger Esper a glare when she tries to step away just as Penelope helps her up.

“Pene!”

“You n-need Guiding.” Penelope grunts.

“But Pene, I’m—I’m fine! We can just wait until we reach the checkpo—”

“N-No buts!” Penelope already takes Shura’s wrist again. “See, y-you’re already trembling.”

“But Pene!”

Amara is quiet as she stands beside Sara, though she doesn’t say anything at first as the two others bicker. Sara leans closer, watching that Amara seems fine … safe for her shallow breathing and sweating. Amara gestures to her ear and tells with a wave of her hand for Sara to settle down, Sara respects her boundary and busies herself with her tablet.

She scans the area nearby for a spot for them to safely settle. Penelope drags Shura with her, and approaches Sara with a worried look.

“I-Is Miss Angkara okay?”

“Ah, sorry. I need to readjust a bit. My ears are ringing.” Amara answers after a while.

“--But Pene, you should be tired too! There’s no need for a Guide-!”

“Wh–What’s wrong with my Guiding? You’ll be f-fine. Un-Unless I’m scary?”

As the bickering drones on, Sara gives them a smile, while she lets Amara be, giving her a space. Again, she doesn’t want to push herself into it, though she can say that Amara’s silence is worrying.

“M-Materialize,” in a blink Penelope calls her spirit animal. A glow then forms a large, majestic tiger and settles beside Penelope, while Shura stands rigid.

Phase 2 right off the bat? Sara wants to say that out loud, but she doesn’t want to put either of the two on the spot.

Phase 2 Guiding involves spirit animals, and usually Mentalist Guides like Penelope, and Miss Livia Valendorf, can easily materialize their spirit animal out in the open faster than any other Guides. The spirit tiger circles Shura like an obedient cat, as though it is very familiar with Shura.

“Shouldn’t you be a little … erm, decent, to Shura, Miss Penelope?” Sara asks gently. Penelope, who puffs her cheek, sighs in resignation.

“S-She always re-refuses me whenever I o-offer to Guide her for some reason,” Penelope turns to Shura, with the tiger lingering on the Esper. “O-Or, maybe you w-will be comfortable to have M-Miss Khalida to Guide for y-you instead?”

“E-Eh? No, I-I mean, won’t she be busy with Guiding Miss Amara? I can wait-”

“Shura, p-please! If, if you don’t like my Guiding that m-much, you can s-say it outright.”

“Pene, I …”

The tension somehow intensifies, and Sara thinks it only be fruitless if they keep on like this.

“Okay, I can Guide you, Miss Shura.” Sara offers, extending her hand. “I can only give Phase 1, if it’s okay with you.”

Flustered, Penelope doesn’t say anything but recalling her spirit animal and walks away as Shura takes Sara’s offer. Sara can tell how dejected Penelope is, but somehow it’s also like ‘if it is what Shura chooses’.

Shura seems guilty as Penelope walks away but she doesn’t dare to call her back.

“I’ll … get Miss Penelope. You can resume the Emergency Guiding.” Amara says to Sara, and she quickly makes her way to follow the black-haired woman.

Thankfully, as their hands touched, it looks like Shura is receiving Sara’s Guiding just fine. Her trembling slowly subsides after a while.

“It’s not my place to pry but … why? I mean, you two seem … well-acquainted.”

“We are—or must I say we were.” Shura smiles bitterly. “Pene is nice as always, but …”

“Is something wrong with Miss Penelope’s Guiding?”

Shura falls quiet and she doesn’t answer Sara. The usually chipper Shura is at loss of words, only wrecked in guilt as she considers the question. Sara doesn’t question Shura, concentrating on her Guiding instead. Until Shura tells Sara that it’s enough, Sara retracts her hand.

“Thank you, Miss Khalida, I’m in your debt.”

“No need to,” Sara pauses. “I hope you two can sort things out.”

Amara returns with Penelope, who sports a straight face as she is back to join Shura. 

“There’s a clearing h-here,” Penelope shows her table, highlighting the spot on the map. “F-From there, we can head straight to the checkpoint, t-though I have you two to inform them about the encounter from earlier too, s-so you will be questioned.”

“No worries, we’ll vouch for you to the Squad Leader and the checkpoint outpost.” Sara says.

Penelope nods, and the silence hangs heavy for the rest of their trip.