A week into Celia, and nothing major had happened.
This was, objectively, good. The wall reconstruction was progressing. The citizens were going about their lives. The smaller myth probes — B and A class, occasional S class — were being handled by the existing MK teams without incident. Levi, Sylvia, and Priscilla were rotating shifts on the south wall, learning the rhythms of the posting, getting used to working inside a larger unit rather than just the three of them.
Objectively good.
"I know it's good," Levi said, lying on his back on top of the south wall and looking at clouds. "I know that. I'm just saying."
"You're bored," said Sylvia.
"I'm not bored. I'm — prepared. And there's nothing to apply the preparation to."
"That's boredom."
"It's really not—"
Priscilla, sitting cross-legged between them, said: "You know what happens when people say things like 'would it kill the myths to give us some action.'"
"I didn't say that," said Levi.
"You were about to."
The myth alarm went off.
They all sat up simultaneously. The sound was coming from the north side — the horns carrying across the town, the signal that meant movement at the other wall. Levi was on his feet and looking north before the second blast.
"North side," he said. "Let's—"
"Rookie!"
The voice came from behind him. He turned.
General Victor was watching him with the flat expression of a man who had seen exactly what was about to happen and had been waiting to see if it would. He was a broad-shouldered man in his fifties with the particular quality of stillness that came from decades of not needing to raise his voice because everything he said landed anyway.
"Where," he said, "do you think you're going?"
Levi looked behind him. Sylvia and Priscilla were standing a few metres away, backs turned, apparently very interested in the horizon.
He looked back at General Victor. "Sir. I was — I thought perhaps — the north side—"
"Your post is the south side. You leave your post when I tell you to leave your post." The general's voice didn't change register. "Late night shift. Tonight. Don't be late."
"Yes, sir."
Victor walked away. Levi turned to find Sylvia and Priscilla already moving in the other direction.
"I saw that," he said.
"Saw what?" said Sylvia, not turning around.
He quickly put his hands on their shoulders. "You're both doing the late shift with me."
"We really aren't," said Priscilla.
✦ ✦ ✦
Back at their rooms, he asked Sylvia with the eyes. She couldn't say no — as much as she hated to admit it, she deny an opportunity to hang with Levi, even if it during a late night shift.
He asked Priscilla with the same eyes. She said no without hesitation, shut the door, she clearly valued her sleep more than her friendship with Levi as she went to sleep without losing a wink.
He and Sylvia reported for the shift, checked in with Victor, and spent thirty minutes patrolling the wall in the cold night air.
"Okay," Levi said. "Time."
"What are you—"
"I put a mark on her shoulder. And yours. This morning. When I put my hands on both of your shoulders "
Sylvia looked at him. Then: "You planned this before you even asked me."
"Well, this is pay back for leaving me to hang before the General."
Sylvia growled before pouting. "Hmph"
"Reverse Teleportation," he said quietly.
Priscilla appeared between them in a flash of lightning.
She was horizontal — lying exactly as she'd been in her bed, eyes closed, the specific stillness of deep sleep. She landed on the cold stone with a soft impact and didn't wake, her body deciding this wasn't urgent enough to interrupt. Her hand reached out searching for a blanket, found nothing, reached further, found nothing. Her brow furrowed.
Levi and Sylvia were shaking with the effort of not making a sound of laughter.
The cold reached Priscilla next. She pulled her arms in. Then her eyes opened, taking in the stone wall, the night sky, and two people failing not to laugh.
"How???" she asked.
"hehehe"
She sat up. Took a long breath. "Nevermind... I should've expected this... Since I'm here. I might as well patrol."
She stood and started walking. After a moment she stopped.
"The telepathy thing from the other day," she said, more to herself than them. "Moving someone without touching them, using a mark as an anchor — that has applications I haven't worked through yet."
She walked on.
"She's already treating it as a research opportunity," Sylvia said.
"That's Priscilla," said Levi.
They patrolled. The night was cold and quiet.
Which was objectively good.
✦ ✦ ✦
The alarm came again three nights later, at two in the morning.
Both sides simultaneously.
Levi was already on the south wall for his regular shift when the dual signal sounded. General Victor appeared at the edge, looked at the field below, and went very still for exactly one second before turning to issue orders.
Thousands of myths. Portals blooming open in the dark beyond the reconstruction site, flooding the field with SS class and below in numbers that weren't a probe. This was an assault.
"All units — forward."
The south wall defenders went over in a wave. Levi went with them, daggers drawn, the 2nd Form activating as he hit the ground. The field received them, and the fight began.
For the first hour, it was manageable. Not easy — the numbers were replacing themselves faster than they were being killed, the MK line slowly compressing as losses accumulated. But manageable. The trio worked in loose coordination — Levi drawing attention with speed, Sylvia clearing wide areas, Priscilla controlling space with Repulse strikes that didn't need a weapon to devastate.
Then half the MK line was gone.
"3rd forms," Levi said.
The Absolute Current ran through the field. Sylvia's fire expanded. Priscilla's silver light changed the register of the battlefield. The remaining MKs around them found reserves they hadn't known they had.
It turned the tide. The last myth fell and the field went quiet. The south side MKs were on their knees or their feet depending on what they had left. Levi checked his watch. 61%. He'd need to be more careful about when he activated the 3rd form.
He was still calculating when the portal opened.
Not the medium portals that had seeded the assault. A single large one at the far edge of the field — wide, unhurried, opening with the deliberate patience of something that didn't need to surprise anyone because it knew it didn't need to.
The Hydra came through.
Fifty metres of serpentine mass. Six heads on necks that moved with individual will. It cleared the portal, raised itself to full height, and hissed — a sound that carried across the field and the wall and probably most of the town.
The south side MKs looked at it.
Then they ran.
Levi didn't run. He stood in the field and watched it approach and thought very fast. The poison gas was already coming — three heads releasing simultaneously, the dense greenish fog spreading outward, consuming the ground between them. It was moving toward the reconstruction breach. If it reached the breach and got through—
"Priscilla," he said.
She was already rising. The force field went up around the breach with the sound of air becoming something more solid.
"I have it," she said. "Don't take long."
He looked at the Hydra. Fifty metres, six heads, poison fog expanding in every direction, and the instruction not to take long.
He needed Dwayne.
He ran.