Work Text:
Sirens. Long, keening sirens. Once they started, they never seemed to end. On the mainland they might have been called air raid sirens. Here they meant invasion.
Citizens were supposed to hide in the deepest places. Those that could were supposed to fight.
Not everyone did what they were supposed to.
There were always the few feeling so hopeless that they would just stand where they were, gazing up at the sky. Trying to catch a glimpse of what could be their doom.
Everyone knew it wasn’t the invasion force yet. That was still yet to come. That year it was just small pockets of them. Left-Behinds coming even further out of the shadows. Pods and ships with dozens or less of them, streaming out with eyes darkened with their mark, metal limbs glinting in the light.
They were there to rattle them. Keep them on their guard. Wear them down.
It was working.
Allegra and Skerren fought side by side. Back to back, the battle raging around them. Since going from a trio to a duet things had been tenser. No zany humor, no clever strategies. Just blades and powers. Sometimes saving people. Sometimes just taking enemies down. Always fighting for each other. For themselves. For those they’d lost.
One moment Stendeval was not there, and the next he was, glimmering into view on a ray of orange light.
“I need you both to go bring Jack back. We have been receiving SOS signals for a few weeks now, and it is time. This is our greatest opportunity.”
Skerren wiped his blades on the grass and spat to the side. He hated how his swords became covered with blood and oil alike as he fought them. He hated how now, after Jack, he could separate the people from the Rüstov inside them. When he cut them down, he almost heard their screams as human.
“What’s the point? He’s lost. Gone like the rest of the infected out there. He can’t help us.”
Allegra, her metal form dropping in defeat, her forehead furrowed in a frown, pulled herself up with determination. “He’s our friend. Help or not, I’ll go.”
Stendeval nodded. “It will have to do. I will bring you to meet Jazen and the pilot you will be travelling with.”
As they faded away together, Skerren stood and watched over the city. His eyes followed the trails of smoke still trailing from the sites of crashed ships, bombs, and other fires yet to be put out.
The world could be a dark place. Skerren had known that since he was a child, slashing the throats of his own parents just to survive.
Maybe this time he’d let the world take him down with it.