Streets On Fire

The sound of loud whirring engines entered Nellia's ears while she observed the sky, that was the sound of their break ending. Nellia soon spun her head around and spoke to the resting people, they seemed to not have heard the engines along with her.

– "Everyone, behind me now."

Still not raising her voice, Nellia turned to face the sky once more. When they needed to take a break due to the woman, Nellia and the others had searched the street, and the buildings nearby for places to take cover but there were none, at least none that weren't destroyed.

The rubble on the streets also couldn't be used for cover, they were too short to hide behind or under when a ship flew overhead, especially if the ships had sensors on them. So it was pointless to hide, it'd be better for them to be prepared for the ships and Nellia had just the right skill to protect them.

Well at least able to protect them long enough for the soldiers scouring the city to find them. Taking her words into account the people moved behind her, with someone supporting the pregnant woman. Not even a moment later a squad of ships appeared above the street ahead of them, explosions ringing out behind them.

The ships quickly closed in on them, they were bombing the streets as they moved leaving behind fires and even more explosions.

With the ships approaching, the Nyanal hopped off her shoulder in order not to bother her as Nellia raised her hands to the air, ignoring the worried voices of the people behind her she focused entirely on the ships and herself. She gazed at the many streams of Flauna before her and forced her will onto them, bringing them into the air above and in front of her.

Twisting her hands in the, she released her gripped hands and then yanked at the air, following which she pushed out both of her palms outwards. Doing all these hand motions in quick succession caused an almost invisible barrier to appear above and in front of them, almost as if space was hardening.

The ships were about to fly over them, seeing the first ship fly overhead Nellia clenched her hands into a fist making the barrier much more visible as it hardened as another appeared behind them. Nellia was protecting them from front to back.

As the barrage of explosions began banging against the barrier beads of sweat began to roll down her face, it was tiring but this wasn't enough to force her to remove the shield. The ships passed over the entire group, leaving behind explosions and fire in their wake. Going down the street the ships stopped dropping missiles, which the group found strange; Nellia did not let her guard up so she focused entirely on keeping the barriers up.

The people in the back began to shout in worried tones, they were making a quack tone of racket as they began shuffling.

– "They're-They're spinning back!"

Hearing the shouts of the people in the back caused Nellia to once more tune them out, their worried voices would only distract her and what she was trying to do. The amount of sweat rolling down her forehead and cheeks increased as she was now completely focusing on the barriers.

Explosions came from the back, fires were growing, and billows upon billows of smoke were rising into the air as if the streets were covered in active blast furnaces. The explosions soon once more came crashing down on the barriers, Nellia almost closed her hands as she let out a groan while clenching her teeth together, nearly grinding them.

The last ship dropped a bigger missile than the previous ones, the giant missile shook the barrier causing it to ripple. The explosion spread fire all atop the barriers and brought Nellia down on her knee. She kept her palms out to the sky, not buckling under the pressure of the attacks.

She turned her towards the back of the ships they had not dropped any more missiles after passing over them, and she got a feeling about what they were planning to do. When they got to the end of the street, the ships did a sharp turn as they spun back towards them once again.

A disappointed expression almost took hold of her face, but its building ceased as the sound of boots on rubble and small vehicles entered her ears. Looking at the ships they were once more closing in on them she stopped tuning the people behind her out.

– " Stop panicking. We will all be completely fine, just keep calm."

Not turning to them once she moved her hands once more. The barriers behind and above them were moving upwards as they connected with the front barrier, going all the way up to the sky in the way of the ships becoming translucent once more. The group was confused about what was going on once more, but they decided to trust the lady in front of them as she had already saved their lives three times before.

Getting off her knee and standing up straight the visible strain of her actions could be seen on her face, plain for all to see. The man with the missing eye was worried about what would happen to them if something happened to them and made sure nobody would interrupt Nellia's focus and kept the group as organized the group as much as possible.

The ships were close and were going to soon pass over them once more, a missile slammed into the bottom front barrier causing Nellia to slightly slide back. When the first ship attempted to fly over them and launch even more missiles but was interrupted as it quickly crashed into the barrier, erupting on contact due to its speed.

The ships behind the first attempted to maneuver out of the way, but the second ship wasn't as lucky. It was right behind the first one so it had also crashed into the barrier, exploding right after; There were now two messes of fire and scrap laying out in front of the barriers.

The ships that maneuvered off to the sides attempted to fire their attached turrets but were shot out of the sky by a barrage of unexpected ground fire. After the destruction of the remaining ships were shot out of the sky the sound of many boots slamming into the ground and rubble entered the entire group's ears with the sight of armed soldiers and a land boat that slammed through a building.

Noting how they wore familiar equipment Nellia let down the barrier, falling to one knee as she let out the breaths she had held in. The Nyanal that hadn't wanted to bother her earlier was in front of her and tapping her hand as if asking if she was okay. Rubbing its head she stood herself up heaving a heavy sigh.

The people that were being escorted by her rushed past her and the ship wreckages, not offering an ounce of thanks as they began asking the soldiers to help them and bring them to safety and a lot of other rambling. The only ones remaining behind her were the right people she had assigned to protect the defenseless civilians.

Nellia didn't even bother with those people and their rudeness, they were not important to her Instead her focus was on the sky, or better said, beyond the sky, she had a feeling something was going on and couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming.

The man missing an eye approached Nellia who was staring aimlessly into the sky, she was lost in thought so she hadn't noticed his presence. The man had moved his hand a few times before resting it back at his side. He waited for her to return her sight to the ground, he was going to return to the group he was defending with but he paused as a loud bang resounded out and an audible gasp followed it.

Turning to the source of the noise he spotted the figure of an armored Kritol soldier crawling out of the remains of their ship. In the soldier's hand was a handgun, its barrel was smoking and it was pointed towards... Nellia. Almost on sight, the nearest soldiers fired their automatic rifles and riddled the soldier full of holes, their body slumping over the ship wreckage.

Quickly turning back to Nellia the man was surprised, he expected her to be severely injured after all those handguns are known to pack quite the punch. Yet instead of being severely injured, Nellia was only slightly grazed on her shoulder, and in front of her was what seemed to be cracked space — It was obvious that she had protected herself.

The man was astonished by her reaction speed. As a former guard of the Brigid Tower, he instantly recognized Nellia as a Detrid that Transcended, and as he, the guard that he was, he witnessed a great many uses of Flauna and the people that show their great battle prowess had rarely ever seen anybody with reaction speed as quick as hers. She was looking at the sky and even when a gun was fired at her she didn't move an inch as she somehow used the space around her to tank the bullet for her, in the end, it ended up only slightly grazing her.

She probably couldn't bring out a stronger defense due to what she had to do to protect them earlier, but managing to do this while not looking? It was simply astonishing to him, the only people that he knew that could replicate the same result were probably Nizael Bavel, the Urshire family's head, and maybe even Helia Urnfox — at least those that he saw.

Pulling her gaze from the sky and looking down at her shoulder, Nellia pulled out a small napkin and wiped the small drop of blood that leaked from the graze She looked over at the ship wreckage and made her way over to it. She passed by the man missing an eye, who followed her. Some of the soldiers had pushed the civilians aside as they were already next to the body, they put a few more shots through its head to make sure it was dead.

Seeing Nellia and the man, one of the soldiers stepped forward, giving Nellia a short bow. She was no longer wearing anything that symbolized who she was but the soldiers' were taught to recognize all high profile individuals.

– "Miss Nellia Nexus, the fellows near the Tower told me how you left out. How could we assist you?"

Nellia stepped past the man as well as the soldiers accompanying him and stood in front of the wreckage that had the body, that looked quite masculine, sprawled out in front of it. Looking down to the side she picked up the gun he had just fired at her. Pulling out the clip she checked the remaining ammunition and examined the rest of the handgun.

– "Um... Miss? Can we assist you with anything?"

Another soldier repeated the first one's question after waiting for her to finish examining the gun, to which she had turned to them, giving a slight glance to the civilians.

– "Yes actually..."

Pausing, Nellia was staring at the soldier in silence. After a moment of silence, the man started continuously trying to look all around them as he was starting to feel overwhelmingly awkward.

"I have escorted these civilians from Lidel Super Mall. There should be many bodies needing retrieval there, but other than that I will ask that you assist me in continuing my escort of them to the Brigid Tower."

"There are at least eight of them who have admitted to having prior combat experience so they'll assist us, even if you think it might not be needed."

– "As you wish Miss."

While loading the handgun she told them her wishes and stepped towards the land boat, resting her hands on it. There was a thought that entered her mind at that moment causing her to turn back around.

– "Those ships you shot down were most likely the ones that carry the Frames, let us prepare."

The soldiers all nodded their heads and began moving, a few of the soldiers boarded the land boat to man the weapons while the others ushered the defenseless civilians onto the land boat. The eight that were protecting the group with her were told to take place with the soldiers and prepare as they were given a weapon and any remaining useful equipment they had left.

– "Remember! These are Kritol Frames, you are not a Transcendental! Do not, and I repeat, do not get in close combat with them! Keep your distance and remain calm!"

Preparing their firearms the entire company was watching the surroundings waiting for the first sight of enemy movement. The only noise that could be heard on the streets that were destroyed and lit aflame was the sounds of continuous explosions along with the loud crashing and explosions ringing out now and then.

There might have been many sounds entering their ears but they focused on those they needed to hear. The sound of metal. There was the sound of metal slamming against the ground and roofs getting closer and closer, causing them to increase their grips on their guns.

Nellia was calm, scanning the remaining nearby roofs while the soldiers and armed civilians scanned the ground. She caught a glimpse of silhouettes behind the puffs of smoke up on a roof. Not wasting a single moment she fired her handgun a multitude of times, and the bullets zoomed at the smoke – causing several bangs to come from the smoke, metal smacking against the roof entered their airs as Frames began walking out of the smoke, revealing themselves, a good amount of them had large indents or holes in them.

At the same time, some Frames revealed themselves on ground level, some of them carrying unique rifles. Seeing these armed Frames the soldiers quickly took cover either behind the land ship or the nearby piles of rubble; soon the Frames began to fire as they slowly stepped forward.

Having moved behind the land boat, Nellia heard the few guns on it begin to fire back at the Frames, she had patted her hand on the hull of it as if informing those inside it that everything was fine

Peeking around the side of the land boat she watched as the Frames were being riddled with dents and holes. Noticing the Frames on the roof beginning to move, Nellia fired her handgun and shot multiple Frames off balance while they jumped across roofs, making them slam hard into the ground.

After she pulled herself back behind the land boat her eyes sped to the sky as she saw something begin to enter the atmosphere, first was something that looked minuscule then a larger thing, then even large before a colossal Dreadnought pierced through the clouds. Explosions could be seen blowing it apart as it started to move towards them.