November 6, 2152
Emory's wrist buzzed, jolting her awake before the sunrise. She quickly put her gear on and headed out to the part of the army keeping watch in front of the outpost, relieving Clarine and Nephenee from command. The night had been quiet and devoid of contact with the Apleem. That could be a good sign that they had seriously wounded enough of them to prevent them from attacking overnight. Or it could be a bad sign that they were gearing up for a big attack today. Either way, Emory was ready to finish this fight today. By Jask's counts, roughly four and a half million Collective troops remained, and approximately three million Apleem remained as well.
Fifteen minutes after Clarine and Nephenee left, Shepherd finally arrived, clutching his stomach as he walked. His skin was pale, but he made a great effort to walk proudly until he reached the front with Emory. She immediately noticed his injury and met him before they reached the front.
"Shepherd, how is your injury?" Emory asked genuinely, "If you're still in this shape, you should rest. I can watch the front by myself."
Shepherd coughed, "I have no doubt that you could, but I'll be damned if I push off anymore responsibility onto you. Yesterday reminded me of the horrors of war, the very same horrors that I sent children to deal with originally."
"You didn't know it would be this bad," Emory replied as she formed a chair out of magik and sat Shepherd down, "In fact, I don't think any of us really knew how bad this would be. Let me at least look at your wound."
He pulled off his chest plate to expose the gash in his stomach. It oozed a green liquid around the edges of the still healing scab. Without a word, Emory covered her hand in Arcane magik and gently touched the infected wound. A dim yellow glow came off her hand while the green goo began to bubble up and move over her hand. Once her hand was completely covered, she pulled the hand away and shot it like a bolt of magik off her hand before she repeated the steps. Seven bolts later, the green goo was completely gone, and color had returned to Shepherd's skin. Then yellow magik strings came off her hand and stitched up the remains of the gash.
Shepherd bowed his head, "Thank you, Emory. I feel much better now."
"I'm not the best at the Transference seal, but I think I cleared out the poison," Emory admitted, "You will still be sore for the next few days."
"There's still so much the Collective doesn't know about magik. How were you able to do that?" Shepherd asked as he slowly got to his feet.
"Seals are a form of specialized magik with many different purposes," Emory explained carefully, "Anyone can do most of the Seals; they just usually require sigils to activate them. However, Arcane and Void magik allow you to bypass the need for written sigils since they can lace the sigils directly into the magik. A classic example is the Teleportation spell. Anyone with a sufficient proficiency in general magik can activate a teleportation circle, but only those with Arcane or Void magik can teleport freely."
Shepherd nodded, "I understand. That's why the Council hasn't shared the sigil pattern with us because anyone could activate it."
"Exactly," Emory replied, "Seals have the power to be extremely dangerous in the wrong person's hand. Now that you're in better shape, we can talk about the rest of the battle here."
"Right now, we have the numbers, but we lost more than half of our troops yesterday. Even so, I still think the best plan is to press them when everyone wakes up. Plus, I noticed yesterday their commanders were hanging back. If we engage their forces, their commanders will be forced to join the fray today," Shepherd advised her.
"Strangely, I agree with you," Emory concurred, "However, I got a message from Sam that said they spotted a Laxtros. So, what I'd like to do is tip the odds in our favor a bit more, clean up the commanders, and then head to Vostea myself. When I leave, I'll leave you in command of the rest of the troops here. I just have a gut feeling today is going to be a difficult day."
Shepherd raised an eyebrow, "Are you sure you wouldn't rather leave command to one of your friends here? After catching glimpses of a couple of them yesterday, it's clear that I couldn't have beaten any of them either."
"While I appreciate your humility, they don't know how to command an army," Emory giggled, "I could leave command to Clarine if you're unsure, but these are your soldiers after all. It might be best to leave them with you."
"I will dutifully lead them then, if that's your wish," Shepherd bowed slightly.
After they finished talking, they meditated while they waited for either the Apleem to launch an attack or for the rest of the outpost to wake up. Finally, just after dawn, the rest of the human army trudged out to spot in front of the outpost. Their armor looked scratched and chipped from the day before, and most of them walked slowly or stiffly to join the group. Clarine, Innes, Nephenee, and Tethys emerged with the rest of the army and joined Emory and Shepherd at the front. Emory explained the plan to the rest of the group carefully, slightly nervous to leave them before they had cleared up the rest of the invaders. However, the whole group agreed with the plan and expressed their desire for her to leave things in their hands.
The army did some morning stretches before setting out to attack the Apleem. When they were roughly halfway there, enemies began to exit the dreadnoughts. Once they were only a thousand feet away, Emory could see all the Apleem laid out before her with the two commanders in black and gold armor at the very back. She raised her hand to signal for the army to stop while she unfurled the wings from her cloak and rose high into the sky above them. Stretching her arms towards the Apleem, thousands of orbs appeared behind her, each the size of a softball. With a flick of her wrist, the balls whizzed through the air like debris from a falling meteor, raining down on the Apleem with an explosive force. Dust and dirt flew up from the ground, blocking the view of the enemy encampment. As Emory returned to the ground, the dust cloud cleared to reveal that the single bombardment had wiped out about a third of the Apleem. She panted slightly since she had used a large chunk of her stamina in that singular attack.
A hissing sound rang out from the Apleem's side, but it was soon drowned out by the thuds of boots from the charging human army. Along the way, little pops were spreading like running over a sheet of bubble wrap, the sound of thousands transforming into Meta Form. When the two armies collided, the sheer strength of the humans in Meta Form overwhelmed the front line of the Apleem. The battle from the day before had shown the humans how strong the form was, even if they couldn't keep the form up for very long. However, with the end in sight, a surge of adrenaline coursed through the human army. Combined with the strength of the leaders, the humans quickly drove the Apleem back. Once they were in the thick of battle, Emory gave a nod to Shepherd before flying off towards the two Apleem that had remained at the back of the army. She landed about twenty feet away from them with a thud that pushed the Apleem at the back closer to the fighting behind her.