** Amelia **

I jogged to a stop as we reached the crest of a hill when it became abundantly clear we weren’t going to get any further towards the front without being seen. The Taeru was in the distance now, in all its steel plated, japanese inspired glory. The guns on the many battle decks around the outside were firing away like they were trying to play some discordant song using the hum of arcane explosions.

The usual skirmishes and few large engagements were happening along the front, with Pag scouts keeping a wary lookout in the stretches of land that were free of conflict. This war would have been horrifying if it were real, the way thousands died every day as the Pagutum Empire sought to rid the world of racial and aesthetic diversity in one fell swoop. Seriously, couldn’t they even try and make their shit look pleasing to the eye?

The crunch of snow behind me alerted me to Rosa’s approach, and I turned to find her eyes roaming the battlefield with an expert gaze.

“Things have heated up since the last time it was static,” she observed. “It will be harder to get through.”

“Yeah I—” I started, before a huge flash of light caught my attention.

Both of our gazes sought out the source of the assault on our eyes, to see a streak of blue and white energy arcing up out of the Taeru. It ascended through the clouds at a terrific speed, then paused, seeming to hang at the apex of its trajectory. Then with absolutely no warning, it lanced down into the nearest Pagutum worm construct like the fist of an angry goddess.

The shockwave hit us a moment later as we watched the metal monster get torn apart in spectacular fashion. The lightning hadn’t stopped with the impact either, it kept going along the worm, one segment at a time being ripped into molten shreds. It slowed down as the lightning’s momentum was drained, but it seemed to almost have a life of its own.

“Wow,” I whistled. “Something tells me the front isn’t going to move a single mile further into Joret.”

“Why?” Rosa asked, still staring at the fireworks. “I agree, but I’m curious about your reasoning.”

“That wasn’t just a spell, that was a person, fired from a cannon. They call her the Lightning Phoenix. She’s a player and she’s known for having a crazy build that lets her do… well, that,” I laughed, gesturing at the carnage that was still very much a work in progress. “I watch her sister’s stream every now and then. I wasn’t aware they were coming to Joret though.”

Rosa nodded thoughtfully at my words, a frown creasing her brows. Then she smiled, turning a sly look on me, “I think I know what my build is going to be. My normal player one.”

“Really? You want to do that too?” I asked curiously, motioning to the destruction that the Phoenix had just brought down.

“No, nothing like that but… well actually, you’ll see. I’ll make it a surprise,” she said, openly grinning up at me.

First of all, Rosa wanted to surprise me, and second of all… she grinned! I couldn’t be more happy seeing that emotion on her cute little mug.

We stood there for a moment, just enjoying each other’s smiles, before she said, “So normally I’d just kinda, cut my way to the other side, but I can’t really do that with you, while still staying incognito.”

“Yeah, that wouldn’t be ideal,” I laughed. “Let me see what my guildies are up to.”

I searched through my friends list and found Sang, asking what he and our guild mates were doing at the moment. The reply came quickly, a party of ten or so were fighting somewhere along the front. After a quick back and forth, they agreed to come to where we were and aid us in crossing to their side. It was going to be tough, but if we moved fast and went for an open stretch with no fighting, we might just get through in one piece.

“My guildies are going to come help us,” I told Rosa when I was done typing. “We’re going to need it if some Pags see us, because I’m out of big flashy spell canisters.”

Her expression widened in alarm for a moment, the smile falling off her face. Was she worried about meeting other people, or the fact I was out of big spells?

“Don’t worry, if my friends mess with you or say anything dickish, I’ll fuck em up alright?” I soothed her.

“It’s not just that,” she murmured in a small voice.

“What else is it? The fact I’m out of spells?” I asked curiously, taking a step closer.

“No… I don’t want to share you,” she said in the smallest of whispers.

Oh. My heart melted into a million little pieces with those tiny little words.

“I can’t promise you all my time, but I can promise you most of it,” I said with a heartfelt, lopsided smile. I was reasonably well liked by my guild and the friends I had within, but the way Rosa enjoyed my company so wholly was something else entirely.

“That will have to be good enough, I guess,” she sighed dramatically, although it seemed like that might just be her trying to play the exchange off in a more light and joking manner.

I’d been struck by how pretty she was since the very first time I’d seen her, but it was hitting me in waves how adorable she was, despite her formal way of speaking and cold attitude. In fact, the little things she did that I was finding cute were accented by that same grumpy, cold attitude. Somehow it made her even more adorable.

We stood on that hilltop and chatted for half an hour while we waited for my guildmates to get to where we were. When we got the message from them that it was time to move, Rosa and I set off down the hill. It was hard going, with me having to slow down so as not to leave my new friend behind. She had to get down the old fashioned way, without any of her powers, lest my approaching guildmates saw her using them.

“I need to get my hands on those ability trees sooner rather than later, or I will slaughter a whole battalion of Pagutum soldiers out of sheer frustration,” she grumbled after I picked her up from a fall.

“There is a teleportation skill tree,” I told her with a chuckle.

“Good, I’m getting that,” she huffed, her cheeks puffing out adorably.

“You’re so cute,” I blurted, feeling my face preemptively reddening, as though the gremlins in charge of my mouth had warned my cheeks ahead of time. Bastards.

I got a nervous chuckle in response. “I don’t think so.”

She motioned for me to continue without meeting my eyes, although she had a pretty blush rising across her high cheekbones. That seemed to be a trait across both forms she used, high cheekbones, perfect lips and long dark hair. I couldn’t figure out if she liked the look and created bodies along those lines, or what. Something was up, that’s for sure, but I hadn’t found the time to ask her about how her shapeshifting worked.

The crunch of snow under our feet was the only sound nearby as we reached the bottom of the hill and rushed for the other side and safety. It became immediately apparent that Rosa’s little five foot tall body wasn’t suited to dealing with the deceptively deep snow and when she stumbled and almost fell, I got an idea.

I reached out and grasped her hand to keep her upright, and in that moment from one footfall to the next, when neither foot was on solid ground, my racial passive kicked in for her too. The surprise of it had us both landing in the snow, but I wasn’t bothered. I knew what this meant. The mile we had to run had just become a lot shorter.

“Rosa, when you were in midair between steps and holding my hand, you were able to get my passive!” I exclaimed. “The game must count that as me carrying you!”

“You’re not carrying me,” she frowned. “Not a chance.”

“Yeah but if we hold hands, we can jump to get more speed,” I explained, having already realised she’d hate being carried.

Her eyes searched mine in thought for a moment before she nodded, “Alright, let’s do it.”

I held my hand out for her, and she tentatively placed hers into my grasp. Then we were really off. My fuck-you-gravity stride was hers now too.

Of course as soon as we really got going, the Pags noticed us. A group that was presumably meant to be guarding this hole in the battle lines had been hidden from where we’d stood on the hill behind a clump of trees, and now as we rushed out across the open field towards safety, they took up chase.

A bolt of arcane energy streaked out and flew just past my shoulder to land with a dull thump in the snow ahead of us. Crossbow bolts hissed out too, the only indication of their passage through the air was a slight hissing and then a wet sound as they slipped beneath the snow.

“Where’s your guild?”  Rosa asked between panting breaths. “Is that them?”

She was right, I could see them across the gap, running as fast as they could to intercept us. “Too far away,” I muttered.

“Shit, I can’t do anything to help either,” she swore, looking back at our pursuers with worried eyes.

I turned my eyes back too, and saw the fifty or so footsoldiers rushing us, plus two mages on foot were doing their best to snipe us.

Our pause to look back was a real stupid mistake I realised, the bottom of my stomach dropping out. A mage already had his hand raised, energy gathering there, energy that would hurt like hell when it hit. I only had time to squeeze my eyes shut before the crackling bolt of purple energy hit me.

Except… it didn’t.

I opened my eyes to find Rosa’s ones gazing into mine, looking pained but okay. “I’m almost immune to magic like this. I can shield you, let’s go.”

“Right,” I muttered, offering her my hand to continue.

We ran onwards without stopping, until our enemies tried a different tactic. A projectile flashed past to land in the snow, but instead of an explosion or anything simple like that, a golem began to rise from the snow. It used the white powder to build itself, and then turned to glare dumb hatred in our direction.

It was cutting us off from our allies, so it needed to die like, right now. I unslung Jazz and cast a disruption spell into her chamber, then pulled the trigger as quickly as I could get her to my shoulder. The golem fell apart with a protesting shower of magical energy, but we watched with twin groans as more and more began to appear, rising out of the snow.

“They’re going to catch us,” Rosa said worriedly.

“I know,” I said through gritted teeth as I fired spell after spell at the golems, trying to clear a path.

“Turn around!” she said urgently pointing behind us.

I did so, and found the Pags almost on top of us, forty yards or less. Shit! I raised jazz to my shoulder once more and began to end lives one pull of the trigger at a time. It was something I’d been disturbingly good at during my time on the border, but at least here in Cora, the lives I was ending were just digital. Some AI somewhere was shaking its head as one of the NPCs it managed got killed and queued a new one to be born somewhere else.

“Watch out,” Rosa cried as one of the mages threw some particularly nasty looking spell at us.

She threw herself in front of me, taking the blow square in the chest and being thrown to the ground for her efforts. Worry rushed through me like the old combat drugs had, but then she got back up like it was nothing and stepped back to my side. The look of surprise on the Pag mage when she just got up from his spell was priceless.

Still, he’d hurt my Rosa, so I shot a fireball at him in return. The fireball was less that effective, because he stepped out of the way, but it was the thought that counted. That was all we were going to get though. Thoughts, because despite my best efforts, I was out of big spells and out of time to kill them one by one.

“Yo, Sky!” Amado laughed, arriving next to us with the pop of a shadow ability. He tossed something to me with a grin and said, “Bia says to use this.”

It was a spell canister. A spell canister for Jazz. I have never loaded a round into a gun so fast in my life. It clicked home with that same sense of triumph you get when shoot a hoop and it goes through clean, without even touching the rim.

I raised my girl to my shoulder, sighted, and pulled the trigger.

The spell shot out like a bat out of hell, but it didn’t fly straight. It arced gracefully up into the air above our enemies with a whistling sound that set my teeth on edge. When it was directly above the Pags, it exploded in brilliant pink light and sent thousands of glittering gold flechettes down into the contingent of Pags. It tore them the fuck apart. One of the mages got his shields up in time to stop a few of the deadly glittering projectiles, but there were too many, and they overwhelmed the novice and put him down.

“Holy shit,” I blinked, staring at the carnage. “Bia made an airburst spell.”

“That was impressive,” Rosa remarked, a small smile spreading over her face. “I believe that makes us free to make our escape, no?”

“Yeah, that it does,” I agreed.

“Glad you’re back,” Amado smiled to me, before turning that smile on Rosa. “Sup, I’m Amado.”

Rosa almost immediately stepped to put me between her and my guildmate, although she did reply in a soft, anxious voice. “I’m Rosa.”

Oh dear, she was getting shy.

“She’s a bit shy,” I laughed, putting a protective arm around her shoulders.

“I am wary of strangers, not shy,” she grumbled quietly.

“Well, shy or not, I’d say it’s probably time to get the fuck out of here,” Amado said without missing a beat. “Shy’s cool though, no judge.”

“Alright, let’s meet up with the others then,” I agreed, keeping my arm around my new friend as we made our way to safety.