Plumes of smoke rose into the air as the fighting began in earnest. Awakened from the alliance ran in to engage the cultists immediately, projectiles and energy attacks flying everywhere. There were Awakened of many different power ranks present and some of the weaker ones were being annihilated outright by simple stray fire.

Eik, practically paralyzed, lay supine in the middle of it all. He wasn't going to get to go into that treasury vault of the alliance any time soon, was he? He sighed. He had really been looking forward to that reward.

Screams and explosions rang out all around him. A super powered arrow cracked into the stone next to him within arm's reach. The projectile remained completely intact, but the stone looked like it had been struck by a rocket.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the bearded healer hauling his disciple to his feet, the young man looking banged up and slightly worse for wear but otherwise in good health. He sent the apprentice off to haul injured Awakened away while he himself knelt by Eik's side and pulled out an ampule filled with a yellow liquid.

Before Eik could even ask what it was, it was jammed into his thigh and the contents emptied into his system. The sensation that washed through him was not exactly unlike that of Noxious Invigoration but it gave him the same boost of energy that made it feel like he could jump over a building. Well, at D-rank, he basically already could jump over a building but… even more so.

He sat up, staring at the empty vessel. Confusion swirled through his head. "What did you give me?"

The healer hauled him to his feet as well. "Just a little bit of a pick-me-up," he said and batted away a bolt of condensed water that disintegrated into droplets, peppering Eik's face like a barrage of hails. "Its effect is temporary and it won't last that long so get the woman lying unconscious over there," he said and pointed to a figure lying prone, blood still flowing from a leg wound. It was the elven lady. The people who had been treating her must have either abandoned her or been killed. "Take her and get out of here. None of you are of any use here right now."

"But I—"

"There are no 'buts' here. You probably feel pretty great right now but I can promise you, in about five minutes, you very much won't. I'll take care of you later and get you back in good health for real, but for now the best thing you can do for all of us is to get the hell out of here, alright?"

Eik nodded and slung the unconscious elf over his shoulder. It didn't feel good to leave behind the man who had just been helping him but there was no denying his reasoning. If in five minutes Eik's physical condition would go back to what it had been fifteen seconds earlier, then he would be less than useless to any of his allies. Better to get out of the way so they wouldn't have to worry about him once he was down for the count.

Hopefully he could find Heath, Sonja, and Michael before the pick-me-up wore off.

Many people were running away from the attack but a good number were making their way toward the chaos as well. Walking around Gimleh's cozy, relaxed streets and markets it was easy to forget that literally everyone older than the early teens were Awakened, with plenty of them strong enough to handle themselves in a fight.

Given the fact that the security of the alliance was on the line here, most people who could reasonably contribute seemed to be doing one thing or the other to help. Despite the urgency, Eik couldn't help but stop and help people in trouble a couple of times.

He offered one of his red healing potions to an old woman who appeared to have taken a nasty fall and called a young boy over to help her get away. He used the opportunity to pour another one into the elven woman's mouth as well, and then one more in her wounds.

He made it another couple of hundred meters, more or less certain of the way to the large park where he had been pulled into the Championship trial, before he came upon a crying child. It was a little girl, no older than five or six years of age by his estimate.

"What's up, cutie?" he asked her, kneeling beside the little one. "Where's mom and dad, eh?"

"I can't find them!" she screamed, tears and sobs drowning the words in her throat.

"Alright, alright. Big bro here is going to make sure you find them again, okay?" he drawled and stood up to scan the surroundings, looking for any anxious faces of the same apparent alien species as the little girl — green skin and a tiny pair of tusks protruding from her lower jaw.

"Where is my mommy and daddy?" she howled, clutching Eik's bloodied hand as tightly as she could.

"Tell you what, missy. I think I'm going to need your help with this one, okay?" He tossed her onto his shoulder to sit before she had time to think. "Now, I'm going to have to ask you to stop crying and help my look around for your mom and dad. You can't expect me to do all the work by myself, can you?"

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"N-No…" she muttered, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I totally agree!" he said and squeezed her nose gently between two fingers and turned her head to the right. "You look over there, and then I'll look over here. Teamwork is how we'll get this done, baby!"

"Isn't she going to help?"

"Who?"

"This lady. Is she sleeping?" she asked, tapping her little hand on the elven woman's back.

"She, uuh… Yeah, she's just sleeping. She's not feeling so good right now, so I'm taking her to bed. What's your name?"

"Bin."

"Little Bin. I'm Eik. It's very nice to meet you. How old are you?"

"I'm not little, I'm six years old!"

Eik gasped. "Oh, I'm sorry, you're right. That's definitely not little."

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'm going to look for my friends. When did you last see your parents, Bin?"

Tears began to flow again even though she dutifully kept watch in her assigned direction as Eik walked. "I d-don't know. I can't remember," she cried.

"Well, Bin, it's a little dangerous for us to be around here right now, okay? And big bro is getting real tired and I'll have to sit down for a long rest soon. I would bet that your mom and dad have also found their way to a safer area, so I'll tell you what, Bin, I'll take you all the way to where my friends are and we'll all help look for your parents."

She sniffed, arm wrapped around his forehead. "Okay…"

"Good girl." With a little girl sitting on one shoulder, supported by a very docile sheet of crystalline toxin, and a woman slung over the other, he ran for the park. Movement Boost should see him there within a couple of minutes at most but it would be a close call if the bearded healer's estimate of the drug's duration was accurate.

Little Bin giggled as he increased the speed, sending her rocking up and down in the seat on his shoulder. The further they made it from where the fracture had spit him out and the cultists had rushed out of the broken outer wall of that large building, the fewer people they saw.

Unlike inside the challenge forest, portals weren't unloading cultists everywhere out here and he hadn't seen any other cultists. Were they invading from other points as well?

He breathed a sigh of relief as he turned a corner and saw the park in the distance, the gigantic screens still suspended in the air, although they were now blank. Seeing their actual size now, he could only imagine just how horrifically exposed he had been in some of the more… unfortunate moments.

Swathes of people were gathered there, individuals running to and from as an extensive space to lay and treat wounded was prepared. "Do you see mom and dad anywhere from up there, little Bin?" he asked as they approached and faces began to become recognizable.

"Not yet," she answered, concentration evident in her voice. "Can you, mister?"

"Nope. What's your mom and dad's names?"

She told him and he told her Sonja, Michael, Heath, Olivia, and Mikla's names in return and they shouted for all of them together. Over the cacophony of so many people shouting and crying in chorus Eik and Bin's voices could barely be heard.

"Where are all these people coming from?" Eik asked a passerby, gesturing to the rows of injured patients being treated by both healers as well as anybody with first aid training, which were most. He tapped Bin's leg and threw a thumb back the way they had come. "We just came from the attack. How did this many people make it here before us?"

The man pointed in the opposite direction even as he kept moving. "The cultists have broken through in more than one place. It's for real this time." While the man seemed both frantic and concerned, he was not panicking. Down in Gimleh it would probably be a different story, but a lot of the people up here on the actual premises of the headquarters had combat experience.

Eik grabbed the man by the sleeve of his shirt. "How the hell are they here? How did they get in? Doesn't the alliance had a shit ton of defenses here?"

"Sorry to disappoint you, young man, but I don't have the slightest idea how something like this happened. I don't think anyone does, actually."

"Yeah, alright, thanks;" Eik said and let go of the man's sleeve. "Oh, hey, by the way, have you seen the parents of little Bin here around? We think they might have come here after being separated from her."

"No, sorry."

Eik laid the elven lady down on one of the vacant improvised cots next to another young woman who seemed to be having trouble breathing. A healer arrived and started treatment on her right away, exhaustion clear on his face.

"Hey, man," Eik called. "Do you think I could leave this woman here to you?"

He looked up as if noticing Eik for the first time. "Uuh, I don't— I don't really kn—"

"Thalandi! Thalandi! Dear, I found Thalandi! She's over here!" A tall, elven woman appeared out of thin air, suddenly kneeling next to Eik and giving him a good scare. Her features were almost an exact replication of the woman Eik had been carrying. Not just in the "all elves look the same" kind of way, but in a "genetic copy" kind of way.

"Are you her sister?" Eik asked and scooted backward to give them some space.

"Her mother, actually, but I can't say I hate the implied compliment," she said as countless glowing strings that resembled Michael's Bind ability flowed from her fingers and attached themselves to even the tiniest injury. Immediately the bloody wounds began to knit themselves together, the smaller and less severe ones smoothing within seconds, leaving pink and healthy skin where there had been dried blood just moments earlier.

A man with a wispy, salt and pepper beard whirled into existence opposite them, a look of deep concern etched into his face. "How is she?" he asked.

"She'll survive," her mother said.

"Oh. Oh, thank the ancients!" He looked ready to faint with relief. Briefly, his eyes flicked up to Eik's face, then back down to his daughter, than back up to Eik in a double take. "Aren't you…?"

"I'm nobody!" Eik hurried to say.

"No, you're him. The man who saved my daughter from those blasted cultists. You threw the smoke bombs that allowed her to escape through the fracture. And now you brought her here to safety."

"Ah, him! Yes, that's m—… That's m—…" It would appear that the words were refusing to leave his mouth. "Th—…" As he fell back onto his ass, legs failing him, he tried to support himself with his arms but those failed him as well. His vision was darkening.

The damned pick-me-up was fading. Ah, crap, everything hurt so much again now.

"H-Hey, he's collapsing! We can't let him die! He's our daughter's savior — twice now!"

"I'm on it!" Eik heard the mother say, her voice grainy in his ears.

"He can't die! He's an honored friend of our house! And I haven't even rewarded him for it yet!"

Hm? Reward?

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