A few days later, with the ship's many half-empty storage rooms now packed with prisoners, two of them fourth circle, Elisime closes in on Ashdon, leaving the cleaned-out south.

Sitting in her workshop, Emily closes the holographic blueprint she has been working on and checks on the now-several birds she has both in the air above and within the city.

She sees a sea of airships blanketing the sky and surrounding sands, with rows of soldiers manning the city's walls and shifting trenches hidden among the rolling dunes outside. The main force of the Hederas is gathered at Ashdon's southern point, with the noble estates on one side of the wall and a tight formation of mages on the other, glaring at Elisime's approaching silhouette on the horizon.

The closest of Emily's scouts is tucked into an open pipe poking out from the wall above the gathered mages and the growing barrier of many elements protecting them. Through it, she watches the Hedera Patriarch leading his sister and the two fourth circle mages who have left their territories to join them through a group casting of a rapidly growing spell matrix.

There are hues of red, green, blue, brown and white mixed into the spell held between them, and Emily keeps a close camera on the casting, waiting to see what it does, while fully prepared to activate The Clock should it prove dangerous enough to warrant preparation.

"That's some heavy resistance," Pod says as Emily steps into the ship's cockpit, flicking between several different diagnostic pages to keep track of the forces waiting to be deployed from Elisime.

"They've moved sixty per cent of their forces down here to try and stop us," Emily explains as she broadcasts a modified recording of her request for the city to lay down arms. "There's only a single fourth circle mage in their faction left in the north to take control if they lose, and she's currently trying to flee to Morzea."

"That's worrying. You need me to go intercept them?"

"Getting confident after your little show in The Dome, are we?" Emily asks, raising a brow and pulling up a video feed to show a fleet of Cutters carving through high-altitude winds towards the northern border between Modo and Morzea. "I've sent a few ships to play interference and included a spatial anchor in one. It'll be draining, but I can Teleport over to finish the job once we're done here. Then it will just be cleaning up their houses and territories, which will take a little longer."

"Right." Pod nods with an embarrassed flush colouring his cheeks. "I shouldn't be challenging fourth circle mages."

Emily snorts, but her expression remains neutral. Elisime starts slowing as a cluster of airships leaves Ashdon, completely ignoring her request to disarm and coming out to intercept them.

"No, you shouldn't," she agrees, firing two railgun shots and tearing down two of the interceptors, recognising the familiar design of the small suicide bomber ships. "But challenging an army is completely reasonable; I'll leave you to finish this battle once I've handled this first engagement. I'm going to take Mensacus out for his first proper test against their strongest mages. Elisime and my troops fall under your command."

"Understood." Pod nods, resisting the urge to laugh at what should be an outrageous statement.

Emily releases a flock of bird-shaped drones, sending them ahead towards the coming attackers. The drones dodge the flak being fired by one of the larger interceptors, getting in close to the enemy ship's balloons and shredding them with their claws, forcing the auto-repair foam within to work overtime to keep the ships airborne.

Emily lets her consciousness flow through Elisime, charging up and throwing out an arc of lightning that bounces between the small ships, not doing much damage to them but stunning the people inside. They drift off course as Emily's birds rip holes in their balloons, using the released bursts of heated steam to redirect them with no input from inside.

The cannons on the wall ring out in a thunderous chorus, and their shots fly towards Elisime, but most fall short, and the few explosive shells that catch her are too weak to penetrate her enchanted armour plating.

Emily opens the ship's cargo hatches and forms a net of magnetic charge, releasing a flood of metal troops and heavy munitions as the ship slows to a halt, hovering just at the edge of the city's main defences.

She calmly watches her droids spreading out across the dunes, moving in a loose formation to try and mitigate the damage of any incoming explosives. Enemy soldiers rush out to meet them, their clothes marked with the crests of the houses Emily's hunting, and a hail of bullets flies. Soldiers drop on both sides, but Emily sees signs of hesitation in the shaking hands of her enemies as they see their shots deflecting off the chests of her troops, taking anywhere from five to ten well-aimed bullets to knock them down, with even that failing to reliably disable them.

She repeats the broadcast asking for surrender, and watches through her scouts' eyes as some of the soldiers manning the wall finally give in to their fear, dropping their weapons and fleeing. Some of them are shot by the weak mages hiding among their ranks, though Emily can't tell from a distance whether it's by order or by choice.

A few of those defending against her quickly expanding army in the desert below also drop their weapons, but they're all executed by their supposed allies without discrimination. The rising threat of catching a bullet from behind only serves to fuel the fear of the weak-minded soldiers who haven't given up yet, increasing the quaking of their hands and worsening their aim while Emily's soldiers pick them off with chilling accuracy, aiming for the gaps in their armour and their legs.

Emily has her magic-capable troops hold their stored mana, but fire and steam still join the stream of bullets being exchanged when the gap between the two armies finally closes, and more and more weapons are discarded as the Modo soldiers hear the fleeting screams of their allies being cooked alive. A few now risk surrender, running towards the mechanical monsters with their hands raised. The droids let them enter their formation, moving them away from the fighting before forcing them to their knees to wait out the battle.

Once they see the prisoners being taken, not killed, more and more soldiers captipulate, running towards the deceptive safety of the inhuman horde. Some opportunistic loyalists attempt to fake surrender before attacking again, but they're cut down by the droids' weapons before they can finish drawing theirs.

"They're… terrified," Pod mutters, confusion creasing his brow as he watches the chaos on the ground spreading, with half the cannons on the wall slowing their firing as unseen fights are fought between allies. "It wasn't anywhere near this bad when we took Aldhan yesterday."

"Fear and information are powerful weapons," Emily says, narrowing her focus on the rapidly building glow of dense mana at the base of the wall, signalling the near completion of the Hedera Patriarch's spell. "While our contract doesn't have any stipulation that stops us from wiping out the personal armies of our targets, it does require that we offer the option of surrender. So, I thought, why not weaponise that? I made a big enough show in Chroni that rumours of my overwhelming strength has spread through all of our targets, including their foot soldiers. Then, all I needed to do was wipe out the forces holding a few big cities while locking down their ports. And now, though the leaders of this final stand certainly know what we've done, their soldiers have no clue."

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A hulking shield of metal and charge forms around the ship as Emily channels her mana through it, cutting off their direct view of the battlefield and forcing Pod to turn to the video feeds outside to keep track of the fighting.

"They've been stewing in their fear of an unbeatable enemy with no word from their superiors for days other than false platitudes which hold less weight than the whispered rumours. Meanwhile, their superiors have been stewing in the knowledge that their allies fell with barely any resistance thanks to deserters. Add to that the attacks on the transports bringing troops here, the routes of which should have been known only to their allies, and you get an army a little too eager to pull the trigger on each other."

Emily watches Pod connecting the dots as he flicks between the eyes of the droids on the ground, zooming in on the crests of the fleeing soldiers on the front line and those shooting at them.

"Remind me to never get on your bad side…" Pod hums as Mensacus clicks his teeth in approval.

"I doubt you'll need the reminder. Now, brace yourselves."

A moment later, light erupts from Ashdon's wall, blocking most of the cameras they're using to watch the unfolding battle with stark-white. A few of Emily's birds, flying high in the sky, still offer a blurred view of the attack, and she immediately switches Pod's screens to show them.

They watch as a churning wave of molten earth, wrapped in a twisting vortex of scorching wind and steam, barrels towards Elisime, sailing through the mechanical army and tearing lines through their ranks with arcs of scattered, searing light. The golems among them throw up their defensive spells, but they only slow the beams of light, reducing but not preventing their losses.

Emily watches with cold apathy as the feeds of her soldiers blink out one by one, not even flinching when the raging attack slams into the barrier protecting Elisime, sending quakes through the massive airship. The attack splits against the curved shield, parting and engulfing it, curling back around to try and find a gap behind the ship. The crackling plasma dancing across the barrier fights back, sending chunks of molten rock flying and slowly breaking down the focused force bearing down on them.

Mana flows from Emily like water from a raging waterfall, humming with power as it sinks into the ship. Her reserves drop, and she loses a quarter of her mana before the metal in view of the cockpit starts to turn red-hot. Another quarter vanishes as frigid air erupts from her body, forming into a twisting mesh of icy-blue runes and adding a layer of frost to the inside of the metal barrier, quickly cooling it back to a now-dulled silver hue.

Cracks start to spread across the weakened barrier, and Emily burns more mana to reinforce it, dropping her reserves down to only a third.

It takes nearly thirty seconds for the burning ball of elements wrapped around Elisime to finally disperse. Silence falls over the battlefield, barring the shots ringing out from the surviving metal soldiers, as the ship is revealed completely unharmed.

Emily's gaze drifts over the sands below, taking in the scorched and mangled remains of over half her forces that didn't fall within her protection. A spark of rage tries to catch her heart, but instead of leaning into it and burning her machina to hold it close, she turns to her children, standing side-by-side just behind her seat, and reaches out to place a calming hand on Silica's head as she growls at the images of shattered robots flickering across the screens in front of her. Emily's gaze meets Mensacus', and he understands what she wants without a word, opening his third eye and drinking in the spark, letting the protective fury burn in his cold metal heart, joining the thick malice fuelling him and stretching his toothy grin a little wider.

Liquid rage drips from his needle-like fangs with a crimson hue, pooling beneath his tongue, just waiting to be unleashed.

Emily wraps herself and her eldest in a blanket of spatial mana, quickly weaving together a Teleport and latching it to the coordinates of her bird in the pipe above the enemy's leaders. However, before she can activate the spell, Silica lets out a resolute yip, pushing her head towards Emily's retreating hand.

"Really?" Emily questions softly, understanding what her daughter's asking without the need for words, and idly scratching behind her ears.

The large sandy fox bares her jagged teeth in a grin that mirrors her brother's, so Emily nods and wraps her in mana as well, preparing a Blink to send her down to the sands below.

"Pod," Emily says as she converts some machina to refill her now-empty mana reserve. "Prepare a support squad to watch Silica. Include two earthen defence golems and pull her out the moment she shows signs of exhaustion."

"Understo-"

Emily and her kids shatter into purple light before he can finish, leaving him alone in the cockpit. Silica reappears directly below Elisime, dropping into a tense, battle-ready stance but waiting for her support to actually join the fight.

Mensacus and Emily appear above the shimmering barrier protecting the Hedera siblings and their two fourth-circle allies. Instead of attacking it, though, Emily simply casts Blink again, this time on her and Mensacus, shunting them down exactly ten metres. She has to fight against the thick mana of enemy mages saturating the atmosphere inside the barrier, but she doesn't bat an eye at the extra energy expenditure, forcing her way through regardless.

"Shit!" Cora Hedera, the Patriarch's sister, shouts as she's the first to notice the spatial distortion, looking up and meeting Emily's gaze. "Spatial mage above!"

All eyes within the barrier turn up, and several weak spells are thrown out in an instant, but Emily sweeps them away with a wave of her hand and a torrent of liquid metal.

"Enjoy," she says, releasing the metal mana holding her son up and letting him plunge towards their targets.

Mensacus unfurls the tentacles wound together to form his limbs, spreading those that make up his legs to cushion his landing, catching ten second and first circle mages and pinning them to the ground. His lower limbs coil around them, binding them in place.

One of the fourth circle mages beside Cora, the Canarien Patriarch, hurls a lance of fire at the mechanical chimaera, but his grin only stretches as his milky-white eye washes over the mages in his grip, and he raises the six he doesn't detect any mental spells affecting as human shields. The flaming lance skewers the defenceless mages, bleeding momentum before bursting harmlessly against Mensacus' metal chest, leaving only a few darkened scorch marks.

He strangles the surviving mages in his grip unconscious while throwing out his right arm, ejecting the small spines lining its tendrils and giving them the appearance of thorny vines as they weave between his densely-packed enemies like snakes, tearing furrows into their robes and flesh, injecting small doses of his malice. His victims let out screams of pain, dropping to the floor and writhing in agony.

Cora and her brother begin chanting in sync, pointing their hands towards Emily above as a matrix of fire, earth, and light forms around them. Before they can finish casting, though, Mensacus reaches into his mouth with his left arm, ripping out a handful of his teeth. He points the still-coiled mass of tentacles towards the Hedera siblings as the glow of electricity seeps from the gaps, and a crackling roar accompanies a rapid hail of needles shooting from his embedded coilgun.

The Patriarch keeps chanting, gritting his teeth as he loses his sister's support, while Cora slams her hands to the ground, raising a wall of earth in an instant. The quickly cast spell blocks most of Mensacus' attack, but the thick malice embedded in the needles eats away at the barrier, cracking open a hole large enough for one of them to slip through. It slams into Cora's shoulder, vanishing into her flesh and bone, and she lets out a harrowing scream that interrupts her brother's casting, darkening his expression as he feels the backlash from the half-formed spell wreaking havoc in his mana veins.

"You'd do well to pay attention, humans," Mensacus hums, sending shivers down his opponents' spines as his teeth rapidly regrow to vicious points before their eyes. "You're my toys, not mother's."

His mana flares, rolling off of him in dark waves, and Cora's screams increase in pitch as dark veins spread up her neck.

"What have you done?" the Hedera Patriarch growls, ignoring the blood leaking from his mouth and catching his sister in his arms as she loses strength in her legs, watching her eyes turn bloodshot.

"I've let her feel mother's fury." Mensacus crouches low to the ground, propelling himself to the side to dodge half a dozen elemental projectiles, losing a few of his lower tentacles to a blade of water from the Lonicera Matriarch. "It's burning through her veins, letting her feel the agony you deserve for your transgressions."

He swipes a net of poisoned thorns through the fodder, chipping away at the large group as more screams join the symphony.

"It won't kill her."

His third eye glows brighter as his mana burns, catching several mages in a trance and telling him which ones he's allowed to kill if needed.

"But it will make her wish it would."

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