"Maltyie!"
Alexander's magenta blade pierced one of the clones from her rear. Then, he quickly activated his Aegis's specialty to obliterate his opponent. The clone's body twitched before it shook violently from the unknown force emitted from Alexander's blade. I grimaced as the excessively loud noise resulted from the blade's vibration. Instinctively, I covered my ears.
The clone stopped moving once the noise ceased and blood shot out from the pores of her skin.
"Blarghhhaarggh," she choked. The white shawl wrapping her whole head started to be drenched in blood. When Alexander pulled his blade out, the clone fell onto the floor, lifeless.
"Shockwave specialty," I mumbled.
Alexander then looked at me and Mommy. The look on his face alone was enough to tell us what he had in mind.
"Run far away from here, Alicia, Aya," he said.
I don't know why, but upon hearing those words, I found myself scrambling towards Maltyie. Her wound was quite severe, so I don't have any time to spare. A massive blood red gauntlet sprouted from my back and grabbed Maltyie. The one encasing my right arm took His Supremacy and Klaus instead.
"Go!" shouted Alexander as he slashed another Yvonne's clone in her torso. When I turned my head towards the doorless entrance, four more of them started to pop out.
"We don't have time for this," shouted Mommy. She instructed her invisible Aegis crystals to cut down one of them. "Aya."
"Y-Yes." I darted out of the meeting room, carrying Klaus, His Supremacy, and the injured Maltyie with my Aegis gauntlets. When legs took me to a corner, Yvonne's clones started to emerge from every crevice of the building.
Mommy was behind me all along and she quickly picked up the pace. "Aya."
I shot a glance at her as we ran, avoiding the clones at the same time. "Yes, Mommy?"
Her mouth twitched as she looked at me. "I want you to keep running, and don't stop until you're at least, at the edge of Stockholm."
"Eh?"
"I will distract those Pillars . . . And I'm pretty sure this HQ is surrounded by those clones," said Mommy.
"B-But . . . You will--"
"I won't," interjected Mommy.
My pace slowed down to a halt. Mommy did too and I narrowed my eyes at her. "I won't leave you! Please, you don't need to stay here just to distract them! Alexander . . . H-He . . ."
"He'll be fine," assured Mommy.
A white wedding dress caught my attention when another of Yvonne's clone emerged from behind Mommy.
"No!" Red blood tendrils shot out of my palms and it stabbed at the clone. My tendrils then tore her body apart in mere seconds.
However, another six of them pushed their way through a heap of soldiers' corpses. Having caught us within their sight. slowly, they began to see us as their next prey. As they crossed the corpses, a wave of blue liquid out of nowhere swept the clones in it. They were forced out through the glass windows before they plummeted far down towards the graphite.
"Miranda!" I called.
Her violet eyes scanned the surrounding quickly before she stepped out from the destroyed wall. She wore a baggy maroon sweater and loose blue military trousers. Her braided dark hair had been replaced with a short bob, almost similar to Mommy's.
"Miranda . . ." Mommy stared at her as she approached us.
"I'm guessing the Pillars are trying to take this place," Miranda said casually.
"Yes. The ground forces should arrive shortly--"
"They won't," said Miranda. "They would have come by now, but I'm guessing a Pillar is taking care of the military forces outside of the base."
Mommy nodded slowly. "Yeah."
Miranda looked at me and put up a thin smile. "I'll distract the Pillars. You two run as far as you can from here." She narrowed her eyes at Mommy. "I won't take no for an answer. It's my choice, Alicia. My father would do the same thing if he's here."
Mommy breathed a sigh. "Alright. Promise me you'll come back to us."
"I won't."
"Eh?"
"Not until I can get Alexander to safety, that is."
I looked over my shoulder, and certainly, Maltyie's injury seemed to have gotten worse. Her military uniform was almost drenched with blood on the left side.
"Aya, let go of me!" demanded His Supremacy as he struggled from the grasp of the gauntlet on my right hand.
"No, I can't. At least, you must be the one to get out of this alive," I said, tightening the grip of my gauntlet.
The military base shook violently for the second time, and the floor started to crack from it.
"We have to get out. Now!" said Miranda.
After a minute or so, we managed to get out of there using the front entrance. As soon as we stepped outside, a horrific sight greeted us.
Soldiers' corpses covered in their own blood were scattered around the area. Two manned military helicopters and one fighter jet had crashed into a building to our right. Destruction and death were the words that popped up in my mind if I wanted to describe it.
When I turned my head around, a few buildings in the military base had been destroyed. The main building, however, was barely able to keep up with the tremor before it subsided.
"Alexander's Aegis . . . Shockwave." Miranda looked at me and sighed. "I just hope he's safe."
"He will," assured Mommy. "He won't go down that easy."
I caught sight of scientists in their lab coat scrambling out of a nearby underground exit. That narrow tunnel was connected to the underground factory far below the graphite we were standing at that time.
"No, no, no. Don't run away, please." The blond man with his peach Aegis wings appeared from far up in the sky.
"Ivar, the Second Pillar!" said Klaus after the gauntlet on my right hand let go of him.
"What does that mean, Klaus?" asked Miranda.
"In terms of combat prowess in the battlefield, judging from his specialty alone, he is ranked second among the Four Pillars," said Klaus. "It is based on the four test subjects' specialties to the core."
"So, the First Pillar, is stronger than him?" I asked.
"Should be. We lacked data, and it's merely an assumption after we ran through simulations of what they could do."
"You're comparing me to that guy," said Ivar sharply. "I hate you."
He spread his hands towards us and peach Aegis crystals started to claw out from the graphite. "I borrowed Yvonne's crystals in case you guys do not know." The crystals eventually formed a large arena with us inside it.
"Aya," called Miranda.
I nodded and manifested blood red scythes from my arms when a Teria airship uncloaked itself in the sky.
"What? Since when that Teria airship had been there?" exclaimed Mommy.
The airship landed on an empty space on the graphite, and then a metal ladder popped out from its side. After a few moments, a woman stepped out from the airship, making her way down the ladder.
Her skin was almost white as snow, and her red eyes shone like gleaming rubies. Her loose dress was as black as the midnight, covering her body from neck to feet. Also, her straight jet-black hair reached her knees. From a glance, she appeared to be quite tall, about 171 cm.
Mommy's jaw dropped at the sight of that woman, and so did Miranda.
'It couldn't be,' I thought.
We knew who she was, but to think she could walk after being accustomed to her being kept inside a liquid chamber was too surreal.
"Amathelia," I muttered.