Through the eyes of my Angels, I could see the other infantries beginning to move. The other leaders of the lower six had made their commands as well.
"All right!" Sixth was the first to speak on the frequency. "Defensive formations everyone! Let's do this!"
"Shut up," Ninth grumbled lowly. "Don't make me mute this channel."
"You can't," Seventh spoke in. "You're going to need our communications to play out the collaborated formations."
"But if any of you become a hindrance, I'm ready to pull away from you punks. So don't make me."
"Got it." I established the medium between us all. I didn't want a divide being formed between Ninth and the rest of us. "We'll all help one another without getting in each other's way. That way, we can all get through this together, got it?"
"Got it," Seventh replied.
"Hmph." Ninth grunted.
We were ready, now in our formations. It was just under an hour remaining before Invidan's supposed attack, according to their propaganda. Their numbers were estimated to be equal to ours, with around 600 enlisted soldiers countered by our 600 Angels—100 per infantry. What they likely didn't know was that even though the numbers were equal, the military power wasn't. Our 600 Angels could easily be worth 6000 of their men.
"I think I see something!" Eighth called out. I looked through the lens of one of my Angels and noticed a moving mass of brown in the distance.
Tenth confirmed it. "That must be them… Invidan…"
"How do you know?" I asked.
"They have brown military uniforms, just as Michael said they'd have. And I think I can see them carrying glaives…"
"It's a whole mass of people heading towards our border—of course it's Invidan," Ninth mocked me.
I continued to watch from the perspective of my Angel, when I abruptly noticed that the mass was followed by rows upon rows of soldiers. It was clear that their number exceeded 600.
"I'm not surprised…" I tried to say as calmly as possible. "Their estimated number of 600 was just a fluke. That's gotta be at least 1000…"
"Holy shit…" Seventh gasped.
Tenth began to panic on the line, "We only rehearsed for 700 or less, not 1000! What are we supposed to do?!?"
There was a moment of stunned silence that followed.
"Are you guys being serious right now?" Ninth asked. "Have you guys forgotten that we have Angels? These guys can easily overpower them."
Ninth was right. As much as he clearly disliked the rest of us, his words were the most reassuring of all.
"Exactly. No matter the number, no country's military is a threat to Melysia." I was reminded of why we were all given this opportunity in the first place. "Solidify your formations everyone! Let's end this quick and remind the Overseers that we belong in the Tenfold! Let's not waste the chance the General gave us!"
Everyone was quickly rejuvenated. To each of our own, we rearranged our infantries' formations to better suit the increase in Invidan's number. Their soldiers were just upon the horizon, and what began as a march towards our borders suddenly turned into a quick sprint.
"They're approaching! The first wave!"
The front three rows of Invidan's soldiers began rushing towards us with steel glaives raised high in the air. In response, Ninth sent out his first line of defense with his own added twist.
"N-143," Ninth read out the coordinates that he targeted from the satellite perspective.
"Gravity Imbue."
The group of Angels Ninth sent out began to accelerate at 9.8 metres per second, picking up speed very quickly. This was Ninth's Fractal: the ability to create a gravitational field perpendicular to gravity itself, in any area that he could see visually with his eyes. In mere seconds, his Angels crossed the mile distance between them and Invidan's first wave, bringing about an unexpected first strike against the attackers. Ninth's Angels leapt up and struck down towards them, bringing about a massive gust of dust to blast into the air. When it cleared, the majority of Invidan's first wave were crushed into the ground, save for a few who managed to impale some of the Angels while airborne.
"1, 2, 3 casualties!?" Ninth counted the first deaths under his name. "Fuck! Avenge them!!!"
He suddenly sent out two more lines of defense from his infantry, imbuing them with gravitational acceleration to speed them up to the remaining Invidians who killed three of his Angels.
"Fuck 'em up!!!" Ninth was imbued with vengeful rage. His Angels quickly tackled the leftover Invidians, where he commanded them to rip their limbs apart. The Angels complied, and with their excessively advanced physical strength, the sight became absolutely gruesome. Blood had been quickly shed over their white combat suits.
"Calm down, Ninth!" I warned him. "You were only supposed to send out one line of defense! Your section in our formation is now a weak link!"
"Shut up, bitch! Don't call me weak!"
"I'm not—!"
"You think you're so high and mighty just because you're the highest rank out of all of us, huh?!?"
"No! No! That's not what I'm saying—!"
"I'll show you how strong I can be! I'll fucking prove it!!!"
"Ninth, don't—!"
It was too late. With short temper, came a quicker moment in which Ninth sent out his entire infantry towards the incoming Invidians. "N-143, N-153, N-163, N-173, N-183—" Ninth began stacking a path of gravitational acceleration fields directly towards Invidan's army, through which his Angels barreled through, picking up with more and more speed each field. Ninth's infantry and Invidan's soldiers then clashed, and a large scale fight between white-suits and brown-suits with glaives ensued. While that happened, I looked through the sight of one of my Angels, noticing that we now had a hole in our defense where Ninth's infantry was supposed to be.
"This is bad. Our formation is compromised."
"Get back in line, Ninth!" Eighth called out to him.
Bzzt—! Ninth suddenly left the frequency, leaving us with no means of communicating with him.
"Are you kidding me!?" Seventh was astounded. "Did he really just do that?"
Ninth had made himself outcast from the rest of us. Although today's battle was supposed to be a teamwork effort consisting of the lower six of the Tenfold, Ninth was battling a fight of his own.
"There's nothing we can do about it. We have to make do with what we have left," I told the others. As Ninth's infantry fended off the Invidians, we reformed our defensive posture to fill in for Ninth's absence. Surprisingly, the fight was leaning in his favor. The number of brown-suits were diminishing at a higher rate than those of white-suits. Ninth's Angels speedily ran circles around the Invidians, overwhelming them with speed and strength.
"He sure is doing a number on them," Sixth said. "Makes me excited just watching…"
"Save that energy for an emergency case scenario, Sixth," I told him. His Fractal would be best used in a moment of high tide. Sixth had the ability to transform his own amount of excitement into kinetic energy, whether that be in himself, or in the things he touched. Since his hive mind connected to the nerves of his Angels, he could transfer his own excitement directly to them, fueling them with an increase in kinetic energy that could be used for both power and speed.
BANG—!
There was a sudden shot heard from Invidan's direction. Before any of us could even catch glimpse, Eighth yelled on the frequency: "Seventh! Incoming high!!!"
In a quick succession, Seventh assembled her Angels into the defensive formation she'd been practicing for anything targeting the borders from high up above. They quickly stacked over each other, standing upon each other's shoulders, forming a reinforced wall of Angels that elevated as high as the border itself.
"Harden!" She called out. Seventh's Fractal allowed her to solidify herself or the things she touched into a state of solidity harder than diamond. Before her Angels were deployed, General Michael had her touch every single one of her 100 Angels to pre-imbue them with her hardening Fractal so she could use it in battle. The formation Seventh formed was raised just high enough to block the incoming shot that was fired from Invidan. Her Angels were struck with what seemed to be a tank bullet, disassembling the formation, but leaving no scratch on the border itself.
"Nice call, Eighth!" She called out to him. If it weren't for Eight's Fractal, Eagle Vision: the ability to see four times as far as the regular human eye, none of us would have noticed the tank shot incoming. Our border would have been breached.
"Reassemble the formation!" I called out to Seventh. It wouldn't be long before Invidan's tank would fire another shot. "Any eyes on the tank itself, Eighth?"
"For once it seems something exceeds my eyesight. They must have positioned it really far away."
"That's not good. We need to know its location so we can compromise it. We can't risk having it fire while Seventh is still rebuilding her formation."
"I'll try my luck in finding it!" Tenth called out. He connected to the satellite's overlord view and began looking over Invidan's raid to find it, though the majority of their numbers were shrouded beneath tall trees. If he couldn't see something visually, Tenth would use his Fractal to detect it by sensing its heat signature.
"I see it!" Tenth noticed a large source of heat hidden in the enemy backlines. "The tank is at N-338!"
"Damn, that's far…" I looked ahead and saw that Ninth was still fighting his fight. If he'd still been collaborating with us, we could have used his Fractal to speed a line of Angels to flank the tank. But he cut off communications with us. It was no use.
"We have no choice but to either solidify our defense and try withstanding all the attacks, or lighten our defense and send out more Angels to compromise the tank," Eighth said.
"Definitley the former. Defending the border is our priority," I told him.
"But my Angels can only keep up their formations for so long before Invidan starts sending out more waves to contest our defense," Seventh worried.
"Well Ninth is already keeping the waves in check on the frontlines over there," Sixth joined in. "And if things ever turn up, I might just send out some Angels myself!"
"Update on your level of excitement, Sixth?" I asked him.
"Peaking. I have enough to dispense kinetic energy into at least half my infantry."
"That's good. As soon as Ninth gets overwhelmed, or Invidan sends in their second wave, take your Angels to the frontline."
Abruptly interrupting the discussion, a series of consecutive explosive blasts were suddenly heard in the distance. Everyone looked towards the frontlines where Ninth's infantry fought the first wave, but all they could see were a chain reaction of explosions.
"W-What's happening over there?!?" Tenth activated his Fractal. He observed numerous scattered singularities of instantaneous heat expansion occurring within the blasts. His jaw dropped when he realized exactly what was happening. "Oh my god…"
"What's happening in there, Tenth?!"
"Strapped—!!! All the Invidians in the first wave were strapped with explosives!"
"Holy shit." I watched as Ninth's entire infantry was being blown to pieces. "Suicide bombers?!?"
The explosions finally stopped. The dust finally settled. All that remained were the explosively-torn limbs of white and brown uniforms smogged by blood-reddened dust in the air. Shadows suddenly appeared beyond the smoke, and as their figures became more apparent, so too did their cries of battle screamed directly at us. Running past the recent graveyard, with some even tripping over the dismembered body parts, the brown uniforms of Invidan's second wave shone desperately in the sun that rest directly above our battle. With one infantry down and a hundred less soldiers for Melysia, the spotlight was on for the second act of the battle.