With a mighty swing, Pereph chopped Aeron's bindings in half. The force of the sheer mass of moving metal created a slight wind, causing the water beneath their feet to ripple like a puddle in the rain. "Looks like the cavalry has arrived," Aeron smirked as a cloud of Demons descended from the sky.
"To your posts! Quickly!" he overheard the soldiers' commanders yelling as a heavy bombardment struck the shoreline. Dismembered limbs flew every which way as the blasts neared the camp's headquarters, catapulting the Giants into a state of panic.
"You really got us good," they heard Caius say from a small crater nearby. He let out a breath, as if he were exhausted, and frowned. "I guess this is just the way things are."
"Indeed," Aeron said as he walked beside the man. "Yet again, I'm back at square one." In the past, this sight would've made his heart race. However, for some reason, it just felt flat. "How dull," he muttered under his breath.
"Sir, we should go and join the fight."
"Yeah, yeah, go on ahead. I'll jump in soon." After that, Pereph flew off, leaving the two of them standing alone.
"Bunch of damn fools, you lot."
"I won't deny that," he sighed. "It doesn't seem like he wants to fight." It was people like this that always made his job difficult. "Go on and get out of here."
"Hah," Caius chortled, "Turning over a new leaf?"
"Don't be ridiculous. It'd just be a shame to kill you now."
"Hmph, you flatter me." It appeared that even Demons had their favorites. As silent as the grave, the Giant hurried to his fellows' sides, no doubt in a futile attempt to save some of them. Meanwhile, Aeron took this brief opening to fly into the battlefield and grab his sword.
"Pereph!" he cried out, "Just grab Griswold! We'd just be wasting time if we killed all of them!" He wanted to be off this damnable beach as soon as possible.
"Sir!" From somewhere within the cloud of dust, he overheard what sounded like a giant lump of iron smash into the ground.
"Yikes." With Pereph's skill, those men would all be turned into paste. However—even though his soldiers loved the carnage—Aeron knew he had to end this chaos. Like a raging gale, he swung his sword over his head, forcing the smoke which stuck to the sand into the sky.
"Sir!" one of the grunts said as he flew up to him in a panic. It appeared that, unsurprisingly, fate had other plans.
"What is it?"
"There's a ship approaching from the north!"
"Oh, is that all?" Immediately, he flew up and squinted toward the horizon. Indeed, far off in the distance, there was a ship speeding towards them. "Must be the reserves," he surmised.
"Should we intercept them?"
"No… bide your time and be careful. These oafs are cunning." With his orders given, his subordinate rushed off to inform the others. Honestly, he wanted to go and greet their guests himself, but he had a mission to complete. "All right," he thought as he scratched his chin, "Let's get this over with." In the blink of an eye, he rocketed into the chaos and started swinging. With his subordinates at his side, the ensuing fight was a massacre. The recovering soldiers had no time to respond before they were reduced to ash.
"I should've killed that monster when I had the chance!" Griswold thought as he crawled beneath the piles of dead. "The Buried Council will pay this debt back in full, Templar, I swear!" His personal wishes aside, he knew that this situation was unsalvageable. With this many Demons and so few men, that was the only logical conclusion. Sadly, a retreat was next to impossible. "Even if I avoid the spotters, there's still a chance that Weber will catch me." For now, he was preoccupied with the battle, but that wouldn't last long.
"Is anyone out there?" he overheard a muzzled voice say from his transmitter.
"Survivors?" He scoffed, such a thing would be impossible at this point. Most likely, this was one of the Demons' traps. That said, considering how hopeless his predicament was, Griswold took a risk and answered the call. "Roger, this is Griswold Mapp—this region's chief diplomat—do you read me?"
"Loud and clear, Mr. Mapp," a strangely familiar voice responded. "You might remember me from the summit, I'm Zia Lombardi."
"Her? Can't say I expected that." He scoffed as a nearby explosion shook the area. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"We can explain the details later, but for now just know that I and my subordinates are here to extract you to a safe location."
"Hah, that almost sounds too good to be true." It looked like the Almighty was handing him a miracle. "I can send you my coordinates, but I doubt they'd be much help. There are simply too many enemies to make a safe landing."
"Trust me, friend, we know," another voice, he assumed it was one of Ms. Lombardi's men, chimed in. "As you said, touching down anywhere near you is suicide. However, the devils haven't noticed us yet. If you're quick, you might be able to jump onto our ship."
"Desperate times call for desperate measures, I guess." Soon after that exchange, the signal quality plummeted. "You guys okay up there?"
"It's just some minor turbulence," Zia joked, the woman must've had nerves of steel.
"Keep your wits about you, then," he warned. "That turncoat, Aeron Weber, is leading these beasts." For a moment, the line went silent.
"In that case, we'll have to pick up the pace."
"Indeed," he said as he bit his lip. "Remember who he is, Ms. Lombardi. That man's not your acquaintance anymore."
"Don't worry," Zia responded, "I'm well aware of that." From there, the conversation devolved into a quick trade of locations and information. Griswold, still hiding beneath the corpses, managed to avoid detection for a handful of minutes, giving Zia and her retinue enough time to arrive at their agreed extraction point.
"I hope she didn't go too far out," Griswold thought as he crawled beneath a shattered pillar. Just beyond a nearby hill, he overheard the faint hum of engines. They'd managed to slip past the Demons' blockade. "Here goes nothing."
Zia frowned as she nervously paced back and forth across the deck. "He's late," she whispered. It wasn't like her to assume the worst, but such pessimism was unavoidable.
"I see Mr. Mapp, Ms. Lombardi," Kashif said from the bridge. "Though I can barely make him out, should I have Elizabeth bring us closer?"
"Don't bother, it's too dangerous." Their ship wasn't equipped to deal with a bloody battle. If they attracted too much attention, they wouldn't be able to escape. "Guess we'll just have to wait and pray." Thankfully, fate seemed to be on their side, and the Giant managed to sneak to their ship undetected.
"Almighty be praised! That was awful!" Griswold groaned as he dusted off his bloody kneecaps, which were covered in mud and grime.
"Go get some medicine, Elizabeth."
"Will do!"
"I don't know how I can possibly thank you," he said.
"Don't bother, you just focus on recovering." They couldn't get information out of a dead man, after all.
"It's unfair to ask, but is it possible for you to aid my men?"
"Sadly, no, we simply don't have the firepower."
"Yeah, should've expected that." Griswold frowned as he silently limped to the back of the ship.
"He's certainly seen better days."
"Oh, Elina, are you okay? We put you through quite the ordeal."
"Heh, it's nothing," she scoffed as she stared out one of the windows. "You managed to save one of our diplomats. As far as I'm concerned, that makes this all worth it." As she spoke, Zia noticed her slightly shiver.
"It's okay," she told her as she placed a hand on the woman's shoulder. "You're all going to be all right." As long as they were all alive, there would always be a next time. "Grin and bear it, Elina."
"Where to next, Ms. Lombardi?" Elizabeth whispered from the bridge's entranceway, but Zia ignored her. In times like this, a moment of silence was necessary. "Roger, I'll turn the ship around." Her boss' expression was all the instruction she needed.
An uneasy calm hung in the air as Aeron watched what little remained of the Giants' platoon escape past the horizon. He ordered his soldiers to stand down, much to their dismay, and hastily began sifting through the spoils of their brutal victory. "Griswold's not here."
"I take it we've been had?" Pereph asked while sitting atop one of the many piles of bodies.
"Looks like it." She sighed.
"Dr. Leeson's going to give you hell for this, sir."
"Probably." This whole assault was going from bad to worse. "We'll have to reschedule our plans." Satan definitely wouldn't like that. "Can you go gather the men? We're going home." They couldn't risk letting the Giants' main force make landfall. If one of their troops got captured, there was a chance they'd leak critical intel.
"Understood."
"Thanks, and good work today." With that, his subordinates flew off to pick the battlefield of any wandering Demons. While this happened, he couldn't help but recall Caius' words and frown. "That man… I wonder if he survived." He just couldn't bring himself to be happy over this battle, maybe that was one of the reasons. "Satan would think that I'm getting soft," he thought with a grin as he raised a hand to his transmitter. It was about time he got off this rock. "It's me," he spoke once it finally connected, "We need to talk."