Argalia coughed painfully. She pushed the rock and sinew off her chest. The taste of earth and bile coated her tongue and fangs. "Quint, you alive?"

  That last hit had been extremely close to where Quint had been standing. She gazed over to see the blood-soaked calico Felide getting back on her feet. Her arms, chest, and torso were covered in crimson. Whether that was on purpose or not remained to be seen. Her movements were sluggish. She nodded, and a dim purple glow covered her body for a moment.

  Quint, seemingly rejuvenated, stepped back into the pool of blood she created, and the hole in the wall began to close. "Focus on the fuckers who want us dead! I'll keep the building up. Help is coming."

  She dug back into the River once again to borrow more power. She was going to need it. She didn't know how much more her blood would buy, but she had no other options.

  Argalia counted her ammo while the sound of bullets impacting the building's scales tormented her. Fourteen. She loaded seven into her rifle and chambered a round. She pulled her own pocket mirror as she channeled half of her remaining nethergy reserves into the rounds. If they were her last fourteen shots, they were going to count. Moving her mirror to look north, she saw the two dozen troops approaching. Getting into a low crouch, she moved down the hall.

  Taking position in the next room over, she took aim.

  Looking down her iron sights, her breathing slowed. These shots must count. She pulled the trigger, making minute adjustments to the bullets’ nethergy levels just as she fired. Half a second later, a green bloom overtook the area as the over-charged round exploded midair.

  Thirteen.

  Cycling another round into the chamber, she ducked, not looking to see the outcome. She needed to move. Seconds after she ducked, gunfire peppered the window she just fired from. She took one of the grenades she had been given. Priming a grenade, she moved to another window, but not before tossing the grenade out the window from which she was just aiming. Just as she was about to peak out the window, the grenade exploded. Using the distraction, she took aim once more.

  Twelve.

  Eleven.

  Ten.

  Three vermilion blooms erupted in the distance as she ducked for cover. Screams of orders were heard in the distance; she could not make them out. She was certain they were about her, though. An explosion knocked her to the ground as the temperature dropped, and subzero chills rolled over her. Looking up, she saw the entire window covered in razor sickles.

  "Nitrogen mortars, lovely," she said to herself as she crawled out of the room.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Once out of the ice rink, she got to her feet. She made a sprint for the stairs, hoping to get to the fourth floor. It should only be one flight of stairs. Getting to the stairs, she saw they were mostly intact.

  Seeing no other option, she carefully went up the stairs. A moment later, she was on the fourth floor, in what mostly looked like office space. She made her way over to a window. Using her trusty pocket mirror to peek out the window to her left, she saw a cluster of four revolutionaries approaching the building. She took aim.

  Nine.

  Eight.

  Seven.

  Radiant vermilion implosions extinguished any other sound.

  Ducking quickly to reload her rifle, bullets flew through the space she inhabited a fraction of a second later. Looking around to see where she could aim from next, she found that office space was mostly open here. Finding her target, a large office window on the side of the north-facing building, she headed over. Halfway through her crouched run, she heard an enormous roar from the ground.

  "Bet that's Sarge," she muttered to herself as she made her way to what she was certain used to be the owner’s office of this building.

  Glass crunched under her jackboots as her paws found their footing. She looked down to see Sarge tearing through the remains of the squad she had been taking shots at. Sergeant took cover as gunfire came from down the street. Another squad of Revolutionaries was taking cover behind the remains of a shop down the street from them, just at the far edge of her effective range.

  She aimed slowly as she was taught in training. She focused, shoving the last dredges of nethergy in the ammunition. The casings were vibrating the rifle's internal magazine. She pulled the trigger.

  Six.

  A cyan bloom erupted in the distance.

  Five.

  Four.

  Three.

  Triple eruptions sparked in the distance as the two surviving solders dove for whatever cover they could find. She heard machine gun fire from the west. Martin had opened fire on enemies she couldn't see.

  ZAP!

  Argalia looked to the source of the sound and saw the smoking body of Sarge. He wasn't moving. She looked around frantically for the source.

  ZAP!

  Silence from the machine gun was heard. Martin fell to the ground, cooked. She saw it this time, though, on a pile of rubble northwest of where Sarge fell. The world seemed to slow as she moved her sights in position. She could see that the electro-gunner was looking to take out Eno as well.

  Two.

  The electro-gunner exploded in a fantastic display of cyan nethergy bleed-off, and their own alchemical power pack detonating. A meter-wide crater was left to show who was there.

  One.

  She fired at the rocket team that just came into view. Her quick shot missed the group, but the shockwave from the round exploding drove them back into cover. Just enough time was bought for Eno to drag the bodies of both Martin and Hostetter into the building.

  Zero.

  She fired her last shot at the two men from before that dared to pick their heads out and take aim at Eno. She retreated after that. She was out of ammo, and the remaining grenades she had where only good for close range. She quickly headed down to the ground floor to help Eno.

  Getting down there, she watched as Eno had pulled out standard-issue resurrection stencils. The mass-produced stencils allowed for necromedics to quickly preform battlefield resurrections. Eno quickly brushed the stencil with the prepared solutions on to both corpses. Then, she pulled an onyx amulet from her medic bag. Quickly muttering a few words of power that Argalia couldn't quite hear, it began to glow a sinister purple.