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The harsh crack of thunder fills the clearing as a blazing bolt of lightning tears through the space before Emily, searing everything in its path. In a split second, before anyone can even blink, the point twenty metres away that she was focused on is connected to her hands by the bolt, forming a void in the fog. Through the newly cleared path, she spots two cat-like creatures that she instantly recognises as fog cats, a jaguar-like creature known for hiding in magically formed fog to hunt. Or at least, what’s left of two fog cats.

Both of them are lying unmoving on the ground. One with its head deformed and smoking, black scorch marks covering its snout to the base of its neck, with the rest of its body still hidden within the mist, having avoided the worst of the spell. The other wasn’t so lucky: lying in the centre of the lightning’s path, its entire body is scorched and still twitching, thanks to the residual electricity from her spell.

While marvelling at the results of her spell, Emily doesn’t forget to warn her group mates of their assailants in advance.

“It’s fog cats!” she shouts while pulling two grenades off her bandolier.

“Bianca, come help me clear the fog! The rest of you keep them away until we finish,” Oscar instructs calmly.

“With pleasure,” Emily says with an evil grin, charging both grenades full of machina and tossing them deep into the fog near clusters of movement. “Cover your ears!”

Following her own advice, Emily blocks her ears with her hands as she starts preparing a second bolt. Two thunderous booms sound ahead of them, and several crackling shards of metal fly past the group. One of the shards hits Dante, cancelling his prepared spell as he cries out in pain and clutches his thigh.

Okay, maybe I shouldn’t be charging those with machina so close to friendlies.

Unconcerned by her friendly fire, Emily turns away from the front, where she no longer detects any movement, and checks on the group. The two flanks are handling themselves fine, surrounded by thin barriers of water, they throw small spells and slash sharp blades at any shapes that try to emerge from the fog, forcing them to back off. However, Matteo and Enzo are obviously struggling to maintain the back without Bianca’s help.

Noticing their plight, Emily dashes to the side, breaking formation and crossing into the fog while focusing on the fast-approaching vibrations at the back of the group. The moment she has a clear shot past everyone, she raises both hands before her while activating the shimmering magic circle that awaits her command.

Another bolt of lightning rips the fog apart, scorching a line through three more fog cats. Emily ignores the falling bodies and turns to face the multiple sets of footsteps charging towards her from hidden within the mist. She turns to face them while slowly backing towards the group, but before she can move very far, a shape springs at her from the fog. Ducking to avoid the large cat, Emily slashes a Claw against its stomach, splitting it open from throat to groin.

She rises as two more cats leap at her, sidestepping one and meeting the other’s skull with her elbow. With a clean swipe from her Claw, the downed fog cat is quickly executed as she keeps her focus on the concealed creatures still circling her.

These things would be a bitch to fight if I wasn’t channelling a detection spell right now.

Emily tracks the last cat with her finger, quickly shooting an air burst towards it. The spell flies past the cat’s head, taking some of the fog with it and revealing the prowling form within. She draws her revolver and plants a bullet between the cat’s eyes before turning and running back into formation.

The moment she arrives back in place, she looks at the gift Oscar and Bianca prepared for the fog cats with intrigue. Both of them are standing facing each other, with their arms outstretched and connected to a large spell construct holding in a massive ball of wind mana between them. Oscar is muttering a long chant alone, while Bianca stands silently, her face pale and sweat dripping from her brow.

Oscar’s chant soon comes to an end as he calls out the final line loudly: “Oh winds of change, sweep away deceit and clear all in my range! Airspace Claim!”

As he shouts the name of his spell confidently, the giant magic circle before him glows an iridescent green as it springs into life, twisting around the ball of mana and constricting. After shrinking for a second, the spell bursts, throwing out violent winds and blowing the surrounding fog back. Emily shields her face from the wind while activating her boots to hold her firmly to the ground.

A few seconds later, the winds die down and she glances around to see the trees clearly, an area of around fifty metres completely cleared of fog. Emily smiles slightly, quickly scanning the clearing, counting ten fog cats left alive. No longer hunting in their favoured environment, the cats are quickly eliminated by a couple of well-placed spells and bullets, putting an end to their surprise ambush.

With the danger gone, both healers rush out from the centre of the formation to tend to wounds. Nora heads to the back of the group to help Matteo with a nasty gash across his chest, meanwhile, Emily watches Fionn take a look at Dante’s leg, feeling slightly guilty for her slip-up.

Fionn places his hand on Dante’s thigh, covering the bullet wound with his palm. A resplendent golden glow pours from his hand, entering the wound and illuminating it, so that the shrapnel’s path is visible through the surrounding flesh.

“Lucky, the shrapnel passed clean through. This is an easy fix,” Fionn says calmly, flashing Dante a kind smile.

Dante doesn’t respond, too focused on taking deep breaths to cope with the pain. Fionn starts a long chant, a matrix of golden runes forming around his hand and covering Dante’s thigh with golden light. Emily watches with fascination as the hole slowly closes itself, growing healthy new flesh to replace the old.

By the time Fionn has finished, the hole has vanished. The only signs that the injury ever existed are the bloodstained rips left in Dante’s trousers and Fionn’s slight exhaustion.

“Sorry about that, I shouldn’t have used grenades that close to the group,” Emily apologises, offering a hand to pull him up.

“It’s fine, mistakes happen. That’s what these trial runs are for after all,” Dante responds calmly, grabbing her hand and standing up.

“Those were some fine explosions though,” he adds with a slightly crazed grin.

“Haha, thanks.”

Emily turns to move back into place as Oscar claps his hands, calling the group’s attention.

“Training room, end test!”

The illusion of the forest surrounding them flickers before vanishing, leaving them standing back in the plain white and grey cube.

“That will be all for today folks. I would like everybody to return at the same time next week, and the week after, so we can get some more practice in. Also, on the evening before we leave, my family will be hosting a banquet in our capital mansion to wish us all luck. I do hope all of you will attend. It should be a wonderful evening.”

Oscar finishes speaking and commands the training room to leave the door open as the group slowly disperses. Ivor and Oscar both approach Emily.

“Hey, Emily,” Oscar starts, appearing slightly unsure about what to say next. “Would it be possible for you to not-“

“Throw explosives so close to the group, right?” Emily finishes for him, finding his meek attitude in front of her amusing.

“Yes, thank you,” he says with a relieved sigh. “Also, I know Cormac was rude, but please don’t threaten people like that again. I don’t want my expedition party falling out before we even leave.”

“I make no promises, but I’ll try to be less hostile,” she agrees half-heartedly.

“Thanks,” he nods with a tired smile and turns to leave, walking a few metres before pausing and looking back over his shoulder with a crafty glint in his eyes. “Please extend a banquet invitation to Miss Madonna. Her attendance is most welcome.”

Did he just invite Jules to stop me from causing problems?

Frowning slightly, Emily shakes the thought away and turns to the two remaining boys. Giving Ivor a small nod of acknowledgement, she focuses on Dante, who hasn’t left yet and is watching her intently.

“Yo, what’s up?” She asks, tilting her head slightly.

“Ah, sorry,” he says without conviction. “I just wanted to ask about your explosives.”

He grins, gesturing towards the grenade belt on her chest, “Those are grenades, right? They don’t look like any standard Modo or Morzea military models. Did you buy them from overseas, or are they custom orders?”

Emily’s slightly taken aback by his questioning and freezes for a moment.

How much should I reveal? He seems to be part of Oscar’s faction so probably won’t spread the word...

“Yeah, they were a custom order,” she says, settling on half-truths. “They pack a lot more punch than the usual.”

“I can tell. That shrapnel was nasty, wouldn’t usually burn or disable my leg like that. What do they put in them?”

“Wait, what do you mean by disabled your leg?”

“You didn’t know? The moment it hit me, my thigh locked up and wouldn’t respond for a few seconds.”

“Right,” Emily mutters, biting on her thumb as she breaks down his feedback.

The burning was from the fire crystal heating the metal. Was the disabling effect from the leftover machina? I guess flooding someone’s system with my own bioelectricity would interfere with their internal signals.

Snapping herself out of her thoughts quickly, she gives Dante a dismissive answer.

“Sorry, not quite sure what that is. My source is quite secretive about their products. If you want to buy some though, ask Oscar. I gave him the contact details.” She passes off the problem to Oscar, before adding with a small smile: “Though, with your spells I’m not so sure you need them.”

“Thanks, they’re wonderful, right?” he asks excitedly.

“They’re certainly pretty,” Emily agrees, thinking back to the flower-themed flames Dante threw around wantonly in combat. “If you don’t mind me asking, is the flower motif part of your mental image or the spell formula?”

Dante pauses at her question, scratching his head while scrunching his face up in thought.

“Hmm, I guess it can’t hurt to tell you if Oscar likes you enough to invite you on our expedition, it’s kind of an open secret anyway. It’s a mixture of both! You were using silent internal casting earlier, right?”

Emily nods, slightly surprised he was watching her closely enough to notice and recognise her casting method.

“Then I’m sure you understand that a spell can be made with either a chant or a mental image. Well, the chants for my family’s spells all include flower-related imagery, and from a young age, we’re taught to form a mental image that relates fire and flowers. It’s to the point now where even my normal fire spells take on slightly floral shapes! As for the spell formula, I’m pretty sure it includes runes for shaping it, but I don’t really understand it enough to tell you for certain. Sorry, but I’m sure you understand that I can’t show you.”

“No that’s plenty. Thanks for even answering my question.”

“No problem, that’s what teammates are for, right?” His silly grin returns as he offers her a fist bump.

“Haha, sure.”

She returns his fist bump, turning to talk to Ivor before remembering something and calling after Dante.

“By the way, if you buy any grenades, don’t try opening them! They detonate if you try to reverse engineer them.”

He glances back and gives her a thumbs-up.

I wonder if Oscar ever tried? I never mentioned that to him.

Chuckling to herself quietly, she finally turns her attention to Ivor.

“Sorry about that. Who would’ve thought I’m so popular?”

Ivor rolls his eyes at her before gesturing towards the door and signing a question.

“You ready to leave?”

“Sure, let’s go.”

***

That evening over dinner, Emily invites Juliana to the expedition banquet. With much excitement and an enthusiastic hug, Juliana agrees to go and starts planning a trip to Threads to get dresses made for them both.

Emily falls into a final crunch of preparations for the expedition. She works on several new spells and machines, goes to classes, and remembers to spend time with her friends and girlfriend. She even adds meditating on the concept of space to her busy schedule, with little success.

Time flows by quickly, and soon Emily finds herself standing in a dress before her bathroom mirror, glaring at the reflection staring back at her. The dress is a striking electric blue, matching the pale lightning magic circles that are quickly becoming her forte. It’s sleeveless and falls to sit just above her knees, covering the small pouch strapped to her thigh holding The Clock and a few small knives. Her arms are covered up to the elbow with matching gloves, and covering her legs are the combat boots she refuses to compromise on.

Anna would hate me wearing these with a nice dress... Too bad she’ll never know.

With a smug grin, she leaves her room and goes to knock on Juliana’s door. After a few moments of waiting, the door fades to reveal a sight that leaves Emily standing in stunned silence.

Juliana appears before her in a long, pale yellow gown that highlights her flowing brown hair and eyes. The shy smile on her lips as she looks at Emily expectantly forms butterflies in Emily’s stomach.

“What do you think?” Juliana asks, waking Emily from her stupor.

“I think you look beautiful,” Emily responds, offering Juliana her arm.

“Aww, thanks Emi. You look very pretty too,” Juliana says with a dazzling smile while wrapping herself around Emily’s offered arm.

“At least I feel like I could move around properly in this,” Emily mumbles with a light blush.

“No fighting tonight! However, if it’s moving to dance, I’ll allow it.”

Emily scoffs, pulling Juliana towards the transportation room to begin their trip out of The Dome.

“I’ll try my best.”