55 – Children thrust Into the Sky 13 The Sa·B·er in red. To Elliot he was a mystery. A curiosity and a backwards cursory glance. Yet countless people seemed to know who he was. Link’s father. Cliff. Clover. The Bishop. Balgun. He was well known yet a total mystery. A ghost or old wives’ tale made real. He was a boogey man made to send children quietly to bed or to make them stop asking questions. But Elliot felt like no small child anymore. He had at age twelve faced bandits in combat and killed his first human being. He had from age seven helped raise one of his closest friends and taught her as though she were a babe growing up. He had received countless hours of training in sword and gunplay, Dolmen piloting, and general combat awareness and had long sense tested the limits of his abilities. Humans, monsters, Ambrosial beasts. They were all blood on his hands and none killed without intent. But he was not just a warrior or simple murderer. He resisted the infection of a Foreig

54 – Children thrust Into the Sky 12 “Elliot! No!” Approaching a massive wall with smoking heaps of rubble atop it, Link cried out as she saw the remnants of Elliot’s bronze hued saber blasted across the scorched ground. Melody was as appalled as Link and ignored the instructions given to her by Link’s mermaid double. Instead she dove down towards what remained of the Dolmen’s torso. Setting Link down before she arrived she reached it first due to still being airborne and tore with all of her might at the metal heap. She was soon joined by Link who desperately tried to find any openings she could into the cockpit. “We shouldn’t panic ~♪ The Nectar trail feeding the colossus outside is still coming from deeper yet ~♪” “It is ⁈ ” Springing back to her feet Link found her Mermaid double and took its hands in her own as best she could. Turning her massive eyes onto the mermaid desperate to have it reaffirm that Elliot was still alive she managed to startle her double.

53 – Children thrust Into the Sky 11 For Link and Melody, the battles that Elliot and the other Dolmen pilots of Foothold fought assured them a clear passage into the Foreigner city. Those battles were far from easy however and Elliot ached all over and could not steady or calm his breathing within the cockpit of his Dolmen. He couldn’t even keep track of how many pilot’s death screams he heard across the communication systems of the Dolmen. Matters only grew worse as radio communication stopped functioning the closer they got to the center of the city and only local communication using the Dolmen’s external speakers became the only way to communicate. Using the external speakers was fairly inconsequential surprisingly though it soon became apparent to the survivors that managed to group up that the Foreigner beasts were being drawn by the Artificial Gate Generators of the Dolmens. - Blast it all. Even with total radio silence they can still find us. We can’t abandon the Dolm

52 – Children thrust Into the Sky 10 “You’re still upset with me aren’t you, Melody? I don’t know why though, I apologized didn’t I?” “It’s not just that Link ~ ♪ It’s also your uniform compared to mine ~ ♪ My whole outfit changed while you simply got a jacket ~ ♪ ” With Link hanging from her talon Melody gladly complained about the differences in their Choir uniforms. Whether Link’s uniform could be called such was a different matter entirely as it was little more than a long sleeve bolero of cream color in the fashion of a blazer that couldn’t close. Link seemed less bothered by the whole ordeal than Melody however and discussed the matter with a detached air. “Well it’s not like Balgun didn’t explain the spell before we left so you can always change it back to your normal leotard. And I bet mine is more distracting anyway since the Beast wants to eat it and I haven’t managed to convince it not to yet so keeping it in check is so much trouble.” “The beast ate