Reaching Salvation: Post-Acer

"Still one for childish dramatics, I see," Oliver spoke coolly and clearly. He had never been afraid of Nathan or his power or the potential that Shima had supposedly seen in this boy. "I thought you'd like to know that Lillian's forces are coming,"

"And by that he means right now. As in the next the twenty four hours," Eithne chipped in, still glaring at Oliver. He decided to stick around and see how this all played out, sticking his hands into his pocket he wanted for Nathan's next move.

Heidi sighed at the burst of Flow, running her hand down her face. What was taking so long? She'd feel better if Simon and Benji were put of the way.

---

Kira shifted uneasily at the burst of Nathan's Flow. "What do you suppose that was about?" she asked hesitantly.

"Maybe... maybe it's like back in the day, when he first began to lose control of that Flow," Luke suggested carefully, not particularly wanting to remind them of that period of time.

Nathan's jet black eyes were focused on Oliver, the man had chosen to not to follow him after Shima's death. Not that Nathan had cared even when he'd first joined the side he'd never liked Oliver overly much. To Nathan it had felt like he wasn't as helpful with the training as he could have been.

He jumped to the floor below and looked both men up and down, his eyes glistening a red colour and then spinning around in his eyes. With folded his arms he thought over his plan.

"How do you know this," he asked shortly. His eyes were focused on the electric blue haired man. He would have to move the teleportation forward immediately and both himself and Tom would have to create the mountain fortress quickly. After that then they'd need to begin setting up almost immediately.

Kira frowned, looking over at Luke. "Maybe we should...m-make sure he's okay..." she suggested hesitantly, before shaking her head. "Although...maybe i-if he's like this...no..."

"The girl," Oliver spoke, face passive, quite relaxed and at ease despite himself. From what he'd heard Tabaris had devastated the boy, and if he couldn't stand up to Tabaris odds were he couldn't take him either. He might not have been able to beat Tabaris during their days in the original Acer Tournament, but if they fought now Oliver would crush him with everything he had.

"The injured girl I brought with me," he added after a moment, nodding his head towards Eithne for confirmation that he spoke the truth.

"He did have a pretty badly beat girl with him, yeah," Eithne nodded, "can't been any older than sixteen or so, by the looks of her."

"She was acting as an informant for me, updating me on Lillian's activities." Oliver cut in before Eithne might say anymore. "Tell me, Nathan, just how do you trust everyone in this camp...?" He trailed off, leaving if for the other two to pick up on the implication of his words.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, what Oliver was hinting at was a pretty huge accusation. He narrowed his eyes and frowned at Oliver.

"You think that there's a spy?" It was rhetorical, more of an acceptance of Oliver's point that anything. He flashed a look in Eithne's direction before turning and centering his gaze back onto the older adult. An interesting question to pip any other thoughts to the forefront of Nathan's mind.

"Will you be fighting with us?"

Luke frowned. He supposed it was probably best if he just manned up and went to his old team-mate. He didn't want to wuss out on him, after all.

"Maybe that's not such a bad idea..."

-------

Tom kept himself underground near enough, wanting to interrupt their conversation when he felt he had no place. There wasn't any real point in revealing himself, anyway. Better to listen and learn.

Kira bit her lip, letting go of Luke's hand and standing up. A vine retrieved her jacket and she quickly pulled it over her shoulders. It wasn't like it was cold out at this time of year, but she was feeling quite nervous.

"I know there's a spy in your ranks," Oliver confirmed without missing a beat. Meanwhile Eithne nodded, having got what the blue haired man was hinting at too. He and Nathan would probably have to look into this right away.

"And yes, I will be fighting with you," Oliver confirmed, folding his arms over his chest, "Lillian wants me dead just as much as she wants all of you dead, too. It makes sense that we come together to face a common foe. We few, we happy few."

"Band of buggered is more like it," Eithne muttered with a role of his eyes, shaking his head. He'd picked up on Paul's presence a while back, his signature being one of the first he ever learn to recognize, he could find the other man easily nowadays, even if he was lurking underground. He decided to keep the fact Tom was listening to himself, seeing no reason that the Irishman shouldn't know what they were discussing, there were supposed to be a community, after all, they made decisions together.

Nathan pinched the bridge of his nose, he let out a sigh and then looked at the two men before him. "Once we've got those who can't fight out of the village we'll work on the spy." He glanced at them before looking pointedly at the ground and using his Telepathy.

"You going to come out any time soon, Tom?" He sent the message directly to Tom's mind. Nathan knew the feel of every single person in the Acer Villages flow. But with people like Tom, Luke and Eithne he could sense them even easier and could even sense them when they were trying to suppress.

"What if the spy skips out with those leaving town," Eithne frowned, thinking about what could happen if the spy managed to leave with the evacuating group. They'd lead Lillian straight to them. "It's to much of a risk, we gotta find the spy first."

"Eithne's right, the spy could easily just leave with the group leaving and we'd have no clue as to who it is. No, I'd say you should go tell Ryker to call a halt to your plan. Too risky to let them leave so soon. That said, we have to make a call whether to hope we can check them and get them away in time, or whether we should work on getting them someplace safe to weather the storm," Tom offered, suddenly walking out of the rock since he'd been invited. "I really don't know how close they are."

Paul briefed his people on what was going on, trying his best to not panic them and gt things going. They'd leaned and grease all of the guns and make sure everything was functional before gearing up. Luckily they hadn't began to take apart the walker, so it would still function as their main tank weapon, it's large Flow repel-ant shields would be taking a beating and Paul didn't expect them to last the entire fight. One of the MGs was stripped from the top turret, making it so only one person was required to man it. The main gun would consist of three people, the loader, the spotter, and the driver. it would seem like a waste of man power to most people, but the main gun combined with the machine gun turret would devastate almost anything in its path. Paul wished they had one of the heavier .50 cals from the base they found a couple years back, but there was no such luck here.

"I would assume that Lillian's force will arrive some time late this evening, possibly in the early hours of the morning. Either you will no doubt have to fight during the night - you must be prepared before nightfall." Oliver spoke, whilst he knew they might not personally listen to him, they'd listen to the facts of the matter at had.

"If that's the case maybe we should delay the evacuation, like Irish suggested," Eithne began, trying to throw something together. "And we split into two teams, half of us work on the make some sort of defense or whatever whilst we get a few select to locate our spy. We can't really afford to do one or the other first, we gotta do both and we gotta do 'em now."

Nathan rolled his eyes before looking around the area. "We won't need to split up yet, if we head to the teleportation point now I can mind read those who we are sending away. If there's any form of block or they're trying to hide thoughts I'll be able to tell." He stated.

His shadow moved slightly as he paced. "Once Ryker has taken them all and they're gone, Eithne can lead the search for the spy." This is where he turned his attention to Tom.

"Whilst he's doing that, it'll be time for you to touch the gem and create the battlefield." His look gave nothing away to Eithne or Oliver but he also had other business with Tom.

"And if they're coming in the dark, then that only works in our favour." He muttered, his eyes flashing fully black briefly.

"I think I know exactly where to start," Eithne nodded his head, sticking his hands into his pockets. Or at least he'd know what he'd do if he was the spy given the events of the past few days. "Now lets get on with this, the sooner we clear the folks ready to leave the sooner they can get to safety."

Luke rolled himself to his feet, his shirt hanging loosely off his shoulders. His frame had become a lot skinnier those days, so his clothes hung off his, though he'd used one of his steel cables as a belt for his jeans. He also had to be wary not to incinerate his shirt when he used his Flow, so he usually removed it before he trained.

-----

"Toss me the gem then," Tom replied stoically, wary around Oliver despite the man's offer of help. Just because he was an ally didn't mean Tom had to trust him, and Tom trusted very few people wholly. Not even Nathan, though he considered the guy a friend.

A small frown creased Kira's face as she reached out with her Flow, pinpointing Nathan's location. "Uh...this way," she mumbled a bit anxiously, stepping off the roof in the direction of Nathan's Flow and catching herself on a vine and landing on the ground safely, looking back up at Luke. A vine pushed up near him as an offer of help, though Kira wasn't sure if he needed it anymore.

Luke took the vine gratefully, landing gently in the ground and looking at where Kira pointed. Yeah, that felt about right to him. He was much better at finding Nathan's Flow than anyone else's except for Kira. He had made an effort to get to know what his two team-mates' Flows had felt like.

He had liked to consider himself a team player when it came to it, though looking back he knew their team had been quite dysfunctional. He couldn't help but wonder how they would have done if things stayed normal. What did it take to win the tournament, anyway?

Getting no negative response from Luke, Kira stepped ahead, walking towards Nathan's Flow. She really hoped Nathan was okay. After all, Luke had only recently gotten his Flow back under control, and now Nathan was losing his instead? Part of her was worried that if he did lose control again, he'd fulfill his promise to kill her.

"I'm sure he's just working out the kinks of his Flow for the fight," Luke muttered as he hastened to follow Kira. He wasn't entirely sure who he was trying to reassure.

Kira looked back at Luke, pausing and grasping his hand. "Y-Yeah," she agreed, biting her lip. "That w-would make sense."

"Yeah, glad we're in agreement," Luke replied a bit more confidently, taking her hand gladly as they made their way towards Nathan.

Kira smiled as they stepped outside the forest. "I'm sure that when we talk to him, he'll give us the same answer."