"MENTALITY -- GET OVER HERE!" he shouted.

  A still echo of his scream pierced the battleground bringing every violent motion to a stop. His friends, blood cascading down their bodies and clothes, looked to him similarly to Mentality. With surprise. And fear.

  He felt angry, but that was the least of it. His voice had grown with his rage. When he yelled, it was less the shriek of a boy and more of that of a man. A battle-hardened man ready for everything to be over with and prepared to put it all on the line.

  He expected Mentality to charge him -- like last time and use his strange levitating powers to his advantage. Little would Mentality know, though, he had been preparing for just such an encounter and so had been busy preparing counters in his mind.

  Mentality never did charge him. He only said, "So, there you are... good to know."

  A spiff in his air intake. Perhaps the surprise of the response. He didn't know how to respond to a reply so... unusual, so he tightened his grip. He readied himself and his sword for Mentality's surprise attack.

  But it never came.

  Mentality only continued to look at him. While Mentality stared at him, he flicked his wrist. The automotrons continued their advance once more and the fighting resumed, except, without Mentality, as he took off at a blinding speed into the woods.

  "Hold on, guys! I am going after Mentality!" he shouted to his friends.

  "Zan -- don't!" Jiehong yelled.

  Whiskey joined in and said, "It's a trap!"

  He wanted to say, 'maybe it is but who cares! I need to end this!' but he didn't say. Though he did tentatively move into the direction Mentality fled. Seeing how beyond a stretch of foliage an automotron force many times the size of what now attacked Guygale laid in waiting, he thought better of himself. He watched Mentality run thinking 'if only I could catch him before he made it back to that group! Then I could end this, and he could be a prisoner of war! Maybe even be a pawn in ending the war?' He knew there was no way for him to catch Mentality which didn't also put himself or his teammates in danger. He could use his Power Bike, sure, but peddling under his own power while tired from fighting wasn't exactly a winning combination. He had no magic, so imbuing it with energy was a no-go, too. All options considered, he turned back to his teammates and joined them in battle.

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  Grunting and cursing, yet another automotron fell before him. He pulled his sword and cut down the automotron to his right, then left, each fell beast needing only a couple of mercy slices before fully decommissioned. He dodged a red-painted golems powered-fists and brought his sword clean through its pathetic legs, cutting them instantly. Without support, its body fell and crashed into several automotrons behind it. And so, the battle went.

  With a lull in the battle, he pulled his seeing lens out for a gander. He saw, barely, Mentality in the distance surrounded by his horde. He was far away now. 'Where was his camp?' he wondered.

  He could not wonder for long, unfortunately, as he knew another battle was at hand, another--

  Turning himself to the fight to be had, he saw instead a fight's end.

  The automotrons who had been charging them a moment ago now turned tail and fled. Back to Mentality, he reckoned.

  Limping, he turned to his friends. Although he wanted to ask a hundred questions about camp and their status post-battle, instead, what came from his mouth was, "Are you guys... What the feck... shet!"

  "So, tell me what happened," he asked his team once the dust cleared.

  "Well..." Whiskey said as everyone collapsed on the ground near the remains of their campfire. "Not much to tell. We were making good progress on getting the land ready for planting. Lots of good banter between the workers and us. Hard work but... sorry, we were working. Then, suddenly, people were screaming. Jiehong and I grabbed our gear and yeah, you know the rest."

  Jiehong nodded along. At the end, he gasped as he glugged water from a pail. "Yeah, pretty much," he said, drinking copiously while trying to catch his breath, too.

  "I'm glad I was back in time. I would tell you about my time back at the command center, but we should check on the villagers and see if they're unharmed. Unlikely, I am afraid..." he told his Order friends.

  The group departed for Guygale on bikes. A very short journey later, they were at the village's center.

  Around them, nothing remained standing which wasn't at least partially damaged. Of the humble buildings in the settlement, several were totally destroyed. Several others were so damaged, they might as well as been obliterated. Cries of pain echoed everywhere. Healers went into action.

  From the wreckage, the Mayor, Strong-Arm, and his assistant, Soft Belly, were pulled dirty, but otherwise unharmed.

  Accusations of sabotage and disloyalty began not long after.