Tomás, after using the last of his energy to strengthen one last shot and ending up exploding his right hand, watched as Olivia and Silva finished up the remaining Goblins with extreme prejudice. Some fell with charred bodies, others with chests ridden with holes, but all of them fell the same. That brought joy to his mind, so he was ready to take the one-way ticket to whatever place he was going to.

  Silva got another plan, though. Ordering Olivia to go fetch Tomás’ kit, the Corporal watched as Silva called for medical evacuation over the radio, which got answered fairly quickly. 'Sarge's name is Arturo?', thought Tomás, the mundane fact being all that his very hazy mind focused in all of this. Stating his lack of medical expertise, Silva requested help over the radio to stabilize the Corporal's wounds.

  'Too much broken bones, Sarge, there's nothing to be done for me anymore.' Tomás thought, personally knowing how dire his situation was. His lungs were collapsed, with his ribcage in a sorry state. Tomás genuinely wondered why he was still alive.

  It was then that Tomás saw her, the most beautiful sight he ever saw. Initially, he thought he was an angel coming to pick him up and send him to the afterlife, but when she started talking with Silva, he knew she was between the living. Tomás was in awe towards the woman, with her silver hair and golden eyes, and he wondered why nobody wasn't staring at her just for her looks alone.

  The woman presented herself as Silvia. 'Silvia? Just like your hair?' Tomás wanted to say, but his weakened lungs didn't allow him to. She quickly got herself working, injecting the soldier with anesthetics and anticoagulants, but Tomás noticed what she was doing hidden between all of this: she was moving her Presence over to his body, using the energy to close his more urgent internal wounds. While doing all of this, she also used his open wound to expel some kind of black sludge form Tomás' Presence, and, when she concluded the process, he noticed a rapid recovery of his body's Aura.

  Because of the stealthiness of the process, or due to the fact that she would not be able to explain the sudden recovery of a critical patient, Silvia wasn't healing all of his wounds, Tomás noticed, but the relief was immediate, with all of his internal bleeding stopping. 'I was right, she is really an angel.', Tomás thought, still too wounded to talk.

  After the woman moved his broken members to a more comfortable position, a process that, even with the anesthetic, Tomás felt excruciating pain, and covered him with his kit's emergency blanket, she said something that Tomás couldn't understand, perhaps also because of the effects of the anesthetics. Silva nodded to it, what prompted Silvia to get really close to Tomás' face, saying "Tomás, I need you to stay with us, can you do that?"

  'That's easy enough.', thought Tomás, nodding very slightly.

  "Good. My name is Silvia and I will be taking care of you until the rescue arrives.", she said, tucking the blanket more carefully over his body, all the while sending more waves of her Presence through his body, increasing his recovery and his alleviation by the second.

  Tomás looked up, finally noticing the rain falling, the cold water from the raindrops washing his face. He drank some of the water, even though he knew it would be very dirty. When the water hit his throat, he noticed how dry it was, slightly satiating his thirst. 'Dehydration by blood loss.', Tomás thought.

  With nothing more to do, and with the group civilians getting close to their position, the group waited for the Army helicopter. Silva was hailed in the radio, and, after responding used his emergency flare to lit a safe landing for the helicopter. After some unending two minutes of waiting for Tomás, the helicopter appeared on his field of vision, a huge HM-4 Jaguar. As the helicopter began its descent, the spinning rotors sent raindrops crashing in all directions, and raised small debris away from the machine's motor. The doors slid open, revealing the flight engineer and the medical team already getting out of the helicopter with their heads low and with the litter between them. The flight engineer started embarking the other seven civilians while the medical team busied themselves with getting close to Tomás. One of the medics got down next to Silvia and spoke something to her, who promptly responded, causing the medic to raise the emergency blanket to take a look on Tomás' condition. His face was not hopeful.

  Tomás couldn't hear a single thing over sound of the helicopter, so he tried to guess what they were saying by a very crude lip reading. It was something about 'his condition is too critical', 'he might not survive transportation' and Silvia responding with 'he'll live'. The medic, begrudgingly, ordered his team to hoist the wounded soldier to the litter, rapidly carrying him to the helicopter. The flight engineer then secured Tomás inside the cargo hold and the medic started producing a intravenous access in his right arm, quickly administering a bag of physiological serum from Tomás' own kit.

  Tomás noticed the kids that came with the civilian group, their very frightened faces looking to the wounded soldier with wary eyes. The soldier, very faintly, smiled and waved his somewhat good right hand at them, prompting the medic to snatch it and secure Tomás in the litter. Using the helicopter medical oxygen supply, the medic also put a breathing mask over his face, easing Tomás' breathing tenfold.

  The last one to get on the helicopter was Silva, who covered the surroundings of the school's front yard while the group got on. Pulled inside by Gustavo and the flight engineer, the Sergeant hopped on, and the doors were closed.

  By this time, Tomás' body had already become to numb for him to be awake, so he simply fell on a deep slumber.

  When the group landed on the Provisional Base, located in a repurposed Police Department, Tomás was taken to the field hospital for surgery, and, each time a new medic examined him, the verdict was always the same: 'He will not survive surgery. We can't waste resources on him.' But, with much of Silva’s insistence, and threats, they performed surgery anyways.

  The civilians were taken for evaluation on the field hospital too, with Silvia quickly being drafted to work as a nurse because of her apparent medical expertise. They turned out to be unharmed, just with extreme shock from the experience.

  The problem was the fact that Silva, Gustavo and Olivia were taken forcefully for questioning. Dragged around by a group of soldiers, the trio came face to face to the Provisional Base current ranking officer, the same Major that talked to Tomás on the way to the battle outside the school.

  Inside one of the Police Department many holding cells, an interrogatory was about to start. The room, lit by the ceiling and open wide except by metal bars from around every side, was very small, with Silva, Gustavo and Olivia sitting on one side of a simple steel table while the enigmatic Major sat across them, with papers in front of him. His features were hidden by the half-light , with the only thing clearly seen being his uniform and his bony hands.

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  "Arturo Silva, Sergeant, XX° Infantry Battalion. Correct?", asked the officer.

  "Sir, if you let me explain-", tried Silva.

  "Your. Name. Sergeant. Is it Arturo Silva?", asked the officer, with a very cold tone.

  "Sir, yes, sir. Like I said, if you let me explain-", tried Silva again.

  "The chance will be given, Sergeant. Now, if you allow me,", he said, turning to Gustavo. "Gustavo Costa, Private, XX° Infantry Battalion?"

  "Sir, yes, sir.", said Gustavo in a very defeated tone. He still had dried blood on his face from his reckless consumption of Mana, the marks of the blood tears like rivers down his eyes and nose.

  “Good. Olivia Pereira, provisionally a Private, XX° Infantry Battalion?”, the Major said.

  “That’s my name, yes. But I’m’ not sure about the Private part, I guess? Not really vibing with that.”, said Olivia, to Silva desperation.

  “I am not going to repeat my question, Private. Yes, or no?”, the officer said, the same cold tone from before.

  “But I already answered you.”, retorted Olivia. Silva was beginning to fear for her.

  The officer turned to the girl, an ice coldness in his eyes. “Listen here, you bag of shit, when I give you a yes or no question, you answer me with ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Must I remind you the very reason that you were drafted in this man’s army? We are at an emergency, which grants me emergency powers that I can use to my discretion. I can, and will, order your execution if you disobey or disrespect me again, considering the potential treason you four committed, as well as your status as living, unstable weapons.”

  The officer paused for a moment, studying Olivia’s face. “Did I make myself clear?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”, said Olivia, with her head lowered, but Silva and Gustavo answered the same too, for good measure.

  “Good. Your name, do you confirm?”, asked the Officer.

  “Sir, yes, sir.”, said the girl.

  “Good. Let’s keep it simple and summarize things, so simply say yes or no when I question you. Any additional information you will only give if I request. Sergeant, your unit was a splinter unit from a dispatchment sent to kill Land Drakes in Paraisópolis?”

  “Yes.”, said Silva.

  “Were you able to eliminate the threat?”

  “Yes.”

  “Any casualties?”

  “Yes, Corporal Jonas Ferreira died, and sixteen members of our unit deserted before the encounter with the Drake.”

  “Okay. Quickly after, you encountered resistance from another monsters? What kind? How many?”

  “Yes, Goblins. They were in about fifty or so.”

  “And I am to believe that just four soldiers defeated all of them?”

  “Yes, sir. No offence, sir”

  “Describe the fight.”

  Silva did a rundown on their first encounter with the Goblins, what they used to kill the monsters, their tactics, the monsters’ strengths, describing also the fact that Tomás used a axe to kill the monsters due to the lack of ammunition, and omitting the fact that he got wounded and the way Tomás treated him with the Drake’s blood.

  “Right. After that, you, not being able to contact this base, stopped to rest. Corporal Tomás described that he discovered something called ‘Presence’ and ‘Aura’ during the rest. Describe the process, just like he did on the radio earlier.”

  Silva described and demonstrated the process of Concentration, accumulation of Presence and strengthening of the body and weapons with Aura. He, showing off the effects of strengthening, stood up, walked to the bars of the cell he was being kept, and twisted the metal without effort.

  If the Major realized that Silva could kill him at any given moment, he didn’t let it transpire. Silva didn’t know the man sitting before him, as the Army Base commander when he left the base was not him, so, with suspicion and fear, he wondered what kind of person he was. Silva noticed the lack of a name tag on his uniform, making him sure that this was no ordinary army officer, and, on top of that, a Major was not the normal rank of an army base ranking officer. Something happened while they were away.

  Wondering if the man had some kind of countermeasure or a lack of fear of death, or both, Silva sat back down on his chair.

  “Impressive. Do you think I can pull it off?”, said the Major.

  “I don’t see a reason why you shouldn’t.”, said Silva.

  The officer closed his eyes and focused. Silva and the other two looked at each other, studying each other’s faces, no one saying a thing. The man opened his eyes again, standing up. Attempting the same thing that Silva did, he walked to the metal bars and attempted to twist them. He was not able to.

  “Care to explain?”, said the Officer said to Silva. The Sergeant was at a loss of words.

  “It’s probably the fact that you can use Mana, sir.”, said Gustavo.

  “Elaborate.”

  Gustavo explained the theory behind his and Olivia’s Magic, carefully explaining the way he could manipulate and control the Mana inside and outside his body. Gustavo also explained the affinities he and Olivia had, making sure the Major understood the fact before attempting to use it. Olivia watched as the Officer concentrated again, this time expelling Mana from his body, gathering the Presence from the air around them, and finally creating a breeze inside the tiny room. The breeze quickly picked up pace, turning itself in a small tornado. Olivia froze, noticing the air scaping her lungs.

  “It appears that my affinity is wind or air.”, the Officer said, watching his newfound power spin around the place. “I didn’t you reported it before, Sergeant?”

  Beginning to have a hard time breathing, Silva, Olivia and Gustavo gasped for air. “We… didn’t have… confirmation… sir.”, he finally was able to say.

  The breeze subsided, the man finally siting down on the chair again.

  “Again, elaborate.”, he simply said.

  Silva breathed hard, looking to regain his lost air. He realized in how much danger they were now, with the man being able to simply suck the air out of their lungs. Finally stabilizing his breathing, he said “We didn’t have confirmation the Magic would work as well as the Aura did, so we made a field test of these two abilities.”

  “So, you made a field test of an ability that require extra levels of concentration in a live combat situation? I don’t find that reasonable, Sergeant.”, said the Major. “Admit it, you knew about it even before contacting me about the body strengthening. Corporal Tomás lied by omission. What else you are not telling me?”

  Without making a slip, Silva said “You’re right, sir, we omitted the knowledge about the Magic from you, but we never lied. Besides, just the story about Aura and Presence was very far-fetched, don’t you agree? How could we hope to convince you of even more fairy tales?”

  “There’s logic in what you say, but you are still keeping something from me. You still hide something.”, the Officer said.

  “Absolutely not, sir.”, said Silva.

  “Okay, that’s enough. For now.”, the Major said. ”You three, just like I said before, will teach this technique to every soldier in this base, but, before, you will rest. I want you to be an asset to this base since you three proved so reliable at destroying those monsters, so I will let you on something only I know."

  The Major was interrupted by Olivia raising her hand, like a child in a classroom. "Yes?"

  "So, are we okay in your book?", she said.

  "Like I said, for now. You returned to this base, right? And are willing to share knowledge? That's the kind of people I need right now. If Corporal Tomás come back from the dead..."

  "He will, sir, you can count on that.", said Gustavo.

  Looking the Private right in the eye, the Major continued "...I want you four on the field as soon as possible. There's a lack of trained and qualified personnel that I want you compensating. Now, I need discretion of you, can I count on you not telling anyone on this base about what I am about to tell you?"

  The three looked at each other. There was something inside the eyes of every one of them that told the others that listening to and trusting in this cold and ruthless Army Officer was the right thing to do. They finally nodded and turned to the man, with Silva saying "Yes, sir, you can count on us."

  "Good. My name is Marcus Fran?a, and I am a Communication Officer. My real occupation in the army is a secret, but know that I am loyal to this country and its people. The reason for me being the ranking officer in this base is because there's is no one with higher rank left in the entire state, but that can be deduced by anyone. The reason for that is that Army Command is no more, and I am keeping this information from the personal of this base because we have a huge problem in our hands: the monsters you call 'Goblins' are mounting an army to destroy this city in an all-out war, and we are losing said war."

  Not being able to absorb the first news, Silva, Gustavo and Olivia stood there, open mouthed, not believing what they just heard.