"Move those batteries!" Cera bellowed, lugging two large crystals, each nearly as large as her, towards a device made of vegetation, crystal, and magical gold. The shield generators were hungry beasts, requiring constant power. Around her blazed the golds, purples, and scarlets of the sunset, the half-circle of her caste shining from her brow. The all too mortal crew shoved and pulled a flatbed of the power crystals to the machine.
    The world shuddered, knocking the crystals, the crew, and Cera to the floor.
    The damage report was quick. "Northeast shields down." That was their generator. Cera saw the damage.
    Then- "The city has been breached. Prepare for battle." The defense coordinator's voice was calm, clipped, and efficient over the communication system. A monument to the dispassionate Clarity of the Alchemical Exalted. The air in the city grew palpably thick as demons, mortals, and essence-users unleashed their weaponry and magic.
    Cera took a deep breath as she stood. "MOVE." The command jolted the crew into action as everybody scrambled to get the batteries hooked up. The Exalt rushed over to assess the damage, noting that the projection lense was cracked. As she frantically worked to fix the lense with nothing more than her hands, a wall burst into the generator room. The terrible roars of horned crimson-furred apes twice the size of a man emerging from the gap.
    Cera did her best to ignore the dying screams of her crew, tears stinging the myriad scratches on her cheeks, repairing the lense with a final tap of a finger. The familiar whine of the generator kicked on. With the shield back up Cera turned to the cadre of erymanthoi, the blood apes. Rage welled up in her as she witnessed the beasts eating their kills. She willed an intricate white and gold armor and immense black-edged blade shimmering into existence from elsewhere. A phantasmal lion appeared in the sunset aura and roared alongside Cera as she charged forward and swung.

    Syd blinked and rubbed his eyes as he woke in his bunk. He reflected on the past life the dream had shown him, knowing that she had died when The Principle of Hierarchy had deigned to destroy Rathess personally. He regretted that he only saw bits and pieces of his past exaltations; he burned to know them better than what the histories and records told him. He rubbed his face, shaking off the vestiges of the intense emotions the memory had dredged up.