The second shot arced through the the air, the artifact sputtering with light as the air rushed past. István had reloaded the third, but held off to see the effect of the first two.

The first fell short, hitting the ground in what was a much larger explosion than I'd been expecting, throwing up a column of debris that the incoming vehicles had to maneuver around. As they did, though, I realized that they didn't move like any vehicles I'd ever seen. Instead they flowed over the broken terrain in a disturbingly organic manner. As they got closer however, I realized why this was.

It was a bunch of car sized beetles.

They had shiny black exteriors and very rounded features, as well as the expected six legs. They resembled a bug I would expect to find out here, only massive. There were other changes that became apparent as they grew closer - they had shining pathways in the gaps between the shell, the soft parts where the legs emerged. The patterns reminded me of István's gun. Speaking of which…

He'd reloaded it again and this time propped it up on the tailgate of the nearest truck. I'd finally pulled my head out of my ass - maybe I was using it for earmuffs - and instead dug out the hearing protection I always brought to these extractions. I was now using that, so I didn't have to preoccupy my hands when István pulled the trigger and sent a third Artifact what I was considering 'down range' at this point.

One of the beetle-things had held up in the back, raising up its tail and pointing it at us. István saw it roughly the same time I had, and we both hit the deck as a searing beam erupted out of it, aimed directly where we had been. It crackled through the air, slicing through the trucks like butter as the beetle's torso swept it across our cover.

Then there was a muffled bang and it cut off.

We peaked out, the strong smell of burnt materials and hot metal in the air all around us. A giant stone spike was sticking out of the beetle, effectively pinning it in place. Spinning my head around, I looked back, and sure enough there was Viktor, an accomplished look on his face and dense, hot redness pouring out of his arms. He caught me looking and gave me a big thumbs up.

"I returned it to them!" he said, proudly. I realized he had meant the opening salvo in this confrontation, the spike they'd originally shot him with… err at him, rather. It was now pretty apparent he'd somehow caught the damn thing and hurled it back. Seriously, what were those arms even made out of?!

Glad he was on our side. Turning back to what was now a battle, I noticed several more Artifact 'bloop' rounds going towards the enemy as different people on our side started opening fire. The styles of each were different, which I imagined stemmed from every person having a different Mote. I'd kind of figured out that the 'bloop' gun rounds that István were using were propelled by his steam.

To my right, rapid yet oddly silent bursts of tiny objects when hurtling into a beetle, wrecking shop on the eyes and antenna, but doing very little to the actual carapace. Even so, I could tell the hits had an impact, as that beetle was quickly heading for cover.

The other fire didn't seem to be 'enhanced' by unprocessed artifacts the same way István's was, meaning that these other people were using their own Nebula directly for the damage.

I was still confused where the rock sphere had come from when a second beetle raised up head. The jaws on this one worked furiously as etchings across its face lit up. The rock around it began to break apart before swirling into the air, forming a growing spike just like the one from earlier.

At least it would have, if István hadn't popped it directly in the face with his next shot, blowing off at least half of the head. The symbols and lines all over it sputtered out as it fell the to ground.

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István pumped an arm as I looked over at him, clearly happy with his shot. He looked at me.

"I love practical applications of science," he said, gleefully pumping another artifact into the breach of his overpowered grenade launcher.

I nodded, before looking closer at the launcher itself. "Hey, your sigils or whatever are smoking." And it was true, there was a layer of particles continuously being emitted from the bright grey lines all through his weapon.

"Oh," he said, examining it. "That is normal. My Mote is steam, remember?" I nodded, and he pointed at at a few places on it, seeming eager to explain his creation even as return fire from the other side wizzed over us. "These are seals - the individual components are sigils. I can teach you how to make one some other time. For now, just concentrate on using some artifacts." He pointed at a backpack I hadn't noticed, sitting by the rear wheel on our side. "We have plenty, so make sure to get some practice in."

Between his nonchalant attitude, and how he seemed more interested in seeing me fight than, you know, worrying about not dying and all that, It appeared this science puppy was not only well trained but had some teeth to him. I could add him to the list of things I was currently happy were on my side, with Viktor's arms and the rest of the men in the line to my right.

I fumbled a pocket open, having some pretty serious adrenaline from all the projectiles that were now flying around, and pulled out an Artifact, looking down at it. The Mote inside was a brown color and gave me the feel of rich soil, so it was probably Earth aligned. I held it in front of me, before peaking over the top of a CU that István had flipped over to use as a prop. There were some singe marks on it from where he had fired. The blinking battery light stared me in the face with a [3], but obviously that didn't matter without any Artifact in it to stabilize.

It was only as I attempted to move my Nebula that I realized it was sluggish an unresponsive, a side effect from my two Streams being silent, their Eddies empty. I quickly started them circulating as I brought the Nebula rushing out of my fingertips, driving it into a shape similar to the large stone spike Viktor was playing dodgeball with earlier.

The Nebula complied easily, jumping into the shape, which I then tried to spin. A rather large stone from a nearby explosion pinged up into the bulwark we'd built for ourselves and I let go of my 'projectile' early, both giving it far too much rotation and too little forward momentum as I ducked for cover. The artifact in my hands shattered instantly as the Nebula I was containing it in went wild.

Like a lazy bird, the abortive attempt I'd made at contributing drifted away from us, whereupon I realized something else. Soil was not rock, and neither was an Earth aligned Artifact the same as a Stone aligned Artifact.

Which clod of dirt in question promptly proved by losing all cohesion and flying apart just past the line of trucks, sending chunks of the dirt flying in a spray across the landscape, doing pretty much nothing.

Well, not quite nothing, since István was laughing at it.

"There is something I have not seen before," he said, handing me another Artifact. "Try again."

I'm pretty sure the heat from my face alone could have done more damage to the enemy than my 'dirty' bomb had, so I quickly grabbed a the proffered Artifact. This one was yellow, and felt warm to the touch. It was a different kind of warm than Fire, though, which I knew to be red, anyway.

The warmth had a gentleness to it. It reminded me of laying outside on a sunny day.

Ah. It was "Light".

When I realized that I was reminded of the attack the beetle had made that melted into our cover. I wondered if I could reproduce something like that myself. Obviously on a smaller scale, since I didn't have the assistance of the "seal" or whatnot that was apparently etched into all these weapons.

Peaking up over the container, I realized that István had stopped his fire to watch what I was doing instead. Did that mean the battle was winding down?

I saw a few of the beetles damaged out on the field, and a couple of them in heaps, not moving. There were still five alive…

A huge column of dust exploded up as Viktor launched himself into the top of one of the beetles, cackling like a wild man.

So there were four alive. One of them had clearly spotted us, and was walking in our direction. I braced the Artifact in my hand with Nebula and took aim, pumping my power into it as I did so, the Stream working full time to carry it from my core, and the Eddies in my hands swirling in my vision.

Bright seams formed on the Artifact, and István's puppy face fell.

"Get rid of it, now!" He shouted at me, "It is not stable!"

I pushed it away from myself, using all the Nebula at my disposal. Turns out this wasn't quite the right answer as the amount and brightness of the seams increased manyfold.

A shove was a shove, however, and it did move away from us. That said, it only got a little farther than the previous clod of dirt before it came apart.

A blinding flash filled my vision.

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