Shadow Slave

Sunny remained motionless for a while, until eventually there was a sound of footsteps approaching him. Turning around, he looked at Sergeant Gere with a blank expression.

The soldier tensed, habitually expecting dreadful news.

"...What? What's in there?"

Sunny lingered for a bit, then simply shook his head.

"Order the convoy to drive inside. You'll see soon enough."

Before too long, the column of battered vehicles drove past him, disappearing into the dark tunnel. Once they were all inside, Sunny glanced at the falling ash one last time, then walked into the darkness himself. The blast doors closed behind him with a reverberating hum, cutting off the bitter cold and the chilling wind of the polar night.

Just before the two plates of armored alloy touched, Master Jet's crow flew between them and landed on Sunny's shoulder. The bird glanced into the tunnel with curiosity, then stared at him and cawed a couple of times. For a change, those were simple caws, and not mangled words of the human language.

A pale smile appeared on Sunny's face.

"...Yeah. Good job."

With that, he walked down the tunnel, soon reaching the underground garage.

The convoy was parked in the empty corner of the vast chamber, and excited soldiers were already moving around the pristine military vehicles, evaluating their state. Someone else was busy opening alloy crates that were stacked along one of the walls, full of all kinds of supplies.

The depot was brightly illuminated by powerful light fixtures, which had come online as soon as Sunny opened the gate using his command authority. The ventilation systems were also online, filling the underground space with the familiar, calming smell of artificially cleaned air.

Sunny breathed in deeply and waited for Sergeant Gere to approach him.

"So? How is it?"

The soldier smiled, which made Sunny realize that he had never seen the dependable sergeant do that before.

"...It's nothing short of amazing, sir. This is a divisional field resupply station, from what I can tell. It's meant to replenish the expended resources of an entire division between battles, if there's no convenient opportunity to reach a fortified stronghold or if the supply lines are cut. There's enough here to support the deployment of thousands of soldiers."

He paused for a moment, and then pointed at the rows of vehicles.

"We have not assessed the full inventory yet, but you can already see that this is far more than we need. There are different types of machines, too, from armored personnel carriers to assault vehicles and light scouts. I mean, there's even a dozen MWRs here, with enough ammunition to load all their armaments."

Sunny glanced at the towering shapes of the mobile war platforms standing near the back wall. These giant humanoid robots were about six meters tall, on the smaller side compared to their larger cousins, but they still packed a heavy punch. Samara's powerful rifle had been meant to serve as a light weapon for one of these formidable machines, but was later refitted to be used by the Awakened sharpshooter.

The presence of MWRs was a pleasant surprise. Mundane soldiers were somewhat capable of facing Dormant Nightmare Creatures, but had troubles dealing with the Awakened ones, even with the help of exoskeleton armor suits. The fierce arsenal of guns and launchers installed on the war platforms, however, made them destructive enough to accomplish that task.

There was just one problem...

Sunny gave Sergeant Gere a dubious look.

"Do we even have anyone capable of piloting these things?"

The soldier coughed and awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Oh... no, not really."

He remained silent for a few moments, then smiled again.

"Still. There's also ammunition for our turrets, as well as food, medicine, spare fuel cells, necessities... basically, all that the refugees need. We can even arm them all, if that is what you want to do. Those vehicles that we can drive are much faster than the civilian transports, too, have better armor, and can navigate more difficult terrain. Not to mention that there's more of them than we can possibly use, or everything, really. The infrastructure between here and Falcon Scott is also much better developed, so... I think both our speed and defensive capabilities are going to increase tremendously."

Sunny nodded, then glanced briefly at the crow, who had left his shoulder and was now perching on one of the beams of the support framework near the ceiling of the depot, looking down at the hustling humans with a curious expression.

"...Good. We'll be staying here for a couple of days, to let the people rest and give us time to get acquainted with all these shiny new toys. Make sure that everyone has a warm meal and a comfortable place to sleep."

With that, he left Gere to figure out the logistics of settling in hundreds of refugees in an underground storage bunker that was not really meant to be used for such a purpose, and tiredly walked toward the Rhino.

There were many robust vehicles in the supply depot, but he did not see anything that could compare to his personal ride. The fearsome APC was still the best there was.

'...I need some rest myself.'

Climbing inside the Rhino, he exchanged a few words with Professor Obel, then told Luster to figure out the sleep schedule between the Irregulars and bring him some news from the Dream Realm by the morning... or whatever it was going to be once he woke up.

Then, Sunny took off his military coat and dismissed the Mantle of the Underworld, which had been hidden beneath.

At that moment, Beth was approaching him to say something, but lingered after noticing the dried blood and scaling patches glued to his skin. She paled a little, remained silent for a few moments, and then forced out an unconvincingly sarcastic remark:

"So... you do bleed, after all."

Sunny looked down at his battered body, and smiled.

"Only on special occasions."

With that, he turned away, climbed into a sleeping niche, and closed his eyes in utter exhaustion.

'That... was a long, dreadful, utterly terrible day...'

It did end on a positive note, though. That, at least, was something to be thankful about.