THE SKIROSS GATE INCIDENT.

I know we'll meet again.

Garseri Lockheed walked back and forth in the garden as chaos ensues in the palace of Maximilian and Theodora as both father and daughter prepare for evacuation. The palace staff worked feverishly to pack everything necessary, documents, money, and government-related manifests among them. All the while Oculus just sat down in the center of the once-grand garden as the sky turns blood red, the latent psychic energy, and the raw, collective fury and unrelenting wave of force that the Kovenant has just unleashed causing the earth below them to turn browner and almost dead in color when in reality they are alive and well. Yet that blood-red sky was menacing, appearing in times of immense strife, chaos, and war, all around her, the staff spoke to each other.

"They are coming, Oculus..." Garseri said.
"What will you do? Sit here?"

While Oculus has seen this so many times in her long, long life, the others around her were caught in mass hysteria. This was an event that happens in Skiross, yes, but so rarely and only when terrible war has been unleashed.
When the floodgates have opened to unleash a mad whirlwind of destruction, like music to the Gods of War and Battle. A symphony of destruction and the music of the battlefield.

Music played by musicians who killed one another as they played their notes, the orchestra of battle played by the tuba and trumpets, sounded by the roar and terrible thunder of tanks rolling across the fields.
She can hear them... The eye of Heaven looked up and smiled.

Garseri continued.
"You have aided the Kovenant Empire, you have aided me, we must leave this place and rendezvous with Kovenant forces, now!"

Yet, Oculus would not heed his calls.

"T-this can't be, what kind of offensive has the Kovenant unleashed to have caused the red sky to appear again?!"

"Don't stop!" Exclaimed Maximilian.
"Everyone get out, evacuate immediately, all documents and items of importance have been secured, we need to go now!"

Hearing their employer call, the servants made an orderly and disciplined exit. Everything that wasn't important was left behind as the bodyguards and Archedian National guardsmen grabbed the old man and tried to get him out.
"Sir, the plane is here... It landed in the open field, we are flying you and your daughter to safety, the servants and the others will follow by truck!"

"Wait!"

Suddenly, Theodora came rushing passed the guards and nearly knocked over her father, dressed in a fine coat she ran over to Oculus and said.
"Oculus, come on! We need to go, now!"

Garseri approached the Archedian noble
"Not so fast, she must rendezvous with Kovenant forces! She has aided the Kovenant more than once, I can guarantee her safety by putting a good word in for her!"

Oculus remained silent. She remained motionless, resting on her knees as though she were in deep meditation or prayer. She didn't even look back, instead, she stared down at her eye of heaven necklace.
Theodora moved over and knelt by her side and saw her blood-red eyes glowing still. Crimson stars amidst a backdrop of worsening conditions.

"Oculus, c'mon, snap out of it!" Theodora began shaking her best friend.
"Oculus, please! I don't want to see you get hurt by the Kovenant, there are thousands of soldiers coming this way!"

Oculus finally looked at her, at first with a sheepish, apologetic look, before she scooched over to her side and gave her a nice warm hug, and said.
"I... I'm sorry, Theodora... But I must remain here, there is something else that I must take care of, something that is too important to let slip past... Please, go on without me, I will be fine."

"Please!" Theodora embraced her back.
"Please! You can do that in a more stable environment when all of this is over, we... we could-"

Oculus placed a finger on her mouth, silencing her, then she gently placed her hands around the young Princess's face and said.
"If I were to come with you, then it would simply make the Kovenant drive straight through until they reached the capital, as Sir Garseri has told me on many occasions, the 87th Volksgrenadier regiment alone is enough to outmatch the entire Archedian military... Unless... I stop them here."