Two figures hovered in the air, standing on what looked like a small and rough-looking platform made from a mix of basic earth minerals like dirt, sand, and stone.
The two figures flew in a very precise and robotic manner, similar to a claw machine. Even so, their movements were fast, but every time they wanted to move to somewhere specific, their faces would squint, almost like they were annoyed at something. Understandably so, though, since controlling it was also akin to controlling an actual claw machine.
"KANUM, I'M GOING TO START NOW. GET MOVING AND BE CAREFUL," a familiar crimson-haired woman with onyx eyes that shone as bright as the night sky yelled loudly.
"GOT IT!" A man with glistening dark emerald pupils and void-black hair responded.
With familiarity, Kanum swung both of his hands forward and pulled 4 black petals out of the air. However, it only appeared as a flicker, because as soon as Kanum manifested, it instantly disappeared as he activated them. Creating 4 long, transparent black barriers around and in between hundreds of people.
At first, the barriers were like a piece of cloth, creasing and turning, molding around the people around it. After a moment, the malleable barriers stopped being pushed around and slowly straightened, gently pushing the people outside of the barrier's encasement back.
The barriers wrapped around more than 200 people, securing them like tying a rubber band around a group of pencils.
(This is the first time in a long time since I saw him use his Vestige properly...) Shelt scoffed as she unconsciously smiled.
Seeing that her husband was finished with his role, Shelt moved her glowing silver fingers and manifested a thin metal sheet below the feet of the 200 people Kanum had secured.
Soon after, the metal finished separating the 200 people within the barriers from the ground, creating a platform for them to stand on. After that, the metal quickly expanded and thickened enough to support the weight of all those people, and a second later, after seeing that the metal platform was ready for lift off, Kanum plucked out another 4 petals and used them immediately, laying the new barriers in front of the preexisting ones.
Slowly, the metal platform began levitating along with the 200 people and the first layer of the black transparent barriers, leaving the new set in its place that continued to separate the people from the newly emptied space.
(Thank goodness we have a grade 12 beyond musician... It wouldn't have been possible to evacuate this many people without his help...) Shelt expressed internally, relieved by the punctuality of this musician, and shivered as she thought about the outcome if he weren't here.
"I'm practically out of petals after this, so I'll be cheering you on until I recover!" Kanum joked, his words barely making it to his wife's ears through all the screams and panic.
Hearing the joke, Shelt's face grew repulsed; she couldn't believe that even in such a severe situation, her husband would still be joking around, especially when people's lives were at risk. She even visibly made it known to her husband to show how seriously he should be taking this situation.
Seeing Shelt's face, Kanum showed a guilty smile to her before looking away and focusing on merging with the crowd without accidentally causing someone to trip and get trampled on.
Although Kanum may have shown a semi-positive attitude and even made a joke, internally, Kanum was actually taking the situation more seriously than most of the musicians here, feeling broken up because his powers don't have the affinity needed to save these people.
(I should've done more...) Kanum thought solemnly.
Despite having two resonance paths, Kanum could only use less than a fraction of his true power, in very limited fractions as well, because even after lowering the power of his black petals to the lowest possible setting, he could only generate about 95 petals before he needed to wait for them to regrow. Which means, by now, the husband and wife duo had actually saved at least 2300 people, although... it barely made a dent in the hundreds of thousands of people they needed to save.
"Haaah, hhhhmmmmph" Kanum grunted as he put his everything into controlling his barriers precisely.
Kanum steadily retracted his barriers into the center of the newly emptied space, successfully and flawlessly executing the merging.
Being done with that and running out of black petals, Kanum flew after his wife, Shelt, as she flew toward the safe zone to drop off the evacuees they saved before joining with some other musicians that were evacuating people at the very back of the crowd as per the request of their leader, since he deemed that they were in the most danger. Additionally, this kind of strategy actually works better with the leader's primary Resonance path. Although, as a consequence of that command, the musicians who were working with him were almost in more danger than the citizens below.
"Why does a Slette have to occur today of all days?" Kanum spouted with venom as he scratched his head strongly out of frustration.
A Slette doesn't happen very often, but it also happens enough for it to be labeled as an uncommon sight despite how deadly each of them could be. However, Slettes that happen in a city are extremely rare, because most of the time, the Slettes usually happen in the outer, unpopulated areas of their world.
So it is a godsend that they were even able to deal with this disaster semi-smoothly in the first place, since it's so rare that there was no one trained with the capacity to rescue as many civilians as possible if a disaster like this struck.
...
Following his wife, Kanum glanced behind himself for a second, taking in the terrifying scenery behind him.
Just like what is happening to the north of Pertice City, a self-destructive crowd had formed here as well, pushing and crushing each other indiscriminately.
Just like the North of Pertice City, all the buildings here were demolished as well, but due to this group's affinity with demolition and creation, the field was much cleaner than the North's.
The west and east were the same as well. But each of them handled their situations differently, as there are very few high-grade plus musicians with the capacity to evacuate people like Haze to the north of Pertice City and the current leader of the south of Pertice City.
Instead of using wind to evacuate people here, the leader of this evacuation point commands earth instead.
Hundreds of rough pillars made from basic solid earth raised thousands of people at a time, slowly disappearing by getting thinner and thinner until they vanished completely except for the uppermost part that held the evacuees.
These pillars constantly appeared and disappeared every minute, looking like it was all controlled by one person instead of a group because of how coordinated it was, as well as because there weren't many people nearby these pillars.
Following the direction of their leader, most of the musicians that came here to help were at the back of the crowd, riskily evacuating citizens while doing their best to stay as far away from the Slette as possible while evacuating people.
...
As Kanum and Shelt flew to the evacuation zone, an old but clear-sounding male voice called out to them.
"Kanum and Shelt, I need you to look over those people over there after you're done," a man with warm brown hair and sapphire eyes called out to the husband and wife as they passed by.
The man was the leader of this evacuation point, and just like Haze, his body was transformed, but the air around this person feels much more mature than Haze.
Tali's hands, legs, and hair, unlike Haze's, were fully glowing bright brown; his body was also filled with the same cracks but replaced with a bright brown light instead. Although, on a closer inspection, the gaps of these cracks were actually larger, not by too much though.
"Yes, Commander Tali... Also, Kanum had already used up his Vestige, so he won't be able to use it for a while." Shelt answered Commander Tali and reported Kanum's situation formally.
"Perfect timing then." Tali responded positively and looked at Kanum.
Kanum looked exhausted. He still had plenty of Node left, but he couldn't use it because his Resonance paths wouldn't be useful in a situation like this. That's why all he has been using so far is an extension of one of his resonance paths that allowed him to be useful. But because of this, the only place he could draw power from was a separate and much scarcer well compared to his Node reserves.
"Tell Locce that he doesn't need to hold back, I have plenty of Node left to spare," Tali spoke casually, patting the near-full arsenal of Node canisters on his chest.
"Alright Tali, stay safe!" Kanum answered informally.
"He's a general, show some respect..." Shelt pulled her husband closer, whispering in his ear, irritated by his informality.
"Urg, he's friends with Locce, isn't he?... So, by logic, we are friends as well." Kanum confidently refuted without lowering his voice.
"Yup!" Tali backed up Kanum without looking at the couple that was slowly getting further and further away from him.
...
Later, after Kanum and Shelt evacuated the 200 people in their custody, Kanum separated from Shelt in order to get to the back of the crowd to where his friend Locce, Callon's dad, was.
"HEY LOCCE, DON'T HOLD BACK ANYMORE. TALI SAID, YOU CAN EVEN UNLEASH A METEOR IF YOU WANT TO." Kanum called out loud, mixing in a joke into his words, trying to raise morale.
"Haaah" Locce sighed at Kanum's words, more specifically, the remark he made at the end of his sentence.
Taking Kanum's words seriously except for the joke at the end, Locce began changing position with the other musicians that were working with him, moving to the edge of the group.
Now that there's ample space to unleash his full capacity, Locce, who only had half of his arm glowing whitish-brown before, increased his output to the maximum, causing his entire arm to glow.
Locce's face was composed, and his mind was clear, with only one objective in his mind.
Quickly after he fully released his Node, Locce raised both his arms, which subsequently caused the ground beneath more than a thousand people to vibrate slightly.
*Buuuummmmggg*
As his arms raised, Locce's fingers were straight and unmoving until both his hands raised to the same level as his head.
Just by slightly tilting one finger, four marble walls forcefully lodge themselves in between the crowd, isolating close to two thousand people within their walls.
Buuuu duuu duuuuu dannn Locce moves his fingers in a constant and repetitive motion, creating a neutral melody with no meaning behind it.
Following that, the ground below the people inside the confined space rose quickly. Creating something akin to a great, glistening castle wall that held two thousand people on it
*Duuu-*
Right as the great wall grew as high as a two-story building, Locce cancelled out his movements, causing the great wall to stop growing before he exerted more Node than needed.
*Daaang duuu duuunnng*
Without wasting time, Locce restarted his movements, using an opposing melody to destroy the bottom of the great wall as well as to fling all the debris into the Slette.
"HEY... CAN SOMEONE BRING THIS BATCH OF EVACUEES TO THE EVACUATION ZONE?" Locce yelled out loud to the earth musicians nearby.
Locce was trying to get one of the nearby Earth musicians to take over evacuating the evacuees he just secured, because it's more effective with him here rather than one mediocre Earth musician.
For a moment, the earth musicians who heard him felt annoyed and even slightly degraded by Locce's demand, but after remembering the huge wall that Locce created and the massive amount of civilians he must have gathered in it, they had no choice but to face the truth and surrender to Locce's demands.
"I'LL TAKE THEM." One of the musicians who just finished securing his own evacuees responded to Locce's demand as he returned.
"THANK YOU" Locce expresses his gratitude with a still face, showing no emotion in his body language.
After that, Locce quickly moved on to his next batch of evacuees, repeating his movements from before and securing another two thousand evacuees within 2 minutes.
With another batch of evacuees in his custody, Locce was about to call out for someone to help him relocate his evacuees again when the same person who did it the first time came up to him and offered him his assistance.
"Thank you."
Now that the person that's providing him with assistance is up close, Locce expressed his gratitude with a much warmer demeanor since he couldn't do that while yelling and trying to stay professional at the same time.
After transferring his group of evacuees to the musician in front of him, Locce looked back for a moment, staring at the cause of this disaster.
The Slette was close but not close enough to leave the civilians below without any room to traverse. However, no matter how you look at it, no one can stare at the Slette head-on without facing at least a modicum of fear and dread.
*UUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRGGGGGGGGGHHHH*
Suddenly, the long and mind-piercing wail cracks through the air, blaring into the ears and minds of everyone here.