Enders

Perfectionism

"We need your help!" Pleads the man. "Revbek was attacked."

"By who?" I ask.

"I don't know." He shudders. "Our city is destroyed, and more than half of our citizens are missing."

"We'll be right over." I promise, tapping in the coordinates.

"I found a few images from Revbek." Milarde holds up his tablet. "These are the images from the one building that wasn't destroyed's surveillance camera."

I take the tablet from his hand, and look through the images.

Most of them are just people running around, panicked, and buildings in flames. But there's one picture with a black cloud in it, before the event.

"This is a whole city destroyed. We should probably split into groups." I decide.

"There's an uneven number of us." Jade points out.

"Xavier and Milarde can go together, and I'll go with Maggie." I decide. "You're more independent, and arguably our best fighter, so if it's okay with you you can go alone."

"Fine by me." She shrugs.

I pull up a map of the city.

"Jade, you can look for the missing Revbeki." I decide.

"Let me guess, because I've also proven to be able to find missing people without even trying." She jokes.

"Xavier and Milarde, you can help the injured evacuate the city." I continue. "Maggie and I will investigate what could have caused this."

We suit up, and land on the planet.

The air is heavy with smoke, making me grateful I wore my helmet. The buildings are charred and crumbled, save for a few further down, only one of which is completely intact.

"Thank you for coming." Says the man from the call.

"Have you found any of the people who were missing?" I ask.

"No sign of them." He shakes his head sadly.

"Jade's going to go look for them." I inform him. "Was anyone injured in the attack?"

"Yes, but I'm certain there are more." He replies. Xavier and Milarde leave.

"Where would you suggest starting an investigation?" I ask as Jade leaves as well.

"The fire started on the hill. It didn't travel down the cliffside, so those buildings are the least destroyed, and also close to the starting point." He suggests.

"Alright." I nod. "Thanks."

Maggie and I start to go towards the hill, past the crumbled buildings.

"Doesn't look like the work of any weapons I know about." Maggie observes. "Gorfonian weapons are more forceful, and would leave more destruction. The houses by the cliff would not be intact. Kartraeans don't burn things. Margh aren't interested in places with this little resources."

"Anyone else it could be?" I ask.

"Only a lesser-known threat, using the weakness from the war ending to their advantage. Not that there would be real advantage to attacking this planet."

We continue walking.

"We've already seen the footage from that building." She points to a relatively untouched building. "There is a chance we can find something in the other two buildings."

We enter the first building.

Everything is burnt to a crisp. We cautiously ascend the stairs, and most of the stuff there is burnt as well. But there is a pile of trash and a small metal box that look untouched.