Eilert fumbled with the map slightly as he tried to catch it, but fortunately managed to secure it under his arm. Not having anything else pressing to do, rather than leave he simply sat on the floor and unfolded it there.

"I apologize if that was too personal," he said mildly before becoming engrossed in the map. Or at least trying to.

After a few minutes of staring at it blankly, he let out a small sigh. It wasn't a matter of lacking intelligence, but he was used to being just a mindless drone, following orders with little thought input for himself.

Could he really fight for the sake of the world? Was he worthy of such a thing? He wondered if Silver wasn't mistaken for putting his hopes in him. Every minute counted, and yet he could look at this map as a simple object, unconnected to the task at hand.

". . . eh, wotever," Icsorue brushed the comment off.

Too personal, maybe. Icsorue had a habit of snapping at things like that; she'd talk about herself in a pseudo-vain way sometimes, but never any sort of deep, personal emotional conversation. It just wasn't something she felt comfortable talking about, and when she was uncomfortable, she was crazy.

It also didn't help that Eilert was the person asking. She knew him as just the silent type of person that walked through life without comment, and it annoyed her to no end! She couldn't put her finger on people like that--couldn't understand how someone could go through life passively. That didn't keep her from pestering Eilert. Really, she was curious. Silver was betting on this man to be the biggest help in saving all their asses, but to this point, Icsorue had never actually seen Eilert plan anything or even use abilities whatsoever, and so, she made it a point to walk around the desk and stand behind Eilert, peering over his shoulder at the map as he examined it.

"So, wot's the plan, then?" Icsorue asked, completely ignoring a person's need for physical space when thinking. "Silver was pacin' like crazy waitin' for ya--ya gotta 'ave some sort of plan, roight?"

Eilert looked up, startled. He had been trying to concentrate so hard that he hadn't noticed her take position behind him. For a moment he just stared; it hadn't occurred to him that Silver might have said something to the other Enigmas about relying on him.

"...Not yet," he admitted before turning back to the map. He had some ideas, but they were basic--he was used to applying his study of glyphs for battle, but never anything on this scale. It required a complete change in the way he thought about using them, and changing his thinking wasn't something he was particularly good at. He hadn't done it in...well...far too long.

"Have you fought shades before?" he asked. Perhaps if he knew more of what they were up against, something would come to him.

"W-wo~t . . .?!" Icsorue exclaimed as she quickly stood up straight.

Great! The trump card has no plan!

A sigh was released, followed soon after by a mumble and a discontent groan. If she was better at this recon business, she'd be in Eilert's place, already having a plan, already knowing what to do--hell, she was there a couple of days ago, and had been ever since, just going through everything she could find around the fortress, looking for any trace of weakness or strength that could be exploited, none of which she could do anything with at all. In the end, all she had was the knowledge that it'd take the mountain to collapse for this fortress to be in any serious danger. Unfortunately, if Silver's estimates were correct, the shades could probably do much worse than that.

Though, maybe helping Eilert exploit some of the weaknesses of shades could be useful. Icsorue was getting tired of the busy work; that was all Silver had her doing, anyways. Mapping out strengths and weaknesses? He already knew what damn strengths this place had!

Icsorue stood just a few feet from Eilert, arms crossed over her diaphragm. Without her signature coat--the form fitting black coat with pink stitching, she was wearing nothing more than a light pink tank top and khaki shorts. Being only five feet and four inches tall and dressed as she was, it made it impossible to take her serious, regardless of her sneering at Eilert's lack of preparedness.

". . . yeah, yeah, I 'ave," she grumbled. "But not that many. The li'l ones are weak, the bigger ones are tanks; take the longest to bring down. Big'uns usually don't swarm, but the li'l ones usually stick together loike small militias, usually stickin' close to a mid-soized one . . ."

"I see." So he was mistaken in thinking all shades were the same. He'd only encountered a couple of individual smaller ones before--which apparently would be swarming. If there were larger ones as well, which should he target? Or should he try and prepare for anything?

...How was he supposed to prepare for that?

Staring at the map blankly again, he wondered where the battle would take place. Just in front of the temple entrance? Or would they spread out and try and stop them from even getting that close?

There is too much I don't know about this...I've battled before, but this is...war...

Once Eilert went silent, just looking over the map rather than talking--like he talked at all, anyways, Icsorue shut her eyes and bit the inside of her cheek. Was he coming up with a plan? Did he even know how to fight shades? Judging by how he asked and responded, she could venture to assume that he wasn't all that experienced with them. So . . . why the hell was he their trump card?

Icsorue stepped back a bit, constantly glancing over at Eilert, but paying equal attention to walking. Just walking--pacing, really. She was biting her fingernails and made abrupt stops often, as if she had something to say, but no idea how to word it. In truth, she had nothing to say, but every idea in the world for wording it. The silence went on, Eilert examining the map, Icsorue pacing-- biting her fingernails-- swinging around-- walking a straight line-- pushing her bangs to the right or left out of her eyes-- showing exactly how nervous she was.

". . . gawd, what're ya gonna do, just look at the map all day?" the woman grumbled as she paced, "Loike we even have that much damn toime."

She was nervous, irritated--anxious, and all of the sort ended up driving her to this heightened state of impatience. And rightly so: not only did they supposedly have the world riding on them, but even if they succeeded, casualties couldn't be made up. Unlike a normal person, no one knew what happened to an enigma when they died . . .

The silence just made the feeling worse for her. Just to hear something other than her footsteps, she cursed under her breath: "Fuck."

Distracting though she was, Icsorue had a point. He was getting nowhere just looking at the map. Rolling it up again, he stood up. "Perhaps I will get a better idea of what to do if I look at the battlefield firsthand."

Without any further preamble, he opened the door to leave. Whatever she'd been doing before, the Pink Enigma seemed to want to stick near him for now. Perhaps she had already finished the preparations she needed to do. From what he knew, she was one of the better fighters; she just needed to make sure she was rested and ready for combat.

Whether she followed or not, though, Eilert would soon come back out to the mountains. But rather than the terrain, his eyes were now drawn to the mass of shadow that covered the landscape.

All that distance...that was what they were up against? What he was up against? He could barely manage to keep the occasional demon from entering Utopia from the gates...what made him think he could even put a dent in that army?

"Yeah. Moight 'elp just a li'l," Icsorue remarked as she rolled her eyes.

Following Eilert's departure, she let out a sigh and glanced back into the office of her former superior officer. The gold enigma was gone. Silver never explained how or why; he had only told her that she disappeared. That was almost a month ago. Now this place was empty; all that was left anymore were scrolls of information left behind, things that should have been important, but wound up being all for nothing. Maps and charts of the outer defenses of the fortress, overview maps of nations around the world, and multiple diagrams of the City of Sin. That city . . . cleared out, and now one of the emptiest, yet safest places on the face of the planet--that would have made a better fortress than this.

The pink enigma wound up following Eilert out, but thought very little of it, so much that she didn't even both to put shoes on, or her coat. She was dwelling on something else, events in the past, encounters between herself and the gold enigma. The former Prime Director had been out to the City of Sin again, last Icsorue remembered, before the report of her disappearance arrived. That woman . . . Icsorue actually felt lost without her. At least Silver was around, though. She still had some remnant of stability here in the organization, so long as he was there. He was the first one she had met, after all. Gold gave her orders and kept her around, despite all the problems she may have caused and that failed attempt to trap Sturm six months ago, and Silver passively reassured her that there would be better days ahead.

There was one problem that she experienced as she stepped out with Eilert:

Icsorue hadn't been outside today . . .

". . . oh, gawd . . ." she gasped, truly shocked by the site ahead of her; she could find no snide remark, no sarcastic understatement--she could only stare ahead, stuck watching the forefront of the shadows ascending upon them. ". . . th-there's . . . so much more . . . than Silver said there'd be . . ."

The woman stepped forward, her mouth agape, eyes wide, and fingers trembling. Silver had guessed much less than that--and he should've known how many there'd be! He . . . he should've known that . . . Icsorue barely felt it when she fell to her knees. The shock was evident, and it went without saying that she was not the most ignorant of them all. Eilert, Silver, and herself may have been the only ones that knew how many enemies they were really up against . . .

"Oh gawd . . ." she whispered, ". . . wot the hell . . . wot can we even do . . .?"

"So few fighting for the sake of the world..." Their organization was a relatively secret one, but it now seemed foolish to seclude themselves so. They had no help to call on, even though all of humanity should have been potential allies.

He gulped, glancing at the Pink Enigma. It was obvious that she hadn't been outside recently, didn't know the numbers they were up against. He wondered how many more were in the dark...while it might temporarily save morale not to know, they would find out sooner or later, and better they did sooner so they could get used to the idea.

"It is...not completely hopeless. Like with Prez O'Connor and Sade, we can lay traps." Traps alone weren't going to do it, though...and he had so few offensive glyphs.

Icsorue knew that story; who didn't? It was legendary amongst the enigmas, after all. What would they have been able to do against something like this, though? Besides, the story entailed O'Connor's loss. Prez was defeated in the end, even though he managed to immobilize the army. The demon king was ousted shortly thereafter, but how well did that apply to them? If they somehow halted that wave of darkness, they'd lose in the end--if all went the same as Prez O'Connor and Sade's exploit. After that, it would just be a matter of time before the world was overtaken.

Besides, Eilert only had hours to come up with his strategy.

"They had days . . ." Icsorue sighed.

Despite how bad it looked out there, Icsorue didn't want to go back inside. Eilert was the only one around, anyways. Everyone else was resting, when she couldn't. Nothing she could do could bring her to rest--no amount of pills or therapies were going to make her heart stop pounding like it was.

No one else wanted her company, anyways. Even though there was a great deal of importance in what Eilert was doing, it wasn't like he was telling her to leave or anything. If he did, well, she was just going to wind up getting offended, yelling at him, and leaving--but leaving nonetheless. It wasn't like she hadn't yelled at him before, though. During the times she had been around Eilert, she had almost always wound up yelling at him--ever since she was a kid, in fact. He'd been there longer than her--a lot longer, and she had been described as a "snot nosed brat" as a kid, and continued to merit ill descriptions such as that for the entire duration of her service to the organization.




-- A wrecked room--that's where it had been. A ruined, wrecked room, still used repetitively by the same man. He sat at his desk, stacks of papers before him, scattered about with no rhyme or reason. It was the same as the entire cramped room, piled in papers, covered in open tan folders, completely trashed. The bookcases were empty, but not for a lack of books; piles of them sat on top of one another, mostly open, mostly discarded for lack of relevant information. A decent path allowed access to the desk, though. The man sat behind his desk, face buried in a book, the hood of his purple stitched uniform coat down, purely out of negligence. He had much shorter hair--not shaggy in the slightest, far too short for such a thing, parted off to the side professionall, and looked almost cleanly shaven.

He was not the only person in the room, though. Despite his obvious preoccupation, he had a visitor, a particular man in a uniform coat, just like his, except with orange stitching.

"I understand what you're saying," the Prime Director remarked with the utmost respect, "But I feel inclined to disagree. Here."

The book, opened to a particular page, was placed upon his desk, turned to face the Orange enigma, and slid towards the other end of the desk. He had evidence; textual evidence, of course--but he was a younger man, then.

"The most recent study of glyphs' effects upon anatomy. They attempted a "glyph" to regenerate an amputated arm. I agree that, in theory, it should be possible, but evidence shows impracticality . . ."

-- The Orange Enigma stopped the book with his hand, not replying immediately as he read the page the Prime Director indicated, a small frown crossing his lips. Not at the prospect of being proven wrong, but rather at the thought that research into his field had hardly advanced at all since he remembered.

"The problem is that the same glyph used to regenerate plants will simply not work well on humans," he concluded, tapping the page where he noted this mistake. "Plants are naturally capable of regenerating nearly any part, so a glyph needs only to activate it and accelerate the process. Humans, however, can only heal a wounded part--they cannot recreate one that's been removed. So in order for it to be practical, the glyph needs to bestow regeneration on the subject, and accelerate it to a reasonable rate."

He shifted his gaze from the book to the Purple Enigma--a somewhat unsettling gaze, as despite the way he spoke his expression was completely blank. "It would still take longer than just closing wounds, so I concede it's not practical in battle, but being able to regenerate a limb in hours is still a vast improvement over not being able to at all."

It was still a theoretical arguement, though--Eilert did not know of such a glyph, and experimenting with magical formulas meant to be used on humans was always risky. Still, he was certain it was possible.

-- Sturm, the Purple Enigma--as was his particular codename, folded his arms over his chest. Indeed, the subject of glyphs was in interesting one, one which could be used in almost any application, but that was an old science. It hadn't come very far in its development, just as Eilert had noticed. Still, it had room for improvement, and such was Sturm's interest in this conversation.

It was a perfectly normal discussion, too. Not a sating of curiosity between two operatives, but a casual discussion between two men of science that just happened to lead into Sturm's office, where he remembered having evidence regarding the issue of anatomical regeneration via glyph symbols and activation.

"I see," replied Sturm, thinking quietly to himself. "Of course, if such a glyph either exists or is possible, it has either yet to be found or designed--that I am aware of."

But on the subject of the differences between flora and fauna biology, Sturm had a bit more he wanted to say. It wasn't an intentional side-track of conversation, but simply a field of interest of his. Right as he unfolded his arms from over his chest and leaned forward, ready to bring up his thought, a small sound caught his ears, enough to attract his attention.

Sturm tilted his body to the side a bit. The sound had come from behind Eilert--the abrupt sound of a door opening. Although it was a familiar face to Sturm, it was a new one to Eilert. For Sturm, though, this was only be proxy; he had to know all of the operatives of their organization, just because of his rank.

Standing in the doorway was short body with a head full of puffy, out of control hair, fried, frizzled, and long. It looked like she had survived an accident with some sort of an electrical appliance in a bathtub, but there were no burns on her skin. Her poofy, frizzled blond hair had streaks of pink in it where it seemed to be the most effected. She was short and young, developed as much as any eleven year old girl should have been.

Although she was in the Sky Temple, she wore no uniform coat--no color distinction, just a pair of shorts, a short sleeved shirt, and a dirty pair of sandals. The little girl's brow was furrowed, fists balled up at her sides, and lower lip pouted out. She looked angry, and absolutely terrible at getting anyone to take her irritation seriously.

"I'vebeenwanderingalloverlookinforya!" she exclaimed, desperate and angry, "Yaweren'theretwominutesagoandnowyou're------what's the big idea, huh?!"

-- Eilert had been intent on Sturm's reaction, enough that he failed to notice anyone behind him until he attempted to look around him. He politely stepped out of the way as he reagrded the newcomer...or rather, where the newcomer should have been. To actually see her, he needed drop his gaze by a few feet.

It was not an Enigma, but rather a small girl. This surprised him, as the Sky Temple was definitely not a place for children, but the child seemed to know his superior. There was only one reason for this, and while he normally kept his thinking to his self being drawn into conversation about glyphs had loosened his lips a bit.

"I did not know you had a child," he noted blankly as he turned back to Sturm, completely disregarding the fact that they looked nothing alike.

-- Sturm coughed loudly. It was a good thing he hadn't been drinking anything at the time; that would have otherwise been a perfectly coffee (Sturm's preference, in actuality). The little girl seemed to be surprised, too; both wound up staring at Eilert, dumbfounded, confused, and kind of offended--for the little girl, at least. Sturm, personally, wasn't too offended. Unless, of course, Eilert was trying to suggest that there was some sort of correlation between himself and the ball of energy on the other side of the room . . .

"Agghhhhhyoutakethatback!" she exclaimed frantically.

Rushed, she quickly moved before Eilert, staring up at him with her same pouting expression--brow furrowed, lips pursed, face scrunched up. For a moment, she was silent there, just glaring up at the Orange Enigma. Without warning at all, she stamped her foot down on Eilert's, smashing down with what little weight and strength she had. Truth be told, she was about as strong as any kid her age, and Eilert was wearing boots, anyways--but the way Sturm was looking at him at that moment suggested that humoring her was in all of their best interest.

Like a victorious dictator, she put her hands on her hips and announced for Eilert: "I'mthepinkenigma and you better respect that!"

-- Eilert stared down at the little firecracker of a girl with same blank expression. If Sturm was worried about him reacting negatively he needn't have worried, as his reactions to everything were so subdued that a twitch in his expression would be considered a strong one.

"I apologize. It seems I was mistaken." The girl spoke so rapidly though that it took a moment for his brain to decipher the other bit of information she dropped.

This time his reaction was enough to be noticed his eyes widening visibly as he turned back to Sturm. "The Pink Enigma? This child?" He did not know on what basis members were assigned positions, only that everyone in the organization had, like him, somehow died in the past...but survived. Even if that was the only requirement, he could hardly see how it was wise to take a child into their ranks.

Still, it wasn't his place to criticize, so he kept any specific complaints to himself, though Sturm would likely guess what was on his mind.

-- "Hah!" the little girl--the self proclaimed Pink Enigma--laughed.

If she were tall enough, she'd have laughed in Eilert's face. She lifted her tight fist up at him in an intentionally threatening manner, but in no way actually swung at him.

"I'mnotjustsomechild so youshutup!" she exclaimed childishly, "I'mthepeakofscienceandevolution and coulddomorewithmypinky here thanyoucouldwithyourwholebody so youshutup! Right, Dr. Tyr?!"

Sturm felt the urge to release a sigh, but he did not. Anyone would feel put off by this child. She ran around like she owned the place and referred to Sturm by his first name. Granted, it was an abridged version of his first name--a nickname she had adopted for him, but it would've been bothersome to about anyone. Fortunately, Sturm had training with kids. One of the reasons he could carry a casual conversation with Eilert better than anyone else--and vice versa--was because of Sturm's profession in his previous life: he was a medical doctor and a biologist.

"Eilert, this is Icsorue, an operative in training," Sturm introduced the "pink enigma," but not by that title. She still had awhile to go before she had any sort of codename. "She was recently found by Silver and is here for her own safety. If I'm not mistaken, the two of you are assigned to the same Prime Director . . ."



A brief thought, a vague recollection of the past. One's life was supposed to flash before them right before they died, wasn't it? Not while they were staring at death . . . right? They still had . . . maybe ten hours left. That's how long it was going to take for them to die--that's what Icsorue had determined, at least. The thought made her choke up. Just thinking back over the past, over failed relationships and heartbreaks, all amongst their organization, and all because everyone thought she was two steps away from clinically insane--all the times she'd go out drinking with other operatives after a successful mission, or the times she'd spend training with and talking with the Gold enigma, or bothering Sturm when she was little . . .

Thinking about all that made breathing feel uncomfortable. She barely knew Eilert, and at the same time, she had known him for almost her entire life. Even if she didn't see him nearly as often as she did other operatives, he had as much of an invaluable existence as Silver, Gold--Sturm, even. Despite Sturm's betrayal and how much she cried her eyes out and screamed until she lost her voice for weeks, and pounded her fist into the metal walls until it felt like her fingers were going to crumble away like broken plaster--despite all of that, Sturm's life was still valuable to her. So many people changed; over ten years, there had been more five replacements for the codename "green." The people that were constant were valuable.

And the people that were valuable, she could feel vulnerable around. If it were anyone else other than Eilert, one of the new operatives or even one of the ones that had been around for half of her life there, she'd have pounded her fist on her chest and declared her ability to wipe out a force twice that without break a sweat. But around a constant, she couldn't muster that, and found herself hugging her knees to her chest and staring off into the distance, out towards the rolling shadows where she could picture only Death.

In truth, the silence between them had been close to an hour.

". . . I . . ." Icsorue hesitated to speak, the frog in her throat restricting her ability to form coherent words. She forced it, though: "I-I . . . don't want to . . . disappear . . ."

Eilert was not a person to dwell in memories--and, as a matter of fact, he made it a point to avoid thinking about the past at all. All he felt while looking into that vast sea of darkness was...empty. And somehow that was worse than being frightened, because he knew he should feel afraid, if not for his own sake than for the world's, but he didn't. He just felt...lost.

When the Pink Enigma spoke, it startled him out of his reverie. It was a good thing she did--if no one had, it was entirely possible he would have stared out all day, until the darkness made its approach and devoured him.

"Icsorue...?" he asked quietly, though for once a little emotion was audible in his voice: concern. She'd always been a firebrand, ever since the first day he'd met her, something that hadn't changed as she'd gotten older. While he wasn't enough of a fool to think she never got sad or depressed, this was the first time she had witnessed her as such.

For a moment following Eilert's inquiry, the pink enigma said nothing. She just continued to sit there, staring not at the shadows, but the rocks in front of her, all the while biting her lip until she started to taste iron in her mouth. When she did finally elaborate, Icsorue found it impossible to make eye contact.

"Ya asked . . . earlier, roight?" replied Icsorue, "What droives me . . ."

Eilert's earlier question had stuck with her. It had been personal, yes, but she was in a personal mood. A desperate mood, really. It was a cold day in Hell when Icsorue hugged her knees to her chest and felt the need to cry. She was holding back, though. It was the only way she could justify talking. Never once, in a history of failed personal relationships and miserable experiences as a child, had she shed an excess of tears in front of someone. A few, perhaps; like now. There was moisture in the woman's eyes, ready to be released at any given moment.

"It's that I don't--" Icsorue hesitate again; this time, it felt much stranger. "That I don't want to disappear."

"Which . . . which . . . which is koind of pathetic, when ya think about it," the woman lamented, laughing, despite the fact that she wanted to sniffle and wipe her eyes dry, instead. "'ere I am, s'posed to be the peak of human evolution, roight? I mean--I mean, that's what they told me when I was a kid. Scientist folk, loike you and Sturm--they told me oI'd be the strongest girl on the planet, and that I'd surpass everyone to 'ave ever lived, 'cause they were gonna make me special. So they--so they shoot me up and they make me special--so damn special it hurt--and they said I was the peak of scientific research inta 'uman evolution--and--and--"

There was no doubt about it, the woman had tears in her eyes. In order for her to break down, it took something hefty like Sturm's betrayal and her inevitable assignment to trail, trap, and potentially execute him if necessary. This was essentially the equivalent or more: gambling her life and the world. A coward would have run, and she didn't want to ever fancy herself a coward--but she wanted to run. Of all things, Icsorue was most afraid of death, because for them, there was no certainty of an afterlife. For them, to die may very well have been to disappear altogether.

"And 'ere I am . . . 'ere I am . . . loike a scared mouse, sittin' 'ere," Icsorue sniffled before continuing with the lamenting thought, "--sittin' 'ere . . .--and--and the only droive I ever 'ad--the only thing I can think about roight now--is 'ow much I wanna live--and . . . and 'ow scared I am of disappearin' . . ."

"Icsorue..." By the very nature of their being, almost all of the Enigmas had rather tragic pasts. But she had joined the organization as a small child, so she must have been even younger then. For her to carry a weight like that with her from such a young age...and yet, she did not run away from it, even though likely no one would have blamed her. And here she was, serving the organization with her powers.

To not disappear. He had asked her what she fought because with the amount of vigor she put into her job, he'd thought that she must have a very good reason for fighting, a driving force that kept her in such high spirits. But the reason she fought wasn't for a lofty ideal, but rather because she just wanted to continue living.

Oddly, this didn't disappoint him, but rather reassured him. Perhaps Silver could fight with the world in mind, but he could not. He'd been separate from it for too long, knew little about it, and honestly cared little. Fighting for his own survival sounded like something he could do, but was that what he wanted? He'd often thought that it would be alright if he died--he was never able to bring himself to throw his own life away, but he'd always figured it wouldn't be so bad if someone else did, if a demon came out that simply overpowered him and finished him off...

It truly was a grand irony that when a demon had overpowered him, she'd intentionally left him alive.

He looked back out into the darkness, and came to a realization. To the ears of the Pink Enigma it would probably sound unbelievably stupid, but to him it was a profound realization: "I don't want to disappear either. Nor do I want you or anyone else to." He had no friends in the organization, past or present. Even calling most of them acquaintances was a stretch. But even those that he merely knew because he'd occasionally passed them in the hallway were still a part of his life. A constant. He didn't wish for them to be gone.

And when he turned to face her again, something had changed. He still looked pale and sickly, and he was still almost humorously lanky for his height, but for the first time since joining the organization there was life in his eyes...no, it went further than that. They positively blazed. This was no longer the broken Orange Enigma who was content to shut everything out. This was Eilert Draugr, the who'd already faced inevitable death once. He didn't cow to it then--and he refused to cow to it now.

A memory rose bubbled to the surface of his mind, but rather than shut it out and push it down, he let it come--and he even decided to share it.

"There was something my wife used to tell me--she said that as a scientist, I always wanted to see things as complex, so I would fail to recognize when something was simple." In his mind it applied to motivations, but he realized there was another thing it applied to. "We may not have the manpower they do, but we do have height to our advantage. So our greatest weapons are gravity and momentum." It was simple. So simple. It was true that even their greatest powers couldn't put a dent in an army that size. But as destructive as shades could be, they didn't match the potential power of mother nature.

In an effort to raise her spirits, to show her that victory truly wasn't out their grasp, he decided a small demonstration was in order. "And...time is not as much of an enemy as it seems." He moved a little ways away from her, to clear patch of ground away from the edge. He wanted to show her, but he did not want to jump the gun quite yet and accidentally trigger an early offense.

He withdrew his mana pen and bent low to the ground, his arm beginning rapid, precise movements. It was the first glyph he'd ever learned, the one he was most intimately familiar with. He could draw it with perfect accuracy even with his eyes closed. It took him less than a minute to finish.

He stepped back several feet and activated the Glyph of Eruption, sending dirt and small debris into the air. He hoped his point was clear: while it was true that they had a fraction of the time that Prez and Sade had, it took Eilert even less time relatively to set up the equivalent of a detonated charge.

When Eilert responded to her, he had her full attention. Icsorue had completely ignore the tears running down her cheeks, all in order to look up to and watch the Orange enigma as he spoke--because of who he was and what he was saying. It was the most she had ever heard him say regarding anything other than science, like those times every so often that she found he and Sturm discussing something related to science or health. It wasn't a science he was discussing; at first, it was a matter of pure emotion.

Eilert was a perpetual existence in her life, one of the few who had been there for her entire enlistment in the organization. At best, he and Icsorue were acquaintances; even though she always yelled at him whenever she was around him, or bereaved him with some statement of how "boring and dull" he was, he was still among the few who stood as symbols of stability for her. As much as Icsorue was personally afraid of disappearing, she did not want to see Eilert disappear, either. They shared a very similar sentiment.

As Eilert continued, his indulging of a pre-Guardian memory was as noted by Icsorue as he did with her memory. There were other enigmas out there that had families before their demise, but over time, most of them were able to push the attachments aside. Icsorue never had a family; no mother, no father, brother, or even a sister, and all of her personal relationships fell to flames so much that she lost hope for marriage long ago--not like enigmas ever married, anyways. If it would've gotten between them and their missions, it wouldn't have been permitted. Even if she had been disbanded from the organization or managed to somehow quit, though, she'd have still felt the same.

The mentioning of his wife and the brief memory of her had a point, though. He was using it as an introduction for his plan, which he unveiled to her on a much smaller scale.

"You . . . you . . . . really do got a plan . . ." the woman whispered, suddenly feeling an even stronger wave of relief.

A good plan, too. The best they were going to muster, at least. Icsorue slowly started to stand, still sniffling. Because she rarely ever found herself in a non-psychotic emotional state, it was difficult for her to come out of it. He had given her a bit of hope, nonetheless. If they progressively collapses sides of the mountain, and possibly even used parts of distant ground to lay traps, they really might stand a chance. This had been the first she saw of Eilert's abilities, too. It was definitely a faster setup than mechanical traps like O'Connor's.

"Well--well . . . if--if there's anythin' I can do . . ." Icsorue wiped her eyes with the back of her forearm, getting the last bit of moisture that she could, all before stamping her foot down in defiance of her own weaknesses. "Ya tell me, and oI'll do it! Just because ya saw me croy doesn't mean oI'm weak! oI could still froy ya if I really wanted ta, so--! So--so ya better tell me if I can help!"

Childishly, Icsorue stood there with her hands balled up into fists at her sides, her body straight, chest puffed out just a bit, and foot stamped down. Just like when she was younger. She had even pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, scrunching up her expression towards something which she felt adamantly stubborn against.

As Icsorue was speaking, Eilert was already unfolding the map again. This time he wasn't staring at it blankly, though; his eyes ran across it with an intense focus. Causing waves of avalanches was certainly the most widely destructive tactic, but he knew that wasn't going to take out every single shade--they'd still need fighters like Icsorue around to take care of those that his glyphs didn't.

It was them he was worried about, rather than himself. He had a number of support glyphs at his disposal to aid himself, but that didn't help them.

Unless I set them to react to humans stepping into them, he realized. If he did that, he could set up his support glyphs around the battlefield, which the other enigmas could then step on and activate if they needed a boost.

He wanted to tell Icsorue that he didn't think she was weak, but time was of the essence and they needed to start in order to get as much done as possible. "There is something you can help me with," he replied instead. "I will need markers of some kind--flags, colored poles, or something similar. At least..." he took a moment to mull over how many different support glyphs he knew, "four different types, and as many of each as you can find. Also, something small enough to be carried in a pocket, but solid and large enough for me to draw a glyph on--we'll need as many of those as there are of us."

He didn't immediately explain what they were for...getting them came first, and once that was done he could explain as they worked.