BattleFront: Chronicles of Rondure, #2

By TC Marti

A Civil War Has Erupted, But A Nuclear World War is Brewing

 

I thought we only needed to deal with the Nation of Bastille…

 

…Yet I was wrong. Bastille labeled our uprising as something more sinister than we could ever imagine

 

According to Bastille brass, we're assets of the notorious regional power of the Northwest, the Nation of Gelida.

 

The same Bastille brass who spent three decades funding and building military bases in their client state of Ragland. Inching closer to Gelida's border, daring its leaders to draw a red line and retaliate.

 

Back home, the Bastille Military is imprisoning or killing every man and woman even suspected of being linked to the Insurrexxion. And they will overrun entire cities if it means destroying its two most wanted souls: Me and my twin sister, who I'm born to protect with my life.

 

BattleFront is Book II in the Chronicles of Rondure Series and the latest installment of TC Marti's Renegades Epic that also includes Elementals of Nordica, Sentrys of Terrene, Terrian Chronicles, and Cymraeg Tales. This science fantasy leans into apocalyptic territory, rich in elemental magic and genre fusion. If you like strong female characters and epic battle scenes with some suspense, BattleFront is for you.

• Language: English
• Publisher: TC Marti
• Release date: Jan 29, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224133567

TC Marti

TC Marti is an author, book reviewer, and freelance writer. When he's not writing, you can often find him in a gym lifting weights, or running miles on a trail.  He's also a huge fan of Arizona sports teams, an unapologetic Blink, and like most authors, an avid reader. 

Book preview

BattleFront

Chronicles of Rondure, Volume 2

TC Marti

Published by TC Marti, 2024.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

BATTLEFRONT

First edition. January 29, 2024.

Copyright © 2024 TC Marti.

ISBN: 979-8224133567

Written by TC Marti.

Also by TC Marti

Chronicles of Rondure

Civil War

BattleFront

Cymraeg Tales

Spirit and Fire

Elementals of Nordica

Wind Wielder

Wind Keeper

Wind Master

Wind Ruler

Sentrys of Terrene

The Last Sentrys (Coming Soon)

The Rebellion Awakens

The Terrian Chronicles

Liza Fury: The Discovery

Tarja Titan

Tarja Titan: Sophomore Year

Liza Fury - Catch 22

Watch for more at TC Marti’s site.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Also By TC Marti

One | Rundown

Two | City One-Oh-One

Three | The Safe House

Four | Astral Travel

Five | Concerns

Six | Irina

Seven | Ragland

Eight | Rebels

Nine | A New Threat

Ten | Wilderness

Eleven | Kore and Archer

Twelve | Sunk

Thirteen | The Duel

Fourteen | World Between the Worlds

Fifteen | In the Palace

Sixteen | War

Seventeen | Gauntlet

Eighteen | Battle

Nineteen | Astral Projection

Twenty | Arrangements

Twenty-One | Back in the Field

Twenty-Two | The Tide Turns

Twenty-Three | The Base

Twenty-Four | The Real War Begins

Author’s Note

Further Reading: Wind Keeper

Also By TC Marti

About the Author

One

Rundown

Six months following the events of Civil War...

I grab Asuka’s hand and visualize us in the City Ten Base’s bunker; their former prisoner compound. My boots touch the cement floor and I hold my twin sister close. Goodness, I’m the most reckless Escort in the freaking Five Worlds.

It’s not on you, Mina, she insists.

I was the one thick enough to believe that signal came from the Insurrexxion without confirming it first with Amiya. Where is the girl, anyway?

A tiny hand tugs at my leather jacket. I whip around and a smiling face emerges. How does she always seem to find the positive even in a situation like this?

Amiya runs a hand over her holographic watch and a neon purple text message emerges. Because now we know about one more place they’re secretly located.

She’s right, you know? Asuka says, striding around the bunker before looking to the unfinished ceiling. Do you think anyone will come down this way?

Amiya, you’d be the first to know, right?

Another smile and a nod from my best friend.

Any word on Rokko?

Alive. He and Drea are both okay.

Despite the news, I run a hand through my shiny, black hair, still unable to stop shaking. Tell him we were forced to retreat and it’s mission failed for us. They’ll have to free those prisoners themselves. And let him know we had zero survivors.

Amiya relays my message while I reflect on the lost battle we somehow escaped from. Catenarian Mercenaries, these imposing figures draped in black hats and cloaks, baited, and nearly killed me, Amiya, and Asuka.

Telling me someone, or a few people in Bastille’s military survived that battle at the Colony months ago. I’m further sure they connected the dots with Asuka being One of the Five and alerted their Mercenary allies stationed in Bastille.

Oh, if only I had Ellsworth or Gareth, I’d know for sure how many Mercenaries Catenary has in this country. But unfortunately, they took off for their home world.

I’m thinking someone’s watching us, and it’s a powerful Spirit Master, Amiya types into her hologram.

Are they Catenarian?

Not sure if it’s a Mercenary or someone from here. But they are powerful and ruthless. Different aether from what Ellsworth had.

I bite my lip. Ellsworth was a Mercenary until he saw error and joined the Insurrexxion. A Catenarian native, he wouldn’t just know where to look, but my guess is he’d go out and deal with them himself.

Amiya gasps and points upward, causing Asuka’s eyes to drift in the same direction.

What’s up?

Amiya tightens her lips, and with a trembling hand, types, Someone’s coming.

How many?

Quite a few, but nothing near what we just retreated from.

I draw both swords while Asuka’s Sword of Water manifests. As One of the Five, she grows in combat experience faster than anyone else in the World of Rondure’s history. Even myself, which is weird because Rokko told me the Escort can level up faster than the One. As one of just five Escorts in the universe, I also control three, instead of just one element. But so far, my blood and water ability has been so-so.

Multiple fireballs erupt, telling me whoever’s pursuing us, they’re Fire Masters. Bad decision, boys and girls, my thoughts say, as Asuka swings her sword from the drain below her boots. Before the emerging Fire Masters wave their swords, the filthiest sphere of water I’ve ever seen encompasses us while Amiya slashes her pearl-hilted Sword of Spirit, reinforcing Asuka’s sphere with a purple, smokey barrier made of spirit energy.

Amiya holds her tip to the barrier and three purple tentacles emerge, striking two men and a woman. They motion to cut the tentacles, commonly known as aether eaters, with their blades. But I point both swords and hit them with lengthy black billows called smokescreens.

The cloud’s fumes send them into coughing fits as I visualize the smoke turning darker and thicker. It heeds my call, and those not yet caught in Amiya’s aether eaters fall back, with one looking as though they are about to call for backup.

I direct my sword at them and send a neon green cloud of smoke over their heads. Toxic and barbaric though my neon smoke clouds are, they’re good ways to warn the opposition. As though the woman senses my power, she looks up and drops her sword, prompting the others to follow her lead.

I dissipate my smoke cloud while Amiya releases the three soldiers trapped in her aether eaters. Asuka looks my way and I nod, motioning for her to put that dirty water back where it came from. Only now does the sickening smell reach my nostrils, but after going through what I’ve been through, at least I’m not gagging or retching up my previous meal.

How did you know we were down here? I demand, directing both swords at the woman.

We got more Spirit Masters than you think, she says, crossing her arms. Judging from her average height, she and her cronies are too short to be Mercenaries.

I’m sure you’re familiar with us and who we are after the way we escaped the Colony.

We’ve heard things.

What’s Bastille’s big lie this time?

The woman bounces her eyebrows at me and smirks.

So what’re we going to do here?

She looks to her dozen comrades and nods. But before they motion to burst into flames and erupt back to where they came from, Amiya snaps her fingers and conjures twelve sets of chains coated in purple spirit energy. Before I can blink, they wrap themselves around each Fire Master. If only she were strong enough to do that a thousand or so times, we’d have never needed to retreat here.

Amiya runs a hand over her watch and types, You’re disabled, and the only way I’ll free you is if you give us a landing spot that’s not a Bastille stronghold.

Shouldn’t you know, girl? the woman says.

It’s best not to reveal why we are down here, so I lie and say, She will know the location of any potential retaliating unit of yours, so I suggest you comply. Where are no Bastille units or Mercenaries located?

They still won’t go near City One-Oh-One.

Amiya, can you check it out?

My friend disappears in a puff of purple energy, a teleportation. While she’s gone, Asuka keeps her gaze on the spot these Fire Masters emerged in case potential reinforcements arrive. I pace, counting down the minutes before Amiya returns.

After a half-hour, she emerges from a second cloud and flashes a thumbs up. Aah-eer, she says.

"All clear? Good." I jerk my head toward our prisoners. What’re we doing with them?

She writes one last message on her hologram watch. Leave them. My other half will decide their fate. I’ll connect with Her once I get a minute. Oh, and Rokko also made it. Thought you should know.

She reaches out and grabs my hand while Asuka scurries over, and we disappear, Amiya taking us to at least one city the Insurrexxion controls without a direct threat from Bastille.

Two

City One-Oh-One

"Sion Zona’s been sighted in this city," a blonde woman says to Rokko when I enter the bunker that contains an underground community called City Five-Oh-Four with Amiya and Asuka.

"In this city?" Rokko says, spreading his arms, "or that city?" He points upward, where the outskirts of One-Oh-One sit not far from the dead forest above Five-Oh-Four. "The city he destroyed? Why would he return?"

"He was seen," the woman says.

Okay, Rokko says, raising his arms in surrender, "but has it ever occurred to you that maybe the people up there are seeing someone who might look like him? Have there been Zona sightings in other cities?"

The woman scoffs. Yeah, the Bastillians have been hard at work in just about every major metropolis, scorched and standing, in this godforsaken nation.

Rokko stands and sets his hands on the table, leaning into the woman. "If he returns, we’ll handle it. I believe that’s what Drea should’ve told you."

The woman purses her lips and also stands, leaning so close that her nose is an inch from Rokko’s. "I’m prepared to give you a strike, General Streets."

"General now, am I?"

She huffs and looks away. You’ve led how many units now? On the ground and in the air? Ukko and Levi have wildly praised you.

Spike, Tommers, and Tuch?

She shoots him a piercing look. Don’t get cocky. Finally, she turns her gaze my way. "And who’re you?"

Depends, I say, leading Amiya and Asuka forward. I’m a sister, a girlfriend, a best friend, I hold out my arm and my clear-hilted Sword of Smoke manifests, "a Smoke Master, and a few more things you’ll never be."

The woman stares, jaw twitching.

But I’m also something else, I say, dissipating my sword. "I’m someone who can read a person like a book. And if Rokko Streets says he didn’t see anything and he subsequently promises he’ll let you know if he does, you’d best listen to him, because I’ve never met a man who holds more true to his word."

I sniff and my voice cracks, but I blink back the incoming tears. If it wasn’t for Rokko, I wouldn’t be standing here right now, and Asuka would probably be dead.

Before this war started, like, literally right before the war started, I was a prisoner after I helped a friend of mine escape to the World of Eidolon. Rokko and I crossed paths when two guards forced me to take the ‘walk of shame’ through a high-profile base in Bastille’s capital city of Paramount.

Rokko even launched shrapnel at me to better sell himself. But then he revealed who he really was. A member of the Insurrexxion, like me. A secret underground force that would one day rise up and unplug the masses from Bastille’s influence.

The problem?

Well, we needed one last puzzle piece, known as the One of the Five. And since I was going to be sentenced to rot in the nation’s most notorious Prison Colony, Rokko tasked me with the mission.

For a while, everything went according to plan. Rokko snagged a gig as one of two people escorting me to my public court hearing, but he was in actuality helping me escape.

Then what could go wrong did go wrong. The car taking us to the hearing hit a semi and barrel-rolled over the bridge it was about to cross, killing the driver and the other guard. I saved Rokko, but he was in bad shape, so close to death that I professed my love to him in case he didn’t make it.

But he did. Just days later, Rokko, recovered thanks to rune magic, saved my life when me and Amiya (who I crossed paths with along the way), lost a fight to a unit of Bastille soldiers. He rejoined us, broke into the Colony with me, and together, we rescued Asuka, who I also discovered to be my twin.

Fine, the woman says, voice high-pitched. "I’ll take your word for it. But if I find out he’s not doing things to my standard, or if he doesn’t hold true to his word, I will reprimand and replace him."

Rokko catches my eye and nods.

Deal, I say, holding out a hand.

The woman bounces her eyebrows and scurries toward the staircase that will take her to the hatch’s main entrance slash exit.

Nice meeting you, too, I call, cupping a hand over my mouth before turning to Rokko, a lopsided smile crossing my fawn-colored face. Charmer, isn’t she?

He waves me off. "She’s nothing to worry about. But what we do need to worry about is this." He waves a hand over his hologram and brings up a briefing, instructing us, the most wanted people in Bastille next to perhaps Zona, to travel into a secluded and abandoned village, where we will find a place to lay low and spy on Bastillian strongholds in the region. Since we failed our little mission, we’re making a contingency plan.

So what about the entire Zona hunting thing? I say, flicking my thumb in the direction the woman retreated.

Rokko waves me off. You know all good leaders, his fingers curl into air quotes, "delegate. I’ll just claim I put Tommers, Tuch, and Spike on the case if she calls back. They’ll cover for me. And besides, I think we both know the Insurrexxion would rather me be out battling Bastille as opposed to finding a lone wolf."

Three

The Safe House

Our assigned safe house is nestled in the heart of a village whose inhabitants abandoned years ago. Its crumbling walls barely stand against the relentless winds that whip through the narrow side yards separating the homes.

The two-story structure, built from what are now worn bricks and faded wood, creaks with every gust, each sound echoing the neverending tension that has hung over me since we embarked on this spy mission.

It may be a safe house, but with our current mission in scouting Bastille and their Catenarian allies’ movements, it’s hard to not anticipate them sensing our life forces and attacking, resulting in yet another fight for our lives. The worry keeps me up at night and stagnates me when I train with Asuka in the house’s unfinished basement, since I keep feeling what I call phantom life forces.

Mina, focus, Asuka says.

Determination burns in those almond-shaped eyes that so resemble my own, and it pushes away those feelings that Bastille found out we’re tracking movements and positions of nearby units.

I draw a breath and grip my Sword of Smoke tighter, feeling the familiar weight of its clear metal hilt in my hand. With a flick of my wrist, I send a light smokescreen billowing across the room, the gray haze obscuring everything in its path. Yep, back to the basics, or else Asuka would yell at me if I botch a stronger move for the umpteenth time.

Though since I conjure the billow, I can see through it. My movements grow precise, each slash and thrust regaining their form in microseconds thanks to countless hours of military training Bastille forced upon me since I was a young girl, long before I escaped their clutches.

Asuka launches a counterattack, her hands forming intricate patterns as she conjures spheres of water from the humidity this uninsulated basement brings in these early autumn months. They dance around her palms and fingertips, moving in harmony with her gestures, casting shimmering reflections on the cracked walls as they refuse to reflect my smokescreen back on to me.

"Your screens are just outrageous when you keep your concentration," she says.

"Well, thanks for yelling at me to focus," I say playfully, momentarily forgetting my worries. My rhythm returns fast when I allow it to.

But you’d think I’d be matching you sooner than later. She hangs her head. "I mean, I’ve been at this for months. And Rokko even said I’m leveling up fast."

Asuka, take your own advice for once, I say, absorbing the smoke back into my sword, directing it at her, and launching a second screen, this one with less density.

She again conjures the water spheres with ease. This time, they cut through and dissipate my screen.

You went easier on me, she says. It wasn’t anywhere near as thick.

No, but it was still thicker than it was the last time we practiced this and I was in the right frame of mind for once.

Hands on her hips, she glowers. "I just wish my sword would manifest already. For good. Not for like, fifteen minutes at a time."

Your water control’s better than ever, I say, with genuine admiration in my voice, or so I hope that’s how it sounds. It’ll come. Remember what Beau said before he was deployed. Don’t think so much, just act in the natural flow of time.

Asuka smiles. You make it sound so easy. She jerks her head toward one of the windows. "Beau makes it look easy."

Her words strike me as a reminder that although she’s capable of tossing more than a few powerful attacks, my twin still can’t get out of her own head. She’s progressed unlike any other Water Elemental since we escaped Messiah. But there’s still no way I’m comfortable leaving her side. I don’t know, maybe that’s just the Escort in me talking.

Or the concerned twin who’s scared to death of losing her since that nearly happened once.

⚔⚔⚔⚔

The safe house is a soundtrack of sensory experiences, if that makes any sense. Its air reeks with the scent of damp earth, mingling with the aroma of worn leather and rusted metal. Wind whispers through the cracks in the walls, playing a mournful tune that reverberates through the dim rooms. And it’s also why I jump every time this old place creaks, convinced Bastille’s stumbled upon us, even if I feel no life forces outside the place.

Three hours later, Asuka and I are still sparring. The sound of water splashing and smoke hissing fills the room, creating a ghostly atmosphere. Ensuing moisture makes the floor so slick, I need to tighten my core and bend my knees to stay upright every time I shuffle to keep my twin guessing.

"Will you two take a break?" Rokko says, his voice echoing off the cinder block walls as he runs down the weathered, wooden steps, causing my heart to skip a beat.

Asuka’s windswept face finds my eyes and I nod, knowing I should have called a stop to this thing at least a half-hour ago when her aqua blasts and hydro blasts—the latter of which is no more than an aqua blast with more knockdown power—struggled to keep their spherical forms, better resembling the more basic aqua beam maneuver.

Amiya, her petite frame a stark contrast from Rokko’s broader, more muscular build, pokes her head out from behind him. Her burgundy pigtails sway as she raises her Sword of Spirit, directing it toward the nearest wall. A purple detailed map of the region materializes onto the cracked surface.

They didn’t discover us, did they? I say, holding my sword to the cement as I bustle over to clear up the water.

No, we just received a briefing that tensions between Ragland and Gelida are also about to spill over and it’s something you need to be up to date on, too. Rokko points to the upper-left section of the map, where the borders of Bastille and Ragland meet. "Gelida’s threatening to mobilize outside of Ragland’s Northwest Territories, and Bastille’s doing two things, per the intel: Pledging to supply Ragland with hordes of Elemental-enhanced ammunition, and accusing Gelida of