Page 2537

~~((National Senior Citizens Day -- page 9 of 24))~~
The town was still in shambles from their first battle here, the one that had lasted a full twenty-four hours ended in a stalemate. He tried to take note of any new developments, though.

Several buildings were now completely gone, leveled to the ground. That seemed a bit odd, considering the fact that one of the reasons that fight had lasted so long and been such a problem for the Rainlords was because they had deliberately tried to avoid obliterating any buildings. The reapers had been able to sense innocent bystanders within many of them, and the whole point of this operation was to rescue those poor people.

As far as Raul was aware, they had thus far been successful in that aspect of their mission, at least. While some of these squat, little buildings may have gotten punctured a few times accidentally, none of the civilians had actually been killed.

Raul had been proud of that, if not much else here.

But now, looking at these piles of rubble where houses used to stand, he found himself wondering if even that accomplishment had been undone. These civilians might have survived the fight, but they had still been forced to endure the tyranny of those Abolish maniacs for a few more days.

Raul had wanted to believe that these Abolishers wouldn't kill their hostages, their most valuable bargaining chips, but now he wasn't so sure. He hadn't seen any bodies yet, but a part of him was expecting to.

The streets were torn up, missing giant chunks of pavement or simply replaced by craters that made it more difficult to get around. No doubt, that was the point. And as Raul slowly made his way deeper toward the town center, he began to notice tall barricades that had not been there before, either.

Hmm. Perhaps that was where some of the materials from those destroyed homes had gone. To erecting defenses.