"Ow!"
Shoremont woke to a most undignified sensation: a potato to the face. Not a gentle potato, mind you. A full-throttle, clatter-blasted potato from a stack of crates right above his head!
The world lurched. The floor beneath him rattled like an angry tin kettle, all clankle-clonk and whirr-splutter, and he promptly rolled sideways into a crate that objected with a loud, splintery crack.
For a long second, he lay there, blinking at absolutely everything. The air smelled dreadful. Burnt oil. Gunpowder. A faint hint of roasted regret.
"…Where am I?" he muttered.
Around him, chaos conducted itself.
"Hold the line!" someone bellowed.
"Left flank! LEFT FLANK, you soot-sniffers!"
"Mind the horses!"
He is in a military carriage. The Juggernaut!
Outside the half-shattered carriage, hooves hammered the street in a frantic bangwhistle thunder, and somewhere far too close, something exploded with blast and clatter.
A loud bang cracked outside. The carriage jerked sideways. And that was when he saw it.
A big potato slipped from his sack and began rolling away! It picked up speed the longer he watched. And so, he lunged just before the floor shifted under him. He slid, arms flailing, missing the potato by a tragic inch.
"Oh, come on!" He scrambled after it on all fours as bullets began pinging against the carriage thick walls.
Ping! Ping! Ping!
"Oh, that's new," He muttered, ducking instinctively as something whizzed past his ears. The potato rolled faster. Sho crawled faster. Then he collided with it.
The carriage door slammed open.
A soldier burst through the carriage door in a gust of smoke and urgency. He looked like he'd been personally insulted by the entire concept of peace.
"You!" the soldier barked, spotting Sho. "What in blazes are you doing in here?"
"I…" Sho held up the potato, as if that clarified anything. "I sell these!"
The soldier stared at him.
For one long, fragile moment, the world paused between absurdity and despair.
"…you're coming with me," the soldier decided, grabbing Sho by the arm.
"I don't think I am qualified for whatever this is!"
"There is no time!" the soldier snapped, hauling him upright. "We're under attack!"
Another explosion rocked the street. The carriage groaned like a boiler-bellied beast reconsidering its life choices. Outside, smoke curled thick and grey, turning daylight into a dim, sooty twilight.
Sho stumbled as he was dragged forward, immediately tripping over his own potato sack.
"Sorry, sorry, occupational hazard!"
He went sliding across the floor in a most heroic fashion, which is to say, not at all heroic, and collided with a stack of metal crates.
Ping! Ping!
Bullets ricocheted off them in sharp, metallic snaps.
Sho froze.
"…those are bullets," he said faintly.
"Yes," said the soldier, with the patience of a man who had misplaced his sanity somewhere last Tuesday. "They tend to be!"
"Right. Of course they do."
The soldier pulled him up again, half-dragging him toward the open door. Outside, the street was a fever dream of overturned carts, splintered fences, and soldiers darting through smoke like shadows that had somewhere urgent to be. Horses screaming. Soldiers of the Cogbound Legion rushing through shattered streets beneath the banner of the Brass Dominion of Virelune.
The Juggernaut loomed behind them, its chipped gold lettering barely visible through soot:
IMPERIAL TRANSIT UNIT No. 7 - BRASS DIVISION
"Stay low!" the soldier barked.
Sho attempted to comply. Unfortunately, "low" turned into "tripping over absolutely everything," including, yes, the same potato. It rolled past him again.
Sho made a noise that was not entirely human. "Are you kidding me?!" He lunged for it.
And that was when something glinted nearby. Half-buried in ash and debris, catching a stray beam of light through the smoke. A metal bracelet that was faintly glowing.
"We gotta move!" the soldier snapped, pulling him forward.
Sho looked at the potato, then the bracelet, then the potato, then, Crack!
The sound split the air, as the soldier jerked.
For a heartbeat, he didn't seem to understand what had happened. His grip on Sho loosened.
"Oh," he said, very quietly, before he collapsed.
Sho stood there, still holding the man's sleeve.
Everything went muffled. Distant. The chaos dulled into a hollow hissle-hassle, like the world had taken a step back to watch.
"…sir?" Sho tried.
No response.
The sleeve slipped from his fingers. For a moment, Sho did nothing. Then everything rushed back at once. Gunfire. Shouting. Smoke. The terrible, relentless whirr-splutter of a city tearing itself apart.
"Oh no," Sho breathed. "Oh no, no, no."
He looked down at the bracelet again.
Then at the soldier.
Then at the bracelet.
A brilliant, well-reasoned decision formed in exactly half a second. He dove for it.
"Mine now, sorry!" Snatching the comm bracelet, Sho scrambled to his feet and ran.
Not in a dignified manner. Not in a strategic manner. In a very enthusiastic, slightly sideways sprint that involved nearly colliding with a fleeing goat and definitely upsetting a stack of already upset crates.
He darted into a narrow alley, boots slipping on wet cobblestones. The world here was no calmer, just closer. Tighter. The air thick with smoke and dust.
Sho turned another corner, then another, until the noise dulled just enough to breathe without feeling like his lungs were being personally insulted. He spotted a ruined market stall, half-collapsed, draped in torn canvas.
Perfect.
He dove inside, crouching low among broken crates and abandoned wares. A single potato rolled out of his coat and settled beside him with a soft, traitorous tock.
For a while, he just stayed there. Listening. Distant gunfire cracked. Machinery groaned. Somewhere, something let out a long, dying hiss.
Sho clutched the bracelet in one hand and the sack in the other. He sighed, to himself, to the potato, to whatever unfortunate force was currently in charge of his life. No answer came. No soldier. No orders. No explanation. Just the quiet, creeping realization settling in like dust. He was alone.
Sho swallowed, pulling his knees closer.
"…this," he said softly, "is a very bad day to not be on a farm."
Outside, the war carried on with a distant clankle-clonk indifference.
Inside, a farmer sat in the ruins, holding a potato like it might still belong to a simpler world.