“…The fighting’s stopped. Is it over?”

“So it would seem…” Saito muttered as he and Hackett cautiously set foot outside of the Aldredian outpost. The loud sounds of shattering ice, thundering lightning, whirling winds, cracking earth, and the other noises of combat had ceased, filling the air with an almost suffocating silence. Bright sunlight shone down on the outpost and its surroundings, revealing a heavily scarred landscape pockmarked with craters, boulders, and shards of ice. Amidst it all, the Nimalians, Keys, and Chaos Knights alike were working to clear the rubble nearest to the outpost, while Rebehka and Nil’kin stood off to the side, overseeing a large chunk of ice that held suspended within it the deceased bodies of the corrupted Bleeders. Fog remained on the outskirts of the outpost, held back by the winds of Kestrel and the Aerotechnic Knight — though with the spacetime maze disabled and the sun beating down, the fog had slowly begun to lift.

On seeing all of this, Saito turned to approach Rebehka and Nil’kin while gesturing for Hackett to follow. “Dean, Major,” he called out, prompting the two to glance back at him. “…What’s the situation?”

“We’ve neutralized the infection,” Nil’kin declared.

“Yes…” Rebehka passed Nil’kin a quick glance before looking up at the massive chunk of ice again, and the bodies within. “…It took longer than I’d like, but a couple minutes ago, all of the corrupted individuals suddenly seemed to grow… sluggish, almost. That made it a lot easier to fight them.”

“Hmm…” Hackett looked up at the ice. “…I take it we’ve narrowly avoided a Critical Infection, then?”

“That depends entirely on that ‘Key’ of yours,” Nil’kin retorted. “If he found and killed the infected girl, then yes, we should be fine… assuming Densalin doesn’t fuck things up, at least.”

“Kaoné will be just fine,” Rebehka asserted. “As for Liask, though, well…”

“I have her.”

The four glanced to the side, spotting Pierce, who had just landed in a crouch on the ground beside them. He slowly stood up, a solemn expression on his face as Rebehka and Nil’kin both looked down at the body he held in his arms… at Liask’s lifeless expression.

“So you found her…” Saito mused.

“What the hell are you carrying the body around, for?” Nil’kin questioned as she eyed Pierce. “She might be dead, but her body still clearly has plenty of nanites in and covering it. You should have destroyed the body—” Her eyes then widened, only to narrow into a suspicious glare at Pierce as sparks began to wreath her arms. “…Your energy shields are dead.”

“Stop, now,” Rebehka cut in, holding her arm in front of Nil’kin. “The Keys are immune to Nanocreature infection.”

“Oh really now?” Nil’kin drawled, barely acknowledging Phoenix, Kestrel, and Conrad as they approached behind Pierce. “That sounds mighty convenient, now, doesn’t it?” She then turned to glare at Pierce. “Especially after returning without any sign of the Knight that I sent after that girl. Tell me, what happened to Rokor?”

“If you mean your Velocitechnic…” Pierce responded, “…then she was infected. I had to kill her, too…”

“Tch…” Nil’kin scowled, her brow furrowed, and eyes closed.

“Nil’kin…” Rebehka muttered warningly.

“Don’t mistake me,” Nil’kin snapped, opening her eyes to glance at Rebehka out the corner of her eye. “If Rokor was infected, then killing her was the correct thing to do. I hold no issue with that decision; I would’ve done it myself, if it came to it. What I do hold issue with—“ she turned to glare at Pierce again, “—is that you’ve clearly exposed yourself to the infection, and yet, no one else is keen to do anything about it!”

“If you want to scan me, or something, then do it,” Pierce said. “I feel fine. But if it puts you at ease…”

“You don’t look fine…” Conrad muttered, his eyes sweeping up and down over Pierce’s body. While he didn’t appear to have any open wounds, his clothes were ragged, and he was bruised all over.

“We’ll have to wait until Kaoné is done — we don’t have any scanners on hand,” Rebehka replied. “But, as for Liask… here.” A platform of ice appeared in front of Pierce. “She was infected, after all. We need to contain her body.”

“…Right,” Pierce said. His gaze lingered on the ice… but a moment later, he moved to gingerly lay Liask’s body down. He then stepped back, allowing Rebehka to fully entomb Liask in ice — while also revealing the dark red stains covering his right arm.

“Oh my god…” Phoenix muttered, her eyes locked onto Pierce’s blood-covered arm. “Pierce, are you—?”

“LIASK!!”

In the midst of Phoenix’s question, Obra charged onto the scene, practically bowling her over as he rushed up to the ice entombing Liask. He looked helplessly down at her… only to whip around, fury writ across his features as he glared at Pierce. “You—!”

“Now is not the time for this,” Phoenix cut in.

“No… let him talk,” Pierce said, his expression solemn as he turned to face Obra. “…I killed Liask, after all. Both figuratively, and literally. It’s only right that you’re mad.”

Rebehka shook her head. “You didn’t kill her. The infection killed her. You could even blame Rokres, given what I’ve heard from Davídrius and Kaoné. But not you.”

“Bullshit!” Obra retorted, his lip curled as he jabbed a finger into Pierce’s sternum. “If not for you, you fucking outsider, then Liask would’ve never been infected in the first place!”

Conrad sighed in exasperation. “C’mon, man, that’s not—“

“No,” Pierce interrupted. “…He’s right. I didn’t just kill Liask, I got her killed. Just like Trenon. Just like her brother…”

“That’s…!” A pained look crossed Phoenix’s face. “That wasn’t your fault, Pierce. Neither time was!”

Pierce shook his head. “No. No matter how you look at it… if I wasn’t around, then Trenon and Liask both would still be alive. They only died because they thought that my lousy life was worth risking theirs for. And now… here we are.” He turned towards Obra and spread his arms to the side, as if to indicate surrender. “…You were her friend, you have every right to be mad. If you want to avenge her… well. I’m right here.”

A tense silence fell, as Obra glared at Pierce, and Pierce stared straight back. Around them, Conrad, Phoenix, and Kestrel all eyed Obra warily, while Rebehka subtly held her hand out, prepared to stop any fighting. Nil’kin snorted in derision, but said nothing; Saito and Hackett, meanwhile, stood by, knowing that if Obra — as a Chaotic — made any moves to kill Pierce, then there wasn’t anything they could do in that moment to stop him. They had lost their CENT fields in combat with the Chaos Knights, after all.

But a second later, Obra ripped his glare away from Pierce. “…Fuck…” he swore, “…I still think you’re a damn dirty outsider who’s got no place in Tresnon. But killin’ you now… ain’t gonna bring Liask back.” He then whipped around and stomped off, shouting over his shoulder, “but don’t think I’m forgivin’ you! I don’t wanna see your damn face ever again!”

Rebehka released a quiet sigh of relief as Obra charged off. She then looked back to Pierce, who himself was staring after Obra. “…I can’t tell you how to feel,” the Dean spoke softly, slowly drawing Pierce’s attention. “…But even cures are limited. When someone is infected as heavily as Liask was… there’s no saving them. What you did — you didn’t kill her. She was already as good as dead.”

“I…” Pierce muttered, briefly glancing to the side as Spike, Sky, Twy, and Gavon quietly joined the group. “…I don’t know that that’s true.”

“Of course it is,” Nil’kin retorted. “Why the hell would you think otherwise?”

“She… spoke to me.”

Conrad and Phoenix exchanged a wary glance. “…You’re sure?” Conrad asked.

Pierce nodded. “Yeah. While we were fighting, there were a couple of times where it seemed like she recognized me, like she had a moment of clarity. She even called my name, once. And then, when she was dying, laying in front of me…” He looked down at this hand — his blood-covered hand. “…We spoke. She had last words. She said she was glad to have met me…”

Nil’kin scoffed. “A ploy by the infection, no doubt, meant to prey on your emotions to give it an opening to defeat you.”

“Can the infection really do that…?” Sky questioned warily.

Rebehka sighed. “…Yes, and no,” she responded. “From what I can tell, the infection can’t fake emotional responses. Not when Morcii isn’t around. But… to be clear, I don’t know this for certain, as it’s impossible to ethically test… but it does seem quite plausible that moments of clarity, like what Pierce saw, really are a means for the infection to manipulate people. The infection might relinquish control of the host just long enough for the host to have some sort of emotional response, to make others think that someone who is actually too far gone, could still be saved…”

“That’s low…” Spike muttered.

“Is that… is that really true…?” Pierce questioned. “Was she… really doomed from the start?”

“Yeah — can we actually know that?” Hackett added. “The entire reason we’re here is to cure people who have fallen to the infection. How do you know that someone is too far gone?”

“Just because a cure for a disease exists, doesn’t mean that you can heal someone suffering from the final stages,” Saito said, and then passed Rebehka a glance. “That’s the basic idea, right?”

“That’s correct.”

The entire group turned towards the outpost as Kaoné approached. With her was Austin, Pallan, and Kirstin… as well as Luke, still unconscious as he laid on a levitating gurney. The silver rashes that had once covered him were now completely gone… along with his left arm.

“Dean Densalin.” Saito acknowledged Kaoné with a nod before looking down at Luke. “…Is he…?”

“He’s free of the infection,” Kaoné reported. “But, unfortunately, the procedure wasn’t flawless. When the infection became a problem up here, it also impeded my efforts to remove it from the Captain’s body. It was all I could do to ‘shunt’ all of the nanites into one part of his body — his arm — and then amputate it.”

“It definitely sucks…” Austin said, only to look up at Saito with desperate hope. “But it’s better than him dying, right?”

“A lost arm is certainly much easier to fix than a lost life,” Gavon remarked.

“But if you could cure him, then—!” Pierce started, only for Kaoné to cut him off.

“It isn’t so simple, I’m afraid,” she said. “Luke’s infection was advancing faster than normal, but he had still only been infected for a few days — effectively less, even, due to EA’s special stasis technology. And even then, I had to amputate his arm to successfully cure him of the infection.” She looked down. “…If not for whatever happened up here, then I may — may — have been able to cure Luke without amputating his arm. But this is still only a basic case…”

“As the infection advances in severity, it eventually begins to corrupt even the brain,” Rebehka explained. “And, as skilled as Kaoné might be…”

“I can’t replace brain matter,” Kaoné finished. “Not in a way that preserves memories, knowledge, or personality, at least. It would be like a blank slate, at best.”

“Which may as well be a death of its own…” Hackett muttered.

Nil’kin, however, responded with a scoff. “Even after all that just happened, you all are still going on about cures,” she remarked incredulously.

“Says the bitch who’s directly responsible for shit hitting the fan,” Phoenix retorted.

The Dra’kis turned her nose up at Phoenix. “I hold no responsibility for what the Bleeders have done, here. The death of that infected girl was part of my original goal, in the first place.”

“How can you say that? One of your own Knights died to the infection, here!”

“A death that I could lay at your hands just as much as you blame me for the death of that girl,” Nil’kin snapped back. “Had you not fought to protect a lost cause, then Rokor would still be alive!”

“If you hadn’t fought to disrupt a cure in progress, then no one would have died!” Rebehka countered.

“A cure that you can’t possibly verify,” Nil’kin argued, and then glanced toward Luke’s unconscious body. “For the safety of us all, I still ought to ensure the destruction of anyone here who was corrupted!”

“No,” Kaoné declared, stepping between Nil’kin and Luke. “I won’t allow it.”

“You’re being delusional, Dean,” Nil’kin insisted. “A cure? For the Nanocreatures? We’re talking about nanomachines, here! Nanomachines that are immune to direct manipulation, at that! How can you possibly know that you’ve removed every last nanite from his body?”

“We have infection scanners,” Kaoné stated. “I can make them myself, easily. And Luke’s body scans clean.”

“Tch…!” Nil’kin glared down at Kaoné, only to look around — finding that everyone else present was watching her carefully. She then looked over at Pallan, who had yet to speak. “You, Archoné!” she called out to him, “you said earlier that you agree with my stances. Is the complete annihilation of the infection not the only way to ensure its elimination from the galaxy?”

“I said that I agree with you on some points,” Pallan refuted. “Do not mistake me, Chaos Knight. I may disagree with Deans Densalin and Tchiréon on specific issues, but I share in their desire to find a cure.”

“You—!”

“Furthermore,” Pallan continued, “…it is easy to say now, with the benefit of hindsight. But it is quite clear, now, that Densalin and Tchiréon had the right of it. If not for your over-zealous desire to destroy the Nanocreatures, Knight, I daresay that not only would both the Captain, the girl, and your Knight be alive, but we would also have access to Aldredian technology capable of curing the infection. But your actions have robbed us of all of that.”

“For once, I can agree with the Archoné,” Rebehka declared. “You aren’t welcome here, Nil’kin.”

“Yeah,” Austin added, stepping up next to Kaoné and summoning his claymore into his hands. “If you wanna come for Luke, then you’ll have to go through me, first!”

“And me,” Pierce affirmed, summoning his own weapon as he stared down Nil’kin. “I may have gotten Liask killed, but you sure as hell didn’t help. And I sure as hell won’t just stand around if you try to needlessly take another life!”

“They’re absolutely right,” Phoenix asserted, summoning her own weapon — with Conrad, Kestrel, Spike, Sky, and Twy all following suit. “We were fighting you before the infected were an issue, and we’ll do it again, if we have to!”

“You fools…” Nil’kin scowled. “…You lot are students. Students! And you think you can stand up to the Knights?!”

“It’s not just them,” Kaoné said. “You’ll have to go through me, as well.”

“And I, as well,” Gavon remarked, and then nodded at Saito and Hackett. “Not to mention them. I have to say, SERRCom’s CSF-1 is surprisingly effective — with just a couple of CENT fields, they helped put a wrench in your Knights’ actions, without any Chaotic abilities of their own!”

“I’d wrestle you with my bare hands, if doing so meant saving the life of someone else on the team,” Hackett declared while staring down Nil’kin.

“We’ve had a couple of bad encounters with the Black Suns, in our time, but this run-in with the Chaos Knights… this just takes the cake,” Saito remarked. “At least the Suns kept up the pretenses of playing along with galactic governments, and never threatened the life of SERRCom personnel without SERRCom first starting a fight. You Chaos Knights, though… I’ll be sure to let the General know that you’re too cavalier to be trusted.”

“Indeed. And speaking more broadly…” Pallan interjected, “you are trespassing on these islands, Knight. Not only are you encroaching on sovereign lands of one of Nimalia’s great nations, you are also openly and actively defying an Archoné. Should you continue to defy us, then I will see to it personally that the Chaos Knights never set foot within Union space again.”

Nil’kin’s nostrils flared with indignation, but she otherwise remained silent, her furious gaze sweeping over everyone present. Eventually, she turned away in a huff, charging off towards the other Knights working in the distance. “You’ll regret this, all of you!” she shouted over her shoulder. “You’ll face the consequences of your naivety, one day! And when the infection is at your doors, threatening to swallow Nimalia or Earth due to your own actions, don’t expect the Knights to save you!”

Silence reigned in the wake of Nil’kin’s departure as everyone watched her leave. Eventually, each of the Keys silently dismissed their weapons, with Austin sighing of relief… only to look warily over at the chunk of ice that contained Liask’s body. “…Is she…?”

“She’s dead,” Pierce said. “I killed her.”

“…Oh.” Austin glanced at Pierce, only to look away uneasily. “I’m… sorry.”

“W-we lost, um, th-that machine, too…” Kirstin meekly pointed out. “That’s… bad…”

“It is…” Rebehka admitted, “but, on the bright side… Kaoné was able to cure the Captain. That’s still progress.”

“I agree, but still…” Kaoné frowned. “My Materiatechnism can’t be scaled in the same way that a machine could’ve been. Losing that tech… I fear that many more lives will be lost in the future, because of that.”

“Well, yeah, but the outpost is still mostly intact, right?” Sky remarked. “So you can still access some of the research and stuff, right?”

“A silver lining, to be sure,” Gavon said. “With everything that’s happened, lately, I suppose we’ll just have to take what we can get.”

“Indeed…” Pallan responded. “…Now that the spacetime maze has collapsed, this outpost is not quite so hidden. I will call upon the NSD to secure it, and relinquish it to the Union.”

“We should probably stick around, for the time being…” Hackett suggested, her eyes still watching Nil’kin in the distance. “Just to make sure that the Knights behave.”

“I agree…” Kaoné said with a sigh. “But the NSD should respond quickly to a situation such as this.”

“We’ll need to return to Earth, soon, as well,” Saito pointed out. “To deal with Travis’s medical situation, among other things.”

“Understandable. I’m sorry that I couldn’t do more for him, Colonel.”

“Oh, no, I fully understand the circumstances. You did what you had to do. I’m extremely grateful that you were able to save Travis’s life; I’m sure he’d agree, even without an arm.”

“I hope so,” Kaoné responded with a faint smile, only to begin walking towards Pallan’s ship, still parked off to the side of the outpost. “I’ll move Luke onto the ship. He may be cured of the infection, but he still needs further rest and medical attention.”

“I’d like to take a look around for that Bleeder woman who sabotaged the cure machine, as well,” Rebehka pointed out. “She wasn’t among the corrupted Bleeders, so she must be around here, somewhere.”

“Given how slippery Feral and Shade were back in Treséd, I wouldn’t count on finding them,” Gavon said. “But it’s a good idea, nonetheless. I’ll help you search.”

“The rest of us should probably get back to cleanin’ up,” Spike remarked. “We got time to burn, after all.”

“The distraction would be nice, if nothing else…” Phoenix mused as the group began to split up, with everyone moving to help clear the debris around the outpost. As everyone left, however, Pierce remained, his gaze lingering on the form of Liask, entombed in the ice.

“…Hey, man…” Conrad said, “…you alright?”

Pierce glanced back at Conrad, and then at Phoenix and Kestrel — who were both watching him warily. “…No. I’m not,” he eventually replied. “…But this isn’t the time or place for a talk. Let’s get to cleaning.”

“If you say so…” Conrad responded, as the four turned to help with the cleanup efforts themselves, finally working to put behind them the stressful events on the Fog Islands.