— Watedia, Ranth 13, 8054 —

“Chaos Cannon! Chaos Cannon!!”

Two projectiles, made entirely of reddish energy, rocketed out of Feral’s hands and straight toward the flying form of Ralak — who just barely dodged out of the way to continue harassing Strén. Diving in close to the Bleeder, Ralak deftly ducked around Strén’s fists as he attempted to grab her, at which point she moved to slap him on the back — only to be forced backwards as Strén manipulated the stone in the walls of Tresnon to leap up and protect him. He then whirled around, slamming his fist into the stone he had raised to shatter it and launch the debris at Ralak, who quickly ducked down beside the damaged Compound walls to avoid being hit.

In the brief moment of respite that followed, Ralak glanced over at the wall. Since beginning her fight with Strén, Feral had joined him, and the two Bleeders’ destructive attacks had made short work of Tresnon’s eastern walls. Despite that, Strén and Feral both remained squarely focused on Ralak. I had forgotten just how much reputation means to the Bleeders… and especially to someone like Strén, Ralak mused, but it’s better that they focus on me than the rest of the Compound. Now—! She cut her thoughts short, quickly touching her stomach to renew her Imperator control over her own body and then shoot up into the air, just in time to avoid the wall exploding next to where she had been hiding. As soon as she appeared in the air, Feral shouted out, “Chaos Arrow! Chaos Arrow! CHAOS ARROW!!” Three arrows of reddish energy shot out from her fingers, arcing through the air to home in on Ralak — who was already diving in close to Strén in an attempt to use him as cover.

Anticipating Ralak’s actions, Strén made to leap away — only to feint and bring his arms around to try and grab Ralak. Ralak saw through the feint, however, and managed to throw herself to the walltop right at Strén’s feet. The momentum of Strén’s forceful grab prevented him from reaching down, allowing Ralak to roll between his legs and tag Strén with her bare hand as she passed. Strén made to turn towards her, only to scowl when his body froze in place, all while Feral’s three Chaos Arrows were still homing in on Ralak — with Strén standing in the way. Still, even with his body frozen, Strén was more than capable of manipulating stone, and quickly raised a wall to protect himself from the Arrows — a wall that immediately crumbled under the impact of the three Chaos attacks.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!” Feral roared, her fingers and lips curled in animalistic fury as she glared at Ralak. She then jumped into the air, shouting, “Chaos EXPLOSION!” Immediately, a burst of Chaos Energy exploded underfoot, sending Feral hurtling through the air toward Ralak. As the distance closed, Feral followed with, “Chaos Claws”— one of the two generic Chaos abilities available to all Chaostechnics, but still deadly, as foot-long claws of reddish energy appeared on each of Feral’s fingers. She made to swing at Ralak, only for Strén to suddenly lunge for Feral, his fist outstretch to slam into the Chaostechnic’s side and send her sailing through the air, her body covered in the golden light of energy shielding.

“Ngggh—!” Strén growled, the only sound he could get his body to make — Ralak’s control of his body prevented him from doing anything more. Ralak herself quickly flew through the air to hide behind Tresnon’s wall from Feral, and then began manipulating Strén’s body to force him to pursue Feral. As though he were moving under his own power, Strén crouched down and then bounded into the air, rapidly clearing the blocks between him and Feral to come crashing down on top of her. Before Ralak could make him do anything else, however, Feral shot her hand upwards, raking Strén’s face with the reddish claws extending from her fingers. “Nggh—!” Strén growled again, this time in pain as four shallow gashes crossed his face, his expression slowly contorting as he fought Ralak’s control over his body. “Ngh… aaghh…! RaaaAAAAGGH!!!”

With a bellowing roar, Strén slammed his fists into the ground, this time under his own power. Immediately, he whipped around and leaped back to the wall, followed closely by Feral launching herself with Chaos Explosion. Here they come—! Ralak thought to herself, only to quickly take to the sky right as Strén landed at her position. Before she could react any further, Strén ripped into the damaged wall with his hands and began rapidly throwing chucks of rock and stone at Ralak; she took the first to her arm, seizing control of the stone before it could impart its full damaging momentum to her. She then used that rock to shield herself from the continued onslaught, all while circling through the air in a zig-zagging motion to evade a series of Chaos Cannon attacks launched by Feral.

After ripping up half of the wall to find ammunition for his assault, Strén finally tired of simply throwing and bounded through the air towards Ralak, his fist drawn back in preparation to smash the rock she was using as cover. He’s coming at me again? The fool…! Ralak mused, quickly maneuvering her protective rock to block her body from Strén’s sight. The Bleeder rapidly approached, and then shot his arm out to shatter the rock — right as Ralak launched up into the air, flying a tight arc over the rock and to Strén’s back, where she slapped him again with her open palm.

…Only to be met with the golden lights of energy shielding.

“What—?” Ralak began to exclaim, but her surprise was cut short as Strén whirled around in the air to grab Ralak’s arm and drag her to the ground alongside him. Upon landing, he hoisted Ralak up into the air, a haughty sneer upon his face.

“What, did ya really think I’d make the same stupid mistake twice?” Strén taunted. “You really have gotten soft, Willthief. Or maybe you were never strong TO BEGIN WITH!!”

As he shouted the final words, he hurled Ralak through the air, sending her flying straight toward Tresnon’s walls. She quickly slowed her momentum through the air through her Imperator control of her own body, but she wasn’t able to arrest herself of all momentum before slamming painfully into the wall and crumpling to the ground.

“Hmph… is this really all ya got?”

Ralak looked back at Strén, who was steadily approaching across the desert wastes outside of Tresnon’s walls. Steadily, Ralak climbed back to her feet, using her Imperator powers to force her body to stand when it failed to do so on its own.

“…I’ll admit, you’re stubborn. I like that,” Strén remarked as Feral landed on the ground beside him. “And you managed to overpower me, too! Even if only for a few seconds.”

“I don’t need praise from you…” Ralak muttered. But time he wastes taunting is time I can try to suppress this pain… damn it, that last hit fucking hurt. If not for my own abilities, I would certainly be dead… But I should’ve predicted that last attack. And how the hell did he get his shields back? Did he voluntarily turn ‘em off before, so they still have charge left to use, now…?

“C’mon, Strén!” Feral begged eagerly, “let’s teach her a lesson, already! Break her, break her!!”

“Oh, I will…” Strén declared, cracking his knuckles as he slowly advanced on Ralak. “…I’ll admit, you’ve still got some will left, Willthief. But your strength’s eroded after years of livin’ here, with all these dirt-damned, outsider-lovin’ bastards!”

“Says the one… relyin’ on outsider help to raid Tresnon,” Ralak countered through labored breaths.

“I’m not relyin’ on ‘em, I’m usin’ ‘em,” Strén declared. “They’ll be next, after I’ve smashed you, the Sentry, Compound Tresnon, and everythin’ that stands as a symbol for these stupid ways of yours! But, for now—!” He pulled his arm back, preparing to lunge for Ralak and deal another punch — only for an explosion of energy from above to slam him to the ground, his shields lighting up brilliantly under the blow.

“What? Who?!” Feral snarled, turning her eyes upward — only to be blinded by the afternoon sun. As soon as she winced away, a second energy explosion floored her as well, sending both her and Strén reeling.

“You know, I’m really not used to that sun-at-the-back trick working as well as it has, today. You Bleeders and the SFC really don’t know anything about tactics in combat, do you?”

“Gavon…!” Ralak muttered, finally mustering the will to override the pain shooting through her body. She quickly ascended into the air, finding that Gavon had placed himself right between Strén and the sun, with a laser sniper in hand — and flanking him on both sides were Twy and Sky, hovering in the air through the use of their Chaotic abilities. Upon noticing the two Earthians, Ralak stared at them incredulously. “What are y’all doin’ here?!”

“We’re here to help— whoa!!” Sky began to reply, only to duck to the side as a massive boulder flew through the air toward the group. Gavon shot the boulder out of the air, the powerful laser from the gun he picked up utterly obliterating the rock — only to reveal Strén flying through the air behind it, his arms drawn back in preparation to slam them down over Gavon’s head.

“Oop—!” Gavon quickly applied an upwards gravitational force to himself, beginning a skyward freefall that just barely allowed him to escape Strén’s fist. As the Bleeder sailed by, Gavon shouted out, “well, didn’t expect to run into the ringleader so soon! Sky, Twy, watch yourselves — this might be the most dangerous fight you’ve seen, yet!”

“Oh boy… what have I gotten myself into…?” Twy muttered, quickly summoning her Mystryth Bow as she hovered in the air with a bubble of water, preparing to join Sky, Gavon, and Ralak in fighting Strén and Feral.

---

*

Afternoon sunlight beat down upon the smoky and charred streets of Compound Tresnon. The sounds of continued fighting echoed through the town, reaching even the outer walls — and yet one small encampment outside of the western walls ignored it all. An encampment with a couple of parked gunships, accompanied by a handful of individuals dressed in green and brown clothing as they stood around a large arena, blocked off from the outside world by bars of ice, not unlike a massive jail. Inside the arena prowled a large, wolf-like beast, with silver rashes running down its snout and flank as it snarled at a small cage standing at the opposite side of the arena. A small cage containing one man, with light skin and disheveled, dirty blond hair.

“…Fuck,” Pierce muttered, cautiously eying the wolf monster from within his tiny cage. He then glanced through the ice arena to the Rokresians standing outside. “…Hey, you fuckwits!” he shouted irately, “at least give me a fighting chance!”

“A fight isn’t what we’re here to see,” replied one of the Rokresians — the Cryotechnic that had crafted the ice arena Pierce and the monster were now trapped in. “Now sit still, and let us observe in peace.”

“Observe?!” Pierce echoed incredulously, only to snap his attention back to the beast as it lunged at his cage. Its snout was too large to fit through the gaps in the bars, but the metal still bent under the monster’s strength, forcing Pierce against the back. “Shit…!” he muttered, a scowl spreading across his face as he tried to kick at the bars with superspeed — to no avail. He then held out his hand, attempting to summon his Hastryth bladed whip — to no avail. Fuck! What the hell am I supposed to do, here?!

The beast pounced on the cage again, this time breaking a couple of the metal bars and bending them inwards. Pierce quickly contorted himself to avoid getting impaled, but the position left him vulnerable. His cage was tiny — and there was no where else to dodge.

The monster drew back again, baring its teeth menacingly as it stared Pierce down, feral hunger evident in its eyes. A guttural snarl escaped its throat, and it crouched down, preparing to lunge once more.

…I guess this really is it, then, Pierce thought bitterly. …Fuck. Is this really how I go out?! Damn it! Everyone, you better fucking remember what I did for you—!

“Hey, the hell’s goin’ on?!”

His thoughts interrupted, Pierce glanced to the side, toward the Rokresian who had just shouted — and then Pierce’s eyes grew wide with surprise as a massive dust cyclone formed all around the ice arena, kicking up sand and dirt to obscure vision outside of the encampment. …Wait! A relieved smile spread across Pierce’s face. That must be—!

But the dust cyclone was of no importance to the wolf, which ignored the winds outside the arena and lunged again for Pierce. Despite the tiny space he found himself in, the signs of help invigorated Pierce, motivating him to stretch his body as hard as he could to twist around the beast’s lunging snout. It snapped at him, its jaw breaking through another couple of metal bars; with a deft and dexterous twist of his body, Pierce barely escaped being impaled once more, and managed to draw his body away from the wolf to avoid major injury — but its teeth raked across his torso nonetheless, tearing his shirt and opening up shallow gashes right on top of his scar. “Agh—!” he grunted in pain, his right hand snapping to his side to apply pressure in an attempt to suppress the pain… but a split second later, the full implication of what had just happened occurred to him:

He had just been wounded by an infected creature.

Yet, he had no time to dwell on the thought as shouts from outside the arena accompanied the sound of creaking metal. Pierce’s eyes snapped to the side, taking note as one of the gunships seemingly began to levitate in the air — only to be suddenly thrown toward the arena. “Shit—!” Pierce immediately threw himself to the ground, just as the gunship tumbled through the ice bars surrounding the arena and crushed the top half of the cage containing him, only to crash to the ground on the other side of the cage. A cacophony of wrenching steel echoed through the air as the newly-wrecked gunship crashed to the ground, and amongst that cacophony, Pierce could also hear the Rokresians shouting amidst loud winds — as well as the faint sound of someone shouting “Chaos…!”

“Pierce!”

“Liask?” Pierce called out, just as Liask appeared next to his broken cage, as if out of thin air. Right as she appeared, the wolf monster lunged again, its maw wide as it attempted to sink its fangs into Liask’s arm — only for golden sheets of light to block all penetration. Immediately, Liask swung her arm through the air, shaking off the beast and flinging it across the arena; as soon as her arm was free, she turned back to Pierce and effortlessly pried apart the bars holding him in.

“It’s good to see you’re okay—!” Liask started to say, only to stop herself as her eyes fell upon Pierce’s torn shirt — and the gashes across his side.

Upon seeing her hesitate, Pierce quickly waved her off, while climbing to his feet — though he stumbled slightly under the pain from his wound. “I’m fine, I’m fine!” he insisted.

“You sure don’t look fine…” came Conrad’s voice from nearby — though he himself remained invisible.

“Here…” Liask grabbed at the broach clipped to her collar. A wave of golden static fuzz wiped across her body, signaling that she had just disabled her protective shielding. She then thrust the small broach at Pierce. “Use this! It’ll protect you from more harm!”

“What—?” Pierce responded incredulously, his eyes snapping over to the infected beast — which had recovered from Liask’s throw and had turned its attention back to her. “Forget me, protect yourself—!”

“You’re wounded, you need it more than I do!” Liask insisted; then, before Pierce could argue further, she slapped the broach onto his collar and activated the shields. “Just focus on gettin’ out of here, a’ight?”

“But what about you?”

“You’re the injured one,” Liask replied, looking Pierce steadily in the eye. She then flashed a smile. “Don’t worry about me. But you promised to take me to Nimaliaka, remember? To see my namesake? So we both need to make it out of here. Which means the injured person needs the shields!”

Pierce looked back at her uneasily. “R…right—“

“Liask, look out!”

“Huh—?” Liask quickly turned around in response to Conrad’s shout, just as the wolf dashed forward. Conrad — without even thinking to get close enough to Liask and Pierce to touch them — immediately turned them both invisible, hiding them from view. But the wolf had already pounced, and with flared nostrils, it was able to bypass Conrad’s stealth to hone in on Liask and Pierce by smell. Seeing this, Liask braced herself, her hands out… and just as the wolf made to bite into her chest, she dodged to the side, and then wrapped her arms tightly around the beast’s neck. It snarled and began thrashing in her invisible grip, but her Forcetechnism, unsuppressed by any CENT fields, rendered her strength far greater than the beast could contend with. She stomped on the ground, spreading her feet to gain leverage and then hurled the wolf beast through the air toward the wreck of the gunship that she had thrown earlier; a second later, the beast smashed into the twisted metal, impaled on some of the protruding pieces of wrecked steel… but not before it managed to lash out with its claws, raking two shallow cuts across Liask’s stomach.

“Agh—!” she grunted in pain, promptly dropping to one knee as she clutched at her stomach. “What…?!”

“Liask!!” Pierce shouted, immediately jumping to his feet. With the CENT generators seemingly destroyed, he was easily able to summon his energy weapon and whip it through the air, using the blade at the end to cleanly decapitate the infected wolf — thereby ensuring its death. He then dismissed the weapon and sped over to Liask’s side, with Conrad rendering her visible again so as to discern her condition, all while ignoring the powerful winds and shouts of Chaos attacks occurring outside the arena.

“Well that doesn’t look good…” Conrad muttered as he rendered himself visible nearby.

“No shit,” Pierce retorted as he passed Conrad a brief glance. He then turned back to look at Liask, only for his gaze to snap down to her wounds… where telltale streaks of silver were already beginning to spread. “…No, no…!”

“Damn, this hurts…” Liask muttered, clutching at the wound as her breath grew labored. “What even… happened? Since when could a wolf… hurt a Forcetechnic…?”

“It wasn’t exactly a normal wolf…” Conrad pointed out.

“Shit. Shit!” Pierce swore as he looked down at Liask’s infected wound. “This…!”

“It’s… fine,” Liask insisted between breaths. “You’re free, now… right? Just… get out of here…!”

“But, you—!”

“I’ll be… fine. Oof…” Liask’s chest heaved as she took a deep, tired breath, her gaze eventually drifting down to her own wound. The gashes weren’t deep enough to be profusely bleeding, but blood was beginning to drip out all the same, partially masking the silver rashes that had appeared. “…So this is the infection, huh? I guess… I should’ve took Trenon’s advice…”

“What? Trenon? What?!” Pierce questioned, panic leaking into his tone as he cradled Liask — whose eyes had drifted shut. “Wait, Liask! You— what? No, you…!” No, no, not again…! And— Pierce’s thoughts began to shift, snapping back to that dark night from months ago.

 

— following that, a young woman, with tan skin, shoulder-length black hair, and a prominent scar stretching from just above the left corner of her mouth, down her neck, and disappearing below the collar of her shirt. She seemed to smile at Pierce, before she turned around and ran off, disappearing into the darkness… which was quickly replaced by the sight of a singular, feral, wolf-like beast with silvery, metallic rashes covering its body. It snarled, and then lunged at him—

 

What…? The vision, from that night… no, it came true—?

“Pierce!!”

“What?!” Pierce jumped, startled, and then whipped around to stare at Conrad.

“Dude, you’re spacing out!” Conrad said. “I know everything’s fucked up, but we need to get out of here!”

“…Right,” Pierce muttered, finally noticing that Conrad had grabbed him by both shoulders. “…But Liask—!”

“Still alive…” came Kestrel’s reply. “…Passed out.”

“What?!” Pierce spun around, finding that Phoenix and Kestrel had joined Conrad in the middle of the broken arena. He then quickly looked around at their surroundings; the remnants of the ice arena were in tatters, while the remaining gunship could be seen flying off into the distance over the waters of Mirage Lake. Then, he looked down at Liask — her eyes were closed, but her chest was moving, indicative of breathing, albeit labored.

“Thanks to actually having shields, we were able to chase off the Rokres people,” Phoenix reported. “But what the hell even happened, here? Why was there a corrupted animal, here?!”

“Hey, wait…” Conrad looked down at Pierce’s side, which the latter was clutching. “…That’s right. Pierce, you were injured, too, weren’t you?”

“I’m fine,” Pierce insisted.

“Bullshit,” Phoenix immediately countered. “You were just attacked by a corrupted wolf! You’re in the same boat as Liask!”

“I feel fine!”

“Then show us the wound!”

“…Hmph!” Pierce snorted, but nonetheless acquiesced — even if only to use both of his arms to pick up Liask. As Pierce scooped up Liask in his arms, Phoenix turned her eyes down to Pierce’s side to inspect his wound. Similar to Liask, shallow gashes ran across his side, and blood was slowly dripping out. But unlike Liask…

“…There’s no rashes,” Phoenix muttered. “…What? But, you were attacked by the same monster as Liask, right?”

“…Infection-immune,” Kestrel commented.

“…Oh yeah, that’s right…” Conrad said. “Pallan said that we’re immune to the metallic infection, right? Maybe that’s it.”

“No way…” Phoenix responded uneasily. “Are… are you saying that all that shit Pallan told us, is actually true…?”

“Whether or not the old man was right doesn’t matter right now,” Pierce insisted. “Even if we’re immune to the infection, Liask sure as hell isn’t! We need to get help for her!”

“…Right,” Phoenix muttered, turning away from the encampment as Kestrel began to lift everyone up atop cushions of air, prepared to return to Tresnon’s hospital.