“Chaos Armor! Chaos Deflect—ngh!!”

Mid-invocation, the Support Chaostechnic Knight was slammed into the ground by the oversized fist of an attacking Bleeder, coated all over in telltale metallic silver. With bestial fury, the infected Bleeder proceeded to rapidly slam their fists into the Chaostechnic’s back, cratering the ground as they output forces on par with any Forcetechnic. The Chaostechnic’s Chaos Armor shielded against the first blow, but broke against the second, leaving their strained energy shields to begin blocking… but a moment later, the attacking Bleeder was lifted into the air and then flung aside as Gavon flew onto the scene, using his powers of gravity manipulation to help the Chaostechnic back to their feet.

Once standing, the Knight offered Gavon a curt nod of acknowledgment — and then reached out to grab Gavon by his shoulder and pull him close before shouting, “Chaos Deflection!” A rapidly spinning sphere of Chaos Energy appeared around both Chaotics just in time to block a lunge from another of the infected Bleeders; the spinning shield deflected the Bleeder off to the side, along with with a barrage of icy projectiles that they had attempted to attack with. Before the Bleeder could recover, Spike bounded onto the scene and grabbed the Bleeder by their metallic tails before hurling them into the fogged-up distance.

As soon as the Bleeder was gone, Gavon and the Chaostechnic parted ways, with Gavon offering the Knight a quick salute and then a nod towards Spike before taking to the air — and then dodging to the left just in time to evade a jet of water that rapidly froze into a lance of ice. Gavon quickly whipped around toward the source of the water, where he found one of the infected Bleeders flying through the air straight at him, enveloped in fierce winds, stony debris, and ice shards alike. On spotting the approaching assailant, Gavon made to dodge, only for the Bleeder to fire out attacks in three directions — stone above Gavon, sharp ice projectiles to either side, and fierce winds under him.

What the hell is going on?! Gavon thought to himself incredulously as he dodged to the side despite the ice, allowing his shields to absorb the hits for him. He quickly glanced off to the side, noting two of the other infected Bleeders as they also wielded rocks, air, water, and ice, all at once. …Triple-type Chaotics are rare enough, but all of the Bleeders here seem to be quad- or even quintuple-typed? No, something must be up, and I’d bet my arm and my best rifle that it’s related to the infection! But how…?! Could it be related to those tails—?

A massive pillar of ice suddenly appeared above Gavon, forcing him to alter his own gravity to dodge to the side — only for rocky walls to surround him on all sides. Just as soon as they appeared, however, one of the walls disappeared into a void of spherical darkness, while flames from two different directions rapidly melted the ice block before it could crush Gavon. Sky then blasted onto the scene, sending out fierce waves of flame from her body to evaporate the melted water and prevent the infected Bleeders from weaponizing it further. She glanced down just long enough to see Gavon escape through the Voided-out wall before turning her attention back to the nearest Bleeder — only to be startled as a small buckler shot through the air near her, slamming into a Bleeder that had jumped towards her and knocking them back. The Pyrotechnic Knight promptly pursued the launched Bleeder to blast them with searing flame, allowing Sky to return to the ground just in time to spot two Bleeders approaching Spike and blast them both backwards with bursts of fire.

“Thanks—!” Spike began to reply, only to be cut off as the very ground beneath him exploded upwards, launching him into the air. Sky quickly rocketed over to his side, grabbing his arm to help him land — though just as Spike touched down again, he crafted a massive tower shield and grabbed Sky’s arm to pull her in behind the shield, just in time to protect against a jet of water so fierce that it would have surely sliced clean through Spike’s shield, had he not recently renewed his Overdrive. Twy soon took control of the water jet and distracted the attacking Bleeder by shooting at them with silver arrows from her Mystryth bow, allowing Spike and Sky a brief moment to recover.

“Spike, your legs!”

At Sky’s exclamation, Spike looked down at his legs, finding that the energy shielding protecting him was flaring up — and was partially covered by a silvery goo. With a scowl, Spike stomped the ground, hoping to shake the nanites off; but despite cratering the earth with that one stomp, the nanites remained. On seeing this, Sky began to bathe Spike’s legs in searing flames, hoping to burn off the nanites, only to spot one of the infected Bleeders leaping towards her, with their silver-coated fist outstretched.

But a second later, the Bleeder’s lunge was stopped as a nigh-invisible barrier sliced right through their arm. The Bleeder recoiled as their severed limb fell to the side, slowly shriveling into a silvery husk as Obra jumped in front of Spike and Sky to continue lacerating the Bleeder with barriers. Within seconds, Obra had cut them down to size… only for silvery tendrils to shoot out of the Bleeder’s severed head and latch onto the rest of its body parts. With a grimace, both Obra and Sky quickly turned to blast the Bleeder away before they could recover, joined by Twy as she fired on the Bleeder with her bow — only for a massive spire of ice to appear around all of them, instantly freezing them in place.

Though just as quickly as the spire appeared, it shattered to pieces under a fierce lightning strike. The resulting glittering shards of ice all turned to point their sharp edges at the Bleeder remains before homing in and rending the corpse to pieces… only for another infected Bleeder to pounce onto the scene, surrounded by stone, water, and air as they lashed out at everyone nearby. Obra, Sky, and Spike made to attack, only for Nil’kin and Rebehka to land on the ground in front of them and utterly eviscerate the infected Bleeder with lightning on one side and impossibly sharp ice lances on the other… and still, the Bleeder stood, their wounds rapidly being covered in silver. They moved to lunge, their metallic tails flared behind them, but Rebehka quickly encased them in a massive pillar of ice — a pillar that Nil’kin promptly shattered with another bolt of lightning, rending it to glistening pieces of ice. Nil’kin immediately followed by radically altering the voltages of random shards of ice, forcing the creation of a lightning storm within the cloud of ice surrounding the Bleeder. Bright light and fierce thunder rolled across the outpost grounds… but as the light subsided, the Bleeder remained standing, seemingly unfazed by Nil’kin and Rebehka’s attacks.

“Shit…!” Rebehka muttered, quickly using ice to pull both herself and Nil’kin backwards just in time to evade the Bleeder’s counterattack lunge. “What’s happening? I’ve never seen the infection do this, before!”

“Indeed, the corrupted picking up each other’s Chaotic abilities is a serious problem…” Nil’kin added, while surrounding herself and Rebheka in lightning to strike down two other Bleeders that had lunged onto the scene. “Forcetechnism, Duratechnism, Geo-, Aero-, Hydro-, and Cryotechnism… on all of them! What a pain in the fucking ass!”

“And we’ve lost Liask, too.” Rebehka scowled. “This situation is falling out of control…!”

“I sent Rokor — the Velocitechnic — to look for this Liask girl,” Nil’kin reported as Gavon and the Void Chaostechnic Knight appeared on the scene to distract the Bleeders, giving Nil’kin and Rebehka a brief respite. “But the fog is an issue. Kal’da can suppress the fog with her Clear Skies Overdrive, but finding an infected girl in the forest beyond will be nigh-impossible.” Nil’kin shot Rebehka an irritated glance. “All because you wanted to keep her alive!”

“It was the best option we had at the time, I stand by that!” Rebehka countered. “If you hadn’t led the Bleeders right to us, then everything would be working out fine!”

“You—!” Nil’kin began to retort, her lip curled in rage and disdain — only for her eyes to shift to behind Rebehka. Immediately, Nil’kin shot out a lightning strike, while in that same instant, Rebehka crafted and launched a spear of ice over Nil’kin’s shoulder, both of them successfully halting the lunge of two separate infected Bleeders.

“…We’ll have to argue later,” Rebehka muttered, passing Nil’kin an annoyed look before crafting ice armor over her body. “For now, we need to contain these corrupted Bleeders.”

“Nothing else could possibly be more obvious!” Nil’kin retorted, but nonetheless dove back into battle with Rebehka once more, using their ice and lightning to cut a path through the chaotic battlefield.

---

*

“Chaos Impact, Chaos Impact!”

Two nigh-invisible waves of pure force shot through the air, only to harmlessly impact the ground and dead trees as Pierce, still fully cloaked in a dark aura of Chaos Energy, dashed off to the side. A split second later, he whipped around on his foot and lunged towards Phoenix, reaching her in the blink of an eye and slamming his foot into her face. Chaos Armor shattered and energy shielding flared to protect Phoenix from the blow, but she was nonetheless launched up into the air — where Kestrel caught her and quickly moved her to the side to evade a follow-up leap from Pierce. Having missed his targets, the berserker sailed past Phoenix and Kestrel and disappeared into the fog amid the forest of dead trees.

“Ow… fucking hell…!” Phoenix muttered bitterly, her right hand held to her head as she reached over to touch Kestrel with her left. “Chaos Armor, Chaos Other Armor,” she declared, re-crafting sets of Chaos Energy armor over both her and Kestrel’s bodies just in time for Pierce to appear once more, having leaped through the air straight towards Kestrel. Before the silver-haired Aerotechnic could even think to dodge, Pierce had latched onto her, his aura-covered hands tightly gripping Kestrel’s arms as he rapidly and repeatedly slammed his knee into her chest, hammering away at her armor and shielding.

“Chaos Mach 3 Cannon!” Phoenix quickly shouted, her hand stretched towards Pierce to slam him with a supersonic projectile and fling him off of Kestrel — though the force of Pierce being ripped off of her sent Kestrel off-balance as well, and interrupted her concentration just enough to drop Phoenix to the dirt-covered forest floor. As soon as she landed, Phoenix called out “Chaos Deflection,” creating a spinning sphere of Chaos Energy around her just in time to deflect an incoming kick from Pierce — just as Phoenix had predicted. The berserker slammed into the ground and tumbled a short distance; before he could jump back to his feet, Phoenix quickly turned to face him and fired off “Chaos Arrow, Chaos Arrow, Chaos Arrow!!”

Three purple arrows shot from her hand towards Pierce, only for the berserker to dash off into the fog — and the three arrows to follow as they continued homing in on their target, only to slam into and obliterate a dead tree that stood in their way. In that brief lull, Kestrel hoisted Phoenix back into the air, and then focused intently to whip up the winds around her into a fierce, almost tornado-like storm. But the winds were no match for Pierce’s speed as he rocketed back onto the scene, stopping just under Phoenix before leaping straight upwards to latch onto her and begin kicking and clawing at her.

“Fuck… off…!” Phoenix growled in annoyance, wincing away from the berserker’s repeated blows as she summoned her silver and crimson chakram into her right hand and then slammed it into Pierce’s back — only to be met by the telltale static sound and golden flare of energy shields, albeit dulled by the dark aura covering Pierce’s body. He STILL has his shields?! she thought incredulously, though she was little able to focus on further thoughts as Pierce continued slamming away at her shields and armor. The winds and air around her whipped up into a frenzy as Kestrel attempted to separate the two, but to no avail.

A second later, Kestrel spoke. “…Deep breath!”

At Kestrel’s urging, and without doubting her for even a second, Phoenix inhaled deeply — just in time to feel all of the air around her get sucked away. In that moment, she and Pierce both dropped to the ground, while Phoenix’s lungs burned at the vacuum she now found herself in. But the berserker quickly grew averse to the vacuum as well, and finally leaped away from Phoenix in pursuit of air. As soon as he released her, Kestrel allowed air to rush back to Phoenix and then pick her up again, now separated from Pierce.

“…We need to deal with his shields,” Phoenix remarked to Kestrel. “Only then can our weapons touch him. His shields can’t have much charge left, but even so—!”

Loud, bestial snarling brought both Phoenix and Kestrel’s attentions to their right. Quickly, Phoenix shot her right hand out, shouting “Chaos Strike!” right as Pierce emerged from the fog, successfully nailing him with a blast of purple lightning that sent him reeling. In that brief moment of weakness, Kestrel was able to wrap him in winds and lift him into the air, successfully robbing the berserker of any surface to launch himself off of.

“Good going, Kestrel!” Phoenix exclaimed, already extending her hand toward the suspended berserker. “Chaos Cannon, Chaos Cannon!”

In quick succession, two Mach-speed projectiles burst from Phoenix’s hand and slammed into Pierce, flaring up his shields — with the second cannon shot producing a wave of golden static across Pierce’s body, signaling that his energy shields had finally failed. But the Cannon shots also blasted Pierce backwards, freeing him from Kestrel’s air prison and flinging him into the fog beyond.

“…Oops!” Phoenix remarked uneasily as Kestrel shot her a flat look. “…Well, at least his shields are down. All that’s left is to—agh!”

Interrupting her thoughts was Pierce once more, lunging out of the fog to grab her by the neck and snatch her out of the air. The two hit the ground in a tumble, but before Kestrel could do anything, Pierce had hurled Phoenix into the fog and then dashed off after her. Dark gray filled her vision in every direction as she tumbled haphazardly along the ground, doing her best to suppress her grunts of pain in the hopes of masking her position from Pierce. After rolling to a stop, she gingerly climbed back to her feet; she couldn’t see a thing amidst the fog, but it seemed that Pierce had lost her as well, as the berserker had yet to follow up with an attack. “Chaos Armor…” Phoenix muttered quietly, renewing the translucent purple armor protecting her body. She then began to slowly step forward, her hands out to try and feel for any obstacles.

Crack!

Shit—! Phoenix thought warily as the sound of a twig snapping underfoot echoed through the air — followed almost immediately by Pierce bowling into her with his shoulder. The high-speed impact sent her flying through the air; predicting a follow-up blow, Phoenix quickly shouted out “Chaos DEFLECTION!” In that instant, a spinning orb of energy surrounded her, just in time to deflect Pierce off to the side — and just loud enough to give her position away to Kestrel. Almost immediately, the stagnant air around Phoenix whipped up into a storm, clearing away the fog as Kestrel flew onto the scene, ensnaring both Pierce and Phoenix in wind to lift them both into the air.

“This is it. Bring me around!” Phoenix shouted as Pierce began thrashing in the air, attempting fruitlessly to launch himself out of Kestrel’s air prison. Amidst this, Kestrel complied with Phoenix’s order, moving Phoenix through the air to be positioned on the opposite side of Pierce from Kestrel as they both summoned their Ayas weapons — an extravagant spear of silver, green, and black in Kestrel’s hands, and silver and crimson chakrams in each of Phoenix’s. “—NOW!” Phoenix shouted; immediately, she and Kestrel hurled their weapons through the air, both of their aims dead-on. But Pierce’s reflexes, even in the Berserk State, proved superior — with frightening speed, he snatched Kestrel’s spear out of the air before it hit him and then whipped around to knock away Phoenix’s chakrams before lobbing the spear right at her. The spear tip hit Phoenix instantly, shattering her Chaos Armor and brightly flaring her shields before Kestrel could summon the spear back to her side.

“…Shit…” Phoenix muttered, taking a deep breath to recover from the blow before looking back to Pierce, who remained trapped in the air amid Kestrel’s winds. …This Berserk State thing should wear off with time, right? Phoenix mused, so we COULD just leave him here. But how long would that actually take? Minutes? An hour…? With the infection running around, I don’t know if we have the time to just wait Pierce out… damn it! She glanced over at Kestrel. “…I have an idea. Keep throwing your spear, and move me through the air as I point. Can you do that?”

“Mm.” Kestrel nodded once, already preparing to throw her spear again.

“Good. Chaos Armor. Now…” Phoenix looked back to Pierce, finding him still thrashing, his gaze snapping between Kestrel and Phoenix. “…Let’s go!”

Immediately, Kestrel threw her spear at Pierce, using her Aerotechnic powers to guide its path and speed it up. Nevertheless, the berserker was again able to snatch the spear out of the air — though this time, Kestrel immediately summoned it back to herself and threw it again, using her winds to arc the spear down to the ground and then up at Pierce’s underside. The berserker’s attention latched onto the spear, watching it closely as it flew through the air toward him; at the last moment, Kestrel attempted a feint, using her air to pull the spear back at the last second — but Pierce lashed out and grabbed the weapon’s shaft at the base of the blade. In the blink of an eye, the berserker dragged the spear back to himself, whipped it around, and then hurled it through the air at Kestrel — though just before the spear could hit her, she dismissed it, causing it to disappear in a flash of white light.

As soon as it disappeared, Kestrel summoned it once more, throwing it through the air a third time. This time, she controlled the weapon’s path through the air entirely with her winds, sending it on a winding, weaving path off to the left. While Pierce’s eyes couldn’t be seen behind the dark aura covering him, the berserker’s attention was clearly focused on the spear as Kestrel guided it through the air… allowing her to quietly guide Phoenix right to Pierce’s backside. As soon as Phoenix closed to within arms reach, she raised one of her chakrams into the air… and then brought it down onto Pierce’s back.

—Only for the berserker to whip around in the air and grab the opposite side of Phoenix’s chakram before it could hit him.

“What—!?” Phoenix responded in surprise, but she was little able to react as Pierce yanked on the chakram, bringing Phoenix along with it. In a split second, she was over Pierce’s head — at which point he whipped around in an aerial bicycle kick to slam his feet into her stomach, launching her high into the sky, and himself straight at the ground, narrowly evading Kestrel’s spear as it shot through his former location. As soon as the berserker hit the ground, he leaped high into the air again, reaching Phoenix’s high altitude in the blink of an eye. “Chaos—!” she began to call, attempting to stop Pierce’s incoming kick — but she was too late. His foot swung around and slammed into her back, sending her careening towards the ground — and him flying through the air, back into the fog beyond.

“Ungh—!” Phoenix hit the ground hard, her Chaos Armor shattering from the forces, and her shields flaring — and then breaking in a telltale golden static fuzz. Immediately realizing her situation, Phoenix quickly muttered, “Chaos—!” But before she could finish, Pierce appeared above her, having arrived at supersonic speeds to begin bringing his foot around toward Phoenix’s chest. Reflexively, Phoenix squeezed shut her eyes, her right hand held up in an instinctual attempt to shield herself.

But the kick never came.

Gradually, Phoenix opened her eyes… and then widened them completely as she spotted Pierce slowly staggering back, his hands gripping at something around his chest. The dark aura surrounding his body slowly began to dissipate, as if being sucked into an invisible object linked to his chest… an invisible object that soon made itself visible as a long silver and black glaive, extending out of Conrad’s hands.

“…I guess there’s a combat use for my powers after all, huh,” he remarked.

“Conrad!” Phoenix exclaimed in relief, only to quickly look back to Pierce. By then, Conrad had removed his glaive from Pierce’s chest, and the dark aura surrounding him had lightened to the point where his body could actually be seen — and, despite seemingly being impaled by a glaive, Pierce bore no sign of injury. Instead, he collapsed to the ground, as the last specks of the dark aura evaporated into the air like a dying flame.

Quickly, Phoenix moved to his side to check his pulse — though just as she reached down to touch his neck, he batted her hand away. “Ugh…” Pierce groaned, his brow furrowed and both of his hands held to his head, as if attempting to suppress a pounding headache. “…What… happened…?”

“You went berserk,” Phoenix responded frankly.

“What…?” Pierce passed a quick glance her way before squeezing his eyes shut. “…Fuck me…”

Phoenix’s gaze lingered on Pierce for a moment before looking back to Conrad as Kestrel landed on the ground nearby. “…Good timing,” she said.

“Thanks… I guess,” Conrad responded as he dismissed his glaive and then looked down at Pierce, who by then was slowly climbing back to his feet. “…Though, if I had been even a split second slower…”

“The important part is that you’re here, and you helped,” Phoenix cut in. “Though I’ll admit, you sure took your damn time doing it!”

“Hey, last-hitting is about all I can do,” Conrad replied. “Besides, you guys left me behind at the outpost. I almost didn’t follow, but when I heard that Pierce went berserk, well…” He shrugged. “Twy pointed me in the right direction, and now I’m here. And when I saw you guys trying to hit him with your weapons, I just kinda figured that you must be onto something. Didn’t think it would actually work this well…”

“Fucking hell…” Pierce muttered, shaking his head warily. “So I… really went berserk? Fuck. And…” His eyes suddenly widened, and his gaze snapped to Phoenix. “Liask! What happened to Liask?!”

Phoenix responded with uncomfortable silence, suddenly unable to meet Pierce’s eyes. “She’s… infected. Worse than before.”

“Worse? Seriously?!”

“Even I don’t know everything that’s happened…” Conrad commented as he looked over at Phoenix. “Mind filling us in?”

“Mm.” Kestrel interjected with a grunt while shaking her head. She then looked pointedly at Conrad. “Outpost, still fighting?”

“Shit… right. They were still fighting when I left,” Conrad replied. “It got nasty pretty quick. And there wasn’t any sign of Liask, there, either…”

“Are you saying that she, what, ran off?” Pierce questioned incredulously. “But… why?”

“Shit…” Phoenix muttered. “…Look, I’ll explain on the way back, but we need to get going. Kestrel, bring us back! We need to help get things under control!”

“Mm,” Kestrel grunted in acknowledgment as she used her winds to lift herself, Phoenix, Conrad, and Pierce into the air before flying off into the distance, back towards the Aldredian outpost.