War of Drekis, Rearmed - Chapter 6: Antipathy

[Justin Law]

Chapter 6: Antipathy

 

Segment 68: Breakout

Trovol was never known to be a quiet place – from the day it began operations, the spartan walls of the facility echoed day and night with the anguished moans and tortured screams of its prisoners. But on this day, the walls echoed with a different kind of noise – of gunfire and rallying cries of the freed government loyalists who began retaking the Supermax, one cell at a time.

With every cell unlocked, the ex-ZMPD commissioner’s band of loyalists grew, overpowering the surprised Marauders and seizing their weapons, their job made easier due to Marauder assets being diverted from guarding the prison to responding to reports of Zel’Myas being infiltrated by an “unknown enemy” that turned out to be Tim, Telissa and Veda.

“The armoury should be right this way!” Commissioner Lee yelled as he reloaded his Mossberg, pointing down a hallway leading to the south wing of the complex. “Once we liberate the armoury we’ll have more than enough guns on every able body! We’ll retake Zel’Myas starting with this prison!”

This was the last Tim and the others saw of Joonseo and his contingent as their paths split, just as Veda’s had with his barely an hour ago, but the sound of gunfire and orders being barked reassured the young swordsman that the grizzled cop and his cohorts are doing fine in their mission. As Tim ascended to the highest point of the Trovol facility, he was greeted with another reassuring sight.

Beyond the walls of the Supermax, Tim caught sight of Veda Lexine leaping from roof to roof, having clearly survived her clash with Marauder reinforcements in the sewers and now heading off towards her own, unspecified mission; which he could only assume aligned with Lee’s mission to liberate the capital from Marauder control. 

Meanwhile, the sirens continued to blare and frantic voices barked over the PA system informing Marauders of a prison break escalating into a full-blown riot, and called for all assets to be diverted towards suppressing the riot. “We’ll have to fight our way out!” Telissa yelled as she brought her molecular disruptor to bear against an emergency bulkhead that slammed shut to bar their escape, blowing a hole clean through the reinforced blast doors, only to find a phalanx of police collaborators in powered armour and riot shields standing beyond them.

The crooked cops locked their shields together to form a defensive wall, while Marauder splatter punks armed with battle rifles, assault rifles and submachine guns stood behind the phalanx and opened fire, forcing Uberman to position himself in front of the team as bullets screamed down the hallway, only to ricochet harmlessly against his armoured frame.

“Can’t we head back to the sewers to escape?” Tim wondered, hoping that there was an avenue where they could exfiltrate Trovol with minimal combat encounters. But as soon as he spoke, his hopes were immediately dashed by another announcement over the PA system.

“Warning! Warning! Toxic waste emergency release in progress!” The synthesised electronic voice announced over the speakers, “Sewer flooding imminent, all personnel are to evacuate sewers immediately!”

“Screw this, I’ll show these punks they tangled with the wrong guy,” Michael huffed as he stepped in front of Uberman and thrust out his right palm, sending a telekinetic wave that swept through the hallway like a tsunami and sent the Marauders blocking their path flying aside like a bunch of action figures.

“We can’t waste time fighting a protracted battle with all of them!” Uberman responded bluntly as another fireteam of Marauders appeared from an adjoining hallway, pelting him with gunfire while the metahuman on their squad unleashed energy blasts from his hands, none of which had any effect against the cyborg’s armour. “We should head for the west entrance and escape as quickly as we can while avoiding battles wherever possible,” While Telissa used the Sentinel leader’s massive frame as cover to shield herself from enemy fire, sporadically rising to provide bursts of suppressive fire from her LR-2X.

“I agree,” Captain Khazan added, “But it seems we’re already pinned down at this point, and it’s only a matter of time before we’re neck-deep in Marauders!” Three power-armoured police turncoats simultaneously tackled Captain Khazan by charging at him riot shields-first, pushing their exosuits’ hydraulics to overdrive as they attempted to force the caped crusader onto his knees – for a moment it seemed that they might overpower Trent as his heels skidded against the floor and his knees wobbled, but they only managed to shove him back no more than an inch before the mighty Captain regained his footing and stood his ground like an immovable mountain.

“My turn, criminals!” Captain Khazan declared as he breathed in before flexing his titanic core muscles outwards, his sculpted torso slamming into the cops-turned-Marauders like a rockface and sending them flying down the hallway and slamming into another squad of splatter punks sprinting down the hallway, knocking everyone down like bowling pins.

“Hate to be the Greek chorus here, but we need an exit strategy and fast!” Raea said as she re-engaged her power suit’s battle mask, the protective armour piece extending from her suit’s collar and snapping back into place over the redhead’s lower face as a splatter punk tried to ambush her from a blind corner where two corridors intersect, but the Sentinel quickly disarmed the Marauder of his G36C and enveloped her right arm in a crackling energy sheath to knock him out with a right straight that sent him flying, before turning the commandeered assault carbine against another squad of attacking Marauders.

“Allow me,” Shinsuke chimed in calmly as the Sentinel placed his left palm gently against a nearby wall, his pale blue hair rustling gently from a breeze that appeared to emanate from himself as the irises of his eyes glowed blue-white, a sheen of ice building over the solid ferrocrete. Cracks began to form on the wall as the Sentinel pressed his hand more firmly against the surface, revealing that his potent cryomancy had flash-frozen an entire section of the wall into embrittlement as entire chunks crumbled away to reveal the prison courtyard outside. “Come, we can exit through here.”

“Heh, now that’s what I call a plan!” Tanin chorused jubilantly as an entire squad of Marauders fell to a single swing of his Chrysilium, forcing those behind them to momentarily scatter, “Those evildoers will regret taking us in alive.” 

“Sentinels, to me!” Uberman declared as he led the charge through the newly-created exit and fired up his suit’s flight repulsors, taking to the skies to snipe at police turncoats positioned at watchtowers along the prison’s outer walls in order to clear a path for the rest of the team, the guards returning fire at the cyborg with their M110A1 SDMRs, the bullets pinging harmlessly off Uberman’s armour.

“No good, they’ve called in reinforcements!” The SLJ leader remarked as on the streets beyond Trovol’s outer walls, Marauder reinforcements began converging upon the prison complex, rolling out armoured vehicles such as tanks and APCs. Uberman weaved and rolled in the air to avoid the chattering autocannons of a captured ZSU-23-4 Shilka self-propelled AA gun – but while the cyborg was kept busy by the anti-air artillery, a Marauder merc locked onto Uberman with his SA-14 Strela-3, the anti-air missile exploding against Uberman’s armoured frame sending him into a spiral as he plummeted towards the courtyard below.

The moment Uberman crashed onto the ground the Marauders guarding the prison courtyard concentrated their fire towards the cyborg, as splatter punks, rogue soldiers and police turncoats peppered his armoured frame with bullets and energy beams, while the metahumans in their midst unleashed everything in their arsenal ranging from elemental blasts to sonic screams to eye lasers. Although the attacks were ineffective even when massed, they came from so many angles that the Sentinel leader was stuck in a defensive stance, unable to take any other action beyond blocking in order to protect the more vulnerable components on his suit such as sensor arrays and flight repulsors.

“I’m pinned!” The cyborg yelled above the near-constant pinging of bullets and energy blasts bouncing off his armour, “I need some backup!”

“Tch, these peons are such a nuisance!” Vincentzo spat as he fired several magic missiles before diving behind a shard of the wall for cover and pointing towards the Marauders that were still opening fire on Uberman, “Woose, you know what to do!”

“Already on it, ‘Centzo!” POWAAA!!!-Man declared in a jubilant voice as he sprinted across the courtyard, past Uberman and towards the Marauders firing on the cyborg. “POWAAA!!!-Man, blasting off at the speed of light!” The pink-clad pugilist chorused as he leapt towards a splatter punk, delivering a powerful drop kick to the man’s chest that sent him flying, before landing on his feet in a horse stance, his eyes narrowing behind the viewports of his Tokusatsu mask as he taunted the other Marauders by beckoning at them.

Half of the Marauders who were firing on Uberman turned their attention to Woose, who cheerfully bumbled into their line of fire, but in true POWAAA!!!-Man fashion, he always sidestepped or bobbed out of the way of each and every bullet or energy beam in a display of controlled chaos, before dropping two splatter punks with a pair of swift kicks to the face – even gas masks and environmentally-sealed power suits appeared ineffective against the martial artist’s stinky feet of justice, as even those with protective gear fell to POWAAA!!!-Man’s feet stench just as quickly as their comrades who lacked them.

“Come one, come all! POWAAA!!!-Man’s feet are rated E for everyone!” Woose whooped as he performed a butterfly flip to avoid a burst of gunfire, before performing an upside-down split in midair and spun around like a helicopter rotor, taking out any and all Marauders who strayed within the reach of his legs. Triumphant, POWAAA!!!-Man ended his bootleg spinning bird kick in a handstand before somersaulting back onto his feet, pumping his fists jubilantly like he just scored a goal at the World Cup.

“Yes! YES! I finally mastered it!” Woose exclaimed as he dropped onto his knees, emotionally overwhelmed as his eyes sparkled behind his mask’s viewports, rivers of tears streaming from them, before his exultation got cut short by Vincentzo yanking him back onto his feet by the collar of his gi.

“Yes, we heard you,” Vincentzo grumbled. “Save your jubilations for another time and take advantage of the opening you just created for us, will you?”

“For a bunch of do-gooder stiff shirts, that was impressive,” Michael Cortelloni smirked as he telekinetically lifted the shards of the broken wall into the air, before sending them flying into a contingent of Marauders in a deadly storm of shrapnel with a dismissive flick of his hand, forcing the survivors to scatter and take cover and reassess their tactics.

“Excellent work, everyone!” Uberman remarked as he fired up his suit’s repulsors and tore across the courtyard at full speed, towards the gates. A squad of power armoured turncoat cops moved into formation as Uberman closed the gap, locking their shields together to form a phalanx in a vain attempt to halt the cyborg's advance, only to have their nerve break at the last second as they realised the futility of their actions, opting instead to dive out of the way as the cyborg’s heavily-armoured frame tore the reinforced double gates off their guide rails, granting access to the streets that lay past them, while Captain Khazan followed close behind, waving his hand for the others to follow.

“Right, but one moment please,” Tanin added with a smirk as he positioned himself at the rear of the group, the Archon of Light glancing over his shoulder to witness the Marauders in the prison courtyard regrouping and opening fire. The divine swordsman closed the gap in an instant with a teleport, blinking into position right in front of the nearest splatter punk to send him flying with a casual palm strike to the chest. The Marauders quickly changed their formation in an attempt to have Tanin boxed in, but the Archon responded with a rapid series of short-distance teleports that made him appear to be in seven places at the same time, swinging Chrysilium around with the precision and grace of a dancer.

“It is finished,” The Archon remarked with a calm, confident smile as he tossed Chrysilium into the air, his sword flipping around before landing back inside the scabbard slung behind his back. The Marauders who’d earlier tried to surround and take down the Archon of Light stood motionless as if in a stupor, but as soon as Tanin teleported away to rejoin with Uberman and the others, the splatter punks all slumped to the ground in near-unison as their guns clattered next to them – the Archon of Light having already cut them down faster than their brains could process.

“FREEZE! On the orders of Toc Darkone you are to lay down your arms and surrender!” A loud voice boomed overhead. As the heroes weaved their way through the narrow alleys between close-packed buildings in the streets beyond Trovol’s gates, the neighbourhood was already abuzz with activity as the Marauders brought their air power into the fray – above the rooftops, helicopters, sky bikes and airborne metahumans circled overhead, combing the district with searchlights and shouting orders to surrender over loudspeakers.

“Doesn’t surrendering come with the condition of promising not to use lethal force!?” Tim exclaimed as a Marauder metahuman swooped past and fired a blast of electricity at the young swordsman – a blast that he was able to parry in a nick of time with his sword, finding it absurd that the Marauders would demand that they surrender while continually lashing at them with lethal force.

“You gotta admit, for a bunch of thieves they’re surprisingly well-organised,” Raea commented, her voice modulated behind her battle mask. A Mi-24 Hind circling overhead opened fire with the GSh-23L on its gun pod, shattering street lights and riddling the walls of nearby buildings with holes as the heroes bolted into a nearby building through its back door before exiting through the front door to reach another street, with scant seconds to spare before the helicopter fired its rocket pods at the building, reducing the three-storey structure to a burning wreck.

“They’ve received military training when the Zel’Mier Armed Forces defected to their cause,” Tanin noted as the Marauder Mi-24 hovered in place to allow a squad of military defectors to rappel down – these men and women continued to wear the regulation gear of the Zel’Mier Armed Forces; drab olive BDUs and tan-coloured body armour with tactical rigs and matching combat helmets fitted with AR display visors and armed with HK416 A5 assault rifles, but the Zel’Mier flag and coat of arms on their uniforms have been defaced, painted over or removed altogether, with many also sporting yellow armbands or shemaghs or a combination thereof, with the Marauders’ black skull emblem as a display of their allegiance switch.

Firing up his suit’s repulsors, Uberman made another attempt to go airborne to provide overwatch – but found that the Marauders had effectively closed the skies above Zel’Myas, having woven a formidable anti-air defense network with self-propelled AA guns such as Shilka and Tunguska, as well as fitting their aircraft with anti-air weaponry. After several close calls with the Marauders’ anti-air defenses, the Sentinel leader landed as he found that he would have better odds in street-to-street combat than to tackle the Marauders’ air power. “We’ll have to fight them in the streets! They have a monopoly on the sky at this point!” A Marauder Ka-50 attack helicopter fired two air-to-ground missiles at the group, but Uberman foiled the air strike by blasting apart the first missile with his concussion blasters, before catching the second and chucking it towards an incoming T-80 tank to disable the vehicle.

“Leave the overwatch to me!” Telissa offered as she utilised her Seeker battlesuit’s grappling hook and towline to scale the side of a building and reach its rooftop, before neutralising two rogue soldiers with four successive triple bursts from her EZ-123 sidearm, first to down the hostiles, followed up with a double tap to ensure they stayed down. Switching to her molecular disruptor rifle, the blonde took position as a rooftop sharpshooter as her suit’s AR display visor materialised and snapped in place over her upper face, as her suit’s on-board computer calculated priority targets and highlighted them upon the augmented reality interface.

“We’re not getting anywhere at this pace!” Vincentzo groaned as he sent a bolt of chain lightning down an alleyway to electrocute another motley team of splatter punks and military turncoats; to the archmage, their progress was painfully slow as they had to fight from building to building, alley to alley just to cross the span of one city block.

From her overwatch position, Telissa could see that the Marauders were pulling out all stops at halting the heroes – in the distance, APCs and trucks were rolling over to the city block they were at, no doubt ferrying in fresh reinforcements for the Marauders, while Mi-17 helicopters and Stormhawk tiltrotors performed aerial insertions of yet more mercenaries and rogue soldiers, clearly intent on surrounding their city block and cutting off all avenues.

“Uberman!” Vincentzo called out to the Sentinel leader as he cast three fireballs in succession. “With your experience and tactical foresight, don’t you have some kind of contingency in mind?” The archmage asked as he dashed across the road to avoid a hail of gunfire from a pintle-mounted KPV machine gun on the back of a Marauder truck, as they left the network of small alleys and followed a main street to a large roundabout.

“Our strategy didn’t account for the Marauders holding us in Zel’Myas!” Uberman replied, raising his voice to be heard above the din of battle as he fired a concussion blast from his forearm blaster at the Marauder guntruck, smashing it and sending the multi-ton vehicle flying as if rammed by a freight train as it flipped and tumbled several times before landing upside down in a heap of scrap metal. 

Through it all, amidst the explosions, shouting and gunfire, Timothy Shinestar fought to maintain his focus as he became hyperaware of his surroundings – he could hear orders being barked from a city block away, the droning of aircraft rotors, the racing heartbeats of his comrades… the young swordsman clutched at his head, trying to shut out the noise in vain hopes of finding a coherent signal as all the sensory inputs threatened to overwhelm his mind.

“Ugh, what… what’s coming over me!?” Tim groaned.

“Tim? What’s wrong!?” Raea was the first to notice Tim’s condition as the silver-haired youth appeared disengaged from the battle that was raging around them, gently shaking him. 

In the midst of the sensory inputs that was flooding into Tim’s mind, he was able to briefly pick up a signal among the noise – a sight; two city blocks away, on the top of a church’s bell tower was a sniper, a former special operative from the Zel’Mier Armed Forces turned Marauder, setting his AX338 down on its bipod and sighting down its scope. ‘Is this a… premonition?’ He thought.

Tim’s senses returned to normal as Raea’s cry of pain cut through all the noise, and he caught sight of his girlfriend reeling and clutching her right shoulder as she fell to her knees. While Tim struggled to process the situation, Telissa was already springing into action as she helped Raea up and applied first aid, binding the bullet wound to stem the bleeding.

“Raea! What happened!?” Tim exclaimed as he finally snapped back to reality.

“I’ve taken worse, don’t worry about me,” Raea remarked as she retracted her power suit’s battle mask to reveal a forced smile on her lips, though the wince in her eyes betrayed the amount of pain the young redheaded Sentinel was going through as Telissa propped her up. “There’s an enemy sniper out there.”

“Just… just where is that fuckhead then!?” Michael snarled as his eyes darted back and forth as he scanned the nearby buildings for the glint of a scope or anything that might give away a sniper’s location. Then came the faint crack of a rifle being fired from afar, the ex-Marauder spinning in the rough direction of where the shot came from, only to have a hastily-created wall of ice shatter near him as Yagami Shinsuke intercepted a bullet meant for Cortelloni with an ice construct.

“We can’t allow that sniper to keep us pinned down here!” Telissa interjected as she carried Raea to take cover behind a disabled Marauder T-80. The Seeker knew that the clock was ticking; Marauder reinforcements were quickly converging on their position at the traffic roundabout, and unlike their previous run-ins at the neighbourhood with closely-packed buildings and narrow alleys, at this roundabout they’re out in the open, and their chances of survival would be even lower if the Marauders were able to box them in.

Two city blocks away, the sniper from Tim’s vision assessed the situation via drone camera feeds being relayed to his tablet. He’d managed to injure the redhead, but the blonde woman had moved her into a position where he was unable to line up a shot on either of them. The cyborg and the caped crusader were out of the question – his weapon had no chance of damaging either of them; the cryomancer had a knack for being able to sense his shots coming and block them with supernatural ice constructs. After a short deliberation, the military special operative turned Marauder decided on his next target as he set aside his tablet computer and took up his rifle once more, resting his AX338’s bipod against the parapet wall and adjusting the zooming of his scope to line a certain silver-haired swordsman up in his crosshairs, his finger pressing against the trigger… 

“Enough of this!” Tim screamed, his hair and clothes rustling from a rush of wind that emanated from himself as a turquoise-coloured aura flared around him before exploding outward in an omnidirectional wave that forced everyone nearby to stagger back and shield their faces. The sniper’s bullet that was originally intended for Shinestar was deflected by the energy wave erupting from his body, and redirected towards Uberman, sparking harmlessly against the cyborg’s armour plating.

The optics behind Uberman’s faceplate glowed as calculations flashed across his HUD, his suit’s on-board computer tracking the round’s flight path and angle. “The enemy sniper is over there,” Uberman remarked as he pointed in the direction of the bell tower of a church located about two city blocks away, northeast of their current position.

“Thanks for the tip, gramps!” Telissa chorused as she darted out of cover, molecular disruptor in hand as she aimed for the bell tower in the distance, her AR visor’s optics zooming in on her target as crosshairs materialised on her augmented reality display’s interface, calculating the distance and the Seeker’s aiming angle.

Almost simultaneously, the sniper set his scope crosshairs on Telissa as with near-synchronicity the two sharpshooters lined each other up in each other’s sights, their fingers resting against their respective triggers in preparation for a snipe-off…

Telissa was faster by a fraction of a second as she pulled her trigger first, her LR-2X discharging an emerald-hued bolt of energy that tore through the night sky and obliterated the top of the bell tower along with the former special operative camped within. “Threat eliminated,” Telissa whispered as she tapped the side of her headset and retracted her visor, “You’re good, but not good enough for me.”

Meanwhile, Tim drew his sword – now glowing with the same turquoise radiance that enveloped his body and threw himself headlong into a column of Marauders. The splatter punks opened fire, but just like with the run-in with the Hunter-Killers in Khazan City’s Chinatown, the young man perceived the world in slow-motion, his eyes seeing only a sea of coloured auras against a monochrome backdrop, his body weaving, twisting and rolling ahead of his conscious thoughts to avoid every incoming bullet and energy beam.

“That again!” Telissa gasped as she witnessed Tim in action – that turquoise aura, the bizarre sixth sense – it was just like back on the streets of Chinatown in Khazan City as the silver-haired swordsman cut down a dozen Marauders in the span of time it took for them to eject the spent magazines from their weapons and reach for their plate carrier vests’ ammo pouches to grab a reload.

“I’ll bury you!” A metahuman splatter punk roared as he slammed his fists together to encase his body in an armour of rock, dirt and crystals, before slamming his fists against the asphalt to send a wave of energy and flying rocks tearing through the ground towards Tim, who negated the Marauder’s attack by stomping his foot to send a turquoise-coloured wave of energy pulsing along the ground that neutralised the Marauder geomancer’s elemental skill.

“Impossible!” The Marauder geomancer yelled as Tim closed the gap in the blink of an eye and sliced clean through his earth armour with a swing of his sword, before dealing a powerful right straight that shattered what’s left of his armour and sent him flying into a squad of rogue soldiers, knocking them over like bowling pins.

Through it all, Tim felt a tide of mixed emotions. He felt invincible, just like back with the Hunter-Killers – but at the same time, there was also a feeling of danger, like he was making a Faustian bargain with an unknown entity to get this power. Even as his senses refined to the point that he could track dozens of imminent threats simultaneously, there was one noise that managed to cut through all the signals. It was a chorus of whispers, though Tim could not make out the words – they might be a language he did not understand, or pure gibberish, but the young man had no way of finding out in the heat of the moment.

‘What are you trying to say?’ Tim muttered, his conscious mind trying to understand the whispers that only he could hear, even while his body moved on pure muscle memory to evade and parry every incoming attack, as Marauders and collaborator troops fell before his sword strokes like stalks of wheat before a farmer’s scythe.

Uberman and Captain Khazan watched with growing astonishment as Tim carved his way through the Marauder hordes. A Marauder T-90M fired its main gun at Tim, only to have the swordsman avoid the hypersonic APFSDS round by tilting his body to the side, before raising his sword – the turquoise glow from its blade growing brighter and brighter before he brought his weapon down with a mighty shout, unleashing a wave of energy that tore through the Marauders’ ranks and destroyed the tank.

“Who is this young man anyway? And what possessed him to charge in blindly like that?” Vincentzo wondered as he watched Tim in action, and found himself impressed by the swordsman’s performance.

“That’s Timothy Shinestar… my boyfriend,” Raea replied as she staggered back into view from behind the wreck of the T-80. The redhead watched Tim’s rampage with a combination of admiration and concern, “Though this is so unlike the Tim I know…” On one hand, Raea was amazed at how Tim was acting like the legendary hero he’d always dreamed of becoming, but on the other hand, it was such a sudden transformation that it felt jarring to the redhead, who couldn’t help but wonder if there was a lot more to Tim than he knew about himself.

“Normally, I would not condone this level of recklessness,” Shinsuke interjected as an icy aura enveloped his hands, “But it’s paying off regardless,” the Sentinel cryomancer noted that Tim was now throwing the Marauders into disarray, who by this point were busy trying to fend off the one-man wrecking crew, his comrades momentarily forgotten in the confusion.

Tanin smiled as he unsheathed Chrysilium, its blade emitting a golden-white light, “One way or another, Mr. Shinestar’s got the right idea, it would be a shame to not capitalise on it.” The Archon of Light’s words were all it took for the rest of the Operation Guillotine team to remind the Marauders that they were still relevant.

With a gesture, Michael Cortelloni floated one, then two cars into the air before sending them telekinetically flying into a squad of rogue soldiers who were firing blind at Tanin as he teleported around, trying in vain to get a bead on the Archon. “Agreed, I didn’t sign up for this just to die in an alley to a bunch of punks… now gimme that!” the ex-hitman said as he noticed a splatter punk load a RPG-7 with a thermobaric warhead; with a beckon of his hand, Michael’s telekinesis sent the weapon flying out of the Marauder’s hands and into his own.

With the newly-commandeered weapon in his hands, Cortelloni took aim and fired at an incoming Tunguska anti-air vehicle, disabling the Marauder vehicle with the Marauders’ own weapon and sending the nearby splatter punks running.

Meanwhile, Vincentzo cast a gravity vortex spell, conjuring the same black sphere surrounded by crackling arcs of purple energy that he used during his clash with Yari’s expeditionary force back at the Boreal Wilds of Araelis; but instead of sending Marauders flying into the air to send them plummeting to their doom, the royal archmage instead used it to ground nearby Marauder aircraft, sending helicopters, sky bikes and flying metahumans crashing onto the streets and plunging into buildings.

While the rest of the heroes continued to wreak havoc on the Marauder forces, Telissa took the opportunity to move Raea out of danger, heading back behind the wrecked Marauder T-80 to help Raea back onto her feet and allow the redhead to lean against her for support as they walked away from the thick of combat; but they hadn’t moved forward by more than several metres before a powerful shockwave swept past the two young women and sent them sprawling. A fraction of a second later, their ears were assailed by the deafening sound of an explosion and the sight of a 5-storey building on the other side of the roundabout with a massive hole blasted clean through its structure.

“What the…” Telissa groaned as she staggered back to her feet, before helping Raea do the same, watching as the badly-damaged building began to shudder and rock back and forth before collapsing in a heap of rubble.

“Shit, she’s here!” The blonde Seeker overheard one of the Marauders say as they suddenly stopped engaging the heroes in battle, instead just staring at one another, then in the direction of a neighbouring city block to the southwest, before turning tail and bolting in multiple directions, but not without throwing taunts at the heroes such as, “Sucks to be you!” All while they were left wondering just who – or what – could make the Marauders who were so hell-bent on capturing the heroes moments ago, run away like rabbits?

“Mein Gott im Himmel…” Uberman muttered in German as tremors ran through the asphalt, and from the southwest, a monster of a tank ploughed right through a building like a dollhouse, a beast made of steel and a product of organised crime. The tank was an absolute juggernaut – far larger than a Challenger 2, even larger than a Maus… the only tank he could think of that was larger was the P.1000 Ratte, but this one was technologically far more advanced than any Earth tank. The closest description he had of it would be, if the Behemoth-class Land Cruiser were designed as a tank rather than a mobile command centre. 

The tank rotated its massive turret to face its gigantic 280mm main gun at the heroes, and then a voice began to blast from an array of loudspeakers positioned at strategic points across its chassis, a voice that Captain Khazan found all too familiar. 

 

Segment 69: Your Daily Dose of Vitamin T

“Yo, Captain Khazan!” The Unsubtle’s voice chirped over the tank’s loudspeakers with the manufactured charm of an air hostess making an announcement to flight passengers, “Remember me, The Unsubtle? How do you like my new toy? Say hello to Vitamin T!”

Inside the cockpit of the Vitamin T, The Unsubtle grinned as she beheld the heroes’ stunned expressions on a LCD screen showing feeds from the tank’s cameras, “All lined up for me to take a shot,” she said to herself, before taking a sip from a can of Crimson Ox sitting inside a cup holder next to the dashboard, “Just wonderful.”

“Now I see why the other Marauders were terrified,” Captain Khazan muttered. Jessica Carlisle was known to be a loose cannon in the most literal sense of the word when she was just a scrappy gunslinger, and now that same personality had found its way onto a 600+ ton tank bristling with weapons, turning what was once a snarky PMC operative into a one-woman apocalypse on treads.

Normally a vehicle as large and complex as the Vitamin T would’ve required an entire crew to operate, but The Unsubtle had her new toy outfitted with onboard AI to control its numerous systems, and it was all coordinated by her via a neural link interface, allowing her to operate the monster tank as though it were an extension of her body via an augmented reality headset and power glove-esque controller.

“Alright, time to give you do-gooders a dose of Vitamin T!” The Unsubtle chorused in a jubilant tone as Vengaboys began blasting from the tank’s loudspeakers. “Whoa! Whoa! Vengaboys are back in town!” The female Marauder sang along to the lyrics as the Vitamin T began to accelerate forward.

“Boom, boom, boom, boom! I want ya in my room!” The Unsubtle sang along, specifically timing that particular segment of the lyrics to the firing of the Vitamin T’s main gun. The earth shook as a blast of flames erupted from the muzzle like the breath of an angry dragon, followed by a hypersonic shockwave sweeping down the street as a shell tore through several buildings before exploding. Unfortunately for Shinsuke, the cryomancer strayed too close to the shell’s blast radius, and was sent flying across the street by the explosion to crash into a newspaper vendor’s kiosk.

“She’ll flatten the entire district if left unchecked!” Uberman’s voice rang with urgency as he fired shot after shot from his forearm blasters, but the mighty concussion beams had minimal effect on the colossal tank’s advanced composite armour as they splashed off. “Frontal assaults have minimal effect, and any direct hits from the main gun will have catastrophic consequences – we’ll need to spread out to flank the enemy from blind spots! Tanin, Trent, you two take the rear; Vincentzo, Woose, you take the left and right respectively. I will draw aggro from the front!”

It was at this moment that the sensors on the cyborg’s armour picked up an airborne object heading his way, and rolled out of the way just in time to avoid a flaming claw swipe from a partially-transformed Gabriel Demonchild, the Marauder demonhost having only manifested his demonic form in his arms, but even that was enough to leave molten gouges in the asphalt where his strike had whiffed the Sentinel leader.

“You’re not going anywhere, Sentinels!” Gabriel snarled, his eyes glowing as hellfire and clouds of sulphurous smoke engulfed the demonhost’s body as he initiated a complete transformation, changing back into his towering horned, red-skinned devil state from the Darkshadow Forest ambush. “Either the Vitamin T gets you, or I will!” And with this ominous declaration, the Marauder flapped his wings to take to the skies – one part to dodge an attempt by Tim to flank him from the rear, and another part to set up a diving attack against Uberman.

Uberman evaded another divebomb from Demonchild, the floor cratering as Gabriel missed with a flying stomp on Uberman, but took to the air once again as the cyborg countered with a concussion blast. “What’s the matter, why aren’t you coming up?” Gabriel taunted, “Oh wait, you can’t!” he cackled, bursting into peals of mocking laughter – but he was right; the Marauders continue to control the skies, and Uberman could not confront Gabriel in the air without having to contend with the Marauders’ ground-based anti-air guns, as well as aircraft equipped with anti-air weaponry.

Tim craned his head towards the sky to track Gabriel’s movements as the demonhost launched a series of hit-and-run assaults on Uberman, diving down to attack before retreating back into the sanctuary of the Marauder-controlled airspace. It was at this point that another premonition interrupted him, as a vision flashed in his mind of a tall, muscular barbarian in armour wielding a Zweihander barrelling towards him.

Tim snapped back to reality just in time to see Klart raise his Zweihander known as Killian’s Bane over his head, ready to vertically bisect the young swordsman with a single overhead chop. The silver-haired youth rolled aside with a fraction of a second to spare as Klart brought his weapon crashing down, the ground shaking as the barbarian-like Marauder carved a trench through the asphalt. With a grunt, the Firebane pulled his sword out of the ground and slashed in a roundhouse arc, as Tim barely managed to raise his own weapon to parry the thunderous strike.

A sharp clang of metal striking metal rippled through the air as the sheer amount of power the Marauder put behind his swing sent Tim skidding backwards by a good ten metres. ‘C’mon, Tim… just remember everything you’ve learned so far, you got this!’ Shinestar thought, pleasantly surprised that he managed to maintain his poise even after blocking such a powerful attack. The young man shifted his stance, ready to engage Klart when a firm but gentle hand rested on his right shoulder.

“T-Tanin!” Tim gasped as he found the Archon of Light standing beside him, one hand rested on his shoulder and the other hand reaching for Chrysilium’s grip.

“Now I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Shinestar…” Tanin said, casting a confident smirk at Tim, “But he’s mine, I’ve got a score to settle with this one,” the Archon gave his head a tilt in the direction of where Uberman and the others were engaging The Unsubtle in her Vitamin T.

“I’ll lend a hand to Uberman and the others then!” Tim nodded before dashing off, leaving Tanin to face Klart one-on-one.

“Alright, you Frazetta reject, it’s down to you and me now,” Tanin remarked as he drew Chrysilium from its sheath, the greatsword glowing golden-white. “Let’s see how good you really are without that “Made in China” Thulsa Doom to cloud my senses.”

From the other end of the street, Klart snorts as his grip tightens on the handle of Killian’s Bane, “I don’t need Morlos’ help to begin with; now watch as I rip out your spine and force feed it to you!” And with that, the two sword masters ready their weapons and assume their fighting stances.

“Whoa! Whoa! Everybody get in line!” The Unsubtle continued to sing-along to Vengaboys blasting from the Vitamin T’s speakers as she fired shot after shot from the monster tank. The female Marauder grinned as her video feed showed Vincentzo burst out from a smokescreen created by the exploding shells, the wizard floating a ball of fire over each hand. “You’re alive? Good, cause it’d suck to break my toys this soon!”

“Your tastes in music are so plebeian,” Vincentzo retorted as he hurled both fireballs at the incoming tank, only for it to emerge from the inferno unscathed. The archmage leapt aside to avoid getting run over, before casting a missile storm spell, which proved to be no more effective than the fireballs as the guided mana bolts exploded harmlessly against the Vitamin T’s reinforced hull as it ploughed through another building before reversing out from the wreckage.

Woose sprinted past the archmage in a blur of pink to make a beeline towards the Vitamin T, his arms behind him in a ninja-run, “Don’t you worry, ‘Centzo! POWAAA!!!-Man’s got you covered!” Woose declared.

“Just who does that guy think he is anyway!?” The Unsubtle nearly aspirated her energy drink at the sight of a man in a Tokusatsu mask and pink gi barrelling towards her. Servos whirred to life as she activated the pintle-mounted gun on the commander’s cupola – remotely operating the M230LF chaingun as it unleashed a storm of 30x113mm high explosive dual-purpose rounds, which exploded against the tarmac and caused POWAAA!!!-Man to vanish inside a dense pall of smoke.

“Woose!” Vincentzo yelled.

“No!” The archmage was echoed by Tim as the swordsman arrived a moment too late, thinking that Woose had been killed; with the kind of firepower a 30mm chaingun could unleash, he expected the worst, only to find Woose still sprinting towards the tank as the smoke began to clear, sporting no more than a few bruises and minor rips and tears on his gi.

“POWAAA!!!-Style, Dynamite…” Woose took a deep breath before leaping towards the Vitamin T’s turret, “KI-” but before Woose’s kick could connect with his target, or before he could even finish calling his attack for the matter, the pink-clad martial artist found himself intercepted in mid-flying kick as a speed blur shot towards him and slammed into his side, sending him flying through the air.

“OW!” POWAAA!!!-Man performed two corkscrew flips in midair before landing in a three-point stance.

“Who goes there!?” The pugilist demanded as he spun around to face his sneak attacker, “Who dares to interrupt POWAAA!!!-Man in the middle of his signature move!?”

“Your executioner, that’s who,” a low, icy voice whispered as Woose found himself face-to-face with a ninja, garbed in a black gi and trousers over a steel mesh vest, his face hidden behind a matching hood and mask with a flapping scarlet scarf wrapped around his neck. Even his eyes were hidden – covered by a sculpted visor styled in the likeness of an oni’s skull. “Tell King Enma that Oni-tachi of the Koku Ten-tou sent you,” he continued in his cold, impassive voice as he unsheathed a black-bladed ninjato.

“Wow, here I was thinking no-one could have a more severe eighth-grader syndrome than me when it comes to their choice of names,” POWAAA!!!-Man chuckled sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his head. “But hey, I’m content settling for silver!”

The fabric of Oni-tachi’s ninja mask shifted slightly, hinting at a mirthless smile underneath. “So this is your tactic then? To buy yourself time with banter? To use small talk to delay the inevitable?”

Woose shrugged, “You’re the one who’s wasting my time.” The martial artist continued, gesturing to the ongoing battle between the other heroes and the Vitamin T in the background. “I mean, I’m about to miss out on the action there!”

Oni-tachi buried his face in his left palm and chuckled, “Nice one, I’ve never heard someone beg so eloquently before, but unfortunately…” With that, in the blink of an eye the ninja was right in front of POWAAA!!!-Man, swinging his ninjato at the martial artist’s neck, “Begging won’t save you!”

As Woose was tied down by the unexpected ninja encounter, Cortelloni supported Uberman’s team by using his telekinesis to divert the rounds fired from the Vitamin T’s main gun, causing them to miss their marks; even the young Shirai pitched in, sending the invincible weasel of her Shikigami trio to intercept any shots that Michael failed to redirect, leaping into the line of fire. The explosion would send the familiar spirit flying into the distance, but it never failed to scurry back to Natsumi’s side, none worse for wear.

“Midori-chan! Shinku-kun! Don’t scare me like that!” Natsumi yelped as Midori the green snare blob and Shinku the black void bat tugged at the edge of her skirt and at her pigtails respectively. The girl’s yelp intensified to a scream as Razor leapt towards her, but was swiftly yanked out of the way by Michael’s telekinesis as Razor’s chain-wrapped fist smashed into the pavement where Natsumi had been standing scant seconds ago.

“Well, well, well… if it isn’t the Ragemaster himself,” Razor rumbled as he stood back up, staring down Michael Cortelloni who was standing on the other side of the street with Shirai Natsumi by his side.

“Leave the child out of this, Razor… If you have a beef with me, how about you take it directly to me?” Michael asked as he gestured for Natsumi to stand aside. The esper’s eyes wandered to an old scar that ran diagonally across Razor’s bare chest. “So pray tell, did you crawl out from your hole on Toc Darkone’s orders? Or did you seize initiative upon knowing I’d come with the Sentinels to Zel’Myas?”

Razor gave a derisive chuckle as he adjusted his sports sunglasses before unwinding a length of steel chain from his arm and attached a Japanese sickle known as a kama to the end of said chain to fashion it into a kusarigama, twirling his sickle-on-a-chain menacingly, “I could ask the same of you… did you volunteer for the Sentinels’ mission to help liberate Zel’Myas, or did you come solely to seek me out? Knowing you, I’d be really surprised if it was the former.”

“You don’t have to do this, Ms. Shalhalla,” Telissa remarked as Raea stood tall on her feet after the blonde Seeker completed her first aid on the redheaded Sentinel’s gunshot wound.

“I’m not about to sit idly by while Tim charges into battle,” Raea retorted as she inspected the dressed wound, gingerly moving her arm and giving an approving nod at Telissa’s handiwork; her own powersuit’s life support systems took over from the Seeker’s work, releasing emergency medical nanites that worked to knit flesh and tissue back together, as well as injecting painkillers and stimulants to restore her combat capability. “I’m not quite back to hundred percent just yet, but it’ll do,” she said as she gingerly stretched her arm and rolled her shoulder.

“Gotta impress your boy afterall, am I right?” Telissa gave Raea a sardonic smirk before tapping on her suit’s headset, snapping her AR visor back into place over her upper face. “I can see why you two are made for each other,” the blonde remarked as she checked her LR-2X’s charge packs.

“Can’t hide anything from you, huh?” Raea reciprocated Telissa’s dry smile in kind as she tapped on her suit’s collar, her battle mask extending from it and snapping back in place over her nose and mouth, impressed by how the blonde possessed insight that could match Raul’s while being less than half his age. “Don’t worry, I won’t slow you down,” she commented, her voice modulated by her mask as she checked her ion pulse blaster before following Telissa’s lead.

Browning M2 machine guns mounted on side sponsons located on the Vitamin T’s hull opened fire as the two power armoured heroines exchanged fire with The Unsubtle, spreading out and seeking cover to avoid the tank’s machine guns. 

His heirloom sword glowing turquoise, an energy aura flared around Tim as he charged towards the rear of the Vitamin T – the one part of the juggernaut that didn’t appear to have guns; raising his weapon above his head to attempt another sword beam, but before he could unleash his special attack, Morlos materialised from the shadows cast by the monster tank, his face hidden behind the hood of his wizard robes.

“You…” Tim muttered as he felt his weapon vibrate in his hands, the turquoise glow becoming more intense. To date, he recalled one other incident when the sword behaved this way, back in Khazan City’s Chinatown. Could it be that there was more to this Marauder wizard than meets the eye? 

Morlos cackled as he pointed his right hand at Tim, arcs of green lightning leaping from his fingertips, but the young swordsman’s reflexes were fast enough to deflect the spell on the flat face of his blade. 

“That’s a fine weapon you’ve got there, young one,” the dark mage chuckled, his voice cold and ominous. “Somehow, that design and that turquoise glow feels so familiar to me, I think I’ve seen something like this in another world, ages ago…”

“What are babbling about, Marauder!?” young Shinestar demanded as he raised his sword and pointed it at Morlos – as soon as he strayed into the light radius of the sword’s turquoise glow, the dark wizard hissed and threw his hands over his face, recoiling from its light as though he were a vampire before garlic.

“Could it be then!?” Morlos gasped, taking care not to get too near Timothy, “That you are the descendant of Sarachus? Does his bloodline truly live on?”

“Sarachus again!” Tim interjected, staring at his weapon as he remembered the last words of the Deminite Hunter-Killer as his mind raced back in time, during the fateful clash in Chinatown. Before the demonic commando died, he’d mentioned the name “Sarachus”, and how Tim was allegedly a descendant of said lineage. “I’ll say it again, my name is Shinestar!”

“The blood doesn’t lie, boy,” Morlos snickered as he levitated into the air, his robes flapping behind him as glowing spell runes materialised around him, “All will be made clear once I put my theories to the test!” the dark mage declared as he fired off three consecutive ice blasts in Tim’s direction.

 

Segment 70: Veda Lexine, the Silver Reaper

Even from his personal abode that is the former penthouse suite of The Monarch, Izohn was able to see explosions lighting up the skyline of Zel’Myas, his expression unreadable behind his white sculpted mask fashioned in the likeness of a weeping woman’s face. For a long time, he and Toc had banked on the belief that the SLJ would not attempt to liberate Zel’Mier from Marauder occupation due to “escalation management” by the Central Government, who wanted to avoid another all-out war between the Sentinels and Marauders.

“What’s the update on the Trovol situation?” Izohn asked over the phone.

There was a moment of uneasy silence before the Marauder on the other end spoke up, stammering a little as she struggled to find her words, “We’ve all but lost Trovol, Mr. Falaris… the Delagon loyalists, they’ve taken at least eighty percent of the facility at this point…”

“What about our forces in the rest of the city? Could you not send them to provide backup to our Trovol contingent?” The masked Marauder second-in-command demanded.

“N-negative, Mr. Falaris!” The female Marauder exclaimed on the other end, “They’re barely controlling the situation involving the SLJ escapees; if we divert their manpower towards crushing the loyalists at Trovol we might not be able to stop the Sentinels and their allies from escaping Zel’Myas!”

Izohn hung up without saying another word, before calling up another Marauder underboss to see if Marauder assets positioned outside the capital could be redirected to Zel’Myas to either take Trovol back from the loyalist uprising or to recapture the Sentinels, only to be met with a similar response – Toc Darkone’s orders for Marauder units positioned outside Zel’Myas within the capital’s metropolitan area were under strict orders to monitor the movements of the Drekis legions through the region, and the Marauder leader would not tolerate any deviations from his orders.

“Archons damn it!” Izohn slammed the handset down so hard that it smashed the phone on his marble-topped desk before taking one more look at the Zel’Myas skyline. Perhaps situations like these were the reason Toc Darkone never stayed in one spot for long in Zel’Mier; initially Izohn had banked on the Sentinels not intervening due to the Central Government’s “escalation management” policies – the fear that any attempts to liberate the state-kingdom from Marauder occupation would escalate into an all-out war between the SLJ and Marauders.

But now that they had lost their most important bargaining chip, Izohn was no longer so confident that the Central Government would still continue down the escalation management trajectory. Once word gets out to Khazan Prime that they’d abducted members of the Sentinels leadership council and the Archon of Light but then they somehow managed to escape Marauder custody was bound to give the Prime Senate a reason to reconsider their policy, and he could expect a full-scale mobilisation of the SLJ against the Marauders in Zel’Mier soon. Perhaps, it was time to bail from Zel’Myas.

As Izohn left his penthouse, the two bodyguards standing guard outside the entrance followed him to the express elevator as he made his descent to the ground floor of The Monarch. “We’re leaving Zel’Myas. Is my Stormhawk ready yet?” Izohn asked, speaking into an emergency communicator he always carried on his person that allowed him to speak to Marauder underbosses via an encrypted radio channel.

“Yes boss, we’re heading over to extraction point 32-” the Marauder on the other end tried to reply, but Izohn brusquely interrupted him.

“No! Screw the designated extraction point!” The masked second-in-command of The Marauders retorted. “I want you to fly over to Grand Delagon Square, it is not far from The Monarch!” With that, Izohn crushed the small electronic device in his fist before tossing it away. Upon arriving at the ground floor, Izohn and his retinue of bodyguards quickly crossed the grand atrium and made their way to the reception foyer. As they exited through the main entrance, at the driveway was Izohn’s car, a luxury Range Rover SUV waiting to pick him up.

“You, take me to Grand Delagon Square, now,” Izohn ordered the bodyguard at the driver’s seat through its wound-down window, but the black-suited man did not verbally acknowledge the Marauder or even look in his direction. Before Izohn could repeat himself, the bodyguard began to slump forward, his shades falling off before faceplanting against the dashboard. As the bodyguard keeled over, it was revealed that someone else was seated in the car next to him – none other than Veda Lexine!

“Veda Lexine!?” Izohn exclaimed in disbelief as he jumped back on pure reflex.

At the same time, the two bodyguards in Falaris’ retinue sprang into action as one of them shoved Izohn to the side before reaching into the concealed holsters under their suit jackets to draw their service pistols, Smith & Wesson M&P chambered in 9x19mm, a standard issue for Zel’Mier’s presidential secret service – defectors included. The two men opened fire, shattering the SUV’s windows and leaving holes in the sides, but in the space of time it took for them to draw their weapons and fire, Veda had already bolted out from the other side of the vehicle.

One of the bodyguards crouched low, looking to shoot from underneath the vehicle to target Veda’s legs, while his colleague circled around, but in the time it took for them to make their move, the white-haired swordswoman had already positioned herself on top of the SUV’s roof to leap down and deliver a plunging thrust with her katana, driving it through the bodyguard’s back. 

“Bitch!” The remaining bodyguard opened fire, only for Veda to tear her sword out of the impaled bodyguard to deflect the gunshots with her blade. The bodyguard quickly emptied his weapon’s magazine, and due to the close quarters of their encounter, he ditched his pistol in favour of charging in for hand-to-hand combat as he drew a machete-length high-frequency blade and went in fast, taking a swing for Veda’s neck.

The swordswoman parried the first swing, and then another, and another as the former presidential bodyguard turned Marauder enforcer swung his melee weapon with speed and precision; it was due to the mystical qualities of Veda’s katana that allowed her steel blade to stand up to molecular disruption field of the bodyguard’s HF blade as the two engaged in a clash of swords.

In the end, Veda’s skill proved superior as she baited her opponent with a successful feint, appearing to stagger after blocking an aggressive strike, which led to the bodyguard to throw himself forward to make a finishing blow – only to have the swordswoman evade at the last split-second, resulting in the bodyguard losing his balance from overcompensating, leaving him open to a stab in the back from Veda, who proceeded to finish him by putting him in a headlock and slitting his throat from behind.

“Shit!” Izohn cursed as he took off at a dead sprint, which prompted Veda to run after him in pursuit as the Marauder majordomo ran in the direction of the Grand Delagon Square, the streets of Allegro Plaza now empty in the aftermath of the Trovol uprising and subsequent Sentinels breakout – with Marauder presence in this luxurious downtown district having long been redirected to elsewhere in the city, and the moneyed elite of Zel’Myas either hunkered down in private bunkers or fled the city with their wealth.

The masked Marauder sporadically stole glances over his shoulder as he ran, only to find that Veda remained hot on his tail the whole time. With an exasperated growl, Izohn reached under the voluminous cape and mantle that he wore over his tailored business suit to draw a Browning Hi-Power from a concealed holster, a one-of-a-kind collector’s unit with a satin nickel finish with Renaissance patterns and custom mother of pearl grips bearing an embossed image of Our Lady of Guadalupe – it was less of a weapon and more of an art piece, but in the heat of the moment Izohn didn’t care as he pulled the trigger repeatedly.

As the Marauder was effectively firing wild, most of his shots didn’t even come close to hitting Veda, and the few that did were parried by the swordswoman with almost contemptuous ease. After fifteen minutes of a full-on sprint, Izohn’s pace slowed down to a jog before stopping in the middle of a triple-lane main street, hunching over to rest his hands against his knees, his breaths escaping in ragged gasps through the mouth slot of his mask.

Meanwhile, Veda was not far behind, appearing barely gassed by the effort as she slowed down to a walk to approach Izohn, who still had his back turned towards her. In the dead silence that hung over the district, they could hear the noises from the ongoing battle elsewhere in the city – distant explosions and droning of aircraft engines filling the air as a breeze sent fallen leaves swirling in circles on the pavements.

Despite having given up running away, Izohn’s shoulders shook as he laughed, a low, mirthless chuckle escaping from his hidden lips as he straightened up and slowly turned around to meet Veda face-to-face, or rather, face-to-mask. “So… you chose to stalk me instead of helping your friends?” the Marauder majordomo inquired as he lifted his hands, his body language being a nonverbal cue for Veda to listen to the sounds of the distant battle on the other side of Zel’Myas. “What kind of personal vendetta do you have against me for you to be doing so?”

Veda drew her katana and pointed its tip at Izohn, but the masked man continued to speak without a hint of fear or worry in his voice, “You’re not exactly an unknown variable to me… I’ve gone over the reports of Marauders who were assigned to the Karia Valley Region for tax collection runs. Mentioned a swordswoman with white hair and red eyes giving them a hard time… the locals even gave you an epithet… the Silver Reaper.”

“I know not what the young man who infiltrated Zel’Myas wanted beyond to save his friends, but I have no desire to probe into their business,” Veda replied, ice on her lips and fire in her eyes as she stared Izohn down. “But for me, I wish to see the Marauder occupation of this country come to an end, starting with this city.”

Izohn shrugged, his voice oozing sarcasm, “If you’re after Toc Darkone, I regret to inform you that he’d left Zel’Myas hours ago.”

“Toc Darkone might be the leader of The Marauders as a whole, but you…” Veda hissed as she took another step closer towards Izohn, “You are the instigator and primary financier of the anti-Delagon insurrection, you were the one who coordinated the misinformation campaigns that made the people view the Marauders as freedom fighters rather than the villains they really are.”

“Guess what, Ms. Lexine? You’re right, that was my plan indeed,” Izohn replied calmly, sliding his custom Hi-Power back into his holster. “It wasn’t easy, y’know? Many of the ranking Marauders thought I was out of my mind when I proposed that the Marauders infiltrate the anti-Delagon movement by promising revolution, but they fell in line as soon as Mr. Darkone announced his full support for it.”

“But, truth be told you can’t say this was all my doing,” the masked Marauder said as he held up his right index finger, wagging it gently, “Zel’Mier was sitting on a powder keg given the way Delagon and his cronies were running the country into the ground over the last decade, combined with their growing disillusionment towards the lack of intervention from either Khazan Prime or the SLJ, all it takes is someone with a spark to light the fuse…” With that Izohn clenched his right hand into a tight fist.

“And I’m the one who provided that spark,” Izohn suddenly splayed out the fingers of his right hand before whispering, “Boom.”

“You can stop indulging yourself with your messiah delusions,” Veda remarked as she took another step closer, glaring at Izohn as though she possessed death ray eyes. “At the end of the day, you’re just another cutthroat like the splatter punks under you; Toc may be out of my reach, but I can at least end the Marauders’ reign of terror over this city by ending you.”

“Do you think my death will change anything?” Izohn asked calmly as he held his arms out in a “come here” pose, “Will it bring back those who died?”

“No, it won’t,” Veda admitted as she took another step forward and got into a fighting stance, one foot planted firmly on the tarmac, another en pointe, her body tensed up like a spring waiting to be unleashed, “But it’ll ensure that you and your kind will never hurt anyone else ever again,” and with her proclamation of vengeance, the swordswoman shot forward like a pouncing leopard, closing the gap with a few fleet-footed strides.

The world appeared to move in slow-mo as Veda flash-stepped towards Izohn, only to find – much to her shock – that the masked Marauder’s perception was able to match her speed as he reacted in real-time, extending his right hand that was crackling with arcs of electricity towards Veda as she charged in, and for a millisecond thought she saw a grin through the narrow mouth slot on Izohn’s mask.

Veda’s perception of time returned to normal as the swordswoman barely rolled out of the way of what appeared to be a bolt of lightning discharged by Izohn as a crater was left on the road behind her by Izohn’s energy attack, but as she turned her gaze back to Izohn, it turned out that the lightning blast wasn’t a one-and-done deal; the energy continued to linger in the form of a chain of pure lightning held in the masked Marauder’s right hand, while a black spiked ball that appeared to be constructed from pure void-essence rested in the centre of the crater, attached to the lightning chain… It was a meteor hammer composed of pure energy.

“So your powers are more than just a silver tongue and honeyed lips,” Veda mused, staring at the literal energy weapon that Izohn had summoned.

“Of course!” Izohn replied as he yanked the void-essence ball into the air and began whirling it in circles over his head by its lightning-chain, “I would never have made it as the second in-command if that were all I was capable of. Now, I’ll be sure to let Toc Darkone know you were keen on meeting him… After I put you under!” With that, Izohn swung his energy meteor hammer down.

Veda leapt back to avoid the attack, as the asphalt exploded at where the void-essence ball impacted, leaving a large crater in the middle of the street, sending clouds of smoke and a rain of debris all over. “That’s a formidable weapon you have there, but let’s see if you’re able to take what you dish out,” Veda remarked as she dodged another overhead swing from Izohn.

“As if you could get close enough to put my durability to the test, now die!” Izohn declared, swinging his energy weapon in a wide, horizontal arc as Veda dashed forward in an attempt to close in. 

The swordswoman saw Izohn’s attack coming, and dived for the ground, her advance never halting as she rolled forward across the tarmac and got up in a half-kneeling position in front of Izohn, swinging her weapon upward in a crescent slash; Izohn barely pulled out of the reach of Veda’s weapon in a nick of time, the tip of her katana grazing the surface of his mask, drawing a shower of faint sparks. On her feet, Veda went in with a series of slashes and thrusts, but Izohn was able to telegraph and dodge them as he backpedalled, desperate to put distance between himself and Veda so that he could use his weapon properly.

On Veda’s end, she saw that the nature of Izohn’s weapon required him to keep a distance to take full advantage of it, and the swordswoman wasn’t about to let the Marauder capitalise as she kept the pressure on him by staying closer to him than his weapon’s minimum effective reach would allow, where her weapon would have the upper hand.

Izohn finally found an opening as Veda went in with an overhead slash, which the Marauder blocked by holding a length of his weapon’s lightning chain above his head to intercept the incoming blade. Veda’s weapon rebounded off the energy construct as arcs of electricity cracked around them. In that brief window, Izohn brought his left foot up to deliver a Spartan kick to Veda’s midsection, knocking the swordswoman back several metres.

Veda recovered from the kick just in time to notice Izohn whirling his weapon by its chain and letting fly its ball in her direction, with the swordswoman barely ducking underneath the incoming attack as the void-essence ball grazed her hair, leaving her ponytail shorter by half an inch before crashing through the display window of a boutique on the other side of the avenue, obliterating the interior of the store.

Veda kept her back turned on the explosion even as rubble, glass shards and mannequin parts flew past her to litter the street between herself and Izohn, instead she gazed down at where clumps of her sheared hair lay on the asphalt, the silky white standing out amidst the black.

“Feeling raw about that, dear?” Izohn asked with a mock-concerned voice, the void-essence ball of his meteor hammer orbiting him like an electron around an atom’s nucleus as he whirled it around by its lightning chain.

“No,” Veda replied, but in Khazan-accented Japanese as she smirked, “I’m just stunned that you went so far just to cut half an inch of hair… is that your best?”

“Oh no, I’m just getting warmed up here!” Izohn interjected as he whirled his weapon faster, revealing a new mode of attack where rather than just attempt to tag Veda with his void-essence ball, the masked Marauder also attempted to whip his lightning chain around, sending a length of the crackling energy chain lashing towards Veda’s neck.

Veda’s instincts warned her of impending danger, and her body moved on pure muscle memory by leaping and performing a backflip to avoid the incoming chain as it whipped towards her and sliced cleanly through a nearby lamp post, sending the sundered top half crashing onto the pavement as its severed edges glowed white-hot, proving the chain to be no less deadly as it cleaved through street lights and trees like a plasma cutter on steroids.  

Izohn chuckled as he whipped the lightning chain of his weapon in concert with letting fly its void-essence ball, weaving a proverbial death sphere of pure energy around himself – a zone where wandering into its radius spelled near-certain death. Whirling his weapon with great speed, it would appear as though the Marauder majordomo was surrounded by a crackling sphere of blue-white energy with orbiting black orbs.

“What will you do now, Ms. Silver Reaper?” Izohn taunted as he advanced slowly while Veda pulled back, “Don’t you want to cut me down? So why are you keeping your distance?” The Marauder majordomo’s mocking laughter rose above the noise of distant explosions as the whipping lightning chain lashed against the asphalt, sending droplets of molten rock and sparks flying all around as he continued to press forward like an advancing sphere of doom.

But unbeknownst to either Veda Lexine or Izohn Falaris, a creature hovered above the roof of a nearby casino overlooking the swordswoman’s duel with the Marauder; if anyone witnessed it, it was a repulsive sight – its body appearing to be nothing but eyeballs of varying sizes, conglomerated into a vaguely spherical mass no larger than a volleyball, with a mass of writhing fleshy tendrils extending from its bottom as it watched the ongoing battle with its many eyes.

 

Segment 71: Swerved

Deep in the Endless Caves, from the sanctuary of his personal quarters in Drekis’ citadel, Relinqiest sat slouched forward in front of a scrying pool, elbows rested on the edge and fingers steepled. There were very few places in Khazan that the Magister’s network of Roving Eye familiars could not see as the water reflected live footage of Veda Lexine’s duel with Izohn Falaris. “Interesting… most interesting…” the elf-like Magister remarked.

With a wave of his hand, the footage reflected in the scrying pool changed, this time showing Uberman’s ongoing battle with Gabriel Demonchild, with the demonhost appearing to have the upper hand due to being able to take to the skies to make aerial assaults with impunity, while the cyborg had to stay on the ground to avoid the Marauders’ anti-air defense network, but the Sentinels leader proved to remain tough to crack as he dodged Gabriel’s hit-and-run dive bombs and countered by unleashing volleys from his concussion blasters.

At one point, Uberman was even able to get a solid hit in on Gabriel as he attempted to swoop down with a hit-and-run slash, but the Sentinels leader was able to sidestep his attack and follow-up with a roundhouse kick counter that sent the demonhost skidding against the tarmac before hastily taking to the skies to avoid another fusillade of concussion blasts. “Such skill, such power… it’s no wonder they can make short work of so many Deminites,” Relinqiest noted.

Heroes and villains alike, Relinqiest watched the Khazanians do battle across Zel’Myas, assessing each and every of their abilities and skills. He watched a footage of Michael Cortelloni’s battle with Razor, the Marauder enforcer displaying a combination of great skill and unwavering tenacity as he not only dodged the esper using telekinesis to launch chunks of debris and wrecked vehicles at him, but repeatedly got up even after being slammed through buildings. If there was one constant about the Khazanians that Relinqiest was able to notice across all of his Roving Eye footages, it was that Khazanians – good, evil and anywhere in-between – displayed nigh-unshakable persistence. The Magister knew not whether it stemmed from the strength of their convictions, or unreasoning stubbornness, but regardless of what form it took, persistence was a trait that irked him to no end.

“They’re like cockroaches who don’t know when to stay down,” The pointy-eared Magister mused before taking a sip from a goblet of red wine. “But I can see why they’re chosen to spearhead an operation to assassinate His Eminence right in His own seat of power…” 

Another face that piqued Relinqiest’s interest, perhaps even more so than Uberman was Tanin, whom his network of informants from the Discordant Scions told him competed in the FPL under the moniker “Dragoon T” – the Archon of Light wasn’t so much engaged in battle with Klart the Firebane but rather was making a complete fool out of the barbarian, teleporting circles around the barbarian while verbally ribbing him. The Magister could see that Klart was a highly-accomplished warrior in his own right, but Tanin’s centuries of experience and godlike tactical savvy made Klart seem like he was just swinging his sword around like a drunk ogre. But to the Firebane’s credit, his brute force and sheer determination allowed him to keep coming after the Archon despite being bested in just about every other department.

Relinqiest waved his hand, and the footage reflected in the water showed the Vitamin T laying down tremendous firepower on the heroes engaging it in battle; The Unsubtle’s acquisition of this terrifying new weapon had bumped her up the Marauder pecking order by multiple notches, from a mere splatter punk to one of Toc Darkone’s heavies, landing her in the same club as Razor, Klart and Gabriel and others. The Magister chuckled as the footage revealed Telissa Ravan – the female Thal’Vri Seeker who was noted for her vendetta against Drekis – firing her disruptor rifle again and again at the monster of a tank, to no avail.

“And what have we here?” Relinqiest straightened up in his seat as the footage revealed a silver-haired young man with turquoise-coloured eyes and a sword that gave off a similarly-coloured light. The sight of a sword that radiated light and energy fields was nothing unusual to the dark archmage, but there was something about this one that just felt different. Even from thousands of kilometres away, tucked away in his inner sanctum, the Magister could feel his skin prickle and a growing sense of anxiety and unease staring at the sword’s aura.

“Could it be… Sarachus?” Relinqiest wondered as Morlos – revealed to be one of Drekis’ Discordant Scions – interrupted Tim’s attempt to back Telissa and Raea up in their battle with the Vitamin T. The Magister leaned back in his seat as he awaited the imminent clash between Morlos and the young swordsman. “Yes, Morlos… let’s confirm my suspicions if Sarachus’ bloodline indeed lives on…” Relinqiest purred, taking another sip of wine.

“No!” The dark wizard growled in frustration as the face-off between Tim and Morlos was interrupted by Vincentzo and Captain Khazan, with the archmage intercepting Morlos’ opening volley of ice blasts with a salvo of fireballs, cancelling out the Scion’s attack. This was followed up with Captain Khazan positioning himself between Tim and Morlos and encouraging the young swordsman to assist Raea and Telissa, while he and Vincentzo would take over from there.

“Tis a shame, to have a golden opportunity fly by as soon as it presented itself,” Relinqiest muttered, before the footage captured in the water suddenly flickered, and moments later the scrying pool became an ordinary pool of water, reflecting nothing but the archmage’s own tired face, his temples and forehead matted with sweat while his head throbbed with a dull pain, “Seems like I’ve overextended myself with the Roving Eyes.”

The Magister spent a moment brooding in silence, his chin resting on steepled hands as he considered the options – the Marauders were still fighting for control of Zel’Myas, but based on current patterns Reliqiest had a strong feeling that the heroes were going to escape The Marauders’ custody and resume Operation Guillotine. To the Magister, for Drekis’ seat of power to be discovered and revealed at this juncture was an unacceptable outcome. There was only one decision that Relinqiest deemed to be a proper course correction, and with that the Magister grabbed his mage staff from the side of his throne, tapping it against the umbricite floor as the crystal skull ornament on his staff glowed red.

Another moment passed, and a tall and pale woman with waist-length jet-black hair strolled into the inner sanctum, dressed in a floor-length black gown with dark purple accents and intricate demonic-themed embroidered patterns, her face hidden behind a long black veil with matching embroidered trim that exposed only her chin and lips, looking like some kind of gothic bride. “Orders, Magister?” she asked as she folded her hands together over her lap. 

“Amaya… my Harbinger,” Relinqiest addressed the strange woman, now revealed to be his Harbinger, one half of every Magister’s two-person team of a left-hand and right-hand men known referred to within the Drekis Empire as the Harbinger and Apostle respectively. “Head out to the hive and mobilise my legion, we are headed for Zel’Mier.”

“It is not my place to question my Magister, but…” Amaya remarked, her veiled head bowing slightly, “But didn’t our Archon broker a deal with The Marauders? I understand it’s not an official alliance, but I remember it being something of a mutual non-interference clause between our respective institutions.”

“In this you are right, my Harbinger, the battle in Zel’Myas continues to rage, the Marauders are strong…” Relinqiest replied, rising from his throne, staff in hand, “But the heroes are stronger; the current patterns I’ve seen have led me to conclude that the Marauders will not be able to keep these heroes contained any longer – they will win, and their Operation Guillotine will continue.” 

“So you’re saying…” Amaya began.

“That His Eminence will not stand for his base of operations getting uncovered at this juncture of His campaign,” Relinqiest finished for his Harbinger. “There is no alternative. Zel’Myas must fall.”

“It shall be done then, my Magister,” Amaya bowed before leaving Relinqiest’s inner sanctum.

Meanwhile, at a hill fort situated in a forested region in the northernmost boundaries of the Zel’Myas metropolitan area, Zel’Mier military turncoats and Marauder splatter punks observed another column of Drekis minions moving through the area using a combination of surveillance drones and human lookouts on watch towers. “I know Drekis legions routinely pass through this area en route to Xaelon, but isn’t it strange to witness a sudden uptick in the volume of troop movements of late?” A rogue soldier asked as he watched the moving column of Deminite Gunners through the scope of his M110A1.

“They’re probably headed for New Xaelis,” A splatter punk in a brown T-shirt and plate carrier vest, multicam BDU trousers and drab olive tuque replied as he sat on a stool, fiddling with the EOTECH HWS 552 holo-sight mounted on his AK-12’s picatinny rail. “If you thought Xaelis was well-defended, New Xaelis was even more of a meat grinder for the Drekis legions… they’re probably gonna pass us by, just like all the others; remember that mutual non-interference clause Ms. Carlisle told us about, allegedly offered to Mr. Darkone by Drekis himself?”

“No way, there’s something off about their behaviour this time,” The rogue soldier muttered as he looked through his rifle scope again to confirm that he wasn’t imagining things. The collaborator gasped as he noticed the pudgy, giant Deminites stop marching and begin to turn in the direction of their hill fort, the energy expulsion vents on their bio-plasma cannons starting to glow ominously. 

“Hey, comms! This is Corporal Danny Morelo, get me a direct channel to Mr. Darkone, we’re under at-” The rogue soldier spoke into his radio in a last-ditch attempt to inform Toc of Drekis’ treachery, but before the outpost’s comms squad could even open a channel to Toc Darkone, a barrage of high-energy plasma from the Deminite Gunners obliterated the hill fort in an instant.

Amidst the carnage, in the burning remains of what was once a former Zel’Mier Armed Forces garrison a single surviving splatter punk struggled to his feet, muttering and cursing. “Ugh… fuck…” he grunted as he limped towards his weapon. A screeching noise from overhead drew his attention to the sight of Ptera-Deminites circling in the sky above; the adrenaline spike caused the splatter punk to perform a dive into a defensive roll, narrowly avoiding a hail of ball lightning.

The splatter punk snatched up his FN F2000 just as a Ptera-Deminite came swooping towards him, screaming as he emptied his assault rifle’s magazine into the incoming pterosaur-like minion, to no avail as the 5.56mm FMJ rounds bounced harmlessly off the Ptera-Deminite’s energy shield. The hapless Marauder screamed again as the winged minion seized him in its talons and took to the skies, swinging him back and forth like a toy before releasing its grip to send him plummeting – but before the splatter punk even hit the ground, he was seized in mid-air from different directions by several more Ptera-Deminites, tearing him limb from limb before discarding his dismembered and eviscerated remains.

 

Segment 72: Tim's Resolve

Shinsuke’s ears rang as he regained his senses, his fingers clutching fistfuls of rubble and dust as he balled up his hands, realising he was lying face-down under a blanket of debris and broken glass. The Sentinel pushed up into a plank, before dropping his knees onto the dust and then getting back up. His heightened senses made every shot fired by the Vitamin T’s big guns feel like a jaunt through the mouth of Avernus.

The first thing he saw as his vision swam back into focus were his fellow heroes still locked in combat with The Unsubtle’s monster tank, and the once-lively neighbourhood of a beautiful city reduced to rubble. From the corner of his vision, he witnessed Gabriel take to the skies like a startled bird to avoid a concussion blast from Uberman. Brushing the ash and glass shards off him, the Sentinel cryomancer took stock of his physical condition – he’d suffered some bruises and lacerations, but was otherwise in one piece and still combat-fit.

Telissa commandeered a RPG-7 that had been abandoned by a splatter punk during the Marauders’ hurry to evacuate the district when The Unsubtle rolled up in her Vitamin T, and fired the pilfered anti-tank weapon at the Marauder tank’s side hull while its operator was distracted by Raea running circles around it. When the flames and smoke from the explosion cleared, the Seeker would find that the HEAT round fared no better than her LR-2X at defeating the tank’s armour. She did however, manage to destroy one of the several loudspeakers on the tank that The Unsubtle uses to broadcast music and throw punchlines.

“NO!” The Unsubtle’s voice yelled over the remaining speakers before the music cut out and she growled, “You’ll pay for this…”

Telissa sprinted as the chaingun at the commander’s cupola swivelled around to open fire, sending plumes of flying debris and dust flying behind her. “At least that got her to shut up,” the blonde remarked, tapping on her headset to send a transmission to Raea as she fired her suit’s grappling hook launcher and used the towline to winch herself into the second storey of a nearby building through its window, noting how the Marauder stopped playing anymore music or dropping snappy one-liners after she broke one of the Vitamin T’s loudspeakers. From her vantage point, the Seeker took another shot at the Vitamin T with her molecular disruptor rifle before rolling away from the window sill to dodge a burst of return fire from its sponson-mounted fifty-cals, turning the window into a gaping hole in the building’s facade as the heavy machine guns shredded bricks, masonry and aluminium. 

“I do not find that reassuring at all,” Raea transmitted back, regarding The Unsubtle’s uncharacteristic silence as an ominous portent. The redhead darted out of the alleyway with her ion pulse blaster in hand, a glow building up inside her weapon’s muzzle as she delivered a power-charged shot to the turret, with her violet-white beam of energy barely leaving a scorch mark on the armour. “...I think it means the kid gloves are off.”

The Vitamin T rotated its turret and angled its main gun upwards to aim at 2nd floor of the building that Telissa was taking overwatch from; the blonde leapt out of another window seconds before the Vitamin T’s main gun fired, but the explosion that obliterated the building sent a rain of debris flying all around, and a suitcase-sized chunk of rubble struck the blonde on the back of her head, knocking her to the ground.

“Telissa!” Raea yelled as she saw the Seeker lay face-down on the pavement, fearing the worst.

“Raea, she’s still alive!” Tim clamped a hand firmly on Raea’s good shoulder and gave her a gentle shake to reassure her before pointing in Telissa’s direction, revealing the blonde writhing slightly as she remained lying face-down. 

The redhead used her own powersuit’s sensors to give Telissa a quick scan, and a wireless handshake between their two suits revealed that the bio-monitoring systems on Telissa’s powersuit were showing strong vitals despite the blonde’s unresponsive state. Raea alternated between firing her ion pulse blaster and a forearm-mounted pulse laser on her suit, but both weapons barely grazed the tank’s armour. “That thing’s supremely dangerous when it’s firing its big guns, we’ll have to get closer to neutralise the big guns’ minimum effective distance!” she called out to Tim, raising her voice in order to be heard above the cacophony of explosions and her own voice being modulated by her battle mask.

Tim nodded, before throwing his arms over his head to cover himself from another rain of ash, debris and glass shards from yet another explosion before yelling, “Okay! Tell me the plan!”

“I’ll draw aggro from the air while you attack its right flank!” Raea replied.

“But the Marauders’ anti-air defenses!” Tim exclaimed, his eyes going wide as he thought of the Shilka and Tunguska vehicles the Marauders had at their disposal, along with MANPAD-armed anti-air squads, and what they did with Uberman.

“I’ll be fine,” Raea said, momentarily retracting her mask to flash a reassuring smile at Tim as she reached out to gently caress his cheek. “Those weapons are designed to target aircraft, airborne mechs and other large bodies – a human like myself is invisible to their tracking systems; moreover, I will maintain a low altitude for good measure,” with that, the redhead gave her headset a tap, causing her battle mask to snap back in place.

“Well, you’re the weapons expert here, so I trust you to know what you’re doing,” Tim replied, now educated on why Uberman had much to fear from such weapons, while not being a cause for worry for Raea.

Raea gave Tim a wink as she activated her power suit’s flight repulsors, taking to the air. In response, the Unsubtle fired the Vitamin T’s cupola-mounted chain gun and sponson-mounted heavy machine guns, but none of them were able to turn upwards to an angle where they could acquire Raea as a target as she circled above the Vitamin T from the air while taking pot shots at it.

“Annoying gnat,” The Unsubtle grumbled from within Vitamin T as she chugged down the remainder of her energy drink can, “But the Vitamin T’s got a contingency for that too! Activating close-in weapon system!” A smaller cupola on the turret near the commander’s cupola opened up to reveal its CIWS; an auto-tracking M134 minigun with a near-omnidirectional aiming angle. The barrels spun as the weapon roared to life, firing at Raea – but the Sentinel handled herself in the air with great dexterity and skill, weaving and rolling and always a step ahead of the CIWS gun’s attempt to track her.

Meanwhile, The Unsubtle had her sights on Tim as she fired her chaingun and fifty-cals to keep him from circling around to the Vitamin T’s right flank, grinning as Tim began to pull back under the relentless barrage of gunfire. “Yes, back, back a little more…” The female Marauder hummed in anticipation for Tim to move back just enough that he would enter the minimal firing range of her main gun, itching to fire the 280mm again. But The Unsubtle would find her attention drawn back to Raea as a warning flashed on her HUD that the Vitamin T’s CIWS had been disabled, and her grin quickly melted away as a camera feed showed Raea destroying the minigun with a shot from her ion pulse blaster.

“This looks important,” Raea mused as she noticed what appeared to be the main sensors and optics array of the Vitamin T as she landed on top of its turret, taking aim at it with her ion pulse blaster as she prepared to power up a charged shot, only to have the hatch on the commander’s cupola swing open as The Unsubtle’s upper body popped into view.

“Not so fast, Sentinel!” The Unsubtle snarled as she fired three rapid, successive shots with her Delta Elite, her shots staggering Raea, but the bullets lacked the power to penetrate the armour plating on the Sentinel’s power suit.

Raea winced against the pain, her right eye squeezing shut as the bullets were deflected by her suit; despite the lack of penetration, the kinetic transfer still hurt. Yet the Sentinel didn’t so much as miss a beat as she raised her right arm and fired her power suit’s forearm laser at The Unsubtle, who was already taking evasive action.

The Unsubtle cried out in pain as Raea’s laser grazed her left arm, causing the Marauder to tumble back into the operator’s cockpit in an undignified fashion as the hatch of the commander’s cupola slammed shut behind her. “G-get the fuck off my tank!” The Unsubtle hissed through gritted teeth as she slammed her elbow against a switch on the dashboard.

At once, an electric field enveloped the exterior of the Vitamin T, its turret and hull crackling and thrumming with dancing blue-white arcs of plasma. Caught in the thick of the electric field attack, Raea screamed in pain as her body was wracked by powerful electric shocks, while the systems in her power suit overloaded from the high voltage, with pieces of armour, sensors and other accessories breaking off in a series of small explosions.

“RAEA!” Tim screamed, watching through teary eyes as Raea toppled over and fell off the turret, hitting the ground with a dull thump as her battle mask cracked and and broke off to expose her face, now bearing an expression of pain and anguish as her damaged battlesuit sparked and gave off wisps of smoke, fear and concern welling up inside him as he thought that his girlfriend had been rendered unconscious… or worse. “You monster!” The young swordsman yelled with unbridled fury as the turquoise aura around him flared up, his eyes glowing so bright that it became impossible make out any hint of the irises, pupils or sclera; just two glowing pools of turquoise as he raised his sword above his head, the turquoise aura surrounding it extending and brightening until it appeared like a pillar of light reaching for the heavens.

“Right where I wanted you,” The Unsubtle grunted, her left arm still hurting as she locked onto Tim on her HUD’s viewfinder as the turret rotated and the main gun angled itself, the tank-driving Marauder and the swordsman in a standoff as both got ready to unleash their ultimate attacks.

It was The Unsubtle who beat Tim to the trigger, the earth shaking as a shockwave swept down the street as the Vitamin T’s main gun fired, sending another 280mm HEAT round downrange towards Tim at hypersonic speed, but the young swordsman dodged the incoming shell with a well-timed roll, calling off his attack for the sake of self-preservation. But that brought him closer to the Vitamin T, which was already accelerating forward at full speed towards him. Undeterred, Tim sprang back onto his feet and continued to charge towards the advancing monster tank.

“One human steak tartare, coming up fresh!” The Unsubtle cackled as she announced her intent over the Vitamin T’s loudspeakers – the ones still working, that is – looking to run Tim over, only to nearly faceplant into her own dashboard as the Vitamin T banked forward in a violent, abrupt manner.

“Not on my watch,” Yagami Shinsuke replied flatly as he revealed his handiwork, wisps of chilling vapours still rising from his hands – the cryomancer had frozen an entire section of the road into an embrittled state, and the moment The Unsubtle drove her tank forward, the weight of the Vitamin T caused the street to collapse into a sinkhole right under its treads.

Tim continued to charge towards the Vitamin T, glowing sword in hand as his turquoise aura blazed around him.

“Get em’, tiger,” Shinsuke smiled as he gave Tim a pat on the back as the young swordsman dashed past.

“The fuck did you do!?” The Unsubtle yelled, the Vitamin T’s treads spinning futilely.

With a resounding war cry, Tim plunged the glowing blade of his heirloom sword into the right side of the Vitamin T’s hull, piercing through the armour plates that earlier had withstood concussion beams, magic spells, rocket-propelled grenades, molecular disruptors and ion pulse blasters. With his blade buried in the Vitamin T’s hull, Tim ran along the side of the tank, dragging his weapon forward with him to open a gash in its hull and rip out its two sponson-mounted Browning M2’s in the process.

“NO!” The Unsubtle shrieked, flailing her arms as warnings flashed across her HUD and sparks flew from her dashboard.

Shinsuke stepped in once again for a grand finale, freezing another section of the road the Vitamin T was stuck in with a well-placed cryogenic beam to enlarge the sinkhole, leaving the monster tank even more trapped than before. “That takes care of one Marauder heavyweight,” the cryomancer mused as he blew away the white mist rising from his hand, before giving Tim a nod of acknowledgement as he rushed over to attend to Raea. But the noises in the distance were a sign that while this battle was over, the war for Zel’Myas continued to rage elsewhere in the city.

Uberman ducked under a roundhouse slash from the hellfire-empowered claws of Gabriel’s demon form, before countering with an uppercut to the demonhost’s chin that sent him reeling, but Gabriel quickly regained his footing as the cyborg prepared to follow-up by winding up for a straight, throwing himself at Uberman without any hesitation or consideration. The Sentinel leader blocked another claw swipe from Demonchild as his talons raked against his forearm, drawing a shower of sparks and warning messages to flash across the cyborg’s HUD informing him of a drop in structural integrity to his armour, giving the Sentinel leader pause for a fleeting moment.

The brief pause from Uberman was the metaphorical blood in the water for Gabriel as he flew into a frenzy and pressed on with another flurry of claw swipes and punches – on his part Uberman was able to parry the rapid-fire barrage of powerful but reckless blows, until a mistimed parry allowed the transformed demonhost to grab hold of Uberman’s head between his hands in a vice grip, trying to crush the helmet that constituted the cyborg’s head.

Gabriel exerted every ounce of demonic strength he could muster into his vice grip, but found himself unable to compromise the structural integrity of Uberman’s head beyond spiderwebbing his faceplate with hairline cracks. With a growl of frustration, the demonhost opened his mouth wide to breath fire point-blank into Uberman’s visor while taking to the skies with the cyborg in his grip and flying at full speed towards an office tower, smashing Uberman through several walls while attempting to immolate him with a point-blank firebreath.

Uberman in turn countered by slamming his palms together at Gabriel’s temples, nailing the demonhost with a thunderclap strike that caused him to loosen his grip. As Gabriel reeled from Uberman’s counterattack, the cyborg grabbed Gabriel by his horns and yanked his head downwards while simultaneously driving his right knee upwards to dole out a face-crushing knee strike to Gabriel’s face.

“And now I bid you…” Uberman remarked as he cocked back his right fist and swivelled around his waist to deliver a liver shot to Gabriel, the demonhost’s eyes going wild from unimaginable pain as spittle flew from his mouth.

“Guten nacht!” With his German declaration of “goodnight”, the cyborg delivered another uppercut to Gabriel, while discharging a full-powered forearm cannon blast the instant his fist made contact with the demonhost’s chin. A flash of light cut through the night sky, followed by a noise like a thunderclap as a shockwave burst forth and Gabriel was sent flying over a hundred metres into the air before crash landing and leaving a crater on the road as he shifted back into his human form, unmoving. It was only from Gabriel’s laboured breathing and bio-scans from Uberman’s sensors returning a positive reading that he knew the demonhost was unconscious rather than dead. The cyborg had to admit that Gabriel was a tough one, but with the beating he just took, even the demonhost was going to be out of commission for quite some time. 

As Uberman surveyed the aftermath of his battle, the cyborg realised that the party had spread themselves out across several neighbourhoods in the process of battling the Marauders’ heavies. A cursory scanner sweep by his suit’s sensors led him to a group of comrades nearest to him, the cyborg arriving to the aftermath of Tim, Raea, Shinsuke and Telissa’s battle against the Vitamin T, with the Marauders’ monster tank still stuck in a sinkhole and Tim and Shinsuke attending to an unconscious Raea – the sight of a weeping Tim cradling Raea in his arms being something that brought painful memories of his final moments with Lady Liberty.

“Raea! Raea! Please don’t leave me!” Tim sobbed as he gently rocked the unresponsive Raea back and forth in his arms, his turquoise eyes glistening with fresh tears while more continued streaming down his cheeks. “Y-you remember our promise right? W-we’re gonna be side-by-side as Sentinels, as heroes!”

“I’m getting a pulse,” Shinsuke remarked as he placed two fingers on a small stretch of exposed neck above the collar of Raea’s power suit. “It’s not a very strong one, but it’s there.”

“Her vitals are fading,” Uberman remarked as he ran scans over the unconscious redhead after a wireless handshake between his armour and her powersuit failed to glean any readings from her bio-monitoring systems, “But I can help,” he said as he knelt down next to Tim and Raea.

“Please, Uberman!” Tim pleaded.

“Normally, a Mk. 26 Centurion battle suit’s emergency life support system will activate in the event of traumatic injury to the user, but it appears that – along with several other systems has been rendered non-functional,” Uberman explained as sections in his armour opened up, and the cyborg proceeded to plug a series of cables and tubes into connection ports in Raea’s own powersuit.

“What are you doing?” the young swordsman asked, watching Uberman with a mix of worry and cautious hope.

“I will patch the life support systems of my Uber Mech Armour to those of her Mk. 26 Centurion,” The cyborg continued, “Since the one in her battlesuit is damaged, the only viable solution is to use mine to do the job.”

After a brief moment that felt uncomfortably long to Tim, Raea began to stabilise as her suit’s life support system – patched into the one on Uberman’s suit initiated emergency medical procedures. “Her vitals are improving,” Uberman announced as he continued to run scans on Raea.

Raea’s eyelids twitched, before slowly fluttering open – and the first sight that greeted her eyes was Tim kneeling over her, and the next sense she registered was touch; that of something warm and wet dripping onto her cheeks. “Uh… Timothy…?” Raea groaned, blinking as she took note of the reddened sclera of Tim’s eyes. “But why?”

“Oh Raea! Thank the Archons! For a moment I thought I was gonna lose you!” Tim exclaimed as he scooped her up and wrapped his arms tightly around her, burying his face against Raea’s shoulder – but in his excitement, the young man pressed his face against her right one, which was still nursing a wound from where the sniper had shot her.

“Ouch!” Raea yelped in pain, causing Tim to let go.

“Oh! Sorry!” Tim muttered his apologies as he stared at the right shoulder he’d unknowingly pressed his face against.

“Silly, of course I’m alright!” Raea laughed, reaching out with her right finger to boop Tim on the nose. 

“We should continue moving and escape Zel’Myas soon,” Shinsuke chimed in as he offered his hand to Tim to help him back onto his feet, while Uberman helped Raea back onto her feet. “The Marauders may have scattered when we began fighting their praetorians, but now that the boss fight is over I have a feeling that the grunts are going to regroup and attack again.”

Raea looked around, stunned, “Wait, what did I miss? Did we win?”

Shinsuke smiled dryly as he gestured towards the sinkhole where the Vitamin T remained stuck, and proceeded to say nothing, knowing that it was a single picture that spoke a thousand words.

“I see,” Raea nodded slowly, her mind now connecting the dots between the details she’d missed while she was out cold, before taking one more look at the trapped Vitamin T. “Great job, by the way… but where are the others?”

Shinsuke said nothing, but instead stood next to Tim and placed an arm around his shoulders before gesturing at him with his other hand while smiling with his eyes closed, a nonverbal cue for Raea to know who the star of the show was.

“Hehe,” Tim chuckled, his cheeks flushing as he rubbed the back of his head, “To tell the truth, I couldn’t have done this without all of you,” he looked at Raea to acknowledge how she managed to keep The Unsubtle pinned by her manoeuvres, before giving Shinsuke a pat on his shoulder, knowing that without the cryomancer’s timely intervention, he might very well have become a human steak tartare under the Vitamin T’s treads.

“The team must’ve spread out across the city over the course of the battle with the Marauder heavies,” Tim replied while Telissa limped over to their side, leaning against Uberman for support.

“We will have to continue with Operation Guillotine and escape from Zel’Myas, we’ve been sidetracked long enough by the Marauders,” Uberman instructed, “Remember the true mission and our duty to protect Khazan.”

“Wait, shouldn’t we go look for them? They might still be embroiled in combat with the other elite Marauders elsewhere in the city!” Raea and Tim interjected in unison.

“I mean, I understand the importance of the mission, but our task force is several heads short – there’s still Captain Khazan, Vincentzo, Tanin, and the others – we need them on the group for Operation Guillotine,” Raea elaborated.

“Your point is valid, Ms. Shalhalla,” the cyborg replied, lifting his head towards the Zel’Myas skyline, “But know that everyone on this team are highly-accomplished heroes in their own right, we need to have faith that they too will also be able to escape Zel’Myas under their own power and rendezvous with us outside the Endless Caves. Till then, we will need to trust in the process.”

 

Segment 73: KAPOW! Ninja vs. Kung Fu

“Whoa, peace out, dude!” Woose exclaimed, taken aback by the ferocity of Oni-tachi’s sudden attack, but in doing so the pink-clad martial artist stumbled backwards and landed on his buttocks at the same time the ninja swung his weapon, causing the ninjato’s blade to slice right through thin air where Woose’s neck had been heartbeats ago.

A gasp escaped from Oni-tachi’s hidden lips as he backflipped twice to put distance between himself and POWAAA!!!-Man, raising his ninjato once more as he glared at him through the eye slits of his oni skull visor. “How!?” the ninja demanded, “How did you manage to dodge it?”

“Well, you scared me back there with that sudden flash-step, so I stumbled back and fell,” POWAAA!!!-Man shrugged, patting the dust off the pants of his gi and straightening his Gunmetal Brawler X mask. 

Oni-tachi’s grip on his ninjato tightened as the shinobi shuffled forward, his steps more cautious now as he sized up his opponent. “Do I look like I’m five to you?” Oni-tachi growled, clearly not buying Woose’s story that he somehow just stumbled out of the way of a decapitation strike.

“Why don’t you try it again then?” Woose remarked, though his tone sounded more like a suggestion than a taunt – it was like encouraging a friend to drop another coin into the claw machine to give it a go.

Oni-tachi dashed forward in a speed blur, reappearing right in Woose’s face and coming in with a rapid-fire flurry of slashes and thrusts. The first strike was a horizontal slash aimed at Woose’s neck, which he avoided by ducking under it, this was followed by a diagonal shoulder-to-hip slash, which missed as the pugilist jumped back; the third strike was a forward thrust to the midsection, and Woose turned his body to the side to allow the ninja’s blade to whiff past his midriff. Oni-tachi followed through by spinning around to deliver an arcing slash across the chest for the fourth strike, which Woose ducked under. The fifth strike was a half-spin into a horse kick that was blocked by Woose, and the following sixth strike was a crescent slash that the pink-clad pugilist narrowly rolled out of the way of, and the final strike was a jump forward into an overhead slash which again missed due to Woose rolling out of the way at the last split-second.

“Seven blows in under three seconds… and you avoided them all,” Oni-tachi remarked as he gave his ninjato a flourish. “This is not an ordinary level of defense awareness… Just who are you?” Oni-tachi’s voice was a mix of begrudging respect and growing unease, wondering just how a bumbling, hyperactive and attention-deficit airhead in a cosplay prop could possess a superhuman reaction speed and combat perception.

“You’re talking to the one-and-only master of POWAAA!!!-Style Kenpo!” Woose replied in a jubilant tone, shadow-boxing with a series of martial arts moves before ending in a “Crushing Fist” stance. “POWAAA!!!-Man!”

Oni-tachi snickered, “I will remember this name… as that of a fool who dared stand against the Marauders and Koku Ten-tou!” The ninja jumped towards Woose, this time attempting an overhead chop, but the pink-garbed pugilist rolled out of the way right as he brought his sword down, nimbly repositioning himself behind Oni-tachi, who spun around to follow up with a crescent slash, only to be beaten to the draw by Woose as a roundhouse kick caught him across the jaw, sending him reeling.

Leaping into the air, Woose unleashed a Bicycle Kick combo, punctuating every kick with a Bruce Lee-esque scream, but Oni-tachi ducked as soon as he saw Woose’s leap, causing the self-proclaimed Master of POWAAA!!!-Style to sail through the air, feet pedalling in thin air before landing. As Woose spun around upon realising his error, Oni-tachi had already catapulted himself feet-first at the martial artist, spinning his body in midair like a drill to plant a corkscrew kick that knocked Woose back several metres, first flying off his feet before skidding across the tarmac on his back, coming to a stop with his head on the ground and butt facing the sky before lying on his back.

Oni-tachi followed up with a leap towards the still-supine Woose, looking to stab the martial artist with his ninjato, but Woose performed a half-roll onto his side to narrowly avoid having a sword plunged into chest, causing the sword’s blade to snap with a metallic clink as it struck the pavement. With his body tensed like a coiled spring, Woose performed an explosive roll with his right arm out, catching the still-kneeling Oni-tachi across the jaw with a backhand that staggered him.

Capitalising on the opportunity, POWAAA!!!-Man sprang onto his feet and threw himself at the Marauder ninja while he was still reeling from the backhand, laying a combo of martial arts moves into him – two successive left jabs to the face, a right bodyblow, a low left roundhouse to the knee, a right jab to the face, a left hook… which was blocked by Oni-tachi as he raised his forearm to block the hook in mid-swing by catching the pink gi pugilist’s left wrist against his forearm.

“I’m not done yet!” Onitachi hissed in Japanese, and for a heartbeat Woose thought he could see the ninja flash a death glare at him through the eye slots of his oni skull visor, right before delivering a vicious uppercut with his free arm that sent his opponent reeling; but before Woose could even topple over onto his back the ninja performed a half-spin to deliver a right horse kick to the midsection, followed by a full spin to catch POWAAA!!!-Man across the face with a high left roundhouse that sent him flying backwards with a series of corkscrew flips.

“You’re stronger than I thought,” Woose straightened his Gunmetal Brawler X mask before launching himself back into the fray with a straight punch, only to have the ninja tilt his head to let the blow slip past him, while cross-countering with a palm strike to the chin, which he proceeded to chain into three punches to centre mass, before performing a wind-up and a lunge to slam both palms into POWAAA!!!-Man’s chest to send him flying back several metres like a discarded ragdoll. 

“Give it up,” Oni-tachi remarked as Woose dusted himself down, got right back up and threw himself at the ninja again with a flying kick, only to have him duck under it. As Woose followed-up with a spin kick, Oni-tachi blocked the martial artist’s attack, before grabbing hold of his kicking leg and wheeling him around to send POWAAA!!!-Man into an uncontrolled spin, leaving the martial artist open to the ninja’s own spin kick to the back of his head that sent him skidding along the pavement on his belly.

The cycle would repeat itself many more times – each time Woose would take a beatdown, spring right back onto his feet and launch himself at Oni-tachi with a flurry of attacks, only for the ninja to telegraph his moves, defend and punish. Again, and again. But after Woose picked himself up from the tarmac for what appeared to be the twentieth time, Oni-tachi’s composure began to crack. “Just… what… in Khazan… are you!?” The ninja demanded, his breathing starting to sound laboured as the exertion began to take a toll on his stamina.

“An ally of justice, who doesn’t know when to quit!” Woose replied as he got up and smoothed out the creases on his gi; despite the scuffs and tears on his gi and dirt and ash caking his body, the martial artist didn’t appear gassed-out or discouraged in the slightest – if anything, he appeared to be more eager than ever as he bounced around on his feet, ready for yet another round.

“I tire of these games! Just disappear into Yomi!” Oni-tachi spat as he fished kunai out of hidden pockets sewn into his gi and began throwing them at Woose, who batted them out of the air with his bare hands, but the throwing daggers turned out to be a feint for the ninja to whip out his backup weapon – a length of chain with weights at each end known as a manriki-gusari, slinging one end of the weapon to wrap a length of chain around Woose’s neck.

“So, have you nothing more to say?” Oni-tachi smirked behind his mask, knowing that Woose could not speak with the chain choking him. Despite his inability to speak, POWAAA!!!-Man raised the middle finger on his right hand as a nonverbal communication of defiance to the ninja, as his eyes narrowed behind his visor.

“So be it,” Oni-tachi growled as he yanked Woose forward to uppercut him in the jaw, before wrapping another loop of chain around his neck; dragging the martial artist by neck using his chain, the ninja slung took hold of the other end of his manriki-gusari to vault over a nearby inverted L-shaped street lamp, converting its horizontal bar into a makeshift gallows as he hoisted Woose off the ground by the chain, the dangling martial artist’s legs kicking at the air as he struggled.

“Goodnight,” Oni-tachi snicked as he gave the chain another tug, and heard Woose’s neck vertebrae go crack as his legs went from kicking wildly to twitching as his arms hung limply by his sides. The ninja waited for another moment for POWAAA!!!-Man to go completely still before letting go of his manriki-gusari, the martial artist collapsing on the pavement below in a limp heap. “Time to report back to Falaris-sama,” the ninja remarked calmly as he turned around to walk away from Woose’s body.

Or what he thought was Woose's body. Oni-tachi hadn’t taken more than a few steps before he heard the unmistakable clinking of chains behind him. “N-no way…” Oni-tachi muttered in disbelief as he slowly turned back around to the sight of Woose back on his feet, uncoiling the chains from his neck before grabbing hold of his head between his hands…

“Okay…” Woose grumbled, “This part is gonna suck…”

With another “crack”, POWAAA!!!-Man set his neck vertebrae back into place before exclaiming, “OWIEE!”

“You! What does it take for you to stay down!?” Oni-tachi exclaimed, reeling back in pure shock as Woose massaged his neck as though he’d just gotten out of bed.

“It take more than a broken neck to keep POWAAA!!!-Man down!” Woose declared as he launched himself through the air like a shooting star at the flabbergasted Oni-tachi, his legs cycling like pistons as he laid into the Marauder with a Bicycle Kick, punctuating every blow with a Bruce Lee-style whoop as he continued to Bicycle Kick Oni-tachi down the avenue they were fighting at, raining kick after kick onto the ninja’s face and chest like a blacksmith hammering hot iron on an anvil.

“Uuuu-WATAAH!” As an explosive finisher to his combo, Woose planted a thunderous drop kick to Oni-tachi’s chest that sent the ninja flipping through the air and crashing through the window of a convenience store. Moments later, Woose would leap into the store’s interior through the same broken window, intent on finishing what he’d started.

There, POWAAA!!!-Man would find Oni-tachi lying face-up on the floor, half-buried under overturned shelves of snacks and canned food, his visor cracked to reveal a single eye staring back at him, although the exposed eye carried a wicked glint that even someone as dense as Woose could tell was a sign of trouble.

“Thinking of finishing me, aren’t you?” Oni-tachi mocked as he reached into the folds of his gi and retrieved a small electronic device with a flashing red LED next to the word “ARMED” with one hand, while ripping open his gi with the other hand to reveal a vest that was worn between his gi and steel mesh undershirt, a vest that carried numerous sticks of dynamite! “You’re reporting to King Enma alongside me!”

Woose leapt out of the store window a split-second before Oni-tachi pulled the trigger on his detonator, causing the convenience store – alongside the entire front facade of the first floor of the building it was located in – to be consumed in a massive fireball accompanied by a powerful blast wave that sent the martial artist flying across the street and smack his face against the wall of a building on the other side.

“That was a close call,” POWAAA!!!-Man mused as he patted the ash and debris off his gi and straightened his mask before turning around to look at the burning wreckage of the convenience store across the street. For a good minute, Woose continued to watch the fire gut what was left of the store, still wary of the ninja. But after no noise or movement registered from the neighbouring building save for the roaring of flames and the groaning of a compromised structure, the martial artist came to the conclusion that his foe had well and truly been vanquished.

“Winner! POWAAA!!!-Man!” Woose declared jubilantly like a fighting game announcer as he pumped his fist into the air, before walking away to see if he could find Vincentzo or anyone else from the Operation Guillotine task force.

 

Segment 74: Turning the Tide

A faint swish filled Michael’s ears as Razor lashed out with his chain to let fly his kusarigama, with the former Ragemaster smirking as he tilted his head to dodge the sickle, its blade grazing past his cheek to make a shallow cut that oozed blood. “I see you’ve been honing your skills since,” Michael remarked as he dodged another swing from Razor’s kusarigama, “But you’re still far from the sharpest tool in the shed!”

With that, the ex-Marauder raised his Webley clone and fired three shots in quick succession as Razor pulled his sickle back after another missed swing. The dark-skinned Marauder made no attempt to dodge, instead he raised his chain-wrapped forearm to deflect the incoming shots, chuckling as the mushroomed bullets clattered to the floor at his feet, while Natsumi squeaked at what was the hundredth time while watching the clash between the former Marauder and Toc Darkone’s enforcer.

Razor deflected yet another shot from Michael with his chains, and the ricocheted round almost hit the blue-haired girl in the head if it weren’t for her weasel familiar leaping into the path of the bullet. “Itachi-kun!” Natsumi exclaimed as the bullet struck the Shikigami and knocked it onto the pavement, but the familiar spirit leapt back onto its feet immediately after with hardly a scratch to its body as it excitedly ran circles around Natsumi’s feet.

“I wonder how Shinsuke-san and the others are faring?” Natsumi asked herself as she noticed that further down the street the Archon of Light, Tanin was crossing swords with Klart the Firebane. Natsumi had separated from the others when the group spread out across the district following the Vitamin T’s initial attack, and she’d stayed close to Michael Cortelloni’s side since.

Despite her lack of combat abilities, young Shirai was determined to make herself useful and not be seen as a burden as she sent her Shikigami to assist her comrades, as the Invincible Weasel blocked a slash from Razor’s kusarigama that would’ve otherwise found its mark on Michael’s neck; it was a good thing that none of the Marauders saw Natsumi as a threat, which allowed her to stay undisturbed on the sidelines to covertly assist the others.

“Not bad, kid,” Michael remarked as with a flick of his wrist he lifted a manhole over into the air with his telekinesis, before sending it flying at Razor, who jumped over the makeshift projectile; only to be caught by telekinesis and punted through the wall of a nearby building.

“Looks like I’ve gotten his dander up,” the esper chuckled as Razor exploded out of the pile of rubble with a frustrated roar and began swinging his chains around with increased speed and fury that momentarily put Michael on the backfoot as he was forced into a purely defensive position, finding himself unable to stay still long enough to focus for his TK as he found himself busy staying ahead of the bald Marauder’s kusarigama, dodging one furious swing after another, each having enough power to cut down metal street signs and lamp posts as if they were cornstalks.

Razor let fly his kusarigama and buried its blade into an abandoned van, before hoisting it into the air with his chain and chucking it at Michael. “Fuck!” The esper hissed as he threw his palms up and the thrown vehicle slowed in mid-air before coming to a half, levitating harmlessly in front of Michael’s face. A metallic thump came from above the ex-Marauder, who looked up to see Razor leaping onto the roof of the levitated van, his sickle glinting as he dived down to slash at Michael.

Michael barely rolled out of the way of Razor’s flying slash, only to be caught square in the chest by a Spartan Kick courtesy of the Marauder, which sent the ex-hitman flying and smashing through the door of a cafe. “Yep… I think I forgot how strong you are… stupid me,” the esper groaned as he tried to pick himself up, reaching for his revolver… only to have a familiar booted foot kick it away, sending it skittering across the linoleum floor before a gloved hand grabbed hold of his neck in a vice grip and Michael found himself hoisted off the ground, his feet dangling in midair as Razor held him in a one-handed throat lift.

“It ends here, Ragemaster,” Razor grinned as he rested the blade of his sickle against Cortelloni’s neck at where his carotid artery lay, the esper’s stoic expression reflected on the glinting surface of his tinted sports shades. “Any last words?”

“I… don’t think I can… get any last… words off with you… squeezing like that…” Michael managed to grunt as he forced a smirk at Razor, defiant to the end.

 “Pity,” Razor remarked in his gravelly voice, “Since I’d love to hear from you whether you want to have your neck snapped like a toothpick, or to have your throat sliced like a slaughtered chicken.”

Before the Marauder enforcer could decide how he might finish off his old rival, he would feel something wet and slimy envelop his back, before quickly spreading over the rest of his upper torso. “The fuck is this!?” Razor growled as he threw Michael aside, finding himself engulfed by a green blob that resembled a slime.

“Great job, Midori-chan!” Shirai Natsumi cheered from outside the ruined cafe as Razor struggled against the Green Snare blob, trying to get it off him, but all the Marauder succeeding in doing was getting gobs of green goo in his hands, which slipped through his fingers to merge back into the the Green Snare’s central mass. 

After a moment of furious bucking and thrashing, the Green Snare slithered off Razor, giving him a large and wet lick to the side of the face before rejoining Natsumi’s side, and the Marauder found himself floating into the air as Michael sauntered towards him. “Aw, crap…” Razor grumbled as Michael’s displeased face was reflected on the surface of his shades.

“Brother, get the fuck out of my sight…” Michael remarked as he placed his palms a few inches in front of Razor’s chest, “Now.” Every article of glass inside the cafe shattered from the psychic shockwave of Michael’s telekinetic release, to launch Razor through the air like a human rocket.

“Eep!” Natsumi jumped back in fright as the cafe windows shattered under Michael’s psychic shockwave. This was followed by a rush of wind created from Razor getting launched out of the cafe, causing her to place her hands on her lap to keep her skirt from billowing out.

A fraction of a second later, a noise that sounded like an explosion erupted from the building across the street, causing a panicked Natsumi to crouch down and cover her head with her arms with a resounding “KYAA!” as tremors ran through the ground beneath her feet. It took a few seconds before Natsumi plucked up the courage to steal a look at where the explosion-like noise came from, and saw that the entire facade of the fire-gutted building on the other side of the street had caved in under a tremendous impact, as though it had been shot at with a cannon.

“Boy was that satisfying,” Natsumi’s attention was drawn back to the wrecked cafe as Michael came strolling out moments later, a metal flask in hand. The ex-Marauder smirked as he pointed at the building, which was starting to creak and groan ominously. “You might wanna turn your head away,” he remarked as he treated himself to a swig of whiskey without a care in the world. 

Already structurally-compromised from battle damage during the insurgency, having a Marauder punted into its facade like a cannon shot was all it took to finally collapse the building, sending clouds of ash, dust and debris all around as Michael Cortelloni had Razor buried under tons of rubble and mangled steel. 

“Is he… dead?” Natsumi asked, her voice slightly muffled due to having her scarf pulled over her nose and mouth to filter out dust, while her free hand waved to and fro to fan away lingering clouds of ash. 

“Heh, as much as I hoped that’d be the case… not likely,” Michael chuckled dryly as he sauntered over to the heap of rubble that was once a building, hands in his pockets. As the former Ragemaster drew his hands from his pockets, he was holding a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. “Even the Terminator has nothing on that bastard Razor; he’ll be back… but not so soon this time.” With his begrudging acknowledgement of Razor’s tenacity, Michael lit a cigarette and proceeded to take a long puff. 

“Either way, this concludes my quest here in Zel’Myas, it was never about killing that viper but to send him a message…” Michael took another puff of the cigarette, before stepping over to the foot of the wreckage and got down on one knee to place the still-lit cigarette on the rubble as if offering incense. “Hey Razor, I know you’re still breathing in there. Let it be known that Marauder or otherwise, I’m always two steps ahead of you.” Without any further comments, Michael got back onto his feet and walked off, hands in his pockets as he sang the chorus of “The Gambler” by Kenny Rogers.

On her end, Natsumi watched as Michael walked away, unsure of whether to follow after the esper, or to rush to the aid of Tanin, who was still in the thick of battle with Klart – though she wondered if the Archon even needed her help to begin with as he continued to make a farce out of his opponent, dancing rings around his attacks with a smile on his face as Klart hacked and slashed his way through one afterimage after another, each one bearing annoying expressions such as smug looks and stuck-out tongues.

The blood-red glow in Klart’s eyes intensified as with a roar, the Firebane brought his massive Zweihander down in a powerful overhead chop that carved a trench in the tarmac, only to find himself cutting through yet another phantom left in the wake of Tanin’s short-distance teleport. Klart gritted his teeth so hard they nearly cracked as he heard the Archon’s voice behind him, “Come on, is this a swordfight or a dance?”

“Silence!” Klart bellowed as it spun around with a horizontal swing, once more cutting through an afterimage; with each passing moment the barbarian’s hate and anger grew, and his attacks showed for it, as each strike of his weapon became less coordinated and technique-based, and powered wholly by brute force and animalistic fury – and through it all, Tanin treated it as a casual game as he toyed with the Firebane.

‘Steady yourself, Klart,’ The Firebane thought as there was a pause in his wild swinging and lowered his weapon, ‘You’re not a slave to your rage… you’ve mastered it before against Killian, and you will master it again.’ The Firebane closed his eyes and stood still as he stopped trying to track Tanin’s movements by sight and instead sought to predict the Archon’s next attack using his intuition.

“Oh no you don’t!” Klart roared as he felt Tanin’s presence somewhere to his right, and responded accordingly by swinging Killian’s Bane around in a wide arc, forcing Tanin to raise Chrysilium in a hasty parry. Natsumi squealed and covered her ears as a sharp ringing noise pierced through the air as the two mythic blades collided, sending out a pulse of energy that rippled through the vicinity that caused Tanin to skid backwards on his heels by a few metres before coming to a halt by driving Chrysilium into the tarmac to act as a “brake”.

“Phew! Didn’t see that one coming!” The Archon of Light remarked, “I’m surprised you have this much fight left in you; but still, you’re not so tough without your fellow Marauders by your side.”

Klart bit down on his lip hard enough to draw blood to prevent himself from sassing back, realising at this point that any comment he made would simply elicit another quip-bomb from the Archon. The Firebane instead charged at Tanin like a bull and unleashed a storm of frenzied swings and thrusts. The Archon of Light jumped back to avoid a horizontal swing, before twisting his body to the side to evade a thrust, followed by cartwheeling to the side to dodge another swing. “I believe there was a certain human named Albert Einstein who said that insanity is trying the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result,” Tanin remarked as Klart gripped Killian’s Bane in both hands and raised it high over his head.

An explosion-like noise rippled through the air as clouds of dust and debris were sent flying as Klart carved another trench in the road, as Tanin teleported out of the way once again. Only this time, instead of reappearing behind or next to Klart, he was standing right on the blade of Klart’s sword. “Way to go at proving Einstein right,” Tanin laughed as he leapt off the barbarian’s sword to land a somersault kick to his chin. 

Klart tasted blood in his mouth as he staggered from Tanin’s somersault kick, planting Killian’s Bane into the asphalt to act as a support to stop himself from toppling over. But the Archon of Light wasn’t done just yet as he teleported in during the apex of his somersault, blinking out from mid-air to blink right back in behind the reeling Klart, Chrysilium raised above his head. 

Klart roared in pain as the Archon’s sword sliced through his the left pauldron of his armour and bit deep into his shoulder; it wasn’t quite an amputation yet, but with a blade cutting this deeply into his shoulder Tanin reckoned that it would take at least some time before the Marauder would regain the use of that arm, barring some kind of cutting-edge nanotech reconstruction, miraculous healing, or supernatural regeneration. This was followed by a kick to the back that sent Klart sprawling, burying his face in the ashes. 

“It’s over, I may not have cut off your arm, but unless you seek prompt medical attention you might very well lose it for good,” Tanin remarked as he gave Chrysilium a twirl and rested it over her shoulders. 

Tanin raised Chrysilium into the air as if to declare an early and expected victory, but Klart lifted himself off of the ground and shook the dirt from his form.

“Why should I? I can just get a new one from the devil himself,” Klart replied curtly as he struggled back onto his feet. Before Tanin could even inquire Klart on the meaning of his statement, the Firebane threw himself neck-first onto the blade of his Zweihander!

“What the…” A mortified Tanin muttered as he watched Klart slump face-first to the tarmac, a shower of crimson erupting from his severed arteries. Moments later, the Firebane’s lifeless body spontaneously combusted, consumed in a vortex of fire so intense that the Archon of Light took several steps back, raising his arms over his face to shield himself from the heat. Tanin lowered his arms as the flame vortex waned and then extinguished, and what he saw next elicited a gasp of surprise and disbelief.

Standing in the middle of the circle of dying embers stood Klart the Firebane, now good as new – his left arm completely healed, his neck whole as if never injured to begin with. Even his damaged armour was restored to a pristine state. The barbarian-like Marauder stretched his neck and shoulders before cracking his knuckles. The Archon’s mortification quickly gave way to a grim understanding as Tanin slowly nodded at what he just witnessed. “You’re a Returner, I see,” for the first time in his duel with Klart there were no smiles from the Archon.

“Yes, such is my blessing… and my curse… this is what earned me my ‘Firebane’ moniker,” Klart replied, staring at his left hand before pulling Killian’s Bane out of the ground, taking a step forward in Tanin’s direction, “Physically, no fire can touch me… and conceptually, my fire of life can never burn out – for as long as Kirill’s life-torch burns, so too does mine.”

“Aye, I’ve heard of pacts with demon lords or rogue Archons, as well as curses from spiteful deities that are capable of unnaturally extending one’s life in such a manner,” Tanin chorused in a contemplative tone. “You know what? I think this ‘Kirill’ guy you spoke of just earned a spot on my ‘persons of interest’ list… when all of this is over, I think I might seek him out to have a little “talk” with him.”

“Enough daydreaming, you still have to get past me,” Klart declared as he raised Killian’s Bane one more time, ready to continue his duel with Tanin.

Far from being cowed by the revelation of Klart’s immortality, the Archon of Light’s trademark confident smile returned as he returned Chrysilium to its sheath. “Thanks for the tip, Firebane – at least now I know it’s pointless for me to continue this battle anyway,” Tanin said calmly as he turned away from Klart and began to walk off, waving his right hand as if wishing him farewell. 

Klart disregarded Tanin and charged at the Archon of Light while he had his back turned, Killian’s Bane raised to strike, only to predictably slice through an afterimage. “You just don’t get it, do you?” Tanin commented as he teleported behind Klart, and before the Firebane could respond, the Archon delivered a chop to the back of Klart’s head with his sheathed Chrysilium, sending the musclebound Marauder staggering forward before slumping face-first onto the asphalt.

“Insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result,” Tanin remarked calmly as he stood over the unconscious Klart, “The sooner you realise this, then perhaps the sooner you might free yourself from your curse,” the Archon of Light continued as he walked away from where Klart lay, before looking at Shirai Natsumi with a smile.

“Natsumi, am I right?” Tanin asked as he offered his hand to the blue-haired girl. “Let’s go find Uberman and the others – let us help them and escape Zel’Myas.”

Natsumi said nothing, but looked up at Tanin with a look of understanding in her eyes, then she nodded and took hold of the Archon’s hand, the two of them walking hand-in-hand down the street with her three Shikigami companions following close behind.

 

Segment 75: Diabolus Ex Machina

“Vincentzo, look out!” Captain Khazan shouted as he flew towards Vincentzo to tackle the archmage out of the way of a bolt of green lightning from Morlos, the dark arts spell carving a crater out of the side of a building. The caped crusader took to the air and flew towards Morlos at full speed to deliver a punch to the dark wizard, only to have his fist pass through an afterimage as the master of dark arts cast a well-timed shadow-walk to evade Captain Khazan.

“You will pay for depriving me of such a precious opportunity!” Morlos growled as he rematerialised from the shadows and cast a volley of ice blasts at Captain Khazan, only to end up counterspelled by Vincentzo as the archmage intercepted the icy lances with a swarm of incandescent projectiles courtesy of his Sparkleblast spell.

“Thanks, Mr. Maiinverno!” Captain Khazan smiled as he gave Vincentzo a thumbs-up.

“So, where’s your thunder now that my hands aren’t tied fighting your fellow Marauders?” The archmage gave his blonde locks a flip as his royal cape swished elegantly behind him with his movements, smirking at Morlos, “You may be all bluster when handling those unversed in the mystic arts, but how does it feel to finally meet a peer?”

The dark mage didn’t return Vincentzo’s sass, but cast another spell at them as he unleashed ten streams of green eldritch lightning at the two Sentinels, one from each fingertip – Captain Khazan and Vincentzo’s responses were swift as the two Sentinels leapt out of the way; but the energy from the spell continued to linger as a mass of green spectral snakes that slithered after Captain Khazan and Vincentzo. 

With a swish of his cape, Captain Khazan took to the air to avoid the magical constructs, while Vincentzo performed another counterspell, banishing the ghostlike serpents from existence. “It seems we’re at a stalemate if he keeps up this hit-and-run tactic of his,” Captain Khazan said as he landed on the pavement, scanning his surroundings for where Morlos might rematerialise from his shadow-walk.

“I know that particular spell he uses to move around,” Vincentzo replied as he cast a warding spell to deflect a salvo of magic missiles from Morlos, who once again melded into the shadows as soon as he launched his attack, “It’s known as shadow-walk – by entering a shadow, a master of dark arts can access a plane between planes; allowing them to avoid detection from both magical and mundane means due to being on a different plane of reality.”

“Shadows, you say?” Captain Khazan interjected while dodging an eldritch blast from Morlos. “Do you have any illumination spells then? Because I’m wondering if you can light up our surroundings with your spells… would this deny him access points to that shadow-walk dimension of his?”

There was a beat of silence as Vincentzo looked intensely at Captain Khazan, before a knowing smile crossed his face, “In theory? Yes. There was only one instance of this being done in the entire recorded history of Eroneth in a battle between two archmages more than 300 years ago – but the chronicles glossed over the details of how that one went down.”

“Well then, now would be as good a time as any to test out this theory,” the caped crusader chorused, as Vincentzo nodded.

“Here’s the plan then, Sir Young,” Vincentzo whispered into Captain Khazan’s ear, “You take a position where you will appear as an easier target for the wizard, and as soon as he rematerialises to attack, I will cast a sphere of daylight  – if the theory holds, this will deny that lowborn knave an avenue of retreat.”

“Let’s do this!” Captain Khazan nodded as the two Sentinels split up.

The shadows cast by a downed Marauder helicopter shifted, and from the umbra emerged Morlos, green eldritch lightning crackling in his hands. Captain Khazan responded by ripping off the door of an abandoned military humvee to wield as a makeshift shield, his heels skidding against the asphalt as the force of Morlos’ spell pushed him back.

Vincentzo darted from behind the cover of a disabled T-80, glowing white runes orbiting around his hands as he aimed his right palm at the levitating dark wizard and fired a brilliant white bolt of energy. A grin cracked on what little could be seen of Morlos’ face as the dark wizard prepared to shadow-walk, only to flinch as the energy bolt halted in midair, revealed to be not an attack spell Morlos was anticipating, but a harmless illumination spell as the luminescent globe hovered in midair, bathing the surroundings with a bright white light.

“Ugh, curse you!” Morlos yelled as he found himself deprived of shadows that he could shadow-walk into, his smug assurance quickly evaporating as the realisation of being out-played by the Sentinels sunk in. The dark mage managed to dodge the vehicle door as Captain Khazan hurled it at him, the makeshift shield turned missile missing Morlos by a whisker as he made a run for it, attempting to move beyond the light radius of Vincentzo’s spell.

“No escape for you, Marauder scum!” Vincentzo declared as Morlos had his eyes on Captain Khazan, realising too late that he was running straight into a haymaker from the royal archmage. Vincentzo’s punch connected with Morlos’ face with a satisfying thwap, knocking the Marauder mage onto his back.

Morlos groaned as he placed a hand over his nose, as blood dripped from his nostrils and onto his robes while slowly picking himself up, glaring at Vincentzo while Captain Khazan landed behind the dark wizard. 

“It’s my belief that throwing hands like some back-alley brawler would be most unbefitting of an archmage, especially one of my royal status – but exceptions can be made of dark arts practitioners such as yourself,” The archmage continued, gently rubbing the wrist of the arm which he’d used to punch Morlos with; his inexperience with physical combat showing in the form of hurt wrist.

Morlos made a sound resembling the hiss of an angry cat as he spun around to face Captain Khazan, before spinning around again to face Vincentzo, his hands shaking with impotent rage as the dark wizard felt tempted to cast an attack spell as a villainous last stand, although his self-preservation instincts ultimately won out, if barely.

“Heya, what’s up?” A familiar voice called out in a cheerful, self-assured tone as Tanin strolled down the street where Captain Khazan and Vincentzo were battling Morlos, the Archon of Light waving as he approached the Sentinels with Natsumi and her Shikigami companions following close behind.

“Oho, if it isn’t the Taobao Voldemort who helped that Guts wannabe back in the Darkshadow Forest,” Tanin’s eyes beamed with recognition as he got close enough to make out the details of Morlos’ outfit and physique, recalling how Morlos and Klart double-teamed him during the Darkshadow Forest ambush. The Archon of Light flashed a cheeky grin as he leaned in towards Captain Khazan, Chrysilium in hand, “So, need any help here?”

“Kinda late to the party, but who am I to say no to the Archon of Light?” Captain Khazan replied with a laugh.

“Isn’t it a tad unbefitting of a hero to gang up on a single villain who’s clearly outclassed and outgunned at this point?” Tanin smirked in response to Captain Khazan’s invitation for him to join, as the Archon felt a nudge of self-awareness as the situation subverted mortals’ expectation of tropes and narratives surrounding heroes and their ethics.

“Let’s look at it another way,” Vincentzo added, “A Marauder who singlehandedly overcomes three Sentinels doesn’t make him any less of a villain; thus by that reasoning, would you say three Sentinels banding together against a single Marauder make them any less heroic?”

“That depends on whether you look at things from a teleological or deontological perspective,” Captain Khazan chorused.

Morlos’ gaze continued to shift back and forth between the two Sentinels and the Archon of Light as the dark wizard cursed under his breath, as his odds in combat jumped from “severely disadvantaged” to “downright suicidal” with the arrival of Tanin. It was then that a voice buzzed inside the Discordant Scion’s mind, a voice that he recognised as that of Relinqiest’s. ‘Good work with serving as our Archon’s insider within The Marauders, Morlos Gao, but your role here is done. The Marauders have served their purpose, now it’s time for Zel’Mier to burn, starting with this city.’

The dark wizard’s senses tipped him off to the presence of Drekis-touched lifeforms nearby, leading his gaze to wander past where Tanin stood, towards the rooftop of a building overlooking the street. Morlos’ expression shifted from impotent rage to calm confidence as he noticed one of Relinqiest’s Roving Eye familiars observing the scene with the many eyeballs that make up its bulbous body, now understanding where the telepathic transmission came from.

‘I have mobilised my legion to the surface, return to The Citadel to await new assignments,’ Relinqiest telepathically signed off as his Roving Eye drifted away.

“Ah, so that’s what it comes down to eh?” Morlos remarked, his voice oddly bearing no sign of frustration or indignance despite his hopeless odds. “Well, go on then, I have no intention of stopping your exodus from Zel’Myas, if that’s what you want. Because you’re not really here to liberate Zel’Myas, am I right?” What little of Morlos’ face that was visible showed a smug grin as he began to walk at a leisurely pace.

“Wait, what!?” Captain Khazan gasped. “How did you…” The caped crusader stared at Morlos in disbelief, stunned at how the supposed Marauder possessed knowledge of the Sentinels’ actual mission. Vincentzo and Tanin must’ve been just as taken aback, as none of the trio of heroes made any attempt to restrain or halt Morlos as he sauntered away from the group with all the flippancy of a child heading to a grocery store to get some ice-cream.

“May we never meet again, hehe,” Morlos taunted as he paused ever so briefly to leer at Natsumi before approaching a tree’s shadow to perform a shadow-walk, vanishing into the umbra. The group jumped into high alert, weapons and spells ready in the event the dark mage were to rematerialise from nearby shadows to attack, but moments passed without Morlos ever reappearing.

“L-looks like he’s left…” Natsumi remarked in a shaky voice, her eyes nervously scanning her surroundings for any shifting shadows that might indicate Morlos rematerialising, but no such thing would happen.

“I have a question… just what is he talking about?” Captain Khazan asked, the caped crusader’s expression indicating that the turn of events had left him confused, and Morlos’ abrupt exit had left him more unsettled than relieved.

“That would be a conundrum for the ages where your guess is as good as mine, Captain,” Vincentzo Maiinverno added, staring down the deserted main street into the distance. “Did that dark arts master flee due like the coward he is? Or did he have a hidden trump card? There’s definitely more to him than meets the eye.”

“Regardless, I don’t think we’ll find any answers by staying here,” Tanin remarked as he sheathed Chrysilium by tossing it into the air, sending it flipping three times before it landed perfectly, sliding into the scabbard slung over the Archon’s back. “So I’d say it’s high time we left this neighbourhood to rendezvous with Uberman and the others.”

The quartet of Tanin, Captain Khazan, Vincentzo and Natsumi nodded in unison and then walked off into the distance.

 

Segment 76: Izohn's Retreat

“You can’t run forever, Silver Reaper!” Izohn’s mocking laughter echoed down the street as he continued to twirl his weapon around to weave a sphere of chaos and carnage as Veda rolled, leapt and somersaulted to stay out of the path of the deadly energy construct as it swathed through lamp posts, trees, vehicles and building walls. “Sooner or later, you’ll get fatigued, or make a mistake!”

“You say this, but the same holds for you,” came Veda’s cold riposte as the swordswoman rolled to avoid getting whipped by the lightning chain, before jumping back to dodge the void-essence ball as it cratered the tarmac, with the site of Veda’s one-on-one duel with Izohn now resembling the aftermath of an airstrike or artillery bombardment as craters pockmarked the road and entire buildings have gaping holes carved out of their facades courtesy of Izohn’s weapon. “Or have you not noticed your swings getting slower?”

A smirk crossed the white-haired swordswoman’s face as she noticed the increasing languidity of Izohn’s attacks, his weapon no longer whirling around with the same cadence as before, the tempo of his swings visibly slowing down even if the Marauder majordomo refused to acknowledge it.

“Lies! All of it!” Izohn barked in response as Veda backflipped to avoid a lash from his energy whip, perching herself on the side of a building’s second floor in a three-point pose to springboard herself off the wall a split-second before the void-essence ball caved-in the building’s facade. “Talk big all you want, but know that your fate is sealed the moment you step into my weapon’s Death Sphere!”

Veda closed her eyes contemplatively and gave a muffled chuckle as she sheathed her katana. “Very well then, Izohn Falaris… I will destroy that illusion of yours,” the swordswoman said in Khazan-accented Japanese as she opened her eyes and began to approach Izohn’s proverbial Death Sphere with calm, measured steps.

“You’re out of your Archons-damned mind…” Izohn muttered as a fleeting sensation of shock washed over him, but it would not last as the Marauder’s smugness crept back in, “But whatever, just die, Silver Reaper!” he cackled as the void-essence ball swung straight for Veda’s head with the intent of beheading the swordswoman.

The cryptic half-smile never left Veda’s face as she tilted her head to allow the void-essence ball to whiff right past, before performing a quick draw with her katana to intercept the lightning chain as it lashed towards her, looping the energy construct a few times around its blade. “Before, I wouldn’t have thought of getting anywhere near your Death Sphere… but you’ve slowed down to the point where I can see the gaps in the sphere.”

“You! What did you do with my weapon!? How is this even possible!?” Izohn demanded as he tried to pull the void-essence ball back in order to swing it again, but found himself stuck as Veda had his weapon tangled up with her own. Arcs of electricity crackled and hissed where solid lightning coiled around steel; to add to the Marauder’s frustration, there was no logical reason a simple katana could get snared by what amounted to a flexible plasma cutter and remain in one piece.

“You must be expecting your weapon to cut clean through mine, but here’s where you delude yourself,” Veda remarked as she coiled Izohn’s lightning chain a few more times around her katana to further close the gap between the two of them. “Indeed, a mere blade of steel would’ve been cleaved in two by your weapon; but my sword draws its strength from my soul… and a soul can’t be cut,” the swordswoman’s eyes narrowed as she looped yet more coils around her weapon using Izohn’s chain as the gap continued to shrink, enough that Veda was able to explode forward to deliver a palm strike to Izohn’s solar plexus.

“Guh!” The Marauder boss’ eyes went wild from pain as droplets of spittle flew through his mask’s mouth slit. Veda followed up the solar plexus strike with an uppercut palm to Izohn’s chin, the blow lifting his heels off the ground, and in that fleeting time-window the swordswoman grabbed hold of Izohn’s chin while simultaneously sweeping his legs out from underneath him to dunk the back of his head into the ground in an Aikido-style throw as his skull rebounded off the tarmac as the Marauder sprawled out onto his back.

“Don’t get full of yourself, bitch!” Izohn yelled as he sat up, much to Veda’s surprise. Izohn’s weapon abruptly dissipated into nothingness as the Marauder dismissed the energy construct to serve a double whammy to the swordswoman, who appeared taken aback by Izohn’s manoeuvre as her eyes widened. Izohn cracked a grin behind his mask as he pointed his right palm at Veda’s chest, as arcs of electricity began to gather between his fingertips and run down the length of his arm.

Veda raised her katana, putting her guard up with only milliseconds to spare as Izohn discharged the so-called energy blast that accompanies his weapon being summoned. A deafening noise resembling a thunderclap echoed through the neighbourhood as the freshly-formed void-essence ball slammed against the blade of Veda’s katana, sending a shockwave accompanied by a pulse of energy that rippled down the street and shattered every window in their immediate vicinity. The white-haired swordswoman grimaced as the impact sent her heels skidding backwards against the asphalt for a good fifteen metres. 

“So you can take what you dish out- ack!” The snow-haired swordswoman’s acknowledgement of Izohn’s strength was cut short as she doubled over in a sudden coughing fit, a spray of blood escaping her mouth as she clutched at her chest with one hand while leaning against her sword for support. Despite managing to block a direct hit from Izohn’s weapon, the vibrations were still enough to result in internal injuries.

“RAAAAHH!” With a warcry that sounded more like a wild animal’s roar than a human voice, Izohn charged once again at Veda as she straightened herself up and wiped away the blood at the corner of her mouth – The Marauder second in-command twirling his meteor hammer above his head with the intent of finishing off the swordswoman as he let fly his void-essence ball.

Veda Lexine dived towards the ground as the void-essence ball whizzed past her to demolish the wall of the building behind her, followed by rolling to the side as Izohn whipped the ground with his lightning chain, carving a molten fissure into the tarmac. The swordswoman shot forward like a bullet, her movement a speed blur as she closed the gap in the blink of an eye right as Izohn pulled back his meteor hammer to whip at her with its lightning chain. Veda narrowly beat Izohn to the draw as she performed an uppercut slash with her katana, the blade slicing through the air in a graceful crescent-shaped path to strike the Marauder across the chest.

“Ugh!” Izohn grunted as he staggered back, clutching his chest. Veda’s strike left no physical wound on his body, but the Marauder boss could feel his soul burn under the swordswoman’s psychic slash, dimming his life-torch as he glared at Veda with the fury of a trapped beast. It was then that the droning of rotors filled the air as a low-flying Stormhawk tiltrotor flew past overhead, beacons flashing against the night sky. The Marauder majordomo’s impotent rage shifted back into smug confidence at the sight of the aircraft, recognising it as his ticket out of Zel’Myas. “About damned time,” Izohn muttered, before turning his gaze back towards Veda Lexine.

“Sorry, Yukihime, but I can only play with you for so long,” Izohn spoke in a patronising voice as he gave Veda a mocking bow before twirling his meteor hammer above him to smash the void-essence ball right in-between himself and Veda, the resulting impact explosion creating a rain of flying debris and dust cloud that engulfed the street.

Soundtrack: CounterSide | Irons on Fire

As the veil of ash and dust began to settle, Veda’s eyes narrowed as she witnessed Izohn running off in the direction where the Stormhawk flew, the military VTOL landing in the open plaza that is the Grand Delagon Square, its tail ramp lowering to allow Marauder splatter punks and military collaborators to disembark, all of them armed to the teeth with assault rifles and light machine guns while Izohn waved his arm wildly at them as if barking orders.

“Mow her down! Don’t let her get any closer!” Izohn ordered, pointing to the approaching Veda Lexine.

The splatter punk nicknamed “Sunglasses” by The Unsubtle took the lead as he stepped forward, hip-firing his M60 at the incoming swordswoman, and was quickly joined by his fellow splatter punks and squad of military turncoats, opening fire with an assortment of assault rifles as Izohn boarded the Stormhawk.

Veda gritted her teeth as she dodged and parried the incoming curtain of fire the best she could – but even with her skill, reflexes and perception, the sheer volume of enemy fire was threatening to overwhelm her as several rounds grazed past her limbs, drawing blood. “She’s still advancing, boss!” Sunglasses remarked.

“Why are you all just gawking around!?” Izohn snapped at the gunners on board the Stormhawk. “Give them fire support!” At Izohn’s command, a pair of side sponsons fitted with GAU-19/B gatling guns on the Stormhawk’s fuselage whirred to life, saturating the area with fifty-cal gunfire.

“Curses!” Veda hissed, breaking off her engagement to avoid getting cut down by the gatling guns. The swordswoman blazed across the breadth of the Grand Delagon Square as the turrets tried to track her movements, their gunfire tearing up the pavement until the swordswoman managed to move out of the turrets’ line of sight, but found herself not yet out of the woods as the Marauder goons opened fire at her once again, forcing her to find cover inside an abandoned pub.

Veda sighed in exasperation as she stole a peek above the window sill to watch the Stormhawk begin its takeoff, but her heart skipped a beat as the aircraft began to turn in midair until its front was facing her hiding place. “Well, say that isn’t so!” The swordswoman exclaimed as her gaze drifted to the GAU-12 autocannon mounted on the Stormhawk’s chin, anticipating what was to come next, before her gaze snapped towards a hatch on the floor behind the bar counter.

The Stormhawk’s autocannon roared as it opened fire on Veda’s refuge, obliterating the walls and gutting the building’s interior in a matter of seconds – transforming the pub into nothing more than a smoking hole in the side of a building. “Rest in peace, Silver Reaper,” Izohn chuckled coldly as he observed his handiwork from the cockpit’s windows, believing Veda Lexine to be well and truly dead. But the Marauder boss would not get to bask in his assumed triumph much longer as a splatter punk burst into the cockpit with a worried expression.

“Boss, we need to leave Zel’Myas ASAP!” A buzz-cut mercenary dressed in a desert camouflage BDU and brown plate carrier with an AK-103 slung over his shoulder spoke to Izohn with urgency in his voice. “We received emergency transmissions from our garrisons bordering the Darkshadow Forest!”

“Yes, do elaborate,” Izohn replied, his frustration at having his moment of victory interrupted showing in his impatient tone.

“It’s the demons! The ones from the Drekis Empire! They’re attacking our garrisons!” The buzz-cut splatter punk answered nervously, “They’re taking out our outposts one after another… reports say they’re pushing towards Zel’Myas itself!”

“I should’ve seen this coming,” Izohn grumbled, monologuing as he buckled up in his seat as the Stormhawk began gaining altitude. “I’d long suspected that Drekis had no real intentions of honouring an alliance with us… but why did he wait until now to move against us? Perhaps, he sought to use us as a tool against the Sentinels all along?” The Marauder boss looked out of the window as the crew charted a course out of Zel’Myas, and from the air he could see Marauder and collaborator forces in full retreat from the city.

“I wonder… if the Sentinels breaking out from Trovol was the catalyst to all this?” The masked Marauder wondered, realising too late that perhaps Drekis’ plan for the Marauders all along was to prevent the Sentinels from locating his lair as he went over recordings from the press conference in Khazan City pertaining to Operation Guillotine. It all made sense now – the Sentinels conducted Operation Guillotine with the goal of infiltrating Drekis’ seat of power, which according to The Unsubtle was situated in a section of the Endless Caves that run underneath Zel’Mier.

“Drekis has played us, and I think he did it through a mole within our ranks…” Izohn monologued, putting his phone away, recalling how it was Morlos who muddied the details of Operation Guillotine by insisting the objective to infiltrate Drekis’ lair was nothing but “misdirection” on the Central Government’s part and that it was to serve as a front for them to infiltrate Zel’Myas with the intent to spearhead an operation to liberate Zel’Mier from Marauder occupation. And to top it all off was the fact that while reports from the Marauder underbosses began pouring in the moment the Sentinels staged a prison break in Trovol, Morlos had remained conspicuously radio-silent through it all, even going so far as to ghost any and all attempts to contact him. 

“As much as it hurts to see this project go up in flames, I must admit he played well,” Izohn capped off his monologue with a bitter, ironic laugh as his aerial transport continued its course northeast towards the Axia-Cretalia border.

 

Segment 77: Loot Another Day 

“Oh, look what they did to my baby…” The Unsubtle remarked after the Vitamin T was towed out the sinkhole through the combined efforts of a convoy of tanks, APCs and trucks all yoked together and several brick-type metahumans. In the fierce street-fighting, the tank sported a deep and long gash on the right side of its hull courtesy of Tim, lost two of its sponson-mounted heavy machine guns, a loudspeaker, and its close-in weapon system, not to mention numerous minor to moderate damages to the armour on the rest of its hull and turret. 

But in an uncharacteristically out of character moment for the Marauders, none of the splatter punks or collaborators so much as stopped to declare that she owed them favours, or demanded a reward, or even so much as asked her for thank-you’s, as they all departed the scene without so much as another word. “How atypical,” she mused as she returned inside the Vitamin T, although as soon as she opened comms, the reason was laid bare before her. 

“Well… shit,” The Unsubtle muttered, her usually smug countenance turning grim as disturbing reports of Drekis monsters overrunning Marauder garrisons located across the Zel’Myas metropolitan area flooded the radio. From the coordinates given in the panicked reports, the attacks started at the furthest reaches of the metropolitan area bordering the Darkshadow Forest, and subsequently pushing ever closer towards Zel’Myas city itself.

“Heh, so much for ‘misdirection’ huh?” She snorted derisively as she started the engine and the battle-damaged Vitamin T began to move forward, mocking Morlos’ prior claims on the supposed “real objective” of Operation Guillotine. “That snake must’ve been working for Drekis the whole time, and the whole thing was a setup to pit us against the SLJ… and when it looks like the Marauders couldn’t get the job done, Drekis’ Plan B is to go scorched earth on us both… fuck him.”

“Welp, at least the engine’s still purring like a kitty,” The Unsubtle smirked, her only light in the darkness right now being that for all the abuse the Vitamin T took at the hands of the heroes, the engine was still in top condition as she followed behind a large Marauder convoy that was leaving the city, all acting on a memo sent by Toc Darkone himself over the Marauders’ global comms channel – to head northeast and regroup at Spellfire Desert, located at where the borders of Araelis, Xaelon, Cretalia and Axia intersect; though not all Marauders followed Toc’s memo, as she saw some of them split off from the main body to attempt to blend in with civilians who were scattering from Zel’Myas in all directions. 

As she left Zel’Myas’ city limits, The Unsubtle slowed the Vitamin T to take one last look at the capital, its skyline barely visible from her present position; she had her doubts at first when Izohn recruited her for The Marauders, but it turned out to be quite the good life, all things considered they paid her quite well to enforce the Marauder occupation in Zel’Myas, with sporadic excursions into the surrounding countryside to hunt for loyalist holdouts providing a “bonus” of shaking down villagers for money – it was sad to see it all go up in smoke.

“Better to live to plunder another day, than to die atop a pile of gold, I guess,” The Unsubtle monologued as she resumed putting the pedal to the metal on the Vitamin T. Whatever was about to happen in Zel’Myas was something she didn’t want to stick around to witness. If there was one silver lining to this dark cloud for The Unsubtle, it was the hope that the Sentinels and loyalists would be caught up in the wave of demons as they try to evacuate any remaining civilians. 

 

Segment 78: The Fall of Zel'Myas

The team consisting of Uberman, Shinsuke, Raea, Tim and Telissa made their way through the battle-ravaged cityscape of Zel'Myas on board a commandeered military 5-tonner. As they passed gutted buildings and cratered streets, they could only wonder whether these were scars of war left behind from the initial Marauders-backed anti-Delagon uprising, or recent collateral damage from the Marauders’ heavy-handed attempts to recapture the Sentinels and put down the loyalist counterattack. 

However, a cursory scan by Uberman revealed that some of these battle damages appeared far too recent to even be caused by their clashes with Marauder and collaborator forces, with fires still burning in some places. And the one detail that doesn’t add up was the fact that all of this took place in an outlying district near the edge of Zel’Myas, far away from the Trovol Supermax that served as the flashpoint of the recent battle of Zel’Myas. To further compound the mystery, the craters appear to be caused by use of high-intensity plasma weapons, which the cyborg was certain neither the Marauders nor Zel’Mier collaborationist forces possessed. 

All the while, Tim, who sat at the rearmost end of the vehicle kept taking eager glances past the tailgate to see if anyone would pull up behind them. 

“If you’re concerned that Tanin and the others are being left behind, worry not,” Yagami Shinsuke reassured Tim from across where the young swordsman sat, “They’re heroes of the highest calibre and I have confidence that they will rendezvous with us outside Zel’Myas.”

At the front, Telissa kept her eyes sharp and her hands close to her weapons as a Marauder checkpoint loomed into view, the Seeker expecting splatter punks or collaborator troops to step out from the gantry to order a security check. Raea turned a brief glance at Telissa while on the wheel, the redhead impressed at how much spunk the blonde still had in spite of her injuries.

“Even after taking such a heavy blow to your head, you’re still sharp as ever – you must’ve trained very well as a Seeker,” Raea commented, giving Telissa an acknowledging smile.

“Heh, impressed?” Telissa looked up from recalibrating her LR-2X’s scope, a confident smirk crossing her face, “I dedicated my entire career as a Seeker hunting Drekis and his lackeys; if something as simple as a band of ravenous thieves could take me down, I’d have turned in my badge then and there.”

To everyone’s surprise, the security checkpoint was deserted – the swing barrier didn’t lower, and no guard stepped out of the gantry post. Guard towers stood unmanned, heavy weapons left where they lay, and supply caches had much of their inventory intact; it was as if the Marauders vacated their posts in such a hurry that whatever they couldn’t easily pack up and carry they simply abandoned.

“Something’s not right here,” Uberman remarked as the group parked the vehicle partly to investigate the suspicious scene, and partly to scavenge the supply caches for fuel, “I have a feeling that we should not linger beyond what’s absolutely necessary.” Even a Sentinels response team could not have spooked the Marauders to the point of vacating their posts in such haste. 

“Y-you’re right, sir,” Tim added as he felt his heirloom sword vibrate inside its scabbard, and as soon as it was drawn, the blade emitted its signature turquoise glow. “It couldn’t have been our battles with the Marauders in the city that drove them away, since they were determined to hold Zel’Myas and recapture us at all costs… it’s because something big is headed their way!”

“That sword of his, it behaves like this when it detects anything carrying Drekis’ taint,” Telissa chorused, bringing the others up to speed on the unique properties of Timothy’s weapon.

“We have company… I sense additional heat signatures nearby, six in total,” Shinsuke suddenly chimed in as he spun in the direction of a cabin near the Marauder checkpoint. In response, Uberman swung in Shinsuke’s direction, powering up his concussion blasters with a high-pitched whine as the door handle of the cabin turned as it was being opened from the inside. “Relax, Uberman – I detect no danger,” the cryomancer reassured as he placed a hand on Uberman’s forearm to get the Sentinels leader to stand down.

“Well, well… look who just caught up,” Tanin flashed his trademarked confident smile as he stepped out onto the cabin’s porch, and five others soon followed – Captain Khazan, Shirai Natsumi, Michael Cortelloni, Vincentzo Maiinverno and Woose Brain; all having revealed to have survived their battles with the Marauders’ elites in one way or another, all regrouped.

Before any “glad you made it” remarks could be exchanged, powerful bolts of blue-white plasma streaked through the skies above them in the direction of the city’s core, followed by dark shadows zipping through the air, leaving a sonic boom in their wake – and even from their current position at the outskirts, they could already hear distant explosions coming from Zel’Myas. “Well, there goes our little reunion party,” Michael snarked, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Let me guess… Operation Guillotine’s on hold?” Tanin chimed in as yet more plasma bolts sailed through the sky, followed by the more familiar silhouettes of Ptera-Deminites flying-by.

“It… it’s worse than that,” Raea replied as she and Tim approached Tanin, both of them holding jerry cans of fuel that they’d managed to scavenge from the Marauder caches. The young redhead set down her fuel cans and held up a military radio that she’d grabbed during the supplies hunt. What came out was largely chatter, panicked reports from Marauder garrisons about coming under attack at the hands of demons, and a memo from Toc Darkone on a playback loop, calling for Marauder and collaborator forces to head northeast to regroup. “My equipment’s damaged in battle, I’ll need someone else capable of providing eyes in the sky to verify.”

“On it,” came Captain Khazan’s curt reply as he took to the sky, and from a high altitude the caped crusader was able to survey the surrounding countryside, complete with outlying villages, hills, and forests. What he saw next as he magnified his vision caused his face to lose colour – Deminites of varying types were advancing through the countryside in the direction of Zel’Myas, in such vast numbers that they washed over the wilds like a tide of darkness. When Captain Khazan descended, his expression was grim as he muttered, “Operation Guillotine isn’t put on hold. We’re aborting… I think the Drekis Empire must’ve caught wind of Operation Guillotine somehow.”

“Why would you say that?” Vincentzo interjected, giving his royal cape a swish as he stepped forward. “We’ll fight our way through those darkspawn to get to the Endless Caves’ approach!”

Captain Khazan shook his head as he held out his hand in a gesture for the archmage to stand down, “No, I advise that we pull out of Zel’Myas, and back to Khazan City for strategic reassessment. I do not have an exact grasp on the strength of the advancing Drekis legion, but a conservative estimate would be in excess of 10,000.”

“Ten… ten thousand!?” Natsumi squeaked, nervously twitching as she twisted the ends of her pigtails. “But… why are there so many of them!?”

Tanin hung his head with an exasperated sigh, his eyes closed as he pressed a palm against his forehead, “I hate to say this, but I’m backing the good Captain on this one. Remember what happened back at Xaelis? A few hundred of those abominations aren’t a problem, but an entire legion of them? We’ll need an army on our side to cut a path through that horde. And the thing is, even if we make it to the Endless Caves, Drekis himself is gonna be on high alert and choke every chamber and every passage full of Deminites.”

“But how could they have learned about our covert operation?” Shinsuke wondered, catching a fleeting glance over at Raea, Telissa and Timothy refuelling the truck. “But the more I think about this… the timing of the attack on Zel’Myas feels too perfect to be mere coincidence.”

“It’s no coincidence,” Timothy chimed in as the refueling was done, his heirloom sword still glowing. “My sword began glowing the way it does now back when I faced off against one of the Marauder lieutenants – the weapon only behaves that way in the presence of those touched by Drekis… he must’ve been one of those Discordant Scions or something.”

“Are you saying that Drekis planted an agent within the ranks of The Marauders?” Uberman queried, lights flashing under his faceplate.

“That’s typical of Drekis in the early stages of any campaign,” Telissa added, her tone and expression grim as another volley of plasma bolts from distant Deminite Gunner batteries raced through the sky, “Drekis begins his game not with invasion, but subversion. Long before the hive-fortresses are built, before the first wave of Deminites are spawned, Drekis recruits traitors and collaborators from worlds marked by him – these form a cult known as the Discordant Scions, who act as that archfiend’s agents who lay the initial groundwork for his invasion. Spies, informants, assassins, saboteurs, you name it. Given how long Drekis has been active on Khazan, the Discordant Scions must’ve had plants in just about every major institution on this planet.”

“My best guess is that he played you both – Sentinels and Marauders alike,” the blonde Seeker continued. “Operation Guillotine was the perfect excuse for the Scions to mislead the Marauders into thinking you were coming to liberate Zel’Myas so that he could keep you away from the approach to the Endless Caves. And when the Marauders proved incapable of halting Operation Guillotine’s momentum, Drekis’ plan B was to go scorched earth on Zel’Mier.” 

“Alright, so what comes next?” Woose asked, taking off his POWAAA!!!-Man – or rather, Gunmetal Brawler X – mask to clean the lens on its eye slots before putting it back on.

“I say, we make a run for Araelis,” Vincentzo offered, glancing at the truck, “Once we get to the nearest Araelian city, I’ll call for an airship to fly us to Khazan City – it’d be a much more expeditious, and not to mention comfortable, way to get us there.”

Before the group could get on board their commandeered truck, a powerful searchlight washed over the area, accompanied by a powerful gust of wind amidst the roar of giant-sized flight repulsors as a boxy-looking airship approached the deserted checkpoint – which Raea recognised as a Normandy-class transport; though an outdated model by the standards of Khazan Prime, it was one that continues to see widespread service in neighbouring state-kingdoms such as Zel’Mier and Cretalia.

“Hey, what are you waiting for? We’ll give you a lift! Get on board!” Lee Joonseo’s voice blasted over the loudspeakers as the Normandy decreased altitude and a door opened in its underbelly to reveal its cargo bay, the former ZMPD commissioner smiling and waving at the heroes as a technician operated a winch to lower the cargo cage to serve as a makeshift boarding lift.

Uberman nodded as his suit’s flight repulsors and flew into the airship’s cargo bay, with Captain Khazan and Tanin joining Uberman not long after. The rest of the group got into the cargo cage, which was then winched back up as the cargo bay door closed and the Normandy began gaining altitude.

“It sure is crowded here,” Natsumi noted as the group left the cargo bay to enter the passenger area, which was crammed with people – among them were the old regime loyalists who’d fought alongside Lee during the Trovol uprising, but there were also civilians – young and old alike – who’d evacuated Zel’Myas either during the subsequent street battles between the heroes and Marauders, or the current attack on the capital at the hands of the Drekis legions.

“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” Tanin remarked as he looked at the former police commissioner, “But care to fill us in regarding the in-between stuff?”

“It was a bittersweet ending, really,” Lee replied, forcing a tired smile as he loosened his necktie. “We managed to regain control of the Supermax thanks to your daring breakout that forced the Marauders and turncoats to stretch themselves thin trying to recapture your group and suppress our uprising – we managed to retake Trovol, and we’re making plans to coordinate with remaining loyalist holdouts to capitalise on your street fighting with the Marauders to retake the city when, well… you know the rest. So we ended up evacuating as many of the remaining civilians as we could.”

“Still, none of this could’ve been possible without you leading the charge, so for that you have my thanks, all of you,” Lee bowed as he looked at Telissa, Tim, Uberman and the rest of the Operation Guillotine team before heading to the Normandy’s bridge.

Tim looked through a viewport to take one last look at the surrounding countryside, witnessing the Drekis legions swarming through the valley, crossing the terrain at an alarming pace as rural settlements were swept aside as they pressed on towards Zel’Myas like a plague of demonic locusts that consumed everything in its path. Zel’Myas had been liberated from Marauder occupation, just not in a way anyone had hoped for.

“Not quite the liberation from Marauder occupation that I’d envisioned,” Former commissioner Lee remarked as Uberman joined him on the airship’s bridge. “So, what’s next for you and your team?”

“The plan is to get to Araelis so that we can get a faster airship to get to Khazan City, and to submit a report to the rest of the SLJ Council as well as the Central Government of Khazan Prime… they need to know everything that transpired here to revise our strategy,” Uberman replied.

Joonseo nodded contemplatively, brushing the hairs of his moustache, “We’re headed for Axia, since most of the evacuees on board have families who sought asylum there during the initial revolution against the Delagon regime… but Araelis is sufficiently “along the way” for us to make a brief stop there to drop you off.” With that, the former commissioner relayed orders to the bridge crew to make a slight adjustment to the Normandy’s course to make a stop at Araelis before resuming its journey toward Axia.

 

Segment 79: Drekis' Connections

Hours after his legion’s assault on Zel’Myas, Relinqiest lounged in his private quarters, sitting on a throne of black iron decorated with bloodstones and garnets, with a goblet of wine sitting on the left armrest. The key feature of this large, circular chamber was a round pool of water that served as his scrying pool, bordered by four fire pits that blazed with a magical green flame that was the room’s primary illumination source, bathing it in a sickly green light. Engraved upon the walls and columns were lines upon lines of arcane power words and profane symbols, while a constant chorus of ghostly whispers echo off the walls, some chanting the unholy mantras inscribed on them, others uttering curses upon the enemies of the Drekis Empire.   

The Magister smiled blissfully and leaned back in his throne as he took in the whispering voices, his eyes half-lidded as he reveled in the profane chants as if they were a relaxing music therapy, but one voice among the chorus – louder and more coherent than the others – spoke into his ear, “It is done, Zel’Myas has fallen.” Relinqiest grinned as his eyes opened wide, “Excellent… all according to plan. It’s only a matter of time before the entire western region of the mainland falls under our control, and the rest of Greater Khazan follows,” the archmage raised his goblet towards his scrying pool to make a toast before taking a sip of wine.

The choir of phantom voices in his quarters suddenly shrieked and fell silent as Relinqiest sensed the powerful spiritual pressure approaching his chamber. Without warning, the bronze portal doors swung open with a crash and the fire pits burned more fiercely as Drekis entered the Magister’s quarters. A roiling cloud of gray smoke poured into the circular hall, and in its centre was a black silhouette with a mix of humanoid and draconic features – a horned head with an elongated snout, broad shoulders and long arms with spiked growths and claw-tipped hands; or at least that was what could be seen through where the cloud was thinner, while the lower body was hidden behind such a thick smoke screen that it was impossible to make out whether it was standing on legs or levitating in midair; and all the while, arcs of red and white lightning danced intermittently around the dark silhouette.

With haste, Relinqiest got up from his throne and descended the dais to greet his Archon. “Your Eminence, it’s a pleasure to be graced by Your presence – please, to what do I owe the honour of a personal visit from my Archon?” the Magister asked as he prostrated himself before Drekis.

“You can dispense with the ceremony, Relinqiest,” Drekis’ many-toned voice echoed off the walls like a hellish chorus as he raised a hand to signal for Relinqiest to rise. “I have come to check on what your contributions to this campaign are. Know that Veronica’s legion is presently locked in mortal combat with Thenesiea’s defenders, Jon is marching his legion towards the capital of Xaelon, Deimos is mustering his forces at the borders of Cretalia, and Aigonis is amassing troops within Araelis to begin assaults upon its cities.”

“Ah, Eminent One, You have my assurance that I have been far from idle,” Relinqiest replied as he rose to his feet. “It’s my humble belief that it’s not yet necessary for my legion to mobilise in their entirety, for I have just as much faith as You do in the aptitude of my fellow Magisters, for I have no doubt that the western half of the mainland will be subjugated by the year’s end… on my end, I my legion has subjugated Zel’Myas, and it won’t be long before the rest of Zel’Mier is purged.”

“What about the heroes Morlos spoke of?” Drekis asked, a pair of red eyes lighting up at where one could make out his head.

“That would be one piece of bad news I regret presenting, Your Eminence – but they managed to escape Zel’Myas in one piece, they have arrived in Araelis, but I suspect they will not stay there for long,” Came Relinqiest’s earnest answer.

Drekis’ eyes narrowed as if squinting at his Magister, “That is of little consequence to me at this juncture – the big picture matters more than killing a small band of fools…” The Chaos Archon held up a hand to stare at his own claws, shifting it into a mass of tentacles before shifting it back into a hand, “My form has stabilised, and I feel ready to lead an attack on Khazan City itself; but that will be the endgame for my campaign. First, the west must fall so that we can box Khazan Prime in. I trust you and your fellow Magisters will fulfill all primary objectives?”

“Absolutely, my Archon,” Relinqiest bowed, “The Khazanians have been nothing short of impressive throughout the course of this campaign – they are a diverse people and culture, and they fight well, but they don’t know that they are only delaying the inevitable.”

“I concur,” Drekis nodded, “They are a most unusual specimen; this grand planet reminds me of another great culture that once existed in this flawed universe – Khazan may be the Nexus of All Realities, but that by no means makes them indomitable. History has proven that.”

Drekis was getting ready to leave as the black silhouette began to dissolve and the gray smoke appeared to vacuum out of Relinqiest’s room, but the Archon of Chaos was stopped by Relinqiest as he put up a hand, “Wait, Eminent One! There is still one more thing that might be of interest to you.”

The gray cloud paused its exit from Relinqiest’s chamber as Drekis reappeared in the centre of the smokescreen as an amorphous black mass with a pair of glowing red eyes surrounded by crackling arcs of red and white lightning; the eyes narrowed as a nonverbal cue for the Magister to go on.

“I’d been scrying the street battles between the heroes and Marauder forces in Zel’Myas prior to my legion’s mobilisation, and my Roving Eye network saw something interesting – there was this young man amongst them who faced off against Morlos,” Relinqiest began, “The sword he was using… it felt strangely familiar to Morlos and myself; it reacts to the presence of your minions by giving off this powerful turquoise light, and despite his seeming inexperience as a warrior he began wielding it like a master swordsman. I’d say his power is as yet underdeveloped, but should it grow-” This was where Drekis cut the Magister off, the Archon’s amorphous form shifting and pulsating. 

“Enough with the report, I will pry this from your memory!” Drekis replied, his eyes glowing brighter before vanishing into the inky mass that is his body. Moments later a prehensile limb ending in a claw-tipped hand shot out from the blob and seized the top of Relinqiest’s head.

“Y-yes, my Archon!” Relinqiest replied, though it wasn’t as if Drekis needed his Magister’s consent to telepathically probe his mind, as a cornucopia of images poured into the Archon’s own mind, as Drekis saw what Relinqiest saw when the archmage scryed Zel’Myas during the street battles between the Marauders and Sentinels, narrowing down to a footage that matches Relinqiest’s descriptions. It was exactly as the Magister had described it – that silver-gray hair, the turquoise eyes, that glowing sword that reacts in the presence of entities that bear Drekis’ touch.

“Could it be true then?” Drekis muttered as he released his grip on Reliqiest, causing the Magister to stagger back, his breathing ragged and forehead matted with sweat. “By all the galaxies upon the cosmos, never had I dreamed I would see this day…” the Archon of Chaos mused as his body reabsorbed the limb and a pair of squinting red eyes appeared in the roiling, abyssal mass.

“Your Eminence, is it really him then?” Relinqiest wondered, still reeling from Drekis’ telepathic intrusion.

The arcs of crimson and white lightning that danced around Drekis’ form picked up their cadence, “Yes, it would seem so… yes…” The Archon commented as a large grinning mouth full of jagged teeth replaced the glowing red eyes, “Who would’ve thought that Sarachus’ bloodline lives on through this boy, and on this very planet to boot? Seems like fate has a twisted sense of humour afterall.”

“From what little I managed to observe, he seems unaware of the full extent of his powers,” Relinqiest interjected, “And I believe he knows not what it means to be descended from Sarachus.”

“In this you are right, my Magister,” the multilayered hell-chorus that is Drekis’ voice boomed, “Sarachus must’ve never taught him of his true nature, and that makes things far more interesting…” Drekis trailed off, and there was a beat of silence before he continued, “But wait… if the scion of Sarachus is present on Khazan, then could it mean she too is on this planet?” 

 

Segment 80: Tim's Induction

“Are you telling me that Rugedelon has fallen to the Drekis Empire, Woose!?” Vincentzo exclaimed, his eyes wild with disbelief, shock and indignation as he glared at Woose before turning sharply away to grasp at his blonde hair in exasperation, a sharp hiss escaping through a set of gritted teeth. “Why did you only tell me about this now!?” The archmage spun around again, his fists flailing in the air.

Tension had been buzzing in the air like a live wire ever since the members of the now-aborted Operation Guillotine landed in Araelis, with the first piece of news that greeted them being reports of Drekis legions amassing in the northernmost province of the state-kingdom. And to add salt to the wound, the provincial capital of Rugedelon had fallen into enemy hands. After their harrowing escape from Marauder custody and witnessing the subsequent heartbreaking fall of Zel’Myas at the hands of the Drekis legions, it was something that no-one on the team wanted to hear. And nobody was hit harder by the revelation than Vincentzo Maiinverno, who in his overflowing emotions sought to blame everything and everyone except Drekis.

“I hate to hear this as much as you do, ‘Centzo, but that’s what happened,” Woose replied dejectedly, his head hanging as he held onto his Gunmetal Brawler X mask like a child clinging to a teddy bear, “But to be fair, we had no way of knowing while we were in transit from Zel’Mier to Araelis either… the news only reached me when we landed.”

The royal archmage sneered, “A likely excuse; I’d wager that you got your priorities skewed and went around bragging about your heroic battles with the Marauders instead of reporting to me at once.”

“Even if you’re my liege, I will not stand for such groundless accusations! Y-you know me better than most to know that statements like these are outright character assassinations!” Woose interjected as he and Vincentzo continued to go at it like a quarrelling couple, and it was at this point that Uberman stepped between the two of them to break it up, a mighty hand positioned in front of each man to keep them apart.

“As leader of the Sentinels, I would advise you to assess this objectively and not let your feelings get the better of you,” The cyborg addressed the pair in a calm but assertive tone, lights flashing behind his faceplate. “Bickering like an old married couple at this critical juncture won’t help anyone – as a Sentinel and the monarch of a nation, you of all people should know that this is a time when cool heads are needed more than ever.”

Vincentzo kicked at the air one more time, his royal cape and mantle flapping before he hung his arms limply by his sides, “Look, Uberman, I… I just needed to vent…” the archmage muttered, “It’s easy for you to go around moralising about being calm and rational when Araelis and her people aren’t your responsibility.”

“As the head of the Sentinels’ leadership council and a member of the executive council for the Khazan-Drekis Conflict, I stand corrected in that all of Khazan is my responsibility,” the armoured cyborg interjected as he bent down so that his visor was level with Vincentzo’s face.

“I concur,” Captain Khazan added, “We really need to keep our heads on our shoulders and think clearly and objectively.”

A jet of steam escaped from cooling vents on Uberman’s armour with a sharp hiss as he stepped out onto the Araelgrad palace’s balcony, “I know it’s hard for you to take this in right now, Vincentzo, but I understand how you feel. I felt the same way you did when Xaelis fell to the Drekis legions, and I’m sure Tanin and Trent felt the same too. If we allow setbacks like these to demoralise us, to cause infighting among our ranks, then we’d have played right into the enemy’s hands.”

“For them, it goes beyond just psy-ops,” Telissa added, the Seeker currently leaning against the railings of the balcony to take in the majestic sight of Araelgrad stretched out before her, its medieval-styled architecture evoking images of fantasy kingdoms. “They literally have minions whose power is to plant fear and sow discord via empathic projection. Ever seen a Deminite Wolf? A pack of these can break the morale of an opposing army, causing them to falter when discipline and coordination are paramount.”

“For someone who knows so much about Drekis, you don’t seem to be helping much,” Vincentzo huffed, crossing his arms as he paced back and forth in front of his throne.

“Hey, leave Ms. Ravan out of this! If it weren’t for her breaching GDF protocols to supply the Central Government with intel on the Drekis Empire we wouldn’t even know what this enemy is!” Raea jumped in on Telissa’s defense, “If you want to vent, then turn your anger fully to Drekis and his cronies!”

“Now, Woose…” the young redhead turned her attention to POWAAA!!!-Man, “Are you certain about everything?”

“As sure as I could ever be,” The martial artist replied earnestly, “I’ve checked with the royal court’s ministers as well as cross-referenced all verified channels and even personally questioned refugees from Rugedelon; there was no doubt about it – the Drekis Empire now controls the northern city of Rugedelon.”

“Just how many legions does Drekis have at his disposal anyway?” Tanin’s voice rang from above, and as the people at the scene looked up, they would find the Archon of Light perched idly on one of the chandeliers suspended from the throne room’s ceiling.

“Effectively unlimited, that was what the GDF learned during their last conflict with them a century ago,” Telissa answered, turning around to face the interior of Vincentzo’s throne room. “His hive-fortresses are basically organitech war factories that spawn the empire’s demonic thralls by the thousands every day – and in the face of stiff resistance, they ramp up production to keep pace with or even exceed battle losses, then they sweep across the planet in a hellish blitzkrieg… that’s how world after world fell to them.”

“And now they’re spreading across Araelis,” Vincentzo lamented as he plopped himself limply onto his throne, a sigh escaping his lips as he rested his forehead against a propped-up hand, tousling his hair between his fingers. “When I declared myself king of this state-kingdom, I swore to lead it to greatness, to restore law and order to what was once an anarchic state so that its people will know what it’s like having roofs over their heads and food in their bellies… but it’s never faced a catastrophe on this scale before; the army is only recently-established, few of its soldiers have any actual battlefield experience.”

“But why are you so certain they want to take Araelis?” Natsumi asked, sitting in front of a dining table with her Shikigami companions, her eyes fixated on a lavish meal that had been laid out on the table for Vincentzo nearly an hour prior, which the archmage had no mood to eat. The blue-haired girl glanced left and right, to see if anyone would touch the food before helping herself to a slice of torte sitting on a silverware plate.

“Araelis is an important target for the Drekis Empire because controlling this territory will provide them with a gateway to attack eastwards,” Captain Khazan answered Natsumi’s question before sitting himself down next to the girl, giving her a comforting smile as he carved some roast pheasant for her and passed her some fruits.

On the other side of the balcony, both Yagami Shinsuke and Michael Cortelloni leaned against the railings with their backs turned towards the horizon, with the latter holding a half-finished stein of ale in his hand. Shinsuke opened his eyes as he turned in the general direction of Rugedelon, “Rugedelon sits near a major crossing over a gorge that has historically served as a geographical boundary between Xaelon and northern Araelis, it makes sense that the enemy will want to seize Rugedelon, since it will prevent our forces from easily providing reinforcements to Araelis via Xaelon.”

Meanwhile, Uberman joined Telissa in looking out over the cityscape of Araelgrad, the cyborg leaning over towards the young Seeker, “Ms. Ravan, I hope you do not take what Mr. Maiinverno said to heart – "as pompous and abrasive as he can be, he is a man whose heart is in the right place for the most part.” The cyborg remembered how for decades, Araelis was known as a failed state that had no functioning government or concept of law and order, but all that changed a few years ago when Vincentzo declared himself ruler of the land and took it upon himself to spearhead an ambitious project to rebuild the nation.

Telissa smiled as she looked back in Uberman’s direction before gesturing at Araelgrad’s medievalesque cityscape, “From the looks of the city, I can see that. Araelgrad is truly a beautiful city, and it’s due to his vision and guidance – I think the fear that he might fail in his duty towards his country and its people was what made him behave the way he did just now… that’s a mindset I can respect. I think in a way, he and I are in the same boat.” The Seeker continued to drink in the vista of Araelgrad’s cityscape; the medievalesque architecture carried their own brand of majesty and elegance that were very unlike the futuristic skylines of Khazan City and other metropolises on DSA-aligned worlds; it would be a tragedy if Vincentzo worked so hard to build all these just to see them burn to the ground for nothing.

Away from the buzz and drama in Vincentzo’s throne room, Tim trained alone at a sky garden in the palace, practicing various swordplay moves with his heirloom sword. Tried as he might, the young swordsman found himself unable to recreate the same feats as during the Chinatown ambush with the Hunter-Killers, or during the street battles with the Marauders in Zel’Myas – the blade did not emit its signature turquoise light, and his practice swings felt slow and sluggish compared to how he wielded it like a master during those life-and-death battles. Taking hold of his weapon in a two-handed grip, Tim spun around and performed a powerful swing, imagining himself taking the head off a Deminite. As he practiced, he filled his mind with thoughts of Raea and the demons they will have to face in upcoming battles, but above all else, he thought of the weapon in his hands – it was the only link he had to his biological parents, and his instincts told him that the key to understanding his past lay in mastering this heirloom.

Tim closed his eyes and controlled his breathing, trying to set a rhythm to his breaths as he imagined another enemy, only to experience a vision as a face swam into view within his mind’s eye – it was that of a woman around his age, with waist-length strawberry-blonde hair that transitioned into fiery red, skin smooth as polished marble and a slender, well-proportioned figure, radiating an otherworldly beauty with her symmetrical features and haunting smile. Next to her stood a tall and athletically-built man with dashing features and a calm expression. But most strikingly was how the man bore a striking resemblance to Tim; that silver-gray hair, turquoise-irised eyes, the symmetry of his face and the shape of his jawline. To the young swordsman, the man looked like what he might be if he grew his hair long and aged about 5-10 years.

Inside Tim’s vision, a third figure manifested itself behind the mysterious man and woman. A cloud of gray smoke roiled behind them, and in the centre of the cloud Tim could make out a black silhouette that appeared part humanoid, part draconic, and other parts of species he could not readily identify, intermittently emitting red and white arcs of lightning as it extended a clawed hand towards Tim, its red eyes casting a baleful glow over him. With a shout, Tim threw himself at the monster in his vision, thrusting his sword towards its head – only to snap back to reality as he found himself pointing his weapon at Uberman, its tip an inch away from the cyborg’s chestplate.

“Uberman!” Tim gasped at the sight of the Sentinel leader, who stood unfazed. By contrast, Raea, who was next to Uberman, stared at Tim with a mix of concern and perplexity. “I… I’m sorry!” he exclaimed as he dropped the sword upon realising how close he came to stabbing the SLJ leader by accident, the weapon hitting the cobblestones with an audible clang.

“Tim, are you alright?” A concerned Raea asked as she went up to Timothy and put her arms around his shoulders. “You appear distracted.”

“Ah, no problems,” Tim replied in a sheepish tone, his voice wavering. “I-I think I just got a bit carried away with my training… but I’m alright otherwise.”

Uberman got down on one knee to pick up Tim’s dropped sword, taking a moment to examine the weapon – despite not knowing the history behind it, the cyborg could tell from a combination of visual inspection and material scans that the workmanship behind the blade, grip and hilt were all the product of master smith, and must’ve been a treasured heirloom. “Timothy Shinestar, am I right? This sword of yours, how much do you know about it?” The cyborg asked as he rose to his feet and twirled the weapon around to hand it back to its owner grip-first.

“Yes, that’s me. The only thing I know about it is that my biological father left it behind for me, but I’ve never seen him from the day I was born,” Tim replied as he took back his weapon and held it up to examine it.

“I saw it give off that turquoise glow again while you were swinging it around with your eyes closed, but we’re digressing here,” Uberman remarked as he pointed to Tim’s sword. “One more thing, Mr. Shinestar; I heard a lot about you from Ms. Shalhalla, everything she’s said about you implies the two of you have a long and close relationship, am I right?”

Timothy nodded earnestly as Uberman led him and Raea to a nearby bench where he gestured for the two youths to sit down, “That’s right, sir. We’ve known each other since we were little kids – Raea’s parents were friends of my mother. My dad was never in my life from the day I was born, and my mother passed away when I was six. Mr. and Mrs. Shalhalla looked after me, and what I knew of my mother was from what they could tell me.”

Uberman and Raea made brief eye contact before nodding at each other; it was all the confirmation the cyborg needed to know Tim was telling the truth from the way both narratives line up. “Well then,” Uberman continued, “She said that just like her, you also wanted to be a hero since you were kids, and even dreamt of competing in the Fantasy Powers League.”

Tim nodded in response.

“Well, Ms. Shalhalla has certainly fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a Sentinel,” Uberman glanced towards Raea, before looking back at Tim, his visor meeting the swordsman’s eyes. “So therefore, to you I am making an offer – what do you think about joining the Sentinels of Liberty and Justice?”

Tim’s jaw dropped at Uberman’s offer, his eyes going wide with surprise, but within seconds he regained his composure and nearly jumped up from the bench, “It’s my life goal! From the time I became a fan of Maxx Crush, I’ve always seen joining the SLJ as the highest honour,” Timothy’s eyes blazed with determination, “Right from the time we were kids, Raea and I promised to each other that neither of us will stop until we’re serving in the SLJ, side by side with each other!” Tim used to find himself nervous and lacking in confidence during the interview process, which made him wonder if that was one of the reasons his applications to join the SLJ were declined time and again, but in light of recent events, the young swordsman was starting to feel different – for the first time in a while, he felt like he could change the world if he truly put his heart into it.

“Well then, Mr. Shinestar, I want you and Ms. Shalhalla to meet me at the Sentinels HQ when we are back in Khazan City,” Uberman remarked as he bent down to hold out a hand to Timothy.

“Wait sir, are you saying…” Tim stammered as he stared at Uberman, but only saw his own gobsmacked face being reflected back at him on the cyborg’s faceplate, realising he was making a fine impression of a goldfish by breathing through an open mouth. “That I’m… a Sentinel?” he asked as he shook Uberman’s extended hand.

Uberman chuckled as his visor lit up with a pink glow as he shook Tim’s hand, “I know I’m breaching protocols here – normally, becoming a Sentinel requires passing an interview, passing a hero theory test and clearing the qualifier gauntlet… but in light of your contributions to Operation Guillotine by springing us from Marauder captivity, I think they count as a qualifier gauntlet in its own right, and you aced that one.” The cyborg patted Tim on the back, “In times like these, the Sentinels could really use heroes such as yourself and Raea. That’s why on my authority as head of the SLJ leadership council I am officially inducting you into the ranks of the Sentinels of Liberty and Justice.”

“Oof!” Even though Uberman’s pat was meant to be encouraging, the cyborg’s strength combined with Tim’s dumbfounded state made the pat nearly force the air out of his lungs, but the young swordsman quickly regained his composure and stood up to throw a salute to Uberman. “Thank you sir! It’s a great honour! I swear that as a newly-minted Sentinel I will do everything in my power to protect Khazan and its people!”

Uberman gave another hearty laugh as his visor lit up with a pink glow once more, “That’s the spirit, kid. You may not have much experience under your belt, but with some training I believe you have the makings of an outstanding Sentinel,” the cyborg reached down to pat Tim on the back again, but the young Sentinel placed a hand on Uberman’s wrist to stop him from doing so, shaking his head with a sheepish smile. “Well then, that’s it for now – I still have a summit meeting with Vincentzo and the others.”

As Uberman left the sky garden, Tim just stood transfixed, staring into space as a hundred thoughts raced through his mind about what just happened. It wasn’t until he felt a soft and warm hand close around his own that the swordsman snapped out of his stupor. “Oh hey, Raea,” Timothy remarked with a dopey grin as Raea looked at him with pride and affection beaming from her eyes.

The young redhead giggled as she gave Tim a playful boop, “Hello Sir Gallant, are you back on Khazan, or is your head still over the moon?”

For a beat, there was only silence as Tim looked Raea in the eyes and suddenly threw himself at her, wrapping his arms around his girlfriend in a firm and warm embrace as he nuzzled his cheek against her shoulder, “It’s finally happened, Raea,” Tim’s voice trembled with emotion as he sniffled, “I’m a hero of Khazan,” he remarked as the first tears of joy formed in the corners of his eyes. He only wished that it didn’t have to come when Khazan was facing one of the bloodiest wars in its recent history, but it was also the opportunity for him to prove his mettle.

Raea smiled as she planted a tender kiss on Tim’s forehead and wiped his tear with her fingertip before playfully ruffling his silver hair, “Silly Tim, you’ve always been a hero to me. And now, you’re not just a hero, but also a Sentinel. Congratulations.”

 

To be Continued...