“It’s time to show ya the power that brought me back from death!! RAAAGHH!!!”

With a bellowing roar, Strén slammed his fist into the beach underfoot, throwing up a massive dust cloud that obscured his and Feral’s position. Ralak immediately backed away, slapping a nearby piece of debris with her open palm and launching it into the dust cloud — only for a shout of “Chaos Blast!” to instantly clear the cloud and obliterate the debris Ralak had just thrown, while simultaneously launching Strén right at her. In the split-second before Strén’s fist reached Ralak, Liask lunged forward to knock him away, but he then raised a rocky wall behind him that he used to rebound off of and tackle Liask to the ground. Two bullets from Travis’s distant sniper rifle found their mark on Strén’s back, but the Bleeder’s shields easily deflected them as the man himself overpowered Liask, grabbing both her wrists in his one remaining hand and hoisting her into the air. He reared back and then threw his head forward, fiercely head-butting Liask in the face; her energy shielding flared brightly as they protected her from direct harm, but Strén continued bashing her face as she struggled to break free of his grasp.

The sound of shattering rock drew Strén’s attention to behind him, just in time to see Ralak seizing control of the rock wall he had created mere seconds ago. With her Imperator powers, she ripped the stone wall out of the ground and hurled it at Strén — only for a Chaos Cannon from Feral to blast the wall to pieces as the Chaostechnic herself bounded forward. “Chaos Claws!” she barked out with a grin, prompting foot-long claws of reddish energy to appear on her fingers. She then began wildly swinging at the air while lunging for Ralak, forcing the Imperator to focus on dodging. Out the corner of her eye, Ralak watched Strén continue to bash away at Liask, but Feral’s ferocious advances kept Ralak distracted and looking for an opening.

“Ahahahaha!!!” Feral cackled as she pressed the attack, her eyes wide with blood-seeking glee. “What’s wrong, Willthief? Gotten too soft at that cushy school?!”

“Ngh—!” Ralak could only respond with a frustrated grunt before ducking under one of Feral’s wild slashes. The Imperator then lunged to the side, prompting Feral to turn towards her with an outstretched hand.

“Chaos—!” Feral began to shout, only for a bullet to slam into her hand and knock it away from Ralak as she finished, “Cannon!” The resulting projectile went wide, giving Ralak just enough of an opening to clap her hands together and then lift into the air. She flew a wide arc around Feral, making sure to stay out of reach of the Chaostechnic’s claws, before zipping over to Strén and shoulder-checking him. Caught by surprise, the massive Bleeder stumbled forward, giving Liask a chance to break free of his grip. Just as she did, two columns of rock exploded out of the ground underneath Ralak and Liask; Ralak managed to dodge out of the way just before the column hit her, but Liask was launched high into the air, leaving her utterly helpless as Strén leaped up to her and smashed her back to the ground with his fist. As she careened downward, Strén rose a massive rock out of the ground nearby and pulled it up to his location in the air, where he used it as a springboard to launch himself back towards Liask, his fist slamming into her back shortly after she hit the ground.

“Agh—!!” Liask cried out, the astounding force of Strén’s blows stunning her even through the energy shielding that protected her. As Strén went for another punch, however, Ralak slammed a massive piece of metal debris into him, staggering him to the side. Ralak quickly rushed over to Liask and pulled her to her feet before Strén could react, but Feral was hot on her heels — only to be staggered by another bullet from Travis’s rifle. With a frustrated snarl, Feral snapped her hand toward Travis’s distant position and shouted out, “Chaos Cannon! Chaos Cannon!!” And then, she quickly followed with, “Chaos EXPLOSION!!”

The ground beneath her feet erupted, throwing dirt and sand across the entire beach — and launching Feral toward Travis’s location, which was already obscured by the dust clouds generated by the impact of Feral’s two Cannon shots. Ralak made to pursue Feral for a brief second, but stopped herself as Strén grabbed the aircraft that the SFC soldiers had arrived on, hoisted it into the air with his one arm, and then chucked it at Ralak and Liask. Quickly, Ralak clapped her hands and then grabbed Liask by her arm, dragging the two out of harms way just in time for the aircraft to smash into their former position. Immediately following it was Strén, having bounded forward with his great strength, but Liask managed to intercept him and send him flying into the coastal waters. She then made to follow, only for Ralak to grab her shoulder.

“Strén’s too much for you,” Ralak stated. “I’ll take care of him. You go after Feral. Protect the Earthians!”

Liask looked back to Ralak uneasily. “B-but—!”

“Do it! Now!”

“Uh— right!”

After that brief exchange, Liask turned around and leaped over the wreckage of the aircraft, in the direction of Feral. Almost as soon as she did, Strén landed on the shore nearby, having risen a rock underneath him in the waters to leap off of. He watched Liask leave in pursuit of Feral before cracking his neck and turning toward Ralak. “So you think you can take me alone, huh?” he challenged, a dangerous, malicious grin spreading across his entire face.

Ralak turned to face him, hiding her hands behind her back as she slowly circled around Strén toward the aircraft wreckage. Through the corner of her eye, she could see Liask and Feral begin fighting atop the distant hill, while Saito and Hackett were sneaking around the large shuttle that contained the hostages. “…Whether or not I think I can take you,” Ralak eventually replied to Strén’s taunt, using the brief moment of respite to catch her breath, “I don’t have much choice in fightin’ you, do I?”

“You coulda left the li’l whelp to herself, let me wear myself out demolishin’ her,” Strén remarked. “But you actually saved her! You really have changed, Willthief!”

“I don’t use that name anymore. Call me Ralak.”

“Puahahaha!!” Strén guffawed. “You think gettin’ rid of your past is that easy? Bullshit. Once a Bleeder, always a Bleeder — and we punish our own. And I gotta say…” He crouched down, clearly preparing to charge forward. “I really look forward to breakin’ the will of the Willthief!”

Ralak didn’t verbally respond. Instead, she whipped a piece of the aircraft’s wreckage through the air, intercepting Strén right as he lunged forward — only for a giant boulder to suddenly appear above her. Acting quickly, she again clapped her hands to fly out of the way of the boulder, narrowly escaping it as it fell onto her former position. In that moment, Strén blasted through both the debris and the boulder with his strength alone, his attention focused entirely on Ralak as she flew through the air toward the uncleared portions of the dumping grounds, hoping to use the sprawling debris fields against Strén.

As the two continued fighting, Colonel Saito eyed them from afar. He then turned his scope toward the distant hilltop; from his position low on the beach, he couldn’t see the entirety of the fighting atop the hill, but he could see Liask and Feral appear in the air sometimes, accompanied by what appeared to be gunfire. With a wary grimace, Saito set down his scope and turned his attention back to the landed shuttle that he and Hackett had just secured. In the chaos of fighting Strén and Feral, Saito and Hackett had been able to sneak up on the two remaining Bleeder guards and easily subdue them with CENT fields and gunfire; the two officers of CSF-1 had since broken into the shuttle’s cargo bay, where they found a hundred hostages. Most of them were unconscious, and on a closer examination of the conscious ones, Saito and Hackett were able to tell that the hostages had been heavily sedated. Even after being freed from their bondage, the conscious hostages barely reacted, seemingly fighting fiercely just to remain awake.

“Sir.”

Saito half-turned to look back at Major Hackett as she stepped into the cargo area from an entrance at the back of the shuttle. As she walked, she dragged with her two unconscious bodies — both wearing the white with green-trimming longcoat uniform of the SFC, one of them bleeding from his leg.

The Colonel looked down at the two unconscious soldiers, watching incredulously as Hackett bound their arms and legs and set down an active CENT field generator next to them. “You took both of them out on your own?”

“They didn’t have shields,” Hackett replied, and then nodded at the soldier with the bullet wound in his leg. “I think that one’s an Introtechnic, so he might’ve thought he didn’t need shields. One CENT field changes that, though.”

“An amateur move. Even Strén didn’t make that mistake.”

“Right. So what do we do, now?”

“At this point…” Saito muttered, briefly watching Ralak and Strén zig-zag through the debris-covered beach to the south before turning back to Hackett. “Strén and Feral both have shields, shields that are pretty clearly generated by prosthetics — which means they might also have hidden weapons, and a CENT field won’t shut those down. We can’t count on the CENT fields helping us, here.”

“The kid — Obra — he cut Strén’s right arm off. If we wake him up, then—“

“That won’t be happening…” The Colonel glanced off to the side, prompting Hackett to follow his gaze. Laying against the interior wall of the shuttle, next to some of the freed hostages, was the unconscious form of Obra — accompanied by some heavy bandaging around his arms and lower chest. “I pulled him inside while you were checking out the SFC soldiers,” Saito explained, “and his condition isn’t good. Only a couple broken bones as far as I can tell, but he’s bruised all over, and possibly concussed.”

“Are you serious?” Hackett questioned incredulously. “I know that the kids’ shields weren’t fully charged, but are you saying that Strén killed Obra’s shields with a single punch?”

“Seems so…” Saito muttered.

“And now he and Feral have us on the back foot…” Hackett muttered. “We need to get out of here, sir.”

Saito nodded. “You’re right. Especially with these hostages, here — we can’t repel Strén and Feral while also protecting them.” He gestured toward the shuttle’s cockpit. “Do what you can to get it started. I’ll call Travis and MacTavish.”

“Understood,” Hackett readily acknowledged as she quickly ducked into the cockpit.

Once she was out of sight, Saito shook his head in disbelief; he had heard Davídrius, Selind, and others talk up the threat that Strén posed, but he hadn’t expected the Bleeder leader to be so surprisingly well-equipped for combat. Not only had he sensed Obra’s attempt to bisect him and dodged, he also had redundant shielding to keep himself protected even if he lost an arm — and even down an arm, he clearly had Ralak on the defensive. …Though, with all of that said, we at least know more about what Strén can do, and what tech he has, Saito mused as he readjusted his headset. Even if we don’t take him down today, we’ll be ready for him next time… anyways. The Colonel then spoke into his comms. “Captain! You there?”

A second passed. Then, Travis’s stressed voice replied, «little busy, Colonel!»

“I know. We’re leaving. Get yourself and MacTavish to the shuttle as soon as you can!”

«…What? But Strén and Feral—!»

“The hostages and intel come first. We’re not taking out Strén or Feral, not here. So get to the shuttle and get it off the ground!”

Another moment of silence. «…Alright, Colonel. But it might be a bit!»

“As long as you get back here. Saito, out.”

With that, Saito turned his attention back to the fighting outside of the shuttle, his grip on his rifle tightening. “Major,” he called out toward the cockpit, “I’m taking a CENT field and going to assist Ralak. Once Travis or MacTavish show up here, I want you to help out Liask against Feral with the last CENT field. We need to hold out until this shuttle is ready to leave! Got it?”

“Understood, sir!” Hackett shouted from the cockpit.

“Alright…” Saito muttered to himself as he took a deep breath and adjusted his grasp on his rifle. He took a second to scan the trash-filled beaches to the south, where he soon spotted Ralak flying through the air, dodging around thrown rocks and debris. Upon noting this, the Colonel rushed forward, his feet pounding across the dirty sands to get a better angle on Strén.

While the Colonel charged across the beach, another several explosions sounded from the top of the nearby foothills, each one cratering the earth as Feral maniacally and haphazardly went after Liask, Travis, and MacTavish. “Chaos Cannon, Chaos Cannon!” Feral shouted, firing off two supersonic projectiles of reddish energy at Travis, who wasn’t nearly fast enough to dodge out of the way. The two projectiles slammed into his stomach, launching him backwards across the cratered hilltops — and right into MacTavish, who had been attempting to flee. Before either Earthian could stand, Feral shouted, “Chaos Explosion!”, generating an incredible blast of energy under her feet that rocketed her up and over Travis.

Just as she turned to fire off more Chaos attacks, Liask bounded into the air and smashed her fists down over Feral’s head. Golden energy shielding brightly flared around the Bleeder’s head as she was sent careening back to the ground, kicking up a dust cloud as she impacted the earth; not even a second later, three reddish arrows burst from the cloud. Liask had yet to fall all the way back to the ground before the arrows reached her, rendering her unable to dodge as they each found their mark on her shoulders and chest. Her shields flared to protect her, but the force of the arrows still knocked her off course, sending her crashing haphazardly to the ground.

“CHAOS BLAST!!”

Before Liask had the opportunity to recover, a massive dome of red energy exploded from the dust cloud, obliterating the dust and the hilltop as well as launching Liask through the air. As she tumbled back to the ground on the slopes of a nearby hill, she was just barely able to spot Travis and MacTavish being thrown to the ground nearby, their shields brightly flaring under the force of the blast. A second later, another explosion sounded, followed by Feral again appearing in the air over the three.

“For fuck’s sake…!” Travis muttered, his expression a scowl as he whipped his pistol around to shoot at Feral above. His bullets merely plinked off of her shields, however, doing little to stop her as she shouted out “Chaos Explosion,” generating a blast of energy just above her that rocketed her straight down towards the Earthians. Seeing this, Liask quickly lunged for Travis as well, hoping to intercept Feral before she reached them — but as the Bleeder slammed into the ground, she held her clawed hands out towards Liask, using her own momentum to stagger the young Forcetechnic.

Feral then turned on Travis, lunging towards him while he continued to pelt her with gunfire. At these close ranges, his sniper rifle was useless; he currently had the rifle strapped to his back as he used his pistol sidearm to try and fend Feral off, but the pistol, too, was useless. Her shields simply deflected every last bullet, allowing her to close the distance and then slash at him with her claws. The Captain thrust himself backwards in an attempt to dodge, but Feral’s speed and long Chaos Claws were still able to reach Travis’s pistol and slice it in twain with no more difficulty than slashing at the air.

“Luke—!” MacTavish cried out, her eyes wide as she watched the Captain stagger backwards, the once-intact pistol in his hands falling to pieces. In a panic, MacTavish began firing toward Feral with her own sidearm, drawing the Bleeder’s attention — an opening that Liask quickly seized upon to dash toward Feral, grab the Bleeder’s arm, and then chuck her through the air toward the mountains to the west. Liask then turned toward Travis, her mouth opening to speak, but a loud explosion interrupted her — followed quickly by Feral rocketing back onto the scene.

“You’re gonna have to try harder than that to get rid of ME! Ahahahah!!” Feral cackled as she landed on the ground with a roll into a lunge towards Liask. “Chaos BLAST!!”

The ensuing blast again threw Liask, Travis, and MacTavish through the air while obliterating the hill on which they had been standing. As the three crashed back to the ground dozens of meters away, Travis managed to hold on to his bearings just enough to catch himself on the ground and take a quick survey of the battlefield. A half-dozen craters filled the foothills, each replacing what was once a hill — and each blast carried the group farther away from the shuttle and the rest of the fighting. The Captain’s initial sniping position had already been nearly a kilometer west from the Bleeders’ shuttle, and now he estimated that another half a kilometer had been added to that distance. We need to get back there, but—! he thought to himself, and then snapped his attention skyward as Feral came rocketing in again — only to be successfully intercepted by Liask. …Well, there’s a solution, here, but it sure won’t be fun!

“RaaAAAGH!!” Feral roared in both fury and exertion as she lashed out at Liask in an effort to drive the Forcetechnic back. Liask held fast, however, bracing herself against Feral’s repeated slashing with her claws. After a second of that, Liask suddenly lunged forward, taking advantage of her superior strength to overpower Feral’s claw slashes and grab the Chaostechnic’s face. “Chaos Impact!!” Feral promptly responded, staggering Liask and breaking her grasp of the Bleeder. Feral repeated the call once more, pushing Liask even further away before shouting “Chaos Explosion” to detonate the air behind her and launch her back towards Travis and MacTavish.

“Eek—!” MacTavish began to yelp, only for Travis to grab and squeeze her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, just follow my lead!” he ordered as he braced himself against a couple of Cannon shots that Feral fired his way. The Bleeder then landed on the ground barely a few meters away from him, landing with a roll into a lunge for his gullet. Liask promptly appeared on the scene, having leaped after Feral to crash down on the Chaostechnic’s back. There, Liask attempted to pin Feral to the ground, overpowering the Bleeder’s thrashing to grab her arms.

“Nggh!!” Feral growled, her brow furrowing. “Cha…os…!!”

As soon as the sounds left Feral’s mouth, Travis lunged at MacTavish. Caught by surprise, the Researcher allowed Travis to tackle her to the side just as Feral finished, “BLAST!!”

Once more, a dome of reddish energy exploded from Feral’s body, launching Liask straight upwards and throwing Travis and MacTavish into the distant air — directly towards the shuttle. By the time the dust from the explosion had cleared and Feral had jumped up to the new crater’s edge, Travis and MacTavish had landed farther down the slopes, a mere half kilometer away from the shuttle. “Oooh, smart ones, huh~?” Feral remarked, already crouching down in preparation to launch herself after them — only for Liask to slam her fists down over the Bleeder’s head, smashing her into the ground. “Chaos Explosion!” Feral quickly shouted, detonating the air between herself and Liask to launch them apart from each other; she then caught herself on the ground a couple dozen meters away, while Liask managed to remain standing.

“Ngh…” Liask grunted in exertion, taking advantage of the brief lull to catch her breath and roll her shoulders. She currently stood at the top of the crater created by Feral’s most recent Blast, while the Bleeder was farther down inside it; noting this, Liask briefly glanced behind herself toward the distant shuttle.

“Chaos Explosion!”

Immediately, Liask braced herself against Feral’s approaching form, snatching the Bleeder out of the air and throwing her back down to the ground — where she tumbled for a bit before leaping back to her feet.

“You should pick on another Chaotic,” Liask declared, her knees bent and hands out in preparation to catch Feral again. “You should come after me, not people who can’t even fight back!”

“Pah!” Feral snorted in derision. “A little kid like you? It’s cute that you want my attention, but you ain’t worth my time!”

“Oh yeah? Just that afraid of losin’ to a WCU student, huh?” Liask taunted.

“…Oooooh, I thought I recognized that smell! So, you’re a student at the Sentry’s stupid little school, huh~?” A maniacal grin spread across Feral’s face as she lowered her stance, her fingers curled tightly and her entire body tense, like a feral animal. “I guess killin’ you will be worth it, then!”

“Feel free to try—!“

“Chaos BLAST!”

Liask immediately braced herself, but still couldn’t stop herself from being sent flying by the Bleeder’s attack. Nevertheless, after tumbling down to the ground, she quickly recovered her bearings and jumped to her feet just in time to continue meeting Feral in battle amidst the cratered ruins of the foothills.

Nearly two kilometers south of them, Ralak flew low over the rubbish of the dumping grounds, slapping opportune pieces of debris to exert control over them and fling them through the air at Strén, who effortlessly smashed his way through the trash in pursuit of Ralak. Be it metal or stone, Strén’s fist made short work of it all, rending everything thrown at him into shattered debris — or ammunition for his own attacks. After slamming through an ancient construction vehicle, Strén grabbed its remains and effortlessly hefted it into the air before hurling it at Ralak, who dexterously evaded around it in the air. Just as she dodged, however, Strén leaped at the wrecked truck he had just thrown, his incredible strength allowing him to launch himself through the air fast enough to reach the wreck while it was still airborne and use it as a springboard to lunge toward Ralak.

Even in that split-second interaction, Ralak was able to react, thrusting herself backwards through the air to evade Strén’s outstretched fist by mere centimeters. But Strén didn’t give her a chance to strike back; even as he slammed back into the ground, he was already raising three massive boulders out of the sand, the giant rocks rapidly coalescing on Ralak’s position. She reached out to slap one while flying upwards to evade the others, exerting control over the touched stone to chuck it at Strén — who simply punched it into smithereens. The two other rocks that Ralak hadn’t touched were still in the air, however, and Strén manipulated them with his Geotechnism to swing them back around toward Ralak while breaking them down into three chunks each. Before Strén could launch the rocks at Ralak, however, the sounds of nearby gunfire signaled the arrival of a hail of bullets that shattered three of the hovering rocks. In the moment’s distraction, Ralak ducked under the hovering rocks to take cover amongst the debris on the beach while Strén turned to look at Colonel Saito, who had just arrived on the scene guns blazing.

Immediately, Strén leaped toward Saito, who dove to the side just in time to avoid taking a fist to the face. The Colonel then rolled over and unloaded an entire magazine of bullets into Strén, who simply took the gunfire to the chest, the bullets harmlessly deflecting off of his flared shields as he grinned at Saito. As soon as Saito’s magazine ran out and his gun ceased firing, Strén lunged toward him… and then tripped up, surprised by the lack of speed in his movements. A second later, realization hit, and the Bleeder snapped his attention to the small device at Saito’s side: a CENT field generator. But before Strén could react any further, Ralak used her Imperator powers to dump a large piece of machinery on top of Strén, trapping him against the sand.

In the lull that followed, Saito quickly reloaded his rifle, tossing the spent magazine to the side before aiming his weapon at the machinery trapping Strén. Ralak moved in closer, still hovering in the air over the debris-laden beach, but Saito motioned for her to back off, gesturing at the active CENT field as if to tell her it was too dangerous to get close.

Barely a second later, however, a powerful burst of energy exploded the machinery Ralak had used to trap Strén. The burst blew the machine to bits, revealing Strén slowly climbing to his feet inside — with his shirt in tatters, revealing a laser cannon embedded in his chest. Thinking quickly, Saito grabbed the CENT field generator and whirled around to put his shielded back in between Strén and the generator, just in time to intercept the laser blast Strén fired at him. The force of the blow sent Saito sprawling forwards, but the generator remained intact. I expected more prosthetics, but even his chest is cybernetic?! Saito thought incredulously as he jumped to his feet and turned to face Strén, all while holding the CENT field generator behind his back. If even his chest was replaced, then chances are, only parts of his head are still organic! On one hand, that means even more area to store battery power for his shields, or hidden weapons, so he must have an entire arsenal at his disposal — on the other hand, each time he fires that laser, it must be draining energy that would otherwise go to his shields, or even just moving his body. So I need to get him to keep using that weapon, which means staying on top of him with the CENT field, but with those prosthetics—!

The Colonel’s thoughts were interrupted as Strén lunged toward him again. This time, the Bleeder expected the loss of strength from the CENT field, and was able to adjust his movements accordingly — yet, even with the CENT field negating his Forcetechnism, Strén still reached Saito faster than the Colonel expected. Those damn cybernetics—! Saito grit his teeth and attempted to throw himself to the side so as to evade a punch from Strén, but the Bleeder’s augmented body moved faster than the Colonel’s regular flesh and blood, allowing Strén to grab Saito by his arm. Just as he did, Ralak dropped another massive piece of debris on Strén from above, trying her best to hold him back without getting so close to the CENT field that her own powers were disabled.

This time, however, Strén was ready; just before the debris hit him, and just after it entered the CENT field radius — thus meaning that Ralak was no longer able to manipulate it — he dodged backwards, while yanking Saito forward to take his place. Before either Saito or Ralak had time to register what had happened, the massive debris crushed Saito into the beach. His shields flared up, protecting him from direct harm, but the debris on top of him completely prevented him from moving. A blast of energy followed a second later, obliterating the debris and exposing Saito again to the skies above — and then a second laser blast annihilated the CENT field generator in the Colonel’s possession. Shit… Saito thought to himself, struggling to get back to his feet — only for Strén to grab him by his neck and hoist him into the air.

Now free to use his Forcetechnic strength once again, Strén began attempting to crush Saito’s neck, causing the energy shields around his head to flare up brightly as they fought back against the crushing force. Saito knew better than to attempt to struggle against the grasp of a man magnitudes stronger than him, so he instead gripped his rifle and unloaded into Strén’s chest once more — though his bullet barrage was quickly brought to a stop as Strén fired his chest laser at the rifle, flinging it out of Saito’s hands. A second later, Strén’s grip on Saito’s neck slightly lessened — but then he whirled Saito around, using his shielded body to deflect a handful of projectiles launched by Ralak. Strén then continued whirling Saito around in a half-circle, at which point he threw the Colonel through the air straight into Liask, who herself had been launched toward the fight by one of Feral’s explosions. Saito and Liask collided in the air and then fell to the ground in a haphazard pile, while Feral flew past them and caught herself on a piece of debris next to Strén.

“Oh, woooow, they got you to use the chest laser, huh~?” Feral remarked as she looked down at Strén’s exposed chest.

“Gotta admit, this fight has been more fun than I expected!” Strén exclaimed, eagerly balling his fist while raising a series of stones to his side to block even more projectiles from Ralak. “…I’d hoped to save our trump card for when we wreck the Sentry’s precious li’l Compound, but I think it’s time we put an end to this.”

“Ahahahaha!!” Feral cackled, her maniacal grin stretching with glee. “So I can actually let loose?!”

“We both can,” Strén declared, and then pounded his chest once. “Overdrive…!”

“Overdrive—!” Feral eagerly joined him.

“Barbarian’s Roar!”

“CHAOS!!”

“Damn it…!” Saito muttered, having just climbed to his feet after the shouts from the two Bleeders. He quickly helped Liask up before uneasily eying Strén, who seemed to be taking a deep breath. “Just what is he—?”

And then, before Saito could finish his thought, Strén opened his mouth wide and let loose a deafening roar. “HoooRAAAAAGH!!” he bellowed, his deep voice echoing across the beach, forcing Saito, Liask, and Ralak all to flinch back at the sheer volume of it — only for his shout to suddenly cut short. Instead, Saito’s hearing was replaced by an intense, shrill ringing, completely overriding the sounds of the breaking waves nearby, or the explosive battle raging around him. As if by reflex, Saito coughed and then growled, attempting to produce any sound that he could hear… but nothing got through the constant ringing. It was as if his hearing had completely failed.

A red dome of energy promptly launched Saito and Liask back across the sands; as the Colonel tumbled back to the ground without hearing a single sound aside from the persistent ringing, he quickly deduced that something about Strén’s Overdrive-empowered roar had deafened him. He could only hope that the effect was temporary — but then, as he was contemplating that, Strén appeared upon him once more, grabbing him by the neck to hoist him into the air. At first, Saito made to fight back, reaching to grasp a rifle that he no longer possessed, but as soon as he laid eyes on Strén, a peculiar sensation overcame him that locked up his body. The Colonel was well familiar with tension in battle; he experienced it during every firefight, and had specifically trained to overcome it. But the feeling that washed over him now that prevented him from struggling against Strén, that caused his hair to stand on end and an unnerving chill to permeate every inch of his body — this feeling was different. It wasn’t too dissimilar from what he had felt when he first encountered Telregina, yet somehow, far, far stronger.

It was pure, raw, unbridled fear.

What? Why now—? Saito thought to himself, struggling to fight against the quaking that had overtaken his body. A second later, a handful of bullets from afar slammed into Strén’s shielded head, causing the Bleeder to reflexively release Saito. The Colonel dropped to the ground, where he quickly scrambled away from Strén while making a quick note of Hackett in the distance, having taken aim with her rifle and firing into the skirmish. Saito quickly activated his comms and shouted into them for Hackett to be wary of Strén’s roar, but without being able to hear himself speak, he couldn’t even be sure if he had formed the words correctly — and he had no idea if Hackett had even heard him. Immediately following that was another explosion of red, flinging Saito out towards the beach, where he landed with an unceremonious roll amidst the tidal waters. And now that I’m deaf, I can’t even hear whenever that ‘Feral’ woman invokes her attacks… the Colonel thought bitterly as he struggled back to his feet. So Strén’s roar can deafen, and also induce fear…? I guess their Overdrives compliment each other perfectly, then, huh? Damn, I really underestimated them! With this combination, they could probably take on the entirety of Tresnon, if they catch the Compound by surprise. We HAVE to get out of here, even if only to warn Tresnon about Strén’s Overdrive!

While Saito stopped to try and regain a grasp of the battlefield, Ralak soared overhead, desperately ducking and weaving through the air to evade the chaos of Feral’s unshackled and haphazard attacks. Every time Feral uttered the word “Chaos,” a dozen things happened at once, from a reddish dome of energy Blasting out from her body to obliterate the terrain below her; a second, simultaneous Explosion that she either detonated afar or under her own feet to launch herself around; a planar Shockwave following the edge of Blast, but reaching slightly farther; and Arrow, Cannon, Impact, and Strike attacks all lashing out simultaneously in seemingly random directions. And all of this happened every other second — compounded even further by Ralak’s newfound deafness, rendering her absolutely incapable of telling when Feral was about to unleash another barrage. All Ralak could do was dodge, while searching hopelessly for a window through Feral or Strén’s defenses.

Another dome of red energy exploded into existence in the air over the newly cratered beach. Several projectiles flew out toward Ralak, who just barely managed to contort her body to prevent any of them from hitting her unshielded skin. Immediately following them was Feral herself, having launched herself into the air toward Ralak with a maniacal grin, her hands reached upward with long, razor-sharp claws of Chaos Energy extending from her fingers. Amidst the Bleeder’s constant cackling, it was impossible for Ralak to tell if a mouth movement was just laughter or another call of “Chaos” — yet, the Bleeder was rapidly approaching, faster than Ralak could fly. In a split-second decision, Ralak lunged through the air straight at Feral, only to dodge around her at just the last moment, causing the Bleeder to careen past her. Immediately afterward, another Blast of energy exploded out of Feral’s body, its searing edge coming within a hair’s width of Ralak as she dove downwards toward the beach below.

While diving, Ralak quickly glanced toward Strén. She felt her body tense all over, with every fiber in her muscles urging her to fly straight away from him. A split-second of uncertainty washed over her, but in that moment, she also noticed Liask — who had completely frozen up in the face of Strén’s ferocious onslaught, leaving her on the defensive as the Bleeder easily manhandled both her and Saito. Upon seeing Liask in danger, Ralak grit her teeth to fight through the looming intimidation from Strén’s roar; a second later, she reached the sand of the beach, weaving through the debris field and readily touching every piece of ancient metal she could. The first few pieces she flung into the air, knocking away Feral as she attempted to dive after Ralak — while the next few pieces, Ralak moved to sit in between herself and Feral, to act as a shield against imminent Chaos attacks.

And then, while Feral was distracted with her own attacks, Ralak made her move on Strén. The Bleeder seemed preoccupied with smashing Liask and Saito with deft use of his personal strength and control over rocks, while completely ignoring any gunfire that Hackett attempted to distract him with. Ralak quickly reached out to touch two dead machines, flinging them both through the air toward Strén — but a massive rock exploded out of the beach in between Ralak and her target, acting as a shield and also showing that Strén was still watching her.

But Ralak was prepared. As soon as the rock appeared, Ralak altered her machines’ trajectories to fly parallel to the rock, while she herself shot vertically into the air, completely arresting herself of her forward momentum to allow Feral to go rocketing past her again. The next Blast from Feral obliterated the rock that Strén had summoned; the projectiles accompanying Feral’s Blast were all focused on Ralak, forcing her to dodge, but she was still able to maintain concentration on her manipulated machines to alter their trajectories once more and slam them into a surprised Strén. The Bleeder staggered to the side — and then to the other side, as a particularly powerful bullet from Travis’s distant sniper rifle slammed into the side of his shielded head.

One more dome of red energy obscured Ralak’s view of the entire beach as Feral sent Strén, Liask, and Saito all flying through the air. Liask and Saito both tumbled back to the ground, completely disoriented from the chaotic action — and immediately after they landed, a stony cage sprung up around Saito, while a massive pillar of rock appeared over Liask and slammed her into the sands. Ralak quickly swooped down to tap the rock pillar with her hands and begin removing it from Liask, but Strén appeared an instant later to smash the pillar to smithereens with his fist and then grab Liask by her ankle.

However, Ralak taking control of the rock pillar before Strén smashed it allowed her to manipulate all of the resulting debris — and she forced it to rapidly coalesce on Strén in an attempt to lock him down. Strén used his own control of rocks to seize control of the debris away from Ralak and explode the makeshift shell off of his body, at which point he readily grabbed Liask again, who had yet to get back to her feet. His shielding soon flared under gunfire from both Hackett and Travis in the distance, prompting him to raise a massive barrier of stone — and then begin whipping Liask through the air by her leg, slamming her repeatedly into the ground with such ferocity that the beach cratered under each blow, sending sand flying into the air and obscuring Strén. Ralak attempted to intervene, moving back towards the debris fields to find pieces of metal to fling at Strén and break Saito out of his rock cage, but nothing seemed to phase Strén. He only stopped of his own volition a second later, when a peculiar flash of golden light illuminated the dust cloud around him, signifying that someone’s energy shields had been overloaded.

And when a bullet from Travis’s rifle pierced through Strén’s rock barrier and hit the Bleeder in his chest, it became obvious that the shield failure wasn’t Strén’s.

In that split-second, Ralak dove down towards Strén and Liask, who hung limply from the Bleeder’s grasp. Before Ralak could get any closer, however, Strén whipped around and chucked Liask at Ralak, causing both women to go sprawling to the ground. Ralak was quickly able to recover, grabbing Liask by her hand to begin manipulating her through the air. But as she looked back to Strén to try and predict his next movements, she noticed that he was looking past her. In that moment, Ralak felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, and she cautiously looked behind herself as well — where she spotted Feral standing amongst the debris on the beach, her entire body coated in the telltale reddish aura of a Berserk Chaotic.

Ralak needed no further prompting to take Liask and shoot into the air, just as the ground where they had been standing detonated. The Berserk Feral then lunged forward, obliterating all debris in her path with haphazard Chaos attacks as she tore her way toward the nearest target: Strén. But not to be outdone, Strén used his powerful strength to bound through the air toward Ralak and Liask — only for Ralak to take deft control of Liask’s body, manipulating her around through the air to grab Strén’s incoming fist and then throw him back at the ground. The motion looked so smooth, it seemed as though Liask had chosen to throw Strén of her own volition — but the Forcetechnic’s surprised expression revealed the truth of the matter.

But Ralak didn’t waste time dwelling; as soon as Strén was out of the picture, she dove down towards Saito, who had finally been freed from his stone cage by Hackett’s gunfire. With nary a word between them, the Colonel reached out his hand, which Ralak forced Liask to grab — Saito was still shielded, after all, so Ralak couldn’t control him; getting Liask to carry his weight was the more expedient option. Before Liask had the chance to even realize what was happening, Ralak was guiding the three through the air back to the shuttle, picking up Hackett along the way.

Just before they reached the shuttle, however, Saito gestured behind Ralak, prompting her to look behind herself — where Berserk Feral rapidly approached, having been thrown by Strén. Quickly, Ralak dispersed herself and Liask (who was carrying Saito and Hackett), hoping to make enough space from Feral to avoid any Blasts that might emerge — but instead, Feral lashed out with several Chaos Cannons, fanning the projectiles across the air. Ralak quickly moved herself around to try and dodge, but the supersonic projectiles were simply too fast; one of them scooped out a chunk of her shoulder. She felt herself release a pained shout, but couldn’t hear it; ringing still filled her ears. Between that, the incredible pain that shot through her shoulder, and the feeling of her right arm falling limp, her concentration almost completely broke and she stumbled to the ground — yet before Feral could follow up, Travis expertly sniped her out of the air, the raw power of his rifle knocking the Berserker backwards and to the sand.

Without wasting another moment, Ralak forced the pain out of mind and moved herself, Liask, Saito, and Hackett onto the shuttle. As soon as she did, Travis shouted something towards the cockpit, at which point the shimmering gold of activating energy shields washed across the shuttle’s surface, and the craft began to lift into the air. Saito quickly extricated himself from Liask’s grasp, moving to grab a gun recovered from one of the SFC soldiers as Hackett grabbed a first aid kit and began tending to Ralak’s bloodied shoulder, and the bone that was both clearly exposed to the air and missing a chunk. Saito offered the women only a brief glance before turning towards the slowly closing hatch in the side of the shuttle — right as Strén appeared in the air, having leaped at the shuttle from the beach below. With his one hand, he managed to latch onto the side of the shuttle, its energy shielding flaring as he tightly gripped a small handhold. As soon as he appeared, he fired into the shuttle with his chest laser, but when the shuttle’s shields blocked the blast, he began to take a deep breath… only for Saito and Travis to simultaneously shoot him in the chest, blasting him off of the shuttle.

By then, the shuttle had gained around a hundred meters of altitude, and slowly began turning towards the southwest. Just before the beach fell out of view, Saito could see Strén jump back to his feet and begin angrily throwing massive rocks at the shuttle, all while fending off a Berserk Feral with similarly massive rocks.

And then, the shuttle’s hatch closed.

In the lull that followed, Saito finally took a deep breath, holding his hand over his chest in an effort to calm his racing heart. He glanced toward Hackett and Ralak, noting that the latter had sat herself down against the side of the shuttle, her teeth grit and brow knitted as she held her limp arm in place and prevented most of her blood from spilling out by using her Imperator powers — which allowed Hackett to patch the massive wound as best as she could. The Colonel then felt a hand on his shoulder; looking to the side, he spotted Travis, who was giving him a concerned look. Saito responded with only a shake of his head and then gestured toward Liask, who seemed to be in shock — be it from Strén’s oppressive Overdrive, him breaking through her shields, or Ralak taking brief control of her, the Colonel couldn’t be sure. After a moment’s pause, Travis responded to Saito with a nod and some kind of spoken acknowledgment — Saito couldn’t hear him through the ringing, but he knew the Captain got the point when he moved over to Liask’s side to tend to her.

Saito then looked over the rest of the shuttle, noting the unconscious SFC soldiers, the just-now-coming-to form of Obra, and the still heavily sedated hostages in the back — including one Minilas, who had just barely managed to crawl over to Obra and Liask before collapsing between them. …Once again, we somehow managed to survive a situation we had no right surviving, Saito mused, only to shake his head and take a seat on the bare metal floor of the shuttle, the constant ringing still filling his ears — albeit somewhat lessened, allowing deep vibrations to finally register as low sounds once again. We’ve recovered some hostages and intel on who the Bleeders are working with, which is a damn good haul, by all accounts. But that Strén… and Feral, too. We’re really going to have to watch out for those two…

And with that, the shuttle took off through the skies of Treséd, leaving the scarred coastal battlefield behind on its way to Compound Tresnon.