Mechanical skittering echoed through dark caves, filling the air with the sounds of a swarm of metallic bugs surging forth. Every few seconds, the caves would shake and rumble, sending the dire crack of breaking stone echoing through the tunnels as Christeané and Spike repeatedly smashed any bugs that dared approach. Christeané, with his elastic-tethered battlehammer, was able to hold the creatures off at midrange while Spike fabricated defensive constructs to hold the line. Behind them, Austin mentally maneuvered his claymore through the air to slash at the incoming bugs — all while grasping both flashlights in his hands to keep the cave illuminated.

“Ngh—!” Spike grunted with exertion as he deflected a lunging creature with a buckler on his wrist, only to scowl a second later when streaks of metallic silver began to spread out across the buckler’s surface. Before the object could transform into another bug, he ripped the shield off of his arm and chucked it at a nearby Nanocreature, obliterating both under the sheer force of the throw.

“Be careful with those shields!” Christeané shouted, deftly and rapidly yanking his elastic tether in different directions to whip his battlehammer all around the cave, knocking away dozens of approaching bugs at a time. “Remember, at this stage, Nanocreatures can take control of any matter! If you aren’t careful, you’ll just give them ammunition to use against us!”

“Can’t you say the same ‘bout that hammer of yours?” Spike replied as he fabricated a massive shield and planted it on the ground in an effort to create a barrier against the surging hordes.

“It’s true that I’ll probably lose it to them soon, but it’s still only one hammer. Your shields, on the other hand, seem to be infinite!”

“As if there isn’t a ton of rock around us that the bugs could use!” Austin retorted.

“True,” Christeané admitted, his hammer swinging around to smash another several bugs. “We really can’t afford to be on the defensive right now! We need to push through!”

“There’s a whole goddamn swarm in front of us!” Spike responded incredulously, and then punched the shield in front of him to send it flying down the dark caves — bringing a handful of the bugs with it. Austin quickly moved his claymore through the air to try and fend off any bugs that would fill the void — and yet, the swarm continued to rush forward, streaming out of the darkness beyond faster than Austin’s sword slashes could handle.

“We have energy shielding. We can push through!” Christeané shouted. “Follow my lead!”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Christeané began running forward, expertly manipulating his tethered hammer to practically bounce the weapon all around the cave, slamming exactly into any bugs that threatened to bar his path. Spike grabbed Austin’s arm and thrust him forward, the large Forcetechnic taking up the rear as he and Austin began running after Christeané. Austin, for his part, stumbled slightly at the beginning, but quickly settled on trying to keep both the way forward and way backward illuminated with his two flashlights. Focusing on lighting the tunnel left little concentration for him to continue attacking with his claymore, however, and the weapon soon clambered to the ground behind the trio as they forced their way through the horde.

CRACK!!

“Above!!” Spike roared, immediately fabricating a giant shield and lunging forward to cover Austin. He then thrust the massive shield overhead, just in time for the cave tunnel to collapse on top of him, the rocks and stone coming down on and around the shield. Before he was fully buried, Christeané reached down to grab both Austin and Spike by their arms and yank them away from the falling debris, sending them both tumbling on top of dozens of metallic bugs. They all immediately began crawling over Austin and Spike, the duo’s energy shields beginning to flare up brightly under the nanomachine assault while Austin started thrashing around in a panic, attempting to knock the bugs off of him. Christeané was on them a second later, his hammer making short work of the bugs and allowing the two Earthians to stand — though Spike immediately fabricated yet another shield and turned towards the newly caved-in dirt to block a lunge from a large metallic quadruped, appearing as though a cross between a wolf and a lion. The silver beast chomped down on Spike’s shield with its maw, easily shattering the object and turning the resulting fragments silver — which then transformed into small metallic bugs of their own.

With the shield out of the way, the beast lunged forward again, though this time was stopped as Austin summoned his claymore back to himself and sliced into the creature’s flank. Austin’s sword easily cleaved the beast in twain — but instead of falling to the ground as a lifeless husk, the two halves quickly merged with a handful of nearby bugs to instead create two of the wolf-lion beasts. Before they could act any further, however, Christeané bounded forward, landing in between them and shouting, “Overdrive: Omni Crush!”

In the next instant, an incredible invisible force crushed both beasts into silver splatters on the ground, completely obliterating both them and their constituent nanites — a fact made evident by how the new silver splatters failed to expand across the ground, as was the sign of active corruption.

“Damn… I was hoping to save that,” Christeané muttered, already whirling his hammer around in preparation to launch himself down the caves. Despite having crushed two larger beasts, there still remained dozens upon dozens of the metallic bugs ahead of the group — and low growls echoing from further down the cave suggested that more of the larger beasts were soon to come.

“They’re— they’re fucking endless!” Austin remarked in disbelief.

“How the hell—!” Spike started, pausing momentarily to summon his red and golden gauntlets onto his arms before bringing down his hands to smash the ground, obliterating three of the approaching basketball-sized bugs in the process. “—are we supposed to get through this?!”

“Just keep your wits about you!” Christeané shouted, loosing his hammer upon the horde to smash several more of the bugs — and then turning his attention to farther down the cave, where Austin was shining the light of his flashlights. Barreling through the poorly illuminated tunnels was yet another beast, this one large enough to almost completely fill the cave as it raked the walls with its spiked hide, leaving behind streaks of metallic silver that slowly began to grow and consume the cave walls. Barely a couple seconds passed before the large beast was upon the trio, its solid, metallic hide deflecting away both Christeané’s hammer and a shield that Spike had thrown at it. It then lunged forward; Christeané and Spike both responded by punching its approaching snout, thereby completing smashing in the creature’s face… but it simply drew back, absorbing material from surrounding bugs, Spike’s deflected shield, and portions of the cave walls itself to reform its face.

“Fucking hell…!” Spike muttered, his entire body growing tense as he took up a defensive stance.

“I know it doesn’t look good… but keep it up, we can make it through!” Christeané urged, and then lunged forward to press the attack, his battlehammer whipping through the air once again. “Just don’t give up, and keep pushing!!”

---

*

“RAAAAGGHH!!!”

A bellowing roar echoed through the dark underground cavern as a silver dragon focused its sights on Davídrius and Pierce, who were both running circles around the beast in an effort to break its tracking. Only two beams of light fought against the looming darkness, both shining from Conrad’s invisible location as he sought to keep the dragon illuminated, so as to aid Davídrius and Pierce in taking it down.

With his summoned blade in hand, energy tether linking the blade to its handle hanging in the wind, Pierce dashed in close to the dragon’s legs to slash at its heels. In that same moment, Davídrius leaped up at the dragon’s neck, slamming it with a fierce kick that staggered it backwards. But before Davídrius could fall back to the ground — or even before Pierce could slash more than two of the beast’s legs — it lashed out, snatching up Davídrius in its maw and grabbing Pierce with a new arm that exploded out of its underside. After grabbing the Velocitechnics, it pumped its powerful wings to begin lifting into the air; a second later, however, Pierce used the incredible sharpness of his Hastryth blade to cut himself free of the dragon’s grasp, while Davídrius leveraged his sheer accelerative power as a Velocitechnic to blast himself free with rapid kicks. As soon as he was free, the Dean kicked off of the dragon’s damaged snout to instantly reach the ground while the dragon continued to ascend.

“Just how big is this fucking cavern…?” Davídrius questioned with a scowl.

“Not too big for us!” Pierce declared as he crouched down in preparation to leap after the dragon.

“Hey, wait—!” Davídrius started, but he wasn’t fast enough; in the midst of his words, Pierce jumped high into the air, clearing the distance between himself and the dragon nigh-instantly. Once in the air, Pierce whipped his weapon around, tightly grasping the handle and launching the blade at the end of the energy tether on a curving path towards the metallic beast’s chest. The blade cleanly sliced through the dragon’s metallic hide, dislodging chunks of silverish goo that soon fell out of the light cast by Conrad’s flashlights; before Pierce could whip his weapon around to attack again, however, the dragon’s tail curved around to whack him out of the air. As he hit the wall on the side of the cavern, the dragon itself let loose a feral snarl before suddenly propelling itself backwards, moving so quickly that Conrad lost track of it with his flashlight beams.

“How the hell does something so big move so fast…?” Conrad muttered to himself as he quickly began scanning the cavern with his flashlights. His ability to make himself invisible also applied to any lights he held, but he was also able to independently control if any invisible lights in his possession still emitted light. As a result, the bright bulb of his flashlights were hidden from peering eyes while still leaving him capable of illuminating the area around him — which therefore made it more difficult to locate him. Such was his contribution to the fight: simply standing in the back and tracking the dragon with his lights to let Pierce and Davídrius keep fighting it, but right now, he couldn’t even manage to do that.

“RAAAAAAAGGHHH!”

“Up there!!” Davídrius shouted, as Conrad quickly followed the roar with his light. A second later, the dragon was found once more, two flashlight beams illuminating its position at the roof of the cavern nearly a hundred meters up — but just as soon as Conrad had found the beast, it launched itself downward, right at Davídrius. The Dean immediately dashed out of the way, easily evading the dragon’s lunge, as well as its tail that whipped around to try and catch him. As the dragon was recovering, Pierce appeared on the scene to begin slashing at the beast’s legs, but it locked its focus onto him and began trying to step on him with astoundingly speedy pounces.

While Pierce was occupied with trying to not get stepped on, Davídrius dashed over to the wall of the cavern, where he dealt the dry stone a fierce kick. With a thundering crack, several chunks of stone chipped off of the wall; before any of the debris could reach the ground, Davídrius snatched them out of the air one-by-one and chucked them at the silver dragon’s backside. Each stone found their mark, embedding themselves in the dragon’s hide and chipping off flakes of silverish debris — but as soon as they were embedded, the rocks turned silver themselves before being fully assimilated into the beast’s body.

With an irate scowl, Davídrius dashed around the dragon to where he had left Conrad. “Oi! You still here?”

“Uh, yeah?” Conrad responded uneasily.

“You can summon an Ayas Weapon, too, right? Hand it over!”

“…Huh?”

“Summon your weapon, and give it to me! If you ain’t gonna use it, then I might as well!”

“Oh… well, guess that makes sense,” Conrad admitted as he summoned his weapon into hand. He then dropped it on the ground, allowing it to turn visible and reveal the black and silver glaive blade attached at the end of a long shaft.

“Aldrace…” Davídrius muttered as he quickly picked the weapon up. “…Ain’t never used this one, but it’s better than nothin’! Let’s see that stupid dragon try to corrupt this!”

“Uh, maybe don’t damage my weapon, please—?” Conrad started, only for Davídrius to disappear mid-suggestion. With a wary sigh, Conrad returned his attention to tracking the dragon with his flashlights, watching as it shifted its weight around just fast enough to keep Pierce on his toes. Each time Pierce lunged for one of the dragon’s limbs, the rest of its legs and tail would converge on his location, shifting around the dragon’s body in a distinctly unnatural manner, as if the joints connecting the limbs to the body could freely roam about. Eventually, Pierce was able to finally slash into one of the dragon’s massive paws that was nearly as large as he was — though as he did, the dragon lunged at him with its head, snapping him up in its giant maw faster than he could react.

But immediately after that, Davídrius tore through the beast’s neck, using the blade of his black and silver glaive to cleanly sever the dragon’s head from its body. For just a moment, its mouth fell limp, allowing Pierce to get the leverage he needed to tear free with his own blade — but just as soon as Pierce was free, the severed head melted into a pile of silver goo that the headless dragon promptly dove its neck into. Within a second, the puddle of goo reformed into the beast’s head, its maw opening wide to expose a laser cannon deep in its throat that it readily fired at Davídrius to launch the Dean across the cavern. In response, Pierce dashed forward and then jumped up at the dragon, aiming to throw his blade down the beast’s throat and destroy the cannon within — only for the dragon to yank its head to the side and then buffet Pierce with its massive wings, launching him across the cavern and into Davídrius.

“Oi, be careful!” Davídrius chided as he caught Pierce out of the air and let him down roughly. “This thing is fast, don’t let it catch you in the air!”

“Yeah, well it can also heal itself after every damn wound!” Pierce retorted, brandishing his weapon while uneasily eying the silver dragon. “How the hell are we supposed to beat something like this?”

“It can ‘heal’, sure, but the pace of that is limited,” Davídrius declared. “We just need to destroy every nanite faster than they can make more of themselves.”

“Do you have any idea how big of an ask that is?!”

“I didn’t say this would be easy. But what other choice do we got? At least with these Ayas Weapons, we can keep slicin’ away without havin’ to worry about the weapon itself gettin’ corrupted.”

“I guess—“

“Now, enough chat! I’ll distract it; you focus on gettin’ in any hits that you can! Let’s go!”

“Right!” Pierce shouted, quickly dashing off after Davídrius as the two Velocitechnics resumed fighting the silver dragon before them.

---

*

“Get down!!”

“Agh—!” Austin yelped in distress as Spike tackled him to the side, just in time to evade a rapid swing from a silvery tethered battlehammer, wielded in the tail of a massive metallic beast. As Austin and Spike tumbled to the side, the monster whipped the hammer around and into Spike’s back — but Christeané interjected himself with a hefty punch, blowing the hammer to metallic pieces. The Dean then jumped back, shaking his hand clean of silverish debris; the hammer he had once used to smash the metallic bugs had since been corrupted and assimilated by them, both robbing him of a weapon and granting them a new one.

“Ngh—!” Spike grunted with exertion as he blocked a fang-laden lunge from the massive beast with a fabricated shield, though the raw force of the lunge still shoved him backwards a full meter. Having just climbed back to his feet behind Spike, Austin quickly resummoned his blue and golden claymore; despite wearing energy shields, Austin’s sword touched his bare skin for but a brief moment immediately after being summoned. The shields would then eject the sword, but that brief moment of contact was enough for Austin to impart his Imperator control over it. He then began swinging the weapon through the air, hoping to drive the silver wolf beast back and give Spike a chance to recover — though the skittering of smaller bugs rushing under the beast forced Austin to focus on them instead.

In that diverted focus, Austin failed to notice the beast create another tethered hammer anchored to its chest and wielded by its tail; Christeané spotted the weapon first and lunged forward to punch off the beast’s snout, successfully landing a hit and blowing off its jaw. It reeled back, but as Christeané made to lunge after it, the beast snapped its tethered hammer down onto the Dean’s head, instantly flooring him under the incredible force of the blow. The beast then seized upon the momentum of the hammer to whirl it around toward Austin. Spike quickly lunged for his friend again, aiming to intercept the weapon, but he stumbled as the shield in his right hand melted into a silver sludge on the ground that tripped up his feet. As he went sprawling to the ground, the beast’s hammer continued on unimpeded, slamming into Austin’s stomach to launch him upwards and smash him into the stony cave ceiling. A pained yelp escaped Austin’s lips before he fell back to the ground, where a pile of silvery bugs were waiting to try and chew through his energy shielding.

On seeing this, Spike scrambled to his feet, using his raw strength to overpower the silver sludge that sought to keep him down. Quickly, he jumped toward Austin before rapidly punching away the swarm of bugs covering him, all while Christeané engaged the large, wolf-like beast to keep it distracted. “Damn it, damn it…!” Spike muttered to himself; each punch of his could easily obliterate two of the basket-ball sized bugs at once, but after each swing of his fists, it seemed that more and more bugs appeared to replace the ones that were destroyed.

A second later, the gleaming, silver blade of Austin’s claymore appeared in the air and slashed through half of the bugs piling on top of him. Seeing an opportunity, Spike grabbed the weapon out of the air and then made one horizontal slice low to the ground, just above Austin’s huddled body; the slash cleanly cut through the entire pile of silver bugs, giving Spike an opening to reach his hands through, grab Austin’s arm, and yank him out of the swarm. Once back to his feet, Austin frantically swiped at the handful of bugs that still clung to him, simulating Spike’s incredible strength to obliterate each bug in one blow. While he was doing that, Spike turned toward the remaining bugs around them, discarding Austin’s sword in favor of his own guantleted fists before punching and stomping on the metallic creatures as rapidly as he could. A few seconds later, Austin and Spike had managed to destroy the handful of bugs near them — but just as they did, Christeané was sent tumbling beyond them, having been launched by one of the wolf-beast’s ferocious blows. It snarled and advanced slowly on the three Chaotics, all while the skittering of more bugs echoed from the caves behind the beast.

Spike’s body grew tense and he reflexively fabricated a shield into his hands. He then passed a quick glance toward Austin — who returned the look. There was a moment of silence as they just looked at each other, their expressions grim. Before, whenever they had gotten themselves into deep trouble, they always knew that there was someone around to bail them out. When they fought EA in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas, they had known it was only a matter of time before the Eximius Vir would come to their rescue. When they fought EA again aboard his cruiser, they had the help of not just Twy and Sky, but also Pierce, Conrad, Phoenix, and Kestrel. At Compound Goresan, they were backed by Davídrius, Relia, and Karísah. At Orciid’kas, they were backed by Rebehka, Nil’kin, and the Black Suns. Even during the Bleeder attack on Tresnon, where both Austin and Sky had suffered injury, they all knew in the back of their minds that help and reinforcements weren’t that far away.

But Nayasis was a Tier 5 World. Less than three thousand people lived on the entire planet, and all of them were an hour’s hike from the caves that Spike and Austin now found themselves in — and that didn’t even take into account the multiple cave-ins any potential rescuers would have to bypass, or the fact that Shade might still be around, ready to sabotage any rescue attempts. Even Davídrius, Mark, Pierce, and Conrad were no where to be seen in the dark caves. And while they had Christeané with them, the Dean’s two main trump cards — his Overdrive, and his battlehammer — were both spent. Standing against the approaching swarm of silver creatures… a chilling realization set in on both Austin and Spike:

There was no help to come.

“Argh…” Christeané growled, quickly climbing back to his feet and rolling his shoulder in preparation to get back into the fight. As he settled into a combat stance, however, Spike could tell that the Dean’s posture had grown remarkably less confident than at the outset of the fight.

As if noticing Spike’s concern, Christeané flashed a confident smirk. “Don’t worry,” he replied, “we’ll be fine—!”

In that instant, the wolf beast opened its maw, revealing a laser cannon that immediately fired. A blast of energy exploded across Christeané’s energy shielding, flinging him back down the dark caves behind them. Before either Austin or Spike could react, the beast then swung its tethered hammer around, slamming Austin into the cave wall. As the beast lunged forward to close its maw around a stunned Austin, Spike was finally able to leap into action, interposing himself between the beast and Austin with a physical shield — only for the monster’s powerful jaw to clamp down on the shield, shattering it instantly. With the shield out of the way, the beast’s teeth began to sink into Spike’s energy-shielded arm; he immediately swung his free arm to punch the beast’s jaw off, but just before his fist connected, the beast fired the laser deep in its throat. The blast of energy that exploded against Spike’s arm also obliterated the front part of the beast’s face, but the force of the blast knocked Spike backwards, rendering him unable to take advantage of the opening — right as the beast whipped its hammer around once more, slamming Austin again, this time generating a bright static fuzz that swept across Austin’s body. A bright, golden fuzz that signaled only one thing:

Austin’s shields were down.

“No, AUSTIN!!” Spike roared, quickly scrambling back to his feet and lunging for the beast — but as its maw quickly reformed and it went to lunge for Austin, Spike realized that he was just too far to close the distance into melee range. His only option was to fabricate a shield and throw it at the beast, but it had already displayed its ability to rapidly take control of any matter he threw at it. A thrown shield could delay the beast for a second, but what about the next? Or the one after that? In constantly fabricating shields to protect Austin, just how much matter would he end up feeding to the beast?

A split second passed as a minute, Spike’s mind racing for a solution — but none came. As the beast’s maw slowly inched closer to Austin, as Spike’s outstretched hand slowly closed the distance between him and the beast, as Austin’s panicked eyes met Spike’s for only a second — the only feeling Spike could determine for certain was a helpless wrenching in the pit of his stomach… the feeling that he might just be witnessing the end. No… this can’t be it! he thought bitterly, Austin…!

But a moment later, he could feel an odd surge of power — a well of strength sweeping through his body. Reflexively, he held his right arm out, preparing to fabricate a shield for throwing… and as he did, he felt an impulse overcome him, and his mouth begin moving ahead of his brain.

“OVERDRIVE: GUARDIAN!!” Spike bellowed, fabricating a massive shield into hand as he did. A surge of Chaos Energy swept across his body, and his head throbbed, but he put those sensations squarely out of mind as he hurled the fabricated shield harder than he had ever managed before. In an instant, the shield slammed into the silver beast’s face, impacting with such sheer kinetic energy that its head and the top of its torso were blown to smithereens. What remained of its body reeled back, already beginning to reform itself from the bugs that skittered up to it and the shield that Spike had thrown—

The beast faltered for a second as silvery tendrils extended out towards Spike’s thrown shield, sweeping across it like the feelers of an insect… but never actually penetrating it. Spike instantly seized on the opening to lunge forward, fabricating yet another shield in his hands to use as a bludgeon against the beast’s beheaded body. Quickly, a malformed maw appeared out of the remnants of the beast’s torso and clamped down on Spike’s shield, succeeding for a moment in holding him in place — but no more than that. Unlike before, the beast’s bite failed to shatter the shield. In fact… it seemed that it was failing to gain any control over the shield at all.

“RAGH!!” With a roar of exertion, Spike pushed forward, successfully knocking the malformed beast onto its back. He then fabricated another shield into his hands before tossing it to his left, just in time for Christeané to leap forwards, grab the shield out of the air, and begin using it as a massive cudgel to smash the injured wolf beast and surrounding bugs to bits. Spike and Christeané both tore into the metallic horde, their shielded blows driving back the creatures… while never once did either of the shields begin turning silver from Nanocreature corruption.

As soon as the immediate vicinity was clear, Spike fabricated one more shield — a massive tower shield, twice as large as him in every dimension. Using his Forcetechnic strength, he successfully lodged the gigantic shield into the cave floor and walls, forming a makeshift wall. Skittering could still be heard from the other side, as well as multiple clangs as the creatures attempted to punch their way through. But no matter what they did, the shield held.

“…Whoa…” Austin muttered, taking advantage of the brief lull to catch his breath. He then turned to look at Spike in surprise. “That was… did you just use an Overdrive?”

Spike looked at Austin, and then back at the shield barrier he had created. While the shield itself remained unwavering, the rocks all around the shield were slowly turning a metallic silver — so Spike quickly fabricated several more shields, lodging each one against the wall, ceiling, and ground to create a makeshift shelter.

“Ha ha…” Christeané chuckled, though his laugh carried with it an exhausted, desperate undertone. He stepped up to one of the fabricated shields and knocked on it once before glancing back at Spike. “Indestructible shields, huh? Now that’s what we call a useful Overdrive!”

“I… don’t know what happened,” Spike muttered. “One moment, everythin’ seemed hopeless, but then…”

“A Chaotic unlocks their Overdrive in a moment of distress, when facing one of their deepest fears…” Christeané replied, and then slapped Spike on the back. “Damn, you’ve really saved us!”

“Wait…” Austin gave Christeané a doubtful look. “You didn’t orchestrate all of this just so we’d unlock our Overdrives, did you?!”

“Hell no!” Christeané retorted. “‘Orchestrating’ an Overdrive unlock is incredibly, irresponsibly dangerous. Not to mention that it tends to create weaker Overdrives, overall.” Upon hearing the echo in his own voice, the Dean grunted in displeasure. “And it looks like mine just wore off… alright, Spike, you’re our ticket out of here.”

“There’s still a swarm of bugs out there, though…” Spike responded.

“Yes, but just look,” Christeané urged as he gestured at the shield shelter around them. Not a single one of Spike’s shields bore the telltale silver streaks of corruption, despite all of his crafted shields earlier falling within seconds. “With this, we can force our way through. If we go forward, we should find the nest — and from there, we’ll find the others, a way out, or both. And your shields are the key to get us there unharmed!”

“What about Austin?” Spike nodded toward his friend. “He just lost his energy shields!”

“Well, Pallan said that we’re immune to the Nanocreatures… right?” Austin smiled uneasily, and then clapped his hands, using his Imperator powers to begin hovering over the ground. “…That said, I’m not too keen on testing that, so, uh… I’ll just hover behind you guys, if that’s okay.”

“I was about to suggest just that. After all, even if you’re immune to corruption, they can still hurt you,” Christeané remarked, and then pounded his fists together eagerly. “Now remember, Overdrives usually wear off after ten minutes or so, and you can only string together two or three before you have to start worrying about the Cooldown or Berserk states. So we only have 20, maybe 30 minutes to get out of here! You got that, Spike?”

“Aye!” Spike replied, and then stepped forward to grab the handles of the giant shield serving as the main barrier forward. “I’ll block those damn bugs!”

“That’s the spirit!” Christeané exclaimed as Spike dislodged the shield from the cave walls. The metallic skittering noises behind the shield promptly increased in intensity, as if in anticipation — but Spike gave the creatures no quarter as he charged forward with the shield ahead of him, scraping against the ground and walls as he shoved a path down the dark cave — a path that Austin and Christeané readily followed.

---

*

“Overdrive: Speed Break!”

“Overdrive: Speed Break!”

After renewing their Overdrives for the second time in a row, Davídrius and Pierce dashed forward, crossing the space in between them and the massive metallic dragon in a fraction of a second. Blasts of laser fire exploded in their path as the dragon attempted to stop them, but both Velocitechnics managed to dodge around the beast’s aim, allowing Pierce to sink his summoned blade into the creature’s right two paws — while Davídrius sliced through the left two with Conrad’s glaive. Its feet torn from its legs, the dragon began to collapse to the ground, releasing a deafening roar from its maw as it did. As it fell, however, it flapped its massive wings, generating an incredible blast of wind that lifted its body into the air while its severed legs all transformed into laser cannons that aimed at Pierce and Davídrius.

Davídrius immediately chucked his glaive at the dragon in an effort to gain its attention. The unfathomably sharp blade of the glaive ripped a clean hole straight through the dragon’s torso, at which point the beast turned all of its laser cannons on the Dean and fired repeatedly, forcing him to focus on dodging. Pierce seized on the opening to leap high into the air toward the dragon and slice at its wings, managing to tear one of them off of the beast’s back; however, the severed wing promptly transformed into a massive hawk and dove towards Pierce, grabbing one of his arms in its talons before whipping him around and straight at the dragon’s torso.

“Shit—!” Pierce scowled as he spied the dragon’s form, brief flashes of his encounter with the silver dragon on Oriciid’kas running through his mind. In an effort to prevent himself from being swallowed again, he threw out his blade in front of him, and then tightly gripped the handle at the end of the blade’s tether before violently whipping it around. The speed at which he was able to yank the blade through the air formed a virtual wall of blades that successfully tore a hole through the dragon’s body, allowing Pierce to sail straight through — only for a laser blast from below to launch him into the roof of the cavern.

As Pierce began to fall back to the cavern floor, helpless in regards to altering his own trajectory, the dragon, the hawk, and all of the other pieces that had been sliced off the beast all turned to aim a number of laser cannons at Pierce. Seeing this, Davídrius immediately leaped up at the falling Velocitechnic, clearing the distance between them with immense speed — and then dealing Pierce a swift kick, so as to quickly and suddenly alter both of their trajectories. The force of the kick spiked Pierce into the ground almost instantly, while Davídrius sent himself flying a bit to the right, both of them evading the dragon’s laser blasts.

With Davídrius falling to the ground and Pierce recovering from the Dean’s kick, the dragon moved to rapidly consolidate all of its disparate pieces. Its sliced off paws reunited with its stumped legs and the hawk transformed back into a wing on the dragon’s back, all while taking control of nearby rock and stone to create new nanomachines and fill in any gaps. Barely a second passed before the beast appeared as good as new, except this time, it extended the length of its tail — at the end of which it created yet another laser cannon.

With lasers in both its maw and on its tail, the dragon moved the two cannons to independently target Pierce and Davídrius before repeatedly firing, forcing the two Velocitechnics to began evading its blasts. Pierce was focused entirely on dodging, but Davídrius managed to slowly wind his way closer and closer to the silver dragon’s legs… only for the beast’s powerful wings to beat once more, sending it skyward again.

But just as it did, the thundering crack of shattering rock filled the cavern. Stony debris exploded from the far side of the massive space, followed almost immediately by a massive shield flying through the air and slamming into the dragon, thus staggering it back to the ground. The dragon turned to look at the new hole in the cavern wall, though was scarcely able to react before Christeané appeared in the air over it, having bounded across the entire cavern.

“Overdrive:… Omni Crush!!” Christeané shouted just as he reached the dragon. In the instant after the words left his mouth, an invisible forced crushed the dragon into the ground below, flattening its hind legs and almost half of its torso into a pancake-thin slice of pressure-destroyed nanomachines. As Christeané dropped to the ground, Spike landed just next to him, already in the process of rapidly fabricating and throwing shields to assault the broken dragon.

“Damn! About fuckin’ time!” Davídrius remarked as he sped over to Christeané’s side.

“Figures we’d have to come to your rescue,” Christeané replied, holding out his right fist for Davídrius to tap with his own. “A Critical Infection, though, huh?”

“Why are there so many of them?!” questioned Austin, who hovered in the air above the group with his sword floating near him. “Here, Oriciid’kas…”

“A question for later,” Davídrius insisted. “More importantly, this thing is too tough. We ain’t the right kind of Chaotics to take it down on our own!”

“Every time I slice through it, it just pulls itself back together,” Pierce pointed out after dashing to the group’s side. “What the hell are we supposed to do, here? Fucking, bring down the roof of the cavern?”

“And trap us all inside?” Conrad retorted, having approached the group as well — though he remained completely invisible.

“It might be our only option,” Christeané replied. “At least in a cavern of this size, it should be easier to maneuver around a collapsing roof. Might even be our ticket out of here. We just need to keep the dragon in one spot.”

“Are you serious?!” Austin questioned.

“It’s all we’ve got,” Davídrius said, and then glanced toward the metallic dragon; it hadn’t yet created enough nanomachines to return to its full size, but it was clearly on its way to recovering.

“Why not just have Christeané do that crush move again?” Conrad asked.

“It only happens when I activate my Overdrive — which I can’t do again until it wears off,” Christeané replied. “We can’t rely on it. More importantly — Davídrius, Pierce, Spike, the three of you should try to keep that dragon in one place! Austin, you’re with me — we’re bringing this place down!”

“Oh, I really don’t like this—!” Austin responded, but was interrupted as the metallic dragon let loose a deafening, thundering roar. The back of its throat began to glow, a clear sign of a charging laser; in response, Spike fabricated a massive shield and planted it on the ground in front of the group. A second later, the dragon fired its maw laser, hitting Spike’s shield with an intense blast of energy — yet the shield escaped completely unscathed.

“A’ight, people, let’s do this! Go, go, go!!” Davídrius shouted, waving off Christeané and Austin before turning on his heel to dash off to the side. He and Pierce spread out across the cavern floor while Spike repeatedly fabricated small disc-shaped shields and threw them at the dragon, pelting it across its reformed torso and limbs. Amidst the attacks, Christeané and Austin disappeared into the darkness of the cavern; Austin left one of his flashlights behind with Conrad, who now wielded three as he attempted to keep the dragon illuminated for the sake of fighting it.

Forced to begin defending itself before it could fully recover, the metallic dragon now appeared notably smaller than it did before, as it chose to maintain its overall shape instead of missing a leg. With its smaller size came smaller laser cannons and lesser reach — but also an increase in speed, as it managed to dodge out of the way of a glaive-slash from Davídrius. Pierce quickly followed with a slash of his own, tearing through the right flank of the dragon’s lower torso; the beast reared back in response before slamming both of its front paws down on top of Pierce — or at least, where Pierce had been a second prior. He just barely managed to dodge the dragon’s pounce, but in so doing was thrown off-balance, rendering him little able to evade as the dragon lunged toward him with its maw wide open.

A second later, however, a large shield suddenly lodged itself inside the dragon’s mouth, followed by Davídrius running up its back and slamming his foot down on top of its head. The force of the Dean’s kick forced the dragon’s maw to clamp shut, causing the shield lodged within to shear off half of the beast’s snout. But as the metallic chunk fell to the ground, a half-dozen spikes suddenly manifested on the top of the dragon’s head and shot upwards, flinging Davídrius into the air; the dragon then clapped its wings together behind it, smashing Davídrius mid-air — though before it could attempt to attack again, Pierce leaped toward Davídrius to deflect him in much the same way that Davídrius had kicked Pierce earlier to help them both evade an attack. A barrage of disc shields from Spike prevented the dragon from attacking any further as the two Velocitechnics fell back to the ground, at which point they dashed back to the dragon’s side to slice into it once more.

CRAAACK!!

“Holy—!” Spike shouted in surprise as an echoing, thundering crack reverberated throughout the cavern. He quickly looked up, expecting to see a collapsing roof — but a second later, he realized that the sound had actually come from the ground. As soon as he had that realization, another crack echoed through the cavern as the stony floor shattered, followed by a large, metallic silver spike exploding out of the ground underneath the dragon. The beast appeared to be impaled and was even held aloft for a second, but it then seemed to melt together into an amorphous blob atop the spike before descending down to the ground… where a massive pool of silvery, metallic goo could be seen surrounding the spike under the rocks it had broken through.

“…Well that looks like a problem,” Conrad remarked.

“No shit—!“ Pierce responded with a scowl, only to be interrupted by another loud crack, this one from the ceiling above. Conrad quickly moved one of his flashlight beams to inspect the cracked ceiling, noting that Austin was manipulating a floating rock that Christeané stood upon while slicing into the cavern roof with Austin’s sword. With Christeané’s strength and the incredible sharpness of Austin’s blade, the Dean was soon able to shatter the ceiling, causing a deep, intense rumble to spread through the entire cavern — and pieces of rocks and debris to begin falling to the ground.

Seeing this, Pierce made to grab Conrad and leave, but stopped as a number of silver tendrils exploded out of the pool of metallic goo in the center of the cavern. Each tendril shot upwards, batting away a few pieces of falling debris before anchoring themselves on the ceiling — an act that slowly dampened the rumbling felt throughout the cavern. Realizing that the nanomachines were attempting to stabilize the collapsing cavern, Pierce quickly pivoted to focus on the tendrils, leaping through the air toward one and slicing through it with his summoned blade. As his blade slashed the tendril in half, he noticed Davídrius already doing the same, while Spike was beginning to throw his indestructible shields to sever several more. Within seconds, half of the tendrils had been broken; with each broken tendril, another reached out of the pool of nanomachines to try and establish structural support for the cavern, but between Pierce and Davídrius’s speed, Spike’s un-corruptible shields, and Austin’s claymore above, the Nanocreatures remained unable to establish full support.

With another thundering crack, the cavern ceiling began to collapse, with massive chunks of rock and stone falling over the silver goo. Pierce and Davídrius quickly dashed away, dodging around the falling rocks so as to not get trapped. Conrad rendered himself visible just long enough for Pierce to spot him and pick him up, while Spike bounded out of the zone of the cave-in as well. But as the group made way for the rocks, a massive hand reached out of the metallic goo, followed by another — and then the gigantic snout of the silver dragon, reformed once more in an attempt to blow away the falling stone above it.

As its giant maw opened, directing a massive laser cannon straight upwards, Spike quickly fabricated more shields to throw at the beast — only for a dozen small tendrils to emerge from the goo, each just barely managing to bat away Spike’s shields before they hit the dragon’s mouth. Davídrius responded by hefting Conrad’s glaive and then chucking it at the beast, but the tendrils grabbed the weapon out of the air by the pole before dragging it down into the silvery depths. “Tch…!” the Dean scowled as he watched the dragon’s glowing maw, its laser cannon charging for an immense blast that would surely obliterate the cavern roof and prevent the collapse from doing any harm.

But then, a second later, there was a glint of light — a small flash of light reflecting off of the blade of an extravagant green and silver halberd, blasting through the cave ceiling above before embedding its impossibly sharp spear-tip right in the back of the dragon’s throat. A burst of energy blasted the halberd back into the air as the energy gathered in the beast’s newly broken laser cannon discharged into its own body, rendering it unable to stop the cavern ceiling as it finally collapsed. A cacophony of stone, debris, and dirt cascaded down into the cavern, fully covering the metallic dragon and the pool of silver goo in which it sat as thundering noise echoed and reverberated through the cavern, staggering all of the Chaotics through sheer volume alone.

And then, after several seconds of loud cracks and the echoes of shattering rock… everything fell quiet. Tentatively, Pierce and Conrad turned to look at the results of the cave-in. Sure enough, Christeané had managed to shatter the roof in such a way that it only collapsed in the area around the metallic dragon, leaving the outskirts of the cavern relatively unscathed. In the middle was a massive mound of dirt and stone several dozen meters high, while blinding sunlight shone down through the collapsed roof, revealing a solid dozen meters of stone in between the top of the cavern and the world outside.

“Oh, thank god… you’re all okay!”

Pierce looked up at the top of the rocky mound. Bright sunlight at first forced him to squint, as his eyes adjusted from spending time underground — but as soon as he could see, he was able to make out the giant silhouette of Mark, standing at the top of the debris pile.

“Where’d you go?” Conrad questioned as Pierce leaped to Mark’s side.

“I somehow managed to not get trapped by the cave-in — well, the first one,” Mark explained, looking around as Davídrius, Christeané, Spike, and Austin also converged on his position. “I tried to pursue the woman who attacked us, but… she got away from me.”

“Fuck…” Davídrius swore.

“Well, she’s a Visitechnic, right? Can’t really blame anyone for losing her,” Christeané pointed out.

“Oof…” Austin took a deep breath and looked around at the mound of collapsed stone. “…Ha ha! Oh man… we lived! Somehow, we lived!”

“Was still way too close for my likin’…” Spike muttered.

“Yeah, and it isn’t over yet,” Christeané replied. “The Critical Infection is still down there, under this mound of debris. We’ve bought ourselves time, but without other types of Chaotics, we can’t destroy the infection for good. It’ll recover soon.”

“Then what the hell are we waiting for? Let’s get out of here!” Piece said.

“We need to make sure the people at the settlement can all evacuate, first,” Christeané urged.

“We also need to get what we’ve learned here back to Tresnon,” Davídrius insisted. “The Bleeders somehow got to another fucking planet! That means they’ve got way more resources or connections than we thought!”

“How many people need to stay behind to help with evac?” Mark questioned, turning toward Christeané.

“Realistically…” the Dean mused, “…if we carried the Gate directly to the Nayasis settlement, then that would massively speed up evac. At that point, and after getting NSD aid, I could handle this all on my own. The rest of you can head back to Tresnon.”

“You sure?” Spike asked uneasily.

“Don’t worry about me. I may not know as much about the infection as literally any of the other Deans, but I’ve still faced off with Critical Infections before,” Christeané declared. “I’ll be fine. The rest of you, get out of here — make sure Tresnon is safe.” He then glanced toward Davídrius. “And make sure that Rebehka and Kaoné hear about what happened, here.”

“Tch. You don’t need to tell me that,” Davídrius retorted, and then crouched down to leap out of the dark cavern and into the sunlit world beyond, with everyone else quick to follow. “Alright, y’all, let’s get the hell out of here!”