A thunderous rumbling filled the air and trembled the ground, rocking the foundations of the Bleeder base as Liask charged straight through the walls of the interior buildings. Her superior strength and durability as a Forcetechnic allowed her to punch through the stone walls as easily as paper, quickly exposing the surprised Bleeders left within — who she readily crushed with the debris from her forceful entry. As soon as she did, however, the stone wall opposite from her exploded inwards, showering her with dozens of shards of sharp stone… followed swiftly by gunfire. Bullets and lasers alike found their mark across her chest; none of them were able to pierce through her Forcetechnic durability, but the surprise and force were enough to stagger her all the same, preventing her from reacting as the stone debris all around her began to rise into the air and coalesce into a handful of sharp spears.

Just as the spears shot forward with an intent to impale Liask, three translucent black barriers intercepted them, harmlessly deflecting all three. In that brief moment of respite, Liask shook herself off and lunged backwards out the hole she had originally entered through, using the stirred up dust cloud to mask her presence as she exited to the open base grounds and rejoined Obra. In the chaos of their attack, however, many of the base’s lights had flashed on, dispelling the nighttime darkness that the two attackers had used for cover. Gunfire quickly followed Liask as a handful of gun-toting Bleeders spilled out of the main barracks across the base and joined the defense, prompting Liask to scoop up Obra in her arms and bound away in an attempt to carry him out of harm’s way.

Mid-bound, a spire of stone exploded out of the ground to smack Liask out of the air, sending her and Obra sprawling to the ground. Obra quickly wrapped himself in barriers as a reflexive defense, just in time to save himself from a flame bath that followed. Liask staggered to her feet, her clothes set aflame from the fires around her as she turned her attention to the Bleeder Geotechnic and Pyrotechnic that were leading the defense. As soon as she spotted them, the Geotechnic erected a protective stone barrier and the Pyrotechnic launched themselves upwards, positioning themselves right in between Liask and one of the base’s massive lights. Liask reflexively squinted in the light, preventing her from reacting as the Geotechnic raised several chucks of stone to launch at her — only to be deflected at the last second by Obra’s barriers. The hail of gunfire quickly turned on Obra, however, forcing him to put all of his focus into maintaining a protective barrier for himself and leaving Liask to defend herself.

As the non-Chaotic Bleeders kept Obra pinned, both the Geotechnic and the Pyrotechnic moved in on Liask, with the Geotechnic raising a stone cage around her that the Pyrotechnic filled with flames. Liask easily punched her way out of the cage and stumbled forwards, before crouching down and leaping up at the flying Pyrotechnic — only for her target to dodge to the left, causing her to sail past harmlessly. A blast of fire rocketed her upwards, followed quickly by a giant slab of rock appearing over her and slamming her back to the ground, where a sharp spire of stone was waiting. Liask quickly tucked in her arms and shoulders, managing to mostly miss the spire as she slammed into the ground; yet it still grazed her back and left shoulder, the raw speed of her descent generating enough force for the sharp spire to slash her skin. “Agh…!” she grunted in pain, reflexively grasping her wounded shoulder with her right hand as she attempted to fend off an onslaught of rocky projectiles with her left.

“Chaos Control.”

And then, Liask found herself utterly incapable of moving, her body frozen partway between standing up and blocking the Geotechnic’s attacks. She struggled fiercely to move even one inch, but despite her incredible strength, her body simply refused to listen to her.

“And just who the hell do we got here, huh?”

A groggy male voice reached Liask from her side, but she was unable to turn her head to see who was speaking. His words were enough for her to realize that the Bleeders had all stopped shooting, however; each of the gun-wielding Bleeders had lowered their weapons and adopted relaxed stances, as if assuming the fight was already over.

And then, she felt a hand on her chin — followed by someone yanking her head around. What met her gaze was an older, skinny man with gaunt cheeks, who looked down at Liask as if he were doing little more than inspecting produce. Liask wished no more than to reach out and smash his face, but she couldn’t even control her body enough to glare at him.

“…Nasty scar…” the man mused while staring pointedly at Liask’s mouth and neck. “…Ugh. Well, some folks are into that, I guess. Either way, you’re a Chaotic, so I’m sure we’ll get somethin’ for ya.” He stepped back, his attention shifting to somewhere behind Liask — toward Obra, she could only assume. “…Only two of ya, though, huh? And ya got past the guards, too. Boss ain’t gonna be happy about that—“

Mid-sentence, a hole appeared straight through the side of the man’s forehead, with the bullet that had created it driving into the ground just to the side of Liask. Now lifeless, the man’s body began to crumple to the ground — only for Ralak to appear from the darkness and shoulder-check it with her exposed shoulder, seizing control of the corpse with her Imperator powers and whipping it around to chuck it at the surprised gun-toting Bleeders. Both the Bleeder Geotechnic and Pyrotechnic made to attack her, but before either got the chance, a well-placed bullet from Saito and Hackett each brought both of their newly lifeless corpses to the ground. The two officers then turned their guns on the gun-wielding Bleeders, only to find that Ralak was already upon them, having used her Imperator powers to take control of one of them and force him to fire his gun on the others. In the brief chaos that followed, only two of the Bleeders remained — and before they could turn their guns on Ralak, Hackett downed them both with a well-placed burst of gunfire.

“What the…” Liask muttered, having regained control of her body since the death of the gaunt-faced man. She looked back at Obra, who was climbing back to his feet himself, before turning to look at Ralak in confusion.

“You two okay?”

She then looked to the side as Saito approached. “…Who…?” she questioned uneasily.

“We’re with Ralak — from Tresnon,” Saito replied. “Don’t worry, we’re here to help. But we need to get the two of you out of here until we can—“

The thundering rumble of stone walls exploding outwards interrupted Saito as a giant wave of water surged forth and knocked Ralak back, accompanied by incredible electrical strikes that blasted Hackett away. Liask quickly grabbed Saito to steady him against the waters, bracing to prevent the crashing wave from washing them away. As soon as the wave passed, both turned their attention toward its origin: a now-destroyed corner of the barracks building, where a clearly furious tan-skinned woman with fiery red hair now stood.

“What the FUCK is goin’ on here?!” she roared, a ring of water several meters in diameter forming around her. Streaks of lightning flashed through the ring of water and occasionally leaped between it and the surrounding terrain, all while the woman surveyed the damaged base with an irate glare. “…Fuckin’… Strén leaves for one dirt-damned day,” she growled, “alright, you fucks! Which of you wanna scream first, huh—?!”

A massive blow to the side of her head sent her staggering to the side — but unlike the Bleeders before who had instantly died to a headshot, she remained alive, protected by the tell-tale golden flaring of energy shields. In a furious rage, she snapped her attention to the direction the blow had come from, her eyes quickly settling on Captain Travis, positioned atop the roof of the tallest building in the base; with a guttural snarl, the woman lunged forward, firing off a fierce blast of lightning toward Travis and blowing up the top of the building he was standing on. She didn’t wait for the resulting crumbling dust to settle before firing off another several lightning strikes, completely ignoring Saito as he attempted to distract her with gunfire. As she made to strike the building once more, however, the electricity failed to manifest, and the ring of water that surrounded her lost cohesion and spilled onto the ground.

“What? The fuck—?” the woman growled, her confused glare snapping to the small device that rolled up to her. Immediately recognizing it as a CENT field generator, the woman lunged backwards in an attempt to escape its effective radius — but before she could, Hackett tackled her to the ground. The Bleeder immediately began fiercely struggling, but without her Chaotic abilities to aid her, Hackett was easily able to leverage her own larger size and superior strength to pin the disabled Chaotic to the ground.

“Fuck… you’re a feisty one,” Hackett muttered with a scowl as the Bleeder continued thrashing in a futile attempt to defeat the Major’s pin. “…Now if only you could understand me, so I could tell you to sit still!”

“Nrgh! Fucking outsiders!” the woman responded with a growl, glaring up at Hackett. “The fuck are you doin’ here? You wanna get Treséd under your thumb, too?!”

Hackett simply shook her head in irritation before glancing back at Saito, who was keeping a careful distance, and Ralak, who was tending to Liask and Obra.

“…Looks like she’s handled,” Saito muttered, and then activated his comms. “Captain, you alright?”

A moment of silence passed. Then, «…ugh. Yeah, I’m fine,» Travis replied over the comms. «That blast disoriented me pretty good, but it was nothing my shields couldn’t handle.»

“Good to hear,” Saito responded, and then glanced back at the Bleeder Hackett was currently pinning. “…I think it’s safe to say we have the boss, but we still need to secure the base. Travis, you and I will handle that. Hackett, make sure she doesn’t go anywhere.”

“Understood,” the Major replied.

“Ragh!!” the Bleeder snarled in response. “…Y’all think you’re gonna get one over on me? Over the Bleeders?! Think again, you fuckwits! Armor, activate immediate destruct! Confirm!!”

“What—?!” Hackett exclaimed in surprise, only for an incredible explosion underneath her to throw her a few dozen meters into the air. An incredible, deafening roar and a blinding flash of light accompanied the explosion, forcing everyone nearby to divert their gazes and stagger in pain. Eventually, the roar and the smoke subsided, interrupted only by a thud and a pained grunt as Hackett fell back to the ground, her armor protecting her from the brunt of the explosion.

«…That didn’t sound good,» came Travis’s voice over the comms.

“Can it, Captain…” Saito retorted as he looked out over the results of the explosion. Not a single piece of the Bleeder woman nor her armor could be seen; in their place was now a massive crater, slowly filling with debris as the surrounding buildings collapsed into it. Hackett slowly stumbled to her feet a short distance away — though was then plunged into darkness as half of the base’s lights suddenly shut down. “…MacTavish?” Saito quickly questioned.

«Uh, wh-whatever that was, it, uh, k-killed some of the power…» the Researcher quickly replied.

“What the hell—?“ Hackett paused for a second to cough before turning toward Saito with an incredulous look on her face. “…What the hell was that?”

“Some kinda self-destruct…” Ralak responded. “I heard from Davídrius that some of the Bleeders had self-destructs. I guess that’s what happened, here…”

“Sure serves the bastards right,” Obra declared as he approached Saito and Hackett alongside Liask. “Great jo—!”

“You, shut up,” Ralak snapped. “Do you have any idea how fucking stupid it was to attack a Bleeder base all on your own?”

“Wh-what?” Obra drew back in surprise, only for his face to then scrounge up in anger. “But you just did the same thing!”

“No… Ralak’s right, Obra,” Liask interjected, her expression sullen. “If they hadn’t stepped in… we would’ve lost. We did lose.”

“And against the Bleeders, you’d’ve lost a lot more than just a fight!” Ralak pressed. “Do the two of you have any idea how fucking badly things could’ve gone for y’all?!”

Obra and Liask exchanged a glance, and then looked back to Ralak sheepishly.

“Well, at least they’re fine, now,” Saito stated, looking over the two students before turning toward Hackett and getting on the comms again. “Hackett, Travis, I want the two of you to secure the base. Capture any stragglers if you can, but kill them if you have to. MacTavish, see if you can find anything in their computer systems. I’ll stay here to watch over Ralak and the students.”

«Understood,» came Travis and MacTavish’s replies.

“Be careful, Colonel,” Hackett said as she grasped her gun and rushed off to inspect the rest of the base.

“Tch… ‘watch over us’?” Obra bristled and glared at Saito. “What, you think you’re better than us?”

“They’re a trained military squad. Of course they’re better than y’all,” Ralak declared. “Let this be a lesson: just ‘cause you’re a Chaotic doesn’t mean you can do anythin’ you want! It doesn’t mean you’re invincible! You still need to be fucking careful!”

“O… okay, sheesh…” Obra drew back from Ralak in surprise. “B-but still…”

“Kid, you should listen to your teacher,” Saito said. “At the end of the day, all it takes to take down a Chaotic is a gun. You might need a CENT field, too, but even those aren’t terribly hard to come by.”

“B-but…” Obra looked between Ralak and Saito in distress. “We… we just wanted to find Minilas! Our friend! No one was doin’ anythin’ about it, can you blame us for tryin’ to, ourselves?!”

“You dumbass,” Ralak retorted as she rapped Obra upside his head. “What the hell do you think we’re doin’ here, huh?”

“…W-well…”

“They’re right, Obra…” Liask commented dejectedly, while sitting on the ground and staring up at the cloudless night skies above. “…It was pretty stupid to assume that we knew better or could do better than the Defense Force, or Ralak…”

“That doesn’t change the fact that Minilas is still out there!” Obra countered. “Even if we left everythin’ to the Defense Force, she… I can’t just sit around while the Bleeders still got her, you know?” He then turned to Ralak. “Did you really expect us to just sit around and do nothin’?!”

“I hoped you would…” Ralak muttered, only to sigh a moment later. “…But you’re Tresédians. For better or worse, takin’ things into your own hands is somethin’ most Tresédians seem hard-wired to want.”

A moment of silence passed as Ralak pursed her lips in thought, all while staring at Obra and Liask. Saito stood to the side, eying them through the corner of his eye as he cautiously watched the rest of the base for any signs of activity.

“…Even so,” Ralak eventually continued. “While I ain’t surprised you’re out here… that don’t change the fact that what you did was fuckin’ stupid as dirt. How the hell would it’ve helped your friend if the two of y’all just got captured, too, huh?”

“…Tch…” Obra snorted in frustration, but had no other response.

“Y’all got damn lucky. There ain’t many Chaotics who can attack a Bleeder base like this and make it out just fine. Even I…”

As Ralak continued to lecture the two students, Saito turned his attention to surveying the wrecked base. It wasn’t too large by any means, with only a handful of buildings standing within the outer walls — and most of those buildings had been destroyed in the chaos of the battle. Of all the buildings, one stood out to him the most: a large hangar-like structure, standing apart from the rest of the base. It bore some battle damage, but appeared to have escaped the fight relatively unscathed. Apart from that building, however, the base appeared almost completely wrecked.

A concerned frown crossed the Colonel’s face; the entire point of raiding the base had been to find another lead on the Bleeders’ activities, but with the base in its current state, he wasn’t sure how possible that would be. If that woman who killed herself is to be believed, then Strén was here, recently, the Colonel mused, so he can’t be far from here, surely. But a day’s worth of travel across a wasteland as vast as Treséd, without any knowledge of what kind of transportation he took, or what direction he went in… that’s barely a lead at all. Maybe that hangar will show us something, but…

«Uh, C-Colonel…»

“Yes, MacTavish?” Saito acknowledged over the comms.

«I… I think I, um, f-found something…» came MacTavish’s timid reply.

“What is it?”

«Well, s-some of the systems were, um, d-destroyed in that fight, but, uh… f-from what I can tell f-from the logs, i-it seems like the Bleeders, um… had a lot of c-captives here, recently. Like, um… a few hundred.»

“A few hundred…?” Saito echoed incredulously. “What for?”

«I… d-don’t know. All I can f-find is, um, that they were recently t-taken, um, o-out to the coast. The Tresédian coast. T-to the northeast.»

“How recently?”

«Um… y-yesterday. …B-by aircraft, too…»

“Yesterday? Damn. Was Strén with them?”

«Uh… i-it doesn’t say. I-it does give a location, though…»

“Write it down, now. How far is it?”

«…T-too far to get in our, um, car. I-in one day, at least. I-it’s across the mountains, too…»

«Good thing we got lucky, then!» Travis’s voice threaded its way into the conversation. «Colonel, you won’t believe what I found in that hangar!»

“Did you find a plane?” Saito questioned.

«…Colonel, you’ll believe what I found in that hangar!»

“Cut the jokes, Travis. Can it fly?”

«Ha ha, sorry, sir. As for if it can fly, well, it sure looks air-worthy. It looks like it’s plugged in, though, I guess it’s charging…? Yeah, it says here it doesn’t have enough charge or fuel to fly. It’s still getting fuel from an auto-refueler, but its charging was interrupted…»

“Because of the battle…” Saito muttered, eying the shut down lights across the base — and then the several that were still active, bathing half of the base in dim light. “…Clearly, there’s still some power, though. MacTavish, do you think you could find a way to plug the aircraft into the intact circuits?”

«Um… m-maybe. P-probably?» the Researcher replied. «I-it, um, m-might take some time…»

“Get on it, ASAP. If we’re a day away from stopping Strén and rescuing a hundred hostages, then I’ll be damned if we let this opportunity slip!”

«O-Okay…»

“Travis, help her out. Make sure nothing happens to that aircraft.”

«Understood, sir!» the Captain replied.

“Good…” Saito breathed an apprehensive sigh, and then turned back to look at Ralak, who appeared to have wrapped up her lecture. Liask and Obra simply sat in front of her, both wearing dejected expressions.

“…Did you find anythin’?” Ralak questioned as the Colonel approached.

“We did,” he replied, and then looked doubtfully down at Liask and Obra. “…It sounds like the Bleeders had a lot of hostages here, and left with them just yesterday for the coast.”

“We missed them by a day…?” Liask responded in surprise.

“Sounds like it,” Saito said. “If we want to keep on the trail, then we’ll have to leave as soon as we can — probably early tomorrow morning. Which means…”

“Don’t worry about them, Colonel,” Ralak replied. “I’ll make sure they get back to Tresnon safely.”

“What?!” Obra exclaimed indignantly, “no fuckin’ way! You’re sayin’ we’re this close to findin’ our friend, and you wanna send us back?!”

“There’s no guarantee your friend is among the hostages,” Ralak countered.

“But, if she is…” Liask jumped to her feet and gave Ralak a pleading look. “Please, let us go with you! We’ll even stay out of the fightin’, we just wanna see if Minilas is okay!”

Ralak gave Liask a doubtful look, and then turned toward Saito, as if to ask for his opinion. Upon noticing this, he released a wary sigh.

“…Do either of you kids know how to use a gun?” the Colonel questioned.

“Uh…” Liask and Obra exchanged a glance before Liask admitted sheepishly, “not… really…”

“Of course you don’t…” Saito muttered. “…Still. A Barriertechnic and a Forcetechnic, right? Well, you can at least protect yourselves if you find yourself in a fight, but…” He looked back to Ralak. “…Well, Ralak, if Strén really is there, then having you along would certainly help. I have a feeling that he’ll be harder to take down than anyone here, especially if he has energy shielding of his own.”

“If I go with you, then what about them?” Ralak questioned.

“Well, that depends…” The Colonel turned to look at Liask and Obra again. “If we asked you nicely to return to Compound Tresnon on your own, would you? Answer honestly.”

“No,” Obra declared, without even a moment of hesitation.

“I thought so,” Saito deadpanned. “Next question: can you two promise to not get involved in any of our fights? The last thing I want is to accidentally shoot one of you because you couldn’t control yourselves.”

Liask and Obra exchanged another glance. “…We’ll try our best,” Liask replied.

“That isn’t a ‘yes’,” Saito countered.

“C’mon,” Obra pleaded. “I mean, just think — if there really are hostages, then you’ll need someone to look after ‘em while you guys and Ralak fight the Bleeders, right? Liask and I can do that!”

“I still don’t like how neither of you have given me a firm ‘yes’,” Saito stated, his brow furrowed. “…But you also raise an interesting point.” He released a wary sigh. “…I’m going to say this up-front: I don’t like this. You’re both too unskilled and headstrong — a recipe for disaster, if I’ve ever seen one. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve sent the two of you off, and used our CENT generators to stop you from following us.”

“What—?!” Obra responded indignantly.

“But,” Saito cut in, passing Obra a stern look before shaking his head in resignation. “Time and numbers are against us, so I’ll allow it. But you two had better behave, or you will regret it.”

“Oh, thank you!!” Liask exclaimed, “don’t worry, we promise not to get in the way!”

“Right… just don’t make me regret this decision,” the Colonel responded. “We’ll be leaving tomorrow morning. And if we really do run into Strén, or more Bleeders… be ready for a more intense fight than this. We can’t count on having surprise on our side, this time.”

“Got it!” Liask and Obra replied in unison.

“I’ll make sure they don’t get into trouble, Colonel,” Ralak said.

“Good…” Saito replied, and then turned back to look out over the base. “…Until then, rest up. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be quite busy for us…”