Roun allowed the ambient streams of zeta to flood his body, rushing through his veins and spreading to his muscles and organs before seeping into other tissue. Muscle pains and the general sense of fatigue were quickly replaced by the product of a week’s worth of zeta coding. To the naked eye he looked no different, with the exception of the golden glow of his eyes denoting that he now occupied his braver-form. This allowed him to completely energise his body into aesis before vanishing from the small diner completely and rematerializing some distance away to catch up with the rest of the group.

His body fully materialised in motion near the back of the group, forcing his legs to move quickly to compensate for the momentum with which he hit the ground. In another few seconds, he was at the front of the group, which was previously being led by Nicola and Daito. Jinn and Tyler made up the middle with Elf, the slowest of the lot, bringing up the rear.

As they neared their destination, some three blocks away from the diner, the pace of the group slowed significantly, with everyone going from a run, to a jog and then slowing down to walking pace.

“I’m sensing a zeta signature coming from… something and it feels like it’s channeling.” Tyler announced as quietly as she could. “Everyone power down so you don’t risk being sensed.” She ordered next, causing the group to drop down to low-power states as they continued to approach.

Their walking slowly devolved to skulking as they closed the final metres between them and a good vantage point at the corner of an electronics store, just a few metres away from whatever it was that was giving off the energy signature. Once they arrived, Roun stuck out his head to see what it was that had drawn them all there and his reaction just intrigued the others.

“What the hell is that?” He muttered under his breath at the strange sight, causing the others to peek out from behind him to witness it as well.

Their reactions were all similar, being comprised of an apt combination of shock and confusion, because from everything that they knew, what they saw before them was not of their world. The alien creature most closely resembled an insect, possessing three primary sections along its central body. At the top was a large head with multiple rows of teeth organised into concentric circles and four pincers, equally spaced to surround that mouth. Its abdomen was somewhat small comparatively and attached to it was a single pair of limbs that ended in scythe-like blades, which the creature harboured in a fashion that resembled a praying mantis. What would usually be an insect’s thorax, had affixed to it four limbs that functioned as legs, supporting the weight of the creature and elevating its body so that the head stood just taller than a man. But what worried the group even more than the appearance of this bizarre creature was the fact that they could sense zeta flowing through it, as if it was a channeler.

“Tyler, tell me something that makes sense…” Roun stated, turning his attention to the resident group sentinel and the person most likely to be able to explain the situation.

“Uhm… it’s not human?” She replied after a brief pause. “Some morphers can transform their bodies, but I’m not reading any kind of code on this thing.”

“Great…” Roun sighed. “Elf. Anything?”

“Nothing useful. It feels intelligent and I can tell that it’s thinking… but its thoughts are completely foreign, I can’t understand a thing.” She replied, leaving the team absolutely stumped.

“Don’t look at me unless you want me to punch it or throw something at it; otherwise I’m out of my depth here.” Jinn threw his hands in the air as everyone’s gaze returned to the creature.

What made the odd creature more interesting was the fact that it wasn’t really doing much of anything. It seemed to move around the small alley that it occupied investigating its surroundings, but if these six had to guess what it was up to, they’d have to say that it seems just as confused about where it was as they were about it.

“I’m sensing something else.” Tyler alerted the group, causing them all to pull their heads back from around the corner just before a massive surge of energy could be felt.

This energy surge wasn’t something that they needed line of sight for, the unique zeta signature and the environmental effects were enough to give away what was going on. Above them, the clouds had been split in the night sky, and a powerful surge of electrical charges rushed through their centre like bolts of lightning. This effect was replicated on the ground, where the energy had impacted, leaving the entire alleyway statically charged even after the glow that accompanied the initial energy surge had faded.

Amidst them all, Roun was most familiar with the energy, having sensed it just three months prior at Titan Academy.

“Someone just teleported in.” He explained, drawing a nod from Tyler, who had already begun analysing the new-comer.

“This one’s human.” She started. “A channeler – probably heroic-tier and psycher-class. He’s also heavily equipped.”

“Was any of that English?” Daito now inquired to Nicola, completely confused by Tyler’s terminology.

“Psychers specialise in techniques that enhance their physical attributes – strength, speed, durability – that kind of stuff.” Nicola explained quietly. “And heroic-tier channelers are basically out of our league – at least twice as strong as we are and with way more abilities at their disposal.”

“Gotcha.” Daito replied, peeking his head around the corner once more to see this so-called heroic-tier channeler.

As the energy that brought the channeler there dissipated, it revealed the rather curvaceous frame of a young woman. Like most channelers, she appeared to be in her twenties but as channelers seldom aged visibly past their prime this was not much of an indicator as to how old she actually was. What the group of youngsters could discern for sure however was that this woman was of above-average height and unusually muscular.

They watched as she pulled her long blonde hair into a pony-tail and allowed it to fall down the back of her black and green jacket. The jacket itself was part of a uniform, matching the colours and designs of the form-fitting pants that the woman wore and mirroring the armoured strips that were clearly woven into both garments.

“That uniform looks very familiar.” Tyler mumbled to herself, as she tried to figure out where she had seen it before.

But while she tried to place the woman’s garments, the female channeler quickly revealed why she was actually there. The group watched as she slowly extended her right arm away from her body, signalling a surge of energy to rush through her expansion suit and into a device at the back of her neck. They watched as raw zeta flooded into the device, before it spat out terabytes of coded energy that materialised as the hilt of a weapon in the woman’s hand.

“That’s amazing!” Roun could barely keep his voice to a whisper at this point. “That’s a mass-energy storage device!”

Another energetic surge summoned a second weapon handle into the woman’s hand, allowing her to activate both devices simultaneously to summon an energy-blade on the hilt and an energy-shield from the other handle. With this, she began her slow walk towards the odd creature, which had long since turned its attention towards her.

During the energy discharge that accompanied her teleportation, the creature had begun skittering away, almost as if the massive energy signature was scaring it off. But before it could completely flee, the huge energy signature that facilitated the woman’s teleportation was gone, leaving behind just the feeling of her channeling. This sensation seemed to have the opposite effect on the creature, enticing it rather than scaring it and drawing it towards the woman like a predator toward prey.

“Do you think we sho—” Daito began to ask, before the woman vanished from her location with a flash of energy and skid to a stop some distance from the creature on the other side.

This particular manoeuvre shut him up quickly, as he was one of the few members of the group equipped to track what had actually happened. Roun was another and he had already managed to follow the entire thing. He was watching as this woman took off at super-human speed and managed to trace her energy as she rushed towards the creature, severed its bladed arm and slid to a stop just moments later.

The entire event was so fast that the creature’s blood didn’t start spurting from the wound until after the woman had come to a complete stop, erupting into a geyser of red spray to launch the blade at the end of it from its mounted position and into a nearby wall.

“You’re a lot weaker than the others.” The woman shook her head, taking her attention off the creature as it writhed in agony at the loss of one of its arms.

Instead she turned her attention to her comms and whoever it was on the other end.

“Harry, this thing could be well sub-heroic – you could’ve given this assignment to one of the recruits, or Hyaku.” She complained with audible annoyance at the fact that her time was being wasted on what she’d clearly deemed to be a menial task.

Unfortunately, the group could not actually hear the reply from whoever this ‘Harry’ was. All they did hear was her annoyed growl in response to his reply, which preceded her terminating the link between them and returning to the task at hand.

“Alright gorgeous, nothing personal but I’m going to have to finish you quickly if you can’t even put up a good fight.” She stated to the creature, which was already in the process of converting its frantic panicking into focused rage.

The woman just smiled at the sight.

“Yeah, that’s the ticket – show me what you’ve got.” She grinned, charging her energy until a visible white aura could be seen erupting around her.

The group watched on now as the woman vanished again, with only Roun and Daito being able to actually track her movement. Unlike the others, they could see her as she dashed towards the odd creature, sliding to a stop just in front of it to deliver a spinning slash that cleaved the remaining scythe-like claw from its body. Continuing with that spinning momentum, she delivered a kick to the creature’s abdomen and sent in reeling backwards. Roun smirked as she used her shield to avoid the splashes of blood that sprayed towards her from the severed limbs, before she spun once again with her blade out-stretched. Unlike the first spinning slash, this attack was downright graceful, resembling a pirouette rather strongly as she sliced the creature multiple times during the turns. By the time she was done, all that was left to do was to dash backwards and avoid the explosive spray of blood as the creature came apart.

The display left Roun and Daito thoroughly impressed and the others rather confused, but what made the situation even more confusing was the fact that the body of the dead creature didn’t seem to stick around for very long. Within seconds of it being dispatched, everything from its blood to its body began to glow ominously before disintegrating and becoming energised, then dissipating completely into atmospheric zeta.

“Rogue Special Forces!” Tyler finally blurted, hitting herself on the head for taking so long to make the connection between the uniform and the military faction that she had spent much of her life trying to get into.

Unfortunately, her brief exclamation only drew the ire of the other members of the group, who were doing their best to maintain their stealth. In that instant, the attention of each of the other five channelers was drawn to Tyler before they each turned their attention back to the alley.

But strangely enough, the target of that attention was now gone.

Intrigue quickly turned to panic.

“Where the hell did she go?” Nicola was the first to mutter what they were all thinking.

“I don’t know but we should all get the hell out of here before she finds us.” Jinn replied.

“Too late for that I think.”