“What’s going on?” Kairi inquired, turning his attention towards Zed for answers.

“Don’t look at me, I’m a speedster not clairvoyant.” She replied dismissively, forcing Kairi to look towards his younger brother.

“Energy’s being redirected to the external defences.” Roun stated. “Someone or something is trying to breach the facility but I have no idea who or what it is.”

“Does it feel like the creature from last night?” Kairi inquired, but Roun quickly shook his head.

“The alien or whatever it was?” He queried rhetorically. “Nah, this thing feels human…ish; unlike that anyway.” He paused. “Wait, you think this is related to me using Veranos?”

Kairi glared at the youngster for the stupid question, causing Zed to laugh lightly at the exchange as she began to put two and two together.

“Tell me that you didn’t mention that to anyone.” Roun’s attention turned towards Zed, who instantly threw up her hands and shook her head.

“I didn’t even tell Harry, kid.” She replied now. “I’m a woman of my word, if nothing else.”

Her reply turned Roun’s attention back to Kairi, who just sighed heavily.

“What are you looking at me for?” Kairi retorted with sustained annoyance, causing Roun’s eyes narrow in response to his response. “Look, maybe – there’s a lot you don’t know about all of this, and that’s the way I prefer to keep it for now. If this is because of last night, we’ll fix it.”

“Great.” Roun sighed heavily, turning his attention back to Zed, who had been listening to their conversation intently. “Don’t you have to defend your base or something?”

But the woman just laughed at what seemed like a completely ridiculous suggestion. “Hardly. Nothing short of an army is going to breach this fortress – there’s no need for us to get involved.”

But before the words had even properly left her mouth, Harry came sprinting back into the room fully powered-up. “You three, with me! We’ve got an unwelcomed guest.”

The look of shock on Zed’s face was priceless, drawing amused smirks from both Roun and Kairi as they powered up and illuminated the darkened room with their respective energies before making their way towards the exit. This prompted Zed to do the same before Harry could start giving orders.

“The Commandant has left Merricent and no sooner than that are we being attacked by an anomalous assailant.” Harry explained.

“Had Kyasho been here, he’d no doubt have been able to deal with this in a matter of seconds.” Zed added, drawing a nod from Harry.

“I suspect that’s why our attacker waited until he was gone.” Harry postulated.

“So, what are we dealing with here – another one of your haima’sa breaches?” Kairi inquired, but Harry just shook his head.

“It doesn’t appear that way.” He replied. “Breaches never happen so frequently and the results are always organic – whatever this is, it’s pure energy and very strong.”

“Too strong for the base defences?” Zed inquired with scepticism. “Because these things are built to deal with Assault Carriers.”

“The energy levels coming off this thing suggest not, but up until this point we’ve been unable to stop it, far less harm it – I’ve even deployed exo-suits to try and fend it off but Daniel doesn’t think that they’ll be of any help either.” Harry explained.

“Alright, I’ve heard enough.” Kairi sounded. “Whatever this thing is, I’ll help you chase it off – consider it a favour – but Roun stays here.”

“Not a chance.” Roun shook his head. “If this does turn out to be my fault, I’m going to help you guys fix it.”

“Noble.” Zed smirked. “But dumb.”

“Look, I can’t spare the personnel to stop him, Kairi. I’m sorry.” Harry shrugged, almost dismissively. “Plus, the extra muscle might come in handy if this thing turns out to be too much for us to handle.”

Roun just smirked.

“So Kairi, you come with me.” Harry finally ordered. “Zed, you stick with Roun and keep him safe.”

“Yes sir.” Zed replied as the wide-framed soldier turned and made his way down the corridor towards the same entrance through which Roun and Kairi had made their way into the facility.

Kairi hesitated somewhat before following, glaring at Roun briefly before he eventually did the same. But before Roun could make his way down the hallway that Harry was already exiting, Zed stopped him, grabbing him by the wrist and motioning in the opposite direction.

“Follow me.” She commanded. “I’ve gotta pick something up before we get going.”

Roun’s eyebrow tipped upwards as the Rogue speedster powered up into her heroic-form and activated her own high-speed translocation ability. Unlike Roun’s silhouette slide, which transformed him and his passengers into aesis before beaming them at high speeds to their new location, Zed’s ability shunted them through odd energetic tunnels. The entire experience was barely perceptible to Roun, even with his own incredible speed however, leaving the youngster at a loss as to what the exact methodology behind the ability was.

“What the hell was that?” His eyes widened with shock as he found himself in a brightly lit, all-white room surrounded by racks and racks of weapons.

“I’ll give a lesson later, but for now just grab something that you actually know how to use.” Zed replied before grabbing the sword and shield combo that Roun had seen her with the previous night.

Roun now looked around the room, which seemed to have every class of weapon imaginable, before he grabbed a sword similar to what Zed just had. Much like hers, at the moment his weapon of choice was simply a stylised hilt and would not manifest its blade until activated; but unlike hers, the hilt of his energy blade was much longer, requiring a two-handed grip.

Zed’s eyebrow tipped upwards at the choice. “You sure you don’t want to grab a gun or something?”

“You said grab something that I know how to use.” Roun retorted dismissively. “I’ve never shot a gun in my life, but I’ve trained with swords for longer than I’ve trained in hand to hand combat.”

“Well, that works for me.” Zed shrugged at the reply, taking it for granted that the youngster was experienced enough from his time in the special placements program at Titan Academy to know what he was doing. “Let’s go.”

With this she grabbed his hand once more and transported the two of them to the outside of the facility, where Kairi and Harry were already engaged with whatever it was that was attacking The Garrison. Roun’s eyes in particular widened at the sight of the strange being which, much like the odd creature from the previous night, seemed to be channeling zeta rather proficiently.

From what he could make out, the creature seemed to be humanoid at the core, manifesting two arms, two legs, a torso and a head in the brief moments when its dark energy stabilised. However, unlike actual human channelers its body was also often amorphous. This strange body of the creature reminded Roun somewhat of his own ethereal form, but it was infinitely more malleable and far more powerful, being comprise of a black energy that seemed to consume light itself rather than emanate any kind of coloured glow like most other zeta-based energy forms.

“Talk to me Daniel, what are you seeing?” Zed’s voice sounded as she entered the fray, vanishing from next to Roun and appearing in front of Harry to shield a blow that was meant for him.

“Lots.” Daniel’s voice came over the comms of all four channelers present, as the Rogue analyst and operations specialist had already hacked into the devices of the two Itami brothers. “Unfortunately, not a lot of it makes much sense.” He explained. “The zeta that this thing is channeling isn’t the free-floating latent energy that we’re used to – it’s much less processed and far more primal – almost like background radiation… underneath regular atmospheric zeta. Our instruments can’t even pick it up – which is weird because it appears to be a lot more potent than what we use and simultaneously more versatile.”

“That’s not great news…” Zed replied, once again shielding a sweeping slash from the creature that impacted her shield and sent her flying through the air.

“Yeah, well the bad news only gets worse.” Daniel’s voice flickered in Zed’s data-com as the black energy from the strange entity’s attack managed to corrode her energy-shield and attempted to spread to her body. “Whatever that variant of energy is that he’s processing this arcane zeta into, its primary function seems to be consuming energy.”

“Great!” Zed growled loudly before throwing her shield to the ground and watching as it was completely devoured by the strange black energy-type.

With this revelation, she deactivated her sword and allowed it to be reabsorbed into the storage device on her back, simultaneously coalescing streams of energy into two orbs in each of her hands. Harry smirked as he felt the familiar energy signature before tackling Kairi out of the way of the incoming attack. Seeing this, Zed slammed her hands together in front of her body and allowed her white energy to stream forth. The result was a shockwave expanding from her palms and a single stream of light, heat and force thundering towards her target. This blast connected squarely with the centre of the entity – which was once against shifting form at the time of the attack – blasting the creature into the energetic shield that had been erected around the military facility.

What was initially meant to keep the creature out was now being used to contain the battle, and it had so far done a good job of preventing the strange beast from being blasted away. Instead, the dark amorphous figure found itself pinned between Zed’s attack and the erected barrier before the energy stream slowly faded as Zed ran out of accumulated energy.

“Good work, Cross.” Harry stated as he also took aim and unleashed a payload of his own.

Unlike Zed however, whose energy manifested in its most primal form, Harry’s attack took on a much more material appearance. A swarm of small missiles erupted from the bulky mechanical armour that he had summoned around his body for protection, each snaking its way towards the still stunned entity before they impacted and exploded with violent force. The explosion was so violent that it actually sent Roun skating back slightly from the shockwave, but what was more terrifying than Harry’s incredible power was the fact that neither his attack nor Zed’s seemed to have had a significant effect on their target.

“Pathetic.” Hissed from the strange creature as its body coalesced into a primarily humanoid form and began to walk out of the smoke and debris left in the wake of Harry’s attack.

“This thing speaks… English?” Kairi’s eyes widened at the revelation, before the gears in his mind started to turn. “—which suggests it’s human.” He added as he now rushed towards it, his body leaking lilac energy as he approached the strange being.

He watched as its glowing red eyes narrowed with his approach, before he could feel weak streams of energy impacting his body. The others had so far failed to even notice this phenomenon, further more figure out what it was, but the feeling was far too familiar for Kairi to miss. As a professional fighter in one of the world biggest combat leagues, he’d had the arguably good fortune of facing many different combat-oriented channelers and he could tell when his form was being scanned.

“Are you the one whom I seek?” Once again the creature hissed, its eerie voice permeating the battlefield.

As it did this, its body flowed towards Kairi like water, leaving behind a void of zeta. Kairi’s own eyes narrowed with focus as it approached him, sliding to a stop and dodging what most closely resembled a knife-hand strike as the creature once again appeared to become humanoid. Kairi noted as its extended limb stretched beyond the normal length during the attack, prompting him to duck as it drew the energy back into itself by swinging the attack around like an axe. His eyebrow raised as the now axe-shaped appendage crashed back into the being’s torso and rippled its own energy, like a stone being thrown into a stream. At this point he committed to the strike, exploding upwards with a powerful energy-imbued uppercut towards its head. Unfortunately, he was too slow. The beast simply folded away from him at the extremities and lost its humanoid shape before jets of black energy were expelled from its torso to ensnare Kairi.

“Shit.” Roun panicked at the sight, noticing immediately as the flames that protected Kairi – his jenai barrier – began to be devoured by the creature’s black energy.

In a single decisive action, he vanished from his location and reappeared with an explosion of gold energy that sent the black entity spiralling away from Kairi. As it did this, the hulking prize fighter noted that Roun was in the final stages of what appeared to be a downward slash. He smirked at the sight as he also noticed that the tendrils connecting him to the monster had been severed, leaving just small amounts of the black goo-like energy on his body and Roun’s energy blade.

Instinctively, Kairi’s barrier surged to burn away the residual corrosive energy, while Roun deactivated the energy blade to kill the black goo’s food source and force it to dissipate. But soon he switched it back on and turned his attention towards their target.

“You!” Its voice grew bolder and thunderous with this exclamation. “You are the one I seek – the descendant of the harlot and custodian of her flame!”