There was an easygoing, autumn breeze gently slipping past the unforgiving darkness. Trees lightly swayed by the touch, as nature’s breath caressed its branches. Dead, brown leaves crinkled and crunched underfoot; while thousands of military-grade combat boots marched on. Their owners, exuding an unmistakable thirst for blood.

Eerie eyes flashed, then dimmed. Machines whirred, soft as a nervous whisper – yet powerful enough to search vast distances for a hidden target. Electricity danced and spread, wide-ranging. How can anybody escape Team Four’s squad of mercenaries that each specialize in various types of energy perception? Whether it be hidden traps or concealed enemies, fluctuations in the forest’s ‘mana’, changes to their current location’s natural state, temperature in the air suddenly plummeting or skyrocketing and even an almost undetectable disruption to the world’s ‘rules’ themselves…

…it just appears to be very difficult for any sort of sneak attack to work on Calabria and her men. Each of them specifically wore at least a dozen teleportation patches all throughout their bodies and less than an inch apart from their most important organs. The entire Company had one covering their hearts and another close to the neck, just in case, but they only housed the two. The scouts each had six TIMES that number! Every single one of the 5000 strong unit wore a bullet-proof battle suit with minor heat and scratch resistance. It was naturally designed to perform admirably in the varying weathers that plague Earth from time to time. Each Team 4 coalition member also had a wore night vision goggles, while the scouts wore a modified version that boasted a heat sensory function custom-built to detect other types of minor danger, like wild animals.

With these highly dependable members serving as scouts for the company, Everybody could ease their worries regarding potential threats like traps and ambushes, and instead, focus primarily on their task at hand: searching for the scanned location of Dormitory 2 and killing those children.

But just in case things DID go awry, some of their team’s super powered members that can either enhance their body’s invulnerability aspects or who have particularly high resistances to one of the forms of attack: physical or magical, were selected to guard the scouts that separated a short distance from Team 4 in a half circle radius.

Basically, the best of Team 4’s defensive walls, or ‘tanks’ that wouldn’t actually weaken their main fighting force by all that much, were selected to become shields for the scouts.

Calabria led the 38 scouts, while Team 4’s actual leader, Dawan, led a team of 500 with either some level of super soldier physique that focused on super speed over super strength, or an enhancement ability that granted them the power to increase their linear movement speed.

They were easily the absolute fastest group out of the 5000 members participating in Team 4: the Vanguard Team! That also meant these 500 were to serve as the Vanguard Team’s vanguard!

Dawan: “Vice, Waldon, Ergio, Denzel, Quin and Calabria. You Six should stay close to me. Calabria, you’re the only one allowed to move around as you please, but make sure it is for good reason. If it is a mere speculation, let me know immediately and refrain from separating. I need your tracking skills in the mystic arts to make sure we aren’t ambushed by anything suspicious. Don’t follow a trail without notifying me either – that is an order!”

Calabria: “Yes, Dawan sir.”

Vice: “But...Captain Dawan, is there a reason so many mercenaries were called? A high leveled hero hunter or merc corps alone would have sufficed. An assassin’s group like the Spectral Daggers could also have completed this mission without us.”

Dawan: “...I don’t plan on questioning my orders. No matter what, any order given to me upon mutual agreement should never be questioned. I want the money offered, so naturally, I’m planning on fulfilling this duty I’ve been tasked with by Coalition leader, Darz to complete perfection.”

Vice: “...But I just feel that our talents are being wasted on something like this. Normally I wouldn’t complain either since the money would probably be worth it, but after splitting it up with everyone… The job just doesn’t match the pay, or the risks involved. And all to murder some non-powered kids, how stupid. A waste of our time!”

Ergio: “I mutually agree Mr. Vice. Whoever hired us clearly has power here. somehow, those 60 something or other security guards vanished, right? Then, if they are capable of a move like that, what’s stopping them from acting against those kids? I worry that they’ll backstab all of us pretty soon…”

Waldon: “Oh, I get you. Such as moving in on us once we eliminate those children, and completely decimate our forces rather then hand over the rest of the money we earned, right? That sounds probable, maybe the ‘Realist’ faction is behind this? That would also make sense, given how heavy-handed this is. Haha. What admirable ‘Heroes’ work here.”

Denzel: “Hush with that. As if the realist faction would stage an attack like this one. This is clearly the work of a villain disguised as a hero. Given the uncertainty surrounding this whole ‘project’ of introducing innocent civilian children into the Heroes’ home country to study alongside the next generation of heroes, these children have now made themselves an uncertain factor. One that is highly likely to change the outcome of the fragile stalemate Herotopia and Villain Haven share. Villain Haven are afraid, they’ve been hounding the heroes and boasting their advantages at every opportunity they get. They’ve invaded and successfully disguised themselves in order to fall under the Hero Society’s radar countless more times than Herotopia has. This is clearly one of those overlooked villains making their move, probably on orders by a higher up in villain Haven who distrusts what mysterious potential this project might have.”

Vice: “At the very least, send only the best… 1,000 of us was clearly enough for this job. Why go and hire SIX whole companies just to kill children? That’s completely psychopathi-”

...As the elite mercenary leaders of Team four led the others from a fair distance, the Forest around them began to change. Wind picked up, transforming from a breeze into a howl – a terrifying howl that sounds eerily close to a woman’s scream. In fact, it was accurately identical to a young girl’s scream!

Succeeding this terror-filled shriek, the hurried murderers froze in their tracks. A cloud of despair swirled over everybody’s faces. Was it one of their own? It had to be, surely. The mass of mercs began checking their neighboring personnel, immediately desiring to seek out comfort, a reminder to sooth their worries away by examining the terrain for a fallen female Teammate.

But no matter how much they searched. All they could make out, was the loamy soil, the crunchy, dried up leaves, their comrades’ boots, but zero fallen teammates.

And the darkness of the midnight sky grew more prominent, as it effortlessly snuffed out the comforting light which helped brighten their faces a little. Following the wind-filled scream of pure terror, came a shrill, despairing voice that demanded mercy from death. A voice that lamented her own death, telling herself that she wasn’t ready to die.

Until finally, the darkness consumed even the light originating from their goggles.

Coalition member # 1: “AHHHH! My – my eyes… My eyes!”

Coalition member # 2: “My...heheh...why does my shoulder feel so heavy all of a sudden…? And below it, I feel so...empty…? No, it feels...wet? Is this a water user’s power…? Or...come … co-come to think of it… I can’t feel my whole arm…”

Coalition member # 3: “The scream … and the – the voice… they’re – they’re overlapping! What the fuck is going on here?!”

Coalition member # 4: “This must be an illusion, it HAS to be an illusion! It just needs to be!”

Many of his platoon members started to complain about their bodies suddenly feeling numb, cold and heavy at practically the same exact time. There were also screams about a warm, wet liquid-like sensation splashing against the afflicted teammate’s remaining workable limbs.

But in this darkness that suddenly and spontaneously emerged with the voice-carrying wind, nothing and nobody could be made out. The scouts never made a sound regarding this sudden assault!

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Dawan: “...THAT IS ENOUGH!”

*BOOM!*

Without warning, a bright, solar ray emerged from the pitch black swamp of lightless terror. Such a warm, calming light seemed to wash away everyone’s fear; and it all emerged from Dawan. This was his ability, a fusion of A Grade light magic and S Grade Pyrokinesis. Kinesis abilities are already a fusion of low – mid level psychic abilities and magic manipulation. It is not only one of the most common types of ‘superpowers’ but also harbors some of the greatest potential to branch into stronger powers. Such a fusion of psychic and magic was already good enough to have, but Dawan took things a step further and fused the Pyrokinetic fusion with his light magic! This granted him the ability to manipulate and produce solar energy! Such a kinetic prowess was truly rare. This man was clearly a level beyond normal mercenaries – and that was a given because the dark skinned Spes Novean was the second in command of the 5th Mercenary group to participate – The Bright-Burn Mercenary corps!

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But, When the darkness faded… An even more horrifying realization befell Team 4: They were all missing their right arms! That wet sensation? Well as it turns out…

...their broken appendages dripped warm, streams of blood.

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