Seth, Kong, and the rest of the Squad 46 members left the outpost and drove a bit before settling on a spot. The outpost could still be seen, but had become much smaller due to distance.

“So, are you finally going to tell us what these boxes are for,” Kong asked as they began to unload the boxes.

“ Oh, their bait. You know what our mission today is,” Dan replied.

“ Bait? You mean what is inside the boxes can help us attract those locusts? I know that we were assigned to exterminate locusts today, but how does this bait help us?” Seth asked.

“You can open up one of the boxes and see. It doesn't really matter if the boxes are opened or closed.” Dan said as they got the last box unloaded.

Seth decided to do exactly that. He ripped the tape off one of the boxes and that was when the smell hit him. Seth couldn’t help but gag.

“Is…this…cough….garbage?” Seth asked as he backed away, covering his nose in an effort to block the smell, with not much success. When he turned around, he realized everyone else had gas masks on as if they were just waiting for someone to open the box. “You…bastards.”

“Oho, someone grew the guts to curse at us. Just when I was feeling nice enough to give you a mask myself. Now my feelings are hurt. I don't think I can give you the gas mask anymore," Bertha said with malicious glee.

“Please …give me the mask,” Seth managed to say with both hands covering his nose. It only slightly blocked the smell.

“Now, now Bertha. Spare the kid. Anymore and he wont be able to help us later,” Dan said.

“Alright, fine then,” Bertha pouted and handed Seth the mask. He could not have put on the mask quickly enough. The smell had embedded itself into his brain. Any longer and he was sure the smell would put him in a coma. Even with the gas mask on, a small part of the smell still wafts through.

“W-What was that?” Seth asked.

“Leftover garbage. Mostly remains of the vegetable that were deemed unusable or inedible. The outpost would gather these parts and turn it into fertilizer. We requested that they put aside some for us so we can use as bait. There’s also a special chemical compound sprayed in to help attract the insects. Now that we set the bait, let's get into position. Bertha, if don't mind?” Dan explained.

“Sure,” Bertha said as her hand disappeared into her stomach. Seth watched in amazement as she pulled out a barrel machine gun. “Guys meet my husband, Mark. he’s here to help fend off anyone who dares to come close to me. Isn’t he sweet? “

Ignoring her description of the gun, Seth wondered how she whipped out the weapon from her stomach.

“Surprised? That's her awaken ability. Her stomach acts as a storage where she can store and take things out. Very handy ability isn't it?“ Dan said. Seth had to admit it did sound cool. Even if there was a size constraint, it sounded very useful.

“Problem is that the object she is storing needs to be able to fit into her stomach. She cant fit anything bigger than her stomach. Its a good thing that Bertha has a lot of mass so her stomach is considers on the large scale.” Echor interjected.

“Are you calling me fat?” Bertha said.

“I am merely stating the facts. Your body size is larger than most people therefore your stomach is also larger. The large size allows you to input more objects than if you were a person of smaller size. Your large size allows you more use of your ability.“

“ That sounds even worse!”

“Let get back on track guys and explain to our first timers here. Bertha please hand out the rest of the weapons.” Dan interrupted Bertha and Echor before their bickering got worse.

“Fine.” Both of Bertha's hand disappeared into her tummy and began to search.

“Alright. We’ll start the mission by burning the boxes we just receive which in turn will attract the bugs. Hunter will launch special smoke grenades that act as bug repellant spray. Bertha will be in charge of wiping them out. Echor responsible for hostile discovery. We’ve been teaching you how to use federation weapons. Time to put that knowledge to the test. You boys can help with wiping out the stragglers.`` Hunter gave the boys standard Federation rifles. He also pointed to a small stack of bullet cartridges. He motion for them to take a few so that they could reload when necessary.

What about you Dan? What's your role in this?” Seth asked.

“My role? I'm the captain. I do what captains do, i delegated my role to you guys.”

“Booo! I request a new captain! One that's not as lazy, ``Bertha jokingly said.

“ Request denied!” Dan played along, then his face turned serious “ Enough jokes lets get started. Hunter if you don't mind?”

A grenade flew into the box pile and exploded.

“Perfect. Always good to start things off with a bang.”

Seth watched as smoke slowly wafted up from the exploded boxes. It didn’t take long for the them to see their target. Locusts, the size of medium dogs came flying attracted to the smell. They were all black with their wings completely gone as they flapped. Their jaw manically opening and closing as they smell a free meal. Their black beady eyes threatening death upon anyone who comes between them and their meal. The sky quickly became covered with locusts as if a cloud of death was appearing. Seth estimated there had to be at least a thousand of them.

Bam! Bam!

A few grenades went flying into the swarm and exploded into smoke. Dozens of locusts could be seen dropping to the ground. The bug repellent was doing its job. However that wasn’t enough to finish the horde. Seth watched as locust chew through their own wounded kin and devoured them into nothing. Just as the first locust was about to reach the waste pile, the insect converged downwards into a single line. That was when Bertha started shooting.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The bullets that came out of Bertha's machine gun instantly tore the locust to shreds. That didn’t stop the swarm from flying towards the garbage pile though. Like moths to a flame, the cricket monsters kept charging at the pile.

“ARE YOU WAITING FOR AN INVITATION?! START FIRING!” Bertha yelled at the boys. Seth and Kong aimed their rifles and also shot at the swarm. Seth had deduced what their plan was. Hunter was to cut down the crowd while the rest of them finished them off. However there was a problem. Their bullets weren’t limitless and were bound to run out. The plan heavily depended on Bertha’s weapon and she couldn’t maintain that rate of firing. Once the locusts finish off the bait and their kin, they’ll go to the closest food source.

The humans.

The whole thing had become a monotonous cycle for Seth. He didn’t need to aim for his bullets to hit the insects.

Shoot.

Reload.

And shoot again.

Seth felt like a machine. If his life wasn’t on the line, Seth would have found this repetitive actions boring.

Seth had reloaded his gun five times before Bertha’s machine gun began to sputter out. What he had dreaded had come to pass as there was probably still half the swarm left. The locust began flying over, close enough for Seth to see that many of them still had the blood of their kin in their teeth.

Seth decided to prepare for the worse. Just as his rifle ran out of bullets, he reached out for his knife and prepared himself for close quarters, Dan yelled “DON’T STOP! RELOADAND KEEP FIRING!”

Seth stopped and hesitantly and reloaded. This was squad 46 operation and they have done this before. There must be a part of the plan that he was unaware of. He decided to just follow orders for now.

Just as the locust swarm began to close in the group, Seth saw something flash, cutting into the bugs. The swarm was stopped by an invincible wall. Anything that got within ten feet of the group was killed. The item moved so fast that he almost missed it.

It was a knife.

And there was more than one.

Like a shredder, the knives tore through the locust as they came flying in. Like a clock, the knives would fly around the group in a protective circle. The locusts were stopped dead from harm them thanks to the knives.

Looking around to see who could be controlling the knives, Seth notice Echor standing by the side. Everyone else had a weapon but him. He wasn’t holding any weapons as his hands were still on the monitor device. Seth finally figure out what his Awaken ability was.

Telekinesis.

The knives that were flying around them in a protective fashion was controlled by Echor’s mind. The way that they were silently controlled showed how skillful he was.

“Ha! Meet my second husband! He's a real piece of work!” Bertha yelled as she pulled out a second barrel machine gun as soon the first weapon emptied out. This one was even bigger than the first.

As the battle continued, Seth lost track the amount of times he had to reload his weapon. He had seen the other members doing the same. Seth had witnessed Bertha swap out her weapon multiple times, but they all remain the same kind. Large machine guns that ripped that target to pieces.

It was only once the sky had turned orange and the sun began to set, that they finished off the locust swarm. The ground the was littered with corpses of of the bugs, their blood leaking out into pools.

“Whoa! Finally finished!” Bertha said as she plopped down. Seth could understand her feelings of exhaustion. His arms felt numb, as if he had just finished a lifting contest, thanks to the recoil of the gun.

“Good job everyone! Lets head back and leave the cleaning to the Steele corp. They use the bodies as fertilizers for their farms.” Dan said as an explanation and a command.

“How come they couldn’t wipe out these insects themselves? Like …i think his name was ghost?” Seth asked.

“Our group is more equipped for this kind of job. They don’t have a lot of fighters who can handle this sort of mob. The guards are there to handle small small groups of monsters. There's really only two people of note who can handle the big jobs in the outpost. Ghost is one of them. His ability makes him good for security purposes, but not good for wiping out strong monsters. They have the Iron Dragon for that. Then there’s us. We’re responsible for clearing out large numbers.”

“ Who’s the Iron Dragon?” Seth inquired.

“She’s a Class 4 Awaken with the ability to clad herself completely in iron. She’s good in a melee, but not so great for long range fights. They say if she had some long distance capability then she’s comparable to our commander. Rumor has it that she has a soul tool which makes her really powerful.”

“What’s a soul tool?”

“It might be better if you ask Echor, but I'll tell you what i heard about them since they’re a controversial topic. Soul tools are said to house the abilities of dead ancient Awaken. Only really strong Awaken can leave one behind. That what they say anyways. The existence of a soul tool is a rumor in itself. Some people say that they’re just really powerful weapon.” Bertha shrugged.

The explanation sounded really familiar for some reason for Seth. As he was giving it more thought, a yell broke out from Dan.

“Come on guys! There’s a free meal waiting for us back at the outpost!”

Seth gave up on thinking any further. He was tired enough already. If anything he could ask his master. As nice as it sounds, it wasn’t like he was going to acquire a soul tool anytime soon.