The raven may as well not have heard anything. His eyes were hidden behind those big black pupils, it was only his body's movements that gave away he was following orders. His hand reached under his black robes, grabbing an incendiary grenade from his belt as he walked towards the pit. Having practiced it thousands of times already, the Crow's fingers nimbly inserted the pin between the teeth inside his paralyzed mouth.

| Clink |

The pin flew fell to the ground while the explosive flew forwards at inhuman speeds describing a broad parabola. The grenade landed dead in the center of the pit after bumping several times against the floor. The timer fired, and the fuel stored inside the bomb engulfed everything on fire, setting the biological remains of SF-W208 on a blazing fire. After all, it wouldn't be fun if any other base happened to collect those before expiration, would it?

Competition wasn't desired, less for a classified [A-] class.

A column of thick dark smoke punctured the night sky, hiding the moon from view.

...

The moon.

For a brief moment, he could see the moon in that dark sky. Not only that, the stars, the celestial dome revealed their brightness and colors to his pained eyes. At least, that had been the case for a few peaceful seconds. Now though, hell had broken loose.

Burning. Boiling. Melting.

Elgan Klein was all of those things. Brains became hard and dry on the cooking pot his skull had become, blood solidified in his veins, his own charcoaled flesh assaulted his nose and slid through his trachea filling his lungs with scorching steam, limbs became numb, dead attachment of his dying body. Shouting was a good relief though, not that he could hear anyways. Luckily, everything ended as quickly as it had begun, after a few seconds of excruciating agony, the inside of Elgan's organs barbecued to perfection, the boiling soup cooking inside him reaching terminal temperature and bursting his ribs out in the process. A well-deserved, quick death.

|Pgtgt!!!-- |

Viscera and flesh spilled out feeding the voracious fire.

...

Back.

A few minutes had passed. The heat had died down just enough for a crust of burnt goo and incandescent remains to form over Elgan's whole body, the soft layer he found himself moments ago had evaporated, and his back was directly in touch with the surface of the compacted floor below.

'Break free. Break free. Break free-. Break. Break.'

Those were all the thoughts his barely operational mind could grasp. With all his might, he called up to his healing arms to break away from their restraints.

"AgGHhRrr!!"

It broke. The solidifying layer gave away rather easily to his desperate attempts to escape, his broken knees cracked as he forced them to stand up in one dizzy motion, his arms hanging, unable to fathom using any more force. His half-burnt skin dripping in steam, only moved by the subtle breeze of air caressing the bottom of the crater he stood on. As pieces of dead flesh fell from his body, despite his burning feet, despite all the pain, despite the sorry state he found himself in. He couldn't help himself.

After such a long time...

Elgan's only functional eye gazed at that moon, that moon he had been robbed of, and that moon he had retrieved with his own two powerless hands. A sincerity formed on his lips.

"So- brigh-t-!"

Stars seemed to dance around him as Elgan stood still, his gaze seemingly lost in the skies. It was something difficult to explain, realizing a beauty you had never come to appreciate, the feeling of happiness brought by being alive, to live one more day. To live.

Not alone...

Sleeping inside his own bubble, little did he know it wasn't up to him to decide anymore, his life. The gears had begun turning.

- Shit. -

Really... Was he in such a sorry state to that his mind had started to play sounds? Was he hallucinating? Dying? Or...

"Do not move an inch."

An artificial, suppressed voice at his back, accompanied by a cold feeling pressing against his nape.

"I- what's happen-"

He tries saying, the pressure in his nape increases. Only then does he recognize the shape of the object. A gun, the barrel of a handgun touches his bones, his spine, the sound of the gun's safe unlocking. Elgan's body freezes, his hands raised slowly in response.

This was real.

These people are... dangerous.

'Fuck. Not here, not now.'

Gritting his teeth to the point they would start cracking Elgan didn't move. Couldn't move. Behind him, the lobe of the masked man's ear shone in green, contacting the rest of the squad.

- Caps, have problems down here. -

The man's tone slipped through the telepathic interaction, somewhat... shaken, frightened. His usual calmness had disappeared.

- Hang in there, situation? -

He got an answer... The man with the orange-colored mask tried his best to maintain his composure, cold sweat rolled down his forehead, his bloodshot eyes completely open, his finger trembling as it neared the trigger.

'Don't blink, don't blink, don't blink. It'll be over soon.'

His mind repeated in a loop as one by one each of the squad members made their way to the bottom of the crater.

- Fragmented. -

Those were the only words that escaped his mind, then the connection suddenly grew silent. Each of them forgot about their tasks and started descending to the bottom of the pit. They knew what that code meant. Seeing it with their very own eyes, though... The captain's body stopped moving, a frown surfaced behind his helmet. The last arriving members made their way through the irregular terrain covering the edges of the pit. Their steps faded as they approached the unknown subject.

- How... -

A feminine voice. One of the two members equipped with a laser rifle of a laser rifle said in a tone mixed between fear and confusion, instinctively backing a few steps away.

- You are seeing the same we are. -

Another young woman's voice answered, her cold and observative tone couldn't hide the slight trembling in his voice, her hand already grasping her gun's handle while subtly kneeling on the ground.

- The stun musket... It's in your back Oliva. -

The girl said flexing his fingers, gesturing for the paralyzed man to approach him.

...

'Stun musket.'

Clouded by the situation Elgan struggled to put their thoughts together.

All of these people acted so stealthily and with such caution toward him, that he was starting to theorize something was utterly wrong with him. Was he some kind of nightmare born from the depths of the earth?

Pointing a gun at his back, refraining from explaining anything. Hostility, he was being shown hostility from a bunch of people he didn't even know.

These people are dangerous. He said it himself, they were hostile, they were plotting to kill him and he wasn't even resisting. What was Elgan trying to achieve by standing there? Was he waiting for his execution? Acting like a lamb, obediently following a bunch of no ones to the butcher.

But that question oozed in his mind, unable to fade. Why hadn't they shot yet? A clear shot to the nape would end anyone, then why hadn't they finished it?

Hesitation. Empathy. Fear.

It was one of those they were experiencing, and if Elgan didn't do anything to save himself he would surely never find out. He needed a plan. Now.

...

The weights were balanced. While Elgan scrambled for a way out his predicament, Achilles was currently experiencing a major crisis.

No matter how much they asked and suggested, Cap's com remained cut. While most of the crew was ready to go all out if necessary, the price of error would be too great for any of them to bear, and most importantly, survive. Each of the member's somber, dreadful gazes set on that mysterious entity, all but one. As the tension rose, the only one daring to move was Oliva, who puzzled by the situation decided to follow her senior's orders. He placed the bag on the floor.

The girl's hands moved quickly, far too quick, fusing together each of the components of the weapon at stunning speed.

- Stop it. The shock won't last for more than a fraction of a second. -

Only before the last piece of the weapon was assembled did the head of the team communicate, his rough voice stopped her movements. The previous determination in his way of speaking vanished, replaced by a monotonous, defeated monologue.

- That thing won't do jack shit to any entity classified as [B+]. Never mind this thing. -

Her hands fell nimb to the ground, her teeth gritted.

- The only thing we can do... We'll reduce it at my signal. -

Captain took hold of the dadao magnetized on his back. Flowing from a small opening in his armor, near his elbow, a line of crimson flowed up his arm covering the weapon's edge. Everyone prepared to battle to the bitter end. To die a warrior.

- Three. -

The countdown started, and everyone readied to take down a chunk of Elgan's body with them.

- Two. -

Laser rifles could pack the biggest punch so they were aimed at the skull and heart respectively, the rest would use their long ranged weapons to pierce its lungs and vital organs. The man standing behind Elgan retreated back with a swift backward flip, using his arms to shield himself from the impending assault.

- On- -

...

Run.

Elgan didn't need a second warning, the countdown was clear enough. His legs flexed to the extreme, tendons breaking, bones cracking.

| Leap |

Releasing the tension on his lower limbs, Elgan catapulted away from the gang. Ensuring his safety for the next few... Seconds.

- It's running!? How did he-? -

Despite the surprise it had been seeing Elgan react so suddenly, Achilles weren't fooling around either, they were professionals.

| Boom |

A blinding purple thunder impacted, lighting for a couple of milliseconds the whole crater, a muffled explosion followed. The spot Elgan had been standing in seconds ago was reduced to cinders, the floor lit in an incandescent orange.

'WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!'

He had already drawn several dozen meters worth of distance, yet the radiation that reached him had been able to burn his back to a layer of dead, black flesh.

The light dimmed down, only the moon lit his way through the steep valley of the crater.

'Eclipse.'

Elgan connected the dots, a thought that saved his life. Just in time.

Silent, smoothly gliding through the air, the crow's black eyes glistened in the darkness with the aura of a lethal predator. The hunter's cold exhale escaped his marble lips as he struck.

| Zap! |

Sidestepping to the left, Elgan barely managed to dodge the incoming blade, the warm trace of blood burst into a fountain. Severed from his shoulder down. The price for surviving that lethal strike was paid with blood. Elgan's jade-colored pupil landed on the cold stone floor, his numb, lifeless, detached arm bathed in the expanding wine-colored pool.

...

- Sitting duck, need extraction at my coordinates. Now! -

The tables had flipped. It looked like the kid would buy them some time... Maybe some of them could make it out alive.

No, they would. All.

Reignited with determination, the captain's gaze landed on the fleeing kid. His wide body became a blur as he dashed forwards, his sword in hand.

...

'He has- cut- my arm, in a- single strike.'

The presence of these people was not normal, it wasn't real, it couldn't be real. Yet it was.

You saw it yourself.

In the mere blink of an eye, the crow had obliterated half the distance that separated them.

'Monsters.'

Elgan didn't look back anymore. Trails of blood gushing out of his missing limb, burnt feet, cracking knees. It didn't matter anymore. He sprinted even faster.

Faster. Further. Higher.

No use.

A gush of air reached Elgan, those steps he heard hunting him no more... A cold, merciless pressure crawled through him, desperate to reach his heart.

"Is over."

A shadow uttered, mere feet behind him.

'How!-'

The blonde man's bleak eyes met with Elgan's as he zoomed away, escaping to the distance, only his finger moved.

| BANG! |

The sound provoked by the hunter's footsteps reappears for a few milliseconds, then grows muted by the deafening pain.

The bullet followed a perfect trajectory across the small gap that separated the two, landing at Elgan's right knee. A second explosion followed the bullet burst open his leg from the knee down, what remained of them hung from a thin thread of bloodied tendons and flesh.

Elgan hadn't stopped running up until that same instant, his body carried inhuman inertia and caused it to collapse to the floor. A cloud of ash and dust clouds his vision for a few moments before friction burns his movements.

- Got him.- -

The blue-eyed hunted said in a detached manner, the fauces of his handgun fuming with smoke. Paused.

...

"HAHAh-Ah"

The grey veil lifts. The hunter's expressions instantly turned pale. Elgan's single jade-colored eye fervently locked on the gunner.

Insane, wasn't he?

Elgan was about to die a horrible and unfair death, and yet somehow he couldn't help but laugh his ass off. Laughing as a maniac, as the crazed walking corpse, he was. If only for a few moments...

"I swear- I won't di-e crying."

He said to himself, his vision growing black by the second. Not bothering to waste his last seconds on the sorry scene he was a part of, Elgan's gaze ascended towards that white marble.

His only treasure left.

"It's beautif-ul, isn't it... Ugh-huagh"

A mouthful of blood escaped his throat. His chest rose with inflammation as his heartbeat shut down. Elgan abandoned the will to say anything else.

Time seemed to slow down. It was time for Elgan to savor his last victory. Elgan's hand reaches the shining piece of metal from the floor, his persecutor's steps come to a halt, the charging of the laser riffles comes to a halt, their eyes affixed on the sharp metal object.

'Sour.'

Those were his last thoughts as the piece of metal sliced his neck open. His numb body fell to the ground. Whatever remained of it.

...

Nobody said anything, no one could.

- Impossible. -

Those were the only words that escaped Ochre's mouth, the agitation in his voice overflowing from him.

- How wasn't he W208, It's not. It doesn't make sense. It can't be, the odds of that happening are... -

The girl's eyes trembled, her breathing becoming heavy and rough. The pressure of killing innocent people was perhaps too much for her to stand, she started hyperventilating, breaking down.

Weak.

- Calm down Eather. -

The other female approached her, put her hand on the girl's shoulder.

- It's not our fault. -

...

The privilege of humanity only bestowed on the grave.

Crow sat in front of it, his eyelids shut, his hands locked onto each other, his mind praying for the one that died human. Perhaps not realizing he himself had been the cause of the murder.

Silent, Oliva stood near the slayer, his eyes locked on the river of blood flowing out of the drained body, slowly finding its way back to the pool of dried paste.

It was sad...

'I wonder, will I die like this too?'

His mind couldn't help but think. Submitted to the fear of dying alone, without reason, without explanation, without purpose. Driven into a corner by the world, separated from everything he trusted and knew, back to hell. A corner in which his blood would flow freely under the moonlight. A fate such as that... He wouldn't wish to anyone.

A few hours had passed, few of them returned to completing their tasks. The area had been secured from major threats, the beacon had been dispatched for the scavengers to follow the next morning. Their job was done. Now they just needed to wait and extract.

A fleet arrived shortly after, the distress signals had pushed the headquarters to send extra reinforcements to secure the Area.

To their dismay or relief, everyone was safe and sound though.

The body of the nameless young man was kept safe. A corpse such as this one wouldn't be buried. It was just another precious biological sample to auction. Keeping the base warm was expensive, there were mouths to feed.

Before the aircraft could take off a single muffled communication echoed inside the squad's skulls.

- I'm sure. This kid is still breathing. -