"It's too late for them...they're beyond saving," Remarked one of the X-Warriors with a shake of his head.

We had made it back to the underground bunker outside the Sanctuary, and during the fight, the captured X-Warriors were found, but they were all tortured badly, and so severely injured that the Healing Pods couldn't do anything for them. Oh, and some of the kidnapped officials and my shithole 'father' were here too...and they had suffered too much radiation damage to survive. They were all going to die.

​​

"K-kill me..."

"Please, i-it hurts so much, kill me..."

Damn, they must be in some serious pain...and him, Kilrafhe Floence, he's going through the same pain...

"We should put them out of their misery," I remarked, before adding in an overly sorrowful tone, "Oh, and as much as it pains my heart to do so, I'll shoulder the responsibility of ending my dear father's suffering."

"N-no...!" He protested weakly in desperation, coughing out blood, "Y-you must save me, I...do not...want to die!"

"How heartbreaking...all that radiation must have made you lose your mind, you don't know what you're talking about, father...don't worry, I'm right here, you're in my hands...so rest easy," I replied in an overly sensitive tone.

"Hey, you can't just decide that, we might still be able to save them!" Declared one of the other X-Warriors.

"No, we can't," Responded the X-Warrior who had earlier said that they're beyond saving, "He's right, we have to put them out of their misery. Otherwise, they'll just suffer increasingly excruciating and agonizing pain and die tortured deaths. The sooner we end their suffering, the better."

"In that case...those who can finish them painlessly and have the resolve to do so, step forward and do it," Commanded Kumar, after closing his eyes and thinking it over.

"You sure about this, Zax?" Kilella asked me, placing her hand on my shoulder and stopping me with a look of concern.

"Yeah, I am...in fact, I'm certain...I have to be the one to do this, it's pointless if someone else gets to do it," I responded evenly.

I then stepped towards Kilrafhe, setting my right X-Blaster to sniping mode, for maximum penetrative power, as a few other X-Warriors stepped forward as well. One by one, the radiation-affected victims were put out of their misery, most with decapitation.

"N-no, stop-...," Pleaded Kilrafhe, as I took aim, "K-Kilella, h-help me...!"

She didn't say a word to him, instead averting her gaze, as despair filled his eyes. I then fired...striking his shoulder and eliciting an excruciating scream of pain from him.

"Oh, no...this is so heartbreaking that my hand trembled as I fired...forgive me, father, I'll get it right next time," I apologized in a remorseful tone, before firing again, striking his other shoulder this time, eliciting another tortured cry of agony.

I fired again, striking his midsection, his blood oozing out like a paste...how utterly disgusting.

"Kilzachs, that's enough...!" Yelled Kumar, interrupting my fun...fine, I guess I'll end him now.

"Well, goodbye father, rest in peace...," I remarked, taking aim at his head while putting on that overful sorrowful tone, before reverting to my normal tone with a smirk and adding, "Nah, just kidding...you can go straight to hell, you rotten bastard...ugh, emphasis on rotten."

With that, I fired, my shot pierced through his head and killing him...which send chills down my spine, a cathartic sense of euphoria washing over me...I don't think I've ever felt satisfaction quite like this before. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins, my heart beating like a drum...I don't think anything I ever experience in the future is going to top this.

"Hey, I know he's put you through a lot, but you didn't have to be so-!" Kumar began, grabbing my forearm.

All the X-Warriors who were in this bunker with us were staring at me warily, while my sister was looking at me with concern.

"Oh, it was a just a joke...since I'm an atheist, I don't believe in heaven or hell, so that was just a bit of light dark humor...heh, get it, 'light dark'-."

"That's not what I'm talking about...you should have just killed him with a single shot!" He interrupted with a frown.

"But if I did that...I'd never be able to forgive myself," I replied coldly, before adding in my normal tone, "Well, anyway, we should teleport back into the Sanctuary and report what happened. I know it's only been a couple of days, but it's good to be back, you know?"

"...I've still got a lot to say about what you just did...but that'd clearly be a waste of breath. Yeah, let's go back..."

...

...

"Hm...I see, that's unfortunate. We'll be needing to make a lot of changes from now on," Remarked Director Silva with a frown, "Is that everything, Kumar?"

"Yeah, that about sums up everything that happened, big sis-...I mean, director."

It was a couple of hours later, and Kumar had just finished relaying the events following the launch of the attack on the Wight campsite to Director Silva and some other stuffy-looking officials. Six of us were here, besides myself and Kumar, my sister, Zarina and two other X-Warriors, the ones that had located the captives, were also here.

The Ace who got injured was recovering in Healing Pods, and I think most of the others were traumatized. Less than half of the survivors had returned without incurring any significant damage, the rest all had some pretty bad injuries, some with permanent damage.

"We've lost a large number of our fighting force, we need to make up for it quickly," Remarked one of the other officials.

"Yes, I agree, over four hundred X-Warriors dead is a huge problem, our X-Warrior count dropped from over eleven hundred to a little over seven hundred. The casualties included two Aces, which is a huge blow, along with over twenty K-Ranked X-Warriors. The appearance of the Ace Mutant was unfortunate, the Mission to destroy the Wight base camp to the southeast of the Sanctuary was a success...but our own losses are heavily significant, so it's a bittersweet achievement at best. We have to make up for our lost fighting strength as soon as possible. Any suggestions?" Inquired Director Silva with a serious grimace.

Way to put us on the spot right after we return from a tough battle...

"What if we dig a deep trench all around the outside of the Sanctuary and fill it with, like, acid or something?" Replied Kilella, after a few seconds of awkward silence, no one able to come up with a suggestion.

"That's, uh...not very practical, and would take far too long."

"What about robots?" I chimed in, "You could repurpose those robotic training dummies for battle, equip them with a bunch of hidden weapons and stuff, have their AI's improved to make them more suited for real combat, and have them run on XFE instead of electricity, so that any Paragon could recharge them...well, I don't know if that's actually possible, to be honest, but..."

"Hm...not bad," Responded Director Silva with a nod, "Not bad at all, I think we can definitely use that. Keep the ideas coming...we were unable to keep the fact that nearly half our X-Warriors had left the Sanctuary to attack the Wights from leaking, and after that, we were forced to publicize information about the Wights, since a lot of inaccurate and dangerous conspiracies were starting to gain traction. Of course, even after we revealed the truth, the public was very critical of our actions...and no matter how hard we can't fully cover up the result of this battle...so we might as well reveal it, at least to an extent. And we're inevitably bound to get criticized even further by the public...so I want to be armed with solutions and fixes, even a little damage control could make a huge difference. Any other suggestions?"

"What if we fortify the outside of the Sanctuary with stuff like blast shields and security cameras that have guns attached?" Chimed in Kumar.

"We're already working on that, after the Wights infiltrated the X-Warrior Zone."

A few more suggestions were given, but...they all sucked, to put it simply.

"Oh, I almost forgot, I recorded the entire battle," I suddenly remembered, tapping on my I-Watch, "Crap, it's still recording, I forgot to stop it!"

"You recorded the whole thing!? Why didn't we think of that...we had all the bug-sized drones evacuated when the attack began so that they wouldn't get damaged, we didn't think about using a few of them to record the battle...that footage could prove to be invaluable. Send it to me, Kilzachs," Replied the director, her eyes lighting up.

"Right...but it's gonna take a while, this is nearly twenty-eight hours long. Huh, I recorded something else before that, what is-...ohhhh, right. I'll send this too, no harm in that, so why not?" I remarked, sending both recordings.

I almost forgot, I started recording when Zarina got all bitchy with me on the way there.

"Alright, then, I'll go through the footage after I receive the files."

"If I may make a suggestion, I'd like to have Hebi, our Wight captive to also look through the footage...my reason is simple, something felt off about that battle. Honestly, considering how outnumbered we were, even with the surprise attack and all that, if they had any on their side who could match our Aces, we'd have definitely been wiped out. The Aces each took out a few hundred of them each, but none of the Wights were single-handedly able to take out too many of us."

"What are you getting at, Kilzachs?" She asked curiously, narrowing her eyes.

"I'm not quite sure yet...but I have a feeling that the Wights we attacked and killed weren't their main fighting force, a lot of them had really weak XFE powers, and the strongest-...oh, I almost forgot, I captured a Wight Anomaly. He was in one of the jets," I suddenly recalled.

"Don't worry, I made sure that he was properly restrained and held captive before we came to make our report here," Responded Kumar.

"Get back to what you were saying, Kilzachs."

"Right, as I was saying, they just seemed too weak, it was almost too easy...it's possible that I'd just overestimated them, but..."

"...but if you're not, then it's possible that we only eliminated a second-string army," She finished grimly.

"Yeah, exactly. That's why I want Hebi to watch the footage I recorded, to identify the Wights we fought...if he recognizes some as the strongest Wights he knew, then my suspicions will be proven false...but if he doesn't recognize them as strong Wights, then my suspicion may be accurate. It's too late now, but in hindsight, having him spar with some of us might have been useful, to give us an idea of exactly what to expect when we fight the other Wights."

"Hm...very well, after I've fully reviewed the footage, I'll let you know whether or not you can show it to him as well. Okay, then, if there's nothing else, then you're all dismissed."

I began to turn around and leave, when I recalled another little detail from that battle...

"Oh, I just remembered!" I exclaimed, before nodding at Zarina, "It turns out that Prodigies aren't limited to just Primary Manifestations and Secondary Manifestations."

"Huh? What does he mean?" Inquired Director Silva curiously, looking at Zarina inquiringly.

"It's, uh...a bit hard to explain," She responded awkwardly.

"I think it'll be easier to show you rather than try and explain," I chimed in, before remotely connected my I-Watch to the projector, Director Silva had given me the password for that.

I then opened my cloud drive and clicked on the recording, skimming through the first hour of the footage until I found what I was looking for...Zarina getting overwhelmed by several Wights, close to being killed, when suddenly, it looked like something clicks in her expression, before she fired out that Manifestation Overdrive technique.

"Woah...," Muttered Kilella with a wide-eyed look.

"That's some serious power...how exactly did you do that?" Inquired Kumar with a look of intrigue.

"I don't really know...I just felt like my regular arrows weren't going to be enough to save me here, and I began desperately wishing that they were more powerful, I guess...honestly, I don't even know if I can do it again, I kind of understand how I did it, but at the same time, I don't...its not like my Primary and Secondary Manifestations, which I instinctively knew how to use...this feels more like I need to work on to get the hang of."

Huh, interesting...the chip that gets implanted during the Awakening Procedure is an AI that regulates the flow of XFE, and in the case of Prodigies, diverts the XFE into two different forms of output, the Primary and Secondary Manifestations, which is often influenced by the person in question's imagination and preferences.

And since Prodigies instinctively know how to trigger both those outputs, they probably never try to manifest their XFE in any other way. Huh, that raises questions about Anomalies too, is the Awakening Chip holding back Anomalies too? Then again, the Paragons in the Sanctuary can't use their XFE at all without the Awakening Procedure, since we hadn't evolved as much as the Wights had.

I have no way to prove that hypothesis though, I might be completely off-base here...so I won't bring it up for now, I'm sure they'll figure it out on their own soon enough. Anyway, with that, there was nothing more to discuss, so we were dismissed.

I got back from a super difficult and important Mission relatively unscathed, but...I have a strong feeling that the Sanctuary's conflict with the Wights was only getting started...

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