Dear diary,

Daddy took me to work today! Aunty Lindiwe was sick, so I got to go to Gild Hedkawt Headqawters with him. It was so cool! The bilding is even bigger than our house! There was a nice lady at the desk that Daddy left me with and she made me a paper bird that made a nest on my head! She was really pretty. The lady not the bird haha. She said her name was Jenna. We went to the kafe caffe cafeteria and met daddy’s boss. He was really scary looking but we arm resled for a seat and I won! He wasn’t that scary afterwards and he said I should join the advenchurers when I grow up, because that’s where all the strong peeple are and I’m already stronger than him! Me and Jenna then went upstairs and there were tubes and cages with weerd animals and glowing plants in them. Jenna said that was where the reeserchers worked. I asked Jenna if the reeserchers were strong like the advenchurers and she lauff laughed and said they didn’t need to be strong because they were super smart. I thout that was lame but she told me Uncle Ben could only make the grapevine becoz he was the boss of the reeserchers. If there wasn’t a grapevine, there would be no Toktik so I don’t think reesercheers are lame anymore. Toktik is the best.

Excerpt from “Alice’s Diary: KEEP OUT”

“Birgitte, assemble the .50 cal and give it to me. Jas, shield up, deflect rather than block, start charging your dagger. Musa, get us some help.”

The team rushed at Mike’s command, Birgitte frantically putting pieces together as the bear slowly walked up to them, its burning red eyes, no pupil visible, seeming to stare into their souls. Jas, just as slowly, shifted into position in front of Mike and set his shield down, huddling behind it as he prepared a laser shot that would probably kickstart chaos. Musa was desperately trying channels on his earpiece, Strike team 5 apparently already out of range. Giving up, he sent out an distress call on his map. Everyone would know that they needed their arses saved but living with ridicule is better than dying with pride. The colossal bear, now nose to metal with Jas’ shield, was sniffing around the top rim, so big that it could look over the tower shield while on four legs. Jas’ own legs, to his credit, were barely shaking as he felt its hot breath in his face.

“Do you not consider it more prudent to blind this fell behemoth and fly like the wind soon after?” he hissed.

“Look at its eyes, Jas. It’s a dire bear, it could probably stare right into the light and still chase you down in a dark room. I’d rather not find out it’s immune to bright light as it’s munching on my liver.”

“Mike, here.” Birgitte whispered as she gently passed the big gun to him and took out two grenades from a small pouch on her bandolier. He strapped his axe to his back and took out the gun’s magazine.

“Explosives, Birgitte? Really? Here?”

“Relax big guy, the ones produced by my power don’t randomly go off in high energy zones. I wouldn’t carry death traps on my body.”

Mike reinserted the magazine, having empowered each individual bullet with as much Penetration as he could. He pulled back the slide and loaded one in the chamber as he painstakingly took aim directly at its right eye, still focused on the funny little morsel in front of it.

“Birgitte, if we survive, we’ll have a long conversation about this. Jas, on three you take its left eye out, as much energy as you can. Birgitte, those bombs are for the cubs. Don’t miss. As soon as that happens, we disappear. Musa with Jas, Birgitte with me. Keep your map on so we can find each other afterwards.”

There were nods all around as they prepared for what they had to do.

“One.”

Jas started pumping the dagger full, pushing his Everradiant Seed to its limits. Its dull white glow didn’t change, but Jas could feel the torrent of energy roiling inside, waiting for the chance to be used.

“Two.”

Mike placed his finger on the trigger, his breath shaky but his hands and torso frozen still. Birgitte pulled the pins out of her grenades. Musa felt a strange twinge in his Seed.

“Hey guys-“

A loud HOOT sounded before he could finish his thought. Jas, already tightly wound from the behemoth salivating over him, sprang up with a cry and buried the dagger directly in its eye. A loud crackle sounded as the knife started discharging all its stored Sunlight through the laser, burning the bear from inside its own head. It let out a loud roar and reared its head back, swiping at Jas’ shield and sending him crashing through the trees. The two cubs, trailing their mother, were each hit by a projectile that bounced off their fur and, as they turned to look at it, exploded in their faces. However, the expected shot never rang out, and as Musa turned towards Mike, he gasped in shock. There was a feathery foot coming up out of Mike’s shadow and all four wicked talons were digging deep into his back, dragging him down to the ground. He dropped the rifle and pulled out a flechette, stabbing behind him in an attempt to dislodge the claws. It didn’t work. With a strong yank, the foot pulled him off his own feet and he sank into his shadow, the flechette the only sign he was ever there.

“No.” he said softly, disbelieving his own eyes. “No! MIKE!”

But his friend was gone.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Juggernaut sped through the trees, glancing at his map every so often. Something was wrong. Fully half of the teams were sending out distress signals, yet they hadn’t even breached the inner ring of the Burrow. His earpiece, apparently fail-proof, was failing. The ambient energy was also sharply rising, not noticeable to the weaker senses of the Seeds but his own Flower was drawing slightly increasing amounts of energy over time, enough to sustain his third stage for more than a few seconds. It was like the Burrow had aged a week in the past hour. The forest flashed by in a red tinted haze as he zeroed in on a team facing an oversized deer in a clearing. A student’s corpse already decorated the immense, spreading antlers on the stag’s head, and it seemed not to even feel the weight as it zipped around the open space, a cold aura already freezing the blood on its antlers. A Frigid Deer. Even I couldn’t have taken one of these on at Seed level. But the students looked to have found a second wind after their friend’s demise. A short brown-haired boy wearing the same tactical gear that seemed to be the fashion these days held a spear that had elongated and was striking at the deer like a snake, ducking and weaving around bolts of ice that materialised from just in front of the deer. A south Asian girl was making slashing motions with her rapier, each releasing a shear of wind that screamed towards the murderous Burrow beast. The final student was most distraught. She was a tall Scandinavian, pale blonde, powerfully built, and wielding a large spiked mace. The mace glowed with orange energy and a heat shimmer had appeared around the head. Each wild blow, the deer nimbly stepping around, detonated on impact, spraying earthen debris all over. She shrieked in frustration, her eyes lighting up with the same orange energy as her mace and a lick of flame escaping her mouth.

“Just! Fucking! Die!”

Their teamwork was impeccable. The tall girl kept all of its attention up close, while the spear and wind shears forced the deer to keep moving instead of just goring the young warrior. They had clearly learned from the death of their friend. As so many of us are forced to. She’s about to set off a Florescence too. The big girl would bloom, then likely so would her allies soon after. Her eyes were growing brighter and the heat shimmer around the mace stronger. Every shout now released flames that got hotter each iteration. There were slight sparkles appearing in the air around them, little pinpricks of light suspended in the air. The density of these slowly increased until it was as though he was looking at a field of stars. They’ll win this. I need to get to those who won’t. The man sped off into the forest, a red blur leaving no sign of his passage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Sir! Sir!”

The man looked up from his desk as an aide called for his attention. “Yes, make it quick.”

“Sir, we’ve just received a huge spike of distress signals outside New London. Preliminary reports show that a delve had been organised for the first-year students of the Academy there.”

“Eh, probably a Burrow that’s a little older than they expected. Juggernaut teaches combat there, they’ll be fine. Put a little hair on their chests, I daresay.”

“We’ve also lost grid connection in that area, sir.”

“What? Impossible.”

“I know sir, that’s why I brought this straight to you.” The dutiful aide put a handful of documents on the man’s desk. He perused them quickly, scanning for the relevant information. Having seemingly found what he needed, he put the papers down and massaged his temple.

The man was pensive, thinking hard about the implications. “Do they have enough of our product to form a temporary grid?”

“To a limited extent, sir. The maps are still broadcasting location data locally and in real-time, but it seems the earpieces can’t maintain a connection in these conditions.”

“Notify the Guild and Academy heads. No, wait, this should come from me directly. Do we have any movement Concepts around?”

“Jerry on the third floor I think, he has a Bud of Migration.”

“This stays between us, understand?”

“What stays between us, sir?”

“Exactly. Remind me to give you a raise when I come back.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Birgitte saw everything fall apart in slow motion. First, the damnable owl had startled Jas into a premature attack. It had seemed to work at first, but while it was roaring and swiping at its face in agony, it didn’t look like it was about to keel over. Quite the opposite in fact, once it saw the charred upper bodies of its cubs, it had truly gone berserk, ripping up the ground, uprooting trees and tearing anything in its sight apart. She had tried to shoot at it with her smaller guns but it seemed immune to conventional weaponry, its fur shifting and twisting to block the bullet barrage with uncanny precision.

Secondly, Mike had gone missing. The leader of their squad had been pulled into his own shadow, only to reappear god knows where. Without him putting their unique talents together in creative ways, they never would have gotten this far. Ironically, if they were worse, Mike would still be around.

Thirdly, Jas was out of commission. The bear’s swipe on his shield had dislocated his shoulder, and when he hit the trees, he broke his leg and fell unconscious. The bloody, jagged end of bone was still sticking out of his thigh. She figured she would do what she could in the absence of Sunlight though, and crunched his shoulder back into place. He stayed passed out. I know this is a bad sign for humans, are Elvar the same?

Lastly, Musa had seemingly broken down, picking up the discarded rifle and abandoned flechette with a blank look, completely at odds with his usual easy grin. The bear was rampaging around and it was a small miracle he hadn’t been angrily swiped or mauled already. The shellshocked man walked slowly towards Birgitte and Jas and sat down next to the tree they were hiding behind.

“Mike.”

“Yeah.”

Musa just stared at the ground, gun in his hands.

“Look, Musa. We are in danger right now. Jas is in danger right now. We need to retreat and-“

“No.”

“Musa, I know. Believe me, I know. But now is not the time for this, we’re not strong enou-“

“No.” he said with conviction as he stood up, handing her his map, the sleek tablet already flashing the distress call icon. “You’ll go, make sure Jas is safe.” He started disassembling the gun.

She looked down at the tablet. “You know this is stupid right? You can’t kill it.”

“I know. I don’t plan to kill it.” He strapped the large gun to his back and picked up his glaive.

With that he ran off towards the enraged beast, all but guaranteeing his death.

Instead, he made art.

The man seemed to know exactly when a paw would lash out towards him, removing his body before the bear even registered the movement. He foresaw any sudden charges, simply dodging by the barest of margins. Mama bear was being toyed with and she knew it.

The beast, maddened beyond all hope of reason, started bristling. Literally bristling, as its coat started shifting and forming hard spikes and sharp edges, possibly hoping to at least get him wary of approaching. But this appeared to be a signal for him to sprint directly at the bear. He was fast enough to stay on its blind side even as it turned to follow him. He jumped up, grabbed at one of the spikes, and started climbing, tearing open his hands. The bear went crazy.

It started turning in circles, roaring all the while, trying to dislodge the man. It relaxed its hair, releasing the spikes, but the damage had already been done. He was on top and not letting go. He started inching his way forward, up the bear’s spine and neck. He knew that without the ability to imbue his weapons, he’d never do enough damage to kill something like this. So, he instead aimed to cripple it. The bear had so much sheer mass that even if its fur didn’t act as armour, they likely wouldn’t have been able to kill the truck-sized creature. Now at the head, and grabbing on for dear life, he pulled the flechette out of his waistband and stabbed it straight through the other eye.

The bear gave another huge roar, that gradually turned to a whimper as its healing factor couldn’t remove the two empowered weapons from its eyes. Only the flechette wound bled, as the laser had cauterized the other eye from the inside. In the darkness, surrounded by things that wanted to hurt it, the bear huddled into a ball and its coat instantly spiked up, defeated.

Musa had jumped off the bear before it did this and looked back at Birgitte’s expression of shock.

“I’m going to find him.”

And he ran off.