When they got back to the scene of the explosion, they looked around to see if they could find Gabby or Will. They saw the carnage they had found when they first got there, but now more bodies littered the ground. All the new ones were like the people they had fought and killed, and all of them wore suits. Then it hit the two of them at the same time.

“We forgot to question one of them!” They both yelled at the same time.

But before they could point any fingers, they heard the sounds of fighting in the distance. Not too sure as to who was fighting they approached carefully. Moving from cover to cover as quickly as possible, they eventually reached the sound of the fighting. The fighting was just over the hill they were running up, when they realized that if either party realized they were there, it could end badly. Quietly, the couple climbed up the hill to get a better view. What they saw was amazing. It was Gabby and Will versus one other. They didn’t know who it was, and Drakes eyes weren’t showing auras, so he couldn’t tell by that, but the way that she was fighting against the two proved she was a Gen-OpS. Even weirder was the fact that she was not just fighting the both of them, but winning too.

After a second look though, Will was badly injured and Gabby was exhausted but otherwise unharmed. Will had several bullet wounds, probably from when they were first fired upon, and also had several cuts and gashes. Gabby on the other hand was moving around more than she normally does to try and compensate for Will. But as far as skill and power are concerned, she lacked in both. It had been quite a while since she was taken off the field and even longer since she had hit her own personal wall, one that she could go no farther in skill or power. After assessing the situation, Alina looked at Drake, and without saying a word they knew what each other was thinking. They had to help them, they couldn’t just let their teammates and friends die.

Drake, being the more aggressive of the two, jumped in between his friends and their opponent. Using his red blade to block and hook the enemy’s dagger, he disarmed her and pressed forward. Meanwhile, Alina grabbed Will and led Gabby away while Drake distracted the opponent. As soon as they were at a safe distance, Alina dropped them off.

“Stay here” Alina told them.

Alina then went back to Drakes side to help fight.

“I… Hope they… will be al….right” Will struggled to say.

“They will be. Even individually, they are much stronger than their tails lead them to be, and as a team they are even stronger.” Gabby reassured him.

“But that…. One. She is equ…al to a… fox tail.” Will said concerned.

But Gabby already knew this. As far as tail rankings go, it is Cat, Fox, and then Demon. After acquiring nine cat tails, a single fox tail will form. To get the second fox tail is equivalent to getting nine cat tails again, making it very difficult to get more and more tails. But it is possible, and after acquiring nine fox tails, a demon tail will replace it. And again to get a second demon tail is like getting nine fox tails. The highest ranking that either Gabby or Will know of is a twin demon tail. Outside of that, they know nothing about the person, not even their sex or name or if they are even real or just a rumor.

When Alina got back to Drake, Drake had sheathed his sword and was fighting her hand to hand. And even though he was being overwhelmed, he was still smiling. He had never fought such a skillful opponent before and was enjoying and learning from the experience. As she watched on, Alina was amazed at how Drake was fighting. Each limb had a different purpose, and he was even skillfully using his tails to limit his opponents movements and stop attacks. He blocked an attack with his right arm, used a tail to hold the opponents arm and went in for an attack. But he was countered, the opponent had used her left arm to catch Drakes left punch and lifted a knee to try and kick him in the face. Without her knowing it, Drake had used another of his tails to wrap her feet, and limit those movements. Now with both of her arms and feet tied up, Drake used a free knee and went for the head. The opponent quickly leaned back to avoid the hit, and that’s what Drake had wanted. He switched his target from the head, to the gut that was now fully exposed, and the muscles lax to allow for movement. Right when he connected the opponent felt the impact and hunched forward. Her feet lifted off the ground a bit and she let go of Drakes left hand. He cocked it back and unleashed a punch from hell that connected with her cheek and sent her flying.

As soon as the opponent went flying Alina rushed to Drake.

“Glad… you’re… here” He said out of breath.

Alina looked at him and saw that he was covered with wounds.

“Whaaa… what happened?” She asked.

“She was… kicking my… ass… That’s …what happened.” Drake replied.

“So use your swords!” She demanded frantically.

“I can’t… She… broke my pinky… fingers… I can’t grip anything… right now.” He replied.

Alina looked down at his hands and sure enough the pinkies were broken. It was amazing he hit her as hard as he did with his hands like that.

“Here let me see them.” She said and grabbed his hands.

“Ready? One… two…” She said then set his right hand pinky.

Drake groaned in pain when she did.

“Ok time for the next one. One…” She said but didn’t count to two when she set it.

She didn’t want Drake to tense up as she set the bone and cause her to mess up. She knew how to set them, but it was more difficult if the person tensed their muscles and resisted the reset.

“There, now your hands should heal on its own.” She said.

“If I allow it” The opponent said and kicked Drake in the head sending him flying.

Alina was surprised and couldn’t react fast enough when she was hit hard with an uppercut. She saw it coming, but the shock from Drake slowed her reactions to nil so she couldn’t respond fast enough. As she was rising up from the brutal hit, the opponent jumped above her and ax kicked her down to the floor. When Drake watched Alina get kicked and slammed to the floor he lost it. He jumped at his opponent and started to attack wildly. His attacks were powerful, but predictable and the opponent easily dodged everything. Though Drake had lost it, his wild attacks had hidden motives. They were allowing for his hands to heal enough for him to grip his swords and to push the enemy away from Alina. He himself wasn’t aware of this, but at this point his instincts had taken over. However, after only a few tens of seconds of this he tired out and calmed down. That’s when he noticed he could move his hands again. Still pissed, he noticed a second thing. He was able to see his enemy’s aura now.

“Aaahhh so you’re an eye ability user?” She asked him.

He just looked at her confused. How could she tell?

“It’s easy to tell. I can also tell it’s only half complete. Only one of your eyes changed color, so you’re only able to use half of the power.” She explained.

“You see, most ‘abilities’ are just very well trained skills, or natural talents, but eye powers are genuine since they can never be attained through training. You are born with that power, and can never attain it any other way.” She continued.

She then lifted her hand and waved for Drake to bring it. Drake reached back and grabbed his sword, and tested his gripping power. Comfortable in his ability to hold his weapon he drew it and relaxed.

“Why do you only use one sword when you have two?” She asked him seriously.

“I have no reason to tell you.” He answered coldly.

He was pretty sure he couldn’t beat her alone, so he had to stall long enough for Alina or someone to recover and back him up. He looked around where Alina was and saw her aura. It was weak, but growing in strength. He thought she must have had the same idea he did, to gather strength, and then attack together. But in truth, she had been knocked unconscious from the blow and had yet to recover her senses.

Suddenly, Drake got the urge to duck to the left. As soon as he did he felt a kick swing over him. Drake wondered what that was, but he had lost his opponent in the confusion. He instantly found, and started to watch her. For every punch and kick she threw or any combination, Drake had a dodge and saw it coming before it actually came. Her attacks were weird too. They were very fluid, and efficient in their movements. Even though he could see her aura manipulate to what she was going to do, it wasn’t complete, and thanks to the weird movements; a lot of times he was just barely given enough time to dodge and he wasn’t able to find any opening to attack or stop her attacks.

“Now I see what kind of eye power you have. This is about to get boring.” She said in a depressed tone.

She then took out eight daggers and held them in between her fingers and started to attack again. Drake saw how she was going to attack and dodged, or so he thought. He was hit with the punch he thought he had dodged, and to make matters worse, he was now stabbed by four daggers. They weren’t deep, but enough to cause pain and throw everything off. She then jumped back, leaving the daggers in Drake and threw the other four. Once again, Drake tried to dodge but was hit by the flying daggers. He had no idea what was going on, he was able to dodge any vital damage, but still the daggers cut him up pretty bad. Then he felt a tug as the daggers were pulled out of him and returned to their owner. She had them all on an invisible thread and could control them that way. But he still had no idea how she was able to hit him when he should have dodged.

“You look confused.” She said with a laugh.

Drake was, and he was starting to feel weak from loss of blood. His wounds from earlier hadn’t fully healed yet and they were only making things worse. But still, the thrill of the fight put a huge grin on his face. She was definitely surprised by this and knew she had to finish it quickly; that’s when she started her attack again. She let her daggers go one by one with amazing accuracy as she tried to close the distance between her and Drake. Her aura was throwing Drake off; he still couldn’t dodge the attack and was getting hit by every dagger. As soon as a dagger made contact, she would quickly pull it back to prevent Drake from catching one and pulling her in. Drake decided to not use the aura vision anymore and just use his normal vision and tried to dodge them. He still had no idea how to control his power, but when he didn’t want to use the vision anymore, it would go away. The trouble would be getting it back if he wanted to use it later in the fight again. But now he was able to clearly see everything she was doing and was able to block what he couldn’t dodge.

“Wow you learn quick. Maybe this will be fun after all!” She exclaimed with excitement.

“Hahahaha. It will be!” Drake replied with a devilish grin and started his attack

As the fight progressed, Drake started to learn how to turn on and off the vision at will, and the balance of using the two. He was quickly catching up to his opponents skills as he would land shallow hits. When he was attacking he had his vision on to see how she would dodge, and when he was on the defense he would turn it off to see how she was going to attack. This worked for a while but she quickly saw through his game and started to change when she would manipulate her aura. Drake wasn’t an idiot though; in fact he is a bit of a genus. So he soon discovered her pattern again and learned when he should have it on and off, and how to tell when she was going to manipulate her aura again. Whenever she did, it took a bit of concentration, so her movements slowed for just a second, and that second was all Drake needed to realize when to turn off his vision. Soon he started getting the better of her and his attacks started getting deeper and deeper, and slowly his opponents face changed from one toying with her opponent to one who took him as a serious threat.

But Drake still had one more trick up his sleeve; he had yet to use his quick draw. His opponent knew there was something with the sword, and had been keeping an eye on it the whole time. And to further convince her that he used the sword, he was only using one hand to hold his red blade which had a two handed grip. She knew it was an impossibly heavy sword with the attacks he managed to land on her, it would be game over if he got even one decent hit on her. And he was getting better at an alarming rate, using both martial arts as well as sword play made it very difficult for her to set anything up. If she expected a sword attack, she would suddenly get hit with a kick or a punch. Or even more confusing for her, he would drop his sword mid attack to unleash a brutal combo only to use one of his tails to pick up the sword a second later. He was good, and she knew it, much better than his tail ranking would lead her to believe. But she finally got her answer for what the black sword was used for.

Drake took a few jumps back and took in a deep breath. When he opened his eyes and looked at her, his eyes scared her. They had both changed color now, and glowed with killing intent; his grin that of the devil. It was then that Drake also noticed the change in his vision, now he could not only see her aura, but her internal energy as well. He also realized that while he was fighting, he was able to tell what she will be doing, even when her aura would show her doing something else. So he figured he had awakened his complete eye power, but he had no idea how to activate any of it. It’s almost like the power had a mind of its own and would react to Drake’s needs. As he breathed out, he sheathed his red blade and charged in. He was faster than she remembered being, and he closed the distance between the two before she even realized what happened.

“Shit at this range, his red blade will slice right through me!” She thought to herself.

So she anticipated a drawing attack from his red blade, which he did reach for. But at the same time he reached for his black blade and drew it with an alarming speed. The glint of the black blade as he drew it for the first time caught her eye, and she realized what he was doing. In a split second, she now had to dodge two blades since she can’t block them. Their weight and cutting ability was too much for her little daggers to handle, and those daggers could stop bullets. Quickly she had to decide which blade would come first, but she wasn’t given the time. Drake had spent countless hours, days, weeks, months and years practicing his quick draw to the point that it is quicker than a bullet. He drew his sword and did a horizontal slash that his opponent just barely dodged a fatal hit. Still however, he did connect and a huge gash opened up on her stomach. Then the sonic boom from his swing hit her full force and threw her back a few feet as well.

That’s when she changed; realizing she will now bleed out very quickly from the wound, she suddenly got faster and more technical. Drake went for a straight stab with his red blade immediately after his quick draw. She spun out of the way, and threw out some daggers. She then pulled on the threads and caused them to spin around and swing towards Drake. He blocked them with his black blade, and when he looked back she was holding the barb of his red blade. But it was impossibly heavy, If he so much as decided to drop it she wouldn't be able to hold it. Thinking quickly she charged Drake and sent him flying with a running kick. When he slammed into the ground, he didn’t even get a second to compose himself when he was rocked with a stomp to the face, slamming his head back into the ground. Dazed, and out of desperation, he wildly swung his black blade to get some distance, which didn’t work. Mid swing, she jumped on the tip of the blade, using a dagger to prevent the blade from slicing her foot, and forced the blade to drop. She then stomped his head again. Now Drake was completely out of it. He couldn’t focus anymore and his vision was fading away, still he felt himself get lifted up by his neck.

At this point, Drake was done. He was being outclassed and outmatched in every way. His reflexes weren’t good enough, his power wasn’t good enough and worse to his pride; his skills weren’t good enough. As he was fading out of consciousness, he dropped his blades and went limp. She was amazed he held onto those heavy swords as long as he did, then slammed his head into the ground again. He was covered in blood, the back of his head was ripped open and bleeding, and his mouth was flooding with blood. He tried to spit it out, but was lifted by the neck again. It was at this point Alina had recovered and was getting ready to jump into the fight when she saw Drake being held by his throat. She realized his opponent was about to stab him with her daggers. Drake also noticed this, and did everything in his power to shift his weight so she would at least lose her balance enough that he could try to get one of his swords. He grabbed one of her legs with his tail and pulled on it.

This caught her by surprise and she let him go to try and get her balance back, but it was too late. As they both fell and started to roll down the hill, she had one final trick up her sleeve. She had tied threads to Drakes black blade when he blocked her daggers with it, and she pulled on it to get it. As soon as she did, she used the weight to regained her balance, stood up and stabbed it through Drakes gut. He didn’t have time to register what happened before he was stabbed. Blood shot out of Drakes mouth as a result.

“You… are some…thing else…” She said completely out of breath.

“If you… had more ex…perience, you… could have won.” She praised.

“You’re… one hell of… a tough S.O.B” She complemented him.

She then pulled on one of her threads and caught the dagger.

“This is where you…” She started.

But then a Katar burst through her face, showering Drake in blood, bone, and brains. Then he felt it; a huge killing intent and it was right in front of him. How he missed it he had no idea, even with him as damaged as he was, this was a huge, sinister, killing intent filled with rage. It was coming from the wielder of the blade that had killed his opponent, and she pushed the dead body out of the way Drake saw it. It was Alina, and her eyes were filled with rage and hatred. But this time it didn’t scare Drake; he was just relieved she had made it to him in time.

Alina looked at Drake and was amazed at the damage the two had caused to each other. She was only out of the fight for a few minutes, yet they both had cuts and gashes everywhere. Drake was obviously in a worse condition though, not counting the hole in her face that Alina had just put in, and when she looked back at him, it finally hit her. He had a flipping sword sticking out of his gut. It was in deep, the hilt of the blade was to his body, and it was a three foot long blade. Drake was holding the hilt and was about to say something when he passed out form blood loss.

“Drake?!” Alina said in shock.

After a few second it hit her again and she shook him to try and wake him up.

“Drake!!!!!!” she screamed.

“Common Drake! Wake up!” She said as she started to sob.

“Common, you can’t leave me yet!” She said through her tears.

But his body was shutting down. He had taken too much damage from an opponent who was more experienced than he was. His breathing was slowing, and his pulse was getting weaker by the second. Now in a panic since there was nothing she could do, Alina lost it. She was now in an uncontrollable sob at the thought of losing her best friend and the man she loves. Then he stopped breathing all together.

“DRAKE!!!!!!” she screamed at the top of her lungs.

The loud scream drew the attention of all nearby, friendly or not. But Gabby and Will were the first to arrive to the scene. What they saw however, would haunt their nightmares for years to come. Alina was having a complete meltdown; with Drakes blood on her hands, she was clawing at her face. Bleeding self-inflicted gashes now covered her face. Gabby and Will hesitated for a second, and that’s when Alina saw them. She slowly turned her head in their direction with her fingers still clawing her face.

“Now we can always be together.” She said in a soft monotone voice and a blank thousand mile stare.

That one sentence caused Gabby and Will to take a step back. They were in shock with Alina’s reaction to Drakes death. Then Gabby saw that Drake still had color to his system, he could still be saved. She tapped Wills arm and pointed over to Drake. He nodded and started to move towards Drake.

“No! You can’t come close to him!” Alina shouted at Will.

“I just want to help him.” He explained to her calmly.

But she lost it even more. She reached for his sword that is still in Drakes gut and pulled it out of him. When she did that, Drake started to breathe again since the weight that was stopping him was removed, but he started to bleed profusely.

“No! You can’t!” She shouted back at him not noticing Drake breathing again.

She then struggled to swing the sword at Will to keep him away. But in her insanity, she forgot just how heavy Drakes blades are, and was thrown with the blade. Will took advantage of this opening by stepping into striking distance, and hit her on the back of the head to knock her out.

“You know, you could have done this too.” Will complained to Gabby.

“Yah, I know.” Gabby said sarcastically.

She then walked over to Drake and started to put the pieces back together. Frist she checked to see if any vitals were hit, they were, but oddly they had already started to heal. Confused, she tore off a large chunk of her shirt and tied it around his stomach to close the wound.

“Hey Gabs… better hurry.” Will said.

She looked back to see a few dozen soldiers approaching. Before they got close enough however, they were cut down by three friendly Gen-OpS. The two let out a sigh of relief and got back to working on Drake.

“How can we help?” A five fox tail said.

He then looked at Drake and recognized him.

“What?! How did that happen to Drake?” He asked.

“He fought against a Gold Ridge.” Will answered.

The soldier was in shock. The Ridge power group came from China, and they would grow Ridges on their spine that come out of their skin as they became more powerful. Once they have ten, one would turn gold, equaling a Fox Tail from the Tail power group.

“Anyway, they both need medical treatment ASAP!” Gabby said.

“So help us take them to the hospital quick. We will grab their gear.” Will finished.

The group knew of Drake, he had become quite infamous because of an event that happened a few weeks ago. For no apparent reason he attacked and beat a seven cat tail in a brutal fashion. Because of that he is considered to be the strongest five tail equaled only by Alina since she is the only one to ever beat him in a fight. And with his infamy came knowledge in his personality, skills and weapons. With that knowledge in mind the group knew damn well that they couldn’t carry the swords; not only because of their extreme weight, but because Drake would be pissed if he found out someone he doesn’t know touched his swords. So they let Gabby and Will drag the weapons while they rushed them to the hospital.