A few hours ago...

Both Chi-Sun and Eun-Hee barely survived their encounter with the Nebula Grunts. The injuries that Eun-Hee had earlier were starting to heal because of her Nebula tissue implanted within her body, it allows for regeneration of limbs and tissue. However direct damage inflicted to the heart or brain was instant death for them, in many cases, Familiars thought of Nebula tissue as a lucky charm the more you had the more luck was usually the saying.

They continued through the forest as they heard the sounds of plasma beams being fired in the distance along with gunfire and explosions. Chi-Sun had to slow down in order for Eun-Hee to keep up even though her wounds were healing she still had a slight limp to her running. They continued further into the forest trying to reach the South Korean front line.

The two arrived in a small opening in the middle of the forest to find a single large tree toppled over, it looked to have been hit by one of the Nebula Platform beams during the initial attack, on the floor lying next to the tree looked like two persons. As Chi-Sun and Eun-Hee emerged from the forest foliage they noticed it was two girls from their academy.

The Familiar girl was leaning back against the trunk of the fallen tree her short messy silver coloured hair had been dirtied by the preceding battle. In her arms, she was holding onto another girl sobbing to herself. As Chi-Sun and Eun-Hee neared the two the former realised whom it was.

"Yon!" Chi-Sun called out, both she and Eun-Hee ran to Yon only to see her Coordinator dead in her arms, the girl's short brown hair draped casually to the side of her face made it look like she was in a deep sleep.

Yon looked up with dried tears on her cheeks, "Chi!" she replied between her crying fit.

When Chi-Sun got a closer look, she was shocked by what she saw, Yon's Coordinator had a gaping hole where her heart would have been instead she could see the bone shards and flesh protruding from the entry and exit wound where charcoaled looking skin and flesh started to crumble. Eun-Hee felt sick having to take a few steps away to stop herself from vomiting.

Chi-Sun knelt down in front of Yon, she noticed that Yon had blood pouring from her back. "Yon, what happened?" Chi-Sun asked reluctantly to find out. "When the Nebula appeared many of us were scattered, when the Nebula Titan Platform fired, one of the beams was aiming for us..." Yon looked down to her Coordinator "...but, Zhen pushed me out of the way..." trying to not lose control, Yon calmed herself before continuing "...it killed her instantly, however, the beam still struck my back I've been unable to move ever since"

It's been an hour since the Nebula appeared somethings not right usually regeneration would have been in progress by then, Chi-Sun thought to herself. She knew they couldn't stay here, the Nebula ground forces were surely scouring the area for any survivors. "Yon, we need to go..." before she could finish, Yon interjected.

"No! I'm not leaving her" Yon held on tighter to Zhen refusing to leave her behind. Chi-Sun knew the feeling of losing a partner, many Familiars and Coordinators made an unwritten law to bring back their deceased partners however it wasn't always possible forcing some to leave them behind.

Chi-Sun turned to Eun-Hee, "Eun, I need you to take Zhen back with you". Eun-Hee looked at Chi-Sun with an incredulous look, she thought her friend was going crazy, "What do you mean?" she asked looking directly at Chi-Sun.

"You can barely fight in your condition, as for Zhen she's already KIA so we don't need to worry about putting further physical and mental trauma on her..." Chi-Sun looked back at Yon who didn't seem to quite believe what she was hearing "...you can still use Tachyon right?" Eun-Hee nodded to answer her question. "On top of that if I and Yon don't make it back, the academy still needs a leader and you're ranked second behind me in our year they'll need someone to lead them if I'm not around, understood?" Chi-Sun asked for clarification, as Eun-Hee once again nodded. "I would join you but, you know what happens to injured Familiars and Coordinators when using Essence abilities"

At first, Eun-Hee was reluctant to accept the truth and order, but she knew better than to deny such things, she nodded once again, "Okay, but you better come back or they'll be hell to pay!"

Chi-Sun laughed thinking about that promise both she and Eun-Hee made back at high school, "Don't worry, your anger scares me more than the Nebula any day of the week" she smiled. Eun-Hee her serious expression became softer as a small smile appeared on her face, she knelt down gently taking Zhen from Yon's arms into hers holding the girl like a princess. Standing up Eun-Hee took a few steps back then nodded to Chi-Sun who returned the gesture.

She turned to her right she and the girl in her arms moved at the speed of lightning as her body moved due to her supernaturally enhanced state leaving a faint afterimage of the duo.

As Chi-Sun went back to Yon's side attempting to pick her up, Yon immediately fell forwards along with Chi-Sun. "I can only move my neck and arms, I can't move anything else," Yon said as she trembled from the pain. Chi-Sun looked at Yon's back to find the corset had patches of burnt out holes, but underneath she could see pulsing cyan shards where Yon's spine was.

She too picked Yon up in her arms like a princess surprising Yon herself, "We need to get you to a water source" Chi-Sun announced as the duo moved back into the dense foliage of the forest to find a fresh water source. Yon laid upon a flat rock in a clear water pond that they found, her corset had been removed and placed to the side. Chi-Sun knelt behind in the water, she could see that Yon's bra had melted into the flesh, the spine was on the show showing chunks that looked like they had been hacked off of Yon's spinal cord and bone shards scattered into the flesh at the opening of the wound. Chi-Sun could also see cyan fragments pulsating that had been lodged into Yon's spine.

If I make one wrong move I could permanently dislodge Yon's spine and paralyze her, Chi-Sun's hands started to tremble at the thought of such a thing happening. "It's okay I'm not scared" Yon muttered quietly, Chi-Sun just blinked for a moment her hands steadied soon after, she then formed her Essence Armament along with her daggers using one of them to operate on Yon's back. As time went on Chi-Sun carefully removed the fragments as Yon moaned out in pain, her face turning red, and her breathing became heavy.

Once finished Chi-Sun helped Yon up off the rock, the latter slipping in the water as her bare naked chested was on show Yon landed upon Chi-Sun, her cheeks blushing at the sight of seeing Yon's stomach and breasts dripping in clear water arousing her somewhat. Yon barely awake from the preceding events, covered her breasts with her arms. Yon was hallucinating after losing a lot of blood from her injury.

Shocked Chi-Sun didn't know what to say to that, "You can be such a brat sometimes" Chi-Sun said under her breathe, as she gently placed Yon's corset back on, and then proceeded to pick her up in the piggyback position before continuing off towards the last known location of the South Korea frontline. Chi-Sun with Yon on her back still in a deep sleep was getting closer to what sounded like a battle taking place. As they were getting closer, Chi-Sun was unaware of the Nebula presence in this area, without warning an eight pincer legged Nebula fell from the top of the trees. They were known as Nebula Pincer they were highly sufficient at search and destroy and scouting tactics their eight legs allowed them to cover ground at an unprecedented rate. It closely resembled the Greek goddess Arachne, except its composition was made up of a mechanical digital substance with light energy, it had razor sharp plasma claws and a halo above its head that station two smaller plasma beam cannons.

Before Chi-Sun could react, the Nebula Pincer used one of its legs to smash into Chi-Sun's chest winding her and knocking her and Yon through the air. After blacking out Chi-Sun started to stir awake to see the Nebula Pincer moving slowly towards her, standing up she engaged her Essence Armament ready to attack, but before she could multiple tentacles like tendrils latched onto her body.

Looking behind her she could see another Nebula Pincer, she turned to see where Yon was while also noticing the Nebula Pincer in front of her clearly ignoring Yon that was still on the floor unconscious.

She furrowed her mind on what to do, she tried to use her enhanced speed to escape. Her body went through the motions she didn't move a single inch it was as if the tentacles latched upon her negated her powers. Before she knew it, her Essence Armament started to disintegrate, and it wasn't long before her academy uniform followed the same process. Panicking she tried to escape again from the clutches of the creature, only for it to fail. Turning her head to look behind her she could see the outer carapace of the Nebula Pincer opening up with a sight of sticky flesh as clear slime slowly dripped out. Her uniform and underwear at this point we're halfway disintegrated, she came to the realization that she couldn't do anything so she resorted to closing her eyes hoping her demise was quick and painless.

Before she knew it, she could the sounds of several plasma beams being fired. Opening her eyes she could see azure blue plasma beams impacting and shredding through the armour of the Nebula Pincer's outer shell as they let out wailing cries that closely resembled a screaming girl. The beams in particular aim for the legs and heads, clearly avoiding the main carapace in the centre.

The Nebula Pincer's flailed relentlessly before eventually dying, the one that had its tendrils latched onto Chi-Sun instantly dropped her as it slowly coiled itself up in a fetus position. Chi-Sun's uniform then slowly started to regenerate unconsciously without her having to put any physical and mental effort into doing so. She was about to go to Yon's side before she started to hear a rumbling sound coming in front of her from the Nebula Pincer, she readied herself for a fight.

After a few seconds the carapace of the Nebula Pincer burst open with slime and liquid flowing out, but what surprised Chi-Sun was the naked girl that followed afterwards.

As the girl started to stir awake, she coughed violently as she tried to get the foreign substance out of her mouth, sitting up she instantly wrapped her arms around herself as the cold dusk air threatened to bit into her skin leaving her breasts out bare. When she turned around seeing Chi-Sun her eyes lit up as she moved quickly to hug Chi-Sun the latter being covered too in the foreign liquid and slime substance.

Chi-Sun knew the girl a second year Familiar, she had seen her around at the academy prior to this incident. The girl's pink medium length messy hair was dripping in the same substance that her naked body was covered in, the two loosened there embrace.

"What happened?" Chi-Sun asked needing answers as soon as possible.

The pink haired girl trembled first before she started speaking, "M-Me...m-my Coordinator...and a few others were trying to make it to the front line..." she started to hyperventilate, Chi-Sun tried to calm her down to stop the girl from panicking "...t-then next minute, w-we were attacked by those eight-legged monsters..." when the girl saw the Nebula Pincer she flinched trying to desperately move away before Chi-Sun once again reassured her by telling her the creature was dead "...these tendrils latched onto us, a-and then pulled us inside of them" the girl seemed fearful as she kept on looking at the Nebula Pincer as if she remembered committing terrible crimes inside that thing.

Her arms, legs and eyes kept on twitching uncontrollably as if she had lost control of her own body, her breathing wouldn't slow. Chi-Sun eventually grabbed the pink haired girls' hand to calm her down.

Chi-Sun pulls the girl's face towards hers, "It's okay calm down, once you're calm regenerate your academy uniform and if you can your Essence Armament, understood?" the girl nodded. In all honesty, Chi-Sun was internally scared of the thought of being inside one of those things, but being a leader of an entire year meant pushing said thoughts aside, and showing your resilience in the face of such terror to be an example for the other students within her year and younger.

However, the one thing that waned on her mind the most as of that moment was the mysterious accomplice that saved her life, Yon's and pinked haired girl. Who the hell was that fired those plasma beams they were no Nebula plasma beams because they use a combination of pink, red and orange beams, Chi-Sun continued to think hard about it, whoever they were they're definitely not human with that kind of firepower. Chi-Sun decided not to dwell on it any longer, instead, she opted to get herself and her two comrades moving to safety before they were attacked by more Nebula. Who would of most certainly have heard the barrage of those plasma beams from just moments ago.