“Did you guys just feel that?” Jorna inquired from her seat aboard the private jet ferrying Rueben’s small team of channelers to Merricent’s main airport.

“Feel what?” Lya inquired, now focussing her senses on the environment.

“That weird energy pulse?” Cunall inquired, drawing a nod from Jorna who was now rather surprised that the others seemed unable to feel it. “I’ve been feeling them for a couple minutes now. They’ve been coming at irregular intervals since we approached Merricent but I’ve got no idea what they actually are.”

“Me neither.” Jorna nodded. “That last one felt like a weapon discharge but we’re so high up…” She muttered, almost to herself, as she got up and made her way to one of the windows at the side of the small aircraft to see if she could locate the source visually.

This prompted the others, who had yet to feel anything of the sort, to follow her and see if they could identify anything out of the ordinary.

“Was it coming from that direction?” Rude questioned, pointing towards the capital of the relatively small island nation.

“Yeah.” Jorna and Cunall confirmed simultaneously before Cunall added “What’s going on over there?”

“No idea.” Rude shrugged. “The area’s shielded so I can’t actually make anything out. Lya?”

As he was calling out to her, the slender young woman was already making her way over to the port-side of the jet so that she could use her sensory superiority in hopes of succeeding where Rude had failed.

“There’s definitely a sensory damping field in play.” She confirmed as her eyes narrowed and her vision focussed in on the spot, blocking everything else out of her mind. “It’s probably being used as a media-blackout field though because it’s not particularly powerful. I can make out a few military MTs and zeta signatures from exo-suits – along with something else.”

“Haima’sa?” Rueben inquired with audible worry but Lya just shrugged.

“I guess it could be, based on your description – but I’ve never run into these things so I honestly can’t say for sure.” She replied.

“Haima’sa that they need MTs to take care of?” Rude inquired. “I’ve never heard of any of these things being that strong.”

“Me neither, especially within city limits.” Jorna added. “The distortion required to summon something like that would trigger a cataclysm event, and the city’s response system should shut it down before it’s completed.”

“Ordinarily,” Rueben conceded “—but it’s not impossible. Change of plans guys, we’re going to take a closer look at this thing. I’ll go inform the pilot.”

“Sweet! Time to crack some skulls.” Rude endorsed Rueben’s plan with a broad grin, drawing energy into himself to power up.

“You’ll sit this one you, right Lya?” Jorna suggested, drawing a smirk from the posh, blue-haired woman.

“That won’t be necessary Jorna, I can handle myself in a fight.” She replied.

“Yeah Jorna, don’t be sexist.” Cunall added with a smirk, summoning two battle axes from the ether as he prepared to interject himself into the battle as well.

“Alright guys, e.t.a. is ninety seconds; get ready.” Rueben announced as he exited the cockpit and made his way back towards the group.

The five members of the small team braced themselves as the jet brought itself around, adjusting its flight path so that it would pass directly over the cordoned off area. As it did, Rueben teleported the group out of the jet’s cabin and allowed them to begin their freefall towards the target of their interests.

“You know, I probably should’ve asked this before… but can I assume that everyone has a landing strategy?” Rueben yelled over the sound of the wind rushing past their ears, mid-fall.

“Oh so now you think about that?” Cunall marvelled incredulously, shaking his head as he turned his attention back towards the dome of distorted space.

“Wait, you guys need landing strategies?” Rude chuckled with amusement, having never considered such a thing up to this point given his own unique constitution. “My ‘strategy’ was just… well… landing.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t all have bones as thick as your skull.” Jorna retorted before her entire body became engulfed in red flames and her descent slowed significantly.

As she brought herself to a slow hover, she watched as the others continued to plummet towards the centre of blacked-out area. Cunall was the first one to break the sensory net and lay his eyes on the situation that the Rogue Special Forces and Merricent Royal Guard had been doing their best to contain. At the centre of the confrontation was a creature, the likes of which he had never seen. After all, the advent of zeta had spawned the occasional meta-beast – a zeta powered mutation of one of the more common species on Terra – but what he was currently laying his eyes on was in an entirely different league. This hulking quadruped monster, presumably one of the dreaded haima’sa, stood well over three storeys from the heel to shoulder of its forelimbs and was certainly no zeta-based evolution of a pre-existing creature. Its closest relatives in the animal kingdom seemed to be the Komodo dragon, to which it shared an uncanny resemblance from its powerful jaws to its long fleshy tail; along with the gorilla, to which it was more closely proportioned.

“I’m engaging.” Cunall stated without hesitation, expanding his person energy-type around his body before vanishing from the senses of the rest of the team.

“Rude—” Rueben started, only to be cut off by the muscle bound channeler.

“Yeah I got it, I’ll cover the dwarf.” Rude interrupted, pulling his limbs tightly together to accelerate his descent.

Before they could reach the creature however, another powerful discharge of zeta energy radiated outwards, manifesting as a shockwave from the primary cannon of the only MT on site. This shockwave heralded a concentrated blast of polarised zeta energy, which ionised the air on its trajectory before it tore through the shoulder of the massive creature. The impact came during an unsuccessful attempt at evasion by the massive creature, staggering it from the sheer force of the beam and leaving a gaping wound where its left forelimb connected to its massive torso.

“Take cover!” As soon as the attack impacted and it was confirmed that the energy pierced the creature’s armoured hide, a loud voice broadcasted from the coordinating mobile turret.

This came much to the surprise of the five newcomers to the sortie, but none would be more surprised than Cunall.

Rueben’s eyes widened as a black spray erupted from the shoulder of the wounded creature and bathed the battlefield in this foul substance. Instinctually, he covered himself in his personal zeta variant, allowing his body to be engulfed in the white glow of kaigen before he vanished from his location and appeared on the tallest roof in the cordoned off district of Neo Brighton. As he reappeared just outside of the range of the creature’s toxic spray, he watched as Lya transformed her body into that of a massive eagle and did her best to evade the noxious counter attack as well. First she slowed her decent before turning back towards the sky in an attempt to get out of the range of the odd substance.

Unfortunately for Cunall and Rude, they possessed no such skillsets and could neither slow their descents nor significantly alter their trajectories. So amidst the strange counter attack, Cunall reappeared alongside the creature’s undamaged shoulder, plunging his axes into its flesh to slow his decent towards the earth. His trajectory allowed him to avoid any further spray from the creature’s major wound, but during his journey towards that advantageous spot the red-haired wild-man had already been bathed in the beast’s deleterious ‘blood’. What made it worse however was that this was a fate he shared with Rude, who impacted the ground just a few metres away from the creature with a deafening thud and a visible shockwave of dust and debris. The conductive alloys that had made up the city’s ‘hyper-rail’ system gave way to a small crater, as the bulky channeler slammed down from a fall that he would normally have been able to shrug off. Unfortunately however, with the black ooze already eating away at his form, the self-proclaimed ‘tank’ found himself more injured than he’d bargained for.

Rueben cursed under his breath at the sight, summoning two luminous orbs into his palms before detonating them. Much like the effect had manifested with his veranos, his kaigen allowed the young man to telekinetically effect powerful shockwaves over Cunall’s and Rude’s location. The result was a temporary barrier to shield the two psychers from the deadly sprays of their target, whose wound had already begun the process of rather rapid regeneration.

In just seconds the gaping hole in its shoulder had already closed halfway, reducing the fluid discharge from the creature’s body considerably. Such was the double edged nature of the battle with this particular target. Its initial wound had forced the stationed exo-suit pilots to take cover behind the walls of the zeta-reinforced buildings within the cordoned off area or the shield of the singular mobile turret deployed to contain this particular threat. Such tactics were necessary to reduce casualties in the battle against this beast, but its rapid healing soon allowed the deployed exo-suit pilots to re-engage; abandoning their cover to unleash their own payloads on the target.

“Now I see.” Rueben muttered as the soldiers engaged the creature, allowing him to regroup with his team.

Instead of engaging further, he activated his comms and initiated a video call between himself and the other four channelers with whom he’d arrived.

“Is everyone alright?” He inquired, watching as three-dimensional displays of their faces were projected into his field of view.

“I’m fine.” Jorna stated immediately, still hovering above the battlefield and surveying the situation from her vantage point.

“I’m also safe.” Lya responded form her perch atop a roof some distance away.

“I’m gonna say no.” Cunall replied with a grimace, fighting the urge to revert to his unpowered up state as the energy traveling through his body burned with each passing second.

“Yeah same here, that black stuff is doing a number on my form.” Rude added; drawing a knowing nod from Rueben.

“Alright, you two hang tight.” He stated, turning his gaze to their location at the foot of the massive creature.

With this he once against outstretched his hands and extended his field of influence, allowing his energy to wash over his two injured comrades. In that instant, the two found themselves enshrouded in white light before being yanked through the ambient zeta streams towards Rueben’s location.

“You two are sitting the rest of this out.” He commanded. “That looks like mana burn, which means this thing is definitely haima’sa.” He added. “Lya, I’m going to need you to make contact with the Rogues, find out what their combat strategy is and see if there’s anything that we can do to help – running in gung-ho again is just likely to get one of us killed.”

“Okay, I’m on it.” Lya nodded, before once again transforming into a bird and making her way towards the largest zeta signature that she could find.

“Jorna, you cover our resident morpher while I add some firepower to the exo-suit assaults.” Rueben added before vanishing from his location and reappearing in the fray.

“Right.” Jorna replied with a light sigh, having already assumed that she’d be assigned such a task given that she was the only other member of the team with the rare ability of flight.

Thankfully for her, the creature’s attention was now cast sternly on its primary attackers. This allowed the two comparably small energy signatures to traverse the skies unmolested before touching down at the edge of the shielded area. As her feet touched the ground Lya returned to her human form while Jorna’s flames dissipated, allowing them both to scan the area for the most powerful channeler.

“Who the hell are you two?” A stern female voice drew the attention of the two young women to the commanding officer of the Rogue platoons: Ms. Zed Cross.

“We’re here to help.” Lya replied. “How can we lend a hand against the haima’sa threat?”

Zed’s eyebrow tipped upwards at the mere fact that the young woman knew that word and further more could use it accurately. Her gaze narrowed at the peculiar young women, while in the corner of her vision she took note as their target reeled backwards and unleashed a powerfully corrosive breath attack. For her time slowed to a crawl, while she contemplated whether she should pursue her line of questioning or react to the threat to her squadron. With an audible growl her head spun as she made the decision, turning her full attention towards the target of the creature’s attack and watching as the only MT stationed there strafed into its path and erected its energetic shield to absorb the attack.

The impact actually shook the ground as the creature’s energy smashed into the MT’s powerful shield, sending shockwaves through the ambient zeta as massive quantities of the weaponized energy was neutralised and returned to its latent form. Jorna and Lya smiled at the outcome, which had seen the true target of the attack – a small group of exo-suit pilots – saved from dissolution.

But Zed just growled once more.

What she noticed, the thing that the two younger channelers did not, was the fact that the attack had finally overloaded the mobile turret’s shield generator, leaving the massive weapons-platform vulnerable to a follow up attack.

“Sorry ladies, I don’t have time for this right now.” Zed replied with visible annoyance. “We need a lot more help than a couple of bravers can give – so stay out of the way.”

With this a powerful rush of zeta could be felt, surging past the two young women and into Zed’s body as she brought herself to full power. The result was the expansion of a palpable shockwave of energy as her body assumed its heroic form and her military expansion suit switched into combat mode. Her casual military fatigues were immediately replaced by form-fitting cybernetic armour, while a solid-state sabre materialised in her right-hand and an energised shield manifested in her left.

“The MT’s recharging Benet, I’m going in.” Zed stated over her comm link to her commanding officer back at the Garrison, before taking off from her location with a powerful shockwave.

The words “Be careful” coming through the link fell on deaf ears however as Zed rushed into the fray and allowed her internal energy to charge to its maximum possible stock.

“What is that lunatic doing?” Jorna inquired as she watched the haima’sa creature turn its attention away from the staggering mobile turret and towards the high-speed threat that was encroaching on its location.

Jorna watched as once again vile black spray erupted from the creature’s putrid mouth, this time streaming towards the speedy Rogue Commander. Unlike the massive mobile turret however, who’d been the willing target of such attacks since the beginning of the battle, Zed had no intention of shielding the assault. Instead, her high speed movement was accelerated even further, causing her to vanish completely from sight before she reappeared just a few metres above her target. While the ground beneath her previous location melted away under the corrosive effects of the creature’s attack, Zed was pulling her limbs towards her torso and throwing herself into an extremely quick spin. With just the blade of her sword and the edge of her shield sticking out, the resulting attack worked like a buzz-saw, slicing the creature down its face as she hurled herself into the ground below. Once again its horrid innards spewed forth and poisoned the area around it, erupting in a black spray that forced Zed to back-pedal as fast as she could manage.

From his location Rueben pitched in, erecting an invisible barrier of kaigen to shield Zed as she retreated and save her the unpleasant mana burn that his compatriots were now suffering. This allowed Zed to dissipate her own energetic shield, freeing up her left hand for an offensive follow up rather than a defensive manoeuvre. This resulted in a powerful concentration of primal white zeta building within her palm, before she jumped, spun and unleashed blast towards the massive creature that was still reeling from her initial attack. The resulting blast tore through the air audibly, whistling before it impacted the creature’s already damaged face and exploding violently in turn. The attack rocked the haima’sa’s head backwards and caused it to stagger once more.

“You won’t get a cleaner shot than that boys!” She roared, prompting both of the assembled militaries to redirect all of their energies towards their long ranged offensive capabilities so that they could follow up with attacks of their own.

The result was a kaleidoscope of zeta discharges rushing towards the stunned creature, combining to press it backwards before the mobile turret emptied its zeta generator into its primary cannon and released a blast that tore through the creature’s torso along with a nearby building. This time, the resulting spray of corrupted energy was accompanied by a shrill shriek that heralded the creature’s inevitable retreat.

“Cataclysm incoming!” Zed yelled, just moments before the disorienting wave of energy rippled through the battlefield.

The earth trembled violently as the cataclysm manifested itself, while the haima’sa itself shimmered; flickering as if between this reality and another. Zed growled at the sight, but even a channeler as powerful as her could do little but watch as her target slithered into a patch of distorted space before vanishing completely from her sight and then the rest of her senses. The woman gritted her teeth and focused on maintaining her powered up state amidst the maelstrom of chaotic energy. Fortunately, within seconds the capital’s energy regulation systems powered up, mitigating the effects of the cataclysm and stabilising the anomalous rift through which the creature had fled. This signalled the end of their gruelling battle.