"You need to let Arik go, Bellanode. His destiny doesn't lie here."

"And just where does it belong?" she replied playfully.

Cyanide fell silent. His body was beaten and bloodied with numerous tears in his camouflage cargo pants and his jean jacket was nowhere to be found. Whether the blood was his or another's was up in the air, but he stood sturdy and prominent all the same.

She dropped her sword from the air and squinted with scrutiny. "Perhaps you mean to smuggle him to Andro."

Cyanide's character didn't budge. Arik could see the military training of Cyanide's iron will in full glory; an impressive feat in the presence of someone who Arik saw as having an otherworldly threatening aura.

Bellanode clicked her tongue and shook her head slowly. "You know you can't hide anything from me, Freddy. I didn't want to believe it to be true, but I had my sneaking suspicions. After all, you've always held a soft spot for that crazy old coot."

Movement in the corner of Arik's blood-clotted eye caught his attention. Gnoll was back on his feet and in 100% health again. He was crouched to the ground amidst the dwindling smoke and manifesting his shadow weapons once more, this time creating twin ebony hand-axes. His eyes flicked back and forth to the two opposing deathless on opposite sides of the battlefield.

"It's not what you think. So please stand down and give Arik to me. Nobody needs to get hurt any further," Cyanide commanded.

"On the contrary—" The sword stretching the length of her arm retracted away and lightning began to play across Bellanode's body once more, the red ever more concentrated against her burning aura. "Your companionship has revealed itself to be untrue. And you know just as well as anyone that I don't play to get even; I play to win."

"Neither of you will be taking the boy," injected Gnoll with a snarl. "I have direct orders and reinforcements on the way. I suggest you both run away while you both still can."

"I bet you'd like that," Bellanode side-eyed.

"But he's right," Cyanide added. "We don't have time for this petty squabble when the enemy is currently en route. Look, we can leave here together and I can explain when we are all safe. But you don—"

"Silence!" screamed the gowned woman as a thick streak of red lightning flashed across the field for Cyanide.

Once again, the heat it gave off was immense, causing Arik to immediately feel as if the sun was scorching his face and his lungs were inhaling flames. He crawled back in desperate relief of the heat.

Cyanide's space was enveloped in a coffin of lightning that quickly exploded into a rain of bright embers. At the center of that smoldering rain was Rupert, the husk's body seemingly a shade darker in spots as small trails of smoke drifted away. Cyanide's voice called out from the bear.

"Can't say I'm surprised. You never were one for hearing others out. But don't blame me if the DES gets a hold of you." The bear flew forward at intense speed from its standing position and began charging at Bellanode in full force.

Sturdy legs broke through the earth as Bellanode spread them out in some form of power squat. The red lightning began to dance around her body once more, but this time it was bigger and moved with much more chaos and speed. The lightning around her grew in size until she was barely but a faint silhouette inside the deceivingly bright discharge. Then she threw both of her hands out to the approaching Cyanide and the surrounding electricity forked out in a blast much greater than that of previous incarnations.

The Cyanide's momentum slowed greatly as the enormous bolt smacked into him. Any grass below the attack was incinerated into nothing within a fraction of a second, yet the bear persevered. He continued to push through the lightning like a simple man against fierce wind, the lightning arcing about wildly in opposition.

Arik had crawled a dozen or so feet away, but the heat was still too intense to ignore. He curled on the ground and roared in pain, wishing it all to stop. Then, suddenly, the pain subsided.

Arik looked to the figures to see Bellanode tossed 20 into the air atop a giant geyser. Immediately following was a streak of black that collided with her body before soaring back into the tree-line.

Before Arik could fully reorient from the searing pain, Rupert's hulking mass bashed through the wall of falling water toward him. The hiss of steam sounded off as it billowed out from the bear's lightly charred body.

"How are you holding up?" Cyanide asked as he came to a skidding stop and turned around near Arik like a protective mother.

Bellanode came plummeting from the sky with an arm of multiple swords jutting out like a weaponized blender. They sank toward the bear's face but were swiftly locked up with the beast's similar metal claws as Cyanide grabbed hold of her arm in counter. Before her feet could hit the ground, Cyanide launched his other clubbed arm at her face and then dashed forward, sending her flying back in a repeating backflip.

"Not going to lie, I'm feeling pretty maxed out here," Arik said.

"Yeah, you definitely don't look too great. I'm sorry I couldn't hold Gnoll back for longer. Things were a bit busier than I intended. But if you're feeling maxed out right now, well then I'm going to need you to go beyond."

"Go beyond? And just how does that work, Cyanide? Do you have an echo for that too?"

Bellanode stood up a ways away and cracked her neck with the seditious look she wore before. Her aura of red dissipated and the fire that spewed from her eyes ceased. Then she did as Cyanide did previously and charged at the group with speed that looked as though to warp her figure and face. Cyanide slashed with a frontal claw to keep her away, but just before the claws could make contact with her head, her body exploded into a swarm of black rose petals. Cyanide's claws whiffed right through them.

Arik's jaw would have dropped if not for the startling second cluster of petals rupturing into existence between him and Cyanide. The noir petals rampantly dispersed and revealed Bellanode, her black fashion and features blending with the bouquet as if she was made of them herself. She spun about like a figure skater and slashed at the bear's exposed back with two claw-like curved blades that popped out of her wrist.

As her bladed hand swiped past the bear's rubberized pelt, her second hand came to the ready as a needle thin blade sprang out from the tip. It homed in on the enemy before abruptly altering course to Bellanode's side and snapping in half with a deafening ting from the shade coated blade of Gnoll.

Before she could make her next move, a solid metallic arm lodged into her back and sent her colliding into the hyena-man. The two toppled with Gnoll flipping back onto his feet like a cat and Bellanode exploding into another dance of rose petals mid-air and reappearing upright on the defensive.

Cyanide stood exposed and to the side of his hulking husk, his alloyed arms glistening in the morning sun.

A deep and hefty growl rumbled from Rupert as its frame began to shake and twist about wildly. Barely noticeable at first, within seconds the bear's flesh was violently expanding and flexing until the creature was almost double its initial size. The fur of the bear elongated and became more wild while the claws and spikes of its arms grew more gnarly and long. Rupert's singular eye flashed to a ruby red color as the added cherry on top to complete the beast before everyone that would put any organic bear to shame.

"A super husk. That's a new one. I knew you've always held out on me," Bellanode noted in response as she retracted her blades and shot them back out in a new formation from each hand's knuckles.

"Never show anyone all of your cards," replied Cyanide.

"Bah! I ate that echo once, I can do it again," assured Gnoll.

The four stood there in an almost reverent silence, each analyzing the other's body language for the trusty sign of first action and thus a counter. But in a movement that looked like a tropey movie or rehearsed choreography, all four members simultaneously broke from idle, charging at each other like hungry wolves. But these wolves weren't hungry for food, they were hungry for the fight. The look of hate and thrill lighting up each of their hedonistic faces was proof enough of that.