"Baldric! Maker! You’re bleeding!" Shinaki said as both of them recovered.

"Wow! Really? That's all you can say?!" Baldric tried to stop his own blood from gushing out.

"Let me cauterize your wounds!" She scrambled to find something to burn him.

"No stay away from me! That’s a myth!"

"Stay still let me-"

The sound of loud gurgling came from behind them as the blob creature that came out of Baldric’s arm approached them.

"What the hell is that?!"

It gurgled and Shinaki prepared to draw her sword when Baldric stopped her.

"It’s friendly." He said as he grunted in pain. "Shinaki, I need you to apply pressure to my wounds. I’m losing blood fast." The blob gurgled again and started to attach itself to him.

"Get off me Willow! I’m not dead yet!" Baldric tried to pull the blob off but the creature was too slimy that his fingers just went through.

"Wow that’s cold!" he yelled out as the blob slowly vanished inside of him and Shinaki watched in disgust and shock.

Baldric felt his bleeding stop. Both of them watched as the bullets inside his wounds slowly began to pop out on their own. Once the bullets came out, little eyes seemed to form inside the wounds, and they blinked slowly at Shinaki and Baldric. He was not bleeding out anymore, as Willow stopped him from losing any more blood.

Baldric tried to move his arms and legs, which had eyes looking at him. It felt wobbly limp and filled with jelly, but he was able to move again.

"Well this is… new."

"What the hell was that?!" Shinaki looked at him and the eyes on his arm, leg, and stomach.

"I don’t know… but I think… this means I’m going to be ok, sort of. Help me up."

She helped him walk, and they immediately checked on Sylvie and Caesar. The mechanical horse flailed as its legs were shattered and its body was filled with bullet holes while Sylvie twitched erratically on the ground.

"Damn." Baldric said as he checked on Sylvie while Shinaki tried to calm Caesar. "They damaged Sylvie’s command box." Baldric then looked around them. There was nothing but burning buildings, destroyed vehicles, golems, automatons, and dead chimera guards. "Shinaki, we need to find Luna."

"You think she is still alive?" The knight looked at the crushing aftermath around them.

"She is. Trust me."

=0o0=

Luna managed to crawl out of the rubble and slowly made her way out of the warehouse. She could still feel the syringes embedded in her body, but she did not bother to take them out.

"Luna!"

She couldn’t see properly, but she recognized Baldric’s voice immediately. When both of them saw Luna heavily beaten, covered in blood, and looking like she was about to collapse, they ran to catch her from falling.

"Thank the maker! What the hell happened?!" Baldric yelled as he helped Luna sit down on the ground, but she pushed them off.

"No! Elizabeth! Where is Elizabeth? Baldric she’s scared and we need to find her."

"Luna…Luna… listen to me.”

“We need to find her! She doesn’t know what is going on.”

“Luna...”

“Why are you both stopping me?! We need to find her!”

“Luna! Listen to me. She’s… gone. Treese got her from right under us."

When she heard those words, Luna couldn’t breathe. Her heart dropped, and she tried to inhale but felt no air was coming in. She covered her face with her hands as she realised what she had helped happen.

"Look it’s not too late." Baldric assured her, "We can still-"

"You!" Shinaki and Baldric looked up when they saw an enraged Solomon approaching them with Annie carrying Tinkerton-G behind him. "Hubristic wench!"

Baldric quickly tried to stop him, but he violently pushed him aside. Luna was still in utter shock that she did not see Solomon raise his backhand and strike her. The force was so strong that it sent her slamming onto a pile of rubble. Baldric got a rifle and fired it at Solomon, grazing him on the cheek, but the shadowman did not even flinch. Shinaki drew out her sword and pointed it at Baldric’s neck.

"Hit her again, Solomon, and a bullet goes to your head! I dare you!"

"You are still defending her?! After what she has done?! We lost the princess! We lost everything!" Annie ran to Luna and helped her up but she did not even want to stand. "We do not have any leverage now! We have nothing!"

"That doesn’t mean we can start hitting each other Solomon! We are all we got left!"

"Because of her!" Solomon roared at Luna. "All you had to do was wait! All you had to do was sit still, and you could not even do that right! If you want to die so bad I should just kill you here right now!"

She did not respond. In her mind, the sight of Elizabeth running away from her played over and over again.

"Maybe… you should." Luna said as she kept her gaze on the ground. "Just do it."

When Solomon heard her pathetic answer, it only infuriated him more. He got a huge hidden knife on his belt and made his way towards her. Annie shielded Luna while Tinkerton-G tried to calm everyone down. Before Baldric could fire again, Shinaki managed to stop him and made her way to block Solomon.

"Even you, Shinaki!" Solomon bellowed, but she stood her ground. He stopped when Shinaki just looked at him without an ounce of fear. The knight then faced Luna.

"So tell me this is it?" Shinaki said to her. "Because this is just pathetic. After you destroyed everyone’s plans, put your friends at risk or in the hospital, and allowed Lady Oichi and Princess Elizabeth to be kidnapped, you are just going to give up?!"

Luna did not reply.

"Tell it to my face that you want to die. If you do, I’ll give you the honor myself."

Annie tried to help her stand, but her body lost all will to continue.

"I… did this... All of this." Luna said after a long silence. "I don’t… deserve to live."

All of them watched the knight and Luna. Shinaki raised her sword, but Annie stood up and extended her arms. Baldric aimed his gun, but Solomon grabbed his rifle and threw it away.

"Move out of the way, foolish girl. Did you not hear what she said?" Shinaki said to Annie, but she did not back down. "You still side with her? Even after everything she has done? You do know that she caused all this?" The knight said, but she just glared at Shinaki with her arms extended, protecting Luna.

"Your sister here is defending you with her life and you still won’t get up." Luna still didn’t look up. "Even now, you are selfish right to the end. Very well, I will cut through her and kill you both myself!"

Annie shut her eyes as the knight swung her sword. She expected something to happen, but when she opened her eyes she found Luna had caught the sword with her bare hands, which now started to bleed heavily.

"So… there is still something left in you in there." Shinaki said as Luna released the blade.

"You could have killed Annie!"

"Believe me if I wanted her dead there was nothing you could have done. Why do you think Lord Solomon did not even bother to stop me?"

"A damn shame… You should have just killed her, saving us all the trouble of dealing with her insanity." An automaton crept up from behind them all.

"Ada is that you?" Baldric said. The GEA’s consciousness had possessed an automaton that had lost its legs.

"Yes it’s me. After this blood-crazed freak of nature ripped me apart! Along with all the other organic corpses that got in her way. Shinaki, hand me your sword so I can kill her myself!"

"Get in line, GEA." Solomon said to her.

"I told you!" Ada approached Luna. "You cannot win! I told you! Now look where we are!! We should just leave you here to rot after all you pretty much admitted you wanted to die anyway!"

"Would everyone calm the hell down?" Baldric stopped everyone from talking.

"Don’t give me any of that Baldric! You are to blame as well, you damn enabler! She caused all this and now look at her! She all but gave up on cleaning her own mess!"

"You all are right. I… caused all this." Luna admitted as everyone watched her. "I'm just some monster. Please… just… let me die."

"Hey, hey, come on." Baldric and Annie quickly comforted her. "Come on, don’t talk like that. We’ll fix this. We always find a way. Come on, we can still fix this."

"No… we can’t." Luna looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I… don’t know how."

"Yes we do. Yes we do." Baldric assured her. "We do it like we always do when we are taken down. We just get back up and keep going. I don’t know what happened in there, but we can’t give up. Elizabeth needs us. Chi needs us. We just keep going, right? Right, Luna? Don’t quit because they need us to save them."

"How can we Baldric? I don’t even know where to start again. We… I lost them. Both of them are gone because of me. I don’t even know where to look."

"That is not true." Everyone looked at Shinaki. "It seems that Treese is taking the princess to where he is keeping Lady Oichi."

"What?!"

"Yes, Lord Solomon. And if Lord Filias is correct, then no doubt they are heading to the Silvus dreadnaught that is in the Pharc docklands."

"How on Pandora do you know?" Baldric asked.

"The handmaid who was taken along with Lady Oichi was using a faint perfume." Shinaki then got out a small vial and handed it to him. "I picked up the smell immediately when I saw Treese.

"I can’t smell anything." Baldric said as he handed the vial to Luna.

"No one who is untrained can. It’s a special chemical that only trained kunochi’s can detect. I can guarantee you it was Amiyah sending a message that they were being kept close to Treese, and since we now know that Treese is going to his dreadnaught, It's safe to say that’s where they will be."

"They would have left by now." Baldric rapidly looked at his pocket watch. "And no way can we get to the docklands with the enforcers and soldiers guarding the city."

"No… That will not be an issue." Solomon said to all of them. "Our only problem is if his dreadnaught gets to the Geltic gate. Once they make the jump, it’s impossible to track them down."

"Then it looks like we need to leave right now. That is if this self-loathing idiot is ready to get off her ass." Ada said as she looked at Luna.

Annie got a syringe filled with amber. But before she could give it to Luna, Willow leapt from Baldric’s wounds, surprising everyone. He felt all his injuries open and he fell to the ground in pain.

"What in Makers name is that?!" Solomon said as they all watched the blob eat the syringe. Once it had dissolved the object inside its body, it went back to Baldric and entered his wounds again.

"Is that a blotking?!" Tinkerton-G said as they all watched Baldric’s injuries begin to slowly seal on their own.

"Yeah… it’s actually Willow. You know Elizabeth’s pet." Luna explained to everyone as they watched Willow seal all of Baldric’s wounds.

"Wait, wait, wait. You were allowing a carnivorous, symbiotic parasite that close to the child?! Are you insane?! What if it ate her?!" G yelled out while the blotking finally leapt off Baldric and headed towards Luna. Baldric checked his wounds and found that they had all closed but were still painful to move. Annie helped him walk, while Luna picked up Ada.

"Be angry later, G. We need to make our way to the northern coast." Solomon said as they all made their way out of the compound.

"Wait Solomon…" Luna said as she looked back. "We need to make sure this whole facility is destroyed. They were making chemicals here and… we can’t let Chimera get their research."

"I agree completely." Solomon replied. "But we need more firepower to level this facility to the ground."

As they left the compound, two trucks were waiting for them outside and drove them out of Pharc. The rain had cleared when they arrived at the edge of the cliff, far from the town.

"Solomon, why here?" Baldric asked as Luna helped him walk.

Solomon launched a flare, and in seconds, the ground started to rumble. The smell of heavy smoke and the deafening roar of massive machines echoed around them as a large dreadnaught slowly began to emerge from underneath the cliff. It was a massive, airship with four large engines and dozens of overwhelming cannons. It hung the massive heads of enormous beasts on its hull like trophies. The main hangar slowly opened and they were greeted by Vhlad, looking regal in his old admiral's uniform. His long coat draped on his shoulders like a cape.

"Ahoy there! I heard you all need a hunting crew!"

=0o0=

The sack on Elizabeth’s head was removed, and Treese shoved her into a metal room with no windows.

There were three women in the room, and two of them were nursing a heavily pregnant woman on a bed. The woman on the bed had soft, long black hair, radiant fair skin, a gentle face, and a very well-endowed chest. Her narrowed eyes appeared to be almost closed, barely concealing her bright green eyes, whose calm, disarming gaze belied her maturity.

The expectant mother's face was instantly filled with worry when she saw the child.

The moment Elizabeth hit the floor, the pregnant woman desperately tried to get up to help her. As the door was about to close, the child saw a screw on the floor, which she threw at Treese and hit him on the back of his head. He smiled when he felt the nuisance. He clenched his fist and made his way back to Elizabeth when the pregnant woman hid the child behind her.

"It seems for a bounty hunter, you only know how to fight those who can’t fight back."

"I have to break her early after all. Especially with what Asterion plans to do to her. Well, this is called a warm up." Treese attempted to get close, but she blocked him.

"You want her? You have to go through me." It was meant as a threat, but Treese laughed.

"Don’t worry, I will. After all, Lord Maurius only orders where not to touch any of you in anyway until you pop. But I have been counting and thing is almost done and once that filth is out…"

He eyed her lecherously, especially looking at her chest. "…I will go through you all night long."

"You pig!" The woman yelled out which made Treese laugh.

"What can I say; I love the shadowman’s taste in women. And as for you, princess, Don't worry. You will have some fun real soon. Maybe if we find your whore mother, she can even join in. That's all a cripple is good for anyway.”

Elizabeth wanted to blast him with her powers, but nothing came out. She then attempted to run to hit Treese, but the pregnant woman stopped her. Treese, satisfied at seeing Elizabeth’s crying face, left the room and locked the heavy iron door behind him.

The pregnant woman heard her softly crying.

"Iori, a handkerchief please." She said to the two other women in the room. She wiped the child’s face and attempted to calm her down. Elizabeth could smell the faint scent of vanilla and sweet flowers on the woman, and it reminded her of her mother, causing her to cry freely.

"Don’t let them see you cry, darling. It will only encourage them." As she dried the child’s tears, the woman saw Elizabeth was injured in the arm and neck. "Amiyah, she is wounded. Help me clean her please."

"I want to see mama." Elizabeth said as she cried. "I want to go home."

"Hold on, my darling. My husband and my family will come and rescue us soon. Don’t worry." As she helped blow the child’s nose, Elizabeth saw that the woman was also missing a finger. "What is your name?"

"Elizabeth."

"Elizabeth. That is a very beautiful name. Mine is Oichi. These are my friends Iori and Amiyah." Oichi gestured at the two women who bowed their heads at the child. "Don’t worry, Elizabeth. Someone will come for us soon." She embraced the child as Elizabeth continued to cry and hoped that her words would come true.

Suddenly, Oichi felt a sharp pain in her lower abdomen.