Terry picked himself up from the ground, already charging another shot, but the monster that had pounced on him was clear on the other side of his men by now. Even Guidance couldn’t weave an arrow through that many turns without hitting the wrong person.

Instead of trying to thread his attacks between his men, Terry fired upward three times in quick succession. Immediately he closed his eyes to steady himself as his vision split to follow each arrow he embodied. He wasn’t an expert yet, and the overlapping yet distinct viewpoints took some getting used to.

Several things were happening at once. Behind, the screeching monstrous lobster bird was tearing up the building’s roof to use as projectiles. Ahead, the intruder rode his sabercat in loops around the group, lashing out with a pair of glowing swords. In the middle of the group, that flickering gremlin did its best to cause mayhem.

Terry didn’t have the necessary control to target each of the enemies individually. Even if it was within Guidance’s capabilities it wasn’t within his.

In a snap decision, Terry steered all three bolts upward toward the Roc-Lobster above. Being slower and larger than the other attackers, as well as being more difficult to pin down due to its flight, all made it the best target.

From that elevated angle, Terry clearly saw the woman drop from the creature’s back and into the base, even if everyone else was too distracted to notice.

He fired twice more, but the arrows only pinged off the walls. His control for sharp turns was insufficient.

The impacts cut off his view, ending Guidance and throwing him back into himself. The fight had progressed while he was inactive, but he didn’t have time to worry about that now.

Terry wasted no time. He turned and sprinted into the building, ethereal bowstring disappearing as he relaxed his mana to let it refill. It took him a few seconds to orient to the floorplan. He couldn't match his brief, distorted memory from the arrows 'perspectives up perfectly with the actual building, but he knew it was somewhere in the back half of the base.

There was only one location of interest he could think of for a breakin. He made a beeline to the interrogation suite.

Not fast enough. He was at the disadvantage in distance, and by the time he reached the prisoner's room, Cassandra was gone.

Cursing, Terry spun away. He had a starting point now, and knew where they hadn't headed. Ruling out the direction he’d come from and the route to the prison itself, that only left a few possible sections.

None of them with an exit, but as they’d just proven they didn’t care to respect the sanctity of the architecture.

He kept his ears perked for any sound of violent entry or exit, but the chaos outside was still echoing through the building. Shouted orders, yells of pain.

Terry turned a corner and almost ran face-first into a hovering scarab. He raised his bow, but the fist-size bug was too fast. It buzzed out of sight before he could sight on it, into one of the locked rooms on the left through a hole it had clearly burned through itself.

Terry tried the door-handle, but it was locked as he expected. He charged his bow and smashed the bolt with a quick point-blank arrow to its mechanism.

The door swayed open... and the scarab flew out over his head with a heavy thrum of wingbeats.

Terry loosed an arrow at it, but without Guidance it completely missed the small agile creature.

It flew away back behind him, the way he'd come, but he wasn't going to be led astray a second time.

It wanted him to not go this direction? Then this direction was where he'd be going.

He checked every door briefly for any sign of tampering, but the end destination became obvious because of the sound of repeated clanging from the room three doors down from the decoy. Someone was taking efforts to muffle the effort, but not enough to be hidden this close.

Gotcha. They must be trying to break out through the wall.

Terry drew his manabow's glowing string back, mentally stacking his powerups onto the shot. He was authorized for this room, so he didn't need to break in this time. Holding the ready bolt one-handed, he quickly unlocked the door and threw it open.

The two women stood by the wall, one halfway through carving a door into the wall, the other slumped against the corner looking dazed and unwell.

"Stop and put your hands up," Terry ordered. "Drop the manablade."

Irene Morrison: Level 13

(Medic)

Cassandra Jackson: Level 9

(Ranger)

Irene Morrison stiffened, then something moved in Terry's peripheral vision. He swung to face the new threat, loosing the manabolt and beginning to charge another.

Guidance doubled his vision, allowing him to pin the offending scarab straight through the side, destabilizing it completely. The monster disintegrated before it even hit the ground.

Terry was already moving, spinning to face the two women. Irene had raised the manablade to either throw it at his back or slice down into the wall again with renewed vigor, but froze when he leveled his still-growing shot at the dazed Cassandra. "Drop the weapon."

Morrison didn't move, eyes darting around the room as though searching for a way out.

Something collided with the back of Terry's neck, stinging sharply, and he instinctively swatted it.

Another scarab went tumbling dizzily as he smacked it, buzzing unsteadily near the floor as it tried to right itself. He fired down at it, finishing it off before it could recover.

Irene slammed her manablade down on the wall again, slicing through the metal with an echoing clang.

She didn't seem to know how to use her weapon, the blade flickering instead of burning. That was the only reason they hadn't gotten away already, Terry knew.

"I warned you." He fired into her hand, a simple orange bolt of Destruction.

She hissed in pain and the manablade fell to the floor, half her palm a gaping hole where his arrow tore through her feeble useless armor.

"Hands up."

Irene slowly raised her hands, shifting sideways to put herself between Terry and the escaped prisoner. "You don't have to do this."

"Sure. I could let dangerous unstable entities loose on the world, intent on spreading indoctrination about how great it is to become a magic monster." Bitterness tinted Terry's voice. For all the power he currently enjoyed, he would trade it all for being able to go back to being ignorant and normal. Fighting monsters and hunting aberrant entities for a living wasn't all it was cracked up to be.

"We have to. It's essential for our survival."

"Right now, not pissing me off any more is what's essential for your survival." Terry gestured with his bow, not releasing the pressure. "Step away from her."

She moved, but slowly, and didn’t stop talking. "Not my personal survival, the fate of the world."

"Yes, yes, I've heard it all, some dire prophecy about doom. Why should I believe it?`"

"You don't have to, but at least don't stand in the way of those of us willing to do something about it!"

Terry mentally ran through his options. He didn't have a good way to restrain anyone at the moment, he'd not been on a capture team for long enough he no longer carried the usual equipment on him at all times.

These women were problems. He could tell by looking that Irene wouldn't be a mite less stubborn and frustrating than the first prisoner.

Then yet another scarab stung him, this time on his bow hand.

"Damn it!" He grabbed it in his other hand, crushing it in his fist, but the momentary distraction was too much. Irene had lunged forward in the same instant, as though knowing exactly when he'd be less alert.

She slammed into his legs, tackling him to the floor. Terry didn't lose his hold on the arrow or make any attempt to protect himself from the fall, shifting aim and firing a close shot as his stamina absorbed the fall. Blinking his eyes closed just long enough, he steered the arrow straight into the woman's back. Then a second time. He didn't have time to fully enhance these attacks, so they were Guidance-only and wouldn't do more than annoy her and drain her health.

But it was enough for her to scream in pain and release him, fumbling at her waist for a restorative. Terry grabbed her wrists and forced her to drop the bottle, which rolled away across the floor in a wobbly circle.

"You should have come quietly," he growled.

She spat in his face, classically defiant.

Something crashed into the wall with an echoing screech. The wall buckled and tore away, midday sunlight flooding the room. An armor-chested lobster-clawed monster bird reached in, grabbed Terry's head in its claw, and snapped down.

Terry's stamina dropped to below half as it absorbed the impact, health burning off to counter the serrations stabbing into his skull.

He stabbed his next arrow directly into its shelled arm, not even releasing it from the bow, shoving more power into expanding it inside the creature's limb.

The roc-lobster shrieked and clamped down harder.

Terry fired the arrow as close to parallel along the creature's arm as possible. The grip abruptly fell away as the limb burst in a shower of monster meat and destructive orange light.

The monster’s other claw came over in retaliation.

Terry ducked away and fired up into the monster bird's face.

Screeching, it reared back, wings spreading to fill the entire length of the room. Then the monstrous bird gave a single flap.

A blast of wind slammed into Terry, throwing him across the room. He slammed into the wall with enough force that his stamina was insufficient to absorb it. His head spun and he stumbled, almost falling. He suspected he’d leave a dent in the wall from the impact.

By the time he could see straight, the women were on the monster’s back. It turned and jumped out of the hole it had made before he could think how to react, screeching as it took to the skies.

Terry stumbled to the opening, charging another arrow, ready to send it into the fleeing creature.

Instead of flying away, however, the monster circled back, swooping low as Irene shouted down to him one final time.

“If you truly want to protect people like you claim, then we don’t have to be enemies! Convince your organization to stop suppressing this information. Encourage its spread. Everyone needs to know. There’s a far bigger threat coming. The world needs to be prepared.”

That, more than anything, gave Terry pause. It was one thing to spout nonsense when you were at the disadvantage, but flying back toward danger just to reiterate their point? They were either mad or genuine, and so far everything they’d obtained from or about this group pointed to them being exactly correct in every instance.

He could have fired, could have loosed his last overcharged shot into the woman’s unguarded body, but at the last second he gritted his teeth and lowered the weapon.

The two women flew upward and away into the desert. Their mount’s labored flight left them vulnerable another minute as it struggled to carry their combined weight with any speed.

Yet still Terry didn’t move.

They knew too much that they shouldn’t have. As much as he didn't want to accept that they'd been in the wrong, that things weren't just going to keep changing but change far more drastically... if they had some secret Seer abilities he’d be a fool to disregard their warnings.

There may be little value in the average individual, but the country as a whole he was sworn to protect. If they’d been going about it wrong, he couldn’t let them compound their errors further. Perhaps it was time they reconsidered their goals and strategies. If they came to a consensus, they may even be able to convince their superiors.

Squaring his shoulders, Terry ordered the survivors to get to cleaning things and reassemble their defences, then walked back inside to call for another meeting with his fellow commanders.

The world was changing. It would be foolish not to adapt accordingly.