NEW WORLD — HUNGER'S BANE

Chapter 104: Ferocious Disruptions

“They’re over there.”

“Got it,” Mark replied, his gaze focused on the fire-lit streets ahead of him as he bounded from rooftop to rooftop, using his superstrength to quickly cross Tresnon. Riding on his back was Relia, along for the ride to guide him to the jailbroken Bleeders; he had sent Danielle to deal with the lack of power and create a new power generator if necessary, and according to Relia, Karísah had gone ahead to help Davídrius and his friends, while Tresnon’s Defense Force was busy regrouping and ensuring the safety of the rest of the Compound. As such, Mark and Relia were the only two left to confront the twelve Bleeders that now rampaged through the dark streets of Tresnon… but in Mark’s eyes, the two of them were all they needed.

“If I recall right,” Relia commented as Mark stopped for a second on the corner of a rooftop, “of all the captured Bleeders, only eight are Chaotics. Two Pyrotechnics, a Velocitechnic, a Transtechnic, a Geotechnic, an Aerotechnic, a Hydrotechnic, and an Electrotechnic.”

“Eight, huh…?” Mark muttered, surveying the fires that rose from a couple blocks over. He then crouched down before launching himself through the air toward the fires in question. “Well, at least they’re all basic types. I’ll be fine, but are you—?”

“This won’t be the first time I’ve been outnumbered,” Relia declared, “and it sure won’t be the last.”

“I’ll trust you on that,” Mark responded. “So the plan is to get them all in one location so you can negate them and capture them, right?”

“Either that, or kill them. I’ll trust you to get it done either way, outsider. Now… let’s get started. Overdrive: Wanderer,” Relia spoke, her words softly echoing to indicate the activation of her Overdrive as she and Mark descended upon the street aflame. Then, a second later, and without saying anything further, Relia simply disappeared from Mark’s back.

“What—?” Mark began, but quickly shook off his surprise. She’s a Movement-type Chaostechnic, right? If so, I bet her Overdrive lets her use her abilities without calling them, or something. Either way…! He refocused his attention on the ground below, throwing out his fist to punch the dirt as he landed to create an explosion of sand and a rumbling thunder. Before the dust cloud could begin to settle, Mark quickly took stock of his surroundings: based on the sounds of chaos and destruction, seven of the Bleeders were to his right, and five to his left — with five or six of them wielding guns. Did they steal those, or did the Transtechnic create them…? Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. I’ll go after the seven, first!

A fierce blast of wind swept the dust cloud away, revealing Mark to his fiery surroundings. The stone buildings of Tresnon didn’t burn easily, but many of the exterior furnishings were crafted from wood or other organic materials — and at present, flames consumed the furnishings all along the block. Mark didn’t have any time to marvel, however, as a blast of lightning struck him right in the chest. With nary a grunt nor a flinch, he snapped his attention toward his attacker, who locked eyes with an amazed expression.

“Enemy Chaotic!” they immediately shouted, drawing the attention of their nearby comrades, but Mark didn’t wait for them to react further. Summoning his giant green and silver halberd, he lunged forward, charging across the street and ignoring several fireballs and lightning strikes as he approached the Bleeder Electrotechnic. With a powerful swing, he brought his halberd down overhead — but the Electrotechnic managed to dodge at the last second, allowing the weapon to slam into and crack the ground. Fierce currents of wind then began to lift Mark into the air, only to stop a second later as he spotted Relia rocketing into one of the other Bleeder Chaotics and launching them down the street. While the aerial attack hadn’t lasted for long, though, it was still enough to create an opening for the Bleeders, which their Velocitechnic exploited to dash up to Mark and roundhouse kick him into the wall. With a grunt, Mark managed to weather the blow and shift the shaft of his halberd to block another kick, only to be slammed by another high-speed attack that he couldn’t predict — followed immediately by a bath of fire and a shower of lasers.

None of that was enough to phase Mark and his incredible durability, however. Amid the rain of attacks, he lunged forward in an attempt to grab the Velocitechnic, who appeared to be surprised that Mark was still alive. The Bleeder still managed to dodge out of Mark’s grasp with their superior reflexes and then run off, allowing Mark to charge toward the two nearest gun-toting Bleeders. They continued shooting him for a couple seconds, but after realizing that their lasers were ineffective, they quickly began to backpedal — while another individual inserted themselves between Mark and the gunmen. Undeterred, Mark continued charging forward, his fist raised to deliver a punch… only for yet another unseen individual to suddenly slam into the Bleeder, sending them rolling haphazardly across the street.

“Ha, looks like I got here just in time!”

“What—? Pierce?!” Mark exclaimed incredulously, eying the blond-haired Velocitechnic who had just arrived on the scene. “What are you doing here?!”

“Helping out, obviously,” Pierce retorted. “We just need to kick some Bleeder ass, right? Sounds easy to me!”

“That’s—!” Mark attempted to refute, but Pierce had already disappeared, leaving only a small dust cloud in his place. With an annoyed sigh, Mark returned his attention to the battle, taking a blast of flames to the shoulder before leaping to the end of the street, hoping to begin corralling the Bleeders in the other direction. A sudden explosion of flames down the street briefly drew his attention, only to spot Pierce emerging from the fire, pursued by the Bleeder Velocitechnic.

As soon as he was clear of the flames, Pierce kicked off of the ground perpendicular to his direction of travel to launch himself at a nearby building — and then rebound off of it straight toward the Bleeder Velocitechnic, bowling the both of them across the street. Both Velocitechnics leaped back to their feet a mere half-second later, and then called out in unison, “Overdrive: Speed Break!” The briefest of silences followed as they stared at each other in surprise, but Pierce quickly broke into a taunting smirk.

“An Overdrive-using Velocitechnic to test my speed against?” he remarked, “now this is gonna be fun!”

“Tch, you’re an outsider, huh?” the Bleeder retorted, “what-fuckin’-ever. You can burn like the rest of this city!”

“Keep your flames to yourself!!”

“What the—?” Pierce and the Bleeder both looked skyward, just in time to spot Spike careening toward the ground with his fist outstretched. The two Velocitechnics quickly dove away, just in time for Spike to slam into the dirt with a thundering rumble, impacting with so much force that he cratered and cracked the ground for nearly a dozen meters around. Pierce immediately took advantage of the dust cloud raised by Spike’s entrance to dash at the Bleeder Velocitechnic and punt them down the street toward Mark, at which point he stopped to give Spike an incredulous look. “The hell was that? I totally had him on my own!”

“Sure you did…” Spike muttered as he fabricated a shield in his left hand and began rolling his right shoulder, preparing for combat.

“Anyways, sure took you long enough to catch up! Where’s everyone else?”

“Twy wanted to stay behind… and I don’t remember seein’ Conrad. The others’re on their way.”

“Figures that Conrad would dip out—!” Pierce began, only for a wave of fire to begin rolling down the street toward him and Spike. The latter quickly interposed himself between Pierce and the flames, using his shield to protect them both — only for the shield to be knocked away as the Bleeder Velocitechnic reappeared on the scene. Instantly, Pierce lunged for the Velocitechnic, only for them to evade and run off; without even a second thought, Pierce gave chase, leaving Spike alone to deal with the other Bleeders as another wave of flames came his way.

With an annoyed sigh, Spike seized upon his bountiful strength to leap high into the air, easily clearing the waves of fire to come down on top of two of the Bleeders. He fabricated two tower shields — one in each hand — and used them to deflect the hail of laser fire that came his way before he crashed back to the ground in another cloud of dust. As the sand was clearing, Spike quickly fabricated a small disc-shaped shield and hurled it toward where he had last seen the gun-weilding Bleeder, hoping to put them out of commission before more backup could arrive. Before he could follow up, a pillar of stone suddenly manifested in the ground beneath his feet and launched him skyward, where fast-flowing winds held him aloft and began attempting to rob him of air. With no solid footholds to push off of, Spike found himself immobilized; undeterred, he quickly scanned his surroundings for the offending Aerotechnic, soon spotting them hovering in the air over the burning streets a few dozen meters away. While struggling against the air currents and the lack of air in his lungs, Spike fabricated a massive shield and then hurled it haphazardly at the Bleeder, only for them to deftly dodge out of the way, allowing the shield to careen through the air past them…

…Only for Austin to rocket through the air himself, his hand outstretched to tag the flying shield. After touching it, he stopped himself in the air and then made a heavy throwing motion with his arms, at which point the shield zipped around — as if manipulated by an invisible force — to slam into the Bleeder Aerotechnic’s back. Caught off-guard, the Bleeder was sent tumbling to the ground — as was Spike, the air currents all around him dissipating. He eagerly gasped in a deep breath before catching himself on the ground below, offering Austin a curt nod of acknowledgment before bounding toward the downed Aerotechnic to try and lock them down for good.

Austin lingered for but a moment to keep an eye on Spike before turning his attention to the situation at large. Down the street, Mark and Pierce were actively engaged in combat with a handful of the Bleeders, while on the other end, Relia seemed to be fighting several more all on her own. Is she really fine on her own? Austin questioned mentally, but before he could even think to aid her, the sound of rushing water reached his ears. Quickly, he whipped around — just in time to spot a torrential jet of water shooting straight at him. With a distressed yelp, he managed to fly out of the way just in time for the jet to not puncture him, at which point he quickly made some distance… only to tumble to the ground a second later. Damn it, trying to fly in the dark, all while watching out for attacks and shit… this is hard! Nevertheless, he soon rolled over and climbed back to his feet, just in time to see another jet of water shooting out toward him. Reflexively, he slammed his empty palm into the building wall just next to him, and then seized upon the constituent stone with his Imperator powers to yank a horizontal column out of the wall and block the jet of the water.

But the column of stone didn’t last for long — the high pressure of the water jet quickly eroded away at the rock, and then a second later, the column began moving without any kind of input from Austin. He quickly realized that he had likely lost control of the rocks to the Geotechnic who had launched Spike into the air earlier, at which point Austin clapped his hands together and attempted to fly away, only for a tendril of water to lash out and grab him by his ankle. Caught off-guard, he was sent tumbling back to the ground, unable to recover as a giant wave of water rushed upon him.

Yet, before it could reach him, the water suddenly detonated into a massive cloud of steam. The steam blasted past Austin and down the street, yet to his surprise, the tiny droplets of water that now filled the air didn’t feel hot enough to hurt or burn. Flames soon appeared around him, carving through the steam to disperse it and reveal Sky standing just in front of him, her attention directed toward the Bleeder Hydrotechnic.

“Just leave this one to me!” she exclaimed, passing Austin a quick glance and a grin before enveloping her fists in flames. “Thanks to training with sis, I think I know well how to deal with water-users!”

“If you say so…!” Austin replied, clapping his hands again before lifting into the air and flying off to confront the other Bleeders. A jet of water shot after him, but Sky quickly cut it off with a similar jet of flames, drawing the Hydrotechnic’s attention to herself. She then blasted herself into the air with an explosion of flames underfoot, dodging around another jet of water before sending a gout of flames toward the Bleeder. They quickly shielded themselves with a wall of water, but Sky simply focused on the wall and rapidly superheated it, detonating it in another steam explosion. Then, using her high heat resistance thanks to being a Pyrotechnic, Sky dove into the cloud of steam and began firing off blasts of flames in all directions, hoping to catch the Hydrotechnic off guard.

While amidst the steam, however, Sky noticed it beginning to coalesce around her into a bubble of water. Immediately, she released an omni-directional blast of flames and then exploded the ground beneath her feet, rocketing her skyward and out of the grasp of the enclosing water. Once airborne, she lit jets of flames under her feet to remain in the air while raining fireballs down on top of the Bleeder Hydrotechnic, but mid-firestorm, her flames suddenly stopped listening to her. They curled back through the air, joining with the water under her to create yet another steam explosion, but this one entirely outside of Sky’s desire. Someone’s controlling my flames? Who?! she questioned impatiently, but had little time to think as the steam cloud surrounded her… and yet, failed to reach her.

Fierce winds picked up around Sky, blowing away the steam before collecting it again in a whirlwind around the Bleeder Hydrotechnic. They stared at the steam in confusion, their arm outstretched, as if attempting to manipulate the water droplets all around them — yet the winds were strong enough to prevent such control. And then, a second later:

“Chaos Strike!!”

A purple streak of lightning lashed out over Sky’s shoulder, striking the swirling cloud of water and causing a cascade of further electrical strikes that shocked the Hydrotechnic within. As they collapsed to the ground, Sky alighted on the dirt below and turned to face Kestrel and Phoenix, who were running up to her.

“Good save!” Sky remarked.

“It was still too close for my liking,” Phoenix muttered, and then swept her gaze up and down the street. The large flames that had consumed it earlier were beginning to die off, but the sounds of battle still filled the air, making evident the continued resistance of the Bleeders. “…It’s worse here than I thought.”

“Really? I was actually expecting a lot worse,” Sky replied. “But it looks like all of the fighting is only on this street! That’s good, right?”

Phoenix passed Sky a doubtful look, but then her attention was drawn to her left as Relia appeared out of thin air. The Tresédian glared impatiently at each of Sky, Phoenix, and Kestrel, demanding, “what are you all doin’ here?!”

“Uh… helping?” Sky responded.

“Some help,” Relia countered. “Mark and I had a plan, but y’all have made a real mess of that!”

“What?!” Phoenix exclaimed indignantly. “We’re just trying to help protect this place!”

“And the best way to do that would’ve been to stay at the school, like Ralak said,” Relia insisted. “But if you’re gonna insist on gettin’ in our way, then at least be useful with it. Get all of the Bleeders in one spot. I don’t care how, just do it!”

“Okay—?” Sky began to reply, but Relia had disappeared before the word had completely left her mouth. The Pyrotechnic then turned to give Kestrel and Phoenix a sheepish look. “…Guess we pissed her off, huh?”

“How ungrateful…” Phoenix muttered, “but… she is the experienced one, here. If she has a plan, we should follow it.”

“Mm,” Kestrel grunted in affirmation, though her gaze was directed elsewhere as she began lifting into the air. “…Incoming.”

“Right, guess we can’t just stand around!” Sky remarked.

“You back up the west end of the street, Kestrel and I will take the east,” Phoenix quickly ordered, to which Sky responded with a nod. As the three women parted ways, Phoenix muttered to herself, “Chaos Armor… alright. Time to fight again…!”

*

“Chaos! Chaos!! CHAOS!!!”

Amid cackling laughter, Ind’s shouts echoed across the scarred wasteland, followed each time by cacophonous explosions of energy accompanied by a wild and unpredictable outburst of every single standalone Directed-type Chaostechnic ability at once: Arrow, Cannon, Impact, and Strike. The barrage of projectiles rained down on the sandy wasteland, forcing each of Davídrius, Christeané, and Rebehka to stay on the defensive as they attempted to find an opening through Ind’s fast-paced attacks.

“Fucking Chaostechnics…!” Davídrius swore under his breath, deftly weaving through red arrows and lightning alike with his superspeed. Normally, a Chaostechnic would have to call out the full name of an ability to activate it, which also precluded using multiple abilities simultaneously. Ind’s Overdrive, however, seemed to remove that restriction: every time she uttered the word “Chaos”, every single one of her Chaostechnic abilities activated, aside from the handful that required special setup. On the one hand, this meant that Davídrius now knew the full extent of Ind’s abilities, and that she had indeed lied about what abilities she could use — as she now flaunted both the single-target projectiles that filled the Directed ability type, as well as the ability to craft weapons out of Chaos Energy that was the Weapon ability type. This allowed him and the other Deans to more easily predict what she could do.

On the other hand, Ind merely needed to say a single word to create a 50-meter crater, and rain destruction upon another several dozen meters beyond that range.

“Chaos! Ahahahahahaha!!! CHAOS!!” Ind giggled maniacally as she blasted herself through the air, her energy shields constantly flaring as she used the shockwaves generated by her Explosive abilities to traverse the newly pock-marked battlefield. With no particular target in mind, she merely set to riddle the wasteland with craters, and attempt to blast away the closest enemy she could see — which in that moment, as Ind caught herself on the ground at the edge of a crater, turned out to be Rebehka. Immediately, the Cryotechnic created a massive wall of ice between her and Ind, all while filling the air with intensely sharp icicles that she launched at the rampant Bleeder. Ind merely charged at the ice-wall head-on, allowing her energy shielding to absorb the hits from the icicles as she shouted out, “CHAOS!”

The ensuing blast nigh-instantly obliterated all of the ice Rebehka had managed to summon, as well as launched her through the air; Ind quickly made to pursue by detonating the ground underfoot, but just before she could say another word, a truly incredible force to the back of her head dropped her to the ground. Taking advantage of the opening that he had created for himself, Christeané gripped the tether of his hammer and began whirling it around at high speeds, with just enough tether length let out to allow the hammer’s head to repeatedly and rapidly slam into Ind’s backside. Golden light and the sound of energetic static filled the air as the Bleeder’s energy shields flared up to protect her from Christeané’s assault that forced her against the ground, and even began to create cracks in the dirt as the heavy blows drove her into the sand — but Ind managed to recover, using the persistent sound of static to hide her voice as she muttered, “Chaos.”

Yet another blast of red energy cratered the land outside of Tresnon, flinging Christeané haphazardly through the air toward the Compound’s walls. While his emergency shields protected him from direct harm — as well as the series of reddish lightning and arrows that struck him while in the air — he was unable to catch himself, rolling to a painful stop against the stony walls. The sound of cackling soon drew his attention skyward, where he noticed Ind careening toward him, with long razor-like claws of Chaos Energy on each of her fingers — but Davídrius intercepted her mid-air with a mach-speed kick, rocketing her back across the wasteland and away from Tresnon’s walls. As soon as the Velocitechnic Dean touched down on the ground, he spun on his heel and sped off toward Ind’s new landing location, engaging her in a high-stakes game of tag where he attempted to floor her before she could speak, and she attempted to drive him off by declaring the one, singular word that she needed.

While Davídrius and Ind faced off nearly half a kilometer outside of Tresnon, Rebehka quickly reconvened with Christeané and helped him back to his feet. “You alright?” she questioned.

“Please, it’ll take more than that to take me out of commission,” Christeané retorted with a smirk. “I’m more worried about you. Aren’t you drunk?”

“I didn’t drink that much,” Rebehka countered, only to grimace as the momentary lull in the fighting allowed her to realize that her head was throbbing. “…Look, there’s more important things at stake than my hangover, right now.”

“True…” Christeané replied, his expression turning serious as he looked out over the two domes of red energy that suddenly appeared in the distance. “…That Overdrive of hers is a real pain in the ass, isn’t it? Just one word to use every Chaostechnic ability in the book. Really makes you wish Kevken was here, huh?”

“Yeah, well, he isn’t. I’m more concerned about how she hasn’t gone Berserk, yet. She must be going through Chaos Energy like crazy, using all of her abilities like this.”

“Well, we’ll just have to beat her up before she does go Berserk. Simple.”

Rebehka passed Christeané a doubtful glance. “Are you really taking this seriously? You haven’t even used your Overdrive yet, while Davídrius has!”

“You haven’t, either,” Christeané shot back. “Besides, the instant-crush effect on activation of Omni Crush isn’t super effective on someone with shields, so I’m saving it for a better time.” He then took hold of his hammer’s tether to begin whirling it through the air. “Now, we can’t leave this all up to Davídrius. The fight’s coming back to us, now, anyways.”

“Tch…!” Rebehka scowled in frustration as she and Christeané spied Davídrius and Ind, both sailing through the air after being launched by one of the Bleeder’s explosive blasts. Just as Davídrius landed in a rough tumble, Christeané released his hammer straight toward Ind, using the incredible momentum he created with his superstrength to yank himself through the air and slam his fist into Ind’s face, launching her away from Tresnon’s walls again. Christeané himself continued sailing through the air, virtually chasing after the Bleeder as she impacted the ground with a thundering rumble — only for a massive dome of energy to explode out of her, and launch Christeané directly upwards, while the accompanying rain of projectiles forced Rebehka and Davídrius back. Through the reddish veil of Chaos Energy, Christeané quickly lost track of Ind — though he spotted her a half-second later as she rocketed up through the air toward him, having used the detonation of Chaos Explosion underfoot that occurred simultaneously with the red energy explosion of Chaos Blast to launch herself skyward, all while holding a spear constructed of red energy outstretched toward Christeané.

As both he and Ind were airborne, Christeané had few options to dodge, so he instead yanked on the tether of his hammer to swing it around and slam it into Ind a split second before she could hit him, launching her away into the wasteland beyond. The Forcetechnic then began whirling his hammer around in midair, using his superstrength to create a massive amount of momentum that he then transferred into rapid forward movement by releasing his hammer toward the Bleeder. Just after he launched himself, Rebehka froze the air around Ind, creating a massive spire of ice that Christeané slammed into, instantly shattering it and arresting him of his forward momentum — which allowed him to drop down on top of Ind. She quickly opened her mouth to speak, but Davídrius appeared behind her in that instant and dealt a fierce kick to her back, flinging her straight at Christeané — who readily grabbed her by the neck and chokeslammed her into the ground so hard that he cracked and cratered the earth, the force of the blow great enough to flare up the entirety of Ind’s energy shields and completely cover her in a sheet of golden light.

“Urk…! …Cha—!”

Before Ind could complete the word, Davídrius dove in between her and Christeané, kicked the latter clear, and then dashed off himself, all just in time to avoid a massive pillar of ice that Rebehka dropped on top of the Bleeder. Ind immediately obliterated the ice pillar with another call of “Chaos!”, simultaneously using the call to blast herself into the air and shower the world around her in all manner of reddish projectiles — but Davídrius managed to weave between them and leap through the air toward Ind, bringing his foot around mid-air to spike her back to the ground, where Rebehka again encased her in a tomb of ice. Christeané appeared on the scene a split-second later, having launched himself with his hammer to slam into the ice tomb and blast Ind through the air; before she had even close to a chance to catch her bearings, Davídrius had caught up to her and kicked her right back to Christeané, who swung his hammer over head with the perfect timing to slam Ind to the ground once more. Then, as another pillar of ice appeared over Ind, the Forcetechnic Dean shouted aloud, “Overdrive: Omni Crush!”

Instantly, the ice pillar slammed into the ground as if brought down by an incredible invisible force, pressing Ind deep into the sandy dirt and shattering the pillar into thousands of tiny, impossibly sharp shards — shards that Rebehka quickly manipulated to hone in on Ind at high speed. The Bleeder’s shields remained active, but the onslaught of icy daggers were still as good as a hail of bullets in forcing the shields to eat through their remaining energy… though even once Rebehka had shredded her ice daggers into a fine mist, Ind’s shield remained intact.

The Bleeder herself, however, failed to recover nearly as quickly as she had prior. In fact, she remained exactly as she was, half-buried in the ground as she slowly began cackling to herself.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” Davídrius remarked, coming to stand over Ind with his foot on her shielded throat. “But if you’re willin’ to surrender now, then maybe we’ll go easy on you when it comes time for punishment.”

“Surrender? Hehehehe, now isn’t that funny~” Ind replied, her tone delirious. “You… really have gone soft, Sentry~.”

“…Fuckin’ stupid titles…” Davídrius muttered to himself, casting a brief side glance at Christeané as the latter approached. “Seems like you don’t got any more fight left in you, though,” the Velocitechnic spoke up, again addressing Ind. “Else you woulda blasted us away with another ‘Chaos’, wouldn’t ya?”

“Not that we wouldn’t be able to deal with it,” Christeané commented.

Ind simply giggled in response, a gleeful grin on her face as she locked eyes with Davídrius. “Hehe… blasting people is pretty fun~.”

“You explosion-usin’ maniac…” Davídrius muttered, glaring at Ind — until his eyes suddenly widened with realization. “Wait. Powerful Chaotic, uses explosions in combat… you! Are you Feral?”

“Oh, wow! So you’ve heard that name, huh~?”

“Feral? What?” Christeané glanced at Davídrius in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“Over a month ago, Compound Goresan was raided by Bleeders. Think I told you about that,” Davídrius explained, his glare still focused on Ind. “I heard from one of the survivors that the Bleeders had a new, powerful Chaotic with ‘em, one who could cause big explosions. And now here we are, with an annoying-as-fuck yet undeniably powerful Chaostechnic, who likes nothin’ more than scarrin’ the land with Chaos Blast.”

“Oh, Goresan, I remember that place!” Ind remarked. “That was fun! First time I really got to cut loose in a while~!”

“You…” Davídrius’s lip curled in anger. “So you do call yourself Feral? Tch. So the new leader of the Bleeders calls themselves a fuckin’ animal, huh? Can’t make this shit up…”

“Ahahaha! You think I’m the leader? If only!” Ind replied. “And you’re wrong on the other thing, too! Everybody underestimates the name ‘Feral’, like they think it’s just about how I fight. I guess my Overdrive is pretty ferocious~. But that ain’t really it.”

“Huh—? Wait…!” Davídrius and Christeané both backed away as a reddish aura slowly began to form around Ind’s body.

“See, my Overdrive is just the start! The… introduction!” Ind exclaimed, her face contorting with discomfort as the aura began to solidify around her, all while she slowly began climbing to her feet. “They don’t just… call me Feral. It’s not somethin’ I embrace. It’s… who I am!” Now standing once again, albeit hunched over like a wild beast, the Bleeder snapped her maniacal grin toward Davídrius, just as the red aura began to solidify over it. “I… AM feral! RaaaAAAGGGH!!!”

As soon as her face became obscured behind the solid red aura that now encased her entire body, Davídrius dashed to the side, grabbing Christeané and running off just before a massive dome of Chaos Energy blasted another crater in the ground. Davídrius was able to get clear just in time to not be launched, and continued running for another hundred meters or so before releasing Christeané.

“What is she doing…?” Rebehka questioned as she ran up to the two men, only for the silhouetted form of Ind to suddenly leap up to the lip of the crater created by the recent Blast. “Did she… did she intentionally go Berserk?!”

“And we still haven’t beaten through her shields… damn it,” Davídrius muttered. “Leave it to the Bleeders to have insane battle plans…”

“Well, it was inevitable with that crazy Overdrive of hers,” Christeané remarked. “And now, she doesn’t even have to say anything at all to use any of her abilities… man, what a pain.” He then shot Davídrius an annoyed glance. “You really find ways to get involved with all kinds of dangerous people, you know?”

“Ah, shut the hell up! What we need to do is still the same!” Davídrius shot back, crouching down in preparation to launch himself back into battle — just as the Berserk Ind charged forward. “Stop the Bleeders from doin’ harm to Tresnon, at all costs! Now c’mon! Let’s go!”