NEW WORLD — HUNGER'S BANE

Chapter 106: Bleeding Chaos II

The shrill sound of shattering ice and the thunderous rumbling of cracking earth filled the air just outside the walls of Compound Tresnon, signaling the ongoing fight in the wastelands. With the sun now far below the horizon, only starlight and the dim moon were left to illuminate the crater-filled lands, and the fierce combat that raged above them.

Another massive dome of red energy appeared, adding to the already pock-marked ground as Ind, swathed in the Chaos Energy cloak of the Berserk State, launched herself forward. With a bestial snarl, she lashed out at Davídrius and Christeané both as they approached, using the claws constructed of Chaos Energy on her hands to stave off Christeané as Davídrius dashed around her to kick her into the air. Rebehka immediately encased the airborne Bleeder in ice, only for the makeshift prison to be obliterated a second later by yet another Chaos Blast, invoked without Ind having to speak at all.

“I forgot how fucking annoying it is to fight Berserk Chaostechnics,” Christeané remarked with an annoyed scowl, all while attempting to dodge around the hail of arrows and mach-speed projectiles that the Berserker rained down on him. The onslaught left him with no opening to begin whirling his hammer, making it impossible for him to easily flee as Ind dropped back to the ground and lunged toward him — only to be interrupted by Davídrius launching the Berserker across the wastelands with a high-speed roundhouse kick. Before Ind had even touched the ground, however, she detonated the air behind her with Chaos Explosion, sending her rocketing back towards the two Deans. Christeané quickly began whirling his hammer and Davídrius lunged forward to intercept, but a half-second later, another Chaos Blast exploded out from the Berserker’s body, launching Christeané and Davídrius out of the way. Ind continued to sail through the air, eventually landing in a rough roll near to the walls… and Rebehka.

Immediately, the Cryotechnic launched herself away with a makeshift springboard of ice, while simultaneously creating a massive ice hammer in the air next to the Berserker to knock her in the opposite direction. The Bleeder simply lunged for the hammer, however, digging her claws into the frozen object to prevent herself from being flung away — and then followed with a point-blank Chaos Cannon, immediately shattering the ice hammer into a cloud of shards. As Ind then lunged through the cloud of ice, Rebehka quickly coalesced the ice around the Bleeder’s body to lock her down, only for another Chaos Blast to annihilate the imprisoning ice — as well as part of Tresnon’s walls.

In the aftermath of the Chaos Blast, the Berserk Bleeder began to fall into the resulting crater. But before she fell too far, she detonated the air under her to launch her toward Rebehka — only for Davídrius to appear overhead a split-second later and spike her to the ground with an aerial kick. Christeané quickly followed, leaping over the crater’s edge while whirling his hammer before releasing it straight toward the Berserker, launching him down towards her and impacting with an incredible thundering crack. Even through the cloak of Chaos Energy, however, the energy shields that protected Ind could be seen flaring up, indicating that they still had plenty of shield charge left.

In the second that Christeané took to note this fact, Ind lashed out at him, her Chaos Claws raking across his own shields and forcing him back. She quickly jumped back to her feet, snarling the whole time as she made to lunge at him — only to suddenly stop and snap her head to the side, as if something in the far distance had just caught her attention. Before she could move, Davídrius rocketed down from above, landing just next to her and then whipping his heel around overhead to slam it down onto her back, blasting her into the ground. Christeané made to follow with another hammer blow, but the Bleeder interrupted his attack with another Chaos Explosion, knocking Davídrius and Christeané both against the side of the crater and launching herself high into the air — where Rebehka created a massive pillar of ice to slam her back into the crater. But just before the ice could connect, Ind invoked another Chaos Blast, obliterating the ice and giving her an opening to launch herself across the skies again with Chaos Explosion, this time straight toward the hole in Tresnon’s walls.

“Shit—!” Davídrius scowled, immediately leaping after the Berserker to give chase — and then momentarily locking up in surprise as Karísah bounded out of the walls and slammed her fist into Ind’s face, sending the Berserker careening through the air over the wastelands. Christeané quickly gave chase, whirling his hammer before releasing it in Ind’s direction, all while Rebehka attempted to fill the hole in the wall with massive chunks of ice.

“I’m finally here!” Karísah exclaimed, passing Davídrius a glance before crouching down in preparation to leap toward Ind’s location. “Is it just her?”

“Yeah, just the one — and she’s Berserk,” Davídrius explained as he stepped in front of Karísah, as if to block her from moving further into the wastelands. “This ain’t your fight!”

“What?!” Karísah stared incredulously at Davídrius. “Why? I live here, too! Besides, you’re here, riskin’ yourself—“

“I got shields,” Davídrius cut in, pounding on his chest just hard enough to cause his shielding to flare up. “That protects me from those Chaostechnic attacks of hers. But you know that those attacks ignore the durability that you and I have as Introtechnics — if you go out there without shields, and she Blasts you, you’re fuckin’ dead!”

“I—!” Karísah started, indignation writ across her face, but she quickly stopped herself. “…Then what do I do? I can’t just let y’all handle this alone!”

“Agh, figures you’d pick a time like this to be stubborn…” Davídrius muttered, momentarily glancing out into the wastelands as two domes of red energy appeared in the distance. He crouched down, preparing to leap as he said to Karísah, “look, if you wanna help, then keep your distance and just throw shit. Ask Rebehka to make you ice rocks or somethin’. But keep your distance! If you fuckin’ die here, then I’ll murder your ass!”

As soon as he finished his thought, Davídrius launched himself through the air, just in time to intercept Ind and knock her into a nearby crater. Before he could land, however, the Berserker had already launched herself back into the air, leaving Davídrius to glare after her helplessly — he couldn’t kick off of thin air, after all. Just as Ind launched herself back toward the walls with another Chaos Explosion, however, Christeané rocketed through the air and swung his hammer down on top of her, blasting her into the ground below.

By then, Davídrius had landed on the ground and was now able to respond, allowing him to speed across the cratered grounds to reach the Bleeder and kick her into a nearby crater, which was swiftly followed by Rebehka creating a mass of ice over the crater and allowing it to fall into place, with the intention of crushing Ind under its weight. Yet another Chaos Blast immediately foiled that plan, annihilating the ice and deepening the crater as the Berserker launched herself back into the air, clearing the lip of the crater and focusing on Tresnon’s walls.

But before she could launch herself again, a massive chunk of ice flew through the air and knocked her backwards. Karísah followed by throwing another two chunks of ice, her strength allowing her to throw the massive chunks as hard as bullets and score two more hits on the Berserk Bleeder. Davídrius and Christeané both seized on the opening to slam the Berserker with their own attacks, but her shields remained active, allowing her to immediately respond with another Chaos Explosion to launch herself back into the air. Davídrius leaped after her, whipping his foot around to spike her back to the ground, but she instead Chaos Blasted him away and then launched herself forward. Christeané intercepted her this time, having used his hammer to launch himself through the air toward her and then bring his hammer down on top of her, but she unexpectedly responded by firing a Chaos Cannon at the hammer head — causing it to reverse its swing direction, whipping around and under to slam into the Berserker’s underside and fling her skyward.

“What the hell?!” Christeané exclaimed in disbelief, rapidly whirling his hammer again in preparation to pursue the Bleeder. “She’s Berserk, isn’t she? What the hell is with these tactical reactions?!”

“We’ll just have to ask her later — if she survives!” Davídrius replied, and then leaped into the air to reach Ind. He reached her in the blink of an eye, and swung his lower body around to spike her to the ground again — but a sudden burst of light momentarily stunned him. Quickly, he snapped his attention to the source of the light, finding in that moment that all of the lights in Tresnon had come back on, dispelling the nighttime darkness that had engulfed the town. “Who fixed…?” he began to wonder, but movement in the corner of his eye brought him back to the immediate present. As he began to fall through the air next to Ind, he reached out to grab her arm and attempt to simply throw her at the ground, but as he did, she lashed out at him with claws of Chaos Energy. That single attack knocked the two away from each other… and then, with the rotational momentum that she had gained, the Bleeder swung her right arm through the air toward Tresnon — and created dozens of arrows and projectiles that honed in on the newly lit town.

Davídrius was powerless to do anything about the projectiles in that moment, as he and Ind both were still falling through the air. It was Christeané who appeared in the air a second later to slam the Berserker groundward, distracting her from the massive chunk of ice that Rebehka created near the walls and held suspended in the air. Karísah then lunged at the ice chunk and delivered an incredible punch to its underside, directed upward, shattering it and creating a flak-like spread of ice shards across the sky that successfully intercepted a number of the Chaos projectiles. The defense wasn’t enough to block all of the projectiles, however, and the reminder found their mark against the buildings and streets of Tresnon below — including two of the shield emitters.

“Shit!” Davídrius reflexively exclaimed, eying the distant exploding emitters before whipping his attention back to the Berserk Bleeder. A thundering explosion could be heard as Ind launched herself into the air once more, but this time, her movements were more lethargic than before. In frustration and anger, Davídrius bounded after her and spiked her back to the ground, where Christeané was ready and waiting to slam her again with his hammer, embedding her into the dirt. A split-second later, Davídrius appeared over her to slam his foot into her stomach, further entrenching her. After that, Davídrius and Christeané both reflexively braced themselves against the Berserker’s inevitable response, but when none came, they both stared down at her… and the veil of Chaos Energy around her that was gradually fading away.

“…Ngh… ah ha… oof.” Ind grimaced in pain, her face no longer obscured as she glared up at the two Deans. “Wow… you stopped my Berserk State, and killed my shields… you’ve gotten a lot better, Sentry. Though I guess it wasn’t just you, huh~?”

“Killed your shields, huh?” Davídrius questioned, mercilessly stomping the Bleeder’s palm to check. Sure enough, no plane of golden light appeared to block his foot from crushing her hand, resulting in the sound of cracking plastic and a couple of electrical sparks. “…What the hell?” he muttered, removing his foot to stare down at Ind’s destroyed hand in confusion — and the obviously artificial components that made it up.

“Your arm’s a prosthetic?” Christeané remarked. “…Well, I guess that explains what was generating your shields, I guess.”

“Ahahahaha… oops. I guess the jig is up~,” Ind replied deliriously. “You really weren’t supposed to learn this part~.”

“Where the hell did you get this?” Davídrius pressed, kicking at the mangled electronic components in her hand. “There’s no way in hell the Bleeders found a fucking shield-generatin’ prosthetic arm in the dumpin’ grounds, or had access to people who knew how to install one!”

“Hmmm, I wonder~.”

“Tch…” The Velocitechnic glared down at her, before shifting his attention to the side as Rebehka and Karísah cautiously approached. “Listen, you,” Davídrius snarled, turning his attention back to Ind, “if you say the word ‘Chaos’, then you’re fuckin’ dead. Got it?”

“Is she no longer Berserk?” Rebehka questioned from afar.

“Not anymore, no,” Christeané replied, “and get this, she has a cybernetic arm!”

“Really?” Karísah responded in surprise. “Isn’t that a Black Suns thing?”

“Black Suns…” Davídrius muttered to himself, still glaring at Ind — who continued to grin back at him. While her body remained still, and her breath seemed ragged, she still possessed a distinctly maniacal glint in her eye.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, don’t tell me the Black Suns are involved here, too!”

Davídrius, Christeané, Rebehka, and Karísah all turned to look behind them, where Kate, Mark, and Relia were quickly approaching. Kate stopped just short of the group, but upon seeing the downed Ind, Relia quickly lunged forward and called out, “Chaos Negation.”

“Ahahaha, you really don’t trust me, huh~?” Ind remarked, while Mark moved to pick her up and restrain her with one arm and Relia continued to stand over her.

“Relia… good that you’re here,” Davídrius commented, and then shifted his attention to Mark and Kate. “But what the hell’re y’all doin’ here?”

“Oh come the fuck on, we’re here to help, and this is the thanks we get?” Kate retorted, and then slowly surveyed the scarred wastelands with a scowl. “Man, and I even missed out on one hell of a fight… this fucking sucks!”

“Now’s not the time for this, Kate,” Mark chided. “Now tell them what you told me and Relia.”

“Did somethin’ happen?” Karísah questioned warily. “Uh, aside from all of the fightin’…?”

“Sure, I guess you could say that,” Kate remarked dismissively. “After the power went out, Mote, Danielle, and I went to fix up the generator to make sure your shitty defenses would still work. And sure enough, it looked like someone had blown the ever-living fuck out of the control panel and fucked up the dynamos. Looked like you’d need to replace the whole generator, so Mote’s the one supplying power, right now.”

“Sure, thanks, but it ain’t a surprise the generator was sabotaged,” Davídrius replied.

“Well no shit, but that’s not the part that’s important,” Kate retorted. “What’s important is that we saw some random chick there dressed in a bunch of heavy robes. She took one look at us, turned invisible, and gave us the fucking slip! That bitch…”

Ind began giggling to herself. “Yep! That’s Shade, for ya~!”

“So they were both bad, after all…” Karísah muttered.

“Fucking… damn it,” Davídrius swore, his brow furrowed in frustration.

“Something doesn’t add up, though,” Christeané pointed out. “If this ‘Shade’ person really is a Visitechnic, like you’re suggesting, then why was she visible to start with? Did she want us to discover her?”

“That ain’t the only thing that ain’t makin’ any sense, here,” Davídrius muttered, turning his irate gaze back to Ind. “Just what the hell are the Bleeders playin’ at, huh? What the hell are y’all tryin’ to accomplish?”

“Ehehehe… that’d be obvious,” Ind replied, “well… if you remembered me, anyways~!”

“Remember you? What the hell are you…?” Davídrius trailed off uneasily as he stared hard at Ind, at her pale face, and her short brown hair. Little about her appearance was remarkable or unique in any way, but as the Velocitechnic considered her maliciously affable attitude and explosive Chaotic ability, realization crossed his face — followed immediately by confused fury. “You!” he shouted, “you’re— you’re that fucking Chaostechnic I fought 20 years ago!”

“Ahahahaha!! You finally got it!!”

“How the hell?! Kevérin and Siyuakén said you were dead!”

“Wait, what?” Rebehka passed Davídrius a confused look. “I don’t remember her…”

“It was before you and Christeané joined the team,” Davídrius muttered, his foul glare still focused on Ind as she hung limply from Mark’s hand. “It was back when Kevérin and Kaoné were tryin’ to recruit me, actually. I told ‘em that I’d only join Hero Machina if they helped me kill the leader of the Bleeders at the time, and while we were huntin’ him down… I ran into this bitch right here.”

“You really didn’t do so well against me that time~.” Ind remarked.

“You may’ve beaten me, but accordin’ to Kevérin, Siyuakén should’ve shocked y’all to death…” Davídrius scowled. “How the hell are you alive? And if you’re here… then… don’t fucking tell me…!”

Ind broke out into maniacal laughter, so loud and uproarious that she startled everyone present. “Now you’re gettin’ it!” she remarked, still grinning as broadly as before, though she now bore a significantly more murderous aura. “You just don’t know how to follow through, Sentry! You can’t do shit by yourself! Everything you do, you get help from outsiders! Outsiders then, outsiders now, outsiders here, outsiders there, outsiders everywhere! You think Treséd’s just gonna sit around and let you fuck everythin’ up, let you hand everythin’ over to fuckin’ outsiders? Well the Bleeders have had enough, and now that I’m back, as well as a… certain someone, we’ll be gettin’ our revenge! We’ll show you to bring so many fuckin’ outsiders to Treséd!”

“Shut the fuck up, like you ain’t gettin’ help from outsiders yourself,” Davídrius shot back. “That arm of yours, those shields, the armor all those other Bleeders were wearin’ — ain’t no way y’all're gettin’ those without outside help. So where the hell do you get off, tryin’ to claim I’m the one in the wrong?!”

“We get stuff, but not people. We still do everythin’ ourselves. You can’t say that, though~.”

“You… fucking…!” Davídrius growled, too blinded by fury to do anything but continue his argument with Ind. As he did, Christeané and Rebehka exchanged an awkward glance, Relia continued to cautiously watch Ind, and Mark looked back at Kate — who herself was squinting into the distance, as if she had spotted something.

“…What the hell?” she muttered, and then raised her voice to address the group. “Hey, is there a fucking army over there?”

“What?!” Davídrius questioned incredulously, as everyone turned to look in the direction that Kate was pointing — but just as they did, a sudden, massive blow to the back of his neck slammed Mark into the ground. Caught off guard, he accidentally released Ind, who was flung through the air to tumble to the ground some distance away as the sound of a gunshot finally rang through the air. A massively deformed bullet falling to the ground a couple meters away from Mark was enough to indicate what had just happened: he had been shot by a heavy hypersonic round.

“Who’s there?!” Christeané shouted in the direction of the gunshot, his hammer already whirling in preparation to attack.

“Ehehe… you really let your guard down, huh~?” Ind remarked, drawing everyone’s attention back to her — just in time for Shade to appear next to her, a massive rifle strapped to her back as she slapped a small broach onto Ind’s chest, thereby activating a new energy shield to protect her. Davídrius immediately lunged toward the duo, dealing two high-speed kicks to launch them across the wasteland, but before he could pursue, he spotted several dozen lights in the distance — several dozen that soon grew to well over a hundred once he paused to count.

“…It’s a raid,” Relia muttered.

“And we lost that Bleeder, too,” Christeané pointed out with a scowl. “She was the closest thing we had to a lead!”

“Ugh… sorry about that…” Mark muttered as he slowly picked himself up off of the ground, gingerly rubbing the area where he had been shot — that nonetheless showed no sign of injury. “I was caught off-guard…”

“Yeah, but how about this: we won’t need a captive if we just stop the raid right now—!” Kate started, only to be interrupted by a voice over her communicator.

«That’s a negative, pull back!» ordered Saito’s voice. «We need to regroup, now!»

“What? But—!”

«That’s not it. You’re with the Dean, right? Selind needs a word with him.»

“Dirt help me, Selind, this had better be fucking worth it,” Davídrius snarled, “this night went from bad to worse already, so unless the sky is fucking falling, you better have a damn good reason to pull us back, when we’re already close enough to mount an attack!”

«An attack? The seven of you, against an army? Sure, I’ll wait to see how well that turns out,» Selind retorted. «Two of Tresnon’s shield emitters are down, anyways. The Compound is in too bad a shape to go around provokin’ Bleeders, right now.»

“Yeah, yeah, fuckin’… damn it, cut to the chase. What is it?!”

«That ‘army’ approachin’ us is all Bleeders, and they’re bein’ led by… well, uh, by someone I didn’t think I’d ever see again.»

“Don’t say it. Don’t you fucking say it.”

«Wish I didn’t have to, but it’s what’s happenin’. This man leadin’ the Bleeders… he claims to be Strén. The very same your friends supposedly killed 20 years ago.»