Slavegear 2 - Katsura's Mask

"Don't judge the Union Council too harshly, their wounds are still fresh." Kaylee melancholically brushed the hair from her eyes and moved toward the wall sized window "You don't know what it was like here, when the Mental Breakdowns first started. The rampant violence, the fear, confusion over the source of it."

"...that's how my dad died in Verria, just before I was portalled to Nifelheim, I remember." Zoy replied in a colorless voice. "But we do know, Kaylee. We lived through it, every day on Nifelheim."

"But that's my point." Kaylee sighed slowly, closing her eye "Your generation knew of it from birth, you grew up with it, you knew the cause, what to expect and how to combat it. It wasn't an unknown, unstudied threat.
Can you imagine what it was like for people to stumble upon it for the first time, without even knowing about Parasites? The Union public is still in shock over what happened. They're scared. They don't know who to trust and they don't have enough information."
She slowly turned around and looked at you:

"...if we don't tread carefully, I fear the hotter heads may spiral this into a full out war, between the Witchers and the Union. We can't..." she closed her eyes shut, clenching her fist "...we cannot allow that disaster to happen."






"The Soren General was right though, wasn't he." Zoy wrapped herself in her arms, briefly glancing at Rain, Twilight, then Viki, Ryu and Bastila "The four of us, we are the Kings of Nifelheim, each in charge of a Castle Town. The four of us are the highest authority of our government. So the responsibility is ours." She grimaced and looked away:

"There was a miscalculation in the minimum required mass, of the Parasite Suppression Obelisks. We built them specifically to avoid this exact disaster on Kepler. But the Obelisks just weren't big enough. We should have built them taller.

I guess we just assumed, if the Obelisks shielded our people from Breakdowns, it also shielded Kepler... we didn't even think that over a millennia, our people could have developed a limited immunity to Breakdowns, an immunity which Kepler lacked. And an attack on our sanity which we shrugged off as nothing, proved lethal to Kepler, and 1,400,000 people have died. That's our fault." Zoy looked away, hiding her expression.




"Rain and Twi are right though," Kaylee timidly said "..Zoy... the architectural design of the Obelisks was developed over 200 years ago, generations before you were born. It took your people 200 years to gather the materials for their construction, because those metals were so rare. No one had any reason to question the design. Especially because it did shield your people.

You were thrust into power, decades before you expected to be, before you felt you were ready. You said it yourself, no Witcher became a King in their twenties. But the four of you have, because Kaznachey killed all of your predecessors.

So you stepped up and gave it your all. For gods sake, you were only Kings for 6 months. In that small a time-frame, you had to notice what no one else did in two centuries? That the Obelisks weren't tall enough? And even if you had noticed, would 6 months be enough to gather the precious metals to fortify even one Obelisk, of one city? When the Parasite Horde controlled most of them globe? When it took 200 years to build the Obelisks to begin with?

Kaylee's eyes narrowed in pity and sorry "...there was literally nothing you could have done.
The four of you were thrust in charge of humanities future." She slowly looked at Viki, Ryu, Bastila and Zoy "Considering the horde wanted to wipe you out, and yet your people still live, I'd say you did alright."


Zoy turned away, but you saw the very corner of her mouth curve into a small, sad smile.








"Alright, we've wasted enough time here." Lightning clapped her palms together "Lets bounce."

As everyone began pilling into the express elevator, that would presumably take you down to street level and out of the Kashiwagi skyscraper, Kaylee lagged behind, until she was the only one still in the office.

"Kaylee!" Zoy called in alarm, her 1.62 meter height just barely allowed her blond hair to poke over the crowd, when she stood on her tippy-toes "You coming?!"



"'fraid not." Kaylee sadly shook her head "Listen, you'll be entering a target rich environment." her expression became more serious "That means advancing on foot while saving every civilians possible and neutralizing every Parasite in sight. It will be easy to get lost in the fog of war and loose the full picture.

I'm going to board the VTOL we flew in on and fly overwatch over the city. I'll feed you intel on enemy numbers and locations. Point out pockets of civilian and military survivors and coordinate you movements. It will be easier to see the full picture and coordinate from there."


"Kaylee don't leave!" Zoy desperately tried to push through the crowd to get out of the elevator but there were just too many people packed too closely together. "Something could happen to you, I just got you back!"

"I'll always be with you," Kaylee winked, you think, it was hard to tell with her eyepatch "I'll be fine, I'll have two pilots and four Asteran marines flying with me. And the VTOL's equipped with 8 missiles and a minigun under its nose. Don't worry about me." She waved to you with a cheery smile:

"My call-sign will be Raven 1-1, call me on the earpiece whenever."

"Kaylee!!" Zoy screamed out in panic, but the purple pegasus waved again and sprinted down the skyscraper's hallway, tracing her steps back to the helipad where you landed. You weren't sure, but you could have sworn she had a trace of tears in her eyes.




The elevator doors closed and the machine beeped, seamlessly beginning its express descent. If the walls weren't full-size windows, showing the city streets racing toward you, you wouldn't know you were moving.

Zoy turned away again, hiding her face, but you still saw her miserable expression reflected in the windows glass. The descent into the hellfire below was predicted to take less than a minute, but it still felt like eternity, as the emergency orange light of the floors passed by, one after another. You began seeing the fires on the streets below, charred, overturned vehicles, ravaged military APC's, a massive crowd of people rushing in the same direction, some with rotting faces and orange glowing eyes, others not. And you couldn't tell from this high, who was infected and dead, and who was not.

Zoy wiped her eyes and sighed with a quivering voice.



"...Kepler's finished." Bastila's eerily calm voice rang quietly in the cabin, "...you know that, don't you?" you looked at the girl and saw nothing but resignation and hopelessness in her eyes. There wasn't even sadness there anymore, just, acceptance:
"I'm not familiar with Machine World architecture, but just from the rough landscape estimate I got from up top, this city houses, what... a million people? And thanks to Kaznachey, there's only us 15 Witchers here. The only ones with the knowledge and means of fighting the horde."

Her eyes looked glazed over, she was looking right through you:

"The Parasite outbreak raged here for over 4 hours now. That means hundreds of thousands infected. How are the 15 of us supposed to contain that?"



She leaned her head on the window, staring emptily at the burning landscape "This will be First Contact all over again. That's how the outbreak on Nifelheim started."

"Then we take the lessons you learnt the first time" Rogue replied to Bastila, speaking for the first time in a while.

"You're right, 15 Witchers aren't enough. We're gonna need a whole lot more, more than even in all the Witcher cities combined.

There is a solution, though I don't think you'll like it. We teach the Union army how to become Witchers.

With Kepler's military industrial complex and logistics, we just might be able to recreate the Witcher metal artificially and get it into mass production, then we could make as many Witchers as are needed to contain the situation."

"Mmmm... but we've also just learned of a new way to make witchers." Rain glances over at Rogue, "Mutual contract." She says tonelessly, "Even if Glystaria dont know Kaz is dead, the culture out there was survival of the fittest. The ones out here have done what Kaz couldn't and could be forming their own agenda, be that good or bad." She huffs, "The situation is distinctly diffrent from Nifelhime now we should keep an eye out for any of those outliers." She leans her head against the elevator wall, "Watch out for particularly religious fervors who think their talking to god, folks who have sudden voices in their head, and any other strange cases we happen across. Reality as humanity once knew it is about to fundamentally change."

Circi glares down at the street from the elevator, "...These citys aren't nearly as astheticly pleasing as the castle towns..." she grumbles, "This... 'concrete' threatens to leave blisters on my heels, and my only relief so far has been the carpets of this tower... and the memory of seering hot sands." She shakes her head, "...I hate this machine world and their addiction to hard floor surfaces."

"Be nice if there was a way to fight and see them without needing to form contracts." Thena adds in then starts examining her gun "I mean this thing packs a punch on par with our spells, but since it's cold steel it's useless. I wonder though..."

She trails off a moment

"I need to borrow a knife or something I can etch metal with. I have an idea."

Rogue wrote:There is a solution, though I don't think you'll like it. We teach the Union army how to become Witchers.

With Kepler's military industrial complex and logistics, we just might be able to recreate the Witcher metal artificially and get it into mass production, then we could make as many Witchers as are needed to contain the situation."

Bastila's expression didn't change much, but her ear moved. You got the sense she was listening, intently.
"I hope you're right. I don't mind sharing our technology with the Union," the girl said after a while, head still leaning on the wall-sized window, watching the streets "...soon enough it won't matter who belongs to the Union or the Witchers, there will only be humans and Parasites. And if political squabbles can't be set aside in the face of the horde..." the girl sighed. "I don't want to be shot in the back by a human, while fighting a Parasite."

Rain wrote:"but we've also just learned of a new way to make witchers." Rain glances over at Rogue, "Mutual contract."

"Mm. The Parallel Glasgow." Ursula nodded "Although the way of us stumbling into this synergy was highly atypical - getting infected, getting cursed to become Red Witchers, then finding a loop hole in the curse.
Still, I wonder if we can't streamline this process somehow. Find a way to make it simpler for others. The Parallel Glasgow synergy is immensely powerful. If we had more Witchers like that, we could significantly increase the survivability of our troops."

The girl said excitedly, collecting both fists in determination. Despite her enthusiasm you still noticed her body language was rigid and twitchy. The girl was visibly scared and tried to inch closer toward you.

Rain wrote:"Even if Glystaria dont know Kaz is dead, the culture out there was survival of the fittest. The ones out here have done what Kaz couldn't and could be forming their own agenda, be that good or bad."

"Do you think the Parasites here might be forming their own factions?" Johan asked, but Zoy shook her head:

"Parasites don't do factions. They can't seem to accept a hierarchical structure, they're too individualistic. But we could see an outlier or two, like an Ancient Parasite with his own agenda, aiming to exploit this mess for their ends. Maybe we can exploit them right back."

Circi wrote:"...These citys aren't nearly as astheticly pleasing as the castle towns..." she grumbles, "This... 'concrete' threatens to leave blisters on my heels, and my only relief so far has been the carpets of this tower... and the memory of seering hot sands." She shakes her head, "...I hate this machine world and their addiction to hard floor surfaces."

"Need a hard floor to build things." Johan pondered, summoning his katana.

"Or break them." Lightning excitedly did the same and scrutinized her purple blade "...say... is it just me, or has my sword been glowing a little more dull since our fight with Kaz?"

Thena wrote:"Be nice if there was a way to fight and see them without needing to form contracts."

"Hey... yeah!..." Zoy thought aloud, turning toward you "You guys have so much Machine tech, can one of those fancy gadgets pick up on invisible objects? Stuff the naked eye can't see at all?"

"Well..." Johan awkwardly tapped his fingertips together in thought "...depends... on why they're invisible to begin with. Invisibility has to do with light. Its directly connected to electro-magnetical wave length. If Parasites are invisible to the naked eye, under the Kepler's sun, then... maybe in other electro-magnetical waves, they will be visible?
Remember how Kaznachey commented she glowed blue under Nifelheim's sun, because of a deficiency in skin pigmentation? There's could be a connection there."

"Eeeeh? Johan!" Zoy over-excitedly clapped her hands together "You are so knowledgeable!" she beamed, a little more brightly than the occasion called for. Johan's cheeks turned bright red and he looked away quickly. Bastila gave a sideways glance at Zoy who didn't notice it very pointedly.

Thena wrote:Thena adds in then starts examining her gun "I mean this thing packs a punch on par with our spells, but since it's cold steel it's useless. I wonder though..."

She trails off a moment

"I need to borrow a knife or something I can etch metal with. I have an idea."

"Hold that thought," Adam raised his palm, frowning at the window "at least until we reach a workshop... we're almost there." he strained, watching the carnage on the streets as the pavement raced toward you.

Zoy's expression changed, as she noticed the violence up close. Her head lowered just slightly, obscuring the upper part of her face in shadow, hiding her eyes from direct view, but you could still see her conflicted expression in windows reflection. There was tension there, and something else you couldn't quiet pin down.


"Zoy?... Are you okay?" Johan quietly looked at her.

"Kashiwagi Brice" the blond girl bitterly grimaced at the window.

"Do you hate him?" Johan asked.

"...I don't know." Zoy winced, gritting her teeth "It was easy thinking of Brice as just another piece of shit on the other side of the portal, trying to kill me. But he was a person. A regular person, just like you and me.
I can't stop myself thinking, what would I do in his position? I don't want to know.
I never want to be in his position." She covered her face with both palms:

"But some people are. Some parents are faced with a brutal reality they have no control over.
One day they wake up and get hit in the face so hard, they never recover.
An imminent death of your child.

Most have no power to change anything. Brice did... that's all." she let her hands drop, her eyes sternly locked on the window.


Ursula silently took hold of Rain's hand. Adam inched closer to Circi, until he stood beside her shoulder to shoulder. Sasha and Bastila exchanged glances, and looked up the sky, where a lone VTOL took off and veered away from the tower.


The elevator cabin emitted an archaic chime and its glass doors opened.








A massive venue opened before you, easily a hundred meters wide and several kilometers long. It stretched before you in a straight line moving into the horizon, housing grass lawns and trees and artificial rectangular lakes, lavish monuments and majestic statues that rose 20 meters over the ground. This seemed to be the central venue of the capital city and it was decorated accordingly.

The 10 floored buildings flanking both sides of the venue were decorated in the Renaissance architecture style of the 16th century, portraying carvings and gilded ornaments and carved columns. Little statues of angels and gargoyles hung from the top of the columns or sat on the gilded roofs. Each building reminded you of a palace or a work of art of its own.

20 meter tall marble statues of mythological figures from human history lines both sides of the venue, some held gilded cold weapons, others gilded jugs from which water ran down into the artificial lakes below. Everything seemed extravagant, gilded and intricate to the last detail. This venue was very beautiful, once.



Now a seemingly permanent orange glow hung over the streets. The skies were covered by a thick layer of black clouds, some of it brought by a storm, some of it caused by continuous plumes of burning ash, rising into the sky from the fires across Beusoleil. Several statues were scarred by small arms fire and claw-marks. A ten meter tall upper half of a marble maiden laid with her face in the mud, her jug broken into a thousand gilded pieces.

A military tank rusted nearby, its armor had imploded completely, its entire armor melted away by some sickly green acid that still bubbled over its surface. Charred civilian cars lined the streets. An armored personnel carrier laid on its side, its back doors ripped off their hinges and surface covered in claw marks 5 meters in length.

A massive international passenger plane laid crashed in a trench, a few hundred meters away, its right wing sticking out into the air at almost a 50 degree angle, its other wing broken off and left a hundred meters behind. Its engines were on fire, emitting black plumes of smoke, sporting clear scorch marks from a lightning spell fired at it from below.

Its tail had almost broken off, revealing a massive crack in its fuselage. Its landing gear was sticking out of its carcass. The pilots must have attempted an emergency landing right on the venue and crashed in the attempt.

And in the space between you and the plane, bodies filled the streets. Some charred, some half eaten, their ribs poking out of their torn apart torsos, glazed eyes staring up at the sky. There were hundreds of them, strewn all over the venue. But that wasn't the most horrific part.


Well over 200 bodies, still walked, shuffled around the venue. Their feet and arms broken, bent in unnatural angles and bones sticking out of the flesh. Dragging their feet, holding their half-eaten arms close, they moaned, as they aimlessly shuffled around the scorched venue. Their faces were rotting, eyes glowed with distinct orange light.

They were husks, human corpses taken over by Parasites, who continued to feast on them from the inside, rotting the corpses to the bone, until there would be nothing left to eat.


Apart from them, four massive Parasites stalked the street. These ones were in their orange spectral form, easily 10 meters in height, they looked like locust, massive insects with hungry, snapping jaws and fluttering wings that wandered the street, flipping over vehicles and trying to get at the charred corpses beneath, biting and tearing into them, consuming them in large chunks.


A sudden distant explosion drew your attention. One of the emergency escape doors on the crashed plane was blown off its hinges, the emergency inflatable staircase tried to inflate and got puctured immediately on the debris. The door was angled almost entirely at the ground.

A few figures desperately crawled out, staining their clothes on the ash and dirt of the trench. The first four were soldiers in full body armor and rifles. The other three were civilians in business suits. It was hard to tell from several hundred meters away, but their body language suggested they thought they had escaped a horrible crash with their lives. They seemed happy, for a moment.


And then every one of the 200 shuffling corpses turned and looked in their direction. So did the 4 giant locust.

The soldiers screamed wildly and opened fire. Their shots were aimed poorly, 70% of their bullets missed, but even the ones that hit, only blew out small chunks out of the corpses that continued to moan and shuffle toward the crashed plane.

The soldiers and the three civilians attempted to run in the opposite direction but quickly stopped in their tracks as another wave of 300 corpses emerged from the opposite side of the plane, as the aircraft was slowly surrounded.

Horrified, shrieks echoed toward you, as the civilians tried to crawl back inside the plane, while the soldiers formed some sort of a tiny perimeter around the door and screamed wildly, opening fire, spraying the corpses on full-auto.


Zoy's blade materialized with a faint woosh and the girl scowled "Lets do this."

"If we do have plans, let's discuss them at the right time." Twilight says. "And if you stand by them, please also oversee them being done."

Once down, Twilight calls her weapon. She wastes no time to fly over the group shot at by the soldiers. "SAVE YOUR BULLETS! LEAVE THESE TO ME!" she bellows, before slamming down with wide swings of her bastard sword. He face said nothing, to a worrying degree.

Ryu made a half-hearted move to slow down his mother, but to no avail. He then nodded to Viki, whe nodded back. Then they went in and supported their mother, weapon in one hand, attempting witcher magic in another.

Rain lets out a soft sigh. She squeezes Ursulas hand slightly and looks down at her with a small smile, "We got this. I know it all feels alien and strange now, but what we're doing now is no diffrent from Nifelhime." She wraps an arm over her shoulders and gives her daughter a firm squeeze, "You know the horrors we will witness, and we can stop those horrors from happening in the future." She smiles, "and dont forget... Kaz made us strong. Her greatest mistake, was making us stronger then a majority of parasites. We'll be rarely encountering parasites who can stand up to one of us, let alone all of us. So as long as we play our cards right, as long as we dont heasitate, we can beat whatever they throw at us."

Circi stares bitterly down at the street as it grows ever closer. She feels Adam take a place beside her and a small smile forces its way to her. She drapes an arm over his shoulders and gives him a small hug, "Ooooh Adam. Its so hard to stay furious when your around." She chuckles.

Circi still seems a little tired, but her spirit seems to have raised.

As they each step off of the elevator Rain glances around with a grimmace. Her hand goes to her hip and she draws her revolver, her boots and armor audibly clattering with each heavy step down the road.

Her eyes flick to the aircraft and its opening door, the soldiers piling out, the civilians beside them. Rain sighs as their bullets do nothing. She pats Ursula on the shoulder before advancing ahead of her. She doesn't stop moving forward as she takes aim with her revolver, one arm extended in her steady advance. Picking out the shambling corpses and using her skill wire she aims for headshots on the lesser enemys.

Circi follows close behind Rain. The tilt of her head tells her targets are the big parasites at play. Her fingers draw a symbol in the air and she smirks as she points at one of the locusts, "Tendons grasp..." she whispers before drawing her greatsword from her back and charging forward at her chosen target. She twists her and her massive blades weight before she reaches her target and brings all that momentum down on the big locusts abdomin.

Thena raises her hand fires off a 1st Level Ice Spike at the same Locus Circi is attacking. Aiming for one its eyes.

Rogue summons his Witcher shield and prepares for combat.

Rain wrote:. So as long as we play our cards right, as long as we dont hesitate, we can beat whatever they throw at us."

"Mm" Ursula nodded to you and smiled, still nervous but, a lot more calm now.

Circi wrote:"Ooooh Adam. Its so hard to stay furious when your around." She chuckles.

"I got your back." Adam smiled brightly.









At a rough estimate, the crashed plane was some 700 meters away, the distance to it filled with 200 walking corpses, burning trees and giant, ten-meter tall pieces of marble statues. As Twilight took to the air, flying over the writhing, rotting bodies that hungrily followed her with piercing orange eyes, her children could not follow as fast. Being Unicorns they got bogged down immediately in the horde.

Pushing through the crowd on foot seemed extremely difficult, as the dozen corpses closest to them, shrieked horribly and rushed at the twins. Broken legs and bones sticking out of their flesh, the enemies weren't fast, as they shambled toward you, but they were numerous. Their bloodstained, lipless jaws snapping hungrily as they stretched their rotting arms at Ryu and Viki, aiming to pile on and surround them with numbers, trying to grab hold of them and bite into their flesh, bite at whatever they could reach.



Twilight was unhindered by the horde on the ground and managed to fly a 100 meters ahead. Her purple sword slashing through the heads of the corpses below, beheading some, carving the skulls of others in diagonal arcs. Several rotting heads were sent flying a dozen meters in each directions and several heads were split vertically in half, spilling out brain tissue and viscera, before the corpses collapsed and fizzled out, burning away in bright purple flames and turning to ash.








But there were just too many, you managed to carve about 15 of them, before one of the giant orange locust suddenly made a savage jump and collided with you mid-flight. Its massive jaws bit painfully hard into your shoulder, sinking all the way to the bone, as the locust latched onto her with four of its bony front legs and crashed with you into the scorched lawn, landing a meter away from the broken marble statue of a beatiful woman in medieval clothing, the statues upper body had snapped off and laid in the mud, its marble eyes staring at Twilight, as the Locust held its bite on her shoulder with a death-grip, its teeth sinking deeper still, trying to snap the bones of her shoulder.

Crimson blood spilled in droves on the blackened lawn, the smell of it driving the rotting corpses insane as a dozen of the rushed at Twilight, aiming to grab at her limbs and take a bite at whatever they could reach. They crowded around her so tightly that she faded from sight. She was a 100 meters away from you.




(Twilight suffered -20 HP damage, 85 HP remaining.)




As Ryu and Viki attempted to use Witcher magic again, that same horrid effect happened again, the effect that happened when they first set foot in Kashiwagi tower - instead of their Witcher spells materializing in the palms of their hands, their Unicorn horns glowed for a split second and released a haphazard blast of purple light, akin to a fire-cracker. The Witcher spells in the palms of their hands fizzled out in a spray of popping sparks and died put. They failed to even cook a spell, let alone discharge one.



"What the hell?" Zoy grimaced, noticing the effect as she swung her katana, beheading a corpse as she ran at the horde beside the twins "Its just like last time! What's wrong?"


"Is Kepler suppressing Witcher magic somehow?" Adam posed, just as Lightning released a gleeful shriek and whipped her hand foward. A blinding flash of electricity errupted out of her palm and scorched a line through the horde, turning some 7 corpses into staturs of charcoal:
"BUUURN BITCHEEES!!! TODAY YOU DANCE WITH LAUGHING LIGHTNING!"


"Light, Ursula, Rain, whoever can fly, get to Twilight!" Zoy yelled over the racket, trying to cut her way through the horde of rotting corpses with little progress.

"On it!" Ursula and Lightning unfolded their massive wings and flew up some 15 meters vertically into the air. But before they could get on their way to Twilight, two massive Locust got airborne and buzzed in their direction.

"We can't get bogged down, we need crowd control!" Zoy grunted "Someone cook Area of Effect magic!"

"Does it even work?" Bastila looked down at her palm, a bright flame suddenly ignited in it, to her surprise. Zoy spinned and discharged a quick haphazard fireball into a parasites face, turning the corpse into ash:

"...why?... Our magic works! I don't understand.." the blond girl suddenly threw a glance at her siblings, her eyes slightly widened.
Lightning was a Pegasus, Zoy was a seapony. Thena was an earthpony.

Viki and Ryu were Unicorns.

Rain wrote:She doesn't stop moving forward as she takes aim with her revolver, one arm extended in her steady advance. Picking out the shambling corpses and using her skill wire she aims for headshots on the lesser enemys.

Your revolver rang loud in the night, the high caliber bullets striking their heads, pulverizing them, exploding them like watermelons, but it seemed to do no damage to the Parasites themselves. The headless corpses continued to shamble toward you, and in place of a rotting head, now a spectral one had appeared. An orange, disgusting, transparent head, with four ugly mandibles for a mouth and wild lion-like eyes glowed in the darkness. Subsequent headshots to them had zero effect, the bullets just passed right through their transparent forms.

You got the feeling you did no damage at all, as the closest corpses to you suddenly lunged right at you, grabbing your arms and trying to bite chunks out of your neck and forearms, their ugly mouths filled with mandibles snapping incessantly.

Circi wrote:Her fingers draw a symbol in the air and she smirks as she points at one of the locusts, "Tendons grasp..." she whispers before drawing her greatsword from her back and charging forward at her chosen target. She twists her and her massive blades weight before she reaches her target and brings all that momentum down on the big locusts abdomin.

Thena wrote:Thena raises her hand fires off a 1st Level Ice Spike at the same Locus Circi is attacking. Aiming for one its eyes.

One of the two locust charging you suddenly shrieked, as sickly black tendons sprouted out of the ground and caught it mid flight, slamming it against the pavement, amidst the remains of marble statues. The creature was caught off guard, shrieking and trying to escape incessantly, forgetting about it environment entirely. It was completely rabid, out of its mind. In its feverish attempts at escape it kicked one shambling corpse so hard, it flew out some 15 meters into the distance and crashed against a marble statue with a sickening splatter, disintegrating on impact.

Thena waited a moment, watching its insane thrashing to try and spot a pattern, before she timed her shot perfectly, snapping her fingers and manifesting an ice spike, to fly at the exact spot where the creatures head was predicted to be a moment from now.






The spike flew slow across the battlefield, and for a moment, you thought it would strike empty air, when at the last moment, the Locust jerked its head into the spikes path, as it did several times in the exact same pattern of movement. The spike flew right in its left eye, shattering into a million razor sharp shards and splattering its eye in an instant.

A horrifying screeched echoed over the battlefield as the Locust started thrashing even more wildly, blindly kicking away every corpse that still hung around it.

Ducking low and rushing right at it, Circi ducked under one of its jerking limbs, sliding on her knees right under it and sliced through its abdomen, nearly cutting it in half. The Locust bellowed, collapsed onto the ground and smacking you reflexively in the face. You flew 5 meters back and crashed into a crowd corpses, as the Locust gargled and melted from the inside, as the Manticore venom of your sword ate through its insides.

As the Locust crumbled to dust, five different corpses fell upon Circi attempting to keep her pinned down, as they tried to bite at everything they could reach. Their bloodstained jaws and rotting faces filling your view.


(Circi suffered -10 HP damage, 122 HP remaining.)

Rogue wrote:Rogue summons his Witcher shield and prepares for combat.

A dozen different corpses rushed right at you, mindlessly throwing themselves against your purple flaming shield. Four of them disintegrated on impact, blasting you with a cloud of ash. But 5 more went around from either direction and grabbed you by the arms and shoulders, their teeth drawing near as they attempted to tackle you, throw you to the ground and sink their teeth into you, their piercing orange eyes glowed hungrily in the dark.







Far away, some 700 meters ahead, you noticed how the civilians had boarded the crashed plane once again, and only the 4 soldiers remained in a tight half circle around the emergency door. They couldn't hear you over the racket of their own assault rifles firing wildly. Their faces distorted by fear, as hundreds of corpses closed in around them, now only a few meters away from the soldiers.




"Raven 1-1 to ground team," Kaylee's distorted voice rang in your earpiece "be advised, I'm seeing anomalous activity among the Parasites downtown..." the VTOL's engines roared hard in the background, as her voice came through and you saw the aircraft slowly moving above you, some 3,000 feet in the air, the missile batteries visible under its wings:

"...it seems the Parasites have split into 2 distinct factions. They're slaughtering each other in the streets, over."


"...what did she just say?" Bastila frowned, making brief eye contact with you.

Zoy's face turned grave "...that's impossible."

Rain cracks her neck as the shambling corpses dont fall. She flips her revolver in her palm before slamming it back into its holster. As the one of the bodies lunges at her she catches it by the neck and swings the body into the corpses closing in on her like a very limp club. With the small distance shes made she summons her heavy falchion, drives it through the corpse shes holding and splits it in half at the stomach before rearing the body back and throwing it into the crowd. Now wielding her weapon with both hands she swings in wide arcs keeping her space clear before her wings shoot open and she takes to the sky.

Rain inhales sharply and aims her palm at the ground.

Rain casts lightning in an AOE.

With a heavy beat of her wings she shoots off to support Twilight and her kids. Her wings beat hard as she closes the distance fast. Her wings close a few meters from the ground, right above one of the locusts and she drops down onto its back, raising her blade above her head she swings the star of her heavy falchion down into its spine and drags it upward towards its neck, ripping it open like a shrimp shell.

Circi cackles, even as the bodies threaten to overwhelm her. Her greatsword falls to her side as shes surrounded. Her spiderlegs level at the horde surrounding her like 6 rapiers, they thrust at the closest ones trying to grip at her, and she pushes the stuck ones back, and the ones still closest to her get a full taste of her fury. Her hand reaches out as she grabs the first by the hair, the streight dagger she once stole from Kaz's assassins rips from its sheath and slams into the corpses chin and into its brain. she rips it free and in quick succession slams her dagger like a shank deep into the souls of the 6 stuck corpses still stuck to her legs. Her second dagger, the original karambit like talon she had ripped from a manticore itself rips from its sheath as she cuts down fodder one after another, Her spiderlegs stabbing and beating anything that gets too close in a frenzy, "I HATE YOU ALL!" she roars through the noise, "EVERY LAST PARASITE I'LL SHATTER UNDER MY FOOT! DIE!... DIE! DIE!" she cries through her frenzy.

Thena tosses the gun to the side and summons her Kusarigama. She then begins to rapidly spin and weave the blades and chains at a rapid around her until there is a flickering teal hemisphere of icy death around her.

"Hopefully they thin each other out enough to counteract or at least stall the reproduction rate"

"It would appear the two magic systems are incompatible with each other, it would be interesting to study that further and find out wh..."

Rogue was cut off mid-sentence as the parasites flanked him. He attempts to swing his shield horizontally in an arc around him to swipe at the parasites on one side.

Twilight yelped out in pain, but she gritted her teeth soon afterwards and swung her sword to stab the face of the creature, especially the eye. After the stab, she dismissed the sword and summoned it again to the trapped arm, plunging itself into the head of the beast and dealing even more damage.

She repositions her free arm, and called her sword there again, before giving another swipe across the skull of her trapper. she would then try to pry her arm free, and once done, fly up again.



With the fizzle, the twins winced in unison.
"Shit!" Ryu exclaimed.
"Again?!" Viki complained.
And seeing others cast their magic so easily made those feelings of impotence grow stronger. Ryu growled. "We worked so hard for this, only to have it just turn off?! How is that-"

They realized something and looked at eachother, as if they were confirming their idea. Then in the direction of their mother, at least where she was last seen.

"I guess seeing is believing." Viki said.
Ryu nodded. "Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."
The two hold their weapons, and while they fight, they try to focus on their horns.
"Let's not focus on what we know on magic." Ryu stated.
Viki nodded. "It's all new with how we use it."

Both leap into the horde, slashing their way through. The two fighting in sync, to cover eachother's weakpoints against the horde. All the while, trying to get a grasp on this new magic source interfering with their old one. "Don't think, feel." They whispered in unison. And out loud they spoke.



With the info on the clashing factions, Twi was surprised, but she grinned. "Lucky break, seal those factions in for a deathmatch.

Searing heat washed over Rain, as her purple falcion materialized into being, accompanied by the sound of grinding glass. The parasite you eviscerated shrieked wildly, ugly mandible-filled mouth opening wide, before it was cut in half and exploded into a spray of burning charcoal.

As you began swinging your blade in wide arcs, leaving purple after-images of flame in your eyes, the horde didn't seem deterred. In fact they seemed rabid, mindless, the concepts of self-preservation seemed to have no meaning for them, as several dozen corpses rushed at you, at once, their rotting faces and half-eaten outstretched arms moving toward you.

One swing - and three corpses were cut through diagonally, collapsing onto the ground with a long flaming wound on their torso. Another swing - and two more were dismembered, their arms slashed off at the elbow, before they all collapsed to the ground, were set ablaze and died in a searing vortex of orange fire.

But the rest just rushed in through the opening. While your blade was to the right of your body, the Parasites rushed in from the left, two of them grabbed your sword arm, one burning himself alive on your blade, just to hold it at bay, while three more closed distance to you. You tried to leap back reflexively and took to the air, your wings flapping hard, but not before one managed to graze your sword arm with his teeth, leaving messy wounds were he tore up the flesh, and another took a swing at your face, his dirty blood stained nails carving up three messy cuts across your cheek.


Blood dripped to the ground from your face, as you gained altitude, leaving the writhing swarm below and they went insane, falling onto the pavement and trying to devour every last drop of blood you shed on the pavement.


(Rain suffered -6 HP damage, 194 HP remaining.)



Flying up a good 15 meters, you traced a familiar pentagram shape with your index and middle finger, put your palms together and aimed them at the ground, as static electricity visibly built up around your body, zapping with purple sparks across your clothing and hair locks, making your hair stand on end, before the Level 2 spell discharged with a deafening thunderclap.

A heavy blast of lightning struck the ground in a 20 meter radius, catching a large group of 14 corpses in its blast, as they all seized up, their muscles cramping. Visible sparks of electricity washed over their bodies for several seconds, before their flesh turned to ash and crumbled around them, their skeletons remained standing seized up for a split second longer, before the bones too crumbled to charcoal.


Flying over the horde was unnerving. As you shot through the air like a bullet, your wings flapping incessantly behind you, you saw a writing sea of rotting bodies, watch you with hungry, glowing orange eyes and stretch their broken arms toward you, moaning and shrieking in your wake.


As your wings folded, you landed hard on the Locust and almost slipped off, as its outer shell and carapace turned out to be unexpectedly slippery. What saved you from the fall was the flaming purple falcion that you ran into the insects spine and slashed it right to its neck.

The Locust shrieked horribly, as its hind legs went limp. Its jaws released Twilight's shoulder but only a little, its eyes locked on the Alicorn, staring with hatred right at her pupils.



The moment lasted for only a second, but you suddenly realized something. The Godkiller Falcion was supposed to inflict a 100 damage and induce Blindness with each stroke. But the Locust hadn't died, nor did it look blind, as its eyes tracked Twilight's irises.

The Locust finally released her shoulder and aimed its mandibles at Twilight's throat. The Princess didn't wait. She just thrust her sword right into the insects eye. The Locust released such a deafening cry, that even the corpses around you frozen up, grabbing their heads and stumbling in place, moaning pain as the Locust writhed.

Twilight, dissipated the lodged weapon and stabbed the thing again in the face. Bright orange blood sprayed on her armor in droves, staining her face. The writhing in insect with too many legs flapped its transparent wings once and collapsed to the ground beside you, nearly crushing you under its weight, before it turned into weightless dust and burning charcoal.


Covered in burning ash and orange blood, Twilight unfolded her wings and took to the air, but not before three corpses managed to close in on her and bite hard into her shins, tearing off chunks of flesh and muscle, as you broke off and flew up to 5 meter height above them.


The other corpses turned immediately towards Rain, who had started to collapse to the ground, as the Locust under her crumbled.


(Twilight suffered -14 HP damage, 71 HP remaining)



Ursula and Lightning did a flew by, each dropping an Area of Effect spell in your close vicinity. A sickly ball of green goo fell off Lightning's palm, dropping to the ground and a 20 meter wide pool of bubbling goo formed in an instant, the 11 corpses within shrieked horribly, as they melted in seconds, as if they stood in sulfuric acid, dissolving and turning into quivering puddles of gore.

Ursula dropped a flaming sphere about the size of a basketball the detonated like a dozen grenades, obliterating a 20 meter radius in a searing explosion that sprayed Rain with bright orange blood that glowed in the dark, taking out 13 more corpses in the explosion.

Viki & Ryu wrote:Both leap into the horde, slashing their way through. The two fighting in sync, to cover eachother's weakpoints against the horde. All the while, trying to get a grasp on this new magic source interfering with their old one. "Don't think, feel." They whispered in unison. And out loud they spoke.

When the two fought together, it was a sight to behold. From afar, it looked like a very well practiced, choreographed dance, because mostly, it was. Trained together from birth in the martial art, they knew each others weaknesses and strengths, and over 18 years had formulated a strategy that left minimal openings, while maximizing the damage.

From the side, it looked like they turned into a whirlwind of steel, Viktoria's scythe swinging in methodical arcs, chopping up enemies over wide distance and long arcs, not letting them close. Those who seeped through the long range attack, were met with Ryu at short range, who's sword danced unpredictably through the air, chopping up corpses with a graceful, well practiced hand of a painter.

Body parts flew in every direction, smearing the ground orange, as Viki leaped forward, swinging the scythe around herself three times and catching 8 Parasites by surprise, cleaving them in half. For a split second she froze, bend forward and her scythe raised over her head and Ryu rolled over her back, feet first and landing in front of her, immediately swishing his sword diagonally, before turning into a blur and beheading and dismembering three more corpses that got passed Viki's scythe, cutting the Parasites legs off at the knees.

They cleaved through 24 corpses in seconds, before Guillotine, a massive unhinged orange wolf erupted out of Viki's chest. Materializing to his full 3 meter tall height, the Parasite bellowed, releasing a deafening howl, spreading out its gigantic paws, each one sporting claws the size of your forearm and sharp as a razor blade, before it went to town on the horde.

Its gigantic claws cut through the air with audible sound, obliterating the corpses around him, cutting their bodies into 6 different horizontal pieces, as his guillotine-like claws cleaved through the masses. He was throwing body parts left and right in every direction, smearing the battlefield.



For a moment, Ryu and Viki closed their eyes, finding their center. Their Witcher magic was still there, the Glasgow Synergy still vividly burned in their soul, as did the overwhelming Mana they had accumulated and the knowledge to cast the spells.

But something was interfering with that now. Something new, that didn't exist before. Something that laid dormant in their DNA that began to stir, the moment they set foot on Kepler.

They could feel the molecules of oxygen washing over their face, the molecules of water mixed in. The small particles carbon dioxide as it was emitted in droves from the fires. They knew chemistry well, it was a fundamental per-requisite to learning Witcher magic. But they never 'Felt' these molecules before, they were never 'Aware' of their presence.

How can you be? They're so small, imperceptible to human eye. And yet, you felt them. Millions, billions of them. Shaking, vibrating, shivering at your presence. Eager to move, to follow direction, to bend the universe at your will. Your subconscious reflex to push it away, had confused you, making it difficult to concentrate on using the Witcher magic.

But there was something there. Something new. Stirring within the depths of your soul. Your Unicorn horn glowed faintly in response, as you pondered this.

Circi wrote:Circi cackles, even as the bodies threaten to overwhelm her. Her greatsword falls to her side as shes surrounded. Her spiderlegs level at the horde surrounding her like 6 rapiers, they thrust at the closest ones trying to grip at her, and she pushes the stuck ones back, and the ones still closest to her get a full taste of her fury. Her hand reaches out as she grabs the first by the hair, the streight dagger she once stole from Kaz's assassins rips from its sheath and slams into the corpses chin and into its brain. she rips it free and in quick succession slams her dagger like a shank deep into the souls of the 6 stuck corpses still stuck to her legs. Her second dagger, the original karambit like talon she had ripped from a manticore itself rips from its sheath as she cuts down fodder one after another, Her spiderlegs stabbing and beating anything that gets too close in a frenzy, "I HATE YOU ALL!" she roars through the noise, "EVERY LAST PARASITE I'LL SHATTER UNDER MY FOOT! DIE!... DIE! DIE!" she cries through her frenzy.

The area around you turned into a massacre, as spider legs flew out and stabbed in unpredictable directions, impaling and eviscerating the corpses, before you savagely gored them with daggers, turning the things into collapsing piles of charcoal.

You butchered 8 of them, before 20 more descended upon you, biting at everything, your hands, legs, your spider appendages, trying to devour and eat you, piece by little piece. Small chunks of your skin and flesh were torn off, more with each bite as the corpses who bit you were stabbed through the face with a spider leg, before two more took their place and bit harder.

Circi shrieked in outrage and turning into a blur of razor sharp limbs. You couldn't track her movements anymore, you only saw her lying on the ground, as a flurry of spider legs incessantly stabbed, pierced, beheaded everything around her, like a meat-grinder turned to the max. Corpses were kicked, impaled and sent flying a half dozen meters away, as the horde tried to devour her and were met with a uniform flurry of blades.


(Circi suffered -30 HP damage, 92 HP remaining.)

"MOTHER!" Adam screamed out abject horror, rushing toward her, but a dozen more bodies got in his way. The boy screamed out in anger, as tears formed in his eyes. He whipped his hand back and forth again. His flesh split open with a sickening sound and a black, boney whip shot out of his arm and cleaved a dozen corpses in half, sending their upper bodies sailing a meter back, before collapsing onto the pavement, cleaving him a path to his mother.


By the time he reached her, the battle was already over. The boy stared at her in disbelief, as Circi slowly rose from the ground. Her face was stained with glowing orange blood and dark ash stuck to it in droves. Her body was bit all over, numerous wounds bled dark blood, as did her horribly scratched face, smearing her cheeks black.

She breathed heavily, her spider legs shaking slightly in anticipation of further attack from the enemy, that never came. Slowly looking around you, you found enough bodyparts to account for at least 30 corpses, sitting around her in a tight circle. She killed them all, on her own.

Thena wrote:Thena tosses the gun to the side and summons her Kusarigama. She then begins to rapidly spin and weave the blades and chains at a rapid around her until there is a flickering teal hemisphere of icy death around her.

The Kusarigama turned into a neon blur, spinning like a fan of razor sharp blades. Its teal fire left circular after-imaged in your eyes as you slowly advanced forward, leaving virtually no angle for enemy approach, and as the enemies blindly threw themselves at you, the blades and chains began cleaning.

Upper halves of the corpses flew up to 5 meters into the air, sent sailing by the dizzyingly spinning blades, their mouths wide open and guts spilling out, only to fall back into the blades again and sent flying off to the side some 10 meters away. Like a blade of a helicopter, the Kusarigama split, carved and cleaved bodies into small chunks, sending dismembered bodies flying in every direction, smearing you with a fountain of orange blood.

At least 20 undead rushed right at you and literally exploded at your approach, their body parts often covered in icicles long after the fell to the ground.

Rogue wrote:Rogue was cut off mid-sentence as the parasites flanked him. He attempts to swing his shield horizontally in an arc around him to swipe at the parasites on one side.

The dark purple shield ignited stronger, as you swung it sideways, impacting the advancing horde and leaving long orange wound across their chests, that immediately ignited with fire and the corpses fell to the ground, shrieking and dying in orange flames, you managed to cleave through 7 of them, when 11 more descended upon you.

They descended on you from every direction, three of them grabbed your shield and tried pinning it to the ground, enveloping it with their bodies and dragging it down with their weight, even as the shield set them of fire and began turning them into charcoal, while the other 8 rushed at you from the other direction, grabbing your arm and sinking their teeth into it, in three places at once.

The pain was unbearable, as they tried to chew through the muscle, and all the way to the bone, their disgusting, broken yellow teeth sinking deeper and deeper.


(Rogue suffered -15 HP damage, 130 HP remaining.)


Rolo suddenly materialized just next to you, in his orange spectral form of a human boy in extravagant tuxedo and masquerade mask, and shot his arm forward, releasing a blast of lightning into their faces, point blank, turning the three that bit you to ash.








Taking a brief survey of the battlefield, you suddenly realized you managed to carve out most of the corpses between you and the plane. The field was littered with charcoal and orange blood, decomposing body parts that slowly set themselves on fire and turned into ash. Collectively you killed 195 of the corpses.


The only enemies left, between you and the plane, were 5 corpses and 2 giant Locust that shrieked wildly at you, suddenly developing a fight or flight instinct, turned around and rushed away from you, making a wild sprint toward the plane, where, the situation was growing rapidly dire.


The 300 more corpses that showed up from the opposite side of the plane, were upon it now, they had approached the 4 human soldiers point blank and as the soldiers screamed, running out of ammo, senselessly spraying the parasites with no effect, the first corpses lunged at the solders. You coudn't see what was happening anymore from so far away. You only saw that the soldiers were barring the planes doorway with their bodies and screaming in horror, as the parasites tried to rip the rifles out of their hands and bite at whatever exposed limb they could reach.



"RAVEN 1-1 REQUESTING STRIKE PACKAGE ON COORDINATES 34-41-52 DANGER CLOSE, OVER!" Johan shrieked, wildly tapping the screen on his Data-pad.

"Uhhh roger that," an unfamiliar male voice replied, with the roar of twin engines in the background and you saw the silhouette of the VTOL pull a sharp turn, spin around and angle its nose at the ground
"Target locked, take take take." another male voice called.

"Fox one, fox two, fire at will." the first replied and you saw a twin missile launch from the air, the projectiles streaking through the night sky, leaving a plume of yellow fire in their way, before they arced and blasted the ground behind the crashed plane, right into the middle of the horde.


Two massive explosions rose into the air behind the crashed plane, obliterating the corpses and turning them into quivering pieces of jelly, as it sent the ignited Parasites flying it every direction, while dozens disappeared from view in the center of the explosion.

You weren't sure how effective missiles were against Parasites, but at the very least a 150 of them were blasted dozens of meters in every direction, or got caught in the epicenter of that explosion.



"6 missiles remaining, plus minigun with 5000 ammo, over." Kaylee's voice sounded once again from the radio.


"GET TO THE PLANE!" Zoy yelled over the racket, as the kids rushed forward as fast as their feet carried them, trying to cover the 700 meter dash.

The 2 Locust that fled from you were much faster, zipping through the air at some 80 kilometers per hour and gaining speed, as they tried to reach the plane before you. The 5 corpses that still remained in your vicinity also tried to run to the plane, but they shambled so slowly, you could reach them at walking speed.

Twilight wrote:With the info on the clashing factions, Twi was surprised, but she grinned. "Lucky break, seal those factions in for a deathmatch.

Thena wrote:"Hopefully they thin each other out enough to counteract or at least stall the reproduction rate"

"I don't see any factions here..." Johan said wearily, as he ran beside you through the battlefield, slipping on orange blood and almost tripping.

"Parasites don't have factions, they don't do factions!" Zoy frowned at the scene of the plane, falling in beside him "They're too individualistic!"

"Raven 1-1, repeat your last sit-rep, over." Johan uneasily called over the earpiece.

"Did you say factions?" Zoy chimed in.



"Well, perhaps 'Factions' isn't the right word, but I'm not sure how else to explain what I'm seeing." Kaylee said in thought, voice clearly weary:
"Faction 1 are a rabid horde, wild, unhinged, completely insane. They're devouring everything in their path like locust. That's what were used to. That's what we saw on Nifelheim."

"So, typical Parasites, basically." Bastila shrugged.

"Hey!" Squiggles grumpily called, materializing next to Rain and breaking into a gallop, in all his 2 and a half meter tall height.




"Right." Kaylee said, seemingly more alarmed "...the 2nd Faction is working as a military unit. A classic, disciplined, military unit. Alarmingly similar to human doctrine.
They split into clearly defined Brigades of 5,000 and Battalions of 1,000 men. I'm seeing Companies of 200 men and Platoons of 10 and Teams with as little as 4 soldiers. All of them under visible command of officers, of various rank.

They're working under a hierarchical structure." The girl sounded alarmed.



Zoy looked at you slowly, her face contorted, turning into a stone mask: "...that's impossible."



"Are you sure you're not mistaken?" Bastila reached for her earpiece "The assault on Rakshata Castle could also have seemed coordinated, in a certain light."

"No, that was different." Kaylee replied "The siege on Rakshata was just a mob of rabid Parasites, herded and forced to throw themselves at our defenses. But they were still just a mob.
This is different." The girl paused wearily:

"The 2nd Faction is ignoring civilians completely-" Kaylee continued "They're cutting their way through the city in a straight line, as if they have an objective. And they're engaging every combatant in their path. I saw them both slaughtering rabid Parasites and engage the Tesian human forces. They engage every hostile combatant who gets in their path, while ignoring civilians completely. In fact I think I saw one heal a civilian-"


"WHAT THE FUCK?!" Zoy's mouth opened so low, it was endanger of dislocating her jaw, as her face turned into a stone mask of bewilderment and frustration:

"That's not possible... Kaylee that's impossible!"



"That's not all." Kaylee said nervously "The 2nd Faction is using human gear."

"Using human gear... and healing civilians?" Rain says over her radio, "Thats new for seemingly unafiliated Glystaria." She shakes the pain from the parasite bite away from her arm, "I suppose we should try and make contact with them."

Rain rolls her shoulders as she glares down at her godkiller blade, "Huh..." she frowns down at it before shaking her head and pushing forward towards the plane, "Circi! Stop them!" She calls.



Circi huffs, shaking the parasite blood from her fingertips and splattering it across the pavement. She looks sideways at Adam, before taking a deep breath in and letting out a long sigh, "Man..." her hand suddenly snaps up and she points her palm at one of the locusts.

Circi casts tendons grasp.

"...Dont worry Adam!" She wipes a bit of blood from her cheek still trying to catch her breath, the tremble in her hands speaks to the adrenaline still coursing its way through her, "No simple horde can stop me. They'd need a horde of those locusts and even then I'll never go down easy." The Sinner holsters her daggers and grabs her greatsword, hoisting it over her shoulder, "...and to be honest? I've been in a bad mood since i've gotten to this godforsaken planet." She growls slightly looking back at Adam before her attention switches back to battle, "You guys are wondering how bad this second faction of parasites are? I assure you that their leadership is probably just as self absorbed and singularly focused as the horde. I'm not getting my hopes up." She flexes her spiderlegs as she pushes up towards the plane to take on the locusts.

"Any idea yet where the second faction might be headed, over?" Rogue asks Kaylee over the radio, as he pulls himself up off the ground.

From their positions, once they see the situation, they make their way over to the new battlefield, from their respective positions.

Ryu and Viki were slightly in awe at the strange new world of experiences they were feeling. The power they were born with opening a whole new set of possibilities, if they could grasp it. It was out of reach for now, but they tasted it, and knew how to find more.

Heading over there, Twilight answers on the update. "So you're saying that there are thousands of glysteria out there moving like peacekeepers?!" She replies. "Kaylee, I can't question what you have seen, but if what you say is correct, that means that the second group is trained like soldiers to perform these feats so effectively, and possesing a code of honor, or code of conduct to not attack those unarmed."

"It's even worse." Ryu interjects. "Most of these rank and file swarming the field, those seem mindless or maddened with hunger. But Glysteria are sentient, and not even stupid. You could teach it to them, with the correct facility and care."

Twilight gets a hint of fear in her voice. "You don't mean to say..."

"He is." Viki pipes in. "Whatever this is, it's far bigger then we anticipated. Before we shout "It's impossible, it's not possible!", fair, memory orb or it didn't happen."
"Not the time for memes, sis."
Viki ignored that. "For the last year, we kept running into impossiblity after impossibility. Both in good and bad, you'd think someone is making the impossible real on purpose, just to spite. So an actual army of Glysteria soldiers? Might not be that impossible. But how it came to be is another story, one we must hear to know what the hell was up."

Twilight gritted her teeth. "Then we have ANOTHER faction to negociate with, as if we weren't stretched thin enough. Best we get our fill of battle now, because we'll be spending a long time away from combat at this rate."

Ryu replies somberly. "I know, mother."

"Kepler not banishing or all being out to kill Nifelheim was impossible, the idea of Red Witchers was impossible, Kaznachey not being able to be killed was impossible. Not to mention having an individualistic viewpoint doesn't make cooperating impossible."

Thena rapidly casts Wall Run and Heightened Senses at 1st Level in rapid succession, then she begins to charge an Ice Spike at 3rd Level.

She is specifically watching, listening, and smelling for new and bigger threats.

Internally: "Rose, mind giving me some cover while I charge this spell?"

Rain wrote:"I suppose we should try and make contact with them."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Bastila asked, her expression grim. "We don't know what we're dealing with."

"No, Rain's right. We need more intel." Kaylee's weary voice came over the earpice "We need to know their objective."

Circi wrote:"...Dont worry Adam!" She wipes a bit of blood from her cheek still trying to catch her breath, the tremble in her hands speaks to the adrenaline still coursing its way through her, "No simple horde can stop me. They'd need a horde of those locusts and even then I'll never go down easy."

Adam doesn't respond, just stand there looking at you. With his eyes human and iris visible, so he could blend more easily with human society by Agatha's design, you could see exactly the feeling behind his eyes and what he felt at the moment.

Fear. Unfiltered, primal fear. Momentary relief, then anxiety. He wasn't saying anything but he was visibly scared at what had just happened. You're pretty sure he thought you would die just then, that he wouldn't make it in time to help you.

The boy looked away, his arms slightly trembling, then he looked at you again, a little mournful and said almost in a lightly scolding fashion:

"...please be careful. A single mistake can spell someone's death. We didn't escape Nifelheim just to die here, so easily. And it can happen. Please don't be reckless... do it for me... okay?" he looked away, as if afraid of hearing an answer and sprinted ahead.

Rogue wrote:"Any idea yet where the second faction might be headed, over?" Rogue asks Kaylee over the radio, as he pulls himself up off the ground.

"...not sure, I'm not seeing anything obvious in their path, but its a really big city, almost 18 kilometers in diameter." Kaylee replied and you heard her tapping a touch-screen "Stand-by, I'll try tracing their predicted path on a map...

Parks, a hospital, university, train station, art gallery, water desalination plant... I'm sorry, I'm not really seeing any other strategic objectives in their pa-... wait... shit.... Shit!"


"...What!" Zoy impatiently called in alarm, breathing loudly as she sprinted toward the crashed plane.


"They split up into two groups... no, they split up again!" Kaylee called, as her VTOL visible turned in the air to get a visual angle "One group is carrying on their original path, and two more split away and entered the underground railway system, heading in opposite directions, I lost visual on them!"

Twilight wrote:"So you're saying that there are thousands of glysteria out there moving like peacekeepers?!" She replies. "Kaylee, I can't question what you have seen, but if what you say is correct, that means that the second group is trained like soldiers to perform these feats so effectively, and possesing a code of honor, or code of conduct to not attack those unarmed."

"I wouldn't call them peacekeepers, per se," Kaylee wearily said "I saw them repeatedly clash with Tesian armed forces, but this Parasite faction doesn't seem interested in chasing the Tesian soldiers, or wiping them out. The Parasites only engaged when they were actively shot at, and ceased hostilities when the Tesian soldiers pulled back."

Kaylee exhaled in anxiety "Whatever the Parasites' objective, they want to get there fast and they're treating everyone else as a distraction."


"Code of honor, from the Horde?" Bastila scoffed "What a joke."

"Kaznachey had a code." Johan said grimly. "She never broke her word."

"Yeah, didn't stop her from trying to wipe out humanity." Zoy grumpily said.

Ryu wrote: You could teach it to them, with the correct facility and care."

"...you think these Parasites had a training facility...?" Zoy asked, becoming extremely grim "But that would mean... prior knowledge, plans in advance, as if... this operation was pre-meditated."

"The Parasites knew this outbreak would happen." Kaylee finished her thought "They planned for this."

"Kaylee that's..." Zoy winced.

"Guys, the Parasites are using human Data-pads." Kaylee grimly replied "They're using radio for communication. They're wearing bullet proof vests, human bullet proof vests. They're wearing human military fatigues with custom unit tags on their shoulders. I can't see the symbol from so far away, but the vague silhouette is not something I recognize.

They're sporting high end equipment and seem to know how to use it."



"This is madness!" Zoy protested "What does a Parasite need with a radio? They can communicate with each other telepathically! And why the hell are they wearing human fatigues?? It makes them visible to the average human eye! Imagine a headless uniform running down the street! That'd sure put a target on their back, what the fuck are they doing!?"


"Guys..." Kaylee called again "...the Parasites are armed with FAMAS F1 assault rifles. Tesian make. And using them with great effect..."


"What the fuck!" Zoy grabbed her head "WHAT THE FUCK?!"

"How did they get the gear?" Bastila narrowed her eyes "Do they even know what an assault rifle is?"

Viki wrote:"Whatever this is, it's far bigger then we anticipated. Before we shout "It's impossible, it's not possible!", fair, memory orb or it didn't happen."

"Wha-... I don't have a Memory Orb. What am I supposed to do, birth one?" Kaylee defensively called.

"This is madness!" Zoy exclaimed "This is actual madness. I-.., you've been to Nifelheim, you lived there with us! The Parasites never exhibited this type of behavior in the 1288 years we've lived there! This is impossible!!!"

Twilight wrote:Twilight gritted her teeth. "Then we have ANOTHER faction to negociate with, as if we weren't stretched thin enough. Best we get our fill of battle now, because we'll be spending a long time away from combat at this rate."

"...what?" Zoy took a double take, looking at you completely taken aback "...that's a bad thing?"

Thena wrote:Thena rapidly casts Wall Run and Heightened Senses at 1st Level in rapid succession, then she begins to charge an Ice Spike at 3rd Level.

She is specifically watching, listening, and smelling for new and bigger threats.

Internally: "Rose, mind giving me some cover while I charge this spell?"

The world seems to vibrate for a moment, as an imperceptible pulse washed over it, with you at the center. The smell of burning charcoal and Parasite blood became stronger, as did the smell of rotting flesh. The sounds of distant gunfire and screaming filled your senses, as the echoes reached you from across the city.

You became keenly aware of all living things in your vicinity, some 150 meters around you. So far, apart from the Parasites you saw earlier, no one new enters your field of detection.

Circi wrote:her hand suddenly snaps up and she points her palm at one of the locusts.

Circi casts tendons grasp.

A bundle of black tendons suddenly sprouted out of a pile of dead body-parts and shot up into the sky, grabbing one of the two Locusts and fusing with its legs. The thing shrieked incessantly as it was violently pulled and slammed into the pile of rotting flesh, where the tendons latched onto it stronger still, pinning it in place and grabbing its wings.


"I have your back." Rose's voice echoed, as the Parasite materialized next to Thena, her bow already drawn. Taking careful aim, she let the spectral arrow loose, watching it arc and leave a fiery trail in its wake, before it struck the Locust on the back, right in the exposed part of its carapace, where the wings began.

The Locust shrieked, wiggling all the disgusting mandibles in its mouth, before Guillotine stomped heavily toward it and beheaded the thing with one swipe of its massive paws, sending the insects head sailing a good 20 meters off to the side, before the thing turned into charcoal.




You finally reached the crashed plane, the zombies had swarmed emergency doorway, dozens of them blocking it from view. You saw two soldiers retreating inside, shooting wildly, while two more were tackled to the ground. Their piercing shrieks filled the night as the corpses piled down on them, biting and chewing, devouring them alive with horrid munching and biting sounds.

A great crater had formed behind the plane, after the missile strike earlier. Many fires burned behind it and dozens of corpses laid twitching on the ground with various injuries and burn damage. Some were disoriented and tried to shuffle away, others funneled toward the crashed plane.

There were roughly 150 of them in total, dispersed around the crash-site, with a crowd of 40 standing directly by the emergency doorway to the plane.

"The subways should have cameras, can you patch in them remotely from where you are, over?" Rogue asks Kaylee over the radio, "We can't risk losing track of an organised combat force like this."

"I thought that was a phrase here." Viki says confused. "It's not?"

"The phrase is "pics or it didn't happen", Viki." Twilight corrects her. "But the meaning is the same."
The she sounded more stern. "Let's limit communications though. If they have similar gear to us, they could intercept the signals."

"Understood." Ryu says before going dark.

Twilight looks at Zoy, the girl apparently caught with her. "Being away from battle is not a bad thing at all. But the bureaucracy we'll head into instead will not be so easy either. We have two worlds to bring together, not even in a methaphorical sense. A task no one has done before."

She looks serious. "And the only people who spend a significant amount on both worlds are in this strike force. The ones to build this bridge is us. And while both sides want peace, how they view the peace is different, this must be communicated between the two parties. And that's not even going into making identification, introduction of different technology and teachings and so many more factors that don't even come to mind now, it's too much."

Twilight looks into the city. "We have a monumental task ahead of us to unite this world, and we all need to do this, together. If any of us runs off because they don't like a desk job, the world will burn more then it needs to. I said this many times on Nifelheim, I just hope people heard it just once."

Thena continues to charge the spell and keep watch

Circi watches Adam go. A quite, "hmm." Leaves her as she conciders something to herself. She lets out a soft sigh and sprints to cover the entrance to the plane. Her greatsword raises and cleaves downwards towards the parasites closing on the covering soldiers as she takes a place at the aircrafts entrance.

Rain lands near Circi to face the horde, "Squiggles! Get out here" she calls, "guys! Me, Squiggles, and Circi will hold the plane entrance. Hit them from behind! We'll keep them busy, as you guys shread their flanks! Lets clean them up!"

Rain casts lightning at the horde.

Rain swings her godkiller blade at about waist high to cut parasites clean in half, trying to thin their numbers so the civilians can make a break for it.