Jake slams the gas, closing his eyes and slamming straight through the barricade.

The car sustains virtually no damage, but it sends them off road, right into the heart of no mans land.

No mans land, the region between Ouranos and the Lightning realm. A desert filled with dangerous creatures, crawling with criminal activity, and is completely uninhabitable, causing neither country to lay claim on it, leaving it to be abandoned and used as a seperating line to form their border.

The second they cross into no mans land, dozens of powerful beams of light come crashing down from the sky, contiously dissappearing and appearing infront of their vehicle, Jake avoiding only about half of them, their vehicle forced to take damage from the rest.

Ray takes a hold of his sniper once more, and aims it back at Nyx.

Josh grabs onto his shoulder and stops him.

"Dude, i have an idea." He tells him, Ray looking back at him confused.

"They are only shooting at us with these lightbeams, must be a single person performing atomic reactions, we just have to find him!" He tells Ray, pointing his own rifle through another nearby hole.

Jake yells at them from the front.

"Its a regular atomic reaction, whoever is performing it definitely has direct view on us!"

As the vehicle wobbles around, Ray and Josh both carefully look into all the military vehicles chasing them, but can't seem to locate them.

"This is completely pointless!" Ray yells, looking back at Nyx, still condensing energy in his swords.

"Why hasn't he fired? There's no way he hasn't condensed enough energy to destroy this damn metal carriage by now!"

Jake looks up ahead as he maneuvers the dangerous terrain, and notices a steep ravine right up ahead.

"Shit..." He mumbles.

He catches glimpse of a rock formation in the rough shape of a ramp, and an idea jumps through his head.

"You might wanna hold onto something." He calls out, taking absolutely no time to convince himself.

Josh and Ray quickly look up front and notice that he's about to try and make the jump.

They both scream and grab onto the seats infront of them, holding on for dear life.

"Have you gone nuts?!" Ray yells.

"We are gonna get squished like a fucking pancake!" Josh yells.

In a sudden, yet extraordinarily fast flash of light, Nyx unleashes all of the energy condensed into the first sword, aimed right at them. The intense beam of light cutting one, large hole into the middle of the vehicle, narrowily missing the three of them, and the vital parts of the vehicle.

Jake pushes through and slams the gas, jumping the ramp.

Their bodies float temporarily before slamming back down onto the heavy armor once they land onto the other side of the large ravine.

Josh quickly shoots up and begins rapidly checking the damage.

"Holy shit, he melted off the entire damn top,"

"No doubt that could have turned us into ash!"

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"We got lucky the car is still running!"

Ray looks back out, and notices that the only thing left following them is the helicopter, Nyx still atop it, the other sword still aimed directly at them, ready to fire.

"If we hadn't gone up that ramp in time, he probably would have sliced up the entire engine..." he mumbles to himself.

Josh suddenly tenses up, and stares directly at Jake nervously.

"W-where the hell do we go now? We're in too deep into no mans land!"

Ray looks up at the helicopter still trailing them, then back at Jake and Josh,

"Isn't the lightning realm up ahead? Can't we go there?"

"Yeah, so we get fucked by them instead." Jake replies coldly.

Suddently, a high pitched noise goes off in their heads, Josh and Ray clutching their heads in pain, while Jake grips the steering wheel with immense force to stop himself from drifting off.

"What the hell is this?!" Ray yells out.

Then the pitching cuts off, before a feminine voice starts speaking up.

"Helllooo! Hello? Hey, i think they are in range now!"

"Who the hell is that?!" Josh asks, recovering from the noise bomb that went off in their heads.

"Yeah yeah, i think they can hear me now, you can go ahead." The voice says.

Ray and Josh start looking around, almost like they are trying to find her.

"Is she speaking to us?"

"Holy shit!" Jake yells, causing Ray and Josh to turn around to face him. Right in the middle of the road, a man is approaching on foot, a single pistol in his hand.

"D-do i run him over?" Jake asks in a serious tone.

"Don't be stupid!" Ray yells.

"Buddy, get the fuck off the road!" He screams out towards the man, to no avail.

As their vehicle approaches the man, he stubbornly refuses to move out the way, and then sticks his hand out towards the incoming vehicle.

Jake closes his eyes as he's about to run the man over, Ray and Josh screaming their lungs out.

Instead of hearing a crash or the sound of an impact however, all they feel is the sudden thrust of the vehicle stopping in place.

When they open their eyes and look out to see if they ran over the man, he's simply standing there, holding off the car with his bare hand, not breaking a sweat, his sheer strength stopping the tires from spinning.

The man locks eyes with Jake.

"Hit the brakes, kid."

"D-do it Jake!" Josh yells.

Jake does as told and slams the break, still staring down the man.

The man takes his hand off the vehicle and jumps atop it, pointing the pistol directly at Nyx.

The boys watch in awe at the daring stunt, leaving the vehicle.

"Damn it Tara, you said there were multiple of them." The man says to seemingly no one, pausing for a second, before continuing to speak to nobody.

"So they just stopped after they passed the ravine? Didn't even try to go around? Lazy asses." He says tauntingly.

Jake whispers to Josh.

"This is the 'schizophrenia' thing i was telling you about."

"Wow... its real."

In a hurry, Nyx jumps off the helicopter, landing feet-first, not breaking eye contact with the man, as he begins speaking in his trademarked low, monotone voice.

"Well... what a suprise... to see you again... Winter." He says reminiscingly.

Winter chuckles.

"Its nice to see you again too pal, so what's going on here exactly? It might not be written, but past the ravine is lightning realm territory." The tone in his voice suggests that he doesn't need an answer.

Nyx narrows his eyes, and fires off the second wave of condensed energy directly at Winter, covering him in a huge blast of light for all but 5 seconds.

The boys jump back blinded by the huge blast directly infront of their eyes.

"D-did he just kill him?!" Josh yells, head directly on the ground.

As the smoke clears, chuckling can be heard from within the blast radius, and Winter walks out through the smoke unscathed, if not for some damage to his clothes.

"You do know how to welcome me." He says tauntingly.

Nyx slowly walks forward.

"I'd love to entertain you... but i doubt you don't know what's happening here, Winter... you dont want another round, do you?"

His words come off menacingly, yet fake.

Winter lets out a snickering sound, then spits on the ground.

"Cut the bullshit... i'm taking these three back with me. And i'm telling you now... if you cause me any trouble, i'm making sure you're left stranded."

Nyx looks around slowly.

"Let me guess... that damn pest... she's lurking around somewhere, isn't she?" He accuses, looking around as if expecting someone to pop out from any direction.

Winter chuckles and takes a step back, wrapping an arm around Jake's neck.

"Hah! You're right. She's somewhere alright." He pauses, looking down at Jake.

"But lets be real... since this kid decided to jump the ravine, i didn't even need her."

Jake tenses up but remains collected, staring at Ray and his brother to try and distract himself.

Josh gets upclose to Ray, whispering.

"I-i'd say to attack the guy but... with the freaky shit i've seen today... i don't think i can do that..." he whispers.

Nyx lets out a sigh a takes a step back, turning around slowly.

"And so it begins... i can't say i didn't expect this. Unfortunately, you've got ears and eyes everywhere."

He doesn't look back, signaling for his helicopter to come down.

"I assume you're aware... trouble's brewing. And we are right in the middle of it all." He sheathes his weapons, murmuring something to himself.

Winter watches as Nyx departs, a snicker escaping him.