"Would you be willing to enter the bunker now?" Echo asked while staring at the large lock of blood-stained hair sticking to my temple.

"Maybe? I did... eat some hawks but getting hurt undid most of it." I wasn't even sure of my answer, but my angel bumped me in an attempt to comfort me.

"You ate them? How was that like? It couldn't have been good." HighJack chimed in from the front with a hint of amusement.

I took a long moment to breathe while petting my angel to think about what he asked. "It was... disgustingly good. It scares me."

"... You should wait in the bunker. You need rest and some time to think." HighJack's voice was a bit more serious than before. Do they all have a joking and serious mode?

I groaned at the suggestion. I understood completely how dangerous it is out here, but something was telling me it was a bad idea to go in. "I guess, but I'll be the center of attention."

I felt a headache coming just at the thought of people rushing up to me for answers to why I was still outside. "You don't have to worry about that. Bunkers have 8 spaces for people and a separate place for saints, so you can stay there alone. Well, besides, for the caretaker."

I was going to ask what a caretaker was, but it shook loose something untouched by the amnesia. Caretaker? The ones who are sworn to care for saints and keep their identities secret at the expense of their lives. High value target.

I almost tripped at the thought. What the hell is going on with me?

It was an empty question with no answer in sight, so I ignored it and kept walking with a description of what a caretaker was.

.

.

.

"Finally, there it is." HighJack announced as I barely avoided bumping into Pulse.

I looked up and saw snug between two skyscrapers was a massive steel dome with intricate glowing pink carvings on it. It pulsed in a similar way to Pulse or Echo's skills, but it was far stronger but self-contained. "Is that the bunker? It's over three stories tall."

"Yeah, these was made when the war ended, but we barely fill a third of it now." I looked at HighJack with a puzzled expression. What does that mean?

I was going to ask, but a different issue came to mind. "Where's the entrance?"

"Oh, right, you don't remember! The entrance appears when someone touches the dome!" I nodded, enjoying HighJack's loud voice the more I talked to him.

We walked towards the bunker, but the flicker of movement and glint of oily metal yanked my attention to a window and then another. Are those shades?

I looked at the saints and realized none of them were reacting to shifting shadows. My angel, feeling my intentions growled and stanced up next to me. "Do you not see that?"

Den looked around, confused at my apparently obscure words. "See what?"

"The shades hiding in the windows." All of them immediately got in formation around me in the blink of an eye, and all pulled out a green pill and swallowed it

""How many?"" Den and Echo asked simultaneously and took the closest spot to me.

I glanced around at the two buildings and saw more and more leaving the building from the windows and entrances. "A lot. 19 and more keep showing up. Their getting ready to attack."

Den reached into his chest, pulled free a long riot shield with a golden frame, and readied it. "I can't see them. Where are they?"

"They're pouring out from the two buildings next to the bunkers. It's very clear to me. They all have a weird cloak of darkness draped over them."

"Cloak of darkness? Oh wow, there it is! Look at the floor. You can see a faint shadow." Pulse called out before her hands drummed with power and became a blur of movement as explosions appeared at right building to the beat of a vaguely familiar tune, hitting them in swarms but didn't turn them into splatters instead knocking them out.

I could feel the bass in my chest, and it was making my body feel lighter and stronger the more I listened.

HighJack rushed the left building while shouting something, and his gauntlets grew three times the size as he took a large sweeping motion with his hands.

An absurd amount of wind was generated by the move that even threatened to pull me towards him, but the actual targets were catapulted away, destroying their cloak and slamming them against the building.

The sound of them falling to the ground and clatter of metal signaled that they were out of commission but weren't dead somehow. Why aren't they dying?

I turned around and realized Echo was being assaulted by three shades at once. "Can't believe I'm having so much trouble with one of them."

She clearly needs help. Echo gave me a look of horror when I slipped past her and slammed my axe into one of the shadows.

The shadow went away, and the shade hiding within fell like a stack of cards and still wasn't bleeding despite me actually just trying to cut them in half. Wait, did I really just try to cut him in half?

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I shook my head hard and glanced to my right, and one of the shades changed their focus to me. Can't think about this right now.

Cover my right! My angel didn't hesitate and leaped to cover me, tackling a shade going for me.

"One's three feet in front of you!" I pointed out a shade jumping at Echo and watched as she roundhouse kick the air in a moment of blind trust and was rewarded with a shade getting launched through a window.

My eyes snapped to my surroundings to take stock of how we were doing. Pulse and HighJack were holding most of them back, but a couple were getting through every so often.

"Mera, are you insane?!" My eyes snapped to Echo, my grip tightened on my axe, then relaxed.

"You were struggling. So I helped." I replied as I started looking for my next fight.

"You're injured and don't even have armor!" She yelled as I realized Den was getting overwhelmed by 5 shades.

Do I need to help him? I saw one about to shiv him in the side and seeing I was too far away I chose to chuck the axe at them.

My right arm ached at the effort, the axe as it landed firmly in the shadow and bounced off toward Pulse, the shade collapsed unconscious. Why the hell is this happening?

"The hell?!" I didn't have time to recover my axe, so I ran up to the next closest one and punt kicked. My foot entered the cloak of darkness and made contact with flesh.

I felt the distinctive crack of bone and and the cloak vanish, revealing the shade in crumbled heap.

They were definitely hurt properly now with dim purplish blood leaking out of their mouth.

Blood. I smelled it, the sickly sweet blood of fractals mixed with the faint smell of steak. My heart sped up, and I lunged at the next one while grabbing the blade it was holding. Pin one of them down, I'll deal with the next two.

I tackled a shadow with my hand bleeding as my grip around the dagger tightened.

My panther raced ahead and slammed herself against the shade trying to gouge Den's throat out with a dagger.

I bared my teeth and sank them into it's jugular. My palate flexed draining blood from the shade. This tastes awful!?

The taste of rotten meat mixed with fruit lingered in my mouth, and it irritated me, but I kept going until there was nothing left, and then I pulled more out.

Something was dragged out from the shade. It was cold and tasted like relief. It swirled in my mouth before going down my throat.

The shade lost form and shot into my mouth like any other fractal and vanished. I stuck my tongue out at the lingering taste. "Bleg."

I turned to the last one that was preparing to plunge a dagger into my back.

I side stepped it and gave it a left hook in the jaw. It went out like a light. "Mera?"

"What?" My heart pounded in my chest as I looked at Den. I wanted to fight something more.

"Tha... What did you do?" I glanced around for more shades to fight, but there were no more up, and my panther had knocked out hers.

"Stop them stabbing you." I shivered as what I could only describe as bloodlust left me, and my angel panted like it left her as well.

My left arm throbbed painfully. It turned a reddish color where my arm had broken in the lab. "Hisss. Over did it."

I cradled my arm and checked how Pulse and HighJack were doing. The two just checked if any of the shades were faking being unconscious and taking the daggers from them. I need more weapons. I wonder if they would give me those if I asked?

"Mera!" Echo ran up to me, clutching a vial of red liquid and checking me over.

"Why did you go so far?!" She popped open the vial gestured for me to drink it.

"I don't need it. We're literally next-" My objections were stopped by a sharp whistling noise that filled my left ear. It sent a second dose of adrenaline through me, and I dove to the ground in an attempt to avoid the canary.

*SHUNK* I glanced back and saw a giant piece of jagged bone sticking out of the ground, purple blood leaking out of it.

Echo also moved out of the way and was searching for where it came from. Oh shit, that would kill me if it hit anywhere above my legs!

"Husk Archer!" Echo called out as she pulled a long rifle out of her trench coat and forced the vial into my hand.

I didn't fight her and put the vial to my lips, and tilted my head back to drink it fast. A pulse of pain made me lose my grip on it, falling straight down my throat and involuntarily swallowing it.

The potion took effect almost immediately as my wounds burned, and my arms bruising faded slightly, but it felt weaker than it should have been.

[Warning, body has reached its limit of forced healing! Find somewhere to rest!]

Well, that's awful. Echo didn't even notice my small coughing fit over swallowing glass and started firing the rifle almost straight up.

But the vial was the least of my worries, I wanted to know what sent that bone at us with enough force to cleanly punch into concrete, so I looked to where she was firing the roof and saw something chilling. "What the hell is that?!"

The headless husk of a corpse twice the size of HighJack with disgusting gnarled fingers gripping an absolutely massive long bow made of bone and sinew string stood looming on a roof.

It was unfazed by the bullets Echo was pumping into it and shoved its hand into its stump of a neck and pulled out a bloody jagged bone. The monstrosity placed the bone on the bows sinew string and slowly pulled back. The bone got bigger as it did so.

"Mera, go to the bunker, place your hand on it, and say sec 9 bleeding heart. The caretaker will help you." I glanced at Echo as I got up. She was focused on the fractal, and her arm was lighting up with strange tattoos.

"Alright." I turned to the bunker and started running for it, hoping that I wasn't their target.

I was 30 meters away from the bunker when I heard another sharp whistle felt imminent death approaching.

I dodged to the side again, expecting to be fine, but one whistle turned into multiple.

*Shunk Shunk Shunk Shlick Shunk*

Blinding pain shot up my leg, and I grit my teeth so hard it hurt as well. "Hisssss!"

I looked down and saw four small bone shards embedded around me with one of the bone shards stuck in my calf. "O-ok, it's targeting me. Great! Just fantastic!"

I thought about removing the bone from my leg, but I could see barbs littering the thing that would rip my leg to shreds. So I dragged myself to my feet and started hopping forward on my good leg, constantly glancing back at the Archer.

My Angel swept me off my feet and put me on her back. I gripped onto her like my life depended on it because it did.

Every time I looked back, I saw it getting closer and closer to shooting again. My heart pounded harder and harder with each glance.

The bunker was so close, but I wasn't going to make it before it let loose another volley.

Gleaming armor blocked my view of the fractal, and a booming voice reverberated my soul. "Firewall!"

A large wall of blue 1s and 0s erupted in front behind us, disintegrating the next bone that tried to pierce it.

We reached the dome as three more jagged bones hit the wall of numbers. Three more of the same fractal had shown up and were trying to kill me specifically. This is fucking stupid!

I saw the wall start to crack and slapped the dome and screamed the words Echo told me. "Sec 9 bleeding heart!"

The surface snapped open, and we fell through into a empty hallway lit by small lights in the roof.

I flinched when the entrance snapped back closed with a click. I sat there exhausted and panting.

My angel tried to get up, but I pulled her into a hug and squeezed her. She struggled for a bit, then put her head on me and slowly purred.

Everything hurt again, but I was still alive, and it was thanks to the oversized cat in my arms, I struggled to hold back tears of relief as I spoke to her. "Thank you."