As she tried to speak out more of her furious words, she paused on the sight of Dante fainting before her, causing all his mighty act to fall apart as he drooled all over the ground.
"Oh you're bullshiting. You're so bullshiting right now.", Enemy facepalmed.
"He overloaded himself to the point of regaining composure for a moment before fainting...I remember it. I've seen it before."
"Hikari. He's like, fainted. Done for!", Enemy extended both her arms at Dante's body, pointing the obvious, "What the hell did I use my secret badass transformation for?! I was literally supposed to keep that a secret to kill him with as he wasn't expecting it! And even then, I was at least supposed to beat his ass into submission right now! Don't tell me I wasted it!"
"Can't you...do it again?"
"It's not gonna be the same- you know what, screw it. I'm done. Literally done. Best I can hope is he doesn't remember shit after he wakes up and keep the element of surprise. I've suppressed my urges far too long to save this moron from my own two hands, just because you might have a crush on him!"
"But...I don't. I really mean it. And if there's a slight chance that he has those feelings, I wish I could return them...but I can't. He's not 'that' person. He's an entirely different one. One that I will never forget as one of the best people I met."
Enemy briefly paused, "Then...if that's the case. I literally don't give a shit.", she said with a straight face.
"Can we just, please...get him to a safe place? These monsters...they're coming."
Enemy then grabbed Dante's unconscious body by the face before throwing him with all her strength, sending him into orbit as he disappeared in the horizon.
"Wish granted.", Enemy dusted off her hands and pressed her hips.
"No!"
"If he's the big balls tough guy they're 'making' him up to be, then he will survive this. If not, then I don't care."
Hikari exhaled, "I guess...that's the best I can get you to do."
"Damn right.", Enemy sighed as she folded her arms, "Phone password."
Hikari got weirded out, "Uuh...ok. One, two, three, four, five, six."
"Of course. Thank god the armor allows for pocket reaching.", she took out Hikari's phone and dialed Magi, "Yeah, hey. It's me."
"What the hell, are you calling to chit chat?"
"Yes, I was wandering how blue the sky was and wanted your input on the matter. Focus! How far have you made it with the others?"
"Really far. I punched a line through the hoard and I got us out of there. Turns out that they were beating whatever was in front of them. They're dead set on heading for the heart of the Obsulyte inflow, so the rest past us by. And...the kid?"
"Currently on a one way flight ticket to Drima's lab. If I got the trajectory correctly."
"You defeated him that quickly?!"
"More of the problem fixing itself kind of deal, but give me the praise if you want to. And by far, how much 'far' do you mean?"
"Pretty far. Terna enhanced the movement speed of everyone again so we're hella far. The hoard is so gigantic...seriously. It spans further than anything I've faced. It's like a big moving army. I'm planning to come back as soon as I get them to safety, hold on! Oh...and...why are you asking for our distance traveled?"
"No need to come back. And I'm about to put a hole on the planet, that's why. I'll meet up with you all at the lab."
"Wait, wha-"
Enemy ended the call and put the phone back in her pocket, cracking her fists. She saw the first few monsters appearing from the alleyways. She then calmly sat on a cement brick and calmly waited for them to get closer.
"Um...may I suggest one thing though?", Hikari politely asked.
"Hmm?"
"Can we please...preserve the city?"
"Uh, no? I'm not kidding for what I said on the phone. I will literally put a hole on the planet."
"Can I possibly lay a barrier on the city? Of any sorts?"
Enemy sighed, "God...dammit. Fine. How's this: I will kill everything within the city boarders and then put a hole on the planet, during which you can barrier the city up. That good? But I will destroy a small part of it."
"Yes! Thank you!", Ikarisa joyfully said.
"Alright then. Hmph!", Enemy took a fighting stance, "I'll kill you all!"
She slammed the ground with such force that the surrounding area completely cracked down and huge rock chunks folded over each other, the shockwave traveling throughout the burned city. Precisely exploding the energy of the shockwave, she send thousands of monsters flying upwards, before she flew right with them. A number of summoned weapons appeared in a circular area around the elevated hoard and Enemy wasted no time by beginning to dash left right and center multiple times, dropping and grabbing the summoned weapons as she went, cutting them all into pieces. As she finished her final slash right bellow the floating hoard, she then laid upon them one final powerful thrust from some lance that resembled the Wing Of Aether. A powerful explosion then followed, leaving behind it nothing but a cloud of black dust, the monsters just completely evaporated from the scene.
Flying a little bit higher, she gazed around to see the entire hoard of monsters trying to retreat in a singular, stampede formation. She instantly flew and crashed right before them, cutting their escape off.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Switching up her stance and raising a massive sword above her head, she slammed the ground, this time raising enormous rocks around the entire hoard, caving them in and preventing their escape as if it was a massive cage. She then pointed her sword right at the very confused monsters as if she was challenging them to a duel.
"I'll bend the earth as I crush your will."
She gathered all her strength and blasted upwards, flying way above the clouds. As she almost reached the empty space, she turned around to face her enemies once again.
"You want to save anything, now's your chance!"
She yelled for Hikari to head. Her command being echoed, she once again summoned the wing of Aether into her hand. Taking on her throwing stance, she began charging massive amounts of energy towards it. A wave of red flowing waves started coming in from the vacuum of space itself and consecrated at the bottom end of the lance's handle. As more and more energy flew in, the lance started summoning a number of reinforcing material around it, almost as if it was building a massive bullet.
"How's this for a checkmate?!"
She finished charging her attack up, and hurdled the lance right at the cage of the imprisoned monster hoard. In mere fractions of a second the lance found itself crashing on the ground, completely obliterating the giant rock cage and erasing anything that was in it. All form of life, even down to grass, was removed from a massive area spanning almost the same area as the entire city. The ground gave in as the earthquake tore apart the surrounding area and a thick cloud of dirt and black smoke filled the air. Enemy flew right by the destroyed area and watched as the sight unfolded. She dispersed her armor and everything, leaving herself with a different version of Hikari's every day clothing, casually looking over the broken horizon.
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"Hmm. Not bad. Almost the same radius as one of the largest city's to ever be created...could've done better, but oh well. When I sliced them, it felt like cutting through butter, so didn't feel like overextending for no reason.", she shrugged as she casually commented on the destructive sight.
When the cloud started to clear up, she gazed upon Dante's home, the city not having a single building toppled over, aside from the already burnt ones. Truly, a sight to behold.
"Huh. Not a scratch. No idea why you really wanted this trash pile to keep standing, but you do you."
Realizing what had just happened, her causal and prideful demeanor changed, instead turning into a worried voice of compassion.
"Right...rest easy, for now. I'll take over a little longer."
Her reassuring words said, she started heading back to meet with everyone else.
Having made their way back, everyone was fully exhausted and laying back on the chairs, exhaling from a long days exhausting work. Tiki was laid on an operation table and began being pulled by machines to another room while Anya was unconscious on a different table, strapped while being cleaned by other machines.
“God…damn!”, Magi plopped on the chair, “Horrible.”
“I would agree with you. The entire experience felt like a defeat than anything in between neutrality and victory. What is the status of Tiki and Anya?”, Luna asked Drima.
Drima looked down on his tablet, “Tiki has gotten it real bad. From the scans, it looks like I’ll need to have implants inserted in her arm. Apparently, it was broken twice on a very, very recent basis and the second braking, as I saw from the recording thanks to Magi, was horrific. My bet is guess is that the first fracture was a normal one, but the second one was an open fracture for sure. Normal Obsulyte treatment is ruled of because of her sun-species as a part human part demon so she will have to undergo normal surgery.”
“And…Anya?”, Yuno worryingly asked.
“I ran some scans, though now that the med bots have cleaned her up I see it for myself. Mutilation, a nasty one at that. She is stabilized now and I’ve taken the liberty of sterilizing every single one of her wounds, but she will definitely need a flight back to Reingard for extensive surgery. I would again, try the Obsulyte option, but because she caused an overflow and took on the feral form, I don’t want to risk bombarding her with any of that. Safer to bring her for surgery.”
“Why back to Reingard? Don’t you have like…knowledge about that?”, Terna kept hold of Anya’s big hand.
“I do, but I lack the equipment and for it to be shipped it’ll probably take until tomorrow to arrive. This is a lab, not a hospital.”
“You still have like, every single legal and illegal substance known to man. Can’t you do anything with that?”, Magi angrily asked.
“I doubt the ‘illegal substances’ I have will be of any medical use, given how they’re all extremely powerful toxins. And in any case, I would gladly perform surgery myself, but again, she’s like that. I’m not body shaming and I’m not afraid of doing it, but there’s way more to this. Her transformation isn’t only a reason for people to go ‘Oh look! A big disgusting furry!’, it has in many ways, fundamentally changed how her body works. And because she’s not the only one nowadays transforming into this, there’s a specialized team of doctors who have been actively studying and helping people like her. Apparently, it changes something in the blood flow, there’s an actual danger where the body’s fur can go into surgical openings and cause infections and all that. I haven’t been able to get a hold of a the new studies yet, they came out last month, but I’m way to busy with the world trying to lit itself on fire. No resistance, no anything, she’s flying to Reingard to meet the specialists.”
“Sounds good to me. Have you been able to recover anything else from the fight recordings at all?”, Luna asked.
“Heh.”, Drima scoffed, “You’d be as surprised as I am. Within the next hour, when my custom made program finishes analyzing my theories, I’ll have way more answers than what you could’ve imagined. I mean it. It’s time we all get clean cut clarity around here. I’m talking abilities, powers, bodily functions and more. The recordings come fully intact with thermal and even X-ray vision catered specifically for today. I’ll have to switch your coms after this, but with all the analytic evidence I wanted to gather while you were all fighting at a probable peak performance, there’ll be a lot to discuss.”
“That’s amazing! So finally, we will get some answers!”, Terna excitedly said.
“Anything you can provide to make me understand what runs through my veins, I’ll accept it.”, Yuno somewhat angrily said, “I’m sick of fearing what I can do with this.”, he looked at his tiny hand.
“I will begin the transfer of Anya to the top floor for medical emergency pick up.”, Luna said.
“Good. The elevator will help you to it. Make sure to clean yourself first at least, don’t want to rouse any suspicion.”
“She has a bruised and mutilated anthropomorphic dog on a tray. Tell me exactly what suspicion you want her not to rouse when it’s already there. Besides, who cares. Doctors and assistants is all she’s gonna meet before they take her to the helicopter, so they better not put their nose anywhere they’re not supposed to, unless they want it broken.”, Magi said.
“About that…it’s not a…normal emergency response helicopter. It’s actually her fathers, Gado Golvers. That’s why I want her back in Reingard. If you know her family, you also know they literally make more money than entire developing countries GDP. And I’m talking powerhouse countries where their GDP is based off diamonds at the very least so…yeah. I think they might be septillionaires at this point.”
“Holy shit that’s a lot of money.”, Yuno gazed at Anya.
“They literally run the world, what did you expect?”, Magi said with a straight face, “And so be it. I would be 100% against her going back if her father was in it, but I’m not going to do that. Not today. Any time she wastes on that thing is a second less to live.”
Magi have a subtle nod to Luna, she beginning to clean herself on a nearby sink and loading Anya in the elevator, heading for the helipad on the top floor. Drima’s expression changing, he made a small gesture at Magi to come along with him to the other side of the room, leaving behind Yuno and Terna in the main area.
“All right, tell me the shitty parts.”, Magi sighed.
“Let’s be clear, I did this because I didn’t want to alarm everyone on their first actually dangerous mission. Let’s not go around making it a trend, ok? Things are way more dangerous than I ever thought them of being. First of all, you’re…bad.”
“Thanks for the compliment, asshole.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that! Remember that day where we assaulted Dirunon and the Silverlances? Cecilia Elysia’s home?”
“One thing I could never forget…”
“So you remember that Valkyrie? Viola…”
Magi’s looked away, “Shit…it’ll be like that, huh?”
“Your corruption moves extremely slowly but…there’s no telling when you’ll reject your own Obsulyte. I’m sorry Magi…I will try to find a way out of this, but it’s been a good decade of me trying to figure it out ever since that day and…nothing.”
“I’ll…I’ll deal with it. I never feared death anyway.”
“Not just that…the same thing is…it’s happened to Anya as well.”
Magi’s eyes widened, “What..?”
“I’m sorry but…Dante’s abilities somehow infected her way worse than you. And with her current transformation, it’s rapidly expanding…it’s likely that you’ll see her go before you. Apparently when she transformed, she did so by probably borrowing energy from around her…that means Dante’s…”
Magi grabbed her should and squeezed it, trying to calm herself down, “Fuck! God fucking dammit!”, she almost teared up.
“Relax. We don’t want the others to see you like this…and it’s not all lost yet. Unlike you, we maybe manage to turn her transformation around, it might have a reversing effect on it…and I may be able to find a way for how to do it. I just need time, though I’ve already got a few ideas in mind. Now calm down, don’t alert anyone.”
Magi sucked it up, “I’ve seen this happen before…”, she exhaled deeply, “Hooo…ok. I’m ok. Anything else that’s gone to shit I should know?”
“For now, that’s that…there are a few things revolving around Tiki and especially Luna, but that’s a personal talk I want to have with them. But I guess I should let you know for those two subjects. The reason for the the one is obvious, but the other one is because I know you can read Anya inside out…and so can Dante. But I know that you’ll take a much calmer approach than him.”
“Those two would beat each other over nothing. Doesn’t matter if it’s big or small.”, she sighed.
“And we all call Hikari naive. From all that I’ve seen and was told from you, these two are as close as the planet is to its core. Dante would bend hell over earth to save her…and I can’t figure him out yet. So I can’t tell if the ‘hell’ he’s willing to make will take others to it.”
“Hmph. Stop screwing around Drima. As if the kid would have a heart to kill innocents to have his way.”
“Well then. To speak your language: Imagine a group of people barged into your home, slaughter literally everyone you loved, burned it down and tried to leave you for dead after witnessing it all. Doesn’t that at least justify some major ‘beef’ with the world? That said…I don’t know completely. Theorizing can point fingers in a void for all I care. But I will keep him in check.”
“He’s a good kid. They all are. I don’t care what you may see in them, a looney drunk, a naive moron, a pissed off teenager or someone who lost it all. To me it’s one and the same…they’re all good…”
“You can say that but can’t see the obvious between Anya and Dante…fascinating. Especially when you were the same with someone else.”
“Decanee and I did clash, yes, but it was a competition. Don’t get it mixed up.”
“Oh, I’m sure as hell I didn’t. Anyway, go back to them now. Don’t get them to suspect much.”
Back at the main room, Yuno and Terna were sitting alone, waiting for Drima to enter Tiki’s surgery room, to stand by her. Only time would tell if they were going to stand back up on their feet.