"The whole battle, aside from the ending, went flawlessly. I'm glad that both the acceleration system test went by perfectly, as well as the M.O.D.s. However, a grave error I made was underestimating the enemy's intelligence.", Tiki told Drima as she reviewed the battle.
"You have a true talent that comes to show when it's about war and weapons.", Drima commended her, "But indeed, the enemy disrupted communication. Luckily, we found the device that did it, and it was a standard model used by those same small rebel groups, so it's damage was minimal. I had to guess, the people they robbed this off of, aren't around to give details on the hows and whys."
"That monster you spoke of though? We didn't find it. But the big black watching one was a major threat, everything around it was obviously on steroids. Luna had to go and...light up? No idea what that protocol she used was, but from the logs in individual coms, it definitely was a necessity to killing it, let alone surviving. What's more weird is that they wanted to actually contain communications within certain areas for us to be able to actually speak with the device, which is genius for their kind. Create a false sense of connection with the outside...maybe that's why the Victorian military also stepped in, once they realized it after needing to communicate with their HQ, due to us rattling up the monsters.", Tiki shrugged.
"Reina told me much of everything. Apparently they didn't let me in on the military matters, and me scheming behind their backs to deploy you for a showoff made things complicated. They eliminated the threat that they published in their military database first thing. Apparently, they wanted to control the enemy hoard and leverage it against Insinia, but killing the larger threats took a considerable effort. The thing I showed you? Four people died trying to kill it, one of which was an Obsulyte user."
"I'd argue that if we hadn't deployed there, the new type of monster we found could've brought even more issues."
"On that note, thanks to that action, Alexandra recalled the draft.", Magi informed them.
"How? That's illogical on many levels, with the monsters gone, if Insinia was hostile, they needed the troops there.", Tiki was weirded out.
"Insinia recalled all their troops and war mechs off their boarders too. Now, don't get too excited, because I think this is them abandoning a plan. As in, the monsters they tried to funnel in are gone, so there's no reason to try and contain them within Victoria. Magi confirmed this for us once informing Thaddeus about the situation, and the Gardard media portrayed it as a 'Hasty decision made by the Victorian military to guarantee 100% casualty evasion rates.', so there's that."
"Not all is well and done though. This isn't total peace, just a discrete retreat upon a plan failure. I've been looking into Thaddeus a lot more lately...the absence of Hikari and Dante from his little third party group made him more anxious if anything. Calling it quits now would only raise more red flags, given how if it's done within the timeframe I've been in Victoria for, and my position, so I'll keep it up for now. And truth be told, does anyone really care to listen to basically the same figures that were present in the World War anyway? Doubt I'd care to join Victoria regardless.", Magi shrugged.
"That being said, look at this!", Terna showed them her phone, "I was going to bore you with my notebook, but this is much more interesting for what you guys are talking. Apparently, Insinia had a draft too, in response of Victoria! But thing is, there was a massive wave in the media, surfacing from Semori! and starting in Delpha, which spread like wildfire. People same as my age who are prime targets for the draft denied it completely, and there was a ton of fighting between normal people and the military trying to enforce it."
"This is...not good. Not just because of the denial, but because this is sure to raise more suspicion and unrest. God dammit, I leave Thaddeus for like a week and he becomes paranoid, are you serious?", Magi angrily said.
"Paranoid as extremely cautious, maybe. But it's more than interesting to see the difference in faith between Victoria and Insinia public, because no real issues were raised here, as far as I saw. Now, the west can easily be affected by this, while the holy land that is Larrusia with the Church on the east might pass this over but...things are getting tricky.", Drima got worried.
"Had Sandaco still been a thing, we'd preemptively kick both your asses into shutting up.", Tiki boasted.
"Or, you'd have gotten Terra, Reland and Mastia on the bottom and the right riled up enough to act by themselves first and watch the carnage.", Drima promptly said.
"Yeah, right. Shove it.", Tiki shook her hand at Drima, "Now, since the Diva got here too, I'd like to run over a few things combat based."
"We did well, didn't we?", Terna tried to escape the obvious wrath Tiki still harbored.
"Maybe I should change my wordings into, 'I'd like to run you over with a few things' instead. You were lucky to have survived, idiot. You think because we wield melee combat equipment and weapons, it's like a fantasy tale? Let me give it to you straight. The core strength of Obsulyte users, the way we fight, absolutely depends on the biological differences between us and normal people. It's a fact, Obsulyte users are stronger, faster and more durable than normal humans, demi-humans, whatever this new 'Turned' term is, and the such. Victoria was the first one to bring the melee combat style back into fashion when discovering that. You know why? Because a fast moving, heavily armored target the size of not a tank, but as small as a human in a vast battlefield is substantially harder to deal with than what the average human can deal with. That's especially true when beneath the armor lied more durable skeletal structure, hence the development of anti Obsulyte weapons and no banned experimental Obsulyte conductive ranged weapons, which made things more equal, but they still couldn't catch up. Emphasis on the armored part, because being a melee combatant, that's why I wear the damn thing. I have an Obsulyte conductive weapon that'll slaughter up close, and the armor to help me close that distance to start slaughtering."
"Yes...and-", Terna tried to make an argument.
"So enlighten me as to what the actual, ever-loving, flip-flapping, shit-stacking, skull-crushing *FUCK*, was the idea behind you showing up in plain clothes?!", Tiki held nothing back.
"I-"
"I, I, Enemy jumped and took a bullet in the eyes so that Terna doesn't die.", Tiki sarcastically remarked as she mocked Terna.
"Nice rhyme.", Terna tried to avert attention.
Tiki took a very deep breath in order to calm down and exert all of her anger out as she remembered that much more important details were to be discussed. Eventually, with a minimum of 30 whole seconds in the same silence as they'd take for the dead's moment, with even the Sentinels failing to take a breath in her presence. With an evenly angered Enemy's arrival within the room, that same atmosphere faded with the newest presence taking in the sight, and not taking long at all to realize what it was all about.
"Let me guess. She's pissed at Terna for not gearing up properly?"
"Easy guess.", Magi nodded.
"Me being randomly headshot was also brought up?"
"The whole shebang.", Magi confirmed.
"We were lucky it was an energy weapon made for normal human to human killings. My eyes are playing a bit with me, but as far as I'm aware, my brain is intact."
"Yeah, I noticed that you made a mistake with my notebook too. The 'German' you were talking about was before that lustful mother-", Terna interrupted Tiki.
"So, to catch you up with what I was about to say. My approach with all of you was utterly faulty. Except from her, she was cool.", Tiki pointed at Enemy.
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"Uh...thanks.", Enemy awkwardly took the compliment.
"I tried to dip you in the real deep, when you're all new to this. Doesn't help that I was also originally working with more experienced recruits looking to become careers in the military either. That being said, we're all going back to basics. There's a gun range somewhere around here for the elite soldiers that were half murdered by a 10 year old, and we'll use that. Many issues could have been avoided if we had more forms of and more accurate ranged attacks, at least to scope them out. I also have enough data from our little live show today to make better M.O.D.s. Starting from Dante, I'm getting you fully naked and leaving only an armored half bellow, where his pants will be, and leaving the chest and everything exposed, no vests, no nothing. In the same sense that our suicidal Diva over here demonstrated, something has to do with skin contact of an attacker, that either unleashes Dante's counters, or like Luna reported, shoves you into space. I don't know, war is my thing, not counting stars and shit.", Tiki informed.
"So you're already overhauling M.O.D.s? That said, what about me and Hikari? You never made a M.O.D. for us.", Enemy complained.
"Did I need to? You basically up and changed your entire armor's structure on your own. M.O.D.s for someone like you could be meaningless, especially with how my new classification system is."
"You made a...classification system?", Terna wondered.
"Yes. That with consulting with Drima over the past few days.", Tiki nodded.
"We're talking domestically, right? As in, only in this group? Because the very, very last thing this world needs right now is another reason to get divided over.", Magi disliked the idea.
"Of course domestically. But we absolutely needed this system to perform our tasks. Overwhelming evidence was collected and more than a thousand reports we dug into, from public and not so public domains of official government data around the continent that recruited Obsulyte users. Thank god the biometric expert is also very keen on illegal ways of getting what he wants, because Larrusia took us like 6 hours to crack. Anyways...here's the catch. As of now, we have four tiers to divide Obsulyte strength. Adept, Sentinel, Amplified and Overseer. Each of those measuring tiers is to be first recognized before a M.O.D. is set in stone, for both financial reasons and practical reasons. I hastily built upon pre existing molds of M.O.D.s that Drima made, but dumped after only finishing one, that being mine I received from Nikki. To be able to make M.O.D.s effectively, I'll need to measure you first, then order or make the materials I need, and proceed to making an adaptable one for the power level and surge of an individuals Obsulyte."
"Which brings us to the second point.", Drima took over, "Obsulyte in itself is unique with every individual, hence the need for custom made M.O.D.s and to an extend, Obsulyte conductive weaponry. But we also split Obsulyte into a general spectrum one can fall on to better research it. Offensive, Defensive, Utility, with the first two being self explanatory, and the third having a broader range. Utility can range from Hikari's renowned healing abilities, to Terna's boosting capabilities before she got hold of her Gate. It starts from the class of the Obsulyte, before the class of the surge of it and the same equation will be for both M.O.D.s and weapons, shall they need to be made. I'm saying, shall they, because as it stands now, almost every single one of you has effectively gotten their hands on a Gate. Hikari with her gauntlets, the inactive lance of Cecilia as a double, Dante's blade, Terna's flute and Anya's phone-book-search engine thing."
"Wondering if there's more to it than just that...surely, it can't be that simple.", Enemy thought.
"Believe me, it's sure as hell not easy. This is oversimplifying things for the sake of understanding, the work that has to go behind each thing is immense. Not to mention that for classes like Overseer, or even Amplified, the use of M.O.D.s as it stands now is both ineffective and probably unnecessary. I simply lack the knowledge to make a M.O.D. that is capable of amplifying what is already supposedly the cream of the crop, let alone distribute it evenly. Plus, you manifested yours out of thin air, so there's that.", Tiki assured her, "And weapon making, as far as I know, is not my entire thing. Yes, I can do it, but it won't come out as pretty as it would if someone like Dante did. I have an engineering degree, I trained with almost every single firearm and melee weapon while in the military, but my skills were honed and specialized in specific areas. Hell, my M.O.D.s could be considered half assed in front of the minuscule bulk of information we had about them. They weren't even properly deployed by anyone for on-field observations before deemed illegal."
"On that note, have you guys considered what the consequences would be if they found out you're using banned weapons to fight?", Magi warned them.
"What are they going to do? Strip it away from us? And don't even get me started on the anti-Obsulyte weapons they clearly banned to secure the safety of the Obsulyte users in their ranks, only for them to resurge recently as they're heading to war in order to deal with each others soldiers.", Enemy scoffed, "And then you're pushing us into saving the world and shit. Pathetic enough that were it not for very key individuals like us in the past, strong enough to be feared, that the world would be on fire right now."
"There's things we're catching up to right now, which is really, really good. We should at least be grateful that we learned more about Obsulyte, Obsulyte weapons and anti-weapons and those monsters. Which, we already opened a file containing everything from normal Enmities and Shadower's data, to Corrupted and the special bunch of freaks we already cam across. Classified from tiers 3 to 0, which will probably expand the more we find out. Just saying, you don't want to come across tier 0. Which is currently where our new friend we met today, dubbed 'Watcher', is at, but judging off their insane mutation speed, we're expecting the bar to be raised way higher.", Tiki somewhat fearfully said, "This is the only database we allowed to be publicly open too, for the sake of at least informing others about monsters. Everything else is something we, as of now, know. I'd share more, but that'd require alliances with groups I think wouldn't have something ulterior to gain from using it for their selfish ass. Eventually though, all these must be publicized for the sake of humanity as a whole. I know war better than most here...and whether with these monsters that plagued us and now became a problem, or versus other humans and all sub-categories of it...we are closing in on that. God forbid we end up doing both at once."
Dante finally joined in after being stunned briefly by Mellistar's reveals, accompanied by Luna on his side, them both looking quite anxious about a problem of their own, raising suspicions for it not from Dante, but the ever so straight faced Luna. Before they could say a word, one look on the board's hologram above was enough to confirm what the subject of the conversation was, Dante swiftly taking charge of the talk and spilling out a goal with which all of them could work to.
"The evolution of the monsters is rapid because Zero is a chokepoint in the Abnormal String. The same energy it holds, the one that guides us towards the Collapse, is the same the Enmities, now with the Shadowers, are taking hold of and using it to their benefit.", he swiftly explained in an extremely fast manner, "That's something you need to work on proving true, if it is, right now.", he looked at Drima.
Everyone was stunned at the news, having little knowledge about the three cosmic levels that were the Abnormal String, Void and Quantum Irregularity, all while barely getting to understand Obsulyte at it's base. Still, with the same eyes of determination Hikari once had when her path was clear until driven to despair, so did he, without a hitch of sarcasm or anger, firmly and properly stated as he stood behind his words.
"That thing you just dropped is...it is something.", Drima was flabbergasted.
"I squeezed info out Mellistar, finally. Before his death by battling Hikari, he experienced it. Drima. You and Magi...do you know anything else about this?"
"About what, exactly?", Magi curiously asked.
"Zero is an amalgamation of dead worlds remolded to fit it's puzzle by force and revitalized with the same energy Zero is robbing other worlds from."
"What? What the hell are you talking about?", Enemy angrily said as she tried to make sense out of it.
"Exactly what Mellistar told me."
Enemy gestured a very aggressive motion with her hand, twisting her wrist as her piling anger from before she entered the room started driving her to Tiki levels of angered craze.
"Dante I swear to every cell of my being, if you do not stop spewing bullshit, I am going to fuck you up so hard that I'll kill both you and Mellistar with one stone, that being the same stone I'll force right between your eyes!", she genuinely and very aggressively said as she got up and approached Dante with intent to really cause bodily harm.
Everyone rightfully got weirded out by the seemingly unwarranted anger Enemy showed. Truly, a most uncalled for display, that only served to further question her suddenly erratic behavior. It was with Dante backing out that Enemy took a step back herself, and calmed just enough to realize this herself, calming down further upon doing so. Once calm, collected and stoic in the same way she faced everything in her path, she began showing a weak face for the first time. But to her dismay, that face was only further emphasized on with everyone looking at her and her looking back. It was an emotional spur of anger that mimicked that of Dante's, and for what, only she knew. With what she knew facing against what Dante presented, the conflict between them started to become more and more surface leveled, as the growing anger between a group of friends all too young to grow up started to really affect the atmosphere of not only their plans and ability to fight against the tides of the monsters growing numbers, but also their daily lives. Even Tiki herself seemed to be affected by this, as the anger in question was not that of care or worry, but genuine intent to harm the person in front of her, for reasons all too mundane and unknown, having even the positive Terna eventually crumbling within moments after. As funny as it'd be, when they'd normally ignore such childish feuds, this time...they too, were divided. But as to what that pent up anger that kept on eating away at their bond was...nobody knew. And all too many of them had it festering inside.