As the creature skated and rolled under the force of the attack, Zed quickly connected her comms to the incoming call of her commanding officer.

“Things are so far going according to plan, Harry.” She stated. “I hope you’re not calling to give me bad news.”

“Zed, this is Roun.” Came the surprising voice in her ear.

“What the hell are you doing on this frequency, kid?” She pressed, but Roun just rolled his eyes in the corner of her HUD.

“Seriously?” Roun retorted with an annoyed look. “Do you wanna know how to kill these things or not?”

Zed’s eyebrow tipped upwards.

“Are you serious?” She inquired incredulously, before Harry’s voice came from the background of the link.

“Just shut up and let the kid talk, Zed.” He admonished her.

“I’m listening, Itami.” Came the response.

Roun just sighed.

“What you’re fighting isn’t the haima’sa… it’s a projection.” He explained. “These things aren’t real… they’re like summons… but with no central summoner, instead forming out of wild magic. Their code is stored in the ambient magic, which is why they can just reform after you destroy their bodies… but if you can corrupt their code, then their gone… permanently.”

Zed’s eyebrow tipped upwards at the explanation, before turning her attention upwards.

“You got all of that Danny?” She switched her attention to their pilot, and resident expert on magical interactions.

“Oh I heard it—” Daniel replied after a brief pause. “—but it doesn’t necessarily mean that I can help with that.” He continued as the creature began to get back up some distance away from Zed. “We’ve barely got the technology to identify concentrations of magic – and that was after a month of R&D – identifying magical code is far beyond our depths.”

“Yeah, your scanners aren’t going to help here.” Roun chimed in. “Magic operates at a lower level than even zeta does—it’s much more fundamental in nature. You’ll have to feel it out.”

Zed growled lightly as she dodged another corrosive breath attack from her target, who seemed at least somewhat annoyed by the fact that she had not only pursued it to its lair, but succeeded in damaging it even further.

“Great… well I guess the jig is up Danny.” She replied as she fired a much weaker blast than her first in response to the Goliath’s attack.

Daniel just sighed lightly at the statement, watching as Zed’s attack clipped the massive gorilla-like lizard before careening off its natural defences and dissipating into the environment. His attention then turned back to his conversation with Zed.

“We have… guests, Commander.” Daniel replied.

“We don’t have time to worry about that, love.” Zed replied with a growl, dodging yet another breath attack as the lumbering creature tried to close the distance between them. “This thing is still too strong for me beat in a straight up duel and Paco and the others can’t hold back the hordes forever.”

Daniel just sighed heavily. It had been lost on him that the rate of haima’sa foot soldiers slipping through Paco’s wall of flames was increasing exponentially. At this point, not even Bobby and Nicholas were enough to pick off the stragglers. A fact that had forced Rueben to split his attentions between keeping Zed safe and reinforcing their perimeter, while Cunall, Jorna, Rude and Yasmin ran interception to keep the ever growing hordes off Zed’s back.

“Fine.” Daniel sighed. “Vice Admiral, I’m requesting permission to—”

“One step ahead of you Commander Thorsson.” Harry chuckled over their comm link. “Permission granted.” He responded.

Back in Merricent, Harry turned his attention away from their communications link and towards the surly young man that he had gotten to fetch Roun and Tyler from Neo Brighton.

“Are you ready for this kid?” He inquired.

Hyaku just nodded in reply and braced himself in his seat.

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Roun’s eyebrow tipped upwards slowly, but his curiosity was dwarfed by Tyler’s as she watched a completely anomalous reaction begin to take place within Hyaku’s heroic form.

Back in the Drowned Province, Daniel had made his way out of the cockpit of the Rogue Zeta Mega Elixer and down into the observation bay. The now re-cloaked vessel hovered above as Paco’s field of flames finally broke and the haima’sa hordes began to quickly pour in.

Now unable to provide artillery support, Daniel instead began to concentrate his senses on the battlefield below him. Slowly the zeta energy that fuelled his form began to drain away, making way for an entirely different energy to begin filling his form, flooding into his body through his now vacant extremities before racing into his eyes.

Below on the battlefield itself, Rueben’s eyebrow tipped upwards as he felt the all too familiar tingling of magic becoming excited on the battlefield.

With the assault vehicle’s cockpit however, the characteristically green glow of zeta that surrounded Daniels body now gave way to the bright red corona of magic, which seemed to coalesce only in his eyes. For Daniel, soon the organised grid-like pathways of atmospheric zeta faded from his sight, instead replaced by the chaotic maelstrom of ever shifting energies that made up the atmospheric mana-sphere.

What only made this ordeal stranger however, was the fact that back in Merricent, Daniel’s actions seemed to be having the strangest effect on Hyaku. The young man clutched his chest in the small office chair as his heroic form began to flicker in and out of existence. Roun’s eyebrow just tipped upwards at the strange sight, but while he was only slightly confused, what Tyler was witnessing defied all convention. Fortunately, Daniel’s voice drew their attention back to the still open communications link.

“Commander Cross, request to assume tactical command of the field team.” Daniel stated after a few seconds of silence, audible strain in his voice.

“They’re all yours Danny.” Zed replied without hesitation, before a torrent of red icons flooded her tactical visor.

“Okay, I’ve taken over your HUDs and I’m layering my own vision of magical code over your data-streams.” Daniel spoke between deep breaths. “Though, admittedly, I’m still not sure how we’re supposed to destroy those things.”

“Thankfully, I have another gift for you.” Harry’s voice echoed through the link. “I have Ms. Cage on the line as well and I’ve taken the liberty of having her peruse the most recent scans of your braver and heroic forms.” Harry explained. “I think she might be able to help with team assignments.”

As Harry spoke, Zed just smirked at the development, releasing her own grip on the abundant flows of zeta and allowing her own heroic form to channel something a bit more primal.

“Okay listen up.” Tyler’s voice reverberated over the link. “If what Roun says is right, then zeta based abilities aren’t even going to interact with these… magical cores.” She sighed at the very thought of having to deal with magic as a concept. “But some of you have abilities that are so fundamental, I feel like you might be tapping into something a bit more… arcane, like my friend Kanrei.” She explained. “If you really focus your energies, I think that Zed, Paco and Rueben might actually be able to destroy these things.”

“Alright, tactical command – what are your assignments?” Zed pressed, turning her attention back to Daniel.

“Right, team leaders are Zed, Paco and Rueben.” Daniel started. “Nicholas and Bobby, you focus on keeping these things off Zed while she deals with the Goliath. Paco, keep your flame-wall down and focus specifically on destroying these cores. Yasmin, you keep Paco alive.” He continued. “Rueben, you can assign tasks to your team as you see fit, but I need you focusing your flames on the cores.”

Rueben’s eyebrow tipped upwards at the use of the word ‘flames’.

“If I use veranos on these things, they’re gonna go nuts.” Rueben countered, but Daniel just smiled.

“Yeah, I’m counting on that.” He retorted. “It’s why I left you with the biggest team.” He began to explain. “So far these things have still been concentrating their most powerful troops on their front lines and sending relatively low-level foot soldiers in this direction to drain our stamina. I suspect the Goliath is just taking Zed for a ride as it tries to tire her out. Even if they lose the commander, it’ll come back so they seem to be focusing their efforts on this civil war of theirs. Once we start actually killing them, I imagine they’re gonna get a lot more organized.”

Rueben just chuckled.

“Unless they’re frothing at the mouth.” He added.

“Exactly.” Daniel chuckled in response. “You’ll serve as a decoy while Zed finishes their leader.”

“Alright.” Jorna chimed in now. “But if we’re getting overrun, I’m pulling Rueben out.” She finally spoke up.

“Understood, Jorna.” Zed affirmed. “You break into teams on my mark.”

While Daniel was giving out his battle assignments, Zed was charging her energy reserves to their maximum. Now that she could see the dense core of magical ‘code’ that actualized the Komodo dragon-like Goliath that led the haima’sa hordes, Zed had spent the last couple of minutes modulating the frequency of her primal energy to ensure that it interacted with this particular phenomenon.

“Okay now.” She sounded over their comms, simultaneously unleashing a concentrated beam of energy towards her opponent.

Up until this point, the two had been trading blows in a flashy but ultimately pointless stalemate, but this particular attack was the first one that managed to draw real blood. Zed watched as this beam, much stronger than those that she had been launching before, tore a tiny hole through the creature’s defences. The attack punched a gap in the creature’s barrier, before drilling into its armoured hide and borrowing deep into its body. At the centre of this magical construct, it impacted a densely packed conglomerate of oddly modulating energies – the physical manifestation of the Annals’ code that gave these haima’sa their agency. As she’d expected, her attack was no where near strong enough to annihilate the construct’s core in a single attack, but it was enough to get the beast to start taking their duel seriously.