The eerily familiar female voice caused the group to turn and see the unknown channeler dangling Elf above them, suspended by her collar from the psycher’s outstretched arm. “Now who are you children and how much did you see?” She inquired, narrowing her gaze.

“We’re just students and we saw nothing.” Roun spoke up, approaching the female speedster from what had just become the back of the group.

Unfortunately, his bluff did not work and instead caused the woman to summon the energised blade from the sword hilt that she still held in her right hand.

“Unconvincing.” She stated, once more narrowing her gaze.

Unfortunately for her, her actions caused Elf to panic and forced the fledgling channeler to lash-out psychicly. The result was disorientation and a painful headache for the Rogue speedster, creating the opening for Jinn to rush forward and deliver a haymaker to her face with all of his considerable strength. Before she knew what was happening, this member of the Rogue Special Forces was sailing into the display window of a nearby store.

“Daito, grab Elf and get the hell out of here!” Roun commanded while the more powerful channeler was still stunned. “Nicola, grab your sister and do the same.” He added as time slowed for him, watching the non-verbal cues that Nicola was about to contest his orders. “Don’t fight me on this, just do it!”

He watched as the red-haired young woman growled and hesitated, an action that caused Daito to do the same.

“Now!” Roun pressed, forcing the two to finally comply; grabbing the two slower members of the group and vanishing from sight. “You too Jinn, you start running and I’ll be right behind you.”

“And if she catches up?” Jinn inquired.

“She’ll catch me first.” Roun retorted. “Now start moving!”

Jinn knew Roun better than to continue this line of questioning before he started moving, so without further hesitation, he took off in the same direction that Nicola and Diato had taken Tyler and Elf, prompting Roun to follow.

“Alright man, we’re booking-it… now what’s the actual plan?” Jinn inquired as they made their way away from the Rogue Special Forces soldier.

“I’ve seen this chick move, and I think there’s a chance that I can out-run her.” Roun now explained, as the woman made her way back to her feet, some distance away. “But that’s useless if I leave you guys behind to get caught.”

“Okay, I get you.” Jinn nodded, increasing his running speed as much as he could.

“I’m gonna hang back a bit, so that if she pursues us, she catches up to me first – once you’re in the clear, I’ll lose her.” Roun finished, causing Jinn to nod.

“Alright man.” He sighed. “Good luck.”

Some distance behind them however, the female soldier was not yet pursuing her quarry but instead talking to someone over her comm system yet again.

“So Harry, we had a slight complication.” She started as she watched Roun and Jinn run off into the distance, calculating that they’d put about two hundred metres between her and them by that point.

“What did you do now Zed?” The voice on the other end inquired.

“I got spotted by a bunch of kids – probably students at Titan from the looks of them.” She replied.

“How much did they see?” Harry inquired now with an exasperated sigh.

“Not sure, the punks jumped me before I could scare anything out of them.” She shrugged, causing Harry’s exasperation to grow.

“And where are they now?” Harry inquired further.

“Four of them have already cleared the area, the last two are slo-mo running a couple-hundred metres away from my current location.” Zed replied with an amused smirk, while Harry sighed on the other end.

“Alright, well you just need one of them so catch up, find out what they saw and contain the situation.” Was Harry’s final command.

“Sir, yes sir.” Zed smirked before ending the link and vanishing from her location.

Almost half a kilometre away at this point, Roun felt the surge of energy that heralded Zed vanishing, forcing him to activate his silhouette slide to intercept her own high-speed movement. The result was a clash of white and gold energy, followed by a shockwave of force before Roun went slamming into a nearby wall and Zed came to a graceful stop.

The youngster impacted the wall with an audible thud that wracked his insides. Even in his highly optimised braver-form, he could still feel his skeleton and the energetic constructs that replaced his internal organs reverberating from the impact that would have killed a non-channeler. Thankfully, he was strong enough to survive it and buy Jinn the time to make it out of this woman’s sensory range. Unfortunately, to do this he’d need to engage her – preferably in dialogue but if push came to shove, in combat.

With this in mind, he made his way to his feet and summoned his aesis into his body to further augment it to its maximum capacity; an action that was surprisingly met with laughter.

“What’s that about?” Zed chuckled with mounting amusement. “Are you going to try and fight me?” Her laughter continued.

“If it comes to that – to protect my friends – you bet I will.” Roun replied with conviction, but Zed’s laughter just continued.

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“Braver eh?” She chuckled. “Alright kid, well you certainly live up to the title but you are unquestionably out of your depth on this one.”

With her reply, she allowed her body to become completely saturated with energy for the first time since her appearance, showing off the full scope of her power. The resulting sensation was smothering, almost crushing, as the air itself seemed to thicken and channeling became difficult for the young man. With his braver-form fully realised, and his body no longer relying on resources like air or food, her stifling energy signature made Roun feel almost like he was gasping for breath.

“I’m more experience, better trained and clearly far more powerful than you can imagine.” Zed taunted. “Why don’t you just stand down so we can do this the easy way?”

The entire ordeal was a horrible experience for the young man, but it was surprisingly not a totally unfamiliar one. Despite Zed’s power putting the likes of even his tutors’ to shame, the youngster had felt more powerful energy signatures in his comparatively short lifetime.

“You’ve got the first two right—” Roun paused to make sure that Jinn had exited his sensory range at this point, and was hopefully on his way out of Zed’s as well. “—but you’re dead wrong on that last one.”

With these words, the spiralling golden energy that radiated from his form began to be overrun by wild green flames. Zed’s gaze narrowed with curiosity at the sight, which seemed to accompany the young man’s energy signature doubling in potency right before her eyes. She watched on as the youngster went from undeniably braver-tier in his channeling ability to energy levels that could have put him in the heroic-tier of classifications. All of this in a manner of seconds.

“Now that’s new…” She stated, still apparently unfazed by this most recent development. Roun just smirked.

“Don’t try act like you know me or what I’m capable of, lady.” He replied before vanishing from his location in an explosion of green flames.

Zed chuckled lightly at his attack, energising her own body to block the dashing straight that he delivered, before shifting her stance and leaning in to parry the spinning hook-kick that followed. As planned, the parry threw Roun off balance, allowing her to take to the air and deliver a series of three kicks while she spun. The first kick impacted the youngster stomach, causing him to keel over before the second to his solar-plexus straightened him back up, allowing the third that impacted his sternum to send him skating back to his previous location.

“Not bad.” Zed smirked, while Roun clutched his chest. “But you’re wrong. I know exactly who you are, Roun Itami.”

Roun’s eyes widened in shock, much to Zed’s amusement.

“Age twenty-one – a hundred and seventy-four centimetres – psycher-class and braver-tier.” She started. “Known abilities: physical overdrive, superhuman speed, translocation and limited projection of aesis energy-type… which was the spinny, golden energy you had just a minute ago. No mention of the green flames though, somebody must’ve forgotten to update your file.”

“What the – how the hell did you get that kind of information?” Roun exclaimed, completely off-put by the fact the Rogue Special Forces had such in-depth data on him – a virtual nobody. “Just who the hell are you?”

“Zed Cross.” She replied with a smug tone. “Field Commander of the faction that you’re aiming to join if the whispers I hear are correct.”

“Yeah, well I’m already rethinking that decision.” Roun scoffed. “Not really interested in playing subordinate to a blood thirsty maniac.”

His words were laced with venom, but before they could even properly leave his lips he could feel a surge of energy coursing along the edge of his skin. He’d barely blinked and the woman that he was maligning was gone from before him, now standing quietly behind him with the same energy-blade that she had used to dispatch that odd creature hovering mere centimetres from his neck.

“If I wanted blood, your friends would have never gotten the jump on me.” She whispered into his ear, vanishing before he could energise his body and spin to attack her.

The comparatively slow spinning elbow hit nothing but air, while Zed appeared back in her original location, which was now behind him.

“I was trying to scare you kids into telling me what you saw, but you’ve all got more guts than I gave you credit for.” She shrugged. “It’s a mistake that I won’t make again.”

She watched as Roun turned to face her once more.

“Now tell me kid, how much of that did you actually see?” She pressed, while Roun’s gaze narrowed.

“And what if I don’t?” He inquired defiantly.

“Well, then I revert you – forcefully – and let Loki pick your brains for the answer to my question.” She replied nonchalantly. “I was never a big fan of interrogation personally, but Loki is decidedly proficient at it.” Roun’s gaze narrowed further.

“Fine.” He conceded with a sigh, having accepted that neither combat nor fleeing were viable options at this point. “I’ll tell you what I saw, but only under two conditions.” His reply piqued Zed’s interest.

“Not that you’re in much of a position to make demands, but I’m intrigued.” She smirked. “What are they?”

“This ability – the green flames – stays between the two of us.” He started, prompting a quick response.

“Done.” Zed shrugged. “Keeping an eye on you brats’ and your abilities isn’t even my job. What’s the next one?”

“You leave my friends out of this.” Roun added, causing Tyler to chuckle.

“Now that depends on what the lot of you saw…” She pressed, forcing Roun to be a bit more forthcoming.

“We saw the end of a battle – you standing over something odd and it dissipating.” Roun replied, hoping that this would be enough to dissuade her from pursuing him and his friends any further.

But unfortunately, this was not the case. Instead he saw her energy blade activate once more and watched as she began to take steps towards him.

“I think we’ve already established that you can’t outrun me – so that plans out the window.” She started. “And in case you haven’t noticed yet, I’m acutely attuned to whether or not you’re lying. So this is your last chance – you can either tell me the truth, or Loki can drag the memories right out of you.”

Roun instinctually fell into a defensive stance but from their brief exchange he knew that the conclusion to any further battle was already decided. So, with a heavy sigh he resorted to his least preferred option.

“We saw the whole thing, we were there from before you even showed up.” He explained with a long sigh. “We saw the weird creature and we watched you slaughter it. Now what are you going to do to us?”

He watched as she paused now, before smiling.

“Loki says that one’s the truth.” She smirked. “Could have saved us both a lot of trouble by just leading with that one.” Roun’s eyebrow tipped upwards before he realised that she was already in communication with this mysterious interrogator. “Harry says that all six of you have to come in and have that memory scrubbed – I trust that won’t be a problem.”

Roun sighed heavily.

“Like we have much of a choice.” He retorted. “Where?”

“Rogue headquarters, The Garrison.” Zed replied. “Come there tomorrow, bring your friends and don’t tell anyone else about this – I’d hate for this to get any messier.”

“Y—”

Before Roun could reply, the woman vanished without him being able to track her movement. Her incredible energy signature was simply there one instant and gone the next. For a few seconds, all Roun could do was stand there motionless, still somewhat shaken by the encounter before he allowed the mysterious green flames to subside. Soon they were replaced by the spiralling golden streaks of aesis, before they too faded and allowed the young man to return to a low-powered state.

With a heavy sigh, he checked his watch. It had only been half of an hour since he and his friends had left the diner.

“Well Roun, you already paid for it.” He shook his head, talking to himself. “Might as well collect the food and break the bad news to the gang.