“Team Catastrophe! This is your stop!” The moth announced. “N-W-74 outpost! Up you get.”

“Mmwazh?” Lider blinked sleep out of his eyes.

“Disembark! Put the flying protection back under your seat. Don’t leave any of your appendages unattached. Unattached appendages will…”

Lider ignored the rest of the announcement, since his arms could not be detached. He slowly unstrapped himself. It was an easily accomplishable task now that text was no longer floating in his vision. He took off his goggles and looked at them. They were made out of white bone mesh that held a pair of transparent beetle shells in place.

“Don’t try to nab these. Moth’ll get mad. The outpost will have better stuff for us anyway. Hunter stuff!” Liz clicked at him.

“I wasn’t gonna,” Lider looked at her. “Seriously, who steals goggles?”

“Ferromagnetics do. They steal everything shiny. Or meaty. Or anything that’s not nailed down in general. It could just be the case of Cass being Cass, though. I’m not best friends with any other Ferromagnetics.” The spidergirl shrugged.

“Why didn’t we get armed in the city?” He asked.

“Citadel policy extends to the Guild tower - citizens aren’t allowed to carry weapons. Not that it matters. Some Monsterlings like our lovely Cass are literally living weapons.”

As Lider talked to Liz and they disembarked from the moth, the clouds of fog slowly moved away from the landscape, revealing a sandy, white beach. His mouth dropped as he stared at something that he’d never seen before and only read about - the ocean.

“Whoa,” He uttered, observing waves crashing against the white beach with a whoosh, sun rays cutting through the clouds and glittering on the immense expanse of water. In the distance some sort of enormous, eroded steel and stone structures stuck out from the ocean at uneven angles.

“Damn… are those human buildings?” He nervously asked. “They look pretty big.”

“Mhmm,” Liz answered. “Used to be a human city here. General Joachim vaporized it ages ago with a skybreaker from what I’ve read."

"Big badaboom!” Cass commented from Lider’s coat. “They’re inactive now though, so no need to worry. They can’t propagate in the ocean.”

“Gotcha.” He nodded.

“So, um, did you guys meet in the academy or…” Lider tried to make small talk.

The spidergirl stared at him like he was a little fly. “I don’t know why I’m even bothering to acknowledge you. You’ll be dead or quit being a hunter by the end of the day. Nobody survives Cass for very long.”

“I can definitely survive Cass! I’m aiming for the Bane of Humanity.” He outputted, his mouth working faster than his mind. He had no desire being on a team, what the hell was he saying?

“You? The Bane of Humanity?” Liz laughed, her eight red eyes glittering with amusement. “Ha ha ha I can’t even. You? According to the System Stat Analysis - you’ve got the lowest level of talent I’ve seen in anyone, ever. It’s literally zero. Cass is 99.7% Aberrant. I’m 68.3%.”

This was the Academy all over again. Lider sighed. This is why he didn’t want to be on a team.

“No need to market me. I know I’m pretty amazing.” Cass echoed from the depths of his jacket.

“You need to get out of my coat, damn it. You’re heavy.” He complained, struggling to walk.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Hey! I’m not fat. You’re just a weakling. I’m training you with weightlifting, see? You need more muscles for human-slayin’, meat-boyo. How you gonna murder anyone with these twigs?”

Lider groaned. It felt like he was wearing bags stuffed with rocks all over his body. His feet sunk into the white sand. The moth took off with a flutter of wings, disappearing into the sky. Adorable team Quietus was gone.

“Come on, you two, quit messing around.” Liz skittered on the sand towards a hexagonal dome buried deep in a mossy cliffside. He slowly trudged after her, cursing his fate.

----------------------------------------

A Leucospid buzzed behind reinforced meshwork of hexagon bonecrete, black and yellow stripes twisting as she moved.

“Welcome back to forepost 74, bitches!” She snapped out with a smile, antennae twitching.

Lider waved at the waspgirl knight, barely able to stay upright due to the extra weight Cass blessed him with.

“Oh you got a new one, already? Aren’t you quick. Color me, impressed ladies - where did you dig up an actual zero?”

He collapsed onto a bonecrete bench embedded in a wall of the outpost's interior, panting heavily.

“Beanie - you’re much too weak. Whatever your parents have been feeding you, it’s not enough. I gotta feed you some king elks asap,” Cass commented.

“Right then. Here's the job - a couple of nests have been spotted in the woods and a new village. Cleanse them and come back here whenever it's done and I'll arrange the flight back. Or come back when you fail and I'll call for assistance." The waspgirl glanced at him.

"Hey what are you implying? Are you saying we can't end a village? That only happened like six times, don’t judge us!" Cass angrily growled.

Lider blinked.

“You’ll be fine. Lucky numbers seven, see.” A metal eye looked at him from the innards of his jacket.

"I am merely being informative, for the sake of your little fledgling." The waspgirl leaned on the counter, smiling at him.

"I'm not little." He muttered. “Um. Can I buy some weapons or armor?”

"Sure you ain't." The wasp grinned. “Afraid not, you gotta kill something first to earn credits.”

“What? How am I supposed to kill humans without weapons?” Lider complained.

“With this lovely starter pack!” The forepost knight slid a backpack out of the window.

“Hrm.” He muttered, opening the backpack and finding a knife and five firebomb grenades within it. Lider pulled the knife out of its sheath. It was made out of the same mundane material as everything else - bonecrete. Sturdy, but not the best for cutting things with. The sleepy, firebomb ticks stirred, their single red eyes peering at him. They probably wanted to explode. He zipped up the pack as not to bother them.

“Wait a minute. Did you say six. You failed six times?” Lider poked Cass.

“Don’t be so obsessed with numbers, Bean.” Was the response.

He sighed, turning to discover that Liz was in the process of changing out of her pink dress into a black and red raincoat. Lider spun around, trying not to stare at her body.

“Ho ho, someone's shy. Commendable, but also very dangerous. What will you do if a naked human female offers themselves to you? Will you stab them in the eye or shy away?” Cass flowed out of his coat sleeve, now shaped like a naked human girl, albeit made of black, shiny metal. She grabbed at his knife hand, holding the knife point into her chest. Lider turned red, stammering.

“Thought so. You’re a blubbering mess, not ready to face the realities of war with the plague of humanity! Will you be able to kill a human if you come across one?” She looked into his eyes, questioningly.

“I will, damn it!” He said, fiercely. “The Citadel is my home. My family lives there. I have a plan. Just let me go off on my own.”

“No way. What if you trip on a slippery rock and fall onto a pointy stick?” Cass reshaped herself into a copy of Lider who was afflicted with a pointy stick sticking out of his eye. The liquid metal copy of him flailed its arms in an overly theatrical performance, portraying a man dying from eye-stick injury. “Owie-ow! This eyestick is really painful! Why won’t someone help me!” She cried dramatically, poorly trying to emulate his voice.

“Quit screwing around and listen to me. I’m not some bumbling idiot. I have a plan.” Lider ground out.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy,” Liz commented. “You have no idea what’s out there. The humans aren’t as dangerous as their constructs. You undoubtedly think you can just waltz into a human habitation all willy-nilly and start stabbing humans left and right?”

“What if I am?” He asked.

“Soooo… Are you perhaps an expert at circumventing giant ships?” Cass flowed back into a female shape, blinking at him curiously.

“What’s a ship?” Lider blinked back, not understanding the word. “Wait… Is that how your other party members die? Did a giant ship kill them all?”

“Look at this poor, clueless boy. He doesn’t even know how to avoid giant ships! Whatever shall we do?” Cass theatrically wrung her hands, avoiding the question.

“Humans are far more dangerous than you think.” Liz nodded. “Please don’t run off on your own like an idiot. I don’t want to spend all day scraping you off the ground just to mail you in a box to your parents.”

Lider looked at her and realized why she was wearing a raincoat. She expected him to explode. Perhaps sticking with a team had some advantages. After all, he had no idea what a giant ship was and how to avoid one.