The harsh, grating noise of steel being scraped with metal caused Vande and Vox to protect their ears with their hands. The two were huddled in a corner whilst Oriol peered outside of the narrow windows to see what the cause of such a visceral sound was. She was able to see a dozen automatons similar to the ones they fought out in the farms encircling the motorcar they had hunkered down in. Rusted plows and shovels struck against the immaculate exterior of the train that will become ruined the longer they idled.

"Surrounded," she said with an annoyed click of her teeth, turning to face the cowering kobold and robot. "Do either of you know how to fight? I'd imagine you would, Vandeveer. You are a Grade 6."

"That doesn't mean I got my promotions by fighting!" he protested with a wavering shout. "I just happened to be good at my job as a train conductor! The one who fights is Break, but she's..."

"Asleep. She'll be out for some time," Oriol remarked as she finished Vande's lingering statement. "Then you two stay hidden, I'll try to distract them."

"W-wait, how did you know she was sleeping? What did you do to her?!"

"Quiet down. You're going to make them even more alert if you keep shouting," Oriol warned as her stern gaze forced the kobold to fall silent. All the while Vox could not help but look concerningly between the two as she gripped her head with her metal paws. "Just do as I say. I'll make sure we all make it through this."

Vande and Vox watched as Oriol slipped through an open window at the back of the motorcar as the kobold surmised that was how she initially got the drop on him. Quietly, she vaulted over the guard-railing of the motorcar's exterior platform that connected it to the passenger car. With her boots landing softly on the concrete floor, she reached within her field jacket, pulling out a customized knife and a flare gun.

The blade of her knife was half the length of her forearm as the thick spine had a thin channel running along the tang up to its tip. "Didn't expect to be up against automatons, I would've packed something more substantial. The injector knife will just have to do. Let's hope Razel and Rye have already breached the facility," she thought to herself before aiming the flare gun skyward and pulling the trigger.

The percussive thump of the flare exploding out from the barrel alerted the surrounding automatons as the streak of red, flaming light blazed through the giant building. From her angle, she saw monstrous tendrils wrap themselves around the towering shelves as the flare continued in its rapid ascension. Her curiosity was then met with haunting disgust when she witnessed a suspended graveyard of automatons hang from the ceiling. Strands of fleshy sinew pierced their arms and chests, keeping them strung in the air like marionettes.

She had little time to digest this sight as a metallic glint flashed out of the corner of her eye. Quickly, she tucked her body into itself and performed a backwards roll, dodging the wild and unbalanced thrust of a flanking automaton's shovel. Her lowered body then exploded forth, leaping toward the hostile farmer like a crouching tiger before impaling her knife through its poncho and deep within its breast. Streams of red Radiance poured from her fingertips and down the knife's channel before violently erupting into a pressurized blast of concentrated energy through the blade's tip.

The compressed Radiance eviscerated the automaton's metal chassis. Ripping it and its woolen poncho to shreds as Oriol was keen to keep moving. Now that she was out in the open, two more puppeteered automatons sluggishly reared back their large plows to strike. A thin coat of the same Radiance reinforced her left leg as she performed a short hop into an overhead kick against the skull of the right-most farmer.

The force of her kick caused the automaton's body to buckle underneath the weight of her power. She then landed on the foot she used to deliver the kick before lunging forward to catch the plough of the automaton that had been winding up for its attack. With the tool now in her control, she thrusts forward with her knife, impaling the automaton's gut before causing it to explode with another pressurized blast of her Radiance.

The remaining automatons continued in their slow, awkward march towards her as she holstered her flare gun in favor of a second injector knife. "Damned things don't know when to quit," she cursed under her breath as her eyes darted between her shambling enemies. The corners of her lips pulled themselves into a sadistic smile as she gave her twin knives a twirling flourish to adjust them into a forward saber grip. "Bailemos."

* * *

Outside of the warehouse, Cass's large ears picked up the sounds of explosions that were paired with flashes of crimson. Worry soon set in him as he threw on his aviator's jacket. Once slipped on, the orange fabric of the runeweave gave off a golden sheen, siphoning his near depleted stores of Radiance to fuel its protective properties. Immediately, he felt his head throb as his heart thumped against his chest, overworking itself to keep up with the Radiance he has been burning throughout the day.

But, with grit teeth, he trudged ahead and entered the depths of the thick shadows within. He stuck close to the wall to keep himself steady and to navigate through the oppressive darkness. The scent of varied fruits and vegetables soon filled his nose as he stumbled closer toward a train that was parked in the building. Curiously, he slunk through the boxcars that contained crates upon crates of freshly harvested crops waiting to be shipped off.

"So they have been keeping up with the farms ever since..." Cass mused with his quiet investigation being cut short by a shrill siren that pierced his ears. The alarm shrieking for help grew louder and louder, forcing him to peek outside of the boxcar he found himself in. He caught a glimpse of a short, fox-eared robot who's visor flashed "HELP!!!" as it ran with its arms flailing frantically.

"H-hey! Vox!" Cass called out, jumping from the opened boxcar to stop the fleeing robot in its tracks. Vox threw itself onto him, hugging his larger frame out of sheer desperation as it wept digital tears. His mouth went to ask it what had spooked it, but his ears picked up on the sound of something slicing through the air. And it was approaching fast.

With caution thrown to the wind, his arms hoisted up Vox and spun it around around to have his back face the incoming threat. His aviator's jacket was then pierced by a spiked tendril, and with it, a burning pain that penetrated through his body as his eyes shot wide after hearing the sound of glass cracking deep within his breast.

The hearts of Astrals and Radiants were crystalline in nature, and as such hearing this grotesque, internal crack sent his mind into a frenzied panic. His shivering eyes befell Vox who looked at him with growing concern, he could only return its staring with a pained smile. "Keep your eyes up at my face, I'll keep you safe..."

A weak promise that was only made more unbelievable with streams of blood trailing down the corners of his mouth. The white shirt he wore underneath his jacket slowly turned into a deep red, his secure grip on Vox's body weakening. The tendril that impaled him then reeled back, threatening to pull his body with it as Vox grabbed hold of the fading rat-kin.

But Vox was no match for it. The robot's feet skidded along the concrete flooring as it once again blared its alarm for help. An action that quickly proved unneeded as the thick limb that pierced Cass was sliced off of its host by a large axe.

Stolen story; please report.

"R-Rye!" Vox cheered as the large ursine grabbed hold of Cass's body. Hastily, he bit off the spiked protrusions before carefully sliding out the lifeless tendril through Cass's equally still body. Grave silence overtook Rye's mind, his paws working to strip the rat-kin of his clothing. Given his augments, oversized runeweave, and mortal injury forcing his body to work doubly so to keep his Radiance maintained and flowing. Every ounce of it was precious, for without it, he'd die.

His immense distress shifted into bemusement. He witnessed thin strands of prismatic strings work to mend the injuries on Cass's body. "Can this be a Miracle?" Rye questioned, raising a paw to cup around his short maw in deep thought.

"Miracle...? I don't think Cass ever had one, we would've known beforehand, right?" Vox remarked as Rye gingerly cradled the rat-kin in one arm while he carried his gargantuan axe in the other.

"We will inquire more when we have reunited. Let us leave this place, Vox. Razel and Oriol made your safety a priority," Rye said, watching Vox muster up the will to protest in order to appear brave. But after having Cass go to such lengths, Vox knew better than to betray that act of sacrifice.

The two then made their way toward the entryway Razel had carved out earlier with hopes that her and Oriol would be able to join them on the other side.

* * *

The explosions caused by Oriol's knives became more frenzied and desperate. Their destructive output diminishing with each subsequent blast. Beads of sweat rolled down her dark skin and strands of her hair stuck to her face. The remains of scrapped farmers littered the floor around her as more automatons dropped from the ceiling above to replenish the dwindling numbers. An endless dance against a limitless onslaught.

"Oriol, duck!" a familiar voice called to her, watching the darkness around her be drawn in towards the source of the voice. The environment surrounding her was drained of its color, revealing the world in a monochromatic canvas. With a flash of black light emitting from behind the horde Oriol faced, a trigger was pulled in her brain. Without another second to spare, she threw her body back witnessing a cleaving wave of black light slice the swarm of farmers in half. Her chin narrowly avoiding the vicious slash that swept overhead.

The pocket of black and white did not fade as Razel approached Oriol. Her monstrous nodachi held effortlessly in her right hand as she held its saya in her left. "You should've ducked when I told ya to," she said with a knowing smirk, watching the operative get up on shaky legs. "We're all running on empty here. So I'm gonna level this fuckin' place in one go. I suggest you get to leaving unless you wanna be buried."

"And what exactly do you plan to do?" Oriol replied through strained breath. "That damned Dimmed is attached to the ceiling."

"Yeah, so? Just gotta make the roof come crashing down. I'm a Grade 3 Proxy, and besides..." her voice trailed on, turning her head skyward. The bangs that veiled her eyes shifted to the side to reveal a silver eye that was affixed onto Oriol. "Being surrounded by this darkness is the peak environment for my Miracle."

Oriol was stunned silent in disbelief, but after seeing the sweeping attack Razel performed made her think there was merit in her boasts. "Fine, I will shoot a flare when I have left the building."

With an affirming nod, Razel rushes out of the pocket of monochrome she had sliced into existence, her visage disappeared into the surrounding shadows. Oriol turned her back and boarded the motorcar where Vande was hiding. The scent of blood assaulted her nose when she entered the small cabin of the car, looking on in surprise as the kobold gripped onto a pickaxe dripping with crimson.

Her slitted eyes trailed over to see hacked off, bleeding tendrils as splotches of red stained his coat. "Vandeveer," she called out calmly, keeping her knife handy in the off-chance he went on the attack. "We need to leave, Vandeveer. I'm sorry for not being able to hold their attention to my fullest, but we have someone who is going to destroy the thing that attacked you."

"Leave...right..." Vande reiterated, grabbing hold of his conductor's cap that had fallen off his head during his struggle. "I don't ever want to come here again. I'll blast this train right through the steel walls if I have too."

"And I know you are capable, Vande," she reassured the kobold who approached an opened hatch within the center of a dashboard filled with an array of valves, gauges, and levers. The hatch allowed entry into a small, cushioned chamber that he clambered into as dangling connectors attached themselves to his wrists, breast, and temples.

An emerald light flowed through the clear pipes of the connectors. He pumped his Radiance through them, fueling the train as a result. His hands then reached for a pair of control sticks in the cockpit he sat in. One controlled the acceleration of the train while the other controlled the Radiance drainage needed to keep the locomotive running.

Wrath-filled confidence swelled within him, and with this confidence he slammed the control sticks to their absolute maximum. The emerald fluid surged from him and into the control panel outside of his cockpit. Billows of verdant smoke erupted out from the locomotive's chimney as its many gears chugged forward, roaring forth with his supplied Radiance.

Oriol grabbed hold of the open doorway's frame to keep herself steady from the train's sudden, accelerating momentum. She loaded a new round into her flare gun, and as the train steamed ahead towards the rear gates of the warehouse, fired it into the air. The signal for Razel to freely go on her rampage.

The burning flare streaked through the air as the squirrel-folk raced up along the shelves to match its speed. With her sheathed nodachi held firmly in her left hand, she used her free hand to mantle over the steel framework of the towering shelves. She was soon met with resistance as a swarm of spiked tendrils shot towards her in hopes of stopping her onrush.

A devilish smirk tugged at her lips as she grabbed hold of her nodachi's hilt. She drew the sword just enough to let its saya drink ravenously from the surrounding darkness. Once more, the area around her was drained of its color and of its shadow. Once the scabbard had its fill, the contained darkness exploded out from within it, propelling her nodachi forward with blinding speed as a flash of black light sliced the assaulting tendrils and the surrounding steel beams.

She carried through with this momentum, watching the dangling automatons that were then thrown at her in desperation. She leapt from the falling shelf and onto the head of the first automaton that was wildly launched. Her swift feet bounded from metal cranium to cranium as she was relentless in her charge. The rushing winds blew aside her blinding bangs to reveal a pair of wild, silver eyes; her smirk growing into a violent grin.

She flourished her nodachi before sheathing it, repeating the process as its scabbard supped upon the surrounding darkness. The flare then flew overhead, its bright red light draining into a dull gray hue as the flare inched closer to the ceiling. From here, she saw the grotesque mass of pus-spewing flesh that had latched itself onto the steel-clad ceiling. A wide mouth filled with rows upon rows of teeth made up its lower half as a pair of beady, blackened eyes stared down at her. Its thick, veiny tendrils whipped at her once more as a fat, elongated tongue lulled out of its disgusting mouth with drooling hunger.

"Absorb the darkness,

Rend the light, my Miracle,

Break through the moonlight!!!"

Razel shouted proudly. With her incantation, her saya exploded with a vicious flash of black light. In an instant, she had propelled herself straight through the massive Dimmed as an eerie silence befell the warehouse. Hundreds of black, severing lines dashed across the surface of the entity, indicative of the cuts she left behind during that swift moment.

A slow, triumphant sheathing of her sword triggered the lines to rupture. The titanic monstrosity, now rendered into hundreds of bits and pieces, lost its grip on the ceiling. The automatons it had taken control of started to plummet to the concrete flooring below as a shower of blood accompanied their cacophonous descent.

Razel had caught herself on a metal rafter before she too joined their dizzying fall. She kept herself suspended with one hand as a sadistic laughter found its way climbing up her throat and howling out from her grinning mouth. The once consumed, oppressive shadows slowly returned to fill in the voids of color that Razel had created.

This was the power of the Grade 3 Proxy: Razel Mullady.