Peace can be greatly appreciated within a vacuum, or perhaps in many ways it is that vacuum which itself is peace. Without light to expose the world, there is nothing to expose any harsh flaws, and so in that sense, complete darkness is peace. In silence there too is serenity for there cannot be sounds of torture or brutality. Negligence cannot be pain for there are no stimuli to evoke such intense emotion. Even if it's only for a few moments, that dark silence is perfectly blissful in its purity, because in those few moments one could perhaps forget all the dirt truths of reality.
Yet in the way that all sleep ends with an awakening, this peace is only temporary, and thus that perfect seal from reality slowly begins to decay as sounds begin to seep in, initially in distant echoes entirely ambiguous. Those echoes grow louder and clearer by the second, distinguishing into multiple voices all of which shout in some sort of despair.
That blackness begins to colorize as light starts to peer through the cracks, at first in vague botches of dim grays, but as more light continue to sink their way into the peaceful abyss, those botches start to define themselves with more shades and begin to take on forms of their own, forms of the benches of a bus straight ahead, two columns sandwiching an aisle where figures move hastily down. It is those figures who emit those shouts, rupturing that moment of peace that degrades exponentially as those shouts clarify faster as they grow louder, words beginning to pronounce such as "IS IT STILL OUT THERE" and "GET OFF THE BUS." The figures relaying these exclamations are properly defined as people of all varieties, adults in coats over business suits and teenagers in hoodies or jackets. All of them move in one direction, down the aisle towards the end where a windshield can be seen against the far wall, and past that screen is the grounded view of the city streets, the bases of silver skyscrapers right beside the view with many more further ahead, the further towers more properly exposed. On the street between those towers is a crowd of other people, as those running down the aisle make a right turn at the windshield to exit through the open doors.
Only a few other people run down the aisle, eventually reaching the exit door and leaving the bus to be seemingly empty, for all the passengers have left, leaving only the one who remains by the aisle, staring groggily.
They aren't the only ones however as a figure stands up from a seat at the very front, right by the windshield, however this one isn't dressed in clothing of any casual or professional nature. Instead the attire is an azure suit covering the body, adorned with flashy golden segments on the shoulders and waist along with black and white padding. His cape unfolds by his black boots, the same color as his gauntlets, as he turns around to face up the aisle, the blue pencil insignia on his chest glowing from which many rays wrap around his body.
It's the same color as his starry irises which lock onto the final remaining passenger, upon which the man sprints up the aisle to reach that passenger, shouting: "Hello, are you injured? Hello?" Once reaching up to the fatigued passenger, the man first glances past them to scan the remainder of the seats, confirming the rest of the bus to be empty, before they then lift the passenger up off the seat, carrying them to the aisle before leading them down the aisle. He keeps his sharp gaze ahead, supporting the civilian to the end of the aisle where he guides them out to the exit door, stepping down the ramp and onto the snowy street where the voices of the crowd are their loudest, prompting attention to be diverted to them. Many of them face back towards the bus but with high heads in horror, again prompting the passenger to turn their head around to follow that gaze, staring above the silver bus which has smoke leaking out of the back, its landing only gentle as attached to the roof is a large silver raft-like device which a few wings jut from the sides of. The focus however is well past that bus, down many blocks of other silver buildings native to the city is a structure unlike anything to be seen: a titanic black tree towering over the tallest skyscrapers, its leafless branches stretching over blocks, and from those branches discharge flickers of black streaks into distant aerial vehicles which combust into flames before promptly plummeting.
That passenger is a young woman in a white cardigan over a green sweater, gazing with dread which Meditat notices, supporting her with his arm as he sighs in the acknowledgement of the situation so dire, turning back to face the civilians before centering on his team standing among them: Kokei, Ekitai, and Dana all of whom turn to him, their gazes pink, yellow, and green, all shaken.
Meditat turns back to face the passenger to ask, "Can you walk?"
The passenger shakily faces Meditat and gulps before nodding and answering, "I-I think so…thanks so much…." She then indeed takes a step forward, launching herself off Meditat to approach the rest of the civilian crowd all staring in terror.
As Meditat lets his arm fall back to his side, he glances back up at the tree and grunts with a pained grimace, his teeth nearly gritting under a violent glare as he recognizes: "There he is…."
Quick to discern the mix of resentment and despair in his voice, Dana frowns before approaching Meditat, placing her golden metallic hand on his shoulder to drag his attention back to her for her to raise, "The civilians, we need to get them to an evacuation zone."
Glaring at that distant tree, Meditat chuffs before turning his head away to focus on Dana and subsequently the group behind her, stuck in their predicament. He sighs and nods upon the realignment of his priorities, determining to Dana as well as Kokei and Ekitai: "The nest won't go until he does, that much is clear. It's also far too unsafe to fly them all right now, we'll need to move on the ground. We don't have the precise location of the evacuation zone but we have its general direction, we'll continue down that route. It can't be too far."
He turns back to stare at the smoking bus behind him with a frown before debating, "It'd be faster and safer to transport them in a pod, at least driving low should be safe."
Returning his gaze back to the team, Meditat nods in his own affirmation as both of his hands ignite with azure blazes, and he begins marching forward past the three upon declaring, "I'll get us moving again." Just as he passes Dana, she lifts her head to one of the skyscrapers on the block they stand in, and her eyes sharpen with curiosity.
Golden rings form within her irises as her forehead scrunches, peering through her amber bangs that wave in the snowy winds as Meditat behind her lifts his arms and releases his flames into an open portion of the white road, guiding those flames to take the shape of another bus. As that shape refines itself, Dana's eyes widen in a seemingly unwarranted sharp horror, and she shouts: "They're coming-!"
All of the sudden, all over the silver wall of that tower burst holes torn out by countless Pawns, having clawed out of the opaque cases, their mouths unhinged to shriek a war cry, exposing their glowing white teeth. Some of them leap out of floors just a few stories high and others leap out far above, all of them flinging their bodies to the same street: where the crowd is huddled.
Just once the silver bus has finished materializing, Meditat chuffs and turns to face the siege of Pawns, his teeth clenching as the fire doesn't extinguish from his hands but instead forms a bullpup assault rifle held in two hands, aiming at that siege to fire at with a barrage of crystal bullets. Ekitai pulls his handgun from out of his pocket, not waiting to begin firing straight at the falling demons as Dana's arms transform into diamond conal guns and she fortifies herself with shoulder cannons, slightly enlarging her own body too as though packing additional armor, raising her height subtly. She lifts her arms and unleashes a concentrated barrage to aid with Ekitai, shooting down the monsters as more burst out of the walls.
After drying his magazine, Meditat releases it to the floor as a flame from his backhand forms a second one in its place all while glaring at the sudden invasion. He chuffs before devising, "We'll hold them off for the survivors to get on the bus-," before Kokei tugs on his shoulder and interjects, "Medit, look!"
Cut off from his briefing, Meditat raises an eyebrow and turns around to Kokei behind him, who with her other hand points to the tower across the one being fired at, revealing the silver exterior being breached by a second wave of Pawns shrieking and waving their arms as they dive for the streets.
The first couple Pawns land on the top of the bus itself, causing civilians to stumble away and cry in panic, prompting Kokei to concentrate a swarm of pink lightning around her free arm and guide it out into those monsters, freezing them in place before she clenches her hand, overcharging that swarm to overload the monsters, leaving them shrieking in pain before collapsing after the field's relinquishment. She moves her other hand off Meditat's shoulder to aim it up at the other diving monsters as Meditat focuses on this second building, aiming his firearm and pulling the trigger to fire a rapid barrage of crystal bullets to the sky, picking off the monsters who rain with the snow.
All four Bellators fire simultaneously, pairs focused on opposite buildings, repelling the endless rain of monsters bursting out of the walls with their clawed hands tensed. In between them stand the crowd of civilians stuck in the firefight, too terrified to know where to move, though standing out in the open is clearly dangerous. Many of them turn to the bus and break into a run towards it, which is when bursts and booms are heard from the towers up the street behind the bus, prompting Meditat and Dana to face towards it curiously.
Without the devil's mercy, many more skyscrapers along the street become riddled with holes as monsters throw themselves into the air, their shrieks echoing in the distance like a haunting howl. Not only do monsters burst out of the buildings, but a few roots do as well, as thick as the original roots dominating the city yet they throb, slowly seeming to thicken as they crawl out of those buildings to begin spreading back out into the city. Crawling out of those growing roots are more monsters, pushing themselves off to a straight drop, explaining the source of this abrupt wave.
Meditat turns his attention back to that towering tree in the distance which continues to fire streaks down on any vehicles it can find near the zone, having fully eradicated the efforts to destroy the nest and now moving on to level the city with what seems to be random bombardments.
Those monsters land down on the street in the distance, completely unfazed by the steep drop as their bodies show no injury, able to quickly pick themselves up to their feet and begin sprinting up the street towards the bus, turning the white roads black again, amassing a mob constantly as more buildings in the distance start pouring hordes.
Watching their imminent approach, Dana winces before realizing: "Even if everyone boards the bus, we'll get overrun if we can't go in the air."
"And if we go in the air, we get shot down….," Meditat recognizes with a sigh. He lifts his head and waves his left hand as his shoulders produce flames that form a pair of turret drones concurrently as the silver bus bursts into blue flames, slowly being erased which exposes the people inside who are lowered back on their feet, perplexity becoming dread upon noticing that flood behind. His forehead scrunches in heavy contemplation, the pressure for a quick decision weighing down on him, his sharp gaze sitting on the ground. He then aims his hand to another open portion of the road before firing another flame, which once again begins to seem to form another bus, however this one not only is generally wider but expands up to about double the original height. The bus then materializes, sporting a white shell rather than silver, blending more with the snow. It also reveals itself to lack a roof as it now holds a second floor with an exposed platform, somewhat resembling a tour bus.
Meditat then shouts the command: "EVERYONE, GET IN THE BUS," to which the crowd is hasty to oblige, racing to the open doors, panicking with screams as the flood of monsters draws ever closer. He then orders, "Kokei, Dana, follow me," as a cable fires from his left hip to attach onto Ekitai and another shoots from his right hip to attach onto the top edge of the bus. He reels himself up along with Ekitai who reacts only to prepare to grab onto the edge with his free hand, accepting himself being pulled without a vocal plan. Kokei and Dana both lift themselves whether by an electric aura or thrusting feet as the two drones follow, and they follow Meditat to the top of the bus, who boosts himself upwards to swing himself over the edge along with Ekitai.
Upon landing his feet on the roof platform of the bus next to Ekitai, Meditat detaches both wires to let Ekitai get his own footing and resume firing on the monsters dropping from the sky as both Dana and Kokei reach the platform too, landing back down and continuing to fire at the raining monsters, Kokei assisting Ekitai on the right side as Dana handles the left herself.
One of Meditat's drones does fly over to Dana to assist her, rotating itself up and unleashing a barrage from its belt-fed gun as the other drone remains by Meditat's shoulder as he marches to the back of the bus to gaze at the massive flood of approaching monsters running down the street.
Staring at the incoming horde, Meditat erases the rifle in his hands and begins building another weapon, but this one in the shape of a compound bow as he briefly asks: "Orial, you have control, right?"
A response follows briefly from himself but in the voice of Orial who confirms promptly, "I do, I'll begin moving once the survivors have fully boarded," as that compound bow materializes silver, not using energy cables but physical black wires.
As Meditat places his free hand on the wire, a short flame fires from his fingers to manifest a single crystal arrow already in place, held to the wire and being pulled back as that crystal's head begins to flare.
Rapidly the drone fires its gun above Meditat's shoulder whereas he releases his hold of the wire, firing just a single projectile, but just by letting go it expels a burst of wind into himself like recoil, blowing his hair and cape backwards as that arrow is fired straight in a line, leaving a ray of frosty light like a tracer.
Only a couple blocks from the bus, the monsters stampeding down the streets shriek and roar, many of them being gunned down by the turret's rapid fire one by one. Among those monsters, one is struck by the arrow which gleams nearly blinding before expelling all its condensed energy into an explosion that claims the surrounding monsters, tearing them apart with the radius of a rocket launcher.
Also on the street's snowy ground are the civilian evacuees rushing into the bus through the open door, panicking with screams as some of them face back to find the corpses of the monsters drop close to them, just their bodies being enough to evoke fear. They at least are able to return their focus to entering the bus at a swift pace, perhaps as survival instincts to escape from that pile of bodies accumulating on the sides of the road.
Regardless, they funnel into the bus, the line not as neat as the one boarding the original bus due to the greater panic, but they ultimately do squeeze their way through until the last man boards the bus. Right after he steps atop the ramp, a particle cloud breathes into the door frame and solidifies the door.
Just an instant after the door's closing, the bus pod lifts about a foot off the ground and begins driving forward at a steady acceleration, not lifting any higher whereas a typical drive would begin with an upward launch. Instead the bus remains low to the ground, driving almost as though confined with wheels, only that it leaves no track in the snow as it drives away from the approaching horde who had reached the same block as the bus.
That horde does continue to sprint at a speed faster than the bus at first, closing in to which Meditat continues manifesting and firing more crystal arrows, each one concentrating more energy to be released in explosions for heavier strikes as his companion drone works to pick off individuals.
Despite the bus's gradual acceleration, the gap between the horde closes enough that a monster at the head of the mob leaps forward, bounding high enough to reach the upper platform, swinging its arm at Meditat for a slash. The beast reaches over the edge, warranting Meditat to pull his next arrow off the bow and instead jab it straight into the monster's forehead above the mouth, plunging the bright tip deep, driving it even deeper just to confirm the elimination. After confirming it by the limpness of the body, Meditat raises his foot and kicks the monster in the waist, booting it over the edge once again, its head sliding back out of the arrow and falling onto the road. Still holding onto that arrow, Meditat slots it back in the compound bow, pulls the wire back, and releases it into the horde to explode the front line as the distance from them begins to grow due to the bus's acceleration ultimately surpassing that of the monsters.
While the bus is now on the move, not only do monsters continue to pour out of the towers being passed, forcing an endless flow of beasts falling towards the bus, but those roots growing out of the buildings continue to expand, branching out to cover the skies steadily at a rate perhaps nowhere as intense as the roots regrowing by the tree, but oppressive nevertheless.
From those roots emerge more monsters, tossing themselves off to the streets not just behind the bus but those along the intersections ahead, letting them begin to form floods that don't chase after the bus but rather pour directly in its path. Soon, monsters cover the streets behind and ahead of the bus, boxing it in as Dana had feared.
At least with the new design of the bus, Meditat can march to the front of the bus to handle this oncoming wave, relinquishing his compound bow to instead equip himself with a pair of compound crossbows using the same physical wires, but both now house a belt already holding a few crystal arrows exposed on the side, integrating an extent of automation. He raises both crossbows forward akimbo style and fires both on the mob flooding from the intersection, to which both arrows detonate on impact like rockets, blowing holes in the stampede. Immediately then, the belt moves itself to slot the next arrow on the bed, automatically being held by the wire which pulls itself back.
Handling the new blindspot, Dana repositions herself to the back of the bus to handle the horde still racing towards them, anticipating a gradual deceleration to the bus due to the monsters approaching from the other side. That deceleration begins, allowing the beasts to begin closing the gap from behind, leaving Dana to unleash volleys of cyan bolts from her conal guns as countless darts fire from her shoulders, exploding patches of monsters perhaps not with the same scale as the arrows but it still leaves holes in their forces. Four tentacles emerge from her back, each of them golden but with diamond tips that autonomously rapid fire their own bolts at the approaching horde.
Now with that proceeding blindspot on the left side, Kokei leaves Ekitai's side to cover the last edge as more monsters pour in from the buildings in the side, dropping towards the bus. Raising her arms, Kokei guides great swarms of lightning that capture the sky, suspending groups of monsters, and rather than clumping them together for another warrior to handle, she instead overcharges those fields to defeat those monsters herself, leaving their corpses to begin falling back to the ground as she shifts her attention to the next batch of diving demons.
Left on the right side, Ekitai doesn't slow down his shooting, though he's able to better manage this side as the bus's motion has a definite effect on the rate of approaching monsters, decreasing it to a rate he can handle. That said, he can't relax as his arms are moving as fast as they can as is his trigger finger, firing rapid bolts of greens, blues, and reds along with the shades in between, causing monsters in the sky to explode acidic guts to burn nearby beasts or become vacuums to suck in the surrounding monsters enough that they crush themselves against the shot beast, turning them into a condensed falling ball.
All four Bellators protect the bus, lead by Meditat who resupplies the arrows in the belt with flames from his wrists as Orial mentions in his head: "I've managed to regain communication with the E.G.A networks, and I believe I've found the precise evacuation zone we were being led to. I've marked it as the destination, it's only a few miles away. Given our current speeds, reaching that zone will take about ten minutes, though it's difficult to provide a confident estimate."
"Understood, thanks for keeping us moving, I'm trying to clear the path so we can accelerate again," Meditat reciprocates while shooting more arrows from the crossbow. The drone above his shoulder stops firing as the belt empties, and so his left shoulder fires a flame into that belt to resupply as his right shoulder also fires a flame to manifest another drone to aid him, and both begin shooting concurrently.
Between each trigger pull, the crossbow's belt automatically feeds the next arrow onto the bed which the wire registers, priming it back to be fired again. After firing the next two arrows that flare before being ejected, Meditat's sharp glare becomes curious as Orial broaches, "There is a development I thought you'd like to be aware of: other escort efforts throughout the city have begun struggling due to the ongoing bombardments severely damaging the E.G.A's support, leading to many civilian groups originally protected near evacuation zones now stuck in precarious positions. I am aware that you have your own ongoing mission and I apologize for the intrusion."
Meditat's forehead scrunches and he grimaces upon the despairing news, facing down for a moment though he does continue to fire his crossbows, resupplying the belt when needed. His focus has clearly been shifted elsewhere though, but he ultimately raises his head and shakes it before assuring, "Don't apologize for bringing this to my attention Orial, innocents are in danger, I'm glad you told me. Do you have their locations?"
He glances back to the three other warriors constantly shooting off the hordes swarming them from all angles as Orial answers, "I do, yes, as well as the evacuation zones they were being guided to."
Through shimmering, starry eyes, Meditat emboldens his expression and nods firmly upon a determination made to himself, and he thanks: "Good work Orial."
He then turns around and begins marching to the other end of the bus, leaving the two drones to clear the roads ahead.
Reaching the center of the bus's upper platform, Meditat exclaims boldly to the warriors: "Other groups of civilians are struggling to evacuate throughout the city, I'll need to take Dana to help move them, we'll return as soon as those groups are safe. Kokei and Ekitai, can you both protect the bus until then?"
All three of the warriors turn their heads in surprise to the unexpected redirection, their eyebrows lifting with a sense of dread, for they all realize this new direction would be far more difficult than their current task. Kokei winces uneasily as Dana lowers her gaze, unsure about leaving the two behind after they've already been pushing themselves to protect the bus when they were all together. Meditat notices the apprehension and frowns, expecting a reaction of this tone, unable to broach the development any gentler.
From the corner of his eye, Ekitai frowns too and admits drearily, "Well…with how things already are here, it's probably going to be a bit of a challenge for us."
That doubt spoken explicitly, Meditat faces Ekitai and sighs in defeat before he acknowledges, "I understand…."
That's when Ekitai then raises his free fist to stick his thumb out and flashes a cheery smile before gleefully accepting, "We'll protect 'em!"
That defeated expression in Meditat lightens up as his head raises, and he can't help but let a light smile breach on his face. He turns to Kokei to find her also throwing her fist out with a raised thumb, joining in to assure: "See you soon!"
Meditat nods to her and then turns to Ekitai to nod to him before finally facing Dana who nods to him before accepting, "Ready when you are, captain."
Standing on the bus driving down the road while facing his team, Meditat gazes upon his team with a confident determination, and while standing still, two wires fire from his hips high up to the towers behind him. Both of his crossbows evaporate into open flames, leaving his hands free.
"Use the Links if anything happens," Meditat reminds them before letting his feet be swept off the platform, his body reeling itself rapidly towards the anchors, his cape pushing against his back and his hair blowing forwards.
By the back of the bus, Dana bends her knees as her tentacles retract into her back, and she reciprocates: "See you soon," before launching herself off the platform with a boom, soaring towards Meditat with enough energy to leave a golden ray behind as a trail.
Kokei and Ekitai promptly exchange gazes and firm nods, and in the very next moment they both begin marching to new positions as Kokei approaches the front of the bus and Ekitai takes the back. While approaching the back, he slides his gun's cylinder out to reveal a few flasks that have emptied, as they seem to be running through quicker than before. Aware at least to this difference, Ekitai's able to better anticipate his reloads, tossing those empty flasks off the bus and replacing them with full flasks housing bright, colorful liquids that he stashes in the slots. He whips the gun to collapse the cylinder back inside and instantly then takes aim, firing his first shot being a navy blue bolt onto the monster at the head of the chasing horde. That struck monster then explodes horizontally, its guts infused with blue spikes that extend to the edges of the street, planting itself on the ground such that all the monsters who run over the spikes fall to the ground as if a vehicle caught by a spike strip.
As he fires his next shot, this one pink, Kokei stands firm on the other side of the pod, charging her arms with electric coils as her eyes flare bright, and she aims those arms forward to lead those arcs crawling onto the road ahead, swarming around the monsters attempting to block the bus's movement. As soon as her electric field is built and spreads to a sufficient area, all of the arcs flicker bright, administering a shock that overwhelms the Pawns, dropping them to the ground. Her left arm draws out another swarm but she pivots to raise her right arm and discharge its swarm towards one of the towers being passed, as a flock of monsters dive from its walls. That second swarm catches the monsters like a net before detonating the bugs caught, shocking them enough that their motionless bodies can then be dropped like ragdolls to the road.
Around the same time, Ekitai swiftly raises his gun and fires a light yellow shot at one of a group of monsters dropping from the other tower, and the monster who was struck suddenly inflates into a large raft-like platform that begins to rise, catching the other monsters of its group and lifting them in the air too, allowing him to then aim back at the mob on the road.
Those pink swarms and colorful streaks being projected off the driving bus can be seen even from far higher in the air, even at the brief glance Dana takes to assess the pair left behind. She frowns with slight unease still to leaving them back, but she reclaims her confidence with a sharpened face, focusing ahead to the path of her flight, as not far ahead of her swings Meditat, cables from his hips reeling him from tower to tower. His movements are close to consistent though there's notable accelerations between slowdowns when detaching and refiring the next wires, whereas Dana glides at a constant speed in the air by his side.
She turns her head again, catching a glimpse of the towering black tree standing where their headquarters once did, a pillar of her life that has now become an oppressive prison tower.
She can't help but frown at that reminder, watching a few black streaks fire from the branches, shooting down in the distance, likely at the other pods that had flown down to provide support. Some of those streaks graze buildings, tearing chunks off its side, exposing its interior floors like gaping wounds.
"We're nearing the first group," Meditat announces, pulling Dana's attention forward again. Her amber bangs push to the sides of her face, letting her gaze at her friend swinging beside her, glancing at her for a moment before focusing onward.
Dana gulps to prepare herself, but she first asks curiously: "Why aren't we being shot at? Wouldn't it, they, he-, shouldn't we be getting targeted right now?"
Passing the corner of another building he's anchored to, Meditat detaches the wire from his left hip and a moment later he fires another from the same position, aiming to another building ahead which allows him to regain the speed he dropped off as his eyebrow raises with intrigue. He shrugs his shoulders before admitting, "Not sure, maybe we're too small, maybe we're not a threat? Or maybe we will, keep on guard. We're here," right before passing another building. He flips in the air before boosting himself at a downward angle, the acceleration leaving behind a comet's tail, prompting Dana to accelerate by his side. They both focus forwards, staring ahead at an intersection highlighted by smoke emitting from a crashed military pod down the street, and running from that crash site is a group of pedestrians. They aren't the only ones running on the street though, because from that intersection they approach are hordes of monsters charging in from both sides of the intersecting street, approaching the civilians to intercept them, closing in on any second.
Dana's eyes sharpen to lock in on the task at hand, augmenting herself already with conal guns transforming her arms, retexturing its gold plating to diamond. Next to her, Meditat's hands are set ablaze before manifesting into a pair of weapons, the one in his left hand being a silver firearm with a shape reminiscent of a Kriss Vector lacking a stock –though its magazine is notably wider to allow for heavier ammunition– and in his other hand is not a firearm but rather a unique glaive with long crystallic blades on both ends, the pole itself shortened to just a silver hilt short for only one hand to grip. He raises the glaive and aims the gun as Dana raises both arms to aim forwards.
Down on the ground, the crowd reaches the intersection, which is precisely when civilians among them turn to notice the hordes of Pawns charging straight for them, sprinting faster than they could. Fear is struck into those pedestrians, eyes wide as they begin to shriek for that's all they could do, as they're about to be compressed from both sides with no escape.
The pedestrians on the left half of the crowd face the street to the left of them and the pedestrians on the right half face the right street, stumbling backwards away from the monsters, bumping into each other with nowhere else to go. It's then when a blue streak crashes into the left street just before a gold streak crashes into the right street, smashing through the heads of both hordes, causing the civilians to jump in shock.
From both crashes emerge the two heroes facing down the streets and springing to action as Meditat swings his double-bladed glaive to slash the immediate monsters in front of him, slicing their bodies clean into divisions while simultaneously raising his firearm and firing bursts of crystal bullets into the monsters further back, battling against two lines at once. Meanwhile on the other street, Dana unleashes a constant barrage of cyan bolts through her fanning arms, mowing down the mob across the wide road. They both march deeper into their respective streets as Meditat rapidly swings his blade like a fan, slashing monsters all around him as he guns down the monsters further to the edges of the road until it clicks, empty of ammunition.
Meditat tosses the firearm to the side and lifts his empty hand to the air, shooting flames above himself which then manifest into an array of crystal spears, and by throwing his arm forwards he guides that array straight into the mob, each of them exploding on impact to blow chunks of the pack away. At the same time, Dana reverses her two arms to rebuild her fingers before she throws her arms forward, detaching all ten of those fingers out in a fanning motion. Each of those golden fingers burst coils of golden liquid that expand to form a humanoid skeleton that is then encased in an armor mimicking the cyborg's body, though it is distinguished by the full golden helmet and its signature flat face. All ten of the specters march forward as their claws retexture to be made of diamond, as they pounce on the Pawns, slashing them apart as beasts themselves, and from the backs of those golden beasts grow a single diamond-tipped tentacle which autonomously fires cyan bolts for range. Dana regrows her own ten fingers as her specters clash through the remainder of her side autonomously, all as across from her Meditat spins his glaive to behead two monsters in a single swing before throwing that glaive into his remainder. Both blades flare bright into the final few monsters, cutting through a couple before exploding to incinerate the remainder as Dana's specters advance through her set, pouncing and slashing the monsters at the front as their tentacles shoot down the back line, compressing them from both sides until there's none left in her way.
Finishing the two hordes of monsters off, both Meditat and Dana spin around and approach the civilians as the ten specters follow her from behind. The civilians stare in awe at the two heroes who dispatched the floods so swiftly and elegantly, and listen to Meditat declare, "You're safe to continue to the evacuation zone. Is anyone injured?"
While distraught by the intense action, most of the civilians just shake their heads as across from him, Dana waves her hand back to the ten specters who continue to march at her side and then ahead as she offers, "These will guard you for the rest of your way, and if anything overwhelming happens, we'll come back for you."
Intrigued by the idea, Meditat's eyebrow lifts and he casually compliments, "Huh, that's smart, I'm unsure why I didn't think of that."
Dana smirks at the admission and retorts, "Then it's a good thing you were smart enough to bring me along."
Meditat huffs and shakes his head before facing the pedestrians as his arm raises to the sky behind him. A wire fires from his hand as he assures, "You'll reach the pods safely, just keep moving. Come on Dana, let's move to the next," before he's lifted off the ground, leaving Dana to shake her head. She marches into a sprint, accumulating speed before leaping in the air and boosting herself in flight with a boom, soaring off to her friend's side as the civilians continue hurrying down the street in a jog, now accompanied by the ten specters.
Back high in the air, Meditat reels himself towards a skyscraper, detaching the cable upon getting close enough and allowing himself to soar freely forward before projecting another wire at a higher angle to the next tower, gradually climbing as he tugs on the cable to gain more speed. Upon reaching that building, he again detaches the wire and projects the next one, this one now reaching the top of the next tower, and as he yanks his arm holding onto that cable to accelerate, Dana reaches his side, keeping her legs and arms together in a dive-like stance for better aerodynamics. She keeps a safe distance as Meditat thrusts himself with a boost just before reaching the top of the tower, letting go of its cable to soar above the highrise, reaching high enough to gaze over the whitened silver city from the vantage point. His movement steadies as he only now moves with a constant boost, allowing Dana to strafe closer beside him, both gazing over at the distant black tree in the city.
From their high observation point, they catch a better sight of the city blocks surrounding the tree, witnessing the intensified spread of roots at a density covering blocks and buildings, seeming impossible to hypothetically navigate through. Furthermore, despite the great distance from the tree, they can observe the growth of the roots as they steadily stretch over the streets, claiming block after block.
Upon a sharpened stare, they watch the mall they had evacuated now become consumed by the nest, as the infestation of roots are so abundant and massive that they crawl over the fin's walls enough to obscure the shape almost entirely.
Wincing at that dreary sight, watching ground once more lose after being so close to victory, Meditat and Dana both trace the street from that mall, turning their attention to a sliver between towers where they just barely catch a glimpse of a pink flash of light, immediately identifying its source.
Upon registering the general distance from the edge of the dense root spread to the other pair, identifying a safe space between where ideally they'll reach their destination before the nest reaches them, Meditat and Dana are reinforced with the confidence of their allies. With that confidence, Meditat turns his head to shift his attention elsewhere, lowering his gaze to face a patch closer to himself. He spins himself, using quick boosts to reorient his body towards the next point of interest, and he raises both arms to project wires off his hands which he grips onto before yanking to pull himself sharply. As Dana executes a tight turn, though strafes slightly away to provide additional room, Meditat fires another two wires from his hips in the same direction, his cape flapping like his hair as he thrusts himself to the next location, leading Dana who accelerates as her rockets shriek.
From the smooth, silver surfaces of skyscrapers amongst the snowfall burst devilish black roots that crawl like snakes, growing without bounds into the open air, its white caustics pulsating as the snow that falls upon the absolute black slimy material disintegrates on touch. Those roots splinter into multiple branches that fork on their own to spread themselves over the sky, and from those growing roots emerge the black arms that pull the heads out, unhinging as soon as it can feel the breeze. Those Pawns push enough to squeeze their bodies out of the solid roots, dropping themselves from heights to a steep plummet for the road where such a drop to any human would be undeniably fatal, for some of them fall over a hundred floors. Yet these beasts can have no fear, for they instead roar ferociously, dropping towards the silver bus driving down the road infested with those very demons, all chasing the bus from all sides.
Atop the bus are only two warriors, and the one by the back of the bus aims his gun straight up to fire a yellowish green bolt radiating wildly with a cyan hue. That shot strikes one of the diving Pawns, causing their entire body to begin highlighting yellow as they shriek in a sudden pain, grabbing their heads with their clawed hands as the highlight brightens to consume their body in a glow, one that ultimately causes them to explode and release that energy in several disk-shaped blasts at different angles like an atom's representation, each of which sever any monsters caught in those waves.
Only pieces of those monsters continue to rain down and reach the ground like disconnected heads and limbs, falling down on the bus whose exterior walls are opaque, but the other side of the walls carry window screens to allow the passengers of the bus to watch the carnage. Those passengers sit on the seats of the bus, each of them allowing two to be seated next to each other, two columns of those seats sandwiching an open aisle. At the back of the bus is a short elevation pad but it's unused, as all of the bus's occupancy –the civilian survivors– are concentrated at the seats. Some of them are staring at the floor and ceiling or each other, holding one another's hands to maintain a cool head. There are others however who face down the aisle to the windshield at the front, where oddly there isn't a physical driver at the designated bus driver seat, though the bus clearly manages to drive itself.
Ahead of that driver seat and through the windshield screen, the passengers watch hordes of monsters charge at them head on, shrieking and flailing their arms like wild animations, but that's when from above strikes swarms of pink lightning which spread over the streets to form a wide electric field, capturing many of those beasts who freeze instantly. The arcs composing that field then flare brighter, administering a lethal shock to those monsters enough that once the field is relinquished, they all collapse on the ground, allowing the bus to simply drive over their corpses as it remains low to the road but still hovers.
Above the ceiling of the bus is the platform where Kokei stands, turning her head to the right upon identifying an approaching intersection. Both of her arms are constantly wrapped around coiling lightning as sparks fly passively off her body, not letting herself fully relax for there's no time for such leisures. She extends her left arm forth to the street the bus moves along as her right arm extends perpendicularly to the intersection, and as per her guess, she turns to find a mob of monsters charging the bus from that intersection, hoping to jump it from the side. Already anticipating that attack, Kokei responds with her own as she unleashes swarms from both hands, tackling the monsters attempting to charge into the bus head on as well as those flanking it from the side, spreading those swarms into fields that capture a decent portion of both fronts before squeezing them, overcharging the fields to neutralize the monsters caught by her electric webs.
Behind her back, on the other end of the bus stands Ekitai who similarly notices the intersecting street from his right side, finding another batch of flanking Pawns. Only wielding a single weapon while facing two fronts, he takes a step back as he fires a brown shot at the horde chasing after the bus from behind, striking the snowy road in front of the leading beasts, and at that struck point flashes a light before roots of a seemingly natural tree begin growing rapidly from the ground. The brown roots form a wall over the street, reaching the silver buildings which function as its barrier, temporarily blocking that horde as it grows about twelve feet tall. That brief pause allows focus to be diverted as Ekitai swipes the screen of his gun with his thumb and cocks the hammer as he rotates his arm perpendicular to himself, aiming at that intersecting road and firing several dark red bolts into the flanking mob. Each of the Pawns shot by those bolts immediately explode, splattering abundant dark red liquid almost as if it were blood, covering nearby monsters whose bodies begin melting from that blood-like substance, swiftly dismantling that flank.
After passing the intersection, Ekitai returns his stare to the street they drive down, facing the barrier he left behind to find piles of monsters crawling over the top like a tsunami crashing over a dam. It does effectively remain standing, forcing a decent chunk of monsters to remain in the pile, but its height isn't unscalable, and so monsters fling themselves over the wall and pick themselves up on the other side to continue sprinting. Ekitai swipes a few more times on his gun before aiming forward and firing shots rapidly, the coils wrapped around his barrel shining hot as the barrel smokes.
Even hotter are the arcs of pink lightning crawling out of Kokei's raised arms, swarms kept tight together as she leads them to the sky to catch more falling monsters, freezing them and promptly electrocuting them mid-fall, leaving their motionless corpses to resume the plummet into the road. One of those bodies does drop on the bus platform with a thud, alerting Ekitai with a concerned gaze to turn around, finding that body laying on the white surface across from Kokei who hastily guides a small swarm to grab the body so she could lift it and fling it off the bus, throwing its corpse into the side of a silver tower. After cleaning the bus, her gaze is caught by Ekitai to which she flashes an awkward smile in guilt. That exchange however is broken up quickly as they are prompted to return their focus to their own fronts, fending off their designated hordes as Ekitai continues firing his gun and Kokei charges another swarm around her arms to discharge forth.
Not all evacuees are as fortunate to be driven inside an encased, metal vehicle whilst protected constantly by two fighters, as elsewhere in the city is a group of civilians of differing ages who all run as a herd down the street, panting tiredly. The street they run down has been littered with the wreckage of crashed pods, many of them still smoking, sedans and SUVs scattered around which they have to weave around, unable to simply run a straight line. Despite clearly wanting to stop to catch their breath, that would be the worst decision, as behind them is another group running their way, a group of Pawns who snarl and roar, reaching the same block as the survivors desperately trying to run away.
At the head of the evacuee group is a pair of boys who look to be brothers, one of them being an older teenager reaching adulthood who runs alongside his younger brother who's in his earlier teen years. They sprint as fast as they can, pushing through the fatigue weighing them down, keeping their faces forward for they couldn't afford to catch a glimpse back. The younger brother however fails to notice a chunk of a pod's lip, which has been somewhat hidden by a layer of snow that blends the lip with the road, causing him to trip over that chunk and fall forwards, screaming in panic to pull his brother's attention.
Instinctively, the older brother halts and turns to reach for his younger brother, but the rest of the survivors reach them first, running between the two as some bump into the older brother, causing him to stumble back. Others trip over the younger brother, some of them stumbling back to their feet and others falling forward, too stressed over the fear of being caught that they couldn't navigate around the boy. The older brother shouts desperately, trying to push his way through to his brother who's unable to stand back up as he's constantly being surrounded by runners, leaving him no room to plant his hands. The other survivors who had tripped over the boy do manage to rise to their feet quicker, but upon doing so they turn around to find the horde not even a hundred feet away from them, and that distance closes with every second, those beasts sprinting faster than the most athletic human could. Those survivors standing back up immediately turn the other way and resume running, and finally the full crowd run past the two boys, allowing the older brother to reach his younger brother who's now able to reach back to him. Yet just as they grab each other's hands, they turn to face the approaching mob, both realizing that they couldn't outrun the horde anymore. So all they can do is stare, helplessly.
From the sky above, two thin blue rays of translucent energy strike the ground a few feet in front of the two brothers, both rays separated by about a foot, and between those two rays strikes a third, significantly thicker ray with a gaseous, almost cosmic trail, which immediately begins dispersing to reveal Meditat's back, his black cape waving under his hair, those two rays attached to his hips as he places his relaxed fists atop each other and brings them around his right as if preparing a swing. His hands ignite an azure flame which forms a long silver hilt held perpendicularly to himself with a long cross guard that's as thick as the hilt itself, and from that guard protrudes the blade, yet the longsword's blade is more than triple the wielder's height. That blade materializes to strangely have distinct halves, as the left half is an elegantly sharp, frosty crystal blade, whereas the right half itself is rather dull and made of silver metal yet strangely not solid but instead as a grate. From that long grate ignites a blue glow which propels the whole blade towards the left, and with Meditat's guiding arms, he swings the long greatsword which slices through the monsters in front of the survivors, eliminating all the beasts dangerously close to the two. The Pawns directly behind the cutting line don't slow down, but they don't reach Meditat before receiving a barrage of cyan energy shots raining from above, riddling their hides with holes as that barrage splits into two that fan out to rip through the rest of that line.
Both of the brothers raise their heads to watch Dana descend from the sky, both of her arms shaped as conal guns used to fire the volleys. She doesn't land on her feet but remain hovering in the air right behind Meditat who leaps forward, firing two wires from his hips to pull himself to the next monster as he erases that longsword and replaces it with a pair of nunchucks, the stick in his hands made of silver and the other end crystal just like the material of the chains which are several feet long, allowing him to simply swing both nunchucks and slash a wide range of monsters around him. Simultaneously, Dana hovers above Meditat as her shoulders pop up to reveal additional diamond cannons shaped like lightbulbs on swivels, and swivel they do as those lightbulbs beam concentrated cyan lasers that raze through the monsters out of Meditat's range. They both move at the same rate continuing to accelerate, advancing through the mob as a tentacle emerges from Dana's back and strangely extends far forward down the right of the road, passing Meditat with a sharp diamond tip that cuts through a few of the monsters. From Dana's chest protrudes a cylindrical thruster-like augment from which a golden light flares from, and as Meditat fires a cable from his right hip onto that extended tentacle, pulling himself off to the side and planting his feet on that very tentacle while erasing his nunchucks, Dana unleashes a concentrated laser beam from her chest wide enough to incinerate a decent remainder of the monsters. Right when that laser deactivates, Meditat springs off the tentacle and straight for the remaining monsters, materializing a sledgehammer with the length of a polearm which has a head mostly made of crystal albeit for the middle being made of silver grates. He swings the sledgehammer overhead and brings its flaring head down on the Pawns, slamming the ground with enough energy to burn the surrounding monsters, and above that the grates fire a volley of crystal bullets that strike down the remaining beasts.
After having defeated the imminent attackers, both Meditat and Dana turn around to face the survivors, the two brothers being the closest to them. Dana's armaments begin reverting as Meditat erases his sledgehammer and raises his hands to fire ten thin flames that each manifest into armed drones which hover over to the survivors. Meditat faces the survivors and assures, "You're all safe, they'll help you evacuate," before he turns to Dana as he rotates his right arm and projects a wire at an upward angle behind himself. The two friends nod before Meditat pulls himself off the ground, and Dana launches off after him, leaving the older brother to lift his younger sibling before they run to the other survivors, now accompanied by the drones. In the other direction, Meditat and Dana race down the street, accumulating some altitude as Meditat spins around to orient himself in the direction of movement before projecting cables from his hips to pull him forwards, not aiming to climb up the skyscrapers.
He detaches the cable from his hand to let his hips continue reeling him, though he raises his head upon hearing bursts, finding that above him leap a barrage of demons, diving straight for him as they roar aggressively. They're all then immediately shot by an abundant volley of diamond darts that explode in impact, consuming them in cyan blazes, fired from Dana who reaches Meditat's side, her shoulders augmented with dart launchers. He faces her before noticing more monsters bursting out of the towers on the other side of the street, pouncing for Dana to which he extends his hand towards them which releases small flames from his fingers, and each of them materialize into silver darts that autonomously propel themselves with crystal tips that flare up, honing in on those monsters. The volley of silver darts strike the monsters, and upon impact their heads release enough energy to detonate explosive bursts, igniting the monsters in frosty blazes.
That arm still raised, Meditat lowers it but keeps it perpendicular, waiting for a moment before projecting a cable that attaches onto the corner of a building. He relinquishes the other hip wires, leaving him to spin around that building and the intersection below him. Dana sharply turns to follow him into this new street, and upon making the turn she quickly identifies a group of civilians running down the road, not far from another crashed military pod among a few others. As Meditat detaches the wire from his hand and fires two from his hips, Dana also identifies a herd of monsters chasing them away from the two, running between the two Bellators and the evacuees. Hanging over the street are roots protruding from the towers, most of them having penetrated into the buildings across from them, and those that haven't continue to grow freakishly. As Meditat and Dana approach those roots, Pawns emerge from them and pounce at the two warriors below, who both strafe as Meditat boosts to the left and Dana barrel rolls to the right, dodging the first couple monsters. More continue to jump them, and so they continue evading the raining beasts, focused more on those on the ground nearing the civilians. Meditat detaches both cables and transitions into an angled dive accelerated with a comet boost, shooting himself straight for the back line of that horde, prompting Dana to do the same, though angled slightly higher to land further.
From that blue comet's head fires many rays of flames which each manifest into missiles with a wireframe silver head connecting separate crystal chunks. Those missiles propel themselves into the back of the mob, and before reaching the ground they prematurely detonate, propelling those many crystal chunks like cluster munitions, striking a wide radius of monsters before Meditat lands. He then raises both hands which fire wide breaths of flames that materialize into many small crystal daggers, and he throws his arms forward to guide those daggers into more of the monsters, dropping more bodies which prompts many Pawns among the horde to stop and turn around in curiosity. A few of those monsters are immediately struck by the golden comet, smashing their bodies into the ground from where Dana leaps out, her hands retextured crystal with elongated nails. She lunges at the monsters directly, slashing them with animalistic movements as four tentacles grow from her back, each of them tipped with a glaive-like diamond blade, autonomously swinging into the mob and slashing through multiple at once as she leaps her way up the horde. Even at the head of the horde initially chasing down the survivors, the monsters turn around and change their target, now chasing after the warriors cutting through their line. At the back of that trimming line, behind Dana marches Meditat, whose hands ignite to arm himself with a heavy, silver minigun, featuring many barrels held together by a few rings. Hanging out of the minigun is a belt full of crystal bullets, feeding into the chambers leading to those barrels which begin rotating as soon as the weapon manifests. Meditat raises his arms and aims as he holds fire, shooting out a stream of crystal bullets out of the gun that sounds like a lawnmower. He controls the minigun to decimate the monsters outside of Dana's attack radius, first razing through the monsters on her left. Another four tentacles emerge from Dana's back, their tips armed with diamond saw blades that promptly begin spinning, being swung to raze through more monsters as her other four continue slashing through those around her, all of them working seamlessly together as Dana lunges forward, driving her claws through another monster before leaping off it, slashing another couple. As Meditat holds down fire, his shoulders fire off thick flames up about ten stories into the air, and the heads of those fires expand to form a pair of orbs significantly larger than his typical drones, about six feet in diameter. They both materialize with a gunmetal body, a smooth sphere except for a circular dent like an embedded dish, with a smaller circular hole in the middle. The orbs hover and rotate themselves to aim their dishes down at the right side of the road, and from that central holes fire barrages of crystal ammunition with such rapidity that they nearly seem like a constant stream, razing through the monsters on both sides of the road beyond Dana's radius. As the two advance up the street, having cleared half of the mob, Dana pulls back her right arm to prepare for a punch as her hand balls into a fist, and she throws a punch into the monster directly in front of her, but furthermore her arm begins rapidly growing as that fist flies further, stretching out to nearly twenty feet, moving at the speed of a bullet and with the strength one of too. She jerks her arm back, collapsing that stretched tentacle arm back to a normal length before leaping forward while Meditat behind her drops the minigun, extending his hands forward and firing flames forth which construct a long railgun cannon mounted on a hovering spherical base a few feet ahead of him, its barrel aiming straight down the road. Meditat climbs atop the railgun and sprints down the barrel as a frosty luminescence awakens from its hole at the end which Meditat leaps off of, boosting himself over Dana and reaching for her with both hands. He projects a wire from each hand onto her shoulders and jerks his arms while backflipping, lifting her into the air the moment before the railgun fires a heavy crystal round with a thunderous boom, obliterating many of the remaining monsters as only eight remain standing. Spinning Dana in a wheel, Meditat throws her towards that last eight as all eight of her tentacles bend as their tips reshape with simple needle-like points that plunge into the necks of all remaining monsters simultaneously as she lands back down.
Standing upright, Dana faces the survivors standing not far ahead of her, having stopped to watch in utter astonishment. As the floating orbs and railgun burn up and evaporate, Dana's tentacles reel into her back and her fingers revert subtly before she swings her arms forward, detaching those ten fingers forth which each transform into a golden specter. As Meditat lands at Dana's side, those golden specters ground themselves and approach the survivors, their claws retexturing diamond as their backs grow a tentacle. Behind them, Meditat raises his left arm up and projects a wire while declaring to the civilians, "You're safe to continue, they'll protect you." Without waiting another moment, he's lifted into the air, leading Dana to bend her knees and launch off the ground with a boom, racing up to Meditat who has projected another wire to swing himself around an intersection. As Dana turns with him, he yanks his arm before detaching the wire, replacing it with two from his hips to drive himself forwards at a faster speed. He also frees his hands so they can unleash flames to arm himself with a pair of submachine guns styled as MP5s as he reels directly towards a cluster of roots covering the sky above the roads from where monsters emerge from, rising from the top. Each root is angled differently, forming somewhat of a barrier, prompting Dana to transform her arms into guns too, her gaze sharpening with determination.
Both Meditat and Dana fire at the monsters they approach, toppling them off their roots to allow them to fly over it. Meditat continues to fire bursts at the Pawns in his sights, quickly depleting his ammunition to which he drops both guns and manifests a pair of sawed off shotguns upon landing on one of the roots between two monsters, aiming the shotguns perpendicular to blow both of their heads off before springing off the surface as Dana fires endless volleys of cyan bolts as bladed tentacles protrude from her shoulders to slash dangerously close beasts. The two navigate through the nest with quick precision, Dana turning sharply to slip into crevices between roots as Meditat uses those very roots to swing from, while his hands remain free to fire the second shots into another two demon heads. He drops those shotguns to replace with a pair of frosty sickles to carve a path onward as Dana's conal guns morph to smoothen with a straighter barrel only housing a single main barrel, but underneath it molds an underbarrel. While the main barrel continues firing rapid streams of cyan bolts, the underbarrel fires diamond grenades which explode on impact, using enough force to blow chunks off of the roots. Meanwhile Meditat jabs his right sickle into the bottom of a root above him, swinging off that sickle as its blade flares before exploding, severing that root in half as he then throws the other sickle like a boomerang, which slashes through the neck of a monster before reaching another root which the sickle detonates another chunk off of. Freeing his hands, he projects a wire onto the corner of a building at an intersection, making a turn to another street which Dana follows, finding another dense cluster of roots above the streets, and not too far down that street is a group of civilians scattered in another group of monsters who fall from those roots above, separating survivors from one another. Their destination in sight, the two continue battling through the roots: Dana raises her right arm which elongates as her hand morphs into a diamond scythe blade that she swings into a monster and the root it stands on, cutting both in half as her left hand gun reshapes into a shotgun which sprays energy pellets ahead while next to her Meditat zips from root to root, rapidly slashing demons with a pair of sais as flames produce from his swinging arms to construct small daggers that are propelled into further monsters, extending his range. Together, both of them traverse through the collection of roots, simultaneously planting their feet on the last one before the scattered survivors, and they both spring off. Dana's hands begin reverting just as two monsters also leap off one of the roots behind them, one pouncing towards Dana's back and another trying to slash Meditat from between the two. Meditat spins towards Dana as his sais evaporate and are replaced with a sniper rifle whose barrel manifests nearly inside the gaping mouth of the monster trying to slash him, and with a single trigger pull that lights up the beast's dark mouth, that gleaming bullet doesn't only penetrate through the back of its neck but through the neck of the monster about to land on Dana. Dana glances back casually at the falling corpse that had nearly caught her, before she then faces the survivors who scream as they try to run away in all directions from the monsters dropping over them. Her and Meditat exchange a gaze before she extends her arms open as if inviting a hug despite the dire environment. Meditat winces awkwardly but swiftly sighs in acceptance before a cable fires from his chest and attaches to hers, pulling himself into her embrace as they fly both of them towards the survivors, barreling in the air as Meditat doesn't hold her but rather keeps his palms facing past her.
They soar just over the chaotic crowd of monsters and survivors sprinkled between each other many of whom raise their heads, monsters and civilians alike, watching the comet infused with gold and azure fly over them before promptly braking perfectly above the center, freezing while above Meditat, letting her stare at the crowd underneath as Meditat is left staring at the root above.
All in a second, countless diamond tentacles emerge from Dana's back, not bending smoothly but in straight lines like the arcs of a lightning bolt, draping under her to approach the crowd as those tentacles branch out rapidly. In that second, all of those tentacles pierce through individual Pawns, calculated to precisely strike only the threats as not a single civilian is hit despite being scattered amongst them. At the end of that second, every monster around them has a single diamond tentacle through their body, and at the start of the next second, Meditat's palms breathe a blue blaze past Dana, weaving through the diamond tree of tentacles; upon reaching the open air between that tree and the black roots, that flame manifests a dome of spears that propel into those many roots, detonating all at once to blow the entire ceiling away into nothing but small chunks that wither away.
In just two seconds, that group of civilians in peril are cleared of the immediate horde, saved by the diamond tree planted around them as smoke from those frosty explosions disperse steadily above.