The wind whipped past Handmaiden as she stared down into the vat eyes of the creature that most certainly had to be the boss of the dungeon break. Her gown whipped arouhe rustling of fabric the only sound amidst the eerie silence of the epiter. She flexed the fingers in her gau-cd hands and gnced up at the sky when the boss didn’t move. Guarding the portal, no doubt, she thought as multicolored lightning fshed soundlessly in dark clouds. She reached up to tap her earpiece twice. “Select tact: Sapporo.”

  There was a moment's pause as the signal clicked over and a chime rang out.

  <“This is Sapporo, who is this? How do you have this el?”>

  “Handmaiden, what is your status?” she asked.

  <”Uood. I am almost recovered. What is the situation?”>

  She set her jaw and took a deep breath. Describing the situation in any suffit way was hopeless. Grief was hard to e by. Not out of heartlessness, but from the sheer volume edy that had visited this pce. The amount of death was staggering. To walk through a pce like this even once would touch a person for the rest of their life. She looked down at her armored fingers as she mulled over how to respond. A you saw so many more. She ched her fist a out a weary sigh.

  “Unspeakable,” she said, “I have some bad o put on top of it all, though. I’m sorry,” she said, “I figure you’d rather hear it from me than someone else.”

  “Say it,” he said after a chilly pause.

  “The anonster has Takehara’s face,” she said.

  Another pause, ohat made her heart ache a little. She closed her eyes as he finally spoke again, “I see. Thank you for telling me. Will you do me a favor, Miss Handmaiden?”

  “Anything,” she said.

  “I must protect the people, get them away from the affected area. It will take time for me to build up strength to participate,” he rumbled, his words hollow, “Don’t wait for me. End his suffering, please.”

  “I will.”

  –

  “Snow!” Crusader shouted, throwing herself forwards across the fissure ireet ahead of her. Static filled the air that solidated into a ptform of light. Crusader nded on it and hopped forward, pushing herself towards the other side and nding. She spun as she slid to a stop, pnting her feet and gripping her on with both hands. A dome of golden fme burst from her body, more trolled than before, more refined. She was starting to get the hang of it.

  She took a step back as the first of the yamukade-what Snow had started calling the undead tipede taurs-leaped over the other side in a desperate scramble to get to her. She took deep breath in, gold fmes rushing up her nostrils. Her veins glowed bright as the creature began to burn the moment it entered her space. Its skin sloughed off, its wild eyes popping as it reached for it in maddened pain. She swung and relieved it of its head as two more came. Oep to the right, downward ssh. Oep forward, uppercut.

  Square step. Minimize movement. Let them wash towards me. My very presence is pain for them but they e anyway. Let it happen.

  A step to the left, another swing, back to the beginning. Momentum built. Power cyg in her core, her internal energy rising higher and higher. Far ahead of her, along the path she had e, the creatures hurtled into the air with their bodies smashed or crushed. A mountainous figure charged through them with her hammer swinging in wide strokes. Any time one of the creatures mao pivot to lunge a bck streak embedded itself in its head, putting it down.

  Two more tried to throw themselves over the fissure only for a pair of enormous arms coated in bck scales to snap out from far below and drag them down with a terrible fleshy ch. The third fell victim to yet another swing of her sword as the bulk of the horde finally arrived, pushed along by Harbinger and Bandit.

  “Let’s try it Snow! Pig up the pace!” she called.

  “Hell yes!” Snow shouted back with delight.

  Crusader exhaled a small tuft of golden fme as the words crossed her lips. Light flickered around her body along with the sound of static. The moment she stepped bad left an afterimage of herself behind, her eyes fixed on the sea of targets before her. Some being pulled down into the fissure below but not all. “First March of the Crusader,” she said with an eerie calm and swung. Fmes rushed out from her bde in a wave, cutting two of them in two. A step to the right, another afterimage, another swing. Halluations of her appeared with each step she took, each moving in different steady dires. The read arcs of her attacks making the source even more fusing.

  The yamukade spread out rather than focus on where she was really standing. Igniting as they nded all around her. It was her personal killing field. They could enter, ast her, but they could not get away. Nothing could.

  –

  Crusader wiped her lip as she surveyed the test hunt before turning to look at the others. BLF was about as tall as Harbinger now, his body bulked out with all the additional mass he’d ed. She imagihat the boy he’d been when she’d met him would have been grinning right about now. Instead he was standing dead ter of where they were resting, his head on a swivel, his tongue flig out stantly as his eyes sed every shadow. Harbinger sat on the ground, her horns covered in blood and her perfect blonde hair a disturbing pink. Her blue eyes glowed as she flicked a gowards Crusader and nodded grimly. Crusader returhe nod.

  We aren’t going to be the same after this, she thought hollowly before turning to Snoas sitting atop a vending mae with her eyes unfocused. Her fiwitg. Those pearlest eyes flicked towards her for a moment and softened with a bit of reassuring warmth befoing right back to work. Thank goodness you’re here, you’ve got spine for all of us.

  Crusader let out a breath and gnced up to the sky, whistling once. A cry rang out and Alphonse swept down to her arm. “Anything?” she asked.

  Alphonse spread his wings and then looked her dead in the eyes. Instinct took over. She let it happen. ahat feeling she got when she first met him. That mutual uanding. “Not Rivet, but someone like him?” she asked.

  Bandit stepped out of a shadow nearby, “Where?” he asked with a frown.

  She returned her attention to Alphonse and he whipped his head towards the path they were already heading down before tilting it to the east. “East,” she said, “Not far ahead though. Waiting for someoo e their way.”

  “Definitely stalling for time like you said,” Bandit growled, “Harbinger firmed they’re actually Liberty’s people?”

  Crusader nodded and gnced up to meet Harbinger’s gaze. Her rade got to her feet and started lumbering over, “Yeah. They’re g to be Ishtar’s people. I think…” she swallowed, “I think Tokyo got caught up in their war.”

  “Ishtar wants order,” Harbinger growled as she approached, Crusader looked her over. Her wounds were healing faster than ever. Growth in her ability? This whole thing was like a crucible for them. “She’s made that clear in many of her addresses. She doesn’t want dungeon breaks.”

  Bandit spat on the ground, “What was it she said? ‘I ’t rule a dead world?’ or something to that effect?” he turer, “What do you think? Is this a strategy to discredit her ptform in the eyes of the other vilins?”

  Static filled the air, “We’re still missing something from all this. My gut tells me we’re only seeing a small part of the picture,” Snow said.

  BOOOOOM!

  The ground shook as a fsh of white light erupted to the south, in the dire of the epiter. Crusader stumbled and spun towards the source with the others. BLF nded o her, likely having leaped over to join them. He crossed his arms, “What the hell was that? The boss?”

  Bandit shook his head as a feeling washed over Crusader. It felt… righteous. Protective. A stalresence. Illuminating. He smiled nostalgically as she and the others looked at him; “That’s Handmaiden putting her bato it.”

  Crusader let out a sigh of relief, “That means things will e to a close soht? A rare boss doesn’t stand a ce.”

  Bandit frowned, “With how unusual this situation is, I wouldn’t be so sure. I’m sure you all have also noticed that we haven’t seen any backup either.”

  Crusader turo look at him, a bad feeling warring in her gut, “I noticed but-”

  He sighed, “Tokyo manages six dungeons. This one wasn’t one of them. Could you imagine if another one of them burst from the mana release? Now, Handmaiden is fighting and Sapporo is probably going to try to join at some point,” he said as more pops and fshes of white light erupted from that distant pce, the sound of thunder g followed them. “They’ll have to work extra hard to keep those dungeons stable. I think we’re on our own until the boss is do least on this side of Kato Ward.”

  Crusader watched as worry crossed BLFs face, “But we only cover so much area!”

  She nodded her agreement, “There’s no way we caught every monster on the way.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that, heroes!”

  Crusader felt a chill run up her spine as she whirled towards the new voice. She looked up to the roof of a building only a few hundred feet away. I didn’t sehem! Alpho out a screech of warning when two figures came into view on top of the building. One was a bulky man with a smiling, almost wholesome face. He wore a white jumpsuit armored with ptes. His hair was bd bed over ly. The other was a thin looking woman with a grave look on her face. She wore matg armor. She was twirling somethiween her fingers in both hands that Crusader could only make out when she paused.

  Crusader’s heart stopped.

  Human bones.

  Crusader steadied herself stood with her sword at the ready, her eyes fixed owo vilins standing atop the building. She shot a gowards BLF who had moved himself into a position to her left. Static filled her ears along with a quick affirmation that Bandit and Snow had already begun moving to new vantage points, leaving illusions of themselves behind in their wake. Harbiepped past her, the titan of a woman standing tall despite her bloody and world-weary state.

  “Pend Song,” she growled.

  The big man of the two turned his smiling face towards Harbinger and his eyes brightened. “Oho! Young miss! Rivet said you were here! To think you and yroup did such a number on him,” he said with a shake of his head.

  “Quit pretending to be something that you aren’t, Pence,” Harbinger snapped. Crusader watched her friends back tense, her hands tightening around her hammer as she pulled it closer to her chest.

  Pe his hands on his hips, “Wooow! You’ve really groine sihe st time I saw you sniveling at your sister’s feet!” he ughed and rubbed his nose, “It’s Sojurn by the way, and this is Dirge,” he said, gesturing to the grave looking woman sitting on the roof o him.

  Sojourn and Dirge. Probably get some hints from their ames. Crusader thought as she took a half step to the right, her eyes fixed on the pair. She shot a look towards Harbinger. She wasn’t sure if her friend was just angry to dig for informatioher way, the lohis versatiohe better. She g Alphonse who tensed on her shoulder, ready to take a as soon as he was needed.

  Harbiook a hostile step forward, “What is she really pnning, Pence?” she put a hard snap o word, drawing an odd rea from the bck-haired man. He smiled even wider.

  “I’m going to enjoy breaking you, but not until we punish the rest of yroup for what you did to Rivet,” he decred, “The Doctor isn’t happy about having to fix him up.”

  Crusader watched Harbinger’s entire body go still. Her ally’s hammer nearly dropped out of her hands, “The Doctor is here?” Crusader squi her friend. Was that… relief?

  “Yeah, she’s here,” Sojourn said, delighted by her rea, “With the anonster. I wonder how your mythic friend is going to do?”

  Crusader took a step forward, “I think you’re uimating Handmaiden,” she shouted and took up a stanext ter, she shot her friend a look as well as a f note of warmth through her ability, “As well as the rest of us. Now who is this doctor and what did you mean earlier about us not having to worry about the monsters?”

  Harbiraightened up a bit, meeting Crusader’s gaze and smiled a little. “They’re both the same ahe Doctor’s ability lets her trol and manipute monsters. She’s been sending them our way,” Harbinger said before flig her eyes back towards the pair standing before them. “They’ve been trying to wear us down for this fight by throwing all the monsters at us in waves. Which means not many of them have go into the rest of the city.”

  “You make it sound like we’re worried about fighting you,” Shed.

  Harbinger drew her hammer up and smmed the pole into the ground, adjusting her gaus. She popped her ned grinned up at Sojourn, “Are you? Have you been watg?” She asked before patting Crusader on the shoulder. “I think you’ll find we’re fresher than you expected,” her expressio hard, “Aer equipped.”

  Crusader searched her friend's face for a moment before it dawned ohey were just blindly throwing the monsters at their group. Rivet had seen a bit of their abilities, but didn’t know the full restorative nature of Crusader’s power or the fact that Bandit had joined up with them. She shot a gowards BLF. They didn’t know about BLF’s ability growing more funal and powerful as he gained mass. They were operating uhe uanding that their team was a bunch of freshly minted heroes. Worse. They were far less bloodthirsty than Rivet. They wao talk.

  Sojourn seemed to pause as his face pao take their group in again. Behind him, a dark shape began to billow out from within the shadow of a rge air-ditioning unit. Crusader got into her stance, on up and at the ready. BLF shifted a bit further to the left while staying within the range of her golden ring. Harbiook a few heavy steps to the right, her eyes fixed on Sojourn. His attention had pao the two very still illusions standing behind Crusader and her group. She saw his eyes go wide.

  “Dirge!” he shouted and threw himself off the side of the building just as Inky took form behind them with his hammer raised. The cartoonish familiar brought the hammer down with a lunatic cackle, striking the empty spot where both Dirge and Sojourn had been. Arrows came , a stream of beedles that pelted the duo as they headed towards the ground. Dirge opened her mouth and held out her hands, the bones in her grip multiplying as a hollow groaning ch out from her chest. A sphere of yellow-white bone ed around the two, blog the arrows just in time for them to hit the ground.

  “GO!” Crusader shouted and charged forward, the ground at their feet turning into a sea of crystalline spikes. She walked right through it, unimpeded as Harbinger shot past her. Crusader opened up her ring of gold and a wave of fire and warmth washed over her panions before buffeting the bohat stood between them and their targets. Harbinger was at the sphere in an instant, her hammer ing down with titanic force. She cracked the bone shell like an egg, fragments scattering and burning up in the air as a bde of bone shot up to catch her in the jaw. Sojurn’s mass darted out of the shell and charged straight towards Crusader. Every step caused him to accelerate as his armored body turned into a bullet.

  “DIE!”