Officer Jeff Zhang looked down at the armored figure who was being loaded into the Ranger ambulance. If someone had told him when he was young that one day he'd arrest a figure who looked like he had stepped out of a Britonnian legend, he would have laughed at them for being a crazy person.

  Jeff pinched his own cheek, just to make sure his brain was functioning mostly correctly. His cheek hurt, so at least he could feel pain properly. He still doubted his own sanity, however.

  The purple and silver armor with draconic ornaments was impressive, sure, but the man wearing them was even more impressive, for one simple reason: He was very clearly not human. His skin had an odd purplish tint to it, and on his face were patterns of scales. Instead of ears, he had two massive horns with grooves in them, all covered with a mess of bluish-black hair that oddly had pale blue highlights. Jeff knelt down closer, not only to check the man's breathing—it was still slow and steady, which was partial evidence the sedatives were still in effect—but also to inspect the man's musculature. This was arguably one of the strongest people he'd ever encountered. Only some fighting-type mon specialists reached this level of buffness, or those odd Mericarian wrestlers.

  Of course, while most humans with training in the Auric Arts could achieve extreme feats of athleticism, Jeff recalled that his unconscious detainee had also leapt high enough he'd had to call out Wingsly, who was his answer to criminals who had the bright idea to flee to the skies after doing something criminal. Unlike most criminals that Jeff had encountered, though, this man didn't use a mon to achieve this act—somehow, wearing heavy armor, to say nothing of the wicked-looking spear—he had performed that leap all by himself.

  His partner, Officer Janine Li, finally caught up to him and held up a capture capsule. "I caught the Yeziblade. This guy..." she gestured with an open hand to their draconic charge, "...he softened it up quite a bit. I think we can tag it, and the brass will relocate it to a preserve or something. But that's not the biggest problem right now."

  Jeff shook his head. "Li, I know what you're thinking, and I don't know either. This is way above our paygrade. Let's deliver these two and let other people, like the Guardian, figure it out."

  Janine nodded slowly. "Do you think he's some kind of undiscovered mon or something? Though...I've never known a mon to use weapons or armor."

  Jeff looked down at the incapacitated warrior. "Don't know...not sure my heart could take finding out." He looked back to his partner. "Help me load this heavy jerk up, will you?"

  Janine grinned and put away the red-adorned capsule and pulled out a different one that was primarily black with yellow accents. She pressed the release button while holding it out in front of her. "Muscles, I need your help!"

  The figure that materialized in front of the two officers was vaguely humanoid, except that it had four arms, was a khaki-grey color, and had a bone structure that resembled a king's crown on its head. Its mouth was a flexible, shallow beak, and its lower section was covered in long furs that obscured its upper legs and lower torso. It flexed, and as it did, the muscles in the forearms bulged, and the abdominal muscles bulged with a power that human bodybuilders could only dream of emulating. A much longer mantle of hairs reached down from the figure's back and flowed out behind it like a regal cape.

  "Hulking!" it growled, then used all four of its arms to carefully lift the stretcher onto the all-terrain vehicle that the two officers used to patrol this patch of the Kongming Valley. After a moment was taken to secure the man—human or not, the Ranger corps could be sued by any number of environmental groups if something happened to their charge in transit—they sped along the packed dirt roads towards a city whose skyscrapers and highrises loomed in the distance.

  Even as Janine was petting Muscles the Hulking in the back and keeping an eye on the prisoner, Jeff was trying not to think about their situation when they got back to the Ranger station in Guandao City, where they were driving to. This wasn't going to be a normal debrief; that much was certain.

  Jeff found himself hoping against hope they wouldn't be asked any questions by the Guardian herself. Wasn't the point of officers to protect their people from politics?

  Ondun's consciousness returned to him with a jolt. This jolt, however, was due to a sudden bump, as if he was in a vehicle on a road. As he carefully opened his eyes, a bit at a time, he fondly recalled his first journey after he left home, to the Forest Realm of Eldifia. He was a green adventurer, in those days, with a cheap spear, some clothes, and a few coins in his pouch. He'd ridden in a carriage from his village, pausing only to pick up two standoffish Elvidan youths along the way, before a beast tribe attacked the carriage, and the Eldifian Rangers intervened. Ondan had never found out what happened to those men, he realized.

  Mindful of his shinobi training, Ondun didn't fully open his eyes. Given that he was in some manner of vehicle and he'd been hit with some kind of sleep potion dart, Ondun realized he had been taken captive during his duel with that bladed monster. Instead, keeping the slit of his open eyes as small as possible, he began taking in fine details.

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  The first thing Ondun noticed was a woman in a blue uniform giggling with a massive, four-armed humanoid monster. She sprayed some substance—a healing potion?—onto some scratches and watched as they began to slowly mend. Ondun was no alchemist, but something about the potion seemed different than any he'd used in his travels. Still, the sight of a moderately attractive human woman not just working alongside a monster but treating it as a close friend was something he never thought he'd see...and Ondun had seen quite a bit in his short life.

  Ondun's eyes traced the rest of the vehicle. He was lying flat; he knew this because there was a narrow window where he was watching the canopy of this forest fly by overhead. This vehicle was moving faster than most of the mounts Ondun could call on, with the exception of the animaskiff that Sid had created during his efforts to end a millennia-long war, so he could raid a massive dragon's sky island with his friends.

  The helmet was constraining Ondun's vision. The inside of the vehicle was painted white, and he would need to move to get more information. So it was that Ondun decided to play things a bit risky. He let out a loud groan and sat up, easily breaking the ropes that were binding him to what appeared to be a gurney. Immediately the man and the woman went on guard, and the man driving the vehicle put his foot on the pedal, making the vehicle launch forward.

  He broke the other rope and reached up to his cuirass, drawing on the third gem's power. With a flash of sky blue, his armor was replaced with a flowing sky blue robe, with some silver vambraces and armor pieces. A visor with a sapphire appeared on his face. He immediately raised the visor.

  "Greetings. You wouldn't happen to have seen my friends anywhere, would you?" He asked, reaching through his gift to ensure his words were communicated to the startled people and monster.

  "You have friends!?" she asked, with some panic in her voice. The four-armed monster pushed her back gently with one forearm and moved in front of his ally. Ondun could respect that; he'd done that on more than one occasion himself.

  Being sure to keep his voice gentle and a smile on his face, he lowered the visor and scanned the burly monster. There were some scratches, and they were healing, but as a trained Medicus, he would be able to help the process along and possibly get some information while he was at it.

  "If I may...may I see those scratches, friend?" he asked the monster. It warily nodded, so he broke the remaining restraint and examined the arms. "Here, let me mend those for you. These are the most shallow of flesh wounds. You'll be fighting fit in no time."

  The four spelliths on his back floated out about him as he channeled a spell, his hand over the scratches. The pale blue light of Medicus healing followed a path from hand to wound as positive anima bound the monster's flesh back together. After only half a second of this, the spelliths deactivated and returned to the wing-like anchors on the back of his robes.

  The woman was wide-eyed with shock, as if she'd never seen magic before or something. He smiled. "Your friend should be all better now."

  The monster flexed his previously wounded limbs. "Hulking! Hulkhulk!" it cried, satisfied, and then gave Ondun a pat on the back that nearly slammed him into the wall of the vehicle.

  Minor panic aside, Ondun gave a chuckle. "Happy to help, big guy."

  The woman looked back. "What was that!? And...how am I hearing you? I don't know that language, but I understand you. Talk! What's going on here? Are you some kind of psychic Mon?"

  Ondun tilted his head. "I'm a Medicus. Sure, this profession isn't exactly common, but I'd expect a woman-at-arms like yourself to have healer support in the field, especially if you're working with powerful monsters, like your friend here. I just used a simple healing spell to mend his wounds, is all."

  The woman stuttered for a moment. "But...what are you? You talk like a human or something. The only times that's happened in the past are when a legendary mon needs something..."

  Ondun thought for a moment. "Mon" must be their word for monsters. "I assure you, I'm no Mon, nor a member of the Beast Folk. Have you never met a Draconian before?"

  The woman shook her head. "What's a Draconian?"

  Ondun had a moment where he wanted to just gesture to himself and raise an eyebrow, but that wouldn't be helpful. Instead, he opted to give her the short version. "Long ago, dragons came to our world from the stars. Being creatures made of pure anima, they were able to construct vessels for their immense souls. They married into the mortal races, producing people like me. I have slightly more physical and magical might than a baseline human, sure, but I am nonetheless a person, just like you or your friend over there." He gave the man in the front of the vehicle a polite nod.

  The woman tapped her lip, clearly thinking. She was wearing a deep red lipstick, and some of it transferred onto the white gloves of her uniform. "I've never heard a story like that. I mean, sure, humans can't explore everywhere in the world, but I feel like if there was another race in this world, we'd know by now."

  The city ahead was growing larger. Already the bumping had stopped, and the drive was becoming a lot smoother. Other vehicles were giving the vehicle a wide berth as it sped into increasingly dense traffic. There were a mix of metallic vehicles, but also people on Mons. A young man and woman were atop a horse whose fur looked like it was on fire, while a dolphin-like creature was supporting a child as it skipped across the surface of a clearly artificial pond. Other people were walking, while a fox-like creature blinked into existence with a human beside it in front of a building with a familiar capsule-like insignia on it.

  With the human city looming in front of him, Ondun decided to help allay some of these people's fears. While he doubted they'd have any more useful information for him, and he was confident that he could defeat them while embodying the Medicus profession, if Ondun wanted to return to his friends or heal the ones whose souls had been siphoned by that mysterious sorcerer, he would need allies. Fortunately, getting people to tell you their problems was old hat for any adventurer worth their salt.

  "At any rate..." Ondun carefully stepped away from the two and sat on one of the padded seats on the walls of the vehicle. "I am your prisoner, for the moment. Nonetheless, I will need some help. I apologize for my offense. I hope we can work together."

  The woman nodded slowly and exhaled, as if she'd expected that exchange to go far worse.

  Ondun decided to play things cool for now, but inside he was starting to panic just a little. It was becoming increasingly clear that he was no longer on Arcanis anymore.