"Hmmm?" A quick look to prove things. "...no, I don't see anything. Maybe you're-"

Matt paused, and glanced down.

The section of street beneath them lost its pebbly texture, shifting to a polished silver as large, empty eye sockets tore open in its mass.

"Shit!" Matt leaped up as spikes made of the silver shot upwards from the mass.

R.D. turned around as Matt swore, and leaped back himself. "What the hell!?" he said, looking at the silvery goop while drawing a Phase Blade. "What the hell is that thing!?"

The silver rose until it was as tall as an adult, and it split into a skeletal structure, its fingers laced with claws and its feet rooting in the earth. A crest fanned itself about its monstorous skull.

Matt's eyes widened. "The Flux!"

At once the monster leaned back with a silent roar;. Its ribcage snapped open and drove silvery tentacles at Matt, each one ending with some sort of fabricated sword or axe or hammer to utterly destroy him. They smashed uselessly down as he leapt away, but this was enough for the Flux to turn his attention on R.D., swinging a limb at him that morphed into a sickle as it cut through the air.

"The Flux!?" R.D. shouted, leaping backwards to avoid the sickle blade the monster slashed at him. "I thought you said you killed this thing already!"

Lifting a hand up into the air, a sphere of energy manifested above his palm. With a grunt, R.D. swung his arm down, flinging the energy orb at the creature's arm to blow it off.

The arm was blown apart by the blast, only for it to regenerate in moments.

"I thought I did too!" Matt shouted. A gust spiralled about his hand until he thrust it toward the Flux. "Tornado Buster!" A halo of powerful wind shot at the monster, sending it flying a short distance before it replanted itself.

"Damn it!" He forgot how weak wind was...it was great for mobility, sure, but as a weapon, it was horrible. But could he risk switching to another element before the Flux attacked him again?

R.D. combined his Phase Blades at the pommel, and swung the Phase Lance down in a fighting position. "I hope you got a plan, Matt!" he said, rushing forwards at the creature. A few yards before he reached the Flux, he leaped upwards into the air, raising the double-bladed sword overhead and slashing it downwards at the creature's cresting skull.

"Keep him busy!" Matt spread his arms. All right...had to gather power. What could he use?

He saw a lone cloud overhead. Of course.

R.D.'s Phase Lance tore through the Flux even as it moved. It wasn't trying to avoid the blow, though-now it had an opening, rearing back its arm, which twisted into a massive spiked mace that sailed at R.D.'s head.

R.D. swore and ducked his head, avoiding the hammering arm narrowly, and threw himself backwards to avoid any further strikes, taking his Phase Lance with him. Splitting the weapon and deactivating it, he realized it'd be useless--this thing regenerated damn quick.

Again he generated a pair of plasma bursts, like he had against Wulfe, and threw them one after another at the Flux. The second shot smashed into the first one mid-flight and combined with it, causing it to become an angry red and double in size.

===

The four kids quickly made their way to where the sound was coming from, only to hear more sounds--voices. They sounded older, though, like Colleen's and her boyfriend's. Looking at each other, the kids made their way towards the noise, not even contemplating the danger. Quickly spotting an downward-sloping alley, they made their way through, using a shortcut.

The leader of the group found a doorway in an adjacent alleyway, and opened it up to lead the other three kids inside, thinking to better be safe than sorry--he heard the voices just at the end of the alley. Because of the slope, they found themselves on the second story of an old antiques store, and they made their way to the windows so they could see what was going down on the street below.

Upon seeing the Flux, they instantly regretted it. Ileyna found herself riveted to the spot, staring down at the monster as two teenagers battled it.

The burst exploded the Flux with a satisfying impact, splattering silver mass all about the street. Only its legs remained intact, but the torso began to replace itself as the bits of silver that were blown away launched at RD, reforming into a sharp herd of needles.

"Nyaggh!"

R.D. leaped backwards several times, avoiding the volley of needles before they could tear into him. Unbeknownst to them, the kids in the building next to them fell back from the windows as the globs struck them, startled by the blast.

"Dammit!" R.D. swore, glaring at the monster. "How in the hell can we kill this thing!?"

"Frost Tomb!"

A ball of ice sailed at the Flux and exploded in a burst of cold mist. As it faded, the silver monster was captured in a formation of jagged ice.

"I don't know how long that's gonna hold, so we gotta think fast!" Matt shouted, running over.

"Won't do us much good if we can't stop this thing from regenerating," R.D. said, looking at Matt as he came over. "That battle was just going nowhere. Got any ideas?"

Did it have a piece of the Omega Core? That's what helped the giant Flux regenerate constantly last time...but how to extract it? The last time he used that move...but could he even do it again?

"Maybe if we melt the shit out of it, it'll die," Matt suggested. "It worked in a movie I once saw."

Edited by The Helldragon on October 8, 2008 at 23:52:48.

"We gotta go get Colleen!" the younger boy said, tugging at the leader's shirt. Distractedly, he nodded and backed away, and the two other kids quickly ran back towards the door, hightailing it away from the scene.

Ileyna, on the other hand, couldn't bring herself to leave. She stared fixedly at the battle, jumping slightly as the skeletal creature was frozen solid from a block of ice from the sky. Her hands were pressed against the glass as she watched.

R.D. held up a hand and generated a sphere of flame in front of it, readying the Dragon Blaze attack. "Works for me," he growled, readying himself to throw it. "Get your own attack ready. Let's take this son of a bitch down together."

"I can't!" Matt snapped, in a panic. "My powers don't work like that anymore!"

R.D. cursed under his breath, and flung out his other hand, readying a second Dragon Blaze. "Alright, I'll take care of him myself!" he said, glaring at the frozen monster, which he knew would break free soon.

Ileyna's eyes widened in shock, and she knew that if they continued, something terrible would happen.

And then suddenly, something took her over.

Overhead, the glass suddenly shattered, scattering it everywhere as blazing blue light shone overhead, and the two heard a voice cry out desperately.

"Stop!"

R.D.'s head snapped up in surprise, and he felt his jaw drop open. Overhead, a young girl hovered in the air, alight in a brilliant blue aura. Her arms were spread out, and emanating from the back of her dress and bolero were what could only be wings--four of them, made up of two long, triangular blades of light, tipped with hollow, diamond shaped feathers; the two upper wings were longer than the lower wings. A faint halo circled above her beret, and ablaze on her forehead was a familiar symbol: the greek symbol of Omega, stylized into something awfully familiar.

Slowly, the girl floated down to the street ahead of R.D. and Matt, almost ignoring them completely. She settled down on her feet in front of the frozen Flux, looking at it without emotion on her face.

Matt was momentarily dumbfounded as the girl drifted down in fromt of them, but reality quickly reasserted itself. "Hey, what the hell are you doing?!" he cried out. "Get back!"

Cracks appeared in the icy trap until it shattered with a great rush of cold, spreading icicles to join the blots of silver along the street. The Flux wasted no time in rearing back for another attack.

The girl paid no attention to the ice and mist as it spread out across the street from the now freed Flux. Instead, she floated up slightly, a hollow, melodic chiming coming from her form, and she lifted her left hand up at an angle. Soft light emanated from her glowing hand as she held it with her index and middle fingers straight and together, her ring finger bent slightly, and her little finger curled in.

"Recro!"

The chiming grew a bit louder, and R.D. could feel the strange power rolling off of the girl in waves. He could see that the Flux was stopping in its movements, as well. The girl continued, making a strange Latin chant.

"Singulus... restituo... animus..."

Her hand waved down and pointed directly at the Flux's head as she chanted the final word, the light intensifying around her hand.

"Substantia!"

Power washed out of her hand in silvery-blue ripples in the air, bursting rapidly. The light seemed to warp around the Flux, distorting its appearance to anyone who looked, even has energy was drawn out of it, gathering into a single point in the air in front of the glowing girl.

===Argentina, South America===

The men and women in the room identified themselves to Siegfried, then settled down to begin the interrogation. "First of all, why don't you tell us who you and your friend are," the mayor, a stout-looking man in his fifties, asked of the German knight.

Peace rolled through Matt's body, calming his tense muscles. This girl...he couldn't explain it, but this aura she was emitting...what power was this?

The Flux tried to swing. It came out languid, as its body succumbed to the light the girl spread from her fingers, dripping, collapsing into a silvery pool before her, until shrinking into nothingness. The intended blade along its arm never even made the halfway point.

The energies extracted from the Flux condensed, building up into something bright. There was a brilliant flash of light, and in the place of the energy was a blazing azure shard, like shimmering glass. The shard floated in the air for a few brief moments, slowly rotating while it glowed, then dropped down onto the street with a soft plinking noise.

The strange, aura-enshrouded girl took a breath, then raised her arms slightly and began to ascend, gaining speed and altitude. Once she was hovering over the buildings, her body moved in a rapid, unbelievably quick fashion, darting about randomly and leaving a bright blue trail of light, and then suddenly zipped off into a certain direction.

Matt stared at the resulting trail, watching as the girl flew off. What the hell just happened? Sure, she saved them from a prolonged fight from the Flux...but how the hell did she do that?

Something dropped the ground with a clink and a spike of power. Matt turned, and saw it-on the street was another glimmering piece of glass.

"Look!" he cried out, and ran to pick it up. "Another piece of the Core!"

R.D. looked where that weird girl had gone. Who was she? How in the hell had she extracted that piece of glass from the Flux? He had no answers. What he did have was an energy signature left in the air--they could track her, at least. This energy was a LOT less subtle than the Pillar of Dawn's energies, these anyone who could sense energies could trace it.

He looked over at Matt as he ran to the piece on the ground. So the creature had another piece of the Omega Core? "I don't know when, Matt, but sometime today, things took a turn for the weird," he said, running over to his friend.

Matt clenched the fragment tightly in his fist, reflecting on it. "When have things ever been normal?" he asked, with a smirk. Shoving it in his pocket, he began running. "Come on! Let's follow her and find out what's going on!"

"Right!" R.D. said, nodding. Turning, he zeroed in on the girl's energy signature and began to run, following it across the city.

===

Ileyna settled down in front of a building, stepping down on her feet. Almost instantly, the glow around her faded, taking the wings, the halo, and symbol on her forehead with it. The pentagonal gemstone hanging around her neck gleamed slightly as she took a single breath and opened her eyes.

She... wasn't quite sure what happened just now. She could remember it, all of it, but it was as if something dormant had woken up inside of her. She just knew that if that one boy had attacked that creature, something bad would have happened.

Ileyna looked around. "Where's Colleen at?" she wondered aloud, looking for the girl. Trotting around the building, she began making her way to the pavilion where Colleen was usually at.

===

R.D. couldn't believe his luck. Wherever that girl had gone off to, it was in the direction of the Pillar of Dawn. He could feel two sets of energy signatures--the one left by the girl, like a pulsing strand of light in his mind's eye, and the other, softer, subtler, yet infinitely more brilliant, growing stronger as they approached.

Turning the corner, around a building, he suddenly stopped, halting in his tracks, and just in time, too--in front of him was a young man, with hard eyes and short blond hair. He wore simple clothing, jeans and a dark green, and a black jacket over it. That in itself didn't bother R.D.--the automatic pistol that was aimed right at his face had his attention.

Beyond the new guy lie a large pavilion, circular in design and dipping slightly. And towering in the center of it, blazing with that soft morning's light from its translucent surfaces, was the Pillar of Dawn. R.D. could see a young woman near it, kneeling down and talking to a girl in a white dress--a girl that looked exactly like the one that had extracted the piece of the Omega Core from him.

Not much he could do about that with this guy holding him at gunpoint, though.

"Um... hi?"

"Hey, what's the-" Matt stopped as well as soon as he caught sight of that unfriendly hand cannon. "Whoa, man!" He lifted his hands-open, nonconfrontational. "Calm down. We're not gonna try anything funny. Just put down the gun, all right?"

"No," the man said, keeping his hand steady. "Not until you tell me who you are and what in the hell you're doing here. Bad enough you've brought battles back to this city."

"I'm R.D.," R.D. replied, aiming a thumb over his shoulder using one of his raised hands. "That's Matt."

"R.D. and Matt, huh?" he said. He looked slightly over his shoulder, over towards the two girls. R.D. noted wryly that this guy was no amateur; he could see that the young man made sure he and Matt were within eyesight, and that gun did not move. "Hey, Colleen!" he shouted, catching the young woman's attention. The younger looked up at them, and her eyes widened in shock. The little girl quickly scampered around, hiding behind the Pillar of Dawn.

"Are these those two guys your friends talked about?" he said. After a moment, she trotted up to them, where R.D. could make out more details of her. She looked quite pretty, and it seemed like she was in her early twenties, and was just as tall as he and Matt. Her hair was blond with brown streaks in it, and traveled down to her shoulders. Light green eyes, not as bright as R.D.'s, regarded the two of them for a moment. She wore a short-sleeved red and white shirt, and jeans with frayed edges. Strapped on a white belt was a scabbard, holding a sword with a red-colored hilt and a white crossguard shaped like wings. A small emerald was placed in a gold panel between the crossguard, most of which was hidden from view.

"Yeah, they look like those two Alasea talked about," she said after a moment or two. Only then did the man hold up his gun, and R.D. let out a sigh of relief.

"Look, we didn't mean to cause any trouble," Matt said. "We got sneak attacked, but, uh, we got a little bit of help." He lifted a finger and casually gestured to the Pillar of Dawn, where he saw the girl dart behind. "I think she's a bit shy of people who can throw fireballs, but hey, everyone tends to be at one point or another."

Colleen looked over at where Matt pointed, and saw Ileyna peeking out from behind the Pillar of Dawn, watching them. Turning her eyes back at him, and with a sardonic grin on her face, she said, "Yeah, I'll bet."

She looked over at the young man with her. "Jordan, you better go get the kids together and tell them its safe."

The young man--Jordan?--nodded to Colleen and holstered his weapon, turning and walking off in some direction. "Sorry about the trouble," Colleen said, turning and walking back towards the sacred totem. "I felt your presence the moment you two appeared but didn't know who you were, so we've been on edge."

"You know what happened, then?" R.D. asked, following after her. She nodded.

"I heard about it. A bit surprised at what happened," she said, "Didn't realize now would be when her powers decided to manifest."

"So do you have any idea what her powers are, exactly?" Matt asked. "I mean, she melted a monster pretty good, but that's all we've seen so far."