Shadow Slave

The Crow waved its wings, clearly agitated, and cawed:

"Jet! Jet!"

Sunny let out a shaky breath, feeling a lot of relief. If the Echo was still here, Soul Reaper couldn\'t be dead. He took a step toward the bird and asked:

"Where is she?"

Instead of answering, the Crow flew away, landed on a communication relay a dozen meters away, and looked back expectantly.

In this way, the Echo led Sunny to Master Jet.

After finding her, Sunny remained silent for a few moments.

Then, he coughed.

"Well, uh... that was not what I expected to see."

Jet was hanging upside down, her body caught in the jagged mess of torn alloy beams. One of them was piercing her abdomen like a hook, and her arm was caught between two others. Despite the ghastly situation, there was a calm and slightly annoyed expression on Soul Reaper\'s face.

"Yeah, well. Care to help me get down? I can do it myself, of course, but... I would prefer for my insides to remain on the inside for a little bit longer."

She could probably free herself. Simple alloy would not have held back a Master for long... but with how thoroughly trapped Jet was, ripping herself off the hook would have probably exacerbated her wounds by a lot. Not everyone had the lineage of a tenacious daemon to help them recover and skin as hard as enchanted marble.

Sunny studied the tangled mess of alloy beams, then floated up with the help of the Dark Wing and carefully pulled Master Jet off the jagged hook. With a quiet hiss, she slid off the bloodied alloy and fell down, landing softly on her feet.

"Argh, damn it..."

Jet clutched her abdomen with a grimace, and then slowly straightened. Sunny landed nearby and looked at her with concern.

"That... are you going to be alright?"

Instead of answering, Soul Reaper spat a mouthful of blood, then looked at him with a dark smile. Her teeth were all painted red, so the smile was not very reassuring.

"Don\'t worry about it. I am a very sturdy girl... woman. Whatever. The point is, it will be as good as new in a couple of days, even without a healer."

Sunny scratched the back of his head, then hesitated for a few moments. Eventually, he said:

"...I was afraid that you died."

Master Jet laughed, then winced and clutched her wound tighter.

"Died? That\'s... the last thing you should be afraid of. Believe me, Sunny, I won\'t die on this godforsaken continent. It\'s impossible."

He shook his head at her bravado, then sighed.

"Alright. Do you want me to tell you how the battle went?"

Soul Reaper waved her hand.

"Crow saw it. Good job handling the Gate... I am a bit embarrassed that I wasn\'t there to help. There are several others that opened either near or within the city. All of them were contained, it\'s just this particular one that was an unpleasant surprise. The Devouring Cloud also seems to have retreated, for now."

She frowned.

"You observed it too, right?"

Sunny nodded with a dark expression.

"A new tyrant must have risen from within the swarm. The damned leeches were acting too purposefully."

Master Jet used his shoulder for support and pulled him forward. They slowly walked through the ruins of the staging area, looking like two cripples.

"Yeah... that is why the Devouring Cloud pulled away before being destroyed. It will probably be back later."

Sunny closed his eyes for a moment.

\'Gods... there are so many priority targets converging on the city. I hoped that we would destroy at least one today.\'

He glanced at Jet, his eyes tired.

"So what do we do now?"

She simply shrugged.

"Go find our people. Rest, recover. Prepare to repeat the whole thing tomorrow."

Indeed. What else was there to do?

Life was a constant struggle.

Since the wall was broken now, they had to find an elevator that would take them to the proper side of the breach. Even worse, the pulse of the Gate had destroyed a lot of fine machinery, so finding a working platform was not easy.

Eventually, however, they made it to the top of the defensive barrier and returned to the position of the Irregulars.

The first one they saw was Winter, who sat tiredly on the alloy surface of the battlement, her eyes hidden once again behind the sunglasses. A thin crack ran through one of the lenses. Hearing their steps, she turned her head slightly.

A pale smile appeared on her face.

"The heroes return. You two... look like crap."

Master Jet scoffed, which caused her to wince once again. "Thanks for the compliment."

Sunny helped her sit down, then looked around, searching for his cohort. Noticing the towering figure of Dorn a dozen or so meters away, he breathed out heavily with relief and asked, his voice almost devoid of tension:

"So, how did it go? Do we have any casualties?"

Winter did not respond, prompting him to look down.

Her face was uncharacteristically somber.

Sunny felt something cold brush against his heart.

"What?"

The Ascended Archer sighed, then looked down.

"About that... I\'m sorry, Sunny. Things were a bit chaotic back there."

He remained motionless for a while, then turned away and silently headed toward where he had seen Dorn. As Sunny approached, he mentally counted:

\'Dorn, Belle... Luster, Kim... Samara...\'

When he reached the cohort, they turned to him, their faces pale and grim. Kim\'s eyes were glistening, and she avoided looking directly at him.

Luster was the first one to speak, his tone subdued.

"Captain! We... we..."

Sunny cut him off.

"Show me."

They stepped aside, revealing the figure of Quentin, who was laying on the cold alloy with his eyes closed. Sunny discovered himself taking a few steps forward and kneeling beside the gallant healer.

His face was calm, and his body seemed untouched except for a shallow wound on the side of his head.

His chest was rising and falling, which meant that Quentin was still alive.

He had not been killed... he had just lost consciousness. However, it did not matter.

Sunny closed his eyes.

...Quentin had lost consciousness near an active Gate, which meant that his soul was stolen away by the Call.

He had been thrown into an unexplored, dire region of the Dream Realm, surrounded by numerous Nightmare Creatures and abominations so vile that words could not describe them. His only chance of survival was to fight his way to a Seed, challenge it, and conquer the Second Nightmare alone.

For all intents and purposes, Quentin was already dead.

A few hours later, Sunny discovered himself alone in the Rhino. The area surrounding the military barracks was quiet, and the interior of the APC was dark. He sat on his bed, unmoving, his eyes like two pools of darkness.

He was cold.

\'It is what it is.\'

War was like that. People died all the time... Sunny had sent many to their deaths himself. He was not new to losing soldiers.

And yet...

He was weak, his body and soul were both in pain because of the brush with the Nightmare Gate, but somehow, his heart hurt much worse.

There was a lot for him to do. Feeding Saint, continuing his attempts to weave a Memory from the devil\'s needle.

However, Sunny felt unwilling to move. Or maybe incapable.

He just sat silently and stared into the darkness.

After some time, his communicator lit up. He gazed at it, then slowly brought the screen to his face.

There was a new message from Rain.

"Rain: Hey, Sunny! It is really hard to imagine that it is winter in Antarctica, and that the night there lasts for many months. And that aurora thing you described... I gazed it up on the network, and wow! It\'s so pretty! There\'s nothing like that in NQSC. Well, you know, we can hardly even see stars here, because of the light pollution and the air being full of dust. However, the weather is warm and the nights are short, so I won\'t complain. You stay warm, too! Nothing really interesting happened to me. Did anything interesting happen to you? How are you doing? I hope everything is alright."

Sunny remained motionless for a while, staring at the screen. Then, he closed his eye for a moment, took a deep breath, and started writing a response.

"Sunny: Hey, Rain. Lots of interesting things happened to me, of course. I am one of the most interesting people in two whole worlds, after all. Didn\'t you know? I am doing great, too! I mean, all things considered. Since I am such a dashing and heroic figure, people go around giving me sandwiches, medals, and the like. So..."

Sunny paused for a few seconds, then briefly wiped his eyes and continued.

"...life is pretty sweet!"