Amidst a vast and seemingly unending grey landscape, there stood a man. He was huge, with fearsome height and extravagant muscles. On closer look, you might even notice the massive scar running from the top of his head down to his torso, and the fact that his right hand, has no pinky finger.
This is Jean, one of the only people left on Earth. In order to get back his home, his planet, he had to fight with his life on the line. He had gone through so much hell, so much pain, yet it was not enough, there was still even more pain that he needed to go through, in order to revive this planet.
He, was tired. After 5 gruesome hours of battling against creatures of unknown origin, he can no longer move. However, he wasn't alone in this dark grey world, there were a dozen more people with him, like him and among the last ones left. As he was pondering about the past, a voice suddenly called out to him, it was high-pitched and carried a tone of concern.
"Jean!"
"hm?"
"Where the heck were you?, why didn't you come back to the base? You got me so worried."
The voice was indeed from a woman, not just any woman but one called Erika. She, like him had white hair, she was a scientist and had made huge contributions to the world before 'that' happened, and currently she was basically risking her life to go out here. Jean did not know how to respond, considering that he knew how much Erika was worried for him.
"I...was tired?"
"God, come back with me before some crabs maul you to death."
"All right."
This lonely and desolate world wasn't always like this. Jean could still vividly remember the peaceful days before Earth had become hell itself.
Taking out a diary, Jean's face saddened. It was red, ripped and torn but the contents were still there. This diary essentially recorded all the years that Jean went through, all 400000 years of fighting for liberation. He couldn't read it right now though, as a girl was urging him to go faster.
"You got such big legs but why are you so slow? Walk faster dammit."
Maybe, another time.
***
2024
The world was at its lowest, after the prolonged war between Russia and Ukraine, Russia concluded that it couldn't win and began to advance its forces towards Asia and the Middle East.
Russia then succeeded in invading the Middle East, Mongolia and parts of China. In doing so, it lost parts of its capital and angered multiple unions and alliances.
March 7th 2024 [7:00 A.M]
The USA, UK, Netherland, Norway with all of Europe and along with countries of South East Asia, Asia and the Americas united to form the GLF, which was short for the Global Liberation Front.
The GLF began the war against Russia. Thus, beginning the Third World War. They mobilized 3 million soilders. With artilleries, aerial support and many other things, they managed to push Russia back to Mongolia. They had taken back parts of Turkey, Iran, UAE, Japan and Sweden. Fully freeing Yemen, Oman and China
May 21st 2024 [3:00 P.M]
Seeing its disadvantage in the war, Russia authorized the use of nuclear weapons. Unleashing the dormant Tsar Bomba on a collision course with the US.
[3:10 P.M]
Notified of a nuclear threat, the US sent out its own nukes. Beginning a nuclear war.
[6:00 P.M]
Recorded sightings of strange, alien-like kinds of jellyfish and crabs appeared all over Africa, dead. The world was indeed curious, shocked and scared, but it had to ignore these creatures as of the rising tension between two giant nations.
May 23rd 2024
Sightings became more frequent, now appearing all over the world. The world couldn't turn a blind eye anymore and a team of scientists began researching these creatures. During this time however, Russia invaded all the way to Indonesia, taking hold of the ASEAN headquarters.
July 3rd 2024 [12:00 A.M]
The world was ecstatic, news of Russia giving up its quest of world domination made waves all across the world. The GLF had agreed to a peace treaty with Russia.
But, just as the world thought that their lives would be peaceful again, they were wrong, dead wrong.
"We give humanity one chance to submit."
Strange jellyfish and crabs appeared at the world's peace conference, calling themselves 'Zirtues'. They looked grotesque, straight out of a horror movie, and not only that, they were fluent in the human tongue. They demanded that we give them Earth, live on television.
Not even a minute after their proposal, we refused. By 'we', I meant the world's leaders.
[12:02 A.M]
All 53 leaders presenting the 53 countries left on Earth, disappeared without a trace. Although it was streamed live, we couldn't make out what happened to them, they just...disappeared. What replaced them, was a horde of the ugly creatures.
"From this moment on, your Earth belongs to us."
***
And well, from then on, we just did everything we could to take Earth back, but I guess that was just wishful thinking. For the first thousand years, it did seem all hope was lost but eventually we prevailed.
"So, what do you think?"
A voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
"About what exactly?"
"The 'Rogue', did my words from 6 hours ago go in one ear and straight out the other?"
"Ahah..."
Ah yes, how could I have forgotten, maybe being stuck in the past is not so good after all. Right, the 'Rogue', we must take care of this issue as soon as possible.
Chapter 2:
Four hundred thousand years, that was how long we had been stuck in this darkness, with only one way out - death. With each day that passed, at least one of us would breathe their last. At least, it was workable until a thousand years ago, when 64 of us - the most important and strongest ones, decided to go their seperate paths. We know not of why they did this, but we know one thing. They are not cooperative in fighting the Zirtues.
And that was why we called them the 'Rogues'. Those powerful enough to make a change, WERE willing to make a change but one day, without saying a thing, they just left.
The population right now including the Rogues was about two thousand, and these two thousand MUST be united, in order to fight against the Zirtues. The Zirtues were not just simple lifeforms, there were many types of them.
From weakest to strongest, the Zirtues were categorised as so: Tree(as in looking like trees), Crab and Platonic. Each category was divided into five grades: I, II, III, IV and V, with I being the lowest and V the highest. For example, a Tree-I would look exactly like a tree, had eyes and no stronger than a hippo, a Tree-V would look less like trees and were able to level small buildings. As of present, we only had the data of two Platonic grades, I and II, P-I a icosahedron and P-II a dodecahedron. So, based on current data, the Platonics would take on the shape of platonic solids, so a P-V would be a tetrahedron.
And these categories all had one thing in common: they were all much stronger, smarter and faster than humanity. But here's the catch: they are not made of just flesh. No, they are machines of blood and gore.
About 30 years after the start of the war, Erika realised this fact. She tried again and again, to somehow replicate the Zirtues, to create a Zirtue that was on our side. She did so for about 20 years before giving up.
But she did not do so before she made another discovery. It was accidental, but during one of the tests, she managed to integrate some parts of a Zirtue into a plant. And that was not long before she was able to do it with humans.
We all called that day 'The day hope was found', it was just that significant. Not only did it allow us to damage the damned things, which we couldn't do before, we also managed to do it more efficiently. The more we killed, the more materials we got. The more materials, the stronger we got. During that process, we produced a true powerhouse, Anastasia. She could theoretically fight infinitely, her body basically absorbed all the Zirtues that were killed, strengthen her, and heal her all at the same time. She was our hope, the last ray of light in an ocean of darkness.
Aside the Rogues, the remaining humans were all part of an organisation, the 'Union'. It was created with the idea of uniting all of humanity, or maybe it was just some scheme to make money, Erika also said something about this but I simply forgot. In any case, we were now making our way towards its very base.
***
Before getting into the elavator that led into the underground base, Erika suddenly spoke.
"According to Andre, a large number of the Rogues are grouping up... with Anastasia as their leader."
Hearing Erika's words, Jean couldn't help but sign. It was problematic enough for him to try and bring the Rogues back to their side. Now, there was a force that was steadily building up, for god knows why.
"Wow, very fantastic. Uhh, what's their exact number?"
"20."
That number left Jean speechless. For reference, Anastasia was a famous name amongst the surviving humans, tales of her taking on dozens, maybe even hundreds of Zirtues, were well-known to everyone. When she was still working with us - the Union, she was an important card that we could not afford to lose. Now, she was gathering people of similar strength to maybe go against the Union. Though this speculation was groundless, Jean was still worried.
He couldn't beat Anastasia, let alone 19 more that could dismember him without even breaking a sweat. It was normal of him to also break a sweat.
With that, they were now riding down the elevator. Still, he was quite confident about the place where he was standing. Located more than five kilometers underground. The main base was shaped like a cylinder with 50 floors, a diameter of 10 kilometers and each floor having a height of 50 meters. The walls were capable of enduring blows from a Crab-II, the walls of the elevator were also made of the same material.
Speaking of which, this elevator could travel to the main base in half a minute at max speed, but now it was only going at around fifty kilometers per hour. Which meant that Jean and Erika would have to wait six minutes, an awful long time. The reason the elevator couldn't go full speed right now was because it was under repairs.
Jean did not know what to do for six minutes, so he took out a red notebook and began reading it. This caught the attention of the girl beside him who was also bored out of her mind.
"Why do you always have that red notebook with you? Must be interesting, let me see too."
"It's just a diary, nothing out of the ordinary."
"Really? Crazy how it can survive with such minimal damage."
Jean simply laughed, he also did not know why the notebook was still here with him. Maybe he just took really good care of it. And after a torturous six minutes of interogation from the girl, the elevator doors opened, revealing a white interior with tons of people busily going about. Jean quickly walked in, leaving Erika behind, stuck in her own thoughts.
"How can it be in such conditions if it was a normal notebook, the materials should've- Huh? Hey! Wait for me, fucking damn it."
Chapter 3:
Footsteps reverberated within the base as about a hundred people were currently on the first floor, hastily walking around. Except for that, it was dreadfully silent, nobody was talking or discussing anything with eachother, they all seemed to be busy with work, ironic. Well it was, until Erika walked in.
"How can you just leave me behind, you little shit."
Her voice echoed throughout the whole floor, catching the attention of everybody within it for a quick moment before going back to work again. The people were used to her antics, and were not surprised with what was currently ongoing, they could all predict that it was Jean.
Jean, being at the center of it all, stayed silent. Now that he was back at the base, he could lessen his paranoia for a little, all he wanted right now, after 5 hours of non-stop fighting was rest and he was not going to let Erika stand in the way of that goal.
Seeing this, Erika couldn't do anything except remind him of the coming meeting.
"Argh damn, ignoring me now huh? Fuck it, just make sure to come to the meeting 2 hours later."
"Alright."
"If you're late, I'll fucking kill you."
"Sure..."
And with that, Jean arrived at his room. The entrance was simple, with a door and a sign that said "Jean" on top and both were made from metal. Jean pushed the door.
The door opened, revealing a space with dimensions of 5x5 and a height of 5 meters. It could be considered quite large but compared to the other rooms in the base, this was on the smaller side. The room's walls were painted with a pleasant and super dark shade of blue - black. The whole room was deep black, even the furnitures were also black. The only thing that wasn't black in this room was Jean.
With a massive bed opposite him in the middle of the room, Jean fell onto it, consequently falling asleep. Aside from the massive bed, there was nothing else in the room. Jean said that it was due to his artistic taste, and that he loved emptiness, even the dimensions of the room were the results of his choice.
Such awful choices.
***
And as such, two hours had passed since Jean got into the base. And currently, in a certain room, there was an ongoing meeting. It was to discuss about the Rogues, with only the most powerful individuals in attendance.
Inside the room were 10 people, with two currently missing. One of those was Andre, who was performing an important mission of gathering information on both the Rogues and the Zirtues. All attendees were notified of this, however the other one that was missing... was Jean.
Suddenly, a male voice spoke up, breaking the awkward silence in the room.
"Miss Erika, do you know where sir Jean is? It's been ten minutes already, we can't wait for him forever."
That voice came from a man named Xander, he had luscious black hair, a lean body and a finely shaped face. He might not look like it but he was the shield of the group, crazy endurance and an unmoving body, capable of holding back dozens of Zirtues at once. He was impatient right now though, rightfully so.
"That little fucker went to rest a little over 2 hours ago, maybe he is still sleeping."
Everyone could tell that Erika was very angry even if it didn't show on her face, Xander included, and he didn't want to undergo her crazy experiments, so he chose to stay silent.
"He is never on time, knowing this, I reminded him with very very kind words, yet he's still late."
Xander wanted to ask her to go wake him up but he knew better. So he just got comfortable in his seat.
In all of these meetings, the only ones who really spoke was Erika and Xander. Why? Erika, because she led the whole meeting, Xander because he was everyone's friend, his voice was their voice and as such only he was needed to voice everyone's opinions.
"Fuck it, let's just start the meeting, any objections?"
As if sharing one mind, everybody shook their heads, agreeing to start the meeting. Erika started first.
"So to start, I'd like to inform you all of the information I've just got. According to Andre, there's a group of considerable size of twenty forming among the Rogues. It is being led by Anastasia, and it seems this started a year ago. For ease of speech, let's call them 'Wanderers'."
Erika paused for a bit, carefully studying the faces of everyone present. Most were shocked, scared and one even fell off their chair but they all remained silent, except for the pained groan from the one that fell down.
"The Wanderers are no joke, aside from Anastasia whom we all know too well, pretty much everyone of them are able to beat a Crab-III in combat. So, before we send that fucker to win over the Rogues, we have to do that with the Wanderers, to do that, we must know their intentions first, as they could very well be gathering forces to go against us."
Sipping her drink, she picked up a piece of paper and continued.
"Well, it does seem that only Andre is enough for this, but we actually have to call him back."
The whole room was very surprised with what Erika was saying, Andre was performing so well and will perform better in the near future, bringing us with valuable information. It was not like Andre couldn't defend himself. Why call him back?
"Now, I understand your confusion but it has to be done. Andre is in danger, there are signs of a Crab-V, borderline Platonic-I appearing near the vicinity of Andre and the Wanderers. With a dangerous distance of 3 kilometers"
"And that's the second reason for today's meeting, ensuring Andre's safety back to the base. I have already informed him of the Zirtue, hopefully we don't run into Anastasia in the process."
"So, I propose we create a team."
Before she could continue, a sound was heard. A loud, creaking sound that sent chills up the attendees' necks. The door to the room was opening, and standing behind it was a looming figure. As the door opened completely, the figure was revealed to be that of Jean's. Catching everyone's attention, he spoke.
"Uhh, hi."
***
It was around 30 minutes after the start of the meeting that Jean finally woke up. He was well rested but had definitely overslept. Although Erika couldn't actually kill him, she could still use him as a guinea pig for her crazy, terrible experiments. And he did not want to go through that a 8624th time.
So, he hurriedlly left his room, and started to walk in a certain direction. The room for the meeting was located on the first floor, at the place furthest from the elevator and had a giant door, so it was easily discernable. As a matter of fact, there were arrows pointing at the door, this was to help one of the members to locate the meeting room, as their sense of direction was terrible.
Walking up to the door, he could hear people talking inside. Without skipping a beat, he opened the door.
Suddenly, all sound escaped from the room as he found everyone staring at him, one with a more intense gaze than others.
"Uhh hi."
He closed the door, quickly found himself a seat and sat down. He looked around the room and saw that no one was staring at him anymore, except one person.
Noticing this, Xander tried to calm Erika down to continue the meeting.
"Miss Erika, let's just continue the meeting okay? I'm sure you can give sir Jean your words of advice later."
And miraculously, it worked.
"Damn it. Xander, explain what we talked about in the previous 30 minutes, you have one minute."
"Y-Yes!"
And with his excellent sumarisation skills, Xander quickly but faithfully retold everything that had happened in the last 30 minutes. All in less than 30 seconds.
"Okay, let's decide this by votes, who wants to send Jean?"
And immediately after saying that, 10 hands were raised upwards, as if not giving it a thought at all.
'Huh? Strange, I don't remember them being this united.'
"So the first member is Jean."
The meeting continued until we reached a conclusion of sending Jean, Xander and Aceso.
Xander, because he was a great line of defense, having him would greatly increase the chance of Andre coming back alive.
Aceso, because she could heal people, making the operation much safer and easier, a must if we wanted to have Andre uninjured.
And Jean was Jean, also because he had a history with Anastasia. Of course, Erika didn't rid of the fact that the Wanderers would've already known of Andre and the Zirtue, sending Jean was a way to confirm their information network and also a way to pave way for some negotiations if Jean was caught. She knew too well who Anastasia was, and of her history with Jean.
And thus, the meeting ended.
"Ah, you three are to start going immediately or as soon as possible, can't waste time around a Crab-V."
"Alright."
"Yes!"
"..."
After getting out of the room, they each prepared for their operations, from food and drinks to even pickaxes which were essential when trying to get through blocked roads and paths, and of course, the corpses of Zirtues, most were Tree-IV and finally, their weapons. After getting done being prepared, they grouped up.
The three of them then made their way towards the elevator, which was still in repairs. They got into it, and began the 6 minutes wait. Jean tried to take out something from his pocket but grimaced when he realised he had forgotten it in his room. So, he opted for a second way to pass time, talking with the two people next to him.
"Where was Andre again?"
Answering his question, Xander spoke.
"Miss Erika did say that she had told him to cease all activity and wait for us to come, so based off his last location, he should be 4600 kilometers away from here. I think Aceso has the coordinates too, right?"
"Yes."
"I see, then I guess I don't need to worry about anything."
"Yes, yes sir Jean, just relax. I think that this operation is going to end spectacularly. In fact, I think that we won't even suffer any damages or injuries with Aceso here, and sir Jean is here too. We are literally unstoppable!"
Silence filled the elevator as both Jean and Aceso stared at Xander. Xander didn't know what was happening though.
"Uhhh, did I say something wrong?"
"Aceso, tell him."
"I don't even know what to say."
"Uhhh, guys?"
"Why did you even say that? Man."
They didn't continue this quarrel for long, as soon, the elevator stopped and now they were back on the surface. A lone, desolate and cold dark view greeted them, this was the remnants of the countless Zirtues that were killed in order to protect this place. In the old map, the place where they were currently standing was Nepal and now they were trying to get to Turkey, on foot.
That was the only choice that they really had, flying had its own troubles as it would attract the special types of Zirtues that could fly. Luckily for them though, all the oceans evaporated long ago so they didn't have to cross any oceans. Well, the journey from Nepal to Turkey didn't cross any significant bodies of water anyways.
And so they walked, running would have saved time but right now, walking was enough. However, they were not slow at all. With each step they took, they would have already travelled 10 meters. From an outsider's perspective, it might've even looked funny.
"Did any of you bring any entertainment?"
"No sir."
"I guess that this is going to be quite the boring journey then."
Chapter 4:
The Union's base, First floor.
The sun was currently setting, and Erika was getting quite anxious. These past few days, the machineries within the base were deteriorating for some unknown reasons. The engineers were trying to fix it, but no matter how much they wanted to, they couldn't work in the night.
Erika jolted back and forth, checking the conditions of pretty much everything in the base, from the defensive systems and artilleries to even the cleaning robots. They were all showing signs of breaking down.
She wasn't an engineer, so she didn't know how to actually fix these problems, except to write the problems down for the actual engineers to fix.
Now, she was checking the states of the accomodations. They were quite bad, most of them showing cracks and one room even had water leaking through the walls. Water!
During the construction of the base, they had made sure that there were no water in its vicinity. Yet somehow, there was water, full of iron which was likely from a Zirtue, and even some arsenic. This water was quickly taken care of, and now there was only one room left.
The door was simple, with a simple sign on top. Both being metal, Erika knew too well who this room belonged to.
'Jean.'
The door opened, revealing a dark room with everything painted black, even the bed was black. However, those were not what caught her eyes, because on the bed was a red notebook that seemed to contrast everything in the room.
'I remember asking that guy about this thing.'
She approached the bed, sat down on it and took the notebook. Opening the notebook, she forgot all about what she was doing as she read the words before her.
"This is..."
***
About two hours after we had started walking, we stopped for a bit to rest. We had covered quite a bit of distance, about 720 kilometers. Now the ground was more yellow-ish instead of black, as there weren't a lot of Zirtues around here.
"Sir Jean, don't you think we can just remove the elevator and just walk sideways down the base? Won't that be faster?"
Xander suddenly complained about the elevator, well yes, it was slow but it was under repairs, or in better words, in maintainance. It would become a lot faster after the repairs and upgrades were done.
"Well, you can do that if you want."
"Really?"
"The elevator wasn't built for people like us, who can cover a hundred meters in seconds, it was built for the more ordinary. If it was as fast as us, the normal people wouldn't be able to withstand its speed."
"Oh, I didn't know."
"We actually got complaints that the elevator was too fast, so we plan to build a slower one next to the main one."
Jean was also like Xander a few years ago, frustrated with the elevator, so he complained with Erika and got this same explaination.
And he couldn't dispute it, because it was right. Though all the surviving humans all have Zirtues augmented inside their bodies, their brains were still a big blob of fat, contrary to people like Jean who had their brains replaced with that of Zirtue's.
Soon the sun went down and the skies were filled with stars. It was a lot more dangerous to keep going at night because the Zirtues actually get 'angrier' during this time.
We ate our food - dried crab Zirtues and began preparing our beds. There weren't such things as tents anymore, as we all dug down and buried ourselves within the ground.
It was recommended that we dug our beds 20 meters deep. It helped hide from the Zirtues above ground and also underground too.
After we were done burying ourselves, we shut off our brains and went to sleep. How did we breathe?
We didn't.
***
Morning came and as expected, no Zirtues mauled them to death, after all, they picked the route with the least amount of Zirtues before hand. But that didn't mean they didn't encounter any Zirtues, they just made detours.
They all turned on their brains and dug out of the ground. Jean let out a groan as he approached the other two.
"We're a little behind schedule, let's accelerate, once we reach 1400 kilometers from base, we'll need to discuss our route through the plains."
Erika had given them a detailed plan of the journey. Though she said to avoid flat areas as much as possible, Jean thought otherwise. Yes, the Zirtues mainly appears in areas that were flat, but it was the fastest route.
Soon, they had already travelled 1400 kilometers and flat lands were in sight. Seeing this, Jean immediately shouted.
"Stop!"
The other two halted in their tracks as they looked at Jean.
"So, what's the plan now sir Jean?"
"I am guessing Erika had already told you guys to go through the mountains to avoid the Zirtues. But there aren't actually a lot of Zirtues here, you'd need to go all the way to Egypt for there to be swarms of Zirtues waiting for us."
"Egypt...you mean '1'?"
Jean's face twisted at her words. Aceso had been quite silent up until now. He knew that she was teasing him, for using such an outdated map but he just could not remember the new map.
"Okay, let's just stick to the Old map. Alright?"
"But sir Jean, why are you so confident that there would be not as many Zirtues as we thought?"
"You all remember the giant Tree-III that came from the Mariana trench. The one that Anastasia fell and left to rot in the Himalayas?"
Xander suddenly jumped up.
"The one that made the mountains look like ants?"
"Yeah, from my experiences, that corpse actually repels the Zirtues to a certain degree."
Aceso quickly raised an eyebrow as she looked at Jean, who noticed this and explained.
"By 'a certain degree', I meant that it repels the really strong Zirtues, so most of what we'll encounter will be a Crab-I at best."
"No wonder we've only been encountering the trees. Hey, why didn't you tell us this earlier? Wouldn't that have made the journey easier?"
Aceso had many questions but she had to believe him, after all this was Jean, in the flesh. However, she couldn't understand why they had wasted so much time yesterday making detours.
"I actually wanted to scout possible routes for when we return, so that's why I wanted to go slowly."
Xander's face suddenly brightened up. How could he not? He was currently hearing the thoughts of Jean, the actual Jean!
"Uhh so, let's get going everyone, full speed."
After he said that, the three of them left at incredible speeds. Approaching the flat grounds, many Zirtues greeted them, but most were Tree-II, the strongest ones only being a Tree-IV.
Jean had no problem taking out the trees as he dashed ahead, actually, he just rammed into them, making them explode. Occasionally, a Tree-IV would stand in his way, and he had to halt his steps a bit, from grade III upwards, the Zirtues begin to become a little bit more tricky.
Not only do they have a thing called 'core' somewhere random in their bodies, they also possessed unique abilities. And the Tree-IV in front of him seem to have an ability related to speed.
The Zirtue was fast, very fast, creating afterimages in its path. Circling Jean, it would sometimes dash forward to try to strike Jean.
However, it was useless. With an extremely quick movement of his hand, he destroyed all of its limbs making it tumble on the ground. Quickly thereafter, located the core and ripped it out of its body.
The core was quite useful. Well, not for Jean but for Erika, so he quickly pocketted it. Looking around, he noticed that the other two were already done with the Zirtues, without a scratch on their bodies.
Jean smirked as he looked at the two before him. Suddenly, a wave of nostalgia washed over Jean as he remembered doing these exact same things with Anastasia.
"Let's continue."
And with that, they took off. Now, even faster than before. They had just killed about 200 Zirtues, all within less than a minute. Most, were dead due to kinetic energy, while others had a more graceful death.
And it wouldn't be long before they found more of them.
"Hey, didn't you say we need to go to Egypt for such warm welcome?"
"Yeah, I did. Why?"
"Why are there even more Zirtues than before?"
"Well, I did say that the weaker Zirtues won't be repelled by the corpse, right?"
"Right..."
"So, as the stronger ones flee from the corpse, the weaker ones flee from those, and end up here. Adding to the fact that there were already weak Zirtues in the area, it compounds to this."
"..."
"..."
"Let's go."
Both Xander and Aceso were speechless, they had thought that Jean chose to go this path because there would be minimal Zirtues. But it was actually because there would be minimal STRONG Zirtues.
But, they couldn't complain. They were now moving faster than schedule and would arrive in about 5 hours.
Chapter 5:
Sounds of metal clashing with metal could be heard. It was a loud yet pleasant sound that calmed Jean's mind. Right now, he was sitting on a rock and just 10 meters ahead of him, were Xander and Aceso, both with their weapons out.
They were both trying to subdue a Crab-I that had ambushed them from the shadows of the mountain. The Crab-I looked exactly like that of a normal crab, except for the myriad of eyes covering its body, and metal-like chitin.
Xander weilded a giant shield bigger than his body and its thickness indeterminate as it changed from one thickness to another. He also had a weapon for close combat but it wasn't usable in this situation, the crab's range was too far.
But its range didn't matter if we attacked it from far enough. That was when a figure appeared from a nearby cliff. On her hands was an impressive bow. With a length of 5 meters, weighing hundreds of kilograms and looked to be a hybrid between a medieval siege weapon and a modern engineering marvel, with a sleek, reinforced design.
But what was more impressive, was the person currently holding it - Aceso. As Xander was keeping the creature in check, Aceso began positioning herself.
With her feet shoulder-width apart, her whole body relaxed, looking at the Zirtue in front of her. She then picked up an arrow and placed it on the bowstring, then slowly pulled the bowstring back.
'I remember seeing Erika work on that, why didn't she just use a crossbow anyways?'
Of course, the bow couldn't be fully drawn by someone as small as Aceso, well she wasn't actually that small, the bow was just much bigger in comparison. Halfway through the draw, Aceso released the bowstring.
'Imagine the arrow just explodes.'
Somehow, even with all that energy put into the arrow, it retained its shape and flew forward. Then, almost immediately afterwards, the arrow hit the crab, killing it on the spot.
The arrow didn't stop there as it flew through the carcass, hitting the ground, releasing all of its energy before exploding. The arrow was fast, it almost looked like the moment she released the bow was also the exact moment it hit the Zirtue, just like a light photon would.
'So that is the 'Photon' bow huh?'
It was a weapon that he had seen Erika and the other scientists working on for god knew how long. It was the most impractical weapon Jean had ever seen, the energy produced was too much and so was the recoil.
In fact, Aceso had to drop the bow immediately when she released the bowstring, it would damage the bow, of course but this was just a prototype of the bow, and Erika had wanted to test the bow for a while but didn't have the chance to do so.
The scientists had wanted something like a crossbow at first, but decided upon this design, however it was not that good of a weapon. Just one use of it left cracks everywhere on the bow, leaving it unusable.
Even when made with parts of a Tree-IV, the bow still couldn't withstand what it was intended for. Materials from a Tree-IV was the most flexible, yet durable thing they currently have at their disposal. A Tree-V would be too hard, as it would have chitin. And a Tree-III would be too bendy.
Aceso looked quite tired as she approached Jean, and she was still holding onto the broken bow. Xander on the other hand, was in pristine condition.
They had wasted quite a bit of time killing the crab, if not for the fact that Xander and Aceso wanted to do it themselves, they'd already been on their way.
Standing up, Jean let out a light groan.
"Argh, good job, I think you should have just dropped the bow on the crab, that thing is half a ton anyways. Ok let's get the meat from that thing."
It was now noon, the sun directly above them. Normally, there should be a mountain range right at where they were standing but fortunately, they were all leveled by the giant Zirtue a hundred thousand years ago.
This made the journey strangely convenient and almost too easy. However, their luck wasn't infinite as they soon encountered another mountain anyways.
"Pickaxes."
When Andre passed through these mountains, he climbed over them but that was too slow for Jean's liking, well, too slow for when he returned. So, he had told the members to bring a pickaxe beforehand. And so, they dug.
Thirty minutes later, they were already on the other side of the mountain. Without wasting any time, Jean dashed forward, and the other two soon followed.
***
On a particular mountain in Turkey was a lone man. His clothes hid his whole body, letting no light get inside, and armed with a vast arsenal of weapons on his body.
This was Andre.
He had been in this place for about a year, gathering information on both the grade V and the group of Rogues. And right now, he was waiting for a group from the Union to pick him up.
"Mates, you're taking too long. What the hell are you all doing?"
He was frustrated, if not for the fact that Erika told him to stay still, he would have already been trying to get back.
The road was arduous, but it shouldn't take him more than a month. And even less so for people like Jean, who was dispatched on this mission. In fact, it wouldn't even take him a day!
Considering that, Andre was very annoyed, it had been three days yet they were nowhere to be found.
'Do they think this is a trip or something? Arghhh damn that Jean, he's probably enjoying himself with those Zirtues.'
Suddenly, sounds of footsteps surrounded him. Looking up, he saw 20 hooded people, all cloaked in heavy clothing, just like him. They quickly surrounded him, leaving no room for escape.
'Don't tell me...'
Then, the person, who seemed to be leading the group came forward. Seeing this, Andre accepted his fate, he knew exactly who was before him.
Taking off their hood, revealing a grotesque face that could make one puke. The right side of the face was the features of a beautiful girl however, the left side was a skull with cracks all over. Meeting in the middle was flesh, moving flesh, wriggling as if they were maggots.
She was Anastasia.
"Tell me."
A lifeless voice escaped from her lips. It sounded desperate, full of anger and like a screech, scratching of a chalkboard.
Andre couldn't do anything anymore, maybe he could have, if not for the fact that he was distracted. And now, he was surrounded.
"Where is he?"
Chapter 6:
Sitting on a black bed inside a dark room, Erika was holding a red book. It was torn and worn, but none of its contents seemed to be lost. Its size was small, just barely 10 centimeters, it was not thick either.
But that was the catch, it was so small, so thin, yet the information it contained was tremendous. It felt like looking upon an unending archive, an infinite book.
Opening the book, the pages seemed to multiply, from a measly 50 pages to 100 and as Erika kept flipping through, the number quickly shot through the roof.
500.
1000.
2000.
4000...
Yet, when she closed it, it would return to what it was before, a thin small red book. Erika had not read the contents of the book yet, but was now immersed in the book's limits.
Did it actually have an infinite amount of pages? Not questioning the creation of the book, Erika began flipping through it. It kept multiplying, just like before, however this time, she did not stop.
Until finally, after an hour of flipping through the book and counting, the book finally stopped at the last page.
'146,577,805 pages?...'
That number was huge and definitely not random, but Erika wasn't so sure as to what it symbolysed. Then, she finally took a look at the contents of the book.
"This is..."
The contents of the book were simple. And she knew exactly, what the meaning of the number was.
Day 243 Year 401034
I stood amidst an unending grey landscape.
5 hours of fighting was too tiring for me.
Then I saw Erika, what was she doing out here?
...
She definitely remembered this, it was this noon when Jean fought against a swarm of Crab-III afterall.
'Wait, did he really...'
She had to check, 400000 years was how long they had been in this hell hole. And if her math was right, it would mean Jean had documented each and every day of it.
Day 52 Year 328569
I was sent to investigate the Mariana Trench.
They said there was massive tremors somewhere.
But I didn't want to go underwater, so I observed from land.
...
'The giant Zirtue.'
Erika went back even further, to the very beginnings of the book. She was furious at Jean for hiding such a thing from her but now, she just wanted to explore how much Jean had written down.
And to her disbelief, each and every day was documented. Not in full detail, but the information contained was indeed factual. And then, when she reached the first page, she realised that it was not the same as the others.
'Day 0 Year 0? What?'
This page was more detailed than the rest, way more actually. The others only described the events by one sentence maximum, but this one was more elaborate. She then read a random part of Day 0.
The world was ecstatic, news of Russia giving up its quest of world domination made waves all across the world. The GLF had agreed to a peace treaty with Russia.
But, just as the world thought that their lives would be peaceful again, they were wrong, dead wrong.
"We give humanity one chance to submit."
Strange jellyfi-
'Huh?'
Erika was confused, very confused, the whole book was correct, and only the first page had errors? She didn't believe that but 'jellyfish' wasn't a Zirtue that she had known of, or remembered.
"Wait."
The sound of glass breaking could be heard. As if signaling that Erika had escaped the mind control. She had finally remembered everything. There weren't just three categories of Zirtues, there was one more, one that was higher than Crab.
Erika had always felt that something was missing when she looked at the categories. But her thoughts ended there as cold sweat ran down her body.
'Shit, misinformation is going to kill them. How do I even contact them.'
Then as if remembering something, she immediately ran out out the room with the notebook and headed towards a certain direction.
'Argh fuck, that Jean wrote this so he must remember, right? Fuck it, there was still one way to inform them of this.'
Stopping right in front of a door that had massive arrows pointing to it, Erika knocked.
***
It had been 3 days since Jean and the others embarked on this journey. And now, it was finally coming to an end.
"Distance?"
"2.7 kilometers away."
They were now awfully close, they now just needed one final push and the job here was done.
"See? Sir Jean, what did I tell you? This went incredibly well."
Jean remained silent, they were now very close to a grade V combined with the fact that the Wanderers could be nearby, Jean couldn't let his guard down.
Xander saw this and immediately copied. Aceso was really silent already so there was no need to worry.
Thereafter a bit of walking, they finally arrived. Well, at the vicinity of where Andre could be, there wasn't an exact coordinate so they had to make due with this.
They searched every nook and cranny, from Mount Ararat to even the Kaçkar mountains. They didn't find any traces of him. Two hours passed and they decided to go deeper into Turkey.
It was when they checked Mount Hasan that they finally found something, torn pieces of fabric. Jean had a bad feeling about this already. Picking up the fabric revealed a piece of paper and on it wrote:
50.283611, 57.229722
'So it's Aktobe, huh?'
Jean knew, though he didn't want to say it out loud, the Wanderers took Andre. With that, this effectively turned an escort mission to a rescue mission.
He also knew that this was their plan, lure Jean into their hideout. But he couldn't just leave Andre in the palms of those people. Before that, he had to make preparations, in the middle of nowhere.
Jean let out a sign as he looked at the other two behind him.
"The Wanderers took him.".
Chapter 7:
"We've got no time. Get ready."
The other two were still struggling to understand his words. How did they take Andre? Andre was the absolute best at spying and hiding himself, which was how he managed to gather so much information anyways.
Jean saw their questioning stares but he himself didn't know how they did it, and so ge said just three words.
"Wanderers. Aktobe, Kazakhstan."
Despite not explaining a single thing, Jean stopped talking, not only that, he stopped moving too, becoming almost like a statue. This made the two quite uneasy.
"B-but sir, how do we go against Anastasia?"
A awkward silence filled the air as Jean stood still like a statue, looking northeast. A few minutes went by just like this and Jean finally spoke.
"We don't."
"What do you mean 'we don't'?"
Aceso couldn't stay silent anymore. She had to know, how they were going to take back Andre. And Jean being silent did not solve this.
Suddenly, Jean began walking northeast.
"Sir!"
"What about the preparations!?"
Jean continued walking, as if not hearing the two people behind him. He did not evade any obstacles in his way, and tripped quite a lot. Concerned for him, Xander ran forward and caught Jean. Looking at his face, he noticed his unfocused eyes and his grinding teeth. He tried shaking him, but nothing happened. However, he tried again and again.
"SIR!"
Jean's whole body suddenly twitched. And his eyes seemed to regain their focus again. Xander was very glad when he saw this but to see Jean in this state, must mean that what awaited them was more fearsome than any Zirtue.
Maybe even more so than Erika.
Jean let out a light groan. Feeling his mind working normally again, he apologised to the other two.
"Ah, sorry about that. Still, we can't just leave Andre behind, we don't know what are their intentions with him after all. What we seriously lacked was information, which was what Andre was supposed to give us."
Despite saying that, he couldn't come up with a plan to take back Andre, as the only and biggest obstacle in the way was Anastasia. And he didn't think that she was really open for reason anymore.
Time was not on their side though, so they had to think quick.
"Ahh, why the Wanderers of all things? The grade V should've been easier to deal with."
Seeing that Jean wouldn't be able to come up with a solution quickly, she sat down and wrote in her notes everything about the bow given to her for testing. Xander also sat down, it was the most he could do right now.
Jean began slamming the ground, each strike shook the whole mountain. One minute passed by, and Jean was still stuck pondering. Then two minutes, three, ten and finally after 35 minutes, he had an answer.
"Let's...just walk straight in."
Xander took a second to process what he had just heard. He was surprised, very surprised. As for Aceso, she had already shut off her brain a few minutes ago.
"Sir, we'll be facing against Anastasia. THE Anastasia!"
Jean predicted this reaction, Anastasia was very famous after all. But that didn't shy him away from making this decision.
"That's precisely the reason."
"Huh?"
"There are no need for explanations, wake that girl up and let's go, this time we care not about the return journey. And trust me on this one, let's just go, no preparations."
"..."
Xander then woke Aceso, and immediately, they left the mountain ranges. This time, they were really going full speed, be it by flying , smashing through mountains or just running, they put their all into moving as fast as they could.
Occasionally, a Zirtue would pop into view and get obliterated by Jean. Moving through the air was quite risky, though it was the fastest.
They didn't use the air for much, as now they were running. Halfway through Georgia, they noticed something following them. The sight was quite surreal, the thing used its swimming legs that was burrowed into the ground to repel itself forward. A Crab-II was on their tail.
"Stop."
All members halted in their steps, turned back around and saw the absolute beast ravaging towards them.
Xander took out his shield and positioned himself to block the crab. The other two was already disappeared. This didn't surprise Xander though.
A split second later, the Crab-II arrived, bashing against the massive shield, creating a massive soundwave, blowing all things light away.
The size of the crab was impressive, easily dwarfing the shield in front of it. However, that small shield did not budge.
Suddenly, a bow fell on top of the crab, making the crab fall onto the ground, destroying the landscape around it. Bestowed with this opportunity, Xander flipped the crab over with a quick motion of his shield.
The crab, now lying flat on its carapace had its abdomen exposed and Jean capitalised on this. Without even letting it squirm or move a muscle, Jean ripped off its abdomen, revealing the soft tissues under it, and then began punching through. Getting inside, he navigated towards its brain, then crushed it, effectively killing it.
They had questions about why a grade II was here but they couldn't care about that right now. And so, began running again, not before Jean got out of the crab.
The journey from then was uninterrupted, much to their surprise.
It took them 8 hours, but they finally reached Aktobe. According to the coordinates on the paper, the place where they should be meeting, was on the east of the Aktobe region. So, they were currently making their way there.
The dirt here was even poorer than what you would find in the mountains of Turkey. Soon, they saw a structure, it looked to be a church, rebuilt for human living.
And welcoming them were five people, five Wanderers. The five of them stood in front of the church, blocking entryway.
Seeing them approach, the middle one moved out of their way.
"Welcome, the lady is waiting, please hurry."
Jean smirked at his words as the walked inside the building.
Chapter 8:
The sun dropped down below horizon, Jean and the others followed a Rogue down the stairs of the church. Tension grew with every moment that passed until finally, the flight of stairs ended and they found themselves in a dark room.
"Welcome."
A voice resembling a screech echoed throughout the room sending chills down the members' spines. Looking forward, they saw a figure sitting on a broken chair in the middle of the room.
"Ana."
"I thought I told you to not call me that again."
Anastasia stood up from the broken chair, which immediately turned to dust. Staring at her face, Jean couldn't help but grimace.
Her human face was a mix of grief and anger and her skull had one more hole, one more massive than the others, that Jean hadn't seen before.
"What happened to your skull?"
"Crab."
Silence filled the room once again as Jean and Anastasia stood opposing each other. And breaking the silence, was Jean.
"Where's Andre?"
Anastasia stayed silent, then she looked at the two who were with Jean. She was disappointed to say the least. Then, looking back at Jean, she replied.
"He's safe."
Jean didn't doubt the legitimacy of this information but what he wanted to know was his location, and it didn't seem that Anastasia was willing to reveal it.
"Why did you leave us?"
He asked a question that he had been pondering for so long, he truly didn't know why Anastasia left the Union, to roam the endless earth.
"You know my ability, don't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"And you know its consequences too, right?
"..."
For an ability as powerful as Anastasia, there was bound to be drawbacks. She then spoke, her voice heavier than before.
"Each and everytime I heal, it doesn't just replace the missing cells, the damaged cells. No, it enters the body, like a parasite, reshaping every single cell and the healthy cells will fight back leading to the parasites to try even harder."
The 'maggots' in the middle of her face grew and twisted violently, expressing her anger. It grew and grew, eventually reaching her eye and popping it.
A gasp could be heard behind Jean.
The 'maggots' didn't stop as it then filled her eye socket completely, before breaking off, creating a new and functional eye, after which, it reverted back into its original position. Her rage had died down.
"Every time I 'heal', I get reborn, as a new human along excruciating pain. The pain was paralyzing, but I had to continue forward, for YOUR sake, for humanity's sake."
"I am sick and tired of it. I'm sure you are too. Me and the others, who you call Rogues, just want peace from fighting the Zirtue, we want to remain neutral"
Jean knew all about this, afterall, she told him about this before. Before her face got torn off by a Crab-IV. But he couldn't do anything about it.
"Why are you branching off and creating this group then?"
Anastasia stayed silent for a while. The group had gotten used to this reaction, she just thought for too long.
"They just followed me, I had no say in it."
"What did you do for them to follow you?"
"Killing Zirtues..."
Jean was confused, she just said that she didn't want to fight Zirtues but now led a group, to kill Zirtues?
"It was just clearing the area, so that I could make a place to live for the rest of my life."
"And they followed me, just like that."
Hearing this, Jean felt like he shouldn't try to get back the Rogues anymore. He couldn't. They just want a peaceful life, and he was proactively stripping them of it.
But he also wanted a peaceful life, find out the origins of the Zirtues, destroy it then live happily. They wanted the same thing, but one cared more about retaking their planet and the other cared more about themselves.
"Just, take that guy back, seeing him in such state concerns me. From now on, just let us go our seperate paths. Ask a random person and they'll lead you to him."
Xander and Aceso was very happy, they could end the mission right now and they even got the information they had been striving for a long time - both the Rogues' and Wanderers' intentions. They seemed harmless enough.
But Jean, was not happy, he was stubborn in his stance. It was now, or never that he would manage to convince them back.
"Are you really not coming back?"
"Yes."
The 'maggots' on her face were really expressive, though the human face showed no emotions. Just by looking at the 'maggots', you would know. And right now, she was sad, expressed by the unmoving and stiff 'maggots'.
Jean looked at the other two and told them to go retrieve Andre. They complied.
"Are you not coming back with them?"
"Ana, please come back."
"I can't, and please stop calling me that."
Despite expressing her full refusal, he was stubborn.
"With you back in the Union, we could regain our peace again."
The 'maggots' on her face wriggled intensely with each word that came from Jean's mouth.
"We just need to kill all the Zirtues."
Immediately, the 'maggots' grew to astounding size, covering Anastasia's entire face with one even grabbing Jean's arm who was standing a few meters away. They wriggled even more than before.
"Are you"
"planning"
"to build another Haven, you shit?"
The maggots began bleeding, the one on Jean's arm dug deep into his skin, almost aiming to break his bones. Her voice was calm and steady, but Jean knew better, that she was not.
"No-"
"I was fooled by you once, Jean. I still remember that day. That day when you announced to the world that the invasion was over. And th...that we just need to stay inside the Haven and let you kill the remaining few."
Ignoring Jean's attempts to speak, she continued.
"The population was 80 million, Jean. Eighty damn million, and after the supposedly safe Haven, there were only 9000 left."
"You killed them all Jean, including my family."
Hearing these words hurt Jean, he didn't know that Zirtues could be that huge, and that they could hide deep underground. The maggots' grip on him loosened, and then he spoke.
"It's not another Haven, trust me."
The maggots began dying off, and her face was how it usually was.
"Tell me, how many Zirtues have we killed?"
"...50 million."
"And how many do you guys estimate to be left?"
"..."
"Two billion."
For the first time in 100000 years, a smile appeared on Anastasia's face. However, it wasn't because of happiness that she was smiling, it was of despair and hopelessness. Jean was quite shocked at this, but he didn't comment.
"So how do you guarantee that with us, you can win?"
Jean stayed silent.
"Prove it, prove it to me that it was possible. If you can do that, I'll go with you, and maybe even convince the others to go too."
"How do I?"
"The grade V. Kill that thing and I shall believe in your words."
***
"You two go get Andre."
The two was very happy at the series of events, though they had to meet Anastasia, they could still leave without any fighting, and they even got valuable information.
The two headed upstairs and upon seeing somebody, they immediately asked for Andre. They had thought that the person in front of them wouldn't believe them but to their surprise, the person immediately led them to a room.
Opening the door, they found Andre just sitting in the middle of the room, dazed and unmoving.
"Andre!"
Andre shooked and he looked upwards, surprised when he saw Xander and Aceso.
"Why are you here?"
"Let's just go, sir Jean is waiting for us."
They got out of the room and returned to the main hall but they didn't see Jean anywhere. Concluding that he must still be underground, the three of them all went down. Approaching Jean, they could hear the voice of two people talking. And when they had finished descending the flight of stairs,
"The grade V. Kill that thing and I shall believe in your words."
"Deal."
They heard something that was truly shocking, Anastasia telling Jean to kill the grade V and Jean agreeing without hesitation.
"Sir Jean! What do think you're doing?"
"But you must do it alone, I shall observe your fight myself."
The three were speechless, to say the least.
"Sir, you shouldn't do this!"
Xander pleaded for Jean to stop, to go back to the Base, but to no avail.
"When morning comes, you three go back to the Base, I will stay here."
"But-"
"Just go."
"..."
***
Morning soon came, turning on their brains, they looked for Jean but it seemed he had already gone somewhere.
"Damn it."
They were now forced to return, without Jean. Three hours into their journey, they all heard something in their heads.
"Hello? Can you all hear me?"
It was the voice of Erika.
'So this is telepathy?'
Telepathy, an ability of one of their members, Iris.
"Oh hello Andre, it seemed you guys succeeded."
'What the fuck?'
"You said it yourself, it's telepathy, I can hear all your thoughts and you can hear mine. You can also hear eachother."
'Hello?'
"Shut up, you all are to immediately return, there's a serious problem, where's Jean? I don't hear him."
'About that...'
"...God damn it, did he get wooed again?"
'No?? He, went to kill the grade V.'
"..."
"Fuckkkkkkkkk."
Chapter 9:
After that message from Erika, it seemed connection was cut off as she remained silent and that they couldn't hear eachother's thoughts anymore.
Curious about the whole ordeal Andre questioned the other two but they didn't know anything either.
The fact that Erika had to rely on unconventional means to contact them meant that it was a really grave situation. But well, Iris' abilities had massive restrictions on them so they wasn't surprised when connection cut off at the 5 minutes mark.
"Should we wait for her for a little bit?"
Andre wasn't knowledgable about Iris and what she could do so he wanted to know if she could re-establish the connection quickly. After all, he only joined this branch 10000 years ago, he was in the Americas before that.
"I think it might be faster for us to get back to the base and hear the information from them ourselves than to wait for them."
"Why?"
"Because telepathy especially among a group that's far away puts massive strain on Iris. She will also take too long to locate us. I've even seen her eyes pop and her ears rupture trying to locate Jean a long time ago."
"...Holy. No wonder why you don't use that often."
"Guys, stop talking and start moving."
And so, they started moving. They tried to take the paths with the least amount of Zirtues possible as Andre wasn't really suited for combat.
So, from 5 in the morning to 6 in the evening was all spent moving. And not long after that, they arrived at the base.
First glance might tell you that it was just a flattened area. But when Xander stepped on a specific area, the center of the area moved upwards, revealing an elevator.
Entering the elevator, they were quite disappointed to find that it was still under repairs.
***
The three stepped out of the elevator as it reached the first floor. And the first thing that greeted them was a startling sight: the entire floor looked neglected, cracks everywhere on the walls, and the machines were...still. The engineers were frantically running around, trying to fix things up.
"What the hell happened here?"
Aside from Andre, the other two also showed similar responses implying that this was very new. Maybe it was the thing that Erika had wanted to inform them of.
Looking around, they couldn't find Erika anywhere. So, they went to the place that first came to mind: Iris' room.
Following the gigantic arrows leading to the room. Aceso felt really bad for the girl. The first time she used her powers, she was paralysed for a week. The second time, she lost her sight and hearing. Then the third and most recent, she got brain damage.
Who knew what would happen to her this time? They quickly arrived at her room and upon seeing the door open, they all entered with bated breaths.
Upon entering the room, they saw Erika sitting next to a bed, she was holding a hand. Looking up a little, they saw Iris with all her hair fallen off and her eyes gone. Her throat was crushed and they did not know why.
Aceso, without wasting a single moment, dashed towards the bed shoving Erika away. She bit off her finger and crushed it, squeezing all the blood, flesh and bones onto the girl's injuries.
Her throat recovered a bit. However, nothing happened to the eyes.
'What now???'
She was frantically looking for ways to heal Iris but nothing came to mind. She could sacrifice a few more of her fingers but it seemed that it wouldn't be enough.
'Wait.'
Recalling something, she took out a Tree-IV from her pockets. Tore it to bits and scattered it around the throat and eyes. She bit off another one of her fingers and crushed it as she did before.
The others watched from nearby, hoping to learn something in the process but it didn't work, they were very amazed though. They wanted to help but couldn't do anything. Xander knew this best because of the three previous times, only through a healer would Iris' body heal.
The healing was supposed to be harder each time she used her powers but the sight before them said otherwise. By tearing a Zirtue into bits, she fused its cells with Iris', effectively healing her.
In minutes, the throat that was basically dismantled was normal again, but the eyes...
"Give me a Crab-II."
Xander quickly complied as he gave Aceso a large chunk of crab meat the got from battling a grade II.
Dividing the meat into two equal parts, she quickly inserted them into her two eye pockets. Sacrificed two more fingers and she prayed.
A minute passed and nothing happened, much to her prayers. Concluding that she couldn't do anything anymore to restore her eyesight, she tried to remove the meat from her eyes.
Iris could still get by with artificial eyes anyways.
However, the moment she touched the meat to pull it out, its color changed. From dark red, it slowly but surely turned white. And in the middle of that whiteness appeared a bright blue.
Aceso took a step back and within minutes, Iris' eyes were normal again, she also closed Iris' eyelids for her. But the work didn't stop there as she opened her head-cap and sprinkled a ton of Zirtue dust onto her brain, then sacrificing another finger. She then hoped for the best and took a few steps back.
"That was, crazy! I didn't know you could heal like that, Aceso."
"Well, looking at the eye sockets reminded me of Anastasia and how she healed her injuries, so I replicated that, didn't think it would work though."
She also wanted to ask Erika about Iris but...she was sleeping, yes sleeping.
"Okay, this atmosphere is a little too tense right now, because Erika is sleeping, I'll go to the second floor to report on my findings, so inform me if I missed anything."
With that, Andre left the room. Minutes passed by without anything happening. Five minutes then fifteen and eventually an hour. Normally, no matter how bad the damage was, Aceso could heal them all, in less than a minute. So, waiting for this long made her incredibly anxious.
Then two hours passed and even Xander left the room, Andre briefly came by but also left with Xander, leaving only 3 people in the room.
Staring intensely at Iris' fingers, Aceso did not blink once. Soon, she saw a slight twitch, then Iris began breathing again. Standing up, Aceso looked over Iris.
The girl's eyes opened slowly, revealing a blue, starry iris.