Cain stayed perfectly still, watching the runner sprint with the egg held both arms like it was a part of him.
He would pass within a few hundred meters of them.
His team was already tensing — Ricky especially, vibrating in place like a loaded spring, eager to show off his skills.
"We move aside."
Cain said flatly through the comms, his voice calm through the link.
Ricky twisted toward him, his brows pressing together beneath the helmet's edge.
He didn't say it, but Cain saw the immediate judgement on his posture — branding him as a coward in his name.
Pumbo and Tol didn't say anything either, but Cain could feel the same glance.
Even with visors on, their silence was louder than words.
He could feel the heat of their silent accusation, but he didn't flinch.
"Just watch and give it a few minutes."
Beany and the Fara said nothing.
Not out of trust — just out of discipline.
But Cain could tell they were thinking the same.
They didn't see the strategy yet, only retreat and evasion.
But he'd seen this kind of chaos before.
The ones who charged first usually bled first.
They split and took cover, each choosing a sequoia trunk thick enough to block a truck, let alone a man.
The damp bark was cold against Cain's back, locking his eyes on the clearing.
On the other side of the battlefield, the other group had already taken formation.
Their shamanic magician, cloaked in robes of glimmering fiber and obsidian threads, stepped forward.
Human, dressed in ceremonial tech-laced attire, his headgear an oval by design to read the energy movements with ease.
With a fluid motion, he cast his staff like a spear.
The silver rod spun, hissing through the air, before striking the ground beneath the avian beast.
It didn't bounce. It rooted, like a nail driven into the crust of the world.
A pulse shimmered from it — low, circular, and invisible to normal sight, but Cain could feel the magicules shift.
His breath held tight as the staff's pulse activated the talismans.
Seven in total, each glowing like etched circuit boards made of amber and obsidian, their copper lines resembling divine circuitry.
They flickered, then surged — drawing the breath of the terrain, the bite of charged ozone, and the faint shimmer of magnetic fieldlines curling down from above.
The air trembled — then came the crack.
A bolt of lightning, white with threads of pale blue, dropped from the heavens like a spear hurled by some ancient sovereign.
It struck dead center — right where the avian hovered.
The bird spasmed midair, wings flaring in pain as it cried out, and then it collapsed, spiraling down and crashing into the river below.
Steam rose like a holy veil.
His squad stirred.
Ricky turned, already gritting his teeth, words itching for release.
Cain gave them nothing, he was just glancing around to each member of the team.
Beany and the tigress didn't speak, but their faces betrayed thought, but no voice gave it form.
Ricky wasn't done.
"Lobby Commander Cain, I respect that you're looking out for us, but if we don't jump in now, they'll roast that thing into a fried chicken. What? Are we waiting until there's nothing left but false hope for a share?"
Cain said nothing, he didn't need to — the next sound did the talking.
A thud — not loud, but vast.
A diffused explosion, as if someone detonated a warhead and buried the sound.
Across the river, the other team was waist-deep in the water, weapons raised.
The card-operator had his hands mid-shuffle.
The two troopers stood flanking.
The shamantic magician was already preparing the next talisman.
Crackle!
Lightning — sizzled upward in a reverse arc from the water's surface.
It wasn't an effect of technology or magic arts.
It was the Elargi.
The creature had absorbed the bolt, stored it inside its feather-lined core, and now returned it.
Cain's eyes narrowed.
'They hadn't struck down a beast. They had charged it instead.'
The card operator cursed under his breath, fingers trembling as he yanked another tarot from his belt pouch.
"What fucking gives! It should've been stuffed full!"
The Elargi was supposed to be preparing for hibernation.
After giving birth to an egg, it should've made itself full of energy as the winter approached.
The plan had been simple — overload its body with more energy, pushing the bird to a sluggish state due to over consumption.
But nature itself — had a nature of being unpredictable.
The energy they predicted to be transferred into the shell hadn't just been stored.
It had been gifted.
Everything — had been poured into the embryo.
The Elargi was no longer retreating.
It was protecting.
They barely scrambled out of the water, sparks sputtering from their armor's cuircuits and servos.
[Air Filtration: Compromised]
[Automatic Repair: Compromised]
Warning notifications flooded their visors.
The panic was mutual, adrenaline blurring decision-making.
Then it came like a raging storm.
The wings flared — not upward, but outward, revealing jagged, talon-like limbs coiled beneath.
A second set of legs.
It grabbed the trooper like a vending machine claw catching a prize.
Then it opened him.
Not like an enemy but like a shellfish.
Its beak pried into the wet insides of the man, scooping flesh, fiber, and bone with casual pecks — eating him alive.
With a loud slurp, the screams didn't even last a full second.
Cain didn't smile nor gloat, his feet only carried him to walked away.
"Let's go."
His voice was level and measured.
Beany fell into step behind him, followed by the Fara.
Ricky, Pumbo, and Tol remained frozen — visors facing the carnage, the pecking.
For a moment, they looked like statues.
Then, wordlessly, they followed too.
They didn't say anything.
But something had settled in the space between them all.
Forming a team in Fracturion wasn't a button click — it was a burdened responsibility.
To take the role of Lobby Commander meant putting your entire record on the line.
Most people never volunteered.
Only two kinds of people ever did.
The fools, and the ones who knew exactly when not to act.