Chapter Eight 

Part One: The Delta Squad

 It was a bright blue sky above a green forest; the sound of blowing wind cut through the tree leaves. The forest had tall bushy trees and a thick undergrowth at the forest edge. There was a wide clearing, a field of charred grass, in the middle of the foliage. In that very clearing, people were fighting for their lives.

A guy with long silky grey hair found himself in the clutches of an Abyssiti several times his own size. The entity's arms, wrapped around his torso, pierced into his sides. He strained as he tried to free himself from the Abyssiti, but he was unsuccessful. It felt as though a million needles were puncturing his internal organs. It looked like much larger, less humanoid versions of all the previous entities. Like almost all of the Abyssiti, it was a mass of sharp, semi-solid, shifting matter. It possesses seven white spots that can merge into one, which serve as makeshift eyes. 

“Let go of me!” He cried out. Next thing he knew he was coughing up blood. 

As his blood dripped down his face, in a last ditch effort he impaled his hook claw directly into the shifting mass. The Abyssiti was unfazed. He spat a mouthful of blood onto the ground below. The Abyssus unit stared into its empty white eyes with terror, but soon his fear subsided. While still coughing up blood, he chuckled.

“Hehe,” He winced in agonizing pain. “You’ll pay for this...when the Captain and the others get here you're...done...for.” He was beginning to black out.

As his vision began to fade away he heard a loud blast from behind him, and before he knew it, he was falling to the ground, with his mangled lower half of his body trailing behind him. The abominations arms were blown clean off, and the guy who did it still had his large gun pointed at the Abyssiti. He had black, shaggy hair and weary deep red eyes. His checkered past had left him with a constant emphatic expression on his face. He was the Captain of the Delta Squad. 

“Good work Edge.” He turned to his injured grey haired teammate. “You found the Abyssiti. Hmph. Looks like an A-Class to me. You did well to last this long.”

Edge mustered all of his strength to look over at who was talking to him. He faintly smiled when he saw who it was armed with a Plasma hand cannon. “C-Captain Trauma, Sir.”

Trauma stood tall and placed the cannon onto his shoulder and took aim once again, his gun revved up with energy as it prepared to fire. The entity quickly recovered one of its arms and launched it at the Captain. Trauma tossed his plasma cannon up into the air and dodged the swipe with a roll. Upon its descent he caught his weapon and immediately fired it at the giant Abyssiti, blasting away its arms once again. 

“Perfect disarmament, Captain Trauma! Now it's my turn!” shouted a voice from beyond the trees. A girl armed with a hook claw bursted from the leaves and tackled the Abyssiti from behind.

Given the anomalies tremendous size compared to her, she hardly moved it, and ended up latching onto its back. “Ah! Ouch my hands! Touching the Abyssiti head on makes my skin burn!” Cried out the girl, although she sounded more enthused than in pain.

She had deep purple hair tied into a short ponytail with a plus sign clip and bangs on either side of her black eyes. She wore a pair of black-rimmed glasses and had freckled cheeks. A few more Abyssus units in the Delta squad came out of the forest and into the open field where the encounter was. 

“Glitch Ma’am! Please get down from there!” Cried out a guy from down below. He looked in fear as she dangled from the back of the A-class Abyssiti.

“Don’t worry Razor! I’ll be down shortly!” she responded as she held onto the entity with all her might, despite the stinging pain on her hands.

A static noise rang out as it formed another one of its arms, but it was almost immediately blown off by Truama’s Plasma cannon. His crimson eye stared down the Abyssiti, he wasn’t going to allow it to reform any of its limbs. The giant arm hit the ground and dissolved into the air with the noise of shattered glass. The entity stumbled back from the shot; the Abyssus units below it had to scatter, to avoid being crushed under foot. Glitch, still on the back of the creature, stabbed her hook claw into it. The Abyssiti let out a shrilling screech. It created a sound so horrible that everyone had an instantaneous reaction: A shiver ran up their spine, or they put their hands over their ears. Anything to block out the noise. The only two Abyssus Units unfazed were Trauma and Glitch.

“Whoops, my bad-” grimmanced Glitch as she checked to make sure the hook claw was firmly impaled into the Abyssiti. “I’ll be nice and make sure it's quick!” she said with a smile.

Glitch placed both of her hands onto the handle, and used her body weight to drag the bladed weapon all the way down the Abyssiti. From the top of its back to the ground, she created a giant gash, but it wasn’t enough to take it down. However, Trauma fired his cannon directly at the Abyssiti to add to the damage; the plasma cannon burned a hole through its face. The giant Abyssiti went limp and began to crash towards the ground, yet before it even hit the grass, the body just fizzled away into the air without a trace. 

The guy that was calling out to Glitch earlier, Razor, caught her in his arms before she hit the ground. Razor has a very clean and proper appearance with sharp features, but often carries a worried expression due to his superiors reckless behavior. He had olive-brown hair which he wore slicked back. 

“Glitch Ma’am, what do you gain out of this! Please be more careful next time!” He warned as he kindly placed her onto her feet. Glitch dusted off her bullet proof vest and pants.

“Hm? What do I gain from this?” Glitch adjusted her black-rimmed glasses and sharply turned to Razor with a wild gleam in her eyes. She grabbed his cheeks and pulled him closer. She had an eager grin on her face which made Razor nervous on what's to come. 

“I touched an Abyssiti with my bare hands, and survived to talk about it! If that's not a gain, I don't know what is!” She exclaimed. Razor sighed, he knew no matter what he said, her behavior wouldn’t change.

Trauma put his hand cannon down for a moment and looked out into the lush trees around him. The forest was swaying from the midday breeze. The sun shined bright, showering him with warm light. However, he was soon beckoned back to reality.

“Captain! He’s bleeding out sir! Edge is still alive!” Called out one of his teammates. Her name was Patch. She was standing over Edge, who’s lower half of his body was destroyed beyond repair. His innards were beginning to pour out from his wounds, but somehow he was still alive. Trauma walked over his subordinates.

Patch was a relatively young, fair-skinned woman of a short stature. She had chin-length style, wavy dark brown hair with dark brown eyes, with rather long eyelashes. 

“Do you think we can save 932-E, Captain? Can we save Edge?” She asked desperately to her superior.

Trauma looked down at Edge. He was barely breathing and was in a terrible state; it was obvious to anyone that he wasn't going to make it. His gloomy red eyes glistened. Then Edge began to mumble something, his voice was coarse. 

“D-Did... I do... a good job, Captain?” sputtered Edge, choking on his own blood.

Trauma took a knee beside him and placed his hand on his chest, where the Human Restoration project symbol was embedded into the vest. He mournfully looked into Edge’s faded eyes.

“Yes Edge, you did a great job.” Trauma stood back up. “Your sacrifice will not be in vain, without you we wouldn't have made it this far. You may rest now.”

“Patch… please turn away.” Suggested the Captain. She didn’t heed his warning.

Trauma reached into his pocket and pulled out a plasma pistol. He aimed the gun directly at his dying comrades head. Edge smiled, as his captain pulled the trigger, killing him on the spot. Trauma stood over his body for a while, blankly, staring down at his corpse. The sadness he was feeling wasn't shown in tears, or his facial expressions, but in his eyes. He eventually snapped out of his trance and turned to Patch, who witnessed the whole thing. She seemed to have an innocence about her, and Trauma didn’t want to tarnish that; he returned his pistol back into his pocket. 

“Let’s go. We have to make sure only one Abyssiti came out of that rift. We can let one of those monsters roam freely within the Federation walls.” But before Trauma could get a move on, another teammate ran up to him. 

She had straight, well-kept, combed blonde hair cleanly parted to each side. Her face was almost always in a perpetual state of complacency, as her green eyes were lax.  If you asked for her opinion though, she would consider herself extremely attractive. Her code was 001-Z but she was more affectionately known as Idol, and she had news.

“Captain Trauma, we’ve been ordered to come back to the Southern Enclosure at once.” She informed her superior in a monotone voice.

He scoffed. They couldn’t go back yet, they've only killed one Abyssiti so far today, they had a job to do and he would be damned if one of his comrades died for a mission they didn’t complete.

 “Idol, what do you mean “ordered to come back” Who ordered us to return this early?” Snapped Trauma while clenching his fist.

Idol paused and made intense eye contact with her Captain. “An Intrinsic summoned for the entire Delta Squad sir. They've come in person... and they specifically asked for us.”

Trauma took a deep breath, he couldn’t refuse a direct order from an Intrinsic. He looked about the forest; he didn’t see anything out of place, just burnt grass and unrooted trees from the rift opening he assumed. Then his glance crossed over Patch. She looked at him with her dark brown eyes, full of concern. He locked eyes with her in a shared understanding.

“We’ll follow your lead, Captain Trauma Sir.” Stated Patch.

Trauma nodded his head.

 “Okay. Let's return to base, and pray there wasn’t more than one Abyssiti.”