Under hundreds of metres of rock, in the underground river that stretched from the equator to the north pole, many things were in motion.

Hyde, Fike and their companions wallowed through the flowing river, trekking upstream. Hyde and Wisp bickered as Fike and Drunken Sword walked in Silence.

Up ahead, Titan floated along the surface of the water, skimming atop the river without ever getting wet. He was moving at blazing speed. Chasing something.

Further on from Titan, thousands of Shrike ploughed through the river. Widening the tunnel wherever they went. Like migrating birds, they all flocked upstream towards the walled city. 

Within the walled city, Solomon ran damage control. Slaughtering any Shrikes that dared poke their canopies out of the underground river.

Hyde and Fike, who were bringing up the rear of this monstrous procession. Had just remembered their long lost teammate. 

"Hey, Fike. How do you think Solomon is doing?"

"How should I know? I barely know the guy. Don't worry about him... I'm sure he's doing fine."

...

Solomon sneezed, almost throwing off his attack that was primed to bring down an enormous Shrike... Almost.

His tail whipped out viciously, accompanied by the crackling of thunder. The strike of his tail hit the air and produced an enormous shockwave that ripped up the cobbles that lined the city streets and sent them flying like bomb shrapnel.

The Shrapnel ripped apart a few smaller Shrikes as well as a few of the less sturdy houses. Peppering them with gaping holes.

"So I can control wind huh... That's new." Solomon mused. 

As he had relentlessly attacked the Shrikes, at some point, he had noticed his attacks seemed to have a particularly powerful shockwave. Not only that, he felt that he was able to run and jump faster. Almost as though he was being helped along by nature itself.

His constant battles had helped him to quickly acclimatise to this new ability. 'It should have something to do with that crystal thing that formed in my heart,' he assumed. but there was one thing that confused him, 'The crystal seems to have two different things, frozen within it.'

When he focused his consciousness internally, he could form a picture of his body within his head. In this image, his heart had a glowing diamond-shaped crystal core within it. 

The core was constantly spinning and sending waves of strange energy flowing out into his body. It was with this energy that he had gained the ability to control the wind.

Within this Crystal, core were two things, frozen in time, like a fly trapped in amber. 

A light green tornado that was frozen mid-rotation. The colour of green was the exact same as his Karmic flames.

Beside the Tornado, as if orbiting it, was a deep red smudge. It hung there, like a drop of crystallised blood. 

'The tornado should signify my wind control, but what does the second thing mean?' he wondered. 'It should be blood, but I can't test that out on Shrikes, as they have none.' 

Leaving that to the side, Solomon brought his consciousness back out of his chest and leapt onto the roof of a building. He surveyed the city. Anxious to find his next target.

It had been a few hours since Sophia was killed and his emotions had cooled down enough for him to think rationally. Right now, he wasn't rampaging around the city like a wild animal and was being more methodical about his approach.

At one point, he had killed a Shrike that was about to attack a helpless woman and had an epiphany, 'This is a good Karma farm!' 

When he remembered that Sophia had died while evacuating people to the library, Solomon had decided that this was what she would have wanted him to do. 'Although that does seem kind of out of character for her, I remember her telling me how much she hated her neighbours and yet she died to save them...'

Solomon couldn't figure out why she would do such a thing but, since saving people was what she had wanted to do in her final moments, he would do his best to carry out her final wish.

Thus, he had begun to evacuate city residents when he found them. Like this middle-aged man for example.

Solomon jumped from the rooftop he was perched on and landed in front of a man who looked to be in his 40s. The clothes he was wearing were dated and he had a pair of mangled glasses perched at the tip of his nose.

The way he was walking around the streets without a care in the world was somewhat creepy But Solomon decided to ignore it.

He tried to reach out and grab the man, but somehow his hand grasped nothing but air. 'Did I miscalculate? I could have sworn I would reach him...' The man had managed to step around his outstretched hand with such ease and grace that it looked completely natural.

The man raised his head to look at Solomon. When their eyes met, Solomon frowned in confusion. This man looked familiar, but he couldn't quite remember why.

"Excuse me sir, have we met before?" He asked the man.

The man was staring straight into Solomon's eyes and furrowed his brows. He opened his mouth and closed it again. No sound came out. He frowned angrily and opened his mouth again producing a strangled wheezing rasp of a voice.

"I... D...don't Thin...k Sss....O" His voice was ancient and dry. Like he was speaking through a mummified mouth.

"Are you alright? Has all of the smoke damaged your lungs?" Solomon asked.

Continuing to stare directly into Solomon's eyes, the man opened and closed his mouth, yet again producing no sound. Before simply nodding.

"I'll bring you to evacuate if you just come with me."

"E..Va..Cu..Ate?" The man looked confused. Like he had never heard such a word before.

"Yeah," 'Does this guy have brain damage?' Solomon wondered. "I'll take you to the rest of the people. You have a family right? They will probably be there."

"People..." He seemed to know this word and yet, the way he said it sounded as though this was his first time actually speaking out loud.

"Yeah, People, come on, let's go."

After thinking for a moment, the man nodded in agreement and Solomon led him to the Library. He had decided to evacuate people there as it was a relatively large building and that area had the least Shrike... after he killed of them anyway.

As they walked through the ruined streets in silence, Solomon kept an eye on the man. 'Something about him feels familiar, I've definitely seen him somewhere before.'

When the man walked, each step he took was mechanical and yet also shaky. Almost as though his body was being controlled by a puppet master.

While watching the man, Solomon noticed something really creepy, 'He hasn't blinked once since I met him,'

Thinking that everything about this guy was too suspicious, Solomon decide to lead him to the city centre first. His thought process was pretty simple, 'Anyone who lives in this city should be able to recognise the city centre... if they don't then, either this man is a demon in disguise, or something else. But, if he was a demon, he would have recognised that I am also a demon so why would he stay in disguise?'

Solomon picked up his speed as he walked to see if the man would fall behind. At first, he walked at a normal speed but as they continued winding through the streets they began to run and then sprint, at human speeds anyway.

Behind Solomon, the man wasn't even breaking a sweat as he sprinted at full pelt through the streets. When he ran, he would furiously swing his arms back and forth in an odd manner.

Speeding up again, Solomon was now running at the speed of a horse. This was no problem for a demon like Solomon and apparently was also no problem for the man either. He was keeping up just fine and looked completely at peace while running at twice the speed any human should be capable of.

'He is not human... But then what is he? He shouldn't be a demon either, so why does he look so familiar? If only Sophia was here. She has a really good memory and would be able to recognise him. I remember when she memorised that book after...

Book, YES that's it. What was it?... Right the book on Shrike. The author in that old photo at the back looked just like this man. The scientist who created the first Shrike... But didn't he die thousands of years ago,'

Solomon turned to look at the man, 'Maybe they just look similar' He had thought. But no. The man running behind him looked like the spitting image of the author of the book on Shrikes. Even his glasses were similar, although now that he looked closer, he realised, 'The glasses don't have any lenses in them.

He came to a stop in the middle of the street. Everything about this person was just too strange. He was glad that they were around the city centre that had long ago been evacuated. 'If we have to fight, at least no one will get hurt,'

The man came to an abrupt stop behind Solomon and looked around at the destroyed buildings and corpses of Shrike, "People?" He asked.

Solomon didn't answer and threw a punch straight at the man's face. His fist whistled through the air, producing a sonic boom and was upon the man in milliseconds. 

The man tilted his head slightly and Solomon's fist sailed by, producing a shockwave that tunnelled a fist-sized hole through a nearby building.

His face remained expressionless. He still hadn't blinked yet.

Solomon's tail lashed out, slicing through the air and sending a shockwave that shimmered with a hint of green in an arc towards the man.

The man bent backwards sharply until his head was behind his feet all the while, his legs remained frozen in place. He had managed to dodge the strike, but for any creature with a spine, this move would surely snap it.

Slowly, he straightened back up accompanied by the sounds of cracking. When his face was visible again, a gash was cut into his forehead. Within the cut, brown and green tendrils writhed and squirmed. No blood flowed from this wound.

'What the Fuck!?' Solomon swore. 'Is this thing a Shrike?'

He tried activating the red energy within his crystalline core, which he assumed to be blood, but there was no reaction when he aimed it at the 'man'.

Just as Solomon was about to launch a full-frontal attack on the man. A shout sounded from the end of the street.

"Waaiit!" Screamed a young man as he lept out of the massive pit in the ground.

In a flash, the young man was beside Solomon and he looked at him with a cheesy smile. His teeth were a blinding white that should only be viewed through sunglasses. The young man's hair was blond and he looked like a guy who would be loved by parents and older women alike.

He opened his mouth full of perfect teeth and greeted Solomon, "Hi, devil spawn. My name is Titan, Yes it is I, the person in the first place on the leaderboard. But please, no pictures."

It didn't take long for his cheesy smile to crack when Solomon spoke, "What leaderboard?" After all, Solomon had never seen this leaderboard.

"Huh? What do you mean? Are you messing with me?" Titan asked, completely baffled

Solomon ignored him and turned back to the middle-aged man who was about to strike at both of them.

The man's arms stretched and distorted gruesomely. Extending out toward Solomon like tentacles of some enormous octopus. The arms lashed down towards Solomon and Titan like enormous whips.

A gust of wind sprung up and pushed Solomon out of the way in the nick of time. Where he had been standing, a deep trench was carved into the ground.

Out of the corner of his eye, Solomon looked at Titan who had somehow managed to catch the other arm above his head.

Through gritted teeth, Titan spoke up, "Listen to me little demon. Leave the Progenitor to me and you take care of his underlings."

Solomon was happy to do this because he didn't feel like getting hit by one of those giant tentacle arms but... "What underlings?" Solomon asked

Titan spared a glance behind himself at the Crater he had jumped out of. And, as if on cue 100s of Shrike began pouring out of it and out into the city.

"Good luck," Titan shouted before taking the long arm that he had grasped in his hands and swinging the Progenitor around his head. The man's body tore through buildings all around Titan while constantly picking up speed.

With a shout, Titan let go and the Progenitor was sent careering through tens of buildings, getting buried within rubble out of sight. 

Titan promptly sprinted after the Progenitor, leaving Solomon alone... With 100s of monsters.

His final shout drifted back through the winds, "You just need to hold them off long enough for me to kill the Progenitor and then you will have completed this 'Penance'"