For the second time that day… well, what I thought was the same day, I found myself hundreds of feet up in the open sky, screaming out like a baby. I say that with confidence, knowing that pretty much everyone else would do the exact same thing if they were plummeting to their deaths. Except for Athea, she didn’t scream. That woman was not normal. I was not expecting to die, though it was likely going to end that way. My idiotic plan worked out.

            I smacked down hard on one of the police drones. It had a smooth surface and was about half my size.. It bucked and tried to kick me off. I was sliding down the side when my fingers gripped the edge of its exhaust panel. It was hot, burning my fingers even through the metal gauntlet, but I held on for dear life. I was not a large man, but defying the laws of nature as the Huds do, when I wore my armor, I was at least four hundred pounds. In fact, I noticed that I was gaining weight as I progressed through my class. It was that and for sure wasn’t due to Imona’s nasty ass paste.

            The drone lost control and began whirring to the side. After a few moments, we began spinning around like a goddamn tornado as we hurtled towards the streets below. I was disorientated; I couldn’t tell how close we were to the ground. I couldn’t tell if those blasts of superheated plasma or lasers were directed at me or not. All I could do was hold on. We spun in circles so fast that I was forced to close my eyes or else vomit. Though we descended slower than we spun, we did not fall slow. Luckily, thanks to the spin, the drone impacted the street first, and went flailing twenty feet until I smacked into a tree.

            Head spinning, I tried to stand, but fell back immediately. Imona being the saint that she is, opened my faceplate just in time for me to throw up bile and her nasty paste. I started hiccuping. That sucks when you are vomiting. Hearing the alarms from the other drones, I stood up again, still dizzy, but on my feet. There were people standing far off in terrified clusters. They looked exactly what you would expect people would look on a world ran by the cruel. Dirty, decrepit, matted hair stuck next to scared eyes. I looked back up to where I fell. More drones appeared. Half were on their way towards me, the other half was moving into the blown out section of the immaculate white and gold building.

            Steering hot pain ran across my shoulder, blowing out the dagger I forgot was still impaled. The impact sent me back into the tree, but instincts and the little training I had kicked in. Although my arm was injured, I embraced the pain like an old friend, fully aware that my body far surpassed the strength of a simple Stray.

            Grasping the tree, I used my momentum, spinning myself around it and flying back in the direction the shot came from. It was one of the two drones, and what I saw in my flight angered me immensely. The drones were large, dangerous, and cared little for the pedestrians. It flew towards me on ground level, crushing and killing an elderly man trying to waddle out of the way. No way I was going to let that go unpunished.

            Thanks to my increased cognition, I was able to focus and summon up my sword in the fraction of a second it took to reach the mechanical monster. Only one blade summoned, I plunged it deep into the things optical sensors, blinding it. A mechanical scream came from its innards, but that didn’t stop me. With my other arm grasping one of its smaller guns, I spun my body around, forcing the drone to tip up and to the side just as the second drone fired its heavy laser pulse. It burned into the drone’s underbelly. More screams came from it, but when I felt the heat dissipate, I sliced up and in half with a single swipe. There were at least twenty people behind me that would have been killed if I had not lifted the thing up. I needed to end this quickly.

            As the two halves fell, I jumped through the debris and onto the second. It was closer than I thought and grunted as my stomach punched into one of its gun ports. A second barrel was perfectly encompassing my manly hood, and with a girlish scream, I shifted, slicing down. All but one of the drone gun ports was severed. I lost my grip then, but it was okay. As I fell on my back, I threw my sword up and it buried itself deep inside. Mechanical screams and the sounds of electrical shorts screeched out. Smoke and a reddish liquid came from the monster as it spun around and around. It angled and flew towards the ground, towards the crowd of people. I leaped up in time to grasp the exhaust. I was not strong enough to pull it down completely, but I could angle it enough to crash and explode into an adjacent building.

            “FUCKING GET OUT OF HERE!” I shouted at them.

            No one moved or replied. I hate pedestrians. Catching my breath, I looked at the two halves of the second drone. The clean cut down its middle exposed its mechanical innards and something else. A brain, a human brain. Surrounded by an amniotic fluid inside a dense metal casing, it floated there, dead. Cables protruded from the brain and into the electrics surrounding it. Are these people? At one point?

                 I looked up at the people still staring at me. They were shocked at the violence. That was until the first of them was cut down as a plasma pulse took her in the face. Being a Stray, her body couldn’t handle the Artifact forces involved. Her face wasn’t just burned away, she wasn’t just killed, her body just ceased to exist, flashing off from head to toe. She didn’t even know what hit her before only char remained.

            I turned. Green and blue armor, thickly plated and planted heavily onto the ground. Fingers of drills board into the ground similar to that of Sam’s armor. A reptilian helmet flashed green eyes, and I felt my armor grow heavy. Either that or myself growing weaker. It was minor. Not only was my strength vastly increased thanks to Imona, but being an Immortal Blood, that strength grew exponentially. Yes, the armor was heavier, but it was nothing, and I showed that to the fuck and whatever ability he used on me.

              I moved faster than I ever had before, even with my current weakness. I knew I needed to get to this man before he could aim and fire again. He was fifty feet away, and even with my prodigious speed, I was not fast enough. He fired his rifle. Knowing that I could not live with myself for bringing harm to any more of these people, I did not dodge, but used my newest ability.

            Ability Four, Ending Wind

As a Deaths Knife subclass, you have access to his killing breath. You can now cast brief gusts of wind from your arms or legs. Larger gusts consume more energy.

            “Here goes nothing…” I groaned.

            I lifted both arms, dropping my sword and watching it dematerialize. Knowing innately how the ability worked, I exhaled. It was a strange ability, but the training Marrin gave to Camilla then echoed in my mind. She was a Swordsmith. Though her abilities appeared rather underwhelming, she would never end fights with one, she would end them with a sword in the neck. I was a Caster, and that was something I kept forgetting. Fights would end with my growing abilities.

            Expelling much of my energy, wind the power of ten hurricanes blasted out of my open palms. In the strangeness of Huds, there was no reaction, as I felt no semblance of resistance. For a moment, the ball of plasma froze in midair, then solidified as the air rapidly cooled the deadly mass of molten gasses. It clunked to the ground; I sprinted past seeing that the Weaponsmith was disorientated from the sudden and strange ability. His arms were out wide, only remaining on his feet due to the drills holding him in place. What one used to anchor himself proved to be his downfall. I could taste his fear as I leaped. He tore at his feet, but the drills were slow. Both blades materialized in mid swing, one taking his head, the other cutting him in half. Such little resistance I had with my soul blades. I feared I felt nothing when killing this man.

            I looked down at the corpse, and spit on it.

            “Fucking coward.”

            I realized that my faceplate was still up.

            “Imona!” I scolded.

            “Sorry, sorry. I was distracted.” She replied.

            “By what? If he had better aim, I could have been killed.”

            “Yeah, but he didn’t have better aim.” She said.

            Shaking my head, I turned back towards to crowd of people. I lowered my helmet completely and stepped towards them. A black scorch march was all that remained of the poor woman. I turned to my right. The crushed old man lied, mangled and broken. An old woman cried over his chest. I wasn’t sure if exposing my face was a good thing. I feared my burned eyes would send fear rather than seeing a person.

            “Be fighting system. Die ones will.” A middle-aged woman said among the few that remained.

            I understood what she said. Little did she know, I was not here to fight their system. But an idea came over me then, perhaps I could do something for the people of this world. Not yet, but perhaps in the future. I stepped over to the old woman.

            “Imona…”

            “Shut up Bas, he is still alive.” She interrupted.

            “WHAT?!” I exclaimed.

            “Quick, left front pocket.”

            I listened and found a small black disk no larger than my pinky nail.

            “Put it on him.” She ordered.

            I listened, the crying woman not even noticing me. The moment it was attached, it shone with a green light and his body disappeared. The woman slapped against the ground over the area he once was.

            “What! Where!” She cried out.

            She slapped her hands around the pavement. Two hands grabbed my shoulders, trying to tug me away, but failed uselessly.

            “Imona… what did I just do to him?” I asked.

            The woman turned towards me, as if seeing me for the first time. She screamed out, nothing coherent, but I understood her meaning.

            “I…I…” I sputtered. “IMONA! Help me out here!”

            I felt something appear in the same pocket. How was she doing that? I pulled out a second device. Well, that is better than nothing. I thought this as I stuck it on the old woman the same way I had the man. She disappeared, and the others screamed out. I stood up. Three men were trying to wrestle me down, but they just fell back.

            “I sent them to a hospital!” I shouted, my voice projecting much louder than normal.

            They understood and fell further away from me. I was not the monster…

            “That is what we just did right?” I asked my mental demon.

            “Yyyyep.” She sounded hesitant.

            “Thanks?”

            “Marrin is going to be pissed.” She replied.

            “YOU SENT THEM TO PERFECTION!”

            “Where else would I send them?” She asked.

            “TO A HOSPITAL!”

            “They wouldn’t be treated here. Too poor. Plus, I had to use the ship’s teleporters. I don’t access to the ones down here.”

            “I hate this place.”

            “THERE HE IS!”

            Someone shouted from down the street. The rest of the pedestrians scampered off upon seeing three users sprinting towards me.

            “Time to go!” I said. “Let’s find some alleys.”

            I stood up and sprinted off, being sure to avoid areas with people.