No Second Chances: The Beginning Of The End

7 days before the raid to the Pandora forest. “The name is Cristobal Monteari, He is an ex-commander who learned how to use magic, at its very basic level; his diligence and skill are very well-known on the battlefield, He was known as ‘the storm’ by his platoon; he is a 43 years old male and when he was promoted to general at the age of 30, he was also invited to the custom weapon program; his signature weapon is the Whip. It is known that it was able to channel his magic through it to break the sound barrier several times more than just the normal built-up momentum the whip had. However, there was another feature, the whip was made out of an artificial membrane that could absorb chemical reactions, and develop a certain attribute, due to this, and his feats in battle he was then promoted to commander of the whole troop he began to work with. When he turned 40, he decided to leave the army and dedicate to his family with special permission.” –The head researcher of the capital read out loud the record files of the whip’s user in a meeting held by several other high-rank officers among the military and government.

Back to the present day of the raid to the Pandora Forest. “It indeed was tougher than expected but we managed to knock it out and restrain this massive beast, we were lucky we didn’t stumble across the secondary objective while dealing with it. This means the other teams managed to neutralize it, I’m relieved” –Cristobal sighed in relief while the dragon’s limbs and mouth were restrained by the rest of the team using some sort of non-Newtonian polymer that could even prevent a dragon from moving. After a few minutes, Cristobal kept trying to contact the control room in the capital to request extraction, but the signal was still jammed. Shortly after, a shadow with a sinister smile walked towards the group; Cristobal instantly noticed and waved to Lawrence. However, there was something off; Cristobal instantly noticed there was no collar on Lawrence’s neck and the limbless corpse he was dragging with him wasn’t the secondary objective but one of his teammates. “Everyone, run away! The scythe holder has lost his restriction collar, flee before he-“ –Cristobal attempted to give an order before being abruptly interrupted by a slicing noise and a splash, followed by a couple of heads suddenly flying off from the bodies of Cristobal’s teammates. A dense smoke suddenly began to propagate from Lawrence’s arms as it was his magic. The scythe had some hollow veins across the blade and handle, letting out smoke as well which helped it mesh into it and become undetectable to Cristobal. Instinctively, Cristobal attempted to flee since he still had the collar and it could blow up if there was any aggression towards the members in the 5 squads. As the smoke didn’t spread quickly enough, Lawrence tried to pull it back up inside his arms and sighed while walking towards the direction of where Cristobal ran away after looking at the dragon for a brief moment. “You are about to die anyway, using my energy on you would be a waste” –He muttered while spitting on the ground and walking away.

At the same time, in another part of the forest. Elvira was doing her best to close distance with Chronos while masterfully dodging and blocking the ash spears that Chronos kept materializing. It may not look like it but I noticed there is a limit on how many spears he can throw, maybe that is why he tried to surround me with them, either way, I can’t keep this up for longer –Elvira thought while rushing through the barrage of ashes, swinging the battle-ax to block and the barrel to shoot simultaneously to strategically get pushed backward by the recoil to dodge spears coming from both of her sides. If Chronos didn’t move at that moment while also trying to control the spears' orientation, he would’ve been struck by the large shell on his left leg.

This feels more natural than before, but I can’t suppress the increasing urge of sleeping, why do I feel tired so suddenly? –Chronos thought while attempting to move towards Sinns subtly, as Elvira was busy trying to evade as much as she could with the aid of her current weapon. After properly landing on the ground, Elvira tried to gain strength by instantly crouching and spring forward towards Chronos at a high speed. With a small room for reaction, Chronos attempted to use the opportunity but his mind was getting numb while he tried to pull out his dagger to use her momentum to cut her neck as she didn’t expect the daggers. Fortunately for Elvira, he could only cut through the collar as she attempted to avoid the dagger, leaving a superficial cut on her neck, while Chronos’ stomach was hit by her knee with the full force of impact, sending him backward, bouncing on the ground once and landing against a tree.

Elvira instantly inspected her neck for any deadly injury and looked around to check if there was anyone witnessing the fight. Her heart was beating fast, her hands and arms were numb and it was rather difficult for her to breathe with the forest engulfed in flames depleting the oxygen; she dropped the battle-ax and walked towards Sinns who is now passed out on the floor, with scales covering the wounds inflicted by the spears impaling her. “You did take a beating I see, better be careful next time, missy.” –Elvira said while trying to pick up Sinns from the ground but the lack of oxygen made her pass out before she could even lift Sinns.

Chronos suddenly woke up and puked after his body relaxed enough to feel the pain of the impact. A couple of minutes after, he attempted to stand up as the forest was still in flames. The unified forest structure as a whole became a drawback since the affected branches made the agent travel faster across the forest, affecting it at an uncontainable rate. Chronos could sense the rapid deterioration of the flora and decided to walk out of the forest. As he attempted to leave, he stumbled upon Archival’s ‘grave made by the forest’s roots. “May you rest for me now, Thank you for your service, Archival.” –He muttered while kneeling down in front of the grave as the trees began to fall succumbing to the flames. As the forest was slowly burning, Chronos ended up in front of Elvira and Sinns. If I recall correctly she knocked me out but didn’t kill me, why? –Chronos addressed the scene, checking if it wasn’t a sort of trap and then tried to drag them along with him. Using rags and some ropes Chronos tied Sinns to his back and tied up Elvira’s hands, and legs to then carry her with the ropes leaving Sinns’ battle-ax behind. After walking for a while Chronos noticed the earth dragon having a hard time trying to breathe, when suddenly in his mind a voice echoed begging for the pain to end. “So this is also how Mother raised me through time… just like you are now trying to talk to me.” –Chronos mentioned while petting the head of the dying beast just like how Archival did before.

Slowly, the massive beast stopped breathing and then Chronos knew it was dead, so he closed his eyes as a sign of gratitude and left with the other two he was dragging in order to leave the dying forest as the sun was now rising in the horizon.

Outside of the forest, Cristobal and the remaining 5 of his team met and tried to contact the control room in the capital facility again and successfully managed to request the extraction of the team, as well as he gave a brief explanation of the situation. “Yes sir, both objectives were neutralized, but unable to be captured, also Lawrence Kaiser lost the collar restriction and now he is on the loose, we barely managed to escape alive, as for what happened with the rest of teams, Commander Sinns and the user Elvira, we can’t give a certain answer.” –He informed as one of the transport helicopter waiting in a nearby city was arriving for extraction.

Lawrence got out of the forest moments later to witness in awe the flames engulfing it; he unconsciously smiled proud as let out a victorious cry, to then prepare himself to take a route out of the government’s grasp. I wonder if I will be caught in the first city I arrive, after all, this scythe is very flashy –he thought while making his way in the opposite direction of the temporary camps placed for the raid teams. In the distance, Chronos noticed this person but tried not to engage since he had a load on his back, and it would pretty much be troublesome for him, so he decided to avoid any contact while getting out of the forest.

Elvira woke up some hours later realizing she was tied up and being dragged through the field, she didn’t take long to begin forcing her way through the knots but as Chronos noticed she tried to use her gloves to break out, he smacked her on the head, making her pass out once again. He then sighed and continued making his way until reaching the wasteland he once walked on after leaving Nat, Gree, and Phil behind. I wonder what are they doing now, I hope they managed to find a safe place –Chronos thought while taking his time to appreciate the landscape, which consisted of a combination of cities and mountains in the distance, several airplanes and helicopters flying on their regular routes and the large manufacturing and energy companies’ gas-emitting chimneys. For some reason Chronos felt a familiar shiver, he turned around to see the forest burning and the memory of the lifeless dragon breaking through the egg suddenly came across his mind, dropping his emotions for a moment. After a couple of minutes of pondering about where to head next, he decided to walk towards the closest mountain range, since it seemed like there weren’t any cities in that direction.

On that same day, Cristobal was summoned to a meeting so he could properly explain what happened in the operation. “The operation when smoothly in the beginning; however, there were several traps made to avoid the immediate wood incineration, cleverly spread across the forest so it would cause a maximum amount of casualties. I am certain the second objective was neutralized because there was no sight of him around my team, given that he constantly attacked others, my suspicions are that Sinns or Elvira managed to defeat him.” –He explained while standing in front of a large table with a few high-ranked officers, while a reporter was taking notes on everything. “The major issue is Lawrence Kaiser getting rid of his tracking collar, he demonstrated to be a bigger threat than the main objective due to my collar, since I could’ve lost my head if I clashed with him carelessly, so I ordered the rest of my squad to retreat and avoid conflict at all costs.” –He continues as two of the high-ranked officers read a different report from other surviving members.

“So you are telling us that Lawrence could have outsmarted and out-powered both Elvira and Sinns? They were not found and if I’m not mistaken, in the case they go against the directives, the collars would be activated, and their bodies are being searched, but the only thing that was found is Sinns’ Battle-ax.” –The commander in charge of overseeing the operation pointed out while showing some pictures given by the recon teams after the forest was set on fire.

“I’m not certain, but I can’t deny the possibility, however, it was rare that the secondary objective was alone with the main objective, there could’ve been a third element we didn’t know about.” –Cristobal opined while sitting back on his chair while the Commander continues to go through the videos of the stealth drones.

“Sir, the Anomaly, it wasn’t created by the dragon or the Elf, a different source was registered since the new records given by the dragon’s corpse reveal an interaction with it post-death.” –A researcher from the facility entered the meeting room panting as if he ran all the way there to explain the discovery while everyone looked at him horrified noticing that Cristobal’s supposition was right and there was something even stronger than the dragon and the elf they just killed.