-/-)) Travis ((-\-

There had been a crack there, and evidence of a bloody gash underneath. He was sure of it.

But the blood was gone - or hidden behind armor that didn't look as fractured and broken as it had when he'd first seen the man. His eyes scanned over the downed form, and widened.

Damage he was sure he saw, to armor and to the man himself, was just... gone. An osteal smithing skill could explain some of the fix to the armor, but the man would need to be a master craftsman to make repairs that quickly. It didn't explain the injuries. An exposed hand should have been missing a chunk of flesh, but there was only light skin and dried blood. Wounds were missing, and burns were... Travis's breath caught as he noticed scar tissue where a burn should have been on the man's neck.

He shouted the order to attack as he pulled his crossbow's trigger. True to their discipline and station, his troops let loose their own magics.

Accuracy was easier at this range, which meant they could go harder with their attacks. Travis's lead arrow plunged partway into the ivory armor before its momentum was halted. Light bounced off a pauldron, and left a burned and slightly melted surface. Fire singed the man's hair and did a tiny bit of damage to his neck. As attacks landed, the man stopped screaming and snapped his upper body off the ground in a swift motion. He lifted an arm to stop grass blades from colliding with his eyes, then rolled onto his knees as bone boots dug into the ground. Dirt and roots exploded as the man threw himself towards the grass mage.

Blackburn tried to blind the man with light magic. It stumbled him just long enough for Hugo to land an arrow at the barbarian's knee. One leg dropped to the ground, and attacks continued to slam into his back, sides, and face. An earthen wall rose between the man and the grass mage. Shards of ice rained down from the sky. Long strands of brown grass wove over and tightened around the barbarian's legs. Blackburn concentrated his magic into a tighter beam that lanced forward with an ominous hum. It wasn't usually a good option in a fight, as the target and the caster both needed to be stationary for the thing to be effective. But when you were dealing with a downed enemy, or a stationary structure? He'd seen it melt F grade power armor and burn holes through beasts ten levels higher than Blackburn in their tests.

Travis managed to fire another two arrows, but Blackburn's attack still hadn't cored its way through the man. It was unusual for that to take quite this long, and unease swelled. Another lead arrow struck the man. The barbarian roared, and the light beam tilted skyward before it blinked and disappeared. Blackburn was prone on his back, shouting obscenities as he cradled a bloody right leg. The light mage pulled a trauma pack from his vest pocket as he continued to curse.

With Blackburn down, the barbarian roared again and tore himself free of the grass trap. Ice stopped falling from the sky as a gout of intense flames shot forward and into the barbarian's back. Travis felt a small twinge of appreciation for his team's coordination. The ice mage created a second wall between the barbarian and their grass mage, then gave Blackburn a small icy covering so he could continue addressing his leg. The man had already started to split the thing.

A deep rumble shook the ground as the barbarian slammed a fist into the hard-packed earth. Then a second impact blasted bits of dirt forward as the man struck through the fortification. Unease swelled. Jonah had used his magic to make foundations for multi-story buildings, and the barbarian just... punched it. The earthen wall exploded as the bone-clad native threw himself through the thing.

Ice flashed over the ground and grass flew forward at head level as the mages continued their attempts to trip the man up so they could continue piling on the damage. The barbarian's sprint turned into an awkward, stomping gait as he smashed down through the ice to progress. Delmar couldn't see through his own fire magic, and stopped so he didn't interrupt the ice field. Travis sent an arrow into the barbarian's foot that half faltered him. It didn't do enough.

The bone-clad brute hefted his wicked mace above his head with both hands, and slammed it down into their grass caster. The ursine woman was one of the largest members of Travis' forces, but she split from shoulder to navel in a single swing. Her body twitched once, then it slumped down dead. She was one of the more resilient troops, and she was gone in a single attack. Travis shuddered.

Light shone out from the barbarian. Travis hoped for a moment that Blackburn was back in the fight - then saw it was the barbarian's hand that was glowing. He was resummoning the thrown device. Travis prepped an arrow and stilled his shaking arms as he aimed for the native.

He wielded his mace in one hand as the other continued to glow. A seemingly haphazard swing obliterated the ice caster's leg, and a follow up stabbed the tip of the weapon through the man's chest. As flanges slashed their way through him, it cored the man's torso. Shoulders fell away from body as the barbarian twisted and wrenched the mace sideways.

A lesser elite stationed to support the grass and ice mages - one of Travis' select, highly trained troops - let out a scream, and ran. A bone ball appeared in the barbarian's hand. Travis's heartbeat pounded. The barbarian readied a throw. He fired the arrow. It glanced off the back of the bone weapon and knocked it lower than its intended course. The solid - not shrapnel - projectile slammed into the fleeing soldier, and his pelvis exploded.

In the scant seconds Travis watched the fleeing man die, he nearly missed the end of two more soldiers. Both junior. Both useful. Both shredded like paper targets under blows from the barbarian's mace. There was only one junior mage left on what had been the right flank - a terrified support soldier with grey eyes, whose job had been buffing the mana pools of the other junior mages. Travis loosed a lead arrow that slammed into the barbarian's hand and interrupted a swing of his mace. The blow missed, the barbarian shouted something unintelligible - and then he grabbed the support soldier by the neck, and squeezed.

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The juniors were gone, and so was the right flank. Blackburn was effectively immobile. The barbarian had a clear shot into the woods, if he wanted to escape.

He didn't.

Instead, the mad native spun, and sprinted towards Delmar. The fire mage had tried to close distance so he didn't lose his target while he shot out lances of flame. That short distance worked against him now. The narrow-framed man shouted as cones of swirling orange and green flames roared forth. Travis flinched back at the heat pouring off the attack. The barbarian lifted a palm, frowned, then barreled forwards. Delmar never stopped his magic attack, even as the barbarian emerged from the cones and shoulder checked him hard enough to throw the fire mage into a tree. The ivory mace crushed Delmar's helmet and skull into the bark. His headless body stained the wood as it slid to the ground.

More arrows crashed into the man, but failed to bring him down. Jonah's eyes went wide as the barbarian shifted his focus to the earth mage. Holes opened in the ground and stumbled the native as he sprinted forward, but he regained his footing, then launched himself into the air. His left hand was glowing agin.

Travis fired another arrow. Blackburn attempted blinding strikes of light. Wind shifted hard as Montes tried to blow the airborne man off course

The ball weapon appeared in the barbarian's hand. Travis was still reloading. The native shifted, then threw. The wind and motion faltered his aim enough that the ball sailed towards the ground in front of Jonah instead of hitting him directly. Travis felt a fleeting moment of relief.

The projectile exploded into shrapnel that flayed Jonah's face and body. Earthen spears erupted from the ground wildly as Jonah struggled to breathe through his shattered jaw, and the holes peppered on his neck. The barbarian landed, and charged through the spears to slam a fist into what remained of Jonah's face.

Blackburn had hobbled himself into a kneeling position, and shouted for Travis to run. White light flared as he poured his mana into a move he'd named 'the pulsar'. Travis had been around when he first came up with it, playing games of chance to get to know his troops better. The man's name choice, pulsar, had drawn groans from the entire room.

Seeing it now, Travis decided it deserved the name. He had to turn himself away as strobing light left him completely disoriented. It took all his concentration to run towards Montes' shouting voice.

He knew the barbarian was powerful.

He'd prepared for that - and still fell short.

The bone-clad warrior's abilities and prowess defied everything Travis knew about the universe - everything Belar had taught him.

The strobing light cut out abruptly, alongside an enraged roar behind him.

He'd made a mistake. Not in fighting - it was still the right call. But he'd failed to retreat, to see the danger for what it truly was.

He could at least make the right call now.

Travis lifted a shaking hand and keyed his radio while sending messages.

"All troops, Icebox and Group!"

A bone sphere sailed over Travis's shoulder, and the solid ball flew straight through desperately whipping winds.

Montes's head exploded in green mist. One of his mandibles landed in front of Travis.

Travis stumbled and fell, then rolled on his back. He overcharged his magic to form a thick lead shield, and screamed into his radio.

"Again, Icebox protocol - all bases, push data packets! Elijah, deliver a message for me. Tell Bea I-"

His words turned into a scream as his shield was ripped away hard enough to break his hand.

The barbarian towered above him, blood in all its various colors dripped from various points of the brute's armor - and flanges of his cruel weapon. He lifted the mace high above his head, and blocked out the artificial sun of the tutorial. Cold eyes stared down at Travis, lit with a light red glow.

Travis closed his eyes as the weapon fell, and split his skull in half.

+ Reid +

Reid stumbled back towards the forest where he'd hid, away from the beast lord nest and away from Belar's dead troops.

He panted hard as he went. His knees and his ankles felt like they were going to fall apart with every step. There was so much damage to his armor, he'd lost his gloves and a pauldron, and everything else still had minor chips and cracks.

When he reached the tree line, Reid fell to his knees and vomited on the ground. His mana fluctuated, and his head spun. Vomiting had agitated a few still-broken ribs. At least one piece of intestine was only held in by his armor, and threatened to pop free of his abdomen through a cut he still hadn't healed.

Fighting the bugs alone would have been alright. Fighting Belar alone would have been okay. Handling the two of them together proved more of a challenge than Reid expected. Most of it was his own fault. The greatest damage had come from his own projectile shattering and shredding into him at close range. The wounds he sustained there were worsened as hundreds of insects put slightly deeper and deeper scratches and stings into his armor, and his body. They'd tried to burrow their way into his wounds. Then heavy magics piled up on top of that.

He'd overloaded himself just to do emergency fixes to his body, and even then, more magic attacks had jolted him out of himself before he was finished. His mana pathways were still raw and singed from the overload, and trying to put any more energy through himself would result in more pain than power.

Reid had fought that many people before, but no one else had been quite so coordinated. The group harried him at every step and prolonged what should have been an easy victory. It had been enough for Reid to agitate his injuries - and the light mage even managed to punch a hole through his armor and into his muscle. They were tough opponents, until he took a few down and altered the balance of the fight. Even now, they were gone, but they'd managed to leave him in a sorry state. Hurt enough that he needed to rest before going back and finishing off the insects.

Reid flipped to his back and groaned. He did get some benefit from the fight - understanding about more coordinated soldiers with more powerful magic, and what people were capable of in F grade. Insight into how easy it was to harass him and throw off his flow. And further conviction that he was growing his power enough to be in an entirely different league from regular fighters of his own grade. Confidence that they could only threaten him with cheap plays and massive numbers. He sent a glance towards the tree line where the rest of Belar's goons should be, and wondered if they would attack him again now that their Lieutenant was dead. Maybe someone else would just take his place.

Shuffling feet sent his attention in the other direction, where a trio of native Vuxarinans stared on. The two men and one woman he'd rescued wore a mix of admiration and fear.

Reid groaned, and summoned some water and a few meals worth of food beside him. "You - eat and drink. I'm going to close my eyes, and sleep. Maybe scream. Don't move me."

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