<+=/ Jenna \=+>

Lycra was a liar.

The thought came unbidden, amidst a raging torrent of pain that sent her body convulsing and twisted her throat in a silent scream.

Getting clipped by one of Belar's rifles hurt. Crash landing a broken airframe hurt. Getting slammed by the tutorial's impossibly dense rain had hurt.

Evolving to F grade was torture.

She tried and failed to form more complex thought as her body twitched. It was all she could do to keep her legs and arms away from Wing's controls.

Jenna hadn't even killed the damn beast, but something about this mission had counted as more action. Enough to give her partial credit and the xp that came with it. Maybe it was because they'd needed two bombing runs. Maybe it was because the massive mutated simian creature they'd engaged had actually sent an attack their way. Its orange lightning, flung from two of six arms, managed to destabilize Wing, put a hole into the left aileron, and somehow had partially recharged their mana crystals. It was an odd outcome - and one Lycra had stopped to scribble about before he pulled another superbomb from his storage item. The second run had involved dodging and defensive flight maneuvers she normally didn't need to take. Maybe that had done it?

Her wrist fractured, then immediately healed itself as her joints continued to spasm. How the hell had Lycra endured this so casually? Jenna felt herself succumbing to the pain, drifting into unconsciousness. She bit through her tongue to stave it off, then stabbed a knife into her leg. It kept her awake just long enough to get them both to the ground.

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"...with that, the majority of our fighting force has been outfitted with power armor. The rest will continue to use simple plating, and we've managed to convert some of the rifles ourselves - though things would go much faster if you would be able to spare some time on it. Even a day would make a world of difference."

Hirvonen gave Jenna a glance. As time marched on, the activities of her fellow Vuxarinans had firmly focused towards growth and other preparations for their eventual return out of the tutorial. All of them knew it was only a matter of time before Lycra would finish his current questline. Now, they were trying to get a tiny portion of his attention between 'missions'. It was going surprisingly well.

His yellow eyes seemed to sparkle with the sunlight filtering through their windows. Like most of their infrastructure, the building they were currently in was remade from Belar materials. His head bobbed.

"Yes, yes. We should make more gun tools. We can't make more railgun tools. Maybe Belar guns are too weak. My faction should be strong. Hmm..."

Lycra seemed to go deep into thought, and the people seated shifted uncomfortably. The only ones patient enough to stay still were Hirvonen, Jenna, and Edith - the ornery old lady they'd found at Belar headquarters. The woman happened to be a former instructor at the war college, and more importantly - she was a damn good healing mage.

Her genius bit his lip, and frowned in Jenna's direction.

"We can't fly Wing." The faces around the table twisted in confusion. The aircraft was Lycra's pride - even more so than the increasingly powerful bombs he was generating. "We're running out of mana crystals. I need them for beast lords. I need to make the faction stronger. I have to build them tools. I'm sorry."

A scrambled mess of emotions knotted themselves together. She knew that the aircraft was more crystal-hungry than anything else Lycra made by a wide margin. Each flight was equivalent to firing the plasma cannon dozens of times. Those same crystals would last far longer as fuel for power armor, or smaller constructions usable by the regular members of the faction. She knew Lycra had a better understanding of the workings and sacrifice required to let this many people survive and grow. He'd shown it in small doses that generally took the form of dedicating some of his time to projects completely outside the scope of more exciting or explosive pursuits. It came out in the lessons he gave to their forces on how they could most effectively use the storage devices scavenged from fleeing Belar soldiers. It showed itself in a dozen tiny changes to his mannerisms that Jenna only noticed because she watched him so closely, and so often.

She knew all of that, and her heart still ached. She knew how much she wanted to keep flying - and she knew Lycra wanted that just as badly. Still, his first thought was to apologize to her for taking away something he knew she enjoyed. Her heart ached and swelled and churned, and - not for the first time - she quelled the rising desire. This wasn't the right time.

The faces around the table watched them, silent.

"It's going to take a lot longer to kill the final two beast lords, then," Jenna offered. "That will give everyone here more time to power-level themselves. We don't know how things are going to play out once the final lord goes down. We should be prepared for the worst - which would be instant teleportation into hostile territory."

Hirvonen nodded. "We should also assume we'll be separated, then. Unless we all group together and travel together."

Edith scoffed. "You and I both know how long it takes to march a group, Hirv. It'll slow us down to a crawl."

"Except-" He held up a necklace that looked like a deck of cards tied to a string. "We have ways to make ourselves more mobile. Enough that Lycra can essentially have a mobile lab to work out of, while we use the areas we transit through to fight the local wildlife, and let the new suit troops get used to their gear. We have enough of these storage devices to turn our camp into a convoy."

Hirvonen turned his gaze towards Jenna, then Lycra.

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"Probably."

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She wiped a line of sweat from her brow, and once again gave her thanks for Lycra's genius. Stone shifted under her, and tumbled down the massive mountainside. Maybe it would fall all the way to the base, where their convoy was spread out in a vast semicircle. Probably not. The volcano they were on only became hotter as one climbed, and without the tiny carved cooling crystals they each wore, the current group would have been hard-pressed to even breathe in the oppressive air.

The explosion - and the mass of dust and debris it had kicked up into the air - hadn't helped that point. Things were finally settling down, and revealed the results below.

She remembered a quote from an old senior, during her early air force days. 'if it's stupid, and it works - it isn't stupid'.

Blowing a hole in the far side of the mountain to drain down lava was stupid. It was also working. The bit of pooled glowing rock had shrunk considerably, and sections of what prior looked like hard ground were in the process of flaking and falling away into the partially-emptied mouth of the volcano.

The naturally camouflaged, crab-like creature skittered back into an obsidian copse of obelisks, desperately trying to maintain itself in ever-shrinking cover. When they had first seen and engaged with the beast, it felt like an unwinnable struggle. But with its main source of combat ability flowing away and down the mountain, it was just another beast.

She opened the box before her, and pulled out the special ammunition. Solid metal rounds fit for the railgun she was holding had a trail of small crystals lashed to its back, encased in a thin coating to make the whole construction slightly more aerodynamic. She loaded, steadied her breathing, and fired.

Another shot plunged into the creature's thick hide, and the mixture of ice and explosive crystals caused shards of ice to leap forth and bury themselves in what injuries the prior bullets had created. It hadn't taken long to see the beast was weakest to the cold element. Parts of its exposed flesh were already necrotic, and more would soon follow. With nothing to throw at them, the beast was The death of this 'lord' was only a matter of time.

Jenna wiped more sweat from her brow, and loaded another round.

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Snow crunched beneath her boots as she paced back and forth. She failed to stop her eyes from flitting to the massive mountain.

Around her, fires burned and worked to stave off the harsh weather, but couldn't melt away the snow more than a few feet away from where they burned. The final beast was undoubtedly in an even more inhospitable location than the crab. Worse, she was stuck here this time. They all were.

Hirvonen drilled a new group of troops that were getting used to the latest - and likely last - new sets of power armor they would create. The suits had been scavenged on the way from number 9 to number 10, off another contingent of 'escaped' Belar troops. The depth of information they had carried - on Lycra, and the rest of the group - still worried her. There were likely more runaways. She had to hope they would be transported together and get to finish them off.

Elsewhere, she heard Edith screaming at the top of her lungs. The old woman had gotten twice as bad with her 'training' now that they were on the final beast. A group of former medical professionals of varied expertise flinched at her words and hurriedly attempted to carry out the orders she barked.

Beyond those two groups, a town's worth of Vuxarinans went about their tasks. Some crafted. Some shuffled away from camp in squads, or returned carrying dead beasts. Others were locked into the scavenged information, attempting to find relevant material that would help in the next fight against the invaders, once they were out of the tutorial.

Her eyes flitted back to the mountain.

Just as he had with the final Belar base, her genius had demanded to go alone. Just his sword, the railgun, and his backpack draped over an ever-present suit of ivory armor.

Two flashes of light fixed her attention on an outcrop of rock partway up the mountain. She squinted to see arcs of lightning and bits of ice dancing in the open air. Other elements joined the whirl, gouts of fire, shards of earth, and mixes of colors she couldn't place railed themselves against a frightening amount of ice.

It drew on, more and more intense, until the ice shifted up, and the other elements ceased to appear. Her heart skipped.

Then the flash came.

Lycra had stayed in his lab for a week straight before this final battle. Jenna was certain she now knew why.

The light was blinked away in time to reveal a shockwave, visible in the snow and rock it kicked up in its wake. A wake that was quickly traveling towards them. Shouts of warning sounded all around, and Jenna joined the others in dropping to the ground. The massive wave of force toppled their structures and sent a few of their number flying into the air. Her thoughts weren't with her fellow Vuxarinans nor the state of their camp.

Jenna's feet carried her swiftly forward, towards the source of the explosion. She ignored the increasing cold biting at her skin, and the strain as her legs overworked themselves. System messages flashed completely past her vision.

There was only one truth, one thought. She needed to get to him.

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Jenna found Lycra a quarter of the way up the massive mountain, half buried in the aftermath of an avalanche. He was surrounded by chunks of a creature that had once been scaled. The space was coated in blood. Her hands dug hard enough to tear the skin of her fingers, and she extricated his form from the compacted snow.

Shards of ice had pierced through multiple joints in his armor, and one of his legs was only hanging onto his body with a few strands of distressed muscle. One eye was swollen shut. The other fluttered in response to Jenna's screams. She grabbed one of his hands, and it flexed back in response.

She didn't know what rambling, desperate words escaped her. Only that once she saw him, she didn't stop. Not when she scooped him and his nearly-separated appendage and started to run back down the mountain. Not when she reached a sprinting Edith and the full team of medics she'd brought with her. Not when Hirvonen and the others reached them, brought out tables, and erected a shelter around them wall by wall. Jenna stayed with Lycra the entire time, desperate and hopeful. Hands clasped over Lycra's in an unbreakable grip.

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**Present**

"After that, it was mostly just recovery time - Edith leveled up twice reconnecting and rehabilitating Lycra's leg - and then a pretty underwhelming fight once we got clear of the tutorial a few days later. Hirvonen and a squad stayed with the less capable members of the group while we set out to find some decent territory to set up a base of operations. The noise and spectacle in the city drew us to you. We'll have to go back and find Hirvonen and the rest as soon as we're settled so we can bring them as well. Maybe Lycra will have the golems repurposed by the time we're ready. Going to need to find a source of crystal for that, though."

Dirt scraped with their steps, softly echoing off hard parts of the tunnel. The princ- no, King. She really needed to start getting that one right, especially since the ruler of Vuxarina now just happened to be a 'friend of a friend' to her genius. The man nodded sagely and gave her a piercing look that felt like it would expose every secret she ever tried to hold.

"You endured quite the trial, Jenna. I commend you, your team, and Lycra once again. True bravery and heroism. It is easy to see why you are so smitten with Lycra."

Jenna felt herself flush. The king turned away from her long enough that she regained her composure, then continued.

"Speaking from experience, the stubborn are capable of finding an endless series of reasons to remain dense. Direct - even forceful - communication is key to reaching an understanding, if there is an understanding to be reached."

The words echoed in her head. Direct? Jenna always considered herself direct. She was highly capable, and brave, and she threw herself into danger with enthusiasm. Except - she felt the immediate reflex to push her emotions into a box and hide them away. The group turned a corner in the tunnel, and were met with what appeared to be a solid wall of sealed brick. The King smiled and broke her from her thoughts.

"Ah, wonderful. We have arrived."

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