The syn was a fucking monster, and her traitor fucking cousins had gone over to their side! Leerin’s teeth ground together as she fumed, trying to figure out how to even find the syn and take them out when half the time they weren’t even visible.
Fucking core abilities. Seriously, though! Even Rexanti hadn’t been able to hide their presence as well as this syn could, and they’d been far older
and
a syna! How was this kid—and Leerin was pretty sure they couldn’t be more than thirty, thirty-five—so skilled? Was Nur’tha just raising kids for war these days? The Gru had definitely been a powerhouse during the war, but Hetexia had made numerous comments over the years about her own negative view of raids and their purported purpose of keeping people trained for war, just in a more enjoyable way than their military training had been.
“Children should be allowed to be children,”
she had grumbled at one particularly eventful meetup, which had culminated in Grayson and Olivier chasing down a drunk Helix, who didn’t often drink due to the risk of him losing control of his power, all while Simeon looked on in something that might have been disappointment and might have been amusement—the guy was hard to read, okay!? Grown adults, acting like children.
“Didn't you spend a bunch of your youth in the Dread Coliseum? How is that being a child?”
Sorvell had asked as he recorded the antics of Helix, Olivier and Grayson, their attempts to catch him having turned into a game of tag.
“Yes, but I was never a child. I was always hy. For me to be allowed to attend the Dread Coliseum and leave my responsibilities behind for even those few years, this was a decision for myself—it was not forced upon me by anyone—and was one I made intending to enjoy my youth while I could. Your government forces children into war, forces veterans who have earned their rest to continue fighting when they do not wish it.”
Yeah… there was no way any northern tribe was training their kids for war, and Hetexia had never mentioned it—she certainly spent enough time ranting about other aspects of northern culture these days. So then, how was this kid so powerful? So fearless? Their attacks were so precise and heartless—there was no hesitation, no moment where they worried that perhaps they would actually hurt the person they were attacking, as was common in PVP raids.
“Bitch! I can’t believe you’re fucking betraying us!” Callum was yelling at Korrin, the two of them engaged in what could only be described as a haphazard and ill thought out battle.
Callum
should
have been winning—he was a few years older and raided far more than Korrin. He wasn’t winning. Korrin was both pissed—probably because he kept referring to her as a bitch and a lynie lover—and pulling up every skill she had, even the more brutal ones that would leave anyone hit with them aching for a few hours. If that weren’t enough, where Korrin’s anger had sharpened her to a point, Callum’s was turning him sloppy.
“Fucking lynie lover. Didn’t realize you had a thing for spreading your legs for—” Leerin’s cousin cut off into a chorus of curses as Korrin sent a large-scale skill rocketing his way, taking out a few of his younger siblings, who had been attempting to back him up.
A moment later, a raid monitor stepped off the exit line and spirited each of them away in succession, their group growing smaller by the minute. Not only had Korrin and her older twin brothers left to join the syn’s team, so had three of the veterans who had been dragged into their group. With the exception of a few adults who had turned out to be other guests of their cousin’s wedding, every other adult who had been recruited into their group had either left—several had left the raid entirely, unenthusiastic about dealing with any part of this disaster of a situation—or had stepped back with some of her youngest cousins who weren’t sure what to do with themselves.
They weren’t stupid enough to try and join the fight, knowing they would just get in someone’s way and were no match for the syn. Some of them, she knew, were also conflicted. Just like Korrin and her brothers, who came from the small part of their family who had grown increasingly hostile towards the now-purist leaning part, they didn’t like what was happening—they didn’t like the hatred. While they had been content to step aside, too shy and nervous to voice their own discontent with the purist language being thrown around—too concerned with what their own purist parents would say about such a defence—now… now Leerin wasn’t so sure.
Every so often, one of them would shift as though to join the fight, clearly moving to join the other side, only to be pulled back by one of their cousins or siblings. The last thing they needed was for more of their cousins to join the syn. The last thing any of them needed was for the little ones to be punished for being decent human beings, as so many of them had been over the last few decades, the last ten years having been particularly bad.
Fuck. How was she going to explain this to her parents—to their parents?
Actually, forget about her parents, how was she going to explain this to Darrian?
Darrian… Darrian would have switched sides as well, she knew, and he would be disappointed in her for fighting alongside Callum and every other hateful member of their family. She couldn’t leave them, though. Darrian didn’t care about being outed as a member of Division 30, but she did, and her parents knew that, leveraging it to make her behave.
If she stepped out of line…
Leerin’s attention snagged on Callum and Erin, one of their youngest cousins—the only one under eighteen who was still fighting—as they fired off a tandem skill. It was actually pretty impressive, and one that would get through the defensive skill that Korrin favoured—she wasn’t well-trained enough to keep anything more powerful on the back burner while firing off offensive skills.
The skill, {Frequency Together}, should have been enough to killshot Korrin. It wasn’t. Just as suddenly was it was fired off by her cousins—they must have been training it before today to have fired it that flawlessly—the skill was gone.
Just… gone.
Then, Korrin was gone as well, swiped up into whatever ability the syn was using to hide their presence.
“What…” Callum breathed out, turning around and around, searching for any sign of where Korrin or the syn had ended up. His eyes grew humorously large as he turned, likely realizing for the first time just how few people were left on their side.
Where the syn and all six of his sudden allies remained, only five of their own side remained—although, technically, another six were just refusing to join the fight. Still, considering they had started this battle as a mob of over thirty, that was bad.
So. Fucking. Bad.
They were going to die and Leerin wasn’t coming back in. Part of her wanted to let the syn killshot her, their presence a phantom over her skin as they took down people at random and apparently defended their new teammates as needed.
“What happened?” Erin asked, popping up beside her, his eyes huge and concerned.
“The syn cancelled out the skill,” Leerin spat, glaring around and trying to figure out some way to track their movements.
There was no way
nothing
could find them. Every core ability and skill left a mark on the aether. If they hadn’t been on a moving ship, Leerin was almost positive she’d be able to at least guess at where they were. On the ship, however, any evidence of their existence was being pulled away too fast to notice, which, seriously!? How was the kid even managing to hide their presence when the ship was moving!?
As previously stated, the kid was a fucking monster.
“That’s… there’s no way he could have seen that skill coming! To stop it, he’d have to have prepped a defensive skill before we even started the activation!” Callum yelled from across the hall, where he was still desperately searching for someone to attack—even he was stupid enough to try to take on Korrin’s brothers, who were currently engaged in combat with two of the adult wedding guests who had stuck around, one a veteran, by the looks of it, the other yelling derogatory things at the twins for supporting the syn.
Leerin didn’t want to admit it, but her cousin was probably correct: regardless of whether the northerner had used a skill or their core to cancel out that skill, the syn had to have already had it prepped to have managed to cancel out that particular skill, which leveraged its tandem users to speed up activation and brute force its way through many defensive skills.
Little monster.
“How do we stop him, if he can stop something like {Frequency Together}?” Erin asked, eyes flickering towards the group to the side, clearly wondering if it would be smarter to step out of this battle.
Probably, it would be.
Still, they didn’t move, and Leerin decided they might as well go for the thing most likely to work: overwhelm the syn.
In their group chat, she began organizing their assault, managing to pull several of the cousins who had stepped off to the side into the plan by leveraging their curiosity over their distaste for Callum’s overt purism.
It wasn’t exactly a secret that there were purists throughout Baalphoria, but it often slipped under the radar of the average person. The powerful kept their opinions on irregulars and Free Coloniers to themselves, only letting their words slip when they were in like company or thought themselves safe. In the last few decades, and especially since the war ended, more people had been spouting their mouths off, however.
Leerin wasn’t exactly a purist, although she did dislike a handful of the beliefs that Free Coloniers were continuously bringing into Baalphoria, but due to her family, she knew her fair share. There was a strange split occurring within purism, between the old families, who were subtle in their hatred, and the newest members, most having come to believe as they did during the war.
Her family fell into a strange middle ground. Where the adults in their family were subtle, many of the children were not, and the reticence of the others, including herself, was often taken to be subtly—some discomfort with voicing their hatred for those who were not them, who were not
normal.
Rather, it was that they didn’t believe and were uncomfortable with the whole situation—that they knew they had no power here, that there were threats hovering over their happiness and safety. Not that they knew how to stop said situation, even if they could speak up. It was hard enough for her, and she was a grown adult. For these kids, though? Ones who were stuck under their parents’ roofs for the time being?
What could they even do?
Nothing—they could do nothing, and while she still didn’t exactly want to be supporting Callum, didn’t want to be fighting in this stupid raid at all, she could leverage both her cousins’ curiosity and concern for their parents’ reactions to get them to cooperate.
It was terrible, she knew, but it would be better for them. Darrian would be mad at her for her own choice to stand by her purist relatives, silently supporting them through her actions, but he would not begrudge her for making sure no fault could be found in their younger cousins. Callum might still complain they’d left him to fight alone, but once they learned how powerful the syn was the adults would leave them be.
As for Korrin and her brothers? They’d be fine. Maybe their parents would finally have a good enough reason to say fuck you to their family.
Lucky—how much she wished she could abandon her family and not face their wrath.
[
Leerin:
Everyone understand the plan?
]
A chorus of agreement echoed through both the group chat and the real world, Leerin mentally chastising her two youngest cousins, who were only a few months into Censor ownership, for accidentally speaking rather than messaging.
Oh well, chances were the other group already knew they were planning something, their attacks having grown sporadic as they organized, a timer lit up over each of their Censors, altering them when to begin the activation of various skills and when to fire.
If the syn could cancel out a skill as powerful as {Frequency Together} they could cancel practically everything. While the syn had been content to stay in the shadows since six of their members had jumped onto their team, the kid wouldn’t be able to do that this time.
This time, under this much fire from nearly a dozen people, the syn would have to show. Would they defend themself or their new allies? Leerin had no idea, but regardless, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference; there was no way the kid could defend everyone. Someone—hopefully multiple someones—would be killshot.
Over and over, they would employ this strategy, overwhelming the syn until either they were killshot or their allies were all gone.
Hopefully, the syn’s two missing allies wouldn’t show up. Stars knew how powerful they must be, if this kid was teaming up with them. Chances were either the syn was carrying the team, or each one of them was a fucking monster.
Leerin’s timer pinged, everyone's timer set slightly differently so they didn’t repeat the disaster from before, where all their skills had vanished into the aether. Each skill would load into the aether—into their minds and bodies—only to be triggered at the perfect moment to overwhelm the syn.
This
was where her experience as a support came in handy—not everyone could organize a group, memorize their skills and time everything like this. This was fun, even if she was annoyed with Callum for having no control of his mouth, with Korrin and her brothers for ditching them, with the syn for just being there.
[
GO
]
Over a dozen skills slammed through the aether, those of them who could load up multiple skills having done so. It wasn’t much—they hadn’t wanted to give the other group too much time to prepare their defences, but still wanted to take the opportunity to unleash as powerful an assault as they could on the group.
Her timer reset, even before the skills fully activated, setting another round of brute forcing the group down into motion and—
The aether shuddered and screamed—actually fucking screamed! The world shook, lights flicking all down the hallway, and their skills were just… gone. Even the one Leerin had already begun to load up for the next round popped out of existence, her Censor issuing her error message after error message before a notification that a wide range defensive skill called {Zero Chances Needed} had been used on them flashed over her vision. A skill? Not even a core ability, but a skill? One capable of knocking every skill in the vicinity out? That was… horrifying. Leerin had watched Ri use his core for wide range defence plenty of times and knew just how terrifying a strong core could be. No one—not Emilia or Halen, nor even Helix in the last decade—had managed to replicate anything close to that ability through a skill. Not through a core-based skill, not through an aetherstore-based one.
Who the fuck was this kid?
The syn stepped out of their hiding spot, sliding back into existence as though they had always been there. It wasn’t that they were smiling, but the tilt of their golden eyes definitely implied amusement.
“You should give up. You lack the ability to win.”
Leerin wasn’t sure if the syn was purposefully antagonizing her, but fuck if she didn’t see red.
.
!
Arc 7 | Chapter 263: Monsters Among Us
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