When the sensation of burning finally ceased, he still couldn't move most of his body.
His uniform had managed to stem the bleeding, but he couldn't tell how many seeds had pierced through him and how many remained lodged inside.
Fortunately, the scales had converged around his most vital areas, preventing damage that was too severe, but the sheer amount of blood loss combined with the shock produced a crushing fatigue that made it feel as though gravity had intensified.
Tyson wanted to close his eyes and rest, nothing mattered more in that moment as warmth spread through his body.
Slowly, his vision began to blur, and his thoughts drifted as his sense of pain dulled entirely.
He thought about how he hadn't seen Argenta or Oliver since Yon had arrived.
He thought about how much Red hated pain, how he must be suffering after nearly being torn apart, now possibly fatally shot.
How neither Blue nor Rita were in their uniforms. How vulnerable they are at the moment.
He thought about himself. About why he was getting up so soon after having his wounds sealed.
How he was once again running toward the now unrecognizable amalgamation that held the girls.
There was a strange heat rising from the back of his neck through his entire body, different from the heat that had accompanied the earlier pain.
He also internally felt as though his blood had been mixed with thousands of razor blades. Moving a single muscle felt wrong, and his progress slowed considerably.
He still couldn't see anything, not that it mattered. His flames ignited once more, this time from his right hand alone, and he forced himself toward the rumble and creaking he recognized as the amalgamation returning below.
Unfortunately, it hadn't forgotten him, nor had it ignored him. Braiding the vines it had left exposed, it struck Tyson with its most potent attack yet, a direct and undeniable hit.
At first, he only felt something cold coil around his waist, followed by a sharp concussive crack that made it sound like lightning had struck beside him.
His ribs gave way instantly, and every trace of breath in his lungs was expelled at once. The world vanished beneath his feet as his body was wrenched off the ground.
The level of damage inflicted upon him, even before he was launched, would almost certainly result in his death long before his body ever touched the ground again. Cosmo determined this the moment he finally broke into the clearing, a bit too late to stop the attack.
The amalgamation had managed to slow his progress considerably. It somehow possessed control over every single element in the forest. Control surpassing even what Cosmo commanded through his Authority. And it seemed to have decided that the most effective method to keep the Captain away from the others was to divert everything between his position and the barrier into attacking him and sealing off the site.
Of course, Cosmo forced his way through, despite the disadvantageous predicament, but the time he arrived was far from ideal.
It didn't take him long to make use of his talent to compensate for the shortcoming.
The instant he broke through the last wave guarding the clearing, every one of his senses converged with his mind, and the entire scene surged into his awareness.
0 secs…
Tyson, red blood coating nearly his entire body. Distinct patches and missing segments torn from his uniform. His torso twisted, hurtling away from a massive tangle of vines that had even distorted the surrounding air. Red was sprawled on the ground, bleeding as well, lying awkwardly on his side. His left arm outstretched, his chains wrapped around Tyson's waist.
0.00062 secs…
'Backtrack. Those falling fruits, the holes all around this area, and the seeds I had to avoid earlier were caused by them. I'll need to keep track of the intervals at which they detonate.'
0.00071 secs…
'Tyson's hot-headed, but he isn't reckless enough to rush into a direct attack without cause. His mental state must be in disarray, he'd normally prioritize saving Red from the rest of the firing seeds. His eyes were either fixed on something else at that moment, or his visual perception had seized. Damn it… no, focus…'
0.00084 secs…
'Red used his chains at the last second to pull Tyson away and decrease the impact of that whip. He's using his left hand to do it, while his dominant hand is lying at an odd angle. Judging by the strain through the rest of his body and the concentration of the bleeding, his right arm might as well have been torn off… focus… focus… Tyson needs attention too, and probably won't survive the landing without intervention. But Red's overall durability is far lower than his. I wouldn't have to make such a harsh–no, no, focus, focus, what can you do right now?'
0.00097 secs…
'I can send my uniform after Tyson. It would take too long to reach him and treat him myself while dealing with what's ahead of me. Doubling the scales will be enough to mitigate the damage of his landing and mend him. What concerns me beyond that is the foreign substance I can feel within their bodies. It doesn't seem fatal yet, so I'll handle it afterward.'
0.00105 secs…
Broken and discarded vines lay across the ground, charred and ruined. But some had only frayed ends from blunt-force damage, and a few others were cleanly severed. All of them pointed toward the amalgamation.
'Yon was here. And since everything is still here, Argenta must be safe as well. Oliver likely took her away. From the look of things, Yon fought alongside Tyson, so where is he now? No, I can sense him a little farther off. He's fine, but something's wrong with his… not now, priorities.'
0.00147 secs…
Fragments of red metal could be seen reflecting across the ground, and more pieces of the same material were still falling.
'I don't sense any residual trace of Rita's Authority, and Blue's attacks appear to have erupted from within. She also seems to have been the first among them to react to danger. Normally that would have been Rita, who has the fastest discharge. The most plausible explanation at the moment is that Rita was the first to be incapacitated.'
0.00169 secs…
'They're often near each other, so there's a high chance they were both caught in that hand. It isn't too likely the damage was inconsistent, since neither of them had their uniforms on while they were playing with Argenta. Meaning there must be another reason Rita was taken out so quickly. The problem now is that I can't sense either of their presences at all.'
0.00176 secs…
'Focus.' 'Focus.'
'Dammit!'
'I'm missing something about this.'
'Focus!' 'Dammit!'
'Tyson would have lost too much blood to think past his initial objective for Red to have needed to pull him away. His mind must have been fixed on something far more urgent. That thing did, or has, something. If I had to guess, it'd be the girls.'
0.00198 secs…
Sure enough, when he directed his senses toward the construct itself, he identified the space from which the fragments of Blue's crimson blades were descending.
The amalgamation appeared to be expelling external material as it sank into the ground.
Since he had already determined the major outline of the scene, he now needed his body to act in accordance with the conclusions his mind had reached.
Gradually, time began to realign with him.
As Tyson was being hurled out of the clearing by the sheer force of the strike he had taken, a jacket shot toward him at matching velocity, enveloping him swiftly.
Every remaining explosive fruit, those still intact and those mid-detonation, was blasted upward at tremendous speed by a surge of wind and particles, where they completed their discharge without causing further collateral damage.
Then, he continued his flight toward the jumble, drawing his hand back as he advanced.
Sure, he could not sense them within it to confirm his speculation, but the sooner he verified their condition directly, the sooner he could attend to Red's injuries.
As he prepared to drive his hand through the descending construct, a persistent feeling tugged at him.
It compelled him to extend his senses again, and what he discovered shook him to his core.
The reason none of them had been prepared at the onset of this chaos was because they had perceived neither the dark matter typically exuded by shadowbeasts, nor any trace of sentience anywhere.
Even while fighting it, there had been no dark matter to detect.
But now, Cosmo could sense it. More accurately, he was forced to sense it.
It was a shadowbeast, and through the dark matter spilling from everything under its control, it deliberately made Cosmo aware of its vines burrowing through the ground behind him, heading straight toward Red's body.
Through this, Cosmo finally recognized the final detail he had failed to identify at first.
Whatever it was, it knew them. It knew far more than it should. Not merely information it could have gathered by watching them over the past seven months, it understood their internal workings and hidden tendencies.
Earlier, during his rush toward the site, Cosmo had attempted to contact any of the others to no success, and when he checked their ADAs, he found the hardware infiltrated by miniature tendrils disrupting their functions.
When he also focused on the ground, this mysterious shadowbeast had intertwined its roots across the surface as well as beneath it, restricting his access to the soil.
It was intelligent, it was informed, and it had them contained.
Now it presented him with an ultimatum. He could forfeit saving the girls and protect Red from the approaching vines, or ignore Red for the sake of two of his officers.
Even if he had been bold enough to gamble on choosing both, it was possible that this creature's processing speed approached his, or worse, that it could anticipate his choice before he made it.
'Dammit.'
Then again, what other reason could it have for taking this course–'Dammit'–unless his decision had already been accounted for?
'Dammit.'
No matter what he considered, nothing offered a definitive path.
"Dammit!"
He cried out in rage as his arm pierced into the amalgamation.