On yet another side of the clearing, Del was looking around, when he came to a sudden stop. His eyes widened at the sight in front of him. He turned his head towards the others.
"Uh, I found something!" He yelled.
Shizuka and Hayley looked up from their respective Beast corpse, and Faye looked away from the Glathrium sleeping chamber, and they all turned their attention towards Del.
Slowly, the four began to approach Del's location. And when they did, their eyes widened.
"Yeah…" Hayley said in a stunned voice. "He's definitely been here…"
***
Back in Military Base 2, Nathan and Duke stared at Oscar. While they knew that Head General Paul would be returning, they didn't expect the Supreme Commander to be coming with him.
Nathan glanced over at Duke.
"Nice job, Duke." He muttered. "You screwed up so bad, that the Supreme Commander had to get involved!"
Duke snapped his head towards Nathan.
"How was I supposed to know that he would jump in after them?!" He hissed in a low tone, hoping Oscar wouldn't hear him.
"You targeted his friends!" Nathan retorted. "You'd understand if you actually had anyone you cared about other than yourself!"
Duke's face twisted in fury, and he delivered a hard elbow to Nathan, knocking him down to the floor.
"Oof!" Nathan grunted, as his hit the floor, landing on his right arm. He looked up at Duke with a look of anger on his face. "Ow! That hurt, you dick!"
Duke bent down over Nathan.
"Well, maybe weaklings like you ought to keep their mouths shut!" He roared.
In front of them, Paul watched the two bickering Generals, his eye twitching with annoyance.
"ENOUGH!" He roared, causing them both to jump in surprise. "I don't care who, but someone better tell me WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!"
***
Back in the arena of the training center on Pioletic, Quinn and Vorden continued to stare at each other. Eventually, Vorden spoke.
"Quinn, I don't want to hurt your feelings, but the answer would be no." He replied, his gentle smile still on his face. "Being weak during the day, sure it's fine on a planet like this, but…no. Just no. Besides, what would happen to my Ability?" He asked.
The retrieval team stared at what was in front of Del.
"Just to be sure, we're all staring at the same thing, right?" Del asked in a stupor.
"Yeah…" Sergeant Faye replied, equally as stunned. "It's kind of hard to mistake a Glathrium picnic table as anything else…"
Shizuka walked up to the picnic table. There was a large, rectangular, metal loaf pan in the center of the table, as well as fiveplates. Each of the five plates also had a silver fork and knife on it. On each of the plates, as well as on the loaf pan, there was a residue of red sauce, as well as white, melted cheese. Seeing it, Shizuka smirked.
"Oh, yeah." She replied. "Tsu-Tsu's definitely been here."
Del raised an eyebrow.
"You can tell that just from looking at the dirty dishes?" He asked.
Shizuka snorted, and lifted one of the plates off of the picnic table.
"Absolutely." She replied, turning around, and showing them the plate. "There is nothing little Tsu-Tsu loves more than tomato sauce and melted cheese."
Sergeant Faye folded her arms, and glanced to the side.
"Yeah, I noticed." She replied. She had witnessed Tsukuru's rather unhealthy eating habits from when she did her rounds around the canteen.
Hayley's eyebrow then raised in confusion.
"But…why are there five plates?" She asked. "Is there four other students that we're unaware of?"
***
Back in the meeting room on Military Base 2, Duke was sweating bullets.
"Uh, well, you see…" Duke replied, glancing to the side, trying to avoid the steely gaze of the Supreme Commander. "It seems that one of my second-years got a little…carried away."
Paul's eyes narrowed.
"'Carried away'?" He repeated in a low, unimpressed tone.
Duke gulped.
"Apparently, the student in question lured the Blade boy and this rather annoying Level 1 into the restricted training room, and pushed them through a Portal." Duke explained.
"And Hikiko Tsukuru?" Oscar asked in a steely tone. "How does he come into this?"
Dusk visibly winced.
"We believe that he…jumped in after them." He replied.
"I want that second-year in the dungeon, now." Oscar said in a "no-nonsense" tone. His eyes then narrowed. "And as for you, Duke King, you are on thin ice. As the general in charge of the second-year students, you bear full responsibility for their actions."
Duke gulped.
"Y-Yes, sir." He replied quickly.
"As such, your fate will be decided upon Shizuka's return."
Hearing this, Duke's heart dropped. His shoulders slumped.
"Yes…sir." He muttered in a defeated tone.
Once again standing next to Duke, Nathan smirked.
***
Back in the forest clearing on Pioletic, Shizuka's smile widened as heard Hayley's question. She looked at Hayley as if she was a child who had just asked a question with an obvious answer.
"Ah, that's right." Shizuka said, glancing away. "You and Del, you're the only two here who don't know."
Hayley's eyebrows rose in confusion.
"Know what?" She asked.
Suddenly, Faye's eyes widened in surprise.
"Hihiko Tsukuru's Beasts!" She replied.
***
Back in the arena of the training room, there was an awkward pause, as Quinn waited for the System's AI to answer Vorden's question. The AI seemed to be smarter than Quinn had first suspected. From what the voice said earlier, to also giving him the option to activate the Blood Ritual Skill. This meant that the voice was most likely alsolistening in on Quinn's conversations.
"Fine." The man's voice replied finally. "I can tell that you're waiting for an answer. His whole cellular structure would be reset, and he would become a Vampire. Or something like one, at least. This would mean that he would revert to how his body was before he learned his Ability. Additionally, it might be a while before he could learn a new one."
Quinn raised an eyebrow in confusion.
'What do you mean?' He asked.
"You didn't learn the Shadow Ability through the conventional means." The voice explained. "You learned it through the System. Additionally, the Shadow Ability Book is now gone, meaning that there is no way for him to learn it. And because he would now be a Vampire, he would only be able to learn a Vampire-Compatible Ability."
Hearing this, Quinn let out a sigh, and looked back at Vorden with a sullen expression.
"Yeah, sorry, Vorden." Quinn replied. "If I turned you, it would probably erase your Ability." Quinn scratched the back of his head. "I just that I would ask. You might be one of those people obsessed with Vampires."
Vorden's eyebrow raised in surprise.
"There's people like that?" He asked.
Next to him, Tsukuru snorted, causing the two to turn to him.
"Why do you think we've been spending so much time with Layla?" He asked.
Vorden's eye instinctively twitched upon hearing Layla's name.
***
Back in the forest clearing, Hayley and Del turned to Sergeant Faye.
"Hihiko Tsukuru has…Beasts?" Del asked, honestly surprised. "You mean like a Bree?"
Shizuka glanced to the side.
"Well…yes and no." She replied, causing the two to turn from Faye to her. "Unlike with the Bree Family, he doesn't have to go out and track down Beasts to tame. He creates them via his Ability." She then glanced back at them. "Think about if an Earth Ability User could create a sentient, free-thinking Earth Golem that could fight alongside them."
Leo narrowed his eyes.
"Are you telling me that suit of armor eats HUMAN food?" He asked, thinking back to the Haunted Knight, and how it had carried on fighting perfectly fine after Erin had pried its head off.
Shizuka turned to him.
"He does have more Summons than just the Knight." She replied, her smile widening. "Summons with more…fleshy bodies."
Sergeant Faye put her finger under her lip.
"Like the bird woman he used to fly into town last weekend." She muttered.
Shizuka glanced over at her.
"It's called a "Harpie", Faye." She replied. "Don't be rude."
Faye's gaze snapped up at Shizuka.
"How do you know that?" He asked, her eyes narrowing.
Shizuka rolled her eyes.
"Because they're a well-known, well-documentedMYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE." She replied. "They're not something that Tsu-Tsu just made up on the fly."
Shizuka then glanced back at the table.
"Anyways, it looked like Tsu-Tsu's made a few more Summons since then." She replied, looking at the four remaining plates.
Shizuka then reached into her breast pocket. After rustling around for a little bit, she eventually pulled out a circular device that fit in her hand. It looked like an oversized stopwatch. She pressed a protruding, cylindrical knob on the upper-right side of the device with her thumb. An electronic "beep" was heard, and the screen came to life. On the screen, it was blue, and showed a light-blue grid pattern. In the dead-center, there was a white, upside-down triangle.
"It's lucky for us that this shelter is smallerthan Military Base 2." Shizuka replied, causing them all to turn to her. "That means we can track them down the same way we track down students who are out after CURFEW."