Dying wasn't as bad as Anzel would have hoped. He thought that dying would feel painful. Leaving him with regret and worry for the people who cared about him. But this, letting go of his problems and giving into the freefall surrounded by the soft scent of rain, felt like heaven.
Time seemed to slow down as Anzel's twisted smile slowly faded into a hollow stare. His Axis gear was torn from the back and could no longer function. The helicopter above him set its spotlight on the havok scraping the edge of the chasm. The creature seemed frightened by the blazing light as it scampered further down the street.
Anzel desperately struggled to breathe, yet felt his senses being heightened to near perfection. He was now about four thousand feet before hitting the rocks below him.
Four figures caught his eye as he saw them launch out from the helicopter, two heading in pursuit of the havok while the other two started heading for…Their heading for me? Wait, those are shifters. The figures that seemed to be more monster than human scaled down the chasm's wall faster than he could fall, a thick metal wire attached to each of their sides.
The shifters were made of thick black flesh, much like the skin of a havok in its first stage, sheer muscle covering their bodies entirely. Only two-thousand feet remained before Anzel would become part of the abyss. Shots were being fired from above. In the blink of an eye, the two shifters flew past him before stopping short and catching his fall.
Anzel felt what little wind was in his now punctured lungs knocked out of him. Rocks crumbled below and he shivered at the sight. Visions of his mangled body at the bottom of the chasm flashed through his mind before he was brought back to his senses.
"Anzel!" One of the figures shouted in a voice distorted by the confines of the fleshy suit.
Anzel immediately recognized the voice, "Hazil? Hazil I'm so sorry. I al—"
"Don't speak, you're about to die," Hazil remarked.
"Wha—"
Before Anzel could reply, a massive blast resounded from above. Soon after, a deafening screech shot out into the night as the very face of the chasm opened in a split. Hazil took full grasp of Anzel as rocks fell like an avalanche too fast for the other shifter to react. Their face mask twisted one last time to look at her before having their torso smashed in by the rubble and into the ground below. Hazil understood the assignment.
More boulders came crashing down, narrowly missing Hazil and Anzel as she descended the side of the chasm with desperation. It wasn't long before she leaped onto the ground floor with a giant thud. Anzel assessed his surroundings to see scattered trash. Broken pieces of rusty machinery and a staggering amount of lab equipment lay in disarray.
The chasms this city was built around were turned into wastelands of filth resulting from an excessive buildup of commercial products produced by the city mixed with an overall lack of regard from the citizens themselves. It later devolved into a way for many of the city's underground scientists to throw away their failed experiments, some of which remained alive. Anzel had always hated going down here on scavenging missions but now he was just relieved it hadn't become his graveyard. Funny how just a few moments ago he had accepted his death with open arms yet now he clung to his life like a child clung to its mother.
Anzel would have jumped at the sound of the havok's body slamming into the ground just feet in front of them, but his current condition wouldn't allow him to move his body. Hazil suddenly tore off the Shifter's mask, revealing her sharp face, bright blond hair, and hazel-colored eyes.
"You alright?" She asked him. Anzel directed his eyes toward the hole in his stomach in disbelief, struggling to produce words from his mouth.
"Not that dumbass. I mean in the head. Before you die I need you in a stable state of mind for the transfer."
"R-Right, yeah I'll be fine, but what about the other guy?"
"Later," she said with a sigh. "You take higher priority."
Hazil then gently set Anzel on the ragged stone floor of the chasm. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the Havok slowly stirring back to life as Hazil prepped the transfer device.
"Shouldn't we move to a safer place?" Anzel said with a slight tinge of concern.
"Don't worry, they'll handle it," she said plainly.
"Who?"
As if to answer his question, two massive figures came crashing behind them. The other shifters who had been fighting the Havok above had descended the chasm. The one on the left took one look to assess Anzel's current state along with the current state of the other shifter whose lower body remained crushed under the rubble. The figure then took off its mask to reveal—
"Commander Kane," Anzel's cracking voice made out.
To have a commander arrive for what started as such a lowly mission was almost unheard of in the Coalition Army. Yet then again, this was a special case. His very presence added a sort of pressure to the air that even Anzel, in his mangled state, could feel emitting from his tall stature.
The commander's skin was of a slightly darker shade than his own and he held long, interlocking black hair. Most suspect that the commander's background arises from that of Centrepoint, however, many military officials' backgrounds are kept safeguarded by the high commander so the vast majority of details regarding his past life remain unknown. Many rumors vaguely state that he was a man who cheated his way to the top using his family's generational wealth and talented way with words.
Those very rumors are what made Anzel sick whenever he saw the commander. Hazil hated the man with a passion. It makes sense, after all, she comes from a family with nothing to their name. It's only right to hate him for abusing power that he himself failed to acquire on his own. The second figure beside the commander remained masked.
"Take care of thirteen," Commander Kane ordered his subordinate who complied in an almost robotic fashion, pulling out a device similar to Hazil's before heading over to the man gasping on his last breaths. "And you," he shifted his gaze over to Hazil. "Step aside," he said simply.
Hazil nodded slightly, clearly intimidated by his command yet Anzel could almost make out a sense of defiance in her eyes. Although the commander was known in the past to have a charismatic way with words, many within the army had begun to notice him growing cold these past few months for reasons unknown.
Before Anzel could think any further about the issue, he felt his body being moved near the chasm's wall. He was just barely hanging on now, his mind beginning to slip into unconsciousness. Too much blood loss. He thought to himself as his vision began to blur.
The creature standing before the commander was brimming with rage. It was clearly in immense pain from Anzel's previous attack yet its movements were now more animated than ever. It let out a screech that would make any normal person's ears bleed before mumbling a few indistinct words. It's losing its ability of human speech.
"It's transferring to the next stage. Here, just hold on a little longer. I'll have it ready in a bit," Hazil remarked in the best reassuring tone she could manage.
The havok began morphing, or better yet, evolving into something greater than it was before. The process of jumping from stage two to stage three havok was a gruesome one yet Anzel couldn't advert his eyes even if he wanted to.
Old flesh and sinew ripped away from itself in a bloody mess. The creature's once fleshy main body and head were now pierced with thick armor much like what was present on its legs. This was the first time Anzel had ever seen one achieve this stage as most were dealt with before they could even begin to develop their second.
Within the third stage, all forms of human resemblance would be lost and the creature's body would be completely hardened in carapace. Most would stop their development here as heavy reinforcements such as the ones that had arrived now would take measures to halt it from causing further damage.
A few biological scientists around Etheria have spread rumors that havoks could develop a fourth stage with properties still unknown to the public. The very thought sent chills down Anzel's back. Best not to think about that now. He thought to himself.
It took awhile for him to notice but within the chaos of the moment, Anzel saw that Commander Kane was simply standing there, unfazed by the situation. He turned to give Anzel a quick glance, his face devoid of emotion. Anzel felt his heart skip a beat. The commander's distant look told him all he needed.
There's an entire world that stands between us, was the only thought that could come to Anzel's mind. His dying heart slowly sank with a tinge of jealousy at the man. The commander turned to face the creature once more.
"Go on. I'll wait," he said plainly, almost taunting the havok who soon stopped writhing in a pit of its own flesh. The creature that stood before him seemed to be twice the size of the havok that Anzel had fought just minutes ago.
Its joints jolted, cracking maniacally before turning to face the man. It lowered its body in an offensive position, ready to strike at what it instinctively knew to be the greatest threat in the area. A long moment of silence ensued as Anzel's vision slowly faded to black. He tried to focus on his own predicament the best he could but the atmosphere between the two was too tense for him to advert his attention, so tense in fact that it seemed to stop the fall of the rain around them.
In a sudden blink, it happened.
A maelstrom of motion exploded from the havok as it flung itself at the commander with such a speed that Anzel's eyes failed to keep up. For a moment, his breath halted as he strained to see the outcome of the clash. Confused, Anzel expected a fury of strikes to ensue but what he saw was the opposite. From the looks of it, the commander simply raised a single hand to block the entire moving force of the creature before him.
Cracks formed on the chasm floor as the havok tried to escape the commander's vice grip. What pursued was a pitiful struggle by the havok, its legs slipping out from under itself like a bug slowly being crushed by the foot of a giant. Shifters were specifically developed by the military to deal with Class-X havoks, seeing it being used against a mere Class-Y, even with its size, was like seeing a fight between a grown man and an infant.
Without wasting any time, Commander Kane brought up his second hand to cradle the creature's face like that of a newborn child. It began to struggle harder. Even in its third stage, Anzel could have sworn he saw the creature shed tears.
"Playtime's over," The commander said before mercilessly crushing its head with his bare hands, a wicked smile plastered over his once barren face.
"Over here," Hazil suddenly remarked, startling Anzel. He turned to face her, or rather the large pointed needle that stood at the base of the transfer device she was using. The last thing Anzel saw before he died was Hazel's soft smile. "See you on the other side," she said before jamming the device into the center of his skull.