"Mmmmm… what is this? It's so warm…sooo… soft?" Kaito thought to himself as he slowly began to regain consciousness.
His eyes fluttered open, the world around him coming into focus. As he fully came to, he became acutely aware of the two pink plush objects cradling his head.
"Elysia!?" He muffled out.
Elysia chuckled, holding him with a death grip.
"Goooood morning, Kaito dear! Already calling out my name with such passion? My, my, you've become so bold. Is this what happens when I leave you unsupervised for too long?"
Kaito flailed around weakly, trying his hardest to break free from her grip.
"I… can't… breathe…" He weakly aired out, consciousness slipping away as quickly as it came.
Elysia's pink cheeks flushed red as she giggled again.
"What's that? You want to express your gratitude with a dinner date? And a vow to dedicate your body for research for saving you? My, my, you really know how to make a woman's heart flutter!"
Before he could air out a response, she squeezed him tighter, his head gone from sight, completely smothered by both of her breasts at this point.
"Well, I accept Kaito dear! Kaito dear? Kaito… dear?"
She looked down only to see Kaito's from the neck down completely motionless.
"Oh no! Did I overdo it? Kaito dear, come back to me!" She said, unlidging his head from her chest and frantically shaking him like he weighed nothing at all.
Across the battlefield, Aqua watched on in slight confusion.
Elysia: 350,000 CPI
"That's his crewmate? She… freed herself from Sera's strings? How is that even possible with her essence being completely restricted? And the device around her neck… it's gone? Did it not detonate?"
Her eyes flicked down to the wooden branch still partially coiled around Kaito who was still being shaken nonstop.
"A wood sub-affinity…one of the rarest and most dangerous sub-affinities under the nature affinity branch. They have someone like that on their crew?"
In the middle of her thoughts, something moving in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She turned to look, only to see more tree branches and roots from both standing and destroyed trees extending toward Enaros, Nix, and Tyrek. They all became enveloped in a gold essence, slowly regaining consciousness one by one.
"She's…healing them too? This woman… Her healing abilities… There's no doubt about it, that's nature energy! But how? Who is she? Where is she from? No, it doesn't matter. I need to capture her and bring her back to the ship to Sera. This could change everything."
Kaito came back for the second time as Elysia finally loosened her grip, letting his lungs fill with air.
"Elysia! Where's everyone else?! What happened to the plan?" He wheezed urgently.
"Plan? Ohhhh that's right, Kaeline's clone mentioned that! She told me to tell you there's been some slight changes."
Right before the fight began, Talon, Kaeline, and Viro stood outside of the starbourne troop's ship that was covered by a pitch black dome seemingly made out of pure darkness.
"I can feel them, three movements. They seem to be in some sort of theater in the middle of the ship. Two to the left, one on stage in front of what seems to be a large curtain. They're disoriented. Good." Kaeline said as she held up a hand sign.
Talon spoke up from behind.
"Kaeline, we don't have all day! Drop the spooky shit and let us in to free those idiots!"
Kaeline weaved a few different hand signs with one hand. The dome of darkness covering the ship formed a small opening, just big enough for Talon and Viro to squeeze in and infiltrate the ship. Not long after, they found the huge theater.
"Viro, you're up!" Talon instructed.
"On it, co-boss!" Viro said as he cheerfully zipped passed all of the starborne troupe members, who were encased in cocoons made up of pure darkness, completely oblivious to what was going on around them, over to the trapped starlight crewmembers on the stage.
"Ohhh, hey there, Rorik! Long time no see! You're looking as tied up as ever… literally this time. Let me just—uh…"
"Viro, my robro! I knew I could count on you to show up and save the day! You're my guy, my ride-or-die! my—"
"I can't do it." Viro said dryly, but still enthusiastically somehow.
"Come again?" Rorik replied dryly.
"I can't do it bro! The encryption and technology are WAY out of my tech grade. I don't understand a single thing here!" Viro repeated, his tone making the news feel almost as a joke.
Rorik's expression was a mix of disbelief and betrayal.
"Ar-Are you serious right now? You're a supercomputer on legs! After all the adventures we've been through, all the scrap we've pulled out of each other's—you're telling me you're giving up? You, my robo pal? My bro? My ROBRO?"
"Yup!" Viro said as he gave an enthusiastic thumbs up.
Talon groaned loudly and stepped forward.
"Great. Just great. If he's useless, then I'll handle this myself." Her eyes began to glow and she raised a hand.
"Stop!" Elara yelled out.
"Huh? Why? What now?" Talon replied.
"These strings, they're suppressing our essence output completely. If you rip those bombs off without disarming them, they'll probably detonate. Without reinforcing our bodies with essence, these bombs could possibly be lethal to some of us."
"She's right. I've been trying to summon my essence ever since I was tied up, but I haven't been able to. It's like our access to our essence pool… it's like it's completely blocked off." Finn chimed in with.
Talon sighed and folded her arms.
"Well Kaeline, what do we do now!?" She yelled out to Kaeline outside the ship.
"We're not following the old plan! Not fully that is!" A clone of Kaeline said calmly, walking right next to her.
"Huh? Not fully? What do you mean?"
"The captain is right. Even though they all are powerful, it's much too risky to release them with those strings suppressing their essence… besides her that is."
Talon's entire body twitched as an unnerving chill crawled up her back.
"Wait—what?! No! No, no, no, no! I'd almost rather that little orange devil Jinx loose than her! She's more of a monster than anyone here!"
"We don't have a choice. Kaito will need support and she can level the playing field in an instant. As for the other three, we'll just have to take care of them ourselves without help from the others. Our part of the plan stays the same."
Her eyes scanned the theater for a moment before speaking again.
"The starlight, do any of you know where it is?"
"I think I heard the little blue string lady say it's still located where we crashed. She was telling one of her little minions to get a team to search the ship for valuable items." Rorik replied with.
Unbeknowning to most of the crew, Kaeline's eyes squinted ever so subtly, as if what Rorik said made her slightly uneasy. Not only that, she briefly glanced over to Elysia who shared a similar look that vanished almost immediately after. They believe they were unseen, but they were wrong… Talon saw everything.
Kaeline looked over to Elara.
"We have to find the ship and ensure the fragment—"
But her words were cut short by Finn's terror filled voice.
"Everyone, look out!"
Talon turned just in time to see a blinding light of yellow essence emitting from the cocoon of darkness Velzari was in.
BOOOOOOOOM!
"What in the stars!? Did that idiot just blindly fire with no regard for his own crewmates?" Talon thought to herself, sitting behind a support beam still standing.
Her tail lashed as the rubble clattered around her. As she looked through the settling dust, she caught glimpses of the scene around. Half of the theater and ship was completely destroyed. Some of the forest just outside was obliterated as well. She turned her head to see Sera on the stage, confused but alert.
"So that's their captain, huh?"
She turned again and spotted Viro dragging the Beast away into the surrounding forest just as another cocoon of darkness enveloped Sera. Talon slipped from behind the damaged beam toward the stage where the crew members were being held. Once there, she paused and glanced back only to see Velzari being pulled down by over a dozen hands made of darkness, flailing and cursing before disappearing into his shadow underneath him.
She flew over to the stage, landing right in front of the captured crew, her eyes locking onto a particular crew member.
"You're up."
Elysia, who was gently humming to herself as if there is nothing abnormal about the situation they are in.
"Oh, do I finally get to see Kaito dear? I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me!" She playfully.
"Don't push your luck. If it was up to me, I'd leave you on this damn planet."
"So scaaarry. That's not a good look for a lady you know, especially a princess. If you keep acting that way, Kaito might think you're jealous of—"
With ZERO HESITATION, Talon shot her arm out.
BOOOOM!
Smoke and sparks filled the air as the collar on her neck detonated. Rorik coughed some of the smoke out.
"Jeez, Talon man, did you have to do her like that? She's one of us, you know that right."
"Uh huh…" Talon replied absentmindedly, seemingly lost in thought.
Finn's jaw hung open.
"Elysia… she's…"
He looked down and what he saw broke his poor little mind. Elysia's body was blown to bits. Limbs scattered across the stage, her torso smoldering in the center. Her severed head rolled to a stop right below his dangling feet. His face contorted as every bit of emotion in his body began to pour out at once.
"SHE'S DEAD! DEAD!! TALON KILLED HER! THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE! AND-AND-AND BITS! AND—OH MY STARS! ARE WE NEXT!? I DON'T WANT TO DIE YET! I'M TOO YOUNG TO DIE! THIS IS A NIGHTMARE! YEAH THAT'S RIGHT, THIS IS A DREAM! IT CAN'T BE REAL! I'LL CLOSE MY EYES AND WHEN I OPEN THEM, I'LL BE BACK ON THE SHIP AND EVERYTHING WILL BE BACK TO NORMAL!"
He closed his eyes tightly, hoping to be back on the ship once they opened, but when he did, not a damn thing changed. He slowly looked down below him to see Elysia's severed head still there, but her eyes were wide open… staring right back at him.
"BOO!!"
He lost it.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH! LET ME OUT! LET ME OUT! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH KAITO! HEEEEELPPP MEE!!!"
"Relax, man! She's fine! It's only one of her abilities." Rorik said, trying his best to calm him down.
But Finn was far too gone. His body flailed in every way possible uncontrollably.
Talon groaned while rubbing her temples, trying to ease the oncoming headache. Her patience snapped as she waved a hand. A small piece of debris from the earlier explosion floated up from the ground, hovered for a moment, then launched itself with precision at Finn's head.
THUNK!
The impact knocked him completely unconscious, his entangled body dangling lifelessly.
"Hehehehe. You know, Talon dear, you should really work on your essence control. Because of the way you blew me up, it's going to take me a little longer to regenerate fully." Elysia's head said from the ground.
"Hmph. Control doesn't matter when it comes to you. You're a monster anyway." Talon retorted, rolling her eyes.
"Oh, Talon dear, you really shouldn't throw that word around so casually. After all… you're just as much a monster as I am."
Before Talon could respond, multiple of Kaeline's clones appeared. One of them bent down, picking up Elysia's head into her arms.
"We'll bring her to the perimeter. She'll heal there and wait for Kaito's signal. Once the signal is up, it will take roughly five minutes until I can activate the jutsu."
A few other clones began to pick up her remaining scattered limbs and two more began to clean the blood and debris from the small explosion.
"Aqua is missing and is likely at that location as we speak. If that is the case then you and Kaito will need to keep them occupied at all cost. Our weak point will be outside of the perimeter. Elysia, your job is to provide support for Kaito and help retrieve Nara, understood?"
"Okaayyy!" Elysia's head replied bubbily.
Another clone, standing next to Talon, turned to her.
"Are you ready, Talon?"
"Hmph. Just worry about your own damn part of the plan, I'll be perfectly fine." Talon replied bluntly, a subtle hint of aggression in her tone.
All of the clones seemed to ponder on Talon's words for a split second before turning around, preparing to head out.
"Understood." The clone with Elysia's head replied before disappearing into her own shadow, shortly followed by the rest of the clones doing the same thing.
"So that's what happened?" Kaito said, processing the quick run down Elysia provided him.
He looked over towards Aqua and Nara who were still standing across from them.
"I'm not sure why but I don't think Nara isn't going to be very willing to listen. She attacked all of us without even speaking a word, even her own dad and little brother. It's almost like she's not in control of her own body." He continued with.
"Not only that but her CPI–" His scanner began to flicker as he looked over to her.
Nara: 425,000 CPI
"Her CPI is 425,000."
"425,000?" Elysia replied with a little bit of shock on her face, her playful mood finally faltering slightly.
"My, my, Kaito dear, it seems like we really got our hands full now, don't we?"
Back at the location of the captured crew members, next to Finn's limp body was… another Elysia?