It was nighttime. And even though the walls and security teams of every city on the planet Motavia were designed to keep bio-hazard's out, there eerie evening songs to each other could be heard just as loudly as if they were living right amongst the citizenry. Giant bugs among other things just outside the walls were stirring and making all kinds of sounds.

Not that many were concerned. Monster attacks had been a problem, but ever since cities stepped up their security measures and had army personnel defend the boundaries, there had been no casualties at all within city limits. At any given time you could look up and see soldiers patrolling the city's boundaries. Some kind of automatic defense system involving robots was said to be in place too.

So in spite of how ominous sounds of insect beasts might seem, the people had grown rather used to them. After all, why worry when the bugs were zapped if they got within eyeshot of a posted guard or sentry robot?

So nightlife continued as always. Not to be confused with the normal things that people did during the day. The night was a whole different animal. Some people slept all day just so they could be awake at night, and with no reason to have a job, why not? People partook in what they believed to be "rebellious behaviors" so that they might let loose a little. Drinking, dancing, running in circles about the streets and shouting at the top of their lungs… of course there was no gambling because Mother Brain's androids would see to it that you were imprisoned for such an infraction. Or anything else Mother Brain felt to be severe infractions of law for that matter. No one ever really overstepped these boundaries out of respect for Mother Brain's ever watching eye.

At one particular night club in the city of Arima, things were going normally. People sat around, chatted, gossiped. A select few were brave or drunk enough to dance. Trance and techno rung loudly through speakers with strobe lights flashing in an almost blinding pattern. The bartender dished out all sorts of wildly colored drinks which had some kind of additive that made them glow in the dark. Every person was enjoying themself in their own definition of the word.

Everyone, except one guy.

It was clear to see by the protective chest armor he wore over his black clothing and the sturdy combat boots on his feet that he was a hunter. Hunters were like mercenaries, hired guns who worked through special agencies and could be hired for any sort of dirty work that needed to be done. With monsters posing a threat to civilians worldwide, they found themselves constantly employed and making money. Well the ones that could withstand hoards of monsters attacking all at once at least. Unsurprisingly, some of them wound up as corpses. Nonetheless, this occupation was thriving in such dangerous times as these.

This particular hunter, most people noticed enter the club right away. He was an imposing figure of tremendous height, from the clanking bottoms of his combat boots to the top of his crew-cut blonde hair. He had a muscular build and stone-cold, "don't mess with me" kind of aura. He carried his arms tensely at his sides and his shoulders square even as he walked. But one other thing seemed to stand out to those that chose to watch him.

He was confused.

The hunter spotted the bar and wandered across the dance floor and walked toward it. He got a few dirty looks as he pushed through the crowd of people dancing, but no one dare said a word to him. A young couple was dancing wildly there. The girl swayed her body so violently that she crashed into the hunter and fell to the ground; a combination of ignorance, clumsiness and alcohol. Her boyfriend gasped.

"Gabby! Are you ok?" he shouted hysterically. He knelt down to help his dance partner up. She leaned forward in his arms, but was too intoxicated to stand. "Hey, Rot-Head! Watch where…"

The hunter turned around to face the one who was yelling at him. It was at this moment, that the boyfriend realized just how big that man was, and why nobody had messed with him to begin with.

"I mean… sorry. Just. Yeah, it was an accident."

The hunter just turned away and took a seat at the bar. The mustached bartender slid over, anxious to sell to this new patron.

"Beer please," the hunter requested.

"Hey, you ain't from around here, are ya?" The bartender asked, trying to start conversation. Well let me tell you, this! Right here, in this club, the great composer Ustvestia himself is supposed to…"

"Beer please," the hunter interjected.

"Uhh, ok? How about an Electric Blue Motavian shaker instead? Or have you tried the Piata Passionfruit…"

"Beer please."

"Jeez, alright! What kind?"

"I don't care."

The bartender shook his head and muttered something about the nightlife in this town before proceeding to see what was on tap. Meanwhile, the hunter gazed expressionlessly at the people, swaying about to the rhythm of the electronic sounds of the trance music. This was definitely not his scene, but he didn't know of any other establishments to grab a drink in this town, unfortunately.

Looking at these people, caused him to begin to involuntarily grimace at them. They were such carefree fools. They would be here until the early hours of the morning, and sleep away their sober existences until it was time to return here for the next nightfall. Never worrying. Never working. Never fighting for their own lives.

Or for the lives of others for that matter.

It was in this moment, that he sensed the drink being placed on the counter near him. He instinctively grabbed it, thanked the Great Light for the bartender finally shutting up, and took a decently sized swig. The first thing he noticed was that the cup was purplish in color and shaped kind of like an hourglass which made him hate this place even more. Then he noticed the beer tasted almost like water. But it was to be expected in a place that sold specialty drinks that lit up different colors under the strobe lights.

The hunter closed his eyes and took a deep sigh, still holding the glass near his mouth. Finally, he was starting to feel a little relaxed. He began to lower the glass, clearing his mind of the things that were prodding at him. He could almost tune out the rave music in the background, and his thoughts about how naïve and foolish people were, and the anger in his heart when he thought about the monsters, and how the only way to get piece of mind was to get…

Revenge?

The glass crashed into the counter with a thunderous boom!

The hunter's eyes snapped open. Somehow, a chorus of screams could be heard over the music. Had he caused this? He gazed at the glass, sitting on the counter. The glass sat motionless in front of him, completely unscathed, which could only mean one thing.

BOOM!

Thunder struck again. The hunter stood up, abruptly in his seat and turned to face the people dancing behind him. And what he saw, was pure chaos.

The once celebrating and dancing people were scattering about the room. They could be scarcely seen as the flashing of the strobe lights made it a little hard to tell exactly what was going on. The hunter couldn't help but notice that some people lay motionless on the ground as well…

BOOM!

This time, the hunter crouched and slunk his way to the ground and worked his way behind the bar. He noticed that the bartender was gone and wondered if he had escaped somehow. He also knew exactly what those sounds were now. They were all too familiar after all. What the hunter was hearing, was the sound of shotgun fire.

He reached for the gun holstered at his side. It was a small handgun called a "Bowgun". Kind of a standard sidearm for soldiers, he had relied on this weapon in the past to get him out of a tight spot. He could hear a few more shotgun blasts and cries of frightened, panicking, and even in-pain club patrons. He was sure would need to rely on this weapon now. The music had not stopped, nor had the lighting of the club as colorful strobe lights still danced around the building. Gun in tow, the hunter peered around the corner of the bar to get a look at the assailants.

There were two men still standing on the dance floor amidst a mess of bodies and blood. The first thing he noticed about the gunmen was that they wore bright yellow masks with black smiling face features painted sloppily on them. They were scanning the area, shotguns poised for attack as if looking for someone else to shoot.

Only this man was not intimidated.

With one well aimed shot, bowgun popped as the hunter shot one of the assailants square in the forehead. He slunk backwards and crumpled to the ground, dead.

His buddy panicked momentarily. But his fear drove him to fight back and he sporadically fired a shot in his direction, screaming at the top of his lungs. The hunter rolled back behind the bar and heard shotgun pellets scattering and rolling all over the place. He gritted his teeth anxiously, before making his next move.

Crawling to the opposite side of the bar, he peered around the corner. He noticed the assailant was a little desperate and trying to close in on where he had just been hiding moments earlier, his aimed fixed on that exact spot. Big mistake.

After a few moments of creeping underneath the chairs propped up near the bar, the hunter was able to sneak around behind him. He placed the muzzle of the gun to the back of the attackers head, covered in messy green hair. The man gasped as his hands shot immediately in the air. A shotgun dropped to the ground without a sound in the chaotic dance hall.

"Who are you?" the hunter demanded.

"Please…" the man pleaded with him. "Don't do this!"

The hunter responded by cocking the weapon menacingly and shoving it a little harder into his head.

"OK, OK! Just don't shoot!" the man panicked. "I was hired by a group to loot the town! We were gonna blow away some buildings with dynamite to get everyone out in the open. Then they were gonna grab someone important or something!"

The hunter considered this new information. He jerked the gun painfully into his new victims skull. He was feeling anger and confusion. "Which group! Who's trying to kidnap who?"

The man stammered and blabbered some nonsense. The loud music and muffling happy face mask didn't help. "W-Well the leader of the group thought it would be smart to hold this girl ransom. And while we were at it, to grab any valuables, you see…"

BAM!

The hunter had no time to react. In an instant, the man he was interrogating slunk to the ground, dead.

In the doorway of the club stood another smiley-face guy holding a smoking handgun. The hunter reacted by firing a few shots at him, but the guy took off into the night completely unscathed.

"Damn…" he groaned to himself. He had accomplished nearly nothing and was now totally confused. But he caught a break.

From the radio of the dead assailant before him, he could make out a single voice message. "Scoundrels! Return to base with whatever loot and hostages you can bring with you! We've got her!"

"Scoundrels?" the hunter echoed. He grabbed the shotgun off of his former hostage, examined it and found it to his liking. Then, he made his way past a crowd of bodies and on toward the exit.

And as he approached the doorway, he could already hear the chaos in the streets and could see that hell which had formed along the skyline of burning buildings, courtesy of the dynamite that man had told him about.

Rolf strode a little anxiously down the long tunnel corridor. The passage was a structure of great integrity as it was designed to keep Paseo safe of the threats of the outside world. It took several minutes just to trek to the other side of the thing with bright lights and surveillance equipment the whole way. If some unwanted creature happened to make its way into the security tunnel, it would be detected and dealt with well before it reached the city where it could cause harm.

All cities on the planet relied on technology to keep the monsters out in some fashion. After all, these monsters were creatures fighting hunger and relying on their instincts. These times had no place for things like caution and reason.

Rolf was also a bit caught up in his thoughts about his upcoming mission. He kept wondering to himself just how exactly he was supposed to accomplish anything without being able to communicate with anyone. And ever worse, without much detail and information to help guide him.

And then there was one other thing occupying agent Rolf Eusis's mind.

"Nei?" he wondered aloud, glancing to his side where she had been moments before.

"Right behind you..."

Rolf turned around to see his little companion following him in the shadows a little further behind then he had originally thought she would. "What's the matter?" he asked her. "Having second thoughts about this finally?"

"N-No! It's not that!" Nei stammered, a bit frazzled by her situation. "It's just… this."

The pointy eared girl took clanking steps out of the shadows. She was covered from head to toe in the thickest Ceramic Armor Rolf could find at the weapons store just before they left. The suit was composed of body armor and thick combat boots that even a soldier might have a hard time moving around in.

"It's what?"

"Are you sure I need to wear all this stuff?" Nei wondered, looking a bit tired as she asked. "I don't think I like carrying a heavy load much, Rolf."

"Of course you do!" Rolf blurted. You don't understand how dangerous these bio-monsters are! And… where's your shield? I swear I bought you a shield!"

Rolf examined his partner for a shield and started peering down the corridor they had been traversing for it too. Nei let out a soft sigh. Maybe Rolf was right. Maybe she wasn't cut out for something so dangerous as combat.

It was in this moment that something caught her eye while Rolf remained distracted in his desperate search for a shield. A trickle of bright light at the end of the dim tunnel.

"Wow!" she gasped and sprinted for it. As she ran, she realized her combat clothes were too heavy for her to run well at all. So she shed articles as she went along. First the shoulder pads, then the boots, then the chest plate.

This act went completely unnoticed at first by Rolf, who was still looking for a shield he never bought while muttering things half to himself about being careless and half to Nei for being more careless.

Nei meanwhile, free of her Ceramic Armor and everything related to it sprinted for the tunnels exit. The beam of light grew larger and larger as she got closer. Before long, she was there. The door was already open and awaiting her and Rolf's arrival. A door to a new and unfamiliar world.

There was a great big field of green grass almost as far as she could see. Then there were trees, hills, and all kinds of plants. And the sky was so blue, with just a few clouds drifting off in the distance.

"This is…" she whispered at first completely in awe…

"AMAZING!" she shouted, unable to control herself now.

The young girl ran and twirled around, giggling gleefully all the while. She had been confined to Paseo for as long as she could remember, and had only seen pictures of the outside world from the database of Rolf's computer screen.

"NEI!" Rolf shouted, clumsily making his exit out of the tunnel too. Nei caught a glance of her protector carrying the pieces of her battle armor the best he could, dropping some things as he went. "What do you think you're doing!"

"Huh?" Nei wondered, not understanding why he was mad.

The automated door of the tunnel closed behind them. Rolf jerked in surprise and frustration, glancing at the path which was now closed off to them.

"Great, your boots were still in there!" he growled. "And look at you, you can't run around wearing…"

Rolf gazed at Nei. She was wearing a purple one-piece bathing suit looking thing he had bought for her as undergarments. Once again, he was reminded of how she was a little girl months before, and now was a full-figured young woman.

"…that."

"But this is waaayy more comfortable!" Nei said cheerfully, not understanding why Rolf was so bothered by it. "But that's not important! Look Rolf!"

"Look at what?" Rolf asked her, frustrated and confused at this point.

She ran over to him and tugged on his arm a bit. She then pointed, towards the fields of grass, the trees, the sky.

Rolf couldn't help but smile a little. "Oh yeah. That. I guess it's been a long time since you've been outside of the city, huh? Everything must be so new and fascinating to you."

Nei looked at Rolf, completely puzzled. "I've… been here before?"

"That's right, Nei. I'll have to tell you about it more someday."

"Yes! I mean… please yes," Nei said, hugging him for no reason other than her excitement and energy mounting. "I feel so at home out here! Everything is so beautiful… except… that black cloud over there."

Rolf noticed Nei grimace a bit in disgust as she glanced off at the horizon. "Black cloud…?" he wondered. He tried to look in the same direction she was. And when he did, he noticed smoke drifting up in the air way off in the distance.

"That's strange… I'm pretty sure that smoke is coming from Arima," he said to himself.

"Is it normal for cities to give off dark clouds like that?" Nei wondered impatiently.

Rolf had no explanation for this, and no real answer for his partner. "I guess we're gonna have to find out…"