The fight between the transformed Loud and the reptile monster had barely begun, yet it felt somewhat one sided for Lori.

"Why is your left side so much weaker than your right?" Jundao asked while Lori blocked another attempted clawing with her forearm.

"Because the creep here kinda bit my arm down to the bone!" she retorted, ducking under another swipe of the lizard monster's claws. Lori retorted by delivering a swift uppercut to its jaw, making it stumble back.

"Try calling upon my weapon. One of the buttons on your driver should do it," Jundao suggested. Lori raised an eyebrow, looking down to her queen driver while the monster was stunned from the blow.

"There's a lot of things that look like buttons on this… you mean these?" Lori reached for one of the blue gems that were filling in for the missing spots. she pressed the top left one down, and she heard a beep.

"Yes, queen! Weapon!" the driver called out eagerly. Right when the reptile charged for them, the oldest Loud sibling put up her guard, bracing for the worst, when suddenly the air between them started cracking.

"Oh no…" she feared the worst as a small sized fracture opened up. However, something darted out from the inside of it, slashing across the monsters chest, knocking it down. Its gaping wound bled out sparking plasma. The weapon itself was embedded to the ground. Lori looked the weapon impaled into the ground, confused.

"A bow…? That's your weapon?" Lori questioned the oddly thick yet sleekly designed blue bow, with a handle on the lower half and the center having a section for her to grab, yet no string was involved. The bows two halves were as sharp as a knife.

"Just be silent and take it," Jundao ordered. She nodded, grabbing the handle, gritting her teeth as she began to pull with all her might to try and free it from the concrete it was embedded into.

"Shrianka! Kialgo!" the lizard lunged for Lori. After one harder tug, the sharpened bow came free from the ground, flying upwards and cutting the monster across the upper chest to its shoulder. Sparks and clear smoke exploded from its body, knocking it back.

"Is it trying to talk too?" Lori questioned as she examined the bow. It looked like an oversized toy that her little brother would have on display in his room or the likes, she hoped the monster she was linked with could translate for her what their opponent was trying to say.

"He's speaking in utter gibberish," Jundao answered the blonde woman. She sighed, assuming that her bond with the tiger monster gave her the ability to understand him at least.

"Well let's try this out," Lori tried to remain confident, seeing Nabqa standing back up after having been knocked down from the accidental attack, the humanoid lizard creature leaned back before whipping its head forward, firing its long tongue from its mouth like a whip.

"Whoa!" she jumped aside, avoiding the slimy whip that hit the ground. It darted left and hit her in the leg, making the transformed girl fall onto her back with a squeak of pain.

Lori saw the monster pull back its tongue, willing to lash it out at her again. The young woman grabbed the handle on the back of the bow and pulled it back. Energy quickly swelled from both ends of the bow into the center, creating a bright blue arrow. She let go of the handle, watching the arrow fly towards the enemy.

"Skraka!" Nabqa cried out in pain as the arrow hit it directly in the mouth, causing an explosion of blue blood from its mouth. The pain seemed to be starting to overwhelm the creature.

"I can't let up now…!" Lori hopped back onto her feet. She then began to fire arrows as fast as she could while circling the monster. Electrical smoke spewed from its created wounds, the relentless assault was beginning to wear it down.

Nabqa turned its back to her, using the crystallized part of its body to block the arrows. They bounced off and hit the ground before dissolving. Lori charged for the monster while it had its back turned, gripping the sharpened bow tightly in her hand.

"Take this!" Lori swung hard downwards, creating a blue aura trail behind the swing. The monsters back exploded with sparks as crystal fragments flew off from around. The impact site caused the monster she was fighting to cry out even harder.

"My weapon was not intended for melee dueling…" Jundao commented, sounding disappointed with the misuse of his weapon. Like he had caught someone trying to hammer in a nail with a wrench.

"Sorry, but my arm was starting to hurt too much from firing it so much," Lori apologized. Her wounded arm could no longer fire the arrows at the high rate she had been doing due to the bite wound's pain flaring up.

The transformed Loud stabbed her bow blade into the monster's shoulder in an attempt to slash at it again, but it took the attack. It tightly gripped her hand, it then shot out its tongue at her again, barely missing her helmet clad head.

"let… go!" Lori growled, practically wrestling to free her arm from its grasp. The blonde woman punched the monster in the face and grabbed its tongue so it couldn't shoot it out at her again.

"You bit a chunk out of me, so how about I take a part off of you?!" she laughed. She landed a headbutt to the monster's skull, dazing it for a second. She kicked it in the stomach, then she yanked its tongue to pull the lizard creature back to her. Lori then slashed it in the stomach with her weapon, causing another burst of blue blood while it slid past her practically.

"G-grahfuji…" Nabqa fell onto its knees, holding its stomach in agony. It seemed she had hit a weak spot. It was panting, its tongue draped on the floor with its energy completely gone.

"Now is our chance! Finish him off!" Jundao ordered. Lori nodded, feeling more confident than ever now. She threw the bow blade aside and reached down, hitting each of the blue buttons on the queen driver and then spinning the dial on the side of it.

"Yes, Queen! Finisher!" the queen driver called out eagerly. Lori saw a new fracture appear nearby, she saw Jundao step out of it, his claws sharpened and ready. They both had the monster surrounded from both sides.

The oldest Loud sibling looked confusedly at her right leg. It was beginning to glow and swell with energy. It felt strange to her, like something was crushing her leg. Every ounce of energy she let build strengthened that feeling.

"It's time to see if what you said about stopping the crystal growth is true," Jundao told Lori as he began to charge for the lizard monster. Nabqa stood up and tried to swing his claws at the white saber tooth tiger. "Get ready!" he told Lori, guarding the attack and stabbing his claws into Nabqa's chest, pinning their foe to the ground. Jundao began to run for her, dragging the screaming creature across the ground.

"Ready for what?!" Lori asked in terror. She watched Jundao swing upwards, throwing Nabqa in the air towards her with a loud roar cutting the air. She squealed in fear, closing her eyes and looking away. As the humanoid lizard was flying right for her, she did the only natural thing her body would react with and swung her leg up to kick him away in defense.

"Alllllllright!" the queen driver exclaimed. Nabqa was hit by the explosion of sheer energy. The force was strong enough to send it flying into a nearby pillar, cracking part of it. The humanoid lizard slowly slid down from the impact spot, with a bright blue boot print on his stomach from where it had been hit.

"A…arskanto… no…" the monster coughed. Lori finally opened her eyes again, seeing Jundao stepping up beside her.

"I…is it over?" she asked.

"In a moment, his suffering will end…" Jundao answered. They watched as the monster's body began to crack from around the impact spot. It looked to the transformed Loud with a sorrowful expression. His entire body shattered like fragmented glass, falling to the floor only to begin slowly deforming into dust.

"I killed him…?" Lori held her helmet clad head, panting. She could feel her anxiety swelling.

"That person died long ago… what he left for us will help us far more than it would have helped him," Jundao pointed to the pile of dust, where Lori saw a red crystal fragment, which glowed brightly atop of it. She removed the queen driver from her waist.

"Yes, your highness," the driver wearily spoke as it shut down. Lori transformed back to normal. The blue sphere was ejected from of the center for her to catch it in the palm of her hand.

"A core crystal fragment?" she went over and picked it up from the dust pile, holding the bright red shard in her hand. Holding it alone made her feel relieved.

"That… was fantastic!" Kurutta spoke up, stumbling over to them. He was able to get the strength to walk again, though his wound was still in need of treatment. "Wow… you look like crap," he commented upon seeing all of those cuts scrapes and bruises on Lori.

"Thanks… you too…" she sighed. She turned her gaze back to the item in her palm. "How do I use this…?" she pondered, her eyes locked on the core crystal shard. She was not sure how this tiny thing could reduce the crystal growth the two linked individuals were infected with.

"Like this," Jundao took the fragment from her hand and put it into his mouth before swallowing it, the other two stared at him, shocked.

"If only I understood what he said there, that might have come off like it was sensible…" Kurutta commented. Lori assumed she could understand the white tiger monster due to their link.

Just then, the crystal overwhelming part of Jundao's body began to crack and fall off harmlessly, clattering to the ground. It turned to dust momentarily afterwards.

"Whoa…!" Lori gasped.

"Hahahaha! It worked!" Jundao stretched. He felt free. Free from a terrible curse. Lori looked at her injuries, watching as the cracks around her wounds started to vanish. The blue tainted blood reverted back to natural red.

"I feel so much better too," Lori let out a relieved sigh, as the odd feelings in her body began to vanish in seconds. However, she knew that this was only a temporary solution. Nonetheless, they had more time now. She hoped Lisa could give a more accurate frame for how much time they had exactly.

Jundao began to walk back toward the rift he had opened when he was summoned to finish off Nabqa.

"Jundao!" Lori called out to him, stopping him in his place.

"Hm?" he raised an eyebrow, looking over his shoulder to her.

"I'm glad to have you as my partner… Thank you so much for helping save my life… and my family's, too."

Jundao scoffed. "You know there is no cure, correct? For as long as we want to live, we'll have to fight for survival. Nothing more, nothing less…" Jundao claimed, not looking back at her, expecting her to protest the mere idea.

"I know that… but if I have to keep fighting, I'm happy to know I'll be fighting alongside you," Lori finished. After a moment of silence, the tiger continued to the fracture to return from where he came.

"I have faith in you, my queen… Don't make me regret it," Jundao stepped into the fracture. The broken air began to fix itself in seconds afterwards.

"You can actually talk with monsters… what a lucky dame," Kurutta commented.

"Yeah, well…-!" Lori stopped herself though before she could punch him. She just realized that she had forgotten about her mother in the middle of the battle. She began to run off.

"W-wait! Where are ya going?!" the government agent called to her.

"I have to find my mom! Go to Lisa! She'll take care of you!" Lori shouted back, continuing to run the opposite direction.

Kurutta let out a long sigh, turning around to make his way out of the mall. His cellphone started ringing. He pulled it out. "What is it?" Kurutta answered, albeit continuing to stumble.

"The fracture detectors spiked with immense activity… Do you know what that means?" Oroka spoke up on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, Oroka-san. I can tell you what it means, cause I saw it with my own eyes. We have our first successfully transformed user," Kurutta answered. He heard the fracture researcher let out a frustrated groan at the nickname.

"You're as casually racist as ever, brother... Wait, you mean that Loud girl actually did it? HER? Out of all the test subjects, she pulled it off?" Oroka sounded amazed. Like it was impossible to have this happen. His expectations never hoped for this luck.

"Her partner is really… unique… then again, the Loud family is practically its own species with their records," Kurutta coughed, his attempt to laugh ruined by his painfully aching side.

"That means we can begin heavy duty testing… You'll get me all footage of the transformation you can find. Also, try not to let any of it leak to the media for as long as you can... Give them the footage of the monster as a smokescreen, that'll buy us a week at least. Got it?" Oroka ordered his personal worker, sounding eager to see this himself yet clearly cautious for what this may do to his research.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll handle all of that… as soon as I get my bleeding stopped," Kurutta agreed. He hung up the cellphone, and he sighed as he looked up to the sky. "Can't wait to see how you use those powers, kiddo…" he mumbled his thoughts on Lori. He tried to focus on getting to Lisa so he could get treatment and call the paramedics for the rest of the injured civilians. He just hoped Lori would not forget to take care of her own injuries afterwards.


It took a few minutes for Lori to get outside the opposite side of the silver lining mall. She looked around frantically.

"Lori?" she managed to hear her mother's voice. She saw her mom hiding behind a nearby car in the parking lot, the blonde girl was very relieved as she hurried to her mother, almost tackling her into a hug.

Rita gladly returned the embrace. "What are you doing here? It's not safe," she asked, worried when realizing how injured her eldest daughter was.

"I came to help you, mom! You don't have to worry about the monster anymore," Lori proudly declared, reassuring everything was as safe as they could be.

"Did it attack you, too? Do you need to go to a hospital?" Rita worriedly questioned. She wanted to faint on the spot from all the wounds she saw on Lori, she was assuming the police had handled the monster.

"I'm better than ever now! I beat the monster!" Lori happily exclaimed. Her mother looked at her like she was insane, but her eldest daughter was far too excited to care now that she was not going to die in a couple of days.

"Come on, Lisa is waiting for us in the car," the young blonde woman insisted.

"O-okay… Was the doctor's trip a lie?" Rita asked as she followed her. Thinking maybe this was not the best time to give her oldest daughter the present she had bought her.

"Yeah… sorry. It's a long story. We'll explain most of it later," Lori apologized, wanting to just focus on getting back to her second-youngest sister who was waiting for them at the front of the mall.


"Be honest with me, doc. Am I gonna make it?" the government agent jokingly asked. He was alone with Lisa, who was finishing up with tending to his side wound. The child prodigy gave an unamused look as she lathered the rubbing alcohol into his wound, causing him to cringe.

"You might feel a little sting," Lisa said afterwards, she then began bandaging the claw mark. Kurutta groaned, remaining laid on the back seat.

"Sorry about the blood. I'll pay for the car cleaning," he apologized, but he heard the young girl chuckle at the offer.

"This van is meant to hold thirteen people at a time, most of which are teenage girls. There have been a lot of bodily fluids that stained these many seats. Blood isn't uncommon, either," Lisa responded. Blood was a lot easier to clean than the other possible messes as far as she cared.

"You're worse with your bedside manner than I am with gambling," Kurutta coughed, relieved that the gauze was finished being applied to his clawed side.

"Well, you have immensely fortunate luck to have not had a vital organ be hit by the creatures claws… It's quite a shame that the monster disintegrates when it's defeated," Lisa exclaimed, sounding more remorseful for the monsters death than she was for the government worker's injuries, "I would have loved to acquire samples from the corpse."

"Lisa!" Lori called out as she and their mother approached Vanzilla.

"Mom!" Lisa gained a bright smile. She hugged Rita with her little arms.

"Don't worry, honey, I'm fine…" Rita reassured, picking up the child prodigy to return the hug. The mother noticed the oddly dressed man getting out from the family van.

"Who's your friend?" Rita hesitantly questioned.

The man adjusted the feathered boa around his neck. He was slightly lightheaded from the blood loss, but he knew he would be fine. "Kurutta's the name. I'm with the government. I guess you can say I've been your family's personal aid for the day."

"Oh… you're the one that Lisa doesn't get along with," Rita tried to put it nicely, but could not find a better way to describe her second youngest daughter's feelings for the agent. Lisa had told her family to never let this man into their home several times after all.

"Lisa, maybe you should forgive him," Lori tried to suggest as Rita put down the child prodigy.

"After what he did, that's not a feasible option," Lisa huffed, crossing her arms, refusing to look at the injured man leaned against the family van

"What did he even do to you?" her eldest sister crouched down to her level, "You always told me that holding grudges was useless."

"It's what he hasn't done that's upset me…" Lisa countered, "He's a millionaire due to an inheritance and uses that money to bribe people into doing work for him in his place. He tried to pay me a large sum to work with his brother a year ago, but I refused to accept it... So in trade, he revoked funding from two of my research projects."

"She drives a hard bargain, to say the least," Kurutta chuckled. He was probably so far past incompetent that he would prefer to be lazy with the help of the large income than anything. Rita looked to her oldest daughter, unsure if she herself should chime in on this matter. But Lori motioned that she could handle it.

"Lisa," Lori breathed, "He may be lazy, but he's a good man. He's done so much for us."

The child prodigy adjusted her glasses. "Enlighten me?"

"When I got infected, he got that information to you and helped find a way to save my life fast… even if it's only temporary. He went into a creepy cave for you just to try and save me. Not to mention he nearly got himself killed helping to save mom."

Lisa stared blankly for a moment, processing the information for a good few seconds. She let out a sigh. "Kurutta."

"Yeah?" Kurutta turned his head to her.

"I did not have any of this occur to me before Lori informed me of it. While I deplore your ethics and ideals, you at least have good intentions… Thank you for helping us so much these last few days, and I'm sorry for being cruel to you these last few months."

That dumb grin on his face appeared again. "Wow… I hope this isn't a near death experience dream again," Kurutta chuckled, unable to believe what he was hearing. The young man began to walk away. "I'll see you two around! I gotta handle this mall mess now…" he waved a hand goodbye before he continued on to get into the mall to handle what Oroka had asked him to do.

"That was very mature of you Lisa," Rita stated, proud of her intelligent daughter for overcoming that grudge for the most part. "Now, can you two please explain to me what is going on?"

The two sisters looked to one another, then returned their gaze to her. There was no point being secretive with their own mother.

"We'll explain," Lori spoke,

"Just take a seat, it'll be a lot to take in."