Having gathered their belongings, the group trudged silently across the sand dunes outside of the town. Occasionally, Liuva or Tear would steal glares at each other, while the other one would look away. Since Liuva hung at the back of the group and Tear more towards the front, this left a very awkward Hayato, Yuuki, and Aran in the middle. Xenon, lucky him, marched up front to get a read on any visible sources of Arcane Power.

Finally, Yuuki had had enough of it, and so he held back until he was walking with the blaster, at which point he dug in.

"Okay, what, if anything, is your problem?"

"Problem?" The girl leveled a slight sneer at the warrior, but was clearly making an effort to be polite. "What problem?"

"This." The warrior gestured up and down. "Attitude. Why were you so confrontational with Tear? What set you off? Is something wrong?"

Liuva growled. "I apologized, didn't I? Just drop it."

"Not until you tell me why you're wound tighter than a Red Robo, I won't."

"I said drop it, okay?!" She snapped. "We're getting those memories back and we can't do that by talking about feelings all the time. Let's just get to work. Drop. It."

And with that, she stomped off in a huff. Yuuki paused for a minute before shaking his head, and catching up with the group.


After a minute of marching, Xenon gave a signal to halt. He pointed to a small hill directly in front of them.

"There is a large concentration of Arcane Power beyond this dune." The cyborg announced.

"Lots of small ones or one big one?" Aran asked. Xenon concentrated.

"It is difficult to tell the exact level of power…" He stated. "…but there appears to be multiple sources, so I would guess the former."

The group collectively took a deep breath, and crept up the dune. Tear was the first to peek out over the top, and let out a small gasp. Down in a small valley sat a group of about thirty of the creatures they had seen before. The group took in the scene before them.

"They don't seem to be…doing much…" Hayato commented.

The creatures didn't do much at all. They simply sat there. Occasionally, one jumped, but only once, and never the same creature twice in a row.

"Are they…asleep?" Asked Tear. "Is this like some kind of nest?"

"If they are, we don't want to wake them up." Aran said. "So Liuva, no charging in this time, eh?"

The hero paused and waited for a response, even an unintelligible grumble, but got nothing.

"Liuva?" Aran turned around to find Liuva staring in horror at something in the opposite direction. She followed the line of sight and her eyes widened in shock. Behind them sat a lone Happy Erda; apparently, it had snuck up on them when they were concentrated on the valley.

"Oh-ho-ho-kay…" Tear mumbled. "Nice…Erda…nice happy Erda…"

The creature just sort of squished in and out of itself like a stress ball.

"Xenon…" Yuuki hissed. "What's the power level at?"

"Th-thirty…" The cyborg answered worriedly.

"Okay…" Said Aran. "…but we still don't know if we're evenly matched or if that thing has a higher defense or something…"

The hero glanced at Liuva, but the blaster was too busy contemplating her earlier lesson of not rushing fist-first into battle. The honor of recklessness this time went to Hayato.

The samurai's eyes shut, and he gripped his sword tightly. In a flash faster than any normal person could see, he drew his sword from its sheath and rushed towards the creature. There was the sound of metal tearing across earth as the Falcon's blade struck diagonally across the creature. With a grunt, Hayato cleaved his sword straight through the creature, which made an indecipherable noise before dissolving into the same white sand all around them. Hayato sheathed his blade.

The remaining five sat on the dune, mouths wide in shock. Hayato smirked.

"Even footing this time around." He said to his comrades. "You may, er, blast away if you wish, Liuva."

The girl flushed slightly at the comment, but drew up her arms, now covered by her gauntlets. Yuuki still wondered where they appeared from, but ignored the feeling and drew his sword. Tear's Soul Shooter materialized on her arm, while Aran drew Maha and Xenon his whip blade. Yuuki nodded his head towards the herd in the valley and moved his finger across his throat, before leaping down the hill and sliding through the sand, the rest of the group following behind.

Yuuki slashed at the first creature he came across. His blade met some resistance, possibly due to being a heavier weapon than the Samurai's katana, but still cut clean through. The creature dissolved into silver sand, just as the first one did. He turned towards his teammates; each held their ground well against the creatures.

Liuva launched an explosive punch at a nearby group, then followed up by slamming one of her gauntlets into the ground. The gauntlet gave a whir, and the ground underneath erupted in arcs of electricity, which connected with the creatures. The lightning seemed to curl and bow around the girl as she pulverized each of her nearby creatures into dust.

Aran swung and twirled Maha with ease. The hero quickly turned the polearm's blade, which glowed a cold blue as she held it, toward the ground and brought it down with a mighty slam. Jagged spikes of ice quickly jutted up from the sand, impaling the poor Erdas and sending them to a chilly demise.

Xenon took a more methodological approach; not wasting energy on particularly strong attacks with each strike carefully tailored to kill without wasting energy. His blade painted the air with a blue-green afterimage, framed by silver dust.

Hayato slashed at each of his creatures with skills formed through meticulous training; poised, accurate, and deadly. His style left a similar afterimage to Xenon, but his blade made longer, more sweeping arcs than the cyborg, which left the air around him a shimmering sea of deadly crescent moons.

As if in direct contrast to the others and her superhero identity, Tear simply slaughted the poor creatures. Pink energy morphed itself into a giant hammer, which she slammed into the ground on top of several Erdas, before the hammer dissolved and was replaced with several floating swords, which the idol brought down onto her next set of victims. The girl giggled and laughed as each attack met their mark.

Yuuki made a final dash to the last group of five. His sword flashed gold and red, in contrast to the blue and black it normally was, and the warrior leapt into the air, sword above his head. A glowing orb of red concentrated at the tip of the blade, swirling and growing larger. Giving a loud cry, Yuuki slammed the sword into the ground. When the orb of red contacted the ground, it exploded. A column of red energy erupted from the ground and consumed the last of the creatures, whose dust rose up on the current as the red flames licked themselves around their master. The energy faded away.

The landscape was again silent.

Yuuki then noticed a small, yellow orb that appeared to be attached to a string in the aftermath of his attack. He reached for it, and the moment the orb touched his skin, he felt a rush of emotion. It felt like watching a funny movie, or eating his favorite food, or doing both of those things and having cookies for dessert. He immediately let go, before proceeding to grab the bobble by its string, letting it dangle before him. He whistled for his teammates and held up the orb so they could see.

"I'm going to hazard a guess and say this is a memory." He said. "Try to pick it up by the string so you don't…get distracted." The rest of the group nodded and began combing their battlefield for more of the trinkets. Aran hovered near Yuuki for a minute.

"Aren't you worried some of them broke during the fighting, or something?" She asked. Yuuki gave her a look.

"How often do the things we collect from monsters break when we kill them?"

Aran hesitated. "Well, there was this time with Mercedes and her fancy cups…but I see your point."

The warriors nodded at each other, and continued combing the beach for lost memories.