The two ships continued to move through the sky, the one behind just barely following the one being pursued.

"We're not catching up to them at all," Matt pointed out "you think it'd be easy with how massive their ship is for whatever reason, but I guess not."

"Well, so long as we don't lose them there shouldn't be a problem, right?" Anthony asked.

"No…" Vert cut in "We should try to cut them off in the air."

"Why though?" Riko asked.

"We don't have time to wait, they could do anything the longer we leave them," Vert explained "Besides, we don't know where they're taking us. It's best to jump on their ship, rescue those three and head back."

"She's right, probably." Callum added "It's better if we rescue them sooner than later."

"But how are we gonna do that?" Ed asked.

"Don't worry, I got a plan." Vert answered.

Pilot continued to move the ship forwards. They had no particular destination, Scope was currently on the lookout for the best possible place to confront their pursuers.
Judge was also present, ready to make any decisions if necessary. Zach, Joseph and Ben were all being held at different places in the ship, each guarded by a different member of the group.

Scope spoke up, in an indifferent voice "We're currently being surrounded by flying wyverns, five of them. I can't tell exactly what kinds they are, but two Raths, a Seregios, a Nargacuga and a Kecha Wacha."

"Are they trying to cut us off?" Judge briefly wondered "The ship shouldn't have a problem if it takes a few hits, keep going."

The ship continued to move forwards, at which point the wyverns struck. Both Raths and Demi shot out fireballs instantly, while Nargy and Vrai quickly struck at it as it was slowed down. While this didn't break anything, it did slow down the ship, enough so that they suddenly felt it stutter and slow down.

"They've chained their ship to ours." Scope explained calmly "Currently, they're boarding."

"So their plan is to get us up here, rather than wait." Judge thought aloud Pretty impatient, but I shouldn't exactly have high hopes for them. Very well. You two, wait here. I'll go around to the guards and warn them of this, though they should've already realised what's going on. I'll also take out any I come across."

Scope continued to have her eyes closed, before suddenly opening them, seeming more interested now. "I'm also going to take them out."

"Sure." Judge replied, fine with the help.

Both of them headed in separate directions.

Pilot continued to move the ship forwards, not really bothered to go hunting.

The flying wyverns regrouped where the others were, with the groups now getting ready to split off.

"Wait, first." Vert pointed out "Callum, you should probably wait on the ship. You're injured after all. We also need someone to wait here, just in case they come to destroy our ship or something."

"Sure, I guess." Callum replied, figuring he probably wouldn't be able to keep up with the others anyways. "Still though, ya should probably be careful."

"What do you mean?" Terrence asked.

"Are ya prepared to kill 'em, if ya gotta?"

This was met with silence from the most of the group, Vert just barely stopping herself from instantly replying "Yeah."

"Ta be honest, even though it's wrong… killin' a person… ain't that different a feelin' ta killin' a monster."

There was an awkward silence following this.

"Heh, that really makes me sound like a murderer, but whatever. There's no way these guys ain't used to it by now, so they won't hold back on tryna kill ya. I ain't sayin' to just slaughter em all ruthlessly, but if ya gotta make a choice then don't hesitate to finish 'em off, otherwise you'll be the one to end up down."

There wasn't much of a response, the group just ran off, knowing there was a good chance they'd have to kill someone to return alive.

The plan they had decided on was that Zappy and Nargy could lead them to the ones who had been kidnapped by scent. While Plessy didn't have a sense of smell that worked as well on land, the Raths were there for that role.

The monsters all headed in different directions.

While it was a problem to have to split the party, it at least meant they had hope that all the aura users wouldn't be gathered in one place, so they had a chance of fighting back.

Sean, Alicia, Matt, Natasha and Natalia followed Azure. Vert, Terrence, Alexandra and Ed followed Nargy. Riko, Anthony, Lyra and Shoot followed Zappy.

As the first group continued onwards, it finally encountered someone.

A hooded figure was in front of them, sitting down, while Ben was tied to wall nearby.

The figure looked over, and asked "Who the hell are you guys?"

He thought for a second "Ah, got it, got it. Judge told us that we'd be finding on land, but I guess that crash from earlier was you guys, huh? Well, that's fine, y'know. He said we'd just fight it out somewhere down there, but up here's basically the same thing, right?"

Sean noticed that a knife had appeared in his hand, seemingly out of nowhere.

The figure continued to walk forward without a care.

"What, so no chance of us gettin' past safely?" Matt finally said something.

"Well, I'd be down, but Judge kinda doesn't approve, might get killed, you know, that whole deal."

Natasha couldn't stand this anymore "Who's Judge. Seriously. Who is Judge. I don't know who Judge is. Stop talking about Judge like I know who that is. This is like the millionth time you've brought him up. Explain who Judge is."

"...I kinda doubt your ability to count…" He began, before continuing with "Well, anyways, it's his codename, ya know. But, basically…"

At this moment, each of the gunners fired simultaneously, with both Raths also shooting off fireballs.

The figure didn't seem to react.

They continued firing for fifteen more seconds. After about ten seconds passed, they were finally able to see him clearly again.

All they could see was a shield, before this was quickly thrown aside by the figure from before. The only effect their attack seemed to have is that the impact knocked off his hood, revealing his face at last.

A man with green eyes and hair shaved at the sides showed a wry grin. "I wasn't done, you know. That's kinda rude. Let's just cut to the end then, I'm Forgery, the one who's here to take your lives tonight. Ah, I should also apologise. You seemed to see straight through my lie earlier, so there's no point in keeping it up anymore."

He seemed to be preparing himself for combat, stretching his limbs, his hands opened and closed.

"I truly despise garbage like you." He spoke calmly "Wouldn't be here if I didn't enjoy the idea of taking you all out."

With that line, he threw some knives straight at the group.

The gunners got out of the way, while Natasha blocked and Natalie stayed behind her. As Natasha looked up from this, she noticed that he had already closed the distance between them.

Natalie still hadn't responded to how close the opponent had gotten, leaving Natasha no choice but to block whatever came their way.

"This guy doesn't seem to have any heavy weapons on him," she thought "Plus he just threw away his shield. There's no way I can't block whatever he throws at us."

As she finished this, raising her shield, she found herself in shock.

From seemingly nowhere, Forgery swung down a basic great sword. Against this weapon, Natasha already knew she had no chance of blocking it, she'd be cut in half. Her only choice was to kick backwards, also knocking Natalie back with her. The swing missed, but in that moment Forgery easily closed the distance that had been created, seeming weightless despite the weapon that should've slowed him down. He got ready to bring it down in another swing, despite both of the twins now being aware of what was happening they were in no position to dodge.

This looked like Forgery's victory, until he was interrupted by the charge of a Diablos.

Klaus continued to charge furiously, with Forgery just barely blocking the incoming attack.

Then from behind him Matt began firing, the intent from the start having been to place him in a pincer attack.

"It's a pretty neat tactic, shame it won't work." Forgery thought, before letting go of his weapon and diving to the side.

With him having no more way of defending himself, the others took this chance to fire for him, from three directions at once, Azure and Ayano also joined in with fireballs.

But, these were interrupted, by three identical shields, like one would use with a lance suddenly appearing. As the firing stopped, the shields disappeared again.

"I've worked it out." Sean announced, before Forgery could take his first move. "Well, it's more like ya made it kinda obvious from yer name. Ya can create weapons, right? Well ya've mostly been usin' it for shields, but ya get what I mean."

"Yeah, but they're just fakes. That's what projection is." With that, he suddenly had a spear appear in his hands and with no hesitation chucked it straight towards Sean.

With no time to dodge properly it hit in the side, forcing him to grit his death as a burning feeling spread across his stomach. Just then, Alicia began firing wildly, Forgery only managed to just barely block the attack. Of course, this was perhaps worse for Sean, was now losing blood fast.

Azure quickly rushed in to pick him up, to give him some space from the opponent while he tried to stop the bleeding.

As this was happening, Natasha quickly rushed in, swinging wildly at him. Aki backed her up, but she also had her fists currently dried out, since using explosions inside an airship would probably be too dangerous to be worth it. Still, a punch from a Brachydios wasn't something that could be taken lightly, which Forgery learnt attempting to block it.

The aura user was knocked into a wall, but before Natasha could rush in he threw some knives towards her, forcing her to block, which gave him enough time to recover and get ready to fight again, bringing in another spear.

But before he could throw it, he was suddenly knocked into the ground by a strike from behind.

"Wait, I got a hit in?" Natalie thought, honestly not having expected this considered what had happened before now, she only wanted to distract him to allow others to get a hit in. Natalie knew than in a fight against others she wouldn't be able to do much, especially since she couldn't play any songs for fear of powering up the opponent as well. But Frega had no such problems, already singing, since her songs only affected monsters.

Alicia quickly fired to finish him off, but Forgery then jumped back to his feet, the spear already gone.

Forgery quickly tried to reorganise his thoughts, settling on Matt as his next target. As he finished scanning the room, Sean appeared in front of him again, atop Azure's back.

Forgery had another spear appear, getting ready to throw it.

Azure didn't attempt to dodge, Sean just raised his gun.

As the spear was thrown, Sean fired his gun in response, but rather than straight towards his opponent he fired wildly and quickly, to make it so that not even he knew where his shots were going to hit.

Forgery tensed up for a second, while Sean remained seeming to not care. Eventually, just before it connected with his face, the spear disappeared and Forgery just barely dodged past a stray bullet.

Sean observed this for a single second, before announcing to the others what he'd discovered from this "This aura stuff sure is weird, letting ya dodge around like that. But, Callum was right. When he uses his weapons gimmick, he can't dodge our attacks, so we just gotta hit him when he's going for us!"

Forgery was clearly irritated that they'd worked out his ability. "Don't think I'll let you get away with a ballsy move like that again."

Meanwhile, the other group continued forwards, following Zappy. Lyra, Shoot and Chante were in the lead, while Anthony, Wave and Riko lagged slightly behind.

They passed by a seemingly empty room, but as Shoot looked in he noticed a presence in there, pushing Lyra forwards and diving himself.

Gunfire ripped up the wall they'd just gone past, causing the ones who were behind to stop in their tracks.

"How's that!?" A feminine, hyperactive voice called out from the room.

There was no response.

Riko and Anthony signalled for the others to continue onwards, while they took on their opponent, but the other four had already began to leave, moving silently. Even though they were little disappointed by losing their chance to look cool, they remained focused on the opponent.

"We'll have to take her out before she gets into the hallway. Without any cover, those bullets are gonna be a problem." Anthony whispered.

"Be careful though," Riko replied "We don't know if there's any others in there with her."

Footsteps began approaching the door.

Both of them went silent.

"I could've sworn I heard some footsteps approaching… did I miss?" The voice continued to think aloud. "Ah… Noble's gonna kill me for that wall. If there's no one there, I'm dead. Please be someone there."

As she walked out the door, she inspected the wall, before hearing the sound of movement to her right. She looked down to see Riko swinging straight for her head, attempting to finish things in a single strike. She backed up quickly, still getting slashed but avoiding anything fatal.

"Wait, no, I mean like, I know I wanted you to be there, but that's like, too sudden, can you not?" By the time she finished complaining, she'd already made her way back to presumably where she fired from to begin with. With that, she readied her gun.

"That thing fires fast…" Anthony pointed out "If we just rush at her in the open we're gonna die."

"Look for cover in there, then?" Riko suggested "If she gets into the hallway we're done for, so are the ones over there."

He briefly scanned the room, seeing a few places he could use for cover. Riko began sprinting forwards without a warning. The opponent quickly noticed him moving, and with a yell of "This is the power of my invention!" opened fire. Riko dived forwards, just barely scrambling for cover, avoiding damage.

"...It missed, huh?" She thought aloud, disappointed.

"What's even the deal with that, anyways?" Riko asked in response.

"Ah, I'm glad you asked, worthless filth!" The girl with goggles obscuring her eyes, curly hair, whose hood had been knocked off just before, announced with her sharp teeth forming a wide grin "This is my aura cannon. Well, it's not really a cannon, it's just that aura cannon sounds super cool. Oh, by the way, I'm… Pilot. But yeah, anyways, my aura ability lets me make inanimate objects in this fire, so in this case I'm using it to make this heavy bowgun fire faster, so that it's more deadly. I also, mighta sorta, modified it to fit more ammo, it's pretty cool, y'know?"

"But why are you trying to kill us with it?" Riko asked back.

"Huh? Isn't it obvious? I already called you worthless filth, like that's a pretty big hint. I'm here to clean you up, so the world's better off. Now hold still, I'm gonna finish you off."

Pilot began to step towards where Riko was hiding, but as she did she heard some footsteps behind her.

Anthony swung straight for her head, this was barely dodged, but to dodge this hit Pilot had to stop using her aura on her gun, meaning it would take at least a second before she could ready it again. Pilot was still able to dodge, but at this moment noticed Riko closing in behind her.

Two strikes were made simultaneously, Pilot didn't have a choice but to jump over the blade, still getting hit by the hammer, which knocked her away a considerable.

"Shit, rush in!" Riko yelled, but before he could move forwards Pilot had already started firing, having readied her ability in the time it took for her to land.

Both of them dived behind where Riko was before, despite this Pilot kept firing. The blow had just connected with her skull, so she probably wasn't in the most rational state of mind.

"Doesn't look like she's running out of ammo anytime soon…" Anthony commented.

"Yeah…"

The cover they were hiding behind was being shred to pieces.

"If one of us could draw her fire… then we could make an opening. But whoever does that is gonna be killed for sure, so I guess we gotta think of another way out." Anthony thought aloud.
"Well, I'll leave it to you to work out what to do while she's distracted."

Riko quickly got up and took off running, before Anthony could make any attempt to stop him.

Zappy made it to a room and suddenly stopped, followed by the others.

A hooded figure started them down, armed with a lance and shield.

"So you've arrived, intruders! Prepare yourselves for I, Noble, shall be your executor here!"

"Ah, sorry, we must have the wrong room." Lyra replied, before turning to leave.

"No, this is the right one," Noble argued back "Look, hostage. Fight me and receive punishment already." He used his lance to point at Zach, tied up at the end of the room, still unconscious.

Lyra didn't reply, just readied herself to charge forwards.

"We've just gotta get around him, nya." Shoot observed.

"Mm." Lyra replied.

Noble didn't make a single move, staying in place.

Both of them started running around the obstacle, Lyra going to the right while Shoot went left.

"At least attack me head-on…" Noble muttered, before beginning to strike for Lyra, but as he did he noticed Zappy leaping towards him from his right. He quickly blocked, but Zappy continued to push forwards. Noble got pissed off at this quickly and pushed Zappy off with a surprising amount of strength, before charging for Lyra again.

Lyra had to jump to avoid his charge, but this ended up with her losing distance on Zach.

Shoot still continued forwards, but was cut off by another charge. He attempted to attack, but this was just also blocked, so he backed off temporarily.

Noble also hopped backwards, until he was in a better position to stop them from getting to Zach, but as he stopped he noticed Chante off to the side. She began to use her ultrasound beam, with the intent of putting Noble to sleep, as this couldn't be blocked.

Noble dived out of the way, just barely evading it, but this created an opening.

Shoot moved to attack, but Noble quickly bashed him out of the way with his shield. He continued his tactic of charging, this time heading straight for Chante. Another ultrasound beam was used, Noble completely stopped himself to jump out of the way. Lyra moved in for an overhead strike, once again blocked, followed by several more as she landed, still not connecting, before being knocked back by a kick. Chante made one more attempt with an ultrasound beam, but Noble didn't notice it until it was almost too late, scrambling to dodge.

By now, there was barely any distance between them.

Chante leapt into the air quickly then slammed back down, causing scales to raise into the air, being blown towards Noble.

The scales were hopped around, Noble continued forwards.

With no distance left, Chante used physical strikes, striking at him with her beak and claws. Noble didn't react, blocking the strikes still. Finally, an opening appeared.

For the first time in the fight, he used his lance, with a yell of "REVENGE PIERCE!"
A noise like an explosion gave rise to a cloud of dust, briefly obscuring him and the bird wyvern from Lyra's view. It settled, showing a man with blonde hair flowing down his back and light-brown eyes looking down upon the monster laying on the floor, barely moving. "How do you like my ability? Storing all your attacks that I block with aura, then transferring that into my lance for one attack. In the end, you're the one responsible for your own defeat, aren't you?" He began to laugh at this uncontrollably, finding it funny for a reason Lyra couldn't explain.

The final group continued onwards, following Nargy. As they walked through a seemingly empty room, gunfire landed just behind Alexandra.

All of them hurried behind cover, to avoid the shots that followed it.

The sniper didn't seem to move, waiting for them to try to leave.

"What should we do?" Terrence asked.

"Take them out here." Vert replied.

"Wait, we still need to get to Joseph, we don't want to take long about it." Alexandra pointed out.

"If we run won't they just chase us? I don't wanna have to deal with two." Vert argued back.

"One of us can stay behind to distract them." Alexandra said "And… she seems to have been targeting me the entire time, so perhaps I should."

Terrence seemed a little uneasy about this, but did want to get going. Vert didn't want to potentially deal with multiple aura users. Ed just wanted to go home as quickly as possible.

There were two exits, Nargy sprinted through the one on the right and the others followed, leaving Alexandra and Zino behind. As Alexandra expected, the sniper didn't fire. She was clearly their target.

The one remaining hunter surveyed the environment. There were many objects scattered around the place, the sniper was clearly behind one of them.

She briefly looked up to survey the environment, but the moment she was in a position where she could be attacked a gun was fired, the bullet narrowly dodged.

While she was unable to see, this at least gave her a good idea of her opponent's location. This also confirmed that the sniper had changed positions while she was in wait. She began to slowly move towards them, still crouched behind cover the entire time. Zino also followed, keeping as low to the ground as possible.

Eventually, they were almost where the shot had been fired from. Zino wasn't able to pick up on the scent of the sniper, they must've been doing something to hide it. Alexandra poked her head out, another shot was fired. The sniper hadn't moved.

Five metres.

Alexandra raised her shield and charged forwards. The bullets were deflected, Zino moved around from the other side.

Finally, once she was close enough, she swung for the hooded figure. She missed, but the force was enough to knock off their hood.

It revealed an older woman, looking around 40. Her hair reached around her neck, with pale grey eyes.

"Z-Zenya?" Alexandra asked.

TO BE CONTINUED