My weapons are doing damage... but there is a problem, it isn't ENOUGH damage. Sure, it's punching holes through the metal man, but it sure as hell isn't slowing it down.

I threw my guns back at Beth, "You know what to do!" I shouted and a great wave of butterflies came from my coffin, carrying the Beak Shield and One Bro's mace.

With shield on my left arm and mace in my right hand, I charged forward and ducked under the first swing of the Woodsman, feeling that axe cutting through the air wasn't a good sign either. I jabbed the mace into his chest, and now he staggered back... you know in hindsight I should have aimed there before rushing in.

The giant rose his axe high into the air and swung down. I used the shield to deflect the blow to the left and felt... way less impact than expected, but by the dent in the floor and the shockwave that came with it, that blow wasn't soft at all.

Before it could raise its weapon again, it took three shots on the shoulder. I didn't need to look over my shoulder to know Beth has my back.

The shots made the motions of the Woodsman's shoulder slower too, which gave me more than enough time to shove the Beak Shield on his chest, "I feel like I should say sorry for this..." I muttered to myself and let loose the giant mouth inside of the giant.

Seeing four set of gigantic, monstrous jaws punching a hole through the Woodsman was more morbid than I imagined, but it threw it back and fell on its back with a BIG hole in its chest, "Seems... like we did it." I said after a short pause and seeing no movement from the giant.

I gave Beth a thumbs up while she hurried to hand me back my guns and sighing in relief when the tips of her fingers went back to their normal color and not becoming like white gloves, "Give me a signal next time..." I blinked at her words.

"I did though." She threw me a small glare and looked at the Woodsman.

"You threw them BEFORE giving it." That's... completely true.

Scratching the back of my head and feeling a bit dumb, I opened my mouth again, "Yeah... sorry for that, I'm a very emotion driven kind of guy, I get lost in the heat of the moment." Sometimes at least.

She glanced at me in surprise and smiled, "I was just pointing it out, there is no need to feel bad about it." I didn't feel bad about it.

Kinda.

"Trigger... what the fuck?" I heard the distinctive voice of Ryn behind me, and I turned to meet her very... displeased eyes.

"R- Miss Ryn, I did... literally nothing, and it just tried to kill me." These are working hours, I can't exactly be informal with my superiors... definitely not trying to keep them from getting even more mad to me, no sir!

Ryn glanced at Beth, completely unwilling to believe my words, "Ummm... the Abnormality seemed to lose it by just glancing at Trigger si- MA'AM!" Ryn glanced with contempt at the prone body of said Abnormality once.

"And that's it...? I'll buy it, but I'm still skeptical until I see the video myself. Good work with the suppression, at least you fix this mess quickly." Well, at least she was honest about it.

"One day, a question crossed through my mind. Where do we come from? We were given life and left in this world against our own volition."

DOUBT

My head rumbled and felt wrong, like a deep feeling of... uncertainty. This feeling was hitting me with pure suddenness. The thoughts of my first day here, and it's meaning, manifesting some kind of doubt that didn't feel like my own.

Ryn noticed this change in me, "Get it together you dealt wi-" She was suddenly interrupted by two things... first the body of the Woodsman just vanished and second...

"AHAGHAGHAGAHAGAGAGAHAHAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

A gurgled and loud screech of pain followed by the sound of rending flesh, I didn't know how to feel about this sudden course of events, while Ryn cursed under her breath.

"Green Dawn has fallen, we have three Doubts inside Information's main room"

Yesod's voice snapped me out of my daze and my body moved like a bullet, I heard a shout from Ryn to wait and Beth's surprised squeak.

IGOTTOMAKEIT!

NOTAGAI-

The door opened, and I saw lanky machines with rags... just mutilating the already downed corpses of the Clerks that ran away when the Woodsman breached, eyes filled with pain and confusion, but that anger the Clerks had wasn't normal.

Anger at me, anger at the machines, anger at their position.

So much anger...

I felt this before too, last night was still very vivid to me... and so are the emotions of failure when Rober died that day, only for everything to start again.

But the Manager wasn't about to restart because of some Clerks.

... He won't restart for some...

Something at the back of my head wasn't okay with what I thought, and I rushed the busy machines mangling bodies.

I reared back the mace and I let my anger into that first swing, I... didn't feel an impact, but the head of the first Doubt flew like a golf ball. My arm felt pain from the amount of strength I had put into the swing.

My shield arm grabbed the metal spike of the destroyed Doubt and ripped it off with a yank, and throwing it like a javelin towards the one that was turning in my direction.

It didn't last as a long metal spike went through its rag covered chest and impaled it into a wall which slowly stopped moving.

The last one was moving towards me in a fast-walk pace, showing they didn't have speed on their side... too bad for them, I rose my shield arm and let the giant jaws of the bird do what they wanted to do, and gobble that thing whole.

After that was done, I stared around the room with what felt like a blank face. I heard Ryn shout behind me, and I glanced in her direction, making the woman pause.

"I didn't know you could make scary expressions." Ryn sounded wary, I turned my head from her and saw the reflection of my face in the eyes of one of the clerks it was... incredibly contorted, I was trying hard to not show anything but it simply made me look empty.

I took a deep breath and slowly my facial expression turned more... normal.

DOUBT

"Living is Painful"

"Neither did I." Beth was still just running in our direction, her E.G.O suit didn't make her as fast as us.

"... Trigger after today, I'd like to talk with you, the other Doubts have been handled by the rest of the Teams, get back to work"

Because of course I need this on top of everything else, "I have to work with Knight of Despair... try to keep your wits next time." I nodded at Ryn, not turning to meet her gaze.

I could hear the steps of Beth, "Trigger... are you okay?" I stared at the bodies once.

"No." I bluntly replied and walked out of the room, and I gave one small smile at Beth.

"Thank you for asking, though." She nodded to me slowly, hope she doesn't ask about it... I sure as hell don't want to think about my out-burst, either...

And these... Ordeals... that's what the rule book called them, did I just... heard those words?

Shit too much to think about... again.