After a bit of work with the Sorcerer's Ring, the group managed to raise the steps to a mega golem easily twice the size and three times the bulk of the others within these ruins. Fortunately, it was slouching over and inactive. Rita rushed toward the inert golem, zooming past Yuri, "H-hey!"

Karol was amazed and slightly terrified, "Jeez, what is this thing?!"

Deesh smelled the air, though there wasn't much for her to work with. The feeling she was getting though felt like the energy the Sorcerer's Ring projected. Shadow though whistled at the sight, "So, this is a blastia as well? Guessing they categorize these things by function rather than looks."

Yuri kicked it, "But what I want is the aque blastia, not this…this puppet."

"What are you doing?" Rita screamed after seeing Yuri kick the golem, "Don't just go poking at him like that!" She then started to go around it, "If I can just analyze him," Rita activated the golem's diagnostics at its backside, reading through the data, "I'll finally be able to complete my anima formu—huh? No! His blastia core is missing!"

Repede was the first to pick up on the new scent, but Strider, the stalkers, and Deesh were quick to pick it up soon after. As they snarled the hooded figure rushed back behind a pillar. Deesh stopped snarling enough to speak, "Rita, might one of your associates be here we weren't alerted about?"

Rita moved out from behind the golem as she yelled toward the pillar, "Hey! Who're you?"

"M-me?" the man slowly stepped out of hiding, "I'm just a blastia researcher from Aspio!"

"…That sounded convincing," Yuri sarcastically sassed as he got his blade ready.

Shadow jabbed, "Maybe we can recruit him for a skit. The idiot who didn't realize his cover was already blown."

"And just who are all of you?" continuing his already blown cover, "This place is off-limits, you know!"

"I think you just gave yourself away." Rita looked him over, slightly impressed by how accurate his robes were as Deesh prepared an arrow. "I don't know who you are, but you're definitely not from Aspio if you don't recognize me."

Karol whispered to Yuri, "…Guess she's got no problems with modesty."

The man ran toward the golem, and the moment he did Deesh shot her arrow into his shoulder. He staggered but pushed through the pain as he pulled out an orb from his pouch, "Agh! This job is just full of problem. If it's not the Knights, it's a bunch of kids!"

With the core back in place, the golem started to glow as it stood up. Karol started to scream again, "It's moving!"

Rita was in the middle of casting a spell to attack the thief but was intercepted by the golem, backhanding her into a stone pillar. Estelle rushed to her side as the others kept the golem busy, "Rita! Let me see…!"

As Estelle started to use her healing artes, Strider howled at the golem, drawing down one of its fists for Deesh to block with her shield. The mighty blow was stopped in its tracks as the shield started to give off a glow. Her stalkers tried to use their acid spit against the golem, but the rock didn't seem to be fazed by the assault.

Yuri tried to slash at the thing, but the rock was just too tough for him. Shadow's bullet's seem to be chipping away at it, but it was far from enough to do significant structural damage. She was also limited given they were in a cave and most of the others use melee weaponry so rockets and grenades were out of the question. As Rita regained consciousness, her eyes were bewildered. When Estelle finished healing her, Rita quickly grabbed Estelle's arm, looking at her bodhi blastia, "Wait a minute…"

"W-what?"

Estelle was trying to pull her arm free, but was only freed after Rita got to see what she wanted, "How did you…?"

"I was just trying to heal your wounds…"

Rita's mind was racing with questions now. That's not the ability of a bodhi blastia… Who is that girl…?

Karol rolled away before he was crushed by the golem's hands smashing the ground as Shadow rushed forward firing her weapon. "Hey, mind joining us in on this fight ladies?"

"All right, all right!" Rita dusted herself off, "I'm going after that idiot! You all take care of this!" Repede rushed off to stop Rita before she was crushed by one of the golem's hands.

Karol took cover behind a downed pillar, "What do you mean you'll leave it to us? How are you going to get through?!"

Rita quickly recovered, twirling her scroll, "That idiot!"

With everyone gathered now, Yuri looked up to the golem, "I guess we've got no choice but to play with this wind-up toy for now."

Shadow twirled a pistol, "He won't be too much trouble. I mean, this guy's no Crota."

Rita quickly prepared another one of her spells again, "Let's get this over with and go after that jerk!"

From a ridge high above the battle Aile was watching as she calmly analyzed the enemy's attack pattern. "Model H, can you find the Mechaniloid's weak spots?"

I detect two of them. The energy crystal on its back, and a power regulator exposed on its right heel. Due to the lack of maintenance, I believe the regulator is tied to the beam attack from its chest. However, my scans have also revealed this rock golem is just that. A construct composed of rock and the strange energy we keep detecting.

Aile examined the giant stone monstrosity again, "Are you certain? I mean, have any of you encountered such a Mechaniloid before?"

Even as Maverick Hunters, there's usually metal and circuitry underneath any non-metal components that protected their bodies. Then again, this is a very different world with different natural laws.

"Then I suppose all that's left is to help out your future allies so that you can cross paths someday." Aile pulled out two hilts and activated both blades. Without a moment's hesitation, she took a step forward, falling off the rock face and dove down toward the Mechaniloid's weak point. She was only going to get one chance at a strike like this, as the Mechaniloid started charging the energy into its chest.

The mega golem was just taking their attacks as if they were nothing. Even Rita's magic was having a bit of difficulty slowing it down. The golem stopped moving as it started to charge up its chest cannon. Yuri had noticed the golem has been walking with a limp, and as a bright light started to glow from its heel he could see why. There wasn't any time to reach it from where he was, but he still struck at it with an Azure Edge. The attack didn't have enough power to topple the golem, but then a blur of green and pink flashed near the golem.

"What the—?!"

Somehow someone in fancy green armor was hovering above them with two pink transparent sabers as the leg of the golem exploded from the blindingly fast strike. The golem lost all stability as it collapsed onto the ground. This green warrior flew toward the downed golem and a blinding light flashed as the warrior changed to blue, lost its wings, had fins on the legs, the things on it helmet grew longer and pointed downward and the sabers were replaced with a dual-bladed halberd with transparent blue blades. The blue warrior started to spin the halberd overhead as two serpentine ice dragons appeared and struck at the golem's arms, freezing them to the ground.

One of the halberd's blades was about to be driven into the core before Rita ran forward yelling, "Stop! Don't hurt him anymore!" She climbed onto the fallen golem now, "If I cut off the power supply, he won't be a threat…" As she did the necessary adjustments, Rita whispered to the golem, rubbing its backside, "I'm sorry…"

Deesh was now aiming an arrow at this unknown warrior as Rita pulled the blastia core out. "Where did the green one go? And who are you?"

"Green one?" The emerald eyed warrior looked confused for a moment before snapping her fingers, "Oh, you mean my Model HX form…"

"Model…?" Rita looked up at the warrior, surprised by the voice and equally shocked by the sight, "Wait! You're a girl?" noticing her breasts hidden slightly by her open vest.

Shadow lowered Deesh's bow, "There's just one new girl. Her tech changes her armor and weaponry." Deesh eased the arrow, though shrugged to free her bow from Shadow's hand.

Yuri was already walking away from the battle with Repede as Karol called back, "Deesh, Shadow, Rita, hurry!"

"All right, all right." Rita jumped down as Deesh, the stalkers and Strider joined Yuri. Estelle wasn't moving, worried about something. Rita grabbed Estelle, "Come on! Let's go!"

"But Flynn…"

Yuri called out to her, "There can't be many Knights here if our shady friend in the cloak is just wandering around."

"So, you think Flynn is…"

"I don't think he's here anymore. Come on!" Yuri was eager to catch the thief and end this aque blastia problem for the lower quarter now.

The strange blue armored girl jumped off the golem now, "Are you guys talking about those knights from before?"

Estelle ran up to the girl, "Then Flynn was here after all."

"I-I didn't catch any of their names, but if he has blonde hair and seemed to be in charge of the group then I have. There was also a redheaded knight girl with him that stood out along with a short guy with a staff. They were chasing that guy down here, but he went into hiding and they pulled back not too long ago. If he hadn't made that Mechaniloid go Maverick on you guys, then you could've captured him."

"Mechaniloid? Maverick?" Rita took a closer look at the girl's vest now, tugging it. "What type of metal is this that allows it to be so fabric like…?"

Seeing Rita getting sidetracked again, Yuri yelled out, "Let's go! Let's go!"

Rita blew that inquire off for now, though she was disappointed with herself, "If I'd just a little more time I could've figured out the anima formula!"

Karol stopped, "Is that why we were fighting that thing?"

"Of course."

Rita not even stopping as she walked right past Karol who yelled, "You suck!"

Deesh didn't say anything, but everything about this new warrior smelled completely different from the others she has joined. The girl started to stretch her arms, "You guys go on. I'll swim ahead and cut him off before he reaches the exit." Some kind of mask pulled itself out from her helmet as it covered her nose and mouth. She then jumped into the water as the ponytail like features on her helmet started to propel water through pushing her even faster through the water.

Deesh wasn't going to let this one escape her sight, so she jumped into the water after her, using her tail to propel herself through the water like a crocodilian. Rita's curiosity was already high but now it was going right off the scale because of this strange girl.

Working their way back through the ruins the hard way, the group managed to find the thief again, "Look, there he is!" The thief was surrounded and cornered by monsters from the area.

Before Repede or Yuri rushed in, the girl in blue armor was spinning out of the water as she managed to get some pretty impressive air. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest as a blinding light appeared to be originating from her again. The armor on her changed to purple now, dropping the fins and helmet extensions, as a red scarf appeared and now featured a white mask over her eyes. From her gauntlet, three transparent blue daggers were fired with precision and accuracy, each one striking and killing a monster before disappearing. She continued her spin as she flipped around and landed perfectly before the thief.

One gauntlet now generated three blue transparent claws as the other created a large four-pointed star. She demonstrated what these weapons could do by slicing through one of the monster bodies likes a hot knife through butter as the cut was still steaming. "Move and you're next," pinning his neck between two arms of the star as the tips bore into the rock leaving scorch marks as the thief listened to rock melting.

Deesh was still pulling herself out of the water when the others gathered around the thief. Rita was the first to run up to him, "How can you just steal the core and walk off like that…?" creating a fireball in her hand with relative ease and ready to throw in his face.

The thief started to yell in fear now with nowhere to go, "Stop! M-make him stop! I've only been hired to do a job… I was told I'd get a good price for any blastia cores I could find."

Yuri started his own interrogation now, "You stole cores from the imperial capital too, didn't you?"

"The capital? No way, not me!"

The girl pushed her arm forward, edging the blades closer to the thief's neck, "Then perhaps it was one of your cohorts."

The thief was freaking pinned against a rock and the energy blades, "Y-yeah! It's that creep, Dedecchi."

Yuri demanded, "Where'd he run off to?"

"He's probably picking up his money from the client right now."

"Client?" Deesh licked her lips, acting like she was hungry. "Then you might want to start giving us a name if you don't want me to gnaw on your bones. Starting with your femur."

Displaying her sharp teeth, making the thief even more scared, "All I know is he's somewhere in Torim Harbor. I don't know any more than that! He was a huge bruiser of a guy with a scar on his right cheek and one eye missing," crossing his finger across his cheek like an X to show them what it looked like.

Yuri didn't like the sound of this, "So is this the guy collecting all the cores…?"

Rita entered the conversation again, pointing to the ring on his hand, "And where did you steal that Sorcerer's Ring?"

"Wh-who says I stole it? The client gave it to me, said it would be useful for this job!"

"Liar," Rita holding his hand up with the ring on display, "That's not something the boss of some pickpockets could get his hands on."

"H-honest!" freeing himself from her, "You gotta believe me!"

Karol wasn't sure he liked any of this, "This thing sounds pretty big. You think somebody important is behind it all?"

"I think you're on the right track, Captain Karol." Yuri glanced at the thief, "This doesn't sound like some ordinary band of thieves."

The unknown girl pinning the thief turned to Yuri, "It seems we got everything useful that he can tell us. So do you guys want to do anything in particular with this thief?" deactivating her blades and stepping aside.

With sinister smirks, Yuri and Rita pulled the thief aside and proceeded to pummeled the poor fool for what he did. After they were satisfied with the beating, Yuri and Rita were patting their hands off after tying down the thief to a massive boulder. "There. I'll have the city guards come pick him up later."

"Wa-wait!" the thief was kicking and screaming, unable to move his arms with how tight Rita and Yuri tied him, "Don't leave me like this!"

Strider walked up and urinate next to him. "The mabari has shown her dominance against these monsters. They should stay away from you until the guards arrive," Deesh grinning at him now, "Assuming they get here before the urine loses its effect and the monsters decide to feast on easy prey."

Outside of the ruins, and on the travel back to Aspio, Rita and the others had nothing but more questions for the strange girl that appeared out of nowhere. "Okay, before we continue, I should introduce myself properly. My name is Aile, and I'm a member of the Guardians."

Now that she wasn't in one of her armors, they could get a better look at Aile. Aile had this tomboyish feel about her, especially with how she left her hair around her face. She also had a long brown ponytail that went down to the back of her thighs. She wore a blue vest with a yellow collar that she left open with a pin on the left side of the vest. The pin that looked like an upside-down red triangle outlined in yellow with two little yellow lines pointed away. Her white shorts didn't even cover much of her thigh though she wasn't showing any skin as the rest of her body was in a black bodysuit except for her fingers where the suit was white. Her wrists had two gold bands as did her ankles over her strange blue metal looking shoes. The only other strange thing about Aile was the strange white ear covers she had and an added feature on the left one that looked like an antenna.

"Guardians?" Estelle turned to Karol, "Is that the name of a guild?"

"It's not a guild I've heard of before. Maybe they were formed recently, or they're associated with Palestralle?"

"Guilds? Palestralle?" Shadow tilted her head, "Now I think I'm lost here."

"It's obvious with her magic she is not of this world." Deesh walked forward and turned to the others. "Rita or Estelle, tell me the name of this place."

"Do you mean the continent? We're on Ilyccia."

"Not the continent," Deesh pointed to the ground, "The planet. The world I was born on is a place we referred to as Nirn. Strider and the deepstalkers come from Thedas. And I care not where Shadow hails from."

"That's rather rude. While my origins are still unknown, I proudly defend Earth from her alien invaders."

Aile looked over Shadow, "Then I suppose that would mean I come from a very different Earth than you. Most of our conflicts come from Mavericks. Rouge or malfunctioning…Reploids."

Karol was confused, "So if you guys are from different worlds, then how'd you end up here?"

Shadow shrugged, "We were actually teleported separately to Thedas first and that's how we met," waving to Deesh and Strider. "Then we were, I suppose captured would be easiest to say, mid transit and landed here."

Aile sighed, "Well, I was in the middle of hunting down very dangerous pieces of technology left behind by a mad man. We had tracked down a large gathering of them before I could destroy the tech, I was attacked by unknown enemies. I was holding my own until a portal opened that stated to pull the tech into it. So I rushed in hoping to intercept them before they fell into the wrong hands. But so far nothing. Like I was filtered out. After that I was focused mostly on investigating and trying to understand the situation for the past two days down there. I didn't want to step into a situation where I inadvertently aid the wrong people."

Zagi was getting bored just waiting around a stupid tree and a bunch of uninteresting village people who can't fight. He didn't care what Leviathan's Claw came here for, he wanted to hunt down Yuri and prove who the better was between the two of them. Just as he was about to carve into one of the roots he heard a ringing sound. Hey, you…

"Who's there?! Show yourself!"

Keep your voice down! Do you want the others to hear you? Or think you're crazy?

"Come out! My blade is dying to meet you…"

A strange purple device was hovering nearby with a V above a large black T. I can sense that you are a powerful warrior who values strength above all else. I can give you power. Enough to destroy your enemies and then some.

"Are you…talking to me?" obviously hesitant to believe this strange box was talking.

Well of course I am. Who else is there? Everyone else are either weak or content with the scraps they get.

"You sure you aren't some kind of joke the others are trying to pull on me? Because if you are…"

Listen, I don't know anything about this place or who you're hunting. But I know a hunter when I see one. And I'm trying to offer you the chance to obliterate your enemy with more power than you could ever hope to gain on your own.

Zagi was willing to believe for a moment, if it meant a painful death for Yuri, "Yeah? And what's the catch?"

Well, true, I can't just give such power to anyone. Your vengeful heart, that lust for power, is only rivaled by my own desires. All I ask in return for using my power is for you to help exact my revenge against my enemies. So, do we have a deal?

Zagi grabbed the thing, "Deal!"

Good. Now let's get moving. It shouldn't take long for you to be able to use me, but we don't want to spoil the surprise for your friend just yet. And you can call me Vile.

"Vile, huh?" Zagi snickered, "Well, Vile, my name is Zagi. And the man I want dead," Zagi pulled out the badly drawn wanted poster, "is Yuri Lowell…"

Good. Let that hate burn! And my enemy is simply called X. But he, his friend, and his progenies will soon be nothing more than history when we're through with them.

Just outside of Aspio, Rita got a few of the guards to go and retrieve the thief from the ruins and told the others to wait in her lab for her. Aile volunteered to remain outside with the dogs as the others went to Rita's hut, though she gave Estelle Model H so he could relay what may have happened inside.

While waiting for the others, Model X and Model Z seemed to be worried. "Is something wrong guys? You two haven't sound all too happy since we learned of where we are or meeting that group?"

X finally broke his silence. I'm worried that our interactions now could alter their interactions with us in their future. Or were these events meant to happen?

Model Z shifted a little in Aile's hand, I doubt any of this was meant to happen. Yuri, Estelle and Flynn never mention anything about having encountered others from other worlds before the event with the Ouma organization. But all we can do now is just give a helping hand until we can find a way out of here.

Unfortunately that means we'll eventually be faced off against that creep Zagi who wanted to kill Yuri. And destroying any Biometals we find.

"I'm more concerned about what plan those creatures had for all of those Biometals. They shouldn't be usable without a Chosen One. And since we left Earth, they should be impossible to find." Aile looked back to the gate as she rubbed Strider's neck. "Well, I think the two of you should go into some details then, while we're still relatively alone. Since I know these two good dogs will keep our secret."