A Worthwhile Risk

"As long as Proel is together, it's impossible for us to lose." That single thought is what continued to run through Alant's mind as Lock boldly stepped off the side of the ginormous creature.

Lock faced upward as he fell, having a good view of what he would be attempting to absorb. Carefully aiming his book, with the turning pages flapping through the air, he prepared to completely take in the monstrosity before him.

The thing eerily screamed at the top of its lungs. It's size and scale made the noise send shockwaves throughout a one thousand mile radius. Flowe blocked everyone's ears with Overflowe to prevent them from exploding.

After the scream subsided, Lock immediately activated his absorption ability, pouring absolutely everything he had into it. The veins in his temple tensed up whilst the book he placed so much of his trust into, began consuming the abomination of an enemy.

It was working slowly, but successfully. Piece by piece the enormous creature lost a bit of it's body before it even had the chance to do anything other than scream. It attempted to prevent this from occurring, digging its feet into the ground, but to no avail.

"MY APOLOGIES, FOUL BEAST." Lock wholeheartedly belted from his lungs. "BUT YOUR LONG AWAITED DAY OF RELEASE HAS BEEN UTTERLY WASTED! AS YOU WERE UNFORTUNATE ENOUGH TO BE PLACED AGAINST US! PROEL! GRRRAHHH!"

With a surge of enthusiasm that he'd never felt before, Lock went beyond that of what even he thought was possible, and started absorbing the monster at a far more rapid rate. First it's arm went, then it's leg. The body of this thing crumbled into Lock's book much faster than anyone had expected, being fully absorbed in a matter of seconds.

Lock shifted his body around the other way, and then saw Phina directly below him. Phina's eyes grew wide. A tear rolled down her cheek in her final moments. Opening his book once more, Lock released the entirety of the monstrosity he had just absorbed directly onto Phina, crushing her in the process.

Phina had been defeated.

An Overflowe created platform enveloped under Lock, preventing any amount of damage he would have taken, and lowered him to the surface. The same occurred for the other members of Proel (not including Silva, as she flew down herself.) as Flowe had promised. They all landed nearby each other, within the dust and rubble.

Fallen to a knee, Lock grasped and felt his hands and forearms. The power he had just used put a lot of stress on those parts of his body.

"You alright buddy?" Alant jogged over, and kneeled next to his friend. "That's alottaaa crap you just absorbed.. we didn't even have to do anything, you took that thing out all by yourself!"

"Y-Yes.. I will be perfectly fine. Though combined with the injury I sustained earlier from Silva, time will be required in order to recover from this occurrence."

"Which will be the perfect opportunity for us to talk allllll the time right Lock..?" On his other side, Faed was there. "Oh yeah also, here! It's your robe! I kept it safe, just as promised. It was really soft I see why you like wearing it all the time if it was my robe I'd never take it off either unless of course I needed to for some secret power like you did right now oh and-.."

"Thank you, Faed." Lock placed a hand on her shoulder.

She paused for a moment, and blushed. "You're oh so very welcome!"

"Wait.. so you really don't intend on killing us..?" With a stunned expression, Tigal gazed at Flowe.

A breath of air slipped through Flowe's lips. "That's correct. See now, others such as myself can be trusted Tigal."

"Hmph, yeah we'll see about that. Your betrayal is inevitable."

Flowe closed his eyes in disappointment, though he was unsurprised. That is until...

"But for now.. I suppose I'll have to force myself to accept you as one of us." Tigal finished. He tried not to acknowledge Flowe much immediately after this out of embarrassment, and walked elsewhere.

Silva leaned against Flowe, who visibly displayed his bewilderment. "Well now.." she began. "That's quite impressive. Hah. I may have no idea who you are darling, but that's the greatest compliment I've ever heard Tigal give an outsider. You should be proud."

This managed to get a smile out of Flowe. A real, genuine smile. "Yes.. indeed I am." He simply stated. "I am truly honored to have received such a blessing. Hahah."

Human Hunter stood, arms crossed while Halt rested on his shoulder, just watching Proel converse and come together. He felt an odd feeling inside his stomach, something he hadn't felt since first meeting Benson and Aria. What this feeling was, he decided he could figure out at another time.

"Yo H.H." Alant snapped Human Hunter's train of thought.

"Hm? What is it?"

"Ya about ready to go? We noticed that you had some kinda aircraft back at base, a lot like ours so, we decided to have you drive us back. How about it man?"

Unsettling himself from his relaxed state, Human Hunter began walking towards where he assumed the aircraft was located. "Yeah. That's fine. I've been thinking though, the aircraft has probably been blown to a completely different location."

"Nahh. We knew we'd be going on super tough missions like this so, our aircraft was built with this stuff that keeps it attached to the ground no matter what. That's what Setianal said at least, dunno much about it other than that myself though. Speaking of Setianal, I'm hyped to see what he thinks of your first mission! That was some crazy stuff we went through, so the fact that you survived is sayin something."

"I don't really know him well enough to make an accurate assumption on what his response will be, but considering someone like you is excited about it, it's probably something substantial."

"You bet! Sooo c'mon let's get moving! Between you and me, I think the boss gets seriously hyped up when new recruits as strong as you join and prove themselves so early. The same thing happened with Faed and-.. oh wait that reminds me! Flowe's coming haha! There's no doubt in my mind that the dude will prove to be another great member." Alant clenched his fist. "Pfft, there's no way I can wait any longer now, let's go!" he sprinted away, so fast that it was basically teleportation, and let the rest of Proel (including Flowe) know that it was time to leave.

Walking in small individual groups, they boarded the aircraft. Human Hunter was the last to hop on, right into the driver's seat.

"Hey.. Lock." He said, waiting a moment to depart.

"Yes?" Lock had retrieved his glasses, and put them back on. Faed still held his robe in her arms. "What is it that you are in need of Human Hunter?"

"Are you for certain that the cloning device was destroyed?"

"Hm.." Lock paused for a bit to consider his answer. "If the device was powerful enough to survive such an attack, then I'm afraid our efforts would be wasteful anyway. If the location of the device happened to be elsewhere, then finding it would be rather difficult. Even so, seeing as how Phina is deceased, its' elimination now would be simply to prevent any future users. For the time being at least I think we may return home. We are all rather weakened from what has transpired anyway."

"Alright.." Human Hunter seemed to be satisfied enough with this answer. "In that case, I'll get going."

During the ride to HQ, Proel was just as talkative as they were before their departure. All of them except, yet again, Human Hunter. Although this time his mood was worrisome. He felt as if they had missed something integral. As many times as he scanned over what had occurred though, he couldn't find anything other than the possibility that the cloning device had not been destroyed.

Even with all the conversing, the ride home for Human Hunter, was quiet.

Elsewhere...

"... an unsatisfactory performance for Phina. As I thought, the threat of this Human Hunter group is significant." Malent stood within the center of his massive ship, pacing back and forth.

"Lord Malent. I attempted to inform you that Proel would just barley pull through. Toying with them like this will just increase their strength and numbers." A strange looking Sapient protested. He definitely wasn't a standard soldier. "Placing our most powerful forces against them now will guarantee our victory."

"I thought all of our forces, were powerful forces." Malent continued to pace. He glanced over at the hologram displayed of Proel flying home on their aircraft. "For several generations now I've overseen these so called powerful subordinates. Those who's battle capabilities are supposedly strong enough to prevent any threats from ever reaching myself. Well... when were those claims ever proven to be authentic? Not once in the last few thousand years have I ever seen a single one of them battle other than in combat training. Frankly, I see right now as a sort of testing ground. A way to confirm their legendary status. Do you not agree, Tieren? Would you rather have the weak remain among us?"

"Tch.. I suppose not. However, I don't think a loss here necessarily translates to weakness. Phina was our newest, and first ever human recruit. Her loss was expected. But that doesn't change the fact that Proel gained battle experience from this. Plus, they gained an impressive new member from the Assassin Corps. "

"According to Xenia, what they gained from the Assassin Corps is exactly the opposite of an ally. Only time will tell though how this plays out. If it is as Xenia has informed me, we will not be needing to send anyone down there for a while anyway. Who knows, maybe the two children will have been converted once that time comes. Now sending them down... would be absolutely... perfect."