Daughters of Xicor: Path of Destruction

In Ace of Spades, the Exdraxian Champion had sat at the bar of the Red Dragon Tavern since early in the morning, ordering a drink of ginger ale and whiskey every ninety minutes, but nachos at half passed nine and didn't seem to be in a pleasant mood. When asked, she simply said that she was waiting for someone to arrive, for a business matter. It was not until half past ten did a man wearing a brown trenchcoat over a suit with a fedora walked in, adjusting his green tie as he took a seat next to Kloria. He addressed himself as the informant she had asked to look into reports to see if he could help narrow down a search. Since Exdraxians were already on ice with the crash landing, setting up a makeshift village, and probing the planet, Kloria figured it best to use Earth-Land methods to assist her to prevent any conflict. '

The man pulled out a large yellow envelop and put it down on the bar, sliding it to Kloria who opened it up. He leaned over slightly before glancing around, the man was a known informant for cash and was worried about being recognized. He spoke quietly to the alien. "Let me be honest mam, this is one of the oddest jobs I've handled. However I handled it. I managed to follow sources that say your target was hunted by mercenaries, and your target was last spotted in a village roughly a couple hours trip from here. She slayed them all with some weird requip magic. Scary thing is, she looks almost exactly like you." Kloria checked the documents and then grabbed a small roll of jewels out from her boot, and slid it to the man before she stood up.  "This business stays private, and never happened."

Kloria slid all papers, and the photos of her twin sister away before she ran out the door, telling the bartender to put her orders on her tab. She ran out of the Tavern, and jumped into her shuttle before she set course and made her way towards the village. However the man face palmed as he realized he made a terrible mistake. "Damn, probably should've told her that the last known village her target was at came down with a terminal plague, turning whit's victims to some electric goo." The man sighed before walking out.

---

When Kloria arrived a short distance from the village, but her shuttle lights went red and Syba, the AI on board the shuttle automatically parked her vehicle a distance away. "Warning! High Phaz levels detected. Target Nessa Xicor not able to be tracked." Kloria was instantly confused, as Nessa should be the only source of the devilish substance in this galaxy. She looked at the levels and almost could not believe them. However Kloria assumed this was just a smoke screen. "I gotta find her before she kills those human mercenaries."

Kloria got out of her ship and ran towards the town, she instantly started running towards the village. She could sense the familiar presence of Phaz, only to see it had been running rampant in town. This was not a smoke screen. In the village and areas surrounding it plant life had died out, and blue puddles of liquid releasing sparks, and blue trails were all around the buildings still standing, while a fourth of the village was decimated. Kloria was in utter shock at the level of Phaz in the area. She looked around for a survivor, and found a man who was trying to repair his house, but his skin was pale as his veins were glowing blue, one eye blood shot and one eye was blue. Kloria approached the man cautiously. "Excuse me sir, could I talk to you for a minute?"

The man turned around to face the woman, only to utterly panic as he yelled to his townsmen. "She's back! Everyone!" Kloria tried to raise her hands defensively and spoke calmly to the man. "Look, sir, you misunderstand I am not-" Her voice got swallowed up in the shouting as people started to through things at her. She tried to speak but no one was willing to listen, and when someone came at her with a pitchfork she had no choice at this point.

She summoned her Cho-Armos as she caught the pitchfork, but her focus was broken as she had gotten shot in the shoulder from behind. That moment disrupted her focus forcing the particles coming from her to return, however she could not last long at this point, not without causing more harm. She bursted through the crowd, and hurt shots that she narrowly avoided. She knew she had no chance, she had to run. She picked up her pace after the last shot while at the same time summoning her Cho-Armos, using the boosted speed to run out of town, and after taking a long contrived route, ended up back at her ship an hour later, and fell to her knees exhausted for once. She retracted her armor before leaning up against a tree, breathing cautiously. She felt her shoulder as the bullet was still lodged in, luckily it did not get all the way through the skin.

"What the hell was that?! Syba, how could Nessa cause that, she is a class 2.6 like me." The computer responded through the com on her wrist. "Unknown. Analyzing data." Kloria took a deep breath, annoyed, and unsure of the situation.

WC 924

Slipping on her Azure Armor over a blue t-shirt with khaki cargo shorts and white tennis shoes, Victoria snatched her backpack and crammed the gas mask and Bandolier inside. She was too late to find Kloria and join her before the latter left, but she had heard loose talk around the tavern about Kloria heading off for somewhere in her fancy shuttle. Victoria decided to follow the trail and catch up with the tall alien blonde, hopefully not missing out on too much of the action. The trouble was determining where exactly Kloria went in her fast alien shuttle.

-In Ace of Spades-

Victoria asked around about Kloria's shuttle and got mixed responses. Some people claimed to not have seen it while others offered conflicting reports about which direction it took off in. The search for information was taking a little too long for her liking because the people who said they saw it did not agree on which way it had flown when it left the area. Eventually Victoria sat down on a wooden bench in the town square to get off her feet for a moment because she would have to do a lot of walking to catch up to her guildmate. She was at her wit's end as to which direction to begin traveling.

"Hey kid. I heard you were looking for some weird alien spacecraft that took off from around here a few hours ago." A brown-haired man in a white t-shirt that read "The truth is out there" and blue jean pants with battered black tennis shoes and sporting large sunglasses with black lenses said to her. Victoria took interest in the man because he seemed to have some knowledge of the spaceship. He did not need to know that the pilot of the craft was a guildmate of hers.

"Yeah. I was looking for them." Victoria said truthfully. She was looking for the spaceship, but not because she was an alien aficionado or a conspiracy theorist. He looked at her and began to speak.

"I saw some weird ship shaped like an alien helmet head northwest a few hours ago. If you ask me, they're part of a scouting force and were heading back to the mothership to report their findings. It's awfully convenient that they flew over some fields full of cattle. I think they're capturing cattle to study as part of their invasion plan." He said to her. Victoria appreciated the direction but was mildly concerned about the abrupt segue to alien invasions and cattle abductions. It was typical conspiracy theorist stuff, but he was right about Kloria being an alien.

"Oh? Northwest, you said?" Victoria asked with interest. He nodded and continued with his theories.

"Yeah, man. It hovered straight up into the air, then zipped towards the northwest. I thought a scout ship would have cloaking technology so we couldn't see it, but this one didn't have any. Or maybe it was counting on its appearance to hide it because no one would think a flying helmet's all that strange, not with a bunch of scary and powerful mages running around the world." He opined further. Victoria was somewhat amused by his ramblings, but they had a kernel of truth to them because there were a lot of strange things in the world that people did not find all that unusual because of living in a world full of mages. Victoria had witnessed some of them at the Autumn Jamboree and during the Santa invasion in Silent Glaciers.

"OK. Thanks for the information, mister." Victoria said while standing up. She tossed him a bag of 1,000 Jewels out of gratitude for the information and the amusing theories. He held it up and nodded before Victoria set out for the northwest to try and catch up with Kloria.

-In some woods, two hours later-

Victoria had hiked quite a distance in a short amount of time. She chalked up that ability to living on the streets and having to run for her life on more than one occasion. "Survival of the fittest" was more than a snappy catchphrase on the streets: it was a fact of life. After a lot of walking and quite a bit of searching, Victoria finally saw the spaceship and briskly walked towards it. Wherever it was Kloria was not too far behind.

The brunette spotted Kloria leaning up against a tree with what looked like a bullet wound to the shoulder. She hurried up to the tall blonde and looked at her guildmate. She looked exhausted like she had just exerted herself in strenuous physical activity. It looked like she had been in a fight for her life.

"Hey, Kloria! Are you OK?" Victoria asked Kloria, keeping a respectful distance and making sure not to show any weapons lest she be mistaken for another enemy.

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Kloria heard steps approach, and instinctively flexed her left thigh sliding her knife out of it's hidden sheath in her boot only to realize that it was the bar maid from Sabertooth. She slid her knife back in its sheath before she signaled Victoria to approach. "I've suffered worse injuries. The bullet hasn't got in deep, but I had to push myself to leave about seven sets of intertwining tracks through the woods in under ten minutes so I could loose the sniper. The situation is worse then I could ever predict. Syba, eject me the aux med kit."

A hatch opened along the side of the shuttle as a rectangular case with a triangular handle dropped out. Inside was a pair of tweezers, a red gun like device with a needle tip and a tube opening in the back, two sets of multicolored tubes that would go into the opening of the aforementioned device, an orange spray can, and a small vial of a multicolored liquid. "If you would please bring that over, I might need some help with the bullet. It is in a awkward place to treat. It should be simple, grab the tweezers out of the kit if you need them to remove the bullet, then spray with the orange can. If the wound looks infected put the purple tube into the red device and injected it near the wound."

Kloria slowly turned around halfway counter clockwise so that Victoria would be able to get to the bullet easier. However her right wristband seemed to be flashing yellow and beeping in a pattern. She knew very few individuals would message her. "This can't be good." Kloria tapped the device and a holographic screen came up, written in Exdraxian. "No... they know Phaz is amiss, I gotta stop this before knowledge of what Phaz is gets back to the Magic Council."

Kloria sighed, she wanted to tell Victoria to go away and that this wasn't her problem, but it was clear that she lost that luxury. She could not go about the humans in this area without getting shot down or circled. "As much as I want to tell you to go, and this isn't your problem, my fight has become a threat to humans. I will try to brief you up to speed as quickly and as much as I can but bare with me, we got a large field to cover. By the dawn of the fourth day from today, I guarantee only a tenth of the original population of that settlement will see the light of day. They are suffering Phaz poisoning, everyone seems to be at least approaching terminal from what I guessed."

Going through the files in her coms database, the screen returned back to it's normal size over her wrist and a life size holographic projection appeared in front of Kloria standing up. The woman looked almost identical to Kloria, except her hair was shoulder length, and she wore combat boots, beige cargo pants and a green button up shirt. She also appeared an inch shorter then Kloria. "This is Nessa Xicor, she stormed through the village earlier, and is responsible for the countless deaths. We Exdraxians vowed never to disclose the dangers of Phaz to any race to prevent it from being a danger to this galaxy, but I must break that vow."

Kloria typed in a few settings, showing a new hologram of the Phaz-Armos replacing Nessa. She hate d talking about her sister, her own flesh and blood relative, as a criminal, but she had little choice at this point. "This is the Phaz-Armos, a forbidden artifact of my people and the prototype of Exo-Armos. It uses the power of Phaz, an energy that breaks down everything and converts it into Phaz. Exdraxians have built a resistance over time, not exactly immune, but humans are erratic. The Phaz-Armos, it's power is tricky to explain but generally those with higher tolerances are able to draw out more power. I am not sure how, but my sister polluted the whole town with Phaz that is spreading, not close to dying. I suspect there might be a seed spreading it involved. That is going to take priority. Kill the seed and 90% of the Phaz goes within a week, the last bit in a month naturally."

Kloria would shut off the device. She was done wher her displays. "Still, let me summarize this into something you can remember. Do not ingest anything other than air over there, and god forbid be careful about what wounds you suffer, if anything contaminated gets in your body I can't tell you how bad it can be. If we find Nessa, you can wound her however you like if you can, chop an arm off for all  I care, but do not shoot to kill. I need to find out what happened to three Exdraxian children she kidnapped."

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TWC 1747

Victoria was glad to see that Kloria was not dead from her wound. She seemed to be in decent shape considering what she had just went through, but Victoria had no knowledge of alien biology, so every alien of Kloria's species was likely as hardy as she was. Kloria requested that her guildmate retrieve a medical kit and help treat the wound. Victoria was game, so she walked over to the shuttle and retrieved the items that Kloria requested.

The items in question were a pair tweezers, a red gun-like device with a needle tip and a tube opening in the back, two sets of multicolored tubes that would go into the opening of the aforementioned device, an orange spray can, and a small vial of a multicolored liquid. Victoria brought them over and steeled herself for what was about to happen. This was the first time she had ever treated a bullet wound. She would have to get this right for Kloria's sake.

"OK." Victoria said tersely as she followed Kloria's instructions to the letter after getting into place to extract the bullet. She maneuvered the tweezers over the bullet, placed the tip of the tweezers on the base of the bullet, and clenched her teeth. What was about to happen might get... messy.

"I'm about to remove the bullet." Victoria warned Kloria. Victoria steadied her hands, then pulled the tweezers out slowly and straight to minimize the pain she was causing her guildmate. The wound bled a little since the bullet was being removed, but it was nothing life-threatening with the proper treatment. The brunette was here to administer the proper treatment.

Victoria kept pulling until the bullet had been completely removed. It was a normal rifle bullet, which was good because the wounds inflicted by some of the specialized ammunition for rifles like expanding core rounds might have been beyond her limited ability to treat. If she had been hit with an expanding core round, the blonde might not even have a shoulder right now. Now to tell Kloria the good news.

"I've removed the bullet. Judging from the wound, it's not infected. It was a clean bullet wound. Let's get you patched up." Victoria said to the tall blonde as she took the orange spray can and began to spray the wound. It must have been a first aid spray that was a combination of coagulant, skin regenerator, and antibiotic because the wound began to heal almost instantly upon application of the spray. The brunette marveled at what she held... any medical company who could reproduce this and adapt it for humans would make more money than they could ever hope to spend.

"All right. It's been treated." Victoria said to Kloria. She recalled Kloria's quick briefing about something called "Phaz" and how it took over a village. It was a contaminant that would spell the end of ninety percent of the village's inhabitants in roughly four days. Victoria had a hard time comprehending the power of such a contaminant. What made it worse was Kloria's revelation that it had been spread by her sister Nessa.

"You're right. We need to clean this up before the Magic Council finds out about it. If they hear about it, there's no telling what kind of trouble would come your... come our way." Victoria said to Kloria, quickly amending her statement near the end since the brunette was now involved in the cleanup. This was a chance for her to do something selfless for other people. She would risk contamination and a slow, lingering death to save the people of Earthland from what happened to the poor village that Nessa Xicor had chosen to play host to the "Phaz." It could not be allowed to spread.

"I'll be as careful as I can, Kloria. I don't have any protective gear and I'm not sure that human hazmat gear could do anything to protect against the Phaz. All I have is a gas mask to protect me from chemical irritants, not biological hazards." Victoria said to her guildmate. Victoria could treat herself with her Combat Medic magic, but if Phaz got into the wound, she had a feeling that no magic could save her from what would happen. Kloria made it sound pretty dire. If the Phaz was a secret of her people because of what it could do, then it was nothing to trifle with.

"I'll also try to help you take your sister alive. I'll do my best not to kill her." Victoria promised the tall blonde. The brunette took a deep breath. She was about to enter a rather dangerous situation in nothing but normal clothing and body armor that protected her torso and shoulders. She took this chance to put on the Bandolier that Itori gave her and fish out the gas mask. She would need if if she employed tear gas to subdue Nessa.

"Do tasers and tear gas work on your people?" Victoria asked Kloria. Having that information would be handy before the pair fought Nessa only to find that the latter could laugh off less-than-lethal methods of incapacitation.

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Kloria braced herself as the bullet was removed, letting out a slight gasp but was glad that Victoria had soon applied the spray. It was a special stimulant plus energy booster that converts into certain types of flesh, essentially becoming a patch fix for flex. The only reason it wasn't shared with humans yet was that it was set for Exdraxian flesh, which seems slightly more denser then human flesh.  She was glad that it was easy to bring Victoria up to speed, well, as much as she can at least. Kloria stood up, and flexed her arms a bit as she too wondered about the situation.

"Interesting question, tazer and gas, probably when she is not armored. However speaking of which, there's something about the Phaz-Armos that is relevant. It has an ability similar to what you would call a Slayer, it can absorb Phaz and gain a brief spike in power. However the wearer retains the dregs of that boost for a longer time. The spike usually lasts one attack. But Nessa and I have a similar skill set, and we are not easy to take down, don't worry about holding back too much."

Kloria then packed the first aid kid back into the shuttle as she began to wonder, what was Nessa after. Why here, why now? However that was not important right now, the Exdraxian took a deep breath before she once more summoned her Cho-Armos and began to make her way through the woods, stopping occasionally to look out for the snipers. "We can't do anything for the villagers, when the Exdraxians were evacuating, the shuttle Nessa took had two of our Phaz extractors, your Rune Knights took the other five. We would not explain them, said that it was to deal with something too dangerous for anyone here to handle."

Kloria stopped as she tapped her visor, and something translucent materialized before disappeared. Suddenly, the visor turned purple and Kloria could see heat signatures. While the town was glowing hot with the Phaz everywhere, she was keeping her eyes peeled for the sniper from earlier. She looked around and noticed not heat, but a long lack of it. Clearly it was some sort of magic to hide him from sensing, but that absence created an anomaly to be his undoing. "Sniper, he appears to be using some sort of stealth that masks even his heat. In the distance. I'd outmaneuver him, but I am forbidden to use the proper gear and there might not be enough time."

Kloria hid behind a tree with her left side, grabbing her Axo-Canon as she readied herself, searching the town but simply deactivated her visor. "No good,too much Phaz to see where the seed is. However Victoria, we need to decide now. What can be done about the infected? I doubt we can get a Phaz extractor here in time or if it would do any good. I know you humans hate this, but is mercy killing an option? None of them have much time left, and Phaz is one of the most painful deaths imaginable as far as I am aware."


Kloria would look down at the girl, giving her the toughest call to make. However Kloria did so without hesitation, as this was nothing new to her as she had been forced to make countless calls likes this, making her numb to any anxiety a life or death situation can bring, even if she is the one holding the trigger. "Keep in mind that sniper might get unpredictable. But if we don't, we are subjecting them to a merciless death, and either way they don't live more then a week. Morally speaking, there's no right choice. You are the closest human to make an unbiased call."

Internally, Kloria hated Nessa for this, making her force this choice onto someone she was supposed to see as an ally. The Phaz had corrupted her, this was clear, there was no turning back after this.

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TWC 2413

"So I don't have to hold back too much as long as I don't kill Nessa? OK. I'll keep that in mind." Victoria said to Kloria after hearing the blonde's affirmation that tasers and tear gas worked on Exdraxians. The brunette was not planning to kill Nessa unless Kloria gave the go-ahead. This was Kloria's job and Victoria answered to her because she had essentially butted in on what was a personal matter between the Xicors. However, when Kloria described the Phaz and what it had done to the village and its inhabitants, it became Victoria's problem because the Phaz could threaten Earthland if allowed to spread by either Nessa's hand or that of enterprising Dark Guilds.

"So Nessa can use the Phaz for a power-up? When we encounter her, you tell me what I can do to help. I don't have any idea of what I'm going up against and you do." Victoria told Kloria. While Kloria had already warned her of her sister's ability to use Phaz for a power boost like those who used the various types of Slayer magic could use, Victoria would defer to the tall blonde when it came to fighting Exdraxians.

"I can't see that Sniper since I don't have any special detection equipment or abilities, but since you said that he may be using magic, we can detect him that way and act accordingly." Victoria added when she mentioned the Sniper with special abilities or equipment that let him avoid visual detection. However, if he used magic, he could be detected and dealt with. The guild laws allowed for killing in self-defense or to save other lives... this was one of those times.

She had promised to help Kloria with this job and she was going to stand by that promise. However, Victoria's resolve wavered a bit when she learned of the tough choice that was put in front of her. The more details that were put in front of her, the harder the choice became.

There was nothing that could be done for the villagers who were already infected and there was no guarantee that a Phaz extractor could be brought in in time to clean up the village. The infected villagers were going to die either slowly over the course of a week or instantly by the hands of the Sabertooth mages. The choice was put in Victoria's hands. What should she do?

There was no easy way. She could keep her hands clean and let the villagers die "naturally" over the course of an agonizing week of indescribable pain that she would not wish on even Francesca Corlone. She could mercy kill the infected villagers and spare them a week of suffering and risk trial by the Rune Knights. While it should have been a no-brainer, Victoria had never dealt with anything like this before.

Victoria was not worried about herself. She could survive as a Guildless mage. She was worried about Kloria in particular and Sabertooth as a whole. She did not want to drag them down with her if she were arrested by the Rune Knights and tried for murder. This was not going to be easy, but something had to be done.

If Kloria and Victoria did not stop this now, Nessa or an enterprising Dark Guild would continue to spread Phaz and turn Earthland into a hellhole. Victoria closed her eyes and thought it over one last time. Then she made her choice. She looked up at Kloria and spoke.

"I won't let the villagers suffer. If they still have enough of a mind left to ask me for a mercy kill, I'll give it to them. It'll be my responsibility." Victoria said to her guildmate. Victoria could already feel her conscience eating at her and she had not even pulled the trigger yet. However, it would be unconscionable to leave them to suffer when she could help them end it. The brunette could not afford to keep her hands clean in a crisis like this. Victoria did not enjoy her decision in the slightest, but she made the choice and she would own it.

"You deal with your sister and call me if you need help in dealing with her or with Sniper." Victoria told Kloria. As an Exdraxian, Kloria was more familiar with how they thought and was thus better qualified to deal with Nessa, but the brunette would help if called upon to do so. Kloria would also get to keep her hands clean from the worst of what was about to happen.

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Kloria knew that what she just imposed onto Victoria was the hardest decision for anyone to make, Kloria knew as much as she had to force herself to make that call many times over. She looked into Victoria's eyes and could feel the weight that she just put on the younger woman coming down hard. Kloria was glad that Victoria was willing to handle the villagers, clearly Kloria was not in any position to handle them.

However she knew that this was not possibly the same, she did not know how much blood was on the human's hands, nor did she want to tell the human how much innocent blood was on her own. Kloria  hoped that when they left Exdrax, they left Phaz behind. Kloria resigned herself to fate, no matter what happened, the blood was on her hands tonight. She was glad that Victoria at made up her mind, but Kloria was concerned Victoria would be greatly traumatized by this day for a long time.

Phaz tends out to bring out the worst of both those it infects, and those who have to decide what to do about those who are infected. Kloria slowly walked by Victoria, resting her hand on the shorter woman's shoulder just as she was about to pass. She couldn't look at Victoria, and especially couldn't lie to her. "Killing an innocent is not like killing a criminal or a beast. Whatever you do, do not look away. Do not distance yourself from them in your mind, and ultimately, remember it is better by your hand then cruelty." Kloria lifted her hand  started walking off into the woods, prepared to take action into her own hands.

"I act better autonomously anyways, better I approach from a different angle then the main path since we can't do much If I am a target and you are seen with me. My first priority is the Phaz Seed. Exo-Armos is built with Phaz resistance and I have a naturally high tolerance like my twin. As much as I want to bring down Nessa, containing this mess is first priority. My people's freedom is on the line here. If the sniper shoots at me, and if you think it's best to stay off his radar, you may turn on me."

Kloria then started to walk a distance away, preparing to approach town from a different angle. She soon started to run through the woods, stopping ever ten meters behind a tree. "If I stay far away from the hill he's on, I can probably stay on the outskirts of his range. At the very least I should switch to Scro-Axo. It's gotta be a low tier seed." When Kloria got close to the village, she stopped and hid in shrubs, waiting to hear Victoria's moves before deciding on her own course of action.

Her Axo-canon's frame seemed to illuminate as her Axo-Canon opened lengthwise, before adopting a purple energy output. "Nessa, I have come this far, how far will you take this? How many lives?"

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Victoria listened silently to Kloria's advice about not distancing herself from those she was about to kill and not turning away from them. The brunette had thought of wearing her gas mask to obscure her face, but the tall blonde's advice was the deciding factor. The hapless people would see Victoria's face before she ended their suffering. Aside from the human factor of seeing her face, the legal consequences would likely be a lot worse for her if she wore a mask than if she left her face uncovered. Victoria would show them her face because the innocent people deserved that much.

"Thanks." Victoria said to Kloria before walking towards the village to carry out her grim task. She did not take any pleasure in what was about to happen. What she was about to do would cost her part of her soul. It would likely cost her more than a part of her soul. Still, it had to be done because leaving them to suffer over the course of a week would be just as criminal as spreading the Phaz to begin with.

"And good luck with what you're about to do." Victoria wished her guildmate. Even with the fate of Earthland on the line, it would not be easy to possibly commit sororicide. Both of the mages would have to make unpleasant choices and have the will to follow through with them. Each of the Sabertooth mages would have their own struggle during and after today's events.

-Inside the village-

Victoria found the village with very little trouble because the signs, the houses, and every structure in the village was coated with Phaz. A statue of some local notable cradling a book in his left arm and pointing towards the sky with his right hand had a blob of the pulsing blue substance covering its face and arms. The decorative wrought-iron fence of what looked like a park was covered in the deadly substance. This place had become a hellhole.

The only mercy was that the streets were mostly clear of it, but that was where the mercy ended. Victoria saw people standing in what used to be the village square with pulsating blue veins and the veins in their eyes beginning to turn blue. Their faces were twisted in expressions of agony and some of the older people had bruises on their heads where they had tried to knock themselves out or kill themselves to escape the unending pain Kloria warned her about.

One of them spotted her and raised a hand to get her attention. Victoria wished that she could ignore it, but she had already committed to this unpleasant duty and would see it through. She turned towards them and walked over to the group of over a dozen infected people.

"I don't know what happened. This... this stuff came out of nowhere. Everyone's infected. Everyone." A man in a black suit explained to her. Victoria kept her distance and he kept his. Victoria listened to the man continue his explanation, his perspective on what happened to the village.

"I got infected when I pulled my son away from a pile of it he had been playing in, but it was too late. He was infected. Now I am too." He said grimly. Victoria hoped to whatever deity was listening that there were no infected children. She fervently hoped that for once in her life she would catch a break when she was about to perform an already grim task.

"Can you help us?" An infected woman wearing a white bridal gown asked her. Victoria's resolve wavered with each infected person she saw. Forget wavering. It was almost near collapse as the man and the woman embraced one another and it dawned on the brunette... they were in the process of getting married when Nessa spread the Phaz and doomed the entire village.

"The pain's too great to bear. It feels... it FEELS like my eyes are going to burst from their sockets!" A bespectacled old woman wearing a blue dress with a gray metal walker chimed in.

"We can't kill... kill ourselves. We won't get into paradise if we do." A teenage boy in a white t-shirt and blue jeans with sandals told Victoria.

"End our suffering. Please." The man who had first spoken to her pleaded. Victoria had to breathe to steady her nerves for what was going to come next. She was about to make the toughest shots of her mage career. Victoria wordlessly brought out her Silenced Sniper Rifle.
The woman in the bridal gown flinched until her would-be husband comforted her.

"Don't worry, dear. We'll... be together on the other side." He assured her, taking the woman into his arms for the last time. The man and woman then nodded at her. Victoria felt her stomach sink to her feet as she raised the rifle. The couple closed their eyes.

Victoria aimed at the woman and almost closed her eyes, but she recalled Kloria's advice to not look away. Victoria opened her eyes and forced them to stay open. If she had to kill these people to spare them from suffering, she was going to do it right.

Victoria squeezed the trigger and watched the side of her head burst in a pink mist. She quickly shot the man in the side of his head too so that they would not have to wait too long to be reunited. The old woman with the walker hobbled up to her and nodded her consent.

"I'm going to join my husband. He died twenty years ago... and today I'll see him again. Thank you for ending my suffering." The old woman thanked her. Victoria raised the rifle again and fired, hitting her in between the eyes and killing her with one shot. The trigger was getting harder to pull with each shot. It would only get harder as villagers who had witnessed the proceedings from the windows of their homes came out and asked for a mercy kill.

[Word Count: 1,025]
[Total Word Count: 3,507]

Kloria noticed that the people were gathering towards Victoria. Since she did not hear any screams from the other wizard, she assumed that everything was alright, she needed to focus on the issue at hand. When she believed the town was preoccupied by the wizard, she soon ran into the village, hiding behind structures as she quickly traced back to it's source. She was looking for where the seed was by proceeding towards where the energy was strongest. There were times Kloria had to jump over walls and fences to hide from the sight of the villagers, but eventually she found her way to the square and found that everything seemed to be spreading from the well.

"Of course, the well in the middle of town. How predictable, and despicable. Not to mention rough for me. I am pretty much gonna have to test the limits of Limit Lock 3."

Kloria started to make a dash towards the well but stopped when her hearing picked up on the sound of a bullet landing in front of her, she jumped to the side as another bullet was shot but this time on the other side of the well, and a third hitting the top, and that random pattern seemed to follow through as Kloria could not tell what he was doing at this point. Her Axo-Canon glowed once more as she deactivated her Scro-Axo, and the Axo-caon seemed to expand vertically a bit before ice started to form, the Froize-Axo. Kloria took a dive forward intentionally as she charged energy through the Axo-Canon and slammed it onto the ground as a small wall of ice formed.  "That should obscure any shot for now-"

As Kloria stood up she immediately felt a gun barrel pressed against the back of her helmet before she could get halfway up. Kloria looked in the ice to see the reflection of a dark figure standing behind her. Who was standing behind her was a complete mystery. He stood at roughly 5'10 tall, and a rather strong but slim build wrapped in a dark grey cloth over his flesh, wearing: combat boots, black pants, some form of chainmail shirt, and a open dark trench coat as well as dark sports sunglasses and a large fedora. He was holding a submachine gun to the back of Kloria's head.

"Automated randomized system, damn it." The man looked down at Kloria, his finger on the trigger. He spoke with a muffled voice "Your good, but make peace with your gods." He pulled the trigger as he shot at the armor, however while not exactly piercing, they were a pain on the back of Kloria's head, and since the bullets couldn't pierce they piled up eventually jamming the gun causing it to explode and Kloria took the chance as she charged spiritual energy into her Axo-Canon before she whipped her body around and hit the gunman's arm as it was being knocked back by the recent explosion, forcing it into the arm before she kicked him in the stomach with immense force, knocking him back a few steps.

"Cho-Armos can take a brutal beating." Kloria tried to get a few shots at him with the Froize-Axo but the man seemed to jump to the side each time, narrowly missing each time before she reverted her Axo-Canon back to default, and charged up a yellow sphere of light energy before it exploded in a large flash and sound designed to blind everyone, but when Kloria's sight was restored she found that the man was holding her throat with a pistol aimed at the visor. "Not bad, you play a good tune this time around, almost as if you got a whole new arsen- son of a bitch I'm fighting the wrong target aren't I?"

Kloria nodded. She whispered to the man. "Pretty much, twin sister scenario. What gave it away?" The man lowered his pistol and let go of his grip. "A few things, hair length and how you stood there and took the villagers abuse. Thought that was an act myself, however you seem to ignore the villagers, different armor appearance albeit similar to the assailant but not quite. Lack of teleportation, instant obliteration, and any sudden power boosts as recorded from the reports. Also none of your shots were aimed to kill."

Snipe noticed the other wizard, Victoria was killing the villagers who paid him to take down the person who did this. He requiped his pistol for his rifle and requipped a scope and aimed, Kloria put her hand on his shoulder. "Let it happen. There's no other way." The man sighed before he turned around to look at Kloria again. "Is there anything that could be done besides this?" Kloria shook her head.  "My name's Kloria Xicor. Who you want is Nessa, my twin sister, long story short this stuff isn't native to this galaxy, and humans skip to the terminal stage rather quickly. If I was here when it happened, no one here would be dead tonight."

Kloria turned around to face the well, where the phaz was stemming out from. The Axo-Canon's barrel opened up as a missile materialized. "I have to obliterate the seed, since normal means are out of the question I am going to have to get creative. I have an ability to shut down any form of magic of a certain degree of power, this stuff is no exception. My armor is going to become a piece of junk that could very well kill me if I time it wrong. " Kloria walked over to the well and kicked the lock on the chain holding the lid on tight before shoving the lid off. "I can't talk to my ally in this crowd, so I am tasking you with the responsibility of making sure debris doesn't harm anyone that doesn't wanna die today, if there is anyone."

"Who put you in charge?" Kloria glared at the man for a second. "I am the only one capable of solving this problem as I have over twice the natural resistance plus a suit of special armor that protects me from the stuff and about over double your age of experience." The man nodded as he stepped back, and prepared his rifle.

Kloria looked at the missile, it was already materialized and an explosive, she looked down at the well and saw the Phaz Seed glowing at the bottom of the well, which seemed to be dry at this point. Kloria had no time to figure out why as she jumped into the well and a few seconds later, a wave of invisible energy came through her body as everything within a certain vicinity started had the magic slowly shut down, and the Phaz seed merely slowed down it's production, the green light trim of Kloria's Cho-Armos turned off as she landed on her knees and the Axo-Canon crashed onto the Phaz seed, Kloria braced herself with her other arm as the explosion soon followed.

From anyone outside the well it would appear that a geizure of blue energy shot out from beneath the well with a diameter of at least twenty meters, eradication almost everything within it, the maximum height could not be determined by the naked eye but something humanoid broke off from it, the Cho Armos as it came falling from the sky, while Kloria had disabled her ability to disable magic, her armor could not reactivate fast enough as she hit the ground hard, creating several craters as she bounced five times, pieces of her armor breaking off each time before dematerializing and returning back to Kloria's flesh until she was left with just one leg and the Axo-Canon, but the leg dematerialized itself.

Kloria was covered in cuts and wounds, breathing heavily.  The man whistled for a second as he watched the column of energy dissipate. "How much energy was stored down there?" Kloria slowly tried to stand up as she looked around only to see that as the last of the Phaz dissipated, she saw the familiar sight of her sister standing in the midst of the air, armored. However she appeared to be holding an ore of some sorts. "Hey Sis, thanks for the bath. Phaz really does bring me back to ecstasy."

Nessa:

Kloria looked up to see he twin sister grimaced before she shouted. "Nessa! I am giving you one last chance, surrender to me or die."

The dark armored individual laughed at the ultimatum. She knew that if the human was mercy killing, Kloria must have said something. "You'd enjoy the latter, we both know that your hands are dirty, and you enjoyed the purging more then anyone. I wonder, did you enjoy making her do it was well? Was there satisfaction in your eyes when you get to finally induct someone into taking sweet ripe lives?!"


WC 1481
TWC 4401

After what seemed like hours but was only a matter of a half-hour, Victoria had done it. They were all dead. Everyone in the village, every infected individual who came to her looking for the only help she could give. She had given them the only help that she could give, which was a quick and merciful death. All 108 of them had approached her looking for a quick and merciful death as opposed to a week spent in indescribable agony and she had ended their suffering quickly and humanely.

The village was small, but the crushing guilt that she was feeling was as large as Capital Crocus itself. The brunette was silent as she walked away from the scene with nothing to say. What could she say to make it any better? What could she say to take it all back? Nothing.

Nothing could take back what she had just done in the name of saving Earthland from being seeded with Phaz and this whole mess happening again somewhere else. She would have much preferred to prevent the incident from ever happening so that the villagers could have lived out their natural lifespans, but nothing could be done about it now. Nothing could restore the lives of the villagers whose suffering she had just ended. Victoria would live with what she did because as abhorrent as it was and as antithetical as it was to Sabertooth's ideals, someone had to do it.

Victoria quietly left the scene and went to look for Kloria. Kloria might need some help with both that sniper guy and her sister. The only good that could come out of this whole mission was that after today the threat of Phaz would be ended once and for all and that no one else would have to go through this. Victoria hoped that the Sabertooth mages could at least claw that victory to make today's events have an ending that was not a total loss for them. Victoria wanted to do something to make sure that the deaths of the villagers were not in vain.

-Deeper in the forest-

Victoria silently walked to find her guildmate and deal with the sniper guy if he was troubling Kloria. The brunette walked until she found the sniper and Kloria working together as reluctant allies. In front of them was a black-and-blue suit of armor a lot like the one that Kloria wore, only a lot more sinister. There was no doubt that the person was Nessa Xicor, the person responsible for the seeding of the Phaz and the infection of the villagers. The tension was palpable as the siblings stared each other down and dared each other to make the first move.

Victoria raised a hand and focused magic until she generated a glowing golden ball into the palm of her hand. She then aimed it at Kloria and cast a Medical Bag healing spell to get the tall blonde back on her feet. A golden glow enveloped the blonde and healed her wounds, hopefully leveling the playing field between Kloria and her sister. The sniper was quick to comment on that.

"I wish you coulda healed the people in that village the same way. They were my clients." He commented more than a bit sourly. Victoria could not get angry at him because she was the one to pull the trigger, not him. Nessa was the one who made all of this happen when she dropped the Phaz just to lure out Kloria for a confrontation. Nessa had her confrontation all right... now the other Xicor would be dealing with Kloria and Victoria.

"Me too. I wish I could have healed them too." Victoria said softly while looking at the armored person, unable to look the man in the eyes. She would help Kloria bring Nessa to justice. Kloria had given her permission to engage Nessa as long as the brunette did not use lethal force against the other Xicor. She was not sure that a Taser Spark or tear gas grenade could do much to the armor, so she kept her Silenced Sniper Rifle out because its Kinetic Shot rounds might come in handy for knocking off Nessa's armor. Besides, if anyone deserved to be shot by Victoria, it was Nessa.

"I'm with you, Kloria." Victoria affirmed aloud. The brunette reined in her turbulent emotions and focused on the job at hand. This was no time for dramatic speeches. This was the time to end the threat of future Phaz infections once and for all.

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[Total Word Count: 4,275]