I'm planning to write another fanfic lol, the main character will be Dax, you know. The kid who killed Milo. But don't worry, I won't completely whitewash him. He'll still have to pay for his actions, but we'll just know more about his life before and after.
This fic will probably be Arknights, or Multiverse, lol. I'm thinking of having him as a Kuranta. The one who responsible for him will not be the Dealer, but another entity that I will mention later in this fic.
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The absolute-zero frost clung to the ruin like a suffocating blanket of white death. The air was so violently cold that every exhale crystallized instantly, falling to the shattered concrete as glittering, microscopic diamonds.
The heavy, distorted electronic bassline that had dominated the cavern just moments prior faded into a ringing, hollow silence. The massive loppers, coated in thick, steaming layers of ice and ether, rested heavily against Ellen's back.
For a single, suspended heartbeat, Ellen remained perfectly still. The blazing crimson strands at the nape of her neck slowly cooled, retreating into the midnight black of her usual hair.
She exhaled a long, shivering breath of white mist.
The cold, clinical detachment of the Victoria Housekeeping maid did not shatter; rather, it sharpened into something far more urgent and lethal. T
he lethargy, the boredom, the arrogant smirk—they were entirely erased, replaced by a razor-thin, hyper-focused intensity.
She spun around.
Her red sneakers crushed the frost-covered debris as she discarded all elegance, sprinting with terrifying speed toward the far reinforced concrete wall.
"Cedric."
She slid the last few feet, her bare knees slamming harshly into the jagged, freezing concrete, completely ignoring the sharp stones tearing into her skin and ruining her stockings.
When she reached him, her crimson eyes took in the horrific scene.
He was a ruin.
Cedric lay crumpled against the base of the wall in a rapidly expanding pool of his own dark blood. His crisp white shirt—the one she had secretly admired at the cafe just a few days ago—was shredded, dyed a horrifying, saturated crimson.
Ellen's steady hands hovered over him, her mind instantly shifting from combat algorithms to triage. She was afraid that any unnecessary pressure would shatter what little remained of his fragile frame.
His left shoulder was a grotesque, sunken crater, the collarbone visibly pulverized beneath the torn fabric. His right leg was bent at an unnatural, sickening angle, the femur completely snapped, a deep, jagged canyon of a gash weeping freely across his thigh.
But her gaze immediately zeroed in on his right arm.
A sickening knot tightened in her stomach, though her face remained an impassive mask of stone.
From the elbow down, his arm was a mangled, unrecognizable horror. The flesh had been brutally chewed, stripped, and flayed by the crystal teeth of the beast she had just slaughtered. Splintered bone protruded through the shredded muscle. His hand was entirely crushed, reduced to a formless mass of agony.
And creeping up his pale, sweat-drenched neck were the undeniable, terrifying black, necrotic veins of advanced ether erosion. The Hollow was actively trying to consume him.
"What happen to you?" Ellen hissed, her voice a tight, controlled wire of fury.
She didn't wait for an answer he couldn't give. Her survival instincts, honed by years in the Hollows, dictated her next move.
She grabbed the pristine white lace apron of her maid uniform. With a vicious, tearing yank, she ripped the heavy fabric straight off her dress, shredding the immaculate material into long, usable bandages.
She folded the thickest piece of the cloth and pressed it down hard against the deepest, most lethal arterial wound on his thigh.
Cedric's body violently spasmed at the pressure. A wet, bubbling, choked gasp escaped his blood-stained lips, his eyelids fluttering weakly to reveal narrow slivers of dull, glassy purple.
"Stay with me," Ellen ordered, her voice cold and fierce. She pressed her other hand against his pale, freezing cheek, checking his temperature.
"Don't you dare close your eyes, Cedric. I didn't come here just to watch you die on the floor. Keep looking at me."
Her jaw clenched tight.
And suddenly, from the dark entrance of the ruined terminal, the sound of frantic, stumbling footsteps echoed loudly.
The freelance Proxy and his dark grey Bangboo finally burst into the cavern, completely out of breath. The Proxy was hyperventilating, leaning heavily on his knees, his eyes wide with sheer terror as he took in the apocalyptic devastation of the frozen basement.
"M-Miss Ellen!" the Proxy stammered, his voice cracking as he saw the bisected, glitching remains of the massive Ethereal. "Is the... is the target...?"
Ellen's head snapped toward them.
Her gaze was so intensely, coldly murderous that the Proxy physically recoiled, tripping over his own feet and falling backward onto the concrete.
"Find the shortest, most stable exit route right now," Ellen stated, her voice eerily calm but vibrating with a lethal promise. "If you lead us into a dead end, I will leave you here. Move."
"Y-Yes! Right away!" The Proxy scrambled frantically, typing commands into his Bangboo.
"Ehn-nuh!" the small Bangboo squeaked in terror and spinning wildly to locate a stable fissure.
Before the Proxy could confirm the route, a new sound cut through the silence.
Heavy, rapid footsteps.
They weren't the stumbling steps of a terrified civilian. They were the precise, heavy, coordinated footfalls of trained fighters running at maximum velocity. And they were approaching fast from the opposite corridor.
Ellen's tail stiffened instantly. Her hand instinctively reached back toward the handle of the massive, frost-covered loppers still resting wide open across her back.
If this was another wave of Ethereals, she would slaughter every single one of them. She shifted her body, positioning herself entirely over Cedric, becoming an immovable, lethal barrier between him and the dark tunnel.
From the thick, swirling grey dust, a figure burst into the cavern.
It was a girl with short, snow-white hair, dressed in a green jacket and a black tactical skirt. She moved with terrifying, fluid efficiency. In her hand, an advanced blade crackled violently with intense, blue-white electrical arcs.
Anby Demara.
Behind her, a tall, lanky red blur slid into view. Billy Kid, his dual revolvers already drawn, spinning and clicking as he scanned the massive, frozen room for hostiles.
Stumbling behind the two Cunning Hares, leaning heavily on the rusted doorframe, was a female.
It was Wise.
Her usual composed, neat appearance was entirely gone. Her clothes were torn and covered in grey soot. Her hair was a tangled, wild mess. She was gasping for air, her chest heaving painfully.
Anby's green eyes swept the room instantly. She registered the frozen devastation, the bisected Ethereal, and finally, the girl in the torn maid outfit crouching over a blood-soaked body.
Anby didn't hesitate. She didn't know Victoria Housekeeping. She only saw a strange Thiren covered in blood, looming dangerously close to Cedric.
Anby shifted her weight, dropping her center of gravity. Electricity roared along the length of her blade. "Hostile detected," she stated in a monotone, deadly voice. "Engaging."
"Hold up, Anby! That's a Victoria Housekeeping uniform!" Billy yelled, keeping his guns raised but hesitant. "They're the good guys... usually!"
Ellen bared her jagged, serrated shark teeth. A low, vibrating growl erupted from her chest. Her massive tail lashed the ground, shattering the concrete. She didn't care who they were. No one was getting close to Cedric.
"Take one more step," Ellen warned, the ambient temperature dropping another five degrees, "And I will freeze the blood in your veins."
Anby tightened her grip on her sword, preparing to launch a lightning-fast dash.
"STOP!"
The scream tore through the cavern, raw, jagged, and shattering the standoff.
Wise pushed past Billy, stumbling wildly over the debris. The sheer, desperate panic in her teal eyes was enough to make Anby freeze her attack completely.
Wise ignored the glowing electrical blade. She ignored the terrifying shark Thiren growling at her. Her eyes were locked entirely on the broken, blood-soaked figure lying on the ground.
"Cedric...!"
Wise's voice broke into a devastating, choked sob.
She fell to her knees opposite Ellen, sliding the last few feet through the dirt and freezing blood. She reached out with wildly trembling hands, wanting to pull him into her arms, but stopping inches away from his shattered body, terrified that even a gentle touch would break him further.
"Oh my god... Cedric... what did you do...?" Wise wept, the tears finally spilling over, leaving clean tracks down her soot-stained cheeks.
She looked at his crushed left shoulder. She looked at his pulverized right hand. She saw the black, necrotic veins of ether erosion climbing his pale neck.
This was the boy she had dried the hair of just yesterday. The boy who had sat awkwardly on her couch, eating popcorn and watching movies. The boy who had timidly asked if they could be friends.
Now, he was a shattered shell, bleeding out on the cold floor of a nightmare.
Ellen watched the civilian woman break down. The fierce, protective stance of the shark girl relaxed slightly, but her awareness remained sharp. She recognized the profound, devastating grief in the woman's eyes. It wasn't the look of a bystander.
"Who are you to him?" Ellen demanded, her voice cutting through the sobs with a cold, pragmatic quiet.
Wise snapped her head up, tears blurring her vision. She looked at Ellen, finally registering the girl holding the blood-soaked bandages to Cedric's leg.
"I'm... I'm his…" Wise choked out. "His sister."
Ellen nodded once, accepting the answer. "He's my friend," she said simply, her jaw tightening as she maintained the heavy pressure on the arterial wound.
Ellen looked up, her crimson eyes locking with Wise's teal ones. There was no time for introductions, no time for explanations. Cedric's clock was ticking down in seconds, not minutes.
"That beast mangled his arm before I could put it down," Ellen stated, her voice tight with a dark, heavy frustration at her own late arrival. "If we don't get him out of this Hollow in the next five minutes, he will die."
Wise's breath hitched. Panic threatened to drown her, but the cold, harsh truth of Ellen's words acted as a slap to the face.
Wise wiped her tears fiercely with the back of her wrist, leaving a smear of dirt across her face.
"Anby! Billy!" Wise commanded, her voice suddenly finding its steel. "Secure the perimeter! Watch for any remaining Ethereals! Proxy!" she snapped her head toward the trembling freelancer. "Give me that Carrot data now! Route us to the nearest stable exit!"
"I-I have it!" the freelance Proxy squeaked, holding up his Bangboo. "There's a minor fissure 800 meters north! It's narrow, but it leads directly to a back alley near Sixth Street!"
"We take it," Wise said. She turned back to Cedric, her hands hovering over his broken chest. She looked at Ellen. "We need to carry him. But his ribs... his shoulder... if we move him wrong, we'll puncture his lungs."
"I'll carry him," Ellen said immediately.
"Are you sure?" Billy asked, stepping closer, his mechanical eyes glowing with concern. "I'm built for heavy lifting, Miss Maid. My chassis has built-in shock absorbers. I can carry the kid."
"No," Ellen rejected the offer instantly, glaring at Billy. "You're made of metal. Your joints are too hard. You'll jostle his bones."
Billy crossed his arms, the metal of his joints whirring. "Hey now, I'm highly calibrated! I can be gentle! Besides, you've got that giant pair of loppers on your back. You can't carry him and that thing."
Ellen's eyes narrowed into dangerous, lethal slits. Her patience was entirely gone.
"You want to carry something?" she asked, her voice dropping to a terrifyingly calm whisper.
Before Billy could answer, Ellen reached over her shoulder. She grabbed the handle of her massive, open loppers. Without a single word of warning, she hurled the ridiculously heavy, frost-covered weapon directly at Billy's chest.
"Whoa!" Billy yelped, hastily dropping his revolvers back into their holsters. He threw his arms up, catching the giant blades against his chest with a loud, ringing metallic CLANG.
The sheer weight of the weapon nearly knocked Billy backward. The frost instantly began biting into his outer casing, causing his internal temperature alarms to blare.
"Hey, what the—this thing is freezing! And heavy! Why is it so heavy?!" Billy complained, struggling to balance the massive, uncollapsed weapon awkwardly in his arms. "My core processors are gonna get frostbite!"
"Carry that," Ellen ordered, turning her full attention back to Cedric. "I'll carry him."
Ellen didn't wait for further debate. She moved with impossible, terrifying gentleness—a stark contrast to the absolute violence she had displayed minutes ago.
She slipped her left arm smoothly under the crook of his uninjured knees, being excruciatingly careful to avoid the deep gash on his thigh. She slid her right arm under the small of his back, perfectly supporting his spine and his crushed ribcage, ensuring his ruined left shoulder wasn't compressed.
With a smooth, powerful motion powered by her Thiren strength, she stood up, lifting Cedric entirely off the ground in a flawless princess carry.
To Ellen, his weight was nothing. Unburdened by her massive weapon, she moved with perfect balance. But the sheer frailty of his body was horrifying. He felt like a collection of broken glass held together only by skin and a fading pulse. His head lolled lifelessly backward, resting heavily against the soft white lace of her collar, his pale face inches from her neck.
The faint, sweet scent of mint and rain that naturally lingered around him mixed with the coppery stench of his blood.
"Hold on, Cedric," Ellen murmured so quietly that only he could hear. "I got you. Don't you dare quit now."
"Anby, take point. Billy, watch our six," Wise ordered, stepping right next to Ellen, her hand reaching out to gently grasp Cedric's uninjured left fingers, needing to feel the faint, sluggish pulse beneath his cold skin. "Go!"
The strange, makeshift convoy moved out.
Anby led the charge, her glowing electrical blade illuminating the dark, twisting corridors of the ruined mall. She moved silently, clearing any minor Ethereal strays that dared to block their path with swift, brutal decapitations.
Billy walked backward at the rear. His dual revolvers were back out in his hands, tracking every shadow, but he was completely miserable. He had somehow managed to wedge the handle of Ellen's giant loppers diagonally across his back, the freezing blades awkwardly jutting out behind him.
"I feel like a walking refrigerator," Billy muttered as he aimed his guns. "Boss is gonna laugh her ass off if she sees me like this..."
In the center, Ellen ran with unnerving smoothness. Despite the uneven, debris-covered ground, her upper body remained perfectly, impossibly still, ensuring that Cedric wasn't jolted by her footsteps. Her massive shark tail acted as a perfect counterbalance, swaying heavily to absorb the kinetic shock of her rapid movement.
Wise ran right beside them. Her civilian lungs burned, her legs ached with every step through the jagged Hollow, pushing her body far beyond its physical limits, but she refused to fall behind. She kept her eyes glued to Cedric's pale, blood-streaked face.
"You're going to be okay," Wise kept whispering, a desperate mantra spoken between gasping breaths. "We're taking you home. Just hold on a little longer. Belle is waiting. The eggs are waiting."
As they navigated a crumbling, slanted escalator, the heavy, suffocating pressure of the Hollow began to lift. In the distance, through a collapsed storefront, a faint, flickering tear in reality became visible—the exit fissure.
"There it is!" the freelance Proxy yelled, pointing his Bangboo forward.
"Billy! Suppressing fire!" Anby shouted from the front.
A sudden swarm of small, spider-like Ethereals poured from the ceiling, attempting to block the exit.
"Eat lead, you ugly bugs!" Billy roared, spinning his revolvers despite the massive block of ice strapped to his back. A deafening hail of high-caliber gunfire filled the corridor, shredding the Ethereals into static before they could even touch the ground.
"Clear!" Anby shouted, slicing the last monster in half.
Ellen didn't slow down. She accelerated, her red sneakers blurring as she charged directly into the swirling, chaotic violet light of the fissure, clutching Cedric tightly against her chest to shield him from the spatial transition.
Wise followed a second later, plunging into the distortion.
The sickening, twisting sensation of being pulled through reality washed over them, a momentary vortex of sensory deprivation.
Then, sound and light rushed back in.
They burst out of the fissure, stumbling onto the solid, wet asphalt of a narrow alleyway. The warm, late-afternoon sun of New Eridu hit their faces, a stark, jarring contrast to the frozen nightmare they had just escaped.
The sounds of distant traffic, the hum of air conditioners, the faint chatter of people on Sixth Street—it was the sound of life.
Ellen dropped to one knee, gently resting Cedric on the clean pavement, still supporting his head and back.
"We're out," Wise gasped, collapsing next to them, her hands frantically checking Cedric's shallow breathing. "We're out. Oh my god, we made it."
But the relief was incredibly short-lived.
In the warm sunlight, the true extent of Cedric's injuries was stark and undeniable. His breathing had slowed to a terrifying, faint rattle. The black veins of ether erosion on his neck were no longer creeping; they were pulsing, aggressively attempting to spread into his jawline.
"He needs a hospital. Now," Ellen stated, her crimson eyes scanning the alley.
"There's a general hospital three blocks from here!" Wise said desperately, pulling out her phone with shaking hands.
"Show me the way." Ellen ordered, scooping Cedric back into her arms effortlessly.
As Wise frantically running ahead to guide them, Ellen looked down at the boy in her arms.
His face was so pale it was almost translucent. His ruined right arm hung limply, dripping a steady trail of crimson onto the asphalt.
"You still owe me a rematch." Ellen murmured, breaking into a rapid, smooth sprint down the alleyway.
…
…
Meanwhile, in the quiet, darkened room.
The air was still. The only sound was the distant, muffled noise of the city outside and the rhythmic, synchronized humming of the two incubators resting near the bed.
Inside the blue cylinder, the Water-Type egg floated peacefully in its nutrient bath, a soft, azure light illuminating the corner of the room.
But beside it, the Mark-IV incubator holding the massive, Pseudo-Legendary egg was entirely different.
For weeks, the egg had pulsed with a slow, deep, powerful heartbeat.
Thump-thump... Thump-thump.
A steady, sleeping giant absorbing the ambient ether of the world.
But now, that rhythm had changed.
Through the mysterious, invisible tether of natural harmony and the deep, soul-binding connection Cedric had formed with the unborn creature, the egg felt the catastrophic plunge in its master's vitality.
It felt the agony. It felt the fading, flickering spark of Cedric's heartbeat.
The red LED lights on the incubator display didn't just flicker; they spiked violently into a solid, unbroken crimson alarm.
Inside the sterile, soundproof chamber, the massive, cream-colored egg with its jagged, steel-blue scales began to tremble.
It wasn't a gentle wiggle. It was a violent, erratic shaking.
[OVERRIDE INITIATED: STASIS PROTOCOL DISABLED]
[INCUBATION PROGRESS: 100%]
CRACK.
A sound like a gunshot echoed inside the glass chamber.
A single, jagged, glowing fissure appeared across the thick, steel-blue scales of the massive egg.
CRACK-CRACK.
The nutrient fluid inside the incubator began to boil, violently bubbling as an immense, primal, overwhelming wave of pure Draconic energy exploded from within the shell.
The heavy, reinforced glass of the Mark-IV incubator—designed to withstand immense pressure—suddenly spider-webbed with thousands of fractures.
From deep within the cracking shell, a sound emerged.
"Giiiiii."
It wasn't the cute, high-pitched chirp of a newborn creature.
It was a low, guttural, terrifyingly deep rumble that vibrated the very floorboards. It was a sound of ancient, absolute power, waking up long before its time, fueled not by nature, but by an overwhelming, primal instinct to protect its dying father.
A piece of the thick shell violently blew outward, shattering the glass of the incubator completely.
In the dim light of the bedroom, a glowing, slit-like, predatory eye snapped open within the darkness of the ruined machine.
A heavy, clawed foot, colored in deep, oceanic blue with a vibrant red underbelly, stepped out onto the wooden floor.
It was a bipedal, land-shark-like creature. A massive, gaping maw filled with rows of razor-sharp teeth dominated its large head. A distinct, torpedo-like dorsal fin sliced through the air above it.
It was a Gible.
Unlike a standard newborn, this Gible radiated a heavy, crushing Draconic aura that rattled the walls of the room. It threw its head back and unleashed a deafening, visceral roar that sought to tear through the very fabric of reality to reach the one who had nurtured it.
"GIBLEEEE!!!"
At the exact moment the roar left the Gible's throat, a blinding golden notification panel shattered the darkness of Cedric's fading consciousness.
[DING!]
[QUEST COMPLETE: The First Breath]
[Objective: Hatch the Egg (Reach 100% Incubation) - SUCCESS]
[Evaluation: Extraordinary. The life-and-death resonance has forcefully catalyzed the hatching process.]
[REWARD DELIVERED: Physique of a Pokémon World Resident]
[Applying reward immediately to stabilize biological functions...]
Miles away, in the sunlit alleyway, the miracle occurred.
The pure, primal vitality from the newly hatched Gible surged across the invisible tether linking them, crashing into Cedric's broken body like a wave of pure resilience.
Ellen, still carrying him at a full sprint, suddenly stumbled, her crimson eyes widening in absolute shock.
The black, necrotic veins of ether erosion that had been mere inches from Cedric's brain stem abruptly stopped. They didn't vanish instantly, but the aggressive, fatal spread was violently halted, locked in place by a sudden, unyielding vitality.
The catastrophic bleeding from his mangled right arm and shattered thigh slowed to a sluggish trickle before finally clotting. His shattered bones remained broken, and his flesh was still a ruin, but the fatal shock shutting down his organs was forcefully overridden by an unnatural, superhuman endurance—the baseline resilience of a world filled with monsters.
Cedric's chest heaved. He drew in a shallow, shuddering breath.
He was still broken. He still desperately needed a surgeon. But the immediate, ticking clock of his death had been shattered. And he was going to live long enough to reach the hospital.