Raka pressed the side button, simultaneously transmitting and receiving a specialized frequency data packet, a 'pulse' laced with pure Essence energy, tuned to a frequency only his device could recognize. Normally, a gadget like this was limited to streamlining communications and automated data transfers...But with a few illegal tweaks from Raka, those boundaries had blurred into nonexistence.
A holographic map burst from the tip of the device, projecting a street grid of the 4th District right over his palm. A blinking red dot marked his apartment in Block 7. Unsteady yellow dots flickered randomly around it, indicating recorded residual activity with an anomaly level > 2.
ACCESSING GPS...
LOCATION FOUND: METROSTREET, BLOCK 4
DESTINATION: APARTMENT, OAKLINK STREET, BLOCK 7
±1200 METERS AWAY
ESSENCE DENSITY: HIGH
ANOMALY LEVEL: 4.5
Raka stared intently at the floating data, his mind running through every possible scenario. Now, with Eizo as his right-hand man, the outcome of the 'game' for the next ten minutes was well within his reach.
Still, the activity of two territorial spirits wasn't something anyone rushing home to their apartment wanted to deal with. The holographic grid trembled in Raka's palm, as if struggling to process the incoming environmental updates. The two yellow dots, initially stable, began to jitter wildly. Damn it...
ANOMALY SPIKE DETECTED
ESSENCE FLUCTUATION: UNSTABLE
TERRITORIAL OVERLAP: CONFIRMED
"An overlap?! You've gotta be kidding me!" Raka muttered, his jaw tightening. The worst-case scenario he usually joked about was coming to life right in front of him. "Are you seriously turf-warring right now? Man, come on!!"
"Tch...You seriously can't just Leap us straight to the apartment?"
Over his shoulder, a thin shadow began to thicken. Eizo finally materialized, his spiritual eyes glowing faintly like a cat's in the dark. "Do you wish for my existence to fade? The energy required for such a trivial matter is far too great."
"You always take the shortcut. For your information, speed and recklessness often share the exact same boat," Eizo sneered, his voice dripping with equal parts sarcasm and cynicism.
"Shut up and save the lecture! Just scan the area first, that's what matters!" Raka snapped, feeling a mix of panic, confusion, and an odd surge of adrenaline. Cold sweat beaded on the tip of his nose as he fiddled with the Modulator, trying to refine the conclusions racing through his brain.
"Yes, yes, whatever you say, 'master'..."
Eizo sighed, deepening the synchron-state they shared to smooth out the flow of thoughts between them. But just before their minds could fully intertwine—
CRACKKK!!
A tiny crack echoed through the air for a fraction of a second, coming from the building to his left—like invisible glass being violently shattered from the other side. And in that same split second, the warning beep on Raka's Modulator went wild. "Wh—?" The word caught in his throat as the reality of the situation hit him. Crap.
"EIZO!!" The name echoed through the frantic beeps. A direct command.
One second was dead silent; the next, the brick wall beside him practically exploded from its own internal pressure. The wall bulged outward before—BOOM!!—bricks and mortar scattered in every direction like sharp shrapnel. A thick cloud of gray dust erupted outward, shrouding the abandoned alley in a dense darkness.
The dust was still flying, but Raka was already moving on pure instinct.
He spun around, putting his back to the source of the blast. Squinting through the haze, his eyes swept the area, trying to spot any other threats hiding in plain sight. Knees slightly bent—a textbook stance to either bolt or counterattack. At that exact moment, his Modulator fired off a second pulse.
ATTACK SOURCE: LEFT
DISTANCE: 5.6 METERS
TYPE OF ATTACK: EXPLOSIVE, PHYSICAL, PRESSURE
CURRENT STATE: UNHARMED
ANALYSIS: A BRUTE-CLASS SPIRIT ATTACK
All of that was analyzed in less than two seconds, an efficiency you'd never find on a standard-issue Modulator without his custom tweaks. Raka stared at the data, wiping the sweat from his face.
"Phew...Good thing I'm fine..." He blinked a few times, as if the word 'fine' felt completely out of place in a situation like this. "...Wait, huh?"
Only then did it register: he didn't have a single scratch.
He looked down, then forward. His shadow had condensed at a single point right between him and the debris. A solid, pitch-black barrier standing firm around him, completely neutralizing the blast. Eizo...You actually came through, huh...?
Eizo pulled back into Raka's shadow, letting out a satisfied grunt. If he had a mouth, Raka was certain he'd be wearing the smuggest smirk in existence. "Heh, don't get the wrong idea...I only did this for that bottle of vinegar you promised."
Raka let out a sigh of relief, but before he could even witty-retort back—
CRACKKK!
Another loud noise burst from inside the hole in the wall. Raka's gaze sharpened on reflex, locking onto whatever was about to crawl out of the breach. Through the dust, a massive four-legged silhouette slowly emerged, letting out a bone-chilling growl. The Modulator's warning beep flared up again, but this time, that wasn't the main problem in the room...
One. Two. Three.
Raka took three steps back, almost tripping over a trash can. His eyes stayed glued to the massive silhouette as he picked up on another anomaly. "Weird..." he muttered. "...Weren't there two spirits...?"
"So how come I only see one...?"
"...Wait...Don't tell me..."
His words died in his throat as the rolling dust spat out an Essence Core, which slammed into the brick wall right beside his ear, leaving a scorched impact mark.
His eyes slowly shifted, landing hard on the object now lying on the ground. Any remaining doubts vanished in an instant, the core of a spirit's existence, completely ripped away from its host. "...This is bad," he muttered, swallowing hard. "Eizo, get ready..."
His eyes snapped back, locking onto the dust cloud as a silhouette finally took form out of the gloom.
As the last of the dust settled, a terrifying predator was revealed: a hybrid creature with the sharp snout of a wolf and the bushy tail of a fox, swishing restlessly. On several vital areas of its body—its shoulders, back, and jaw—metallic armor plates were fused directly into its spiritual flesh, glowing with a faint purple pulse whenever it growled.
"Wait...An Armored Chimera?! And...right in the middle of the city?!"
Raka wiped his face, now smeared with soot. "Eizo, I don't think this is just a regular territorial spirit...That armor...that's human-made gear, right?"
Eizo didn't answer in words, but Raka felt the cold surge of energy down his spine tense up, a thoroughly unpleasant sign of confirmation.
The creature dropped low, its claws tearing up the alley asphalt. Its vertical yellow eyes locked onto Raka as if he were nothing more than a minor speedbump in its way. Without warning, the predator lunged. It didn't just run; it shot forward like a silver arrow cutting through the remaining dust.
"Whoa!!" Raka spun his body to the side, his reaction barely in time. The gale-force wind from the creature's charge swept past his jacket, throwing him off balance.
BZZTT! The Modulator in his hand vibrated violently.
WARNING: UNKNOWN GEAR DETECTED ON TARGET
SPEED: 120 KM/H AND INCREASING
"...Man, my luck is garbage!" he blurted out as he dodged a follow-up swipe, annoyance boiling in his tone.
The hybrid predator controlled its momentum, its claws scraped against the ground, stopping its heavy frame just inches before slamming into the wall, creating instant leverage and open space for its next flurry of attacks.
Swipe after swipe, Raka barely managed to dodge, all thanks to Eizo manipulating Raka's reflex movements through his own shadow.
"Tch...That was close. Brute-type spirits are such a pain..." he muttered under his breath, catching his breath slightly. He narrowed his eyes, trying to spot an opening to flip the script in this high-stakes situation.
Midst all the chaos, two details stood out like a sore thumb; how the wild predator in front of him winced at sharp, high-pitched noises it produced itself, and how it instinctively tried to guard its head whenever it lunged. "...Hmm...Its movements are off..."
Raka's focus centered completely on these two details. The way the spirit groaned in discomfort when its own claws screeched against the wall. The way it recoiled its head right before making direct contact.
...It all made sense now.
A smirk spread across Raka's face, like a cat that had just caught the canary. "Hoo...Is that how it is? Heh...No wonder you've got armor protecting your vital spots..."
"Your senses got upgraded, huh...No surprise a spirit like you was some human experiment gone wrong."
Raka shifted into a more grounded, confident stance, knowing he held the winning ticket now. Just don't let this thing dominate him. And clearly, the predator wasn't expecting this shift. It stumbled back a step, as if losing the dominant aura it had just held.
"Hmm? Aaand now you're intimidated...? Man, if I knew earlier..."
"Honestly, I kinda feel bad for a spirit like you...Suffering just because of some human's twisted mind," he said quietly, while his shadow, Eizo's body, began spreading out in all directions. "But I don't have a choice...My sister's safety comes first."
"...Sympathy without logic is just dead weight to me."
"Relax, this won't hurt too bad...I promise." Raka muttered one last time.
The hesitating spirit gradually found its movement space shrinking, bound tightly by shadows coiling around its legs. The sharpness in its glare began to fade, replaced by sheer terror as reality sank in—there was nowhere left to run.
Anywhere it looked, there was nothing. Almost every corner of the alley was now wrapped in a layer of suffocating, shadowy darkness.
The Armored Chimera growled in desperation, its claws scraping at the asphalt, trying to break free from the icy grip of Eizo's shadow. Its yellow eyes glared at Raka with a mix of pure fear and rage.
But Raka no longer saw it as a lethal threat, just a logic puzzle he had solved.
Raka's smirk widened. His mind worked at lightning speed, putting together a tactical plan in seconds. "Eizo, hold him right there a bit longer. Don't let him move a muscle," Raka ordered mentally, his fingers already flying across the Modulator in his hand.
"Hurry...Holding a trap like this drains more energy than you think," Eizo shot back, his voice strained in Raka's mind.
Raka didn't reply. His fingers danced over the Modulator's holographic display, altering the base frequency output parameters. The red indicator at the tip began flashing rapidly, emitting an unstable purple glow.
"Alright, set," Raka muttered. He pressed the Modulator against a hard liquor bottle he'd just bought at NeoMart, using the glass bottle as a makeshift resonator to amplify the signal.
"Hey, my dawg!" Raka called out, drawing the Chimera's gaze. "Ever heard the song 'Supersonic Rhapsody'?"
Without waiting for an answer, Raka slammed the activation button on the Modulator.
ZAPPPPP! KRRR-CHHHH!
An ultra-high frequency sound wave, far beyond human hearing, exploded from the Modulator and amplified through the glass bottle. To Raka, it was just an annoying faint hum, but to the Armored Chimera whose hearing had been artificially enhanced, it was pure agony.
The creature howled in excruciating pain, a hoarse sound that pierced the ears and heart of anyone listening. Its head thrashed frantically side to side, trying to escape the noise stabbing straight into its brain. The metallic armor on its jaw and back vibrated violently, spitting small electrical sparks from the frequency interference.
"Nice...hit the spot..."
The opening appeared. In its panic, the Chimera abandoned its defense. The armor plate on its head lifted slightly, exposing a tiny gap between the metal plating and its spiritual hide. And more importantly, its vertical yellow eyes were shut tight, trying to block out the unbearable pain.
"GO IN, EIZO!" Raka yelled.
That was the cue Eizo had been waiting for all along.
In an instant, the thin shadow binding the Chimera's legs surged upward, flowing over the creature's body like living black ink. Eizo concentrated his power, slipping through the narrow gap in the exposed head armor.
Raka felt a surge of cold energy as Eizo made direct contact with the Chimera's Essence Core. The next second, the creature's shrieks cut off completely, blown out from the inside.
Its massive body went stiff, followed by an internal rupture that was swallowed up by Eizo. It collapsed onto the asphalt with a heavy thud, motionless. Its metallic armor dimmed, completely drained of power.
The Modulator in Raka's hand stopped buzzing. A heavy silence settled over the abandoned alley, leaving only the sound of Raka's heavy breathing and the settling dust.
Raka stared at the motionless body of the Chimera with mixed emotions. "Hah...Made it," he muttered, wiping cold sweat from his forehead. "Hey, Eizo, you good?"
"...Barely... acceptable," Eizo's voice returned to his mind, calmer now, though still dripping with sarcasm. "But don't expect me to do this again without...extra compensation."
Raka rolled his eyes, letting out a long exhale as Eizo spoke, as if thinking here we go again. "Yeah, yeah...Four bottles of premium vinegar soda. A deal's a deal," Raka replied, sighing as he thought about his rapidly shrinking wallet.
Suddenly, the phone in his jacket pocket buzzed again, breaking the silence. The name 'Rina' flashed on the screen.
"Oh crap! Rina!" Raka snapped out of it, instantly remembering the emergency back at his apartment. Snatching his Modulator and bottle, he sprinted off at top speed out of the alley. "Rin! Y-yeah, I'm done! On my way back! Just hang tight!" he yelled into his phone as he bolted back out onto the busy streets of Oaklink.
Behind him, the unconscious body of the Armored Chimera lay amid the brick debris, a silent witness to the brief yet intense clash between a Tracer, his broke spirit companion, and a poor, engineered creature. In the distance, the faint wail of Outpost S.E.A. sirens grew closer, responding to the explosion.
...As the Tracer sped away, disappearing from the chaotic scene, his shadow companion quietly felt something unfamiliar sneaking into his comfort zone.