It had been two days since Shogai and Kiara left, and Jade couldn’t say she wasn’t worried. After all, they weren’t returning until after they’d fought a Deviant. Probably a Prime. Would they be alright?

  She'd love to have kept worrying about them, but there were enough problems on their end. 16 Nexeans were never enough to always protect everyone on Tenebris, but that was the point. The cities and towns had to be able to defend themselves with their own fighters. If they knew Nexeans were saving them, they'd lower their guard.

  That said, the available Nexeans had dropped extremely far. 4 Outer Ranks was hardly anything, and as far as Inner Ranks went, Jade hadn't seen any of the others except Wright. She did wonder where Inner Ranks 1 to 4 were, but she didn’t question it. After all, they weren’t doing nothing. One time, an army of Aberrants were attacking a town. When Jade and Katro went to investigate, they found a crater in the ground where the Aberrants should have been. Another time, the sky lit up, and an ear-shattering bang woke up the Outer Ranks. Ryukyu and Raven weren't scared. It was as if they'd seen it before.

  Now that she was a Nexean, a lot of Jade's past experiences were making more sense. That bang wasn't something she'd often heard, but it had happened. She always assumed it was just a storm. The aftermath of battlefields was also hard to miss in hindsight. She'd always known that Nexus exists; she believed her grandfather immediately. But they'd always felt like they were from some other world, or some other time, or something. The fact that they were always here was comforting.

  "New mission," Raven walked in. She hadn't slept more than a couple hours over the past couple days. No one had. They couldn't afford to waste time when their resources were spread so thin. Attacks were also becoming more and more common. Ryukyu hadn't returned to headquarters once in two days; he'd been busy scouting the island and preventing attacks.

  Jade didn’t need to read any of their minds to know what they were thinking. If they were driven to their limits after two days, they were never going to last for potential months. If Zinnia were here, she'd support them. Katro and Wright were doing their best, but they weren't doing so well either. They came back from every fight exhausted. That meant it was Jade's job to wear her smile.

  "Got it, Raven! Where to?"

  Raven narrowed her already closing eyes at Jade, but was too tired to argue.

  "Sunden. But I can't come with you. No one can. It's a solo mission. Will you be fine with that?"

  "... I'll be fine."

  "Good. We're not expecting any Deviants, but be careful regardless. Retreat if you have to. It's a city that can probably defend itself, so you don't need to be the hero if you can't."

  The journey was short. Sunden was the closest city to HQ. But it was plenty of time for her to feel a lot of emotion. Firstly, she was returning to Sunden. She loved her short stay there, at least until it was attacked. The library was amazing, and she read about the other island. The human island where Aberrants don't exist. Cerek. Why did those ancient humans come to this island? It led to this, all this pain and suffering. Surely they'd have been happier where they were.

  Secondly, she sort of lied to Raven. On a solo mission, what on earth was she supposed to do? She could maybe deal with one Aberrant. Two, perhaps with luck. An army though? This wasn't her forte. But nobody was in any position to come with her. Besides, Raven believed she'd figure something out. She had to try.

  Raven said that the army would be there soon. Like, any second now, soon. The city was bright and busy, despite the late night, with people bustling down every street. No one seemed aware of the incoming army. That should be Jade's first priority. But before that, she needed to know where they were coming from.

  Close to her was a watchtower, and a torch was shining from it. The light rays didn't move, not even an inch, telling Jade that whoever was on duty wasn't holding the torch. They were probably asleep. Jade very heavily doubted that this was legal, but she climbed the watchtower.

  Sure enough, when she got to the top, the guard was fast asleep. He'd supported the torch on a stack of books, and they shone into the dark. Sloppy work. Jade picked up the torch and looked around. Waiting for a sign.

  It came in the form of a screech from the west. Jade turned to the army, praying the numbers were small, but was granted the image of what must have been a hundred Aberrants charging towards Sunden like a wave of destruction.

  "Just my luck," Jade pulled on a string above her, making a bell ring. The people in the city listened, and reacted. The man beside her woke up and panicked, hardly noticing her as he yelled warnings to the crowd below. Jade calmly descended the ladder. Last time Sunden was attacked, she saw everybody hiding in their houses as a few fighters stood against the Aberrants. Problem was, that army was way smaller than this one, and the fighters of Sunden were still incapable of protecting the city. She'd have to intervene.

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  Jade didn’t wait. She stood at the outskirts of the village, facing the group of enemies, and prepared to halt them. She closed her eyes.

  Shogai and Kiara had asked her several times how she read and controlled minds. What it felt like. Yet, she was never able to explain the feeling of being disconnected from her own body. The closest she could do was a metaphor.

  Every mind is a city. The aspects of the mind are the defences. If Jade can break through the defences, she wins. She can take over the city from within with no resistance. That made firmer minds harder to take control of, for the most part.

  However, Aberrants are different from people. Their minds are so warped that, instead of defensive walls, they protect their cities with traps. The floor would vanish from underneath Jade, the gravity would be altered and mirages would appear. Drunken minds were similar. They were hard to control.

  That said, Jade knew she had to do this. So she avoided every trap the first Aberrant had in its mind, and took over its body. This Aberrant wasn't big, but it was fast and had razor sharp claws. She could work with that.

  Controlling bodies felt about how it sounded. She couldn't move her own, real body. She instead transferred her consciousness to this new one. And this Aberrant was odd. She couldn't control its limbs very easily, nor put much power into slashes. But it was good enough to bring down around 6 Aberrants before its head was crushed.

  Jade was sure to retreat from the mind of the Aberrant before it died. When she was young, she made the mistake of staying in a rabbit's head when it was killed by a fox. She spent the rest of that day massaging her neck. It didn't hurt, but it felt like the gaping jaws of the fox were looming over her. It was scary.

  The Aberrants were closer now. The good news was that this meant she could take over their minds faster. The bad news was that she couldn't bring them all down before they reached the city. Where were the fighters from before? They wouldn't be much help, but stalling the Aberrants would be something at least.

  One Aberrant seemed bigger than the rest, so Jade attacked its mind. A moment later, she towered over the Aberrants beside her. This one had a club for an arm, so she crushed an entire row. That must have been at least ten dead. Great, only over eighty to go. And the other Aberrants simply swarmed her and took down this next body.

  They were only a few dozen metres away now. Jade wished someone were here. Shogai or Kiara would do. Just… someone. Jade stepped back. She'd done all she could. Was it time she left it to the village, and accepted that some people were going to die?

  Shaking her head, Jade snapped out of those thoughts. It wasn't her job to kill every Aberrant. But it was her job to protect the people of the island. And these enemies were threatening her goal. She stepped back forwards. The Aberrants didn't have brains, but they sensed danger. They slowed down.

  Were they scared of her? That didn't make sense, but Jade was going to go with it. It was reckless, but she ran forward without a plan, yelling out a battle cry.

  Someone matched her with a battle cry of their own. A hooded figure jumped over her with a front flip, holding metal sickles. They brought them down on the head of the first Aberrant, and cut it clean off.

  Wasting no time, the figure slashed the one next to it, and the next one, and the next one. They turned into a flurry of slashes and slices, dismantling the army in three minutes. Jade counted.

  The figure stood in the middle of the steaming mess of bodies and blood, completely untouched apart from their sickles tainted in blood.

  Jade reached out to their mind. She recognised it immediately.

  "Long time no see, Djinn."

  Djinn pulled off his hood.

  "Jade. Good to see you."

  Djinn gave Jade a small rundown of what had changed over the past two months.

  "The black market is no more. It was obviously discovered during the attack, but since I killed the Deviant in question, they forgave me for participating."

  Jade noted that he knew the word Deviant, and asked if he'd been studying up on them. Djinn laughed.

  "That's an understatement."

  Djinn pulled some paper out of his pocket and handed it to Jade. On it, it read 'Aberrant Hunters: Sign up!'

  "Aberrant Hunters? What's this?"

  "I created this club after the attack. Sunden handled that last attack terribly, so I wanted to make a group that can protect people. That can fight off those monsters and kill them. If it expands, we might be able to protect the entire island eventually."

  Jade had to hide her expression. Djinn had effectively had the idea of Nexus. That was amusing.

  "How many people have joined you, Djinn? You've clearly read up on the topic a lot."

  "...none. Right now it's just me. But it's only been a couple weeks. Trust me. This is a great idea."

  "Can't say I disagree."

  Djinn looked a lot healthier. It had taken Jade a moment to recognise his changes. He'd bulked up a bit more, which was impressive considering he already trained daily. He'd also gotten a small makeover, with black streaks across his cheeks. Furthermore, he'd dyed more of his hair to be white. As for his sickles, he must have gotten them from a talented blacksmith, so they can't have been cheap. That meant he was working honestly.

  "Well, thanks for coming by, Jade. If you see Shogai, tell him to come visit. We never got to have a match last time. I need to go and do some more advertising."

  Djinn waved and ran off. He was faster than before; he'd definitely been training. Now that the attack was over, Jade remembered she had to report this. Sunden was in safe hands.

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