Without moving his right hand nor taking his gaze off of Zia, Foxhound used his left hand and threw three small reactive endo knives into the air. As he summoned a debuff field to detect any movements around them, the familiar helmet Foxhound wore glow with the same pattern as when Siran wore a similar helmet under the guise of the Sniper. "Uh, Silas?" Dana asks as they look up at the reactive knives.
"I know! On it!" Silas says as he concentrates. the knives stop in the air suddenly and zoom straight at the three kids at near instantaneous speeds. The knives suddenly changed directions and flew past the three kids as Silas used control magic to adjust their trajectory. "Whew! That was too close!"
"Can't you do your little magic endo stealing suction thingy?" Carl asks.
"I am doing my magic endo stealy whatever you said!" Silas argues. "How do you think I was able to get enough endo to redirect reactive endo!?"
"He doesn't seem tired yet!" Dana argues as she gets into a fighting stance. "Whatever this thing is, it has a lot of endo!"
"You're telling me!" Silas says. "I'm the one who has to hold it all in!"
Seemingly surprised, Foxhound turns around slowly to face the kids. As soon as Foxhound takes a step towards the kids, Zia jumps to the side with a strong buff spell, and leaps onto the house next to them. Foxhound throws another reactive endo knife at Zia without looking and Zia blocks it with a reactive endo knife of her own. "Benjie! Now!" Zia shouts. Benjie takes out several small canisters of magi-tech and throws them around Dolos and Foxhound, which go off right after they bounce off of the ground. Like little grenades, they all bounced and exploded with energy, and shocked both Foxhound and Dolos. Dolos stayed standing on his feet as the shocks hit him, but Foxhound fell to his knees and convulsed. "That drone... can feel pain?" Zia asks herself. "Benjie! Robin! This isn't a normal drone! This one responds to pain!"
"They don't normally!?" Benjie asks.
"No, they're usually like zombies!" Zia yells back. "But this one is different!"
"This one is different." Dolos says as he brushes off his shoulders and sighs. "He's a drone for sure, but he holds more endo than you and Siran. He can be pumped with endo and it won't tear apart his body. His body is still perfectly intact while holding an immense amount of power, plus he can use reactive endo. He is a new god slayer."
"A god slayer?" Silas asks.
"Of course, it would've been nice had we gotten both god slayers we had our sights on." Dolos continues to say as he looks right at Silas. "But that plan had reportedly fallen through."
"He... he means me?" Silas asks. "He means me! The only other people outside from us that should know about that is Chronos! He must work for Chronos!"
"Oop, cat's out of the bag." Dolos says with a smile. "Oh well, not like any of you will live to tell the tale." Dolos looks down at Foxhound as he stays on his knees, motionless. "Hey, get up." Foxhound immediately stands. "Change of plans. I'd rather no longer give them the chance to prepare for a counterattack. Kill them all, starting with that failed experiment of a kid."
Foxhound dashes at Silas in a flash, but Silas kept up and leapt over his head with his one right arm gripping the face of the helmet, and then slamming the back of his head into the rocky ground below them. "What'd I do to you!?" Silas asks as he jumps back and gets some distance from Foxhound. "Was it the book?"
"I'll admit, that was annoying." Dolos says. "Mostly because it was unexpected. I don't like being caught off-guard. But it really comes down to three things. You keep stealing our endo. You're becoming a problem. Secondly, you're a laibah. I hate laibah. Lastly, I can't stand children."
"You have some daddy issues, don't ya?" Silas taunts as Foxhound gets back up. "Yuh-oh!" Suddenly, Foxhound kicks at Silas with a strong wind spell and sends him flying upwards. While Silas was in the air and couldn't dodge, he threw another reactive endo knife. Silas shift quickly into his fox form and back to dodge the knife and lands on his feet. When Silas looks up, he sees he's now standing right in front of Dolos. "Uhh... knife to meet you?" He nervously jokes.
"Cute." Dolos says. "I'll remember those as your final words."
Dolos raises the back of his hand and tries to prepare a distortion spell as he strikes Silas. As he raises his hand, a flash appears in the corner of his eye as Zia shoots right through his hand with one of her guns. "Don't touch my son!" She hisses. Dolos pauses and slowly looks at his hand as he notices his hand wasn't regenerating. As he sighs in disappointment, Foxhound leaps over Dolos at Silas. Foxhound tries to pounce on Silas, but Silas stops him with a digital shield. Foxhound prepares an elemental spell as the ground under him starts to shake, but Dana leaps at him from the side and kicks him in the side. Foxhound barely budged as he grabs Dana by both of her feet and prepares to slam her into the ground like a hammer. Suddenly, Carl rushes in and grabs Dana, prepares a tiny ball of light and throws it into his face. Foxhound's head rebounds as he lets go of Dana but looks back down at Carl as if in anger. Then the ball of light spell Carl created explodes into a small blast that hit Foxhound with enough force to throw him onto the ground. Zia and Robin fire shots at Foxhound as Benjie prepared more gadgets, waiting for the kids to get away from Foxhound. Suddenly, as if annoyed, Foxhound causes the ground beneath them to shoot up high like a piston and created a very thing but tall plateau. On this plateau stood only Foxhound, Silas, Dana and Carl. "Robin!" Zia yells. "Take aim at Dolos! He isn't recovering! He must be running out of endo! Now is our chance!"
"Tch." Dolos scoffs in irritation. "Pesky little rodents. Just like Chronos said you were."
Atop the plateau, Silas and Carl tried to fight off Foxhound as Dana tried to keep them safe. Silas used elemental magic to throw attacks like fireballs and even electric bolts at Foxhound, as well as magic missiles. Carl used two guns to fire shots at Foxhound. However, Foxhound was stopping almost every attack. What little did hit him had only grazed him and never phased him. Dana kept up a debuff field as she tried to help by deploying smaller digital shields as to not block Silas's and Carl's attacks but keep them protected. Getting visibly more annoyed by his inefficiency to put an end to the three kids, Foxhound changed up his plan of attack. Foxhound turned all of his attention to Dana, taking a few hits from Carl and Silas in the process. Foxhound rushed towards Dana and attempted to punch her in the stomach with a strong distortion spell and Carl immediately noticed and rushed to her aide. Jumping in the way, Carl took the blow for Dana, but the force still threw her off of the plateau. In shock, Dana looks down at the long fall below her and lets out a short, panicked scream before she feels a sudden tug on both of her hands. Carl grabbed onto both of Dana's wrists in a panic, taking a strong blow from Foxhound from a fire spell. Carl let out a painful yell as he looks down at Dana and tightens his grip. "Carl! Turn around! He's going to kill you!"
"I'm not letting go!" Carl yells as he painfully pulls Dana up with one arm and pulls out one of his guns with the other. "You're still not very good at buff magic yet!"
"Neither are you!" Dana argues. "Silas is the only one of us good at any magic!"
Another strong fire spell is thrown at Carl's back but is blocked by Silas. "Carl!" He yells. "Is Dana okay!?"
"You're going to strain yourself, even if you somehow live through Foxhound!" Dana argues. "We don't both have to die!"
"I'm not letting you die!" Carl yells as he painfully tugs and lifts Dana a little higher. As Dana gets just her eyes above the edge of the plateau, she sees burns through Carl's jacket and shirt on his back. Severe burns, with Silas trying his best to keep Foxhound busy by himself. "Don't worry about me!" Carl says as he struggles. "Silas put out the fire already. As long as you live, I'll be fine!" Carl then turns around as he gets onto his knees and pulls Dana over the ledge, turns around as he pulls her up and fires at Foxhound with his gun.
"Carl!" Dana says as she worries. "You don't have to prove you're tough! You need to-" Suddenly Dana stops when she notices Carl was crying.
"I thought my life would be over..." Carl says. "I can't lose you."
"Carl...?" Dana asks softly.
"Guys!" Silas yells. "Are you two okay!? You need to get some rest! Don't move!" Silas dodges a reactive endo bolt from Foxhound and rushes over to his friends and picks them both up and his shoulders, trying to avoid touching Carl's back. Silas jumps off of the ledge and uses elemental magic to make stairs out of the rock from the plateau as he runs down. As he runs, Foxhound also uses elemental magic to cause spikes to pop out of the sides of the plateau, trying to hit the kids as they run. Silas jumps over some and uses others as additional steps as they climb down until the finally reach the ground. When they reach the ground, Silas gets a safe distance from the plateau as he gently lay his friends on the ground. Setting Dana on her back and gently laying Carl face down to avoid letting his now bleeding and open burn wound from getting dirty. "Carl..." Silas says with concern. "I get it, but... are you gonna be okay?"
"Get what?" Dana asks as she looks back and forth between Silas and Carl. "What am I missing here?"
Silas takes a deep breath, then stands up and gets ready to protect his friends as the plateau slowly sinks back into the ground. As the plateau slowly returns back into the ground, they noticed Dolos was being held down by Zia and Robin, covered in gun wounds but still alive. "Dana..." Carl says softly, through a weakened voice. "Sorry for being a screw up." As he says this, he begins falling asleep.
"Hey, hey!" Dana says as she lifts his head up and puts in on her lap. "Stay awake for me. Don't fall asleep yet. You gotta fight it."
Carl smiles and says "I'm gonna be alright now." as he closed his eyes. "Hey... you know what I just remembered?"
"What?" Dana asks.
"Remember when we were tied up, in that FBI underground base thing..." Carl says, his eyes still closed. "and I said how we used to both have a crush on you?"
"Yeah?" Dana replies.
"Sorry for lying..." Carl says.
"H-hey, don't worry about that." Dana says. "Just worry about staying alive. I get it, sometimes people joke around at times when they're stressed. It's just a coping mechanism."
"I still do..." Carl says, letting out a long sigh.
"... Huh?" Dana says as she suddenly freezes.
"I do still have a crush on you..." Carl says. "Sorry I lied back then... I just brought it up because I thought we were gonna die. I thought maybe I could admit it, but I ended up lying. I'm a coward and a fuck up."
"Hey! Don't say that!" Dana says. "You're no fuck up! We're gonna get you through this! Make me this promise."
"Y-yeah..." Carl says softly as he loses consciousness. "I.. prom-..." Carl suddenly falls asleep before finishing his sentence.
"Hey? Hey? Carl?" Dana asks as she lightly shakes his head. She places her fingers on the side of his neck to check for a pulse, and finds he's still alive. She lets out a long and stressful sigh and says quietly to Carl "You better wake up soon before I knock you out..."
As Benjie rushes to Dana and Carl's aide, Silas notices Foxhound has stopped his attacks. The plateau fully leveled with the ground now and Dolos was sat up on his knees, held as a hostage in front of Foxhound. "Stand down." Zia says with her pistol to the back of a defeated Dolos's head. "We have your master, we want to know who you are and how exactly did you guys make another god slayer?"
Emotionlessly, Foxhound slowly looks down at Dolos and slowly walks towards them. "Stop right where you are!" Robin says as his sniper rifle glows with endo.
Foxhound stops, and Dolos begins to plea "W-wait! Chronos! Please help! I-I-I have a plan! I know we can-" Suddenly, Dolos is stopped short as a flash of light passes through his forehead, out of the back of his skull, and pierced the ground behind him, leaving a small hole in the ground from the reactive endo breaking open the rocky ground. When Zia and Robin look up, they see Foxhound with his right palm aimed at the now lifeless corpse of Dolos, who slowly flopped sideways to the ground.
"N-no... wait..." Robin says in confusion.
"What... the hell?" Zia asks.
Foxhound takes two steps forward and leans down to pick up Siran's book off of the ground that fell from Silas during their battle atop the plateau. Just before Foxhound could grab it, the book was once again pulled away by an invisible force towards Silas's hands. Silas tightens his hands around the book as they all prepared for a fight. As if losing interest, Foxhound lazily turns around and begins walking away step by step. "Wait!" Silas yells as he throws another magic missile. A portal opens up and Foxhound steps through it, with the portal suddenly vanishing after Foxhound walks through. The missile hit the ground as everyone remained still in disbelief. "What... who the hell was that!?"
"A... drone?" Benjie asks.
"What kind of drone kills its own master?" Robin asks.
"But Dolos was pleading to Chronos at the end there..." Zia says. "That must mean their master isn't Ares nor Dolos... it must be Chronos."
"Then suddenly, everything that happened to me makes sense..." Silas says, sounding depressed.
When Zia looks over at Dolos's dead body, she can see what looked like shards through her clairvoyance magic. Remembering how Laibah; Inari and Ishmael's daughter; had a shard of Gaia, Zia realized it must have been the shards of Chronos. Suddenly, her thoughts were cut short as Benjie called out "We're going to need immediate evac for medical attention here!"
As they all turned around, they saw Dana holding Carl in shock and in worry as she remained unable to move, processing all that just happened, with Carl still passed out on her lap. "Bring the truck over." Zia says as she stares at the kids, not taking her eyes off of them. "I won't let even these monsters take down any of the kids. We're going straight to HQ."