"But when will I get to see Agent Isaac again?" Crowe is sitting in office and library room, talking to someone over the phone.
"I would like to test out Number 3, of course. And I would like to see his progress. Has he made any, thus far?"
"Ah, well, of course I am. Agent Isaac is far, FAR, better than any of these toys I have created."
"Back to my previous concern, when will I—"
"Ohh. Is that so."
"Then for that, I sincerely apologize. I did not foresee that it will lead to such a chain of events."
"Yes, yes, I understand."
"However, I cannot guarantee that I will simply sit and wait."
"Ah, do not worry, it will be fine. Farewell!" Crowe hangs up after a cheerful goodbye.
He gets up, picking up the mask sitting on top of the desk to wear it.
"If there is no sense of urgency, we must simply create one."
He takes out the remote for his void portal from his pocket and activates it. He was about to step inside the massive void portal when he remembers something and stops, feeling his pockets, looking for something. He turns back to his desk and sees a small black vial which he goes back to pick up before entering the portal.
Yulia is the first one to step out of the amphibious jet when it made its landing on the ocean. She fearlessly steps out into the cold water but doesn't fall through.
Her ability grants her the use of several applications of energy projection. Offensively, she is able to shoot out energy beams and bullets in various degrees which she does primarily using her fingers or palms. This essentially makes her a living, fragment-powered weapon.
But that's not all her ability is for as she is also able to emit ancient energy for other purposes that are not just limited to offense. One such example is her ability to fly in the air by focusing and emitting an ever-burning ancient energy at her feet, serving as boosters that allow her to soar through the air.
This is also the reason why Sebastian sought for her help in his quest for developing new techniques with void energy as energy manipulation and projection is Yulia's expertise.
Yulia flies over the platform to get a clear grasp and view of the battlefield's current situation.
There were about 25 Third-Class agents armed with railguns and cannons shooting at the seemingly never-ending horde of sirens that the giant squid is birthing nonstop. Every single one was hitting their mark but there were still way too much sirens that the ocean water was still barely visible as it is mostly filled by the fiendish ocean creatures.
She flies down lower, just a couple of meters away from the waters and in front of the platform. Hovering in the air, she makes finger guns with both hands. Blue veins start appearing and glowing on her hands followed by a small glow of light at the end of her middle and pointing finger, then starts shooting off small and quick bolts of ancient energy. Each bolt was preceded by a high-pitched sound.
She hits four sirens in a single, mere second. The bolts hit every single one but doesn't explode on impact. Instead, the bolt is absorbed into their flesh and forms a blue ripple of ancient energy that spreads across the target's entire body starting from the bolt's impact.
The ripple quickly spreads, like a drop on a puddle of water. As soon as the ripple encompasses the target's entire body, the target explodes from the inside leaving nothing behind.
The sirens explode one after the other with just one bolt. Its damage combined with the time it takes to fire it off makes this an extremely effective technique even against hordes.
Rina and Kristoff, both wearing jetpacks fly out as well to join the shootout.
"You guys go for the squid," Yulia tells her teammates.
"I'll just chip away at the horde here, I'll be right behind."
Having complete trust on their teammate, Rina and Kristoff complies with the strategy suggestion.
"You alright?" Kristoff asks Rina who is flying the jetpack for the first time.
"Yep, all good."
"Well, keep up," Kristoff flies faster, leaving Rina in the cold wind.
The giant squid is even more massive in person, its head alone being about 20 meters tall. It had a conical but slightly round head covered with what looked a combination between fur and hay, colored gray. Right in the center, just between its head and its countless, thick, black tentacles with gray spots is what looks like its large, round, blue eye.
Most of the squid's tentacles, especially the ones near the middle of its body are limp and dipping on the water. The tentacles on the outer side of its body were floating up and swaying with the wind.
Its large eye shifts to the two approaching agents. Noticing an incoming threat, it starts moving its outer tentacles, preparing to swat away the flies as soon as they get in range.
Rina, just a meter or two behind Kristoff who had several hovering drones and a cannon mounted on his shoulder, takes out her pistols too, charging up a shot while still away from the target.
The squid raises up one of its tentacles in the air to swat down on them. As soon as it drops the tentacle, Kristoff's shoulder cannon starts lighting up and emits a wide laser beam cutting the tentacle in half.
Its end part which was sliced off comes falling down in the air which they both quickly steer clear of, crashing down on the water.
"Hey, watch it!" Rina calls out Kristoff.
"YOU watch it."
The squid is far from done with the tentacle onslaught, directing its floating tentacles towards them.
A combination of a quick shot from all of Kristoff's six drones as well as his arm blaster still weren't enough to demolish one tentacle. Every single one is extremely sturdy and the shots he fired off didn't have much power behind them. Which was fine because he was simply testing the waters anyway.
Meanwhile, Rina who was charging up her strongest shot the entire flight from the Platform, fires a large laser blast, her strongest shot at the incoming tentacle, completely decimating it and even piercing through, scathing part of the squid's top right head.
"Should have just used one," she mutters, thinking that using both shots were a waste when only one would have probably done the job.
Even while whipping around its tentacles to attack the flying threats, the squid was still continuing to spawn sirens that were dropping down on the water right below it, possible coming from under and inside the squid's body.
"Is it just me or is this thing more like a jellyfish than a squid?" asks Rina while juggling between shooting at the tentacles and the spawning sirens.
"It's both," Kristoff answers, busy doing the same.
"We need to get rid of the dropping sirens, the ear plugs won't hold if all of these things start screaming at the same time," he points out.
Like responding to cue, some of the sirens stop in the water and start emitting their loud, high-pitched sound attack at the two of them.
"Thanks for jinxing it," Rina says sneeringly.
"I'll focus on the sirens, cover me!" she declares.
The squid is birthing out sirens at an alarming rate and Rina can barely keep up, she has to shoot a hundred sirens while simultaneously evading the squid's tentacles. It would be a different story if she were just focused on the sirens but she has no choice but to lag behind in kill count because she still has the waggling tentacles to worry about.
Soon, even more of the new sirens stop heading for the platform and sang at them instead. The combined songs were gradually getting so loud that Rina was starting to hear it weakly.
Using only one pistol to shoot and charging up the other, she unleashes another laser blast. This time, at the sirens on the water. She flies up a few meters first as to not get caught in the blast radius and ensuing water explosion.
BOOM
Over 50 of the sirens are immediately disintegrated. But even so, the squid is still birthing out more to make up for the spawns it lost.
Another tentacle splashes into the water again, courtesy of Kristoff. The combined sound of the eldritch choir is considerably weakened by Rina's last attack. Kristoff sends down three of his drones to help with keeping the number of sirens to a minimum.
With the number of sirens dangerously surrounding the platform considerably lessened, Yulia decides to leave platform-protection duties to the Third-Class agents, heading straight for the squid, using both her arms and feet as boosters, rushing to her fellow agents' aid.
"I'm going for the eye," says Yulia, subtly telling her teammates to steer clear.
It took Yulia three seconds to get from the platform to right up the squid's face. Going straight for its large blue eye, she stops just a couple of inches right over it, placing both palms and blinding it with a bright glow of blue light. The blue veins on her hands start glowing even brighter. What followed is a large and loud energy beam directed right at the squid's equally blue eye.
BOOM
The powerful energy blast pierces straight through the squid's head, leaving a large hole right in the middle of it.
Blood and flesh from its head as well as the sirens it was storing spread out all over the icy waters.
"Wait, it was just a container??" Rina asks, looking up at the revealed insides of the squid's head.
The squid's tentacles stop moving. Its lifeless, floating remain crashes down into the ocean, creating a massive splash and shockwave.
Despite the massive container vessel in the form a squid being demolished, the sirens it was hoarding were still very much alive. And over a hundred of them still remain, not counting the ones already on the water.
"No wonder it wasn't moving towards the platform," Rina comments while shooting at the remnant sirens.
Shortly after, she starts chuckling.
"What?" asks Kristoff.
"It's a failed Trojan squid."
"Just keep shooting, woman."