Duendes stepped out from the shadows with Pocket and was greeted by a sight he had never thought he would see. The Bone Collector stood in the middle of the large, dimly lit room that once held him captive in a trance. Floating around the room was a troupe of dwarves. Pocket tilted their head to the side at the strange sight.

The room was much larger than he was expecting. He couldn't believe this massive room was used to house just one person. What was more surprising was that before it was mostly empty, but in the time since they had begun their invasion, the room had been filled with devices he had never seen before or understood.

"Hey Duendy!!!" Roisin waved at Duendes. Her face was covered by her Dragon Scale Nano Armor. But Duendy recognized her voice. He assumed the other masked figure next to her was the second half of the Twins. Roisin was in front of a console typing away as Zidane moved complex machinery around with the floating dwarves. The two of them were working in tandem with the dwarves. Duendes turned his attention towards Roratha, who leaned against a wall watching everything happen.

"What are you doing?" Duendes asked.

"Observing, as I said I would. Why do you ask? Better question, who are you?" Roratha raised an eyebrow at Duendes, who just ignored her taunts.

"Then just keep observing them." Duendes scoffed at Roratha's unwillingness to help even as dozens of Chasers and Persequions died to her husband.

Duendes flicked his finger, and a spike jutted out of the Bone Collector's shadow and went to stab at his back. However, the spike of shadow was blocked by a mechanical hand. That hand was destroyed, but at the moment of its destruction, a system glowed on its wrist, and those destroyed parts reformed into a hand.

"Who the hell are you?" Duendes asked as a kindly old man walked from behind The Bone Collector. The old man wore a tweed vest with a tie. His gray broom mustache curled as he smiled at Duendes.

"I would kindly ask you youngsters to stop all this roughhousing. This room is currently under construction. I'll have to kindly ask you to leave. Sorry for the inconvenience." The old man's warm, friendly demeanor almost disarmed Duendes. He frowned.

"We don't have time for this." Duendes dipped into the shadows. As soon as he dove, Roisin looked over her shoulder.

"GRAMPS initiate Severance Package protocol."

"Oh, dear." Gramps sighed, his blue eyes turned red. As Duendes popped out of the shadows, sending a slash at his throat, GRAMPS' body jerked out of the way with mechanical precision. Shadow spikes shot out from the ground and ceiling of the room to attack GRAMPS. However, GRAMPS mechanically dodged every possible attack, as if he could predict their appearance.

Duendes scoffed as shadows surrounded his fists and legs as he engaged GRAMPS in hand-to-hand combat. Whatever this thing was, it was not human, and it could read the flow of his shadows. The next best option to end this as quickly as possible was to rip it apart with his bare hands. His Shadow Gauntlets formed spikes as he sent a flurry of blows to GRAMPS.

Before all this, Duendes was a professional MMA fighter on his way to the top until he had the bad luck of running into a werewolf who was making his name as an MMA fighter. Duendes' skill and abnormal physical abilities forced the werewolf to reveal his powers for just a moment to defeat Duendes.

While the observers could not see anything out of the normal, Duendes saw the change in his eyes and the protruding of his fangs. Duendes wasn't sure if what he saw was real, but the Werewolf didn't leave anything up to chance. He stalked Duendes with the intent to kill him to keep his secret. In the process, he killed Duendes' girlfriend at the time. However, Duendes was saved by Team Devin, consisting of Devin, Zac, Franky, Helena, and Hachiman at the time.

After learning the truth, he opted to join the Chasers rather than return to his normal life. He was easily accepted, being a human that could force a werewolf to go all out, even if just momentarily. After becoming a Chaser, Duendes became even more confident in his skills. Unfortunately, his confidence did not aid him here. He could not touch the hair on this old man's head.

Those red eyes followed his every movement, taking every opportunity to perfectly block every strike and counter. Duende's head snapped back as he received another perfect counter to his nose, unable to follow the speed of the counter. GRAMPS sent a kick to his abdomen that sent him into the air. He slid across the room holding his midsection.

"Pocket!!!" Duendes would swallow his pride. GRAMPS was not only keeping up with him, but it knew his entire fighting style. It was obvious that the Twins had thoroughly studied every Chaser. Even while overclocking, he couldn't overpower this thing. It was pointless to continue down this path.

Pocket nodded and reached to open their pocket. However, no one was able to come out. Pocket frowned as they looked over at Roratha. Roratha greeted Pocket's frown with a smile.

"What are you doing, Roratha?!" Duendes shouted.

"Observing… If too many people fill the room, I won't be able to properly see what's happening."

"Puta Madre!!" Duendes cursed as GRAMPS was already on the attack. His mechanical precision struck at every weakness in his fighting style. It knew everything about him. Duendes manages to push the cyborg away from him. Duendes dusted himself off as he stared at GRAMPS, which was priming itself to make its next move.

Duendes noticed that even though it had the advantage, it was careful not to make any sweeping moves. It was aware of the equipment in the area and did its best to defeat him without causing damage. Duendes took a deep breath. This toy was looking down on him, but it was equipped with a vast amount of knowledge about him.

"Guess I'll show you something new, pendejo…"

"Please watch your language." GRAMPS appeared in front of Duendes with a controlled burst of speed. His red eyes stared at Duendes. GRAMPS' jaw dislocated as a beam of light formed in his mouth that fired at Duendes at point-blank range. Duendes was momentarily shocked by the burst of speed but was still capable of responding.

The beam of light pierced the right side of his head, but that side of his face dispersed into shadows before reforming. His body then became surrounded by shadow armor. Duendes grunted as he sent a punch much faster than anything he had thrown. GRAMPS could not keep up with the speed of the punch, and his body ragged-dolled across the ground.

Ever since he first laid eyes on the dragon scale armor, he wanted to get it himself. But it became clear as day it would never happen. This realization fueled his determination. He controlled the shadows and could meld himself with the shadows. So if he combined himself with those shadows, why couldn't he control himself through that power while using his body's strength in tandem? This Shadow armor was the result of his determination.

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GRAMPS' body contorted as it pulled itself off the ground bizarrely. Before it could properly gather itself, Duendes appeared out of its shadow, sending a powerful strike at its side. GRAMPS responded and blocked the blow, or at least it tried, but its arm was blown away. Once again a system formed, and it began to instantly repair itself. Duendes growled in annoyance and looked at The Bone Collector for a moment.

"Pocket!" Duendes shouted. Pocket nodded their head, knowing what they needed to do. Pocket extended their hand in The Bone Collector's direction. A pocket of space appeared over The Bone Collector's shoulder. Pocket was aiming for his head but still had no real control.

This was fine; all they needed to do was break The Bone Collector's concentration. They closed their fist to bisect his shoulder off his body, but that pocket space disappeared before they could do so. Pocket frowned, thinking they had just messed up, and tried again. Once again their pocket space was dismantled.

"Stop it!!" Pocket shouted at Roratha, their high-pitched voice filled with frustration. Pocket formed multiple pockets on The Bone Collector's Body, but all of them were dismantled.

"They call you Pocket, right? What a fascinating little thing you are." Roratha said with a smile. She then made a hand motion, trapping Pocket inside a spatial bubble of her own, and then warned them,

"If you fiddle with that barrier without knowing what you're doing, it will implode on itself. Taking you and everyone in your pocket with you." Roratha smiled at Pocket, who sat down in the bubble and folded their arms in defeat.

Roratha turned her head back towards the Bone Collector, forming a barrier around him. A fist shrouded in shadow collided with that barrier the instant it was formed.

"What are you doing?!" Duendes asked.

"Protecting my husband, obviously." Roratha dropped all pretense of neutrality.

"He's killing dozens of our people!!!" Duendes shouted.

"He sure is…" Roratha chuckled.

Duendes let out an annoyed shout. He formed an orb of darkness in his left palm and was preparing to fire a blast at Roratha, but a laser blast went through his left shoulder. His shoulder, which was blasted by the laser, diffused into shadow and reformed. That laser crashed against the barrier as Duendes turned his head to look at GRAMPS.

He saw a mound of scrap metal with a cannon attached to an arm pointing out of it. The mound of metal quickly began to reform itself. Zidane looked at everything that was going on and sighed.

"Duendy… That's enough; you can't win. Just sit there and let things play out." Zidane asked.

"You want me to just sit back and watch you kill Chasers, our Chasers?" Duendes spat.

"Just let us end this. You owe Zac at least that much." Zidane said.

"I don't owe Zac shit!!" Duendes growled as the shadows surrounding his body intensified. As his shadows grew, GRAMPS reformed himself. But Duendes' Shadows began to spread through the room. Zidane turned his attention towards Roisin.

"Roisy, I need you to design some equipment. Use what we have available in the area. I need something that can interact directly with shadows." Zidane laid out the premise of the schematic he would need. Roisin swiped the screen in front of her and asked,

"How soon do you need it?"

"About 10 seconds," Zidane informed her as he looked at GRAMPS getting beat down by Duendes.

If this continued, GRAMPS wouldn't be able to recover anymore. Duendes was getting more savage with his assaults, and it looked like he was going to destroy GRAMPS to the point where the system wouldn't be able to repair him. Duendes understood that after this he would have to deal with Roratha and he was nothing to her.

In all honesty, his struggle was pointless. But he believed he was fighting on the right side, and he refused to just give up. As long as he was given the chance to fight back, then he would. The best course of action was to dismantle this cyborg and then force Roratha to deal with him.

Then maybe Pocket could use that time to free themselves and unleash the others that were trapped in that pocket. This was a small chance, but it was the best course of action available to them. He looked at Roratha, Gramps, and Duendes engaged in a melee exceeding speeds beyond human perceptions.

"Better be quick then… Overclock." Roisin overclocked, and time seemed to slow down around her. Her head darted around inhumanely as she instantly scanned every bit of tech in the area and then began to mumble to herself.

"Theoretically… impossible, but if we use a system…" Her head snapped towards GRAMPS and Duendes as she scanned GRAMPS. In her eyes, because of the inhuman processing speed she was undergoing, everything was moving in slow motion. Her fingers glided over the interface as it struggled to keep up with her working speed. Her eyelids fluttered under her mask as she finished. Time picked back up around her.

"Sending." She chirped as she swiped her hand across the screen and toward Zidane. The eyes of Zidane's mask lit up as he turned, walking towards Duendes.

"Received!" Zidane confirmed as the schematic ran through his mind, as GRAMPS was dismantled for the last time. Duendes was preparing to destroy the pieces that GRAMPS had been broken into, but before he could, those pieces raced toward Zidane.

Those pieces and spare parts the dwarves weren't using began to integrate themselves into Zidane's Dragon Scale armor. Duendes watched Zidane walking towards him.

"What are you doing, kid?"

"We told you to just sit tight. Since you won't listen. I'll just have to put you on your ass." Zidane responded. Duendes chuckled to conceal his rage and then charged toward Zidane. He'd make quick work of him and focus his attention on Roratha. At least that's what he thought.

Duendes sent a powerful punch, which Zidane lazily parried, and returned with a counterblow of his own. The speed of Zidane's strike was outside of Duende's expectations. But the greater shock had yet to come. Duende expected Zidane's fist to pass through his face as it would dissipate into shadow; however, all he felt was a crushing blow landed just under his eye socket.

Duendes tumbled across the floor before quickly gathering to his feet. He looked on in horror at the fist that had just struck him. Protruding from Zidane's fist was a spike-like apparatus that had a system netted through it.

"I know it's rather ugly-looking, isn't it?" Zidane chuckled.

"Oh, fuck off, it's the best I could think of in the time frame you gave me. It works, doesn't it?" Roisin chided her brother as she continued her work.

"Yeah, yeah…" Zidane rolled his eyes and then proceeded to stare daggers at his shocked opponent.

Zidane and Roisin had not only gathered data on every Chaser but studied it themselves. Unlike their cyborgs, they could adapt more fluidly to any given situation. Most of all, they were honed into menaces by Zac himself.

Zidane's lazy demeanor as he walked towards him caused Duendes to lower his guard by the tiniest margin. That margin in question…was him blinking his eyes. Zidane didn't miss this opportunity and burst forward accompanied by a booming noise. When Duendes opened his eyes, he was met by the view of Zidane's large body twirling toward him, sending a devastating kick to his midsection.

The same spikes and system webbing appear on his shins. Duendes did his best to defend but was blasted into the wall that was near the door.

"Are we ready?" Zac's voice came over comms in the room.

"Yes, we're ready." Number 3, the leader of the Dwarven team answered. He then singled out Roisin.

"Good run, it!" Zac commanded. Roisin smiled as she started everything. At that moment the dimly lit room exploded with life, and it became clear how truly transformed it was.

Curved control consoles emerged organically from the stone walls. They were constructed of matte-black alloy and embedded with holographic interfaces. A central command platform rose from the cave floor, surrounded by a circular data ring—a projection that displays real-time planetary scans, communications traffic, and a detailed map of the base.

Where the maximum security prison used to be, now stood a fully functional control room. They accomplished this in less than an hour. Duendes staggered off the wall as he looked at what they had done to the room.

"What the hell are you going to do?" Duendes asked. He heard the command that Zac had given them. He now found himself looking at a screen that showed Zac and Devin floating in the air across from each other.

"We're going to show you what despair looks like," Zidane spoke as he appeared in front of Duendes, sending a knee into his stomach.

Duendes instantly folded over onto his knees; he was already exhausted. He had been overclocking well past his limit, and his body was screaming at him to rest. He coughed up blood, looking up at the Twins, and asked,

"You two are smart enough to know that this won't help anything. So, why? Why help Zac destroy himself?"

As if planned The twins both looked over at Duendes, and those jagged smiles painted on their masks matched the broad smiles they wore beneath them, and they responded,

"Because it's fun."

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