[A/N (Author's Note) I'm gonna start doing these, since they seem to be in every good story. Trigger warnings: Cursing Enjoy the chapter!]

Carrie and Merill caught up with their teammates. Rex observing what seemed to be ancient technology. It was a black pedestal, with a tiny dish in the middle of it, and a couple of spikes on two sides of it, curving towards the dish.

"Hey, guys. Rex and I found this thing. Rex is trying to observe it without activating it." Lucia explained. Merill didn't seem to be paying attention to what she said, and seemed to be just looking out into space.

"Hey, airhead, she's talking to us." Carrie said, dour.

"Don't you see it? There are a bunch of red sparkles around this thing." He replied, still fascinated. Carrie was about to dismiss his claim, but upon closer inspection, there were a lot of red sparkles in a dome around the device. they randomly glowed, like fireflies. Carrie, Merill, and Lucia all noticed and were beguiled.

"That's actually really cool-" Carrie was cut off by the ground suddenly rumbling. They turned around and saw Rex, who touched the dish in the middle of the pedestal. An orb appeared in front of the dish, enlarged itself, and then turned into a laser that shot high into the sky, like a beacon.

"Dammit, Rex! We turned around for one second!" Merill shouted.

From out of the ground rose a bunch of boulders, which rearranged and formed a giant stone golem. This wasn't like the stone golems they normally saw, though. First of all, it was gigantic, about thirty feet tall. Second, it was a lot less proportional than the smaller golems. One shoulder was much bigger than the other, and its head was rectangular with a big red eye a little lower than the middle. It was almost as if somebody took a bunch of random boulders and stuck them together, like Legos.

Almost as soon as it appeared, many of the other monsters also arrived. It was like the beetle army from before, but it consisted of every type of monster they've seen so far.

There was a moment of silence; everything was still.

"Holy SHIT." Lucia mumbled, shuddering.

And then they clashed.

Carrie ducked behind a rock. She knew the initial onslaught of their attacks would surely kill her. Lucia and Merill didn't seem to think this tactically, though. They both leaped into the fray, punching and slicing through enemies.

Rex was the only other one to distance himself from the enemies. A needle-holding appendage extended from Rex. Rex had the ability to shoot poisonous needles from a compactable "arm". And shoot needles it did, weakening the monsters that were chasing it.

Carrie ran from behind the rock, attempting to ignore the chaos and shoot the stone titan. She thought that if it died, the other monsters would die too, or something like that. Her bullets barely seemed to faze it though. Suddenly, Carrie felt the ground underneath her rumble, like, a lot more than before. She glanced at the titan, and saw it shoving its fist into the ground. Suddenly, something boosted Carrie far into the air.

The blow was quite painful, but for a second, Carrie was able to ignore that. She was so high up in the air, she felt like she could touch clouds. The five second experience of floating high in the sky felt so surreal. She forgot about the battle happening on the ground and felt peaceful.

But soon, she started falling.

All her memories rushed back to her, and she felt her back sting.

She panicked, knowing it wouldn't help her situation.

She saw the ground get closer, and closer.

And closer.

. . .

Lucia leaped into the group of enemies with Merill, pummeling as many as she could. She didn't seem to notice the ground beneath her shaking, though. Thankfully, Merill was able to, so he dashed into her, shoving her out of the area of the titan's attack. Before she could shout at him, she saw what happened. A giant fist emerged from the ground where she was previously standing and launched all the monsters that were on top of it were launched high into the air. The fist went back into the ground, and the titan pulled his hand out of the earth. Lucia put two and two together. The titan was able to shove his fist into the ground and make it appear somewhere else.

"Carrie, watch out! It can-" Lucia started to shout, but it was too late. There was nothing she could do but watch Carrie get projected into the sky. She was still fighting, but watching the air for Carrie. She saw a yellow dot in the sky start falling. This was her only chance to save her. She ran to the area she thought Carrie was falling and attempted to catch her.

Her attempt was unsuccessful.

Carrie hit the ground with a hard THUD. If the golem earlier didn't give her back problems, this fall definitely did. Lucia thought that Carrie might've died.

There was no time to mourn, though. "REX! Protect her!" She demanded. Rex tweeted obediently.

Lucia needed to find some way to get rid of all of these monsters at once. She was lost in thought for a second, but then she remembered. The fuel arrays. One of those could probably blow both the titan and the mob of monsters to kingdom come. She remembered that Merill's pod still had its fuel array, so she decided to use that.

"Hey, Merill!" She yelled. "Hold them off, I've got an idea!"

"Wait, what?! By myself!?" He retorted. Lucia had already grappled away.

Lucia bolted to the pod, ignoring all of the monsters chasing her. It was like the time Carrie was with her, and they were trying to save Rex, except there was no Carrie, and if she didn't do this, her entire team would probably die, herself included.

She made it. Pod number six. She ripped open the compartment aggressively, and sprinted back to the battle. She covered the array with both of her arms, leaving her completely defenseless.

The monsters fired their projectiles and bit her, and there was nothing she could do but push through the pain.

She finally made it back, glad to see Merill, Rex, and Carrie still alive.

"Merill, Rex! Watch out! This thing is going to explo-" Right when she said that, a clay mask from above was able to hit the fuel array. It was shaking and humming, and Rex and Merill got the hint. Both of them ducked behind a rock, and dragged Carrie with them. Lucia ran, but she knew she wasn't going fast enough. She turned around and took a quick glance at the titan, as the fuel array exploded and sent its head...somewhere else, very far away. She felt the blast knock her backwards about twenty feet. Her ears rang as her consciousness faded.

Then everything after was just a blur.

. . .

Merill watched in awe as Lucia's body, among monsters' corpses, flew through the air. The captain told him the fuel arrays were volatile, but he never though that they could cause that much damage. How much power did an escape pod need, anyway?

Merill watched Rex rush over to Lucia. He presumed the two were close.

"Is she alright?" He asked, also concerned. Rex seemed to chirp solemnly, but affirmingly. It attempted to drag Lucia's body over to the black pedestal that caused all this madness. Something noticeable about the black pedestal was that the beacon was gone, and that in its place was a red, floating orb.

Since Rex got Lucia, Merill took it upon himself to take Carrie. He sheathed his sword and carried her. He was quite worried about her. Despite being mean to him, that was quite a fall, and Merill really wanted Carrie to be okay.

He sat down on the pedestal next to Rex and Lucia, who was mumbling and possibly somewhat conscious. He placed Carrie down, with her head on his lap.

He found it ironic. A hired blade, who cares for others so dearly. He didn't know why he card about Carrie so much, when people were mean to him, he usually would give them at least a little lip.

It was almost as if they had some kind of bond.