“HERE IT COMES!!” shouted a man in tactical gear as he and his squadmates braced for the oncoming threat. Charging on all fours was an otherworldly beast with red tendril-like quills and large dijon-colored eyes. The squad of mages dispersed, making sure to do so in various directions which would force the monster to choose one. When it stopped in its tracks, the squad had it surrounded.

“Ready? Aim!” On their captain’s command, the squad trained their semi-automatic rifles on the monster. Channeling their mana, they fired a volley of mana bullets at point-blank range.

REEEEOOOOOOGH!!

The bullets ricochet off of the creature’s skin, appearing to be ineffective. Letting out an ear-splitting roar, the beast generated powerful soundwaves that forced the squad of mages to their knees, dropping their weapons.

“Dammit!” the captain cursed as he tried to fight through the soundwaves. When he managed to open his eyes…

“Ahhhhh!!”

“No, no, nooooooooo!!!”

…he was met with a horrific sight. The monster had sprouted its tendrils and used them to bind several of the other mages. Even with his ears ringing he could hear their blood-curdling screams as the tendrils began to tighten.

“Let them go!!” The captain raised his right hand as a blue sigil glowed from underneath his tactical clothes. “Fortis Glacius!”

Following his incantation, five large icicles materialized around him, waving his hand to position them towards the beast before letting them shoot through the air at full force.

SHWOOP SHWOOP SHWOOP!!

The icicles connected, stabbing through the monster’s tough exterior. However…

REEEEOOOOOOGH!!

In mere seconds, the icicles shot out of the beast. The captain ducked for cover as two of them flew over his head. Before he could gather his bearings, another tendril shot out towards him, wrapping around and constricting his torso mercilessly.

“AAAGHHH!” He screamed as the jolt of pain coursed through him. He looked around to see that his comrades were still fighting to get free, though their strength was waning. Just as it seemed there was no hope in sight…

“Ah, there it is! Koda, Noah, get in there!”

“You got it, bro!”

“Acknowledged.”

Two figures fell from the sky and landed before the creature and its captives. One was a tall male crystal demon with pale white skin and short lilac-colored hair. A single yellow horn protruded from the top left side of his head. Hoisted over his shoulder was a giant spiked paddle. Next to him stood a slightly shorter boy in a full-body suit of metallic armor.

“Appraisal: a magifauna of unknown origin. These characteristics are not seen in any known country on the planet Terra. There is a ninety-five percent chance that this creature emerged from a nearby Red Zone.” The metallic lad drew his arms together, unlatching both of his hands and producing two cannon-like barrels. “Let us eliminate this beast and free the mercenaries, Toda.”

“You got it, Noah!” The crystal demon pointed his spiked paddle sword in the monster’s direction, producing an audible ‘whoosh’ as he swung it forward. His body emitted a vibrant purple glow before turning to his partner and remarking, “And the name’s ‘Koda’, you dumbass bucket o’ bolts!”

Noah didn’t waste any more time and trained his cannon at the beast, firing a massive ball of mana that quickly detonated and dispersed into several smaller beams that hit the monster from all sides, causing a sizable explosion.

KA-KRRROOOOOOM!!

“Ha! Good shit, Noah! Now it’s my turn!” Just as the smoke cleared, Koda was already in the air directly above the monster. “Eaaaat thiiiisssss!!!”

WHHHHOOMP!!

With both arms, he swung the paddle down onto the beast, the impact forcing its legs through the soil beneath its feet, trapping it. The creature’s tendrils unfurl and release the captured mages. Landing on his feet, Koda stuck his paddle into the ground and then quickly grabbed two of the injured mages, hoisting them over his shoulders.

“Yo, Ushio! Give us a hand here, will ya?!” Cupping one hand over his mouth, Koda called out to the silver-haired teenage boy watching them from a nearby tree branch.

“O-Oh! Right” Shifting his glasses, the silver-haired boy’s brown left eye emitted a golden glow. “Come forth, Peli!”

He swung his arm forward and his yellow aura began to change its shape, taking on a humanoid appearance. There was a yellow trail of mana that traced back to the boy akin to a tether of some sort. Peli glided over to two more of the mages in tactical gear and carried them to safety.

Noah pressed a button on his wrist and a burst of flames shot out from the soles of his feet, propelling him forward. With this momentum, he flew over and apprehended the final three mages. Now that they were a safe distance from the beast, there was only one thing left to do.

“This oughta be a treat,” Koda snickered to himself before calling out to one last person. “It's all yours, Dante! Give 'em hell!”

A mini-airship lowered from the sky, and a black shadow leaped off the deck and bolted toward the monster. There was a sudden burst of mana, and in a split second, the creature had been sliced in twain, both of its halves falling to either side of the ground.

Floating in its center was a spikey red sphere. Standing before it, was an extremely tall demi-human in his late teens with short black hair and canine ears with tufts of white fur growing around the external. There was a sizable scar where half of his right ear had been sliced off. Mages all over Taqora knew him simply as ‘Black Fang' for both the color of his mane as well as his aura.

This young man was none other than the leader of Project Galanga and the current Ace of Phoenix Academy. One of the Four Pillars of Destiny, Dante Leerex.

“Haha! That’s my bro!” Koda cheered. “Even with my eyes, I couldn’t keep up with what you just did, but I know it was killer!”

“I can explain,” Noah said, pulling up a digital screen with footage. “Monta dropped down from the ship before drawing his blade and—”

“Oy, oy, oy! Don’t go ruining the man’s trade secrets!” The young crystal demon scolded the automaton, covering up the screen. “And his name is Dante, DAH-N-TAY!!”

Dante chuckled at his friends' shenanigans before returning Apocalypse, his enchanted double-edged blade, to the scabbard strapped to his back.

“I-I’m just glad we got out of this unscathed,” said Ushio, who had since called back Peli and dropped down from the tree to join his team. “Looks like we didn’t need Shina after all.”

Koda sneered. “Heh, come on, Ushio, you oughta know that damned tree-hugger by now. Normally, she'd be giddy about anything involving The Great Forest, but I guess her Opening Day ‘ritual’ was more important. The girl likes to march to the beat of her own drum. A true wildcard.” He turned to their leader. “Am I right, Dante?”

However, Dante's attention had returned to the business at hand. “Hmm. It’s just as you’d deduced, Lieutenant McLevin,” he said, turning to an older man with a scarred face walking towards him. “This thing’s its core, yeah?”

Lieutenant Rodrigue McLevin of the Zorro Unit joined the Ace as several of his men rushed past him to tend to their wounded comrades. He stepped over to the carcass and further examined the anomaly. His attire was similar to the mages that the young men had rescued, black tactical gear with a large ‘Z’ insignia adorned on the left breast pocket. The Zorro Unit was a mercenary band tasked with monitoring The Yolk and protecting cities and towns from the threats emerging from the twelve Red Zones spread throughout the continent.

For decades, the organization prided itself on keeping Taqora safe. However, when that breach occurred twenty years ago, better known as the Eternal Craze, the aftermath saw a large percentage of the general public calling for their disbandment. Even now, their usefulness is met with contention, especially so from the upper forms of society.

Upon studying the lifeless beast, Lieutenant McLevin removed his cigar from his mouth and simply said, “Aye. That’d be it. But it’s not quite dead, yet. Allow me.”

He then drew his broadsword and swung it down at the core. The blade tore through it like a hot knife through butter. The core split in half and disintegrated. The others walked over to join the duo.

Sheathing his weapon, the Lieutenant turned to look at Dante. “And that’s how you properly do away with these things. Had you left the core on its tod, it would have returned to its host carcass and reconstructed it as if nothing had happened. Then you’d be scrapping with it all over again.”

“Shit…” Koda stared down at the mess, both amazed and terrified. “We sure dodged a bullet there!”

“That would have been troublesome for sure,” Noah added.

Koda turned to him. “Say, don’t you have one of those ‘core’ thingies keepin’ you up and running?”

“Correct, however, my core is made from manatite while that core was not.” The metallic lad explained this thoroughly. “Although it was imbued with mana, it was also interwoven with something that is not native to our plane of existence.”

“......”

“......”

“Huh?” Koda scrunched his face in confusion. The automaton’s explanation had left the young crystal demon more lost than before.

“D-Did that thing…truly come from beyond the red zone? How did it make it so far out of the forest?” Though nervous as all get out, Ushio wasted no time in raising the important questions. Suddenly Lieutenant McLevin’s head snapped in his direction, the hard look in his eyes made the tall lanky boy freeze in place.

“Urp!”

Fortunately for him, just a few tense seconds later, the older man only let out an exhausted sigh.

“To answer your question, no. It didn’t emerge from Everwood’s Red Zone,” the Lieutenant confirmed. “It was trying to get in. And that can only mean one thing. “To Noah’s point, though; Whatever this creature was, it wasn’t of this world… Meaning it was artificially made.”

The young men exchanged worried looks. Someone gave life to this monstrosity and released it into the wild, where harm could’ve befallen any number of unsuspecting civilians. The questions were, who, why, and how many more did they have at their disposal?

“What you boys just killed ain’t a true yōma. Not even close.” McLevin brought a gloved hand to the monster’s remains. “Out of the four of you, only Leerex could potentially hang with the real thing. This freak of nature, however, was imbued with the yōma-gene.”

Their eyes widened at that remark.

“Huh? The yōma-gene, you say?!” Koda scoffed in disbelief. “So, yer tellin’ us some blow-hard artificially made this fanfic writer’s wet dream here? I don’t get it. What voyager in their right mind would be purposefully collecting that kind of DNA? To what end?”

“It is unlikely that the average voyager could have pulled off such a feat undetected,” Noah surmised. “Perhaps our perpetrator had been plotting this for centuries.”

Dante eyed the carcass curiously. Like many mages of his generation, he’d only heard the stories of the aforementioned incident dubbed ‘The Eternal Craze’ as well as the havoc that the yōma had wreaked on not only Taqora but the world at large. The majority of the nations residing in the Southern and Eastern continents were still recovering from the damages all these years later.

At that moment, the Lieutenant received a call from his earpiece. He pressed a button on the walkie clipped to his breast pocket and spoke.

“Go for McLevin. What’s the situation, Sergeant?”

““““......””””

His eyes went wide. “What?! Are you certain?”

““““......””””

“Yes, there was one here, too.” He reinserted his cigar into his lips and had a subordinate light it for him by casting a small ember with their fingers. “Neither of them could have come from a Red Zone, not without us… Hmm…Well if Gamma thinks he’s still alive, then that would certainly explain plenty. Damn… So, where do we go from here?”

The students stood in silence as McLevin continued his conversation. Since he’d referred to someone as ‘Sergeant’, they all had a good idea of who was on the other end. From the sound of things, this wasn’t the only creature discovered that possessed the yōma-gene. As for who he was, they hadn’t the slightest idea, but surely the person in question must have been the one responsible for these potential atrocities. Even the Lieutenant spoke as if he’d encountered the perp before.

Whoever this man was, the boys got the feeling that he was bad news.

“Sounds good. I’ll be at the station shortly. We’ll discuss this further when I arrive… Over and out.” McLevin wrapped up his call and turned to the four young men. “You boys think you can stick around a bit longer, or are you needed back at the Academy?”

“Nah, Shina’s over there. She’s strong so the school’s in good hands,” Dante assured with a smile. “We’ll help out in any way we can, Lieutenant. You can count on us! Right guys?”

Koda cracked his knuckles. “Hey, I go wherever my bro goes! You can count me in!”

“I too share in that sentiment,” Noah, although his visor kept his face covered, spoke with clear conviction.

“I-If you say so, Dante.” Ushio looked the least confident about this, but the power of majority rule dictated that he comply regardless of his personal feelings. “L-Let’s do this…”

Hearing their resolve, Lieutenant McLevin took another puff of his cigar. Exhaling the smoke, he finally nodded. “Well then, Project Galanga...we’re heading over to MPF Headquarters. Sergeant Shepherd is expecting us.”

As the party headed back to their airships, Dante lingered for a moment. He watched as the monster’s large carcass dissolved into dust, carried away by the wind. Suddenly, an image flashed in his mind: the man who had helped him harness his gifts—the one he called “Master.”

So this is what you were prepping me for, huh, old man?

His thoughts shifted to a memory of a sparring session with two boys, one with pale blonde hair, the other with pale blue. When they were younger, they struggled to keep up with him, but over the past two years, they had made tremendous strides. By now, Dante was certain—one had matched him in speed, and the other in technique.

Still can’t believe those kids are in secondary now. He smiled. What a bummer. I’d love to see how their first day’s going…

“Oy, bro! You comin’ or what?”

Dante snapped out of his reverie to see Koda and the other members of Project Galanga waiting for him. Slightly embarrassed, he let out a nervous laugh.

“Oh! My bad. Got lost in my thoughts for a second, there.”

“Confusion: You were standing there for a lot longer than a second, Jontay,” Noah pointed out.

Koda buried his face in his hand. “Dude, he didn’t mean literally! It’s an expression! And his name is Dante!”

PMA’s ace chuckled and jogged toward the mini-airship.

Well, duty calls. I’ll get to see the fruits of their labor at some point.