"Hehehe, looks like your plan failed, Vincent."
Vincent's face twisted with rage as Vex'ahlia's condescending laughter echoed across the camp.
The businessman's jaw clenched so hard his teeth might crack, but he forced himself to stay focused on the bigger picture.
This wasn't the time for ego battles with his allied teacher.
"SUBDUE THEM! ALL OF THEM!"
Vincent hissed through gritted teeth before raising his voice to command the entire camp.
*WHOOSH!*
Nero launched himself forward like a missile, his Metalloid Transformation already coating his arms in metallic scales as he aimed straight for Vincent's throat.
Time to end this manipulative bastard once and for all.
But just as his claws were about to tear into Vincent's face,
*CLANG!*
A bone staff materialized out of nowhere, intercepting Nero's attack with supernatural speed.
"Tsk tsk, little boy," Vex'ahlia's voice dripped with amusement as she appeared between them. "You'll have to go through me first!"
With an attack of her own, a dark aura radiated from the bones of her staff as it surged towards Nero like a pack of snakes.
"!!!"
Nero was alarmed. The dark aura surging towards him was too fast and too near for him to dodge.
'Fuck.'
Having no choice, he could only block it.
But before the dark aura was about to reach him…
*WHOOSH!*
A silver blur crashed into Vex'ahlia from the side, the divine silver power also dispersed the malicious attack that was about to touch her Lord Nero.
"Your opponent is me, dark sorceress."
Aurelia's voice carried cold authority as she stood between Vex'ahlia and her Lord, wings spread wide, battle armor on and her broadsword gleaming with divine light.
"Lord Nero, please focus on Vincent. I'll handle this individual."
Nero faintly nodded as he focused upfront.
Meanwhile, Kaito, Yui, and Haru had started advancing on the rescue group with vacant expressions and raised weapons; their movements were coordinated despite being puppets on strings.
*Thud! Thud! Thud!*
The parent group stepped forward as one, forming a protective line between the mind-controlled trio and the rest of their people.
"My baby Kaito..." Yuki's voice carried heartbreak as she looked at her son's dulled eyes.
"Everyone else, fall back and handle the other mind-controlled survivors!" Juno's tactical voice cut through the emotional chaos. "We'll deal with our children!"
"You heard him!" Jin called out, helping Gilbert coordinate the other frontliners as the camp residents began converging on them with makeshift weapons. "Form defensive positions!"
Just like that, the chaotic battlefield had organized itself into 3 distinct combat zones.
Nero locked eyes with Vincent, who had retreated to a safer distance while his pawns created the separation he needed.
Aurelia faced off against Vex'ahlia in what was clearly going to be a supernatural powerhouse slugfest.
And the parents prepared to do the hardest thing imaginable… to fight their own children in order to save them.
"We've got this, you two!" Genya's chains were summoned, rattling as he prepared for battle. "Just focus on beating those guys!"
"Go!" Hina's voice carried steel beneath the worry. "We'll bring these idiots back!"
***
*CRASH!*
Kaito's enhanced fist slammed into the ground where Yuki had been standing a split second earlier, leaving a crater in the earth.
"Kiyaaa~! My baby is too violent!"
Yuki barely managed to dodge backward as her son's follow-up punch whistled past her face with enough force to decapitate a normal person.
*Whoosh!*
Ren appeared beside her in a burst of cold air, ice crystals forming around his hands as he analyzed the situation.
"His stats have been artificially enhanced. Most likely by the Vincent guy who's controlling him."
"It's the villain's bad power-ups!" Yuki's magical girl outfit sparkled as energy gathered around her hands. "My baby Kaito, just wait a moment! This magical girl will save you from the controls of the bad guy!"
Their son moved like a machine, each punch delivered with mechanical precision that completely lacked his usual warm fighting style.
His eyes remained those same vacant, dulled orbs that showed no recognition of his parents.
*BOOM!*
Kaito's fist created another crater as he missed a devastating attack aimed at his father's ribs.
"We can't match his strength head-on," Ren said while conjuring ice barriers to buy them some breathing room. "... We need to wear him down first."
"Right! Time for some magical girl tactics~!"
Yuki's hands glowed with sparkling energy as she began launching rapid-fire rainbow magical projectiles at their son as if it came from the unicorn land.
*Pop! Bloop! Peep! Beng!*
The small explosions peppered Kaito's enhanced body, each one designed to disorient rather than seriously injure.
But their mind-controlled son just shrugged off the attacks and kept advancing.
*CRACK!*
His fist shattered through Ren's ice barrier like it was made of tissue paper.
"He's adapting to our attacks!"
Ren barely managed to slide under a haymaker that would have taken his head clean off.
"Time for magical girl version 2.0!" Yuki's voice carried determination as she switched from rapid-fire to charging a much larger attack. "Darling, can you restrain our mind-controlled baby for a while~?"
"A quick cast Ice Prison won't hold him at full strength," Ren replied while creating more barriers to keep Kaito occupied. "We need him weakened first!"
"Leave that to the magical me~!"
*FLASH!*
Yuki's charged attack was released as a brilliant explosion of rainbow magical energy engulfed Kaito entirely.
It might look cute at first, but the power behind it…
*BOOM!*
Is more than enough to pack a punch to even some of the A-tier monsters.
The glittered blast echoed across the battlefield… but when the smoke cleared, Kaito was still standing.
Injured, breathing hard, but definitely still standing.
"My darling Ren! Your time to shine!"
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
Ice erupted from the ground around Kaito's feet, climbing up his legs and torso as Ren poured everything he had into the restraining technique.
"Ice Prison: Partial Containment!"
For a moment, it looked like it might actually work.
*CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!*
Kaito struggled against the ice, his enhanced strength causing immense cracks to appear along the frozen restraints despite being weakened.
But it seems that the combination of magical bombardment and ice restrictions was finally enough.
*Thud.*
After a moment, the mind-controlled fistfighter slumped forward, unconscious but safely contained in Ren's ice.
"My baby Kaito!" Yuki rushed toward her son, tears streaming down her face as she saw his vacant expression finally relaxing into something more peaceful.
"The mind control should fade now that he's unconscious," Ren said, though exhaustion was clear in his voice. "Like what happened with the other survivors."
Looking at some of the Camp survivors who were defeated by some of their group, it seems safe to say that forcefully making them unconscious will return them back to normal.
But there wasn't time to celebrate.
*CRASH!*
Another explosion echoed from where Haori and Juno were fighting Yui, while the sound of Genya's chains clashing against something metallic indicated Haru's battle was still ongoing.
"One down," Ren muttered while keeping watch over their unconscious son. "Two to go."
***
On the other side of the battlefield, Nero stood face-to-face with Vincent Cross, the two men finally alone for their long-overdue confrontation.
"You know, Nero," Vincent's voice had lost all pretense of civility, revealing the cold calculation underneath. "You've been nothing but a persistent pest from the moment you arrived at my camp."
The businessman straightened his expensive suit, despite the dirt and chaos surrounding them.
"I had such beautiful plans. A perfect little world where I could have everything I wanted, including the goddess Aurelia…"
Vincent's eyes gleamed with obsessive hunger as he continued his monologue.
"All you had to do was die quietly in that plant mission. But no, you had to come back. You had to ruin everything."
"For you to keep interrupting my every proposal toward goddess. I just have to make sure to show her through this battle that I'M SUPERIOR TO YOU!"
His voice rose with each word, revealing the deep jealousy that had been driving his actions all along.
"Do you have any idea how maddening it is? Watching someone as perfect as her waste her time on... on... a pathetic nobody? It's such a waste that she has to serve in a scrawny trash like you."
"..."
Nero just stood there, listening to Vincent's jealous breakdown with a calm expression.
… But somehow that made him look even more dangerous.
When Vincent finally paused for breath, expecting some kind of reaction or rebuttal, Nero simply smirked.
"..."
That same predatory grin that had appeared right before he'd exposed Vincent's mind control scheme.
"... You're done with your little tantrum, you psychotic piece of shit?"
"..."
The casual dismissal hit Vincent like a slap to the face, his carefully controlled cold rage facade cracking completely.
But Nero couldn't give a fuck about that, because this is where shit is about to go down, and nothing's going to stop him.
"Because I've got some scores to settle with you."
Nero's reptilian pupils dilated as his Metalloid Transformation began spreading across his whole body, metallic scales gleaming in the chaotic light of the battlefield around them.
"And trust me, Vincent... I'll make sure that you will regret every decision in your life…"
His reptilian eyes turned into dangerous lines, the calf muscles immediately bulged, and without further ado…
*BOOOOMM!*
His legs became an explosive pair of rockets that shattered the ground.
***
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