Shadow Slave

Sunny found the Rhino without any problem, since it was parked near the military barracks. Getting the Corrupted Devil's needle through the main hatch had turned out harder than he had expected, so he ended up climbing to the APC's roof and lowering it through the upper hatch there.

Eventually, though, he found himself inside the dark, silent interior of the slumbering machine. It was a bit weird to see the Rhino so empty... but not unpleasantly so. With the whole APC to himself, Sunny felt as though he could relax and took off the mask of the confident commander that he was forced to wear in front of most people these days.

"Ah... that damned thing is so heavy!"

He dragged the needle to the armory, dropped it on the floor, and returned to the lounge area to take a quick shower. Then, feeling fresh and rejuvenated - if a bit sleepy - he summoned the Endless Spring, plopped down on a couch, and put his feet up, using the Shadow Chair as a footstool.

Sunny took a sip of cool water, then carefully unpacked the sandwich and took a bite.

The sandwich, indeed, had been made with love. It was truly tasty.

Mentally thanking the generous refugee, Sunny enjoyed his meal in peace. It was going to be his last opportunity to rest tonight, so he made sure to chew as slowly as he could.

Very soon, however, the sandwich was gone, and it was time to get to work. Sunny closed his eyes, sighed, and walked to the rear section of the vehicle. There, a small pile of Memories lay on the holographic table of the command suite. Sunny summoned a few more, dropped them into the pile, and counted everything. A small grimace appeared on his face.

Sunny had not only been keeping watch on the wall the past few days. After reaching Falcon Scott, which had become the hub of everything in the Antarctic Center, he had been very busy spending all of his contribution points, as well.

Getting good Memories was hard, but luckily, he was once again going for quantity over quality. Additionally, Sunny had no reason to stick to the official channels - receiving anything through the army requisition system was a tough and slow process, especially with the network being down most of the time, so he just traded his points directly to the Awakened soldiers for the Memories that were useless to them.

He had even hired a few Sleepers from the caravan to be his errand boys, which made the whole process faster.

'...Not fast enough, though.'

Shaking his head, Sunny departed the pile of Memories alone, cleared some space on the table, and summoned two weapons. One of them was his old and loyal tachi, the Midnight Shard, and the other was Morgan's Warbow.

Sunny concentrated for a moment, allowing his gaze to peer through the surface of the two Memories. The intricate tapestry of ethereal strings hidden inside them was vast and mind-numbingly complicated. He could already feel a hint of a headache coming on.

Sunny was trying to do something that he had never done before... a few things, actually.

Firstly, he wanted to recreate an Ascended enchantment, which were much, much more expansive and complex than the Awakened and Dormant ones he had mostly copied before.

Secondly, he wanted to disassemble the structure of a particular enchantment into its basic elements, then heavily modify one of those elements and turn it into an independent enchantment of its own.

And lastly, he wanted to create a functional Memory from scratch. That he had done on many occasions before, but only in the most rudimentary form.

The first two steps were already hard enough, but it was the last one that had turned unexpectedly troublesome. As Sunny had discovered out, not all materials had the capacity to sustain powerful enchantments. They would simply disintegrate under strain, or be torn apart by the raging essence.

He needed refined material to create a powerful Memory... hence the needle of a Corrupted Devil. Since Sunny was planning to use Transcendent soul shards, nothing less would do.

Actually, he wasn't really sure if the needle was good enough for his purposes, either. But it was his best bet.

Sunny studied the weave of ethereal strings, and at the same time wove essence threads of his own - he was going to need a lot of them, so there was no time to waste.

Minute passed after minute, merging into hours. Sunny continued sitting motionlessly in front of the two Memories, with only the fingers of his four hands moving in the air.

Eventually, his deep concentration was broken by the sound of an incoming call. Sunny lingered for a few moments, then slowly shifted his gaze to the communicator.

As soon as he pressed on it, Master Jet's face appeared on the screen. She was chewing on a piece of roasted monster meat, seemingly very hungry or in a hurry to finish her meal.

"Hey. How... ah... is your side project going?"

Sunny stared at her incredulously.

"It's going. It would go better if I was not distracted by unexpected calls in the middle of the night, though... well, anyway. Did you manage to get what I asked for?"

Just swallowed the last piece of the roasted meat, wiped the juice off her lips, and smiled.

"Yeah. I gathered all the Memories that the members of my cohort have no use for. Anyway, why do you need them? That's a crazy amount of contribution points to waste on a bunch of Tier One trinkets."

Sunny grinned from the corner of his mouth.

"I am thinking of giving them to a beautiful lady."

A spark of curiosity glinted in Jet's eyes.

"Oh... better be quick with it, then. If she really is a lady, reaching her bedroom might be a slow affair. And we all might be dead very soon..."

Sunny blinked.

"What? No, that was not what I..."

Soul Reaper laughed.

"Gods, Sunny, relax. In any case, are you prepared for tomorrow?"

Sunny glowered at her for a couple of moments, then scoffed. "Yeah, sure. As prepared as I can be."

Jet sipped some water from her flask, then shut it and grinned again.

This time, her smile gazed very ominous.

"Well, good. Because tomorrow came a little early. Go get your cohort, Major Sunless."

...In the next moment, loud sirens of the aerial attack alarm howled eerily throughout the city, echoing through the crowded streets.