9 Dread

It didn't take long for Cynthia to find another squad shortly after killing Oskar and his squad.

From the sight of the destroyed security droids that littered the halls, Cynthia was able to confirm that the Chromata Crew were still just as competent as they were five years ago.

Of course, that didn't mean anything in the face of Cynthia's immense psionic capabilities, as long as she wasn't forced to over-stain and possibly destroy her relatively fragile body.

In fact, she had to thank them for continuing to use that old 'split into three man squads' tactic that they seemed to have grown fond of.

If she'd had to face all of them at once, even Cynthia couldn't guarantee being able successfully eliminate all of them before the psionic stress destroyed her body.

The next group that she encountered was composed of two females and one male. The male wore 'extra light exo-suit' armour like Tracy had and was mostly the 'auxiliary-man' of the group while the two females wore the 'light exo-suits' similar to those worn by Jordan and Oskar and were visibly more 'capable'.

Out of the three, none of them were psionic.

Currently, only one of them was still alive.

Emphasis on the word 'currently.'

With all of her might, the lone survivor ran through the halls in an attempt to escape her fate.

Her appearance was worse for wear, there were visible scorch marks on her breastplate and her fairly long brown hair that reached her shoulders were disheveled and lightly singed.

Her hazel eyes were wide open and were bloodshot, as if she just witnessed an unbelievable sight.

While she ran, she pressed two fingers on her right hand into her right ear and spoke out loud.

"This is Blu of Team Primary! Requesting any nearby units for support! I repeat! This is Blu of Team Primary! Requesting immediate suppo-guuaahhhh!"

As the woman named 'Blu' tried to call for more reinforcements, she was suddenly interrupted by her own screams of pain before she suddenly tumbled over.

The momentum she gained from running combined with the weight of her body caused her to be thrown forward before rolling on the floor after she hit it.

As clumsy as Blu may seem to be and as weak as she actually was, Cynthia still had to to commend her perseverance and tenacity.

Blu didn't even wait to rest and regain her bearings before she immediately attempted to stand back up and run again, only to quickly fall back over.

She hadn't noticed it yet.

How extremely pitiful.

At this sight, Cynthia couldn't help but make a sarcastic yet cold remark.

"Did the adrenaline get to your head? Why don't you take a good look at your feet."

When Blu heard Cynthia's remark, she turned her eyes downwards only to be met with a horrific sight.

She didn't 'see' her feet.

Or rather.

She no longer had any.

Instead, all that was left was a pair of burnt black stumps at her ankles with bits of melted fabric and metal attached to them.

When Blu saw the condition of her 'feet,' her eyes widened in shock and even sporadically twitched while her mouth trembled in fear.

She didn't even have the strength to speak anymore.

With only her hands and thighs to support herself, Blu could only sit up and cower before Cynthia.

On other hand, Cynthia couldn't stop herself from mocking the poor defenceless operative.

After all, Blu was supposedly a trained killer who worked as an operative under the Velsulis Family.

And yet here she was, at the mercy of a mere child.

"You should have killed yourself when you still had the chance. Now... you have a much worse fate awaiting you."

This time, Blu was able to find her voice and respond to Cynthia.

"Why?.. Why are you doing this?"

"Why? You skipped the 'how' and moved on to why already? Well I guess people's priorities can differ."

Cynthia shook her head in a derisive manner as she spoke, further mocking Blu through her actions.

"Hmph. Not that, that matters anyw-"

"Giiieeee"

However, Cynthia was interrupted by Blu's awkward inhuman screech as the latter tried to open fire at the former with the Gauss Pistol that she hid behind her back.

Well, Blu tried to anyway.

Before Blu can even pull the trigger, her pistol along with her entire hand was instantly disintegrated by a 'green fireball' that flew at a speed too fast to be registered by the average human eye.

Blu didn't even register what had just happened until a full five seconds had passed.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!"

Like earlier, Blu's screams echoed throughout the ship's hallways as she wriggled on the floor, clutching the burnt mess that used to be her hand.

Cynthia didn't know know what sort of expression she held on her face as she sighed before she once again spoke up.

"If you wanted to save yourself, then you failed. But... if you wanted to piss me off... then you just succeeded."

When Blu heard Cynthia's words, her screaming voice gradually began to quieten down and was instead replace by something else.

It was replaced by her pitiful whimpers.

Like a fearful dog Blu whimpered.

But that did nothing to earn Cynthia's sympathy.

Like Oskar, Tracy, Jordan and every other member of the so-called 'Velsulis Family,' they had all betrayed Cynthia in the end.

And Cynthia had already made her stance on traitors clear to herself.

Soon Cynthia placed her right hand forward in the shape of a fist with her index finger pointing upwards. Within seconds, a small green flame began to emanate out of said index finger.

Although even just minimal usage of the green flames still caused strains on Cynthia's body, she couldn't deny how effective and efficient it actually was.

Her own pain just could not compare to the results brought through the use of green flames.

Without so much as a second thought, Cynthia gave a mental order to the green flame resting gently on her finger tips.

As soon as she gave the mental order, the green flame disappeared entirely.

"Ghuahh."

In response to the disappearance of the flames, Blu made a sudden gasping sound.

Not out of surprise at the flames disappearing, but because of what happened when they did.

As Cynthia stared at Blu, she could now spot a new pair of two holes which were only a finger-width wide in diameter that pierced her chest.

Both holes glowed a white-yellow colour and had smoke emanating out of them.

In that split second after Cynthia gave her green flame a mental command, it had punctured both of Blu's lungs.

The right lung was pierced from the first impact before going through her body and going back like a boomerang to pierce the left lung.

Blu started to repeatedly wheeze before she proceeded to collapse onto the floor, her hand that once supported her body, giving away under her.

As Blu lay wheezing on the floor, Cynthia heaved another satisfied sigh.

Against Oskar and his squad, Cynthia could only test how well she could manipulate the fist sized balls of green flame in the heat of battle.

But against the defenceless Blu, Cynthia was given time to practice her more intricate skills.

With this in mind, Cynthia couldn't help smiling in satisfaction.

Her 'day' just kept getting better and better.

...

On the other side of the Eden, within the bridge, Cynthia's caretaker and the chief maid of the entire ship; Mary paced back and forth within said bridge as she desperately tried to retake control of the situation.

From the intelligence she was able to gather, there were multiple hostile squads, each consisting of three men each roaming the inside of the ship.

So far, none of them had attempted to breach the ship's bridge so the possibility of the ship being the target could be ruled out.

No matter what these hostile attacker's original goal actually was, it was still imperative that Mary upheld her duty and kept the ship and all of its assets safe.

As she stood next to one of the droids at one of the bridge's control panels and checked on the ship's current condition, she was approached by a servant droid before it gave her it's report.

"Ma'am, we have failed to re-establish the Eden's surveillance and security systems. We have also lost contact with all security droids save for the ones with us in the bridge. The likelihood of all of those aforementioned security droids being eliminated is over 90%."

Mary felt her heart drop when she heard what the servant droid had to say.

What made her heart tremble was not the loss of those expensive droids or even the risk of her own life, but the risk of Cynthia's.

With no security droids to protect her and no surveillance system to watch over her, Cynthia was very vulnerable to the forces behind this attack.

That is, if she was still safe to begin with.

The odds of her being seized and taken away without Mary knowing was very high.

It was quite obvious that Cynthia had to be the attacker's objective.

If it was a robbery then they would have attacked when there was no humans and only droids on the ship, when the risk of discovery was at the lowest.

Instead, they went out of their way to commit to a raid when Cynthia and Mary returned to the ship.

It was highly unlikely that the attacker's target was Mary; a person to who to them was only a mere chief maid of a rich entrepreneur.

That left only one possible target that they could be after.

Cynthia.

"Damn it! Why did I have send her to her bedroom! I should have kept her with me! At least by then should would be safe!"

Mary couldn't help shouting out loud in anger in response to this horrible development, an occurrence that rarely happened.

In her own moment of crisis, when she had no one else to go to, it was Adam Starr that Mary had to thank for lending her a helping hand.

And now, when the moment came for her to return the favour, all she could give him is failure.

Perhaps Mary should already start mentally preparing how she was going to personally report to Adam Starr.

It would be insincere to do anything less.

Maybe she could earn his forgiveness if she explained things properly.

However, the longer Mary dwelled on these thoughts, the more determined she became.

"No!.. I... I can't allow that!"

Before she could actually do anything, she was suddenly stopped by the beeping of one of the control panels of the ship.

The droid at the panel spoke up to answer Mary's question before she could even ask it.

"Ma'am... Another ship has warped into the nearby vicinity. We have yet to determine if said ship is friendly or hostile."

Mary felt her eyes widen in shock and fear as she approached the droid.

"What? Bring up a visual of the ship."

"As you wish ma'am."

Soon, an image of the new ship appeared on the screen of the control panel.

The first thing about the new ship to catch Mary's eye was the insignia painted onto it.

An insignia that Mary was all too familiar with.

She remembered that back when she used to be an operative of P.A.I.N. there was a military organisation that was also under the Intergalactic Terran Confederation that she and other P.A.I.N. operatives often worked with.

That insignia that Mary saw on that ship belonged to the very same military organisation that Mary used to work with.

It was the insignia of the Direct Response Elite Assault Division.

And that could only mean one thing.

The elite Crimson Marines of 'D.R.E.A.D.' had arrived.