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Thomas opened his eyes and sat up while coughing the vile smoke out of his blackened lungs. The night\'s cold, clean air was so refreshing even as it dove under his wet clothes and made goosebumps run along his skin. He took in as much fresh air as he could in between his heavy coughs. Two heavily scarred hands gently pushed him prone, back on the hard dirt.

"Take it slow," a faintly familiar voice said. The hands guided his breathing by pushing up and down on his chest. "In through the nose." Thomas breathed in. "And out through the mouth." The hands pushed down, pushing the fresh air out. Four fingers were held out in front of him. "Thomas, can you tell me how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three…no four," Thomas replied, his blurry vision steadily focusing. He glanced to the figure kneeling next to him, someone a year or two older than him and dressed in a white robe.

Oliver\'s deformed face twisted into a smile with a collection of cracking. "Good enough. If you have any trouble breathing, let me know." He helped Thomas sit up, pat him on the shoulder, and moved down the line of unconscious students, all of which were covered in ash and coughing up smoke.

Thomas cast his gaze towards the Knights\' Academy. The fires surrounding the building had been extinguished but smoke still billowed out of the tiny cracks in the otherwise sealed house. Eugene stood at the base, staring up as if he could see through the walls.

His glasses reflected yellow, red, orange, and blue outlines of humanoid figures. Wherever he pointed, Mr. Bruke would charge in, emerging later through either a window or a doorway with as many students as he could carry. He then handed them off to students, who would bring them over to the line of unconscious figures where Thomas had woken up.

"Frey," Thomas called out, wondering how a giant could be so elusive. Then a familiar scent hit him, one of sweat, blood, and determination. His stomach rumbled as he followed the smell to see Frey with two unconscious figures over his shoulders.

The giant\'s eyes were still red and puffy from the smoke, but he narrowed them anyway, searching for Thomas. "Who called to me?" He rubbed his eyes and winced.

"Here," Thomas jumped up and flicked him on the forehead.

Frey smiled: "Oh Oliver, where should I put these guys?"

Thomas wanted to laugh as much as he wanted to cry. "It\'s me, Thomas. Glad to know that you can still recognize my voice after we have been friends for so long."

"Sorry," Frey chuckled. "You are usually crying out for help so I recognize your scream better than your voice." Thomas went silent, trying and failing to think of some kind of retort. Frey looked around, still squinting with his puffy eyes, and frowned. "Can someone take these guys?"

"I can take them off of your hands," a voice called out, Miss Vessa. Copper life essence flooded out of her hands as she covered the two unconscious students\' mouths. Her frail, thin hands cracked and twisted, turning into a mush-like state similar to Elero\'s legs. She didn\'t even wince, although both Frey and Thomas did. Life essence swirled like a vortex, tearing large holes through her palms.

"Um…Miss Vessa." Thomas pointed at the instructor\'s palms. "Y-you. Hands. Was that supposed to happen?" He sputtered, trying to say something but with so many questions floating around in his head, all thoughts grinded to a screeching halt.

"Please be quiet while I\'m working dear," Miss Vessa said as a transparent membrane of skin stretched over her palms with countless, tiny holes in them. The students\' chests rose and fell, making the membrane expand and contract. Toxic air flew out of the membranes\' holes and dispersed. "You two have a lot to learn in the academy, especially since I\'m the only instructor who…conducts experiments with life essence. You see, what I did with these two youths was-"

Thomas pointed over his shoulder at Elero, who was lying down a hundred feet away from everything. "I should probably….be doing something, isn\'t that right Frey?" Frey vehemently nodded, dropped the two students with a thud, and backed away with Thomas, who were both trying to tear their eyes away from Miss Vessa\'s acts of "healing".

The giant leaned over to Thomas and whispered. "I think we\'ll leave this kind of thing to Doevm when he gets out, right?"

Thomas nodded. "Oh wait, is that what Doevm did to revive me? After a Bullfrog nearly drowned me." Frey laughed, put a hand on his shoulder, and pushed him over to Elero, all the while avoiding eye contact and suppressing a chuckle.

Elero lay on the ground with her hands supporting her head. Her deformed legs sprayed out as two lumps of flesh. She gazed up at the star-filled sky with a blank expression. "Hey," she said, not even going through the effort to confirm who it was.

"Hey Elero," Frey responded. The greeting came rough out of his dry throat. His heavy, clanking steps came to a stop. "So, did you accomplish what you set out to do?"

She twitched and finally turned her head to look at the duo. "Kind of." She put on a sad smile as she brushed her sweaty black hair out of her face. "But it came at a cost." She gestured to the lumps of metal beside her, what remained of her braces. "I knew they wouldn\'t much last longer, even if we had bent them back into place. I had to fight with them on, in order to preserve my life essence."

Frey raised an eyebrow. Thomas stepped back, feeling the slight cold of the night grow to an icy tension. Frey took a deep breath. "And is that why you ran off on us?"

Elero shrugged. "I just wanted to beat the shit out of something so I went ahead and did it. I thought that I\'d be fine."

Thomas bit his lip, letting the pain overwhelm his nerves and allowing him to step closer to them. "Is everything good? I feel like someone\'s about to draw a weapon." He alternated his gaze between Elero and Frey. "Because I thought we were done with this kind of stuff. We need to be done with that. We\'re too far in the game to be divided now."

"I\'m done with digging into people\'s business but staying together is an entirely different matter," Frey countered. "Grouping up is the only way I survived the front lines, and now we face overwhelming odds. We need to come to a decision." He stared at Elero. "Are you going to go off and lose by yourself, again, or get stronger alongside us for the battle ahead? I know I\'m not exactly a shining beacon of trust but-"

"Frey…" Thomas cut him off. "Maybe you should let me handle these kinds of things. You kind of sound like you\'re interrogating her." He walked straight up to Elero, took a deep breath, and grabbed her by the shoulders. "What do you want from us!?"