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Eamon shook his head, but in truth he wasn't all that disappointed. The stupid got pruned. Niko had seemed competent enough, trustworthy even, but he hadn't obeyed an order, and this was the payment. The other one... Eamon didn't know him, so it was safe to assume he was just an idiot. Walking back outside the shop and up to the car, Eamon shook his head again. "Belay the reinforcement call, it got away. Call fer some bodybags. Two. Tell 'em to expect chunks."

Eamon turned to those left. "Alrigh', folks, weapons tight, let's pack up and head home. No sense sittin' out here waitin' fer somethin' else to go wrong." Eamon himself slid into the back seat,

Nathaniel just froze in his tracks as the phantom killed both Jake and Niko. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Two Illuminated agents, taken out by this... thing in a matter of seconds. He referred to it as a thing because it definitely was not a demon. Was it really that strong? The thin man stared at the knight, with its mustache and dark eyes, "What the ******** are you?" he asked of the thing as it bowed and vanished. Nathaniel stared at the bodies of his teammates, slightly confused as to what had just happened. He was beginning to regain control of his sanity once more, but the feeling of euphoria still lingered in his mind, making it hard for him to process what he had witnessed. He heard Eamon's order and nodded. Nathaniel walked out of the shop and moved slowly back to the car. He didn't feel anything for the lost. The strong survived, the weak fell.

The sickly man climbed into the armored vehicle. He took the front seat, rather than the seat he had occupied on the ride over, "Niko and the young one are dead." he said in an off handed way, shrugging. He glanced at the doctor before quickly looking away. She would be mad at him for chasing the Black Phantom. He couldn't blame her for that. It was a mistake to go after the thing.

Nathaniel glanced at her again, "I apologize," he began, "for running off. I was beginning to lose control. Too many kills all at once. It won't happen again." his apology was meant for the doctor, while his explanation was meant for Eamon. Nathaniel briefly wondered if Eamon had even read his file at some point. Now that he thought about it, this entire mission was one of the most ******** decisions SOUL had ever made. Putting a group of half mad, half reckless killing machines under the command of a drunkard and sending them out to fight a demon without them having even gotten to meet one another was ludicrously stupid. Not to mention, they threw in a non-Illuminated doctor who required the protection of at least one member of the team at all times. There were reasons that Nathaniel usually worked alone. Oh well. At least he had been able to kill something. That was all that really mattered to him in the first place.

"Explain Fragments," he inquired, refusing to proceed until he was slightly more illuminated on the topic and process of Fragments. He also mentally noted that the coins had differing colors.


A Fragment is an instance which has diverged irrevocably from the primary instance, The Terminal returned.

Uso mulled this over for just a moment before realizing what it meant: he wasn't supposed to die. "Explain Entering, Invading, and Assisting," was the next logical step.

The Terminal answered:
Enter: Access a Fragment with your BODY. You are currently in SPIRIT FORM and cannot access your BODY. While within a Fragment in your BODY, dying will result in loss of your BODY, return to The Terminal, and darkening of the Fragment.

Invade: Access a Fragment in SPIRIT FORM using a BLACK EYE COIN. You may attack
... parsing terminology...
Illuminated in the Fragment you invade as a BLACK PHANTOM. Killing them will return your BODY. You will also steal a portion of their souls.

Assist: Access a Fragment in SPIRIT FORM using a BLUE EYE COIN. Illuminated in danger within the Fragment may then call you to them as a BLUE PHANTOM; slaying a
... parsing terminology...
demon as a BLUE PHANTOM or helping your host to do so will return your BODY to you.

Fatal injury in SPIRIT FORM will result in loss of access to The Terminal and death.

Hm. That was... interesting. Jake Uso realized somewhere deep in his consciousness that this had HUGE ramifications, but for now didn't have the mind to deal with it all. He focused instead on the immediate task, which was figuring out this Terminal. "Is there more than one Fragment, and if so how many? What makes them different?"

"He was with me; I'll take a look," the other driver said. He got out of the car and walked to the unconscious Cress, then upon conclusion of his inspection picked him up in a fireman's carry and hauled him back. "He's not dead, but he seems pretty out. Looks like he hit his head on something." He gently lowered the fabulous Illuminated man into the back. "If anything else is the issue, someone can just do the Wizard thing and heal him up at base."


Uso received a somewhat concerning answer. The Terminal provides access to different Fragments at different times. The currently accessible Fragments are:

THE DREAMWEAVE (FIRST FRAGMENT, ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE)
NEW FRAGMENT (NO NAME DESIGNATION) (YOUR HOME FRAGMENT, ALWAYS ACCESSIBLE)

THE KINGDOM OF EMPYREA
THE FRONTIER

Fragments traits are a function of their resident demons, the manner of their initial divergence, and the effects of their continued divergence.

They are named by their residents who access The Terminal or by those who access the Fragment via the terminal after departing another Fragment.

Nathaniel assumed that bored expression once more, his eyelids floating halfway closed. He looked toward the man Eamon had pointed out, "To be honest, I have no idea who that is. He's been lying there for a while for somebody who's supposed to be alive." the man shrugged. It didn't really matter to Nathaniel if the man was alive or not. They had lost two members of the team. A third death didn't mean much in his eyes. If they had managed to weed out the weakest of their group so quickly, then things could only get better from there. Nathaniel was strong, Richard was strong, Strings was strong, Eamon was strong. That's all they needed. He yawned as the euphoria began to fade and give way to slight exhaustion. Nathaniel had been putting a lot of force behind his spells that afternoon. Normally, his jobs called for the use of one or two powerful spells rather than dozens.

Nathaniel looked back at Eamon skeptically, "I mean, I don't see what use he could be at this point. It looks like he got the worst of it when the car was split." he sighed as the driver from the other car hauled Cress into the vehicle.

Assisting Frontier. Transferring.

The Frontier #996600
Welcome to the Frontier.

A world formed around Jake Uso. First came the sand. So much sand. It stretched forever in every direction. Then, it didn't. Hills rose up, starting as though they were sand dunes and turning into actual masses. Tracks came into view. The blurring of the sand and the slow motion of the hills started to make more sense, Uso realized, as he was, in fact, on the tracks, and he was... moving with them?

A train. That explained it. It faded into place around him. He found himself hurtling towards the horizon as fast as this train he was on could take him. He was, it seemed, standing in a car, between two side compartments and atop some sort of blue glyph-

A man in a duster rolled through from one compartment to the other, slamming his hand against the blue glyph as he went over it. Uso materialized and found himself staring down the barrels of several men with rifles, revolvers, and-

Moments before they started firing, the man in the duster grabbed him and dragged him into the compartment behind him.

"Thanks for the sign! I could use some help right about now," the man said. He was not speaking any language Uso knew, but it didn't seem to matter. "Don't think I've seen you before." He had a sawn-off shotgun in his leather gloves, a long rifle of some type slung over his back, boots with spurs, and a tan scarf hanging around his neck - he was definitely not something one expected to see in early 21st-century San Lazaro. Then again, one also didn't expect to see a desert in 21st-century San Lazaro.

The rumble of the train below remained steady. Uso inspected himself - he was blue, with a faint white glow.

"So, here's the hand you've been dealt," the... cowboy, one could not help but think... declared. "One o' the big boss's boys is at the other end o' this train. Possessed. Judgin' by the stains I've spotted, his guards are tougher than they look. Top that with that the b*****d at the end is possessed, and we've got quite a fight ahead of us." He smiled faintly, and his deep-set brown eyes twinkled as he strapped on a pair of goggles with his free hand, adjusting them wherever the straps settled imperfectly on his short black hair.

"Got a better plan than shooting our way down the train? I'm starting to think it wasn't such a good idea."


"I can respect that," the other car's driver validated Eamon. "And I came out of the attack better than that guy did. I'm not Illuminated. Would you rather have me watching your back in a fight? I mean, if you weren't worried about me stabbing it, anyway," he continued, this time to Nathaniel. "Sometimes things come down to luck."

Eamon sighed as they pulled out. "They're dead. Y'can't help tha' now. I don' take pleasure in this, Dr. Miles, but it's a reality yer gonna have ta live with if yer comin' out with us again. People are gonna die sometimes. I don' like it and I stop it whenever I can, but it happens sometimes and ye need to be prepared for it." He took no pleasure in it, true. He just tried not to feel anything. It was the most effective thing. Sort of like a painkiller. And in some ways it was better this way. Better than letting those hollowed-out shells try to live normally. At least this way they had done someone some good. At least this way he had done someone some good.