They left at dawn, skipping breakfast this time due to rising nerves. Their last battle had been too close for comfort. Without an Alfar guide, it took half the time to reach the area.

From there, Hector and the Titans slipped into the thick woods.

It took them five minutes to encounter their first monster. The giant spider died before it even knew a threat was present. It had been busy dismembering a small animal. They swept through the forest, attacking and counter-attacking individual monsters and small groups of monsters.

None of their opponents proved particularly challenging. The three of them steamrolled everything they came across. In fact, the greatest opponent proved to be thirst. Titans and tropical climates truly did not mix well. Nestor and Ajax emptied the coconut canteens provided by the villagers before the first hour was out. Then they complained of thirst at regular intervals.

The work continued. Their small team slaughtered monsters of all forms with impressive efficiency. Though some of their success had to do with the environment. A massive buffalo could barely navigate the dense foliage, making it simple to kill. A giant chicken had to weave between trees, making it easy to spot before it could get close.

Noon came and went.

Then, in the early afternoon, they encountered the rift. The angry red tear in reality was visibly shrinking, indicating that all the miasma had already passed into the world. That was both good and bad. Good because obviously no more monsters would be coming out of it. Bad because they no longer had a means to bottleneck their attackers.

The region directly around the gate had only an army of possums to contend with. Other than the fact that the creatures were hideous to look at, they were not a problem. There were a lot of them, though. Hector commented on the fact. "I always thought that if an actual rift formed then the monsters emerging would be random. Yet here are a bunch of duplicates. The same thing happened in the battle with all the goats."

Ajax answered. "Rifts don't rip open immediately. First miasma seeps through. Some of that weakens the dimensional membrane to let the rift form. The rest starts forming monsters, usually all of the same type. When the rift tears itself open, that's when things speed up and you get every random form possible. These possums have been lurking in the area for a while, waiting for their chance to strike."

One dropped towards Hector, hissing while extending its paws threateningly. Hector drove his fist straight up and caused the falling monster to explode into gory mist. "I'm starting to think you were right about the bees being the problem with our last battle, Ajax."

"Damn bees," Ajax agreed.

Hector had been pausing from time to time to mentally cultivate the chaos in the area. It was rich here. So was the miasma, which meant he had to be serious about fighting back the inimical essence from entering his aperture. Fortunately, his mind felt stronger than ever after beginning his new practice. Mentally cultivating in a war zone felt a touch foolish, but Hector couldn't help himself. When would he next be in such close proximity to an open rift? Maybe he could talk Darius or Conrad into guarding him in the dungeon while he cultivated some mental band chaos.

They mopped up the possums, then took a quick break as the rift faded out of existence.

"Do we just keep hunting?"

Ajax made a face. "I say you bait them in again."

"That could go bad," Nestor countered. "We haven't seen the crane yet."

"What do you think, Hector? Bait or wait?"

Hector smiled. "Well, I can't resist a good rhyme. Let's bait them out." Having said that, he rose into the air to the level of the treetops before lowering himself back to the ground.

A few random monsters answered his challenge. Squirrel, hawk, kangaroo, and rat.

Ajax laughed. "Is that it? We were worried for nothing. This entire day has been –"

Thunder shook the earth. All around them, trees rocked back and forth.

"Ajax! You mocked fate with that one!" Nestor braced his feet wide and looked about wildly. "Is it the crane?"

Earthquake-inducing steps grew closer. The three of them spun in a certain direction, clued in by the collapse of trees. A dopey pinched green face stared down at them from above, expanded to gigantic proportions. It almost seemed the thing smiled.

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"A damn tortoise?" Nestor looked like he was about to lose his mind. "And where is the crane?" An eruption of gunfire in the distance answered that question.

Ajax stepped towards Hector. "Fly over to help Fred kill his enemy. Then prepare a trap for this guy. We're leading him right to you."

"Right. You guys stay alive." Hector jumped into the air and shot away, following the sounds of Fred's plasma rifle. Behind him came thunderous footsteps. His rapid flight shot him past the treeline in no time at all and Hector had to bank in a large circle that looped out over the river.

Fred was reversing at full speed while alternating salvos from his two plasma rifles. The crane stomped forward, hindered by trees falling at auspicious moments to complicate its path forward. Hector saw Leroy leap forward and knock down supporting scaffolding to allow a critically damage tree to collapse.

The three left behind on the path apparently hadn't been lounging around while Hector and the Titan brothers went to war. They had a shocking amount of traps prepared taking advantage of the local environment. The next step of the crane hit a part of the trail that had its base dug out along the water's edge, causing the weight of the giant bird's foot to penetrate deep.

As the monster recovered from that stumble, another tree thudded in its path. That proved sufficient to topple the monster. It managed to not bury its beak this time. Yet as the crane began to regain its feet, Hector was there.

He flew directly inside the open beak. This thing had to die fast. Misfit Squad didn't want to be stuck between two monstrous mega-fauna. The quickest way Hector knew to kill something was to destroy the brain, heart, or lungs. He didn't know that he could reach the brain or heart, but this beast just happened to be a mouth breather.

Hector wedged himself into the wind pipe and extended cables of force deeper into the dark interior. He sliced at the walls of the trachea until they bled profusely, then worked his cables into the flesh outside so that he could collapse the breathing tube entirely. Angry miasma boiled up around him, eager to infest his own flesh. He held his breath in response and shot back.

Though the beak was now closed, Hector managed to bust out with a fierce effort.

He somersaulted through the air, skipped across the surface of the river, and crashed into the trees on the far side. Then Hector was in the air and coming back. The crane charged at him through water. That was good. The bird chasing him meant it wasn't going after Fred.

Though his squad leader still had no idea what was coming. He'd just have to trust that Cleo would be using her super senses to keep Fred informed of the new threat. Hector trusted his squad to handle themselves. He just had to make sure they weren't caught between a rock and a hard place.

The crane wobbled as it stalked him, fading fast due to a lack of oxygen. Hector smiled and flew further away. It would be great if he could get the monster out of the river. Releasing miasma into a waterway seemed like a dick move. Or maybe letting it dilute in moving water would be less harmful to the ecosystem? Hector didn't know if containment or dispersal would be better. All he could say for certain was that dead was better than alive as far as monsters were concerned.

He hovered over the far treeline and the crane almost made it that far before collapsing into a watery grave. Hector grimaced. He'd just have to hope the downstream impact wouldn't be too terrible. Meanwhile, the tortoise had burst free of the forest.

Hector had a panoramic view of the two Titans taking stock of the situation and then deliberately running the opposite direction as Fred. The monster followed them without hesitation, unaware that the rover was charging it from behind now.

Gunfire rang out once more. Hector shot forward and whipped a cable at an exposed eye taller than he was. A well-timed blink saved that eye.

No matter. Hector hovered in front of the face and threatened both visual organs with cables, denying the beast the use of its sight. From behind, bullets tore up legs. Down below, Nestor jumped up and began to climb a front leg. In the distance, Ajax was sprinting back towards the tortoise with something in his arms.

The missing sword arm of Fred.

Once Nestor reached the top of the leg and could wedge himself into a nook at the bottom of the shell, his brother threw the sword arm like a javelin. Nestor caught the expertly thrown projectile with one hand and resumed his climb.

Down below, Ajax made the same gesture towards Hector that toddlers used to get their parents to pick them up. With a smile, Hector wrapped a cable around the Titan and hauled him up to the very top of the shell. Nestor in turn tossed the sword arm higher. Ajax reclaimed the weapon and crouched down with it held in his hands as if preparing a finishing move.

Nestor finished his climb and laid hands on the weapon as well. The two brothers meditated there, holding the weapon while the tortoise cautiously snapped at the air in front of it, trying to target Hector without losing an eye. Finally, the beast opened one and its head lunged forward.

Despite his best efforts, Hector could not simultaneously escape and gouge out an eye. He had to prioritize his own survival. As he flew back, he saw the two Titans rush forward with the sword arm held between the two of them like a battering ram. Their weapon pierced the base of the tortoise's head and drove deep inside.

It looked like the monster was taking a step forward to come after Hector.

Quickly he realized that the tortoise was collapsing in death. He shot out cables to catch his allies and flew the three of them back to the ground just in time for a cloud of dust from the monster's impact with the ground to cover them.

When they could see again, Ajax slapped Hector on the back. "That was an epic battle."

"Always nice to end a fight with my clothes still on," Hector quipped.

Fred caught up with them, the two Arahants on his back. "I'm going to declare this as 'mission accomplished' and leave any monster stragglers for the locals to clean up. I really want to get back to the main body of the task force."

Hector cleared his throat. "Could we take a small break here first?" He wanted to get in another hour or two of mental cultivation while he could.

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