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The Southern 103rd Cadet Corps 2nd quadrant training ground was a basin of orderly noise and youthful exertion, a world away from the grim tension of Scout Headquarters. The afternoon sun beat down on dusty fields where squads of cadets, clad in identical training uniform, moved through drills with a mixture of determination and adolescent awkwardness. The air rang with the clack of wooden practice swords and the sharp, guttural shouts of instructors.
Squad leader Rolf, with his weary demeanor, and his team, including the unassuming Duran, stood at the edge of the main field. They had been received by a single instructor, a man named Kent with a permanently skeptical squint and arms crossed over his barrel chest. The other instructor, a louder man named Ral, was busy bellowing at a formation of cadets.
"The Wings of Freedom..." a voice whispered, full of awe.
Oulo stood rigid in his own formation, his eyes wide as he stared at the green cloaks of the Scouts. All his fear, all the sleepless nights, momentarily vanished, replaced by a fierce, burnin' ambition.
'That's where I'm goin', he vowed silently. Soon as I graduate. I'll wear that cloak.'
"Eyes front, Bozado!" Instructor Ral's voice cracked like a whip, making Oulo flinch. "The Scouts aren't here to admire your slack-jawed gawking! Back to formation!"
As the cadets resumed their drills, Kent turned his skeptical gaze back to Rolf. "So. To what do we owe the honor? An inspection we weren't informed about?"
Rolf kept his tone neutral, diplomatic. "An investigation, Instructor. We're following up on reports of... unusual activity in the area. Have you or your cadets noticed anything out of the ordinary in the last week or so? Missing livestock? Strange sounds at night? Perhaps... sightings of a large, unidentified animal?"
Kent's squint intensified. He let out a short, derisive laugh. "Unusual activity? You mean the 'Demon Dog' fairy tale? Wait…" The instructor's face lit in realization as he put two and two together, of course…
"You've got to be kidding me. You Scouts, the great 'hope' of humanity, are chasing ghost stories now?"
Duran remained silent, his face a perfect mask of a dutiful, slightly bored soldier. Inside, he was cataloging every detail, every defensive position, every potential escape route.
Rolf's patience, already thin, began to fray. "The reports are consistent, Instructor. And the threat is real. We have reason to believe the creature may have originated from, or taken refuge in, one of the Cadet Corps training grounds."
"Originated from here?" Kent's voice rose in disbelief. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! We run a tight ship, Scout. There are no monsters in my supply closets. This beast of yours, if it exists at all, could have wandered in from a hundred different places! You're wasting your time, and more importantly, you're wasting mine."
"The creature attacked our headquarters just a day ago" Rolf said, his voice dropping, losing its diplomatic edge and gaining a hard, grim truth. "It tore through our main gear lockup and it injured our Comrades. It arrived hidden in a supply wagon that, according to its manifest, made a delivery here before coming to us."
The color drained from Kent's face, but it was quickly replaced by stubborn indignation. "An attack? On the Scouts? That's... that's a serious allegation. But it proves nothing! A creature that bold could have climbed aboard anywhere along the route! To come here, to my grounds, and accuse—"
Meanwhile, on the training field, the drills had escalated to 2v2 sparring matches. Oulo, paired with a lanky cadet named Thom, had just managed to tackle his opponent into the dirt, a cloud of dust puffing up around them.
"Ha! See that, Petra?" Oulo panted, looking over at the capable, auburn-haired cadet who was effortlessly disarming her own partner a few yards away. "Told ya my form was improvin'!"
Petra didn't even glance his way, her focus absolute. "Didn't see it, Oulo. Focus on your own match."
…Ouch.
Thom, getting to his feet and brushing himself off, grumbled and tossed Oulo the wooden practice knife. "Alright, my turn on defense. Let's see you attack, Bozado."
Oulo's triumphant grin faded as he took his stance. That's when he saw it. Just at the edge of the tree line, where the shadows were deepest. A flicker. Not of movement, but of light. A sick, deep blue glow, like a shard of rotten sky.
His blood ran cold. The fear he'd been suppressing came roaring back, freezing him in place. His grip on the practice knife went slack.
No-Not again, not again, not agai-
"Oulo? Snap out of it, man!" Thom yelled, his elbows held high. "What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost!"
The glow intensified. It wasn't his imagination. It was there. It was watching them.
"S-Somethin'..." Oulo stammered, his voice a choked whisper. He raised a trembling hand, pointing directly at the tree line.
"Thar! I saw it! Glowin' eyes! I told ya! I told ever'one!"
His outburst drew the attention of nearby cadets. Their sparring slowed, then stopped. A nervous murmur rippled through the group.
Instructor Ral stormed over, his face a thundercloud. "Bozado! What in the blazes is the meaning of this? More of your hysterics?"
"Sir, I swear! It's right thar! Look!" Oulo defended.
Ral followed his pointing finger, his eyes scanning the empty-looking tree line. "I see nothing but trees, Cadet! This is not the time for your—"
CRACK-BOOM!
The air itself shattered.
It wasn't a sound that traveled; it was a pressure wave that happened to them. The space at the edge of the field didn't just distort; it vomited the nightmare into reality.
The Vulpimancer materialized not with a stealthy phase, but with a violent, thunderous discharge of energy. It was larger than before, its purple fur seeming to crackle with unseen power. The V-shaped patterns along its body weren't just glowing; they were blazing, strobing erratically between deep blue and a blinding, painful white. The air around it shimmered with a heat haze that warped the light, and the stench of ozone and scorched meat washed over the field.
It stood on all fours, a monument of feral, agonized power. Its five good eyes burned like miniature suns, and the ruined sixth was a weeping, blackened crater. A low, subsonic growl rumbled from its chest, a vibration that could be felt in their bones.
For a heart-stopping second, there was only stunned, disbelieving silence.
Then, it moved.
It didn't run; it flowed, a blur of incandescent fury. It didn't target anyone specifically; it targeted the space they occupied.
A cadet who had been standing too close to its point of manifestation screamed as the superheated air around the creature washed over him. The skin on his arm and face instantly blistered and reddened, a wave of crippling heatstroke felling him before he could even do a thing.
"WHAT IS THAT?!" someone shrieked, the spell of horror broken.
Chaos erupted.
The creature pounced. Its target, a frozen cadet named Jansen, didn't have time to scream. A massive, clawed paw swiped down, and the sound was a wet, tearing crunch. The cadet was lifted and slammed into the ground, his body a ruin of shredded cloth and flesh, his training knife skittering away uselessly.
Screams erupted.
___________________
The argument between Rolf and Kent was cut off by the wave of screams. Both men, along with the Scout squad, spun around. Their professional discipline was the only thing that kept them from freezing completely at the sight of the abomination laying waste to the training field.
"By the Walls..." Rolf breathed.
"ODM GEAR! NOW!" he roared, his voice cutting through the panic. "DIVERT IT! DRAW IT AWAY FROM THE CADETS!"
The Scouts, a well-oiled machine, shot their anchors into the nearby barracks and trees, becoming green-clad projectiles. One scout, a man named Foss, swung low, his swords aimed at the creature's flank. He never made contact.
As he came within ten feet, the air around the Vulpimancer ignited. A visible wave of radiant heat, like the blast from a furnace, erupted outwards. Foss screamed, a raw, agonized sound, as the leather of his boot and the flesh of his leg below the knee were instantly scorched black. He lost control of his gear, crashing to the ground in a heap and clutched his smoldering leg.
"It's generating immense heat!" another scout, Lya, yelled. "We can't get close!"
"Then we harry it from a distance! Keep it moving! Cadets, FALL BACK! GET TO THE BARRACKS!" Rolf commanded, his mind racing. This was a beyond control situation. Their primary mission was a catastrophic failure. Now it was pure damage control.
They used their ODM gear not to attack, but to create a perimeter of movement and noise, zipping through the air, shouting, trying to confuse and draw the beast. It was working, barely. The Vulpimancer's head snapped back and forth, tracking the fast-moving blurs of heat and vibration, its rage divided.
"Fall back to the forest edge! Lure it away from the compound!" Rolf ordered, leading the retreat. The squad disengaged, using their gear to propel themselves towards the relative cover of the woods at the edge of the grounds. The Vulpimancer, enraged by the persistent, buzzing distractions, gave chase with a ground-shaking roar, its passage leaving smoldering footprints in the grass.
They thought they had a plan. They thought they had a chance.
They were wrong.
They landed deep in the woods, in a small, rocky clearing bisected by a shallow stream. The sounds of the panicked cadets were distant echoes now. The only immediate sound was the Vulpimancer's crashing pursuit, getting closer.
"Alright, catch your breath," Rolf ordered, his chest heaving. "We'll use the stream as a barrier, try to lose it in the thicker canopy on the other side. Foss, how's the leg?"
Foss was leaning against a tree, his face a mask of pain. "It's... bad, Rolf. I can't feel my foot."
"Ray, Lya, help him. Duran, keep watch on our six."
It was then that they noticed Duran wasn't panting. He stood perfectly calm, his hand reaching into a small, non-standard pouch on his belt. He pulled out a strange device, its surface a smooth, grey metal with a single, pulsating red light.
"Duran? What is that?" Lya asked, her brow furrowed in confusion and caution.
"A necessary measure," Duran said, his voice devoid of all emotion. The mask of the dutiful scout was gone, replaced by an unnerving, clinical calm. He pressed the center of the device.
There was no sound, no flash of light. But a wave of invisible energy washed over the four other scouts.
It felt like a thousand needles of ice shooting through their nervous systems simultaneously. Rolf's mouth opened to shout an order, but only a choked gasp emerged. His body went rigid, every muscle locking into place. He toppled over, landing hard on the rocky ground, his eyes wide with shock and horror, staring up at the canopy. He could see, he could hear, he could feel the rough stone digging into his cheek, but he could not move a single muscle, not even to blink. Lya, Ray, and the already-injured Foss collapsed around him in a similar state of total, terrifying paralysis.
Duran walked over to them, his footsteps crunching casually on the gravel. He knelt beside Rolf, his face impassive.
"I imagine this is quite confusing," he said, his tone conversational, as if discussing the weather. "My name is not Duran. I am Knight-Corporal Edric of the Forever Knights. And you, unfortunately, have become an obstacle to the purification of this world."
He gestured with the small device. "A technological Neural Inhibitor. Stuns the motor and vocal cortex. Quite effective. Painless, too, which is more than you deserve for your meddling."
The crashing in the forest was getting louder. The Vulpimancer was close. Rolf's eyes, the only part of him he could move, darted towards the sound, then back to Edric, screaming a silent question.
"Ah, you're wondering about the creature," Edric said, following his gaze. "A tragic affair, really. A Scout investigation team, led by the valiant Squad Leader Rolf, located the 'Demon Dog' at the 103rd Cadet Corps. In a brave but foolhardy attempt to subdue it, the entire squad was wiped out. A complete and total loss. No survivors. No bodies to recover. A story of tragic heroism that will, hopefully, discourage further... curiosity."
He stood up, looking down at his paralyzed comrades. "You see, if Erwin Smith or that lunatic Hange were to get their hands on this creature, they would not destroy it. They would seek to study it. To understand it. They would poke and prod at a cosmic blight, risking an even greater outbreak. The Scouts' sentimentality is a cancer. My order exists to cauterize such wounds."
The Vulpimancer burst into the clearing. It was a vision of hell, its fur smoking, its five eyes scanning the scene. It saw the paralyzed, helpless forms on the ground. Easy prey.
Edric didn't even flinch. He began backing away towards the stream. "My duty is to ensure no trace of your team remains to contradict the official story. The creature's... dietary habits... and its radiant heat will handle the evidence quite thoroughly. It's a rather elegant solution, don't you think?"
He watched as the Vulpimancer approached the nearest body; Ray. It lowered its head, its jaws opening, the intense heat making the air above Jochen's body shimmer.
"Consider your deaths a service to humanity," Edric said coldly, turning his back on the horrifying scene.
He waded across the shallow stream, the water hissing and steaming around his boots from the residual heat he'd carried. As he reached the other side, he heard the wet, sizzling sounds begin behind him. He didn't look back.
His mind was already on the next phase. 'The other teams,' he thought, pulling a small, flat slate and a stylus from another pouch. 'Mat's squad, Gelgar's... they're investigating the other corps grounds. Wasted effort. I need to get a message to Valerius. The target is confirmed here, at the 103rd. The Scouts' presence has been... sanitized. The Knights must mobilize now, before the creature moves on or the main Scout force gets suspicious.'
He scribbled a quick, coded message on the slate: TARGET CONFIRMED 103RD 2nd QUADRANT. SCENT STRONG. LOCAL HOSTILITIES NEUTRALIZED. REQUEST IMMEDIATE PURGE TEAM. FALSE FLAG FOR OTHER TEAMS ADVISED. -E
He tapped a sequence on the slate's edge, and the symbols glowed briefly before fading, the message sent via whatever arcane means the Knights employed. A "false flag"; perhaps a forged report of a sighting at a different location; would send the other Scout teams on a wild goose chase, buying the Knights more time.
He then mounted his horse, which he had tethered nearby before the "investigation" began. As he spurred it into a gallop, heading not back to camp but towards a pre-arranged rendezvous point, a single, cold thought echoed in his mind.
'Let them find the claw mark and the scent. Let them piece together the 'evidence' of a brutal, final confrontation. Let them mourn their heroes.'
The path was clear. The field was sanitized. The purge could begin. The only loose end was one he couldn't help: the cadets who had seen the beast. But they were children, their accounts would be dismissed as hysterical. Or better yet, Ser Valerius would know how to handle the situation. It seemed his time with the survey corps would have to be cut short…
….unless…
Chapter 25-31 are already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.