Jenso smiled as he managed to strike Sera thanks to the clones and Jeff's quick and well-timed help. As the castle began to shake and tip, Jenso dashed towards the unconscious king. He quickly threw the man on his shoulder and looked at Jeff. "Make sure Sera doesn't escape, Jeff...let's get outta here quick!" Jenso shouted, dashing towards the exit. "The walls will probably be too strong to break through...we need to find the hole that we entered with the hovercraft! This way, quick!" He said. He began to backtrack his way to the loading bay, albeit with much difficulity considering the castle was tipped 30 degrees. He ended up wall-kicking himself from wall to wall every now and then to get to points he needed to reach, and assumed that Jeff followed.

"You bastard.. couldn't take your lost with any sense of honor huh?" Jeff yelled as he pulled Sera too him with the intention of going for the knockout punch. "I'm coming Jenso, just let me tie up the loose end here."

Sera felt the chains tighten around his body as he was dragged across the room, but wasn't about to go out that easily. With a suddenly expulsion of force coming from his entire body, he pushed the chains away with an expansion of energy around his body in a sphere, and darted through a small opening towards the exit, ignoring Jenso, and darting for one of the stairwells that headed for the bottom of the castle. The floor began to tilt even more, now at a 40 degree angle, making it extremely difficult to keep one's balance. Sera took one glance back at Jeff before disappearing completely into the opposite corridor that Jenso took.

As Jenso made it to the loading bay, he saw Sera on the opposite end, jumping into a hovercraft piloted by several men in full mechanical armor. He glared at Jenso angrily and zoomed away underneath the castle, into the depths of Tech-mo, as the castle continued to fall.



"Are you ok master Sera?" one of Sera's men asked, looking over his torn robe with care. Two white robed mages infused his body with healing energies as they zoomed over the city, while his other men drove the hovercraft. There were 5 men on the craft in total, including Sera. A lithe man with extremely high tech goggles, and a man who's face was completely obscured by a strange breathing helmet. His body was also covered in sectioned off armor pieces, that seemed to cover all of his skin.

"I'm fine," Sera insisted. He looked down as his hand and clenched it cautiously. "It seems that this new power is unstable. That Gaian's Ki is trying to overpower my control. It almost knocked me out during that fight. If it wasn't for that.." Sera paused and slammed his fist against the rim of his hovercraft. "No, that's not all. It was also that other man, with the gauntlets. I didn't imagine there would be somebody else with Arki mastery. I though that level of control over arcane energy and Ki was unique to elven kind. His power on top of that... The two of them together may pose a problem for us if they stand in my way." Sera looked back towards the falling castle and smirked. "We may have lost the battle, but the war will be ours.." He nodded and smiled.

"The king is dead."

---

Jenso's eyes widened as Sera boarded a hovercraft and flew away. 'Shit...he escaped?! And he actually beat me here too? Darn it!' Jenso thought, clenching his fists. He could try to jump out through the hole, but there was a big chance that he would be crushed by the castle. Not only that, but he did not want to leave Jeff behind. And he was unable to properly control a hovercraft. He waited for Jeff to catch up, knowing it wouldn't take him long to do so. He placed the body of the King down and quickly began to check his pulse and energy signature to see if the man was still alive.

"That slipperly rat!" Jeff yelled as he was half tempted to chase the man down, but knew he'd be better off just trying to escape the castle which was clearly on its last leg. He then proceeded to head in the direction Jenso took using his powets of wind to help keep his balance. Not too long after closed the distance and caught up to him.
"Okay we need to bail now!" he yelled in near as he dug into his pockets looking for the hovercraft keys. "Sorry I let him escape Jenso, but we'll get him next time."

The king's pulse was faint, but his energy signature was practically non existent. What did Sera do to him?

Jenso frowned and grabbed the king gently. He got into the hovercraft quickly. "Don't worry about it man...He even outspeeded me, and managed to escape in a hovercraft just now. Looks like he had more fight left in him than we thought. Perhaps I shouldn't have rushed out of the room like that...The king's still alive, but he's in a really bad state." Jenso said to Jeff, waiting for him to control the Hovercraft. "Sera must have drained the king's energy like he did with Ross.." Jenso added.

"I don't understand thoough" Jeff said confused as to Jensos actions. "Didn't this king try to absorb your friends? Why are you helping him?"
Regardless of the answer Jeff still jumped aboard the hovercraft and uwed his key to start the device up, ready to speed the thing out of dodge of the collasping castle.

"I've been told by Sera and his men that the king has been absorbing people's energies too, but Sera and his followers were really the ones who absorbed Ross's energy and nearly did the same with Mikey. We gotta get him as fast as possible. I was going to interrogate the king to be sure, but it looks like things got out of hand. I have some questions for him, and maybe he'll know a way to track Sera down." Jenso replied to Jeff. "We need to make sure his pulse is stable and that he's conscious so he can talk to us at the very least."

"To be fair Jenso" Jeff said with a concerned look on his face as he continued to piolet the ship out of here. "Not sure if he's gonna make it, though we can try and rush him to the med center if you wish."
When he came to medicine and things on the lines of healing, it really wasn't something he was best suited for. Sure he had that onr machine at the lab, but it was ment for patching up broken bones and other non fatals.

Jenso nodded at Jeff as they took off. "Dang...well, we should go there either way. Lark, Mikey and Vale might still be there. If Sera is really after Lark's energy like Vale said, then we have to hurry!" Jenso stated.

Jenso and Jeff darted their way across Techmo as the giant castle hovered diagonally above the city and continued to fall until it crashed into the pre-made crater below it. The castle did not fall to pieces, and it seemed like most of those present within had escaped, but several research bays and a small portion of the marketing district were caught in the crash, tearing down several warehouses and knocking the levitation crystals off their axis. It seemed that the junctions were what Sera's men blew up, causing the collapse. The castle was now a ruin, but held together relatively fine. Jeff and Jenso were long gone before the chaos began...

---

Within the medbay, Vale was standing over Lark's body. It seemed that the med-bots had already tended to his physical wounds, as well as Mikey's, leaving them to recover on their own. Mikey was already sitting on the edge of his op-table, but Lark was barely conscious, looking at Vale with a blank stare. He knew where this was headed already, as did Vale. Vale turned to Jenso with a very rare frown, and narrowed his eyes before returning his gaze to Lark. Mikey looked over to Jenso and waved him over sheepishly.

Jenso smiled as he saw his friends again. He was relieved to see that his friends were fine, but frowned as he noticed Lark's blank stare. He headed over to Mikey and Lark with a small grin on his face. "Good to see you're okay, guys!" Jenso said happily to his friends. "Vale told me something happened to Pij..." Jenso said in a sad tone to Lark. He didnt want to bring up the fact that Pij may have died, but it was certainly possible.

Lark's eye muscles tightened and Vale turned to Jenso slowly. "It's fine, Damien," Lark mumbled, clasping onto the vampire's wrist lightly. Vale sneered and pulled away from Lark, sitting down on a nearby op-table. Mike didn't jump down from his table, but he nodded to Jenso.

"Have it your way, Larken," Vale mumbled. Lark shook his head and smiled for a moment before his expression once again fell to pieces.

"Pij is gone."

Jenso looked at the ground and frowned. "Damn...that's horrible..." Jenso muttered in a sad tone, and clenched his fists. He was silent for a long moment. He simply did not know what to say. "I shouldn't have fought Rajaka in the first place...I wanted to see if I could stand a chance and possibly take one of them down, but you guys had to rescue me and now Pij...." Jenso muttered. He did not look at Lark, he felt too ashamed to do so. "I'm not going to let them get away with this, Lark. I'm going to make them pay." He added.

Lark chuckled quietly, quickly tripping into a series of weak coughs. He sighed and turned his head to Jenso. "I can't summon my soul breaker anymore, I can't even walk. My Ki is fading rapidly, and my emotions are beginning to dampen, but you weren't in the wrong. If you hadn't fought Rajaka, he would have rampaged through Feralda, and killed everyone, including young Mikey here." Lark paused and turned to Mikey, who looked a little confused and alarmed to be acknowledged. Lark turned back to Jenso again with a wide smile, shining past the gruff stubble that lined his face. "Remember what I said, a loss is only the end if you let it consume you... Don't seek vengeance or act rashly on my behalf," Lark stopped hard on that last word and coughed quietly several times. He turned his head back to face the ceiling and sighed. "I'm such a hypocrite, haha... If only I was quicker. I could have killed Rajaka before his friend had a chance to assist..."

"Rajaka isn't somebody to take lightly... I could have told you that." Jeff said as he brought the king into the room and had him setup into one of the meildibays. "I'm sorry, it pains me to see this madman still seems to be causing trouble in these parts. He definitely isn't a problem that will seem to wver go away.. not unless we act together against it."

"Who is that guy?" Mikey asked, pointing to Jeff briefly.