Nine figures moved through this darkness, eight warriors on foot with their silver armor catching what little light filtered through the trees. The armor was masterwork with engraved plates fitted perfectly over black cloth that showed only at the joints.

  Each piece had been crafted for function and beauty both, these were not common soldiers, and the way they moved proved that with perfect synchronization, no wasted motion, and not a sound except the soft press of boots against moss.

  At the front of the formation, a woman rode a Rathen Apex.

  Larger than the one that would soon be found dead by the stream with orange fur that seemed to glow even in the dim light and black stripes running down its powerful flanks. Every movement showcased the incredible musculature beneath that pelt as the Rathen Apex moved with the absolute confidence of an apex predator, moving like something that believed it feared nothing.

  The woman sat the saddle as if she'd been born there with black hair pulled back so tight it might have been painful. Her face was composed and calm as one hand rested on the spear that lay across her lap while the other held the reins with the barest touch, she barely needed to guide the creature because it knew where to go and knew what she wanted without words.

  She raised one fist in a simple gesture.

  The entire formation stopped instantly with eight warriors frozen mid-step as if they'd been carved from stone.

  She made a sound, sharp and quick, almost like a bird's call but with an edge of command that no bird possessed.

  The warriors understood immediately and spread out, created a defensive perimeter around their leader as spears came to ready positions and eyes scanned the darkness for threats.

  One warrior approached her mount and dropped to one knee, disciplined.

  She looked down at him and said nothing, waited for his report.

  "Blood, my lady. Recent. And signs of extended combat."

  She dismounted in one smooth motion that spoke of decades of practice, and her boots touched the moss without making a sound.

  "Show me."

  The warrior rose and led her through the trees while behind them, the other seven Vaekk maintained their positions.

  The sound of running water grew louder as they approached and the stream appeared through the undergrowth, peaceful, with the water flowing over smooth stones with that timeless sound that streams make.

  But beside that peaceful stream, sprawled across the moss in a way that seemed almost obscene, lay a body.

  Orange fur matted with blood with black stripes, massive even in death.

  A Rathen Apex. Dead.

  Aram stopped three meters away from it and didn't rush forward or react visibly, just stood there and looked at the corpse with the kind of focus that comes from years of reading battlefields and death scenes.

  The warrior who had brought her here stood silent beside her, waiting, as he knew better than to interrupt her analysis.

  She studied everything about how the body lay, the posture, the positioning of the limbs, the way the head was angled. A Rathen Apex should die with dignity, should die fighting, should die on its feet with defiance in its eyes even as life fled.

  This one had not died that way.

  This one had died afraid.

  She could see it in the sprawl of the limbs, in the way the single remaining eye was frozen wide, and in the twist of the body that spoke of desperation in those final moments.

  A Rathen Apex, afraid, terrified.

  That was almost impossible.

  Aram moved forward slowly, knelt beside the massive corpse, and placed one hand on its flank. The fur was still warm, not hot like a living creature but not yet cold. Whoever did this had left only moments ago.

  Her fingers traced through the orange fur and she knew this exact shade of orange, knew the precise pattern of these black stripes, had watched this creature grow from a cub, and had selected it herself from among dozens of candidates.

  Her hand stopped moving.

  The warrior beside her saw the recognition cross her face and he knew too, could read it in the set of her shoulders and in the way her fingers had gone still against that familiar fur.

  Aram's jaw tightened just slightly, it was the only outward sign of what she was feeling as years of discipline and control kept everything locked down inside.

  Her eyes began tracking the wounds systematically—multiple cuts across the body, the throat nearly severed completely, the lower jaw partially removed, one eye destroyed beyond recognition. These were killing wounds, fatal wounds, but there was something strange about them.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The edges weren't bleeding, they were sealed, cauterized, burned closed.

  Her hand moved to the throat wound, the deepest cut, the one that had ultimately ended this creature's life. She examined the edge of the wound carefully and found it perfectly smooth, as if something sharp had passed through the flesh without any resistance at all, no sawing, no hacking, no multiple strikes to get through the tough hide and dense muscle, just one passage and the tissue had separated.

  But the burning, the cauterization, that was the mystery.

  Another warrior approached from the perimeter and knelt a respectful distance away. "My lady."

  Aram continued her examination in silence as her fingers traced the throat wound, moved to the jaw, then to the scattered cuts across the flanks and shoulders.

  She was reading the fight, the sequence, the pattern.

  The strikes lacked formal training or battlefield doctrine, and they were scattered across the body with no understanding of anatomy or optimal kill points, some cuts were shallow, barely scratches, while others went far deeper than necessary, wasteful and inefficient.

  But they had worked.

  Her fingers found a particularly shallow cut on the creature's shoulder and she pressed gently, felt the edges of the wound, smooth and cauterized, the cut had sealed the moment it was made.

  No blade did this, no normal weapon.

  The grief was there, present and pressing against the inside of her chest like something physical trying to escape. Her son was dead and the knowledge sat in her mind like a stone.

  But her warriors were watching and waiting, they needed their commander, not a grieving mother.

  She stood and looked at her warrior, focused on the familiar routine, the questions she always asked, the testing she always performed.

  It helped and gave her something to control when everything else was chaos.

  "What do you see?"

  The warrior moved closer and studied the body. "The wounds are inconsistent, my lady. No pattern. No knowledge of where to strike."

  "And the cuts themselves?"

  He examined them more closely. "Clean. Too clean. There is no tearing. No sawing marks." He touched one carefully. "And no blood flow from most of them. They were sealed as they were made."

  "Force?"

  The warrior pressed against the edge of a cut and felt the tissue. "None. A normal blade requires significant strength to penetrate a Rathen Apex's hide. But these..." He shook his head. "It is as if the flesh offered no resistance. As if something simply passed through."

  Aram nodded once as he had seen what she wanted him to see.

  The routine held and kept her centered, kept her from breaking in front of her men.

  "Time of death?"

  “Fifteen minutes. Perhaps five based on body temperature."

  Aram's mind began calculating immediately, distance, time, speed. Whoever had done this was still close, still in the area, probably within a few miles at most.

  Her hand moved back to the Rathen Apex's head, what little remained of it, the destroyed eye socket, the terror that was frozen permanently in that one remaining eye.

  The lead warrior spoke quietly and carefully. "The bonding ritual was completed three days ago, my lady."

  Aram's hand remained on the ruined head and her voice when she spoke was perfectly flat and completely emotionless. "I know."

  There was a pause as the warrior seemed to be choosing his next words with extreme care. "If there is any possibility that the bond hadn't fully solidified yet. That the connection was still forming. Then perhaps..."

  "There is no perhaps."

  Her voice cut through his speculation like a blade, final and absolute.

  She turned to face him fully and her expression was carved from stone, but her eyes held something dark and terrible.

  "The life bond doesn't care about time. One second after the ritual or one year. It makes no difference. When one dies, both die. That is the law. That is how it has always been. That is how it will always be."

  The warrior bowed his head. "Yes, my lady. Forgive me."

  She looked back down at the Rathen Apex, her son's bonded companion, his partner, his protector.

  She had given Jonen this creature herself, had selected it with such care, had watched them bond, and had believed with absolute certainty that this magnificent predator would keep her son safe and that together they would be unstoppable.

  And something had killed it.

  Easily.

  "Find who did this," she said. Her voice was quiet but carried command.

  The warrior straightened immediately. "My lady?"

  "Track them. Hunt them down. Kill them. Use whatever methods necessary. I want them dead."

  "And the armed group approaching from the east? We count eight individuals. They're headed directly toward this position."

  Aram's grip on her spear tightened until her knuckles showed white. "I will handle them personally. You focus entirely on the trail. Take my Apex with you."

  She walked over to where her Rathen Apex stood, the creature had moved to stand over the corpse of its fallen companion with its massive head lowered, sniffing, as its tongue extended and licked the cooling fur almost gently, tasting, learning, memorizing the scent of whoever had done this.

  "It knows the smell now," Aram said to her lead warrior. "It has tasted the essence of the killer. Follow my Apex. It will find who did this much faster than you could track on your own."

  The warrior took the reins with both hands and bowed deeply. "It will be done, my lady. We will not fail you."

  "You had better not."

  The eight Vaekk disappeared into the forest like ghosts, silent, efficient, deadly, as the Rathen Apex went with them, already tracking, already hunting, following a scent only it could detect.

  Aram stood alone beside the stream.

  She looked around carefully, scanned the entire area, and confirmed that she was completely alone, that no eyes were watching her, that no one could see.

  Then she knelt beside the Rathen Apex's corpse once more.

  Her hand touched its head with a gentleness that would have surprised anyone who knew her reputation, the way you might touch something infinitely precious, something irreplaceable that had been broken.

  "You were supposed to protect him," she whispered to the dead creature. "That was your entire purpose. Your only reason for existing. To keep my son safe."

  The Rathen Apex couldn't answer, couldn't explain what had happened, couldn't defend its failure, it just lay there, cold, empty, dead.

  Her other hand moved to the creature's neck, to where the killing blow had landed, the terrible cut that had sealed both their fates.

  Her son had felt this through the life bond that connected them, had felt the Rathen Apex dying, had felt its terror and pain, and in that exact moment his own heart had stopped and his own life had ended.

  She didn't know where Jonen's body was right now, somewhere in this vast forest, lying dead and alone. She would find him, would bring him home, would give him the burial rites he deserved.

  But first, she would find who had done this.

  Her throat tightened and her vision blurred slightly at the edges.

  For the first time since she had been a young girl, tears formed in Aram's eyes.

  They fell silent, tracking down her cheeks and landing on the orange fur of her son's bonded companion.

  She allowed herself this moment, this brief weakness, ten seconds, no more than that.

  Her hand remained on the creature's head while her other hand pressed against the killing wound, ten seconds to acknowledge the grief, to feel the pain, to be a mother mourning her murdered son instead of a warrior plotting revenge.

  Then she wiped her face clean, stood up, and locked everything back down inside where it belonged.

  Became stone again.

  ? Overpowers: Magical Girl Crossover [Grimlight Psychological/Genre based Power System] ?

  by Moawar

  He, Life, had a simple job.

  His responsibility as an Overpower was to make sure that fiction stories and the characters in them follow their dictated path. He always did his job well enough, not more or less than was needed.

  His latest assignment, however, would, in retrospect, prove to be his most challenging one of all.

  He would find himself in a unfamiliar world. There he'll have to quickly adapt to guide Nozomi.

  The strongest magical girl with the potential to accidentally destroy those she seeks to protect in her fight against evil.

  What to Expect:

  -If you like the psychological aspects of Madoka Magica and the mixing of different genres a crossover story brings then this story is for you