A father and son tell their tale. A malevolent being intently listens.
The glowing Scraper roars as it's arms slam the ground, making it shake a bit. It then opens it's mouth, and reveals a glowing, icy bowling ball. It then fires it toward Jihyo at high speed.
"Wh--" Jihyo swings her blade at the incoming projectile and effectively slashes it in half, but she gets dragged back a bit due to the force of the glowing enemy's attack.
The Scraper fires off more bowling balls from it's mouth. Jihyo unleashes her crystalline shield as it barely deflects the icy projectiles.
The Scraper then widens it's mouth and more icy bowling balls pour into it. Soon, it blasts them toward Jihyo all at once.
"Ugh!" Jihyo successfully blocks the icy bombardment with her shield, but the force of the attack sends her flying to a concrete pillar nearby, crushing it.
Jihyo stands and shakes off the debris off her clothes. She's worried about Zeke and the kid. They might get caught in the enemy's deadly line of fire.
She turns to Zeke.
"You guys better retreat to a safer location. This Scraper is deadly..." She exclaimed. "Don't worry. I'll rid of it soon."
Zeke, recognizing the severity of the situation, looks at the kid, still seemingly wincing in pain after getting his leg trapped on ice.
He goes to him, and assesses his injuries.
"What's your name, kiddo?" He asks.
The kid replies. "G-Glendale..."
"Oh, okay, hello, Glendale. Can you walk?" Zeke asks Glendale. "We are moving to a safer place, okay?"
Glendale was trembling in fear, but manages to utter a faint "yes". Zeke nods and immediately assists him up.
Jihyo takes a deep breath and readies her Manifest, and once again, advances towards the Scraper with even more speed. The Scraper fires more of the freezing projectiles.
Her blade shines as she strikes down the bowling balls with grace, slowly but surely making her way toward the head of the glowing Scraper.
One of the balls, however, misses Jihyo and goes straight for Zeke and Glendale.
"Zeke! Watch out!" Jihyo shouts as she kept blocking the other bowling balls.
"Son of a---" Zeke immediately sprints towards Glendale, pushing them both out of the way of the icy projectile. It grazes Zeke's back, however, tearing a part of his hoodie. They hit the ground with a loud thud.
Without any more time to lose, Zeke stands up immadiately and assists Glendale to a counter at the far end of the alley to shield themselves from the enemy's attacks.
Zeke takes a deep breath, trying to relax and recover his strength. He looks at Glendale.
Glendale was still visibly trembling, scared of the monstrosity that just attacked them.
"I... I want my daddy... Daddy, I'm sorry I ran outside... Please come here and protect me..." Glendale said to himself as he hugs his knees and sobs.
Zeke moves closer to the scared kid.
"Hey... It's going to be okay... We'll get you back to your daddy, I promise. Just hang on a little bit longer..." Zeke said as he tried to comfort Glendale. Glendale doesn't reply, but he scoots closer to Zeke, seemingly trying seek shelter in his arms.
"I'm scared... I'm scared... I don't want to be here anymore..." Glendale said.
"Dont worry, I'll protect you. We'll get you to your dad..." Zeke tries to give him comfortable rubs on the back.
Zeke didn't know how to properly comfort a kid. Despite him taking a Human Resource job back in the Philippines---where he dealt with different people of all ages---he wasn't really good with children.
Zeke just silently stayed next to him, trying to be a comforting figure in this situation.
Glendale sniffs as the ground slightly shakes due to the clash between Jihyo and the bowling ball-shooting enemy. A part of a ceiling starts to cave in above Zeke, and a chunk of debris fall onto them.
"What in the---" Zeke looks up. Glendale flinches as he shuts his eyes in fear, and curls into a ball.
Glendale then opens his eyes after a while and slowly looks up, only to see Zeke blocking the fallen debris with his arms. He struggles to lift it as it was too heavy, even for a regular person. But Zeke manages to carry it.
Glendale sees that Zeke has a huge wound at his back, with blood dripping from it. He realizes that Zeke got hit by the bowling ball earlier.
"I t-told you! I'll protect you!" Zeke said.
Glendale just stood there, in awe of Zeke's strength.
Zeke grunted, and with all his strength, pushed the debris off as it crashes down on the ground. Zeke sits down, panting hard as he tried not to wince in pain.
Glendale shows a concerned face as he scoots to Zeke. He sees as Zeke held his right arm. It had a wound in it, seemingly from the debris that he caught earlier.
"Mr. Zeke... are you... okay...?" Glendale said.
"Yep.. 'Tis but a scratch! No worries." Zeke faintly smiles.
Glendale immediately opens his fanny pack, and digs around. He then pulls out a small handkerchief and gives it to Zeke.
"H-here... You can wrap this on your wound..." He said.
"Oh, thank you..." Zeke replied as he took the cloth and wrapped it around his arm silently.
"No, thank you, Mr. Zeke..." Glendale said. "You've been taking damage for me twice now... We don't even know each other, and yet..."
"Don't you worry about it." Zeke smiled. "I'm good at protecting people, as you can see. I take pride in that. And I told you, we'll get you to your dad safely again." Zeke said as he gave Glendale a thumbs up.
Glendale smiles a bit.
The two then hear a defeaning roar, followed by a strong crashing sound, then a low-sounding "oof", that seemingly came from Jihyo. Zeke takes a peek at the battle that was ongoing.
Jihyo has already managed to slice off one of the Scraper's arms. But she was still struggling due to it's constant firing of bowling balls toward her.
They feel the ground quake as more huge, icy veins slowly sprout on the floors and wall. Zeke holds Glendale tight as he sees these veins glow in power.
Zeke then notices that one of the glowing veins---which as just a few feet near them---- seemingly have something moving in them. He observes as a few bowling balls in it traveling quickly. His eyes follow the huge vein as it lead to the Scraper.
"This particular vein..." Zeke said to himself. "Could this be the reason why this Scraper is able to fire off those bowling balls...?"