The Scrap Tamer

"I told you already, following me to the military base is not a good idea" Elizabeth said for the nth time since she started her journey to return.

She didn't even bother turning her head as she knew he was there. Every time she glanced over her shoulder, Null was no more than two steps behind, hands in his pockets, strolling like they were taking a leisurely walk through the park and not trudging through a ruined battlefield.

They had stopped flying once they neared the base, and Elizabeth, fueled by growing frustration courtesy of Null, chose to vent it on the nearby Primals, hence the ruined battlefield surrounding them.

"I know," Null said, entirely unbothered "but you don't just expect me to leave your side now do you?"

Elizabeth groaned. "This isn't a joke, Null. We're heading towards a secure military facility. You'll get shot if you try following me inside."

"Ah, but I look perfectly human now, don't I?" he gestured to himself proudly. "Not a tail or horn in sight."

She halted mid-step, finally turning to face him. "You still radiate enough unnatural presence to make trained soldiers piss themselves. Human or not, the scanners will flag you as a threat before we even close enough."

Null blinked, unoffended. "How peculiar. Your species invests so much in walls and weapons, I thought they were all like you, fighting alongside beasts."

Null gestured to the mini dragon perched on Elizabeth's shoulder but she ignored the question.

"Null. The base is off-limits to everyone, even humans without the proper classification. It doesn't matter if they're Civilians, or even other tamers, they get detained, interrogated, or shot. And you? You'd be lucky not to be shot on sight with that presence."

"Which makes me special," he offered helpfully.

"No, it makes you a target." Her tone dropped. "A very big target."

Null tilted his head, considering. "Would it help if I pretended to be mute and mildly confused?"

Elizabeth didn't answer. She just resumed walking, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like, Screw it?

She wasn't worried about Null getting hurt by the soldiers' attacks—no, what concerned her was what would happen if he decided to retaliate.

Even her attacks were useless against against him.

As if reading her mind, Null reassured her, "Don't worry, I'll not harm anyone… unless they truly insist."

"That's not comforting," Elizabeth snapped, not even slowing her pace.

"Why not? It's honest," he replied, as if that made everything better. "Besides, I'm quite good at restraint. For example, I haven't obliterated a single soul since I got here, I even help evacuate those humans to the cities."

Elizabeth pinched the bridge of her nose. "You don't get brownie points for not committing mass murder."

"Then what do I get points for?" Null asked, in a hopeful voice.

"Staying quiet and staying put. Neither of which you're doing right now."

Null grinned. "Yet you still let me walk beside you, curious."

"Because if I told you to stay behind, you'd ignore me, again." She said.

Seeing that her frustration was about to reach its boiling point,

"Fine, I'll not harm any of the humans in this military base," Null said, his tone solemn for once—well, as solemn as he could manage.

Elizabeth gave him a side glance. "That better not be a loophole-loaded promise."

"Not at all," he said with a casual shrug. "I'll behave, I promise."

She narrowed her eyes at him for a moment before letting out a sigh and saying, "let me handle everything when we arrive, understand?"

"As you wish," Null replied and his hands returned to his pocket, a habit he had somehow come to like after switching his cultivation robe from these.

Soon enough, the walls that surrounded the base was in sight.

______

While Elizabeth walked with Null towards the wall, high up on the northern wall, a solider stood with a binocular hung on his neck and his forged beast lazily resting by his foot. It had been a quiet shift, aside from taking down the occasional low ranked primals that tried scaling the walls.

It had been over a year now since he joined the military and his shift had always been this boring.

Apart from reporting the occasional rift breaks, primal siege and taking down a couple of weak primals, it was a completely boring job.

His dreams before joining the military was to be in the front lines, facing different ranks of primals and to be later praised as a hero, just like those novels he had been reading...or at least that was the dream until last week's incident occurred.

When those rifts opened right above the base, he had a front row seat on how scary those things actually were.

He watched as soldiers fell to those things and for the first time since he joined the military, he watched as someone's life was quickly snuffed out with just a single swipe of a primal's claw.

It was the wake up call he needed, one that allowed him to appreciate his relatively safe job on the walls.

"Hey, Larsen," a voice crackled from his comms, pulling him from the memory. "You spacing out again?"

Larsen blinked rapidly and turned to look through his binoculars. "Sorry, just… thinking about last week."

"Still shook?" The person asked.

"Yeah, a bit," he answered in a low voice.

"Don't worry, we all are," the voice through his comms reassured,

"Yeah," Larsen let out a sigh as he scanned around with his binoculars.

Soon enough, he spotted two silhouettes in the horizon and he immediately zoomed in. He immediately recognized the leading figure as Major Cross, the youngest platinum rank tamer...well, before that monster of took that title.

But as soon as he turned the binoculars to the person beside her, his entire body instantly froze.

As if encountering a predator, Larsen's body refused to let out the slightest twitch least pulling the attention of whatever that monster in human skin was.

Even his forged beast that lay at his feet felt its tamer's distress through their connection.

The feeling got worse when the person turned and looked directly in Larsen's direction.

But instead of what Larsen expected, the man just smiled and waved.