Trash beasts. A pack of them. Hulking mixes of scrap metal, fractured plastic, and things better left unidentified, given life and malicious intent by the vile pollution of the Ground. Their forms were a mockery of life, all jagged edges and oozing filth. One scraped a twisted limb of rebar against the wall, sending sparks skittering across the damp concrete.

You backed up, but your shoulder hit a solid wall of corroded sheet metal. Dead end. Your heart hammered against your ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the slow, shuffling advance of the beasts. You could hear the distant shouts of your team, but they were muffled, worlds away. You were alone.

The largest beast, a monstrosity with a car door for a chest and a shattered television screen for a face, let out a grinding shriek and lunged.

You raised your weapon, bracing for the impact that you knew would shatter your guard, and you.

It never came.

A blur of grey and navy blue dropped from the rooftops above, landing between you and the charging beast with the soft grace of a falling feather. The beast was yanked backwards mid lunge, a web of gleaming white threads suddenly wrapped around its form, tightening with a sickening crunch of compacting garbage.

Tamsy didn’t even look at it.

He stood with his back to you, his long sleeves swaying gently as if caught in a soft breeze. His distaff, Tokushin, was held loosely in one hand. He sighed, a sound of mild inconvenience.

“Now, now,” he chided softly, his voice a calm counterpoint to the snarling pack. “That’s no way to treat a guest.”

The other beasts hesitated for only a second before surging forward as one. Tamsy moved. His movements were fluid, precise, and almost lazy. A flick of his wrist sent threads shooting out, entangling two beasts in a net that constricted the more they struggled. With a gentle tug, he reeled them in, the threads spinning them into a tight, struggling spool of trash. He didn't even watch as he unraveled the spool, sending the compressed mass hurtling into the far wall with a deafening, final crash.

Another beast lunged from the side. Tamsy himself simply sidestepped a clumsy swipe from the final trash beast, his yellow, eyes were half lidded with boredom. A single thread lashed out like a whip, severing a critical juncture of wires and rot, and the beast collapsed into a lifeless heap.

Silence fell, broken only by the faint drip of moisture and the frantic pulse in your own ears. It had taken less than ten seconds.

Tamsy turned, his expression serene. The scar on his face seemed almost decorative, adding to his strange, otherworldly beauty rather than detracting from it. He tucked his vital instrument away, the threads vanishing as if they’d never been.

“That was a close one,” he said, his tone utterly sincere. “You okay?”

His smile widened under his gasmask, just a fraction. It reached his eyes, but something in their golden, depths was unreadable. “Think nothing of it. Delmon would never let me hear the end of it if I let something happen to you.” He said it like a joke between friends, a lighthearted remark about a worried friend.

But as he helped you to your feet, his gaze flickered over the mess he had so casually created, the shattered remains, the scattered, now junk. For the briefest moment, you saw something else in that calm facade. Not concern, not relief. It was a spark of deep, profound satisfaction. A glimpse of a man who had just witnessed something he found utterly captivating. A raw, passionate struggle for life, your near death experience that was, to him, nothing short of exhilarating.

The look was gone in an instant, replaced by his usual reliable kindness. He brushed a bit of dust from his loose fitting coat.

“Now,” he said, his voice back to its easy, comforting cadence, perfectly hiding the thrilling, beautiful pain of the world he truly saw. “You look like you could use a hot meal. Shall we get some noodles?”