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Outside the sol system

When he spoke it was commanding, and of two voices, he had a powerful fleet at his disposal and he had received word of the dreadnaught that had converted him, under siege. "Vitalize warp functions and set course for anti-mars, recollect Dreadnaught 2236 and engage the enemy once in formation." He spoke, it was as if he were talking to the ship, itself. The val'gara herd was a large one, and was just jumping into warp, now. A gurgling voice spoke directly to Anathema via telepathy: "We are en route to the anti-planetary cluster, approximation of arrival - vary." Anathema, himself, was within one of the Dreadnaughts, but he was located within the creation chamber. What was speaking to him was Avatar Dreadnaught, the commanding sentience of all Dreadnaught ships, and all Dreadnaught ships had the sentience that is the avatar. This made it much easier for the Val'Gara to located the Dreadnaught on a-Earth.

It is said many times that seeing any Val'Gara is a bad omen, because at any moment they could return with a swarm, such as they were in this situation.

Sahara side

A low, deep rumbling fog-horn like blast sounded from the downed Dreadnaught, the skirmishes had bided it some time. Dreadnaught turned, using the wings on it's other side as flippers, and slammed a massive wing into the ground, causing ground tremors and a huge wave of debris to cascade towards the field of battle. With Dreadnaught turning over psionic shields were still kept erected to prevent aerial/orbital assault on the carrier creature.

Dreadnaught, in actuality, was turning itself, and each beat of its appendages caused massive fluctuations on the richtor scale. In reality, it was turning itself to face the combat area, it's wounds still were not completely healed yet, but there were smaller psionic shields set up on the gaping wounds. Dreadnaught's ground troops, before, were being pushed back, perhaps Dreadnaught, itself becoming more active would aide in it's problem. Things looked fairly bleak for Dreadnaught, there was little to no escape with the Red Technocracy in orbit, and being assaulted from the ground was only a matter of time before it's defenses fell.

Back at a-Titan.

The scarlet glow in his eyes fade as he regains most of his control - and human qualities as well. Xelas' grip over Gennosuke at the moment was fairly weak and once again he remained the dominant personality. Currently his attention was not one, but two streaks in the sky that almost resembled comets, one of which was plowing straight through the atmosphere in a bright-orange display of friction. He stepped back onto his left foot, it looked like the comet was coming right at him. Gennosuke turned tail and began to run along the icy surface of Titan, slipping around cryovolcanos and through icy patches and through thick hazy nebulas of half-frozen water vapor.

Perhaps this is Magnus' return, it'd be better if I had a vantage point. It was at that point that he saw a humanoid form burn through the atmosphere, pointing some sort of odd weapon at him, he placed his hand against the sheath of the wakizashi, with his thumb against the tsuba, ready to draw and then there was a pause...

Planet side, Havok


"Th-thanks, man..but they're still headed our way." The man offered to Havok as he regained himself; dust and scorched chunks of grass and shrubbery hung loosely in the air as the Azrik took a number of steps toward the man he had just saved. He maneuvered his feet to step atop the scorched, sizzling corpse of the Demolisher.
"Name's Thomas Balvice, by the way!" The man yelled before he quickly dropped to the side, and aimed what appeared to be a handgun toward a massive creature scuttling toward the duo. The newest opponent looked far different than the Demolisher Havok had fought earlier; the thing walked on a number of small protrusions from it's underbelly like an insect, only on a horridly larger scale. Havok quickly crouched on the chest of the dead Demolisher and raised his weapon to aim at the creature.

"Master Sergeant -- You've got multiple contacts moving to flanking positions." Valentina quickly injected, Havok disregarding the statement for the moment while he depressed the trigger of the MR-17; the weapon responded with a small kick as gases erupted from the barrel of the rifle, the cold innards of the machines gases quickly rushing from the barrel as the bullet was sent toward it's target.
"Those things are fucking massive -- " Havok yelled as the Drone was brought to the ground by the burst of rifle fire, the hulk of the beast skidding along the dirt and rock several feet before a thick, gooey material started seeping from the wounds.
"Master Sergeant, there are more on the way ... " Valentina stated, a hint of anger within her artificial voice as Havok was compelled to take a glance around him; the order given directly by Valentina from the depths of Havok's mind.
" ... Shit." Havok cursed quietly, with a quick pivot of his head, suddenly tens of Drones became visible. Numbering in the near eighties, a group of them had been released onto the field beside the Dreadnaught. Which now appeared to be moving, Havok grunted angrily as the team of Drones began to close the distance between him and his new-found ally.

"Listen ... Thomas, we gotta' -- "
"AAAGGGHHHH!" Thomas yelled in a painful rage as his arm struck forward, the flesh appeared to be mutating and cracking into new structures before Havok's eyes.
"Fuck!" He yelled, attempting to raise his weapon to fire toward whatever was bringing harm to him. His attack would come late, as the first of the Drone's rushed into their hive-mind assault. Thomas' first attack blinded Havok as it struck by him, annihilating the Drone that approached from behind. Spattering the Master Sergeant's back in a thick, gelatinous substance.

Havok quickly spun backwards as a second strike from Thomas struck by soon after, shattering another attacking Drone as it rubbed the front appendages of it's incisors together; the creature entering an almost euphoric state as it neared what it thought would be two easy meals. It's loss.
"Thomas!" Havok yelled, spraying a group of Drone's in a hail of automatic fire; bringing down straight line of targets. Quickly turning back toward Thomas.

He found his ally on hand and knee, handgun still gripped tightly between his hand. He rushed over to Thomas, stopping meters from him before he heard Thomas' rasping voice.
"Can I get a hand here?" He blurted out, Havok rapidly reached downward and grabbed the man's shoulder, swiftly yanking upwards and dragging Thomas to his feet; a deep grunt accompanying Havok as he helped the man off of the ground.
"We're gonna' need to get the fuck out of here, Thomas."



"Dionysus" Class Cruiser, CN Armara

The Captain held his cigar tightly within his two fingers; he silently released a puff of smoke from his mouth as the OCI spook stood at the front of the room.
"Explain it, Lieutenant." Ambrosse ordered, his feet leaning him backwards in the chair slowly. The Lieutenant set a wise hand on the cumbersome table that filled the Captain's Logistical Quarters; an expansive room set aside on the north wing of the Captain's Quarters used for specific, often mission sensitive meetings.
"My Intelligence puts a very important person to the Coalition in league with our Red Technocracy allies ... " He continued, his voice filled with content anger as an A.I. nearby strolled along the length of the table. The avatar's arms crossed and face questioning the information being provided.
"And who exactly is this important person?" Ambrosse asked, leaning forward and dashing the cigar out in a small tray.



The Bridge was currently under command of a young Lieutenant by the name of Torijikawa; the seaman swiftly hailed the allied Admiral Gerasimovich. The UCON Cruiser breaking the distance between them, as of late, the Armara had entered SVR*, and the cameras located throughout the surface of the Cruiser snapped on and filtered images of the Red Technocracy fleet. Torijikawa quickly waved at a Junior Lieutenant to prepare an open communications link with the Admiral Gerasimovhich as he grabbed a pair of tactical headphones.
"Come in, Admiral Gerasimovhich. This is ... Lieutenant Torijikawa of the CN Armara. Over."

Sahara Desert

Everything was starting to become more and more of a blur as Thomas began to turn somewhat discombobulated, and his senses were fading away; mainly his sense of touch though that was because of what had been happening mostly throughout his face. Agron; the shape-shifter - himself was beginning to spread the runes further throughout his body like a parasite that just didn't know when to call it quits. He was utterly helpless as he was dragged along through the sand by Havok and the rest of his armed forces.

The skin along his forehead and cheek areas were beginning to develop a gritty, stone-like texture that had tiny little crystals spreading into his eyes; but mainly at the cappilaries which was unfortunately, where he actually did retain his sense of touch. That thing that lurked around inside him was now working over time to make sure Thomas' body didn't completely collapse from the sheer trauma he had just been put through. First he had to fight through a wave of crustaceans, make his way through a mile-long whale, and then fight off another wave of monsters.

--

Orbiting Anti-Mars

Mother Nature's contingency plan comes to an abrupt and frightening halt as the machines produced by both man and demon complete their assigned task and now begin to flow harmlessly throughout the blood-stream, awaiting their next order. Five long digits press against cold-hard metal, pushing the beast up off the ground where he'd be able to assess what had just gone on. At first he feels the same, but that notion is quickly abandoned once the liquid metal dripping from his mouth is spotted on the floor.

"What has...this man done to me?"

"Why don't you ask him, yourself, Thane.. though I doubt he'll answer let alone give you a chance to even acknowledge the situation.."

"How right you are.."

The room that they were in began to shift in its appearance, becoming..rigid and lumpy; quite literally a frozen wasteland and a barren inferno all simultaneously. An indigo blight staining the walls, and intensifying in every way possible; more specifically the ultra-violet radiation that was pouring into the room as a result of the Corruptor's electrokinesis.

"Who's afraid of a little darkness?"

"You are.."

A tall, somewhat lean figure approached the electronic doorway that lead to the room, dressed in Venetian knight attire that complimented his lack of fashion. Dark yellow streaks curved up along a rather lengthy piece of formal armor often worn for special occasions, such as a ball, though Corruptor was already having one in his head. Yes, despite all the malicious apparitions going on within the ship, he still had a personality that was very much like a human's.

There was a knight's sword tied to the left-hand side of his waist, sheathed in a silver scabbard that bore arcane markings of a time long since past. His indigo eyes gave off a somber, viridian hue, almost as if they were radiating energy when in fact, Corruptor had simply been tantalizing himself for the time being. In fact, he felt like prancing around like a school-girl on her first date; that's how fucked up he was.

The door slides open, revealing the rather conspicuous character.

"Greetings, my uglies. I am Corruptor, otherwise known by my cohorts as Singar."

"What did you do to my brother?" Morbid asked in a very demanding tone, one befitting to someone who held a lot of power, despite their rather grotesque appearance.

"I didn't anything to him. That cyborg you fought earlier did."

"If you don't answer my question, wretch - I'm going to rip one of your eyes out, and tie your nerves to it at the other end of this room, so you can watch me dismember you!"

"Calm down, brother." Thane spoke in a much calmer tone, despite being the brute's brother his personality was drastically different; his patience far exceeded that of a saint. "Now, what is it you have done to me?"

"I've simply augmented your already existing abilities. I've also injected you with an artificial genome designed to work together with your shape-shifting powers, allowing you to survive in space! In other words..."

"In other words...?" Morbid spoke suspiciously.

"In other words, get out there and defend my ship!"

--

Anti-Titan

Tage's ley-lines had proven to be a resounding success in luring Autun down to the moon, sensing the ever-present tug that his systems he received; slowing himself down and readjusting his speed to suit the current objective. "Flowers, huh?" he thought to himself, a rail-gun protruding from his left radius, "What is this guy? Some type of existentialist. The last thing I need is another Lomedia, not to mention capturing this time-manipulator is a task in and of itself."

In order to catch Gennosuke in such a frigid environment, he'd need to resort to thermal imaging, and so he did, spotting the man's heated foot-prints along the anti-moon's icy surface. Normally, he wasn't one to do something so rash, but he hadn't many options, partially because he didn't know what exactly Autun was, and the fact that this was his first encounter with the man whom his master spoke of.

"Sending burst transmission: This is Tage, subject is fleeing the scene and the...naked kid is shooting flowers everywhere. Resorting to semi-deadly force."

Tage's shoulders opened up just above the scapula and fired off a volley of missiles directly into a cryovolcano located approximately 4.6 miles from Gennosuke's current position while concurrently taking off in that same direction and opening fire with his rail-gun, a stream of electricity exiting the rail-blade attached to his ulna just before firing as to make sure the bullets stray from their initial vectors.

The result was a massive column of cryogenic fluids pouring out from the volcano's side, rushing down giant cracks in the ground that just so happened to be where Gennosuke currently was.

--

Sahara Desert

A deep depression began to appear in the desert, and expand at an incredible rate, mostly around the body of Dreadnaught and the creatures that were charging Havok and Thomas. Each and every one of them struggled not to sink into the now swirling bowl of sand, but were doomed before they began.

For a moment there was silence, and there was an extremely loud and voluminous crack, similar to the sound of listening to someone munch on a bag of fritos, (or at least, that's what Thomas heard) and somewhat true at the same time. There was something munching on those Drones and Demolishers, and it wasn't something that was on the side of the Red Technocracy either.

A gaping mouth swiveled back and forth, clearing away the sand around it as it wriggled free from the earth's crust. It had no limbs, but was extremely thick and had a long body of near equivalence to the downed Dreadnaught. The beast was almost majestic in the way it made its entrance, massive columns of runes that exerted a crimson ambiance flickered on and off, firing off a massive stream of shimmering blue energy up into the sky, aiming to take out one of the Destroyers hovering above the planet.

Soon, more and more of these beasts appeared and were pulling up out of the ground, utilizing the energy they exerted to take flight, each and every one of them taking to the skies in an effort to combat the enemy that was threatening their current home.

This..was Sarach.

They weren't alone either, for the desert still had one last monster to unleash before the land truly became barren. An earthquake began to erupt on the tectonic level, bringing any and all cities in the surrounding area down to their knees in a matter of seconds. THIS is what had been inside Thomas' body the entire time. THIS THING was just one of many earthen shape-shifters that roamed the multiverse.

Agron arose from the earth, composed of nothing more but the earth's crust, he was literally a gargantuan similar to Dreadnaught. He currently resembled a golem at the moment, a golem that was staring directly at Thomas Balvice as if asking him if he still didn't want to have such a thing lingering around inside his own skeleton. Thomas was too shocked to figure out what had just happened, but as the mighty Sarachs kept on firing off their beams of energy, and as his left arm glowed as well, he knew that THIS was what had gotten inside of him and changed his life forever back in Monterey.

--

Orbiting Anti-Mars

So it seems that trepidation is once more interlacing itself in conjunction with the paradoxical notion that while man's technology may one day lead to their own destruction, there is always that demonic intervention.

In the frigidity of space, Thane floated there as calm as could be. His body was changing once more, the left arm's skin texture shifting dramatically, granting him the elasticity of an anaconda's mouth that allowed him to dislocate his arm and swing his forearm around, similar to a ball and a chain. The digits of his right hand, becoming slick and oily as they split open on the tops and spawned eyes on where Thane's fingernails should've been.

Electricity crackled in the frosty nothingness, as it was soon revealed that the hissing phalanges were naught but electric eels patiently awaiting their next meal, that was sitting there right in front of them.

--

Mother Nature... had been weaponized.

Rebirth is due to mind
And to the tendencies of the mind.
You think: and an impression is left in the mind,
This impression is the seed of thought,
The impressions coalesce together
And make tendency or tendencies.
As you think,
So you become. You take birth
According to your thoughts.
Enveloped in evil qualities.
Mind is the cause
Of man's bondage and liberation;
An impure mind binds,
A pure mind liberates.
When you realize the Truth,
When you know your own Self,
You attain Perfection,
You become Immortal this is the Truth.
How sublime is this philosophy!
It proclaims to her:
Friend! Thou art pure Thought,
Regain your lost divinity,
In one birth all virtues cannot be developed.
By gradual evolution only, one can be cultivated.

Location: The Arctic Circle
Time: 18:45

The waxing moon sat inexplicably in the early evening sky, and offered no light in the frigid darkness. It was strange really, for about a month the moon had been there day and night. Dimly, in the pale night, the grey sides of an unmarked complex were visible. Although there weren't people in this secluded part of the icy tundra many terrible and tortuous things had taken place under the cover of snow.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inside the building a computer screen flickered on and off as it displayed information.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Code name: [2]
Components Collected: 3/6
Skeletal Construction: Complete
Loading Components: Half Capacity[Complete]
Skin replication: Complete
Final Phase: Rebirth
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PSSSSHHHHHHHHHHH

The door to one of the birthing chambers inside the sterile lab exploded open, releasing pent up gas that had been pressurized inside. Icy slicks covered the white tiled floor until the last burst of gas mixed with the stale air inside. A single slender hand gripped the side of the doorway tensing slightly as it pulled itself out, standing at five foot eight inches. It was slender and curvy, much like a woman--wait it had breasts--it was a woman?

Finally the culmination of Bennosuke's dream had come: A sentient machine.

Location: The Sahara

It's too damn hot here. Why would anyone want to fight here?

He said aloud as he continued to walk. Each step felt foreign to him, like somehow this wasn't right. The last thing he remembered was the peaks of mountains and a sword entering his chest. This was far from the mountains of China. As he went over the thought in /his/ mind over and over again, he drew a blank unable to remember much about himself in general. His footprints serpentine through the bleak desert following him on his way to--

Where am I going, [3] said something about--Who the hell is [3]?

A pained memory flashed in /his/ mine: His death. That's right...he died. His hand flew up gripping his chest as a phantom pain swept over it. He felt it as much as he did that day, burning as it pierced his flesh like the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah. Doubled over into himself he drew a blank for why he was /alive/ again and why. Something was odd about his chest--he was a man--he knew that. Then why did he have breasts? What could have happened in the time since. A portrait, frozen in time, clouded his view. It was of a dark haired man, muscled and a large scar across his chest with an unfathomable stupid grin on his face.

Get out. Buddha help me? GET OUT!

The pain or the strain on his mind had become too much. He soon collapsed in the desert, convulsing and crying out for help.


Get up and gather the pieces to the puzzle.
Get up and spread my will on this planet and all others.
Get up--OBEY me and RISE

“Keep it to yourself, Devil.” A raspy voice spoke.

“You were always so eager to have it before, Rys-” A ghastly voice, cold as night, cut-off.

“Shut up! You know I loathe that na- JUST GO AWAY”

“And how I loathed your appetite for other women, Love.”

“OH MY GOD!!!”

Unbearable. Truly. Was this some sort of punishment? Valavalince should have just stayed in that white room with that solemn chair and open door. Yep. Should have. Would gladly go back given the current situation. At least there he didn’t have:

A massively blazing orb beating down on his miniscule frame during mid-day. It’s rays like hands reaching, grabbing, grasping for his body if only to burn. Dry of all vital liquids needed to keep Valavalince moving. Not only that, but thanks to the Western direction. Wait.. No. Northern.. God damn it . He didn’t know which direction he was going. Whichever direction it was, it just had to be the one where that blazing orb was right in his face. Blue eyes watched every grain of sand move. Lovely. Really. Cockbites.

Now, at first thought, a pair of boots seemed like an ideal thing to protect bare feet from the smoldering sand. That was a first thought. Now he wanted to shed himself of not only the boots, but his own clothing. Seriously, nobody should be sweating this much unless they’ve been having intense anal intercourse with the opposite gender. Valavalince wasn’t fucking a female. No intercourse. No ass meat for his .. It was just way too hot. And sand! Everywhere! “This place sucks.” That same raspy, hoarse voice spoke.

“You know what really sucks?” She just wouldn’t leave.

“NO!!” Valavalince yelled, turning to his right, where those blue optics would… spy nothing more than just.. Emptiness filled with grains of sand..

Even to this day where thousands of miles, countless forests, skies away she haunted him. Plaguing his mind as a constant remind of what he did. She did. They did. What he did to them. Two sundered hearts still locked, each of them holding the key to the others prized possession. That Devil in stilettos. All hope of losing her, to obtain some equilibrium, peace when leaving that asylum never came. And Valavalince wasn’t sure as to why he was out here; in this God forsaken desert where the only companions were his memories, this metallic twang scratching the back of his throat and an eerie feeling that sent shivers down his spine at the thought of his Lo-Devil in a spiritual form. Stupid heat playing tricks.

Speaking -- The taste of metallic twang brought about an odd feeling conveyed by the encounter at the asylum on the same fateful day Valavalince summoned the strength to finally leave. His name was Balvice something or other. And even though they only exchanged a few words and jabs, there was this odd drive to find that man again. Why? Who the fuck cares. Valavalince does, damnit. But why? Why was it that: At the sudden remembrance of, thought of Balvice, enhanced this awful metal tint that clung to his taste-buds? If only Valavalince could remember what exactly it was.. This taste. This chain-link that bound wrists together and what exactly “Illidori” was or means.

“Don’t remember?” That icy voice interrupted.

“Shut up. I didn’t ask you.” He replied.

“Its sad that you don’t remember your own crea-”

“GO AWAY, WHO-” Tongue bitten due to the sudden violent impact that coursed through the ground

Valavalince fumbled and fell to one knee. Startled by the harsh tremor that had just swiped by. Fingertips pressed into and against the sand as yet another tremor came to pass before, through the tips of finger a small churning sensation took place. The feeling of sand sifting unnaturally from beneath, faintly. “Ugh..” That disgusting taste ever-growing. Especially now that his blood was pumping from the sudden fright of the first tremor. Those all too familiar coughs arising, along with a face furrowing in irritation. Slowly he came to stand, bringing that chain-link between teeth. Comforting. No. Really. The day was getting better.

“You really need to talk to Illidori.”

“AND YOU NEED TO SHUT UP, LIVING DEAD WOMAN!” How absurd was that? Suggesting to talk to the chain that keeps those wrists together. Lame. What’s far lamer: The fact that he hadn’t tried to remove it despite how much it annoys him.

Blue eyes spotted above the sand dune he was currently trudging a few ships and some sort of pods being thrown to and out of the air. But that wasn’t what actually caught Valavalince’s attention. No. It was the towering Golem of a creature formed of what seemed to be.. Rock. Where the fuck you get rock out here in this desert is beyond him. And as overly curious than cautious as Valavalince was, he didn’t really care to know. Nuh-uh. Screw. That. Yet, feet continued to move forward, ever closer, through the sand, the heat, thoughts. He had to see. Curiosity, you know? Hasn’t killed this cat. Yet. Atop the dune, down below a few steps.. Few? Err.. Hundred in.. Jesus. He didn’t know how far down, but it was a bit off, but close enough to hold interest to the point that: If one wanted to get involved, it wouldn’t be that hard to throw a … well, no rocks to throw. “Keep it up, Lord. Really. I love these thumps to the balls.” Sarcastically noted. Eyes scanned while feet continued, descending from the hill; the outskirts of what was almost the middle, but closer to the side deploying soldered men and vehicles as opposed to eight-legged freaks and mechanical weirdo’s.

Unbeknownst to Valavalince, treading lightly through his system was a metallic fluid, easily summed up as that: liquid metal. That was already making plans of its own accord since its Master hadn’t asked or inquired specific necessities to both their survival. Primal instinct the only motive at this point. This liquid metal was in the makings of placing trace amounts of itself into Valavalinces’ bone marrow and tissue. Eventually the components would fuse and reinforce itself, becoming twice or three times as durable to impacts. The only indication ever being that suggestive taste that raked the back of his throat, otherwise def to all actions or calls made within’ the body. Its sense heightening when threatened. Maybe.. Maybe that’s why Valavalince seeks Balvice. Reassurance. Confirmation. Or perhaps.. “Bah. Damn it. I hate this taste. Like, I’d rather play Dolls than -” Words cut short by a fit of coughs caused by -

“Moron.” She interjected.

“Sleaze.”

“Aim to please.”

“Piss off.”

“Illidori will be more useful if you ask her about th-”

“SHUT UP! I DON’T NEED ADVICE FROM A DEAD PERSON, GOT THAT?! AND I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHY YOU CARE TO HELP ME! JUST LEAVE OR SHUT UP!” He bellowed.

“See that whale-like creature compared to one of those soldiers? Drake in Turkey was about the same size if we were to compare. I’m sure that whale will go off the same as him, too. Big. Bang.”

“I hate you.”

“Love you.”
Valavalince was glad that those tastes enhanced, his coughing ensued. Anything to keep from hearing that persistent woman. Too bad the sand doesn’t burn her eyes and the sun doesn’t burn her skin like it does his. She needs to die. Again. Drown in this sand. Maybe that Golem could crush her or that whale “go off” on her. The -

The Sahara Desert

"Hoo-HOO! We're in the shit, now!" Simon Geburt had recalled hearing that fill into his helmet as he watched the men, the more experienced, combat-ready men, deal handily with the Drones that had been filling the area.

"Ooh boy, but there's a lot of 'em. Shoulda brought some bisque." Another cocky soldier remarked, shoving his gun right into the face of an attacking crustaceous horror and pulling the trigger, causing the body to fly back as the gooey paste of its head sprayed through the air. At this point, though, Geburt had tuned them out, his own heartbeat swelling into his ears as he hung a ways back, content to let his superiors fire off the rounds and go home with the glory.

"GEBURT, WHY AREN'T YOU UP THERE?!" A voice shouted into his comm, snapping him back to reality.

"I was-I was watching the rear, Sir." He answered as stoically as he could.

"We ain't worried about gettin' sand in our ass cracks, boy! Get up there!"

Geburt wanted to defy the order with all the muscles in his body, cursing himself as he realized that he was running forward, into the fray. He continued watching as the men in front of him were making marvelously short work of the Drones, popping out quips like real action movie stars. Geburt began wondering why exactly he was here again, in the middle of Ball-Sweat Anti-Earth, scared for his life that any moment one of the oversized boiled restaurant dishes was going to crush his head open like a walnut. Why the fuck was he here?!

Oh yeah, he signed up for it.

Geburt couldn't stand it. His paranoia was mounting. He constantly look to and fro and behind him, sure as Hell that a Drone was going to appear from nothingness, or maybe just pop right out of the sand and drag him under. His grip on his gun was nothing less than a chokehold. He knew it. It was coming any second now. He knew that a Drone was going to pop up out of nowhere and surprise him. He could feel it, Oh God he could feel it!

"GEBURT! IT'S COMING RIGHT AT YOU!"

The soldier turned to face forward, finally noticing the Drone that had broken away from the pack that his comrades were attacking to charge the duckling that was straying behind. All he had time to do was suck in a gasp before a pincer jammed right into his chest, rending the metal as if it were tissue paper and crushing his pectoral muscles with one mighty jab. The Drone immediately followed up by using its other claw to grab him right around the throat. It squeezed.

The rookie soldier felt the world grow fuzzy around him. He heard garbled words being screamed into his ear. His visibility dimmed considerably when he coughed and his visor suddenly turned a deep, red color. He heard what sounded like distant fireworks exploding. Bright colors popped all around him as the muddled voices grew louder until the pressure on his neck suddenly dissipated. He heard a loud thump as he fell to the sand, his head spinning.

"Man...Down..." He heard. The voice sounded urgent, but it was seemed so slow.

"Get....Medic..."

The sky started turning dark. Was it night time?

"Gonna...Be...Okay..."

Geburt suddenly felt like he was floating. He must have been - He could feel a warm liquid pooling around the back of his head. But it was too dark to swim, now. Maybe he should get back to the shore. He tried to lift his arms to wade, but they felt as heavy as cinder blocks. He felt a spider-web of vibration moving throughout his body. The voices were distant, now. He must have gone too far out. He tried once again to paddle, but he couldn't muster it. He felt like he was sinking.

Everything was murky. His eyes grew heavier and heavier as the depths overtook him. Finally, as his vision faded into complete blackness, he noted a shooting star streaking through the sky.

.
.
.

The object slammed into the desert at just under mach speeds, a crescendo of sand rising up into the air in angered retribution. They settled again, moving to accomodate the sleek, silver protrusion that was burning white-hot against the ground. It lay there for several minutes, sizzling in a tone that was almost ominous. It did not move until it had finally cooled back down to its presumably normal temperature.

Steam forced its way out of the razor-thin seam of the sphere that bisected it horizontally. The top half spun once before it cracked open like a cicada spreading its wings, widening until it stood upright. On its inner lining, six obsidian-black balls the size of basketballs stuck to the wall in two rows of three. As they exposed themselves to the light, they clicked and whirred with life. The spheres dropped slowly to the ground, connected to a silver spine inside the pod by six, thick wires that quietly unplugged themselves and retracted into thheir individual owners. When the spheres touched onto the ground, each one produced eight razor-thin legs. Now gifted with limbs, the balls raised themselves up, looking like bulbous spiders.

White pupils clicked on on each of the strange balls, moving across their skin to survey the area. They began to skitter through the desert with mechanical snaps and cracks, looking across the barren miles of beige nothingness. They walked on for hours, never tiring, until finally they came across an oddity among the dunes.

The body was only old by five, maybe six hours. It lay, spread-eagle, among several tattered Drone corpses and hundreds of spent bullet casings. The spheres regarded it with curiosity, one moving to it and wrapping four of its spindly legs around its helmet, using the modicum of strength it possessed to pull the visor away and toss it aside. The spheres all examined it closely, poking and prodding at its crushed trachea with great interest. After what seemed like deliberation on their part, they each wrapped four legs around the body's arms, and began dragging it back in the direction they had come from.

.
.
.

It was another several hours before they finally returned to their pod, which opened hospitably upon their arrival. The six holes on the silver spine that the spheres had been connected to close, and sharp spikes extended out in their place, gleaming in the desert sun. the spheres managed to lift the cadaver up and over the lip of their craft, laying it inside in as much of a sitting position they could muster. The spikes on the spine retracted as the corpse's back rested on it, only to shoot back with considerable force a moment later, stabbing straight through the flesh and muscle with quite a gooey sound. As soon as the tips had entered into the body, the pod seemed to jump to life, lights and screens and foreign words popping up everywhere. The spheres reached over and began pressing luminous buttons all over the surface of the pod walls with a speed and precision that an organic life form could only dream of matching.

Finally, after many keystrokes by the alien balls, the lights fell dim. The silver pod retracted, closing and spinning itself locked, the corpse inside. The six spheres dropped back onto the sand, arranging themselves back into two rows of three, and laid stock-still, waiting.

KKT Admiral Gerasimovhich wrote:

Azri-can wrote:"Come in, Admiral Gerasimovhich. This is ... Lieutenant Torijikawa of the CN Armara. Over."

"This is Lieutenant Roza of the KKT Admiral Gerasimovhich, affirming."

Sol Kuiper belt -- Outer Regions

Several ansible signatures suddenly appeared on the outer edges of the solar system. A wide-beam radio signal came out from the rift in space, alerting the 55th of an incoming MiLiSPANZ Unit(anti-magic hunters and that kind of fun stuff). The 55th replied to this with an ansible signal affirming this, precisely timed to the exit from transit of the incoming ships..

Three MiLiSPNAZ assault cruisers emerged from transit, accompanied by the burst of stellar radiation. The cruisers were three-hundred meters long black triangular ships; with weapons and engines skillfully melded into the superstructure of the ships. There were no windows or features that could give the ship away; at all.

Within an instant of their arrival, optical,emission, and radiation cloaking devices engaged aboard the Milipsnaz cruisers. The ships vanished from view, replaced by the normal field of stars. If the enemy (god forbid the enemy using tracking equipment) tried to track their emissions or radiation, they would find nothing. Only gravitic tracking, a useless and novel type of sensor technology, could detect them now.

There was another burst of stellar radiation as the three cruisers actived their fold drives, and they really were gone. The ships had entered outside the solar system for protection, but it was never their destination. They were headed for Anti-Sol, and the huge concentration of (Class-I Magic Using Entities) enemies engaging in battle

Anti-Saturn

The three MiLiSPNAZ cruisers, the KTT Thermoplastic , KKT Thermonuclear, and KKT Thermodynamics, dropped from Transit some 8.000 kilometers from the left side (assuming you face the sun, on the galactic plane) of Anti-Saturn. And they waited silently; the life support and gravity systems never existed in the first place, and the heat sinks were sub-space based. If you noticed these ships, it was probably because one had exploded from the inside(god help us then).

Using an almost non-existent amount of energy, frictionless weaponry casings slip open on each ship; and surprisingly primitive (but effective) fiber-optic targeting systems relayed weapon trajectories into the ships Targeting Intelligence. The linear acceleration cannons (standard on MiLiSPNAZ ships) slid on frictionless bearings in their casings, tracking the strange combatants. These weapons, unlike most retractable weapons, were covered in the same metamaterials as the hull, refracting light like the rest of the ship.

This was... The MiLiPSNAZ (Transliteration of Anti-Magic Special Operations Units)

A subwave (trans-dimensional waveform medium) transmission was sent from the KKT Thermodynamics to the two other vessels, detailing the mission at hand. The message was simple and elegant; the polar opposite of its meanings. And it was deadly in it's intentions.

*SUBWAVE MEDIUM - OSK9923A - BEGIN*

/******/*****/094553/!909!/Begin

|Mission At Hand|

a. All CLANDESTINE OPERATORS are be FINALIZED
b. All methods of FINALIZATION are permitted
c. THIS IS A CLANDESTINE EVENT

*SUBWAVE MEDIUM - OSK9923A - TERMINATE*

KKT Thermodynamics, Level 3, Armory Number-Seven

A sqade of MiLiSPNAZ were preparing for one hell of a boarding mission. They were in various states of undress, some wearing their full combat armor (sans helmet), while others were just getting on the trinium-armored (starship grade) pants that came with the armor. Several tons (literally) of armor

The Sergeant of the group was steadying his aim with a magnetic pulse rifle (EM-weapon, training) by blasting holes in the pane of liquid mercury. There was a single hole where he was shooting at, right through the middle of the pane. And he wasn't even trying; and he was wearing a set of powered armor that weighed nearly 500 pounds unassisted (he had the implants for that kind of shit). And finally, he was shooting from his peripheral vision. (his body was facing away from the pane)

The sergeant looked down at one of the newer (and younger) members, and referring to his shooting, said, "Son, do you think you can do that? In armor like this?"

The Commando shrugged, and replied through a kind of grin with bared teeth, "Sir, this." He flicked his wrist across the bench, snapping up one of the combat knives, and with the same flick, sent it spiraling through the air. The knife landed with a 'THUNK' in the pane of mercury, lodging itself deep into the plastic. This was followed by a screeching sound as the knife dug into the metal bulkhead, finally stopping at mid-way along the blade. A little dribble of the silver liquid oozed from the space between knife and polymer, coalescing into droplets and falling to the floor.

"Daammmmn..." muttered the Sergeant. The knife had flow past his ear, missing by only a few millimeters. (being the MiLiSPNAZ he was, he didn't even flinch) For a new Commando, that was pretty impressive.

7.000 Kilometers in Orbit over the Saharah

KKT Peresviet

Colossal beams of shiny blue energy from the Sarach impacted with the hull of this destroyer, melting away the (currently) unshielded engine guards and rear sections of the ship. The molten metal, thrown off into space by the kinetic energy of the beams, burnt up in the atmosphere of earth as they spalled into smaller and smaller pieces. The engines were trailing plumes of gas and molten metal now, and the long trail of gases and heat from the ship's (Anti-Matter Powered) R-17M-L3 Ramjet engines flowed into space from the damaged sections of the exhaust directors.

Well, something was going down; the destroyer had been unshielded and unprepared for an assault of that magnitude, and especially not one to the engines. (the hull had been undamaged, really).

The destroyer started to fall into the pull of earth's gravity as an explosive rocked the insides of Ramjet engines, and then began to fall lopsidedly through the atmosphere! As the ship continued on its crash course, more beams of energy grazed against it's hull, subliming thin layers of metal. Sheets of metal ripped off

Finally, the destroyer careened into a ballistic orbit onto earth. The hull of the ship was glowing red-hot from reentry; making this a very ominous scene as the ship (adjusted through a few maneuvering thrusters) plunged straight down at the dreadnought. Emergency deceleration thrusters fired when the ship was halfway through the atmosphere to it's target, bringing the ship into an almost slow speed. A slow speed of about three times the speed of sound.

KA-BOOM!

The destroyer impacted with in the general area of the Dreadnaught!

(OOC: Guts, you're calling this one! Yep.]

The destroyers in orbit responded to this attack in a very drastic way.

The KKT Novik and KTT Monhkon brought up their shielding as soon as the first beams of energy ripped through the engines of the KKT Peresviet, preventing another incident like that from happening. The shielding was composed of several layers. First, a particle screen seven nanometers from the hull dispersed kinetic munitions and matter, while an energy shield fifteen nanometers from the hull kept out beam weapons and those damn energy columns. Secondary projection shields surrounded the engines and bridge of the craft, providing a screen of protection to those.

To combat the Sarach, the two destroyers launched several hundred flak shells in their direction, fire them off one-after-another in what seemed like a constant stream. The shells were accelerated to nearly 5 KPS (kilometers per second) by the railgun launchers, and then split into thousands of small one-ounce kinetic munitions (via explosion) after two-hundred meters of travel time. The effect was that hundreds of tiny shrapnel pieces, going fast enough to explode on impact with something else (basic), were streaked straight towards the ascending Sarachi in a 'net' of sorts.

Orbiting Anti-Mars, Orbiting The 'Ship'

Roza was jolted from his seat by the sudden appearance of a single lifeform outside the ship. The HSI/Thermals had picked up the creature, seemingly moving around in space with no obvious means of propulsion. From this distance, he couldn't see the thing clearly, but his sensors had a massive, organic, high-emissions blob of heat floating around in space. He sent a command through his neural uplink, and broke radio silence.

"This is BRASK-ONE, we have one boogie at 7.600 kilometers and closing, keep a look out."

"This is BRASK-TWO, over."

"BRASK-THREE, copy that. Should we check the thing out?"

"BRASK-THREE, I think so?"

Roza pulled down to the side of his HOTAS control shaft, bringing his MiG-M32C swerving towards the massive ship and rouge heat blow. His comrades brought their fighters through a series of zero-G maneuvers (thanks to inertial dampening) into a formation poised to do a flyby of Thane.

Roza flipped a column of switches on his console, shifting his weapons to 'armed', and ready for action. The integrated combat AI engaged at this, running a check of the ship's systems as it booted up.

Here they were, ready for anything. If that lifeform made an offensive move, he would know the real meaning of Kinetic-Energy Munitions.

The black spheres lay as if frozen in time, even as the pod that they arrived on made loud, terrifying noises from within. Electricity danced over its silvery sheath with furious crackles. It vibrated ever so gently left or right as what could only be described as "the sounds of a struggle" occurred within. The sloughing moaning of a hair-lipped man possessed emanated like a distant canyon's echo. The scene was, for all intents and purposes, freaky as hell.

This process continued for several minutes, the sounds of horror drifting lazily through the dunes, before it ceased with such jarring speed that one might not have noticed it's end for several seconds. The white pupils of the spheres focued on their vessel with dedicated attention as it once again began to unscrew with a pneumatic hiss.

As the pod opened itself, what was inside was distinctly not the corpse of Simon Geburt. Sure, maybe if you took the time to have a DNA test done, it would probably come back with a positive ID for the recently deceased Technocratic soldier, but no one would be able to tell from looks alone. His skin was an alien, pale blue color, sunken in enough to wrap around his bones, veins blackened by the onset of death bulging through like pockets of air. His regulation military buzzcut was burnt off, leaving a rough, bald head behind filled with cancerous-looking lumps. His eyes were barely more than pits with a distant, white park staring out from within. His nose like a cliff face eroded to near-nothingness; his ears were little more than burnt holes on the side of his face; his mouth was framed by curled, burnt, lips, presided in by an oil slick-black tongue, and guarded by a death-trap of chipped and crazed teeth. There was, seemingly appearing from nothingness, a thick, metal brace around his neck, unnaturally elongating it to ridiculously aristocratic proportions.

Not-Geburt lay still for a few moments, showing no signs of life (not a surprise with his new appearance), until the banal buzzing of a dozen tazers filled the air, causing his body to seize up and shake, his eyes to shoot open, and his mouth to yell out a strained scream. He fell against the cushioned insole of the pod, suddenly, horribly lucid.

"Wha..." He started. "I...Who..." It seemed like his mind was at once retarded from thinking, and zipping by at unimaginable speeds. He felt like he had a million questions, but did not know how to phrase them. He leaned forward, feeling something heavy tugging at his back. He wrapped his spider-like fingers around the lip of the craft and pulled, eventually breaking free and tumbling into the sand. The metal spine that had affixed him in place was now clearly visible (though not to him, of course) attached to his back.

Not-Geburt pushed himself into a sitting position and, for the first time, glimpsed his new, deformed hands. He may not have been exactly in the right mind, but he knew enough to realize that hands do not usually look that way.

"AA...AAAAAUUGH!" He screamed. He looked over his whole body, which now resembled a skeleton dipped in blue wax and put on puppetteer strings for movement. "WHAT IS THIS?! WHAT'S HAPPENING?! WHAT'S..WHAT'SSSAAAZZZZZZ" Not-Geburt shot upright as another electric pulse charged through his body, sending him into a fetal position in the sand.

The spheres, which had been watching the whole affair placidly, finally began to move as his back was to them. Plugs extended from their bodies like cornered snakes, lifting up threateningly as they neared him.

Not-Geburt breathed heavily as the charge finally stopped.

"It's...Okay...It's over...It's-"

Simultaneously, each sphere plugged their chord into one of the six ports on his silvery, alien spine, starting the process all over again. He gesticulated and shook all over, but this time, in his mind at least, the sound of electricity buzzing through the air was replaced by something new.

Quiet.

Not-Geburt writhed and fidgeted, moaning in pain.

QUIET.

The monotone voice filled the corpse-man's earholes, ringing around his skull for several seconds. He lay still, his eyes open.

"Who..." He asked, looking around. He looked into the eyes of the spheres, which had gathered around him.

My identity is not important. It is yours that has been decided.

"I...What? I'm...I'm Simon..."

The body that was found in an abandoned battlefield was Simon. You are not Simon.

"What...? Body..." Suddenly the imagery of his last moments of actual life flooded into Not-Geburt's head. He sucked in a gasp. "I...Died?"

Simon died, and for that injustice, you were born as reparation.

"No. No. This doesn't make any sense." Not-Geburt cradled his head in his hands, becoming momentarily disturbed by how nasty his skin felt.

You are in the midst of an event of great importance. You have been chosen to document it.

"This doesn't make any sense!" Not-Simon screamed into the wastelands. A short electric shock burst into his body once again, sending him crashing again to the sands.

We do not have time for your existential crisis. You are needed, and you are needed now.

Not-Geburt lay still, silent, for several moments.

"What...Am I supposed to do?" He asked finally, deciding that cooperating with this mysterious voice was probably a good way to stave away the torturous tazer bursts.

You are to lead The Anchors into the areas of great interest and importance to us. You will examine all that is happening and determine the levels of threat.

"The...Anchors?" Not-Geburt asked. He felt a sharp prod in his ankle, causing him to turn and look at the spheres which each waved a leg genially. "Oh..."

The Anchors will protect you as you protect them. Is your duty clear to you?

"I...I think so."

Good. Get to work.

"Wait, one more thing." The corpse-man pleaded.

Yes?

"You said I'm not Simon anymore...If I'm not Simon, who am I?"

You are an Analyst. Now go, analyze.

The Sahara

With the ship falling at breakneck speeds Dreadnaught's telekinetic shield could only do so much, a slight alter of trajectory was all that occured before a shockwave powerful enough to take out a quarter of dreadnaught's form collided with it, ripping open muscle tissue on the underside of Dreadnaught so far that it revealed the internal birthing chamber that Dreadnaught used to create all sorts of horrible creatures. Just when it was about finished regenerating it was struck back down again. An anguished howl sounded from the space-whale just as the shockwave collided while smoke and tar clouded the air. Dreadnaught, suprisingly, wasn't dead, after all it had been hit with. It damn well was mad, though. What could be seen from Dreadnaught could possibly be thought of as a "Last Stand" in the fact that the very earth shook with it's arrival.

A stampede of Drones and Wraiths accompanied them for an air/land assault with little to no regards for their own forces, they simply met the Technocratic forces in a berserk fury. It was odd, because throughout the rampage some of the drones could be seen mutating into Wraiths, and vice versa, some wraiths mutated into drones. The Wraiths, while they didn't physically attack ground troops fired internal spines that were launched via complex muscle contractions in the tail, there were multiple different presentations that the spines could be sent out, but through trajectory the spines would fragment into many other pieces covering area, at the expense of disregard for their own forces. They made up in collateral damage with pure numbers from the shaking of the scene it was indicitive that there was something else behind that smokescreen that was lurking, waiting to move into battle.

This time another howl was heard behind the smokescreen, it was a deep, baritone in contrast to the hissing and screeching of the drones and wraiths that flooded the scene.

Anti-Titan

Gennosuke was high-tailing it out of there when the salvo's were unleashed for a nearby cryovolcano, Xelas acted almost in automation in his defense. A wall of compacted mineral and frozen terra came up to his defense, with density comparable to crystal. Shielding Gennosuke in a cresent, he whirled around, he hadn't seen which of the two had done so, but there was apparently two volleys sent, the naked guy had his gun pointed at each of them and the cyborg had an open salvo. In open palms a radiant energy peaked in the form of balls of light. His fingers clenched around the energy as rays of luminescence spouted from in between his fingers. Suddenly Gennosuke thrusted both arms forwards and large beams of energy fired from his hands at both Autun and Tage. He didn't know who had fired the attacks at him, but from their position they appeared as if both had shot at him.

The hue of his iris, sclera and pupil transformed to the opposing colors of the spectrum. It seems that the two had come for a fight, so Gennosuke would ready himself to accomodate - completely unaware of what lay just above orbit, completely cloaked.

Back at the Sahara, moments after the collision...

"I'm John Taervlin, your Local News 7 Anchor, and tonight we have a story on severe fighting in upper africa that is presumed to start this morning.. We have our news anchor, Katie Kirklin on the scene."

The screen flickering switches to a windblown newsanchor

"Just moments ago, John, a large meteor-looking object collided into the desert, where conflict of unknown forces has been at fierce war for the duration of an hour."
Said the female newsanchor who had a cluster of papers folded in her right hand shielding the back of her head from the rain of sand, in her left hand the microphone.

"It has been confirmed that this is not the usual guerilla conflict or any variation of spread-off of the middle eastern conflict that is occuring," the anchor states.

"You can hear the gunshots behind me, consistant with an occasional explosion, John, there is heavy fighting in the Sahara." She spoke, to the newsanchor.

Just after she's done speaking the newsanchor appears as if he's about to interject just before an explosion rocks the scene and the camera goes static. The news anchor shuffles his papers nervously just before changing camera views and speaking: "We seem to be undergoing some technical difficulties, please bear with us." he says just before the screen shifts to blue.

((Everyone feel free to toy with the natives of earth.))

The intensity of the fighting had escalated to the point where the media connection had been severed and the a large explosion (presumeably caused by a stray wraith's attack) had damaged the newsteam's equipment. Leaving them stranded, but not dead.

"I'm seeing multiple contacts moving in on our position, Master Sergeant."
"Sonuvabitch. Valentina, can you get online with any UCON Satellites, try the Technocracy!"
"They aren't Tech or UCON Satellites ... they're ... from here."
"Whadya' mean here?!"
"Here, Master Sergeant. From this planet."
"You telling me this is an inhabited planet?"



"Fuck! I can't reach the Lieutenant!" Havok burst angrily, stepping sideways as he narrowly avoided the writhing claw of a nearby Drone. Maneuvering with added weight which was Thomas slung over his back tormented him somewhat, but it had been done before.
"All communications with the Red Technocracy have been lost, Master Sergeant -- " Valentina responded as Havok twirled on his heel, slinging his MR-17 in one hand while holding his hand firmly against Thomas' back with the other. A quick depression of the trigger, and the 8.6mm assault rifle kicked wildly from the use of a single fulcrum of support. A crackling burst brought down an pursuing Drone in a hail of spattering slugs, numerous chunks of the accelerated metal smashed and splattered into the creature; thick viscous blobs of chunky organ and goo spewed from the wounds as the beast dropped. A number more quickly moving to take it's place, though.

"Bitch!" Havok yelled bitterly, a deep clicking noise resounded through his ears as the MR-17 went dry. Screwed in the well, miles away from human contact, and that thing still looming on the horizon.
"Master Sergeant, we've got a big problem!" Valentina barked; instantly, mechanically, Havok's eyes were pulled skyward by Valentina. His vision fluttered with amazement as the sky was filled with the churning, burning, and molten debris given off from the meteorite.
"Valentina, what the hell are we looking at?" Havok barked, his head pivoting to follow the massive fireball as it arched over the horizon, and toward the Dreadnaught.
"That's -- A Red Technocracy Destroyer!" Valentina exclaimed, a single, shrill voice booming in his ears as Havok's mind swirled.
"A fucking destroyer?!" He managed, before being cut off by Valentina.
"No time, Master Sergeant. That Destroyer's on a collision course! It's going to hit the Dreadnaught!"

Havok let out an angry yell at the information, cutting his thoughts and suddenly turning his back to the Dreadnaught; it was all about getting out of the area now. With a grunt, Havok placed one foot over the next; quickly, hurriedly. Pushing his shoulder upward, he kept Thomas tightly wound about his shoulder, Havok heaved deeply with each step that brought him farther from the epicenter of war, and closer to false safety.
"Master Sergeant, no time to run! Get down!" The womanly voice exclaimed urgently, looming from within his mind as Havok quickly obeyed. Letting out a deep scream, the Azrik leaned forward and dropped Thomas onto his back; rather brutishly. Using his hands, he shoved Thomas downward and deeper into the fields of grass and swaying groups of tall shrubbery.
"Balvice, you best not wake up soon!" Havok yelled as he pulled his sidearm from the strap along Havok's thigh, his MH-7, and rolled himself onto of Thomas.

Crunching his eyes shut tightly, Ben was caught hanging in a split-second of buzzing noise. Nothing sounded, for an instant, peace had existed within the desert before the storm. Before hell would be unleashed on this unfortunate planet.
"Three ... Two ... One ... Impa -- "



Within an instant, silence had been replaced by a deafening boom, Havok felt the tug of his legs nearly lift from the ground as the surge forced it's way outward from the epicenter of the explosion. Light that had once been flooding through his eyelids were suddenly non-existent; consciousness was lost as Havok was buffeted by the shockwave, Havok's teeth sinking into his tongue before his eyes filled with black. He managed a pitiful grunt of anger before his eyes closed and his mind was flooded. Valentina was aware of the entire situation, a Red Technocracy had entered the planet's orbit, and proceeded to crash into the beast that had been dubbed the "Dreadnaught".
" ... Attn -- ion any sur -- of the Red Technor -- stroyer. Technocr -- ic sold -- iers are lo -- ated throu -- out the area and may be -- need of -- itical assistance."

A dark, dusty, sandy plume of debris and material from the remains of the destroyer and it's target. Or so it appeared. The mushroom cloud reached skyward as dust and countless amounts of particles slowly blotted out the lights, a thick viscous cloud of material spread into the atmosphere as a deep, organic howl erupted from the epicenter. Valentina would give a soft gasp of disbelief, Havok was unconscious, and possibly Thomas. Hell, they could even be dead.
"This is impossible." Valentina stated quietly.
"Master Sergeant. We need you up."

Saharah Desert

That THING looked Thomas right in the eye, and at that moment he knew what had been lurking around inside his body; he knew what had been causing him all this torment. All this pain, suffering - reasoning for why he was forced to kill his own girlfriend - the woman he loved - cherished beyond all else; even enough to quell the beast within that was his loathing for criminals. He had lost his parents to a burglar when he was just a child, and she comforted him with her loving embrace, but now she was gone. Jessica Lynn was DEAD, and he had to move on, he had to take control, but that monster wasn't going to let that happen.

"SET ME THE FUCK DOWN NOW!"

But he received no response; pounding on Havoc's back like a baby that lost its bottle, like a child who had lost his favorite toy, like a troubled teen that had been sent to Juvenile hall. Like the man he truly was, former Lieutenant, Thomas Balvice was slowly being reduced to nothing, though at the same time he was becoming something. Funny how that works, ain't it? It was far from becoming something in a good way; he was being weaponized by a monster of nature, those weapons were being used to fight off a beast of the cosmos. He could see the massive destroyer plummeting down towards the Dreadnaught, before suddenly exploding just above it.

Thomas could feel a piece of flesh come flying right at his face, despite the fact that Havoc was now ontop of him. He screamed, he kicked; reminded of that gruesome scene in Monterey, California. All..those people dead...all his hopes were gone, dead, his friends, comrades, he even saw a few familiar faces from the military that had come to combat the beast. Some guy from his high school Global Perspective's class: Nathaniel Dontre, he was getting sucked in by the monster, before suddenly getting sliced clean through by a malevolent drone, and he got a mouthful of blood. After all, he was fighting alongside him, during the attack.

..Now he just had a mouthful of sand, and a few mild singes along his skin, but nothing he couldn't handle. His own flesh had been scorched on the inside, once before, and even frozen at one point, so he was able to cope with it. But what he wasn't able to cope with, was Havoc sitting on his fucking chest, shoving the air out of his goddamn lungs. "GEEEEETTTTTTT OFFF ME, NOW!" A forceful shove, completely throwing Havok off his body, sending a flurry of bullets into the wraith's projectiles which was what ended up saving their lives. If not for that, they'd be resembling something that just tango'd with an oversized porcupine.

He managed to get up, at last only to realize that the giant rock golem had increased its size, to twice that of the Sarachs, which was also twice that of the Dreadnaught. "H-h-oh...my fucking SHIT!?"

--

Orbiting Anti-Mars Inside The Ship

Singar stifled another laugh as a screen descended in front of his face, revealing what exactly Thane was doing out there in space, and it was most definitely entertaining.

"Why don't you join me in this wonderful show, Morbid?"

"How about I join my claw with your intestines!?"

"Oh..but it's so entertaining."

"It's also making me want to slaughter you..." Morbid grunted, scraping his feet against the rocky floor as if he was about ready to charge Singar into a wall, and possibly drown him in the molten pools that littered the environment. Singar merely raised a hand, and hundreds of red strings, each chained together by a set of arcane runes appeared in front of Morbid, separating him from his target. "I wouldn't do that if I were you..The only reason your brother is still alive is because Tage injected him with that genome, which he can easily be tweaked into a type of apoptosis.."

"Speak english, wretch.."

"His heart cells commit suicide, his heart essentially explodes inside his chest, and he dies..."

Morbid's eyes widened, revealing his cappilaries, blood literally pouring out of his eyes, as he struggled to control his rage. If he attacked his brother would die, and if he didn't, he'd be letting him face a target he had never faced before, and he didn't have a good chance of winning either.

"How the hell do you even expect him to fight those things with nothing but a few fancy tricks!?"

"Just watch..and you'll see why I chose him as my subject of interest.."

--

Outside The Ship

Thane had the disgusting taste of liquid metal in the back of his throat, and quite frankly it was horrible; he didn't like it; he couldn't stand it. It was...salty liquidy, like drinking salty water. Mother Nature couldn't help him now, he'd have to fight off those ships or he'd risk putting his brother in danger. "Can you hear me..Thane? It's me..Corruptor.."

"What did you do to my body? How am I supposed to fight these machines?"

"Just go at them..you'll see what your weapons are soon enough.."

"If you say so."

"I know so...Thane. I know you very well, and I know how to engineer weapons that compliment your already existing abilities. Why do you think I chose you of all people?"

The metal within his own bones began to react violently,exiting out through sections of his finger-tips, as those gargoyle wings os his took on a look of both infection, and high-tech weaponry mixed together. "I've studied the Val'Gara by speaking with Deceiver, and have found a way to track this bio-force as he calls it, but at the same time, I can now home-in on it like a heat-seeking missile.."

"You truly do..defile nature..."

"Now you know why I'm called Corruptor..."

"Now go, spread the corruption.."

Thane did as he was told, despite his resolve to go against it, and propelled himself through space with a flap of his wings, and an electromagnetic kick, integrated into his wings, partially fueled by those electric-eels for fingers. In essence, he put a wall of electrons against his back and then another one behind him. The repulsion of negative against negative, was what was moving him, like a rubber-ball against being thrown against a wall, Thane was that ball.

But how he was he going to cope with only being able to move in brief bursts, it couldn't couldn't be kept on a linear course, because it was more like getting jerked. The key to this problem was Tage's ley-lines which had also been integrated into his being, and through this he was able to manipulate all sorts of energies. In this case, he merely siphoned the electrons into lines, in a perpetual state of propulsion, keeping him in a constant state of motion, rather than unstable jumps. The reason for that first jerk though was simply activation of Tage's ingenius program.

Weaponizing Mother Nature truly was, an asset fitting to a being like Thane, though when combined with man's creations, what did you have? It was planned out by a Hellian, kicked off by man, applied by nature. But where were the higher-ups, where were the ones from Heaven? There was no balance here, only Corruption, a Deception that someone was actually going to save these people from their cruel fates?

--
Inside The Ship

*TWANGCHHNK*

--

Outside The Ship

Thane kept on getting closer and closer, as he siphoned the flow of electrons with a positively charged ring wave, which he angled according to his flight-direction, allowing him to to make swift turns and maneuver his body out of the line of fire. His current target wasn't the battle-cruisers, but the men who were piloting them, two metallic missiles for each cruiser, containing semi-microscopic pieces of Thane's anatomy and physiognomy.

They worked by tracking bio-force, though as an add-on effect, the contained Thane's DNA, the blue-prints for his shape-shifting abilities. The missiles projected nanomachines out in front, that were designed to read the bio-signature of each pilot and decipher their racial background, what they were, evolutionary history, the works. Through this method, the missiles were able to produce a base-line for just exactly what they were tracking, and they followed that line to a T, heading straight for the cockpits of the battle-cruisers.

--

Anti-Titan

"INCOMING INCOMING! ETHEREAL MAGIC HAS BEEN DETECTED AND IS BEING SIPHONED!" Serrated blades beneath his feet began to adjust their positioning, allowing Tage to manipulate the path of propulsion, keeping him out of harm's way of the blast that Gennosuke shot at him. He was taking a curve route, flying out and then heading back in, the metallic pieces of his anatomy shifting their positioning along his draconic tail, lining up in a set of blades that quickly began to start revving up.

"Activating Harmonic Chainsaw!"

Tage angled his wings to a slightly more narrow positioning, utilizing the harmonic resonance, which in essence was like producing super-concentrated super-sonic sound-waves through means of vibration, though instead of producing sound, it radiated raw distorting energy, allowing him to completely slice through and disperse Gennosuke's beam energy in one fell spin move.

At the mid-point of his spin though, Tage was pulling energy into his mouth through means of the ley-lines, utilizing the dual-quantum engines located in his occipital lobe. A cloaked ball of nuclear energy, not nearly enough to generate a regular sized explosion, but still something relatively powerful, and he released it directly in Gennosuke's direction, guiding it with magnetic rings that kept the ball stable.

--

Sahara Desert

The first line of defense against the flak was Agron who had grown quite substantially, though he had been knocked back by the explosion to some degree, his sheer girth alone was enough to defend most of the Sarach. His rocky skin was chipped at multiple times, but nothing too serious. Afterwards, the group of ascending Sarach began to increase their speed, by expelling energy from the runes protruding from the ends of their tails.

In very little time at all, they had made it up to space, and they charging right at the nearest Destroyer, ten of them to be exact. Then approximately thirty more of them began to surround the outer-perimeter, their runes continuously radiating that shimmering blue energy, essentially producing a massive blockade made up entirely of the energy they were giving off.

One of them fractured, breaking apart into hundreds upon hundreds of human-sized Agrons, a layer of molten rock, branching off into a set of wings, held together through artificial bones produced by ice-tubes, hardening the lava around them, which produced the stability and flexibility they needed to ride along the vacuum-currents of space. The assault had truly begun, as the battle began to take on an entirely different style.

Their sole mission was to infiltrate the nearest ship, and that's exactly where they were headed.

Back down on Anti-Earth Thomas Balvice was still in shock, as the earthen-shape shifter before him began to move towards him, shaking the ground with every step it took. At the same time, the creature inside his skeleton was continually forcing pressure on his brain until he finally managed to attach the runes to his optic-nerve on a minute level, one such method that was safe enough to avoid shredding apart Thomas' eye.

Each and every single rune acted as an interpreter to the magics that had spread within his field of vision, by sitting in front of his neurons and intercepting electrical signals with their powers of infection. After that process had been complete, these interpreations were carried from neuron to the next, all throughout Thomas' entire nervous system. It had essentially allowed his brain to register any and all magics and decipher them on a fairly recognizable level, and while it wasn't yet fully developed, he could still see faint signals of all the resonating power.

The Agron who had been making his way towards Thomas was getting within the hundreds of feet, and every step it took brought him MUCH closer, and for every quake that shook the earth, the ground around Thomas and Havok's crew was beginning to rise up in a MASSIVE column of at least 400 hundred meters, straight up to, and subsequently the unknown Valavalince as well. Agron was going to put Thomas at eye-level with him, so he could get a good luck at just what exactly had taken him over and what it was all about. Thomas on the other hand was more focused on not shitting himself at the fact that he was two miles up in the air, looking a two-mile high golem right in the eye.

"I should've just let that Dreadnaught suck me in back in Monterey, California..."

Venus continued its bland existence in the presence of an all out war that occurred a mere planet behind. The planet of love had taken in a strange that assumed a false orbit around the ragged desert scape of a planet with a sulfuric canopy. They both reached the apex of their coupled elongation toward earth both appearing in the sky of earth in a brightness that rivaled only the moon of earth. The moon of Venus was out closest to earth and with the final phase the stage was set.

A brilliant blue light that faded stunningly into a cloud of red surrounded the desolate moon as it grew large in the sky. Was it moving toward earth? Yes, and at breakneck speeds provided by Dominus' rear thruster. It was quickly closing the distance as the monitors within the false-planet began to throw red flags upon their screens. It was approaching too fast, but there was no one on board to redirect it through the correct systems and get the problem solved. Dominus' rear propulsion system halted, taking with it the beautiful ring that made it appear as a rising sun from down below on the planet. Suddenly thousands of vector jets opened along its front and began to slow Dominus down to a slow crawl descending into the orbit of the earth opposite its own moon. The oceans quivered and before long they began to shift, rising as if to signal praise.

Effectively vectoring its position Dominus was satisfied with his current location and from a giant gateway on its front it launched a flagship, A1, to descend upon earth and begin the collection. The large star craft A1 was outfitted with very different weaponry, none in the class of newer generations of ships that were being housed within Dominus' hull. The ship was unfinished in the way of color, just smooth metallic curves with an alluring resplendence that was created by the sun. Nearly a moment latter the craft began its descent into the earth's atmosphere collecting a bright red glow around it.

Suddenly, as it's bow broke the atmosphere the front hatch opened revealing ten pods. The pods were generally the same size, and unfinished, just plain metallic surfaces with names scrawled on their outside for who was inside from left to right it read: Yamashita, Niitsu, Eito, Kakuji, Seijo, Blasphemy, but the middle one was considerably larger than the rest and only a single digit inscribed to its surface; [2]. Continuing the names as they came to the three on the right were: Tian Ru, Hyouma, and Bennosuke. The words blurred in an explosion of radiant heat as they were fired down toward the epicenter of combat, and to Takezo to complete Dominus' Eleven.

A recent upheaval created a plateau upon the surface of the Sahara amid the combat, Dominus knew what creature had made it, but did not know the name or reasons for it being there. Information was now the goal of the Eleven, being fed to them via internal connections. Dominus took notice of each inhabitant of the area; the fleets that were fighting, the common people in the surrounding towns and the battle that was waged lightyears away the only fact that made this assumable was the brilliant lights firing off in distance.

Takezo had awakened from the hellish nightmare of reliving his death, but was still unsure as to what aided him in his moment of rebirth. Those questions were for later, for now he was compelled to journey toward the spire and the chaos that gather around it to find out what it was that was able to create such disturbances in the earths crust. Unbeknown to him Takezo was clad in the same outfit he wore at the time of his death, it could be because he wasn't paying attention to how he was dressed, but that didn't sound like Takezo at all. He was a man that prided himself on his appearance, and if it was sullied in anyway especially wearing the same clothing twice he would regret it within himself. All of his consciousness had been put on hold until he reached the beacon and his accomplices.

384,403 Kilometers Above the Saharah

This was all going to shit. What was supposed to be a simply search-and-destroy operation was turning into a complete morass, with new and strange enemies storming in from every direction, even in space.

Captain Voronin of the KKT Admiral Gerasimovhich watched as the huge, planet-sized space ship appeared on his optical display, completely filling it with sensor readings and ominous threat warnings. He waved his left hand in the air, clearing his optical display of trash data. The screen went blank; and Voronin's vision was unobstructed by the mass of orange sensor readings. (Unlike most projected displays, the optical display used by Technocracy naval officers is projected over the eye by a contact-like device.)

With a thought transmitted through his neural interface, he ran a near instantaneous query of the ship's sensors, and brought up glowing orange panel in his diplay. The panel showed the condensed sensor readings on the Dominus. These were constantly changing as the Dominus approached closer to the Battlegroup, each field edging larger by a matter of decimal points as the readings became more and more accurate. The constant steam of data stopped as the sensors reached maximum acuity, several minutes after the object appeared on-screen. The only changing variable was the location field, which was inching forward by a factor of several hundred meters a second.

Most notable was the mass display, which put the object at nearly the size of the Terran Moon. The captain jumped (mentally) at this reading, and bit his lip slightly. "This doesn't happen..." He muttered to himself, still biting his lip and hoping that his sensor readings were simply wrong. The largest ships ever recorded were Trantorian Global Evacuation vessels, which at a 161 kilometers long, weren't nearly as large as this thing.

Normally the Captain was never one to retreat from a battle. But with the introduction of that thing into the fray, he had no choice. Combined with the swarms approaching his fleet, and the threat posed by Argon, he was really screwed over.

Voronin opened a communications link broadcasting to the fleet, and without a word, gave a single command to the entirety of the fleet. All forty-forty ships would hear this, and hopefully all of them would act on it. If some of them stayed to cover the flanks of the rest, they would be regarded as Heroes by the High Command, and given metals of honor in combat post-mortem.

"Formations OMSK, MOSCOW, SOVIET, KHRUSHCHEV, VYRU, PETROGRAD, KHAZAK, GORV, and FISH, scrape this shit and fall back to point Alpha-One-One-One!"

"We''ve got some nasty company coming our way; I want every damn fighter in this entire battlegroup defending our asses on the way, and letting the enemy know that we mean business! You head that! Get the fuck ready! I want that scraping order to be carrier out like it was the last thing you ever did, make sure NONE of them get away from it. Now, let's kick some asses and get our asses out of here, shall we!"

The first ships to warp out following that commander were the C&C and Tanker ships, which had been floating several hundred kilometers away from the main formation. They disappeared like dull pinpoints of light fading away, without notice.

Seconds after those two exited earth orbit, the rest of the fleet jumped out in tandem with the strike carrier KKT Admiral Gerasimovhich. There was huge burst of radiation as reality was torn asunder, thrown around a bit, and then moved several several million kilometers into the distance.

All except for one Destroyer, and the four battleships.

The captain of the Destroyer, noting the motherfucking force-field that had suddenly appeared all around him, just said fuck it, and pushed the engines to full. There was a sudden explosion from the engine mountings, as a hundred meter long tail of Plasma forced itself into space, and into the faces of the Sarach. The Sarach in front of it were even less lucky. They faced the incoming nose of the ship, combined with a hail of flak canister frags and the occasional phased particle beam, launched from the frontal emplacements of the destroyer. Talk about hellish fender benders!

The battleships were the last to go.

Seconds before their exit, the four battleships unleashed hell on the Sahara, the Sarach, and the incoming hordes of Val'Gara.

Their entire supply of port-side relativistic flak was expended was in one mighty burst, a burst of chemically/magnetically launched cluster pods that exploded 10 kilometers outside the group of battleships, turning their lose contents into thousands of one-ton warheads packed into something weighting no more than an ounce. These often overlooked (in conventional space combat doctrine) little fragments of metal were turned into a mighty weapon, making the relativistic flak countermeasures of the trio of destroyers look like a pebble compared to a howitzer. (In Other Words, Goodmorning Sarach!)

---

Outside The Ship

Well oh shit.

It struck Roza that several Ion-Engine propelled munitions were headed this way, when suddenly his Lidar display flashed orange and informed him that, oh shit, several small objects were tracking him! The first thing he did was shout a code into his intercomm, braking radio silence. There was no need for it now, now that they had been found out by the creature somehow floating in space. The comm gave a small burst of static as it reaffirmed his encryption levels and channel.

"Everyone, prime your weapons for death activation. NOW. Brask-One, Over. Scrape it."

"BRASK-TWO, BRASK-THREE, copy that. Weapons are primed. Moving in for attack run, now!"

Roza, who was still jittery as fuck now, slammed down the ECML lever, which was conveniently placed right next to the ejection level. (It was figured they would probably go hand and hand; for when the pilot got shot at, and when the pilot got shot at.) As he forced down the lever, two bright spheres of light burst into his peripheral vision, and then seemed to soar off behind him. In space, the counter-measures were fusion devices, equipped with a few additional features that were designed to confuse almost any missile system in existence, unless the fucker was guided by a man with joystick from under a kilometer away! Their heat was immense, enough to dwarf the blazing plasma engines of the Su-89A10 fighter for nearly a minute. And their light was blinding!

"Cont-Me, NOW! BRASK ONE, over!"

Roza's comrades released their own fusion counter-measures, which quickly passed by the ships, and several dozen kilometers away in a manner of seconds. "(remember, distances, distances)". But the missiles seemed to ignore the flares, much to the shock of the pilots!

"Umm.... We've got a problem, these birds aren't following the flares. Should we hit 'em in our tails? BRASK-ONE, over."

Suddenly, one of the missiles, which had taken a wide arcing course, slammed into the cockpit of BRASK-TWO, completely annihilating the craft in an explosion of pure energy. The other missile, which no longer had a bio-force target to track, lazily careened towards "the ship". And this is where the dead man's switch came in. The missile weaponry aboard the craft careened off the from wreckage, set dead-on for Thane, their last target.

The other two fighters turned their plasma tails on the missiles, ignoring the lose of their comrade until they had gotten rid of these damn missiles. With deft skill on the thrusters, and assistance from the integrated flight computers, they kept the damn things under the blowtorch for as long as possible. As the missiles careened forward, they did, keeping the fuckers at the maximum safe distance of thirty meters from their tailpipes.

Thirty seconds passed. The liquid metal was starting to spall, leaving a glowing trail of molten globules in their wake. The plasma exhaust was starting to take it's toll on them. Their signatures faded from the lidar as they were immerses in the plasma exhaust, giving Roza one hell of a fright. If he didn't know the bearing and heading of these damn missiles, it would be a lot harder to defend against them.

Sixty seconds passed. The missiles lost all cohesion as the internal guidance, DNA, and warhead were reduced to molten slag. They still had mass, but this was uncontrolled, and simply floated off into space, with nothing to stop them apart from the gravity well of Jupiter, which they would encounter in a few weeks. To counter these molten lumps of slag, the pilots hit their maneuvering thrusters and ascended (relatively) about six meters above the former missile's trajectories.

"Yee-Hah!"

Mission fucking accomplished. Now they could move on to Thane.

"BRASK-ONE, missiles are away! BRASK-THREE over."

"BRASK-THREE, missiles are away! Copy that."

From slightly recessed bays in the frame of the Su-87A10s, four Air-to-Air missiles screamed into space, leaving a long plasma trail of their own. They flew in a straight line for the first few seconds of flight, and then arced violently towards Thane! Their speed, combined with the speed of the fighters added up to create a completely frightening weapon, moving nearly as fast as a meteor, but tipped with a deadly fuzed Sabot, and kinetic-detonated fusion warhead.

Planet-Side, Eastern Kenya. 1,234 Kilometers from UCON Point GROUND-ZERO

The Delian bucked with power as the AR4 fired, the chunky 13 millimeter shells spitting out of weapons breach as it traced the weapon to the left; the bullets stringing across the backs of the native soldiers, flesh ripping from bone as the group of infantry collapsed from the barrage. Two more Delians, the chunky build of the humanoid monstrosities exited the combat-ravaged building.
"This place shall do fine." One muttered; the throaty, guttural voice of the terrorizing beast an intimidating echo.
"Move! Slaughter all you find!" He smashed a hand forward as the regrouping squad pressed out of the courtyard, hundreds of scurrying civilians, those who had narrowly survived these horrid abominations sudden entrance into their small world, were now being slaughtered like animals by these beasts. The terrifying crackle and boom of the Delian's rifles ripping massive holes into the unarmored flesh and bone of the fleeing innocents, it mattered not to the bloodthirsty Skarr, though. They dropped like flies, flies that would feed the Society.


"I'm an American! Do you hear that you fuckin' bastards! American! Don't fuckin' -- Don't fuckin' -- " The man yelled angrily, his hands held behind his head as the Delian forced him onto his knees in the line of others that had managed to survive the slaughter within the small fishing village. Four of the beasts that took part in the proceeding offensive stood as the other Delian forced the yelling man to his knee's. This one was dressed much more properly than the average, scantily clad ones were. The males skin pigment was naturally lighter than theirs; nearly a milky white, not much unlike the pigment of the Delians. Their chalky, pale skin easily agitated by the burning sun that loomed in the sky.
"You!" The Delian pointed, relinquishing his grip on the mans shoulders as he finally heeled, accepting his place on the ground. The Delian pointed to a young, dark child, the boy looked upward with a look of terror pressed against his face. Suddenly, the bonding that had previously held the boys hands behind his back fell away, the useless rags splashing into the wading water of the shoreline as he shifted to bring himself to his knees.
"What in th' fucks an American?" A Delian inquired to another comrade, his question shortened as the young boy rushed past the two lumbering beasts. The commanding Delian followed the boy with his eyes as he rushed down the shoreline, his feet smacking and splashing in the wading waters.
"Shoot that fucking swine!" The Delian yelled, the two subordinates followed the boy with their rifles raised. The barking of automatic weaponry followed, the boy, so close to freedom, was murdered in a hail of shredding gunfire. The boy crashed to the burning sand, his arm dangling by threads of grotesque tendon and shreds of bleeding muscle as the child's fluid began to stain the once bleached yellow sands.

"Oh fuck! Oh fuck! You guys are fucking cra -- " The man managed before a single bullet smashed through the back of his head, spattering the thick and crumpled remains of his brain cavity across the silty soil of the beach. The worthless body was then kicked down onto the ground, crumpling underneath the Delians boot as the two nearby soldiers systematically placed their rifles to the heads of the crying and weeping civilians. Quick squeezes of the trigger ended their pathetic lives, their bodies heaped together and left on the beach as the local birds commenced their usual scrounging of food.



The CN Armara

"Understand, we are clear for drop. Your trajectory is corrected, you should land within eight hours, Lieutenant." The Helmsman responded, Lieutenant Derrey felt the cementing straps, pulling them taut about his waist and shoulders. He wouldn't be having any of those screw-ups with a jump this far. The Armara was orbiting around a large gas giant within the Solar System, and had yet to be called into direct service with the Tech's laying some distances away. The crew of the Armara had their own plans, however. Already, the 106th ODI Platoon was in their HyDRA Entry Vehicles, awaiting the standing order to engage the jump, and descend to the lonely blue planet that was scrolling across the data-link of the HyDRA.

"We're ready, Lieutenant. Drop Infantry is looking for a fight." The Sergeant cracked a grin, his jagged teeth clenching a cigar as he flicked his hands across the small digi-board. The Lieutenant nodded his head and tapped the screen with a covered finger.
"You may be on the short end of the stick with this one, Sergeant." The Lieutenant responded, a cupped hand moving to rub against the stubble of his chin.
"Fuck, you tellin' me there won't be anything down there?" He returned, a hand running through the short, stocky hair of the mans scalp.
"Nothin' but Havok, hopefully." The Lieutenant answered.
"TIA, 'eh?"




Planet-side, Havok


Get up, Master Sergeant.
Shit, they're through. Fall back and regroup
Now, Master Sergeant.
SET ME THE FUCK DOWN NOW
'Avok, get your ass outta' there now! Delians are running amuck!
Master Sergeant, we need you up and ready.
GEEEEETTTTTTT OFFF ME, NOW!
Now, Havok!



Havok rolled from his position, thrust into consciousness as Thomas forced himself out of his confinement underneath Havok; the Azrik let his body lazily roll sideways and allowed his head to pivot and slump against his inner shoulder.
"Get up, Havok. Now" Valentina commanded, the AI sending quick jolts of action into Havok's spin in an attempt to jar his actions. The blast had knocked Havok out cold, his nose bleed openly from the pressure flux, that boom was pretty damn big; ears still rang.
""H-h-oh...my fucking SHIT!?" The voice boomed deeply, Havok allowed fluttering eyes to remain open, his pained vision falling upon Thomas as he stared upward toward the towering behemoth that reached skyward.
"What ... " Havok managed, his head cracking upward to follow the vertical span of the colossal entity.
"Told you we needed you awake." Valentina offered.
"The ... " He pondered; painfully, he moved a hand upward and craned himself upward, grunting heavily as he attempted to bring himself to his feet.
"Fuck ... is that?" Havok finished, bolstering his chest outward as he stood, the lashing of the battered MR-17 rifle slung across his chest.
"Shit, Thomas. We're gonna' need bigger guns." Havok muttered, his jaw dropping and his head craning backward to meet the height of the massive behemoth. His vision swirling around him slowly, he reached hand upward to cover his face from the burning sun.
"We should've stayed with the Teks." Valentina remarked. A deep clicking noise announcing the activation of the small speaker that ran its way along Havok's microphone, the small device lashed around his neck.
"We're a number up, Master Sergeant." She stated, the words filtering into his ears caused him to swing his neck backwards, sneaking a look over the cliff that had suddenly been created by the massive golem.
"Holy shit." He muttered.
"I suggest we try and find a way down."

Somewhere on the outskirts of the solar system...

Aboard the SEC Titania

Things did not look good for Xanus. He was but the leader of a small world, with limited resources. The Titania was the only remaining Special Exploration Class ship in the Armada. The Revolian army was severely underfunded and they could not afford to make mecha to assist the ships.

Revolia, a small world made up of both human and alien races. Over time, both races had merged into a single species, combining attributes of both human and alien races. Xanus was the latest leader of this small world, which served as a rest stop of sorts for groups passing by.

Xanus had decided to take the Titania towards some of the larger worlds to try and receive some aid. He grabbed a sort of microphone of sorts and spoke into it.

"Commander Dawick, come to me. At once."

After a short time, a young man in full commander's regalia appeared in Xanus' office.

"Yes, sir?"

Commander Raius Dawick was the best officer in the Revolian military. He had led his men to success where other officers failed. His record of success in battle was precisely why Xanus had drafted him to serve on the Titania.

"Commander Dawick, I need scans to see if any other ships are in the area. If they're not the aliens, try to communicate with them. If they are, prepare for battle stations and destroy them.

"Yes sir. I shall begin scans as soon as possible."

"Good. Report back to me with the results. You are dismissed."

Dawick exited through an elevator, and Xanus returned to his position at his desk.

I'm in WAY too far over my head...

Anti-Titan 19:54

Two versus one, it's kind of unfair odds. Gennosuke was pretty used to it, as a warrior. Gennosuke was NOT used to fighting against opponents that were robotic cyborg lizards with all sorts of nasty weaponry, or reality altering... naked people. Gennosuke couldn't detect the cloaked ball of nuclear energy, and even then he probably wouldn't do much about it with this giant rocky snake slithering along the frozen surface towards him. Xelas, however, was using an improvised version of a Geiger counter to detect the nuclear radiation that traveled towards Gennosuke, and it would react accordingly creating an infections layer on Gennosuke's epidermis, the nuclear energy was a much faster attack than the rocky snake so firing this orb of energy would reach him first, it would not provide the desired results, however. Arcane runes burnt into the flesh of Gennosuke, though his senses of pain were dulled so he wouldn't much realize it and when the nuclear energy hit him, instead of mutilating his body, the runes pulled them in, courtesy of Agron, and stored the energy.

This gigantic serpent now came spinning around the lambent Gennosuke, and just as soon as he brought his arms above his head, shielding himself from the flaming demon, an orb of mineral surrounded his body, just as the serpent came crashing down towards his location, breaking part of the dome orb. Gennosuke had about enough with random creatures or random naked people trying to kill him, and with a quick, expansive motion of his arms, all the nuclear energy, and quite a bit of spiritual energy was released from his body, not only the dome, but most certainly the serpent exploded in a brilliant orb of opal. On the ragged body of Titan, there was yet another crater just created on it's surface. Like a massive shrapnel grenade the stone serpent and the dome of stone exploded sending bits of flaming debris shooting out in all directions.

"ENOUGH!"

------------------------------------------------------

Approximately the same time, but outside of the Sol System in warp travel.

Herald Anathema, Dreadnaught 2256 has perished... the abominable -humans- have eliminated it, there are other foreign forces accompanying them.

Anathema is seen seated in what looks similar to an organic throne composed of cartilidge, ligament and muscle tissue. He presses a mutated finger that merges the index and middle together against his chin in frustration. Are there any survivors.

The throaty avatar responds, In it's last moments 2256 utilized the remaining of it's crystal reserves on it's creation chamber just moments before it was impacted. There are forces there in an excess of a hundred fold the adversity, and they are currently under command of Herald TerraCrusher. Uncomfortable, Anathema shifts in the biomass, bits of phlegm and mucus drip from the ceiling landing on exposed muscle tissue of his thigh, he pays no attention to it. Approximately how long will they last..

That much is undetermined..

At this point, Avatar Dreadnaught probes directly into Anathema's previous memory, revealing one of the final scenes before Jack's abduction it was Lt. Thomas Balvice, and it was Jessica. Bits and pieces of memory quickly pass in and out of his mind, but it is not enough to remind him of much. A second image is shown, and it is of Thomas, ramming head-first into a Demolisher, much to Anathema's dismay. "He... is fighting against us..? Why has he not been turned! Why are we not unified?!" The throaty Avatar cackles in a most sinister manner before responding via a telekinetic psi-link. He.. is already a host to another. Upon studying him from 2256's technolink, the Leviathan 3654-2 has already determined that this is a species that We are familiar with. A species by the name of Agron, and a dire enemy of all of the Val'Gara.

Anathema scrutinizes the memories and then takes an emotional turn, If you EVER probe my mind again, Avatar, we will be speaking directly to Idea on the matter. The Avatar returns with a hiss and a sentiment YOU may be Idea's favored Herald BUT YOU ARE NOT AN AVATAR. 2323 rages, Know your place, Herald. Know it and do not cross its boundary..

------------------------------------------------------

Ten minutes later, in the Sahara back on a-Earth

Dreadnaught was most certainly dead, as a good quarter of a chunk was seen ripped completely from it's form, and as Dreadnaught heaved it's last sigh, excrement and bio-matter released from both ends of the gigantic space-whale. All functions within the giant carcass' body ceased as the remaining bio-force within the crystals was used for means of production, and my, even Custard's Last stand wouldn't compare. Demolishers, Wraiths, and agitated Drones poured out of the body and through hisses and roars they terrorized the battlefield, they crawled up the multiple Sarachs, while wraiths surrounded the body concussive blasts of bio-force to chip away the massive beasts, as if completely unaware of the eclipse created by Dominus.

This was hardly a quarter of the forces, as the battlefield soon flooded with Drones and Demolishers, with Wraiths overhead, remaining soldiers that had sat back to cover the flanks and cover the front line were barrowed through like tissue paper as the entire Val'Gara frontal force seemed to be infected with mad cow disease, they were so ferocious it was seen that some of the Demolishers ended up crushing drones underfoot, and outright tearing a few Drones apart through sheer frustration and madness, in a like scenario, seven Drones jumped atop a demolisher, where they a few were thrown off, the rest managed to pierce through the carapace, swarming a wasp like ants. The horde was not only attacking other creatures, but it was attacking itself, while at the same time taking the attack of the battleships in stride and in mass casualties. A coat of Drones were seen covering over the Dreadnaught, and if one had been foolhardy, foolish, or just plain badass to make it through the frenzied moshpit of angry monsters, they would see the Drones using their powerful mandibles to actually consume the Dreadnaught.

On closer inspection, through the smoke and debris of the wreckage that was created by the Destroyers crash a massive stump-like appendage was seen smashing through the wreckage, splattering a cluster of quarreling drones in the process, followed by an anguished roar. Through the billowing smoke the plated head of an oversized tortoise was seen, with a jagged beak that was parted in a menacing shriek. BOOM, it's first step measured on the richtor scale and even knocked Demolishers off their feet if they were within the viscinity. Of course this turle-like monstrosity was about a fifth to a tenth the size of the newly remade Agron, it was none-the-less as fierce - if not more. Through the parted beak a massive charge of teal energy swirled and converged into a compact sphere. Every step, more smoke curled off it's body, revealing a spiked shell, which looked harder than stone (which is an underestimation) and leathery hide that makes armored tanks look underguarded.

This energy radiates as a large suction is formed in front of TerraCrushers' mouth - it's mad, it's really mad. And while TerraCrusher is more intelligent than the Demolishers, it's too angry to successfully create a tactical battleplan, just then the orb explodes firing a massive pine-green colored blast from it's gaping maw. This is a powerful blast and is testiment to a Herald of Idea, for it is composed entirely of negative bio-force, and is capable of completely drilling a hole through Agron, no matter the mass. Yes, it's fired directly at Agron. This is TerraCrusher. This is chaos.

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Five minutes later on A-Mars

Fighter crafts skillfully weaved through each other as their weaponry fired with impressive expertise, countering an equally impressive shape-shifter that was taking on all three... er... two.. of them at once. This battle, as well as Singar's possible intervention in it was brought to a definite halt (or might be). The moment an earthquake within approximately a mile radius shook the surface of mars so badly that the atmospheric pressure changed from it. The ground suddenly exploded, and an abyssal black maw, gaping at a size that would consume a small neighborhood exploded from the surface of anti-mars and traveled up as if to swallow the fighting parties. That's right, it's a Dreadnaught, it was actually stunning that this new Dreadnaught was able to supress it's bio-reading to a point where even thane's missiles hadn't detected it, such is the control that the Val'Gara hold over this organic energy.

A slight thermal peak could have been detected before the Dreadnaught emerged, but otherwise it was nearly undetectable that it was there beforehand. But in reality, this Dreadnaught had been waiting on a-mars for quite some time... for actually such length that it was there to witness a -previous- war that happened before the beginning of intervention. There was many more tricks to be had, however.

That ominous foghorn roar sounds from Dreadnaught, and just as symbolic the bells toll for Thane and the fighter squadron.