"Power needs no words?" Rho-Hux said like a snarl as he watched 2 of his men become obliterated by the vile abomination that had appeared. "Words are power! Secure the Voidhanger and fallback! Do not let them out of your sight!" He didn't have to say anything back but he was not going to allow a Carnazir to insult him or his threats. The two factions' power would either be united or contested with each other, and Rho-Hux personally preferred that latter option. He longed for the days when he could kill enemies for the PCL without a second thought. They were enemies to civilization, stone consuming parasites that torn into the roots of the PCL's accomplishments and it was his job to crush them. He was afraid that the end of the war would put an end to that, but now...he may have another chance.
Rho-Hux then turned his attention to everyone who wasn't PCL. "It would be so much easier for you all to follow us out of here! We'll keep an eye on you," He said before activating his Octopus armor and backing away slowly while channeling his ghost ability. A small smile curled on his lips. He wanted them to see him disappear, to know that if they ran away from the PCL they would risk running into him. As Rho-Hux backed away to try and surround the Carnazir, he patted Vaygus and Heidon on the back to let them know he was still nearby and had not abounded them. They were new to his squad and he had not informed them about this static of his before so he hoped they could pick up on his message.
Another day of sitting around and doing nothing but gaffing off. As a mercenary and elite reconnaissance unit for the Carnazir, and out of his own sense of pride as a hunter, Marjan has been watching these hilly borders for hours. He has kept stock of the amount of rocks on the ground, the trees on the horizon, the cities on either side of him and the low hum of the fields that marked the edge of the Carnazir, League, and ASR territories. The afternoon went like this for a while and it was only his training that kept his gun at the ready, but if something happened Marjan was pretty sure it'd be nothing more than another wild bird flying by.
Oh, look there went another-
CRASH!
It was in the blink of an eye. He didn't even get to comprehend it how fast it flew by. He was flabbergasted, but quickly got to work. He switched to infared, but the smoke blocked visibility of ground zero. Soon after his communications were going haywire. Again he got to work and tried to reach out to higher command to explain their current situation. Nothing. Absolute silence from every direction. An eerie feeling that he was only moments ago so comfortable with.
However, despite this madness it did not take long for the pair of hackers positioned closer to the wreckage to act on the new occurrence. A move he disagreed with, but salvaging technology was a strength of the Carnazir and one they were damn good at. At his current range he would not prove to be a threat to any enemies on their position, but he knew this unit. Both of them specializing in computers in some kind of manner so he thought it best to leave them to their work.
However, for every minute that Crimson remained linked to the device it seemed the situation got worse. One, two, five, thirteen, and it kept getting worse as more unknown units approached them. However, the frail condition of their communications presented a problem so again Marjan waited. Waiting for the perfect moment, he would not lose it, and he would keep this small firing team alive. His tail flicked in anticipation as he watched the people go back and forth. His teeth gritted behind the fleshy mask that covered his face, the decorative tendrils that decorated his hips, tossed in the wind.
Luckily it was only bickering.
Not much seems to be happening.
Good-
Just then, as Marjan took a breath, all of his communication systems went haywire. He commanded his living armor to peel back from around his head and he tossed his ear piece down.
"Shhhhit." He muttered to himself as he massaged his ears.
He stared down at the short range communicator before picking it up and placing it back in his ear to catch the second repeat of the message. Getting to miss out on all the horrible taunts thrown his way from the satellite. As he fixed the earpiece back in and sealed his helmet back up he turned to the sky and stared at the giant beast that resembled a worm and winced.
"Glad I haven't eaten anythhhing." Marjan jested as his lisp dragged out his words like a snake's hiss.
Soon after the monsters multiplied and in a vengeful act of god two of the PCL soldiers were smote. Reduced to ash would be a good description if anything was left. Terrifying.
Avoid the lightning strikes, easier said than done, but noted.
Following this chain of events one of the PCL soldiers dissapeared into thin air, but it felt weird. He wasn't showing on Marjan's infared so Marjan reverted to his normal vision. The world, colored in its various blues, seemed to be disturbed as this dark energy surrounded a figure running near the team. Marjan's eyes locked onto this figure as he started to move positions.
"Allied Carnazir this is scout unit Marjan Nedeljko. The PCL unit that has vanished. I have eyes. I repeat. The PCL unit that has vanished. I have eyes. He's trailing your movements. We can lose him in the woods. Move due east. I repeat. Move due east." There was a pause as Marjan took a breath. His gun on its strap was bouncing against his back as he resorted to moving on all fours to cover more ground as he booked it for the woods. "Crimson. Report. What happened down there?"
Surrounded so quickly and easily what the hell happened was Crimson hooked up so long. Didn't they have someone watching over them. But when she was hooked up she was cut off from the outside world.
Crimsons eyes were darting around trying to find a viable avenue of escape. But her thoughts were cut off as the satellite started going haywire. Did this thing of some kind of actually sentence was it not just a machine used for data?
Crimson say something out of the corner of her eye. And looks to the sky to see some kind of creature that Crimson has no records of. And it seemed to waste no time in killing a small number of Troops giving them a better chance of getting away.
And at that time the scout nearby contacted Crimson.
"Good to hear a friendly voice." Crimson would whisper into her communicator.
"Hear that girly. We need to head east then we can meet up with our partner." Crimson said that last part to dead eye so only her Marjan could hear.
As soon as her enemy's leader turned invisible Crimson turned and sprinted east. And began to sprint at the forest hoping the trees would block the worms view. And hoping that Dead Eye would follow her.
"Hey Marjan where are we going to meet up with you. I have more faith in the three of us together rather then just two."
Jiāo'ào listens to Hidalgo as he explains to them that the three factions have their differences. Which was true because until today they were still fighting for rights and survival. Then with the prospect of there being some larger force at play Jiaoao turns to Hidalgo.
"Then we will do our best to survive. We won't be facing the dirt of shame, but rise in hopes for a better life." She said to him.
Hildago told them he feared a larger force at play mainly due to whatever this satellite was and the intense vibe it gave off and offered a truce.
"How can we trust that you won't do something funny after we're done?" She said, crossing her arms as she addressed him. She would not be so quick to trust an enemy, but Hildago's overall demeanor and his joke about them killing each other after all of this had ended proved to soothe her mood.
"Alright. Since you haven't drawn a gun on us we should play it fair, but heed my warning." Jiao said as her voice intensified and her hand hovered her knife in a threatening manner. "If you try to stab us in the back I'll make sure you never talk again." she snarled as she turned to Crimson.
But as Jiaoao waited for an answer from Hildago the realization that they were surrounded by members from both enemy factions started to settle in. She knew she had to get Crimson away from here, it wasn't safe. The feeling was then confirmed by the fact that all of her communications went haywire as the satellite sent out an intense message that warned them to evacuate, but before Jiaoao could even act on the new information a large creature started to descend from the sky. The worm quickly laid waste to some of the PCL squad and started to grow in number.
Jiaoao got to action. She placed a hand on Crimson's shoulder to calm her down. Crimson was clearly flustered, as she continued to scan their surroundings, but Jiaoao was in the same boat. The commander of the PCL then threw a warning at them as he seemingly vanished into thin air and his men started to run ahead of them. It was then Jiaoao and Crimson received information from a nearby scout.
After the call Jiaoao nodded to her partner, "I sure did Crimsy, we better head there fast before death comes asking us to dance."
Jiaoao then started sprinting toward the forest with Crimson.
Hidalgo grins and then starts to retreat and then says to his allies" for now I'm retreating to the woods since it offers some cover, and feel free to rip the arms and legs off that egotistical ass or turn him into ash next time if we get a chance". "I can tell he's going to be a pain in our ass later so the sooner the better, and should his lacky get in the way and I get the chance I'll help do my part as well". Hidalgo quickly starts up his jet pack and picks up speed dodging in evasive maneuvers to give himself a better chance of dodging. ' i may be able to recruit dead eyes over to our side having someone like her would be favorable in a number of ways, but for now I must focus on saving my ass'. 'Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worst we have a pissed off giant bug trying to kill us oh lucky me'.
He increases the jetpacks speed so he can get as far away from the creature as possible but not so fast that he would lose his allies and be picked off by the bug or by the shitty PCL.
Dalia watched the sound and fury as the two PCL soldiers made ashes of themselves. Now probably was not the time for smart remarks, but she had one anyways. "Take notes. That is powerrrrr. No words....just purrrre death. 'I say worrrrds. I am most powerrrrful.' Most stupid of face maybe."She snorted after, amused by egos of officers. Unfortunate perhaps that the man didn't realize that each year a death match was held where she was from to determine if the leader stayed in power or retired permanently.
She made for woods, trailing her ally as he took off. Her heart pulsed as the rush of death came. This was where she belonged, even if there was something more apex than her at the moment. She took note to try and kill the sky monster later or maybe to make friends with it. She would be highly amused or dead. "We shall revel in battle later sky monster", she shouted in challenge before following her ally. He seemed squishy, though she wouldn't bring that up yet. His confidence was important if she needed a brave someone having her back.
As the two machine warriors stood the event unfolding before them was incalculable. Vaygus 'blinked' to those who saw him but actually had captured the image and some small recordings for his memories. Heidon had felt Rho-Hux tap his shoulder but as the creature began to wreak havoc the defender nudged his holy master "We must go! Let us move my-" Vaygus had already turned and without hesitation they both moved. Vaygus held his Glaive with one hand and ran at a good speed. Heidon even being more heavily equipped and built was able to keep up with Vaygus.
Watching those who had fled moments before them the machine priest had altered his path. Not directly following them but making sure he was in the same direction. If his duty to the fallen machine could not be done the very least he could safeguard the last thing that would exist from it. He had assumed the creature would destroy the satellite and thus the data its only inheritance to those around it "Keep close Heidon" HE said then getting on his com link "Major follow us if you aren't already" His voice seemingly unaffected by his physically active pace
When the drone had first hit atmosphere, multiple sensor networks had squealed alerts, triggering blaring alarms, launching panicked reports from technicians to officers, who moved the reports to higher officers, who relayed orders to different lower officers, a web of communication and fear that twisted and spread across Caracosa until a tendril finally reached a small, white feathered avian creature sitting on a rock next to a powered armor suit more then twice her height in the form of a neutral toned voice informing her to move immediately at best speed to a set of coordinates.
Letting out a long sigh, Sarnai finished her nutrient rations, washing the thick paste down with a long gulp of water before repacking her supplies. Storing the package in the inner compartment to the side of her piloting sleeve, she closed the door and carefully resealed it to make sure nothing would get loose during transit or combat, before climbing into the comforting padding of the sleeve.
Reconnecting a number of cables and initializing a series of neutral interface connections Sarnai regained her connection to Zaya, her second skin, with a breath of relief as she loaded up the coordinates with a quick thought as her HUD began overlaying her vision, expanding her view to a near 290 degree cone around her, points of interest, what map data she had, a torrent of information loading in as well.
Sarnai didn't technically work for the ASR, she didn't have an official rank or post with any of their militaries , she was a member of the Ger-Gui Irregulars, a group that received no official political support or funding from the ASR, but did mysteriously fail to ever be hampered in their actions by the ASR. As such, she and they had a mostly understood agreement: She wouldn't follow orders from them unless it was important, and they wouldn't give her any orders unless it was important, but...she was fairly sure this was in fact actually important given the sudden increase of radio traffic since whatever thing that had just embedded itself in the ground north of her had come to town.
Checking that all of her weapons systems were secure, and doing one last suit systems check as she ordered the pilot hatch shut, Sarnai-Zaya began loping northwards, towards the beacon marker pulsing steadily ahead.
=== Later ===
She was within a kilometer of the crash site when the screeching, rasping noises burst across every comm channel, causing her to slide to a sudden stop as her head felt like it was almost split open with pain. Thankfully, the auto-filter systems had managed to quickly isolate the noise, and either turned turned it far down or muted it entirely, as her comms unit desperately scanned for anything like usable data. As bizarre, isolated reports started coming in about unknown forces invading the diplomatic corridors and pushing through the forces on the ground of all three major groups.
Shaking her heard and growling a little, Sarnai-Zaya picked up the pace, pushing the reactor just a bit harder to get some more speed out well also starting to use her jump jets to extend her strides into bounding leaps over the rocky terrain. What this was, it was clearly not just important but also dangerous. Even as she pushed ahead, she focused in on her sensor suite, setting up a revolving series of scans across a number of spectrum in order to make sure that she wouldn't be blind sided by anything.
=== Later still ===
Growling in confusion as she read the bizarre lines of output text from her translator scrolled past her, Sarnai-Zaya suddenly felt a massive quaking through the ground, and sensors reported a massive bloom of ether almost directly on top of the crash sight. Narrowing her sensors in to get a clearer picture, she expected to see some kind of Carnazir or PCL war machine but let out a small gasp as the report that came back that it was in fact some sort of massive creature, likely from the Abzu itself, and that it was bombing the area around the crash site. Growing confusion and fear filled her chest as she faintly picked up on shouts and screams from around the area, engaging her jump jets once again as she started picking up faint ASR IFF signatures near the edge of the woods, moving herself on an intercept path so that she could find out what could even be possibly happening here.
A slow and steady descent into quicksand, the taste of mud in one's mouth - dust clinging to the lashes as one's limbs helplessly had their circulation cut off; reminiscent of sleep paralysis. The ringing in the ears persisted with deafness to the outside world, until his sensory processes reinitialised.
|
A rubber-covered palm pressed into the dirt after finding its bearing, his arm shoving the ground away to result in his body rolling over onto its back. Stein's charcoal attire was lacerated in several places, littered with soot, dirt and traces of blood that has been cooked to nothing but crusty residue; but his body remained largely unharmed. The android's white hair fizzled with vivid violet sparks for a brief time before they subsided - his forehead and left temple boasting slice marks which exposed black sub-dermal metal. Stein's pupilless gaze stared up at the sky as his body lay among rocks and dark grass. The focus of his vision was being reestablished, centering on the sky which looked to be a dark ocean - in which a purple serpent presented its existence. Digital polygons danced over its being in augmented reality, trying to analyse it; but it was a futile effort, just like trying to sort through the myriad of voices that screamed in his head from all across the EM spectrum. For a minute, they were the only sounds he could hear, but then like a tidal wave his audio feed returned - sizzling, distant fighting and the gusting wind.
Stein grunted slightly under his breath, voice modulation showing mild distortion with which his voice didn't sound human at all. Everything within him required re-calibration, but thankfully the preset was not scrambled. He would leave the configuration to run automatically in the background.
|
The pale man slowly arched his back, synthetic muscles tightening to get him to sit up among the chaos. He didn't come here alone, having been escorted by 4 other soldiers belonging to Carnazir. 'Helping hands for the mission', they explained. There was no helping them now. White irises glowed as the ash settled, his hand waving it away to glimpse at the site of impact. The ground drank red, a scene decorated by intestines tainted by soil, stray arms and legs - human ribs poking out from the ground as if they were part of the flora. In the center, the air quivered with a purple tone. Where once were men, stood ominous silhouettes, their last moments alive burned into reality itself as nothing more than an ashen stain. Their arms attempted to shield their eyes, legs ready to flee - but it was already too late for them. The worm struck true.
|
Stein was some meters away after being thrown by the visceral explosion, being on the perimeter leaving him mostly unharmed. Palms pressed into the ground as he stood to his feet, straightening his back in defiance as he looked over his surroundings. A white wall travelled across the land, like the tallest of sandstorms, consuming everything in its path. The fog fell like a blanket on the chaos that ensued beneath it, hiding the sin from view. Staying here meant certain death.
The android dusted off his hair and attire, picking his rifle up from the cindered ground. He still had a job to do - the forest to the east seemed like the safest option. After swiftly picking through the remains of his escort team for any useful items and ammunition, he gave the ether snake one last look before darting off to the east in search of shelter.
"трахни меня боком!!" Yuri shouted at the sight of the giant eldritch beast that vaporized his fellow troopers. It all happened so fast and he barely had enough time sidestep as a beam of light impacted his previous position. Turning around he spotted Rho-Hux utilizing his cloaking ability. Even though he couldn't see the major, he was used to him turning invisible as he did or numerous times on previous missions. As soon as the machine priests started moving he followed behind, using their large mechanical frames as cover in case they got hit. They might survive a blast from the flying abomination, but he knew that if he was hit I would be game over.
The intermittent rain of ether-globules became a relentless hail as the enormous ether-creature became dead-set on clearing out the highland of life. More and more projectilles fell in a shower of nightmares, turning ancient stone into burning craters over which sickening sores in the flesh of space hovered, pulsing and throbbing, waiting to burst as they bled foulness into the reality.
The satellite had quickly vanished behind a fog of corrupted space, a sickening cloud of purple over which only its antennae could be seen. They were still admist the mayhem; in fear perhaps or overloaded from the seeping corruption visible and invisible.
As the group made their wild escape, some were not so fortunate. The eight remaining PCL soldiers for all their valour and training were reduced to three.
The unreal miasma of the abzu had spilled out and with it, unseen radiation and emanations on wavelenths even their advanced visor-systems could not perceived.
One had broken into an impressive sprint, digitigrade legs carrying them with impressive speed. Her mind however was fighting a different battle. With every deonation near and far, the boundary between the abzu and the plains grew thinner and thinner. Gases, particles, light, and so on began to displace, bend, or warp as substances arcane and foul soaked into a fertile stretch of natural purity.
Subsequently, the first part of her that felt it was her own consciousness. Her speirfhaire, the so called third eye, pulsed and contracted as the growing concentrations of ether and psycho-ethereal waste rose to a festering, fervent pitch. The pain was resisted before it pierced and broke through the threshold of pain. She twisted off to the right, stumbling as her foot caught on a rocky ridge and she stumbled down a hill. The false-eye did not just throb but she felt cuts and sores forming, the overloading intensity flooding her consciousness with swarming purple sickness.
She stumbled to her feet too late, barely making out the sound of the human trooper reaching for her, when a bolt slammed into them and erased them from existence.
Another trooper flew through the air, a blast wave having overloaded his shielding and cracked open his armour. He landed near one of the rended holes and began to scream then gurgle. His body was next to a source of the radiating poison as skin, flesh, and organs began to cook and warp. Chittering voices shrieked out from within as bodily fluids began to pour and spill onto the stone. Ravenous limbs and tendrils crept and ripped open his metal protection his human body began to fragment and deform from the bulging masses of ethereal creatures feasting on senience, flesh, and matter..
The scielto soldier was faster on its feet, a shield of ether flaring into a pinkish-red dome around it as it fended off blast waves and gushing, vomitous tides of visible and invisible spectrum power. Its channeler tendrils flared out of its back, flaring with flashes of multicolour as it channeled all its strength into both its wild dash and the powerful barrier. So focused was he on his single-minded run that he did not see the sickly-coloure aqua blur that shot through the air.
The impact jolted him from his single minded endeavour, flaring the bubble a bright pink as his feet stumbled for purchase, stumbling into a rock-face and falling to his back. The bubble flared once more from the lack of power sustaining its strenght, shattering into hundreds of little fragments as his rifle spat a spray of energy-jacketed rounds, missing the blurring paint smudge on the diseased airspace. It swung back again, the silhouette of a long and partially flattened body lined with spines and curving limb-claws visible before it sliced past him.
He gripped his neck, hissing and hacking as air left his body and ether bled in. His rifle clattered and he grabbed his pistol, stuffing it into the wound. A short prayer and his brain matter coloured grass and stone a mixture of pink and yellow.
Another human was running, nearing the edges of the destructive orgy of raw power and violating magic. He'd swung back, rifle raised and nerves tense and shaking. He'd heard something over the clamour of hungering explosions and reverberating hums that echoed all the way from the splitting clouds above. He wasn't sure what it was; it was a some kind of airy chitter-chatter, almost like birdsong but carried over and through the cacophony.
It sounded so very neary, he thought, as if staring at him through the purple sores that had turned into tears. Little portals to realms of sheer mayhem, mockeries of the natural order, thousands of teeming and squirming shapes crowding with an abject, idiotic curiosity at this world of order and mechanism. It's then he realized it wasn't an actively stimulated sound; no, it was an echo with fragments of its original self layering over each new iteration. So very far but so distant.
He paused long enough for a bolt of orange and gold to fly out of one of these portals, slamming into his body, and exiting it too set a tree behind him ablaze. Smoking and burning, the armoured corpse slumped to the dirt. A lengthy barrel with a dense prism shaped muzzle protruded from the mouth of the rough portal, attached to an arm and body in jet black armour. As it began to step out, revealing its bipedal gait, the mist swallowed its form and silhouette.
----------
The Green Sprawl was a forest simply put. Forests however are complex systems and realms of twisting roots, disorienting landmark-free paths, and rough terrain. Yet at its edge, the fog was distant and crawling slower. It was not just out of the epicentre of carnage they had escaped where it could be seen slowly seeping in but slowing amidst the gnarled trees that twisted and twirled. In olden times, the inhabitants of Caracosa believed they were souls in trance and ecstasy, locked in wild dances that had consumed the mind, soul, then the body leaving little more than these strange, misshapen trees.
Now, at one of the mouths into the woods the unlikely mixture of League, Assembly, and Carnazir soldiers had arrived. Where they had come from could only be known, not seen. The tide of white still rolled over hillside, stone barriers, and up the dirt path that slowly faded at its edges into the woods as shrubs, vines, and roots slowly crept into the soil and gradually camouflaged its winding body. The terrain was not completely even. It rose in long humps and flattened out into short valleys, almost like the now mist-shrouded plain, though the terrain featured flatter topography by comparison.
Still uneven, rough terrain. The kind people disappeared in whether by their design or those hunting them.
Three PCL soldiers, two human and one voidhanger, stumbled in behind the patrol. One fell to his knees, panting, and momentarily opened his mouth. Everything the humand had ate came up in a fetid slurry as the others steadied against trees or slumped to the ground. They were exhausted, tired, terrified, and confused.
"Fucking figures it takes out most of us, doesn't touch a single one of these cavepeople. Hey, Carnazir! Is that one of yours? Another fucking void monster? Some boogeyman you scare your children with? Maybe feed them to if they commit the sin of freedom of thought or speech? Seen you slimy backwardist wormfuckers summon etherioids to give you an edge. Not surprised, your troops were never worth shit. Didn't expect it to put all of us in this mess though huh?"
The human turned towards Marjan, walking closer but keeping his distance. His rifle was slung over his shoulders, mag locked, and he wildly gestured, throwing out his arms. Through his visor a sneer was visible.
"C'mon don't stand there slack jawed Rover, you're dressed more nice than the rest of your fanatic dumbshit friends, maybe you know something huh? Tell ya what, I'll throw you some kibble if you spill the beans. Capiche?"
The voidhanger soldier clad in silver and blue jabbed his finger in the direction the carnazir party, seeming to be particularly angry at Marjan given his choice of words. The voidhanger got up, taking a deep exhale as speciailzed drugs shot into his system, calming his frayed nerves.
"Hey, maybe we shouldn't focus on that right now. Creatures like that are hard to predict. Seen them go wild because an engine misfired before; we get hounded by starlurkers where I'm from on the reg. That though? Never seen one convinced to play gunship." He tapped the human on the shoulder and from the corner of his eyes, behind the tined visor, glared at the ASR contingent.
"Oi, revolutionaries, you got any idea what the living light-show was? Last I heard you roaches wanted to see if any of your thousand-limbed buddies are busy partying in unrealspace. Ain't judging your crusty shelled selves but any of you guys like, worms? Thought you were all ants and seafood, not whatever that thing was." Even with the voidhangers face not visible, he was clearly looking at Carnix and judging by the tone of his voice, his 10 foot height did not intimidate him. The fact he was carrying a heavy duty plasma caster might have something to do with that. It was equivalent to a designated marksman rifle but it was meant to melt, cook, and pierce "hard targets", of which the vrexul had an infamous reputation.
The third human finished vomiting, falling to a sitting position, groaning audibly. He simply sat, mumbling and gripping something in his hands.
"Peace talks, the peace talks, just goddammit. The hell are we going to do now?"
While the fog seemed to slow before the forest, it had crept in over some of the hills albeit hugging the ground rather than looming over the squad. The long path, while not well maintained, seemed to be at least visible even with all the mottled shrubbery that sprouted up on its edges. Other paths could be seen; one that neared a river that emerged from some clump on the side, spilling water into a leaf and branch strewn riverbed, and travelled parallel to its length. Where the ground rose into long arches of stone and bark, prints could be seen and walkways worn into them. Hillier terrain but well used for a reason, offering a better advantage albeit in narrower configurations, almost stretching off like a series of curving bridges into the forested depths.
The sprawl was silent today. Only a few distant birds could be heard. Otherwise it apppeared still and dead as a painting.
Sarnai-Zaya kept a portion of her sensor array locked on the flat plains surrounding the satellite drone crash, trying to gather as much data as possible on...well, on whatever the fuck was happening over there. Every single sensor she had was reporting energy levels all over every possible part of both the EM and ethereal spectrums, readings violently bouncing up down in intensity and frequency until after a few moments she had to shunt the data collection over to automatic, unable to handle the saturation bombing of her senses. With a twitch of her mind, she tried to bring up the comm channels again, scanning every frequency she had access to, outputting it to a visualiser on her HUD. Still absolutely nothing but raw noise, the short range seemed not great but useable, problem being that she was way outside of her operation zone, she had no idea what systems the local ASR were using, and the last thing she needed was them deciding she was an enemy because her comm's protocol handshake was out of date.
She watched as the gently pulsing ASR IFF markers moved rapidly away from the drone crash site, presumably fleeing the bombardment, and unfortunately directly towards where the PLC and Carnazir markers were also headed. Clicking her zoom level several magnifications forward, she got a look at her erstwhile allies. A Vrexul, some sort of enhanced human, and...a giant scaled avian of some kind? There was no way whatever they were could fly, they looked far too heavy, were the wings vestigial? She mentally shook herself, questions about the evolutionary path of some random alien species could come later, there were significantly large problems to handle first.
Slowing down to avoid alerting or panicking anyone as she approached, she reached out to her cloaking systems battery, humming as the frisson of its energy immediately responded up her spine. "Nearly full, good. Want to save as much of it as possible, but I need to get an idea of what is happening here before I step into the open." she thought as she flicked the light bending system on, carefully hopping from point to point.
By the time she got into range to be able to pick up vocalizations, the three groups had already collided, the PCL troopers loudly and arrogantly accusing everyone but themselves of causing the problem. Rolling her eyes Sarnai-Zaya settled onto her haunches, watching and listening, until eventually the PCL group stopped whining. She decided to take this as her cue to reveal herself and reached over to pull her assault rifle off her side. Flipping the safety off to automatic, she made sure that there was a dense chunk of treeline between her and the twitchy PCL soldiers, her rifle barrel pointed towards the ground to try and look as non-threatening as possible. Taking in a deep breath, she turned off her active camo.
"For all we know, that was a PCL experiment gone wrong and your higher ups were happy to sacrifice a few grunts to it. Wouldn't be the first time they pulled something like that." she called out, her voice digitizer rough and scratchy, "But I don't think it was. Everyone with a radio was calling out attacks on them before everything turned to screeching. Whatever those things are, they aren't on any of our sides."
The feelers Karnix had deployed twitched in irritation before sliding back inside chitinous sheaths. He turned to face the PCL voidhanger and eyed the soldier carefully. Feelers peered out once again, tasting the air before reporting back to the jacobson-like organ within Karnix, prompting a snort before the Vrexul "spit" what could only be described as phlegm at the feet of the voidhanger. "You think that caster makes you seem tall?" Karnix growled. With a twist of his wrist the Hellmaw began to retract into Karnix's forearm; More or less holstering the assault rifle as the Vrexul commander turned his full attention to the PCL soldier. "We can always settle this the old fashioned way, if you are feeling twitchy."
Two arms, previously hidden among the living chitin armor, unfurled from Karnix's torso. One twitched and deployed around ten serrated claws, dripping and rattling. The other arm ended not in a hand but instead one long scythe-like blade. Karnix flashed the PCL soldier a "toothy grin" as he stooped to stare the voidhanger in the visor.
"I've flayed far larger and braver enemies than you. Ending you would be a mercy to the gene pool."
Karnix snapped his jaws shut just an inch from the PCL soldier's visor before retracting the melee weapons and standing back to his full height. "But if your nerves must be settled, no. That thing was most certainly not one of my people's. As has been stated, it attacked everything in sight. Our resources aren't so reckless. Our ferocity is focused. If it had been one of ours you wouldn't be standing here trying to pick a fight."
Rho-Hux had been in some terrible positions before, but none had gone to shit as fast as they had here. He watched as he's soldiers were vaporized and every one scatter. He heard Vaygus Maul telling him to follow and he certainly would...if his surviving squad didn't go running off like headless chickens. He departed leaving them to die but he needed the numbers. If all of them died then there was no chance of them taking the hacker's information. He kept his eyes on the cyborgs but altered his course slightly.
"Understood Vaygus Maul, but I'll need to gather up the survivors. Don't lose sight of the target, I'll bring the rest of the squad with me. Yuri if you can hear me, stay close to them. Tell me where your heading, what are your surroundings?"
Even if Rho-Hux didn't have his octopus suit and powers, he felt like his years of training would have helped him avoid the creature's blasts, but even with all that he did not want to be careless. He remained focuses on reaching the relatively safer woods while taking brief glances at the wasteland. The satellite was destroyed, now the hacker's safety was more important now than ever for she was the only known holder of that forbidden knowledge.
Only three. If the creature hadn't already killed the slow ones, Rho-Hux would have done so for their lackluster performance and for bringing dishonor to the PCL. They had better gear and training than their enemies, there should have been no excuse for being caught by the creature. Never the less they were still PCL and once he had command of a larger fleet he would burn that monster to ashes. As for the survivors, they were doing much better. One had lost his cool and was yelling at an Aixue Beast. While he sympathized with the shaken soldier he was letting his fear and anger show. If he couldn't control his emotions than he should have just shot or better yet restrain the Carnazir so there would be no chance of escape. Things only became more complicated with the arrival of two ASR. One was a Shon-Vuu (who Rho-Hux already despised for joining the ASR when it was the PCL who uplifted her people) and Karnix.
Perhaps they had crossed paths on a battlefield at some point. Perhaps they were pawns for their respected higherups. Perhaps they had captured and recaptured planets while just barely missing each other. Regardless, Rho-Hux had heard about Karnix and out of all the loudmouth and braggarts on this planet right now he was the one he deserved to be. It's one thing to be a good killer, but it was an entirely different matter to lead other killers. He would have loved to face this titan on a battlefield but the current situation was not ideal. He got in a position where his back was to a nearby tree and he had his large grappling gun pointed at Karnix. "Thank you for the information Karnix. Now I know that abomination wasn't your pet. Now I suggest you refrain from snapping at my soldiers. Only I am allowed to do that but I do appreciate the effort." He then deactivated his cloaking systems and lowered one of his guns. His lower arms still clung to his pistols just in case a fight broke down.
"Your Shon-Vuu friend is right, that creature is not one of ours. Had it not shown up this whole operation would have ended by now." He was still bitter that the monster had ruined his plan and allowed the hacker to possibly retreat. "As much as I detest them, I doubt the Carnazir are behind that void monster too. One of them...a rather vacuous one, said 'We shall revel in battle later sky monster'. Whatever it is it is not their friend."
"As for all of you!" Rho-Hux said to his surviving squad. "Stand down. This is not the time or place to pick a fight. We must locate the other survivors. Rho-Hux the focused in on the hysterical man vomiting. "You, regain some semblance of self-control, or I will have all you crawl back onto that field and gather up the fallen pieces of your comrades. Death is always a possibility, but if you lose further control then death is almost certain. Now, what are you holding?"
Hopefully, it wasn't vomit or a damn grenade, the last thing he needed was a suicidal soldier.
"We have to move. Show me what you have and leave these people be. They are not attacking us."
Dalia paced near her allies clad in the debris stained armor. Not fighting was good for the time being and for Rho-hux being reasonable she would melt him last. He still talked way too damn much for her liking so she flapped her thumb and fingers together until he ceased.
In the other hand she was consuming some mushroom she had found and several more like it. She was mostly sure they were poisonous, but her body filtered it all too well. Her eyes scanned the survivors and she chuffed after swallowing the poisoned fungus for later us. "Power Word Kill man agrees with the Heavy Metal Chicken..maybe less stupid than he looks."
She said this to herself, but had not mastered thinking her words, instead saying them outloud. Meanwhile she let out whistles to echolocate the terrain for a sense of where they were.
Boots kicked up ash, leaving vague footprints amidst charred plant life. Stein was already in the mist, but he could see the treeline ahead. The landscape behind him became fully concealed - save for small purple wisps dancing over the blackened ground like fireflies, disappearing in the air as if embers. The pale android hastily vanished into the forest, pushing away from the first tree with his palm to aid him in traversing uphill.
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Some minutes later, the sound of battle and screeching radio disturbance finally subsided as Stein slid down the angled, mossy rockface that followed. The ground at the bottom was heavy in sediments; gravelly terrain through which grass and wild flowers protruded - and a river, strangely calming to watch after the preceding massacre. There didn't seem to be anyone else around, the woods were eerily quiet, at least until Stein's internal configuration cycle would finish. For now however, he had a chance to inspect his weapon.
He sat close to the water, dusting off his jumpsuit in several places before tugging on the strap connected to the rifle on his back. Now it was on the ground before him, and it looked badly scuffed. It clearly bounced off of several rocks on its way to the ground after the ether globule detonated. It was covered in dirt and soot somewhat more than his clothing, visible scratches in the paint were apparent; the blood of one or all of his escorting troops was splattered near the front of the rifle body and the revolving chamber. Perhaps the most noticeable was the strange ether discharge, radiating in a sinister tone around the muzzle. Stein tapped the weapon, knocking a small clump of dirt out of the barrel - it must have fallen to the ground front first. Fortunately, it didn't appear to be jammed, both loading mechanisms worked without blockages or component slip. The magazine was intact and all ammunition was spared from fractures. The damage was mostly superficial - Stein nodded to himself. Carnazir's engineers had some clout in prospective maintenance.
With a few scoops of water from the river, Stein's hand swiped across the rifle body and removed most of the dirt. While the ether discharge was slowly dissipating in its glow, he didn't particularly want to transfer it onto his hand until it at least looked dormant. For now, what was done was enough for the time being.
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As he placed the weapon back to shield his spine, the configuration of his auxiliary systems finished as queued. Stein's eyes moved abruptly to the side as voices of varying clarity suddenly started coming into his mind - some sort of commotion was forming nearby. As a waypoint formed in his vision, Stein carefully listened to the transaction - the participants at the moment were clearly PCL and ASR troops, playing a blame game. He was perfectly happy with turning around and leaving; the last thing he was interested in was needlessly being caught in that triangle, especially since their superiors were likely still combing for him on the side. Stein almost turned deeper into the forest by himself, but only moments after, his radial EM check marked additional Carnazir operatives moving straight for the area where the others were clashing. Decision time.
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Frankly, it didn't motivate him to investigate any more than previously. On the other hand, his curiosity pushed him to go and see in case something happened. At the very least, there may have been access to more useful gear from their corpses. Perhaps it was worth it.
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The android turned the next second, scaling another hill and finding himself higher ground atop a natural arch some distance away. The same river stretched below it, leaves blowing in a dead wind that came from the cratered battleground beyond the perimeter. Stein emerged from a mangrove-like formation to stand atop the elevated colossal root - not hiding his presence as he observed the discussion some 80ft away. His face indicated nothing, a stark contrast to the distressed PCL affiliates below. Hell was no sufficient ordeal.
Hidago wasn't sure if he should puke or laugh at the display of the complete military men exchange for a few moments, he turns and sees the android about eighty meters from them and then says" Are you going to come down or stand there with a blank face all day"? " Also before we head to wherever it is we're heading does anyone need any food or drink, we need our bodies and minds to be in tip-top shape since were going to be teaming up for the time being". He then starts to look around at the surrounding area to see if he could see any animals and so on in the not so far distance, he can't hear or see anything right now even with his eye but that doesn't mean there isn't anything that's hiding not all firest creatures are friendly and it would be foolish not keep ones wits about them.
Running provided a weird sort of solace for Marjan. It also helped that his allies were so few. He could focus on just running forward and could trust that two people would be able to handle themselves, but on the off chance they couldn't he could carry them without much worry for his own safety. However, being so out of the loop of information was a little off-putting. He still hadn't been updated on the contents of his allies' argument with the PCL though it was obvious it was over whatever it was that fell out of the sky.
Whatever information Crimson extracted when she was working on the machine must seem pretty valuable. For all they knew it was nothing more than a black box detailing one of these strange Abzu monster crashing into it. As far as Marjan knew Crimson was the only one that knew the actual value of the information. A dangerous and powerful chess piece was just placed on the board.
Marjan's thoughts came to a screeching halt as he slid to a stop inside the forest. He allowed Crimson and Dead Eye to catch up with him and jogged alongside the pair.
"Crimson it is vital that you stay close. Whatever you learned we don't want the rest-" Marjan cut his words short.
He gave a low growl as he looked up to see a PCL unit utilizing a jetpack having caught up rather quickly. Soon after him came the ASR beasts. Marjan's gaze narrowed and grew serious for a moment as his ears perked up. Something was running through the forest and headed straight for them. He kept his gun trained toward the sound as the rustling of leaves and breaking of sticks continued.
"Sssstick. Close." Marjan said quietly to his ally.
Marjan's body eased as he turned on his heat vision. Their bodies flashed in and out of the foliage and he could tell three PCL soldiers were stumbling toward them. His gun lowered to his side as the rest of those at the crash site caught up. One of the soldiers fell to his feet and started vomiting, Marjan took a step back to avoid the mess, but the other two soldiers seemed fixated on him. One actually had the gall to step toward him and sized him up. His words went right through one ear and out the other. The insults thrown by his friend followed the same fate.
Two scared-- Three scared soldiers. Best keep them calm. Though given the nature of this group we'll see how that goes.
Followed by silence it seems the soldiers went to find another target to pick on. Marjan let the chaos behind him grow once again. Nothing was being solved here. It was time to follow his instinct. He needed to secure Crimson and contact command to find out what to do with her. He let out a sigh. Just the organization of those thoughts bothered him. Treating her like nothing more than an object. It caused a moment of pause in which he listened into the conversation going on for a moment.
Marjan looked over to see a familiar face staring at them with its iconic blank expression. It was a face he barely recognized at first, but once he saw it he couldn't forget having to track that thing down. Stein didn't bother hiding himself and stood as creepily as he could manage. Marjan raised his arm to tap his earpiece.
"Gonna need you to come down. Situation is tense down here. A random Carnazir unit watching from the distance isn't going to help." Marjan then lowered his arm and addressed the group. "Excusssse me. It's very clear no one has control over those things. Givvven your wants to find others and similar levels of tensity, it is also fairly obvious that none of us can contact alliessss. Unless, you're going to raise your guns and fire, lets stop asking the clearly clueless members here who did what. All of you were merely patrolling the border, I've been watching for hours, information is non-exissstent here."
Marjan took a breath as he looked over to his tiny unit.
"We have our hackers, but we have no terminal to access the data they acquired. We find a compatible terminal then we can piece together information from whatever data she hassss. I take it some of you ASR could give less of a damn, but there is the possibility we might have to fight those things in the sky. Can't run forever. What say you all?"
So many different species all gathering in the groove flooded the area with an equally pungent mix of odors. Karnix hissed, his mandibles clicking irritably as his feelers lashed back into their cavities.
There were a handful of ASR or allied soldiers, more PCL, and then those worthless Carnazir bodies. But...bodies could be useful. And, best of all, PCL had an ace.
Rho-Hux was infamously well known among ASR ranks. Hell, the reward for bringing in his head had made it worth Karnix's attention. But Rho-Hux was far more interesting than just a bounty or a good fight. He was as good a rival as any Karnix could have asked for, and that was important now. Something else was present. Something that could easily cut through all of them.
Karnix hissed again before walking to join Rho at the tree he'd posted up by. "As much as it pains me to agree with a Carnazir," he hissed as he squatted to a more suitable talking position. "There is an old human saying. The enemy of my enemy is my friend."
Karnix looked over to Rho, letting his feelers out as he stared the PCL commander in the eye. "We've both fought against the odds before and come out, but at what cost? Neither of us can afford to lose soldiers here. Before I say anymore, let me get this straight right now; I couldn't care less about peace talks at the moment. Neither of us are diplomats or politicians. We're better. We are warriors. Damned good ones at that. And we've lead warriors. So, warrior to warrior. One commander to the other. What say you to putting aside killing each other for the time being and focus on getting out of this trench alive? Besides, I'm not falling to something lesser now that I know you are here. If anything is going to end my life, it better fucking be you. And it better fucking be worthy of legend."
"Oh look, other people talking over the Shon-Vuu saying sensible things and repeating her points! Never had this happen before." she calls from the trees she is behind, the thick sarcasm in her voice coming through even the heavy digitization filter. She finally walks, slowly, out into the open to join the gathering. "The best thing we can do right now is in fact, not fight each other. None of us know what exactly is happening, but there definitely appears to be a fourth party that wants all of us dead, and I prefer to handle my enemies one at a time."
Sarnai-Zaya pauses next to Dalia and turns her main optical sensor deliberately towards her to indicate that she is staring at her, "Wait....scales...anger...eating weird shit...Drakairis? Why do you have wings? Aren't you base human?"
