-
In darkness..
Aleph still thought in partial brink from undeath to death, he watched the heat slowly pass through felt agony as it stripped through flesh and bone, it was a worse pain than his armoring,
Yet even as it passed through, his mind worked like a computer and analysis. The nanite's nature felt far more revealed in that moment; these are still no different than the ones used in training, just stronger… with a superior propulsion method…than what had been used on him in training amplified by machine precision
Its lethality was far superior to what was used in training due to being more potent with a heavier payload,
That augmented human had an amazing aim, an inch closer shift away and his brain would’ve been fully melted.
Though calling her human, felt wrong;
But pondering in darkness only makes more of what he saw in that hivemind came to him again….
She was a cyborg, yet her DNA was clearly human, Was she spliced? Or is she human but..altered?
No matter, all in all he sensed nothing more than machine and blood…, from the one who claimed she to have met him from before…. the one who–––Saiyah!
Saiyah….The….Priest..The People…Death can’t be afforded to him!
‘God let me live!’ His mind screams raging against the shadow of darkness.
‘Wake up! Wake Up! Wake Up! WAKE UP!’
He wakes up!
Two voices of familiarity in his ear
‘Anna!? Asaph!?...’ He quickly thought..
He was coming to but he didn’t feel himself laying down, he was above, his hands coiled around something.
No it was someone, he could see a sparse flash of the light around them, the dim fires, he could feel it, a fire from above, his eyes came up to a sky a falling ship burning upon high…
He barely glanced down until it came to him…-
the rough texture and resistance of a body-glove, flesh underneath. Deep breath came to him in one sharp labored breath, he could see, a limp figure under his hands and body
“Sa-Saiyah.” He almost panicked, stuttering as his insides live with agony and intense pain grew worse...
‘How can you tell if a vampire is dead we don’t breathe? How long would we stop moving?’..
He was gazing down at her, he must’ve been trying to do anything to save her even if his mind had been gone…his head frantically shooting back– turned back to an extended tragedy behind him,
…. The priest…….. The people…The Mechra just…slaughtered them…so many..children, elderly, so many people dead but–
‘I Couldn’t save him…’
‘I Couldn’t save them…’
‘Please don’t die…..’
‘Why was this allowed?’
The broken body, sputtering a few meters away from him in a pool of blood and other bodies of him clinging to life made his eyes shirk away, but he caught view of the people, so desperate to reach him but held back by–
Asaph..
cutting through Aleph’s grim contemplations, it appeared survivors even had gone to Aleph…. They were steps away but blocked, he heard the rack of some sort of rifle…. But knew who it was. The demeanor, cold and calculated, wasn’t very identifying.
But a figure with anger and malice that couldn’t be hidden by any helmet stood, a rifle pointed toward the people
“Don’t!” Aleph shouted Asaph, holding Saiyah close as he leaned off holding her weakly to his side…
“Glad you’ve come to!” Asaph motioned, looking toward Alephs still holding Saiyah..
“ You damn near ripped his arms off, Aleph! When he tried to help her and you off!” Anna’s voice pierced through; her face was seen under the broken helmet.
Asaph’s voice was emotional and his movements went a bit frantic as he gave more attention to look toward Aleph and Saiyah, observing them both.
“Wh-what happened?” He interrogated...
“We got attacked.” Aleph simply stated…
Anna herself had her fingers lightly twitch at that… “The hell could’ve taken you both down? Why isn’t she regenerating?” Anna quizzed
She asked a dozen more questions after that…but Aleph went without reply as he simply pondered the first two
Aleph went to look around but saw nothing…no body but a trail of blood gone away from them….
His eyes then set to the blood pooling from the creases under Saiyah’s helmet, gravel crunching as he shifts in the street Blood pooled greatly from the creases and tight lock of the under portion of her helmet and from the hole of an entry wound, burnt flesh around it…where plasma went through…he still sensed nanites eating away at her inside, yet his proximity hindered them.
“Aleph you can let us know what’s wrong with her, we need to get you somewhere else!” Asaph commanded.
Aleph knew they had to go and quickly went to stand with Saiyah “Take me to-“ He couldn’t finish
He buckled… The nanites in his own body hindered him, he couldn’t neutralize them with his ability he was struck down so to speak…wounded..like a human..
It didn’t seem like he could stand on his own two feet…
But even he still had some limited regeneration his blood dried but Saiyah’s…wounds were still not closing…
‘She can’t die like this!’ He tried to stand again.… but buckled, a third stranger he didn’t recognize coming to try and help him…
The people tried to approach Aleph but then–
Asaph raised his gun a single crack echoing out amidst the dark warlike droning ambience,
a warning shot that cratered the ground, bits of rock spraying.
“HOLD FIRE!” Aleph suddenly arose with Saiyah in his arms, pain spiking up, as if lava flooded…veins? Coursing through him as the nanites reacted to his activity getting far more aggressive.
Asaph answered “They’re human! Why should I!? The hell were you doing with them Aleph!? They were trying to help yo–” Asaph buzzed with questions, his voice shaken….
It had Aleph realizing how weak they were in this moment….pathetic, he feels like a child witnessing a death…but are they even more than children? The world outside the training center would still recognize them as all no older than fifteen, leaving he doesn’t feel different than when he was a child….
Asaphs unease and subtle hidden grieving and anger had something snapping in Aleph
‘I have to be a Man not for myself but for those who are still left...’
Aleph “You don’t need a question to my order follow it!” Aleph snapped in baritone voice straight.
It was a tone that had Asaph straighten up but keep the rifle down….
Anna wanted to say something but couldn’t…
“How did you all find me? What about the others?” He spoke still looming over Saiyah’s unmoving form.
“We were searching for Saiyah, she’d run off some time ago…” And Aleph nodded “She went off to search for me alone? And you let her run off? Asaph?” Aleph spoke accusingly snapping at Asaph.
“Who could stop her, Aleph!?..” Anna was defensive, her voice slightly cracking.
“Forget it, we are going let’s go.” Aleph spoke blankly…
They didn’t say anything, maybe grumbled before they were off.
Though the people, they thanked him, as he took them with him…
“I-If they were coming…and they did…as they attacked us…it couldn’t of been coincidence..” They approached and babbled helplessly, but Aleph couldn’t help but not see the look in their eyes, they didn’t see him a saviour they saw him as a way out…
‘Good…’ He thinks.
From then on even with unspoken agitation, he had the three take him, and another he learned was named ‘Vito’
For the sake of the sanity of the people who suffered greatly, he decided to ease up, for surely they asked many questions on the way, but he surely decided to ease up knowing even Anna was uneased by Saiyah’s probably death....
They with venom asked angry questions as they finally left that place…albeit in all things
‘Where were you’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Who are these humans?’
Aleph endured a nightmare of worried but angry questioning and gave many vague answers…
-^ Meanwhile on track to The Others Aleph spent considerable time detailing what since transpired in the underground and up until their arrival, the people he had taken under wing and even what happened when he first disappeared to certain degrees, when he made it to the encampment…^-
Yet even as he arrives, he sits there, staring at disgruntled soldiers….and a very hungry she-wolf known as, Juno
-
The ship had crushed the earth beneath it, following moments after he arrived..., It had been drifting like a falling cloud ripped through then slamming against the earth like an anvil, the tremors traveled for unmeasured miles, yet by ripping into orbit with fire, the sky was clear.
The sky bore down, yet still was overcast grey light across this world…
The still dim area gave just enough light for the people to tend to the wounds of the others they had left, including the priest…
Aleph was speaking to one, and all he got were glares as they saw they hadn’t known what was going on, but they sure as hell didn’t like it…
‘humans? Amongst Vampires? Sheep amongst wolves, why the hell is he coddling them?’ Anna thought… to herself as her eyes narrowed toward him sat holding Saiyah, as another shocktrooper examined her… beside him...
Yet she wasn’t the only one giving him an intense glare Aleph was surrounded by a circle of purple mountains helmeted or unhelmeted, armed or not, Here was where the bulk of leadership was,
With key lookouts in craters of debris further out of view in entrenched positions,
Covering those giving him silent judgement at the ‘Walking, weak, liabilities’…
The Humans… He brought with
-
Yet still Aleph steeled resolved had divulged what he knew, what had transpired when he was trapped underground…to the group…and sighed...
Until it was his turn to ask questions, after inquiring in command
“So what’s our status been…has-…has anyone–“
“Died?” Asaph answered…for him, Aleph’s face tensed as much as it could still be partially skeletal, but it still gave him an appreciative nod,
Aleph then turned his head back to Juno, who seemed to represent the leadership in his absence.
grimacing at noticing her rifle was missing from her back as were many weapons from most of the shocktroopers here in this canyon bowl of rubble and collapsed metal skyscraper that crowded around them like a makeshift castle,
His gaze lingered, and she was silent for a long while, leaving Aleph eagerly expecting an answer with unease tapping of his boot against the ground.
Asaph himself tensed up at the stare-down between the two
Juno looked to a few of the other Sergeants before she gave her report “No one’s died, thanks to you,” Juno begrudgingly gave credit. Aleph, confused and ignorant of how he helped in absence, quirked a brow
“I wouldn’t want to waste time explaining.... what you did. And run out of time to answer other inquires, Sergeant.” Juno spoke and the term “Sergeant came with obvious Malice
Aleph gave a sharp nod “For now, you’ll skip it, but it’s still too good to be true, General status? bad-sit-reps?” Aleph tried to be overtly professional, but as his voice came out, the manner he asked his question made him make a deeply pained expression after
Juno gave a laugh hearing the tone he tried to bring, crouching down
“We bombed those buildings as you ordered a time and time ago.” A sergeant spoke out for Juno
And she clarified after for his answer before Aleph could speak, “Blocked a pre-emptive armored incursion.”
She gave a nod as she spoke for the other Sergeants who stood by her. Aleph nodded, unable to hide the smile on his un-helmeted face at the fact his sudden spontaneous decision came through. Something just informed him they’d do that…
Juno must’ve seen that smile “But now we lost enough munitions to be forced to well…cannibalize the enemies' weapons.” Juno stated
Aleph gave a nod “Like I had us do before we arrived here.” Aleph blankly stated matter-of-factly
Juno gave a laugh “Ahuh… …Say, Sergeant how did you know to teach us to use these things?” She was pressured.
Aleph gave a deep chuckle
Another Sergeant answered, “We’ve had no objective, no sitrep, dumped here, and you just magically ‘learned everything on the fly.’ One accused playing an obvious hand that they were suspicious of Aleph to some degree.
Aleph knew this was going far from the insubordination, but he didn’t have the time to correct and fight her here and now. he only had enough to use this as a chance to explain.
“I can access the enemy hivemind mentally.” He starkly reported.
And to great surprise, he only gained nods. Quickly, he straightened up. “Yes, my mind is configured to work with machines.” He spoke like a lunatic a bit the moment he gained no disagreement...”
They just went quietly after that as if they were taking it all in, and it made him frustrated
He gave a deep sigh but then began to speak again. “Anyway! Its apparent fleet came to help us and is taking significant damage…” Aleph starts blankly.”
“We’ll make contact and inform them our missions failed.” Aleph glanced around at those around him.
There was palpable tension when he declared they had failed, at how he had come to such a conclusion only hearing extraordinary reports despite such a long absence.
“I disagree, high-Sergeant.” Juno cut in, quick insubordination, yet the voice wavered as if deeply lost.
“We’re at full strength, save for her.” She pointed down to Saiyah, and Aleph deeply frowned, his helmet still gone.
“But now you’re here. with liabilities you’ve held us from being able to shoot…” Juno threw up a palm arguing blatantly, but as Aleph gave a slight sigh of relief, there was sensible disagreement; he shook his head.
“You won’t shoot them. I’ve explained what they are to me on the way here; all you need to know is they need to be shielded as we pull out.” Aleph guarded the people.
Some of the humans were worried, they were in corner half-surrounded by shocktroopers but left open to Aleph’s view, on flat ground, unraveled blankets and coats where they tended to their own….
After One of the Sergeants who had his head locked on them spun it back to Aleph and opened. “So what of the tower? Shouldn’t we assault it? With what you’ve told us; shouldn’t we be launching an attack-!? “
Aleph didn’t even bother letting him finish
“We’re second to none, not invincible.” Aleph held Saiyah close as he said that “What makes you think we’d make it?” Aleph asked around, his head glancing at all of them, and they didn’t seem to speak
A long pause
Asaph spoke up first “Aleph, we’ve lasted this entire time you were gone. I’ve personally beat light-armored that squeezed in, hell a gunship came by and! –“ Asaph was frantic to argue, considering only prompted by Aleph’s continued silence
“Just because you can face a gunship barehanded doesn’t mean you should.” Aleph cut to all of them.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“We’re all alive, and I hope to God Saiyah is alive, let’s take the blessing. I know enough to improve our chances if we leave, we can come back.” Aleph spoke…
But the cryptic nature got to one of them, “Aleph, they have a super weapon in there, don’t they? you lightly explained on the way here, but…what is it?” Anna interrogated her voice low but loud to cut in…
Aleph let her finish, and with that, he took a deep breath.
“I was in the hivemind, I got pieces that come to me occasionally.” Aleph was indeed speaking the truth but was cryptic as even he was not sure about what he saw in that hivemind.
The heads seemed to nod matter-of-factly. Even Anna humored such action, even looking up to the screen above that once held detailed information of the hostile “castes” they engaged…and back to
Aleph unaware looked back to that screen confused, sat upon a flat bit of rubble, surrounded by those at varying elevation, standing or seated, weapons at hip as he seemed to continue rant.
“They’re not making a super-weapon….” Aleph thinks back to the lessons back in training, that word. “They’re making the “übermensch”.” He finished on a very dark word
‘They have to be messing with me! Now of all times?
He used what used in this instance would be comical! An old German term from the old-world from a place of darkness, and he still wasn’t questioned, as they seemed to just let it soak in
his report seemed widely believed with any difficulty... That irked him? Why did they trust him so much now?
Aleph sharply pointed around to the shocktroopers, making them all flinch “They worship mankind, and it’s like they..–“
“Want a god in their own image.” One of the humans spoke with a deep cough as she tended to the unconscious priest.
causing some heads to turn and Aleph sharply nodded to confirm that’s what he meant to say we’re amid a cult…These machines, they are experimenting on people, but we have more to lose dying her with what I know than–“He suddenly stopped speaking, realizing how far he was getting along..
And his eyes rose to all the eyes on him
Hundreds circled, even including humans silently listening. As they stared at Aleph and, their silence like agreement
Even Juno just listened…
He grumbled and shook his head
“Look! Even if we didn’t have these people, I can’t walk or stand as well as I could…I was struck by an AVN.” He spoke the name.
Juno shot a look, and Asaph just asked, “What is that?”
He could almost sense their eyebrows raise as soon as he said the name of the nanites…It came to him as if his brain was subconsciously reading what was in him, he noticed the pain wasn’t as strong as when he woke up...
“The nanites we all encountered in training…the classification our Empire gave them.” He glanced back down to Saiyah’s wound...
Asaph and others stiffened, realizing why Saiyah likely wasn’t moving or, worse, wasn’t going to be moving ever again...
They all froze, save for Anna “Yes, they’re vampire made.” She started elaborating as she gave a nod “But they aren’t incurable…...It’s lucky you somehow are stopping them from working fast..” Anna seemed to know more than she should…speaking boldly…
Aleph quirked a brow.
“When they get through you turn into a pile of bones and wet flesh.” Anna grimly relived something dark as her eyes glinted a bright red.
Aleph didn’t prod and neither did anyone else...
“But if they have any more hostiles armed with it it’s likely limited, not even your ability could keep us all alive…” Anna cautioned
After she spoke Aleph nodded “That’s why We’re going to get out…...Knowing that ship crashed, help is on the way they must’ve either lost faith or found out I figured something out by now, either way we’re leaving we can’t keep this up.”
They all looked around…and to him…
Aleph thought about it “No Objections? No “You’re crazy!! Are you insane!?” ….Really nothing? You guys are really accepting to all this?”
Asaph laughed “Do you want that?”
Aleph looked around, to see even Juno chuckle as Aleph’s comment…. He held Saiyah closely “Not at all..! Let’s go!”
-
It was sometime later as they were preparing to leave that Aleph saw the priest walk towards him…..He gazed over Saiyah “Many of us died coming with you….my daughters…” He was covered in the rags of his fellowship...
Aleph was pained to see him like this…
“But they were coming for the underground I’d always feared they may come but…I didn’t want to believe that, but you are here…sent by God, but I thank you all the same.”
Aleph stopped and stared at him, as many witnessed the interaction...
“Your companion…bring her to us..you…we lost so many but you will save all of us left..” The priest spoke and Aleph didn’t give much response. he thinks of the girls he met only once when he awoke, and confused he is pained to think he never got the chance to know them, that their lives had been snuffed out..
Aleph realized what they were going to do “I pray you don’t do such a thing….” He spoke bitter, his tone was humble…and it was confusing to those around him. “I don’t want–“
“If she lives, even I know she will certainly die without blood to sustain her..” And as the priest spoke Aleph truly pondered those words.
‘If she lives.’ He thinks about the depths of it all.. to be a Vampire, his inhumanity, and what lingers in him as humanity…what is so wrong about it…
Aleph didn’t resist...
And to great joy, when they brought her their blood, and she to drink of it, she stirred…..
Something swapped in the shocktrooper, seeing these humans who were willing to give more blood than even the highest servants in New Persia….his words, as if exchange was given.. as if they were good friends…
It had them thinking, ‘If humans are entreated to some measure of tolerance…’
They could be trusted.
-
Moving out of the city was the hard part; moving through the open was even harder. But before they could they passed the final exit where a great line of barbed metal emitters once cast the barrier that held over the city one still on others distant...
Vito approached Aleph quickly… “Can I do it? The tower…Aleph you said you can enter the hivemind but…you said it’s slow coming to you, I have even the faintest idea of what could be done, if you trust me…I can do something…”
“Are you insane?!” Aleph spoke
Vito answered, “They sent us here no intel, barely enough ammo we’re clearly insane enough to be disposable!… But think of what I could do, you know only I could sneak in there second to, Saiyah …”
Saiyah was indeed still out, And Vito was offering something vague but…something made Aleph think this was a good idea,
so, with Vito by Aleph’s side... speaking a- “High-Sergeant, trust me….” He spoke with such conviction that he let Vito do it.
He was second to Saiyah in disappearing, albeit it was conventional, not so supernatural as Aleph believed her ability was to some degree, but after that
Vito had dashed off, having requested to go to the tower, but from then on It was tough.
A very tough time, and for a time, they wondered if they would make it with minimal casualties 144,000 soldiers stuck to the limitations and movement of Shocktroopers passed through the city, albeit with their breakneck capacity and lack of fatigue, need for water, food, or anything else that could hinder a man.
They braved the path out of the city in two days, The city had indeed been massive; the fighting stretched through most of it, and only in key parts had they broken skyscrapers to impede armored incursions.
Otherwise, their enemy was fast, ludicrously fast, as soon as they moved out it was clear that the enemy had moved back in.
And soon enough, they were out of the broken city, staring at the wreckage behind….
But that was when they heard it, a faint transmission.
As they passed through darkness, as shocktroopers commanded by Aleph were ordered to carry those humans who could move no more they heard a call
‘Long-range? Communications are back online!?’
They heard the voice they hadn’t imagined they would ever hear.
It was at a mount, sweeping over grey hills, tall, jagged peaks, Aleph peaked over, Juno’s helmet in his hand, she held her hand over her face obscuring part of it…. As he held her helmet and spoke into it
“Do you read?” Aleph asked
“Affirmative, signal reads as one of the Sergeant’s, I want to speak to– “
“This is High-Sergeant Aleph, I’m requesting immediate Evac, over.”
There was a long pause as a few scouts seemed to spot something in the distance, sprinting over to Juno, their fingers pointing to a silver mass that trailed behind, trailing in air, ground and sky….
“Negative, Aleph we are coming to assist you on the ground.” Krul resisted.
“No, we don’t have enough. We are expended ammunition lost, and I have vital intel on the enemy that will be lost, that can’t afford to lose if I manage to fall, I repeat, Your support should be extraction! Over.” Aleph snapped over static...
“The only point of landing would be out in the open. the nest of these silver mechanical things has been far more rattled with my broken fleet's arrival, you’d be in open hills to reach the only site I can land at.”
“Understood.” Aleph simply replied…
-It was a risk he had to take; there was no plausible way this could continue, they’d got what they needed. Aleph was assured there had to be some way what was in his head could be transferred to the Empire,
there was some way they could get out without fighting…they vastly underestimated just how many enemies there was to ammunition, how many there was to how far they could expend their flesh and blood…-
Juno had to have known it, and she didn’t give argument; it was blatantly obvious by leaving they had to leave the city, and she hardly said anything…. but…he could see it as she began to subtly twitch the further they got out….Maybe, indeed, it was too risky.
But Aleph had to do it…. get them out of here. he let Vito go but he was so convincing he had to trust him on this….so now, it came to this…
A whine sounded as if in the exposed sky, they could more clearly see the burning wreckage of vessels high above, and in their view
A ship was coming down in the distance.
Juno appeared in Aleph’s face snatching her helmet “Aleph, we’re being hunted, we’re too big, sky’s too bright, I can’t even count how many are coming.”
Aleph finally takes his view and looks…
And there they are.
Amassed and besetting them on all sides is the immeasurable enemy army, prepared to hound them…
east he can sense it through his deviant talent, rolling treads, calculations for arcing the firing of cannons
wests are active pre-emptive refinement of all close quarters predictive qualities,
south…To the south is worst of all a pledge of organics…blood…those damned beings…he is assured of their name now Polaries…
and overhead, far from any city with humans likely to be wounded are missiles, arcing shots soaring through the air….
Again, it overwhelms his head, pulsing heat, whistles, missiles, tracks, legs, synthetic muscle….
We’re not in the city; they got no reason to hold back. There have to be millions of them…. enough to…God willing, I hope we survive…
His heart thumps twice
But he turns and sees it that jagged shape of a ship landed on ground, wounded….
Lights burst free, energy and kinetic projectiles, giving them slight hope…
Aleph threw his hand out “MOVE OUT!!”
-^-
They moved fast, everyone amped together, Saiyah in his arms they ducked, dived and rolled from imminent projectiles, a seventh sense providing even a moments glancing hope of evasion.
Aleph had to see it, the first death of all their time here, and it wasn’t even human again…
A shocktrooper was struck, light came down, and he can sense it, Enough energy to whittle through a skyscraper came down on a vampire as he sprinted, fast yet not fast enough to evade a predictive shot…they had orbital supremacy he was assured of that…
His nature allowed what would’ve been moments in a human’s eyes be long enough to scare his ears, eyes, his heart thumped twice again...
Weaving and moving, shot after shot rings out and more and more shocktroopers as hit.
The ground craters and shakes, buckling underneath their feet…
They continued the retreat; new wounds scorched the land already cratered.
They lost so many…. they’re surrounded now…. Aleph was rushing along with thousands, a blur of purple and darkened alloy, throttling fast, ripping muscles, dodging each strike.
In a swift blur of heat he watches an entire line be washed away in heat, faster than they could react….this power, this speed, this reaction. It meant nothing against a combined arms force…
now there was less, but it was too busy to count… Their enemy wasn’t like an insurrection of humans they moved quick….
Juno shouted “WE’RE SURROUNDED, CIRCLE FORMATION!”… amidst a silver tide coming across them, so vast they seem to almost stretch for miles blocking out the surrounding landscape in the now exposed light of the sky reflecting it upon them…in the haze of smoke in the distance…insect-like glowing eyes..
The shocktroopers are on a massive, towering hill behind them. still the ghost of the ship of evacuation is too far away to make it with the enemy right on their heels, not just nipping at their soles but clenching down.
Juno stands beside Aleph momentarily. “Twenty thousand for each of us.” Aleph gives pause confused only for a moment…
Juno looks to Aleph. “My rough estimate…” her voice wavers, shakes even.
The mountain towers high, each point a place where hundreds of the thousands of shocktroopers are lined up ready for a fight with whaver they have left….
In the midst of hell as the gates to Gehenna open, unleashing a tide of mankind’s worst creation.
THEM THE MECHRA
.^.
several hundred thousand shocktroopers, thirty-three-thousand gone…. they rushed out into the open…A foolish mistake.
Aleph knows it, the Sergeants know it, Juno knows it, Asaph knows it….
They’re maybe a couple miles from the ship, its long shadow cast over them, as its beat down overhead, Kommandant Krul screams into their ears…...
Shapes and sizes of varying degrees, armored vehicles, an overcast of gunships, sweeping overhead…. There are enough hostiles here to overrun two moons…
Yet even now, he almost hears a voice break through one he longs to hear and is fearful will never hear again.
Asaph fights, Anna fights, Vito fights, Juno fights, desperately, wielding dismantled, recovered cannons, blades, anything to hold them off…. but it’s not becoming enough….
Hundreds more shocktroopers are swarmed, and no amount of their training or their feats can help them evade millions of simultaneous plasma bolts as a silver horde swarms them.
In this ruined canvas of debris, broken cities, and the remains of what was once left behind….. Aleph clenches his fists together
The sky has heated….
Juno shouts, “WE CAN’T MAKE IT TO THE SHIP, WE’RE SURROUNDED!!” Desperation in the voice of the undead, fear in what drank blood…...The humans carried cower in fear amongst the purple mountain as they stand atop a mountain of their own, rocks and stone…
Aleph twitches, hunched over watching carnage, his men and women, brothers and sisters albeit who had beat him he fought with deserted on this world…losing he should’ve died falling into the sewer is what plagues his mind..
‘I didn’t die in that sewer, I shudder to think what use then…God has for me, but it was his will, that I that feed on his servants have reached this far….God willing should I survive…I’ll repay my enemies seven-fold..’
Breaking him from what may be a small prayer Juno clambers out a mountain of bodies nearly tossing Saiyah from his hands, her armor scorched, VLIR broken, plasma bolts fill their vision swinging around as the air begins to burn.
A hue of pink surging around as their enemy drowns them in metallic bodies and their own flesh and blood…
“ALEPH!! WE’RE SURROUNDED DAMN IT!!”
Aleph looks on…. They would’ve never stood a chance, an army prepared this fast was already coming, but now they’re in open ground…
Aleph clears throat, his almost human heart is thumping “Good.” He feels something surge within him.
“We’ve dragged them into the open.” He speaks…
His arms release Saiyah and she crumpled helplessly on the ground, in awe the humans he had saved onlook, and and wordlessly he rushes into fray.
-^-
Heat, pain, his fist cleaves through metallic bodies.
Death, Spray, he watches shocktroopers pound the dirt, making a mountain to take cover amongst, the greatest he had been told, they were the greatest…if they couldn’t stand a pitched battle…what of the rest of the Galaxy…
They were outnumbered but they had to be better than this…no they were better than this..
If this was any other caste, any other they would’ve died, it was unrealistic for them…but normal for his caste…they were...
Second to None…
^.^
It’s what got them through, got them through what had to be millions…
-.-
There it was the final break in Aleph’s demeanor...
-
Aleph cost them too much.
Aleph cost them everything
Aleph desperate to save costed more lives than anything he knew that, he regrets it.. he would’ve been better off not trying to get those humans to escape, to simply conquer this world with what little ability they had, a lengthy guerilla campaign but he was overeager. Now they were paying for it.
Guilt rode Aleph
But Aleph let it ride him let it spring free a cry for him to fight harder for those lost,
his fists pounding into what feels like armored bulkheads and blastdoors in the shape of chestplates and metallic insect-shaped humanoid skulls
Fingers slipping through a Saturn-Caste’s arm like a hot poker through fresh mud, a screech of metal a the arm is detached and he quickly swings it back into its skull shattering it, damaging is now impromptu weapon he fires with almost wild abandon.
There’s enough to close his eyes and shoot!
But there’s enough to close distance, between whatever shot he can manage to get out, he swings the broken arm can hear metal crunch like bone, alloys splinter and burst into his own flesh from their own durability, how even amidst the constant plasma artillery blasts.
Witnessing colored pinkish waves from the burst and discharge of electromagnetic fields that carried enough force to crater, kick up rocks, rip apart the mountain of armored bodies, amongst the release of plasma that seared the ground around them.
‘This wasn’t going to be won easily…’
After that collective thought from seemingly both sides…Aleph got to witness desperation firsthand.
Juno trying to command her unit, realizing her strategy, experience was pitiless against overwhelming odds, this was like the furthest point of their training, this was survival purely and openly survival…here they were against the tides of it all…..
Juno was witnessing it like he did, the depth of their weapon, they had advantage, fought enemy piece by piece like opportunistic wolves….
But now like any prideful cocky animal they were cornered…..Advantages of physical strength, speed, meant nothing in the midst of a combined armed assault…
The plasma that cooked them in their armor merely in a whiff or pass became more deadly, gunships swinging by spraying into them. Shocktroopers desperate, wrecked tanks that got too close had debris that became weapons, thrown carefully into gunships, taking out ten but dozens more came to circle like wasps…
Too many! Too many!
The fighting had turned this desolate layered hill into a desolate burning landscape of molten magma from melted rock, The further down, closer to the enemy the more bodies there were, but now they were piling to the top, covering rock and dirt.
They didn’t scream as they went down, not a soul spoke a word as they fell,
‘They had not screamed because inside each of their hearts was a desire to uplift the morale that dwindled even in the undead.’
Aleph had commanded them to protect the humans, on the highest peak, the humans are protected by a wall of purple, like a steel castle as what little ammunition remained in their weapons whittled into enemies charging.
But they tumble, rapidly, tumbling all around…the humans are burning heat stroke and exhaustion... a pinkish haze of the colored plasma that flies around is all that is seen…
So much plasma is fired it alters the atmosphere and landscape around them…
He ripped out the arm; the surrounding heat was melting him in his loosely fitted armor, he couldn’t breathe; too much oxygen was burnt around, the dirt became as hot pinkish magma, searing the ground beneath their feet...
Their armor lost its purple coloration becoming pinkish or scorched black, bolts and visors burst, melted glass and debris spraying into their faces.
They fought like animals against a tide of millions. They died like animals against the tide of millions, Aleph had to consider how stupid this all was, how they were thrust here on a hope and a whim.
The enemy had gunships with the agility of fighters, versatility of bombers and all advantage of close air support, could hover on a whim, could touch down, take heavy energy cannon-fire from their own dismantled weapons used against them.
Release autocannons on comrades, melting them through armor, then stamp on their chest to impale them…
Saturn-castes outnumbering them, weak and diminutive but moved like rabbits, fought like bears...
This was it…..?
Asaph circled to Aleph, along with Anna…..Asaph couldn’t speak. But Aleph knew what he wanted to say.. he doomed them all, this was cowardice,
they would’ve been better off charging the tower, but that tower was the center of all operations But aleph argues mentally it had to be worse than this…it was worse than this…at least that’s what he thinks to himself.
Aleph’s ability isn’t even working now, it’s not bringing victory, no resolve. he can read them, predict…but not win…and soon enough…it comes…
Asaph is fighting alongside him…..One moment, but the next…..
S2N
Searing hot beams course through the flesh of Asaph’s broken helmet, his head twists unnaturally backward even for the undead….
‘there’s hope…like me…Like Saiyah’ Aleph lies to himself
But it doesn’t stop…the cyborgs arrived, like the girl that beat him….no it is the girl who beat him….he can sense it in the familiarity of blood, trailing the beams…they scissor Asaph’s body until….
He hits the dirt…
Anna doesn’t pause, Aleph doesn’t pause; they blitz, they fight harder. so many shocktroopers dead…a mountain of bodies, so many gone….
They keep on fighting, even though there’s hardly anyone left….
The cyborgs are like that girl…Polaries, women it looks like, hordes of them, and amongst them all is one that glows like a saint, with the wounds he gave, her helmet missing, a broken mechanical eye drenched in blood…her mouth is open and agape as she screams.
She wrenches through what amounts to so many of his fellow shocktroopers…so many lost…
But thank God she wasn’t quick enough…
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^.^
More than a dozen, thirty large transports swing overhead, larger than any omni-transport available, thrusters blazing as they swing in…from each open side-door of these large and long transports is a pounding sound heavy-guns to whittle down stragglers and hostile-air hovering too pridefully giving good shots.
“Bring me in.” Kommandant Krul speaks. From overhead as all rounds whiz by he heads into the zone, and for some odd reason no shot rings true when his transport descends, seeing his students, massacred, a trail of their devastation littered purple armored skeletal scorched dots unto a mountain of bodies.
‘Krul hated them, The shocktroopers…but this..he felt sick, he trained them and had to see an object of hatred yet one he trained, one he was responsible for..massacred..this hatred hardly remained; he cursed mankind as he witnessed it’
They were precisely Sixteen million [Precisely 16,666,666] strong Kommandant Krul had seen attack formations like that, they brought an old strategy clearly from the advantage they had, artillery.
are cut to a brave silver tide of at most one-hundred thousand facing down seven-hundred purple mountains surrounding nearly dead…humans!?
The transport swings down with a hiss, a lower-mounted-autocannon unloads upon anything it spots…and in a swift moment, it turns its side door to the ground…
The shocktroopers aren’t heeding the call for retreat; they are fighting to the last…Kommandant Krul screams into his headset.
“ALEPH- CALLSIGN ALPHA-VICTOR-1 CALL THEM OFF! NOW! I DIDN’T COME TO RETRIEVE CORPSES TOO MANY HAVE PERISHED!”
Aleph is in the midst of a fight for his life…..but doesn’t hesitate “TO THE BOATS!!” He doesn’t think to look back, only feels the fighting on his end lessen. Anna is beside him, fighting harder, standing beside Asaph’s corpse defensively; she doesn’t even have a rifle, the machines are unable to land a solid critical strike.
Part of her body is exposed and skeletonized, embers and smoke flying out…..Yet when she turns to Aleph, seeing his gaze, she reluctantly retreats.
They retreat when so many enemies lie dead…how many did they kill? More than they should have been able to.
Now Aleph stands amongst bodies, the humans he doesn’t feel their blood, and they had not died..they’re free and gone…surrounded, enemies piled around him…surrounded..
Aleph breathes but he can’t, he is frantic, it’s a mess, Saiyah is still here likely dead, Asaph is still here and dead, his scorched remains now beside him…..Aleph can’t cry….
And now he faces her, amongst the machines left they wield claws and blades, amongst the living left are the cyborgs like her, but some are males, some are different, and they crowd around her..as they face in the burning fires…..
“Destroyer, enemy of the “gods”, I failed to kill you once…I wont fail again…” She’s drenched in blood, but its those of her own, they carried tools to burnt he Vampires, to behead…..
Aleph is in tunnel vision, burned, he feels lacking blood, scorched, his helmet exposed…his face not regenerating…but he’s channeling it all now…
He is going to die here or he’s going to kill her and march forwards, take that tower, and not have the losses be in vain…
“You failed because your gods are not a God….” Aleph weakly barks out
The familiar unhelmeted wounded girl, spits at the ground then parts her lips “The light of mankind and my faith in it brought me here. Do you fear the light vampire? You should...” her eyes tensed and narrowed as they link with his
“. I fear nothing whatever happens to me is out of my control I play the part of whatever the God of the people you slew will allow henceforth… I pray it is your death.” Aleph speaks
more to himself unconvincingly he feels ready to bow his head and take a bolt….His eyes half lidded
A howling silence unnatural to the warzone occurs
They stare briefly at each other…. prepared to fight, outnumbering him ten to one…Yet even the machines are almost afraid…
"Then by the boundless limitless nature holy nature of mankind, I will strike you down." Joan declared
