The battle field grew louder every second, the Thick, black smoke from burning fuel lines choked the sky, illuminated only by the rhythmic, lethal flashes of plasma guns. On the ground, coughing and pale, lay Jaxen, Kealen, and Rook. Their, their bodies bruised and broken from the sheer output of their previous battle.
Kneeling over them was Sloane, her hands glowing with a soft, iridescent green light as she desperately channeled her healing energy into their torn muscle tissues. It was a slow, agonizing process. Every second she needed was a second bought in blood.
"Renji! Left flank!"
Nyx shifted her weight, a sharp, confident smirk cutting through the grime on her face. A massive wave of standard Malkor infantry—reinforced with heavy alloy tower shields and Lance—was crashing down the ridge, aiming directly for the vulnerable, unconscious xenocides.
Nyx cracked her knuckles, her blue eyes flashing with dangerous amusement. "Ok, Mikasa. Let's kick some ass."
Mikasa stood beside her, her expression perfectly stoic, her breathing calm despite the wall of obsidian armor rushing toward them. She extended her right hand, her palms glowing with a sharp, silver light. "Alright, Nyx. Let's go. Don't let a single one cross Sloane's line."
*THOOM!*
With a sharp mental command, Mikasa's Evolith snapped into reality. A massive, twin-headed battleaxe manifested directly into her grip, She took a single step forward and swung the heavy weapon in a massive, horizontal arc. The weight of the conjured axe smashed directly into the first line of shields, the sheer physical leverage shattering the alloy plates and sending three Malkor soldiers flying backward into the dirt.
Before the second line could exploit the opening, Nyx vanished.
*POP.*
The distinct, vacuum-pop of her teleportation echoed right above the infantrymen. Nyx materialized five feet in the air, directly above a heavy-vanguard soldier. She dropped like a meteor, driving both her combat boots straight into his helmeted face. The impact crushed the visor inward, slamming him into the steel floorboards.
"Hey, ugly! Catch!" Nyx laughed, grabbing a live plasma grenade from the fallen soldier's belt. She spun on her heel, ducked under a sweeping lance, and slapped the explosive directly onto the chest plate of another charging combatant.
*POP.*
She teleported away a split second before the blast detonated, reappearing right back at Mikasa's side. The explosion tore through the cluster of soldiers, scattering shrapnel across the ridge.
"Nice throw," Mikasa said smoothly. Without breaking her rhythm, she released the heavy battleaxe, letting it dissolve into wisps of silver light. In the same fluid motion, she threw both hands outward. "Need something faster."
Two daggers materialized in her palms. Mikasa blitzed forward, weaving through a volley of standard plasma rifle fire with absolute grace. She ducked beneath a horizontal slash from an officer's blade, pivoted on her heel, and drove the right dagger straight through the weak joint of his neck armor. Before his body could hit the ground, she spun, hurling the left dagger like a throwing knife. It buried itself deep into the visor of a sniper aiming at Sloane from a distant piece of wreckage.
"They just keep coming!" Nyx shouted, appearing and disappearing across the clearing like a glitch in reality.
*POP.* She appeared behind a soldier swinging an iron mace, grabbing his wrist and twisting it until the bone snapped. *POP.* She materialized directly in front of a heavy gunner, delivering a brutal, rising knee strike to his chin before he could spin his rotary cannon toward her.
"Then we just keep breaking them," Mikasa replied, her voice entirely cold, entirely unyielding. She clapped her hands together, summoning a massive, high-caliber sniper rifle directly over her shoulder. She caught the grip, dropped to one knee, and fired a single, devastating armor-piercing round that tore through four lined-up soldiers, clearing a straight path for NYX to push the front line further back.
Behind them, Sloane's sweat dripped onto Kealen's chest as the green light flared brighter. "Just a little more..." she whispered, her teeth grit. "Keep them off me!"
"You heard the lady!" Nyx yelled, a wild, grin on her face as her purple aura flared. *"POP!"*
A kilometer away from the frontline chaos, isolated in a quiet, metallic valley, sat one of the Xenocide transport spaceships.
The heavy cargo bay doors were partially warped open, letting a sliver of gray light cut through the dark interior.
Inside, sitting cross-legged on a metal supply crate, was Vela.
While the rest of the xenocides where in a cataclysmic war of survival, Vela was entirely in her own world , her lap was filled with several bags of salty barbecue potato chips.
Her face was a picture of absolute, blissful gluttony as she crammed a handful into her mouth.
"Munch, munch... man, these snacks are so good," Vela muttered to herself.
*CRASH!*
The heavy reinforced steel door of the cargo bay was violently torn off its hinges, flying across the room and smashing into a row of weapon racks.
From the smoke stepped a high-ranking Malkor Elite. He was massive, his aura radiated a heavy, suffocating pressure. He scanned the room, expecting a hidden xenocides unit, only to lock his eyes onto a lone girl chewing on a potato chip.
"A pathetic survivor," the Elite growled, his voice deep and rumbling.
He closed the distance in a single, arrogant stride. Vela didn't even look up; she was currently reaching down into the bag to grab another handful.
Exasperated by her total lack of respect, the Elite backhanded the bag entirely out of her lap. The bag burst across the room, scattering the crispy, salty barbecue chips across the filthy, oil-slicked floorboards of the cargo bay. He then brought his hands down, slapping her remaining bag straight out of her hands, crushing the chips beneath his heavy iron boot.
The silence that followed inside the cargo ship was deafening.
Vela's hand remained frozen in mid-air, right where her bag of chips used to be. Slowly, her head tilted down, her eyes staring at the crushed, ruined snacks beneath the Elite's boot.
The casual, lazy aura around her completely vanished. The air inside the cargo bay grew instantly, terrifyingly cold. The ambient light of the room seemed to bend away from her, swallowed by a dark, predatory emptiness.
Slowly, a glowing, vibrant symbol began to manifest directly over her forehead— a coiled dragon intertwined with a howling wolf. Her eyes, usually bright and expressive, turned completely dead, reflecting a terrifying, primal hunger.
"You..." Vela whispered, her voice dropping into a register that made the steel walls of the spaceship vibrate. "You just ruined my lunch."
"Die, insect!" the Elite roared, raising a heavy plasma mace and swinging it downward with enough force to shatter the entire supply crate.
Vela didn't dodge. She didn't move.
*BOOM!*
The mace struck her raised left forearm. But instead of breaking her bones, the moment the plasma energy made contact with her skin,
The violent crimson plasma of the mace didn't explode; it was violently, instantly sucked straight into her pores like water down a drain. Her muscles expanded, her -dark aura flaring to life as she fed on his output.
"Was that suppose to be an attack," Vela said, her face completely expressionless.
Before the Elite could comprehend why his weapon had just gone completely dormant, Vela's right hand shot forward like a hydraulic press. She buried her bare fist straight into the center of his heavy chest.
*CRACK!*
The elite imploded inward, the sheer physical force sending the massive Elite crashing through two separate interior bulkheads. He hit the back wall of the ship, spitting out a massive torrent of blood, his bones completely broken in a single strike.
"Wait—what are you?!" the Elite wheezed, his arrogance completely shattered as he tried to scramble backward away from the hole in the wall.
Vela walked through the dust cloud, her footsteps slow, heavy, and rhythmic.
The Elite desperately raised his hands, channeling the remaining raw Evo-energy in his core to fire a massive conflagration of dark fire at her. "Stay back!"
Vela didn't even raise her guard. She walked straight into the torrent of fire. The flames didn't burn her; they literally dissolved into her skin, her absorption matrix eating the attack whole, fueling her own physical reserves. She emerged from the smoke completely untouched, her hand reaching down to grab the Elite by his throat.
She lifted his massive body off the ground with a single hand, pinning him against the steel wall.
"Please..." the Elite choked out, his eyes wide with absolute, primal terror as he looked at the dragon-wolf symbol glowing on her forehead. He could feel his own lifeforce, his very soul, being pulled toward her open palms. "Have mercy... I can give you information... please..."
Vela tilted her head, her expression completely detached, looking at him as if he were nothing more than a bug beneath her heel.
"Mercy, why should I have mercy," Vela said, her voice dropping into a terrifyingly cold, clinical whisper. "After all you attack me first"
*Boom.*
Vela killed him with he's own weapon, he's blood splash around the space ship.
She dusted off her hands, the wolf-dragon symbol faded from her forehead. She looked down at the mess on the floor, letting out a heavy, deeply annoyed sigh.
"Great. Now I have to go find another snack," she muttered, kicking the corpse out of her way
as she walked back out into the gray light of the warzone.