[color=lightgray][indent]They watched in stunned silence as the ship materialized into the sky above them. Nighttime sky suddenly filled with the looming silhouette leviathan sized ship as big maybe bigger than the Vangar ship that had crashed. If the Princess was an overabundance of Mist, the craft above it was on the other end of the spectrum cold and foreign to the world and all that stood around it. It produce a metallic groan once, twice and finally a third time that seemed to worm its way into their heads, rattling and scratching at the skull. Objects began to be jettisoned from unseen launch ports, they came soaring towards the ground like meteors but as they approached the ground and could be seen with more detail they appeared to be robotic entities similar to those that Daryll and Zimmy had dispatched a moment earlier. But where they faced one these were several dozen. The landed into the crater throwing up dirt and debris into the air as they did. And with another metallic groan from the ship this one at a slightly lower frequency like buckling steel, dozens of glowing eyes stuttered to life around them. And one by one they stood up from their personal craters and methodically and slowly made their way towards the group, bulldozing their way through anything that happened to be unlucky enough to be in their way. [quote]"Well, fuck. Setzer, now's the chance to show me that your pretty body is good for more than just looking at."[/quote] “Ya don’t fucking say.” Setzer muttered his voice noticeably lacking its usual bounce and boom. It was easy sometimes to forget that Setzer held an impressive number of top marks on almost every combat simulation back in the Citadel. Maybe it was to overcompensate for the fact that he had a lackluster magical capacity or that as a country bumpkin that had to walk ten miles a day to school because his alcoholic father refused to drive him, book learnin’ wasn’t really something that he was all that attuned to. Combat though, combat was something that came naturally to him. Combat came from the bloodied knuckles of schoolground brawls and the bob and weave of dodging the screaming bottle of whiskey tossed at his head. It was the primal dance that once you knew the beat of it was hard to dance to anything else. He took in the current situation around them. Counting steadily approaching eyes, how long it had taken them to get from where they had come in, to the other side of the crater where the Princess’ shuttle had crashed. The truck was further out from there but at least the trees could provide them some overhead cover from the airship above. With the current group currently outmanned and surrounded everything was coming up red. This was the kind of situation that their instructors had warned them time and time again to not get themselves into. It was five different ways of fucked up and Setzer was loving every second of it. “Here’s the gameplan. Shortest route to the truck is through the thick of these mechanical shits. We punch a hole and run like hell. Hopefully before that big old cruiser points its guns at us.” Setzer explained causally like he was discussing dinner plans and not a near-suicidal rush through robot hell. “Oh and Princess you're gonna want to ride me.” “What!” Colette began angrily. “Phrasing sorry. Buut maybe like that later. You know if you're up to it” He explained as another word made his sword disappear and picked the girl up in a Fireman’s carry with as much ease as one might a sack of flour. She slammed her first against his back but he didn’t even seem to notice all that much. He shifted his footing adjusting to the weight now placed on your shoulder. “You know you're lucky you're as light as you look.” Colette punched him again this time hard enough to make him flinched a little. “Just make sure we don’t die, you fucking idiot.” “Well you heard the lady.” Setzer told the rest of the time and without anything resembling a warning or a ready sign he broke into a run heading straight in the direction that the truck was in. The mechanized infantry seemed to react to the movement and suddenly broke out into a run concealed thrusters on their backs propelling them forward with great speeds. Setzer ran a zig-zag pattern through the ruins as cannon shots exploded around them. He picked up the sounds of fighting as the rest of the team pushed forward through the debris field but he dared not to look backwards keeping his eye dead foward. Focused on maneuvering through the rubble and navigating the pockets of heavily focused mist that could prove even more fatal than the robots. A pile of broken metal exploded to the left of them as one of the machines came barreling in ahead blocking the path. There was no way in hell that Setzer was turning ahead and so he pushed forward even as it raised its arm-cannon and began charging a shot. Setzer closed his eyes ready to began a pulverized mess of meat when he felt it. Before it was an unnatural change of pressure but now as close as he was to the source it felt like all his organs were vibrating getting faster and faster ready to explode. And then all that pressure was released as a blinding light was released next to his head and slammed into the chest of the robot punching a hole clean through it and sending it down onto one knee. He titled his eyes upward at Colette hand raised sweat formed at the brow, panting in short uneven breaths. “Nice.” “It’s not dead. Keep running you idiot!” And true to her words the mechanical contraption was already beginning to rise again sputtering to life like a giant hole through its chest was a mild inconvenience at best. Setzer pushed past it and kept on running dodged and outstretched claw as it shot out in a desperate attempt to slash outward at him. Scrambling he made it up the other side of the crater and pushed into the forest pumping mist into his body to ease the screaming pain in his legs from the continued dead sprint. He could hear the sounds of his teammates continually yelling status reports in his ear and the sounds of trees snapping behind him as the robots pushed ahead after them. He saw the flash out of the corner of his eye from somewhere high above but didn’t put two and two together until a cluster of trees slightly ahead and to the left of him exploded into a ball of fire. The blast was powerful enough to throw him off of his fight and sending him crashing into a tree trunk, the princess having been knocked away in the commotion. His eyes opened as his ears ring and the world around him shook. He could feel the heart around him as the surrounding trees had burst into flame. Pushing himself to his feet ignoring the hot soil burning his hands, he peered through the smoke looking for Colette. Frantically searching through the smoke, he felt the ground shake as another shell slammed into the earth further off the mark this time. Finally he found her back on the ground, hand outstretched another shell mere inches away from her face suspended and floating in space. The Mist churning and fluctuating around it. Pushing his shock away he ran forward and pulled her out from underneath the shell. “You okay?” “No.” “Good. Let’s go.” She nodded weakly and made a motion with her hand and like a fist just punched the shell it was propelled back upward into the sky where it slammed into the ship that was now firing down at them. The explosion seemed to shimmer across some sort of barrier to little effect than possible making their mysterious attackers more angry than they already were. Scooping her up Setzer kept on pushing forward. --- Somehow some way they made it through the explosions and the robots to where they had left the truck safely tucked away. They seemed to be out of the ship’s firing range as no more shells had fallen for the last several minutes, but the robots still followed them heavily and without reprise. Leading the pack as it was, Setzer and Colette arrived first. He quickly ran over to the truck and deposited her into the bed. He turned back towards the forest where his allies were still coming through. “Listen you know how to drive stick?” “I’m a princess not a fucking hermit. Yes I know how to drive stick.” “Good. The keys in the ignition start her up and be ready to move quickly.” “What are you going to do?” “Buy us time.” And with that Setzer conjured up his sword and walked forward watching intently as a pair of brightly glowing eyes burst through the clearing. The robot with the same hole in its chest. The same one that had been following the pair since the start of this clusterfuck. Setzer grinned and charged. When he reached striking distance he brought the sword down in a huge arc and with great speed. The robot pushed its right arm upwards in response and countered the blow mid-swing. Setzer expected for the blade to slash through as it did nearly everything else. A blow with that much power usually enough to bring down weaker opponents upon contact. This one sunk barely an inch into the robotic appendage. “Shit-” Was all Setzer managed to get out as the robot smashed him to the side with its arm. He was sent sprawling to the ground eating dirt a few feet away. Pushing himself up he ran again at the robot this time learning from his mistakes and swinging blow the arm into the chest. Similar result occurred as the sword hit home but the robot didn’t even register the blow and balled fist slammed into his head once again sending him sprawling to floor. He tasted the blood in his mouth, he could see stars and was pretty sure he could speak five more languages than he could previously but he managed to push himself back up. He flashed back to Zimmy and Daryll fighting the robot. He remembered how the limb had been served. A plan formed. He concentrated and focused on his blade, focused on the Mist around him. On the individual molecules and started to make them shake and shimmer, and shake and shimmer. And soon the blade-began to glow with an intense heat. The robot raised its cannon arm and fired, using mist-enhanced speed he dodged to the left. It fired he dodged again always moving closer and closer and closer. As he drew into striking distance the arm shot out to finish it. Setzer brought the blade up and blocked with one of the sides, muscle buckling underneath the weight as he continued running sliding down the arm and firmly rooting the blade into armpit area of the robot. Screaming out in frustration he pushed and he pushed, the superheated blade having an slightly easier time to push through the metal and with great effort the blade came free from the other side severing the arm from the body. “Take that you-” He felt something grab the back of his shirt and wrench him backwards before throwing him to the ground. The wind was knocked out of him as he peered up at the one armed robot looking down at him. It raised one of its colossal metal legs and brought it down hard intending to crush Setzer into a bloody pulp. Reflexly the warrior raised his sword into the air. The blade pierced through the foot but the foot kept on coming down towards him. Setzer felt the pommel of his sword dig into his chest as the robot pushed down common to a halt about three quarters of a way down the blade pushing downward. Setzer yelled in angry protest and pumped what little reservoir of mist he had left into the muscle in his arms and he pushed with a superhuman strength. With grip on the sword as if he was about perform some strange version of the caber toss, he pushed his arm upward and felt as the leg of the robot was pushed upward, sword getting out the other side of the piercing foot slamming headfirst into the large robot bearing over him. The robot fell over from the impact and Setzer got up and ripped the sword from its head and just started beating it over and over again. The distorted sounds of blunted steel smashing over blunted steel as the robot was slowly crushed beneath the blows. “AND. STAY. DEAD. YOU. FLAMING. SHIT.” Setzer yelled at the robot and with one final blow that crushed what was left of the head, the glowing eyes turned dark. Panting, tired and full of pain and a wounded pride he looked up into the forest where at least a dozen more glowing eyes were fastly approaching. The rest of his allies at this point were inside or nearly inside the truck at this point. He made the sword vanish and began sprinting towards the truck despite the pain and yelling at the top of his lungs as he did. [b]“Drive! Drive! Drive!”[/b] [/indent][/color]