[indent]As he came near the crashed escaped craft, Setzer could take in the sheer immensity of it. In length it was as long as two of their trucks, and the height from the bottom of the large circular door to the top was double his own size. Its sides etched with Gryffions - recalling the  aerial riders that had given them power long ago. In its totality, it stood in direct contrast to the Vangar's military aesthetic as it existed. It's straight lines and barren rigidity replaced with ornate direction and gentle curves. Meant to exert a different kind of power beyond that of mere might.

Setzer cocked his head back taking stock as he did. Galahad poised and ready at one flank, Lori at the other. The rest bringing up the rear after dealing with the Zimmy situation. The worry that had existed for his friend pushed aside and buried somewhere. Gideon and Lee were better equipped for such tasks and already had it under control. Citadel doctrine taking over - the mission had priority over everything else. If you flinched or hesitated, you'll end up dead. He looked towards Galahad and then towards Lori, giving her a small shrug of 'guess I'm doing this', before raising his blade. 

He took a deep breath and focused. He tried to follow the steps that Kitty had taught him. He pictured the blade in his head: it's weight, heft, the feeling of the leather wrapping in his hands. If you wanted to effect something with Mist, you first needed to understand it. To know it like you knew yourself.  Then he added new flashes, flashes of warmth and heat: a campfire, a volcano, the sun, the desert. Pulling these two ideas together he breathed outward and willed them to merge. From the outside it looked as if the blade had suddenly been pulled from the forge: as it began to glow white hot.

"And you say you're a bad teacher Kitty." Setzer commented his voice strained, sweat forming at his brow, the sheer concentration required to will his body pulling on him.

The tip of blade found the crack that Galahad had already forced open. A low hiss whispering outward as the superheated blade sank into the slagged over door. Muscles flexed in exertion Setzer began to cut through the door pushing. For all its bluster and force, it was something of a delicate procedure. The towering WARDEN having to keep aware the entire time as he continued to pour mist into his blade. If he slipped up, he risked pumping in too much heat and either wrecking the blade or joining Zimmy with her current issues. Whispering some strange and flowing mantra under his breath to keep his attention. With one final yank, whatever resolve still held by the door broke. Smashing the pommel of the blade into the door it buckled and fell backwards into the pod. Setzer raised a closed fist signaling the others to hold as he peered inside.

The interior was dark save for the faint red glow of a few emergency lights that lined the floor. Uprooted chairs dotted the cylindrical interior. Broken boxes of rations, purified water, and other supplies lay on the ground, their contents scattered across the floor. And strangest of all there seemed to be no bodies that Setzer could make out in the darkness. 

"Then who launched the damn thing?" Setzer muttered to himself.

Yet there was [i]something[/i] there. A feeling he had felt as soon as the door had opened hitting him like a cool breeze on a hot summer's day - Mist. A concentrated pocket that somehow was more overpowering than the background residue of the explode reactor. Almost like Setzer was looking at a thermonuclear explosion with thermal goggles on. A constant perpetual background hum that seemed to hang in the space that the pod encompassed.

"We got a reallyyyyyy big Mist pocket here. Keep on your toes fol-" 

Before Setzer could finish he [i]saw[/i] it out of the corner of his eye. A strange contorted glowing tentacle of energy materializing from the darkness. Instinct and training kicking in the warrior drove his blade downward. Meeting the tendril just before it was able to strike him in the chest, severing it in half and making it evaporate. As soon as the first was dispatched another follow and two more after that.

He began to whirl his blade like a windmill in a large arc. He was quick manging to catch the three tendrils in the flurry. But they turned out only to be a distraction. 

Something else moved the darkness  Before Setzer knew what was happening an elbow slammed into a pressure point in his leg causing it to lock and buckle. His balance thrown off, he began to teeter backwards. Quickly he brought his blade down slamming it into the ground to anchor himself. As he did so the figure sprang upward and through the darkness Setzer could see the outline of a fist. Muscle tensed braced for impact he stood ready to take the blow. The fist collided with his sternum and there was a small explosion of Mist upon contact. Setzer's eyes widen in shock as he felt himself pushed backwards with the blow, his blade being pulled from the ground as he fell backwards.

The figure followed through driving a knee into Setzer’s gut as they landed atop of him. Now free from the confines of the escape craft the others now had a better view. [url=https://www.artstation.com/artwork/VmJJN]There kneeling atop of Setzer was a girl, maybe their age, maybe a year or two younger.[/url] Black hair caked with sweat and blood. A simple white undershirt stained red clinging to her frame, pants ripped and torn. One hand was stretched down towards Setzer, where it gripped some kind of trench knife made out of the same glowing material as the tendrils that had begun the assault, its blade held to Setzer’s neck. The WARDEN for his part kept eye contact upwards while still trying to reach for his knocked away blade whose handle he could barely graze with the tips of his fingers. Her other hand was stretched outwards palm forward towards her new foes, Mist crackling and churning around it. The strange mist surge that Setzer had felt before getting ever higher making nearby mist pockets begin to detonate from the overload. 

[color=cyan]“Any of you move..... and Muscles here... and..... and everybody else dies!”[/color] The girl spoke in the harsh and foreign Vangar tongue, a language thankfully taught in the Citadel. Her voice was shaking caught somewhere between a yell and a sob. [/indent]