The creature's digits clenched tighter, scraping armor and the first audible signs of wear and tear made themselves clear. The huge creature even with such injuries was pumped full of anger and adrenaline. Its eyeless attention turned to Salvator as it hesitated for a moment. It spoke but this time the words were not the swamp-murk rumbling of its native tongue but English, words fogged by the hazy intonations of its deep, frothing vocalization.

[color=8dc73f]"You do not know my fight; OUR struggle,"[/color] He paused to make a deep sound; sucking inwards with a flanging, mud-bubbling gargle. [color=8dc73f]"If you think we expect such mercy from the enemy. Do you not know the value of a hostage of an enemy with an image to keep? Their sapient rights and sapientaraianism; the luxury of the oppressor to parade their righteousness. Empty words for burned down ghettos."[/color]

His grip loosened only slightly. Like worms his digits still coiled even if the pressure was far less bruising.

The footsteps of other tarrhaidim drew nearer, measured and careful as if approaching a potential landmine. He motioned over to the gathered Envenomed, stone-spire teeth clenching as his hands waved - he needed them to make some space but he was careful to keep his mouth shut. More voices were more fuel to the fire.

More human voices that was. The ZRF's squad leader looked to Ilshar and decided that whatever the fellow fungoid had on mind was good a guess as any, motioning his hand over his mouth as he looked at Echo. The enormous Unztadtlige alone was a walking death threat even if it was not actually expressing any aggression. 

As Ilshar spoke the fingers slid off of Kleo's arms and it turned to face him, sliding back into the archaic tongue of his kind.

[color=8dc73f][i]"My anger has been tended to well for over a decade of subjugation; countless habitations under the claw of suited barons and their lackeys' armored bootheels. You speak as one of similar sufferings. Similar hatreds."[/i][/color]

His head turned to the fallen scielto, glaring from the corners of what one could presume were its eyes at the rifle barrel pointed at the side of its face. The soldier stopped as the ZRF squad leader's hands motioned him to stop his little escapade of anger, leaving promptly without a word to rejoin his comrades. 

He turned to the rest of the squad, his own wounds less gruesome but his ballistic padding armor torn and multiple burns traveling up his sides and back. A part of his face bubbled from a residual energy burst of some sort and shapes squirmed beneath in torment or in desperation to repair badly damaged biomass.

[color=f7941d]"You fight well. That is noted,"[/color] He paused to glance at Kleo, his teeth half-clenched with some sort of frustration, but turned then to the human informant while he addressed the rest. [color=f7941d]"But our mission ends here. Too many wounded, much already lost. You make your way wherever-to now."[/color]

It was not much but as he left, the informant was already clenching his teeth and lightly banging his forehead against a half-broken doorway. He did not hide well the curses uttered as whispers.

[color=6ecff6]"Well, I was hoping that could be the backup but it seems you're on your own... but right, where was I huh... the mission. Well... you remember that massive blast from earlier? Not the one that unlucky scielto fellow made. The massive one, artillery blast, the one that shook the whole hillside."[/color]

He walked out and pointed off in the distance, along where the trees gradually sloped upwards, rustling in the wind and in the wake of massive blasts. Blurs through the air, slamming along the hillside, sending up clouds of dirt and mushroom clouds of flame. 

Little more than the barks of hounds as the massive beast roaring in Hades' depths roared from off in the distance, a massive plume of blue-yellow fire erupting far off near the peak of the mountain they stood upon. Not long after, another massive blast off in the distance on the opposing hill, gouging out an enormous bite of an opposing mountainside. The very report of the weapon made trees tremble, the village shudder, and the ground quake beneath their feet.

[color=00aeef]"... Yeah, that? Artillery, off-world from the UCL. Some sort of test-run for it, multi-drone triangulation-targetting and live battlenet-feed coordination with on-ground elements. That opposing hillside? That's our artillery. As in 'Definitely-Not-Intransigence' artillery. Pathetic, yes, but that's what happens when you don't control the space around the world and have to rely on informal smuggler networks to sneak in anything that won't catch the actual regional League fleet's attention."[/color]

He put a hand on his chin, looking upwards for a bit before remembering something, immediately disappearing back into the house. A few bits of the ceiling were flaking off onto his head, making him curse as he disappeared inside. Something heavy dragged along the floor and the man audibly grunted as clips of some sort were undone, zippers opened, and contents rummaged.

Returning, he held a blocky square-like device with an antennae poking out one corner and various switches and buttons adorning its face. It was held in a sort of reinforced case and with clawed grasper-straps allowing for attachment to one's back. Currently it was open and he was pressing a few buttons.

With a bit of fidgeting, he managed to slide what appeared to be a button/switch/knob covered panel and reveal a screen, before fumbling some more to activate a quartet of small LED's. Immediately, a holographic projection emerged; four beams of light splintering into countless smaller ones, projecting an image of a video feed through a light blue filter. 

A group of faces were visible; armored, sloping helmets, curving lines across the sides of their ridges and a rough, dense appearance. Augmented combat suits ("power armor" if one wanted to be blunt), Intranszjednota issue, early Reckoning of Empires period; a squad, bipedal and humanoid, showered with dirt and cautiously looking over their shoulder in whatever foxhole they were huddled in. 

[color=00aeef]"Oi, before you start, yes, they're here! Look, just get going, I'll fill them in fast and it won't be long alright? Thank you."[/color]

Before any of them could respond with more than a flicker of motion and the loading of their mags, he closed it and handed it to Salvator.

[color=00aeef]"I'll be frank, there's not much to say but there's two things you gotta do. First, get to there-"[/color]

He pointed off in the distance where the massive blast from the artillery cannon had spouted out, also cursing as he fumbled around with a few more contents he'd extracted from the house.

[color=00aeef]"That fancy CivSec artillery canon? We need you to secure it. Not destroy it-"[/color] His eyes glanced at Ilshar and Echo. [color=00aeef]"[b]Secure it[/b]. That device I handed you? Encrypted secure coms and a battlefield computer-suite. It's got a map and navigation program but really, it's a straight shot there; can probably make it there in the next hour or less if you get going soon."[/color]

The encased device was buzzing; any attempts to network with it via digital systems revealed that it was updating something related to their current location and distance to the targeted area.

[color=00aeef]"Second? You actually should get going [i]real[/i] soon because those guys you saw on the holo-feed? They're on the move and you're working with them. They're getting close to a target and fighting the UCL suckers in the valley at the same time. They're going to paint the target once they get close enough to them. Once they let you know, you guys get to help the League uh, test out their new product's accuracy when they do that. Assassination but with a knife you can level a mountain with."[/color]

He nodded before returning into their house, grunting as he pulled something heavy then returned with a backpack. Bits of fluid coloured its tough nylon like material in hues of blue and green. A slight odour wafted from it, one that was wet and slightly dirt-like, something he pretended he did not smell. 

[color=00aeef]"That's my end of this deal held..."[/color] He muttered under his breath as he started to move. [color=00aeef]"Have fun, I'm getting off this clusterfuck."[/color]

As he left, the ZRF the squad had fought alongside began to take their leave. Many of them hobbled, some fashioning crutches from large branches or were held from under their arms by comrades. Their wounds were horrific but there were a number that in spite of that, seemed none the worse off. The tarrhaidim obviously, but they were occupied with their prisoner, now on a slow march back away from the frontlines of the conflict.

The informant joined them, exchanging a few words, before the Envenomed team were left with their task.