[justify][sub][color=gray][color=white]”What did you see?”[/color] Davon was staring silently at the blank white wall on the other side of the room, unmoving and quiet as he sorted through his thoughts, chaotic as they were. Of the myriad of voices competing for space in his head, two remained the loudest. The first contemplated his rather short experience with death and the curiosity of it. He [i]had[/i] died, he was sure. He’d been told as much by those present when he returned. And although he could not remember or recall the time of his passing or what it was like, he knew full well what he had been made to witness afterward was no normal vision. An experience he could best describe as a dream in which he was fully aware but could not exert any influence on. A lucid dream, he tried to tell himself, even as it had at the time felt much more like a prison. The line between reality and fiction, past and present, had been so thoroughly blurred, it was as if it had never existed at all. He could not tell in the moment when the real world came to an end and the dream began or if there was ever a difference between the two. And at the end of it all, he was left with little more than what he could only assume was supposed to be a message. A message awash in impossible colors and tangled in a web of time he could not unravel, hiding a truth he was meant to understand. The second voice described a simple wall opposite him. A solid white near perfect square bereft of any blemish. Standing sterile and immovable and bathed in the fluorescent light of the room. It was grounding, and for all the comfort that was to be had in the land of the living, he found himself an appreciation for the simplicity of a solid shape and a solid color. It was a quiet anchor, tethering him to the real world. He clung to it, for just under his eyes danced unending the chaotic noise gifted to him that threatened to pull him under once more. [color=white]”Davon. What did you see?”[/color] He chewed his tongue, closed his eyes and tried to concentrate, carefully allowing some of that dream to return to him. He coaxed forward a sliver of the vision through a parted sea of noise and color and time and focused on one of the few constants. Maybe the only constant: Of all the things he’d seen, there was ever only one of [i]her[/i]. [color=red]🝐[/color] [color=bca346]”There was a… a woman.”[/color] [color=white]”Mother?”[/color] [color=bca346]”No…”[/color] He shook his head but furrowed his brow as if he were unsure, because although he knew the woman was not their mother, there was a strange feeling of familiarity to her that confused him. [color=bca346]”...Uh. Not her but… I feel like I know her or… I have known her. For forever.”[/color] Again he shook his head knowing full well whatever he said, no matter how he spun it, wouldn’t make any sense. He continued nonetheless. [color=bca346]”I can’t quite make out her face but-”[/color] Davon paused suddenly as he felt his still feeble grip on his mind begin to slip ever so slightly. The sliver he’d created in his mind’s eye through which he was carefully peering had cracked, and the information that poured through, all of which he still could not understand, created a wall of noise. It obfuscated the truth and made more difficult his attempt at seeing clearly the woman on the other side. He flinched but continued. [color=bca346]”I can see… pale skin and… bright, golden hair. There are slivers of silver light that... dance across her hair, the way light does when passing a candle… and behind her is the night sky but it’s different. It’s alive. The stars are moving. Crashing into each other and flinging themselves into the dark. I can see twisting galaxies, and spirals of an infinity of colors mixing together to create new colors, ones I’ve never seen before… and all of this… through her eyes... I see it.”[/color] [color=red]🜄🝐⟊’🜃🝉[/color] Davon’s chin tilted up and his eyes slowly opened to reveal pupils rolled into the back of his head. [color=bca346]”I see it. Through her eyes. A dance. We dance. Across time. Across Space.”[/color] [color=white]”Davon?”[/color] [color=bca346]“Across a thousand deaths and a thousand lives. A thousand stars sparked between our touch. Between our fingers.” [h3][color=red]🜉🜁🜇🝗🜂🜒[/color][/h3] “Woven. Intricate. Sheathed in the wrath of a supernova.”[/color] [color=white]”Davon!”[/color] [color=bca346]“I.[/color][color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][color=bca346]Stopped.[/color] [h1][color=red]🜉[color=2e2c2c]_____[/color]🜁[color=2e2c2c]_____[/color]🜇[color=2e2c2c]_____[/color]🝗[color=2e2c2c]_____[/color]🜂[color=2e2c2c]_____[/color]🜒[/color][/h1] [color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][color=bca346]Never.[/color][color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][color=2e2c2c]________________________[/color][color=bca346]Searching.”[/color] Dina grabbed his hand, interrupting his dream and pulling him violently back to reality. His eyes rolled forward as his head snapped upright, and all the color and noise violating his senses fell away, replaced with the white wall across from him. [color=white]”Davon. What the fuck. What the fuck was that?,”[/color] she asked. She watched him steady his breath and shake his head. When he finally turned away from the wall to look at her, she knew he’d see her horrified expression, but she could also see the exhaustion in his. He’d been out for a few days and was no doubt well rested and yet, it was as if the small episode had taken its toll on him. He looked as though he hadn't slept in days. [color=bca346]”I don’t know. I want to say it’s a message and I want to say that every test pilot before me probably got the same message, but for whatever reason, I’m the only one that message didn’t immediately kill. I don’t know why. All I can tell you for sure is that since then, I’m aware of this weight in my chest. A feeling... like a want or a need that I've had for a long time." “It's strange. I can't tell if it's really [i]my[/i] want or need, but I do know that whatever it is, it feels... possessive. Like whatever belonged it... or to me... whatever it was or is, I want it back.”[/color] [color=2e2c2c]_[/color] [/color][/sub][/justify] [h1][/h1] [center][sub][color=white]present day...[/color][/sub][/center] [h1][/h1] [sub][table][row][cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/5pPp4SU.png[/img][/cell][cell][sub] [color=af4052]█ [/color] [color=cecece][b]V I R E L O C K S T E P S[/b][/color] [color=gray]> current_position: 17°03′26.44″S 28°55′38.21″E [color=2e2c2c]_______________________________________________________________________________[/color] [color=2e2c2c]> [/color]enuan::shodea::[color=white]talour[/color]::[color=white]09:46[/color][/color][/sub][/cell][/row][/table][/sub] [list][justify][sub][color=gray][color=white]”Zero-one. This is Javelin. Cargo check.”[/color] [color=bca346]”Check.”[/color] [color=white]”We are… two mikes out from the drop. Winds are steady going two-seven-zero at fifteen knots.”[/color] [color=bca346]”Copy that, Javelin. Window?”[/color] [color=white]”Window is good. Drop zone green. Sending final target. Please confirm.”[/color] Davon's eyes snapped to the translucent window that appeared in the empty space in front of him, the edges of which framed in thin light Enuan coastline. Near the shore over a space of open water was a visible red marker, roughly a mile away from shore, indicating where he was meant to deploy. The plan was to drop in hard and fast with the hope that a quick insertion and approach by water would help to delay his detection, though ‘delay’ was a stretch. Shodea intervention was inevitable, he knew, as he was sure they’d be alerted to his presence shortly after the drop. The aircraft too would be picked up on approach if it hadn’t been already. Despite the airspace it was currently operating in technically being neutral, their projected path was highly irregular and took them too close to the shore of the foreign continent to be ignored. It alone would solicit a swift response from Shodea. The nation's defense apparatus and response systems were, afterall, robust and had been a veritable thorn in the side of every war room assembly that, to the day, continued to seek more efficient means to penetrate it with a large force. Not to mention there was the oracle herself. Davon knew he could rely on the element of surprise for only so long before the entire nation was brought down upon him. Even less time given they too would have been alerted to the destruction of the fishing village. He could only hope that he’d have enough time to do what he needed and that Shodea would see his arrival on their shores as nothing less than altruistic, even as a part of him was hard pressed to believe they'd believe him. [color=bca346]”Drop confirmed,”[/color] Davon replied. The image flickered and disappeared, casting Davon back into the familiar dim light of the pilot’s bay, the muted sounds of a turbulent airstream and the trembling cage of metal wrapped around him his only indication that he and the aircraft he was attached to were still moving. It was in this isolation where he spent the majority of the flight, suspended as he was within a metal dome near its center, the boundary of which was described by the hexagonal panels stitched together by azonite ingots. Davon himself was restrained within a ‘cradle’, or so they called it; a frame of metal tracing behind his arms and legs and where at the end were placed his hands and feet into a device that read complicated inputs. Attached to his back via a series of thick straps and buckles was a fitted brace, also metal, that looped up and under his inner thighs. It was here where the majority of his weight was supported and was also where the most important connection between himself and the frame was made. The system, by which the majority of the pilot’s input and vitals were collected, remained light weight without sacrificing durability. And while Davon was appreciative of its ability to replicate to near perfection almost the entire range of his physical movement, he did not appreciate what he had to give for it. Lining the interior of the brace were a series of thin needles, one of which was inserted into a miniscule hole in the base of his neck. While the pain alone was intense but ultimately something Davon had eventually gotten used to, the invasion of his mind, which was facilitated by this needle, was not so easily welcomed, especially considering he was already sharing that space with [i]something[/i] else. Davon was never alone in his thoughts, even cocooned as he was within that carefully woven tapestry of metal and machinery. He had learned early on that the space he inhabited was not one of privacy and the moment he stepped foot within the frame, the moment that needle slid into the back of his neck, was the moment a hundred watchful eyes turned to him. Each pair of eyes were silent spectators in the dark. Each one measuring his vitals or recording everything he saw. Each one rifling through lines of code and a never ending feed of data to find the story of him as he was in that moment. But as numerous as they were, there was only one that left Davon feeling uneasy and it was the only one he knew did not belong to Aventhal. This other, more complicated entity, remained apart from the rest. It intertwined its probing with Davon’s thoughts, twisting its voice with his ideas and fears and threading them into whispers that echoed endlessly within that dark chamber. It painted for him a picture in his mind’s eye across an ever chaotic canvas; a forever retelling of that nightmarish vision from before. By now he’d gotten much better at parsing through the noise of color and sound and in time he was able to interpret some of what this voice was trying to say. It was no longer like it had been before, where flashes of lights and colors smashed into each other in the most chaotic and vivid of dreams. Now instead, it was as if he were looking through a pinhole at another life, snippets of which were given to him but never the full picture. Like stills they were, burning themselves into his memories until they persisted even when he closed his eyes. And it was here where he found his unease, for as these memories persisted, the more difficult it became for him to distinguish them apart from his own past. These memories, whether real or a part of some other ‘thing’s’ dream, were being carved into him. Images of a person, or more specifically a woman, who had become an unmistakable weight in his chest. Like a thread that was drawn between himself and her that had been pulled tight. In every message, in every dream, [i]she[/i] was undoubtedly the most vivid part of it. [color=white]”Zero-one. One mike out to drop. Final check.”[/color] [color=bca346]”Stand by, Javelin.”[/color] Davon pressed down on the pedals beneath his feat and jammed the controls in his hands fully forward and back, eliciting an immediate response from the cradle and the surrounding dome. What had once been opaque panels flashed a bright white as each one began initialization. Shortly after, each panel changed from a blinding white to the hexagonal window through which the Western edge of the Sundered Sea could be seen. Stretched out far below Davon was an expanse of familiar blue pressed against the jagged green edge that was Enuan coastline. Each tile together created a near 360° field of view, blocked only by the nephilim’s own structure above, below and directly behind the pilot. The cradle beneath Davon lurched forward and tilted slightly back to adjust for the frame’s currently horizontal position. It too began to press into Davon’s feet and hands providing some feedback that he adjusted for. In short time, he acclimated to the resistance and could feel, through tactile feedback, the push of the air stream and the pull of gravity on the nephilim frame itself. Finally, he pressed a series of buttons in the controls in his hands and the in the empty space surrounding him between himself and the dome, test flashes of light and text appeared and then disappeared. A small visual test ensuring the display matrix system Davon was suspended inside of was working as intended. [color=bca346]"Final check complete."[/color] [color=white]”Copy, Zero-one. Thirty seconds to drop. Stand by.”[/color] [color=bca346]"Initializing matrix and standing by."[/color] [color=red]🝐[/color] [color=bca346][i]...No. You can stay the fuck out of my head right now...[/i][/color] Davon ignored the familiar probing and activated his UI. The empty space around him began to populate with walls of text and data. Everything from his current altitude to the integrity of the hull to his currently available levels of power and remaining repair systems. There was a number floating in the bottom right of his periphery indicating the estimated time-of-arrival of his closest ARM. Should he deem it necessary, he could have one delivered in short time to his position, though he was sure there would be no need to carry on him so destructive a weapon. [color=white]”Fifteen seconds.”[/color] [color=red]🜄🝐⟊’🜃🝉[/color] This time, the other voice did not ask, ignoring Davon’s protest and assaulting his senses with visions of what was now a familiar dream yet again, though it was changed somewhat. What had previously been a darkened sky, crowded by the lights of a million stars, was now clear. Replaced by a soft blue sky dotted in sparse cloud cover that drifted under the light of an unseen sun. The woman from before was here again too, still rooted to the same spot she was, though her eyes were no longer obscured. Clear as they were now, their true color was visible to Davon as a beautiful pale purple. It was a hue was sure he’d never seen before, save from one very distinct individual. There was no mistaking the features of the woman standing tall before him, but seeing her now in his mind's eye left him with an uneasy feeling. Her eyes, beautiful as they were, were no longer looking through him to something else, parsing the horizon for something known only to her. They instead remained fixed on him. Seeing him. Watching him. A gaze that saw all leaving him exposed. He realized in that moment that his fears had been founded. Of all of the layers of defensive measures Shodea brought to bear in defense of her kingdoms, it was the enigmatic Oracle herself that was the first to detect his arrival. Or perhaps she'd known all along and Aventhal had sent the heir to their kingdom into the house of the enemy blind. [color=white]”Drop!”[/color] The pins holding the nephilim frame to the aircraft were released. Gravity pushed down on Davon's chest, slamming him into the cradle. He felt his stomach turn in his abdomen and his chest tighten. [color=2e2c2c]_[/color] [/color][/sub][/justify][/list] [sub][table][row][cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/7BHpQlv.png[/img][/cell][cell][sub] [color=af4052]█ [/color] [color=cecece][b]W A R R O O M[/b][/color] [color=gray]> current_position: 62°44′05.18″N 118°55′38.21″E [color=2e2c2c]_______________________________________________________________________________[/color] [color=2e2c2c]> [/color]valaria::aventhal::[color=white]aven[/color]::[color=white]16:25[/color][/color][/sub][/cell][/row][/table][/sub] [list][justify][sub][color=gray]Dina crossed the busy room toward the holographic display floating in the center. Standing next to it was a man, well into his sixties, who was staring intently at images and lengths of text floating above the Enuan projection. Despite his age, he stood tall and intent, and despite the relatively busy air of the room surrounding him, remained focused and presentable. Each strand of short white air on his head remained exactly where he had placed it. Every seam and fold and thread describing the shape of the man’s dress was deliberate, neat and clean. He too stood with a purpose with hands clasped firmly behind him and his body almost completely still as he scoured every bit of data he was presented, only allowing his head to move on a stiff swivel. Dina could feel the attention the man commanded and the decorum he remained committed to, something that felt somehow tangible in the air in any room he he was in. She also knew well the man’s exploits and fully understood the power the man commanded at his station and the strength of wisdom the man possessed. It was no wonder he led Aven's military and was selected to oversee the first official deployment of their Nephilim. [color=white]”Sir Emerick,”[/color] she began, stopping next to him and looking over the recreation of a coastline a thousand miles away. [color=white]”How are we doing?”[/color] [color=white]”Lady Asmodan. Things are proceeding smoothly, though what we’ve discovered so far is troubling.”[/color] He waved to the side some of the information in the air and pulled to the front images that were recently taken. In it, Talour’s suffering was made abundantly clear. Infrastructure was destroyed, either burned or toppled to the ground, and there were bodies left lying in the streets. So far, at least from the town itself, there were no obvious signs of who or what could have been responsible for the attack. It also became obvious that whoever or whatever [i]was[/i] responsible sowed destruction aimlessly, destroying and killing without prejudice. It read as an attack on Talour, sure, but it also seemed too absolute. Too exacting simply for the sake of it. It did not make sense as there was nothing to gain, strategically or otherwise, from razing the small town. Off to the side separated just so from the other images was another, not of Talour, but of a peculiar shape pressed into a large patch of dirt. [color=white]”What is that?”[/color] [color=2e2c2c]_[/color] [/color][/sub][/justify][/list] [sub][table][row][cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/5pPp4SU.png[/img][/cell][cell][sub] [color=af4052]█ [/color] [color=cecece][b]V I R E L O C K S T E P S[/b][/color] [color=gray]> current_position: 17°03′26.44″S 28°55′38.21″E [color=2e2c2c]_______________________________________________________________________________[/color] [color=2e2c2c]> [/color]enuan::shodea::[color=white]talour[/color]::[color=white]10:26[/color][/color][/sub][/cell][/row][/table][/sub] [list][justify][sub][color=gray][color=bca346][i]...No idea...[/i][/color] Davon stared down at the shape in the ground; a very distinct outline of what appeared to be a footprint of sorts, at least that's what he assumed it had to be. There was nothing else that could have made such an indent. Left by some creature that he was convinced was the culprit of the attack though as it stood, neither he nor anyone from Aventhal had been able to identify the creature the print belonged to. And it wasn’t for a lack of knowledge. Databases from both countries on the wider world’s fauna were thorough and meticulously kept and had been for years. Their catalogues spanned centuries of research, collected and collaborated across multiple peoples and yet there was no match to what they had discovered. Not even close. Not in Aventhal’s records nor what they themselves recorded from the pieces of Shodea’s knowledge bank they’d glimpsed. And it wasn’t just the shape that was peculiar, but what they could only assume was the beast’s size. Comparable creatures did not dwell on land. [color=red]🜃⟊’🜁[/color] Davon scanned another set of prints following the first and eyed the path it took through a swathe of forest ahead. The trees seemed to have been pushed to the side and those inbetween had been trampled. [color=bca346]”CAPCOM, Zero-one."[/color] [color=white]"Go, Zeron-one.[/color] [color=bca346]"The tracks are leading away from the village. Still no signs of any survivors. I can push further inland, but I am approaching Shodea territory.”[/color] Inside the dome and visible only to Davon was a translucent red demarcation wall that marked the official boundary between neutral and occupied land, less than a mile away from his current position. It wasn’t a physical wall, but it was very easily visible so there was no mistaking where Davon could and could not go, though the point was mostly moot given his presence would already be an issue. Generally speaking, all of Enuan was seen as belonging to Shodea as the balance of power weighed so heavily in the nation’s favor that any villages or towns lying in the outskirts could not object to their rule even if they were opposed. Him remaining outside the 'official' boundary would mean little and sticking to the proposed plan was the only way they could possibly explain his presence. [color=bca346]”Is pursuit advised?”[/color] [color=white]”Standby, Zero-one.”[/color] [color=bca346]”Standing by.”[/color] Davon relaxed on the controls and took a moment, one of many he’d already taken, to observe his surroundings. More accurately, he was admiring a rare sight indeed for those who called his half of the world home. Standing well above the surrounding tree lines, though the various hills and mountains surrounding him did obscure much of his line of sight, what he could see was beautiful. Sunkissed lands swept in the deepest shades of green and mountain tops that struck at the sky and glinted in sharp light as the sun reflected snowcapped spires. They had nothing of the sort back home where he and others had to find the beauty hidden away beneath a surface of unforgiving land scarred by the wind. Seas of dust that swallowed whole fields in its shadow, scrubbing away what life clung desperately to the rocks and dirt. Where Aventhal hid her treasures, Shodea had it in abundance and gave it freely to her children. The black silhouette of his nephilim, struck against the hill he stood on was an insult to the land itself, he was sure, and a part of him hated himself for it. Another part of him remembered why he was in the frame in the first place. The real reason why he was here, standing on fertile ground that did not belong to him. Why he was searching between the trees for any survivors from Talour with whom he might convene. As luck would have it, movement, captured by his frames UI, was detected only a hundred or so yards from his position. Something small was scrambling through the brush off to the side of the path Davon had been following. He immediately began moving toward it, being careful to navigating his frame over and through the canopy of trees in an effort to limit the damage to the environment left from moving so massive a machine through it. As he approached, his frame was able to map out a rough shape of the target, generated from its intermittently visible heat signature as it continued to move. It was a human. A child. [color=bca346]”CAPCOM. Be advised. I believe I’ve found a survivor. It looks to be a child. Moving to intercept.”[/color] [color=white]"Copy that, Zero-one. Command also advises to steer clear of the border after retrieval of the child. Do not pursue the 'unknown' further inland. It is no longer our problem."[/color] [color=bca346]"Solid copy."[/color] It only took Davon a couple of steps to close the gap between himself and the child, but as he approached, he became aware of the fact that despite his intention being rescue, whoever it was down there would not see it as such. As far as they were probably concerned, Davon and the massive machine he was in was there to finish the job. Not to mention, this was officially the first time a Nephilim frame had been deployed anywhere other than around its home base. There was a good chance that someone from a small fishing town had never seen or even heard of one before, especially a child. Some amount of caution and care would have to be taken to retrieve the person. Before moving any closer, Davon activated the frame’s PA system. [color=bca346]”Do not be afraid, I am here to help,”[/color] he’d tried to say, though the nephilim’s voice modulation system altered his intended tone. What came out was deep and menacing, mechanical and heavy in the air as the manufactured voice vibrated nearby trees and rocks. The sound that resonated off the face of the nearby mountain was significantly less than pleasant. Despite this, Davon tried a second time with little to no change. The child, understandably, refused to acknowledge him or his message, choosing instead to run. They clambered over felled logs and across jagged rocks and continued moving ever closer to the Shodea demarcation line. Davon shook his head. He could not afford to be patient. There was too much at stake and too much he didn’t know and the sooner he could find the answers to his questions, the better. He had to retrieve the child before they crossed the boundary. [color=bca346]”Fuck this.”[/color] Davon reached down with the blade of the frame’s hand, driving the edge into the dirt just ahead of the child and carefully scooping them up along with a large handful of earth. Taking extra care not to move too quickly or shift the mound of dirt around in his palm, lest the child be buried and crushed or suffocated, he brought them up to his chest some 100 feet or so above the ground so they could speak clearly face to face. He was met with the unbridled scream of a terrified little girl, frozen in the center of his open fist and having curled into her knees with her arms pinned to either side of her head. She refused to look up at him, or rather the 'face' of his nephilim. Davon noticed that attached to a lock of hair on the back of her head was a peculiar looking trinket of sorts: a sliver of pale white material that looked like the splinter of a bone. It shimmered in the light of the sun, throwing glints of silver in the air and reflecting it into the girl’s hair. It was not unlike the glow of silver in the hair of the woman trapped in his visions. Davon pulled free his right hand and reached between his legs where under the brace was an emergency lever meant to open the pilot’s deck. Pulling down on it with enough force would open the canopy, allowing him to see the girl with his own eyes and more importantly, allow the girl to see him. The face plate attached to the head of the frame hissed gas from a now exposed seam before pulling away from the cavity within and sliding vertically up. Behind it, the truth of the massive machine she found herself in the clutches of was revealed to her: beneath the metal and mystery of the towering giant before her, there was nothing more than a man underneath. [color=bca346]”It’s alright, it’s alright! You’re safe! You don’t have to be afraid,”[/color] he called out to her over the sound of the wind and her sobbing. [color=bca346]”I’m here to rescue you!”[/color] The sobbing stifled some and the girl tentatively turned her head just enough to peer at him through the fold in her arm. Davon could see clearly, even from under her cowered position, the stains on her flushed cheeks and the fear in her eyes. He could only imagine what she must have been through and what must be going through her mind now, suspended as she was in the air and in the hand of a giant. Any other time he’d move to console the girl, but he could not so easily remove himself manually from the brace he was attached too, only to then immediately climb back in. It was too dangerous to exit the frame in this way when there was still danger lurking, so he would have to resign himself to what distant comfort he could provide. [color=bca346]”Can you tell me what happened?”[/color] The girl, now trying to fight back the tears still bubbling under her eyes, remained silent for a moment before yelling out a reply. [color=white]”W-who are you?!”[/color] [color=bca346]”My name is Davon. I am a prince sent here to help. But for me to do that, I need to know what happened here.”[/color] [color=white]”A prince?!”[/color] She yelled again in disbelief. She was no longer openly sobbing, but was still having to throw her voice over the wind that swept easily across the top of the canopy below them. [color=bca346]”Yes, Prince Davon Asmodon. What is your name?”[/color] The girl finally raised her head and wiped some of the tears from her eyes before answering again. The pale white trinket in her hair danced wildly in the wind. [color=white]”Niah!”[/color] [color=bca346]”Niah. A beautiful name for a strong girl, and a brave one at that for seeking shelter in the forest.”[/color] The hand where the girl was perched moved once again, lifting her slightly higher and little closer to the open cavity of the nephilim’s head. The suddenness of it caught the girl off guard and she stumbled a bit but didn’t hide away, instead bracing her weight and finding her balance until the hand stopped and she was now standing before her mysterious savior. [color=bca346]”Listen Niah. I need your help. I need you to be brave for a little while longer, okay? Can you tell me what happened? Can you tell me who… or what did this?”[/color] Niah rubbed at her eyes and nodded. [color=white]”It took papa.”[/color] [color=bca346]”It did? What did?”[/color] [color=white]”The monster.”[/color] [color=bca346]”Can you tell me what the monster looked like?”[/color] [color=red]🜃⟊’🜁[/color] Before she could answer, without warning, the canopy of the nephilim frame slammed shut between them. It resealed itself, isolating Davon from the outside world before he could react or even register what was happening. Through the dome, he could see clearly the surprise in Niah’s eyes and watched as that surprise turned to horror when she noticed something moving behind Davon. Before Davon could see what it was for himself, a sound, like the crack of thunder, erupted within the pilot deck as something slammed into him from behind. Immediately, the dome flooded with red light as multiple critical alert messages appeared in the empty space around him, each one indicating a failure in a number of systems and subsystems while the more important ones indicated catastrophic damage to the frame’s center mass. Sure enough, when Davon looked down at the belly of his nephilim, he noticed an appendage, one he'd never seen before, protruding through a ruptured metal abdominal plate. The barbed tip had pierced clean through him, compromising reinforced azonite metal as if it were paper and throwing chunks of debris into the surrounding forest and hills. As the appendage attempted to pull back through the hole it created, the barbed tip dug itself further into Davon's already destroyed armor, further damaging it and before latching onto it as well as bone buried itself into the surrounding metal. Davon closed both hands protectively over the little girl just as he felt himself being taken to the ground. [color=2e2c2c]_[/color] [/color][/sub][/justify][/list] [sub][table][row][cell][img]https://i.imgur.com/7BHpQlv.png[/img][/cell][cell][sub] [color=af4052]█ [/color] [color=cecece][b]W A R R O O M[/b][/color] [color=gray]> current_position: 62°44′05.18″N 118°55′38.21″E [color=2e2c2c]_______________________________________________________________________________[/color] [color=2e2c2c]> [/color]valaria::aventhal::[color=white]aven[/color]::[color=white]16:31[/color][/color][/sub][/cell][/row][/table][/sub] [list][justify][sub][color=gray][color=white]”EECOM, report.”[/color] [color=white]”Massive damage to abdominal plating. Power systems are holding steady but we've lost a battery cell and there is a fuel leak from auxiliary tank two.”[/color] [color=white]”Command, CAPCOM.”[/color] [color=white]”Copy EECOM. Go CAPCOM.”[/color] [color=white]”Pilot reports Obol Lance good effect on target. Requests immediate deployment of ARM.”[/color] [color=white]”Send it.”[/color] [color=white]”Sending now, Command.”[/color] [color=white]”Systems! I want whatever that thing is on the map, now!”[/color] [color=white]”Command! Secondary target on approach from the Northwest!”[/color] Dina began chewing on a fingernail. [color=2e2c2c]_[/color] [/color][/sub][/justify][/list]