The leaves of the dark forest rustled with the wind. The leaves covered the sky as a whole, not allowing any, but the smallest amount of light in, even at night as it was. As such, the forest was one of nightmares, and night terrors rather than dreams. The large trees blocking the view distance and covering whatever hid in the darkness. The grass was one of a colour of rotten green, defunct of life. Under it, dark dirt showed, black goo oozing out of crevices made by animals and over it floated clouds of heavy smoke. In the darkness, that itself seemed alive, those animals lived, animals of rot and death, their eyes piercing through the souls of their opponents. Yet, they never got close to the ones that they taunted upon. They just loomed over them, not feeding upon their meet, filled with nutrients, but upon their fear, savouring the taste and unlike in nature, worked together. An ability that their prey lacked, raised in wealth and power, their regal roots showing in their eyes, which darted around in search of the predator. That is, only the one's that knew were, the others were not stricken with information and knowledge of what was happening to them nor what or rather who caused it. The forest itself taunted upon them by splitting them, as if seasoning the meat before roasting it to perfection. That didn't mean however that they would be split for long, it only being a side before the actual meal.

"Arso, is that you?" the old warlord bellowed, through the foliage, reaching the ears of another prey of the forest.

"V- V- Vesul," she responded, still shaken up by what she endured mere minutes, or hours, or days ago, at this point she wasn't even sure, "you- what are y-you d-doing here?"

"Arso, what happened? Those are no ordinary battle scars? What did this Caloxi scum do to you?" he asked, dragging a claw of his over the other warlord's face, now featuring slashes that wouldn't heal whatever she did.

At the mention of the Caloxi, thunder split the air, lighting up the treacherous forest by just a little bit, revealing a tall silhouette in the distance, and a giggle reached the ears of the Arus warlords. "Run!" the scarred warlord scream-whispered, before charging into the darkness, anywhere but where it was, the old warlord in tow, their tails barely holding them upright at that velocity. Their paws smashing onto the ground with such force that the leaves rustled with the vibration.

But they couldn't go on forever, especially Arso, tired thanks to what she lived through, but she couldn't sleep, not just because of what was hunting her, but because of the nightmares that would hunt her if she dared to fall asleep.

"Vesul, why are you here?" she asked, meekly.

"What do you mean?"

"What did you do, Vesul?"

"I- we, me and Aseer, went to avenge you!" he answered.

"You don't know..." she said.

"Don't know what?" he asked.

Upon the branches of one of the trees that they ran by, a barely visible body was hung, that is, if they even noticed it before it's bio-fluorescent eyes were forced open, lighting up a small area of the forest. It's arms were twisted around the branches in ways that defied nature, as if a rope, twisted around each other. It's legs, floating in the air, their digitigrade bone structure visible through the scarred flesh. It's head was rotated in such a way that it was upside down when the body was upright. In it's chest, deep cuts slashes, or even places where flesh was simple ripped off, revealed it's rotten guts underneath. The rest of it's body, burned, cut, most of it's bones broken. The view was gruelling, and the scarred warlord knew all to well who did this and what the creature was before such a thing happened to it. The creature should have been dead, yet, that theory was disproven by a maniacal laugh escaping it's maw.

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"You don't know," it continued, staring into the eyes of the seasoned warlord, who now, was as terrified as a child of the darkness, "you didn't believe, you didn't think, and now, now the lords are back!'' it went into a fit of laughter, "and, you, wicked creatures will be purged as were we."

A sickle flew into view, decapitating the creature of The Cursed, swiftly cutting its neck, making the head, it's eyes still glowing, fall onto the ground, and it giggled as it's master rose up behind them. Their coat sweeping in the wind of the darkness, it's hands drenched in blood that oozed out from within the sleeves, dripping onto the ground, causing disturbance in the smoke before it was absorbed by the ground.

"Scared yet?" the predator whispered into their ears, their voice causing chills to go through their spines. Arso's head snapped to the Engineer before she started screaming, slowly launching into a run, "Max! Max! I'm sorry, I- Please!"

She grabbed Vesul's paw, and started running for her life, quite literally.

"You coward!" Vesul called to her as they were at a sufficient distance for Arso.

"You don't understand!" she screamed, "we're in an Engineer's territory!"

"Then I will face them, with honour, and die the same!" he said.

"You don't understand!" she started to hyperventilate, "we are not talking about death, they are The Engineers."

"You believe in those foolish stories? We're probably on some weird planet with a couple android and a Caloxi trying to scare us!" he pointed out.

"I saw it, they showed me," she said, but it was too late.

The old warlord marched back to his predator as the leaves rustled, revealing the red sky, a silhouette deep in the distance, falling. Another Arus fell on the rotten ground, just before Arso before the leaves closed again.

"Aseer?" she asked, recognising the bruised warlord.

"Arso?" he returned.

"Show yourself, you trickster!" the stupid warlord yelled.

"Oh, no..." was the only thing she could say before a large, metallic spike rose from the ground with an unreal speed, piercing through the warlord's guts, electing a scream of pain from him. He should've been dead, but he wasn't, and they couldn't get their eyes off of him. Max soon approached, glowing red to the horror of Vesul. From the forest appeared multiple of the wicked, encircling the old warlord before the ground opened, the black goo oozing out of the hole and The Cursed dragged him into it. And as the ground closed, the creatures and the warlord gone, Max's head snapped to them and she started slowly approaching, each step making the remaining Arus warlords shiver. Aseer didn't even move, he lacked the context and that created a whole different fear boiling within him.

"Don't bother," Max said, locking the two warlords to their positions on the ground and placing themself in between to tries before them.

"Is this not enough?" The Engineer asked, venom in their voice and arms outstretched in the familiar way, "maybe this form is not what I should look like... stuck in nostalgia..."

The Engineer smile engulfed her face, and a second pair of arms grew under the first, the trench coat adapting to the new form they adorned, "what do you think?" the lights that adorned their whole body rearranged themselves, in a way that they looked way more sharp, less organic, more scary.

As Max felt the fear boiling in the warlords as they adjusted their form, they breathed in, heavily, savouring it, "welcome by the way... welcome to the matrix of souls, or rather, what I like to call it, hell. Don't fret yet, this is only the surface, the entrance..."

A thunderous sound reverberated through the forest, crows making sound in the background, and the ground split, a crack in the ground going into the distance.