Sen wakes up to his alarm like usual, and goes out to the dining room to see everyone already awake. Alice is unsurprising, she’s always up before him, but the rest of the girls seem like they didn’t get any sleep after their decision the night before. Sen lets out a sigh, they’re not like him, used to sleeping when they need to. Luckily, the stat increases from the crystals also account for stamina, so the lack of sleep won’t affect them quite the same way it would an average human.
Sen looks to his bracelet, and pops up the hologram, clicking the link that had been sent along with the alert on what hunters should be doing. Anyone willing to join the fight is being told to gather outside the city with the military. Sen’s surprised that they’re not going to be waiting a week or so before mobilizing, but then again, the military presence in the city is likely already prepared for situations such as this.
The group all looks to each other before finishing their meal, getting dressed in their hunting gear, and heading out of the apartment to the gravity car. They decide to take the large one, as they’re likely going to want the bathrooms and mini kitchen as they’ll likely be out for quite a while.
Once they pile in, Xue holds Sen’s hand very tightly the entire ride, Alice sitting peacefully to his other side, and all the rest sitting in their seats, thinking about what they’re going to be doing. Lynna seems to be looking the worst, clearly just wanting to support the group and not fight. Sen makes a mental note to pay her special attention as they fight, as she will definitely be fighting below what she should be capable of.
It only takes them a ten minute flight to get there, and the group lands in a massive flattened area alongside a multitude of various sized gravity cars. As they get out, a woman with a tablet in a crisp military suit seemingly made of the same material that Sen’s pants are made of comes up to them.
“Scan your bracelets here please.” She holds out the tablet.
Everyone swipes their bracelet over the tablet, and she nods. “All C rank I see. You wouldn’t believe the amount of E ranks that want to join, but we’re looking to push back the UFoH with a minimum loss of life, so we’re not allowing anyone below D rank.”
“What is the situation?” Alice asks.
“We’re both new cities, so neither of us have any A rank hunters, but both of us have just over a hundred B rank fighters. As for C rank, they outnumber us by around fifty. In D rank we actually outnumber them by around a thousand, and most C ranks can fall to a good team of D rank soldiers, so we should have an advantage. If we had more groups of hunters like you willing to join, we would outnumber them in C rank as well, but most hunters aren’t willing to join for the rewards we offer.” She gets a twist on her face. “Mercenaries.”
Sen hadn’t realized there was such a split between the military and hunters, but figures it isn’t too surprising. He’s curious about the reward, and pulls up the hologram from his bracelet to see that everyone who participates will be earning ten crystals of their own rank. While it isn’t a massive amount, it’s definitely a plus. They’ll also be earning a portion of any crystals used to ransom back anyone they capture.
A good half of the population for both of the cities he’s been to are military. It makes sense to Sen, as having soldiers with enhanced reaction times, tougher bodies, and faster speeds is an advantage even out of the fifth dimension, where they use hot weapons as much as cold. A space fighter pilot who can handle more G’s and react faster than the opponent is almost always going to beat someone who hasn’t enhanced themselves.
They’re also there to handle the large masses of monsters which appear when a new large entrance to the underdark appears. While most of the time, it will only be a small entrance, and the monster population will increase by a bit, occasionally a large one will open, thousands of monsters coming out in too large of groups for hunters to handle. If multiple entrances start appearing, the military will only hold out for the time it takes to evacuate. If a few entrances open, more will likely follow.
The group is lead to a larger group of other C rank hunters by the woman, and Sen is surprised how many people there are considering that the woman had complained about most hunters not participating.
Everyone is grouped up into parties, only a few interacting with each other, everyone with a nervous look on their face, excluding the few with an excited one. Sen is actually trying to hide his excitement. It’s been a long time since he’s fought a life and death battle with other humans, and he can’t wait for it. It’s not that he’s excited to kill, but testing himself, risking his life in a fight, it just makes him feel alive.
Lynna, Julie, and Xue are all shifting uncomfortably, with worried expressions on their face. Alice on the other hand, looks like this is just a normal day for her. Jennifer has a worrying expression on her, face, looking enraged.
They stand around for a while, before Lynna decides to break the silence.
“Alice, Sen, is this really so normal for you? This is going to be a massive battle.”
Sen shrugs.
“Battle is nothing new to me,” Alice explains.
Lynna looks at her. She’d known that Alice has seen blood in her past life, but it hadn’t really sunk in how different times had been back then. Lynna goes quiet, and it isn’t long until the group of women Sen had seen with Alice when they first met shows up.
The woman who had been quite protective of Alice gives Sen a baleful glare, which he returns with a plain look.
“What is it you think you’re doing?” Alice questions the woman in the lead.
“Keeping you safe Miss. Your parents aren’t about to let you go into a large scale fight without some protection.”
“I have more than enough protection, thank you.” Alice goes to stand by Sen, and the leading woman glares at him once again. “I shall allow you to come, however, I expect you to do your utmost to protect the entire group. I can handle myself.”
The woman gives a reluctant nod, and Sen is quite certain she’s not going to pay the rest of the group nearly so much attention as she’d pay to Alice. He definitely doesn’t mind having more backup though. The bodyguards start to stand in a circle around Alice, though she stays next to Sen, not letting the guards get between him and her.
The newcomers don’t talk much, simply speaking in low tones to each other. Eventually, everyone goes silent at once, even though Sen can see their mouths moving. He assumes it’s some sort of array. Sen hears a loud cough from a direction in front of him, clearly magnified by either some kind of speaker, or an unusual array.
“I would like to thank all the hunters who have chosen to support our city. We shall be departing soon, and it will be a few days march from there to where we expect the field of battle to be held. We shall not risk going within range of their railguns, and they should be doing the same, so it will be purely a battle of you soldiers and hunters. Fight to your utmost, and keep our people safe from the tyranny of the United Federation of Humanity’s sickening raiding practices. The rallying point shall be sent to your communicators. May lady luck favor you.”
Sen realizes that discussion has broken out again, the array keeping them silent gone.
“Why are we going to be walking much of the way to the field of battle? Why not just drop gravity cars right next to them when they’re sleeping?” Sen asks.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Julie looks at him. “Remember those small balls that Alice threw at the gravity cars? There’s large scale versions of those arrays. Anything coming within a few miles will simply fall from the sky. We’ll likely be loaded into some ground vehicles and brought close, but out of range of any arrays that would disable them.”
Sen winces, that’s definitely not a good idea then. Sen pulls up the rallying point, to see that it’s about a quarter of the way to the UFoH city that Sen had never bothered to get the name of. The group files into the gravity car, and they’re soon flying to the site.
“So why the large scale battle rather than just returning a few raiding in kind?” Sen’s honestly quite clueless as to how this works in this life.
“The battles are more for gaining prisoners of war, which are traded back for agreements such as no raiding. Of course a good portion of the prisoners are simply traded back for crystals. While we could just raid back a few groups, it would reflect poorly upon the Allied Worlds. Either way, it would end with a larger scale battle. The leader of Sylar simply wanted to skip all the foreplay it seems.” Alice’s bodyguard explains in a surprisingly non patronizing tone.
“Why place the cities so close to each other if there will be regular fights?”
The bodyguard looks to him, clearly regretting answering the previous question. “Each side always claims to be the one to have discovered a good leveling area first. Unless it’s particularly bad area, spies from the other side will have started setting up a city for the other side the second a city starts going up. There’s even a few companies from the two sides that work with each other, just happening to build up cities next to each other before selling them to their respective sides. While there are a few places that only have one side, they’re extremely rare. Unless an A rank hunting area is discovered, they’ll both just stay next to each other to scout each other out.”
Sen finds that a bit odd, until he realizes that the two groups are focused on limiting each other’s growth as much as expanding. He wonders for a bit why they had placed the hunters from Alpha somewhere they are likely to get into a conflict, not realizing he’s been speaking out loud until he gets an answer.
“It’s not like the UFoH could hide an entire planet being discovered. They’d rather get rid of the divisive groups rather than hold on to them. I wouldn’t be surprised if battles like this are happening at most of the other cities Alpha hunters have been sent to. This way they can have them ‘taken unjustly by the cruel Allied Worlds’. They send off the groups they’re unsure of to be taken as prisoners or killed, and use that as propaganda for those that remain. The people from Alpha will be at the very front of the lines. It’s not like the prisoners will have any useful intelligence, and the Allied Worlds won’t be able to trust them either. How would they know they’re not spies? The only reason your group isn’t under constant watch is because of Miss Alice. Both sides would much prefer removing potential saboteurs over having a few new low rank hunters.”
Sen goes quiet. So it’s just another way to suppress Alpha after all.
Once they arrive, they hop out, and the hunters are organized as well at they can be before they start heading to the field of battle. They’re all loaded into massive armored vehicles that had been waiting for them there, and are driven quite quickly most of the way to the field of battle.
That point is nothing special, simply a shallow valley in between two very gradual hills. They soon arrive at the battlefield, after marching around half a day after they exit the armored vehicles, and Sen finds it interesting that the hunters are basically kept separate from the military. They’ve all been given a tent and food supplies before they left the armored vehicles, and so they set up their own little campsite while waiting on the opposing army to arrive.
The next day dawns, and the army from the UFoH is soon cresting the rather small hill, lining up in orderly lines for the military, and a loose mass of hunters. Sen is herded with the rest of the group and Alice’s bodyguards along with the other hunters, and he finds it interesting that the hunters are placed on the same side by both of the armies, left to fight each other until one of the groups wins and goes to help the military. All of them are wearing armbands passed out by the military to identify which side someone is on.
They stand there for a while, before the two armies of soldiers start to march forward, their shields held before them. Sen thinks it’s a bit disappointing that neither side has any archers, but decides to figure out why later.
The two armies pause when there’s only a hundred meters between them, until at some sort of signal Sen doesn’t notice, they both start marching forwards again.
The hunters are much more disorderly, charging at each other rather than forming the orderly lines the militaries have. Sen and his group hang back a little at the lead of Sen, not wanting to get caught in the early crush of bodies that is always a random bloodbath.
They join in once the battle has started to spread out a bit, and Sen meets his first opponent, a short man with a spear. The man thrusts at Sen, and he notes that he’s only a D rank at best. He’s starting to wonder if the UFoH has allowed E rank hunters join in order to pad their numbers, and hesitates a moment before lopping off his opponent's head, resting his blade at the man's neck. The man quickly drops his weapon, and Sen has one of the bodyguards escort him to the point where the prisoners are to be dropped off. Sen doesn’t know everyone form Alpha, anyone here could be from his world.
He turns, looking for a more interesting target, and sees one person completely suppressing a D rank hunter, having already left many cuts along his arms. Sen attacks from the side, but he’s noticed, which Sen doesn’t mind at all, the D rank hunter he’d gone in to help having retreated and taken out a bottle, likely a healing salve or potion.
Sen clashes blades with the C rank enemy, and after a few switches between offence and defense, cuts off the man’s sword arm. His sense for the wind soon shows him that Lynna is having trouble, not because she’s outmatched, but because she’s so hesitant about harming her C rank opponent. Sen leaves the disabled man, not having time to take him to where they were told to bring the people who surrender. Arms can be regrown or reattached quite easily these days, but he’ll be out of the fight.
Sen quickly takes over as he notices multiple images of Julie joining in on the fight, not showing up to his sense for the wind except for their swords of energy. He comes to the side of the man Lynna is fighting, and thrusts in before he’s noticed, his sword plunging into the man’s stomach, just underneath the ribs. The man screams as Sen tears his sword out from the front, and Lynna looks ill at the gory sight, even though the game Fifth Dimension should have prepared her for the gore. Sen’s not going to hold his blows if his family is in danger, no matter if they’re from his planet.
Sen checks on the others, and notes the Jennifer is practically fighting in a frenzy, having taken a few wounds, but actually killed two people, and Julie is hiding at the back putting up more and more arrays of images. Sen can see a few array masters on each side, but Julie has more images than any other two array users combined, though she seems to be struggling to control all of the images in the chaos.
Alice is practically walking through the fight, her clothes mostly clear of blood, but Lynna is still fighting very passively, defending herself, but hesitating before every strike. Xue is fighting similar to in game, though she’s avoiding fatal strikes, simply wounding her opponents enough to force them to surrender. She’s the one to leave the fight the most often, escorting her prisoners with a couple of Alice’s bodyguards to the drop off point.
Sen shakes his head. She’s going to end up being the one to make the most money off of ransoms if this continues. If the UFoH will bother ransoming back the people from Alpha. He considers for a moment trying to do the same, but he refuses to leave the battle while everyone else is fighting. If someone needs help, he wants to be there for them.
He gets back into the fight, hanging near the rest of the group rather than trying to press into the enemy like he would have in his past life, easily handling most of the opponents that come to challenge him. Often he’ll pull a blow at the last moment, convincing them to surrender, and Sen turns them over to one of the bodyguards to handle. He repeatedly goes to help Lynna whenever she faces a competent opponent, her hesitation nearly causing her to lose her hand at one point.
Sen cuts through the neck of the C rank opponent he’s been fighting with for the past few minutes, a surprisingly good fighter with a sword style similar to those from Alliance, but actually competent. He steps back and gets a good look over the entire battlefield. The soldiers seem to still be fighting rather evenly, both sides having taken a decent amount of casualties. On the other hand, the hunter lines have been a total bloodbath.
The ground is soaked with blood, squishing with each step, and bodies, limbs, and organs litter the ground. Lynna is looking more and more pale, and eventually Sen steps over to her.
“Just get back with Julie!” He has to shout to be heard over the din of the fighting.
She shakes her head. She may not be comfortable fighting, but she’s stubborn as hell. If she decides to do something, she’ll do it. Sen looks at her in worry, but has to turn as another opponent comes up to him. He steps back to avoid the sword, then stabs his blade forward, crushing straight through the attempted block, though his sword is sent from his opponent’s chest, to his face. As much as he’s been holding off, he’s not going to avoid killing if they try to attack him as he’s distracted.
Sen does a little flourish to wipe of his blade a bit after kicking the body back off of his sword, and looks around. The entire area around Sen is clear of enemy combatants, thanks primarily to Alice’s bodyguards, who are very careful to only let her fight with one opponent at a time.
They battle for a while longer, until Sen realizes he’s running rather low on energy, and he convinces the group to retreat for a while to get some rest, letting some of the fresh hunters to fight in their place. As they exit the blood soaked battlefield, Lynna starts shivering. Sen and Julie both go to her sides, Julie holding her a bit, possibly as much for her own comfort as for Lynna’s. Sen simply stands next to her in support.
“I killed someone… I didn’t even mean to! I just swung, and he was so slow, and I don’t know what happened!” Lynna is definitely not handling this well.
Xue goes up to her, giving her a hug. Sen had seen her accidentally kill someone as well, but she seems to be handling it much better. Jennifer, on the other hand, seems to still be simmering with rage, hoping that as many of those she’d killed are from Alliance as possible. Even so, she soon heads over, hugging her from the opposite side as Xue.
Alice walks over to Sen, to her bodyguard’s annoyance. “I can see you’re as comfortable on the battlefield as always.”
Sen looks to Lynna. “I am, but I don’t know if we should have come.”
Alice follow his look, and gets a bit of a sad look on her face. “If they wish to help when the battle for Alpha starts, they’ll have no choice but to learn.”
“The battle will be happening then?”
Alice nods. “My parents were unable to get a specific date, but it shall be within the standard year.”
“What are a few C ranks going to matter?” Sen asks self deprecatingly.
“Get to B rank within that time. At that point, you shall be immune to all but the largest caliber bullets. Not that unenhanced soldiers could track you with their guns at the speeds you can move at.”
Sen looks at her, somehow only having nothing but a small smear of blood on her cheek, and the blood that had run down her sword on her fingers. Sen goes to wipe off the blood, hesitates a moment, then remembers what Lynna had said before continuing the gesture, wiping off the smear of blood on her face after cleaning his fingers on one of the few non bloody portions of his clothing.
She gives a bright smile, something terribly out of place on this battlefield, and Sen looks away, feeling guilty as he goes to Xue’s side.