Bang! I reloaded my rifle as I watched the target fall over, the head obliterated by my strange new weapon that was a bastardized version of a pocket railgun, or a PR gun, and a plasma lancer, plasma being a key part of Viknorin military, where humanity had decided to stick with purely kinetic weapons when we figured out plasma tech. The electro-magnetically powered green plasma made from the nitrogen in the air, flecked with bits of purple for some krypton that held it together in the arrowhead-like shape that it took. Over the past two years the Almani tribe had expanded insane amounts, with the addition of me, Wrang, and a huge Mantis being a key part of that. We had gotten access to a fabricator, and they were crazy. They’re like you take a lab the size of a neighborhood, and a weapon building facility and pack it into something the size of a house. When the tribe it’d come to call my home found it, me and Wrang immediately shared our tech with them, it somehow having the entire history of our weapons and technology with the Viknorin of the tribe, and they did likewise. Over the past three years me and Wrang had been in the tribe, we’d risen in the ranks to some of the higher positions, on account of Mantis growing and our foreign strategies and weapons/knowledge. We’d also discovered many new magics, with myself specializing in the magic department, and Wrang in weapons. “How effective is it?” Wrang asked me, we had a ranking system to determine the power and functionality of spells and weapons we manufactured.

“I think this is actually better than the ArkLancer, it has higher range and accuracy but it is not as cheap. I’m thinking we start mass-producing the ArkLancer, while making around 20 of these bad boys for the best five assassins, the long-range support unit, and Special Ops team 7, they show the most promise when it comes to long-range and stealth.” I responded, heading towards him while already thinking of things to do. The ArcLancer was our greatest invention yet, a low cost lance that shot large lances of controlled electricity. “⤘լՊ؃亖” I muttered under my breath, reciting the ancient hieroglyphs to a small ball of raw electricity that I juggled from hand-to-hand, practicing my control over the wild energy. I specialized in electricity, air, runes, and life magic. Runes were written down hieroglyphs like the ones I just spoke. It was a complex language, and reading, writing, and saying the words took an energy that I had dubbed ‘mana’ for obvious reasons. It also took an extreme amount of focus like trying to perfectly balance a pencil on your hand, without it wobbling while also eating cereal. You couldn’t do much else while you were doing it. By juggling the electricity ball I had conjured, I was practicing an extreme amount of focus, while training my mana and my control. I was actually quite advanced for someone who would be thrice my age, but hard work paid off, and I got lots of combat experience, fighting other tribes, but I did also do something kind of revolutionary by engraving myself with runes, which improved my focus, mana, control, speed, strength, general, intelligence, durability, whatever.

I also have the full rune alphabet on my upper arm, and when I cast a spell, the runes used will light up. The strange thing however is how spells work. It’s a really long process, and it’s because of this that very few specialize in casting spells. First, you must translate what you are trying to do into the language of runes. The cool thing is, that it fits to your own memory and consciousness. For each person the alphabet is different. The issue is, that the letters are constantly shifting in meaning and formation. This means that you must constantly meditate to update yourself on the alphabet by reaching into the deepest corners of your mind. Many lifeforms studying magic as long as I have cannot do half of what I can. However, on a raid me and the unit I was assigned to found a Key. The Almani have been on Infinity for a very long time, and have passed on the ability to blast red energy beams from their hands, a simple offensive spell. However they can also use the energy to create shields, heal, use for other offensive means, and once I saw the master mage use it like telekinesis. They call the energy Truc’nao’thoth. So far, I have found no other mention in the Keys I have found, we had found three other than the one previously mentioned. Also the other tribes didn’t use it so I think it’s unique to the Almani.

“We still need a marines or covert mission kind of gun, we could just use a regular rifle, like an AK-67, or even some bolt spitters. However, I think we should invent one. A weapon I mean.” Wrang said, offhandedly. Staring at the barrel of a 12 shooter shotgun, a shotgun that worked like a revolver, with two barrels, and two rows for each barrel of the little six shooter things I didn’t know the exact terminology for.

So far, we had designed a crazy exoskeleton for what we were calling our ‘super-soldiers’ with the other 11 humans we knew, and we knew after a single agonizing mission, that Viknorin aren’t stealthy in the slightest. We wore a simple frame, and some special plasma resistant material the Almani provided us with. On top of that, there was a small rotating turret for the right shoulder, controlled by an AI on the other shoulder, that was intelligent, and could fly around in a small mechanical drone. The turret could fire a laser that we could use for utility and fighting, and a small tesla for the same.

“What if we just put really small railguns that were low power, therefore could charge fast inside a rifle. Maybe manual shots, and not automatic? Then we set up a sound barrier on it.” I responded. A sound barrier was a small shield that prevented sound within it.

“That actually might work.” Wrang said grabbing his notebook and writing a few things down. “I’ll get the stuff for it.”

This new mission had the possibility of full control over the largest jungles there were on the maps. There were a few other small ones, but this was by far the largest. There was only one other tribe, and we were at war. There was only one city they controlled now, however it was really advanced, and we couldn’t take it down. Me, Wrang and the rest of the humans were going to sneak in there, steal files, and cause a lot of chaos. That tribe was not Viknorin, but rather a species of wolf-sized komodo-dragon look-alikes with huge elk horns. They used largely a robot-based military, however had some branches of their own military. We were hoping to find some sort of off switch, or a way to spread a premade computer virus called John who was actually a psychopath AI that was happy to rip enemy systems to shreds.

The Almani, who was now comprised of the few humans that survived the jungles that were also reborn here, Viknorin, but also Uiot and Xiz’tooh. Uiot were like large trunkless elephants with spotted green blue hides, that had hands on their tails. The Xiz’tooh were one of the more advanced races that was more independent, and kept their tech separate. They however had somewhat built on and corrected our(humans) biological technology. They built with huge plant-like structures, and modified themselves heavily. They were largely biotech based, and had multiple varieties of form, due to being somewhat insect-like. Their standards were bipedal, with carcapaces, large compound eyes, and clicking mandibles. They stood 5 ft tall, with an amber colored body. Their soldier variants however, were beasts to be reckoned with. They had six legs, with very thick exoskeletons. Their legs were sharply tipped, and they could lift two at a time off the ground and stab. Their bodies were also amber colored, and were practically unaffected by a normal ancient glock. The more modern guns break through their tough shells much faster though, and railguns go straight through. Their main body was focused in the center of the legs, and they stood 12 feet tall. They had six arms. Two were similar to those of the standard variant, however had large spikes coming out of the top of their wrists. Two had no hands, and rather had a small barrel like formation, which launched a seed the size of my middle finger, and twice as thick. It held a lethal poison inside, and sped out of them at a startling rate of about half a railgun. Well lethal to them and most other races. Funnily enough, it doesn’t affect humans thanks to our own genetic modification, and the Viknorin. The last two arms were really more tendrils they could move around at will. Their head was that of a standards, but with a huge beetle horn.

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An alarm began to ring, echoing throughout the facility outside of us. Me and Wrang both grabbed an AK-67, I however also grabbed a small sound gun, that shot high concentrations of sound. Wrang had already had the 12 barrel in his hand and brought that too. We both ran out of the fabricator, meeting Chom, who was another human. Wrang tossed him the AK-67, but otherwise kept running. As I walked out I threw my guns down onto two small pads. Two defense robots zoomed up through elevators, their bronze-colored forms picking up the guns and running far faster than any other creature here could. As Wrang, Chom, and I ran through the chrome halls of the military base we heard alarms and military orders. I ran through a small armory that quickly latched a piece of frame armor on me. As we ran off a launch pad and were shot 400 ft away to meet the enemy, you might have been wondering, ‘Rade, you saucy bitch, where are you going without a weapon?’ The thing was though, I was a weapon. I hit the ground running, and wind swirled around me, runes glowing all with blazing mint green . I jumped but didn’t fall, rather flying farther in the air, where I surveyed the battle. I saw a flood of crimson, with the defense bots tearing through short sharks with arms and cricket legs, but they had blades instead of hands. There were a few massive ones that were at my best guess twice their height and their leaders. We had never encountered them before, but I thought I knew who they were. As the soldier type Hash’Yoth, who we had heard were getting more aggressive, trying to get more resources to fuel their war against the Jŭncathari, ran their endless soldiers at our shield wall, beginning to overflow the small shield wall that we weren’t given the time to prepare, and caught all the lone soldiers and slaughtered them, a deep rage filled my heart. I summoned one of my more powerful spells, speaking deep incantations, and collecting the 300-mile per hour winds across my body, I unleashed them, with a flurry of wind blades smashing into their ranks, killing hundreds.Their crimson bodies being splattered with the white blood of their allies. As a charged up another volley, my radar enchantments warned me of foreign magical energy, and I jerked to the side suddenly, dodging an enormous yellow beam of energy. Jewel flew out behind me and dived down towards the group of mages. I saw Chom unleash his waves of fire, Wrang order his drones into the fray, and Yttri reinforce the shield wall with her stone golems, any damage I had caused seemed to be filled in by the unending ranks. The typical Hash’Yoth strategy was to throw their bioengineered soldiers at a problem until it disappeared, and it worked quite well with a combination of ruthless disposable soldiers and the mass production of them. It would not work today though. I unleashed one of my enchantments, runes appearing on a large stretch of ground, and emitting a swarm of arcane arrows, following many Hash’Yoth and obliterating them. Immediately after, I unleashed my wind blades, providing a few seconds of sweet relief to the soldiers. The Hash’Yoth mages were now focusing all their firepower towards me, which meant I now couldn’t help, due to my using nearly all my mana in one fell swoop. However this meant that our awesome team of mages, soldiers, and techies, had a lot more to work with without having to dodge the mages. Now, unrestricted, the guns and spells were let loose.

Then a well placed yellow beam pierced my static shield, and blasted me through the trees. I felt the hard, thin, and heavy leaves of the forest slash into me at high speeds. While it often felt otherwise, this was actually real life, and physics still applied. I hit the ground, cut into ribbons by the leaves, which thankfully didn’t cause any major damage other than maybe slashing one of my ears to a bloody mess, and the inside of my left knee was destroyed, and without even trying I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk. I used my limited knowledge of healing to repair my body in a very strange, weird, and VERY painful way that allowed me to function for the time being. I slowly limped away, barely managing to fly back to base. What I had essentially done is put a thin layer of skin over my wounds, and somewhat fix my muscle. When I finally got back to base, I saw that we were nearly overrun once again, with not nearly as many of the soldiers as before. I could see that many of the remaining mages were nearly out of mana, with the ones that were taking weapons from the fallen and continuing to fight. Clearly, the sharks thought that we hadn’t had as much people as they thought we did. The battle could go either way, and with Mantis at the siege for the last non-Almani jungle city, and reinforcements still not here yet, things did not look good. I did have one last trick up my sleeve though, but it was a bit of a wildcard. In the language of the beasts, I muttered a few words. Like lightning, my pack appeared. The four Scontuc I had tamed ran out of the forest, carving through the backlines like a raging wildfire through dead grass. The ferocious beasts tore into the Hash’Yoth, and caught completely by surprise, were steamrolled. Caught between my surprise force, and a strange eagle like creature, wait, is that a griffin?! The Hash’Yoth were smashed into smithereens.

About a two years ago, I was on an expedition, scouting out some area, when I heard a small whine. I went to the base of a tree where I thought the sound was coming from. I looked at it and suddenly heard a growl, then a scream. I looked down, and saw a small ravine. Inside it, there was a large Wolfion that had was biting into the neck of a strange creature. It looked like a tiger, but blue, and without stripes. Instead of a muzzle, it had a fierce-looking hooked beak. It also had a short tail, and enormous ears. I saw strange marking on it’s side, that lit up, and discharged a large amount of electricity into the mouth of the Wolfion. I still had a strong hate for Wolfions, and was still grieving the loss of everything I had come to know on Earth. So I did the only logical thing, and shot it multiple times with a small handgun. I then jumped down to see what the strange creature was. I then heard a soft mule, and looked towards a small hole in the cliff. A few baby creatures came out of the small crevice. I immediately cut some meat off the Wolfion, and gave it to the pups. One of them looked at the meat strangely, then all of them simultaneously roasted the slab of meat with electricity. I stood shocked at what I was seeing then remembered them. They were Scontuc, deadly jungle beasts that could manipulate electrons. They could be domesticated if raised from babies, but their mothers were fiercely protective of them, and it they often kept in packs. They were also costly to raise, with them eating buttloads of electricity and meat. A full grown one, which would take around five years from where they were now, could obliterate a high-level mage. But, I was just starting magic, and I was getting pretty good with electricity. As they chowed down on the meat, I began to make friends with them. For a full day I stayed with them, practicing my magic, hunting with them, and then it happened. The familiar twinge of pain that grew to a full migraine from around a year ago. They spoke in my mind with a echoing voice, and that’s when I realized, what they were. They were highly intelligent. Smarter than Mantis, who was sometimes kinda dumb. They would respond to whistles, and calls. They could formulate and undertake huge projects or plans. I came back eight days later, which was two days early. They had helped me explore. They had made it very clear though that no one could know, they were not liked and would be killed, along with me too most likely.