Author; Shit happened and wasn't able to post, posting schedule has been scrapped...

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“KRAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“SAND WYRMS! RUN!”

The sand rose and a gigantic monster broke through and into the sky above the desert, worm like but with the thickness of a skyscraper. Their skin was earth brown scales pointing out their reptilian bloodline but the scales weren’t all “normal”, a scale grew out like a large blade giving the creatures four fin like protrusions every couple meters all over their body and its seemingly had no head as its body started and ended the same. At each end a mouth with hundreds of sets of rotating fangs that shred through sand giving them their speed and digging through stone making them almost impossible to escape in the current landscape. The monstrous wyrm after rising from the sand turned and began its descent down towards the puny scout ship, “Guard squad get the pilots and run now! We don’t have time!” I gave the order and saw the rangers by the ship enter and start the engine. All I could do was run and hope, will they make it? Or will they become worm grub? The worm kept descending as the ship finally took flight, it’s maw picking up speed towards the ship. I sighed, in relief as the ship’s pilots proved their mettle by dodging the wyrm’s mouth at the closest range possible. I could barely hear one of the rangers cursing in Elvish behind me as we dashed towards the open desert, I glanced to my left “Turn left! Towards the hill!” we turn and start heading towards the rock formation as the wyrm crashed back into the sand and disappeared. “It might change target! Does anybody have quake magic!?” the old wood elf shouted on the squad comms but all we could do was keep running as nobody responded in acknowledgement. “Scout squad we are sending extraction!” Reas shouted in my ears making me grimace “No! Send no more ships! They will just be eaten up by the wyrms!” I glanced back at the unmoving sand, no way to tell where the damn beasts are at.  “Stop moving! NOW” I summon fort Wayne and Ember, I take a left and began firing at the ground. All six rangers stop in their tracks and stare as I keep running, I glance back and see the wyrm grow a lump of sand as it changes direction to follow me. “Matt I don’t know if to thank you or pray for you! You mad bastard!” I heard Leya speaking in my ears but I focused on running, mist began flowing out of my body as I entered mist form and I stopped.

I leaped upwards but kept shooting Ember towards the ground where I was heading to keep the wym interested, I turn mid-air and aim down wards while putting Wayne and Ember’s sights to collide their shots. Using both aethers I propel myself upwards using the blast from the explosive projectile from Ember colliding with a normal projectile from Wayne, after rising about five storeys I see the wyrm moving under me close to the surface. My fear was on point as the wyrm came out directly at me not at the decoy shots, “Double Aether Morph!” I shout to get its attention as both my aethers become unstable and lose their form. The wyrm slows down to swallow me as I fall while in my right arm was the outcome of merging both aethers into one, a long red barrel ending in a thicker distorted black block with flowing purple runes. (“This is gonna fucking hurt!”) static energy flowed at the end of the barrel as mana condensed at insane speed within the cannon, seven meters away from the wyrm’s mouth, waves of heat began to form around the barrel and pummelling my face as I descended, five meters now, the static got sucked into the barrel and the heat completely stopped at 3 meters. A red and purple beam of rotating mana blasted out of the barrel and into the wyrm’s open mouth, “KRREEEEEHHHH” it screamed in agony as the beam shred some of its jaws as they rotated and a straight line down its throat and stomach. The wyrm turned its body away to hide its mouth from my line of sight so I stopped the beam, I was still heading straight for one of its bladed fins and aimed at its scaly hide. I shot a power blast and summoned my weak barrier to take the explosion, I barely dodged the bladed edge and skid down its side. Whenever I could I stuck fist sized spiky coins in between its scales that I got from my belts, it began turning towards the ground to descend under the sand just as I reached it and began running away from the monster.

When I felt like I was far enough away I stopped and turned to see it burrow back down, in my left was a detonator and I waited with my cannon raised. When the other end made itself visible as it burrowed I pressed the detonator and seven loud explosions could be heard from underground while a couple of bulges could be seen in the sand, “KREEAAAEEEHHH!!” the wyrm screamed in pain again as the explosions attacked it’s “ears” due to the sound. Another mouth rises from the sand while staying half hidden by the sand it was still open for me to attack, I had been charging one up just for this opportunity. A sphere of pure dense chaos energy hovered in front of my cannon, gravity seemed to distort around it as sand floated upwards and static struck the ground and air nearby it. I released the pent up fire mana inside the barrel which propelled the black and purple sphere at great speed towards and into the wyrm’s mouth, this projectile is similar to a devouring attack from Tempre but much more dense and containing massive amounts of more mana. Although I was reaching my limits so I put my full fate into this one attack, the sphere entered the half open mouth while disintegrating any fang or flesh it touched and kept going “Krreeaaeehhh!!!...” the wyrm let out another scream of anguish but was cut off by the sphere expanding to its full size while within its throat and destroying one of its two brains. The visible end went limp as it was pulled into the sand by the other end, “Don’t move, will it have survived that attack?” I ask on comms for an answer and to wake up those that were awe struck. “That one is no longer a problem, it won’t move too far since one half is dead and cannot process the sand. It’s stuck down there.” The old wood elf’s voice comes through, “Scout ship, do a pass by and get the others. Do not land, I repeat do a pass by.” I look around and locate the ship. “Yes sir!” the co-pilot’s voice comes through and I recognise it as the female pilot, the ship flies down and hovers by the rangers as all six are helped up and in by the others.

“We’re making a pass by for you Sir!” I slightly relaxed and waited for the scout ship to close in, it covered half the distance and something felt completely wrong. I glanced around the sand “PULL UP!” the sand shifted underneath the ship as it pulled up, two sand wyrms rose out of the desert and with mouths agape crashed their sides with each other only to dive back into the sand. I sighed with relief when I located the scout ship flying upwards, “Sir we can’t get close! Requesting orders!” I furrowed my brows and looked around. I was closer to the rock formation we discovered the tank shell at so I slowly turned to face it, “Hover on top of the previous hill, I’ll meet you at the top. Do not land and keep a height higher than your current.” I took a deep breath and made a mad dash towards the hill while unsummoning the merged aether. These beasts located their prey through sound and probably body heat compared to the sand which was much warmer than our bodies, right now I just hoped they would prefer a possible larger prey than a small easy one. From the belt around my chest and shoulder I took out two large discs with glowing blue runes, I held one in my mouth as I activated the other and switched to do the same. When both were active I threw them perpendicular to me, one for each side and summoned both aethers in their original pistol form. The discs landed a couple meters away from me in the sand and I turned aiming an aether per disc, I shot a single shot each and nailed the discs making them explode in a cold blast of water and wind mana. The explosion instantly froze the air and formed a large ice spike which slowly began to melt in the sand, I turned back and continued my dash for the hill hoping I was right. Two loud crashed echoed behind me “Kreeeaaahahh!!” followed by equally disturbing screams of pain as the wyrms devoured the cold ice and are confused by it, I kept running till I finally reached the side of the hill.

I dared not glance backwards and grabbed a set of knife like weapons from one of the belt’s pockets, a blade with a ring for a hilt so I had one per finger. I threw one and the second it stopped rising I activated it’s magic, the knife disappeared and I replaced it. I called them Shadow step kunai, using them I rose as high up as I could until I had two remaining and threw the one before the last as hard as I could. The second I replaced the knife I stabbed the last knife into the cliff edge with my left arm and held on, I was a couple meters away from the top so I summoned forth Wayne and morphed the aether into the grapple claw. I shot the claw at the top and began ascending, when I reached the top I ran to the middle of the hill and looked up “Descend a couple meters quickly!” I shouted the orders and the scout ship began descending, I waited and when I felt like it was within my comfortable range I threw the last knife and it flew straight at the ship. I switched with the knife and grabbed hold of someone’s arm as I looked down at where I once stood, one of the wyrms crashed into the rocky hill and destroyed it with its drill like fangs and weight. “Well that was a close call…thought we lost you there…again…” I looked up to find Leya on the other side of the grip grinning madly, I grinned back as two other rangers came around to help pull me up “Not dying to some damn worm”.  I looked back out of the ship before closing the door behind me, I watched in horror as at first tens of wyrms increased to a number I simply couldn’t start counting. “Holy…They’re all over…How did the first group survive for a whole week?!” the pilot had a better view of the desert and was thinking on the same wave length as me. “I don’t know yet, there is no way they went around with their vehicles without disturbing them.”  I looked at the two maps and analyse them “There was no land mass larger than the current rock formations, the only difference is the location of some of them changed slightly.” The only thoughts passing through my head was how would these large masses of stone change location in this sea of sand?...”Take us back to HQ, we’ve gathered all we could for today.” We all settle back and buckle up as we fly back to the carrier, “Reas we require access to bay 7”.

The blast doors to the docking bay opened and the scout ship slowly hovered in, half way in it began to descend and landed as the blast doors closed behind us. “Platoon leader please present your report at command in 10.” Kale’s voice arrived over personal comms “Yes Sir…” I sighed and began walking towards the door, “Yo cap, thanks for having our behinds back there.” I turned to see the whole squad saluting me “Some monsters are better to have on your side, don’t you think?” I glanced at the co pilot who went pale as everyone else started laughing. I left the bay as the others sorted out their minds after this dreadful mission, I headed down towards my dorm room and took a shower also changing to another set of my uniform after.  I then headed up to the third floor of the main section and towards the outfit leader’s office, as before I pressed my palm to the door and waited for them to slide open. When they did I entered to find Zeaxar sitting in the far middle with Reas to his left and Kale to his right, the other platoon leaders sitting on each side of the large table. “Give your report kid.” I furrowed my brow when I saw Zeaxar but began giving my report anyway, “It is still unknown how but the previous survey group spent a week in this desert until all communications were lost as per our intel, the group encountered an aggressive and larger variant of desert wyrm which presumably destroyed their camp and their whole force with little resistance. I divided the squad into two and took six members to inspect the closest formation the group would have come into contact with, a tank shell’s shrapnel was found within one of the rocky formations indicating tank fire. The wyrms then attacked our ship and forced us to retreat, we suffered no casualties and possibly buried one of them which might result in its death. I inspected the current terrain and the map made by the previous survey group, the rocky formations have changed position slightly which might hint at how and why the wyrms did not instantly attack them”.

“Sir have you seen their numbers?...” I looked at Zeaxar dead in the eyes, “Yes we all have, do you have any more information on these wyrm variants? Any speculations?” he sat back in his chair and swiped at a screen in front of him, making some images of the beasts appear on the monitors around the room. “As any normal wyrm they use sound and vibrations to locate their prey and find their way around the desert, they are fast enough to catch up to even me at full speed. They also seem to be attracted by variations in the temperature, two instances of this is when they attacked the scout ship for its hotter engine and when they focused on ice spikes I created for their colder temperature. I highly suggest we keep the carrier at a very high elevation and away from the ground at all costs, one of them ate through stone to get to me”. Zeaxar switched off the monitors “Indeed, Reas prepare four platoons to leave in twelve hours. We cannot access the terrain beneath us therefore we will scout further and look for more favourable terrain, each platoon will consist of fifteen rangers and a platoon leader. They will head in every direction with MCCs, mark 1 not the mark 2 scouts. Everyone make necessary preparations” He looked back at me “Kid I suggest you go rest up, this is going to be a long mission. Meeting adjourned!” with that he simply dissipated into shadow, leaving us to walk out of the room and let Reas sort out the platoons. I had three things I needed to do before the next mission, first I needed to eat something, second I needed to refill my aether belts and third I needed a couple hours of sleep…so first I decided to head down to the second floor and towards one of the cafeterias on the ship.

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I reached the elevator and went a floor below, walked around a couple corridors and looked at the map on my Iris a couple times till I reached the open doors of the cafeteria. The room was very large with enough seating for around a thousand, there were two cafeterias on board so enough room to fit the whole outfit. The walls similarly to the rest of the ship were metallic grey while the floor was studded black, along the walls there was either lines of mana flowing through and giving the room a light blue hue or a large window from which one could look outside while within the cafeteria. Currently almost every member of the outfit was in one of the cafeterias since unless they were part of the ship’s crew they had nothing else to do, “MATT!” I sigh “MASTER!!” I slump my shoulders trying to make myself look as small as possible as I walk towards the loud wood elf that is Ell and ball of green light buzzing around her that is Saya. “Stop shouting…I see you…” I walked over to their table and noticed the whole squad except the captain were there, with some others as well. “Yo boss, heard from the guys here you’re in their squad?” a fox Beastman was sitting by Leya with an older wood elf next to him. “Yeah, I’m in Houghes squad. You three going to be in the next scout too?” these two where some of the rangers that were sent with me. “Yes we will be, I don’t believe we’ve introduced ourselves” the old elf gets up and salutes “I’m Glent Jriej’el, this old fox here is my old friend and introduced me to your squad” the fox beastman also gets up and salutes “Kesh of the north west pack, we’ve been meaning to thank you for ya know…saving our asses back there”. I take a seat next to Jerrald “No need, just doing my job.” Saya flutters over to my shoulder and they sit back down as well, “Job? Kid I’ve been going on these jobs for years, I could have sworn that would of been my last! You saved our lives and all the other rangers back there agree, we owe ya!”

I looked at both of them without their hoods on, Glent looks to be around his forties but for an elf that only meant he is over a thousand. He has long brown hair held back in a warrior style and green eyes with multiple scars on his face. Kesh on the other hand easily spoke his years, fox beastmen could live for a good couple hundred years but not as much as others or elves. He has red fox like ears growing out of his greying red short hair, a long furry red tail ending in white and a greying red moustache. ”Wanted the others to join us but they said they wanted some time for themselves, recon those cowards be drowning In their own piss right now.” Kesh seemed annoyed at something but I didn’t ask, “Hey Matt, would you know why I was moved to another platoon? Got a notification for the platoon grouping but I’m with Zerk’s platoon now?” I furrow my brow, activate my Iris and check the party menu for who is in my platoon “Don’t know, all the others are still in my platoon…Ell you’re coming too?” she looks up from eating, “Y~eap” I facepalm because I didn’t understand her through the food in her mouth but figured I didn’t need a confirmation as her name on the party menu was enough. I turn away from the Iris and order from the crystal on the table, touching it a menu pops up and I just settle on some steak. The food appears in front of me and I start inspecting the two maps while I eat, “Ma..Matt…?” Saya calls my name to get my attention “Can I come with you on the next mission?...I don’t like being away from my contractor…” I think it over for a couple moments and then look into her eyes “Fine fine…Just stick close and don’t touch anything”. I swear her eyes lit up with excitement when I acknowledged it, she fluttered around me the whole time I ate afterwards.

“Well I’m off to my room, I need to refill my belts.” I got up and waved, “I’ll come!” Saya came fluttering onto my shoulder. I felt eyes on my back but said nothing, for some reason most of the cafeteria was watching me and it wasn’t pleasant. I got out of the cafeteria and sighed of relief “What’s wrong?” Saya looked at me with a worried expression while I walked, “It’s nothing, some people are just too impressionable”. I headed to the dorms and found my room which I had located earlier in the day, “What..happened…here?...” Saya was staring wide eyed at the corroded walls, floor and roof. “Long story, don’t worry about it.” I scratched my head thinking of a way to dodge the subject while she pouted and looked at me as if she knew it was my doing, “We’re partners now…Why can’t you tell me?...” I entered my room as she kept looking at me and I turned my head to look back. I sighed and sat down on the bed, “One of the scientists that the government sent as a researcher, he…” I wanted to talk about anything else and for some moments I stayed quiet. “Please…We don’t need to have secrets…I…I need to know you can trust me…Or I…I don’t know if I can…” she balled up on my shoulder and drowned her face in her arms and legs, “He’s one of the scientists responsible for the Cerberus Project” I leaned back a bit, holding myself with my arms “He was one of the main researches back in the lab that was responsible for me, due to that he was too well protected for me…for us to get to him. He…He’s the bastard that pulled the trigger on everyone’s collar, I don’t know if I can resist the urge to…”I clenched my fists “To kill that disgusting being…If I see him again…and if nobody is there to stop me…I don’t….I know I won’t be able to control myself again..” we stood there for some time, I drowned in my misery while Saya sat there shocked. “What will you do?...I have no connection to these people…we…we are in a different world…we could…they wouldn’t be able to find us…” I understood her train of thought but “No…Zeaxar will find us in a heartbeat, He’s too strong and I doubt even I can kill him If he didn’t hold back at all. Also…I need everyone here…Roaming the desert…even if it means killing that bastard…I don’t think I’d be able to stay sane after that.”

I up from the bed and took off my belts,  Saya got off my shoulder and fluttered over to the headrest. I grabbed my tools and resource box, sat on the bed by them and began building what I had used up. “What is all this stuff?...I’ve never seen anything like it before…” Saya stared with curiosity as my hands fidgeted with different parts and tools, “This is Aether Tech, using science and magic to create weapons and other utilities to aide me in combat and missions. This here for example” I hold up a small coin looking object with a purple crystal embedded in the centre of it “Is an explosive, it is timed and cannot be stopped even if destroyed it will just instantly blow up. It’s area of effect and blast power is small which gives it some very specific uses and not much for combat, I mostly use it as a detonator for something or a contained blast to destroy specific things. Then there is this, it’s upgraded version.” I put the coin down and hold up a larger one with clamp like spikes on the edges “This has an area of effect a bit larger than its smaller counterpart but its blast power is very strong, it’s perfect for piercing through doors and walls or even armour.” I put it down and continue working “This here that I’m making is called a shadow switch kunai, the design is based on a human culture called Asia and that culture has certain clans called “Shinobi” they are masters of deceit and assassination but were mostly used for information gathering and scouting. This knife’s shape is made for penetrative power and accuracy, it will embed itself into walls and armour and then” I throw one to the wall and instantly switch places with it causing it to embed itself into the wall next to the bed “with it’s minor spacial runes it allows for short teleportation bursts and can only be used twice.” I then re appear standing on the bed while the knife falls to the ground where I was just standing, I sit back down and raise my left arm taking off the glove “This is one of the runes it works off of” I touch my wrist and a rune glows forming a scar on my wrist which then disappears almost instantly. Saya looked impressed but also furrowed her brows “How many of those do you have?” I raised an eyebrow at her question “Kunai?” she shook her head “Runic scars”. A weak smile forms on my face, knowing what she was trying to bring up “As many as my skin could fit, along with my eye lashes, ears, bottom of my feet, tongue, mouth and…other places.”

She stared at me for a couple moments confused, I stared back and she slightly went red “EEHH!?”. I let out a chuckle “I’m joking, well the last part anyway”  I continue putting things together, putting screws in, infusing mana and using my chaos affinity to distort and shape crystals to hold the mana. Saya kept staring at my hands which I had covered back up with my gloves, “You know those will never go away right?...Runic scars are permanent…even if you are rescarred over them they will re appear searing your skin...even if healed they will stay…” I continued to work “Why…No…I’m sorry I know why…To stop anything like which had happened to you to happen to anybody else…To save others from the nightmares you faced…Isn’t that the definition of a hero?...” I dropped what I was working on and turned to look at her, she blushed and looked away “It’s true though? Isn’t it? What you do isn’t just for yourself…but for others…You could have abandoned me…You could have abandoned those rangers….” She turned and looked me straight in the eyes “You can bring your whole race to its knees for what they did to you, you can bring forth extinction to the disgusting beings that burnt, tormented and tortured you. But you won’t…instead you fight to save them…Even those horrendous scientists, you know you’re paving a better future for them as well right?... ” her expression darkens and she stares off at the wall by the bed. I sigh and turned then lay back with my head on the headrest next to her “I know that but I also know this, suicide is insanity, massacre is unfounded unless it is for self-preservation and that of others. I know I have every right to kill those that wrong me and thousands of others but…what will that give us as a race? What will that do for Humanity and Etyrians? How will killing brilliant researches no matter how mad or warped they are, improve our odds of surviving the void? The beasts from all the other realms that we haven’t even heard of yet? Any other threats we don’t even know about?” I turned my head to look at her, she was resting her head on her knees and looked into my eyes “I’m not just doing this cause of I can, I’m thinking for my race as a whole. Our numbers are so small now compared to before you might as well list us under pre-extinction, every single life is more precious now than it was before.”

We laid there for what seemed like minutes before I broke the ice “My parents…even before the third wave…My father was a soldier, he trained others to fight for our people. My mother was a nurse, a medical status. Every day I think to myself, what would they do?...I know I’m probably just imagining their choices, I can never know what they would actually do…I just have an idealistic and biased image of them from when I was still a kid. Can you blame me though?...But above else…I think of my sister…she…lived such a short life…and I think of the children that were with me in the Cerberus project…I was one of the youngest…there were so many…so young…to have to go through all that…Just because of humanity’s stupidity and fear, because some adults were too afraid to fight themselves or too stupid to look ahead…Hah…” my eyes began slowly closing, weariness eating away at me “I don’t care…” I yawn “How many I have to exterminate…I don’t care…what monsters I have to fight…I don’t care what tortures I have to go through…Nobody…within my reach…will ever take advantage of someone else’s weakness again. I will fight every monster on this planet if it means keeping children from having to take up weapons…I will die if it means stopping a war.” My consciousness fades as I plunge into sleep.

“Your kindness will be the death of you…But even if you do…I thank you… for giving me another chance….I thank you…*sob*…for giving me something to live for.”

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Author; First arc is starting…Please remember to give a rating and maybe comment! All feedback is appreciated!! :D

Edited by; Birse