The gigantic pyramid in the center of the city known as Sky’s Nest was more than just a seat of the elder’s power. At the base of this pyramid, a few young trainees were fighting with wild animals that had been captured in the Ravaged Lands. They lost limbs and organs in the fights and were then remade into Warthorn, the elder's elite cybernetic strike unit. Within this pyramid were factories and research facilities responsible for producing the latest upgrades and prosthetics for the citizens of the tribe. Today the training was cut short. Trainers told the youths to take a short break, and workers quickly finished their shifts after hearing a loud signal inside the pyramid. Meanwhile, the Warthorn marched on and gathered in the main hangar.

This pyramid towered over the city, proudly showing thousands of citizens just how far they had come. When the Bento tribe first came here, they were faced with the ruin of the old city. By working hard, clearing out the rubble, tearing down the broken buildings, reigniting nuclear furnaces to fuel the city with energy, rebuilding facilities to produce water, and building underground farms, the citizens of the Sky’s Nest defeated the nature of the New World, creating another oasis of safety in this new and cruel world.

The Sky’s Nest wasn’t the biggest city in the tribe, but it was one of the most open. Traders from all around the world, even as far away as the Living Lands, could be found here. The streets were always crowded with traffic in recent days. With the war coming into the Ravaged Lands, the people fled to relatively safer areas, and under the elders' orders, the tribe was eager to provide support even to outsiders in these trial days.

The tribe’s cities were unusual sights for most people, for their locals cared little to protect themselves from the heat of the sun. The paved streets were made out of metal, which overheated to the point of leaving a burn on the flesh during the day. But body damage meant nothing for the Bento tribe, union with a machine was their greatest desire. However, with the arrival of refugees, some safety measures were implemented to protect the outsiders.

And now all the refugees and traders felt a tingle of fear when the top of the pyramid slid down, revealing the empty space. Never before had any of them seen such a sight. People became afraid that the Reclamation Army would come here. Soon, the fear changed to confusion when crowds of citizens littered the streets, laughing and waving to the pyramids, the parents putting their kids on their shoulders, the huge cyborgs picked up young refugees, lifting them in the air and telling them and their parents to look closely at the top of the pyramid.

The pyramid shook, spilling out a thunderous sound accompanied by a thick cloud of smoke. Some of the refugees screamed in panic, afraid that the structure would erupt like a volcano, but others saw what the cheering population was pointing at. The pyramid was not spitting lava.

It was sending forward assault pods.

****

They flew across the sky, nine assault pods shaped in the form of a triangle made of steel. Most of them carried up to twenty warthorns, but one of the assault pods carried only five passengers due to the size of one of the fighters, and one assault pod, adorned with gilding and bronze, carried a single one.

All but one of the assault pods covered the distance to the wall in minutes, crashing into the side of a mountain edge with all their power, the upper tip of the triangle shaped assault pods burrowed into the stone, securing it in place, while the lower end opened wide, allowing the warthorns to charge out across the battle ramp.

****

Eloxotla felt her heart beating with ecstasy the moment the doors of the assault pod opened before her. Her restraints fell first, and the warthorn charged across the battle ram, jumping outside.

The wall was below her, some ten meters down. A cheeky smile appeared beneath her combat helmet, and her green eye widened in sheer enjoyment when she flew down, reaching for the gauss rifle on her back.

Eloxotla was still a novice by the Warthorns’ standards, most of her body was still that of a human. Only her right arm was augmented, a mighty limb made of steel now replaced her frail flesh. Both of her knees were also replaced with steel augments, along with several inner organs, and one of her eyes was now shingled with a blue lens, rather than looking at the world through a green pupil. It was only her fault, she struggled too hard in training, where others madly charged forward, she weaved around the claws and fangs of her foes, striking them down without receiving proper damage in return.

But like the elder said, what’s the rush? The flesh is weak and will give way to the steel in time. In the meantime, the custom-made power armor was put on Eloxotla's body. This made her as strong as most of the other warthorns, except for the frames of heavy assault teams or wondrous frames of flesh carvers. Her right hand found the vibroblade on her belt.

The power armor injected drugs into her bloodstream, quenching the elation somewhat but granting her greater focus and enhanced reflexes. In Eloxotla’s vision, her fall slowed down, allowing the warthorn to see the battle below. The wall’s defenders were put to the test by new breeds of the Changed. Before her very eyes, she saw how an enemy soldier melted a hole in the chest of a defender while piercing the head of the other with a clawed hand. The enemies’ heads looked funny, elongated and flattened, covered by chitin plates. Her armor confirmed her suspicion, it was unlikely that they could look up without straightening their bodies to the limit.

All the better. The smile reappeared on her face when she sent her allies the vector of her advance and received the information from them. Plans were made, time to start the butcher’s work.

She fired her gauss rifle, and a micro particle accelerator unleashed a stream of anti-protons that went through the Changed’s head and made a new hole in the ground. While her weapon recharged, she took the vibroblade from the sheath and struck with it the moment she fell, slicing through the shoulder of the Changed who tried to gore another soldier.

The mutant roared and threw up the bio cannon, aiming it at her chest. Eloxotla only smirked, kicking the beast in the chest and pushing it down a good step back before taking aim with a gauss weapon and killing it.

"Greetings, fleshies! Are we unexpected by any chance?" Eloxotla shouted to the other Changed, who froze in place for a moment, confused, while the skies were raining Bentos.

"Unexpected but welcome," the soldier, whom she saved, laughed, standing up, "I could kiss you right now, lassie!"

"Save it for the night, pal," she said, crashing into a Changed in front of her and opening his belly with her vibroblade. Blood, mixed with acid, came pouring out, leaving marks on her iron armor and forcing her to gracefully dance away from the corpse. "But I’ll be grateful if you pick up a weapon and kill something again."

****

Kriegshaw calmly observed how the unexpected help was pushing his frontline forces back. The arrival of Bentos was annoying, he had hoped to avoid fighting with them altogether and swear fealty to the Resistance once he finished conquering the lands south of the wall. If he behaved, the people in the Ravaged Lands would undoubtedly accept him, they had no choice, not with the Reclamation Army invading them.

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But rarely does a battle go according to plan. And besides, he could see his forces gripping down on the enemy, here and there, their acid melted the steel metal works of the Bentos, and they were bringing down the cyborgs. His foes planned a pincer strategy, landing at the edges of the wall and clearing their way to the middle, using skilled melee soldiers and their superior weapons to push back his forces and allow their long-ranged allies to ready their weapons, making short work of his force. And this could happen if his forces are unable to push back the Bentos’ front row and engage the heavy weapon teams behind them.

If was the core word here. The ground cracked beneath Kriegshaw’s weight when he charged forward, leaving craters and ruined ground in his wake. The tide of the battle had turned, and he was determined to seize this opportunity to triumph. One of the assault pods crashed into the stone mountain the moment Tombteeth finally climbed onto the wall, and another flew above Kriegshaw, landing in the rear of his forces. He ignored the last one, allowing his rearguard to swarm it and kill whoever was inside.

****

“Clear the way, whoresons! Warthorns are coming through! Blood of Bento and all that, fuck yeah!” Eloxotla laughed as she kicked another Changed out of the way to make more room for the safe zone. Behind her, the heavy teams landed on the wall and fired their powerful plasma weapons at the mutants, destroying both their flesh and bones with the blessed heat of the Sun God.

The cyborgs fought side by side with her, slicing the foe with their vibroblades or firing lasers and armor-piercing machineguns into the crowds of enemies, riddling them with holes. The warthorns advanced in a united front, despite their battle-hungry nature, they were not fools. The elder taught them to never lose their heads fully in battle. A warrior takes joy in combat, but a warrior also takes care of his or her surroundings, never falling into the obvious traps.

The defenders of the wall were pushed aside, forming one more battle line behind the advancing Bentos, adding their own weapons to the cacophony of battle. Some of the warthorns were more augmented than others, one such individual, an elderly veteran with his whole body replaced with steel, charged past Eloxotla, slicing the heads of two Changed, saving five soldiers, and turning to face another enemy when his body was shattered.

Eloxotla’s eyes narrowed upon seeing the demise of her comrade. The warthorns had already suffered losses, the enemy’s acid was too damn effective even against their metal. But the creature who killed the Bento looked more like a member of an assault team, with his three-meter-tall height, bones protruding from the edges of his arms and legs, and a gigantic set of charcoal-colored teeth in his jaw.

The mutant kept on making the swing, and the soldiers before him lost chunks of flesh when his axe bisected them, tearing off their bodies with the sheer power of his sheer muscle rather than with the sharpness of his weapon. The mutant made a step forward, crashing into the broken brain case of the veteran beneath his leg.

"You are souring our raid, tin can," He hissed to her.

"Well, let’s liven up this party, then!" Eloxotla laughed at him, taking aim.

The mutant charged at her, ducking beneath the stream of anti-protons. Her blade met his bone axes. The vibration created by the device within her vibroblade was supposed to shatter molecular bonds in substances that it came into contact with. In theory. Eloxotla once opened a bunker door with her trusted blade and never had to doubt its destructive potential.

Until today. She had no idea what sort of bones this mutant used to make his axes, but they were too tough for her blade. The axe beat aside her weapon with enough force to send it away from her hand. Eloxotla dodged the next swing of his weapon, taking aim at her foe. The tip of the blade kissed her front armor, biting away a solid centimeter from the area of impact. The mutant followed up with a shoulder hit, throwing Eloxotla to the floor. One of the warthorns hurried to her aid, the man swinging his blade on the back of the mutant’s head.

The Changed punched back with his elbow, shattering the chest of the cyborg and throwing him into the rows of the Changed behind him. Eloxotla took this moment to jump on her feet, firing the gauss rifle into a Changed who was about to kill her ally.

This was all she managed to do before the mutant cleaved her rifle in two, chasing after her while she led him away from her allies, hoping that one of the heavy weapon team members would gun this bastard down.

“Stop dodging, you miserable, cowardly whore!” The mutant roared in frustration.

Eloxotla ignored his insults, her heart beating harder and harder. Pride was irrelevant, survival was all that mattered. The elder taught her to never allow even a single thought of giving up to death. Why would you? Death will come to us all eventually, so what’s the point in thinking about it? Think about how to survive and enjoy the joys of life.

She crashed into a door of a bunker, and the mutant laughed, thinking that he had trapped her. Eloxotla jumped to the side the moment the Changed snapped his jaw at her. He bit at the metal door instead, gripping it with his teeth and tearing the entire armored door away from the stone wall before spitting it out. He smiled at her, and the warthorn felt her heart beating even faster. Maybe I am about to have a stroke? How cool it will be to have a new, augmented heart!

A missile hit the mutant, and he roared, falling inside the doorway. Eloxotla looked to the side and saw the soldier she had saved, armed with a missile launcher. The warthorn felt a momentary confusion as to why he saved her instead of her allies before noticing a new message on the HUD of her helmet and smiling wildly, charging toward the confused soldier, picking him up, and running back to the rear to get a new weapon.

“I will massacre you all!” The mutant roared behind them, crashing through the stone wall of the ruined bunker. The traces of smoke were rising from his flesh, in some places it was reddened, but not even a cut marked his mighty body.

“You will not,” A voice boomed from above, and flesh carver Camaxtli came rushing down the mountain, landing behind the mutant. The flesh carver’s body resembled more of a walking, square-shaped arsenal, standing on two column-like legs. Countless black dots on his body indicated a series of sensors through which the flesh carver saw and heard the word. Camaxtli’s shoulders sprouted knots of metal tendrils and whips, reaching six meters in length.

The whips reached the mutant’s bare skin, and he screamed when the flesh carver’s nerve whips turned on all the pain receptors in his body, making him feel excruciating pain. The weapons fell from his hands, and he fell to his knees, crying and screaming in pain as madness crept into his eyes. Camaxtli stepped on the mutant, crushing bones and meat and forcing a small pool of water to pour from beneath his nineteen-ton body.

The flesh carver spent no words with Eloxotla, instead opening his front armor and revealing to the world a set of mighty weapons within his bulk. The autocannons and plasma cannons started speaking their destructive song to the remaining Changed.

"Thanks for saving my life," the soldier said, and Eloxotla looked at him with confusion.

"Dude, it was you who just saved my hide."

"I and the others would be dead if you and your people hadn't arrived. It was you who came to our aid."

"Just take the bloody credit for your actions, dumbass!"

"Are you a retard or…"

Eloxotla felt how the wall trembled, and both she and the soldier shut up. She put the man down and saw how the writhing head of a worm-like, hairy creature had appeared above the wall, followed by a gigantic bone blade. The blade swung, slicing through three warthorns at the same time. The heavy weapons team aimed at a new foe, but their plasma weapons splattered helplessly against its hide, leaving only small craters of burning flesh, which were worth nothing against such a massive body. A shadow cast by the titanic creature fell on the defenders, leaving them fighting in darkness.

The creature moved the bone blade down, piercing the wall to hold the massive body steady and lift his second hand. The sight of it caused the heavy weapons team to activate their jump packs, escaping just in time before the acid spit out by this new foe melted the area where they had just stood.

"We can’t kill it," the soldier whispered, and Eloxotla heard sheer horror in his voice. "Not with all the cannons silenced."

"Don’t worry!" she laughed. "We have a truly strong person with us."

"Sorry, but not even this walking locker can kill it…"

“I am a human, you asshole!” Camaxtli roared, opening his chest to reveal numerous weapons hidden within and choking several Changed with his tendrils. Plasma balls, sound cutters, and laser beams left his opened chest, clashing against the thick skin and leaving bloody pools in their wake. Bloody pools that looked nothing more than zits against such a ginormous body.

“I wasn’t speaking about the honored flesh carver,” Eloxotla chuckled. The soldier looked at her in confusion before the roar of the newly activated engine made him look to the north.

To the place where the assault pod landed in the enemy’s rear.