Euna leaped down the mountain of rubble. By the time she reached the floor of the hangar bay, she was fully transformed. She had taken on the quadruped form from the time that she was leading the Augmented soldiers on a wild chase through the corridors of the ship. Since most of her body had broken down when she was trapped underneath the rubble, she regrew a new set of obsidian scales which wreathed and curved to suit her current form. Of all her Altered forms, the quadruped was unmatched when it came to speed and agility. With a few strides, Euna was suddenly bolting down the hangar bay and into the fray.

Before long, Euna had entered the periphery of the battlefield. To her far left, near the center of the hangar bay was currently where the melee between the Altered and the Vessels were taking place. Euna was currently situated near the outskirts of the battlefield and closer to the massive walls of the hangar bay. All around her were debris, droves of Augmented personnel running to and fro, and carcasses of Vessels in various states of destruction. As she moved through the battlefield, she could pick up sounds of distressed shouting from the Augmented soldiers.

“Engineers! Medics! To me! Evacuate to designated quadrants!”

Euna noticed that some of the Augmented soldiers were not combat types and were fleeing from the general mayhem in the center of the hangar bay.

“Extract the wounded and evacuate now!”

Some of the Augmented soldiers in white uniforms were racing across the battlefield towards incapacitated soldiers on the floor and some of them were even running towards the destroyed Vessels. Most of the Augmented soldiers, however, were swarming towards the massive, intact columns which Euna assumed was where the ‘evacuating’ was taking place.

Occasionally, she would zip past a stray Augmented soldier, eliciting a fearful yelp or two, but most of the time she went relatively unnoticed. With all the chaos and destruction that the colossal Altered was creating, Euna was not surprised.

The path that she had taken through the battlefield was away from the melee and directly towards the squadrons of Augmented soldiers that were spread sparsely around the melee, keeping in tight clusters that were a good distance from the destructive battle.

Soon, she was close enough to hear the Augmented soldiers shouting and giving out commands as they prepared to unleash the next barrage. With all of their concentration focused on the melee, Euna was merely a blur in the periphery of their vision.

“Hold steady! Prepare for the next barrage!”

“Heavy artillery, requesting for more ammunition sir!”

Most of the squadrons of Augmented soldiers providing long-range support were huddled around large mechanical contraptions that shook violently as it unleashed a barrage of homing missiles or a steady stream of gunfire.

Euna decided that destroying those weapons would probably be a good idea. She made a slight detour in her path, prowling towards the nearest squadron while staying out of their line of sight as much as she could.

As she came closer, she saw that some of the Augmented soldiers were splitting off from the squadron shouting, “Sir! Some of these Vessels are in operable condition! Permission to pilot one of these Vessels and join the fight!”

“Granted! May the Augmented Empire reign supreme!”

Two Augmented soldiers sprinted off from the group as Euna circled around to the flank of the squadron, then slowing to a crawl with a scowl on her face. Their obsession with honor and glory left a bad taste in her mouth. She didn’t want these propagandized nutjobs in a Vessel and ‘letting loose’.

But first she would try to unleash as much destruction as she could quickly on this squadron. She pounced on the squadron, wasting no time in tearing apart the first Augmented soldier that she had landed on, before moving on to the next. She leaped from target to target on all fours, sinking her claws into their bodies and ripping chunks out of them as she moved on.

One of Euna’s victim screamed out as he died, “Watch out! Altered beast on our flank!”

Augmented soldiers wheeled around, aiming their rifles and wrist-cannons at Euna.

Instinctively, Euna lashed out with her serpentine tail which to her surprise had a glossy, obsidian blade protruding out of the tip of her tail. Like a whip, her bladed tail that was curved inward like a scythe, swung in a wide arc, slicing through arms and hands of the Augmented soldiers around her. Translucent fluids sprayed outwards as synthetic fibers and neural circuitry was torn. They dropped their weapons as their maimed arms failed to respond.

Euna then bounded forwards on all four, barrelling through the soldiers as her tail continued lashing out wildly, scything unsuspecting targets as she reached one of the artillery armaments. She reared back before thrusting her clawed hand into the armored plating of the weapon. The metal surface was sturdy and only dented inwards from Euna’s strike. After multiple successive thrusts, her claw finally perforated the armor and delicate neural circuitry.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

After destroying another of the artillery weapons, Euna promptly moved on to chasing down the Augmented soldiers who had sprinted off to find themselves a Vessel.

To her dismay, there were already a handful of Augmented Vessels mobilized and making heavy strides across the hangar bay towards the melee. Euna cursed inwardly. She had failed to stop the Augmented soldiers that she had seen earlier from joining the fray. There were still more inactive Vessels in various states of repair strewn around the hangar bay and she could see many more Augmented soldiers sprinting in the direction of these Vessels.

She spotted the two Augmented soldiers who had broken off from the squad she had dealt with, sprinting close to each other in the distance. She pumped her beast-like limbs into overdrive and closed in on their heels.

“Behind you!” a voice shouted, warning the pair.

As Euna lunged at the Augmented soldier closest to her, he glanced back, doing a double take with wide eyes and then stammering, “wh-what the--”

Her claw perforated his chest, inducing a gurgling fit from the Aug-soldier.

The other Augmented soldier, a woman with bright blue hair tied back, screamed, “M-mark, no!”

Despite the blood and fluids, exiting his mouth, the dying man managed to utter a few words. “Vi-vicky… R-run. R-”

Euna ripped out his heart, cutting his final words short.

“No! Fuck!” Vicky shouted in anguish.

Euna turned her sight to Vicky, who had picked up her pace, firing her wrist-cannon behind her haphazardly as she sprinted to the nearest Vessel.

Euna evaded the projectiles, leaping from side-to-side as she followed.

Suddenly, in the periphery of her vision, she saw a squad in the distance turn their sights towards her. Her presence on the battlefield, which had gone mostly unnoticed so far, was now attracting glances from Aug-soldiers all around her.

“Altered monster sighted! Fire at will!”

One of them screamed while swiveling a mounted turret in her direction, “kill that motherfucker!”

Some of them were even chanting, “Die! Die! Die! Die!” as they laughed maniacally.

Within seconds, Euna could hear the first barrage of bullets whizzing through the air. Most of them impacted the floor, causing explosions of sparks around her but a good handful landed on their mark, punching in smoking indents on Euna’s scaled armor. She winced as she felt her flesh being cooked from the heat, then gritted her teeth and sped up, focusing all her attention on avoiding getting shot repeatedly. She dashed in erratic zig-zags, taking cover behind debris, destroyed Vessels and then columns.

Before long, the bullets stopped flying her way. She figured that, either she had gotten out of optimal range, or they were turning their attention back to the collosal Altered. Or they were out of ammunition, Euna decided.

When she turned her attention back to the Augmented soldier she had been chasing, she saw that Vicky was already a distance away and was currently approaching a nearby Vessel. This Vessel was one among many of the partially damaged Vessels spread sparsely throughout the hangar bay, and was in a halted state of repairs. The right side of Vessel seemed to have suffered considerable damage, and was missing large portions of plated armor, exposing the sleek inner exoskeleton and cables within.

Euna caught up to the Aug-soldier, leaping one final time into the air for the finishing blow. As Euna's claw was about to perforate skin, Vicky suddenly lurched forward into the air, flying towards the Vessel.

For a second, Euna was confused, then she saw the sleek cable extending out of the Aug-soldier's wrist. The cable was stretched taut through the air and the other end of the cable was latched onto the Vessel and reeling her in.

The Aug-soldier was hurtling through the air, and by the time Euna reached the Vessel's feet, the Aug-soldier had already climbed into the cockpit. Euna caught a glimpse of the Aug-soldier's face as she looked up into the dark and compact interior of the Vessel.

“You're screwed bitch.”

Large metallic plates slid over the chest cavity, concealing and securing the pilot within the armored confines of the Vessel. The machine whirled to life with an ambient thrum of the engine. The Vessel stood up to its full height, flexing its joints and limbs before looking down at Euna. The plated armor that framed the Vessel’s visage gave it an angular and regal appearance. Euna looked up at its eyes, two horizontal slits that lit up into an intense cyan blue.

The Vessel pointed its hand at her, then unloaded a fusillade of high-caliber projectiles. She leaped away, but not before she felt bullets the size of her claws impact her flank, followed by a searing sensation. When she spared a quick glance at her behind, she noticed immediately that her hind leg had literally exploded. Scales, flesh and bone had been blown off, leaving behind a scorching stump right above the knee. She also noticed two smoking holes; one on her waist, and the other... on her ass. The projectiles were powerful enough to punch through her scaled armor and all, perforating through the insides of her body and exiting out the other side.

Failing to adjust to the sudden loss of a leg, and cope with her injuries, Euna face planted the floor a distance away as she landed.

Vicky sauntered forward confidently in her Vessel, aiming her hand at Euna again, but only a mechanical click could be heard. The Vessel reached for its back with its other arm, then suddenly halted. There seemed to be some malfunctioning of its shoulder joint from prior damage.

Euna's injuries were nowhere near fatal, and her body was already subconsciously repairing the damage. Her stump, however, still hadn't fully reformed into a leg. She was standing on three legs as the Vessel approached, drawing a metallic and hexagonal shaft from its back with its functioning arm, before brandishing it like a sword. Within seconds, the rod-like weapon transformed into the sabers that she had seen from the melee.

Euna caught sight of another Vessel in the background. Then another. There were more active Vessels on the battlefield now. One of them in fact, had noticed Euna and Vicky, and was heading their way.

Shit, Euna thought. At this rate, I'm going to be surrounded by Vessels. 

Euna's plan to stop as many soldiers from joining the fray had failed miserably. There were simply far too many and too much going on for her to handle alone.

The Vessel being piloted by Vicky lunged forward at a distracted Euna with it’s saber. At the same moment, a red-hot blade erupted out of the chest of Vicky's Vessel, halting her attack in mid-motion. Vicky's Vessel sagged, then slid off the blade before crashing onto the floor bodily.

Standing over the Vessel was another Vessel, the one which she had noticed coming her way.

The backstabbing Vessel, then gave her a thumbs up as its chest compartment slid open, revealing a smiling Hiro and a limbless Augmented soldier squished behind him.

“Oi, what's up?”