Captain Sildeth made his way over to a mountainous area. He had a bad feeling about this one, so he had the auxiliaries trail behind him. He didn’t particularly like to lose them, after all. It was a rare and brave idiot that could follow after him.

It was pouring rain, as well as thunder and lightning as he flew to his target location.

Some sort of martial arts school, built high in the mountains.

And in utter ruins, with even some of the surrounding mountains damaged and crumbling.

He landed in the center courtyard. He felt cold.

No…

He felt fear.

A deep and primal thing.

As if some predator stalked him in the night.

He grinned.

There was a flash of lighting.

The light revealed someone rushing up behind him, holding a sword high in the sky.

The Captain barely rolled forward as the blade struck the stone floor.

There was another flash of lightning, allowing him a glimpse of his target.

A female human, who appeared to have just come of age, though her psionic presence indicated she was far older and more powerful. Her face was contorted in rage. Her eyes were unfocused, as if they didn’t recognize anything that appeared in them. Blood dripped from their sides. She had messy hair that hadn’t been washed in decades. Her clothing was dirty and torn, equally neglected.

And in her hand was a black sword, that almost seemed fused to her body given the black veins crawling up her right arm.

She let out a high pitched shriek and leapt at him, blade coming straight down towards him.

He stepped forward. He held his right elbow at a ninety degree angle and swung his arm to the right, attempting to knock the sword to the side, while he stepped forward with his left foot, swinging his left fist into the girl’s side.

He gasped.

The moment his arm touched the blade, his cells started to die, his life and psionic power flowing into the blade.

It was eating him.

Fortunately his left fist made contact, knocking the girl away and into one of the walls of the compound. He stared as part of his right arm crumbled away before reforming.

“What an insidious weapon. Guessing that has something to do with the state of her mind? Better make sure not to touch it again.”

Captain Sildeth reached into his pocket dimension and pulled out his weapons. The Stellar Dragon Blade, and the Neutronium Mace.

And just in the knick of the time, as the girl kicked off the wall, flying straight towards him with her sword pulled back. Captain Sildeth swung his mace at her face.

She barely brought her blade up in time, stopping the mace inches from her face before Captain Sildeth continued with his swing, sending her flying back.

She landed and instantly killed all of that momentum, leaning forward and roaring at the Captain.

Who was surrounded by glowing spheres of psionic power. He launched them forward.

She swung her blade, absorbing one, and then another, on and on.

But the last flew in front of her face, glowing bright…

A massive explosion rocked the courtyard, sending the girl flying through the sky.

And Captain Sildeth appeared before her, swinging his sword down.

CLANG!

She blocked it with her blade, spinning around and kicking the alien. He flew through the air and crashed into a mountain, leaving a huge crater in it.

And then he sighed.

“You’re powerful, and your blade is terrifying, but just that.”

She appeared before him once again, blade pulled back. She thrust it forward.

Captain Sildeth’s body opened a hole, allowing the blade to pass through harmlessly.

“You are not fighting with any skill. You are not fighting at all. You are just a mindless beast, lashing out at anything in front of you.”

He dropped his mace and slammed his fist into her stomach, sending her crashing back into the floor of the courtyard. He pulled his mace into his hand, charging it to the brim with psionic power before throwing it down at the girl.

The entire compound…and much of the peak underneath it…shattered entirely.

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The girl was flying through the air when Captain Sildeth appeared before her once more, blade pulled back.

“Your only method is brute force. So you can only win if you outclass your opponent in speed and strength by a significant margin.”

She spun herself in the air, swinging the blade at him with another shriek. But he just lightly propelled himself to the side, allowing the blade to pass mere inches from him. He pulled his blade back.

“And so you’ll never defeat me.”

He thrust his sword forward…

The blade pierced the girl’s heart.

She let out an unearthly shriek.

And then her right arm shriveled up…and the blade fell from her hand…

Captain Sildeth heaved a sigh.

“What a waste. I feel like you could have been a serious opponent, had you not relied on that wicked blade.”

He signaled for his team to move in.

“At the very least, we’ll be sealing it away. No warrior should suffer such a fate.”

And so the Captain continued on his mission…

***

Captain Sildeth flew over a forest.

A twisted, black forest.

That covered an entire sub-continent.

He grinned.

“Now this will be a fight.”

He moved down to land in the center of the forest.

And the moment he did, the branches and roots began to twist, bark and wood creaking and groaning.

Suddenly the branches thrust out towards his arms while the roots wrapped around his legs.

Sickly green light illuminated the branches.

“Huh radiation? No, this is something else…”

He felt his cells grow sick and start to die. The alien began to glow with purple light as he drew up his psionic power.

A wave of purple fire blasted out from him, setting the black trees ablaze. He heard screams as they crumbled away to ash, opening a large clearing around him.

And then he heard it.

A piercing screech, ringing through the entire forest.

Massive branches began to twist and curl in the distance, like black tendrils grasping at the air.

The trees in front of him began to rustle and shake.

And then he saw it.

A thin, haggard woman stepped forward. Her hair had blackened, her skin was cracked with sickly green light spilling from the abrasions, and her pure black eyes sunk into her face.

“Murderers…Defilers…WE HATE YOU! WE HATE YOU ALL!!!”

She thrust her hands back and leaned forward, letting out a piercing wail that sent gusts of wind at the alien.

Captain Sildeth grinned and then rushed forward, soaring through the air towards the woman.

The branches of the trees began to shake. Sharp branches launched from the entire forest. A shield of purple light formed around Captain Sildeth, deflecting the branches.

But sickly green light spread on the shield wherever the branches struck. Captain Sildeth raised an eyebrow and shot directly upwards, out of the way of the barrage.

And just in the knick of the time, as giant black roots broke through the ground, curling around his former position.

The barrage of spikes shifted upward, approaching him once more. He flew through the sky, twisting and spinning around the barrage even as giant branches and roots reached up to grasp him, forcing him to continue running.

He grunted as a spike caught his shoulder, leaving a sickly green trail as the cells it touched died.

He thrust out a blast of psionic fire, creating a wall of purple flames ahead of him.

The spikes burned to ash before they could reach him, but the sickly green light spread across the flames, opening up holes in the wall.

He blinked away, leaving a packet of psionic power to act as a decoy. He rushed down, flying down towards the woman from the side.

And then he gasped.

Branches from the trees above shot down, spearing straight through him. He grunted and pulled out his blade, grasping it with a trembling hand. He spun his hand around, a full three hundred and sixty degrees, cutting through the branches and taking distance from the forest as the branches continued to grow and follow after him.

“Yeah, I guess it’s not possible to surprise you if this whole forest belongs to you.”

He heaved a sigh and then he grinned.

“Ah well. Looks like this is going to hurt.”

Captain Sildeth put away his blade.

And then his body melted, turning into a purple stream that shot through the forest.

Some call the Vophae shapeshifters, as they have no particular form, no particular organs or structures, being a colony of fungal cells. However, it is more accurate to call them formless, for this attribute is not a boon, but an inconvenience. As they have no set form, their genetic code contains no information on how to arrange its cells into useful structures for physical movement, or any task really. Why would they? The Vophae were originally stationary beings, moving and acting through telekinesis whenever such things were required.

To move a part of their body physically as other races did required a Vophae to manually arrange the entire structure, and then command every individual cell involved in the movement.

For a Vophae, learning to walk is a miracle.

Which is why once the Vophae had reached sufficient age, mass, power, and consciousness, they would choose a favored form. They would spend years forming each part of their chosen form and learning how to move it, building those memories into their subconscious until they could do it automatically.

For the Vophae, a body that appeared and moved like the other races represented decades of study and practice.

So to change that form required a great deal of effort for every new form they desired. And since the subconscious motions were built solely into their memories, rather than their bodies, utilizing multiple or changing forms risked tangling the memories, disrupting their ability to use any of the forms at all. It was something only the oldest and most determined among them could pull off. The Vophae could forget how to walk if they weren’t careful.

Even those that did use multiple forms very rarely if ever made the change mid-battle. It was generally a slow process that required a lot of focus, and so impractical for fast-paced combat.

Captain Sildeth could do it though!

He fell into the category of oldest and most determined Vophae. And he had a near singular focus, a singular purpose to his existence. Not to mention as a highly experienced warrior, he knew how to restrict his attention to achieving a specific, limited motion, and so could command his cells in new movements on the fly.

So he abandoned his form, stretching himself out into a stream of purple flesh that shot towards his foe.

He twisted and turned as sharp branches thrust down towards him and grasping roots reached up to curl around him. The thin stream could avoid most of the assault, but not all of it. And as his cells were arranged so thinly, every blow would cut off all the cells behind it. So every blow was like losing an entire limb, or even half his body.

But he wouldn’t have become a battle maniac if he was afraid of a little pain! Or an extreme amount of pain, as the case may be.

And so the thin stream shot forward. The branches curled together, attempting to form a solid wall but their twisting motion turned against them, leaving small openings he could still fit through. Even coming close to the branches like that made him feel nauseous, but he ignored the feeling. He was committed now. There was no room for second guessing. Either he would reach his target, or he would fail.

He arrived before the woman, reforming his humanoid body. Dozens of branches pierced through him as he reached his hand forward, grabbing the woman’s arm.

He smiled even as purple fluid dripped from his mouth from his wounds.

“Got you.”

He vanished in a flash of light.

And the woman with him.

They both reappeared in the sky, high above the forest. She screeched at him and the branches immediately responded, reaching up to the sky as fast they could. Captain Sildeth shot upwards, racing against the branches...

The branches gained on them, just about to grasp at his feet…

And then he blinked again.

And the pair arrived in space, protected from the void by a psionic barrier.

“Your thing is being connected to the planet, so that the whole world can channel its power through you. So if you’re removed from the planet, what happens then?”

The woman began to cough, blood dripping from her mouth. The light in her eyes began to fade. Without the power flowing through her, her sickly body began to feel all the strain it had endured.

And then his auxiliaries brought up the dimensional projector…

All the Earth heard a piercing wail. The ground rumbled. Massive branches and roots tore through the ground, ripping apart dirt and stone.

The entire Indian subcontinent shattered and fell into the ocean.

And the voice of the Earth went silent, refusing to speak any longer.