Part 1

How a person masters his fate is more important than what his fate is. ~ Wilhelm von Humboldt

Albass sat her diary down on the table in front of her and sighed. ‘Too much’, she thought, ‘Too much has been lost.’

Her hands reached down and plucked a brush from the table and began to stroke her hair gently. A beautiful woman she was always called. An extravagant specimen. She had been called many things in many days. Leader, ruler, general, sister, lover. She knew the End of Days was coming.

Her friends were nearly spent out. Many things were coming to close. How would she be remembered? Would she be remembered at all? And if so, would it be the one who force marched her people into death itself? She set her brush down after finishing and picked up her diary again.

Albass sat the diary down again and looked in the mirror. “So what now.”

To her side, the red light on the message screen blinked. She stood up and began walking over to it and pressed the palm of her hand against it. On the screen, the face of Koll flashed. “Albass, the…hierarchy is convening in one earth hour via holo-phone. Your attendance is requested.” The Screen goes blank.

Albass sighs and turns to her closet. Inside she grabs her cloak and battle garment and began to dress. This outfit gave her much grief in her life, but it also has given her a lot of pride.

Albass pushes the button and the door slides open, her cape grasping the wall as she turns sharply outside. There six Guyver’s stand and salute in her presence, her personal guard. They walk with her down the corridors of the Accolade, the only remaining human ship with nearly One hundred and Fifty remaining soldiers.

She passes by a room with three children in it, the only three human children born in the past years to have survived both the order and the creators. Cloning has been accelerated, but that is starting to dwindle. You can only copy beings so much before the process breaks down. Even with the genetic randomizers, problems will ensue. All were encouraged to breed, possibly one mistake. The order came one day and attacked the Syrian base. It was a family base, well guarded but completely out of the way so as not to attract attention. We thought they were safe. The order killed the families, Ereshkigal and Yaksha, the Succubi of Anubis as they are called, sent us a message.

There were six thousand children there. Four thousand were over the age of three, so they could be taken and processed to become Lycanlords. The other two thousand…well. The Lycanlords were hungry after the battle. Ereshkigal and Yaksha sent us video footage…of the Lycanlords orgy of feeding on the children. The crying, the blood, it was terrible. The sounds of their screams, the blood spray on the video screen. I forced myself to watch as two of the Lycanlords played with a child. They allowed it to crawl away only to bat them after breaking their legs, twisted smiles and laughter echoing into my ears. Then the worst of it, Ereshkigal and Yaksha sat down before the video screen taunting us, sharing quips as they dined on Timothy Verges, Age 2. They kept him distracted as they numbed his arms and legs forcing him to look at the screen while they fed on his numbed limbs. He couldn’t see what was going on, and they toyed with us by making Timothy believe it was a game. Unfortunately, for Timothy the numbing agents effects did not outlast their feast, and before the screen went black, Timothy chimed into their laughter with a scream.

These three were found as we came across the base, they had somehow remained hidden under the piles of chewed bones and organs. Or had Ereshkigal and Yaksha let them live so that they could tell us? I do not know, but this is the closest to hell I ever want to get.

“Please, Lady Albass, we must continue,” says one of the guards.

Albass turns away from the three children and nods. It was hard for her to take her next step, but she did.

The walls were pitch black and the rooms filled with an almost ominous grey fog. Biological it was this ship. Shendal had taken her time with it over the years. She had collected the technologies necessary, the time necessary, and the planet necessary. The last planet was collectively a battleground between the AAR and the Creators, not a wonderful thing. If Shendal had not prepared for it certainly the work she did would have been destroyed.

She sat in a chair going over multiple display screens at once. In the center of the room stood a massive fifteen foot tall structure that hummed and pulsed like a heart and had a series of large cables pouring in and out of it. The main components had been grown as necessary, but many of the interface function were still malfunctioning. Shendal sat up and stretched her back and yawned. ‘One more thing, and then I’ll get some sleep,’ she thought.

Shendal walked through the doorway separating the engine and main computer room with the back hallway. The hall appears like before, a form of metallic flesh not dissimilar to a relic craft, but onyx colored and far smoother. She climbs a set of circular stairs up into another hallway with multiple doors, through one she walks to see a large computer databank interfaced with multiple bio-tubes. Each semi-molded in with various portions of the ship.

Shendal walks up to one and palms a few buttons on the control pad and the tube’s protective coating begins to crawl away. Inside, the body of Jessica Pike is seen floating in the gel mass. An expression of calm grips her face, unlike normally seen. Warrior Ninja she was called, before the unit shorted out. It was an odd moment, and though the AAR believes collectively that Baphomets attack actually killed her, Shendal knows Warrior Ninja survived, but her unit was damaged beyond repair.

“I’m sorry Jessica, but I don’t regret it,” Shendal says as she inserts a vial of liquid into a receptacle on the control panel. She presses a button and the liquid is drained away and inside the tank a small wire like object is extended and moves over, stabbing itself into the top of Jessica’s skull, the liquid begins pouring into her and it coils itself out and back.

“Soon, my friend. Soon.”

The smell of death and blood permeated the air. The Lycanlords crept up the cliff in this war, silently stalking their next prey. A small cache of AAR soldiers were here fighting to prevent the last cloning facility from being destroyed. One of them growled a bit, spraying his blooded breath over the cliff edge, staining it in crimson. The claws kept creeping up as the three of them peered over to the two guyvers on the top of the cliff; the two of them were huddled off to the side attempting to contact the facility, or anyone for that matter. It would not work, all communication was jammed they said.

The female turned to the male, a Yovkisher. “So, what do we do Hani?”

Hani shakes his head. “I…don’t know. This place is crawling with Lycanlords. I do not know what to do.”

She sighs. Her head drops a bit with her blue armor soaked in enough blood that it may even be getting onto her skin through the organism. “Still, it’s good to die with a friend.”

Hani’s head turns to her. “Yes, it is isn’t it?”

At that moment their hypersenses flare as the four Lycanlords leap over the cliff edge.

“No stopping it now,” Hani says as the two roll to their sides and extend their vibrational swords.

The beast lunged forward and tackled Hani, the two tumbled across the ground. The Lycanlord bit deep into his throat and tore out as two tongues reached from his mouth and pulled it deep in.

The female guyver swung her vibrational blade just in time to evade to the side as she lopped the lunging Lycanlords forearm off. She smiles under the armor but is slow to react to her senses as one of the other Lycanlords swing their claws and tear a large hunk of her ribs off, causing blood to gush off of her and her pieces to crash into a rock, her body spins violently and falls down just as she fires a couple of shots at the Lycanlord from her head laser which harmlessly singe it’s flesh.

Hani who is being noticeably mauled by the far stronger Lycanlord mentally opens both his chest plates. The blood fury of the Lycanlord distracts him long enough to blast the creature into the sky, hurling far away broken and bloody over the cliff.

The other Lycanlord immediately leaps in after the blast has receded and slams his hand into Hani’s hip. The strike is followed by a horrible ripping sound as the Lycanlord tears the guyvers leg off and throws it behind him and off the cliff.

“Sarah, run!” Hani screams before the same Lycanlord slams his face down and bites the control medal out of his head, and then growling at the sky in victory. Brain and biomatter seep out of his mouth as he turns to Sarah.

Sarah has hardly any time to react as she dives over the side of the cliffedge and kicks off just as a Lycanlord nearly slams on top of her from a pounce. She activates her gravity orb and soars high into the air like an onrushing bullet before being pounced on by another Lycanlord with enough force to crash her down at the ground, implanting a crater where smooth rock once was.

Sarah jerked from side to side, attempting to wrestle free of the Lycanlord when she felt a stomp on her chest, and suddenly she felt darkness set it.

Sarah finally gained consciousness.

‘Where am I’, she thought to herself. ‘Come on eyes…open.’

And her eyes responded, much to Sarah’s dismay. In front of her she saw the twisted face of a man, his expression torn into some horror. She flinched in fear, and nearly screamed until she heard something to her side. She looked.

Bodies were piled everywhere in heaps. The face of a dead human man was facing her, his skin seemed to small as it had tears across it like an outstretched piece of rubber. His lips had been pulled back so far it appeared as a kind of morbid smile complete with lipstick made of blood. His eyes shown a kind of horror mankind had yet to witness. Sarah felt her heart miss a beat.

A hole amongst the bodies piled on top of her allowed Sarah to look out into the world around her. Heat poured through it enough that her eyelid was flinching to keep it out. She saw a great fire ahead which lit up the obsidian sky of this desolate world. She gasped, but brought a hand to her mouth quickly as she heard the familiar growl of a Lycanlord off a ways.

Sarah moved slightly, shifting her weight to the side and letting the body that was on her fall off. She slid herself past two corpses, emerging from the pile to the putrid essence of freedom where her hand slid down and into a pool of blood. Sarah’s eyes went wide in fear as she slid down with a splash into the deep pool.

Sarah came back up for air, struggling to breathe as blood invaded her nostrils. Her head came up and she gasped for air. But she heard a bestial huff she knew came from a Lycanlord somewhere close.

Sarah summoned her will and tried to activate the guyver unit, but nothing happened. Desperately, she reached towards the back of her neck and felt the familiar imprints gone! They had removed her unit!

The sound of an encroaching stomp told Sarah that a Lycanlord was nearing her. Her heart beat quickened, and she swung her head, looking for escape. The beats of the feet of a Lycanlord banging against her head like a steel hammer, over and over, she did the only thing she felt she could at that moment, Sarah ducked into the pool of blood.

The horrid form of the Lycanlord peered it’s head over the pile of corpses in front of Sarah, who had only her eyes and nose above the water. She knew that the Lycanlords were said to have more superior smell than eyesight, and lacked any advanced sensory systems like Guyvers or advanced zoaforms, she silently prayed to herself that was true.

The head of the beast growled with it’s razor sharp jaws dripping saliva and blood. As it crawled like some form of vicious reptile over the bodies, taking a passing glance at a young mans chest before burying his teeth in him and pulling away his ribcage to get to the organs within, a finer meal. Sarah felt sick.

It sniffed the air with a snort. Blood and a bit of bone had been lodged in it’s nostril. Slowly it began scanning the area with its nose, catching whiffs of the massacre, looking for anything that resembled life so that it may feast upon it. Corpses did little to satisfy the true hunger of a Lycanlord.

Sarah again prayed to whatever god she felt could hear her call. She begged to be spared the fate of being eaten, or worse, turned into a Lycanlord and serving the monster named Anubis. She had seen the monster before once. She barely survived along with 100 others, all nearly wiped out by some pulse of energy no one could identify in nature. She was pretty certain, as many were, Anubis spared them for some reason.

But now, it seems that would not matter too much.

A horn is heard blaring off in the distance. It’s sound is not pleasant for human ears, not in any normal way. The sound is alien even to Sarah, who has to will herself not to cover her ears. The Lycanlords head jerks up and he sticks out his pincered tongue to grab the rest of a hanging portion of large intestine, lapping it up and bounding off towards the sound.

Sarah swam over to the edge of the blood pool and slowly crept out. She picked herself up with what seemed like too much strength and crept over the bodies of her comrades to look where the Lycanlord had bounded off to.

Across the sea of bodies and blood she saw the form of Zagam and Ereshkigal standing amongst several of the Lycanlords in their human forms. Ereshkigal, dwarfed by the size of the Lycanlords still commanded fear from them as they crawled towards her and never brought their heads above her own. Her skin was pallor looking, with a twisted black mark upon her face. Her hair was blacker than the very night sky and her blue eyes and makeup simply gave her a graven image. She had her hand on a Lycanlords head, petting him like some small puppy and smiling as he chewed on a severed arm. Almost cooing, she turned her head to Zagam.

Zagam stood looking off into the distance at the rows and piles of the dead. His broad shoulders accentuated by the mock suit he wore, which resembled an old human business suit crossed with a bit of ancient embroidery. It was black, with red stanched symbology. His hair was a black and seemed to bleed a faint red color as it fell to it’s ends. His eyes were completely black on a face that had a very angular form. Zagams mouth was smirking, showing two rows of razor sharp teeth.

“It is a success, then?” Ereshkigal said out loud to Zagam, while looking at and petting the Lycanlord. Her voice, as usual, belied a certain sweet quality, that ever present in the voice of one’s mother. A caring tone. Obviously, it was a fabrication, Sarah thought to herself looking in on the witch.

Zagam turned to her, with the sound of a grunt stemming from his gut. “Yes, they are finished. All we must do is mop up the survivors for processing.”

Ereshkigal turned her face to him and smiled. “Very well. A shame, to think this all will soon come to an end here. Isn’t that right, pookie,” she says kissing the head of the lycanlord. Sarah bent down a bit more, as Ereshkigal had peered in her direction slightly. She hoped silently that the black witch had not seen her.

Zagam peers at her with a cocked head. “What do you mean, end?” A Lycanlord comes near him and Zagams own glare strikes the Lycanlord with a tinge of fear, and it steps away. “Know who your master is,” he says to it as Sarah watched the Lycanlord sit back and grab a limb to chew on. It was snarling against the bone, covering it in saliva and gnaw marks, snorting pieces of flayed flesh into it’s nose and blaring them out with little more than a quick snort.

Ereshkigal laughs at the sight and looks over to him, walking towards his side. “The war with the Anti-Advent republic. It is a shame my lusts must be quenched so quickly. I would rather them had put up a better fight, at least then I would have had some entertainment over the decades.”

Zagam chuckles, a bit gutturally. “I see. Well what of it, my lady? Let them die, let them squirm, it is all the better. We will move on to other feeding grounds. If not this dimension then the next, and the next after.” Sarah watched as the two of them shared a long stare at each other, before Ereshkigal broke the mood.

“Feeding, I swear that is all you Lycanlords think about,” she says laughing. She smiles and points out to the horizon. “That is what I love. An ocean of pain washing over you, that feeling you get when you cut flesh, that rush that goes as far as to overlap orgasm. The adrenaline of sadism. It is difficult to pull from those Jy-taki, but the republic, mmmm. They feel like a first kiss.” She grins to Zagam who smiles back to her, showing his nearly vampiric fangs.

“No, you are not wrong. It is quite tantalizing,” he admitted. “However, we will move on to the next batch after we are done finishing this one. Lord Anubis already has a team ready to begin moving into the next dimension. There we will encounter light resistance there. My scouting has already proven that.”

Sarah’s eyes went wide!

She touches her chin with a smirk. “Hmm, useful you are. Tell me, can you cook as well?”

“Actually, yes,” he says. The two of them laugh, Zagams guttural tone nearly shaking the rock around him. A few of the swarming Lycanlords growl and cringe like pack dogs, moving away to resume their feast.“Though I prefer mine raw.”

Ereshkigal giggles. “As do we all, Dark Knight. So, what is the plan with the dead? For the flesh tanks or for food? Please, tell me for the tanks,” she says putting her hand on his chest.

Zagam considers for a moment. “Very well, but leave enough for the Lycanlords to feed off of from this battle. I will not have a weak army, even if I am to have a larger one later.”

“Fair enough, fair enough,” she says as her claws begin to ream down his chest, cutting slight slits into his skin. “I will do so.”

The sight of this horror sent chills down Sarah’s spine. They were discussing whether to feed the corpses of her compatriots to the Lycanlords, or begin processing them into more.

Zagam nodded. “Then you should give the order and depart, Ereshkigal. Lieutenant Geryon can handle the rest of the operation, I must also go and deal with the Tidus Quadrant.” Sarah again was shocked. She remembered that the Tidus Quadrant was where the Accolade was currently roaming. She knew then, she had to escape, or at least get a message sent to Lady Albass.

One of the Lycanlords sniffed the air heavily towards Sarah, then another. She ducked quickly, hoping the beasts did not catch a whiff of her. This planet was covered in the monsters, but hopefully somehow she could get to a communicator, maybe an escape pod or something.

“Well, then I shall be off,” Sarah heard Ereshkigal say from behind her. “Please, do leave some alive this time?”

“I shall try, that is all I can promise.”

Sarah listened as she heard the familiar sound of a blast field explosion, above her pieces of corpses were blasted above her head, splashing onto her face from the force wave it sent out. She cringed in disgust as she peeled a slice of what was once a cheekbone off of her face. As her heart pounded, she regained her courage and peered up, the two generals were gone, but the Lycanlords remained. Somehow, she had to get across this landscape without being noticed by those Lycanlords. Somehow, Sarah O’Conner had to survive.

Alexandria wiped the blood from her finger tips and washed them. She had one of her fits again, she thought. Her fingers could not take much more of this she knew. She just started gnawing on them, over and over again without even the realization that she had. Down to her second knuckles she had chewed all of the flesh off. When Yaksha tried to stop her, she just hit her. Alexandria sighed, she knew the price of such actions and soon she will pay it. Soon she would be flayed for parts, and left to regenerate as she seemed to be able to do. It was her fathers way of telling her that though she may be of royal blood, his generals must have the respect they have earned.

Her surroundings were lush, a private room for her as part of the royal family. Her bed was nearly a room in size by itself with an overhang that flowed overhead made from the most exquisite red silk man had ever laid eyes upon. Embroidered with jewels and gems from many different worlds. She walked over to it and sat upon that bed, watching as her fingers slowly began to stitch themselves together. The carpet was a lush custom embroidery that her father had forced six Lilisian slaves to piece together for her over a period of seven years. They were the last of their race before they died. This carpet is their greatest racial legacy.

Alexandria laid back on her silken sheets and curled her head on her pillow. She stared at the corner of the room where a piece of glass sat upward, separating a small closet where hung a human male by two rings in his back. His feet dangled only an inch from the ground, giving him the leverage necessary to get up, but not the comfort of footing. It was to keep him aware, so that he may react as quickly as Alexandria needed him. His tongue had been removed long ago. He was her body slave, a slave meant merely for keeping her personal appearance on par, as well as any personal needs she might have. Long ago he had been broken mentally. Goofy, as she had been calling him for awhile now, could hardly even understand what was going on around him most of the time. When she felt angry she beat him, when she felt lustful she laid with him, and when she felt mad he comforted her. A perfect relationship as far as she could tell. The glass kept him from wandering too far away, and she always knew where he was when she needed him.

She rolled to her back and smiled to herself. He was always there for her, no matter what.

Alexandria woke some hours later to the sound of knocking upon her door. She wiped the weariness from her eyes and waved her hand towards Goofy. The glass enclosing him swung to the side and he opened his eyes, and upon hearing the noise began to walk towards the corner and around to the door. Alexandria listened as she heard the familiar clicking walk of Ereshkigal, and certainly enough she did indeed walk through the hall and into her bedroom.

“Oh, your finally awake Alexandria, so good,” she muttered and sat upon her bed. “Lord Anubis is a tad upset at you for missing your dinner with him. He had the flambéd heart specially prepared for you.” Ereshkigal crossed her legs and grinned towards Alexandria.

She reached out her hand and stroked the side of her cerulean skin. “Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes,” Alexandria stated. “I am fine, I am more concerned over the recent problem in the eastern quadrant, the one with the Temple of Pain. I had heard that there was a fight there between one of the Lieutenants and an escaped Orobouras?”

Ereshkigal runs her fingers through Alexandria’s red hair. “Yes, there was. But it was taken care of swiftly by Baphomet.” Alexandria noticed the amount of feeling coming from Ereshkigal. She was always so cold to touch, but so warm in feeling. Alexandria always liked her and the bond they shared. She didn’t know if it was genuine, but to her it didn’t matter.

“Ah,” Alexandria says turning onto her back, facing her upside-down head towards Ereshkigal. “Then I am fine.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”

“I doubt that.”

“Why?”

“You wouldn’t be so defensive otherwise. You forget, I pay attention, that is my place you know,” Ereshkigal chuckles slightly. Her hand touched her chest to hold in it in.

Alexandria nodded. “Yes, and no I didn’t forget. Tell Yaksha that I apoligize, I did not mean to get so cross with her.”

Ereshkigal laughs again. “Please, your highness. If you do not prove your own strength who will respect you. Your fingers are your to do with as you please, so as long as you have the gull to back your claims.” Ereshkigal looked to her and cocked her head. “So lovely, how I would love to have your lips. So full they are, so colorful.”

“And on that note, did you get them?”

“What…oh! Yes, of course,” Ereshkigal exclaimed, obviously distracted. She reaches into a pocket and takes out a small purple embroidered purse and hands it to Alexandria.

Alexandria immediately smiles and gets up to go to her vanity. Ereshkigal stood up and smiled to her. “I will leave you to it then, Goodnight Alexandria.”

“Oh, goodnight Ereshkigal.”

As Ereshkigal left Alexandria set the small purse down on the table and unbuttoned it. She pulled out two fresh human eyes. She looked longingly at them, a beautiful blue color to them. Smiling, she reached down and pulled a syringe and a bottle out of her table drawer. Alexandria then drew the liquid out of the bottle and injected both eyes, and the optic nerve with the thin needle and let them sit.

She stared lovingly into them, thoughts of their owner began circulating in her head. A man, strong and gentle with his feelings. A warrior. A lover. A father, yes. She knew him as she looked into his eyes, this Stephen. Stephen Macionis was his name.

As the injection of saline began to settle she dipped the eyes into a bit of another chemical jar. She looked at her blue skin and red eyes in the mirror and again, smiled.

Alexandria took both eyes and placed them in front of her own two orbs to look into the mirror, the reflection grinning back at her.

“Hello,” she said in a masculine tone. “I am Stephen Macionis, and you?”

Alexandria took the eyes down and giggled as herself. “Oh, I am Alexandria, Princess of the Order. A pleasure to meet you Mr. Macionis.”

She placed the eyes back to her own. “A pleasure Ms. Alexandria, to be sure. Perhaps we can speak later this evening, I would hate for you to be late to meeting with your father, Lord Anubis?”

“Oh,” she says as she took them down. “Of course, of course. He does get rather cranky when I’m late. We will speak later good sir. Until then.”

With that, Alexandria kissed her own hand and began floating up to the ceiling, where hanging were thousands of different pairs of eyes of all shapes, colors, and races. She hung them by a small plastic cord to let them dangle from the roof, the eyes looking upon her every move as she slipped into a new dress and headed off to see her father.

It felt like days before the sun of this planet rose above it’s horizon. Sarah had managed to slip by unnoticed by many of the Lycanlords and hid underneath a destroyed section of hull from a AAR transport vessel while the lycanlords began to depart, being teleported one by one. Enough stayed behind to perform the manual labor of lifting the corpses and moving them into storage containers that were then teleported away, they are continuing their work even now, but Sarah through her own guile, managed to slip past them unnoticed.

She found a river that had been the scene of a major encounter. The dead floated together in some kind of macabre dance, their blood turning the water a deep crimson color. She stripped a fallen comrade, a friend she knew named Kathy who was nearly her size. The two of them joked at one point that they were nearly twins. It was a moment of great loss for Sarah, who came to tears being forced to strip Kathy naked and taking her clothing and boots for her own, just before diving off into the red river to avoid a Lycanlord, who carted off her body shortly after to the container.

Sarah swam up the red river, sticking close to the shoreline and occasionally drooping disembowelments over herself to better hide her scent, and maybe herself from the Lycanlords sight.

Sarah had just reached a section of the river where a crashed husk of Yovkisher ship had dammed the river. It would explain how it was so easy to swim, she thought to herself.

Sarah pulled herself up over the bank and saw something that frightened her beyond all measure, a dead Guyver!

She had heard of this before, the finding of a guyver corpse, but did not completely believe such tales. The Guyver eats a host alive only after the Control Medal was destroyed or removed, right? It didn’t just die on the ground.

But there it was, undeniable proof that it was true. It was said the powers of the Black Witch, Ereshkigal, could do such a thing. It was true, to die still merged with the guyver unit. Ereshkigals own touch could kill the organism and other organic components of the guyver unit. What worried her the most, if that was true, speculation stated that the person inside the unit was still alive. Kept alive by the inorganics of the unit for possibly days until they themselves died. She could be staring into the eyes of a surviving comrade, unable to help them at all.

She muttered an apology, just in case, and began scoping the horizon. She did not see any Lycanlords here, but she knew their senses were sharper than hers, and despite their size in this landscape they are quite stealthy. Any encounter with one of them surely spells her death, and Sarah was being all the cautious not to be faced with that scenario.

Sarah looked upon the crashed Yovkisher ship. The body of a limp Yovkisher guyver was hanging from the side, blasted through it’s chest with some form of weapon. Again, the poor soul could still be alive. She breathed deep, and carefully walked over to the craft crouched down.

The side of the hull had been blasted off, and spotting an entrance she carefully crawled inside. All the water that was always inside of the Yovkisher craft had emptied, thankfully for her. Inside the broken shatters of their technology hung limp, and ten bodies of Yovkisher guyvers were sprayed about the room, their blood clinging to the walls, their bodies and biomaterial sprayed about. It was a sick sight to know that the Black Witch did this.

Sarah climbed up a walkway, gripping the metal grates and pulling upward towards the tattered remains of the cockpit. Hopefully there was an inactive unit here, hopefully. Or at least have the communication array operational.

As Sarah pulled upward she heard a movement from a side room where the door was slightly propped open. Her heart stopped for a moment as images of her being caught inside of here with a frenzying lycanlord came to mind. She would be mauled by the beast. Her arms and legs ripped off and played with like some demented feline gloating over an injured mouse.

But another possibility popped into her mind, another survivor! If she was alive surely there could be others, right?

Sarah moved up a little and grabbed ahold of a broken piece of the wall and hoisted herself up onto the door frame and looked inside. She saw a wrecked room, with the body of one Yovkisher guyver snapped like a twig over the side of a metallic chair. His body formed a twisted ‘U’ shape, and his arm swung back and forth like a pendulum clock.

But no sign of anything living was there. A busted cabinet was lied twisted just off of the corner of the room at the edge of her vision, turned like a twisted rubber band. Sarah’s shoulders slumped, and just as she was about to descend back down and start climbing up the flooring she heard a voice call out from the room. Had she not seen them!?

“Name, Rank, Unit,” it said, a human males voice.

At first, Sarah felt like screaming for joy. Another survivor! Maybe he had a way out! However, she had to stick to protocol, as she was trained.

“Lance Corporal Sarah O’Conner, 38^th Squad.”

“Private First Class Edward Dunningham, 34^th Squad.”

The form of a man came out from hiding behind the smashed remains of a desk. His left arm was missing from his shirtless body. He had six gashes in his chest that had been stiched and an eye was missing. His hair was a brown tattered mess with a strong wide nose and green eyes. Sarah’s eyes went wide simply at how battered he looked. The two took a long look into each others eyes, trying to surmise if they could trust each other now on this planet of hate and decay. Sarah felt tense enough that her muscles might just tear from anticipation.

“Sorry for the rudeness ma’am, but I can’t be too careful around here,” he said, with a bit of a grin.

She pulled up and got into the room. “Edward, how did you survive?”

“I could be asking you the same thing ma’am,” he said. Then Sarah noticed something in his right hand. It was a Particle Bomb, an orb shaped weapon the AAR had made some years ago to help combat the growing number of Lycanlords. It released a powerful explosion of particle energy that would equate to a Mark II guyvers full mega smasher. A useful weapon used by nearly everyone in the AAR.

Sarah smiled and shook her head. “Edward, can you still move?”

Edward looked at his wounds, and his missing arms. “Only one arm, both my legs still work. I’ve already cauterized it, little much else I can do with it.” He looked to her and smiled. “The communication array of this ship is down, and without the parts I cannot fix it.”

Sarah could scream.

“Damn,” she cursed, nearly spitting on the floor in anger. This was ridiculous.

“Sarah, I have rations I found on the ship,” he said placing the particle bomb down on the floor. He pulled a single vacuum sealed kind of fish cream. “I never liked the Yovkisher diet, but it’ll keep us alive.”

Sarah nodded and walked over. She let her breath out as Edward handed her the paste. It was disgusting tasting, like a rotten sock being stuffed into ones mouth. But she knew the Yovkisher taste felt it was divine. So odd, those water people. What she wouldn’t give to see one alive right now, like Hani.

“Thanks, I haven’t ate all day.”

“Sure, but how do we get off this rock?”

Sarah shook her head. She honestly had no clue. “We need to find a ship, and fast. Most of the Lycanlords have already left, only the sweep group was left here. But one is as dangerous to us as twenty without our guyver units. How did they get removed?”

Edwards gaze drops. “I don’t know. My squad and I had just reached over the mountain range to the east of here, we were getting the particle bombs ready in a drop ship where we were going to spray them down on a line when this ship here crashed. I and two others were ordered to come here and get the survivors and begin bringing them back to our squad.

“Well, we found them like this. I hadn’t believed the stories of Ereshkigal, but I damn sure do now. We were jumped by five Lycanlords who came out of the river. They broke through the ship and began attacking us. Our group managed to dust two with a couple particle bombs and a Mega Smash, but I was nailed hard against the rock, and I’m pretty sure my skull was crushed. When I woke up about four hours ago I didn’t have my unit and came here looking for weapons and cover. I managed to hide pretty well.”

Sarah listened intently, the familiarity of his story ringing truths in her ears.

“Yes, similar to mine. My friend and I managed to survive an attack on the front when I blacked out from getting my skull bashed in. My unit healed me but I awoke near the completion of the battle. A fellow Yov named Hani and I tried to hide out and get back to base when we were jumped by some of those green bastards. Hani died, but I blacked out, woke up in a pile of bodies.”

Edward’s eyes go wide. “I’m sorry.”

“Neither of us should dwell. Listen, would your ship still be active?”

Edward stopped to think. “We had expended much of our energy for shielding, but our crew cabin was the only thing damaged up to that point by laser fire. If it wasn’t damaged further in the battle, we may be able to activate the communication array or even the engines.”

“Good, we need to get a signal out to the Accolade. The Order has discovered where it is located and that bastard Zagam is readying an attack as we speak,” she says.

Edwards eye goes wide. He clinches his lips and nods. “Alright, yeah. I can lead us to it but it’s a good eight hours away without our units, across the fields too. No cover stands that way,” he says.

“Weapons, is there anything left aside from that Particle Bomb?”

Edward nods. The cabinet at the bottom, there should be a rack.”

The two of them nod in unison. “Alright, can you climb?”

Edward looks down at his missing arm, seething in constant pain. “I’ll manage. I’ll go first, if I fall it’s better if it’s not on you.”

They nod to each other and begin to descend. Edward wraps a cord around his waist and ties it off to give himself extra leverage against the climb, and begins to set his feet down, one after another with only his arm for strength and balance. Sarah could not help but be impressed by his ingenuity and resourcefulness. A credit to her race if anything.

Sarah followed, the two of them eventually touching ground and carefully moving the corpses of two felled guyvers, their heavy bodies had to be shoved over and onto each other.

Edward bent down to the cabinet. “The electronic lock is inactive, but the lock is still in place. We’ll have to break it off,” he says, inspecting it closely.

Sarah nodded and looked around. She picked up a metal bar from the floor, a torn piece of railing that once stood as a piece of the craft. Edward moved aside and she began to smash at the lock. Slowly it chipped away some of it until she slid the bar into a crack she made.

Try as she might, Sarah breaking sweat could not get it but a few millimeters open, not enough.

Edward sat up and walked over and grabbed ahold of the bar. “Together, one, two, THREE!”

And on that count they both pulled with all their strength tearing the door hinge off and popping open the cabinet.

Both of them stared at the revelation in front of them. Three particle bombs, two vibrational knives, and one Rail rifle.

The Vibrational knife, Sarah knew, was developed as a basic tool for survival use. It simulated the design of a standard vibrational sword but lacked in several areas as it did require battery usage for the vibrational function, but operated well as a regular knife. The Rail rifle was a standard weapon many different guyvers carried to expand both their arsenal and prevent themselves from having to spend their own energy. It provided enough impact force to blast a Lycanlord to pieces should it not be capable of emitting that sort of shield they are able to. Though the bullet it fires is quite powerful, it is a slow shot as the amount of energy only allows a single rifle to fire five times, as fast as they want, without needing a new battery.

Edward nods, gripping his burnt stump in pain. “That will help a lot. You take the gun, I can’t use it. I’ll carry three of the particle bombs, you one, and we both get a knife.”

Sarah nods. “That’s fine. Alright, grab this stuff and let’s get ready to move, I don’t want to was……,” Sarah stopped as the sound of a smash was heard outside. The two of them looked each other in the eyes, wide browed and quickly distributed the weaponry and hid, ducking behind smashed portions of the ship near the hole to the outside.

The two of them looked at each other, their hearts beating so fast and hard Sarah wondered if the Lycanlord could hear them slam against their ribs as they were. Edward jerked his head, signaling his desire to take a look. Sarah feared for them both as they heard the familiar snort and animalistic chewing of a Lycanlord. She nodded nonetheless.

Edward again nodded, and turned the corner to look where they couldn’t see. He moved back into position. He put up one finger, then signaled that it was injured and eating.

Sarah clenched her lips tightly and checked the cartridge on the gun. It was full, that was good. Quickly scanning the area she saw two battery packs that were broken in the crash. She silently cursed to herself, but heard the sound of it’s footsteps getting closer. The two looked at each other longingly, both knowing an encounter with it would likely spell their death, hiding would do them no good if the damn thing got in, their scent was very different from that of this ship and it would notice. An encounter was inevitable, and Sarah O’Conner wondered if she would survive the next few minutes of her life.