Her opinion towards humans were low. Anastasia will not work with these humans if she had the chance to do so. Blackwells changed her opinions of them. This time she had to admit. Humans were not as inferior as she thought. Their technology were keeping them alive. Even their medicine and drugs have started evolving. The suit this Outrider was wearing and the ability to lift her Blackwell's sword was enough to indicate.
Still, it was odd in a sense that she did not see the usual side effects. He did not even take the usual syringes that one would take. Her and her Blackwells have been part of the many meetings and experiments. They share the burden of turning their fellow etherians into good soldiers.
Therefore, she did not recognize any signs of modification other than the well-made exosuit. Deep in the swamp, hit by the rain, and surrounded. Anastasia kept her calm while pulling her Blackwells away. Blackwells conserved his energy. His eyes lacked light. There is an aura of dread, which she choose to ignore.
"Drop me," Blackwells said. "You two get out."
"Nope," Anastasia rejected. "I said this to you twenty times already. If Blackwells dies, Anastasia follows. Do not ever forget this understood?"
"Too many beluas are coming after us."
"Look," she said lowly. "You always blabbered to me that human this and human that and then go on about how we should trust our fellow 'humans'. I think it is a lie. Humans, they see us as weapons, I know that. You know that. They are outdated, and obviously, they do put all of their work on us. We are stronger, faster, and much more deadly that every etherian has to become a soldier. What gives?"
Anastasia blasted a straight path out of the belua. The Outrider covered their back, recklessly swinging that greatsword without missing a beat.
"Some of us don't want to fight. Hell, look at Dion Bismark who was one of the few who made it out of the service. He made something for him. No one threated his positioned and he admitted that he wanted to pull people out. We hated those who took Dion away, but it only proved that the humans are not appreciative enough of us. I thought about it, but it was narrow-minded. Humans are not the same. We meet good ones. Killed some, and even befriended some. I had it with the humans who sent us here, but then you keep saying that we need to believe in the humanity that we have. We share races, and you always go on about how we are just humans in different skins. I do not believe a single shit you are saying. I follow you, because you are Blackwells. MY Blackwells and MY Blackwells is being self-sacrificing bitch that I cannot help but say what the fuck is happening to you?"
"What are you on about?" Blackwells was visibly confuse.
"Look, a fucking human is doing the heavy lifting after you got your ass kicked by a beluaman. You glorify humanity so much and yet when we have some human help us for once you become a bitch about it! Where is the trust that you preach so much?"
Blackwells gawked.
"What?"
"No, I just, no," he look at the human fighting for them. His suit was being damage by the beluas. The beluas did not hesitate to use their ether on this human. The human blocks the attacks. He would the beluas as shields. He uses the greatsword like a blunt object to scatter them. A crude fighting style relied on the numbers of enemies. He relied on his battlesuit heavily, relying on the plate and nanoweaved material to take the blunt of their impact.
He was a veteran in fighting the back. He knew how to scatter, when to dodge the belua fangs, and when to cut them down. He was also fighting in a field where it was hard to move. The swamp they were in was difficult to move. If it were not for the area that Anastasia made, the swamp would swallow them. The belua did not stop pursuing. The human did not stop fighting.
"You're right, I should trust them."
"See? It is not hard to do what you always preach. So no more talking about that leaving behind garbage you spouted."
"This is a weird time to talk about this."
"You're fucked up," Anastasia said. She did not need to worry about looking refine right now. "But, I just, no, forget it."
Blackwells smiled, blood running on his left eye. They had not met any enemy like this for a while. Anastasia was running out of a gas trying to push away the beluas and the beluaman who was struggling to get out of the arrangements she had made.
They had fought far from the crawler transporter. Anastasia continued to trudge through the waist-high swamp when she saw a flyer coming at them. It was then that she realized that the flyer was doing a flyby. Not missing this chance, she channeled her ether to support her limbs, jumping up to reach the harness thrown at them. Anastasia look at the human, thinking, that the human should follow.
"What the hell are you doing?" Blackwells roared.
The human slammed the greatsword down.
"The flyer should take you safety. Just leave this to me, over."
The human nodded at them and then his attention to the wave of belua. The beluaman trapped in the swamp started rushing at the aircraft only for it to be smack in the head by the greatsword that the human borrowed from Blackwells.
That did not kill the beluaman, but it focused every belua on him. Sparks of electricity appeared on the surface of the human's suit, and he held the greatsword over his shoulder, changing to a two-handed stance. Anastasia felt relief that they were away from the battlefield, but seeing that human standing against that whole pack. She understood why Blackwells did not give up on them.