Red glanced at the time displayed on his HUD. One minute and six seconds had clocked by since he'd begun culling the spawn that was gathering around a false queen.
"No survivors," Black reported to him. "The bodies have been decomposing for hours, sir. There's no chance that anyone would have survived the attack."
Red snapped the spinal cord of a spawn that sunk its teeth into his shoulder plate. "Understood. Rendezvous with Yellow and keep looking for the ship."
"Roger," Black replied. the soldier had a bet going on with Yellow and had just won.
When the comm went silent, Red noticed a blip on his radar that was different from the signatures of the spawn. He hadn't expected to find any survivors this far in the wild and so close to such huge numbers of spawn but there it was, a human. The side camera on his helmet zoomed into the direction where the human was sitting. A small window on his HUD fed him the clear video of a dirty looking teenage boy who couldn't be older than sixteen. Red suspected that the boy's state of mind was compromised. Nobody so young could remain that calm and unbothered in such a situation unless he had lost his mind.
Two more minutes on his HUD. It wasn't long before Red had exterminated every single spawn in the vicinity. He stood on a mountain of alien corpses and faced the direction in which the teenage boy was sitting. His camera offered him a crystal clear image of the look on the teenager's face. It was apathy.
______
Anri's heart was steady when the armoured being began walking in his direction. It blew his mind at how powerful the entity truly was. It had taken out such a large number of monsters so efficiently and in under no more than a few minutes. What was that saying about the enemy of an enemy? The sorcerer mused - an enemy until proven otherwise.
Anri had professed his tiredness but his mind was still calculating ways that he might survive the encounter if he was attacked. There was one other spell he could pull off but at the sacrifice of his life essence. Magic tended to do that when you had no mana left. It was risky but when had that stopped him? As long as he had a chance to survive, Anri would keep fighting.
The closer the knight arrived, the calmer that the younger man felt. He had a good sense for danger, and right now, his guts were telling him that this entity approaching him was a threat higher than that which he had escaped from back home. The sorcerer felt like prey trapped by a dragon and it didn't sit well with him. Regardless, Anri tipped his chin up to regard the knight like he was an equal. He wasn't, but he would be damned if he acted like a coward right now.
The knight stood before Anri. He was big, larger than life both physically and in the sheer presence that he demanded when he towered over the smaller sorcerer.
Anri's brows lifted when the opaque visor was made transparent and he saw the face behind the helmet. The sorcerer hadn't expected a human-looking man to be behind such a force of power. He doubted they were of the same species unless magic was involved in what had just happened.
The man's lips moved but Anri couldn't understand a word that he said. The sorcerer shook his head at the soldier. He was beginning to believe that the man wasn't going to kill him.
The face inside the helmet spoke again in another language but it was futile. The sorcerer had never been in a situation like this before, not since the day he had the rune tattoed behind his ear lobe.
When it was established between them that neither verbal nor written communication was possible, the knight made a gesture to Anri that indicated he wanted the sorcerer to follow him.
_______
Red's comm link beeped and he heard Yellow's voice.
"Sir, we've found the ship."
Yellow and Black had found the Ravage ship floating on the surface of a volcanic lake that wafted off steam and poisonous fumes. The colour of the water was a sulphuric yellow and it was eating into the outer hull of the downed spaceship. Yellow relayed the information to Red and waited for orders.
"Send me the coordinates to the ship," the leader replied. He stopped walking and Anri bumped into him. The young sorcerer was dazed from the heat and exhaustion. He considered it a miracle that his body was even able to continue marching on in such conditions.
Red turned around and re-assessed the condition of the teenager who was following behind him. The boy hadn't spoken a single word since their meeting but there was a quiet tenacity in him that Red had only seen in soldiers.
"Sir, permission to engage," Black's voice came over the link.
"How many?"
Anri, who had been wondering why they'd stopped walking, was suddenly picked up and slung over the armoured man's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Accepting that this was his life now, the sorcerer went limp and made himself as comfortable as he could be in such a situation.
"Twenty to thirty of them still trapped inside the ship. We suspect the ship crash-landed after it was attacked by something."
"Permission to engage granted," Red said. "Blow it up and return when you've confirmed there aren't any more of them alive."
"Affirmative." Red could hear the excitement in Black's voice. She would never get sick of blowing things up. The commander shook his head and wore a smile behind his visor.
____
Anri had kept quiet for the most part during the journey on the shoulder of the metal man. When he was let back down to the ground, the sorcerer turned around and was met with the sight of a sleek metal construct with wing-like protrusions on it. There was no other way to describe what he was seeing.
As he stared at the marvellous construct, its door slid open and a lovely young woman appeared. Her smile changed to a concerned frown when she saw Anri. A rapid flurry of words was exchanged between her and the man before she took one more look at the sorcerer and disappeared back inside.
The sorcerer then felt a gentle tap on his back. The armoured man gestured for him to go inside the armoured house. Anri nodded once and began to walk inside, unaware of the significance of who he was standing beside and how his future would change because of the team that had rescued him.