No help would be coming. This, he was certain of.
Khylon re-doubled their efforts to reach their shuttle.
There was always the option that it had already been located—he hadn't forgotten the presence of that spatial blocking equipment that meant other humans, apart from them, were on the planet. Khylon simply held onto faint the hope that he and his team could beat them to it. The longer they dawdled, the higher the chance their shuttle was to be 'confiscated'.
It was like Shrodinger's cat. Their shuttle was either taken hostage, or not. Both possibilities existed until they didn't.
Now. To those with an untrained eye, it seemed like they were already travelling at a neck-breaking speed. But to Khylon — it just wasn't good enough. He didn't care about the whiplash or gravitational consequence of going so fast. It simply needed to be done.
He seethed at his own incompetence. "Hurry it up!"
The sheer amount of animosity present in his voice must've been a shocking thing to hear as no one voices any misgivings and instead followed his command in silence.
Despite going back through the same path they'd earlier cleared, the journey wasn't any smoother. In fact, they'd left quite a bit of damage in their wake that manoeuvring past all the uncovered caverns and trenches of ice caused by their thoughtless bombing and brawling gave him a headache!
Earlier, by eliminating such a terrifying amount of Zerg, Khylon had hoped to lure out their Queen. They had yet to come across the main nest and looking for it—or, rather, ambushing them in it— had never been part of the plan. But then again, their plan had practically fallen apart at the existence of the abnormal Hioch Zerg.
He wished he'd noticed things sooner.
Anyway, fighting Zergs in their own territory was basically a death sentence. Aliyan and his taking a tumble into one of their 'camps' was a complete accident and had never been repeated thus far. Even if Khylon did fancy himself a Reaper.
Just ahead he sees the cabin naturally come into view, rather than seeing an enhanced version of it on his screens. They'd finally reached the previous encampment that Sir Lueyun and Aliyan had stayed behind at.
['.. Boss!'] ['Captain.'] The two saluted Khylon, who had then come to a full-stop outside of the cabin, in just their Skinwear.
On his forehead, a vein threatened to burst.
Khylon spat out an angered, "Are you stupid?! Oi! Get in your mechas—I know I heard you acknowledge my orders!" Just what were they thinking?! Did the snow suddenly disappear or something..?? No! But here they were braving the cold just to greet him.
The two didn't say anything more and instead pulled up the interface on their wrists. Muffled rumbles could be heard off to the side as their mechas woke from standby and raised themselves up beneath the snow.
Sir Lueyun and Aliyan continued to wordlessly board their mechas. Khylon knows they felt a bit ashamed but doesn't do anything to lessen that feeling. They should be. What was he supposed to do with two frozen officers?
He can't help but tut in disdain for their lacking IQ.
Aliyan, he got. Really. The guy was practically born without a brain. But Sir Lueyun?
['Haha! Did hanging around Ali affect your intelligence this much, Sir?'] the teasing voice of Yizmina trickled into his ear. Sir Lueyun even showed a rare case of embarrassment with his flustered; ['.. shut up!']
Pft — Khylon coughed into his mic by accident. It was a little bit funny. Just a little.
['HEY!'] Aliyan's offended cry could then be heard across the channel. It was followed by a barrage of ['[LOLOLOL]']'s and snarky laughter.
Well. At least recent circumstances didn't impact them too much. Though perhaps a bit evilly, Khylon wished they were more traumatised. Then maybe they wouldn't be so damn noisy all the time.
He blatantly ignored the fact that he could just mute the communication channel.
...
After picking up their wayward teammates, the exploration team belonging to Midknight's crew then journeyed all through the rest of the night without stopping. Luckily they had sanitation packs installed for emergencies like this. Nobody particularly wanted to be ambushed when taking a dump, but more importantly: nobody wanted to be abandoned by their own Captain while taking a dump.
It would be more embarrassing than being rejected on a million-viewer livestream!!
Ahem.
Apart from the weather, the squadron pretty much went on their way unhindered. Which was rather strange because although Khylon knew that they hadn't completely wiped out the tundra Zerg-och, the alien bugs hadn't rushed to swarm them like they used to. It was always on sight with them.
What had changed?
… it was probably due to the horde of other Zerg-och. You know, the same species that took a different evolutionary path. For a while now they had relentlessly been following behind Khylon and his officers ever since they'd left the volcanic region. Their pursuit was why he hadn't let the team rest. He commended those Zerg for making it this far alive despite their bodies not being suitable to the environment, but.. that was about it.
It simply wasn't possible for someone to look that favourably upon a species that were—more often than not—compared to ants beneath their foot.
Just look. From the 360 degree view from his mecha, Khylon could easily view the mindless, zombie-like pursuit of those Zerg-och. The gross mass bulges and the Zerg behind those in the front roll forwards and hence over their 'companions' creating a ripple effect, before coming to a full stop.
"…" Khylon couldn't help taking another glance at them wriggling in place. What were they even doing, and why.. did they seem a little stupid? However, before he can give any more thought to their weird actions — the ground starts to emit heavy tremors.
Immediately, his superior sense of space tells him that the quake didn't originate from multiple bodies running across the ground. Anyway, he's sure that his alien pursuers had long stopped making a fuss. The vibrations that continued was instead uniform, consistent, and carried with it an oppressive air — as if the tremors had left the ground and settled in the surrounding atmosphere.
The Queen was finally here.
"Fall back!" But to where, he was unsure. All they could do was increase the distance between them and the stasis pile of Zerg-och still behind them. If they suddenly came 'back to life' when the Queen made her appearance, Khylon wanted to at least buy themselves some time before they were sieged. He didn't even know if the strength of the Queen allowed room for him to care about such background characters.
He sighed.
It seemed like recently all he'd done was retreat, retreat, retreat. Where was the bravery and overwhelming dominance he was known for? Circumstances didn't allow for it. They'd been running at a loss the moment he realised this whole thing turned out to be an insidious plot rather than the extermination mission they were expecting. The least he could do then, was to lessen the amount of casualties their enemy had planned for them.
"Leave the Queen to me."
Khylon really wasn't the hero type. He mainly said this so that none of them would get in his way.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Before the Queen could even be spotted though, overhead the clouds dramatically gather in one particular spot. The formless vapour just so happened to congregate where Khylon was stationed.
How funny. He somehow swapped out one abnormal thing following them for another.
['Boss, I didn't know you could do that…']
It obviously wasn't him.
Did Aliyan really think he was gloomy enough to summon dark, tumultuous clouds? That, what, Khylon was depressive or something? After winding himself up, he tsk'd and shot at the foot of Aliyan's mecha in retaliation. The man loudly yelped at the lazy attack and smartly kept his mouth shut from then on.
Now, his mecha's range of vision remained fine, but from inside the machine, Khylon tilted his head up. Comedic interaction aside, those clouds felt like a bad omen. Ever since they'd formed above his head, they began rumbling and crackling like in the next moment a shot of lightning would eject itself and rain down upon him.
In fact.. the sky looked oddly clear outside of a certain perimeter — as if there were a blackhole above him that sucked everything in his vicinity.
It was almost like.. like it was an artificially produced stormcloud. Or perhaps it would be more fitting to attribute it to the use of an EVOS.
Coincidentally, there happened to be someone amongst his team who had such a skill.
"Where is Yizmina?"
———
A few minutes ago.
———
Bringing up the rear was a bit annoying and.. boring. You had to station yourself a ways away in case anything decided to sneak up on the group. The rear guard acted as a first response to sneak attacks. It was a stressful job and required paying more attention to your surroundings than Yizmina was used to giving. Herself, like the rest of her team members, perhaps relied a bit too heavily on their captain for that.
Anyway, despite the comms being live, there was nobody physically beside you. It was kind of lonely. However—even for someone with as short an attention-span as her, there were undoubtedly things she'd notice and intently focus on.
Safely enclosed inside her mecha, and beneath her Skinwear, the hairs on her arms stand on end. Or attempt to, at least. They're dampened by the tightness of her suit but the effect is still there.
Goosebumps.
She smacked her lips and couln't help narrowing her eyes when she tasted a fizz on the tip of her tongue. With an EVOS capable of summoning thunder, Yizmina had a relative sixth sense for feeling oncoming storms. Sometimes storms weren't visible to the naked eye; there was no signs like an upwind or staticky air. But to her it remained clear as day when and where it would form.
Elemental Skills were given high praise and respect because they often came with a sensitivity to the relative element. Yizmina wasn't any different. In fact, the very source of her unease and goosebumps were easily explained by the looming presence hiding amongst the grey, tumultuous clouds. She doubted anyone else noticed them. Not even her—
"Boss!" Yizmina was decisive, and loyal above all else. She immediately sped up to close the distance, not at all hesitating to alert her captain of the foreign object, "There's something up above in the-" her eyes blow wide open and she unknowingly cuts herself off mid sentence.
On one of her Mecha's display, it showed she was currently offline. No amount of fiddling, rebooting or configuring, got her status to turn back to online. As an engineer who passed their classes with brightly flying colours, and despite majoring in Weaponry — the current situation was a bit embarrassing.
The function worked one way. It was used for privacy purposes and didn't remove her from any groups, nor alert anyone to her sudden silence.
At this moment Yizmina hated the existence of such a thing.
She helplessly called to Khylon again, "Boss!" And yet she remained muted— actually, she'd lost connection and was now beyond service.
It was bullsh*t. There was no way Khylon's Skill had stopped working for her to no longer reach at least his comms…! All members of Midknight knew that their captain was capable of expanding his EVOS and merging it with their communication in and output. The fact that there was something able to cancel out his skill—and to also manage to achieve such an unheard of thing with him completely unsuspecting was.. was terrifying.
In one part fear, two parts awe, Yizmina is struck speechless as colourless rings of pulsing light thunder down and encase her mecha, forcing it to a sudden stop. It groaned. The change in gravity and speed instantly causes her to gag and jerk forward in her seat from the force. She can't even move her fingers to operate her mecha to retaliate to the attack.
Her breathe leaves her in one puffed exhale, but military training made it so that she manages to gather just enough air in her lungs to shout out a horrendous: "KHYLON!". But her cry goes unheard, swallowed by the light that gradually becomes more blinding than the endless pane of snow.
Yizmina screws her eyes shut from the pain. It was far from over. The gravitational weight from the pulsing rings increase, and with a strangled scream — it forces her head to slam onto the dashboard. Blood drips across the now-lifeless controls as the display screens fizz out before eventually going black. An error alert sounds throughout but no one seems to hear it.
The once separate halos of light that had knocked this mecha's pilot into the realm of unconsciousness then begin to blur as they move at an impossible speed. They ended up fusing before disappearing altogether.
In the wake of this odd occurrence lay nothing and no one. The human named Yizmina Druel is gone; her presence so cleanly erased that it was as if she were never there. Up above, the clouds shift to cover the familiar shape of a ship peaking through. Those on the ground remain none the wiser to their involvement nor recent happenstance. But below them still, a beast opens its eyes.
Nothing could deceive its blood red stare.