A blur of golden light evaporated as the praying mantis lunged with its raptorial legs. Drool fell from the half of its face that wasn't robotic. The outline of a person pulsed like neon lights, till breaking apart into tiny pieces between its sharp spines and draining down each arm like the sand of eternity. In the perilous vacuum of space, Priya Echo appeared. Her chest tight, she breathed herself back into existence. The freak of nature hissed at her with its mandibles, its herculean body tensing for another thrust. It was augmented with an assortment of weapons and missiles drilled deep into its armor. The woman looked around … as she was a point of reference in a bubble light years wide, a sphere of constellations smiling down upon her. And she was singular. Islands of silver armor clinked imperceptibly. Along the length of her body and sweat glistened brown skin, motes of silver like a jackson pollock painting and criss-crossed strings could barely meet the criteria for a string bikini. They had mistaken it as a birthmark. "Lucky … In space no one can hear you pray". A new mantis head appeared firing lasers from its compound eyes. Red like death and hot like the stars. The woman let them soar past, close enough to look like blood stained totem poles racing into the night. Insatiable energy blossomed into manifold auras on her person. Priya came to the center of the forehead, right between the eyes, and placed her electrified palm on its bioskin. A glance to the right, at the dome of the eye, and the pathological fluctuating ruby columns, stopped at once. Mantis head's mandibles jerked open unconditionally, and Priya, taking the cue, grabbed onto the bulk of it, cycling around and tossing it headlong to her original aggressor. "Taste this" she willed as the mandibles latched open and shut, enclosing the cyber praying mantis In its metal vice. A state of the art weapon it was not. Priya narrowed her eyes as the enemy was not yet fully ripped apart as it ought to be. Every motion of her arms was smooth and graceful, like sacred geometry. A length of jet black hair fanned out. Around her body cosmic dust scattered, hardening to mirror shards, and weaved themselves into a lustrous sword, smoother than fine silk. Priya swung the sword, and flung it over the distance, sinking it into the mechanical hide of that buggy head. Electricity dared to escape as the burst widened, draped in fiery robes, the heart of it turning yellow. And she was unafraid. Priya looked out into the gulf of space, detailing things that were of myriad scale. The blank sable canvas. And stars wasting their youth being divine. Like someone dropped glitter on a puddle of ink and called it modern art. It made her inhale sharply. An incalculable feeling without words. And it pleased her to her uncanny core. Another enforcer with more munitions than she could count whizzed towards her, its gatling guns blazing atop its shoulders, housed in a revolving casing. The woman blocked the hail with a spell shield, and cut away quickly to foil the target lock. The mantis followed intently, pumping excess fuel into its rocket thrusters. A volley of missiles self detonated as the quarry raced in unpredictable ways. It's arm and gun ruthlessly torn from its socket as a glass like mirror chain snared it. Priya ended its solo mission with a missile of her own, plunging headfirst through the chestplate and out the back, its CPU crumbling in her hand. The gatling gun, detached from its casing, spun helplessly in endless circles, releasing a magazine into the void. But that was not enough. Three more hideous techno mantid atrocities climbed to her elevation. The first came in close, unlocking its raptorial legs, its sharp spines infused with unholy red laser beam energy. It screeched as it neared its prey. "Do I really need another suitor?" Priya thought to herself as she flickered into echoes to evade the strike. Volleys of spines as sharp as shark's teeth, amped with ephemeral light rained down upon her, but she scattered them with the mirror sword. Like a stealth bomber, the third rocketed overhead, unlocking its abdomen like cargo bay doors, raining down bombs. And it hurt like a bitch. The second screeched like a banshee as it flew through the explosion and tried to pierce her with its spearlike legs. A futile attempt, as they were severed in the process. Then suddenly she stopped short. "You're not supposed to have a tractor beam if you're a hunter, it's not fair" Priya thought, being ushered into the arms of someone that was most definitely not her lover. The first's blades extended in anticipation. Their tint pierced the night. Yet the goddess was redder … red with fury as she broke every fucking bone in his insect body. The echo seal upon her chest burned with greed and unsung bloodlust and its delights. An "ES" tattoo with expulsions of ivory lamplight. In the distance, a star vanished, folding in on itself - yet went unnoticed. The others tried to corner her and it was two against one. The second swung its abdomen around, reassembling the various mechanical and biomechanical parts into a living chainsaw with blades infused with red laser light energy … and it hurt like a bitch. Priya channeled magic potential into her blade, casting arcs of ivory light that sliced them in pieces. And they sizzled and bled components filled with prismatic dust out into the unknown. Then the enemy warship arrived, with its mantid denizens of different ranks. Priya looked at her face in the reflection of her mirror sword. Now her complexion was doused with the blood and guts of cyborg insects. She looked behind her, towards the space map cardinal south, and saw her next travel destination. It was all swirly and viridescent and blue in all the right ways. The creme de la creme of planets. More of those mantids with the shoulder guns, this time with harder slugs, followed her down through the atmosphere. A canyon received most of the punishment as she zigzagged through its impressive labyrinth. Priya looked ahead, and brought them to a clearing, where she summoned giant eyes that fired lightning attacks at the foes, frying them one at a time, until the last five tackled her to the ground. A raptorial leg smashed her in the belly. She spat up breakfast and it was unpleasant. "These things play rough" Priya thought as she flexed her ripped muscles, her skin brimming with a new dose of flashing pearl-white animism for a flicker of a second, and grabbed two of them, smashing them together into nothing. The rest were easily dispatched. Sweat condensed on her pounding chest as Priya reseted for a moment. An eye absorbed a cloud and fired a beam of light, incinerating the next round of mantids. A rank XAX-III model mantid alightend on the ground beside her, waiting patiently. The warship's internal industry must have destroyed numerous mantids to birth this one for its intended purpose. It looked like an insect forced into a white tuxedo, and too polite to debate the matter. As the field cleared of any unwanted guests, the mantid leanted its head forward, studying her. Then grew twice its size and six instead of two raptorial legs with blue laser light infused spines latched open in her general direction. Safe to say, the thing knew how to dance. In the distance, mechanical cylinders began hovering about, downloading landscapes from the planet's surface. At once it unleashed a volley of heat seeking missiles that drew in near and surrounded her on all sides. The woman's white lab coat billowed as she lifted her feet up, allowing the wind to shift her back a few yards. Priya witnessed a spectacle of eyes, as the the missiles rearranged themselves into mantis heads with razor sharp mandibles, ready to chomp down at the earliest convenience. She flickered into echoes and passed through them, and their biomechanical heads exploded in beautiful unison. The XAX-III had not predicted that. The praying mantis unfurled its wings, and with the speed boost it was faster and even more relentless. Blue beams and raporial strikes came at her nonstop. Nearing the side of another canyon, she discharged some non-corporeal helix busters, collapsing it into rocks and with telekinesis rained them down upon her enemy. but it concentrated fire with multiple armaments, tunneling through. Next thing she knew, it was trying to turn her into a pinned butterfly. The blue laser light was more intense than the red, and the spines could spin like drills. An improvement over the original, but with good timing she defended the attacks, and threw it back with her sword. "Nice of you to show your true self" Priya shouted as the XAX-III exposed its chest cavity, the ribs on either side. In the mass, she could see the wet throbbing organs, veiled with circuit designs. Circulatory bundles with thick red veins squirmed like plants under timelapse. It grew more hearts and dropped them like eggs that expanded and birthed blood soaked mantids with evolved mouthparts that spat fireballs like juvenile dragons. But Priya didn't give a shit about that. She charged right in towards the beast. It retracted its chest in anticipation for her.Another arc of ivory light from the blade of her tool, but this time, she tried something new. Head first, she revolved her entire body, faster and faster, until a circular saw blade cut right through the triplet of raptorial arms on the right side of its body. XAX-III was unphased as it repaired its wound, expelling one arm and transitioning the remaining two arms to their proper place. For the final showdown, the doors on its abdomen opened, with a rotating selection of elongated armaments. It picked a single barreled plasma gun, and grew a special visor over one eye for targeting. In another compartment, it retrieved the glowing, battery-like containment vessels containing the magazine. Another click, and everything was in place. The untouched prey grew her weapon into a massive cleaver sword and bolted forward. XAX-III fired with professional accuracy, hissing like hell with every new trigger. They were orange and their physical form was hard to explain. With each strike, she deflected the plasma bullets. Then with great vigor, the cleaver went clean through the body, showering the land with silent scrap. "I'm the sharpest person you'll ever meet" the warrior noted, as she ground to a halt on the raggedy dirt. Priya looked at her sword, and as she held it high its surface began to take on the exalted appearance of outer space. "Let's put this away for now" she sighed, reducing it to a mere shortsword onto her hip. Around her, the landscape's craters crackled with raw plasma burns. Just beyond the horizon, another regiment of green mantids, reproduced and fabricated by the ceaseless factory swooped down. "I would taste a cloud if I could". Holding that thought, the woman zipped into orbit, bypassing them altogether. A horde of futuristic mutant monstrosities that were definitely not at peace with the universe and definitely not zen steered in formation. Now her target was near. When the time was right, Priya transformed into a big atom and achieved nuclear fusion … and the warship was a memory. The woman was still, soaking it all in. With perfect timing, the first scouts of the SOTA fleet languidly hobbled in to assist with the epic space battle. Priya held her white lab coat tight, as the endless expanse of space was cold that day. By now that nerdy bollywood babe we all know and love was happy again. The last days of vain, fruitless peace were finally over. Yet It had been only a few months since the SOTA was at war again. A little unexpected and out of the blue to have a Teknomatis invasion. And how the whole thing started was just a long boring story.