Adam's vision burned red, fire roaring through his veins. The Steel Eye narcotic cocktail bled through his body like ink on paper dulling the pain of impact and clouding his brain with the smoky haze of war.

His heart clamored for freedom, battering itself against the cage of his sternum as he drove the point of his spear viciously through the throat of an incoming void creature. Inside his helmet, the Fealty AI called for blood, and the Steel Eye prosthetic gnashed its gears like the champing of predatory teeth.

Beside him, he was vaguely aware of her.

Sunny, the saint of Anin, the goddess of war in her burning white armor spattered in gore. When she bellowed the entire battlefield trembled at her call, not even the roaring of artillery fire enough to drown her out.

And together they danced to a quartet of death: artillery fire, the clash of steel, the rattle of gunfire, and the cries of the dying. Overhead the battlefield was shrouded in a burning golden haze. The funnel of light that led to the Necritorium burned white hot unable to keep pace with the slaughter taking place upon its doorstep.

Fealty marked three targets, condemning them to death with ease and efficiency only born from machines. Adam charged over the ground, feet tearing at the churned earth. Target 1 lunged to the side, passing inside Adam's spear guard and lunging for his side, but at the last moment, Adam engaged his shield, sending a spike of power down through his armor and into his forearm.

The shield appeared in a sudden eruption from his arm, bursting into existence just in time to deflect Target one's attack. Target one bounced ineffectually off Adam's shield, staggering back a step.

It would be the last step he took, as Adam dropped his shield and fired two rounds from a handgun into Target one's chest.

Target one collapsed.

A red warning light blinked on his HUD, and Adam whipped sharply to his right just in time to deflect the massive spearhead aimed at the junction between his neck and shoulder. The blade glanced hard off the armor of his right forearm, bouncing ineffectually into the dirt. Target 2 was a massive Drev, almost as big as Kanan or Kazna. At only a little over seven feet tall inside his armor, Adam was a good three feet shorter than the Drev.

But that didn't matter, as soon as he deflected the spear, Adam lunged forward, planting the boot of his Steel Eye prosthetic onto the Drev's knee and thrusting downward. Target two screamed as its knee cracked and Adam was propelled upward grabbing it by the throat with his left hand.

Another surge of maker energy poured into his arm like a torrent, and with a sharp, thrust of his will, the glowing golden shield expanded outward and into the space below Target two's jaw, slicing its face clean in half.

Adam kicked viciously forward, catching Target two in the chest, still flailing with pain and confusion as it was propelled backward into Target three. Both remaining targets hit the ground hard, and Adam stepped forward thrusting the leaf blade of his spear into target three's open and screaming mouth.

Target three choked and died on its last meal: cold metal.

Adam wrenched the spear from Target three's mouth and only just had time to register the sudden warning light on his HUD as the enemy chopper dropped into position and leveled its machine guns.

Adam was forced to prayer in the dirt by a hail of gunfire.

Without a voicebox, Fealty couldn't scream, but the sudden eruption of warning dialogues on his HUD was more than enough. Adam shouted forcing a burst of anima energy up and through his skin. The shield he erected was poorly constructed and folded after only a few moments. Bullets fractured against his armor, driving him to his belly.

The sky was filled with the continual shutter of muzzle flash.

And then.

The Chopper's tail erupted into flame. The machine jerked sideways bullets tearing a stitch down through Target two's body, ending it for good as it choked out its last breath upon the dirt.

Atop a nearby pile of corpses, Etium cackled, the barrel of his chain gun obscured in a halo of muzzle flash.

The Chopper fell into a flat spin, and dropped, plowing into the carnage of battle, whirring blades ripping indiscriminately through both friend and foe. Etium's laughter was cut suddenly short as a stray bullet, originating from somewhere in the crowd took him high in the shoulder, throwing him bodily from his pile of corpses.

A stray void creature, sensing an opportunity, leaped its way from the crowd and skittered across the dirt toward Etium's unprotected body.

Adam snarled, charging forward.

But the Void creature was closer.

It leaped skyward casting a shadow of death over Etium as it blocked out the bloody red sky.

And subsequently erupted in a burst of anima energy as Krill came screaming over the edge of the hill. His warcry was cracked and horse, the panic evident in his screams. The creature was already dead, but he blasted it several more times before falling back to help Etium, flanked by Celex who had made himself busy ferrying the stupid to the afterlife, the stupid being anyone who came within fifty yards of Krill.

Battle function at 82% Fealty helpfully informed him just as another chopper swung low towards them leaving a path of death and blood in its wake.

Adam was about to ready his shield when Sunny appeared at his back, gone for only a few moments before Target one had appeared. He knew what she was thinking reading her intentions through the lines of her body. Sunny raced out before him, and he raced after her. The chopper, more of a shuttle, was coming in fast its guns whining like an eager dog.

Sunny batted aside another target, who Adam dispatched with the thrust of his spear, as, together they raced to the top of a small Knoll.

The gunship was coming around.

Sunny dropped to one knee.

The gunship marked them for death.

Adam lept forward, planting his foot on Sunny's shoulder. She thrust upward mustering all the strength in her body, suit, and anima to throw him into the air.

And there Adam hung, suspended in a tableau of smoke and fire, body parting through a vail of smoke as the light of hell burned down around him in shades of orange and red. His heart hammered as Anima energy erupted in a short burst around his body. With a sharp hiss, the engine of his jetpack fired, though the wings were tucked, and were it not for Sunny's true aim he would have missed.

Even so, Adam shot forward cutting through the air like a missile, the front of his body covered by a cone of anima energy, which erupted in golden fire as he impacted the nose of the gunship, ripping straight through like a missile from nose to tail. The gunship jolted and fell as Adam shot out the other side. Shrapnel spread behind him like a pair of hellish wings as he fell from the sky and impacted the dirt, hitting hard and rolling to land on his stomach in a shallow furrow.

At that moment, a burst of artillery fire peppered the ground around him sending dirt and concussive waves of force up into the air. Through the rattling in his helmet, Adam looked up to find Queen Xanthia silhouetted against the burning sky at the crest of a hill, the tip of her spear dripping rubies and amber.

Her cape fluttered in a ragged tatter at her back for one stunning moment, before the artillery round plunged into the armor separating her shoulder from her neck ripping a diagonal of fire straight through her body. With a shout, Adam staggered to his feet, but King James was already there shouting in horror and rage as Queen Xanthia slumped in his arms.

Dead.

He roared in frustrated fury, the momentary lapse clouding his senses just in time for Kazna to appear at his back, spear raised.

Adam shouted again.

King James turned, but not fast enough as Kazna's spear cut downward...

And was deflected viciously to the side.

Caught off balance kazna turned her attention to the newcomer, a wizened old figure in shining silver armor, carapace blackened with age. Hijan lunged forward scoring a hit high on Kazna's upper thigh.

Adam was still running.

Kazna sneered and lunged, plowing through Hijan's defenses like a bull through plywood. The look on her face was one of glee, as she buried the head of her spear deep in Hijan's belly. The old Drev staggered, orange blood spurting from the wound to cascade down onto her feet, but she didn't cry out or clutch the wound or collapse. Instead, she drew back her armor first and drove the two impaling metal spikes straight up through Kazna's jaw. Pinning her mouth shut.

Kazna jerked, violently withdrawing her spear and kicking Hijan in the belly. The old Drev's spikes ripped their way from Kazna's jaw, and then she was gone, vanished, over the crest of the hill.

Adam screamed, vision burning red as he engaged the jetpack for a second time.

The burst of energy wasn't as much as it had been before, but still, it launched him forward, straight into Kazna's chest throwing them both back over the hill to go tumbling down its shallow slope. Adam landed hard on his back Kazna on top of him dripping great splotches of blood down and onto the visor of his helmet.

But she didn't waste time in taking advantage, and neither did Adam.

In unison, the two of them pulled back their fists before driving their spiked gauntlets viciously into the other's bodies.

Adam, Imed for her neck, but missed, instead driving the points of his gauntlets into the meat of her shoulder. In turn, Kazna tore through his armor, raking a massive gash from the base of his chest to the top of his hip, not enough to eviscerate him, but more than enough it would have caused plenty of pain and blood loss....

That was if Adam could feel pain at the moment.

Adam sneered at her, throwing kazna back with a sharp kick to her stomach.

It was his luck as just then, two other Steel Eye Soldiers appeared, as if from nowhere.

Kier Lindsay Caught Kazna's right arms and Jane Caught her left arms.

Kazna howled attempting to shake them off like an angry boar, but the two of them held on, baring down with the shrieking grind of gears and metal as their Steel Eye armor and exoskeletons held her in place, driving their feet a good two inches into the hard crusted earth.

Adam had lost his spear sometime during the fall, but he would not be denied this opportunity. He drew his hand back and drove the first of his gauntlet straight into her throat.

Once

Twice

Three times

She gurgled and thrashed.

Orange blood spattered the front of his body, his mind was filled with an overwhelming glee as she choked.

And then, another barrage of artillery fire hit.

And everything...

Went...

Black