Initial Encounter

January 18th, Year: 0.

The ear piercing sound of buzzing boomed across a vast radius. Sixty humanoid, fly like creatures hovered in an organized manner toward four of the capital city of Kuraran's elite. Gahn, Cindra, Noda, and Esten.

Gahn placed his cigarette between his fingers, and blew out a cloud of smoke from his mouth. He wore a fancy looking suit, one that seemed more appropriate for formal events than for combat. A black blade rested at his side. "Colossal Soarers." He said. "This is the first time I've seen them in person. Mm, just as described the bodies have an immense amount of muscle. Anyone normal would be killed with a single blow from the looks of it."

"Oh yeah? Anyone normal?" His comrade Noda asked. "So... what's that mean for us? How many blows do ya think I could take from one of these freaks of nature?" His muscles pulsed with a deep intensity. They were almost inhumanly built to perfection, clearly visible with the sleeveless variation of gear he wore. He displayed a devilish grin, paired with scowling red eyes. No weapons were visible on his body.

"You? I'm not sure. I can say with moderate confidence it wouldn't be more than ten though. As for the rest of us, without the same level of muscular mass, maybe five. But that's of course, just an estimation."

"Ten? Tch.. they're pretty fuckin strong then."

Keeping an unchanging, blank expression, Esten entered the conversation. "Why else would we have been assigned to this? You are lucky you were gifted with such strength, otherwise with how dumb you are, who knows if you would even still be alive." Her lengthy, silver hair reached just past her knees. One blade was in her hand, and a second was strapped to her back. She wore a tightened dress that stopped above her thighs, and had a stylish hat resting upon her head.

"You're always opening that kind and thoughtful mouth of yours at the most unnecessary of times, Esten." Noda answered. His eyes remained locked on the approaching Colossal Soarers.

The fourth elite, Cindra, was a woman who had only a single arm. Her arm that remained, her left, was bursting with a blueish aura. She had very detailed and styled shorter hair. Glistening purple armor covered her entire body, other than her aura emitting arm. She addressed her comrades. "Now now, my lovelies. Let's treat each other with gentle love and care! We all could be dead in a few moments. Like our most magnificent Esten suggested, we were the ones assigned to this because not many others can handle it. The threat level of a Colossal Soarer is 38. A group of them such as this however, bumps it up to an awfully intimidating 59! So if we want to stand a chance, we must keep our beautiful minds focused."

Putting his cigarette back into his mouth, Gahn firmly gripped the handle of his sword, and unsheathed it with force. When he did so, an enormous shadowy profusion developed around the blade. The mass of tendril like blackness flickered all around his weapon. "Mm.. a 59." He said. "I've never had to deal with a 59 first hand. Only a few points off from being labeled as a countrywide level threat. It should be tough. We'll see what they're all about."

"Without having been given much notice beforehand, this will be a truly displeasing and irritating experience. Nevertheless, it was the only option with the sudden, unexpected nature of things. So I'll do what I can. Obviously since I'd die otherwise as well." Esten gently slid her hand across her sword, blankly watching the enemies approach.

Noda advised to everyone. "Monologuing out loud isn't gonna do us any favors. Save your breath and fully focus on preparing for combat. It's about time to throw down with the things."

"I'm not interested in your thoughts on the matter. Keep them to yourself, filthy berserker."

"Filthy berserker, huh? Heh... well ya see Esten, I think we're in need of a filthy berserker like me right now." The breathing of Noda became heavier, his muscles tightened further, and his glare deepened. "We don't know much about facin off against these guys in person, but we do know they're tough as shit. Like you said yourself, all four of us were assigned to this because that's what it'll take to win. We're takin on a threat level 59 for fucks sake. So I'll use everything my body has to offer. Not just for the defense of Kuraran, but because there's plenty of people I need to get back to. I'm not ready to die. Not even close."

Esten's eyes shifted to the side for a moment, before returning forward. "Do whatever you want. It's of minor concern to me. As long as you're fighting, that's all that matters. Even if you weren't, I'm confident we could win anyway. Your assistance is still beneficial though."

"Mm.. mm.. mm. No. I'd say he's more than only beneficial. Yes, all Noda has is pure strength. However, that strength is so substantial, that it landed him a spot among the most elite. Without his assistance here, it's more than likely the other three of us would be overwhelmed. If my estimation is correct, you'll agree with me once you're hit by a Soarer for the first time. You'll realize he isn't beneficial.... Noda and the rest of us are necessary." Gahn said.

"You're all so talkative today!" Cindra cheerfully commented. "Hehe, it's adorable. Is it your secretive fear of the upcoming battle? Oh no, no. None of you are like that at all. Maybe it's out of respect! You want to have had meaningful final conversations with your comrades you hold ever so dearly."

"The only reason I'm talkative is because these oversized insects are taking so long to get over here." Stated Esten.

Noda gestured forward and said. "Since you're so damn exhilarated to meet 'em, get your shit together. Looks like they're pickin up the pace..."

The grouping of Colossal Soarer's closed in. Each elite warrior of Kuraran stood prepared for the impending encounter. Each looking strongly confident, but not cocky. Finally, the battle erupted.

The first Colossal Soarer mightily slammed its feet against the ground when landing in front of Gahn, creating sizable cracks below. This particular one stood at eight feet tall. Its large, toned muscles were even more prominent than Noda's. From the moment it landed, its hulking fist had already begun to make its way toward the body of Gahn.

Gahn shifted the position of his shadow engulfed sword, and powerfully swung it. The mass of darkness splashed outward, growing in size considerably with the stroke. It completely split the Colossal Soarer in two.

With another fifty nine directly behind, Gahn almost instantly thrusted his blade into the ground. His hand trembled, and a quick moment later, enormous tendrils burst from the floor. Some of the tendrils tightly wrapped around Colossal Soarers, crushing them. Some violently shook, slapping Soarers around, which wasn't nearly as effective. And some tendrils were fought off by the Soarers and destroyed.

Very close to Gahn, Noda was using nothing but his own fists to pummel and smash away at the enemies. His red eyes almost seeming to glow with intensity. He didn't speak a word, only striking without a moment's rest.

"Filthy Berserker." Esten calmly said to herself. Two Colossal Soarers came at her from each direction. Swiftly and elegantly, she removed an arm of the one on the right, and quickly took out her second sword to do the same to the one on the left.

Esten's ability that she had, swapped the severed limbs of her target with another random part of the targets body. After removing an arm from each Soarer, one arm swapped with the matching targets head, the arm bursting out from the neck, killing it. The other arm swapped with the second Soarers leg. This caused the surviving Colossal Soarer to fumble around. It used its wings to fly up, but was quickly taken care of by Cindra before it was able to do anything else. Cindra accomplished this by using her own ability. Her glowing blue arm could shift itself into anything she'd like. Even removing itself from her body entirely if she decides to do so. This time, she had her arm morph into tiny little particles, enter the body of the Colossal Soarer, then form into a train, bursting the Soarer to pieces before returning to her body.

"How fascinating." she smiled, and licked her lips. "I didn't expect their blood to be red."

Gahn, Cindra, Noda, and Esten fought against the Colossal Soarers for some time. The battle was tough, requiring their full attention to avoid any damage. And with their elite status, they actually managed to accomplish this so far.

Suddenly, all of the remaining Colossal Soarers stopped. Around thirty were left, and they all started to make strange chirping noises. Glancing around at each other rapidly.

The tube like mouths of the Colossal Soarers were far longer than that of regular flies, able to extend all the way down to the floor. After the loud chirping began, they did just that, lengthened their mouths to the floor. Sucking up the insides of their fallen kind.

"Eh? The fuck are they doin?" Slamming his fist into the head of a Soarer in front of him, Noda was stunned to see it react leagues faster than they had previously. Upon the moment his fist made contact, the Colossal Soarer's own fist blasted Noda across the large desert like area.

"What is..... mm, I see." Gahn's gaze quickly shifted between every Colossal Soarer around him. "Through cannibalism, is it that they're able to improve themselves?"

"Is it not blatantly obvious? That's exactly what has occurred." Esten commented.

"It's not obvious at all. One example isn't enough to properly confirm that as the conclusion. So... allow me to verify."

Gahn began to walk forward, flicking his shadowy blade back and forth. Approaching a Soarer, he swung his blade at its neck.

This attack was dodged. The Colossal Soarer moved with immense speed. Even with its quickness, Gahn followed it with his eye, and timed a second strike flawlessly to counter the Soarers own attempt at an attack, hitting the neck as he originally intended to do.

Instead of cutting it clean off like it had previously, the blade wasn't able to reach even the halfway point of the neck. Even so, a mass of darkness and tendrils began to wrap itself around the head. The Colossal Soarer grabbed and tried to push away the blade, but was killed by Cindra before it could do so. She removed the bottom half of its body using a humongous saw created by her arm.

"Mm, thank you." Gahn nodded at her.

"You're certainly welcome my dear. It seems your wonderful experiment has provided us with the necessary evidence. Our lovely little critters here, only become more difficult to manage, the less of them there are. Hehe, how dreadful."

"Yeah. It fuckin sucks." Blood dripping down his body, Noda returned from the powerful blow he took. "But c'mon, it isn't surprising. Not even a little. These guys were a bit too easy to smash to a pulp. I had a feeling they'd have some secret shit they were gonna pull."

The Soarers finished consuming their deceased kind, and fully guided their attention back to the four elite warriors of Kuraran.

Noda continued. "We've got no more time to talk it over though... not even I could take many more hits like that. And with half left who're that enhanced, even a split second without our full focus on combat is too much."

All thirty remaining Colossal Soarers bolted in their direction. This time acting far more aggressively than before.

Ten surrounded Noda. They flew around him in circles for a brief moment, then all rapidly closing in to strike simultaneously.

"Tch... like I said earlier, I'm not ready to die yet. Not even close. So piss off... nasty bugs!!"

Noda used his forearm to block and push away the first strike, catching another attempted blow from behind with his palm. He yelled and threw the Colossal Soarer who's fist he had caught, into three others. The remaining five who were still mid attack, he dodged, pummeling four of them to the ground. The fifth and final Soarer, managed to land a hit after all of that. Noda stumbled back for a moment, but somehow this time, powered through, regaining his balance fairly quickly. With red fiery eyes, and a passionate growl, he slammed his fist into the final Soarer's face with so much force, its head exploded.

By the time he had done this, the other nine had already gotten back up, leaving him no time for stamina recovery. "One... down..." is all he said, before getting showered with more attacks he would need to avoid. With each punch thrown his way, Noda bashed his own fist into the fists of the Soarer's, countering their attempts. He eventually was caught off guard however, from the left, taking a point blank kick to the ribs.

This sent him across the desert area again, but with him being slightly prepared this time, he didn't go as far as he did previously. He got up soon after taking the hit, grimacing in agony.

For the final time, Noda's muscles pulsed and flexed more than they ever had before. His veins looking to be on the verge of popping from his body. His eyes not just seeming to glow red, but actually glowing red physically.

The nine Colossal Soarers surrounded him again, and when the first was about to make contact with an attack, Noda bashed his fist into it so hard, that it blew to pieces. He did the same to the remaining eight. Hitting them all with such force they exploded. Except for the final one, who he instead caught, and tore in half.

From a distance, Esten's eyes grew ever so slightly wide watching Noda's burst of strength. She was caught with a blow to the gut due to her averted attention. Cindra caught her before she could fly too far across the desert.

"That's our filthy berserker for you, my dear. Hehe... but my gorgeous lovely, please try to focus on keeping yourself alive." Cindra smiled gleefully, and set Esten down. Then morphing her arm into four separate long, thin poles that floated above her head. She used said poles to impale the Colossal Soarers several times. Flinging the poles at them with speed and precision. Each time a pole successfully impaled a Soarer, she would have the particles of her arm remorph into yet another pole, repeating the process.

Though it was effective, this method of attack wasn't quite effective enough. The Soarers were still able to move forward despite the damage they were taking, albeit at a much slower pace.

From behind Cindra, Esten walked past her, both swords in hand. "The hit I took posed no threat of killing me. There was no chance I was going to die. Keep your thoughts on my actions to yourself. I know precisely what I'm doing. If I was dumb enough to not focus on keeping myself alive, I wouldn't be here."

She glanced back at Cindra. "Now, hit their limbs. It'll make it far easier for me to remove them."

"Oh? So confident and commanding... alright then my blossoming young flower. I'll try my best not to underestimate your strength or judgment again. But.. no promises. I can't risk a diamond like yourself miscalculating and getting herself killed." Cindra then did as she was asked, launching her poles at the arms and legs of the Colossal Soarers.

"Your nicknames, are truly of the poorest taste imaginable." Slicing the limbs of the Soarers off was far easier for Esten with them now being filled with holes. She sprinted through the group of them, severing their arms and legs, which caused those same limbs to burst through the Soarers bodies at different points. They were all defeated fairly quickly with this method.

The amount of Colossal Soarers had been narrowed all the way down to ten, which were being fought off by Gahn at the current moment. He wasn't able to defeat any of them though, before the chirping began again.

"Shit. Don't let 'em touch any of the damn bodies!" Noda yelled. Loads of blood and sweat dripped down his body. He was heavily panting.

However, they made no attempts to try and cannibalize their fallen kind again, instead opting to seemingly fall back.

Keeping his gaze on them intensively, Gahn stood upright from his previous combat focused position. "Mm? Mm... they seem to be regrouping. In fact, it almost appears as if they're withdrawing. Though I don't sense an aura of defeat."

"Then all there is to do is watch." Esten stated.

Noda growled. "They're gonna show us another one of their shitty secrets... aren't they?"

"I sincerely hope that doesn't happen. We can't handle much more than what we were just up against." responded Gahn.

Moments passed, and eventually, the group of four noticed one Colossal Soarer approach that was different from the rest. Its stance appeared more focused, and it had some clothing as well as an assortment of gear. Once this one appeared, the remaining regular Soarers began to completely leave.

"Fuckin splendid. What in the hell is that?" Noda scanned its appearance.

Esten sighed. "Why would anyone here know the answer to that?"

This particular Soarer slowly approached on foot. Upon closer inspection, it could be seen that it had strange metal pants. It stopped walking, and the pants briefly lit up with a slight amount of electricity.

It then burst forward at an almost incomprehensible speed. An enormous bolt of energy momentarily lit up the general area, kicking up massive amounts of sand and forming dust clouds all around.

Once the dust faded, the new Soarer could be seen standing behind Gahn. Everyone took on a look of horror and shock once seeing it. Within the palm of the Colossal Soarer, was a heart. A heart that let out one last beat before stopping permanently.

"Mm... I see... ngh-... tch-..." Gahn's knees shook as he struggled to stand. Blood poured from his mouth, knocking his cigarette away. His eyes remained calm, yet the life in them was fading. "All along.... these creatures were far above even our level. ..Were the Soarers we initially fought their underlings? ...I don't know. Mm.. regardless, I suggest.... the rest of you head back. A threat level 59.... is too much...." he then collapsed, dead.

Never did complete silence seem so loud. Noda, Esten, and Cindra couldn't break their gaze from the sight before them.

After a second that seemed like an eternity, the Colossal Soarer squeezed and crushed the heart it held. It then slowly glanced over at the remaining three of Kuraran's elite.