52. Pandoran War, Land Battle

Before the true beginning of the battle but after the message through the radio, one that might be overly dramatic but Liam felt that it needed to be told.

It lacked logic but as much he was pushed by logic and was in symbiosis with machine, he wasn't one. And it wasn't purely illogical to do, scare tactics and intimidation work, even if the effect given is amusement in either case, it's a loss of focus.

And it wasn't only for the RDA but for himself as well.

In any case, he was sitting atop a large tree branch, the dozen of cameras upon his helmet, his three tetrapteron, and the radio of the RDA he hijacked giving him information on every hostile.

The information he at regular intervals gave to Akwey, and four other clans Olo'eyktan that had come here with the use of radio collars from the life shack. An interesting and very useful device, he felicitated the one who designed it.

Thought some amelioration could be done such as the limited range within their current location.

The sound of explosions then suddenly echoed, it was from the sky and that was the clue for the charge on the land to begin.

Almost a thousand Na'vi riders charged from the primeval vegetation toward the RDA force, appearing from visibly nowhere their war cries loud and clear while hundreds of other Na'vi hidden within the trees silently jumped from branch to branch bows in hands.

Liam's face behind his helmet hardened as he sighed. It must be done and so he acted. He needed to reduce the meat grinder nature of the charges they were doing as much as he possibly could even if it meant bathing in human blood.

His heart was set and mind serene as he took out his fabricated sniper rifle from the high ground he was on, Orien on his shoulder took off with a mental command.

Below him was a squad of fourteen, of which two piloted AMP suits, the real threats. His tetraperon flew right above them, letting go of three smoke grenades and immediately emitting thick heavy gray clouds that blinded them causing panic and shock to spread.

"What the fu-agRGg!?", the SecOps couldn't finish as something sharp and cold dug and ripped her throat apart, her trachea covered in blood, ripped apart skin and muscle were in the open air.

She fell to the ground, the grasp on her machine gun disappearing as she tried to stop the gaping wound in vain while Orien flew toward another SecOps, its bloody claw on its way to kill the next one.

As this happened loud gunshot resonated from above, and one fell, his exopack bursting as it his head did, the one next to him started to run, blinded by the smoke he fell and his head exploded.

"Mark! Hel-", one yelled in terror before his head was blown off as well, the bullet entering the left eye socket and exiting on the other side with blood, pieces of the skull, and brain matter.

The Mark in question was the next that followed, Orien with a screech latched upon his throat and using its gauntlet ripped and cut the throat wide open before flying away back toward Liam.

'It's easy… So incredibly easy. It's like hunting but without the joy and satisfaction that comes with it...', Liam thought, the first human lives he took made him feel nothing but apathy and a small amount of discontentment toward the former.

Though feeling this way was better than enjoying this kind of thing. Something he hoped was never to come.

But this wasn't the time for navel-gazing and as such he didn't stop his assault, the recoil of his gun non-existent he shot the last few running, flailing, and falling through the smoke with the help of the thermal function in his helmet until only two in AMP suits remained but what followed was unexpected.

"What is going on!? Where the fuck is the shooter?! This wasn't supposed to be like this!", one of the AMP's pilots yelled and started to shoot erratically all around him, destroying the flora yet nothing much else outside of his fellow pilot whose upper right part of his chest transformed into bloody mist and red paste.

The windshield was not remotely able to stop the anti-tank round from doing what it was made for.

Liam reloaded his weapon in a heartbeat. He jumped on a branch then to another and swooped toward the now lone AMP suit pilot that was still blinded by the smoke screen.

His metallic boots landed on the AMP suit, his left foot created heavy cracks on the windshield while the right caused a groan of metal as it landed on the metal support.

Large fissures formed over the reinforced glass as the metal suit tumbled forward due to the sudden added weight. The pilot inside screamed at both that and the toxic air invading the minutely monitored air of his suit.

Pointing the muzzle of his fabricated sniper rifle in the cracked glass he shot three times, the first weakening the windshield further, the second breaking it and tearing through the pilot's second cervical and the third was the killing blow.

"Thirteen.", Liam said coldly, already running toward another squad at full speed, roots splintering where he placed his boot.

Twelve kills here and one of a Na'vi before from his direct actions, a number that was going to increase.

"Fourteen.", a jagged stone was thrown from his left hand, zipping through the air it smashed the skull of a man that was shooting at the direhorses and Na'vi from a safe distance.

In front of him was another group in his direct line of sight, it was bigger, way bigger, at least a hundred. It was right at the front lines where the two forces met and corpses of both sides lay as the battle raged on.

But the side showing the most loss was the Na'vi, bullets ripping through their flesh and mount. The RDA was not unscathed either and the smell of fire with blood heavy in the air, bodies of humans, Na'vi, and direhorse with smoking hunks of metal could be seen.

The three tetrapterons took an active role, diving to rip throats or dropping explosives when possible all the while staying extremely careful and giving 'Father' a constant stream of information.

An explosive arrow was shot from an archer up in a tree at an AMP suit, the blast shattered the windshield and the remaining heat and flame made the pilot's skin sizzle and lung burn, killing him. The fire couldn't spread due to the high degree of humidity in the air, however.

Two more suits took the exploded one place of which one had a minigun and another used a large handgun and giant chainsaw, rushing recklessly toward the Na'vi charge.

And this was a small part of the frontline.

"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen...", five shots rang in succession and five fell, their head blown but none noticed, drowned by the surrounding chaos and deafening noise.

A chaos Liam took full advantage of as he rapidly approached from behind the RDA.

As he continued to shoot a bullet suddenly hit him straight in the back of the head, missing one of the cameras by a few centimeters and making a scratch on the titanium but nothing more.

However, this attracted his attention, his head snapped to where the shot came from and he was met with a petite woman, her machine gun trembling in her frightened hand.

She was hidden within the roots of a tree, and was viscerally terrified, her eyes looking at him in horror, she must be one of the civilians, but Liam couldn't bring himself to care.

SecOps and the civilians having chosen to join the militia were the same, with the civilians arguably being worse as the first had no principle or hint of moral to begin with but the second chose to break both of those. Voluntarily.

The reasons behind such a choice were irrelevant.

"Pleas-", she couldn't finish her plea for mercy that bullet had made a new hole in her skull, the blood mixing with her tears, and she disgusted him.

She chooses to be here, chooses to come here to kill and then she hides like a coward and cries like a victim while the other kept on advancing. Absolutely revolting. At least the others have the guts to fight.

"Twenty-five.", he said coldly, his voice altered by his helmet. And he continued on, he unloaded his magazine on three more humans.

A turret appeared on his left hand and he threw it at a tree branch, the metallic feet solidly dug themselves into and the automatic turrets started to rain bullets down.

He kept on counting as more were shot to death by the turret, it was far less precise than him if as accurate, it didn't aim for the head, but the torso with occasionally the head.

He switched his fabricated sniper rifle for his compound bow and he stared at the closest AMP suit, a copper explosive arrow materialized from thin air, he drew the string and let go.

The arrow flew, it impacted the back of AMP suit wielding a larger submachine gun, the windshield was shattered by the blast and a few clauses died as well.

This finally caused some to notice him, they were confused and he took advantage of it by exploding five more AMP suits, bullets hit him causing sparks as he ran in the melee causing mass panic as more came to the realization of his presence and shot him.

Only a percentage of the bullets hit him due to his speed, and of that percentage, none did anything of note but dent his armor slightly or bounce off, some still passed through the first outer layer but that stopped there. Creating further panic and more to shoot him a distraction the Na'vi used to shoot them down from above and everywhere.

"Fifty-seven.", he said in the same cold tone as he kicked a smaller man in the head, a head that quite literally exploded into bits upon impact, only the lower jaws with a part of the neck remained as the body fell limply.

"What the fuck!?", the closest yelled in horror at the sight of his friend dying by the armored monster that spurred him and the ones close by to continue shooting but as he was going to reload he felt something grasp his neck while he was lifted from the ground.

His weapon fell off, his hand grasping the black gauntleted hand holding his neck but to his confusion, death didn't come. The one's around stopping shooting at the sight.

Then falling on a woman was a banshee riddled with bullets hole, the two collided and 'exploded' with the impact from the flying animal. Right after the body of Na'vi fell on the pile of bones, skins, and flesh becoming not much different.

Liam stared at it, the hold on his right hand increased slightly and the neck he was holding became but a bloody and crushed like a used-up toothpaste tube that he let go. The now dead man's face had its mouth, eyes, and nose dripping with scarlet red.

"Fifty-eight.", he said, taking the empty machine gun he threw at the head of a SecOps who got the weapon lodged within his cranium.

"Fifty-nine. When will you act?", he mumbled under his breath as he punched a human in the head which exploded like a watermelon upon falling on a hard surface from a high place, and took the weapons to empty the magazine on anyone entering his sight until no bullet remained.

"Sevent-*BANG*", he stopped, his eyes widening slightly as he suddenly tilted his head, the left part of his helmet broke apart as a high caliber bullet missed.

"Do you freak have eyes behind your head or what?", Lyle Weinfleet exclaimed in shock to the speaker in the safety of his AMP suit.

Liam's visible silver eye glared at the one who shot, a Na'vi was within the left metallic hand and another on the weapon that nearly blew his head off. His heart beat calmly but strongly, he wasn't free of harm. Far from it.

"That was your voice on the radio… I don't know what the hell you are but you freak seem fancy, the blue savage right?", the SecOps said cockily but terror could be seen in his eyes, it was just a facade of bravado

Lyle increased the grasp over the Na'vi's head at the piercing silver eye that felt as if he was gazing straight into his soul.

He was a prey and he was aware of that, so he was ready to pop the head of the Na'vi like a grape at the smallest of movements to show the monster freak thing in front of him he can kill the blue savage at any moment.

A Na'vi of the Olangi, one Liam recognized even if he wasn't close to and he knew

where that was going, a classic hostage situation m. So before Lyle could speak again or even begin processing what was happening he shot a particulate arrow from his bow, an arrow that had the same technology used in the drone he used on the Valkyrie.

It directly 'injects' the virus he coded into whatever it hit if the possibility of it being hacked even exists, to begin with, and the arrow landed in the right place. It flew straight home, lodging itself deeply in the metal 'coccyx' of the suit.

"Breath in. Seventy-one", Liam declared, and Lyle's attitude did a full turn as the suit suddenly turned off, the arm holding the Na'vi weakened letting the Na'vi run and the cockpit opened up with the SecOps taking his first and last true breaths of Pandora clean air.

But while Lyle died Liam didn't stop, he couldn't even if he wanted. His armor was changing from black to scarlet red, he switched his weapon to his war scythe mid-run, something he wouldn't have been able to do before due to his inexperience, the more he took in and out objects and the more he was familiar with it faster and easier it could be stored in his inventory.

He almost danced even if there was no enjoyment in what he was doing, he decapitated or crushed the head of all hostile with the blade or bludgeoning end of his that was too close, whiplashes were made by each of his movements and no human could comprehend what happened.

The thick scent of moist dirt, gunpowder, and the blood of Na'vi and humans was ever-present in the air.

Liam then ran toward the AMP suit with the chainsaw that was in the middle of dissecting a female Na'vi from the belly up to the shoulder in a show of pointless cruelty while none dared to shoot either frozen in shock terror or fear of hitting her.

The killing was one thing, but doing it in such a way, even if Liam could see the point of doing so. Intimidation was more often than not, a very effective tactic. The problem was that the act that was unfolding in front of him was not done for such a purpose in the first place and he wouldn't allow it to continue either way.

Every one of his kills was as fast and brutal as possible, it was threefold, less pain for them as a mercy even if it truly wasn't, less chance of alerting others and it reduced the chance of his enemy to fight back to zero.

It wasn't a game, a regular human if he was negligent due to his arrogance could very well cost him his life and that of others.

Without his armor, he would be already dead, and he nearly died not even a minute ago, his armor also saved him with the inhuman awareness it gave him.

He put his right hand into a fist, his speed picked up as he jumped and punched through the back of the suit in one of the weaker areas. His armored fist moved right through the metal as if it was wet paper and ended deep in the pilot's chest from the back.

The slight pain of doing this in his right hand not bothering him.

The suit stilled, the female Na'vi with half of her gut in open held in the air with the still working chainsaw smiled slightly under her feature of agony, it was of joy at the death of the one who tortured her mixed with the relief it was all finally ending.

She closed her eyes as the one-ton metal suit fell upon her, crushing her. The battle didn't stop at this, the few Na'vi who had seen what he did were conflicted but rapid to get back in the melee.

"Eighty-nine and ninety…", Liam mumbled under his breath, he shook his bloody fist off the piece of fabric, bones fragment with tatters of flesh and human skin clinging to it, and the hold on his war scythe in his left hand became tighter, he didn't want it to slip from his grasp due to the blood after all.

His only visible eyes met with stillness the ones of Norm's Avatar full of horror, at the scene if it was because of his appearance or what he did, Liam couldn't be sure but it was likely both and some more.

"She would have died, Norm, we couldn't have saved her.", Liam said through the radio to the scientist riding his direhorse, it might have come off a bit too cold, detached even but there weren't hundreds of ways to put it into words without playing it lightly.

*

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