Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

Battlefront

Celex behind him, prismatic hair blowing in a surprisingly photogenic breeze. He looked both unperturbed and even excited. He had a Maker rifle slung across his back on a sling and a Spartan spear in the other hand. Otherwise, he was unarmored.

As if by some unwritten agreement, the two armies drew to a halt standing at odds across an open field of maybe fifty yards. The world was surprisingly silent despite the violence that took place overhead. In a way Adam thought it should have been loud, violent, deafening because what else should a war between two gods have been.

Yet it was silent except for the whirring of mechanical joints.

As if of one mind, Adam stepped forward along with Sunny, Adham, and kazna's entourage.

"There is still time for your surrender." Kazna called, "Your futile efforts do not have to fill your end with suffering and pain."

Adam felt his lips draw back in a sneer, "Surrender to you, lose to you, either way the results are the same, we cease to exist and the universe with us. I would rather die in battle knowing I could do all I could than lay down and die like a coward."

Kazna raised her head, dark shadow spilling around her body and shoulders. In a way the gesture almost seemed appreciative, "At the very least, human, you are not a coward."

"Pity I can't say the same about you." Kazna's mouth twisted in a sharp curl, golden eyes burning with hatred.

It was Lanus that stepped forward this time. The armies on both sides were quiet as he stepped forward to join Adam and the others, towering above them with his hulking size.

"Please, Kazna, let this end. Come back to us.... Come back to me." He spoke as a man in private eyes only for her. The way he spoke, the tenderness in his words were of an intimate nature, something that should have been shared in the quiet rather than across the field of battle. Adam watched Kazna's mouth twitch again somewhere between guilt and a sneer but not quite either or.

But it was no use.

"Silence Lanus. Once you led armies, but now you follow. You are not the warrior I once knew."

And then she slammed her visor down over her face, obscuring her mouth, but leaving her eyes burning and gold from behind the plate. Lanus raised his head slowly, a regal sort of sadness spread across his face, "Very well."

It was during this conversation that Adam couldn't help but notice another two figures making silent conversation across the open battlefield. Next to Kazna and the others, Maverick seemed unusually small, in a way that she had never seemed before. She wore no armor, and her hands were unburdened by weapons. Where the others around her seemed hungry for battle, she only seemed grim.

Ramirez shifted in the line behind them as his eyes fell on her, and they locked silent gazes from across the space between.

Was that doubt on her face?

Who could say, but she did not step to join them

Ramirez bowed his head.

Adham drew himself up to his full height, ambiguous face drawing itself into a look as stern as stone. "Then it seems we have nothing more to discuss, you die here." and then he raised his spear calling the murmuring soldiers into silence

"READY!"

Horns blasted somewhere in the distance as Kazna raised her own spear.

Overhead the Starborn shifted, and Adam could feel the rolling waves of psychic energy pulsating off of them in great beating waves.

It was time.

He reached up and drew down his visor stepping back into line with the others shoulder to shoulder with Sunny. Before him, the Spartans drew together in a shield wall, ready for their attack Drev paired off behind them, two by two. Adam was only dimly aware of the people around him as he fell into place next to Sunny, but he was aware enough to hear the small exchange that happened only a few feet behind him.

"Excuse me, is this spot taken?"

Adam turned his head just in time to see a massive Drev warrior step into the empty space beside Kanan, her body glowing gold, her carapace blazing white.

Kanan barely had the voice to speak as Nehchal stepped into the place beside him.

Dzara almost looked a little put out until Lanus placed a hand on her shoulder, "It will be an honor to fight at your side."

Sunny and Adam needed no last words.

They could already hear it, unspoken between them, all of the thoughts and feelings they would have shared during a moment like this without words spilling into the space between them.

Otherwise,

Silence.

"FIGHT!"

Adham made no fanfare, no cheer, no call, just a single order, and they marched. The less experienced warriors bumped into their counterparts at the front ready to charge into battle like this was some sort of heroic movie scene, but those experienced, on the front line, held for the time being.

Adam and Sunny held their arms forward sending charges of Anima energy through their armored suits and into their forearms standing strong as glowing golden shields burst to life before them. The makers broke off in groups darting to the side and aiming directly towards the enemy lines, targeting their heavy artillery.

Behind them, came the clunk of artillery going off, and then a sharp whistle as the ordinance shot through the air over their heads. The void took first casualties, screaming as that artillery round roared into their midst and then erupted sending bodies and pieces of bodies briefly into the sky. The void did not need an invitation to strike back, and Adam's ears were filled with the whistling of incoming artillery before a brief eruption of golden light sparked behind him as the makers blocked the strike.

Though they were unable to protect everyone.

The first casualty of the Makers was starborn, ripped apart by the force of the concussion and thrown back to land torn amidst the marching videos down below.

"STEADY!" Adam ordered.

"STEADY!" Conn shouted, and the entire field was filled with the psychic pulse as he spoke, powerful nad resonant.

More golden burst of light broke their line, a few rounds made it through. Bodies collapsed.

Before them their own artillery chewed through the lines of void soldiers.

They were so close now.

Adam could see the Gold of kazna's eyes even as she raised her spear.

And let it fall.