After the meetup, the Rhodes Island squadron were then faced with even more Reunion attacks, and they were now led up front by their commander, Skullshatterer. But it all proved to just be a diversion to them, as later they realized when the Reunion forces suddenly retreated after only mere moments of battle. Having come to that realization, they urgently rushed to link up with Ch'en and her L.G.D forces, who they then found out had also been attacked at the same time and managed to lose Misha in the process.
After linking up with them and working hand in hand to fight off some Reunion forces, the L.G.D's reinforcements finally arrived at the scene, and together with them was a towering individual who held a frickin' giant shuriken for a shield, named Hoshiguma, who was sort of Ch'en's personal assistant.
After she had finished reporting to Ch'en on their current situation, she diverted her attention to the Rhodes Island's operators, when she also suddenly noticed the presence of a certain man sporting a very familiar skull mask.
"Wait, isn't that the captain of that task force? What was it called? The Phantom Task Force, right?" Hoshiguma asks Ch'en, who merely nodded back to confirm her suspicions, as she herself was occupied pondering out into the distance, her head filled with thoughts, possibilities and courses of action she should take to tackle this conflict.
"Why is he here?" Hoshiguma then asked again, to which Ch'en only raised both her shoulders,
"Don't know. Don't care"
"...He looks different, though. I mean, he's wearing the Rhodes Island armband. When you're a captain, you just don't do that on-''
"Sign of allegiance, maybe. I don't know. Why don't you go ask him yourself, if you care so much."
"...jeez, I was just asking, no need to have that kind of tone with me"
Not really wanting to think too deep about it at the moment when they quite literally have a mountain of other problems to busy her mind with, Hoshiguma then said to all of Rhodes Island,
"I look forward to seeing how well all of you fight, Rhodes Island" she said, while taking a long glance at each and every operator there, interested in how a legally registered 'Pharmaceutical Company' alongside a mishmash of security and logistics company would actually fare in a battle of such scale with her very eyes.
Somewhere else, though, in the heat of the combat zone, the signature duo of Exusiai and Texas fought in the midst of the open fields, attracting a rather impressive number of Reunion forces towards their location while Rhodes Island' made their way to them, ready to head straight into the heart of the battle.
After finally joining up with them, they all managed to chase off most, if not all of Reunion's forces in the area, but what they didn't realize was that by doing so, they had fallen straight into Reunion's scheme.
The Reunion forces, or what's left of them at least, retreated but after some time, they all began to regroup again. But this time, they brought along with them one of their commanders. It was a Sarkaz Centurion, though its actual name was unknown. Complementing its name, the centurion was a massive combatant, with a sword almost 3 quarters of its height.
The ensuing battle would be one of challenges and hardship, a battle of will and courage.
Swords clashed violently all over the battlefield, guns and arrows were shot in all directions and arts were unleashed in havoc between both sides. But amongst the chaos, The massive reunion commander managed to somehow find an opening to take a slash at one of the Penguin Logistics duo, Exusiai from behind,
Texas noticed the oncoming strike that was about to be unleashed upon her colleague. In a moment's notice, she swiftly moved through the chaos of the battlefield, swerving in between enemies and dodging near contacts of swinging blades to go and help her out, somehow. But she was beaten to it. Someone else had already gotten to Exusiai's aid before her, as another person quickly intercepted right besides her and throwing himself straight in the Centurion's line of attack.
That person was the new guy, Ghost, though weirdly enough Texas seemed like she was already expecting it to be him, as a small grin formed on her face and she stopped right in her tracks.
Ghost, as with most of the other operators of Rhodes, greatly paled in comparison to the size of the simply towering Sarkaz Centurion, but even so, he still managed to block the Sarkaz's gigantic sword with his own blade, even managing to push the Sarkaz's sword back as he swung back his sword against him, putting himself in front of Exusiai's back, an unnerving sense of calmness emanating from him as he stood firm in front of his violent foe.
The thunderous sound of the two blades clashing had caused everyone's attention to focus towards the pair of swordsmen. In the midst of everyone looking on, Exusiai turned around, and only stared at Ghost who stood as her protection, not saying even a slight comment or words of gratitude, weirdly unmatching of her usual attitude. Ghost took a second to glance behind towards her, before he assumed his own combat-ready stance and pointed the tip of his blade to his, a clear gesture to say he was prepared to take on the massive warrior stood in front of him.
He firmly gripped the handle of his blade, and with one simultaneous swing from the both of them, the two engaged in a duel,
The two warriors viciously clashed swords with one another, both their swordsplay were on par with each other even though one was about about three times the size of the other. But amidst the fast paced clashing of swords, there was something intriguing that the crowd who witnessed the duel also took interest in. That something was Ghost's black sword, or to be more exact, the white lining on the edge of his black blade.
As he kept swinging and clashing swords with the Centurion, every clash would result in a small crack appearing on his blade. But the appearing cracks didn't look like they appeared out of damage, but rather the cracks seemed to form with a bright white glow that traced along with the original white lining on the sword. The black sword was slowly being engulfed in a brilliant white light, but it also wasn't the only thing they noticed to be glowing brightly.
His surroundings appeared to be glowing with a white glow,
His surroundings slowly kept glowing brighter and brighter as his white halo kept on shining more intensely each second.
The people who witnessed this angel in this moment were almost entranced, their eyes unmoved from the action in their eyes, as the once black sword had now turned almost completely into a beautiful glowing white blade.
As another clash shook the air around them, both blades were violently swung back on itself as a result of the clattering force pushing each of them back, yet both remain unfaltered. A pause ensued as the two warriors looked at each other eye to eye, both acknowledging the other's abilities.
Though, all things must have an end.
Both of the remarkable warrior pulled back their sword for one last swing, a decisive one that will determine the victor. The both of them then slashed their blades forward in full grit, and finally the winner was clear at last
The upper half of the massive Centurion fell lifeless onto the ground with blood continuously pouring out of its open contents, and its corresponding lower part dropped onto the ground as thick red blood gushed out into the air and fell down in a horrid rain of blood.
The giant of a commander was cut clean in half. Sword and body, all of it was sliced like a literal hot knife through butter.
Each soul that witnessed the gruesome scene was at a clear loss for words, only staring at the carcass in two halves in front of them.
The center of attention himself only stood still, grounded in front of the body. The pool of blood had now pooled up to the point it had started to surround the ground his feet was standing on. His sword had now also returned to its original black state.
He looked downwards into the pool of blood, and it looked back at him, only his reflection staring straight into him.
He merely only glanced at the body, then he glanced at everything and everyone around him. Was he taking in the atmosphere, or was he empty, that's up for question. But at the end, he locked his glance at Amiya. He looked like he wanted to say something to her, but he no words ever came out of hIs mouth. He felt what had just happened before them was enough for him to get his point across to her.
Exusiai was still behind him all the time. She was staring at him before, and she still was. Only now, her gaze towards him had changed from everything that had happened. Her eyes now seemed to be filled with a cloud of worry and concern, her once small grin now a saddened frown.
But this time of awkward silent was cut short, as suddenly the ground shook, and they were ambushed by Skullshatterer. The first attack from him was aimed for the dokutah, but Hoshiguma managed to block it, but his second attempt to kill the dokutah was stopped by Amiya.
By straight up killing him.
She knew she had to save dokutah...but at what cost should she pay for her actions? That was what Ghost wanted to let her know. When you possess great power, you carry more burden on your shoulders.
And when you start to carry them alone, you can be forced into actions you yourself would loathe.
Shocked by the death of their commander, the remaining reunion forces retreated with sad hearts. But there was another commander who stayed behind, just for the sake of delivering a call for Amiya. It was W, and the person who wanted to talk to her, was Misha. As it turned out, Skullshatterer was Misha's brother, and seeing his death gave her the final push to finally commit to reunion's campaign for the infected.
As of that moment, the person they had to protect, now became a person they'd have to face in battle, sooner or later
Even with that shocking revelation, Rhodes Island and the L.G.D had no other options but to keep on moving forward. In life, you can't change what's happened, but you certainly can change what will happen. They kept on moving, holding that phrase in their hearts.
They deduced that the best plan of action was to split up, with Rhodes Island sneaking into the mines, where reunion's camp was, to flush out the reunion forces holed up in there, while the L.G.D set up an encirclement around the perimeter so they could immediately detain them. Executing the plan, Hoshiguma, along with Franka and Liskarm moved out together ahead of the others, leaving Amiya with the Penguin Logistics operators, and Ghost.
"Ghost...Your left arm's bleeding!...hold on...medic, please treat Ghost, thank you." Amiya quickly ordered a nearby medic as she noticed blood trickling along Ghost's left arm, yet again from underneath his armguard. It was peculiar, but nobody ever bothered asking about it, as they really just thought it was just another reopened wound.
"..Thank you..." Ghost says to her. He felt like he should say more to her, especially after all she had to go through just now, but he just couldn't. He couldn't bring himself give her any words of comfort. It was as if his mind was clouded by guilt every time he wanted to say it. As if he thought that he was unworthy to say such words.
Why?
"Why are you making a face like that? Thinking about something?" Texas asked Exusiai as she noticed her wrinkling her eyebrows really hard.
"Don't you think Ghost's behaving really reaaaally differently since the last time we met him?
"Did you really just notice that?"
"Well errr.....b-but I'm certain that this is him. But why is he behaving like this?"
Silence insued for a moment between them, as Exusiai's thoughts were filled with the question,
"What happened?"