The red earth cracked under his feet, like the brittle shell of an egg, a surface layer of ice or even a thin pane of glass. Behind him, the crunching of other boots on the planet's surface set up a chorus of sound that echoed up and into the yellowed sky rent and torn by a battle being waged between gods.
And here, over the horizon, he could finally see them. An army thousands strong, wide and deep as the sea was endless, and at their head.... A familiar figure. It had been over ten years since Kazna had lead an army into battle, and it had been more than a few thousand since soldiers had met eye to eye in such neat rows across an open plane of battle.
This was it.
He felt like a soldier of the Greek City states, a Spartan standing against the Persians at Thermopylae covering the army's retreat. The more colorful retelling of that story said that 300 lone spartans had stood against the entirety of the persian army, but the truth of history was really that the Spartans had stood with a few hundred other greeks in that battle.
Looking around him, he supposed he could feel like a spartan, standing next to the NeoSpartan king James and his queen Xanthia both arrayed in gold and red armor, helmets shaped to emulate the Corinthian helmets worn by their ancient greek counterparts, red brushes falling in a sweep from their heads, faces obscured by visors. Next to him stood representatives of other proverbial city states.
The Drev led by the Saint of Anin, beautiful with their shining carapace cut like precious gems, and their burnished armor worn in sweeping spikes around their bodies. Spear tips glittered in the hands of both the Neospartans and the Drev as they marched for battle. Behind them marched the legions of the makers, faces burning with a godly golden light, their bodies shedding power wherever they walked. And with them came more, The occasional Tesraki and Rundi scampered across the ground in an attempt to keep up with the marching armies. Etium floated along, beside his chain gun which glowed an ethereal blue.
And more and more
Human soldiers in black armor.
Celex in oversized mech suits.
And finally, their backup.
Adam wasn't sure to this point of Conn would manage it, but as he tilted his head back t outlook at the sky, he saw them, Descending like a swarm from the heavens came the....
Came the starborn.
Thousands strong, snuck in through the open shield by masking their thoughts, and there they had staged themselves, issued gravity belts by their new de facto leader.
Conn.
He floated down from above dressed, for some inexplicable reason, in a three piece suit, coal black eyes burning with hunger almost as if he was excited for something, ribbons flowing out from behind him like the abstracted wings of an angel given form. A terrible destroying angel.
They floated downward and forward, joining the slow procession of warriors cobbling themselves together against impossible odds.
Adam never wanted to go to war.
The Drev War
The war for the Gromm homeworld
The war for Earth.
War after war after war since the moment humanity stepped foot in the GA.
And now this.
The war to end all wars, the war for the universe. Was this it? Armageddon, The apocalypse, Ragnarok.
He wasn't sure if going to war with the people he most loved was a good thing or a bad thing, at his side Sunny, his wife, the woman it had taken him years to fall in love with, but he had somehow managed despite his own self sabotage and stupidity. At his right, his best friend for the past decade better than any friend anyone could ever have asked for, Ramirez, still wearing the patches of a marine despite not having technically been a marine the past few years now.
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.