The Last Stand

In the smoldering, destroyed ruins of Spero, hope still remained...hope in the form of a small sect of soldiers and survivors from Kyanon who were unwilling to give up.

General Selah, who survived the front-line combat with Lux Lucis and held out alongside Kabriel and his soldiers until she had a chance to fall back with the survivors who didn't escape with Arrakhesh, had taken her group of Kyanites far into the southern region of what was once Kyanon. She had set up camp there, hiding her group of two-hundred soldiers and one-hundred civilians in the ash and rubble of one of Kyanon's small military outposts. They lived for several weeks off of nothing but rations, equipping themselves with salvaged weapons pulled from the ashes and repairing what they could. Under Selah's orders, the outpost was brought into operation once more, along with a squadron of vehicles ranging from transport vehicles, tanks, and artillery to missiles and assault aircraft. They had everything they needed to complete a small army.

One Lux Lucis facility existed in this region of Spero that threatened the security of the Kyanite outpost if it was discovered, and housed enough equipment for the Kyanites to properly defend and sustain themselves. They would also be able to hijack battleships and communication equipment to depart from the dangerous territory of Spero and contact the rest of the Kyanite survivors. Selah decided that their plan would be to raid the Lux base, with the main objectives being to gather equipment, secure a means of communication, liberate a source of transportation, and - most importantly - leave no survivors.

The attack began just before dawn one morning. Selah moved her troops into position expertly, and strategically placed them to assault the base. At her command, hell suddenly broke loose. Heavy artillery bombarded the base's external defenses in perfect unison, sending down a volley of heavy firepower that would tear through shields and walls. The ground rumbled as tanks rolled in, blasting the first wave of Lux defence forces as they tried to retaliate. Bombers made swift, un-traceable passes through the sky, dropping an unending barrage of missiles and bombs to rip apart their victims. Finally, once the defenses were down, the troops started to pour in. Dozens of transport vehicles sped up towards the base, unloading squad after squad of Kyanite units - anyone left alive that could fight, from standard infantry units to elite soldiers. Lux would have to react quickly if they had any hope of defending themselves from the brutal and unexpected assault.

The defences of the base were quickly decimated barely having chance to fight back and prepare but once they got into the base, they would see this wouldnt be easy. It wasnt a normal base but a grey knight facility, a army of grey knight awaited them and gave them hell right back as their leader, Gabriel, stepped from his command center and took his war hammer out. He charged into the fray tearing through kyanite ranks. A few exo suits and mecha were released into the fight to destroy the vehicles and tanks. But something would happen next that might confuse kyanites, especially selah, and scare the Lux Lucis, as if the devil himself had returned.

As Gabriel entered they would realize how dark and cloudy the day was and it began to rain a dark rain, red lightning crackled amongst the cloud as this song began to echo from the thunder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8-sMJZTYf0 . Kyo appeared as 4 red lightning strikes hit the ground around where he appeared at the same time and he rushed forward killed 10 grey knights in about 10 seconds as he whipped around tearing and ripping his way toward Gabriel. His scars were all showing now, not hiding them. If selah saw him he seemed different he was in berserk and his hair was bleached white. He was angry, and he thirst for blood.

From the command outpost across the battlefield, barricaded and guarded with soldiers, Selah watched the events before her unfold. Everything was going as planned until this.

"What the fuck..."

She couldn't recognize Kyo from so far away. One of her sergeants radioed in for orders.

"Honorable General - unidentified entity on the field. Report?"

"I have no report for you, warrior. Who is he fighting?"

"He seems to be fighting the Grey Knights, Honorable General."

"Fine. Leave him be, then. Probably a survivor from Atrum. If he turns on you or gets in the way, do not hesitate. You have your orders, warrior."

The center of the facility was bombed by strategically-placed airborne missiles containing choking gas to disperse inside the main buildings and the areas of the base that the Kyanites hadn't reached yet. The gas would only last for a few minutes, but it would quickly devastate anything without proper ventilation as if its victims were breathing acid. The Kyanites continued to fight to breach the walls and hold the Lux away from the vehicles which were providing heavy firepower support.

Many of the grey knights were outside of the buildings fighting the Kyanites with all they had so not many were affected by the gas but a few were. Kyo made it to Gabriel and hit his hammer as it was swinging toward a kyanite. He roared anger at Gabriel and advanced fighting with the ferocity of an angered dragon but the grace of well trained warrior. His eyes were as black fire as he glared at gabriel swinging and slashing at him, managing to actually slice a wing in half.

He yelled "YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM ME! DIE YOU SON OF A BITCH DIE! DROWN IN YOUR OWN BLOOD, BURN IN YOUR OWN FIRE! DIE DIE DIE!" He yelled in a fanatical blood lust driven frenzy as he attack and was nearly killing a gene angel. His voice was loud and she might hear it.

As Selah monitored the situation from her command post, she saw the figure of a powerful gene angel fighting amongst her soldiers, and she saw the figure of the unidentified man. She sent a transmission over the comm units of her snipers, who had been picking off as many Lux as they could from their lookouts on the command post and scattered around the base.

"All snipers on my target. Repeat, all on my target. Take down the gene angel. I want reports on every hit."

Even at the difficult angle, a few snipers were able to get a view of Gabriel. Loud, piercing gunshots rang through the air. They weren't strong enough to take down the powerful gene angel, but the ones that hit would do more damage than the other Kyanites could since they were still being held back by the Lux forces.

"Report!" The snipers' spotters transmitted over their comms. "Hit." "Hit." "Hit." "Miss..."

Selah growled over the comm. "Who the fuck missed him?" She stomped over to the sniper who reported a miss on his target, and promptly ordered him to hand over his rifle. Selah grabbed it from him, reloaded it, and carefully took aim. She knew she wouldn't be able to kill the gene angel from this distance. She muttered under her breath as she aimed for his upper torso. "If I can't kill you myself, I'll at least send you my fucking regards." She pulled the trigger, and the spotter reported a hit. Selah grunted, shoved the rifle back at her sniper, and began walking back to her command post. "That's how you do it, warrior. Don't disappoint me."

She couldn't help but thinking that the other unidentified figure she saw at the end of the scope looked familiar...

The grey knights were faltering and begining to attempt a retreat. They were running and kyanon had almost won this fight, but if they thought this was over they were far from correct. The gene angels who was hit several times in torso didnt die quite yet but stood there barely able to stand.

Kyo rammed his sword through Gabriel's chest and yelled "you took everything! My nation! My people! YOU TOOK EVERYTHING FROM HER! HER NATION, HER PEOPLE, HER ENTIRE LIFE!"

He kicked Gabriel off the blade and watched as he laid dead on the ground, he spit on his corpse "Order from the ashes to wind, bitch."

He had heard the sniper shots and he noticed there was one extra, one had missed thier shot. "Who fucking missed?" He said with disgust that a kyanite had missed.

Selah saw that the Grey Knights were falling back, and that Gabriel had fallen.

"Gene angel down! Repeat, gene angel down! Slaughter them all, move in the full assault! Strike team, deploy! Tenja, report!"

Tenja's voice came over the comm proudly. "Moving in now, strike in one minute." The roaring of a loud engine was heard behind Tenja's transmission.

"Kyanites, move back back and hold the wall! Strike team en route!"

Another Kyanite General spoke directly from the battlefield. "Selah, Tenja, this is Arkasahn. Report on the unknown - he's on our side. And, uh...Selah, you might want to see this before you send the strike team..."

"Get me an ID on the unknown."

Arkasahn would try to move in closer, surrounded by troops while the rest of the Kyanites stayed back to hold the wall, waiting on the strike team to come in and finish the job. Only about ten Kyanites stayed close to Kyo, and Arkasahn shouted across the battlefield to Kyo.

"You! What's your name? Whose side are you fighting for?"

The gene angel's body was scooped up and brought as the grey knight were running away like cowards. they were running fast, and quick with one goal, get the gene angel's body out. They were still shooting back but running was their main goal.

Kyo looked at he man with shallow, dark eyes and emotionlessly replied "Oronaka. I fight for death, thats it. No sides, just retribution."

Arkasahn reported back amidst the gunfire.

"He identified as no affiliation. Said his name was...Oronaka?"

Selah roared over the comm. "WHAT?! What did you just say?! Repeat, General!"

"Oronaka."

Selah slammed her fist down and began barking orders. "CALL OFF THE STRIKE TEAM!" She grabbed up her rifle and began running down the stairs to the bottom of the outpost.

Tenja's voice came over the comm again. "What the hell, Selah? Are you fucking crazy? They're already deployed, thirty seconds until - "

"TENJA! I'll rip your guts out of your fat mouth if I have one non-Lux casualty from that damn strike team! I said CALL...THEM...OFF!"

Selah leapt into one of the guard ATV's parked outside of the command outpost. She revved up the engine and sped off towards the Lux base.

"Selah, there's not a damn thing I can do! They're deployed!"

"Arkasahn, order evacuation! NOW! Tell him the orders are straight from me!"

General Arkasahn shouted out to Kyo again. "Oronaka, listen to me! I have orders from General Selah, she says we have to evacuate now! Strike team is deployed, we have to move!"

Kyo looked at him "Get out of here, ill catch up." Then he realized the name he said and his eyes grew wide "WHAT!? SELAH'S ALIVE!? He looked around and noticed the grey knights re grouping on the other side of the base "Damnit, GO! I have business i need to finish up something here. Tell her nothing has changed, but can accept the scars." He turned and looked at the grey knights that seemed to be preparing basic defenses on the other side of the base to fight back.

Arkasahn relayed the information to Selah over the comm.

"Tell him I'm on my way. Get him out of the city! Strike team is en route!"

"He won't leave, Selah."

"Tell him I'll kick his ass if he doesn't!"

Selah reached the destroyed wall of the base, weaving through units of Kyanite troops and plowing through the rubble and the debris as the armored four-wheeler rolled across the remains of the wall. Selah made it into the base quickly, speeding past until she made it to Arkasahn's unit and saw Kyo in the distance. She leapt off, barely taking the time to grab her rifle, and ran towards him, shouting desperately.

"Kyo! KYO! It's me! We have to get out NOW! They're going to clear everyone in the base!"

He smiled and shook his head "I cant let them have Gabriel. They can bring him back." He turned, they were out of the base with Gabriel.

"KYO! Don't go! I - ..."

Selah's shouting was cut off by a piercing rumble through the air. A squad of planes flew above in V-formation, able to decimate the survivors now that the base's defenses were down. Selah barely had enough time to duck behind the side of a building towards the wall before the bombs started to fall. Missiles streaked down in between the buildings, targeting the last formations of Grey Knights to eliminate the Lux forces while leaving any valuable equipment and salvage intact. Clouds of gas billowed through the air, pouring out into the facility to choke any living thing caught in its radius. Flames took hold as incendiary missiles streaked down, lighting large sections of the areas where the Lux were forming on fire and spreading as fuel poured out across the streets. The heavy artillery positioned around the base launched another round, tearing through the walls and ripping apart the exterior of the base.

Three light anti-personnel tanks rolled in as the smoke started to clear, indiscriminately leveling anything they could see that moved as they positioned themselves in the center of the base to hold their position. A troop carrier pulled up nearby, unloading a group of heavily armored troops with ventilators and gas masks who poured out into the base, clearing and securing it as their own. A group of war-hound handlers, also wearing gas-masks, brought out a pack of dogs wearing customized ventilators and body armor. They tracked down any remaining Grey Knights, alerting to the direction they were in, and the Kyanite strike team started to head towards them.

The strike team's attack was extremely efficient. Their only goal: to clear everything alive out of the base. Selah was the only Kyanite still within the walls who wasn't part of the strike team, and Arkasahn and his men were the only ones who saw her go in. Selah had been trapped underneath a pile of rubble when part of a building collapsed and slammed into the outside wall, just over where she had ducked with her ATV. She covered her mouth, trying not to breathe in the poisonous gas as she started single-handedly digging her way out of the heavy chunks of debris that nearly crushed her.

Kyo would have shielded himself with a wall of dark energy and when he stood he used dark magik to cover his mouth. He looked around for her and saw rubble shifting near where she had been and he yelled her name "SELAH!" He ran over and used his magik to lift and move all the rubble on top of her and he used the same magik to cover her mouth as to not breath in the gas, it was an invisible, non physically manifesting enchantment. He would pick her up and blink out of the base. "I told you and your men to go....Why didnt you listen to me?"

They couldnt see this but a nearby warship was alerted and it called for reinforcement from a base on arian which deployed its forces to meet the warships as it began moving toward this position.

The remnants of Arian left behind during the escape were stationed nearby the Lux stronghold on the northern edge of Kaie, they had been preparing a raid on the camp for some time but when they arrived they saw the forces being sent north, toward Kyanon. They group of soldiers that had been providing for the remaining people retrieved a ship from the harbor without being noticed and loaded the survivors aboard in hopes they would reach they surviving forces of kyanon before they were wiped out by the Lux forces.

The ship set off quickly and looking back from the waters toward the base they were leaving behind they saw one of their own suspended by his hands on a cross. They recognized his armor right away and shield the eyes of the civilians looking upon him, there was no doubt in their minds that it was Lord Kanashige Naoya, commander of the Arian imperial military and overseer of the international relations. The young female general fell over sick with grief and disgust at how their honorable general was displayed by Lux Lucis.

Selah ripped her way through the rest of the rubble, almost collapsing as Kyo helped her out. She could still hardly breathe even after Kyo took hold of her and blinked her to the outside of the wall, where the air was still breathable. The combination of the bombs, the collapse of the rubble, the gas, and the disorientation of blinking nearly made Selah go unconscious.

"I...couldn't let you go in there...and get hurt..."

Arkasahn and his troops rushed over, bringing a medic unit with them. He didn't expect to see Selah out of the city already, or to even see her at all, but he ordered immediate medical attention for her. Combat medics and doctors rushed over, trying to check her wounds. Aside from being extremely nauseous and disoriented, Selah had a few bruises, cuts, and burns but wasn't in critical condition.

"Kyo...you're alive..."

His hand glowed with a healing energy and he ran it over any cuts and bruises he saw on her and he nodded "I am. When we got separated during the lux lucis attacks and then i heard most kyanite officials were dead...i thought...you were gone. Ive been in my berserk state since... which explains my hair..." He chuckled slightly trying to act himself for once in months, then smiled at her again "Im so glad your alright."

After being briefly checked, Selah sends the medics away. Arkasahn, a middle-aged bald man who just recently moved up into the ranks of General in the Honor Guard, removed his helmet and approached.

"General, the base is secured."

"Good. Take control, Arkasahn. I have other things to deal with now." She gestured for him to leave, and he followed orders as he returned to the command post. The gas started to dissipate, and more Kyanites flooded into the city to take it over.

Selah turned to Kyo. "I thought you were dead too. How did you survive? How...how are you here now?"

He smiled "For a while i was hiding out in the ruins of Port Rashira. Scraping up what little i could when it came to food. Eventually i lost control and ive been on a rampage slaughtering lux lucis for...quite some time. The rampant energy kept me alive. How did you and your men get through this?"

Selah smiled proudly. "The question is...how would I NOT get through this? Do you think for a moment that anything can keep a Kyanite down? Haven't I taught you a damn thing?"

The gas cleared, and more Kyanite units started to pour into the city. They were there to mop up any unlikely survivors and raid the city for anything useful. They knew they didn't have much time to get what they needed and get out. They were hijacking any vehicles, capturing any technology, rigging communications systems, and doing everything else necessary to completely gut the base of anything useful.

Selah stepped closer to Kyo and subtly took his hand. "Kyo, we're safe. And we're together. And we're going to get out of here - you will come with me, won't you?"

He smiled at her "Thats right, how stupid of me." He would face palm for a second and when she took his hand he blushed for a second and held her hand "Of course, i was never discharged by Kabriel. My place is in Kyanon, with you."

The Lux lucis were decimated by the attack and the raiding kyanites, the group with Gabriel was hiding in a bunker beneath the base awaiting the inevitable re inforcements which were quickly making their way to the base.

"Of course. You're one soldier I don't want to lose." Selah let Kyo's hand go. "But we don't have any time - I'm sure they'll be sending reinforcements. The plan is to get in and get out, but there's a possibility that reinforcements will catch us before we have a chance to move out. Once we get everything we can, we're leaving."

Selah glanced out to the shoreline, where some of the stolen Lux ships were being prepared to leave. The Kyanite citizens who couldn't fight were being loaded onto the ships, and one of the battleships was loaded with military personnel as well as valuable stolen items from Lux. More Kyanite ships sailed up the shoreline to meet up, joining the fleets together and preparing to leave. Tenja handled the raiding of the base, while Arkasahn collaborated the fleets and arranged the escape.


Selah looked up at Kyo. "We have about five minutes if the reports are right. If they hit us while we're leaving, we hold them off long enough to get out. And if they hit us here, we stand our ground until we can leave. That's our plan. So get ready."

Kyo smiled and when she let go of his hand and he sighed "Damnit lux lucis." he would mutter to himself. He would nod and walk with her doing whatever he could to help. When he told her the plan he nodded "If they hit us like this, its over. This small army and me is not enough to fight off a large group of Lux Lucis."

The fleet would be moving into viewable distance at this point. It was large.

"No, we can't fight them, but we can hold them back long enough. They're here quicker than expected. They're not as inefficient as they look." Selah tapped her comm. "Incoming from the east, load the ships! Every civilian on board, every soldier on high alert. Arkasahn, fortify defenses for the fleet and stay out of the line of fire. Tenja, get the hell out of there and prepare the evacuation and offense. I'll coordinate defense on the ground. Everyone to the ships! Go! We're moving out!"

The forces in the base pulled back quickly and loaded everything valuable onto the ships. The majority of the Kyanites were on the ships and started heading north, out of sight of the Lux forces and out of the area where the fight would likely take place. A few ships remained hidden in the harbor, ready to take Selah, Kyo, and the remaining forces away once they held off the Lux reinforcements long enough for all of the Kyanites to escape.