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[Milky Way Galaxy/ Valor Controlled Territory/ In Shock Jump Transit to Core World Geneva/ Ares Battle Cruiser/ Hanger Deck/ Hanger Bay B-3/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

Arjun slapped a new magazine into his combat rifle and made sure the safety was turned on; he stood shoulder to shoulder with countless of other marines in the hanger bay. The Valor ship, Ares, although still badly damaged was called into service along with all capitol ships in the immediate area to combat the sudden threat right on Valor's doorstep. The level of tension almost drove Arjun mad, he could feel this was it he was going to die on this mission no ifs ands or buts. There was no way he was going to make it out of an invasion of this size. He had the same feeling when he was going into his first combat drop against a small rebel outpost but this was different, at least he could count on a rebel falling to the ground dead as a doorstop if she or he was shot in the head.

"All military forces, Shock Jump will end in one minute and counting please report to your stations...this is not a drill." The ship's A.I sounded.

Rows of Valor combat carriers lay across the hanger bay with their ramps down with their respected commander that led specific platoon standing in the middle of it. Jonathan was on the ramp to the right of Arjun's assigned carrier; he stood stoically with one hand on the hilt of his nanobyte long sword and his other arm holding his helmet.

The entire bay was filled with carbon copies of Valor marines all of them lined up in neat rows ready to pile into the military aircrafts. "T-minus thirty seconds and counting, prepare for drop"

Arjun check his combat rifle as he was deep in thought, what were the Hollow Men? More importantly why were they so fixated on him so much, he never thought himself too special the only accomplishment he had was wining the fifth grade spelling bee and only because all the macrial kids were off on a science trip.

"Exiting Shock Jump...now."

The flag ship 'Ares' came into real space, energy crackled around its hull from the star ship leaving the stable wormhole it had created to jump from one end of the galaxy to the other. Ares soon found itself in a devastating navy battle around Geneva's orbit. Entire battle groups of Valor warships some dwarfing Ares by ten folds with thousands of one man fighters flying in formation against the onslaught of the Hollow Men bone fleet.

Valor capitol ships traded fire power along their board sides like old navy boats against adjacent undead frigates that launched their own deadly and exotic weaponry to strip away the hull from ships like flesh from bone. The Ares soldiered onwards as Valor Hawk fighters chased down the cabal's own version of snub fighters that were constructed from bones like the rest of their ships.

The massive space engagement centered on the Star Base that oversaw all of Geneva's defences, massive anti-capitol ship turrets fired their payload on the Hollow Men warships but as each one exploded into fiery debris of bone and metal the remains floated together to another part of the battle where they reconstructed themselves into a ship once more.

Ares's kinetic shielding took heavy hits the closer it headed towards the planet in order for its ground forces could be within distance to travel by combat carrier. Arjun took deep breaths; his hands were gripped tightly around his weapon he could hear the banging and groaning of the hull from every impact, "I just have to live through this and I'm good..." he whispered to himself.

Suddenly John spoke out loud to address the massed amount of marines, "Remember soldiers of Valor! What we face today is evil itself!" The ship groaned heavily again from another very loud impact, "We are the greatest fighting force in the universe and together we can overcome this enemy like all others we have faced before. When history looks back on the battle of Geneva they will say that the three-hundred twenty second hellhounds were the once than marched in and kicked every one of these bastards straight back into whatever hell hole in space they crawled out of!"

The hanger bay erupted into cheers and yells when the ship's A.I interrupted, "All military personal board your drop ships now, prepare for ground engagement against the enemy.

John drew his nanobyte long sword, "For freedom, for the High Chancellor, for Valor!"

The platoon commanders entered their combat carriers and in a rush, each platoon followed in tow, Arjun was forced ahead by a sea of bodies that surged into the massive combat carriers. He took the most immediate seat he could find pulling the overhead harness over his body and securing it tightly. The captain to Arjun's new platoon was the last to enter the carrier as the ramp closed shut behind him.

The captain was a vulphus standing much higher than all those that were under his command, "You heard Highcastle we will walk in there and rip out these bastards from the heart of our city!"

"HOORAH" the marines responded in unison.

The hanger doors of Ares opened and in a moment's notice the tens of combat carriers took off towards the planet's atmosphere and soon they descended upon the now war torn city. The once megalopolis that was home to billions, a city that span across the planet, sky scrapers that touched the skies overlooked the labyrinth maze of high ways and roads. Even during the night Geneva's lights illuminated the planet in a glorious testimony to Valor's claim to the galaxy but now the once proud city that stood for generations was the sight of a battle field something almost everyone thought impossible.

The convey of combat carriers flew just above the tallest buildings, Arjun could hear the chatter of machine gun fire along with the loud bangs the closer they got to their intended target. He saw the human marine in front of him was thumbing individual rounds into his magazine.

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Hostile Controlled Territory/ Unknown Space/ Valor Mega-City/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

Sanguine Lord Mordred was deep in his own thoughts, he protested against the invasion of this world to the Malefic knowing it was a grouse misuse of resources even if it were to gain a very powerful ally...an ally the Blood Cabal needed desperately. His cold heavy breath seeped from his fully enclosed helmet, meditation had always helped calmed his nerves.

"You're Lordship!" a cabal sentinel yelled out to its master, its voice both raspy and highly mechanical in tone. The robe wearing undead waved its open palm to gain the attention of its commander.

"What is it soldier?" Mordred answered hoping for the news he wanted to hear.

The sentinel gestured to a row of Valor drop ships off in the far distance that were coming straight for them and would pass by the small team in a matter of mere minutes.

"Capital!" Mordred yelled out knowing Arjun would be aboard the last one thanks to his forward scouts allowing for him and his squad to intercept and capture the human. "Soldiers, ready your positions." He swiftly ordered.

Blood Cabal sentinels fortified their positions on the Valor building's rooftop when a massive cabal sentinel climbed out from the bottom level of the wrecked building onto the roof level as it hefted its massive chain gun.

"The hero is on the last drop ship, shoot them all down but be gentle with his..."Mordred explicitly stated.

"Acknowledged." The heavy sentinel crackled in its mechanical voice, the cybernetic undead gripped the chain gun in both of its metal claws and planted its feet into the floor to brace it's self for the insane recoil.

Mordred held his enclosed armored fist to signify not to fire yet while the smaller foot soldiers got in position around their heavier cousin. "Fire on my mark..." The rattling and pistons going off testified his men were priming their weapons for the heaviest impact to penetrate Valor's rather advanced hull plating.

The Valor combat carriers were now close enough that the commander could make out the pilots in their lead ship.

"Fire at will, soldiers of the Malefic!"

The heavy sentinel fired a single massive spike straight through the first drop ship that impaled both pilots before it fired one more after the other. The first carrier immediately plummeted to the city streets in a fiery explosion but the heavy sentinel still had plenty of ammunition left where it switched its gun to fire more rapidly turning each carrier into Swiss cheese punching holes through their hulls like wet paper.

"Excellent shots soldier." The Mordred spoke highly to its minion.

"I live to serve the malefic." It answered back.

The Sanguine Lord then pointed to the small group of sentinels, "Grapple onto the hero's transport soldiers and take it down gently!"

The heavy sentinel fired a salvo of high powered rounds into the last drop ship sending it crashing into burning wreckage when the spikes punctured the fuel engines. The five sentinels pointed their wrist claws at the drop ship where their hooked blades shot out and dug into its hull with incredible precision. As the carrier zoomed by the sentinels were tugged and found themselves crawling along the hull of the transport.

"Thane, inform the Necro lords that we will have the hero under our possession and to begin setting up an extraction point for all ground forces." He spoke to his sergeant.

"By your command... Lord Mordred." The heavy sentinel answered as its chain gun began to cool down.

Sanguine Lord Mordred leaped off the side of the sky scraper where he fell into a free fall, countless levels he fell before slamming feet first into the hood of a car sending it straight to the ground with its alarm going off. The fully armored knight stood from the wreckage unharmed where he proceeded to walk down the road through the traffic of unmanned cars that were covered in a heavy sheet of dust.

"Arjun Fiaz will not escape this time." He muttered.

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Valor Controlled Territory/Gamma Cluster/ Core World Geneva/ Sector 5/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

Jonathan Highcastle woke up in the burning wreckage of his combat carrier, "Warning multiple wounded detected...beginning healing program." His suit's A.I beeped out to him.

He crawled across the inside having been thrown from his seating area, the men under his command were not as lucky most of them died from the force of the impact or when the enemy had fired upon them. Rail road like spikes jetted out of a number of bodies that were dripping in fresh blood of various colors depend on what race was hit. "Alert squad strength down to ninety eight percent fighting strength...recommend mission abort."

Small fires were littered throughout the holding area but thankfully the buildup of smoke had somewhere to go as the ramp to the drop ship had been torn off and John saw and even greater number of marines was thrown across the city street. For each of his fallen John saw it only fueled his already rising anger, he gritted his teeth and began to stand up holding his side as his ribs ached like he never felt before. He swayed from side to side out of balance where he fell towards the entrance of the drop ship supporting himself on the wall.

The city was far worse on the ground than he could ever imagine from up above, the dead of innocents were trapped within their cars no doubt caused from the start of the invasion. In a sigh of relief he could feel the suit's repairing system healing his wounds and he was able to walk out into the cold city air with some stability in his walk_. "Internal damaged repaired...reducing morphine injection."_

John to his fortune noticed on one of his fallen brethren was an undamaged Nova rifle; one of Valor's most deadly of anti-personal weapons it was tried and tested against pirates countless times where a handful of rounds could glass an entire city block. With great care he picked up the rather heavy weapon of great destruction, it was noticeably a lot bigger than the more light weight combat rifle. Along the sides of the weapon where many vents used to exhaust the intensive amount of heat that was generated with each shot, a blue like fog emanated from the mouth of the gun like the smoke from a dragon's nostrils.

He raised his wrist up to his mouth in order to use his communication device, "Command can you hear me? The mission is scrapped....everyone is....dead." John asked as sat on the ground.

"C-Copy...that-rendezvous at-at-" The other end of the call buzzed with static causing John to swear knowing the undead must have had some kind of jammer up.

Suddenly from the alley ways sounded the heavy footsteps and mechanical groans that he was all too familiar with. He forced himself up and hurried around the side of the crashed drop ship to get himself into better cover and hopefully retain the element of surprise.

A number of hollow men sentinels emerged from the roads and alley ways, they were in a loose formation standing more than several meters apart from one another. The point man of the squad surveyed the brutal landing with its soulless gaze before letting out an assortment of garbled alien noises and sounds. John peaked his vision past his cover to find the rest of the squad took up defensive positions around the open entrance of the carrier where he saw another one of the undead foot soldiers emerging from the shadows but this one was different. The sentinel variant was much physically smaller than it's cousins who were far more built for front line combat; it had no visible cybernetic implants from what he could see at his distance away but he had to turn back into cover when one of the combat sentinels looked towards his direction.

John checked his radar and saw that the sentinels did not show up at his radar, they had not enough machinery to show up as an enemy artificial intelligence while at the same time since they were not of the living they had no living signature either. He took another breath and looked around the wreckage to see the smaller undead raise its arm to reveal it's fingers had syringes fused to them, green fluid filled each of them and in a quick motion the undead stuck all five of its needles into the body of a fallen marine. The corpse convulsed violently as the undead took a couple steps back allowing for the newly made minion to stand up straight where the turned Valor marine picked up its combat rifle off the ground.

Jonathan was at loss for words unable to produce sound as his jaw dropped in his helmet but as he processed to try to see what he just saw he was out of cover long enough for several of the hollow men to let out a mechanical screech and aim their weapons at the good lieutenant.

The first sentinel to raise its weapon was met with the full force of the Valor nova rifle; in an intense blinding white light the mouth of the gun roared sending a magnetic pulse of ionized plasma, warning system flickered on his HUD telling him about the extreme levels of heat and radiation that had suddenly appeared near him flashing in a bold red color. The volatile shell of plasma washed over John's target where the undead took only a few steps forward as the heat that consumed it caused the monster to bubble and liquefy in its own organic waste.

"Nothing like a good problem solver weapon..." John smirked as he allowed the nova plasma rifle to flush out a massive amount of blue steam from the vents.

Two sentinels fired off their spikes sailing past the lieutenant as he quickly rolled to the right before letting out another powerful roar from his gun that eradicated another undead. The creature melted in a blue mass as its body fell apart to join the rest of its now deconstructed form into a pool of radioactive waste that burned through the city road. The remaining sentinel rushed forward with its wrist blade drawn to full length letting out a mechanical alien whirl as it charged him in a fury. In a quick reaction thanks to years of intensive training Jonathan met the alien's attack with a sweep of his nanobyte long sword severing it's arm at the elbow allowing himself to use the momentum of his attack to bring his blade back down to drive the sword past it's shoulder and into its mid-section.

Jonathan coughed himself into a fit but before he could calm himself down he was knocked off his feet from the force of an impact. A giant of a hollow man had leaped off from the roof of an apartment complex slamming feet first into the road, although like its smaller cousins it too was a bastardization of nature but the parts that were organic where covered in slabs of muscles and exposed sinew showing off its incredibly muscular frame. Over its face it wore an armored tribal demon mask; its body was covered in the same purple skull embroidered robe but the giant's most notable feature was the hefty rotary chain gun it clenched with its grotesque hands.

The heavy sentinel began to spool its weapon giving John the signal to get the hell of dodge, he sprinted as far his body could take him to the downed carrier. Hot spikes impaled themselves against the metal bulkhead at an alarming rate, the lieutenant could not hear himself think over the combined squeal of the weapon that seemed to never have a need to reload and the footsteps as each advance left an impression of its size in the concrete road.

John sheathed his long sword and readied his nova plasma rifle, he held his breath counting down the time to strike "Three....two...o-"

" BLACK STARS HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" A voice yelled over the comm channel.

Jonathan and the hollow man looked up to see a large battle suit descend from the sky smashing into the road forming a rather large crater. The humanoid like mechanized suit wielded a massive chain gun that was attached to its left arm while its other free hand held a rather large rail cannon normally found on Valor's main battle tanks.

The heavy sentinel was instantly vaporized into bits of bone and metal when the mech suit turned around and unleashed it's torrent of high powered ammunition from its chain gun.

"Come get some, bolt heads!" the pilot yelled.

Almost to the wish of the Hercules war suit pilot a winged beast came flying over a building with a handful of sentinels were hanging with one hand from its rib cage. The skeletal dragon flew directly towards the two with its cargo when from the roof of a nearby building a figure leaped onto its head. John couldn't make out exactly what was happening but the skeleton transport started to lose control and soon it started plummeting from the sky.

The winged terror smashed into the road ungracefully crushing its occupants while flipping over its own body in a tangle heap and from the wreckage leaped out a macrial shaped combat droid that landed just before the pilot and John.

"That still only counts as one." The mech pilot sounded unimpressed.

"We both know that I winning our bet was an eighty-seven-point-oh-oh-nine percent chance success rate." The combat droid stated as its wrist mounted nova plasma rifle shifted around to fit back into its arm.

John turned to the two soldiers, "Thanks for your help; I don't think I would have made it out otherwise."

"No sweat!" The pilot answered, "Jukebox and I had to make sure our newest edition to the team was properly protected."

The combat droid was in the shape of the macrial race; the metal plates that served as his hull matched the color pattern of Valor's Special Forces, the Black Stars in its traditional black and yellow. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you! I have taken the liberty of reading all the reports on your most heroic deeds to meet such a pinnacle of what Valor stands for! " The robot asked but unlike the other legionnaire droids this one had an almost more 'organic' like tone in his voice. "I am Experimental Black Star dash one or as the major here calls me; Jukebox"

"Juke box?" John asked puzzled.

The Hercules war suit rotated around to face the duo. The cockpit of the human like walker became visible as the armor plating surrounding it became translucent, the pilot inside was a white skinned human male sitting rather comfortably as both of his hands controlled their respective holo-control panel.

"He's only good for playing music." The pilot spoke with a smile hidden by his helmet.

X-B opened up its wrist to reveal a set of buttons and keypads where he began typing away with his other hand, "The closet extraction point one is not too far from here, it is north-north west of our current position."

John winced, "And to think I just got here..."

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Valor Controlled Territory/Gamma Cluster/ Core World Geneva (Under Blood Cabal Assault)/ Sector 5/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

"Medic! I need a bloody medic over 'ere!" Yelled out a marine in distress

Valor marines took cover behind whatever they could; wreckage from the crashed drop ship, craters or makeshift barricades while the Blood Cabal forces fired on the defenders from various windows around the central park.

"Fall back! Fall-"Yelled a vulphus marine before a spike sailed clean through his neck in a spray of crimson.

Arjun huddled behind the barricade trying to get into a right state of mind as he saw the freshly made cadaver drop to the concrete floor. The human marine beside him snapped off a couple rounds at a cabal sentinel that was moving to another point in cover but the rounds missed its body allowing for another undead a clear line of sight to send a spike through the marine's visor.

"Arjun! Fire your goddamn weapon!" The vulphus sergeant ordered before he looked out of cover and fired off the remaining rounds in his magazine at wounded a sentinel before it could make it towards a new position. The mechanical undead shrugged off the man stopper rounds making its way at a sprint not normally seen in the hollow men.

The sergeant then turned to his comm officer who was sitting behind cover as well, "Corporal where the hell is our air support!"

The macrial comm officer tried to yell over the exchange of ammunition, "The bastards are blocking our channels! I can't reach command!"

A sentinel in one the windows ducked away when a marine fired his last rocket into the building taking out a massive chunk out of the structure.

"Well unblock it goddammit!"

"Enemy drop ship incoming at north-north-west!" Yelled a marine over the local squad channel.

One of the skeletal dragons swooped overhead allowing for the new squad of undead to let go and land in clear view of the Valor marines. Two heavy sentinels landed in the cross fire and immediately opened up with their cannons.

"Get down!" the sergeant yelled.

The two large undead ravaged the marine's makeshift cover sending red hot spikes clean through the barricades that nailed marines to the carrier or whatever body part came into contact. Arjun kept his body as close to the floor as possible with his hands over his head, he could feel the hot air caused by the undead's ammunition scything through the air, to close for comfort.

Blood Cabal soldiers that took cover inside the apartments made hand gestures and mechanical whines to one another to press forward; three of the undead fired their wrist mounted grappling hook to the roof top of another apartment complex for a better vantage point against the blue and white marines.

"They're flanking us-"yelled a vulphus marine before the roof top snipers fired at her position forcing her to seek cover.

A discharge from a nova rifle stopped the heavy sentinels immediately; blue plasma melted both of the giants dissolving most of their upper half's. The macrial marine ducked behind cover after his attack to replace a new glowing blue cell into the weapon.

Arjun gripped his rifle tightly, took a deep breath as he waited for a break in the enemy's shots before looking from his position to snap off a number of shots. The first few rounds penetrated the skull of a sentinel that stood from its position, his next burst missed the robe wearing undead by a hair. The sentinel turned its focus at Arjun pointing its weapon at him but Arjun shot first and the trio of shots went clean through its head splattering its black bile on the wall behind it as it fell to the ground in a metal heap.

In the middle of the battle field a blood stained formed on its own that began to expand at an alarming rate. All the marines in the squad looked to one another not knowing what was going on but soon the blood pool began to bubble like it had come to boil. The Blood Cabal forces took up more defensive positions around the pool of blood putting them in harm's way to block the marine's view.

"What the fuck are they doing?" Arjun thought to himself

An ebony colored hand shot out from the pool where it was joined by another, they lifted upwards to show a figure climbing out of the blood pool. The sentinels immediately moved out of the way to allow for the ebony knight to fully emerge himself from the blood pool.

"All marines target that-"ordered the sergeant when the knight raised his arm upwards, red energy crackled around his gauntlet and when enough power was gathered he snapped his arm forward sending a red shock wave that washed over the marines vaporizing them into nothing but red charred skeletons.

"Enough of all this, Arjun, come out now!" Mordred spoke out loud in his regal voice.

Mordred's long thin tail wrapped itself around his waist before he took steps towards the barricade. He saw over the weapon crates that the human crawled away backwards from one of the dead marines who was now a smoldering skeleton. The knight casually gestured with his hand and the marine was lifted off the ground by unseen forces and was thrown into the middle of the ruined streets.

"I had hoped to do this with some degree of subtlety, Arjun, but a direct confrontation will be needed for you to finally be brought before the Malefic."

Arjun coughed, "Go to hell."

Two sentinels picked up the marine effortlessly from the ground holding him so tightly he started to lose feeling in his arms. "The Malefic wants no quarrel with your people or your military force, we just want you and we will leave this world in peace."

Arjun struggled against his captives but the two undead stood their ground restraining him with little effort, "Like hell I'm going to become one of you freaks!" Arjun tried putting all his strength in moving but the two sentinels pushed him down to his knees," Why me? Why do any of this!?"

"It's because we expect many great things from you, human. " Mordred answered, "You are going to help us Arjun."

"Fuck you, I'm not helping you freaks, you killed my friends!" Arjun shouted as he struggled.

"And for that I am sorry, if I had my way we could have done this without any bloodshed."

"Just let me go!" He shouted "There are better marines than me!"

"You sell yourself short Arjun, before my soldiers ambushed your forces onboard the 'Crimson' I took the liberty in looking into your background. For someone who should have accomplished many things in their life time you continue to disappoint me."

"Sorry that you didn't like my high school G.P.A ...I'll be sure not to skip class next time."

"Arjun Fiaz, no middle name, grew up on the core world Europa. You were an only child and you transferred from six different schools due to-

"Yea douchebag I know my childhood I was there" Interrupted Arjun before the sentinel to his right socked him in the chest with its weapon knocking the breath out of the marine.

"...due to assaults against others of your kin." Mordred continued, "At age twenty two you were forced into the military after floating from one short job to the next never able to excel at anything you ever did."

Arjun hacked and wheezed trying to get his breathing under controlled, "W-what's your goddamn p-point..."

"My point is Arjun you are being wasted staying with these pathetic creatures, they are hindering your potential, killing my Necro lord aboard the Crimson only confirmed my suspicions about you." Sanguine Lord Mordred's left hand glowed with eldritch energies before he discharge the buildup of power with a snap of his hand to form a glowing red portal. "The life of a grunt is not your fate; with the Blood Cabal you will become immortal!"

The sentinel to the left of Arjun suddenly fell faced down in the road, an ornate throwing dagger was sticking out of its back. The marine without thought did a strong head-butt against the other undead knocking it away before another dagger found its mark in the side of its head. Arjun scrambled across the ground tripping over himself as he ran in whatever direction had none of the undead in his view.

His heart was on fire and he could feel a rush of adrenalin coursing through his body, spikes passed his body at amazing speeds. Part of a damaged car caught his footing dragging the marine to the ground but as he got up a sentinel was aiming the business part of its weapon straight at him from a nearby sidewalk but before it could fire it suddenly fell over onto the road dead as a doorstop, a blade sticking out of its neck.

"Find the human, soldiers!" Arjun heard in the fleeting distance. "I'll deal with her myself!"

Arjun sharply turned a corner to come to the entrance of a convenient store when a cabal sentinel burst forth from the doorway shattering the glass in millions of tiny silver shards. The undead immediate raised its weapon that caused Arjun to drop to the floor as a the spike fired missed his body, he quickly got onto his feet drawing his combat knife in the process where he gripped it with both hands and began bludgeoning the unarmoured part of the sentinel's face with the full length of his blade.

Black bile covered Arjun's gauntlets but the sentinel grabbed his right arm and threw him to the ground. The sentinel walked over with the knife still stuck in its face right up to the hilt, its black viscous fluid dripped down its warped face. Arjun pulled his sidearm out with left hand and fired off what shots he could but the few that connected bounced harmlessly off its metal infused form. With the last few rounds in the magazine he emptied the last of it into the wounded face of the undead causing it to flinch giving him ample amount of time to regain his footing. He continued his attack with a swift uppercut motion of his fist knocking the undead's face straight up into the air; he pulled the knife free with a strong tug on the hilt in a sickly crunch noise. In a daze the sentinel fumbled backwards where Arjun grabbed its weapon and pointed its own arm grafted weapon at its own head and with a good smack with his handgun the weapon misfired into the undead's skull putting it out of commission for good.

Arjun stepped back from the defeated sentinel who laid its own black bile pool; the spike lodged half way through its head. He looked at his hands; they shook and trembled as he did not know how he managed to deal with the sentinel so quickly everything he felt just came to him as if he had been doing it his entire life. Before he could get his mind together a fresh squad of the cabal sentinels came behind him all of them in their misshapen, Frankenstein like glory. In a quick motion Arjun pulled a grenade from his waist, pressed the priming button before throwing the explosive at the cybernetic horrors that disappeared in a cloud of smoke and fire as the explosion took out a chunk of the store as debris and rebar where thrown into the air.

He placed his hands on his knees trying to catch his breath, "Goddam, gotta get the hell out of here!" he thought. As he stood straight up he heard a terrible roar erupt from the sky, a massive winged beast descended from the smoke filled skies, unlike its undead cousins the beast had no metal parts infused with its skin or muscle for it was just the skeleton of what Arjun could only describe to be a dragon. Underneath its rib cage were a plethora of sentinels each of them hanging on with one hand while closer to the front where two of the heavy sentinels who hefted their large chain guns in one hand.

The skeletal dragon flew overhead allowing for the large squad of cybernetic soldier to descend onto the city street each of them landing on their own two feet. The dragon circled around letting out a terrifying roar before it landed behind the small army of undead.

"They got dragons now too!?" Arjun yelled as he leaped into the half destroyed store to take his chances in the back ally way.

Arjun raced through the small convenient store leaping over the counter to go out the employee exit. He smashed hard up against the locked door with his shoulder easily breaking the hinges allowing for him to tumble outside the building. As the marine darted through the narrow ally way jumping over turned over trashcans and half unpacked loading cargo the home to his right exploded as the dragon slammed right through towering over the insignificant marine who barley measured up to the size of its talons. Immediately Arjun turned around on his heels that only served for the winged terror to snatch the marine in its claw where the dragon sat on its hind legs as the sentinels and their heavier brothers began to regroup in front of it.

With all his strength he could muster Arjun wedged his arm free with a cooked grenade in his hand, "Surprise dumbass!" Arjun yelled before throwing the live explosive into the closet empty eye socket of the dragon. In a loud bang the dragon roared as it fell over backwards missing half of its skull allowing for the marine to drop to the streets as its grip loosened. "I can't believe that fucking worked!" Arjun said in enthusiasm but his short victory was cut short as he faced the large squad of sentinels who had all their weapons pointed at his form.

Several of the closet sentinels fell forward into the dirt path as each of them had ornate daggers jetting from their spines and neck with surgical precision. Arjun looked to his right and found a back entrance to the apartment complex that had half of its structure ripped off when the dragon had attacked him; he rushed in side knocking the door down straight inward amidst the undead's confusion.

"God damn, whoever is throwing those daggers is pretty fucking accurate." He whispered to himself looking for the closet stairway in order to try to put some distance between him and his pursuers.

Arjun reloaded his handgun when he was knocked off his feet when the wall beside him caved inwards from the dragon's fist punching a massive hole through the wall. He snapped off several rounds into its razor sharp claws in order for it to retract its arm from blocking his path to continue upstairs.

"Why didn't I listen to my mom and just become an accountant, join Valor they said, it will be fucking fun they said!" He yelled to himself passing yet another close encounter from the rampaging dragon.

As Arjun reached the next floor up entering a damaged kitchen with most of its contents spilled out onto the floor. A number of sentinels fired their grappling hooks to ascend to the floor Arjun was on. Their metal hooks wrapped themselves around one of the few intact columns that held the above floors from crushing everything underneath. With combat knife in hand the marine ran to the several cable lines where he gripped the hilt with both hands and began slashing at the cables until they finally grew too weak for it to support for the specific sentinel.

"Look on the bright side Arjun at least you'll have a fucking awesome funeral, I mean who else could say they got killed by a skeleton dragon!?" He said to himself leaping towards a staircase when the dragon itself tore up the entire floor with a single sweep of its claw. "Here lays Arjun, killed by something that shouldn't even exist!"

Arjun coughed as although he had to keep moving his body wouldn't allow it, every part of his body ached as he felt drained and exhausted he had ever felt in his entire time in the marines. A dagger imprinted itself in the floor just a few feet from Arjun's feet but unlike the rest the weapon it had a small note attached to it, out of curiosity he picked it up to see a hastily written note in black charcoal that read, "Get out side, I'll be at the courtyard."

Arjun crumbled the note in one hand before tossing it over his shoulder where he didn't hear it fall to the floor causing him to turn around to meet one of the undead that had its body wrapped in bandages and its limbs replaced with blades. As Arjun began process on what to do another dagger with a note on it impaled the undead through the neck sending it to the ground in one fell swoop.

Arjun took the new note and opened it up, "Your welcome."

The dragon let out a mighty roar as it snatched Arjun from the room before throwing him outside the building where he landed face first into the ground below. Arjun tumbled through the fake grass of the courtyard, warning signs went off in his helmet from impacting such a velocity, he coughed and wheezed before his body was stopped by a stone wall in a loud bang of metal and stone. The skeletal beast held onto the apartment complex before it jumped off shattering the already fragile building to collapse into itself in a terrible crash of smoke in debris that destroyed the nearby homes as well. It landed onto all four of its claw in the courtyard several meters away from the marine where it expanded its wings dwarfing the already tiny human a hundred times over. Arjun picked up the combat rifle that was near a fallen marine's body and reloaded in a fresh magazine, "If I can kill a Necro Lord...I can kill this thing!"

The Blood Cabal Sky Terror charged the human running at him on all fours sending the ground trembling underneath its weight. Arjun immediately darted to the left carrying his combat rifle in both of his hands, the dragon swerved around on its heels with its tail slamming straight through a number of buildings shattering steel and concrete. The Sky Terror lashed out with its claws towards its meagre prey but the quick thinking marine had cooked a grenade in his hand to throw it at the undead in the middle of its attack where the explosion sent it reeling backwards.

"Ok Arjun, you gotta think, you can't kill this thing normally you don't have the ammo." He thought as he took a quick breather behind a destroyed fountain. He looked to his right to find a dead vulphus marine missing most of his lower half but around the cadaver were several demolition charges normally used to breach bunkers. "I'm sure a bunker buster could be a dragon destroyer..." Arjun thought quickly taking the bombs and the detonator with him.

The undead dragon came too as it regained its senses charging straight towards him at freighting speeds. Arjun took a deep breath and ran towards the massive beast closing his eyes and yelling in the process, the dragon took a large swipe at the tiny human but with quick reflexes he slid under the attack thanks to spending hours watching sports at home. He quickly got back up onto his feet running underneath the dragon trying not to trip over himself knowing if he lived long enough to see tomorrow his body wouldn't let him leave the bed from how much he overclocked his muscles. Arjun ran towards the crashed combat carrier that had its entire payload spilled out in the courtyard with supplies and armaments.

A hand of a dead marine reached out and dragged Arjun to the ground. The undead marine had a broken visor revealing its half decomposed face and the fatal wound that had killed the marine as half of its head was missing. Arjun without pause drew his side arm and fired an entire magazine worth of ammunition into the undead's skull until there was nothing left but a broken stump of a neck.

The rest of the fallen soldiers began to rise from the ground, some picking up their old weapons in the process. Their broken comm units buzzed static into Arjun's ear but for some of them he could make out their low pitch animalistic growls and gurgles. The first undead marine Arjun came up to wielded a nova rifle in one hand, it began to charge up an attack but the marine shoved his elbow into the undead's neck following through in his attack he grabbed hold of the arm holding the weapon where he pulled it free. The undead look dumbfounded at the loss of its weapon allowing for the much more sluggish monster to be struck down as Arjun slammed his weight into the former marine to the ground so he could run past it.

"I swear to god I hope this works..." Arjun said to himself throwing his combat rifle away to place the nova weapon on his back before he held the demo charges in hand.

The Sky Terror crushed the turned marines underneath its claws where they became one with the ground, its tail slashing around from its prey continuing to prolong its certain demise. Arjun thundered up the damaged ramp into the belly of the crashed combat carrier, he took a deep breath before arming the thermal charges and dropping them in the middle of the holding bay. The marine looked out from the large opening to see the dragon was judging the best course of action to get at the human when it stood on its hind legs and picked up the drop ship with both of its claws.

"Aw fuck no! No no no no!" Arjun yelled as everything that wasn't nailed down began to slide out threatening to take him with them.

Arjun's eyes widened in his helmet as a large crate that was stored with ammunition came tumbling down towards him. The metal crate smashed into him knocking the marine into a free fall outside the carrier where in a frantic attempt as he flailed his arms desperately trying to grab hold of anything but it was to no avail. The primed thermal charges flew past him beeping rapidly as the red light turned on and off before in a brilliant orange explosion washed over the skeletal dragon's head sending it the ground. The marine's HUD flashed with bold warning signs due to the proximity of the explosion but when he hit the ground everything went black.