The sun had begun to set, casting long shadows that stretched out from the aliens in evermore confusing patterns and danced across the yellow sands. Ronnie had ridden away to the very top of the cliffs surrounding the Flats, mainly for a better view of the battle but partly because she couldn't fight anymore. She didn't know how the others did it; she was tired and worn out in both body and mind, and she'd only been going for... Oh, she had no idea, but it wasn't even half the time Vert and the team had been out there. She'd been right to think before that she wasn't up for this life.

The Vandals and Red Sentients had seemed to form some kind of vague and temporary alliance, for they weren't fighting each other anymore. She wondered if this sort of thing was a usual occurrence. From what she'd seen of Krytus, it seemed exactly the type of tactic he would employ; use them to pick off the BF5, and then crush them himself later on. At least, that was the theory, anyway - it didn't look like they were doing too well. The Red Sentients were down to two out of five, the Sark drones were scattered in clustered groups around the Flats with one or two Battle Force Five members each to round them up, and as for the Vandals... She hadn't exactly counted them as they'd arrived, but they were a lot fewer in number now than they had been then.

Voices drifted over to her from where she had left her helmet perched on the Hornet's saddle; Vert's voice mostly, shouting orders and encouragement across to the rest of the team. She admired his skill as a leader, and how he could re-boost the morale of the team in even this - the direst of situations. It was another reason why she couldn't stay: she and Vert would always contest each other for power. They always had, ever since they were children, because they were so similar in age and she would always want to appear just as capable as he. It was a habit that she had never been able to let go, and one that he always fell prey to retaliating to, and it would not be well received here.

Another voice that reached her above the general noise of the fight below was Tezz's; so different from the others and only speaking to confirm or challenge Vert's commands. The sound of it both angered her and reminded her that there was so much more she could be doing to help them. Anger because she was concerned for him - not one hour ago he had been lying pale as death before her, and there was no way that he had recovered enough in that time to be able to fight with them. And then the guilt came, because if he had it in him to keep going, she had no right to back out simply because she was a little overwhelmed.

She sighed and shook her head in complete despair; she should never have made the stop off, that's what it came down to. She should have carried on straight back to the city, and fixed the Rustbucket up back at the restaurant. Then she wouldn't have found herself in this mess; despising her brother was a damn sight simpler than having all this dropped on her shoulders. She slotted her helmet back onto her head just as Sage alerted the team to another Sark scout team heading for the main town;

"I'm on it," she promised into the coms, and kicked the Hornet off at breakneck speed down the steep slope towards the intruders.

The air was cooling; she could feel it, though not uncomfortably, through her shock suit. She hoped as the wind snapped at the bare skin at the base of her chin that this would be over soon - it would get unpleasant in the dark and, as the first few droplets spotted onto her visor, the rain.

Her peripheral vision caught sight of a blur of orange as the Splitwire's lithe form crept up behind her, and she gunned the Hornet faster towards the Sark group bee lining for Handler Corners. She felt better for having someone fight beside her; Tezz could pick up any Sark she missed, and wouldn't judge her for missing them.

"Uh, guys," Zoom's voice, barely audible through the increasingly pelting rain, was anxious; it distracted her for a moment from the Sark before her, allowing Tezz to take the lead. "I can't see Krytus; has anyone cracked him?"

This was met by a string of negatives from the team, and Ronnie felt the general mood of the fight take a plunge. If Krytus wasn't in the main battlefield, then where was he?

"Tezz, Ronnie, when you're done with those Sark, head over to the town and scout it out; we do not need Krytus being seen over there." Vert sounded in pain, causing Ronnie even fresher concern.

"Affirmative," Tezz replied, his voice steady and calm, unemotional.

"Agura, Stanford, get to Zeke's and do the same. Zemerik, take the high ground and do a general sweep; your vision's better than ours in these conditions. Everyone keep an eye on Kyburi."

These commands loud in their ears, the team wearily split into their designated groups; Ronnie wondered how strange it was for Vert to be giving orders to Zemerik, usually their enemy. Very, probably.

Tezz's glower deepened and he increased pressure on the accelerator as he followed the five Sark across the desert to an area he had never actually been to before. He still wasn't thinking straight; his combat was sloppy and miss-calculated, and he was making it worse by getting so annoyed by it. He probably should never have left the Hub, but he knew he would always have regretted taking any other course of action.

"Tezz, hold up," Ronnie called, breaking his inner monologue as he realised with a glance into his rear-view mirror that she was slowing down. He did the same, and she rolled to a stop alongside the Splitwire.

"Don't you think something's a little weird?" She didn't remove her helmet and he stayed within the warm, dry limits of the Splitwire's front seat; he had no desire to step out into the rain that was now coming down thicker and faster than he had ever seen it come in Handler Corners, and it was easier to talk through the com system anyway.

"How do you mean?" Many things were 'weird' about the whole thing; she was going to have to be a little more specific.

"I mean that if you notice, they're actually not going towards the town at all, but just off to the East. It's like they're deliberately drawing us away from the fight; look, they're coming around again now."

Sure enough she was right; the glowing red forms of the Sark were still visible through the torrent, and Tezz watched them for a moment as they spun around and grew brighter and more distinctive on their approach.

"I think we're being played," she continued.

Still he said nothing, for once not knowing what at all to say. He was angry that he hadn't figured it out for himself before, and as a result didn't know what to do about it. Damn, he should have stayed in bed.

"Tezz?" Ronnie knocked against the Splitwire's window with her shout, and he realised she'd been trying to get his attention for a few moments. He jumped and turned to face her. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," he insisted, although he knew that she knew he wasn't.

"Good, stop zoning out on me will you? We need a plan; the Sark obviously want us somewhere, but we need to destroy them before they get seen. What's..?"

Her voice faded out again as a new shape emerged from the gloom ahead. It was glowing red like the rest, but bigger, wider, and overall much sharper. Tezz new the shape of the Syfurious anywhere.

"Ronnie," he interrupted, re-starting the Splitwire's engine. "Get out of here."

"Not a chance," she scoffed. "He'd tear you to pieces and you know it."

So, there was to be no reasoning with her then. Fine. The more force the better when dealing with Krytus, after all, and at least he could tell Vert he'd tried.

"Vert," Ronnie reported, "We've got Krytus."

"Try and lure him back to the battle. Whatever you do, Ronnie, do not engage. I repeat, do not engage Krytus; he's losing and he knows it, so he's going to take bigger risks. And while he can re-spawn, you can't."

Tezz and Ronnie shared a sidelong glance; a crack of lightning illuminated the sky above her and cast her features into sharp, eerie shadow behind the tinted visor of her helmet.

"Engage?" she twisted the Hornet's handlebar, making the engine roar.

"Engage," he confirmed, and the two of them launched forward towards the oncoming Sentient.

With grim determination Ronnie yanked down on the Hornet's trigger and sent a volley of pink laser darts streaming out towards Krytus, at the same time as Tezz's EMP cannon opened fire. Krytus could only dodge one of them, and drove straight into the crackling blue explosion of pure energy. He swerved twice across the salt before regaining control and coming around, clipping the Splitwire with a blade as he did so. Tezz's only response was to make a handbrake turn and follow after the Sentient as he raced across the Flats, back towards the main fight that was now looking like more of a demolition derby than the war for planet Earth.

"Tezz, pull back; he's got nowhere left to run. Let one of the guys meet him head on."

She got no response; either Tezz was so out of it that he was unable to reply, or he was ignoring her. She hoped it was the latter.

The scene before her slowed almost to the point of stopping, taking her heart rate with it as the thing she had been dreading since Krytus had arrived suddenly began playing in front of her eyes. In a daring and stupid display of motor skills, Krytus spun one-eighty degrees and stopped immediately in front of Tezz, too fast for him to hit the brake. Ronnie heard his panicked intake of breath as the Splitwire carried on at somewhere over a hundred miles an hour straight into the twin blades of the Syfurious. It stopped immediately, wheels spinning in the air. There was a sickening thud as Tezz's forehead cracked against his dashboard under the momentum.

Krytus retracted his vehicle and stood before Tezz, a sadistic chuckle brewing somewhere deep in his chest, and hatred brewed inside Ronnie. It was pure, genuine and powerful; the all-consuming kind that placed every other thing and emotion on the sidelines until the sole focus of her being was Krytus and him alone. She jerked the Hornet around and drove straight towards him, her hand tightening around the protruding hilt of a sword behind her right thigh. Previously she had thought it just to be for decoration, but now she knew what it was. Why? Because the Hornet had been created from her personality; everything she wanted out of a bike was provided for her. And at this very moment, that included a sword.

In one smooth movement that under any other circumstance she would have been incapable of doing, she stood up on the Hornet's saddle and leapt into the air, pulling her sword with her and letting the bike carry on unguided across the desert. She turned gracefully in midair and landed squarely between Tezz and Krytus, rage in her eyes and a new power in her body. Krytus' grin spread at the challenge, but she refused to be taunted by him; her mind was clear, and focused on one thing: his destruction.

He swung first. He covered the distance between them in a single bound and brought his sword arm crashing down with inhuman strength with the express intention of crushing her skull. She blocked it deftly - the broad, glistening blade of her own sword landing at just the right angle to make his carry on under its momentum and skid off course to land clumsily in the sand. He glared, she stared levelly back.

"It appears I underestimated you, human," he growled.

"I think you underestimated a lot of things," she accepted, showing no change in emotion whatsoever. He growled again; a deep, feral sound; and charged. This time he aimed for her chest and they met half-way with the brutal clang and scrape of blade-on-blade.

He dug his free hand beneath the edge of her helmet and pulled, forcing her head back and making her whole body open up as she lost sight of him. She cried out, in frustration rather than pain, and twisted away from him. The helmet slid from her face, and immediately she felt the cold bitter sting of the rain on her cheeks as she whirled back around to face him once again. He tossed her helmet aside and continued his advance.

She sidestepped in a circle before him to position herself so that she was facing into the driving wind, allowing it to whip her untied hair out behind her and keep it out of her face. The rain was letting up, but that barely registered in her thoughts. She knew she was leaving Tezz unguarded but also that Krytus' full attention was on her now; he didn't need protecting.

Ronnie broke into a run to try and offset some of the momentum Krytus was bringing with his charge, and their swords met sooner than he had anticipated, catching him off balance for just a second. One second was enough; Ronnie twisted, freeing her blade, and drove it faster than she thought he could react into the place his heart should have been.

Her sword glanced off and lurched out of her hand. She stared in panicked horror at his other arm, now also formed into a deadly point, hovering over where her own should have been protruding out of his chest. Their eyes met for a moment; his sickening grin spread once again across his face. He had her now, and he knew it.

Taking on a blind risk she hit the floor and rolled out from his reach, scooping her sword back into her hand as she stood. Her adrenaline was dying now and the rational portion of her brain was screaming instructions at her, but she couldn't compute them into actions. Krytus lunged again, this time with purpose.

As they connected she began for the first time to realise his true strength. Their battle settled into a steady rhythm, the swoosh and clang of their swords rising and meeting in time to their footsteps. With each swing of his arm he drove her back another step, and another and another, until eventually the back of her knees connected with the Splitwire's low bonnet and she realised that this was the end of the line.

"I will have your planet," he hissed, pressing down on her with the blades of both his arms with such force that it was all she could do to keep her own sword mere centimetres above her chest under the pressure. Her arms began to shake with the effort. Fear gripped her as she stared into those eyes, cold and vicious with rage and malice. With one final burst of adrenaline-fueled strength she brought one foot up between them and planted it on his chest, sending him stumbling away from her...

...Straight onto the point of Vert's waiting sword. The rupture it created in Krytus' shell split out in all directions across his chest, allowing his antimatter energy to seep away into the atmosphere. His roar remained, echoing off the cliffs, long afterwards.

Confusion was the first thing to penetrate the cloud her anger and fear had created in the forefront of her mind. Her sword fell from her hand and her knees managed to carry her three steps across the sand before allowing her to collapse on her brother, wrapping him in a hug that conveyed more emotion than words ever could. He had saved her life; she was going to owe him big time for that.

Vert chuckled beneath her and steadied her on her feet, a tired grin across his face. He shook his head at her in relief and despair.

"You know, the next time I say 'do not engage Krytus,' maybe you might at least think about it a little?"

Ronnie shrugged, her own grin forming. "Hey, it worked didn't it?"

Vert bit back his response and looped an arm around her shoulders, letting it slide in his relief. "Okay team, let's head home," he declared into the coms. "We'll begin cleanup after a long rest and some well-deserved 'za."

Raucous cheers erupted from the team that could be heard even from their position, halfway across the flats. Ronnie's grin widened, and then faltered as she thought of something.

"What about the Vandals? You can't just leave them here overnight."

"Don't worry; Agura and Stanford have escorted them back to their homeworld already. They should be back any moment."

"I HATE that planet!" came a shout from the mouth of a portal in front of them. Ronnie laughed as Stanford jumped from the Reverb and kicked something; a huge mosquito by the look of it; like a soccer ball across the flats before sulkily climbing back in.

"Why send me? Why not one of the other SIX members of this team? I hate that planet..."

Ronnie joined in the team's chuckling as she climbed achingly onto the Hornet, and gunned after them back towards the safety and warmth of home.

Heh, sorry this took so long guys. You know, exams and stuff, and then I couldn't for the life of me work that fight scene out the way I wanted it. Please leave a review for me; I'd love to hear your feedback!