Chapter 10 at last! So much time since the last one but I'm still fixing the other chapters and the busy real life stuff but now you can enjoy it. I hope you fellow readers haven't lost interest in this story.

Enjoy!

The sun rose like a beast that has been awoken from a deep slumber. The giant solar mass engulfed the land in its light, bringing in the day and tuck in the night. Its light woke the critters of the forest. Yet, there weren't creatures to wake in a certain part of the forestry. The disturbance by creatures who don't belong or even live there made most of the critters to flee. Those that weren't in hiding watched undercover with fear, where a standoff between a team of the undead and a large plant with skin of practically impenetrable biological metal stood.

The large metal petal monster roared, quaking the earth under it forming small cracks and shaking pebbles off their place, along with the squad of zombies in front of the plant. They wobbled in place, trying to hold their balance long enough till it stopped. The zombies gazed at the beast, gripping their guns tightly, sweat ran down their bald heads, and their knuckles turned a lighter shade of their rotten skin color from their tight grip. The giant metal petal stared down at them viciously, its jaws trembled from growls attempting to escape the bone crushing mouth the plant bared. The zombies shook under its sharp gaze, but not Alpha.

"Stay together!" Alpha yelled to his comrades, who were doing their best to not shake under the lethal glare of the metal plant beast. Some stepped back from the increasing fear which they kept in the inside, not wanting their fearless leader called them as a bunch of wimps, however Alpha could practically sense their fear. While they may be a very good and brave team of soldiers who surged through thick and thin, they still had the power to feel fear as some claim to have no fear at all. Alpha clicked his weapon and pointed the barrel at the beast's head. The giant plant glared and growled at the sight of Alpha's weapon directed at them, however they remained still looking for a good opportunity for a strike.

The giant plant, Steely, gazed at them threateningly. Her powerful sharp claws shined in the morning light of the sun, and her spikes perked up in defense, ready for a brawl that will undoubtedly start. She has fought many zombies before, these will no different but she knew she shouldn't underestimate them anyway. She also hopes that Pyro didn't follow her unless risk for him to get caught in the crossfire. He's a fragile and innocent little guy with a big heart.

Alpha gritted whatever rotten teeth he had left. He encountered death implying plants of all kinds and variations, and he was able to survive such encounters with limbs all intact, sometimes he received scrapes and injures but would always shake it off. He even fought against a sunflower queen with his squad and lived, even though one of his teammates perished, they celebrated. This, however is different. This sunflower queen-like plant looked like it was bred for fighting and destruction unlike those sunflower queens who are more for support than full force combat like all other sunflowers, especially with those claws it bore, or she? He didn't really care about gender, all that mattered was taking it down and taking their target into the custody of their boss.

If they all make it out unscathed, which the probability is below one.

"Prepare your weapons boys! This will be a difficult one to wrangle!"

The zombies complied and mimicked Alpha's actions. Now all their deadly and loaded guns were pointed straight at the massive metal petal who narrowed its eyes. Alpha had his eyes narrowed at the giant plant as if challenging the beast, ready to shoot either his ammo or a ZPG, even a gas canister to attempt to neutralize it.

While the two sides had their time bomb of a stare down, the zombies were oblivious to the other scene happening behind the zombies.

…

Pulse was paralyzed, frozen stiff with the taste of some vile building up within her throat even though she hasn't eaten anything. The sounds of the bipeds and the monster were drowned out since she wasn't really paying attention to them when she was supposed to. This could be her death day.

Despite the definite danger infront of her, Pulse crawled towards the solar flora, or should she say corpse now that there isn't a shed of life or soul left in the unfortunate body. The now dead solar flora had signs of early rot, with her body turning a sickly yellow and brown on the spots that contained injury. Pulse isn't sure what is the color or the most significant signs of rot for these beings, but she is sure that this was it. The sunflower's eternal expression of death was a small frown, most likely from the pain she felt during the entire ordeal with the biped hostiles, and probably before her encounter with her. The bullet holes left a haunting feeling in Pulse, and depression at her failure. She should have done more, she could have done something. However, it's too late now for anything.

All her work to save the unfortunate soul, to bring them aid and help them home, maybe to their family, went for nothing. Now, they're a sack of rotting flesh

The alien citron felt small streams of liquid well up in her eyes and fall like tiny crystalline waterfalls. Tears.

Pulse blinked, wanting to get rid of the tears since this wasn't time to get sad, as much as she hated it she couldn't really grieve a little or wipe her tears away with her visor in the way. She will have to do so later at a safer place. She turned her head towards the confrontation of the two sides. The hostile bipeds and the metal beast had an intense stare down, no one moved a muscle, as in fear it may trigger something. Pulse could practically feel the raging and growing fire going between them, and it was making her very nervous.

Pulse wanted none of that, or fall into some potential conflict with them. She can fight but she doesn't want to.

So she used her robotic tendrils and wrapped them around the solar flora corpse, and pulled her close. Pulse turned her head away, feeling that looking at the body would trigger more sadness and grief into her, reminding the failure. However, she can't do anything else anymore to help, except maybe bury the body somewhere. She could probably give the body to this world's authority but... pulse would prefer to do it herself. Not only that, but she feels that it may give her a bad impression of herself to them. Coming straight up to them and carrying a body of one of their people and say that she died, and speaking gibberish since they wouldn't understand a single thing and she cant understand them.

'That wouldn't be a good idea..' Pulse looked at the confrontation one more time.

The otherworldly citron then quietly walked backwards and around the boulder, away from the bipeds and metal monster. She gulped, feeling uneasily in the situation she used to be in, surrounded by those bipeds with their weapons targeted straight at her. Thankfully the bipeds were too focused on the giant beast than on her. Guess the metal beast was a great distraction as well as an escape opportunity. The large creature should keep them busy and keep their attention away from her, which should be enough for making a getaway.

Pulse kept backing away, and when she was far enough that they most likely couldn't hear her, she turned around and sped walked away. Her robotic tentacles gripped the solar flora's body a little too tightly. There was no complain made.

Now it was just the monster-looking plant and the zombies soldiers on their own.

...

Steely glanced at the retreating figure of the armor clad citron with, steely thinks, an unconscious sunflower, and turned her eyes back at the zombies since the citron was no longer a target to these undead soldiers as much as Steely wanted to know why, now was not the time. Now it was all her with these goons.

Steely took a thundering step forward. The clicks of their guns snapped the heavy silence right after.

She took another step.

A sudden shot ran out.

Steely growled at the soldier who made the first shot, who was fiddling with his weapon. He was nervously trying to get a better grip. He didnt intend to make the first move, but his hands took over along with his fear. He cant practically feel the glare of his team drill into his body, which was making his internal nervous breakdown worse. Steely received no damage with her tough skin, but that could be changed soon if she isn't careful. However, now that the first shot rang out, it made the others pull theirs. Bullets flew and impacted her skin, but they just deflected off her like it was nothing. Steely's eyes shifted and charged followed by a booming roar from her.

The zombies jumped away to avoid being trampled by her large mass. They jumped up into the trees and turned to shoot her from there. Steely blocked her eyes with one arm and used the other to slash and break the tree Alpha was in. Alpha wobbled and leaped out before it tumbled down. Steely grabbed the fallen tree and threw the mass towards a tree that had two of the zombie soldiers in it. The tree flew too fast for them to react and so they screamed when they were hit. Part of the tree they were in split and broke with the zombies falling down, heavily scraped and dazed. One of them had a branch stuck deep in his leg, and since most zombies didn't have a lot of skin and muscles, it easily touched the bone. The other was in better condition with a few scrapes, leaves, and tiny wood pieces stuck on him. When he saw his injured comrade he rushed to help him up and find cover from a much larger and studied tree, that they hope won't be easily tore out.

Alpha narrowed his eyes, feeling some anger within him, and shot at the back of her head. Steely recoiled slightly and turned her head with a heavy snarl. Alpha readied himself, and dodged when the beastly plant swiped her claws on the spot that he was in, taking soil and stone with it.

Alpha turned and tried to shoot at her eyes again. One of steely's petals moved infront of her, which in turn block the shot and the projectile deflect out.

"Hmpt! You're an interesting specimen. Too bad you will perish," mocked Alpha as he readied a ZPG. Steely turned to face the sky, towards the sun, her petals absorbed the sun's rays. Alpha noticed that she began to glow an orange hue, which was getting brighter and brighter by the second, it was actually getting harder for the zombies to look directly at the very beastly looking plant. Alpha's eyes widened in realization.

The metal petal was redying a solar beam, and from a plant of that size…

"All of you! Get as far away as you can!" Alpha sprinted away into the trees like a squirrel, the other zombies quickly got the message and hid away into the thick foliage for cover.

Steely continued to charge up, regardless of them not being in her line of sight. It didn't take long for her to charge up, and when she was fully charged, she turned to where the zombies hid, not spotting any out in the open. She narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to see through the trees. A whistling noise was caught by her nonexistent ears to her right. She snapped towards the said direction and fired off a portion of her solarbeam, incinerating the ZPG that fast approached her. Whatever was left of the rocket fell onto the grass, hardly anything survived.

"Damn," whispered a soldier to a fellow comrade next to him, "that thing vaporized my rocket with that one beam. We need more power to take it down."

The zombies muttered amongst themselves, attempting to make a plausible plan to bring the giant plant. With how powerful it is, they know it's a serious threat to zombiekind. So it must be taken down one way or another. The head of the team however, had other plans.

"We will need to retreat." Alpha snuck over to them from behind. The other two looked back to him, in slight shock to his words.

"What?"

Alpha scowled, "that plant is too strong despite all of us against it. We will need more power to take it down. Gargantuars would most likely do it, but we must first retreat and recover ourselves before other actions are made. We wasted so much ammo and stamina chasing that citron earlier, and now suddenly fighting this plant will just end up with some of us dead...again, and most likely unrevivable for good. We cannot afford that."

The squad went silent in thought, finding the argument reasonable. While they still wanted to fight and vanquish this monster plant, they backed away from the clearing and turned away anyway. The two zombies injured from the flying tree limped along with them, wincing from the broken bones they now hailed

Alpha walked away too but turned around to glance back at Steely one last time, for now.

'We will come for that citron...and you,' and with those thoughts he left with his team.

Steely silently waited for something to happen, a bullet to try and pierce her hide, a ZPG to come charging forward and explode her to a million bits, gas canisters to suffocate her, anything that indicated an attack from the zombies. And as time went on nothing happened. Steely narrowed her eyes and gazed around the edge of the area, and still nothing happened, not even the stench of zombies was in the air anymore.

Steely looked around one more time with angry eagle eyes before she detached herself from the ground, deactivating her solar beam. She suspected they may be hiding or they actually left. She glanced around one final time before her gaze fell to the direction the strange citron took. No matter what it was, she stomped down the path that she surely saw the citron go through.

...

Pulse made it out of the very large and now finally quiet forest, and back into the large area of battle she once came through with the large pole in the center. The area was just as hectic as when she first saw it, maybe even worse than she saw it, green flora like beings and the strange bipeds still fighting each other to the end, but Pulse still didn't know what they are making such big fights with each other. Pulse just shook the head part of her body and marched forward. It was early day, and the sun shined warmly in the middle of the sky along little critters that scurried around. Pulse wasn't in the mood to wonder at the marvels, her hearts still hung heavy.

Flies gathered around the citron, but she wasn't the object of interest to the little annoying insects. What she carried with her was. The corpse of the sunflower was withering faster than what Pulse expected. It usually takes much more time, like several day cycles for most dead corpses to show signs of decay, but sometimes different worlds have different rules.

Pulse swatted away the flies from her and the body, but it wasn't much use anyway since they came back, and tried to take a nip out of the dead sunflower's skin. Pulse wouldn't let them have any of it.

Pulse walked near the town hall and hid behind the corner, just like when she hid during the conversation the plant agents had. Her eyes wandered the charred area across the building, where weeds and browncoats fought each other in some petty fights.

Pulse turned away from them and the sunflower corpse she held. Her eyes watered salty alien tears, but she tried not to let them fall.

'What now…'thought Pulse, feeling grey. A few withered petals from the aundlower fell on the soil. Pulse noticed and picked them up, placing it on top of the sunflower's stem.

'I need to bury her somewhere…'

The citron froze, stopping whatever she was about to do when she heard an unnatural and croaky moan next to her, and getting louder every second. She slowly turned towards the source with slight shakiness, and there a biped, which looked skinnier than the ones that she was chased, wearing some kind of pointy orange accessory, shuffled towards her. It's clothing ripped and riddled with filth and dirt, along with bits of red spots on some places. Arms shakily spread out at her with the intention of grabbing and maybe tearing. Its legs being dragged forward as if it was too heavy for the rest of its body. Bulging eyes with black dots for pupils stared blankly with hardly any sentience in its very being.

Pulse narrowed her eyes at the undead biped, feeling anger boil on the pit of her body. The very same species that tried to capture or kill her, she wasn't sure what their intentions were towards her but she now definitely, by the bottom of her dual hearts, are malicious.

The ugly creature shuffle onward, getting closer and closer. When it was close enough, Pulse stepped aside, and the ugly biped lunged forward where she just stood with an opened mouth of yellow teeth that barely hung on, which it hardly had any since most of its mouth consisted of empty gums.

The biped smacked face first on the wall of the town hall and slowly slid down. It's eyes seemed to roll backwards completely, and Pulse thought it may have gotten dizzy but with its sudden lack of movement Pulse seriously thought that it may have died, and simply by smacking into a wall on accident. The biped remained immobile, while Pulse just stared with a slightly flabbergasted expression hidden underneath her visor.

"Well, guess some of these beings don't have the intelligence of others...like the ones that chased me..." muttered the space orange in her language. Pulse gazed away from the zombie and towards the others like it in the backyard. The bipeds were running erratically towards their targets, which were the green flora, but still Pulse had no idea what their reason was. Once they reached them, they whacked the green flora with a powerful swing of their limbs with such barbaric force.

Pulse grimaced at their combat, but turned away for something else. Suddenly her eyes widened and her body froze momentarily at three familiar figures. The red, orange, and yellow plants that chased her before.

Pulse hid behind the building nearly dropping the solar flora in her haste. She peeked out slightly to stare at them. The three were too far for them to see her, she was thankful for that though. At least she won't be chased with her hiding back there. She continued to peek out, examining them from afar.

The three looked very familiar to some species of flora back home, very familiar. When Pulse compares herself to the orange xenoshiftrus-like being, she notices their shapes are very identical with the exception of features such as her skin color and stripes, having three eyes, and a load of other features that would take the alien hours if she were to explain into excruciating details. Pulse wondered if the theoretical cosmic cloth cut concept isn't as far fetched as many of her people speculate.

She remembered her first encounter with them, that definitely didn't go that well. That stun attack from the orange one scared the wits out of her. She wondered how they took her sudden run from them. Maybe they thought she was scared? Actually she was, stunning someone would definitely make then run for their life.

She noticed they were shuffling across the ground, as if they were tired except the red one who was floating. Pulse concluded it was magic since there were beings back home who could do the same thing.

The three entered through a large wooden gate which appeared to be coated, or made with gold, a rare and valuable matter. The three entered through, the gate sunk to provide entry for them. The gate closed behind them once they all made it inside. Pulse sighed in relief, now knowing they won't be trying to chase her down.

Now Pulse was by herself, with corpse of one of their people. Pulse walked away from the corner and towards a tree on the entrance of the forest from where she came from. She placed down the body, tired of carrying it. Not because of exhaustion, but out depression. Despite not knowing anything about her at all.

Pulse used her front legs to dig on the soil, uprooting organic material and some unfortunate bugs such as ants. She thought of using her mechanical appendages but they were too thin to scoop out lots of soil at a time. She soon made a hole deeper and deeper until it reached one meter down. Pulse stopped and wiped away the dirt on her arms. She turned towards the corpse, which was now turning a filthy brown and yellow entirely. Pulse didn't even want to look at her withered face. Pulse reached out and picked her up, then placed her down gently in the hole. Once that was done she moved the mounds of soil around and back into the hole, sealing the body inside. Pulse found small rocks and pebbles all over the place, so she went to gather them and place them around the mound of dirt.

Pulse stepped back to admire her rather grim work silently. The makeshift grave radiated a haunting feeling that made Pulse shiver slightly. She breathed in once, then turned to walk away from it. The feeling slowly vanished like vapor.

'I never seen myself having to do such a thing anytime soon.'

She shifted her eyes and body to look at the brightened sky with the rainbows and sunshine. It was filled with so much beauty and life that it didn't seem to realize the gloom and suffocating neighbor that was practically next to them. She turned her gaze towards the gloomy, purple sky. She turned her eyes downward, meeting the sight of dead, charred looking soil and grass, mouth shifting with how unnatural the nature looked. She has been to planets with violet grasses and dirt, but these plants didn't look right. Once again, she turned her eyes towards the bright side filled with green grass and flowers along with clean looking soil in which they grew upon. It was beautiful, but it looked so fragile and easy to destroy. In the center of it all, was a large pole with a flag that wasn't pulled towards the top, so it just waved on whatever breeze it could catch from its position on the ground. It was a small, yet strange addition for this place. What it was for, she had no idea.

'Its as if the world is split in two.' she thought, while she stared behind the town hall at the plants and zombies still fighting all over the place over dominance.

What shall happen next? Just be patient and look forward for the next chaptie!