Why do I hear fight music?

Oh shit...

"YOU COULDN'T HAVE WARNED US BITT?!"

Miko screamed this out as she took potshots at the group of what she figured were pirates firing on their position from behind storage crates. They had barely been walking for three minutes when BITT had taken them through one of the ship's main storage rooms - a room that happened to have had a dozen pirates digging through it trying to find anything worth keeping. The resulting firefight had been quick to begin and was proving slow to end, and even with seven pirates down, the aggressors showed no intent on giving up their prizes.

Someone called out "Grenade!" before a softball-sized projectile flew through the air and in the direction of the Techs. The small, oval-shaped metal ball landed about ten yards from Miko's position. The purple-haired ducked behind another crate as two seconds later the bomb exploded. In contrast to fragments of a grenade being hurled in all directions, a fireball erupted from the point where the grenade landed, incinerating anything flammable within a seven-meter radius.

Even from behind the crate, Miko could feel the heat from the massive fireball, heat that quickly subsided for the most part. She quickly raised her salvaged shotgun and hurled herself over the crate she had taken cover behind, her whole hand erupting in pain as the heat from the fire singed her skin. She shoved it aside, landing in a crotch before rising to her feet and taking a shot with her weapon. The blast struck one of the pirates in the chest, sending him down screaming in agony as a dozen small, glowing bullets pierced through his body. She evaded a burst of orange fire from one of the four remaining pirates, who had begun blasting at her to provide cover for his retreating allies, one of the whom screamed into what could have only been a radio of sorts as they fled the scene. The last of the pirates was quickly eliminated by an accurate burst of fire from Phil, who without a word grabbed a few items off of the pirates' corpses before telling the others to follow him.

The gamer girl wasn't entirely sure how she felt about this whole mess. What she did know she was feeling a mess of emotions including fear, confusion, anger, all in a swirling mess not simplified by the chemical rushes in her body that made everything far more confusing. Yet she did know one thing for certain, that she had just taken her first lives, and she hated it. Killing real people, beings with lives, values, ideals, and opinions that were more than mindless NPCs or players was wrong and she knew it. But at the same time, she could not feel pity that she knew deep within herself that these monsters did not deserve. They were pillagers and abductors, and she knew that regardless of what she told herself, the only way she or anyone else was going to escape was to kill whatever and whoever got in their way.

That was something she could not afford to dwell on, however. She needed to keep her head in the game and her mind clear in order to make sure that they didn't die. Yet even as they raced through the complex array of tunnels and hallways, the weight of her actions did not truly subside. Nevertheless, the band of humans did everything possible to avoid further firefights, which meant they had to take a detour whenever they found a sizable force of either the attacking pirates and the alien defenders.

They were both dangerous in their own rights, the aliens on one hand appearing well-trained and equipped, having the advantage of fighting on their own ship and knowing where to set up defensive positions and traps. The pirates lacked the same coordination and discipline from what Miko had seen so far, yet the sheer ferocity of their assault and those freakish heavy soldiers easily compensated for any shortcomings.

The purple-haired teen and her friends/co-workers ran for what felt an hour to her before the group finally found what BITT had described as the ship's research facility. The heavy metal door was opened, the entrance perpendicular at a right angle to the hallway the techs were coming from, leaving a ten meter stretch of hallway without any cover or protection. Two of the alien soldiers stood guard, meaning that they could not look in their direction for any longer than a second or two with the risk of being spotted. Overall, a defensible position that could not have been much more obvious.

"Looks like we found out where our gauntlets are." Zahra concluded, carefully peeking out into the room and pointed out the door.

"It's clearly meant to be defensible, no cover for quite a distance, giving them plenty of time to react to anyone sprinting towards them." Haneesh noted, also pointing the soldier's armor had a noticeable difference than the previous ones. The most distinctive difference was the tan armor had black outlines along the shoulder pads, indicating they could either be specialized forces or commanders. "They looked like elite troops perhaps?"

A sudden sound of heavy footsteps in a sprint caught the group's attention, and they backed out of view just as two alien soldiers in the more standard armor pushed what looked like a small vault on a floating platform through the door, followed by a swift exchange in alien dialect with those within the lab. A moment passed as the sudden sound of a massive door opening up met Miko's ears.

she knew what would happen next, if they got their gauntlets into the mobile vault the chances of them getting them back dropped significantly. Chemicals began pumping through her body as with all of her impulsive behavior, she decided to take a far more direct approach as indicated when she entered a sudden sprint towards the alien guards, shotgun loaded and aimed straight for the nearest of the two. All the while ignoring her teammates protests as anger shot through her blood like fire.

"DIE YOU SONS OF A BITCHES!" She yelled with raw fury as she unloaded her first shot into the alien's chest, tearing though it's armor like plastic and sending it collapsing dead with a pain-filled scream. Before the first corpse hit the ground, she had already unleashed another blast at the second of the two guards, who was completely caught off guard by her inhumane speed only getting a short burst of fire off before a barrage of energized pellets ripped into his body.

Miko's impulsive reaction gained the attention of the remaining aliens, three more of which with the same armor sprinting out from the room and began firing at her. She was forced to dive into the neighboring room's doorway as consistent fire was sent hurling her way, tearing into the metal she was using as cover.

This advantage was lost as soon after, the remaining techs opened fire on the specialized troopers, one of them collapsing in a heap as a burst of fire ripped into his vulnerable neck. Miko took this new opening, rolling out and unleashing three more bursts of fire from her weapon that ripped through the remaining defenders' armor and sent them falling to the ground dead.

With the rest of the techs now caught up with her, the real storm began.

"What the hell was that?!" Five yelled angrily, moving the shotgun's barrel away from his face. "You could have died!"

"I didn't see you guys doing anything!" She retorted.

A burst of gunfire from nearby cut the argument short, Miko turning to see Zahra blasting into the room. "There are three more of those guys in there, mind giving me a hand?!"

Miko took the que, reloading her shotgun by pressing a button that released the small magazine from the bottom before sliding a fresh one she fished out from her pocket. She poked from behind the corner, immediately spotting one alien trooper taking cover behind an overturned table that she ducked back behind cover the moment a burst of fire ripped past her head. Undeterred, she made a potentially suicidal move by jumping out into the hallway before doing a forward roll, the quick maneuver giving the soldier no chance to aim before a cluster of energized rounds ripped though it's upper body. The remaining two were immediately enticed by her exposed position, one of whom moving out from behind a shelf lining up his weapon with Miko. Yet like his comrade he collapsed as multiple shots tore through its body from Fives, having failed to recognize the somewhat-unintentional trap. One soldier remained, peeking out from its position within a large vault that was likely where their gauntlets had been stored previously. It attempting to take out anyone it could by blasting towards the door, its fire being inaccurate and failing to hit anything it intended to, Miko's attempt to retaliate with her shotgun failed, with the alien instead diving back into cover a split second before the volley tore into the reinforced metal.

A split second of silence passed before a blur of movement briefly appeared, launching a round object straight into the hallway, hitting the wall before falling to the ground.

Miko turned wide-eyed as she immediately recognized the object, leaping over to the other side of the table before racing into the vault, driving the shotgun's muzzle into the direction of the soldier she knew was hiding behind the corner. The alien wasn't caught off guard, instead smashing his rifle into the shotgun before driving a kick straight into the teen's stomach that sent falling to the floor.

What the alien failed to anticipate was when she levelled the shotgun as she fell back, unleashing a fatal blast straight into the alien a fraction of a second before its own sights were aligned with her body.

A second later as she hit the metal deck, a fireball tore into the room, the heat unbearable even though she was not being burned alive. It subsided a few seconds later, allowing her to rise to her feet before waiting several seconds for the metal to cool down, remember how she had burned her hand last time.

Stepping out from the chamber, the rest of the techs flowed in upon knowing that they were not at risk of injury from the subsiding heat. Phil moved over to retrieve their gauntlets, which were sprawled over the floor to Miko's right while Five took interest in the room, something Miko found herself doing as well.

The room was definitely a mess, two shelves overturned as well as one of the tables that had previously provided both the defenders and attackers cover. The long table to her right was covered in an array of what were easily chemical equipment that she recognized because of the small tubes of fluid in a rack that had not been melted from the heat, a fate a sizable of the other contents including part of the table itself were not spared from. Among the surviving pieces included a clear area with an array of robotic arms over it, easily probably used to work with small objects such as device pieces, as well as a small pile of various parts that probably went together in some manner. The shelves themselves also had their own oddities, even if most of them were metal crates, a handful of unpackaged items laid among them.

Phil broke the silence that now dominated the room besides the alarm. "Alrighty, seems like everyone's gauntlets are here." He tossed one of the bracelets to Miko, who immediately dropped the shotgun to catch her preferred weapon. She slid the bracelet up her arm, transforming into the full gauntlet upon activating it. She took in the familiar feeling of her full Hinobi gear forming around her with satisfaction, stretching out upon completion.

"This is better." She said with a grin before summoning her hammer, which fell into her waiting hands.

The ship shuddered further, and a sudden burst of weapons fire nearby indicating that they were far from safe.

"We need to get out of here." Zahra stated, her own armor formed around her as she held the alien rifle. "Anyone have any bright ideas?"

Haneesh turned towards the rest of them from when he had been looking at the shelf's contents. "I've played enough games and seen enough movies to think that this ship would have something equating to lifeboats, hanger would be a pretty bad idea since it's probably flooded with those pirates and-"

"Everybody freeze!"

Miko's and everyone else's eyes fell on the door, where three new pirates stood, all of them leveling their weapons at the group. The pirates shared similar clothing to the pirates they had fought and seen previously: faces partly or entirely covered, protective vests over heavy clothing, and a number of belts across their body holding a mixture of pouches to grenades.

Phil made the first move, instinctively raising his gauntleted hand and attempted a reset, sending a white light at the direction of the hostiles resulting in them to reflexively shield their eyes with their arms.

"AGH! What the bloody hell was that?! some sort of flashbang?!" The pirate lowered his arms and aimed his gun at the group again, the remaining pirates following suit. Miko's eyes abruptly noticed the same red text above the pirates that appeared whenever a reset was attempted on her. She could believe aliens had immunity to such things, yet other humans immediately alarmed her.

She did not need to be prompted as she lunged at the closest of the pirates, sending the hammer into the pirate's chest and hurling into a wall with enough force to punch a hole straight through it and into a neighboring room. An anti-glitch gun formed in BITT's right arm and blasted at the remaining two, the second one that fell down going to Haneesh while the last one escaped, yelling out cusses in anger.

"That could have been worse." Haneesh said, staring at the newly formed hole in the wall.

"Those guys are immune to resets, and don't jinx us Haneesh." Miko retorted, a sarcastic smile on her face. "We are stuck on an alien warship, full of angry pirates and aliens who both want our heads for some creepy collection I bet they have somewhere. And to top it alllllllllll off… WE STILL HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO GET OFF THIS TRAIN WRECK!"

"Escape pods located."

Everyone's face, including Miko's now fell on BITT, who now had a map of a section of the ship on his screen.

"How did you do that?" Zahra asked, dumbstruck by the coincidental timing.

The reply even had Miko slightly impressed. "I temporarily overrode a portion of the ship's electronic security systems, providing me with a basic layout of the vessel that includes the location of escape pods."

"When did you do this?" Phil asked, tilting his head.

"During the fighting."

The purple-haired teen's boss shot an irritated look at his robotic assistant. "So, where are they?"

"Three decks down, and three hundred feet from there."

"Okay then, lets-"

"LOOK OUT!"

Miko felt something in the back of her mind scream out a potentially useless warning. Yet she jumped clear a split second before a burst of semi-automatic fire from a heavy laser cannon tore through the air from the hole she had made. She dove into a corner, watching as glowing rounds ripped through whatever they came into contact with, tearing up the tables, desks, shelves, and walls like they were made of paper. She switched out her weapon, her hammer being switched to a golden sword with a magenta gem on the hilt as she rushed out from behind her covered position.

She was met with the horrifying sight of a seven-foot tall behemoth in dark-grey armor. Its helmet was the same as the one she saw before, bearing the appearance of a cow, albeit without the ears and having a short crest running from the bridge on the nose over its head. The two slit-like eyes radiated an orange light, concealing any emotions behind a metal mask that radiated hate. The rest of its body was covered in smooth plate-like armor that included a massive pack on its back that probably housed a reactor or battery of some sort. The front featured what appeared to be additional armor plates that were not likely part of the original design, seams from welding visible along the edges. Cables extended from its pack into the giant's helmet, as well as a wrist-mounted cannon and the massive gun in its hands that looked like an oversized anti-tank rifle. The right shoulder had a second armored pad over the first one, bearing an emblem that had a black vertical line with a second brown one intersecting it further up, giving it the look of a cross at first glance. However, the horizontal line curved up towards the ends, giving the look of a bull's horns. dark Lines connected the two lines at angles, making it look less like a cross and more like a kit with horns. However, the symbol told Miko enough, it was meant to symbolize death.

The giant being moved with stunning speed out of the path of Miko as she threw herself through the hole, blade swinging down where the behemoth had stood less than a second earlier. It retaliated with fury, driving a massive fist straight towards where her head had been a split second earlier before said fist drove a hole in the metal wall - a terrifying testament to the sheer strength of the combatant. Miko swung the blade towards its arm, yet was alarmed when the blade was caught in a series of glowing teeth that ran along the behemoth's wrist.

She barely managed to roll back before the giant used her snagged weapon to throw her off balance before proceeding to swing the giant cannon in her direction like a club. She avoided the brutal fate of being smashed to pieces by leaning backwards enough that the large barrel hurled past her head by an inch, the weapon leaving a powerful gust of wind in its wake.

A burst of multi-colored shots tore through the air and impacted the pirate's armor, doing nothing besides pissing it off. Another volley of fire, this time from its wrist cannon opened up in her direction, her quick reflexes allowing her to dodge the lethal fire before diving into a covered position behind a computer terminal. She saw the tank beginning to come towards her, yet more shots pelted its armor, finally annoying it enough that it slung it's autocannon over its shoulders, the weapon locking onto place on its back. With both of its hands free, it grabbed what looked like an oversized hand axe from its right thigh before roaring out in either rage or excitement and charged through the hole at blinding speeds, relishing the idea of more challengers. Chaotic sounds erupted from the room seconds later, the sounds of gunfire, blades clashing, and the panicked screaming of her fellow techs.

That was the only thing she needed to hear to grab her sword again and dash out from her concealed position, sprinting towards the large hole in the metal wall from which the freak had first emerged.

The sight of absolute anarchy greeted her, the beast taking up the center of the room while unleashing occasional potshots towards Five, who despite the shield he used while evading found himself struggling to avoid being hit. Zahra and Haneesh took to attacking at melee, swinging their swords at the beast whenever there was an opening, something that was not given to them easily while it was trying to kill Miko's partner. Even with three fighters against it, it still was able to evade the worst of the barrage of heavier fire coming from Phil, who remained behind one of the overturned tables while using a heavy cannon that inflicted noticeably more damage when a lucky shot impacted the armor. All the while, BITT's lack of exceptionally advanced programming for dealing with none-glitch combatants became obvious, his own mid-caliber emitter doing nothing to even slightly slow the monstrous pirate.

The instant it caught Miko at the edge of its vision, a maddening laugh erupted from its voice. It swung its axe towards the ground between Haneesh and Zahra, who were completely caught off guard when a shockwave erupted from the point of impact. The resulting blast sent the two humans and bits of rubble hurling through the air, the former of which impacted the metal walls before slumping over, having been stunned by both the shockwave and impact. The tank ignored the downed members, intent on finishing off the rest of the threats, indicated when it launched itself towards Five, its right fist drawn back for a punch. The teenager ducked to the left as the armored fist tore into the wall, unable to exploit the new opening due to the axe arm swinging towards his new position. Forcing him to raise his shield that took the full brunt of the attack and sent him sliding across the floor, luckily unharmed.

Miko had seen enough by this point and decided to engage, charging the giant with the intention of driving the blade through the armor. The massive beast swung its axe to counter her attack, not only sending her blade flying from her hands but leaving an opening for the giant to bring his free arm in a downward slash, a wrist-mounted blade now emerging from a concealed sheath.

An instinctive backflip prevented her from being severed into pieces as the blade hacked through the air, its edges radiating with energy. At the same time, she evaded the energized shots that spewed forth from its other arm, sliding across the floor to retrieve her weapon. The instant it was in her hands, she launched herself to her feet, her, Five, and now Phil all surrounding the monster with swords raised.

It let out a short laugh, raising its head up as the techs circled the pirate, looking for any chance to strike. Its head fell down on Miko before speaking.

"Been too long since I've had a good close quarters fight, you're tough, I'll give you that much, but there is a reason Minotaurs are feared across these parts of space-."

"Shut the fuck up!" Miko yelled, anger seeping from her voice. "I don't care who you are, but you are going to regret hurting us."

The Minotaur let out another short laugh before responding. "Let's see how well you can keep that promise, bitch."

At that moment, it charged straight at her, intending to drive its shoulder straight into Miko's body. She dodged off to the left, the giant tank instead slamming into BITT and hurling the robot into the large vault. She brought the blade around for a strike, yet it was blocked by the axe in its hands, using the momentum from that block to strike at Five when he came around for his own attack. The tank was stronger and faster than any non-glitch Miko had even seen, yet the behemoth lacked the agility she and the techs had, something they needed to exploit to the best of their ability.

It swung its wrist-bladed arm at Phil, who ducked beneath it before swinging his sword right at its torso, which missed as the giant sidestepped it while at the same time blocking an airborne attack from Five. Miko attempted to bring her own sword down on its head, but it moved its head clear before swinging the wrist blade to block her sword before sending her hurling through the air. She landed back on her feet without much trouble, sliding across the floor as Five and Phil continued to fight it, evading every savage strike from the pirate while striking any chance they could without putting themselves at risk. The tank countered with brutal effectiveness, keeping them in the fight whether they wanted to be in it or not, Miko ending up being dragged back in a second after landing when a shot from the pirate's wrist cannon nearly hit her.

The giant pirate moved with terrifying effectiveness, striking and defending in a dance of death that made getting a solid hit nearly impossible. Miko's endurance was starting to be stressed when a split-second gap in its defense became visible, without a second's thought, she reared back her sword to stab through its shoulder joint that looked easier to penetrate.

By the time the monster realized she was coming, her blade had already torn into the armor, ripping into the monster's chest cavity and without a doubt ripping apart organs.

The giant let out a roar of pain as Miko pulled the blade out, alarm and shock took over her face as red blood and pieces of metal covered her weapon. She let her guard down in that moment, failing to notice the armored elbow that slammed into her chest. Miko's armor took the bulk of the blow luckily, yet the strike still held enough force to send her smashing into the floor. She rolled back to her feet, yet the sound of a blade tearing through flesh quickly met her ears. A loud thud of metal colliding with the floor followed, the helmet of the behemoth now separated from its body. The source could not have been more evident, Fives standing nearby with a blood-soaked blade on his wrist as the headless corpse collapsed the floor.

Miko's face contorted to one of disgust and shock as she looked at the face of the head that tumbled out of the helmet, an expression of pure rage and fury forever etched into its expression. The neck was leaking blood like a bad water pipe, the organic liquid pooling beneath it. Scars lined its face, a large one running the length of the face from the fore-head to the chin.

The surrounding noise seemed to dim as Miko's legs gave way, her breathing being the only clear noise she could hear. Her eyes fell on the metal floor, her chest burning from the blow she had taken.

What she was far from expecting was Zahra to haul her teammate to her feet, given her previous status of being stunned. She threw Miko's arm over her shoulder before lifting her back up to her feet.

"You guys alright?" Phil called out, helping Haneesh to his feet while shooting a glance at the armored corpse.

"Yeah, gave one hell of a fight." Miko saw Zahra's eyes settle on the head of the enemy, staring into it, why she could not tell.

Haneesh's voice came up from behind them. "Look, we need to go, plan or no plan these guys are bent on killing us. If that guy wasn't enough evidence, I don't know what is."

BITT flew out of the vault a second later, his screen cracked yet nothing that the robot could not repair by itself. "Escape pods are three decks down and three hundred feet from there, follow me."

Now able to stand on her own, Miko watched BITT transform into his robotic form, his two arms turning into large fists that began tearing into the deck. Within seconds, the robot fell through, the damaged deck unable to handle his weight. The noises from the damage grew more and more distant until they stopped entirely, the last indication of what the robot had done being the loud noise generated from BITT hitting the floor of wherever it had landed.

"Deck reached." a distance voice said.

Five wasted no time jumping down into the hole, followed by Miko herself, she was airborne for about a second before landing on her feet in a room that was undoubtedly a small storage room. Like the research facility, shelves filled with crates lined the room, yet the ones in here were easily three to four times as large by comparison. The room rapidly switched between light and darkness as the lights flickered, probably due to damage from the invaders.

She made sure to move aside for the other techs to jump down as well, she did not want to end up as a human pancake after all. BITT luckily waited, and led the group through the network of shelves until coming upon a door, which opened up automatically. They stepped into the hallway, the sound of alarms still present regardless of wherever on this ship they were. BITT moved ahead of them, the hallway itself being entirely deserted of anyone as well as devoid of any nearby gunfire, indicating that this deck had been ignored entirely by the raiding party. BITT led them through the maze of corridors without any sign of trouble, turning into intersecting hallways before arriving in front of a small door with an unreadable sign above it, which like all the others opened when it detected them.

The room was long and narrow, with a single stripe of light running from one end to the other. Twelve or so doors lining the room next to each other, each on leading into a separate pod. None of them appeared missing, indicating the crew were not abandoning the ship anytime soon.

The group rushed into one of the pods, each of which had a dozen seats with headrests on both sides as well as two small windows on the sides that at the moment showed nothing but bare metal walls. Miko strapped herself into one of the seats near the door, while the others stuck themselves into other nearby seats. BITT was the last one in, having swapped out its large robotic body for its more mobile small form again. The robot flew around for a few seconds, probably figuring out how to operate the pod before a snake-like arm popped out of the robot's side before plugging into a socket that Miko had not noticed. Within a second, an alarm began to go off, followed by a digitized alien voice speaking some pre-recorded message that she could not understand. The back-door sealing shut, however, said enough, and no less than five seconds later everyone Miko saw leaned towards the back of the pod as the G-force began to affect their bodies. The metal that had previously occupied the windows rapidly gave way to space, giving Miko a clear and uninterrupted view of the battle.

The space was occupied by the massive ship they had escaped from in addition to dozens of other vessels of two distinct design types. The flagship fell under one of them and was blasting at all of the other vessels that did not share the same basic appearance. This made it easy to tell who the pirates were, their bulky, dark-grey warships blasting away at the alien's brown-colored and smoother hulls. Lances of green and orange energy tore away at each other, missiles from both sides streaking across the space before detonating against any unshielded vessels they impacted. The results of weapons were devastating, leaving flaming holes in the vessels that sucked men, equipment, and wreckage into the void. All of these vessels sat in orbit above a single planet that could have been mistaken for Earth had it not been for the different shape of the continents.

"Well… that's something." Five plainly stated, staring past Miko and into the window next to her.

The next minute that elapsed was entirely quiet as Miko sat quietly and hoped they were not shot down, she had seen what looked like fighters zipping around blasting at each other at breakneck speeds even Ally would be brutally hard-pressed to match. Explosions erupted everywhere, some from seemingly nothing that convinced her they were fuse-detonated rounds used against fighters while others were fighters erupting into blazing fireballs whose wreckage tumbled towards the planet's surface.

Abruptly, the entire pod began to shake, evidently from the atmosphere reentry, BITT now moving to clamp himself to the ceiling of the pod, an action that did not ease Miko's fears in the least.

This lasted for a moment, followed by a shift in gravity as they got close enough to the world below them that its gravity began to take hold of them. The teenager felt the pod begin to level off, paired with an alien voice doing something equating to a countdown.

Then everything went dark.

Alrighty, so next chapter is going to involve giving you guys a peek into the history of this universe as well as other factions who are interested in plixel technology... not the good kind either.

Oh, and the whole immunity of resets thing will be explained in due time, as well several other things throughout the story.

Thanks for reading.