Haku's mind was racing as he, Inu, and the rest of Phoenix's group plummeted towards the planet through the dense cloud. The only difference between him and the experienced fighters was he couldn't stop screaming.
"Hey!" Inu yelled at him from over the rushing wind, tugging on the arm she was holding. Haku could barely hear her, so it was mostly due to her tugging that he stopped and looked to her. She gave him a reassuring look, looking totally fine with the situation they were, opposite of him. She pointed to herself before trying to talk again. "Do this! It'll slow your fall!" She yelled, moving her body to a sort of starfish position. He didn't get it at first, but did notice he was falling faster than her, which caused him to try what she was doing, and sure enough it worked with slowing his fall. This position didn't help with his terror though. "Good! Now stop screaming and get ready to land!"
"W-what…?!" He asked, but his voice was drowned out by the wind, he only panicked more when she let go of his wrist.
She couldn't hold on forever though, and he quickly found out why once he looked down; they were clearing the cloud and the ground was quickly approaching them, like Inu said, there were Cold soldiers everywhere. His eyes widened as he started to panic once again. He couldn't land safely from falling from such a high height! Inu straightened up though, zooming past him as she was more aerodynamic, but instead of splattering against the ground, her form changed, turning into a red fox-like creature and slamming herself down on a soldier's head, using the momentum from the fall to crush his skull. What shocked Haku the most was she wasn't even limping from landing like that. Inu proceeded to jump from soldier to soldier in that form, going right for their jugulars when possible, or causing panic among them.
Haku, however, was left to deal with how he would land by himself, which he still hadn't figured out. He needed to think of something fast since he was going to crash into the ground in seconds, but that's when he remembered…he could change his shape. With little time left, Haku changed himself into a reptilian bird-like creature and veered up just enough to avoid a painful death. He could breathe a heavy sigh of relief as he survived that ordeal, but now he was faced with fighting, and surviving, against an entire army of Cold soldiers. While he was panicking, again, about the situation he was in, a Ki blast whizzed right by him, causing him to squawk in shock and sloppily veer off. Unfortunately that was the first of many as he was now being fired upon by the soldiers below him. He could only assume they knew he was with Phoenix's since he arrived with them.
"Haku!" Inu called out after him while landing on a soldier's head to temporarily blind him. Hearing a familiar voice, Haku turned his head towards her as she continued jumping from one soldier to the next. "Fight back! You got the high ground, don't let them bully you like that!" Haku was still conflicted, he didn't want to kill anyone or anything, and it was evident by his hesitation. "They want to kill you! They don't share the same feelings you do, don't hesita-whoa!" Inu was cut off when she was grabbed by the tail, a soldier holding her and grinning at her with his gun pointed at her.
"Got you." He snickered, his gun charging up to fire.
Haku saw this and perked slightly. "Inu!" He called out, without thinking he tucked his wings in and dove down towards the soldier.
He collided with the soldier's head, his claws scratching at the soldier's face and tearing up the skin. The soldier scream in pain as he was blinded and scratched up badly, dropping Inu, who immediately jumped back off the ground and sank her fangs into the soldier's neck. She tightened her grip enough to not only cut off his oxygen, but straight up break the man's neck before letting go. She spat the blood out and turned to Haku with what looked like a smirk.
"Great job!" She complimented him. "Wasn't paying attention there. Don't worry about the killing part if you're worried about it, I'll clean them up, you disrupt them."
Haku was a little shaken up from that, but he nodded in agreement before taking to the skies again, diving back down and even occasionally turning into a different animal, to disrupt, injure, and divide the soldiers while Inu cleaned them up.
The ground cracked and shattered as Phoenix landed in a kneeling position, creating a small crater around her. Her landing turned heads among the soldiers, some going pale while others grinned in anticipation upon seeing her, probably thinking they could take her on or just not knowing who she was.
"Open fire!" One soldier, presumably their general, shouted before a barrage of Ki blasts from their guns rained down on the masked woman, demolishing the ground around her and creating a dense cloud of dust and smoke around her. The gunfire lasted for several seconds before their general ordered them to stop, smirking at the cloud before them. "Heh…no way she could survive that. This 'phoenix' isn't very smart if she's landing in the middle of us with no backup."
"Who says she didn't have backup?" A male voice said behind the general, making him jump and spin around, only to get his head smashed in by a huge executioner's axe, the wielder being none other than Malroth, a sadistic grin on his face. Blood splashed everywhere as the general's head was smashed in, even his eyeballs popped out of their sockets. "So, who's next?" Malroth questioned, hoisting his executioner's axe up on his shoulder.
The group of soldiers started to back up, some even trembling, before a female spoke up behind them. "How about all at once?" It asked before a huge, crescent shaped Ki blast cut through the cloud of dust and smoke and cut right though most, if not all, of the soldiers in front of the cloud. The soldiers couldn't even react fast enough to the voice as they were cut in half by the crescent blast, either killing them instantly or making them bleed out. The Ki blast came from none other than Phoenix, not even her clothes were torn or scorched from the gunfire she was greeted with.
"Hmph, why you gotta take the fun?" Malroth whined, pouting at her.
She straightened up, holding her orange-bladed scythe in one hand beside her, and looked to Malroth. "There are plenty more to kill. You can go without this group." She told him.
"Yeah, but still…" He continued to complain, that is, right before a soldier snuck up behind him and attempted to land a double sledge attack on Malroth's head. It did connect, however, it didn't make Malroth's head budge even a little, all it did was flatten his hair a bit, as well as get Malroth's attention. "Oh?" Malroth's grin returned as he turned to look up at the soldier. The soldier immediately knew he was screwed and tried to turn and run, only to get squished by that massive executioner's axe when Malroth chased after him. "I call dibs on this side!" He called out to Phoenix as he proceeded to slam and squash anyone he came into contact with.
Phoenix watched him go before turning around to see more soldiers charging towards her, most of them aiming their guns at her and firing Ki blasts. Phoenix simply side stepped or ducked under the blasts, avoiding all of the blasts. Meanwhile, the orange blade on her scythe was steadily starting to glow brighter, letting off more heat as well. She let out a heavy sigh and took the pole of her weapon in both hands now, lowering her stance as well while simply watching and waiting for the army to get closer. They didn't even stop to think what she was doing, continuing to charge in blindly and fire their blasters at her, the blasts were starting to hit since she wasn't moving, but they didn't even burn her clothing.
"What idiots…" She muttered under her breath before jumping up high into the air, pebbles and rocks rising after her.
It was only now that the army stopped to see what she was doing, but it was too late for them. With a midair front flip, Phoenix's blade was over her head and poised to strike. She crashed into the ground, causing the ground underneath her to crack and buckle slightly, and her the blade of her weapon embedded itself deep in the ground in front of her, just a few feet away from the army. At first, nothing else happened, and the soldiers looked at each other with smirks before charging forward again. However, her blade sunk slightly deeper before orange light erupted from the crack made from the blade, Ki caused the ground to crack and crumble, creating a fissure that shot towards the army. The ground opened up into a massive ravine-like hole, swallowing up the soldiers unfortune enough to be standing in, or next to, its path, which was most of the army. The soldiers who were still alive froze, that smug look replaced with one of terror, soon screams followed as the army started to disperse, running for cover as orange Ki started to shoot out of the fissure from the weapon Phoenix dug into the ground.
"What a bunch of cowards." Phoenix uttered under her breath again as she straightened up, yanking her weapon out of the ground and hoisting it over her shoulder. "The Colds will recruit anyone it seems." Her blade still glowed orange, showing it still held some of her Ki. She widened her stance again, holding her weapon in both hands while her upper body was twisted around and the blade was over her shoulder. "Perish." With a swing of her blade, a crescent shaped Ki blast shot out of her blade, literally cutting down anyone it struck.
The majority of the remaining soldiers got hit, killed instantly for the most part, but some had managed to get away. Phoenix, however, decided not to look for stragglers, instead turning to what she assumed was their base of operations, a large tower with an oval top. It was slightly hidden behind some small hills and the fog, but Natsume did tell her there was a lot of radio activity coming from a tower like that, so it was her best guess. Even if it he was wrong, however, she could kill anyone inside and keep looking to shut down their operations here for now. Sheathing her weapon, she took to the air and made her way to the tower.