Plea

Date Unknown

Planet Unknown

Zavezz... She called out with all her strength, called out from the darkness, the darkness she had to remain in.

But even if she had been allowed to leave, she was physically incapable of setting foot outside of the shroud. She could see and hear everything that went on outside, but nothing could see or hear inside the place where she must stay, but she had been in there long enough that she knew the intricacies of the veil keeping her hidden intimately. Nothing she sends can reach the outside world, however, there were places she could linger in where the shroud's barrier faltered, little gaps, chinks in the armor of darkness and silence where if she was loud enough, if she put enough force behind her intentions, if her endurance didn't give, then she could send whispers.

Tonight, above all other nights and days, she desperately hoped that these whispers would be heard.

Zavezz... She still cried out, still tried. She knew where her focus was, it was on a single individual, and she still hoped a single echo would reach him, make him realize that she was attempting contact.

They were resting, sitting down on a mountain with a view of the city behind them, but none of their minds were idle. They were listening to their friends and comrades' chatter some miles south of their position.

((Get another Ion Stake down!))

((Got another one!))

((Don't waver! They can't keep this up for much longer!))

((Where's Siltilos? Someone get Siltilos, we need another Torthon Rake!))

((They're about to break through the front line!))

He was listening to the battle unfold from a spot on the mountain where the lights of the city were in view, if he only turned around. He walked, armored feet carrying him down the slope of the mountain, away from the sight of the city, away from where his people were resting. He readied his weapons and crouched down.

((Part the barrier at the ground,)) he ordered. ((Let them through. I'll handle the brunt.))

The Champion then jumped, dirt and rocks and plant detritus flying from the force of his leap. The wind blasted through his hair as he sailed through the blackened sky, face grim and eyes cold, facing his mission in an unbroken death stare. As he flew, however, his body changed.

His focus was so concentrated on the collection of lights, the images and afterimages of his people locked in a battle to death against their enemy that for all intents and purposes the city behind him didn't exist. In the face of the accursed fiends that were trying to wipe out his race at all costs, so great was their malice and their threat that what he was about to do to them would not weigh on his conscious at all.

The lights grew brighter as he drew closer to the front line, then another flash ocurred as the forcefield holding the enemy back was turned off, and all at once the enemies rushed forward. Their giant claws jabbed forward to pull the running creatures across the grounds, their bladed bodies slicing through the air, armor covered shuttering eyes wide open, searching for their victims.

The Champion landed, the monsters turned their attention away from the defenses and towards the explosion of upturned soil at the figure that was emerging. His war mask was made entirely of metal, the brutal visage of a long-extinct ancient alien predator, his hair had turned into poison coated tendrils covered in so many spikes that they looked like dreadlocks. His skin had turned into a strange material that was like a mixture between leather and fabric. His arms were both encased by two gauntlets seemingly made of wire, resembling more like a cage for his hands than armor, and his hands had turned into a pair of long curved sword resembling wings. Mounted on his shoulders were two long narrow tubs that had notches all along their lengths, his legs grew thick and armored, his feet looked more like metallic tree trunks.

Zavezz...!

The dozen abominations roared as one and charged, silencing any hope she had of contact.

The fiends raced ahead on all fours to maul their enemy with their own weapons; claws, bludgeons, and for a few of the ones old enough to fight with more intelligience, axes. The only adults in the attack group knelt and leveled their weapons, guns of extraterrestrial origin, as the youth charged.

The Champion punched at the air towards the furious beasts charging him, one by one the freaks were smacked backwards, their charge halted as they flew the other way to the ground. At the same time his shoulder mounted launchers fired grenades at the one who stayed behind to use their guns, two of them had been blown to smitherines, forcing the rest to take cover behind the barriers in the face of their comrade's giblets. The adults leading the assault were soon beset by The Champion's people, rushing in with their powerful weapons and killing them silently. In no time the however, the youth's attack reached him. The Champion leapt forward, evading the creature's giant metal talons, swinging one of his swords to the side.

"YEEERRARAAAAUUUGH!" The creature cried as The Champion's left sword cut her in half from the side of the torso, causing her innards to fall out as he swung his other sword to parry another set of talons, the blades grinding across eachother as the Zavezz rushed forward. He kicked upwards at another leaping fiend, the impact under his chin causing him to backflip, his neck bending at an unnatural angle.

Zavezz bent his left arm and thrust, hooking another animalistic fiend in the mouth, he spun around and threw the creature back towards the rest of its pack, knocking them to the ground just as they resumed their charge. Zavezz cocked his arms back and punched the air, bludgeoning the creatures furhter away from himself. More of the enemies emerged, bearing alien firearms, Zavezz launched his shoulder mounted rockets again towards the new arrivals, decimating their ranks. One of his sword hands disappeared, and in its place a long weapon that splayed out at the end like a strange flower grew, Zavezz aimed it at the new enemies and opened fire. Purple beams shot forth and castigated the enemy for their aggression in storms of soil, then heavy mechanical footsteps could be heard.

Amid the chaos a tall figure came forth, stomping forward on metallic legs, the juggernaut was 18 feet tall and sprinted on six legs, with four more limbs rising from the main body, each holding weapons. The juggernaut fired one of its armaments at the ground, and the projectile disappeared in a puff of smoke. Zavezz continued shooting his caster beam at the juggernaut, hitting it in its legs along with a new rocket barrage.

The alien tank sustained heavy damage but kept going straight towards The Champion. He snarled and aimed his Caster Beam at the Juggernaut, charging it, and just as the Juggernaut came close enough to grab him with its mechanical arms, he fired his Caster Beam. Only instead of a beam of destuctive energy, Zavezz aimed at the ground at the last second and unleashed, causing him to shoot away into the air like a bullet. The Juggernaut trampled over empty ground.

As Zavezz flew her launched another barrage of rockets at the abomination from above causing the machine to buckle as the forcefield reactivated, separating the mechanical accoster. Zavez' people in the ditches and trenches burst from the ground, some in humanoid bodies, the other appearing in animalistic shapes, their bodies and hands were bristling with weaponry, their eyes alight with vengeful fury. And cut off from its infantry support, Zavezz and his people closed in on their mighty prey.

K-SHAI! K-SHAI! K-SHAI! K-SHAI!

H-H-SH-BOOM!

Twutwutwutwutwutwutwutwutwu!

Rockets whistled and howled, bullets made from hard light and alien metals impacted, lazers ground away at the enemy's armor, and every manner of projectile ripped into the Juggernaut. The extraterrestrial tank couldn't choose which enemy to attack. Zavezz landed, his arms splayed out to the side, and began sprinting towards the enemy. If anyone could see him as he sprinted in the darkness, they would see Zavezz vanishing from the face of the earth his gun-arm reverting to his normal arm before morphing into a matching sword, his lessened weight aided his acceleration towards the Juggernaut, intent on death.

Zavezz leapt into the air once more, the twin explosions of dirt on the ground the only evidence he was even there. When the death machine finally levelled its guns to bear on its would-be victims. When Zavezz landed he disabled his invisibility so all could see him. His feet planted firmly on the metal, he thrust both of his blades downward, penetrating deep into the war machine, and ran forward. He sliced deep gashes in paralell lines on the Juggernaut's back, severing wires, mutilating delicate and vital machinery, and destroying its dorsally mounted guns. He ran up the Juggernaut's back until he reached the front and then forced his swords to slice through the 'head' of the beat, paralyzing it.

After his work was done Zavezz leapt off of the monstrosity and ran forward in front of it. Gaining distance from the maqchine that seemed like it was about to explode.

((The enemy is retreating!))

((Keep firing! Mulch them!)) Zavezz ordered.

Once the last of the fiends had left their sight, Zavezz's army cheered at their victory.

((...the group's back up,)) Zavezz' second in command commented. ((We're ready to leave at your descretion.))

Zavezz, run! It's not over!

But her words, her urgency was drowned out by the cheering, by the Juggernaut collapsing.

((Disassemble the fortifications,)) Zavezz ordered. ((Take our wounded, dead and all of the scrap with us, we depart at daw-))

CRASH! A sound came from the defeated Juggernaut that wasn't that of a empty machine.

((-attacking! We're under attack!)) Someone cried out as they emerged!

TSEEEW! TSEEEW! TSEEEW!

The ears of the people fighting were assaulted by the sound of alien weaponry fighting once more.

"Ah!" Zavezz cried as he was shot in the back, the explosion forcing him to the ground, but as he fell he turned around just in time to see them.

Creatures like colossal centipedes were rushing out from the wreckage of the fallen Juggernaut like parasites from a mutilated corpse! Their outer shells were hard, black, and they held handheld alien weapons in all of their dozens of legs that weren't used to race across the ground. They fired all of their weapons at the unprepared defenders with no mercy, their four red eyes guided them like lazers with missiles to their prey.

((Wait! No! NO! HELP ME!)) "AAAAAUUUUGGHH!" One of the first victims of the centipede's ranged wrath had been overrun by the monsters, as she tried to get up one wrapped its upper body around her waist, she swung her weapons in an attempt to defend herself, but the swarm thrust forward, mouth full of teeth agape, the long needles coated in a substance that pierced her armor, allowing them to rip chunk after chunk of her flesh from her body faster than she could realize they were gone, devouring her alive.

((What are those things?))

((Shoot them! Kill them!))

((DIEEEEE!))

Zavezz fired his Caster Beam at the monsters, again and again the purple beam ripped through the monsters as they rushed forward to accost his people. As he was leaning upward he launched his shoulder rockets, showering the land with a species of alien innard never before seen by the world.

One unlucky person was knocked to the ground, and the great centipede lunged forward, empty his chest cavity with a single bite, another had been run through by the new invader's body, the monster using its legs to push its way through the hole it had made in his gut.

The grisly violence continued for a minute, but by that time a dozen more of Zavezz's people had perished.

((What in Crayak's undercarriage were those things?)) One Animorph asked as he approached the remains of one of this new race of enemy, shaken as everyone else was. Another was anxiously searching the Juggernaut, looking for more booby traps.

((They must be mercenaries,)) Zavezz said. ((Hired out by the Lunatic Race to cause further damage. Take the bodies of our own and these new fiends, those can't be the only ones. Examine them, find out what we're dealing with, take the wounded and dead with us. We're leaving.))

((What about the city?)) Zavezz' SIC asked.

Take refuge in the city!

((Avoid it. We go around as always))

Zavezz, no! Go to the city! They won't follow you in, the humans won't betray you!

((Let the degenerates fester in whatever way they wish. They'll never want anything to do with us, and we're not going to anger them by seeking their help.))

Zavezz! Zavezz! Listen to me!

Zavezz and his Animorphs began packing, preparing to move, leaving nothing for their foe to scavenge.

The Humans won't care! Tell them you fended off an attack!

The Animorphs then began taking flight, both groups on the battlefield and the.

You're walking into Their trap Zavezz! Those devil worshipping beasts are not alone, they have an ally! They will decimate you! Zavezz! Zavezz...Zavezz!

...ZAVEZZ!