I landed bodily on an empty rooftop, coughing and sputtering, gasping for air that wouldn't come. I slid at least a few yards, my skin scraping against rubble and stone. I was pushing myself too hard. I wasted valuable time gathering myself, standing slowly, and waiting until I managed to get my breathing under control. It was a miracle no one heard me.
I had flown from the building as soon as I sensed some of the natives moving towards my initial distraction, taking to the air at speeds I didn't know I was capable of. It nearly killed me doing so. The thing about flight, and I suppose other forms of outward energy manipulation, was that it wasn't connected to any muscles. Like with my training I can't tell how much I've exerted myself until it was already over and done with, the energy itself literally sapped from my body.
I looked inward, breathing a sigh of relief at the fact that I still had some energy to go around, if far less than I'd have liked. If I slowed down a bit I could still get this done. Just had to be more careful. Just a little more effort and it was over.
When my feet lifted off the ground, and I ascended again into the night sky, it was slowly and almost painfully. I took care in only speeding up whenever I felt eyes might land on me. If I was caught in the air like this there wouldn't be a chance. Looking at it now, especially having seen these people fight in the past, I knew this whole city was one big defense platform. All it took was one good pair of eyes focusing in my direction for every gun even sort of nearby to come to bear.
By that merit however, it was also my opportunity. With everyone focused on the sound of my blasters firing their last I pulled myself over the lip of a rooftop, just behind a tower with a very large gun a top of it. Seated on a chair attached to it a gunner nervously aimed at the distance. My sword tore through the back of his chair, lodging itself into his lungs just as my palm closed around his mouth. He gasped into my hand, struggling for a few painful seconds as I held him down, I felt his breath fade away around a minute later, but I held him longer, just to be sure.
I shoved the alien away from the chair, taking his space and examining the controls. Having high powered turrets at around the same elevation probably worked real well for stopping an invading force from outside the city, or in the air, but using them against one another was a different thing entirely. I figure anyone smart would have to try and kill me without using the other turrets, unless they were eager to risk killing their own comrades. I've seen the lasers work, tearing through the flesh of even stronger Freeza force soldiers with ease. It was a safe bet to say they could punch through rock and stone too. One stray shot could cause a lot more deaths than most sane people would be comfortable with.
Great for me, bad for them. I was counting on it. The controls were nothing but glowing lights and alien symbols, the only recognizable portion of the machine itself two handles with triggers attached to them. At least that was straightforward enough. I shakily guided the turret down and to the left, ignoring a sudden stream of what I assumed to be questions and orders in a guttural, alien language. I closed my eyes, not bothering to use them as I aimed at ki signatures behind two buildings. I took a breath, and pulled the triggers.
Thunder and fire burned back at me, the laser letting out a number of quiet hisses as it discharged, each laser being answered by an explosion once it landed. It scorched through the first building in seconds, taking just a bit longer for the second. I smiled when it finally reached the third, winking out the lives of over a dozen foes I couldn't hope to fight directly. I guided the gun further down, into the building the turret was mounted on, before blasting a hole in the roof. Just a little more.
I jumped off, grabbing my sword and the gunners body, certain I could wait no longer as I sensed dozens more of the defenders moving about the area. I threw the corpse over my back just as laser fire started peppering the rooftop from all angles, many of the soldiers on the ground or in the air having flown up and surrounded my position. As I suspected they didn't miss when they found me.
I felt the impacts on my back, the feeling of several burns quickly spreading across what was left of my unblemished skin. The body I was carrying did a decent job of blocking the shots that would have hit home. The heat was still almost unbearable, but it kept the damage closer to being forced against a hot stove over actually getting killed with energy weapons.
When I finally managed to get through the hole I made in the roof I dropped the alien corpse more out of exhaustion over any kind of expedience, before disappearing down the first hallway I saw. I made a point of avoiding any routes my ki sensing told me the defenders would cut me off at, but he building was just as destroyed as any of the others around here were, making it difficult to go unseen even by the defenders who weren't inside with me. Several lights shined through each room and every hallway as they searched.
"Just a little more" I told myself, using my energy to force a flash of light a few rooms away from me, the sound making a loud pop I was certain they had heard. I had to retrace my steps a few times before I actually managed to leave, jumping into an adjacent building just as more reinforcements came from other parts of the city. Just a litte more.
I cringed at the pain of the burns on my back, ignoring them to the best of my ability as I made my way to the civilian shelter, hopping from building to building and staying out of sight. The sight of the shelter, now littered with fresh burn damage and a number of corpses, greeted me nearly ten minutes of ducking and dodging sight later. I wasted no time getting inside.
This building was less damaged than most of the ones on the outer edges of the city, the lights still on and the walls still mostly intact. All it really did was make it easier to see what I had done.
The burned, torn, and broken bodies of the guards were strewn about, splayed in various macabre positions about the area, most of them missing limbs and chunks. For a moment I considered the absurdity of it all. The fighting, the killing, the terror I had to undergo just to get to this point. As my energy got lower and lower I was reminded that this world wasn't built for human survival. Just gravity the made it that much harder to breathe, to stand up on my own two legs and fight like my new feelings told me I should.
I had done all this, nearly killing myself with the effort, just so I could look for a chance to be a cook. I chuckled over the feeling of loss that thought brought me. Was my grip on my sanity getting weaker or stronger? I couldn't tell.
I crouched down by a mostly intact body, taking in the features of one of the natives for the first time. It was harder than I thought to do so, my eyes seeming to want to go anywhere but the body laying over the ruins of what I assumed to be a desk. Like most aliens I'd met seemed to, they resembled humans far too closely for my liking. The yellow pallor of his skin and the needle-like hairs on his head did little to hide the expression of pain on his face, and the emptiness of his eyes. He was even younger than me.
I took his jacket off, bunching it into a ball to my side, before I tugged away at the loose undershirt clinging to his body with a mixture of blood, sweat, and dust. In spite of the stains and the burns it was remarkable intact, the only real damage being a burnt off sleeve were his arm probably used to be. I closed his eyes after I had it on, before moving to the next room, the jacket clutched in my hand.
To my silent relief the room had less bodies, and a staircase for me to use. Like my other experiences with the cities underground, I found that I walked for far longer and went far deeper than I was traditionally comfortable with. This time at least the place was well lit, and there wasn't a sign to be seen of the creatures I found in the dark. Scavenger or otherwise.
When I was sure I was on the same level as all the weaker ki signatures I stepped into a familiar but well lit set of hallways stretching in every direction. I picked up the pace as I walked, the steadily growing realization of just how tired I was of nothing but corridors, hallways, and death giving me new energy. Soon I wasn't just following the feeling of ki, but the sound of voices and laughter.
None of them made much effort in moving as I approaced, the aliens probably used to relying on their protectors to keep them safe. They didn't know what had went on topside. I turned a corner, facing a door not out of place on a submarine, with a wheel centered in a reinforced metal surface. I stood in front of the door, the last obstacles between me and my goal waiting just on the other side. I thought of luring them out, of simply waiting and watching for the chance to take what I wanted, or simply going inside and killing everything I saw on the other side. Those and a million other things crossed my mind as I stood just outside.
It felt like I waited for hours outside, indecisive of any action I could take, before I finally just gave up. The truth was I could barely stand, and it was a miracle I had come even this far. So I did the only thing I could. I took a step forward and opened the door.
Water treatment plant 5-0, a designated shelter for those who couldn't afford the more spacious and better defended bunkers in the center of the city. Many of the unknown and disgraced families of Xecroas Prime had been forced to accept such lesser accommodations in the face of the threat that had already stolen many of their homes and families. Even the greatest among them were aware of the seemingly unstoppable warriors the invaders had at their command. Rumors had spread among the civilians for days of warriors capable of lifting mountains, overcoming the greatest and most honorable of their soldiers, and taking hits from all but their most advanced and dangerous weaponry with ease. Those they didn't kill they shackled and enslaved. They raped, burglarized, and killed without thought or care, seemingly picking victims at random from high and low class alike.
They were monsters without care of decorum, honor, or even the barest sense of common decency, and they were winning. It was no real wonder that the civilians and those among them too weak to fight were afraid of what was to come. It was that very fear of the inevitable that drove them even closer together, many families and loved ones sat and ate together, speaking of better and less fearful times, making merry as a way to combat the reality of the world around them. They drank and ate, played children's games and made plans for the future they knew would never come.
Under the stress and dire nature of the invasion they faced, the inhabitants of the treatment plant had celebrated in the eye of the storm for days, reveling to their hearts content. Which was why when the door to their shared atrium accommodations opened, and inside stepped a pale alien covered in blood and viscera, only silence met his lone advance into their presence.
He spoke not a word, the fresh wounds, burns and cuts on his form speaking to them instead of hundreds of dead Xecrosian, warriors and civilian alike. The same uncaring and cold gaze he wore looking at them shining over the bleeding forms of the people they gazed tiredly around the room, no fear of superior numbers or weaponry to be seen even in his weakened and wounded state.
His expression only changed when it landed on several opened crates and large coolers in the center of the room, loaded with food supplies and cooking utensils, many of them still unclean with frequent use. A grim smile formed on the pale man's face, before he moved. Children and adult alike flinched back as he briskly approached, pressing themselves against the walls as he got closer, his tattered shoes echoing across the concrete floor in the now deepening silence of their last shelter.
His cold, yet hungry gaze flickered over the room for a moment, before he looked into a cooler case, and smiled even harder as he reached inside, removing a flask of water before sitting down on one of the crates. They all watched quietly as he gulped at the life giving liquid, eventually leaning back and looking once more around the room.
"Lets all wait here for my friends to arrive. This looks like quite the party."
Finally got this chapter done. Let me know if you feel I might have rushed things, as always my work can be subject to change if I get the right feedback.