My first thought on seeing Apara inserting herself into Jell's fight was one of annoyance. I hadn't told her not to attack someone that much stronger than herself, but it felt like even someone who loved fights would be able to recognize one they couldn't win. My second thought was that she was managing surprisingly well.

It was kind of like if two people got into a street fight, and then someone else threw a raccoon on top of one of them. Not necessarily a life threatening foe on its own, but if the other person was determined to kill you…

I suppose she was being clever in her own way.

I could feel hundreds of warriors dying at the hands of their supposed "comrades", all while they attempted to stymie the tide of frenzying bugs further within the mountain. The leadership among them was caught in a battle with the bulk of the remaining inhabitants of this world. A frothing tide of some kind of leadership caste and a number of the more cannon fodder examples that I was happy to give a wide birthe.

I kept low in the muck, hiding my energy even as I forced my most recent victim's corpse more deeply out of sight. I didn't like my chances of fighting the Naldinnians on my squad inside the relative lack of protection on the ship. There were others of the species I would have to look out for, but I had to associate with these ones. I don't much like my chances against the three, now two of them working together in the place I slept.

Better to clean the slate, let some newer recruits fill in without a less than generous personal opinion on me. My eyes fell upon the others. One was trying to hide and doing a shit job of it while the other was taking potshots at the woman I assumed was a commander of one of the other ships.

I considered my options, my heading tilting as I watched everything play out. The environment was in my favor.

The air smelled like a burning trash can, melted rock and cooked flesh coming together nicely into a perfect example of why a sense of smell wasn't always an advantage. The rain, oddly enough, made it no better. Not what I'd call "nice" but It did mean any natural ability my squadmates had to look for others was all but useless, ironically made even worse by the scouters.

I knew I could hide my energy from them, the Naldinnians didn't have that particular piece of information. They were getting comfortable with the idea of knowing when something of a certain level of power was coming, and from where. I ran my tongue over my damaged teeth.

Good.

The first one I took was the "hidden" opportunist in the mud. He had good instincts but just didn't have all the information. He was relying on the distraction Jell and now Apara were providing. When I emerged behind him I clamped a hand around his mouth, and before he could react I sent some equivalent of burning plasma down his throat. He was left hurling an incendiary mix of ember and his own vocal cords when I passed him by, already sure in the knowledge he had seconds to live. By the time he realized the same it was already over.

The last one was the hardest. He was within spitting distance of the battle, looking for an opening to attack in the same manner Apara was. If the moment was off Jell would see what I was doing, and I wasn't sure how he would react. He didn't have any personal connection to the new recruits, and that usually meant killing them was acceptable in his book. Usually.

Making it blatant would just give him an excuse, though. Not what I had in mind.

It was Apara who gave me the chance I needed. The little girl was screaming curses and insults, some childish and others surprisingly creative, before she bit down on a green-blue piece of flesh. The dirty move drawing a scandalized scream out of the woman. For a very real few seconds Apara had her full attention, and Jell's.

I didn't waste time, using perhaps a little too much ki to lop the last Naldinnian's head off as he looked on in the same surprise all of us present felt. My student came away with a bloody grin, a relatively human looking earlobe between her teeth, and a proud look on her face.

"My ear!" The woman yelled in horror, her pain and surprise quickly turning into rage as realization set in. With a scream she turned, her backhand connecting with enough force for me to hear bones snapping even dozens of meters away, even past the rain and the thunder of battle. It also left her back open to our commander.

Jell didn't waste the opportunity, bringing two meaty fists down on the soft spot between her neck and shoulders. I heard that set of bones breaking as well, though I didn't much care. My focus was on the little saiyan girl who had forced me to break away from a situation allowing me to train alone and away from the actual fighting for over two years in less than two days.

To say it was concern that fueled me as I lifted off after her would be wrong. Empathy was difficult to summon up for long these days. It was the idea that the girl was a wasted investment. The chance that my future protector would be snuffed out so soon, well beyond the time her use came to fruition.

I was lucky she wasn't struck from a different direction. Instead of flying into the distance and forcing me to cross what was effectively several miles of badland she struck the ground just ahead of our position, skipping like a rock against the earth before coming to a stop within the next mile.

A muscular gray arm reached out to stop me as I moved, and Commander Jell was very quickly standing across from me, facing away from the bulk of the fighting to look me over. Like many times he had in the past he towered over me, weighing the value of killing me against the consequences of doing so. Unlike those times I met his gaze easily, my expression a mixture of annoyance and impatience.

"What happened to the others, Dennis?" Jell's voice was dangerously calm. The first emotion I felt out of him was surprise, and no small amount of annoyance at the audacity of my doing what I had. He had far less tangible power watching his back after all. His situation wasn't all that far from my own in that way.

If I backed down he might have gone through with it.

I leaned forward, pushing my energy outward as I did, the scouter my supposed leader was wearing chiming for the effort. Jell paused, his brow furrowing at the number crossing his view.

"I didn't see them, boss. You got here before I did." My tone left little doubt of what happened to them, even if he hadn't seen it. Jell hesitated, the thought entering his mind that I might be a threat, that I could be more than I let on. I saw the gears turning in his head, the emotion twisting beautifully into doubt.

I wasn't visibly wounded. The others were dead, sinking into the mud without a trace. I survived the breeding ground. I lived on his ship for two years. Killed a very promising recruit to have his position. I was readying to tell him to move before I held back. My eyes beginning to glow, a slow smile drawing on my face as his brows rose, my senses telling me things his didn't.

I hadn't wasted my time after all.

"What'd we stop for?"

Apara landed just behind the sentient I was staring down, her voice muffled by the flesh in her mouth. She swallowed it with a grin before she continued. "My right arm and ribs are broken. If I sit still too long I might pass out!"

As if to emphasize her words she wrenched the aforementioned limb back into her socket, copying the same movement I had used in the healing pod not long ago.

Pride. Pain. Excitement. Eagerness.

Her ki may have dimmed, dangerously so for a brief moment, but her mood had brightened. She was tougher than I thought. Good. Jell backed down, the now very real chance a battle might end in my favor mixing nicely with the fact he honestly didn't care about Naldinnian lives.

He was quick to come to the same conclusion I did. Better not to risk our chances against 'allies' when there are still 'enemies' to deal with.

"Must've let the bugs get the drop on 'em. A shame if you ask me."

I exhaled, turning to toss the scouter the girls way. She caught it, wincing as it landed in the palm of the hand attached to an arm I knew was hurting.

"A damned shame indeed, Commander."

We stood like that for a moment before Jell relaxed. He half turned towards our destination and gestured us forward as he began marching.

"Then we get moving. Can't miss the main event after all."

I had to force Apara not to take the lead. Reminding her of her injuries didn't work, but a threat on her next meal slowed her, the girl going from charging ahead of Jell to matching my pace behind him.

The fighting along the edges of the crater we were trudging along inside managed to come to a near halt along the edges as the Diligent Frost crew moved inward. The fighting on the darkened, steep slope of the center of the mountain had only intensified. Eventually our sister crews were packed together closely enough, and strongly enough to understand and react to what was happening.

The jig was up, and the fight was on in earnest. Interestingly it was the conscript core that was holding the line for them. Equipped with scouters and arm blasters of middling quality they were doing a fantastic job of filling the gaps recently dead warriors left open. Their reactions were slow, and they couldn't take a hit, but the blasters did as much damage as many ki blasts at our level. With the sheer density of fire keeping most from flying for any real length of time the odds were much closer than they needed to be.

At least until we arrived.

Jell had brought us up to speed quickly while we moved. His task lined our group, alongside several others up as a sort of second wave ready to strike the final blow. With Jernus, the bulk of the warriors, and the majority of the remaining command staff busy bringing down the leadership of the Menacing Chilled and the Winter Malice, it was up to our group and about six other squads to put the nail in the coffin.

"Clear out the weaker ones, avoid the commanders." Jell was quick to break off from the group, recognizing the shaken hierarchy of our squad as something he couldn't put back together mid-battle.

I didn't look over to Apara, not needing to interpret the emotion through her energy to know that she wasn't far from running off on her own. She only held herself back because in spite of myself, I was trudging forward. I had her attention well before I spoke my piece.

"Use the scouter to make sure you don't attack any of ours. We have little enough goodwill as is. Make sure to stay close to me."

She didn't bother to respond, the cry of excitement she left with enough to tell me she was listening.

In some small way I understood it.

Being this close I couldn't help but observe it all. The dancing energy all around me as sentients fought and died was an experience unlike any I could freely describe. I was so close I could feel the desperation behind every blow, taste the techniques being used to buy desperate sentients precious extra seconds, hear the last thoughts cloying away inside dying men and women. It was everything a desert world once gave me and more. My experience only provided me a clearer view.

The sheer adrenaline of being a part of it, the active use of my own ki showed me things I couldn't imagine not too long ago.

The chaos only grew as we traveled on.

The other six squads managed to arrive within minutes of us, some ahead and some behind. As for me?

The miasma around it all was perfect. The weather, the exchanged energy blasts, the darkness, the fear and the confusion. When I joined in I was a predator in its element.

Next Chapter will be the last for the Herridan arc.