Chapter 10 at last! So much time since the last one but I'm still fixing the other chapters and the busy real life stuff but now you can enjoy it. I hope you fellow readers haven't lost interest in this story.

Enjoy!

The sun began to rise like a beast awoken from a deep slumber. The giant solar mass engulfed the land in its light, bringing in the day and tuck in the night. Its light woke the critters of the forest, yet there weren't creatures to wake in a section of the forest. The disturbance by creatures who don't belong or even live there made most of the animals flee. Those that weren't in hiding watched undercover with fear, where a standoff between a team of the undead and a large plant with skin of practically impenetrable biological metal stood.

The large metal petal monster roared, quaking the earth under it forming small cracks and shaking pebbles off their place, along with the squad of zombies in front of the plant. They wobbled in place, trying to hold their balance long enough till it stopped. The zombies gazed at the beast, gripping their guns tightly, sweat ran down their bald heads, and their knuckles turned a lighter shade of their rotten skin color from their tight grip. The giant metal petal stared down at them viciously, its jaws trembled from growls attempting to escape the bone crushing mouth. The zombies glared at the creature while its sharp eyes viewed them with an equally malicious gaze.

"Stay together!" Alpha yelled to his comrades, who were doing their best to not shake under the lethal stare of the beast. Some placed a foot back from the increasing fear which they kept inside, not wanting their fearless leader to call them a bunch of wimps. Alpha could practically sense their fear regardless. While they may be a very good and brave team of soldiers who surged through thick and thin, they still had the power to feel fear as some claim to have no fear at all. Alpha clicked his weapon and pointed the barrel at the beast's head. The giant plant glared and growled at the sight of Alpha's weapon directed at them, however they remained still looking for a good opportunity for a strike.

The giant plant, Steely, gazed at them threateningly. Her powerful sharp claws shined in the morning light of the sun, and her spikes perked up in defense, ready for a brawl destined to start. She has fought many zombies before, these will be no different but she knew she shouldn't underestimate them anyway, especially a group of soldiers. She also hoped that Pyro didn't follow her or he would be at risk, getting caught in the crossfire. He's a fragile and innocent little guy with a big heart.

Alpha gritted what rotten teeth he had left. He encountered deadly plants of all kinds and variations, and he was able to survive such encounters with limbs all intact, sometimes he received scrapes and injuries but would always shake it off. He even fought against a sunflower queen with his squad and lived, even though one of his teammates perished, they celebrated. This, however, is different. This sunflower queen-like plant looked like it was born for fighting and destruction unlike those Sunflower Queens who are more for support than full combat just like all other sunflowers. This thing however, especially with those claws it bore, was a killing machine. It, or she? He didn't really care about gender, it looked like it was ready to kill.

Their job would have been easy with just the citron. Now things have changed, now all that mattered was taking it down and taking their prioritized target into the custody of their boss. They would also like to take the remains of this plant to their boss, since they have never seen this type of sunflower before.

If they all make it out unscathed, with the probability likely in the single digits.

"Prepare your weapons! This will be a difficult one to take down!"

The zombies complied and mimicked Alpha's actions. Now all their deadly and loaded guns were pointed straight at the massive metal petal who narrowed its eyes. Alpha had his eyes narrowed at the giant plant as if challenging the beast, ready to shoot either his ammo or a ZPG, even a gas canister or literally anything to attempt to neutralize it.

While the two sides had their stare down, the zombies were oblivious to the other scene happening behind them.

…

Pulse was paralyzed, frozen stiff with the taste of some vile building up within her throat. The sounds of the bipeds and the monster were drowned out since she wasn't really paying attention to them when she was supposed to. This could be her death day.

Despite the definite danger next to her, Pulse crawled towards the injured solar flora, or should she say corpse, now that there isn't a shed of life or soul left in the body. The now dead solar flora had signs of early rot, with her body turning a sickly yellow and brown on the spots that contained injury. Pulse isn't sure what is the color or the most significant signs of rot for these beings, but she was sure that this was it. The sunflower's eternal expression of death was a small frown, most likely from the pain she felt during the entire ordeal with the group of hostiles, and probably before her encounter with her. The bullet holes left a haunting feeling in Pulse, and depression at her failure. She should have done more, she could have done something. However, it's too late now for anything. Even her scanner detected no signs of life.

All her work to save the unfortunate soul, to bring them aid and help them home, maybe to their family, went for nothing. Now, they're a sack of rotting flesh

The alien citron felt small streams of liquid well up in her eyes and fell like tiny crystalline waterfalls. Tears.

Pulse blinked, wanting to get rid of the tears since this wasn't time to get sad, as much as she hated it she couldn't really grieve a little or wipe her tears away with her visor in the way. She will have to do so later at a safer place. She turned her head towards the confrontation of the two sides. The hostile bipeds and the metal beast had an intense stare down, no one moved a muscle, as in fear it may trigger something. Pulse could practically feel the raging and growing fire going between them, and it was making her very nervous.

Pulse wanted none of that, or fall in between them. She can fight but she doesn't want to and neither does she know what any of these unknowns could do, especially the metal beast.

So she used her robotic tendrils and wrapped them around the solar flora corpse, and pulled her close. Pulse turned her head away, feeling that looking at the body would trigger more sadness and grief into her. However, she can't do anything else anymore to help, except maybe bury the body somewhere. She could probably give the body to this world's authority but... Pulse would prefer to do it herself. Not only that, but she feels that it may give the people here a bad impression of herself. Coming straight up to them and carrying a body of one of their people and trying to tell them that she died, speaking gibberish to their ears since they wouldn't understand a single thing and she wouldn't understand them.

'That wouldn't be a good idea..' Pulse glanced at the confrontation one more time.

The otherworldly citron then quietly walked backwards and around the boulder, away from the bipeds and the metal monster. She gulped, feeling uneasy in the situation she used to be in, surrounded by those bipeds with their weapons targeted straight at her. Guess the metal beast was a great distraction as well as an escape opportunity. The large creature should keep them busy and keep their attention away from her, which should be enough for making a getaway.

Pulse kept backing away, and when she felt she was far enough from them, she turned around and sped walked. Her robotic tentacles gripped the solar flora's body a little too tightly.

Now it was just the monster-looking plant and the zombies soldiers on their own.

...

Steely glanced at the retreating figure of the armored citron carrying what appears to be an unconscious sunflower, then she moved her eyes back to the zombies in front of her. The citron was no longer a target to these undead soldiers, and as much as Steely wanted to know why, now was not the time. Now it was just her with these goons.

Steely took a thundering step forward. The clicks of their guns snapped the heavy silence right after.

She took another step.

A sudden shot ran out.

Steely growled at the soldier who made the first shot, with said zombie fiddling with his weapon and nervously trying to get a better grip. He didn't even intend to make the first move, but his hands took over along with his fear. He can practically feel the glare of his team drill into his body, which was making his nervous breakdown worse. Steely received no damage with her tough skin, but that could be changed soon if she isn't careful. However, now that the first shot rang out, it made the others pull theirs. Bullets flew and impacted her skin, but they just deflected off her like it was nothing. Steely's eyes shifted and charged followed by a booming roar from her.

Looks like it was battle time.

The zombies jumped away to avoid being trampled by her large mass. They jumped up into the trees and turned to shoot her from there, with the zombies purposely among for her eyes. Steely blocked her eyes with one arm and used the other to slash and break the tree Alpha was in. Alpha wobbled and leaped out before it tumbled down. Steely grabbed the fallen tree and threw the mass towards a tree that had two of the zombie soldiers in it. The tree flew too fast for them to react and so they screamed when they were hit. Part of the tree they were in split and broke with the zombies falling down, heavily scraped and dazed. One of them had a branch stuck deep in his leg, and since most zombies didn't have a lot of skin and muscles, it broke his leg's bone. The other was in better condition with a few scrapes, leaves, and tiny wood pieces stuck on him. When he saw his injured comrade he rushed to help him up and find cover using a much larger and studier tree, that they hope won't be easily torn out.

Alpha narrowed his eyes, feeling a great anger within him, and shot at the back of her head. Steely recoiled slightly and turned her head with a heavy snarl. Alpha readied himself, and dodged when the beastly plant swiped her claws on the spot that he stood on, taking soil and stone with it.

Alpha turned and tried to shoot at her eyes again, but one of Steely's petals was in the way, which in turn blocked the shot and the projectile deflected out.

"Hmpt! You're an interesting specimen. Too bad you will perish," mocked Alpha as he readied a ZPG He leaned forward and his rocket quickly began to build power. Steely turned to face the sky, towards the sun, her petals absorbed the sun's rays. Alpha noticed that she began to glow an orange hue, which was getting brighter and brighter by the second, it was actually getting harder for the zombies to look directly at the plant. Alpha's eyes widened in realization.

The metal petal was preparing a solar beam, and from a plant of that size…

"All of you! Get as far away as you can!" Alpha sprinted away into the trees like a squirrel, the other zombies quickly got the message and hid away into the thick foliage for cover.

Steely continued to charge up, regardless of them not being in her line of sight. It didn't take long for her to charge up, and when she was fully charged, she turned to where the zombies hid, not spotting any out in the open. She narrowed her eyes in concentration, trying to see through the trees. A whistling noise was caught by her nonexistent ears to her right. She snapped towards the said direction and fired off her solarbeam, incinerating most of the ZPG that fast approached her. Fuel that wasn't incinerated still ignited into a loud explosion, but it was very large. Whatever was left of the rocket fell onto the grass, hardly anything survived.

"Damn," whispered a soldier to a fellow comrade next to him, "that thing vaporized my rocket with that one beam. We need more power to take it down."

The zombies muttered amongst themselves in their hiding spot, attempting to make a plausible plan to bring the giant plant to the ground. With how powerful it is, they know it's a serious threat to zombiekind, so it must be taken down one way or another. The head of the team however, had other plans.

"We will need to retreat." Alpha snuck over to them from behind. The other two looked back to him, in slight shock to his words.

"What?"

Alpha scowled, "that plant is too strong despite all of us against it. We will need more power to take it down. Gargantuars would most likely do it, but we must first retreat and recover ourselves before other actions are made. We wasted so much ammo and stamina chasing that citron earlier, and now suddenly fighting this plant will just end up with some of us dead...again, and most likely unrevivable for good. We cannot afford that."

The squad went silent in thought, finding the argument reasonable. While they still wanted to fight and vanquish this monster plant, they backed away from the clearing and turned away anyway. The two zombies injured from the flying tree limped along with them, wincing from the broken bones they now have.

Alpha walked away too but turned around to glance back at Steely one last time, for now.

'We will come for that citron...and you,' and with those thoughts he left with his team.

Steely silently waited for something to happen, a bullet to try and pierce her hide, a ZPG to come charging forward and explode her to a million bits, gas canisters to suffocate her, anything that indicated an attack from the zombies. And as time went on nothing happened. Steely narrowed her eyes and gazed around the edge of the area, and still nothing happened, not even the stench of zombies was in the air anymore.

Steely looked around one more time with angry eagle eyes before she detached herself from the ground, deactivating her solar beam. She suspected they may be hiding or they actually left. She glanced around one final time before her gaze fell to the direction the strange citron took. No matter what it was, she stomped down the path that she surely saw the citron go through.

...

Pulse made it out of the very large forest, and back into the large area of battle she once came through with the tall pole in the center. The area was just as hectic as when she first saw it, maybe even worse than before. There were green flora like beings and the strange bipeds still fighting each other to the end, but Pulse still didn't know why they were so violent with each other. Pulse just shook her head/body and marched on the edge of the center. It was early in the day, and the sun shone warmly on the horizon along little critters that scurried around. Pulse wasn't in the mood to wonder at the marvels, both her hearts still hung heavy.

Flies gathered around the citron, but she wasn't the object of interest to the little annoying insects. What she carried with her was. The corpse of the sunflower was withering faster than what Pulse expected. It usually takes much more time, like several day cycles for most dead corpses to show signs of decay, but sometimes different worlds have different rules.

Pulse swatted away the flies from her and the body, but it wasn't much use anyway since they came back, and tried to take a nip out of the dead sunflower's skin. Pulse walked near the town hall and hid behind the corner, just like when she hid during the conversation the plant agents had. Her eyes wandered the charred area across the building, where weeds and browncoats fought each other in more petty fights.

Pulse turned away from them and the sunflower corpse she held. Her eyes watered salty alien tears, but she tried not to let them fall.

'What now…'thought Pulse, feeling gray. A few withered petals from the plant fell on the soil. Pulse noticed and picked them up, placing it on top of the sunflower's stem to hold onto them.

'Perhaps bury her somewhere…'

The citron froze, stopping whatever she was about to do when she heard an unnatural and croaky moan close by, and getting louder every second. She slowly turned towards the source with slight shakiness, and there a biped, which looked skinnier than the ones that she was chased, wearing some kind of pointy orange accessory, shuffled towards her. It's clothing ripped and riddled with filth and dirt, along with bits of red spots in some places. Arms shakily spread out at her with the intention of grabbing and maybe tearing. Its legs were dragged forward as if it was too heavy for the rest of its body. Bulging eyes with black dots for pupils stared blankly with hardly any sentience in its very being. The ones who chased her had more life in them than this one.

Pulse narrowed her eyes at the undead creature, feeling anger boil on the pit of her body. The very same species that tried to capture or kill her, she wasn't sure what their intentions were towards her but she now definitely, by the bottom of her dual hearts, are malicious.

The ugly creature shuffled onward, getting closer and closer. When it was close enough, Pulse stepped aside, and the ugly biped lunged forward where she just stood with an opened mouth of yellow teeth that barely hung on, which it hardly had any since most of its mouth consisted of empty gums.

The biped smacked face first on the wall of the town hall and slowly slid down. Its eyes seemed to roll backwards completely, and Pulse thought it may have gotten dizzy but with its sudden lack of movement Pulse seriously thought that it may have died, and simply by smacking into a wall on accident. The biped remained immobile, while Pulse just stared with a slightly flabbergasted expression hidden underneath her visor.

"Well, guess some of these beings don't have the intelligence of others...like the ones that chased me...or the endurance…" muttered the space orange in her language. Pulse gazed away from the zombie and towards the others like it in the backyard behind a tree. The bipeds were running erratically towards their targets, which were the green flora, but still Pulse had no idea what their reason was. Once they reached them, they whacked the green flora with a powerful swing of their limbs with such barbaric force.

Pulse grimaced at their combat, but turned away for something else. Suddenly her eyes widened and her body froze momentarily at three familiar figures. The red, orange, and yellow plants that chased her before.

Pulse moved and hid behind the building, nearly dropping the solar flora in her haste. She peeked out slightly to stare at them. The three were too far for them to see her, she was thankful for that though. At least she won't be chased with her hiding back there. She continued to peek out, examining them from afar.

The three looked very familiar to some species of flora back home, very familiar. When Pulse compares herself to the orange xenoshiftrus-like being, she notices their shapes are very identical with the exception of features such as her skin color and stripes, having three eyes, and a load of other features that would take the alien hours if she were to explain into excruciating details. Pulse wondered if the theoretical cosmic cloth cut concept isn't as far fetched as many of her people speculate.

She remembered her first encounter with them, that definitely didn't go that well. That stun attack from the orange one scared the wits out of her. She wondered how they took her sudden run from them. Maybe they thought she was scared? Actually she was, as stunning someone would definitely make them run for their life. Or maybe they were angry at her, she may not ever know.

She noticed they were shuffling across the ground, as if they were tired except the red one who was floating. Pulse concluded it was magic since there were beings back home who could do the same thing.

The three entered through a large wooden gate which appeared to be coated, or made with gold, a rare and valuable matter. The three entered through, the gate sunk to provide entry for them. The gate closed behind them once they all made it inside. Pulse sighed in relief, now knowing they won't be trying to chase her down anymore.

Now Pulse was by herself, with the corpse of one of their people. Pulse walked away from the corner and towards a tree on the entrance of the forest from where she came from she went a bit further and found a small clearing near a tiny lake. She placed down the body, tired of carrying it. Not just out of exhaustion, but out of depression.

Pulse used her front legs to dig on the soil, uprooting organic material and some unfortunate bugs. She thought of using her mechanical appendages but they were too thin to scoop out lots of soil effectively. She soon made a hole deeper and deeper until it reached half a meter down. Pulse stopped and wiped away the dirt on her arms. She turned towards the corpse, which was now turning a filthy brown and yellow entirely. Pulse didn't even want to look at her saddened withered face. Pulse reached out and picked her up, then placed her down gently in the hole. Once that was done she moved the mounds of soil around and back into the hole, sealing the body inside. Pulse found small rocks and pebbles all over the place, so she went to gather them and place them around the mound of dirt.

Pulse stepped back to admire her rather grim work silently. The makeshift grave radiated a haunting feeling. She breathed in once, then turned to walk away from it. The feeling slowly decreased like vapor, but it never truly disappeared.

'I never seen myself having to do such a thing anytime soon.'

She shifted her eyes and body to look at the brightened sky with the rainbows and sunshine. It was filled with so much beauty and life that it didn't seem to realize the gloom and suffocating neighbor that was practically next to them. She turned her gaze towards the gloomy, purple sky. She turned her eyes downward, meeting the sight of dead, charred looking soil and grass, mouth shifting with how unnatural the nature looked. She has been to planets with violet grasses and dirt, but these plants didn't look right. Once again, she turned her eyes towards the bright side filled with green grass and flowers along with clean looking soil in which they grew upon. It was beautiful, but it looked so fragile and easy to destroy, which seemed what the violet half looked like it was doing. In the center of it all, was a large pole with a flag that wasn't pulled towards the top, so it just waved on whatever breeze it could catch from its position on the ground. It was a small, yet strange addition for this place. What it was for, she had no idea.

'Its as if the world is split in two.' she thought, while she stared behind the town hall at the plants and zombies still fighting all over the place over dominance.

What shall happen next? Just be patient and look forward for the next chaptie!