Nexus: Heroes Will Rise

by tmb1112

Universal borders have been erased and beings from thousands of universes now live on the same world: Nexus. In the first Saga of Nexus, Awul was saved, but the mysteries of Nexus remain. Now our heroes sail across the sea to Aebrith to search for lost loved ones and save the world. MCs from DBZ, KH, Soul Eater, FT, Blue Exorcist, Bleach, 7DS, OP, Ben 10, SAO, HxH, and many more!

156. Nexus HWR 24-4 Clash

A/N Hey guys, sorry for the long update time. I went and got my Master's degree and have been working on writing a novel since then. Having a bit of writer's block near the end of that book, so I figured I'd come finish 24.4 of Nexus HWR in the meantime! Enjoy the chapter!

Disclaimer: I own none of the original media that I got proper nouns from in this story. The characters are not mine!

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Nexus HWR 24.4 Clash:

"Everyone to the third trench! Don't take down the remaining shield generators, just use them!"

"Send the prisoners on back with the injured. Zapp will fill in the ranks!"

"Spin the turrets around. Go go! Shoot them down!"

"Their shields are too strong!"

Even the small gunships and slightly larger landing vessels descending from the Sith fleet had powerful shield generators around them. The Resistance were not that surprised, seeing as their own landing craft had been shielded too. Their own shields were low already though when the Sith armada showed up out of nowhere. Most of the Resistance's vessels had been shot down already.

Some of the remaining ships were flying towards the third trench though to unload more soldiers on the front line. "Do not let them reinforce," Grand Moff Tarkin ordered. "Fire at any of them moving between the trenches."

Tarkin wanted to keep their border defenses intact considering they would be retaking them very soon. However, there were some enemy vessels crossing between the trenches to bring more Resistance members to the first line that his troops would need to retake. Beams fired down from the Star Destroyers, and two of those small vessels exploded in balls of fire.

Jo spun her head and looked back at the ships flying their way that had almost arrived. Two of the three had gone down, and the pilot of the third ship was doing his best, but to no avail. The port-side wing was hit, and the gunship started to go down. "Don't-" Jakku started telling the girl. He had left Knov behind to come protect her instead, considering her partner in Kid Cosmic had already been killed. He cursed though and glared back through the blue shield bubble they had been inside of as Jo jumped through a purple portal and vanished from in front of his eyes.

"We're going down!"

"AHH- whoa!" Tech exclaimed in shock as a purple portal opened inside their ship.

Cody looked back from the sticks at the front of the gunship. "Get out of here!" He yelled at the others as he continued to try and steady the vessel.

"Cody!" Rex yelled up towards his friend, stepping his way before the ship shook violently. The back half of the gunship ripped off and another clone went flying from it who wasn't holding onto the metal bar on the roof tightly enough. The ship shook so hard and spun diagonally, making Rex fall straight into the open portal.

Hunter gripped on tighter with both hands but then had to let go with one and reach to his side. He just barely caught Tech after the smaller man lost his grip. "Go!" Hunter yelled at Wrecker who nodded back and leapt through Jo's portal.

"Hunter!" Tech yelled as he saw his boss's hand slipping off the handle. The ship was spiraling out and nearing the ground, and Tech yelled out for the leader of the Bad Batch in panic. "Don't-" Tech begged, but Hunter swung as hard as he could towards the portal and let go with his other hand to get extra strength in the throw. Hunter tossed Tech through the portal.

Tech fell out of the glowing circle and down onto his hands and knees. He snapped his head up and stared back out through the shield generator he emerged inside of. Tech stared in horror at the gunship that slammed into the ground and rolled over itself. The gunship cartwheeled across the gap between trenches and was engulfed in flames as it did. "Hunter!" Tech and Wrecker yelled.

Captain Rex dropped to a knee and punched the floor in front of him. Then he rose his head and glared back through the barrier towards the crashed ship. "I'm sorry," he heard Jo's voice behind him. She had grabbed another clone and pulled him through the portal herself when it was struck and ripped in half. The panting teenage girl heard her name shouted and spun the other way. She ran off again with Jakku chuckling after a moment and chasing after her.

"For a girl, you've got some massive balls," Jakku complimented her.

Jo did not reply. His attitude did not match her own. I'm needed. They need me to focus- Kid- no! Keep him out of mind. Don't get distracted! Jo forced herself into the battle-mindset, pushing off her grief over Kid Cosmic for a later time when she could cry and mourn properly.

"Espers! You need to stop that bombardment before we lose every ship!"

"We're… trying!" Teru screamed back down. "It's not easy to catch beams!"

"Well do it anyway!"

Fubuki screamed out, "HAAAAA!" Trails of blood spilled out either of her nostrils. She stopped a barrage of beams firing down from three Star Destroyers though. She flung them back up into the ships' shields that flared brightly and showed how much power needed to go into protecting those vessels from her counterattack. It was not enough to break through, but the Sith's Destroyers did keep more power in their shields knowing that they could be attacked despite the Resistance's Summer-Class heavy cruiser going down.

"Their command ship did not blow up in its entirety. They are still alive in there," Admiral Thrawn theorized. "Take it out before they can join the others. Unleash fire."

"Without sacrificing the integrity of our shields," Tarkin added. Thrawn glanced to the Grand Moff who kept Gideon's flaming wreckage in view out their window. "We do not need to make the same mistake twice."

Thrawn partially agreed with Tarkin. They knew the MPC could not be fired again for some time though. He also knew that at their current rate of fire, with the enemy psychics below stopping most of their attacks, that they would not be able to finish off the enemy commanders before they managed to join the battle. The explosions around the enemy command ship looked promising, but the heavy cruiser had crashed down mostly in one piece, and there appeared to be some movement around the wreckage.

"Get ready, men!"

"Hold the line!"

"Fire!" Ahsoka yelled out, shooting from her turret out of the shield generator and into the dropships getting closer to their shield generators. Finally, one of her shots broke through an enemy vessel's shields, and the Resistance members around her cheered as the Sith dropship blew up and crashed down into the surface.

The rest of the Sith vessels stopped getting closer. Instead they descended straight down, towards a section of the surface five hundred meters ahead of their line. "Another gap in our intel," Ahsoka heard Master Qui-Gon's voice behind her. She cursed as well and fired her turret towards the enemy ships, but those ships had landed and were now protected by other shield generators springing up from out of nowhere.

Turrets rose out of the ground in a line spreading for kilometers in different directions over the grassy plains. Leo and Kabu stared out of their captured section of the third trench in shock and then frustratedly at the sight of turrets that looked a lot like the ones in the cliffs before the trenches. Many of the Sith's soldiers who had been captured in the third trench stared back in shock themselves at the sight of a fourth line of automated turrets that had been hidden underground.

Tarkin smiled confidently up on his flagship. He and Thrawn and a few other higher-ups, as well as the engineers who constructed them, were the only ones privy to certain sensitive information about the defenses. He did not tell anyone in their Eastern Command. Moff Gideon was the governor of the eastern province on the border, but not even anyone in Gideon's command knew about those secret installations, preventing leaks from getting out to the Resistance who were stunned to see another line of powerful defenses appear before their very eyes. When it looked like the Resistance had an advantage in fortified positions with turrets still armed and ready, the enemy suddenly doubled the amount of turrets that they had on their side to fire back with.

"Retake the lines," Tarkin ordered his men. "Drop the Walkers."

AT-AT's lowered in light-blue tractor beams that shot out of the bottom of the larger transport vessels around the enemy gunships. Giant twenty meter tall four-legged steel Walkers descended from the sky and slammed down on the field just in front of the shields that pulsed around the enemy landing craft. Some of those vessels landed down in front of the line of turrets that started firing at the Resistance positions too, as they had better pilots or stronger shields that were not weak enough yet for the Imperial soldiers inside to feel the need to land as far away.

A dozen Walkers lowered down on the field and started marching towards the Resistance. Smaller AT-ST scout vehicles dropped behind them too that moved faster on two legs and stomped ahead of the taller ones. Those AT-STs shot smaller but more rapid-fire red lasers past the legs of the giant Walkers that also fired onto the Resistance positions. Dropships landed at the AT-ATs' giant feet and opened up the landing doors and lowered their ramps.

"Everyone to the west side! Here come the Sith!"

"Where is the General?!"

"He'll be here! Just get in position. We're holding this line."

Farther back on the battlefield to the east, Zapp stared up in the western sky for a moment. The tan-skinned man with smooth silver hair watched the enemy fleet descending on their forward positions. His elite but small group of reinforcements behind him got nervous by the sheer number of enemy landing vessels dropping for the surface.

"We're not enough reinforcements for that," one of the men whispered.

Thea Queen gripped the curved wood of her compound bow tightly. She reached up and grabbed an explosive arrow from its quiver. The young woman in a tight red costume had her hood up. She nocked her arrow and started jogging forward from the first trench to one of the connecting lines up to the second one.

"HA!" Zapp laughed and then started jogging forward too. "We're doing this! Now is where the fun begins- whoa," Zapp spun to his left and stared with wide eyes at a muscular figure with a long pompadour who was soaring over their heads.

Metal Bat had his knees pulled up close to his chest. He was soaring through the air with a bloodied bat in his right hand. His shirt was missing to reveal his muscular body, a body that was covered in deep slashes that looked pretty bad. He still looked a lot better than Darth Tenebrous and his bashed-in skull that he left back behind him though. "Metal Bat! Oi…" Zapp started calling up to him, but Metal Bat was staring straight off to the west and only cast a quick glance down before landing and then jumping up again and towards the rest of the army.

Zapp Renfro knew Metal Bat well. Neither would call the other a "friend," but that was just because of the men they were. For Metal Bat to be that messed up this early on in the war, Zapp thought. He tried not to linger on that uneasy feeling, and he returned to grinning when he looked back at his comrades and ordered them to follow him into battle. They believed in his confidence, and he made sure not to let them see it falter even for a second.

Zapp had already been on his way to the front lines when he saw the enemy fleet come out of Jump. Now the Imperials had near complete control over the sky. The battle was still contested, but the airspace was not with Gray's command ship crashed off to Zapp's south. When he glanced in that direction though, he felt some of his confidence return to its usually unburdened state. He chuckled that he even felt nervous for a second, as he saw a man coated in light blue armor marching out of the flames that got smothered around him by waves of ice covering them up. "Looks like the General's still with us, boys! Let's go. It's time to join the fight!"

"Haldir, sir! What are your orders? Should we switch back into combat mode?"

Haldir looked up through the windshield of his landed dropship. "No," he replied. Although Hanazawa and Fubuki were doing their best, he had seen several of their smaller ships knocked out in the past few minutes. If their elven ships lifted back off the ground now and took power away from the shields for the engines, they would surely get shot down. "Everyone back off the ships. Reinforce the forward positions and prepare defenses for a Sith counterattack!"

Haldir had had the elves re-boarding as they prepared to move to Rivendell right away, following their initial plans for the invasion. The rising fourth line of turrets and the sudden emergence of an enormous Sith fleet put an end to plans of moving quickly to their next destination, but Haldir nor any of his comrades were ready to give up on the assault yet. Haldir reached to his side and drew his sword, and the rest of his comrades around him did the same. "On me!"

"Aerodactyl, watch out for the beams but stop as many Tie Fighters as possible. Don't let them give any air support," Brock ordered from his standing position just below his Pokémon. Aerodactyl lifted its head and screeched its affirmative reply. The ancient stone-flying type flapped its wings and flew away. Brock turned back to his other Pokémon who saw their trainer look so reluctantly at them. Brock then looked past though and to the huge enemy force landing ahead of them. "This is it. Are you ready?"

A chorus of different animal noises replied to him in the same affirmative tones that Aerodactyl had. Brock smiled gratefully at his friends. "Good." He looked to his right and at the other two trainers who had also released the rest of their non-flying types as they stood on the front lines. Brock nodded at them and they nodded back at the Gym Leader who led their squad. Brock turned back and glared at the dropships and inside them now that the ramps were lowered. A lump bounced up in his throat as he looked into the darkness inside those dropships, only for red laser swords to ignite inside of them and cast a dark red glow on the cloaked figures who started emerging from each one. Brock gulped again then whispered, "Here we go."

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Inside one of the dropships nearing the surface ahead of Resistance lines, a young boy of twelve years old sat on one side of the transport that faced the other. He kept his expression calm to prevent the Sith around him from thinking he was a weakling. Stan knew that he did not look like a weakling. He did not feel like one either.

His left hand curled tightly around the hilt of his lightsaber. He did not feel it like he would feel the sensation of touch if he was holding it with his right hand. The prosthetic was good, but he could still tell that it was a robot arm inside of a fake skin sleeve. He could feel the strength of his legs that would be practically useless if they were not full of cybernetic implants that Anakin used to fix them. Stan stared at his legs under his lightsaber for a moment before focusing back on the weapon itself. A lightsaber made stronger by Cartman. Without this, Barriss Offee and Ventress might have been able to kill me. I cut straight through Barriss's lightsaber though. Cut her apart. I didn't feel that bad over that one. But, she was a Sith. Killing her didn't affect me at all!

Who am I lying to? Stan wondered. At the time, he had acted like it did not affect him at all. And yet he found himself dreaming of her the past three nights straight. That was killing a Sith. A bad person. A shitty villain. Here I am about to go fight the Resistance. People who were nothing but good to me in every interaction I've had with them. But now, I'm about to go fight them. Surrounded by my fellow Sith warriors who wouldn't let me get away with it if I don't fight like one of them.

I must become a Sith to continue my training. And I must continue my training if I am to defeat Gin Ichimaru. Stan ground his teeth in frustration at the conundrum he found himself in. I haven't even had the time with the Emperor that I want yet. Only Sidious has given me any help. Much different from Qui-Gon's teachings, and different from Anakin's as well. Sidious gave good tips, but I can tell he's testing me. He's suspicious of me knowing that I'm Vader's pupil, after my master killed him. "I see what Vader must have saw in you." What did he mean by that? What is it that I have to tap into for the power that the Sith tell me only comes from the Dark Side? And if I have that within me, is that what Anakin was searching for?

Did my Master actually think I would be Force-sensitive when he found me that day? He was just rescuing me from a graveyard of corpses that I lay dying in… I think. Ben, Riku, and Dash left me behind there. Those fuckers- They didn't know! If they knew, they would have helped me. Don't try to blame them, just to make this any easier on yourself. Stan clenched his eyes shut for a second in frustration. Then he snapped them open as he heard a voice, and he looked up towards the cockpit where one of the Sith in the vessel was standing just behind the pilots.

"Prepare yourselves," Darth Malak ordered the others in their ship that shook from cannon fire exploding around them. He had on a steel mask around the lower half of his face, though the damage to his jaw that he lived with for much of his previous life had been repaired when he was revived. This mask was aesthetic rather than the one he wore in his last life that he needed just to breathe. The bald light-skinned Sith Lord had dark blue tattoos on the top of his head in thick strokes. He did not have the hood of his black cloak up unlike Stan and one other in the back of the landing ship.

The man on Stan's right side lifted his head for the first time since Stan boarded the ship. Stan glanced to his right and up at the man's face, and he saw a blank and distant expression on it. The man had short black hair and a youthful expression which Stan suspected put him in his twenties. That man stared straight across the back of the shuttle, and Asajj Ventress glared darkly at him for the way he was looking straight through her. "Where are you looking, Starkiller? Get your eyes off me already." Ventress hissed at the man who did turn his head, but only to look towards the back of the ship when their vessel rocked from another explosion outside.

Ventress grabbed onto a pole on her side to stabilize herself. Then she snapped her head in that direction and glared at the burly man whose two left arms grabbed onto the pole as well so close that their fingers brushed up. "Don't get in my way out there, Jedi," Ventress snarled at the Besalisk alien with four arms and a shelled-skull.

Pong Krell glared back at the assassin and scoffed at her rather than get annoyed over the "Jedi" comment. "I have long given up that title," Krell derided her for the attempt to ridicule him.

Between Malak up front and the other Sith at the back of the ship sat over two dozen other soldiers. Just behind the Sith vanguard were four Imperial Death Troopers. The soldiers in pitch black armor had men inside them unlike the dark humanoid forms below that were much thicker and more metallic. Stan glanced down through the grate on the floor under their feet and into the dark hold of the cargo bay as he heard clanking below him. The panels of the cargo space opened downwards and let light flood into their vessel, and the hooks that held up the 28 Dark Troopers released the robots they held.

The powerful robots all landed below on one foot and one knee each. Then they rose their heads, their red eyes glowing, and they marched forward while firing rockets and blasters ahead of them. The hold's panels closed again, and landing gear lowered instead. The dropship landed behind the Dark Troopers that they used as a front line to protect the disembarkation. Inside the ship, the Sith at the back stood up in front of the wall that would open outwards into a ramp. Lightsabers extended from hilts. The four Death Troopers rose behind them, and then the twenty Stormtroopers- ten on either side of the ship, stood up as well.

Behind the Stormtroopers arose two snipers in Scout Trooper armor, and an Imperial Shock Trooper stood up from the seat closest to where Darth Malak stood. The man in white armor had red highlights and paint on his uniform that showed his position as the Commander and an elite soldier. The Shock Trooper yelled out orders for the other Imperial soldiers in the passenger bay to get ready. Stan listened to his voice too and steadied himself. He watched light pour back in from the cracks around the ramp as it started to push outwards.

The ramp opened out and then fell down to the ground in a quick release that made a loud clank when it jolted to a stop. The end of the ramp dug into the grass, and Pong Krell sprinted out of the ship. Stan wobbled and nearly fell over as a cannon blast hit the ground next to their ship and made the whole thing slide to the right. "Move," Ventress growled at the hesitating kid, while Starkiller just sprinted past Stan and ignored the fact that he bumped into the kid. "Or I'll kill you myself," she reminded him, then she ran out and jumped up in the air. Ventress twisted her body and slashed both of the red lightsabers that she activated. A bright beam of red light hit her lightsabers, and she redirected the turret shot back towards the enemy forcefield that it had emerged from.

Stan ran out of the ship and squinted his eyes. Even under his hood, the suns shone down bright light that nearly blinded him for a moment. But when that moment passed, Stan found himself processing his situation in an entirely different way. Oh man, Stan thought. His eyes bulged and darted all around as he was suddenly overwhelmed by what was happening.

Two giant airships over a kilometer long each were burning in huge infernos. Beams of red light shot out of the sky and got stopped in midair by flying figures encapsulated in auras of energy who sent those attacks flying back at the Star Destroyers. Shield generators on airships and on the ground pulsed with bright blue or red light, and some of them flickered and went off, usually followed by huge explosions as the next shots on those targets blew them apart. A fighter jet flew over Stan's head while keeping low to the ground, and two Tie Fighters chasing after it missed their target in strafing maneuvers, meaning their huge blasters hit the surface instead and blew up craters in the path directly in front of Stan.

The jet that flew just over his head was masterfully dodging enemy fighter fire, and Stan watched as it fired a hook connected to a long black wire out at the leg of an AT-AT. The fighter zipped around the legs of the Walker, but that put it in a predictable pattern. The Tie Fighters got closer to taking out the Resistance jet, and then condensed fire from that line of shield generators ahead of them hit the Imperial fighters and blew them apart. A huge beam of light shot down from a Star Destroyer above, but it got stopped just above the Resistance fighter jet, and instead of pushed back at the ship itself, this time the esper redirected it over into another of the Walkers. So one of the AT-AT's tripped over the wire that the Resistance jet finally released, while another exploded from the powerful beam shot by the Star Destroyer.

Those AT-AT's were massive tanks full of Imperial soldiers like the ones running down the ramp behind Stan. Others in their recognizable white or black armor were running forward all over the field. There were other landing vessels ahead of the one that Stan's group just disembarked from. They were not the first wave to land, and their soldiers were already charging across the field alongside their tanks in a combined-arms assault with air support. Their army stretched so far to Stan's left and right side that he could not see where the landing craft ended.

"Don't be a stationary target, sir!" The Shock Trooper yelled while charging down the ramp himself.

Stan got confused for a second, then he realized that the man in white and red armor was speaking to him and had called him "sir." Stan started running forward, though he wondered why the Shock Trooper shouted that at him. As he considered it, he turned to his right and looked at another of the dropships that landed seconds after his own.

Darth Malak came out of his own ship and glared off to the right at the next one over, only to bare his teeth behind his mask in rage at the sight of Darth Revan emerging from the ship next to them. Malak's eyes darkened and narrowed at the Sith to their right who Stan knew was in charge of that vessel like Malak had been leading theirs. Yet Revan was the first one out of his own ship, unlike Malak who took up their rear.

Malak leapt up in the air and over most of his forces so that he could get closer to the front than Revan was. Revan had his cloak's hood up just like Stan, though Stan also saw a metal mask covering the man's whole face. The mask prevented Stan from getting a good look at him. Stan spun to his left next and saw Darth Venamis running out of another ship on that side that he commanded. He ran among a group of brown Droidekas that were slightly faster than him and made serpentine patterns as they rolled ahead towards the enemy-occupied trenches.

The Bith Sith Lord Venamis could already feel it. My Master has fallen. He should have held back until the rest of us arrived. Foolish, Tenebrous. I knew you would underestimate these Resistance fighters. Now you will never see the day the Sith take this world- Venamis spun to his right just as Stan did and looked past Revan's squad.

Darth Zannah emerged from one of the landing ships. The female Sith Lord emerged just ahead of her own apprentice in Darth Cognus, who was known as the Huntress in her time. Zannah marched out and glared towards the enemies ahead of them. My Master was killed by the same man who leads these enemy forces. She ignited her red lightsaber and smirked vilely. I will prove my superiority over Darth Bane when I kill his killer-

BOOOOM!

The ship two to the right of where Stan landed exploded in a fireball from a well-aimed cannon shot coming from the third trench. Stan gawked at the sight of Sith he thought were supposed to be very powerful getting engulfed in that explosion and blown apart. Zannah and Cognus were too close and screamed in agony for the fraction of the second they were still alive before the blast killed them.

The Resistance members in the trench itself spun themselves towards the tall four-eyed Jedi with a body covered in white fur under his Jedi robes. Jedi Master Foul Moudama punched a fist up in the air while his soldiers started cheering after seeing a ship with Sith emerging from it go up in a giant fireball. The Jedi aimed his shot at an explosive weak point perfectly using the Force. Master Stass Allie chuckled at her friend's celebration but then warned him and the Clones who celebrated their old General from the Clone Wars, "Keep focus. More are landing!"

Darth Marr ran past his soldiers and then past the robots ahead of them. Blaster fire from the shield generators ahead fired at him, and he slashed left and right, deflecting them away from him. He wore a black and red set of armor with a red hood over the scary black mask on his face. He had giant spikes sticking up out of his shoulders and looked like he was jacked underneath the armor based on his bulk.

"Activate your personal shielding before leaving the ship," Darth Dramath warned the trio of siblings behind him in his landing craft. "And stay out of Darth Malgus's way. He will strike you down at the first sign of weakness," Dramath added. "That goes for all of you men," Dramath added. The red-skinned Sith with long black hair lifted his cloak's hood to hide his face. "No need to give the Jedi targets. Keep your appearance hidden, unless your pride comes in the way."

Dramath's words were heeded by two of the three Sith behind him. The third ignored the looks from his brother and sister on his sides. Arcann just narrowed his one human eye and the red one in the middle of the cybernetic mask that took up the right side of his face. Arcann wore a white robe and ignited his yellow lightsaber that matched those of his siblings. Thexan in his black robe activated his own, and Vaylin lifted hers as well.

The three dozen Sith Troopers behind them charged their weapons that all started humming as they glowed bright red. The rifle cannons glowed red while their armor glowed gold. They had suits of armor with red highlights on them, but the cracks in that armor glowed to show the blue energy that fueled their jetpacks and power suits. These fighters for the Sith were from much earlier in the timeline of their world than the Stormtroopers that made up a huge portion of their army. Among them were the Daimanate warriors and the Odionate Sith warriors who wore either silver or gold as the main color of their armor, though all had the red highlights including vertical stripes in the centers of their helmets.

The ramp of their vessel dropped down. The Sith and their soldiers activated their own body shields that came from the wrist watches of the four Sith and out from the armor of their men. Their landing craft was larger than other vessels that landed behind them, and they were able to land closer due to the stronger shields of their larger vessel. Another ship of their size landed nearby, and Dramath glanced that way to see the Sith he warned his comrades about emerging first from the vessel.

Darth Malgus' eyes glowed dark yellow and locked straight on a set of Jedi eyes across the battlefield from him. Both Darth Daiman and Darth Odion emerged behind him. The brothers who once ruled over the galaxy as rivals brought the loyalty of their old Daimanate and Odionate Sith soldiers who came out of that ship as well. The two brothers followed Malgus though as the leader of their squad. The three of them had their red lightsabers ignited already as they marched out in front of the silver and gold Sith troopers, all of them with red highlights that matched where the highlights were on Darth Malgus's black armor.

Darth Daiman pointed his lightsaber ahead. The flashy man in a gold suit of armor had a white cape that flapped behind him. "Take them now. We will conquer the Resistance in one fell swoop! None will be able to withstand our power."

"Kill them all," Malgus ordered in a deeper tone. "Leave no survivors."

Inside one of the shield generators the Resistance had taken over, Ahsoka Tano looked around in shock by the side of Master Qui-Gon. "I recognize them from the holocrons. Many of them were tyrants who conquered entire star systems. History remembers them all as brutal genocidal monsters."

Tucker and Elfo dropped their jaws in unison while looking to the Jedi who they wished would have kept that to herself. Worse than the words that came out of her mouth though, were the expressions they saw on the faces of some of the other Jedi who were celebrating only a minute ago. Foul Moudama even took a step backwards in fear unbecoming of a Jedi with sweat dripping down his furry face. It was not a humanoid-looking expression, but any of the humans could recognize the look of fear even on the four-eyed alien's gray face.

"Do not fear, my friends," Qui-Gon announced. "Fear leads to the Dark Side. Stand firm in the face of these enemies. We must hold the line!"

Turret fire from the shield generators protecting the surprise fourth line of Sith defenses unloaded on Resistance positions all along the third trench. Half of the third line was unprotected, and Resistance soldiers were darting back and forth between shields that were still up, with some of their members even trying to fix the generators that they themselves had taken down twenty minutes ago. The Sith's beams fired down on their soldiers. The collisions of those higher rate of beam fire from the Sith side started making it harder and harder to see out the front of the blue forcefields that the Resistance forces had piled into.

The Resistance had to fire blindly out into the battlefield, and Ahsoka realized that they were not going to hit anything like this anymore. "Turrets!" She yelled out. The Jedi Master was no longer on a turret herself, but Ahsoka yelled to her soldiers and then got on her communicator to pass the message around to all of them. "Aim your fire at the ground before their turrets! Blind them as much as they're blinding us."

"What about the enemy ships?"

"Leave them. We'll have to handle their landing parties with our own ground forces," Ahsoka replied. Shooting down the enemy aircraft was proving mostly ineffectual anyway.

"You sure about that, Master Tano?" Carolina asked. She reloaded her submachine guns and did not sound too worried despite asking the question between panting breaths. Carolina cracked her neck to either side but then elaborated, "Looks like a lot more of them than there are us. Just saying."

Tucker gulped. If Carolina was the one bringing it up, when he had seen her take on fifty enemies on her own just a few minutes ago, he really did not like the idea of how many Imperial soldiers were coming for them. A dozen Star Destroyers are going to have whole armies inside them. "This sucks," Tucker muttered under his breath.

"Tell me about it," Elfo agreed. The green elf shook his head and then scratched the back of it under his purple hat. He swung his bloodied sword up and rested it over his right shoulder. "My shoulders are already getting tired carrying you guys."

"Ch-" Carolina cut herself off.

The rest of their squad spun towards her though. They looked at the back of her cyan armor with wide eyes under their helmets. Mongol barely spoke himself, but the muscular mercenary carrying his Brute Shot muttered after a second, "Did Carolina just laugh?"

"I knew she couldn't resist my charm," Elfo replied to the big man in white armor. He laughed then looked ahead before curling up and 'eep'-ing as he saw Carolina's helmet turned partly sideways. Elfo could not see her eyes behind that visor, but he imagined the look she was giving him was anything but friendly.

Roman and Viken walked forward to either side of Mayan. Mayan was pursing his lips, trying his best not to laugh at the girl in cyan armor who he had always had a crush on. Formerly Freelancer Agent York marched forward and up to Carolina's left side. "We've got this," he assured her. "We do have this, right?"

Delta's small green AI form appeared over Mayan's gold-plated shoulder. "Reply hazy. Ask again later."

Mayan looked to his right shoulder and the AI standing there. "Did you… did you just quote a Magic 8 ball?"

"Well you said you didn't want any more percentages," Delta replied. His tone was flat, but the reply sounded fairly sarcastic. Mayan sweatdropped. I thought I turned his sarcasm level down.

The ripples on the forcefields started to get less intense as the turret crews in the third trench managed to lay cover fire ahead of the fourth line of defenses across the field. There were no mines in this field past the third line of trenches, so the Sith and their soldiers were charging straight across it with no issue. Now that the Resistance turrets were firing along the fourth line though and creating that smokescreen, and the fourth trench was bombarding them back with less accuracy, the center was clear. Resistance air support had been essentially eliminated, and nothing was stopping those Imperial forces from charging at the Resistance positions.

Ahsoka Tano looked left and right at all the ground forces up here with her. Can we hold these positions? I don't want to think we'll be overrun, but the quantity and quality of the Sith rushing towards us is nothing to scoff at. We need to consider a retreat-

"General!"

Ahsoka spun around. The others all standing at the western edge of the forcefield looked back behind them. A black-haired man in a suit of ice armor slid past the soldier who shouted out to him. He jumped up and then landed on top of a destroyed turret so everyone around him could see their leader. In the adjacent shields as well, they could see through the blue bubbles over to their General at his raised position. His voice came out through his communicator too as he spoke to the army stuck in the third trench. "It is time to push forward. Meet the enemy on the battlefield!"

"Sir?" Ahsoka called up to him. She was baffled by Gray's shout. "We have defensive positions!"

"I chose this army for an offensive," Gray continued announcing. "I picked every single person here because of our potential for offensive actions. Attacking, not defending. We did not come here to hold onto some bombarded half-destroyed trench on the border. It is the Resistance that is pushing forward into Sith territory today! Take the fourth line of defenses, and steal the enemy aircraft they landed back there."

Ahsoka snapped her gaze down and looked out the forcefield clearer from enemy fire now. Their turret fire had blinded the fourth line of trenches which resulted in less accurate fire reaching them. She looked underneath the beams shooting both directions, and past all the Sith fighters charging ever closer to them. She stared between the legs of tall marching AT-AT tanks. Ahsoka looked to the enemy dropships that lay parked all over the battlefield behind their troops they had sent into the fray. There were even more aerial vehicles inside of the forcefields behind those forward ships as well. If they could keep those forcefields up, they could regroup and commandeer the ships from a safe position.

Qui-Gon put a hand on Ahsoka's shoulder, and she looked to him before nodding and calming herself down. She cursed internally for speaking out against the General's commands, though Gray just kept up his orders without slowing down because of her. Our cruiser is down, Ahsoka realized. And most of our aircraft too. The Sith's ships have stronger shielding than our own. We can't retreat or advance any further without taking their vehicles. It's our only option. Maybe we can steal a few and move our forces up into one of the Star Destroyers. We'll steal them and keep advancing.

This is not their victory yet, Ahsoka pushed down her thoughts of retreat.

"The Sith think that they can retake their positions by force. We will not let them! Charge, men. Charge! This is where the Resistance takes it all back." Gray pointed a sword of ice ahead of him and out at the army of Sith, soldiers, and robots.

Darth Revan started to Force Sprint and passed a different group of three Sith. He sped past a line of Droidekas too that he leapt over. Super Battle Droids and Commando Droids ran forward off to his right. Another giant AT-AT dropped from above and landed ahead of most of the Sith forces with a cloud of dust knocked up by its landing that Revan burst through the eastern edge of. A Tie Fighter was strafing down over the battlefield and shot at the shield generators the Resistance hid in, making many of them shake again in worse ways that had stopped when Resistance turrets targeted the fourth line.

Jedi Master Tiplee Force Jumped up inside another of the shield generators though. Others from the crashed command ship had reached the front lines with their General. Everyone looked up in awe at their red-skinned comrade who pulled back her lightsaber and then threw it as she reached the crest of the domed forcefield. Tiplee threw her lightsaber out of the barrier and up into the path of the strafing Tie Fighter, slicing off one of its two wings. The Tie Fighter spun around with smoke pouring out of it and crashed down into a crater where the earth had all been lifted up by the espers above to block earlier Star Destroyer bombardments.

Tiplee landed down next to her sister who she had sought out on the battlefield using the Force. The red Mikkian woman lifted her right hand and opened it up. The hilt of her lightsaber flew back to her palm that curled around it. Then she turned her body side-face with her left hand back behind her and her lightsaber arm outstretched in front of her body. Tiplar turned to stand back-to-back with her sister.

Stan looked towards the spinning-out Tie Fighter and flinched when he saw it slam into the ground and explode back behind the enemy lines. He ducked down as a laser beam flew over his head not as high up as most of the others were shooting now. Then Stan spotted someone else and his run completely stopped. "Oh man," Stan whispered.

He was in it now. A battle against the Resistance, and it was too late to stop. He was charging forward with the others. The Resistance were just ahead of him. And Stan spotted a man coated in ice armor leap out of the forcefield and throw his sword in front of him towards Darth Revan. After Gray released, he curled that hand into a fist. In front of his fist formed a giant light-blue magic circle that would have appeared in front of where he punched that fist into his other open palm, if he still had another hand to speak of.

Darth Revan lifted a hand and Force-fully stopped the blade of ice before it reached him. But Gray used his magic on the blade he already threw that had been imbued with magical energy before he released. The magic in the sword that left his fingers was still connected to the young mage full of power who yelled out, "Ice Make Unlimited: One-Sided Chaotic Dance!"

The single sword that Revan had stopped shattered into pieces as the Sith Lord clenched his hand into a fist. But the masked Sith spun left and right as several rings of ice started spinning around him rapidly from the shards. They moved so fast it appeared as if he was in a giant cylinder of ice that reached the sky. Then all the ice stopped spinning so fast, and they could all see what exactly made up those rings. Each ring was made of swords of ice. Hundreds of them in total. Gray landed on the battlefield and slid forward with an Ice Slide forming in front of his feet to keep him moving constantly. He twisted his body to spin around on the slide while swinging his fist and controlling all of those blades at once. "HAAA!"

The swords flew in and crossed each other. Dozens flew at once, then hundreds more. They flew at different speeds and at different angles. The swords slashed the Sith who could not slice back and forth quickly enough. Cuts sliced through his cloak and armor. Blood splashed out from different wounds. The Force emitted from him and blew apart fifty blades at once, but Gray just had even more fly down at Revan's shoulders that he held back at first. Reven twisted away from one, but another pierced through his left shoulder at his collarbone and dug deep into his body.

Gray saw several of his blades impale the Sith. That Sith Lord turned his cracked mask towards Gray even as he was impaled from different directions. Revan lifted a hand towards him, and Gray grit his teeth but slammed his right fist down into the ground before lightning could zap him or his throat could close up. "Ice Make: Geyser!" Gray roared. The blades that he had flying around Revan or piercing through him glowed brighter blue. Forty swords that pierced the ground all around Revan glowed too… and then they branched. Every single sword pierced outwards as it expanded fifty times in size. Each blade popped out into a huge spike of ice with lots of other spikes sticking out of it. The swords were so close together that each merged with the others to make one enormous geyser of ice that stretched a hundred feet tall.

Revan was frozen in the middle of the geyser. His bloodied body pierced by blades. His mask broken off. The Sith Lord leading the charge fearlessly like he was the main character was defeated. But the other Sith all over the battlefield did not falter in the least. Some of the Stormtroopers got concerned, but they kept charging too as they knew what would happen if they tried running away. The Sith were not known to be the most forgiving of commanders.

"That's their General! Take him out, and their forces will crumble before us!"

Stan spun right as he heard that then looked back in shock. Gray was leading this?! He's in charge, and other Sith apparently knew about it. Did they keep it from me on purpose? Or was I just not important enough to let me know about it beforehand? Stan stared back towards the man who he was traveling with only a week before. Then Stan saw the Jedi and clones behind him racing out to meet the Sith's forces on Gray's orders. Stan spotted another man across the battlefield whose green lightsaber illuminated his face, and showed Stan that that man was looking straight back towards him.

He bowed his head a bit to make sure the shadow kept darkness over his face. Yet he turned and ran towards a different part of the front line, avoiding the stare from Qui-Gon Jinn who had warned him not to go. He thought of how the Jedi Master he traveled south with had attempted to convince him to stay and train with him instead. He said they were planning on going west. That there was an operation out here. I didn't know they meant a full-blown invasion. Would I have come if I knew?

It doesn't matter now, Stan corrected himself. All I can do is grit my teeth and accept the decision I have made. Whatever that may lead to! Stan bit down so hard he started grinding his jaw. He bowed his head but then lifted it up and let out a high-pitched scream, "RAAA!"

Knov popped back out of one of his earlier portals on the first line of trenches. He eased his body away from the flames, then rose a hand to protect his face and ran for a cluster of people he saw standing around one of their landing vessels that still had a functioning shield protecting it. "I've got five more for you," Knov called over to the tiny people ahead of him.

"Just put them down and get out of here," Bomba ordered in a deep and frustrated voice at the man running over and interrupting with that shout.

Knov slowed and then frowned himself as he saw the blonde-haired tiny person in the middle of the infirmary-area panting with her hands down on her knees. "Is Mansherry- is the Princess, alright?" Knov asked, correcting himself halfway through his question when some of her Tontatta bodyguards glared at him for his disrespect. He knelt down and created a new portal at this location inside the dropship's shielding range. They were in the shadow of the flaming wreckage of the giant crashed heavy-cruiser, making his approach to the infirmary difficult but also hiding it partially from view of the Star Destroyers above.

"I am fine," Mansherry responded before her guards could tell him that she needed a break. Mansherry lifted her hands and gave herself a few refreshing claps on either cheek. She shook her head around and ran from the other injured who had already been brought to her. She used her Heal-Heal Fruit to create small balls of white light over her palms. "How are things at the front line?" Mansherry asked, looking to Knov with big scared eyes.

Knov looked to the little person in surprise. The ship she was meant to stay on throughout the invasion had been shot down. Her dress was ripped a little at the hem of it around her knees, and many of her soldiers and guards appeared injured worse by the crash. Knov even spotted another of the main protectors for the Princess, Rampo, laying unmoving nearby with blood all over his forehead and seeping through the bandages on it.

Mansherry looked the direction Knov just stared. She winced and bowed her head, magical tears of healing dripping from her eyes as she did. She leaned her head closer to the unconscious injured comrades who Knov brought to her, at least making her tears go to good use. "Princess! Get down!" She heard her bodyguard's voice in her head after she had fallen to the ground when the cruiser shook. Others ran in from the hallway, but she saw a fireball flying down it and one of the guards slamming a hand on the panel outside of the door, shutting it on himself but protecting those inside the infirmary from the fireball.

Rampo had dove to tackle her out of the way of a falling medicine cabinet. It hit his head hard. The moment was so unexpected that everyone else in the infirmary had just stared at the spot the cabinet hit the ground in shock, waiting for Rampo to lift it up himself and toss it aside like it weighed nothing. But he did not. The ship crash-landed and fire broke into the infirmary, forcing them to escape. They carried him with them out of the vessel. But despite their best efforts, the Princess could only heal injuries…

"Do they need Dandelixers?" Mansherry asked, lifting her head back up and staring into Knov's eyes through the tears in her own. "I can join the fight!"

"Princess!" Bomba exclaimed. Injured members of the elite Kabu squad had gone down and been badly injured. Others in their bodyguard squad had been badly wounded or killed too. Mansherry healed a few of them already, but others still bleeding did not want to be healed. They knew the limits of their Princess' powers and how many times they could be healed a day. No one wanted her to run out of strength early on in the fight.

Knov shook his head for a different reason though. "The Dandelixers are temporary," he told the Princess who already knew that. She had informed them of her abilities and all that they could do. Knov did not need to relay her question to Gray. Gray had given him these new orders in the first place. He knew what Gray's answer would be already. "Despite the size of the enemy's forces, we are still the invading army. When we finish here, we will continue moving deeper into Sith territory."

Mansherry's eyes grew much wider. Their command ship had been shot down. So many injured were being rushed to her. She had seen Pokémon and allied fighter jets get shot down just since she left the flaming cruiser. Knov just turned back and looked to the west where he would be returning in a moment. "When the time limit of your Dandelixers runs out, we would be left exhausted and unable to continue. Thank you for the offer. But now is not the time."

Before Knov could open another portal using his Nen to rush up to the front line again, he heard a loud clanking noise coming from inside the wreckage of the Summer-class cruiser near their dropship. Everyone looked up to the flaming cruiser and stared at a part of the hull not entirely engulfed in fire yet. A dent bulged outwards from inside the ship. CRASH! Something slammed into the same part of the hull already denting out and ripped the metal apart.

"Whaa!" Mansherry stumbled back and looked up in surprise then awe at the sight of the monstrosity flying over her head.

Clank! Cla-cla-kachank. A metal set of legs landed just outside of the barrier surrounding the infirmary zone. Mansherry rose her hands to her eyes and rubbed them with her fists confusedly though. She stared out at the battle mechs she swore she just saw land outside their barrier. All four of them shimmered and seemed to vanish though, becoming nearly invisible thanks to their active camouflage.

"Finally joining us, are you?" Knov wondered at the mechs. His words insinuated annoyance, but his tone was of relief. Thought they might have all been destroyed when I didn't see them advancing with the General.

The four Arm Slaves each had teams of two in them. The mechs were humanoid with two legs, two arms, and heads sticking out of their bulky metallic torsos. The one in the front of the four that busted through the hull and landed first turned its head sideways for a second. The Arbalest was taller than the others and slightly thinner too. The nineteen year old boys inside the Arbalest looked back from Knov and out the front of their cockpit's window that zoomed in on the battlefield across the trench lines.

Beams shot down from the Star Destroyers towards the mechs. Apparently someone up above saw them emerge. The ECS worked in multiple roles though. The Electronic Conceal System did not just make their vehicles and the occupants practically invisible, but it scrambled attacks aimed at them to throw off targeting systems. The beams flying their way locked onto the crashed cruiser on their right side or just slammed into the ground near them and created an extra smokescreen of dust.

One beam hit the barrier that pulsed around the medical team's dropship too, and Lieutenant Belfangan Clouseau ordered the others, "Move away from the infirmary. We need to reach the front line-"

"No," Sagara Sousuke countered the older man who frowned at their ace's retort. "There's still fighting going on in the second trench. The rest of the forces moved forward too fast and left behind clusters of enemy forces in the rear. If a retreat is called for, we cannot have them in our way."

Kurz chuckled and shook his head in the Arm Slave on Sousuke's left. "We've got it then. But you need to get up there to the front. If only you two."

"Agreed," Jean Jacquemonde stated from behind Kurz in their shared mech. "We'll catch up, Ominae. And I'm still killing more Sith than you today."

Ominae Yu scoffed from his co-pilot seat behind Sousuke's. "Yeah right. Alright! Let's go." He tapped Sousuke's shoulder and nodded at his best friend who glanced sideways and saw that Yu agreed with the others that the Arbalest should go straight to the front.

"Be careful, boys," Melissa Mao ordered the pair who nodded the head of their mech before launching away like a rocket towards the front.

Tea Flatte shook her head behind the other woman who piloted their Arm Slave. The immortal Spriggan warrior and oldest of their team, Tea Flatte had been in a lot of battles in her life. Still, she looked off where Ominae and Sousuke were flying to and frowned deeper at the sight of all those Star Destroyers hovering above them. Explosions were going off past the line of forcefields in the third trench blocking the main battlefield from view. "Good luck," she just muttered under her breath.

"Are you sure we shouldn't join them? Two and two?" Yoshino wondered. Yoshino Somei sat behind Lieutenant Clouseau, and she knew the older man in front of her wanted to be up on those front lines himself. Seeing Yu rush off on his own filled her with an unsettling feeling.

Belfangan grunted but shook his head after thinking about it for a second. Sousuke's got an analytic mind. He wanted to rush out there himself, but he knew what he was talking about. Bringing up retreat first because he knows it's a real possibility here. "We'll move up there as soon as the situation in the rear is completely under our control. Now move!"

Kurz pushed forward a level in front of him and grabbed the sticks with the triggers on them. "Woohoo!" His Arm Slave flew off the ground and then did a barrel-roll in midair, making Jean put his hands out and grab the walls to not bounce around from the movements. Jean wanted to yell at his partner, but Kurz spun around like that because a few weapons' operators on the Destroyers above had not given up on blowing them up, continuing their fire down on the invisible Arm Slaves.

"We should have been in the vanguard," Melissa grumbled as she flew towards a section of the second line closer to the southern cliffs where she heard a call for aid from comrades.

"Pop the cockpit and just keep moving up," Tea told her partner. Melissa looked over her shoulder in surprise but then just nodded and put her finger over the button to eject her copilot. "I've got this," Tea said calmly.

The enemies who had been in a hidden bunker and emerged to face down the weaker Resistance force of members too slow to keep up with the rest of the invasion were not expecting the sudden appearance of this woman above them. Tea Flatte had light skin and raven black hair that fell to breast-length in twisty curls. The Imperial soldiers saw her for a second, before she faded away and was replaced by a hundred demonic-looking creatures diving towards them.

The men who raised their weapons and aimed at the former Spriggan of ARCAM dropped them in terror. Due to a different group of people on Aebrith being known as the "Spriggans," the group of agents from the ARCAM task force on their own world just went by "Special Operatives" on Nexus. Tea Flatte used her Calling Beast ability to summon the illusions of beasts that terrified the men who thought they could handle this if it was only one person of enemy reinforcements.

"Wow," one of the injured elves who had barely been holding the position whispered. She turned towards the enemy soldiers who dropped to their knees and were begging for mercy while illusions tormented them. "Thank you. We can take the prisoners back from here-"

"Forget them. Move forward." Tea ordered. "I'll handle it."

The Special Operative walked towards the kneeling soldiers. Her comrades staring at her went wide-eyed, and the same one speaking of taking them prisoner opened her mouth to stop Tea. Tea pulled out a gun and fired at the soldiers on their knees. Her comrades gawked at her and looked away wincing at the brutality. They wondered if she had decided the executions were necessary due to the dismal state of things, only to let out sighs of relief as the gun that looked very much to be a lethal weapon only shot white circles of energy that looked to work at stunning the enemies only.

Tea Flatte re-holstered her weapon then turned to the west. "I said move," she repeated to her comrades. She said nothing about the injured returning back to the infirmary. The ones who had been hurt in the fighting sucked it up and ignored their injuries. They were elves, and this was a battle for their homeland. Rivendell was still far ahead of them, and they lifted back up their weapons and gave chase after the Spec-Ops soldier who raced towards the third trench across giant craters left between the lines. She saw where Melissa had flown to next, heading to a part of the third trench also on the far southern edge of it that had not been completely captured before the Sith reinforcements arrived and created a fourth line.

Sagara Sousuke and Yu Ominae flew right over a section of the third trench where the shield generator had gone down though and where the entire trench underneath had been annihilated by Gideon's bombardment earlier. A glance out their cockpit showed them dead Stormtroopers, as well as dead Clonetroopers mixed in with armor that the young men recognized. "Damn it," Sousuke growled.

"We should have been out here," Ominae agreed in a low voice. He had spikier black hair than his comrade whose black hair was similar length but fell messy around his head instead of spiked up. Ominae Yu also wore a red bandanna and green camo jacket over his black armor unlike Sousuke who only had on the tight black suit of personal armor himself.

Ominae curled his fists over his legs and glared ahead towards a giant ice spike that broke in half and then got thrown by the Force down at the mage who had initially created it. Gray leapt backwards and swung his giant ice wings down, spinning away from the ice spike that barely missed the General who used his Ice Make: Dragon Armor to increase his agility. Ominae lifted his eyebrows in surprise seeing the Fairy Tail mage fight so well, though he admitted to himself, I should have expected Gajeel's guild members could fight as well as him. "I'll hop out here," Ominae said.

Sousuke nodded. "Good luck," he told his friend who nodded back.

Ominae drew both of his sidearms with his hands inside gloves that started glowing blue. The blue lines on his gloves shot up his arms and to his torso where they flowed through his armor. The top of the white mech Arbalest popped open. Ominae leapt into the air and did a half dozen flips before aiming his pistols down at the squad of rolling enemy Droidekas he dove towards. They did not get out of their rolls quickly enough to activate their shields, and Omniae blew them apart without missing a shot.

Sousuke closed his cockpit and then landed and sped past the front lines before firing at anything. He suddenly appeared inside the enemy's ranks as he unleashed rocket attacks on the legs of Walkers on either side of him. Those AT-AT's fell behind the soldier and exploded in giant fireballs while he fired his miniguns into the lines of Sith Troopers and Super Battle Droids in front of him. I understand why the General held us back, as frustrating as this is. We could have been doing this kind of damage from the start! Saving the lives of our comrades who fell up until now.

Sousuke dodged a flying lightsaber one of the Sith threw at him. The same man lifted a hand towards him and stopped him in mid-jump anyway. The Arbalest's right arm opened up at the wrist though and fired a rocket at the Sith who had to release Sousuke in order to flick that same hand's wrist and redirect the missile away from him. The rocket exploded in midair after the Sith turned it away, activating due to the strange force put on it, as the Resistance engineers designed their weaponry to do in preparation for Sith Force use. The explosion was closer to the Sith than to Sousuke and sent shrapnel at the villain who got knocked back by the blast and cut up by the shrapnel. The Sith hit the ground and then lifted his head and snapped a bloody arm up, using Force Pull on his lightsaber to call it back to him when he saw the Arbalest flying through the flames of his own explosion.

Flashing red lights in his cockpit warned Sousuke of the lightsaber flying towards his back. Jets turned on below his knees and pushed his mech upwards, avoiding the lightsaber that passed just below him. He rose his arms to fire other weapons at the Sith, but more flashing red lights alerted him to enemies above. Sousuke barrel-rolled and fired his jets at stronger strength, flying higher to avoid the enemy jets that soared at him under orders from the starships above. They had tried firing at these invisible mechs all the way to the front line and failed, but they still had Sousuke in their sights and ordered the smaller vessels to target him now.

Gray rose his gaze and watched as Sousuke's translucent Arbalest slashed apart three enemy jets before firing rockets at another grouping of them. Despite their shielding, some of the rockets exploded large enough to rip apart the ships inside the shields. I wanted to bring them with the first force, but those powerful weapons and the size of their mechs made them impossible to use. They never would have made it through the shield barriers that block out vehicles. I doubt they'll even be able to get into that fourth line to take out the turrets. Gray refocused back down from Sousuke as he saw Darth Malgus leap up on top of the ice spike that the Sith had cut in half in the first place before launching the top half at him.

The Sith Lord glared down at the enemy leader who reforged two ice swords and held them out at either side. The mouth of Gray's Ice Dragon armor opened up and seemed to puff out smoke from it, though it was really just a cold breath of air making steam due to how the temperature around Gray was colder than elsewhere on the battlefield. Gray flinched and darted a glance to his right as he saw a red beam slam into a section of his line that had rushed forward behind him. When he glanced to his right, he also saw several other beams of light falling behind the third line, apparently targeting others in his forces back behind them who were moving forward to join the fray.

We cannot keep moving forward while the enemy control the skies. It's too imbalanced. "Espers," Gray ordered in a low voice. My main force is now engaged with their ground forces. I can only hope they won't bombard all these Sith just to get us. "Take out the enemy fleet. Don't worry about us on the ground. Go."

"Finally!" Teru shouted. He surrounded in a bright white veil and ignored the next several huge beams of red light that shot out of Star Destroyers near him. He and Fubuki had been blocking attacks and redirecting them away from soldiers below rather than flinging them back up at the Destroyers themselves for a while, as that had been taking more of their strength to do. Hanazawa had suggested it for another reason though, and now he had his chance. Perfect timing too, because some of the Star Destroyers had lowered their shielding in order to increase their rate of fire. Without turrets firing up on them, the leaders on those ships thought it a smart move.

Hanazawa threw huge chunks of earth up into the enemy starships. The carriers shook from the collisions, as these were not normal attacks that their shields were used to blocking. The dirt and rocks slammed into vessels and passed through shielding if they were below a certain size. Hanazawa tested with hundreds of different sizes. His aura flared around him wildly, and the blond teenager zipped ahead in a blur of white that left lagging images of his body behind that beams of red light flew through too late.

He flew through one of the flickering shields of red light and straight through the energy barrier of the hangar. He entered one of the Star Destroyer's shielding and immediately slammed his hands out to either side. Fubuki spun his way from outside that Star Destroyer and gawked as the hull walls started buckling inwards. She had continued to protect the ground forces, thinking of her squadmates below who she would leave less protected if she went on the offensive. Fubuki was also exhausted already and had to rub away blood under her nostrils from overusing her power. She turned her head and watched as the buckling hull of the starship crumpled inwards from the center where the hangar was, up the vessel towards the bridge, and then the cockpit itself blew open with Imperial officers getting thrown out of the shattering windshield.

The crumpling Star Destroyer turned. They had all dropped out of Jump fairly close to each other. The battlefield was large enough that they all fit in the sky over the field, but each ship was massive and over a kilometer long. None were as wide as they were long, but they were close enough that Hanazawa did not need to do much to turn the ship and switch gears to go into Forward. Imperial officers in the bridge of the Destroyer to his starboard started yelling about pulling away.

They were too late.

CRASH!

"All ships! Evasive maneuvers!" Admiral Thrawn ordered his forces. "Spread out. And target their psychics!"

The Sith vessels cleared the airspace as the ships focused on what turned out to be real imminent threats to them. The ship next to Hanazawa's was not prepared to get rammed by a several thousand ton starship out of nowhere. And the one on the starboard side of that one still had not gotten its engines up to speed to be able to maneuver away before the other two slammed into its stern as well. Smoke poured out of the vessels, and explosions went off inside them while the other Star Destroyers started flying away and scattering across the sky.

Captain Rawlings shot over the front line of Resistance forces. He flipped open a covered panel on the console of his fighter jet. The World War 1 pilot who was more used to dogfights in propeller planes launched a volley of precision rockets that locked-on to a half dozen targets scattered across the sky around him.

Rawlings took a deep breath and then flipped the switch in his jet that he had just revealed by opening the panel. A sphere of white energy surrounded his ship with lightning bolts sparking out of it. All the lights on his console surged in a flash of light, and then they cut off. The sound of his engines cut too. The sphere of energy pulsed out from the Resistance pilot, and it hit the enemy fighters in the middle of speeding straight towards him. His systems all cut, but the EMP his ship emitted also hit the enemy ships that were planning on flying straight through his missiles.

The Imperial pilots trusted in their shields to protect them from most attacks. Especially attacks from similarly-sized vehicles like Rawlings' fighter jet. As Rawlings' plane started to nosedive and spin around uncontrollably, a series of explosions went off above him. His rockets slammed into Tie Fighters and Imperial jets that just lost their shielding and their ability to make any evasive maneuvers whatsoever. Rawlings started flipping the switch on his panel over and over as he dove. The systems were still sparking though, and he zapped himself. The pilot leaned back in his seat from the surge of energy that shocked through him.

Past the windshield of his jet, he saw the ground rapidly approaching. His eyes darted to the red button for the ejector seat, but then he shifted his gaze back above him. The rest of our fleet is down. I'm one of the last keeping the air battle going. I can't abandon ship yet! Rawlings grabbed his sticks with one twitching hand and kept flicking the sparking restart switch again and again to try and get his engines blowing. He dove and dove, until he was a hundred meters above the surface. "RaaaaAAAAA!" He yelled out while flicking it even faster.

"Eject, Captain Rawlings!" Gray yelled into his communicator as he spun and looked up at the diving jet. Chunks of enemy jets were falling out of fireballs above the fighter squad Captain, but Gray did not think it was worth it to lose Rawlings just for that one maneuver. He grinned though as he saw the blue lights under Rawlings' wings light back up. The ship did a sharp cut from its diving angle and shot parallel only fifty feet above the ground, spinning sideways to dodge a red lightsaber thrown up at it in the same way Tiplee had taken down a Tie Fighter earlier. Rawlings was too quick on the sticks for that.

Darth Venamis glared at the ship that kept flying off after dodging his lightsaber. He rose his other hand and aimed it at Rawlings' ship that stalled for a moment, only for Venamis to have to release him. Venamis needed to Force Pull back his lightsaber and spin around to block as Master Tiplar came down towards him with lightsaber in hand. The two of them clashed. Sith and Jedi on their right and left sides collided at the same time.

Asajj Ventress had both of her lightsabers pressed against the blue lightsaber of a young human Jedi in front of her. She darted her gaze to the left and then stuck two fingers on her left hand out towards the chunk of ice discarded near her. The ice chunk flew into the back of the Jedi boy who had just pressed down harder on her blades. She leaned backwards like his pressure was too much, and then he felt the attack coming for his back as the Force warned him. He managed to spin around and slash through the ice, but before he could spin back at Ventress, a pair of red lightsabers stuck through his back and the back of his neck.

Jedi Knight Serra Keto screamed out in pain, "Petro!" She slashed her green lightsabers twice as hard in that burst of anger, shocking the red-skinned Twi'lek Sith Lord with black tattoos all over her body. Darth Talon gasped at the amount of power this Jedi had. Talon's own lightsaber was pushed back and her guard broken. The pale human Jedi warrior with a long black braid of hair sliced Darth Talon into three pieces, then screamed towards the bald-headed smirking assassin, "VENTRESS!"

"I remember you," Ventress mocked the younger Jedi woman. "Do you want vengeance for your master? What was his name again?" Ventress taunted, sounding like she forgot the Jedi Master's name.

Serra did not know if Ventress really forgot or not, but it infuriated her nonetheless. "Master!" a teenage girl called out behind Serra Keto. "I'll back you up-"

"No! Stay back, Yasmina." Serra Keta did not dare turn away from the assassin before her. "Fall back to the-"

BOOM!

"Yaz!" Serra spun, taking her eyes off Ventress for a second as she saw the red explosion in the corner of her eyes.

"AHH!" Yasmina screamed as rocks slammed into her left side hard. She heard a crack in her ribs as a large chunk of debris flew into her from the nearby bombardment of a Star Destroyer above.

Serra Keto spun back just in time and blocked as Ventress dropped down on her from above. Serra winced and bent a knee, but she stuck her leg down hard and screamed out in anger while repelling Ventress. "His name was Cin Drallig! My master," Serra steadied her breathing and turned into a fighting stance. She saw movement from her padawan who she had taken on after arriving on this world and sensing the Force that dwelled within her. I will protect you, Yaz. I will not let you fall here.

"I will take vengeance for my master," Serra growled. Ventress is smirking. She thinks me falling off the path of the Jedi. She thinks I will be sloppy in my anger. Whether I can defeat this assassin by skill alone is not the point. Defeating her and advancing the path of the Resistance, is our goal.

"Petro…" Yasmina Fadoula mumbled in pain, tears spilling from her closed eyes. She pictured her good friend getting cut down. She thought of her master currently facing the one who did it, and she squinted her eyes back open and pressed down on the floor at her sides. I need to help… "Whoa," Yaz whispered, watching as Serra sprinted at Ventress and started fighting masterfully with her dual lightsabers, yet matched by Ventress' own dual-wielding skill returned back at her.

Gray flinched and rose up an ice shield on his left side. Instead of an arm there, a shield just stuck out of his body and protected him from the blast and shrapnel from an explosion off to his left side. We haven't fully lost the air battle, but the sky is theirs. Gray looked up and ground his teeth. He saw beams firing out from the forcefields behind him and shooting up into the sky again. Their anti-air guns were firing enough to be considered active, but the strong enemy shielding was mostly holding against them and making their attacks ineffective. A red beam flew down straight towards Gray while he was staring up.

His eyes bulged and he rose his shield above his head. "Shi-" he never made the curse out. He lowered his shield and looked up at the exploding chunk of earth that flew into the path of that red beam. A woman with short black hair flew overhead in a green dress. Fubuki was surrounded in a veil of energy, and she blocked as many of the enemy starships' attacks as she could. I told them to go on the offensive, Gray thought. After just being saved by her though, he could not scold Fubuki about it. Just Teru on offense was not enough though.

They're our only real support in the sky right now. Which means they'll be targeted first, and I'm going to lose my tanks. Gray glanced over his shoulder then down the line. "Jo!" Gray called out. This is risky. But we can't go on without it. "Take Infiltration Team 1 up to a Star Destroyer! IT-1 on Jo! Jakku, you're still with her."

Knov returned to the front line and grabbed more of the injured who had been dragged into the shield generators. He looked out the west side of the forcefield he was inside of though and watched as Jo flew through the sky, jumping into one purple portal and emerging out the next. I should be out there instead of leaving it to a young girl. Without her friend too. Kid's death leaves her exposed. I hope she does not act any more reckless.

"Infil Team?" Jo asked while dropping out of her portal. She landed in front of a group of nine people who nodded back at the teenage girl. She double-checked, because this was supposed to be Knov's job. Gray had not seen the older portal-user though who was farther south on the same line, and he thought Knov might be back at the infirmary across the battlefield. "Are you ready?" Jo yelled while spinning away from them. "We're going to go up into that one there! I'll open one portal here and make my way to the hangar bay myself before opening the destination one to this one. Here we-"

"Jo," Qui-Gon spoke in a steady voice to the teenage girl before him. Jo created a portal with one hand but looked back to the Jedi Master who took a step towards her inside the shield they met in. "Take a deep breath. Calm yourself."

"There's no-"

"There is time. Steady," Qui-Gon repeated. He looked over her shoulder and nodded at the lanky but strong-looking man in a dark green cape who sprinted up behind the younger girl. "They will be ready for you. So you must be ready for them," Qui-Gon reminded her. "I sense that not all of the fleet's most powerful warriors have descended on the battlefield. Some remain on the ships above."

Jakku Za Rippa put a hand on Jo's shoulder. She glanced sideways and back at the wizard who was meant to be her protector now, and who she was about to leave behind again to rush straight to the next destination. He did not mind her speed though. Jakku grinned at her and gave her a nod to show he was ready. "Let's do this, girly." Jakku's elbows protruded sharp blades that extended longer and glinted like swords.

Jo took in a deep breath like the Jedi Master told her to do. Then she created another portal that she leapt through with the Captain of Kappa. Jakku said as they flew through the portal, "Don't go for the same one as Teru. He won't need us." Jakku saw another of the Star Destroyers diving for the surface nose-first. He laughed at the sight of it, imagining the esper on his squad and his strongest member just laying waste to the enemies throughout these ships.

The four Jedi and the five clones with them, (down from eight initially who would have made this a twelve-man squad), waited three seconds before running through the first portal Jo had created. They had watched the sky and saw her emerge above them before vanishing into another portal and leaving their sight. When they rushed through the portal, they found themselves in a fairly empty hangar since most of the Sith's smaller vessels that filled it had already taken off.

One transport ship was in the middle of lifting off when the group of 9 entered into the hangar. In the few seconds before IT-1 showed up though, Jakku had sprinted away from Jo already. He leapt in the air and sliced his right arm at the ship that tried to pull away, only for its entire starboard wing to rip off. The transport spun out and slammed into the wall, before crashing into a group of Imperial soldiers on the second level. The second level of the hangar was just made up of the two narrow paths up the staircases at the walls of the hangar bay to the hallways above.

An Imperial Captain dove off the second floor and covered his face with his arms as he fell. He hit down on the hangar floor a level down hard and rolled onto his side in agony. He flinched again as the fireball shot over his head from the crash-landing above him. His gray hat had fallen off on his dive and fell near him. The Imperial officer lifted his gaze and stared at the group of nine who emerged and formed a V-formation around Jo who ended up in the middle of it.

Qui-Gon Jinn held both hands on the hilt of his green lightsaber down at his right side with the blade pointed up vertically. He faced across the hangar and towards a group of men running out of a set of opening steel doors on this lower level. They rushed out so quickly after their entrance that they were second in reaction time only to Kappa Squad's leader. Jakku landed on a piece of the destroyed fuselage of the transport he had single-handedly taken down after entering the room. The purple-steel ship that crashed and burst into flames from the ignition of its fuel shook under his feet, but Jakku only glanced down for a second before looking back towards those red-cloaked soldiers rushing towards his comrades.

There were a dozen Sith Royal Guards in their red cloaks that dragged on the floor behind them. Their faces were covered but had no helmets over them. Only slits remained for their eyes that were still shadowed over under the hoods. They carried various types of weapons, though many held spear-like weapons that glowed on the ends of the blades. Jakku smirked at the sight of those close-combat fighters who did not have lightsabers, meaning he could actually go parry them with his own blade-like extremities.

Before Jakku could move to head them off though, allowing the team led by the Jedi to head for the enemy bridge, Jakku heard movement under his feet again. "Ehh?" Jakku looked down at the crashed ship below him. The man covered in a white aura while his eyes were growing wide, and he leapt up high into the air, just dodging an explosion that ripped apart the hull below his feet. As he flew into the air, he spiraled his body around and dodged fourteen tiny white arrowheads that zipped around him. He slashed at one, and the whistling bird exploded into his arm, setting off the rest and sending the Magic Knight flying backwards out of a cloud of black smoke.

"Captain Jakku!" Jo exclaimed in surprise up at the powerful man whose green shawl was in flames on his back.

"That's unfortunate," Cal muttered. The red-haired green-eyed human Jedi spun and rose his lightsaber up towards the second group of powerful enemies that swarmed out of their crashed ship using jetpacks. Cal Kestis had seen their type before, and he shouted out to his comrades, "Mandalorians!"

One Mandalorian shot out of a new hole in his crashed ship straight towards the group that had portaled onto this Star Destroyer. His armor was silver and had antennae sticking up on both sides of his helmet to almost appear like horns. He had a blue sigil on the front of his breastplate and in the center of his cape that flapped behind him as he rose both arms in front of him. Flames ignited on top of his left arm as he fired his flamethrower at the group he flew over, and he slashed his other arm down with the Darksaber in it. The sword of black energy appearing like a pitch black lightsaber just missed the head of a Jedi who dove into a dodge-roll then rose her lightsaber to block two blaster shots she felt coming her way with the Force.

One of the Clonetroopers burst into flames as he failed to dodge the fireball Pre Visla shot at him though. He ran around screaming and pulled off his flaming helmet, burning up even quicker as he did. Jo spun her head back and forth in panic as the clones scattered and the Jedi were immediately forced onto the defensive. The Mandalorians had all seemingly survived their crash-landing, protected in their powerful Beskar armor that blaster shots were slamming into to no effect.

Jo spun around and crossed her arms as another Mandalorian landed right behind her in the middle of the broken formation of Resistance forces. The heavyset Mandalorian brute rose up a war hammer and slammed it down- "Ugh!" The brute stopped in mid-swing. A sharp long green blade was sticking through the Mandalorian's chest, shocking the man who looked down to the blade piercing his armor. Jakku pulled his glowing-green forearm back and slashed the blade sticking off it to the right side, splattering blood across the floor while he licked some off the left corner of his lips. "Guard yourself, brat," Jakku warned the portal-user who he protected. His warning sounded like he would not stay near her to keep guarding. Despite the burns on his face and the rest of his body, Jakku smirked wider than ever and looked madly excited as he looked around at all the Royal Guards and Mandalorians around them.

"BRING IT ON!" Jakku screamed. He pulled his elbows in at his sides and flared with white energy that pushed away some of the people around him by how powerful the magical energy he expelled was.

"Pre Visla," Qui-Gon spoke to while circling the leader of the Mandalorians. "Or should I call you, Lord Visla, now?" Qui-Gon's eyebrows narrowed and he rushed at the villain who slashed his Darksaber back at him to meet the Jedi's blade. "We never should have trusted you Death Watch," Qui-Gon scowled past the clashing point of their weapons.

"Your offer just wasn't as good," Pre Visla mocked the Jedi he had dealt with in the past on Nexus.

Qui-Gon had assisted in making an initial peace between Mandalorians and Jedi on Aebrith. He glared at the traitor in front of him whose people once sided with the Resistance, and he scowled, "But to kill your own kind-"

"Bo-Katan was weak," Pre Visla snarled. He slashed extra hard to push Qui-Gon away, but the Jedi eased his body to the left and let his lightsaber get pushed back, making the Mandalorian leader stumble forwards from the strength he put in. Qui-Gon parried and slashed up at Pre Visla's chest. The jetpack on Visla's back turned on and he rocketed away, but Qui-Gon rose a hand towards the jetpack and focused only on one of the jet engines. The engine popped and put Pre Visla off-balance right when the Mandalorian was turning back around with a wrist rocket aimed at Qui-Gon.

He fired despite spiraling out of control, hoping his helmet's targeting system was still locked-on. The wrist rocket landed between two Mandalorians and a Jedi fighting them, exploding in Qui-Gon's peripheral vision and making the Jedi Master wince as he heard the scream of his good friend in that blast. He glared at where Pre Visla landed down on one knee and the other foot. The Mandalorian cut off his jetpack but slashed his Darksaber to the side and glared back at Qui-Gon, now with four others of his kind coming up to his sides. The Emperor granted him Lordship of Elvengard thanks to the Mandalorians' loyalty during the Emperor's invasion of the Elven Kingdom, Qui-Gon recalled. He turned on the Resistance, like so many others we once allied with.

Another Sith Royal Guard came into the room from the entrance on the other side of the hangar. A clone who noticed it looked away at first, thinking that this guard had just been elsewhere and was not as prepared to join the rest at first. "Oh you have to be kidding me," the clone groaned as he darted a quick glance back, and saw the marching troop of 12 Dark Troopers behind the Royal Guard. The broad-shouldered advanced battle droids marched into the room before turning on their own jetpacks, soaring over the head of the Royal Guard who had run off to activate them before pulling them into battle.

As they flew towards the battle though and looked like they would overwhelm the small group, two portals opened up in front of the dozen black droids. Most cut off their jetpacks or swerved away, but the four at the front flew into the portals before they could cut themselves short. Another portal opened up outside the Star Destroyer, just behind the jet engines of another Star Destroyer that Jo had seen on her way up here and set a trap at. That Destroyer was in the middle of pulling off to give space to other ships around it and prevent another situation like Teru had caused by crashing three of them already. That meant its jets were powered up at very high temperatures to be able to move a ship of its size, melting the Dark Troopers as they flew out into the blue jet flames.

Those Dark Troopers had not even been used in battle yet, which meant that they were still fully armed. The powerful droids had several rockets each stored in their bodies, and the enormous jet flames that burned them up broke the casings of those rockets. BOOOM! That entire Star Destroyer shook. The Imperial Commander yelled for a status report only to learn that two of their engines had gone down, and they had no idea why.

With only minor successes in the sky still controlled by Imperial forces, Gray looked back to the third trench line that his forces were using as a forward base. He was stacked up behind a wall of ice that several of his comrades had rushed up to as well to join their General on the front line. They were still closer to the third line than the fourth and its turrets that were currently blasting away at the other side of his ice fortifications, gradually busting through them.

"There's no need to worry now that I'm here," Zapp told the young General who stared back into the white-haired man's eyes. "My team has this-"

Thea leaned out behind the cover and fired a scatter shot from her bow. She ducked back behind it as a turret shot at her, and the edge of the ice wall was broken through by the precise shot. Thea Queen screamed and fell away as shrapnel from the ice slashed across the left side of her face. Her red hood was ripped off and torn as blood spilled down the archer's face. "Turrets! Get fire on their forcefield!" Gray yelled back at his own lines.

Turret fire flew over their heads into the fourth line of defenses. Seconds later, less enemy fire was slamming into their ice shield and instead came soaring across the field into the third trench's shields as return fire. Gray ran his hand up through his hair and shook his head in frustration. Zapp was surprised when Thea fell down screaming, and now another of his teammates was wrapping her face up. Zapp ordered the older man bandaging her to bring Thea back behind the front line, and he knew her wounds were bad when Thea did not even complain against the order to fall back.

Gray Fullbuster glanced down at his left shoulder. The Resistance General closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. Light flashed on that shoulder. An arm of ice reached up and unclasped his cape, and he flung it off to his side, before reaching down for the hem of his shirt too. "General." Gray heard Leonardo Watch's voice in his ear. He removed his hands from the hem of his armored shirt that would protect him from many attacks, and which he probably should not strip off right here.

Gray moved his ice hand from his shirt's hem to in front of his chest. He curled the hand into a fist that he stared into while hearing the Resistance Commanders' voices in his head. "Take the replacement, Fullbuster. It is a powerful weapon. You'd do well to obey the order and take it-"

"I refuse." Gray imagined the dark look on Hiei's face when he cut off the Resistance Commander who glared deep into his eyes.

Hiei had been there in Pon-Gatso when Gray got back after his mission against the League of Shadows. He was there when Gray's comrades all rushed to his side in shock to see that his arm had been cut off in that mission. "Whatever your reason, is it worth putting your soldiers' lives at risk? You will not be as strong as you could be if you took the weapon." Gray recalled the annoyed look Hiei gave him while asking a question that even the most stubborn Resistance leaders would probably buckle under.

He recalled his own excuse. "It's for the soldiers under my command that I do not replace the arm." Hiei did not understand. None of the Resistance Commanders understood Gray's reasoning. They respected the decision though, as much as they questioned it.

Gray looked at the ice arm he created now with a dark expression. He coated the ice in a thin layer of Haki to make it stronger too. A dark purplish-black glow coated the arm of ice, then spikes shot out of the icy skin to create a more dangerous weapon completely under Gray's control. Some of his comrades "realized" in that moment why their General had not taken a prosthetic, coming to false conclusions that Gray believed in his ability to make a stronger weapon than any the Resistance could have given him.

Gray knew that was not true though. A powerful prosthetic would have been nice. But no. I'll make do with this. Gray punched his new left fist into his open right palm, creating a magic circle of light-blue energy that spun around in front of him. "Ice Make: Frozen Soldiers!" Gray's energy flashed. The ground behind the ice wall he made covered in an ice sheet. His comrades just behind the wall stared to the sheet of ice and got confused for a second, before cracks broke apart all along the ice sheet, and muscular arms made entirely of ice shot up from under the surface. Armored ice knights of ten feet tall each dragged themselves up from beneath the ground. "They will be our vanguard. Use them as shields and push forwards!" Gray yelled out to his comrades on either side. Then he reached up to his communicator and added, "Another push! Move up for that fourth line! GO!"

Gray ran out from behind his cover, his ice soldiers following him as a vanguard for the living soldiers under his command. The sight of their General rushing in once more led the other Resistance members to charge right after him. He led from the front, (even if some of the other powerful tanks in his army were still rampaging ahead of them), and his men followed after their General who was not sending anyone else to take on the most dangerous roles. The fact that he was there at the head of their army convinced the others following him that he believed not all was lost. He was risking his life instead of theirs. He had the ability to order them into danger first, but he instead took the lead and potentially the enemy fire on himself.

I will put the lives of my comrades above all else. Gray rose his ice arm in front of him and blocked a beam of red light. The arm was powerful enough with its Haki coating that it only cracked instead of breaking apart, and he healed the crack by filling in more ice in the following instant. Chunks of his ice soldiers blew apart as they charged forward on either side of him with longer strides that they actually got ahead of the mage who created them in the first place. I can't run out of steam here, but I'll use as much magic power as I can and protect those behind me. There's no point in victory if we lose everyone who made it possible. Those who fought for it! We fight for what's right. We fight for life!

I will never let the Sith mess with my head again, Gray thought. Here he was in the Emperor's territory, and he was rushing at the same enemies who had defeated him last time. The Resistance may have chosen him because of how he defeated Darth Bane. Gray hardly considered that battle a victory though. In the end he may have killed Darth Bane instead of the other way around, but the lesson Gray took from that entire mission was how weak he was, not how strong. Kirito, Gray pictured his comrade who despised him now. You helped me save Juvia, and I nearly cut you down. The Sith pushed me, but it was my own fault, my own weakness. I can't let myself forget that. So I deny a new arm- in normal circumstances.

But I won't let that prevent me from having two arms to fight with. In combat, I will have two. Gray pulled his elbows down to his sides as more of his ice warriors blew apart around him. And more… Two extra ice arms ripped out of Gray's sides when he snapped his arms back out. Just under his armpits, two more arms extended out of him and created swords in their hands that he slashed with the ones in his upper hands. "This is a new style I've been training for a while," Gray began with a smile raising in a confident way. His swords coated in purplish-black energy again as his willpower strengthened even more, and he slashed apart enemy attacks flying his way by slashing all four swords at the same time.

I owe this to you, Ben. Fighting alongside you in an Underworld base months ago, I got this crazy idea in my head. "Ice Make:" Gray yelled. "Fourarms!" He slammed his muscular icy arms out to the sides along with his one real one for his upper right. And I guess I owe it to you too, Zoro, "Yontoryuu Style!" The mage shot forward at a pair of Sith charging at him.

The men rushing at Gray looked to be a pair of twins. One was in a black robe and the other white. They were bald brothers who wielded similar yellow lightsabers. Thexan may have been struck down by his brother in their past life, but he forgave his brother nonetheless. Arcann was revived on this world at a similar age as his brother had died at too. Even though Arcann lived much longer than his brother, the two looked the same age on the battlefield. They curved from rushing straight at Gray to instead sprint at him from either side, attacking his flanks and slashing their lightsabers at the mage who attempted to block at first with his swords and icy arms coated in Haki.

"Damn lightsabers," Gray muttered after the blades dug through the ice and slashed his upper parrying blades in half. Luckily his blades at least slowed the enemy lightsabers, and his Haki stopped them for a second too. He had two extra arms that slashed underneath the weapons and hit either Sith Lord in the gut and sent them flying back away from him. Both men created Force-barriers around their stomachs as the ice blades were about to hit, blunting the force of the blows rather than letting them act as slashing attacks.

Thexan hit the ground and rolled for several meters before flipping up onto his feet. The Sith in black kept skidding away for another second on his soles before stopping himself with a pulse of Force behind him for a short stop. "What power," Thexan admitted. The strength from just one of Gray's hits had sent him flying through the air a good distance away from the mage. He slashed his lightsaber while standing back up and cut down one of Gray's icy knights, then he slashed again and parried away a yellow beam from a turret aimed straight at him. The turret beam flew back at the forcefield it came out of, and the whole barrier shook violently, scaring the smirking clone inside it who fell off his seat after thinking for a second he might be about to take out a Sith himself.

Thexan ran back at Gray while Arcann started to on Gray's other side. Arcann stopped though and then leapt backwards towards the fourth line of defenses. He landed behind the charging front lines of Sith Troopers and Super Battle Droids that fell into the huge hole opening up in the middle of the field where he had almost sprinted on top of.

Taizo Hori ripped through the surface with his digging pump in hand. A dozen Resistance soldiers rushed out and fired on the surprised droids and Imperial forces ahead of them. They threw grenades and launched a heavy attack on the troopers that only took a few seconds to fire back on the Resistance force suddenly appearing among them. "Nice work," Gray called over his shoulder to Taizo who he had ordered to carry out this digging maneuver. "But get back down there and keep going all the way to the fourth line!"

"I won't let you!" Arcann yelled. He landed and shot forward in a burst of speed, Force-Sprinting past enemies and charging at the member of Kappa Squad. He slashed side to side as he raced at Hori, cutting down three of Taizo's men before even reaching the Resistance member who was now too pissed-off to focus on the overall mission.

"Kabu! Help them," Leo ordered his comrade who swerved away to go assist Taizo's squad. That squad rapidly got overwhelmed by Arcann and the troops they just ambushed who more quickly composed themselves than the Resistance were hoping they would. Leo kept running ahead with a few more from his Tonta Corps who managed to stay this far up with him. "We'll be the first ones through the next line. Let's take it over!"

"Well actually, Captain…"

Leo looked over to his left past several Sith dropships he was about to sprint by. He got a serious and competitive look on his face under his green hat at the sight of a group of five space marines in strong body armor just about to reach the forcefield too. Leo had seen them in every trench so far today. "They think they can keep up, do they?" Leo wondered. A smirk spread over his face.

Cleo and Carolina glared out the right corners of their helmets over towards the tiny people their AI supports kept them informed about. "It's not a competition, girls," Mayan reminded the mother-daughter combo. He sweatdropped as Cleo and Carolina sprinted through the barrier and unloaded on Imperial forces inside, yelling very coordinated attack plans back and forth at each other. The idea of losing to the Tontatta had apparently gotten them to focus on being as efficient as possible, and the man in gold-colored spartan armor just shrugged after a second of watching them combo enemies in spectacular fashion.

Carolina's not usually one to fight side by side with Tex, Tucker thought while still catching up to the faster members of their team. But guess her competitive streak against her Mom… or her Mom's AI, replacement, ghost- does help once in a while.

"Why are you slowing down, Sangheili? Tired already?" Elfo asked sarcastically of the space marine he was fighting alongside.

A tick mark the size of an apple popped on Tucker's forehead. He reached up and grabbed the elf on his shoulders who had demanded a "piggyback ride" because his "legs were tired." Tucker threw Elfo off of him before reigniting his energy sword and charging through the fourth line's energy shield after his team leaders.

"Oof- Hey!" Elfo yelled after the man after landing on his butt. Lasers flew over his head and Elfo ducked for cover. "Ahhh!" He ran for the barrier in front of him, narrowly avoiding more blaster shots from Sith Troopers they had sprinted past in the first place. They ignored those troops in order to take the fourth line and pincer their enemies between Resistance forces who would control all the fortified ground positions.

"Haha! Missed me!" Elfo pulled his pants down and mooned the enemies out the front of the forcefield. He smacked his butt a few times while the space marines fought in close-quarters combat around him against the Sith's Dark Troopers and Commando Droids. Elfo looked between his legs while mooning the enemy forces, and he stepped away nervously as he saw them turning around and pointing back at the forcefield they were in. "Uhh, guys. Oh-" When Elfo looked up, he saw more Sith transports landing on the other side of the fourth line and lowering their ramps with dozens of enemies funneling out. Another two Sith dropships were hovering over their shield while his comrades were still fighting the enemies stationed inside it. He watched as heavily-armored Imperial warriors descended with jetpacks into the dome of blue energy surrounding them. Elfo gulped and lifted back up his small bloody sword. "This isn't looking good!"

"Gar Saxon!" Haldir yelled in rage at a Mandalorian super commando leading a force of their armored foes at his Elven brigade. "You dare come here after what you did?" Haldir slashed his own bloody greatsword to his right side. He was a very strong elf and held up the heavy weapon horizontally to his body without his arm shaking in the least. "The streets of Rivendell will run red with Mandalorian blood!"

"They're still red from the elf blood we never cleaned up," Saxon mocked back at his enemy, before firing a wrist rocket at Haldir's feet.

Two other elves sprinted up on Haldir's sides and rose their hands up. Yellow magic circles created protection spells that blocked the explosion, and then Haldir ran through the smoke with sword raised. "HAAA!" Thirty other elves charged out of the smoke behind their commander. Gar Saxon leaned back but pointed his own hand forward and ordered ahead the squad of Mandalorians under his own command.

Saxon ignited his jetpack and flew into the air before firing down on the enemy's rear guards. He glanced back up into the sky after a second of watching the elves masterfully battle against his troopers. "Where are you…" he started wondering, confused as to why Pre Visla and his elite squad of the Death Watch had never joined them down on the battlefield. As he looked up, he took his eyes off of one woman with long white hair who had ducked down behind the smokescreen but popped up after her enemy turned away.

Satella pulled back her bow string and fired a triple-shot of light arrows. Two of them knocked Gar Saxon back while breaking apart on his Beskar steel armor. The third slashed through his jetpack though, making the Mandalorian who was dodging upwards higher into the sky, plummet back for the earth. The sight of Gar Saxon falling eighty feet to a harsh collision with the dirt scared some of his soldiers, and the elves capitalized on that to push through the enemies with fierce retaliation.

"The elves are breaking through! Push into the bulge!" a clone commander yelled out for his comrades. He waved his arm in his suit of white armor and sent forward a squadron of troopers behind the elven lines.

The Resistance forces were not the only ones to notice the weak point on the line breaking down though. "Queen Azhara. Go plug the gap," Thrawn commanded one of their loyal Lords.

"On me!" Azshara's two-headed Chimaera flying mount cut a sharp angle and dove from the sky full of Sith fighter jets. Seven other mounted enemies on Chimaeras or Hippogryphs dove out of the sky towards the elves that snapped their heads up and then cut short and pulled back themselves. Azshara rose her upper two arms. The blue-skinned naga Queen looked fearsome with spheres of purple light igniting over her top two palms and glowed brightly like her purple eyes. "Ack- shama- HAZAM!" She swung her hands down and fired blasts of light like artillery that ripped apart the surface around her enemies.

"Shields!" Haldir shouted.

Three blue bubbles of light pulsed out above the elves and protected them. "Azshara," a voice hissed behind Haldir. He turned to his left and looked back to see two of their more powerful warriors running forward.

Vereesa and Alleria Windrunner pulled back on their bows and fired arrows of energy out of the bubble shields at the landing enemy fighters. The elven rangers who knew this enemy screamed out warcries at her, and Haldir looked off to his right as he heard a similar roar of fury from a night elf on his right flank. Malfurion Stormrage marched forward. He had tall stag antlers over the top of his purple head covered in bright green hair, and he had a huge pair of white feathery wings that snapped out to either side behind his back. "Witch! You will pay for your crimes!"

"Will you kill your brethren to make me pay?" Azshara wondered to the elves, high elves, blood elves, and night elves that all charged towards her in fury. Those others who landed beside her leapt off their mounts and attacked. Some leapt right in the way of arrows firing at Queen Azshara and were struck down. She just laughed and mocked her enemies who flinched and hesitated at the sight of the corrupted elves fighting them. "They are your kin!"

"You monster."

"You… you WITCH BITCH!"

"I am sorry if you are still in there, but we will free you from the coils of her mind slavery! By ending you now!"

Alleria bowed her head for a moment but then spoke in a loud and low voice, "They may have been corrupted by dark magic, but they stayed behind with her in the first place. How sad, to become her mindless slaves-"

"They are my pureblood warriors," Azshara countered while raising her staff with her lower two arms. The staff flashed red, and each of her warriors bulked up with swirling auras of power surrounding them. "Who will help me cleanse the world of all the impure species," she sneered and glared towards the clones in such disdain. "And those of our own species who refuse our calling," she added, turning back to the elves that she was once a member of. She had once ruled them on her world, long before she became the being that she was now.

Haldir cursed to himself but pulled back and drew his bow to keep firing at the enemies who were incredibly powerful and stopped their momentary advance. Some of the Mandalorians even fell back and started giving covering fire behind this group of corrupted elves preventing them from getting to Rivendell. "You are our disgrace," Haldir spoke down on her.

"Our failure," Vereesa hissed. The blonde-haired elven ranger drew her bow farther and farther back, creating three, then five, then ten arrows of bright golden light magic on the bowstring.

Alleria slashed down one of the corrupted elves she recognized and knew had stayed behind with Azshara in the first place. Then she marched towards the disgraced Queen and growled in a furious tone, "We allowed you to ally with Rivendell because of the foolish desire to have all elves ally together on Nexus for our survival. We ignored your crimes, thinking in your new life perhaps you had gained perspective. We gave you haven! All of that… so you could trick us." In a deeply regretful tone Alleria seethed through her teeth, "We handed you the access that you used to sneak the Sith past our defenses."

"Elrond," Haldir whispered the name of their fallen King. He slung his bow back over his shoulder. Haldir drew out his sword again and held it vertically in front of his chest with the blade up past his face with his eyes closed. The steel started to glow blue as Haldir funneled the magic power he had trained into it. The elven commander had kept the power in reserve but used it now for this fight. He turned his weapon sideways so the blade was perpendicular to his face, and he slashed it down then charged forward at the head of a force of elves who wanted vengeance on the traitorous Queen. "You will pay!"

A Sith transport ship descended into the center of the battlefield behind the Sith's front lines with its back to the Resistance forces. Its shields were too strong that none of the attempts of Resistance members firing from turrets in the taken third trench could damage it. CLANK! Resistance members charging at the enemy line turned towards the transport that just shook violently side to side. CLANK CLANK! Dents popped out of the sides of the vehicle. It looked like something was slamming into the inside of the hull…

Ck-CHHH! The back doors to the transport flew open and a monster charged out at the soldiers who froze in fear for a second at the sight of it. Níðhöggr sprinted out on four legs. A giant lizard-dragon with jaws full of sharp teeth and fangs that gave it an overbite and underbite screeched at the enemies in front of it. There was a cloaked figure sitting on its back, but everyone was much more focused on the monster that slashed a claw and cut through two clonetroopers too slow to dodge backwards.

"Shoot that thing!" Fives yelled out. He rose his huge heavy machine gun and unloaded on it, only to drop his jaw as the Níðhöggr opened a swirling white and purple void-portal in front of its head. The monster sprinted into that portal and vanished, then appeared behind its enemies that all spun and kept firing or dove for cover.

"The Níðhöggr is fighting for the Sith?" Tiplar exclaimed. She recognized the beast that was more a force of nature than a villainous monster to be used as a weapon.

Jedi Master Yaddle spotted the villain on its back though. She stared closer and recognized the Sith from the holocrons of the Jedi Temple. "The Dark Lord, Naga Shadow," Yaddle reported to her comrades. "Especially proficient in his Mind Tricks. I will take him myself."

"Come on then!" Sagara Sousuke yelled out at the Níðhöggr that spun from the clones it was slaughtering and looked to the mech that sped in out of nowhere. Sousuke leapt up in the air as the monster slashed at his mech suit's legs, and the Arbalest was too agile for even the powerful beast under the Sith's mind control. Naga Shadow extended his lightsaber though. The Sith from the planet of Ziost slashed up at Sousuke's cockpit while the young man inside fired his huge mech rifle down at the top of the Níðhöggr lizard beast and its Sith rider. CHH!

A green lightsaber collided with the red one of Naga Shadow. It deflected his slash and made the Sith Lord spin and glare towards the tiny green creature sprinting towards him. Naga Shadow did not recognize this Jedi who had been born long after his time, but he recognized Yaddle's race as one of the most Force-sensitive in their galaxy. He spun and leapt off the Níðhöggr to close the distance between him and the woman who Force-Pulled her lightsaber back to her hands after throwing it in the Sith's way.

Sousuke landed and fired at the Níðhöggr again, and his shots all went into a giant portal that opened between him and the beast of Norse legend. The monster leapt over its own portal and dove at Sousuke who had to roll out of the way on his metal feet. The Arbalest's kneecaps popped open and fired out jet flames to send him speeding back even faster. Got to keep it distracted, Sousuke thought. He could not damage the Níðhöggr from what he could tell, but he had seen how many of his comrades the beast took down before he got in the way. If the Sith could take control of it with their Mind Tricks, maybe the Jedi can do the same. Hopefully she wins that fight. He darted a look over to the lightsaber duel that started behind the Níðhöggr.

The teenager almost got too distracted from the sight of Yaddle bouncing around and flipping on midair as she slashed back and forth at the Sith Lord. Naga Shadow was keeping up even with the crazy acrobatics of the tiny green figure bouncing around him. Win, Master Yaddle! Sousuke looked back at the monster he was avoiding attacks from while drawing it back towards the Sith lines. Naga Shadow was not giving it orders any longer, so the beast was on its last directive and did not seem to care that they smashed through a whole line of Super Battle Droids and straight into the Stormtroopers behind them.

Sousuke grinned as he saw the damage he was doing to the enemy forces just by distracting the Níðhöggr. Then his eyes grew wide as he saw a tiny green figure in a brown Jedi cloak land on top of the Níðhöggr's head. He spun back towards where he thought he just saw Yaddle fighting Naga Shadow, only to see two other Jedi in her place. That allowed the older Jedi Master to take off after Sousuke and the beast. She landed on its head and put both of her own hands down on its skull after retracting her lightsaber, instead of just stabbing the weapon into the beast's brain.

"You are free now," Yaddle whispered with her eyes closed.

The shadow of the Dark Side of the Force that she could feel influencing the creature faded away. Its eyes lost their cloudy look, and the Níðhöggr shook its head around rapidly as if its bond had been freed and it was confused at what was going on. Suddenly it snapped its head up and looked around in a rage while Yaddle backflipped off of it and landed on Sousuke's Arbalest's right shoulder. They each stared ahead for a moment wondering what Níðhöggr would do. It stared back at them and seemed to calm down when it met Yaddle's gaze. Then it just opened up a portal and vanished into it, leaving the battlefield for good.

Naga Shadow glared over towards where his beast just abandoned him. "She broke my hold?" He wondered, sounding half-annoyed and half-impressed. He turned back and rose his lightsaber, blocking the blue and green one that slashed down at him simultaneously. "Did you think you had the advantage?" Naga Shadow wondered. A mist surrounded them. Four more Naga Shadows split out from the Sith Lord's body, and it went from a 2-on-1 to a 5-on-2 in a second.

"Do not be fooled!" Ahsoka yelled while running forward to join her allies. "He is creating illusions in the Force!" She leapt forward and slashed down at one of the "illusions," but that illusion was at least powerful enough that it managed to block her slash. They each had physical form. Ahsoka slashed her other lightsaber below where they were clashing, but this Naga Shadow twisted out of the way and dodged her attack.

All these Sith Lords were the most powerful from their times. How many Jedi can this one take on at the same time?! Ahsoka got frustrated as she watched one of her comrades fall, and yet Naga Shadow's illusions only seemed to get stronger with more of these phantom enemies forming all over the place. Ahsoka grinned though as a green blur flew out of the sky behind those illusions, and Master Yaddle slammed her right hand forward with a Force Push that blew away several of the illusions. "Master!" Ahsoka called out gratefully.

"Do not lose heart! Attack," Yaddle slashed through a Naga Shadow. He was not as good at parrying against her when it was not the full main body like she already faced earlier.

"Naga Shadow let the Níðhöggr get away," Tarkin muttered. He watched on his many screens covering the flagship's windshield the Jedi continuing to advance despite the forces they were sending down.

"…Spread out and continue firing on the positions. Admiral Sloane, pull your Destroyer back before it is lost. Fall back for repairs…"

Tarkin overheard Thrawn's orders behind him as he stood watching one of the screens off to the starboard side of their bridge. He ground his teeth as he heard another of their Star Destroyers sounding like it got too badly damaged to keep going. He crossed his arms and started tapping his right hand's fingers on his left bicep impatiently. His amusement was starting to decrease along with his overconfidence. Frustration grew in the Grand Moff at the slow speed of their forces' counterattack.

"Give me more progress," he demanded of his forces on the surface. He looked into a monitor and watched as one of the Imperial officers who started responding to him got cut off by an explosion, and he watched the man get blown away before the screen cut completely. Tarkin sighed and stopped tapping his fingers. "Fine then," he relented.

Tarkin turned towards one of the crew here on the bridge. "Get the Emperor on the line."

The Imperial officer stared back in fear at Tarkin for that order. He gulped but nodded slowly back at Tarkin before running to get the line open. Tarkin looked back at the screens and shook his head. It is time to show them our full might.

Sousuke stood at the front of Resistance forces battling against Sith and their armies. He had both of his Arbalest's white arms raised with openings all over them firing tiny missiles across the enemy ranks. "HAAA! HA HA- RAAaararararaa!" Sousuke dragged his weapons along the enemy lines and unloaded along them while his mech suit absorbed shots fired back into him- whatever shots were not redirected and missed completely thanks to his ECS. Tessa, Sousuke thought, imagining a girl with short white hair who had continued to lead him for a long time on this world before she died in action. Commander McAllen, he imagined another comrade who he had seen fall on two worlds now.

And then he saw another face. Chidori, Sousuke imagined her. He thought of how she looked the other day when he glanced back one more time at Resistance HQ. Her hands were together in front of her chest as she prayed for his safety with her eyes closed, so she did not see him look back at her face. I will protect her!

A shot got through his shields and made Sousuke stumble backwards. He darted his gaze to the right and saw smoke coming out over his right shoulder, and his mech's invisible paint job flickered a bit when he tried to turn it back on to move out of that position. The cloaking system failed, and the ECS failed with it. The Electronic Control System's failure made it so enemies trying to lock on to him suddenly found it possible to do so.

"Back up, Sousuke!" Ominae yelled out.

Just as Sousuke got worried that he was about to get destroyed, three other mechs flew over his head and slammed down into the enemy ranks about to unload on him. "We got your back, bud," Kurz reassured his pal.

Melissa and Belfangan fired off to either flank while Kurz sped straight ahead. Ominae Yu grinned after looking over his shoulder. He spotted his fellow Special Operatives running to join the front lines too. He turned his head and glared off towards a bald-headed enemy with a long red lightsaber. Yu pointed towards the Sith Lord. Darth Malgus pointed at himself skeptically before narrowing his eyes at the young human's arrogance.

"Come." Malgus spoke in a normal tone, but his voice crossed the battlefield and sounded like ice to Yu's ears. The nineteen year old just smirked back at the Sith and reloaded his pistols, before sprinting towards the enemy and throwing caution to the wind.

"Memory Make: A Night of Falling Stars!"

All over the battlefield, Resistance and Imperials spun towards a man in a red minstrel's outfit who flashed brightly with golden magic. Rufus Lore pointed ahead to the west, and fifty bright golden beams of light soared up into the air off his glowing body before curving and arcing down towards the enemy lines. Some of those beams slashed through Tie Fighters, while others blew craters in the midst of enemy forces' lines, and others just crashed into shield generators on the fourth line that Rufus tried to break through.

Those shields flashed brightly to show he could not get through. So Rufus sprinted forward and leapt in the air. The mage of Sabertooth passed a broken ice glacier that still had a Sith Lord trapped inside it. Rufus chuckled to himself as he soared past Darth Revan who was defeated inside the ice geyser. It was the same move that Gray Fullbuster finished him off with years ago at the Grand Magic Games.

The member of Iota Squad landed and placed both palms into the ground. "Memory Make:" he repeated the start of his magic, magic that allowed him to replicate other magic he had seen in the past. "Karma of the Ruptured Land!" The ground under his hands broke apart. It shattered in a line out from his palms towards the shield generator past several lines of Sith forces. Those forces dove to the sides and ran for cover as the earthquake split apart the land into a massive fissure. The land shattered right past the edge of the enemy fourth trench, and it destabilized the ground that the shield generator he targeted was on. The generator fell to the side and broke in half, and the shields went down to cheers from the Resistance behind him.

"Rufus," Gray said in a low and grateful voice that he brought the Sabertooth mage along. Rufus glanced back his way for a second as if hearing his General say his name. Rufus just nodded and tipped his red hat with a feather in it to the Fairy Tail mage.

Gray had told him about Sabertooth over in Rhodar on Awul after they met up in Resistance HQ last week. Rufus refused to leave the war effort though, and he requested to come along with Gray on the mission into the Emperor's territory. Sting, Rogue, Lady Minerva, I'll come find all of you when this is over. Rufus thought. He smiled brightly back at the enemy forces he was about to go smash through. I can't go back now to visit, because you'd all want to come here to fight with me. We'll reunite one day in safer times.

"General," Leonardo spoke into his headset connected to Gray's from back at the infirmary where he had set up a temporary station. "It's Admiral Thrawn. He's up there on that command ship. I intercepted one of his communication relays. He knows it's you too."

Thrawn knows it's me? Gray wondered. He slashed his ice sword through another Commando Droid then leapt backwards and created another ice wall, waving behind him for more of his troops to move forward. Beams shot down at their heads from the sky above, but Fubuki blocked and protected them again. Gray stared past those frozen beams that Fubuki had yet to redirect. He stared at the bottom of a Star Destroyer in the ranks that he perceived to be the enemy's command ship, though it was not the size they knew Darth Sidious' Super Star Destroyer to be. That one's still missing. But Thrawn is here. A mastermind of Sith strategy.

He's outmaneuvered us so far, but we're more tenacious than you know, Gray thought. Except, he fought against the Rebels in his own universe. He knows not to underestimate a weaker force. Damn it. How much more strength do they still have in reserves too?

"Teru, target their command ship," Gray ordered. I have to take the risk. Breaking their command structure could give us our shot.

"Already on it," Hanazawa Teru reported back. He had figured out who was on that main ship after busting through the bridge of the one currently falling behind him. The esper's focus locked on the Star Destroyer he targeted for its command structure. He spoke more to himself after responding to Gray, "The enemy bosses are straight ahead. It's almost too easy." He said it and smirked, but he hesitated as he stared at the vessel ahead of him that an ominous sensation emitted from. "I have a bad feeling about this," he muttered under his breath.

Thrawn had a stoic look on his face but the right corner of his lips curled up slightly. I wondered how Fullbuster would react. How does he expect to move forward after seeing how large this fleet is? "You have to admire his tenacity," Thrawn commented on the brash Resistance General down below. "Though I am surprised a man like this managed to defeat Darth Bane."

"The Resistance are still advancing, if slowly," Tarkin remarked in frustration, continuing to tap his fingers on his biceps with both arms crossed. "Why is this taking so long?"

"Perhaps our next move will hurry it up," Thrawn suggested.

Tarkin thought he was referring to the secret weapon he just sent for the Emperor's approval to use. He saw Thrawn's attention elsewhere and looked to their screens to see the illumination of activated weapons' systems far from the front line. These shots of bright light came from their side this time unlike the Resistance's MPC.

The Resistance lifted their gazes and gawked as the western horizon behind the fourth line of defenses illuminated. "GUARD!" Gray screamed while making an ice shield over his head.

Melissa turned and sped to her right, but she screamed out to her left, "Kurz!" She saw an artillery blast hit her comrade in the center of his mech suit, and their team stared in horror at the sight of the explosion that engulfed his Arm Slave.

Jean stared towards the exploding mech that he had ejected from earlier. He yelled his partner's name while Sousuke called out for his friend too, but no response came.

BOOOOM! Bam bam BOOM! BAM! BOOO-CHHHchhh!

Artillery blasted all along the lines on pre-marked positions. Distant lands farther west than the Resistance could even see had fired upon them. Even as several of the Star Destroyers had started falling or pulling back, or at least moving a safer distance from the battlefield, this new volley of artillery was not even something the Resistance could target back in response. "Long-range artillery systems," Watch reported to Gray, confirming the General's fears and suspicions.

How do I counter that? We don't have counter-batteries. If we still had any air support I could've tried sending a scouting party ahead. We don't even know about that line of defense! Would it have been in our way between us and Rivendell even if we break through here? How far is it shooting from? I don't know! Thrawn is ten steps ahead of me. They put an inexperienced mage in charge of an invading army! I'm not ready for this. The ice shield he had created above him and some comrades started to crack apart as artillery blasts slammed into them. And now the MPC isn't ready to fire. I don't think we can do this!

"Grand Inquisitor," Thrawn ordered after watching the chaos unfold down on the battlefield. "Descend with the second wave," Thrawn finished. In the midst of the most destructive bombardment thus far, Thrawn sent in the powerful force to overwhelm his foes.

"Understood, Admiral."

The second wave of Sith Lords and the Inquisitors that joined them flew down in their ships under the cover of the artillery barrage. They did not descend on the very front lines though, but straight towards the third trench. They descended behind the best Resistance fighters and onto the most fortified positions of the Resistance forces on the battlefield.

"They're trying to pincer us!" Instead of closing in the Sith forces between the third and fourth lines as it looked like the Resistance might be able to for a minute, these enemies started to do the same thing to them.

"Fire on those ships!"

"CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!"

"AHHHHH!"

Leonardo Watch was not the only one to intercept his enemy's communications. On Thrawn's flagship, Felix chuckled at the sounds of all the screaming coming from the hacked enemy communications' lines. The mercenary in gray and orange armor turned and nodded back towards Thrawn to let the boss know that he got his job done.

"Much appreciated," Thrawn told the merc who was a proficient killer but also technologically savvy.

Felix meant even more for the top Imperial personnel around them though. He had offered his skills to the Sith as a fellow space warrior himself who had no love for the Resistance. But it was the vital information he had on Gray whose guild of mages he fought back on Awul that they really cared about. The former Underworld member thought back on his escape from that continent, I got to thank the Joker and those Underlords freeing me in that prisoner "swap" with Vegapunk. I saw what they did to those Marines they captured though. I'm pretty fucked up, but I wasn't about to stick around with those maniacs.

The pay is better here too, Felix thought with a grin as he imagined how much the Emperor was paying him for his service.

Unlike a few of the more deranged High Lords, the Emperor had allowed most cities and Lords to switch sides to join him after he pushed back the Resistance. Those regions, those wealthy ports that traded with the rest of Aebrith, they did more than supply manpower for holding off invasions. Every one of them paid tribute to the Sith. That tribute was paying for Felix's experience, and that was paying off for them now.

CRSshhh! The Star Destroyer hangar full of Mandalorians and Resistance fighters shook from the destruction of the ship's engines. Teru smirked while flying past the starship on his way to the command vessel, not realizing that the one he just disabled already had a group of his comrades inside it.

Pre Visla stumbled out of the crashed dropship in the hangar that he had to go grab another jetpack from inside of. "With me, Death Watch!" Pre Visla yelled out. The ship was diving, and he turned away from Qui-Gon Jinn who he saw glare back in his direction after taking out two Death Watch members Visla left behind to distract him.

"We won't let- whoa!" The shouting clone fell over. The ship turned to one side as it dropped, more explosions going off in the fuel cells behind the crushed engines that Hanazawa took out. The starship had been firing heavily down on the battlefield to make up for the loss in fire from some of the other damaged and fleeing vessels, leaving its shields on low power. As the Star Destroyer went down, red lights flashed and sirens blared across the ship.

"Jo!"

"Everyone evacuate!" Jo yelled out, opening up a purple portal for the surviving team members to escape through.

Jo swung another hand up towards the hangar bay's flashing blue forcefield that turned off as power drained from its systems. The Mandalorians twisted around to dodge the portal the girl created in front of them though. She tried catching one or two before escaping, but all managed to evade her attempt. "Let's go," Jakku told the girl who cursed at her failure, and he pulled her through the portal with him before the ship could start exploding with them inside.

Infilitration Team 1 evacuated back to the surface with half the members they teleported up onto the ship with. They looked up towards the vessel that they fled from which was diving towards the surface. Escape pods launched out the sides of it, while Mandalorians jetpacked down to join the army below who were running from where the crash zone would be.

Two blue-skinned figures who just arrived were standing on top of the Star Destroyer. They leapt high off of the falling ship and angled themselves towards a group of Resistance fighters down below. "Get them, brother. The more of them we kill…"

"The higher our pay will be," the other of the Mauler Twins finished for his brother. The two of them rose of their fists and then slammed down on the ground in unison in the middle of a group of elves and clones. Felix was not the only mercenary called on by the Sith, though these two were of a different breed.

"Those two went on ahead already?" Fennec wondered in a distasteful tone as she watched the hologram on their ship, the Slave III.

"The Rogue wanted us fighting together," Boba Fett replied to his co-pilot. His voice came out robotic through the helmet he wore that looked similar to the other Mandalorians who he did not fight alongside.

"I don't think he ever thought that was going to work. It was more of a… suggestion," Rocket offered up.

"I am Groot," Groot agreed.

The fifth member of their team in the cockpit of the Slave 3 jumped up from his seat. "If they're going in, I'm heading out too. Here I go killing again!" Krombopulos Michael backflipped over his seat while drawing a pair of submachine guns from his gun belt. He dropped down a hole into the hold and hit a button on his way down. He crossed his arms to slide down the tube straight to the opening bay doors, then he flipped around to dive out of the ship with his wingsuit opening up under his armpits to give him better control of his fall. He angled himself towards a line of enemies with huge animal creatures around them.

"Steelix, use Fissure!" Brock saw how Rufus destroyed the shield generator of the fourth trench. His massive steel Pokémon slammed its tail down on the ground and split the surface straight underneath the fourth line. Two different generators started falling into cracks that opened up beneath them from Steelix's attack. The turret fire from the third line controlled by the Resistance started connecting with fortified Imperial positions Brock opened up.

Brock fist-pumped, then he snapped his head up and crossed his arms in fear at the sight of the Gromflomite assassin diving towards him. Steelix moved to the side and got in the way of the rapid-fire beams that Krombopulos shot at its trainer. When the huge steel snake tried to Headbutt the assassin though, Michael twisted around in midair to avoid the blow. He aimed towards Brock and fired at the young man who ran from the attack.

Pink beams firing from the assassin's weapon at the leader of the Poké Squad hit the ground far on either side of Brock. The trainer spun and smiled up at his purple friend, "Great work, Crobat!"

The confused assassin did not understand why he was missing even with his masterful aim. Crobat had used Confuse Ray on him though, and he botched his landing into a somersault when he hit the ground, face-planting instead.

"That idiot's going to get rolled," Rocket joked while watching the ensuing fight below. He had stopped firing his own weapons systems at the third trench line below, and their ship hovered amongst the speeding Tie Fighters that continued to unload down on the enemies. The raccoon bounty hunter even laughed as he watched Krombopulos get hit by the tail of that giant Steelix.

"Where are the rest of the Rogue's fighters?" The Grand Inquisitor demanded to know from the muscular blue monsters fighting the Resistance inside the third trench forcefield that they just took over with a focused assault.

"Fuck should we know?" one Mauler replied.

"Not our business what they do," the other retorted at the albino-skinned man who clenched his red lightsaber tighter in anger at the lack of mercenary support.

Luckily for the Sith, the Rogue's men were not their only allies arriving on the scene. Flying ships started soaring in from other parts of Sith territory. Not all of them arrived in Star Destroyers. Many came in smaller frigates and cruisers that sped into the fray out of near-warp speeds but still visible on their approach unlike emerging from Jump. Other Moffs of the Empire sent their forces to assist the Grand Moff who had called in the standby troops.

Those forces the other Moffs, or governors, sent in to the battle consisted mostly of more robots that they felt were the most easily-replacable troops. Many Battle Droids and Super Battle Droids were lowered down in tractor beams at the fourth line of trenches that the Sith still mostly controlled. Some of those forcefields on the fourth trench had been taken over and others had been taken out, but the same could be said about the third trench where a few Sith had taken back positions as well. The battlefield was turning into a mess with both sides mixed in across the third-fourth trenches. Though beneficially for the Resistance, the Arm Slave and Special Op squad had consolidated control of the earlier lines.

Internal reinforcements for the Sith arrived en-masse with the simultaneous arrival of an enemy Gray looked north towards in shock for a moment that made him bite down in frustration. He was still near the midpoint of the two main battle lines- in between the trenches. Those enemies coming his way did not bother going towards one line of forcefields or the other. They flew straight towards him. And while he wished for a moment that these were new advanced Commando Droids, or even IG-100 Magnaguards like he saw lowering into a Sith-controlled position on the fourth trench, he could see that these robots were different.

"Terminators! Any air support focus on taking them out before they reach us," Gray ordered his fighters above. He glanced up though only to have to create an ice dome a second later to protect him and his nearby comrades. A strafe by enemy fighter jets fired just too late that the icy shielding protected Gray and his men.

Gray ordered ships that just were not there. The sky belonged to the Sith, and other than Teru's one-man-army work on the enemy Star Destroyers, they had practically nothing left up there. Gray spun to his right to look north at the approaching army of over a hundred Terminators flying his way with jets pushing flames out the soles of their feet. Then he glanced up through his cracking ice dome at the Sith-controlled sky above. Then he looked down and towards the fourth trench where those IG-100 Magnaguards emerged holding their long double-sided electrified staffs.

One unique Magnaguard emerged at the front of that line. Its body was pure white and had two extra arms compared to the other robots behind it. "An IG-200," Leonardo Watch's voice reported in Gray's ear. "We didn't know any were operational. The prototype was nicknamed the Mini-Grievous," he added, right before that robot pulled four lightsabers out from under its gray cloak. Each of those red lightsabers turned on, as Watch finished, "And it is programmed in Sith combat."

From all four of the lightsabers that already turned on, another red blade extended from the bottoms of them, showing that each of the four lightsabers being held was a double-sided one. The Mini-Grievous slashed them around in unpredictable patterns while sliding its metallic three-pronged feet in a circle on the ground, bending its legs, and then lunging to start a sprint across the field towards the scared Resistance fighters facing it.

The longer the fight is stuck here, the more enemies are going to convene on this position. Gray understood that he could not stay here. He already called in his reinforcements. Zapp was up ahead of him fighting with his team against a group of Odionate soldiers of an ancient Sith's time. "Teru. I need you to take out Thrawn's ship. Speed it up. It's our only chance."

"You have no chance, General Fullbuster," Admiral Thrawn's voice cut into Gray's earpiece. His voice echoed throughout the battlefield in the ears of the Resistance soldiers. The hacked communications lines gave Thrawn access to his enemies' headsets. "You will all die here on this battlefield. Your heroic attempts, amounting to nothing."

"We need the fourth line!" Carolina yelled out over her shoulder for the rest of her squad. "Come on!"

Tucker continued wrapping up Roman's leg behind the sparking shield generator that he hoped would hold despite the collateral damage done to it during their last fight. The bleeding freelancer on their squad nodded thanks at him but was wheezing too hard to say the word.

"I'm with you, C," Mayan told her as he jogged up to Carolina's side. Cleo had gone the other way with Mongol a minute ago, though based on the sounds of explosions coming from behind them, they had yet to clear out that entire forcefield either.

Gray's forces continued fighting as hard as they could. He could see some of his best fighters at the fourth line he sent them to. Others, like Ahsoka Tano, had turned around to go support those back on the third line who some Sith Lords had gotten to and were cutting down now. Death Watch descended to the battlefield to join the fray at the same time the Terminators were arriving and a Star Destroyer was crashing into the surface. A glance towards the enemy flagship showed him that Teru had yet to complete that objective, but he had to hold onto hope that the boy could manage. With Fubuki exhausted and struggling to hold back any more aerial bombardments, Gray understood that Teru was his best chance here. Take out their command ship, and the whole enemy force should falter. Do it, Teru!

The ground under Gray and most of the surrounding battlefield shook violently. Some thought it was the starship crashing down to Nexus. Others heard the shout that preceded it though of, "Fissure again, Steelix!" A young man with thin slits for eyes and dark skin lifted up a hand and caught the bottom left foot of the huge prehistoric Pokémon diving towards him. "And add Earthquake, Golem!" Brock yelled while Aerodactyl lifted him away from the firing Stormtroopers who fired towards the trainer. They came close, but the evasion with his trusted flying type mixed with the shaking earth from his rock types kept him out of harm's way.

Another malfunctioning generator went down. Brock's team of Pokémon alone had taken down four now, and a whole section of the defensive line for the Sith was now getting pummeled by Resistance turret fire. New orders relayed into a squadron of Tie Fighters that swerved back around from the southern cliffs and shot towards the north. Pew pew pew! Red beams fired from their cannons over the battlefield towards the giant gray monster that spun itself and stretched out both wings at the last second.

"Aerodactyl!" Brock yelled in fear as the explosion of red flashed behind his friend's back. Aerodactly screeched, and then it flung its trainer through the air while Brock reached a hand back towards it. Crobat swooped in and bit down on the back of Brock's shirt, catching its master and then diving out of the way before a second volley of blaster fire collided with Aerodactyl. This time, the beast's wings were shredded while it screeched out a deathly wail.

"I've got you now!" Krombopulos Michael flipped around the knife in his right hand and reached back. He snapped his arm forward, and the knife whizzed through the air. Crobat's eyes widened and the bat twisted sideways to evade, but Brock's right arm got cut anyway with a splash of blood spraying away from him. "Ooh! Almost got ya!" The bug assassin called out.

"Unngh- Aerodactyl!" Brock turned and screamed up towards the burnt-black form of his comrade falling out of the sky.

A beam of purple rings flew into the side of Krombopulos's head and sent him flying, right into a swinging steel tail, that knocked him back into a pillar of fire that burnt him to a crisp. While Brock screamed for his fallen Pokémon, the rest of his team saw their trainer get hurt. Every single one of them turned on the assassin and pummeled him in seconds.

"Ahhahahahaha!" Rocket burst out laughing up on the Slave 3. Fennec sighed and rubbed her forehead as she watched the heart-rate monitor for their comrade flatline. Groot said his name in a tone like he was laughing along with Rocket.

Boba Fett frowned at his two partners who were laughing at the loss of another of the Rogue Ravagers, but he said nothing about it. His ship had not been firing down on the Resistance positions anyway. They watched as that kid who their assassin cut still called out for his comrade rather than in concern about his own injury, and it was hard not to root for him. Krombopulos was just another Ravager anyway, not a real member of his crew. We were all in the area when the Rogue called us. The Emperor asked for him to send us in. But, I don't want to get in the middle of this any more than we already have.

Boba glanced towards a starship he knew very unforgiving men were aboard right now. Better not to let Tarkin notice though. Boba Fett grabbed the sticks and turned his cannons to aim at a shield generator on the third line that did not have anyone shooting at it at the moment. He fired rockets to the annoyance of Rocket, though the raccoon watched as their rockets exploded on a forcefield that was at full strength due to the lack of enemy fire targeting it so far. It was an ineffective attack, but to anyone checking on these mercenaries, they really had shown up on the battlefield and attacked Resistance positions. No one could deny that now.

Steelix kept slamming its body on the ground and shaking the earth that Golem bounced up and down to make tremble too. A massive steel and fire type Pokémon got in the way of turret fire from two of the shield generators on either side of the shieldless fourth line that Brock had already weakened. They realized they needed to stop him now and were focusing fire on his position, but Heatran stomped in the way and protected Brock with its body.

"We're pushing through!" Alleria Windrunner yelled. The witch Azshara lay dead behind her with the un-reanimated corpses of their fellow elves. The loss of Queen Azshara freed up the majority of the elves' strongest contingent who charged towards a line of Sith Lords who all ran back towards them.

"We can't let them fight the Sith on their own. Let's go!" Tiplee yelled over her left shoulder towards a group of Jedi who just finished cleaning up a trio of Inquisitors who made it into the third trench. Ahsoka Tano leapt out from her own forcefield farther to the south after returning to take out a squad of Death Watch who descended straight into the forcefield. The one she wanted the most was not there, but she pointed both of her lightsabers across the field past the charging elves and Sith and Jedi, straight at Pre Visla.

"Push to their ships and we have the border!" Gray yelled. He broke from his cover and sprinted to the west. With fewer Star Destroyers hovering above, and the ones that remained being spread out across the sky, the enemy air control looked much less intimidating. The fourth trench's forcefields dropped one after the other, with a line of four in a row down just to his northwest. He appreciated those shields being taken down, but some of their concentrated fire afterwards blew up enemy ships down on the surface that he had intended to commandeer. They needed to take that fourth line rather than destroying it completely. "One more push, men! On me!" Gray looked back and waved his right arm to call forward his soldiers.

A Scout Trooper aimed carefully from inside the forcefield created by a sparking shield generator one to the north of a quad of others that had already been destroyed. The ground under his feet stopped shaking for a minute, as the Pokémon outside to his east were tired and needed time to recover before using their attacks again. Fissure took a lot out of Steelix, and it was not too accurate, so the last attempt to destroy this fortified position had failed. The Scout knew that he only had one shot though before that creature would go again and likely break through his position.

"Ahh, hahhhh…" the Scout Trooper exhaled slowly. In his peripherals he could see a huge force of the Resistance charging across the trenches to get to their line. With decreased fire on them from above, Fubuki was able to block the long-range artillery attacks, and the Resistance on the ground could handle anything left. The Imperial curled his index finger around the trigger of his sniper.

Bang

Brock's head snapped to the side with a hole in his right temple and an exit hole on his left. He was leaning out from behind Heatran's back left leg when the Scout's shot hit him. The Pokémon trainer lifted off his feet and flew back a meter before falling motionless to the ground.

Gray waved his right arm to call forward his troops. "Let's go-" He was looking back over his shoulder. His heart sank. His voice caught in his throat at the sight of Brock's limp form hitting the ground.

"RAAAaaaa!"

"SCRREEEE!"

"Hyp-NOOOO!"

Golem, Steelix, Hypno, Crobat, and Heatran became enraged. They spun from Brock towards the shield generator with the celebrating Scout Trooper inside, and the man in his white armor peed a little as the monsters all charged towards him.

Gray ignored the voice in his earpiece that yelled at him to focus on the mission. He was already sprinting across the field towards his fallen friend who he skid to a stop next to down on one knee. Gray looked down to see for himself and picked his friend up by the shoulders. He had his mouth open to yell for someone to take him to the medic, but there was not anyone even around to do it anyway. Not that there was any point.

A hopeless feeling spread through Gray's heart and body. He looked to his left over at the charging Pokémon that would do some damage before ultimately meeting the same fate as their trainer and the burnt body of Aerodactyl that lay nearby. I don't see Croagunk, Gray realized as he looked around at Brock's Pokémon. He thought back on the frustration Brock had at him for not training Articuno, and he grit his teeth in understanding that Brock had already lost friends in earlier battles on Nexus. Despair spread all over his face.

Metal Bat saw what Brock managed before falling. The bloodied hero stared in pain towards the fallen Pokémon trainer. He had been shot and blown up and stabbed many times, but not everyone could survive all of that like Metal Bat could. The furious hero with a protruding pompadour twisted his body and reached his bat back so far that the top of it touched the ground behind him. Then he whipped forward and down into the ground so powerfully that he had to throw his legs up over his own shoulders.

A canyon five times the size of any of Steelix's Fissures split the surface open and swallowed up Metal Bat's enemies as well as a chunk of the front line. After his attack though, Metal Bat just yelled off to his right, "Get your ass back into gear, General!" Gray glanced to his left and then swallowed back his feelings. He lowered Brock's body carefully to the ground and stood up again.

Two other Pokémon trainers continued fighting as well farther to the north, but they yelled out in pain for their lost squad leader. Gray held back his tears though. He just turned in anger towards the fourth line that he needed to get to, considering many of his men were already there fighting. He ran towards it, taking heavy ragged breaths as he did. Charging at the front line took a lot his magical power, but he was madder than ever. His heavy breaths turned to steam in front of his face and made him look like a bull as he sprinted back into the fray.

Gray turned towards a section of the fourth line where he saw dozens of enemies still standing outside of their forcefields and firing on the Resistance or fighting back like they were on the offensive. These men were under orders to take back positions, not just hold the fourth trench, and Gray bared his teeth towards the villains he targeted in rage. Brock was one of the earliest friends I made on this world. A young kid, who I dragged here to die!

Ice spread on Gray's skin all over his body. His icy left arm hardened with stronger ice and then with Haki too. Haki coated his hand of ice that another boy's blood dripped from. A sword of ice shot out of that hand's grip once more. "Haaaa!" Gray slashed across the front of his body and sent a flying slash that he learned to do from Zoro, no magic in it at all, into a Shock Trooper leading his men at the front. The soldier in red and white armor had his armor shattered while he flew backwards with blood spraying from the diagonal slash across his torso. It just came at him too fast for even the elite commando trooper to dodge.

The Shock Trooper's men tried firing at the ice mage. Gray was too fast. He darted left and right in quick sidesteps as he sprinted at them. The black-haired man looked like a blur to the normal soldiers who missed behind him each time. A Dark Lord of the Sith looked over towards his men as he watched all three of the Stormtroopers go flying with ice spiking out of the slashes in their armor even as they fell behind Gray.

"I'll handle this," the Sith declared confidently. He punched his right fist out towards Gray and curled it open with steam coming off his fingers. The Sith's hand turned into ice the same shade as his light-blue cloak. He had a hood up over his face that had a metal mask around the bottom of it. When he breathed out, his breath hung in the air that chilled around him. Bi Han, or Sub-Zero, sprinted at Gray faster than the other men Gray had been tearing through. "Try this." The ground turned to ice between the two men who slid rapidly towards each other.

Gray slashed his icy sword up coated in Haki while Sub-Zero slashed his lightsaber down. Both men punched their other fists forward after clashing, and their blue knuckles collided under their blades. Sub-Zero darted his eyes to the lightsaber he pushed down harder into Gray's sword. Sparks flew from the shimmering red blade, but Gray's Haki was so strong that it held back the lightsaber for another second, even as the weapon burned down through the sword.

Gray used his magic to repair the ice getting cut almost as quickly as it was being slashed through. At the same time, he was adding more ice onto the other side of the sword, so Sub-Zero was no closer to cutting through the other end of the weapon. Sub-Zero opened up his fist that collided with Gray's right after it bounced off, and Gray punched his other two arms of his ice Fourarms form in hooks at Sub-Zero's sides. The Sith's opened fist blasted a Force Push into the bottom of Gray's jaw and lifted him off his feet.

The mage's head snapped back when the Force hit him under the chin. His eyes glared down though under his dark hair and seemed to glow red to the martial-artist-turned-Sith below who was stunned at how little Gray moved from such a powerful Force Push. Gray's other two ice arms got pushed back when he was hit, but his right hand also balled up and coated in a black veil of Haki.

Sub-Zero had to put in too much force in his lightsaber he tried pushing through Gray's regenerating ice left arm. When Gray removed the Haki from the ice and coated his right fist with it, Sub-Zero was putting all of his force into cutting through normal frozen water. The Sith who discovered his powers on Nexus fell forward, stumbling for just a second as his momentum took him forward, and Gray's Haki-coated right fist slammed down on top of Sub-Zero's skull. The ice that the ground had turned into under them shattered as Gray twisted his whole body and cratered Sub-Zero into the earth.

"Aghh!" Fives yelled out.

Gray had no sooner taken down Sub-Zero as he heard the shout from nearby and spun towards it. He spotted three of his ARC Troopers surrounded by huge piles of robot debris that the elite clone unit had taken apart. All three of them were shooting at one short Sith who had looked around in shock to see his whole robot contingent go down. That small figure darted away from the shots he could see coming though, deflecting others, like one that had hit Fives in the shoulder. The clones were too accurate and adaptable though, and one threw a grenade that blew up at the Sith's feet, while the others ran to the sides to flank and fire from multiple angles he could not dodge from.

All three ARC Troopers suddenly flew backwards off their feet. Their armor dented and the men yelled out in pain from how strong the Force Push launched them away. Gray bit down in fury at the sight of his men hitting the ground hard. He recreated the sword in his left hand that had been cut through a moment ago. He sprinted towards the shorter cloaked villain.

Smoke and dust settled from the grenade explosion and the burst of Force that the Sith emitted. Stan saw a silhouette sprinting towards him through that settling dust and sprinted straight back at him. Stan grabbed his lightsaber using his right hand and slashed upwards diagonally across the front of his body. His opponent slashed straight down with his left arm. Stan was glad he had the powered-up lightsaber, because he could sense through the Force how powerful the person slicing down at him was.

Gray's Haki warned him about the power of the lightsaber about to collide with his sword, so he flooded it with even more Haki and trusted his willpower to at least stall the red blade cutting through the thinning dust. That dust had nearly completely settled anyway, giving Gray a better look at the cloaked figure over a foot shorter than him. That boy with a red lightsaber stared up too to get a look at the first man he was actually going to have to cut down today.

The blades got within inches of each other. Their weapons froze. Gray was swinging down so hard that the wind off his ice blade blew into the Sith's face and knocked his hood off. The Force in Stan and the Observational Haki that Gray honed told them at the last second what they were about to do. They paused. The two hesitated, their weapons shaking as they faced one another.

Rage already covered Gray's face. He cut down those Stormtroopers behind him with ease and more brutally than he usually would. He just slashed with full intent to cut this Sith down. He had felt bone crack on his bone-crunching punch onto Sub-Zero's skull. Darth Revan was frozen and impaled inside an ice geyser behind him. Killing another Sith was simple…

"Stan?" Gray's furious expression did not lose the rage, though bafflement added to it. The confusion only angered him more. "Why-" he started, but he knew the answer already. Stan had told them himself. "…My name is Darth Marsh. And I am a Sith Lord!" Gray thought of Stan screaming that at Cartman. He remembered the shock of seeing the red lightsaber. But the kid seemed so non-Sith-Lord-y that he ignored it.

Stan opened his mouth. He had no words to explain himself though. Explosions went off on either side of them. The cries of war bellowed from Sith and Jedi and all their men. Behind Gray, his ARC Troopers got back up. He could see Brock's Pokémon either rampaging or dead in his peripheral vision. Brock's body lay in the dirt behind him. It doesn't matter why. I don't care. He's a Sith. A Sith!

The confusion faded from Gray's eyes in only a second. Stan closed his mouth anyway. There was no explanation. Gray had to lead an army. He had no time for this. "Move," Gray seethed through clenched teeth. "I don't have the luxury of taking it easy on you, Stan." Gray curled his left fake hand tighter around the ice blade that he re-coated in Haki. "Or should I also call you, Darth Marsh?"

Stan's face tilted back. His expression scrunched up in his own frustration. I made my choice! He reminded himself. Stan curled his right hand tighter around the hilt of his lightsaber. I'm in too deep now. No way to pass it off as a misunderstanding. "Can you really just leave me to fight your men?" Stan wondered in his high-pitched twelve year old voice, a voice that was strained. Gray's face scrunched up in anger. The idea that Gray could run right past him seemed like a cop-out to Stan. That they could just avoid each other now? Like they were not facing each other on a battlefield? Like they did not know the other to be too strong to let past?

"You're right," Gray admitted. His eyes narrowed. His expression darkened back to the same way it looked as he fought Sub-Zero. This was just another enemy. He barely knew Stan. He helped us save Timmy- That doesn't matter right now! Only one thing mattered. Getting past Stan and to the next line. "You chose this!" Gray yelled down at the stupid kid.

I did. And now, I have to follow through with it! "Haaaa!" Stan yelled right back up at Gray's face. He slashed his lightsaber while jumping up with some Force under his feet. Gray ducked down and punched his right hand into the floor with icy magic coating his knuckles. A bright blue magic circle spread wide below them. He knew what Stan's wish to Cartman was. He knew the power of Fairy Godparent magic. He was not risking trying to block Stan's lightsaber if it might have the power to cut through a high-ranking shinigami's Zanpakuto. Gray punched into the ground under where Stan jumped and slashed. Stan's Force might have told him what Gray was doing, but Gray proved much faster than the young Sith who started turning his blade at the same time as Gray's magic activated.

A spike of ice shot up out of the ground just past Gray's fist. Stan was turning his body in midair to slash down at the ducked mage, and his eyes bulged at the sight of how fast that ice spike rose up towards him. He stabbed down into it while putting his left hand out too to protect his body. The tip of the ice spike that rose forty feet into the air was blunted, but the speed at which it shot up from the ground still buckled Stan's prosthetic left arm that sparked as it snapped. The kid was launched into the sky by the ice mage who glared up towards the little boy coughing for air.

Gray's eyes were full of regret, but he held a determined expression nonetheless. That was not the most powerful Sith on the battlefield. Gray already knew the one thing that made Stan different from the others, and it was his lightsaber. A lightsaber Gray watched fall from Stan's right hand. The experienced mage of Fairy Tail lowered his gaze from the kid who had one arm flapping around in the wind clearly broken from the power of that one blow. If I have to kill you, Stan, I will. So please… Gray sprinted past where Stan would be falling and rushed towards the fourth line.

Stay out of my way.

---

A/N Thanks for reading! I'm going to include a list below of all the characters I can think of and the source material they're each from. There were a ton in this chapter. Most are from Star Wars, and I had to do some research for it as many came from deep Star Wars lore or lesser known games. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Stan and Gray face off at the end, though it looks like Gray's first blow might've been too much for Stan already. Still a raging battle going on around them, so let me know what you think will happen next and where the battle will go from here! I'll try not to take 9 months this time, but as I said in the A/N at the start, I've been working on a real book that I plan to publish. The book will be called Archer, about a scrawny kid good with a bow in a land of berserker warriors who has to prove his worth during an invasion. I'll post an update on all my stories to let everyone know once I've published it if anyone wants to support me and get a copy! If not, I'll still try to upload here whenever I can, but adult life is busy and I might not have the time for rapid uploads that I once did when I was writing this in high school, or undergrad, or early easy post-grad jobs... Thanks guys for reading and all the support over the years. Especially to those who favorite, follow, and review the story! List below:

Star Wars: Barriss Offee, Ventress, Malak, Arcann, Thexan, Vaylin, Tarkin, Thrawn, Fives, Tech, Hunter, Wrecker, Cody, Rex, Ahsoka, Tiplee, Tiplar, Obi-Wan, Foul Moudama, Stass Allie, Qui-Gon Jinn, Yaddle, Serra Keto, Starkiller, Sidious, Vader/Anakin, Obi-Wan, Malgus, Daiman, Odion, Revan, Tenebrous, Venamis, Cognus and Zannah, the Force, ARC troopers, Scout/Storm/DarkTroopers, Death Watch, Bo-Katan, Mandalorians, Pre Visla, Gar Saxon, Cal Kestis, Pong Krell, all the droids, ships, tanks and fighter jets, and everything else I used the Star Wars world for. I bet I missed some.

God of War Ragnarok: Níðhöggr

Spriggan: Yu Ominae, Tea Flatte, Jean Jacquemonde, Yoshino Somei

Full Metal Panic: Sousuke, Kurz, Kaname Chidori, Melissa Mao, Belfangan, McAllen, Arbalest, ARM system

One Piece: Mansherry, Leo, Kabu, Rampo, Bomba

Pokémon: Brock, Steelix, Crobat, Golem, Heatran, Hypno, Croagunk, Aerodactyl, Articuno

Mortal Combat: Sub-Zero

South Park: Stan, Cartman

Fairy Tail: Gray

World of Warcraft: Azshara, Alleria and Varessa Windrunner, Malfurion Stormrage

LOTR: Elrond, Haldir, Rivendell

Dig Dug: Taizo Hori

Flyboys: Rawlings

Re:Zero: Satella

Disenchantment: Elfo

Red vs Blue: Tucker, Carolina, Tex (Cleo), Mayan (York), Mongol (Maine), Roman (North Dakota), Viken (Wash)

Kid Cosmic: Jo, Kid

Black Clover: Jakku

Hunter x Hunter: Knov

Kekkai Sensen: Zapp Renfro, Leonardo Watch

Arrow: Thea Queen

Terminator: Terminators

One Punch Man: Fubuki, Metal Bat

Smlluffy67 chapter 155 . Apr 29, 2023

WELP things aren't looking good but on the brightside we see tifa and barret gray doesn't realize it but sora is going to be getting real close real soon

Yeah, things are still looking rough after this one. That scene with Tifa and Barret hints at the next arc of Nexus with their team that I almost considered not including in the chapter, and instead just showing that scene in the middle of chapter 25 which happens simultaneously to this chapter 24 arc. But! I liked the way it was written and felt it loses all importance or even the need to include it if I include it during the Paradis arc. Anyway, yeah Sora was also heading into Sith territory... Wonder when/if that will come into play. Thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the new chapter!

Limit-Breaking chapter 155 . May 1, 2023

Welp the moment gray said there was only supposed to be 4 and more than 4 came out of the ocean he knew at that moment he fucked up lol.
Also yikes didn't think helping stan would also lead to this. Makes me wonder if he will abandon the sith and help grays in some way.
Also God damn they just moved that many ships that fast, like Jesus the resistance needs some improvement in getting info on their enemies lol.
But given the state that they are in im not surprised they didn't know about that. I mean they have been losing a lot to an extent.
Also I didn't know death the kid was included in the mission. I didn't see him last chapter. Also makes me wonder if he'll find out and live to see Maka and soul and the elder sister or if he will survive this endeavor.
Similar for the elves I wonder what they are going to do from here on out.
Also people just dying left and right and this war includes Pokemon, those poor poor pokemon. I can definitely understand both sides point of views I just don't want to see Pokemon dying.
Honestly I wonder what they will do from here, there's just so many powerful enemies extremely advanced technologies from multiple series mind you, so who knows how much more powerful its weapons have become.
So many cities and places have fallen like the magic Kingdom (which made me curious to check out black clover so thanks for that it's pretty fun) shinkoku and asura, frost giants getting killed, the Saiyan's, kryptonians.
I honestly love that Cartman is the one that's able to rebel against the King the most lol. Though I feel like it won't last for long.
So many are dying and losing, the resistance just needs more wins cause right now it ain't enough.
I will say I do like grays leadership, he was doing pretty well... till like 10 of those ships just came out of the water and then he got wrecked lol.
It's like itachi said they're playing shogi, but Gray's group is playing tic tac toe XD. I still love that line.
Either way lots of great stuff and exciting things to happen I'm curious to see how gray will get himself out of this predicament and whether the mission can still be successful.
I look forward to the next chapter.

They didn't help Stan so much as Stan helped them with Timmy. But yeah Gray certainly wasn't expecting to see Stan on the battlefield. The Sith managed to hide more than just that fleet, as the 4th line of trenches emerge from below ground that were hidden even from Moff Gideon and his men. Death the Kid was not included in this mission. Death the Kid was back at Resistance HQ where the MPC is, and when we saw him for a second, he was just authorizing its use from like a few thousand miles away. Itachi in that flashback about Meruem speaks for a lot of our villains in this story. Aizen, Thrawn, Luthor, the most intimidating enemies are the ones with the best laid plans. All those cities that fell is really indicative of how bad the Resistance have it. Even places like Elvengard or the Magic Kingdom that one would think would be Resistance are either taken or had to submit, just like Lagann Island where we saw Simon had to join Arachne rather than continue to side with the Resistance (leading to both Kamina and Yoko leaving to go join the Resistance on their own). I'm glad you were enjoying the story so much, and sorry to kill off even more poor Pokémon (and Brock) this time. Hope to get the next chapter out sooner than I managed this one! Until then, thanks for the review, and hope you enjoyed the chapter!

-Til next time everyone. Thanks again!