Shouting at the archangel she was protecting for the nth time, Alice received no other response than continued crying from the angel.

"It's no use Alice, she's combat ineffective."

Lilly, however, had long since given up on Eos, she could understand her current state of mind and didn't try to snap her out of it, after all, it took Alice and Lilly about 10 minutes to make their way to her, in that time those fish scaled monsters had already cut up most of her body with their claws. Eos had looked death in the eyes and instead of forging ahead fearlessly she had flinched, it would be unreasonable to expect anything from her after that.

After Lux had been killed by the large monster it had rushed Alice, Lilly and Mare, the only reason why Alice and Lilly were still alive was that the monster had taken the still alive Mare in its yaws and retreated out the balcony, Mare's screaming could be heard for a while after that. Greatly reduced in numbers and faced with insurmountable odds Alice and Lilly did their best to extend their own survival as they protected Eos from the h.o.a.rds of fish scaled monster while now seemed like they were playing with them, but after fighting with a level of intensity that only just allowed them to survive for what felt like an eternity, Lilly and Alice had started to tire, they were starting to make increasingly more mistakes.

They both knew their time had come, all that was left was how they would go out, would it be screaming and shouting for mercy, or would it be in a manner that would make Dax proud?

Alice had long since expended all her ammunition and Lilly was unable to use magic. With nothing else left than their bayonets, they faced the never ending horde of scaled monsters.

This was the end of the road.

---

(What the h.e.l.l?)

All of a sudden everything seemed to be covered in a haze, the only thing that forced her awake was an ever present loud alarm which shouted with such volume that it threatened to render her deaf within seconds, but even still, it kept screaming at her, as if to force her to remember something.

Then suddenly, there was only silence. Like a pair of noise cancelling headphones had been put on her head she suddenly became aware of her own heartbeat, or lack of it in this case. 

[REVIVAL PROTOCOL SUCCESSFUL, RESTARTING Pa.s.sIVE LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS, SCANNING SUBJECT…. SCAN COMPLETE. MAJOR INTERNAL TRAUMA DETECTED, COMMENCING REPAIR: ALLOCATING BLACK MATTER…. ERROR, INSUFFICIENT RESOURCES. RECALCULATING REPAIR PRIORITY… RECALC SUCCESSFUL. RECOMMENCING REPAIR: SACRIFICING NONE ESSENTIALS, NOW CANNIBALIZING… CANNIBALIZING OF NONE ESSENTIAL COMPONENTS SUCCESSFUL, COMMENCING REPAIR, RESTARTING CARDIOVASCULAR FUNCTIONS… RESTART SUCCESSFUL, REVIVAL SUCCESSFUL, REANIMATION SUCCESSFUL. LIEUTENANT GENERAL LUX ALPH4 OF THE 125TH h.e.l.lWALKERS SUCCESSFULLY REANIMATED.]

With a sudden surge of pain running through her body Lux regained consciousness as her most recent memories flooded her mind. Opening her eyes with a shock the h.e.l.lwalker found her left eye to be inoperable, while her right eye was bloodshot and barely showed her anything of the outside world. Regaining feeling in her body Lux immediately noticed that her neck was broken, her C3 and C7 vertebrae were both out of alignment by about a centimetre, before anything else happened she needed to realign them. Taking a shallow breath Lux turned her body around so she laid face down on the ground, then she formed a fist with her shaking hand. With a large crack sounding out in her neck she regained the sensation in her body, along with an almost mind numbing amount of pain from all over her body.

(Pain is good, that means there's no other significant neural damage I need to take care of at the moment…)

While a normal person or even a hardened soldier would have instantly pa.s.sed out from that amount of pain Lux was an elite, such an amount of suffering was trivial, as long as she could complete her mission nothing else mattered. Reaching into her vest Lux retrieved a syringe filled with fresh black matter and injected it in her chest.

With the immediate first aid taken care of Lux rose to her feet, surveying the battlefield while she cracked her neck.

While Mare was nowhere to be be found, Lilly and Alice seemed to be protecting Eos how had suffered numerous injuries while a swarm of the smaller monsters surrounded them and the large one was nowhere to be found. It seemed like the monsters hadn't paid much attention to Lux after she had been knocked out, instead preferring to take their time with Alice and Lilly as they appeared to be playing with their food. While Lux still had some ammunition left for her rifle and pistol, the current state of affair called for stealth and thus, the orbital marine drew her bayonet and flipped it to a reverse grip as all traces emotion disappeared from her face. Closing in on her first target without making a sound Lux stayed low to the ground as she picked up a small rock which she tossed at the ground behind the monster when she had closed the range sufficiently. As the monster turned around Lux charged, using her momentum she plunged the blade into one of the monster's eyes as her free hand gripped its neck with a force strong enough to prevent any air from escaping, then she twisted the bayonet before silently lowering the monsters copse to the ground. The next monster's fate wasn't much better as Lux snuck her blade in between two of its vertebrae in its neck before plunging a few of her fingers through its eye, then twisting the bayonet to one side as she forced the monster's skull the other way. Of course, such an action instantly drew attention to Lux, as the sound of her ripping off the monster's head could be easily heard inside the room, but that was the point.

If the monsters were so primitive, all Lux needed to do was appealing to the most basic instinct even primitive monsters like the one she was facing would understand: Fear.

Haven sized the attention of the room with her action Lux to full advantage of that as she let loose a scream filled to the brim with bloodl.u.s.t as she charged the nearest monster. Brutally slaughtering her way through the monster h.o.a.rd Lux completely ignored the injuries she received for her reckless behaviour and achieving the goal of instilling a strong sense of fear in the monsters as they started fleeing.

"L-Lux!? How are you still alive!?"

Understandably Alice and Lilly were both quite surprised as they were suddenly saved from the brink by Lux they had believed was already dead, but in the face of such surprise and confusion, Lux just shrugged.

"What? You girls think a little dying will keep me down for long? Even if I'm not quite as strong as Dax I'm still a h.e.l.lwalker, we're named that way for a reason."

Looking around the room after checking the state of her subordinates Lux started filling in the blanks.

"What happened to Mare?"

"... MIA, presumed KIA. That large monster dragged her off after it dealt with you."

Taking a few seconds to absorb what Lilly had told her Lux hardened her determination, grieving would have to wait until after the mission.

"Lilly, Alice, take Eos back to the AEHWP transport. I'll see if I can receive Mare's copse. If I haven't regrouped with you after an hour leave without me. This mission has already failed, I'll not allow it to end in a complete wipeout."

Handing Lilly her rifle and the spare ammunition Lux gave orders in a tone which clearly demonstrated that she wouldn't take kindly to insubordination.

"... Yes, Ma'am."

---

(... Where am I?)

Doing her best to ignore the immense sense of pain which screamed out from her entire body, Mare opened her eyes to find herself inside a dark room. Taking a few seconds for her eyes to adjust the young beastkin just barely managed to suppress a scream as she found herself directly in front of the ma.s.sive monster which had killed Lux, its grey eyes which shone in a cold light with intelligence. Remembering what had happened to her, how she had been dragged off by that scaled monster Mare wondered why she was still alive, something she would find out a second later that she would have been better off not knowing.

Normally there was only one reason a predator would bring home live prey, so it could teach its young how to kill. Freezing up completely in fear as she realized that, Mare grabbed the black vial with two red bands on it she had been given by Lux at the start of the operation, holding it up to her neck she started backing away from the 4 smaller lizard creatures which looked at her with hunger clearly visible in their eyes, their large yaws opening slightly as saliva almost poured out. Pressing the vial firmly to the side of her neck Mare's thumb found its way to the bottom that would grant her a painless death instead of getting eaten alive, but even as the monsters closed in all around her she couldn't press it. Storing the vial away Mare instead drew a knife she had gotten as a present from Dax, standing up on her one leg which could still support her the young beastkin sized up her opponents.

(If I'm going to die here I'll at least avenge Lux first!)

"Come on! Who wants to die with me!?"

Baring her fangs at the monsters Mare prepared to die, until an idea came to mind. Forming a cold smile Mare waited for the bravest of the children to close in, offering her already useless leg as bait before she plunged her knife into its eye with a scream.

"f.u.c.k YOU!"

Digging the knife in as deep as she could Mare pressed a hidden trigger on the handle of her blade, making the blade's tip which was embedded into the monster's skull unleash a blast of highly pressurized gas that rapidly expanded inside the brain of the young monster, killing it instantly.

Seeing its child murdered right in front of it understandably enraged the mother, and after using its whip like tail to remove the bugs weapon which had killed its young, it charged it in a blind rage, aiming to crunch the impotent bug with its mighty yaws.

"COME ON!"

Standing ready to receive the charge after her hand which held the knife was shattered, Mare used strengthening magic to jump above the creature using only a single leg, reaching into her vest as she pulled out the black vial with two red bands. Reorienting herself in mid air, Mare plunged the syringe at the end of the vial into the monster's eye then she pressed the b.u.t.ton on the back while letting out a rage filled scream.

"DIE!"

Showing immediate effect, the pre programed black matter instantly activated and drilled towards the brain, eating it up in a matter of seconds before the bioweapon simply known as blue matter activated, denaturing the monster's organic molecules and turning it into a warm sludge in a matter of seconds.

"WHO ELSE WANTS SOME!?"

Screaming out in an act to instil fear into the rest of the monsters in the room, Mare failed to realize how unsteady she looked standing on only a single foot, how dizzy she was because of the lack or blood the pain she was in. To the monster's SHE looked like nothing other than a dying animal. 

"That's my Mare!"

But to Lux how had just arrived, the young beastkin looked like a hero of legend.

"Leave the rest to me, I'll tear apart these insignificant bugs in no time!"