BATTLE ON AN UNSPECIFIED PLANET

PRIYA ECHO’S ADVENTURE - BOOK 18 - TEKNOMANTIS

CHAPTER - BATTLE ON AN UNSPECIFIED PLANET

The long spaceship slowly entered the planet’s atmosphere and levitated over the city. Little jets of steam appeared at intervals at the side. The citizens below gathered in the streets to see what was happening. Sounds seemed to emanate from within. A weird hissing sound. Eventually, the bay doors opened, and out tumbled the first of them. The praying mantids dispersed in the air. They strafed the ground below with laser fire, causing fireballs to erupt, hurling cars and people to their doom. The prismatic red beams ripped through towers, boring holes in them. Priya Echo was in a corporate building, bent over an office chair, and sleeping into the afternoon after spending the last few days in review of the colony planet. In her eardrums she heard the loud thuds and it awoke her. “I have a good feeling what’s going on”. The first assault of the Teknomantis Empire had been enthusiastic. Priya realized that they were getting more ultramodern by the day. According to her sources, the Teknomantis hailed from the neighborhood of Belda, on a heavy iron-rich planet. They were a harmless species of cybernetic insects, shy and unexplored by the Ascension. Something must have animated them with magic … but what. In quick succession, she gulped down the three cups of coffee that were left unattended on the table, and raced outside. In the chaos, the rockets came down like rain. The mantids were well equipped. In the distance, she could see a pair of them headed towards her. As they flew, they broke apart and landed on her right and left. A vicious scyth came down on her arm and the scientist defended. It was well spiked like sharpened kitchen knives. Priya defended and struck it off, allowing the other one to ambush. “Aha, I see your attitude” she exclaimed, upon seeing the right one was indeed a robotic mantid. Its bulk was convex and chunky and fashioned from modular pieces. In its raptorial legs it charged a blue electricity and sizzled upon the fangs. Priya used karate to fend it back as it tried to zap her into black dust. It’s friend returned, using it’s spiked legs like spears to skewer her, yet with humble moves she evaded and slapped it in the face. The mantid fell back from the shock of it and jerked it’s head back to senses. Priya took a deep inhaling breath. She was ready to fight now, and felt good. Like a real martial artist her feet moved back and forth in footwork. The pair rushed together in front of her. “I can take a frontal attack, don’t worry about that!” she hollered. As that happened, the two of them started to fall in, and got closer, and as they did the biological mantis and the robotic mantis merged into a single metamorphic techno-organic mantis. In seconds it was cybernetic and one individual. Priya took the first attack, letting it latch onto her with its razor sharp fangs. It was sly to test their abilities. The scientist kicked it off and let it hang about, then leapt in the air and readied to dig a hole in it’s robotic chest with a second kick. “Interesting”. A thin energy bubble appeared, rippling with shield dynamics. It stopped the force of her leg. Inside, the mantid looked up hungrily, its arms ready. It had arrayed around its shoulders and body sections that resupplied the bubble with strange photonic emissions. Priya looked down at her foot and pressed it harder. Cracks formed on the exterior, and as the sphere shattered she got her chance. A spray of electricity and cyborg guts ejected out from its back in a cone of absolute absurdity. “Who's next?”. The mantis flew in spirals above. Then more of them came down, unlocking their bodies to reveal mega-rifles that blasted her general area into rubble. Priya flickered into echoes and passed through one of them, materialized again and spun around to see its mouth vomit fire before it ignited in a petulant explosion. In the distance a meager force of cultic officers came out of the woodwork and began spraying yellow energy bullets at the lineup of predators. In no way were they going to be able to hold off this force. They would be massacred. Priya summoned a mirror sword from shards and stabbed one of her enemies in the chest. It was done with physical autonomy, as she thought about the situation. This breed must have been an advanced force since they were smaller-bodied and not as specialized as the mantids she fought a few days ago. It was interesting to see them cluster before attacking a spot below, as if to protect their bodies from fire. In front of her, two mantids landed, with one taking the other in hand. Silver cables shot out of its back and into it’s counterpart, transforming it into a large shoulder mounted laser cannon. Priya smirked as she watched the mouth and body of the creature contort into place. modular to the extreme. She placed the mirror sword vertically, right in front of her face, making it look symmetrical. The scientist expected the powerful laser blast, and when it arrived, the implement split it into two sheets that broke away at ninety degrees - as if she were at the corner of a red house. They sliced through several pitiful mantids and incinerated the pathway into the structures behind. Emissions of smoke rose from the spent laser cannon. The scientist tossed her mirror sword attached to a lightning chain. It impaled the unsuspecting insectoid, and she yanked it back to her hand, all with a quick motion. The thing exploded and she turned around. There were more mantids and they tried to surround her with their raporital arms, pouncing on her. A few slices dismantled them. The weapon gleamed like a sliver of lustrous quintessence as it sculpted their metallic and biomechanical flesh. As she turned her head, the two parts of a mantid that had been hit by the sheet cloud be seen falling apart on the ground. Then another fifteen of so freakazoids came in from the air, shattering the general area with gunfire and rocket blasts and lasers. Priya looked at them and understood the primary source of the lasers was their compound eyes. A strange figure with a white lab coat flickered as she moved around the battlefield. Her pristine silver blinked as she shifted. The scientist charged headfirst into one of the beams, absorbing its essence with magic. Now her body was as light as aether. It transitioned into pure red. The mantids hissed as they realized their foe had somehow donned the energy of their laser. In seconds, the scientist sprinted right through the chest of one of them. Sparkling electrodust whisked to the sky. Fourteen of them were soon destroyed, and as the energy vaporized from her body, revealing her figure once again, she stood in front of a hideous mantid. It charged its scyths with electricity and caused the spikes to rotate like drills as to increase the power of the strike. But the action had undone the restraints on her hair, and the black threads stretched out like a jet black medusa, and weaved about the body of the creature and with great force tore it apart. Chunks rained down over the battlefield. Priya retreated her hair to its typical state. A missile from the shoulder mount of a mantid made contact with her foot and exploded in grandiosity, engulfing the woman. Feeling triumphant, the cybernetic bug rattled its mandibles and rang out a petulant cry. And as that started, the billows of the red domes curled in upon themselves, in a most unnatural way. Almost like it was being packed into a smaller area. The fire was absorbed into channels of red lightning that fed off of the scientist’s metallic chest and the blast was contained. It vanished from sight. Priya looked to the cyborg and lunged towards it, slashing the remaining missiles with her mirror sword and decapitating it, then jumped up and uppercut the head bashing it into debris. ‘Just then another mantid landed holding a buster rifle and slammed her into the bricks of the building. And it hurt like a bitch. Priya breathed a sigh of relief as she lifted her head above the sea of crumbled bricks. A few mantids turned the walls into butter with their scyths. “Great, another uninvited guest”. The freakazoids pounced on her in all directions, but she evaded then, breaking out and through the portal into the open. Everything seemed to be in order until the ground erupted around her feet, and mantids who had been sneakily tunneling underneath ferried her into the air in their claws. At that point one of them tore away. Priya didn’t flinch as it turned around to face her, baring its insect armor and hissing at her with its sharp mandibles unlatched. The others clattered in agreement.“I know what you’re thinking” the scientist answered, and she reasoned that it would be the same attack as before, from that diabolical fight in space. Imitating a hornet, the arthropod spun it’s thorax around, and the mechanical bits rearranged. Then like a woodsman on steroids, the thing raised it’s spinning, jacked up, mega-bladed chainsaw to her chest. To her left and right, the mantids gripped tighter and clattered with delight. It was inches away, and then the insect fell back and blasted it’s thrusters for a hyperactive superpowered attack. The two mantids at her sides fell away. Priya had good reflexes. She lifted her left arm, and caught the weapon with her bare hand. Sparks flew in every direction. Then with the right hand, she grew vivid green-turquoise energy blades vertically on the perimeter and caused them to circulate until they were going so fast as to be stroboscopic and tore into it’s chest, shredding a hole through it. Electric flickers in its myriad eyes went black and it’s body went limp immediately. The mantids were so stunned that they flew in place as the scientist reclined her back to the air and fell to the ground like a skydiver. Priya felt the cushion of air beneath her shoes as she landed. Then suddenly a mantid rushed in and punched her jaw with its arm, throwing her back, then rammed her with its mantid head into a building. Priya recovered and got to her feet, only to experience the hellfire of a missile barrage as it consumed a wide volume of the two story office. The last licks of flame and char whirled around her arm and vanished. And it hurt like a bitch. Ahead of her the scientist could see about twenty mantids that had launched that unified attack. “Everyone getting along, are we??!!!” she roared. A chorus of terrible ear splitting cacophony followed. In the squares of concrete around a trio of mantids, she could see the remains of the chainsawed insect she had assaulted, and it made her smirk. They sort of hid it with their legs in shame. Priya reached out her arm and pointed to the figure “I’m going to do to all of you what i did to your friend!” A painful telepathic input suddenly lasered through her mind “YOU WILL BE DEFEATED !!!” In seconds she had jumped down, and as another drew in to half her with it’s scyth. It raised it right above her head and was ready to come down, but then she grabbed it and tore it off it’s arm and bashed the creature clear across the square with it. Another dual wielded it’s buster guns and amped its speed with its wings to get a close shot. Priya summoned mirror shards around her body and made them rotate and it scattered him into metal confetti. A biological one leaped into the air and grew four additional arms and rained down spikes which she had to evade by doing backflips. Then it landed on the ground and tried to dice her into pieces but got its head busted with a lightning punch. And then one to her side tried to shoot her with lasers from its eyes. It was an impossible task, as she split three of its beams with her mirror shards, then sent them as projectiles into the heart of the beast. It exploded in a small but grandiose flame. In the east, the gigantic ship hovered, and continued to release its insane swarm like the neverending toil of a factory. “I should really take that down before more people get hurt” she thought with a sense of mild wonder at the calamity of the moment. A mantid tried to swipe her with it’s thorax chainsaw but she jumped into the air and did a backflip like an olympic pole vaulter, her back barely escaping by an inch. She transformed her white lab coat into six seraphim wings and beat them, forming a gust that sent it back, and tore if from the ground. The mantid screamed until it’s back hit the hard wall of a building and flattened it. The woman returned the lab coat to normal. Concrete pieces hurled into the sky as another burrowing mantid blasted up from the sewers. Its thorax reconfigured and four sections opened up to reveal some sort of giant laser amplified spike. “Ah, the powers that bee”. The spike opened up again with four sections to reveal a slender spike shining with blinding red light. Priya turned into echoes and flickered away to avoid it. When it touched the ground, the spike pulsed white for a fraction of a second and the ground boiled with red bubbles in an expanding circle. The blinding redness swept over everything, and when it subsided the mantid and it’s arms were covered in a layer of black char. Priya materialized and witnessed the mantid snap the compartments back into a solid thorax. She used her telekinesis, moving her right hand like a magician, and a rock hurled across the space and blew it apart. Another mantid came in from the right and reached back with its claw for a gun.Then from the other side another mantid came. She got in close to it’s chest and commandeered the arm and pointed it to the other one and forced the enemy into a piece of metal filled with holes. Then she flew up and tossed it at an incoming missile. Priya looked down and saw another bear its wings. It flew up swiftly and came in from behind. There were additional legs to push it up and get airborne. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you”. The ends of the legs were pointy and some of them reconfigured into saw blades. At once they all closed in but Priya’s body lightning snapped into action and stunned it, then she grabbed onto it and revolved all the way to the earth, lightning bloody slamming it in the ground. At that point another mantid which was fully biological attacked and tried to bite her. She punched it back with karate. Then she saw there was a throng of fifty or so mantids approaching from the west. It was a whole battalion, flying into the area with a strange sine wave like flight pattern, in different levels. From their compound eyes they started firing the lasers, and one of them hit her chest and sent her flying back and into the body of another mantid and the angel sent her into another direction. Priya’s armor flared hot, and she instantly arose from the ground, by bending her knees and then adjusting her stance. Now the barrage of lasers was intense. It was almost like they were trying to flatten the area. The scientist started weaving backwards to evade them, and when one came straight for her she turned her head and saw a mantid standing right behind. Priya did a backflip onto its back and touched her hand to its head and it’s eyes emit another laser beam that met the incoming one and they splintered. The bottom row of the mantid battalion had landed but the others were above in various lines, ready to rain down endless energy. She jumped backwards off of that green platform back onto the ground. “You're not the only one with eyes! I have them too!” she cried. Her lungs and throat felt the glorious pain of it. Levitating ten feet off the ground, she summoned a collection of six disembodied eyes. Very human, with colored iris, as if produced by a good photographer. The blue filled up with fuzzy blue energy, then clacks of electricity, and a forceful bullet was projected out into the sky. It blocked an incoming laser, exploding it upon contact. Soon enough, volleys of eye-beams matched the heavy rain of fire. Mantids all around hissed as dynamic explosions lit up the sky. The battalion reacted, forming aerial phalanxes that landed nearby like dropships Mantids dispersed across the ground, attempting to encompass her. “I have the eyes, and they can see!”. The iris of the six eyes spun like wheels, and as they did they picked up enormous amounts of energy, then an unspeakable blinding white flash escaped from all of them at once. Inside the tabula rasa, the insectoid troopers began to adjust their eyesight. The world’s light beams that entered the pearly dome were almost silver. Then they saw her, walking towards them. But instead of white … she was pure black … draped in perfect shadow. Her face, her body, her cape. Null Priya was empowered by the darkness, and its contrast to the unadulterated white. Then with martial arts she was able to dismantle them. Her arms flickered with shadow and cut through their bodies. The ability only lasted a few moments before the flash faded. Levels above of the mantid battalion hissed as they saw the remains of their comrades. In the background was the longship, and it continued its activity unabated, releasing cannons that fired down at the buildings, recoling like the main gun of a tank. However, the cultic forcers were on the move. They had entered the sky and were working on the shield. “I need to lead the bulk of their forces away from the city”. She stopped what she was doing, and de-manifested the eyes. Priya turned tail and ran across the square, all the way to where there was a set of tall highway tunnels. A hapless mantid stood at the foot of the semicircle. “Vehicle Amplification!” she cried, emitting a spell from her right hand. The gleaming smudge of yellow hit the creature right in its chest. Priya arrived at it’s chest and touched her palm to it. She looked back and the fliers were on the warpath. THEY WERE FURIOUS NOW. The mantid in her grasp reconfigured into a mantis themed motorcycle, and she leapt atop it and cranked the ignition. It accelerated fast into the tunnel. The swarm pursued firing rockets that destroyed quite a lot of vehicles that were not able to weave right and left like she could. The tunnel seemed to stretch on forever. She rammed up the accelerator. The mantids tried to increase their chances by nearing every surface. Priya looked back and her raven-like hair was horizontal, channeled by the wind. The foremost mantid hit the road and reconfigured into a motorcycle and was able to drive right up to her on the left side. It was a purely green motorbike, but then it transformed again such that it’s lower body was the vehicle and it’s upper body was mantid. With a sweep of it’s scyth, it tried to slice the occupant of the other bike. Priya summoned her mirror sword and fought off the attack, fencing it as it tried different angles. The scyth started to grow longer spikes and zap with electricity, but she slammed her mirror sword down and cut the driver in two. The pieces slid back, with sparks until they collided with other vehicles. Yet the horde continued, and they wouldn’t stop their approach. The exhilaration of the ride tickled her frame. “I can see it now … I guess they were right … there is a light at the end of the tunnel”. As she crossed the barrier, two mantids that must have used rocket thrusters in the sky to cross that same distance and burrowed to entrap her emerged from their concrete havens. For some strange reason they were holding their arms out loose, and their heads started rotating in three sixty. “I get it now” the laser beams were now being projected in all directions in a circle, which would cover the whole area. The motorbike curved this way and that, avoiding them and refracting one with her mirror sword. Then another burst out, and instead of its head revolving, its body did. It was like a green top, and soon enough a tornado of wind was formed by that action of the scythes. Prick broke fast and turned as hard as she could, encircling it until the power of the mantid was spent and the tunnel vanished. She tossed her mirror sword like a boomerang and it melted the insect and returned to her hand. “I wasn’t expecting a welcome party,” she laughed. Above her was something that must have been ferried by the spaceship from their homeworld. It was one of the more tanky warmachines.“That’s a spider!”. It was more than a hundred times bigger than the regular size, of course. It looked mostly biological instead of cybernetic, but there were computer circuit diagrams tattooed across its face and body. The abdomen was as big as a balloon. “I don’t think that’s natural” she said as the giant spider legs starting twisting around upon themselves and soon enough they were snarling snake heads with razor sharp fangs like some unholy hydra. They started firing fireballs at her, but she didn’t give a fuck about that. A simple attack like that was dodge-able. Priya stood up on the motorcycle as it went at high speed. She closed her eyes, meditating for a second and did a hand sign. A thin shell of light rippled across her body and cape. The floral pattern of her metallic armor had absorbed the heat of all the previous attacks. It was time, and as she opened her eyes the vast dragon-like snake head came in. It’s throat was pink. Priya jumped into it, apparently eaten. The mantids hissed in cacophony as some being of light and lightning rose up the long body of the snake, and ripped through the body of the biotech spider, emerging on its back. Priya summoned her mirror sword, and like king arthur stabbed the black crust, forming cracks that detonated shortly afterward. The entire behemoth thing drifted to the ground in the gentlest show of destruction ever. “I think that spaceship needs to fall” she thought, seeing it continue it’s assault on the city. Priya began her flight towards the spaceship, but was intercepted by a group of about five mantids in a cluster that latched onto her. The group of them went careening towards a tower, and rammed straight through, raining down dust and rubble onto the ground below. Priya found herself breaking through window glass and in an office space of another tower. She summoned twin mirror swords and swung them like an X — eviscerating the five of them. Free now, she leapt out the opening and continued on her way. Mantids swarmed around the spaceship. There were some that clung to its hull. A portal opened up revealing a big circular mirror-like structure, then suddenly Priya experienced rainbow-like light around her. In a few minutes, the scientist opened her eyes again. “I’m in a two dimensional world”. It was a video game of course, with the designs of a platformer stretched out before her. A ding and an announcement that the download was complete. Grassy hills and mountains were digitally real. Then suddenly … armies of mantids appeared in the air … as if teleported all at once. “I don’t think that’s fair … this is entrapment, friends”. It was evident that they meant to entirely overwhelm her. A calculated move. “No … they’ve got this backwards. I’m a Rikiral hybrid of course. I have techno-pathic powers and I can use them to hack their little video game”. Her arms and skin turned blue and purple, intermixed. The right side of her face was soon painted with a computer circuit diagram. Satyr horns sprouted from her head, and her hair turned bright purple. Priya cramped her abs and reached down like she was trying to pick something up really heavy. In her body, indescribable things were happening.Magic spun through her veins. And ones and zeroes starting appearing at strange intervals in the air around her. Her right cybernetic eye was lit up with purple lightning. The landscape started warping. It curled around upon itself. It inverted in unnatural ways. The AI of the ship filled her head with telepathic rage. “I think this will do better … for a level playing field”. The landscape was now three dimensional, and her body had some width to it. A great improvement. The mantid army was now of a manageable number. Before she knew it, the rainbow download beam had ejected her out of the ship and back into one of the office buildings. “Ouch, that hurt” she said, as her head banged against a wooden table. In her eyes, she could see the ship continue to churn. It was bombarded by spell bullets by the cultic officers, but another round of mantids would be enough. If she let this continue, it would be a complete massacre. Priya descended twenty stories to earth again, so that she could think and formulate a plan. It would occupy part of her brain, and fighting another. Looking at her arms, the sherbert-like color of purple and blue subsided. And another wave arrived. This horde was weaker than the last, and haphazardly assembled. Due to the damaging hack she had roughed up the spaceship’s factory. Arcs of energy from her dual wielded mirror swords were dodged by the sharp reflexes of the mantids but coordinated efforts were soon broken by the sharp slice into one thorax. Guts and embers and chips. Priya watched her black hair wave in front of her eyes. She was a wild feral thing. Like a child raised by the woods. A mantis latched on and shot her to the ground. Priya gripped her foot into the ground as its weight pushed her forward, and a swipe of the sword invaded every cavity of its being. Then another mantid came from behind, but she was quick, and reached out her hand. The color upon its body — that viridescent green — stripped away like smoke — and with a spell she brought it towards herself — and the green colored her white lab coat and her metallic armor — and the insect was left bare and pale. Priya saw more troopers approach. And suddenly her dual mirror swords bent forty five degrees, and sculpted themselves, like something made of glass. The mantis hissed, seeing her don the green, and the mirror swords becoming transparent spiked raptorial arms. They opened up and put the first enemy into a vice, Priya flexed her muscles and the implement ripped him to shreds. The others circled around. They met the same fate. A mantid absorbed it’s body into its head to make it grow larger, and the disembodied thing stood before her and caught her in it’s jaws. Her eyes turned fire red, and red lightning lashed out from her floral metallic vest, and an explosion engulfed them and annihilated the head. She had saved it from before. Frustrated now, the mantids flew the other way away from her, towards a river and dived in. Priya tapped her foot, waiting for them. The surface of the water started to fret. And a submersible arose. It lifted itself into the air. A green praying mantis submarine. They must have all clumped together and reconfigured. Priya started running as a torpedo slammed into the ground near her and exploded. She hid behind a building. A tracking torpedo came around but she dodged it and it slammed into the side of the building. The next one was caught with a lightning rope and she sent it back to its source. Mantids unclumped from the structure and swarmed again. “I think it’s time for the breakable sword”. An incantation, and a summoning circle appeared at her feet. It was beautiful, but the vines of flowers of filigree armor, the figure was already sacred geometry. A massive sword appeared in her hand. Instead of a blade, it had a slab of crystalline substance, and It seemed to be cracked in big pieces like a jigsaw that were still stuck together. Priya smiled as she turned the thing around her hand. The handle was pure fool’s gold. Seeing her distracted … one of them flicked it’s wings and drew near. Priya struck it but it didn’t kill it. It barely dented it at all. The mantid landed nearby, apparently curious as to what it was all about. But pieces of the breakable sword had already rolled across the grounds like dice. Those big purple crystal chunks. Other mantids crawled towards her. The mantid that had survived turned its head and hissed to it’s compatriots, but it was too late . The mines erupted, and domes of purple flame evaporated them, The breakable sword still had pieces left . Priya bat her eyes watching the lightshow. As she did that, the sole mantid flew off and escaped. Then more arrived, and she fought them, wielding a mirror sword in one and the breakable sword in another. Flinging pieces around and watching them ignite. When the purple one was done she cast the summoning circle again and a teal one replaced it. And then she summoned purple diamonds that would suck those nearby inside and explode. The spaceship went into overdrive, roaring with insane factory noise. Wave after wave arrived. Priya landed on one of the purple crystals. The various faces, edges or faces or vertexes emit energy that melted the newcomers. Before she knew it, she was in the air again. Fleeing from missles she made it into the clouds. The white barriers tricked the missile’s guidance system allowing escape. But the mantids were relentless. She aligned on one cloudy platform. The mantids stood on the other end. She could see they had covered their raptorial arms in a gleaming bronze metallic armor. Priya coughed once. It wasn’t typical for her to flinch like this. The creatures began clattering over the fluffy white mounds and were about half way there when she righted herself. “I don’t think so!”. She dipped her hand low and lifted it to the sky. The ground itself rippled. It was about to release something remarkable. As their myriad insect legs tapped ahead, the floor became restless, and little holes appeared. A bed of lightning spikes across the entirety of the platform speared them. They hissed in agony, and Priya retracted the spikes and ended their torment with a quick fist . Lightning perhaps had never been manipulated in such a way. Now the ship was headed towards her. Drifting lifelessly without firing a single cannon. She had exhausted it. Priya lifted up and landed on its vast upper surface. It was so long … it must have stretched across the expanse of the city. A terrifying blue mask of the sky smiled down upon her. Sardonic. Priya felt the shivers. And it made her stronger. In her body she felt her untapped potential. Magic force continued to grow. “I don’t need a crystal for this”. Her hands pointed downwards and inside the structure on every floor there appeared giant eyes that fired red beams from their eyes in all directions. The insides flooded with fire. Priya saw parts of the structure start to dome with the eruptions. More mantids came but they were not brave enough and turned away. The scientist felt the quake beneath her feet. Beautiful red pillars melted the ground around her and elevated to the sky. As if to paint that mask red. Priya flew away from the spaceship and returned to the ground. The cultic officers shouted in triumph on telepathic frequencies. Another wave of mantids gathered themselves together and attacked. As they all came in striking distance, she levitated above the ground, and the magic caused an incantation circle.The ground erupted with mirror swords that shot upwards, a great pillar of flickering sharpness. Nothing was left to chance. “I thought you’d be here!” exclaimed a familiar cry. Priya opened her eyes from the middle of it and dropped to the ground. “Eric! Is that you! I thought you were back in the hotel”. The red-sweatered boy waved his hands to reveal that yes, he was actually there. A pained face looked around and reacted to the disgust of the battlefield. It was painted with cybernetic dust. “Is this your lover?”. Priya hit her hand against her temple. The telepathic barrage was so loud. Her other hand reached for her belly and she keeled over. A weird elongated mantis scooped up Eric and forced her into the air with telekinesis. “You're the captain …” she spat. “I believe so. Priya Echo was it. I have seen your efficacy against our soldiers”. “It was a delight”. Knife-like legs and arms slowly moved around and contained her man. “Priya, I can sense this is your consort. I have detected your energy signature, and I have tapped into the SOTA logs to read your data. I have calculated … that … you are like us”. “I’m nothing like you mantid. I protect the SOTA. you destroy it”. “Yes but … there is something more primitive. Warrior … you are a hybrid”. “I am human”. “No … not quite. You are a hybrid like us. A cyborg. A creation”. “I am nothing like you mantid! I’m the one that destroyed your ship” Priya could feel the iron like imprisonment of it’s telekinesis. Eric was trying to mouth words to her. “Very well … then I will prove this fact to you … everything is supported by our data … now take a look at your consort … in a moment as my input reaches your mind … you will do as we do … and become like us”. “I have no idea what you're talking about!” Priya cried. This thing was really starting to dagger into her mind. Large circular compound eyes brimmed with blue telepathic light. “Hiss …. Priya Echo. I know you are a hybrid like us … so be a praying mantis … and bite the head off your consort … you love him … so you will devour … and become one of us”. “In your dreams!”. The mantid’s beetle-like mouthparts chattered. It had an evil look in its eye. “I know your true name hybrid”. Priya could start sensing a strange technological urge seep through her and she knew in moments her body would reconfigure for the purpose. The mantid had reverse hacked her Rikiral nature. “Priya!!” Eric shouted, She snapped out of it and burst from the hold. Using the sharpest mirror sword in her arsenal she ended the wholeness of the insect, severing it into pieces. In seconds it had reformed itself. “If you won’t comply, then I will do it myself!”. The dragon-like mantid flew back towards them. But at the last second Eric released his Dazin star map form and the scroll-like rolls of star maps with their sharp edges sliced through the creature like a sword. He was like a beautiful living mummy. Their hands reached towards each other, and the fingers interlocked. The lovers came together. And embraced as they reached the ground. “I thought you were history,” Priya laughed. Eric absorbed his Dazin aspect and reached his arm around her shoulder like an old friend. “I knew you would have saved me yet again”. Priya playfully came in close and pretended to bite off his head. Eric laughed as she escorted his girl from the battleground. Cultic officers rushed in and reported to her. Then a rush to a hill of concrete in the distance. More rumblings as noises came in from below. There were workers and others removing the debris with magic. Priya pushed them aside and ran in there, getting on her knees and dug. A few rocks later and she reached down and lifted one up. He was young and covered in dust. The face was almost lifeless. More cultic officers came in around her, “Empress, let us take care of the rest”. They took the youth away. Eric grabbed her wrist and they made their way to the shadow underneath an office building.Priya hid herself in a nook and tears started to shed from her eyes. Slowly trailing down her cheek. She had never felt this physical grief before. Not for the mortal. “I should have been faster .. and saved more lives. I won’t make that mistake again”. Emotion racked her chest. Eric nodded in approval and comforted her. He looked down at the flowers, but they weren’t fading. They were blooming. The metal petals twitched. They were acting like the real thing. In space the fleet arrived. And more planets awaited. It was just the beginning. And in a strange way, the feeling of being a mantid for a moment felt empowering and good. FREAKAZOIDS !!!