A fickle thrill coursed through the cold, barren soil, pumping anticipation into the air. The hot-headed Aliens breathed in this very anticipation and grew drunk off it, eyes roving the fields to find a body to pass their excitement onto. They stood in many ranks, jittering and babbling uncontrollably. To their front, their commanders lectured them on what was to happen with fail-proof confidence: they would charge the walls in an orderly fashion, they would climb it and destroy the scraps of metal the humans had built up, they would massacre the populace, and they would do all of this with minimum casualties.

But the confidence on their side was met by silent glares on the other, by both the gangs of humans who held the walls and by the numerous cannons’ lips, ready and eager to spit out some bone-crunching saliva.

Alyona thundered down the Battlement, trailed on by Richie and Sofia. She religiously looked down the parapet every few steps, the sinking feeling in her stomach growing heavier.

“Tell me you can see them. Tell me that I’m just looking in the wrong area,”

“You’re not, I don’t think they’re coming back now,” Richie meekly said, his chest and belly heaving up and down due to following Alyona’s pace.

Alyona swore and looked down the parapet once more, before turning to face the two. Richie seemed to have leaned considerably in the hours leading up to the war and yet he was still fat, still unfit to do anything else other than management. Sofia caught her eyes and stared grimly. Her clothes stuck to her skin and her forehead was furrowed, her hands tense by her side.

“Do you think you can hold them off?” Alyona asked her.

“I… No,” Sofia said, miraculously maintaining eye-contact.

“Fuck. Where is that necromancer? Or at least where are the girls? Or at least where’s Stanis and his trio of bastards?” Alyona said harshly, her voice cold and alien even to herself.

“I think the girls have failed,” Richie answered, “As for Stanis, I’ve heard a lot but I’m not any wiser as to where he could be. But… Do you think he could’ve figured out?”

“I think that would explain a lot. The Jaguars are gone, Pete and his goons are gone, and Stanis is gone.” Sofia said bleakly. “I think we fucked it,”

“WELL, HOW WERE WE SUPPOSED TO KNOW THIS WOULD HAPPEN,” Alyona roared back at her, her eyes on the brink of insanity.

Sofia and Richie stood in silence, taken back by the sudden outbreak.

“I… Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you. It won’t help anyone,” Alyona said after a few seconds of awkward build-up.

But before the other two could respond, a bearded man tapped Alyona on the shoulder.

“They’re about to begin the charge. Do we fire immediately or wait till they’re clumped up under the walls?” he asked.

“Begin fire the second they enter our range,” Alyona snapped back, before being drowned out.

Over the walls and past the fields, the army of Aliens began to collectively roar, their warcries adding and stacking upon each other. The end was nigh…

****

Stanis watched the charging Aliens through a flush of nostalgia. The noise, the bloodlust, the fear: he had lived it all, in fact, that was all he could remember of his past now. The thrill of the fight, the fill of lust, and the brutality of might. He had once known it better than a lover but now he craved it like a broken ex. His fingers trembled and he bit down on his teeth, holding back his desires.

The cannons barraged the fields over and over, the ground transforming into bloody marshlands. The air stank of smoke and metal, both from the cannons reigning high over the walls and from the floods of blood down below. Despite their losses, the Aliens continued to move forward until they clashed with the mud-stained walls. Several of them scampered up it with shocking agility, dodging incoming cannonballs with a previously unseen finesse.

Within seconds of them making it onto the walkway, the effects of war cast itself onto the humans. Grief, pain and vehement bloodlust ran free, parading their multiple faces to legions of victims. No man or Alien was exempt from this effect and the strongest fought the ugliest, their actions mirroring that of a swine’s.

It was at this moment that Stanis finally felt a respite from his lust; they were here. Legions of undead in various stages of decomposition charged over the hills, dropping flesh and staining stench all along their path. And in the centre of this dashing company stood the woman Stanis had given up so much for.

He jumped from his coverage and began to make his way down to the battlefields. Considering the number of zombies she currently controlled and the eye-catching scene in front of them, it was almost impossible that she would notice him, but just to be safe, he withdrew his fluctuations and moved slowly. He held back his hands and waited for her to begin her work, for her focus to drift. All he needed was one moment…

Her zombies ate away at the heel of the Alien’s army and voraciously moved forward. The two corners of her army broke away from the main force and began to head towards the wall. She wanted to raze both the Aliens and the humans, how predictable of her. But Stanis knew that it was impossible for her to do so, after all, she simply didn’t have enough forces. That was, of course, unless she raised more corpses, such as the fresh ones lying on the battlefield. How predictable.

She was left behind with fewer zombies than before but the remaining ones began to converge on her point, thickening her defence. A dark mana-shield began to stabilize and the pools of crimson blood turned a deathly black. She raised her arms within her barrier and began chanting, the pools twisting and churning in accordance with her words; it was a large-scale spell. Perfect.

Stanis finally broke free of his shackles and shot forward. He reached the barrier in no time and swung his sword at it. The second the blade met the barrier, hundreds of lightning bolts burst from his body into the blade and against the shield. Splitting thunderclaps simultaneously boomed over the battlefield, causing all heads to turn towards him.

The barrier crumbled under his blade and he streaked in, his body lit up bright by the smatterings of sparks. He looked ahead and felt the grip over his handle tighten; she stood with her fingers pointed towards him, a prominent flush in her cheeks.

“Fool me once,” she roared over the noise of the battlefield,” Shame on you,” Simultaneously, her remaining Zombies turned direction and scrambled to tear Stanis apart.

“Fool me twice, shame on me,” she said as Stanis cut through her forces like a hot knife through butter. His eyes were locked on her as he moved forwards at a frightening pace.

“But fool me thrice,” she said. “Oh wait, you can’t. I know how strong you are now, no more lucky escapes for you,”

Stanis flicked his head around and saw that the two streams of her army that had headed towards the walls were actually nowhere near the walls and just seconds away from him. There was no way they could have backtracked such a distance in that time, meaning that they had begun to backtrack far before he had attacked. She had baited herself; this was a trap.

He flashed his teeth at her in response to his realisation. So what if this was a trap, it wouldn’t be fun anyway if his long-anticipated kill was easy.

He cast his oldest skill and dashed through the remaining Zombies. From his back, icicles the size of cars began to shoot out towards the returning undead. While they wouldn’t cause much damage, they did have enough of a size to elongate his precious time with Jen.

With perfect sight of his behind, he began to shoot several Blueshot spitefires at the undead who made it past his defensive icicles. His mana-pool began to drain very quickly and so he cast Destructive mana recharge in response, sucking in the Earth’s mana through his feet. The mud grew stale and the midnight-stained pools lost their lives, draining into the ground as if they had never existed.

Jen shot several Darkshots his way, and in the sky, Stanis could sense another meteor making its way down; she was making this a game of time. And yet, she reined her cards quite a bit as she threw missile after missile at him, instead waiting for the exact moment when he tried to make a link. It was simply her bad luck that he was just as wary of his links now as she was eager for it.

He clashed with her last, remaining mana-shield and broke through it. Instead of running, Jen stood her ground and took out her dagger, his dagger. It looked nothing like the one he had made but he knew it was his. She had somehow corrupted it so much that the very formation of the dagger had turned into something far more sinister. She circled around him with the dagger in front of her, perfectly aware of the fact that he knew the damage it could cause.

But instead of edging away from it, Stanis spat at her and stepped in, using his sword to strike the dagger. Like before, the second that blade touched blade, he overloaded it with lightning and she immediately dropped the dagger and retreated. She snarled at him and glared, hoping that he would be cautious enough to give her one more second. Her hopes were misplaced.

He threw the sword at her head and moved to where she would side-step to; the sword was simply a decorative facade for his inner powers. She shot several Dark shots at him, the first one breaking through his shield and the rest burning into his flesh, causing him to cringe. But he didn’t stop, he couldn’t. He caught her shoulders and gripped, pressing as hard as he could.

“Electric transfer…”