“It is better to live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep.”

- Italian proverb

John gazes out from his sensors, the hum of electricity being his solemn musical soundtrack. Although the sound of Catherine panting does reach his audio sensors, he ignores it now that his goal has almost in reach.

Leaping off the Grand Canyon wall, he begins to shift into his Avian Form from his Gaia Form. Taking only a few minutes, he keeps his thrust at a steady 20%, to keep his body ‘stealthy’.

All the while Catherine is sitting on his back, panting.

“Catherine, where are we heading?”

“We are… hwa… heading north more… hwa…”

“... Thank you for your support.”

“Hwa… I am your… hwaa… bra.”

Giving no retort, John sets his sights to the northern parts of the Grand Canyon. Revenge is his game, and he is going to play it well. It was independence day, but for whom?

Taking no more than a few minutes, John rises and rests just below cloud level, scanning the area below for signs of government activity. In the distance, another bombing run issued by the U.F.E. comes into effect. A light show is put on at the distance of over a thousand miles.

Searching relentlessly, John uses his sensors to their capacity. Catherine continues to pant, although sometimes the sound of her munching on food is picked up on the sensor.

Ignoring the munch and crunch, John continues his sensor scans on the Grand Canyon and the surrounding area.

No energy signatures were detected, and no vitals except for the critters of the earthen soil showed up in his scan. Cursing his inability, he continues to hover through the sky.

“Hey, John. What’s that?”

Sensing that Catherine was pointing up with her arm, and chips falling upon his head, John looks up, his own head straining to pinpoint where Catherine herself was pointing.

“Catherine, is that what I think it is?” John asks Catherine with a little awe and overwhelming excitement in his voice. Keep in my that he uses the speaker system in his body to speak, so whispering is a no go for him.

Catherine only nods, the chips in her mouth falling once again.

Plowing through the cloud cover above the flying duo, was a massive ship.

Five huge thrusters with turbines just outside of the cylinder thrusters marked each corner of the ship above John and Catherine. It was massive in width, but the height only went up to two stories of a building's height. But this was still bigger than John in his Avian Form.

Entirely gray, and it’s shape was a pentagon. But it wasn’t just any ship appearing before John. No, on the side of the massive pentagonal ship facing John were the words The Pentagon.

“Haha! This is going to be so much fun!!” Catherine squeals from where she is sitting, throwing empty chip bags off of John. The Fritos, Doritos, and the Lay’s all fell, and Catherine looked at them with the eyes of a child whom lost his favorite toy.

Using his own thrusters, the discs began to spin rapidly around him, the electrical current making Catherine’s hair stand on end. John flies forwards, as from the bottom of The Pentagon were massive Gatling Turrets implanted, and aimed straight at him.

“Shit, Catherine, don’t get shot.” John tells Catherine, as the energy signatures begin to explode before him on his sensor.

However, Catherine was now looking at the turrets with an immeasurable amount of lust.

“..You masochist…”

Using the five discs surrounding him, he moves them all to the front of his body, his wings no longer flapping as he makes his body as straight as possible. The discs inside his wings turn to point straight down and away from The Pentagon, as John increases the thrust to 100%.

The energy he sensed before begins to unleash itself at him, but to no avail as the discs in front of him create an electric shield and rotate to catch the energy bullets sent at him. Powering themselves, the discs also begin to send the bullets back at a significant loss of accuracy. Missing multiple times, the bullets still found their marks as there were over 30 turrets shooting at John.

But John still pressed forward as his shield took the full brunt of the attack. Catherine no longer looked on in lust, but now in panic as she began to see small, balls of spike float out from the inside of the ship.

“J-j-j-j-j-ohn! There’s more!” Catherine begins to smack John’s head in panic. Her lab coat flutters in the wind furiously, letting out candy bar wrappers to float on to the ground.

“I know, you wimp.” John uses his sensors to pinpoint what Catherine had begun to point out.

The ‘Starships’ began their parade under the cloud cover, zipping and rolling around to dodge the bullets that began to head their way, reflected by John’s disc barrier. Using their engines, they activate the thrust and dodge swiftly, sometimes losing a needle that would spontaneously explode.

“Catherine, get low so you don’t end up like those needle rockets.” says John as the distance between the two parties decreases, explosions occurring between the two like a political debate.

Catherine acknowledges the suggestion by wrapping her legs around his ‘waist’, and her arms around his upper body. This causes him to tilt slightly due to her weight. But it is a slight mistake that costed… something.

An explosion occurs just below John, and out of the smoke of the explosion flies one of the starships. Glistening with the soot of explosion, it sparkled as the electricity shot by John’s auto-defense discs was basically absorbed by the metallic dust caused by the explosion.

“Shit, what the hell is in those needles?” John shouts out of his speakers, as he initiates evasive action. The thrusters output varies between each wing as he leaves the sanctuary of his shield, the five discs following him in his evasion.

“It’s druggsss!!!!” Catherine shouts out to John’s rhetorical question. Her arms don’t go up or out, but continue to hug onto John, for her life depended on it for once.

The starships begin to chase after John, forming a V in the air, each ship firing two of their needles at John.

Realizing their intent, John begins to use the discs to block the missiles, the blades of the discs absorbing the explosion and dust, firing the energy back at the ships. A couple of the starships explode, but the rest evade the random projectile blasts.

John initiates his tail cannon, and flies through the air underneath The Pentagon, the turrets continuing their fire upon John, suppressing his movement. Catherine begins to get holes in her lab coat, revealing her smooth skin to the world.

This goes unnoticed by all in the air, on the battlefield.

Firing off a few bursts of suppressed plasma from his tail, John is able to knock out an area of the turrets, giving him some leeway in tactics. But this doesn’t come without a cost as the The Pentagon begins to take action itself.

In the center of the massive ship is a small black ball, with tiny sparks flying off and back into it. On John’s sensors, a massive energy signature is detected from that little ball, spelling out doom for John.

But John didn’t wait this long for revenge, and only for a small black ball to stop his war path.

John pushes his way through the crowd of starships, destroying a few only to have them follow his flight, issuing him the courtesy of several needles worth of firepower. But these missiles are all deflected or absorbed by John’s auto-defense system, the spinning discs redistributing the firepower back towards the flying balls.

However, the energy reading began to increase exponentially, and John’s new body began to feel the pressure from the black ball in the form of gravity. Having to spend more energy from his thermal fusion reactor, the lines on his body that glowed orange now began to glow a very light orange color, and sometimes the flicker of blue could be seen swirling its way around his body.

Reaching the point where his maximum output couldn’t push through the gravity forced upon him, John used his last weapon, as he really never wanted to rely on such a weapon.

“Catherine, I choose you!”

“Wah??!! You’ll marry meeeeee!” Catherine begins to respond but is suddenly pushed forward by his tail, and tossed using multiple discs as leverage. Much like that of a trampoline, she goes flying off of John’s back and straight to the black ball.

Forming a ‘snow angel’ in the air, she flips through the air, heads over heels and back again. Her legs spread, and her arms out wide, she screams much like a woman in her prime. But being over 100, she was way passed that stage.

As soon as she reaches the black ball of energy, it disappears to an unknown place just as Catherine passes it.

Issuing commands to his disc thrusters, Catherine is caught by John’s moving body, her body in complete alignment with John. Crying in joy at the thought of being married, and like the previous experience never happened, she hugs onto John’s body, doing obscene motions and the words spoken by her were muted by John, as he REALLY didn’t need to hear it.

Still dodging the turret fire, and the missiles, John notices that the time between attacks from the turrets is slowing, as if they lost a power source.

So John begins to destroy all the turrets one by one, a dozen by a dozen.

The starships begin to circle him when he goes on his killing spree, and so John begins to give commands to his body, using his sensors to pinpoint the locations of the starships.

Activating his thrusters at 100% with no inhibitors, his wings look similar to blades as he zips past a starship approaching him. The special alloy of John’s body cuts through the earthen metal like paper, and the starship explodes into a thousand pieces. THe sound of someone near death’s doors echoes across his sensors.

Startled, the other starships begin to unleash their missiles already locked onto John, but unfortunately for them John begins to attack each aircraft one by one, causing small damage to nearby units.

Of course, John doesn’t forget about the missiles, as he causes them to explode with his defense system that he controls, the discs adjusting to cutting the needle missiles in half, causing them to lose their purpose and explode in the air.

Taking no longer than a few minutes, the aerial dogfight ends. Catherine breathes deeply in succession, enough for both woman and machine.

“That… was a blast.” The creepy smile of Catherine’s face belies her thoughts to John.

Flying into one of five of the docking stations and hangars for the starships, John hovers until a big 01 comes into his sight sensor. Hovering steadily, he initiates his Hiltz Form just as soon as the heat from his thrusters begins to be felt by his body.

“That was a good ride…” Catherine hops off his body like a professional horseback riding, sighing. Her knees seem odd as they wobble with each step she takes.

Only taking a dozen seconds, John lands upon the Docking Bay 01, his metal body causing a small indent upon the flying ship. Already in his Hiltz Form, he activates his programs for his lightsaber, the Varisum metal glowing brightly, despite the fact that the saber didn’t have a current in it.

The lightsaber in hand, and the three discs that float around him in a circle are the only attack systems online. John swings the weapon around in an attempted experiment, narrowly missing the fidgeting Catherine who wears nothing but a burned up lab coat.

Calibrating his body to adjust to swinging around the lightsaber, he doesn’t pay attention to the surroundings, that is, until Catherine starts clinging to his leg.

“What are you doing?” John tilts his head to look down towards Catherine, who begins to shake in either fright or excitement. With her, it’s hard to tell.

Instead of replying, she points to a place further down the hangar bay, where John then looks and scopes out the situation using his sensors.

His sensors pick up a few dozen life signs, but the image he stares at before him is definitely not a few dozen, as the sound of metal boots ricochets off of the floor. Inwardly, he smiles, and the three hovering discs move to either side of him, two on the left and one on the right where the lightsaber is.

He flashes his emoticon. A smile appears on his visor.

“It’s getting warmer now.” John begins to move at a slow pace towards the things and beings before him.

(End of 1st Part)

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Author here, thought I would post the first part of the battle first, because I didn't want to give you guys a long wait. I will change it back to a single thread when the next part of the Chapter 09 is done. btw, 3/3 is my special day, so that's why I'm releasing it that day. A perfect day to kill a president haha