The swordswoman dodged Arvid’s strike once again. The primitive had great power…but that was irrelevant. His wild fighting style and massive weapon meant he would never hit her. She swung her blade to counterattack…

CLANG!

Kiyosuke appeared and deflected her attack once again.

She frowned.

The primitives couldn’t possibly overcome her speed and skill…but their novel abilities created a near impenetrable defense. It seems she was still lacking, her raw speed and swordsmanship insufficient to overcome them.

But she was not just a swordswoman.

She was a Vophae.

And so she closed her eyes, focusing her thoughts and powers.

She began to read the future.

All Vophae are theoretically capable of precognition, but it is not as useful as most other races seem to think. Predicting the actual future of the physical world is insanely complex and difficult. Even the tiniest variable, down to the current arrangement of electrons could have an impact on the result of a given physical phenomena. Trying to see the future generally results in an overload of countless possibilities, unless the Vophae in question can narrow them down. Which means actual, useful prediction requires a near perfect understanding of physics and the current state of the surrounding area, to account for as many possible variables when making predictions.

But the Vophae were not physicists. They were psychics.

Precognition, at least as far as battle is concerned, could be made significantly easier by using an organic’s thoughts as a guide and just predicting what a given person will do next. After all, a person can only have so many thoughts in a finite time period, particularly when considering their next move during battle. There still could be too many possibilities to provide useful data for combat, but this is where the swordswoman's own experience came into play. Her knowledge of various combat techniques and tendencies built from countless battles with a multitude of species helped her to narrow down the possibilities.

These individuals had some sort of psionic jammer, but that was the most primitive of psionic countermeasures, and the devices in question were not attuned to Vophae specifically. Not to mention she need not read their mind precisely, she was only using the direction of their thoughts as a beacon for her precognition. Their defenses proved no barrier to the alien swordswoman.

So she saw that Kiyosuke was about to appear behind her.

She immediately thrust out her foot…

And caught Kiyosuke in the gut right as he appeared.

The boy cried out and launched across the field, bouncing several times before coming to a stop. And he did not get back up.

She opened her eyes and dodged as Arvid and Chronolock resumed their assault. But Chronolock was not as great a threat as Kiyosuke. The swordswoman had to be wary of the boy who could cut through space itself, but the girl jumping through time simply did not have the weapons to deal meaningful harm to a Vophae.

So the swordswoman began to ignore Chronolock’s guns and stun batons and focus on Arvid.

And her counterattacks began to find purchase.

A cut here.

A scratch there.

Slowly but surely she was breaking through the defense. Soon she found an opening, her blade approaching his undefended side…

Chronolock appeared once more and froze the blade in time. She grunted and yelled at Arvid.

“We’ve lost! Grab your friend and go! I’ll hold her off!”

Arvid frowned but all his experience agreed with the hero’s judgment. They were only ever trying to contain this foe: something they could no longer safely achieve now that Kiyosuke was incapacitated. Retreat was the correct move. And Chronolock’s abilities were far better suited to a holding action than his own in this case, as well as escaping once it was over.

He nodded and turned, running to pick up Kiyosuke and leave the area.

Chronolock grunted and let go of the blade, vanishing in time as it swung through her prior position.

Over and over, the hero flashed and blinked, assaulting the alien with everything she could think of.

But that fight could only end one way…

The brawler alien slid across the field. Wonder Knight leapt forward, rushing in once more. The alien tried to prepare his stance but a jet of flame from a pink Captain Hot Devil blocked his view.

But that didn’t matter to the Vophae, who saw with more than eyes.

So the alien swung his fist into the flames and caught Wonder Knight by the jaw, sending the boy flying into the air.

The pink Wonder Knight abandoned his planned assault and turned to catch his original. The construct began to warp and molded itself into a dragon, carrying the groaning Wonder Knight from the field.

Pink Star nodded grimly.

“Now it’s my turn to save you.”

She focused back on the alien, who had already begun to run towards her.

A pink Icy Rose tried to freeze his feet…

A pink Elise weighed him down with a barrage of grav-bolts…

And then a massive pink dragon appeared and covered the Vophae in fire…

The alien burst through the flames, slamming his fist into the dragon’s jaws.

He landed in front of Pink Star as the dragon dispersed, his fist pulled back…

PSI Omega flew over to where she had dropped the alien to the ground. Suddenly she winced and clutched her head.

The lead Vophae floated down from the air, arms crossed.

“I will be your opponent.”

PSI Omega grit her teeth and thrust both her hands forward, glowing bright.

The Vophae began to glow purple, and casually lifted one of his hands.

The very air itself distorted between the two as they began an invisible tug-of-war with all their psychic might.

Which meant the fire-flinging Vophae was free to pick himself up off the ground.

Voidspeaker grimaced as he helped Icy Rose to her feet.

Elise had fallen back with the injured Saydaa and was no longer on the field. So it was just him right now.

Worst, he had just caught sight of Chronolock. She was facing the swordswoman.

Alone.

Everything in him wanted to rush to her side but he couldn’t leave Icy Rose.

And he had problems of his own.

For the alien’s flames had already overcome his void.

And those flames were once again approaching him.

He began to chant as the burning inferno approached his position…

A blast of red fire surged over him…from behind. It collided into the flames ahead. The red flames were quickly engulfed by the purple but they did slow the assault.

And that was enough.

For a raging blizzard filled the field and a mighty wall of ice rose in front of the young heroes.

Captain Hot Devil and Icy Falcon had arrived.

Captain Hot Devil landed by the two heroes while Icy Falcon engaged with the alien, the two blasting fire and ice at one another.

Captain Hot Devil saw Voidspeaker’s eyes flicker and glanced over to where Chronolock was engaged. He stood over Icy Rose and nodded at the boy.

“Go, we can handle things here.”

Voidspeaker frowned but nodded and flew towards Chronolock’s position. Captain Hot Devil turned back to the fight.

Icy Falcon was groaning as he struggled to stop the onslaught of flames. The Captain furrowed his brow.

They could handle things here, right?

Pink Star closed her eyes as the fist approached. She no longer had the time to create a new construct.

But that was all right.

She had gotten her friends to safety. That was all that mattered.

BOOM!

The girl cried out as something exploded in front of her.

Eagle Smasher flew down from the sky, carrying Nitromaker. Nitromaker was cackling as she hurled explosives down at the alien.

“What on Earth are you doing, recruit?! Get down and get out!”

Pink Star’s eyes widened but she quickly hit the dirt to the side. A hail of gunfire rang out as Major General Tina, Starbright, and Steel Bear rushed into the area, Starbright empowering not only his machine gun but Tina’s pistols and Steel Bear’s minigun as well.

The alien’s eyes widened as the glowing bullets pierced his psionic barrier and filled his body with bleeding holes.

Black Iris, well, there wasn’t a whole lot a super-hacker could do in this fight, all his drones destroyed much earlier in the battle.

But he did what he could.

Which was help Pink Star off the ground and then run the heck away!

And then a bolt of lightning added to the barrage as an armored suit crashed into the ground.

“Commie! What are you doing here?!”

“American woman say ‘Titan’s go!’, so I go, da?”

“I DIDN’T MEAN YOU! Ugh, whatever, just help us kill this loser.”

“With pleasure.”

Lightning, explosions, and glowing bullets filled the air as the Titans (Tina’s and otherwise) gave their opponent hell.

Voidspeaker flew through the air, gritting his teeth. He could barely see the fight as Chronolock and the swordswoman flickered across the field, weapons clashing.

But he did see it as the swordswoman knocked Chronolock’s last baton into the air. The hero stumbled back as the swordswoman lifted her sword high, prepared to strike.

“CHRONO!”

Voidspeaker fired a beam with all his might.

The beam struck against a purple barrier around the alien.

He would drain it eventually…

But not in time.

The blade began to drop…

CLANG!

A golden arc cut through the air and deflected the sword. The swordswoman leapt back to take stock of the new foe.

Master Elegant Katana stood over Chronolock, his golden sword at the ready. Voidspeaker flew over to Chronolock and helped pick her up.

“A swordswoman from outer space? Now that will make for an elegant fight…and an elegant victory!”

The two sword wielders prepared their stance.

And so the ILS’s most experienced heroes confronted the might of the Vophae.