System Wars: Here Comes the Heroes!-Chapter 33: Coming in Hot

"Wait, how exactly are we going to be entering this obvious warzone? Also, am I going to be forced to enter while wearing these clothes?" SK asked. "These are my exercise clothes, not my fighting clothes. Hell, I don't even have those."

[The Hero Dispatch Map will send the User and their Familiars to the exact point where they can make the biggest difference possible in the ongoing crisis,] the System explained. [As for the user's current equipment, don't worry. They shall be modified according to the location, and the user will have the ability to acquire equipment while exploring the designated realm/planet/plane.]

"That makes sense, I think," SK mumbled as he read through the blurb. "Alright, lets-OOP!"

Literal seconds after SK had finished reading the textbox, a giant spectral hand suddenly shot forward and grabbed him, Platiknight and Tin Star like they were action figures.

The two superheroes looked oddly fine about this turn of events, but SK was freaking out.

"What the fuck?! I thought we were going to get teleported again!"

[Due to the interference present on the planet of Bendana-7, standard teleportation is currently inaccessible. As such, we will have to make use of a technique that has been used by superheroes since the dawn of the medium.]

"The fuck does that mean?!"

[Activating, Hero Landing protocol.]

"MOTHER-!"

_______ In a star system several thousand light years away... _______________

Bendana-7.

A planet that is 70% desert while the remaining 30% consists of rivers that crisscross the entire world. These rivers were deep enough that the midway point to their riverbeds had enough pressure to crush a diamond into dust.

This planet is fairly inhospitable for most lifeforms, except for the native populace: the Lumenlithics.

The Lumenlithics are a race of a silicon-based sapient life known for two things across the galaxy.

First, their ability to manipulate light.

Updat𝓮d from freewēbnoveℓ.com.

Thanks to their unique structure, Lumenlithics are able to manipulate, concentrate, and emit various beams of light that can be as harmless as a yellow flashlight or as harmful as a gamma laser.

Second, every single Lumenlithic is known to develop a unique crystal in their chest that holds everything about them.

Carved by the sands of time and polished by the winds of change, this crystal makes it possible for a Lumenlithic to be brought back to life as long as it remains intact and buried in the earth.

This quirk is actually how Lumenlithics reproduce, as each parent will literally donate a piece of their crystal, tie them together, and bury them in the ground to make a new life.

Alternatively, these crystals could be extracted and refined into becoming the most powerful AI cores in existence, at the cost of the Lumenlithic's sapience.

Due to this innate cruelty, cores made of Lumenlithic crystals were essentially banned in most parts of civilized space. Unfortunately, due to the black market value of such cores being enough for someone to buy a whole planet at the low end, there were many lawless groups who were more than happy to snub such rules to go "mining" and there were even more legitimate organizations that would turn a blind eye in order to fund such operations.

Many times when these operations occurred, the people of Bendana-7 would only have themselves to rely on in order to put a stop to these atrocities, and in just as many times, the casualties would number in the millions.

It was a time of despair, desperation and pain.

In other words, as dark as it sounded, it was the perfect time for heroes to make a difference.

...

"Run! Get to the city! Get to the city!"

"I can't! My legs are—"

"Don't worry, I'll carry you; come on!"

"GAH!"

"Daddy, no!"

On the outskirts of a crystal city, hundreds upon thousands of Lumenlithics were doing their best to run, fly, or drive as fast as they could to enter the city limits and attain sanctuary.

Chasing after them though, riding in hovering tanks that resembled limbless spiders, was an army of cybernetically enhanced lizardmen.

These bestial cyborgs were soldiers for the Salbanbo Empire, an interplanetary empire that was the worst parts of a theocracy, capitalism, and a monarchy all mixed into one foul combination.

The Salbanbo Empire believed that profits and the ability to amass wealth were signs of divine favor, so they did everything in their power to do so.

Whether it was trading bodies, bullets, or stimulants, as long as it kept their ledgers in the black, it was all permissable.

As such, they were regular raiders of Bendana-7, and had ruthlessly calculated the most efficient ways to maximize their profit margins.

By their models, they only needed to bring one large freighter/carrier ship, place it in middle atmosphere, and release a horde of their workers in specially made hover tanks to efficiently harvest the populace.

The price of one of these tank teams was only 1/100th the price of a single unprocessed Lumenlithic crystal, meaning that each tank needed only one crystal to be considered profitable. However, the Salbanbo soldiers were opportunistic bastards.

One of these aforementioned hover tanks was in the process of tailing a van carrying several fully grown Lumenlithics that were doing their best to blast them away with their innate laser attacks.

But alas, the hover tanks had powerful energy shields installed.

"Every blast the shield blocks is costing us 582 units," a Salbanbo soldier that had noticeably fancier cybernetics than the others in his tank noted. "Intelligence, what is the possible profit margin?"

"The scanners state that there are five adult specimens in the vehicle in front of us. Their crystals should be fully ripened by now, and can be immediately processed once we return to the ship. Although, we can also make a neat sum if we capture them alive. The choice is yours, Manager."

"Harvest it is," the Manager nodded. "Gunner, prepare the sonic miner!"

"Expenditure, approved!"

Mounted on the top of each hover tank was a strange weapon that looked like a weaponize amplifier that was controlled by a physical interface that connected it to the cybernetic skull implant of a Salbanbo soldier.

"Preparing frequency...fire!"

KEEEN!

"AAAAAAAHHHH!"

With a mental command, the Salbanbo soldier fired off a burst of sound that washed over the truck of Lumenlithics and vibrated their bodies until they crumbled into piles of rubble and gleaming crystals.

"Activate the retrieveral vacuum!"

"Sir, yes, sir!"

Scenes similar to this moment were a distressingly common sight during these operations, to the point that many Lumenlithics found it pointless to try and interfere when someone gets captured.

The only thing most people did when they saw these moments occur was to simply pray for a miracle.

"Manager! The scanner is picking up another vehicle, and this one has juvenile specimen!"

"Excellent!"

... Speaking of miracles...

High above the skies of Bendana-7, above even the Salbanbo carrier, a strange event was taking place.

A strange gold and blue metallic ring had appeared like a mirage and began to float in the air for a couple of moments before repositioning itself so that it was now parallel with the ground far beneath it.

In the next moment, a strange energy began to condense in its center until a large shimmering blue portal had formed inside it.

Immediately after this portal had formed, SK, Platiknight and Tin Star had fallen out of this newly formed portal and were now in freefall.

On the plus side, SK's exercise clothes had been swapped out for a fairly generic but serviceable superhero costume.

"-FUCKER!" SK cursed as soon as he was released from the spectral giant hand that was holding him seconds ago. "Oh wait, I'm now freeFALLING, WHAT THE HELL?!"

"Looks like we're in for a ride, Sheriff," Tin Star joked.

"Do not worry about the landing strategy, my liege," Platiknight assured SK. "I will make sure that we'll land...hmmm?"

Before Platiknight could finish his statement of assurance, he had suddenly stiffened up and began staring directly towards the ground. Not only that, but SK even saw that Tin Star had his attention elsewhere.

"Platiknight? Tin Star? What are you two-oh, right!"

SK was just about to ask what had gotten the shining knight all tensed up, until he remembered he could literally share his senses with him. Once he did, SK immediately put his mind into syncing with both of their visions.

"Now let's see what's gotten you...oh...shit."

As our heroes continued to rapidly fall to the ground, SK could see through Platiknight's eyes that the situation down there wasn't looking too good.

At this moment, several large hovering tanks filled with cybernetic lizard soldiers were surrounding a sizeable convoy of rocky humanoids, like wolves encircling a flock of sheep.

While at the same time, through Tin Star's eyes, he could see that there was massive space ship ferrying an innumerable number of those tanks and lizards.

At this moment, he could sense what priorities each of his hero had when it came to resolving this crisis.

"Save the people or destroy the source of danger..."