"Soo... do you want to take the local militia and robots or do you want the alien looking things?" Shinobi asked as he backflipped under an orange spike and into one of these large warmachines which he stabbed through the core with his katana.

Valkyrie scoffed as her flurry of feathers tore through her enemies. Both the militia and the alien creatures were dying quickly as the sharp feathers that were more like flying knives were sliding in between plates of armor. "How about we just kill all of the enemies before us? We can figure out what is going on once they are all dead."

Shinobi jumped off the war machine and slicked an alien creature down the middle just as it was preparing to throw something. Overhead, both the local military drop ships and the alien drop ship were crashing into the distance. "Sounds good." He remarked as he kicked off the side of a building to decapitate two soldiers.

They were ambushed in the middle of a remote town that was located in a desert. There were maybe twenty occupants of the town. They were intelligently hiding while the fighting occurred. But the destroyed rickety buildings would definitely end up becoming a problem for them.

"We are going to have to stay afterwards and help rebuild a bit." Valkyrie informed him as her greataxe sliced through one of those automaton war machines like it was nothing.

"Haa..." Shinobi groaned. "Fine. But only because you seem to be on some sort of kindness kick."

—---------------------------

"We have incoming enemies!" K warned from the edge of the hangar as she looked up at the several ships that were flying towards them. Most of them were small police ships that traveled within the dome they were inside of. Which was one of the more remote ones with only a skeleton crew of government resources for the maintenance of the dome.

Cain clicked its tongue as it began hacking into the devices in the ships. There was some resistance but he just demolished it as he accessed the cameras before accessing and taking control of the war machines. "I have the local military. You deal with that squid ship." Cain ordered as he had the warmachines open fire in the ship. Killing a number of local militia and crashing the ships. The machines were durable enough so he had them start heading in their direction. They would be useful for automated defenses at the very least.

"Understood!" K ran forward as the ship opened up and several creatures dropped down. As the first one touched down, K seemed to almost vanish for a moment before suddenly some type of black liquid suddenly burst from the joints and weak points in the armor. The next one down was turning its attention to K, only for its head to explode in bloody mess. The third one never got down to the ground as a laser tore through the air coming from inside the hangar and destroyed the alien ship causing it to veer and then crash in the distance with the third enemy that was going to drop down getting caught up.

"Was that an attack? What type of lackluster attack was that?" Jamal asked as he racked another shell in his shotgun. He had blown off the second enemy’s head like it was nothing and was now nudging the corpse with his foot.

"If I had to guess. They underestimated us." Cain answered.

"Then why have they not fully attacked before if they already knew where we were?" K asked. "I am sure we have not given ourselves away. So they must have tracked our flight path."

"Because they wanted to gather information without a confrontation. They gave up on that plan when a combination of events occurred. This rebellion is already going to strain their resources. Then there are the aliens," Cain nodded at the downed ship. "I am guessing they wanted to secure us before the aliens got to us. Then finally, they realized they were not going to get any better information out of Jace willingly."

"What does he have to do with this?" Jamal asked as he looked over one of the war machines that had rolled over to them. It was covered in blood and viscera. But more importantly it was on fire currently with some bits of debris stuck to it.

"He was keeping their focus on him in an area called the southern islands of Prima Terra. Seems he is planning to or has already lost them. Which reminds me. I need to send some orders to the other two later while he goes to pick up Victor." Cain declared as he had the automatons take up position. "See if you can salvage some gear, weapons, or any technology from the various crash sites."

—--------------------------

Victor was relaxing and meditating in his underground room. He had started on the path to understanding. But only just started. His soul that he needed to understand and control was still out of reach.

In his mind he was still building his mental space. Which would act as a sort of control center for his control over his soul. He already had a few things fixed in place and unmovable in the space.

The first item was the injury that apparently damaged his very soul. It appeared as a jagged cut through the sky that showed a different color on the other side. His mental space’s sky was originally red but with the cut it was showing a bit of blue leaking through.

The other item in his mental space was a mist. Which must be the materialized version of his ability to turn into mist for moments at a time. It was moving around aimlessly but did not get in the way.

The core and center of his mental space was a pair of jagged rocks. Which looked like a sharp pair of teeth and represented the core of his being as a vampire. He had to build his mental space around these rocks.

At the moment he had blood red grass growing in the mental space with some ponds and water spread out making it look almost like a swamp. Which was his first step, building a base that represented the base of his being. Which ended up being a swamp. The swamp where he grew up on Yuri. The swamp he could never go back to because Yuri had been destroyed.

The second thing he built in this mental space, or rather that he began building a house. He had set up a raised dock with the start of a building. But he was still thinking and being indecisive about the layout. He had never thought of something like this before. He never thought about what would come after the war.

But now that was all he had to mediate on. He had to understand what he wanted from the future before he moved on. But he had grown up only thinking of that moment. Not what he wanted from the future. Because he could not afford to think of the future when his very existence was under constant threat.

But if he wanted a future. It would be like the past. When he was still a young child living in that swamp. Spending his time feeding the beasts of the swamp and living with his mother. Knowing nothing of the cruelty of reality like he did now.

The mental space began changing with the house becoming more complete. Looking like a better version than what he saw in his own memories. It could smell something in the air. It smelled like fresh stew that his mother used to make.

There was one other thing in the swamp that he remembered. A tree. He turned around his mental form as a massive tree with large roots began reaching up to the sky. The roots spread throughout the mental space while the slash that had kept the sky open and bleeding began to close. Seemingly repairing itself.

After it did. He heard the old monk’s voice from before. "Good. Now that you have a basic understanding. It is time for you to get ready. They are coming."

Victor blinked and he was no longer in his mental space. Now he was sitting cross legged on his bed. He pulled himself up and the door opened as Eduta stepped inside and set a massive chest in front of him.

[The master told me to return this to you.] Eduta turned the chest to him. [They also asked me to join you.]

"Join me doing what?" Victor asked as he opened the chest and raised an eyebrow before pulling out his axes.

[Going wherever you are going.] Eduta answered. [As well as fighting the creatures that are coming.] He stepped back through the door and closed it to give Victor privacy as he began changing into his gear. [Apparently these creatures are coming and we then need to travel further down the mountain to meet someone who will travel up the mountain.]

"Oh great. Another mystery." Victor groaned. But he was already feeling relieved to leave this monk sanctuary behind.