A massive worm burst through the side of an Artisan warship, tentacles shooting off its body and wrapping around the hull of the vessel. It slowly pulled its way through, sending shards of the ship raining down below onto the battlefield. Two other crafts circled the flying behemoth, one Enian and one Artisan, and their twin design styles clashed, smooth edges on one side and blocky construction on the other.

Each ship levelled all its available weapons, turning them on the worm and the now-lost battleship it had ploughed straight through. Brigadier General Cross Marian observed the process from the seat within his own transport as they approached. The screen briefly lit up, like a firework exploding, before the worm and vessel it was entangled with exploded, multiple detonations bursting along the skin of the monster and the hull of the Artisan craft. Another round of combined missiles and laser weapons collided with the target, this time resulting in a crimson burst.

Cross Marian had to turn his eyes away from the screen, the bright light too strong for him to keep watching. When he could look again, both the worm and the ship were no more and a fiery hail of debris plummeted down towards the soldiers and Jahari below. It was like a miniature meteor shower, something quite common to Marian after years of seeing warships fight above conflicts on the ground. Whole towns had been razed by the aftermath of those battles but if it was to save a thousand more, it was a worthy sacrifice. How many lives were they saving this time?

"Sir, we have entered within range of enemy targets." The young cadet saluted, his message delivered, and stood at attention next to the general. Marian sighed, rubbing his eyebrows with one hand and letting his fingers slide down over tired eyes.

"You don't have to stand there forever you know." There was no answer from the cadet, his training teaching him to always follow protocol and never fall for traps meant to test his resolve. "Fine, be that way, but I'm not dismissing you." Marian flicked through different images on his screen, cycling through relays from various Goliaths. Part of being a commander of the Enian army gave him the perk of accessing every Enian piece of equipment. "When I was your age," Marian continued to speak with the soldier, enjoying the company for once and having a sounding board, whether it answered or not, "I certainly wasn't standing to attention for a general." One of the feeds Marian was watching turned to static, the Goliath falling prey to a group of Bahari that had begun stripping it apart. The general's demeanour was unaffected by watching the death of his troop, only his eyebrow raising in curiosity about the enemy they were fighting. This would be his second encounter with these monsters, but the first had been cut unfortunately short by Sigma and Syn. This was a real chance to observe and understand.

"Now see, when I was your age, I was training to be a pilot up at the academy so things might have been a bit different but I certainly didn't care for traditions like standing at attention to my superiors." Marian stopped to scratch his chin for a bit, reflecting on his more youthful days. "Course that might explain why I was nearly kicked out. Look at me now though right? Who would've thought?" The monitor shifted once more, switching to a shaky view of Porter approaching the Mahari, slashing his way through any Bahari who drew too close.

The screen flickered again to a different portion of the warzone and Marian's attention suddenly snapped towards it, shocking the still-at-attention cadet. "Go back a shot, give me the last camera we had." The monitor responded, changing once more to Porter. "Who is that?" Marian recognized the Goliath because of its distinct features and design. It didn't look like anything the army built of authorized but it certainly seemed familiar; he had encountered it once before but where?

The computer stalled for a bit, scanning through Enian files to answer the general's question. After a few moments, a name typed out on the screen: Porter Ryen. More data began to fly onto the screen as it was found but Marian no longer cared. Porter was the name of one of the students in the Crisis Rescue Unit, the one Marian had formed so long ago to deal with the attack on Easley. He had met them once before, when he had first fought Syn. All the memories were flooding back, the name opening up a door in Marian's mind. "Who gave the order to have that soldier here?" Marian shouted the question around the room, freezing the other workers and soldiers in the bridge of the warship. They immediately began to panic, flying around to find a response.

"According to records, sir, you did."

Marian sat back in his seat, finally waving away the cadet, whose arm was trembling from the extended salute. He had issued no such command or authorization. He knew of every Goliath he had deployed, every unit, every general, and the CRU were not a part of his strategy. The brigadier general smirked in his seat, rubbing his forehead once more with his hand. "What are you up to you old bastard?"

* * * * *

Before Porter could make a move on an approaching Bahari, a knife burst through the front of its face then slid down its head to its chest, slicing apart the red heart in the centre. The creature fell forward, revealing Raul standing behind it, his hidden knife already retracting into the wrist of the Blue Blur. Raul nodded towards the massive Bahari, indicating he understood the situation and the new objective, but then he disappeared again into the horde. They both knew this was Porter's mission.

"Porter!" Ardwen's face popped up to the pilot's left as the video link was established on one of the viewscreens. In his focused state, Porter barely blinked at Ardwen's sudden appearance, instead only watching from the corner of his eye as he deflected the claws of two charging Bahari. "You're going to take out the Mahari right?"

"What's a Mahari?" Porter ducked under a flying Bahari, its tongue lashing from an open mouth that longed to taste the White Storm's armour. Porter drove his blade straight up, catching the creature in the chest and letting its own momentum sever it apart.

"The big thing in front of you, the cannon."

"We call it something different?" Porter leaped back from an explosive worm, the Mahari adjusting its focus on the approaching threat. The ranged Bahari within the beast's guard raised their weapons as one, spinning to target Porter. They began unleashing a barrage of tiny worms as bullets and Porter had to roll to dodge the first round of miniature biological missiles. "This is a bit different than what I was expecting."

"Well what were you expecting?" Ardwen threw his hands up in dismay, only slightly shocked by the lack of foresight in his companions. "You can't just go rushing in against enemies armed with guns with nothing but two swords thinking it will be an easy win."

"It would be if I had an opening. All I would need is a momentary thing to kind of disrupt them. I can get close pretty fast." Porter stopped there, feeling the approaching bullet before his computer sensors warned him of its proximity. He shut his eyes, leaving his cockpit mentally and visualizing the world around him. Everything was painted a dark blue, his imagination and memory not strong enough to give unique colours to the surrounding world. And there was the bullet, thin and long, coming towards the back of his head at the pace of a snail. He could see it all, feel everything. Why was everything so slow compared to him?

He began to trace the trajectory of the bullet, following its path up into a cliff-top perch. Then he smiled and opened his eyes, the real world suddenly swamping his vision. The bullet curved around his head, snaking between Bahari and piercing through the heart of one of the gunmen. The monster dropped to its knees, its life force draining out through the hole in its red core, before toppling onto the ground. "Porter, you never bring a knife to a gunfight. Not unless you have your own gun to back it up." Nami's face appeared on a new screen, this time to Porter's right. She beamed a massive smile and Ardwen sighed, burying his head in his hands at how frustrating his team was for a tactician.

"Nami, how did you know I needed that?" Porter winked at his friend as he continued to dodge the remaining fire from the Bahari.

"Don't you know by now Porter? I'm always watching you."

"So you've been practicing too then?" Porter's blades began to draw the sphere around his body once again, slicing apart the living bullets before they could reach him, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust in front of him. Very slowly he advanced, one staggered step at a time. He had to creep forward in order to maintain his stance. One wrong step and his balance was lost, and with it gone his body would soon follow.

"Quite a bit. Now get ready, you'll only have a second for this one." Nami's screen went blank as she ended the transmission, leaving Porter with Ardwen once more, who was still lamenting his miserable situation.

Up in her perch, Nami had shut her eyes, taking in deep breaths as she settled her heart. It was the goal of the sniper to be relaxed, to be perfect. While the machinery around her took out a lot of the potential human error, what she about to do still required a tremendous amount of human focus. She placed her hand on the side of the barrel of her gun, rubbing it gently as she imagined the chi flowing down from her fingers and wrapping around the bullet, just as she had been taught.

The young girl pulled her gun up to the head of The Pearl, controlling the camera to narrow and zoom in, focusing and eliminating any outside distractions. She squeezed the trigger, launching the enhanced round towards Porter and the Mahari. It twisted through the air, Nami's consciousness entwined with the projectile to steer its course.

Porter watched the bullet fly in between the Bahari shooting at him. In an instant, it had collapsed on itself, disappearing briefly before a sudden explosion rippled outwards, sending a shockwave through the area. Bahari stumbled to the sides, their limbs and muscles suddenly seizing up while their minds became disoriented. Nami collapsed in her cockpit, expending a massive amount of chi in creating an explosion out of her own life energy.

The Bahari quickly recovered, only their mental link to the hive mind and their brains temporarily scrambled. But it was too late as a bolt of lightning forked between them, a whirlwind of swords swirling around. Porter drove his blade into one Bahari's leg, watching the muscle and machinery give out as the monster stumbled sideways. He spun around, lopping the head off of another creature, before driving both swords into its chest and pulling apart, cutting through flesh and steel.

With another flash, Porter was hovering behind another Bahari, leaving only a fading afterimage in his wake. He kicked out in both directions, clipping two different monsters, before landing on the ground. Another spin severed a few hands and arms as Porter flipped over a Bahari before it could take a bite out of him. He felt himself slowing down in the air, time coming to a stop as both he and the Bahari realized his vulnerable aerial position.

A blast of electricity erupted from the White Storm, doing little permanent damage but disorienting the nearby beasts from just a second as Porter landed atop a Bahari's shoulders. He bent down and drove one sword through its chest, watching the red liquid within squirt out around his blade. What was that mysterious substance fueling them?

There was no time to continue the line of thinking as the Bahari levelled their guns, their reflexes inhumanly quick. One of them quickly collapsed, another of Nami's bullets piercing its heart. The monster roared a final death scream as it fell, and Porter lunged into the opening between the Bahari, landing on his hands and tucking into a roll. He heard the guns unloading their ammunition just behind his body but he didn't have time to look back and see how close they were.

As the roll finished, Porter sprung up onto his feet, sliding for a moment before turning on his heels to face the Bahari once more. His breathing calmed once more as he realized he had begun to get excited, to grow restless in his seat. He had to calm the flow of adrenaline to maintain his composure otherwise...otherwise he wasn't sure what could happen to him or if he would survive.

The twin swords of the White Storm began to chop apart the approaching bullets, Porter maintain his stance and balance as he began the slow approach once more. "Porter," Ardwen cut in, having watched the fight the entire time, "Nami is mostly recovering from her chi expenditure. She won't be able to get you a distraction again."

"Don't need one."

"What do you mean you won't need-" Ardwen was cut off as the interior of the White Storm blacked out, a temporary power failure shooting through the Goliath.

* * * * *

Brigadier General Cross Marian leaned forward in his seat, his back curving as he rested his chin on his fists. "You shouldn't sit like that sir, it's bad for your posture." It was the warship's commander, Admiral Ross, who was watching the monitor over Marian's shoulder.

"What are you, my doctor? Get out of here with your opinions." Marian tried to wave the man away but the admiral was skilled not only as the vessel's pilot, but also as a former soldier, and he dodged Marian's attacks with ease.

"Not an opinion, sir, that's a fact. Straighten up when you're sitting, or should I get you some popcorn for the movie?"

"Popcorn would be nice you know. It would mean you're useful for once." Marian returned to staring at the screen intently, watching Porter dealing with the Mahari.

"I don't understand why you're so fascinated with just one Goliath out of all the rest. Besides, it looks like he's gotten himself stuck again hasn't he?" Ross pointed to Porter, who had taken up his defensive stance once more against the hail of bullets.

"Stuck?" Marian chuckled to himself, knocking away Ross' hand so he could replace it with his own pointing finger. "Watch carefully Ross, you're about to see how stuck he really is."

A/N: Cliffhangers are fun, cliffhangers are great, try not to hate! What does Marian know that we don't? Not even I know what happens next!