Ten minutes crawled by with neither side gaining more than a few meters and a few bodies. The rebels hugged rocks and tree roots. The military used the thicker trunks and the broken ground. Blaster fire stitched the air in uneven bursts—short volleys, frantic sprays, then those awful quiet gaps where people waited for courage to come back.
A mile out, the first reinforcements reached the edge of the fighting.
Military squads moved in tight, disciplined lines through the forest, boots muffled by leaf litter, rifles up and ready. They didn't charge. They flowed—two by two between trunks, stepping around roots like they'd rehearsed the terrain.
The moment the lead squad cleared the last line of trees, they opened fire.
The rebel front line flinched as bolts punched into their cover, ripping bark into splinters and sending dirt into the air. One rebel leaned out a heartbeat too long and took a shot through the shoulder. He fell back with a scream that turned into a wet, panicked laugh.
"Backup!" a rebel shouted. "They've got backup!"
"Get down!" another voice snapped. "Get behind cover!"
The military pushed their advantage, widening their angles, trying to fold the rebels inward.
Then the rebels' northern reinforcements hit the battlefield.
They didn't announce themselves with formation or loud commands. They slipped in under the trees on the military's flank, using the trunks as curtains. A rebel sergeant raised his arm—two fingers, then a clenched fist.
"Attack!"
The military soldiers in the rear turned at the shout—
And the first rebel volley dropped three of them before they could reorient. Two shots hit center mass. One caught a helmet seam and snapped the trooper's head back like a puppet string cut.
The military line staggered, forced to split their attention. That was all the rebels needed.
The original rebel defenders surged from cover in small bursts—move, drop, shoot, move—using the chaos to reclaim the ground they'd been pinned off of.
Within minutes, it wasn't one skirmish anymore.
It became a real firefight.
More squads arrived from the southwest and east, drawn by the alarms and the rising smoke. The forest filled with overlapping commands, misread signals, and the bitter stink of scorched leaves. The battle widened into a jagged crescent, bodies and cover creating new lines every thirty seconds.
Above it all, the canopy watched.
Cloaked dark elves lay along thick branches like shadows sewn into the leaves. Their armor didn't gleam. Their breathing didn't fog. Their eyes, behind tinted lenses, tracked the battlefield as if it was a board game.
One of them—high in an ashwood with a clear view of the center—tapped his communicator once. He didn't speak loudly. He didn't need to.
"On my count," he murmured. "Release on three."
He held his hand out, palm down, feeling the rhythm of the fighting through the Force: pulses of fear, spikes of aggression, the dull throb of men forcing themselves not to run.
His gaze settled on the loudest points—the officers, the squad leaders, the ones who made other men move.
He began.
"One."
A rebel trooper broke cover to flank two military soldiers near a boulder. He moved well—low, quick, rifle hugged tight to his chest.
A shot snapped out of nowhere.
It didn't come from the military line. It came from above, at an angle that made no sense to the men trading fire down below.
The rebel's shoulder exploded into heat and numbness. A second bolt punched into his lower stomach, and the strength left him so suddenly he thought the ground had tilted. He slid back against a tree and sat down hard.
His fingers tried to tighten on his rifle, but the rifle felt like it belonged to someone else.
His vision blurred at the edges. He looked up, searching for sky through leaves and smoke.
For one clear second, he saw a dark shape standing on a branch—too still, too deliberate to be a bird or a trick of light.
The rebel tried to raise his hand to point.
His arm didn't obey.
"Two," the elf whispered, counting like a man timing a heartbeat.
Below, another soldier—military—stood to shout at his squad to spread out. His helmet turned, his arm lifted—
A stun dart kissed his neck. He stiffened, confused, then crumpled behind cover before anyone could register why.
On the far side, a rebel officer scrambled to a better angle, trying to keep his men from bunching.
A soft impact struck his thigh. He swore, grabbed the spot, and found a thin needle embedded through fabric.
His legs betrayed him. He fell face-first into the dirt.
Around them, the firefight continued, but it began to lose its spine. Without clear voices directing it, the shooting became reactive—panic responding to panic.
In the underbrush, hidden deeper than the firefight could see, Zelon's pre-positioned squads remained still.
Equinox helms blended against bark and shadow. Findus-wood plates sat dull and dark beneath cloaks. Scopes peered through ferns and low branches.
They didn't fire.
Not yet.
They waited for the moment both sides committed too much to the fight to pull away cleanly.
A crackle touched the dark elf's communicator again—an acknowledgment from the other hidden teams.
Positions set. Canisters planted. Night elves ready.
The elf's eyes narrowed.
The battlefield had reached the point where men stopped thinking and started reacting.
Perfect.
"Three."
All across the forest, small canisters opened with soft, almost polite pops.
A low mist rolled out from beneath ferns and deadfall, spilling over roots and sinking into the hollows between rocks. It wasn't smoke. It didn't rise and drift away. It hugged the ground as if it had weight and intention.
Rebels coughed first.
Military coughed second.
Then everyone started shouting.
"Gas!"
"Mask up!"
"It's not ours!"
"I can't see!"
"Hold the line—hold—"
Blaster fire went wild as visibility collapsed. Shots cracked into trunks. Bolts scorched branches overhead. The forest flashed and dimmed in rapid, violent pulses, like lightning trapped under the canopy.
The mist thickened.
It wasn't just choking their lungs—it stole their sense of distance, bent sound, blurred silhouettes until friend and enemy looked the same. Men fired at shadows. Men fired at movement. Men fired because doing anything else felt like dying.
Up in the trees, the dark elves moved.
They didn't leap dramatically. They dropped in controlled falls, catching branches with silent hands, landing in crouches that barely disturbed the leaves. Their helms filtered clean air; their eyes cut through the haze with practiced focus.
A rebel trooper sprinted two steps and slammed into a tree he hadn't seen until it was inches from his face. He stumbled back, dazed.
A dark elf's baton touched the base of his skull.
The trooper folded without a sound.
A military soldier tried to drag his wounded friend behind a rock. He got the man half a meter before a figure appeared out of the fog, seized the wounded soldier's rifle, and twisted it free like removing a stick from mud.
The soldier blinked, stunned, reaching for a sidearm—
A fist struck his jaw.
He collapsed.
No kill shots. No trophies. No noise.
Just bodies removed from play.
In the fog, a rebel sergeant tried to rally his squad, voice cracking with strain.
"Stay together! Stay—"
His words ended as a pressure settled on his chest—not enough to crush, just enough to steal breath. He sucked in air and got half a lungful. His eyes widened.
He could feel it: a presence, not in front of him but all around, pressing down like a hand on the back of his neck.
He raised his rifle at a vague shape—
A stun bolt snapped into his shoulder. His arm went numb and useless. He tried to shout again, but his throat refused.
He hit the ground hard and didn't get back up.
Across the battlefield, the same thing happened on the military side.
Squad leaders tried to reposition, to cut out of the fog, to reestablish lines.
They vanished.
Not dramatically. Not with screams.
They just stopped moving.
And when the leaders stopped moving, the rest of the men began to break.
Some fired blindly until their packs overheated.
Some crawled.
Some ran, stumbling through roots and mist, colliding with trees and each other.
In the midst of the confusion, far from the center, a single figure moved low through the woods with something clutched to his chest—a datapad held like a lifeline.
Lance.
He slowed just long enough to look back.
The fog wasn't natural. It was too even, too deliberate. It poured from the forest floor as if the earth itself had decided to hide the truth.
And within it… shapes.
Not military. Not rebels.
Something else.
His stomach tightened.
He turned and ran again, faster, lungs burning, the datapad digging into his ribs with every step.
Behind him, the battlefield didn't sound like two sides anymore.
It sounded like the forest had joined the fight.
Somewhere above the mist, a quiet voice spoke into a communicator—calm, controlled, almost bored.
"Net is closing. Begin phase two."
And in the fog, unseen, twenty Equinox helms shifted position at once—silent as falling leaves—waiting for the exact moment to reveal themselves.