Janine rarely had the privilege of witnessing Alpha's battles firsthand. Her own duty always demanded her direct presence in the midst of carnage, delivering Reclaimer justice to any foes. But now, locked inside the APC, surrounded by the weeping cubs and civilians breaking down from a sudden exposure, the fear wave, with Marty and her trying their best not to fall and squash anyone, with the faint breaths of Marco risking to stop, she needed a distraction. Any distraction to quell the emotions pulsing through her and continue the basic routine of helping the field medic.
Plasma dischargers on Alpha's wrists hurled overheated clots, and Horkhudagh weaved in the air to avoid them. Streaks of flames crackled around him as the skeleton flew under the straight thrust and rose behind the warlord. Blackened claws wreathed in blue formed at his hands. Solid to liquid and back to solid again. The last thing one would expect from a skeleton would be feats of agility.
A quick elbow to the skull sent him back, saving the generator backpack from damage. Alpha whirled, and the multicolored wings of her opponent enveloped her, forming hands that pinned her down. The intense heat disrupted the video feed, but enough of it came through to show Janine how the hands overlapped, forming a superheated layer that exploded in a directional blue beam that melted the ground beneath Alpha's legs.
Heat. He is trying to suffocate her. Metaphorical cogs in Janine's brain came to a halt, trying to draw her attention to something obvious. Flame. Why would he skirt around the attack…
"Warlord!" Janine yelled in the com. "Alpha, the bastard's not completely immune to the heat!"
Her HUD received nothing but the intense blue glow for several seconds, and then the claws parted its front to face the solidified, fiery talons of the hordeman. Horkhudagh grunted as his weapons and hands splintered, and Alpha hooked him by the elbows.
"Sister," Alpha said, a camera briefly catching her reflection in the vitrified wall. Her suit held on, refusing to lose, but one by one the cameras were getting shut down. "Not my first time."
She lunged, closing her maw on the flaming man's face, viciously hollowing it out. Then the plasma dischargers fired, almost catching Horkhudagh in his lunge to the left, and he lost the right side of his body. With a series of cracks, the body spat out fresh body parts, and a whirlwind of blows and cuts chained the fighters together, one shining bright as a star, spewing flames and heat, the other a raging fury adorned in the finest diamondoid alloy.
Fiery blue splashes pierced the remaining apartments, spurting like blood from arteries. Alpha advanced away from where she was knee-deep in molten asphalt, forcing her opponent to the more solid surface. Tongues of flames burst, cracking the surfaces, and claws raked against the black bones and the state's armor.
"Sword Saint, consign me to termination if you so desire, but I simply have to remark on the stubborn refusal of your noble kin to accept valuable insight," Albert's voice came with interference, partially hissing after all the damage.
"Nah, soulless buddy, yer truth," Martyshkina remarked. Still holding onto the ceiling with one paw, she leaned over and quickly fixed the dislocated shoulder of a young Ice Fang. "Better?"
"Ouch!" The boy blinked away the tears and moved his paw. "Hey, it no longer hurts! That much. Thank you, lady!"
"Just Martyshkina, little one. Albert, don't apologize when you are right. She totally fired way later than needed, missing her opportunity. But she is too proud to admit a mistake."
"She is gathering information," Janine said, understanding. "Warlord Alpha destroyed Horkhudagh's eyes and then fired. But he dodged. Why do so if he can form his body? And how?"
"He doesn't need his head to see," Martyshkina said.
Horkhudagh's belly erupted, temporarily covering everything in white, and Janine heard the rumbling and working of servomotors as Alpha jumped. When the feed resumed, she saw the claws closing in on the scorched man's legs, easily tearing through his leather skin. The strongest warlord landed on top of the enemy, thwarting his attempts to gain distance, and his hands morphed. Dozens of thinner and longer arms wound around Alpha's wrists; needle-like appendages protruded from the open Horkhudagh's back, quickly stabbing at the warlord, targeting her mouth, neck, joints, and lenses, denting and notching her armor. One bite destroyed a good dozen of them, and the warlord swung her arms, tearing at the bonds.
Tiniest droplets of blood lingered in the air and vanished, evaporating. An ugly cut appeared on Alpha's lips, and one of the stabs found its way to her skin on the inner part of her elbow. But Horkhudagh suffered for this legendary deed. Janine finally spotted it—not exactly the orb from before, but another, lesser orb floating inside of the hordeman's body.
Alpha struck this very core, shattering the black bones and cleaving through the arms raised in defense. The core itself was the size of a Normie's torso, but proved to be of far sturdier material as the tip of Alpha's claw scratched it, and Horkhudagh grunted, producing the noise of a roaring furnace, no longer mimicking boiling water of burning wood.
It was a roar of sorts, but not one of fear or displeasure. Elation resonated in it.
Horkhudagh rammed his elbows into Alpha, lifting the woman a little, and the needle appendages on his back merged into a single, wide palm of flame. It slammed the warlord to the ground and dragged the Wolfkin across the street, carrying her closer to the ruined academy in a river of melting stone. A web of cuts appeared briefly on the limb, so fast that Albert had to slow the feed a bit for Janine to even recognize it. Alpha broke free of the limb, her billowing hair resembling dancing snakes.
The two charged to face each other again, Horkhudagh growing a fresh set of larger and thicker arms, closing any damage done to his fake body, and Alpha silently passing through several walls of flame that appeared in her path. A headbutt sent Alpha's head skyward, but her paw was doubtless already aimed at Horkhudagh's true body, and the hordeman launched a strike of his own.
Neither managed to proceed as the clouds above belched a single piece of the armament, and something about this projectile terrified Janine, and she wrapped her arms around Marco and the closest cubs, shouting warnings for the troops to do the same. It was a weird premonition that touched her even before Alpha's combat armor signaled a warning.
The threat of a WMD.
There were three great nations in the world, three pillars of civilization and peerless industrial capacity. The despised Oathtakers, eternal rivals of the state, fanatics mistakenly believing in a falsehood concocted by their inane cult leader, and willingly surrendered partial freedom of their free will for the sake of unity, forever hindering their growth as humans. Janine despised them more than anyone in the world, even though her adopted daughter chose to live there. It was simply something she would never accept. The mutilation of the personality, the infringement upon the decision-making for those who had committed no crime, was a bridge too far for her to tolerate.
Next in line was Iterna, the traitorous butchers. They should have shown the same hatred and vitriol to the countless gangs feasting upon the ruins of the Old World near their borders that they had shown to the literal cubs who came to study under their wings. But Iterna was said to have changed, no longer displaying the same rash decisiveness as before. They were uplifting and integrating instead of stopping atrocities. Idiots. The likes of Mad Hatter, Blood Graf, Thunder Emperor, Mincemeat, or Techno-Queen would never change. They had the might but lacked the willpower to act.
The Reclamation Army was the last and largest nation in this union of necessity and perhaps potential friendship. Janine accepted they weren't perfect, but she firmly believed that the Dynast's vision and foresight were the only correct path for the world to take, lest it be destroyed in another war. Overthrow the slavers, bring the misguided fools back into the fold, and teach the people how to be better, to spare the younger generations the misery of existence under the unworthy rulers. Take away dangerous tools and use them to build, not destroy. Thousands of races, maybe even species, united under a single banner.
These nations had shaken hands and signed many treaties, ranging from tariffs to tourism to stopping diseases and controlling potential Apocalypse-classes of New Breeds, promising never to use weapons of mass destruction and swearing to abide by the rules of war, treating both civilians and military humanely. The horrors of MAD that had occurred during the Extinction haunted their leaders.
And the Gilded Horde… These bastards lacked such reservations.