"Well, time to get out of this forest," Elias muttered, wiping a layer of strange, violet-tinted pollen from his tactical knee pads.
He didn't have the time or the patience to wade through miles of alien undergrowth, especially not when the entire structural integrity of the human race was hanging by a thread somewhere in the core of this massive planet.
He bent his knees, and took off straight into the sky.
The wind howled past his helmet as he ascended, the dense canopy of the purple trees rapidly shrinking below him. He kept climbing, expecting to break through the upper atmosphere or at least reach a height where he could map out the boundaries of the woodland. He wanted to see if there was anything—a mechanical facility, a crashed transport, or an open plain—lying just beyond the treeline.
But as the seconds ticked by into minutes, the horizon didn't shift. The landscape didn't change. No matter how fast or how high he flew, the violet forest below him simply expanded, stretching out in every single direction as if the terrain itself was actively generating new miles of trees just to match his speed. It was an impossible, sickening loop. The forest just kept getting longer, and longer, and longer.
Elias slowed his ascent, hovering in place as he glared down at the endless sea of purple leaves. "Damn it... what the heck?" he growled, the synthetic fabric of his gloves tightening as he gripped his fists. "At this rate, I'll just have to fly completely out of this planet, But... what if someone from the squad is still trapped down there in the thick of it?"
The thought of Nyx,Tyson,or any of the other 10th Division members. He couldn't just abandon the ground.
"Yeah, dropping back down is the only option," Elias said to himself, as he landed down.
He unzipped the side compartment of his tactical tactical pack and pulled out a heavy, industrial canister of bright neon-orange spray paint. He shook it vigorously, the small metal mixing ball rattling loudly against the inside of the can.
"Ok, so I'll mark all the places I've passed so I don't end up walking in a literal circle," Elias murmured, spraying a massive, aggressive 'X' onto the trunk of a massive, twisted tree. He checked the digital interface on his wrist guard, noting the internal diagnostics of his survival gear. "And according to the rations log, I only have enough food and water to last me three days max. That means I absolutely must find the core and end this entire war before those three days are up. But... does this planet even follow Earth time? For all I know, one hour inside this place could be a whole week out there."
With a heavy sigh and his jaw set in a grim line, Elias slung the paint canister into his utility belt and marched forward into the eerie, silent depth of the violet woods.
Meanwhile, across the synthetic solar system, the rearrangement of the moving planet had dropped two entirely different soldiers onto a completely separate captured world.
The ground beneath their boots wasn't dirt or metal; it was made of millions of tiny, crystalline grains of sand that shifted color depending on how the light from the artificial sun hit them. One step was a brilliant crimson, the next was an emerald green, and the ripples across the dunes looked like a living, flowing rainbow.
Vela was sitting flat on her butt in the center of a massive rainbow dune, her legs splayed out as she stared in complete misery at the older woman standing a few paces ahead of her.
"Ok, Captain... em... Captain..." Vela stuttered, her brow furrowing as her brain completely locked up, entirely unable to pull the correct name from her memory banks.
"It's Captain Liora," the woman said, cutting in sharply without even turning around.
Liora, Commander of the 2nd Division, stood with her arms crossed tightly over her heavy, customized gold-trimmed armor. Her sharp, yellow eyes scanned the multicolored horizon with the cold, calculating precision of an apex predator.
"Right! Okay, Captain Liora," Vela said, her voice immediately spiking into a loud, dramatic wail as she threw her hands into the air, tears streaming down her face beneath her visor. "We are completely separated from everyone, we are stuck on a literal rainbow planet, and I only have enough snacks in my emergency pouch to last me one hour max! How are we even going to get off this world without a spaceship, and how are we supposed to find our teammates in a place like this?!"
Liora didn't flinch at the screaming. She slowly turned her head, her yellow eyes locking onto Vela with a gaze so intense it instantly made the younger girl choke on her own breath.
"Stop your pathetic whining," Liora commanded, her voice dropping into a low, authoritative rumble. "The physical distance between us and the primary fleet is irrelevant. I can locate my teammates easily. I have their distinct scent locked into my memory. And furthermore, I can also locate yours. The rest of your division's scent is practically smeared all over your uniform."
Vela blinked, as she looked at Liora's heavy, completely sealed armor. "Wait... what about your elements? I mean like... wouldn't you need to use your actual nose to smell anything out here?
Liora's jaw tightened slightly, her posture remaining rigid and unyielding. "I had this specific suit specially designed and calibrated for my personal sensory arrays before we deployed. There is absolutely no time to explain the engineering details. Stand up, and let's go."
Without waiting for a response, Liora turned and marched down the face of the rainbow dune, her heavy boots leaving shifting, golden tracks in the multi-colored sand as Vela scrambled to her feet to keep up.
In another far-away quadrant of the internal solar system, Renji and Sloane had been thrown together onto a barren, rocky plateau that overlooked a deep, misty canyon.
Renji was already on his feet.
he looked straight up into the sky. Because this land was positioned closer to the inner void of the moving planet, looking upward didn't show a ceiling—it showed the massive, terrifyingly clear visages of three other captured planets rotating in real-time, their continental masses so close it felt like you could reach out and touch them.
"Looks like we are still in our correct place, but definitely the wrong location," Renji said, his voice grunting through the comms. He flexed his shoulders, checking his knuckles to make sure his strength hadn't been dampened by the local gravity.
Sloane pushed herself up from the jagged rocks, letting out a sharp hiss of pain as she clutched her left shoulder. "Ouch... my arm," she muttered, shaking her head to clear the dizziness. She looked around the empty, rocky wasteland, her expression turning serious.
We have to find everyone else, Renji... but first, we need to find an open space or a high ridge. One of our transport ships should have crashed or landed somewhere near this sector."
"Yeah, you're right," Renji agreed, his eyes narrowing as he tapped the side of his helmet console. "But our signals are completely dead and We can't sit around waiting for a ping. We have to walk."
Sloane nodded, drawing her sidearm and checking the power cell before stepping into stride beside him. "Then we move fast."
Back in the dense, violet-tinted forest, Elias was moving like a phantom through the thick undergrowth. His orange spray paint marks were left behind on every tenth tree, but his primary attention was now locked entirely onto the ground.
He stopped suddenly, crouching low beneath a large, crystalline fern. His silver eyes fixed onto the soil.
There, stamped clearly into the glowing violet dust, were two distinct sets of tracks. One was small, shallow, and shaped like a standard human tactical boot—someone running fast, their weight leaning heavily on the toes. The second set of tracks was larger, heavier, and completely non-human. T
he impressions left behind were wide, three-toed claws that tore deeply into the dirt, spaced far apart in a predatory, lunging pattern.
Elias's expression hardened instantly. "Shit... someone is being stalked."
He didn't hesitate. Elias burst into a full sprint, abandoning the spray paint entirely as he stayed low to the ground, tracking the footprints through the twisted trees. The trail led deeper and deeper into the dark heart of the woodland where the purple canopy completely blotted out the light from the inner sun.
Within minutes, the sound of low, guttural alien voices filtered through the brush. Elias slowed his pace, sliding behind the massive root of an ancient tree and peering around the edge.
In a small, cleared clearing, Kiki of the 5th Division was lying completely knocked out on the cold ground, her helmet cracked slightly from a heavy impact. Standing over her body were five of Malkor's soliders.
They were brutal, hulking creatures carrying giant axe that emitted yellow light
One of the aliens snarled, using he's hand to roll Kiki onto her back, looking down at her human armor with utter disdain. "Kaz or kor human," the creature growled, its voice a deep, gravelly hiss that sounded like rocks grinding together.
"Ok, I have absolutely no idea what you just said," Elias said smoothly, stepping out from the shadows of the root with his hands casually resting in his pockets, his silver eyes flashing with a cold, dangerous light. "But good night."
The five alien soldiers snapped their heads toward the sound, their yellow eyes widening in surprise as they registered the human teenager standing calmly at the edge of the clearing.
They didn't waste time talking. The lead alien let out a deafening roar, raising his axe and lunging forward with terrifying speed, aiming the vibrating tip directly at Elias's throat.
Elias didn't even draw a weapon.
As the axe tip came within inches of his face, Elias simply tilted his head to the left, the hum of the axe missing his ear by a fraction of a millimeter. Before the alien could pull the weapon back, Elias stepped inside the creature's guard, his movement a seamless blur. He drove a brutal, palm-strike directly into the center of the alien's chest piece.
BOOM!
The sheer force of the strike shattered the alien's armor into a dozen flying shards, sending the hulking monster flying backward through the air until his spine slammed violently against a tree trunk, knocking him unconscious instantly.
The remaining four aliens froze for a split second, stunned by the raw strength of the human, before they roared in unison and rushed him from three different angles. Two axe came sweeping low toward his legs, while a third alien swung his massive, armored fist directly at Elias's temple.
Elias reacted with absolute, effortless synchronization. He leaped straight up into the air, performing a tight, horizontal spin that allowed the low axe sweeps to pass harmlessly beneath his boots. While still mid-air, he extended his right leg, catching the third alien squarely in the jaw with a fierce, spinning back-kick. The force of the impact spun the creature around like a top before he collapsed face-first into the dirt, out cold.
As Elias touched back down on the crystalline ground, the final two aliens tried to flank him, thrusting their axes in a dual, synchronized pincer movement.
Elias didn't move away. Instead, he shot his hands out, his fingers locking tightly around the axes.
The aliens grunted, putting their entire massive weight into the weapons, trying to push Elias down. But Elias stood perfectly rooted, his expression entirely unbothered as his silver eyes stared directly into theirs.
"My turn," Elias whispered.
With a sharp twist of his wrists, Elias yanked the axe forward with such immense power that the two aliens were violently pulled off their feet, their heavy bodies flying toward each other. CRACK. Their helmets collided with a sickening thud, and both creatures went completely limp, dropping to the ground in a tangled, unconscious heap.
The clearing went completely silent again, save for the faint hum of the discarded alien weapons fading out.
Elias let go of the axe, letting them clatter against the rocks as he calmly walked over to Kiki's side. He knelt down beside her, checking the vital diagnostics on her shoulder plate to ensure her internal pressure was stable.
"Hey, wake up," Elias said softly, shaking her shoulder gently. He looked back up at the dense, endless violet canopy above them, his mind racing as he realized just how massive this internal battlefield really was.
He was safe for now, but he knew the real fight hadn't even begun.