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{Seeka-blah-yet…} slowly hissed Widget.

Umbra grimaced. {What's that supposed to mean?}

{Fucking shit.} replied Widget. {Literally!}

{Lovely.} said Umbra, sighing.

Snow continued crunching beneath their feet as they moved within their unit half a dozen strong.

{Human languages are very versatile in that regard!} continued Widget. {Certain English words such as fuck can be a noun, adjective, and more… apparently!}

{I'm afraid of the cultural ramifications when all of this is over…} muttered Umbra under her breath. {Especially if Sasha is already a negative influence on the likes of you.}

"HEY!" shouted Sasha. She struggled to remain visible from a pouch pocket located on the side of Umbra's hip, nearly reducing her to the size of a toy on behalf of the giant aliens.

{KEEP IT QUIET!} growled the nearby Chief, leading everyone with a weapon reminiscent of a machine gun in tow. {Speaking of which, Umbra should break off from everyone else so that she has a better vantage point and a potential flanking position.} She glanced at adjacent hills and forests. {Understood?}

Umbra's eyes narrowed. {No promises. Just allow me to make some preparations first since Sasha isn't exactly a formal part of my toolkit.}

The Chief rolled her shoulders and sighed. {Fine. Do what you need to do, but try not to fall too far behind. Everyone else, on me!}

Naturally, the rest of the infantry unit continued moving down the road or otherwise stuck to the sidelines within their narrow arrowhead formation.

Only Siren hesitantly looked back before moving forward. {Stay safe, you two!}

{Yeah, yeah, you too.} said Umbra with a dismissive wave of her hand.

With time, the distance between Umbra and the rest of her unit grew, affording her a moment of solitude until her translation device abruptly activated again…

"Can you put me down now?" asked Sasha. "It's not exactly comfortable in here with your ammo or whatever."

Umbra sneered. {This is easier. Keep in mind that you're... a liability. You'd slow me down if I allowed you to walk on the ground among other potential problems.}

"Assuming we have to stick together…"

{Right.} replied Umbra. {Have it your way.}

Gradually, Umbra removed Sasha from her pocket. A gloved hand with only padded pink fingertips exposed wrapped around the upper half of Sasha's body, gripping the human by her arm joints. Afterward, Umbra brought her towards the ground. Sasha squirmed and kicked her feet until they came into contact with concrete, stumbling forward as Umbra released her.

"Finally!" exclaimed Sasha as she regained her balance. "Was that really so hard, Umbra?" She swiftly scanned her surroundings as the rest of the SAP unit barely remained in view, spotting the occasional abandoned car dotting a damaged road. One such compact vehicle happened to be nearby as curiosity got the best of her, so she strolled towards it. "Maybe now I can be more useful down here!"

Sasha looked over her shoulder, just for the blood to drain from her face upon seeing Umbra again. Nothing but disdain lingered in the alien's cold, cyan eyes. She gradually raised a single foot above Sasha's position. A shadow soon loomed over the road and blocked some snowfall dusting the concrete on behalf of a gargantuan boot designed for digitigrade feet.

"Are you..." muttered Sasha.

With a snarl, Umbra rapidly lowered her foot. Sasha screamed as she tried to run, only to trip before diving to the ground. The compact car behind her got crushed like an aluminum soda can, completely vanishing beneath one of Umbra's boots. Simultaneously, the sound of glass shattering and car components crunching filled the air… just to be followed by an eerie silence as Umbra remained completely stationary afterward.

Meanwhile, Sasha spent some time internally freaking out before scrambling back to her feet. "ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!" she screamed as she looked back towards the skyline.

Umbra remained unfazed and gazed at her own feet. {Not yet.}

"...Yet?!"

From there, Umbra took two steps away, revealing that the car got compacted entirely like one at a junkyard. {I just needed to remind you why tagging along is a terrible idea.} Her tail swooshed a little behind her. {I've already stepped on these little vehicles by accident before, so imagine how easily I could unintentionally kill you in the middle of combat.}

Sasha closed her eyes and shook her head. "How many times do I have to tell you that we're not necessarily going to be fighting side by side…?"

{I don't know… but It's all pathetic, really.} replied Umbra, shrugging. {Joraxian lives are being spent to protect sentients that are practically vermin when compared to our own kind. I suppose your planet has some strategic importance due its location near our border worlds, but I doubt that's worth the cost of protecting and babysitting your species for the rest of time.}

"Ugh. What's with you people and your fixation on your sizes? You don't even realize that being big is a double edged sword, Umbra!"

The alien in question rolled her eyes. {More idioms?}

Sasha practically snarled herself for a change of pace. "You're a sniper, right?"

Umbra stared directly at Sasha. {Correct.}

"You stick out like a sore thumb around here since you're like… twenty-five to thirty meters tall? I'm not sure. Either way, humans could probably spot you from miles away, so you NEED my help when it comes to doing any recon on this planet!"

Once more, Umbra scoffed at Sasha's words. {Even if we took someone else's suggestion by having you act as my spotter or even a scout, we don't exactly have the same walking pace.}

Sasha put her hands on her hips. "Which is why a vehicle would be nice." She gestured at the crushed wreck of a car that Umbra left a clear mark on. "That one could have been useful… BEFORE YOU FLATTENED THE ENTIRE FUCKING THING!"

{Yeah, but I have a better idea.}

After saying this, Umbra walked towards another vehicle. A truck. She nonchalantly stepped on it, covering the top with her boot as the chassis and tires shifted accordingly. Despite Umbra's overwhelming weight, it remained intact as she resumed speaking in a stoic tone.

{You can take this vehicle instead, but we'll be parting ways. Everyone wins in the end since you'll no longer be in my way and you can return to your own people. I'll let the others know accordingly.}

Sasha crossed her arms. "How about no?"

Umbra responded by momentarily closing her eyes. {I already demonstrated that it's for your own safety.}

When Umbra opened her eyes, her entire face contorted as she applied more pressure to the truck. In a drawn-out process, the vehicle met a similar fate to the previous one. It slowly compressed beneath her boot, creating yet more cracking and crunching sounds as she annihilated it with nothing more than the power of her gargantuan physical form.

"For the love of god!" said Sasha as she looked away. "Do you have a kink for this shit or something? It's not getting us anywhere…"

{It's kind of fun, actually.} replied Umbra… smirking. {You should try it. It's a great stress reliever, really, if you happen to stumble upon some abandoned buildings or vehicles.}

Sasha rubbed her eyes. "Ugh." Focusing on the task ahead, she moved the polar opposite direction away from the titanic alien destroying vehicles for no apparent reason. It was only a matter of time until she found some more abandoned ones, including an olive green UAZ-469, which immediately caught her attention. Its poorly maintained and partially rusting state with some random garbage and tools stored near the rear gave the impression that it survived an apocalyptic event rather than being merely neglected.

An open window revealed a similarly sorry state, with the interior suffering from the elements. However, this also afforded Sasha an easy opportunity to reach through it to manually unlock a door, allowing her to open it. A quick look revealed torn seats with some sort of yellow foam exposed, but nothing along the lines of a car key remained in clear sight. Thinking quickly, Sasha fiddled with some scattered tools located in the back, eventually finding one of several flathead screwdrivers. Once Sasha finally sat in the driver's seat and locked the doors, she used the tool like an improvised key within the ignition… miraculously causing the vehicle to roar to life as a few indicator lights flashed on the dashboard during the process.

"Now we're getting somewhere…" said Sasha to herself.

{Indeed.} replied Umbra.

With her eyes going wide, Sasha looked side to side until she saw Umbra moving towards her. She began applying pressure to the gas pedal, gradually moving the UAZ forward and repositioning it while Umbra resumed casually moving down the road like it was a sidewalk.

{Relax.} said Umbra with a sneer. {If I wanted to hurt you, I would have done so already.}

Her words didn't prevent Sasha from driving down the road, away from Umbra at a steady pace. "How the hell did you hear me, exactly?"

{Your headset.} answered Umbra with an unamused look on her face. {Did you already forget? It's not just a translation device, but also the only way we're going to be able to communicate at a distance if you insist on putting yourself in danger…}

Sasha fiddled with the crude device perched on her ear, finding a few oversized switches near the back. "That works… I guess." She shook her head. "Then what's the plan?"

Umbra finally stopped following the vehicle as she stood in place, readying her rifle. {Well… the plan was that you would go away while I overview the general area and potential targets by myself, but now we're behind schedule and I have to account for you tagging along.}

"Great..." said Sasha with a smile, "So what's the new plan?"

Umbra's ears folded downward. {I'm probably going to cut through a forest. As for you, I suppose you can follow the road to catch up with the others, then we can work from there if we link up ahead of their positions for the sake of scouting.}

"Sounds good to me!"

With that, Sasha slammed a foot down onto the accelerator. The engine roared once more. From there, the UAZ made a U-turn, then it went hurling right back at Umbra as she stared at it like a deer caught within a pair of headlights. Umbra remained frozen as the UAZ drove through the gap between her two feet, leaving her in the dust before it resumed surging down the road and gaining greater distance.

Afterward, Umbra barred her sharp fangs and growled one word while narrowing her eyes…

{Humans.}

Although Sasha maintained a high speed on the empty road, she eventually had to slow down. Maneuvering the UAZ past other damaged, destroyed, or abandoned vehicles became an art in and of itself. Especially when parts of the road were outright missing. Nonetheless, the UAZ proved to be equally adequate at blazing down the concrete or trudging its way through dirt and mud to continue its journey.

Following a few minutes, Sasha saw the familiar outline of titanic creatures in the distance… whether it be the twin tails of joraxians or the bizarre draconic tail of sthara showcasing a blend of feline and reptilian features.

The Chief. Siren. Widget. Enigma. Jape.

All five stood over a series of corpses belonging to various hegemonic warriors strewn across the road.

Yet… that wasn't the most concerning part.

The fallen warriors' positions made Sasha take a closer look at the aftermath of whatever carnage occurred. The only zenari present showed various signs of being repeatedly shot in the back by energy weapons as they laid on their stomach… motionless. Several dead umok were on one side of the road while a few expired sthara with their fallen zenari squad leader were on the other, albeit all of them were being checked for vitals by the entire SAP unit.

{It looks like they decided to kill each other, madame.} hissed Jape as he kicked one of their energy weapons aside, disarming them one by one. {If I had to take a guess, the umok had enough of being the bottom bitches.}

{Maybe we should try to report this…?} interjected Siren with a look of concern.

{This changes nothing.} asserted the Chief with a huff, puffing up her chest. {We continue following the road until we reach the power plant.}

Even as the translation device made sense of their booming voices, Sasha didn't bother slowing down as she drove down the road. Instead, she went faster. The UAZ traversed through the grass to move to adjacent lanes that would be going the other way under different circumstances, bypassing a massive corpse with snow-white fur while the living aliens went about searching the others scattered throughout the vicinity.

All of their heads collectively perked up once the UAZ flew past their positions.

{Was that Sasha?} asked Siren.

The entire unit was left watching the UAZ move to distant horizons.

At this sight, the Chief snarled yet again. {The little speed demon probably found a way to scout after all! Let's get on the move, people.} She rushed down the road, leaving some footprints in her wake from running through a mix of dirt and decaying concrete. {GO GO GO!}

The other four promptly followed her, dashing towards Ishtar's encampment.

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First Chapter

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