As Solaris stepped out of the drop ship, he also looked at the Omega troops in awe. They were huge - eight feet tall. Their movements... inhuman. Precise and robotic and unnaturally quick - even the slightest gestures such as stepping or unholstering their weaponry.
"Woah.."
Gelinda stepped up next to him. She examined the nearest Legionnaire with interest, having never seen one before. They were bigger than Spartans... perhaps a new generation?
"Didn't they discontinue Spartan-IVs years ago..?" Solaris asked her.
"They did... but it looks like they've been working on something else." Gelinda replied. "Come on."

The two walked away from the dropships and spread out across what used to be a city. "Looks like this place got hit pretty hard." Solaris said.
"Pretty hard's an understatement. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't nervous. I've never been part of a small army before." Gelinda said.
"Right? I mean I signed up to be a teacher, let others handle the battlefield stuff... and now look where we are. How did this even happen?"
"We let it happen, we could have opted out anytime we wanted to. I really did want to. I... just came along because I didn't wanna leave you alone."
Solaris looked at her. "I.. I'm sorry I should have asked. I guess I let my adventurous side get the best of me. Maybe I've always wanted this but have been too... scared."
"Hey, no need to apologise. I just came along because you're too stupid to take care of yourself." Gelinda said with a smirk. "It's an obligation."
Solaris smiled back. "Whatever."

Temperance and Avalon stepped out of the ship as well, standing side by side. Temperance glanced over at Gelinda and Solaris, giving them a small smile. She was unsure as to whether or not the teachers remembered her or her fiancee, neither was at the school very long, but Temperance was polite and friendly anyway. Avalon glanced over at Temperance, looking a bit worried. She didn't really want Temperance here, sure she was useful against robots considering her powers, but her combat skills were still sub-par. Avalon would just have to keep an eye on her.

"Bravo Team, good to see you here." Dumont turned as he noticed the group, stepping down from the rubble to greet them. Like the other Omega soldiers he was wearing the large bulking armour that made his movements unnatural, yet it was obvious they would be deadly in combat. "As ready as we are, it's always good to have a supernatural or two on your side in a battle." He smiled as he examined them all, not recognizing any of them in particular.

"I've heard good things about the Knights, so I suppose we'll all get to see what each other is made of." His smile faded slightly as noises came behind him in the distance. Glancing back, he saw glimpses of light reflecting from metallic figures across the field.

"Okay, get into whatever positions are best for you. Omega will slowly push out while the marines hold this line. Feel free to take some men with you if you get a smart idea." With little effort his swung his rifle into a firm two-handed grip, climbing the rubble to start moving forward with the rest of Omega.

"Good luck out there."

Solaris nodded to Dumont. "Got it, sir." He walked out to the front, the golden aura appearing around him. Gelinda trailed behind him slightly.
"So... just like before right?" Solaris said as he turned to face her. Gelinda nodded.
"I'll fly and try keep them on the ground. You just blast anything you see."
"Alright."

Gelinda's metallic wings once again began to flap before her body lifted off the ground and steadily hovered upwards. Solaris meanwhile charged up a beam attack but this time, directed all the energy to his chest rather than his eyes. The massive beam of heat shot out of his chest, instantly burning a hole in his clothes and within seconds reached the army of metallic, infected troops. The explosion generated from impact threw a massive wave of scorching heat in all directions, frying any organic components on contact and overheating electronic ones.

Temperance watched Solaris for a moment, curious about his powers before she took a few steps away from Avalon. She watched as the pendant around Avalon's neck began to glow, then she fell to the ground as her form began to change. Within a couple seconds Avalon had turned from an intense looking biker chick to a rhino sized hell hound. Fire streaked across pitch black fur, her massive jaws snapping as she got used to her body. Then she grabbed Temperance up with her teeth, putting her on her back. Temperance could still fire off bolts of electricity while on her back. 

Temperance did indeed begin throwing bolts of electricity at the army of metallic, infected troops. Reaching into a bag after firing a couple bolts off, she withdrew the same kind of stones her mother had given her the day her niece was born. She threw them up high in the air, then struck them with electricity. They hummed and glowed before shooting into the sky, and within seconds dark clouds rolled in. Wind whipped through the battle, rain pouring down in torrents, rumbled of thunder coming from the clouds. 

Raising her hands Temperance began to aim, bringing her hands down and pointing towards groups of troops. Each troop she pointed at was struck with a massive bolt of lightning. Temperance continued to work long range while Avalon worked closer. Avalon spewed hell fire from her maw, roasting any troop that got close. Even if troops had evaded Avalon's fire she would then simply rip them apart with her teeth.

"Well boys, these supes have got quite the show. Let's give these metal husks a real display of power." Dumont smirked through comms, audible to both the Omega troops and the supernaturals. In perfect unison the squads of Omega moved out from the ruins, their heavy rifles opening up on the oncoming hordes. Like automated sprinklers their fire moved left-to-right, cutting perfect chunks off of the enemy frontline each time.

After a few moment the two sides were close enough for melee combat, Dumont being the first to send his gigantic fist straight through a droid, shattering it into parts.
"Turn 'em to scrap, heavies!" He called out, at which point a squad of railgun-wielding Omega troops stepped out from the defense. Their weapons spun up, before unleashing an onslaught against the droids that sent pieces of scrap flying everywhere.

But the battle was not so easy. as aerial units of helicopters and armed drones swooped in to try and dominated the skies, finding an interesting target in the form of Gelinda. Larger mechs began to appear from behind ruins, armed with laser weaponry and rockets. The same spiders from the facility had dug themselves out from the ground, beginning to swarm up the armours of soldiers yet finding no luck in penetrating.

Gelinda's attention diverted from the ground to the air now as she spotted several helicopters and drones making their way into the battlefield. The next thing she knew, a hail of automatic weapons fire was fired at her and she only narrowly managed to avoid the attack by diving. While in free-fall, she spread her wings out wide and arched her back, causing her to glide back up... right into the belly of a helicopter.

She made contact with it fist-first, causing it forcefully gain atltitude. She flapped her wings and chased it up before slamming more fists into it before she managed to break through the material and create a crack in its belly. She shoved her hand through the crack, now having a proper grip on the helicopter and furiously flapped her wings, fighting against the propulsion of the vehicle's spinning blades and the pilots' control.

A few drones had now managed to gain her in their sights and opened fire. Several bullets bounced off her metallic wings and a few connected against her flesh, bouncing off but leaving some bruises where they had hit her. The pain brought her anger out and as such, she applied much more strength to the helicopter she had in her grasp, flapping her wings more rapidly now, she dragged the helicopter across the sky and with a yell, threw it into another one. Along the way, it inadvertantly sliced through a few drones with its propellers before finally erupting into a ball of exploding flame as it impacted against the other copter.

Temperance also took notice of the helicopters, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as she pushed more power out into the storm clouds. The rain began to beat down even harder, the wind was basically screaming, and the intensity and amount of lightning doubled. Temperance's hands were a blur as she quickly directed strikes towards helicopters or drones, striking them harshly and watching them either explode there or begin to fall to the ground on fire. Then Temperance took focus of the ground troops again, beginning to strike more and more groups. Meanwhile beneath her Avalon was moving quickly and ferociously, the flames spewing from her mouth filling the air with an acrid scent that mixed with the already unpleasant smell of ozone from the high voltage of electricity in the air. Temperance kept directing strikes towards groups until, accidentally, one of her lightning strikes struck Solaris.

"This just keeps getting better..." Dumont commented as he sprayed down a bunch of metallic spiders headed for him. Quickly turning to rifle-butt a charging riot soldier to the ground, stamping it's head in straight after. "Hold your ground everyone, the sky is only a diversion."
"A diversion? For what?" One of the marines called out, hopelessly confused as to how the deadly helicopters and drones were only a diversion.
"Those." Dumont replied.

Through the clouds came large metal objects, crashing down into the ground causing the whole battlefield to shudder. These objects were unrecognisable at first, but after unfolding themselves it was clear they were a major threat.
"Mech units! Focus the heavies!" Dumont called out his orders, turning to begin firing and moving towards one of the deployed mechs.

Some of the mechs were light, skinny builds, sporting light machine guns and fast mobility on two multi-jointed legs. Others were of medium shape, like the one from the facility, packing lasers and some rocket payloads. Several of the mechs however were much larger, double the size of it's medium counterparts. These ones were also double in protection and weaponry, wielding two large laser canons and small machine turrets on it's shoulders, allowing to target annoyances in the air and bombard enemies on the ground...

Solaris's eyes widened and his mouth opened up in shock and pain as the bolt of lightning hit him in the chest. He fell on his back from the force of the blow and for a moment, he almost blacked out. However as was the natural characteristic of his body, his cells had absorbed the lightning and were now using the energy to repair any damaged parts of his body that had not survived the hit. Solaris's consciousness came back and he slowly lifted himself back off the ground - and he did not stop there.

The sensation was incredible - much more powerful than the power boost Kitty had given him days before. And it felt different... a lot more erratic in nature but powerful nontheless. His eyes glowed gold but instead of the usual aura that would normally emanate from his body, sparks of golden electricity appeared all over him - rapidly appearing and disappearing.

His body floated several feet up into the air as Solaris continued to savor and experience the feeling of raw power in his body - before his attention snapped back to reality as the Mech units came into view. Solaris quickly flew himself towards the advancing army of Mechs and as he reached a certain distance, he stretched his arms forward and shot powerful blasts of electricity as several of the light Mechs, intending to short circuit them.

He was promptly targeted by the rocket launchers on the medium mechs, but he managed to shoot them out of the sky as they were fired at him before releasing blasts of elecricity upon the medium mechs as well.

Gelinda meanwhile was covered in blood and bruises as she finished dealing with the helicopters and drones, only to be further bombarded by machinegun turrets from a new type of adversary. She quickly gained her balance in the air as she spun and swerved her way clear of the turrets mounted on the heavy mechs, but their assault was relentless. A laser cannon fired at her but she managed to move out of its aim before it had done so. The heat from the laser still scorched her leg from just the mere proximity of it to her. However the mech that had fired the laser, had managed to coerce her into its turret's field of fire and quickly shot several rounds at her.

The turret fire hit her several times in the chest, causing her to spiral out of control and enter free-fall towards the ground. She fell several thousand feet at a high velocity before her body hit the ground hard. Her impact caused a large crater than kicked up huge amounts of dirt that reached several feet high before settling.

"Friendly down! We got a supe down to the east, get a med-team over there!" Dumont called out through comms as he sprayed fire against one of the large mechs. Almost immediately a detachment of red-and-white painted Omega soldiers broke off to the east, rushing towards Gelinda's landing spot to provide medical aid if required. Meanwhile one of the few heavy mechs was closing in on Dumont, but he continued forward to it fearlessly. 

Once he was within punching distance of it, the mech swung it's giant arm around to try and whack Dumont away. Standing fast, his own large gauntlet shot up to grab the strike, his armour absorbing the impact with only some pushback. Even the mech took a few moments to calculate what had happened, at which point Dumont pulled hard against its arm and sprayed his rifle straight into it's approaching face.

Within moments the mech fell over to the side, sparks from its main body signalling it's end.
"Aim for the dead center of their torsos, looks like Solarboy has got the lights and mediums handled, give those heavies everything!" At his commands rockets and lasers from the Omegas bombarded the heavy mechs, pushing both them and their accompanying soldiers back hard.

"Just a few more men, then we can call this field ours!"

As the medium mechs went down, Solaris turned to see how Gelinda was doing, and to his horror, saw her fall out of the sky and hit the ground hard.
"Gelinda, NO!" He cried out before flying himself over to the crater she had created from her hard landing. As the dirt cleared, Solaris landed inside the opening in the ground and ran over to her. His heart was pounding and he was breathing heavily in panick for his friend.

There she was, laying in the center. The light body armour that she had equipped herself before the mission was torn to pieces, her wings spread out underneath her. Her eyes were closed and there was blood running from her nose and partially opened mouth. Her entire body was covered in scars and bruises and blood and her hair was a dirty mess. She looked like a corpse...

"No.. No! Don't you dare do this to me!" He shouted as he hurriedly knelt down beside her and took her upper body into his arms, cuddling her. Tears welled up in his eyes. "G-Gelinda...please.." He held her face in one of his hands and gazed down at her, in dying hope.

The sound of heavy footsteps made him look up as a team of red and white painted Omega Legionnaires arrived stood above him at the rim of the crater. One by one, they jumped down and approached Gelinda.
"Sir, you're going to have to move away from her. Now." One of them said in a stern tone.
Solaris looked down at her again, a slight longing to hold onto her leading to a feeling of reluctance to let her go. But once the logical side of his mind took back over, he understood that if Gelinda were to have any chance of survival, it would be with their help.

Slowly, he laid her back down onto the soil and stood back, allowing the Legionnaires to move forward and get to work.
"She's still breathing! Get me an adrenal dose, quick! Keep her vitals-" Their voices drowned out as Solaris entered a state of emotional shock. But then, something else boiled up inside him. A desire... for revenge. The feeling of shock was overcome with an intense, burning anger in his chest. His eyes glowed bright again and sparks of electricity danced all over his body, and in that instant he shot up from the ground, skyward and stopped a few hundred feet up to survey the battlefield.

Noticing a group of small and medium Mechs, Solaris charged up a powerful blast of electricity and unleashed it forth towards the group with a cry of anger. The electrical blast exploded as it landed at the center of them and bounced and hopped from Mech to Mech, short circuiting each that the electricity touched.  He watched the Mechs drop through gritted teeth and eyes wide with anger, before laying his sights upon a large Mech that had taken aim at him with its laser cannon.

With a roar of anger, he charged at the Mech, flying downwards straight at it with full speed. The Mech however had him in its sights and shot both of its laser cannons at Solaris. The twin lasers slammed into him and covered him and pushed him backwards, his body disappearing in a combination of red heat and energy.

Once the red haze disappeared, Solaris appeared once again, his clothes torn and his eyes now glowing an intense red. Sparks of golden and red electricity appeared all over his body as an intense red aura of energy surrounded him. He shot forth again, this time at greater speed and closed the distance between himself and the Mech within seconds. He landed a punch against the machine, sending it flying backwards. He then flew after it, matching its speed with his and continuing to deliver a series of blurred punches into its torso, increasing it's speed as it flew backwards more and more and slamming it through a multitude of small and medium Mechs.

Solaris increased his speed even more, catching up to the damaged Mech yet again, but this time circling around it and, with a powerful kick, sending it flying into the sky. Once again, he flew up after it, catching up, punching it up further, and repeating the cycle again and again until they neared the top of the planet's cloud layer. He then circled around the machine again so that it was now below him, summoned the energy from the lasers the Mech had shot at him, combined it with a massive amount of electrical energy and fired it, full blast down into the Mech.

The Mech hurtled downward, propelled by the massive beam of red and yellow concentrated on its torso. It reached terminal velocity as it continued to hurtle towards the ground and crashed right into the middle of a group of medium and heavy Mechs, generating a tremendous explosion that engulfed everything around it at a 100 meters distance.

"Holy..." Dumont was distracted from his fighting for the moment, the pure strength of his armour allowing him to ignore the enemy's fire whilst he observed Solaris' fighting. The explosion shook the entire battlefield, taking out the worst of the mechs alongside a large chunk of Helix's footsoldiers. A moment of confusion swept over the enemy, as if their processor were literally trying to comprehend their sudden losses. After a few seconds, they began to move backwards. 

Their rifles continued firing as they back-tracked, trying to cover their escapes towards incoming dropships.
"Shoot those birds outta the sky!" Dumont called out, to which Temperance seemed to handle immediately. Her storms prevented the ships from even landing safely, causing them to crash and burn. Whilst the enemy ships were taken care of, friendly dropships came in.

Most importantly was a medical dropship swooping down for Gelinda's location, onto which the medical squad would try and carefully take her on to. This ship left the surface first, obviously in a rush to get her back to the main ship's medical bay. The rest of the dropships came down shortly after, allowing the marines and supernaturals to return to the ship too.

"Good work out there, supes." Dumont said through comms. "Our recon team managed to gather intel from the Helix ships whilst we had them distracted on ground. I hope your friend pulls through for the final battle." 

"Omega will clean up the surface, you guys get back to the ship. Back to your friend."

Solaris quickly descended down from the clouds, hitting the ground with both of his feet with a thud. Most of his energy had been expended on that rabid outburst, and now he stood in the middle of the results...

Charred soil lay beneath him for a hundred meters all around and the grass was nonexistent. Melted and burnt remains of Mechs scattered the field - the ones that had survived vaporisation anyway.

"Shit man..." Was all Solaris could manage through a combination of heavy intakes of breath and the sheer awe at his own, barely-tested destructive capacity. He raised his hand and placed the palm against his forehead as dizziness overtook him. With effort and concentration, he walked back to Dumont.

"Looks like... we scared 'em.. haha..." Dumont assured him that his troops had everything covered on the ground and commended him and the other supernaturals for their work now. He was free to board the ship again, to be with Gelinda- Oh shit! Gelinda! The panicked feeling arose in Solaris's chest again, allowing him to fight through the dizziness as he rushed towards one of the dropships.


An hour or so later, Solaris was walking down the hallway of the medbay, having rested a reasonable amount and gathered enough energy to not trip over everytime he tried to walk. He quietly entered a door to his left and his heart almost sank from what he saw. Gelinda was laying there, almost as still as a corpse were it not for the steady rise and fall of her chest as she breathed. She had multiple machines and wires hooked up to her. Her face was littered with bruises and cuts and her hair was still a mess. The dirt had been cleaned off her and she had been changed into a hospital gown with a thin blanket draped over her.

Solaris walked over and sat in a chair beside her bed. She was still out cold, but at least she was alive. He looked at her face and watched a few injuries disappear as her regenerative ability gained pace. This caused him to gain some hope and elicited a smile from him. She sure was a fighter, both at her best and worst. And that, he realised, was what he loved about her the most.

Temperance had been watching Solaris in awe, but she wasn't entirely surprised. With destructive powers emotional control was absolutely crucial, but when that control was truly tested catastrophic results could be yielded. Still Temperance and Avalon continued to fight for a few moments longer after turning their attention away from Solaris, that was until Dumont gave the okay for them to head back. With a wave of her hand, Temperance severed her connection to the wild storm she created, within a few moments it would dissipate. 

After getting back on ship Temperance and Avalon split ways so Avalon could change back and get dressed while Temperance took a nap to regain her energy. After waking up an hour later she wandered down to the medbay, wanting to check on Gelinda as well. But upon seeing Solaris standing over her barely breathing figure she paused, watching them for a moment before smiling and turning away. She was glad Gelinda survived.