[CENTER][h1][color=6082B6]Odessa[/color][/h1][/CENTER]
[sub][right][color=silver][color=6082B6]Location[/color] — Petrichor-8 System, Frontier Planet Alora[/color][/right]
[right][color=silver][color=6082B6]Interacting[/color] — [@Xiro Zean][/color][/right][/sub]
[hr]

[indent][color=silver]Relief.

That was what Odessa might have felt, had she not been a more seasoned warrior. Relief that her senior had the good sense to reconsider their advance. Relief that the military men attached to them had the good sense to listen to a veteran Aberrant-slayer. Relief that their mission was marginally more likely to succeed as a result. 

Such a luxury was not hers to enjoy.

Instead, she felt nothing more than familiar serenity, an emptiness she knew well, devoid of positive and negative. As the atmosphere far above them lit up with the wrath of man and his nemesis, filling the very skies with the rumbling staccato of artillery fire and plasma, she thought only of the storm within—the rumbling of her internal thunder. When the screeching of a thousand or more monstrosities echoed through war-torn streets, rattling the will of those around her with the threat that they might yet turn their soulless gazes upon those few souls hunkered down in the hotel, she kept her mind on the great storm to come, whose wrath would fill her veins with heavenly zeal and remake her flesh as a weapon that could humble the false Gods of the Archenemy's host. Even as the horrific screams of their foes died down in the absence of that great horde, now shambling for the front lines so many miles away, she could feel the kiss of Okeanos' heavens upon her nape, every minuscule hair standing on end in its presence.

[color=white]"Alright,"[/color] The call to move came on from high, stirring Odessa from her reverie long enough for her eyes to drift to their intrepid leader, [color=white]"Move out. We have to reach the target before they figure out what is happening."[/color]

And so she did. Like some silent specter, she drifted through the crowds of soldiers checking their weapons and muttering their prayers, every step guiding her closer to the behemoth of steel and circuitry that would escort her to their place of battle. It would not be much longer after she scaled the giant and settled herself upon one of its great arms that the reverb of motors and the hum of thrusters filled her ears. Soon, the dank, depressing ambiance of a building now deprived of its purpose was replaced with fresher, but no less dreary skies of Alora. It seemed to her as though the very world itself mirrored that of her own: dark clouds gathering in preparation for the fury they would soon unleash. An auspicious omen, perhaps, were she allowed the mercy of hope. 

But such a luxury was not hers to enjoy.

[hr]

The reprieve of open skies and clear ground came to a predictable end sometime thereafter. Given such time to reproduce, it was of no surprise to Odessa that the Archenemy proved numerous enough to maintain a presence of sentries nearer the nest even under all the wrath that the Brigadier General brought to bear against their teeming horde. But the efforts of humanity's lesser combatants had done its job. Instead of a great flood of gnashing teeth and radiant beams, they faced only a swell, the likes of which could be broken against their host like a wave upon the cliffs. 

[color=white]"Engage the enemy!"[/color]

The rallying cry went out, and all as one both groups seemed to ignite into a flurry of activity. A thousand sharp cracks rang out below as the infantrymen unleashed all they had upon the armored carapaces of their foes, and Odessa's balance shifted as the iron giant beneath her banked sharply to the right to fulfill its objective and strafe the gibbering swarm far beneath them. The very act seemed to bring the tempest within her to the surface. She could feel it swelling, deep in the marrow of her bones, in every sinewy fiber of muscle, down nerve that familiar buzzing, burning, aching surge. It beckoned to her. Yearned for her to call upon it. Her body and mind as one hoped for it, desiring to unleash that which had stirred within her since they first departed their impromptu lodgings.

A luxury she [i]could[/i] enjoy.

Two hard knocks against the cockpit of her escort informed the pilot within that their duty to her had been completed. A gentle push thereafter saw her leaving its embrace, free-falling towards the planet below. The winds whipped about her face as she plummeted toward the ground, but the thrill it provided was as a raindrop amidst a cyclone when compared to the rush building within her. The impact of her feet touching scorched asphalt barely registered in the face of the energy that surged within her, building and building and building. Her eyes found their focus in the face of the Aberrant threat just ahead of the makeshift host of infantry she had dropped into. The Pawns meant little to her, the Jetsam only marginally more. Her gaze instead searched until it landed on the leadership of the motley assortment of monsters. The high-caste—Bishops.

Hulking and monstrous, one would be forgiven for comparing them to the steely humanoids mankind brought to bear. Odessa knew better. No matter how mighty the firepower of their mechanical brethren might have been, there was no hope for them to puncture the barrier of a Bishop. It was the threat posed by these grotesques that necessitated the presence of humanity's greatest defenders in the first place. They were the closest equivalent amongst the Archenemy to Constellations, and the great foe that she had been brought to Alora to do battle against. The monsters spread out to better dispatch the force of humans invading their stolen territory, and her fellows went in turn to meet them. The less experienced among them might have gone in fear, in the face of their enemy's might, the likes of which tore concrete asunder like so much wet sand. 

Odessa had no such fear. She had seen the most divine of the Archenemy's armies firsthand. In the face of such Gods, she could only find the Spearmen before her wanting by comparison.

Heavy boots met the street below one step at a time as the power within seemed to dance up her spine and lick at her fingertips. There were eight foes to be felled, and only six Constellations to be spared. Their leader faced off with more than her fair share, as was to be expected of a Red Giant. It was like as not that Ahkari would be sufficient to defeat the entire patrol of Bishops by herself, given the time. But every moment spent dispatching the high castes, one by one, would leave the others to wreak havoc upon their infantry. Even as the Stardust among them struggled to deflect a blow and found herself in the care of a more veteran Constellation and Rudis dispatched of one of their number, another descended upon the nearest support vehicle to the front line, bringing to bear the tip of its monstrous blade. Even the thickest armor of a human transport would puncture like so much tissue paper in the face of such an assault, and with it so too would those unfortunate souls inside now hurriedly moving into reverse.

Every inch the vehicle retreated, the energy within her seemed to surge. She breathed through the euphoric pain until it was nothing more but a passing squall. She breathed as the rapture threatened to consume her. The black clouds above whirled within her mind's eye, and yet she remained atop her mountain peak, at the eye of the storm. Every breath seemed to coax them to rumble. Every step seemed to dare the clouds to lash out. Once. Twice. Three times. By the time her boot met the ground for the fourth time, and her lungs emptied, the world itself seemed to slow to a crawl. The frenzied infantry carriers. The charging behemoth only meters away from it. The thousands of bullets whizzing about the air froze in that most exulting of moments.

Then, the world seemed to move all at once, and Odessa moved with it.

In the space between heartbeats, she was gone, leaving only a concussive blast and shattered roadway in her wake. The Bishop's spear lunged forward like some horrible, hydraulic viper, lashing out to claim its prey. But its fangs found no such purchase in its quarry. The razor-edge of its gargantuan stopped meters shy of its intended target, the horrendous force behind its wild attack coming to a creaking halt in the embrace of a woman so much smaller than it as to beggar belief. The servos in Odessa's gauntlets whirred and hissed as her fingers bit down like the jaws of some equally horrible beast along the very tip of its spear. Her arm almost seemed to vibrate as every strand of muscle she had clenched with a might that could only be described as superhuman. Riding the lightning had carried her to the defense of her allies, and in that stunning moment, it filled her with the vigor to halt juggernauts as one might halt a tossed ball, coursing through her body like an almighty circuit. 

Whatever intelligence the beast possessed rebelled against the ludicrous notion of what its misshapen eyes saw. It jerked backward with such force that one might have expected Odessa's arm to come with it. But her body held strong, muscles in her back tensing like so many steel cables as they maintained her stance. Her knuckles were surely as pale as milk beneath the heavy, cobalt metal encasing them, her fingers exerting force such that they might well have shattered the spear between them before letting go. The monster tried again and again to free its weapon, each time only managing to budge the defiant warrior holding it hostage a matter of centimeters. It roared in protest and yet found little more than icy aurum eyes staring back at it, unflinching, unfeeling. 

Its fellows were not so heartless. Another Bishop, having clamored atop the ruins of a nearby building to find an angle of attack on the unguarded infantry beyond, turned to face them. A bestial roar hearkened its arrival. Even an animal could understand pack tactics. Attack her flank while she was busy holding off its fellow hunter. Fell greater prey by working in tandem. One could even call it intelligent if they did not know any better. 

Neither intelligence nor might, would carry the day for them, however. The second Bishop launched itself from the building in a shower of broken concrete and glass, rocketing down like a reaper from above to bring death and desolation upon her. She waited there, in the eye, for it to arrive. The storm blazed all around her, but she did not flinch from it. She welcomed it in the same way she welcomed her opponent's challenge. It was only in that split moment before the alien weapon came down to render her as paste that the skies opened once more. The ground shattered once more, metal met metal, and Odessa nearly buckled in the face of a blow that embedded her boots well into the ground below. 

Nearly.

But a child of Okeanos did not wither in the face of such tribulations. A thousand thousand tiny needles seemed to prick all along her arms as she held both Spearmen at bay, the Heavens blessing them with necessary strength for the herculean endeavor to come. Their might combined, they might well have managed to tear her in two by pulling in unison, but such a fate was not one she intended to face. There was not even enough time for her heart to beat once between the second Bishop's spear finding purchase against her gauntlets before her back heaved mightily, and she turned, hard as hard could be, first at her shoulders, then at her hips. Her legs cut through the earth that encased them as she spun, pulling so hard that the first Bishop lost its footing and the second, still airborne from its assault, found itself caught up in the momentum of the Constellation that held its weapon so firmly. 

Were they truly intelligent, they might have simply let go of their weapons in that moment and freed themselves from her grip. But their attachment to their weaponry would prove to be their downfall. In one cataclysmic show of might, Odessa hefted both Spearmen into the air, one held aloft in each arm. Once they were both deprived of the ground below, and only then, did she finally let loose. Not her grip, no, but the tempest swirling within her. The lightning within flowed like the waters of a mighty dam let free, and sparks of electricity danced along every inch of the horrible monsters caught up in her momentum. It surged and crackled and roared until finally, with a whine, the barriers that had bedeviled her more mortal companions broke under the flow of her anomaly.

And in the fraction of the second to follow, that which still flowed within her gave her the strength to bring her arms together, swinging the Bishops into each other. The circuit was complete at that moment, and the storm passed through them as it had her. 

But they were no children of Okeanos. Day became night in the face of the flash to follow. Thunder boomed loud enough to shatter what glass remained along the ruined avenue they battled upon. The stench of ozone filled the air.

And when the sun returned in the wake of her great undertaking, there was little left in Odessa's grasp but blazing slag. Hot ash and ember rained down on her cheeks as she used the remaining strength in her arms to toss the half-melted spears and the remnants of the Bishops now fused to them to either side of herself, each landing with a heavy crash. Another breath, to clear the euphoria. Another breath to come down from the rush. Without ceremony, Odessa wrestled her leg free from the earthen prison it had been driven into, and soon her steps continued, leading her further into the battle. There were more foes to fell. Her storm could not yet be allowed to pass.[/color][/indent]