The craft gave way to a steep decline, launching them past pastel butterflies and hummingbirds dashing from rose to rose on the picturesque landscape. They were without portable communicators, but there was hope they would stick together to do what was necessary.

"Okay guys, once we neutralise the Defence Force encampment a few kilometres out, we'll pretend to be one of them to gain entry and not cause suspicion," Teinova placed the craft in cruise control. "Then we create a false warning to Leaflet, their principal base, stating the War Troupe has captured it with overwhelming numbers after we ruin the place and defeat all the soldiers."

"If we follow that plan, we'll be fine. Because to be honest, we don't have a Plan B." Zazavin got nervous as he finished the statement.

"What will be the specific number of enemy soldiers?" Durin wanted to give his input.

"What do you mean?" Teinova became confused."

"We have to give them a specific number to draw them out. It will have to be unprecedented to make our task at Leaflet easier."

"I don't know. Five hundred thousand?"

"But remember it can't be too high or else it'll sound ridiculous. We know little of the specifics of the War Troupe."

"One hundred thousand?"

"That's too low. Think bigger."

"How abo..."

Durin barged in the middle of her sentence. "But not too big. Make sure it's just right."

Standing casually at the footpath, a yellow-hooded stranger hailed the vehicle with his index finger jotted outwards.

Perplexed by a stranger in the middle of nowhere on a warring planet, the vehicle halted.

"Can I get a ride?"

"Sorry stranger, we're returning to home base. This is no place for civilians." Zazavin said this menacingly once the perspective of the levitation platform changed.

"Aren't you afraid of us? We're soldiers of the Defence Force." Teinova did her best to maintain the persona of someone fierce.

"No." Shadows covered most of his face.

Durin, Zazavin and Teinova could tell he was a problem. His tone and demeanour communicated that they should stay far from him. As they were about to leave him at the side of the footpath, something grew in the distance.

Roses trembled in absolute terror and creatures were frantic to get out. Even those nowhere near the rumbling were doing whatever they could to get safety, whether digging underground, taking flight, running, hopping, slithering, or rolling away.

They didn't have to wait long.

A swarm of thousands broke the horizon, making retribution and combat palpable.

Teinova reverted the visual plating and kicked the craft into high gear. The defensive function of the dome plating was about to be tested.

Zazavin was overwhelmed with shock. He was fixated on thousands clad in grey military uniforms with no camouflage patterns. "Where did all those beings come from?"

"That's the Balmi War Troupe." The stranger replied calmly. He had jumped on top of the craft without their knowledge. "I disabled their communications, tampered their water supply, disabled the few vehicles they had, and threw away much of their munitions over two weeks. Certainly not the brightest or most observant bunch."

Even up close, the shadows hid his face. His hoodie had deep pockets, and at its centre, there was the design of an arrowhead with broad wings. All in all, he looked kinda cool.

Zazavin and Teinova unleashed their abilities of soap and carving and the shadowy figure replied in earnest with letters of an unknown language hovering above him. It was of coppery gold and began to make words that would destroy them if they continued their bullish threats.

"Stop! Let me talk to him." Shocked by the sternness of Durin’s command, they stepped down with a hint of reluctance in their minds.

"What you did to the Balmi War Troupe was true?" He looked up as he talked.

"Yes." The stranger's face took a confused form.

"Well then. I have a proposal for you."

"What's that?" He kept his guard up in whatever way he could even with his poor position and circumstances.

"I want you to join my crew."

Teinova's and Zazavin's mouths were left agape over his decision.

"I'm not much of a team player."

"Well, how about a bet?" Teinova and Zazavin's mouths widened even further for air to exit their bodies.

"Like what?"

"Whoever reaches the ship first will get to claim it." Durin wanted him to seal the agreement with a handshake.

"Sure, why not?"

Zazavin and Teinova struggled to bear the weight of his insanity. He touched the controls that revealed the back entrance for the stranger to get inside using his powers in order to confirm the agreement.

"Well, I should start to prepare myself for our little bet." The figure sat the furthest possible distance from them to rest until the start.

Zazavin inquired if Durin was insane. This was extreme, especially in these circumstances.

Durin told them they wanted him to be more assertive as a Battle Chief, so inviting the stranger was one way of doing so.

Teinova chimed in, but Durin's eyes cast an aura of reassurance to his comrades.
This being could provide great value to his crew and he was sure of it.

Teinova and Zazavin begrudgingly complied, but not without inner expressions of doubt.

What the effing hell is wrong with this bastard? Anger ran through Teinova’s mind.

At this rate, I think Teinova should be Battle Chief... Zazavin knew he was wrong to think that. Oh, I mean Battle Chieftess. I almost forgot my genders.

Unbeknownst to them, they were under long-distance auditory surveillance by Deeli, Commander Cascachu's military advisor.

"Come nah, girl. Tell me what going on with them." He wanted an update after having run leisurely for kilometres at the head of the pack.

"I can't say, bossman. The thing they in seal up tight." Her four long and narrow ears—two per side—twitched. They were straight like the four red dashes that gave sight to her green being.

"Cool, that good enough for me. All I know is that they are infiltrators."

"So bossman... what you wanna do?" The lengthened end of her forehead swayed as she kept up with him.

"Tell them to bring forward the artillery cannon. Those strong winds make it hard to aim with the flares. I'm going to launch myself."

She relayed the message through a device known as the T331. This was a sheet of fluffy fabric that could make and receive calls, be placed anywhere on the body of a lifeform, and was extremely durable.

The cannon rode the sea of soldiers, tossing and turning from the depleting strength of thousands. It eventually reached next to Cascachu. He jumped onto it and climbed into the cannon for takeoff.

"You ready to fire?!" The high volume produced almost made dents in the walls of the barrel.

"Hold on, sir. We trying to recalibrate the artillery cannon." She said as one of the soldiers did so with his short, curved claws at his Commander's request.

Cascachu waited little for the being with claws to say what he wanted to hear. "We ready, bossman!"

The sea of beings swelled to cope with the impending recoil of the cannon fire. However, mere moments before launch, the henchmen at the rear gave up their support, bucking it upwards.

BOOM!!!

Cascachu shot into the clouds, meeting rose petals in flight with wind streaking across the rounded top of his body.

Hearing artillery fire, the quartet readied themselves for inevitable landfall, all fixated on a red, long figure.

There is this being call Cascachu. He not the brightest, like the majority of his underlings, but his strength ferocious. Ragga, a Chessadee of slim and tall stature, informed them of this freak. A piece of her low-quality holographic form clipped the table.

Zazavin was as attentive as he could to hear this piece of information.

However, he's the second strongest.

Who's the first? Such a curious look needed an immediate response.

Zartzs. Eoli's many strands of hair tensed at the utterance of her name.

A grand explosion developed outward, its shockwave surpassed the craft and everything living and non-living for kilometres around. His fat sausage form was embedded into the earth, but Cascachu wiggled back and forth until he freed himself. He stood in a dying haze with dead and injured soldiers buried beneath the rubble.

"What are we going to do?" They were getting closer to Cascachu, and this worried Zazavin.

"We'll just make a beeline to Defence Force headquarters." Teinova's tone was somewhat gruff.

"But we lack a standing army."

"We already have one." Durin became a little sly with what he had implied.

"I don't get it."

"I was talking about the Balmi War Troupe soldiers, Zazavin."

"Ohhhhh. I get it now."

Cascachu remained in place with ominous clouds looming; he crouched so his paddle-shaped arm with three short lines would bring adverse reactions to the soil. Petals plucked, dirt shifted, bugs squished—this and more was under the influence of his randomness.

Teinova made a hard left to avoid chaos, but a burrowmore, a creature of blue flesh, shot from the ground and smashed into the vehicle, shifting its stability into a series of wild flips.

Don't crash, don't crash. The alarm nearly drowned Teinova's thoughts.

They were being tossed around worse than beads in a rattle. With the gap between vehicle and ground shrinking, Durin used his mass to press the others into the hull which redistributed the weight to change a most probable sideways collision to landing on the spike at a thirty-five-degree angle.
The unsettled group quickly regained composure and continued their trek.

Cascachu repositioned himself to take a hard stare at the fugitives. His thin cylindrical legs stood in place for his swarm to sweep him off his feet due to his unwillingness to take another step. He assumed his position as the right-hand being of the Balmi War Troupe by sitting on them as if they were a throne.

"Bossman, we're five kilometres from Leaflet," Deeli informed him. "You wanna retreat?"

"Nah. Let we start the invasion early."

"Should I call the other commanders?"

"Of course not." Cascachu cracked a smirk, his excitement intensifying.

THANK YOU FOR READING IF YOU REACHED THIS FAR. IF YOU LIKE THIS AND OTHER CHAPTERS, FOLLOW, LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT, AND ADD THIS BOOK TO YOUR LIBRARY FOR MORE BATTLES BEYOND. MAKE SURE TO CHECK OUT MY OTHER STORIES AS WELL.