Vitae Memorandum

64-Overwhelming Advantage

Silence failed to cover the battlefield, as the fight was not yet over. Soft shakes quickly resolved as thunderous crashes as another threat approached on the east side.

Lwyn climbed up to the ledge Yuxzn was waiting at, feeling satisfied by her success. There however, she found Yuxzn agasp with horror. Turning to follow his sight, she quickly took to the same emotion. Far below them, approaching the swamp quickly, was the Colossal itself. It had been delayed behind their other forces, possibly to overwhelm the front lines after the rest of the forces had gotten enough time to swarm them. Thanks to Qheria, that's not how it had worked out, with the Colossal thus arriving too late to save the rest of the mechanical attackers. However, they all knew, this was no simple threat, even the four girls together had done nothing before but knock it over with the power of a siege weapon to support them. Now, Qheria was left with much less at her disposal.

Lwyn created a projectile that pulled her upwards as she jumped from the entire mountain, gliding down the span of the entire thing. She landed a fair distance away from the swamp still, and threw a harmless spark of light over Qheria. Qheria noticed Lwyn in the distance and warped much closer to her, completely surprising Lwyn. "Ah! Really, you can teleport now too?" "Seems so, I just figured out how at least. Do you happen to know what is going on?" "Easy question, that's the Colossal." Lwyn motioned behind her as Qheria resolved her own turn of shock and horror.

They had no idea how to deal with the Colossal, being a much more serious threat then any of the other things they had been working with. Qheria also realized that it was not only too tall to sink in the swamp, it could almost step over it by using the tiny spots of land as stepping stones even if there were such concerns. She also recalled that the thing had a barrier of its own, which really put them at a loss for finding enough firepower to even dent it. Possibly the only one who could have done anything against this thing was Mhyl, but she wasn't anywhere nearby and even had her own things to worry about.

For now, Qheria decided to regroup. She went to gather Rhyde up, and warped the three of them back over the swamp. There, she approached Xyithy with a simple report. "The Colossal will be here soon. We need to be ready." Qheria waited for the dread to resolve for Rhyde and Xyithy, although her sister did not share the same expression. Xyithy took the opportunity to take her daughter aside to explain while Rhyde turned to look over the situation. They had only barely endured the previous scenario, this might be more than they could handle.

"None of the Qiciri can help with this, not with only blades and lances and arrows. Even their shields won't do a thing, really. They'll need to withdraw, before they just become a liability." Rhyde was very familiar with being a mundane liability, it was why he was thankful for the power armor he has been using. Some of their forces were still scattered on small swamp islands, while others were even on the far opposite coast. They all needed to withdraw, this was too much for them to contribute to. Xyithy heard the observation and passed the information to her daughter, who reluctantly agreed. Even the power armor they had to deal with near the end was proving futile to measure up against, something more powerful would make her forces meaningless.

As everyone was called to retreat across the swamp, Qheria realized that she would have to step forward to defend her people, even under impossible odds. She wasn't alone at least, she had Rhyde at her side and Lwyn was here to help as well. The odds still weren't in their favour, unfortunately. As Qheria turned to face the oncoming threat, Rhyde and Lwyn came to join her, so she warped them all across the swamp. On arrival, they could see the Colossal was quickly approaching. The Colossal also noticed their arrival, and readied its weaponry. The missile bay of both shoulders opened up and fired a volley towards them. Qheria warped the three of them past the missiles in an effort to simply dodge, although each of them turned around to seek their target. Lwyn shot an explosive burst, detonating the missiles in the air, only to hear more missiles spreading out behind her.