War is a Terrible Thing

Not long after, the war started in full force. The Cragost attacked the city-planet Myst I, killing over half the population in a matter of minutes with their massive, organic ships, the Cragoloss.

These city-sized bug-looking lifeforms looked like massive, grotesque purple pill bugs covered in green tumors the size of buildings, from which they shot equally-large blobs of plasma.

Their fronts were covered in dozens of head-sized eyes that were pure green. Each of these Cragoloss could decimate a small town of four million people in less than a minute, and each can carry over a million soldiers and three thousand Cragolo, which were younger and much smaller Cragoloss.

The Cragost brought twelve of these monstrosities to Myst I.

By the time the Shyviate military was able to rally and start fighting back, the Cragoloss had already wiped out another eighth of the citizens of Myst I. The military had to deploy over fifty T-shaped, four-mile tall "Kraken" Klentoon Mobile Weapons Platforms to combat these monstrous ships, along with thousands of A-shaped "Firebird" Klentoon Fighter Ships to combat the Cragolo.

There were also Autumn and Nikolas on the ground, fighting the Cragost that had descended from the Cragoloss in fleshy drop pods, and Tom, Maya, and Fate in their Shadow Jumpers trying to destroy the Cragoloss.

The humans quickly learned that nothing short of plasma or powerful TK could harm the Cragost and their massive ships. This made things significantly more difficult because the majority of military personnel only carried laser weaponry. The result was Autumn and Nikolas carrying the ground troops, Autumn smashing in one Cragost skull after another as Nikolas made them turn on each other by making the Cragost see each other as humans.

Nikolas's strategy didn't always work, however, as the smarter Cragost used their hivemind connection to find the real humans. When faced with this, Nik pulled out two Season knives, set one to hot and one to cold, and started using his illusions to cover himself as he snuck up to them, conjuring images of walls and cars to hide behind.

While Autumn and Nik were standing their ground, the military behind them radioed in for plasma weapons. Meanwhile, citizens all around them were running away, only for many to fall to the Cragost. Autumn and Nikolas couldn't be everywhere at once.

In reality, they were barely able to secure a square mile area between several buildings. The thousands of other areas under attack didn't have powerful Prodigies to protect them, leading to a complete slaughter. By the time the military's Firebirds arrived to airdrop plasma weapons, the ground troops had already suffered 55% casualties.

Desperate, the military ordered several air strikes on those areas with little to no soldiers left, and many soldiers started flinging any explosives they had on them at the shambling crab-lobster monsters. While this was happening, the air forces were slowly gaining ground.

Thanks to the work of Fate, Maya, and Tom, along with their cloaked ships, and the fact that every military fighter was outfitted with plasma weaponry, the air forces were more than equipped to handle the Cragoloss and Cragolo. They took out five Cragolo for every Firebird they lost, and the Krakens were slowly but surely taking out the Cragoloss. They had already taken out three after the first twenty minutes and were working on two more while the Cragoloss tried desperately to fight back.

Every now and then a Kraken would run out of ammunition in its tail, spending all of it on the many Cragolo flying around, and on attempts to breach the shells of the Cragoloss. When this happened, they flew directly above Cragoloss, before arming and detaching the tail.

The tail, which made up almost the entirety of the Kraken's four-mile height, was designed to become a bomb when it ran out of ammunition. The resulting explosion from these tails contained the force of a nuke. Any Cragoloss in the blast radius typically lost over half of its body mass, and any Cragolo within a mile were utterly destroyed.

When the Cragoloss were killed by these explosions, their corpses fell from the sky, crushing and ship too slow to escape and flattening any skyscraper it landed on. Afterward, the Krakens would land on the ground, deploying the fifteen hundred soldiers each carried, before lifting off again and using the few lasers and plasma guns the ship had left to fight the Cragolo. Of course, many of the Krakens didn't survive to the stage of dropping their tail, and many more were destroyed before they could lift off after deploying troops.

It was a long, arduous battle. The Cragost had no concept of surrender, fighting to the last soldier. Due to this, it took five hours to finish the battle, when every Cragoloss and Cragolo was knocked out of the sky, and the corpses of Cragost and humans alike filled the streets.

The few surviving soldiers that fought on the ground gathered with the fighter pilots and the Hand of Styx on the bottom floor of the Myst I military base for debriefing. General Forgan, the man responsible for the defense of Myst I, stood at the front of the group of sixty thousand people, on a small raised stage.

General Forgan was an older man, looking to be in his late fifties. He had white hair cut short, vibrant green eyes, and a ramrod straight back despite his age. Dressed in the typical attire of a general, he cut quite a serious figure as he looked at the men and women in attendance.

"Eight hundred thousand, five hundred and twelve soldiers and pilots were deployed today," he said loudly, the building carrying his voice to everyone in attendance.

"Eight hundred thousand, five hundred and twelve brave souls determined to protect their families, their planets, their Collective. While most perished, all of you stood strong in the face of this invasion, this horrendous attack by cruel and alien creatures set on ending our way of life. Those who perished will be remembered, but those of you who survived are the best of the best, and you should be proud of the service you've done to your families and your Collective.

"We know now that these monsters have a weakness. I will personally talk to the Shyv to make sure every man and woman in the service of our Collective is outfitted with the tools to crush this crab scum. The death and ruin they've brought to us, we'll return a thousand-fold! We'll show these shambling bastards what humanity and Fildenen can do!

"And when they scurry home with their tails tucked between their legs like the cowards they are, we'll follow them to their homes and burn them and their families to the ground, just like they've done to us today!

"They've pissed off the scariest two races in the universe, the races capable of bringing low entire planets and laying waste to entire solar systems! They may be unfeeling freaks, but we'll teach them FEAR!"

Those in attendance yelled in affirmation, putting all the emotions they'd gone through today into this shout. Even the Styx members yelled, disgusted by the blatant mass murder of men, women, and children that these Cragost performed. Even as assassins, they had never stooped so low as to murder defenseless children.

The Cragost had poked the bear, and now they'd face the consequences.