Deathworlders Should Not Be Allowed To Date! 45

Luna VI query: Set the source to the leaked files of the first reconnaissance operation of Irisa.

Certainly!

Luna VI query: How were the last hours in the valleys of the Ebon Range?

Your request will generate an account from multiple points of view. Do you wish to proceed?

Luna VI query: Yes.

***

Nathan’s perspective:

Nathan stepped out of the cave with his swarm of drones flying around in threat detection mode. Amara was by his side, gun in hand, claw on the trigger. She was a colorful mixture of blue, black, and grey, the details in her texture changing with every step she took.

They exited through the other side of the cave, only to be greeted by the dreadful aftermath of the battle. An Oczoil, leaking red through holes in its belly, lay dead in front of them, its eyes still half-open. Another beast had perished near a shrub, but not before taking a male Irisian with it. The body, a lifeless weight of pale blue skin, had an enormous wound on its chest, matching the shape of the red spur on the rear leg of the fallen beast beside it.

Nathan stumbled to a halt, wincing at the sight ahead. Slowly, the realization that he was the cause of so much violence dawned on him, his mind wondering how many more lives had been lost because of his actions.

Unlike him, Amara moved like a predator, her steps silent and her ears twitching like radar. Lost in this vigilant world, she failed to notice Nathan's internal turmoil. What was he doing? Her intense focus was a tough reminder of his faltering resolve. He shook his head, his grip tightening on the revolver, forcing the guilt to the back of his mind. That would be a problem for future Nathan.

From there on, his steps were firm, and his use of the drones became more proactive. The AI responded to his intentions, allowing him to see through anything that might be hiding an enemy.

"Should we run away?"

"My brother will not let us."

He took a few seconds to reply with a nod, understanding her meaning. What was the point of running when they had already been found once? This unspoken truth propelled them forward. As Nathan approached the protruding rocks that offered them shelter, and guilt aside, he couldn't help but wish that the Oczoils had finished the job of dealing with Amara's brother.

He crouched low behind the sharp rocks, his heart pounding in his ears. Peering cautiously around the edge, Nathan got his first glimpse of the battlefield where nature and sapience had collided. The once lush undergrowth lay flattened and trampled. Dozens, perhaps even a hundred, Oczoils had perished. The large herd was no more. A few staggered, others writhed on the ground, but most lay still, their last breath now history.

When Amara joined him, Nathan had spotted a few more bodies, those of Irisians. The infrared view mode showed that all bodies were still warm, but the severity of the wounds told another story. It took considerable willpower not to look away, as some of the bodies had suffered the same fate as the bushes around them—crushed and crumpled by several hooves.

"Did... we win?" Light purple joined the blue on her skin, reducing the effectiveness of her camouflage.

"I don't see your brother, but his ship is still there." His warning restored her camouflage.

Nathan moved the drone swarm to the limit of its range, trying to find if anyone was hiding behind the dead Oczoils. Amara moved to the side to widen her field of view, squinting as she scanned the darkening battlefield.

"There." Her tail pointed to the same place they had met Zandrid before the stampede. "Those tiles are from my brother's armor."

He struggled to see what she was pointing at. The distance was about fifty steps, and there was a concentration of dead Oczoils in that area, many missing their horns. He also noticed there were no bloody wounds on those giant bellies, something undeniably different about the way they had died. Could Zandrid have killed all those beasts alone?

Before he could formulate a solid hypothesis, Amara raised her gun and advanced, taking careful steps toward that position.

Nathan would have waited longer if he were alone, but he didn’t disagree with her decision. His reasoning was that if even one of their enemies had survived and managed to return to the ship to request help, both he and Amara would be in serious trouble, their miraculous survival thrown into question.

Being careful with the noise, he followed her while covering her back, his swarm of drones spread thin with the number of targets to investigate. Amara navigated through the dead Oczoils and Irisians, her ability to ignore the gore remarkable to Nathan.

The sight of crushed Irisians and dead beasts was bad enough, but it was the pungent smell of death that pushed him to the brink. This was his first time witnessing the aftermath of a full-scale battle, and he had to summon all his willpower to hold it together, a forceful measure to prevent his stomach from emptying itself on the ground.

It was at this terrible moment that a pop-up message appeared.

Hostile individual detected.

His grip on the revolver was firm, his aim following his eyes to the highlighted shape of what he had previously believed to be a dead Irisian on the ground.

"Not all dead, Amara."

His voice triggered an explosion of movement from his target, whose body abandoned the fake pale blue color, blending with its surroundings in an instant. This male, previously facing the ground, propelled himself upwards using both hands, his tail bringing a gun within reach. The precise movements of this Irisian were remarkable, but before the gun was fully aimed at him, adrenaline surged, and Nathan pulled the trigger, the lesson from the near-death experience in the cave still fresh in his mind.

His aim was true, hitting the male below the chest. The Irisian took the shot without even dropping his camouflage. This shocked Nathan so much that he fired a second and a third shot, hitting the neck and chest. The Irisian tried to stop the bleeding on his neck with his tail before he fell, his orange eyes wide open as his camouflage faded.

Deep inside, Nathan knew this moment would be etched into his memory, worse to recall than his indirect summoning of the herd. But the urgency of the situation ensured he just added it to the pile of problems future Nathan would have to deal with, his head taking just a moment to move toward Amara on the other side.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of her claws slicing through the air as her tail shoved a male away, allowing her to leap back. When he noticed the deep scratches above his chest, her claws had already moved to the gun, mercilessly and repeatedly pulling the trigger. He counted five silent shots in less than five seconds; his girlfriend seemed to have some experience with the type of gun she got from the rebels.

Nathan experienced a fleeting moment of relief when they exchanged a glance and confirmed she was safe, but a blur of motion crawling behind her turned this fragile feeling into panic.

"Behind you!"

When Amara turned, it was already too late. With no regard for wounds, a set of claws restrained her arms from behind, gripping her with terrifying force and tearing through her skin and muscles. She dropped her gun from the pain, her skin a mixture of purple and red.

Nathan's world contracted to a single, desperate point—Amara. Adrenaline surged through him as he sprinted, each second an eternity as he closed the gap. A cold dread seized him when he saw the unforgiving truth—a blade, attached to the tip of a tail and gleaming as it pressed against her delicate throat. Zandrid’s face, a bloodied mess with no more armor to defend him, loomed over her shoulder. His voice, lacking the royal grace it once had, echoed in the charged silence, "One more step, and she dies."

Amara's tail wrapped around Zandrid's neck in a desperate attempt to choke him. But he responded by tightening his grip on her arms, her blood running freely down her hands as her tail released him, unable to bear the pain.

"Your suffering is all his fault, sister, HIS FAULT!" There was no hint of composure left in Zandrid, his body now filled with purple and red. "Your end would have been painless if this human had just followed the script, but no, he had to ruin everything by involving those mindless beasts that drained my armor."

Zandrid's taunts were like background noise. Nathan's focus honed in on a single point—the gun in his hand. The weight of the decision was more than he could bear. To shoot was a gamble, an unforgiving roll of the dice. A miss, and Amara was gone. But to hesitate was to trust her life to her brother, who had every reason to cut her throat.

"If you knew the sort of attention the humans had attracted, you would have joined my side. You and Mother spend harvests negotiating with the Alliance for scraps, but I brought a segmented armor to our homeworld..."

Zandrid's boasting voice was lost on Nathan, but Amara's silent gaze was not. Nonverbal cues have their limits, yet those weren't the eyes of someone who had given up. She glanced at her own belly, and Nathan followed her eyes. There, all colors had faded except for nine black dots that formed the perfect shape of a square.

At first, Nathan couldn't grasp her message, but when one dot disappeared and then another, he realized what she was doing—a countdown written on her own skin with seven dots remaining. When their eyes met again, Amara showed her teeth, taking a small bite in the air, completing her message.

Six dots still remained on her skin when Nathan understood her plan, his reply a stiff stance and a sharp gaze.

Seconds stretched into an eternity as Zandrid continued his monologue. "This planet cannot be saved. Aldrinch and the elders are fools, and Mother lost the last of her reputation when she begged the humans to..."

When only two dots remained on Amara's skin, Nathan felt time stretching, his heart beating like a drum against his ribcage.

Zandrid's mouth was moving when the last dot disappeared, and Amara's tail pounced like a snake. It coiled around the attachment of the blade, preventing it from touching her skin just long enough for her mouth to reach his tail and take a violent bite at it.

With the greatest threat to her life neutralized for a moment, Nathan exerted his muscles to the limit and sprinted as she struggled, feeling her pain as this maneuver caused deeper wounds on her arms.

As Amara bit pieces off his tail, Zandrid let go of her arms, and his claws moved toward her neck.

Now was too late for that thought, because Nathan was close enough to intercept his atack. With one hand he restrained the claws, and with the other he pressed the muzzle of his revolver point-blank against Zandrid's temple.

Bang!

Brain matter rained down to the side and Zandrid's body fell. His claws lost their grip on her other arm, and Zandrid's limb plummeted with the rest of his body. Still, Amara's mouth didn't let go of his tail, her body stiff and her arms shaking.

"There, there. It's over." Nathan gently pulled the tail from her mouth and used his T-shirt to wipe the blood off her face. He then holstered his revolver and added, "We're safe now."

Those words were meant for himself as well, but Amara was the one who embraced them. She pressed her head against his chest and allowed the tiny black dots to spread across her body, her tail looping around his leg.

Nathan, on the other hand, looked around. The day had already given way to night, with only a sliver of light remaining to see the battlefield. Himself and Amara being the only living beings standing after such a deadly battle evoked many conflicting emotions. Relief and gratitude for being alive were present, but among those emotions, he felt a certain twisted pride. The realization that this pride was there brought a sense of shame.

His heart was still racing, and his breathing was fast. His mind jumped to the next priority—to avoid those complex feelings for the time being.

Nathan's gaze landed on the light leaking from the parked vessel's yawning maw, and he decided.

"We should visit that ship and treat your wounds." He ruffled her hair and added, "I bet they have food and communication."

Her crying had stopped, but her body was still gray.

"You carry me." That was her only demand.

Ryo's Perspective:

The captain was knocked out and tied to the controls when Ryo stepped out of the small ship. Taking over the vessel and forcing the captain to take him to the valleys had not been easy, as a small team had been assigned to follow him to the space station.

The night was fully upon him, ensuring he would have to rely on infrared and his flashlight to see the ground as he reached the place where Zandrid would finalize his deal with Amara.

He chose to land away from the meeting place out of fear that they would shoot down his ship. But that didn't mean his march on land was slow; he reached the place indicated by the captain in just a few minutes.

With his revolver in hand and his knife ready for round two, he sneaked close to the strange rocks where the deal for Elysira would take place.

He was mentally prepared to encounter strong resistance. But when he found the first few bodies, cold and dead on the ground, his mind was thrown into chaos. Had the deal gone wrong? This hypothesis was quickly discarded as he approached; the bodies had not been killed by bullets but had been crushed and crumpled by hooves.

Seeing no signs of life around, Ryo quickly reconstructed the battle in his mind. It seemed that Zandrid's followers had been attacked by a large group of Oczoils. A strange emptiness consumed him every time he recognized the faces of those who had attacked them in the mountains among the dead, his heart heavy at every female he found, only to experience relief when he confirmed it was not Elysira.

This went on until he inspected the other side of the rocks, where his eyes were immediately drawn to two things—a concentration of dead Oczoils and a ship hovering above the ground with its ramp deployed.

Ryo was methodical, advancing with caution as he checked only the dead females, not caring for anything else after realizing Elysira was not among them. He was about to leave the battlefield and head for the ship when a trail of hexagonal tiles brought back unpleasant memories.

He caught one between his fingers and inspected it closely, noticing that the force binding them together had been depleted. He then found a pile of them, and nearby, more bodies—killed by bullets, not horns and hooves.

Initially, he didn't care much, as only males were among the dead. But when he recognized the face of one who had perished with a single bullet to the head, he felt terrible—someone had stolen his revenge.

Ryo had lost something besides Elysira in those mountains, and he had hoped to find it again by confronting his nemesis. But what to do now that his nemesis's brain was pulp?

The obvious answer was to find whoever did this and make them pay. His mind returned to the hypothesis that this was a deal gone wrong. Amara's soldiers might have set a trap for Zandrid, and whoever survived the trap might have been dealt with in the traditional way.

In Ryo's head, Elysira's fate might now depend on Amara's orders. The only information he had about the princess was indirect. His only conjecture was that she survived the morning when the war started and reunited with her group. His thoughts leaned toward the scenery where Nathan had long since returned to the space station, and Amara was playing her cards from somewhere while protected by her soldiers.

This left exploring the ship as his last option. But he didn't do so without first spitting on Zandrid's dead face, a petty act that brought him no satisfaction whatsoever.

With his attention on the ship, he slowly advanced, watching the ground around it. The dim light from within escaped from the back of the vessel, creating a lit spot on the ground below the ramp.

He was getting close to the ramp with his gun raised when he heard voices inside. He forgot the outside and focused on the voices. His steps became even more careful as his feet touched the metal of the ramp, and as he climbed, the large interior of the cargo ship started to reveal itself.

As his eyes adapted to the light, he froze. Pieces of cut ropes littered the ground in the middle of the cargo bay, and on the ground, seated against the metal wall, two females leaned against each other—Elysira and Amara.

Yellow flowed on their bodies, and even though they seemed to be in terrible shape, their happiness was so radiant that he took a step back. There was no doubt that she wasn't in danger.

Ecstasy surged through him like a sudden, warm current. But at the same time, fear consumed him from the inside. What would he say to Elysira now? The thought of facing her again after his failure was more terrifying than any number of enemies, leading to another step back.

Seconds of hesitation passed, and he was a mess inside. Why Amara was there? How were they safe? He was riddled with doubt, and all his expectations were betrayed once more when he heard Nathan's voice behind him.

"Hey, leave them alone for now; they have a lot to talk about." Nathan wasn't inside the ship, and somehow Ryo had missed him entirely. "And lower your gun, please. Amara thinks we've been set up."

***

This was an account based on the last hours on the Ebon Range. The previous narrative is based on the events of the twenty-first day of the exploratory mission of Irisa. According to your current settings, no queries will be suggested.

[Author's note] A little late, but chapter 45 is here. This is the last chapter of this story arc, I hope it's a good ending for the nature exploration part of the sorry. Following this, there will be two transitional chapters, and then the final story arc will begin, which will consist of approximately 15 chapters.