Planet Genesis -- The Capitol

First topic message reminder :

She chuckled, "It is, trust me I been there." Softly her face faltered before returning back to normal. "anyway... i uh have no clue what else to ask." Thaila said sheepishly.

(Uh... battle! combat! maybe set the scene of the initial invasion and go from there? )

(Okay! Gimme a bit of time and I'll get a post together)

TIMESKIP - DAY 27 AT THE GUILD OF SCRIBES

The last 12 days at the Guild had been a flurry of activity, a mixture of frantically evacuating civilians, equally frantically training combatants, inventors and builders trying to fortify the city and themselves against the Family’s attacks, and lots of last minute “I love you and I’m sorry” emails to loved ones being sent. There was a limit to the amount of training that could be done though in such a short of time. Since they didn’t know when the Family was going to attack, they couldn’t afford to ever fully expend their energy in exhaustive training regimes. So training was a mixture of practice, rest, trying to find things to do while resting, and generally stressing the hell out.

It sucked for pretty much everyone, except for the handful of soldiers who thrived in this environment, and were thrilling in the chance to do what they had been trained to do.

~~
By day 12, everyone had pretty much settled into the new routine. They set about their days with no more panic than they would any other day, handling their training and their tasks. But on day 12, the Family had reached the edge of the Guild’s carefully hidden territory, armed with their new scanners, their old keepers, their weapons, their mooks, and three large ships to carry it all. And at two hours before their planned attack time, they sent Inari into a closed pocket realm, effectively cutting off her telepathic link to her Followers.

~~
On the terraformed asteroid, the Followers went deathly still. And then then the rage began, and they started to tear up the ground with their power, charging for the portal to find their mistress, and the fools who had attacked her. They lost all rational thought in an instant, all they wanted now was blood.

The peacekeepers on duty shut the portal, and sounded the alarm: the two bell signal that meant that Inari’s Followers were rampaging.

Everyone who heard it had been told what it meant.

There was no doubt any more, the Family were really on their way.

Starr was glad for the alarm, getting up and going to her ship to grab her bag with all the 'goodies' she had packed then putting on the armor Aramin had made for her. These Keepers were going to pay for their actions now. Once she was ready, she slipped out to find the place she had chosen and to make sure everyone was going to their posts and not panicking.

Shane was a bit nervous but went to get his armor on and grab his guns and ammo, strapping them on too. He, like the others headed for his post

Skye went to join up with the Artuvians with her dagger and some guns and her armor. Wings couldn't be armored though, so she and they would have to be careful that they weren't shot out of the sky.

Tala had been training a bunch of recruits to fight large opponents, when the warning bell sounded. She ordered them all to finish arming up and load their weapons. Then she did the same, loading her automatic rifle. She reassured the recruits that they would be of great excellence today, and then headed off to see if everyone was going the right direction.

~~
Ellie screeched at the sound of the bell, but ran to arm up and get her plant grenade toolkits strapped in place. Then she ran to the bathroom, yanked off her helmet, and threw up. This was the most terrifying thing she'd ever willingly done.

~~
Orel had been training with a wing of artuvians, practicing with their training daggers. Now he ran with all the others to the building where their real gear was stored, and put on his vavare silk vest and his helmet, before clipping his pistol to his belt alongside his knife. He tried to stifle his fear, but his entire body was shaking from the stress. This was way scarier now it was about to happen.
Together, he and many of the other artuvians prayed to Rycdos to lend them strength, and then they split up to patrol the city.

~~
James panicked.

Then he put on his gear.

Then he panicked some more.

Then he headed to his assigned spot in the city to wait and see what was going to happen, still panicking.

~~
Ethan geared up pretty calmly. He was scared, of course, why wouldn't he be? But the idea of going into battle of his own free will, rather than at the orders of his owner, added a certain amount of excitement to his feelings too. He could fight for the people he cared about. Maybe he'd even be able to save them. That was something he was willing to do.

~~
Asher had been working on a project in the shuttle bay. When he heard the alarm bell repeated over Vestia's intercom, he hurried to get his armor and his rifle. He tried not to panic, but he had a sick, awful knowledge that people were going to die today, and that he would probably know and care about some of those people.

Please not my family. Please not my family.

Kay's eyes widened at the sound of the alarm. It was starting.

He gathered his things, and went to find Asher. He wasn't charging into battle without one final goodbye damnit. This could very well be the last time they ever saw one another.
That was a thought he hadn't been able to shake all this time, he was terrified.

---

Matt looked up from his cleaning. Vestia was super clean, Matt mopped floors to calm down and after a long day of training and prepping, he was having trouble sleeping alone.

He dropped his mop and called the cleaning bots. "To arms!" They probably couldn't understand him, but what'd he care?
He headed to the armory to pick up his weaponry, pull on armor and get ready.
This was really happening, by the gods... he was actually going to war.

--

Esk looked up from cleaning his gun, ahh the advanced warning system worked then? Good to know. He pulled on his armor and gloves, checked his weaponry and first aid kit, then pulled on his Imperium helmet. it totally concealed his face, turning him into a faceless black clad Imperium soldier.
Sniper rifle in hand, he headed for the rallying point.

---

Armin had worked almost non stop for 12 days, taking short breaks to eat, drink, sleep and so on. in that time he'd made a lot of armor, enough to armor most of Vestia's crew and many of the other fighters too.
he was exhausted.
He'd also supplied a lot of bandages and as the alarms went off, he staggered weakly out of his workshop, adjusting his breathing masks and looking up at Vestia's camera. "My friends, it has been an honour. Fight hard and fight well." He bowed his head and supported himself against a wall.
now what? He hadn't given much thought to what he'd do when the Family finally came.

---

Hewitt cackled and picked up a gun. He used his cane to support himself as he shuffled out and into the city.
He was no soldier, certainly not, but he didn't care. The family had ruined his nice cruise holiday with their planet blowing up bullshit, if he could hit just one of them a few times he'd feel better.

--

Swarm scouted the city, looking for any hint of landing.

---

Luka raced to the cockpit of the Silver Devil. "To victory!" She yelled down the intercom, a standard rallying cry in her culture. "Death or glory!"

---

Mourn had to rely on Vestia's lights to alert him to the alarm. He grinned and holstered his weapon and armored up.
He powered up Amity as well, who'd been acting a bit odd since Mourn messed with his code. Nothing serious, just little glitches and occassional bouts of aggression. Mourn insisted that was fine and he'd fix the robot after the war.

"Good afternoon Engineer Mourn, what can I do for you today?" Amity asked calmly, oblivious to the alarms.

"It time!" Mourn told him.

"time? The current time is.."

"No! Family here, bad guy, we go fight now! come come!" Mourn insisted.

"oh.. of course..."

Sawna saw Aramin leaning against the wall and came over to him "You look exhausted." She said with a frown. Hm, what to do? She could force him to sleep, but that wouldn't be really fair. Yet, he couldn't fight like this.

Asher tried to find Kay as well. Eventually they'd spot each other in a hall, with a bit of guidance from Vestia. Asher set his helmet down for the moment and hurried over to Kay. "I guess it's time," he said weakly.

~~
Orel looked around for Skye, hoping his hawk vision would let him spot her.

Skye dropped in and landed near Orel, giving him a grin as the tactic brought her in fast like it was meant to. "One last practice drop, you ready?" She asked, standing tall again. False bravado to make her not feel as scared of the coming battle, at least she hoped it would chase away the fear.

Kay nodded, gulped and pulled Asher into a sudden impulsive kiss. He didn't at this point give a damn if they had an audience.

Orel tried to match Skye's attempt to not look scared. He failed. He did near her pretty neatly though. "As ready as anyone can be after almost two weeks of training," he said.

~~
Asher kissed Kay back a bit desperately and held onto him more tightly than usual, fearing that this was the last time he'd ever see him. Probably his armor made it a bit uncomfortable for Kay, but who cared at a time like this?

Eventually Kay pulled away. They should... yeah, go... prepare.
He bit his lip, hugged Asher one more time and reluctantly left him, looking back as he walked away and trying to keep a brave face. This was pretty much his worst nightmare, losing the people he loved and right now two of his brothers and the man he loved were about to walk into battle.

Asher let Kay go... very, very reluctantly. He didn't want to do this, any of this. He wanted to find somewhere quiet and safe, and hide himself and everyone he cared about from the Family until this was over. He didn't like violence, he didn't like danger, and he certainly didn't like it when the people he loved were being subjected to that violence and danger.
Of course, it wouldn't ever end if everyone hid.
He watched Kay go, then he reluctantly picked up his helmet and put it on, and headed out into the city to go to his assigned area and await the attack.

Skye dipped her head at that, nodding then looking at Orel again. She took a quick breath then reached out, pulling him into a kiss. Yeah, she still liked him even after everything and she didn't want either of them to either die or get hurt without at least kissing today.

Orel's brain didn't know how to process that. He didn't resist, it just took him a bit to figure out what was happening. And then his mind did catch up, and all his thoughts became I'm kissing Skye! This is amazing! until finally he remembered the war and reluctantly pulled away.
Oh man, now he had to live. They had to do that again! Holy crap!

Skye blushed when they parted, dipping her head. Yeah, war, She glanced around at the grinning Artuvians in their unit then finally looked to Orel to see his face again.

Orel looked around at the other artuvians, blushing at all their stares and grins. Whoops, he hadn't been planning on his first kiss ever being in front of his friends. A bit awkward. Still, worth it. So worth it.
He felt a dumb grin tug on his lips, and ducked his head to try and hide it.

"Now he's ready," a blue jay teased.

Esk nodded to Asher as he joined the other snipers.

--

Kay joined the other medics setting up. He was trying not to think, trying not to panic, trying not to imagine how awful this was going to get.
Oh sure he'd done war triage before, but it was different when it was people you knew and cared about dying around you.

---

Matt and Kasi joined the other runners. Matt's pockets were full of improvised weapons. He was pretty determined that the family was going to hurt... a lot.

Asher nodded back to Esk, and went to stand with the other snipers, waiting for orders or news.

~~
Ellie and Tala were ready to help front line defenses, once they knew where the Family would be coming in. Tala paced among the soldiers and magic users, watching them proudly. "You shall all prove your strength and courage today," she said, "for we have trained well in our short time!"

Ellie took off he helmet to wipe her tears off her face, then put it back on hastily at Tala's glare.

~~
Ethan and James waited with the other soldiers.

It may not have been a large army, but it was a varied one. Representatives of hundreds of races stood side by side, their expressions grim and determined.

Everyone waited, tense, anxious.

Swarm and the other scouts watched the sky, and the ground for any hint of the Family. As soon as they got a hint of where they were going to land and hit, they'd send the word and everyone could deploy.

Meanwhile on the asteroid manifest Luka and the other pilots took off, sitting in orbit just around the guild itself as they waited.
Their instructions were to not engage the family as they approached, but rather to stay just outside of their view, hidden behind the asteroids until the family tried to land. THEN they would begin their attack, coming in from behind to attack while they were distracted with landing procedures.

Skye blushed at the looks, but she wasn't going to take it back, even if she had the power to. She put on her helmet to hide her blush then looked to the skies, watching for the family.

The Family's three ships skulked their way into the system, cloaking shields up. The fleet would probably be able to detect the Family since they were scanning for danger though, locating them by identifying the spots in space where the cosmic radio noise was subtly disrupted. They would be able to watch and report their progress toward the main planet.

The three ships positioned themselves above the planet's shield, and in unison, switched off their cloaking and began bombardment of the shields with magical blasts. The Guild's shields held for now, but the magical attack was brutal, and it was obvious to the anamcara who kept the shields up, that soon the Guild's primary defense was going to fail.

~~
On the ground, the attack would look like a daytime aurora borealis, the sky shimmering with colors as the magical shields strained against the attack.

Mourn cackled at the sky. "Pretty colours." He clapped his hands. "Get holograms working, get dampening field online! Time to play!"

Amity looked uncertain about all this, sticking close to Mourn for now.

Hewitt had found a park to sit in, nobody stopped him, they were all too distracted. He looked up at the sky, mm, interesting effect.

Most units took cover, this was going to be brutal.

Kay gulped, the rest of the medics on his team huddled together and watched the sky fearfully.

--

Meanwhile the fleet came around to begin engaging the enemy, the first wave attacked, larger ships that couldn't engage in air to ground combat so easily were the front wave, the smaller ships were supposed to hold back and wait, let the larger ships soak up the worst of the retaliation.

Mourn had equiped a few of the large ships with holo emitters that projected illusions of smaller armada ships, designed to confuse the enemy and draw their fire.

The ships moved into position behind the Family and opened fire.

The front line attackers took cover. They might be the front line, but they weren't suicidal, as Tala loudly reminded them.

Practically everyone hid, or at least took some cover.

~~
The Family hadn't anticipated a large and coordinated attack coming at them from behind, so they struggled a bit to recover from the shock and took a few heavy hits to their own shields, which mostly held. One ship took a hit to its starboard stabilizer though, and wobbled a bit, before turning to retaliate with a few energy blasts that might hit ships, or might just go uselessly through the holograms.

The other two ships continued to hammer on the planet's shields while the other ship tried to defend them and draw the fire of the attacking fleet.

Skye, Starr, Shane and the others all watched the skies, waiting for the inevitable shield failure to occur.

Esk watched the shields carefully, trying to determine where they'd fail first.
As soon as a generator went down it would leave a gap and the Family would likely drop fast to get troops on the ground.
Hopefully they had orders to capture, not just slaughter.
It would give the guild defenders the edge.

---

One of the defending ships took a blast, their shields holding but struggling.

They continued to assault the Family ships, the aim to delay them more than destroy them. Realistically they knew they couldn't really blow up three huge heavily shielded ships before they broke that shield.

The smaller ships waited just out of sight, monitoring the shields closely.

The Family's ships weathered the attack of the fleet, absorbing hits while the wobbly one tried to hit back, until the two undamaged ships struck the shield just right and it finally shattered, giving them access to Guild airspace. The three ships dove into the atmosphere, racing lower until they hung above the city, at which point they spread out to cover different areas of the city.

They'd try to scan the city. Partly because their scanner was powerful enough to destroy or at least shake up a lot of anamcara before the battle, and partly to get an idea of where everyone was down below.

Thankfully their plan wasn't to slaughter indiscriminately. The Family didn't want to rule a universe where their enemies were dead, they wanted to rule one where their enemies were on their knees and begging for mercy.