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on a distant hill, Rayner gazed down past the Infantry towards the Denizen. He sat upon the leather seat on his exo-suit, the hatch open to give him a wider view. He weezed softly as he watched the action below running through several possible ways of helping in his head. His right hand tightened upon the throttle lever of the left arm, toggling it upwards slowly, which raise the arm and its current Launcher attachment. He pressed one of the finger triggers, cycling through the different rounds of ammunition. He found himself at the mustard gas, both his favorite and least favorite of his options. He raised his mehcanical left hand to his face, feeling the touch of the cold metal meet his burnt and scared flesh. The touch casued his face to wince and twitch. Anger rose up him as his brow narrowed over his lidless eyes. Aiming towards the infantry he squeezed off a few rounds of the Blistering gas towards, giving each shot a slight jerk to spread them out as they would land between the men. He fingered the secondary trigger again cycling to one of the Acid rounds, retargeting the denizen. He wasnt sure if the round would do much, but didn't think any of the others would make much of a difference. He squeezed the trigger, letting watching as the round exploded from the barrel and across the long distance towards the Denizen.

As the acid rounds thundered into the side of the denizen boring horrid gashes into the armor plating of the creature, Issildia who now stood over the lightly plated base of the beast's skull raised her sword point down over her foe's spine and without hesitation plunged it down into the unprotected flesh below.
The denizen's howls of anger from the acid rounds were suddenly silenced as the envoy twisted her blade with a sickening jerk, severing the spinal cord.
Time slowed for a brief moment as gravity came into effect and the hulking monstrosity crashed to the ground, it's front legs immediately buckling under it as the strain of it's wounds finally took a toll.
Already Issildia was gone from her position on its back and miraculously standing on the ground no worse for the wear.

By this time the De`ris Ilen Forces were moving in on the scene. Issildia spared a look at what seemed to have been the human than had aided in the destruction of the denizen before a voice spoke beside her.

"What are our orders?" questioned Commander Tsume as his entire battalion appeared in a hiss of shadow behind him. At least it wasn’t more of the more tight lipped of the battalion captains that resented taking orders from an envoy. Even though the envoys were not part of the regular army they wished for their orders to be heeded when they are given. But Tsume was luckily and old friend of a sorts.

"I was some cover on that human that fired on the denizen." She said flatly as she quickly flicked her blade to the side to remove any residue gleaned by the battle with the denizen.

"You can't be serious...Issildia the Prince will not condone this" Tsume said with distaste.
"Presently I am the highest command in the field....so yes I am quite serious. I will deal with his highness later." She uttered with complete disdain at mention of the Prince.

"Now go." Issildia ordered before she leapt up onto the toppled carcass of the denizen to get a better view of the battlefield.
Talking down the human's officers was always the highlight of their battles with the humans and would most certainly be her next objective.

Cut off the head and the body will die put quite simply.

~~~~~~~~~~~

As bullets hurtled towards Rayner from the human battlefront the air rippled darkly in front of the manned exo-suit as the bullets seemed to slow as if hitting a barrier of translucent darkness. Then in unison the bullets clattered harmlessly to the ground. The source of this unusual salvation became obvious as Tsume's unit could be seen settled off to the right and the left of the exo-suit and it's unseen occupant.
The Moriera casters lowered their outstretched hands from where than had in symphony with each other created the barrier.

"Complements of the Lady Nevar." Tsume said flatly with a discreet glance at the towering exo suit before turning back to his soldiers who on signal began the move forward towards the human lines offering their tempory services to cover the human in his advance.

"My brethren care not how our actions reflect upon the Prince. Perhaps we were as you say, nothing more than petty killers. But at least I can sleep soundly knowing that we have yet to reach that level of absolute corruption that you and your people have attained. You were once a great civilization; but now your cities lie in shambles as law and what was deemed as justice was traded in for military rule. Records were 'cleansed' as you would call it and freedom was traded for a sense of security. You grew suspicious and afraid of the world around you after the Fall....And now the shining example of human achievement stands before me...." Issildia said as she slowly turned to face the man, her words laced with utter venom.

"How is that for diplomacy human?" She concluded with utter sarcasm as she met his eyes for a brief moment before Issildia attacked outright.
Her blade flashing out in an instant as she cleared the brief distance between them to make a clean horizontal slash towards his ribs.

"You would challenge the gods..." Issildia said as they stood locked in combat for a abrupt moment before she drew back quickly.

"And you speak ill of our ambitions and pride...when you stand their making claims of superiority." She said as she angled her blade back and settled into stance.
"Our Prince may make similar statements towards your people...but that does not mean all of De`ris Ilen is of the same opinion. The corruption does not run quite so deep as you would imagine...But it runs deep enough it would seem." She added with an edge of bitterness before launching into a second attack at the human.
Though as she neared him with her blade sweeping in low, her form suddenly dissipated into a twisting black mist that immediately reformed behind her opponent, her sword Nyththirren lancing in at a slight angle toward his neck.

At the last moment Issildia altered the direction of her sword to plunge downwards, making contact with her opponent's blade for only a sliver of a second before she twisted back into a single handed back-flip to put some distance between them. Issildia to her own surprise was impressed with the human's combat skills; though at this moment it was obvious that the duel had yet to take on a more serious tone.

"My allegiance to Tarion is undying, as it is for many of my brethren. You say that they gods have forsaken us but their presence can still be felt through the gifts that they granted us. Perhaps for the humans it is more difficult to sense...but it is still there."

Issildia paused for what seemed to be a long moment before speaking again, her expression now changed to one etched in grim lines of stone.

"But an envoy's allegiance to the Prince...that is another matter. We serve him as long as such service involves the protection of our people..."

At that moment Issildia's lowered left hand flicked out a trio of slender kunai into position between her fingers. Without waiting another moment she lunged forward swinging her blade in low towards him while launching the kunai knives at his upper torso.