It wasn't every day you piloted a lone shuttle into the middle of a live warzone, especially one where antimatter bombs exploded like firecrackers and plasma beams tore through space like lightning bolts.
But Arthur didn't flinch at the sight playing where he was heading.
He sat calmly in the cockpit of the scout-class shuttle, one hand resting on the control stick, the other tapping at the console. The ship vibrated under him as it passed the edge of the battlefield, just behind the human Vanguard fleet. The view beyond the reinforced glass was pure chaos, massive cruisers exchanging brutal volleys, shields flaring in to protect the ships from volleys of energy and matter attacks, ships bursting into trails of fire and debris.
Most would've turned around from such a sight. But Arthur soared toward it like a man arriving late to a party he planned to crash.
He had made up his mind even before leaving for the mission. He wasn't here to spectate, he was going to intervene and decisively so. The moment he'd seen the scale of the battle, he realized there was no point in holding back anymore.
He was already strong enough to tear through the shielding of most warships and blast apart their hulls.
Although humans and chimerians would get a comprehensive idea about his strength by doing so.
'By the time they figure that out,' he thought dryly, 'it'll be old news.'
He reached the edge of the formation and embarked from the shuttle, letting himself float out into open space. His boots magnetically clicked onto the shuttle for a moment's pause. Nanobots adjusted across his armor as he adjusted his armor's orientation towards battle mode and prepared to dive in.
A sudden voice crackled in his comms.
"Soldier, what the hell are you doing there?! That's a restricted zone!"
Arthur exhaled, then connected to the channel and responded with total calm, "Don't worry about me. Just…keep doing your thing."
He heard the person on the other end stammering, about to protest, but another voice overlapped. "Admiral! The special unit… the ECHOs from Project Genesis… they've just arrived on the battlefield. And its captain wants to speak with you."
Arthur disconnected without another word. He had no intention of wasting breath justifying his actions. He bent his knees, adjusted his stance mid-air, and then he shot forward like a bullet, Chi flaring invisibly as he tore across the space between the fleets.
…
Inside one of the command bridges of the human fleet, Admiral Zara Volantis stood with her hands behind her back, staring out at the battlefield. Her jaw was tight, eyes scanning the starry void where ships continued to rip each other apart.
They were supposed to win this fight cleanly. The humans had double the fleet size…double. And yet, the Chimerians were resisting their push. The Chimerians were quite resilient in their tactics and it was taking much longer to take them down than initially predicted
"Tactical, status?" she asked sharply.
"They've redirected power to their forward shields and are alternating between battleships to compensate. They're bleeding out their forces… but at this rate, by the time we clean the place their reinforcements might arrive," her tactical officer replied.
Zara's fingers curled tighter behind her back. "They're stalling."
Just then, an alert pinged across the room.
"Admiral," the communication officer said, "an ECHO unit has left formation and is approaching the battle zone directly."
Zara blinked. "What?"
A second later, a holo-screen appeared in front of her, displaying a magnified view.
A single ECHO armored in a familiar black suit, standing on top of a shuttle behind their forward fleet, closing in on the crossfire zone.
She immediately opened a direct line.
"Soldier, what the hell are you doing there?! That's a restricted zone!"
The figure responded, voice smooth and casual, "Don't worry about me. Just…keep doing your thing."
Before she could snap back, the line went dead.
Her assistant stumbled in, holding a holopad like it was about to explode.
"Admiral! The special unit… the ECHOs from Project Genesis… they've just arrived on the battlefield. And its captain wants to speak with you."
Stolen story; please report.
Zara, seeing the connection with Arthur getting disconnected sighed in frustration. She then looked towards her assistant and narrowed her eyes. "Good. Maybe they can actually help."
Zara's expression tightened, "Put it through."
A second later, a shaky, nervous voice crackled through the holopad that her assistant handed to her. It was the Vanguard's captain, a mid-ranked officer whose voice was doing a poor job hiding his nerves.
"Admiral Volantis," he began, gulping audibly. "This is Captain Renford of the Vanguard. I…I'm afraid there's been… an incident."
Zara narrowed her eyes. "What incident?"
The captain swallowed hard and continued, "Admiral… the commander of the ECHO unit that just arrived. He's…he's left the ship, he took a shuttle and flew straight towards the battlefield."
Zara stared at the holopad, finally figuring out it was not one of the ECHOs from her fleet but a new kid.
"We… We couldn't stop him. He hacked the payload bay controls and by the time we realized what was happening, he was already gone. I…I apologize, Admiral. We had no idea…"
Her voice snapped through the bridge like a whip. "So you're telling me you let a kid hijack one of your shuttles and fly into an active warzone on his own?!"
The captain's voice stammered, "A-Admiral, he's the commanding officer of the ECHO unit and…"
"That doesn't mean you let him joyride through a goddamn warzone!" Zara barked, her tone sharp enough to draw silence from half the bridge crew. "How the hell did he even access the shuttle systems? Who was on bay duty?!"
There was a pause on the other end before Captain Renford finally whispered, "I… don't know."
Zara took a sharp breath and raised a hand. "Forget it. I'll deal with this myself."
She waved her fingers, and the holopad blinked out instantly, cutting the transmission.
Her hand dropped to her hip, tapping against the side of her thigh as she turned toward her assistant, a young man in his mid-twenties who had clearly hoped to stay invisible for the rest of this mission.
"You," she said sharply.
He nearly jumped. "Ma'am?"
"Send someone, now. Take a shuttle, intercept that commander, and bring him to this ship. I don't care if you have to drag him here by the ankles. And preferably not dead."
He gave a very quick salute, more like a twitch and stammered, "Y…Yes ma'am!" before practically bolting off the bridge like his life depended on it.
Zara turned back to the tactical display. She saw the heat signature of Arthur streaked across the grid, heading straight for the thickest part of the conflict.
She zoomed in.
The lone ECHO figure darted between plasma bolts. A Chimerian corvette had just started to rotate to fire, only for its front shield to flare violently as something slammed into it.
Zara's eyes widened as the front of the corvette cracked under the force.
She leaned in slightly, and muttered in surprise.
"…What the hell is this kid doing?"
But no one on the bridge answered as they themselves were flabbergasted at the sight in front of them.
…
The space around Arthur was a kaleidoscope of destructive beams and explosions.
Energy beams roared past like wrathful comets. Antimatter warheads detonated in the distance, forming expanding clouds of white-hot vapor and fractured metal. Human and Chimerian warships glided in space and clashed brutally, exchanging blow for blow in a symphony of violence.
And into that madness, Arthur arrived.
He moved between blasts like a phantom, adjusting his body mid-flight with microbursts of telekinetic force. His armor responded instantly to his commands, shifting thrusters to boost his speed further. His visor filtered out the glare of nearby explosions, painting target markers and threat lines in real-time.
The chimerian battleships didn't attack him directly, seeing him as a small target. But an auxiliary blaster of a Chimerian corvette, sleek, and jagged angled toward him after they noticed his approach.
Arthur didn't change his course, but instead sped towards the corvette.
From inside the bridge of the corvette, the Chimerian crew likely saw him as little more than an armored humanoid, a blip with no ship or squadron. Just a suicidal idiot flying toward them with no heavy weapons. And didn't consider him worth prioritizing, and that was the last mistake they made in their life.
The corvette's auxiliary gun began to swivel. But it was too slow.
Arthur's right hand clenched into a fist, raised it in a punching position and sped towards the ship and punched forward. He struck the front shield dead-on.
A flash of blue-white erupted across the surface, then cracks spidered outward like ice breaking under a hammer. With an intense pulse of raw power, his punch shattered the shield completely like glass.
He didn't stop there, he drilled through the corvette's hull like a kinetic lance.
Metal warped around him. The internal structure groaned under the force, and then…
BOOM.
The entire ship detonated, violently tearing apart from the inside, as Arthur had targeted where its engine was. The fireball stretched wide, sending debris scattering into the void. If that had been inside the atmosphere of a planet, the impact would've triggered a shockwave felt for miles.
Arthur's silhouette emerged from the explosion a heartbeat later, his armor scorched but remained unharmed.
He glanced back for a moment towards the result his actions caused.
His gaze then shifted toward the larger targets, the Chimerian battleships looming like dark titans at the heart of the fleet. Thick armor layered with energy shields, and bristling with weapons and anti-ship turrets.
"Good.' Arthur exhaled slowly, then focused.
Chi flared across his body, covering him in a golden aura. His limbs pulsed with energy as he pushed past his normal output, breaking his limits. Initially he was only able to manage a threefold strength increase while utilizing Chi.
But now, he pushed it to four folds. This was honed after weeks of sparring with Kai.
Currently his strength is around 300 kilotons so taking into consideration Chi he can utilize more than a million tons of lifting strength.
He narrowed his eyes at the nearest battleship, roughly a kilometer long, its shield dome flickering with power as it launched another antimatter volley at the human fleet.
Strength coursed through his body as he utilized both his Telekinesis and Chi and shot forward like a hypersonic missile towards the battleships, to end this battle once and for all.
***
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