Blaring alarms had Elana shoot bolt upright. It was the second time in recent memory she’d been awoken by sirens. Immediately the red head regretted her sudden motion, her vision blurring and pain flaring up over her form. She looked around, her vision hampered by the flashing red lights around the room. Eventually her eyes came back into focus and she looked down over her nude form. Right. She was here. On that ship. She curled her fingers and moved her arms, her muscles actually responding so it was a marked improvement from before.

The alarms rather demanded haste but Elana didn’t know what they were for or what was going on. She winced as she dangled her feet over the side of the operating table and managed to lower herself to the ground. Her bare toes cringed away from the cold metallic floor as though stung and the pilot found herself wobbling to keep her balance. It was like remembering how to walk. Considering she’d apparently spent months floating in stasis that was not inaccurate.

Suddenly there were sparks that started to sprout from the bottom of the door that led into the lab. Elana squinted at them before wincing as a sharp noise sounded out through the lab. The sound of Itsuki’s voice filtered through a loudspeaker of some kind. “Elana! Thank God you’re okay! I’m sorry I couldn’t make it back to the lab. When the boarders hit I got trapped down in the engines.”

A camera in the corner swiveled slightly to indicate the metallic woman could indeed see her. Elana squinted at it. “Itsuki… wait, slow down. What’re you talking about? Boarders?”

“Yes. Rival Armada, the Metal Heads. Came out of nowhere. They’ve got mechs and some marines onboard now. Krieg is trying to rally the rest of the fleet but they’re making their way up to her.” Itsuki sounded breathless and there was the faint sound of gunfire in the distance. Mech laser rifle discharges.

Elana blinked and looked at the sparks as they slowly started traveling around the doorframe. Apparently these boarders were coming to break in. She slowly and groggily assessed her surroundings, still half asleep. Weapons. Armor. She needed something to defend herself with or a way out of the room. She stepped forward, leaning heavily upon the table as she did. Her legs slowly were remembering how to move but they needed to do so much, much faster or she’d be going back to sleep. Permanently.

“Weapons, you have any weapons or an escape route out of her Itsuki?” Elana asked.

A pause followed by some gunfire responding to laser fire. “Yes, there are a few mech laser rifles I was tinkering with in the back! One should be on top of the workbench. I see the hostiles outside your door. One mech, three squads of marines. The only way out is through that door. Hope you’re good with a gun army girl.”

Elana clicked her tongue and started moving towards the back room, wincing with every step as her body protested the movements so soon after being more or less repaired from scratch. The redhead couldn’t give a flying fuck whether Krieg got iced; in fact she was silently rooting for these boarders to put a round in her skull. Hell normally she’d be fine with the whole lot of them getting blow to space dust. However, she was also on the ship. Self-preservation was a rather strong motivator it turned out.

In the back she found the weapon on the workbench just as Itsuki had instructed and slid a power cell into it. It felt odd, holding this. As in actually holding it. It had seemed to her not too long ago when just this gun might have towered over her. She’d needed a mech just to use it. Now it rested easily in her hands. Her finger curled in front of the trigger guard and she brought it to her shoulder experimentally, the now 50 meter tall woman feeling just a bit more secure with the weapon.

She managed to find some clothes lying around, a greasy and stained shirt and some cargo shorts. Not exactly Elana’s first choice, but was better than being naked. The young woman left the room and noted the progress the sparks were making. Wouldn’t be long now until they broke the seal on the door. The red head hurried over to one side of the door, pressing her back against the wall. Now more awake she could actually feel her heart hammering in her chest, cold sweat perspiring in a sheen across her clammy skin. Sweating fingers were wrapped around her gun. She remembered how easily her mech had dispatched that Colossus. If she hesitated for an instant, that would be her.

The sparks stopped and there was a bang upon the metallic door, the thing groaning slightly as another bang followed after that. The thing promptly slammed into the floor and Elana raised her weapon as she heard the whine of servos. She remembered her training. Where mechs were at their weakest and where to shoot. Joints, cockpit, and back. Time seemed to slow down as the mech stepped into the room, not detecting her immediately right next to the doorframe.

It was an ugly thing. Skeletons had been chained to it at intervals, dangling in a macabre display of trophies. There was rust here or there upon its form, metal seemingly patched over places where it had seen past battle. The design was archaic, at least three models older than the one Elana had been using. She also noted that the cockpit was covered in thick layers of metal. The joints however were fairly exposed.

There wasn’t even time to think as Elana opened fire upon the mech, aiming for the arm joins. A series of blue flashes lit up the room, the laser searing through exposed conduits and melting metal instantly. The man inside called out in alarm as Elana fired another salvo from her rifle, searing through one of the mech’s arms entirely. It smashed to the ground with a loud metallic clang, echoing out through the space.

Unfortunately the thing still had one good arm. Which it used to smack the rifle out of Elana’s hands and then wrap its fingers around her neck. The red head’s eyes bulged as suddenly intense hydrolic pressure was squeezing upon her windpipe. A chuckle came from inside the mech, projected upon its speakers as Elana fought to jerk its arm and hand away.

“Didn’t think one of you bitches would be in here. Looks like my lucky day eh girlie?”

Elana opened and closed her mouth, her face turning red and gaining faint tinges of purple as she kicked at the things shins, her bare toes doing little to hurt it. If anything it seemed to amuse the pilot more as more pressure was applied to her throat.

“Not a bad looker, pity you shrews are more likely to eat a man as fuck him. Also that you scratched my paint job.”

She heard a few chuckles below as a number of rough looking men and women filed in just out of the corner of her eye. They were so… small. It hadn’t really hit home what she was until she looked at what she had been. Had she ever been that small? Was that what she’d looked like to these Colossus? Likely she’d have felt vertigo were it not for already seeing black spots start to creep into the corner of her eyes. The only sounds that managed to leave her mouth were faint croaks as she desperately tried to get air.

Her hands flailed, hitting the thing before her. Then she felt one of her hands sink into something. The pressure let up from around her neck and she felt something squirming in her grip. Elana took a long and deep breath, coughing and hacking as she withdrew her hand. It had punched just under where the cockpit was the most heavily armored. Her knuckles were bloody and had skin peeling off them but in her hand was the pilot. He looked positively piss scared, squirming in her hand like some kind of lizard a child had found in their backyard.

“W-wait! Please, I’m sorry! I wasn’t really going to kill you, you gotta believe me!” The man called out.

Elana recovered her breath, her throat feeling raw and as her free hand felt at it she noted bruises likely were going to form. Least it appeared she’d avoided brain damage from lack of oxygen. Anger welled up in her as she looked at the pathetic man in her hand, rage burning behind her eyes. The red head was so tired. Tired of being helpless, tired of being beaten around by everyone and anyone. This man, he just had the misfortune of being her breaking point.

She didn’t register the crack of his bones at first when she curled her fist up around him. What registered first was the blood squeezed out of his form, seeping from her fingers and dripping down to the floor below. Her fingers had increased the pressure upon him by an unimaginable magnitude, literally forcing blood from his body like an overripe fruit. It was warm and sticky and wet upon her hand. She opened her hand, red pooling upon her palm as she looked at it for the longest while.

A stinging sensation came at her legs, snapping her attention to the squads at her feet. Elana growled. At any other time in this situation, Elana probably would have spared them. They were pitiful after all, unable to do more than irritate her. As it was however she was finding her mercy rather lacking after just having nearly been strangled to death. Her eyes narrowed and she lifted a bare foot above the squad, a sneer curling her lips.

Its shadow fell over the smaller humans and they scattered before it fell. One woman with a Mohawk and ragged clothing tripped and fell before being able to make a proper getaway. She looked up just in time to see Elana’s soft creamy sole dominate all of her senses. The scream she let out was cut off abruptly as there was a spurt of blood beneath Elena’s foot, bones cracking audibly. The woman growled as she lifted her foot and started stomping wildly at the remaining men and women.

Eventually they tossed down their weapons and tried to surrender. One young man did so just as Elana’s foot started to come down. “Oh god, please, I’m begging you, no!”

Elana’s foot stopped mere inches from crushing him. That was when it slammed home for her. This wasn’t battle. This was murder. Slaughter. Everyone deserved a chance to surrender. She set her foot upon its heel and turned it slightly. She noted the young man had pissed his pants and was actually crying. With a long a weary sigh she moved her foot back and set her hand on her hip.

“Right, you all wanna live another five minutes? Stand over here.” She pointed to the downed man.

The other survivors took one look at her bloodstained feet and quickly tripped over themselves to stand there. She reached down and, rather awkwardly picked them up. Elana looked around the room for somewhere to keep them until the fighting was done and walked over to a pair of discarded boots. She assumed they were Itsuki’s. Without further preamble she turned her hand, sending the protesting prisoners tumbling into their temporary cells. With that out of her conscious she retrieved her rifle and headed out of the room, checking corners like she had been trained naturally.

There were dead Colossi upon the floors, mech rounds having torn open holes in the massive women. Elana snorted as she passed them by. Good riddance to bad rubbish far as she was concerned. Only half decent Colossus Elana had met thus far was Itsuki. The rest could burn as far as the freshly minted giant woman cared.

The halls of the ship flashed red and alarms were blaring, the contrast of colors disorienting Elana. The young woman could feel adrenaline coursing through her veins. After her near death experience back there she was rather wishing for her mech armor back. These rather flimsy clothes wouldn’t do much for her. Nor would they stop actual weapons made to kill Colossi. She remembered how easy her weaponry had brought down Colossi and swallowed hard.

The slick blood on her feet left large bloody footprints in her wake, a gruesome trail she was hoping no one was going to have time to track. Occasionally there was a groan from the distance inside the ship. That’s right. There was a battle in space going on. Elana had been trained on space combat but not on when one had to actually fight inside a ship. Generally it was assumed a mech would do most of the fighting outside the ship. The bridge sounded like the place to be. As much as Elana didn’t care about her ‘comrades’ dying it wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go.

Eventually she managed to locate a terminal next to a dead woman and started working at it, the technology finicky at best. She managed to get it to cough up a map of the ship. After a brief inspection she noted she was a couple levels below the bridge. However there was an elevator a few halls down. With a nod she kept going on her way, bare feet slapping loudly against the cool metal floors despite her attempts to mitigate the noise.

As she rounded the next corner she immediately was caught by a few squads of human sized soldiers. Cries of surprise came from below followed by a peppering of small arms rounds upon her massive form. Elana rather marveled at just how useless the conventional weaponry was against her. At most the rounds itched when they hit her skin. She slung the rifle onto her back and set a hand on her hip.

“OK, enough of that. Just toss down the guns. Not going to hurt you if you just give up.” She offered.

One of them tossed a grenade at her. Now that one actually did sting at her shins. “Ow! Muthafucker! OK, fuck it, no more miss nice army girl!”

Elana stomped forward, her steps shaking the ground under the squads ever so and her scowl positively thunderous. Without any preamble she started stomping. It was frighteningly easy to just splatter the little bastards against the floor, turning them into a gooey reddish paste with ease. Her own strength in this state almost frightened her. She’d known she’d been made big before but this was the first time she actually *felt* it. She was huge. Massive. Able to end the lives of otherwise hardened warriors under her toes like bugs!

The soldier blinked. Wait what? No. No, what the fuck was she thinking? That wasn’t what she wanted. That said, taking stock of the dozens of new stains upon the floor now there was no denying she wasn’t effective at the killing aspect. Elana frowned and shook it aside. She winced as she looked at her much redder feet now, gore sliding from between the toes. Did this place of towels or something? She was really going to need a shower or something after this. Of course the one thing they wouldn’t have in the lab; shoes her size. Naturally.

After making her way carefully down the hall Elana found her way to the large industrial elevator. She set it towards the bridge and allowed herself to lean back against the railing, a shuddering sigh escaping her. She ran a hand down her face; it came away drenched in sweat. Her heart was thundering in her chest and her breathing was heavy. One would think after the past while she’d be used to near death experiences but apparently that was not something one adapted to easily.

As the elevator rumbled upwards the din of gunfire grew louder and Elana moved towards one corner of the elevator, crouching and pulling her rifle out. She checked the charge in it. Enough for ten shots. More than enough to deal with any mechs she might find. Or Krieg. That last thought sent her pulse skyrocketing. She could do it too. She *would* do it. The bitch killed her comrades. She killed friends and murdered countless innocents for her sick fun. Elana wished it had been her she’d squeezed into paste in her hand.

With a hiss of hydraulics the elevator was brought to a halt. Beyond it she spotted mechs beyond cover as Colossi exchanged fire with them from within the bridge. Elana thought about it for a tick before taking aim at one of the mechs. She needed to keep on living for her vengeance. She wouldn’t get a shot at Krieg if she died here. The soldier lined up her sights to the nearest mech and fired into the small of its back, a pulse of plasma sheering through the weaker section of armor. It groaned for a moment before collapsing into a heap of twisted metal, pilot utterly vaporized.

“What the fuck!? We’ve got enemy reinforcements!” Broadcasted one of the mechs.

Elana fired off another disciplined shot, sheering off the leg of one of the mechs by shooting the place where the joint was before ducking into cover from a hail of plasma bursts. It was so much different firing one of these for real instead of inside the mech. The thing jerked her shoulder uncomfortably even with proper firing discipline. A small price to pay for that kind of killing power she supposed. She just wished she had some damn autotargeting.

Her arrival seemed to give the defenders in the bridge some confidence as the mechs found themselves attacked from both sides. With this their defensive position began to crumble and with their lines of retreat cut off it was a slaughter. Elana felt elation each time she pulled the trigger, earning a squirt and spray of oil fluids from wherever she hit. Her training made her quite the expert on handling enemy mechs, even dated models like these walking fossils. Each jostle of the rifle into her aching shoulder reminded her that she wasn’t a frightened rabbit. She was a soldier. For the first time since that battle she felt like one again.

Soon enough the last mech was either destroyed or disabled. Those in disabled mechs soon found themselves with the worst fate as the defenders gleefully set upon them, prying open the metal shells to get at the screaming pilots within. Elana felt queasy as flashbacks to being ejected from her mech went through her mind. She nearly threw up as she watched one girl with green highlights in her black hair opened her maw nice and wide before dropping a screaming pilot in. She swallowed him whole with a satisfied sigh.

Elana walked past them and into the bridge. It was here she saw a number of dead Colossi being dragged away by their comrades and the injured being helped away. Itsuki was there and spotted her, bounding over to Elana with concern in her eyes. Well, eye. It was hard to tell what was in her other eye on account to it just being a lens and all.

“Elana! So you made it out okay? Phew. Sorry about the cut in contact. They made a push as you saw. Nice work by the way. Would have lost a lot more girls without that quick assist.” She chuckled, patting Elana on the back with a winning smile.

The soldier girl now rather wished she’d waited but didn’t say that. “Yeah well, figure they’d probably shoot me as much as any other big girl. So…”

Itsuki smirked, crossing her arms in just the right way to push up her ample assets. “More than likely.” Her eye turned down towards the woman’s blood caked feet. “I see you had fun on the way here.”

An all too familiar laugh froze whatever Elana had been about to say in her throat. Her eyes turned towards the other end of the bridge where, upon the steps having a wound on her shoulder tended to by a nervous looking Colossi, sat Krieg. She offered Elana a toothy smile that brought Elana right back. Back to her nightmares. Back to being helpless. Back to this monster eating her friends.

“So I guess she ain’t a pussy after all. Could have fooled me when she pissed her pants that first time.” The warlord remarked.

Elana’s veins washed over with fire as she pushed Itsuki aside with a snarl and lifted her rifle up in one fluid motion, pointing it right at Krieg. No one had time to react. Everyone in the room was frozen in place, shocked that anyone would dare pull a gun at Krieg. The warlord thought. She just stared Elana down. A grin twisted her lips, revealing those monstrous teeth as she waved off the woman at her shoulder. She stood slowly and held out one arm in a welcoming gesture.

“C’mon then. Fucking do it! C’mon! Shoot me! Go ahead!” The warlord shouted with a crazed look in her eyes.

Elana hesitated, taken aback by the look. Krieg walked over towards Elana. She still towered over her. Until she crouched and gripped Elana gun in her hands. She pointed the rifle towards her forehead, licking her lips. Her gaze bore into Elana. The depths of sheer madness in them were unknowable. Elana felt like she was going to fall in. To drown in the orbs as they stared at her.

“What’s the fucking matter? Where’s that hard bitch that cut my face? Or that one that just iced those mechs? Maybe…” Krieg’s tongue flicked across her lips. “Maybe you just don’t care I murdered all those people? They tasted *so* fucking good. Oh man, they were kicking and screaming the whole goddamn time. I fucking whipped off my pants the second I got back to my room and got off on it. Oh yeah, I fapped so damn hard at their squirming around in my belly.” The woman said.

Elana roared in anger. “Fuck you, bitch! FUCK! YOU!”

*Click*

Elana opened her eyes. She had pulled the trigger. However Krieg still had her head. She looked down. The power was empty. She was out of ammo. The woman swallowed hard and looked at the warlord, whose expression was still frozen in maniacal glee. After a moment she tossed back her head and let out a peal of crazed laughter. She stood, staggering back. The blonde hugged her stomach, most of the tension from everyone else in the room fading away.

“You actually fucking did it. Phew, lass, you’ve got balls and something swinging down between those legs! Here I thought you’d be a fucking toe licker.” The warlord laughed before letting out a wince from her injured shoulder. “Fucking hell.” She cursed in pain.

The rifle clattered to the floor from Elana’s hands and she fell to her knees. She looked at her hands. What the fuck had just happened? She swallowed thickly as she looked back up at Krieg. The warlord had resumed her seat and gestured at Elana with an errant wave of her hand. “Right. Someone give her some dead girl’s room. Get her some actual shoes yeah?” She commanded.

Just as Elana was being numbly led away Krieg stopped her with a few final parting words. “Oh right. Welcome to the Armada.”