(The team has landed but due to a malfunction were all separated and trying to find each other)

“How the hell can they see us!?” Raist shouted over the burst of gunfire.  Another Plaz-Shot shell from Philira’s weapon exploded the creature apart as the remnants of the super heated bolts tore through parts of the forest.

The silence of the forest during the day was a complete juxtaposition of the chaos of night with its endless howls, shadows, and attacks.

One beast that had finished goring another swung its huge tusked head towards the two of them and started charging.  Raist lifted the Limiter rifle to it, and the soft ‘zzzt’ sound hid the fact that hundreds of sonic rounds were electro-magnetically being discharged out of the rifle.  The spray tore into the creature, rendering its millions of generations of evolution for naught as the rounds blasted through it and the trees beyond.  It skidded to a stop not far from the two of them, and was rapidly being cut down by the strange ground under it.

“They have to be sensing us some other way…thermally possibly,” Philira suggested as she rapidly rotated her head around every side of them, pumping a round into things Raist didn’t even know was there, only occasionally seeing the burning creature falling out of a tree or fall over from behind an alcove.  She danced in front of him always making sure to stay between him and any danger.

‘DADADA!’ A loud, fast retort of a Close-Support-Weapon came from somewhere fairly close to them; they knew they were closing in on the other member of their group.  But every step was a battle.  Even the ‘grass’ had become even more alive, slicing back and forth greedily for something to fall onto the cleaving surface.

“How close?!” he shouted to Philira.

“Not far.”  She quickly bent down, her hands rapidly flying over the Scatter gun as she threw the empty energy clip to the ground, reaching to her hip for another, slapping it in and triggering the toggle.  The green neon lights on the transductor rails came back on as she jumped backwards shooting a creature that had closed on her quickly in that short time.

“It has to be thermally!”  Raist shouted.  It made sense why everything was out at night: heat would show up better.  Unfortunately, their advanced weaponry probably was a beacon in the night with the hot barrels and explosive plasma blasts.

“Get down.”  Philira dashed backwards, tackling Raist to the ground.  In front of them the huge tree was sawed through by a barrage of rounds as it swayed in one direction, its structure cracking.  Its mass swayed the other direction as its crystal structure started breaking, falling towards them as the base exploded apart.  The razor branches came crashing down around them.  They scrambled to their feet, pausing for only a moment as the tree grew closer and closer.  They escaped being crushed, but not all damage as the sharp crystals shot-gunning around them as the branches of the tree fell everywhere.

“Gaaaa…!” Raist let out a groan as he felt something slip right through his right side, passing through the armor like nothing.  The tree had come to a crashing end and Philira jumped up.  Raist was slower and she grabbed his wrist and hauled him up.

He put a glove on his right side and it came back red; he had been sliced through by one of the branches of the tree that had crashed around them.

“Shit, I’m hit.”  Philira looked at him with her cold eyes, trying to decide what she was going to do.

“I’m going for whoever that is.  We need to unify our force immediately,” she started leaving.

Raist grabbed her wrist, pulling her back.  “No, I am going with you.  This is nothing.”  A warning in the corner of his eye warned that the expected healing would reduce his total combat healing potential down to 73%.

The first few steps were painful until the chemicals were sufficiently pumping through him and he forgot about the pain completely, focused on gunning down the further away creatures while Philira focused on those close ones.

‘Dadada!’ Shots boomed across the forest, drowning out anything else.

“Ziko!”  Philira tried yelling between the fire.  “Ziko!”

“Holy shit, Philira!?  Raist!?” The three of them ran closer to each other, but the reunion was short-lived as the battle was far from over.  Ziko had racked up a large amount of kills as the forest had been cut through here.  Even the razor grass had been blown away, leaving much safer soft rock under them.