SABERS: Shadows of Ravena

The evacuation ship's interior was a flurry of activity, the hiss of hydraulic lifts and the hum of medical equipment blending with the muffled cries of injured civilians and frantic medics. Icarus's battered form was gently placed onto a waiting medical bed, the armored giant lowering her as though she were made of glass. She tried to focus, tried to lift her head, but her body protested with every movement.

Her eyes locked on him—on the towering figure standing over her, his olive-green armor marred with scorch marks and the faint glow of hemacrine gel seeping from cracks in its plating. His visor glowed faintly, obscuring any trace of emotion. But she knew. She knew it was him.

"Eilífr…" she whispered hoarsely, her voice barely audible over the chaos around her. She reached out with trembling fingers, desperate to touch him, to hold onto him, to keep him from disappearing again.

But as soon as he placed her on the bed, he straightened, his movements mechanical, purposeful. Without a word, he turned and began to walk toward the ship's exit. Her heart lurched in her chest as she realized what he was doing. The sound of the oncoming Extractant horde outside grew louder, the guttural roars and screeches echoing through the air like a monstrous symphony.

"No…" she whispered, her voice cracking. She tried to push herself up, her body trembling with the effort. Her fingers gripped the edge of the medical bed, her legs weak and unsteady as she swung them over the side.

Her attempt was futile. She overbalanced, her strength failing her, and she tumbled to the cold metal floor with a loud thud. The noise startled the nearby medics and evacuees, their eyes wide with alarm as they rushed toward her.

"Ma'am! Stay down!" one of the medics urged, their hands reaching to steady her.

But she ignored them, her gaze fixed on the retreating form of Eilífr. Her arms shook as she tried to crawl forward, her knees scraping against the floor. "Elfy…" she croaked, tears streaming down her face as she struggled to reach him. "Don't… don't go."

He paused briefly at the threshold of the ship, his hulking frame silhouetted against the flames outside. For a fleeting moment, she thought he might turn around. She thought he might stay.

But he didn't.

Without hesitation, he stepped off the ship, walking with an unyielding purpose toward the approaching horde. His massive weapon rested in his hands, the glow of his visor cutting through the darkness like a beacon of defiance. The Extractants' roars grew louder, their forms emerging from the smoke like shadows of death.

Icarus's chest heaved as she tried to call out to him, but the words wouldn't come. Her body, drained of adrenaline and overwhelmed by exhaustion, betrayed her. She collapsed onto the cold floor, her tears pooling beneath her cheek as her vision dimmed.

"Come back…" she mouthed silently, her voice lost to the noise. "Please… come back to me."

The last thing she saw before her vision faded was his figure disappearing into the chaos, the thunderous roar of his weapon cutting through the cacophony. And then, darkness claimed her, leaving her with nothing but the faint, agonizing memory of his departure.

The control room in Shirley Temple, a heavily fortified city serving as the command hub for the Seretine evacuation operation, was a hive of tension. The room's massive holographic display flickered with real-time footage, captured by long-range drones and satellites, showing the ongoing battle. Extractants swarmed the ruined streets of Seretine like a tidal wave of death, but one figure carved through them with terrifying precision.

SABER-1.

The leaders of the operation stood in stunned silence, their faces pale under the cold glow of the display. To one side, a group of scientists—the team responsible for the resurrection process that had brought him back—huddled together, their whispered conversations growing more frantic by the second.

"What are we even looking at?" one of the military commanders muttered, his voice low and uneasy. His gaze was fixed on the hologram, which displayed the armored form of SABER-1, bathed in flickering firelight as he single-handedly held back a wave of Extractants at one of the evacuation points.

"I don't know," another replied, his tone trembling slightly. "I don't think it's him anymore. Not fully."

The figure on the screen was a towering, olive-green juggernaut. His movements were fluid and calculated, his weapon—a modified MK99 Autocannon—roaring with every precise shot. But it wasn't the precision that unnerved them. It wasn't the effortless way he cut down dozens of Extractants with swings of his massive weapon or the way his armor seemed impervious to the creatures' attacks.

It was his body language.

Though silent, SABER-1 moved with an eerie sense of purpose, as though every step and strike were part of a macabre dance. His movements were too deliberate, too smooth, too… satisfied.

"He's… enjoying it," whispered Dr. Halverson, one of the scientists who had worked on the resurrection. Her voice was barely audible over the hum of the control room's equipment, but the words carried an almost physical weight. "Look at him. Look at the way he fights."

The footage shifted, showing him weaving through another group of Extractants. His massive, armored form loomed over them, but he moved with an almost predatory grace. He crushed one underfoot, his free hand grabbing another by its throat and slamming it into the ground with bone-shattering force. The MK99 barked again, sending another two creatures sprawling in a spray of ichor. And then, for just a fraction of a second, his visor tilted upward, catching the camera's gaze.

It wasn't the action of a soldier surveying the battlefield. It was something else entirely.

"Do you see that?" one of the commanders asked, his voice tight. "He knows we're watching. He's playing for us."

"Or taunting us," muttered another, his hands gripping the edge of the console.

The scientists exchanged uneasy glances, their earlier pride in resurrecting humanity's greatest warrior now soured into something closer to dread. One of them, a younger researcher named Dr. Kline, spoke up hesitantly. "We knew this could happen. The augmentation protocols were… incomplete. The stress of the resurrection process and the trauma he endured—"

"Save the lecture," the commanding officer snapped. "What's happening now is not in your reports. You resurrected a man, not… whatever this is."

"But it's still him," Dr. Halverson said, though her voice lacked conviction. "Isn't it?"

No one answered.

The footage changed again, showing another evacuation point. Civilians scrambled into the waiting transports, their panic visible even from the long-range feed. SABER-1 stood between them and the advancing Extractants, his armor glinting in the firelight as he unleashed devastation with the MK99. When the weapon ran dry, he didn't falter. He used the weapon itself as a club, swinging it with inhuman strength to crush the creatures in his path.

And then, the thing that silenced the room entirely: he paused.

In the middle of the battlefield, surrounded by the corpses of Extractants, SABER-1 tilted his head slightly, his visor catching the faint light. He didn't move for a full second, as if savoring the carnage around him.

"Did you see that?" a voice whispered, barely audible.

"He's… he's enjoying this," another said, the words barely escaping their lips.

The commanding officer slammed his hand on the console, silencing the murmurs. "Whatever it is, we need to keep control of him. If he's going rogue—"

"He's not rogue," Dr. Halverson interrupted, her voice sharp but trembling. "If he were rogue, he wouldn't still be protecting the evac points. He's… he's still following orders."

"Then why does it feel like we're not the ones giving them?" someone muttered darkly.

The room fell into an uneasy silence as the footage continued. SABER-1 moved to the next evacuation point, his armor streaked with blood and ichor, his movements as relentless and terrifyingly efficient as before.

And as they watched, a single, chilling thought hung unspoken in the air:

What have we unleashed?

The streets leading to the final extraction point were a battlefield of ruin, blood, and flame. Eilífr strode forward with unrelenting purpose, his massive armored frame a hulking shadow against the flickering inferno of the city around him. His MK99 Autocannon hung uselessly across his back, its ammunition spent. In its place, he gripped something far more horrifying—a massive, brutal sword unlike anything the soldiers or civilians had ever seen.

The sword was as imposing as the man wielding it, nearly six feet in length and forged from a dark, gleaming alloy that reflected the surrounding chaos. Its blade was jagged, with serrated edges near the base that flared into a wickedly sharp point at the tip. Along its spine ran a series of interlocking gears and chains, dormant for now but thrumming faintly with energy, waiting to unleash their fury. A sturdy crossguard jutted out like the hilt of an ancient claymore, but reinforced with the same brutal design as his armor.

When Eilífr's gauntleted hand pressed a small trigger near the hilt, the chainsaw-like mechanism roared to life, the teeth of the blade spinning in a blinding blur. The sound alone was enough to send Extractants skittering back momentarily, a horrifying mechanical growl that drowned out the chaos around him. Sparks flew as the blade carved through the air, hungry for the flesh of anything that dared to oppose him.

The extraction point came into view, and with it, the haggard remnants of soldiers and terrified civilians. Their faces were pale and streaked with soot, their eyes wide with desperation as they piled onto the waiting transports. The defensive line was crumbling, overwhelmed by the relentless wave of Extractants. The soldiers at the front fired their weapons with grim determination, but the creatures were too many, too fast.

Then, like a force of nature, Eilífr emerged from the smoke.

The ground seemed to quake with every step of his massive boots, the sheer bulk of his armor amplified by the towering sword he wielded. The civilians gasped, their terror momentarily replaced by awe as they watched him wade into the swarm.

The first Extractant lunged at him—a grotesque, multi-limbed creature with snapping mandibles. Eilífr didn't flinch. With a single swing of the roaring blade, the creature was cleaved in two, ichor spraying across the street as its severed halves crumpled to the ground. The blade's chainsaw mechanism howled, ripping through sinew and bone like paper.

The soldiers, already exhausted and near their breaking point, hesitated as they watched. None of them had seen anything like this before. The massive figure, his olive-green armor drenched in grime and gore, moved with a terrifying grace. Each swing of the blade was calculated, efficient, leaving nothing but destruction in its wake.

He cut through the horde with unrelenting precision, his movements almost mechanical in their perfection. Extractants leapt at him from all sides, claws and fangs gleaming in the firelight, but none could land a blow. Eilífr twisted, ducked, and pivoted, his blade meeting every attack with a devastating counterstrike. The sound of the sword's grinding teeth mingled with the screeches of dying creatures, creating a symphony of carnage that echoed across the battlefield.

By the time the last Extractant fell, the streets were littered with the mangled remains of the horde. Eilífr stood in the center of the carnage, his armor drenched in ichor, blood, and soot. The once-pristine emblem on his left breastplate was barely visible beneath the layers of grime, but its shape was unmistakable.

The SABER emblem was a circular design, its core a stylized sword piercing through a shield, flanked by wings that symbolized freedom and resilience. Around its edge, the words "Specialized Adaptive Battlefield and Environmental Reconnaissance" were etched in sharp, angular script. Though tarnished and caked in filth, the emblem still gleamed faintly, a reminder of the man's purpose and the legacy he carried.

The civilians and soldiers stared in stunned silence, some clutching their weapons, others their loved ones, as Eilífr slowly turned toward the transport. His visor glowed faintly, an otherworldly light cutting through the darkness, as if daring anyone to speak.

One of the soldiers whispered hoarsely, their voice trembling with awe and fear, "That's… that's him. SABER-1."

No one dared respond, their eyes fixed on the man who had become more than a soldier, more than a weapon. He was a legend, carved in blood and fire, and they could only watch as he stood sentinel over the last survivors of Seretine. The low hum of the transport's engines was punctuated by the quiet murmur of exhausted civilians and soldiers, their voices subdued after the chaos they had escaped.

The loading ramp creaked under the massive weight of Eilífr as he stepped aboard, his towering frame and bloodied armor commanding immediate attention. Conversations died away, and the occupants instinctively shuffled aside, making room for him as though his presence demanded it.

He moved with slow, deliberate steps, his visor scanning the dimly lit interior. The haggard faces of the survivors turned to him, some filled with awe, others with fear, and a few with quiet gratitude. He carried his massive sword across his back, the weapon smeared with the remains of the Extractants, and his armor still dripped with ichor and grime.

As he reached the center of the transport, a small figure broke away from the cluster of evacuees. A little girl, no older than six or seven, walked toward him cautiously, her parents following closely behind. Her wide eyes took in the immense figure before her, her small hand clutching the edge of her tattered dress nervously. Still, she stepped closer, her bravery remarkable for her age.

"Thank you," she said softly, her voice barely audible over the hum of the engines. Her gaze didn't waver, even as she craned her neck to look up at the towering warrior.

Eilífr tilted his head slightly, the faint glow of his visor casting a soft light on her innocent face. Slowly, as if on instinct, he reached out a massive gauntleted hand toward her head. His fingers, streaked with a sickly mixture of blood, ichor, and grime, hovered for a moment. But then he paused, his hand trembling slightly as he caught sight of the filth coating it.

He clenched his fingers into a fist, pulling it back as though ashamed. His arm lowered slowly, the grotesque substance dripping faintly onto the floor.

The mother, watching the interaction closely, noticed the hesitation. Her stomach turned at the thought of what the gooey substance on his armor and hands could be, but her gratitude outweighed her revulsion. She reached out tentatively, taking his massive hand into both of hers. Her fingers barely wrapped around his gauntlet, but the gesture was unmistakable.

"Thank you," she said, her voice steady but filled with emotion. She looked up at him, her eyes glistening. "Thank you for saving my daughter. For saving all of us."

Eilífr stood silent, his glowing visor fixed on the family before him. He glanced down at the mother's hands clasping his, her expression a mix of fear, gratitude, and determination. The little girl peeked out from behind her mother, a small, shy smile breaking through her earlier nervousness.

For a moment, the cacophony of battle faded from his mind, replaced by the quiet warmth of their gratitude. He gave a small, almost imperceptible nod, his visor catching the faint light of the transport as he pulled his hand away gently.

The mother smiled softly, pulling her daughter close as they returned to their seats. Eilífr straightened, turning his gaze back toward the front of the transport. The ramp began to close, sealing them inside as the ship prepared to lift off. Though he said nothing, the silent exchange had spoken louder than words.

In the dim light, surrounded by the faces of those he had saved, Eilífr stood as both protector and symbol—a reminder of the cost of survival and the hope that still burned, even in the darkest of times.