A forlorn future. FINISHED.

[iceberg]

It had been like any other day in Battleon. Adventurers came and went, from battle to another like always during the more quiet times that Lore had. The Guardian Tower stood there like always, Guardians minding their own business, planning future battles and defences. From the east, a loud noise like that of thunder was heard, but not many gave it a second thought. Storms always appeared and would be on their way after raging for a while.

Little did they know that the world that they knew was going to abruptly change from that day on. A era in Lore was about to end, and it was getting closer with the roaring noise. But to explain how everything came to an end, we need to look a few years into the past. More precisely, to the time when the Adventurers of Lore came back to their time through the timeportal which had taken them to the Spawn's home. They had been victorious, defeated Carnax, again, and saved the future. And with them, they brought the start of all the misery that would soon arrive. Weapons and strange machines called AssaultMecha's from the future.

It all started with one man. No one really knows his name, or what he looked like, but still, he was the cause. Like most Adventurers at that time, a few weeks later after they had returned to their time, he too was still excited about the AssaultMecha which he had purchased from the future. He was walking through a rather thick forest, and because of his lack of attention, and childish enthusiasm, he failed to notice that a pair of eyes had been watching him appear with the dark purple coloured machine, which was unlike anything other that Lore had at the moment. They had started to follow him closely from the shadows, waiting for their time.

And that time came when the Adventurer stopped, nature was calling. He pressed a button and the hatch on the back of the walker opened, and he just slided out from there, heading to the bushes. He began to take off his pants, whistling a merry tune when he suddenly heard something behind him. It was like someone had snucked behind him and hit him on the head with something blunt and heavy.

Well, that was what had happened. He was knocked unconscious, luckily with his pants still up. By the time he woke up, it was night, and the AssaultMecha was gone, along with most of his equipment in it. One of them being the BFG. Well, equipment could always be replaced by others, now it was just that he had to walk back home in Battleon. He never gave too much thought about the incident, although it did kinda sting that he had lost the mecha. There was not much that he wanted to talk about it, mostly because he did not want to admit that he had gotten mugged by someone, he was an Adventurer, he was supposed to be alert at all times and ready for any battle! And he had been knocked unconscious while taking a quick break. That just wasn't something that he wanted anyone to know, so he didn't speak about it.

A week later, strange news had started to spread around Lore. Drakels had suddenly vanished, no longer were they seen around in their quest for whatever relic they were looking for. The domed cities had been closed shut, it was like they had closed themselves from the outer world for good. Some people kept on pondering if they were up to anything, but majority had come to the conclusion that the Drakels had finally realized that there was nothing that they could do against them, which had been proven right in many battles of the past. "They've ran under their cups to cry like wussies!" was the shout of some drunken Adventurer, who, like many others, were celebrating for few days straight in honor of their apparent victory over the Drakels.



Years passed, and warlords and other threads rose against the people of Lore, but they were beaten back by all their might, magic, and love. Well, mostly thanks to the other two things earlier mentioned things. Even those who had been waiting for the Drakels to appear again had given up on their thoughts, and accepted the majority's opinion that they were not coming out anymore.

They were wrong.



Ten years had passed and we are back to the day with the loud noise coming from the east, the cause was like nothing that had been seen up to that day. The first one's to see them saw them suddenly appear behind the mountains. They were not Dragons, because they were moving too fast, and they had no wings that flapped in the air. That, and they reflected sunlight from their metallic surface. Their shape was odd, half a circle, with flames shooting out from strange barrel's on their behind. There was five of them, and they started their descent, orders and messages sent back and forth between the strange machines pilots. This would be a simple test. Plates of metal moved aside on the machines, and hidden by them, out came one rather large tubes on both sides of the machines. With that, the machines separated, flying further away from eachother, to approach from different angles.

The people who had came out to see what was causing all that noise were rather surprised to see the flying objects, but had no idea how to react to them. If they had known their identity, maybe they would have done something else than just stare at them, and then quickly turn around when one flew above the town. No one even thought about the fact that the flying objects had turned towards the Guardian Tower. A few people got a sudden bad feeling about this, but that was all. And in the next moment, the flying objects opened fire.

Blasts of energy shot out from the tubes on their wings, and for now, they were hitting the base of the Guardian Tower. Stone chipped away in explosions, and the first attacker suddenly pulled straight up, heading for the sky. The other four ships kept on firing at the Tower, and just like they had predicted, the mighty tower first began to shake, and finally it gave in, falling towards the town. People had already been screaming when the first shots came, but now they screamed as they ran out of the way of the tower. As it fell to the ground it raised a great dustcloud, along with lots of shrapnels when broken pieces of the tower were sent flying.

The attackers turned around in the air, and were heading straight down again. It looked like they were going to smash into the ground, but before that happened, they straightened their flypath again, and started firing on buildings, the remains of the fallen Guardian Tower, and just about anything that moved. This all had taken only a minute or two, and as they flied over the town, they did not turn back. Their mission had been completed, the test run had been a success.

This attack shocked Lore as news of it spread through villages, towns and cities, but it was only the beginning. A short time later, would they finally find out what had happened, who the attackers were and of course, the reasons of their attack. People were already furious, but because of the lack of knowledge, all they could do was wait, and sharpen their weapons.

A war was beginning again, but this one would be unlike any other war they had even seen.

[iceberg]

Chapter 2:



The situation in Yulgar's Inn was chaotic, to say at least. After the Guardian Tower had collapsed, the town had lost what had long been thought as their most important building. And now everyone had turned their look to the Inn. Yulgar had not had much against his Inn becoming a headquarters for a while, that and a place for the wounded. And there were many wounded. People were still digging through the remains of the Guardian Tower in hopes of finding some survivors, but there only had been a few among the numerous bodies. The attack had been way too sudden for anyone to get to a safe spot, only those who happened to be in those had found their lives spared. But what was waiting for them, was both fear and uncertainity. Who, why, they only had questions.

"A few more wounded were found!" yelled an steel plate wearing adventurer, a Guardian leaning on his shoulder, a deep wound caused by something sharp was on his face, which was colored red. "Get him to the back, and something to wrap around his head. That bleeding has to be stopped quick!" shouted another adventurer, who suddenly had found herself as a nurse, tending to the wounded, and at times, easing the pain of those who were dying. While downstairs had become a rather crude hospital, upstairs, those left of the Guardians who happened to have stayed alive, either by luck or having been off the Tower at the moment of the attack, were having a meeting. They were not any Guardians, they could be called captains, or perhaps leaders. Or perhaps they could be called "the one's who were still in the shape to talk". There were six of them, four male, and two female. Besides one, they all had taken wounds, a black-haired Guardian had even lost his eye, which he had covered with his torn cape as a temporary eyepatch. Needless to say, he was rather angry. He slammed the round table they were sitting around, a furious look on his face. "This is unacceptable! This attack is nothing but pure cowardice! We must get to the source of the attackers and attack as soon as possible!"

"Let's not be that hasty." said the Guardian who looked like it had been just another day for him, although on the inside, he was just as shocked as anyone else. You just can't shrug over a landmark of your home being destroyed in one swift move. His brown hair was short and combed back, although it was a tad messy at the moment, and still had a few bits of stone in them. He had been walking towards the Tower when it had been destroyed, and was lucky to avoid any larger pieces of the tower falling on him. He had his arms crossed, and was leaning back on his chair. "We need to concentrate on what's the most important thing at this moment, and currently that is to help the wounded and search for any more of our brethren or sisters that still might be alive."

"That, and we have no idea who attacked us. You want to spread our attack force to fight every enemy we have? I think that would mean it's ten people versus an enemy army." said the second female Guardian, with shoulder long curly blue hair, she was looking out of the window. The townpeople were still on their work through the Tower's remainings. She had a point in what she had said, the enemy's identity was completely unknown to them. They could attack everyone ever been hostile towards them, but to be honest, the list was long. It would be something like she had said, and also quite impossible. That, and stupid. Even if they would find their attack by chance, they still would get all the other enemies even more furious at them. The female Guardian looked a bit higher, at the lowering sun. The day was coming to an end already. Time sure does fly when you go through a crisis.

That brought forth another problem. Almost one day had been spent looking for survivors from the Tower, but how long should they continue? How long could anyone survive being buried under all that rubble? They could not know, and after asking around, there was not a single Mage or Wizard who could use any spells to locate anyone under all those interfering pieces of stone. Only thing any of the searchers could do, was to pick a spot and hope to find someone alive. But most of the time, they only found corpses. For the moment, they had just been marked by their location, by tomorrow would the grave digging for them start. Whatever they would decide on the Tower's fate, they all knew that under it, someone might still be hanging on, barely alive, and if they would decide to stop the search, that person might die because of them. It was all just assumption, but what if it was true? Did anyone from them want that to happen? "We should continue the search for three more days." said the brown haired Guardian again, leaning even more back on his chair. At times like these, he hoped that Artix or some other more important person would be here to tell orders instead of him just throwing suggestions. He never had felt too much of leadership material. "And after that, we will find out everything that we need! We'll search every corner, turn every stone, if I have to, I'll look through the entire Ethereal Realm if I have to!" shouted the one-eyed Guardian again.

There was some commotion in downstairs, and someone was running up the stairs about it. The door to their room was slammed open, an Adventurer stood there, gasping for air slightly. Before anyone could ask anything, he said what had been told in the downstairs. "There's a Drakel to see the Guardians!"

The Drakel had suddenly appeared to the outskirts of the town, and first spotted by a kid who had been walking there to clear his mind from all the bad things that had happened. He had not even noticed the Drakel first because of the dark blue robes it was wearing, and barely had evaded bumping into it when it had talked. "Hello, child." it had said in it's slithering language, scaring the kid quite badly. He had been told stories about the Drakel, who had been told to be a war-happy race with a long feud against the humans. It was partly true. "I'm here to ssssee the onesss you call Guardiansss." it talked again, waving it's green scaled hand to the direction where the Guardian Tower had been. The kid just stood there, stuttering something. "Come on, get going. On your bike." the Drakel had said, and at that point, the kid had blasted to full run towards the town.

By the time the six of them had gotten where the Drakel was, they noticed it was not alone anymore. Two other stood by it, but it was tough to say what race they were. The armor they wore was a full body-one, except for the helmet which was open from the jaw-area. Maybe they had been there from the beginning, but they had been unnoticed by the kid because of the rather dark color that the armors had? Had the Drakels gained a new ally? Only when they turned could they too be recognized as Drakels, because of the spines which were pointing out behind their heads, through an opening in the back of the armor they wore. The armor looked rather bulky at places, at least near the wrists, and the back, where something was pointing outwards. Tough to say what it was, because there was not much that could be identified by it's shape.

"I sssee you are doing well." the Drakel said, in a slightly mocking tone. It was not blind, it could see that the town was missing something, something important. "What is it that you want?" the brown haired Guardian asked again, taking a small step forward. "Firssst, tell me human, what isss your name?" the Drakel asked, pointing towards the Guardian who had stepped forward. "Woider. You?"

"I am called Karmesss. Now that we know eachother, I have a gift for you." Karmes said, and took out a scroll within it's robes. It offered it to Woider, who had to take a few more steps forward to grap it, and then take those steps back to get further from the Drakel. He opened the scroll, and saw that something was written on it with black ink. It was too dark to read though. "Anyone got a torch or something?"

"Oh, you humansss. Are you never prepared for anything? Fine, I will tell you sssimply and ssshortly that even you will underssstand what isss written in the ssscroll. It isss a declaration of war, from usss Drakelsss to you humansss. Two daysss from now, at noon, the war will begin. That isss all that we were here to tell you, ssso if you excussse us, we will be on our way now."

The one-eyed Guardian rushed forward again, yelling for the Drakels to stop, even when they had not even managed to take a step. "Could it be that you were the one's who attacked the Tower!?"

Karmes's face gained a smile, at least that is what it seemed like. "Yesss, it wasss usss. Like you humansss, we too like tesssting our newessst equipment."

"I heard that it fell quite magnificently. Pity I wasss not here to sssee it myssself."

The one-eyed Guardian had heard enough for his taste. "Well, here's a message from us to all of you darn lizards!" he yelled, pulling out his Guardian Blade from it's sheath, holding it with both his hands, running towards Karmes. First he would chop him, her, it, whatever, to pieces, then those other two. The latter mentioned Drakels both grapped whatever was pointing out from their back, and held them with both hands. The Guardian did not stop, until the Drakel to the right pulled the trigger of the weapon that it held.

There was a series of loud shots, and the one-eyed Guardian had felt every single of them go through his body, first melting through his armor, then impaling through his intestines and finally burning their way out from the other side of the armor. He just stood there, and let go of the Guardian Blade with his left hand, feeling around his armor. "..huh... there.. there really are holes in thi-" he said, and the Drakel who had shot started walking forward, and after the third step pulled the trigger again, this time blue flashes like of an arrow could be seen coming from the end of the weapon pointed towards the Guardian. This round hit him in the chest, but he did not fall down. The Drakel got to him and kicked him down, and landed it's foot on his chest, pointing the weapon at the Guardians head.

Again it pulled the trigger, and the Guardian Blade fell from the Guardians hand into the ground. The Drakel immediately snapped around, pointing the weapon at the other five Guardians. "Anyone elsse feeling sstupid?" it asked, and after seeing that no one was going to apparently do that, it started taking careful steps backwards, still pointing at them. "You do know that if it's war that you have, it is war that you will get, right? Lore will not accept such an attack to Battleon." Woider said, sounding rather calm despite seeing someone shot right infront of his eyes, by weaponry that he had never seen or even heard of before. Karmes looked at him, and the smile which was on it's face was now gone. "On your attack to one of our domed city during what you people call "Carnax war", we lossst over two million of our kind. I lossst my only ssson to a Guardian's weapon, and half my family. If you think you are the only onesss who cannot forgive the other, you are gravely missstaken."

With that, the Drakel turned around, it's escorts still ready to act at a moment's notice. "Two daysss from now, at noon. Try to remember."
They began walking away from the Guardians, and after a while, first the other escort turned around and mounted the weapon back to it's place, then a few moments later the other did the same.

"...why did they come all this way to give us the exact time when they would attack?" one of the Guardians asked. "They must be lying. I bet they are ready to attack any minute now!"

"..no. I don't think so." Woider said. "How do you know?" the red haired Guardian asked. "I think they just gave us a warning. We need to get the townspeople out of here. They're bringing the battle straight to our homes. Let's at least be ready for it by minimizing civilian casualties to as low as possible."

[iceberg]

Chapter 3:



The following day began surprisingly calmly. One of the first thing that was done, was the burial of the one's who had been found dead, or who had died on the floor of Yulgars inn. The list had been long. Too long. Woider himself had recognized a few names from there, and help lower their coffins to the ground. The sky had been cloudy ever since dawn, and it looked like the sky was about to start crying anytime now. Even so, a lot of people had gathered around, some to see their friends off to the grave, while others were here to bid farewells to their loved ones. Seeing people cry openly made Woider feel bad. He had not cried, ever. He was completely calm, like it was just another event in his life which would soon be over. A few people did give him a bad look, since he seemed so indifferent from what had happened.

He just left before anyone else could curse him with their looks. They said that only murderers did not feel sorrow when someone they know dies. He was no murderer, and he did not want anyone to even think about something like that. Just before he had went to sleep last night, he had made a promise to himself. He made himself at peace over the fact about all the dead people, and forced himself to focus on helping those that still were alive. He headed over to Yulgar's inn, the other Guardians would soon follow him there to discuss what were they going to do.

First thing, was to stop searching for survivors from the Guardian Tower. It was tiresome, and there was little hope of finding anyone there by this point. Second was the evacuation of the town. Normal people would leave Battleon, and the only one's who would stay behind would be the one's who would confront the Drakels, tomorrow at noon. People still were doubtful about the words that the Drakel had said, and were expecting an attack at any moment, looking at the sky like something would suddenly appear from there. The safest place would probably be Lolosia. It was near, and a lot better place than Granemor was. But still, a day and half for evacuating everyone.. tough, but not impossible. They also would need some Adventurers and Guardians to escort them there, a hundred or so would hopefully be enough to scare away any monster which would think about attacking.. hopefully.

But why are they asking me to do all these decisions? was all that Woider could think of, listening to other Guardians talk about what they saw as the best course of action, some of them seemed allright, others Woider had to turn down. One idea had been to get the people to Krovesport. It was closer than Lolosia, yes, but would you really want to place people from your town in the middle of thieves, thugs and assassins?

Lolosia it was. Then there was the matter of assembling their army. Thanks to the wandering nature of both Adventurers and Guardians, there were only a few thousand of them in Battleon at the moment, others were travelling Lords-know-where-in-Lore. It would be tough to assemble every single one of them to Battleon in such a short notice, so the best thing that they could think of, was to contact the nearest places, Dragonstone and Paladin Order. Dracomancers.. they might have some troubles going against Drakels, considering how close they were to Dragons. Dragonslayers would probably be more than happy to help them, and even when Paladin's numbers had not yet fully been regained from the battles they had been fighting against Necromancers, there could be some reinforcements to be counted on from there. A word to Lolosia, Krovesport and Granemor would probably not be such a bad idea. If there was any Adventurer or Guardian there at the moment, they might just make it for tomorrow noon. "So, now that we got some idea about the troops, do we have enough food to last for this battle? How long do these usually take anyway? Week? Week and half?"

While the Guardians newly made "council" was solving their current problems, the messengers to the places they were going to ask for some help in the battle leaped on to their horses, well, that one guy hopped on a salamander, and rode off to their own directions as fast as they could. Time was the essence right now, something that was running short per every passing second.

By the time they had talked through their problems, and the possible battle formations and strategy, it was getting dark already. Some Adventurer, who looked way too young for his profession, came to tell that the evacuation was going surprisingly well, although there had been need for twice the amount of escorts than what they first had guessed. The people had left in groups than as a whole, so the escorts were forced to split among them. But by tomorrow morning, the town would be empty besides the one's who had decided to stay and fight for their homes. Even Yulgar had decided to leave the town, saying that he was getting too old to stay indoors while everyone outside was fighting all sorts of enemies. Before he had left, he had said that once he returns, he wants to see his inn cleaner than ever.

"The name's Spair." said the young Dragonslayer who had been one of the first to arrive. He offered his hand, which Woider grapped, and the two greeted eachother by that handshake. "So, what's the word on your side?" Woider asked as he pulled his hand back, and crossed his arms. "We're more than happy to help you fight against the Drakel. With me came a few hundred others of our brotherhood, but more are on their way. Galanoth himself is a tad busy at the moment though, but in a day or two he should be here as well."

Woider had to think for a moment. By the speed people were arriving.. there probably was over ten thousand people to fight in the town at the moment, and by tomorrow.. twenty, thirty thousand perhaps? They had no idea about the numbers that the enemies had either. "Any word on the Paladins? I heard they've been asked to join as well." Spair suddenly asked, snapping Woider out from his thinking. "Hmm. Haven't heard that they would have gotten here by now. Strange though, you would guess that they would be here before you.." he said, pondering where the Paladins were anyway. Spair laughed, and said "Well, Paladin's don't have a natural desire for battle when it comes to scalies."

"...sca.. scalies?" Woider asked, although he had a pretty good idea what it meant. "You know. Lizards, dragons, drakels. Green things." Spair explained, sounding very serious. Woider could only let out a sigh.



In the Drakel warbase, things were calm. Their warriors were checking up on their equipment once again, someone was showing off their marksman ship by just pointing the gun he had at a target seemingly randomly, but still shooting right in the middle of the target every single time. The base had been put up near the Dragonspine Mountains, and had been kept secret to this day, although that one group of Adventurers got a bit too close to their bad luck.

At least it had provided as some actual battle experience for the troops.

In one of their tents, resided the commanders of the attack to Battleon. In the tent, a large map was laid down on a table, and a large Drakel with multiple old scars on his face and arms was pointing at different spots in the maps, talking about the different phases of the attack. Kur was his name, and he had been given the nickname "Slayer" by the troops. He had been Kragg's military advisor in the past, and had fought and survived many battles against the humans. An excellent person for this mission, thanks to his experience of their enemies. That, and he had always had a good military insight. "The PW's will be the first wave of attack, followed first by our gunships, and then infantry. While the gunships will be aiming for the inner parts of the town, the PW's will give cover fire to the infantry as they start their attack and move into the town."

"While I do say that the plan is a good one, I would like to change it a tad." said the second Drakel in the tent. Unlike Kur, who was tall and muscular and battlescarred, he was slender, and had a noble look, at least to Drakels. The robes he wore were blue in color, which might not look like much, but this man had gained a lot of popularity among the different factions of Drakels for his discovery of the past. Because of his skills when it came to talking, he had convinced the separate factions to work as one on the work which he had began. And now, they were here, the moment of truth was getting closer by the second. "What is there to change in the plan?" Kur asked, sounding a tad insulted that it had been even mentioned. "I do agree with you that the first wave of assault will be done by the PW's, and that from there the gunships will follow, but I don't think we should move our infantry into the battle that quickly." the other Drakel said, and grapped a glass from the table, taking a sip of it. That was some darn good water.

"We're not dealing with some simpletons with swords here. The amount of people who know Magic and the ability to wield it is rather astounishing when it comes to humans. I have thought about this for a while, and already thought of the one plan the humans might use. For that, I ask you to order the PW's and gunships to attack the town. If all goes like I have expected, we will have to use the RB's to infiltrate the town."

Kur thought about what he had heard for a moment. "...I have to say, I do not understand what you are getting at." The other Drakel sighed, and put down his glass, closing his hands together. "Tomorrow, you will see. Even if the humans would not do what I expect them to, we still can attack with the infantry after getting them out of the RB's. Or then we'll use the RB's anyway. The leaders want results, they want to know what can our creations do. Might as well give them a taste about everything we currently have, don't you agree?"

"Everything? I can understand the RB's, but are you seriously thinking to use-" Kur said, and again felt a tad annoyed as the other Drakel interrupted him. "I have already started preparations for that. This attack is not just some battle that we have had before. It is both a test for us, and a chance to show Lore just how fearsome we can be." he said, and took the water cup again, emptying it with one gulp. "Three hours. That is the time that we will be testing our equipment, after that, the world will finally know that the time when swords were cutting-edge technology in warfare are over."



Morning came, and from there, everyone was just counting down. The one's who had suspected the Drakels to attack before the time they had told had been wrong, but were now feeling even more nervous. It would have been better if the attack had started at any moment, rather than waiting for some exact time that it was supposed to start.

The town was surprisingly quiet, even with thousands of Adventurers and Guardians were there, waiting. During the night, thousands of Dragonslayers had gotten to the town, and a bit over thousand Paladin's had arrived, not led by the legendary Artix though, but one of his subordinates. Somewhere, a few AssaultMecha's were being started up by their owners. "We'll show those Drakels that they're not the only guys with gizmos!" was said by one of those people before jumping inside his walker. It was cloudy again. The sky was murky gray, and there was a certain feeling of rain in the air.

People were waiting on the streets, on the roofs of houses, some even in the houses, finishing their breakfast. You shouldn't war with an empty stomach, after all!

Woider felt rather nervous. What direction were they supposed to wait for the attack to come from? How many enemies would there be? And then there was that thing.. the weapon which had killed a man in front of his own eyes. Just what was it? There was now too many mysteries in this whole matter for him to feel comfortable, or at least somewhat content. He started making some last moment thinking. They had enough food to last for a week for a fullsized army, they were not standing in one large group at the moment, waiting for something to happen, they had scattered their forces around the town for now, they could regroup from there as needed.

An Avenger-wearing adventurer was sitting on the roof of a normal house, looking around. Something shined in the distance, reflecting the small rays of light that got through the clouds. He had to squint his eyes, but from what he managed to see, there was no mistaking it. Something was moving towards them. A few of them actually. "Hey, I see something!" he shouted, and stood up, pointing towards the direction where he was seeing the moving things approach, slowly, but surely.

The word spreaded fast, and people near enough were gathering to see for themselves. In one of the houses nearby, someone was choking on some bread.

Woider himself was one of the first who had gotten to the place, and looked into the distance. Just by his bare eyes, he could not make out exactly what the things were, but they did not seem something that you would see that often. "Dammit, so they are coming in from the direction of Dragonspine Mountains..." he muttered, and at that moment he wished that he had tried contacting Dracomancers afterall. If nothing, they could have at least told about some unusal activity near their home.



Power Walkers, that was what they were called by the Drakel. These had made Drakel Power Armor's obsolete, and great things were being expected from them and their pilots. Unlike their predecessors, these one's did not have two legs however, there were four, making the armor look like a metallic spider. On top of the machine was one black tube, which was actually a medium-range burstcannon. The cannon was attached to the top of the cockpit, which was shaped like a rather large box. On its side were barrelshaped cannons, which would soon have their first use in battle.

Behind the one's which had been first spotted, tens of PW's were walking forward, one metallic step at a time.

The war had begun.

[iceberg]

Chapter 4:



More and more of the Drakel machines marched into their view, but they did not come towards them after getting to eyesight. They just stopped, although some moved sideways, creating space between them and other one's. "What are they doing?" someone asked. "Maybe they're going to come straight to the town from those positions?" someone else suggested, but it didn't seem like that.



In the Drakel warbase, in the commanding post, which still was the tent, a strange sphereshaped machine opened up to five pieces, and a cloud made of Mana appeared, created by a rather old version of their Magiscience knowledge. The cloud connected to something, and like the mirror which Warlic was known to possess, it started to show images, first only a small one, but as the cloud got larger, so got the images size. "We've established a stable link between PW One and the Manalink of the Farview. PW's One to Twentyone are reporting that they are in position, and are asking permission to open fire." Kur said, holding a finger on a strange machine on his left ear. It was coloured white, and had one antennae pointing upwards. This was connected by a Manalink just like the Farview, but instead of image, this one sent back and forth talk, noises. Kur looked at the blue robe wearing Drakel, who had one hand on his chin, rubbing it like he was thinking about something, and it probably wasn't about growing a beard. "Commander Giro, what will I tell them?" Kur asked a bit louder than what he had said earlier, thinking had he been heard at all. "...have them wait a while. I want to see something." said Giro, who was paying close attention to the image which was being conveyed to them from PW One. The PW's cockpit's camera zoomed in and out at times to give a better, clearer picture to it's viewers. It showed Battleon, which was getting tired of waiting for something to happen.



"Maybe they're letting us do the first move?" people started to talk again, it seemed like a possibility, they had been given time to evacuate the civilians, maybe the Drakels were giving them other chances. "What are we standing here for then!?" some man shouted, and ran forth, a two-handed sword already pointing at the enemy. "They remember what has happened every other battle we've had with them! They're afraid, so let's show that we still haven't gotten soft!"

With that, he charged towards the Drakel machines, yelling like a madman, it took a few moments for others to join him, but by the speed he was going, even with that heavy weapon of his, they could not catch up to him.



"PW Three, Ten and Nineteen report that their warriors have begun to move, they are advancing towards our PW's." Kur reported again, his eyes first on the floor, he was first imaging the current happenings, and a look at the Farview told him the same thing. Swordmen, warriors, fighters, they really were coming towards their units. "I thought they would do this. They still go by their old rules of war. Tell PW's from Ten to Twenty to open fire. The others will have to wait for my mark." Giro said while still rubbing his chin, his eyes narrowing down as he looked the camera show the advancing humans. "Units Ten to Twenty, you are granted the permission to open fire until instructed otherwise."

Inside the PowerWalkers, the pilots felt a tad glad to hear that, after all, the humans were rather fast, and what first had been a few dozen, had quickly rose to hundreds of warriors running to fight them as the first. Hands moved to the controls of the vehicles, and buttons were pressed. The cockpit part of the machines began to turn, with the pilots eyes now looking straight towards the approaching humans. Energy began charging and channeling to the barrels on the side of the machines, and a second later, they shot out a barrage of green blasts of energy which made the air whistle as they flew towards the approaching humans.



"This isn't the first time we've been shot with Drakel-beams, BRING IT ON!" shouted the man who had first ran against the Drakel, a confident smirk on his face as three blasts were coming towards him, fast. They would not hit him though, so it did not matter much to him at the moment, they would just hit the ground near him.

In the next moment, the people following him saw him do a spectacular jump high into the air, although it was because of the first blast hitting the ground next to him, and creating a explosion which left a small crater to the ground. While people still were busy looking the man fall down, they were a bit too short to notice the blasts coming to their direction. Well, some of them. Others already had come to a full stop, which was what saved their lives. The energy blasts began to hit the ground, but instead of simply missing, they did explode, each explosion large enough to engulfe a grown man or two. The ground around them was being filled with craters which were formed from the blasts which simply vanished after exploding, leaving behind nothing but a crater, and whatever remained of those who happened to be in their area. The man who had done the first charge had hit the ground already, and had realized that he was one leg short, his left leg had been severed to a stump by the explosion which sent him flying. He still had his sword though, although grasped in only one hand now. He had to get back, get someone to take a look on the leg. Yeah, maybe some Moglin. They could fix him right up. Even without him suggesting it, those who had charged forward were now yelling for others to retreat. He was using the sword as a walking cane, taking one hop at a time back to home, back to safety, leaving behind a constant trail of blood which flowed from his left legs shredded remains.

"Dammit, they're getting killed out there!" some Guardian shouted, grasping on to his sword, but hesitating to actually do anything. This wasn't a war, this was slaughter. They had not even got close to the enemy, and already dozens were dead, and more were dying every second as more green explosions flashed. "What will we do, Woider?" someone suddenly asked, shaking him from his trance. He really had no idea. But what he did know, was that they had to help those who still were alive. "It won't do no good to attack them head-on, we need to hit them hard from here! Get the Magic-casting people ready and tell them to attack with whatever they have!"



The PW's continued their barrage, but then came a report which woke them up from their attack. Flashes of light, and other colors were seen from the direction of Battleon, and it was confirmed that a large wave of spells of various elements had been launched from there to their direction. Giro had already seen this, and expected it to happen at any moment, so when the first spell flew, he already had told out his order. "Every PW to mobile form immediately, and take evasive manuevers!"

Kur repeated the orders, although many had already heard Giro tell them in person as his voice had reached the Fartalk device which Kur had. It took a second or two for the pilots to enter the needed commands for the PW's to turn into their mobile form, and from there, it took five seconds for their to complete their transformation. It was like they had suddenly decided to lay down on the ground, straightening their legs, which soon pushed out wheels under their metallic feet, and from there, the legs became parallel to eachother, behind, and in front of the cockpit. Just four pairs of wheels were not enough, three others pushed out under the straightened feet, and as they had turned to mobile form, there was a screeching sound as each PW suddenly accelerated forwards, then taking their own direction, as to evade the spells which already were dangerously close to their position. Some drove straight at the spells, zigzagging through the dangerous magical creations, while others just drove sideway away from them. The PW's which had first gotten to the battle were the one's which actually took damage of all sorts of elements. Heat, frigid cold, blasts of wind which could carve away the earth..

"What's the current status of our forces?" Giro asked, rubbing his chin more forcefully now. Kur repeated the question, and listened to his men respond to it. "Most of our units were able to evade the attacks cast, and those which did get hit, are reporting of damage to the exterior of the PW's, but most systems are still online, although a couple units are reporting weapons malfunctioning. Seems like the armor really is more durable than what the old DPA-models had."

"Yes. Yes.. it is. Tell the units in position to fire on the remaining fleeing first wave, and those unable to fire to retreat immediately."



The reaction to see the Drakel machines suddenly take such a strange and speedy transformation had been.. surprising to say at least. "They can do that!?" someone shouted out of surprise, maybe a bit of hope in their voice that they could get their hands to one of those machines once this war would be over. Woider was thinking as hard as he could, since he had apparently been made the warchief of the operation. The machines had evaded the spells cast with speed which he had rarely seen with his opponents, there was the deal with the range where they had made their attack which was a factor to their rather miserable hit-rate, but at least to some comfort, the area behind the machines had been wrecked up more than badly. They were fast, they would need to coordinate their attacks accordingly. Maybe lure them to move to one direction, and get them going straight where a second wave of attacks is launched? For now, they would have to worry about the survivors of the first wave, who were getting ever closer to the town.

The Drakel machines were still on the move, they had not turned to their earlier stage. They were going to circle the city from the sides, already taking such formation. But that was not their first target. Cannons were aimed, and as the first PW's reached the runaway's, parallel with them, they began another barrage from both sides. Other PW's opened fire earlier, shooting them from the back, but kept on firing even when getting to their side.

Along the battlefield, hopped forward the man who had started the whole battle, it was amazing that he had even gotten alive. He had even increased his speed, which had gotten him so far. The sword was not really supposed to be used in such manner, but hey, if it helps you survive, then it has done it's purpose. He did not realize it himself yet, but from the first wave of people, he was the only one still alive, others had been killed by the attack from the transformed Drakel machines. He waved with his left arm, right still grapping a hold of the sword. "That must be the luckiest man ever." muttered an Adventurer next to Woider, who then waved back at the man. People were shouting, cheering for him to get through the last more meters. He had just challenged these Drakels headon, although paying the price, he had at least given them knowledge of their enemies new abilities.

Somewhere further down the battle, one of the last PW's to enter the battle had a lockon, and shot a single blast of green energy. It whistled through the air, hit the only survivor in the back, and he was no more. Only thing that was left, was the sword that he had, which had been made airborne by the explosion, it spinned through the air, first cutting open the head of the Adventurer who had standed next to Woider, next it went straight through the chest of another, sinking into her flesh right to the handle. A few seconds later, she was dead. The other one who had been hit by the sword was screaming rather loudly, trying to stop the bleeding by his hands. Woider acted quickly, and tore off a bit of a cape of a nearby Guardian, who complained about it soundly. He made a somewhat-bandage to wrap around the Adventurers wound, but as he was doing that, the earth near him shook again, along with other places of the town. The Drakel machines had began to circle the town, and blast at the buildings, and those that got out of their protection, either inside or from behind them. Woider finished the bandage and tied it up, hearing someone shout that people were preparing a second wave of Magic to shoot, since the Drakels were going in circles, they should at least hit a few of them.



"Excellent. Most, excellent." Giro said, and took a chair, sitting down on it, a cup of wine on his hands. "They know they cannot get too close to our cannonfire, they are probably starting or finishing their second wave of Magic. Tell the gunships to attack immediately."

As Kur relayed more orders, switching the frequency of Manalink to the gunships, it reached it's targets, which were high above the clouds above Battleon. There were only twelve of them, but they should be more than enough for this mission. They took a sharp dive down, and began to descend rapidly, already opening up their gunports, metalplates moving aside to make room for their weapons to shoot out.

"Second wave will be launched in a few moments from now!" someone shouted, and wondered where to run since he was not a Magic-user, which were about the only thing they needed at the moment. He just stood there, and noticed a rumbling sound which was not coming from around, but above. A few others noticed it as well, and as they looked up, they saw something appear out of the clouds above them. "Aren't those those flying things?"

As soon as they got out from the cloud, the pilots of the gunships knew what they had to do to evade collision with the ground. They pulled on the triggers on their controls, and from above the town, rained destruction in the same form of green energy as which the Power Walkers were firing at the town. It was not concentrated fire, it hit all around the town, some at buildings, others hit in the middle of groups of people. From there, the gunships pulled up and barely straightened their flightpath to avoid crashing into the ground. They were to make a turn around, and then join in on the attack to the town with the PW's. This sudden attack caused a lot of commotion among the people, and most of those who had been readying their spells to attack were surprised by the sudden attack to such extent, that the Mana they had been gathering just escaped from their grasp.

Giro was watching this all take place, from various angles which were changing to his mind's pleasing. "What is the power-consumption on the PW's at this form and firing-rate?" he asked rather calmly, taking a sip from his wine.

Kur waited a few moments for the answers, which he got, rather updated even as they had been checked a second before telling about them. "Around 80% of the current output. High, but not dangerously high either. Just like how you predicted."

"Excellent, again. I wonder what will the humans do now? I have to say, I am feeling a tad sorry for them." Giro suddenly said, and took another sip out of his wine. Kur was about to say something which one probably should not say to their superior, but Giro continued. "Don't take me wrong, I know the history Drakels and humans have very well, I know of all the blood which has been shed on both sides, more on ours to this day sadly. The people in that town, what are they? Humans. Adventurers. They might have that profession, but most of them are normal, who only learn the common skills of battle and magic. Because of that common state of skills that they have, they are being heavily overwhelmed. If they would all know of the more dangerous of spells, we might have to be dealing with spells which travel faster than what our machines can, spells which will hunt their targets relentlessly. But all that they have, are swords, bows, and spells which either appear to only one targetted area, or travel at straight lines. Mediocre casting, so to speak. But I wonder.. do they have any other tricks in their sleeves?"



Woider was retreating from the outer part of the town to the inner one, as the outer parts were being shattered to bits by now. He was dragging with him that Adventurer from before who had already fainted, apparently really bad with handling blood. Another Guardian appeared, like looking for him, and ran up to him. "It's a mess all around the place, besides those machines circling us, we now got those flying things which are shooting down at us." was what he told, both of them ducked as an explosion nearby collapsed a house. "Tell me something positive for a change, please." Woider said after he began to move forward again, although he had no idea where could he leave the unconscious Adventurer. "The Mages and Wizards have come up with a plan which will help the current situation."

A large group of Mages and Wizards had gathered to what they were using as their center point, the remains of the Guardian Tower. They had joined hands, and were doing their best to synchronize their Mana flow with the others, and cast a single spell as an one entity. A few more minutes passed, and they succeeded in what they were doing. A single protective spell was cast, and from the spot they were standing, a shield made of Magic was forged, and began to spread. It went through physical matter without damaging it or getting disrupted itself, and it did not stop until it had covered their whole town. Energy blasts from the Drakel hit the shield, but were simply extinguished by it. A gunship which had started another attack run the moment the shield was created, had been affected by it, and it's motors had shut down, the ship starting to fall down towards the ground. The pilot inside was frantically trying his best to keep the ship up, and just in time, the engines started again, flames bursting out of it's engines, moving the ship forward, and through the shields effect.

The shield was not a physical one obviously, its simple task was to negate any Magic which was directed towards it. And since Drakels relied in Magiscience, which combined both their scientific knowledge and Mana-weaving, anything created with Magiscience was affected like any other spell. And now that the town had been made safe from their attacks, it was time to think of an offensive, perhaps of Magic-nature because the shield did not negate Magic which was sent from the inside.

They now had a fighting chance against the Drakels and their new machines.

[Black Seraphim Zero]

.

This. Is. Mad.

Way longer than any of the chapters in Jon's or my stories. Scary.

[iceberg]

You should see the final story taking place on this storyline.

It's, by my opinion, the best writing I've done so far. And I've been writing crap for over two years now.

[iceberg]

The sudden appearance of the Magical shield was quickly noticed by both sides, for Drakels, it was that their attacks stopped hitting their targets, instead they were being negated by the shield, and for the people inside the shield, they were now safe from the enemy attacks. The people quickly began to assemble their troops again who had been scattered to safety from the bombardment, and messengers were being sent from one place to another, all with the same question. What should they do now that they were being protected by the shield?



"I was wondering when would they do something like that." Giro said, nodding to himself, rubbing his chin again. "That shield seems to be able to repel our attacks since they are Magical in nature, but as seen by gunship #17, it doesn't seem to effect physical matter going through it." He was referring to the gunship which flew through the shield, and barely restarted it's engines before crashing into the town. "Seems like that shield not only affects our attacks, but it also affects the stream of Mana the Magiscience reactors in the ships are generating. We can't move into the town now, because of that shield negating the engines and weapon systems."

"What are your orders, Commander?" Kur asked, holding his Fartalk near. Giro looked like he was thinking something, but since time was essential in this operation, he did not get too much in his thoughts. "Tell all units to cease fire, and all of the gunships to return, except for one which you can choose yourself. Also, tell the RB launchers to move forward. We had to take the battle to them personally at some point, and that time is now." Kur nodded, and talked into the Fartalk, sending orders to machines which had not yet joined the battle, still unknown to the humans.

Wheels screeched as one by one they moved forwards, as fast as they could. Soon they appeared within the forests protection, heading towards Battleon. They looked like fat metallic caterpillars, their cargo hidden under their protective layers of armor. They did not have feet though, only wheels under the bottom. For whatever grim artistic reason, they had been given a dark color. While the other PW's still circled the town, waiting for further orders, and avoiding of becoming sitting ducks for some Adventurer, the new-comers to the battle did not proceed as far as they had, mainly because they had no real offensive methods, or as much protective armor. Instead they stopped a good distance from the town, and the drivers messaged to the back of the crafts that they were in position, and that everyone should get ready for blastoff.

Someone acknowledged that they had heard the driver, and a few moments later, someone said "Let's roll." It had apparently been funny, for everyone just bursted out laughing, or maybe they thought it would be their last moment to have a good laugh. Something inside the launchers activated, and the first piece of the cargo was pushed forward, and then lifted upwards by a lifting mechanism, a layer of the launcher opening and moving out of the way.

On the top of the launcher had appeared a large black sphere, which began to roll backwards before it latched firmly, for now, onto the launchers track which was in the middle of the machines upper layer. The sphere moved downwards, and a small ramp lifted from the top of the machine. "I hate this part." was the only thing that the new-comers could say, before the sphere suddenly blasted forwards, into the ramp, and high into the air, travelling through the air in the way of cannonballs, right towards Battleon, others soon following it.



"What's that sound?" some Adventurer suddenly asked, hearing slight whistling. Only when he looked upwards, he saw the large cannonball fall towards them, and the only thing he could think of, was to shout for everyone to move out of the way with "MOVE MOVE MOVE!", before leaping to the side himself, just a second before the cannonball landed where he had been, and bouncing forwards from there, through a wall of a building and stopping inside. "Great, they figured they couldn't blast us with science anymore, so they're going all medieval on us." someone muttered loudly, crawling under rubble from the nearby wall. "Yeah, that's our job!" someone commented, searching for the sword he had dropped and was now under the same rubble a few other people were getting under from.



They had been only partly right. The black spheres that had been launched into the town did serve as cannonballs, but they had another purpose, which was more like their main purpose besides levelling down any possible enemy or building which got in their way. "Let's rumble!" someone shouted to their Fartalk, and the "cannonballs" suddenly split in two. More precisely, they had been kicked open from the inside, and as the pieces fell down, two Drakel soldiers jumped to the ground, after getting over the dizzyness that the airflight had caused. They pulled out the guns on their backs, and secured their perimeter, they were trying to keep themselves hidden as long as possible.

Rumble Balls were a new method of moving troops into enemy territory. The insides of the RB's were hollow, and had belts and straps for the soldiers to firmly place themselves in, and of course, a rather comfy and soft large pillow right in front of both soldier, in case the belts or straps would break, they wouldn't be slammed into the metal too hard, saving at least a few broken necks. Each Rumble Ball had been designed so that the soldiers were not in the same side, but in the opposite sides, also on the other edge so that when they would kick the Rumble Ball open, they would not end up kicking eachother but the space next to the other. In case the RB would fall down so that it would be hard to kick open by pure force, it had it's own lifting mechanisms which would pop the halves open and far enough from eachother so that no one would get crushed.



"It's large." said an Adventurer who had gathered around a RB with a few others. Someone placed their hand on it and commented. "It's smooth too!" Suddenly the RB was kicked open, and the people were rather surprised to see a Drakel leap out from the other half which fell backwards, and one of them was crushed under the second half, which's Drakel was quickly getting up. The Drakel pulled out it's gun, and opened fire on the Adventurers, who were so surprised, that he had to shoot them again for them to fall dead.

Around the town, RB's were being kicked open, and Drakel soldiers were either still hiding, but some who had fallen in the middle of Adventurers and Guardians, attacked them without a second thought. They had a mission, and that was to create enough confusion in the enemy ranks for the others to complete what they had to do, and to make sure that that would happen, they were ready to throw their lives away against overwhelming odds, for there had been only about eighty of Drakel soldiers launched into Battleon, which seemed like pure suicide against the thousands of Adventurers they were facing.

In a few minutes, news travelled from person to another. Drakels had managed to invade the town inside those black spheres that first had been thought as nothing but catapult ammunition. The news reached Woider soon as well, but from what he heard, there was no sudden Drakel force of thousands, but only a small number of them. What were they trying to do? "Where are they headed?" he asked from the message deliverer. "They're being pushed back to the center of the town, but we have reported that we have been dealt many losses. Those weapons seem to just melt through armor and flesh."

What are they doing..

Then he thought of something, and it put him to running towards the center of the town. "Dammit, they're going to get rid of our shield!"

The Wizards keeping the shield up were suddenly shaken from their concentration as someone suddenly vanished from the link they had. A Drakel stepped forward between two houses, aiming with the gun he held, and soon, a few others stepped forth near the ruins of the Guardian Tower, and in the next moment, they opened fire on the Wizards who had to concentrate upholding the shield around the city, unable to divert their attention to protecting themselves.

The shield began to fade in and out, which was noticed by everyone, Drakel and human-like. Giro quickly waved to Kur, and ordered for the one gunship to open fire to the ruins of the Guardian Tower, and to speed up the work that the Drakel soldiers currently were doing. Kur passed on the order, and the gunship pulled up, and quickly headed down, opening fire as soon as it got it's aim on the Guardian Tower's ruin, and the Wizards who were still there, thinking of giving up on the shield for a few moments to save their lifes from the attackers. The gunship opened fire, dozens of energyblasts heading towards their target. The shield negated a few of them, but as it faded out, a number of attacks got through, and caused a series of explosions in the Towers ruin, dealing even more damage to the Wizards, many of them perished in the attacks first hits. The gunship pulled up, and spun clockwise in the air a few times, like it was gloating with it's attack.

"That sure didn't last long." someone said out loud about the shield, sounding very annoyed, the rest of his words were being silenced as the Drakel machines began their bombarding again by their Commander's orders.



By the time Woider got to the center of the town, it was already over. Bodies of dead were scattered all over, some in pieces, others with holes burnt to their bodies by the Drakel weaponry. The Drakels.. where were they now? "I see them! I see the-" some Adventurer shouted, pointing in front of him, but was cut short when a thin blue blast pierced through the top of his head, killing him rather instantly. The sound of battle from that direction was suddenly getting new noises, the sound of those weapons that he had heard the Drakels fire before. He really did not know why was he running towards those noises, maybe for revenge, or maybe to capture one of them and get some information about their plan of attack, which had dealt much damage in such a short time. He ran between an narrow alley between houses, and to his left he suddenly saw two Drakels who were slowly backing away from their opponents, guns blazing everytime their trigger was pulled. The Drakel on his side noticed him, and shot a few rounds at his direction, but Woider managed to leap away just in time before the blasts would have cut through him. They were going rather slow, he could run ahead of them and attack from the side, or better yet, from the back.

He got up, and ran forward, and almost crashed into a Drakel who suddenly stepped behind a building. The two met eyes, and at the same moment, the Drakel pointed it's gun towards Woider, who quickly unsheathed his sword, hitting on the gun which was sent flying from the Drakel's hands. There, now he was unarmed. Unarmed, but fast, and wearing rather tough armor. That's what Woider learned as the Drakel threw a left hook to his gut, striking the air from his lungs out, and another punch right on his face, sending Woider stagger backwards. The Drakel spun around, and it's tail swooped through the air, knocking it's opponents legs away under him, which was followed by a quick kick to the chest from the Drakel. Woider lost grip from his sword, but rolled away, and struggled to get on his feet. The Drakel looked rather surprised that he still got up, and seemed even shocked when Woider leaped forward, trying to tackle his opponent. The Drakel was fast though, surprisingly fast wearing all that armor, it just sidestepped, turned, and sank a knee to Woiders gut again while he was mid-air, lowered it's leg to let it's opponent fall down, and kicked one more time, sending Woider right into a wall of a nearby building. He had not expected to fight such a strong enemy, and could only ponder what had that Drakel eaten to get that fast with so much armor before falling unconscious.

The Drakel lowered it's fists, and straightened, looking down on the human who had attacked her. Orders and conversation was blasting through the Fartalk she had, and the orders were rather simple. Retreat. She took a step, but then stopped to look at the human. Rather foolish attacks, but brave. Or maybe just foolish. She knew very well what their plans were however, which helped her make a decision. And that was to grap the human, which she did, lifting unconscious Woider on her shoulders. She then turned where her gun had been sent, but there was a shout, something about "THERE'S ONE!". The human which had shouted that had also noticed the weapon that had fell from her hands, and was busy grapping hold of it. She just ran forward, with the human grapping the gun. "I'll let you taste some of your own medicine!" he shouted, and pointed the gun at the other Drakels who were retreating ahead of him. Suddenly wires spawned from the back of the gun, and dug deep under his skin. The gun was doing testing, data gathered from the bloodsamples it was retrieving, and it's answer was simple.

Not a Drakel.

The Adventurer tried to shake off the gun, but it hanged onto him by the wires, which were digging further into his arm. The weapon was suddenly becoming a lot hotter, and a series of beeps was being let out by it, rapidly increasing in speed which they were let out. "Hey, someone help me with this! Hey! HE-" was what he managed to shout before the weapon's selfdestruct swallowed him in a bright blue explosion, carving a round hole in the ground and surroundings, which included a few barrels, wall of a house, and couple of unfortunate warriors who had been running past him.

The Drakel machinery had suddenly stopped, at least some of them, which were now firing down the path that the Drakels were retreating from, not at them of course, but their surroundings. They were making a rather successful escape, able to keep steady distance from the enemies with their weapons and their range, and the fact that even when a few arrows were being shot at them, they were just deflected by their armor, or caused only small dents.



"The ground troops are currently retreating from the town, and are given cover fire by the PW's." Kur said, another status report done. Everyone knew what was next, but only one person could give the permission to enter the last stage of their attack. Giro had stopped rubbing his chin, and had his hands together, like he was praying, which he was not, he just was there, looking into the Farview, at the town which would soon see an attack like no other.

"Six-point strike is acknowledged to launch immediately." he said, eyes focused onto the Farview's image. Kur opened a new channel in the Fartalk, and gave the permission for the last attack wave.

The Drakel attack squad had gotten out of the town, and was making their way to the PW's, leaping on top of the machine's lowered legs, and sitting down to stay on better. They did not have that much time, and even when the PW's can travel fast, better to be out of the way as soon as possible.

To one of the PW's, ran a Drakel with a human on her shoulders. One of the soldiers who already had gotten on the PW pointed his gun at her and asked "What's that?" with disgust in his voice, like he had seen something ugly. "A warrior." was her simple answer, she lowered Woider from her shoulders and got on the PW herself, placing Woider right next to her. One of the soldiers slammed on the side of the PW, which increased speed, driving straight away from the town. The female Drakel had not taken a fancy on Woider, she had grapped him out of respect as a warrior to another. That, and there would be at least one survivor from Battleon. One to tell the tale of the battle which had taken place here.



Through the sky, through clouds, six Drakel made gunships flew loudly, all possible energy put into the engines to get as much out of them as possible. Under them, had been detached strange black spheres quite like the Rumble Balls from before, except these one's had large spikes pointing out on them. There were five of these, one with each gunship, and the sixth carried what looked a large black dart, a long sharp needle-like extension on the other end, which was to place the dart firmly to place. The gunships began descending, and as they came out of the clouds, they saw the town under them. They knew what they were doing, they could only thank the higher powers that they would not see any faces from this height. For if they would have seen those, they would have haunted them to the end of their lives. The gunships with the spike-balls under them began separating, heading to their own direction, with the last one heading where the Guardian Tower was, the center point of this attack.

It was like a thunderstorm was above the town as the gunships swooped down, ready to drop their cargo. One by one, the spike-balls were released, and they fell down, nailing into place. With their job done, they swooped up, and began flying as far away as possible. There was only one left now, and that was the gunship with the dart under it. It was flying straight down, like a suicide drive, but finally it pulled up, the dart detached and slammed loudly and earthshakingly into the ground. "It's done, all pieces are in place!" the Drakel pilot said onto his Fartalk, which quickly got to both Kur and Giro, the latter shook his head, and said to start the countdown.

The spikeballs suddenly popped off the top of their shells, revealing a rather complicated looking machinery under it. A metallic rod folded out, and began spinning around, before pointing where the dart was. The others did the same, all five were now pointing towards the center point from their own directions. The dart popped off the metallic layer it had, and revealed what looked like mirrors to be attached onto it, all around. Something counted down, five, four, three, two, one. Simultaneously, beams of energy shot out of the metal rods on the spike-balls, all beams aimed right into the darts mirror surface, they cut through whatever happened to be in their way. They did not cut through the mirrors however when they touched, instead, it looked like they were being absorbed right into it. Energy was being stored, actually way past the limits what the dart's machinery had inside, and just like planned, it could not take it any more.

Energy was gathered, and released, creating a gigantic explosion. The heat produced was so intense, that it turned houses, people, and metal into nothing but dust and melted piles. From the dart it quickly expanded, engulfing the spike balls, and going even further from the town, but stopping before reaching the forest where the Drakels had originally attacked from. Thousands of lives had been ended in a single moment, quickly, but not really painlessly.



Moments passed, and a single gunship flew over what remained of the town, looking around. Kur listened to the report of the pilot, and looked at Giro, who had sat down, one hand placed on his forehead, shadowing over his face. He knew what would happen, in the beginning of this mission, it had been nothing but testing out what his creations could do, but now, he himself had ended fates of thousands. Even when others had put the pieces in place, it was him that had given them that order. He was a scientist, not a war-crazy general. "Reports say that there is no movement in the vicinity of the battlefield. What are your orders?"

Giro sighed, and took off his hand, looking into the farview which showed a blackened landscape where a town had once been. "Tell the soldiers to move into the remains of the town, and search for any possible survivors."



"...ow.. my head.." Woider muttered, and was about to get up when he suddenly heard a few loud metallic clicks. "Don't move." said a voice not of humans, and a quick look above him showed at least five Drakels standing around him, guns pointed. "...this is just great."

[iceberg]

The trip back to Battleon, or what was left to it, was more or less eventful. For Woider, it was a trip to some unknown place, a darkened field which he did not recognize, until he saw the small hill which he had first noticed when he first had came to Battleon. They used to put up a scroll on the tree, telling of various things, wars going on in distand lands, or new regions being discovered. But now, the tree was gone, nothing but ashes in the wind, and even the hill had slightly changed during the explosion. It had been flattened a bit, but he still could recognize it.

This had been his home, and now it was gone. All of it, along with everyone he had known, or fought along side with. What was there to do, fall to one's knees and cry? Scream and shout? Both actions would do no good however. For Woider, he just looked around, silent. Something had happened here, something terrible. And anything he would do, or say, would not help him. If there was an answer to this, he would know it, sooner or later. Calmly as ever, he just waited, even when he was surrounded by Drakels, and a scorched land.


For Giro, it had been his first drive on a PW. He was sitting on the edge, Kur near him for the safe side, two other Drakel warriors sitting on their own places. It had been planned for them to go to Battleon, but when Giro had said he would go there on a PW like Kur, he had not been too happy to hear Giro's idea. He had said it would not be proper for their Commander to travel like soldiers, but he had been quite adamant about the issue. "I've always wondered what it was like to take a ride on these."

And so they had been on their way to what was left of Battleon. Giro thought of it as rather refreshing, and surprisingly pleasant of a ride. By the time they got to Battleon, most of the troops under them had already gathered there, securing a perimeter around the area. They were the first to see the results of the six-point attack. And even when it had been humans who had been wiped out, it still silenced even the Drakels. The clean work that the explosion had done had wiped away everything and everyone. It was not the way a warrior should die. Not in such a cowardly manner.

For Giro, it was just what he had expected. The destruction had been everything he had anticipated, if not even more. The PW slowed down as it headed further into the town, through the ring of PW's which had taken formation around the remains of the town. It headed towards a small group of soldiers who had been the duties of searching the area for survivors. One of them walked forward, saluting his leaders who jumped off from the PW which moved backwards, turned, and headed to the outer ring to stand watch. Kur saluted the soldier back, who then lowered his hand. "How was the search?" Giro asked, looking around him, scorched remains of buildings and darktoned ground. "Sir, our search through the area revealed no survivors. Only from the outer areas of the town did we find someone." the soldier said, waving his hand, to point out where they had searched. "So there were survivors?" Kur asked, and the soldier nodded. "Yes sir, three of them. We've already subdued them, and they are being brought here at this moment."


For Gorobei, it had been quite a surreal trip to Battleon. "Seriously. First time we are almost early to the whole war business, and the whole darn town vanishes!"
Some might have recognized him, still wearing that same white and black martial artist outfit, and that black spiky hair which stood high in the air, reached into the sky and laughing at the face of gravity. He was standing where Yulgar's Inn had once been, and he was not alone. Besides him was a woman, wearing your usual Rogue clothing, brown leather and the usual red scarf around her neck. If not for the strange machine with the large darkgreen tube on it on her right hand, and the gray metallic box-shaped machine on her shoulder, she could have been thought of as someone who had just started on the Rogue path, but those starting on that path rarely had the equipment she had with her at the moment. A small breeze swayed both Gorobei's black hair, which still kept it's shape, and her pink hair.

They were no ordinary people, in fact, they might be called extraordinary. Or just outcasts, misfits of society.

BTN was here, and showing the world the first images what had Battleon became. "You're right about that. I think this just proves that we should keep at our usual pace, if we had been here earlier.." Mint said, the camera recording and sending video feedback to their headquorters machines which saved the data being sent, and from there, the data went through editing, and once it was clean, meaning needless things taken out of it, the video was ready to be broadcasted around Lore on the Mana waves that most crystal spheres picked up. But this time, there was no need to edit out anything.

A few moments earlier, they had been walking towards Battleon, camera already recording and Gorobei telling of the possible people watching their broadcast what was going on, and what for was it happening, just like every other time there was a war going on. He had just gotten to the part where the Guardian Tower had been destroyed and Drakels had appeared, when there had been a blinding light, and an explosion unlike anything that he had ever seen before, and for you to know, he had seen his fair share of explosions. The explosion got both him and Mint falling down from surprise, and partially from the shockwave, and when they finally got back up and their feet, the light was gone, but so was the town.

"...Aple.. I think we don't need to edit anything out of this thing." Gorobei said out loud, which got over to BTN, where the tall burly man was keeping a close eye on the screen which was showing the current unedited broadcast. "..yeah, I think you're right." he muttered back as reply, and pressed a few buttons, and what was currently being recorded, was being shown around Lore to those who were watching.

"Welcome viewers, to the end of the world!" Gorobei said out loud, stepping in front of the camera, something turning into dust under his feet. "In a rather big lightshow, the whole darn town is gone! We don't know what exactly happened, but this certainly is a lot better plan than what Drakonnan had so long ago, with the whole raising up a volcano near the town and all. But this, this was rather-" he managed to say before there was a loud explosion caused by a green energy bolt of somekind, which had been aimed behind him. "HOLY-" was all that he managed to say again before there was another explosion which drowned his words, and at that moment, both him and Mint saw it better to lay down on the ground. Before they knew it, armored soldiers were rushing towards them, a few PW's circling around from the back, and already were they being told not to move. Someone ordered them to get up, pointing a weapon of somesort towards them, and another one began telling for them to "turn that machine off", pointing at the camera.

Gorobei muttered something to Mint, who turned off the camera, but who still kept on the inbuilt Fartalk-prototype that the camera had. "So erm.. you come around here often?" Gorobei asked them, but the soldiers did not really want to answer that question. "Move." was their only answer, and that was about all that they could do.


"And so there were three." said the man who had suddenly been grouped together with Woider. "You survived through what happened here?" Woider asked, maybe hoping for them to answer positively. Then others might still be alive somewhere. "Nah, we were on our way here when there was this flash of light, explosion, and then the whole place was gone. Rather surprising, I tell ya that." the black spiky-haired man said, looking around, ash, ash, and more ash, oh, right, soldiers. Dozen or so had surrounded them, escorting them somewhere. "Friends call me Goro, but you can call me Gorobei, by the way." the spiky-haired man said again. "Woider." was his response to the more or less crude introduction. "You know these guys?" Gorobei asked, pointing at the soldiers around them. "Drakels. That's all I know." Woider replied shortly. "Huh. I thought the same, but I've never seen them with this much armor. Or weaponry. Or attitude."

Their escort finally was over, as they were brought over to a group of Drakels, with two which were not equipped with the same kind of armor, one had nothing but a blue robe of some sorts. Maybe their leaders? "So these are the survivors?" said the larger of the two, who certainly did look like a commander of soldiers. "Okay, I give up. Where did you hide the town?" Gorobei asked, and the larger Drakel snorted as reply, tough to say was he amused or not. "Just three.." the blue robed said, sounding a tad sad even. "We're just newcomers." Gorobei said again, pointing at himself and the woman. "So I guess we're out."

"Only he was left of the warriors in the town." said a female Drakel soldier, pointing at Woider. She knew that better than anyone, being the one who had carried him out of the town.

The blue robed Drakel just nodded to that. Only one survivor. Just one out of so many.

"What should we do with them?" one of the soldiers asked. They, meaning the three humans, were guessing for them to be kept prisoners, or maybe killed. The larger Drakel was holding onto something on his ear, then went over to the blue-robed Drakel and said something. "..I see. And they.. they can be left to go. The operations on Lolosia and Krovesport are already on their way, we are to establish a base in here." the blue robed Drakel said, looking at the three humans. "You should go. Tell the others. This was just the first battle of many, and I am only responsible for this one. The others are real warriors, some with a deep hatred to you human-kind. If you could get the message to others of your kin, it might be possible to evade the tragedy which happened in this town."

"If you were responsible for this then, why was the town destroyed? Or how?" Woider asked, Gorobei nodding eagerly, like he was thinking of the same thing. "It would have been the same no matter who had been leading this battle. It was not decided by me, but the people I work for. And the method the town was destroyed.. might as well tell you, as it will do little good. It was an overload to a generator in the middle piece which fell to the town. The energy sent to it could not be stored, so it overflowed, and destroyed the generator, releasing all of the energy within. Devastating, just as you can see."

Woider could not understand too much about what the Drakel had said, but surprisingly, Gorobei understood it rather well. Might be because they got their own Drakel-made generator, although it was by now very oldfashioned. "I got a question, if you have something like this, why didn't you use it before?" Gorobei was to ask this time. The blue robed Drakel looked like he was thinking, but he eventually decided to tell, as it would do little good to the humans.

"Years ago, we managed to gain hold of a machine you call "AssaultMecha". We were astounished by it, the technology used to create it was even more advanced than ours, but we were still able to understand it and how it worked after careful research. We were most interested in the energy source of the machine however, which powered the movement and weapon-systems. It produces an endless amount of energy with no pollution whatsoever as sideproduct. The weapon we confiscated with the machine used the same kind of powersource, so we began examining how they worked. It took us a year to even understand that, but eventually, we managed to create our own version of the powersource, which still worked like the original, but it converted the energy it created to the essence our Magiscience machines operate with. With this new energy source, we were able to build new machines, better than the Power Armors of the past, faster, stronger. You have seen some of them already here, but there are more that have yet been shown, or finished building. We were also able to create better armor for our troops, stronger, more durable and of course, light enough to wear and fight properly, along with new weapons which you also have seen."

"...so, someone accidentally lost their AssaultMecha and BFG, and you got a hold of them?" Mint suddenly asked, looking like something was annoying her. And that something was human stupidity. "More or less.." the Drakel said, thinking back how it actually had been more like theft. It was slightly embarrassing for him to admit, so h just kept it to himself. "I was the head of research on the machine, and I must say, I am amazed how you could build something so advanced when you still rely on such blunt weaponry."

"Commander Giro, the Council would like to talk with you." the larger Drakel said to him. "Yes.. escort them out of here." Giro said, and motioned for a few soldiers to gather around the humans again, which they did, and got them moving again with a few words, and poking with the weapons they still held. "And humans.." Giro suddenly said again, the three turned out more or less simultaneously. "Good luck for your kind."

"Yeah, yeah, same to you." Gorobei said, before turning around again. "Shall we?" he asked from the soldiers around them, and they were on their way again.

The Drakels really did let them just leave, the soldiers had escorted them out of the town, and far from the PW's surrounding the place. "I knew we shouldn't have brought those things back from the future." Gorobei said out loud, scratching his hair. "Nothing but trouble, I tell ya, and now look who was right!"

"So they're going to Lolosia and Krovesport next?" Mint said out loud, sighing. They would have to walk to those places too? "How are we supposed to warn anyone? They might be already attacking for all we know." Woider asked. "Oh, I think we'll soon find out just how many people heard us." Gorobei said slyly, grinning, Mint tapping on the camera that she had been holding on to. Woider looked more or less confused, so they gave him a quick explanation.

Their talk with the Drakels had not gone unheard. Even if not all people bothered to listen to word that BTN sent out, enough had listened to get others to listen as well, and before you knew it, they knew of the Drakels, how they had gotten such deadly new weaponry, and most importantly, the next places that they were going to attack. Even some of the warriors on their way to Battleon had heard their words, and were in for quite a surprise to find out that there was nothing for them to fight for. Or maybe "shock" was a better term.

Both Gorobei and Mint returned to BTN, which resided a bit further from Battleon, because of the fact that they had never really been wanted in the town, which they were now more than glad of. Woider however, felt lost. Where should he go? Granemor? Head over to the Paladin Order and see if there's someone to tell what had happened, and what was going to happen?



Two days later, the Drakels appeared first in Krovesport, and twelve hours later, to Lolosia. The people there had already heard of their plans thanks to BTN, and knew very well that they had literally no chance of fighting against the enemy who had wiped out Battleon, especially Lolosia, which held many of Battleon's townspeople. Even with the boats they had, there was not nearly enough time to ship everyone out, and who knows if the Drakels controlled the seas as well? Those flying machines could just shoot their ships to the bottom of the sea even if they tried to escape.

That day, both Lolosia and Krovesport surrendered to the Drakels, both places claimed as Drakel territory, which together with Battleon now controlled over a large portion of land, and from there on, it would only be growing in size.

The Drakels heard from the people how they had been expecting them to come, and when they asked for details, they got their answer, and attention was shifted to a small building, which was somewhat insignificant, but would prove a great problem to the Drakels and their plans if left alone. The people there apparently had means to get to places, and tell Lore of the Drakels moves with only a few moments of delay, if even that.

They went to BTN next.


The image on the crystal balls formed as usually, but this time, the one in it was someone you did not see so often. It was a small, round pink creature, known only as "Me", if that was even his real name. He was looking more or less nervous, coughed, and straightened up, as much as a round creature can straighten up. "We've confirmed that the Drakels have taken over both Lolosia and Krovesport. Luckily, there was no sign of the same action that destroyed Battleon, and there was little sign of actual battle either. Good for them, I guess?"

There was a loud sound like someone slammed open a door, and Me turned over to the direction of the noise. Someone shouted that "the outer defenses are being breached", which Me replied with an annoyed look on dot-eyed face. "I paid good money for those.. should have asked if they would let upgrade them, I guess."

He then turned back towards the camera, and coughed again, maybe even more nervous than before. "Apparently the Drakels know that we have been leaking out some of their information, and naturally, they are currently at our front yard."

There was a loud explosion, and the camera shook. "OH GOD THEY ARE AT THE DOOR NOW!" someone shouted, and sirens began ringing, red lights appearing from the walls and blinking like mad. Someone shouted something about "RELEASE THE FLOOD! WHERE ARE THOSE darn OCTOPUS!?" before the door was shut, and shouts from the outside were toned down.

"..this has been a BTN broadcast. ...or maybe just TN... Or N... well.. goodbye for now people, and good luck to us all." Me said, and the image faded away.


There have been no more BTN broadcasts after that day. The Drakels moved in fast to their new territory, and began building the places they captured a new, creating their domes around them, an especially large base where Battleon used to stand. The scouts that got us that information, also had enough time to see the place where BTN used to be, and the reports they told was that the building was rather undamaged, but it too had now gotten a dome around them. We are still not sure what happened to the people in the building, but knowing what they had been doing.. hopefully it had been quick and painless. They might have been looked down by some, but they were still warriors of Lore. Insane warriors, but still.

I think it has been half an year now since Battleon was destroyed. Can't even remember the exact date when it happened. From Battleon, I took direction to the Paladin Order, and on my way there I met a group of them who would have been marching straight into Battleon, following the earlier group. I told them what was my name, and the story of what had happened, as they had not heard BTN's words. Woider was my name, and my tale was a crushing one for the morale of our fighters.

I have to admit, the rate the Drakels moved from that day forward was surprisingly slow. First we thought they were just taking their time with conquering Lore, but in reality, they just did not have enough manpower to do so, it took time for them to build new machinery which could move forward, as they were still a bit wary moving their existing forces from their captured posts. But when they did move, they were victorious. They just were too advanced for us at that point, we who still believed a sword being one of the finest pinnacles of warfare.


Then, one day, came forth a man. And he told of something that might turn everything around.

He told that he had figured out a method how to create machines that could rival those that the Drakels had.
Obviously, we listened to him. We listened to him well.

[iceberg]

The end is coming closer. :\ I write too much.



Their orders had been to create a base to Battleon, and that was what they were doing. At the moment, all they had were a few tents up, but they were hoping on the construction elements for the first real building to appear later that week. Their commanding spot had moved from the tent in the forest to Battleon's remains, and there was one thing sure about it. It was boring. That's what Giro had about it. All that was going on in Fartalk, were reports of other commanders troops and vehicles getting to position, there was nothing being told for them to do. He questioned himself however, was it even proper to be bored considering what had happened to the town they currently were planning anew as their base?

As Kur entered the tent, Giro was at the same place where he had been when he had left a hour or so ago, sitting on a chair, staring at the Farview, which currently was showing imagery from Krovesport. "I heard both Krovesport and Lolosia surrendered. Our troops are currently setting up their bases within the city, which is going a lot faster than with us. Must be because they actually have buildings in one piece." Kur said, but Giro gave no real reply, just a grumble. Of course he was glad that there had not been any bloodshed, but he was becoming more and more certain of the fact that he really was no soldier. Invading just didn't seem to work with him.

But whether he was there to witness his creations do their work or not, the blood which was shed would all be on his hands. Kur said a quick apology, as he stepped out of the tent as quickly as he had entered. Something was coming through the Fartalk, and the connection within the tent had not been very well. To the tent, Giro could only hear a few words, most of them being "Yes" or "I understand". Kur entered the tent again, holding his Fartalk in his hands, he was offering it to Giro. "The Council has something to say to you."

"If it's nothing but a few words of praise, I'm not interested." Giro replied, and let out a long sigh. "It's not that, they are announcing a new target to be attacked on, and they want you to assign the attack force to do it."

Giro straightened up slowly, looking at the Fartalk for a few seconds before he grapped it, carefully, and placed it on his ear. "Commander Giro now present. What is it that the Council wishes?"

A voice which belonged to an old Drakel answered Giro. He never had really enjoyed talking with the Council, most of them were nothing but old relics, bittered by their age, which also had given them even more reason to hate humanity. They had seen many things that humans had done to their kind, and although their bodies were old, their memory was all too good to forget those sights. "I heard you succeeded in the destruction of Battleon, with little damage done to your troops as well."

"That is mostly thanks to Kur, he is a good officer, and the troops listen to him well."

"But it was not Kur who devised the means of our victory over Battleon. You have allowed us to strike back at the humans, and what a strike it was. Their most famous town, now nothing but a pile of rubble.. superb. The humans are afraid now, and that fear is what will bring them defeat in battle."

Giro rolled his eyes, this geezer was one of the leaders of a military faction of Drakels, and the loudest out of all of them when it had come to his attention that what Giro had discovered could be used as a weapon.

"In this short time, we have already gained hold of three of their dwellings. Or should I say two intact dwellings?" There was a dry laughter on the other side of the Fartalk, which Giro did not bother to join with. "Now.. let me get to the real issue, problem. It seems that humans were aware of our troops movements to their direction, and thanks to some.. convincing, we were able to find out how did they get such knowledge, in fact, they gained it shortly after the destruction of Battleon. Quite surprising actually, I had no idea that something like it existed."

"What is it?" Giro asked, wondering if it had been found out that he actually let three captured humans go on their way. ...could one of them have been able to tell what they had heard? No, that did not seem possible. Or at least not very likely. "Who are they, is the proper question." the voice on the other side said. "BTN, that is what they call themselves. Apparently, they are a group which spreads various information throughout Lore, and not just by scrolls or letters than most of humans do. These people operate with crystal balls, sending what they know in the form of Mana which the crystal balls can show as image and voice. Of course, seeing how they work seems to be a bit further than your average human, so I took it upon myself to find out a bit more about them. The results were.. surprising, to say at least."

On the other side of the Fartalk, the Drakel took a few pieces of paper, and squinted his eyes, age was slowly getting to his sight, it was no longer what it used to be in his youth. "They have actually been doing business with us. More precisely, one of the factions that research various communication methods. Usually that would not even happened, but there was apparently someone.. non-human, who was doing all the purchases, and all that gold that he was willing to pay them, convinced them to sell some pieces of machinery to them."

"What kind of machinery was that exactly?" Giro asked. "An old machine that was under development, one which would transfer talk and images with Mana waves. The project was canceled however, when we found out even your normal crystal ball could be used to pick up those waves, which did not really please us considering how it was meant to be used in our military operations. They also purchased all the other machines that handle the image and voice transmissions. And finally, they bought an older power generator. I'm amazed they even got it dragged all the way back to their building, as that thing takes a room of it's own simply because of it's size."

"How did they know about that project? They have spies among us or what method did they use to gain that knowledge?"

The Drakel on the other side laughed, not out of amusement though. "They were shown that machine as it what they were asking for. We also have found out, that by their connections to that faction, they used them to gain hold of some old defensive mechanisms. Their contacts said they were purchasing them in case of an attack on their facilities, and gave them over to the humans, for a good sum of gold. We are unsure how many of those mechanisms did they purchase however, as there are no written down documentaries. I'm not surprised however, as that could be considered treason. Good guess is, that they are fully ready to counter any normal offensive done on them. And that is what I am contacting you for. We need an attack force to attack and take them out as soon as possible."

"And that is truly necessary?"

"It is. We are going to move our forces forward when the time comes, and if the humans would be let to keep this source of theirs, there is a chance that they might be able to create a counter-plan, which would cost us troops, and time. This is a far better solution. You are to give orders to the closest attack force to their position, and tell them to launch an immediate assault on them."

"If I might ask, why must I be the one to relay that order? I'm sure they would appreciate it more if it came as a direct order from the Council."

"You are the one who we pointed as the leader of this grand operation. Even if they are equal to you, you are the one who is directly working for us. This is also a good chance for you to establish better relationship with the other leaders. Now, I am already late for other tasks, but I trust to hear good news soon relating to our little problem."

There was a beep in the Fartalk, which told that the other end had disconnected. "Which is it going to be then? Krovesport or Lolosia?" Kur asked, although he was already thinking about Krovesport, it was a bit closer after all. "Neither." Giro suddenly said, and stood up from his chair. "Gather the men, I believe twenty or so should be enough. We will take along us ten PW's, although I doubt we need that many." With that, Giro walked out of the tent, Kur was quick to follow him. "Is that really all right?"

Giro shrugged to that question. "They wanted me to assign an attack force, and we are the closest. I believe those in Krovesport and Lolosia would be more happy if they could keep their troopers there to keep the humans under control. It would be bad if they would start an uprise because the number of troops there would suddenly lower. Now, go."

Kur was already thinking about who to gather. They would need good soldiers on this one, the best they had. They would be fast, go through the defenses, whatever they might be, as fast as possible, and then take out the building. "Oh, and Kur?" was what snapped him out of planning, Giro had turned around and was facing him, a serious look on his face. "What is it?"

"I do not want blood to be shed. No "shoot to kill" this time. The people inside must be captured alive."

"..I have to ask why." Kur said back to what he had been ordered. "Oh.. I have my reasons. Just trust me on this one." was what Giro said before he excused himself, and went on his way, which was tough to say where considering there was no place for him to go in the ruins. Although Kur still was thinking about the orders he had been given, he decided to trust Giro. At least this time.



A quick orientation to the troops, and they were on their way. Those left behind were to keep their base-to-be defended, and to contact them if anything would come up, like an enemy assault or something along those lines. The trip to BTN was not long, neither was the time it took for them to find out what they were against.

When they had gotten the building in sight, a large grey colored building, they had stopped and regrouped, Kur already giving orders how they would carry out their attack, and he was quite adamant when he said they were here to only capture the building, they would have to refrain from using lethal force. PW's were ordered to surround the building, to prevent anyone from escaping. The troopers would go in through the front doors, which were made of glass. All that they would have to do, would to go through the garden which welcomed visitors with it's lovely little flowers. Three PW's moved forwards, the soldiers following them in a good, organized formation.

Even the prettiest of flowers can have the most painful of thorns however. In BTN's gardens wise, it meant of the large cannons which suddenly sprouted from underground, taking aim at the PW's. Kur did not have time to shout out orders to open fire on the cannons, before first one of them finished gathering energy, and attacked. A blue beam came out, and hit it's target, the middle part of a PW. At first it seemed like the armor was repelling the attack, but instead of a hit of energy, it was more like a continuous blast of heat, which in a few moments cut it's way through the armor, and blasted through the other side, vanishing somewhere far from the place it had been shot from as the energy making the beam faded away. The pilot of that PW was quick to escape, leaping into the ground before the PW gave out last beep, and the upper part of it exploded.

Kur cursed out loud, and ordered any PW with the defense cannons on their range to open fire. The other PW's that had been their escorts had not the time to do so, as they were being attacked as well. Beams cut through their armor, and just like with the first PW, the other two's pilots made their quick escapes. "Someone get those darn things!" Kur shouted to his Fartalk, and his ears began to rang when another PW's upper half exploded.



When it comes to BTN, there is one thing to remember. Never think that there's nothing they can't surprise you anymore with. Be it their outer defenses, or their interior design, which was rather masculine for the most part by the way, anything should be expected from them. Like the fact that if you are organizing an assault on them, they are sure to know about it even without sending anyone out of the building. Sure helps to have some cameras hidden in trees. They had even been expecting this to happen eventually, so they had placed those cameras in place. Unless you knew about them, or were paranoid enough to have troops search for them, you couldn't find them.

On the second floor, exists the control room of BTN. Be it water supply, energy guiding, or viewing camera's, it can do it all. One thing it can do, is to spring up the defense network surrounding BTN. In the garden's part, that meant energy cannons. They had cost a lot, and had taken time to place so underground that they could pop up without problem, but they had been worth it. On the building's exterior, those who would try to climb it, would soon find the wall growing out spikes. The roof? Explosives. The whole building was a weapon, as long as there was energy to use it.

"Well well, they're here." was the first thing which was said when the Drakels were approaching the building. They had just gotten to regrouping, and they were getting a warm welcome from BTN. The control room is usually manned by three people. They were tall men, with such bulging muscles that you would think twice before you'd challenge them to an armwrestle match. ..or ask them anything else. The first one was named Aple, his black hair looked a bit like an apple's leaf, and that twig which it hangs from the branch of the tree with. The second, was named Oniun. He had black hair as well, it was pointing out to all directions, which kinda reminded the top of an onion. The third one, he was bald, and he was named Oringe. No one asked why he had hair unlike the other two, but no one really wanted to ask either. It might be one of those things which make something inside people's minds snap.

A speaker in another office, this in the third floor of the building, suddenly began to operate. First it sent out a few soothing melodies, but then the music stopped, and Aple's voice came out. "darn it Oringe, put that music away for one second, please! ..oh, it's on already. I'd just like to inform you, that there is a bunch of Drakels outside the building."

The office belonged to that "non-human" who had been dealing with the Drakels in the past. Purchasing wise. Others usually dealt with them clobbering-wise, just like most of Adventurers. He spinned on the chair he had, which was quite easy since he was a pink ball shaped creature, with two black beady eyes, which were now looking rather annoyed. "Great. Just great. Keep them busy as long as you can. I think I got a broadcast to make."

"Power up the cannons, also, sound an alarm in the building. I think we're getting out of here soon." Aple said as he clicked a button which closed the connection to Me's room's speaker. Oringe and Aple both did as told, Oringe directing power to the cannons which were last used to drive away some angry protestors who were saying BTN's broadcasts were harming the Ethereal Realm's creatures lives by giving them freak headaches, and Oniun began telling of their current situation, and how everyone should remain calm and arm themselves to the teeth with whatever they can find.

They intentionally let the Drakels get closer, as the beams would penetrate through the armor those machines had easier. In theory at least. They were advertised to blast through the thickest of walls in seconds, these machines can't be sturdier than those, right?



The cannon's problem was, that they needed time to cut through a PW's armor. And with there being four of them overall, it meant they could target four PW's at a time, and the further they were, the longer it would take for them to cut through. Pretty soon, they were being destroyed, PW's opening fire on them from a distance, when they were concentrating their fire on other targets. When the last cannon exploded, Kur could only mutter "Finally" and order the troops to enter the building. They climbed over the remains of the PW's, and ran down the paved path the garden had, and right into the building, opening the doors first. Only after doing that did the one who opened them think why did he not just shoot the doors down.

They were really not expecting what happened next. Hatches opened in the roof, and masses of water poured down, heading towards them with such strength that it washed them outside. There was something in the water however. Squids. Dozens of them, and already they were hugging some of the soldiers with more hungry than friendly intention. One of the PW pilots had to step out of the machine, and look closer. He then opened the Fartalk channel to other PW's, and asked a simple question that they all were thinking. "...is that water?" That, and "Are those squids!?"



"They've gotten through the doors, and I don't think the squids will hold them down long." Aple said, Me nodding to the reports he was getting. They were not good, they were surrounded, and what they knew of these Drakels, was that they could take down Battleon on their own. And them being just one building.. it really did not seem too good. "What are our options?" Me asked the three black haired men in the control room. "Well, we could set the Drakel Power Generator to selfdestruct. It would destroy this whole place, and everything in a few miles radius." was the first suggestion.

"Wouldn't that kill us too?"

"Oh right.. there's also the fact that we can't get to the DPG anymore, since the Drakels are already in the first floors vicinity. We can't go downstairs without being followed, and since it takes time to input the commands for the DPG to selfdestruct.."

"We could just run away." was Oringe's suggestion. "And how do we do that?" Me asked, sounding rather sarcastic. "We're surrounded, there's a reason they did that, to keep us from escaping." Oringe shrugged. "Goro said to let him handle that, he had some diversion in his mind."

Me stared at Oringe for a moment. "What kind of diversion?"



The Drakels had not really been expecting for one of the doors to be smashed open when they entered the building again, now walking on water to their knees, and a single person to jump out from the room. Even less to be wearing no real armor, just white and black clothing, spiky black hair swooing back and forth, which you could stab someones eye out with. As he leaped out, he grapped hold of the door, and tore it off it's hinges, then slamming it at a nearby Drakel before rushing over to a second one, dealing a ringing kick to his chest, it's effect went through all the armor that was being worn by the Drakels. He only had one thing to say, well, shout out. "Out of my way underlings!" before Kur made his entry, by tackling the assailant fullforce, flinging him backwards.

He did not go down so easily however, he still kept to his feet, as soon as they touched the ground again that is. He coughed a few times, and swiped his mouth. "I guess you're the boss around here." he said to the large Drakel with it's weapon pointed at him, entering the first floor only a few seconds ago, which still was going through a flood that would require them to rebuild the rooms in that floor again, since most of the stuff down there was not waterproof. "We have you completely surrounded, and offer you a chance to surrender." was Kur's reply. "Heh, I was just about to say the same to you! ...well, besides the "you are surrounded" part." Gorobei replied with, nodding a few times to confirm that he was really being serious. Somewhere above, Me asked "Oh god, he's not going to anger them, right?"

Kur had no chance to say anything back to the human, before he dashed forward with speed that surprised him. Just by reflexes, he pulled on the trigger of his weapon, and ended up missing because the human had ducked, and before he knew it, he jumped up in front of him, and with two quick kicks, he lost the weapon from his hands, and was pushed backwards thanks to a kick to the gut. Kur was not going to go down that easily however, which he proved by swinging down with his left arm at the human, who countered with his own arm, and strength that was rivalling his own. "You're pretty good for a human." Kur muttered, Gorobei sneered at the compliment. "Same to you, but being Drakel and all." was his reply, before they really started their battle.

The first thing that the Drakels outside saw, were the glass doors shattering, not by some object being thrown outside, no, what they saw was a lot more surprising, maybe even astounishing. The doors shattered when Kur was slammed at them, he had not been thrown, someone had grapped him from the waist. Gorobei had managed to throw a lucky punch to disorientate the Drakel for a few moments, and took the opportunity to get the battle to the outside. More room, and if lucky, he could get all the Drakels around the building to come to the area he and this large Drakel were fighting at, and that would give the others a chance to escape.

He frowned as he grapped hold of the Drakel again, now of the collar of his armor and the waist, lifted him above him, and threw him away. He breathed heavily, and shaked his hands. The strain of using them at their maximum capacity had really gotten to them even with just this one throw. That Drakel was heavy.

Kur got up, giving a glare to the human in front of him. He was not like most of the humans he had fought in the battlefield. There was something else to his strength, which was apparently starting to get on his body. Whatever he was doing, obviously had it's cost. "Sir, allow us to help you against that human!" someone said to him over Fartalk, which he had a stern answer to. "No. This is a battle between us two."

Kur began opening the holding straps of his armor, and the parts fell down one by one. Goro was using this as a chance to rest for a while, although he was wondering should he start throwing away his clothes too. Was it some Drakel tradition? But since he was no Drakel, that was one thing answered. The last part of the Drakels upper armor fell down to the ground, and he was now flexing his arms. "Shall we continue?" Kur said loudly, he had no weapons in hand, meaning that it was time to go melee. Just like in the good old times.

"Just one moment, I'm charging my attack." Gorobei replied, although thinking this starting to sound was really cliché.



By the time Giro got to BTN, the garden was empty of all people, only signs of battle were left behind. The PW he had taken the ride with came to a stop, and he leaped down on the ground. A few soldiers followed him, as he made his way through the garden, and carefully into the building. A few soldiers stayed there, keeping an eye on the stairs in case anyone else came down, and one was still knocked out by the door slammed on him. "You have not proceeded from the first floor?" Giro asked one of the soldiers. "No Commander, we have not had any orders to do so to this point." the soldier answered after a quick salute. "They are still within the building?" Giro asked again, meaning the people of BTN. The speaker in the corner suddenly sprung to life, and a voice came out. "If you must know, we have not been able to decide where to run to."

Were these people serious? "Now, as we are feeling generous today, I might advise you to leave the building before we release a strong electric current through the water and fry you." A voice from the background asked if they could even do that, which was quickly answered with "Shut up". "Before you do that, might I say what I have to say?"

"If you are accusing us for stealing your machines, you might as well go outside."



It was not about the Drakel machinery that BTN had obtained. What Giro proposed them, was the chance to surrender, along with a few other "bonuses". After a few quick meetings by BTN's side, they accepted their chance to surrender.

"Now, where is Kur?" Giro then asked from a soldier, who led him to the back of the BTN building.

The battle between Gorobei and Kur had slowly stopped being a battle from Gorobei's part to give others a chance to escape, and from Kur's part, it no longer was a simple battle against an opponent. They were now testing which of them was the stronger warrior, dealing attacks to eachother like there was no tomorrow. By the time Giro got there, Gorobei had managed to fell Kur on the ground, and leaped on him, starting a rapid pummeling, which ended with a kick to his stomach, which pushed him away.

It took a dozen Drakels for each of them just to get them to stop.

[iceberg]

Few more to go.





As Woider entered the part of their cavern home where their newest, and apparently best available weapon was being made. All around people were rushing from place to place, some carrying various pieces of equipment, some tools, others were lifting some heavy metallic pieces that Woider did not know very well what they were for.

It had not been long since he had just been covering in a small town with a group of other Adventurers, just waiting for the Drakels to make their next move. Instead of the Drakels, a messenger had came to the town, searching for people willing to help with their newest trump card. Woider had been one of the three who left with the man, after hearing what someone had invented. It seemed like it could even work, and that was all that they needed to make up their mind. The rest stayed behind, but said that if they really get the thing to actually work, they would join them as well.

Only the messenger knew where the exact location of their destination was, a precaution to lower the chances of the Drakels finding out about what was being built. The journey took long, but they finally made it to their destination, a mountain in the Ballakri Mountainrange. It was like any normal mountain, if you count out the fact that it had a massive cavern system inside it, which held hundreds of people even at the time they first entered it, after a long climb up. They still hadn't made any easier ways to get there, that's what the messenger said and apologized for it. The view was nice though.

The caverns had been turned into a small town, although most of the food being grown were mushrooms. Livestock was rare, apparently they had had one cow earlier, but it got startled of a machine in their construction cavern suddenly exploding, and it had ran right outside, and down the mountain. They were planning on getting more animals later on, but that was not of as dire importance as what they were building.

Woider stopped in front of one of those creations.

"Doesn't look too special." was what he had to say about it. It was an AssaultMecha, but the key difference that made this one so great, were the "wings" attached to it. Actually they were just pieces of metal which had been melted onto it, but the shape they were did vaguely remind of wings. Then there was the large metallic barrel on the back of the machine. "No no no no no! Don't touch that, or the whole thing blows up!" someone suddenly shouted, getting an embarrassed apology, which was followed by a quick set of instructions what they had to do. Woider took off to the direction of the one who had shouted earlier, as he had something to say, and to ask, him anyway.

The man who had came up with these machines was no scholar, or Mage, no, he had been your average blacksmith, although he had more vivid imagination than most of people of his profession. He had been called mad when he had opened up his friends AssaultMecha, and insane when he had began working on it. But those days that he worked on the machine, did pay off. While he had not gotten a full grasp how the machine operated, he knew enough to create something which could take on the skies, just like the Drakels machines did. He was easily noticed from the other people due to his height, being a head higher than most, which combined with his muscular appearance gave the image that he was not someone you wanted to anger. Surprisingly, he was rather calm and friendly person. He had to be, otherwise he would go insane with his assistants making small mistakes here and there all the time. He wasn't sadly much of a teacher, so he usually had to repeat what they had to do many times before they could fully understand it. Or maybe he was just a poor speaker? He leaped down from the AssaultMecha he was on, and landed on his feet on the dusty cavern floor. His long brown hair had been tied to a ponytail, which helped it from getting singed too much. That happened, which was noticed by the dirt he had on his bare upper body, and on the green cotton pants he wore.

"Busy as always?" was the first thing he heard being asked after landing down. It was one of those new people, who had asked to meet him before. "Yeah, there's a lot of work to be done, and I still have to check every finished one so that we haven't made any mista- HEY!" the blacksmith answered, and as he shouted, he pointed in front of him, where a few people were attaching one of the wings to the side of an AssaultMecha. "Don't stand on the wing or it'll-" was what he managed to continue shouting, before the wing loudly snapped from the place it had been attached to the side of the machine, and fell to the ground. "Do just that.." the blacksmith muttered again, scratching the back of his head, muttering a few selected words at the builders around here. The people began lifting the wing back up, embarrassed but now full of confidence that they could do this machine right, as long as they did not do their mistakes again. The one who had been standing on the wing earlier was now sitting on the edge of the AssaultMecha, and as the wing touched the machine again, he casted his spell, creating a very precise beam of Fire from one hand which began melting the metal the wing was made of, and a small beam of ice which cooled down and hardened the melted metal. Soon he would have to jump down and melt the wing into the machine from below as well.

"What is it that you want?" the blacksmith asked as he went over to a finished AssaultMecha, inspecting it closely, Woider right behind him. "I just had a few questions." The blacksmith pounded on the side of the AssaultMecha a few times, and nodded as an approval to it. "Well, what is it?" he asked, but again he did not stay still, there were more machines for him to check on. "Can these things really match to the flying machines that the Drakel have?" Woider asked, following the blacksmith relentlessly. "I'm pretty sure." was his answer. "You don't know?"

The blacksmith turned around quickly. "We haven't done any actual battle with these, only a few test flights. But I am rather confident in them." he said, and turned around again, almost bumping his head into a wing of an AssaultMecha. He muttered, and went below the wing to check on things. "I've seen what their flying machines can do, and this change of yours to the AssaultMecha's from landwalkers to fliers does not really convince me." The blacksmith stopped his work for the first time, and turned around. "You're from Battleon then?" he asked. "I was there from the day they first attacked to when they destroyed it." Woider replied. The blacksmith was quiet for a few seconds, before he went back to work. "I didn't know there were any survivors from the actual battle."

"Apparently I was the only one." Woider replied. It had been a while now when that happened, but he still remembered it like it was yesterday. He guessed it was true when they said that you remember bad things better than good things. "Lucky you then. Whatever your name is." the blacksmith said and got back up from under the AssaultMecha's wing, going to the other side. "Woider." The blacksmith ducked under another wing, looking closely at the point where the wing was connected to the AssaultMecha. "Pleasure to meet you then, Woider. The name's Ellay."

Before Woider could say anything, Ellay said not to mention that the name sounded rather feminine. Woider did not mention about it after all. "How did you even come up with this idea?" was his next question. "Well, I randomly tune in to the things that BTN send out. Lucky that I happened to tune in that day, and to put it simply, after hearing that the Drakels built all their machines based on what was inside our AssaultMechas, I figured why couldn't we just change the machine itself to make something what they have? Took me quite a while to figure out the basics how this works, but thanks to the time spent, I was able to create the first AssaultMecha which can fly. It required some rewiring though, but luckily, one of the people around had an old Drakel Power Armor they had bought a long time ago but never bothered to use. I borrowed a few pieces from it when I needed to, and got the thing up and going. The insides are not that different, although when you compare a DPA with this thing, this is years ahead, which isn't surprising considering how far from the future it comes from. Climb up, there's more." Ellay said after finishing his long explanation, which was not still done. Woider followed Ellay, who opened the hatch on the AssaultMecha, and jumped on the seat inside. "This was one of the hardest tasks. The energysource that the Drakels loaned, could obviously be used to keep things airborne, but I had no good idea how to do it, in the beginning at least. I couldn't figure out a way to direct the energy so that the machine could move with it. Then one day, I thought of one way that I wanted to try out, so I disassembled the DPA's cannon. Maybe it was just luck, but that helped me get over this one last problem. The DPA's cannon releases blasts of energy, so I decided to use them in the building of the new AssaultMecha. I put the engine, thats the thing behind us, to place, and put up some rewiring in the machine. I couldn't make anything new, so I did some examining with the plasma cannon that the machine has, and after I figured out what led energy there, I just rerouted it to go into the engine instead when the plasma cannon is activated. And it worked! The DPA's parts did just what they were supposed to, and they turned the energy directed into them as a force which propels the machine forward. Or something like that. It works, that's the main point."

"But you can't use the plasma cannon?" Woider asked, after listening to all the explanation. "No, and you wouldn't really appreciate it that much when you are flying this thing in combat. The other weapons make up for it, and are a lot faster anyway. Want to give it a try?" Ellay said, turning around to Woider, who was already thinking about it. "Sure." The two switched places, and Woider sat down to the seat of the AssaultMecha. He had never owned one, so he did not know what it was even like. And if this thing would work like it was supposed to, then he would be driving it to battle as soon as possible. Assuming they needed people to handle the machines. Ellay suddenly leaned into the machine, pointing at the control panel, which had it's fair share of buttons and screens with information running through them, which Woider did not understand at all. "The lasers work on the little buttons on the controls, they're right under your index finger, so that shoots that. Missiles are fired with your thumbs, they go straight forward by the way. The big button in front of the controls is the plasma cannon, but in this case, it's the ignition for the machine. I'll tell everyone to get out of the way for you, so if you are going to do a quick fly around, do it only after you see me giving you the thumbs up."

"..okay." was all that Woider could say, which Ellay did not even hear as he had already closed the hatch of the AssaultMecha and jumped off, telling people to clear the area for a testrun. Woider looked through the buttons and screens, and wondered if it really was okay for him to do this. Oh well, what's the worst that could happen? Well, he could crash into the walls of the cavern, which might collapse as a result. Better not to think about it. He grapped the controls with both hands, and after a moment, he saw Ellay walk past him ahead, with one thumb up. Woider clicked on the button on the control panel, and immediately grapped hold of the controls, waiting to blast forwards. It did not exactly happen like that, but there was a roaring sound behind him. That had to be the engine, as the machine began to slowly move forward. The legs dragged on the ground, but it was moving by the force behind it propelling it forwards. "Well I'll be damned, it works." Woider muttered, but at that moment, he thought of something that Ellay had failed to mention.

How was he supposed to stop the engine? He was still moving forward, already imagining crashing into the cavern's walls. He thought quickly, but the only thing on his mind was to push the plasma cannon button again, which he did. The roar behind him slowly started to fade away, and he stopped moving. He let go of the controls, letting out a long heavy sigh. He should have thought of that before he started the machine. The hatch opened, Ellay standing on top of the machine, smiling widely. "You still doubt me?"

Woider crawled out of the machine, and was greeted by applauds and cheers of the people around. Their work had not been for nothing after all. As he jumped down, he noticed a few people walk closer to him and Ellay, Guardians from their armor, which was quite true. "I have to admit, I had my doubts about your creation, but now that I've seen it move myself, I believe it will be of great use to us." said the first man, with slick looking black hair which was combed backwards. "Thank you, I'm glad it works as well. It's still not perfect though, and a few things need fixing, but we're getting there."

"Now then, Woider was your name, am I right?" the black haired man said suddenly to him. "Yes, that's me." was all that Woider could reply with. "My name is Joakim, and I am here for some.. business with you." the black haired man said, a rather forced-looking smile on his face. "What business might you have with me?" Woider asked, and Joakim was more than happy to answer that. "We are going to war."

Joakim led Woider to another part in the caverns, this one was being used as a war room like they had had in the Guardian Tower when it still remained in one piece. Maps were scattered on tables, and on a few flat rocks as well, and people, both Guardians and Adventurers, were talking about something. "This is where we will be doing our work, to drive the Drakels back where they are supposed to be, in those cities of theirs." Joakim said with pride in his voice. "And as soon as those AssaultMecha's are complete, we will throw our first attack on them. This all has been kept most secret, only people who actually decide to join are led here, and to keep possible spies useless, you cannot leave after entering, without official permission, which you need a good reason to get."

"What if someone was spying on the messenger on his or her way back here?" Woider asked, it was tough to keep something fully a secret in this world. Joakim looked surprised, maybe even bothered that he was thinking of such a thing happening. "Surely that would not occur." was what he said, before he turned to the table near him, taking a few maps in his hands, asking Woider to come closer.

"Recently, we found out that the Drakels have taken control of the Isle de Oriens. Surprising, considering how far it is from their other bases, but that Isle holds a good base for military, and of course, it contains a lot of knowledge of Lore's past. They are again trying to shake our faith by taking that knowledge away from us. But, we can change this situation around!" Joakim said, taking out a drawing of the AssaultMecha that Ellay had done once. It had many details of the machine's new additions and how they all worked, but it still said there were some things that needed solving. "The Drakels are not expecting us to attack from the air like they have, how could they anyway? We will be launching twenty of our AssaultMechas to take aim at the Isle, and eliminate the Drakel forces in there. The Isle is a perfect place for us to land in anyway, because of it's location also partially being within the Ethereal Realm. It might take some time to figure out, but I believe we can deal good surprise attacks by having our troops move within the Ethereal Realm, and opening a path from there to our realm, and attacking unsuspecting Drakel forces."

"That does sound good.. but how are you going to eliminate the Drakels? I hope you are not just going to shoot a load of missiles at the Isle, since that could destroy everything in there." Woider commented, which seemed to annoy Joakim. He did not like this man, he was asking too many questions, doubting the plan that HE had made. "Since the Isle is in the sky, there are only those Drakel flying machines in there which they used to conquer that place. How could they get anything else up there anyway? We will lure their ships out of there, and shoot them all down. Then, our machines will land into the Isle and our people will search and kill every last Drakel that might have stayed behind." Woider just nodded to the plan that the man was telling. "Would you like to take a part of this battle as well? I'm sure I could get you an AssaultMecha." Joakim suddenly said. "No, I think I'll stay right here." The answer slightly annoyed Joakim again, did this man not care for gaining back the respect that their race had before the Drakels started this new war? "Well, then you might be able to help us with your knowledge about the Drakel warmachines, and their warriors new weapons, how they handle in battle, what we should be aware of.. everything that you know."

Woider agreed, as he noticed that strange look on Joakim's eyes. It was not friendly at all, it seemed better to just act good for him for now. He began telling of the battle he had been in with the Drakels, and the more he told, the more Joakim asked questions, and the more other people were writing down, related to different Drakel machines, or just what strategy they had moved in with.



It took Ellay and his crew two weeks to prepare twenty AssaultMechas to such state that they could be used in combat like they were heading to. One of their problems had been that they had not figured out a way to get the machine to turn, but then one man had a crazy idea. Parts of the wings could move up or down, and that would move the machine to different directions, left or right, up or down. It seemed crazy enough to work, and as they tested it with one AssaultMecha, it did work. The vehicle did lift off thanks to jumping up with the jets it had, and it flew out of the caverns entrance where it had been brought for a test run. People were cheering and applauding even louder than the last test run, seeing their creation fly around, turn from side to side, and finally return to them. They were good to go now, although there was one last thing to add.

Ellay was in the warroom, and had laid down a large grey sphere which was on a small pedestal. "I asked one of the Wizards help me with this. This, is a Wind Orb. I was thinking about how are our people supposed to talk between eachother when they are flying, so I came up with this system. With this Orb's power, we created smaller one's, which we placed into the AssaultMechas. Whenever people inside talk, the talk gets carried to other AssaultMechas Wind Orbs. This way they can help eachother better while in combat, telling where the enemy are and things like that. They are all connected to this one as well, so we are able to hear what they are doing at the moment too, keeping us up-to-date on where they are."

"Genius. That's what you are." Joakim said, giving a few pats on Ellay's back. "I believe everyone is ready to go then?" he then asked. "We got pilots for each AssaultMecha, they all know what they are doing."

"Excellent, gentleman, our moment of great justice is soon at hand." Joakim said, a confident smile on his face.



The launch of the AssaultMecha's was early in the morning, before the sun had even risen up. It would take two or three hours before they could even reach the Isle with the speed the AssaultMechas went. Woider was there to send them off, but there was something he noticed. Most of the pilots were quite young, not even twenty years of age. Kids who wanted to be heroes? This was not some normal battle, he hoped they knew that. They were going against enemies who only had to shoot their wings off, and they would be done with. It was not a battle of swords and bows anymore. No matter how strong you were, if your machine would be shot down, you would die. Rather depressing, and obvious really.

The first AssaultMecha activated it's jumping jets, and leaped forward, the engines blasting out an orange flame, which moved the machine out of the cavern, and flying into the air outside.

"Good luck, heroes." Woider muttered, watching the machines leave, one by one.

[iceberg]

I just watched 24th ep of Gurren Lagann.
Hot darn.










After the takeoff, the transmissions between the AssaultMecha's was mostly light chatter between the people flying them. They still had time to go, and talking nothing but trash seemed like a good way to spend that time. It was quite annoying that they were all linked to eachother, so what you said to one person, everyone could hear, but after a while of a massive shoutdown contest, they decided to give turns to eachother, then they wouldn't have to fight over their right to talk like little children.

Their attack force had now taken more of a formation instead of flying forward in one huge mass, both sides had a group of five AssaultMechas, and between them were the other ten. Their current strategy was that the five AM's from both sides would attack from those directions, while the middle one's would take care of whatever would be left. Simple plan, but sometimes simple was the way to go.

"I bet they're gonna be SO surprised when they see us with these!" That sentence marked the beginning of another discussion, sparked from the left group of AM's, the one most left to be exact. "I'm not surprised, I still can't really believe that these hunks of junks can fly." was the reply from the middle-group. "Speaking of believe.. hey Mugi!"

Mugi was on the far-right, a red scarf on his head to hold down his hair. "What?"

"I heard you put on your lucky scarf for this thing." The voice of the talker sounded like he was having fun with this topic. "You know what they say, you gotta do what you gotta do. In my case, that means to bring some luck to this whole thing." Mugi replied, it was known between his friends that he was fond of that scarf, and seriously believed that it brought good luck. He had fought many enemies that scarf on his head, and he always won unharmed. "You could have just left that back there, because we got something better than luck, we got the best darn warmachines Lore has ever seen!" the voice again shouted out, with a few "Whoo!" shouts, which a few people joined on. Most people were amused by the child-like excitement that was been expressed, but not all. "Would you keep quiet with that nonsense?" was one of the latter's reply. He was the oldest one of the group, fifty years of experience in the art of battle had made him a tough man, who now was wishing that he would have some hair left, but not all things could be gained by wishing. "Can't we have a little fun?"

The old man frowned at the reply, he had expected an apology. Scarlet was his name, although the red hair which had gotten him that name was now gone, a warriors spirit still burned within him. And from time to time, that spirit bursted out when he started getting annoyed. "You can have your fun later, this is not time for laughs and giggles." He managed to say that rather calmly, but he soon regretted that choice. "I don't even know why they let you on this mission, old man. You might have a heartattack the moment the fight starts."

Before Scarlet could snap back at the young man talking, someone else did it for him. "Reco, shut up." Mugi said sternly, annoyed by his friends attitude. "Scarlet is right, we shouldn't take this too lightly. This isn't some hunt on Zards, this is war. If you don't act serious once we get to the Isle, you'll most likely end up dead."

Reco sneered, he had hoped that Scarlet would have been the one to reply, but since it was Mugi.. "Fine, I'll stop, are you happy now?" Scarlet's answer was obvious. "Most glad."

Thanks to the AssaultMecha's speed, they were able to travel the distance between their base and the Isle in rather short time. Thanks to Ellay doing some last minute adjustments, they were teached how to decrease the engine's speed output, which at the moment was rather useless though. They had been going forward fullblast from the beginning, although they had had to circle around Battleon from quite a distance, and ended up going between that and Krovesport. "Haze here. Just to let everyone know, I think I see land in front of us."

Haze was nothing more than a nickname for her, which she had gotten from her "hazy" attitude and behaviour, whatever they meant with that again. Apparently she was tough to see through first, but as time passes, things would clear up. But this was not the time to think about how she acts, from the distance, land was coming closer and closer. "Right, everyone get ready, do a check on your AssaultMecha and see that everything is working like it should. You won't have that chance soon, and you don't want to find out that your weapons aren't working when the Drakels are coming at us." The one to give out those commands was Scarlet, who was pleased to notice that everyone was doing just what had been said, even that punk of a Reco. Even if he was an old geezer compared to them, he had a lot more experience, although not from a battle which they were going in at the moment, but it still helped to be able to give out orders and sound confident enough for others to follow those orders.

Everyone had finished their system check a good time before they got over the land where their target was floating above. Just a small distance more to the Crater, and high above that, was the Isle. "This is Scarlet, can you hear me back there in the base?" It was about time to let the people back there know where exactly they were going, surely they were getting tired of all the chitchat.

A lot of people had gathered in the warroom, Joakim, Ellay and Woider one of them. "Yes, we can hear you clearly. Where are you right now?" Joakim replied, which took a few seconds to get to Scarlet and the rest, just like their replies back to the base took the same amount of time. "We are getting closer to the Crator, and shortly after we will enter the Isle and the Ethereal Realm." was what the Wind Orb back in their base replied to him, which was nothing but his plan getting followed through. "Good, good, just like planned. Best of luck to all of you. Show those Drakels a thing or two for me as well." Joakim said back, the last part actually gave only amusement to the attack force. If Joakim had really wanted to show the Drakels a "thing or two", he would have been one to join the attack, not stay back in the base huddled up in the middle of maps, scrolls and most importantly, safe within all that rock. "Sure can, boss." Reco replied, and that was deemed a reply fitting to close the conversation, even by Scarlet.

Minutes passed, and everyone was already counting down until the next part of their plan, which was to enter the space where the Isle resided, meaning the Ethereal Realm. The Wizard who had made their communication method had also said that because of the Ethereal Realm is another dimension next to the one they usually were, it would take a few more seconds before their talk would reach the base, or the other way around, due to the sudden change of "distance" between the two places. It is not easy transmitting something from one dimension to another, apparently. So, the moment they would reach the Ethereal Realm, they would become a step or two further from their base. It would not matter much for them, but if they had some urgent order to tell them, it might arrive a moment too late. Hopefully that would not happen.

Reco was all hopped up in his AssaultMecha, he could not wait to see what the Drakels would do when they would notice them suddenly appear with their new shiny machines. The Isle was not a large place, and from that Woider guy had told, there would be room for two, maybe three of the Drakel flyingmachines at best. And they would need time to launch from the Isle and attack them, who were a lot more numerous. It would be a piece of cake, kinda sad since it would be over so fast, but a victory is a victory, no matter how small or easily gained it was.

"Okay people, this is it." Mugi said as he pulled up with his AssaultMecha, towards the Isle. "Side-groups, go from your direction as planned, middle one's, you know what you're supposed to do." he continued, which was pretty much a summed up, although a tad vague, explanation of what they were going to do. They did just that, and broke off their formation, flying towards the Isle. "Any second now.." Reco muttered, his fingers already set to fire his lasers in a moment's notice. It was at that point where he noticed something odd. Something was floating in the air, and it was not just the Isle. Something was floating even higher than it was. "Hey guys, what's that up there?"



"Captain, we have identified a large number of flying targets approaching the Isle." The Captain woke up from his small nap, quickly shaking off any signs of resting from his face, which worked only partially, mostly because of his drowsy reply. "Dragons?" His assistant shook his head, pondering how to explain. "They seem to be some sort of flying machines, but their appearance makes me believe they are humanbuilt." The Captain's eyes narrowed a bit, and he leaned forward on the large chair he was sitting on. Machines on both of his sides, and in front of him, were either used to keep their ship airborne, or to monitor various things around them, one being the world below them. And above, sometimes Bloatt's liked to descend on their ship, for whatever the reason they had. Maybe they thought it was a large female of their species? But since that seemed such a disturbing chance, no one really liked to think about it. "Show me." the Captain said, and with a press of a button from one of the people monitoring the machines on his side, a cloud suddenly appeared, first it was nothing but mist, but then it formed to show image from the world below them. The image was aimed right at the intruders of their airspace, and if there was one thing the Captain had to say about them, they were ugly. Those things should have never been let to stain the skies with their gruesome bodies. The Captain stood up from his chair, his tail swinging from side to side, like a dog's would when they were happy. Another bad habit of the Captain, it always made him look less serious than he was. The clothing he wore was a black robe, three yellow stripes on both shoulders, marking him a Captain of one of the Drakel's greatest creations when it came to the art of war. "Sound the alarm, I want all gunships out within a minute! I will not allow our skies to be dirtied by those intruders."

The crew's chatter came to a quick halt as the alarm was sounded, first by a ringing noise, which was followed by a voice telling them what was happening. "Emergency, enemy aircraft's approaching, all pilots are to enter the launching bay immediately, sixty seconds to first launch. I repeat.." The repeat was not necessary however, as all pilots had already given up on their earlier business, eating, or playing card games, and were heading to the launching bay of the ship.

The ship which Reco had spotted, was the first built Drakel Carrier. Unlike the gunships, the ship did not rely on the engines to move, it's energy was being used to keep the ship still in midair, by a large number of smaller engines on the bottom of the ship. The generator was constantly pumping out so much power, that it was deemed unsafe to install weapons into the ship itself, it had to rely on it's other defenses when, or if, attacked by enemies.

The launching bay was right below the crew quorters, stairs leading to metallic stairways, one on each side of the ship, with six gunships waiting for their pilots, who already were running towards their own, a few of the pilots had time to wish "good hunting" on others, getting to their vehicles which were waiting further from the end of the stairs, the pilots had no choice but to jump on to their ships, and then climb in. A few buttons were needed to be pressed, and the hatch, which slid forwards when opened, closed backwards, sealing the pilot inside until later command was input to open the hatch. "All gunships are on stand-by to launch." said the Captain's assistant, those words were like the greatest to praise to the commander of the craft. "Excellent, and a few seconds to spare! Open the hatches, all gunships are to be launched at this instant!"

From the bottom of the ship, metal split in two as it moved aside, creating room for the gunship which was right above the exit. The gunships were being held still by metallic locks which had connected to the bottom of the ships, which now moved, and the gunship was suddenly pointing downwards, not at the wall where it had been pointing before. The locks opened, one at a time, and just like that, one gunship after another fell down, out of the Carrier, and started their engines right after. The enemies currently had the advantage in numbers however, as there were only twelve gunships in the Carrier. The Fartalks in the gunships activated on their own, a transmission from the Carrier, and from the Captain himself, was being sent. "It has been a while since we were last in combat. This time the enemy numbers are twenty, they have changed their course from the Isle to ours a moment ago, and their identity is not fully certain at this point. Your orders are to eliminate this threat, and to keep the Isle safe. The battle must be taken away from the Isle at any cost. With those things said, you are hereby granted permission to engage the enemy." Even before the Captain had said those last words, a few gunships had already opened their gunports, and started to powerup their weapons. He would have ordered it anyway. Unlike the Captain, the leader of the gunship squadron did not use as much words. "Fire!"

Blasts of crackling green energy were spat out by the cannons of the gunships, which then broke off to their own direction, the enemy had to be lured away from the Isle.



They did not even have to see the new ships up close to figure out that they were Drakels. Who else could build something which could float in the air, and spawn smaller ships out of it? The green flashes from the enemies direction told that they were hostile, which was perfect. They were pretty hostile as well. "Heads up people, we are being shot at!" Mugi shouted out, pulling up to evade the coming barrage of blasts. "What about the Isle?" Reco asked, following Mugi's example of evading. "Forget the Isle for now, the Drakels aren't in there, they're up here!"

Back in the base, Joakim gave Woider an accusing look. "That Drakel did say that there were more machines than which were present in their attack to Battleon. I guess that's one of them." was all that Woider could say, ending it with a shrug. "This is good in it's own way however. If the Drakels are not in the Isle, then it will be easier to get rid of them, just shoot them all out of the sky." Joakim said before starting to shout out his rather obvious orders. I wonder.. Woider thought to himself, would it really be that easy?

"Chase after them, from the looks of it we outnumber them!" Mugi shouted to his Wind Orb again, turning his AssaultMecha towards one of the Drakel ships, chasing after it. "We take these down, the Isle is ours." There were a few confirmations to Mugi, and after that, came the flood of voices, people telling which enemy they were going after, and who should get that one since there were more than one after it. In a few moments, the battle had turned a lot messier than anyone hoped. The Drakel ships were now heading towards them as well, challenging them head-on. Well, they would soon learn that even humans can build things that rival the enemys.



In a few seconds, both sides entered the same area to do battle in. Now that the enemy were in the range that their lasers could do their maximum damage, the AssaultMecha's retaliated on the Drakel's fire, and it proved to be quite effective. Two Drakel ships were hit, the first exploded, while the other one got it's right wing cut off, before it exploded as well, it's energysource had been hit. But on the same time, three AssaultMechas were lost in the fire that the Drakel ships opened, and a fourth one met it's end when the cut wing smashed through the cockpit's window, crushing the man piloting it. While that fourth AssaultMecha began falling down towards the ground, the rest started their relentless chase on the Drakels. They could be defeated, they had a chance to do so. Reco was more than glad for it, chasing after a gunship, which was being rather annoying, it was moving too much for him to hit. Shot after shot, the beams that his AssaultMecha fired just were not hitting. "Come on, stay still dammit!" he shouted out angered, and like an answer to his prayers, he did hit the gunship, which exploded in a fireball. A quick yell of victory, and he turned around. "I got one, I got one!" He had no intention to stop, as he went after another Drakel which already was being chased, by two AssaultMechas, who were shooting like it was a competition of who hits the target first. Reco joined the game eagerly, shooting twice as much.

[iceberg]

That's where the troubles began. At first, it was the noise of his engine. It had toned down a bit. Then his machine began to shake. "..I think I got a problem." Reco said to his Wind Orb. Back in the base, it first seemed like nothing, maybe someone had gotten into a bad situation with more Drakels than they could handle. He tried shooting at the Drakel again, but nothing happened. "My guns stopped working."



This time, the base got worried. "Can you get them to work again?" Joakim asked carefully. "How am I supposed to do tha- okay, there's this beeping noise now. ..I think I smell something. Something burn-" The voice was cut by a sound of something exploding. "Woah, what the- Something in the back just exploded an- Fire! The whole darn inside is catching on fir- oh god, help me, it burns! IT BUR-" With that, ended that particular AssaultMecha's transmission. Those in the battle suddenly saw one AssaultMecha explode, even when it had not even been shot at by the Drakels. Soon after, two other people told that their weapons were acting strange, one's guns had stopped working completely, while the other said at times only one of the guns shot, so he kept at it, which ended as his AssaultMecha exploded as well. Seconds later, the other one had the same fate.

"What is happening to them?" Joakim suddenly shouted, turning over to Ellay, who looked both worried, and afraid. Had he failed with something? It had to be, something was not right. They shouldn't explode like that. "I.. don't know." was all that Ellay could say from the middle of biting his finger nails. What was going on, what was causing this? He had to figure out that soon before others would die.

Another AssaultMecha was destroyed, this one by a Drakel however, which went straight past Mugi's AssaultMecha. If he had been more focused, he might had been able to shoot that Drakel to pieces, but the mess which was their communication system was not helping on concentration. "Dammit." He just muttered, and turned to take chase on that particular Drakel. The tide of the battle was quickly turning over to the Drakels, as one after another began noticing problems with their AssaultMecha's, with the weaponry starting to malfunction. They were left in the air, weaponless, left to die either by their machine suddenly exploding, or a Drakel shooting them down.

"..I might know what's the problem." Ellay suddenly said, which at this point did not seem all that helpful. "Explain, but quickly." Joakim snapped at him, staring at the Wind Orb which was now spitting out desperation instead of talk of victory. "The way we set up the AssaultMecha's to fly was that we hooked the energysource through a piece of Drakel machinery, which converts the energy as what moves the machine forward in the air. Since we couldn't figure out how to make new setting for power direction, we just replaced the plasma cannon power to power the engine." After a few seconds, Ellay figured out none of the people staring at him would say for him to continue. "For the machine to fly, the plasma cannon needs to always be directed power at. Previously, we haven't had any problem, because the energysource generates a huge amount of energy all the time, which is enough to keep the ship flying at all times. The problem comes when we start directing more of the power to other systems, in this case, the lasers." The puppet theatrics Ellay was doing while explaining did not help much. "The energysource can't take it?" was the guess Woider threw, which was confirmed by Ellay's nod. "It's not generating enough energy to handle both the plasma cannons power, and the lasers power. It begins to break, and when it falls apart, the energy that they still have within them, is released in an explosion."

Woider had heard enough. He turned over to Joakim, who was still staring at the Wind Orb, listening to what was happening. "Tell them to retreat, before it's too late." Joakim did not even blink. "Not yet.." he answered, hissing out in his own silent fury. "If you wait any longer, there won't be anyone left." Woider said again, and was taken back when Joakim turned and stood up to all his height and might, a gleam of dying hope in his eyes. "I told you not yet!" he said again, screaming this time. His great plan was failing. Someone had to do something, and that someone just had to be Woider, who leaned over to the Wind Orb and began to struggle not to get pulled back by Joakim who was pulling him away, before other people in the warroom detained him. He was shouting out curses and screams at Woider, and everyone holding him down. "Change of orders, retreat as fast as you can!" Woider managed to say, but to the one's fighting, it was easier said than done.

The Drakel machines were fast, maybe even faster than their were. So even if they would run, they would be catched. Something had to be done, a diversion. Mugi gave up chasing the Drakel he had been chasing for the past minute, his mind set on giving others a chance to get away. He couldn't do it alone though. "Haze!" he shouted out to the Wind Orb. "I'm still here." she replied, a small relief for Mugi. "How's your machine?" he asked, checking his own that the secondary weapons had not been damaged or disabled. "Still working fine, good thing I didn't bother shooting that much." was Haze's answer. "So, what's your plan? You again have that tone of voice." He managed to chuckle, before setting his sight up high. "We're going after the large one." She said something, but it was drowned under the other people using their Wind Orbs. Only three words got through. "Lead the way."

"My pleasure." Mugi said, and his AssaultMecha blasted off towards the Drakel Carrier, another AssaultMecha doing the same a moment later. If they had been lucky, they would not be followed. Sadly luck was not with them this time, as two Drakel gunships turned their attention to them, in full intention to shoot them down before they could get away. "What do you have planned exactly? It's not a suicide run, right?" Haze suddenly decided to ask. "We'll shoot our missiles at that large ship, if all goes like I expect to, they'll come after us to prevent us from doing further damage, giving the rest a chance to run away." The plan was not perfect, but it was the best he could think of at the moment. "What kind of a gentleman are you, dragging a woman to such a dangerous situation?" Haze said, excited, which was an important thing when there were plans as insane as this one. "Oh, don't worry, I'll try to give you a chance to escape as well."

A third Drakel ship joined on the chase, coming from the right towards Mugi and Haze. The other two Drakel gunships were even closer however, and prepared channeling energy to their cannons. They never could finish that, as blasts of energy cut through their ships, and destroyed both of them, a second after another. "Don't count me out just because of my age!" someone was shouting to his Wind Orb. "Scarlet, so you're still alive." Haze was the first to reply to him. "It'll take more than a few Drakels to take me out. I heard what you had planned, and thought you might need some backup for it. You're good to go now with those two gone, show them a thing or two for me as we-"

Even without seeing or hearing it, both of them knew why his transmission had stopped so suddenly. He had known well that if he would go after those two Drakels, his vehicle would probably not be able to take it, thanks to all the shooting he had been doing before. Mugi promised to himself not to let Scarlet's death go in vain, right before they entered the range their missiles were in the range to the Drakel Carrier which loomed in front of them like a large metallic house in the air. "Fire the missiles!" Mugi shouted, two missiles being shot from his AssaultMecha, followed soon by two others from Haze. The Drakel Carrier had noticed the attack, but because of their poor mobility, it was impossible for them to evade the attack. The Captain ordered the crew within to brace for impact, the ship wouldn't be destroyed by a few hits, but it wouldn't go undamaged either.

That order was never needed to follow however. The one Drakel gunship which had been coming in from the right changed it's target from the two AssaultMechas, to the missiles that had been shot. The pilot began an accurate shooting, the third and fifth blast destroying the missiles that Mugi had shot. But the other two missiles.. she did not have enough time to shoot them down. What was being pushed to the guns on her ship, suddenly was directed to the engines, and the gunship moved forward at an even greater speed, directing itself between the missiles and the Carrier, just in time. Both missiles hit the gunship, leaving the Carrier unharmed, although down another gunship. A large piece of metal fell towards Haze, hitting the top of her AssaultMecha. After the shock, she heard the engines roar suddenly die out. The metal piece had broken it, the energy was not getting through anymore, her vehicle started to lose altitude, and there was nothing she could do about it. She heard Mugi shout after her, but both knew already that it was over for her. "Don't think about me, think about that darn diversion of yours!" she shouted at the Wind Orb, watching the ground come closer and closer. All that she could do, was to hit on the button which would start the plasma cannon, but nothing was happening. "Just my luck."



How much time had passed? What she could see, was blurred, and the noises she heard were not too comforting either. Something snapped loudly behind her, something electric, and at that point, besides the noises becoming more clear, she soon began feeling pain. After regaining that sense, sight was soon to follow. The windshield on her AssaultMecha was broken, after the machine fell to the ground, it had rolled forwards clumsily, and a rock had smashed through the glass when the AM turned upside down after one of the bounces, which had caused the Wind Orb inside her machine to fly out, probably crushed now after hitting something too hard. From her broken view, she could see that she was in some forest. Probably in that what was around the Crater. It was still sunny, she had been only out for a few moments. However, after a quick decision to rest her eyes for a moment, the sunlight had shifted a bit. "..great.. I fell asleep back there." Haze guessed drowsily, and decided that it was about time to get out of the machine. She pulled herself up, causing something sharp to cut into her back. She let out a wail, and ceased from moving. It took that long for her to become fully aware of her situation. Her AM had crashed into a forest, and had ended up as nothing more but a pile of junk. It was a miracle the energysource had not exploded in the ride, but that was as far as miracles went. The interior of the AM had crashed down on her, slamming on both her back, and her lower body. She was pinned down. Any kind of movement would cause nothing more than broken bits of metal to cut into her, which would eventually be the death of her. Death.. she wondered what had happened with the others. Had Mugi succeeded in his plan?

There was a sound from the outside. Was it some wild animal? Just her luck, really. After all, her AssaultMecha had turned into a canned food container. At least her hands were still free, although both felt rather hurt. Some of the shards of the windshield had cut into both of her arms, pointing out like spikes. Maybe she could hurt them with insults? A dry twig or two snapped outside. Another thought came to her, it might be that Mugi was able to take down that Drakel machine, and ended up turning the battle around to their favour. They could be out there right now, looking for her. Yes, that had to be it. Mugi wouldn't go and die that easily, he had that lucky red scarf of his after all! "Help! Help, I'm stuck in this darn thing!" she yelled out, a small hope of rescue telling her to call out to the outside world, to tell that she was still alive. However, yelling like that was really getting on her strength, so she could yell for help only a few more times. But the noises were getting closer now. And the source of the noise stepped to her view from the right side of the windshield.

A warrior clad in metal, with a gun pointed to the interior of the machine, a tail swaying from the left to the right behind him. She had been found by a Drakel. "Oh forget it." she spat out, and passed out again. It was better to die by herself than by some Drakels. The Drakel outside did not hesitate a moment after discovering the human.

He shouted out to others for help, put the weapon to it's holder on his back and began emptying the inside of the AssaultMecha from all the debris that had fell on the pilot.



After the Wind Orb had fell silent, it was certain that everyone in the war room knew what that meant. There was no one left to tell them anything. Ellay had already left the room, he had walked to the cave's exit, where the AssaultMecha's had left earlier. It was empty now, if everything had went like supposed to, a few hours from now it would be full of people welcoming the pilots back. But no one was returning. Ellay had sat down on the ground, both hands on the sides of his head. He just wanted to hide from the eyes of everyone. "So here's where you went." said a voice which was getting closer, step after step. It was Woider, who then sat down next to Ellay, looking at the wall in front of them. There was no reply from Ellay. "I think you shouldn't blame yourself as much as you seem to do at the moment."

"Twenty people are dead because of something I didn't think of." Ellay finally replied. "We should have done more testing.. I should have thought of this before." His voice was shaking, just like his whole body. "How would you have known that the energysource was breaking down then? Do you even know how to find that out?" Woider asked, which Ellay could not answer. The technology was rather advanced, probably too far ahead of their for such inspection, at least from the part of a blacksmith. "You did great already, inventing this kind of a method how to build us flying machines of our own. You did well, Ellay."

Woider got up from the ground, wiping away a few specks of dust. "I think it's about time to get back to the warroom, Joakim is going crazy. And I think you should be getting back as well." The blacksmith lowered his hands, which fell to the ground. Tears in his eyes, he had his teeth gritted. "Where am I supposed to go back?" Woider sighed out silently. "Back to the workshop, of course. Who else is there to keep our AssaultMecha's from exploding if not you?"

There was no one else, only he knew all the details about AssaultMechas, which was tough to explain, or even teach to others. And even he did not know everything there was to them, like.. the energysource. Could he really do it, find out what went wrong? Ellay's fists clenched, and his tears were wiped aside by his hand. What a shameful state he had showed himself, a grown man. It was not a matter of "could he do it", it was that he would have to do it. He would find out what was needed to keep the AssaultMecha's from exploding. He would start over again, one step at a time. But for now, he would have to get up from the ground, and soon he was back on his feet again. Woider did not look surprised, he had been expecting for him to do just that. "I will not fail like this again." Ellay said, more to himself than to Woider. "Mistakes are done so that you could learn from them." Woider said back. "You know, that's really not helping." Ellay replied, to which Woider just shrugged. "First thing that came to my mind. Every war has it's victims, how about that then?"



Haze was surprised to wake up, even more in somewhere else than her AssaultMecha. From the looks of it, it was a tent. She was laying on a bed, a rather comfortable blanket on her, and a comfy pillow under her head. The first attempt to get up failed, her body still ached all over. She had been wrapped up on bandages all over, mostly on her arms, and a part of her back where metal had cut in had been wrapped up as well. Someone entered the tent, a young man who looked rather relieved to see her awake. "Where am I?" Haze asked from the man, who sat down to a chair near her bed. "You are on the Isle, you were brought here in quite bad shape. I did not even believe that you would survive." the man answered, and considering how the last thing she had seen before passing out was a Drakel, those had been the one's to get her in the Isle. "Well, don't get your hopes up, I still feel bad." There were a few other beds in the tent, eight over all if she managed to count right after a quick look around. "Where are the others?" she then asked, which made the young man look rather uncomfortable. It took a few moments before he could speak to her again. "There are no others. You are the only survivor." They were both quiet for a few seconds, the man just could not think of anything to say to her, and Haze just repeated the last parts on her mind. "..I see." she finally said, what a time Mugi's red scarf had let them down.

The man was about to ask something, when more people entered the tent. Well, to be exact, Drakels had entered the tent. Three of them, two soldiers, and one who looked like a commander of them, wearing a black robe with yellow stripes on his shoulders which was so different from the armor of the two behind him. "So she is awake now? What good timing, I was coming here to ask our good healer here when would you wake up." the Drakel said, waving towards the man who had entered the tent earlier, who had now stood up from the chair he had sat on. "She just woke up, I believe it's better if she would be let to rest some more time. If I knew some healing arts, she would be in a lot better state by now but.."

The Drakel silenced the man with a motion of his hand, holding a single finger in the air. "She is awake, that is good enough. We are here just to talk, after all." From the look on Haze's face, the Drakel could tell that she simply despised him. "Why not just kill me right now?" she asked, which sounded rather amusing to the Drakel. Could she not understand the reason herself? "The attack you were a part of was quite a surprise to us. Who knew that you could pull together something like the machines you were using? True, we could have just left you to die, or killed you, but that would not had helped us to find out where you came from."

"So it's information what you want from me? I'd rather die than tell you anything." was Haze's answer to the Drakel. "I had a feeling you would say that." he replied, and motioned a silent order to one of the Drakels behind him, who took out the gun he had in an instant, but unlike she had expected, it was not aimed at her, but at the man who looked just as surprised as she, although more startled. "You humans are so alike. It always was troublesome in the past for us whenever we captured one of you, none would say anything, and took their own lives before we could use any method of torture. But this time, things are different. If you do not tell us what I ask, I'm afraid this man will die."

"It's me that gun should be aimed at!" Haze shouted, but the Drakel soldier did not change his target. "Maybe, but you seem rather ready for death. However, what of this man, who was ordered by me to keep you alive or else he would lose his life? And now that you are alive, are you willing to let this man die despite the work he placed his life on, for your sake?"

Haze was expecting the man say something, but his eyes were on the gun pointed at him, fear of death had gotten the best on him. "We can't stand here all day though, so I will give you a count to five." the Drakel then said, which was heard all too well by everyone in the tent.

"Five."
The Drakel soldier put his finger ready on the trigger on his gun.

"Four."
Haze and the man's eyes met, just for a moment.

"Three."

"Stop!"

Haze's shout was what the Drakel had waited for. "I see we have come to an agreement." he said, she just muttered a curse under her breath. The soldier lowered the gun at the same time the Drakel sat down on the chair where the man had been sitting a few moments ago, who now was taking in gasps of air, he had thought that his life would have ended right there.

"Now, tell me everything."

[iceberg]

Almost the final chapter. This'll be over soon.






"How are the modifications going?"

"Could be worse, could be better. It's not that easy upgrading the system that we have here."

Giro had again entered the BTN building, which was to become a Drakel communication relay station. The strange pink little creature, called Me, was rather tough to talk with, at least when you had to mention his name. Then there was the fact that he was a strange pink little creature. But that pink little creature was the one who was managing their work that was going on at the moment, which was to upgrade their existing machinery with newer one, and then make it all work. That was the deal they had made anyway, for being "captives" they would have to help the Drakels build a base for better communication, and to keep them from getting too bored, they would be the one's doing the work.

Better than running around Lore from both the Drakel, and angry people thanks to that last Mogloween special. Alcohol sure was flammable.

For Giro, his deal had brought him nothing but trouble. It had not taken long before the Council contacted him, demanding to know why had he broken a direct order to wipe out the humans who had been deemed a threat to them. He had done his best to explain that the building had value to the Drakels, and by making them work, they could save on their own manpower, which would be better off in the field instead of huddled up in a dusty building.

The Council was not happy, but they had to accept the fact that Giro had a point. Communication with that far Lore sometimes was messy, but if they had a station which would send out the messages that it receives from the other side of Lore, it would prove convenient, if not absolutely vital. They accepted what Giro had decided, and told him to carry on with his project. As Giro told them that he would do that, and bowed gracefully as the Farview closed, he could only wonder would there be any other problems.

"You look troubled." Me suddenly said to Giro, who had again wondered on the exact same issue as back then. Would the Council decide something and make him change his past decisions?

"It's nothing. I just fell into my thoughts again." Giro replied to the pink creature, who had his stubby pink hands behind his head. ..well, behind the top of his body, since his body was shaped like a ball with a face in front. What strange things would be found if he was dissected?

"Good, would be rather sucky if there was something going on, concerning us even." the pink creature said, and took a look at a wall on his right side. "I buy expensive Drakel cannons, windows, but I had to cut down on escape tunnels, didn't I?" He said that out too loud for it to have been meant something for himself.

"You would have rather tried escaping than being made to work for us?" Giro asked from the creature, who looked at him, seemingly annoyed, as annoyed as something colored pink can look like at least.

"Who enjoys being forced to stay indoors all the time, working for invaders? I can just imagine what our enemies are already spreading." The pink creature took his hands behind his back, and put them in front of him, like he was putting a scroll somewhere. "Hear ye, hear ye, BTN have become traitors, and are aiding the Drakels!" it said, and seemingly scrolled up whatever it had been imagining, and the hands were behind it's back again. "Seriously. Can't blame us for regretting about not running away."

As they passed the room where the transmissions were controlled, a large shower of sparks shot out. For a few seconds, it was quiet inside, until someone said "Not that wire, obviously.", then returning to whatever they were doing inside. "That reminds me. I need you to help with something." Me said again, waving for Giro to follow him.

The pink creature led Giro to a room where a large number of Drakels had gathered, along with a few humans who really should have been working, instead of doing what they were doing at the moment, which was rooting for their favourite. Leaning slightly on the table, two warriors were pit against eachother, sweat forming and falling down their faces, such looks on both that they were not even thinking of giving up. This had all started when Gorobei had seen Kur, dropped the metal frame he had been carrying and challenged him to yet another game of strength. This time, it was armwrestling.

"How long have they been at it?" Me asked from a nearby person, who replied quickly after thinking. "Seven minutes."

"There. That big guy of yours has been coming here every single day, says it's work, and every single day, these two go all macho, and end up wasting time trying to see which is the stronger. And every single time they do that, it ends up as a tie. I've tried to break them up before, but they just punch me in the face and tell me to get lost. And that hurts, in more ways than just physical, if you know what I mean. They always gather up a crowd and that ends up taking away valuable worktime."

Giro did not know what to say to the pink creature, although he heard someone mention something about "eight minutes" from the middle of the explanation that was given to him from this.. battle of muscles. And it had been going on every day? No wonder Kur had said he was going to check out that nothing suspicious was going on every single day. He approached the table the match was going on, looking at Kur, who's eyes were locked to the human, who's eyes likewise were locked on the Drakel's. "Kur, would you please stop and let these people continue on with their work?" Giro asked carefully, to no avail however.

"Not before I win." was Kur's simple, and truthful answer. "Sorry, but you got another thing coming." Gorobei replied, and the next one to say something was Me, who had climbed on the table, holding onto a rather large and heavy looking hammer. "YOU darn IDIOTS STOP WASTING TIME!" he shouted, and swung down the hammer, which both matchers avoided by sidestepping swiftly to the right, causing the hammer to hit the table instead of their hands, which ended up letting out a loud creak as cracks appeared on the wood surface, which then snapped in half, the table falling down in two pieces. Me would have fell down as well, if not for both Gorobei and Kur suddenly letting go of their hands, and punching Me in the face, hurling the pink creature like a volleyball into the wall behind him. Her. It. Tough to say, really.

"Let's call it even for today, eh?" Gorobei said, panting and swiping sweat from his face. Kur snorted, annoyed that the fight, which he was SO sure to be able to win, had been interrupted, and their playfield had been wrecked as well. "Your defeat moves onto the future." Kur replied, holding on the arm which had gotten quite tired during their battle of today. "You are finished then, I assume?" Hearing Giro say that was somewhat embarrassing to Kur, which was seen on his face. "I.. I apologize for what you just saw."

"Meaning you almost getting smashed through the table." Gorobei threw at the end of Kur's apology.

It again took twelve people to keep Kur and Gorobei away from eachother, forcing them to just throw suggestions where and when should they REALLY finish the issue between them, which they had been trying to do all the other times in the past.



High above the ground, the Drakel Carrier was still hovering, despite the damage it had been dealt in such a short time by just one enemy. They had also lost a number of gunships in the attack, half of their ships had been lost in their first battle. But considering how they had been going against superior numbers, they could have lost more, or perhaps all of their ships. The humans had found out the same thing that the Drakels had a few years back. The generators which the humans used, and the Drakels used as their base design, had a limit even with their unlimited generation of energy. But unlike humans, the Drakels had found this out during laboratory testing, and found a way around it. Every machine that was equipped with the generator and had weapons, had a forced limit how much it could use those weapons. The AssaultMecha's were not designed to be used in such a manner that the humans were using them, which just causes them to fail and selfdestruct.

The Captain was more than pleased, he had found out so much and so easily. Who the attackers were, how were they able to build those machines of theirs, and most importantly, where they were from. There was the chance that the human female might have been lying, but if that was the case, they could just ask her questions again. And this time, he would not be as pleasant as earlier. "Bring up the Farview, I have some information which the Council should hear." the Captain said, and in a second, one of the Drakels managing the machines pressed a few buttons, and a cloud began to form in front of the Captain's chair. "It will take a minute before we have formed a stable link to the main command center." the Drakel replied, the Captain nodding as acknowledgement. "What should we do with the prisoner?" the Captain's advisor asked. "I have no real desire to kill her. And in the case she gave us nothing but lies, we need her alive. Humans are rather troublesome, they are ready to take their own life when captured and forced for information, but threaten someone's elses life for their information, and the resolve that they had can be broken. By the way, notify the ground personnel to remove any sharp objects from her reach. We wouldn't want her committing suicide." Just as the Captain finished, the Farview connected, and he began his report.



Things in their base had went down a rather depressing path, in Woider's opinion at least. After the loss of their attack force on the Isle, people had began to lose the faith they had. And the theory that was going on did not help much either.

It had first started as nothing but a talking issue over a few glasses of ale. A group of people were discussing about the fact that they will defeat the Drakels, because of the fact that during their visit to the future, humanity had prospered to a level even above Drakels, not to mention the fact that apparently Drakels were not around thousand years from now, at least in the small time they had been there, not a single Drakel had been spotted. A few people joined on this opinion, giving a few cheers and "True that." to the topic.

But then a Wizard who had overheard the conversation began telling a theory that he held, which spreaded quickly among the base.

The future that they had visited might not be their future. That was caused by the disturbance in time that was caused by the future interfering with events in the past, although their intention was good, it would bring nothing but disaster. The Spawn's that attacked did cause some damage, but the effect they had on the past was not as great as what Maxwell and the rest had given. The Wizard specified what he meant, the AssaultMecha's and BFG's.

When those items from the future were brought into the past, and later on were captured by Drakels, the future changed. Things that would have been were changed, and the future thousand years from now might be totally different from the one they had seen. Time travelling was not easy, but the rules that he had always believed in, contained a part which strictly prohibited a time traveller from interfering with events of the past. The Spawn's had been bad enough, but worse was allowing items from the future to be brought to the past.

Most likely in the timeline that Maxwell and the others lived in, AssaultMecha's had not existed in the past. When a number of them were brought back to their time from the future, it had created a new timeline, one where Drakels were able to gain such an upperhand against humans, all thanks to the future. From the beginning, he had been against time travel, but as hundreds of Adventurers journeyed into the future to battle, there was nothing he could do. They were all that stubborn, eager to fight an enemy far from the future.

And what they brought with them with the permission of Maxwell and others, was destroying the world they had, and what would have been.

The theory stirred up a large debate, which began dividing people quickly into two sides, those who believed that the future they saw would happen, and those who believed that a new future had been created. Maxwell and the others, who earlier had been talked of as such heroes that Galanoth, Artix and other people were, soon became the one's to blame for all their problems. Such was their change from heroes to villains, or if that was too severe of a term, subjects of hatred might be better.


Things were not going well for Ellay either. He had went back to work on the AssaultMecha's, but he had not still found a way to keep the AssaultMecha's generators from exploding. All that he could do, was to tell pilots not to shoot too often with their lasercannons. Two weeks had passed since the incident on the Isle, and even with all the work Ellay had done during that time, he could not give an accurate time when would he come up with a solution. He was missing something, but he had no idea what it was. All that he could do, was to study the AssaultMachine more, hoping to understand better what he could do with the problem that it had.

The Wind Orb in the warroom suddenly activated. "Base, this is scout four, do you hear me?" One of the Guardians quickly walked to the table the Wind Orb was resting on, they had decided on the past that scouts would contact the base only when they had spotted something. "This is base, we hear you, what is it?"

The scout was sitting on branch of a rather large, and thickleafed, tree, looking carefully through the foliage, a Wind Orb on his hand. "There's a noise coming closer from the south. Yep, I see something now, they're making the noise." A few seconds passed, and as the causes of the noise got closer, the scout suddenly found himself a lot more nervous than before. "Drakels! Two of them! And they're coming your way!" he shouted, and the two halfmoon shaped machines flew past him, towards the mountain range that they were hiding in.

Within minutes, the whole base knew what was going on. Adventurers and Guardians just waited what was going to happen, some looking at the top of the cavern, like something was soon to come crashing down on them. But normal people, who were not used to battle, were starting to panic. Everyone was saying that the Drakels had come to wipe them out, and it took a few shouts for them to quiet down. Those near the large opening of the cavern, heard the rumbling noise from the outside. It went past them, and eventually vanished. People sighed out of relief, but then the noise began coming closer. Like others, Woider was listening as well as he could. "Why did they return?" someone asked. "Maybe they're going back the way they came?" was a suggestion a hopeful man threw. "No." People turned over to Woider, who now had a frown on his face. "They're looking for us."

"They're circling above you." another scout reported, from a tree on the base of the mountains. The two gunships were flying in circles, rather close to the entrance to their base. "I don't think they're going anywhere."

People were gathering in the warroom, preparing their plans of action. Everyone was hoping that the Drakels would just go away, but what if they wouldn't? Woider had made his way back into the room, he wanted to keep on with what was being done about the situation.

One of the Drakel machines flew right past the entrance, with another one soon following. The scout swallowed down his nervousness, and replied to the base. "I think they know you're there."

The warroom's air was still calm, but it would not continue for long. "You really think they found us?" someone asked. "You know, if they're even guessing that we're in here, they could just shoot down the mountain on us." Woider suddenly said. Once again, what he was saying was not very helpful to the people around him. "That's it. We don't want to take any chances, tell that we are evacuating the base. Everyone out from the back, I also want AssaultMecha's in the air as soon as possible. Whether those ships start shooting at the mountain, or call a whole lot of them here, it doesn't mean anything good to us."

[iceberg]

The Drakels had not found them. Them flying past the entrance to the humans base was just a coincidence. They knew that such a cave was something they were looking for, but how were they supposed to know if that was the one they were meant to find? They told of their discovery to their commanding officer, who already had a connection open to the Council. "My pilots have reported to have found a possible entrance to the human's base. We are not certain yet however, what should we do? Land inside and search the cave?"

"No. Your orders are to collapse the entrance to the cave by the gunships cannons."

"If I may say, I am not sure if that is a wise decision without any proof to back up that this is the cave we are looking for. These mountains are rather close to the Dracomancer's, it might be possible that this cave is inhabited by them." The reason the Drakel commander brought this up was because of the fact that the Drakels had not engaged in hostilities with Dracomancers, because they had not done that either, maybe out of fear of their new weapons, or maybe because of the Drakels close lineage to Dragons. "If it would be so, it would be most unfortunate, but we cannot take any risks. These humans have discovered something which poses a threat to our plans, and we must do everything in our disposal to rid of that threat." The commander listened silently, but finally nodded. "As you order."

"Captain, our pilots are reporting back! Something just left the cave they passed earlier!" one of the Drakels on the machinery said, holding onto the Fartalk on her ear. "Are they the same machines that attacked the Isle?" the Captain asked, making his way to the chair in the middle of his command post. "We have confirmation! We've found them."



As two AssaultMecha's lifted off from the cave, and went after the Drakels, the people inside were busy enough gathering up what they had, as the orders that had been told were quite clear. "We're leaving, take only what is vital with you! Everything unnecessary should be left behind!"

The AssaultMecha's were chasing on the Drakels, which were flying upwards. "They must be trying to shake us off from them by using the clouds to escape!" the second pilot said, bringing his fingers closer to the triggers on his cannons. The machines were too far to shoot, and they would probably just evade the missiles that he could fire. The sky was colored gray, such a sad color, fitting for such a day as this would be.

The pilot was wrong however. The Drakels had not been flying to the clouds to distract them. They had been flying towards the clouds so that the humans would get closer. From the clouds, appeared a large number of Drakel gunships, gunports open on all of them. "Oh lord." was all that the first pilot could say before the barrage of energy blasts hit through the window on his AssaultMecha, and destroyed it from the inside.

"There's a whole darn fleet of them!" the second pilot shouted to his Wind Orb, which was heard more than clear by the people there. "How many enemies are there?"

The pilot was having enough trouble flying around, and spinning to the best of the AssaultMecha could do. "Tens of them! Get out of there, I'll hold them off as long as I ca-"
The sudden end of the transmission meant that there was nothing between the Drakels and their base. The Wind Orbs spread around the base gave the next order, which was the point where people really began to panic and run towards the other exit of the cavern. "We need every possible AssaultMecha to launch, and I mean now!"



'Every possible' AssaultMecha meant those which were ready to fly, and there were only about twenty of those. "Twentyone!" Ellay suddenly shouted as he leaped down from the back of an AssaultMecha, tapping a few times on the back of the top of the machine, telling the pilot inside that it was good to go. "Use your boostjets, you'll get to the entrance a lot faster with those!" Ellay shouted, both out loud to the people in the workshop, to the pilots climbing onto their machines, and to those who were already inside, and out of his voices normal reach, which still reached them thanks to the Wind Orb he was holding onto. He ran to the next AssaultMecha which had wings, this one had not yet had it's engine working. Woider had to duck as an AssaultMecha leaped above him, jumping again as soon as it turned to the direction that the entrance was. Three others had already made it there, and jumped into the air, their engines roaring. "Ellay!" Woider shouted as he looked for the blacksmith, luckily he was pointed to the right direction by a pilot who was just climbing onto the back of his AssaultMecha. When he got there, he found the blacksmith hard on work, like always, even at such a situation. "They sent me here, you need to get out of here with everyone else! Those AssaultMecha's can hold off the Drakels long enough." Woider shouted, which was the only way for his voice to be heard from all the noise that was suddenly in the cavern. Ellay shook his head as reply.

"I still got three AssaultMecha's that are ready to go, they just need a few fixes! Two!" he shouted back, and hurried off to another AssaultMecha. "After these are done, I'll get out of here, but only then!" A sudden explosion shooked the caverns roof, rock rained down on them. As Woider ducked, he thought to have heard a scream, but it was drowned under louder noises. After the roof falling down, he looked around, and noticed that the AssaultMecha that Ellay had just fixed, was still there. Behind it, there was a large rock, and under that rock, was someone. Woider quickly ran to the man's help, who was still alive, whimpering from the pain that was suddenly dealt to him by the mountain. But no matter how much Woider tried, he could not lift the rock, it did not even move. The man suddenly grapped his leg, just to get his attention. "Take it." was all that he could whisper, before his grasp fell, along with the last breath the man took. Woider cursed out loud, looked behind him, and without a doubt, climbed on the AssaultMecha and closed the hatch into it. Luckily, he had asked Ellay for more details how to pilot the machines, so this time there was no problem starting up the machine, and activating the boostjets. Woider left the workshop right after two other AssaultMechas, and the last thing he heard from Ellay, was a single word. "One!"

The three AssaultMechas quickly made their way to the launching zone, and even from there, they could see green flashes of both energy blasts, and lasercannons, flash outside. The first AssaultMecha jumped with it's boostjets, and with it's engines roaring, it left the cavern, joining the battle outside. The second AssaultMecha however, only started it's engines, and began moving forward, it's legs scraping on the ground. Woider tried to tell the pilot to use the boostjets, but all the other voices on the Wind Orb's frequency just drowned his words under, or messed it all into one huge mess. The left leg of the AssaultMecha suddenly bent backwards, which caused the machine to steer sharply to the left. From there it crashed into the wall, but kept on moving forward, until it fell down from the entrance, and down the mountain. Woider had already used his boostjets and flied off when that happened, and what he saw, was nothing good.

Unlike the last battle that had been had with AssaultMechas, it was them who were outnumbered this time. There were just so many of the Drakel ships in the air, at least half as many as AssaultMecha's that still were fighting. Someone suddenly shouted out louder than anyone else to their Wind Orb. "We need to keep them busy for a few more minutes! Give them hell, people!" Others acknowledged that with cheers and shouts, and even Woider joined to that.



Kur asked for the message to be repeated. He wanted to be sure that he had not heard wrong. The message was repeated, which made him hurry to Giro as fast as he could. Giro was just finishing telling his orders to a Drakel soldier when Kur reached him, handing him over the Fartalk. "They are attacking humans who have managed to build ships like our own." was all that Kur said, causing Giro to snatch the Fartalk from his hand, and listening to it himself.

A few minutes later, the cloud of Mana finally connected to the Council, showing a rather old Drakel, the one who Giro had talked with earlier, the old warhero of Drakels, Klice. "Why is it that there is going on an attack that I have not been told of?" Giro snapped, which did not seem to bother to old Drakel much. "I deemed that it was not necessary to inform you of it."

"Why?" Giro asked again, trying to calm down a little. "Ever since your.. failure, to deal with BTN as ordered, I have been having doubts whether or not you are suitable for a commander of this operation." the old Drakel answered, frowning. "The humans are a threat to us, and unlike you, I am more than able to order for them to be killed. I expected great things from you, I even thought that you would rise to the ranks of many of our heroes even with your peaceful nature, as one who knew when it was time to stop imagining of achieving peace, and just strike down our enemies."

Giro could not think of anything to say. "Is that all you have to say?" the old Drakel asked, a mocking tone in that raspy voice of his. "Yes, that was all." Giro muttered, and closed the Farview. The old Drakel sighed, and turned to the another Farview, giving the order for the last stage of this attack to begin.



While the AssaultMechas were busy enough fighting against the Drakel gunships, something else entered the battle. It pushed the clouds aside, as it slowly descended. It was not of the same shape as the carriers were, this was shaped more like an arrow, and under it, was a weapon that would soon be used. The gunships orders were change, from destroying the enemies, it became to protect the newly arrived craft no matter what. It kept on descending, until it was on the same level as the entrance to the cave. A few seconds later, the Captain of the vessel gave the order to fire the weapon, which was released from it's bind. It fell only for a moment, before it blasted forwards, long flames from behind it, it went past the fighting machines, and went straight into the cave, slamming into the back of the wall. A countdown began, and after ten clicks, the weapon fulfilled it's purpose.

A massive explosion shooked the mountain, and a part of it collapsed downwards, long flames blasted out from the cave's entrance, and from the lower exits, after they cleaned the passages leading there with fire. Woider stared at the sight, quiet as usually. Their base was gone, there was nothing to protect. What was there to do now? Would they escape like the others? They had managed to escape, right?

The Drakel gunships drew closer.

Or maybe he should just go insane, and shoot down as many Drakels as possible? Or maybe take on that large ship that just had appeared, and which was now entering back into the clouds it had came from. There had to be a solution.

Of course. Time travel!

If the future really had changed the past and what it would have become, then it still might be possible to change the past which would lead to this point. All that he would have to do, was to travel back in time, and stop the Drakels from obtaining the AssaultMecha in the first place! Even if it would not affect this time he was from, it would save another world from their fate? Now, where was the timetravel button on this thing?

A blast of energy hit the base of his engine, and the last thing that Woider saw before a piece of metal falling on his head and knocking him unconscious, was the base of the mountain, which his AssaultMecha was falling towards, and finally crashed into.

That day, the thing that humans called "hope", died.

[iceberg]

Final chapter. IT'S FINISHED, THANK GOD. Who reads this anyway?





The battle on the skies of the Ballakri mountainrange was something which would always be spoken of as a great battle among the humans. A great, but still a doomed battle. Outnumbered, and outclassed in technology, none of the people who challenged the Drakels in the air returned back alive. Their efforts to buy their people more time was a valiant one, but as another Drakel weapon descended from the skies, there was nothing they could do. The arrow was released, and it embedded deep into the wall of the cave, and in a bright flash, it brought down the mountain top, crushing the caverns under it right after burning everything within with the flames that it released.

Those who managed to escape could do nothing but hide until the Drakels left after finishing what they had set to do. The survivors decided to split and head to separate places, as quite many of the people who Ellay had teached had survived. Their skills would be needed if they intented to win this war, there still were AssaultMecha's scattered around Lore. If they could get a word out to people and get those machines under one army, it would prove a potent opponent for the Drakels.

But even when they did just that, scattered and began gathering a great army, there was something that they lacked. They lacked Ellay's skills and knowledge. No one had seen him exit the caves, and after their whole base was destroyed, he was announced dead. Those who had been working under him and learned from him did know how they were supposed to build their machines, but they could not think of any way to work on the problem with the energysource that even Ellay had not been able to solve.

It did not seem to matter much however, because soon after the destruction of their base, the Drakels began to move with a rate that surprised all. They attacked from the land with their walkers and soldiers, machines unlike anyone had ever seen suddenly descended from the skies above and released the machines within them, which rained down destruction on towns and cities, along with their defenders. Where the Drakel moved, humans lost. The tragedy of Battleon was not repeated anywhere else, as the Drakels only wiped out the warriors, taking control over the towns and cities. Was it an act of superiority, or did they have another reason not to crush everything to dust? No one seemed to know.

Place after another fell to the Drakels, either in battle, or through surrendering, what had taken humans years to achieve, build houses and drive away the native creatures, the Drakels were claiming within a few months. While others were desperately trying to come up with a plan to strike back on the Drakels and gain a first true victory over them, others could do nothing but sit indoors, and listen to the messages and images that were shown from the outside world. If it had not been real life, it would have probably been one of the most interesting warstories that they had heard.


Stormhaven, the great fortress which had been reclaimed from a demon over a decade ago, it had seen many things. The demon's underlings, the conquering of the fortress by humans, the Carnax Spawns.. and now, it was seeing desperation. It had become a base for what was left of the human army, and the last place that still could produce AssaultMecha's capable of taking on the skies. But the reports from the battlefields all told one thing. "darn it. We're being surrounded, and pushed back into a corner." She was one of the few remaining Paladin's around Lore, previously a Captain of a platoon of her own, which had been wiped out during the battles against the Drakel. Everyone knew it, they just did not have any way of getting through the Drakels forces. Despite the best of their efforts, all they could do was to either fight and inevitably die, or retreat and fight later.

They had ran out of options, it was the end of the road for them. "Call everyone to retreat immediately. They would reach this place eventually anyway. If they want a battle, we'll give them that, right here in Stormhaven!" No one wanted to die, not her especially, but if there was nothing else left, might as well die in one last stand. Her next orders were to gather the Wizards and Mages that they had, the shield that had been used in Battleon was needed in this battle as well, even when it had it's flaws. The AssaultMecha's that still were left in fighting shape could also be used to attack enemies from within the shield, safe from their gunfire. She grapped her BFG, and left out to find out the best places to position guards, meaning those who still had their BFG's left, and some groundbound AssaultMecha's. If they could blast through the Drakel's flying machines, they sure could do the same for soldiers and those other machines that they had. And the BFG's.. they were nothing but hacks compared to the weapons the Drakel had, but it was the best they had, and they would work a lot better than your average sword and spear.



"Commander, the humans have begun to retreat." The commander of the PW platoon nodded, it was going just like it had been planned. They would pursue them, right to the door of their last great fortress. The signal to move forward was given, and the Drakels began chasing, herding, the humans towards Stormhaven.



"It's finally here. The final battle." Giro flipped to another page of the report that he had just received. As usual, it told of their forces success in fighting their enemies and driving them back, with a short list of casualties. Every battle had those, even with all the technology they had. Reading reports seemed to be one of the few things that Giro had to do, he was given orders to research further their current equipment and improve them, but without a proper laboratory or any people who actually had skills to help him, he had not managed to do anything. A few theories, but he would still need some place to test those. Before he had a chance to read the list of casualties, Kur entered the tent which was full of paperwork, scattered on the ground, table, and even on a few chairs. "I am sorry to interrupt your work, but we've received word that the Council has something they wish to speak with you." Giro was more than eager to interrupt his work, it was always so tiresome reading those reports. And since it had been already a few months since the Council, or Klice, contacted him, it easily got his attention. "I think I have a few moments to spare if the Council wishes to speak."

The cloud of Mana finally formed an image into it, revealing that it was not Klice this time who was the one on the other side. Who was this again? The white robe seemed familiar, but for the moment, Giro could not remember his name at all. All he could hope was that there would not be a need to say the other persons name. "I see you have been hard in work." the Drakel on the other side said, even with the small view that the Farview gave, the piles of paper were easily seen. "I am just doing what I am asked for." Giro answered and did a small bow, which would normally been unneeded, but he deemed it necessary, a silent apology for the other about forgetting their name. "Perhaps you would appreciate given something else to attend to." Giro stood straight again, seemingly interested on the words that had been spoken. "What would I have to do then?" The Drakel on the other side decided to go straight to the case.

"The Council is holding a meeting five days with now, inviting a number of people from leading positions in this campaign, commanders, scientist, which includes you. We are unsure what are we to do when the last human fortress falls, our enemies army will be finally defeated, but what of the rest of their kind? You, the leaders, of this campaign, have seen the humans act and fight with your own eyes, we would like to hear what you think on the situation. Surely we can come to a conclusion based on what you have to tell of them."

True, Giro had seen how the humans had fought during the battle of Battleon, but so had anyone else who had tuned into the frequency of their Farview back then. Most of the other leaders of this campaign were from the military, a few of them openly admitted to hating humans. If those people would unite and begin to convert others to their side, who knows what would they be able to accomplish. "I am most honoured that I have been invited to a meeting of such caliber. I gladly accept." Giro again bowed to the other Drakel, who nodded approvingly. "Then we shall be waiting for you in the Council, the meeting begins exactly in the noon. Until then, farewell."

The cloud of Mana dispersed as the connection was cut, leaving Giro all alone in his tent. Five days... he grapped the report from earlier to his hands, and read it quickly. Just like he had remembered. The final assault would be two days from now. The Council had already decided that it would be a victory for their troops. Thinking of the past battles, it would most likely be just that, but impossibilities can occur from time to time in this world. The human races future was depending on what would be decided by people unknown to them. It did not seem right, but the world was like that. But as he had been invited to attend the meeting, it meant that he had a chance to do something. But what could he do? He needed something to back him up. Something to help show that the human race had a reason to exist. It took him a few moments to think of a place where he could find something like that.



"Our archives are in the same state that they were before you guys attacked. I mean, if it wasn't, I'd have to break some legs, because the guy selling us told that there was a 100 percent guarantee on no dataloss." Me was speaking quite proudly of a machine which required two retries to successfully start, something about 'dust inside the thing'. "So, what would you want? Dirt on Artix? We heard that if you repeat what he says backwards, you get chants which are used by the worshippers of the Darkness Lord." Giro's answer to the question was simple. "Everything." Me blinked a few times before he shrugged, and said a few orders to the tall man on the command unit of the machine. "I'll go get us some coffee then. This'll be a loooong night."

To be more exact, it was two long nights. What Giro saw and heard, was Lore's history, crammed within records of ten or twenty minutes, depending on the time, place, and the number of hostile creatures around the one's doing the record. It covered many battles that the humans had fought, and prevailed against, finally ending to the report that was about to be done in Battleon before it was destroyed. And he had not even watched everything after all. After a few rather.. strange records which involved rather bizarre events, he had decided to only watch recordings of wars. Me was shaking like going through a very local, and very violent earthquake, as he emptied another cup of coffee. He had lost count after fiftyseven, as fiftyeight was the number of the devil, and fiftynine was just not nice. Always plotting against him, whispering behind his back. But he knew, he knew it, all thanks to this coffee! The sweet, delicious coffee.. Giro let out a loud sigh, followed by a yawn. He had managed to gather a lot of information through these two days. "The sun is up already.. I should be going. Thank you for letting me use your archives." Me was unable to answer him, as he was too busy hiding in the corner. Sixty was just outside the door. He hated sixty over anything.

With his things packed, Giro got inside a Power Walker, after convincing it's driver that he knew well how the machine operated, he was the one who had help design it in the beginning after all. Three days to go, Giro drove off, falling asleep almost instantly after, which ended up with him crashing into a tree. He was not injured, but it was decided that Kur would accompany him, but by the time he had gotten into a Power Walker of his own, Giro had fallen asleep again. Two days of no sleep had taken it's toll, and because they really did not have time to wait for him to wake up, Kur ended up attaching a towing cable to the Power Walker of Giro and pulling him behind. He would wake up sooner or later, and they would be able to cover some ground this way.