Post by iceberg on Sept 10, 2007 16:19:21 GMT -5
It was time. Spread out as a ring around the fortress of Stormhaven, the Drakel army was simply waiting for the command to attack. Soldiers were already pulling out their weapons, Power Walkers were starting up their engines. A beep told the commander that a transmission was coming through, which he answered quickly. Whatever was being said, he answered with a few grunts, approving ones, and as the transmission ended, he shared what was told with the rest, opening up communications with other leaders of the army around the target zone. "Gunships are to attack first, followed by Power Walkers, and then the infantry! Power Suits and Rumble Balls on the standby, ready for deployment when I order so!"
It finally came, a report that Drakel units were getting closer, both from the ground, and already a few gunships were in the air. "Raise the shield, extend it to the outer wall, but no further! Those things can't shoot through the shield, or get close enough to fire then. I want everyone able for spellcasting on top of the walls, and shooting at the enemy from there!" the Paladin commander shouted as she made her way to the stairs which lead to a tower connecting the outer walls. A BFG on her hands, she still wore the traditional Paladin armor. It would not provide protection from the Drakel weapons, but if she was to die, she would die as a Paladin. From within the fortress, a dome of Magic spread out and surrounded everything within it, the highest of towers, and the outer walls. The Drakels had already realized that their weapons could not get through the shield, which meant that they had only one option, sending in soldiers. Some were just running, while others were on the Power Walkers, ready to jump off and make their way through the shield, and then onwards to the fortress. But it was not that easy to get in. The doors leading in had been closed and sealed by heavy locks, and the walls were too tall to simply climb up, then there were those defenders who were already casting spells at the approaching enemies, explosion after another sent dirt flying on the battlefield. A Power Walker was toppled due to one such attack, it's pilot was forced to exit the vehicle and leave it there, one of the cannons had been damaged thanks to the crash anyway.
A few Drakel soldiers who had made it as far as the doors had thought of shooting their way through, which proved more difficult than they had first thought. Their shots did go through the door easily, but the damage being done to it was minor, it would take hundreds of shots to get a hole that they could enter. A Magical circle appeared under their feet, and a second later, erupted flames short slightly from those of hell, scorching them to ashes, careful not to damage the door with it's intense heat.
It was the northern wall which first spotted the large machines slowly walking towards them. They had been designed on the old Cyber Suit model, which worked as the skeleton of them, Power Suits. Due to the new source of energy, these machines had been created, first only as construction tools, but some of them had been modified for military use. The claws that the Cyber Suit had had been replaced, improved thanks to the metallic hands that now were at the end of the arms. The suits were clumsy, slow, but most important, coated with heavy armor which was originally intended to working with dangerous materials, but it could defend from attacks just as well. If you would have to describe it quickly, it looked like a tall fat man. The middlepiece of the suit was a large sphere, under it were two short metallic feet, their end shaped like cups. The arms were connected to the body with a couple of smaller spheres on the sides, and the hands were connected to another pair of spheres, which made it look like they were designed to be a pair of odd gloves. These machines, dark blue in color, were controlled from within them by a single pilot, who only needed to move like he would normally to make the machine move. He wanted to step right, he would do that and the machine would follow. He wanted to swing his left arm to the side, he did that, and the machine followed. There were of course some things that needed for buttons to be pressed, and switches flipped, but those were secondary things anyway which had been added later on. View to the outside was provided by a camera which worked like the Farview did, except it only showed what was in front of him in a radius of 180 degrees.
"Aim on those things!" was an obvious order, the machines were different from most of the enemies attacking, which they soon found out. Spells were aimed at several of the approaching machines, but they did not stop. They were slowed down a bit in some cases, but they kept on advancing. "Aim at a single one at a time!" It took a barrage of spells to do enough against them to do anything, it needed a lot of explosive force to get the first one to fall backwards, which rendered the machine helpless. Despite them trying to keep the machines away, one got close enough to the wall to do what it had been ordered. The left hand withdrew into the sphere behind it, and the machine pulled back the left arm, then it threw a punch to the wall, which immediately got it's first cracks. The right hand withdrew as well, and both arms were raised above it's head and then slammed on the wall. It took a step back and began pounding the wall, punch after punch, until finally it cracked, and crumbled down. The machine took slow steps forward, making it the first Drakel to enter the fortress. But like all Drakel machines, as soon as it went through the shield, the energy being sent to it was negated, and the engine shut down, but it would be moving again in a few seconds anyway.
"We have to stop it before it gets further into the fortress! Keep anything from entering through the hole!"
A few people leaped down to the ground to stop the Drakel machine which was now moving again. The left hand was lifted, and the metallic sphere on it popped open, half of it just fell to the ground, revealing a row of tubes in a circle within it, just like the gunships had. "That's not even funny." Whatever else was said, was drowned under the noise that started when the tubes began spinning, blast of energy after another shot from them. As the machine turned it's attention to those over the wall, it failed to notice the pair of AssaultMecha's which stepped forward down a path which led to the outer wall, turning to face it.
The battle lasted for hours, the humans fought with ferocity like never before. The number of casualties was the highest in all of the battles that the Drakels had had to that point, but in the end, they were victorious. Stormhaven had been wrecked to a state where it was more of a ruin on a mountain of rubble than a fortress. They had won.
"Apparently Stormhaven just fell." Kur said to the Fartalk, which reached the Power Walker just besides his own. Giro had woken up after a rather nasty bump on the road, and had been unable to sleep ever since. With the towing cable off, their travelling speed had gone up quite a bit. "I guess miracles don't happen when you expect them the most." Giro muttered back. "We're still not finished though. Just this one more fight." Kur grunted back, politics.. he never had enjoyed that. He was the kind of man to deal his problems with his fists, not with his words. Giro fell asleep again a few minutes later, again crashing into a tree. This time however, he did not wake from the dream, so Kur had again to start towing him towards their destination.
When they finally reached the city where the Council resided, it was apparent that it still was celebrating on the victory over the humans, although it was not as great as it was in the first day. Who was to blame them, previous battles and wars that they had with the humans, it had been the Drakel who had always been defeated. The whole city seemed a lot more alive than usually. Signs and posters had been hanged up to welcome their troops on their victory, and their return to home. Kur and Giro made their way through the city carefully, there was only ten minutes or so left before the meeting would begin. Luckily people did not stop them from their travel on the paved roads of the city, and they got to the Council's domed building with a few minutes to spare. Both of them got out of their Power Walkers, and headed indoors. However, seeing Kur, the two guards on the entrance suddenly stepped forward to stop them from entering. "Commander Giro, you have been expected, please, step in. But your second-in-command will have to wait outside." Kur was just about to say something unflattering but did not as Giro stopped him. "It's allright Kur, I can handle it on my own from here. Go see around the city, I imagine this will take some time." Kur gave an angry look at the guard, but stepped back. "I understand." was all that he said before the door was opened by one of the guards, allowing Giro to enter. The door closed, and Kur was left alone outside, besides the two guards. He never had enjoyed politics, but he still was interested in what would be discussed in there. Maybe he still has his Fartalk with him? He never did recall Giro taking off the machine. Would he dare try it? Would he? The two guards were still staring him, even a tad suspicious now. Kur turned around, and headed into the city. Somewhere to spend the time.
In the Councils round-shaped room, there were six rows of seats, each row a bit lower than the one behind it, up to the last row which was even to the floor in the middle of the room where there was a Farview device, which the Council used to communicate to their subordinates. As soon as Giro had entered, he had been welcomed with applauds. After all, he was the one who had came up with the technology to allow them to gain such a victory, and so easily as well, although there had been many lives lost. Then there was also the fact that he was the last to enter the meeting, he had to make his way through quite a few people to get to his seat on the middle of the room's eastern side. Finally the meeting could begin. "With the victory we had in Stormhaven, our enemy has now been defeated. Their army is no more, all that is left, are their villages, towns and cities. What should be done with them?" The one with the starting speech was Klice. At first Giro had thought that he would start this meeting neutral in opinions, but he soon thought otherwise. "The humans turned out more cunning than we had expected. Even with their inferior level of technology and knowledge, they were able to construct flying machines of their own. They are obviously dangerous, and as such, they should be destroyed. We have a number of townslayers ready for launch, all that we need, is to agree on using them." He sure had taken the offensive from the beginning. The atmosphere on the Council was quickly getting restless, sadly the only one's causing noise were a few military commanders who were all for that idea. "If we would allow humans to live, sooner or later they would turn on us again, and I cannot guarantee our victory then!"
"Order in the Council!" one of the Council members announced, which silenced the room in a few moments. "The military's opinion seems obvious, but what of the rest? What are your opinions?" After that, one by one, other people were questioned, who were a minority in this campaign. There just was not that much need for scientists in lead. If not for the fact that not all military commanders were as biased as those in voice earlier, this meeting would have already been finished. What those scientists told did not do much good however. All that they had, were a few words. "They could be a threat, they seem rather easily adaptible when it comes to new technology." It just seemed to back up what Klice had said earlier. But finally, it was Giro's turn. "Commander Giro, what do you have to say?" It was a small surprise when he suddenly stood up. "To answer that, I wish to show something which I have compiled before my journey here." He was granted permission to do that, people were curious what he had to show. He walked down to the center of the room, with a small device in his hand. He connected it to the Farview machine, and pressed a few buttons. A cloud of Mana appeared from the Farview, and as it tensified, it started showing images.
Not just any images however. Giro had compiled and saved a number of records from BTN's archives to the device he had, which was like a smaller version of their devices that stored the data. There was a picture of a battlefield, more precisely, a volcano, where Adventurers were fighting fiercely against their enemies, which varied from Firezards to Fire Demons, and then there were a few salamander hatchlings which tried to take a bite out of them. "This was known as the Great Fire War to the humans, and was long considered the greatest battle that they ever had." Giro said, and from there on, he took the Council to a journey through the humans history, just like the one he had went through a few days earlier. Undeads, zombies, Carnax, Vampires, Lycans.. the humans had fought a number of battles, and despite all odds, they had won. The record of the Carnax Spawns was most interesting to the Council, as it contained information a thousand years into the future, it was somewhat of a shock for them to find out that it had been humans who had built the AssaultMecha. They never had really found out how could have they gotten such advanced machinery to their hands, and those humans that did tell them that, were not believed as they lacked evidence. But now it just had been shown to them. "The humans have survived through a number of wars which could drive other races to extinction. The skills that they have when it comes to war are superb, and up to the point where we began this campaign, they were even above our own."
"So you admit that the humans are a danger to us?" someone suddenly asked. "They can be dangerous, that is true, but it might not have to be that way." Giro closed his presentation, and continued his own speech, which he could only hope would stand up to Klice's. "The humans have been an important part in Lore, they have fought countless enemies who's sole intention has been conquering the world, and helped keep the balance of the elements by doing so. Under proper care, they could prove to be a valuable asset to us." The last part of what Giro had said got attention easily. "What exactly do you mean with that?" Giro turned over to the one who had asked the question, who was in the highest row of the western side of the room. "If we would accept the humans into our society, we would be able to use their skills when it comes to fighting future threats." His answer was easy to cause an uproar. "The humans have their own strengths that we Drakels do not. By keeping a close eye on them, we could use their adaptibility for our own good, which in turn could help upkeep the peace between our races. We would show that we are willing to accept them as equal to us, not inferior. That would only stir hatred among the humans towards Drakels, and whatever we would do in that situation, it would not end well."
"Are you certain that such a thing could succeed? That humans and Drakels could fight on the same side, back to back?" The one who asked the question was exactly from where Giro had been hoping on getting attention from, the military. The commander sat on his seat, arms crossed, waiting for his answer. "As nothing is safely said certain, I can only say that it is possible. But even so, wiping out the human race with our weapons is not the solution that we want. They are one of the few species which survived when the Devourer last came to Lore, are we to destroy them off as another surviving race? There must be a reason that they were able to survive, and as we all know, the Devourer will return one day. What if the humans are the key to salvation?"
The Devourer had always been a touchy subject, and now that Giro had brought it into discussion, things really started heating up. Debates rose, and so did the volume of people's voices. It took them hours to reach a conclusion. The doors opened, and one by one, people left the building, exhausted, some were cursing for the other fools on deciding something like that, but others.. Kur had been waiting outside for hours. When asked for the reason, all he had was that the city did not have anything interesting. "So, how did it go?" Kur then asked Giro, who managed to put on a small tired smile. "It went well."
Around Lore, crystal balls suddenly lit to life. The swirling logo of BTN spinned into view, and exploded for some reason, which was that explosions were always needed. After so long time of inactiveness, they were the one to tell Lore just what was to happen.
The Council's majority had decided on allowing humans to live based on what Giro had presented them, who was also to thank for the fact that all townslayers were to be dismantled, and the plans how to create them were to be destroyed. The Drakels offered their hand, they had no desire for more blood to be shed, and as there was something for both sides to gain, humans accepted what the Drakels offered, some more reluctantly than others, but still. Towns and cities were finally being rebuilt, sometimes with Drakel help, and it finally seemed that some sort of a peace had been forged between the two races.
This story ends here, in the ruins of the past, and in the foundations of the future, quite unlike what would have been if that one man had not lost his AssaultMecha and BFG.