STAR VS THE FORCES OF EVIL
THE PILOT AND HIS PRINCESS
ACT I - PROLOGUE
II
THE FINAL PUSH
"Physics at its finest, S.B."
The final battle had begun.
All the might the armies of Humanity is set in motion in the Battle for Los Angeles, the last stronghold of the LandWeb - the most hated enemy of humanity. Every infantry soldier, every tank, every vehicle, every jet fighter, every titan carrier, and every helicopter that humanity could unleash aimed to destroy LandWeb once and for all. It took six years for humanity to strike back against the sentient A.I. This war, called the War of Liberation, had cost the lives of nearly six billion people since the day the bombs dropped until the Battle for Los Angeles. Now, the lives that were lost in the war will now be avenged and once humanity wins, they shall be free.
Shouts of the battle cry "Freedom to the People" could be heard among the troops as they rushed forward to the stronghold. Plasma artillery and aerial bombers were attacking the crumbling fortress of LandWeb without mercy, just as LandWeb nuked humanity six years ago. Blue human and red robot laser beams lit the sky up, lighting up the usual gloominess of dark land into day. Vehicles from both sides could be heard moving and exploding in all of the fronts. Blood and oil was spilled on the soil. The air was filled hunderds of robotic and human aircraft, trying to control the skies.
Despite all the chaos, Marco Diaz, an ace pilot, kept his cool and flew his Titan, S.B. - 91284 as hundreds of enemy anti-aircraft guns filled the sky with colors. He is sitting in the cockpit of his Titan, which was hovering in the air along with at least a hundred veteran titan-pilots like him.
"Marco?" Spoke his Titan, S.B., in a robotic voice.
"Yeah?"
"Our unit, the 31st Titan Detachment, has received their orders. Playing audio now."
"31st Titan Detachment, listen to this carefully. You're orders are our highest priority, so you should be taking this seriously or the Commander will kill all of you personally. As the best pilots available, you're orders are to take the core of LandWeb down. The entire attack will aid you by being a diversion, thus forcing LandWeb to divert most of its robots to fight the invading ground forces. You will be the decisive factor in this battle, and the success of this attack will depend on how well you carry out your orders. More than five million soldiers have placed their fate in you. Don't forget that." The audio was then cut.
"Our fellow fighters are now talking over the communication lines. Preparing communications module."
"Yeah, right. Get me access to the comm lines."
"Done." Static came out of the built-in radio of the Titan cockpit at first, but as S.B. began to re-tune the communication module, it became clearer and clearer until Marco could hear clearly hear what they were saying.
"31st Titan Detachment! Detachment Leader Rodriguez speaking. Did you receive the orders from High Command?" A resounding "yes" came from the entire detachment.
"Good! We need to break into that fortress somehow. Any suggestions?"
"Yeah... not gonna happen." Someone said with a rather disrespectful tone.
"Very very helpful you moron." Marco thought to himself
"Why the hell not?" Rodriguez asked. His voice was obviously filled with annoyance. The disrespectful voice spoke again.
"Are you blind to the amount of lasers coming out of that fortress. Heck. They probably got a few thousand anti-titan guns there..."
"I hate to say this but... he's right. We're not gonna break in to that fortress anytime soon." Everyone in the detachment agreed.
"Really?" Marco spoke. "In that case... all of you might need some glasses."
"And why so?" The disrespectful voice spoke.
"Observe the fortress carefully, everyone. Look at where the lasers are aiming at." The pilots observed that the guns were aiming at the aircraft.
"They're aiming at our aircraft..."
"Exactly. They're aiming at our aircraft. All of the AA guns are. Now look at the top of the fortress. The very top. Do you see any lasers going up?" No lasers being launched upwards into the air.
"None." Rodriguez seemed to understand what Marco is saying.
"I see where your getting at. You suggest we attack at the very top? Where is practically no AA lasers to kill us?"
"Yes, and focus all of our firepower to break the ceiling. From there, we'll fight floor by floor."
"Sounds like a plan!" Everyone agreed.
"Alright, Pilots. Let's move!" Rodriguez's Titan began to fly up into the air, followed by Marco and everybody else.
They flew high in the sky, to prevent detection from the AA guns. Their flight upwards and towards the ceiling of the fortress didn't meet the barrage of lasers the soldiers on the ground faced, save for some stray shots which they easily dodged.
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.
.
They arrived at the very top of the fortress, hovering over it. Rodriguez began to speak in the communications line.
"Alright! Here's our game plan! We smash through that roof and we find the core from there. All titans and pilots, get ready for battle."
Everybody started checking their systems, including Marco.
"Alright, S.B. Systems check."
"Flight Core... operational. Communications Module... operational. A.I. Systems... operational. Weapons... operational. Titan is ready for battle."
"Alright... let's do this."
The entire detachment began to dive down towards the roof, firing their weapons to break through it. However, despite all the fire power focused on the roof, it didn't do much but leave burn marks signifying that a laser had hit the roof.
"Our weapons aren't doing anything to that roof!"
"How the heck are we going to get inside then!?"
"Get inside? Easy..." A devious smile formed on Marco's lips. "If we can't destroy it, we smash right through it!"
Marco then focused all power to the thrusters, and the speed of Marco's titan is fast enough to leave the whole detachment behind. If the math checked out, with enough acceleration and the weight of the titan, Marco's titan could smash through the roof with enough force.
Simple math actually - mass multiplied with acceleration is equal to force. Since Marco's titan is going at 50m/s, not including gravity's influence on the Titan, and weight is around twenty-five tons, he could assume that he could easily break through.
"Marco?" S.B. spoke.
"Yeah?"
"This is suicide." Marco could only smile at his robotic friend's remark.
"They don't call me Marco the Never Dying Pilot for nothing, S.B."
300 meters to impact
However, S.B. is right. He could have chance of dying because of this attempt.
200 meters to impact
He reached for his pocket to get a still pristine necklace. The "Necklace of Protection" that Star gave him several years ago. Though his comrades ridiculed him for thinking this necklace protected him, he didn't care. He wore it around his neck.
"Don't fail me now, Star..." He whispered to himself quietly.
100 meters to impact
"S.B., get ready to fight!" They smashed into the roof.
The plan worked. The forces produced by the acceleration and weight of his Titan penetrated the roof, and they landed perfectly on the top floor of the fortress.
Too bad they found themselves surrounded by hundreds of robots, staring and processing what happened.
"S.B., shoulder guns are yours! Underarm guns are mine! Kill them all!"
Marco and his Titan proceeded to brutally murder the hundreds of robots trying to kill him with their lasers. However, Marco and S.B. were well-acquainted to the art of battle so they easily dodged all the lasers trying to kill them rather easily, with only a few shots leaving a mark on the armor of the Titan.
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.
.
The detachment began to fight their way through the hordes of robotic soldiers. Floor by floor, they continued to make their slow and bloody descent down to the core of LandWeb. However, with each floor they tried to take, more and more robots came to stop them. More robots meant more casualties, and Marco and S.B. knew that descending down the fortress would be suicidal.
"There are more bots in the fortress than I thought." Marco said as S.B. fired his shoulder guns to destroy the last robots on the sixth floor.
"Anymore attempts to descend the fortress will kill us, Marco. We won't survive."
"I can see that, S.B. I'm not blind…" Marco aimed his Titans underarm laser machine guns at the last robots on the floor, killing them cleanly. The floor was now clear of robot soldiers, though he knew that there were more robot soldiers in the next floor. Their plan to fight floor by floor will fail if LandWeb deployed more robotic soldiers to fight them.
"We need to tell commander Rodriguez to make a new plan." Marco concluded
"Rodriguez is dead, Marco. He died on the fourth floor. Besides, you're better at making plans than him." Marco smiled.
"No need to flatter me with your words, S.B." If S.B. had a face, he would smirk. Marco spoke again.
"S.B. If the commander is dead, is there anyone not dead?"
"Scanning communications line…" Some beeps later and scanning later, the results are negative.
"The entire detachment is dead. We're the only one left."
"Try to send a signal to the other Titans to meet us. We can't possibly be the only one left."
"Sending signal to Titans and Pilots…" Again, no response. "No response from other titan-pilots."
"Are you serious?"
"Yes." Marco sighed.
"Guess we're going to have to destroy the core ourselves then. We need a plan."
Marco and S.B. put on their thinking caps and began to formulate their own plans. Robots were down there, and it would be suicide to try to take them all their own. Even if they managed to somehow destroy all the robots, S.B.'s armor chassis would be too weak and the main plasma core (the main battery of the Titans) and the weapons' ammunition core would be drained.
However, Marco felt the ground… shaking? It seemed that the combined weight of the total of amount of metal and scrap were taking its toll on the floor, and it seemed that it could collapse anytime now.
Eureka!
"Perfect. Genius, Marco."
"S.B.?" S.B. stopped his thought train and listened.
"What?"
"How much weight can this floor take?" S.B. began to observe the floor, and it seemed that it is… shaking? S.B. then understood what Marco is implying.
"Are you suggesting we destroy the floor and let it destroy the robots beneath us?"
"Pretty much."
"That is quite beneficial, Marco." Marco raised an eyebrow.
"Why?"
"Every time we move to the next floor, there are more robots than the last, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then that means, that the floor below us is facing a much heavier weight than the floor we're standing on, since there are more robots and therefore weight waiting."
"I'm listening…"
"And assuming all the floors on this building have the same carrying capacity… then that means if we take this floor out, we'll take all the floors with it. Do you understand what I mean?"
"I don't get it."
"Okay. This floor is heavy and is about to break. The floor below is much heavier, and will break if any more weight comes upon it. So, by breaking this floor, all the weight on this floor will fall on the floor below. And since the floor below breaks if any more weight comes upon it, then the floor below us will break. From there, it will just repeat itself over and over again."
"I don't get what you're saying but it sounds like we're breaking the laws of physics."
"Marco… we broke every law in the universe at this point. We survived eighteen suicide missions and somehow you and I manage to survive without a scratch or a dent."
"That's because I have Star's necklace of Protection, S.B., or maybe some force unknown is trying to prevent me from dying. Ahhhhh, screw it." Marco thought to himself. "Good point. Oh well, let's try it then S.B."
"But first, we need some space." S.B. then proceeded to shoot the floor above, making a hole in the ceiling and allowing some robot parts to fall to their floor. He repeated the process until he arrived to the first floor.
"We are really pushing the boundaries of physics this time." Marco remarked as they hovered over the hole S.B. made. If they stopped hovering, S.B. would fall to the sixth floor and with enough force to push the floor to its breaking point.
"Let's hope this works. If not, we're dead."
S.B. then stopped hovering, and fell all the way the sixth floor. When they hit the floor, cracks began to form and S.B. immediately started to hover with the built in jetpack of the Titan chassis.
The floor immediately broke, and all the weight fell down to the floor below. The robots below were crushed by the debris and the floor they stood on couldn't stay stable and collapsed as well. The process repeated itself over and over again until at the ground level, only a large mix of floor debris and robot parts lie.
"Physics at its finest, S.B."
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It took sometime for the duo to find the core room, and when they found it, they didn't expect a giant room dedicated to a few hunderd thousand servers. They expected one single core having unimaginable computing power.
"This is a lot of servers, S.B." Both Marco and S.B. were awestruck at the amount of servers that could be in one place.
"Didn't expect this to happen." S.B. remarked.
"Nobody expected the LandWeb core to be like this." A robot soldier then appeared out of nowhere. "S.B., look out."
S.B. dodged out of harm's way, and fired back at the robot soldier. He missed, however, and the laser he launched instead hit one of the servers.
However, something interesting happened.
The robotic soldier short-circuited for a moment, before it began firing at the Titan again.
"S.B.? Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Destroy the servers?"
"Let's do it!"
S.B. proceeded to fire everywhere, not bothering to aim knowing that there were servers no matter where he went. The robotic soldiers couldn't anything but short-circuit as the servers controlling were being destroyed.
"Destroying the servers are easier than I thought!"
"Do you really think that you can destroy us that easily!?"
S.B. turned to find a dark and menacing Titan, which S.B. identified to be an X-Class Titan. It arms carried standard plasma laser machine guns, but on its left shoulder carried a weapon S.B. couldn't identify.
"Who hell are you?" Marco asked through the microphone inside of S.B.'s cockpit.
"You know me very well." The Titan raised its volume and shouted. "I AM LANDWEB!" The left shoulder gun fired an energy bomb which S.B. dodged by flying upwards with the jet pack. It left a large crater on the ground impact.
"What the heck is that thing, S.B? That gun could have killed us."
"No doubt an energy artillery piece on a Titan. If that thing hits us, one hit, one kill."
"Well, I guess we're going to have to dodge it and then kill that thing."
"Not possible."
"Why?"
"Its an X-Class Titan. Its armor is next to impossible to penetrate with the standard weapons we carry. It can only be penetrated by an artillery piece at point blank range." Marco could only sigh in frustration.
"Transferring full control to the Titan. I'll think how to destroy that."
S.B. and the X-Class continued to duel for sometime. In the fight, Marco noticed that the X-Class was slow, meaning he could easily chase it. He also noticed that every time that X-Class Titan fired an energy bomb, the gun's core would light up for a moment, meaning that the plasma core is only active whenever the gun lights up.
He finally knew how to take it out.
He doubled checked his gear, because he knew he had to get close to the titan. Two plasma pistols, five sticky plasma grenades, an energy knife is all he needed to take that Titan out. To be safe, he took one Healthject, a all-in-one med kit in one injection.
"S.B., I'm going out."
"What? You'll kill yourself."
"Protocol 4 - Follow the Pilot."
"I really hate it if you use the protocols to force me to follow you. Fine. Be safe out there." S.B. then open the cockpit, and Marco jumped out of the Titan while it is hovering. S.B. then assumed his fight with the X-Class.
Marco started to run quickly, navigating the maze of servers expertly. He knew what he had to do, but if S.B. knew, he would certainly kill him. He hid himself behind a server, with the X-Class just a few meters away.
"I hope you forgive me, S.B."
Marco started to run towards the X-Class Titan, which is still oblivious to Marco's presence. Marco then jumped on the X-Class, surprising S.B.
"Marco, " S.B. spoke through the neural link Marco's helmet provided. "That's suicide."
"They don't call me Marco the Never Dying Pilot for nothing."
Marco then placed a sticky plasma grenade on the left shoulder gun, and jumped in front of the X-Class.
"Marco, NO!" S.B. shouted in neural link, if he could shout.
"You dare to attack me, fool?" The left shoulder gun of the X-Class is visibly being prepared to fire at Marco.
"Nope, its the other way around. Do you dare to attack me?" Marco then pressed the detonator.
The left shoulder gun blew up, along with the plasma core, causing a large explosion. The explosion destroyed the X-Class Titan, but it also weakened the floor underneath the Marco and the X-Class. The weakened floor gave way, and the X-Class Titan and Marco fell into the hole.
The last thing Marco heard is S.B. shouting his name.
NEXT CHAPTER
III
The Diamond of Mewni
