August 22, 11,958 CE
Inside Castle Brumac, Imperial Territory of Papeete, Eastern Sea of Midgard…
Organization ? Templar Knight, Lieutenant K-P- or Petra- slipped up the circular stone staircase. When she reached the top, she peered cautiously around the corner. "Almost there…"
She fired two shots from her rifle, eliminating the two Undead Knights guarding the chamber with precise aim. She spoke into her communicator. "Team Indigo, the way to the bedchamber is clear. Orders, Captain?"
"K-C2 will be joining you shortly. I've instructed K-Y and Lieutenant Sihanouk to clear the servants' quarters of hostiles, while K-3 and I stay to provide fire support when the MLF finally storms the grand hall."
"Understood. What about Orange Team?"
"They're pulling out- the Director called for reinforcements to bolster the Iberian Front. Especially with any Paladins they could spare already fighting on the Novgorodian Front and Mesopatamian Front."
"Don't they have those um… Titans for that stuff?"
"The Titans are impressive," Captain K-T concurred. "But they can be easily undermined by skilled Imperial sorcerers or heavy artillery. Unfortunately, we Templars are in pretty high demand, it seems."
"Understood, Captain. K-P out."
By now, Agent K-C2- or Clementine- had sauntered her way up the stairs behind Petra.
"I killed off the Imps and Troll downstairs," She boasted. "You're welcome, by the way."
Petra looked rather disdainfully at her partner. "I hope you gave them clean deaths, at least."
Clementine sighed exasperatedly. "Yes- yes. I even gave them the chance to surrender, damn it. But those dumb fuckers wouldn't take it. I don't need the Director, or Manah, or Trig, chewing me out."
"I hope you do, Clem," Petra said. "Right ahead is Zara's bedroom."
She was speaking of Imperial sorceress and necromancer, Lady Zara, who ruled over the Windward Islands.
Clementine grinned wickedly, as she swung her twin blades. Despite being able to use magic, she was rather fond of melee weapons. "Let's kill her!"
"We're to take her alive if possible," Petra warned her emphatically.
"But we know she won't accept," Clementine scoffed.
"We don't know that," Petra chided. "Come on, let's go."
The two fired their magic at the armored bedchamber door.
Just before striking their target, the magic hit an invisible barrier and vanished in a brilliant flash of yellow light.
"Wards, of course," Clementine narrowed her eyes. "Petra, let's hit it with everything we've got!"
"Hey, I outrank you!" Petra reminded indignantly, but lifted her weapon. The two Templars pounded the defensive wards around the door with a continuous fusillade of all manner of destructive magic.
At last, the barrier began to glow a reddish-orange, flickered, and collapsed, visibly, allowing the shots that followed to impact the armored door.
"Almost there, keep it up!" Petra ordered, though she was panting visibly. The continuous bombardment was an exhausting toll on her mana.
After a while, the door finally began to glow before imploding inward.
A fusillade of magic spells burst out from within.
"Go, go, go!" Petra ordered, and the two Templars charged forward, dodging spells. Once inside, they came face to face the Elven Lady Zara, sitting- seemingly serenely- on her bed, surrounded by shimmering defensive magical wards.
"Surrender, mage!" Petra warned, holding up her weapon. "We have both magic and more… conventional weapons, so don't you think about fighting us!"
"Or don't surrender and fight us," Clementine taunted. "So we can butcher your ass!"
The Elven sorceress chuckled scornfully. "More rebel scum in my castle, daring to despoil even my bedchamber? I know who you are- rare specimens too. Bastardized constructs of metal, enchanted perversions of even the accursed Humans of legend, tools of the winged demons who defy the gods! I shall surrender to no such abominations!" Lady Zara summoned a magic staff and a sword to her hands. "For the Empire! For the Gods!"
"Stubborn bitch!" Petra cursed, dodging the stream of curses that subsequently began ricocheting across the room.
"Let's take her down!" Clementine pelted Zara with magic, shattering her defensive wards. "Yes, now let's- AAAH!"
A blast of magic bent Clementine's lower leg, twisting it at an unnatural angle.
"AAAAHHH!" Clementine cried in pain, shooting her rifle erratically as she hastily dragged her body out of the way of a subsequent follow-up flurry of attacks. "You bitch!"
Petra took advantage of the situation to melee charge Zara, knocking the elf down and beating her with the butt of her weapon. "Just! Stay! Down!"
"GAAAHHH!" Zara cried out in pain, before unleashing a blast of magic with all her might, flinging Petra violently against a way. The Imperial sorceress breathed heavily, exhausted, before finally climbing down from the bed. "Oh, I will enjoy making you pay for that… AAAHH!"
An enormous laser beam erupted for a split second, spearing Zara right through the chest and going on to scorch the wall, before vanishing as quickly as it had come. The Elven woman fell to the floor, thrashing painfully in her final death throes for a few seconds before falling still, her blood drenching the floor.
Petra glanced over to Clementine, who was holding a high-powered laser weapon, which had been based on YoRHa Pod lasers, albeit with extensive alteration.
"Really now, Clem?! You used the Eden Laser? We were trying to take her alive if possible!"
"And it wasn't," Clementine shrugged nonchalantly. "Because she wasn't letting us!"
"Never mind..." Petra sighed, activating her communicator. "This is Agent K-P. Priority Target… neutralized. Captain, what's the situation?"
"Still pinned down in the grand hall!" Captain K-T shouted over the din of battle. "Agent K-Y and Lieutenant Sihanouk need help out in the courtyard shooting down those damned Imperial Airships! They keep bombarding the MLF positions!"
"Alright, we're on our way!" Petra confirmed.
Scrambling back down the stairs, the two Templar Knights rushed out into the courtyard where Ymir and Sihanouk were busy firing on dozens of Imperial Airships, with some help from scattered Midgard Liberation Front units.
"Damn bastards…" Clementine growled, as she crouched for cover behind a statue and took aim at the nearest airship with her Eden Laser. "Cowards hiding up in the sky…"
"Granted we do have back-ups, though… and your laser!" Sihanouk smirked. "So can't say we fight fair either!"
"Uh… Templar Knights don't have back-ups," Petra began.
"What, why?" Sihanouk stared wide-eyed. "How… is that possible?"
"Our… data, memories are stored… differently," Petra began hesitantly.
"Look, we're fighting a battle!" Ymir reminded. "And Sihanouk, your memory's going to be wiped anyway, so why bother? This isn't the first time we've explained this shit!"
"Fine, makes sense," Sihanouk muttered grudgingly.
"The airships make strategic sense though," Petra diverted the topic, reasoning rationally, as she added her fire to the firefight. "Trying to rain down indiscriminate fire, while putting distance between the MLF and them. Doesn't really work against Templars, though."
"Well, they're a little harder to hit," Lieutenant Sihanouk commented, as he hoisted up a ML-77 missile launcher and blasted one of the faster, winged Airships out of the sky. "But not by much. Unfortunately, supplies haven't come in from Noumea for several weeks, so I'm low on ammunition for our portable ADs."
"So the Lieutenant has to be picky about his targets, while I have to gun down the others," Ymir growled. "What a fucking bother."
"More contacts incoming! Bearings, south, 22 degrees, west! Range five kilometers!" Petra warned. "Enhancing visuals!"
"Oh joy, more of these fuckers," Ymir deadpanned. "Guess shooting practice will take longer today, girls…"
"No, wait!" Petra shouted. "Yes! Do not fire on new incoming! They are Dragon and MLF reinforcements!"
"Finally!" Clementine exclaimed, watching some of the Imperial Airships turning away to meet the new threat. "I take it our deadbeat friends in Rarotonga finally sent help?"
"Looks like it," Sihanouk commented dryly. "Took them long enough."
The Dragons were soon engaging the enemy airships, nimbly blasting them out of the sky, while, on their back, they carried howdahs with MLF troops that fired magic and all manner of kinetic energies.
Before long, the skies were clear of enemy ships, and their newfound allies swooped down to land, mopping up the remnants of the Imperial Army on the ground.
Captain K-T- or Trig- came out of the castle, accompanied by Agent K-3- or Number Three, and several MLF soldiers.
"The Castle is clear, team," Captain Trig declared triumphantly. "Good work, team! The MLF under Colonel Ravor is rounding up prisoners into the dungeons."
"Guess, we can finally get back to the barracks and have some time off, huh?" Petra chuckled to her teammates.
"I can't wait to get totally wasted," Ymir grumbled.
"Darn it, I was hoping to drench my claws in some more blood!" Clementine made cat-like gestures.
"You don't have claws, fool," Number Three remarked disdainfully, while Sihanouk rolled his eyes.
"Unfortunately… it might be a little early for celebration, troops," Captain Trig pointed to the sky, where a circle of red began to form, lighting flickering in the distance.
"Oh, no…"
"What- what is that?" Sihanouk exclaimed.
"Monstrous, horrific entities," Captain Trig spat. "A twisted perversion of the Human form, first created to wipe out Humanity."
"The Grotesqueries," Petra finished for the Captain, her eyes filled with horror.
One by one, what looked like enormous Human babies with flying appendages resembling bat-wings yet made of lighting, squealing in a twisted mixture of innocence, lust of destruction, and ravenous hunger.
The Dragons lunged up into the sky to engage, knowing instantly the threat presented by these hideous creations of their age-old enemies.
As the Dragons began engaging the Grotesqueries, Sihanouk dropped to one knee and fired off a portable anti-air missile. "Damn, that was my penultimate shot!"
"Fire it all!" Captain Trig ordered, and Sihanouk fired off another shot, destroying another of the Grotesqueries.
"Damn it!" Petra cried out in frustration as she and Sihanouk fired their rifles ineffectively, watching a Dragon fall to the Grotesqueries' own relentless bombardment.
Beside her, Ymir and Trig lobbed long-range spells, while Clementine fired her laser as often as she could without it overheating… to limited effect.
"When is our emergency back-up going to come?!" Captain Trig exclaimed before abruptly pausing. "Oh. There- there it is."
A rupture in spacetime erupted and convulsed… before a massive starship appeared out of nowhere. It was the Organization ? frigate White Fang- which immediately began to tear into the Grotesqueries with missiles and lasers. Afterward, it unleashed a fusillade of maso missiles into the hole in the sky, eruptions of red maso, pulling and tearing at the edges of the anomaly from whence the Grotesqueries had emerged, until it finally closed off.
On the ground, the Organization members and MLF soldiers threw their arms into the air and cheered, some dropping their others, others brandishing it wildly. Various cheers and shouts of excitement erupted.
"Take that, Titan babies!" Petra exclaimed.
"Go to hell!" Clementine cackled.
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Once the celebrations and chaos finally settled down, Team Indigo, Sihanouk, several leading MLF Commanders gathered in Castle Brumac's northeast tower, with powerful Dragon Patriarch Kirill leaning in from outside.
"...unfortunately, Imperial forces under that Corrupted Dragon, Maltheus, and the notorious Troll General, Grazhram, have thrown a massive spanner in our plans, almost-entirely pushing MLF forces out of Yamatai."
"Grazhram," MLF Goblin Colonel Ravor spat. "What a cunning bastard… by troll standards."
"Hmpf. Dirty tricks and chicanery," Elven General Rangabe scoffed condescendingly. "As expected of a brutish race."
"Regardless, it is the fault of the MLF," Dragon Patriarch Kirill accused. "My people have held the line in Songguo and Joseon."
"Barely!" MLF Faerie Chieftain Ramilla shot back at the dragon shrilly despite the enormous size difference. "Our losses in Yamatai are only due to treacherous bloodkin, Maltheus! And how much MLF blood has been shed to hold the line in Songguo and Joseon? Dragons cannot hold a battle line alone! Not to mention, I hear that Imperial Flying Fortress is really giving your people a beating in Jurchen, isn't it?"
Kirill growled furiously, but Captain Trig held up a hand, urging him to calm down.
"Blaming each other accomplishes nothing, not while the Empire and the Grotesqueries continue to shackle Midgard in their grasp! I will inform the Organization- I am sure they will divert more warships to this war," Captain Trig stated authoritatively.
"With those reports of an intelligent spacefaring race being discovered, we will probably want to wrap this up in a few years," Lieutenant Petra added, reminding the Captain.
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August 29, 11,958 CE
Camp Tortel, former Republic of Chile, Earth, Sol System, Earth Cluster...
Union Intelligence Director Serov looked on smugly as he watched the construction of the powerful weapons turrets and missile silos being constructed in the center of the military camp- one of thousands such military installations scattered all over the planet, defending all manner of cities and settlements across the Union capital world.
A base armed with ground-based Mark 2488 Onager mass accelerator turrets that could lob a projectile fast enough to reach targets in orbit, as well as AOW-19 Anti-Orbital Missiles. For closer, high-atmospheric targets, there was the Z-86 Heavy Laser Turrets, enlarged versions of weapons used during the Machine Wars, and the Mark 2457 mobile mass accelerator cannons mounted on M510 Mammoth tank platforms.
"Such a… crude display of force," Minister Kavar of the Diplomatic Corps observed as he walked out of an encampment building to stand alongside Serov.
"Crude, perhaps, but necessary," Serov replied. "Don't get me wrong- I do admire your… patience, and planning of your diplomacy. But sometimes force is needed to solve problems."
"Well, enough of the semantics," Minister Kavar pointed. "I believe our guest of honor is here."
A shuttle came in for a landing, and opened up, allowing Chairman Pascal of the Machine Council to disembark. "Director, Minister, I have acquired what you asked for. Or what was left of it, anyway. I'll have my men start unloading them right away. And here's the data."
"Excellent, thank you, Chairman!" Director Serov smiled. "You have done a great service to the Union!"
"Indeed!" Minister Kavar concurred, saluting. "Glory to the Union!"
"Glory to the Union!" Chairman Pascal paused before bringing it up. "While we did manage to salvage what we could from the Machine Network's Adam and Eve project… but what does this have to do with your Project Infiltrator?"
"I'm afraid this is classified for right now," Director Serov explained. "However, be patient, and you will find out soon…"