Something was happening, something of extraordinary significance was affecting the Earth. It started small, just a quick little rumble which could have been the aftereffects of a small explosion but nothing to worry about. And so androids and machines continued their eternal duties primarily consisting of attempting to blow one another to bits. However the tremor grew, and grew, and grew until the entire planet was shaking. Old decrepit buildings began to lose what little stableness they held and collapsed. Tidal waves the size of tsunamis struck the ground with all the force mother nature could muster. Tornadoes and hurricanes made their way onto the mainland ravaging everything in their wake and sparing no mercy for those unfortunate to be in their path of destruction.

Global android leaders and commanders all around the world desperately relayed commands as fast as their communication networks could allow focusing largely on evacuation efforts but also trying to pinpoint the source of their predecessors planet's anger to no avail. Some blamed an abnormality in continental shifts or the Earth's magnetic fields, others theorized that the machines had done away with their unspoken agreement in avoiding the use of weapons of mass destruction and now the end had come. A few overzealous androids deemed to be riddled with bugs and viruses attributed it to the spirits of humanity being unsatisfied with their war efforts in reclaiming the planet from machine life forms and condemning them all to their deaths. What they didn't know and would have never predicted was that the source was the result of a young adult human woman losing their marbles in grief many millennia ago.

Jayce was hurting, hurting real bad both mentally and physically. His very being was rammed into the invisible inner walls of tunnels comprised of pure darkness and void. He felt his surroundings twisting and churning back and forth, left and right, on and on, while his perception of time was being derailed. How long had he been here in the vacuums of space experiencing this extremely uncomfortable sensation and when would it end? It felt like vomit was leaving his mouth only to be pulled back into his body swishing around every organ it could find. The experience was unreal, and he had no ways to describe it in a practical manner. When it finally ended all he could feel was relief which was quickly replaced by a cold wetness pressing into his face leaving him unable breath.

With all the remaining energy he could assemble, he managed to push his forearms against the snow managing to position himself in a crawling manner, vomited out his dinner, and then rolled onto his back with his face towards the raging snowstorm. If he had to summarize the out of world phenomenon he had just went through, he'd describe it as his insides existing as alcohol instead of organs and then being placed on a fucked up tire swing where he was tossed in every direction imaginable with the force of a titan's arms behind it.

He was already feeling exhausted before the whole experience, but now if a doctor was to examine him he was damn sure he could officially be proclaimed as deceased.

He so desperately wanted to sleep even if it was in the middle of nowhere under the brutality of a blizzard that had no right being there seeing as he should have been in Jerusalem and the last time Jerusalem had snow was, well, a really long fucking time ago apparently. But unfortunately he knew exactly what would happen to him if he didn't find somewhere warmer and he wasn't keen on dying as a human popsicle.

"…uuhhhhhhgggggg…" A groan that would render zombies jealous escaped his lips.

"….die…Odie bear, you there…?"

Two wet slobbering tongues rubbing against his face was his reply.

"…morning to you too, and to you as well Iris. I can't move guys, mind dragging me somewhere warm or dry? …need sleepy time." He quietly mumbled.

He felt two mouths clamping onto his shoulders, dragging him away… somewhere. Truth was he could probably still manage to walk if he pushed himself to his utmost limits, but he just didn't really care at this point. Unable to keep his eyelids propped open while his furry companions were making progress, he opted to mentally say 'yolo' and committed to the laziest option available to him like he always did when faced with any difficult to make decision. He went to sleep leaving the fate of his well being to two huskies.

Jayce felt things were a bit different than they usually were.

Denar was talking about how it was Christmas and wanted Kayla's ass as a gift. Kayla said fine but only on Tuesdays. Alex was dressed as Santa shoving marshmallows into cola and then slurping it out. Jayce himself pointed out that Santa was supposed to be eating cookies and milk instead of whatever the fuck Alex was doing but Alex disagreed and for some inane reason a force of compulsion took over his mind and he admitted Alex was right and he was wrong. Ace came in dressed like some samurai anime character and started screaming about how it was Halloween and not Christmas. Strangest of all, Caim and his dragon Angelus were talking about how they wanted to play Mario Kart instead of Smash Bros but he said no because he didn't want to get up and change the disc and next thing he knew he was driving a go kart straight out of the game.

Okay something was seriously off; this wasn't really real was it?

Fighting off the remaining pangs of sleepiness Jayce managed to open his eyes. Eyes still blurry, he took a moment for his sight to clear and began to gather his thoughts.

'Huh where did Mario…. was that… a dream? What.'

The sudden realization that he actually had a 'normal' dream instead of a terrifying vision filled with medieval tortures confused him. It was a weird experience. He felt like he had no control over his actions and just went along with whatever happened and definitely still disagreed with dream-Alex's idea of Santa dipping marshmallows into cola over cookies and milk, that was just disgusting.

'Why did… Maybe because we killed the commander? Weird as fuck dream but it beats a Watcher vision anyday… HOLY FUCK DOES THIS MEAN NO MORE NIGHTMARES?!' he joyfully screamed in his head.

'No… better not get optimistic and see if it stays this way for a week.' He reasoned.

The teenager picked himself off from the comfortably matted floor- huh what? Where was he exactly and why did his head feel the way it did the day after his first experience of drinking alcohol?

'But what exactly happened again? We were… in Jerusalem, we killed the red-eyed commander, and then… uh… oh yeah! Kayla went berserk cause Alex-…oh.' Feelings of sadness began to crawl into his mind as he remembered with happened to his friend and leader of the group. Alex was basically their dad, always acting as a father figure even though he just a few years older than the rest of them.

'But… how am I even alive? I was legit swallowed into a gaping black hole and not the kinky kind. Does that mean everyone else is still alive and maybe somewhere nearby?'

Reaching towards his chest he tapped a button on the red device.

"Yo yo yo, anyone there?"

He waited for a good few minutes, but to his displeasure received no response.

*Click* *Click* *Click*

'What's that noise? Sounds like someone's typing on a… keyboard?'

His gaze scanned the room as he began to examine his surroundings. He was in some sort of office building where the walls were made of drywall painted white and the room was open concept filled with cubicles. He could make out some strange lightbulbs that he didn't recognize based off their design and also some poorly made furniture made out of what looked to be old rusty car parts and… was that a mother flippin robot typing away in front of a monitor?

He walked up to the strange little mechanical man and examined it intensely. It wore a dirty old navy blue dress shirt, no pants, and seated itself on a small metal chair similar to the ones kids were given in schools. It's head was spherical in shape with two glowing green eyes and had short bronze arms extending from its cylindrical torso that ended with well crafted fingers allowing it to pound away on its keyboard so quickly it would leave a court reporter astonished. He then looked to the monitor to see what exactly it was so focused on only to find it powered off.

'…Am I still dreaming?'

Normal people would have chosen to pinch their cheek in order to confirm whether they truly were just dreaming but Jayce was special and instead decided to chomp on his hand leaving a trail of saliva and some blood when he removed his teeth from his palm.

'Okay that definitely hurt so… this isn't a dream? What.'

He waved his hands in front of it trying to steal its attention away. The action was momentarily successful as it turned his way for a split second but then decided to return to its more… 'important' duty of typing away at an empty screen.

'Weird.'

He decided to look around a little more and came across a few more robots mimicking the same actions as the one he initially discovered including ignoring him as best they could.

'Weird-weird.'

"Aooo Aoo!" A Husky's cry filled the room.

He cocked his head downwards towards the noise and let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank fucking Jeebus you guys are here with me! Makes all of this a little less creepy." He grinned as he patted his furry friends.

Deciding he had explored enough of the building; he made his way to leave pulling against the hand two red doors that separated the office from the great outdoors. He wondered how his dogs had even managed to open them and drag him in but attributed it to their enhanced intelligence.

What he saw as he took his first steps into the cold winter weather left his eyes wide and jaw hanging.

The blizzard had cleared leaving a midway sunset or sunrise and with the clearing it brought something completely foreign. The weather was oddly warm when his last memory was being halfway frozen to death and dragged through a literal blizzard.

'I think I've seen some scary weird shit in my life with the whole shebang of the WCS, the legion, the Watchers, and crazy scientists, but this is just weird weird weird.'

Metal robots dressed in human clothing were walking the streets seemingly chatting to one another as they strolled along. As he continued to look around, he witnessed some robot children riding bikes, others on skateboards wearing metal backpacks making their way down a hill and towards a large building that reminded him of am elementary school. Some of the 'children' even held the hands of their 'parents' as they made their way down the street towards what looked like a school bus except it had the same spherical face as the rest of them where the front of the bus should be and two yellow eyes.

In the distance he witnessed an absolutely ginormous machine that appeared to be wearing a hard hat and a safety vest lifting a large amount of wrapped rebar. A whooshing noise from above drew his interest skywards only to see a few spherical heads with rings of metal wrapped around them giving them an appearance similar to that of a UFO flying freely around ten to fifteen meters above the ground. They also wore hard hats and seemed to be assisting the giant in some sort of reconstruction effort.

He took in the scene, did a double take, a triple take, and then for good measure chose to bite his hand once more only to reach the conclusion that this was not in fact a dream.

'As weird as this place is, its also kinda dope. Beats touring Legion infested Jerusalem any day.'

"Alright Odin and Iris, let's check out Robo…Tropolis? Sure why not."

As the trio walked throughout the streets with Jayce oooing and aahhing occasionally at the strange sights, they eventually came to a seemingly abandoned village with houses made of stone.

He decided to investigate one of the largest ones and determined it was abandoned like all the others. The house was incredibly dusty, filled out with spider webs, and the windows were broken covered with planks of wood instead of glass. Going through the rooms he found old furniture including a bed; which he wished he had slept on when he arrived now feeling some soreness from his right shoulder as a consequence of sleeping on the floor. But other than some furniture, kitchenware; barring ones made of steel, and carpets, the house was completely empty.

In the master bedroom scattered across the floor he managed to find a few photos of the family of five who this house must have belonged to. A young mother and father along with two boys and one girl ranging from the ages of what estimated were five to twelve years old. They all had blonde hair and blue eyes making him think he might have been somewhere in Europe or maybe North America which was strange since he had been in Israel last. Kayla was capable of short range teleportation within an area of a few hundred meters, but to another continent? That was far above her capabilities but given how she went berserk, it wasn't out of the question.

He didn't find any electronics, but he could tell from the angles of the ruined couches in the living room, the way holes were in convenient positions to allow wires to come out of, and a table which looks like where a household desktop computer would be that there definitely used to be.

'I guess someone decided to rob all the electronics then and even anything made of metal.' He thought as he noticed the missing vent covers.

Finishing his tour of the house it was time to eat something and then investigate the outdoors once more. He unzipped his winter coat, reached for the zipped pouch on his hoodie and pulled out a small cylindrical device. He pressed a small red metal button on the capsule like object causing a tear in space to materialize leading to a room that was similar to size as that of a large walk-in closet.

As he scoped out the inside of the pocket dimension, he let out a sigh. Since his teammates already brought the necessary weapons and items strictly dedicated to survival , he was only concerned filling his with entertainment objects in case the team got bored which they often did and well, dog food for his Huskies. Inside were video games, board games, a television, his favorite change of clothes, a few laptops, dvds, stacks of books including comics and manga, a lifetime supply of dog food, boxes of junk food, and other goodies.

'Fuck me. Guess I'm living off dog food, twinkies, and Halloween candy for now. At least I got a generator though.'

He grabbed two steel bowls placed them on the ground and filled them with dog food. He gave Odin and Iris the okay and in less than two seconds he witnessed the kibble being launched into the air as they devoured what was in the bowl in mere moments. Seeing the food being ravished upon, he then gave the ingredients a read.

'Chicken, fish, potatoes, rice, lots of chemicals… looks good enough to me.'

He grabbed another steel bowl from out of the popper and poured some for himself. Grabbing some with his hands he began chewing.

'It's actually not the worst thing to eat and at least its healthier than eating Cheetos or chocolate all day, I think.'

Tasty food was hard to come by in the post apocalyptic days of the white chlorination syndrome with most only having survival on mind and pleasure second. It was only thanks to the White Lotus organization and their desire to keep him as healthy and happy as possible that he managed to get his hands on decent meals, so he wasn't too picky about what he ate.

After finishing his food, water came to mind but unfortunately no water came out of the taps. He did have a few cases of water bottles, but those were precious, and he didn't want to waste those especially when there was fresh snow outside.

He grabbed the now three empty steel bowls, opened the door and scooped up some snow a few feet in front of the house and placed it front of himself and both dogs. He knew he should be boiling the water, but he didn't have the resources to do so since no electricity ran through the house.

"Now what to do…" He pondered.

'Might as well explore the city and learn more about this place.'

[Jayce's Pov]

There he sat, slayer of a thousand men, conqueror of this infertile land, a leader, and a beacon of hope to all those who followed him. It was also the medium sized robot whose method of transportation I wanted to steal.

As I examined the scene before me, I watched carefully as the machine men - wearing red bandanas seemingly tied on random parts of their bodies - were in the heat of battle against their blue bandana nemesis once more. Many of them sported bronze bling, tank tops, and pants that were worn a little too low below their cylindrical bottoms. I snorted a little whenever I saw one of them trip themselves because of it.

Their weapons of choices ranged from crow bars, knives, pipes, and some even had what I was guessing were a type of pistol except they shot weird reddish circle bubble thingies that I really wanted to poke but the survival instinct of my brain always won over preventing me from doing so. I swore to myself I would one day though. Now why would I commit to risking my health for such an action? Honestly I just wanted to pop them. Its just something I really needed to do like some sort of OCD . I guess its sort of like that weird feeling of satisfaction you get when you pop some bubble wrap or like how insects flock to a light source. Meh, its hard to explain.

Anyways the scene in front of me could only be described as an awful re-enactment of what I was guessing were a battle between two rival gangs composed of urban youths. It was made even more obvious when those with Glocks wielded them in a sideways fashion prioritizing style over effectiveness.

While one might be completely memorized by the shenanigans of these robots, I personally had grown used to it.

You see I've been here for over two weeks now and the bizarre shit I've seen often made me contemplate if I was just on some really fucked up acid trip. The problem with that was the only drug I regularly get high off is good old weed and I was definitely going to roll a blunt as soon as my mission was over to relax and closely examine my life circumstances like I did every other day. Err – did I say day? I truly had no idea what fucking day it was since the sun never moves its' ass and time clearly flowed differently here or maybe it didn't at all. Maybe if the God of Time Chronos existed then he'd know. I just went off whatever date my phone showed which was slowly running out battery and sitting at 54%.

However the thought once again brought up the question I would always ask myself: am I on some parallel Earth? I honestly though that was the case and was sorta-well actually extremely upset I didn't get tossed into something good. Well at least I didn't get tossed into a world where humans were raised as livestock or butt fucking demons chased after men like me. Actually now that I think about it unless you were the main character, all of the cool anime and manga treated the average pleb like trash. I mean think about the most popular ones. Dragonball Z? You'd have died several times to sadistic bloodthirsty aliens over and over. Naruto? You'd be born most likely as a child soldier and die not too soon afterwards which wasn't too different from my old world but still.

Personally if I had my pick I would've chosen the Pokemon universe. There's nothing better than enslaving and brainwashing as many extremely intelligent animals as you could in order to make them fight for your amusement in glorified dog fights until they collapse. And it was all done to collect shiny metal badges or crush your ten-year-old rival's ego. Huh, I guess even the kiddy ones are sort of fucked up. Still, who the hell sends their kids out on their own at that age into the wild especially in a world where the monsters had a million different ways to kill yo- I slapped my hands against my head and forced myself to focus. I had a really bad habit of getting off track whenever an interesting thought popped into my head and I could keep going for hours.

I got off the rusty bicycle I was currently seated on, let it fall to the floor and stealthily crept up against the side of a plaza with my back against the wall. Currently I was in what seemed to be the slums of this robot habitation which was composed of several suburbs and a downtown area. They even had a shopping district where they sold scraps of metal and several places with entertainment being the focus like a zoo which I was definitely going to check out. No doubt it was going to be a unique experience like everything else in this place.

Now I didn't really need to sneak around because for some reason the machines would at most only give me a passing glance if I was in their way and even make an effort to get out of my path. They would then merrily continue on with whatever they were doing. That was a huge relief because the first time I was spotted by one of them, I almost crapped my pants thinking they might all go apeshit and hunt me down. Eventually I figured out I was practically invisible to them and with that realization I gained more confidence walking alongside my robotic brethren. It wasn't long before I started robbing them in plain sight which was extremely easy to do so since they never really noticed.

The bicycle I was currently riding belonged to a robo kid. It was happily singing its dreadful impersonation of a song and making its way home from school until I showed up and punted the little cunt off its bike with the bottom of my foot, stole it, and made my getaway. However, the bike itself was awful and I wondered if it was even worth using. It was difficult to control and the amount of power I had to put into my legs to get it moving in the first place was insane. The machines were way stronger than I had expected seeing as how they had no issues.

I felt a little guilty when the poor thing started crying but the emotion left as soon as it came. Now I know that may sound unpleasant to whichever Gods were currently reading my mind, but I swear I'm a good person; even If I might have somewhat disturbing thoughts that popped into my head every once in a while (not my fault, I blame my brain chemistry). However the reason I didn't feel guilt wasn't because I was an evil bastard who got off on beating the snot out of children - even if they were just machine children, although it was kinda funny. No its because these things had no souls and I made sure to check thoroughly. Every living being had souls no matter how small or large.

Whatever these things were doing, it was because they were programmed or designed to do it without any complex thought. They had no real emotions; they were only acting even if it was scarily realistic. Well at least that's what I told myself. Truth be told, I didn't really care if that wasn't the case cause I needed their shit more than they did and its not like I killed or injured any of them.

I was now directly to the right of my target after managing to avoid any bubble fire. I recognized it by its red hoodie, red shorts, and the red baseball cap it always wore in a backwards fashion along with the white gibberish symbols across its chest and arms which was what seemed to be a robot's version of a tattoo. Honestly it looked like a five-year-old just scribbled over it with a green permanent marker. It also had maybe ten pounds worth of goldish brown chains around its neck as well as some rings which I think were just those iron socket thingies you use with some tools. I think if I replaced the baseball cap with a purple feathered fedora and gave it a fur coat, it would look like a robo-pimp. Then it would just need some robo-whores and it could start pimping them out. Hmmm, I wonder what kind of currency these guys use anyways? Guess it didn't matter considering I just stole whatever I needed.

I saw it sitting on my reward and rubbed my hands mischievously while also letting out an evil laugh like a stereotypical villain plotting something evil. It felt like the right thing to do.

It noticed my presence as its spherical shaped head rotated towards me, but it found my existence unworthy and went back to staring at the metal scrapyard that was slowly beginning to form made up of corpses from its lackeys and their rivals dressed in blue.

Now was the time to strike. I channeled my maso and then gathered it around my feet empowering them. Even with my enhanced physical strength, it was nearly impossible for myself to injure or even move the mid sized trash cans. Despite their looks these guys weighed a ton and were sturdy as hell. One time I tried kicking a small one after it pissed me off when it dropped an oil can it was carrying onto my pants, and I ended up breaking my toes. I then had to heal myself leaving promptly me exhausted for a few hours.

However, by using maso and enhancing my soul I was sure I could send this guy flying a few feet at least and buy myself some time to get the fuck outta here. I sprinted and leapt into the air. Just before reaching the gang leader I bent my knees inwards to my chest, gathered my maso around my legs, and flared my soul . As soon as I felt the gang leader pressed against my feet I extended my knees and pushed as hard as I could. It went flying maybe ten or so feet – actually I didn't know how far, I was completely incompetent when it came to guesstimating any form of measurement – into a pile of snow and I also landed a good distance away from my attack. I then sprinted once more, kicked the kick stand up, and hopped onto the monster of a motorcycle.

It was big, black, hard, and absolutely massive. I've seen the red hatted robot ride on top of this thing before bopping up and down repeatedly as it traveled against the bumps on the road. All of the other robots would run in panic since it was essentially the monster truck version of a motorcycle that was easily capable of destroying any of the robots that were on the smaller side and unfortunate enough to meet its path.

I wasn't sure if driving this thing would be similar to motorcycles in the old world, but I believed I'd be able to figure it out. I positioned it to face straight in the direction I wanted it to go and when I examined the controls, the first thing I observed, no key slot. Instead there was a big metal button and as soon as I pressed it the engine roared like a lion chasing down a hyena. I noticed that it was missing a lot of things I was used to such as a gear switch or clutch. Maybe it was fully automatic? I was quickly trying to figure out how the damned think was supposed to work until I sensed it.

My heart stopped, my stomach dropped, my spine quivered, and I felt beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead. Normally this sensation was completely normal and one that would never induce any sort of anxiety in me. However, I hadn't felt this feeling since I was back home with my crew and other people around me. It was one of emotion and it was coming from the snow pile I had kicked the red thug into. I quickly turned my head to face towards its direction and as I did, I felt like I needed to take a nervous dump when I got over my initial shock and realized what was happening.

Its green eyes peered into mine as it stood there like a statue. The emotions I felt from it were extremely primitive similar to those of something like a small bird, but I could make them out well enough. Shock, confusion, a small amount of annoyance, and a large amount of curiosity.

"Holy fucking shit, holy shit, holy shit, what the flying fuck is going on right now?" I whispered.

I was freaking out and my heart was beating against my chest at a rate that made it feel like it was about to explode out of my chest. In my panic, I twisted the throttle a little too hard and the initial acceleration of the vehicle gave me slight whip lash.

"OH SHITTTTT!" I screamed as I attempted to reach for the brakes to slow my self down. After managing to stop I realized I was quite a distance away from the miniscule gang war that had just occurred, but I could see it, and it could still see me. It was still staring me down with those glowing green eyes.

I took some time to think about the absolutely absurd situation involving the red hatted robot and the insane ramifications to my most recent accomplishment.

"I just kicked life into the tiny little bastard." I muttered in awe.