Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to everyone! Sorry for the incredibly long delay but I at least I wanted to get this out in time for Christmas when the time started to roll around. More information will be given at the end of the chapter. I want to thank all of you for your support. Haven't had the chance to do some light revising so possibly more than a few errors. Sorry.
Without further ado, lets do this.
Darkness.
That's what the night is currently. Complete and utter darkness. Barely any form of light can be seen along the massive sandy landscape. The majority of the place bathed in darkness with the only form of light being from the heavens shining down via the clear sky, allowing the stars and full moon to shine.
Except one place.
Deep within the Sahara Desert nestled in Africa, far to the edge of the border within the Algerian country side of the desert, stands a compound.
But not just any compound. A massive fortress of a compound, over half a mile long and the same in width. A marvel of structural engineering, with buildings, workshops, garages and factories all filled to the brim with equipment. A combination of concrete stone, steel and iron used to erect the heavily armed and armored compound.
Normally in the harsh sun and sandy environment that the Sahara desert exhumes, structures and living conditions, as well as the people, they will all crumble away and dry out.
Not this compound though. To protect from the harsh winds, large, tall, a few feet thick silver colored steel plated walls several stories surround the entirety of the compound. The majority of the winds becomes blocked via the walls but something else protects above them. Large thick tan colored camouflage nets are placed above all of the compound, as protection from the harsh weather, limiting the suns exposure on it, and anything trying to look at them from above will have a much harder time in trying to find the compound amongst the similar surrounding sand landscape.
The perfect place for a highly secretive and powerful para-military armor and weapons funding criminal organization to operate without fear of capture or interruption. The Iron Kings worked hard to make the place what it is, from the nets above, the large walls around, to the dozens upon dozens of buildings lined parallel with each other along paved roads they've made. Each one filled with either equipment to make and rearm weapons and bullets, garages to fix up and modify cars and vehicles, warehouses to make and store hazardous drugs, a large tall but slightly thinner building with a radio antenna stands tall over the camouflage nets, painted tan more to the rear of the compound, devoted to long range view of the surrounding desert for deliveries, trespassers and communications. In the center of the compound stands a large and massive building devoted to the leaders to rest and take command. Heavily armed, armored with security cameras everywhere. The compound is what they chose as their headquarters, secretive, far from civilization and out of much law jurisdiction.
A few days have passed since the threat was made and many of the inhabitants have been notified, and while its only one person, many people are still ready just in case. Over a dozen men are posted along the walls and walk all along it, keeping an eye out and getting ready for anyone coming to them. Much of the surrounding desert sands has been compacted hard into the ground so most of their views are focused on the small hills surrounding the place and the large sand dunes way farther off. Men inside the place also patrol the various paths and streets in the place, keeping an eye out just in case someone was somehow able to get in. Some of them are armed, ready and waiting, having done stuff like this before, some others though are more lax, uninterested, jittery, untrained finger discipline and so on. The latter are in the majority who patrol the areas.
With night bathing over the entire place, it'd be a bit hard to find anything far off in the distance and signal the alert on who it was. Afterall, they're expecting someone to eventually come by but theirs a reason they are on alert as the person they are expecting is someone they know who can do an innumerable amount of damage on his own. Still, they are holding someone very dear to him in the heart of the compound under heavy guard. Anything sketchy or hostile he does to them and the leader made it clear that she fry's to his face. Maybe not directly but the message was threatening enough. Especially when they also showed to him the little bear that belonged to the kid he so desperately protects with his life. This shows that they were able to sneak into the house, silently, without being seen or noticed, and steal the toy from right next to the kid when he wasn't looking… or was sleeping. And he didn't know it.
As the men continue to patrol the wall, some of them amicably and few sluggishly move back and forth, some even yawning at the overtime their leader has put them for making sure no one sneaks up on them. Some of them are in more combat attire, the ones that seem more alert, but others just simply wear casual clothing for their patrols. For a while, some of them even contemplated the idea of just sneaking off and relaxing.
That is until one of them, even in his blurry, sleep addled state, a man named Joe, he does take note of the pair of headlights off in the distance. If they were in the middle of a city, the lights would have been melded together with the surrounding lights of the city. Being practically in the middle of the desert, there is no light pollution. So any lights seen on the ground can be seen from a very very far off distance. Even by the guards.
"Boss. We see a car." He immediately calls out on the radio to his boss. A couple of his fellow patrol guards also stop all their doing and stare off at the lone vehicle cresting one of the dune hills. Their curiosity of the individual being far more interesting than simple guard duty to them.
Unfortunately for the person ins said vehilce, they wanted him to come so they can finish this, meaning reparations and most likely punishment. The leader doesn't care. "Shoot him. Riddle his car and his body with lead." Deadly punishment. He just wants him dead. He wastes no time to give the order over the radio.
As the lights get closer to the compound as it descends the hill and makes for more flat ground, everyone on the walls immediately gets the order and opens fire on the vehicle heading for them. A door opens up at the base of the wall and several men come running out, all armed with assault rifles and LMG's. They line up in front of the much larger massive door to allow vehicles through that spans half as tall as the wall and begin adding their own fire to the approaching car, although now they see it as a truck now that its closer. Sparks and ricochets can be heard and even seen as the reinforced frame of the truck tanks or deflects the bullets impacting on the metal and window of the vehicle. Still, even though the frame has been reinforced, the spots that being hit by multiple bullets, even if their right next to previous hits, become weakened and soon bullet holes begin to form on the vehicle, as well as on the windshield itself. However that doesn't seem to stop it as it continues to barrel forward without stopping.
The soldiers on and near the wall continue to lay in as many rounds as they possibly can into the vehicle but as it continues to move forward at a fast speed. The man before who called in to the boss of the visitor, Joe, frantically calls to tell him the trucks not stopping. No matter how many rounds they put into it. Even as it gets close to the wall, it shows no signs of stopping either. "EVERYONE GET OUT OF THE WAY!" He yells down below. The guys on the desert floor immediately stop shooting and dive out of the way just before the truck rolls up on them without stopping. They dive to the ground to the sides as it passes by them.
*CRASH*
With the loud tearing of metal, the truck slams head first into the large gate nestled in the wall. The front of the truck still remains somewhat intact but there is still some crumpling that can be seen as result of driving full speed into a solid steel metal door. The door itself barely a little and only suffered a minor dent to it in the shape of the truck but that's about it. Nothing that shows it could go right through door by simply crashing into it. "You guys down there! Check it make sure he's dead!" Joe yells down at the others guys down below, who are just picking themselves up and their weapons. Two creep up on the passenger side of the broken-down vehicle while five others go to the driver side. All the windows of the vehicle are one way glass, so while the driver would be able to see out, anyone outside trying to look in would be unable to, including the armed men closing in with all their weapons up and aimed at the driver side of the vehicle. While it may be armed much more than an average truck, the amount of guns and armor piercing ammo they have would be enough to riddle the occupants to bits. Even the guys up top have a clear view to rip through the roof of the truck and into the seats. Out of the five aiming at the driver side door, one of them reaches forward to open the door.
*CRINK*
"BRAAAAAGHHH!" The guys cries out in pain just after the accompanying sound of metal tearing can be heard, along with the door of the gnarled smoking truck flies out and impacts the man, knocking him to the ground in a heap as the door bounces off him and tumbles through the air before landing on the ground and flipping a few times. The rest of the men were so surprised by the sudden action that their focus was placed squarely on the flying door. The other person standing next to the door is blindsided as a hand reaches forward and grips his throat. He drops his assault rifle as his hands reach for the hand grabbing his throat and desperately tries to tear it off. Unfortunately the one that's holding his throat makes it very evident that his meager human strength can't on what he's seeing.
Right in front of him, stepping out of the vehicle is some type of green robotic mech, and an intimidating one at that. Right off the bat, the arm holding his neck is bulky with some plates over its arm except at the joints, no doubt as armor and to not restrict the movements. It's face and head though now has a light green faceplate on it, reminiscent of the front of a knight crusader helm, with the mouth slits and a wide V shape opening for the eyes. The wings on side of the head have been increased in size and extended outwards a little more. The chest is also much bulkier than before, with thick plates placed all over on all sides to protect it. The legs don't have as much armor added as like the arms but they are equipped with much more powerful hydraulic system for more power. All the limbs that were once only being held by an invisible force to the torso are now still being held by it but they are also connected by several cables and wires running from the limbs to the body, except for the fingers who are still being held on only by the invisible force.
Much of the robot is not in perfect working order after the assault it received. Cracks and chips can be see in various parts of its body, including a section on the top right of its head having broken off, including the wing, allowing sparks to fly off but it still remains responsive. Its right arm has been broken off via several bullets impact the joint at its elbow but still holds onto the man with its still intact left arm.
And it holds him tightly. It's fingers may not be connected physically but the invisible connection still puts enough pressure on par as if it were actually connected, maybe even more so than a normal humans. The guy lets out strangled cries and grunts as he tries to pull himself off desperately, even when the grip becomes even worse and his vision starts to swim.
*BANG*
And just like that the pressure is gone as he collapses to the ground. He takes deep ragged breaths as he attempts to fill his lungs with air. While he's doing that, the person who fired holds up his shotgun as the barrels continues to smoke before it eventually dissipates. "You okay?" He asks and holds his hand out to the injured man on the ground. Said man takes the hand and gives him a thumbs up with the other as he manages to catch his breath. While another comes over to check him out, the other three look around at the destroyed bot on the ground.
"What the fuck is this?!" One of them asks in surprise and disbelief. "I thought we were expecting some punk kid! Not some futuristic mechazoid here."
"I don't know." The shotgun wielder, the leader of their squads says in uncertainty. "Boss?" He calls it in. "We stopped the truck… but…"
"But what?! What happened?! Was it him?" The leader asks frantically.
"Nope. Some type of… robot was driving the truck and we were barely able to take it down."
"That's… that's not right. Is that everything? Nothing else?"
"No. We're all clear here and—"
"Wait." Someone calls out, interrupting him and causing all the guys to look at guy holding his hand up in a halting fashion. "Do you guys hear that?"
"…"
*… Beep…*
"Yeah. I do."
"What's going on?!" The boss angrily demands.
"Hold of a second man." The squad leader replies before stepping closer to the truck. The men all look at the truck curiously as they hear a beeping. Not fast paced but slow with long pauses between. The leader walks over to the door and pears inside it. "What's making that noise?" He asks annoyed and climbs into the seat before looking all over. Soon though his search finds him looking in the back. "Seriously?! Just what in the hell is going—?!" He pears into the back seat, and his eyes widen.
"Hey! What's going on?! What did you find?! Answer me goddamnit! If you don't I swear to god I'm going to—"
*BOOOOOMMM*
And just like that, the leaders angry tirade is cut short from the loud sound and the shaking he feels. He swivels around and looks out the large bay window overlooking the compound to see a small bright explosion appear at the main gate. "What the f—!" He turns back and calls in. "Report! What the hell just happened?! Someone tell me you idiots!"
Joe can hear the angry rants on the radio. As much as it would be stupid to completely ignore ones boss like this, the new situation he finds himself in is turning to be something much much worse.
His ears are still ringing from the explosion he was very nearly singed by. It doesn't take a genius to look below and see the squad nearest the truck have been completely incinerated by the truck bomb. None of them survived. The massive door the truck crashed into has been dented inwards quite harshly and it won't take much more to get the doors to collapse into the compound.
No… that's not the main problem he is focusing on right now. It's the fact that he is staring off in the distance at another pair of headlights. Instead of these ones moving, they are stopped, stuck in one place and staring menacingly at the location it is going to attack.
Then another… and another. Like clockwork, more and more headlights light up all along the hills. Each pair a cars length apart from each other but continue to light up. Joe as well as everyone else on the walls watch as headlights one after another light up all around them. The look outs in the tower are able to watch and see that their entire compound has been completely surrounded by a whole fleet of cars.
"… Oh fu—" Joes isn't able to finish the sentence before a bullet ends him.
The gunshot. The massive loud sound of an anti-material Barret .50 cal. Tearing through the silent night air signals the attack.
"Attack."
A voice speaks, muffled a little but its heard and the order is followed to the letter. As one, every single car and truck, all of them either one of two models, the GT Falcon and the Ford F-150, dozens upon dozens of them peel out in the sand before they gain traction and head straight for the walled of military-esque compound.
Frantic shouts and orders can be heard and seen as people scramble to the walls and being taking up arms. The sniper who first shot spreads their shots wide, not laying in a continuous fire but every so often, taking a fighter on one wall before moving to another on the other side of the compound. This puts the fighters in a paranoid unbalanced state as they aren't sure who will be shot next, as the person next to who was killed may not be next in their sights. For now, all the fighters grab as many assault rifles, snipers, rockets and heavy machine guns as they can and just open up everywhere they can on any vehicles they see heading for them. The line of vehicles they see are not the only ones attacking as they see several more coming in from behind. Several cars and trucks are destroyed outright as RPG's impact them straight on but each and every car and truck heading for them has been armored up immensely so its taking a lot of bullets for them to stop them colds. Additional explosions rings out as the fighters in the compound also rig up mortars to rain fire down on the approaching vehicles.
And still its not enough. Only one large massive door is placed on each wall and these are the main objectives for the attackers. From the side that was already attacked, a few cars speed forward ahead of the pack and head straight for the already damaged door. In a suicide kamikaze run they crash headfirst into the doors, igniting the explosives they carry and going off in a much larger and volatile explosion than they normally would have. The defenders inside let out screams and grunts of pain as the explosion destroys what's left of the doors integrity, making them fall down inwards and nearly crush the people behind it. The defenders barely have time to gain their wits before several vehicles speed through the now open doorway and begin infesting the rest of the compound.
The trucks these time are not empty like the first one as each one is filled inside and on the back with several more mechs, all ready and waiting to fight back. Some of them simply step off the back, landing harshly on the ground and open fire with various assault rifles, shotguns and LMG's. Others tuck and roll out before sprinting for cover and returning fire via pistols, shotguns or submachine guns. Some even forgo bullet weapons and simply move in closer quarters with fisticuffs or their blades, even incapacitating some of the fighters with their shock weapons and blasters. The cars are mostly set up as hit-and-run vehicles, shooting out the sides and being a distraction against the defenders. Due to the armor, the fighters are unable to take them down with a few bullets, and the ones walking on the sides of the roads are soon gun down by the passengers of the cars and trucks.
"Boss! We're under attack! Their inside the compound! Theirs too many of- Arrrhh!"
"What are these things?! How are we fighting robots?!"
"Their too armored up! We need bigger guns!"
The radio is a complete mess as people from all over the compound are desperately trying to fight back but the heavily equipped and advanced attacking force is nothing they've ever faced before.
The boss however, just angrily clenches his fists and grits his teeth in anger at how quickly things have spiraled out of control. He begins a call to all frequencies to the people in the compound. "What the hell is wrong with you all?! I don't care what you have to use! Use whatever we have to take down those fuckers and kill that kid! Guns, grenades, rockets, technical, shields, tanks! I don't care use it!"
He orders everyone to do, however many of them already ran and took off to grab more gear. Many of the streets empty out and soon thereafter their replaced with the same people but now equipped with body, armor piercing weapons and ammo, riot shields and machine gun mounted and equipped trucks roll out to engage the enemy.
"Let's go! Let's go! Take them down!" One squad leader orders his men as they grab some cover on some buildings corners and return fire. At first the attacking robots mostly stayed out in the open to fire but as soon as some of them get taken down quicker than before they move to cover. Some move to corners, others bust into doorways and others take cover behind thick cinderblock barricades. "Come on push up push up!" He yells out as some of them use their shields and form a small wall of four wide before slowly inching their way closer to their enemy while others stay behind them to get ready to throw some grenades in the now in cover enemies. "Truck! Down the road!" They call as an enemy Ford truck slides around a corner and heads straight for them, intent on plowing through the shield wall and break through their ranks. "Technical! Light it up!"
A technical comes up from behind them and stops before opening fire with its dual armor-piercing .50 call turret straight at the oncoming truck towards them. This time with the added power the attackers truck is riddled with bullets all over, tearing through the engine and the occupants inside, even tearing out the front left tire, making it swerve harshly into the side of a building and crash before tipping over on its side. While the truck is out of commission, it does no provide cover for anyone waiting to use it.
That's how it goes for similar fights for the rest of the compound. While the robots are able to push back against any of the men using some standard weapons, the addition of shields, explosives, and heavy weapons and vehicles are slowly tilting the favor back into the Iron Kings if nothing else is done.
Meanwhile a figure in the shadows smiles before bringing up his radio on his arm. "Well, you heard him. Use everything."
And just like that, more lights shine on the hills yet again as some others fly into the air as well.
"Enemy Reinforcements inbound!" A sentry on the wall calls out. The sniper has halted their fire to the wall so the men are able to get back on it and resume heavy suppressing fire without as much fear of their faces being shot off. With the added firepower from their armory's, the defenders are able to take down and halt more vehicles from doing anymore damage to their gates. The front gate, the North gate was the first to fall and allow their enemy to enter and start spreading themselves around into the Iron Kings compound.
The East and West gate have been heavily damaged to the explosions and won't survive much more before they collapse and more can enter. The South gate has suffered minimal damage and requires a bit more work to take down but still stands. The sentrys on the walls refocus their fire on the new arrivals but aren't able to do as much damage seeing as the cars seem to be upgraded as they move aot faster than the ones before, and that the trucks accompanying them are slower but comes equipped with actual turrets on them, opening fire on the walls and either killing some of the defenders or suppressing them. "Damn! We're pinned down!" A fighter at the East gate yells, hunched behind cover on top of the wall to avoid from getting shredded. "Get the mortars up again! We have to—!"
*BOOM*
The fighter was unable to finish as an explosion rings out, sending him and his allies flying away, some dead, some critically injured and soon to die. The ones that didn't get killed look around at what it was that just exploded before several more explosions ring out on the wall above the gate. The explosions aren't spread out among the walls but instead are centered in one spot and break apart the wall and the gates.
*Boom*
The fighters at the East gate look back in surprise as they hear more explosions ring out but this time more at distance. This time the explosions happen at the South gate. Some of their defenders are taken down from the explosions but like theirs they seem to be focused on the wall above the door, already starting to damage and break apart the already damaged door. They notice black dots flying through the air above them and heading straight for the South gate from their side and over.
Unfortunately they aren't able to determine what they are before they are bombarded with a sudden ray of light. Out of instinct most of them bring their hands in front of them towards the light to block out as much of the light as they can. When it finally shifts away from them, they get a good look at what blinded them for a second.
A green, heavily modified Hind helicopter hovers in front of them except instead of the standard frame a hind has, this one is sleeker, sharper, bulkier and much thicker, and downright more intimidating with the number of guns and rockets it has, not to mention it seems to be carrying something via thick steel cables under it.
"Take out that helicopter!" Someone calls out and this snaps everyone out of their pause and they all bring their guns up to bear and open fire. Several assault rifles and heavy machine guns lay into the flying machine, the sheer number of which would be more than enough to tear into any helicopter, piercing the cockpit, breaking the rotors and sending the vehicle into a tail spin and crashing into the ground.
The fact that this one has a bubble that shines brightly over it that makes all the bullets stop before they can hit the helicopter shows that his one is not like other helicopters. Again, the defenders look on in surprise as the light green bubble surrounding the helicopter flashes repeatedly in time with the bullets impact it.
*Brrrrrrrrrrrrr*
Their surprise is their downfall as the nose gun of the helicopter fires, a high RPM Yak-B rotary cannon sends a cloud of bullets along the top of the wall, felling a dozen fighters before they can duck into cover or fight back. With them gone, the helicopter ascends and begins to move about over the compound before finding a wide cross intersection and hovering above it.
"Drop it." A voice on the radio orders.
*TING*
All at once, the cables holding the object under the helicopter pop off, making the square-ish block fall through the air and land roughly on the cross intersection of road, creating a deep divot and cracking the pavement and asphalt. Soldiers hiding nearby slowly come out from cover and look at the odd object that was dropped in their compound.
Their curiosity is sated when a blast of steam comes out of the box, then it moves. Pieces of it begin moving up and out of its compressed state. What looks like large bulky arms spread out from the sides, then it lifts up where thick heavily armored legs appear out from under it. Next is the chest region as it opens up, spreading out its metal and armored plates, placing them overlapping each other on the chest and back. Finally, the head pulls up on top where a reflective V-slit glass can be seen for the eyes, then it flashes brightly for a second then settles a soft orange. It stands two stories tall and proceeds to look around for a second.
"Open fire!"
Before it can assess what to do, its similar green bubble shield flares to life as over a dozen soldiers from all over begin raining lead down on the machine. It turns in all directions, watching the defenders as they try to take it down with conventional fire. It scans and locks onto the enemies on the ground, those in windows and a few on the rooftops. "Eat this!" It's gaze stops as one cocky man holds an RPG-7 out of a second story window, eye level with the machine, and fires.
The giant robot simply leans to the side, letting the rocket sail past it and impacts into another building nearby. The man looks at the machine stupefied. In retaliation, the machine holds up its right arm towards him.
*BRRRRRRRRRR*
A minigun added to its forearm opens up and sprays bullets right at the window. The man inside is unable to move in time as they rip through the opening and kill him almost instantly, at the same time the bullets tears through the concrete structure with ease. Soon it movies horizontally along the building, tear through more of the walls and taking down more gunmen hiding behind or getting ready to peak out of the windows.
The Vindicator lives yet again. This time though the large mech has been upgraded from its original design. Before it was designed for speed and simple strikes, now its been armored up considerably, forgoing its speed, flexibility and movement in favor of armor, strength and heavy weapons. The shield, which was a new design made by the Crystal Gems, stands up considerably well to the sheer amount of lead laying into it from all directions. However no matter how many gunmen it puts down or tries to pin down using the Vulcan guns on its head or the minigun on its arm, more crawl out from the rapidly decaying buildings and continue to hammer its shields without rest. Eventually, the shield gives out and the bullets start impacting the mech itself. Still, its armor is no joke and many of the rounds ping off its armor, even the armor piercing ones. Many of them hit at an angle and deflect elsewhere and the ones that impact straight on the flat pieces actually start to make dents in it. But that's few and far between the ones that hit and the ones that bounce.
"What's going on?! We got some Sci-fi shit we're dealing with!"
"Theirs too many of them! We can't—"
"Oh god! This giant robot is tearing us ap- Arrrhhh!"
Again, that's how the Iron Kings communications goes. For a moment after the initial attack they were able to make some headway and push the enemy back. Then, they start to get hit by artillery from somewhere, starting to crumble and weaken the few entrances they have left on their walls.
If things weren't bad enough, it's the fact that a SHIELDED helicopter is providing air support for the attackers also went ahead and dropped in a giant MECH to start tearing apart their forces. The leader of the Iron Kings has his fists clenched tightly in complete anger as he continues to listen to his men get dropped so easily.
"… GOD DAMNIT!" He angrily yells and grabs a bottle of whiskey on his desk before throwing it at the wall. It shatters loudly but its mixed in with the sounds of the battles going on outside. He keys in his radio again to everyone. "I told you all to get rid of those bastards already! What's wrong with you people?! Use everything I said! Where are those goddamn tanks?!" He demands.
"Moving out now." The tank commander of a formerly decommissioned T1-Armata Russian tank responds as they roll out from one of the warehouses and proceeds down the street.
"Then take out that fucking robot!" His boss orders over the radio.
The tank commander looks through the scope around and sees further down street of either side of their forces fighting the enemy. The enemy robots. "Sir, please advise. Which robots?"
"THE GIANT ONE KILLING OUR MEN!" The radio operator has to lean back from how loud and angry his boss was over the radio. Even so, they get the message on who exactly they need to engage.
"Roger that. On our way." The tank commander replies before giving the directions as to where the driver needs to move their tank to. The radio operator listens to the radio until he finds out where it is that they are hunting. It doesn't take much for them to find where the fighting is and spot their target.
When they see the giant mech in their crosshairs down the street, they begin driving straight towards it while they aim the turret at their target. As they do, they notice the green shield on the mech has regenerated and is taking all the rounds being sent to it as it retaliates with its minigun. "Target spotted!" The tank commander calls to his men. "Its straight ahead. Bring the turret full front." The gunner for the tank shifts the turret of their vehicle a few degrees to the front as the driver heads straight for the mech. Seeing as it's in the middle of the street, there isn't a lot of maneuvering that needs to be done but he manages to get their target within his crosshairs all the same.
"I got it." The gunner calls out.
"Ready AP!" The tank commander orders the loader to load up an armor piercing round. They have to do it quick because when they first rolled up it had its back to them. Now with all the shooting around its doing its slowly turning towards them.
"Up!" The loader calls out that they're ready to fire.
"Aim… Fire!" The tank commander orders.
"On the way!" And the gunner fires the cannon.
With the loud 'boom' of a tanks cannon going off, the heavy armament shell leaves the barrel and soars through the air. The Vindicator is unable to move out of the way of the shot and only manages to turn around before the shell impacts its shield. The shield flares up brightly from the hit and it stays like that for a couple seconds before the shell is deflected sharply to the side, where it flies off the shield and impacts into the corner of a building. The impact on the shield is enough to take down the shield on the mech. Instead simply powering down from the sustained fire before, this time the shield shatters loudly in a glass like fashion and even though the round didn't hit the mech, the force impacted was enough to overload its shield generator and cause the power systems on the whole machine to short out. It convulses for a second before it crouches on one knee looking towards the ground.
The tank crew members all look at the mech with held breath as they stop and wait to see if whether or not they were able to take it down and prevent further casualties for their side. Their hopes are dashed though as even with sparks of electricity coming off it, the mech slowly manages to lift itself up and stare right at the tank.
Slowly, with stiffening movements the Vindicator tries to lift up its right arm, which the tank commander zooms in to note that its not a normal hand for the mech. Instead it's a large long square block almost like— "Load up an HE shell now!" He quickly calls out and begins ordering his crew, including trying to get them ready to fire again as they watch their opponent get ready to shoot them right back with something bigger than its minigun. "Hurry!"
"Up!" The loader replies once the rounds been loaded in.
"Aim!" The Vindicators arm has straightened out and aiming right at them.
"Locked on!"
"Fire!" The tank commander wastes no time in giving the order as the Vindicators weapon opens up.
"On the way!" The gunner fires. Like before, they cannon on the tank cracks the air around as the shell flies straight at the Vindicator again. Thankfully, they manage to hit it before it can shoot them first. A massive explosion and plume of red hot fire surrounds the front of the mech as the shell impacts the front of it, pushing it back as the force of the shell knocks it down. Just before it goes all the way down though, it manages to let loose a missile heading straight for the tank. "Look out!"
"Move us! Move us!"
"I'm trying!" The driver shouts back to the gunner and tank commander and tries to get their tank moving. He barely manages to turn the tank to the side and start moving it out of the way. Unfortunately, he can't move out all the way before the missile impacts the back of the tank. The occupants are jostled around harshly as their hit with the missile but are otherwise okay. "We're hit!"
"All systems are down!"
"I got smoke filling up!"
"Bail out now!" The tank commander orders his crew and they begin to open up hatches and try to crawl out of their burning tank wreck. The missile was able to avoid hurting the crew members inside but it completely ripped apart the tracks of the vehicle and the engine was all but destroyed. With the crew compartment filling up with smoke theirs no saving the heavy vehicle and they have to exit out of it before they are cooked alive.
Meanwhile, the rest of the Iron Kings that hid when the tank engaged the mech that was killing them start to emerge from the surrounding walls, a dozen men move closer to the down mech with all their guns pointed straight at the downed machine. One guy climbs up on the top of it followed by two others and aims his gun straight at the torso area. "Sir, we got the mech. It's down. The tank is out but it was able to knock out the giant mech. We think someone's inside." He calls their boss. From the way they see the knocked down robot, the center of it bears the resemblance of a cockpit to them.
"I bet its that little shit. Of course he'd be in the biggest goddamn thing they have! Get it open and kill whoever is inside." The boss grumbles at first before he orders them over the radio.
"Roger that." He replies and grabs a manual lever on the outside of it. After pulling it, that's when two doors open from top and bottom, letting out a burst of steam and gas, obscuring everyone's view of inside as they cough and wave the smoke away.
"Wow," In an instant, the three closest guys clamber up and aim their guns straight into the open pilot seat despite smoke being there. When they hear the voice, their guns are aimed at where the person is and soon enough, the smoke dissipates and they see who it is. "He told me you humans were tough but I didn't think you were crazy either."
"… What the…?" One of them mutters confused at the odd person inside the robot.
"What's going on?! Did you get him?! Is it him?!" The boss demands over the radio. The lead gunman who opened the mech begins to reply.
"Uhhh, no sir. Its not him. It's… something else."
"What else?! Who the hell is it?!"
"I'm… not sure. Some kind of… green… dorito-looking… person."
"HEY!" Peridot loudly yelps, making them look at her to see an annoyed but angry look on her face, especially when she's pointing an accusatory finger at them. "… I don't know what that is… but I'm GOING TO ASSUME THAT'S AN INSULT!"
"… Soooooo… should we kill it?" The guy resumes asking their boss.
"It was piloting the giant robot wasn't it? Of course you can fucking kill it!"
"Alright then." He nonchalantly finishes replying before he and two others point their guns down straight at Peridot. "You chose the wrong people to fuck with stupid." He quips before they all pull the triggers.
"AAARRRRHHH!" Several voices call out in pain as they try to open fire on the green gem but as their bullets leave their guns, they don't make it inside the cockpit before a green wall of light flashes in time with their bullets. A second shield protecting the controller of the Vindicator. The bullet flurry fails to hit the smug smiling gem in the seat and instead are deflected back at the gunmen. Several bullets also fly off in other directions and injure other fighters that were around.
"Tch… and they say I'm stupid. You think they'd never see a shield barrier before. I mean c'mon it was right there in front of them." She grumbles and mutters to herself as she brings up her left arm, a green gauntlet on her forearm and wrist shifts around before a green transparent screen opens in front of her. With her right hand, now sporting a special dark green glove, presses some buttons on it before the doors in her mech begin closing up. "Well, this is definitely different than dealing with other gems. So… goey." She mutters before everything is sealed up again and the Vindicators systems come back online. While the men outside groan and try to crawl away with their injuries, the mech they were just fighting begins to stand up. The rest of the able-bodied gunmen immediately open fire on the thing in hopes of taking it down. Unfortunately, the majority of the bullets continue to ping off its armor and don't offer much damage done to the mech. When it pushes up to a sitting position it brings its right arm up and sweeps it in a wide arc. A good number of the fighters are hit hard by the wide swinging arm and are either tossed into the air or thrown to the ground dead from the force of the impact, some especially being knocked out. The ones thrown to the air either fall back to the ground a few meters away, slammed into the side of a building, and a couple crash through the windows of the building.
This simple gesture is enough to route the enemy as the rest begin to retreat deeper into the buildings or just outright run like hell. By the time the Vindicator stands up, only a few streams of bullets are attacking it but soon Peridot is able to get the shields back up and running where she continues to resume opening fire on any of the Iron Kings gunmen that dares fire back at her. The already injured ones she just leaves there and walks away.
Beach City.
A nice little town with an air of oddity and weirdness to it that spans far beyond the norm for any place in the world of planet world. While most of the populace of this peculiar city are living happy carefree lives, going about their business as if nothing bad is going on.
At least, not for them personally. One house nestled in a cliff with the statue of a beautiful, powerful, multi-armed woman carved into the cliff protectively over the building. Unlike the rest of the people living in the city, happily going about their days, the ones inside the beach house under the woman statue are one edge. Some scared, some worried, and some prepared.
Connie stands near the door, sword in hand and peaking to see the porch, the stairs and the beach for any intruders that are threatening to attack them. Beside her standing behind the walls are two more bipedal mk. II droids ready with weapons to fight back. One is thick all around with much armor plating added to the whole thing. On top of it is Kevlar body armor and helmet for additional protection for it. In its hand is a Mossberg 500 shotgun fully chambered and ready to fire. The second is slightly thinner mk. II droid but it has a tougher and stronger arm and leg limbs, allowing for it to hold and brace itself for its weapons. On one hand, it has a heavily upgraded riot shield able to withstand countless bullets and explosions, and in the other is fully automatic Glock 17 pistol with the spare magazines magnetically strapped to its sides, so that way it doesn't have to let go of its shield to reload. Only needs to let the magazine drop and slide the gun over the next one.
While these are the ones ready to be the first line of defense, there is a third waiting above. The thin, quick multijointed droid hiding in the ceilings rafters waits with its blades to attack any unauthorized personnel that makes it inside.
Two other individuals in the room sit on the couch, heads aimed towards the table and ground but for different reasons. Greg sits there with his hands placed on his head, exhaling and inhaling slow steady breathes as both his hands stay firmly placed on both sides of his head.
Steven sits on the other side of the couch staring intently at the table in front of them, more specifically at the weapons that lay on the table. There are only two of them currently yet just the fact that they are there says a lot. On Greg's side of the table is a simple 1911 pistol, fully loaded and ready to be used. The same can't be said for the intended user.
For Steven, he is staring at a Glock 26. Smaller than most other Glock's but still good pistol for one such as him. He stays staring at the weapon for a bit in silence.
Then, with slow tenseness, he takes a deep breath in before letting it out slowly. When he's calmed his nerves, he reaches for the gun slowly but carefully with both hands. He takes it in his right hand, taking special care to keep his finger off the trigger and just grab the grip. With his left hand, he grabs the magazine that was laying next to the gun.
*Shink*
With ever careful slow ease, Steven slides the magazine into the pistol.
*Ch-chk*
He then slowly racks the slide on the pistol, loading a round into it. He grips the pistol with both hands tightly and then aims towards the temple door, far away from aiming at the others.
But he doesn't fire. His finger isn't even on the trigger. It lays against the side of the frame, not on the trigger itself. And even if he did, he couldn't fire it anyway. He brings it closer to him and stares at the side of it, making sure that the safety is indeed on their will be no misfires on them. As Steven stares at the weapon in his hand, he doesn't find any elation or happiness at the fact that he is now finally holding a gun in his hand. He wanted to when he first met Marcus and saw his weapons, but over time his want sort of faded.
Now… he just feels tense, and knows he must be extremely careful with the deadly weapon, especially with the extensive and carefully explained safeties that Marcus had given him. And they spent awhile making sure Steven knew exactly how dangerous the weapon was, how it was most in fact and assuredly not a toy.
The tone of voice and just the way Marcus looked when he was explaining it to him showed that he didn't need anything else happening right now to anyone else in his life. The news of Lapis having been taken, and the circumstances revolving how Stevens bear was missing and suddenly popped back up just about shook everyone to the core. The bear never left his home… so someone else was in his home without their consent.
"… I don't like that son." Finally after so long, Greg says something. Steven and Connie look at the man, who still has his head in his hands and staring down. Yet the sounds of what he heard were unmistakable. "I don't like the idea of you having that."
Steven looks at his dad with a worried expressed before staring back at the gun and then him. "Then… you can take it away if you want." He places the gun back down on the table.
"… I want to… but I don't know anymore." He sighs sadly before letting his hands fall away and stare at the table. "I'm your father. I don't like the idea of you holding or even being near a gun. I want to take it away… but I don't know what I can do now that means your safe." He lets out another frustrated sigh. "Anything that has to do with gem stuff, I leave it to Marcus and the gems unless they ask me because they're the experts compared to me. But humans… even now I don't know how to keep you safe from them." He depressingly says. Anything gem related, Greg was more than willing to let the others deal with it because they knew a lot more about it than ever did. Sure their were moments where Steven was in danger of being hurt but he always bounced back from it. Even when the gems from Homeworld came down and nearly kidnapped his son and the others they were able to escape and come back to earth. Greg himself was freaking out after hearing the news but after he took a moment to think and calm down, they are still here and are not gone.
Humans though… that's something they all know even less about. Only one of them has any remote knowledge when it comes to their human enemies and he has his hands full dealing with them, having to do what he can to balance his precautions with living as normal a life as he can. Hard to do when the enemies he faces can show up at any point… like when he thought he was finally safe and now one of their own is missing, and someone they all very much care about was in very close proximity to their possible assailant.
And that same person who left them to go deal with their human enemies once and for all made sure that the Universe family knew the basics when it came to firearm usage.
A person was in the beach house, the place that Greg's son sleeps and lives in, a person that none of them knew. A person who was more than willing to steal one of his toys as a way to convince everyone that he could have done a whole lot worse if he wanted.
Greg starts to breathe a bit more uneasily as the thought persists and his son looks at him in worry. "Uhhh, no offense Mr. Universe," They both look up towards the door where Connie is still on guard but this time she's turned and addressing them. "But from what the others told me, we are dealing with a secret illegal human paramilitary group that deals in guns, vehicles and heavy armaments trafficking, maybe drugs as well. I don't think theirs any father that could properly prepare against something like that."
"But—"
"She's right dad." Steven interrupts his father. When he told his dad about how he and the others had almost got kidnapped and taken to Homeworld without any way for Greg to help or do anything, it wasn't good watching his dad absolutely freak out and basically have a panic attack right in front of him. His dad is looking pretty down as it is because of the situation and Steven wants to do what he can to make sure his dad doesn't get or feel any worse. "Your not all knowing. Only Garnet is, somewhat, but even she didn't see things like this happening. You can protect me from some things, but you can't protect me from everything."
"But I'm your—"
"You're my dad, and you're an awesome one at that." Steven sincerely tells him while giving him a smile. "One of your jobs as a dad is to protect me, but also raise me. That's why we have the others to help. The gems help us when it comes to others gems and Homeworld stuff, and Marcus helps us with more…. Dangerous human related stuff." Greg continues to look at his son in a not so depressed or messed up state anymore. "If we're safe here, then that means he and the others don't have to worry about keeping us safe." Steven then looks down as he finishes saying that. "But… I also want to help them. I don't want to stay here and be useless."
"… Steven, you know what he might be doing to them… right?"
"… I know…" Steven depressingly says. "I don't like it. I just… really don't like the idea of him… I tried to convince to find another way but…"
"… But what?" He asks his son, worried about what might have been said to his son.
"The look… something in his eyes just told me… he doesn't WANT to do it, how he just wants to put all that… fighting away, not do it anymore, but he doesn't see another way… and I can't either." Steven finishes saying before staring at his gun on the table. Slowly, he picks it back up and stares at it. "If I can't do anything to help him there, then at least what we can do is be safe so he doesn't have to worry about us." Steven tries to put somewhat a positive spin on things. Deep down, he just doesn't like the methods that Marcus is using to keep them safe, but he can't really do anything about it. The Crystal Gems are the experts on gem and homeworld stuff, and Marcus is the expert on human stuff.
Greg continues to stare at his son for awhile until he turns back to the table, and his own gun. He doesn't like it. He really really REALLY doesn't like the idea of his owning or even using any form of firearm… but he HATES it even more of the idea of his son getting hurt on his watch. He reaches for his own pistol, then the magazine, and slides it in.
*Chick*
The slide slams forward, loading the round into the chamber.
He doesn't know if he can go through with taking a life, but right now, with his son sitting right next to him, he doesn't want to lose him for anything, or anyone.
Will he do it?
He doesn't know, but without a doubt he does not want to standby and lose his son.
"Mortar strikes near the Vindicator. Get some of the heat off Peridot."
"Roger." Garnet replies into the headset before pulling her right arm back and stretching her left hand out. She glances at the computer with a map of the compound they are fighting. "…Okay… a little to the left… up… aaaaaannnnnd right… there. Hrah!" Garnet lets out a loud cry as she chucks the mortar shell into the air. She then grabs another and continues to throw a few more at around designated target.
When Marcus told her and the others about what they are dealing with, what happened with Lapis, their were some mixed reactions as to what they were going to do. Almost instantly Peridot and Amethyst were fired up, the latter more so, and immediately wanted to go in and attack with everything they had to get her back. Pearl was unsure of what to do. They couldn't just go straight on and attack the Iron Kings with what they currently have and she wasn't sure what to do. Garnet didn't want to do any fighting, nor did she like the idea of taking anymore humans lives.
The universes though, were scared and incredibly worried on their missing friend and what happened to Stevens bear. Questions was what they had and answers were what they wanted, a lot of them.
Marcus immediately got to work on bringing everything he had online, making weapons, replicating them, the ammo, his robots, prying Peridot off her stuff and ignoring her in her anger. He got to work, as did Peridot and Pearl. Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet and Steven with Lion all got to work in bringing the Armor of the Fallen to his base either by Lions mane or a portal he opens up. All the while, as they worked, researched, and got everything combat ready in 3 days time, he was neutral. He barely had any emotions placed on his face and just worked and worked and worked. No said anything, but they could all tell the reserved anger he had bubbling inside him.
In the end, they all had agreed to fight, as much as some of them really didn't want to. Their hand was forced, and at least one them they can all tell will do anything to get back their friend.
"I may not like it, but I can at least mess up their path and pin them down." Garnet mutters to herself as she continues to chuck more bombs. The gates she was attacking have fallen and now she's tasked with disrupting the enemy by dropping bombs on the streets, creating craters to limit any enemy vehicles driving down them. The Crystal Gems army's vehicles not as much since they have been heavily modified. Grabbing another mortar, she lets out another sigh before she aims, and throws. She can't just throw willnilly, she has to be mindful of their troops, and the helicopter flying above.
It has precious cargo.
"Watch out! Backup! We need backup at the south gate!"
"Theirs so many of them! We take some down and more keep coming where are they- Get down!"
"That giant mech is still killing us! Why haven't we taken it down?!"
"Squads Delta 2-4, Kilo 2-1 and Bravo 3-1 reinforce the south gate!"
"Charlie 2-2 hunker down we have technicals heading to you right now to provide backup."
"We're trying Bravo 3-3 but that thing knocked out our tank that tried to take it down. All other attempts to send more heavy armaments have met with heavy resistance. Unless you can open the way for the heavy guns to get to it your out of luck."
"Well that's just great! We need something right- Fuck! Down!" The voice over the radio cries out as the radio operator hears a flurry of bullets impact near the person on the other side of the call.
"Damn." The operator mutters before trying to coordinate some backup.
That's how it goes in the communications tower. It is the tallest building in the entire compound so it and the communications operators inside can see everywhere outside and inside the compound far and wide. The men inside at the top with windows on all sides aren't sure why the helicopter hasn't bombed the building already but just assume its focus is set on the rest of the compound. Even so, they do what they can to coordinate all the soldiers they have at their disposal and to where they need to go in order to best counter the attack force that managed to break in.
The people at the different desks with various radio equipment spread all over are a mess of voices all over, squad names being dropped, callouts coming in and out, orders received and given. Several other members not using the radios are standing at the windows, using a couple sniper rifles and binoculars to give as much a lay of the land and status of the enemy they can. The snipers are especially looking for the sniper that was attacking their troops on the walls. The sniper went silent a little while ago and they are keeping an eye out for the deadly fighter.
"What do we got? We need more intel." One of the comms operators asks their lookouts.
"Negative on the hostile sniper." One of the snipers replies without taking his eyes away from his scope.
"I got heavy pockets of the enemy along the northwest portion of the wall." A spotter informs them.
"We got more of the enemy pouring in at the North gate and… wait… is that a glint?"
"GET DO—"
*CRACK*
*CRACK*
*CRACK*
The spotter and the snipers are dead in three consecutive headshots one after another.
"Haaaa…" Pearl lets out a sigh as her head dips down a little. 'I'm sorry Rose. I'm so sorry. I know… I know this isn't what you wanted to happen. I know you told us to not harm humans. This is not what you wanted…'
The radio begins to crackle to life. She looks down the scope of her rifle. She sees the soldiers trying to barricade the communications tower to protect themselves against sniper fire.
*BOOM*
They fail to as another round leaves her modified newly repaired Barret and rips through the air with a loud crack. The sand around her jumps into the air and fly's back a little as she fires. The rounds rips through the air and the makeshift furniture and desks they try to put up do nothing to stop the anti-material round as it tears through the cover. A man falls dead as he's hit by and the others trying to put up the cover freak out and decide to bail on the idea.
With slow ease and a steady breath, Pearl pulls the handle open and ejects the magazine before loading a new one in of the dozens she still has ready to be used all in neat rows in a container to avoid the sand. When she loads a round into the chamber, she sighs and closes her eyes. 'This isn't what you wanted Rose… but you saw the humans when they were young.' Her eyes shoot open and she aims down the scope, bringing a street into her view and spotting a technical driving in her direction. 'I don't think you could have ever expected the humans to have been so dangerous… and threatening to us.'
*BOOM*
"Damn it!" A soldier of Bravo 3-2 yells as the technical that was coming to back them up gets a bullet straight through the windshield, killing the driver instantly and making the vehicle do a sharp turn to the side. The men on the street are barely able to jump out of the way before the truck slams into the side of a building. He quickly scrambles to his feet and peers down the street to see the enemy has started to back up. "The enemy! Their retreating!"
"Push up!" Another soldier cries out and goes out of cover shooting. More of their men push out and begin moving up as well to push the enemy. As they go some notice that more of their fighters are dead than they first thought with odd wounds but have no choice but to push before their enemy can regroup. The enemy bots make past the corner down another street and the Iron Kings members move to catch up to them. They are stopped though when they notice a new bot walking around the corner and faces them. Only this time its not as big as the Vindicator that's tearing through their troops elsewhere and a different design than the standard bots they've been fighting. "What the hell?"
It turns and stares right at the over dozen or so men as they stare at it, seeing it in a much clearer light. The robot has its head in the shape of a Greek Spartans helmet with yellow-orange T-shape visor on the front. Unlike the rest of the bots fighting, this ones arms, torso and legs are thicker but slightly slimmer in green armor resembling something a human would wear.
"What the hell is that?" One of the men asks.
"Who god damn cares?! Its only one kill it!" Another impatiently asks. Everyone takes the cue and moves to open fire on the as they bring their weapons up.
*ZHIN*
Before the lead fighter can react, a bright orange beam of energy fires out of it visor and nails him in the chest. He's dead almost instantly as he's launched back and slides back several feet. The rest of them look on in surprise at how quickly one of them was taken down. They stare at the body, noting the smoke emanating off it as the beam melted and tore through his bullet proof vest like it was nothing, singing and burning his chest to near black.
"… KILL IT!" One of them snaps out of it and in anger yells for everyone to do before opening fire himself. The rest open fire as well but by then its too late. While they were all stunned by the beam attack, their opponent was able to pull up a bright green circular hardlight energy shield in its left arm. Unlike the shields before, this one is on and visible to everyone without the need for something to strike it. All the flurry of bullets they send towards the shield do nothing against the defense item as they bounce off and leave the one holding it unharmed. While they do everything they can to riddle the bot with bullets, it reaches behind its back and pulls out a spear. When the majority of the shooters begin to reload their weapons, the bot holds up its shield and spear and charges forward quickly. The nearest guy frantically tries to finish reloading his gun but can't in time. He's helpless as the spear runs through his gun he futilely uses as a shield and into his chest. He makes a quick grunt before its ripped out and he falls down dead. Next it brings its spear up high, grabs the back of the shaft and swings it around in a wide arc. The extended reach allows it to clip two more guys in the neck, making them grab their throats and bleed to death on the ground. When it grabs its spear properly again, the soldiers open fire again, making it crouch a little and huddle behind its shield. Next, it then grabs its spear in an overhand move and chucks it at them. One of them towards the middle is unable to move in time and the spear embeds itself into his chest and stabs into the ground. The body is left limply in the air being held up by the spear. The rest of the shooters ignore their fallen comrade in favor of shooting it now that it threw away its only weapon.
They are completely taken by surprise as they bottom of the spears shaft opens up to reveal a pulsating golden glow.
*FHISH*
Everyone lets out loud grunts and groans of pain as the spear lets out a flashbang bomb, blinding the majority of the people and making the rest flinch due to the sound. While they are distracted by this, the bot reaches behind its back. Something uncompresses, extending and getting bigger until it is now holding a single handed sword with a trigger guard on the index finger. Just as some of them start to regain their bearings, they are met with its new blade. The bot charges forward in record time and stabs one man through the stomach. After pushing him off it goes to another where it brings the blade in from under, stabbing him in the side before ripping it out and stabbing down into the base of his neck and into his chest. When it moves to the third guy, he manages to see the bot coming towards him and brings his rifle up to hit him with the butt of his rifle stock. The bot ducks under the attack and past him, although as it moves past him it drags its sword along his stomach. This causes him to drop his rifle and grip the wound but this leaves him open for the bot to twist around and stab him in the back through his chest.
"Fire!" The remaining gunmen manage to shake off the blindness and continue to open fire again. "Bernie! Surround that thing!" One of them orders to another of them while another on the far back of the squad begins to back away fearfully.
"Got it!" Bernie begins to move in a wide arch along its right around the bot as it keeps its shield to the front, focusing on the much larger sustained fire hitting it. "Yeah get some you hunk of—" He begins to open fire, releasing a flurry of bullets on the now unprotected side of the bot. Unfortunately the rounds that hit don't do enough to destroy before it holds its sword up and outstretched towards Bernie. With a pull of the trigger, a .44 magnum round leaves out of the hidden barrel in the guard and shoots Bernie in the chest, dropping him dead. With that threat done, it refocuses the shield on the front facing troops and pushes forward now that they are undermanned compared to a little while ago. The flankers get killed by the gun while the ones that get close enough are easily cut down.
"Oh shit." The first soldier of Bravo, 3-2 mutters scared as he sees the machine tear through the rest of his squad with ease and their bullets just bouncing off the shield. "Fuck… god damn it. I need to…" He already took the initiative and began backing up after half the squad was killed and continues to back up and backs into an alleyway out of sight. "I need to get out here! Hide out… and—"
*SHINK*
Pains rips through his entire body, more prominently where he feels the blade. His gun falls from his hands as gurgles of his final breath escape his mouth. Slowly, he looks down and stares at the bloody blade poking from out his own chest. He can only stare at the bloody blade in his chest before it retracts and he falls to the ground. His breathing becomes labored as he can only lay on the ground and fight as hard as he can to stay alive.
The fight is futile as his vision starts to blur, where the last thing he sees is a hooded face with a clear human jaw skeleton staring right at him.
The Shadow Death stares at its latest kill as the mans life leaves his eyes. With a flick of its wrist, the blade protruding out of it slices through the air, sending the blood that accumulated on the sharp instrument to slip off and leave a streak on the ground and body. It steps over the body and out of the alleyway before pulling the hood back, revealing itself into the brighter area than the darkened alleyway.
Deep dark green is the color of the bot but the large robe and hood it wears is absolute black. The heads top portion is that of a gas mask but humans jaw skull can be seen as well. Nothing extravagant or flashy can be seen on the rest of the assassin bot, focusing more on agility and stealth. That's why it has a more lithe frame compared to the rest of the other robot attacking forces and only has light armor as protection.
It turns down the street and sees the Ionic Spartan mopping up the last of the men in the area. It would have been a lot harder for it to be able to take down the men in this area if the Shadow Death hadn't quietly taken a few of them down when they weren't looking. Unlike the shield user, Shadow Death is not a frontline fighter, but a stab in the back, sometimes literally.
With the last of the men dead, the Ionic Spartan sheathes its sword-gun before retrieving its spear and walking off to engage more enemies. With no more enemies here, the two suits of the Armor of the Fallen head off to engage more foes. Shadow Death turns around and begins to head deeper into the alleyway. "Freeze!" Two men pop out and aim their guns at it.
"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Before they can open fire, an ear-piercing scream permeates the air around them. The guys immediately fall to the ground clutching their ears with their weapons at their feet. Shadow Death merely closes its mouth and walks to them. Just as they look up, they fall down dead from its blades. With these annoyances out of the way, Shadow Death merely pulls up its hood, hiding its face and steps back deeper into the alleyway, melding with the shadows and disappearing.
The entire compound is now in complete disarray. All of the gates have fallen and the attacking enemy force has infested nearly every single street and roadway they have in the place. The buildings are the main places that the Iron Kings are using as a means to take down the bots that move through the streets. Most of their turreted vehicles can't just drive around and shoot anything before they are just ripped apart, instead they move slowly and coordinate through small radio chatter in their area to know where and when to move and attack the enemy. Their main source of communications has nearly all been but cut off and only a jury-rigged radio system underground with limited equipment was all they can salvage, allowing them to give sporadic orders to the rest of their soldiers but not as reliably.
The majority of their equipment has been left to their various armories and garages and are heavily defended. The bots do what they can to siege these places and stop the flow of heavy armaments and heavily armored vehicles from destroying them but it is futile as they are able to hold back the enemy. This is where the Iron Kings begins to slowly push back, regrouping at the secured locations and slowly pushing out, establishing gun nests and clear lines of sight down the roads leading to them.
The only other place that they have superiority over is the top of the walls. The high points allow them clear line of sights on both the outside and limit how many enemies make it into the base unimpeded as well as do what they can to shoot anymore enemies within the compound itself. The sniper that was hounding them though isn't shooting them left and right, instead opting to place careful shots on the targets that need it, that pose the most threat or obstacle to them, rather than just needlessly shooting at every single enemy she comes across and wasting ammo.
"Focus on the larger vehicles! Cut down as many of them as you can before they can get inside the compound!" One soldier calls out to everyone, doing what he can to coordinate what little men they have on the walls since their squad leaders were killed. Many of the soldiers do what they can to focus fire on the trucks carrying the majority of the bots, from aiming at their tires, to the drivers, and using rockets and grenade launchers to try and blow them up and the fighters they are carrying. They manage to take down several of them but no matter how many they destroy more just seem to continue to come at them. "Keep going! They have to be running out eventually!"
"Look! I'm seeing something else." Another soldier points out and cresting over the dune hills they spot single headlights speeding through the sands towards the walls but its too dark and they're too fast for them to see what it is.
"I don't care what they are! Just take them down!"
"Roger tha- Aaaahhh!" The man replying is cut short as several bullets hit him in the chest, forcing him to be pushed back and topple back over the edge of the wall and down below.
"What the—!" More are soon taken down as several more rounds continuously impact the rest of the guys on the wall.
"What the hell?!" The one giving orders exclaims loudly as the people around him dies to something they can't see.
*VRRRROOOOOOMMM*
He turns around at the loud noise of the engine but all he sees is the glint and flash of steel.
*SHING*
With one swipe, the mans head leaves his shoulders. As the body falls, the one holding the blade lands on the wall and rides along it. The Death Rider speeds along the wall on its Suzuki SV650 motorcycle, along with several others behind it as they all ride along the wall to clear it of the Iron Kings. While the others riders are the same bots as the foot soldiers, the Death Rider is of average build, a tight black body suit cover the entirety of its except for the head where it has a large dark green motorcycle helmet covering it all with a black visor. In its right hand it holds a thin longsword, as well as the others behind it with the exception of a few that are holding small but still deadly hand axes, ready for them all to cleave cut and run down any soldiers on the walls. As they go they manage to take down several gunmen until the others farther along the wall see them coming and begin to open fire.
The Death Rider and the rest behind it all move to the center of the runway in one long even line. It sheathes its sword before activating a switch on the right handle bar. With the sliding and clicking of metal, a large angled forms up on the front of it, coming to an angled point at the front to limit the air resistance and allowing the bullets to ricochet off it much more easily. With all of the motorcycle riders moving behind the leader, they are too protected from the incoming bullets. The soldiers meanwhile are unable to take down the targets and either slammed into by the shield, they manage to move out of the way but are cut down by the blades of the riders following the shield, or jump off the wall entirely in a desperate attempt to get away from the death train riding along the walls towards them. They fall on the outside though so the sand will at least somewhat cushion their falls… kind of.
The fighting all around the compound slowly begins to go into a stalemate, with the mechanical bots slowly spreading out and occupying most of the base but are unable to get into the more heavily fortified armories, garages, workshops and center headquarters building. Without those locations they are unable to properly occupy the compound and subdue the remaining Iron Kings forces without unneeded lives taken. Some lives have been captured and taken prisoner but very few.
The center headquarters, the one that houses the main leader, and their prisoners, rests unplundered by the invading forces. They must attack and force their way in.
"Go ahead… Bring them in… Center roadway." A voice over the comms can be heard.
"You got it!" Amethyst replies. Past a dune hill close to the compounds walls but out of sight from anyone inside, she stares at the computer screens she's got, all cameras from different angles mounted on the helicopter she is controlling. She grabs the control stick and carefully maneuvers it around, angling her remote controlled heavily improved and repaired Hind helicopter to the center four lane roadway going right up to the main doors of the headquarters. "Alright… easy… eeeassssyyyy." She mutters to herself as she carefully angles the copter towards the target building, a fair distance away so as the cargo she's dropping doesn't get shot on the way down or a stray rocket doesn't destroy it. When all she cameras show she's right on alignment, she smirks and flicks open the cover on a button. "Bombs away."
She presses it.
The sides of the helicopter open up. The occupants get up from the seats move towards the open doors. Without so much as using ropes, three of them walk off while two more jump forward onto a nearby rooftop. The first three though land on the ground roughly, impacting the hard concrete and gravel street and cracking it, causing small craters to form underneath them as they crouch for a second before standing up tall. As they land and the helicopter heads off, they are immediately beset upon by enemy fire, a few bullets here and there bouncing off them but unharmed.
That doesn't mean they are going to walk forward without any form of cover whatsoever. The center of the three special bots on the ground steps forward in front of its partners. This is one is called Heavy Dog and it bears the look and armor of a large medieval plated armored knight with its left armor thicker than the other. Before too much damage can be done to the others, its right arm extends forward. The arm transforms and plates extend to the sides, followed by a large bright green slightly transparent rectangular hardlight shield. The shield has a width of five human bodies and is 7 feet tall, allowing it to cover both itself and its allies.
The second armor standing to Heavy Dogs right is the Berserk Knight, a large knight oriented unit that is bulkier than normal and has an aura of fear about it. This ones special ability is able to absorb and store any kinetic force exhibited on its body and channel it into its weapon. The amount of kinetic energy it has can be seen via the small red bar on its shoulders that increase higher the more energy it stores. Now that its not being peppered by a million bullets it grips its axe-hammer hybrid melee weapon and hefts it over its shoulder.
The third armor standing to Heavy Dogs left is Fenzi, who bears the similarity of the Madara Uchiha battle armor in black with orange highlights, the Crystal Gems star on its shoulder pads and the wears a kabuto samurai helmet similar to the Shredder in TMNT but is in all black. Its ability right off the bat is its self-healing and self-repair protocols, where as the bullet marks, scuffs and holes it sustains already begin to repair and fix itself now that it is in cover. This ones weapon is a Gunbai and scythe chain combo weapon, allowing it to place the large fan in front of itself using one hand and the scythe in the other.
With their cover formed, they begin their slow march forward. On this long straight stretch of road they are walking, it's a veritable no mans land as dozens of bots from their army are pinned either on the sides of buildings and doorways, or behind destroyed trucks, cars and a tank or two. With the Heavy Dog providing a mobile cover directly to the headquarters, the bots are able to move up and begin gaining ground on wanting to take over and siege the target building. Another addition that makes Heavy Dog valuable is the main battle processor it has, which due to the high processing power it has, its able to transmit that signal to the other bots within a close vicinity to it. As they slowly move forward, the rest of the pinned down bots perk up when they start to gain new orders, new information on the battlefield around them. Like clockwork, some of them pop out and begin laying down suppressing fire on the gunmen shooting at them. With a small lull in the oncoming fire, the rest dive out of cover, dive rolling and sprinting forward towards the mobile shield then to more solid cover before laying down suppressing fire to allow the rear units to move up. Some straggler bots even grab the bodies of their destroyed allies and use them body shields to push forward to cover further up.
But that's not all Heavy Dog has. As the shield in its right arm gets peppered by countless bullets, its much bulkier left arm begins to change and shift around. Its arm forms into a M134 minigun ready to fire. It simply presses the barrel through the shield, allowing the barrel to pass through and giving it free access to open fire from the behind the safety of the shield.
Fenzi and Berserk Knight step out from behind the cover of the shield and begin tanking some of the bullets. Fenzi hides behind its Gunbai as cover on the left but at the same time to absorb the kinetic force of all the bullet fire laying into it. A red bar begins to fill up on the handle of the weapon, allowing the wielder to see the amount of kinetic that's being absorbed. Too little and it won't be able to do much damage, too much and the kinetic force used will be too much for the weapons and either break them or make them explode. When a good amount of energy is stored, Fenzi proceeds to spin his scythe around via the chain. It gains more and more speed until it looks to a building on the left on the second floor. Several guns poke out and get ready to open fire on all of their forces from the side and behind. Fenzi swings its scythe along the flooring of the second floor, as the blade swings through the air, it lights up blue before it impacts the concrete structure and slices through it like it was nothing before it comes flying back into its hand, waiting to be used again when more kinetic energy is transferred. The part of the structure though that was struck splinters with spider cracks all along several windows and the floor before it completely crumbles. The men inside cry out as they suddenly fall through the structure, either getting knocked out as they fall into the street or within the structure.
The Berserk Knight simply keeps in step with the moving shield, tanking a flurry of bullets and even shielding some of the others bots as it continues to absorb more and more bullets. The bar that represents its energy stored gradually begins to fill up. When it's a little over halfway full, it tightens its grip on its weapon before turning it around, making the axe portion of its weapon face forward. With the click of a button, the stored energy begins to feed into the weapon and the axe glows a bright blue. With the weapon charged, it reels back before with a heave, swipes towards the buildings on the right. A bright wide sweep of energy cuts through the air and cuts through the walls and building like nothing, leaving grooves in the wall where the energy wave it, making the walls crumble and fall, revealing the men inside, forcing them to either grab their wounded who were hit by the energy or retreat deeper inside for cover. The Berserk Knight steps behind the shield to recover and cool down from the energy expenditure before analyzing the field in front of them and getting ready to attack again.
While this is going on, on the rooftops there are two more armored units moving along to provide back up to the units down below. On the left, the one known as the Savage Samurai stands tall, watching the proceedings down below before turning to the row of buildings it is standing atop of. Already dozens of foot soldiers begin climbing up and move to positions on the rooftops to get better angles on their enemies down below, working to negate any cover that the bots are using. Soon enough though they spot the samurai and get ready to open fire on the blood red colored armored suit in a similar armor reminiscent of that of a samurai. Only this time, the addition that it has is the fact that this one has six arms instead of two. In each hand it holds Katana sword, poised and ready to strike. When soldiers begin opening fire on it, much to their amazement, the Savage Samurai's arms are a blaze of speed as every bullet that means to impact it are cut down by the slicing swords that are a whirlwind around it. The 'clings' and 'tings' of the bullets being sliced permeate the air as it moves forward, completely unimpeded by the amount of rounds sent to it. The soldiers firing begin to panic as they see their target not fall to their combined firepower, panicking to the point that several of them begin to back up and get ready to book it.
They are unable to because as soon as several of them begin to run out of ammo and try desperately to reload, the Savage Samurai presses the advantage and shoots forward. Before they can properly fight, they are beset upon by the advanced warrior. The frontline soldiers, the more professional and actual military looking ones who didn't retreat so easily, are the first to be taken down. One man tries to use his rifles butt stock in the melee but he misses and is punched straight in the face, throwing him back and landing him on the ground, knocked out. Another finishes reloading and is about to open fire before he's forced to bring his rifle up to defend himself from the sword swipe. He's thrown off his feet as the blade easily cuts through his weapon in two and throws him onto the roof. He lays there groaning as he grips his chest, putting pressure on the thin cut, not enough to kill him but enough to incapacitate him.
That's how it goes for the others where they try to shoot but are incapacitated harshly. The rest though, the more cowardly ones, are already trying to run away. They can't run fast enough as it shoots forward again, cutting down the closest ones with deathblows. The last ones full on running are not given any mercy, being stabbed from behind, jumped on and stabbed with two blade, or kicked in their knees and have a blade run right through their chest.
Across the way on the right, another special unit stands, watching the firefights in all areas from the main road to its counterpart on the opposite roofs. Lazer Eye shifts its attention down towards the ground, its CZ 750 Bolt Action sniper rifle held tightly in its hands. This one isn't overtly extravagant, wearing a simple chain mail as armor and is very slim. That's why this one is not meant for full on frontal assault combat, only shooting from the back and providing cover for the rest of their forces, hence the additional part it has where its right eye is actually an enhanced laser sight to allow for more accurate shots.
"Hey! There it—!"
*BANG*
Before the main can react, his head has a new hole right in the center of his forehead as Lazer Eye shifts its rifles crosshairs up and to the right, instantly putting the man in sight killing him. The other soldiers around him barely have time to return fire before it proceeds to put shot after shot into the remaining soldiers. It's Deadshot ability having activated and allowing it to have a much higher reaction time and speedy target acquisition. Because of this, the soldiers moving to try to engage it are shot down too quickly for them to return fire. Even the ones using riot shields aren't able to get in close enough before it aims at their feet and shoots them, making them fall before taking them down from their unprotected sides. It's quick targeting acquisition and how many men it takes down seamlessly makes the soldiers on top retreat back into the buildings and out of its sights. With the momentary distraction dealt with, Lazer Eye returns its focus back down to the main roadway where the rest of their forces continue to push up.
It's main focus though is not just the random soldiers on the road but instead any high ranking individual it can spot, especially squad leaders, as well as an units that pose a significant enough threat. Having reloaded its weapon, Lazer Eye opens fire on the soldiers on the road. It focuses its sights on the people trying to rally their respective men, not necessarily straight up killing them but just doing whatever it needs to incapacitate them, from the weapons that peak out of the cover they are hiding behind, or an arm or leg that happens to not be in cover. When enough of the soldiers on the street have been routed, it turns its attention towards the headquarters, namely a focus to the gunners occupying the windows, from simple soldiers using rifles or those that have completely set up an entire machine gun nest against their forces.
It's sights home in on a machine gunner on the second floor… and fires.
*BANG*
Amidst the plethora of bullet sounds that can be heard in the warzone torn main street, one particular sniper round can be heard as it impacts one of the gunners attacking the bots. The man falls dead and more shots can be heard as the sniper continues to shoot down more gunners. However there are still a lot of soldiers in the building and after a few seconds the guns are rearmed with replacement soldiers and continue to open fire.
Theirs only so many rounds the sniper can use so instead of the soldiers for now, it aims at their machine guns and fires, impacting and destroying the weapons from use. With the heavy guns being put out of commission, the amount of gunfire sent on the bots as they slowly move up lessens and allows them to move even faster. Heavy Dog begins almost jogging as it pushes forward, forgoing shooting with its minigun and instead focusing on pushing its shield forward. Fenzi comes up behind it and moves along with the shield, providing cover to the exposed flank. The Berserk Knight though isn't focused on shielding itself and instead is jogging along completely in the open, allowing any bullet to impact it and add more and more to its energy storage.
The push is unstoppable as the bots make headway and rapidly close the distance towards the headquarters. The soldiers are unable to mount up a proper defense as most of their heavy armaments are rapidly being disabled. The only thing else they can do to try and stop them is one more large attack against the shield. They take that out and they might be able to fight back. At the main double steel doors directly in front of the headquarters, several gunmen and a few with rocket launchers get ready to open them and fire. "Alright, on my mark… 3…" Two guys unlock the doors. "… 2…" They brace themselves against the doors. "… 1… Now!" With a yell, they push the doors open, allowing two heavy machine gunners using PKM's to spray as much as they can to their enemies, and two more soldiers using RPG-7 rockets to take quick aim and fire at the approaching shield only several feet away from them. As soon as the rockets fire, they all quickly grab the doors and close and lock them up tight.
*BOOOOMM*
Just as the rockets impact their targets. They brace themselves against the doors and can feel the force of the explosion move against the door and them. The noise outside gradually lessens as everyone stops firing their guns. One soldier grabs another handle at head height and slides it open, allowing him to peak out and see a large dust cloud has appeared where the explosion happened, obscuring their views of their enemies. Silence in the immediate area greets them, besides the distant gunshots and explosions that can be heard from fighting in the rest of the compound but besides the cloud settling, no other sound be heard.
*… Thump… Thump… Thump…*
Except slow thumping sounds. "Huh?" One of them questions at the odd sound and tries to squint his eyes towards the smoke to get a better view of what's going on. As he does, he notices some movement in the smoke.
*… Thump… Thump Thump Thump Thump*
The sounds gets louder and they can feel the ground shaking. Before they can question what's going on, the figure in the smoke gets more and more defined as whatever it is is full on running towards them. The soldiers watching look on in surprise as they witness the Berserk Knight sprint stomping towards them with its axe-hammer held up high, some scuff marks lining its body but this time the hammer part is glowing and ready to be used. The men try to call out the threat and open fire but can't in time before with a mighty heave, it swings its hammer down right on the steel doors, expending all of its stored up kinetic energy. The men inside tried to back up and give orders to brace, but it was all for naught as the hammer impact the doors.
The massive 'clang' can be heard for a moment, just before the feel of an earthquake can be felt all around and the doors are torn clean off of the walls, along with the walls themselves and ground cracking from the residual force used. The doors fly backwards into the building, some of the men jumping out of the way, others though were getting hit straight by them and either suffered broken bones, concussions, or were straight up killed outright from the large metal flying pieces of metal through the air. The doors flip in the air a few times before they crash through some walls and become embedded in them.
A small dust cloud appears from the attack and before the men inside can build a proper defense, a flood of bots pour in and begin spreading out. The soldiers on the ground are immediately gunned down but the ones on the railings above immediately begin shooting down and try to stem how many enter their building. A massive crossfire ensues with bullets being flung everywhere and countless bodies being shot down.
Amidst the chaos, one figure though steps through the door amidst the other bots pouring in and looks around. He is all black, wearing a complete full body armor suit with a helmet and flappable mask included of a mix of AR500 steel and Kevlar. In his hands he holds a heavily modified M4A1 Carbine. Multiple sights of varying zoom lengths, fixed stock, extended double taped magazines, an AAC M4 2000 silencer, KAC quad-rails and a strobe light attachment, laser sight, and a rubberized foregrip. The weapon is angled downwards to avoid aiming and possibly misfiring at the bots. On his left hip he carries a Katana sword ready to be used in a moments notice.
As he looks around, he gets a good idea of how the place looks. The layout of the inside of the place is similar to what you would find in a sort of manor, a large open room with two flights of stairs in the middle curling up and meeting on the second floor balcony that runs all around the room itself. Even though the place is a massive firefight, he calmly stands there observing the surrounding rooms.
*PING*
By only a split second flex of his head, he tilts it to the side, allowing the bullet that was meant for the center mass of his head to harmless deflect off the side of the helmet and embed itself inside the wall. Without missing a beat, he brings his rifle up, aims down the ACOG scope on top and places three shots into the person that shot him from above. Two to the chest, one to the head. The man falls down dead a second later and the rest of his friends near him shift fire to the unique individual. He bolts forward, heading straight for the stairs while firing all the while at them placing accurate deadly shots at the men firing at him. Their round bounce harmlessly off him while he aims for the unarmored parts of their bodies, either killing them outright with headshots or incapacitating them with arm, hand or leg shots, not finishing them off and letting the other bots to either end them if they resist or subdue them otherwise. When he gets to the top of the stairs, he finds another set of double doors but these are more ornate wooden pieces rather than steel or concrete. The few soldiers still on the second floor balcony are pinned down or injured so they can't shoot him as he focuses on the doors.
With only a simple lock keeping them closed, he aims at the handles, fires a few rounds to break it before stepping to the side of the door. He smacks the door side with the butt of his rifle, which was good idea because as soon as he does a massive hail of bullets come flying out and tearing through the wooden doors, narrowly missing him as he curls a bit away from the hail of bullets. Not wanting to waste time by waiting for them to exhaust their weapons ammunition, he reaches behind him and picks up a smoke grenade. After a few seconds, he pulls out the pin and quickly tosses the grenade down the hallway low to the ground, doing what he can to avoid the bullets with what little of his body pokes out. From there he just waits around the corner and lets the smoke billow up and thicken.
After a few seconds of constant fire, it begins to lessen before it stops all together. With the smoke large and thick through the hallway and the gunfire dying down, he jumps out and runs through the smoke. As he does, he keeps his weapon trained up and forward, ready to fire and engage the enemy. This time thought instead of using the large magnification sight on the top of his rifle, he tilts it slightly, using the smaller shorter sight on the side to engage the enemies in closer quarters. Finally, the visor on his helmet changes. Instead of being obscured by the smoke, the helmet now blurs the world in gray smog, slightly outlining the different doors, crevices, furniture but most importantly it lights up the confused enemy soldiers ahead of him in bright slightly red and white tinted bodies.
*PCK*PCK*PCK*
Several rounds leave his rifle, piercing through the smoke and nailing the gunmen before they can see him. The rest that aren't taken down immediately freak out and begin opening fire but the smoke makes their shots severely inaccurate. It doesn't take much for the remaining men to be thrown to the ground in injury or death. He pass right through and out the smoke before vaulting right over the upturned table they were using as a shield, grabbing a discarded Mac-10 as he does in his left hand but keeping the rifle up as best he can using his right. As he sprints down the hallway, a door opens up on his right and three civilian dressed gunmen try to shoot him.
*PRRRRRRRRRR*
They are instead the ones gunned down as he passes by, not even bothering to look at them as his sight stays focused downrange, the SMG he picked up stretched across his stomach to the right and spraying them with all the ammo it has in the magazine. When it runs dry, he drops it and re-grabs his M4 with both hands. More soldiers come out of side rooms but before they can take proper aim at him he quickly double taps them as soon as he can. When he's done down his current hallway, he stops near a corner and quickly check down it, spotting several soldiers running around trying to figure out where to go in their disorganized chaos. He quickly reloads his weapon, flipping the magazine over and using the otherside. Once loaded, he reaches behind and pulls out a small tablet, giving him a baring on where he's at and where he needs to go next. He puts the device away and grabs his gun.
*SMACK*
Flying around the corner, he nails a man running towards him in the face, making him drop his RPK and grab his face in pain. He turns the man around holds him in a headlock from behind using his left arm and grabbing his discarded LMG, letting his rifle fall next to him as its held by the strap. Once he picks up the RPK, he lays it against the mans side and moves forward. The rest of the gunmen down the hallways don't bother in holding fire for their captured ally and just immediately open fire, riddling his body with bullets while the RPK opens fire. Using his meat shield, he sprays the entire hallway down with the machine gun, not even bothering to aim as the amount of bullets he's letting loose covers the hallway enough for him. His shield falls limp dead as he continues to move forward regardless. The other men in the hallway quickly begin to fall and others begin to get out of the kill zone and throw themselves into the side rooms to escape the hail of bullets. When the shooter runs out of ammo on his temporary gun, he drops both the body and gun before grabbing his own rifle and reengaging the enemy. The ones that pop out try and shoot him again are quickly taken down with more precise shots.
The hallway is cleared pretty quickly before he comes upon a large staircase. A quick check of the tablet shows he just needs to go up the flight of stairs and down one more straight hallway to the final location: the commanders office. He makes his way up the stairs, taking precaution to keep his aim center above the stairs he's climbing in case anyone pokes out and tries to shoot him. Thankfully his trek up the stairs is uneventful until he makes it to the doors leading to his final stretch of hallway. Without missing a beat he moves forward and spartan kicks the doors open. They swing wide open and slam into the side walls, cracking them a little. Several men inside jerk back in surprise at the sudden opening of the door and frantically try to bring their weapons up to shoot since they weren't ready for someone to be right there.
He immediately sprays into the group and takes down a few of them while the last three throw themselves into some side rooms. He fires after them but misses as they make it in. Those last few missed shots run out the last of the ammo in his magazine. As he moves forward, he unlocks the magazine to replace it but as he's about to remove it, a man comes out the door to shoot him. Without thinking he throws the rifle straight at the man. On reflex the stupid gunman drops his own weapon and catches the thrown weapon, fumbling with it as the magazine comes out. With the distraction, he runs forward, pulling out his sword with his right hand as he does and runs the swords through the mans stomach. He grabs his rifle with his left hand and rips his sword out of the dying man. The last two men come out of the same room on the right and take aim.
*SHINK*
The sword is thrown through the air and embeds itself on the left most guy, making him grunt and pull the trigger of his smg as it jerks upwards and to the side. His friend ducks out of the way of the rogue shots but that leaves the gunman vulnerable. He rushes forward and tackles the last gunman straight into the frame of the door. He lets out a grunt and gasp of breath from the tackle and is stunned. While the first guy still struggles with the sword, he grabs it before stabbing it into the side of the tackled man and pinning him into the wall. While the gunmans screaming, he manages to reload his M4 finally and quickly puts a bullet in the men's heads to finish them off. With the final way clear, he moves forward to the final doors, holding the front of his rifle up with his left wrist, holding his sword still and ready to slice anyone in front. He makes his way to the double doors and stops in front of them. He takes a moment to get himself ready, and acts. He steps right between the doors and fires several rounds into the handles, breaking them apart before he kicks its open.
In an instant, he spots three men. Four consecutive shots take down the men on the left and right.
*BOOM*
But a shotgun blast to the chest takes him down.
"You stupid son of bitch!" The leader snarls as he cocks his shotgun. A quick glance to his men shows that they aren't dead but are down and gripping their wounds. He doesn't bother trying to help them and instead walks around his ornate wooden desk to the kid who's been messing with him. "I honestly don't know what the fuck this is, what the hell you did, or even how in the hell you were able to get all this so quickly!" He angrily states and waves his hand to the window overlooking the compound. As he does, a distant explosion can be heard and a small plume of smoke appears, further angering him at the damage that's being done. "I mean how the fuck did you get all this so quickly?! You didn't even use the full week. It's only been a few days! What the fuck are you?! What are those?!" He outright yells in anger and aims his shotgun at the downed body, referencing the bulk of the forces that was used to attack the compound, which are quite a bit more advanced than anything they have ever seen before.
As he looks, he sees the downed armored person he just blasted to the ground is as still as can be but the scorched chest armor shows no blood or injuries, so it took the brunt of the blast. The boss lets out a scoff and re-aims at the downed person. "Of course you wouldn't have died so easily. Theirs no way just a simple shotgun blast to the chest would kill you. No matter what sort of injuries or explosions your in you just somehow continue to wiggle and crawl your way out of them like a god damn cockroach."
He then proceeds to kneel down to the persons right, laying his shotgun down with the barrel pressed right into his chest, where all it would take is just one trigger pull and the close proximity would completely decimate the armor and rip apart the body inside without much resistance. Because of this, he's able to reach with his left hand to the mask. "But I'm going to look at your face before I shoot you. I'm going to look at your stupid idiotic fucking face before I blast it to the point no one will ever be able to recognize you no matter what they use to try to identify you." He grabs the mask and grips it tightly. "And after I kill you, I'm going to show your mangled corpse to your girlfriend before I kill her, then to that snot-nosed kid and everyone else in that worthless town never fuck with me ever again!" He flips the mask up.
*Ca-Click*
He freezes. He stays their kneeling over the body and stares in surprise and fear at what he sees before him. But what's got him more freaked out… is barrel pressed to the back of his head.
Thing is, no one can be seen standing there… yet.
A crackling noise can be heard in the room and the two injured men laying against the back walls on both sides of the window look on with wide surprised eyes as they see a silhouette begin to form behind their boss. It begins to take on the shape of a person before soon enough, an actual person is seen standing there behind him. The silhouette starts off barely seeable, but gradually begins to take a more defined shape until small black diamond pixels can be seen appearing at first. First, they start off at the gun aimed at the back of the leaders head. What starts off is the very front of the barrel before it gradually begins to be revealed. The black diamond pixels can be seen at first until the actual color of the object begins to come in view. A silver-green tinted Smith & Wesson .500 Magnum revolver with an extended ejector shroud and muzzle brake, a night vision added iron sights set, and black rubberized grip. Holding that powerful and deadly hand cannon is a right hand black glove with dark red stripes running down the fingers, as well as converging into a large red line going up the arms where the person is wearing a full body tight black suit of Kevlar and hardened black ceramic plates on the chest, back, shoulders, elbows and knees, as well as a green block on his left arm. Dark green lines run down his front and dark blue lines run down his legs. Black soft padded shoes he wears and a balaclava with a skeleton face can be seen on the front. As soon as all the pixels disappear and the entirety of the person appears, he reaches up to his face and peels back his mask.
Marcus stands there right behind the current leader of the Iron Kings without a single scuff mark on him at all.
The person laying on the ground is just another one of the bots he has at his disposal, now unmasked. "How… how did—?"
Marcus presses the barrel to his head again, showing him to not speak and making him drop his gun. "You don't have the cards here, I do. You know exactly why—"
*Fwoosh*
*Chack*
"Guaaagh!" In one swift move, Marcus brings his left arm up, passes it over his shoulder, and throws his sword straight at the person behind him to his left. The sword stabs directly into his chest. He drops his outstretched pistol, staring in surprise and horror at the blade protruding out of his chest. He barely even reaches for the weapon before the life leaves him and he slumps to the side dead.
"You wanna try as well?" The other injured man to the right snaps his head up to Marcus after watching his partner die, seeing him staring at him out of the corner of his eye, his arm poised and ready to throw another sword, much to the confusion of everyone else in the room as to how he was able to pull an entire katana sword out of thin air. Although since he himself was able to appear out of thin air, the injured man stays where he is, his hand that was going for his pistol retreats back to his lap in clear view. "Smart." Marcus turns back to leader, still kneeling and hasn't been stupid enough to try to fight him when he only glanced away. The fact that he was able to kill the man that tried to shoot him in the back with a weapon he pulled out of thin air says all that he needs. "Dark."
As if on command, the bot on the ground sits up, nearly crashing into the leader. He freaks out at the sudden movement and crawl away a little but stops when the gun is pressed back against his head. The bot stands up to its full height, rifle in one hand and the sword in the other. "Yes sir?" He asks in robotic male voice, a small light flashing where the mouth would be to indicate he was talking.
"Take the body and the injured man out of here. Subdue him before making sure no one else interrupts me."
"It will be done." Darkness answers and presses his mask down on his face. He sheathes his sword before grabbing the dead body with one hand and dragging it away. He then forces the other man to get up and leads him out at gun point.
"Now then…" Marcus says once they have left the room. He then grabs the other asshole in the room by the front of his shirt and forces against the closed door roughly, holding him easily with only one hand. The guy lets out a grunt as he's treated roughly but quickly shuts up as he feels the barrel press right into forehead. "Now that we are alone, you are going to tell me exactly where Lapis is.
"Who?"
Marcus takes the gun away and presses it into his left shoulder harshly. He lets out a loud groan of pain at the pressure of the guns barrel pressed right into the joint of his left shoulder, avoiding the bone and focusing only on flesh, any more pressure and it would go right through his skin. He tries desperately to grab the gun with both hands and move it out of the way but no matter how much he desperately tries to push the gun away it doesn't move an inch. "Don't play dumb with me… or I'll pop out your goddamn arm with the barrel… then remove your whole arm with the bullets." He leans in close to his face and whispers, "From this range, how many bullets will it take before I sever your arm?" The guy is now sweating bullets from the threat he gave him. He soon lets go of the gun and raises his arms up in a surrender, despite trying to mask the pain. "Good." He lets out a breath of relief as Marcus takes the gun away. He then pulls the guy away from the door and throws him to the ground. "Now where is she?" He asks deathly serious and not joking around at all.
The defenseless leader growls in anger and huffs before standing up. On one of the walls there is large bookcase that almost spans the whole wall. He walks over to it, grabs a bunch of books and pulls them off the shelf, not being careful and just throwing them onto the ground. Once he does, it reveals theirs a lever hidden in the wall, which he grabs and pulls quickly. Next, a click can be heard and a large section of the shelf pulls in towards us. He grabs the edge that pops out and pulls the rest of the way, revealing to them a doorway into an entirely new room. Marcus comes up behind him and motions for him to go inside. The guy meanwhile lets out a low growl of anger at how he's treated but complies nonetheless. As soon as they walk in though, that's when Marcus freezes and his eyes widen.
'There she is.' Much to his relief and slight surprise, the room is the same one he saw in the video that was sent to him… complete with the people involved. Besides the door he sees to his right that was most likely out of frame during the video, his focus is spent entirely on Lapis still dangling from the chains in the same position he saw. Having heard the door open, she slowly cranes her head up from looking towards the ground. A bit of her hair falls over her face, but her right eye peaks out still, catching Marcus's eye. His breath hitches, relief flooding him at seeing her alive and okay. "Lapis…" he breathes in a whisper and takes a step forward.
*SMACK*
His moment of elation at seeing her made him drop his guard, resulting in the leader elbowing Marcus in the face and moving to the wall. Marcus grabs his face in pain from the cheap move and glares in anger at the man as grabs the lever on the wall. "If I'm going down, I'm fucking taking her with me!" He screams and pulls the lever down, full power.
*… zzzt…*
Nothing. Barely a twinge of electricity can be heard or any form of power circulating can be seen. Everyone stays where they, still and unmoving at first to what they thought was going to happen. "Wha… what?" The leader mutters in complete confusion, staring at the girl hanging by the chains and how she's not screaming in pain or burning to a crisp from the overload of power sent to her. As he steps forward towards, wondering what the hells going on, he doesn't notice the irate and murderous look on Marcus as he steps up behind them.
Looking into the bucket that Lapis is being held over shows a curious sight. The water is being electrocuted with thousands of volts of electricity, as evident of the arcing bolts inside the water, but what's weird is the fact that the water is pushed to the edges of the bucket, without touching Lapis's feet whatsoever. "I was wondering when you were going to show up." She says casually.
Much to the oblivious leaders confusion, the bucket explodes, shooting bits of the bucket everywhere, including the cables attached to it, and water flooding all over. "What the-?!" The leader exclaims in surprise at the act, then he's really floored when his former captive effortlessly breaks the chains holding her by simply pulling her hands away. "How?! How the f-?!" The leader begins to back away.
*Tap*
"Huh?"
*CRACK*
Without missing a beat, as soon as the man steps back, he bumps into Marcus, who promptly in his anger pistol whips the guy in the side of the head, knocking him out and falling to the ground in a heap. He stares at the unmoving guy for a second before ignoring him and focusing on the love of his life. He holsters his pistol as they both stare at each other, smiles forming on each of their faces.
Without wasting anymore time, they both move and embrace each other, taking a moment to hold each other before fully embracing and kissing. The time they were away may have been short by only days, but time apart was torture. When they finish kissing, they pull away and lay their heads together, staring into each other's eyes and just genuinely happy they are together again. Marcus, while happy, still feels horrible about the whole situation, as evident from the fact he closes eye's, tears flowing. "I'm sorry I couldn't protect you." He whispers.
"Oh Marcus. It's okay." She kisses him again, making him look at her and wiping the tears from him. "They surprised me that's all. That idiot bragged about grabbing me when I was alone and away from you. So unless you were going to watch me at every single second of every single day, they were going to grab me eventually."
"I guess your right." He mutters glumly, wiping the rest of his tears away. "I'm just sorry they tortured you like that." He begins to say, anger starting to well up.
"Weeeeellllll… they didn't really." He looks at her confused and the cheeky smirk she has. "I knew what was happening, when he thought he was going to shock me, I went ahead and just pretended while keeping the water away from me. He got the pleasure of shocking and leaving me alone and all I did was just wait. We both know I can wait for a long time."
"…" While she's says it in a slight joking manner, Marcus still feels a pang of hurt at her experience. "And the reason why you didn't just escape like you did right now?" He asks.
"I wanted to see how long it would take for you to save me. It's been, what a few days since he sent the message, gave you a week. I'm happy to see you work fast." She smiles at him.
Despite how things went, he still smiles and kisses her again before hugging her. "I love you."
"I love you too." She replies. They stay together like that until a distant explosion can be heard, snapping them out of it.
"We should probably get out of here. I want you as far away from here as possible before I level this place." He mutters harshly before grabbing her hand and leading her to the door out.
"Sounds good." She follows without protest.
*Knock*Knock*Knock*
They freeze as the only other door in the room is knocked on. They stay staring at the door for a few seconds before Marcus slowly grabs his revolver and takes careful aim at it. "Do you know where that door leads?" He asks Lapis.
"Oh yeah. I think theirs another person in there. Pretty sure he's alright if this guy hates him." She gestures to the unconscious leader. Marcus looks at the guy before looking at door, then to Lapis, before pulling out his revolver and walking over to the door, ready to place it against the person and shoot them dead if they try anything. The door is a large steel design, with a plethora of locks ranging from chains, big padlocks, levers and deadbolts to make absolutely sure that whoever's inside is not going to pick their way or brute force their way out, and to make sure anyone who tries to open it would have to take a fair bit of time to open it without being seen.
*SHING*
But not Marcus. One swipe of his sword along the doors edge and the locks fall away. His sword disappears and with his now free hand he grabs the edge and pulls it open. As soon as he does, he aims his gun straight at the person standing there.
He was not expecting an old man to be standing there, someone to have warranted such high security measure. Straight off the appearance, he is an old man, if the winrkles, graying white hair has anything to indicate. A head of gray hair with a slightly whiter mustache to go with it. He has brown eyes, aging face and has Marcus in height, being a few inches taller than him. Hazarding a guess would say the man is maybe around 70 or 80 years of age. He is wearing a gray t-shirt with black pants and some old tennis shoes. All the clothes are not in the best condition either, but despite that he stares at Marcus with a smile. "Ahhh, thank you." He doesn't even seem fazed by the gun and simply pats Marcus on the shoulder and shaking his free hand, which Marcus was pretty much surprised by the forwardness and didn't think to tell him to back up, plus Lapis is there to help him in case something happened. "I've been cooped up in that place for too long. Feels good to stretch my legs." He walks right past Marcus, steps ON the unconscious mans crotch, putting a bit more force in his step, and stepping out into the main office.
Marcus and Lapis are just staring in surprise and confusion before they both look at each other and bolt out of the room. When they do, they see the man standing at the window of the room, examining the base before him. He lets out a depressed sigh before nodding. "Well, can't say I wasn't expecting this after what that idiot told me… but I have to say I'm impressed." He turns and smiles at Marcus.
"Wait, what? What do you mean? Who are you?" Marcus demands, keeping his gun up and making sure the guy really does see it.
"Oh, my apologies. I guess I should have realized you wouldn't have recognized me since we last talked over the phone."
"The phone?" Marcus asks confused. However it doesn't take long for him to stare at the man closely before a look of realization begins to form on his face. "Hold on… nooooo…"
"That's right. Former General Terrance Da Nella. At your service." He greet him with a small bow. "Also formerly temporarily replaced Commander, leader of the Iron Kings."
Marcus all but nearly lets his gun fall to his side as he stares at the man in surprise. "You were the man I talked to. You were the one I made a deal with." He tells him. To Marcus, the man before him is actually a retired US army general, famous to a lot of people and having taken part in a large number of military operations and has done exceptional work in keeping his men alive while making sure the mission was done with the best results.
He nods with a smile with his hands held behind his back. "Yes I was. Like I said before, I never gave the order to attack you. It was all on him." He says, not bother to mention the name of Marcus's uncle. "And as you can see… a bit of a change in leadership happened between when we last talked, and not of my own willingness to step down."
Marcus goes to speak until he hears rapid footsteps happening beyond the door. In one fluid motion, he presses Lapis behind him, putting himself between her and the door. "FREEEEZE!" The doors bust open and six soldiers, actual military looking soldiers, not guys in casual clothing, stand there with all of them training their rifles straight at Marcus and Lapis; black, gray and green clothing adorning their bodies with their body armors protecting them. What stops them from riddling the two with hundreds of bullets is a few factors: Lapis has her fists clenched, a combat ready stance, and her water wings out and ready to strike. Another is the fact that Marcus has his revolver pointed right at them, ready to open fire, and his other hand has his sword pressed right up against their leaders neck.
"One step, one move, one finger twitch and I remove his head from his shoulders." Marcus threatens instantly without any hint of backing down.
"Stand down men." Before confrontation can erupt, everyone looks at the restored leader in confusion as he doesn't look angry or worried in the least at having a sword pressed against his neck. "Their doesn't need to be anymore bloodshed."
"Commander?! Your here! But you… your not…" One of them stutters in utter confusion at seeing their commander and what he's asking.
"Are you sure sir?" Another asks in commanding tone without taking his sights off Marcus. Marcus himself tightens his grip on his revolver and prepares to fire if necessary.
"I am. Weapons down people." He answers in a calm normal tone, still not at all perturbed by the blade.
A tense silence falls over everyone, weapons still held up until with much hesitation the soldiers slowly begin to lower their weapons. Seeing as the threat is no longer set against him, Marcus lowers both his weapons as well, even Lapis eases up and her wings retract.
"Thank you." He thanks everyone who put down their weapons. "And now…" Terrance, the Iron Kings commander, walks over to the side of the room, opposite of where the secret room was, to some sort of announcer equipment. Theirs some equipment here, not as much as what they had on their communications tower but just a bit. He turns it on and a small feedback can be heard over the entirety of the compound. Elsewhere, some groups fighting or those that are alone look up at the new noise they here, the human fighters looking up in confusion while the gem forces look up in curiosity, ready to process what the new noise is. He taps the mic for a second before clearing his throat and speaking. "All units, this is your Commander speaking. Your real commander." Some soldiers fighting duck back into cover and look on in surprise at the voice of their former commander back. "Cease fire." He orders in a calm ease of tone, making it crystal clear to everyone what he's saying. A few intercoms and speakers were destroyed in the fighting but is overall still operational for everyone to hear as this was not a critical target for the attackers to destroy. "I repeat, all members of the Iron Kings forces are to stop attacking and cease fire all hostilities. If you are attacked you may defend yourself but stand down."
With the order for the Iron Kings to stand down, Marcus immediately brings up his left arm. The device on his arm opens up and reveals a transparent green screen with a plethora of commands and functions for him to do. A technological gift for both him and Peridot after they reverse-engineered her broken limb enhancers. Marcus keys in his entire army to hear him. "All units! This is Marcus! Stand down! I repeat, stand down! The fighting is over! If you are attacked, non-lethal takedowns only!" Marcus lets out a sigh and smiles with a nod. "We're done here. We have her."
As soon as the orders are given by the two of them, all the fighting and shooting they hear begins to die down. Shooting and killings are stopped and those that have not stopped trying to kill or destroy are incapacitated.
Peridot in the Vindicator stands there, staring down the barrel of an Abrahams tank with her rocket aimed straight at it as well. In the cockpit, she has her arm console open, having heard Marcus give the announcement for everyone, as well as hearing the order over the loudspeakers for the enemy they were fighting and them standing down as well. She pulls back her weapon and stands tall, showing no signs of continuing to fight whatsoever. The tank reorients its turret full forward and away from her. Soon after the hatch on top of the tank opens up where the tanks officer peaks out, staring warily at the mech in front him. "Alright then. Its about time." Peridot mutters. She begins turning off the systems over her vehicle, strapping her revolver to her chest, setting her boots and gauntlets before pulling the release lever. With a hiss, the front doors of the Vindicator open up, revealing herself to the tank and her crew. She steps out of the cockpit and lands on the ground. The men in the tank also begin clambering out of the war machine until they are all outside as well. Some of them look confused at seeing the tiny stature that is Peridot.
She however looks miffed at the looks and proceeds to press a button on her wrist computer. With a small blast of energy, boosters activate below her feet and sends her slowly into the air, much to the mens surprise, and angles herself back above the Vindicator. She positions herself onto its left shoulder just as the boosters give out. She almost loses her balance at the sudden drop but gets her bearings nonetheless. When she does, she looks at the men below her with a smile and with her arms crossed over her chest, taking pleasure in seeing their expressions. She then steps to the edge and sits down on the edge of the Vindicators shoulder. As a quick thought, she brings her foot up and checks out her boot to make sure its okay.
The large boots she has on, much like the gauntlets she's wearing, were prototypes she, Marcus and Pearl made from reverse engineering Peridots limb enhancers. While she was ecstatic at first to see them, she was also angry at the fact they kept all the gem technology she had hidden in his base. But she calmed down a little at seeing most of the equipment was either defunct, broken, or just raw materials he would use in equipment, such as the revolver he made for her. Due to the direness of the situation they found themselves in, Peridot decided to forgo from expressing her rage filled state and focus down on repairing, fixing, retrofitting and activating any and all means at their disposal to scare up any army on such short notice. The fact that Marcus had a replicator in hand surprised her on so many levels and helped out so much in bolstering their armies size and weapons supply.
Too bad it can't be used anymore. The overclocking of its systems just shut down the device completely. When Peridot is finished examining her boots she's happy to see no catastrophic problems they have. She would prefer to set the boosters with a slow shut down instead of cutting outright when she's done flying. She stares down at the tank crew members and gives a short wave and smirk to them.
A couple return it tiredly.
Garnet lets out a sigh and nods. She looks down at the last mortar shell she has in hand, primed and ready to throw and explode when she throws it.
"Meh." She shrugs and tosses it behind her as he stares at the compound in front of her. A lot of it has been broken up pretty badly along with fires that have sprouted up in a few places.
*BOOM*
She flicks some sand that fell on her after her mortar exploded and continues to stare. She takes special care in looking out for anymore soldiers that have not followed the stand down order and are still fighting out of fear and stubbornness.
Pearl brings her eye away from the scope and looks at the compound. She brings her rifle pointing up and away before slowly bringing herself up into a stand, her armor-piercing .50 cal. In her hands. She lets out a quick breath of air and racks the bolt handle of the rifle back, ejecting the last bullet she had chambered. She grabs the flying bullet and holds it as she ejects the magazine, letting the magazine drop onto the ground, joining the rest of the empty magazines she used in this whole ordeal.
She takes a quick long hard look over the area they came to to fight and pretty much destroy. All the fighting is dying down and she sees no outright or apparent means of destruction from the Iron Kings. Seeing as she's no long needed, she disarms her weapon.
With the weapon no longer loaded, she takes a deep breath in, holds it, brings herself into a crouch, the butt of the rifle pressed into the sand, her left hand gripping the barrel, and lets out the air in a long steady stream, happy to be done.
Another takes hold of her a she places her free hand on her chest and closes her eyes.
"… I'm sorry Rose…" She whispers, a little sad things came to this but overall happy to be done
Amethyst carefully maneuvers the helicopter she's controlling to the ground. "Carefully… Carefully…" She mutters quietly, slowly easing the war machine to the flattest part of the ground closest to her. She has to squint her eyes as the propeller blades of the helicopter kick up a lot of dust around her but thankfully, her equipment remains unimpeded from the coarse sand. Soon enough, it lands on the ground and settles in place. Flicking another switch, the machine shuts down and the blades slow to a halt. "There."
*Thud*
Amethyst proceeds to flop backwards onto her back. She lets out a long sigh of relief as she stares straight up into the air and the sky. "Man… that was intense." She comments through closed eyes.
*…Zzzzzzz…*
And proceeds to fall asleep.
The Armor of the Fallen soldiers stand to. The order was given for them to stand down, and they do it. The current men they are fighting are promptly taken down now using non-lethal takedowns, from either hits or punches that knock them out or gun shots to the legs and feet that force them to the ground.
All over more and more bots from the gem army continue to stand down as well, shifting their aims to only maim, not kill, and those closest transform their hands to tazers and knock them out harshly. They'll hurt, but they'll live.
Marcus stares outside the window next to the Iron Kings leaders, both of them staring at the base and hearing the dull noise of the fighting start to die down. With the fighting no longer escalating and their forces no longer losing bodies, they are relieved to no longer be losing anymore. "Well, glad to see things are starting to ease up." Terrance tiredly states.
Marcus meanwhile pulls up his gauntlet console and begins reading stats on his units. While the large majority of them are still operational, a few here and there are still being decommissioned. "Some of your men aren't getting the picture."
"Maybe not MY men…" Marcus barely hears the man mutter venomously. He turns back and addresses the lead man of the group of soldiers at the door. "Bradford, how goes OUR men, and not the 'new' ones?"
Bradford at the front, a brown short haired individual steps forward with his assault rifle held close to his chest in stand straight manner. "Sir, most of our guys were put into custodial and menial labor jobs deeper into the base, so not many of our guys were hit when the invaders came. No offense." He adds the last part towards Marcus. He waves him off in a nonchalant manner, having taken no offense to it. "The ones that actually did fight look to have low casualty's compared to the others, as well as sustaining mostly injuries."
"Good. I want you to go and gather anyone of ours you can that can still fight and subdue the new members. They're the ones still fighting and I don't want them fucking over this fragile deal we have." Bradford nods and turns around to carry out the order.
"Wait." Marcus calls out, stopping the man as he looks at the leader. "You mean to tell me that your going to order your men to help my forces subdue those of your fighters that are still fighting mine?" He asks in confusion.
The leader in question purses his lips in thought at how it sounded when he gave the order. "Some of those men I know, some of them I don't. Certain things happened since we last talked that made it so that I don't have the hundred percent loyalty of ALL the Iron Kings members. I just want there to be no more bloodshed." Marcus stares at the man for a few seconds, trying to find any hint on the mans face that he's lying. When he doesn't find any, he grabs a walkie-talkie from behind him and tosses it to Bradford.
The man easily catches the device and looks at it before back at Marcus. "Use that to communicate with your men. I've got it hacked in and the frequency set to your radios. It also doesn't rely on your now down communications tower so contact who you want." He nods and moves past his men, immediately giving orders to the men he trusts.
When he's gone and the rest of the squad of soldiers stays, Marcus looks back at the leader in a questioning manner. "Now what's this about YOUR men and the 'new' men?"
This time, Terrance lets out a low chuckle and sits down on the chair. Marcus and Lapis move over in front of the desk and stare at the man. "I don't know if you already noticed, but there is a certain amount of… divide going on with the Iron Kings right now. You may have seen some of them dressed very differently than others, as well as how they acted." He states.
Marcus looks at the man confused before a look of recognition dawns on him. From the feeds he saw from his fighters, from the men he saw as he was sneaking through all the fighting, that they're was a noticeable difference of appearances and how they acted when it came to some of the Iron King fighters. The majority of them that were engaged were mostly wearing civilian style clothing and were spread out haphazardly, with the only hint of military styles of any kind being the bullet proof vests they had and weaponry. As the fighting progressed actual soldiers started to appear, people in black, green and tan colored clothing and equipment, using more advanced weaponry and using actual military tactics to fight. Those were the ones that were mostly knocked out and only injured but the rest were too… disorganized. "I do. Some of them act like actual military soldiers, while others were more akin to a gang."
"You got it." He tells Marcus into a depressed sigh. "See, the Iron Kings is mostly made up of military and former military soldiers and personnel. Those still in the military were contacts we were able to establish, while those no longer in it were forced to leave under certain circumstances."
"Such as?" Lapis asks.
He lets out a breath of air and continues. "Different reasons: insubordination or dishonorable discharge, they didn't like taking a certain order here and there and raised hell or snuck supplies away; medical discharges, some type of medical problem cropped up and the military would decided you could no longer serve; honorable discharges, some soldiers did good work for their country but more often than not, once they reach a certain age most weren't allowed to continue to serve even though they wanted to stay."
"And when they wanted to continue to be in the army but couldn't, they turned to you?" Lapis clarifies.
"The Iron Kings actually, but basically yes."
"You mentioned military," Marcus quickly asks, shifting the attention to him. "But theirs multiple militaries throughout the world. US, British, African, Mexican, Russian, lots of places. Which one do you get your men from?"
"Yes."
"…"
"…"
Marcus and Lapis look at each other in confusion at the answer that gives no additional context or information that they want. "Yeesssssss… what?"
"Yes as in all of them. The Iron Kings military members aren't from solely one nations military faction but are instead comprised of all the military's in the entire world." He proceeds to stand up and turns to look out the window. "It doesn't matter to me or anyone here what nation you were fighting under when you are or were in your military. If you could no longer be fit for military service by their standards, then this is the place for you if you still want to be of use."
"A use in what way?" Marcus asks, curious as to the goal that the Iron Kings has. While he was going through their equipment and trying to gather information on them, he never did find a definite reason/goal as to why the Iron Kings do what they do, especially for the mysterious money and equipment transfers he found but could never find the delivery points.
Terrance turns back to Marcus and smiles as he continues. "Supplying. More often than not, some military's, squads, intelligence agencys don't provide the proper means to get the job down for some soldiers. Whether it's a lack of weapons, vehicles, gear or information, the Iron Kings step in and provide what the governments fail to provide for their own troops. A way to help the common soldier putting their life on the line for their country just so they don't needlessly die because of lack of one thing or another.
"Turns out, theirs actually more than a few companies with relatives in the military that would prefer it if they had everything they needed in order to better stay alive. Several companies and powerful people provide the financial or materials backing, we either make or buy the equipment in bulk, set up proper contacts, gather information, distribute it to the right contacts and everything works out. Sometimes we have special ghost squads in place ready to provide a little tactical advantage from the shadows, or to sort of appease some of our backers with security and delivery of goods."
"What do you deliver?" Marcus asks suspiciously.
"All sorts: guns, cars, trucks, some money laundering—"
"Drugs." Marcus interrupts him.
The leaders whole slightly cheery façade and proudness of their groups efforts and means takes a completely different turn, with his small smile turning into a harsh and angry frown. "Now that… was a mistake. When we started, we only had so many people to help and we needed bodies to help with the distribution. We attempted to branch out to the least criminalistic of offenders but, obviously some still got through, or turned worse." He lets out a sigh and rubs his forehead with his hand. "In other parts of the country, some decided it would be a good idea to use to make a little money on the side dealing drugs. Whenever we found out, we tried it stop it when we could, but we couldn't stop all of it."
"And soon it started to build up more and more."
"And more, and more, and more, until some proposed we outright branch out into using the contacts to deal drugs on a much larger scale. I shut that idea down real quick."
"Obviously some decided differently?" Marcus snarks with a smirk.
"Among other things." He reseats himself. "Then their was the… incidents." He grimly states.
"Incidents?" Marcus asks confused. The leader in question doesn't answer, he simply raises an eyebrow as he stares at Marcus. "… Oh!" A look of realization appears on his face, before it turns downwards in an awkward state. "Oh, right."
"What? What happened?" Lapis asks.
Marcus lets out a sigh and gently pats her shoulder. "Don't worry about it sweetie. I'll tell you some other time." Lapis looks at him weirdly before shrugging, not caring and preferring to focus on the now.
"Work quickly spread about what happened and while some of the more level headed soldiers understood not antagonizing the one person who somehow was able to destroy one of our warehouses and take down everyone in one of our smaller compounds, some of the more hot headed vengeful types wanted us to retaliate."
"We don't know how you did it, but you must be good and dangerous to kill that many people." One of the soldiers comments, with murmurs of agreements from the others.
'Oh they have no idea.' Marcus thinks as he stares at the leader. "And you shut the retaliatory idea down too, right?"
"I did. But they were still angry and demanded compensation from you. Tried to tell them no until one man decided to do something about it."
"A coup."
"Well, kind of." Marcus looks at him confused.
"We didn't know what happened to him." One of the soldiers says, now opting to fill in the blanks. Everyone looks to the soldiers in the doorway now. "Basically, because of how many civilian criminals we had in our midst, it was too late before we found out that the original soldiers were pretty much outnumbered by the drug happy selling ones. When that fake leader jackass stepped up, we had no way of knowing what happened to him." He gestures to Terrance. "Almost immediately he bumped down all us military soldiers down to lower level positions and kept us away from HQ. We didn't want to do anything to jeopardize what we had when we had no intel, so we begrudgingly agreed and bide our time."
"Although we weren't exactly expecting an invasion anytime either." Another comments.
"And that proves something I've been dreading for awhile now." Terrance grimly states before standing up and looking down. Everyone looks at him curiously as to what he means. "I'm an old man. I've done what I could to lead the Iron Kings for the better, but the decision to let the criminals into our organization to bolster our numbers led us to where we are now. To what we built becoming corrupted and how easily I was taken down and usurped. I can't do this anymore." He sadly states before he turns around to the window again.
Marcus looks at him in surprise, surprised at what he's saying. "… Then, what do you want? What about all this?" He asks, wondering what it is that would happen to the Iron Kings now that their original leader is back in control but no longer wants to lead.
"This… this all needs to keep going." He gestures all around. "We've done good work, helped a lot of lives and saved a lot of lives too. Prevented needless death and helped ease the peace compared to the horrors of the World War and countries of the world. We can't stop… but… for a long time I wasn't sure who would take my place, until this incident."
Marcus slowly walks up next to the man and looks out the window next to him. "Then, who? Bradford? He was pretty calm considering the situation and suddenly seeing you again."
"He's good as my second in command… but he's not who I had in mind."
"Who then?" Marcus asks, looking out the window and seeing the fighting having stopped completely. He lets out a sigh that things are out there.
*Pat*
A hand is placed on his shoulder. He looks at Terrance to see the man smiling at him. "You."
"…!" To say he and just about everyone else in the room is surprised would be an understatement. Marcus's eyes widen in surprise while the soldiers in the doorway audibly voice their surprises as well. Lapis is the least expressive but she is curious about this choice.
"M-me?! What?! No… why?" Marcus exclaims in utter confusion as he steps back.
"Because look what you did." He points outside the window. "I don't know how you got all this equipment, what those things are, or how you came about this, but this shows your resourceful. Resourceful enough where you were able to go against insurmountable odds and come out on top. Not to mention, even when you were attacked by us on multiple occasions, threatened not only by your life but the lives of your family and the people you care about, you didn't seek vengeance." He states. "You didn't want to go to the ends of the earth to find all of us, to kill as many of us as possible, to destroy us as we tried to do you. I heard the message you sent last time." He says in a low sincere tone. "You just wanted to be left alone. No more dealing with us. You didn't want payback." He stares firmly into Marcus's eyes. "You know when to stop, when the stakes are too high and just stop." He then smiles at him. "That's the type of person I want to lead the Iron Kings. That's the type of person who I can tell would do right by it, despite what's happened. I think you can do wonders with the right connections."
"But… But…"
He pats Marcus on the shoulder again, halting his stuttering and stepping away to the chair. "The choice is yours though. Stay and takeover, or go and leave all this behind. I'm not going to force you to choose, just give you the opportunity to do better than what you have now." He says, completely stunning Marcus as he grabs a few items from the desk and begins walking towards the door.
"Alright sir. We've routed the rogue elements and the fighting's stopped." Bradford suddenly says, stepping in front of the stunned squad and addressing his now former commander.
"Thank you Bradford but you won't have to address me as your leader."
"What?" Bradford asks stunned.
"That's your new Commander." Terrance points to Marcus for a second before turning back to his Second-in-command. "Should he choose to accept." He pats Bradford on the shoulder and smiles at him. "You've done good work for me Bradford. I couldn't have asked for a better partner than you." He lets go of him and stans straight. "But it's time I really go into retirement and let new willing blood step up to the plate." He announces to everyone and walks past them through the hallways. No one really stops him or questions him as he walks away. "… And because I don't wanna deal with this mess! Pretty sure it'll be the death of me." He adds one last time, before muttering the last part to himself.
After the moment of The squad begins to quietly explain to Bradford what happened while Marcus continues to stare on in stunned surprise. "Marcus?" When Lapis calls out his name is what wakes him from his stunned state. "Are you okay?"
"I… I think so. I just… a little floored by what he asked." He mutters quietly.
"Are you gonna do it?" She asks, curious to his answer.
"…" He doesn't answer her immediately, just still trying to process what his answer will be. Slowly, his eyes pan to the desk in front of him and the chair. Ever so slowly, he spins the chair around and sits in it before reorienting himself forward, the window to his back and the desk right in front of him. "… I don't know." He mutters quietly as he carefully places his hands on the table, basically getting a feel for the situation and role. He lets out a dejected sigh and lets his arms fall away to his sides. He looks up at the others to see the squad all standing in a line in front of him. "Are you… would you guys really follow me?" He asks the soldiers skeptically.
"We've followed the Commander before. He's always been straight with us, helped us, gave a damn about us." Bradford states.
"Some of us have even followed him into battle, fought side by side with him." Another says.
"If he says we are to follow you, we'll follow you." Another says as well.
"Really? Even after…?" Marcus lets the question hang as he gestures to the window, indicating the state of the compound.
"Every battle has the chance for people to die. The ones you mostly killed were the gang members, while only a few of ours were killed, and others only injured. You didn't tell your forces to continue to kill but instead only inflict non-lethal takedowns. If the Commander said you can do good, I think we can give you a shot." Bradford states. When he finishes, the soldiers hold their weapons at attention. "Well, what's it going to be?"
Marcus looks at them all stunned. On one hand, this is an opportunity of a lifetime for him. The resources, the people, everything about it would do wonders for him. The connections, raw materials, the no longer looking over his back, it would be a relief to him on so many levels.
On the other hand, what would it mean for his family, the gems… Steven and Lapis. They were all attacked, spied on, hurt and threatened by this organization on multiple occasions. What would they say if he became the new leader? Could he guarantee their safety? Could their be a guarantee that other members of the organization aren't going to want revenge?
Too many variables. Too many that he can't keep track of. Too many that he's unsure of what he should do.
*Pat*
He looks up to his left to see Lapis next to him, smiling at him. "Whatever you decide, I'm with you." She sincerely tells him.
He stares at her for a few seconds, before he smiles and presses his hand to hers. With the moment had, he turns back to the others soldiers in front of him, ready to give them his answer.
*Lays back in bed and lets out a breath of air.* … Yes… 44 pages… 27,012 words… holy crap. I think this is the longest chapter I have written ever in my entire life. I didn't mean for it to go this long but… I guess I didn't really account for just how long it would take or any new things I'd come up with, or you guys.
Thank you so much those of you who submitted your ideas for special units for the Armor of the Fallen. Some of them were really interesting, awesome, a little weird, but overall they helped a lot. I'll give credit to those who contributed to in the review replies.
ChimaTigon: That's a shame.
Wolfking0811: No he cannot.
Dragon Master 888: Happy you liked it. Sorry for the long wait but hopefully the long chapter makes up for it.
C0rrupted1: Glad it worked out. Yes, people are most assuredly going to die since they pissed off Marcus beyond recognition. He's going to deliver an army to them that they can't counteract. He's going to get her back one way or another.
Archangel of vengeance: That is awesome to hear. Glad to hear you liking it so much and hope to continue to make it an enjoyable masterpiece.
Kyrogue23: Yeah, a nice moment for those two and now things have gone to hell for him, and then hell for her captors. Your right about Pink Diamond not realizing what would happen in the future, but she left too many loose ends.
NJred2000 – Owner of Savage Samurai, Berserk Knight, Shadow Death, and Ionic Spartan: No Lapis most likely won't be pregnant like Rose. I think the idea of losing Lapis will not sit well with Marcus at all, so I think they'll just have the right… 'parts' only for fun. Thank you so much for the multiple armor bots for me to use. I had to do some small changes to them to make them somewhat more practical for the situations I had them for, but overall they were pretty good and I appreciate the help. The movie was pretty crazy and had a good end to it in my opinion. Whether Marcus will do any singing, I'm not sure but we'll see. He might have wardrobe change when the future timeline hits. As for the human copy of Jade similar to the Rose copy Pearl saw… maybe, we'll see. Still happy to hear you like the story and hope you continue to like it as it continues.
Repear9 (Ch.7): He is just a green Jade. Black is his favorite color but green is kind of his essence so to say.
Davonless: I've thought about it. At some point Marcus and Steven will fuse but I want to wait and find the right moment for them. It's got to be something big. Had some ideas for the weapon as well but the Maduvu is interesting. Adding to the list of possibilities.
Guest – One of you is the owner of Fenzi: I'm sorry to say but their was A LOT of you commenting, asking about some things and all that. I'll try to answer but forgive me if I miss some of you. No Lapis will not die to pregnancy. They know to be really careful in that department. Traumatization from the kidnapping is a possibility, but she's been through a lot as it is as well. Marcus will definitely end a lot of Iron Kings lives that's for sure. Marcus and Lapis together does seem fitting, both having been hurt and can lean on each other for support. It's possible Marcus will get Lapis to stay instead of leave, but we'll see how things play out. Sorry again for the long delay and the multiple update requests. I'm not mad at those, just sorry I took so long and hopefully the person or multiple people sending them can come back soon to read this.
Gabeherndon308: Thank you for the ideas but I'm sorry I forgot to include them. Lots of stuff happened both in preparing for the story and in real life that things slipped my mind and I wasn't able to get them.
Deez nuts: Sorry but I kind of want original ideas mostly than just straight up copys.
CrossingTheVoid: Good to be back.
RubyGemGreen (Ch.61): Happy to hear. I do what I can to make this story as good as I possibly can from the equipment they use to the characters, feelings and all that. Glad you liked the Autistic kid as it felt good adding the element as well. He'll return later in the future so hopefully you stick around to see him.
DarkSonic01: Always happy to hear a new reader for the story and glad you liked the way I went about the feelings Marcus and Lapis had. I did what I could. Sorry the long delay but hopefully the long chapter was satisfying in the end. Thank you for your support.
Marbled Gold – Owner of Lazer Eye and Heavy Dog: Thank you for the multiple bots. They helped in the fight and filling the roster up. Good to hear that the story is much to your liking since you only recently discovered it. Like the pet name you came up with as well. Not sure if I'll use it or I remember to but nice anyway.
JustinTheSpider: The smile could be interpreted in multiple ways: she could be bluffing, she could be happy to see him and know he's going to come get her, she could be happy to know that the people holding her are going to absolutely get destroyed… but your right too.
Littleboyblack17: I love that you love this so much.
Lance: Glad you love it. Sorry for the long wait and hopefully you'll have seen this update soon and me replying to you. Sorry again but happy to hear from a fan.
An awfully bored chap (Ch.8): Well you'll just have to see as things progress won't you. (Ch.11): Keep on going. Thank you for your inputs.
Death Rider and Darkness belong to Vendicor.
Lots of replys. Hopefully I got'em all. Sorry but was on a time-crunch to get this out for Christmas.
Anyway, multiple things I wasn't too sure about in this chapter but hopefully the majority can look past some things and still like the chapter. One thing I wasn't too sure about above all else was the way how things went at the Beach House. I was debating a lot of things in how to go about the idea with Steven and Greg, from what they got to the feelings of them having the weapons. I hope I at least made it all believable and makes sense considering the situation. Still unsure but hope its good.
Anyway, in other news I got Jedi Fallen Order as a Christmas gift, fun game, love it; I also saw Rise of the Skywalker, an alright end to the movies I guess you could say, I still liked it; and I also saw Steven Universe Future. Lots of crazy episodes, new characters, absolutely love the new series, especially seeing our little Steven finally growing. I got to admit, I was laughing when Steven was having the mini breakdown when he brought Onion to his safety group. Pearl freaking out was also nice to see as well. And those new Lapis's… mmmmmm. Things are going to be interesting.
Well, not much more to say but thank you all for your continued support. Going to take a break from this story and start working on my other pieces but hopefully the long chapter will at least tide you over till I get back to this. Again, I am sorry for the long delay this chapter and hopefully things will be a bit more mellower in the future. Thank you everyone for reading, hope the holidays are good or have been good for you all as it was for me, my friends and family.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Years, have fun reading, and have a superb day and a new year.
