"Oh, we're f**ked!" Cursed Tellius as the last stealth mech fell to the ground, its pilot trapped inside and hundreds of baseline mechs appeared on the horizon.
"I will never again leave the Wings of Eos without a Pallas!" Vowed the male cyborg to himself with a balled fist as sleek mechs, with an uncannily similar to those he had fought on Thermopylae-6 closed in on him.
Yet, just as he was giving up hope, Sarah appeared beside him to tell him excitedly. "I have spoken to Tina. She, Ethan, and his wife, Yelena, have found shelter inside one of the vaults underneath the Worldtree. Also, apparently, the marshal's reinforcements have arrived and are dispatching Tombstones to our location!"
"Tombstones?..." Asked Tellius, just as several towering yet boxy mechs slammed into the ground all around them. "... Never mind!"
*BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!* *BOOM!*
From the craters of their arrival, the mechs, wider than they were tall, rose with a Smelter-Cannon in one hand and a Kinetic-Shield in their three finger clawed other. In between their blue limbs was a tall obsidian black tombstone that housed the undead pilot.
Unhackable yet following orders like robots, these Tombstone mechs immediately confronted the sleeker and more sophisticated corporate mechs. Catching projectiles left and right intended to destroy them and sending them back to the enemies, the Tombstones turned out to be very effective against their advanced counterparts.
Under the cover of those blue titans, Sarah and Tellius were able to break their encirclement, yet the park's bombardment and gun fire continued.
*BOOOOOOOM!* *Booooooooom!* *Pew!* *Booooooooom!* *BOOOOOOOM!* *Ratatatatatatatata!* *BOOOOOOOM!* *Pew!* *Pew!* *Booooooooom!*
Explosions near and far away nearly drowned out the sounds of cannons and heavy machine guns hitting metal, with starfighters howling through the skies above.
Yet in the shadow of a tombstone mech, Tellius was able to cover Sarah before they jumped into the nearest crater for cover.
"So, Tina and Ethan are in a vault below the Worldtree?" Tellius asked Sarah via transmission, as radio silence would do nothing for them at this point.
Nodding, the female mercenary replied. "Yes, but first we have to get away from those mechs!"
"The Worldtree doesn't look that stable to me!" The former commander pointed out, just as the towering, radiant structure of a tree up ahead was dangerously tilting.
*Sip!* The nearest Tombstone's kinetic shield caught a barrage of lead projectiles before throwing them back as it advanced into the most effective range of its Smelter-Cannon. *Boom!*
"Let's go!" Shouted Tellius, and the two cyborgs began sprinting through the wide-open, yet crater-riddled fields of Swordland to hopefully reconnect with Ethen and Tina.
*Ratatatatatatatata!* *Pew!* *Booooooooom!* *Booooooooom!* *Ratatatatatatatata!* *Pew!* *Pew!* *Booooooooom!* *Booooooooom!*
Explosions, cannon, and rifle shots hissed through the air, and a fine mist of dirt and sparks became constant occupants in the air of this hard-fought battlefield.
*Sizzle!* Tellius had to tank a smelter round with his Invincibility skill for Sarah, or otherwise, her pretty head would have been melted to nothing.
Luckily, at this point, he was developing a sixth sense for the perfect timing to activate his skill, and the molten liquid magma slag, with a core temperature of over 1200°C, dripped off his body frame without causing any damage.
Thankfully, Sarah was way too occupied with running around, jumping over craters and explosions to notice Tellius's unnatural durability, or he would have had way too much to explain.
And so, with Tellius taking hits for her and without her noticing, they eventually escaped the worst of the Swordland's hard-fought teritory as they reached the foot of the Worldtree and the fake city beneath it.
*BOOOOOOOM!* *BOOOOOOOM!* *BOOOOOOOM!* Three precisely dropped bombs released by a crying spaceship hit the 1:1 replica of the Worldtree, and the gigantic structure started to creak underneath its own weight. *Clang!* *Clang!* *Clang!*
Yet it continued to creak as it gained an even more dangerous tilt; the sounds became louder, and bent metal started to break. *CLANG!* *CLANG!* *CLANG!*
"Oh, sh*t!" Tellius cursed just as the Worldtree gave up standing and collapsed to the northwest—their direction.
Grabbing Sarah by her midriff, Tellius shielded her with his body just as the Worldtree came crashing down upon them.
And yet just like Tellius &Sarah a huge chunk of the corporate forces on the ground was burried with them.
...
Simultaneously, just before the Worldtree collapsed, the corporate pilot, whose mech's power source had been removed by Sarah, found himself still imprisoned inside his mech.
"Damned! Damned! Damned!" Cursed the pilot as he hammered the dead console right in front of him. *BAM!* *BAM!*
Frustrated and frightened by the prospect of being a sitting duck on a raging battlefield, the mech pilot forced himself to calm down and focus on his options.
Thinking about exiting his mech, he instantly dismissed the idea, as exiting meant certain death for any pilot but the very best. Then again, staying inside a mech without power also meant almost certain death, even for the very best.
Not considering himself among the best, the pilot weighed certain death against almost certain death. As he did so, he had already inadvertently decided to remain inside his mech. Luckily for him, even a powered-down mech frame offered an excellent amount of protection as long as only small rounds and explosives hit it.
*Dong!* *Dong!* *Dong!* Metal hit metal just before a female voice, amplified by a loudspeaker, asked him. "Hello? Is anybody in there still alive?"
"Yes, I am!" The pilot shouted, thinking that it was better to be arrested by a marshal than to be killed by friendly fire.
"Who are you? Identify yourself!" The female voice asked the pilot.
Taking a deep breath, as his next words would end his career at Ares, the pilot said, "I am..."
*BOOOOOOOM!* The collapse of the Worldtree and its subsequent impact on the terraformed lunar surface drowned out the pilot's words.
"Shit!..." cursed the female voice just as a pressure wave hit them. "... Dammit! Not good! Too many energy signatures!"
"Energy signatures?..." Exclaimed the pilot as he recalled the weak but deadly robots that he and his now-deceased companions had previously gunned down en masse. "... That's the Devil! It's controlling the park's bots! Help me!"
"What do you want?..." Asked the female voice, clearly distracted by what was going on around her. "... And promise that you're not going to attack me!"
"Yes, I swear, but I need a new power source!..." Agreed the pilot and pleaded. "... Please! I don't want to be killed by a robot dressed like a peasant!"
"Just a power source? No problem!..." Replied the voice just as the pilot's powerless mech shook. "... I've got a spare fusion core!"
That said, power was restored to the pilot's stealth mech as it came back online. Having his mech stand up just as his monitors flickered back on, the pilot finally discovered who the woman was that had just shared a fusion core with him.
Shocked, he discovered that the woman was no longer a person but a corpse entomed inside a mech in the service of the UCG's Marshal Department.
"You're a female Tombstone pilot?" Asked the stealth mech pilot in disbelief, as he had been accustomed to Tombstones basically being inhuman mechs/robots without compassion or emotions.
Nodding as much as her bulky & boxy mech body allowed the undead pilot answered. "Yes, I am..."
*Booooooooom!* A humongous creature suddenly burst out of the ground, howling madly. *SCREEEEEEEE!*
...
Simultaneously, high up above inside the heart of the UCG Lonestar, High Marshal Givens witnessed the collapse of the Worldtree, as it had been one of his starfighters that had brought down the hulking monstrosity.
"This gentleman!..." Givens told his officers on the bridge as he pointed at the image of the fallen Worldtree. "... Is a job well done!"
"Sir, we're getting reports from the ground that Marshal Ryan's deputies were buried underneath that!" an officer dutifully.
"We'll mourn their loss..." the High Marshal replied, casually dismissing the underlying accusation of his subordinate. "... Do we have the GO from the Sector Attorney to blast those corporate dogs to high heaven?"
"Negative, but the UCGI requests that we secure the Devil AI since it is classified as goverment property." Answered an agent from United Central Government Intelligence, the UCG's secret intelligence service.
"Interesting..." Noted Given, intrigued by what he was hearing. "... How many Tombstones did we lose to that tree thing?"
"No..." Answered Given's female officer, just as numerous alarms went off and red dots popped up all around the battle map. "... Numerous energy spikes detected. A massive one in the former canopy..." After listening to some incoming information, the woman hastily added. "... Marshal Ryan's information is confirmed. It's a biobot type Hydra most likely controlled by-..."
*Bam!*
"Okay, that's enough..." Announced High Marshal Given after he had hammered the console right in front of him. "... I want immediate air superiority and more Tombstones and Armored Infantry on the ground! Also, give those corporate dogs one last warning and if they interfere with our operation... Blow them up!"
"Understood!" Confirmed the male officer and had their fleet aim all their weapons at the battlestar-class spaceship owned by Ares.
At the same time, the female officer had the dropships of their fleet prepare the deployment of additional Tombstones and Armored Infantry units.
...
Simultaneously, on the other side of the conflict, the corporate Captain put in charge of Ares looked in stunned disbelief at the digital image of the fallen Worldtree.
"What just happened?" The Captain asked in stunned disbelief as the majority of his mech forces had been wiped out by a single starfighter.
"We lost 76% of our mechs, sir!" Reported a female adjutant of his matter-of-factly, so as not to earn herself the Captain's ire.
"F**k!..." The Captain cursed not for the life's lost but the year end bonuses that he would be missing out of due to this. "... Please, tell me that we atleast now know where Devil is!"
"Negative, Sir-..." Answered his male adjutand, just as several of their alarms went off and numerous red dots popped up all around the battlefield. Zooming out from the park millions more hostile dots popped up all around the city of Roid, just as the adjutant reported. "... Hostile energy signatures detected!"
"This much noise can only mean one thing... A distraction..." Mused the Captain before he asked his officers for clarification. "... What's the status of the satelites around Vega VI?"
"All were downed and are currently burning in the atmosphere!..." Reported the male ajutand confidently as he checked an update from their hacker team. "... The Devil can't escape the planet digitally."
"Then it must be a physical escape!..." Pointed the Captain out as he marked hangar bays and space ports all over the city of Roid, including the space port currently housing the Wings of Eos. "... I want all these places bombed ASAP!"
"Yes, sir!..." Confirmed the female adjutant just as he aimed their battlestar-class spaceship's main cannon at the first target—a space port south of Roid—and repeated the order out loud. "... Target Spaceport 30.5595° S, 22.9375° E acquired!"
"Fire!" Ordered the Captain coldly as he stared at the digital model of said spaceport on his war table.
"Firing!" Confirmed the female adjutant as she fired the ship's main weapon.
"Captain! We're detecting a massive Hydra-type biomech in the fallen tree's canopy!" Reported the male adjutant just as the digital spaceport on the war table got blown into smithereens.
"Show it to me!" Ordered the Captain, and the focus on the war table changed back to the park's northern section.
"By the Gods of Nebular!" Exclaimed the Captain as the Hydra came into view.
Looking like a ball of five gigantic world-devouring serpents intertwined with each other to form one massive creature, the Devil's Hydra was the pinnacle of biological-mech engineering.
...
"Are you okay, Sar?" Tellius asked the female shape beneath him.
Stirred awake by the vibrations of his voice, Sarah asked him in return, "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"Maybe, but I am way more concerned about you than myself!..." Tellius replied as he pressed himself against the weight bearing down on him."... Just give me a second!"
*Clang!* The metal above him creaked as it deformed, bent, and finally broke as the cyborg broke through the steel like a nail through wood. *Crank!*
"Argh!" The male cyborg exclaimed, catching his breath as he sat upright on his knees, Sarah still beneath him.
*SCREEEEEEEE!* Suddenly a primeval serpentine hiss drowned out even the still-ongoing bombardment, as if some deity had descended upon the park.
"F**k! What was that?" As her ear's diaphragm plopped back into place and her hearing was restored, Sarah cursed.
"Pardon?! I can't hear you!..." Replied Tellius, his diaphragm torn, rendering him deaf. "... But we should get going!"
*Rumble!* The male cyborg rose to his feet before reaching out his right hand to help Sarah get up.
"Thank you!..." Sarah told Tellius via end-to-end transmission and took his outstretched hand. Pulled up onto her feet, the female mercenary asked, "... Where do we go from here?"
"I'm guessing that this is still connected to the underground facilities..." Replied Tellius, his voice deepening as he pointed into the darkness of the fallen Worldtree. "... This way should lead underground."
"Yes, it should." Sarah agreed, and they began traversing the unreal darkness of a giant structure with a metal staircase above their heads and the occasional light source flickering in the distance.
Thankfully, the sounds of battle outside were mostly muffled as they jumped over scrap metal, garbage, and broken dreams. Aside from the deafening serpentine hiss, no sound seemed to be able to fully penetrate the thick metal shell of the tree.
"You know, I have been wondering..." Sarah began to say, just as they finally reached the bend, broken and mostly collapsed staircase that led underground. "... How the hell did we survive this?"
"Survive what?..." The male cyborg counter-questioned as he climbed down the broken stairs before he relented, seeing that his female companion wasn't following. "... You see, I have this skill to withstand damage that should kill me."
"So, you have got a system? Big deal... But since when do you have it?" Sarah asked matter-of-factly, her eyes dead serious as they drilled into him from above.
"Since Thermopoly-6, it was given to me by Doctor Steve Hall, one of my father's scientists..." Tellius confessed before he pleaded. "... Can we move on now?"
"For now..." Sarah agreed and elegantly hopped down to him, temporarily shelving the subject for another time. "... But we'll be talking about this!"
"Yes, of course, but let us first pick up Tina and that marshal!" Tellius said, knowing that he had to get along with whatever his friend/lover arranged or otherwise feel her wrath.
"Okay, then let's do it and then get out of here..." Tod him the female cyborg and they continued their descend into the abyss. "... I can't wait to get a hot shot shower after this!"
And with that the two cyborgs continued to clime ever deeper and deeper into the ground until they finally reached a corridor that supposedly lead to the park's massive vaults.
"Ahm... Do we know which vault they are in?" Asked Tellius evetually as he stood infront of a floorplan, annoyed that Tina had previously contacted Sarah and not him.