Stratian Pilot's Story

A lot happened after Garlon radioed over to the Generals and got a response. The good news? The response itself: Major Garlon, you are granted clearance to attach to the tank units in your A.O. Ensure you provide video feed of the blue flamed units you speak of. MT-01 Hell Minions unit 560 and 561 will arrive in coordinates X301 Y760 in less than 2 mike. You will be granted full command of all units. Hail Strata. Garlon smiled, and hoped that his response would get through. "Copy that. Hail Strata!" He was finally getting some actual results on the reinforcements just as the first tank unit arrived. A large - wrong word, MASSIVE - shadow covered the tank units, and Garlon looked up content with the sight: the Hell Minions were arriving. The most deadly war machines in this battle were about to be deployed under his command.

Now if Garlon had to be honest, he didn't like the Minions that much. They were quite large and highly bulky - while extremely effective weapons, if this 'blue flame' weapon the ANG have is as fast as he has registered, then it would be too slow to keep up. Speaking of that blue flame, against the looming shadow Garlon noticed it once again speeding through the shadow. He instantly turned on the video feed in his com, but didn't catch much as it seemingly stopped.

The ground then shook as the Hell Minions made their not-too-graceful landing. Even the tank unit shook from the intense weight of the Minions. The dust cloud that followed was soon upon him, and Garlon quickly shielded himself from the debris. When Garlon looked up once again, he saw the blue flame again, and this time he quickly grabbed his binoculars and used their video feed to capture the object, and he nearly dropped his binoculars when he did so. What Garlon saw through his binoculars looked nothing like the ANG of the past: a sleek, metalic, robotic-humanoid hovering near the one Hell Minion. It was only a few seconds, but Garlon couldn't believe anything he saw - that ANG had embraced technology completely destroyed any ideas that he previously thought he knew.

The left Hell Minion then shot at the coordinates specified by Seriph and proceeded to assist, just as he had asked for, and the shot shook Major Garlon out of his stupor. The Right Hell Minion also sends out a shot towards an area of massive resistance, and Garlon speculated that it decimated the entire area. Garlon then watched as the Hell Minion turned towards the robot, which seemed awkwardly small in its presense, but Garlon was not fooled: that thing moved fast. This would be a bad area to stay.

"Driver! Get out of here! I'll command the tank unit while you head back!" The Driver nodded and got in his vehicle to head back while Horatio jumped onto the tank, his left arm fully equiped with his chain gun before the hatch of the tank unit opened to reveal on of the soldiers. He then spoke through the coms as well as to the soldier, so that all would get it. "Tank Unit, this is Major Garlon. I'm taking control of this unit. Head towards the city to provide relief for the soldiers stuck in the streets, and make it pronto! We do NOT want to be hanging around when those two go at it!" The soldier understood, as the lead tank jolted forward and started a quick pace towards the city as the others followed suit. Horatio had a worried face the entire ride there, so he used his binoculars and caught more feed of the blue-flaming robot to send back to Command.

Horatio knew that the ANG stepped up their game: he just wished he had seen this coming earlier. Now he had a sinking feeling in his gut that this battle wasn't going to end well. He attempted to radio contact command, and hoped that the live feed was getting through to them as he spoke. "Generals, this is Major Garlon reporting in. The blue flame is a robotic soldier, I repeat. The blue flame is an Artomidian robotic soldier. Unsure if it is being piloted directly, or if just a robot throughout. These things are not to be taken lightly, as they move incredibly fast. Amount of these soldiers is unknown, as you can see this is the only one reported on so far. Once radio contact is established once again we will know."

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“Copy that. Hate to have you get your feet wet, Marlo.” Corpse sighed at her comment, already hearing the silent laughter she was probably barely containing. Yeah, she knew he couldn't swim, but he didn't give a shit. Leave it to Shyv though to lighten the crap out of a serious situation: “I’ll just be sunning myself on a beach somewhere – Feel free to bring a towel and lotion.” Another sigh from Marlo this time, but he managed to crack a rough smile. He simply shook his head, and buried his head back into his run.

Since it seemed that command had their head's up their asses at the moment, he decided to focus on getting Shyv outta there and wait for any possible response later. True, he really wasn't expecting much of a response, since he was just making an obvious comment - it wouldn't them if they would just give speculation though. So, as he jumped into the air when he got halfway, Corpse watched Leer's little icon while also keeping an eye on Shyv and command. Didn't need them just disappearing or something. He took a moment though, to relax while he glided through the air - it was times like these, right in the thick of battle and yet not at all, that Corpse enjoyed most.

------------- On the other side.... ------------

AP2 was desperately searching for that piece of crap robot so that he could blow it sky high for killing off one of his friends. After finally stabalizing himself, he went on a search around the lake, trying to locate the missing metal thing, and yet couldn't find it. Like it had vanished or something. He nearly gave up hope when, out of the corner of his eye he saw a little flash near the shore. Instantly, he turned the ship to see what it was, and nearly lost it: the metal was disappearing, and an Artomidian woman was there instead. His eyes buldged as thousands of ideas ran through his head, with one main one sticking out: That... thing was a suit of armor?! AP2 didn't know how in the hell the Artomidians, the people of religious douchebaggery, came up with something so damn high tech. So, he did the only thing he could do: he began to get a closer look before deciding on peeling off. He grabbed the radio, knowing that it was jammed, but tried anyway as he descended.

"Stratian Command, and anybody listening, this is Arrow Piercer 2! The robots, they are actually su-"

JokerofSpades (Marlo Revkel) rolls 1d36 and gets 34(34).

Something smacked into the back of his Arrow Piercer, and he gave a startled scream as the ship spun clockwise. He could only manage a glimpse, but it was enough to see the hand of another robot - this one red and larger - grabbing hold of his ship on its descent. That was the last thing he saw before his ship was thrown downwards hard towards the water. If the impact hadn't killed him, then the robot landing on the ship certainly did - nearly crumpling the thing in two.

-----------------------Back to the original story... -----------------

Marlo had seen the little black ship on his descent, and decided to pop by for a visit by grabbing hold of it, throwing it into the water, and landing on it. It was a nice greeting by his standards, anyway. Knowing that Shyv had powered down not far from his landing, he jumped off the ship quickly before it began to sink into the water, avoiding any idea of him swimming. Not that much later, he landed a bit from Shyv before doing the stupid thing - powering down as well. He needed a little bit of a break, and he didn't like explaining or discussing a lot over a com - it was also a lot harder to give out meds when in eniknight form. So his stature went from almost 7 feet to under 6, and he hobbled over to Shyv before lighting up a cigarette.

"Guess you weren't kidding." He breathed in and blew out, a small chuckle released before grabbing the painkillers she seemed to had grown fond of and throwing them at her. He hadn't guessed that she would take her statement so damn literally, but he shrugged. Shyv was Shyv. He then got down to business after taking another puff. "Newblood is ditching - I'm supposed to go get him." He gave a sigh. "I'll drop you off a decent distance away, beat the shit out of the kid, and we'll head back." He then cracked his neck, when a massive explosion went off. He instantly powered himself back up and radioed command while picking up Shyv. "Command, what in the Fuck was that?!"

Garlon watched in mixed emotions as the red robotic soldier soared past the tank unit, towards the Hell Minion. These mixed emotions did contain a substantial amount of fear, but the most overpowering sensation was confusion. His pensive, complex mind flew into action as he began to understand all that had happened during this war. Had the ANG abandoned their religious ways, somehow becoming technologically advanced while the Stratians twiddled their thumbs? There was a high amount of evidence to support it: after all, there were three highly advanced robotic soldiers not far from his position, and their engineering was absolutely phenomenal. However, Jorge didn't remember hearing of any reports of these robots earlier: if they had abandoned religion for science all together, than why hadn't these robots been tested before? After all, this caliber of engineering was not something to be simply thrown into battle as soon as they could. Tests and such would need to be run, practices would need to be completed.

Which meant only one explanation: had the ANG found a loophole, and were experimenting behind the backs of their own people? Again, a possibility. Jorge couldn't rule out any of his thoughts for now, since he had no other tactical information to go by. Pushing his mind back to the present, he heard a yell from one of the tank spotters: "Sir! The red robot appears to have damaged the Hell Minion!!"

"What?!" Garlon instantly grabbed for his binoculars from their pouch and threw them to his face, nearly putting him off balance in the sheer speed of it all - it was a good thing that his left arm was looped around the tank. However, he had no time to think of his personal safety, as fear instantly gripped his entire body as he confirmed what the soldier had said: with his own eyes, he watched as the last round was fired by the red robot into the Hell Minion, destroying its all important rail gun. Thoughts of possible explanations to these robotic soldiers were shattered as new thoughts formed: But.. how?! Hell Minions have some of the toughest armor available! The ANG have rarely been able to breech the walls of such a beast, let alone destroy its rail gun!

Garlon couldn't pull his eyes away as even more destruction fell: another robot quickly took aim barely a few seconds later, destroyed the missile launcher of the Hell Minion before allowing more than 2 missiles to escape. Garlon watched as this red robot somehow evaded one missile, but his attention was instantly diverted to the glowing light of the third robot.

Garlon didn't entirely know what that thing was doing, but he would in a second. The light shot from its arm, and the Hell Minion exploded, a volcano of metal parts flying in multiple directions while the infernal being crumbled to the ground in flames. He couldn't stop watching as the red robot came out of the ground, surviving a heavy impact fairly unscathed.

It was then that Major Garlon let his basic intincts kick in: while he was rarely one to stray from his mental thought, or disobey orders, he would be breaking both of those rules now. Ripping the binoculars away from his eyes and stuffing them into his pocket, Garlon turned on to the frequency of the Ghost Platoon while keeping radio with the tank unit.

"All units, this is Major Garlon - prepare for immediate evacuation at the secondary LZ for our retreat. I repeat, head towards the secondary LZ for an immediate retreat of the battle ground. There is-" Garlon was cut off by one of the tank unit spotters, who quickly blurted out over the coms "But sir! Were we not told that there was no retreat? Can we really dis-"

"I said get to the fucking secondary LZ, private!" Garlon roared. Normally a man to be quiet and pensive, Jorge shocked most of the tank unit with his instant ferocity and vulgarity. The last time he truly swore was... well, along time ago. "Unless you want to stay here with those fucking things, we are getting out of here now. I will take full responsibility for disobeying orders, but I will not - I repeat NOT - have our men walk to their fucking deaths. Understand?!" Garlon bit that last word out before calming himself down, and adding a little sigh at the end of it.

"If you truly had seen what I had, then you would agree with me: the ANG have somehow acquired the superior technology of this war. I repeat, at this moment, I do not know of anything in our arsenal that could stop those monsters. So for right now, we retreat and create a new plan. If you understand, head to the secondary LZ. If not, you can stay and obey orders, and I will attempt to retrieve your dog tags after they are done with you." The last sentence was solemn, with no hint of sarcasm or wit: truly, Garlon was not in the mindset of victory after what he had seen happen to that Hell Minion. The way he saw it was clear; either they get the hell out, or die.