The empire of the young man spread like a plague across a large swathe of the continent. The weapons his armies had were undefeatable by any he came across, but his most potent weaponed turned out to be the one that he had never intended to be one. The religion that began to form around him and Sofia traveled even faster than his soldiers. Wherever his worshippers went soon there were temples established for him and Sofia. The original faithful spread this theology out of fear and being so broken that they were willing to grasp onto anything to justify their actions and what they had allowed to happen, but as the followers grew in numbers many came to be devout in their faith, believing all that the priests would tell them. On the surface, it even began to look like a completely peaceful transfer of power from the local powers to the young man. Under the surface, the acts were just as brutal and just as bloody. Some were even worse than anything their divine lord would ever think to do, but there was never anything as flamboyant as what the young man would do. The faithful kept to the shadows, believing that only their lord was worthy of the grand spectacle that he’d put on. Before too long, the city would be converted, the young man’s army would arrive to overthrow the city’s rulers, but what they’d find is a city ready to be turned over to their gods.

It was only a matter of time before the young man’s empire and the Free Nation’s territory collided. A city on the outskirts of the Free Nation’s borders were open to new settlers, believing Jason’s arguments that what was best is to have freedom for all and in as many things as possible. With that ideal came many new things that required people to be registered with the local government. The cultists began to spread their doctrines. Some gave ear to what they had to say, but they didn’t find them to be at all convincing. These gods that they spoke of didn’t sound divine in the slightest to those that had seen the wonders of the Free Nation that Jason and his people brought with them. The cultists attempted to use their persuasive tactics to convert them with threats and blackmail, but to no avail. The cultists were reported, charged, tried, and tossed out of the city. Some argued that removing them was a violation of their free speech and it might have torn apart the city if these arguments were allowed to persist, but before that could happen the city was attacked.

The city was on the borders and a new member of the Free Nation. They had received an infusion of some resources to defend themselves and training, but their primary defenses hadn’t been built nor were many of their guards experienced. On the opposite side, the young man’s army hadn’t faced resistance for several years, much less a full scale battle against a fortified city. The young man’s army opened with a volley of large caliber cannons that blew holes through the city’s wall. Thankfully, they carried few and they were poorly designed to throw as much energy into a single shot as possible without worrying about a second round of fire and having been modified from the low end ARMS that the empire was mostly restricted to. Any one that had faced them before would go into a panic and they’d be in no condition to fight. The Free Nation, however, had seen the power of the weapons designed by Mya. These cannons seemed to be the equivalent of a popgun to that. They had trust in the weapons they had. Mya had ensured they’d fend off any invader, but she hadn’t anticipated another Human using their technical know how to build or modify weapons from ARMS devices. Several dozen people died in that first volley. Many more would soon perish as the city’s guards used the holes to locate the cannons and their operators and as a tactical position to fire from. The guards took aim with their modified ARMS designed to allow for sniping. The young man’s army milled about waiting for the surrender. They looked more like a tailgate party than an invading army looking to massacre thousands. The cannon operators suddenly dropped. They weren’t expecting that to happen. Shocked, they looked around shouting at each other trying to figure out what had happened. There was no explosive bangs from the shots that were fired, just a zip, like it was tearing through the fabric of reality. The snipers started letting loose, shooting at the army, and dropping them by the dozens with every volley fired. It didn’t take long for the soldiers to get their act together and put barriers up between themselves and the fire.

By that time the cannons had recharged and the soldiers took the opportunity to fire off a round at the wall. They aimed low. Hundreds of civilians instantly lost their lives and the wall now had several large holes at its foundations. After taking the shot, the soldiers returned to their protection. The soldiers lifted and pushed the barriers forward, taking shots on from the guard snipers. Chunks were blasted out, making them smaller and smaller, and the closer they got the better angle the snipers had to take out the men behind the barrier. Every few feet, they soldiers would poke their heads out and take a shot with their cannons, at much less than a full charge, but it was more than enough to punch holes in the wall and because they didn’t wait for a full charge they were uncoordinated, making it hard for the snipers to get them before the soldiers could knock another hole out of the foundations of the wall. Each shot degraded the cannon and made it more likely to explode in the shooter’s hands. By the time they reached the wall half of the soldiers had been killed by being picked off by the sniper and cannons blowing up in proximity to them. The wall itself was swiss cheese, so full of holes that it could protect the city from anything any more.

Once the soldiers got so close that the barriers were providing no more cover at all, they dropped them and ran for the wall, closing the distance as fast as they could. Likewise, the snipers on the wall retreated and took up new positions. Not a moment too soon. The weight of the wall gave in. Cracks formed between the holes that had been blown into its foundation and then half the structure slipped before collapsing completely into rubble taking out a few warriors on either side under its mass along with hundreds of civilians who were too close to escape its fall. The snipers prepared to take shots at the exposed soldiers, but their plans were for naught. Dust clouds rose up from the debris, clouding out the soldiers from view. For their part, the soldiers were beginning to break. They knew, however, if they turned and ran, their brothers in arms would kill them and if they could catch the deserter, word would be sent back to headquarters. Their life, whatever remained of it, would be over then. They would have bounties placed on them, their property would all be taken, and their family would be killed or worse. The only option they had was to move forward, to continue their attack, and win or die.

Wind picked up the dust and blew it through the city. The soldiers followed in after it. The snipers could get a bead on them any more and now that they were in the city they were all but useless. The soldiers made their way through the dust, using its blinding properties as cover, killing any one that they came across. Guards were prepared for the event that their defenses were breached, but they had dispersed across the city to help the wounded. They had orders to meet up at the center of the city, to move out to take on the invading force, but the wall’s collapse and the previous cannon shots had caused them to be unable to move quickly from place to place, leaving the enemy free reign to slaughter anyone they decided to eliminate. By the time that the two sides met a third of the city’s population had been murdered and both sides were exhausted and roughly equal in number.

The plan was for the guards to meet at the center of the city and sweep forward, pushing the invaders back, but by the time they had rallied the invading force had already reached their rally point. The two sides squared up, rank and file, before charging at each other. The guards were mostly made of Tok`phane with scattered other species bolstering their numbers in standard steel plate mail armor. The soldiers, on the other hand, wore ARMS armor and consisted mostly of Humans and Thisin with a smattering of other species controlled by Ka’ashmir symbiotes. The guards held their own, but the soldiers eked out a victory over the guards by only a few men survive the clash. It was only by sheer luck that a sniper lagged behind the others and was just in the right position to put down the last few surviving soldiers with head shots.

As the dust finally cleared and the sound of fighting ended, the civilians came out of hiding, taking what was left of their homes. They gathered at the scene of the final battle to mourn and begin the clean up of the dead, before the bodies began to rot. Most of the civilians knew nothing of modern warfare. Even medieval warfare was uncommon to them. It seemed that most species were not expansionists so their settlements were spread apart enough that there were almost never territorial disputes. That’s not to say that this young man had grown up in a situation where he was any more entrenched in warfare, but his culture, Human culture, had developed many tactics to do as much damage as they could to the enemy over the course of their history. Games with imagined advanced technology that could be utilized, even if it didn’t really exist, had also provided tactical and strategic experience to get the job done in alien environments. The citizens that gathered in the city that had been devastated never would have expected what happened next.

The young man had figured out a way to install in each ARMS device that his soldiers had equipped a way to scan for his citizens and whether they were alive or not. When it detected none the next step would trigger and it would detect any sentient species in the vicinity, make a prediction model of when the optimal number of supposed enemies were in range to cause the most deaths possible within the given scenario and then it would wait. When the time was right the power corp of the ARMS device would be overloaded causing a several ton explosion. Collected in the center of the city were hundreds of soldiers and their devices. The citizens of the town were all gathering. When the AIs of each ARMS device had determined that the death toll would be at its greatest they exploded. All of them had exploded simultaneously. The people directly around the body were instantly vaporized as the explosive power of each of the devices were enough to level the city, leaving only a smoking crater in its place. No one in the city survived.

When the young man arrived with his personal entourage and royal guard they found nothing. He ran a search on the soldiers that were to have come to take this city in his Visual User Interface only to discover that all of them were deceased. They set up camp and sent out scouts to make sure they were in the correct location and if there was any information as to what happened. Nothing. To everyone’s knowledge the city was there one day and the next, it was gone, disappeared, but they were in the right place.