Chapter 3

Tony

“That’s the base,” Jacob called out. “It’s not as big as it looked from the mountains.”

“Right,” I said. “I can’t believe thousands of Lox were in this thing.”

From a ground view, it was only composed of two stone structures. They don’t look like they were built from humans. There was only five Lox guarding the wall but everything beyond it was clear as glass.

“You call the first shot, Jacob.” I armed my AR. “We’ll target the rest after you.”

“Got it. I get the middle one.”

He marked the bullet right away and we interacted with the rest. On our few chances of running in, Nancy and I breached the right building shaped like an L.

Nancy reaches for doorknob with my gun aimed through doorway, ready to push lead any Lok appears in my sight.

The door slid open and bullets stormed the outside. Nancy punched her rifle through and slapped blood onto two Lox hiding behind ammo boxes.

I stepped my left foot in with my gun aimed down the hallway. “Hallway is clear. Two doors on the left and two on the right.”

“I’ll watch the left doors. One at a time,” Nancy said.

I put my steady aim concerned on the right door as Nancy peeked through the left one. Shots scraped my leg and damned me to the ground.

Nancy rushed in and packed her lead into the Lox before they fired more and pulled me back on my feet.

“Are you good?”

“Just a scratch, watch the door.” I ignored my pain and started revealing the room. The door opened clear without any trouble and no Lox to be seen.

“Second door!” Nancy yelled.

I took my attention back to the hallway. A Raider Lok burst out the door with a sword that nearly split my head off. Nancy then pinged three shots into his face.

The second left door slammed open with two Lox carrying shotguns. They shot right before I reacted and scratched my chest plate, though Nancy pummeled them against the walls.

“That’s the second time you got shot!”

“I’m fine! I swear!” I said.

“Don’t worry me, please.” Nancy made contact with my chest. “I’ll repair the armor when we’re done with the base.”

“Thanks. Again.”

She kept touching my chest. I was eager to toss her arm away but something felt off. My armor was chipped and nothing else was more exciting than Nancy soothing my open skin but we had to keep moving the scene.

“Are you done?” I asked.

“Uh … Yeah.” I didn’t have to snap her out of it yet she took her time to let go.

“I get the door?”

Nancy continued to spread light with her eyes into my chest. She threw my words into a separate dimension and acted like her space wasn’t being shared with my own.

“Hey!” I waved my hand. “Are you here?”

“Oh!” She appeared back in existence. “Yeah, what was the question?”

“Should I get the door?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “I’ll watch the outside.”

We exited out the back door and suddenly moonlight covered the outside. The night was overshadowing the south and everybody came out of the second structure with breath fuming the air.

“Take a look at this,” Jacob said with a key in his palm. “I think we got what we need to kill the Lox ahead of us.”

“What’s the key for?” Nancy asked.

“Look over there.” Jacob aimed his fingers towards one tank we could not hope for more. “I think we’ll call it the Spiked tank.”

“How do you know it’s the key for that?” I questioned.

“I don’t, but how about we try it out.” Jacob said.

I was not against it, but it’s a great start if we begin our retaliation with a tank that’s bigger than a trailer.

Jacob climbed over the spikes and pulled the hatch open. We waited with patience to get a word back from Jacob but a surprise slapped in the face with the engine that exploded louder than the mortars we faced at the town.

“It’s good,” Patrick said.

We hopped on top and jumped down into the hole with space beyond imagined and red lights that lit up the room around us.

“Yeah, this tank was definitely built to be compatible with the size of the Lox,” Maurice said then popped out a cigar to smoke.

“Hey!” I shouted.

“What? It's not like you’ll smell the smoke.” Maurice lit up the cigar. “Just keep your helmets on if you’re going to complain.”

“Just throw it outside when you’re done,” I told him. “We don’t want anything to explode in here.”

“Sure thing,” he said and fogged up the oxygen inside. I wasn’t smelling it but it irritated my eyes. I’d like to complain but I could tell Maurice needs it after being thrown by a giant Lok.

Jacob handled driving the tank quite well, but there was a gross, slimy feeling about sitting inside a tank made for Lox. Surprisingly for a Lok tank, the interior was swept clean. No blood, no flesh and I’m not sure if it smelled like Lox before Maurice was smoking but it definitely seemed like it didn’t.

While the tank was piling down the snow and trees in our track, I felt a tremendous pressure in my chest almost like I was riding a roller coaster.

Shaking overpowered my body and even the tank. I felt so powerless compared to what was happening outside. We opened the hatch and before our eyes, we only took a brief look at despair.

“What is that?” Patrick asked.

“That,” Jacob said. “That has to be one of the Lok’s airships.”

The sky only melted to the presence of the ship. Everything in the way was powerless. A heat, maybe even a radiation followed the back of it with a giant jet engine bigger than a football field.

The ship said, “Get out of my way.” and everything did nothing but obey. Along came out a barreled gun probably taller than a skyscraper that aimed down to the cities near the equator.

“Tony,” Ryan contacted me over comms out of nowhere. “What the hell happened?!”

“I don’t know, Ryan,” I muttered. “I honestly don’t know.”

“The ship that brought us to Orson!” Jacob said. “Can’t it fight it off!”

“No,” Ryan sighed. “That’s not the only ship the Lox brought and right now the one we’re seeing in the sky is about to bomb down the city of Olytus.”

The ship charged the weapon. A roaring wave followed that battered a single point with thousands of bolts of lightning. Silence broke the sky and everything had trembled to its attention. Then boom.

A beam ripped through the sky. A shockwave followed the blast that put fear into the mountains, tossing our tank into a spiraling hurricane and sat us on our knees back at the base.

I adjusted my helmet to near shock and said, “Everybody fine!”

“We’re good, we’re good,” Patrick responded.

The blast was so strong it even blew Maurice smoke out to the outside. Thankfully he didn’t drop the cigar.

“I think I’m done smoking for now,” Maurice said and crushed his cigar.

“I’d agree.”

Chapter 4

Tony

“How bad was the explosion?” I asked Ryan.

“It’s unconfirmed. There's a dust cloud covering the entire city. We don’t have a lot of support over here, Tony.”

“We’ll try to get there soon,” I said.

“Nah, doesn’t matter.” Ryan sighed. “You failed and because you failed, Romeo and I are going to get held responsible. I want you to worry about surviving until there’s a new solution.”

“Survive?” I questioned. “Is that all that matters?! The entire planet of Orson is about to get eradicated by one ship! Don't you have some type of plan you can think with that brain of yours?!”

“You’ve been playing with chess boards all day, Ryan,” I said. “You spent a decade literally using Rhinos as your pawns and now you’re telling me, there’s nothing we can do.”

“We can play games, Tony,” Ryan said. “If you want to die trying to destroy an airship the size of Manhattan, that’s all on you. Actually, that’s on all of you listening. You should be thanking me for deciding to keep you children alive.”

Maurice laughed. “Thank you? Please, there’s nothing we should thank for you. If my father was still alive, Jacob and I wouldn’t need your pathetic training, but okay. Be the trump card. I should have been the leader of this team but you chose Tony over me because he was your prodigy.”

“Why the laugh, Maurice? I assure you if it weren’t for training at Delta, you and Jacob would have been sitting orphans, ready to die.”

Jacob shot his head up and decided to respond, “You know what? Since you want to be throwing shots at everybody, we’ll be happy enough to kill you and Romeo when we see each other again. We don’t need you alive.”

“Okay, threaten your superior. Let's see where that goes.” Ryan cut off communication.

“Looks like we have another enemy on our line,” I said. “Let’s head to Olytus.”

“Well.” Jacob leaned back. “It’s going to be a long ride. I suggest all of you sleep while you can. I’ll inform you when there’s something.”

“Someone’s going to have to watch for rats,” Maurice said. “I’ll be on the turret, in case any Lok tries to sneak up on us.”

There I was, letting two responsible Rhinos handle the business, but it wasn’t a bad idea to get some rest. It was two weeks since I got sleep, so I’d need it.

***

“Tony,” an unfamiliar voice shook my head. “Is the moon setting on you?”

“What?”

“Answer! Is the moon setting on you?!”

I turned around to see myself in the same tank, except everybody was gone yet a wave a hyper breathing bothered my face.

“Who the hell is that?!” I reached for my shotgun, but all I touched was my back. “What’s going on?”

“Tony,” the voice was dying. “Please! Answer me! Is the moon setting on you?!”

“What do you mean by that?!” I kept responding to a voice that clearly was in front of me.

“You're setting yourself in between a conflict far worse than this one Tony! If you leave before the moon’s shaped like a crescent, you’ll save yourself a lot of death. Please, listen.”

“What?!” I yelled. “Where are you?!”

“I’m not in your space, Tony, but I’ll let you know, I’ll see you in the year 2791 where you’ll meet new friends and new foes far more terrifying than Bod and HellFire.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No, Tony,” the voice spoke closer to my ear. “It’s a warning and I know you won’t listen, so best be reminded before you face the true horror of Hell. If you really think you deserve to live, take your exit.”

Then out of nowhere I face my back to a floating skull with red eyes and a shaken scream in my face. I felt its skeletal fingers crawl around my skin and noticed my armor was gone too.

I was careful to gaze below my chest and nothing but a purple knife carved through my stomach with a long-awaited scream that shot out of my lungs and made me fall on my head.

“Tony!” Nancy’s voice appeared. “What the hell?! Was it that bad of a dream?!”

I fell on top of Nancy’s lap. I never felt so embarrassed to be screaming in my sleep. My heart was racing. It felt like my blood was freezing as I was in that dream.

“I’m sorry.” I got back up. “I don’t know what happened.”

“Well, we’re almost at Olytus,” Jacob said. “We won’t be catching up to that airship anytime soon.”

“Ryan said there are survivors there though,” Patrick said. “We’re going to have to check that out while we’re there.”

I huffed a warm breath in my helmet and adjusted it to feel safer. “Hm, Ryan is still giving us orders. He may as well should have woken me up.”

“Don’t get surprised yet. Omega is going to drop off their Rhinos in another week. We were told their landing position,” Jacob said.

“Did their ships arrive?” I asked.

“No, but Ryan said, we’ll have a meteor shower when they get close to orbit. Apparently, there are hundreds of Lok ships outside of Orson.”

“There are bunkers in Olytus we can use to avoid debris falling on us,” I said.

“How do you know?” Patrick asked.

“Before I was eight, my parents took me on a trip to that city. I remember specifically seeing a waterfall on top of two buildings, except the water was rising up into the sky. Don't know how they did that but that’s how it went.”

I said that knowing, I’m probably not going to see that magical waterfall again. The Lox most likely had their fun before we reached closer to their den.

“One lick of blood isn’t enough,” the voice from my dream reappeared.

“Am I still dreaming?!” I popped off my helmet and slapped myself.

“Tony, you’re wide awake,” Maurice said. “Looks like you’re finally going crazy … You should put your helmet back on.”

I guess I was going crazy, but I didn’t like hearing that voice.

The light began fading away from our sight and soon the dark led us into the city of Olytus. Buildings were on top of buildings. Blood was flooding the sewers and a presence of death filled my bones with ice cold water. This is Olytus. It used to be crowded with life, now it’s a city crowded with bodies.

“The tank will keep us safe along the road,” Jacob said. “But we need a few of you to watch the outskirts. We don’t know what’s lurking in the dark.”

“That’s my job,” I said. “I can do it on my own.”

“Don’t get so confident, Tony,” Patrick said. “We couldn’t beat Bod as a team so it’s best we go out as a force to be reckoned with.”

“I’ll go too,” Maurice said. “I’m tired of sitting in this tank.”

“Alright,” I muttered and released the hatch open. A shadow followed my steps out and nothing was going to be in my way but shattered skyscrapers. The strongest lights together don’t matter in a broken neighborhood like this.

Maurice set aside his SMG’s and equipped his sniper. We had a long road to follow if we want to keep this tank safe. The tank trampled down the bodies and all we could do was avoid the trail of blood it left behind.

“The road is getting darker,” Jacob said. “Watch each side carefully. Just let me watch the front.”

“It’s kind of hard to do that when you have twenty foot spikes coming out of that tank,” Maurice joked.

“I’ll be sure to tell that to the Lox,” Jacob responded.

Maurice was right. If the Lox aren’t going to kill us, it would be those spikes.

I snapped back into the reality of war when a random bullet scraped against the street.

“Sniper!” Patrick yelled.

I tried hard to take cover behind the tank. Another bullet landed against my shoulder from my right. The bullet punched me back and nearly cut myself with the spikes. We attempted to spot out the Lox for Jacob as multiple gunfire spread around us.

“Maurice! You need to spot them out for Jacob!”

“I’m trying!”

There was all kinds of buildings around us. We'd need a god level eye to catch where all these Lox were, let alone one.

I knew something though. If I let myself get shot again, I can understand where they were shooting from yet I can’t let a bullet get anywhere near my head.

“Maurice! I’m going to do something stupid! I’m going to step out of the range of the tank to let myself get shot. Make sure you spot where the bullets are coming from!”

“No!” Patrick said. “You don’t have to do it! It’s time someone else takes all the bullets for you!”

“Damn it, Patrick! Are you sure?!” I said while dodging countless bullets.

“I’m positive! I can handle a lot more this time!”

“Then do it Patrick! Get out there!” I yelled and watch Patrick step around the tank. We paid attention to the sound of the gunfire, the wind that flashed when the bullets ripped the air and then one of them landed on Patrick’s arm, knocking off his shotgun.

“Right there!” Maurice pointed and set a beacon on the building.

Jacob aimed the tank’s cannon over to the furthest building across from us. The ball of fire demonstrated destruction and sent a group of Lox into a burial but there are still more shots coming through.

Two more hit Patrick in the chest and Maurice didn’t bother calling out and sniped the Lox out of existence. Next thing we knew, gunfire stopped. Something happened.

“Lord HellFire has landed!” Several Lox shouted from the skyscrapers.

The Lox set aside their attention as yet another one of the Lok’s airships came across the sky, but this time it was leaving a force of wind that sent us flying through buildings. We were right below it and it hasn’t even set off yet. What will happen if it starts flying off?

But no, that wasn’t the case. A dock was being revealed from the ship and within my own sight I saw a Lok more grimacing than Bod.

That was him in our territory. HellFire.

“This is one of those cases, where I’d advise you’d run,” the voice spoke in my ear again. “Well, you should run, if you don’t want to die.”

“What will happen if I don’t?” I asked.

“Do you really want to find out? You’re now in the presence of one of the six gods of the universe. There’s nothing more to it.”

I swallowed my own pill and screamed out, “Get out of the tank now!”

Nancy and Jacob listened before I told them ran straight into the nearest building as a force of gravity sent the tank crashing through ten different buildings at once. Then the tank flew up to the sky and slammed into the street like a meteor.

A sharp wind followed the collision that shattered glass around us. As we all watched, hoping we don’t get hit by the tank, Maurice stood out in the open yelling at the sky.

“Come down here! You want a fight! Step out of your hole and show me a challenge.”

“What is Maurice doing?!” I yelled through comms.

“He’s doing it, oh god.” Jacob said.

“Doing what?” I asked.

“Tony, whatever you do, don’t watch Maurice.”

I didn’t know if I should listen but the wind washed us away like a tsunami and hit my head against a counter and knocked out.

Even though I blacked out. I still heard the outside world and it didn’t sound like it was heaven.