The holding cells was located in a dark, blue room. Big metal bars covered the floor to the ceiling with grey and black. And the glass was dark blue, shining just a tiny bit by the dimly lit ceiling. Gyro had one thing in his mind as he has this dark dungeon. This was the belly of the beast. A depressive final state for those who would be executed by the hands of Rainhaim. He had heard stories about the Death Chambers. The rooms Avalon used for execution. All types of tools to make the last moment of their enemy as cold and heartless as possible. And this blue prison was the last space to see before the torture began.

Most cells were vacant. Empty rooms echoed of who used to be there the final hours before death would succumb them. A thin, skeleton looking man sat in the cell, eyes staring on the wall. Gyro took his chances. Gently tapping the window with his gun. The man turned to look at Gyro, but his eyes. They were far gone. In a mental place maybe as dark as this lonesome cell. He had given up long ago. And nothing was going to take him back.

“I’m sorry. Sir? I need your help”, Gyro pleaded. “I can save you! You will all be saved!”

The man looked down to the floor, smiling to himself. But not to whatever Gyro said. He just sat there, mind traveling far far away. Gyro could not believe what the man had gone through.

“Soldier?”, a weak voice whispered.

Gyro recognized that voice. The commander. She was weak in her vocal, but her accent. Her accent was of german decent. And very popular among the crew.

Gyro searched further down the holding area, looked cell through cell. And there she was! At the near back.

Commander Ryder was around her 60’s. She was black. Bald with big eyes, almost bulging out their sockets. She was thin, had always been thin. But now she looked worn out in that black garment Avalon had given her. The shoulders hung loose, dangling along her side. She had almost given up on help. If she wasn’t so tired, she would most likely cry. Tears of joy mixed with tears of her pain. Ryder was experienced in much and was not scared to experience more. But this ordeal in her captivity had almost broken her down.

“What is your name, soldier?”, she whispered of hope.

“Me…I…I am…uh….Gyro”, he stuttered back at the woman he admired. “We will spring you out of here.”

Stomping feet could be heard coming into the dark room. Gyro calculated three of them.

“Hide behind the wall of the cell, Gyro. The windows are shatter proof”, she whispered.

Gyro took cover on the edge of the cells cube, eyes poked toward the entrance. Three soldiers of Avalon came into view. One was heavily armored and held some tall gun. Maybe a flamethrower?

Gyro opened fire with his handgun. The bullet got stuck into a blue wall of a nearby cell. But the Avalon took notice of the attacker and shot back with assault rifles. While the man with the flamethrower lit his candle on the edge of the weapon.

The rain of bullets struck the cell, but missed Gyro by an inch.

Panic got into him, but he remembered his training.

“Keep cool, Gyro”, said Ryder with a piercing german accent she was known for.

Gyro leaned forward and fired with both his guns a row of times. The two weaker Avalons fell down. One died on the spot, but the other wiggled around like a worm in pain.

“You bastard flesh of shit!”, yelled the armed Avalon as he came closer to Gyro. And the young Snowsnake could see that his enemy wore bigger armor than expected. But the right arm was exposed. Gyro was not a good shot. But he was always a better swordsman. So he put down his guns and grabbed the sword he had on a holder on his back. The sword was a small scythe. And it looked normal to the naked eye. But in fact it had a poison around it’s edge. A special formula that could withstand both time and winter.

The big man came closer and the flame of the thrower started to sizzle in heat, as the flame grew larger in size. Commander Ryder ran to the glass and started to pound it as hard as she could to get his attention. But the man kept walking to the edge of the cell, observing the shade of the man on the other side. The man he was about to burn.

Gyro was fast in his sudden motion. He darted out of hiding like an animal, kept low to the ground and managed to slide under the flame that the soldier burned in his direction. In the sudden action, Gyro swung his blade, edge just scratching the large mans exposed arm.

The man screamed instantly. As it felt like his arm was made of fire and ice. The wound itself was burning of extreme degree as he dropped his flamethrower to the floor. The rest of the arm was frozen like ice. Struck by impossible logic. The large man had just been scratched. Barely a wound. Yet the pain was incredible and the arm felt like it was coming apart. And then…it did! The arm first went blue in tone. A grey vain penetrated out of his skin. Bulging like it was about to explode. And the large man felt how his muscles withered around his shoulders. Flat skin and bone dripped down from his arm to the floor in a soggy mess. Just the boned arm was left.

The man saw his fleshy remains before collapsing to the floor. Dead on impact.

Gyro stoppled towards the cell she was held in, his mind boggled on what had just happened. He had killed before of course, but this all seemed so much more. More on stake. It had been to much action for him. A low-life looser stuck between a rock and a hard place. And now he was here, weapon in hand. Only person who could save the commander.

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“Gyro…that is your name, right?”, she said calmly. “Good job, son. Very good job.”

He looked into her eyes. Admired them like a child would admire their parents. Ryder was one of the few very good golden stars in the SilverSnakes. One who possessed so much love for her surroundings. And had led many battles against Avalon. And now she stood in front of him, smiling like an angel to an infant.

“I am proud of you”, she said with a voice like silk. It comforted Gyros very soul, very existence into a blanket of joy. The most warm words he had ever heard in his lifetime. Somebody was proud over him. During these hard days of war, where nobody knew the outcome, it was all he needed to hear. He wanted to break through the glass. To embrace her in a warm, tender hug. The never ending winter was so cold. So any touch of warm would be a nice change. It was one thing this war did to mankind. It made everyone numb and scaled of the skin of humanity. Exposed to nothing but emotionless drones fighting for nothing but a chance of survival. It was endless and could wore anyone out. Gyro was packed by feelings of his past. Feelings of his parents, his siblings. Before he was drafted to join the SnowSnakes. Back then life still had hope, before the war escalated even more. Reality shook him and shook him hard. He was back again, in the present with this dark room and the cell separating the target from him.

The whole room shook and a long rumble could be heard. The generator. It must have died. It only took a few seconds until the warm room started to feel cold. And the lights on the ceiling started to flicker, fighting to remain strong.

Gyro went to the wall of the room, gently touching it. The cold outside was already creeping in like an unwelcome visitor. The storm outside must be bad.

The door to Commander Ryder's cell slid opened and she walked out on strong legs. Gyro had never seen such power return to someone who looked so beaten. The cells in the wide, dark room all slid open one after another.

Prisoners dressed in the same simple, black garments all stepped out of a few of these cells. They all were of different colors and shapes. Some bulky soldiers from SnowSnakes, trained and ready to fight. Some worn-down civilians, who could barely stand on their own feet.

The cell with the thinner old man was open, but he did not make any effort to step out. Ryder went to the prisoners and started to talk to them, one by one about how the escape was going to act. She knew every plan of escape. Any angles to go, any sidetracks that could go wrong. Everything was in her mind, like a map.

But Gyro did not listen to it. He took a few steps over to the old mans cell. And there he sat. Like a silent ghost, all by himself. But maybe in his mind, he was elsewhere. Maybe the old man was in a delusional state of some warm party in a beach somewhere. Gyro could tell that the man was not in reality. That his mind had gone far away again.

“Sir…”, Gyro tried with a weak voice. But the man just sat there. Gyro had to make a decision. He turned to Commander Ryder, who was dealing out the weapons of the dead guards to her fellow men. Time was not on their side, and the priority was always the commander.

Gyro made a decision that would forever haunt his dreams. Forever twist his mind into a personal hell for the young fighter. He let the old man in the cell be alone. Alone in his state of delusion, hoping he would never realize how the cold would take his own life.

Commander Ryder was accompanied by three civilians, who had tried to overthrow the ever growing Avalon by simple protests. But also five trained soldiers, two of which was armed by the dead Avalon protectors. Gyro took the lead down the white hallway, searching the rooms up and down, scanning with his dual pistols drawn. There was no danger up ahead apart from the black, thick smoke that started to crawl up the ceiling. It came from the generator room up ahead.

Gyro saw two shadows leaning to the wall behind them. He was cautious and aimed his guns at them. But saw in an instant that the shape of the larger man looked like Mister Bravo. The big man waved his hands in the shape of two circles, a way to express in a code that the coast is clear. Gyro lowered the guns and went up to them. Only to see that the other person was a young girl.

Gyro had heard about her. One of the youngest in SnowSnakes. Jamie Lund.

Mister Bravo bowed in front of Commander Ryder and put his knee to the floor.

“Commander Ryder. We are here to apologize from the trouble we got you in. Our job was to serve and protect you at all cost, and at that job, we have failed. I am so sorry.”

“Stand on your feet, Mister Bravo”, she said with a raised voice. “You are here now. That is all that matters. And now is the chance to take back what is ours.”

Gyro turned around to her, knowing that they could not afford to alter the plan.

“I am sorry, Commander. But we have an Ice Crawler on it’s way here.”

The rumble outside got their attention. They headed to the door leading out to the snow outside and could hear the sound of treadmills getting closer.

The treadmills was chewing itself through the snow as if the snow wasn’t even there. These giant chains was connected with barbed wire that had no problem to plow through the thick layer of white on the ground. The hull was made of raw steel in thick layers. With huge heaters on the side, burning a bright and yellow warmth, melting the snow on each side of the metallic beast.

The Ice-crawler was as big as a buss, only with a stronger engine that would not surrender by any obstacle in it’s path. Designed to plow through any fallen trees with help of a piercing spike on an arm that could easily be a deadly weapon in assault.

The Ice-Crawler also had the function to drill down the layers of the snow if necessary, to create a turmoil in battle. But the job this time was never to win a battle. It was to escort a prisoner.

The Ice-Crawler came through the fog in the distance to the remains of a battle field. SnowSnakes was gone, vanishing like ninjas into the far regions of the area. Maybe chasing a few survivors of the Avalon. But the enemy outside the base lied as dead, next to a handful of SnowSnakes who just didn’t make it out alive.

Gyro stood in front of the incoming machine, waving at it to stop. It made a sudden halt on the spot.

The door flung open and a driver stepped out, wearing sunshades against the falling snow.

“Where is the target?”, the driver yelled just as she came walking out the door. Along the civilians and prisoners.