"Daniel! Thomas!" A woman calls up to them loudly startling them awake.

"Morning Lucy" Daniel greets her as he rubs his eyes.

"Heads up" she tells them and throws a small foil parcel up to them.

"Finally, I haven't eaten in days" Daniel mutters.

"What … Is it exactly?" Angel asks examining the food he has been given.

"It's bread" Thomas replies getting an equally disgruntled look from Daniel.

"Your rations are shit" he tells them, as he attempts to bite down onto the bread.

"If you haven't noticed, we can't exactly grow nice things around here" Thomas snaps.

"When was the last time you had anything nice?" Angel asks.

"A few years after the war started, then, it was good old rations" Daniel replies holding up the bread he is eating as an example.

"Ahhhww … Do you remember what chocolate tastes like" he asks turning to Thomas with a happy smile on his face.

"Please don't, I'll start crying" Thomas replies half-heartedly with a cheeky grin.

Angel smiles at the pair of them, but his smile quickly drifts away as he hears a familiar sound not too far off in the distance.

Chinooks can be seen flying overhead in the same direction they are all slowly advancing in.

"Looks like you are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at this one" he states, now standing up and looking through his binoculars again.

"What can you see?" Thomas asks.

"Oh shit" he snaps back.

"GET DOWN! TAKE COVER!" Angel suddenly begins to yell and immediately jumps on top of the two of them, pulling them in tightly as if to shield them both with his own body.

A mighty ruckus can be heard, as a round of shells that the troop aren't familiar with pelts down from the top of the hill.

A chinook is struck and immediately tares in-two, soldiers scream as they fall out of the open hull, with no chance of surviving the fall.

Another is struck and immediately bursts into flames before crashing into a tank on the ground.

"COME ON! COME ON! WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY!" Marissa can be heard instructing the troop as some prepare mortar rounds.

"Take aim and, FIRE!" She yells.

Around five mortar rounds cascade in the direction Marissa has chosen as a designated target.

"What the fucking hell was that?" Daniel asks shaking in quite a bit of panic.

"An eight tracked tank" Angel replies.

"Come on" he tells him, placing his hand out to help Daniel to his feet.

At the top of the hill, and slowly crawling its way towards them, a large vehicle that has eight tank like tracks driving it forward, armed with an array of guns can be seen.

"It's like a battleship for the ground" Thomas points out.

"Well this battleship is far too close for comfort, what the hell is going on at the front lines" Angel mutters whilst taking out a radio out from his rucksack.

Either side of them, as far as the eye can see, tanks and soldiers now scatter along the landscape, all advancing in a single line with them.

A group of soldiers huddle round someone with a radio.

'We … We can't hold them, we need reinforcements' someone can be heard stating in a panic.

'You are to hold those lines! And that's an order!' The person they are speaking to demands.

'We need reinforcements, they've broken through the river defences' they reply, followed by radio silence.

Everyone looks over towards the hill, where they all know the person is radioing from.

'Caelum Timore this is Angel do you copy?' He asks through his radio.

'Reading you loud and clear' comes the reply.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

'If you can brake away from the fighting, I need you to take out an Arma Piscina on top of the hill near the front lines' he explains.

'What are you doing all the way over there?' The person asks.

'Following a lead now get your ass over here' he demands.

'Roger, but it will take me a few hours' they reply, and Angel puts the radio back into his rucksack.

"Arma Piscina?" Thomas asks curiously.

"It's the technical name for one of those war machines, it basically means armoured tank" Angel explains.

"I see" Thomas replies.

This particular Arma Piscina, is now bombarding everywhere in their direction, even the rows of troops, tanks and chinooks off into the distance either side of them, are not able to advance forward.

One of the electromagnetic rail guns it is armed with, blasts a shot that hurls directly past them, shattering the walls of five buildings nearby, causing them to collapse.

"Bastard" someone walking past mutters and spits at Angels direction.

"Why are you calling him that?" Daniel snaps.

"He's from Haven, where the fuck are our reinforcements, huh?" The soldier asks in a sarcastic manner.

"We are not fighting in the war, if we did it would be on two fronts, your leaders assured us that they had the situation over here under control, luckily for you, we don't trust your leaders, so I was sent out to see exactly what the fuck is going on over here" Angel calmly replies.

Screaming can be heard from the top of the hill as allied troops begin to run towards this side of the battlefield, clearly fleeing terrified.

The Arma Piscina wastes no time in attempting to slaughter the fleeing soldiers.

"Fuck there's civilians over there" Thomas snaps under gritted teeth.

"COVERING FIRE!" Marissa demands and mortar fire cascades towards the Arma Piscina, not quite reaching it, but providing some cover in the form of dust, smoke and debris.

Thomas begins to look extremely pale as he looks through his binoculars, he watches helplessly as a group of children are struck by a shell.

He stumbles backwards a few paces before vomiting at the side of the tank.

Daniel falls to the ground next to him, he was also looking through some binoculars at the same point.

"They're not even letting kids survive" Thomas points out to Daniel.

Daniel looks up at Angel with dismay in his expression.

'Angel, come in Angel' a voice can be heard coming from the radio in his rucksack.

'Yo what's up?' he asks taking the radio out.

'We've lost the south everyone is pulling out' the person responds.

'Ah shit' Angel mutters.

The same conversation can be heard going on with Marissa as Thomas operates a mobile radio for her.

A truck rolls down the hill ablaze, and crashes into an impact crater near them.

People start to make it down to the bottom of the hill, but are quickly picked of as they do so.

Soldiers scramble to help the few that make it to safety, rushing them to the medics and getting them as far away from the front as possible.

A flaming zeppelin appears into view crashing at the top of the hillside to the right of the Arma Piscina.

"What, the hell, is that thing?" Thomas asks looking up at a black object in the sky.

"Arce Caelo" Angel replies.

"Translation means?" Thomas continues to ask but a bit more dramatically.

"Sky castle" he replies.

The Arce Caelo is both propeller and jet propelled, longer in width than length, and is a true giant of the skies.

"Merissa there's two giant war machines ahead of us, don't you think it's time to run?" Thomas asks frantically.

But it's too late, even if they did want to escape, the Arma Piscina and Arce Caelo begin to work in unison, decimating the battlefield.

A shell hits the building next to him and Thomas is struck with rubble, slowly attempting to crawl to safety, he drifts out of consciousness.

"Tom, Tommy, can you hear me?" Daniel asks, as he slowly regains consciousness.

"Ouuuhhch" Thomas mutters rubbing his head.

"Here pretty boy, drink this" Angel tells him, and hands over a metal water canister.

"Thanks" he replies, and takes a sip of the water.

Slowly getting up to his feet with the help of Daniel, he sees the full extent of the damage around him.

The bottom of the hill has been completely destroyed, and the landscape either side of them is battered, there are countless bodies on the ground.

"Ho … How long was I out for?" He asks.

"About fifteen minutes, but then you fell asleep for about an hour" Daniel replies.

'This is Caelum Timore, are you still alive Angel?' A female voice can suddenly be heard asking from his radio.

"ADVANCE!" Marissa shouts, as the signal is given for the army to take the hill, in the form of red flares.

'Cheeky fucker, yes, I am still alive, I'll assume you are nearby then?' He asks.

'Five minutes and counting' she replies.

'I'm heading in" Angel replies.

They all begin scrambling up the hill, the tanks advancing alongside them, some war planes move in and the chinooks begin to shoot at the two main targets still lingering around.

"Watch out!" Angel yells and drags Daniel out of the way of a tank rolling down the hill ablaze.

"Lucy!" Thomas yells and she waves back at him, but is cut down by machine gun fire.

"Keep moving" Marissa instructs him pushing him forwards.

'What the fuck is going on here? We were told everything was under control' the female voice can be heard saying clearly in shock over the radio

'You see our main problems?' Angel asks through the radio.

'Yes' she replies.

'Take em out' he instructs her.

'Yes Commander' she mutters, before there is silence on the radio again.

Within a few moments' rockets can be seen flying overhead ploughing down into the Arma Piscina, the entire hillside erupts like a volcano leaving a huge gaping hole.

Debris scatters all around leaving no doubt that it was destroyed.

The Arce Caelo seems to be taking whatever it is that has destroyed the Piscina head on, firing everything it has got at it.

Within another few seconds, it two is destroyed, and hurls into the ground with another huge explosion right back at the area that they had been advancing from.

'I'm needed back in the south to help the refugees' the female voice informs Angel over the radio.

'Thank you' he replies.

"Wait, they aren't staying to help us?" Thomas asks in frightened bewilderment at what he has just witnessed.

"Nope" Angel responds abruptly.

"Nothing we were using even put a scratch on those things" Daniel points out.

"All of our main firepower is down south" Marissa explains.

As they approach the top of the hill, the skyline behind it is lit up with bright flashes, the sounds of rockets, bombs and fighting quickly intensify as well.

"I'm so fucking scared" Daniel mutters.

"Me too" Thomas mutters back, with tears running down his cheeks as he grabs him by the hand tightly.

Finally, they reach the top of the hill.

"And I thought what we had come from was bad" Thomas states with fear in his eyes.

Before them they can make out a large city quite literally on fire, countless Arma Piscinas in the far distance beyond the city, and the sky full of various war machines.