Steel City Oberon, Ilad Kingdom

“Are you sure now is the time?”

“Positive, today will either mark the beginning of a new period in history, or the continuation of this oppressive one...”

“But if we fail this time, then they’ll have to start from scratch and without us to help th—”

“Don’t worry, we won’t fail”

“How do you know?”

Smirking, the man answered his young companion “Because this time we’re the righteous ones, we WILL bring peace and end to this long conflict”

“Ballen...” the young companion said softly, touched by the words his long time friend had spoken. He, Gello, trusted in the words of Ballen and what he stood for. Their unending conflict would end, and they were going to make sure of it.

The radio behind Gello started to crackle and come to life. <>

Reaching back for the radio Gello responded immediately. <>

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Grunting in response, Gello started to ready the prototype. “We have 5 minutes Ballen, We should get moving.”

Moving away from the window and letting the blinds fall back into place, Ballen started checking his equipment while calling over the rest of the crew.

“Alright then, let’s get moving guys!!”

Immediately 6 other men came from the room next door. Nothing but silence and the soft clattering of clips going home on guns, and the shuffling of holsters engulfed the small hotel room, no one spoke a word. Suddenly off in the distance a deep hum could be head, and soft vibrations attacked the room.

“It’s time.”

In a single fluid manner, almost like a practiced motion, the entire group left the room and began the walk to the elevator and ride to the rooftop of the building. From the rooftop the group hesitated not even for a second, fanning out and lying prone the entire group laid out their weapons ready to ambush the unsuspecting patrols. All of them but Gello, he stood at the edge and prepared what looked like a box with a laser pointer attached, setting it up to a small portable laptop, and then taking a seat on a nearby box. The entire process took less than 2 minutes, so they sat silently and waited. From the edge of the building all Gello could see was a black city. A bleak and dreary land, smoke billowing from factories at every corner of the city. Below him on the grey and lifeless streets he could see lines of people with empty eyes walking to whatever work they had to do to survive, forced to live in horrible conditions.

It will end soon, just wait a little more...

Almost as if on queue to his thoughts, the bright mechanized patrol unit appeared in the distance, the hum becoming louder and vibrations more prominent. That floating machine which is built by the same people who it attacks and ‘polices’, it had finally come.

The radio began to crackle once more <>

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By this point the patrol unit had reached almost half the street and was about to pass by their building.

“Fire on my signals guys” Gello shouted over the almost drowning humming noise.

“Roger that, Today we’re gonna make a statement boys!” Ballen responded, followed by an “HO-RAH” from the rest of the group.

Almost past us… NOW!

Pointing the box down and over the ledge toward the unit that had just passed them, Gello activated his prototype. After a second passed of seemingly nothing happened he screamed “FIRE!”

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On queue all of the soldiers got up and started shooting down at the patrol unit.

1….2….3….4….5…. “My god it’s working! the bullets are landing”

In a more confident voice Gello started shouting and shooting. “Quickly fire the launcher!”

In response to his cries two trails of smoke shot off toward the patrol unit that was now slowly attempting to try to turn around. Two large explosions hit the patrol unit and it was blown back a few feet. Ballen taking the initiative leaped onto the robot and began shooting directly into the cockpit, then moments later threw in a grenade and leapt off it and back into the hotel building. One last explosion and the slow creaky fall of the machine marked the end of it’s operator’s life. The oppressive hum had disappeared, and the sky looked clear for a moment.

“We did it!”

“Yes!”

“It worked!”

Cries of joy and happiness permeated the air that was only just previously filled with tension. But the deep humming of more robots cut through their celebration.

“We need to move now!” Ballen shouted, and following suit Gello grabbed his equipment and hastily started talking into his radio

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the radio was quickly cut off for a half second and then a more serious voice returned

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As the daunting hum slowly increased the small group had already started moving. Now that Gello was off the radio he looked over to Ballen to figure out how they were going to escape four and possibly more units.

“Split up!” Ballen shouted “Everyone groups of 2, opposite directions, good luck!”

That was all that needed to be said, the group split off in seemingly random directions without another word. Gello went with Ballen as they ran north across the closely packed rooftops in an attempt to escape that oppressive hum again, the clear skies had disappeared and they were returned to their harsh reality.

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“We’re trapped! They have us surrounded on both sides of this building!” Gello hopelessly shouted.

“Looks like it.” Ballen replied curtly. They both could not escape the gravity of the situation, and there was no sense in denying it. Both soldiers understood that. After a small pause Gello took a short gulp and thrust the prototype machine into Ballen’s hands.

“You have the best chance of making it back to base with this. Anyone can operate the thing, only you can lead us with it. We need you alive more than me...”

Ballen couldn’t argue against those words, it was nothing more than the absolute truth. Gello was one of many engineers who worked on the prototype and was important... but was easily replaceable. Experienced combatants were not so replaceable. Gello spoke with only logic to the end. Ballen gave a short nod and turned to walk away toward the bottom entrance of the building they had holed themselves up in. They both knew what to do, and Gello only readied himself to provide as much time as possible.

*craaash*

*BANG*

*BANG*

………..

*POP*

Gello threw two grenades through the window to draw attention then leapt out toward their robot nemesis. After the two explosions, his flying body quickly entered the robot’s sight. A half-second had gone, and so was Gello and Ballen, however the difference was while Ballen was still in one spot, Gello was in multiple.