Deep within the mountain and sprinting down the red lit hallway, Meditat silently charged forward, his arms swinging back and forth as he made haste towards the target which he had located. His wave caped behind him as well as a faint blue streak of careful boosts to help him run without overwhelming him.
He reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into a large cylindrical silo. He reached the room before immediately halting right above an edge, and he peered down to see that along the edge of the circular walls were rings acting as a ramp all the way to the bottom, which had no railings and was only a few feet in width. Above the ramp was also a red light strip, which curled like a spring as well as the ramp from the top of the silo to the very bottom.
Staring down at the bottom of the stair room, he discerned that he was tens of feet high in the air, multiple stories that a drop without rotation would splatter his body. It wasn’t helped that the floor was cold gray steel either, making the height even more unnerving to a typical person.
After observing the room for a couple seconds, Meditat jumped off the ramp, and plummeted straight down the silo, his cape hovering over his shoulder as the blue light emitting off his body illuminated the center of the room brighter as he fell.
Meditat landed on the surface of the room on his feet silently, his knees initially bent to pad his fall, but then he straightened them to stand up tall. He then faced a hallway in front of him, and continued his sprint, bolstered by the blue streak.
He kept his breath to himself, making sure to stay silent as he sprinted down the wide hallway with red light strips, making sure not to waste time to reach the destination quickly. Ahead of him, he noticed that the hallway opened up into a larger room which was also far longer, as he could see the distant other side which was so far that it seemed nearly possible that he was heading towards another silo.
Without slowing down, Meditat ran towards the end of the hallway, his cape dancing behind him as his chest emblem gently ventilated energy as well as the streaks coursing around his body. He dashed his way to the end of the hallway, finally reaching it to the next room.
Beyond the hallway was indeed a grand room, also cylindrical like the silo, and it even had a bridge along the edge by the hallway which Meditat ran up to before also halting abruptly, leaning forwards to observe the space he found himself in.
The circular bridge didn’t seem to recline nor incline however, as it didn’t serve as a ramp, but instead wrapped around the room to the other side, where there was another hall entrance as well as two others on the intersection.
However, what was more interesting was what was below the bridge, which was nowhere near as far down as the silo’s floor was. In fact, the surface only seemed to be about a story below the bridge, but what was on the surface was truly riveting.
On the main floor of the cylindrical grand room were multiple rings of connected containers sized similarly to wardrobes, although the exterior was transparent. The transparent casing allowed for easy visibility into what was inside the containers, which were slim rectangular boxes stacked on one another from the bottom to the top, all placed beside each other around each of the whole rings.
Every individual box had several ports on its visible face, and they all had a short horizontal strip that illuminated red.
They were the exact same machines as the ones in the footage, meaning that they were indeed the servers.
However, among the rings of computer servers were also many other entities also made of metal, however these ones were shaped not as boxes but as humanoids, and they had vents along their arms, torso, and legs that emitted a red glow. They were the exact same model as the ones who were invading the city, yet there seemed to be some patrolling the room.
That was until one of them happened to face the direction Meditat stood in, and it promptly stopped. The drone then glared up at Meditat for a few moments of silence as Meditat too stood still, perplexed by its gaze, for Meditat believed himself to be cloaked from any sensors, thus he should be undetectable by the stronghold.
That is until he realized, the androids had more than sensors.
After the long awkward stare, the android raised its arm, and opened its hand to reveal the vent in the palm of its hand, although the vent then grew brighter, different from the rest.
From the palm, a red bolt fired out, revealed to be a cannon instead, which struck Meditat’s shoulder, being absorbed without a scratch.
However, that was one lucky shot, and all of the other machines turned to face Meditat, noticing him sprint around the circular bridge. They then all raised their own hands at him, and started firing rapid red bolts, trying to take down the intruder.
Concurrently with the battle in the server room, Furcifer fired a burst of orange rockets out of his launcher, all of which flew into the horde of flying robots. Before even being impacted by any of the robots, they automatically detonated into great orange explosions, which incinerated multiple robots at a time.
Next to him, Intrepid threw her backhand forwards in multiple swipes, and in front of her entire crowds of robots suddenly flew in the same angle of the swipe, all being thrown into nearby skyscrapers, which mashed them against the walls. She then raised both of her hands close together, the space in between aiming at one of the robots in the center of the fleet. She shut her eyes in deep concentration before then throwing her arms sideways, to which the central robot suddenly self detonated, exploding red and catching other droids in the process.
Beside her, Eidolon held her left hand forward with an open palm, and in front of her was a square purple wall of vibrating air about twenty feet on each side which acted as a net, catching several drones while she also pointed her right finger forward, forming a straight purple streak that penetrated several robots, causing them to all collapse.
In front of the wall of his own making, Tachyon projected precise swirls of plasmic energy out of his arms, striking bots and causing electricity to chain out of them into other surrounding droids, putting them all in a defeated state that sent them crashing. While quick movement was his speciality, he was more than capable of harnessing his own extra dimensional energy source for projectiles, a feat commemorating the many years of his training.
While the four sustained the front lines well, a few machines managed to slip past them from the sheer number of their forces. Furcifer, while facing the main stream of robots, aimed his sniper rifle at one of the escapee machines and pulled the trigger, firing a volley of red bolts, all of which decimated all of the escapees behind him.
However, a few more passed even him, and continued towards the traffic. They started aiming their hand cannons up at the pods ahead of them, ready to fire on the civilians.
That is until they all flew straight into the wind wall, which caused them to bounce backwards. Several more tried to penetrate the wall too, but they all bounced, flying back towards the three at the front lines, who noticed them and dealt with them, being torn apart by Intrepid and pierced by Eidolon.
Red missiles flew out of Furcifer’s shoulder cannon as his other cannon beamed straight through columns of drones, cutting through them as others exploded from the missile’s impact. His sniper rifle then dematerialized, and replacing it was his grenade launcher, which he fired back at the drones who had slipped by the three’s barricade.
Behind and above the four, the tail of the traffic became visible, rising up towards the sky as the final remnants of the evacuation seemed to be taking its departure. The last pods flew up into the sky, leaving the atmosphere as they headed past the height of the skyscrapers and towards the sparse white clouds above.
Eidolon turned behind herself and made a slashing motion to cut through three drones that had creeped past her, and after doing so she raised her head in noticing the departing traffic. She stared up for a few seconds in disbelief, and released a pleasant sigh.
“Looks like we’re cleared here,” announced Eidolon before turning back around to keep dealing with the onslaught of drones who weren’t slowing down still.
Furcifer placed his right foot forward and blasted another burst of rockets before then reminding, “Maybe here, but this is a large city, I doubt all of it is evacuated. But that’s good news; Tachyon, we don’t need the wall anymore, thank you.”
He then fired a grenade out of his launcher at another group of androids that had passed him, but not until they exploded from contact with the pellet, putting them down.
He then lowered his rocket launcher after noticing a particular android soaring towards them, and Intrepid and Eidolon both lowered their arms as they were also intrigued.
While the barricade of air behind the protectors dispersed as did the racing streak supporting it, on the other side a unique android approached them. The android dove down and plummeted straight into the ground with a boom. As the cloud of dust cleared, the android gently hovered above the crater it embedded into the road, about a foot above the team and glaring down at them menacingly.
The android was noticeably more bulked and taller than the rest of the machines, but furthermore, it had a pair of rods on the sides of its face curled similarly to an ant’s antenna. A second after the android stopped, all of the other machines previously racing towards the three also suddenly halted, all of them reorienting themselves upright, staring at the three menacingly behind the unique android at the front.
At the head of the invasion, the unique android spoke in the same terrifying robotic voice as the one from the stream, greeting: “Hello, I suppose you are the ones who are obstructing our cleansing.”
Staring down at the army of droids, Furcifer glared at the supposed leader, and both of his weapons dematerialized. In his right hand, his double barreled shotgun was then materialized once again, and he held its belly with his left hand, as though prepared to use it against the one in front.
Furcifer first admitted in his intimidating demonic voice, “You would be right, and we’ll be the ones also putting an end to it.”
After receiving the comeback, the leader glared at Furcifer again, and the two stared at one another for a few tense seconds. Red eye staring at red eye, leader staring at leader, the two forces would collide into each other from opposite directions.
“Then you shouldn’t rely on our labor,” the robotic leader murmured to itself before swiftly raising its hand up at the group of four, yet it didn’t seem to be priming for a shot. Instead, it glared at all of them, and it was the eyes that flared red.
Without any contact made, simultaneously Furcifer, Eidolon, and Tachyon began to stagger backwards, lowering their heads as it seemed they were all suddenly suffering. Furcifer’s double barreled shotgun dematerialized in frantic panic as Tachyon’s body stopped generating energy yet he held his arms out as though blinded and trying to see.
Noticing Eidolon waving her hands oddly in front of herself, Intrepid glanced at Furcifer, the only one not suffering, and inquired: “What’s going on?”
Furcifer shook his head and raised both of his arms out, aiming with his gauntlets and explaining, “I can’t see, my entire HUD is gone. It’s like I just lost power to my helmet, I’m blind right now.”
“Same, I can try to act carefully but running blind isn’t the best idea,” seconded Tachyon, stepping back away from the metal army while still failing to calibrate himself.
“I can try to sense through the air, but it’ll be hard to focus and still fight well,” joined Eidolon, her body becoming more transparent as though trying to hide away, fearful like the rest as their most vital sense had been robbed.
Intrepid gasped softly to herself, realizing that a great curse was put on her team, and without their support the mission had now just become far more difficult to carry out.
During the altercation against the machine leader, Meditat sprinted around the ring above the server room while avoiding shots from the security drones. He then aimed his hand at one of the drones, and fired a blue cable out, which anchored on the drone’s head.
Meditat then turned around and leaped off of the bridge, gliding up in the air above the team of androids as he jerked his arm back, throwing the android he targeted in the air in front of himself. Right as the android flew in front of Meditat, it took a barrage of red shots from the other drones, who were still aiming at Meditat only for their shots to get blocked.
Then as the android used as a metal shield fell, it revealed Meditat with both of his hands encased inside silver cylindrical cannons with wide barrels that emitted a blue light inside. Projecting off both barrels, blue energy shields were deployed each about the size of a riot shield, protecting Meditat from the following shots as he retaliated by firing a rapid stream of blue plasma orbs.
All of the plasma orbs struck the various machines, and upon impact they were completely fried, smoke being released out of the vents and electric arcs emerging off their bodies before chaining with other nearby machines, also frying them.
Right as the shot androids fell to the ground, so landed Meditat, who quickly got up as both of the cannons on his hands burst into blue flames before eroding away. He then lifted his arm up towards a cluster of guards, and his hand projected a blue flame which morphed into a missile of some sorts, although rather than the head being shaped as a cone it was instead a widened flat wall larger than the missile itself.
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The missile raced towards the guards from a blue blaze, absorbing the battery of red bolts before ramming straight into the cluster, continuing until it rammed them into the far wall and exploded, devouring them in flames.
Behind Meditat, three androids ran up and aimed their hands burning red, opening fire from behind as they fired a blitz of red lasers. However, to their surprise, all of the shots that struck the back of the hood and cape were oddly absorbed, not at all damaging Meditat and not even being damaged itself as though it was some odd tough shield.
Meditat turned around after noticing the androids, and he made a throwing motion with his right hand, and in the middle of the motion a blue flaming ball formed in his hand. Upon throwing the ball, it transformed into a large silver ball, initially unassuming and not even properly aimed at any of the three but rather right above the center one.
However, as the ball flew above the three bots, they were suddenly pulled up into the ball with such immense magnetic pressure that their bodies were immediately compressed into the ball, causing them to also implode from the pressure in their fuel systems. The three simultaneous explosions brought an end to all three as the ball then was erased in a flame, having done its job.
Meditat swerved around to see an android chase him, firing successive blasts towards his chest. Meditat began a full sprint towards him in return and leaped in the air, and all of the cannonade struck the frosty crystal on his boot, which didn’t seem to penetrate through or even cause damage to the crystal itself, but instead caused it to pulsate softly.
Still in the air, Meditat flew straight into the android, his shin striking the android in the face right as the crystal flashed brightly. On impact, the android’s entire skull-shaped head was completely obliterated, crushed backwards and causing it to collapse on the ground.
Along the edge of the main floor of the server room were four hallways, each on intersecting sides, and from each of the halls came squads of androids, having heard the commotion and followed as reinforcements. Upon detecting the intruder, they all aimed their hands, and opened fire.
Noticing that he was surrounded, Meditat jumped off of the ground and was boosted up, launching himself even above the bridge. He then flipped back in the air as the androids raised their arms to track him, and from his back spread flames which covered the room in a blue umbrella before vanishing, and from the blue cloud rained down small droplets of a bright cyan liquid which radiated unnaturally.
The rainshower fell below Meditat, and upon contact with the metal of both the android’s shell and also the floor, the chemical had an immense reaction resulting in abrupt massive cyan explosions which consumed the room, incinerating not just all of the droids but also everything else in the floor. The flames nearly reached Meditat, right below his black cape which waved below him, who was in the middle of his flip when the discharge occurred.
Below the one who made the explosive storm, Meditat began to descend again as the cyan flames quickly shrunk and dispersed, for the explosion was vigorous yet short lived.
Returning back to the surface, Meditat landed on the surface of the cleared room, for there were no androids, but not only that, there were no server computers in the room.
In the invaded city, Intrepid glimpsed at each of her three teammates, all of them blinded and struggling to anticipate any attackers. She then faced the leader, whose hand began to brighten, indicating that it was priming for a shot.
Next to her, Furcifer ordered without hesitation, “Intrepid, I need you to destroy all of our masks, now! We can’t fight like this!” before he then started taking steps forward, doughtily remaining unyielding while suffering a tremendous disadvantage.
All of the pressure on her, Intrepid pivoted to gaze at Furcifer, clearly taken aback by the order and delving anxiously, “Are you sure? You won’t be masked then, none of you will.”
“Doesn’t stop you, and this area is evacuated. Just do it!” repeated Furcifer with a more assertive yet noticeably tense tone.
With no alternatives, Intrepid shut her eyes, and held her hands by her waist. She then started to tense her hands, concentrating deeply as her hair began violently waving along with her dress, signifying the power she was wielding.
Blind under the black mask with purple streams, Eidolon reluctantly made herself fully opaque, no longer phasing as she needed to give Intrepid easier control. She lowered her head in fear, but the purple streams on her mask started to tear at invisible seams, and began to rip apart seemingly automatically.
Tachyon, who now stood still, kept his hands up as the black visor on his helmet started to crack like glass, which spread to the rest of his blue mask and behind, which cracked like stone and spread rapidly.
Waiting patiently with his gauntlets primed to fight, Furcifer stood against the army blind as his white mask that he had carried with him for decades as a reminder of the past atrocities he carried out began to crack and splinter, gradually being broken apart.
In realizing what was transpiring, the robot leader growled and dashed forwards, throwing its arms and tackling the team’s leader to the ground before the liberation would be complete. The two collide straight into the ground with a cloud of dust that has discharged, covering the team for a few seconds in frantic anticipation to retain dominance.
As the cloud of dust began to clear, it was revealed that the robot leader was standing over Furcifer, whose face was completely exposed, surrounded by white metal chunks of his mask’s remains. Furcifer glared up with contracted shadowy eyes that spelled fury beyond hell at the leader, who stood over him triumphantly, and slowly raised its hand at Furcifer’s unguarded face. Its palm then began to glow brighter, prepared to shoot the man down.
Behind the two leaders rained a collection of androids who seemed to fall from where they were hovering previously. They all crashed into the ground with their own thuds, to which the leader of the robotic army glimpsed behind himself in perplexion.
On the road were multiple androids, shattered into pieces from the impact of the fall, all of their eyes shut off. There were many of them, defeated without reason.
Still bewildered, the robotic leader raised its head up at the sky where it had positioned the army, to which it noticed that there were no others attacking the stationed machines. None of the man’s team were up in battle, and yet somehow only seconds later, multiple other machines up in the sky still suddenly started to plunge seemingly automatically.
The leader watched the robots fall out of the sky and crash into the ground, being smashed to pieces, their limbs separated and their skulls bashed.
“Huh, guess he wasn’t all off,” remarked Furcifer unmodulated, and his expression shifted from one of unrelenting discontent to one of relief and pride, to which the robot leader turned back to face his true target, remembering what it was in the middle of. However, right as it did, it also noticed a blue flash right before its eyes before its body was suddenly shoved backwards several feet, flying back before crashing into the pile of metal scrap from the fallen droids.
Over where the leader was standing previously was the closed black gloved fist, which sparked with blue plasmic streams after landing the strike.
Disgruntled and confused, the robotic leader stood back up, shaking its head to calibrate itself after the forceful punch. It then raised its head up towards where its prey once lay, but now there was a different sight.
Across from the android commander stood Tachyon unmasked, his short blonde hair waving in the wind and his pupils shining bright blue in his irises swarming with plasmic streams. His arm extended out in followthrough, and behind him hovered both Intrepid and unveiled Eidolon with her hood down for it was no longer needed, allowing her silky black hair to be fanned in the wind as her purple eyes stared open, her mesmerizing irises like a galaxy with white specs amongst purple nebulas. All three of them glared straight at the commander, and beside Tachyon rose Furcifer, getting back up without seeming damaged even after the powerful slam, his black hair blowing in the wind as he glared, the entire team now full of expression, and all that expression had just become evermore daunting.
After bringing his arm back, Tachyon let out a sigh and expression of relief before reckoning, “Exgsta, that’s his doing isn’t it?”
Behind Tachyon, Eidolon faced forward with an exuberant smile while suspecting hopefully, “I knew he could do it.”
Standing across from the four, the robot leader straightened its posture, but right behind it rained another group of deactivated androids, which were scattered from the impact, reducing the army by a force not even on the same side of the world.
That force was inside the facility, sprinting down a narrow hallway which had server computers all along the wall in transparent casing, just like the background of the video. In each of the intruder’s hands were a small metal stick which appeared like a typical harmless laser pointer, but consistently firing out of both pointers were concentrated red laser beams which seamlessly cut through the casing and incinerated the server computers inside, burning them with a single contact.
He didn’t need to move his arms, he just had to run forwards and allow the beams to cross paths with the computers, which was enough to destroy them. He kept running forwards, approaching an intersection in the hallway the further he moved down.
On the right hall of the intersection, an android stepped forward, blocking the intruder’s math. It raised its hand up at Meditat, priming a blast.
The android was struck in the head by a sudden spear on a metal pole with a crystallic tip, which pierced the skull and caused the android to fall backwards before it had time to fire.
Over the dismantled guard’s body, Meditat stopped in the center of the intersection, and glanced on both sides to see more rows of servers that stretched on for further down long stretches, which would take time to get through each.
Instead, Meditat brought his arms together in a cross with his hands slightly open, and from each hand flames burst out, and he fabricated silver disks in each hand the shape of a frisbee, each of which had a blue circle on the top where the logo could be.
He then threw both frisbees in opposite directions down the long hallways in perfect throws, and as each of them flew down the halls flat, electric arcs emerged from four edges of the disk, and all of the tips were joined by an electric ring that widened the frisbee’s reach to the width of the hall. Both disks flew past the server computers, but as they did, the electric rings somehow appeared through the transparent casing and struck the computers, causing them all to begin sparking before their red lights would flicker and die out.
Meditat then continued his sprint forwards as he approached two more androids who were in the way of him entering another room, and both prepared to fire at him. The android in front then was struck by silver kunai in the head which then sparked, electrically charged, and the second android was slammed by one end of another metal nunchuck charged with electricity, connected to the other half by a blue energy cable, sparking the android in the face.
Both collapsed at the same time as Meditat ran forwards, his right arm holding the other end of the nunchuck. He then vaporized the nunchucks, and raced towards the exit of the hallway, which led to the next room.
More android bodies fell from above as more were shut down, collapsing behind the leader who stood in front of the four, prepared to fight.
Furcifer leaned forwards, and nodded his head with a determined gaze. Beside him, a blue streak raced straight past him, and grazed past the robotic leader, who stumbled backwards as though struck. The streak then stopped, and then raced at a different angle towards the group, yet distant from them. He stopped again, and then raced towards the leader, grazing it again and stopping further past the leader, who stumbled again, revealed to have cracks in its metal hide as though every graze was a strike.
Behind the leader, the streak raced in a straight line, still behind the leader, and stopping short once again, only moving in odd straight lines. After stopping, it then raced straight through the leader, zooming right past it and returning to the team.
After the flurry of strikes, the resulting path formed by the blue streak was that of a drawn star, as he had made a pattern with his punches, placing the leader in the center to take all of the intersectional hits.
In the center of the star, the robotic leader’s metal shell was extremely cracked as bright red light shined through the openings. It gazed forward with cracks on his torso and limbs, stumbling forwards after being heavily damaged.
Inside the stronghold, Meditat raced into another large room with a similar architectural design to the first server room, cylindrical in shape with rings of servers in the center and bridges farther up. On the upper bridges were multiple androids, who all aimed their hands on Meditat, and started blasting at him in synchronicity. Below them on the main floor was another horde of machines, also primed against their sole target.
Meditat dashed in a strafe, right below the bridge. He then began sprinting around the edge of the room, and flames bursted in both his hands, forming a pile of pebble-sized pellets in his left hand as well as a sleek sword with a blue energy blade in his right hand.
Among the team, Intrepid threw her arm forward, and with one swipe countless metal chunks of armor broke right off of the leader, being thrown backwards and unveiling exposed wiring and skinnier shells only meant for specific components, as the machine had been cracked right open by the flick of an arm. Red glowing capacitors and batteries beaconed in his body, completely vulnerable, to which the leader staggered backwards.
Racing around the server room, Meditat began to toss the piles of pebbles at the bridges above while he made slashing motions with his right blade towards the machines on the ground. As each pebble struck the bottom of the bridge, they explored in a burning flash, destroying not only chunks of the bridge but the ones standing on them while at the same from the energy blade of his sword projected blue vibrant streaks curved just like the blade that it came from, which struck their intended targets and cut them in half.
He continued around the edge, evading blasts from the other side of the room, running at irregular pacing to remain unpredictable while another pile of pellets manifested in his open hand for another bombing from beneath.
In the city, Eidolon brought her arm up in an upward swing, and from the ground a purple streak struck the robotic leader from below, throwing it up several feet in the air as the sun shined on its exposed circuitry.
After making the full round, Meditat chucked the final pile of pebbles up in the air, causing an explosion after it struck the final guard. At the same time, he hacked at the final android on the ground by the center, a diagonal slash downright that cut through the head and torso before being crushed by the debris collapsing from above. Meditat then made a dash for the center and made a second cut on the last machine with the energy blade, albeit this time with the physical blade rather than a released projection downleft.
Passing the sliced machine who fell apart in four distinct pieces after having the ‘X’ cut embedded through its body, Meditat relinquished his weapon into flames and leaped high up in the ground in a blue streak, arcing towards the center of the room. He raised his arm back, and the crystals on his knuckles began to shine brighter, being charged greater.
Standing in front of the flung invading leader, Furcifer bent his knees before leaping up in the air. He aimed his left arm at the leader, and fired his grapple’s sharp anchor straight into the android’s collarbone, which penetrated through the wiring.
In his other gauntlet, a black blade extracted, shining under the sunlight as both leaders knew what was about to happen by the merciless glare given by the protector of mankind.
Diving down from above towards the ring of servers, Meditat threw his arm downward, which flashed bright frosty blue.
Launching up from below towards the machine leader, Furchifer jerked his left arm back, which yanked the leader towards him speedily.
Landing on the surface, Meditat drove his fist straight into the center of the room, resulting in a substantial frosty discharge that consumed the room, eradicating the server computers all in one swift move.
Landing face to face with the droid, Furcifer drove his blade straight through the neck of the leader, resulting in a clean sparking slit that beheaded the machine, eradicating the leader all in one swift move.
Standing amongst the frosty explosions that swept the computers, Meditat stood tall over the remains of the droid’s control.
Standing amongst the rain of all final machines, Furcifer stood tall over the remains of the droid’s army.
In perfect harmony, the uprising was shut out together, on different sides of the same world, at night and day. At last, victory had been granted to The Shield, all five of its members no matter how far apart.