The entrance was lifeless; Bodies, craters and debris littered everywhere for the next thousand feet. None the less they continued their charge and ran into their first enemy. It was a six gold ridge and he was mortally injured. He was missing his left arm and most of his left half was horribly burnt with skin melting off. The left half of his lower jaw was missing and he had pieces of debris lodged into his body. Alina, taking advantage of a weakened opponent, took one of her Katars and jammed it up through his jaw and out the top of his skull. Then quickly pulled it out as the Six Ridge collapsed and she ran on.

The two could hear the main army starting to open fire to their left and in front of them Drake heard the sound of heavy machinery starting up.

“That Giant Robot thing is starting up.” Drake warned Alina.

“Just how good is his hearing? That machine is a few miles away.” Alina thought to herself.

“Shall we stop it before they can get it fully functional?” She asked rhetorically.

Drake smiled and they headed off. Outside of killing all who stand in their way, they have no other objectives or rules. They knew others would be there and they would be powerful. So that’s the direction they headed. Just a few seconds of running and they started to see parts of the base not hit by mortar shells or debris. Derek had sent more than just ten, but only ten were sent to the southern entrance that Drake and Alina entered. Almost instantly they ran into a group of normal humans ready to fight. Both Drake and Alina had the same idea and they pulled out their two pistols to quickly take care of the group.

As soon as the humans noticed them, the two jumped into the air to break visual contact. They both fired a shot from each of their guns and hit all four of their targets in the head, dropping them instantly. Just before they landed, Drake holstered the pistol in his right hand, and drew his Demons Heart blade. He landed on top of the fifth human and stabbed through him as they crashed to the floor. He rolled off, picking up his sword with his tail along the way. Drake quickly fired off five more shots dropping all five targets as Alina crashed down on a different human and shoved her gun in his mouth. With a demonic grin on her face she pulled the trigger and blew his brains out. She quickly stood up and fired five shots from each gun. As each shot fired she quickly acquired a different target using her new eyesight. As she moved her arms all around her body she even hit targets behind her. She killed all but one target that ended up getting hit in the leg. With the entire group of sixteen eliminated in just a few seconds, the two reloaded their guns. Drake only needed to reload one since he only fired just one shot out of the other gun. 

They got ready to continue on when they heard moaning from behind them. They looked back to see the one who survived. Excited, they looked at each other and smiled and headed over to their next victim.

He was trying to escape, but made too much noise in the process. Looking back, he saw Drake and Alina slowly approaching him. He panicked and tried to grab his gun, however, Drake stepped on his hand and crushed it. As the poor guy yelled out in pain, Drake let out a maniacal laugh. While he laughed Alina kicked him in the side and the sound of breaking bones could be heard. The force of her kick had broken his rib cage and impaled his lungs. He coughed up some blood from the impact and was falling into shock.

“Hun, let’s get some info out of him.” Alina suggested.

Drake looked at the poor soldier. He had since stopped laughing but now donned a twisted grin, eyes narrowed with insanity.

“Okay.” He said as he squatted down next to the soldier.

“What’s that giant robot, and how can we stop it?” Drake asked methodically.

The soldier was too far into shock to be able to answer. Drake dropped his head after a few seconds of no response.

“Good. I like that.” Drake said quietly.

Drake located the gunshot wound and jammed his thumb into it. The soldier let out a yell in pain.

“I’ll only make it worse for you if you don’t talk.” Drake promised.

“I…. I don’t… know.” The soldier managed to muster out.

“Well, ain’t that just a shame.” Drake said with his demonic grin.

Next Drake grabbed the upper arm with both hands and snapped it in half. The guy was now screaming in pain, which only served to make Drakes smile grow even more. Now that Alina knew they wouldn’t get the info they wanted, she wanted to get going and cleared her throat to get Drakes attention. She gave him an inpatient look that said she wanted to go. Drake sighed, pulled out his gun, shoved it down the soldier's throat and pulled the trigger; finishing the poor guy off.

After he stood up, they continued to where they had last seen the machine, the rest of the way was strangely quiet. They figured it was because the main army and other GenOpS were causing some chaos and drawing their attention while they were just a two man army.

After a few more minutes of running, they got close enough to the robot to make visual. And Alina then understood how Drake could hear that thing from several miles away with all the other noise. It was loud, very loud. And the RidgeBacks had managed to get it to sit up now. When they looked, they saw someone inside of it, controlling it from inside. Now it made sense to the two, they couldn’t figure out how they would operate such a complex machine, but now they understood. None the less, they had to stop it before it was fully activated.

Alina turned to look at Drake, but he was busy running plans and calculations through his head. Sure the easiest way would be to kill the operator, but as soon as he saw them coming he would close the cockpit; leaving no way to get to him. And if the robot fully activated, Drake had no idea what it would be capable of. However, with all the RidgeBacks surrounding the machine, some of which have three or more Gold Ridges, he knew beating them all would be impossible. So as a last ditch effort he called up Derek.

“Yes?” Derek answered.

“Can you drop a few mortar shells a quarter click north of my location?” Drake asked.

“What for?” Derek wanted to know.

“We are at the location of the robot, but it is surrounded by too many GenOpS. We can’t take them on alone.” Drake answered.

“What about the other two?” Derek asked.

“We got split up.” Drake lied.

“I see. Ok I’ll send them out in thirty seconds. What are your coordinates?” Derek asked.

Drake snapped his fingers for the map. When Alina handed it to him he opened it up and looked it over.

“Sector Zulu point nine five five.” Drake answered.

“Rodger. Sending shells” Derek responded and hung up.

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

Forty-five seconds later, Drake heard the whistling of the shells and watched as they blew up right on point. After the dust settled and much to Drake and Alina’s shock they saw the machine was unscathed. Everyone else around them had been killed by the mortar fire but the robot was fine. Worse is that the cockpit had been closed and the robot was starting to stand up.

“We got to eliminate it now!” Drake commanded and took off.

Alina was left behind wondering what he had planned and how they would take on something so huge. Still though, she trusted and ran after him. Along the way five lower GenOpS and twenty humans came out to try and stop the two from charging in. The first GenOpS threw a punch at Drake hoping that the force of the punch plus Drakes momentum would stop Drake. But Drake saw it coming from a mile away and blocked it with his right hand. He then quickly spun his hand around to grab the GenOpS wrist. As soon as he had a hold of it, Drake used his left palm to break the elbow. Not stopping there, he bent the arm all the way back until the GenOpS hand was touching the back of his shoulder and then Drake flipped him on to the floor. After landing with a thud, Drake quickly stomped on his head, crushing it under foot.

The two seconds it took for Drake to take out the GenOpS was all that Alina needed to catch up. Once she did, she quickly drew her Katars and got into the squabble. She was amazed at how slow they were moving as she stabbed one of the GenOpS in the stomach and opened her Katar, cutting him in half. She quickly wrapped her tail around the throat of a human coming up from behind her and slammed him into the ground hard enough to break his neck. Seeing that three more humans were coming up from behind her, she threw her Katar at one of them, impaling him in the chest and throwing him back a few feet. Then she shot shot the other two in the head, killing them instantly.

The couple wanted to end this quickly so they could get to the robot as quickly as possible, but they still had three more GenOpS and fifteen humans left. So Drake activated his eyes to finish things as quickly as possible. Since the group's strongest is only a Six Ridge, he figured none would know aura manipulation; and he was correct. None did know aura manipulation, so when the Six Ridge came in after Drake, he ducked out of the way, drew his Demons Heart and cut him in half. From there he jumped into a group of five humans, and using his tail tripped one up. After he landed with a thud, Drake stomped on his chest caving it in forcing a spray of blood and liquified guts out of every opening. From there, Drake used his martial arts to kill the remaining four as quickly and efficiently as possible. The first one charged in and went for a leg tackle, in hopes of dragging Drake down. However, he couldn’t even grab Drakes leg; Drake kneed him in the face with more force than he normally uses and blew the soldier's head off.

As Drake finished, three more charged him and one from behind, one from his right and one from his left. Making a few adjustments his body position so all three would reach him at the same time, Drake got ready. When they got close enough, Drake ducked low and dished out two shots to the gut to the ones on his left and right. As they were sent flying away, the third one was tripping over Drake, who pushed him up with his tail. Now as Drake stood up he raised his left elbow and connected to the chin. The blow forced the GenOpS into the air to which Drake responded by grabbing his head with his right and and smashing it into the ground.

With all his GenOpS dead, Drake only had eight more humans to deal with, but they were running out of time. With a quick glimpse he saw that the robot was starting to stand. It was moving slowly, but it was moving. When he looked back at the humans, they were starting to scatter and run away. The only way he would be able to kill them all was by shooting them as they ran. So he drew his two pistols and opened fire; killing his last seven with head shots.

At the same time Alina was also in the middle of a fight. She was taking on the last two GenOpS and last ten Humans. To her the fight was simple since she could see everyone it was easy for her to predict who would do what and counter it, even with her fighting as many as she was. While she was fighting she was also keeping an eye on Drake, looking for signs of his exhaustion so they could help each other out if needed. But she realized that the way he fights is a little different. He took some of the moves the Gold Ridge used against him and incorporated it into his own fighting style. Now his flexible, powerful, but simple style had fluidity. He was never rigid, but his old style lacked any fluid motion and relied completely on his powerful body, but now his moves connected and flowed with each other instead of looking forced to mesh. But Alina couldn’t keep her focus on Drake for long and had to get back into her fight.

The two GenOpS and three humans had surrounded her while she wasn’t paying attention and began their attack. The first one to reach her was one of the GenOpS and he threw a punch. Alina leaned back just enough to dodge the punch and grabbed his arm. Swinging her body around the captured arm she wrapped her legs around his neck threw him to the ground with a thud. Along the way she used her tail to grab one of the humans and dragged him down as well. After landing Alina quickly broke the GenOpS arm and rolled over onto the human. She bashed him in the head with a full forced punch and crushed his skull. In the meantime another human jumped on her back to which she reached back and threw him to the ground as well. She saw another two coming, So she grabbed the throat of the soldier she had just thrown and used her tail to do a quick handstand as the two tried to tackle her. The weight of Alina all focused on the soldier's throat caused it to collapse. As she came back down onto the two who had tried to tackle her she drew her Katar with her free hand and stabbed it through the two.

Immediately Alina charged for her other Katar she had thrown. Along the way she passed the GenOpS she had broken the arm of and soccer kicked him in the face with enough force to rip his head from his neck and send it flying like a soccer ball that hit one of the soldiers and killed him as well. Once she had her second Katar she sheathed them and drew her pistols and quickly killed the last six humans, leaving the one GenOpS.

The GenOpS was shaking in fear of Alina who was covered in the blood of her comrades. Alina, sensing her fear, charged the last standing GenOpS. She got ready for the fight, but when Alina was only a foot away she slid under the GenOpS and broke both of her knees. Collapsing to the ground the GenOpS started screaming in pain. Next Alina grabbed both of the GenOpS’s arms and pulled them back. Putting her foot on the back, she pulled the arms back and then together; breaking both shoulders. Holding the arms with one hand, Alina reached back for a Katar and jammed it through the GenOpS back. The blade exploded out of the chest with a mist of blood and bone fragments.

It only took but a minute for the couple to wipe out the group of twenty. But the two were once again out of breath. They knew they couldn’t keep up for much longer, so they needed to hurry up with the robot. When they looked its way, they lost all hope. The robot was now fully stood up and approaching them, luckily it didn’t seem to have any weapons.

“You ready for this?” Drake asked still trying to catch his breath.

“As much as you are.” Was her similar reply.

Drake just laughed.

“Let’s rock.” He said and charged in.

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Hey Guys,

Sorry about all the weird ass posts and double postings. When they updated the site last week it fucked with the thread. It caused a solid brick of words and wouldn't allow me to space them, then started adding source code to the thread... it was nuts. Anyway, I should have it all fixed up now and everything should be good to go.

On a second note So I have a small favor to ask of you... Since I don't know how to create a poll with the new website I'll just ask you to leave a comment. I wanna know what character is your favorite. Or if you feel no connection to the characters, a reason would be helpful so I can develop them into characters you feel something towards... Love or hate them I wanna know. It would be truly helpful for me to develop the characters if i have an idea of how you guys are feeling towards them. Yes I am very aware that my characters are crazy and mentally broken with a moral compass that points south. They can even be called villainous or evil, but everyone has a favorite villain. So some feedback would be much appreciated guys. I promise to use the information to help develop the characters in future chapters