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===[CHAPTER 8: PLANET NARVA]===

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In a field of hazed orange clouds, with the surrounding jungle on fire, the titan stood. Three red eyes cast a spell which illuminated every shadow on the hillside. Eli was lost in the light, blinded by the red searchlights which enveloped him entirely. Like looking at the face of an angry god. Like looking up at a meteor on its way to collide with the surface of the Earth. He was helpless in the light of the monstrosity. Unable to move, unable to think, unable to act. The red light was stunning, and he’d been made like a deer caught in headlights. Reduced to an ant in the way of a giant. And between Eli and the ant, the ant stood a better chance.

He could feel the seconds tick down. Time froze. Bullets stopped flying. Soldiers stopped screaming. Cries were silenced. Even Omar’s frightened panic had muffled into a low buzz underneath the foggy cloud in his mind. He could see the guns taking aim and getting ready to fire. He didn’t know if he had quite accepted his fate, but he knew it was coming. Red pulsating light filled the gun, and soon it would all be over. He closed his eyes, not wishing to face his demise with lidless eyes.

There was a boom that resonated from behind. And then a shattering of the ground. Eli looked up to watch as a projectile slammed into the already damaged leg of the titan. A fireball ballooned out from the crater of a wound, smoke and fire bellowed out of it. Eli saw a tank move back into cover after firing its round, successfully penetrating the machine’s leg. It exploded with dozens of smaller explosions going off up and down the length of the spindly leg. Hundreds of fragments jettisoned from the machine, debris flying, lost in a shroud of black smoke that followed the monster’s dramatic death. Tipping over, threatening to collide with the ground, and smashing all those who failed to get out from its way. A final blast from its horn, a dying wail.

Eli grabbed Omar and dragged him. The kid was still catatonic, but otherwise he had stopped his extreme flailing and kicking. Knowing that the flimsy wooden plank overhead would fail to protect them from the tons of steel crashing over them, Eli rushed as he dragged Omar by the straps of his vest further back.

Sweat stung his eyes, and he could hear the whir of the machine’s engine from above. The air in his mask fogged the lenses making him sweat even more. His eyes burned for relief. Another horn from the machine, less of a wail this time, and more of a cry. The titan had been defeated, and in its final death blow, would take down as many underneath it as possible. The horn echoed, burning the image of the machine into Eli’s memory. The three red eyes etched into his mind like a permanent scar. His one task to simply keep moving forward, to run from the final suicidal attack of the machine.

His boot snagged on a exposed branch inside the trench causing his tired legs to give way. He fell down, unable to pull Omar. He tried to rebound, grabbing Omar again, but it was too late. The brunt of the machine was going to bury them. Quickly, he placed himself on top of Omar with his back facing the open air of the trench and his head bracing over Omar’s body. There was a loud crash before everything went dark.

There was smoke. A lot of dust. Something heavy hit him in the back. The sound of crashing metal scraping against even more crashing metal filled his ears. Like two trains colliding with each other at full speed. The noise alone threatened to deafen him, but he didn’t dare turn around to look. The world around them shook, the ground itself turned into something more akin to jelly than something solid. He could feel himself being tossed around, thrown, jostled.

Yet, they were alive.

Eli lifted his head when everything stopped. It felt like hours that he was trapped underneath, but he knew that it only could’ve been a few seconds. Everything around them was dark, except for the glow of a fire somewhere behind them. He looked up above him to find that the corpse of the machine rested uneasily over the trench opening, allowing them a small crawl space to escape. Further behind them, however, was a haunting scene, as crooked steel and smoldering fire crushed the place they were just seeking refuge from.

Had he been a second too indecisive, both he and Omar would’ve certainly been crushed underneath the giant.

His eyes rolled down to the kid. He was silent, but regained control of himself. No longer paralyzed, he sat up of his own will. His mask was covered in dirt, fog, and grime. Yet, Eli could see his eyes through the thin plastic. He’d been crying. Trails of tears had cleared pathways through his dirt stained face underneath the mask. But he was alive, and he knew it. The two locked eyes for only a moment, but nothing was said. Only a mutual understanding of relief. Omar had said thank you without saying a word, and Eli allowed himself a moment to breathe. Though the air in his mask was dank, and though the world around them still dangerous, at least they had this one brief moment of respite.

Buried underneath the rubble of a fallen titan, a sanctuary. There they were shielded from the war around them. Where the flying bullets couldn’t hurt them. Where the dangers of war could do no harm. Unfortunately, they could not stay in the oyster of protection forever.

Eli could hear footsteps outside, crushing the dirt of the trench underneath their boots. He heard muffled voices yelling at each other, calling out. After a moment, the voices died down. Until something moved. A chunk of debris from the corpse of the machine was lifted by several pairs of hands. And the dark bubble that Omar and Eli had been trapped under was disturbed by rays of sunlight, though muddled by storm clouds above.

He saw raindrops fall through the widening hole. Drops of water pooled onto the dirt trench and formed pools of water mixed with the toxic orange fumes. Poison water, Eli thought. Like something out of a nightmare. The gas no longer spread through the air but had clumped together into solids that painted the trees and the dirt a rusty-orange. Scum leftover from the gassing of the battlefield.

The debris chunk was raised, and in the opening were prisoners, their masks no longer on. It was the rest of Misfit, whom Eli was relieved to see. They peered in through the dark chamber with their flashlights, until they found Eli and Omar hidden in the darkness. The prisoners pulled the duo out from their bubble, and into the nightmare outside…

They emerged from underneath the corpse of the machine. Eli’s mind pondered over a million questions, but none of them were answerable. All around them, the battle was still going strong. More of the walkers appeared over the treeline, guns blasting. Six in total, with the one Eli narrowly escaped from being the sixth. It wasn’t looking good for the Coalition, the idiotic who hadn’t retreated were being blown to smithereens inside of their trenches as they desperately returned fire. The few tanks that accompanied them struggled to fight back, with one tank exploding into a ball of fire while its crew fell out of the hatches half alive and with their tattered uniforms smoldering into flames.

“Eli! Omar! How the hell are you two still alive?” He heard the voice of Dutch shout through his mask, “Lucky bastards, huh? You ever played the lottery?”

“If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be here.”

“That’s what I’m saying!”

The other prisoners, to Eli’s relief, was the rest of Misfit. Eli counted them all. Dutch, Badger, Cato, and Rafael …

But there was no sign of Matteo.

Quickly, Eli and Omar moved over towards their positions further into the trench line. The two groups met up, finally reuniting at least a majority of their squad.

“Where’s Matteo?” Eli shouted through the mask. He looked desperately into each of their faces for answers, even a hint as to where the missing soldier might be, but all he got were shrugs and half-hearted guesses. He cursed to himself. Every second that ticked by the chance that Matteo had gotten killed grew larger.

The Battlefield was in ruins. Metal husks of the giant robot death machines known to the Phantoms as “Behemoths” were smoldering on the hillside. Orange clouds of still-remnant gas hung close to the ground in mud filled trenches. Pooling into a toxic cesspool of dirt and the orange poison. It had clumped into a greasy substance that stung skin, burned eyes, and left rashes on those careless enough to expose themselves to it. Though the gas was gone, the memories of it remained.

The Coalition counted their dead. Too many. And of the dead bodies, each one more mutilated than the last. Torched by dragons with their bodies burned black. Lying still in a pool of their own blood and spit, their faces chalky and stiff from the gas which had scoured their insides. Those who had been gunned down by the Behemoths. Many others whose clothes remained on the battlefield ground, yet their bodies were missing. Vaporized. Deconstructed and erased from existence, and ultimately, from memory.

Eli’s eyes scanned over their troops. The living were hardly better. Their injuries were horrific. And even those without visible physical injuries had something else wrong within them. Broken and lost. Their eyes stared out into nothingness. They walked around in a zombie-like trance, taking orders silently while the world passed by them. And even among those survivors, fewer still were able to function. He could count on both hands the number of convicts and Phantoms who had given up. Curled into balls within the trenches, among the dead. Perhaps wishing they were one of them? There was a deep sinking feeling among all of them, one foul and gruesome. One of pure terror and grief. It was the knowledge that something was deeply wrong, catastrophically so. And for Eli, he wondered if Matteo had become one of the dead. The horror of the battle, despite their victory, hung over them.

And yet, they would live to see the sunrise once again.

When all was said and done, they were left with only one more job. Find out what the hell was going on.

Regulars detained most of the phantoms, shoving them forcefully into lines and stacks that stood at the center of the base. Armored vehicles and soldiers were being frantically mobilized all around them. The air was still and it reeked of the smell of burning plastic. Palm trees around them stood, some charred, others a dusty orange. Regulars herded the phantoms and prisoners together like animals, they took out sprays and hoses of waters mixed in with something that smelled artificially sweet, a soap of some kind, and sprayed each of the phantoms down with a jet of water. Ridding them of the orange residue and powder that clung to their uniforms, hair, and skin. Hosing them down until they were shivering and cold in the hot damp environment, standing in a pool of their own runoff. Like animals.

The Regulars came in and separated the prisoners by platoon. They had their guns ready to shoot, but they forced the noncompliant into place with prods of electric batons. They made a loud and discernable zapping sound when they came into contact with human flesh and uniform, and that combined with their freshly wet uniforms caused those who were shocked to scream – collapsing on the floor in pain. The others out of fear complied, lest they too were beaten.

But the worst thing to Eli was not the Regulars or their treatment of the Prisoners. Nor even the confusing situation that Eli found himself in. The worst part was that Eli could not get Matteo out of his head. Where was he? Was he among the dead? He asked all of Misfit and nobody knew. He asked other Phantoms, and not a single word came out of anybody’s mouth confirming if they had seen him. He asked the Regulars. At best they said they’d look into it and put out a MIA watch. At worst, they’d tell him to shut up and get back in line.

Two months away from being free, only to be killed at the very last moment. If Matteo couldn’t do it, what would that say about Eli and his six months? The penal unit, a system anyone could enter but scarce few could ever leave. Worst of all, Rafael would have been right. That there was no freedom through obedience. That there was no freedom given, but only obtained by force.

As the seconds turned to minutes, and minutes to hours, there wasn’t a sign of Matteo anywhere.

“This is how they treat victors?” Dutch whispered as they stood in file in front of the main headquarters of the Nexus. Awaiting debrief, and hopefully answers, from the higher ups in Overwatch, “We die on the front lines for them, and they treat us like animals.”

“We’re Phantoms, Dutch,” Cato told him, “Penal unit. We were supposed to have been dead a long time ago.”

“Coming from you, Cato, it’s almost like you want us to die,” Dutch snapped back at him, saying the very words Eli thought true.

Cato shrugged, “There’s a few benefits I can think of. We’re out here, dragged into the unknown, like bloody property, right? Fighting against whatever the hell that thing was. Maybe it’s better if we were dead after all. At least then we wouldn’t be slaves.”

“Fuck you, Cato! I didn’t come all this way just to die!”

“We are all going to die here, Dutch! It’s pointless! And all of you know it! No matter how this ends, we end up as either corpses or slaves. There’s always another mission, there’s always another task. We’ll never get closer to freedom by waiting for it to come. We bloody ought to-”

Cato raised his hands struggling to find a good word. He checked around, looking for guards but none were nearby as he leaned in close to the rest of the squad. His eyes were underlined by dark bags. His blonde hair seemed dull in the sunlight. He had been thinking to the point it looked as if it had a physical effect on his body, “Look, you’ve seen what we just went up against. No matter what Kovic says, I guarantee we will not like it! I’m thinking we run. There’s only one way out of here.”

“Cato, we do that and they’ll track us down,” Eli told him, he tapped the monitor on his wrist, “Remember?”

“As if we fare any better of a chance out here?” Rafael jumped in with an aggravated wave of his hand, “Overwatch doesn’t care if we run, one of us desert they’ll just bring someone else in. They’re so proud of themselves that they don’t even care! If we run, they’ll just mark us for dead and let nature do the work.”

“You can’t know to a certainty,” Badger told him.

“Oh but I do, Badger. I do. Why would Overwatch care? We’re prisoners, we’re supposed to die. They didn’t even give us weapons to fight back! You’ve seen what I’ve seen. The fascists are so fat and high above us that they couldn’t conceive it.”

“Conceive what?” Eli asked.

“That someone like us would ever pose a threat to them. They can’t even imagine it. We’re just a variable to them, numbers on a spreadsheet. As long as they have more prisoners coming in, why should they care if a squad of convicts escape? Right?” Rafael asked the squad. He was nothing if not passionate. He looked from prisoner to prisoner with the eyes of someone trying to convince a crowd to join his suicide pact. It might not have been that way in his eyes though. Eli couldn’t quite tell what was going on through his mind. It was either stay here, or go out there…

Into the forest. Where the dragons and giant robots were. How could running out there be preferable? Especially when there were so many unknowns, so many unanswerable. Truly, only Overwatch knew what was going on. They had stockpiled the weapons, they had put the prisoners to building defenses, they were hastily preparing for a battle. They knew what was coming. They knew exactly what those things were.

“We’ll split up and run! Get out of here! Either we die here, or die out there,” Cato gestured out to the jungle. The greenery of the forest had darkened considerably as noon faded to evening. The branches and brambles concealed something almost sinister in there. Unknown, “Whatever’s out there, if it kills us, then it was inevitable. But I’m not going to die a bloody slave! I’m dying on my own terms!”

Cato looked over to Rafael, who in turn nodded, “If there’s only one way out of here, then it’s us dead. And I’m not dying here.”

“No, no, no!” Eli shook his head, denying it all, “You don’t die free out there. Whatever crazy ideas you've got floating around, get it out of your head! There isn't freedom out there! Are you insane?”

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“You’re starting to sound like Matteo, I think the old geezer’s rubbed off on you.”

“And you don’t think he was right? You’re gonna run? Run where? Out to where those damn robot things came from? You go out there into that jungle and you’ll have died for nothing! You aren’t going to change the Coalition by throwing your lives away! At least here we stand some form of chance!”

“And after all this, you still think they’ll just let us go free?

“What I think is that I’m not ready to commit suicide. You might have given up hope, but I haven’t! I deserted before, ran from my place in Korea to watch my squad get vaporized by a nuke. You think I don’t get it? I spent a month freezing my ass off as a fugitive in a foreign country, and guess where I ended up? Here. You think you don’t stand a chance here in the nexus, you’ll have nothing the moment you take a step out there. Where the dragons came from. And then you’ll have died for what? For freedom?”

“It’s not about dying, Eli. I have nothing left, the Coalition took that all. Death doesn’t scare me anymore. What scares me is living as a slave, and if you’ve got half a mind left in there, it should scare you too. I’m not ready to surrender my humanity to Overwatch. That’s the only thing that the fascists couldn’t take from me. They’ve got my family, my home, my country, but my humanity’s all I’ve got left,” Rafael argued back.

“A bunch of criminal nomads! We’re bloody Phantoms! We were never supposed to make it out of here alive, much less free, and I’ve come to accept that. Everything’s stacked against us here. So why don’t we bloody do something about it? We’ll take our lives back into our own hands,” Said Cato.

And just when Eli thought that it was only them arguing among themselves, there was a crackle from up ahead. The amplified booms of a loudspeaker carried in the hands of Overwatch's top dog himself...

“Prisoners! Phantoms! Pay Attention!”

A familiar voice called out from up ahead. Kovic. Just as before he was standing with a line of Regulars guarding his side, guns brandished. Eyeing down the Phantoms. Kovic didn’t look so happy, despite the supposed victory. He raised the loudspeaker up to his lips after he took a deep breath in.

“You have all successfully defended the Nexus. While this moment would normally warrant a fair amount of celebration, I am afraid that it will have to wait for a… later time. Our work is far from over, especially for you. Moving on from today’s battle, as promised, I’ll debrief you on the situation. I’ll put it bluntly since even I find our situation hard to believe sometimes,” Kovic sighed, “To the 121st Penal Unit, congratulations. You have survived your first day on Planet Narva. You are not on Earth anymore. Instead, you have been transported to an alternate realm, working in conjunction with the Coalition’s Utopia Project.”

Eli didn’t react at first. He hardly registered the words, and the realization blew clean over him. As they did everyone else. It was as if Kovic had said nothing. It washed over their heads like a wave rushing over rocks on a seaside. Perhaps it was so ridiculous that there was a part in his brain that had blotted it out.

Prisoners turned to one another, asking each other questions to which none held the answer. Maybe they just hadn’t heard Kovic correctly? Maybe there was an error in his speech, or he misspoke. Surely.

The Regulars however remained still, not reacting an inch. And Kovic remained as stuffy and bureaucratic as ever. From the little Eli saw of him, he knew that the Major was not one to misspeak. He had planned out his every word, movement, and action beforehand. The regulars and cabal of officers already knew…

“You are all part of an experimental project, nearly a century in the making! I can’t tell you all the details since most of this is still classified, but this is The Utopia Project. A chance to rebuild society from the ground up, the way it should’ve been. You prisoners have been transported from Earth to a new world. Planet Narva. Congratulations Phantoms, you should all feel blessed to be among the few to accomplish such a feat.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You’re lying to us!”

“Quit the bullshit!”

“Oh piss off!”

The Phantoms were arguing, people shouted obscenities, arguing back with Kovic, a chorus of confused and pissed off voices. They forgot what had happened earlier, this was a slap to the face for all of them! Anger boiled over as many of them began to shout!

The Regulars moved in to suppress the crowd, they beat the loud ones, threatened those who even so much as balled their fists. A regular raised his gun, preparing for a full-on mutiny. Eli nervously eyed the crowd, the memories of the massacre upon their first arrival still fresh in his mind. There was a scream, and then a gunshot.

“Everyone! On your knees! Hands behind your bleeding heads!” A regular screamed as he raised his gun at the columns of prisoners. A few other armed guards did the same, while individual guards filtered through the ranks of prisoners with their electric batons out. Forcing prisoners to kneel.

Eli felt a hand on his shoulder, a death grip. He was so out of it that he resisted the hand, before he realized that he was standing, “Wait! Wait no!” Eli shouted out. The last thing he saw was the face of a Regular, before the metal bar of a baton cracked against his face.

The hit was enough to make him go blind, and he fell on his stomach. His head hit the hot asphalt. He could feel something hot trickle on his upper lip, and a strange taste of metal sprinkled on his tongue. Around him, kneeling phantoms. He saw a body on the floor, lifeless. And then he felt another hand grasp his uniform, and force him into a kneel.

He could hardly see, the light of the environment was searing. His nose burned in a dull pain that hung loose from the front of his face, consuming his thoughts and focus. The world around him spinning, slightly uneven. Chaos, rage, fear, burned in the cries and screams of the prisoners. And yet it was all a sea of background noise to Eli, as he watched the world cave in on itself. He felt tears trickle down his cheeks, mixing with the blood that stained his mouth and uniform, drop into a mixture on the hot asphalt ground.

Four more gunshots echoed through the air. And the prisoners fell silent. Again. How many more would die? Between the creatures from the forest and the Coalition’s brutality?

The crowd was silent, save for the wounded who were moaning in pain. An older man was taken from the crowd by regulars, bleeding from his shoulder by a gunshot. Eyes silently watched as he was dragged away by the regulars, and yet not a single soul dared to say anything. Fear had triumphed over them yet again.

The regulars had formed a protective line around the officers and Kovic, with their guns raised. And yet, Kovic pushed himself towards the front. Loudspeaker in hand. With a loose hand, he put his aviators back on, sighing to himself as he wiped sweat from his peachy forehead.

“You have all been selected to travel to another world! I am not lying to you, I am not tricking you, I am not exaggerating. We are no longer on Earth. Not even in the same galaxy, as our home planet. Everything that you once knew, is billions upon billions of light years away. Or, if you’re willing to cooperate with us, a short walk through our portal!”

So, it was a portal. Eli slowly turned to Rafael, and he saw that Rafael’s face had been bruised too. Soaked in blood. There was a singe mark on his uniform where the regulars had electrocuted him. The revolutionary was completely out of it, only just barely holding himself up to keep from collapsing onto the ground.

“Coalition High Command wants this area to be built into a permanent base of operations - and eventually, a colony. Think of yourselves as explorers, adventurers even. Like our great heroes who linked the old world to the new one. Or as the first astronauts, pioneers of a final frontier,” Kovic paused. His eyes swiped around the crowd, “But this will not be an easy mission, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed. Teamwork, Innovation, and most importantly, discipline, will all be required to survive the coming missions ahead. If you manage to succeed, you all will be heroes when you return back home and pardoned of for your crimes, with a honorable discharge from service and a annual stipend.”

But Kovic wasn’t finished, he cleared his throat before raising the loudspeaker up to his mouth once more, “Alternatively, you can partake in the Utopia Project – as citizens of a new world. A better one. I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you the situation on Earth. Caught in the Resource Wars, major storms sinking cities and countries underneath the waves of oceans that grow ever higher. I grew up in a world where you were free to travel wherever you wanted. You could take a plane to go somewhere, watch a movie with your friends, talk on your phones. Freely. And then it all went to hell…” Kovic mused. With a shaky hand, he took off his sunglasses. His eyes squinted in the dank heat of the jungle. His eyes looked… hurt.

Eli was old enough to remember parts of that world. Though he was born on the tail end of the golden ages. He was just a kid when the Space Wars broke out, and when satellites crashed into each other like a great cosmic game of pool. Falling back to the Earth’s floor like a manmade meteor shower. The next morning, nothing worked. Phones were all bricked. Television networks went offline. The radio fell silent. The Internet had faded away into a void of permanent darkness.

In one war, humanity had been brought from technological greats and cast back into a futuristic stone age. And yet it all paled in comparison to what happened during the resource wars. The oil wells dried up, coal reserves burned away, and nations went to war over what little precious resources there were.

“Our planet has consumed itself into chaos. Dragged into infinite warfare over what’s left. And it isn’t getting better. So, you can join us here as we work to build a new home. A better one. One that hasn’t been plagued by famine or destroyed by the systems that be. We’ll build a Utopia. That’s what this is all about. And as long as you obey orders and do as you’re told; you can join with us.”

It was all bullshit.

“Exactly five hours ago, you Phantoms stepped through the portal. Call it the door, the gate, the wormhole, whatever you want. But the point remains that we are a long-long way from Planet Earth. Details are light, most of Project Utopia is classified to you. And of course, nobody on Earth outside of a select few are privy to knowledge of this operation. To keep it that way, you will be here until we are ready to de-classify this information. Until then… soldier on.”

Eli shut in on himself. He heard people saying words to him, and he may have responded, but none of it was memorable. His mind fuzzy, his world had suddenly been transformed. As if he were watching a TV screen, he felt detached. He forgot that he was supposed to be Misfit’s leader. Their torchbearer. When Kovic departed and their next assignments given out, Misfit tried to reach out to him. But Eli couldn't hear them. He was almost vegetative. Alive, aware, but not really there. Nothing felt real anymore.

His boots crunched on the gravel of the base. He felt the bumps of the tiny rocks. He inhaled the humid stench of the jungle. The warmth of the sun embracing him. It all felt like Earth. That’s where they had to be. Kovic was wrong. He may not have lied per se, but Eli knew what he knew. They were on Earth. Plain and simple.

It wasn’t possible. It just wasn’t possible. And yet, as Eli fought back the tears…

It was the only thing that made sense.

Misfit was tasked once again with continuing the fortifications where they had left off while they still had daylight. Around them, prisoners worked. Counting the corpses of those who had fallen, and the uniforms of those who had been disintegrated. It was gruesome just watching the bodies get collected as it was seeing the killings in the first place. Eli was grateful that Misfit wasn't put in charge of corpse disposal. Asides from that though, he was completely silent. The most silent he’d been since he had deserted. Lost inside of his own mind. Misfit around him was much the same. Everybody seemed paler, expressionless, distant and cold. Nobody conversed warmly or even greeted each other. The words of Kovic had given them whiplash harder than anything they’ve experienced.

‘Planet Narva’ Eli thought the name over again and again. Trying to dissect some meaning behind it. A familiar name? A place he had been? Had the past day been just a dream? A long terrifying nightmare that just seemed all too real? One that no matter how hard he tried to open his eyes, kept him ensnared in slumber like a spider’s web? Had he been tricked? Fooled? Duped? Did Kovic figure him to be stupid?

His eyes wandered upwards looked after a grueling stretch of digging. The waning sun was still bright enough to force him to squint, and the beads of sweat dotting his forehead weren't helping with the distinct burn he felt on his eyes. Despite his vision, he saw something. It was a dove, snowy white. Circling the skies above his head. Her white wings basking in the waning sunlight...

While Eli was lost looking up at the bird, Dutch had noticed the dried tears on Eli’s cheek and perhaps seen his tired eyes, “You alright, man?”

“Fine.” Eli lied, peeling himself away from the bird and back to his work.

Dutch nodded. Taking a deep breath in as the two of them looked over the now-finished barrack. A cool gust of wind blew over them. The bright noon sunlight was waning to evening. Darker and cooler than it was when they had arrived, “New world, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“You believe it?”

“I don’t know… It’s the only thing that’s made sense since we got here,” his voice wavered and then broke fully on the tail end of his sentence. His hand immediately went up to cover his mouth as if the twinge of despair that peppered his voice was something to be shameful of. Or disgusted by. His eyes were burning with an emotion Eli was familiar with but didn’t want Dutch to see and his throat felt like closing up.

“Are you sure you’re alright?”

Dutch’s look of concern did little to help Eli understand his own emotions. Everything felt so unreal. Bizarre. Illogical. His entire world had been upended and replaced with something so absurd. Eli couldn’t tell Dutch if he was alright. Not even he knew how he felt.

“It's just that..." he started, trying to find the right words to express himself. But what could he possibly say that would even come close to describing the sinking feeling that remained permanent in his chest? Refusing to leave, no matter how much he tried to forget about the giant killer robot or the gas or the dragons or Planet Narva. No matter how much he tried to convince himself that this was not Narva. This was Earth. It had to be. It couldn't be anything else but Earth. To think otherwise would be preposterous. But then, the only person he'd be kidding was himself, "You know...uh..."

Dutch spat on the ground for a moment, grimacing, "I can hardly believe it myself. But, I don't know. It'd explain the dragons. And the behemoth. So uh, ya know... that's good. We're alive," Dutch's own voice was shaking. Perhaps he felt the same way Eli had?

Eli heaved, Misfit was counting on him whether he accepted it or not. He had to at least make an attempt to connect with them, now more than ever. So, Eli inwardly sighed, glancing Dutch briefly in the eyes, "The world is ending,” Eli said, clearing his throat and sniffed away the tears burning him, “And I feel… nothing.”

He didn't want to let Dutch see him so… vulnerable. Not like this. Eli nodded his head, hoping that the man across would take it as a signal to leave him alone. But Dutch only took a step closer, every step he took made it harder for Eli to keep the tears in, “You don’t have to hide it, Eli. I know. I get it. Really, I do.”

His eyes failed him, and tears spilled out onto his cheeks. Eli hid his face in shame, his breathing erratic, gasping for air. Dutch walked closer, wrapping an arm around his shoulder, holding him close.

Words might fail. But Eli's tears spoke the truth clearer than they ever could.

The realization only cascaded the flow from his eyes.

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>>>[Verifying...]

>>>[Going through File Directory]

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image [https://i.imgur.com/dWDi6nN.png]

==The Revolutionary Department of Intelligence==

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==[WEAPONS OF THE COLD WAR]==

image [https://i.imgur.com/igx1bbd.jpeg]PICTURED: IASW-37A "Terminator" Behemoth, photographed walking across the Kiote Wilderness during the Kiote War

Name: IASW-37A Terminator (Tripod Variant); IASW-37B Titan (Quadruped Variant)

Type: Behemoth (Core Battlefield Fire Support Platform)

Country of Origin: The Greater Avonian Empire

Information: The IASW-40A and 40B (Imperial Army SuperWeapon project) are the latest of the walking superweapons fielded by the Avonian Imperial Army. Though both the Terminator and the Titan variants are often referred to as “Behemoths“ this is a misnomer. Behemoths are the class of heavily-armed vehicles fielded in order to provide either fire support, morale damage, electronic warfare, surveillance, communications, or all of the above (Only the 40B Titan is capable of doing so, with the Terminator lacking the load bearing capacity for the immense weight of the equipment that the Titan‘s fourth leg offers).

Behemoths were developed during the middle of the Sacred War by the Avonian Army. After the war had devolved into brutal trench warfare after the rapid offenses made by the Valdacian and Oranian Order, the allies of Avonia and The Commonwealth searched desperately for something to break through tough Orderite defensive lines, and to liberate Farewind. While the Commonwealth focused on air support and tank warfare in order to outmaneuver Orderite defenses, the Avonians invested fully into the power afforded to them by their ekron-powered magitech industries. The result was the IASW-23 “Big Stepper”, a weapon which changed the very nature of warfare forever. Shattering Orderite lines and morale, and assisting in the eventual defeat of the Orderite powers in the Allies’ favor.

The latest models of Behemoths, The Terminator and The Titan, are two of the most fearsome weapons currently fielded by any armed force on Narva. Capable of turning the tides of battles by their very presence, their usefulness as giants stepping above the terrain gives Imperial Forces a powerful tool to flatten enemy defenses, gain access to maneuverable fire support, and to destroy enemy morale due to their frightening appearance. It is the tip of the Avonian "Terror Warfare" Spear: Warfare through an overwhelming barrage of Imperial firepower, bold offensives, and powerful superweapons, to shatter enemy spirits and flatten organized resistance. The Behemoths have gained a reputation as being near impervious to everything, and the Behemoths have become the defining symbol of Avonia itself in warfare.

Despite their size and fearsome capabilities, they can be killed. Their size alone makes them the target of concentrated fire, and often times the shields that keep the vulnerable head protected from firepower are not enough to last. They are slow, cumbersome, and needless to say - wastefully expensive. They are terrifying, certainly, but by all means ineffective in the logistical cost-to-benefit sense. While this has not deterred terror-minded planners within The Avonian War Machine, who only drum up larger and more fearsome weapons for the Phoenix's disposal, for Commonwealth purposes, we know that they are fragile. Terrifying opponents to come across, sure - but not fully invincible. And due their size, downing just a single one of these beasts would cost the Phoenix an immense amount. It might be enough to change the tide of a war...

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