[Story] Tales of Annihilation -- Latest episode: #29 Blood and Fire IV

Casually bumping this thread.

Looking forward to the next episode.

same here. It should be AWESOME!

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Wild Experiments

Another day passed on the Sanctuary Planet where Aurora and Derrick enjoyed their time spent together. Months followed months, and it had been almost a whole year since the Synchronous and Legonis Machina attempted to take over the planet.

Together they gazed as the nature around the Statue slowly revitalized itself; regaining its former beauty as the plants conquered the gloomy dark scorched soil beneath their feet, transforming the landscape into a flourishing green masterpiece. Flowers opened where the bombs landed several months earlier, harmless animals wandered between the moss-covered wreckage of tanks and bots and planes. The water of rivers was once again clean and beautiful after the hand of time purified it, washing away the pollution of chemicals that gave them various unnatural colors, once again flowing in harmony towards the lakes and seas and oceans.

Lonely fabricators wandered the fields, slowly recycling the wrecked war machines, scattered everywhere across the planet, gathering the valuable metal which then they used to expand the fortifications around the planet, building powerful batteries to defend against future attacks.

The peaks of mountains all filled with potent cannons, aimed towards space, ready to annihilate anything to enter the orbital space around their home. They were monuments of power, and served the safety of Sanctuary.

Inside the fortress, behind the immense walls, around the ruins of the City of Giants, Commander Tybalt was peacefully watering his plants; his garden blooming in diverse colors. At the same time, Jesper and Odin worked on carefully reconstructing the ruined settlement that once gave home to giant sentient bionic creatures. Members of the four factions would think these to be useless actions and served no purpose, but the Nameless Alliance wished to be close to mother nature, hoping that one day they would become just as alive as the flowers they had planted.

In the center of the garden, the mysterious statue of the angel gazed into the distance through her ruby red eyes. The commanders constantly visiting her beauty, to grant them the blessing of life for them to have some moments of joy in a shape of illusion, a dream during which they are wide awake. Each of them knew it well it was fake, but they grew addicted to its use, they wanted to spend more and more time inside their mesmerizing dreams.

Aurora stood on top of a cliff above a tiny spring. She observed as the underwater creatures struggled to climb upward against the flow of water towards the source to lay their eggs. All the same, small and fragile beings with shiny silver scales covering their bodies and a single eye on the top of their heads. It was a race for them – survival of the fittest – the winners get to transfer their genes to the future generations, allowing their kind to exist longer and grow stronger. Unlike the machines who forcefully claim the resources from nature and replicate.

She was in the state of the illusion; in the bionic body of a female giant. She could feel as the wind gently touched her skin and as it played with her brown hair curls. It was all just an illusion, she knew it too well. Derrick was standing beside her, but his illusion had already expired two minutes earlier, so she could only see a dark shadowy figure with bright red eyes.

Moments later, a bright flash of light ended her illusion, too. She was once again in full control of all of her sensors. Her personal interface showed her the exact status of everything – the exact position of the planets within their solar system, the tidal activities of seas, the current temperature of the air around her... everything was available to her instantaneously if she wanted.

Derrick was no longer a shadowy figure. She could once again see him in his true shape. His heavy neurosteel armor full of bruises and wounds that he earned in various battles. He stood proud as the commander who had never lost a single battle. His deadly cannon attached to his right arm most likely destroyed at least a dozen commanders throughout the years in the name of the Legion. But those times were long gone; now he was the member of the Nameless Alliance.

Silence filled the next five minutes, as none of them said anything to the other. The global communication channel was silent, too. Tranquility it was... undisturbed and perfect.

But nothing lasts forever, not even the stars. A lonely transport ship was detected at the edge of the solar system, heading towards the Sanctuary Planet. Commander Hepitus returned, delivering grievous news.

“Greetings, commanders,” Hepitus said, using the global communication channel. “I have returned with mostly dreadful news, sadly.”

“I was afraid of that,” Odin replied. “What news have you brought, and where is Iywin?”

“Commander Iywin remained at an abandoned laboratory that was left behind by the Synchronous. We assumed it was used to study the local wildlife to develop more effective weapons against them. Iywin was hoping to study this information, perhaps it would help us understand more how life works.” Hepitus replied.

“Understood,” said Odin. “And what else did you find during your travels?”

“We found that a new unknown enemy appeared within this galaxy. One that we've never seen before, and it fights the machines, regardless of their faction. We found the remains of battlefields in various solar systems.” said Hepitus.

Tybalt joined the conversation. “We are going to need further investigation into this case,” he said.

“I am now uploading all of the logs to our data centers,” said Hepitus.

Aurora checked these logs right after becoming available – the alliance's satellite system was marvelous for this purpose. Countless terabytes of visual recordings were included, mostly of ground battlefields and some fought in open space. In one of these recordings, she found the dead body of a commander. He was burned out and unrecognizable with a large hole in the center of his chest where something completely pierced his body through. What weapon could be powerful enough to pierce neurosteel like that? She wondered.

The rest of the recordings had shown wreckage of various machines of destruction. The unknown enemy seemed to utilize some bionic creatures; on the field there were countless corpses of huge beetles with cannons mounted on their backs.

“Derrick, Jesper and Tybalt,” said Odin. “You three shall depart for further investigation as soon as possible.”

“Understood,” Derrick replied in the channel as he gazed at Aurora, his machine face clear of any emotions. There was nothing to say, both of them knew they were not going to see each-other for a long time.


[…]


(Continued in next post due to character limit)

Everything was prepared for the three commanders to depart. All settled and within moments, the transporters launched from the orbital station; all three heading to different directions. It only took them half an hour to leave the reach of the deep space radar.

Aurora was standing at the edge of the platform from where Derrick had departed, waiting for her transporter to dock, as she was about to depart, too, heading for the mission of her own along with Hepitus. Hepitus wished to return to the laboratory which they found with Iywin, and requested her to accompany him.

Though, they found a teleporter not too far from the facility, they had no sufficient energy on that side to activate it and establish a link between it and one of the teleporters of their own on the Sanctuary Planet. Aurora's job will be to establish a strong economy around the facility, while Hepitus and Iywin continues to study the Synchronous logs.

Iywin suggested to continue the research that was being done there, but in a different direction than the Synchronous was leading, as he suspected there may be a way to transfer a commander's personality into a bionic body, ultimately reaching their common goal of becoming alive.

The transporter finally arrived. She stepped on board, followed by Hepitus and a group of eight fabricators. Within two minutes, they launched and began accelerating.


[…]


As they descended into the atmosphere, Aurora saw the facility in the distance. It was not very large, yet it still stood out well; a tall building built of metal from foundation to roof. Not overly fortified, and it lacked any defense turrets, but it looked like it could withstand quite a beating. It was built in the middle of a pale flat field with little to no vegetation growing around it. Perhaps there were plants once growing near it, but the researches of the Synchronous may have exterminated all of it. They landed about a kilometer away from it.

As she stepped out of the ship, Aurora could immediately detect rich metal veins nearby. She wondered why would Iywin not head out to claim those, as neither of those were ever mined, not even once, not even by the Synchronous, they were completely untouched.

Hepitus signaled that they have arrived, but there was no answer from Iywin. Aurora became suspicious.

“Perhaps he is just too busy with the research,” said Hepitus. But Aurora suspected that was not the case. Something was wrong, very wrong, she could feel it in the air.

“Iywin never neglected to answer in the past. Why would he do now?” Aurora replied.

Hepitus headed to the facility to find Iywin, while Aurora began the preparations to fortify the area. She commanded the eight fabricators to head off to the metal veins and build extractors; metal will be needed if she was to build a strong enough defense.

Hepitus was about three-hundred meters from the point of arrival, then the facility door opened, and a squad of assault bots charged out, unleashing their full firepower at him.

They caught him off guard, without time to react. They were only eleven, but their powerful shots dealt serious damage to his neurosteel plating. He aimed his cannon towards the incoming enemy and fired off a volley of six shots, hitting three of them, but in the next moment, they scattered, making it much harder to aim at them.

Within moments, Hepitus found himself surrounded by the enemy, desperately trying to fend them off, but they were too fast and agile, despite their heavy armors. His core finally melted down, resulting in a tremendous explosion shaking the ground beneath. The shock wave pushing her back, as she stumbled, struggling to keep her balance. Their transport ship was completely wrecked by a flying debris that flew right into it.

As the dust settled down, three surviving bots headed towards Aurora's position. She had to react accordingly, and quickly... She urgently began the construction of a rapid fire point defense turret, using her nano-lathe gun, attached to her left arm. The turret was finished and ready to fire within seconds, as she pushed as much energy towards the project as she could, almost causing an overheat within her system.

The enemy arrived to the edge of the turret's maximum range shorty, and it instantly fired at them, releasing at least ten projectiles within a second. It destroyed the two nearest, and Aurora shot down the last as it attempted to avoid the turret's volley.

As she inspected the wreckage it was made clear to her that those were the same bots that Iywin took with himself from the Sanctuary when they first departed with Hepitus.

His betrayal shall not remain unpunished, she thought to herself, and immediately proceeded to construct a bot factory to pump out combat units. However, first she needed more metal. There was no time to wait for the fabricators to finish the extraction sites, so she had to improvise. She headed to the wreckage of the enemy bots and reclaimed them with the nano-lathe.

Within ten minutes there was a proper force of fifteen bots awaiting her commands. Aurora wanted to lead the assault personally, striding ahead of her squad, leading them into a not so glorious battle.


[…]


They marched to the gate with absolutely no interference. The entrance and the hallway that led deeper into the complex were completely trashed by Hepitus' explosion. Sparkles of electricity from damaged wires were flying into the air all over the place and flames consuming whatever burnable material there was to ignite.

As they marched deeper into the complex, they found the path was blocked by debris. Aurora and her troops unleashed their deadly firepower, and within moments, the path was walkable once more.

They were nearing the control room, and they charged their weapons, preparing for a firefight. The door was at the end of the corridor, just a few more steps towards, and it opened, activated by her proximity.

Behind the door was Iywin, but he did not attack, and neither did Aurora. He was no longer the machine that departed from Sanctuary; he had... changed. He was half a machine and half a bionic... monstrosity, sitting by the wall, unable to move, gazing at her with three out of nine eyes, while the other six gazed elsewhere, all somewhere else. His neurosteel plates covered in some pink slime that was supposedly his bionic part of his new body. Underneath him some strange colorless goo filled the floor.

There he was, sitting helplessly, not moving, not talking, just watching in silence. Aurora feared to approach him, as she thought the substance would spread over to her. As she scanned Iywin, she found that his neurosystem was actually connected to the slime. He most likely expected to have a bionic body after his experiment, but instead, the bionic part of him took over him.

Aurora walked up to the consoles to download any research data. However, as she was about to connect to the system, she changed her mind. Looking at her former ally. “Is this the price of life?” she said.

She walked away from the consoles, and out of the debris inside the room, she fabricated a self exploding bot, and directed it to attach itself to Iywin's core. She set the timer, giving herself just enough time to leave the planet safely, then ordered her fabricators to gather at the landing spot and repair the transporter...

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Interesting.

Amazing bump.

Wow, that's an interesting turn of events. Great job as usual!

Thank you!

I saw you reserving that post earlier. I have to say... I expected something more... spectacular. Nevertheless, I'm glad you liked it so far.


Sooo... guys... Thinking about writing another little teaser for the next episode. Did you guys like the last one or I should not do any of those ever again?

By the way... throughout the last eight months I created enough content to fill about 186 A5 pages. I'm not sure if I should be proud or be thinking about getting a life.

PS: Feed me your "likes"! I wanna beat the world record of @BradNicholson and I know with your help I can!

I'm relatively neutral to them... but it was fun to read, so +1 to teasers

You mean... neutral to the teasers or the whole thing in general?
Though, the answer might be obvious, it is actually 2AM for me at the moment I post this.

to teasers XD and dayum its only 2230 here

I will try again. Ahem.(clears throat)

Jeez what a teaser! I cant wait to find out more about these new enemies and how they tie into the story with the telians. I feel like there's going to be another large battle as more of the beetle type aliens try to invade the galaxy. Are they going to attack the stronghold on the sanctuary planet? This one was good but the one before might have set the bar a bit too high, kind of like getting a 80 on a math test when your last one got you a 95. Keep it coming though. You are really building up the suspense.

Better?

Awesome!

Without revealing too much, there will definitely be more battles and more of the new aliens.

You know, at first I was really skeptic of a fanfiction about PA, but this is really detailed and well written! Good job, and hope to see the next one soon!

Tactical Bump Inbound !

Ill see your bump and raise you half an hour of fanfiction...

I didn't choose the bump life. The bump life chose me.

Soon ™​

Spoiler: Teaser inside

Thunderbird, a commander of the Progenitor Era found himself lost, floating in space, alone and without the sign of any allies. He manages to repair his transport ship with the remaining resources he had on board, and navigates to a nearby planet...

However, as he reaches closer and closer to the distant celestial body, he realizes it is something different: an artificial planet, made of metal. A remnant of a long lost era from the past, a base that once served a powerful empire, now abandoned and in bad shape.

Thunderbird, having no other choices, decides to land on its surface and look to repair it, but rather soon he finds he is not alone...

I hope you liked this little teaser.

off topic, but: Just wondering, what lead to the nickname "SolitaryCheese"?

Also, great work so far, keep it up! 22 is a lot, might be able to turn into a full fledged novel at some point!