chapter 104
POV: The Black Sunbone gang leader
“It seems that the Violets are still holding back. They have not pushed into this upstart's territory and have even stopped probing attacks.”
“Vera, as I said, they are cowards. We should have long ago taken their territory.”
The short-sightedness of my lieutenants sometimes really made me want to replace them all.
“Or they are conserving their strength.”
“Boss, why on the green sky would they do that?”
I tried to take a deep breath in. It's not worth it, don’t do it, but I just couldn’t let that one go. My hand struck the table, making everyone jump.
“The answer to that is so obvious that it pains me you didn't think of it. Yes, we are finally making progress, but we have exhausted quite a lot of resources. When we come out victorious, but exhausted, we would be an easy target, would we not?”
That shut him up. Their species is always being a bit too short-sighted. It is also what makes them such great fighters. They just seemed to be so lucky during battle, but it’s just their decision-making being so well developed for such actions.
I indicated for Vera to continue, and so he did.
“The Marlois have pushed in like we have. They have control over an entire suburb on the west side where we have one on the east side. We are somewhat coordinating our attacks to cut down on the numbers advantage our opponents have.”
“Tell me, Vera, now that we know our reluctant allies better, is there a chance to negotiate borders before we get close to each other?”
“Their leadership seems quite unstable, and I don’t mean in the sense that they might lose their position, I mean in that they are beyond mad. Unfortunately, I do not think we can get a peaceful solution in the future.”
I looked into the eyes of the others to see what they thought of this. Some seemed to relish the idea of more fighting. Personally, I wasn’t against it, because we have grown a bit too soft as of late, as this war has shown.
“Squeeze our clients more. We need to start building up resources for the next stage. Currently, we are up against an enemy that seems to be able to replenish their forces incredibly fast. We need to crush them fast. So all of you need to get back out there; using our grunts will just lead to more losses.”
We were about to disperse when all of our phones went off. As I pulled mine up I couldn’t believe what I was reading.
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“There is no way, the Fire Twins are dead?”
“I’m going to end those bastards.”
“All of you sit back down. We will confirm this before we move. You know that they have excellent hackers on their side; this might just be one of their ploys.” This calmed things down, but this could be quite bad.
Our technicians worked furiously to get us a proper visual of what happened.
“Show it on the big screen,” I told them when they said they had a video of what happened.
The screen illuminated the dark room, showing the Fire Twins and their squad guarding an equipment shipment coming in to resupply.
“These new weapons will melt those clankers. Even if they send 200 of them our way, we can just make some nice melted art.”
“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. It’s really disturbing how you like to keep statues of those melted robots. I think you need to find a woman?”
Their talking was interrupted as gunfire erupted. The bullets simply melted away from the twins' fire barriers.
“They're back again?”
“How are they keeping up production of these clankers? Perhaps we shouldn't destroy their factory; it could be quite a good resource.”
Then all of a sudden, their barriers lit up, impacts sending shock waves through them. Both of them almost lost their balance. The amusement on their faces was gone as they concentrated on keeping their barriers up.
Pained cries were heard as others were hit. Finally, the camera turned towards the attackers. There were at least twenty of the regular robots we usually fought, but now there were five others there that looked completely different.
The way they moved was somehow so much smoother. They still seemed to have the same main weapon, but their armour was a lot better.
As we were about to retaliate, we were fired upon from a different direction. The camera turned; There were another 20 there fortunately they seemed to be only the regular kinds of robots.
“Did that ship's captain show up?” I heard one of my lieutenants say. But I didn’t think so, those five also looked like they were robots, but more expensive ones.
The fighting intensified, but we were surrounded. The twins surged out, flying and throwing fire at the enemies. As they got closer, their streams of fire started to melt the regular robots, but the five advanced ones did not waver in their fire.
The twins’ barriers started to become unstable as the five did not yield or die as fast as they should have. It was like they were being attacked inside a portal by a boss monster. That was the only time where I had seen their shields like that.
For a bit there the camera was not aiming at the fight between the twins and the five. When it focused back the fight it was still ongoing. It seemed like the five had better ammunition than the rest of the robots. Those bullets were truly dangerous to the twins, but I believe they will come out ahead.
We all watched in horror as a huge fire explosion erupted from one of the barriers. No one saw where the powerful shot came from. A moment later the barrier flickered out and a body fell towards the ground.
“No, brother!” was heard above all the fighting.
Then another shot, like the previous one. A moment later, the other twin fell, his body lifeless. All of us were in shock; I could only watch as the rest of our people were killed.
The video didn't cut off and now we had to watch them clean up. Then a voice came through the speaker. It was a raspy voice that sounded nothing like a robot speaking.
“Move up the street, let’s clean up everything. Wait, leave them the footage from this camera. Would be a good lesson for them to know what happens if they try to take our territory.”
A moment later the video went black.
Curses and yells started. We definitely underestimated our opponent. Up to this point, we had been fighting their disposable units; now they had finally shown their true strength. This was bad.
“Boss, we're getting reports of multiple missiles in the air.”
Everyone snapped their focus back on what was going on. In just a few moments we got a holographic visual of the town. From it we could see missiles moving from Marlois territory towards the upstarts and, more specifically, towards their base.
“Looks like they truly pissed off the Marlois. And even better, the enforcers will now act, ending the Marlois once and for all.”
For once, he was correct. Most likely they had more of those advanced robots attacking both us and the Marlois at the same time. While the loss of the fire twins was regrettable, this was an excellent opportunity.
“Prepare everyone we have, this time, no delays. We take over as much territory as we can.” I was about to continue, but more missiles showed up, these ones moving incredibly fast.
All of us stared, shocked, as from the upstarts' base dozens of fast-moving missiles raced towards the incoming missiles. We were too far away to hear the explosions, but we could see the red dots meeting each other and disappearing.
In just ten seconds the skies were clear. I fell heavily back onto my seat. Well played, Remi Graves, now the enforcers will take care of the Marlois and you can focus on us.
“Secure our borders. You are all dismissed.”