"Can we just fly there, please?" groaned Tessara. "My legs are gonna fall off"
"As I had previously informed you, my thrusters are no longer in operable condition," responded Xarne.
"Can't we just take the energy out of Vera's bike and put it in you?"
"I do not run off of eloq power. I have my own unique power source."
"Well, can't we just use it to charge your power source?"
"Not how it works, Tessara," I retorted in a tired voice.
"Of course not," she exclaimed with a sigh. "So, how long until we get there?"
"I don't know. My wristech is damaged. You're guess is as good as mine."
I flipped my arm up to view the damage to the device. The screen was smashed completely, but that seemed to be the only damage. On the surface. Who knows what the internals looked like? Great, another project. I totally need more of those.
"According to my global positioning system — better known as a GPS — we are one mile away from the city known as Rubic."
Tessara let out a fake cry.
"Oh quit your dumbass crying. It could be way worse," I snapped.
"You don't have to be so rude! It was just a joke."
"Oh, I'm sorry. You're right, I have no reason to be in a bad mood. I only had the last person who I considered family die, then traveled who knows how many miles to some random city just to find out that the city I now call home is on the verge of destruction, and in the process of learning that I fought who knows how many soldiers, then I had a fun little reunion with my long lost sister who was presumed to be dead, which got a girl killed and nearly got both me and you killed. Then I was stuck in a jungle for a day, where I nearly got stuck in a house full of spiders and now have walked for twenty four miles on a dirt road. And during all of that, I haven't even taken one shower or had one decent meal. So yeah I'm just a little upset right now, and tired, and hungry, and stressed."
Tessara fell silent and that continued until we made it to the city of Rubic. We were definitely quite a sight as we walked through the city, all three of us torn to shreds, beat up and covered in dirt and dust. I'm sure Xarne carrying my bike over her head wasn't helping keep us at least a little bit discreet.
At this point, I didn't care. My only concern was getting back to Nazul. Hopefully before things get even more out of hand.
I bought a new back tire for the bike and had it installed at a vehicle shop in the city. We then took the boat back to the city of Sheidar.
Once again, I hung my head out the window of the boat so I didn't die of dizziness.
I stumbled out back onto the continent of Elegar. About twelve hours left until we make it back to the city of Nazul and we didn't have a second to waste. The only thing is the bike could only carry two of us.
"I have no idea where to put you."
"I can squeeze into a box and you can tie me to the back." She exclaimed, with a twitchy smile.
"Um — yeah, I guess that can work. Are you sure you are ok with that?"
"I'm a remnant. I am designed to do all sorts of things humans cannot, I will be fine."
With that, we attached Xarne to the back using some leftover rope I had.
The ride back was pretty uneventful, which was surprising given the last few days. Well that was until we made it to the mountains.
"Nazul is just on the other side of this ridge, and from there it's a straight shot."
"Oh, thank god. I'm so sick of this bike."
"Yes, this is actually quite uncomfortable," said Xarne
"You told me to do it."
"I understand this, but this seems to have been an error in my judgement."
"Yeah, well, too late now," I said, turning my head to look back at her.
"Vera, watch where you're going," Tessara said as she gripped onto my stomach harder.
"Ow! Stop squeezing so hard, you idiot. Do you want to fly off a cliff?" I said, pushing away the urge to elbow her.
"Vera, look."
"Yeah, yeah I get it. I'm looking." I turned my head and immediately brought the bike to a stop.
I propped us up on my bike with my leg and stared out at the land and city before us.
Smoke billowed out from several buildings, and minor explosions were going off on the ground level and even on some higher levels of buildings.
I felt Tessara wrap her arms fully around my stomach and put her face on my back. I couldn't tell if it was cold from the mountain air or wet.
"Hold on tight." I then pulled back on the throttle and the bike lurched forward.
"Hold o-WOAHHHH!! CALM DOWN, ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL US?!!!"
I ignored Tessara's yelling and flew down the road that wrapped around the mountain until we made it to the ground. Then I floored it. The front tire kicked up and we shot down the road.
The area surrounding Nazul was mostly desert, with a few small patches of trees here and there. Outside of the desert was a circular wall of mountains, almost like a shield from the world around us.
We made it to the edge of the city in a matter of minutes. The outskirts seemed relatively tame, no one panicking too much. So whatever is going on must've just started — meaning we have a good chance to minimize damage to the city.
First, we have to figure out what is causing this.
Right as I finished that thought, one of Artech's bots landed in front of, us forcing me to slam on my brakes.
"That's one of Artech's new models, the AMTI." Right as I said that it aimed its arm at me and it transformed into what looked like a cannon. It began glowing and spinning.
"AMTI? What does that stand for, seems like a weird-woahhhh!" I jerked the bike hard to the right and pulled back on the throttle hard. A loud explosion ran out and I turned back to see the place we were just at charred and the bot was flying after us.
"They appear to be hostile," said Xarne in a calm tone.
"No shit," I yelled.
"Geez, why are you driving so aggressively today?"
"Tessara just shoot the robot before it shoots us please."
"Alright, fine." I felt her slowly wiggle herself as she said that until we were back to back. BANG! BANG! BANG! Tessara started firing her pistols like crazy, lighting the robot up with lead as it flew at us. I heard a loud crash and then felt Tessara switch back around.
"You got it?"
"Duhhh."
"Just making sure, last time I had you shoot something you gave your guns to someone else to do it for you."
"Yeah well…who cares. And that was like ages ago anyways."
"That was yesterday."
"Yeah, well, you needed Xarne's help to fight off the spider because you left your sword," she remarked.
"Um, you needed her help, too. You didn't have your guns."
"Yeah, yeah — let's not sweat the small details."
I rolled my eyes and continued further into the city.
The robots began appearing more and more.
From what I was seeing, they didn't even seem to have a goal They were just shooting and killing indiscriminately. If the goal was to gain control of the city, then why are they attacking the citizens? This makes no sense.
We drove through the streets as AV's were evacuating people.
Tessara kept firing at any robot she could see as we zoomed through the city.
A sharp metallic noise rang out directly ahead of us. One got hit and its thruster exploded, sending it right over our heads and crashing in a huge explosion.
As we continued, I noticed the robots were primarily white and black, but some had colors on them. Some had red stripes, or yellow, or blue.
"Tessara."
"Yeah, yeah I know," she said as she continued firing at every robot in our path.
We bolted down the streets toward Artech tower. I was dodging panicked citizens, vehicles, and corpses of both people and robots.
We were making slow progress in the chaos, but still moving forward easily enough.
I then whipped us around a corner and a bolt of lighting exploded in front of us shaking the ground, followed by several precise volleys of gunfire. Two familiar faces with blonde hair turned towards us.
"Hey, guys!"
"Took you long enough!" yelled Eliana as she socked a robot square in the face, crumbling its face plate and sending blue sparks shooting down its body to the ground.
"What's going on?" I yelled at them.
"I have no clue!" yelled Colt, "We knew they were gonna take the city by force, but we didn't expect it to be this soon, let alone attack citizens."
"Yeah, we just started hearing screaming and shooting and then walked out into this shit show," said Eliana.
"Where's the rest of the guild?" Asked Tessara, shooting at another robot nearby.
"Scattered," replied Colt.
"Scattered?"
"Yeah, this city ain't exactly a pool party." He said, firing off a few more rounds.
"You got an extra air cartridge?"
"Yup here you go!" Shouted Eliana as she tossed one his way.
"Pool party? I like parties," replied Xarne.
"Yeah, uh, sure. Is this happening all over?" I asked, ignoring Xarne.
"Yeah, the whole city seems to be covered in these bots. The police and other corporation's militias are doing their best to evacuate and get the situation under control, but as you can see, it's not exactly working," said Colt.
"We don't have the manpower to fight a force of this size," yelled Eliana as she shot several more arcs of lightning into the sky at bots passing overhead.
I looked around. What is Artech's goal? What do they get out of this?
"Vera, if you know something, we need to know now!" yelled Colt as he reloaded his rifle.
"Your guess is as good as mine. We need to get to Artech tower. The answers have to be there, with Seran."
"Alright, we'll cover you as best we can"
"Tessara, get on."
"On it!" She hopped back on my bike and we took off.
Lightning continued to arc over my head as I shot down the street. Robots exploded above us, streetlights sparked around us, and glass from the buildings rained all over the street.
Citizens were running all over screaming, as the robots fired on them. I watched as several were gunned down, staining the sidewalks with blood. Is this what Anasu meant when she said she would ruin our city? I felt my thoughts slowly start to envelope me.
Tessara fired off a few more rounds at another robot in front of us.
I snapped out of that thought.
Who cares what she meant? Right now, the only thing that matters is that we make it to Artech tower and stop this.