They hustled through the streets towards the rising smoke. It pooled in the air in stark contrast to the otherwise sunny blue sky. A sign of things gone wrong. Edwin wasn’t sure what to expect ahead. If it was a fight, he felt like they should help out anyone from Laramie against whatever their opponent was. But the combatants could be a lot of different groups. If it was the police then Edwin definitely wanted to assist them. It would help generate good will and maybe a favor with whoever was in charge over there.

Without a plan of action besides acting on the action, Edwin led his squad forward.

The streets were empty and quiet. The group didn’t waste time to speak as they matched Edwin’s quick jog. Everyone started when a nearby gun shot rang out. No one was fooled into thinking it was a slamming door or a backfiring car, gunshots had been a dime a dozen recently. No one freaked out, but an air of unease seemed to settle over the group's prior determination.

The sound of nearby gunfire intensified. The din it created was punctuated by a loud boom that rattled the houses around them. Windows shattered and the earth beneath them shivered as the force of a huge impact travelled outward.

Edwin slowed down and turned to look at the others. He saw fear and apprehension on most of their faces. But Teresa stared at him with a grim look, Austin snarled, Jason set his face into a determined frown. Each one of them was looking at him. Edwin might not have proven himself as a leader, but Ava had, and she had asked Edwin to lead this group. That meant something to these guys. So now they were looking to him, to his strength and his wits.

Edwin had no idea what to do.

They were about to walk into a firefight. Those were some pretty serious sounding guns going off nearby, not just the police standard issue 9mm pistol, especially whatever that huge cannon was. Edwin examined his group. They clenched tightly to their spears like lifelines. Shields were raised up and held defensively. These unconscious gestures only confirmed for Edwin that they were out of their depth. Teresa stood at the back of the group, her crossbow drawn and loaded. For all the good one bolt would do compared to the volume of fire they could hear.

They were dressed in jeans and t-shirts. A sweatshirt here and there. They looked more fit for a half assed larping convention than a life or death battle.

Until now, Edwin had been fighting mutant animals and people with medieval weaponry. Now he was about to try and bring a spear to a gunfight. He didn’t like his chances.

The gunfire seemed to be growing louder as they stood there. Everyone stared at him, waiting for an answer. Edwin took a breath and looked down at his hands. White knuckles gripped his spear tighter than anything Edwin had ever gripped and his hands were shaking intensely. The shield and spear moved without input from him.

The group noticed his mounting panic. He was sweating, his heart was beating a mile a minute and his breathing was a rapid, shallow mess. His eyes were wide and his nostrils flared. Edwin couldn't focus on anything.

The others drew back, disgusted and disappointed. Their moods turned to anger. An instinct to lash out commandeered any common sense.

Edwin ignored them, what did they understand? They wanted to rely on him? To make him carry their burden. It’s not like he could magic up a plan that lets them scout the whole area without danger. Walking over there was insane! It’s dangerous. He could die, they could die. He was scared. Why should he even do this? For Ava? Hell no, fuck that.

Without realizing it, his thoughts slipped out. They hung in the air around the group like poison.

Austin stepped forward, breaking Edwin’s rambling. He was trembling, his barely suppressed rage boiled through whatever calm he still held. His eyes were huge and blood shot. Edwin took a step back. Austin threw his shield and spear to the side.

Austin stomped towards Edwin until he got right in his face. “Fuck you!” He roared. “You fucking loser. You fucking baby, I know you could have saved her, if you weren’t such a fucking pussy.”

Austin threw a right hook. Edwin was caught flat footed, and his shield was nowhere near the position to catch the blow. He felt his breath vanish as Austin’s fist hit him in the gut and knocked him to the ground.

“Pathetic,” Jason added in from the background. “We don’t need him. Let’s just do it ourselves.”

Edwin curled up on his side, his face pressed against the cool concrete. His face was scrunched up and his eyes were tight with pain. But he could still see as his group walked away. As they tossed him aside. A small part of Edwin felt betrayed, hadn’t they just been about to trust him?

He thrashed when he felt the small warmth of a hand touch his shoulder. He rolled away and managed to regain his breath. Squinting, he recognized Zoey’s small frame. She looked at him forlornly.

No, Edwin realized. They hadn’t trusted him. They were scared after the centaur fight. But it wasn’t his fault those two died there. They went off on their own. He couldn’t do anything about that. Right now though, that was his fault. He let his own fear of dying get the better of him here. Whatever hope they might have placed in him was ruined when they saw him freak out.

“Edwin, what just happened?”

“I messed up,” he wheezed out. His breath was ragged as he fought to bring it back to normal. “I just messed up in a big way and it’s all my fault. I might have just lost them.”

Another huge boom rattled the road. A tower of smoke blossomed up, more of the city was burning.

“So what are you going to do?” Zoey was quiet, Edwin could barely hear her. But looking at her Edwin realized that Zoey trusted him. He had saved her from the owls and they had fought together against the centaurs, side by side. She knew he could watch her back. So here she was now, standing by his side.

That meant something. This was important to him. Edwin couldn’t recall a single time in his life where someone had shown him such trust, she was putting her life on the line here. He staggered back, taking in the full implications. Zoey was relying on him, at least in part, to keep her alive. Something Edwin intended to do. He wanted the rest of the group to be able to rely on him as well. If he could make that happen then he wouldn’t need to worry about whatever schemes Ava plotted.

Silence grew between them and Edwin realized he had left Zoey’s question hanging in the air.

He stood up and brushed the dirt off his pants. “What am I going to do now?” He asked rhetorically.

“We’re gonna go make sure those idiots don’t die. We don’t stand a chance in the fighting. So, we’re going to do some recon, and then get the hell out. I’m in charge and we are not going to walk right to our deaths in some stupid back lane shootout. Not if I've got anything to say about it.”

Zoey was impassive. Did she like what he had said? Did she expect more of him? He wasn’t sure. But she nodded a moment later and a small smile split her lips. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Edwin was just relieved she didn’t question his moment of weakness. He breathed in and held it for a moment. Another huge boom rattled the surroundings and he exhaled. It sounded more distant. The small arms were fading as well. The fight was shifting away. Towards where the police camp was supposed to be. Already assuming it was the police fighting here, Edwin hoped they didn’t lose. If they lost there would be no point in this entire venture. Unfortunately, it sounded like they were being pushed back by a tank or something.

He needed to go find his team, then skirt around the fighting, and check out the camp. Getting an eye on whoever was attacking them would probably be smart as well. The first step of all of this was to make sure his squad didn’t get wiped.

-Frontrunners-

The gunfire continued to grow distant as whoever was attacking the police pressed them back. Edwin and Zoey were trailing behind that line of battle as they followed. Signs of the fight’s intensity littered the neighborhood. A huge trail led in a straight line from the west towards the police camp. Whatever it was moved right through buildings and left a path of devastation. Huge craters could be found, each one likely the result of the large booming noise.

They came across several dead officers. Each of them was pretty torn up. Each one had a line of bullets stitched across their chest or torso. So many close impacts had shredded them in places, as had the bullets rebounded around inside of them after striking bone. It was unpleasant and their bullet proof vests didn’t seem to have saved them in the least.

Grimly, Edwin grabbed the pistols held in limp hands. Before death could stiffen their fingers he took their guns. Slipping blood slick holsters from their belts was more challenging. Zoey joined without comment and retrieved several spare magazines. Edwin tossed the spare mags and holsters in his backpack before offering Zoey one of the pistols. They stuck them in their pockets as their hands were otherwise full with spears and shields. The guns only partially fit. The grips stuck out by a fair bit. But it would work for the time being.

With their spoils gathered they stood and continued to follow the trail.

They found several more dead officers and none of them had been packing anything more than a 9mm. Edwin supposed whoever had the better guns were the better trained officers. Or maybe they had been obliterated by the cannon shot.

It felt slightly wrong to just take from the corpses and leave them where they were, but this wasn’t the time to respect the dead. Edwin needed to catch up to his team and make sure they didn’t join the officers in death.

Edwin eyed Zoey as she checked on the pistol in her pocket. He had taken a hunting safety course before and done a little shooting with some friends. When asked, she claimed to have practiced with guns as well. He figured she was mostly telling the truth. Considering she hadn’t pointed it at him, and had kept her finger off the trigger, that was good enough for now. But neither of them seemed particularly familiar with the pistols. Edwin made sure both of them had the safety switched on for the time being.

They looted every officer they came across. The destruction moved east without a care for the path taken. The city thinned out ahead. A break in the businesses along the road out of town.

Along the highway there was a square of open fields before you reached a Walmart and several neighborhoods reached out to the highway on the other side of the Walmart. After that the highway came to a junction with some houses nearby before it stretched out of town into the rolling grass hills that surrounded the town.

Edwin exhaled and nodded to Zoey. They took their next step and left behind the last building they would be able to use as cover for a while. At least until they reached the Walmart.

It was then that he got his first look at who, or rather what was attacking the police. A huge pitch black sphere hung two stories in the air, suspended by eight long limbs. Kind of like a spider but with only a single body section rather than two sections stuck together. Various antennas lined the top side to the rear. They blinked green at different intervals. The exterior of the sphere was a matte black color except for a bright green circle emblazoned on it. It looked like something else went along with the design but Edwin couldn’t make it out properly at this distance.

Two huge rails extended from the front of the sphere. When compared against the bulk of the machine however they didn’t look very large. Edwin couldn’t see any other obvious bits.

Here, closing in on where the camp was supposed to be, the fight had reached a new height of intensity. The police were unloading on the huge walker as it crested a hill.

Above the machine circled dozens of basketball sized aircraft. In a flicker of speed individual craft broke away from the swirling formation. They would dive down to strafe a target before swooping back up and rejoining the orbiting flock. It was a peculiar behavior, Edwin wondered why they didn’t just swoop back and forth raking the fleeing targets before them without pause.

His thoughts were interrupted by a thunderous eruption of noise that roared out, a second followed right on the tail of the first one. They blended together and drowned out everything. The ground shook as a huge cloud of dirt and stone was kicked up over the hill. The earth beneath them rolled as the force blasted through the area. The walker had just fired its main gun. They were much closer to it this time, and without all the buildings in the way to break up the noise and pressure they got hit much harder with the secondary effects of the blast.

Edwin’s head rang like a bell, his thoughts were fuzzy. He tumbled over, his sense of balance failing him. Zoey collapsed next to him. He probed his ears but his fingers came away clean. At least his ear drums hadn’t ruptured.

As his hearing gradually returned, Edwin clambered back to his feet and helped Zoey up. When he turned back to the giant walker it was continuing to advance. It was time for them to get moving as well.

Without knowing it they took a path that vaguely lined up with the one his squad had taken. Skirting south of the highway to stay away from the retreating police. Who happened to have fled across the highway onto a hill there before being pushed back farther. The giant walking mech was not alone in its pursuit of the police. On the ground in front of the larger machine were several dozen smaller constructs. They pressed forward in a loose line clearing the way.

The police seemed to be incapable of destroying any of the machines arrayed against them. Edwin wasn’t sure what sort of weapons they might have stashed back at their base, but they certainly hadn’t brought anything large enough to fight against this huge thing.

As everyone moved along the giant walker continued to blast large craters into the earth. After several more shots, the police’s retreat turned into a rout. They weren’t professional soldiers and with no means to overcome their enemy they were left with only one option, running away. They turned tail and fled to their camp at top speed. Abandoning any pretense of resistance.

The walker continued at the same speed. It ceased firing after the police’s intent to withdraw became clear. It was suddenly quiet. The machine’s pursuit continued. It moved with an air of inevitability, a slow unstoppable advance. Unless they had something big waiting at their camp, they were not going to be able to put a dent into that spherical hull.

Since Edwin’s goal was to scout the police camp, he hurried along ahead of the machine. He made sure to keep far away.

After they passed the Walmart, the camp was still a ways away. They moved along until they came upon a neighborhood along the southern side of the road. The houses there nearly bordered the nearby road junction. So the pair of them slipped down one of the cul-des-sacs and darted in between the buildings.

They soon caught sight of the camp. It was set over the junction between Grand Ave running out of Laramie and the highway that skirted along the south side of town. An overpass let traffic merge or exit the highway between the two. As far as defensible locations go, it wasn’t the best. But it was a decent strategic location, since traffic in and out of this side of Laramie used the highway.

Edwin pointed to a particularly large blue house. It had three stories and when they circled around it, they found large windows pointing towards the junction. Edwin tore a piece of concrete from the sidewalk and molded it into a solid cylinder. He sent that smashing into the doorknob. The cylinder punched the knob right out of the door and allowed them to walk freely inside. They hurried upstairs for a better view.

There was a perimeter set up around the camp. It was made mostly of police barricades and some sandbags. SWAT trucks and police cruisers had been added into the line of defense, or rather to make up for the gaps created by the lack of sandbags and barricades. White square tents were staked into the ground just off the road and Edwin could see people scurrying about in every direction.

As he looked over the camp Edwin noticed several strange stacks of differently sized silvery metal containers. There were three different sizes of container but they were otherwise uniform in shape and appearance. Square boxes with sharp lines and no other details that he could make out. Each stack was cordoned off with yellow police tape. They looked unfamiliar and Edwin wondered if they were related to the new system in some way.

Overall the camp looked similar to what Edwin had expected. There were probably enough tents to house four or five dozen people. There was even a medical tent, emblazoned with a large red cross. It was twice as large as the others, shaped like a long rectangle. There was a charcoal grill, now unattended as the chef joined in with the other defenders. It was a rather homey set up.

As they observed, several box trucks drove up from the rear of the camp and parked next to each of the strange container piles. A man got out of the truck near the largest pile and started yelling at the nearby officers. He pointed at them individually and sent two guys to each pile where they then started to load the containers into the box trucks. Whatever was in those, someone wanted them out of the camp before it was overrun.

They only had a couple minutes before the walker arrived. The time passed in the blink of an eye. Edwin tracked its movement by watching the aircraft circling above it. He kept an eye out for his squad but saw no sign of them. Eventually the mech crested the final hill and stopped for a moment. Edwin got a look at the smaller machines screening its front. Their bodies were a smaller sphere, a single gun barrel protruded from the front side of the sphere and similar antenna to the larger one protruded on the rear side. Four spidery legs carried the machines forward.

After it stopped, the sphere rotated slightly to the side and downward, its main armament pointing directly at the front of the police barricade. Without hesitation one of the SWAT trucks in the barricade was blown to pieces in a large explosion. The thunderous crack of the gun and the roar of the explosion followed within a blink of the eye. Without any recoil the sphere turned slightly and loosed a second shot into the next SWAT truck. In rapid succession it annihilated the defenses and slaughtered the defenders. The barrage was merciless and without pause. It created an overwhelming mess of noise and light from the explosions.

The police broke, in terror and awe at the firepower the machine totted. Those still able to, turned and raced across the camp. The police commander came running out from under the overpass. Edwin watched as he charged up the slanted roadway to get a line of sight on the walker. Edwin noticed the long grey tube in the man’s hands as he hefted it onto his shoulder like a bazooka. He lined it up towards the spider mech and braced himself.

Contrary to expectations, it didn't fire a rocket, the tip of the bazooka lit up with a flare of red light before an eye searing beam zapped through the air. The laser instantly met the matte black hull of the mech. The man flinched from the intense heat and light appearing next to him and dragged the laser off target.

It left a dull glowing trail across the body of the sphere. As the barrel of the laser bazooka turned off course it scorched a trail across the grassy field. The grass ignited and burnt to ash. The laser carved a line of damage down from the walker, across the field and it splashed across one of the smaller walkers. The machine resisted the heat for a moment before the concentrated beam melted a hole through its armor. Its inside components were fried and the smaller mech shuddered before collapsing. Like a squashed bug it’s legs kicked feebly against the dirt but it ceased to function properly.

Edwin was amazed. His first thought was that lasers were supposed to be invisible. But then he shook his stupor off as he wondered where the police officer had even gotten ahold of that thing.

The momentary victory for the police gave most of them pause as they turned to watch the display. Before the situation could reverse in their favor however one of the aerial machines dove down and strafed the commander. An unseen minigun chewed the officer up and he collapsed in a spray of blood.

When the man went down the rest of the circling aircraft followed and dive-bombed the gaping officers. Small arms fire and larger weapons wielded by visible SWAT officers tried to target the craft. They were small and fast. Of the few shots that managed to connect they were shrugged by the machines exterior.

It was a massacre. Some of the officers managed to survive as the majority of the aircraft ignored them and focused on the box trucks hauling ass away from the camp. Two of the trucks accelerated madly east down the highway away from the battleline. The third veered off to the west and was following the highway in the other direction. Towards Edwin and Zoey. The main walker was farther to the north, beyond Grand Ave. This truck was hoping to squeeze by.

The aircraft zipped down with coordinated movement towards the trucks and shot the tires out on all three. The trucks to the east were hit first. One swerved and started to roll, while the other skidded to a halt on the side of the road. The third truck had more time to accelerate away. The drones still caught it but the truck was nearly on top of Edwin and Zoey by that point. It veered hard when the tires popped and fell over onto its side. The metal side of the truck screeched terribly as it grinded against the asphalt, before it ploughed a small furrough into the dirt along the side of the road.

A crack of thunder rent the air, it sounded different to the previous whip crack explosions of the walker’s gun. Edwin turned to look and felt his eyes tear up as a blinding bolt of lightning seared through the air and sizzled out against the black hull of the large walker. A liquid jet of flame followed and engulfed the walker, before a car sized chunk of ice smashed it from a different side.

Edwin reeled at the sudden development. Before he recognized what was going on. A warhorn resounded in the din and as one a force of dozens of men came charging towards the two wrecked trucks from the north. Three figures were visible flying through the air on a collision course with the mechanical army. The huge spider mech emerged from the fire and ice barrage none the worse for wear. It swiveled before it blasted a shot at one of the floating figures. A shimmering shield appeared and deflected the slug towards the earth below. It smacked the dirt and created a fountain of debris, but the flying wizard was unharmed.

It was those guys again, the ones who had attacked the dorms. Only this time they were here in force. The foot soldiers rushed the two trucks to the east. While the wizards interposed themselves between the mech and their men. They began to barrage the mech. Either to overwhelm it or delay it’s approach. Edwin couldn’t tell if they were actually damaging it or not.

As one, the scattered aircraft turned and jetted back to the walker. They circled above it for a moment before rushing out towards the floating wizards and unleashing a hail of bullets. The magical shields flickered but held up against the onslaught. The wizards unleashed a flurry of counter attacks against the small craft. Their magic bit through the metal hulls. From within their shields they worked to whittle down the storm around them.

The small mechs on the ground surged forward as this happened. But at their speed it would take them some time to traverse the overpass and get in sight of the trucks. The horde of men who had arrived with the wizards reached the wrecked trucks and eagerly set about pulling out the containers before turning and fleeing with their prizes.

Edwin’s eyes glinted as he watched this. He turned to look at Zoey, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “Follow me,” he told her. They crept over to the smoking wreck of a truck nearby. Edwin moved to the rear of the truck and unlatched it before heaving the door open sideways. The containers inside were jumbled about. Unfortunately the containers were bulky and they would only be able to manage one between the two of them.

“Which one looks good Zoey?”

She peered at the boxes. Upclose Edwin could see that they weren’t uniform on the outside. There were jumbled markings visible on each side of the containers in a faint gray color. The letters looked like nothing Edwin had seen before. This hinted at the origin of these crates. These crates were likely cargo dropped by that large, sleek airship during the initial air battle over Laramie several days ago. Both “invaders” seemed to be here to recover the boxes.

Either way, his speculations wouldn’t amount to much without more information. Zoey picked the box closest to them. Together they heaved it out and picked it up between themselves. It was about the size of a large cooler. Almost a small fridge. Thankfully it didn’t weigh too much.

“Let’s get this out of sight first,” Edwin announced as they hustled back towards their hiding spot.

“What about the others?” Zoey asked.

“The crates? It’s too risky to go for more, that big mech thing might notice if we get too greedy.”

“No, I mean Teresa, Jason, Austin, those guys.”

“Oh, well I don’t know where they are.”

“Weren’t we going to help them?”

“There’s not really anything we can do. It’s a mess down there.”his statement was punctuated by a massive boom as the mech’s main gun fired on one of the wizards. Edwin reflexively turned to look and saw bright sparks as the shield seemed to take damage from the projectile. It was noticeably dimmer when the sparks died away.

“Yeah, that mess down there is too much. If they are caught up in it we can’t help them. If they aren’t then they are probably hunkering down somewhere safe like us. The best we can do is wait and see what happens. We need to hide this quickly so we can be ready to react.”

“Alright,” Zoey agreed.

They quickly returned to the house they had used for scouting earlier. They dumped the container on the floor by the door. Edwin was worried about his squad. Even though he told Zoey there was nothing they could do, he still felt the urge to act. It was directionless and made him feel anxious. He could only hope that they kept themselves safe. He didn’t want for them to have gotten mixed into the camp with the police at some point. They were likely dead then.

Edwin and Zoey climbed to the third story and gazed out at the unfolding battle. A few fleeing human figures were visible as they raced across open ground away from the overpass.

“There they are!” Zoey exclaimed. She pointed at the surging wave of running bodies. Edwin could not make out the details Zoey seemed to be able to. He had come to trust her eyesight. She had pointed out details several times before and been right each time.

Edwin did the only thing he could think to do. He narrowed his eyes, and grabbed the shard of concrete he kept in his pocket. He sent it whizzing out towards the fleeing crowd. He could feel his control slipping as it got further away. Edwin could barely control it as it came to a stop in mid air before the retreating people. He wiggled it before recalling it in his direction. It went slow enough that it’s destination was obvious. He hoped his team would get the message. How they and the cops reacted to it was an entirely different factor.

The retreat stilled. Such an unexpected phenomenon gave them pause. However there was no time for them to waste so they surged back into action. Racing pell-mell away once more. All of them except for a handful of figures that turned and raced in their direction. He caught the concrete shard as it came back through the window and slipped into his pocket once more. He patted it affectionately.

As they drew closer Edwin was relieved when he counted how many there were. It wasn’t exactly a heroic rescue from the boundary of life or death. This would not instill enough trust in them to listen to him. But this was going to give him a chance. They were running away. Running scared with no plan. Here he was directing them, and here he had one of the containers they could take back to the dorm. As long as they could make it safely back, he had a chance to repair the damage he’d done to his own reputation.

He made his way down the stairs to prepare for their arrival.