[Erick Sanders]

I dove to the side to avoid a Chinese soldier’s bayonetted rifle as it stabbed at my side. Sweeping my sword aside I sliced through his leg above the knee, sending him screaming to the asphalt. Jack dispatched him with a stab from over my shoulder. I pulled myself to my feet and surveyed the battle. We had pushed through the Chinese ranks and into the fringes of the city square that surrounded the hall of life.

When we burst from the streets, a cheer had gone up across the far south side of the square where a small army of Dreamers and Oceanic forces were holding their line.

The Chinese soldiers closest to us now fled into the nearest skyscraper, running from our blades. Half of our section dove into the building after them, many jumping through destroyed windows and directly into the second or third floors. There was a Flash as a squadron of fighters, Their armoured uniforms loaded with golden patches of metal, pushed through the Chinese soldiers on the eastern flank. They cheered in unison as they mopped up the remaining soldiers near them. One of the men flipped his long blond hair and flashed us a proud smile.

The Pharian Suns, I thought, looking at their bright golden uniforms, splattered with blood. Every so often they would cheer and chant in unison as they slaughtered the Chinese soldiers. They certainly like to make a spectacle, I thought as I watched them.

They looked too….fancy. Other than the patches of blood from the battle their armour and weapons were pristine. Compared to the tarnished grey metal and scuffed uniforms of the Grey Scarred company, they looked like knights in literal shining armour. I spat before following Razah back into the heat of the battle.

The Chinese line faltered as the rest of our section and the Pharian Suns turned on the centre. Soldiers firing from behind hedges and crumbled rocks were decapitated and the Oceanic army called for an advance. The Dreamers were the first to flood the distracted Chinese soldiers. Bullets were fired from point-blank and I watched as one man was shot seven times in the back of the head, his skull crumbling and exploding in pieces of bone and brain.

The Chinese soldiers in the square began to flee through the open street in the north of the square, only to run into each other's backs as thousands of thin robots rushed them from between the buildings. They were simple machines, thin limbs coated in metal, on one arm was a mounted rifle barrel, while the other held a long blade. The bots formed a concaved line and began pushing the soldier back into the square, trapping them against the Dreamers and oceanic forces which still pushed forward, now hungry to be rid of the invading force.

There was no more fight in the Chinese soldiers. A commanding officer screamed at his forces to stand and fight, he continued to yell and berate until a fireball flew through the air and exploded against his chest, the flames wrapping around him and he fell to his knees screaming in pain. I followed the path of the fireball and in the middle of the crowd, I saw Cameron, his sword in one hand and a small fireball igniting in the other. His yell was echoed by the Dreamers around him, a mishmash of different armours, colours and weapons. They rallied around Camerons cry and stormed forward, I could see a camera drove zip overheads. He is still streaming, I thought with a laugh.

He was oblivious to my presence, and lead the group straight at the scrambling Chinese soldiers. By the time they were done, there were no more Chinese soldiers left. Alaria looked on then looked up at the skyscraper beside us. Following her gaze, and saw one of the Grey Scarred standing in an open window. Ten floors up. He slapped his fist against his chest and Alaria nodded. She looked down as she activated her scanner. As the last of the Chinese soldiers were killed by the mob of dreamers, led by Cam. The whole square fell into silence when there was a boom and a crack from overhead. Face turned to watch as three streaks of light fell from the atmosphere, Following them and staring in astonishment as the western sky lit up in a flash of light.

“Wait for it,” Razah said from beside me. A moment later the sound of an explosion could be heard, rolling through the streets and over us. “Breaking their shields,” he added.

Then another three streaks flashed in the sky before more explosions ripped through the air. “And that’s the end of their command ships,” Razah said, nodding. My scanner vibrated on my forearm, I ignored it. I can look later, I thought.

“Well, nothing left to do now but clean up, They certainly got their moneys worth,” he added, looking at the droves of bots as they stormed into the building by the hundreds, hunting down any remaining soldiers.

“Close your mouth, you look like a fish,” I said, kicking Jack in the leg. He jumped, hit attention pulling away from the direction of the blast.

“We really did get our moneys worth,” Jack said. I had to nod in agreement. The Grey Scarred Company and the Pharian Suns had routed the Chinese army in a fraction of the time it would have taken the Oceanic forces, if they could have done it at all. I wasn’t sure what it cost them, but it had been a smart investment.

We wandered through the mess of the battlefield as we waited for the bots and the overly eager company members to finish cleaning up the city. Alaria had departed to speed up the searching of the buildings, while two from the company moved to retrieve the bubble. I wondered just how far Alaria could scan with her EM sense. After constant use throughout the trial, I now noticed that my sense reached almost seventy meters in a single direction, and could cover a circle with a radius of almost twenty-five meters. Even now I could feel Cam, a familiar presence that I knew inherently, as he shifted through the bodies, looting weapons from enemy corpses and retrieving valuable equipment from friends now dead.

I was almost hesitant as I wandered over to him, knowing that any reunion would be short-lived, Alaria could be back at any minute and be ordering us to extract back to the ship. I suspected that I wouldn’t be seeing my friend in the Dream much anymore. Cam had been fierce on the battlefield, he had become a leader and even a fighter, but he paled in comparison to the members of the Grey Scarred Company.

The old image of myself standing among Carlton's ruined estate drifted back into my head, If I'm going to have that kind of power, then Cam will only slow me down.

As I approached, Cam didn’t look up from the body of a young freckled man. He pulled a dark bladed hunting knife from the man's fingers, wiping the sticky blood on his shirt and pulled the man's scanner from his arm. Producing a rubber band from a picked he wrapped the two together and handed it to a woman behind him, who stowed it into a cart.

The next person he stooped over was still breathing, though it was laboured. The young woman had the end of a Chinese bayonetted sticking from her side, and the blood pooling underneath her showed that she didn’t have long to live. “My rifle,” she gasped, “I’ll get it when I respawn.”

Cam nodded and pulled the rifle from her arms, his hands shook as he handed the rifle over to the woman behind him. I stepped forward, taking my still drawn sword, I slid it into the dying woman's chest. Piercing her heart and killing her instantly. I tore the scanner from her arm and tore the scanner from her arm. When Cam turned around I held it out to him.

“She’s dead,” I said. I tried to put a little bit of emotion into my voice, I could tell Cam was under some stress, but I couldn’t muster it. She was dead, and she would respawn in an hour or two. It really didn’t matter.

I don’t know if it was because of my lack of sympathy or the stress, but Cam scowled at me. I had to slip aside as his fist swung past my face. Slow, I tutted.

He swung twice again and each time I dodged. Tutting quietly at his failed attempts.

After the third try Cam scowled and stepped up, looking down at me, his hand on the hilt of his sword, “You fucking dick, you didn’t have to leave in the middle of the night! What the fuck is it with you and disappearing!”

“You know the first time wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t need the bull shit from Rose and Amy, or you apparently,” I hissed in defence.

“Well, shit hit the fan after you left!” He said, removing his hand from his sword and throwing his arms into the air in exasperation. The anger leaving him.

“Speaking of. Where’s Amy and Rose?” I asked.

“ They left.”

“Amy left you here?” I asked. It wasn’t like Amy to leave Cam's side.

“We broke up.” He said, scowling again.

I was honestly surprised, Amy and Cam were the type of couple that I assumed would still be together on their death beds.

“What happened,” I asked.

“She didn’t want to get more involved in the war, kept saying I was only doing it for the views, that streaming had changed me or some shit,” He spat on the bloody concrete.

“Well, you seem to be doing ok,” I said, motioning to the Dreamers that still lingered around him, before asking, “Where did they go?”

“They joined some minor guild with Trevor, fucked off Earth. Haven't heard from them since, Amy moved her shit out while I was at work and that was that,”

I nodded my head in sympathy, at least I think I did. Even if he had only done it for the views, I had to side with Cam on this one. Fighting for Auckland and the Pacific just seemed to be the right thing to do, and Rose and Amy had just left the NPC’s to their fate.

“We’ll have a beer after work tomorrow aye?” I said. This wasn’t the place to start having a D.M.C.

“I quit my job, Don’t need the money from the streaming credits. I have a thing at 11:30 but I’ll be free after that. I’ll call you after.” Cam said, nodding. “You have time to help us clean up?” he asked.

“I dono, I have to follow orders now,” I said, nodding to Razah and the rest of the Grey Scarred Company as they milled around, talking amongst themselves and ignoring the wounded and dying around them.

“So you got in?” Cam asked, “They’re impressive.” He said.

“You don’t know the half of it, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow. When there aren’t so many eyes and ears around.” I said, nodding to the camera that floated past our faces.

I wasn’t sure how much of the Grey Scarred’s exploits they would want me making public knowledge.

Cam cracked a smile, “Sorry for trying to hit you. It’s been a stressful week,” He said, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me into a hug. “But, think you can let me hit you just once? You made me look bad on stream,” He whispered with a laugh.

“You better start working harder if you want to be able to hit me,” I whispered back, unable to keep the small smile from my lips.

Cam released me, “Well, if you’re not going to help, then fuck off. I’m holding you to that beer tomorrow.”

I nodded and let him return to pulling weapons and scanners from their arms. I assumed scanners had some residual ID profile even after being removed from a dead person, even if I didn’t know how they did it.

I turned my back on Cam and returned to Jack and Keg.

“Nice reunion?” Jack asked.

“Sure. How long do you think this will take? Razah say anything about where Alaria went?” I asked.

“Let's find out,” Jack said. There as a small hiss as two panels that I didn’t know were there opened up on his forearms. Hundreds of small insect-sized drones zipped from a compartment under his skin.

“They replaced your whole arm?” I asked.

“Only between the elbow and the wrist. Cost me ten thousand credits just to have skin grown over it,”

Sam wasn’t kidding, it wasn’t cheap to make augmented limbs look real.

James looked down at my scanner and it buzzed again. “Open it,” he said, giving Kegs scanner the same look.

I activated the scanner and looked at the hollow screen. There was a small [3] in the top corner.

I tapped the icon and read the first notification.

[Congratulations, You have assisted in the liberation of your native land from an invading army. The defeat was swift and complete. Your share of the credits is 8,000. You have risen in rank to rank 98. You have been awarded 10,000]

[Congratulations, among the individuals in the battle to liberate Auckland, you have killed more humans than any other native, You have shown yourself to stand unchallenged among your peers. You have risen in rank to rank 99. You have been awarded 10,000 credits]

I blinked at the notification, I had killed more people than any…native. In this battle only? I assumed the system didn’t count the kills by the Guilds and Companies, not from Earth. How many soldiers had I killed? I wondered looking at the wake of dead bodies that covered the street we had emerged from.

“Not those, oh nice Rank 99. Same,” Jack smiled. “But open the next one,”

I flicked to the last notification,

[Jackson Sanders would like to share his drone feed, Accept Y, N]

I tapped on the [Y] And the screen changed to grid view. Hundreds of time images of the city from below were crammed into the screen.

“Here,” Jack said, and the screen changed to a single view. Alaria walked along the street to the west of the Hall of life. She spoke into her scanner and the view changed to one of the Grey Scarred Company, flanked by two bots, the thickset Alien woman vaulted through the destroyed window of one skyscraper, flew though the space between buildings and crashed through another window. She began running through what was once someone's apartment.

The camera followed her as she zipped through the halls, pushing through doors where there were some, and smashing through walls where no door could be seen.

Then she ran bodily into a group of five Chinese shoulders, cowering in someone's bathroom. We watched, and I realised how the bodies in the Chinese forward operating base had come to look like they had been torn apart.

“Fuck,” Keg said, lowering his wrist and looking away from the screen. The view changed again and a man with two swords sliced through two Chinese soldiers as he ran through a department store building.

The Grey Scarred company was certainly mopping up the last of the soldiers. We watched for fifteen more minutes, Razah coming over to watch over my shoulder and calling other members from the Grey Scarred Company to join us. They laughed and began placing bets on who would kill the next soldier, tapping scanners to exchange credits.

When Alaria seemed satisfied, the fighters dropped from buildings to join her as she walked back toward the Hall of Life. Before she even arrived, drop ships began appearing in the sky. Dreamers jumped out of the way as they landed among the rubble and dead, crushing bodies indiscriminately.

I gave Cam a small nod as I followed Razah onto the dropship. As it lifted into the sky and the door began closing, I looked over the battles carnage.

I killed more of them than any other human, unchallenged among my peers. I looked over the Grey Scarred fighters, all bloody but without a scratch. I need to make these people my peers, I thought. I had never felt this sort of ambition before, but I vowed to myself that no matter how many times I had to kill or be killed, I would make sure I could count myself as one of them.