The ARMS devices shone in the afternoon sun. Their black surfaces all glowed white expelling blinding light that, had it been night, would have made it look like it was a gorgeous summer’s noon. It lasted less than a second before the each of the ARMS devices distort, becoming spherical and expanding. If one could observe the metal, they’d notice that metal was stretched to the breaking point. Each of the devices shook intensely as the forces inside them clashed with their physical structure holding itself together. Then, in the moment, the metal ripped apart as though it were paper and a shockwave swept out from each of them, rippling through the air. When it reached everyone within range on the path it lifted them into the air. Milliseconds later, following the pressure wave, the sphere of light that had formed around the device grew, encompassing the entire area. Had anyone been able to freeze time in this instant they’d have noted the area that the shockwaved passed through was now a vacuum, but no one experienced time in such minute fractions, let alone had to breath so rapidly that they would have noticed this world devoid of air. It only existed in that instant before air rushed in, pushing back against the force that blew it away in the first place. In a normal explosion the oxygen in the air fueled the explosion more and made it expand. That was not the case here. At the core of the ARMS devices were as close to pure energy as one could possibly get and it had no need for additional gas.

The explosion swelled, picking up the earth around it, carrying it till the speed imparted on it made it travel faster than the explosion itself, and then it threw them out. When the explosion hit the in rushing air, it changed nothing about the explosion, instead, the air was superheated and burst into fire. This in turn caused the rocks to be melted and soon blobs of molten rock were being strewn out from the once peaceful path to a once thriving town, now just a crater. All of this took less than a second to occur, to change a beautiful scenery into a dusty hellscape. The earth that the explosion lifted now swirled about, making it hard to see anything especially when combined with the black smoke that rose from nearby trees, and although one could not see it, the ground had been dug out into a crater, reaching nearly three kilometers in size. The makeshift wall of the Krizian encampment was torn apart and several of the soldiers had been hit with debris, but compared to the world around them they were unscathed. Meanwhile, the Free Nation’s men that had held back was not as lucky. There was no shelter to protect them from the molten stones flung their way. They were unprepared for anything to reach them and as a result left them wide open anything that came their way. Where the few Krizians had been injured, the Free Nation men that had been hit were killed outright, but thankfully their numbers were few. Those who remained had their eyes fixated on the spot where Jason had been; the Free Nation soldiers with hope and the Krizians with glee.

The wait was almost too much to bare. The dust and the cloud roiled as all looked with bated breath. The Free Nation soldiers knew it wasn’t much chance that anyone survived that explosion. They tried to hold out hope, but as the clock ticked on, they began to lose it. They had come here believing that whatever happened had to be some sort of accident that could be resolved, but then Jason was shot by these peoples’ conniving leader, but it was alright, Jason would pull through, he always pulls through. Then the battle broke out. Jason had won. All they needed to do was return to camp, recoup, and figure out what to do about this new situation. With Jason it was sure to turn out alright. He always seemed to figure out the solution to the problem over the years. Even if he couldn’t, he could find someone that could. The Free Nation’s growth was a testament to that. Not everyone was welcoming of his vision, but they were won over with time. However, there were those situations where there were cities, hives, or colonies that were in competition with each other over resources or just simply didn’t like each other for one reason or another. Jason could always somehow get through to them and work out some compromise. It was amazing. It was like he was born to do this. He was a good fighter, but it was getting people to see that working together was ultimately the best thing to do that he found his calling in. And if he didn’t survive this explosion, which was likely the case, who knew what would happen to the Free Nation. The roots of this civilization were still new, and just like with Alexander’s Empire, if the leader was removed it may fall apart.

The dust and smoke began to clear. Figures in the haze began to emerge, slowly ambulating towards the Free Nation’s camp. Each of the soldiers began to count the shadows, hoping that they were all there, that they had survived the blast, but the question that played across all of their minds was how, and if not all of them had, who was no longer with them. It wasn’t at all that hard to explain if they had stopped and thought about it. The Krizians were stumped, but that was because, like everything else, they had not explored the world. Chris had only taken what he had known and shown to the Krizians to form his empire. He hadn’t went out on his own or with a group to find out if there was anything more. He hadn’t battled in the arenas to witness the tactics that others were using like Jason and many of his friends had done. Even the modifications that the Krizians had were just crude imitations of what Jason’s friends had done and come up with. Commanding an Artificial Intelligence to overload and blow itself up wasn’t at all that impressive on any level beyond the brilliant flash of light and devastation that it did when it happened.

In the moments before the bombs detonated a quick series of thoughts went through Jason’s and Gabi’s minds questioning why the Krizian woman was tossing her ARMs armor away. It then crossed their minds that all signs that had seen of where the obliterated city once stood the land was that it had been blown up. Jason had ignored it originally because he hadn’t come across any explosive in the past several years, nor had he heard anyone speaking of them so when he had seen the upturned dirt he hadn’t put two and two together, but the sight of the woman tossing her ARMS device away triggered in his mind the thought of a grenade and from there, explosions. Once the thought crossed his mind he realized what had happened and what was about to happen. He also knew that there was definitely no way that he could outrun whatever was about to happen.

Gabi saw the ideas that flashed through Jason’s mind and at first she didn’t understand, but she put it together. She was afraid, but it didn’t last long. shortly after the realization of the situation they were in Jason had already begun working on a solution. There wasn’t time to do anything fancy, but it was only happenstance that the answer to the problem of saving them was on hand. And not only themselves, but all of the men that came with Jason. The answer to their dilemma came from putting in a safety precaution into all of the equipment that the military would use while testing of the various new modifications that Mya and the other engineers would come up with. They all knew that they were dealing with high energy weapons and devices that if there was an accident could cause massive amounts of damage and death if they weren’t careful. They could just use a simple shield ability on an ARMS armor that was of a higher grade than the device that they were experimenting with. The problem there was that they needed to keep turning it on and off to work on the project so they had to be personal shields given to each member of the engineering team. Of course, that wasn’t the best option. If something happened and a member of the team wasn’t paying attention to turn on their shield or they could hear and was unlucky, they’d get suffer the consequences, but for the engineering team that was good enough. However, soldiers often participated as part of the team to provide muscle. Many of the team’s modifications were going to be used by the soldiers or they’d have to be familiar with them so it wasn’t a bad idea for them to be involved with their development as well.

After shields were incorporated into the engineering team’s equipment they soon became part of standard gear for soldiers. The ones that didn’t join in on helping with the research caught onto how useful a shield was and had it installed into their own gear. But if this was all there was, Jason could not have saved anyone other than himself and Gabi. The final piece of the puzzle was that there were many times when a soldier would get into trouble and completely forget that he had the shield or couldn’t see the threat incoming. If Jason could just turn on and off the shield on command rather than calling out and hoping they’d heard him and thought to turn on the shield it would save them all a bit of trouble, so he asked the engineering team what they could do. Soon they’d come through, making the modifications to all the soldiers ARMS armor and worked out how to interface the shield’s activation with command level access so that someone of higher rank in the military hierarchy could turn it on or off as needed. Jason, who had the highest rank of anyone in the military, had complete access to every soldier’s shield controls.

The electrical signal went through Jason’s neurons to start the plan. It took milliseconds to go through Gabi’s mind and for her to start to act. Her slime body oozed out of Jason’s armor through whatever cracks she could find and launched itself towards the Krizian scout, wrapping around her form, and snapped back towards Jason, carrying with her the naked woman into Jason’s arms, binding them together as much as Gabi dared. to have outside of Jason’s armor, which was enough to have the naked Krizian scout be coated in a fairly thick layer of mucus. Her eyes locked onto Jason’s, staring at them deeply. In that moment she knew she was dead. The ARMS devices would detonate and because this guy didn’t know what was happening he’d stopped her from running away. There was nothing more that she could do. She let go and the funny thought that it felt oddly comfortable bathed in whatever this slime was and being held by her enemy that she would die with. They rose into the air and light screamed past them and they all held onto each other tightly, sending a prayer out to whatever gods there may be out there, that they may spare their lives.

As the light dimmed and the dust cleared. The survivors of the Free Men stumbled back to their camp. Jason and the Krizian woman were absent. Everyone else had survived so Jason had issued the command for the shields to activate on time. They were closer to the blast though so maybe it wasn’t enough they began to think, or maybe his ARMS had simply failed. They’d never heard of one failing, but they were machines, any machine could be faulty. It was just an inevitability. Sadness once more swept over the soldiers until one of them looked out into the rubble. The dust had cleared more, revealing Jason and and the Krizian woman making out on the ground. They’d landed with her pinned under him and with enough momentum that his head carried on forward just enough to press his lips against hers. After just barely surviving, something just cracked in both of them and they stopped caring about what was around them and it still was uncertain whether they’d live or die so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to throw cares away and let passion take over.