The Krizians marched up the path towards Jason, which had been warped into a crater by the ARMS explosion. Jason stood at the edge of the ridge looking down on them, ready and waiting. He only had to hold them from proceeding for a short time. He only had to stop some several dozen men from just bypassing him all together and do so without harming them too much. Maybe they would be stupid enough to all attack him rather than leaving a few to fight and the rest move on. He could only hope. Keeping them busy just long enough for the rest of his army to finish packing everything up and get away was all that was needed. Jason thought he might be able to do it, but luck had to be on his side.

Jason beared down, ready to unsheathe his weapons. His fist clenched down on their hilt. Gabi prepared to shoot out the openings in his armor to grab those soldiers that tried to ignore them. The Krizians got closer with each second. Meanwhile, Jason’s army rushed to pack up the camp, cleaning it of any useful loot that the Krizians could get ahold of and use against them. As they went they lit the temporary shelters on fire. Even though they were fast, there would always be several that lagged behind and take more time than everyone else. The Free Nation’s army over the years had trained and become great fighters, but there is one thing that eluded them in all this time. They could not maintain order and discipline outside of combat. There was no marching in one large unit. If there was a march, it was only ever the members of that species. They’d tried to coordinate early on, but it would always take long conversations explaining what to do and why to get them to do it that one time. The next time, they’d forget and they’d have to do it again. When that wasn’t the case there was the problem that the different alien races all had a different natural speed and rhythm that didn’t align to the others which made everyone be out of synch with each other. So, instead of everyone working together to make sure everything was taken down and then all leaving at once, each individual would take care of their own belongings and their assigned responsibilities before taking off out of the camp. The result was that most would get done around the same time and travel in several groups spaced apart a bit, but there would always be stragglers. Jason held his ground waiting for the last one to send a signal that they were leaving and then he’d hopefully be able to escape.

Above and in front of Jason formed several logs. They dropped, hit the ground, and began rolling forward. They picked up speed as they barreled down the incline of the crater’s edge at the Krizians. Jason began to draw his sword when the log came into view at the top of his vision, startled, but then stopped himself. His mind quickly went through the calculations and came to the conclusion that the logs posed no threat to himself, but they would provide the perfect thing to stall the enemy. He wondered where they came from.

“Let’s go,” the former Krizian scout called out, grabbing Jason’s arm and pulling him away, trying to get him to run away. She’d summoned the logs from the inventory of the ARMS device she was given. She had found no weapons in there, but plenty of building supplies. Jason had given her an armor device that was packed full of such supplies. He had done it intentionally at the time. If she’d left she would have sometime to get buy his thinking went, but when she offered to help out Jason had forgotten that fact, believing that he had given her armor prepared for military use. In the end, the result was the most ideal. If he had given her military gear she would have been forced to fight side by side with him with equipment that was inferior and perhaps with weapons she had no experience with. Even if that wasn’t the case, it would have resulted in them having to kill several enemies, but with the ARMS that she had been given it was possible to slow the Krizians down with minimal casualties and it would keep them busy long enough for the two of them to get cleanly away. In the end, Jason was pleasantly surprised that not only had his goal been accomplished, but this former enemy woman had been able to formulate a plan to use what she had at hand to get done what was needed, proving that she was more intelligent than the average person in the same situation. They would have panicked or looked for something to use as a club or other weapon that she could directly attack with.

Jason let himself be pulled along. It took fractions of an instant to recognize how the situation had changed and that they need to move or risk falling back into the situation they had just escaped. His eyes scanned his new ally, taking her in as she pulled him along. He didn’t know what it was, but there was something about her that he found appealing. Then he heard her shout to go bringing him back to the present and out of his stupor. He shook his head clearing his head, but after that, he was clear that she was right, they had to go, and broke out into a run with her, back to the burning camp.

Once at the camp, the only remaining soldiers were humans. They were either slow in getting their gear together and setting alight the temporary shelter or checking on and cleaning up what others had left behind. They were almost done. Jason made a straight path from one side of the camp to the other. As he and the woman passed through they shouted for the soldiers to leave the rest. Each of them dropped their search and clean up. Instead they went right to setting the rest of the area on fire. They’d made preparations in case they had to make a quick retreat in such situations. The soldiers exited the camp ahead of Jason and the woman. He then took out an item that looked like a stick of of a black granular substance compressed into something that could be held and tossed around. Sticking out of the top of the stick was a wick. Jason had an item that acted as a lighter which he used to light the stick, before tossing it. He took out several more, lit them all, and threw each of them in various directions and distances.

Black smoke began to poor out of the sticks as the wicks burned down to the quick. Each one spreading upwards and out ward, covering the empty spaces between each of them, creating a cover of thick dark smoke making it hard for anyone to see through it. The Krizians reached the camp to find it destroyed and they were stuck, unable to proceed. Not being able to see Jason’s soldiers they were unable to proceed, but tried. They entered the smoke and soon found themselves traveling in circles, running into each other, allowing Jason and his men to escape and put distance between them and the Krizian army. There was another surprise in the smoke. It was laced with a chemical that induce anyone who breaths it to go into a deep sleep. The smoke expanded rapidly and would cover a large area and cause anyone who didn’t get away quick enough would find themselves waking up hours later, having face planted, blacked out. Before the Krizian knew what was happening they were completely engulfed in the smoke. Meanwhile, Jason and the Krizian Woman were able to get far enough away before they reduced their speed to a walk. It took them a day to catch up and group up with the rest of the army, but it was ok, the Krizian Empire’s army was still asleep and miles away.

When both sides were back on their feet, they regrouped at nearby bases and prepared for all out war, but before they got very far both received a message in their VUI. A new menu was being unlocked for Jason and Chris, the National Improvement Menu. The menu’s description stated that it gave access to trees that with each item unlocked new options were made available and access to higher tiers of ARMS devices and other technology. Also, it gave access to a submenu that could automatically build and improve structures within the territory of its owner. It could go so far as to build whole new settlements in empty lands as long as the place where it is intended to be built is owned by the person who wants to build the structure.

When Jason saw this, his eyes filled with worry. This go around he had the advantage over Chris. It was all thanks to the combined efforts of those he had united, but with access to this menu it was possible to make leaps in advancement that Chris could use to make the Krizian’s progress on par with that of the Free Nation’s with much less work than it took him and much quicker than it had taken them to get to the place they were. He would certainly become a much more dangerous foe, especially now that his cruelty seemed to have no limits. Chris, on the other hand, had his eyes light up. He couldn’t wait to look through the menu for anything he could exploit. The first thing on his mind to get ahold of were the better ARMS devices that he saw on display, but he couldn’t keep from also dreaming of an opulent palace filled to the brim with food, women, and golden treasures the likes of which no civilization on Earth could ever have created. He would produce a capital more ostentatious and lavish than the heavens that were dreamed of in paradises of Human religions. He would make the delusion that he was a good a fact and then when Jason and any other came to challenge him, they would have no choice but to kneel and worship him like all that he had subjugated thus far.

Chris opened the menu, searching for the options that would give him better ARMS. He found them and began to look at what he had to do to unlock the next level. The requirements were simple enough, pay some credits and unlock the next level of a given type. The amounts needed were quite high for an individual level, but a nation could just raise taxes and dump that into acquiring those new levels. Likewise, the requirements for the city improvements were fairly simple to understand. Provide raw materials and some credits. There were submenu options for planning out exactly what you wanted, from the floor plan to what each part of a given structure was made out of. If you wanted to make a wall out of cotton candy as big as a mountain you could, theoretically, as long as you knew how to make the material or it was a natural element you were free to do whatever you wanted. Imagine it and it could be made. He did a little bit of math in his head and soon he realized that he would need to do more than collect taxes. No, he would need to institute policies that would control the lives of his faithful to the point where many would no longer be able to act any other way than a cog in the machine of a nation that he would build to defeat Jason and conquer this world.