Deacon, Ragnar, and now Ashe rushed on the road hoping to get some kind of distance to get out of the tree line from where they were camped out to carry on Ragnar’s mission of getting to Elvander to deliver the fuel cell that was smuggled out of Shadow Cannon’s headquarters. Now with Ashe’s giant rifle, they had power from a distance, but Deacon has yet to see how her aiming was so it was all assumptions for him.

The flat road began to look more endless than before. At this rate, Elvander was starting to look more like a Shangri-La than an actual country.

“Have you fired that thing before?” Deacon broke silence.

“Yeah, enough times to say that I can handle anything.” Ashe proudly inspected her rifle.

Deacon gulped nervously since he barely dodged a bullet from the same gun she was happily holding.

Shouldn’t have asked. Deacon thought to himself.

The road ahead was surrounded by tall grass on both sides; almost began to look like a miniature forest, almost like a spawn of the previous forest they just got out of.

“Where are we?” Deacon sighed at the long walk.

“You never crossed the border, have you?” Ashe scoffed.

“Nope, never. First time. Is it obvious?” Deacon felt like a kid trying to convince his parents as to why he has a bottle of liquor inside his backpack.

“We’re in Washir, a pocket-country.” Ashe sighed.

“Pocket-country?”

“That’s what we call a country that isn’t big enough to play with the big boys and is usually last pick when it comes to World Wars. This war, they haven’t been picked yet.”

“So then, Ragnar is fine here then?” Deacon looked at his giant partner.

“Consider Washir, a neutral country until they get picked by either Shadow Cannon or Elvander.”

“That’s one way to handle politics, I guess.”

“No kidding.” Ashe smirked.

“How many cities does Washir have?”

“Three.”

“Explains the last pick.” Deacon chuckled, but Ragnar whirred, not understanding the joke. Deacon’s smile was cut short thanks to the robot’s lack of a sense of humor and cleared his throat to try to smoothly avoid the awkwardness.

“Are you sure you aren’t a comedian?” Ashe sarcastically asked.

Deacon cleared his throat again, “Shut up.”

“Let’s just focus on this road and we’ll get to the capital, Ether then we can take the hyperloop to Elvander.”

“A hyperloop? Are you sure?” Deacon looked at Ragnar, scanning its height. “Is there a height limit?”

“I’m pretty sure we can put the big guy in the cargo hold.” Ashe turned to examine Ragnar as well.

“Luckily, I have some cash.”

“You crossed the border wall, so that would mean you’re from Cille, right?” Ashe connected the dots.

“Yeah, how’d you guess?” Deacon asked.

“Someone with your looks definitely screams ‘Cille’.” Ashe answered with full-impact honesty.

“I…uhh… Thank you?”

“Wasn’t a compliment.” Ashe’s honesty struck again.

It’s okay, just words. Deacon winced in silence.

“They won’t accept Cille Dollars here.”

“What? Why not? That’s all I have on me!” Deacon’s day just kept getting better.

“First of all, they’re called Cille Dollars, very lazy.”

“Second?” Deacon tried to take the hits.

“No demand for Cille Dollars because well, Cille.”

“Okay, I got it.” Deacon tried to stop the abuse, “Where is a currency exchange? Please hold the hurt feelings.”

“The hyperloop has one, but we’re looking at another two hours before we can reach the city.” Ashe paused in her steps, “Can’t Ragnar fly?”

“He could, but since it got shot down. The actuators that actually pumped the pistons to spin the inner turbines and control the boosters in its legs are damaged.” Deacon explained with a heavy exhale.

“Meaning?” Ashe waited for a response, she didn’t accept that entire sane reasoning as an answer.

“No.” Deacon sighed again, “No. It. Can’t.”

“I was hoping it was going to be like a deus ex… machine.” Ashe smirked.

“That was a horrible pun!” Deacon scoffed with a smile. “I guess you’re the comedian. Did you actually try to build that up or did it just happen?”

“Whatever, you just have a bad sense of humor.” Ashe scoff followed after Deacon’s.

“Yeah, I’m taking stand-up comedy lessons from the person that tried to kill me, very funny.” Deacon shook his head.

A faint engine sound was muffled through the distance. The noise probably required some kind of superhuman hearing abilities to catch a whiff of it.

Ragnar paused its steps and turned around to see what was the faint sound coming from. Luckily, Ragnar wasn’t human, it used its eyes to scan the sky to see what was heading over their direction.

Another ship similar to the one from the previous day was scanning the area below them to continue the other ship’s job.

The titan robot picked up its pace to grab onto Deacon and Ashe to dash toward the large grass, hoping to lose the ship.

“What the hell is going on?!” Ashe asked over the sound of Ragnar’s heavy stomping.

“Trust me, just let it do its thing.” Deacon nonchalantly placed his elbows over Ragnar’s fingers while it continued sprinting deep inside the large grass. The ship hovered around their area, almost like they were hearing the heavy steps from the Golem.

#

A heavily-armored pilot and three passengers who were equipped in the same armor carrying heavy assault rifles.

“See anything down there?” The pilot asked one of the teammates.

“Not a damn thing,” The soldier who sat next to the pilot turned to the others, “does anyone have thermal?”

“Oh, I do!” Another one of the soldiers pushed a button next to his visor. A low hum coming from the visor meant the thermal vision was activating. “Open the hatch. What exactly am I looking for?”

The thermal wearing soldier made his way to the opening.

“I don’t know.” The pilot sighed through his full-face covering helmet. “I guess whatever looks like its supposed to be shot.”

“I’m pretty sure they said it was a Golem.” Another soldier opposite from the thermal scanning one added. He lifted his helmet to scratch his bottom lip trying to remember if that was the mission. Or if that’s what he thought he heard.

The thermal view gave the man’s sight an easier way to detect whatever was below them. The grass gave a blue hue signifying a cooler temperature.

“No movement.” The soldier updated his team.

“I’m going in deeper.” The pilot began to steer the ship toward the right side of the grass field.

A small sound of snickering came from behind the shelf.

“What the hell’s so funny?!” The pilot tried not to break his concentration.

After a short pause from the soldiers, the one next to the pilot broke the silence, “That’s what she said.”

The soldiers broke out in a louder laugh.

“Grow up.” The pilot shook his head and scoffed.

#

“They’re getting closer!” Deacon looked above the tall grass, hoping that Ragnar’s large frame wouldn’t give out their location.

The loud turbines of the ship began to blow strong gusts of wind in all directions, probably a way to spread the grass apart to make their manhunt easier.

“I see them!” A voice could be heard coming from the ship. An armored soldier was hanging by the open hatch with his gun aiming down at the field.

“Damn!” Ashe climbed on Ragnar’s shoulder with her rifle scope over her right eye and the soldier in her sights. For that split second they stared at each other through their crosshairs.

She fired a round at the ship hoping to get the soldier before he fired a shot of his own. The round missed the soldier, but hit the hull, leaving a good-sized hole on the ship.

“What the hell was that?!” The pilot yelled over to his teammate. “Do they have a missile launcher?!”

“That was a bullet.” The thermal equipped soldier said with some of his voice shaking in fear. He almost became a new coat of paint for the ship in that moment.

Elvander weaponry was nothing to sneeze at and it looked like Ashe was a good shot even under pressure of being hunted by a Shadow Cannon ship.

“I missed!” Ashe clicked her tongue with disappointment ringing in her tone.

“Missed?!” Deacon looked surprised, “Looked like a direct hit!”

“Unless you see a body falling out of that ship,” Ashe squinted at the ship, “I missed.”

“Well, I guess you missed then?” Deacon gulped. The last thing he needed was to question someone holding a gun that managed to leave a bullet hole the size of a basketball into a large ship completely ignoring its armor.

Ragnar sent a message: I am beginning to feel fear toward this female.

The ship began to lower itself until it planted its landing gears onto the ground while the soldiers prepared to exit.

“Ragnar, we’re going to have to flank them once they get out of the ship.” Ashe came up with a quick plan.

Ragnar whirred in agreement.

“Where does that leave me?” Deacon worriedly asked.

“I hope you can fly a ship.”

“Shouldn’t have asked.” Deacon climbed down from Ragnar, ready to run toward the landing ship.

Ragnar and Ashe hid in opposite directions to get the jump on the soldiers who were slowly creeping inside the tall grass. The armored men weren’t sure how dangerous the other two are, but Ragnar was already too much for them to handle.

#

“Don’t stray far from the ship.” The pilot warned his partners while he had his assault rifle extended in front of him.

“I see something running through the grass. Looks too small to be the Golem though.” The soldier still had his thermal vision on.

“It’s probably the—” The third soldier’s words were cut off by a bullet in the neck. The force of the bullet sent his body sliding across the dirt and slamming him against the body of the ship.

“We got a man down!” The second soldier rushed to his aid, hoping the armor saved him.

Ragnar used the distraction to dash behind the pilot and grabbed the thermal vision equipped solder and took him inside the tall grass. It happened so fast, the soldier didn’t have a chance to yell for help.

The pilot turned around to face the noise, but saw nothing. Only the grass moving, the soldier wanted to assume it was the wind but his missing teammate made him think otherwise.

“Where did he go?” The pilot walked back toward the ship, but before he reached the entrance hatch. A loud bang along with the ship rocking from the impact caused the pilot to go check the other side. To his shock, he saw the missing soldier pinned against the second soldier who was trying to help the now-dead soldier.

The lone survivor ran toward the direction where the man was thrown and hopefully he could confront them before he was also killed. His footsteps quickly stomped through the moist ground getting further away from the ship. The one thing he said not to do.

“Damn it, come out and show yourself!” The pilot looked around the tall grass trying to keep his ground. The noise from the turbines being activated made him turn around. His ship was being hijacked and he practically gave them the keys. His view was now blocked by the large barrel of Ashe’s rifle.

“You know, you guys didn’t leave any survivors when you attacked Hazlan and I think its only fair that we do the same.” Ashe’s finger slowly slid to the trigger, ready to fire.

“He’ll know what’s happened when we don’t check in.” The pilot kept his cool, but also placed his gun close to him in hopes of a last attempt attack. A loud footstep appeared behind him making that plan impossible. Even if he managed to kill the girl in front of him; the Golem behind him will make quick work out of him.

The lone soldier now defeated dropped his gun and knelt on the ground.

“Let’s go, I found the manual! I think I got the hang of this thing!” Deacon announced over the radio.

“Thanks for the ride.” Ashe said with a smile.

She squeezed the trigger and the bullet zipped through the pilot’s chest. The force crushed him to the ground and he laid lifeless while Ragnar held onto Ashe to jump on-board of the ship. The speed of the ambush surprised Deacon who felt powerless compared to the other two when they gave the soldiers a run for their money.

At this point, he should already get used to the violence.