The stolen Shadow Cannon ship cruised through the air trying to hide inside the clouds to avoid any other nasty surprises that could take them away from their mission. The sun was already up in its full potential with its rays reaching over the horizon. Below them was an ocean with small islands scattered throughout the water. A few didn’t stand out, but one had a large skyscraper sticking out like a flag announcing their status above the other islands. On the other side was a large piece of land that had a lot more large buildings that made the island look like it was a piece of urban utopia that just floated away.

“There it is!” Ashe pointed out from the cockpit toward the coast of another country. “That’s Elvander!”

“Whoa, it looks bigger in person, well, from the sky.” Deacon looked over the city in amazement.

The skyscrapers were high, cars sped through the highways, ships docked to their ports, and didn’t look like they were putting the war as a priority. Did they even know that they were missing a fuel cell that powered their defenses?

“We’re about an hour and a half or so from reaching the border. At this rate, it’ll be smooth sailing.” Ashe calculated the distance between where they were now and Elvander.

After the trouble Deacon had, he was surprised that they were at the final stretch and it looked easier than what he expected, even for something that was as important as that fuel cell. He couldn’t help but let out a smile that seemed to creep out Ashe, who he only met a few hours ago. He couldn’t forget Ragnar who refused to look at him with that smile. Deacon didn’t care; he managed to get to Elvander even before his days off were over. A trip that seemed to take days on foot was cut short all thanks to Ragnar and Ashe’s quick thinking to steal this very ship he was sitting in and now piloting.

“So what are you going to do after we get to Elvander?” Deacon asked the young woman across from him.

“I’m hoping to get them to help me rebuild Hazlan. I don’t know if that’s even possible without survivors. I know it’ll suck returning to a place as the only person who lived to tell the tale of Shadow Cannon’s massacre. What about you?”

“I’m not sure. I wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, I guess.”

“So why did you even bother helping Ragnar? He was obviously a weapon who fought for Shadow Cannon.” Ashe’s left eyebrow rose trying to get him to spill the beans as to why he decided to betray the world by aiding the robot. “What made you put your trust in him?”

“I don’t know. I guess I can say that I just trusted him; its weird because he could’ve killed me at any moment when I was there, but instead he begged me for help.” Deacon tapped on Ragnar’s arm in a friendly manner, “And in turn, he trusted me to not turn him in, so we relied on trusting each other even if it was for the moment.”

“So what now? You two are best friends now?” Ashe snickered.

“I mean, I never really had friends, well, good friends. They all chucked me to the side whenever they were done with me or they met someone new that piqued their interest, but Ragnar literally took bullets for me, no matter how many times I tried to push him away. Does that answer your question?” Deacon looked over to Ashe.

“That’s cool I guess, I never met a giant robot before, but then again I didn’t play with live grenades either.” Ashe’s comparison was fair, but so far that robot has proved to be a great ally against Shadow Cannon and their quest to return the fuel cell to Elvander.

“Joke all you want, but at least you can get your revenge and I can get home in time for…” Deacon’s words paused. He didn’t really know what he was going home to. The same routine with romantic comedy marathons and infomercials while he drank his boredom away. He stared at the pockets of Ashe’s loose-fitted pants, nothing caught his attention in particular, but his eyes fixed on the pattern of her pockets while he thought about himself going home to nothing.

A metaphorical nothing while Ashe would go home to ashes and blood. The two were incomparable, but it made him realize that he was doing the biggest thing in his life and all he cared about was going home to enjoy his day off. He was about save the world, but his dishes raced in his thoughts. Nothing was as bad as Ashe’s pressure as the only survivor of Hazlan.

Meeting Deacon and Ragnar was the perfect opportunity for her to get the revenge she needed on Shadow Cannon for killing her family, her friends, and her peace. The moment happened quick, but it played constantly in her head with great detail as if she caught the whole thing on camera. She wrapped herself with her coat and sat next to Deacon, giving out a sigh. Her fingerless gloves placed her rifle down in front of them; she was ready to be vulnerable for that instance. Her light hazel eyes looked over at Deacon.

“What if I can’t get them back? I got lucky bumping into you two, but what if that’s as far as my luck goes?” Ashe grew some doubt in herself.

“Don’t think like that.” Deacon tried to wave off her doubt, “You didn’t get this far on just luck. You survived for a reason and maybe that reason is to stop Shadow Cannon.”

Ragnar agreed with its whir.

“Who knows? Elvander might even give me a chance to stay there among the elite for being their savior.” Ashe’s worried look morphed into a sense of pride.

“You may be right.” Deacon looked at the monitor that kept track of any other ships that were in the sky to avoid getting into a crash. “Just be—”

Deacon stopped his sentence when he saw another blip on his radar that showed another ship behind them. He instantly thought that they were being followed by just looking at the speed of the ship that was catching up to them.

#

“We see them in our crosshairs, what do you want us to do, sir?” The pilot of the ship turned to the suited figure who was standing behind him. His calm demeanor was haunting, but this moment his anger began to show itself when he saw the ship.

“Take it out. Disable it. I don’t care. I just want that ship smoking before it hits the ground.” Reves patted the pilot on his shoulder and made his way to his seat to wait for the results of his order.

“You heard the man! Fire when ready!” The pilot yelled out to his crew, who were all wearing the Shadow Cannon military armor, just like the previous soldiers who were wiped out by Ragnar and Ashe. They reached for buttons and typed in codes to activate the weapon console and arm their guns to take out the hijacked ship.

The pilot looked onto his screen and waited for the crosshairs to lock on to Deacon’s ship. By then, they would’ve figured out what Shadow Cannon was up to and began to make any evasive maneuver that they can come up with due to their limited flight skills. The pilot grunted in frustration while he tried to keep his aim true, but the ship ahead of him was erratic and unpredictable. It was a possibility that their absence of flight training could be their advantage. Maybe the lack of fundamentals gave them a chance to escape with their lives.

The pilot made another attempt and finally got a bead on them when his crosshairs glowed from a white to a blinking red; he had an instant hit.

“Target locked.” The pilot raised his hand to signal them to shoot.

“Fire away.” Reves cut in to speed up the process.

The soldiers couldn’t argue with the order and began to pull their triggers to fire their guns. The view soon began to go from a clear screen to a monitor filled with smoke when their bullets made contact with the hull of the other ship. The trail of smoke soon lowered below Shadow Cannon and sped down toward the ground.

“Target destroyed.” The pilot called it early.

“Let’s not count them out just yet. I want that fuel cell recovered, but if that’s not possible then destroy it.” Reves looked over to his men with a stare that sent chills down to their spines.

“Yes sir!” They all agreed with his next plan of action.

#

Their ship was smoking inside-out and the alarm saying that the damage was critical kept blaring louder and louder. Everything increased the pressure of their fall and made their choices harder to make with all the distractions coming up one after the other.

“We’re not going to make it if we just stay here!” Deacon tried to find his balance while the ship tipped over like a wounded whale.

Ashe slid toward the cockpit to see where they were going to hit. To her surprise, it was going to make contact with the island and its large skyscraper. The part they were going to hit wasn’t going to matter; the impact alone was probably going to kill them.

Ragnar had to think faster than them, its mind was pretty much a computer anyways. Fear didn’t click on the machine, but it did see the fear in the humans and that was enough to understand the situation they were in. Using its strength, it climbed toward the exit hatch of the ship then began to tear the door from its hinges. Ashe looked over to Deacon, who was already set up to catch her when she jumped from the entrance of the cockpit toward the hatch.

The ship rotated on its opposite side, Ashe was now above Deacon, but they adapted to make the change, but Ragnar only had one chance to catch them both before they hit the island.

“After this, we are officially friends!” Ashe shouted at the pair.

“Sounds good!” Deacon readied himself to catch her, “Now jump!”

Ashe counted to three in her head and dropped down from the cockpit toward Deacon, who used every ounce of his power to prevent themselves from falling down toward the hatch early. Ashe grabbed some footing thanks to Deacon and the duo jumped from the seats to Ragnar who was already waiting by the exit.

The Golem jumped to get them, but managed to catch Deacon while Ashe bounced off its shoulder with a strong impact.

“Ashe!” Deacon yelled out as he saw her lifeless body falling and spinning uncontrollably.

Ragnar put Deacon inside his shell and dived toward Ashe, hoping to reach her before the ground did. Their speed was intense and almost fatal if they collided, but Ragnar had to take the chance.

“Use your turbines!” Deacon yelled out from the inside of Ragnar’s shell.

Ragnar knew its batteries weren’t going to make the full-flight, but it understood what he meant. Its turbines activated and let out a quick burst of speed allowing them to catch up to Ashe. The Golem then wrapped its arms around Ashe to prevent any form of collision to harm her then flipped over to use its turbines again to create a speed resistance to slow the impact and hopefully survive the fall. The boosters in its legs sputtered, but gave enough power to pull off the resistance.

“Open this thing!” Deacon used the shell as a way to shield Ashe and himself from the impact. Ragnar quickly sealed its chestplate then used its turbines one more time to slow itself down before they hit the ground.

Ragnar crashed through one of the top floors of the island’s skyscrapers, breaking walls and crashing through office spaces while it rolled through the floor until it can catch some footing. Ragnar’s legs dug deep into the floor to slide into a halt.

Deacon climbed out of the shell with an injured Ashe still knocked out from the hit.

“What are we going to do?!” Deacon turned to Ragnar.

Ragnar looked over to the windows and saw the Shadow Cannon ship hovering close by the building where they landed in.

Ragnar whirred with a message: Fight.