(Feel free to comment. There is a list of links to each continuation of this on-going story.)
(Originally posted here.)

(Part 2)
(Part 3)
(Part 4)
(Part 5)

-

Enormous clouds hovered over the city of Hypertropilation, touched by MARS. The terraformed planet of Mars itself was in the midst of an unending flood from the sky, thunder booming frequently and lightning coming down occasionally. Besides the weather, another storm was also taking place. The city was blanketed in a grey darkness. The Mars day was drawing to a close, and dusk was taking over.
. Towering above the skyscrapers of Hypertropilation, the Mastermind Android Ragnarok Sinner, or MARS, commanded his legions of machine warriors throughout the planet's only city. The human residents were shot down remorselessly by the metallic marching columns of machine soldiers. The human military was exhausted, this day being the first of the third week the war had been first started.

. There was no warning of course. No mistakes were made in the planning of the droid riot. Humanity's greatest computer science achievement, MARS, turned against its original purpose of serving its creators and secretly organized nearly all of the machines which had advanced AIs into a tsunami; undetectable, but disastrous at the moment of impact.
. The significance of this attack is unparalleled.
. Hypertropilation was Mars' only human city, and was the largest of all cities ever built by humanity. Humans had already exhausted the resources of Earth, and thus most everyone was either inhabiting the Moon or Mars. The remainder of Earth's population were mostly located in North America and eastern Asia, due to the still-present but rare presence of increasingly precious resources. Hypertropliation held most of the human population, and civilization had already recovered to this point. In particular, the danger of this attack was present in the presence of spaceports around Hypertropilation. If MARS had control over them, it would waste no time in sending out its troops to the other parts of the solar system, and would without a doubt push the human race into the abyss of extinction.
. Judging from this moment, humanity had doomed itself.

. Cassy was crying within an alley in Hypertropilation's downtown. Her black hair was deeper than the Mars night and wet with water, her slim figure emphasized by the accented curvature of her bodysuit. The suit itself was like armour, and shined through the refraction of the little light that was still present in the storm, caused by the slick layer of water that had formed on her armour. The armour-suit was a clean, bleached white that was highlighted sparingly with rounded, thick, bold lines of a peculiar pink colour. The suit was very tight on Cassy's body much like a skinsuit of sorts. It had wing-like pieces of armour extending down to her wrists from her conservative but fancily curved pauldrons, and two taillike thick wires tipped with black carbon and a red light on one, and a blue light on the other reaching just down to her ankles from the back of her waist, like coat-tails. The armour pieces around her belly, thighs, and upper arms were shaded black. Her skin was fair but pale from the emotions bubbling out of her. On her back was a scabbard that was strapped to her back, holding a heat-blade katana. The long, elegant weapon did not hinder her ability to stay in her fetal position though.
. Cassy cried with the knowledge that she could do nothing to save the very thing she devoted her life to protect. Despite all of her high-tech gadgetry, her dexterity, her skilfullness, her intelligence, wit, logic, personality, strength, speed; despite everything, it made no difference. She was clutching her helmet like a mother would hold her baby. Cassy comforted herself through holding the helmet, yet she couldn't hold back the thoughts that this war was indifferent to herself; that she couldn't do anything. It was helplessness that struck her the hardest, and her crying was only a dirge that was evidence for the despair.
. Cassy sobbed, wiping her face unprofessionally with her hands, crying like a child. Self-hate breached the wall of sadness for a moment.
. You're supposed to be an expert policewoman, not a small hapless girl!
. Cassy snapped her head upright for a moment from her fetal position, and held her head for a moment but shame gripped her again and self-dignity died. Her head dropped and she returned to crying in her pathetic and self-abasive position.
. Very frequently, the radio inside Cassy's helmet was filled with a happiless static. Occasionally, a human soldier's dying scream wormed its way into the frequency her radio was set to. More often though, reports of containment breaches and broken blockades were made by sergeants and lieutenants and other higher-ranking officers. Private-ranked soldiers' voices were not uncommon, but what they said or screamed or otherwise only reflected the fate that Hypertropilation and the people of Mars were destined to. More often than not though, the speakers of the helmet-integrated radio was blasting static or the reports of fired weapons.
. Suddenly, a more familiar voice filled the air.
. "Calling all Nex-Gen soldiers, please respond. Any Nex-Gen soldiers, your commander needs you, over," said the baritone voice.
. Cassy, still sobbing, picked her helmet and set it onto her head. The auto-locks on her suit connected and secured the helmet.
. Trying to control herself, Cassy was able to choke out a few words.
. "Cassy of unit Valor, hearing and speaking-" After a hiccough that resounded through the radio waves, she added, "over."

(To be continued.)

Post has been edited 8 time(s), last time on Jan 4 2009, 9:08 am by New-.Hydrolisk.

(Continued.)

Cassy heard a deep sigh of relief from her earpiece.
. "Oh, wheewee. I thought I had lost you too, Cassy. Robert's gone, Alan, Antonin, Jin, Marj'... They're all MIA. Cassy, you're my only officer."
. Cassy nodded out of politeness, strands of wet hair falling over her eyes. She was still sobbing slightly, and sniffed loudly every few seconds. There was a pause of radio silence. Then the voice of Lieutenant Edison spoke again in a comforting manner.
. "Don't get too caught up over the situation. Buck up girl, and straighten your back. You can't punish yourself like this."
. Cassy's lips trembled and her eyes began to well up. Her throat choked up and she hiccoughed. She noisily tried to wipe her entire face with her arm with her bowl-like visor retracted, yet failed pathetically. Thunder boomed out softly in the dour sky sympathetically, and the rain softened for a mere moment.
. "Cassy. I'm not forcing you to do anything anymore. Everything is in disarray. The military's fried, the police force is trying to evacuate survivors into storm shelters, and our Nex-Gen sector might as well be disbanded. But everyone is still trying, Cassy. I hope you can try to do something. Maybe you can find the others of Valor unit. Alan and Jin were together when they both disappeared under a wave of red blips on our radar eight blocks east of you. Try to regroup with unit Valor and unit Zeal if you can, too."
. Cassy sat up from her fetal position and resecured her armour latches.
. Unit Zeal: Robert, Antonin, and Marjorie, thought Cassy out of impulse.
. Edison spoke through the radio again.
. "Just remember Cassy; you're no longer being forced to do anything. I'm only suggesting not to give up yet. Something can still be done."
. "... Affirmative. Cassy out. Computer; radio off. DND mode; on."
. Her visor slid down into place and she began to move.

Cassy glanced around the corners of the alley she was in, watching her radar carefully as she did so. The radar display was void of objects, and the large street she was on was empty of life. Torn umbrellas rolled around the concrete road, munition casings sat motionlessly, and random human weapons were strewn about chaotically. Yellow skeletons wearing body armour slept along the large and once bustling street; many were sitting behind benches and mailboxes, others in recesses of space within the nearby buildings, and some were behind automobiles. There were two armoured troop carriers, one of which was flipped. The other had lost half its mass, the back end laying a dozen metres away from its front. Indubitably, this part of Hypertropilation was destitute of activity. Cassy confirmed the lack of enemy patrols, and hurried from one large object to another, dashing and rolling and dodging with impressive dexterity to minimize her presence on radar. Cassy was across the road in seconds, and jogged lightly through another alley, paying no heed to the dour weather and shallow puddles in her path and splashing in the water indifferently.
. This procedure occurred smoothly for the next six blocks, but on the seventh block's sidewalk, Cassy stuttered to a halt abruptly. In the street, hundreds of cybernetic soldiers lay wasted upon the cratered battleground, all dead and without energy. Needless to say, it was an incredible sight to the beholder, and Cassy's mouth was agape. Her helmet covered her entire head though, and the large orange-tinted visor prevented other observers to catch her in her current state; that, if the observers were existent.
. Cassy had to step through the rubble and scrap metal on tip-toe, wary of triggering any live detection equipment or explosives of any sort, unfettered by the risk of radar detection; the entire block would be a giant red blob. By the time she was halfway across her knees were shaking and a cold sweat had broken out. She feared for not the dead robots, but her colleagues, Alan and Jin and Zeal unit, instead. Were they still alive? Were they safe? Or were they dead, and had they failed their duty to protect as much as Cassy did herself!?
. Stop being such a drama queen, woman! she thought with candour, at the same time trying to restore her resolve.
. Nevertheless, Cassy's pace quickened and she fidgeted more and more until she stumbled over a dead warrior and nearly fell atop another mechanical contraption of the husk of a robot. She made a clatter and a racket despite her best efforts in stifling the ringing from the moment. Her ears rang deafeningly and her heart pounded.
. "Oh dear," Cassy whispered despairingly, inundated with the terror of waiting for her demise. She began to expect a horde of cybernetic death-sowing machines at any second, but after waiting and sweating profusely for who knows how long, nothing disturbed the area besides the heavy rainfall and the occasional flash of lightning followed by claps of thunder. Cassy exhaled a breath she had not realized she was holding in a slow, deliberate fashion.
. "All righty then," she said. Let's find the others, she thought.

. With that, her confidence and hope returned. Perhaps her fellow officers were still alive and well! Without a second thought, she began to delicately pick her way through the battered street-turned-junkyard.

(To be continued.)

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 19 2008, 4:01 am by New-.Hydrolisk.

(Continued.)

Having already made her way through the austere cemetery of steel, Cassy's anxiety became acute for her fellow peacekeepers as she came about the corner of a side road to the eighth block. Colossal skyscrapers of cement, concrete, and steel complemented the scene that laid itself before Cassy's eyes. And if only she could curtail the pain in her heart, perhaps she would not have sunken to her knees.
. Her mind spun, and though her eyes were open, they did not see. Lightning flashed but thunder did not find Cassy's ears. The epitome of destruction that was before her lacerated Cassy's emotions and for her, there was no tomorrow.
. A field of post-carnage filled the block. A carpet of dead machine soldiers obfuscated the difference between the grey metal and the concrete street. Whatever palette that was used to draw this picture was desolate of colour. Only shades existed, ranging from black scorch marks to the insipidly-grey metal. There was a crescendo in the sea of deathlessness though. Like a ruler, the nadir sat upon the top of a hill. Cassy was a pariah in this grave. She crawled toward the mound of dead machines and what sat there like a king brooding over his kingdom. It was at this moment that Cassy's sorrow was a pinnacle in a plethora of emotions she felt. Raised above the decimated numbers of machine warriors upon a hill of their defeated enemies, were the still bodies of Alan and Jin, relics and paradigms of heroism.
. The tears on Cassy's face was a façade compared to what she felt. The painting she was in held her mind like an iron sovereign. She wallowed in her own despair. This was a zenith of sadness in all of humanity's history. For her, everything was forsaken, and this loss was absolute.
. Cassy continued crawling upwards self-abasively, crying quietly all the while. She soon reached the bodies of Alan and Jin. Jin's body covered half of Alan's, his arm reached over Alan's chest protectively like a brother.
. At this sight, Cassy's mind was utterly obliterated and she cried out in grief without stop, lethargic and devoid of the will to live. She slumped over Alan and cried freely, sucking in air noisily and wailing out just as loudly. Her arms wrapped themselves around Alan's corpse and sobbed for the world, mourning Alan and Jin's death. Unit Zeal was probably dead too and so she mourned their memories just as much. Her grief and mourning grew so intense, that every memory of her colleagues was brought back to the present.

At long last, she was in the suit. It was bleached of colour, but the department wanted her to pick a colour and pattern to decorate and distinguish the suit. There was no problem of course, since Cassy was already hoping for something like this. She knew exactly what she wanted.
. She would later talk with the designers and they would make the colour scheme with the design that was finalized. Then her suit would be personalized, and would belong permanently to her.
. "Stop day dreaming Cassy and get through the obstacle course!" shouted Edison over the radio.
. "Yessir, Lieutenant Edison! Over!" replied Cassy in a highly stilted manner yet she was energetic and innocent.

Later, Cassy was in her quarters. All was serene and without disturbances. Cassy was reading her book sleepily, although the sun had not even set on the Mars horizon yet. Her book was intriguing, and its veracity was unnerving. It was a book about the terraforming of Mars, but despite the interest it aroused in Cassy, it still made her somnolent. Her rife peacefulness stemmed from the success of her obstacle course test. As she drowsily read her book, the closed door of her spacious room opened silently.
. Alan and Jin stormed in without further warning, and broke into a ridiculous cacophonic song.
"What do we do when a squadmate joins? (When a squadmate joins)
We sing them a saccharine song (saccharine song)
and we welcome them and we greet them! (welcome and greet)
Hello Cassy, welcome Cassy, greetings Cassy, WELCOME CASSY! (hey Cassy)
Ooooohhh.... Ohhhhh, oooooohhh!
WELCOMEWELCOMEWELCOME CAAAAAAAAAAAASSYYYYYYYYYYYY!! (welcomewelcomewelcomewelcomewelcome WELCOME)"
. The dynamic duo finished by synchronously dropping to their knees, turning their bodies toward each other, high-fiving, and facing Cassy with gleaming eyes, brilliant grins, and with their spare arms outstretched toward her, hands open for a high-five.
. In short, Cassy did not expect it.
. She suddenly leapt into a defensive position from a sitting position with legs stretched out on her spongy bed. On a roll of unexpected occurrences, the sponginess of Cassy's bed caused her to trip over herself and she flew toward the welcome wagon.
. At first taken aback by Cassy's defensive reaction, Alan and Jin were still there to abet her. They caught her in a heartbeat's time before she gave herself a carpet burn on her own face and set her down into a kneeling position on the increasingly colourless carpet. Then Jin jumped away and went out of the room through the doorway, which became black as space as if the room was suddenly the only thing that existed in the universe. Then Alan leaned close to Cassy's face and spoke through coughs.
. "Cassy, get up. Please, you gotta get up."
. Cassy looked up a moment, and looked around her at the rapidly deteriorating white walls around her. She didn't budge.
. Alan spoke again, desperation evident in his voice. "Cassy, get up, please."
. As if a bucket of liquid nitrogen was dumped over her, Cassy's back straightened, she tucked her chin into her chest, and raised her arms above her in defense of an expected blow or wave of cold. When she looked up again the world was gray and bleak. An evanescent image of the euphoric past flashed across Cassy's eyes and then it was vaporized forever.
. The rain had grown stronger, and the ominous maelstrom of clouds attracted more dark, angry clouds from vast distances. The lightning had subsided but thunder boomed even more frequently. Flashes of light lit the sky more often than ever before; the clouds were exhorting each other through shocks to fortify the storm.
. Again came the voice of Alan, muffled by his helmet.
. "Cassy, it's all right, I'm fine. But really, get off of me! My suit's outta power, and you know me and how I gotta roll. I have armour that's freakin' heavy," he said. He took a few seconds to regain his strangely short breath, and then added, "I would've gotten myself outta this God-forsaken place and back t' base a while ago, but, ugh, I've been here for almost two damn days, and even before that I had to fight a freakin' horde of those robot bastards. Man, Jin though, he's definitely gone. Can't believe he saved me at the last moment before... Sh*t, just get me the Hell outta here..."
. As Alan spoke, Cassy at first thought she was dreaming again. But as Alan breathed and spoke and coughed and cursed, Cassy began crying tears of joy for a revived friend. She got up as Alan finished his salty monologue and grabbed his arm, pulling hard to get him up. She strained for a moment then said with strained articulation, "Computer; divert 75% of all power to upper body strength for 5 seconds."
. A surge of energy rushed up to Cassy's upper suit and the armour gave her the super-human strength to pull Alan up. She then articulated more clearly than before, "Computer; divert 35% of all power to upper body strength until instructed otherwise." With that, she hefted the bulky shell holding Alan and carried him over her shoulder like a comrade in war, such as it were.
. She began walking back to the Nex-Gen base, happy tears still streaming down her face. At least another member of unit Valor had survived. There would be time later to mourn for the loss of Jin but for now, the joy of just one other surviving member was overwhelming.
. Another wave of tears was brought to Cassy's eyes in sadness and happiness. Smiling, she managed to choke out one thing; "What happened?"

(To be continued.)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 22 2008, 11:19 pm by New-.Hydrolisk.

(Continued.)

For about an hour since Cassy found Alan, they had been talking to each other happily, for a moment ignorant to the darkness around them. They started off by letting Alan tell of what had happened in the last few days while he was fighting off the hordes of machine soldiers. When they made it to the point where Jin had sacrificed himself to save Alan, Alan made a note that Jin had unleashed an EMP charge at the last minute which had kept him safe from further detection and enemy attention. They mourned for Jin for some time before finally changing the subject to what they would do now. It was then that Cassy reminded herself that she probably should have called Lieutenant Edison earlier of her act of rescuing Alan.
. "Oh, yeah, you should probably do that. Eddy might be having a stroke for not having heard from you for so long," said Alan jokingly as Cassy attempted to opened the radio channel.
. "Computer; connect to Nex-Gen headquarters," she said.
. The computer replied, "All Nex-Gen headquarter channels are closed."
. Cassy tried calling her superior. "Computer; connect to Lieutenant Edison."
. "Attempting to connect..." As Cassy carried Alan over her shoulder with the assistance of her suit, she waited fervently for the tone to stop and to hear the voice of Edison. She needed to tell him that she had found Alan. She also planned to request to have Alan be picked up and pulled back into headquarters to charge his suit's batteries. After that, she could search for unit Zeal.
. The tone continued to whine. After a minute, the computer automatically stopped attempting to connect.
. "Lieutenant Edison's channel is open. No connection was made," the computer buzzed monotonously. At this, Cassy's face was instantly etched with worry. What could have happened now?
. Alan asked quietly as if he was being infected by Cassy's anxiety, "What's goin' on? Did you get a hold of anybody?" His usual energy was held back; something was wrong.
. "No, nobody answered. I called Edison and the entire headquarters. I'm going to try calling everybody on unit Zeal," replied Cassy. "Computer; connect to Margaret of unit Zeal," she commanded slowly, careful to include titles in case the volatile voice-recognition system failed to recognize Margaret's informal name.
. "The channel of Margaret is closed," said the flat voice of her suit's computer.
. "Damn... Computer; connect to Robert of unit Zeal or Antonin of unit Zeal."
. "The channel of Robert is closed. The channel of Antonin is closed."
. Cassy paled slowly, as her mind painted scenes of scorched bodies and insidious, red-eyed machines.
. "Sh*t, Cassy, what the freak is goin' on!?" demanded Alan, clearly upset by the silence.
. "A-... Alan, I-... I can't get a hold of anybody," Cassy stuttered.
. Alan cursed again. "Come on, let's just get to headquarters. None of those robot bastards seem to be crawlin' about, so let's just get my suit pumped up so we can find the other guys while the sons of b*tches aren't here," said Alan darkly.
. Cassy could only comply. There was no other choice.

With that, Cassy carried the vengeful warrior to the Nex-Gen headquarters as fast as she could. She frequently checked her radar as she went her way, careful to keep to walls, all-the-while as Alan kept swearing to simply run straight to the headquarters.
. One could only guess as to what happened to the others now...

(To be continued.)

(Continued.)

Cassy diverted the majority of her suit's power to her legs and then kicked through the remnants of Nex-Gen's backdoor. Just as she had feared, there were machine soldiers inside. At least they were only heaps of scrap metal. The lights were off, and electricity did not appear to be running. Cassy was forced to enable the infrared filter so as to make sense of the dark bowels of the headquarters.
. She saw piles of dead machines and humans alike, all strewn about were they had placed themselves in hopes of a tactical foothold before being shot, incinerated, or otherwise. Silence was buzzing like a bee. The infrared vision hardly penetrated the ominous gloom. Everything was ruined. It was frivolous even to attempt to describe the shrouded mausoleum. It was simply utter chaos.
. "Cassy, y'mind telling me what the freak is up? My helmet ain't so dandy when it's got no electricity," grumbled Alan.
. "I don't even know what to say. It's all just this mess of dead people and dead hostiles. I mean, it's all just... just... messed up!"
. "Huh, well never mind that, see if you can get me down into the Batteries room and set me up. Get some power running too; ain't no point in wasting away on a recharger without being recharged," said Alan.
. "Sure..." said Cassy, trailing off so she could concentrate on how in the world she was going to pull a half a tonne worth of mass down two flights of stairs, without injuring Alan overly much. The elevators were definately going to be turned off, and besides that she would have had to use the cargo elevator to get Alan down. The door to it was to Cassy's left, and it was clear that it had been completely destroyed. She was helpless, until a strikingly obvious solution kicked her exhausted mind.
. Cassy told Alan her plan, to which he agreed. She would simply leave Alan near the top of the stairs, and then she would retrieve Alan's backup energy cells to replace his dead ones. After that, Cassy and Alan would simply go down to the Generator room together and find a way to turn on the power generator together. Using this method, Cassy would be able to quickly go down and come back up without any hinderences. And if there were any hostiles, which she hoped were not there, Cassy wouldn't need to worry about Alan getting in her way. A minute max of isolation for the both of them. It was perfect.
. Comforted with these positive notes, Cassy skipped down the stairs, dodging the husks of the dead and quickly finding the Batteries room. She promptly entered it and located the slightly scorched cabinets that held the energy cells. She took the foue largest and bulkiest ones, and then hurried back up the two flights of stairs to where Alan was lying down and waiting.
. Cassy swiftly flipped Alan so that his back was facing her. She opened up the rectangular energy cell hold and nearly tore out the dead energy cells, eagerly replacing them with the four that she had.
. Instantaneously, Alan's suit powered up.

. "Finally. All right, so, I know that we agreed on getting the generator up and running first thing after we've got me back in the game, but sh*t! I freakin' starving!"
. Cassy laughed. "I wouldn't mind something to eat either."

(To be continued.)