Synthetic Survivor: Machine Age

"Pests?" Anna whispered.

"Why are you whispering? And yes, pests. You are but a torn to my side of things and as pests, you need to be exterminated," One continued his insult. Anna was not having any of it. With a quick shuffle of her hands and steady maneuvering of her feet, she directed a flurry of wind sheers directly at One's direction.

One, having evaluated her power, proceeded to take the brunt of the wind. The wind slammed at him, but he stood firm and was unwavering. With such a tremendous force, it was a shock to Anna how One withstood it.

"You haven't learned, as I prove time and time again, mere wind won't topple me," One began to walk towards her.

With every step he took, his aura became stronger and stronger in her eyes. The atmosphere began to suffocate her mentally, she was facing a monster whose power was not derived from any form of magic, but by the complicated tinkering and technology of a machine.

One walked closer; he was almost within arms reach. The fast winds were doing no effect whatsoever, and Anna was out of options but to resort to hand-to-hand combat once more. But strangely, One did not attack; he only stood there in front of her.

"What are you waiting for?" Anna asked. Seeing that her adversary had been very talkative, maybe she could expose his intentions if what he had been saying have been true indeed. She got her answer.

"Well, I am just waiting for you to go down,"

She realized it too late. She has used up all her magical reserves and the magic she was harnessing from the surroundings wasn't enough to support her tornado.

"Argk!" She felt a sudden ache take over her abdomen before collapsing to the floor. She shrieked and held her stomach tightly as the pain continued to sear.

"Pitiful, but, I don't feel pity," One walked towards her right side that was facing him.

Her tornado had completely dispersed after she lost focus, she was now experiencing magical deficiency. Her body lacked enough mana to maintain itself, at any moment she could be engulfed into a pool of blood and organs.

"You won't die, don't worry," One suddenly said.

"I will use you as a battery, considering that you won't discern me anything I'd need and the fact that your mind may be to strong, a battery will do,"

'a battery?' Anna thought. 'What is a battery?'

She was dead confused. Hearing that she would be made into something she does not know, she tried desperately to gather enough magical power as fast as she could.

"Agh!" She screamed and wailed but to no avail. Her body could no longer absorb any more mana, only enough mana to keep her from dying. She panted heavily and profusely.

She slumped to the ground and faced One who was now standing on her left side.

One stared at her before she finally conceded defeated and bashed her head against the ground.

"Alright, with her magical reserve we may be able to modify the wormhole more," One said.

The atmosphere has calmed around the city. Everything was dead silent; bodies were scattered all over with nothing spared. The once strong walls that encompassed the city lied in ruin, the proud estates, the cathedral, the palace of the lord and the busy districts and streets, all lay in ruin.

The ruin of a once prosperous and glorious city.

Several fighter jets soared overhead, signifying the end of the theocracy's control over the surrounding lands.

"It is done, well, the first objective that is,"

-

"Where are we?" A group of refugees was stuck inside a box.

"Hey!"

"Help!"

They cried for help but there was no-one there to answer their calls.

Then, something hard slammed against the walls of the box.

The refugees screamed, there were twenty of them all stuck inside. They felt the box get hoisted up and they fall fell to the floor. They cried and prayed as the box shifted and rocked. The entire event lasted for a good minute before finally, the box stopped abruptly.

"Where are we being taken!? my son? Where is my son!" A lone mother called for her son. She called him by his name, "David!" She cried and cried. But through the voices and panicked tones of the other refugees, there was no response from her only child.

And then there was silence.

And then there was nothing, a flash of light and then came the bodies. The refugees have been killed; their bodies scrambled across the walls and floor. Their limbs torned and bodies jagged. Their muffled screams and cries came upon deaf ears.

The mother, who now lied dead among the other victims, still had her eyes opened.

A single tear fell from her right eye, slowly dripped to the blood pool on which she lied.

This was the scene to many others like them, refugees thinking that they have found their salvation. They fled their lands, homes and own people. They though they'd be safe, but in reality would be killed by the very same saviors they trusted.

Many thought that the enemy would be appeased by using sacrifices, by sacrificing their own people they though they would be safe from the same horror they feared.

This was not the case. After they were lured into this false sense of security themselves, they too would be killed, slaughtered like animals. They were punished accordingly, punished for a crime they did not commit nor were they even aware of.

Bangkok, Thailand

2989.

2 months into the war.

The city of Barbur has fallen. Anna, the most powerful of the council has also met her defeat. The other councilmembers watched in the distance and saw Anna get defeated.

"She was too rash,"

"She used too much of her power to fight the giant until she did not have anything to spare against the real threat,"

"But, we wanted to rally behind her and save her. We have failed yet again,"

"No, we did not fail, rather, we were infected by inaction,"

"We did fail, don't make excuses,"

"Sorry,"

"So, what happens to her now? She is alive but the enemy has captured her,"

"Ransom?"

"Maybe,"

"I doubt that they'd ransom her,"

"Why do you think that? Fiery Kevin,"

"The enemy does not use any form or sort of magic, I have a hunch that they will use her for experiments and the like,"

"Yes, they do not have magic but, how can we stand against them?"

"Simple, we don't"

"What!?"

"Blasphemy! We can't just accept our defeat just yet!"

"Fellow councilmen, think about it, what choice do we have? Our armies have been crushed, most of the scriptures have been killed off or are missing, we've lost the city and the councilwoman, do you think we still stand a chance against all of this?"

The councilmen were silent.

All of them stared into the distance, the burning forest that they started has begun to heal. The machines have deployed firefighting units and have extinguished most of the flames and only those near battlefields remained.

The crusade has ended, abruptly that is.

The metal men marched through the valleys, the plains and the ridges unchallenged. Many began to flee their villages, many sought to surrender while some embraced their deaths and committed suicide. All across the Theocracy, rumors of mass suicides spread. The culprits? A curse brought upon them by the God of Metal, although there wasn't such.

Faith for the goddess has severely degraded to the point that she was no longer respected nor worshiped being. The deity's images, statues, and cathedrals were stormed and destroyed overnight by angered believers who thought that the goddess abandoned them to their deaths.

As chaos and anarchy spread, bandit groups began to form; these groups would go and form formidable armies that would pillage and r.a.p.e unprotected towns and villages. Many women were victimized, all of this unfolded as hovercrafts zoomed above the clouds.

"Savages," Hailey said.

Around her were a plethora of monitors, both bright and dim, big and small. Each monitor displayed the video feed from each drone that has been scouting ever since the fall of Barbur.

Hailey was alone, several drones accompanied her but she still felt loneliness. One has been on the field for weeks already and has not paid her a visit since.

"Hmph!" She suddenly pouted.

"Always putting himself in danger, He has no idea how concerned I am. He usually disappears from the machine hivemind from time to time, a mystery for sure,"

She grabbed the chair behind her and sat down.

 "He's having breakdowns, I know he is! When I entered that room, destruction was everywhere, it could only mean that he broke down inside that room and fell unconscious. If only I knew how to time travel!"

Time travel, in all respects and purposes, was impossible. Regardless, if such a thing was indeed possible then time would already be a mess just by human nature alone.

A monitor began to blink a reddish hue.

"Huh?"

Hailey stood from her chair and walked towards the monitor.

"An emergency message? From whom?" She looked closer to see from whom was the alert coming from.

Scout 17, the hovercraft flying over the Huko Plains has sent an alert. There was no damage to its hull, nor was there anything negative impacting the craft itself, rather, it was seeing a massive force.

The force was heavily centralized and divided into specific ranks. It was moving through the plains in an organized fashion. There was no enemy air force and thus the drone decided to swoop down to get a better look.

The drone did fly lower beneath the clouds.

The army was massive, as it flew down it released a loud boom as it broke the sound barrier. This was a tactic made by One to scare off enemy ground forces and it did.

The soldiers and mages all covered their heads and some even ran from their positions. The craft relayed another message.

'permission to engage'

"Eh? I don't have the authority, I need to ask One," Hailey immediately opened her comms and contacted One.

"One, can you hear me?"

"Affirmative,"

"Hovercraft 17 assigned to the central plains has relayed an alert and a request,"

"Proceed,"

"The-, uh, wait, what? Let the drone proceed?"

"Yes,"

"Wait, On-"

"I say it one last time, proceed, grant the craft permission, let it grab the opportunity.

"O-okay,"

Well, One was confident in the decision-making of his drones by now. Each drone had an individual ai core that learns and gains experience with each new mission and thus, the drones currently deployed in this world are now tacticians themselves but are limited by their own outdated devices for now.

Hailey proceeded to acknowledge the hovercraft's request and it began its attack.

It circled back towards the army center, breaking once more the sound barrier creating another sonic boom. It was too fast for any of the mages to target.

'Missiles go,'

As it neared the army center, it fired a cascade of missiles. These missiles were specifically designed for hovercraft use. Each missile had a power of 0.3 megatons of TNT; basically, although not as powerful as a nuclear weapon, it was enough to bomb hundreds to oblivion.

The soldiers saw the missiles but saw them too late.

"Agrgh!!"

The entire army center was bombarded within seconds. Body parts flew into the air, hundreds were killed in an instant while others were deafened or blinded. They fell to the ground and wailed in pain.

"Fire!" several ranks of archers fired high-speed arrows into the air in the hopes of taking the hovercraft down only to be targeted next.

Another cascade of missiles was launched, slaughtering hundreds more. It then lowered its machine guns and its newly installed Gatling gun that was for sure to wreak havoc.

The Gatling gun began to roll and after a few seconds, unleashed more hell upon the enemy ground forces.

"Stop!" Some pleaded.

The hovercraft seemed to be messing with them as it flew in circles, firing mercilessly and indiscriminately into the scattering army.

The entire fiasco lasted for 30 minutes, a total of 30k troops died. But there were still 100k left.

The hovercraft was losing munition very quickly and thus had to retreat. But not before sending a request to other hovercrafts in the area to finish what he started. The hovercrafts essentially formed a cooperative structure with each craft performing a critical role. The message reached a nearby hovercraft 3 kilometers away, that hovercraft then forwarded the message to two other and those two others forwarded the message.

It was a beautiful chain reaction. One saw it all unfold when he tapped into the communication lines to see what was going on.

He was pleased and could be said that he was actually happy of the cooperation displayed by the hovercrafts. They needed not his help in anyway and formulated a strategy without his intervention or guidance.

"Micheal!" One suddenly called.

"Yes, commander!" Micheal rushed to his side.

"I need you to call upon a transport here right now, we need to see the fireworks that are to unfold!"

"Yes, commander!"

One was not going to miss what he considered a milestone in the evolution of his machines. The transport was called and One was more than excited.

-

"Are you alright?" The leader of the Red Scripture, Ferdinand Joe stepped off his horse to help a fellow mage stand up. He wore a red robe embedded with many jewels and gold. These ornaments had magic properties of their own and thus was a perfect fit for him. He was also bald and average looking.

"Tsk!" He frowned at the sight of his bruised comrade.

"Captain of the rear flank, tell the men to regroup, we must reach Barbur City and reclaim it!" He ordered.

"Yes, sir!" The captain rode off with his horse.

Ferdinand Joe was the leader of the Red Scripture, although he went by many names, he was most commonly referred to as J. J was a powerful mage in his own right with the magical capacity and manipulation strength to match those of archmages.

Then, that raises the question, where the hell was he all this time?

During the first hours of the offensive, he and his scripture were caught off-guard when the metal men stormed their positions. The surprise attack pushed them back and prompted them to go melee and thus could not use their abilities to their fullest extent. When the machine army began to undeniably overrun them, he and his scripture retreated using their own teleportation spells.

He had only heard of the fall of Barbur but was not informed of the whereabouts and status of the council, but as long as he was around, The Theocracy still had a leader.

In a daring move, he managed to gather all the remaining forces from each major city to form the last army of the Theocracy. A combined force of knights, spearmen, pikemen, bowmen, crossbowmen and many more. Many mages were also with him, his fellow scripture members, the blue scripture, the yellow scripture and what remained of the white scripture.

These survivors led the remnants of the tens of thousands of mages that still had the will to fight. Their audacity was much needed in this time of suffering and defeat.

He rode on top of a white horse and lead the army through the plains.

"The bodies! Leave them be, take the wounded out of the centre and place them behind, we must not slow down or else the enemy may come back and finish us off!" He barked his orders from left to right. His leadership skills were the only thing keeping the army of this sheer size together.

They also had limited supplies, to accommodate such vast numbers Joe decided to attach a supply corp to the army whose main job for all intents and purposes was to carefully ration and handle their supplies and get more supplies if needed.

How would they get more supplies? Well, through old traditions.

Pillaging the lands, their own lands.

Well, they refused to call it pillaging, rather, the locals were to mandatory give them all their food in exchange for protection and that all their men above the age of 15 would join their army and fight on their side.

Some thought that the villagers whose villages were nearest to the enemy would switch sides and betray the theocracy in-exchange for protection. This, although was somewhat true, caused Joe to order for every village they come across have their men join the army and fight.

If they were to resist, well, death was the punishment.

Either way, death awaited them.

Unbeknownst to Joe, a combined force of Hovercrafts was well on their way to disintegrate them. The army proceeded to march through the plains somewhat peacefully, the sounds of hovercrafts flying in the distance gave them fear. The fear of the unknown, to hear the sound of your enemy but without being able to see them was a tremendous factor that played a role.

Joe knew of this and gave passionate speeches to his men along the way, his voice was echoed by his captains, the drums of war were beaten and the horns of the army were blown. This was to increase morale and the overall spirit of the men readying themselves to fight the enemy and save their country from defeat.

The men marched on, not proudly nor were their spirits high as they were before the crusade. The expect nothing more but their deaths, why don't they just desert? rebel? simple, they don't have the power. They are merely slaves working for their slavemasters, the Red Scripture. The Red Scripture that was going to destroy them if they dared not to obey.

And then, the hovercrafts came.