End of the Demon War I

The empress shot out of bed and grabbed her robe, wrapping it around her body as she made her way out of her bedroom and down two flights of stairs, heading for the bridge. "Sitrep" she requested groggily as the only thing on her mind at the moment was getting to the Admiral and making sure the demons were under control.

"Currently our military is holding the line, ma'am. The demons seem to be pulling back a little, either waiting for the speech to be completed or regrouping for another push" the Admiral replied via coms. Just as she tied the sash around her waist, she entered the bridge and sat down. A maid asked her if the dev required coffee, which the empress declined. Now was not the time to be drinking anything until she could figure out what was happening.

"Activate external listening sensors" a Lieutenant on the bridge, a Light automaton ordered as audio came on to fill the command center. What Selene heard was already a good third into whatever King Teiyan was boasting about.

"- The shadow army that comes for my bastion of a new world order! You believe that you will end my reign over these lands, yet it is I who have finally found a way to defeat you!"

"What is he going on about? I think I'm missing context here" Selene questioned as she looked around the bridge.

"Unknown ma'am." She sat down in her secondary command chair and watched through cameras as odd orbs seemed to be floating in the skies, interspersed similar to her UAVs and ornithopters. There was no sensor feed registered being emitted from any of the incorporeal speakers blasting the king's drivel, the greyish blobs hovering in the air through unknown means and undulating when Artinia's ruler spoke.

"- I have now realized I have been using my new army all wrong! You fight on in vain, and now I can finally show you what I truly can do with my newfound power! BEHOLD!" The speech seemed a little quicker than what she was expecting, missing parts of it as it seemed unimportant. Nothing seemed to be happening for a minute.

"Status?" the dev asked.

"Nothing ma'am. It seems… wait…"

"Ma'am, something just happened. You need a coms meeting immediately" Will sent an urgent request to speak with her on a full cabinet channel. She acknowledged and opened up to hear Grey's mid-sentence.

"- they're all gone. Every single one of them is gone."

"What's gone? What just happened?" Selene queried.

"Every portal just disappeared, closing down and… no way…" Grey tried to explain just as warning klaxons activated on the bridge.

"Warning! New gateway just opened up one mile ahead."

"The hell? How? I thought they were locked down!" The empress snapped in surprise as she looked around the bridge, searching for an answer.

"We have no evidence that he should be able to do that empress. That shouldn't be able to happen," Nikola replied, his voice filled with frustration and guilt. They were sure that the emission that was sent out had firmly restricted the portals from ever being moved. "We were sure that they were contained and couldn't be moved."

"Unless… Nikola, it couldn't be…" Robert commented, drifting off. "You don't think…"

(Recommended Song: Epic Score – Spilled Blood)

"Empress, you need to leave that area immediately." Nikola seemed very worried about her safety right after Robert responded.

"What? Why?"

"That portal is a merger of all of them; somehow, he was able to bypass having each individual gateway set in place and combined them to become one larger form directly in front of you. That's going to make it very unstable… and also able to summon something beyond what you've fought as of yet."

"Hostile exiting hell gate" reported a crewman nearby. "Raid boss tier confirmed."

"Only one? That shouldn't be too difficult for the arm-" Selene immediately shut up as a massive creature tried to climb out, it's size barely fitting through even a piece of its arm and head, the brand new opening set before her army restraining any movement. The remaining smaller demons pulled back to its flanks, acting as minions, little more than ants. "Son of a bitch." Her updated Hud verified the level as a skull, a red aura warping and ebbing around the symbol. There was no number. Even Hrist had a level, though the dev couldn't register it with her previous scanner. This was something new.

The tagged boss was deemed a Prince of Hell, at least to the empress and her army. What its real name was they didn't care, just that it was hostile and ready to fight. The demon hadn't shown its whole body, but from what could be seen, it was huge. The face seemed to have no mouth visible except for a short snout and eight pairs of eyes, with six plated arms trying to pry open the gateway even further and failing. Where the ears would have been instead had twelve horns all curving inwards, acting as armor plating. The scaled hide had an iridescent color, showing signs of red with purple and green. Armor was worn along the neck and ran down the back to the main body into the unknown, disappearing through the gateway, hanging in segmented panels with runic etching running through and glowing red.

A sound seemed to reverberate through the area, which could be considered an intense roar mixed with a whale's call. "What the…" the dev whispered as she slowly stood up, a hush falling over the battlezone. The prince was registered as over one hundred fifty stories tall by the size of the extremities in view, still having difficulties with squeezing more than the head and arms through.

"Now, you will see what my army is capable of! Hahahaha! I win, no matter what! How dare you even think you're pitiful shadows cannot be burned away by my power! I'll… I'll…" there seemed to be some hesitation in the king's voice due to some distraction, heard through the floating orbs as they looked like they would become unstable. "No… what's happening… it can't… no… NO! I'M SUPPOSED TO WIN! YOU LIED TO ME! DAMN YOU FO- AGH!" A blood-curdling scream erupted after, followed by the orbs exploding as if made of liquid, falling to the ground and splashing everywhere. The gateway that would allow the Prince of Hell entrance to the combat zone slowly closed up around the creature, the arms being constrained and cut into from the sides of the portal no longer wishing to stick around.

"Massive power spike detected from Aureos palace. Unknown effect, no noticeable damage is seen from the outside via satellite" reported Grey over coms. "We don't… no way…"

"Brace! Brace!" the Admiral commanded as a glow seemed to be emitting from one of the raised arms of the raid boss as it tried to pull back through to save itself. Within a few seconds, a massive beam of raw and incredible energy burst forth, spewing destruction as it raked slowly across the battlefield, arcing up a little and hitting two frigates in her air fleet. "Casualties registered. 16th Brigade reports losses. We just lost two escorts." The blast was almost blinding as the cameras stationed outside the airship fought to keep the brightness down, dimmer systems engaging on the bridge for the empress...

(Recommended Song: Epic Score – Straight Into Battle)

"Initiate emergency procedures! Climb to the moon! We need to get her out of here, now!" the Admiral of the flagship ordered as the dev sat back down in her chair, stunned with her pupils widening as she tried to make sense of that amount of energy emitted. They were getting her out of there. "The rest of the fleet provide cover!" 1st Air Fleet moved in to bombard the area, doing little more than tickle the massive creature's head with all of their firepower which should have been considerable. The dev didn't see what had happened to the massive creature after they reached an altitude that was above the clouds, but all evidence pointed to an immense chunk of her army being beaten into the ground.

"Wha… wha… the… sit… sitrep! I need a sitrep!" Selene barked after clearing her throat, regaining her composure slowly.

"7th Division just lost multiple armored columns, and total loss of soldiers is over 75,000. Two frigates lost, one cruiser damaged. Red Tails lost an entire squadron. Shadows lost one fighter." Her mouth dropped. {Golden Army} couldn't be used after the damage had been done, it wouldn't return the troops that were just obliterated. The only thing that could be done was have salvage crews come to pick up any pieces that were lying around. Not even X Heavies were standing up against that beam.

"Ha… How?!" she asked, getting her voice back and brain to focus. Her eyes darted around, worried another attack would shoot through the clouds and carve her ship in half. The carrier airship continued evasive maneuvers with only two frigates still with them.

"That beam it just fired exceeded our rated shielding systems, couldn't get a complete readout of the power output. Armor couldn't cope for the ground forces. 53% of the army is gone, ma'am." The empress's eyes seemed to dance around the room for a moment as she tried to comprehend the situation. The king had just somehow broken the quarantine zones that her security had set up around the three previous portals, redirected all of the energy into one spot before them, then released a raid boss that could one-shot half of her troops.

"Where was… where's Bronze Team? Are they safe?"

"No report yet on their status, data hasn't flowed back yet… wait… getting confirmation…"

"We're here ma'am, barely made it out of that one," Ethan reported.

"Bloody close call that one was! Nearly caught it in our asses! What did that cunt fire?!" Deacon snapped in surprise.

"Does it matter? Ma'am, we need to drop everything we can on that fucking thing. Jorge and Turnie were hit by the tail end of that beam, they… well, their shields were blasted right through, overloaded the systems completely. Now, before you jump to conclusions, they're fine, just some of their equipment modules are fried after jumping in a hole… but… Charlie Team got hit hard… three of them didn't make it…" Ethan reported. Her personal tank and her healer, two friends… they hadn't made it out of that unscathed, though nowhere near as bad as their sister team on the field. Selene's breath caught in her throat as the woman's jaw dropped.

"Get… get them back to the carrier for personal repairs. Dominic, suggestions?" That was all she could manage to say as the sheer power of the raid boss was incredible.

"Pull back the remainder of your forces, drop an orbital strike, or release the advanced projects. That's the only way to take this thing down. The land nearby is probably never going to recover, but it's better than losing everything." Before they could give the order, however, the remaining smaller demons charged forward, ready to keep the mechanized soldiers from retreating at an inopportune time to kick them when they were down.

"Pull back and regroup, keep them pinned with suppressive fire." Ornithopters were pinging damaged drones, some of them trying to crawl back to safety with half of their bodies destroyed. A few didn't even have limbs, just a single shoulder mount firing as if it was an auto turret with stumps for arms. The beam had carved through part of the ground and melted metal, burnt grass and blasted away snow. Rocks and boulders were tossed around, red hot from the heat; It looked as if a massive napalm strike had hit the area in a wide arc before the Prince of Hell in the shape of a giant fan interspersed with patches it had arced upwards that struck the two frigates and cruiser.

"Contingency plan Delta in effect, all operational units respond for temporary evacuation." Medics zipped across the ground based on Turnie's original chassis, grabbing 'wounded' soldiers and bringing them back to safety while covering fire was provided. Selene tried to comprehend the situation, her eyes wide with fear, forcing a UAV to shoot off away from the area with a temporary aggression emitter to draw fire.

"Ma'am, I don't think that thing can make it through the portal. It's closing," Dominic informed her quickly as she did her best to look through her options. The arms were pressed against the head as the Prince of Hell seemed to make a squealing noise that got higher in pitch as the gateway closed around the neck, the arms flailing a little and would look ever so slightly comical if it wasn't so terror-inducing. Eventually, over a few minutes, the edge of the entrance carved off an arm, then two; soon, the neck was snapped as the head just hung there limply, another beam getting charged up from one of the last remaining extremities. The energy harmlessly dispersed, the remaining visible body parts being cut through as the hell gate slowly closed up, dropping the pieces to the ground and not dissolving like all previous demons had done.

"God damn that was close…" Selene said as she sighed in relief, then realized her friends were being ferried up to the flagship.

"That was…. worrying… and slightly anticlimactic in that we didn't have to do anything… one last defiant action for the king it looks…" Dominic replied over coms. The remaining demons, still numbering almost a million strong, looked at each other and tried to escape the zone, to run off into the remains of the nearby forest that wasn't on fire or dig underground. A few even played dead. "Well, that's not good. We don't have the numbers in the area right now to clean up that mess. Security will have to keep the broader sector contained until reserves can be brought in and repairs can be done on the surviving drones."

The empress sat there for a moment and gathered her wits about her. They had very nearly lost this war if something had not happened to cause the portal to close back up. Without another moment wasted, she forced herself up and stormed out of the bridge, heading down the hallway right towards the main drop bay. Two helibots had just landed as she stepped carefully back, two gurneys carrying both SF soldiers away to get repaired, followed by Jorge and Turnie. The commander was just hopping off the transport as if he was sight-seeing, giving her a peace sign with two fingers. The left side of his head seemed to have scorch marks on it, the left optic a ghostly blue mixed in with a little paint that had bubbled and cooled. Selene grabbed his right hand immediately as he looked at her while medics checked on him. Even though they were mechanical, the healers still all had repair equipment installed.

"Don't worry ma'am, he missed the shot." An immense sigh of relief escaped her lips as her gaze fell on Turnie, waving at her. Ethan was right, they barely got out of that one. Catching only the remains of that blast should have wiped them away.

"Unresponsive, stabilizing advanced core with secondary power, the auto repair was knocked offline," one of the medics said as they moved through the doors to the repair facility in the ship, the two remaining members of the sister team becoming a priority through the hallways. "How much equipment?" the dev asked quietly as she noticed the emitters on both their chassis weren't lit up; all she wanted to know is how bad the damage had been, given the shields were overloaded on both of her friends standing in front of her. She was racking her mind for all the abilities they had probably used in concert with the modules and tech equipped just to stay functioning huddled in the foxhole. Magic would mend most of the internal circuitry which Turnie could use; however, her mana bar looked to be drained and slowly recharging. Jorge's shield was gone, detached and more than likely a sheet of slag that was pried away from the micro bunker they tried to build.

"Main systems didn't take damage thankfully. That was an… interesting brush with death…" Turnie replied as she received a hug from the empress, then let go and let Jorge get one around his huge neck as he kneeled.

"Can… can any of you… I mean, I never really thought about it before… can you… can you die?"

"That's a question I don't think we can answer for you, ma'am. What is being alive? What is the soul? We don't have the information just yet, only that a soul can be contained and used as a fuel source in wild magic or for rituals. Do we have them within our personality cores? I don't know. What I can say is that if any core was destroyed, a replacement could be crafted that would be fresh off the line." The empress gulped as the doors closed behind another batch of damaged warriors. There was no reason to use magic or nanite sprays on the ones that were either scrap or needed a complete overhaul.

"Would it still be you though?" Turnie looked at the leader of her team, sharing a moment of confusion on how to explain things to her.

"It wouldn't have our memories, starting as a fresh member of Bronze Team as it were. Backups are… tricky for us. Luckily, you built those things tough. There'd have to be an immense amount of energy to burn through the casings… well, at least directed at them like what just happened. We're fine though, should be up and running in another hour with no internal damage; just need to get new equipment, modules reinstalled, shielding emitters, then testing." The spells to repair automatons didn't exactly work the same way on their equipment, as it was technically provided by a fabrication unit specially built for their operations. It was akin to a magic weapon being broken and just dissolving, needing new modules to be installed at the source then filtered down the line. It was a security feature in the event one of her soldiers ever dropped a weapon in the field and needed to retreat, to make sure they never left something too powerful for the enemy. Potions had no effect on them, being one of the few disadvantages of being mechanical. Nanite sprays still suffered from the same repair speed as spells, with mana being used and time for the nanites to recharge inside their dock pods.

Deacon and Ethan walked up behind her, their shield systems still functional, barely. Apparently, even their defenses let some of the heat and energy bleed through ever so slightly, and they were much farther away from the end of the beam than Jorge or Turnie. She turned around and saw them just silent, with Deacon frustrated they weren't the ones who did in what was coming through the portal, it was just the front door closing on the frightening guest trying to go through it. Orlo floated nearby, watching them and completely undamaged due to being able to fly.

Selene immediately cast multiple spells to return them all back to full working order, not so much as a scratch seen after throwing every repair spell she had onto them, then draping her arms around both soldier's shoulders as they did the same to her, closing her eyes and giving a silent prayer to the universe for letting them escape that. The mana used up regenerated at an incredible pace, topping off her bar in a few seconds. "Glad you didn't see that thing up close ma'am. Wasn't expecting it to be so… grisly. It caught us completely off-guard," Ethan told her quietly.

"I'm just glad you're all still alive." They just stood there for a minute before the woman slowly pulled away and patted the Light helibot that acted as support for their team, rubbing the pod in the center of his saucer; Adesha had come running in behind to whisk her back to the empress's bedroom to change out of her pajamas. Adrenaline was pumping through her as her hands trembled, counting the minutes going by as data flowed quickly in on the combat zone and from the repair facility about the two members of Charlie Team that survived. A debrief was sent involving their position when the blast hit, raking across the land and her troops.

While the rest of the soldiers were wiped away from the area, they had tried to remain at a specific location to protect refugees, with Jorge shown to have shielded both Turnie and two old folks hiding the foxhole and cowering for dear life, using his shield as a manhole cover. Their actions had saved them from certain death, even with the scorching heat and energy flowing around them at the very edge of the beam, just before it stopped. Apparently, Turnie explained they jumped in and nearly flattened both the grandmother and father, having to somehow perform the splits inside a very cramped defense point. A satellite image showed the remains of the Commander's melted tower shield he carried, still stuck in the ground like a warped can lid, multiple emergency barrier shields dropped by Turnie overloaded and fizzling on the ground around it.

Unfortunately, Charlie Team's secondary objective was a failure, as the refugee group they were protecting were all vaporized. The dev knew they couldn't save everyone; it was war after all; however, she expected the frontline to be easier to deal with given what was sent their way for the past week. A call request popped up from both Hrist and Brynhildr which was opened swiftly. "Selene?! Are you alright?! I heard you were attacked and lost warriors!" Hrist shouted out quickly, her voice desperate.

"I'm fine Hrist, the fleet took some losses. Troops were taken out though; there's a hole that's trying to be filled up with reserves but…" the dev paused for a moment, taking a deep breath; "we're pulling back for twenty-four hours, letting security handle the situation until we can push forward again."

"That sounds like a good plan. I'm still getting intermittent companies of demons down here, but they've dropped to a much more manageable number. What happened? What came after you?" Bryn said as she waited for a response.

"Portals all closed, a new one was created right before us in hopes it would stop our counter. It… nearly worked. A Prince from Hell tried to invade our realm, its power unlike anything that should have normally existed. There's a head and a few arms on the ground when the gateway decided it had other plans. Whether it ran out of power being fed, or… something else… we're still not sure. Total losses are around 75,000 infantry, give or take a few hundred. Bronze Team… nearly got hit… Jorge and Turnie are fine, scared the crap out of me though… Charlie Team is in bad shape… but will be back with us in… uh… in…" she focused carefully on finishing her report, "in six hours." It was a surprise that it hurt telling them about the losses of three members of the sister team. They actually had a middle ground between basic cores and personality cores, an advanced version as it were. She didn't understand why it concerned her more than it should that automatons were lost that were just drones, beyond the strategic reasons of course.

Both were silent for a minute, a few noises of the Valkyrja trying to articulate words in shock after what was explained. They both respected the capabilities of Bronze Team and even Charlie Team, all of the special forces squads actually. To see that even they could be destroyed… worried them.

That thing should have been level 100… even the Grand Krakens weren't that powerful. Did he focus everything into one grand gateway, siphoning everything he had into that fucking thing? That beam…

"Selene…" Bryn stopped speaking as the dev sat while Adesha brushed her hair. What had just transpired was one fear-inspiring wake-up call. Her military up until then was invincible. Now she knew that research into new defensive technology was absolutely essential, with new tech tiers required. There was no telling if they could have fought the raid boss if it came through, even with a full army. Releasing the skunkworks machines might have been the best call if the prince had made it through the portal intact, though there would be massive damage to the environment surrounding the battlefield. Garrington would for certain be obliterated, with the land surrounding it becoming uninhabitable in the aftermath. The apocalypse would have been upon them, maybe even destroying part of the continent.

"I'm fine. I'm… I'm fine. We're regrouping, they can't break through the suppression fire yet; I have to focus right now on containing the area and getting my troops pulled out for reinforcement. I –" the empress stopped speaking as a small text was sent to her from Grey.

[[No more portals. No more reinforcements. Their bodies won't dissolve if they are killed, leaving samples for the science division. The remainder is cut off from their realm. Request to send Bravo and Alpha Teams to Aureos palace to assess the situation, Delta will recon exterior.]]

"Selene? Is everything alright? You stopped," Hrist questioned.

"I… I-I'm sorry, just got some new intel." The auburn-haired woman responded to her Director of Intelligence right after. [[Negative. We'll push forward again in twenty-four hours. We need to lick our wounds, might need both teams for counters in other locations. There's no guarantee they can't try that again.]]

[[2nd and 3rd Air Fleets can reinforce. Don't pull back, let them lead the charge. We have reason to believe this is almost over.]]

"Empress, we just received a request to come to aid you. I'm bringing the fleet to assist" Hrist said in a concerned tone.

"Wait, there's still—" Selene couldn't even finish as 2nd Air Fleet teleported in nearby, bolstering her air forces. "What about the northern flank? Hold on don't be so quick to jump."

"Once the gateway inside Caerel Mines sealed itself, we weren't getting near as many infernal armies coming towards us as they were to your location. I left two-thirds of my army there, it is holding, there should not be a problem. Don't worry, we are here." The empress exhaled loudly with a tremble and nodded, the action not seen by anyone other than her battle maid. 3rd Air Fleet, however, was nowhere to be seen.

"I've still got some groups trying to escape to… gods know where… we'll meet up in a day or two. I'll stick around here and make sure nothing can slip out. A few were noticed trying to burrow through the dirt and stone, others might try and follow to reach some sort of underground tunnels," Bryn reported. "Stay safe, both of you." The shieldmaiden disconnected from the channel as through the window of the dev's bedroom could be seen a lone helibot heading over from Empress's Conviction. The woman already knew her general was coming to look after her.

"Admiral, do we have final numbers for our losses?" she asked over the main intercom of the ship.

"75,389 soldiers ma'am, 4,212 automated vehicles. 134 fighters were lost, 2 frigate airships. Somehow the edge of that beam had also taken out 3 artillery batteries at maximum range." Selene tightly shut her eyes at that number. Up until that point, not one soldier was lost, not even when they were of lower levels and equipment when she still had a fort. There were officially casualties for the Clockwork Empire.