28 Chapter 28: Reclamation War

[PoV: Palamedes]

Months have gone by since the devastating attack of the Resistance of 117 and every thing since then has gone smothely exept for the taking over part because of the disappearance of Daniela Hase. As the empirial scholar and proud User of the Elder Race only he himself knows the destructive effects of the disappearance has on the empires plans for District 117. With this key part of all their plans gone they can only scavenge this distict down to its bones and move on. More and more dark parasitic ink is pumpt out from 117 with every passing day and send into the empires central districts for what ever use Justbin and his Empress might have for it.

Sitting around reading the daily pumpstation reports Palamedes is proud about his achievements in his studies in theft and deception preferably of the musicaly nature. His User ability of traversing the void comes in handy for him reaching his two greatest achievements. On one side he became invisible when traversing the void, perfect for all kinds thiefing and on the other all kinds of waves are visible to hin hence his deception because by manipulating the void he can finde virtually everybody or thing.

Hearing a sudden explosion outside Palamedes moves his most priced posessions and the empires most sensitive documents into the void befor vanishing from his study. Reappearing next to Geraint his old friend and also User both of them now stand on the cental guard tower over seeing a massive open assault on their base. Thanks to the midday sun the User of the Elder races can see the enemys in all their bloody glory. A thin line cuts across the bleak sky nearing the surrounding landscape. Small dot-size objects begin to appear falling from the sky on the horizon, moving in the direction of the base. Palameds uses his void vew and sees a very close view of a metalic giants. He adjusts the view which then zooms back to reveal three more of the ominous battle machines. Small flashes of yellow fire billow from the guns of the giants. Stopping his ability he hears a regular rhythmic pounding begin to make the ground vibrate. The pounding grows louder and is accompanied by a high-pitched, metallic rattling. Suddenly he hear the desperat screaming of soldierz near by, when huge four meter tall giants with massive firepower appear slaughtering through the first defence line like it was non existent. ''Drakes take these metal enemies out and show them the might of us Drakes.'' Hears the Elder his friend rally his troops for a counterattack. ''Where are they coming from?'' Asks Palamedes Geraint before the same starts his attack. With a dragon scaled finger pointing into the sky his friend says. ''They just jumped down from their right into our first line of defence.'' He says before leading the counterattack against the giants. Looking up Palamedes can't believe his eyes. A gigantic metropolis floats above base looking like the city of gods in all its golden and glassy glory with an egg shaped skyscraper dominating the overall city landscape. ''I can't see us winning this fight...'' Says Palamedes to him self seeing the floating city above and metal giants infront of the base. ''... If only we could win some time so we can use the Portal for our retreat...'' He continues saying before vanishing again. Reapearing now on the back of a wyern near one of the rebuild pumpstation. Palamedes directly comands his aerial troops to start their assault on the floating city.

[PoV: Geraint]

Seeing his friend on the cack of a wyern Geraint takes a punch from a giant head on. His unique seadrake physice allows him to take the punch without taking any significant damage. In the next moment he jumps up, evading another punch from his metallic enemy. Now being on top of his enemy Garaint rips into the metal armor only to find more metal underneath it. Further evading the giants hands trying to get him off, he looks up into the sky for only a second only to see Palamedes and his troops of wyerns getting shot at and falling down like dead meat. Frustrated by the hole situation the Drake User rips one big chunk of armor of the giant and ramps it deep into the giants body. For a short time the metal giant seems to struggle and scream but finally collapses.

Now looking around himself Geraint can hardly see his drake warriors and no elder mages remaining. Devastated by the state of his troops he comands a retreat into the underground facilities. Collecting a small troop of drakes surviving from the battlefield he leads them through a thick blast door. Having a last look up to the now ever so slowly coming closer sky city he swears his vengeance for the empire and himself.

Apart from the distant thunder of spells and gun blasts, the corridor is

strangely quiet and empty. Running footsteps echo through the preshured hallway, a heavily wounded and limping Palamedes and som elders appear through a side corridor from behinde. Cracks have appeared in some of the walls and some pipes have already broken, sending hot steaming parasitic ink into the underground hallways. Together the two User hurry into the portalroom. It is all in shambles, but some people are still at their posts. As they enters, a sudden cave-in almost obliterates the room. On one of the still working arrays formations near the portal Palamedes and Geraint can see the chaos that has become their base. ''We will hold this room until we are forced to retreat through the portal by them. Until them all symbiotic ink we have collected and still remains goes through it.'' He says looking questioning at his friend who ansers him with a short node, pressing down on a nasty chest wound.

[PoV: Captain John Hill]

The fierce battle in the empires underground base of 117 rages on. The

Goliaths continue their slow, steady assault on the empires ground facilitys. Firing round after round as they lumber ever onward. In the trench, elder mages and drake warriors fire large destruction spells and ethereal slashes out as explosions erupt around them. The last guard tower is hit by an explosion and instantly collapses. Another round from a goliath squad and a group of wyern riding elders that wanted to ambush the squad from above gets obliterated into dead meat. Having taken control over the most of enemys base it is now finally time to take the underground base still under enemys control. Unable to use the Goliaths underground because of their size John leaves his Goliath behind to lead a team of Davids, spearheading through a cracked blast door into an underground maze. The davids incontrast to the heavy goliaths are lightly armored infantery troops lovingly called 'Spartans' by Lady Rice. Similar to the goliaths the davids have different paintjobs and markings representing their corps, troop and ranking. The all the troops that John leads over the battlefield have a universal green paintjob refering to the army, a universal golden falcon on their left shoulder armor refering to this troops name falcon but uppon closer inspection one can see a differnce in the number of yellow strips on each soldiers left upper arm representing their individual military ranking.

Being held back by flooded corridors and dead ends the captain leads his davids from one short intense shootout to the next. Be it weapons or armour their enemies are not equipped to put up any resistance. Taking over the bases energy source John cut the portals powersupply, effectively cutting off the enemies hope of fleeing from the base.

''Impending Skyfall. Five minutes until impact.'' Hears John over his headset. ''Roger. Portals Powersupply cut. Evacuating enemy base.'' The captain answers comanfing davids Davids and Goliaths a fast retreat. In a mad run for their lifes all the invading forces retreat and only the confused troops of the empire remain. On Da

Exactly 14 minutes and 25 seconds later Olympus, the flying fortress of district 117 desends burying all remaining troops inside the underground base under it alife, effectively killing of two of the empires oldes and most loyal Users and ending the Reclamation war.