29.June.09

Knight's Initiative

By: Blazemane   

Long ago, two warring factions, bound in their enmity by the desire for domination by one, and meager self defense combined with a desire for justice by the other, finally left their playground. And they left it in shambles. All the resources were depleted, and all the metal cities bore the scars of one battle or another. And for that reason, a brave leader named Optimus Prime took his small band to search for other planets to peacefully acquire energon and restore peace to Cybertron.

But he was not unwatched. Megatron prepared his Decepticon followers, and they attacked Prime’s ship before it had hardly left the planet. Things went from bad to worse and both ships crash landed into a new sphere.

In the year 1984, volcanic activity caused the Decepticons to awake from stasis lock. In a fit of suppressed frustration and final vindication, one of them made a foolish move, and initiated a chain of events in which Prime was re-awoken himself. From there, he worked to reinstate the consciousness of the rest of his crew.

So began the earth-bound stage of the Great War. It raged on, leaving behind old friends, shattered dreams, and new beginnings. And the Autobots, aided by humanity proved victorious in the end. Peace was restored to Cybertron as they had all hoped and fought for, and two new lines were made from Decepticons and Autobots: The Predacons and Maximals.

For 300 years, peace was maintained. Then a visionary stole an artifact of great importance, bringing it to earth in a time between the Autobots’ and Decepticons’ crash landing and re-awakening through the use of transwarp technology. Cybertron managed to keep its head on straight long enough to avoid civil war while Optimus Primal and his crew neutralized this new Megatron’s threat in a struggle that later became known as the Beast Wars.

But something else happened in 1984. It involved no world summits to determine how to pool the world’s resources to aid the Autobots in thanks for their saving of humanity. It had nothing to do with a globally known feud between well disguised Cybertronians. But deep within the hidden shadows of Los Angeles, two opponent's met each other. One aimed to kill, and one to protect, a woman. She was a waitress and therefore, the only two who knew of her significance to the world’s future were the cyborg and the man who now had cause to feud with one another.

While Optimus Prime fought Megatron at the Hoover dam, a man named Kyle Reese was preparing pipe bombs in a hotel room, still trying to drain the adrenaline out of his system from the previous days’ battles. And while Mirage valiantly stowed away on the reconstructed hulk that was the Decepticon battle cruiser Nemesis, shooting its control panel so that it came crashing down, a woman named Sarah Connor desperately sought an unseen button to her left side, and pressing it, watched a hydraulic press slowly work its way down to paralyze and deactivate the restless brute that was her nemesis.

In the year 2403, a Maximal, a remnant of the Beast Wars, was sent on a mission back to earth to check the progress of humanity, ensuring that the Predacon Megatron’s actions had caused no adverse effect on Cybertronian or human history. Transwarp technology had developed considerably since its use 50 years previous at the beginning of the Beast Wars. Now it could be used to send a Cybertronian ship to a chosen date. However it was not 100% accurate. Its margin of error was about 100 years. The veteran knew this well enough, but if he arrived earlier than his intended time, or later, he could leave and attempt re-entry. Otherwise, if he arrived later than intended, he could simply research backwards and see if everything happened as the original Great War had, or if he arrived earlier, he could wait around. Naturally, though, he wished to arrive on the intended year: 1984.

* * *

What a glorious day it had been. Bethany had determined by this point that surely sights like these were the reason she had chosen her method of education. She was on a hill and was looking northward, where the land descended down into a plateau. The few trees that could be seen were side-swiped by the slowly retreating sun, so that they reached eastward with the shadowed extensions of themselves.

It had been hard for her to depart from her parents after graduating from high school. But her academic prowess and her keen interest in biological studies had given her an opportunity few would be given, and fewer would pass up. A college in Africa used the nearby Savannah to study practically everything there was to know about communal animals. Hyenas, Antelope, hippos, the whole nine yards.

She was one of the top students. And aside from her love of animals, she had an extreme fascination with how nature- the sun, the clouds, the land- all conspired to create amazing pictures. And so she sat on this hill to revel in the land which seemed wonderfully undisturbed by her presence.

But, as the sun was obligated to journey over the Atlantic, she was obligated to return to her campus. She took her pad and pencils in her arms and walked over to her nearby Jeep. Throwing everything in the seat next to her, she turned the keys and started her travel eastward along the gravel road.

Supper was quite appetizing after spending the day out, and after consuming it, she went to her dorm to review past days’ observations on her computer, and to study for the next day's lecture. At about 9:00, her roommate came in.

“Beth, you’ve been studying this whole time?” she inquired.

“Well, if you spend your whole day outside, going for 2 and half hours in a doom room isn’t exactly dying of stale air. Besides,” Bethany said as she turned her head to look at her roommate over her shoulder, “I think it would benefit you to withstand just a little more stale air yourself.” Amy, as she was called, dropped her head and arms in feigned defeat.

“It was just a B, Beth. I’m sure I can safely relax with a B on my course grade.” she replied upon looking back up. Bethany had already turned to face her computer again.

“Sure Amy, whatever helps you sleep at night.”

“That’s what the Tylenol’s for.” she said, rattling a small bottle and smiling the whole time. She popped the top of and shook out two pills onto her hand before throwing them in her mouth. “Mm,” she observed “this grape flavor never gets old. It’s like candy.”

Bethany closed her eyes and put her head down shaking it side to side before looking back up at the screen.

“You’re just jealous.” Amy informed her. Well, it was true. Bethany had shaken her head at Amy’s antics, but she did like grape flavored Tylenol, and yes, she was jealous. At least, that’s what Amy told herself.

They both turned towards the door when they heard a security guard rush by it. They saw him for a brief second through the window at the top of the door. He did not seem at all panicked, but one did not often see security guards run through the halls.

“Amy, did I miss something in the while I was in here?”

“Not really. The security guards seem kinda’ tense is all. I think I heard one talk about somebody not showing up to a meeting or something, but they haven’t told anybody the sky is falling.” she replied. Bethany saved the document she was working on and began shutting down the computer. Amy pointed the open bottle to her.

“Tylenol?”

“No,” Bethany replied, “I can just listen to one of Dr. Crocuta’s lectures in my head.”

* * *

Jeff leaned against the boulder behind him, trying to regain his breath. He looked over to Bill who has hiding behind another boulder a few feet away.

“Why-” he was cut off by a barrage of machine gun fire which ran between the two rocks, sending dirt and long dead weeds flying into the air. “Why did you say we were supposed to try going around them?”

“Sergeant told me we should.” Bill shouted over the noise of battle.

“What do you mean? Sergeant is dead!”

“Well then, much good his plan did him. But he wasn’t dead when he told me we needed to try this.” Bill looked around. Everywhere he could see flashes of metal bodies glinting in the hazy sunlight. “They must have figured out our strategy. Left a few decoys on the front lines and went behind ours. We’ve still got our mission. We need to get behind those 600’s and take out that generator.”

At these words, Jeff ventured a look over the top of his boulder and saw a straight line of 5 Gatling-armed machines, all walking in his and Bill’s direction.

“That can’t happen today private. We have to go.” He pulled out a grenade, yanked out the top and threw it over the boulder.

“Hey,” Bill responded “You’re a private too.”

The grenade exploded, shooting soil about 10 feet up so they could see it even behind the rocks. Jeff ran over to Bill, and pulled him up by the shoulder.

“Shut up, man.” Then they both started running. Bill dared to take a glance over his shoulder and saw two of the T-600’s still getting up while one dragged his fingers on the ground (he would soon shut down, Bill determined), and the other two aimed their guns at the pair of soldiers. Maybe with the distance the machines were at, he and Jeff could keep running and avoid gunfire long enough to find another bit of cover.

Just then, an aerial hunter killer swept over them, and let loose a barrage of ammunition. Within a moment, Bill dragged his friend to the ground. The bullets swept through the space they were standing in previously and then continued a lethal path as the HK continued moving forward further away from the pair. When it stopped wasting its gunfire, it reared around in air. Jeff took his HK416 from around his shoulder and aimed for the main propulsion systems on the air-bound machine.

Sparks flew off the sides of it as bullets made contact with its plating. Persistently, it made its way to Bill and Jeff. Bill, meanwhile, started firing in the direction of the T-600’s. He aimed for their knee joints, and fired down the line of all four, hoping to get everyone of them to falter. None of them did. They returned fire, but their CPU assisted accuracy was slightly hindered by the fire returned by Bill, and by the relatively low position of the two humans to the ground. But they continued moving closer.

Jeff finally decided to aim for the gun-ports on the hunter killer, and this, while not directly harming the guns, provided the machine enough incentive to discontinue firing and try to find a less vulnerable position to shoot from. A machine with no weapon would be of very little use on the battlefield.

The two humans took this opportunity to run to a broken down building about 15 feet away. The T-600’s continued firing the whole time this running took place, and just before their targets reached safety, Bill fell to the ground with a cry and a bullet in his leg. Jeff grabbed him and dragged him, with the strangest mixture of desperation and caution, through the double doors of what had previously been some sort of manufacturing plant. Once inside, Jeff closed the doors, and slid a large locking bar in place while he heard the metallic ping of Gatling-fire on the exterior of the doors.

“And now,” Jeff noted, as he began to work on Bill’s leg wound, “Our mission is to survive long enough to tell our commanders that the generator is still standing.”

“They’re getting closer. They’re going to come through that door, and we’re standing right in front of it” Bill observed ominously. Jeff made the last twists in Bill’s tourniquet.

“Well, won’t that be nice?” Jeff stated more than asked. Bill stood up and Jeff put his arm around his own shoulder. They began walking up some steps to the right of the doors.

Once on the second level, they looked out of a broken, dirty window for the 600’s. But they couldn’t see them.

“Where’d they go?”

Jeff was immediately answered by a loud sound on the doors. They stared down at the source of the noise on the first level to their left. They leaned back out the window far enough to finally see the terminators right next to the wall. They began peppering them with gun fire, but it had little effect aside from one of the T-600’s discontinuing his part of the assault on the door, and aiming up at the window. The pair fell back just in time to avoid the bullets, flying concrete and shards of glass (a small reserve of pieces had remained on the edges of the former window when it was originally broken, and now these pieces finally left their position).

“That was a bad idea.” Bill admitted. A thought occurred to him. “Do you have any grenades left?”

Suddenly, the aerial terminator flew to face the window. They both took opposite sides of it, and got low to the ground. Ammunition flew in through the window for a moment, and then even through the sides of the building around the window, some coming dangerously close to the soldiers. The barrage quickly stopped. Jeff pulled out another grenade and took out the clip. Standing up defiantly, he leaned out the window and saw the hulking metal construction. He threw the explosive, and the machine began firing back.

The grenade ended its trip by landing on top of the HK’s right propulsion unit. From there, it fell in, and was twirled around by inner compartments before finally detonating. The resulting fireball and loss of the machine’s right side completely unbalanced it, and it came crashing to the ground with a mighty explosion, which sent a shockwave of flame, dust and shrapnel along the ground.

When it reached the terminators at the front entrance, they and the doors went careening into the building. Jeff observed his work with satisfaction.

“No, I don’t have any grenades left.” A few of the terminators tried to stand back up. Jeff looked out again, and saw that three aerial terminators had been attracted by the explosion and were on their way.

“And we can’t stay in the building anymore.” They began their dash dash down the staircase as fast as they could with Bill’s wounded leg. Once outside, they saw the three machines about 50 feet from their position.

Suddenly, an unknown variety of aerial machinery came cruising from the South, and began fire off laser pulses. The first salvo completely took out the nearest hunter killer. The other two, noticing the upgrade in target aptitude, switched from human killing bullets to anti-aircraft plasma shots.

They fired, but the other ship skillfully rolled to the side, allowing the plasma to sear the air. It returned fire, which they both got away from. Jeff and Bill looked around and suddenly saw 2 skinless T-800’s carrying plasma rifles, and walking in their direction.

Then many things happened at the same time. The T-800’s saw the soldiers, while above, one of the HK’s managed to shoot the new aircraft. But as it was spinning out, it made its final shots, taking one down, and then crashing into the one that shot it in a fit of determined irony. The terminators aimed their guns in the soldiers’ direction, but their shots were cut off in mid-flight by the crashing mass of the two connected aircraft.

For a moment, there was peace. Then through the flaming mass came the T-800’s.

“Run.” Jeff commanded.

“Easy for you to say!” Bill replied. Jeff took his arm again, and they began to hobble away from the place off towards the north. They reached the base of a hill and were about to begin their climb when another T-600 came over the crest of it.

“This is a cruel workout.” Jeff said with a grimace. He shot up and aimed for the face. The terminator actually found some way to fall over. But when it got up, and Jeff wished to put it down again, he found out from the sound of a click that he was out of ammo. And behind them, the T-800’s had come uncomfortably close.

Then, from what seemed like the T-600’s back, three yellow orbs came flying forward. The machines glowing red eyes immediately dimmed and it fell over. Taking this new opportunity, the two ran up the hill as plasma shots grazed by them. Once they reached the top, they want past to the other side for minor cover. Nothing was over there. Then they heard mechanical whirring, rapid shots and silence.

They looked over the hill to see what in the world was going on. What they saw was an android of some sort standing over the endoskeletons of the two deactivated T-800’s, a yellow gun of unknown variety in his hand. He looked over to the soldiers, looking just slightly winded. For a moment, the three exchanged glances.