Prologue – Behold, Archstrides

Chapter 0 (Prologue)

Behold, Archstrides

It was in a calm, windy open terrain of hilly field of green grass, the weather was warm in the evening with the sun almost in setting position, blue sky and thick groups of white clouds drifting on the horizon almost behind the mountains.

            It was calm... and so it was.

            The earth began to tremble by the second. Birds flew, fleeing away from the forest. Tall trees from within were seen falling rapidly one after another like mere grass, closing in towards the forest’s end. Vicious, and mixture of mechanical screams– prominently the sounds of engines and mechanical saws, as if they were laughing maniacally to the dying floral– drew nearer and nearer, louder and louder to the point of they were heard at the other opposite side of the field like loud whispers, and the grounds were trembling even more restlessly in response.

            The port town of Barcada, located at the opposite site had then, filled with panicking residents, siren-wails signaled the imminent threat. Docked fishermen boats and passenger ferries had started to grumble with the sounds of engines, some had already started to shuttle between the town’s dock and the riverbanks at the foothills on the other side of the river not too far away, ferrying desperate residents to flee across the river to reach the mountainside.

            Some were volunteering to take arms for imminent battle. Barcada Brigade Fortress built at the center of town stood enormous, tall, and lengthy to point of almost reaching from one end-side to the other end-side of the town (the town itself was lengthy, proportional to the huge part of the river length at the river bank), in contrast to any other buildings in its vicinity–, surrounded by fortified walls of stones and steel, amassing as much men power as it could. Men were lined up, facing the dying forest in front of their own land's doorstep. Guns were distributed over, cannons and turrets were erected to the surface from the gun safes below the fortress’s top floors.

            The last lines of trees at the forest's end fell, forming an exit, revealing a pack of armored machines on caterpillar tracks with huge grinding blades mounted on their fronts like huge maws, devouring everything in its wake. As no more trees slowing them, mounted blades were then lowered down, withdrawn, revealing behind them; a piece of turret in-between of sets of auto-cannons with thousand rounds of firing capability per half minute. Rocket launchers stretched out of the machines' top sides, and the pack began to scramble their formation in spreading manner towards the port town. Without the trees, the caterpillar tracks spun even faster.

            Faintly, but clearly, sounds of cannon and mortar shots were heard from the Barcadian fortress kilometers away as soon as the last line of trees fell. Initially silent, then filled with whispering sound of whistling shells in the air. In mere seconds, the cleared forest's exit was showered by a barrage of explosive shells. The shots were scattered, impact zone was cratered, a price to pay just to lay waste on the grinders, but the scattered formation did avoided those raining projectiles, reducing the machines' total casualties.

            Few were wrecked, some took damage, and some others were unscathed. The remaining functional machines proceeded forward in the hail of shells. Turrets and rocket launchers were pointed towards the Barcada fortress, and deafening thunderous roar of cannon fire erupted. The returned fire reached the outskirt of the town, shells delivered were high-explosive type, emptied homes and buildings turned to ruins in a blink of an eye as though they were ashes from burnt papers scattered in a windy path. Rockets were launched, but if not because of the auto-guns barrage which was specially built for projectile interception, those rockets would have hit the fortress directly.

            As the fortress's firing points distracted by the grinders, the ruined forest behind the threats once more started to show movements and noises from activities. From the fallen trees appeared second wave of attack; a reinforcement of dozens of additional mobile war machines– massive armored vehicles–  each mounted heavy duty artilleries, missile launchers, mortars, and auto-cannons. With the trees cleared at the forest exit, armored six-wheels–  which is lighter and faster compare to caterpillar-track type– mounted with advanced version of auto-cannons easily and quickly join the grinders to provide barrage of bullets that destroyed visible incoming large projectiles to avoid more equipment casualties. Although the grinders had their own auto-cannons that intercepted projectiles, advance version built specifically for wheel type armored vehicles that easily had the upper hand for bullet hail purpose.

            On the right flank, where the grounds were hillier, with trenches dug which offered more protective traits, squads of ground infantry units hastily moved to formations, with each squad their proud banners of different shapes and colors, all but each banner carried one similar symbol on top of their own, a silhouette of overlapping shield and sword placed together, the symbol of then currently reigning military force of the world; the Global Force (GF).

            The reinforcement force of armored vehicles slowed down their advance, formed a horizontal line formation, picking up firing stability. Missiles and mortar shells were shot, soared to the sky, and newly arrived artilleries fired to long range grounds kilometers away, adding more juice to what the grinders had initially started.

            A squad of infantries under the banner of a fortress silhouette started to set up bases for heavier-but-static machineries on strategic grounds to provide even deadlier fire prowess as the heavy frontliners cleared out the frontlines for them.

            Static machineries had always serve as heavy bombardment tools with additional of kilometers of firing range compare to mobile artilleries, specifically designed for base bombardment. Base-to-base attacks were essential since no air unit would survive such battlefield grounded with efficient ground-to-air anti air defense. But super long range machines were too large to be transported by wheels or caterpillars, thus its compartments were designed to be separated into hand carry type size and weight, always carried by ground engineer troopers and were assembled directly into the battlefield. Mobile infantries and armored vehicles would make advances to clear out paths of enemies and shot threats just for the larger machines to be set up with minimal interruption.

            Cleared path could be used by air transports that hovered further than enemies’ anti-air defenses’ reach, to drop extra reinforcements let it be infantries or armored vehicles, and in many occasions, the drop off additional numbers of heavy machines’ compartments for immediate assembly.

            GF's formation once more filling in the flanks, both right and left, almost instantly then treaded and filled with companies of horsemen, each were divided into platoons, which with them: banners representing respective leadership, and a formation of three vertically line ups were formed, followed with the same formation and order by platoons behind them, and more platoons behind them that formed after. Each was outfitted with overcoat uniform of the GF, and the GF's emblem was embroidered on the left side of the chest area. The overcoats were long, reaching as low as the ankle level, and were either adorned on top of personally chosen armors, or personally chosen armors were adorned on top of them. In some cases, some have chosen to adorn themselves with only the overcoats without extra level of armor.

            Front most formed platoons had their polearms raised high, with the tips pointed to the sky. All were lined up with discipline and order, and formations set were led by their respective assigned leaders, and behind a leader are a pair of banner holder escorts.

            Behold... the Archstrides...

            Physically powerful individuals molded by self-discipline and determination, physical strength condition trained to exceed that of a person living 'just a more-or-less standard life' would obtain.

            An Archstride trained oneself to surpass the normal mental capacity usage, and with sturdied mental state, also enhanced the controls over the physical in which augmented muscular activities and strength potentials. Real life situations with various backgrounds and reasons trained them, disciplined them, and embedded strong determination into them, trainings that no simulation may provide. Extremely trained mental state suppresses the natural habit to react upon the feel of pain, extremely trained physical allows extreme physical flexing to the point of metal-like hardness, if not, in case of even more powerful Archstride, even harder. Such physical sturdiness may endure gunshots, though not a volley, but to endure several gunshots with only minor cuts and bruises– in case of a very strong one, not at even a scratch– is sufficient indication of powerful physical state, although everything in regards, including potential strength and outcome, of such depends solely upon individual Archstride– some may be weaker or stronger than the other. Weaker ones may not even close to be able to withstand bullets, and very strong ones may even withstand direct shot from canon fire.

            With physical limit lifted along with combative minds, Archstrides may appear with various deadly arts incomprehensible by normal being at their disposal.

            As human being like to learn and imitate wild life, Archstride’s mastery to control over bodily movements and great physical flexibility, one Archstride may venture the art of the ‘Shapeshifter’, the art that an Archstride makes a temporary bodily restructuring and to draw out inner beast that resides within. Not only said Archstride imitates wild creature, but the art of shapeshifting temporarily restructures the Archstride physical into the form of a beast, though the forms vary differently in shapes and sizes depending on the chosen art.

            The art of summoning works wonders as it focuses the Archstrides to craft and split their essences to imitate creatures from within human inner self. An essence creature is not a living being, but only a part of the summoner’s essence being split and molded into shapeshift. Much like how a person may have split personality, and may have conversation to himself, this art allows the Archstride to craft any possible creature and split his bodily essence to summon it, and some even craft the creature to resemble their own selves to fight together in a very remote area. Just like how it goes with an elemental, the crafted creatures also benefit from the summoners’ equipment. In some cases, a summoner would even go as far as crafting and summoning more than one creature at a time, though this act would put a heavy burden to the summoner itself since the summoner is the root of the essence of the creatures’ existence. Crafted creature requires essence from its summoner to exist, thus it can only stay exist within remote area around the summoner, and each second of its split existent would temporarily drain the summoner’s essence and weaken the summoner.

            Such endurance and extraordinary achievements made the Archstrides to even imitate the nature of element in one self. Such as a normal martial artist may achieve the control of body heat, an Archstride that ventured into the elemental path may mold their inner energy to imitate fire itself. May it not be a fire element, there are many elements in disciplinary choices to hold wisdom upon. Though the imitation may not literally resemble the greatness endowed by the universe, to imitate such greatness even by the slightest trait is adequate.

            Along with magnified magnitude of strength both mentally and physically, the universe itself bestows its creatures with the nature of the ‘Ebstanik', or so called by the name of 'Mechanical Pneuma' by past generations long ago. Though no superstitious thought involvement, the phenomenon is named as such by those who came up with the combination of philosophical idea and theory of ‘men cannot live without machines, and so do machines cannot live without men’. The philosophy had indicated that without even the simplest of machine– apparatus that involves fulcrum, load, and effort– kingdom of men would not have met the nature of modernization, thus would only survive the nature, but would not live the life of modernization. And machines without intelligent and creativity from kingdom of men would have just remained to be just mere inanimate objects without purpose to bid.

            The theory of ‘Mechanical Pneuma' came to an advance state; which substance and elements of an object connect and react personally to its user, mainly human being. The connection-and-result themselves are negligible by nature for each individual, but an Archstride, which by nature, had surpassed the normal fundamental of a human being would extract and draw out the ‘advance’ state of the material by its basic conditions (usually affects the hardness of the matter and its usage by purpose-of-design). It explains how if a pair of swords were crafted from similar material by the very same craftsman, but by handing one over to a normal person and the other one to an Archstride, if both swords were to clash in combat, the one wielded by an Archstride would have high probability to break the one wielded by a normal person.

            The collaboration between mechanical spirit together with an Archstride user would achieve at even greater yonder in the hands of an elemental and a shapeshifter. Should an elemental imbues fire on himself, for example, his clothes and every else piece of equipment on him that would go out in flame in normal occasions, will not be burn by the imbued imitation of fire, it on-the-other-hand would act as a catalyst which sharpens the quality of casted fire via the substance and the quality of the equipment itself. This rule goes exactly the same path for a shapeshifter, which the equipment would be molded into parallel shape as the user.

            Same principle goes for bows and arrows, guns and bullets; which the state of the projectiles may even penetrate steel or anything of the same hardness, as well as protections– mainly body armor–  that varies from cotton clothes to thick plates of steel. For an Archstride, even common cotton worn would provide much protection, let alone armor specifically designed with protection traits, but steel products which are known for ‘heavyweight’ would also affect its functionality and efficiency in combat wise aspects.

            As in battles where steeds were needed, such trained companions were provided to suite their Archstride riders. Animals as known to have larger physical assets than human, in the world itself there are numerous beasts in the wilderness– depending on their habitats and environments– that would easily ravage even an Archstride that is still just a mere human being.  A kind of destrier specifically for combat purpose was bred and trained to suite the need of Archstride riders. Even with advance warfare, beasts with the speed that contests even of a fine made sports car, solid hooves with the hardness comparable to diamond, flexible muscles but yet impenetrable similar to that of high grade alloy. This specifically trained creature was always feared by itself, let alone be one mounted by an Archstride. Mounting companions to open battles are essential since even if an Archstride may dash and sprint at bullet-like speed, the travel distance is much lessen for every increment of speed they applied on their mobility, and in some cases, an Archstride would choose different type of mounts such as lions, hounds, stag, or anything that suits their particular tastes and needs.

            However, such as those of among just ordinary beings but require extraordinary backgrounds and trainings, an Archstride and even bestial companions, remained rarely addressed as an Archstride, but are usually being called as just 'very strong' or 'very fast individuals', or anything that expresses their respective individual traits. The world and its occupants had never found it as anything to be called ‘extraordinary’ and have long treated such occurrence as norm existence.

            The prowess of Archstrides were much favored by influential entities such as gigantic organization; the GF itself. To acquire such gallant presence in the battlefield – let alone a series of command chain of such power– serves as a great advantage to the sides that hold command upon them. Through modernized war technologies with lengthy superiority to brought rain of death from afar, wars had brought greater destructive potentials to adversaries. Yet, the modernization had only sharpened the reason of preserving old-fashioned method of close range combat. Archstrides on steeds may dash through battlefields with blinding speed. Huge guns and canons would be rendered useless and vulnerable if the adversaries were to reach them.  As any combat superiors would always mind their subordinates; if any of you ever happen to encounter an Archstride in battle, run…

            Lines formed were swift, so did their actions afterwards – to march towards the open field. Leaders representing their platoons rode forth to battle as soon as their line ups were formed, to avoid being open targets in the field of raining bullets and explosive shells. The vacant lines left by dispatched horsemen were soon followed to be filled with another wave of horsemen behind them, and another lines of horsemen platoons repeated the same action and the process continued by the platoons behind them, and wave after wave, towards battle.

            By the time enemies' fire points realized the concentration of horsemen from the line ups, it was already too late as the dispatched already set forth. It was a matter of option whether to disrupt the line ups, or to prevent further advancement from the dispatched units, or was it to lay waste to the grinders and other war machines.

            War steeds galloped, strode across the battlefield, evading lines of bullets and explosive shells alike, maneuvered and patterned by fearless horses and riders. As though the quakes from shell barrage weren’t enough, the Barcada fortress was then trembled with steady, but for them who felt it, the miniature quake from the dashing hooves brought upon horror from oneself to surface.

            The Barcadians were anticipating this action from the start. Their very own Archstride horsemen were lined up and dispatched hastily through the ruins from shattered houses and buildings in front of the fortress into the open cratered fields, with shells and bullets from the GF's side still raining its surface. Much like the formations of GF, the Barcadian lined up swiftly to avoid being open targets from strayed projectiles.

            Much like the GF's, Barcadian horsemen were outfitted with prominent battle uniform of their own, symbolizing their independency of power, the outer layer of plated armor as protection. On their shoulder level, maxi capes were adorned, wrapped around the collar area of the outer protection layer of steel, left the skin on the neck area itself untouched, such design to prevent any feeling of discomfort, while serving as a protection wear, and is worn long reaching the ankle. In a relaxed state, the cape would cover up to the front part of the torso. The wind blew for an instant, and the capes waved in response.

            Plated armors worn were forged together with Barcada military symbol, the symbol of a fierce panther head. Their cotton capes embroidered together with nylon type material which the symbol is only visible upon light reflection, otherwise, they would seem as just plain dark colored capes.

            Unlike the GF however, the Barcadian had the lines of ground infantries sent together with the horsemen into open field. The infantry lines were formed, and behind them were other lines of infantries who were not outfitted with the Barcada military uniform, but with them were pieces of mobile heavy equipment like mortars and heavy machine guns along with light armored vehicles on wheels, armed with mobile heavy guns to provide supportive offense against the incoming GF threat.

            The Barcadian horsemen squad leader cantered to the front, tugged his reins upon his gallant steed, and the steed reared with his spear pointed the sky. The neigh was loud, reached the lines of steeds formed behind, and the other steeds responded the battle cry with angry neighs and rears, and the neighing echoed throughout the battlefield in front of them, and throughout the Barcada port town behind them, and the gallant horsemen rode forth… to battle.

            Both factions’ war machines changed their firing focus away from respective horsemen unit as both sides’ melee units were drawing near to avoid friendly casualty. The firing lines were either directed towards less concentrated parts of the field, or directed straight into the enemies’ groups of war machines.

            GF front most squad leader pointed out of his long, thin jousting lance as the enemy’s horsemen unit approached. His visage shadowed behind the iron helm he outfitted himself with, but his brownish eyes were visible, almost twinkle-like. Platoon units under his command had started to bulk themselves with various Archstride arts during the frenzied motion, and so he saw the Barcadian horsemen did the same. Prominently, elementals imbued themselves and their steeds with various forms of elements. Summoners had spawned various forms of beasts, twice the size of steeds they were riding, and some had spawn their essence clones together with the steeds they rode, seemingly increased the total number of battle partakers. And Shapeshifters had shifted to a variation of beast-like forms, and with the bonds of war steeds and the riders, the steeds too were added with additional physical improvement forms such as bull-like horns and large bat-like wings proportional to the physical states of the riders. Said leader could hear his heartbeats. He could hear his heavy breathing. He could see every speck of dust and dirt flew in front of him. He locked his sight upon the crowd of enemies, and his right hand gripped firm the lance he wielded.

            Both sides clashed. Thunderous roars from elementals’ projectiles explosions soared through the bloodied field. The ground had run wild with battle trance.

            The leader and the squad assigned closest to him charged through the crowd of enemies. He could hear screams from both side's dying men. He turned his sight and caught a glimpse of one of his men being torn to half by a mighty swing of an enemy's broad sword. In the frenzy, he saw enemy horsemen approached him. He made a quick thrust of his lance before one of them could swing his flail. His weapon pierced through the enemy's helmed head, so powerful the stroke was that the iron helm along with the victim's head shattered from the impact. If it was a normal strike, it would have made a clean pierce. He swung his edgeless lance towards the other enemy beside the lifeless body of the shattered head. The enemy blocked the swing with a broad sword. The metallic physique of the weapons clashed, caused them to spark. The blocking had left the enemy uninjured, but the powerful hit had temporarily numbed the enemy's arm.

            The chaotic situation had urged the leader to quickly proceed and leave that one enemy and the other passed by him to his squad behind. He quickly switched his aim to the one in his front. His eyes set upon yet another Barcadian horseman that approached him with bullet-like speed, and this one had a lance pointed directly to his torso, a wider and easier target compare to the head area. In an instance, the leader parried his opponent’s lance strike with his gauntleted left hand's palm, and his head tilted to the opposing way just to make sure he got away with lesser harm, which he did but the impact was so great that had cost him a great deal of mounting stability. Such chaotic position rendered him hard to focus on a target. To make things worse, he was pressured by heavy attacks without having the chance to stabilize his grounding. His lance failed to do harm as his attack was a missed. The bullet speed clash had left both horsemen to only crossed momentarily in their paths.

            Again, another Barcadian horseman, now with a pole-hammer continued the pressure upon said leader. The enemy horseman skillfully waved and spun his pole-hammer as thought it was but a weightless stick, and pulled it backward to gain highest damage potential. The leader reflexively knew he was not in a position where he could make another parrying attempt nor could he dodge since he was still trying to stabilize himself for mounting.

            He lifted his grieved left foot and positioned himself into dismounting condition, placed both his soles onto his horse's side on the right and leaped off the mount, sideways. He felt onto the ground, rolled once and quickly established himself into firm and steady grounding position on his right knee while his left foot was set to front. With the tip of the lance pointed to the pole-hammer horseman, the leader pulled the lance aback. He gripped his lance with such strength that the weapon seemed quivering. His aim was fixed. He thrust the weapon, resulted in a powerful compressed shockwave of the lance's tip towards the pole-hammer horseman.

            As much commonly something fast and powerful resulting in the emission of shockwave, a powerful aggressive swing such that from an Archstride would leave potentially harmful impact. With efficiency in usage, an Archstride would even has his projected shockwave to be compressed and projected just as if it is the object being hurled directly from its source. In the leader's case, he thrust his lance with great strength and speed, resulted in the shockwave to be emitted as a sharp thrusting projectile, much like the tip of the lance itself. But shockwave projectiles cannot travel very far as they fade for every inch distant of projection.

            Shocked, the Barcadian horseman stayed his pole-hammer. His sight was locked upon the leader, and he saw the stance that the leader has made. He instinctively knew what it was going to be, and he retaliated immediately by swinging his weapon just in time when the leader did the thrusting. The sharp shockwave intercepted by the pole-hammer, but the impact was heavy that he got thrown off his saddle. His left hand tucked the horse reins, saved him from falling heavily to the ground with the cost of his horse to fell instead of himself from the abrupt and strong pull. He stood firmly on the ground, thanks to the reins tucking which had supported his fall. His horse stood on all four and ran off by itself in the chaotic battlefield. He would have gone for a huge disadvantage if he was the one that fell instead of the horse. Should he fell, it would have cost him to lose sight of the leader, and he knew well an officer who held command over a whole platoon was not anyone would want to trifle with. By losing sight of such person during a battle, even for just for a slight moment, would have cracked open a crevice of deadly strike.

            The leader looked around him, only to find himself surrounded in a triangle of three Barcadians, including the pole-hammer, and among all three, only one of them was still mounting a horse. The horse mounting Barcadian was equipped with a broad double-edge sword, and the third had both his arms and feet appeared twice the normal size by equipping himself with a pair of solid steel wrecker gauntlets and wrecker grieves– which covered with hands up to the level of his forearms, and his feet up to his knee – and was the only one capeless amongst the three. The pole-hammer gripped firm his weapon with both his hands, lifted it, and swinged the weapon onto the ground, screamed with murderous intent while at it. The impact resulted into the projection of shockwave, same principle with what the leader had just did, but the one from the pole-hammer is at more advance state: he made the projectile as if it traversed through the ground itself, and had left a fissure in its wake.

            The leader rolled sideways as the wave of destruction from the pole-hammer passed him by, though the destructive wake had completely faded not long after that. Much as he had anticipated, the other Barcadians were preparing for attack during the distraction. The one mounting a horse charged at him with bullet speed, instantly reached the leader from the rear and brandished his broad sword. Parried with his lance, the leader was unhurt, but the heavy charged strike had made him turned to face the one with the one with the wrecker sets, with himself fell to his one knee, trying to stabilize himself for what to come after. By the time he set his sight upon the wrecker-sets Barcadian, the Barcadian was already halfway channeling and converting his energy into the form of fire, but the fire had something else in it; rocks molded by the wrecker Barcadian’s energy. Just like how an elemental molds his energy to form fire-like appearance and feature, some elementals may seek the knowledge of solid element like the earth. The wrecker Barcadian, an elemental, drew out both his knuckles. The fire-like energy projected out from his body, consecutively flowed from the surface of his body armor and then started to concentrate upon his two fists. The wrecker Barcadian shot out a fireball from both his fists. With the solid rock-like energy combination, the fireball appeared like a human-size scale meteor.

            The leader gathered much of his strength to evade attacks from those three Barcadian. He leaped from one point to another, and his counter attacks visually seemed next to futility as all of it were interrupted and intercepted by one of the Barcadians every time he did. He in the other hand, had been pummeled, stabbed and slash, punched and kicked whenever he failed to perform any defensive action. Every time those Barcadians landed successful hit, he could feel the pain as if trains were running him over. The Barcadian swordsman, had dismounted from his horse, thrust his blade onto the leader’s chest near the right shoulder where the iron plate armor didn’t offer covering, mainly to facilitate movements during battle.

            All those slashing and stabbing did nothing but scratches, and the pummeling from the pole-hammer and wrecker sets caused only bruises, but all in all had packed him with a lot of pain. An Archstride might appear very sturdy, but even pain being suppressed, those are still very... very painful. The leader once more attempted a counter attack, but the swordsman evaded the strong thrust by tilting his head out of the way, and from the other side, the pole-hammer came swinging. The leader parried, but his hands were occupied to counteract to incoming solid steel wrecker arm that grabbed him by the face. The steel forged wrecker arms were burning with bright reddish color. The palm that was grabbing the leader by his helm's face was burning hot with the imitation of elemental energy. He could feel immense heat from the burning palm through his helm's face opening, but that alone wasn't enough to affect the texture of his face. The wrecker Barcadian slammed the leader's helmed head to the ground, dragged the leader by the head for few meters, leaving behind a trail of damaged soils in the process.

            Being dragged, the leader reached out his left hand and pressed it to the ground to hold his position. The dragging slowed down, and the leader got to his one foot and one knee as it stopped, but the wrecker Barcadian still had his hand on the leader's head. He quickly turned, simultaneously freed his head from the wrecker's grip and launched his weapon with a single powerful bullet-speed thrust. The wrecker saw it as the leader turned. His grip was loosed by then from the sudden act, and he knew very well what would have happened if he did not let go deliberately, as even when he did, he barely managed to effectively avoid the attack. The powerful thrust did a serious damage on his blazing-red right wrecker gauntlet. The attack has ripped an opening on his wrecker gauntlet along with the arm beneath. His right arm gushed out blood, but he considered himself as 'very lucky'. Should he did not loosen the grip, his arm would have been obliterated completely.

            He waited for a follow-up action from the other two, but little did he realize what was happening in his surrounding in the chaotic moment. He looked around him searching for the pole-hammer and swordsman, and was shocked by when his eyes caught the moment of the pole-hammer, not far from where he was at being outnumbered by the GF horsemen.

            The pole-hammer was bleeding heavily, barely keeping his bearing, nowhere in a condition to brace himself for another attack. A GF horseman charged with a spear, struck the pole-hammer in his thigh, a blow just to ensure the victim incapacitated, supposedly to drop him down, but pole-hammer was too stubborn as he stood there ignoring the inflicted pain. GF horsemen in his surrounding were not even seemed to care since he was brought down to below-threat-level.

            Surprised by the sudden turn-of-event, the wrecker turned and looked quickly around for the other one, the swordsman, wondering if he was still in any condition to aid. He found the man in question, but this one had dropped down to both his knees, and also was surrounded by numbers GF horsemen. This one had his armor, as well as the body beneath it, pierced by arrows and crossbow bolts from the front and from the rear, some even pierced through his body as the projectiles’ blades sticked out at the opposite respective ends. A GF horseman stood in front of the swordsman with both hands wielding a pair of handguns the size of his forearms, securing any thought in regard if the swordsman had also been shot at by firearms, and with him several other archers and arbalists believed as those responsible for the visibly stuck arrows and bolts.

            Considering his condition, the wrecker did not have any other choice but to worry of his own fate afterward, as he saw other GF horsemen within nearest proximity approached his direction too. He laid his sight upon the leader which he had the 'three-on-one' handicap brawl earlier. In disappointment, but not at all surprise, he saw the leader stood firm on the ground, seemed suffered some visible 'minor' injuries, but all-in-all, far from the condition of which he could be bested with any spec of lesser difficulty – even if the handicap match were to be prolonged. Helpless and drowned in the sense of submission, the wrecker swung his left hand to the ground and released off his weapon. The left-hand's unwrapped wrecker fist jutted on ground– as result from the strong downward swing – and the then-vacant left hand took off the one on his right hand. Strange, he though, as the leader made no aggressive movement albeit the advantage to finish off his enemy easily. Instead, the leader seemed to be looking elsewhere, towards the direction of the Barcadian Fortress, to be precise, as though the man had his interests nowhere near where they were at. Before he knew it, GF infantries already had him surrounded too. The tables have turned, just like when he and the other two Barcadians surrounded the leader earlier.

            An infantry treaded hastily towards the leader. He had himself outfitted with shiny outer-layer silver plated armor, and a spear with silver colored tip. The majesticity of the silvers though was stained with blood; let it be his own, enemies', or even from fallen allies. There were scratch marks, dents, and even holes from gunshots, indicated he had his part of the battle himself. He took off his damaged iron helm that may no longer serve efficiently as protection – exposing his head along with some bleeding cuts and bruises – and carried it by his side. "Captain, sir!” he casted a salute as he reached the leader, a Captain ranking officer.

            The addressed Captain glanced at the infantry and the symbol embroidered on his uniform. He bore the symbol of three cannons silhouette positioned side-by-side to one another; a symbol belonged to 'Sieger-08 (S-8), suppressive-fire support unit. He understood well the presence of the S-8. They bared the tasks of 'Sweeping' the remains in the field after platoons before them had taken out major threats, in order to give way to static machineries instant field installations. While the 'Fortitude' unit from the symbol of fortress provides continuous support by static machines and men power, S-8 unit was to expand the perimeter of conquest as well as to provide support for the frontline partakers. Whenever a representative approaches, it will be as a message; assigned perimeter has been cleared off any visual major threats and is ready for field expansion.

            The Captain nodded without a single word and left the area to the S-8's platoon authority. The man in silver casted another brief salute without the superior even looking, and instantly returned to his men to carry on order for expansion mission.

            Two GF infantries joined the Captain afterward, treading on each his right and left sides respectively. The atmosphere had become 'less' violence as GF platoons had the Barcadians in the particular area overwhelmed. The 'first move': to grab hold of the ground, was a success, and technical teams, one of them being the S-8, itself had already started to set up more grounding perimeters.

            “Calling in squad leader W–44 (Wing–44)” crackled the Captain’s earpiece device Nestled on his left ear. Limitation of radio frequency due to radio wave blockade from Barcada fortress had made it sound buzzing-like, but the voice was clear enough for the Captain not to demand repetition of sentence.

            “Captain Mercer, “he answered, identifying himself to the other side of the radio. A little bit gasping from the battle he had earlier while pressing the mini microphone strapped to his throat, while treading on foot uphill where the battle commenced on the other side. He waved his vacant left hand to a GF horseman trotting towards him, declining the offer that the horseman had made: a steed for him to ride. The horseman gave the Captain a simple nod and trotted back to where he was from, pulling the reins of the horse he had offered along with him.“Proceed, Command" the Captain continued.

            “Incoming reinforcement en routing towards South–East position. We have lost contact with A–32 (Alpha–32) squad on the East. Your order is to rally your squad to assist A–32 forward position. Reinforcement estimation drop, t–minus 1:30 minute, Hoverfly drop units! I repeat, Hoverfly drop Units!“ Said the man on the other side of the comm.

            “Loud and clear. Moving to East position,” Mercer acknowledged, waving his right hand with both his index and middle fingers sticked out together, signaling both of his men behind him to rally their nearby forces to designated area, and they heeded the command without delay nor subjecting any question as they too were wired with earpieces.

            Mercer crested alone upward the hilly field, and there the Barcada fortress was far but on sight. He caught a clear vision to almost everything below the slightly hilly field. The scenery was full of bullet lines-of-fire along with rockets from both sides.

            Various types of screams filled the air. There were soldiers screaming for their lives, for mercy. Some let out scream of excitement. Some were too frightened to move even an inch. Some were on their knees praying. Some did not move simply because they could not, as they had lost their limbs from attacks. Some had their wounds attended by field medics, and some medics just kept on attending to wounds even though the soldiers attended were already dead, simply because they could not believe so.

            GF Army pressed the attack towards Barcada Fortress, pressing the enemies back into their grounds.

            Mercer witnessed a platoon of GF infantries reaching even further into the battlefield, charging towards the Barcadian line of heavy machineguns. One of the platoon units, outfitted with full iron-plated armor from top to bottom, being showered by enemy bullets, but was not enough to be brought down although his movements seemed disrupted from enduring all the pain brought upon him by incoming bullets. The full armored man brandished his large sword, half the width of his own figure, to a machinegun, instantly destroying it along with the man mounting into half it from behind before proceeding with the other ones nearest to him. The Captain could feel the tremor and gusts of winds as ground infantry units along with tanks and artilleries passed by him. Hoverflies– a wide purpose transport airborne type unit, let the cargo be war machines, military personnel, and even supplies–  passed above them several seconds later, heading towards assigned destinations, dropping its contents.

            Mercer gazed upon the field with the feelings of uneasiness nesting on his mind, stood there in silence as the GF units approaching the Barcada fortress through the last line of machineguns defense, and some armored vehicles had started to surround the front part of the port town.

            The 'Siege'...

Proud emblem of the Global Force:

Temporary decorative image portraying a mounted Archstride: 
Source; Nazgul from LOTR series , copied from google.