FSE

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Location: Wastelands, The Cradle

Closest City: Falsetto.

Time: 22:45pm.

Year: 2180, March 14th.

We were both sat opposite each other in The Cradle's small living room. We both stayed silent; I was trying to come up with a plan, what we were about to do next. Elise was probably waiting for me to come up with a plan, and not thinking of much else. I reached for my pistol on the small dining table and took out the magazine, looking at both parts in my hands.

"Do we have a plan yet?" Elise asked, holding up her chin with one hand. I reloaded my pistol quickly and placed it back on the table, shaking my head.

"I'm thinking about a full assault." I suggested, leaning back in my chair slightly. "I'm not all that sure we have the right weapons, though."

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Elise asked sarcastically, starting to smile. "I haven't even shown you half of all the secret rooms I have."

Elise got up immediately and lifted me up with her, almost dragging me down to the basement again where the engine, turbine and solar panels were stored. I didn't have to think to know what she was going to show me; it was too obvious that she had many more weapons stored in this ship. I never asked myself where she got them all; maybe she stole them; maybe she killed people to get them. I ignored these assumptions and continued following her down the small ladder, into the dark basement underneath.

I heard a quiet click, causing the room to light up dimly, illuminating the room, packed with stacked crates, water boilers and solar panels, with the wind turbine almost cutting the room in half completely. I saw Elise already on the other side of the room, pulling off another metal tile and revealing yet another space inside, containing a large plastic case about one and a half times the size of my torso. The red Wolf took it out with ease and set it down on the hard metal floor, flipping the case open.

The weapon inside was massive; it looked more like a black and white cannon! I wondered how it actually fit into the case to start with. The barrel was as wide as my head, and its length was just about two times as long as my arms. The trigger rested somewhere in the middle, with most of the length projecting backwards. Elise didn't struggle with lifting it and resting it on her left shoulder, showing me how it was meant to be held.

"This is The Bear-Shot." Elise introduced, patting the cannon with her right hand which held the front up. It looked like it was made of mostly hard-plastic. "It has a range of around quarter of a mile if you're a good shot. It's also one of the 'lightest' heavy weapons in existence. If you want to go for the whole frontal-assault idea, this is what we should be using."

"Would I be using this?" I asked, staring at the cannon in amazement. Elise shook her head slowly, placing the cannon back in the case. I felt partly disappointed that I wouldn't be using the cannon. Instead, Elise pulled out a short pair of black binoculars and passed them over to me.

"The Bear-Shot is useless without those." Elise said, indicating the binoculars. I tried to look through them, but only saw blackness. There were no caps or anything blocking it, though.

"They only work when they're wired to the cannon." Elise explained, indicating a small port that would wire in with a similar cable. Elise pulled out a reel of cable from the cannon and plugged it into the binoculars, making the lenses clear to see through.

Through the binoculars, the entire room was illuminated a hazy shade of blue. I could see a few numbers in the bottom left corner of my eye; possibly co-ordinates. At that moment, I figured out what these binoculars actually were. They were a tracking system. I pulled my eyes away and rubbed them with my hands. I turned to Elise, who looked back at me, grinning slightly.

"This'll be fun." I laughed quietly, placing the binoculars back in the case. "So when do we get started?"

"In about two hours." Elise replied, closing the case up and bringing it with her up to the upper-floor. "You'll be driving the rest of the way; try to stop just around quarter of a mile away from the building."

"What building?" I asked, following her up the ladder. "Is that where we're headed? What kind of opposition are we expecting?"

"The building has only two floors." Elise explained, placing the large case in the living room. "That's where the money is; we're expecting Knights to be there -mostly mechs. This'll be our final stretch, so be prepared."

I sighed and went up to the stern, activating The Cradle again and setting off to the north-east.

For all I knew, I was heading into an early grave.

Location: Wastelands, The Director's Refuge

Closest City: Falsetto.

Time: 00:35am.

Year: 2180, March 15th.

It took us less that a couple of hours to reach the building that Elise had told me about. We took point next to one of the many cliffs that overlooked the flat land below us. The Cradle was still and blended in with the cliffs, making us almost completely invisible. Elise stood beside me, pulling out The Bear-Shot from the case and handing me the binoculars that were already wired to the cannon. I stared through them and directed my vision at the building below us, looking carefully at the co-ordinates, as well as the many mechs that surrounded the area.

"Y: One-seventy-two." I whispered to Elise, looking at the co-ordinates that were directed at the largest groups of mechs. "X: Fifty-Seven."

I watched Elise tilt and turn the cannon, making the small number-dial on the side of the gun constantly change until it matched the exact co-ordinates I said out loud. After five seconds of deep breathing, Elise pulled the trigger, releasing a mortar into the air, screaming in a slowly descending pitch. I couldn't see the projectile through the dark sky, but I did look down at the building, which was lit up by a large orange cloud symbolizing an explosion that must've had an area of around five meters; I turned to Elise, who cursed quietly. I looked back through my binoculars to see that she had just missed the largest group, still leaving two-dozen mechs ready for a fight.

"It looks like you missed." I said, activating The Cradle again and approaching the building at a sluggish pace. Elise put the cannon back in the case with the binoculars.

"I'll get my rifle." Elise said casually, heading into The Cradle to get our equipment. "Keep us at a steady pace and circle around the building. I need a good hot at those remaining mechs."

I obeyed and kept going at a slow pace to give Elise enough time to get equipped. I still had my pistols holstered, so Elise just had to get her rifle, as well as some extra tools incase we needed them. Nothing was certain in a broken down place like that; the second floor had completely collapsed in on itself. It was obvious that we would end up going underground to find this money. I had spent a good amount of time traveling with Elise to know these sorts of things.

Elise climbed out again with her large rifle slung over her back, as well as half a dozen clips and two small black-plastic tool kits; one to carry each. She laid one plastic kit down next to me, and pulled her rifle up to meet her head, giving her the perfect shot at the remaining mechs. We were just a couple thousand meters away from the building, by which time Elise had almost jumped to the edge of the railings to get a clear shot. A few seconds passed, and we were down to just less than one-thousand meters and quickly decreasing.

A few more seconds had passed, and we started to slow down, circling the building anti-clockwise. The mechs didn't open fire on us until Elise had taken down at least half of their numbers; I started to duck slightly to avoid getting hit by the constant hail of bullets that streamed across the stern. I was sill wearing my Seeker jumpsuit, so everything but my head and hands were protected; well, not if you count my hood, though it could only handle a certain amount of pressure before my skull would crack.

We circled around again, coming from the left to finish off the rest of the mechs. Luckily for us, the mechs weren't well-made, and they didn't even try to jump to the sides to stop us from ramming straight into them, reducing the rest of them to a pile of scrap metal, releasing so many sparks that the area started to light up a little. I slowed the ship down to a stop, and took my hands off of the steering pole, facing Elise and expecting her to say something witty.

"Did I miss that time?" Elise joked. There it was; classic Elise. I laughed quietly and stepped up to the edge, climbing down the ladder with Elise.

I laughed and followed Elise to the entrance, where she shot off the lock and forced the thick metal door open. Up close, the building looked more like a military base or something similar. It made sense that The Director would go to such an unknown and well protected location; but it bothered me that the door was locked from the outside, and the mechs didn't attempt to break it down...

I ignored these thoughts and continued inside, pulling out a small floodlight from the tool kit, illuminating an area of around three meters. The interior of the building was littered with so many things; papers covered with dust, old and empty tin cans, even a few shells of bullets. Whoever was here last must have been fighting or surviving; but against what?

"There are never any signs." I sighed, looking all around the room. It was made from hard, grey concrete, with a few torn up signs on the walls that we were unable to read.

"Quit complaining and help me with this." Elise grunted. I turned to her, and saw that she was trying to move a large piece of rubble out of the way of one of the corridors.

I stepped over and took out a small hammer and chisel, passing both to Elise. She slung her rifle back and took both tools, driving the chisel into the debris and hammering it in, tearing off a decent sized piece of concrete. It looked rather easy, though; proving the building was as old as the dust told us.

"There we go." Elise said after a few seconds of tearing off the concrete bit by bit, leaving an opening large enough for us to fit through.

I went first, holding up one pistol and poking it through the opening whilst slowly stepping through. Once through, I backed up against the wall whilst Elise followed. After a few seconds, we were both through, and continued down the corridor, hoping that we would come out somewhere interesting. Unfortunately, there was everything but that; the rooms that we checked were empty and just inhabited by dust; there wasn't even any furniture. This place was getting stranger and stranger as we went further and further inside.

After a few minutes of walking, we began to hear something. It sounded like something was scraping along the bare wooden floor. We both raise our guns and tucked into the side of a wall, listening to the scraping getting closer and closer. A light started to appear from one of the corners, and a single mech followed from that, with sparks emanating from its chest. It turned to face us and fell to the ground front first. Elise pulled herself out and inspected the broken mech.

"What do you think happened to it?" I asked, looking down at Elise, who was prodding at the skeleton.

"I don't know." Elise answered thoughtfully, getting up and holding her rifle up again. "I reckon we should go the way it came from. Whoever attacked this mech couldn't have been a Knight, so there's someone still alive in here."

That made perfect sense; the mech couldn't have damaged itself, so it was only logical to assume that someone was still alive in here. I followed Elise around the corner and continued through the empty corridors again. There were no more mechs as far as we could tell, though there was something; it looked like a few blood stains that followed us in the exact direction we were going.

"This is strange." I muttered, stopping at one of the blood stains to take a look; the blood was dark purple; the same color as a Dragon's. Elise leant down next to me and inspected it too.

"Do you think its The Director's blood?" I asked Elise, who just shrugged. I got up and had a short look down both ends of the corridor. "I'm beginning to think that this was a really bad-."

I stopped immediately; I saw something glimmer at the end of the corridor. It looked like some kind of metal room from the signs of reflection. I followed the small light over to where it ended, by which time my floodlight had illuminated it fully and revealed what it really was. The entrance was made up of a wooden door, which was broken down; beyond that was a semi-sphere made entirely out of silver metal, and had a small panel attached to the side. I waved Elise over, who immediately got up and shot over to me.

"It looks like an elevator." Elise said, running her fingers along the metal. There was no dust at all. "Should we get on?"

"It's the only way that goes anywhere else." I answered, stepping in and looking at the panel. "It looks like it would go down."

Elise stayed silent, but stepped into the elevator with me, slinging her rifle over her back. I was about to touch the panel of switches, but the elevator doors had already closed, and the actual elevator was beginning to descend.

"Destination confirmed: Location: Underground Labs." I heard a monotone voice announce overhead, making both me and Elise jump slightly. After that, we just stayed silent and waited for the elevator to stop descending.

After a few seconds, the elevator stopped roughly, almost making me and Elise lose balance. The elevator doors opened and revealed a large room covered in white tiles. We didn't need our floodlights to lighten up the room; we both saw that the ceiling lights were perfectly fine; they weren't broken or anything, so I could tell that there was a generator somewhere around here. The voice was right; this place was definitely a lab; the room was covered in medical equipment, chemicals and lab tables.

"I don't get it." Elise said with a confused face. "I don't see anywhere that leads to any other rooms. There's just this one; maybe we should..."

Elise drifted out of speech; both she and I had heard something; like someone was padding along the floor slowly. We both drew out our weapons and walked slowly out of the elevator, scanning across the room. Finally, we saw something; the shadow of a man that slowly crept up in front of us. Following the shadow was a tall Wolf, whose fur was jet black; he looked like he was at least fifty. Grey hairs were settling into his hair. He was dressed in a few baggy grey clothes, and was carrying a large briefcase, smiling at us.

"Why hello there." The Wolf said casually, stopping in front of us and drawing a large pistol. "My name's Joseph, by the way."