Metallic Sunset

Chapter 9: 2093

~March 2nd 7:30 pm, 2092, Outside New Berlin~ 

James rushed to Michelle's aid. The robots aimed guns at him. Skyler put his hands up. The faces of all the robots quickly opened up and revealed screens. The screens turned on to show The Architect. "Skyler, you may go. James and Michelle will taken captive." The Architect ordered. The screens retracted and the faces reformed. The robots did as they were ordered. Skyler was left with Ben's dead body. Rain kept landing on both of them. James and Michelle had to go willingly, they would've been killed otherwise. Skyler walked over a destroyed tank. He found a communicator and a large metal piece that could be used as a shovel. He noticed some nearby trees. He grabbed the metal and dragged Ben's body over to the trees. It took almost five hours, but Skyler buried Ben under that tree. The used the metal piece to carve "Ben Davit" into the tree. "Too many people have died today, and if I didn't lose my shit on James then maybe they'd still be alive." Skyler said thinking back to Quell. "How did we do it? I'll never know, truthfully." Skyler thought as he walked back to the battlefield. The rain and sunset were gone. He grabbed a dead Peace-Keeper's broken helmet and turned on the flashlight. It was flickering, but it somewhat worked. 

A new building was above New Berlin. It was some kind of prison. It was a perfect square with four perfect rectangular prism towers and sphere turrets floating overhead. The building itself looked like an everyday Earth prison. Two lights were on. One for James, and the other for Michelle. "Prisoners of war. Great." Skyler said to himself. He noticed a gust of wind. He turned around and saw a familiar ship. Sheila's ship. Out came Sheila, Sam, Jacob, and a face Skyler didn't recognize in the slightest. Tony was walking outside New Berlin thinking about The Architect's identity. He noticed the flickering light and the light from Sheila's ship's entrance. He didn't recognize the ship, and he didn't know what had happened to James and the other Planetary Alliance soldiers. He walked over to find Skyler and Sheila fighting. Sam, Jacob, and Tristan were standing there. Jacob got annoyed with the fighting after Tony showed up. He put his staffing between them. "Enough." Jacob said angered. "Fine." Sheila and Skyler said wiping blood from their faces. Tony saw Tristan, but didn't recognize him completely. "Jacob, who's that? Why does he look so familiar?" Tony asked. "He's a younger Tristan Grave. The person I remember, almost a perfect carbon copy. The only difference is his paralysis, which I didn't allow to come back when I revived him with these." Jacob explained as he showed Tony The Spectacles. "Those revived you, didn't they?" Tony asked looking around. "They did." Jacob answered.

Tony walked over to Tristan. "I know you when you're older. You met me when I was much younger, I see the roles are reversed, old friend." Tony said smiling as the two were face to face. "I may not know you now, but it's good to know I made off-world friends." Tristan said smiling. Tony put his hand on Tristan's shoulder as a hello and then walked over to Skyler. "Where's Ben? James? Michelle?" Tony asked already knowing what happened to the army. "Ben's dead. James and Michelle are in that prison." Skyler answered putting the flash light over Ben's grave and then pointing to the prison. Tony frowned and mourned for a little bit. He looked over at Sam, almost in horror. Then he looked over the few forces present. "We have a communicator." Skyler said hoping Tony would call reinforcements. "We don't need those. We can train for now. Till 2093, all of us, in these woods. Learn to work as a team and gather weaponry from any of The Architect's patrols." Tony said smiling as he grabbed the communicator and threw it. "Sounds good to us." Jacob said. "Why would we need to learn team work?" Sheila asked. "You and Skyler can't work together or trust each other, that's why." Tony answered. "As if I'd want to trust her." Skyler said. "No more fighting from here on out. As leader of the Earth recolonization project, that's an order." Tony ordered. Everyone nodded and prepared a makeshift base in the forest. 

~January 5th, 2093, New Berlin Expansion~

The Architect had destroyed Celestial's laser before she once again attacked Salem since 2092. She once again broadcasted her presence, after a crushing victory against the Alliance. Samantha had already knew of her presence, but didn't share with the rest of the Alliance in hopes The Architect would leave after what happened in Berlin. Lucine and Phillip attempted to make peace with her. She would only allow a temporary truce. CLYDE was the one who delivered that news. Samantha had her adviser, Peter Grave, who had no clue Tristan was alive, and his Grave Industries assistants, Jerald Lic and Dakota, call for help from outside sources. They would work on this project for quite awhile, it isn't even done yet. 

Tony and his group are presumed dead. James and Michelle are the only two from the battle of Berlin that are known survivors of the devastating loss. Tony and his group have taken out hundreds of The Architect's patrols. She is aware that Tony and his group are present, and isn't worried because she has new robot that's based off the tanks her robots fought. She has also made multiple robots that she used back during the first attack on Salem and Earth. Tony and his group have made new high tech suits to combat The Architect. They have two layers. The first one is made of Project Helios armor and the second layer, the layer closest to the body, is armor from the robots they've destroyed. "We're ready." Tony said as he walked into the center room of Sheila's ship where everyone was. "Ready for what?" Tristan asked. "In order to win this war, we're going to need to bust James out of prison." Tony said.