Chapter 4: The Hunt.

Despite the weight from his backpack and Nat, Chronos ran like if he was not carrying anything at all. Nat blacked out the moment Chronos picked her up and ran away, she was so mentally and emotionally broken she couldn't stay awake.

Chronos tried to get to his settlement as fast as he could but the Destroyers were right before them. I need to find a place to hide before going back to the forest, but where? -Chronos thought while running.

A few minutes later, heavy ammunition impacted the ground right next to him, shattering part of it almost instantly and making Chronos' escape more difficult. Then, in a matter of seconds, a Destroyer passed right in front of Chronos, blocking his route to the forest. No! If we get caught again Doc's death will be in vain... -Chronos thought with sadness reflected on his eyes.

The other 3 destroyers surrounded Chronos and Nat, leaving them with no escape. Chronos feared the worst, and the Destroyers were ready to shoot. He took one of the dagger-like blades he had on his backpack to step in front of Nat and the bag in defiance, resembling a cornered beast showing its fangs.

Before Chronos couldn't even move, one of the propellers of a Destroyer exploded by an unknown magnetic-impulsed projectile. The rest of the Pilots started to break the formation to avoid another hit, whilst the destroyer which was targeted by the powerful weapon lost height enough for Chronos to react and run towards it, easily breaking the armored windscreen with DD's scale and penetrating through the helmet of the pilot, killing him instantly. The quadcopter now without a pilot to control it and with a destroyed propeller, helplessly landed on the ground roughly.

"I think I took down one" -An unknown and husky voice popped out.

"You have to be more careful Phil, that's my own prototype of a coilgun and it may be unstable" -A girly voice complained while Phil took down the rest of Destroyers with a few shots. "Yeah, whatever you say Gree" -Phil said with disinterest.

Chronos came out of the pilot's cabin and ran towards Nat and the bag.

"Oh, he is trying to escape" -Said Phil calmly while aiming the weapon towards Chronos.

"Wait! Nat is right there, don't shoot" -Gree commanded while running towards Nat.

Who are they? And why didn't they arrived earlier? Doc...Doc could be still alive... -Chronos thought while picking up Nat and the backpack to quickly disappear in the town.

"Wait! Bring Nat back!" -Gree said while trying to catch Chronos. that guy is fast -She thought while stopping to catch her breath.

"We need reinforces! There is some resistance in this town, I ask for permission to exterminate them" -The leader of the assault team asked by radio.

"Permission granted, sending a unit of Tyranno-AMHAR: Peacemaker" -A voice on the next side of the radio replied.

Chronos quickly hid behind a shed by the local farm without being noticed. Nat slowly woke up, instantly remembering the sight of Bernard's death which made her puke. Chronos sighed and had a grieving look while inspecting the zone carefully.

"Are you sure he went this way?" -Phill said while jogging next to Gree and setting up the coilgun.

"Yes, he is fast but I'm smarter and I can deduce he is by the farm" -Gree proudly said. Nat was unconscious...did he take her as a hostage? Did he know we are related to her? -Gree thought very worriedly.

Chronos knew they were coming, so he started to set up some traps based on wires and small holes on the ground to know where they are coming from.

The assault team regrouped and inspected the damages dealt with their units. "All the Destroyers are rehabilitated, Sir" -One of the soldiers said to the leader of the team. "It doesn't matter now, there is a Sweeper on its way to wipe out this place. Let's come back when that thing finished seeing if the egg is still intact" -commanded the leader of the team.

Nat was staring at the crops which were divided into sections of new species of corn and wheat. "Why?..." -She repeatedly asked herself while reviving the scene of Bernard's death again and again inside her head.

Chronos quickly finished setting up his traps and went back with Nat, who noticed him. "W-what did just happen...?" -Nat said with a broken and low tone. "I don't understand..." -She continued with fear and confusion in her words.

They are looking for me and they want the egg, but if I tell her, she could betray me and sell me to them -Chronos thought while grabbing his backpack.

The soldiers retreated to their armored vehicle after they set up special traps around the town and left the place. Meanwhile, in the capital of the kingdom, a rocket was prepared to be launched. One of the engineers in the place set the coordinates of Argos and the rocket took off. "Estimated landing time: 20 minutes" -The engineer said.

Phill and Gree were about to reach the farm when a sudden earthquake made them lose their balance and fall. The rest of the villagers quickly came out of their houses as a preventive method. Chronos had a familiar feeling about the earthquake, and Nat tried not to lose her balance. "Something moved down there" -Chronos said thoughtfully.

"Yeah, no shit Hawkings" -Nat refuted while ridiculing him. It seems the earthquake snapped Nat out of her melancholic state. "How do you think earthquakes are produced?" -She continued.

"No, it is different" -Chronos explained with a serious face looking towards the crops. "Something else produced the earthquake" -Chronos added. Nat couldn't imagine what would produce an earthquake of such magnitude.

I was once told, natural disasters were produced by anomalies that attracted dragons. Otherwise, dragons were the reason for the disasters -Chronos recalled.

"Ouch! This is weird, normally this town wouldn't have any tectonic activity at all!" -Gree complained while standing up.

"Good thing it happened though, if we didn't trip over because of it, we wouldn't have seen this wire" -Phill said standing up and cut the wire of the traps. "Also, it stopped now, so we can hunt down that guy" -he added.

This is a pretty lame trap for a government's elite soldier, but it was so well located we could have tripped over it and alerted him. This person knows what he is doing -Gree thought.

Phill and Gree didn't waste any more time and continued searching, but now more cautiously. Wait a minute... the traps are in a circular order... -Gree thought realizing something while following the wires with her eyes until watching the shed. "He knew where we were coming from the moment we cut the first wire, just like a spiderweb..." -Gree said softly while her eyes widened.

Phill could barely react by moving backward. Chronos had sneaked upon them hiding his presence, then cut in half the coilgun instead of Phil's arm. Nat couldn't let her thoughts haunt her again and went to see what was Chronos doing, then she saw Phil and Gree defending themselves from Chronos blades.

"EVERYBODY STOP!" -Nat commanded in an authoritarian shout. Chronos, Phil, and Gree instantly froze and turned to see Nat crossing her arms in a mother-like way. "Someone tells me what's going on!" -She demanded.

Phill pointed towards Chronos. "This guy tried to use you as a hostage" -He said.

"They were following us, I was trying to defend myself" -Chronos countered.

"Then why did you take Nat with you?" -Gree instantly asked. "Aren't you a government dog?" -She added.

The government?...why did they attack us?... -Nat thought while watching them argue. "No, he is not a soldier, he is a traveler and he's with me" -Nat explained.

Phill and Gree stared at Chronos for a moment while processing what Nat just said. "But he sliced my coilgun in half!" -Gree complained in a childish tone.

"You could still make another one" -Phill shrugged.

Nat sighed. "I'll help you making another one this time" -She decided.

"Something is missing...where are the soldiers?" -Chronos asked. The earthquake ceased a while now, whatever is down there it stopped moving -He thought.

The launched rocket followed a parable path, and it was about to reach Argos' aerial boundaries. The rocket, when reached a falling state, started disassembling, revealing a bipedal heavy-armored war machine controlled remotely. The air was whistling. Chronos could hear it and looked up to the sky to see what was approaching. "Interesting" -He muttered.

Nat heard Chronos. "What is it?" -She said while looking at him and then looking at what he was staring at. She noticed something was falling down and seemed dangerous. "We have to leave now!" -She commanded.

"Huh? Why?" -Phill asked.

Gree at that moment understood why the team of soldiers left the place. "They sent a Sweeper..." -Gree said.

Phill's face showed concern and horror, like if he had met once before. "We need to evacuate the town..." -Phill said while shaking. "Now!" -He exclaimed in addition while starting to run towards the rest of the town.

From Chronos' perspective, Nat and Gree started running as well, while he slowly walked backward expecting to see what happened when the machine landed. Then a hand took his arm and pulled him. "What do you think you are doing?" -Said Gree while still pulling him. Nat was impatiently waiting some meters away. "If that thing targets you, you are dead" -Gree stated.

Noticing how serious Gree was about it, Chronos couldn't refuse to follow them. "I think it will land in a couple of minutes" -Chronos said while running towards the town.

"There will not be enough time for everyone to escape" -Nat said.

"Then we have to buy time in some way or another" -Gree replied.

Chronos was oblivious to the conversation. Is that a man-made machine used for war? Why it doesn't fly like the others? -He thought, trying to study the purpose of the machine's structure.

Phill was running towards groups of people who came out of their houses due to the earthquake. He alerted the people about the Sweeper but everyone seemed to take it for a bad taste joke, until the moment it landed. The gigantic bipedal machine's landing produced a tremor, not as powerful as the previous earthquake but strong enough to be felt by the villagers. "There it is, the sequels of the main earthquake" -One of the villagers said.

Nat and Gree quickly went to Gree's and Nat's workshop to search for weapons while Chronos beheld the machine initializing. He noticed the multiple joints moving to show a magnetic supported Antimagic shield and many digital locks opening to release a railgun, homing missile batteries, grenade launchers, two cannon barrels with heavy-armor penetrating ammunition enhanced with magic, magic-based ammunition machine guns, and flamethrowers. The Tyranno-AMHAR: Peacemaker was not a war machine, it was an extermination device.

Phill ran as fast as possible to the workshop hoping the machine hadn't eliminated Nat and Gree. He saw Chronos taking his blades out of his backpack which made him change his direction to stop him from going towards the machine. Then a deafening noise came out of the machine's speaker, paralyzing everyone in 50 kilometers around it. Phill couldn't move, neither Chronos nor the rest of the town. The machine then anchored itself to the ground and shot the first railgun spike which effortlessly performed everything in front of it in a distance of 500 meters. It switched to the heavy ammo barrels, and as it shot a rain of missiles, grenades, and flames eradicated half of the town in a blink.

Phill and Chronos unable to move, could only watch the massacre and realized how they would end up if they didn't find a way to move.

When the machine was rotating to start firing again another earthquake began, but this time it was stronger. The earthquake shattered the ground next to the machine, and a gigantic beast showed up from within. A dragon with skin as hard as a rock and thick as a mountain, with one bite, destroyed one side of the machine. The machine fell down but managed to launch grenades to the Dragon's face, without any effect. Then, realizing it was futile to keep attacking, the machine activated an auto-destruction mechanism which focused the thermal energy of a small nuclear reactor inside of it, creating a vacuum effect in the surroundings of the machine and the dragon, this could control a small nuclear explosion which expanding wave still sent Phill, Chronos, and many structures away without exerting radiation on them.