After a lengthy family meeting, Eva and Miko met up to cool off. Mack had really dug himself in a hole while they weren’t looking. With everyone around, they were all able to pry the truth out of him - that he had been using opiates for a few months. All completely unchecked.
Even he had forgotten how many pills he was taking per day.
“I’m glad we got him before things got too deep,” said Eva.
Frustration was embedded in her tone. Miko nodded in agreement. But she couldn’t understand why Mack took the medication in the first place.
“Why did he have those opiates?” she asked. “Did he hurt himself? Or did someone else hurt him?”
“He never said,” Eva replied. “Just that too many things were eating away at him. Somethi
They really did make an animatronic Gundam. Check out Gundam Factory Yokohama on YouTube to see it. As mentioned, it’s 18 meters tall. The C-ranked Federation mecha are 20 meters tall in comparison.
Over the course of a few cycles, a number of them had formed up into small skirmishing groups of eight people each. Though they had other duties to attend to, they made sure to spend at least a couple of hours practicing their hand to hand combat tactics with each other. Every single one of them went through basic, which imparted martial training and knowledge, but only on a one-on-one basis. But reality wasn’t like that. Perhaps they would have to deal with larger groups, or stronger individuals. Either way, they all needed to learn how to better handle these kinds of fights. “Even if this is a great big waste of time (and I hope it isn’t),” said Eva, “what the hell else are we gonna do?” Eva had proposed that they do uneven group skirmishing - each of the groups of
The two off duty guards loomed over Eva as they processed her words. They had their translators reconfirm her meaning, then glanced at each other in complete puzzlement.To them, she was just some frail human girl. In fact, they viewed all humans as rather frail. The fact that the two of them tied in a brawl against seven humans was more than proof of it. If they fought her, it would have been a complete massacre.The one that barreled through three people stepped forward and puffed up his chest a little. A hint of annoyance was laced throughout his voice.“Imagine just what that report would look like to our superior - two of us against one of you. We would be flayed alive for doing such a thing.”“Oh, so you’re afraid to hurt me, then?”
Eva and Miko found themselves cruising high above the city, which the Justicars referred to as Lacroseth, the capital of Taloren Prime, and of the Drogar Imperium as a whole. Their EyeCasts hovered nearby as they looked at the sights all around.They rode in a relatively common transport gondola. Similar to the Federation’s van-like hoppers, the gondola was the standard in hover transport in Drogar society. Unlike the hoppers, the gondolas were essentially simple platforms with a control deck in the center, and capped by a transparent dome.It pretty much mirrored the huge domed city of Lacroseth itself, though far smaller in size.In comparison, the city was incredibly wide. Every city on Taloren Prime was exactly 200 kilometers in diameter, and each one was filled with roughly half a billion people. From wha
High above one of the many red spiral towers, Admiral Chase settled down into a slightly-oversized chair. As all the furniture was Drogar-sized, she felt like she was an overgrown child sitting in one.Opposite her, across a dull metal desk sat Stormfather Retholis.Both wore their everyday uniforms rather than their dress uniforms. They were clean, simple, and only bore the markings of their ranks along with the symbols of their nations.The room around them was cozy and sparsely decorated. Behind Retholis was simply a transparent metal window that showed off the city. To their sides were shelved walls filled with books, medals, commendations, and various wartime memorabilia.“I was under the impression that someone like me wasn’t allowed inside of a Red Zon
Although Eva and Miko certainly enjoyed the views from above, they were drawn by the Drogar themselves, and wanted to see them up close. They were technically prisoners, but were treating the whole thing like they were simply on a tour.And in a way, they were.“Thanks for letting us take a look down here,” said Eva.Their gondola hovered down towards the ground, in an open-space parking field. Other gondolas and hover vehicles were lined up in it as well, inside of appropriately-sized spots.“Don’t expect most Drogar to talk to you,” said Doleth. “Half don’t even have translation nanites installed.”“Are Drogar an insular society?” asked Eva.
A short and stout Drogar with rippling muscles and a large gut stood in front of an anvil. Although his facial spines were long and a little droopy, his scales were still taut on his body.In one hand, he held a long bar with a glowing slab of metal at one end, which he laid down in the middle of the anvil. In his other hand was a small metal hammer that looked incredibly well-worn.He adjusted the glowing slab and tapped it a couple of times with his hammer. The moment he moved his hammer away, the assistant by his side brought his two-handed sledge down on the glowing slab.As the assistant struck it, the bladesmith adjusted the slab back and forth, left and right, centimeter by centimeter. Sparks and flecks of blackened metal fell away with each and every hit.And at
Miko pointed at an image of a fat, goofy-looking fish. It had a perfectly oval body, wide eyes, and hilariously stubby fins. The colorations on its scales were absolutely beautiful, however. They were a shimmering red with a purple streak along the body, and flecked with gold. Especially along the belly.The Drogar cook grunted in approval at her choice, put away the pad, then went into the back of his food stand. When he came back, he had a short stack of fish fillets, all of which were perfectly round.The cook rubbed some sort of oil on both sides of every fillet until they were coated, then set them under powerful heat lamps to cook slowly. As they did so, the smell of the fish cooking rose up and surrounded the air around them, and caused Eva and Miko’s mouths to water.He then turned towards a numb
After their meal, they quickly set up a plan to meet with the Ferreshii through Alevos. But they found that the bladesmith himself was incredibly interested in bringing them together. So much so that he offered to bring them to his friend in person.They couldn’t have asked for more, and so hopped into their gondola and traveled over to the Ferreshi clan’s district in the city. It was thankfully still a Green Zone, though Eva noted a part of it was marked in Blue.The gondola touched down at one of the pads closest to the district’s HQ. This section was absolutely a madhouse to Eva and Miko.There were hundreds of Drogar at any given time, busily going to and fro between buildings. Above their heads, industrial and commercial drones sped around the skyways. Some carried various crates and mac