Plasma_Wolf's Tweakblog

“So, you said you were one step ahead of him?”
“There is more than just that, we were one step ahead of him, two ahead of ourselves, which means that we were three steps ahead of him.”
“Ok, explain it to me, I love it if it all goes according to plan, but I have to know about it first. That’s what made me so irritated when you urged me to wait for fifteen minutes.”

“When we arrived on Seraphim Two, we quickly learned how this was all a trap, then I realised that Marxon wanted us dead, or our ACUs taken. Possibly both.”
“And yet you still wanted to continue our mission in the same way. It meant we played along with him.”
“No matter what we would do, we would be playing along with his plans. He is smarter than we are.”
“Then why do we still live?”
“As you have already told, you have to outwit yourself sometimes to win, or make it out of there alive. Marxon based his strategy on what he knew about us, so we only had to come up with something he does not know about us, while just not showing that element.”

“I get it, I think. You hid your final action, that had probably saved us, even from me. Then I’d be fighting as I always do, hiding nothing from Marxon. I’d like to know though, how can you explain the fact that your ACU was not moving?”
“Marxon knows that I’d rather use my ACU to assist my economy and my engineering efforts. I do not use it on the battlefield, especially not at such a late moment. Not using the ACU at all meant that I would have to use five tier three engineers to make up for it, or a lot of tier two engineers.”

“Marxon probably didn’t expect us to have any trouble with assault like our enemy put at us just before we left.”
“No, he did not, that is why my lack of any help, except for the Oblivion cannons, was not strange at all.”
“Ok, that’s why he didn’t put more effort into it. Now, he must’ve had a backup plan if we were gone, so all of a sudden.”
“Yes, I think he has, I will take a look at my ACU tomorrow, to see if he did exactly what I, like him, would have done if I ran away from my trap.”

____________
That next morning, Marisa took a look at her ACU even before they had breakfast. When she came back, Leyton waited for her before he started eating.
“Yes, the Avatar-of-War did exactly what I expected from him. He entered my ACU’s self-destruct code, or at least what it was before I altered it again.”
“You lost me there, what did you do.”

“When I first arrived here, I expected that the Avatar-of-War would enter my self-destruct codes so that I would be destroyed, with my ACU. I changed the codes and when I first checked my command unit again, to build this house, then I saw the message that Marxon certainly received as well.”
“What message was that? That the self-destruction sequence had failed?”
“Exactly, I saw it on one of my screens, Marxon should have seen it as well, because any order he gives to my ACU, can be seen, with the result, on his consoles.”

“So he prepared for your return, knowing that you’d not be sitting here just to be exiled.”
“You understand the matter completely. I expected a trap, we found our counter to it but there was just this one backup we had to take care of.”
“How did you do it?”
“The solution is simple, altered the codes, but I also wrote a small script, which would send a message to Marxon, that he thought he was successful.”
“Would he not search the Choir’s database for your ID-code? If he’d find it, he can still remove it manually from the system. And here’s another thing, how can you be certain that the message ‘successful’ doesn’t remove the code from the database again?”

“I will answer the hardest question first.” Marisa said. “The Choir’s database checks in with the ACU at any moment that a remote order is given. This was done to monitor a possible hijack. It stays in touch with the ACU for some minutes after the latest command has been issued. If the database does not register an explosion, then the unit identification code is not removed.”

“Ok and now the easy question. What about Marxon? Surely a genius like him would double-check the result of his actions? Or would he fall victim to his own experience?”
“Yes, he knows that he is so smart and cunning, he knows that his plans cannot fail and as soon as it goes all perfect, he is only more convinced about his own work.”

“But it didn’t go well. He didn’t get a hold on our ACUs.” Leython said.
“He expected that that could happen. He and we all know how smart he is, but he also does not underestimate our smart minds. He knows that we want to be a step ahead of him, that is why he might think that capturing the ACUs does not work, so he comes with his second plan. Two steps ahead, we would never think of it.”

“Ok, that clarifies it, he thinks that his second plan will succeed anyway, so that’s why he wouldn’t be worried.”
“Exactly. His own confidence is his weakness, he is so sure about our death now, that he would never think about double-checking it. For him, it still went well, there still is no one who has beaten him.”

“We should also not think that we have beaten him, to be honest.” Leython suggested. The idea alone was at least dangerous. It would made them overconfident.
“No, we should not be so arrogant. We may have won one game, but it certainly is too dangerous for us to show up near him, he will then triple-check everything and make sure we are done for. We now have won the round because I knew the terrain, which is my own ACU. Next time, he will be in control, that is certain.”

____________
Later, at Seton’s clutch, two commanders fought a more intense one versus one battle than either of them had seen before...

Three Harbingers moved across the field, followed by twenty more. They were too close to each other. One of them could be hit by an overcharge bolt and then those three would be destroyed.

Barely had the thought formed in the Illuminate commander’s mind and the overcharged shot hit the central siege assault bot and instantly destroyed the other two.

Half a second later, a group of thirty spy planes surged over the Harbinger force, that moved towards the place where the bolt had appeared out of nowhere. It instantly detected a signature, carefully protected by a cloaking generator.

The harbingers moved on and the first ones charged their cannons already, but they would be too late as the enemy unit would surely be submerged in the lake by the time that the siege assault bots could deal some proper damage, but the Aeon knight was ahead of that reality already.

Twenty torpedo bombers had followed the spy planes and were ready to drop their payload as soon as the enemy hit the water. With the tier two and tier three aircraft circling over it, the ACU had nowhere to go.

Out of nowhere, a group of enemy strategic bombers suddenly appeared, escorted by a squad of air superiority fighters. The torpedo bombers stood no chance and were shot down in a matter of ten seconds, at best. It took longer before the Harbingers were destroyed, but those bots had become a waste of mass nonetheless.

She had not expected this, not that this air force had come to destroy her assault force. The bombers continued their flight towards the Illuminate knight’s main base, where she did expect the assault. The enemy had not seen her pre-emptive countermeasure though and moved on anyway.

The bombers came closer and prepared to bomb their payload, but this time they were the ones to be trapped as more than fifty air superiority fighters suddenly appeared in front of them and fired.

The enemy bombing force was decimated before they could do anything. The enemy superiority fighters fought back, but stood no chance either. The Cybran had just wasted as much mass with his assault as she had done with her assassination attempt.

While she had blunted the enemy spearhead, she continued with her standard strategy, before she noticed the cloaked ACU standing behind her own lines. Her navy moved closer to her enemy’s cliffs, destroying his fleet on the way.

The problem was, half of her fleet was gone. While she was distracted by the tier three Cybran air force and gave the single order for her air superiority fighters to attack, another air force made it to her fleet and took fifty per cent of it out of commission, including all of her cruisers. Now, because those torpedo and strategic bombers still lived and was quickly supported by a secret fleet he held back, the Cybran commander was back in the race at the western front!

With the land battle stuck at the battlefield’s bottleneck, the loss of her western fleet and a Cybran ACU behind enemy lines, there was only one positive thing left: her eastern fleet.

____________
The plan had worked. Sending his ACU behind enemy lines had distracted the enemy commander enough to make her send fifty per cent of her torpedo bombers in the hope of destroying his command unit. Even though he didn’t know that the ACU would be useful in that way at first, it was an excellent idea now.

Sending his own air force further allowed him to sneak by with his second group of bombers. It decimated the enemy’s anti-air capabilities in the western sea and now the entire fleet was destroyed.

It all came with a price though. The Illuminate pilot now knew where his ACU was and would certainly send new spy planes soon and find the exact location of the command unit little moments later.

He had to move on again and that left him with two options. He could go back, but the enemy fleet of submarines had spread out over the whole eastern sea. With the spy planes coming soon, it was a bad idea.

The Aeon commander also knew the alternative route by now. With her fleet lost at the western sea, the Cybran ACU would be safe there. The problem via that path was that he had to walk across the land. He needed another distraction, preferably the destruction of all enemy omni sensors, so he could walk in a straight line. It still dangerous, but he had to do it.

While the Cybran moved on, he thought about the good news of the current situation. The land bridge was blocked, he had the western sea under control and was about to destroy the enemy shore’s base. Additionally, the only important enemy zone for now, was occupied by submarines, which could do no harm, while the front was protected by experimental spiderbots.

And there, he was wrong. Two massive plasma bolts suddenly destroyed a Monkeylord’s legs, causing the experimental unit to crash in the grass. She had submersible battleships! Her air superiority fighters had moved towards the shore, blocking the only possible way to destroy those experimental units.

She would have lost her shoreline while he evacuated his ACU, but the Aeon pilot made very clear that she was one step ahead and not planning to let anything go without a price.

____________
Instead of sending all of his remaining air superiority fighters to the place where he needed them, the Cybran commander had spread them out behind enemy lines. It took the Aeon knight a couple of seconds before she understood. They were to take down any spy plane so that the ACU could escape via the western shore.

She already admitted that she had lost that place and her assault on her enemy’s counterpart could not come at a better time. The battle was balanced and would definitely be for the next minutes.

It could be that the Cybran commander used his Air superiority fighters to take down any air transport with engineers, that hoped to reach the enemy shore. It was not necessary though. The Tempest battleships had their own factory and they could not only build the cruisers and destroyers to support themselves, but engineers were an option too.

Now she did not only destroy the enemy base, she could also build one on her own.

But so could the Cybran commander. He had the ability to send engineers in air transports and according to the Aeon tier three omni sensor at the frontline, he was doing that right now.

Both bases were neatly being crushed like a light assault bot under a Colossus’ leg. The battle was balanced very well, but it could all be over soon.

Thinking about a Colossus’ leg, she noticed how her Sacred Assault Bot stood in the enemy’s ACU direct path from the lake to her shore. It was bound to go wrong, because he did not have intel about that unit.

____________
He knew it, a Galactic Colossus blocked his path, so he saw with that single air unit that was left. He had to go around its omni sensor’s range in order to survive. It was doable, but took some precious time he could better spend on a useful action.

Which is what he did. On the other side of the field, he had built tactical missile launchers in the hills so that they could reach the shoreline he just lost. As soon as an engineer would build only one single factory, it would go down.
Additionally, he had his first strategic missile launcher built, which was working on a nuke.

The wreckages at the middle of the battlefield were still intact. All engineers that either the Cybran or the Aeon commander had send towards it, were destroyed. At first, they were taken out of commission by a light assault bot or a tank, but now, some powerful tier two artillery from both parties were covering the land bridge’s valuables. If either of them would win that battle and destroy that front line, it would be over for the other one, since recovering would be hard.

He could have used the mass of that missile silo to strengthen the front line, or an assault, but that was risky as well. What if that assault failed or if the defensive lines were destroyed? No, a nuke would be a much better way to defend that zone.

Meanwhile, the Aeon commander moved her experimental bot forward, apparently she knew that his ACU had circumvented the Colossus’ sensor range. The Cybran command unit was ready to assist the engineers in building a base at the enemy shoreline, but there were no engineers left.

While he had worked on all counter measures that he could think of, to protect his own base and his command unit, the enemy had used tactical missiles and artillery fire to deal with his engineers. Staying here with his ACU was too dangerous, so he had to retreat with that unit and move ahead with his destroyers instead. Their ability of walking shouldn’t be wasted.

While the destroyers hit the shore, it seemed trivial for the Cybran that the Aeon commander would use more tactical missiles. Destroyers were slow as they moved over land and that made them an easy target.
He sent a couple of spy planes, backed up with strategic bombers, to deal with the threat. It didn’t take long before he found the missile launchers and destroyed them, only to see that his enemy had done exactly the same at his side.

____________
The best they could do, was exchanging land to each other. A better result could not be made yet, but it would be over soon. The Galactic Colossus moved towards the front line and it would soon be backed up with a decent force of torpedo bombers to deal with any enemy ships. It could not be stopped and when it had broken the enemy defensive positions, the Colossus would be able to move on.

Even if it were to be destroyed, the reclaimables in the middle of the field would be hers. She had her strategic missile ready to destroy the Colossus’ wreckage if she could not reach that at the location where the behemoth went down. The balance would be broken in her favour. Or perhaps not...

Out of nowhere, a group of strategic bombers appeared and dropped their payload on the giant assault bot. It did not do all too much damage compared to the unit’s massive hull integrity, but if she allowed this to happen, the unit would barely be able to destroy the enemy front line.

The Aeon knight was also notified of a strategic launch, but that did not worry her. All of her bases were protected.

She sent most of her air superiority fighters away from the Tempests, to assist the Colossus. Barely had they left, or the enemy’s complete torpedo bomber armada appeared to take the experimental battleships out. It was a simple manoeuvre, but it was effective. The first battleship’s hull was compromised by more than seventy per cent on the first run.

She now would have had to make the choice between sacrificing the Colossus or the Tempests, if it were not for the cruisers and tier one Shard boats she had built. She expected that her enemy would force her tier three fighters away from the fleet and then attack with his air force, but the pre-emptive countermeasure was ready once again.

One after another, the torpedo bombers fell down like leafs. It was not good enough for the first battleship, which sank on the second run, but the second battleship was completely safe from the enemy threat. She still had the covering fire to keep the opposing shore under control.

The Colossus had, with the subsequent bombing runs and the added firepower of several artilleries, lost fifty per cent of its integrity before the Corona fighters had taken out all of the bombers. Nevertheless, fifty per cent left was enough to destroy the enemy firebase and take control of the land bridge.

Suddenly, the strategic missile arrived at its destination. It exploded directly in front of the Colossus, blasting away another section of armour, instantly setting the land bridge aflame and also destroying all of the wreckages that stood there. A crude method, but effective nonetheless.

She was about to win the battle for the land bridge, that lasted for three hours now, but the enemy commander not only taken her chance of victory but also blown away the reward. Not that he had a chance of winning that area either, but the fact that he kept the battle in balance was annoying to say the very least.

While the Colossus continued, having only a fraction of its armour left, armour that would most certainly be blown away by the artillery, the Illuminate commander saw how the colossus’ very appearance had cast a shadow over the battlefield.

The blinding light of the nuke’s explosion had instantly burned the grass around the ground zero, but the Sacred Assault bot stood in the way in one direction. The grass that did not directly see the explosion, had burned slower and at a lower temperature. It had created a colossus-shaped shadow over the battlefield.

This was not the time to look at shadows though. She needed a new plan of action, a new strategy.

____________
It was another three hours later and the battlefield was completely different. Whereas he was controlling the south first, his ACU now stood in the middle of his main base at the upper north. They had exchanged their positions completely. The last original outposts that were destroyed, were the ones at the front.

It took them both a long time before they finally made it across the entire enemy zone, since they only could advance via the shores. It was their only possible approach back then. Eventually though, they made it through and they could attack the frontline firebases from the back.

It all went with one brilliant tactical manoeuvre after another, several times, they both fought at one side of the battlefield only to make it through at the other side.

The result of this was that they didn’t come any closer to victory. If it was going like this for six hours already, how long would it be before one had won?

Neither of them could call for reinforcements though. The other Cybrans were probably too busy with their own business and didn’t have time to come to such a remote and forgotten place.

As for the Aeon commander, she couldn’t do anything at all. If she contacted the Avatar-of-War, he would immediately know that she wasn’t dead and then he’d come for her personally.

This was no use. Neither of them could finish the battle, they could better call it a draw and quit, before they were continuing this single campaign for weeks. However, friendly asking for a draw was no fun. It had to end with some fireworks.

____________
Hundreds of spy planes suddenly moved in on her newly acquired land. There were too much to be shot down and within a minute, all of her secrets were known facts, including the location of her ACU.

Thanks to her abilities of The Way, she knew that this was wrong, very wrong. She knew it was wrong before the spy planes had even spotted her. There was nothing she could even do about it to survive, but she knew that she could at least take down the Cybran commander.

She ordered the launch of the new strategic missile she had built. By the time that the launcher managed to send the nuke into the air, the Cybran ACU had teleported towards in her own base. His old one.

In an instant, the strategic missile silo exploded on her orders, the explosion rupturing the missile’s shell while it was launched. Half a second later, the payload exploded and took both the Aeon and the Cybran commander out.

“That was a sudden end, were you out of ideas, Leython?” Marisa asked, smiling because she knew what this was about. She had to agree with him. It was already past dinner time.
“I’m hungry.” Leython said, confirming Marisa’s thoughts. “And instead of just asking to stop with this simulation, I decided I wanted to do some final trick.”

“We seem to be quite even if it comes to strategy, something we already knew of course. We both plan ahead quite a lot. You a bit more than me, but I can back the latest developments up, thanks to my talents with The Way. Certain disturbances in my confidence tell me that I should be careful for walking into a trap. With you though, it is too late most of the time.”

“I guess we stand a chance against Marxon after all, if we want to bring him down. We just have to face him when he doesn’t join after his knights have done all of the hard work for him. We must get him when he starts on the battlefield with nothing but his ACU.”
“If I look at our six hour battle, I cannot help but think about that. If the war would come at an uncertain end, an end that all factions can still claim in their advantage, then we must be there and play our part in it. Whatever the end will be, it cannot be good if it is Marxon’s.”

“I am quite certain that we will be able to do something good in the war, soon enough. We’ll surprise everyone. What strategy is better than appearing on the battlefield when everyone thinks you’re dead?” Leython said happily.

“Let us go and eat. I am hungry too.” Marisa said and they climbed out of their ACUs that stood without any damage on the Tessalis soil. Marisa and Leython even took the time to make them stand close to each other, as if they were hugging.

“Awww.” Leython said when he stood on the ground and Marisa walked towards him. “They’re in love.”
“So are their owners.” Marisa said and she kissed Leython.