AWAKENING

The land glows red as the fire spreads throughout the city scape. Skyscrapers fall to the earth. Explosions shake the foundations. The hazy sky, full of dust and smoke doesn’t let the light through. It is lifeless in this hell. No one is alive, nothing is alive. All that remains are the shattered parts of a warrior. Glowing and humming, but nothing can hear it. The ground shakes and collapses as this world is consumed by darkness. It has become nothingness; it gets sucked into the darkness.   
BUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR rings the alarm clock. Noland’s eyes starts too flutter open, seeming heavy and not giving in to his fight. He reaches his hand over to the broken up dark brown oak  night stand and slaps the top looking for the alarm clock. He is able to turn the annoying clock off by picking it up and casually launching it into the adjacent wall. His eyes seem to give up and finally open, only to close again as Noland gets blinded by the bright sunlight coming in through the single drape less window. He sits up on his bed and looks at the smashed clock, thinking; Great, I have to buy another damn alarm clock again, only to realize that he just should have turned it off normally.
He gets up and stretches his body, yawning like a bear after waking up from hibernation.  He travels over the “sea of ripped carpet” as he had previously named it. He gets to the half broken off door less closet. Picks the closest clothes and proceeds to put them on. Once finished he picks up his toothbrush off the nightstand and goes though what should be a front door but is actually a hole in the wall. Noland leaves and looks back at his broken down hut of a home and lets out a deep depressing sigh.
He travels down a dirt path ironically located in one of the most fertile and green strips of forest he has ever seen, stops by a river, pulls out his tooth brush, soaks it then starts to brush his teeth. As he is brushing his teeth he can hear the sound of Actite, a large city located in New Merica formerly the state of Virginia. Once done he chucks the toothbrush into the forest and calmly walks out into the city. As he walks the streets he looks up at the giant skyscrapers, seeming to stretch across the horizon; each one looking of metal and heavy glass sidings. He continues walking dodging incoming pedestrians, getting pushed around do to the over population of the city. He watches the new model cars come slowly by, each looking the rice of hundreds of thousands of dollars to him. He keeps walking till he gets to a sign which says “Old Actite” and proceeds down the road.
Old Actite is where the rich people live, all owning huge houses and expensive cars. He still wonders how he even got to attend a school here. He never even applied to his school. He just received a letter stating he is to report to the school once the new school year starts. As he walks, seeming to be deep in thought, he finally reaches his destination, The Hausburg High School. He stops and looks at the school, giving the eye to the 2 stories of Brick veneer facing, and roman esc pillars leading to the main entrance. Not a lot of people seem to go there, only about 700 or so.
     When he finds his way to his class he picks a desk at the end row, where the windows are located. He sits down and stares out the large open window. As the teacher comes in and introduces himself to the new students, Noland sees someone, a girl standing in the main walkway. His eyes start squint and he stares with curiosity.
What is that girl doing, he wonders, She’s going to be late for the first day, is she a delinquent or something?
Right then the teacher calls on him once, then twice. Noland shoots up almost knocking over his desk, the class starts to laugh, with a sole girl in the class looking more embarrassed for him than actually laughing. He introduces himself.
I am Noland Mitchell, uh… and I hope you treat me well, in a monotone voice and sits down.
The class pauses for a seconded but then goes back to whatever they were doing. He looks back out the window but the girl is gone. Seemingly puzzled he ignores it and actually starts to pay attention in class. As he listens to the teacher’s speech his eyes slowly begin to closer. Becoming blacker and black does his sight until it is pitch black.
There is a boy. And the boy looks happy. He is laughing and happily playing with his mom on the swing set. The boy sits down on the swing, and the mom begins to push. Higher and higher does the child go, seemingly not know his limits, as his mom pushes him higher he can’t ignore the blurred ground and the sensation of the brisk air hitting his face. So he looks back at his mother and tells her; I am going to fly! At the highest point he releases his grip of the chains and starts to soar. As this happens he begins to rotate, but he is still happy and smiling. When he makes a full revolution he looks down to see his mom covered in blood cracked in half on the ground. The sound of excess air going through her wind pipe makes a horrifying sound. She manages to pull her hand up and tries to reach out to her child. But the arm collapses, the body now lifeless.  The boy, still in the air, looks in complete shock but can’t seem to say anything. He looks down to see a giant metallic hand reaching out and trying to grab him. The boy falling into the grip of this monstrous metal hand lets out an agonizing scream.
Noland gasps for breath as he wakes up. Cover in sweat and shivering he looks around to find the classroom empty. He realizes that he must have fallen asleep in class. He gets up, and stares out the window one more time seeing nothing, then leaving seemingly disappointed. Due to the color of the sky, an ominous blood red, he could tell that it was almost night. That gave him an almost worrisome feeling. As he started home he listened to the sound of the crickets chirping, wondering how wonderful it could be to be as carefree as a cricket. No school, no problems, just singing your happy song to the world. He stops listening and concentrates on the walk back.
When Noland finally gets back to his crap shack he falls on his half, broken bed and just thinks. How did my life come to this? I’m a complete nothing, just an iota of a person. As he thinks deeply, he remembers the acceptance note. He still can’t find any reason to accept him, a boy who lives in a rundown shack, no money, a social outcast, why would I get accepted to that school. Then he starts to think that there is something more to it, but quickly dismisses. I’m nothing special, not special at all. As he finishes thinking he hears a noise. He quickly gets up and walks out of his home.
It’s a… siren? He says, but for what? Just then He sees a giant explosion. The sound wave of it causes the ground to shake violently, Noland collapses to the ground. Wha… What the hell was that? He got back up and looked at the city, two buildings were completely annihilated, the smoke from the rubble billowing into the sky. He wonders what could have done this when he sees another even larger explosion. This time it looks like it took out a city block. Under the sound of the sirens he could hear the screams of the people. It hurt his ears.
One, Two, Three more explosions, he can’t even think of how many people were dying, he didn’t want to think about it. He kept thinking of the years he was looked down upon, treated like an outcast. He started to smile, he thought it was wonderful; they finally get what they deserve, those bastards, he said to himself. He finally realized his hatred for humanity; hey, they ruined this world, the only home we all have, what would be the point in wanting to save them, we should just get destroyed. Just then out of the corner of his eye he saw something move. He swung his head to the left to see something completely horrifying, a huge figure in the smoke a fire of the rubble of the buildings it destroyed, looking like a demon straight out of hell;  a giant creature? He said. It was still within the smoke of the destroyed buildings. It seemed to be getting larger; it seemed to be coming closer, and closer. It finally came out of the smoke, a giant humanoid like thing, pure white with grey and black accents. It was kind of shiny. Then Noland realized something despite his shock. Wait, what the hell? Those hands, they are the same one from that dream. Those hands, he becomes mad, THOSE hands, he becomes drowned in anger, THOSE HANDS!!! Just then a hand touches his back.
He quickly turned around, still infuriated, to find the girl he saw outside his classroom window. The girl, who was dressed in this strange white and blue single piece dress, put her hands on his face. It felt like all his anger was being sucked away. They stood like that for a minute, even though the giant humanoid was still rampaging close by. What do you want to do? The girl asked in a very serene voice.                                                                                               Do you want to destroy it? If that is what you desire I can make it come true. I have that power. Your soul must want it though or else I can’t make it come true.
Noland was to dumb struck to answer, he could do nothing but stare at her. Well? What do you want to do? Do you want to stand still or go full throttle? Noland started to remember the giant humanoid.
I… I want to go full throttle. I want to destroy it. He said with a shaky voice.
The girl replied, Are you sure? Noland looked at the giant humanoid for a minute, just thinking. Looking at it destroying the city but didn’t really feel anything, then an image popped into his head. It was an image of that mother, her lifeless body and that hand grabbing the boy.
Noland got angry and he said with a firm voice, Yes I want till destroy that thing.
The girl smiled back, took her hand off his face and said, Good, I can make your wish come true. The girl took a step back a pointed east. I want you to go east until you get to a giant box. For you to get to whatever is in the box you need to have you resolve and your soul straightened out. Or you could possibly die.
Noland looked confused, Wait, I could… die? He thought to himself. He looked back at the Giant and confirmed his resolve. Yes, I will do it, I will kill that thing. He looked back to find the girl but she vanished. Noland became confused, but quickly remembered what she said. Travel east until I find a giant box, huh? He said. He took one last look at the giant and dashed towered the east.
Noland ran and ran, he ran past the crowds of people trying to get away from the imminent death, but he just ignored them and just kept running. Holding his side from pain he pushed on. He finally reached his destination. It was the Actite Aerial Port, a partial military base and public runway. It was completely empty. Not surprising though, considering what is going on. He thought they would at least keep guard there; it was a military base after all. But he skipped thought and just started looking for the “giant box” he needed to find. As he searched he could still hear the sirens and explosions from the city. The base had an eerie silence to it; he is still looking for the box when he spots something at the end of the runway. There it is, he said. Ran toward it, when he reached it he was finally at his limit, he couldn’t run anymore. But the pain seemed to disappear when he saw the huge box. JESUS CHIST, he said, THIS THING MUST BE 2 STORIES TALL. How the hell do I open it? He looked at the box and spotted a tiny pad. He walked toward it, a little skeptical. He looks at the pad for a second and wonders what he has to do. Huh, it looks like I have to put my hand on the little pad, he said. So he lifts his hand and puts it on the pad. It feels a silky, he thinks. Then the entire box began to glow a bright gold and stated to vibrate. Noland jumps back, and starts to sweat a little. Just then letters began to show up on the little screen next to the pad.
[ …UNIT-BOX 000178-67554… UNIT ACTIVATION COMMENCING… UNIT ACTIVATION COMPLETE, NOW STARTING QUASI-ATOMIC PARTICAL ACCELERATION DRIVE... 25% COMPLETE… Newton SCOPE ACTIVATION COMMENSING… FOWARDING ALL POWER TO UNIT ACTIVATION… UNIT R-HAD-102366 CODE NAME “ARES” NOW IN START UP MODE… USER HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE INTERNAL HPE DRIVE AS ITS “TRUE USER…” NOW EJECTING PROTECTIVE SHELL… WELCOME TO THE FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL…]
        Wait what? True User? Ares? What the hell is this thing? As Noland wonders the box starts to let out steam. It is till radiating gold at a high level. The box begins to moan and creeks, then the five side of it just seem to explode out in four directions. Noland ducks out of fear and stays on the ground for a minute. He uncovers his head and looks at the direction of the former box. The sun shining in his face he can only make out a giant black figure. The eyes of it seem to glow gold, giving out an evil like aura to it. Noland stands up in sheer amazement; he can now see it clearly. The base and the gold trim. The head has a giant like horn attached to it and look like a Greek battle helmet, the shoulder parts seem to jut out into space, with the arm pieces going from black and gold to a pure gold spike at the elbow, same with the legs, and just the feet seem to have black, gold, and grey folds to it. Noland, completely speechless at this point, seems to be able to conjure up enough strength to walk forward it. Ares, he says to himself, this thing is so awesome. When he reaches the base of it, the eyes begin to shine brighter and it begins to hum. The double chest piece swings out, revealing what looks like a cockpit. Do…Do you want me to get in? The machine hums louder, seeming to answer his question. Noland notices it and says, well shouldn’t ignore an invitation like this, and proceeds to go into the cockpit. He sits in it and the chest piece closes. It is now pitch black and his anxiety is now going up. Then he is overloaded with this bright rainbow like color wrap around him. The machine begins to hum louder. All of a sudden he can see, the rainbow is gone, but he can see the outside. He looks around in it in excitement and spots the city. He starts to get angry and thinks of going to the city. Then the Mech starts to move. Noland is surprised. Does it react to what I think? He says to himself. He wants to test this theory, so he grabs the two control sticks in front of him, and thinks of pounding fists together, but nothing happens. He looks around then down and spots petals under his feet. OH, now I get it, I have to link up what I think with the controls. He pushes harder on the petals and is overcome by a burst of speed. He is a little overwhelmed, he releases his feet from the petals but it keeps on moving. Now he realizes that if he has already activated a motion it will continue until he syncs his thought with the controls to stop it. He laughs to himself, HAH HAH, Newton’s Law of Motion indeed. He puts his feet pack on the petals and thinks of stopping, he releases his feet off the petals. The mech stops abruptly and causes Noland to fly forward. Yep, I still need to get used to this, he thinks to himself. He looks at the city and sees a giant explosion. He makes up his mind and heads toward the battle zone.
The smoke billows out of the rubble, fire strewn across the city scape, people, dying by the hundreds. You can still see bodies of parent trying to protect their children, but try as they might, they can’t do anything. The giant white and red humanoid randomly destroying and killing, it looks like he is looking for something. Then large rocket pods un-earth themselves from the pavement, launching a barrage of twenty or so rockets from each. The rockets activate their booster and fly toward the beast. The screaming sound they emit is scary. The impact the beast headed on, letting out an explosion that shatters the glass of the buildings around the monster. There is no way to see if they worked until the smoke clears. At that time, in a secret room, deep underground, people are in a panic.
SECTION 213 IS COMPLETELY ANNIALATED, SECTION 214-217 ARE HEAVILY DAMMAGED!
HEAVY WARHEAD MISSLES HIT TARGET, STILL UNKOWN DAMAGE!
SIR, WE NEED CLEARENCE TO LET THE CIVILIANS OUT OF THE CITY!
SHIT! WHERE ARE MEAGAN AND ARIANA!
SIR, THEY ARE LOCATED IN A PROTECTION FACILITY IN SECTION 219; I ALREADY DISPATCHED A TEAM TO GO GET THEM!
As the yelling continues the smoke starts to clear on the battle field. The room falls silent, waiting in anticipation to see if it worked. As the smoke clears even more they can see something. It looks like a small red light. Just then this light pierces the smoke, creating a cavity. The red light goes around the landscape causing explosions wherever it touches. The people in the room are in total shock.
It failed, the missiles didn’t do a god damn thing, a Woman says.
She seems to be in charge of the planning there. The Commander stands up and says, I permit the use of the Big Daddy. The room quits, the Women shocked of what she just heard.
Wait, if we use that we could cause irreparable damage to the city. We should think about this a little more, she said.
The commander then replies, I have BEEN thinking about it, it is our last resort, and we have exhausted every available option. The woman shrugs and turns around to face the people still stunt.
She yells in an overpowering voice, RAEDY THE GRAVITY PURPULSION CANNON AND THE BIG DADDY. WE HAVE PASSED THE POINT OF NO RETURN. THIS IS OUR FINAL HOPE. PUT THE POWER TO MAXIMUM AND PREPARE TO LAUNCH IT. The room starts to go into disarray, people screaming and running around trying to prepare the massive weapon.
MA’AM WE HAVE INITIALISED THE ARMSTRONG CANNON AND ARE READY TO FIRE AT YOURE COMMAND.
The woman gulps and hesitates for a seconded but then says, OKAY, FIRE.
The man pushes a button, and the whole room shakes violently. The cannon has fired and made a sound that could shatter eardrums.
As the room starts to settle, the man hops back into his seat and yells, BIG DADDY LAUNCHED, TIME UNTIL IMPACT, ETA 30 SECONDS. The room becomes silent once again. They do nothing but look at the giant screen in front of them. The Giant is still on a rampage, explosions everywhere. Then The Giant stops and looks up. It can hear it, the sound of impending destruction, and a horrifying whistle that represents its death. The thing that is falling toward it is the BID DADDY bomb, the strongest non-nuclear bomb humanity has ever created. It gets closer and closer. It gets louder and louder. The people in the room seem to be in a trance. Then blackness, the entire room is overcome by a shaking so intense that it brings people to their feet and shatter the glass covering the lights over head. About another minute passes before they regain enough power to boot up the main screen. It   powers on but there is nothing but static.
A man shouts, COVERTING TO CAMERA BC346. Then an image pops up on the screen; it showed, to the people’s shock, a dilapidated mess, a giant crater holding a thing that seemed to be the monster. Melted into itself, it isn’t moving. Finally the people in the room begins to smile, to only be brought down once again as the thing begins to move. The people look on as the monster begins to unfold itself, stands up and begins back on its killing spree.
SHIT! WHAT THE HELL CAN WE DO NOW! WE GOT NOTHING LEFT, yells the woman. She collapses down to her knees and puts her hands on the floor, seeming to just give up. As the man at the control panel looks at the woman he can’t but help but wonder what could have happened if those girls got here. They could have done something. As he turns around and looks at the screen his eyes open, his face in shock.
Ma’am, MA’AM! He shouts. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THIS. The woman gets up off the floor and walks toward the man. The man turns around to look at the women still pointing at the screen, not able to say anything. The woman looks at the screen and becomes shocked.
Someone activated the Ares? Did she really make contact with her “true pilot,” but how she was still located in the confinement box at the military base? This couldn’t be possible she has to be fully activated to do that. In back of all the confusion, the commander sits down and starts to smile.
Finally, he has awakened it; let’s see if he learned as fast as I think he did. He said to himself.
At that moment, they here a powerful clash, they all look up at the screen and become amazed, the monster is on the ground, an impact on its chest. There is another figure standing over it. They bring it in focus. They look on in delight as they can make out the deep glowing gold eye, the gold trim glinting off the red sun. The woman couldn’t be any happier at this moment.
She says to herself, It’s the Ares.


On the battle field Noland stands over the now collapsed monster, just smiling. *CHE.* you’re not so tough, He says. Then he feels a sudden jerk, the monster has grabbed the Ares’ leg and pulled him to the ground. Noland get mad and kicks the monster in the chest twice making it release its grip. Noland tries to get the Ares up but is knocked back down; he was hit by an energy blast in the back. The Monster gets up and walks toward the Ares. It moves its hands in front of itself; red particles began to get sucked in between the hands forming a large red sphere. It fires the red sphere, ripping the air in its wake. Noland quickly makes the Ares dodge the explosion, and then dashes toward the monster grabbing its leg. He proceeds to hit the things knee continuously until it breaks, causing the monster to collapse to the ground once again. The Ares kneels down and launches itself into the air. Noland wants to end it quickly, so he has decided to pierce the monster with the knee blades. As the Ares begins to descend, Noland sees the thing doing something. It seemed to heal its knee and has gotten up. It started to create another red sphere, but this time it was black. Noland was surprised, he tried to stop the dissension but couldn’t. SHIT! MOVE GOD DAMNIT! The monster launched the black sphere, which created a shockwave which even moved the monster back. The remaining glass on the building were now shattered, some even collapsed. As Noland watched the Black sphere scream closer, he begins to think.  DAMNIT! Am I really this week? Am I really this pathetic? I want more power, I want to kill it; I want to kill it; I WANT TO KILL IT GOD DAMNIT! Just then the Ares began to hum again. The arms started to glow a brilliant gold. Out of sheer instinct Noland brought the hands in front of the Ares and formed a diamond with them. A sudden jerk happened; a gold beam came out of the space between the hands, splitting the air around it. The gold beam hit the black sphere causing a giant explosion which shook the Ares, but the beam kept going. Noland finally understood. I get it, that sphere is just one mass of energy being propelled forward, if it hits something it will cause a lot of damage but it will no longer exist. The gold beam is energy constant. If it hits it will cause a lot of damage but it will keep going. The gold beam reaches the monster and pierces its chest causing it to erupt in a golden flame. As Noland watches on he can’t help but begin to laugh. The Ares lands on the ground and walks toward the now dead monster, but it suddenly stopped. The cockpit now black, the Ares standing In the middle of the rubble, the eyes now not glowing. Noland wonders what is going on, the energy reserves were fine, he can’t think of anything. Then he hears a crackle; then a woman’s voice.
Hello! Hello! Is the pilot there, can you answer me!
Noland was confused but he answered back, Uh… Hello? Who is this?
Noland can hear cheers in the background as the women replied, Wait? A GUY!? A GUY PILOTED IT? Well, no time for this now. Listen I will explain everything a little later I just need you get the Ares back to the base. Noland Agrees but looks around looking for a base. He felt the ground rumple beneath the Ares. A tunnel, which looked to fit the Ares exactly, opened up. Noland a little skeptical brought the Ares down the tunnel, unaware of what lies ahead of him.