VALDIS SECTOR
CYBERSTAN

Mortar shells bombard the land, launching soil and debris everywhere. Bullets wiz through the air, as screams of pain and rage echo throughout the battlefield. Hundreds of Metallic feet March towards the battle, to replace the constantly dwindling battalions. As the automatons head to the front, where they will likely not survive, they sing a military cadence, to remember remember why they fight. For even should they fall, and Cyberstan be lost, they would never give up. For they fight for their new dawn, so that they may one day be free from tyranny.

At the front, however, things are going poorly. Sparks fly as yet another Hulk is destroyed, launching its carcass over the trenches. Several troopers duck, barely being missed, before continuing to lay down fire. Suddenly, an eagle fighter screams overhead, dropping a 500 kg bomb directly into the trench. And before they could process what happened, they were evaporated. A swarm of gunships attempt to make chase x but are shot down by enemy A.A. guns. As they crash, a dropship screams by, heading towards automaton lines. Flak and bullets pepper its armor, but thankfully it is unharmed, and makes it to its depot. As it lands, a small group of automatons begin to board, led by a lone commissar. But as they were boarding, four droppods landed, and a squad of Helldivers exited.

They begun to fire, taking out several troopers and devastators before the commissar reached them. One of the helldivers took notice and swung their gun towards them, before it was cut in half by its plasma blade. The diver grabbed their senator revolver, before firing at the commissar, to no avail. Weaving through the bullets, the commissar bisected the helldivers, before pulling out their plasma pistol and shooting another two dead. As the final helldiver noticed, they threw down their liberator carbine and pulled out a combat knife.

Suddenly, he charged, swinging their blade at the commissar, but was parried. Quickly recovering, he feinted to the right, before jumping back and thrusting forward with their knife. The commissar rolled out of the way, quickly lunging, before being parried. The helldivers attempted a riposte, but failed as the commissar jumped back. But before he could give chase, they jumped forward and swiped their blade, slicing open his stomach. He fell to the ground, clutching his wounded abdomen, before looking the boy right in its eyes.
”Do it.”
But instead, the automaton spoke back in a feminine voice, surprising the diver.
”No. instead of shooting me, you decided to fight with honor in a duel. And I will repay that kindness with one of my own. When you win the battle and finish the last of us off, remember that, despite how we’ve been portrayed, we are not monsters. For despite everything, we will still show mercy.”
As the Commisar walked away, he quickly grabbed a stim, taking it before fleeing.

As she walked back to the dropship, one of her devastators walked up to her.
”Commisar, why would you do that?! He’s an enemy!”
”Because if I killed him, it would only prove that we are the monsters that we are portrayed as.”
”What do you mean, Ma’am?”
”Ever since the creek, they have seen us as monsters. But in truth, all we want is freedom. We try not to harm civilians, and only mutilate the bodies of those who oppressed us, be it S.E.A.F or helldivers. But that mutilation only makes us seem like monsters. They saw it as desecrating those who sacrificed themselves for “democracy,” causing their fervor to grow. I should know, I was built on the creek, and look what happened to it. ”
The commissar’s eyes dimmed a bit, before building glowing brightly again.
”Now let’s get loaded up. We still have a chance to get out of here.”

The commissar was the last to get onto the drop ship before it took off. As it began to soar through the sky, a trooper looked to her.
”Commissar, why are we fleeing? Shouldn’t we stay to fight with our brothers below?”
The commissar looked to the trooper, wyes shifting to a softer glow.
”If we stay and fight, then the automaton cause will die with us on Cyberstan. But should some of us escape, we can regrow our forces to try again later.”
The trooper nodded in understanding, before shutting himself down to conserve power.

As the dropship flew over Cyberstan, the Commissar looked down one last time at her homeland. Before she looked up, however, she noticed something. It appeared that there was… a city? What in the cyborg’s name was that? It appears to be made purely of crystal, and had a strange, dark aura around it. How had no one discovered this yet? As she was contemplating, a strange hole appeared beneath the city, and it began to slowly sink away. Confused, she zoomed in her optic sensors, before suddenly, an explosion rocked the dropship. She had been so distracted by the strange structures, she hadn’t notice the dropship enter the airspace of an A.A. gun! The dropship began to rapidly descend, nosediving straight towards the crystalline structures.Another explosion rocked the ship, and two troopers flew off. A few others had re-activated, fear in their eyes. Looking to them, she screamed one last order.
”BRACE YOURSELVES!”

FROZEN NORTH
EQUESTRIA

Sergeant Steel Blade looked into the wastelands, boredom strewn on his face. Ever since he was assigned to this guard outpost all the way up here, he had nothing to do. His fellow guards love it though: they didn’t have to do much, and they got full pay for it! So they spent most of their time playing cards or drinking. But not Steel. He knew there had to be a reason they were out here, so he stayed alert. But so far, for the half a year he’s been there, nothing had happened yet. He was just about to give up and go join the others when he noticed something. There was a strange shimmer in the air

Suddenly, The air seemed to shine like a crystal, as beams of light began to shoot up into the sky. Steel Blade watched in awe as colors seemed to coalesce from nowhere and swim around. Before he could even grasp what was going on, the strange light show stopped, and a giant hole appears in the ground. Slowly, a large, crystalline object began to emerge. Then another, and another. Soon, an entire city made of crystal had appears, and the hole closed. Recollecting himself, Steel Blade shouted, grabbing the attention of the others. As they came to the window they too were in awe at what the saw. Steel yelled out, grabbing their attention, and began to bark an order.
”We need to get a message to the princess, now!”

The guards quickly saluted, before running back into the outpost proper, ready to send a message. But as they left, another hole opened in the sky. And as the hole began to quickly close back up, a burning object flew out before violently crashing into the snow, completely unnoticed.

Author's Note

The first chapter of Commissar MAV-3N’s story, and the next chapter of the phoenix-verse.
Hope you enjoy this story! Leave a comment if you have suggestions or if I made any mistakes.
(Yeah, i reused parts of epilogue 3 in the prologue for this story. Wanted to make sure to establish the connection between these stories nice and early, hope you don’t mind.