Brothers

I have played around with a lot of stories that take place in a fantasy world i conjured a while ago. This is one of those stories; it lays the groundwork for the future of my world.

    The two brothers stood apart from each other, face to face for the first time in months. Geri readied his blade; his former ally was now an unpredictable beast. While his deepest wish was to amend their friendship, he realized that they were, after all, enemies. And for a single moment, as their eyes met across the plateau, everything around them fell into dead, suspended silence. The battle below was now a distant fly , the thunder and lightning above an occasional flash of light. Even the air around them seemed frozen in time as neither felt the slightest breeze. But the moment was brief; for Freki broke it, screaming a cry of war and lunging himself at his adversary, his heavy iron sword coming down with vicious slashes and jabs. Geri, though not caught off guard, was startled by the speed of his swings, struggling to keep up with the animal's ferocity. 

     "Funny; I call Freki an animal while I stand here, practically one myself," Geri thought. He blocked all he could, waiting for an opportunity to go on the offensive, and finally found it as Freki slipped, following a blow to his back that sent him to the ground. "Give up before you cause any more damage to this world with your encrusted machinist nation."

     "Me? Give up? Perhaps to an army of my fellow humans, or even to a demigod, but you-none of you- are human, least of all you, brother," Freki spat, "abominations, the lot of you" Geri struck, ready to take his head clean off if need be, but he underestimated his brother's new power. Freki grabbed the blade with his bear hands and bent it without flinching a muscle, throwing it off the edge of the cliff.

     Below the battle raged.

     The Robotika busied themselves with firing their massive weapons, machines as large as a medium-sized house. They belched corroding smoke into the air and leaked green-tinted gas onto the ground, an explosion emitting from their enormous barrels now and then. The gas slowly killed all the wildlife on their side of the battlefield. Wave after wave of soldiers zigzagged in between them, most equipped with only the thinnest of armor and cheapest of guns. The lucky ones wore gas masks. But once in a while one could see one of the army's Mongers, a specialized class dedicated to the strongest, the cruelest, and the most brutal soldiers of the Robotika. These monsters leaked a similar gas as the weapons that towered above them, wore thick armor, and carried enormous battle-axes.

     The Geneks tended to their creations, tamed beasts kept in cages. Some were genetically modified to bite with an extremely toxic venom, some were given thicker skins or heightened senses, and some could even continue to barrel through waves of enemies even after going brain dead. But one thing they all had in common for sure was their frightening size; most were about half the size of the Robotika's weapons, but some were big enough to eat one of those same weapons in couple bites. The foot soldiers were excessively more human, but contained similar enhancements. While one could not tell from sight, many had thicker skins and heightened senses, courtesy of there leader Geri's generous military funding. But as with the Robotika's specialized Mongers, the Geneks had tricks up their sleeve. Those tricks were called Shifters. They appeared as extremely thin, malnourished soldiers at first glance, but the second they attack these specialists can shift parts of their body to run faster, hit harder, or even make themselves look like enemy soldiers.

     Geri drew a second sword, this one coated with a dangerous poison. He had hoped not to have to use this, but it was better than being defenseless. Freki simply grinned and got up, ready for another round. This time Geri struck first, hungry for this accursed war to be over. Too many of his people have died for him to lose, to let this tyrant of a man in front of him win. Freki would surely find the most creative of ways to dispose of his creations, his life's work, the Geneks. Geri's attacks were more focused than his enemy's rage-fueled charge, more tactical and less front-force. But after a short whirlwind of strikes and blows, they both took a step back, Freki from his wounds and Geri from exhaustion.

     "You were always the one-track mind, my friend," Geri's chest heaved. While he was directly behind many of his nation's victories in the war, it has been far too long since he put on his armor and fought in person.

     "And you, the chess player," Freki looked at the numerous thin cuts along his arms and chest, blood seeping from slits in his armor. Slits so thin only the maker or a keen eye could detect. "Always distracting your opponent, keeping his eyes away from the elaborate trick hidden on the board. Striking here," he swung at Geri, who simply blocked, "to make an opening here," Freki sucker-punched him square in the face, pushing him back.

     At the front lines of the battle, chaos ensued. The slow, organized march of both sides broke apart to strangle each other. Swords clashed, armor broke, and blood sprayed. The Geneks had sent many of their larger creations to the center of the valley in hopes to squash the majority of the Robotika's small troops. The beasts plowed through the hoards with ease, only stopping long enough to step on a Monger or two. Their foot soldiers soon followed, picking off survivors with minimal casualties of their own. Shifters marched with them, hidden in plain sight. Many of the specialist's peers didn't even know the difference between them and anyone else.

     The Robotika, on the other hand, let them come. Their machines were too slow to get very close, so they were letting the Geneks get within range, even if that meant sacrificing a few troops here and there. The general of the robotic army, Winta, signaled his second in command as soon as the first line of Geneks came near. The weapons fired row after row of projectiles that could take a full story out of a building. The barrage of terrible. Explosion upon explosion erupted, followed by the screams of the Geneks' front linemen. Holes the size of living rooms were left in the enormous beasts that moments ago could feel victory in their hearts. Entire infantry units were blown apart by a single round; units from both sides took damage from the cannon fire.

     Suddenly, a cease fire was called and the explosions stopped. A moment of silence was given, not for the honor of the hundreds now lying dead or dying, but for the sake of Winta marveling at his own glory. A smug, arrogant grin spread across the general's face. He very much shared his leader's view that what they were at war with was far from human. They were all animals, and animals are meat for the slaughter.

     A tear rolled down Geri's face; he not only heard, but felt his children die. "You sick b*****d, you!" He dropped his sword and wailed on Freki. His brother tried to throw Geri off of him as best he could, but pain now fueled his actions. Little could stop the leader of the Geneks, once a peaceful man, to beating his own brother to a pulp for the crimes he committed. Soon Freki stopped resisting and fell into a numbing slumber. Not only was Geri overpowering him, but the poison of his blade was starting to take effect.

     Geri rolled off of his brother to find that Freki had stuck his sword into his chest minutes ago. Mortally wounded, each of them took a last glance at each other. Neither were sorry for the other's death, because each knew that it would end with at least one of them dying.

     The chaotic atmosphere of the front lines have spread to the entire battlefield. There was no area dedicated to a single army; only ruthless war existed. Robotika cannons fired as accurately as they could, but frequently hit their own troops. The Mongers crashed through with carnage and body parts in their wake. But the foot soldiers were weakened in numbers; what remained of them either fought as fools or ran as cowards. The Geneks' beasts pillaged without direction, running over both friend and foe.

     Cannon fire exploded upon groups of soldiers, leaving but a crater of blood and armor. Axes swung, removing dozens of Robotika and Geneks alike from the picture, some swings were even able to grab a shifter now and then. Swords slashed and cut. Shifters ran through the battle, faster than any other pawn on the board, digging claws deep into the steel of their enemies, crushing even the Mongers into clumps of broken bones and ripped flesh. The entire valley below the plateau looked like this.

     Suddenly, six or so beings appeared before the brothers in a eruption of radiance, and they felt an inexplicable wave of comfort washed over them. Their wounds healed instantly, and no pain could be felt. The men wore strange, golden armor and seemed to be made of pure light. One of them stepped forward, apparently the leader.

     "You two almost made quite the mess of things," he placed a hand on both of the brother's heads, forcing a flood of images in each of their minds.

     "Gah!" Freki gasped as soon as the flurry ended, "what was all that?" he was trying to make sense of what he had been shown.

     "I have just presented to you a future where both of you had died and your nations continued to fight to the last man. Forty years from now, the cries of war would still have been heard, and by then tens of thousands will have died and the land destroyed by battle. Now," he gestured behind the two, "You have a choice to set aside your differences and provide all of your people with peace, " he glanced at Geri, "Or else we will return, and your wounds will come back with a vengeance" and then he glanced at Freki. Before either could get another word in, the group disappeared in a similar explosion of light. They looked at each other in disbelief, and slowly turned to see both of their head generals climbing up to the plateau.

     "Master!" Winta yelled, charging Geri with a drawn sword. Alexa, Geri's general, ran to defend him. The two began to clash as their leaders had not minutes ago.

     "Enough!" The brothers cried together, pulling the generals off of each other before any serious damage was done. Alexa and Winta glared at one another, like young siblings, but ceased to fight in the presence of their adopted parents. Geri held out his hand to his brother. He was very much ready for this war to be over with; to be left in peace by the Robotika army once and for all. Freki, on the other hand, lived for war. He spilled more blood in this catastrophe than any man under his command, including Winta, and he liked it. But he also remembered that strange man's words, that if any act of war were to come from his hand, he would drop like a fly from the wall. He took his brother's hand reluctantly, flashing a fake smile just for show.

     Freki and Geri didn't know it at the time, but their actions in that moment began an era now known as the Iron Peace, a time without war that lasted multiple centuries, despite Freki's hunger for battle.