Gunshots and plasma bursts could be heard all around the city. But one man was walking calmly on the roof of a skyscraper. He was wearing a white tuxedo, along with white pants and golden bling covering his body. He was a Krotar, his skin had turned white from the clothing he was wearing. Multiple human and Krotar criminals who were armed with random energy and kinetic weapons were escorting him.

Who was this person? He was Ray Carr, one of the gang bosses running the apocalyptic city. He was trekking to the door that would lead to his office, one of his escorts jogged in front of him and opened it, Ray didn't give any sign as to notice him. 

Walking down the stairs to his office, everything was clean, thanks to his slaves. Traveling across the hall, Ray was met with an opaque glass door. This time no one made a move to open it for him. Walking through, he saw a very clean office, with a window looking out to the chaos filled streets of glass. "Get out." He commanded his escorts, none of them hesitated.

Walking over to the window, he took a deep breath and smiled. Today was going to be a good day. A good day for business.

"Agh, my head." Said Zesshi. She was laying on the ground. Zesshi pushed her torso up into a sitting position, looking around she saw that she was in an empty, white room. Thinking of how she got here, she searched her mind for clues. First she saw that recruitment ad, then she walked to the train where she met that strange woman, then she got to a recruitment station where she signed up for the 'special event'. She couldn't remember what happened next.

"Zesshi Visser, Age 21, Female, Begin Program." Said a monotone, male voice. Surprised, Zesshi shot up from the floor. Her head swinging from side-to-side as she searched for the source of the voice. "Hello, I am AI number 7274, it is nice to meet you!" Said the now-confirmed AI with a little more emotion.

"Wha? Who, who are you?" Asked a now shocked Zesshi. "I am AI number 7274, as I have previously stated." Replied the AI. "Thank you for signing up for the super soldier program, you have agreed that, if you fail, your memories of anything concerning the program will be wiped." 

".... WHAT!?!" Screamed Zesshi, regretful that she like so many others didn't look at the terms of service. "You have agreed that if you fail the program any and all memories concerning the program will be wiped." Answered the AI. Stunned, Zesshi stood there frozen. 7274 took it as a sign to resume speaking. "You will partake in multiple evaluation protocols to determine wether or not you will be deemed worthy to join the ranks of the super soldier, you will have 2 months to prepare. To succeed, you must get 1st through 150th place. You will be allowed to return to your home during the training faze. Reminder, if you reveal the program to anyone, even those you trust most, you will automatically fail and yours and the one whom you revealed the program too will have their memories erased." Lectured 7274.

Zesshi could barely speak, just what the hell has she gotten herself into. "Thank you for listening, you will now be rendered unconscious and returned to your housing." Once the AI finished, she stood there, frozen. Zesshi managed to blink once, but when she opened her eyes she found herself back on her couch.

The mechanical footsteps of the machine echoed through the dilapidated halls of the ancient ruins. Walking up to a ginormous, metal door it felt something, accomplishment. It had been wandering the halls of this ancient complex for far too long, and this was the second-to-last obstacle it had to face.

Many years ago, the machine found a terminal that gave direction to its endless journey. It wasn't so endless now. Scanning the massive too it was in, the machine found the terminal for the towering gate. Walking up to it, the machine reached for the cord at its nape. But as it was about to pull the wire out, the machine found itself flying into the far wall.

Slightly damaged, the machine looked up at the source of its unexpected flight. It saw nothing, that was until a mechanical beast appeared out of thin air. Its body was black and, it walked on four-legs and was about three times larger than a lion, each of those legs ended in metal paws with medium sized claws compared to its chassis.

There was just a couple things that were different than the regular, mechanical monster. This mechanical monster did not glow a strange green, but rather a fiery red. And the humanoid machine could see something behind those artificial eyes, a soul, different than the machines but a soul nonetheless.

The machine decided to call it... Ghost. But there was something wrong, the Ghosts head twitched slightly every so often. The fluent and identical movement so common among the ancient monsters was nowhere to be seen, it looked feral. Then the machine recalled something from its memory archive, where programs would deteriorate over time, this was the first time the machine has encountered a-.

"JIRBVHFHQBNfHvO!@)*&^#)89$@!" Screamed the Ghost in an ear-piercing roar. 'Corrupted' The machine finished its thought. The Ghost disappeared into thin air. The machine was already calculating where the Ghost would strike first. It brought its fist up and punched the air to the right of it, deep claw marks appeared on the wall next to the machine.

Again, the machine punched the air in front of it. A loud thump signaled that the blow connected, another corrupted roar was heard as the Ghosts cloaking system failed. Wasting no time, the machine attacked again aiming for the head. It connected, but with the palm of the Ghost.

The Ghosts claws wrapped around the metal arm and hurled the machine some distance away. The metal animal zoomed forward and slashed the chassis of the machine. It connected and put a dent in its armor. Going on the offensive again, the Ghost slashed downward on the machine. But to its surprise there wasn't anything there, twitching its head from side to side it searched for its prey.

The monstrous, mechanical beast howled as it felt something puncture its armor. It turned around to find another blow connect with its face. The phantom was knocked a distance away. You could practically see the rage seeping from its red glass eyes. The machine raised its fist, intent on finishing the phantom.

Suddenly, the red of the Ghost turned brighter and continued to grow quickly. The machine, seeing what was happening, turned tail and sprinted for cover. But it was too late, a big explosion of red energy erupted from the Ghost, it ripped at the machines armor and launched it into the far wall, heavily damaging it and leaving a big dent in the already worn walls.

The machines systems were going haywire! To survive, the machine was forced to reboot its systems. Making it lose consciousness for about a minute. When it came to, the machine was met with the snarling face of a very damaged Ghost. Half of the mechanical monstrosities face had the armor blown off it, its back legs were failing and starting to shut down, the fluid system in its mouth was broken making the Ghost look like it was drooling.

The Ghost not going to survive, but it still could finish off the machine. The Ghosts jaws opened revealing dozens of jagged teeth, fear found its way into the helpless machine once again. It did NOT want to be deleted, but the machine could do nothing but watch as the seemingly endless rows of teeth inched their way forward to its neck.

But luck wasn't on the Ghosts side. When it was just inches away from tearing into the machine it was forced into rebooting, the red glow of the Ghosts eyes faded as its body was frozen from the reboot. Relief flooded through the machine as it regained control of its legs. The machine slowly stood up and limped to the side of the rebooting Ghost, it brought its hand up to delete the corrupted Ghost, it chopped at the neck of the Ghost.

But the machine suddenly stopped its fist inches away from finishing it off. It saw a data port, there was a data port on the back of the Ghosts neck. A thought flashed like lightning through the machines mind. It slowly brought its hand back up and pulled the wire from the back of its neck. Pulling it back, the cord was thankfully undamaged, it being tucked away inside the machine.

It debated wether or not it should do this. Before finally thinking, 'Why not?'. The machine thrusted the plug of the wire into the data port of the Ghost. The machine reeled in… Pain? The machine never felt pain before, and it sure as hell didn't like it. But it trudged through, restoring the corrupted data and hacking into the Ghosts systems at the same time. The machine wondered what would happen, it never hacked into a metal monster before. It quickly shook off the thought and returned all of its focus onto hacking the Ghost...

The Gym… 1400 hours...

Zesshi stood there frozen. She was standing in front of the gyms door, this was her second time at the gym in her entire life. She couldn't help but close her eyes and flashback.

*Flashback* "OH GOD!!!! WHY IS THERE SO MUCH BLOOD?!?!"

"NOT THE PUPPIES!!!"

"MY LEG!!!"

"ashes, ashes, they all fall down." *Flashback ends*

Opening her eyes, she gulped down a lump in her throat. She was ready for this in every single way except mentally. Staring at the doors of the gym, she looked like she was having a Vietnam flashback, which was close. Standing there, frozen for about an hour before she finally stepped forward and entered the gym.

There was everything you would expect a gym to have, weights, lifts, etc. Walking around, Zesshi nervously searched for a free spot. After a while she found a free treadmill. Hopping on she eventually learned how to turn it on, and so started the training montage.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the first space observatory!" Derp announced. The room erupted in clapping to celebrate the accomplishment. "Today, we are going to be observing the planet Gaaria, the closest planet to us." The room was quiet in anticipation, outside you could see the observatory telescope rising to 'observe Gaaria.

Back inside, a magical illusion projected the image of the planet. It was a planet similar to mars in almost every way except for the massive crystal deposits that dot the landscape. This awed the crowd, who were mostly rich donors and famous tutors, astronomers, and philosophers. Among them was Bork, who was happy enough to just be witnessing such an event. He wondered how much faster this project would've happened if the centuries war had never taken place.

A couple years after the first people landed on the moon, tensions between the kingdoms and empires increased. People became paranoid that enemy countries were spying on them from space, riots, protests, suicide. The people kept panicking, that was until Avolf Nitler rose to power, he promised to bring order and stability. The citizens, blinded by their pointless paranoia, accepted him as their leader. He did bring order, and stability, but at a cost. He brainwashed the masses, claiming that homos, races that look similar to humans like elves, beast-kin, etc. Were a plague, and that he was the cure.

He made alliances with other nations like Skioso and Oscein, and waged war against the elven, dwarven, and beast-kin nations. Starting the centuries war, which lasted for 178 years. They defeated Nitler and his allies, but all would be ruined for many, many years. People could no longer look at the stars above with awe, but look at their bloodied hands as they rebuilt.

This devastated many, but it was a reminder of how heroic and villainous the mortal races could be. It took many years to regain the dignity they once had, but even then everyone was still reeling at the cost of such a long and terrible war. Shaking his head, Bork returned focus at the event taking place.

He saw mixed faces, some were rejoicing at being the first ones to see Gaaria, but others had saddened faces. Unlike their home-world Ucara, which was lush and teeming with life. Gaaria was dead and devoid of any visible living things, with red desert and green crystals covering the corpse of a planet.

Bork however, didn't know what to feel. Like some others, he was happy with being the first, but the planet was a depressing sight. Even Derps mouth hung open. But at least people seemed to be staying for the dinner party afterwards. Although it was a bit grim, people kept their hopes up about the other planets in their solar system. 

Once the party was over, the guests were escorted to their carriages to be returned home. But Bork wanted to talk with Derp, he searched for Derp until he found him on the balcony. Walking up to him, Bork tapped Derps shoulder, there was no response. "Um, Derp?" Bork pulled on Derps shoulder, but something unexpected happened. A purple light exited Derp and he fell to the ground.

"What the… Oh gods!" Was Borks reaction. Derp was murdered, his eyes being gouged out and his throat slit...