Chapter 74 - Lowengren's Maneuver
"Attack now!" General Voyager commanded as the team of Exoskeleton's and JPE started rushing forward.
As the rest of the Army continued to patrol the area where Arthur was supposed to rendezvous with, Voyager led his elite team to deal with the last two surviving soldiers on the convertible.
"Sir! We've found another survivor from the wreckage. The solider just regained consciousness."
"Consider yourself lucky to have survived that soldier."
An Exoskeleton gave a trembling nod as it walked out of the ruined building
"Begin the attack!"
Immediately entire platoon of Exoskeletons started rushing. Amidst the perfect formation was a clumsy and confused Exoskeleton who seemed to be zooming randomly, trying to keep up.
Meanwhile, a strange look appeared on Garland's face.
"Sir? We have the three cases. The soldier guarding the third case is alive."
"Keep him. His performance points to him being a modified human. We can use him." Garland replied then turned his attention back to Lowengren.
"I've lost? Tell me how you plan to win this battle?" Garland then gave a sarcastic laugh.
Lowengren gave a small smirk.
"You're mistaken. We were supposed to lose this battle."
Lowengren took out his phone and revealed a recorded video.
Using the Armor's visual technology, Garland zoomed his view on the video recording.
Garland was shocked.
Various recordings of the Dawn experiment were displayed. The very science and reports itself were shown on screen. Then several live video recordings were also displayed on the test being made of the Dawn soldiers.
"HOW DID YOU GET THAT?" The large Armor raised its arms and aimed for Lowengren.
"We've had this quite a while back. The rats you mentioned before managed to acquire this and delivered it to me." Lowengren added before Garland could panic.
"Impossible! We've killed those four-"
"Really? Then why is she here?" Lowengren pointed towards the side.
The bright lights from the Armor and Exoskeleton's which were solely aimed at Lowengren immediately moved to the very direction Lowengren pointed at.
Blinded by the lights, a cute, petite teen wearing a sexy school uniform with short skirts posed with a victory sign. The lights magnified that splendid skin tone of the small girl as if the girl was reflecting the lights back.
"I can't believe I have to do this!" Meryl muttered under her breath before immediately dancing in synchronization with a popular song that suddenly played. The music was heard all around as the nearby monitors and amplifiers played the very same tone.
The music was one of the famous k-pop dance music from a very popular group.
Meryl danced the exact dance routine and moved towards Lowengren at each step.
For the first time in the history of all wars on Earth, from the first three World Wars to the Continental wars, never has there been a moment such as this on a battlefield.
Having no prior training or orientation towards such circumstance, no one knew what to do.
The Evening soldiers didn't know what to do.
The two highly-trained Armor capable pilots didn't know what to do.
The Hero of Helion's Tragedy didn't know what to do.
General Garland, the Eccentric War Hero of Australia didn't know what to do.
Acting as if nothing strange was happening in the middle of the war zone, Lowengren started applauding Meryl who eventually stood next to him.
"Stop playing around!" Garland shouted as several bluish beams started to gather on his cannon.
"We gave that video to all the world leaders." Lowengren laughed.
The bluish blast stopped gathering as Garland froze in fear.
"Impossible! The Light Breaker's firewall prohibits any outgoing and incoming communications of any sort! You may have managed to connect and create a Comm Relay inside this city, but nothing can go past that firewall! You can't trick me! Light Breaker blocks radio, Comm arrays, Satellite or linked connection! That's the very science of the Light Breaker!" Garland shouted in anger. There was fear in his voice and he shouted this to assure himself that the information was safe.
"That's why we used the Light Breaker to send the signal. Being the top scientist in your base, they had access to it in case they need to send their entire research data to another base to preserve that information."
"WHAT!?" Garland then remembered who the three scientists that the intruder kidnapped were. He didn't know that these three could access the Light Breaker. Even among the top brass, those who could freely access the Light Breaker's various technologies were classified so that this weapon could not be abused.
"General Cipril has received this video hours ago. And after that, he sent it to the various world leaders all over the world. They know all about your technology and with it the heinous crimes you did to accomplish that. The Americas, One China, New Great Britain, South Pacific United; they all know about your technology now."
"Why would you…?"
"You thought we were after your technology. That assumption made you disregard the possibility that we won't keep that tech for ourselves but broadcast it to the entire world. What do you think will happen if several world powers find a very powerful, and threatening technology in the hands of another? We may have lost this battle, but we will win this war. Even if we won't be the ones who will be fighting it."
A grave expression surfaced on Garland's expression.
"That's insane! You'd be bringing down your own country with you!"
"Oh? Why is that?" Lowengren challenged.
"Sir, it's a massacre! We're under attack!" A soldier reported.
Garland ignored the pleas and continued to converse with Lowengren. The implications of Lowengren's words weighed far heavier than the losses of a few men. Lander assumed command and started responding to the solider, but the soldier was no longer responding.
The Exoskeleton which was communicating to Garland fell on the ground.
Voyager witnessed the soldier falling and couldn't do anything. The blast burnt most of his armor and disabled the capability for his suit to communicate.
Their attacks all went haywire due to the flying Exoskeleton which just joined their ranks. As the attack commenced, this Exoskeleton did a simple spin as he zoomed and unleashed a barrage of attacks. Most of the JPE's died on that simple spin. After which, it continued zooming towards one of the collapsed building and after passing through it, it carried a green cannon which was similar to the one Arthur carried.
What followed next was a massacre.
Who would have thought that inside the clumsy moving suit, was Arthur? To top it all off, he had the same glass cannon he used to carry.
Now donning an Exoskeleton, killing him, was far too difficult. The anti-air systems of New Birth were not programmed to attack allies, and as this Exoskeleton was zooming confidently in the formation, the enemies could not attack for fear of friendly fire. The first to fall from a concentrated blast attack was the Armor. After that, Chaos Order easily wiped the remaining members of Voyager's squad.
"Arthur?" Alean cried in surprise as he witnessed the sudden crashing of Exoskeletons. She drove towards the enemy and Charles started finishing off the survivors.
"Good thing you managed to reach this place without scratching the convertible." Arthur commended as the visor of the helmet opened up.
"I thought your cannon was damaged?!" Alean stared in disgust.
"No. It was all a ploy."
"Most of my soldiers are dead now! If you had that cannon and that Exoskeleton, we could have saved more of my men."
"I did tell you, Major Cipril. Most of your men won't survive this battle."
"What are you planning?! How do we win this battle without our soldiers?!" Alean screamed in anger.
"We were never supposed to win. Meryl had already broadcasted the video of Australia's tech. Now all the world knows about the modified humans of Australia along with its other technologies. With that, our victory is assured."
"What are you talking about?! How does that assure our victory?" Alean demanded angrily. Whatever respect he held towards Arthur were all gone.
"Calm yourself, Alean. Think about it. Even if we destroyed the Fort, Australia will be at war with Pangea. And if they deployed all of their techs, even if we ally with SPU, we could still lose the war. Also, it would distract Seeker from fulfilling his plans. His aim has always been Australia's immediate downfall. We've proven that Australia is working with the Aragarians. So how do we win this war easily?" Arthur explained.
"Seeker intended to reveal Australia's technology to the world. Doing so would entice the entire world to condemn Australia's inhuman actions and attack it. Of course, the real reason is that the world fears Australia's technology or would want it for its own. And now that it's revealed, this nation is doomed for extermination." Arthur explained.
"He's right! We are supposed to lose this battle!" Charles shuddered suddenly.
Alean turned at Charles who seemed enlightened.
"What?!" Alean immediately turned to Charles.
"How do we explain to the world if we defeated Australia in this battle? The world would assume that we have our own superior sciences and could even conclude that we also have modified humans! We'd be putting the Pangean Nations on the spotlight! It could even lead a united coalition against us!"
"Exactly. If we won this battle, we would be putting not only our nation but ourselves at greater risk. And the Unlocking must not be discovered!"
"But Arthur, the Australian's can easily reveal us! There were too many witnesses! We'd have to kill the entire army to make sure we aren't revealed!"
"Meryl already took care of any video footages. She destroyed the cloud storage systems in the Fort. All that's left is to kill the entire Australian army."
"But then, we'd win this battle! And even if we make it look like that we barely won, the very fact that we gave Australia a hard time is already suspicious! The nations will still think we have some powerful technology!" Charles argued."
"That is the problem, right? The end results of our attack may reveal the Unlocking. Not only that, the Unlocking would be revealed if we leave any survivors, but it will also be revealed if we wiped out the army… What should we do? Or rather, What would Lowengren do? If you've been following his career, you'd know what he'd do." Arthur answered vaguely.
"No! You don't mean…" Alean remembered.
"Lowengren's Maneuver!" Garland cried in terror.
Lowengren's Maneuver was the iconic tactic Lowengren did to win the battle on last year's Nations of the World E-Sport Meet. Facing a united attack from several countries, Lowengren used a suicidal nuclear attack that wiped out the armies that were aiming to kill Lowengren in-game. Though Lowengren died very early in the game, the losses that his enemies experienced were too much that Team Warfreakz managed to eliminate two other nations before getting wiped out. This secured Warfreakz spot on the top three and even allowed Lowengren to retain his World Conqueror title.
Ignoring Garland's shock, Lowengren, pushed the button.
The three Solarium Cores carried by the three soldiers started shaking.
Golderon was listening to the entire conversation between Lowengren and Garland. He stared at the box and smiled.
"At least I'll die a hero."
BOOM!
Three large greenish explosions covered the city. The green blast eradicated everything on its path leveling the city.
The positions of the three sergeants were accurately placed on specific locations that would maximize the radius of the explosion. The blast covered three-fourths of the city and a part of the Fort was eradicated in the blast.
Right in the middle of these three explosions, was a small untouched area, barely a kilometer wide. Arthur calmly gazed at the blast while Charles and Alean were holding tightly to withstand the shockwave.
Garland snapped at this moment.
He didn't concern himself about Lowengren's value and raised his cannon to shoot.
But a bright light surfaced from the very spot Lowengren and the small girl stood and caused Garland's attack to miss.
The light disappeared and no traces of the two could be found.
"You can't escape me! You may have killed my army, but you have nothing left as well! There's no way for you to fight back anymore!"
"No way?" Lowengren's sarcastic voice was broadcasted.
"Then let me show you… The Way."