Gunpowder
Prologue

BANG

The world seemed to shake as thousands upon thousands of soldiers charged each-other head on. Blood sprayed. Guns fired. Swords sliced.

All while a young girl watched in silence.

The girl was not a simple civilian, however. She was part of the battle, sitting with a satchel slung over her tiny nine year old shoulders. The bag looked innocent enough, brown and woven to look like a mail bag. But, inside of the sack, sat some of the most dangerous explosives the world ever knew.

She was ordered to use them. Forced. They wanted to make her kill. They, They, They! She was shaking now. She was crying now. Her tattered pink jacket was wet with blood now. Had she been shot? She didn’t know, she didn’t know.

People were screaming, that’s all she knew. In agony and grief, they wailed to the heavens. It was loud, too loud, much too loud. Her eardrums were going to explode. She was going to die, she just knew it.

Her heart stopped. Had life finally had mercy on her and let her die? No, she dodged. A bullet whirred past her. It was aimed at her.

But it wasn’t a normal bullet, no. It was long, with red little feathers on the end. A tranquilizer dart. It wasn’t death, but it meant capture. And capture meant death in every case she had heard of.

She knew they had seen her, and that she couldn’t stay there for long. She bounced up, her little torn up skirt bouncing with her. To cover her escape, the young girl threw a singular explosive down behind her as she darted away to another hiding spot.

She truly didn’t have a plan, but to find a place to hide. To escape. The closest thing seemed to be.. A pile of bodies. Bodies and mechanical equines piled up high. If she had to guess, she would’ve said there were a hundred. They were all covered in blood, seemingly not having been piled together, but having been forced into a pile before death. With all the blood running down, it looked like the most disgusting chocolate syrup topped ice-cream in the world.

The girl swallowed down the bit of bile rising in her throat and narrowed her eyes with determination. She raced forwards, hooking her hands and feet into soft flesh, and clambered up the pile. She knew she was already soaked in blood, but she still smeared the red goop all over her face. She was attempting to blend in as one of the bodies, hoping that she would go unnoticed, that they would think of her as one of the bodies. She had to use the bombs, she had to attack! It was orders, and those who gave the orders always knew what was right. At least the pile would give her a good vantage point, no matter how disgusting it was.

She dug one hand into the satchel, feeling its warm, fuzzy inside, and rolled her palm over the small, egg-shaped bombs filling the bottom of the sack. She gripped one of the tiny devices and yanked it out, rolling it around in her hand hesitantly. The bomb resembled a sort of grenade, with a green exterior that was coated in deeply carved ruts. The thing was designed to explode on impact, so that no trigger was necessary. It simplified the use of the bomb, but it also scared the girl. She knew that if the egg-shaped items hit each-other too hard while in the bag, they would explode. Such a thing could be a major disadvantage to the other soldiers in battle, as they would be thrown off by the smoke-filled explosion.

Shaking the thought, the young girl looked for targets down below. She could tell the ones that were her enemies by the wings that were fastened to their helmets. There was a group of them, mounted on the same robotic equines that made up some of the mass of her current vantage point, clumping together against an automobile of some sort. Five armed men from her side were closing in on them, shooting a few of them down as they went. If she aimed towards the automobile, she could hit the enemies without injuring her own teammates.

Her arm was quite meek, but she put all her strength into the throw. She watched as the small object sailed through the sky.. and hit a bullet. The two small items clunked to the ground. The egg-bomb impacted on the ground with a barely audible THUNK and, like it was designed to do, exploded on impact. Several of the soldiers on her own side were clustered in the impact point. She saw closely the looks of terror on their faces as they realized what was happening. Then... smoke. And blood. Arms and legs and bones and other disgusting parts of the human anatomy sailed to the ground. This time, she could do nothing to fight the bile that was rising in her throat. She hurled, her throat burning, and let the green liquid plunk to the ground in a gross little puddle.

The battle looked to be clearing up slightly. There were medics arriving, dragging away their injured. She knew her side had won, as many of the soldiers on her side were cheering loudly. The young girl smeared herself in blood once more, jumping off the pile. Her landing was a little off, and she had to land in a roll to not risk an injury to her legs.

A loud ticking noise hit her ears. She knew it as soon as it began.

The bombs were going off.

Of course, how could she be so stupid? The rough landing had been a mistake. She didn’t know what to do, she had never been prepped for the situation. In a quick act of self-preservation, she tore the satchel from her shoulders and flung it as far as she possibly could. It blew up, and it was loud, but luckily it didn’t hit anyone.

Why did this have to happen? All of this.

All of world war five.

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