He trotted up to the door of Hero’s Canton from the city entrance, slid the gate open and strode toward the canteen with senses heightened incredibly, staring forward. Coming to the doorway his world slowed; inside, the din faded to silence in his mind.
He glided toward his legionnaire Dinky leaning against a pole on a stool, speaking with the centurion, mouthing words but not being heard by him, the engineer touching the pistol on his right side lightly with a fingertip for reassurance. His red glowing eyepiece auto focused on its target.
As he approached and Dinky turned to see him, his right leg came up in a blurr even as slow as things seemed to be happening. At the same time his left paw snapped over to grab the pistol on his right; his foot connected squarely on the legionnaire’s snout knocking him off the stool and several feet back.
Just as the engineer’s foot hit his superior solidly he started to turn and look toward the centurion, his left paw began to swing around with the pistol. For a millionth of a second he thought he heard the sound of an artillery shell in his left ear, then felt as though he was hit by one, and the slow motion world went black instantly.
The centurion arrives before the others, to look around in Rata Sum
The last of the battalion stepped through the asura gate. As they did, those who had already gone stood near the centurion in Rata Sum with the legionnaires, looking around at the structures hanging in seemingly mid air and no support. The charr group grew; a lone asura representing one of the colleges ran up.
‘HALT! Now see here, what is the reason for your bringing a fully armed charr army into our city….uh,’ he looked around at the centurion and subordinates, noticing the others standing slightly behind Grimcrotch, ‘I take it you’re the commander. What’s the meaning of this?’ he demanded, crossing his arms with a crowd gathering behind him.
‘You can bring me Poppler Swizzlestix, or I can destroy your city…’ he said with a growl and waved his arm to a soldier behind him, who stepped back through the gate. The charr soldiers moved forward onto the stone flooring near the steps as three tanks, then a war wagon drove through and parked in front of it, ‘Lefty’ Ironpaw jumping down from his drive panel and standing there, puffing his cigar stub and charrzooka slung over his shoulder, paw on his hip.
The group of asura that had gathered stood with mouths agape while several armed asura ran to them, weapons pulled. Dinky whistled and swung his arm in a circle above his head; half of the battalion moved to entirely surround the group of little asura, charr weapons turned on them.
——
The centurion leaned forward and down toward the group, facing the representative and said with a low fang baring rumble, ‘Now, bring me Poppler.’ The college rep seemed to draw himself together enough to ask, ‘And what exactly has he done to the charr to warrant your army coming to look for him?’
Dinky stepped up and said ‘Threatening the centurion, three legionnaires and a company of soldiers.’ The crowd gasped; the asura with weapons adjusted their stance, then the 12th surrounding them took aim and chose their targets in response, Lefty swinging his charrzooka off his shoulder and lining up the college rep’s head in his sight standing on his war wagon.
‘Alright, alright, enough of this. I’m here, leave everyone alone you brutes.’ Poppler said, pushing between some charr surrounding the group and standing next to his college rep, staring back at the centurion. ‘What do you want? I saved my friend Grimpaw Grindgear, YOUR soldier, so you cage and beat me for three weeks? I don’t recall seeing you at the ‘party’, centurion, have you come for your share of the fun?’
‘We all knew of the risks of this plan of yours. When I arrived at the cliff top he was being dragged with absolutely no care out of the water by soldiers like scrap metal, and none had the slightest hint of medicines. When you arrived and ordered me away from him, I had already begun what could have been done in getting him ready to move to the Citadel for better care. You can’t simply throw someone on a stretcher and hope you get there in time.’
‘You weren’t going to stop me. He is my friend before he is your soldier in my eyes.’ As he spoke another, larger asura crowd had gathered around the charr battalion surrounding the college rep, Poppler and their armed companions, including several golems that proceeded to sit then convert to gatling gun platforms, aimed at the charr.
——
‘Let’s go, Poppler, we didn’t come here to go back empty handed.’ Dinky said, waving him toward the return asura gate. Lefty began to slowly move toward the centurion between the other soldiers. ‘Whatever in Tyria makes you think I’ll do that, legionnaire?’ the asura engineer replied with a defiant raised eyebrow.
Gatling gun, rifle and pistol chambers filled, minions & pets summoned and stances were set with weapons drawn from the asura army surrounding the charr soldiers, at the same time the 12th replied in kind, tanks firing up flamethrowers. Grimcrotch drew his greatsword, his legionnaires surrounded their centurion.
Lefty appeared past Grimcrotch out of nowhere with his charrzooka aimed directly at the college rep, inches away from his face.
‘Now’, he said, puffing his stub and looking directly at the engineer standing next to his professor, ‘the way I see it, little Poppler, you threatened not only my centurion but these other legionnaires here too. And if all they wanna do is ‘talk’ to you back at Black Citadel about the centurion only, looks to me like you’re gettin’ a deal. By rights we should waste you here and be done with it.’
‘But seeing as you don’t wanna go, how ’bout I blow your professor’s head clean away, then they tell you that again to see if it influenced your decision at all, maybe you just misunderstood. ‘Cause see, we ain’t leavin’ without you.’ Lefty continued holding his charrzooka inches from the college professor’s head, his flat face puffing on the stub a few times, a glint of fang in the sun.
Grimcrotch.com 
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