[herrshuster]

I have been asked to put it on the forums, so here:

Thump. The water rippled.
Thump. The vibration sent oscillations through the small pool of life-sustaining liquid.
"Probably eight-foot MWP, anti-tank emplacement."
Thump. The orange-suited man rose, standing form his kneeling position.
"Five miles away." He addressed his comrades, suited in armor. This armor contained everything necessary for life: food, sleeping bag, weapons, grenades, and saws. Thick visors covered their faces, and their body similarly encased with plastic-lead compounds. Each of them bore a strange symbol on his arm: a yellow circle with a black circle in the middle. On all sides of the circle were three black triangles. In the men's hands were strange weapons. They were based around a green tank, out of which came a nozzle, trigger, handle, and stock, all black steel. On the soldiers’, for that is what they were, backs, were similarly shaped green tanks. These, however, covered nearly their entire backs. The orange-suited man studied the landscape. For miles, ruined buildings covered the earth, sitting next to vast piles of ash and rubble. Occasionally, a rat would dart from the safety of one building into the next. Only the constant vibrations reminded the man that life existed on this barren planet, the one called Gaia.
The city whose ruins he stood on was Los Diablos, and there were few who remembered its original name. The Angels. How ironic that the city they fought and died on was named after heavenly beings. Los Angeles, they had called it. The spelling was in a foreign tongue, now lost to time as well. The only language anybody who was anyone spoke was Basic. Originally, it had been called English, but as that culture, too, was bombed from the face of Gaia, a new name was in order.
Bombs. As the orange-suited man again studied the land, slowly turning to face the new horrors, he cringed. The nuclear winter had come, nations bombing nations over petty grievances. The only neutral nation remained Switzerland. Now everyone’s hope was to reach Heaven on Gaia, before Heaven in the sky. The oceans had been evaporated, leaving the air perpetually humid, such that drinking was unnecessary, one only had to open his mouth and drink a glass of water.
Kevin Heathcliffe, for that was his name, turned to his men and studied them. Pyro, Hawk, Sludge, Greens, they all had their nicknames. His was Cap. Always Cap. So informal, so cold. He was their captain, and could never socialize, joke, or be friends with them. They though his heart was as cold as the deaths he designed for his enemies.
The Enemies. They were humans in the strictest sense of the word, cold, cunning, deadly, and unmoving. As equals, neither could gain on each other, but Kevin’s army had less resources. But more heart.
“We’re moving out now,” using the tone of voice he reserved for commands. Sharp, punctual, and commanding.
“Sir.” Pyro and the others responded, in the same deathly tone of voice. The team scuttled into the nearest building and hid, awaiting the signal from Kevin. On his wave, they scampered into another building, and another, slowly tracking towards the Mounted Weapons platform. The troops called them Mechs, short for Mechanized Infantry. Some say these machines stole our hearts. Kevin silently thought. I say they stole our very souls. This was an eight-footer, a slight challenge for the battle-hardened 651st battalion of the New Order. Eight feet did not stand for the height of the Mech, but the length of its gun. Eight footer was higher-end, with three feet being the shortest. At last the crew came within sight of their target. Rising about twenty feet into the air, this human-shaped monstrosity bristled with weaponry. Plasma guns adorned its waist and BioWaste guns its arms. Its right arm, perpetually supported by its left, held a great tube. Out of this tube came the weapon that caused this destruction: A four-foot long, tube launched, automatically sighted, radio guided, heat seeking, two hundred kiloton atomic rocket. These Mechs were the scourge of Gaia. Fortunately for the 651st battalion, they were not hard to take down by manpower.
“Pyro, over there!” he yelled to a member of his team. He lept at the Mech and grabbed onto the ladder. Hanging, he pulled a diamond-toothed saw out of his pack and dove it into the Mech’s body. Realizing its peril, the Mech shook and jumped, each mighty leap taking it dozens of feet in the air and crashing back down with an earth-shattering crunch. Kevin hung on for dear life, still sawing. As the blade made a complete circle, he tossed a BioSludge grenade in and lept into the air, activating his jets. In mid-air, he turned to see the Mech. For a second all there was were screaming voices, and then the Mech pulsed once and landed on the ground. With an air of finality, it shriveled, becoming a 500-kiloton sphere of metal one foot in diameter, green gas slowly leaking from the remnants. Kevin said a silent prayer for the perished souls and turned and slowly walked away.

“I’ve seen worse,” the red-haired man said. His name was Marvin Alfred Rodriguez EnSalmio the third, but most everyone called him Pyro. And even as he sat, flicking his lighter, a fire burned in his eyes. Flame was where he lived and what he enjoyed. His suit, a deep red, was equipped with a flamethrower, but lacked a cooling system, as the inhabitant maintained a 561.3 degree temperature, making him able to burn things with a touch. “We’ve fought tougher. Good job, Cap, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Kevin was unemotional. As a Captain, he was never expected to show emotion. Los Diablos was a tough place, and the men were expected to be even tougher. Luc spoke up. A balding Frenchmaan in his early twenties, he was the mentor of the group and had a maniacal obsession with water, his body being 90% that substance. He had a blue suit, armed with a high-pressure water cannon.
“Good job, team. The Humans won’t be bothering us again.”
Kevin couldn’t stand it anymore. “Alright. Fine. Call them the Humans when you’re alone. But around me, I only want them to be enemies. I was on their side until I became a Maan, and I will always remember them. Don’t call them Humans. We are all humans.”
“Right, Cap.” Enigma spoke. Enigma was Kevin’s favorite. A tall Maan, he had curly brown hair and an innocent complexion. He was normally not unsettling, but he had a habit of turning invisible at the most annoying times. He was the team’s CipherMaster and all-around programmer, with a tendency to “modify” suits at the most perplexing times.
Oscar, the BioWaste expert, was one of a few Viking Maen left in the world. He was housed in a dark green suit with horns protruding from his helmet. Perpetually dirty, he exuded a nuclear field and hat a tendency to kill rats by touching them.
BioWaste was the world’s leading weapon. In “pure” form it could reduce a man into a screaming pulp within seconds. As a grenade, it exploded, covering everything within a 3-meter radius with goo, suddenly solidified, and then, as a result of the chemical reaction, all air was suddenly sucked out of it and crushed anything left within. BioSludge was a powerful neuro-toxin, killing anything it touched. However, as a string form, it was excessively adhesive. Thus, the men’s suits contained a setting for shooting strings of it, making them like spidermen. Both the chemicals were designed in the late 3030’s by a brilliant scientist named Eshenkel Quinley. Obsessed with the problem of growing nuclear and bio-hazardous waste, he proposed a solution: fight with it. Now, 30 years later, Gaia lay decimated at the decision of a Norwegian scientist.
“Ohhhhh… I love sludge,” Oscar sang. “Anything nuclear or burning or killing.”
Kevin sighed and crawled under his sleeping bag’s cover and went to sleep.

He woke the next morning to the sound of rustling feet and the mechanic whirring of suits being put on.
“Wake up, wake up!” Pyro yelled in his ear.
“What?” Kevin slowly rose to his feet and looked around. His crew was scrambling around madly.
“Someone’s here!” Kevin rushed to his suit and jumped in. If no one was firing, then they must be friends. As the hermetically sealed suit sealed around him, he gasped, as he always did at the sharp rush of pure oxygen coming from the tanks. He waited ten seconds for the onboard computer to resume and took off running towards his colleagues, already on their way. He jumped, engaged his boots, and soared to the top of a building for a better view. From his vantage point, he could see several dozen unsuited maen coming toward their encampment. Kevin sighed in relief. These were not enemies. He leaped down from his perch and ran toward the intruders. He lifted his facemask as he approached.