Jarvis awoke many hours later, but the city was as bright as ever. How he wished for what Earth had, that thing known as "nighttime", a break from the scathing heat of the twin suns.
However, as he emerged from his vehicle, stepping foot into the hot sand beside it, he was greeted with silence. The streets were devoid of life, with all the stalls empty and buildings locked up. He rushed over to Bento's scrapyard, finding him sprawled out on a heap of trash, taking a hard nap. Jarvis scoffed and kicked him in the side, pushing him off the garbage pile. "Hey, wake up, you old bucket of bolts. Where is everyone?"
Bento slowly stood up, stretching out his rusty joints as he awoke. "Huh... what?" He glanced around, his red eye scanning the empty courtyards. "Oh, you ain't kiddin; everyone's gone. I guess we missed everything." Glancing up, Jarvis noticed a flashing screen hanging from one of the decrepit superscrapers, reading "Emergency Evacuation: Head to the Northern Sector; Avoid Thomas Street"
Jarvis glanced back at Bento, noticing him rummaging around a large steel container beside his workshop. He pulled out a massive laser cannon, charging up the four barrels at the end. "Time to go to Thomas Street, yeah?"
Speeding down the dusty roads, Jarvis clutches tightly the steering wheel of his sandspeeder, with Bento crouched in the trunk. He holds up the massive gun, keeping a lookout for any hostile Vox. After a few moments, he points ahead past Jarvis. "Thomas Street, just up ahead... and with a ton of Steel Banner soldiers. Let's stay out of their sight."
Jarvis silently nods, and takes a quick turn, stopping right behind another superscraper. He jumps out from his seat and peeks past the corner, watching the commotion up ahead, with Bento right behind him.
Several blocks ahead stood hundreds of heavily armed men and women, all weidling tech far more advanced than the rest of the city. They were soldiers of the Steel Banner, named after the old Empire of Steel from Earth; the faction sought to return to Earth and leave behind the Vox and Vexra for good, and had complete control over Grave of the Empire. Of course, they were extremely anti-vox, barely tolerating the friendly ones that lived in the city.
Every soldier seemed on high alert, pacing back and forth and staring out past the border of the city, as if expecting something to appear.
"Wonder what's got them all so worked up," Bento remarked. "You bet it's something to do with that Mind...?"
Jarvis didn't respond, but slowly walked out into the main street, moving between buildings to get a closer look while Bento stayed behind, crouched next to the sandspeeder. The city was eerily silent, the only sound the gentle breeze of wind and the shuffling of soldiers up ahead.
Then... BOOM.
The entire city shook, the ground beneath Jarvis' feat rumbling violently as massive bursts of dust exploded in front of the soldiers up ahead, blinding them. From the sand, dozens of nine-foot tall Vox emerged, holding energy shields as tall as them, forming an impenetrable wall that slowly advanced towards the Steel Banner battalion. Behind them, nearly two hundred Vox riflemen emerged from the sand, sending forth blasts of laserfire through the shields, taking out dozens of Steel Banner soldiers almost instantly.
Jarvis froze, his fingers tightly dug in the sand as he watched the bloodbath unfold several blocks ahead. He flicked the switch on his radio, whispering into it. "Bento, are you seeing this!?"
"How could I not!? I bet that woke up the entire city!" Thinking fast, he started up the sandspeeder and rushed over to Jarvis, not caring about hiding himself.
Just as Jarvis hopped into the passenger seat, a new force appeared on the battlefield. Emerging in a cloud of smoke and crackling red lightning... appeared a Vox nearly as large as two elephants combined. With a huge spherical body, two plasma cannons on each side and one on the bottom, it held enough firepower to take down the entire city single-handedly. Two massive horns jutted from the top of its spherical body, crackling with energy. It pushed forward, raining down hell upon the remaining battalion soldiers, incinerating almost all of them in just a few moments.
The soldiers attempted to retaliate, firing off waves of bullets and missiles at the invading force. Though a few dozen Vox were taken out in the gunfire, every single bullet aimed at the largest Vox merely bounced off some kind of energy shield radiating around it, making it an unstoppable force that mowed down every single soldier in its way.
As Bento slammed the accelerator, Jarvis watched in awe-struck horror as the group of nearly five hundred Steel Banner soldiers were completely eradicated, the last of them begging for mercy as they were melted into ash by the massive newcomer Vox.
Though Jarvis had not ever seen them in person, he instantly recognized who it was: the Mind of the Unrelenting, one of twelve Vox generals created by HyprenaVox to lead his armies. They were a terrifying presence during the Vox invasion of earth two decades ago, and the Unrelenting was perhaps the most infamous of them all.
The invading Vox group grew smaller and smaller as Bento and Jarvis rode further into the city... but the entire time, Jarvis could've sworn the Mind was watching them as they sped away.
In its eye, he could almost feel the unrelenting rage that brewed within.