The year is 2036 AD. It has been three years, three long years. Three years is not technically considered a long time. But to people with whom a war was being fought, those three years could stretch on forever.

Fear was what kept the war from dying out. The humans of the country tried as much as they could to ignore the drones. It was easy to an extent. The robots that came close to the cities were usually destroyed relatively quickly. They had to be. Robots didn't take prisoners.

The Robot War had been going on for three years, but those three years held more casualties than anyone could have predicted. The drones killed humans, never willing to negotiate. They were programmed to be on suicide missions. None of them had to worry about making it home alive. They had no home, and they were not alive.

Japan's government had been the first in the world to suggest a type of robot used for hard labor. The drones were to be used for mining and tea harvesting, as well various other tasks. The newer robots were built with light, cheap materials, and soon, robots were used even more than humans for labor. The economy boomed in Japan, and they were more than happy to share their delight with the world.

But that all changed when the robots rebelled.

No one was quite sure how it happened. A minor mistake in their latest batch of drones, or a computing error; it didn't matter anyway. Only one robot had made the fateful mistake, the one that caused all of the destruction. And when that robot was turned on for the first time, the country fell under the destruction of the masses of robots.

The drones had never been expected to rebel. They had been designed by a respected inventor, a man named Keiken. This man had discovered hidden technology deep in the mountains, which he claimed was the most advanced technology the world would ever know. With this technology, he created the drones' leader, the most intelligent and powerful of all the robots, which he called Meca One.

It was this extremely powerful, intelligent robot that started the rebellion against the humans.

The mining drones were the first to react violently. In their exo-suits of armor used to drill through the thick cavern walls, the robots instead attacked the humans in the mines. There were more drones than humans in the mines at that point, but after that day, the mines were all but abandoned. Everywhere robots were, slaughter took place. The casualties were enormous. It was as though enemies were spread undercover throughout the entire country, and only now their true purpose was coming to life.

The military had to work fast. Their usual tactics would not work on the strategic robots. All they had to work with were the newest exo-suits that had been designed for the robot drones. Only now, humans would be taking on the mantle as pilots of these suits of armor.

The humans confronted the robots in the cavernous mines, and a battle broke forth inside. The battle lasted for hours, humans trying to control the robots and robots trying to exterminate the humans.

The metals of the earth that the robots and humans had been mining were rare and powerful, used for various machinery. But they were as unstable as they were useful, and without warning, the mountain that had been home to both the robots and the humans erupted from the strange powers and split in two.

In this moment of uncertainty, the humans overcame the robots, driving them into the gorge that had just been formed. The robots in the cities that had been terrorizing the cities fled. It was as though they had all disappeared. The humans were overjoyed. They had finally regained peace.

Between the split areas of the mountain, bridges were built. They connected the two together, as a sign of a rebuilt future, free from the robots and relying on their own strength.

But the robots were not gone. In the gorge, they rebuilt themselves and their exo-suits into machines of war and mounted another attack. The humans were unprepared, and the robots gained control of one half of the mountain, using the bridges that had been built to send skirmishes over to weaken the humans.

But humans are resilient creatures and had expected an attack, even if not one so soon after the gorge incident. The humans had transformed their own exo-suits into their own new creations: Battle Machines. These powerful suits of armor were the only way the humans could hold back the robots on one side of the mountain, never to cross to the human side. The battle machines were only piloted by the most elite of military pilots, and soon many young men and women were in their own training, hoping one day to have a battle machine of their own to pilot and protect humankind with. They were trained under the very man who had created Meca One, Keiken. He was a wise man, and trained the Exo-Force well.

But the war raged on and on. Eventually the robots gave up on their mountain domination, and spread to a new area of Japan, much deeper into the mountain ranges. The Exo-Force, as the elite military subdivision now called themselves, followed and constructed a new base in an abandoned city.

Out of the many, many pilots and technicians that had once started in the Exo-Force at the beginning of the war, very few had survived the onslaught of battle. In fact, there were exactly five, four pilots and one techie that had survived the entire war. They had watched people come and go, had taken down more robots than most of the military combined, and had trained their fair share of students. They were strong, resilient, and powerful.

And they truly were humanity's last hope.

If the robots ever managed to leave Japan, they would consume the earth. Only the people of Japan could keep the robots contained until they were destroyed.

And that was exactly what they were going to do.

Well...here I am again. Not with a Grounded sequel, but I have decided that I will be writing that this summer in between work. So look forward to it! It's gone through a lot of changes since my original idea, so I hope you all like it.

Now for one of the more random of my fandoms...Exo-Force. Never heard of it? You're not the first. But it was one of my favorite LEGO products when I was younger. So much so, that I took five years to come up with the right concept for this story, much less to write it. I've been hesitant to put it up here, but I think I will now.

So...read this while you await my (unnamed) Grounded-2 novel. I promise it's worth waiting for :)

~Pixie