Grand General Ares stood on top of the mountain behind the barbed wire of Fortress Ego, watching the soldiers of his enemies mass upon the forest below. He lowered his binoculars and looked to General Apollo. "They come in great numbers; greater than the last time."

"We still have the advantage over the scum," Apollo responded with a pat of the rifle strapped across his back.

Ares raised the binoculars back to his face. "So we do." With a second look at the enemy formations, he added, "I was beginning to wonder if they'd ever come up with the sword." In their previous assault, the fools had used wooden spears and stone-tipped knifes, the best weapons they could come up with.

"It's nice to see the fools making some progress, anyhow," Apollo muttered. "Still going to be another bloodbath."

Ares shook his head with a sigh. "So it is. Shame, really. Poor souls have no idea."

"No, they most certainly don't, Grand General Ares," Ares heard a voice behind him rumble.

Ares and Apollo turned in shock and saluted; it was The Great One, Prometheus! "Sir, we didn't expect you!" Ares managed to stutter.

"I do wish you wouldn't use that word, General" Prometheus muttered.

"I apologize, sir," he said with a bow. "Neither of us expected you."

"Much better. What news have you?"

"Our enemies gather in greater numbers and with better weapons than our last entanglement."

"How so?"

"They have discovered the sword, sir."

"About time," Ares heard The Great One mutter under his breath. "We still hold the advantage, no doubt?"

"Oh, yes sir, by far," Ares responded, looking at the golden cloaks upon Prometheus, so very different from the splotched greens, browns and tans Ares wore, a pattern the Ancient Texts called 'Camouflage.'

"Good," Prometheus responded flatly and simply. Ares knew that the man would rather kill himself than be subjected to what his enemies would do to him.

"When do you expect an attack, generals?"

"Tomorrow, sir," Ares responded, just ahead of Apollo.

"Our machinegun nests and snipers are ready for them no matter what time they come, however," Apollo made sure to add.

"As I would expect of two great minds such as those of yours. Good luck. Keep our great home safe," The Great One said as he departed.

Union 8-0067 made their way silently through the forest. They and Brotherhood 0-5576 were sent to scout out their enemies' fortress. They were given no armor, just clothing and a sword; they had to be light. Brotherhood 0-5576 wore the same but had a bow and arrow in place of the sword. They had been told that such inventions were revolutionary, made only fifteen years ago, that they might have an advantage over their enemies. They were still not to attack their enemies, only to watch them; see how they defended themselves. Union was told that it was an easy task and they thought that it was. What could go wrong? Their enemy could see no farther that they could, hear no farther than they could. They had to only not be noticed and watch their enemy.

"We will go on," Union 8-0067 said. "You stay; your bow can go farther than our sword."

"We will stay, then, brothers," Brotherhood 0-5576 said.

Union 8-0067 nodded and they went on, creeping closer to their enemies' fortress. They let out a gasp when they saw it; it should not have been possible! That was not their job, though. They looked at the numbers of their enemies. There were two on the topmost roof, pacing back and forth. One stood on a lower roof; a sin! The men were alone! No men should ever be alone with only one of them there! That is not our job either. Two sat behind some kind of shiny things inside a cave of perfectly smooth and straight stone. There were more caves like that, each with two men behind two identical long, shiny things. Many more, they thought they counted eight, walked in circles between some kind of wire laid on the ground with long wooden sticks on their back. The councils had been right; while they carried swords, their enemies carried only clubs! It would be such an easy victory, Union 8-0067 knew.

They had also been told to scout the entirety of the enemy fortress, so they called out to their brothers softly, "We must move around it. Come with us."

They did, but, suddenly, the man who stood alone turned to face them and held some kind of black thing to their face, making them look rather silly. What were they doing? Union 8-0067 didn't care, they had their job to do, so they kept moving, Brotherhood 0-5576 behind them. But one of the men on the roof turned and faced them, bringing one of those sticks to their shoulder in an odd fashion and pointing at Brotherhood 0-5576. They had been spotted. Another of the men raised his stick and pointed it at Union 8-0067. There was a loud noise and Union 8-0067 saw that his brothers fell over; they had been killed by the noise. Union 8-0067 heard a booming voice, "Do not move! You will be killed like your brother!"

Union 8-0067 knew not where the noise came from, but they did not move. Two of the men that had walked behind the wire laid wooden platforms over it and walked over them, moving towards Union 8-0067. One of them took Union 8-0067 and tied their hands behind their back and blindfolded them, dragging them where they did not know.

When the blindfold was taken off them, they were in a cell with one men in strange multicolored clothing standing in front of them. "So, boy, what were you sent here to do?"

"We-"

The men hit them. What had they done? "I asked what you were doing, boy! You are the only one here! Answer me!"

What did the men want? "We-"

They were struck again, harder. "I! I, boy! Do you not hear this word?"

Did they want them to use they forbidden word to refer to themselves? Surely not! They could never. Union 8-0067 tried again, "We-"

They were struck again. "I! Use the forbidden word, boy!" They hit them again. "I! Say I when you refer to yourself!"

They couldn't! They couldn't use the forbidden word. They hit them again, harder than ever. They wanted an answer from them now. Then they would have to say it. Oh, councils, have mercy on us! "I was sent to scout your numbers. But I was not sent alone! You killed my brothers!"

"No, I killed your brother," the men said. "I killed him because you are not used to being alone. You talk more."

Union 8-0067 hung their head. "So we do."

"Be careful with that word, boy," the men said as they walked out.

They realized that they would have to be, that they would have to use the forbidden word—the forbidden words—more. Great councils! Have mercy on us!

Ares was woken to the raking sound of machineguns. Had the fools attacked at night? As much as the guns banged away, it sounded like it. He slowly got up, shedding the covers and donning his camouflage coat, with its metal armor woven in. He walked through the halls of the underground complex and out into the most forward machinegun. Its gunners had stopped firing by the time he got there. "Does the enemy attack?" he asked.

"The two of us do not know; we think that there was a small group of them out beyond the wire."

Ares nodded. "There is no way to know. Stay vigilant," he said with a pat on each of their shoulders. He had read of devices that had allowed the Ancient Ones to see like cats in the night, but not even the Great One was capable of making them. He had said that the devices required things beyond even his power to make. Ares didn't care; he and his comrades could still see farther than their enemies; he had electricity on his side. When the real attack came, if it were to come at night, things Prometheus called "floodlights" would bathe the whole fortress and part of the woods in light, make it like day. Ares grinned smugly as he walked to the top of the compound (he'd never be able to fall asleep now). Why did the fools even try to take Ego? He didn't know.

Democracy 8-6676 breathed heavily as they ran down the mountain. What were those things? The accursed things that made such a racket and sent lances of fire through the night after them? They did not know and they did not care. They ran back to their camp alone. Their brothers, all five of them, were slain by those things that made fire in the sky. They ran to the tent of the Council of Generals, where two were always awake.

The generals looked to them. "Why are you alone, brothers?" one asked.

"Look with your eyes! They are covered in the blood of their brothers!" the other exclaimed.

The first general squinted. "They are! You poor brothers!"

"Yes, sirs, I am sorry, we failed our mission, we could not find Union 8-0067 and Brotherhood 0-5576. We were nearly killed and had to run away before we could finish our mission."

"The council understands. Were all your brothers with you killed?"

"They were. We are the only survivors."

"How were they slain?"

"By things that made fire in the air, like lances of fire! The lances hit our brothers and killed them. Only we escaped."

"You are dismissed," they said and waved Democracy 8-6676 out of the tent, waking the other generals. Democracy 8-6676 heard them say, "We must attack soon."

Their shiver had nothing to do with the cold night as they walked back to the tent with all the soldiers gathered under it, sleeping. They walked and sat on their bed. They had thoughts that they had never had before. They were alone in their thoughts, and that was a crime, but they didn't care, could the councils have anticipated the need for soldiers when they made the laws? Democracy 8-6676 didn't think so. Soldiers were never supposed to be needed, but the discovery of the Forbidden Ones' fortress had proved otherwise, so the councils had dug back through the records of the Great Days, and the Revolution and formed a council of generals and created the Great Army to fight the Forbidden Ones, modeled after the ones from the days of the Glorious Revolution.

The sun had not yet rose before they heard the warbells ring. They warbells were the soul signal that told them when battle was to begin. They did not grumble. They did not complain. They simply put on their armor and joined their brothers in the assembly area.

"Today, brothers, we go to war," was all Democracy 8-6676 heard of the Generals' speech before they were lost in their own hopeless thoughts.

Hermes looked out beyond the barbed wire as the sun rose. His shift walking the perimeter had only just begun when he heard a stirring noise in the forest. He instinctively Dropped to one knee and drew his rifle to his shoulder, pointing it into the forest. He saw a glint off of metal armor and made a single call, "Sound the alarm! Here the fools come!"

The alarm sounded as he retreated to a small hollow in the ground far behind the wire. One of the 'We' appeared from the forest. He lined the rifle up and fired. The bullet pierced thin metal and the man, clad in heavy armor, dropped. A line of the fools then charged from the forest, swords drawn. Arrowmen sat at the very edge of the clearing, not able to shoot far enough. The machineguns opened up, raking away, two lines of tracers coming from each of the three bunkers, cutting down the enemy lines.

Hermes knew how the battle would end long before it began.