Assassination of Eddie Smith

In the events following the Battle for Metropolitan City, the Dark Race, led by Mellion-Luke, & the League of Imperial Cybernetic Hybrids, led by Draco, invaded New York II. During the attack, Eddie Smith was killed by the Imperial leader.

Battle for Metropolitan City
The assassination plot roots appear during the final month of the Battle for Metropolitan City. The entire battle occurred between the Alliance for the Survival of Humanity (majority) & the Underground Alliance (minority) on one side & the League of Imperial Cybernetic Hybrids (majority) & Dark Race (minority) on the other. For most of the battle, the shadowghosts had been called back due to an Alliance invasion on the Dark Nest, where most of the Imperial warpower was as the Imperial War Factory was placed there. During the battle, a zeppelin had been placed by the Imperials over the Alliance headquarters called the Academic Military Research Institute. When the Alliance led a one-man raid on the zeppelin, the zeppelin was nearly destroyed after James Anderson fought Cyber Erol, who was aboard the zeppelin after demoting Draco for failing to seize the Institute quick enough. When the zeppelin didn't drop out of the sky, the Alliance activated the Sky Destroyer & destroyed the zeppelin. Furious that the zeppelin was destroyed, the Imperials & shadowghosts present hoped to break the spirit of the Alliance after receiving news from the Dark Nest that the invasion had been won by the defenders. They tortured information out of the Catholic monks in the city & they kidnapped & then murdered Commander Jackson on the altar in the Metropolitan Cathedral. This act would first cause the entire church's power in Metropolitan to dissipate & it would also render a major blow to the Alliance as there hadn't been a power shift in 3 years. The shadowghosts hoped the death of Jackson would cause a power vacuum that would destroy the Alliance. However, Eddie Smith was promoted as Jackson picked him to be the next in line for Jackson's position & as a dying order, he ordered that Eddie be placed as field marshal of the Alliance, an order approached by the Alliance Council that was approved years prior as part of a plan of defeat.

Smith assassination attempt
During the ending days of the battle, the Imperial War Factory arrived & Cyber Erol ordered his air trains to commence a round of bombings upon Metropolitan. A group of rebelling Alliance soldiers & upset civilians, who were suffering in the city, wanting the battle to be over, decided to kill the new field marshal for instilling false hope into the people of Metropolitan City by giving a speech that defended Commander Jackson from the words of Marshal Harold Ferguson, who took advantage of the chaotic crowds at the Institute desperate to confirm the news are true. One day, at the bombings were over, Smith was riding through a slum section of Metropolitan on his way south to the battle front, where a tank division was under heavy siege at the banks of the river. Midway down one of the streets, shots were fired from open apartment windows at Smith's vehicle. The first were all fired at Smith's tires to make him a sitting duck. The next bullets fired went through the windshield & into Smith's shield. Wielding an armored shield, Smith quickly sprinted to the security vehicle behind him that had been following his motorcade & quickly drove back out of the slums while the attempted assassins were captured & arrested by the Alliance soldiers.

Conspiracy between Core & Cyber Erol
After the destruction of Metropolitan City, Core & Cyber Erol met together to plan their next moves. Erol scolded Core for failing to realize that the leadership of the Alliance would pass from Commander Jackson to the person next in line as general, which Core scolded Erol for not taking down the Academic Military Research Institute sooner. In the heat of their discussion, the two agreed to attempt the death of Eddie Smith, hoping that it will cause the entire Alliance to collapse from the sudden loss of two leaders in such a short period of time. When choosing who to carry out the task, Erol chose Draco as he believed this would be the chance for Draco to prove his worth for three reasons: first, Draco had failed both Erol & Core in the Battle for Metropolitan City when he forced Erol to come to the city himself to take over, second, before his transformation into a cyborg, Draco was a student to Eddie Smith in his teachings & finally, if Draco cannot overcome the human morality stored within himself, Erol will truly see how useless Draco is.

Attack at Anderson Manor
During the time between the discussion between Erol & Core & the time the invasion would be made, Mellion, Core's second-in-command, & Axia, the lead shadowmistress, attacked Anderson Manor & possessed Luke & Maureen Anderson. The possession effectively changed their identitys to Mellion-Luke & Axia-Maureen.

Smith's mortality complex
Shortly after the Battle for Metropolitan City, Eddie Smith began to fall victim to his own mortality complex, a condition that he had secretly researched & kept private from many except for his closest associates, such as Horace Jackson. Smith began to encounter hallucinations that he recognized as a premonition to his death. Aware that this symptom appears in everyone who has a complex, Smith solved the puzzle of the death scenario & believed that at some point in the very near future, New York II will be attacked & Draco, his former student, will be the assassin. Smith, knowing that this will be inevitable, ultimately resigned himself to accept his fate when it strikes.

Siege of New York II
After the Imperials destroyed Metropolitan City, the forces of Core & Erol began to attempt a siege on New York II to kill the Alliance at it's source. Moving northeastward, the shadowghosts & Imperials surrounded New York II & slowly inched towards the island of Manhattan. During the siege, the Anderson Manor was attacked & Mellion & Axia possessed Luke & Maureen. Mellion-Luke & Axia-Maureen then both led their shadowghost troops to the city with Draco's in the front lines west of the city. Hereson began to close the noose from the north & Grievous, with the reinforcements of Imperius, took the eastern front. In response, Field Marshal Smith was alerted to the situation & ordered a counterattack strategy. The plan became that Generals Ferguson, Sherman & Underwood would launch counterattacks upon all of the forces attempting to surround the city, with Ferguson taking Mellion-Luke, Draco & Axia-Maureen, while Sherman took on Hereson & Underwood to take Grievous & Imperius. The attack failed as the limited resources of the city & quick battle strategys of the Imperials proved to be the cause of the loss. General Ferguson, while attacking, failed to secure the front lines against Draco & Mellion-Luke's artillery vehicles went around them, creating a backstab attack, which forced Ferguson to flee to Manhattan. General Sherman expected to meet a few shadowghosts & was surprised by the numbers of shadowghosts & was completely unprepared for an Imperial attack when Imperials crossed the bridges from Brooklyn to the Bronx on the orders of Grievous & Imperius. The losses forced Sherman to flee back across the Harlem River. Underwood, meanwhile, simply showed that he was in the weaker position by failing to overrun Grievous' Imperial Guard & fight off Imperius' reinforcements. As a result, Underwood fled across the East River. With no victorys, the city became surrounded & was under intense siege by the shadowghosts & Imperials, to which Smith was astounded by the fact that all of his generals failed, even though he initially believed that the sizes of the troops by Sherman & Underwood would be capable of driving off the north & east lines, but not the west by Ferguson. In response to this failure, Smith blamed Ferguson & immediately relieved him of his post, to which Ferguson, delusional with the belief that his generalship skills were superior to everyone's, including the field marshal, believed that Smith was giving him another assignment against the enemy. To protect the city, the Alliance secured all of the rivers with mines & security drones. They also armed the islands in New York Harbor & began ferrying citizens out of the city in the event of an invasion. During the time of the counterattack, New York II had more people living there since it was the evacuation point for all citys shadowghosts attacked (New Washington D.C. & Metropolitan City). With the impending invasion, the citizens were escorted via ferry to either the citys of New Wildwood &/or New Miami.

Ambush
The Imperial War Factory attacked New York II by crossing the New York Barrier to reach the city. Once past the wall, the Factory began dispatching zeppelins & air trains to dispense troops & bombard the city while the main Factory used mortar artillery. Meanwhile, the shadowghosts constructed a bridge so they could enter the city without touching the waters of the river, knowing that the security defenses surrounding Manhattan would destroy them with a single shot if they fell in. The Alliance, not prepared for this assault, immediately dispatched. However, because Eddie Smith, the general, was not present during this time, the leadership immediately fell to Victor Underwood, who had called to put the city on high alert & tightening security until Smith's return just minutes prior to the attack.

Height of the battle
The Imperial War Factory dispatched zeppelins & air trains to bombard the city from the sky while shadowghosts attacked the city from all areas, attacking from the sky, bridges over the rivers & even the water surrounding New York II itself. To protect themselves from security drones, the shadowghosts & Imperials hacked binary codes into them, shutting them down & allowing the entire city to become defenseless. The mines in the water were blown apart as shadowghost mortars fired into the rivers to allow their troops through. Imperials, meanwhile, attacked from the air & land. Because they were not waterproof, they did not attack from the sea & rivers & required bridges to stay dry & active. The Imperials were led by Draco & Grievous, commander of the Imperial Guard. The shadowghosts were led by Mellion-Luke, Axia-Maureen & Grievous. When Draco & the two carriers attacked Smith's lab, Grievous stayed behind to continue the operations on the streets.

Assassination
Draco, Mellion-Luke & Axia-Maureen all broke into Smith's laboratory just after Smith arrived back through his warp gate that he deactivated. Draco arrived first, just after James Anderson hid in a small alcove under the balcony Smith was standing on. Draco, fearful at seeing his old teacher & overcome by his emotional distress in his human brain, hesitated to carry out the task of killing Smith. Smith, sensing Draco's reluctance, engaged a conversation to discuss what Draco should consider doing to save himself from the jaws of Cyber Erol & the fate that will await Draco if he continues to live amongst the Imperials for the rest of his life. Draco, however, fearing Erol's wrath, continuously threatened to attack, but did not. When Axia-Maureen & Mellion-Luke arrived, Draco was about to consider suicide by jumping off the building, hoping that would help smash his body to pieces, all the time not taking his weapon away from Smith. Axia-Maureen then proceeded to coax Draco into giving into his orders by encouraging Draco's fear & overriding his microchip brain into taking control over his emotions. With his microchip in control & suppressing his emotions for about 15 seconds, Draco then opened fire on Smith, sending a blast of energy that stopped Smith's heart rate & knocked the latter from the balcony, causing him to fall to the streets below.

Flight of the shadowghosts & Imperials
The three leaders proceeded to flee New York II. James Anderson, who witnessed the assassination, furiously gave chase to destroy Draco for killing Smith & to capture Axia-Maureen & Mellion-Luke to perform an exorcism upon the two & destroy the shadowghosts inside them. However, by the time he reached the bridge, he encountered Draco, Grievous, Mellion-Luke & Axia-Maureen & saw the Imperial War Factory in the distance, bombarding the city with mortars & troops. James attacked Draco, who overpowered him & James challenged Draco to kill him. Draco refused to murder James as his fate was decided between Core & Erol. Leaving James on the ground, Draco crossed the river & destroyed the bridge, pulling back all Imperials & shadowghosts at the same time.

Leadership in the Alliance
Because Eddie Smith was promoted to general at the news of Commander Jackson's death, new leaders had to be promoted in the Alliance to keep the division running smoothly. To replace him, James Anderson was approached with the request of being the next leader, to which he turned it down (he would be asked again when Victor Underwood died & again, he would turn down the offer). They then turned to Victor Underwood, who conducted the troops during the battle & repeatedly engaged in battle with Draco & Grievous.

Installation of the New York II Shield
The attack on New York II proved that the island was still vulnerable, despite the water security. To compensate for the flaws & to ensure that the city would never face another attack, the city reversed it's earlier decision of declining the shield barrier mechanism to have one installed. The shield was placed halfway from the island in the Hudson & East Rivers & surrounded New York Harbor. The New York II Shield, however, was destroyed by Grievous when he attempted to attack New York II.

Fall of the Catholic Church
Without Smith in the way, Core felt it necessary to take down the Roman Catholic Church as the loss of the churches would provide a failure to perform exorcism upon carriers. Across the entire continent, the shadowghosts rounded up sacrifices & then spilled their blood upon the altars of the churches spanning as far west as New Los Angeles & as far east as New York II & any other city eastward, causing the entire church to fall. The church was reclaimed after James managed to exorcise Axia from Maureen's body & he headed to New York II to reverse the problem, cutting off a shadowghost's head to use it's blood to clean the altar of human blood.

Triad Artifact Search
James, angry at the shadowghosts for killing Eddie & possessing Maureen & Luke, decided to continue what he & Eddie started by going around trying to collect the Triad artifacts. He also used it as an opportunity to wage his own personal war with the shadowghosts. However, the shadowghosts, aware of his fiery behavior, consulted Core, who ordered James immediate execution. James fled into hiding with Emily Love & Victor Underwood, searching far & wide for the artifacts. He recovered the Alitron Crystal before being attacked by numerous shadowghosts, such as Axia-Maureen, Mellion-Luke & Somerlee.

Deaths of Draco & Grievous
Some time after the reclamation of the church, the Imperial Council met in a decision to destroy New York II in an effort to decapitate the Alliance. Grievous stubbornly defyed Erol & appointed himself to attack the city. Erol, knowing that Grievous would fail & angry that Grievous took leadership without authorization, assigned Draco to attack the city in an Imperial Terraformer, knowing that it's weaponry would be enough to penetrate the shields & decimate the city. However, the Alliance received word of this & sent James Anderson to deal with Draco while Victor Underwood was left to watch over New York II as Grievous attacked. When Grievous failed to destroy the city due to the second line of defense being launched in response to the fall of the shields, the Imperial Guard leader retreated & was killed by Underwood at the Imperial Forge. At the same time, James confronted Draco in the Imperial Terraformer in the Wastelands & destroyed the entire machine, causing it to explode with Draco inside of it. The two deaths caused massive instability in the League of Imperial Cybernetic Hybrids & the death of Draco effectively avenged the death of Eddie Smith.