Title: Bolt and Salvo: Guardians of the Ruined City
The aftermath of the Plasma Wars had left the once-thriving city in ruins. Skyscrapers, once symbols of human ingenuity, now lay crumbled, their skeletal remains jutting into the sky like broken teeth. The streets were littered with debris, but the real danger wasn’t the fallen buildings—it was the plasma mines, invisible and deadly, waiting to incinerate anything that got too close. Clearing these mines was no simple task. But for Salvo, it was his job, his duty. And thankfully, he wasn’t alone.
Salvo was a giant of a man—muscular, battle-scarred, and hardened from years of war. He wore the heavy green armor of the bomb units, a thick vest that had taken more than a few hits in its day, and carried a plasma-sweeper, a long, specialized device capable of detecting plasma mines and disarming them from a distance. Even with the best technology, however, many mines were hidden too well to detect, which was why Salvo relied on his unexpected partner: Bolt.
Bolt was no ordinary creature. He was a fluffy, mutated from exposure to the radiation and bio-experiments of the war. His green, shaggy fur blended with the overgrown, warped foliage that now consumed much of the city. But it was Bolt’s eyes—glowing with a strange, eerie blue light—that made him special. Bolt could “see” the plasma cores, the blue energy at the heart of the mines, and had saved Salvo’s life more than once because of it.
“Der! Am see two bwight wight! Cawefuw!” Bolt warned in his childlike voice, his eyes wide as he pointed a hoof towards two glowing spots just ahead.
Salvo stopped in his tracks. Bolt’s instincts had never been wrong. The large man scanned the area with his plasma-sweeper, which confirmed the presence of two hidden mines beneath the rubble. He nodded.
“Got it! Now stand back, Bolt, time to clean up.” Salvo shifted his stance, moving slowly and methodically. Sweat dripped down his face in the unbearable heat. The weather had gone haywire after the nuclear fallout, creating strange shifts in temperature that made life above ground brutal. And yet, against all odds, plants were thriving—overgrown vines and thick grass pushing through cracks in the asphalt and wrapping around the crumbling ruins.
As Salvo worked on disarming the plasma mines, his mind drifted back to the day he first met Bolt. He had been on a solo patrol, sweeping a sector near the city’s edge when he nearly stepped on a mine hidden beneath some debris. In the chaos of the collapsing buildings, Salvo hadn’t noticed Bolt watching him from a distance. The fluffy creature darted out, headbutting Salvo out of the mine’s range just in time. At first, Salvo thought it was just some mutated animal, but when Bolt spoke, warning him of another mine, Salvo realized the creature was far more intelligent than he appeared. They’d been inseparable ever since.
“Done,” Salvo muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow as the plasma mines were neutralized. He glanced down at Bolt, who was wagging his fluffy tail, satisfied with their teamwork. “Good job, buddy.”
“Yay! No boom today!” Bolt grinned, his voice bright, his blue eyes scanning the area for more threats. “Dis pwace is so much safe-er.”
Despite the ruin, life in the city was trying to rebuild itself. Pockets of survivors, hidden in the outskirts, had begun returning to the remains of their homes. The air still carried the faint hum of unstable plasma residue, and now and then, unstable warp anomalies would flicker into existence, as remnants of experimental technology misfired, bending time and space. It wasn’t uncommon for Salvo and Bolt to come across random objects—sometimes from the past, other times from an unknown future—appearing out of nowhere.
But today, the focus was on clearing the area for a small group of survivors who were trying to set up a new base nearby. The plasma mines posed the most immediate threat, and with each one disarmed, the city grew just a little bit safer.
As they continued their sweep, Salvo couldn’t help but wonder how long it would take to reclaim the city fully—if it could ever truly be done. The war had left deep scars on the world, but people were resilient. Bolt was proof of that. In a world twisted by war and destruction, the little green fluffball was a symbol of survival, of hope.
“Scawy wight gone,” Bolt announced, hopping over a pile of debris as they moved forward.
Salvo smirked. “Yeah, for now. Let’s keep it that way.”
Together, the two continued their patrol, cleaning up the remnants of war, one step at a time. The road ahead was long and filled with dangers, but as long as they had each other, there was hope for the future. Bolt might have been born from the chaos of war, but he and Salvo had become the unlikely guardians of the ruined city, making it safe for those who would one day call it home again.
And as the sun beat down on them, the plants continued to grow stronger, twisting their way through the ruins, proving that life, even in the darkest times, always finds a way.
great work 
