Disclaimer: I do not own MapleStory, or any other references or shoutouts to other series that appear in this story. This is a work of fiction, any resemblance of characters or events to real-life persons or events is purely coincidental.
A/N: This story is going to take on a very different feel from Ghost Ship, due to the technological setting of Omega Sector – I'm drawing very heavily from my pool of knowledge of various sci-fi universes here to give the largely undefined structure of Omega Sector's human army some definite form. Kudos to those of you who can pick up on some of the more obscure references scattered here and there, but otherwise, here's the next instalment of the Marauders mini-series.
Just on a side note… Kay IS a woman… right?
The Marauders: Episode IV
WEAPON X
Logan John Shepard was an enigma to all who knew him, even himself.
When he had first joined the Marauders, he had been a recently promoted Dragon Knight, one of the fastest ever to attain the Third Job promotion. Most people attained their First, Second, and finally their Third Job promotions over the course of seven years in each of the four towns' respective Adventurer Academies, from the time they were 11, until they were 18 – they received their First Job upon passing the Academy's entrance exams at 11, their Second Job promotion upon completing half the course at 15 years old, and their qualifying Third Job promotion upon graduation at 18.
Logan, however, had entered Kerning's Academy at the late age of 15, and had sped through each Job Advancement in a single year, attaining First Job at 16, Second Job at 17, and being granted the title of Dragon Knight at 18 in a record three years.
Any and all of Logan's warrior instructors had described the late entry as "superhuman" in nearly all respects – his strength, speed and fortitude were of levels unheard of in the history of the academy, and if his performance records during endurance tests were any indication, the Dragon Knight was literally tireless.
But before any of them could even think to examine the mystery who called himself "Logan", the Dragon Knight had immediately left upon his graduation, disappearing into the background of Victoria Island, where nobody heard neither hair nor hide about him.
That was because during his brief tenure at the Kerning Academy, Logan had kept hidden two very important facts from his instructors – one, the fact that he in fact hailed from Ludibrium, and two, the fact that he was a complete and total amnesiac.
Logan John Shepard was a mystery to all, even to himself.
His memory, hazy as it was, extended only as far back as when he was twelve years old. His first literal memory was of waking up bloodied, naked and confused inside a human medical bay in Omega Sector. The doctors there had treated whatever little wounds they could find on him, but much of the blood that had been found on him when he had been discovered lying unconscious in the Kulan fields by a patrol of marines… much of the blood had not been his.
The doctors had asked him many questions, probing him for answers, but had gotten very little constructive information out of the near-catatonic boy. As far as they could tell, his memory had been completely wiped out, and he had literally no memories at all, from any period of his life before the time he had been discovered.
The doctors had originally intended to keep the boy for further study, but a young girl, one of the daughters of the scientists, had befriended the young boy, and had successfully managed to sneak him out of the complex, but not before giving him a necklace to remember her by. That necklace now rested on Logan's neck, and it was a necklace that the Dragon Knight never took off.
The night she had helped him escape, he had used the warp capsule she had snuck into his observation room, escaping directly to Ludibrium, where he had spent the next three years of his life wandering the world, learning whatever he could. With no memories, no connections, Logan had wandered Bera, literally Jobless, for three years, until he was fifteen years old, when he stumbled across an application poster for the Adventurer's Academy located in Kerning.
The young man had joined up in a heartbeat, and blazed through the Kerning Academy's curriculum in a record three years, displaying superhuman traits throughout the entire course of his training. "Inhuman" was a word that cropped up on his resume multiple times, and Logan tolerated it if only for the entertaining gapes that came from whoever took a look at it.
When he had graduated from the Academy, Logan had immediately returned to Omega Sector, in hopes of recovering his memories; Omega Sector's Black Ops section was famous for their notorious work in memory removal, modification, and recovery, thanks to the work of theirs that involved covering up the existence of aliens from the general public. The only reason that Logan knew of it was that it was covered as part of the Academy's curriculum, to prepare them for their Third Job promotion and the eventuality that they would venture to that area.
There, in Omega Sector, Logan had spent another four years, from the time he was eighteen until he was twenty-two, working for Omega Sector's Black Ops section. While he had not managed to make any significant headway in recovering his memories in that respect, he had managed to make several powerful connections along the way, gaining a reputation as a lethal soldier, and becoming a respected comrade of General Maestro himself.
Just how useful those connections soon came to light as he approached the normally obstructively bureaucratic Jr. Officer Medin, and nodded in greeting.
"Ah, Shepard!" The officer standing guard at Omega Sector's exit to Eos Tower greeted the Dragon Knight enthusiastically. "Been a while since we last saw each other, eh?"
"Long time no see, Medin." Logan replied with a grin, fistbumping his old comrade. "Maestro around? I need a couple of favors."
"Anything for you, after what you've done for us the past few years, Shepard." Medin beamed, and immediately smacked the button that opened the security gates into the compound. "Maestro's in the war room, finishing up a meeting with the rest of the brass right about now. The Grays have been on the move recently, but we can't really say what exactly it is they're up to. Our intelligence department is still trying to work that out."
"Ya don't say?" Logan quipped, genuinely intrigued. "Guess I'll have to ask the old man about it myself."
The Dragon Knight quickly strode into the compound, where the entire base was buzzing with activity. Omega Sector marines and guardsmen were running all over the place, either alone or in large groups. Sergeants and other non-commissioned officers were shouting orders left and right, and Logan soon found himself integrating seamlessly into his environment.
Ah, it felt good to be back.
As Logan neared the security doors that led to General Maestro's war room, the Dragon Knight could already hear a number of voices engaging in a heated debate, with arguments and counter-arguments being thrown everywhere. No voices were raised, but there was no denying the underlying tension hidden beneath every word spoken.
Everyone knew the war against the Gray Empire had been going badly, and with the Mateon Swarm exacerbating the problem, Omega Sector's United Nation Space Command forces were being stretched far more thinly than they could cope with. Casualities were mounting on all fronts, and the UNSC was getting desperate.
Logan's assistance in that regard had done much to stem the tide of destruction, but there was only so much one man could do. As the Dragon Knight reached the security panel that would open the doors, he keyed in his biometric with his thumb, not even wincing as a tiny needle jabbed itself into his finger to take a DNA sample. Following that, he allowed the retinal scanner to pan itself over his eyes to make a final verification of his identity, and the security doors finally slid open.
The voices died down the moment the Dragon Knight stepped into the room. All around the room, General Maestro's entire war cabinet sat assembled. Vice Admiral Alexei Stukov sat next to Fleet Admiral Gerard DuGalle, at Maestro's right hand side, while on the opposite side of the table sat Lieutenant General Jack Granger, and Commander Michael McNeil.
"I see I've missed quite a bit while I was away." Logan remarked with a wry smile – very few things required a full meeting that included all of the brass, and usually a code-red emergency situation was one of them. However, upon seeing the Dragon Knight, General Maestro broke out into an almost imperceptible grin.
"Gentlemen, we're going to have to finish this meeting later. If you'd please give us a little privacy…" The old military commander said, and his command staff quickly filed out of the room, leaving Logan alone with Maestro.
"It's certainly been a while, hasn't it Shepard?" Maestro finally let his subtle smile break out into a full out grin, extending his hand out to Logan. "Three years, was it?"
"It's been a good three years, Maestro," The Dragon Knight replied, shaking his old comrade's hand. "Anything worth noting while I was gone?"
"Not much… Though Gray activity has been at an all-time high lately. There's no telling what they might be up to now. But never mind that, you've helped us enough as it is. Is there anything I can do for you, Shepard?"
Nodding and reaching into his pack, Logan tossed the pictures of Zeno he had taken from Hiroshi's report, as well as the Outlaw's report itself onto the table in front of Maestro. "You could start by giving me any information or updates on this little critter you might have. Any assistance you could provide in hunting it down would also come in handy."
Taking the pictures in hand and looking at them as his brow furrowed more and more deeply, Maestro sighed and shook his head, frowning.
"I'm sorry Shepard, old friend," Maestro muttered. "But you're on your own for this one. We've lost enough men trying to take that damned thing down as it is. Zeno is a Gray in a class all of its own; not even the Ultra or Chief Grays can match up to it."
"So I take it the war's going badly?"
"Are you kidding, Shepard?" The old general sighed regretfully. "Our resources and manpower have already been stretched to the limit trying to keep this alien incursion at bay. Son, we're the only thing that stands between them and the big wide Beran world that lies beyond these walls. I can provide you with intel and some supplies, but I won't be able to spare you any men to help you in your search."
"I guess I could have expected just about as much," Logan remarked wryly. "Well, thanks anyway, Maestro. That's already more help than you should be giving me, seeing how this war is going."
Maestro nodded wearily. "Dr. Kim has a Wave Translator that could help you hack into the Gray's battlenet and locate Zeno. I'll assign him to be your mission support during your search, but apart from that and loaning you some of our weaponry, I can't do anything else for you."
Logan nodded, but gave the old general his thanks anyway. Resignedly, the Dragon Knight stepped out of the war room, leaving Maestro to resume his cabinet meeting, and he immediately began striding down another familiar path through the base's corridors, this one leading steadily downwards.
If there was one person who could get him the help he needed without leeching too much off of General Maestro's resources, she would be in the silo.
The Sector's Silo area was as frantic with mechanical activity as he remembered it being. Robotic cranes were moving all over the place, and conveyor belts that delivered mechanical parts literally snaked all over the complex. The gigantic prototype mecha, Liberty Prime, that Dr. Kim and Porter had been working for several years to get operational, still stood immobile in the very centre of the silo that had been built around it, and workers were swarming all over it like a colony of ants with construction tools, welding on external armour plates and installing internal systems.
Most people who wanted to get from one level of the silo to another would take the express elevators from the base's administrative lobby, but Logan, taking advantage of some of his more… "superhuman" traits, had developed a far more exciting method of getting around the silo.
Leaping off the ledge of the top level, where he had entered the silo from, Logan grabbed onto the cable of one of the cranes, and let the weight of his gear carry him down swiftly as he gripped on to the cable with just enough force to prevent himself from accelerating to terminal velocity… And as the cable carrying him neared its end, the Dragon Knight agilely swung himself around, and leapt to yet another nearby cable like an oversized monkey, catching onto the next wire and resuming his descent.
The Dragon Knight continued moving downwards in this manner for several moments, until the bottom floor of the silo finally came within sight… and with it, the sight of that familiar head of red hair that was so typically tied into a greasy ponytail that he had been looking for, and the familiar scent of engine grease that so typically surrounded her.
Grinning mischievously, Logan let go of his grasp of the cable he was holding onto, and let himself plummet the rest of the way down.
FOOM!
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
Screaming in fright as a massive impact suddenly crashed into the floor behind her, the woman whirled around, a pipe wrench brandished in her hands, when her arm was suddenly pushed down, and she was embraced in a bear hug despite the extremely greasy mechanic's jumpsuit she was wearing.
Breathing out in relief as she realized who it was, the woman dropped the wrench, and fiercely returned the hug with such fervor that even Logan was surprised for a second.
"Jesus Christ! For God's sake, Logan, don't ever do that again!" The redhead nearly shouted with a broad smile on her face as they let go of each other. "You scared the living crap out of me!"
Sniggering to himself, Logan grinned and gave the woman a playful slap on the shoulder. "It's great to see you again, Kay. How've you been?"
"Overworked, as usual." The redheaded mechanic said sourly, turning back to the workbench full of scattered parts she had been working on – for a brief moment, Logan was reminded of Hiroshi's own workshop back at the Marauders' HQ. "The Grays have been giving us hell lately, and the Mateons are just making things even worse. The brass ordered my department to try and reverse-engineer some of their weaponry, but most of it isn't even compatible with our biology in the first place. The Grays rely on their psychokinetic powers, and Mateon weaponry, we hardly even understand how their plasma-based technology works in the first place…"
As the tired Kay slowly went into yet another rant full of technological and biological terms, Logan simply grinned knowingly to himself, and shook his head. Even in the three years he had been gone, Kay hadn't changed one bit.
"Kay, as much as I'd love to hear how the past few years have been for you, you're going to have to repeat that in English for me," The Dragon Knight said with a grin, walking up to the workbench next to Kay to see what she was working on.
"Oh, right. Sorry about that." Kay apologized with a weary sigh. "The Grays have been running us ragged – tempers are flaring all over the place here, and today's just one of my rare days off. Guess it's just your luck that you came in at this time, huh?"
"I guess it is." Logan admitted, idly playing with the necklace that he wore. "I don't suppose I could call in a few favors?"
"I suppose it couldn't hurt." Kay shrugged, but then her eye caught the necklace that Logan was fingering, and she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Logan, you…"
The Dragon Knight simply gave the mechanic a grin. "Still remember the necklace you gave me?"
"As if I could ever forget." Kay returned the smile. "I'm surprised you're still wearing it. Who would've thought that the legendary soldier who joined our ranks three years ago would've turned out to be the very same boy I'd helped to escape this place when he was only twelve? I'm surprised you would even come back to this place."
"This place is where I was found where my memories were lost – the way I see it, it's as good a lead as any."
"So it is." Kay replied, turning away and walking off to a nearby aisle of lockers. "Maestro radioed ahead of you to inform me of your arrival, but I didn't think you'd arrive the way you did! Anyway, the old man has granted you up to Delta level clearance to the equipment we have. I heard you're going up against Zeno, so I took the liberty of scrounging up a little extra for you."
Going up to the security pad that kept the lockers secure, Kay punched in the passcode, and almost immediately the locker doors sprang open… revealing racks upon racks of military equipment. Streamlined suits of ballistic flak armour, more advanced and far bulkier CMC-300 Powered Combat Suits and the even larger CMC-660 Heavy Combat Suits with their wrist-mounted plasma-based Perdition flamethrowers, helmets, goggles… and rows and rows of guns, guns, and more guns.
"I wasn't aware they moved the entire armoury down to your level, Kay." Logan said with a low, impressed whistle, stepping forward slowly and touching one of the rifles on the rack, this one of a design he had never seen before. "And I don't recognize this design either. R&D made some changes?"
"Indeed they did," Kay replied, grabbing another rifle off the rack and a magazine from a nearby shelf. "Dr. Kim's department phased out the old MA5 series, and they designed a new rifle for us from the ground up."
Slamming the magazine in with a practiced movement and cycling the rifle's charging bolt, the mechanic tossed the rifle in Logan's direction, who caught it with with a practiced hand.
"C-14 Gauss Rifles. Marines around here like to call them 'Impalers'." Kay said with a grin as Logan hefted and inspected the rifle. "They use magnetic coils to fire eight-millimetre solid metal spikes at hypersonic velocities, capable of penetrating up to two inches of solid steel plating. One magazine carries sixty spikes, but this baby fires at a rate of one thousand and eight hundred rounds per minute – that's a lot of incentive for our marines to go trigger happy with it, so the rifle uses a capacitor system by default to fire in three-round bursts and keep our men from blowing through dozens of magazines' worth of ammo in mere seconds."
"That's a lot of firepower," Logan whistled appreciatively. "Roughly three times as powerful as the MA5Cs – when did R&D pump these out?"
"Just about a year ago," Kay answered. "And just in time too – our casualties were at an all time high when the Grays started pushing harder than ever, then Dr. Kim's department pumped these out in tandem with a new powered armour suit. C'mere – I'll show it to you."
Striding further down the aisle of lockers, Kay punched yet another button, and one suit in particular slid out, this one a dark steel gray with a visible metallic sheen, and notably slimmer and more streamlined than the standard-issue CMC suits that the marines usually wore. Underneath the separate plates of steel ablative alloys, Logan could see a black bodysuit that was seamlessly integrated with the rest of the armour.
"Meet the MJOLNIR Mark Six." Kay announced in as grand a voice she could muster, her voice nearly breaking as she struggled to contain her laughter at how ridiculous her acting was. "Dr. Kim personally led a team, myself included, to design this suit from scratch. Everything that went into making the old CMCs was tossed out the window when we made this baby. Everything about the MJOLNIR is brand new and improved over the older suits. It's lighter, faster, stronger, and tougher by factors of ten. And the best news? Maestro's decided to give you one suit for free as a gift."
"Damn." Logan could barely contain his grin. "I'll have to remember to thank the old man for that. Anything special about this armour I oughta know about?"
"It's got recharging energy shields, if that's what you're looking for." Kay answered with a wide smile. "That's the one breakthrough analyzing Mateon tech that we've managed to achieve in the past three years, if anything else. It increases your strength and speed by a factor of ten, five times more than the old CMCs, and if the energy shielding ever fails, the ablative plates are still capable of deflecting several dozen gauss rifle rounds before they penetrate."
"How does the energy shielding hold up, then?" Logan asked curiously, walking closer to the suit and inspecting it more closely. "For that matter, how does the shielding and armour itself hold up against Gray and Mateon weaponry?"
"Endurance is roughly reduced by half, compared to how it holds up against our own weapons." Kay admitted sheepishly, scratching the back of her head. "Still, that's a lot better than all the rest of our suits. The shielding can absorb up to a full magazine of gauss rifle fire, which roughly equates to ten psychic blasts from an Ultra Gray, or around twenty hits, give or take ten, from the Mateons' plasma guns, depending on which variants they're using. The armour itself can dissipate about a dozen hits, but don't take any more than that or you're going to be looking at a lot of holes in your suit."
"That's still better than anything I used back in the day," Logan muttered, and set a hand on the chestpiece of the MJOLNIR suit. "The old CMCs couldn't even hold up against two consecutive blasts from an Ultra Gray. Can't believe I'm actually going to get to use this... Got anything else for me, Kay?"
The mechanic pursed her lips for a moment, obviously thinking hard, but there was little else she could offer. Logan's Delta-level clearance allowed him access to most of Omega Sector's small-arms weaponry as well as their lighter vehicles like the Warthog LRVs and Vulture Hoverbikes, but he was still unable to commandeer their heavier pieces of artillery, like the Scorpion MBTs, Crucio Siege Tanks and their Hornet or Banshee VTOLs. However, something that was normally buried at the back of Kay's head suddenly came to the forefront, and she snapped her fingers in realization, her face lighting up.
"There is one last thing." The redhead said with a cheshire cat grin on her face, and she gestured at Logan to follow her.
"It's a personal project I've been pursuing for some time now, I use my days off to work on it. You could take it for a test run if you'd like." Kay explained as they approached what Logan recognized to be the basement of her workshop.
"Personal project?" Logan quipped, arching his eyebrow. "If any of your past 'personal projects' are anything to go by, I'm getting the impression you just managed to create your own home-made nuke."
Laughing as they descended the stairs leading into the basement, Kay replied, "Nah, not exactly, but it's pretty much just about powerful. Just wait, Logan – you'll see what I mean. Since I built it on my own personal time, this one's out of General Maestro's jurisdiction – feel free to take it for yourself. I'm never gonna get far enough out into the field to test this thing out anyway."
"I guessed as much," The Dragon Knight said as they finally entered the basement. "You're always stuck in the workshop working on God knows what and holy shit what the fuck is that thing?"
Logan's voice trailed off as he spied the massive… something that lay on a lit pedestal in the centre of the basement, suspended and rotating in mid-air by an anti-gravity field.
It was too huge and blocky to be called a gun, but there was no denying the vague shape of a handgrip, a trigger, and a massive barrel the size of his skull that one end of the weapon ended in. The entire thing was almost as long as Logan was tall, reaching up to just about neck level for him, and it was coloured a dark olive green with underlying tones of matte gray.
"Kay… I don't know how the hell you managed to make something like that," Logan began, his mouth finally starting to work again after a few seconds of staring at the massive device. "But that is one big fucking gun."
Snorting in laughter at Logan's quip, Kay strode forward and disengaged the anti-gravity field suspending the device in the air, and caught it before it could clatter to the floor, grunting in exertion below its visible weight.
"It's called the Galilean Non-linear Rifle, Logan," The mechanic told him as she carried it over and handed it to him. "Though for simplicity's sake, you could just call it the Spartan Laser."
"BFG sounds way easier," The Dragon Knight insisted on the acronym he had just pulled out of nowhere, and took the massive gun from Kay, hefting it as though it were light as a feather. "Huh. Feels a little heavier than a rocket launcher. This one had better be good, Kay."
"Trust me, it is," Kay answered with a proud smile. "You could take on an army of demons with that thing and win with one shot – of course, the Spartan Laser's still in its experimental stages, so its power cells will burn out after that one shot.
"Ace in the hole, eh?" Logan replied. "Don't worry – I know just when to use those. Now, where's the changing room? I need to suit up."
Kay had provided Logan with the necessary equipment to disassemble the MJOLNIR suit and reassembled it around his body. Suiting up within a matter of minutes and discarding the old suit of plate armour he had worn from Victoria Island, Logan was now packing several guns and different types of munitions into various duffel bags. Rifles, pistols, shotguns and whatnot were tossed into one, while grenades, spare ammo magazines and other accessories were thrown into another. The Dragon Knight had taken special care with the BFG though, and he had hitched it up to the magnetic clamps on the back of his new suit of MJOLNIR armour, securing it there where he could reach it in a moment's notice.
Shouldering his cargo, Logan strode up to the trunk of one of the massive Vulture hoverbikes, and yanked it open, tossing his two duffel bags inside and slamming it shut. Quickly striding over to the driver's seat, Logan swung his leg over to the other side with the practiced ease of someone who had been driving such a vehicle for years, and settled himself into the bike's chair. Shoving the security key that Kay had given him for that particular bike into its ignition slot, Logan gave it a solid twist, and let out a delighted grin as the Vulture's engine thrummed to life with a deafening roar.
The Dragon Knight gave the hoverbike's pedal a solid kick, and immediately the vehicle leapt to life, shooting forward out of its parking lot in Omega Sector's vehicle bay. Expertly controlling the bike's handlebars, Logan effortlessly steered the Vulture around until he reached the main compound's gate, where Kay was waiting for him.
"Good luck out there, Logan." The red-headed mechanic called out as Logan slowed down his bike's approach. "Be careful, Gray and Mateon activity around here is a lot more intense than it was back when you were around."
"Don't worry about me, Kay," Logan gave his childhood friend a knowing grin, before gunning the Vulture's throttle. "I know just how to take care of myself. It's the Grays you oughta be worrying about, cos there won't be much left of Zeno when I'm through with him."
Giving her a playful, final salute in thanks, the Dragon Knight streaked off atop his metal steed before Kay could answer, and the mechanic could only give a melancholic smile as she watched Logan ride off into the distance.
"Godspeed, John." Kay murmured Logan's middle name to herself, a name that only a few select individuals in the world had the privilege of knowing. "You're going to need that luck to deal with Zeno."
Meanwhile, miles away to the south…
The wizened alien figure sat in his chair, gazing over an array of surveillance screens. All around him in the tiny chamber he sat in, a multitude of screens lay side by side and atop each other, completely surrounding him. Each screen displayed one viewpoint of Omega Sector, as though a thousand tiny, unblinking eyes were forever watching over the entirety of its forested fields.
A myriad of activities, thousands of them, going on simultaneously covered the screens, yet none escape the wizened figure's gaze. One screen displayed the human marines of Omega Sector mounting one of their own into a Goliath Armoured Walker as they prepared to roll it out of the factory, while another displayed another displayed on ongoing battle between the Mateons and different contingent of marines. Yet another screen displayed an inside view of the Grays' main headquarters as well, the pale-skinned extraterrestrials scurrying to and fro, putting on powered armour suits of their own and powering up robotic exoskeletons. However, though none of these scenes escaped the figure's attention, there was one in particular that it sought out, and after but a moment of searching, it found it.
His return is surprising… The figure thought to itself as it watched Omega Sector's new arrival streak out of the human base on a Vulture Hoverbike. But, if anything, this is more of a pleasant surprise than anything else. After all, he had served as the predecessor to our greatest technological marvel now… it is only fitting that he see what he had helped to create.
Smiling predatorily to itself, the figure raised the stylus it held in its hand, and gave it a light tap – and miles below where he sat, a tortured roar filled with years of rage erupted from deep within the bowels of the base, as the gates of the prison for a gigantic behemoth, half organic and half machine, were finally unlatched.
The trees around him were but a green blur as Logan darted and weaved through the forested fields of Kulan, the wind biting into his face and howling in his ears. The biker goggles that he had put on before departing the base were the only thing enabling him to see unhindered right now – he certainly would still be able to see if they ever got knocked off, but it would certainly be very uncomfortable to do so.
As he continued weaving left and right, avoiding tree trunks and fallen wreckage by mere inches with insane manoeuvres no normal human could have possibly pulled off, the comm. bead that Logan wore in his ear crackled to life and he heard the familiar voice of Omega Sector's leading human scientist come on the line.
"Sierra 117, this is Baseplate. Come in, Sierra 117, over."
"This is Sierra 117, I read you loud and clear, Baseplate, over." Logan replied into his throat mic, twisting the Vulture around a fallen piece of wreckage that he recognized to be the inert carcass of a MT-09.
"Sierra 117, for security purposes, please recite name, rank and serial number for voice and identity verification, over."
Snorting inwardly, Logan yanked the Vulture's handlebar hard to the left, and narrowly slipped around a fallen tree trunk by mere inches. Even after three years, the paranoid Dr. Kim wasn't any less particular about security.
"This is Master Chief Petty Officer Logan John Shepard, designation SPARTAN-117, reporting for duty, over." The Dragon Knight replied into his mic sardonically with a sarcastic smile, making absolutely sure not to miss out a single detail.
"Identity confirmed; welcome back, Shepard." Dr. Kim's tone didn't change much, but Logan could hear the almost imperceptible smile in the good doctor's voice. Nearly everyone he saw in Omega Sector was practically ecstatic to see him back. "I hear from General Maestro that you're about to go looking for Zeno."
"Word around here travels fast, I see." Logan remarked as he saw a massive tree trunk suddenly come up in front of him, one too large for him to dodge around. Without missing a beat, Logan depressed his trigger fingers, and triggered the Vulture's underslung frag grenade launcher, shooting out one of the tiny explosive devices and blowing the trunk to smithereens, allowing him to pass through unhindered. "What have you got for me, doc?"
"Only the latest information hacked from the Grays' battlenet itself." Dr. Kim answered proudly over the comm. channel. "My Wave Translator decoded their transmissions in a flash. Now, here's what I managed to learn about Zeno…"
As Dr. Kim recited the specifications of Zeno that he had learned from the Gray Battlenet, Logan automatically took the information and compared it with the report that Hiroshi had given him prior to his departure, and found to his consternation that it was slightly out of date. Yes, the background data on Zeno was accurate: Zeno was the result of the Grays' attempts to create a super-soldier of their own to aid in the war against the humans of Omega Sector, to counter the human's black ops SPARTAN commandoes, but while they had succeeded in increasing nearly every physical aspect of their Barnard Gray subject, it came at the cost of nearly all the subject's psychic powers.
The outlaw's report detailing Zeno's physical enhancements were also up-to-date; although with each and every one of the enhancements listed, Logan's discomfort at nagging sense of familiarity he felt could only grow.
Carbide Ceramic Ossification – the grafting of advanced materials: special metal and ceramic layers, onto the subject's skeletal structure, making their bones virtually unbreakable. Clenching his knuckles involuntarily, Logan's mind thought back to the time when the Marauders had taken a trip to Eos Tower – while they had been at the section where the tower simply plummeted for at least ten stories down.
"Whoa… Shit, guys. That's a long way down." Ethan remarked as he peered over the ledge's edge with his Byakugan activated. "I don't think any of us would be able to survive that without breaking several bones. We'd better take the portals down."
"Sounds good. C'mon, Trish," Isabella nodded, and immediately headed for the nearest window leading into the tower, where the portal inside would transport her safely down one floor, the priestess following her promptly through.
"Aww, man, and here I was hoping for a roller-coaster ride down." Abel was visibly dejected at being denied an exhilarating trip downwards, while Juliana hyperactively grabbed the White Knight's wrist and dragged him forcibly towards the portal.
"Oh, come on, Abel, it ain't so bad," The young Chief Bandit said as they stepped through, cutting off the rest of her sentence.
Snorting, Logan watched as the rest of the guild slowly filed through the portals leading downwards one by one, and prepared to step through once only him and James were left on the ledge. As the crusader was about to step through, a Helly suddenly streaked out of nowhere, and blitzed itself straight for James, intent on knocking him away from the portal and off the ledge.
"James!" Logan's body moved automatically of its own accord, blurring forward and shouldering the crusader into the portal while taking the brunt of the Helly's blow. While it felt like a baby's kick in comparison to other attacks Logan had endured before, the knockback wasn't any less intense, and Logan found himself being lifted off his feet and being thrown clear off the ledge.
"What the- Shit! Logan!" Cursing at the sheer suddenness of events, James hurled himself back out of the portal despite being only halfway through, and lunged after the falling Dragon Knight, backhanding the Helly away with an off-handed swing with his father's Heaven's Gate.
The crusader activated his Sharingan, grabbing for Logan's flailing limbs, but the Dragon Knight had already fallen too far by then. As Logan fell, the wind roaring in his ears, he could only see but the briefest glimpses of his guildmates' horrified expressions, as they watched him plummet nine stories downwards.
And then suddenly something slammed into his back, there was a sudden stop, and the breath was crushed out of his lungs… but aside from that, he felt no other pain.
Coughing and groaning as he sat up, Logan looked around and saw to his amazement that he had fallen outside the bottom portal… but more importantly, as he flexed his arms and legs, and even got to his feet, he realized that none of his bones were broken at all.
Now that was a hell of a discovery. Logan thought to himself, remembering how shocked Tricia had been when the Marauders' resident healer had rushed down upon seeing him plummet down from the ledge he had been knocked off, only to discover that Logan was virtually unwounded from his fall. It's too bad I couldn't pull off shit like that again – Telfair's face was priceless.
With a subtle jerk of his wrist, Logan shifted the Vulture to the left slightly, narrowly avoiding a rocky outcropping that would have gutted his bike in half, and focused his attention back on the information on Zeno Dr. Kim was providing him with.
Muscular Enhancement injections – the intramuscular injection of a protein complex into the subject's body, increasing tissue density and decreasing lactate recovery time. In other words, increasing the subject's strength, fortitude, and endurance all to superhuman levels. Logan's muscles tightened unconsciously as he remembered yet another occasion from the past…
"Ngghhh! Come on, James, you're a goddamned crusader, can't you even freaking lift this piece of rubble up a few inches!" Ethan grunted in exertion as he pushed with all his strength again, his best friend straining himself equally in front to him.
"I could if you'd stop shouting in my damned ear!" The crusader grunted back testily through gritted teeth as he pulled up as hard as he could, attempting to lift up the gigantic piece of Stone Golem rubble that had pinned Ethan and Juliana to the ground. Screaming in effort as his muscles flexed mightily, James pulled upwards with all his strength, but to no avail – the leftover piece of rubble from the corpse of the stone golem they had slain and had fallen over Ethan and Juliana refused to budge. "Come on, you son of a bitch, move!"
"Um, James…?" Juliana said in a very small, nervous voice as a giant shadow suddenly rose up from behind them. "You might want to look behind you."
"Huh?" Turning his head to look over his shoulder, James' eyes widened, and the crusader virtually sweatdropped in exasperation as he beheld the sight of a Dark Stone Golem rearing up behind him. For just the briefest moment, James was grateful that his girlfriend was not there to reprimand him for the string of expletives he was about to let out. "Oh, for fu-"
ZHWING!
There were three sudden flashes of steel, and a series of large slash marks appeared on the side of the golem's head, sending the giant stone construct reeling. Roaring in pain as chunks of rubble were sent flying, the golem stumbled backwards, and Logan and Abel suddenly appeared before it, their weapons drawn and ready.
"Sheez, am I glad to see you guys!" James called out in relief, unwilling to let go of the rubble lest it crush Juliana and Ethan beneath its weight.
"Abel, go get Ethan and Juliana out from underneath that." Logan ordered curtly, sweeping his palm across his Fairfrozen's shaft and dropping into a ready stance. "I'll deal with the golem."
"You said it, pal," Abel nodded, and sheathed both his katanas, sprinting over to where James waited. "Move aside, bro – let me show you how it's done!"
Shouting in effort as he cranked open the First Gate within himself and amplified his strength twofold, the White Knight's raging red aura sparked to life around him, and Abel grabbed a hold of the piece of rubble next to James, heaving upwards with all his strength. However, despite the White Knight's effort combined with James' and Ethan's, the piece of rubble still budged only a few inches upwards, hardly enough to allow them to skitter out from underneath it.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Abel groaned in complaint as even his First Gate-enhanced strength failed to move the rubble. "Am I gonna have to open up to Fifth Gate to move this thing?"
"Step aside, bub," The Dragon Knight's voice suddenly sounded from behind them, punctuated by a gargantuan crash, and Abel looked back gaping as Logan sidled in between them, the Dark Stone Golem crashing to the Sleepywood forest floor behind him in several pieces.
Logan reared his right leg back, and before Ethan could even begin to protest, the Dragon Knight swung his leg forward, and smacked the underside of the piece of rubble with a massive kick – the giant piece of rock actually lifted up by a few feet, and Logan caught it before it could fall further, and with a grunt, gave it a heavy push, lifting up and clear of Ethan and Juliana as it slammed into the ground opposite them with a heavy crash.
Logan finally exhaled from the effort, shaking his limbs lightly to work out the kinks, when he saw the rest of his guildmates staring at him with agape mouths and awestruck expressions.
"What?"
Shaking his head mirthfully at the memory, Logan didn't suppress the grin that came unbidden with it, and continued listening to Dr. Kim's ongoing commentary of the cyborg he was hunting for.
Catalytic Thyroid Implants – the implantation of a platinum pellet containing growth hormone catalysts, boosting the subject's growth of skeletal and muscle tissue. Again, the Dragon Knight's muscles bunched up uncomfortably, thinking of how much larger and stronger he was than the average warrior. James' build, though lean, was far from slight, quite typical of the average warrior, but yet Logan was almost half again the crusader's size, easily towering over his guild leader by a full head, and sporting muscles even larger than Abel's, who had James only slightly beaten in the bulk department.
Occipital Capillary Reversal – The submergence of blood vessel flow within the subject's sensory organs, producing a marked increase in sensory perception and granting the subject sharply increased senses. Logan's eyes, ears, and nose all prickled uneasily as he thought of the inhumanly sharp senses that he possessed. He was always the first to pick up on things, far before even Ethan could spot them, and the ranger was one of the best damned trackers on Victoria Island. His nose could sniff out an ambush from a mile away, his ears could pick up the slightest rustle of movement from a fidgeting enemy, and his eyes could pick out even a black cat slinking through a pitch-black room.
"And lastly, Superconducting Fabrication of Neural Dendrites – the alteration of bio-electrical nerve transduction to shielded electronic transduction, resulting in a three hundred percent increase in the subject's reflexes." Dr. Kim finished reading over the radio, as Logan once again brushed past a piece of wreckage with inches to spare with only a slight movement to the side."This final process was the riskiest, as it had a significant chance of causing severe mental retardation, and a marked decrease in a Gray's inherent psychic abilities."
"The Grays only have the resources to create a Zeno every two decades, and apparently the psychic powers of the latest one did not survive the process – their reports detail it as an unintelligent, mindless brute. This one has been confirmed to be the second one they have created so far, but as far as our intelligence department is able to determine, it is unknown what had happened to the first one. It has never been encountered, so HIGHCOM dismissed it as a failed and discarded experiment."
"Yeah, score one for military 'intelligence'," Logan snorted. That was a real oxymoron if he'd ever heard one. Still, he could not shake off the nagging sense of familiarity that he was developing – hearing the reports of Zeno's augmentations, it felt to him as though he had undergone such enhancements himself.
While the theory itself seemed ludicrous, as it was deemed that no human could ever have survived such a process, Logan could not help but feel that there was some truth to the theory. He had always sensed something different about himself, something that set him apart from the others. His capabilities always seemed to exceed that of his fellow guild members in dangerous situations, and he could come up, without fail, with at least one matching instance where he displayed superhuman traits similar to what Zeno was supposedly capable of, for every listed enhancement made to the alien cyborg.
Well, if I'm the result of some alien experiment, I guess I'll only find out soon enough. Logan thought to himself as he followed Dr. Kim's directions to find Zeno, zipping through the Kulan Fields and running over the occasional Barnard Gray and Zeta Gray that were unfortunate enough to get in his way. Given the fact that I came from Omega itself, the whole theory isn't that far-fetched.
Hiroshi's report was spot-on as far as Zeno's background information and physical augmentations were concerned – however, field reports filed in by Omega Sector marines indicated that Zeno was far tougher than its initial projected capabilities. The numbers Hiroshi had run in his analysis were from mere months after a Zeno had undergone the surgical augmentation procedure – the alien cyborg would only get stronger, faster, and more resilient as it adjusted to the augmentations made to its physiology.
And it had had years to do that – recent reports from survivors of Omega Sector units that had encountered the massive cyborg told of a titanic, half-organic, half-machine monstrosity that was capable of tearing up the earth with its bare hands, sending shockwaves traveling along the ground with each smash of its metallic fists against the dirt, and sending 66-ton Crucio Siege Tanks flying like toys.
On-board weaponry built into Zeno's robotic arms only made it deadlier, able to spew out phase disruptor fire and anti-matter missiles at horrific rates, completely demolishing everything in its path. Frowning, Logan compared the data to the report that Hiroshi had given him, where it had stated that Zeno was simply a genetically and cybernetically enhanced Barnard Gray, reduced to a powerful brute with far greater strength and resilience at the cost of its psychic abilities.
Apparently the Grays had been hard at work on improving their Super-Gray. The Dragon Knight was visibly disconcerted by the information, but Logan decided to focus on the mission, dismissing the reports of on-board weaponry as mere exaggerations, and turned two Barnard Grays that were unwise enough to place themselves in his Vulture's path into roadkill, as he followed Dr. Kim's latest directions to the Gray's Prairie.
Meanwhile, atop a lofty perch overlooking the prairie, stood the wizened alien figure, gazing out upon the open, forested fields of Kulan. Towering behind him, towards his right, stood Zeno, the gargantuan behemoth standing still as a statue, awaiting its master's orders.
As the alien figure looked out over the horizon, a tiny, moving speck appeared in the distance, one that left a visible trail of dust in its wake as it weaved left and right through the Kulan forest.
I wonder if he'd recovered any of his memories after all these years. The wizened figure thought to itself, and smiled mentally to itself. It would certainly be a shame if he would deprive me of the pleasure of showing him what he truly is.
Beckoning to Zeno behind him, the Supreme Chief Gray disappeared from sight in a flash of blue light, followed promptly by the giant cyborg behind him… and then followed by the legions of Grays behind it.
