It had been almost an ten minutes and Cassandra still found it hard to stop the shaking, it was, terrifying for her when the interior of her ACU formed, it was like looking at liquid metal hardening, changing, trapping her, only when the entirety of her ACU had been fully formed had the systems come to life, revealing what she was inside.
Still, some things, no matter how fascinating, was still simply, terrifying.
It took some time to snap her out of her daze and let her unlock the main seal, when that was done she heard a strange sound come from her right side but as she was about to turn to look she was told to stop, the voice of the man that had escorted her around.
"Alright ma'am, what's your name?"
"Cassandra."
"Alright Cas, I'm Daniel, just, trust me alright, you see that button to your bottom left?"
She looked down and saw it, a single button with a glowing occasionally, likely to get her attention.
"That's the primary motion lock control, press it to turn off the system."
"Motion lock?"
"it's, a new system we've been developing, its currently only active in seven other ACU's, just, press that button to switch it off so we can get you out."
She slowly reached for it and gently pressed the button, it stopped glowing.
"Alright, now, you can move over to here."
Cassandra became aware of the fact that she was sitting down on some sort of chair, she was pretty securely locked by several restraints around her waist and legs, but without any help she found out how to get free.
"nice, alright she'll take you to a place where you can recover, just be back here in five minutes for your basic training alright?"
Although still shaking Cassandra refused, instead she secured herself again.
"Look cas-"
"No, I've spent most of my life getting to this point, now let's do this so I can get out there."
One of the others laughed and she heard Daniel make an annoyed grumble, money quickly changed hands.
"Alright, remember that I did give you a chance."
Daniel and the others stepped out of the ACU, telling her first how to switch the power systems from passive to active before she closed the seal.
A large display formed in from of Cassandra, showing her not only considerable amounts of information of her surroundings, but also a clear visual of what was in front of the ACU.
As the initiate tried to absorb the knowledge that was being thrown before her a semitransparent image formed, another operator like Daniel...
"Alright, let's leave off the motion lock till you've gotten used to old faithful."
"Sounds good to me."
Daniel was impressed to say the least as he watched this new initiate learn how her ACU functioned, she was a quick study and had easily shaken off the initial trauma of being synced with her new construct.
he did wonder though if she knew that her ACU was linked ONLY to her, unlike the Cybrans or the UEF, an Aeon ACU had varying methods to make certain that its operator was the right one, a simple little defense against having one of them captured by the enemy.
But what really surprised Daniel was when she discovered the construction routines and activated them, opening up her basic engineering suite.
"Cassandra? What are you doing?"
"Seeing how far I can push this thing."
The one she was talking to was about to stop her but Daniel intervened.
"Elaborate."
"you've got to have some practice troops here for me to fight, bring them in.
Her, request, brought a smile to Daniel.
"Alright, you have thirty seconds, build up a defense as quickly as you can, then we'll see what you've got, oh, and let's close off the communications, just to add some realism to this hmm?"
"Got it."
Cassandra did as told, shutting down the communications before she could be stopped.
"Sir, what are you doing?"
Daniel chuckled, this wasn't part of the procedure.
"She wants a challenge, so lets provide one."
The operator's chuckle had some of the others' hair stand on end.
Cassandra kept a very close eye on the Radar, but when she saw the blips appearing she found it, hard to believe, it was like watching a stream come at her.
She barely had any defenses up, this was going to end badly for her, she needed to think of something.
In the end she could only think of one thing, she walked away from her defenses and straight to the enemy.
"What is she thinking?"
Daniel's chuckles were the only answer to that question, he had an idea of what she was going to do.
Cassandra saw them, mainly tanks and Assault bots, all of them were tier 1 aeon land forces, she chose the bots.
Capture subroutines were activated in her ACU, allowing her to convert some of the 'enemy' forces over to her control, but instead of keeping them with her, she sent them out, straight through the center of the enemy forces.
This offered her a somewhat simple delaying strategy, although it allowed some damage to befall her ACU, as she would say, it was a calculated risk, it did offer her a chance to retreat behind her defenses and construct a basic land factory, once it was up she left it, heading over to the enemy wave, capturing more and reclaiming some of them, converting them to raw mass contained in the ACU's onboard storage for her to use.
The land factory began construction of several engineers the moment Mass was available for use, using quantum transportation to take the mass out of the ACU's storage.
The moment one of the engineers was fully formed it headed over to Cassandra, allowing its systems to activate and immediately start repairs.
Despite the advantage Cassandra was getting a bit concerned, even with her new engineers committed to repairs, she was still pretty badly hurt.
Three engineers were solely dedicated to repairing the ACU, when the fourth formed she had it construct another land factory, the fifth headed over to join the ACU in capturing enemy troops.
"Impressive initiate, but let's see how you handle this…"
Daniel activated the aerial practice troops, sending several bombers to her.
Cassandra's radar picked up the new threat when it came into range, she immediately started construction of an Anti Air turret, once it was done she and the engineers repairing her retreated back behind the defensive line, two of them were instructed to construct several more point defenses while the last one joined her in constructing Anti Air.
it seemed pretty grim when the bombers came into range but she had a gut feeling, immediately having her ACU walk away from its current position.
Luck or something more? Whatever it was saved her, the bombers dropped their shells on nothing more than polished floor, some of them were even destroyed by the growing AA defenses forming.
"Now than, one last test, let's see what she will do about, this."
Daniel was about to do something that was definitely going to bring harm to Cassandra but his hand was grabbed mere moments before it was too late.
"That's enough."
He didn't even need to look at who it was, that voice told him plenty.
"Of course Crusader, have her recalled."
Daniel was let go as the one who stopped him handed him new orders.
Cassandra was to rest for an hour before joining a briefing with the Avatar-of-War Jaran Marxon.
It concerned Daniel, sure he would push her and maybe push her too far but getting her involved with Marxon meant she was going to be joining the more dangerous parts of the war.
"Damn, alright, let's get this over with."
No part of Daniel liked this, it was pretty obvious that Cassandra was exceptionally talented but, she hasn't faced any real enemy yet.
"Don't worry, ill keep an eye on her for the first deployment." Stated the crusader before walking away.
That at least offered Daniel some form of relief, not a lot but at least, some.
