Chapter 3: Rearming
Mother Base, Blacksite Mike India-04 "Monster Island"
June 2nd, 2034 03:33 AM Pacific Time
Deep within the central command building of the Chimera on Monster Island, thousands of computer specialists, surveillance personnel and satellite patrol operators were working around the clock looking at their screen keeping their eyes peeled for turbulence around the world.
The massive screen on the wall and the various electronic boards showed a map of the globe, simulated sunlight of specific areas on the planet and topographical display. One of the satellites they had was now going over the Levant area of the Middle East when one of the operator got a ping on something suspicious. He punched in the coordinates, zoomed in the view and opened up the FLIR imagery on the big screen.
The operators in the room along with General Shepard, the African-American general of the GDI saw what appeared to be a strange hybrid gunship prototype, a squadron of them to be precise, around 4 gunships.
They saw the gunships appeared to have the cockpit of a Havoc gunship but the fuselage of an Mi-24 Hind Gunship with the coaxial rotor design of a Kamov helicopter. The gunships set down around the hillside village of the Palestines on the West Bank of the Jordan river and disembarked a force that was most definitely not the usual lot of Chimera or Orion peacekeepers.
These fighters were seen with arachnid like goggles, digital hexagonal desert camo uniforms and helmets. Their weapons were also not of Chimera stocks, these bullpup assault rifles with underslung grenade launchers and large thermal scopes on their tops were loaded with deadly hollow point bullets as they unload themselves on the civilian populations.
They systematically shot up the pedestrians who didn't expect an onslaught to be so daring in broad daylight, others who ran into their homes for shelters were greeted by the sight of grenades being lobbed through their windows or worse, gunships firing rockets and 30mm cannon shells down their roofs.
Those who ran were shot on sight, cornered like cattles, the paramilitary group lobbed grenades and other explosives at their victims blowing them to bits in violent sadistic glee. "Hey that baby was mine! You fucking hobo! I was supposed to have fun with that shit!" One of the fighters shouted to his supposed comrade only to have him pushed off. "Fuck you, you had yours now it's my turn to cut loose here." Said the other as he tossed corpses of the dead into the nearby water well and lobbed a grenade down before nonchalantly walked away.
The carnage continued with the paramilitary burning down the village, torching anything they saw along with cattles, livestocks and looted anything of values before returning to their gunships for a flight back to their homebase.
"Sir, we got a vector of their headings, Ramat David Air Force Base." Said one operator as he projected the heading of the four gunships heading northward towards Israel's northern area. Some of the Chimera's top figures such as Joe, Nicolas Williams were present in the War Room seeing the sight themselves.
Instantly Joe recognized the soldiers. Mainly the goggles and hyper advanced armor they all wore on their bodies. Something taken from Orion's Sword as a terror group, but something manifested into a much worst entity. He dropped whatever he was doing near instantly.
Joe's presence was already made very clear to the other solidres in the base. It wasn't hard to notice him and almost impossible not to notice him. He wore Orion Sword's commanding armor on his body. Once part of the terror group himself now a man made new by turning a new leaf. Though even in the GDI eyes Orion's Sword was less terror, and almost more of its own para-government.
His clothing appeared to be dark navy blue-near black thick combat clothes. Starting from his thick pants they seemed to be woven well with some type of bullet resistant material on the inside with the outside looking almost like a satin dark navy color. On his knee caps were metal pleated grey colored ends of a bulbous round shape with glow orange highlights on the lefts and rights of the pads.
He wore high topped combat boots for now with laces going all the way to the middle of the calves. Above his pants was a combat belt with aglow orange buckle with metal indents over the circle, and attach to this were large utility pockets.
For his extremely muscular torso that almost gave him the appearance of a tank man he wore a leather-like thick uniform with long sleeves that clung onto his body almost like a space suit. Shoulder pads with a glowing circle on both sides and finally leading down to metal looking round cuffs that ended at a pair of thick combat gloves of a black color. On the chest and abs of the man were commabt pockets with button straps ekkopign thm closed. 4 in rectangular shape on his chest, with two on each side.
His face though was well concealed behind a rounded grey helmet covering his head going down all the way to his mouth ending at a complex respirator vocal auditory system. A four piece contraption. A cylindrical tube pointing downwards at an angle, two mechanical files in front of his cheek bones, and an exhaler unit of a circular shape where a mouth should be. Finally two VR goggle like visors on rounded arms were in front of his eyes in thin cyan colored stripes, and a trio of glowing cyan colored circles on the sides of the arms in a triangle formation.
Joe as he was simply called opened one of the pocket on his chest pulling out an E-cigar. A brow matte colored cylinder with an organ tip. He pulled out what appeared to be a futuristic zippo lighter to light it by flicking it open and letting a beam of pale blue light light up the tip of the cigar orange. He huffed out in anger though seeing the atrocities played back on screen again and again. "Its Viper… They were never done. Just gathering forces, and growing stronger with our absences." Joe said lacing the inhaling tip of the cigar in his mouth.
"Fucking bastards, they're not even human anymore." Shepard commented in absolute shock seeing the sight of Viper's handiwork, a burned village, left to char and the dead lying untended to with no hope of being given a proper burial.
"The hell are they doing in Israel of all places? Ever since the nuclear bombs fell, the Israelis just dialed up their feuds with the Palestinians." Said Shepard as he flipped through the pages of his reports on the Levant's tension.
A thorn in the GDI's global policies and strategies for a while, Shepard himself saw the report showing that the Israelis have been speeding up constructions of new settlements in the West Banks while stalling and ignoring peace talks with the Palestinians.
The activities seemed to pick up its steem 3 months prior and peaked at the current time. "5 new settlements under construction already, they're not even trying to hide it." Said Shepard with a frown and chin stroking. "All the while the US is cutting down its military aids to Tel Aviv. I think they're getting a bit desperate and jumpy, not characteristics of the Israelis of 20 or 30 years ago." Shepard muse cautiously seeing that something was clearly not right in the situation of the Levant.
Joe nodded in agreement puffed out a breath of vapor into the air ahead of him before it vaporized mixing in with the air. He cleared out his gruff voice and spoke in a booming masculine voice. Baritone even. "Someone's pulling the strings. I don't go to quick conclusions, but the attack there was both strategic, and random. Something is pulling the strings right now. I don't doubt viper. Or whoever they work for now. Whatever they work for." Joe stated calmly grumbling his disappointment.
Behind them Nicolas Williams cleared his throat out. No wear near the booming voice Joe spoke in, and rather average. He of course sported long wavy brown hair that curled up at the end with he wore a pair of camo cargo pants with various pockets while he wore a simple shirt that bore the UNKCC logo. A picture of Heisei Gojira in a silhouette white coloration over the basic UN logo of earth. "So… basically we are fucked here right? That's the guys who got into Miami and then went agro all over you guys and made Grey angry. Like the guys who could fight Orion's Sword and win." Nicolas said in a shocked voice.
"Since when we were not?" Shepard asked sarcastically to Nick, for the grizzling veteran of modern warfare since the 1990s like General Shepard, nothing surprises him anymore in the world stage. But there can always be something out of the ordinary that might catch him off-guard once in a while.
"Hey uh sir we got something here, looks like some sort of electrical interference on our radar. Coming from map grid Hotel-5 Juliet 6." One of the radar technician shouted to general Shepard as he displayed a strange radar signature on the digital world map showing what appeared to be a storm like signature but this one was stationary, visual contact from one of the drone showed what appeared to be a portal, vortex like in appearance with a Luxury cruise liner sawing its way out of the portal and into the Pacific Ocean north of the Black Site. The ship had "Tartarus" written on its bowl as it began to head closer towards the island's deep water port area.
Nicolas saw the ship name Tartarus inching its way closer towards the island. Much too close for comfort for much of the GDI given the island's highly quarantined nature. As it glided through the water there was an odd chill that stung up the backs of the many personnel there. Nicolas got on the radio quickly to the island's coast guard, or anyone even listening. "Uhhh guys what the hell is a luxury vacation ghost shop doing going near the island? Seriously the locals get pissy when even a naval vessel is getting close. I think they'll be infuriated by G- G- GHOST vacationers…" Nicolas said.
"Sir we're seeing the ship but we don't know what the hell is it doing here or what kind of shit just happened." Nicolas heard the voice of a grunt reporting through the comms as he watched the GDI's Naval forces began to move out to intercept the luxury cruise liner.
Two frigates of vintage Oliver Perry Class ships of the were closing in around the cruise liner with naval SH-80 helicopters spooling up their rotor blades and took off from the landing pads. The helicopters flew over to the cruise liner's bowl and began to enter hover mode to drop down ropes on the Portboard side of the helo.
"Get on the rope, go go go!" The crew chief of the helo signalled, this caused a squad of UNKCC Rangers roped down on the deck of the ship's helipad with some GDI JTAC and specialists accompanying them to clear the ship.
Once they've fanned out around to secure their LZ, the humans there would see something was coming out of the nearby gymnasium, first were heavy clanking sound of metal making contacts with the deck, then the sunlight finally gave them a clear view of what was coming out to greet them, a hulking robot jackal with four LED optics on its head and four large arms on its torso. Following it was a squad of robot wolves, all standing on two legs with human like proportions as they fanned out with their weapons pointing at the Rangers and GDI.
The situation between the unknown party and the Rangers grew too intense for comfort. Though Nicolas only had a hunch to the identity of the mystery jackals. It didn't matter to him though as he quickly sucked up his hunches and got on the radio. "Rangers hold fire I think we know these guys… i think. One of you guys ask if they are the Jackal Guards like its a question to them and hopefully this resolves itself" Nicolas said crossing his fingers together anxiously.
"Jackal Guards?" the JTAC operator asked perplexed hearing this as he held his MP5N in hands to defend himself from any troubles that might arise. Soon enough, he saw someone coming out of the Gymnasium, the silhouette of a 6 foot tall jackal with jet black armor and a purple pelvic region was slowly coming into the light with a pair of pointy ears standing up from his head.
This was clearly who Nicolas was expecting, Anubis, Patron of the Dead. "You call?" He asked tersely to them causing them to gasp in collective shock seeing Anubis as his scepter morphed into form from purple smoke out of the thin air.
Accompanying him on both sides were two robot wolves in a more standout color, Belisarius and Arminius with Arminius to his left and Belisarius to his right. "Should we expect hostility today?" Arminius asked Anubis only to see him shook his head. "No, bloodshed will not be tolerated here. I know these like the back of my hand." Said Anubis with his voice echoing into the radio channel back to the War Room.
Not only Anubis's voice, but also the two wolves by his sides. Belisarius grumbled under his breath seeing the turn out of the GDI's full force security. "Definitely the most advanced security guard force I have seen. They didn't even bother waiting for us. They came to us full force. No question on it." Belisarius stated bluntly.
His voice though did something else to the GDI as they listened in. Joe hearing this started blankly. Like he saw a ghost fly past his face. Much of the beefy man turned frozen still for the moment and grit his teeth. Even Nicolas seemed to be spooked badly. "Uh… well. What is he here for? Any contact you can get us?" Nick asked.
Anubis then tapped on his right ear, dialing into the radio network of the GDI before speaking to them in a cautious tone knowing that his presence here might cause unwanted conflict if he worded too bluntly or too demandingly. "Simple, I'm here for some hardware acquisitions. Namely surplus you have in stocks. Payment will be up front, in Nubian gold so you won't have to worry about that. Also one more thing, I am aware that most of you will be… unnerved by my troops, just know that they won't hurt you and things will be fine." Said Anubis as his voice felt like the haunting sound of Death incarnate commanding them to play along with Anubis's demands.
"I ain't questioning him. Well wait a minute." Nicolas leaned down after giving the demands a quick thought. The surplus item seems pretty ambiguous to him still. "What surplus? We have a ton of surplus. Rex units? Pasted up fish by product formula? Bullets? Guns?... kaiju?!" Nicolas asked listing everything off at the top of his mind quickly. Some of the objects on his mind bring more caution than others given their various danger and threat levels. Namely the Rex Units he mentioned. "Rex Units are off limits right now. Sort of… they aren't for sale. Someone won't let them be sold off, and i wouldn't go telling her, her business." Nicolas stated.
"Tell lady Athena that I'm not here for her Rex Units. I'm here for something simpler. Much simpler, your arsenal of war machines. Tanks, APCs, raider buggies and IFVs since I'm a bit lacking of them." Anubis stated to them causing Shepard to look at Joe and Nicolas pondering whether it was safe. "I know we have surplus of those due to the War, but you think handing them a tank battalion would be more dangerous than a Rex Unit?" He asked rhetorically to the two trying to weight in the kind of threat they might be aiding.
Nicolas sighed and sat down back in his chair slumping forwards pouting a bit seeing Anubis stated the obvious truth to him and most of the world by now. "Fair point unless you rig a specter tank to fire timed nuclear warhead across the desert. If this is a desert related affair or if you're hear to deal with devil rex. Uh what do you guy think? Anything left?" Nicolas asked. Joe continued his ghostly silence still though not responding.
"That would be all, I'm coming ashore by your docks now so brace yourself." Said Anubis as he tapped out of the network and gestured for the ship to pick up its speed a bit as it began to head into harbor. The dockworkers there saw the massive luxury cruise liner coming towards them before slowing down to docking speed, the bowl of the ship seems to have been modified to be sharper and much more durable even. One worker there commented how it looked jagged like a saw to ram through enemy ships at their weak spots.
Once the ship came to by pier 45, the workers there saw the cruise liner was throwing down their ropes to secure the ship into port, once the vessel was safety secured into place, a causeway was seen coming down from the starboard side of the ship allowing the crew and what Anubis would call "Hoplite compliment" onboard going on shore leaves.
What the GDI, Orion and UNKCC personnel there saw was an army of robot wolves, jackals with a variety of color, mostly digital pixel camouflage patterns with some with a different color scheme to denote their officer rank, though the mortals were still rather perplexed by the styles. One of them was Arminius, following Belisarius disembarking the ship on the tropical island as he looked around bewildered as equally as the men there.
Nicolas once he arrived to the docks yawned looking to ship. More abnormal and possibly paranormal events for him to deal with now since certain recent events unfolded. He cleared his throat though looking to Anubis. "You look different Anubis. Have you been changing appearances again? Is that a thing gods do, or can do?" Nicolas said in a snappy voice looking to the docked ship confused. "Also what's the deal with the cruise ship? Kaiju here really hate it when they are being watched by military or science ships. They don't need to think rich people are watching them 24/7. They have intimate moments here. They don't need city people coming in watching any of this like its a nature tour." Nicolas rambled.
Belisarius though didn't see any of this as abnormal and simply watched the topical and yet militarized island with a careful eye that was curious. "Uh-huh. We'll respect the native's well being. And your uh Rex Units. I've heard a lot about them actually, but none here so far. Are they dismissed offduty right now perhaps?" Belisarius asked in a booming tone. Stoic, but so familiar Nick's eye twitched a bit finding it frightening he sounded just like Grey from the near past.
This of course did not end the human's apparent confusion and frights, with exquisite delight, he saw a robot wolf coming out of the cruise ship that caught his eyes. A shiny chrome plated arctic wolf with an athletic form with some deep blue panel lines on his head and chest and a blue pelvic plate.
He was coming down with blue LED optics darting around seeing the tropical island of strange creatures he had never seen in his life, what was even more bizarre to Nicolas and his Rangers was the sight of a strange biomechanical octopus hanging on top of the robot's head like a hat of sort with its tentacles spread down behind his head like hairs.
"Hey uh… sir… is that what I think it is? An mecha hentai film director for a hat?" One of the GDI grunt asked Nicolas perplexed by the bizarre sight as he tapped on Nick's shoulder pointing at the sight of the robot octopus on the robot wolf's head.
Nicolas at the moment was too stunned by the robot wolf here to say anything. Mostly he was distracted with its odd robotic appearance, combined with what should have been rather gooey looking tendrils. More so none of it really looked like it belonged with each other. "I...Don't know…" Nicolas said stunned.
As he saw the robot of interest coming towards him, it suddenly stopped in its track and looked over to him as if out of curiosity. He leaned in closer looking at Nick himself before the octopus lifted its tentacle to him and another Ranger next to him as if to offer a hand to shake.
"Laugh it off strangers, this is the best way to keep your sanity." Said the octobot in a thick British upper class accent. "Alfred, come on, stop it. We're already weird before what can be weirder now?" Charlie asked him glancing up at Alfred.
That was when Nicolas realize something, he had seen this thing before, a strange surreal encounter in his bathroom where he saw the robot in his mirror. Charlie too had the same realization when he stumbled back a bit pointing at Nicolas. "Wait! YOU! You're the one I saw in the mirror of the bathroom!" He gasped in shock at Nick.
Nicolas then pointed his own index finger to Charlie almost shouting the same thing. "AND YOU! You're the same damn thing from my bathroom vision when I'm trying to shave! Fusion wolf. Thing. Who the hell are you and why the hell were you spying on me in the bathroom. You know what goes on in a bathroom right? Locker Room i mean whatever. Just tell me what the hell that was if you even know." Nicolas stated.
"Me spying on you!? I just saw you through a mirror that's all! And what's Gillette anyway? I only know Lambette shaving brand." Said Charlie to Nicolas, intensifying the awkwardness of the situation, hearing the name Lambette caused Nicolas to be stunned along with the other Rangers hearing the punny animal based product name and how human like the robot was compared to the others.
"Wh- what?... wait Lambette? Is everything backwards where you are? Are you supposed to be me, but-" he paused himself from speaking looking at Charlie up and down. He made a less than pleased look staring at Charlie before looking away. "Wherever the hell you are from its way too sexy. Get him some pants." Nicolas whined.
"See what I mean o' boy? Even Logan stated that you need to change your look. But did you listen to me or him? Nooooo. Get roasted." Said Alfred as Charlie grumbled and walked away from Nicolas. "Yeeesh, and here I thought Reynards wasn't the only guy pushing me for 'Faggotry.'" Said Charlie as Nicolas felt something odd, his vision got blurry for a moment as an image of Reynolds flashed before his eyes before followed by a fennec fox with his voice shouting "Nicolas!" over the coms of a Coast Guard ship.
As the robot army marched nonchalantly into the base's barracks and armory area and form up into blocks, each worth a full company with Anubis walking into the area with Belisarius and Arminius following him closely, behind them was Charlie escorting and providing security. Anubis glanced around, noticing the Motor pool and armored depot where various combat vehicles were stored.
The place seemed to have fast attack vehicles, angular and sharp looking buggies with tri-barrel miniguns and a grenade launcher mounted on it. There were also M1126 Stryker ICVs and variants like the MGS, mortar carriers and IFVs. There were also AH-88 Blackfoot gunships and other vehicles for aerial transports such as V-120 Valkyrie of Orion's Sword. All of which were rather eye catchy to Anubis's taste for high tech weaponry.
Belisarius browed through the high tech military equipment making silent thoughts to himself as he wandered through the barracks. He kept his hands behind his back looking to the Orion Sword units specifically. "Aside from the palace Anubis this is some of the most high tech equipment i have seen thus far... This is the army my descendant led till his death? I still have to admit the odd choice to place a mother base, but I can't deny with those creatures roaming there's not one mortal who'd dare enter this place unless they were brain dead. I stand here now even feeling compelled to take caution. I advise you do the same." Belisarius spoke.
"Indeed, I used to have a camp here on this island. It was temporary and didn't last long either. I picked it up and packed myself away to modernize the army I have. Now coming back, I feel even more confident using these." Said Anubis as he began to have his robots marking out which portions of the surplus stocks they were going to take and how many vehicles can they carry with them onboard the cruise ship Tartarus.
As the robots were busy at work, Anubis was seen sitting next to Charlie by a nearby bench as the other robots were seen patrolling their lot and setting up securities around the place. "What is this world? And what are those… creatures? They're furless and… look so weird to me." Said Charlie in bewilderment as he pointed to one of the humans on a nearby watchtower.
"They're a species of mammals. Humans as they call themselves." Said Anubis to Charlie, which stunned him even more. "Mammals? Mammals for real? How come they're not in Zootopia? Have they gone extinct?" He asked Anubis ever more perplexed by this. "They might have in your home, though here they thrive. And the mammals you know in Zootopia are all feral." This statement sent shivers into Charlie, causing the robot to feel pale in a second.
Meanwhile inside Mother Base, Joe, Wallace Barringer and their GDI counterpart, Brigadier General Jason Grady were watching the robots from their surveillance camera and drones, with Jason being the most concern as he turned to Joe and Wallace. "So… anybody here thinks they've smoked too much weed? Because I know for sure I've seen the wolf robot next to the edge lord." Said Jason.
Barringer turned over to O'Grady and shook his head out. "Given the natural supply on this island and on Tanoa to the east I would say smoke fumes are still in the air. No one seems to be able to track the kaiju named Carkos. The one who seems to be anywhere at any given moment at any given time. We could very well be inhaling his fumes if we were too close to the base. The robots.. Well they couldn't possibly get high. They lack any type of organs to do so unless they were going by the MFS-4 synthetic organ system. I highly doubt that though." Barringer said.
Joe though grumbled to the two looking ahead. "Some cannabis sounds rather good right now. I can't say I wouldn't have a panic attack though. Given what i'm seeing right now this is high on the weird stuff i've seen thus far. Ever. Why they are all animals though is beyond me. Why two of them sound too familiar is what i really are about." Joe spoke.
"Yeah, I get it, the red and purple one. Don't know why not red and blue since that's what I grew up with." Said Jason as he looked back at the surveillance screen, he saw that the two robot wolves in particular stood out the most were Belisarius and Arminius with their names painted on their chest under a serial code numbers.
"Belisarius look at this, this vehicle is incredible, it can hide like the helmet of Hades or the cap of Perseus." Said Arminius in an awed tone, this sent shiver up Jason and Joe's spines simultaneously as he sounded exactly like Joe, only with a thick Italian Latin accent.
"See what i mean? They speak exactly like we used to... Lucky bastards." Joe said looking between the two of them. Somehow he could tell the two were closer than normal especially given how they matched each other words up. Plotting and planning together closer than brothers. "I've seen that before. Just not intense. The Belisarius one is just like Lenox was. Only less dark and foreboding. He doesn't want to nuke the world. And he doesn't seem to be the one in charge." Joe stated.
"That's it let's get out there and see them for ourselves! Heck we'll take those two in for diagnostic and inspections if we have to!" Jason grumbled as he felt increasingly awkward by the sight of how close the two robots were. He then went out of the command center towards the Motor Pool stock with Joe and Wallace following him.
As they came out to the Motor Pool they saw the two robot wolves were overseeing the other bots hauling a large amount of equipment, parts and vehicles they selected out to the ship. There they saw Arminius standing next to Belisarius, to his right to be precise, their distance seems to be a lot closer than what Joe and Wallace could interpret as brothers or close friends.
Even Jason could tell that something odd was going on with those two. "Belisarius, I think these mortals want something with us." Arminius cautioned as the two turned around to see the trio of high ranking individuals of the Chimera.
Belisarius turned around glancing at the Chimera leaders. He squinted looking at them and hummed in thought deeply. "Yes of course. We are one of the oddest things they have seen surprisingly. To others you should know you are the oddest things they may see. Though I'm surprised you find any of this odd. Given the mix of giant sized life forms that live among you. As we were coming in from the sea I noticed to the east a massive crystal fortress possibly acting as a massive sized barracks, or even sightseeing post." Belisarius said.
Nicolas's reaction though seems to debunk his theory rather fast though. "Uh. If by barracks you mean crystal spikey guy who smokes and drinks a lot still lives with his kaiju mom that adopted him since he was too sweet to leave alone. And then she spoiled him, and now there's dragons, and other weird things that live here now and they let some of hee Rex units go in and out-" All of it boiled down to Nicolas rambling items that only confused Belisarius and Arminus more.
Needless to say, Jason went into action stopping Nick in the midst of his rant as the Brigadier General then began to clear his throat out to the group to clear up their confusions. "Well the point is there's a lot of weird sights and events on the island and the archipelago. But we didn't expect a furry robot army to come here and buy up our equipment." Said Jason Grady before turning back to Nicolas as he whispered to Nick.
"You think you can tag along these guys just in case? I hate to see what would they do to our stuffs." Said Jason as he whispered closely to Nicolas, Arminius standing intimately close to Belisarius had his vision fixed on Joe apparently looking at him to assess the man. "I have a feeling this one is a descendant of mine Belisarius." Said Arminius gesturing towards Joe.
Joe then grunted in surprise to Arminius's statement and huffed out, but not offended. "Well sorry to say this Arminius, if that's your title. I don't really feel any familial bonds with whomever or whatever you are. Lenox told us it didn't matter who we came from. Just get back to the front and don't think about who we are. Never really mattered since we were all soldiers. Born to fight, or die while fighting for our cause. It as long and complex, but being bred out of a test tube can make a man like lEnox blank to everything. At least that's what he says he could remember." Joe stated with a rather dull blank voice.
Arminius was heard humming in thought as he stroke his metal chin as he nodded slowly to Joe though one thing they couldn't deny was the similarity Arminius's voice had with Joe. As Arminius and Belisarius started to leave for the harbor again with the robot army of Anubis, Nicolas and his Rangers were dispatched to keep an eye on them to make sure that nothing went wrong.
Once all were aboard and the ship cast off heading to the West of the Pacific, the reality began to sink in for the two factions onboard. For the Jackal Guards, they had acquired a fair number of vehicles to use, in the cargo bay under the ship, they had a storage of a battalion worth of Stryker, buggies, and a pair of Blackfoot gunships. More vehicles will have to be produced elsewhere but these would do.
The Rangers of Nicolas were on the higher decks of the ship where they found that vessel seems to have a large amount of shops, spacious and scenic cabins and entertainment decks, all of which had animal themes and punny animal brand names. Nicolas and Cassidy were able to see a store named "Mousy's" in the shopping area, then there was a Snarlbucks coffee shop and a Zuber advertisement board.
Nicolas for whatever reason seemed to be watching where he was walking while looking down on the ground. Due to multiple reason in his head as the whole ship only confused him. "Wait i thought this fucking thing was from the deity realms. Why is there so much dad jokes all over the damn place? Who the fuck-"
He felt a hand pat his back. Apparently one of the female Rangers there simply named Cassidy by the others pat his back stunning him from speaking anymore. "Nick sir just go with it. I don't think human minds are supposed to get all of this weirdness. It's just gonna come to us I think as it goes on." Cassidy said to him.
Nicolas looking at the Snarlbucks cringed a bit scratching his head. "Something my dad would joke about. Wherever this thing is from is a place i'm not wanting to live. I'm happy with the radiation and monsters. And the offshore base. So many questions. Why are they using a luxury passenger ship for this stuff?" Nicolas asked himself.
As he asked his questions in an otherwise crazed rant about the animal puns onboard the Tartarus, he felt an odd and foreboding atmosphere, something rather disturbing and not quite right with him. He felt the chilling sense of death, haunting and chilling fright of possible dead linger on around the place as they repeat their activities in a looping limbo.
In fact occasionally, he saw a glimpse of a robot lion walking about shouting and talking in his voice of all people's, not only that but the apparition before Nick's eyes seems to be terrified, confused and felt… violated.
While then, in the cabin area, Belisarius and Arminius found a cabin of their own to stay in, one overwatching the green park and the shopping area of the ship. Their cabin seems to be a fine place to live for the duration of their stay onboard the Tartarus with a King size bed for the two of them.
The wardrobe seems to be emptied save for some pajamas made of wool for them to wear. The bathroom seems to have been redesigned and meant to accommodate their robotic bodies with waxing and cleaning methods closely akin to car washes. Arminius at that point closed the door behind them as he began to wrap his arms around Belisarius's waists amorously and proceeded to kiss his lips suddenly.
"This I believe is our first time free to express ourselves to each other. I never thought this body still give me the urges." Said Arminius as he moved his arms down to grab hold of Belisarius's rather well rounded and toned rumps.
The purple robot lupine was now inches away from Belisarius, soon he was chest to chest with him as he kissed his partner's lips vigorously. Arminius then gently laid Belisarius down on the bed, with him on top and Belisarius on his back the two seems to have forgotten who they were for a moment and were deeply falling into their Robot Wolves personas.
Belisarius layed down on his back on the bed and intertwined his rather fleshy lips with his partner's. Here alone to themselves they had a lot more liberties to convey their love for each other with more freedoms.
Outside of the cabin, the hallways were being patrolled by various robot canines as they settle into the cabins and make themselves at home. Their movements and stiff body languages seems to bring to mind the Rex Units and their stiff nature in general.
But these robots differ slightly by how natural they were with settling in, organizing their wardrobes with minimal clothing and personal hygiene. One of them even proceeded to wax its own chassis as soon as it got inside the bathroom. In the lower sanctums of the ship, Anubis and Charlie were leading what was essentially a tour for a group of Orion and Ranger observers into the ship's robot assembly plant.
The automated facilities had various industrial robots like in a car factory assembling plant with the robot skeletons rolling out of a molding section of the plant. The skeletons would then have various components welded on them before being placed inside a large cryostasis chamber to have artificial muscles and flesh developed over their mechanical skeletons and synchronized with their cybernetic components.
The robots would then be put into an armor assembling area where armor plates were attached to them with cables plugging into the outlet on the back of their necks to program them. The sights that made the Rangers and Orion personnel turned their collective stomachs and rolled their eyes was the sight of each robots having a cable plugging into their tail holes to power them up.
Something about the way they actually had anatomy though seems to disturb them a lot more. Their most sensitive regions were oddly animal like in their shape, which in turn really made about all of the soldiers there as well as miscellaneous personnel groan with displeasure as they watched.
Though for as disgusting as seeing the synthetic and metal components mimic both human and animal anatomy there was some intrigue coming from Wallace Barringer in the crowd. Though not a perverse type of intrigument. Something logical with some caution. He got out a military phone with a camera and made a specific phone call to the UNKCC back on the island.
Specifically the phone of Eli Baline started to ring. Though he seemed rather busy himself looking over pictures of some type of x-ray of what was definitely a godzillian skeleton with oddly enough digitigrade legs with three joints rather than a plantigraded 2.
"Dammit Eli. This is important. Enough fussing over the infant…" Wallace grumbled to himself. He looked back to the developing robots and cleared his throat out. "It all resembles what we did with the MFS-4 frames when those were still the current generation of the MFS suit and unit. Synthetic simulated organ systems right down to the sexual level. Digestives, heart." Barringer explained.
In fact some of the photos Eli was receiving seems to make Wallace's words right on the money, much to Eli's absolute amazement and perhaps some bizarre reactions, he saw the robots themselves seems to have synthetic lungs, hearts, stomach, digestive organs even reproduction organs for their Nanites. The general placements alone also suggest that these were meant to pro-create or even mate with others.
The Orion and Rangers saw that at the end of the assembly process the robots were placed in a VR training space where they had life sized weapon replicas with VR modules attached on them for training.
Each of the canine bots had a head mount device similar to an Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR headset, the bots appeared to raise their weapons up and were firing at an enemy type and moving about in their VR space similar to Rex Units and human VR training on Mother Base.
"Base on preliminary data of their VR training, a few of the 50 or so bots created a day will be appointed as officers to have their AI modified and upgraded to accommodate commander parameters." Said Anubis as he observed the robots training.
As much as the operation seems to have its good motives as well as professionalism the Chimera members seems to have found all of this rather off putting judging by their faces. "Why but why do they have to have penises? Like all of them are guys. I think. I don't like what i'm seeing, and i'm not sure how close to bestality this is… Which is illegal in several states right now. Don't touch me im straight!" Nicolas complained averting his eyes well away from most of this.
"It's… odd, but its not sexualized. Not to me. This is some form of advanced biology. Mixed with engineering. We were doing much of this long before this was a thing. Even with calcium biological godzillian bodies we had to make sure each organ no matter they were, were functioning. Even with Hera biologists and engineers were working monitoring each and every organ." Barringer explained in a rather professional tone.
"Oh yeah I'm sure she's grateful to know her womb and everything down there are all in working condition just fine. Can we move on from this now?..." Nicolas groaned.
"Certainly Mr. Pawilliams, son of Zeus." Said Anubis in a rather sarcastic tone as he led the tour on to a different part of the ship's assembly area. They finally arrived at the last leg of the assembly plant with a large staging ground where countless robot wolves and Jackals were standing in parade formations in a small confine. They had cables plugged into their tail holes to power them up and were in stand by mode.
With a single finger snap by Anubis, the robots powered up with their heads looking up at him and focus on the tourists he led. "They're rather reactive. But they're good with their roles. These are Machinaoi Hoplitai. Greek for Machine Soldiers. So far I have about 5500 of them. Planning to expand the number to a larger force." Said Anubis as the robots stood still like statues looking at him, they pan their heads to keep up with him.
"Wait what?!" Nioclas blurted out. He seems to have forgotten the quip Anubis dealt out rather quickly after the number of bots had been mentioned to him. He even seems to have forgotten how they were charged looking at each one of them.
"Uh. So you do have a security protocol if say someone were to suddenly take the keys and hijack the army right? Or if one of them realized 'hey i don't like being someone's chess piece. I'm going to start my own robocalypse.' and goes berserk. You have a plan right?" Nicolas asked concerned.
"I do, but I'm not telling you how for the former. For the latter I have my methods, i.e retirement for the AI if it's tired of warfare." Said Anubis as he led them to the higher decks of the ship where apparently some of the robots seem to enjoy some leisurely activities much like humans do. They appear to swim in pools, partake in skeet shooting, tennis and golfing.
Among the robots there, Nicolas and Wallace saw that there were some robots that were noticeably more lively, expressive than the stiffer ones fresh off the assembly lines. There were some pairs doing wrestling with one another, but not the American Wrestling type but Ancient Greek Pankration boxing and wrestling.
"Those are the robots made from veterans of my army. They're basically injected with Nanites to have their bodies morphed and molded into synthetics and the rest is like the other bots but with their personalities remain." Said Anubis as they saw the robot canines enjoy themselves onboard, they spoke in Ancient Greek dialects and others in Ancient Egyptians that none of the modern humans were able to understand.