Chapter 7: Erotica and Philosophy
Athens, Greece
November 1st, 2026; 11:30 AM
Her honeymoon had gone perfectly so far, breakfast with fine Greek bread dipped with honey, walk around Athens port of Piraeus and the Akropolis all morning, now she was resting by the hillside of the Parthenon's ruins and looking down on the city. The sun shone on her skin making her out to be a rather oddly tanned woman with the complex being nowhere like what normal people would recognize. Rather it was unusually tanned and dark, almost as if she came from a different time period with different climate.
Her husband Mr. Winter was still busy taking photos around the Parthenon she took her time to look around for sight seeing on her own. She walked down some stairways to a blind man sitting by some marble stone ruins of ancient column pillars.
He had a rather thick bushy beard running down his chest which was light grey, while his clothing, torn and ragged speaks of poverty stricken as his baggy pair of khaki had holes and cuts in it. He wore a pair of dark shades for the blind with a metal walking cane to help plot his way around. His empty coffee mug was half full with some Euro banknotes and dollar bills with some spare changes.
"Zeus still kept you punished, Phineas?" She asked and sat down by the torn off the top of a pillar. "Aye, the Gods can be wise but also cruel and wicked. You heard the news?" He asked to which she frowned and nodded. "I did, you were supposed to beat them, paving the way and steal the Scion." She replied coldly with an annoyed tone in her voice.
"And failed, we had toys yes, but we're not meant to fight gods. It was a suicide mission and I lost three good men doing your bidding."; "Three of yours, not mine." She snidely remarked with toxic coming out of her every words and hisses. "Your inability to terminate those Rex Units endanger me, they'll trace those remains to New York and my financial well being is finished, so will yours." She huffed out with the "Beggar" tapped his cane on the ground slightly before remarking.
"You want a soldier? You got one. If you want luck, coinage can't buy it. No nation on Earth today is yours to call home to begin with." Said the "Beggar" as he stood up and began to walk away from sight. "You want a life of adventure, don't you? Off that husband of yours, it's easier to disappear now than later." Said the beggar in a thick British accent as he scoffed at her and walked away from sight before she finally left the scene heading back to her husband Winter.
"Hey babe where were you? Did you see anything cool around the Akropolis? Or did you see anything cool right now in front of your eyes?" Winters teased her and held her hand in his tenderly, she chuckled heartily before kissing his cheek. "Oh darling I think I see more than just gods today."
Miles away from the bustling city center and its port, Girain found a place for herself to relax, sitting by the rocky coast of Attica looking at the city of Athena, and her namesake, she sighed and swooned at its sight and ancient beauty. A charm that modernity simply could not have taken away even with the passage of time. She was pressing her back up against the rocky cove where Aegeus threw himself into the water.
Her abdomen being partially submerged in the Aegean Sea water with the metal plates reflecting the water surface and the sunlight giving her a more shiny and polished look as if she was bathing in her own private bath. Stuka remained ever closer to her, swimming around in circles, occasionally breaking the monotonous routine by making a graceful dive and leap like a dolphin.
"You seem to enjoy the outdoor Unit Athena? Is there a purpose to this method of yours? Regulations from our respective organizations suggest we should stay in door for maintenance." Stuka asked as he swam over to Girain's side and let himself floated naturally next to her, she soon paid attention to his question and stroked him on his back with her fingers reaching between his dorsal plates in slow and gentle strokes. "Yes, there is." She replied tersely but gently.
Stuka felt the sudden tingling of pleasure by her hand gestures started to feel weak and wobble. He began to lean over and slowly pressed his head against her chest feeling her fingers rubbing and stroking his backside. On instinct he began to purr like a cat and slowly let her work her magic on him while contently let himself be soft and vulnerable. The navy blue Rex Unit pressed his still covered face up against her chest and let her rub some more feeling the odd sensation that was truly an enjoyable bliss he never felt before.
"W-what is this… vibration? Why am I feeling… comfortable? Why is it so… relaxing?" Stuka asked confused while panting and breathing out in slow steady pace as he slowly wrapped his arms around Girain's waistlines and cuddled up to her on instinct, he felt oddly calm and at peace. "That's the idea of it. Relax and comfortable. I get stiff in my hangar if I stay too long, so this is to help stretch and relax your muscles."
Hearing this Stuka began to purr out louder like a cat, he struggled to hold on to his professional composure while letting Girain stroke his back before looking up at her face. Their optics and visors met, facing directly into each other while slowly raise his head up to her level. "Do Unit Corsair and Santa Muerte practice these relaxing methods like you are doing to me?" He asked Girain sounding barely professional at all as Girain let out a soft giggle at him. "Yeah they do, I taught Shiryu how, since he was the first Rex Unit with the same personality as you." She stated bluntly and casually, devoid of any monotonous robotic voice that one would associate with a sentient giant mech.
As Stuka and Girain were laying there looking at the city of Athens under the high noon sun they can't help but picture themselves in the same place but different time. Girain would project a diegetic overlay simulating ancient Athens in its golden age. She would see a towering golden giant statue of Athena standing proudly overlooking the city from the Akropolis. Stuka could not help but drew comparison of his own, viewing the many tankers moving in and out of Piraeus today like Trireme and Bireme Greek warships of old.
"You seem to have a fondness towards classical antiquities. Is there a reason for you to take interest in mythologies? Orion Sword often find it illogical for us to have interests in those." He asked her curiously, to which she sighed out swoon by the sight of Hellas numerous hills and beauties. "Myths aren't always logics and reasons, they're stories meant to inspire its listeners. They're the building blocks of a people's culture and sense of identity."
Hearing her words being like a woman under the trance of Eros, Stuka could not help but glanced over his shoulder to face her thinking that he might be on to something for the first time since they met. "To inspire? To be… unique and find interpretations outside the box." He remarked sheepishly but feeling a sense of revelation rushing through his dull head, to his relief he saw her nodding.
"Yes indeed. I don't know why they chose Corsair or Stuka as Rex Unit codenames, I guess Mr. Grey likes aviation. I can get why I was given the name Athena, wise and kind, brave and just, a warrior full grown upon birth and debut." She mused while planting her chin on the palms of her hands and Stuka cocked his head to the side curious. "Orion Sword noted your independency and cunning before. You have yet to cease to amaze them, including me." He uttered to her calmly lapsing back to his robot voice from before.
"Really now? I'm that intriguing to them?" She retorted rhetorically to Stuka but it came off as more like a half hearted attempt at humbleness and humility. Girain then stood up slowly, mindful not to cause a wave or earthquake to the nearby population centers. "Come on, I think we should be back to the JEOC* by now." (Author's note: Joint Expeditionary Operation Center)
Stuka whimpered and sighed out feeling rather disappointed by the fact that his rare time relaxing outdoor came to an end too soon. He seems reluctant to follow her for once even when she had taken ten steps away from him, nonetheless he followed her regardless out of obedience to his programming. The two would make their way from Aegeus Cove to the nearby Naval Base of the Greek Navy near Piraeus. This one however had a hangar built into the mountainous coast created for stationing of Mecha Units like Girain or a Rex Unit.
He saw the massive facility inside had room for a total of 5 mecha units with a large common room in the middle of the hangar for the mecha units to sit, interact with humans or lust lie down. Chikiryu and Shiryu were present there, plugged into the base's mainframe network to copy and paste their blackbox recordings and data of the operation.
"I take it that you only turn in your blackbox to approved Orion Sword bases or contacts right?" Shiryu asked begrudgingly towards Stuka and saw the rival Rex Unit nodded to him. "Affirmative Unit Corsair, for the sake of data encryption integrity." Stuka remarked robotically using the factory default codename of Shiryu causing the first Rex Unit in existence to growl in anger. It was no secrets that it was his personal berserk button, the moniker given to him by what was best a traitor who had replaced him with another Rex Unit.
"Shiryu, pipe down already pendejo! You're scaring big sis's boyfriend. So how was your date? Did you guys kiss yet? Any plans for kids and families in the future?" Chikiryu asked teasingly towards Girain seeing the taller and more beefy cyborg shrugged and cringed in nervous thoughts, Girain angrily retaliated with a retort, "Well how about you and Shiryu? Any luck with your own love life yet?" Chikiryu rolled her eyes hearing this and only shrugged lightly at Girain. "Gotta say big girl, Rexy here is dull as a brick but I think I'm chipping away at him, his heart is all mine for the taking." She giggled playfully seeing Shiryu shuddered hearing her mentioning the chipping of his heart.
"She is chipping Corsair's heart with a chisel?" Stuka asked dumbfoundedly apparently understanding it literally. Causing Girain to burst into a slight chuckle of amusement before replying to him. "No Stuka it's figurative speaking, metaphor for winning someone over and fall in love with them." Stuka cocked his head aside thinking about the meaning of the phrase. "Then by that logic, am I... chipping away at your heart... Unit Athena?" he asked stuttering nervously to Girain hoping that she would offer him an answer that seem rational.
He however only hear Chikiryu burst out laughing loud and hard at his question while Shiryu groaned as he stepped out of the paddock and rubbed his head groaning. "Please Chiki stop it, they're embarrassed enough already." He could only hear Chikiryu giggling even further as she came to Stuka in long strides to show off her thighs and lean in on him seductively.
"Does this view please you Orion boy? I think deep down you're wondering if you can get under my armor. Or my big thicc sis there." Chikiryu teased him seductively with her armored chest being so close to his view that he could only look directly down her body length. Shiryu was fed up with the showing off and quickly grabbed Chikiryu from behind and dragged her away from Stuka, "That's it Chiki! If you want some attention you got me!" Shiryu growled assertively to her.
She however laughed back at him and pushed him down on his back, before spreading her legs out and kneeling down on top of him and looking down at him teasingly as if she had breasts to show off. "Awwww what's the matter Rexy, wanna have a love triangle? Well that's too bad, because you just cut my fun short." She hissed back at him causing Stuka to shudder in fear seeing Chikiryu's dominant nature and her sexual appetite towards male Rex Units.
"Uhhh don't worry Stuka, you know I won't do that to you." Girain assured him as she wrapped her hands around him, prompting him to return the favor for her without hesitation and buried his face into her chest feeling the warmth of her artificial muscles radiating into him and his own organic radioactive warmth into her. "Haaa! I knew it that he was gonna do that! Ya see that Rexy? They're hugging and cuddling, it's love I tell ya, I knew it I'm the matchmaker saint!" She exclaimed eagerly to Shiryu while humping up and down on him causing him pain and panic. "Chiki! Stop it they're looking at us! I'm not ready to be on YouTube yet!"
The begging by Shiryu only ceased when Chikiryu got off of him chuckling and strutting away making sure that he can see her rumps in full view as she shook them side to side. She then spank Stuka's rumps and smirked under her helmet when he whimpered and moaned in surprise, "By the way you two, boss men Stanton and Coleman wanna see y'all. Something about that Scion thing we found." Girain nodded to Chiki as she and Stuka walked along the narrower corridors and hallways of the Hellenic Naval Base towards a research chamber where the Scion of Atlantis was stored.
There the Scion was placed in the middle of the room with various electrical prods attached to it to monitor the electrical currents and patterns it displayed. They noticed that when humans are around, there was nothing unusual. But once Girain and Stuka came in the readings spiked off the charts showing strong resonant and reactions when Girain and Stuka came closer to it. The Scion slowly lifted up and levitated in mid air apparently all by itself and radiate crackling electricity as it sensed Girain and Stuka close to it.
"Hey guys, hope you uh, don't mind us watching what happened in the hangar… it was weird, but that's what happened when Chiki is around." Coleman nervously chimed in on Girain and Stuka's coms as the two didn't seem to mind much. "I know, I was a bit worried for Stuka's sake since I know he isn't exactly the type to be accustomed to the whole thing with her." Said Girain with a cringed mental expression while Stanton was more nonchalant and sarcastic deadpan in comparison. "I'm more worried that you two might conceive a child together. Cute but also worrying." Stanton remarked causing both of them to cringe at the same time.
"Alright we're picking up the same energy pattern again. Looks like it's DNA encoded to you guys that's for sure. Curious case. The last time it did that the Scion was conducting a data dump." Coleman noted and mused curiously seeing the Scion of Atlantis electrical discharges corresponded to the rise in data inside of Girain and Stuka. Girain's hard drive was seeing a spike in space being used as more gigabytes worth of digital data being forcefully transmitted into her giving her what could best be described as a headache.
Stuka too groaned in pain and ache as he felt his Rex Unit armor suit was having a hard time processing the enormous amount of knowledge of the Atlantean artifact. "Don't worry we got you cover this time, initiate data dump procedure!" Rick called out on the P.A system prompting the humans ground crew to quickly grab the nearby chords and reel them over to Girain and Stuka, they aimed for the neural outlet port on the back of their necks and lodged the cords into place. Once in, they had the nearly endless amount of data being downloaded into their mainframe, lighting the proverbial load for the two.
"Ugh… it hurts, my head hurts. Interrogative, what kind of data are we looking at, Mr. Coleman?" Stuka asked groaning as he sat down on the floor with his back against the wall to have himself propped up. "Well from what we found here, it looks like a series of floor plan and architect scheme, layouts of Atlantis. Looks like there are plans for colonies beyond the main continent as well. There's a whole map of them, around the late Mesozoic Age. We'll cross reference maps of the Earth to see if we can find any remaining colonies and the exact modern coordinates of Atlantis."
Stanton whistled in awe as he helped deciphered the various data dumps from Girain and Stuka, he found what could be a windfall of data and treasure trove of information. Revelations of the key to coexistence that would have left Serizawa stunted with his mouth gaping, here Stanton was doing that for the late doctor. "Stuka, Athena, you guys may want to look at this…" He paused mid sentence as he then forwarded his findings to Girain and Stuka's HUDs showing them what appeared to be an Atlantean genetic experiment.
Hieroglyphics and pictograms of the Atlanteans written with various depictions of a Godzilla showing the King of the Monsters holding what appeared to be a shield and spear in both hands, standing at focal point and roared over the other Titans of Earth like a warrior King. The other depictions showing the Atlanteans were living with Godzilla with the King depicted as a towering figure over the city with his shadow casted over the crowds of humanoid Atlantean populace.
"They put the God in Godzilla before we do." Said Girain with a slight giggle of humor before she attempted to read the hieroglyphics with Stuka help. As they read through the texts, they began to understand what these meant almost like giant archaeologists reading through parchments of uncovered ancient scriptures and texts. "It looks like they were working on creating an Alpha Godzilla, more intelligent than the feral one we know." Stuka noted.
"Stuka… I think they were trying to make a Godzilla as intelligent as humans, something that can work as a mediator between the two." Girain squinted her eyes showing Stuka what she was able to compile together, the roughly translated version along with depictions of Godzilla and the DNA helix with various slightly corrupted and unclear depictions showing the DNA gaps made in purpose could be filled in with by something new, custom DNA and genetic materials.
"How are they doing that? The DNA materials must have come from somewhere. This simply defies all sense of scientific conventions." Sam asked rhetorically and scratched his head completely dumbfounded by the revelation and information, Stanton himself scratched his chin being more interested and curious about the genetic manipulation of the Godzilla by an ancient primordial civilization. "More importantly, what were they trying to make? Or who in their rank was working on these?" Girain asked curiously and stroke her metal chin reading the parchments and incomplete texts. She could tell from the incomplete writing and the manner of how the Scion pieces were found and fused together, some of the information was redacted.
"That reminds me something, how is Mr. Grey Stuka? Or am I not clear for disclosure?" Sam chimed in speaking to Stuka directly for the first time while looking directly at Stuka's face, which was covered by his navy blue helmet. He noticed that Stuka cocked his head upward looking at the scientist and MONARCH tech specialist. "Correction, you are cleared for disclosure along with Unit Athena. Communication with Orion Central has been… minimized as of late." Stuka explained to him before looking back at the call logs to Orion Central.
Most of the calls displayed on his helmet's HUD showing that on average he would have made at least 10 to 15 SitReps to Orion Sword Central. However in the past two days, his SitReps had been minimized to roughly half that number, most of which were inconsequential matters such as climate and weather situations or hunting trips with Girain or his observation of the King of Monsters and the family.
"I get why he does that, leaks?" Girain saw Stuka nodded to her question as he maintained his vision on Sam's face. "Affirmative, twice that our operations were compromised to a certain extent. Communication to Central is on secured line at least until we know who set us up."
[hr]
Looking out of his office down the sprawling cubicles and various sections of his underground base. His eyes scanned across them one by one suspicion and paranoia radiating from the optics of his helmet and mask. Behind him Joe Marshall was observing the various communication traffics coming in and out of the base. It was a maze for the Orion Sword XO, they had agents all across Central Asia, more lone wolves across the globe to observe the world. Authenticating their IDs and security measures for integrity was taking forever.
"No luck?" Grey asked without even glancing over his shoulder, Joe simply shook his head and rubbed his tired eyes at the endless stream of data that he had to handle. "You know the answer would be that. Twice that we got compromised, and the most recent one, Jonah got firepower from mecha units that he couldn't have gotten otherwise." Joe mused groaning and cracking his neck, Grey simply stood still looking down at the cubicles below pondering in thoughts.
"Joe, what would you want from a man when he joins Orion Sword?" He asked the XO, to which Joe sighed out and poured himself a shot of Loch Lomond to drown his stress away. "Integrity, willingness, personal initiative, creativity, and discipline. Need I go on?" He remarked rhetorically. Knowing his organization's core principles for its members, Grey himself began to narrow down the demographics of his suspects.
"Where would a mole be if he were to compromise a military operation?" He asked Joe with a pop quizz like tone, Joe heard this and began to walk over to Grey looking down at the sight of Orion Sword sprawling base and hangars for their navy blue Rex Units. "Close, possibly high up, somewhere he can see maps and charts, ORBATs and the likes." Grey nodded to Joe's assessment as he then began to eye the cubicle area for one certain wing that he knew to be occupied by a rather shifty figure. "Indeed, there are loyalties that can be bought. We bought him once, who's to say another won't?" He remarked rhetorically as his gaze began to fix on the general direction of Rabi's cubicle.
Rabi himself was sitting by his cubicle, his eyes darted around wildly looking nervous and paranoid at everyone else around him, his computer screen jumped between windows of his bank account to the various surveillance operations and SysOp of the organization's networks. He looked rather sick, pale green and swollen from fear, but from what? Others slightly paid him a glance in curiosity but never bother asking.
Rabi knew from mission logs and black box from debriefed Orion operators that the recent ops was a success despite enemy intervention. It would not take long for Grey to figure out the mole's identity, he hid his phone inside the drawer of his desk, letting the mobile device broadcasted Rex Unit's armor data and tech specs to Natla, this time he was giving her details on their weapons as well as natural abilities, even though he encrypted the device using Orion Sword's own encryption algorithm and protocols, the money he got was far more than his peers.
A curse in disguise, the money he got was now over the $1,000,000,000 mark with the two payments by Natla and his own salary from Orion Sword. One snooping at the bank account and he knew he would be doomed, he was now racing to buy off as much as possible and get rid of the money before someone can figure him out. He looked around online shopping pages, ranging from yachts, private jets, condos, penthouse, luxurious items and assets, even private islands and headless nations up for sale.
He began to first plan for his "Disappear" act by purchasing a private island in the Caribbean where he won't have to pay taxes of any kind. Then he bought a yacht along with a private jet to access the island along with various other kinds of muscle cars and fine wines until his bank account began to dwindle to a more believable amount for Orion Sword. And yet, he knew that even with those purchases, once the bills came in, Grey would figure him out soon, best to get rid of those as well, Rabi thought.
