"Winston, wake up."

"Winston!"

The A.I unit of Construction: Gibraltar tried to wake the sole occupant of the complex, as the A.I had urgent news.

But the scientist just wouldn't wake up.

"SUBJECT ZERO-THREE-ONE-NINE!"

His eyelids shot wide up, and the furred arms reached for his glasses to put them on. He cleared his throat of wake-exhustion, and sat up straight from his improvised resting position.

"Athena," Winston shook his head from fatigue, and rubbed his face before placing the glasses on it. "why did you wake me?"

"Winston, you have to see this." The gorilla cracked his neck, blinked several times, and expected a reason good enough to wake him from sleep.

Because he was sleeping on his desk, the screen was right in front of him. It was still on from the night before, when he was placing certain orders. It automatically switched to a news report, showing something quite peculiar.

The words of the news reporter came out in panic.

"-are making their way here as we speak to deal with these machines."

"So far, we have no facts about these machines, but it has been speculated to be an attack by the criminal organisation: Talon. However, there has been no information confirmed about these new machines."

There were military vehicles passing through the background, trucks with large, covered utulity pads likely carrying platoons of soldiers sent to fight the disturbance, or weaponry to assist in their efforts.

The gorilla read the text that scrolled by under the reporter.

MILITARY-GRADE OMNICS INVADE MIDDLE-EASTERN RURAL TOWN.

"Through several evacuated refugees, as well as from surveillance drones, we've been able to secure footage of these machinery."

The screen changed, to show an on-foot video of the robotics in question.

"Now, it has been speculated that this attack could be the start of another Omnic Uprising, similar to the King's Row incident, however there has been no response from the faction as of yet. Nobody is sure of what they want beause of this, all that we know, is that they're clearing out the area of humans, and omnics alike."

The reporter voiced over air-view footage of a robot, with life-like animations in it's movement, firing explosives from it's arm at soldiers, who returned fire. Their bullets seemed to have no effect. Behind it were smaller makes of the machine, and were smaller compared to the explosive variant, they fired streaks of red towards where the soldiers took cover behind blocks of knocked-over concrete, and abandoned cars.

"I've never seen this kind of weaponry before." The scientist was fully awake, cupping his chin and inching closer to the monitor to acquire a better look.

"This news report went live seventeen hours ago, and there have been several reports of these instances occuring around the world." The gorilla could only wonder at the screen.

The video of the skirmish disappeared, and was replaced by footage closer to the eye-height.

It wasn't of high quality as the drone footage, but it was easy to make out the street, and the civilians running away from a direction with shrouding smoke. Particles of purple flew from the smoke, and exploded wherever it landed.

Incessant chatter, as well as repeated shouting droned out, as the scientist focused on the cloud of smoke.

Finally, a sleek, humanoid unit of machinery stepped out of the cloud, firing it's purple energy-like weaponry at any stragglers who remained. There was a person who walked past the fleeing civilians, firing at the machine, even if the bullets were deflected by a layer of matter. Out of the smoke, more omnics appeared of similar design, but seemed more fragile compared to the larger frame. Red lines of energy shot out from their arms, the standard omnic energy color.

A smaller screen appeared over the footage, denoting a call being received.


"It's the war all over again."

His raspy voice said.

A masked soldier, dressed leagues apart from any standard soldier. But this man was anything but a standard soldier.

The person peeked from cover.

"-Irgh!"

He retreated when he spotted a discharge of red, and saw the ground beside him become pierced with a red beam.

He was just in the area searching for answers to an old question, when these machines appeared, and opened fire on the civilians.

Being the person he is, leaving them alone was out of the question.

Like the omnics in the war, these machines let out mechanical whirring sounds, and like the battle omnics, they were characterised with a red light for an eye.

But even if he was to believe that, he had been locked down by the omnic warriors longer than he should have been, and no matter how many he shot down, there were always two more to take it's place. That wasn't even counting the heavier unit, who could deflect even his soft-surface missiles, and progress with ease until eventually forcing him into the open.

The cover he depended on vibrated with energy as the heavy omnic repeatedly fired it's explosives. He took a breather, and moved a hand to a space to the side of his head, where an imaging device was mounted across eyesight.

The sun beat down on him, and as he fired his rifle at the omnic machinery, the soldier took note of how some of the smaller frames crouched, and let out a bright orange sphere upon suffering damage.

Tough thing as a human soldier, going up against omnic infantry, was blowing off body parts, then finding that the machine can still fire at your direction. Even if it was the head that was separated, their weapons still remained in effect.

Damned machines were getting smarter each conflict.

The soldier dropped a small device, a little larger than a medicine container, which coated the concrete in yellow. After which, something like a holographic circle phased from the visor, and he burst from cover.

Even with the enchancement, he could at best only down a couple machines before the armored omnic appeared in his vision, and attacked with it's heavy arm.

The soldier walked backwards while firing his rifle, even if the bullets reflected off. But it wasn't long before the soldier was made to duck behind another abandoned car, retreating all the while.

The familiar, nostalgic sound of human gunfire sounded in the field, which was always welcome. Turning towards the sound, he found that there were several more soldiers dressed in the green of the American Military's ground forces.

Even now, that traditional green remained as is.

"Think you could lend us a hand, sir?" A gruff American voice sounded.

The soldiers united, and fired weaponry against the advancing omnics. Repeated gunfire against the metal horde. And even the explosive variant's protective layer wore off, allowing them to fire upon the metallic frame itself. Eventually, it keeled over, leaving the more fragile chassis.

"Explosive!" One of the soldiers called out.

A purple light curved over from the other side and landed beside a rifleman.

"Out the way!" The endangered soldier ducked away from his compromised cover, and repositioned beside one of his comrades in a dive while the 'gift' pulsed wildly and exploded.

The one who had just dove away put a hand in a pocket, retrieving something that was a kind of morale support for soldiers on the front-lines, and put it in his mouth. He chewed for a moment, then returned fire at whomever it was he thought threw the damned thing.

"Got another one?" His comrade asked him from behind cover of the car.

"Hold on..." He reached for the same pocket.

On the other side of their position, the old soldier noticed that a number of the machines focused their energy fire on the conrete a particularly brave fighter crouched behind.

He threw a grenade, and it's explosion went off.

The focused fire ceased.

The two went back to shooting at the horde. But, all at once, they stopped.

"Uuh..."

"How in the name of Hell are..." The diving soldier peeked from the abandoned vehicle to witness the reason for the ceasefire.

"Dear God above..."

Shaped somewhat like the letter 'T', it was not a peaceful one.

It was even larger than the explosive variant, and where legs would be, there was only empty air, allowing the omnic to float above ground. Automatic gunfire sounded, but the bullets were visually evaporated by a revolving layer of shielding.

It fired familiar purple flares at their cover. It didn't take long for their apparent leader to realize the extent of the threat.

"It's blowing up the cars! We're getting out of here, soldiers! Come with us as well, sir." The squad leader issued his soldiers to pull back from a losing battle.

"I'm going my own way from here." The other man answered back.

"Have it your way, but these cars are being turned into bombs that could explode at any minute with that floating omnic blastin' away at us. We're pulling out, and you should to." The leader turned away. "Soldier! Tactical retreat! Sebastian, dammnit, we're pulling out!"

The squad skimmed by cover away from the lone machine, which streamed explosive firepower at the escaping soldiers, inadvertently priming surrounding vehicles for explosion.

A column of smoke gave way to a rapid influx of force and sound, as a utility vehicle exploded from.

The official military had long gone, leaving the old soldier alone with the machine, which appeared more than three times the mass of a human, staring him down with a red light for an eye.

Instantly, a whirring that could only come from machinery filled his ears.


General Winter bit at the specialists, even underground, as they stepped through rocky surfaces.

They were dispatched by the government as part of a task force to eliminate the threat of omnic rebellers that appeared from nowhere. The machines had taken control of a part of a mining cave system, notorious for it's stability for the last decades through several earthquakes.

They were like omnics, yet somehow not.

Their design was organic, unlike the bulkyness of previous conflict-oriented omnics. Like the omnics, there were several types.

One type seemed like a generic trooper, easy enough to down, but appear in large groups.

Another was a frame that simply walked through gunfire like it was part of the air, firing purple energy at their position, until eventually it would flux a purple and stagger back.

Another subtype of omnic rebel troopers, was a kind of agile 'runner', darting to flush out the specialists from cover. Floating over the ground, it would spin into a 'firing mode', where it bore resemblance to certain plants in the wild.

"Wait!" the one at the front called backwards in a heavy Russian accent.

The rest of his squad gathered to see the reason for his cease. In the cave, there was dim lighting left over from the emergency evacuation ordered days earlier, and it would have been a normal sight.

Had there not been the anomaly of a dark cloud emerging with a shining blue light.