If you were to compare the differences between reality and the world's most popular VRMMO, it was easy to find some obvious ones. It was impossible to pilot a tall humanoid machine that easily dwarfed many buildings. It was also impossible to mass-produce such machines at a quick pace. But there were also some similarities. The most common one was the seamless environments in Gundam Battle Nexus. It was virtually impossible to distinguish between reality and illusion. It was well-rendered for a game of grand proportions. The only drawback was that it mimicked real life effects as well. That meant if you were walking in a cold environment, you were also shivering from the low temperature.

For Richard, he was experiencing the sweltering heat of the Sun and arid dryness of the African savannah. He winced at the extreme heat wave that sapped away at his and the others' strength like an invisible parasite. Sitting next to him on his left was his long-time friend, Aaron.

Richard grabbed the plastic canteen attached to his belt and unscrewed the cap. He brought it to his mouth and felt the lukewarm water go down his dry throat. He coughed a little as he screwed the cap back on.

"I hate this mission," Aaron grumbled aloud and slammed his fist against the truck's wooden floor. Richard grunted in agreement as his mind wandered back to how he joined GBN in the first place.

Although Gunpla Battle Network was the world's most popular MMO game, it catered to a very select group of people: mainly Gundam fans, Gunpla builders or anime fans. That meant it had a hard time drawing in other people. In an effort to make itself accessible to all gamers, the GBN Administration released its GBN 2.86 version update. Aptly titled "Soldiers of the World", it featured infantry gameplay and traditional first-person shooter game modes.

The players who joined GBN to play infantry-fighting-only forces were nicknamed "No-Pats" by GBN players since they were former FPS players. The so-called "IFFs" followed one rule: use infantry-styled weapons only. As a result, they had no mobile suits, no air support and few reconnaissance support. Every player was armed with rifles and drove ground-based vehicles, like tanks and armored multiple rocket launcher vehicles.

Like all GBN forces, there was no limit on how many people could join. But in reality, there were only a few Forces that had extreme numbers of members. Popular forces, such as the 7th Panzer Division, constantly accepted members so long as they followed certain themes or rules. Then they were highly specialized forces, such as the Sea Snakes, who fought in underwater environments only. They accepted members if they followed a particular discipline or used a particular mobile suit.

The wireless earbud in Richard's right ear crackled and he quickly sat up, his hand pressed firmly against the earbud. He glanced at Aaron, who was doing the same thing.

"This is Commander Ike speaking. As you know, we have been tasked to guard and transport the item to its destination, where it will be handed off to another group. Unfortunately, the other team has been ambushed. We will be transporting the item all the way to its original destination."

A loud mass of groans and curses filled the air as Richard, Aaron and other members aired their grievances. After a moment of silence, Ike continued.

"I know it's been a hot boring day, so we are going to take a quick five-minute break to stretch our legs. Stay strong, guys. We will get through this. Ike out."

The tires' squealing alerted Richard that they had stopped and he jumped off the truck bed. He landed on his feet and sighed loudly as he stretched his arms. As he walked past the trucks, he could see the others doing similar exercises.

He checked his virtual GBN Diver gear, which provided an update on their route. The time to their destination had increased by an additional twenty minutes. He made the gear disappear and stare at the vast dusty savannah field ahead of him. There were a few trees along the road and fields of bushes in the distance. Above him, the Sun's glare made the dry atmosphere even worse and he mimed at the unbearable heat.

He felt someone tug at the collar of his flak jacket and he turned around to see Aaron hand him a plastic water pitcher. "Refill your canteen, it's going to be a long trip." Aaron said.

Richard nodded his head and unscrewed his canteen cap. Just as he finished screwing the cap back on, the earbud crackled once more.

"What now?" Richard grumbled. Ike's voice sounded different this time, more panicked and higher-pitched.

"All units to battle stations! I repeat, all units to battle stations! Unknown aircraft heading our way, ETA five minutes!"

Both Aaron and Richard scrambled to the closest bush and dove underneath it, their rifles pointed at the sky. From his point of view, he could see the others scattering away from the trucks and MLR vehicles. A Russian BM-21 'Grad' drove next to the truck he was riding. The bank of 40 Regina guided missiles turned on its pivot and pointed to a random spot in the sky. He knew that the person next to the driver was scanning the sky for the approaching aircraft.

A tense silence followed as the IFF waited for the aircraft. Richard saw the missile bank turned to the right as it tracked the aircraft. In his ears, he could hear Commander Ike give short updates regarding the aircraft.

"Two Gunperrys overhead. MLRS teams are tracking." his leader replied. Peeking his head out, Richard spotted the aircraft. Personally, he thought it was a terrible design. The transport's cockpit was attached to a slim rectangular body that reminded him of an airplane. A rectangular tan box was attached to its dark green hull. Three giant rotors, one in front and one on either side, granted the aircraft VTOL capability. The rotors roared noisily overhead as they passed the convoy. He waited until the two transports became tiny specks in the sky before getting out of the bush.

"Anybody know what happened?" he asked. Those nearby shook their heads as they headed back to their transports. He and Aaron returned to their truck and climbed back into the truck bed. The smell of exhaust smoke and the loud purring of engines being started filled the air as the convoy got ready once more. Laying on his back, Richard removed his helmet and set it aside. The job was boring and he could use some shut-eye.

The last thought he had before he fell asleep was a wish for things to become more exciting.

Far above the truck where Richard and his friend were riding on, several humanoid-like machines were skydiving through the atmosphere. In a few minutes, they would reach the rendezvous point where their mission would begin.

The mobile suit was a general-type custom suit. Like any custom suit, parts had been substituted and replaced with different ones. All twelve suits shared the same color pattern. The body was painted in a deep crimson hue with flecks of white scattered over the body like blood splatter. The head units were painted in bright steel colors and all of them had bright green optical sensors. On the right of their shoulder pauldron, their force emblem was painted in exquisite detail: a single blood drop inside a yellow, hollow, black spiked circle on a field of white.

A notice appeared on their screens, warning them that they had reached the rendezvous point. Zooming downward at the expanse of the brown grassy savannah field, they saw the rough grainy rectangular outlines of trucks and other vehicles traveling in a straight line. In the middle of the convoy, their objective was highlighted in a blinking yellow dot.

"Prepare for combat" a heavily modulated voice commanded through the pilots' cockpits. Each pilot double-checked their systems and weapons one final time as they descended toward their unsuspecting prey. Once they had finished their checks, they signaled their leader via radio. The leader watched his monitor as the icons representing his team members turned from red to green. When the last team member reported his status, he swallowed his throat and checked the main monitor again. The Gunperrys he had hired yesterday had confirmed the intelligence he received from the administrators. In a few minutes, they would descend upon the unsuspecting force like starving vultures. He tapped a few buttons on his armrest control and opened a private communication channel to his vice captain.

"Julie, you there?" he asked. A thin, throaty voice answered his question.

"I'm here. What's up?"

"Do you think they are ready?" he asked her. An exhausted sigh answered him.

"We trained and drilled them for nearly a month. Of course they are ready, Max!" she snapped at him.

He winced from her shouting and turned down the volume slightly. In hindsight, it was a dumb question to ask.

"Sorry about that. I just needed some reassurance." he mumbled.

"Reassurance my ass!," Julie snorted back. There was a moment of silence when another comm channel opened up.

"Sir, we're almost at the hard deck." a team member hesitantly spoke. Max switched channels and addressed the pilot.

"Thanks, Vic. We will play the recording shortly." he said and terminated the channel before responding to Julie, "Want to do the honors?"

A loud guffaw and the high-pitched whine of white noise and static filled his cockpit. He looked back at the main monitor and wondered how badly the convoy was reacting.

"Fucking hell!" Richard screamed as he ripped out his earbud. Moments ago, he had fallen asleep when an ear-piercing screech woke him from his slumber. He shook his head slightly to clear out the ringing.

After he was re-oriented, he noticed two things. First, the driver of the truck behind him was fiddling with something on his dashboard. The soldier beside him was pointing at the dashboard, yelling at the driver.

The second thing was that the truck he was sitting on had stopped. He looked over the truckbed's railing and saw that the whole convoy had stopped in place. Whatever woke him up was affecting everyone else.

"Aaron, what's going on?," he turned to his friend. Next to him, Aaron was turning several knobs on the radio. He hissed angrily, frustrated that the white noise hadn't disappeared. He smacked the side of the radio, hoping that him hitting it would fix something inside the radio. Aaron clutched the side of his head and yelled angrily at the sky. Richard sighed and grabbed the malfunctioning radio before Aaron could destroy it.

"Buddy, calm down," he said as he tossed the radio toward the front of the truck bed. "Why did this have to happen?" Aaron lamented. Richard shrugged his shoulders and laid on his back. There was nothing important to do, so all he could do was wait until the problem was fixed.

As his mind wandered, the white noise faded away slowly until it stopped completely. Reaching for his earbud, Richard stared at it and silently hoped nothing strange came out of it. Hesitantly, he inserted the earbud back into his ear. The moment it was snug in his ear, an eerie monotonous voice whispered.

"Comply or die"

The phrase repeated itself and made Richard extremely weary. Ignoring the strange chanting, he immediately looked around his surroundings, expecting hidden enemies in the thick savannah grass fields to pop up and ambush them. Seeing nothing in the fields, he turned to the sky above him, Shielding himself from the Sun's glare, he squinted at the fluffy clouds. No mobile suits dropping out of the skies, no armed transports rushing down on top of them yet.

The sound of whirring machinery and heavy footfalls crunching the dusty dirt road caught Richard's attention. A group of men were running past his truck and shouting at the drivers and everyone else to get out of their vehicle. He reached out with his hand to grab a passing soldier's collar.

"What do you want?" the passerby scowled at him.

"What's going on? Any news from the commander?" Richard asked. The passerby sighed and pulled his wrist away from Richard.

"Ike wants everyone except the MLRS teams to abandon their vehicles and into the fields. Whoever the enemy is, they are going to shred the transports to pieces."

Richard opened his mouth to protest, but the passerby silenced him with a raised hand. "Cargo is heavily armored, so it will take a beating or two. Now, get your ass into those grass fields!"

"Fine, fine," Richard grumbled as he jumped down from the truck bed. He pointed at the thick wall of grass nearby and motioned Aaron to follow him. The burly teenager pushed apart the tall grass with his rifle, swatting haphazardly at the fronds. Both he and Aaron kneeled on the ground and waited. He could hear the chanting going faster and faster as time passed. The words were blurring and overlapping each other, the pitch becoming higher and higher. It was a cacophony of irritating nonsense.

Richard had half a mind to shoot the radio when the cacophony stopped. After a few seconds, the voice spoke again.

"In life, there is sin. In sin, there is retribution. In retribution, there is justice. Fiat vindicta per terra!" (Translation: Let vengeance storm through the land!)

The last sentence was emphasized with a howling scream, a scream so loud that Richard felt his ears ringing intensely even with his hands covering them. The crackling staccato of gunshots and whoosh of Regina missiles launching filled the air as he looked up.

The sky and clouds were blotted by humanoid machines with massive angelic wings sprouting from its back. Engine exhaust from the thrusters inside its wings and backpack kicked up dust clouds from the rocky dirt road. Glowing crimson words were carved on the golden sword they carried in their hands. That same ominous glow could be found around the cockpit area.

He tore his eyes away from the mobile suits and quickly ducked under the grass as the enemy began destroying the truck and nearby savannah fields. Plumes of smoke, fire and shrapnel erupted from the burning metal carcass that was once transport vehicles and MLRS trucks. Richard crawled back to Aaron and pointed in a direction.

The two men waded through the fields slowly. Every so often, they would pause whenever they saw a mobile suit fly overhead or heard gunfire. Their primal instinct was screaming at them to flee, but their training conditioned them to ignore their fear and complete the mission. After walking for a few minutes, they marched back to the ambush site through a serpentine route. An hour later, they had returned to the ambush site. Their eyes and noses stung as the smoke and smell overwhelmed their senses.

The carnage in the ambush was an exact replica of war-torn buildings and vehicles seen in action movies. What made it different from their fictional counterparts was the sense of time. Time did not slow down when the main character was dazed by firefight. It was the opposite effect for Richard and Aaron. Everything was happening so fast that it became a blur for them.

They ducked and weaved past torn, bloody bodies and burning wreckages of vehicles as they headed for the convoy's heart. The heart was the item they were transporting and it was located in the center of the convoy.

"I see it!" Richard shouted. Sitting undamaged amidst the ambush site was a tall gray rectangular box. He nearly reached it when he felt someone yank his hand and pulled him away from his goal. Aaron yanked him behind an overturned truck and pointed at two mobile suits hovering nearby.

"Set up that Regina launcher over there. I will distract them once you finish. Hurry!" Aaron hefted a pair of RPGs over his shoulders while Richard scrambled to load the anti-mobile suit rocket launcher. He signaled to Aaron he was done with the Regina launcher with a thumbs-up. Both men grabbed either side of the heavy rocket launcher and placed it on top of a destroyed truck's hood. Aaron tapped a few buttons on the rocket launcher and a countdown began on the tiny monitor.

"Go!" Aaron shouted. Richard dashed toward the cargo at full speed. From the corner of his eyes, he saw one of the titanic behemoths turn its head as it noticed him. Before it could do anything, its head was knocked slightly aside as the Regina missile collided into it.

When Richard reached the cargo, he was surprised to see that there was no password to enter. In fact, there was no security measure at all on the door. Oddly enough, the door he was expecting to see was a sci-fi door. Instead, it resembled a regular everyday door. He turned the handle and swung it open. Standing in the darkness was a heavily customized mobile suit. Richard didn't recognize any specific part on the machine, but he did notice the iconic V-shaped horns on the head unit.

Hidden lights illuminated the mobile hangar as Richard approached the mobile suit. He flinched when he saw the cockpit open up by itself and a portion of the floor flashed green. He stepped into the floor that was flashing green and he lurched forward as the floor rose noisily. It stopped in front of the cockpit and he peered inside it. There was nothing except darkness. No chair, no controls or foot pedals. With a sigh, he stepped inside. The cockpit's door closed and darkness enveloped him temporarily.

GBN's triangular logo flashed in front of him on what he presumed was the main monitor. Below the logo was a single phrase and a short explanation.

GBN-EMS-09 Comet Kimaris Trooper

Customized Kimaris Trooper designed for quick assault purposes

Holo-Trace System initiated. Intention Automatic System initiated. Tutorial starting now. Time Limit: 100 seconds

The young man flinched as several lasers scanned his body for a few seconds. the lasers disappeared as Richard's body was covered in holographic forms of the mobile suit's parts. "Oh boy…" Richard muttered and braced himself for the tutorial. Outside, the two mobile suits backed away from the cargo as it emitted a high-pitched whine.

"What's happening?" one of the pilots guarding it yelled. The other guard didn't answer him as it flew toward the sky. Thin metal cylinders glowing red extended from its roof and the whine gradually turned into a banshee howl. Without warning, the world turned red and white as the cylinders discharged a deadly tsunami of invisible microwaves. The pilot screamed as his machine short-circuited and exploded into a fireball of molten slag. The wave continued its path until it dissipated into the air. Anything caught in its path was burnt to a crisp thanks to the microwaves.

Hovering a few thousand meters above the cargo, Max grimaced when he saw the notice appear on his screen. He hoped whoever was inside the mobile suit was ready to face him. It would be a boring fight if they sucked.

[Phase One complete. Phase Two in-progress]