Chapter 31

Inside Bixi, weird was the rule. I kinda had my expectation from what memories I have from the game, but this took the cake. Turns out the pieces of city we saw were not exact replicas. Seems like Bixi didn't know what was what when it recreated shit inside of itself.

Some buildings had minor errors, the windows in the building were replaced with windshield glass, the cars were made out of concrete or the lamps were made out of carbon fiber. Some errors like that. Other were outright the stuff of nightmares as the part made entirely out of flesh and bone, I mean the buildings and cars and stuff had skin instead of paint, I could feel muscle beneath that, and I was certain that I would find bone as the foundation of those buildings.

Despite all the oddities, the streetlamps were working, providing light to us exploring the copied city. There was an experiment to see if there was water and there it was, we repeated that experiment with the flesh-built square and we found blood instead.

The marines were busy discussing where everything was and Watchpoint were looking for the places we could jump from to other city shards. Sometimes we had to rocket jump and carry the marines with us, sometimes a simple line from the GA-04 Antoures made us rope bridges. Sometime a simple running jump was all we needed. Gravity began turning weird once you took a step off the city shards. Up, down, left, right, you could be pulled in any direction once you lost contact with the shard you were in. Most of us could 'fly', but the sudden acceleration still sent terror down anyone's spine.

Our journey then began turning the weird up to eleven. I was thankful we Riders had some measure of space-worthy rebreathers and oxygen tanks, cause hoh boy.
A part of the city was made entirely of potassium, we almost got blown up when a little drop of water traveled from the other end of the rope. Then a shard was made entirely of what I suspect was noble gases. Every piece of glass on that shard was crystalized argon.

Then there were the places where carbon was non-existent. The sensors in my suit might not be geared for in-depth molecular analysis but I was fairly sure every molecule of carbon was replaced with silicon instead. And interesting place only if we didn't have to run as the longer we stayed still, the place began to crumble like cotton sugar on water.

The Marines were mostly calm about all of this, going by their vitals. Watchpoint seemed unfazed except for the parts too weird for everyone. I didn't have heartbeat to show how agitated I was getting. If those nukes were switched to something else… I put my mind out of that hole. If I lost it here, our chances would drop too close to zero for my own comfort.

The further we went, the more distorted stuff got. If I had to guess, this was the Beast's earliest attempts at analyzing and recreating stuff. For what purpose is it doing this? Its looking for something it needs to duplicate? Or maybe something else?

Whatever. I activated my scanners once more and… "Huh. There is a lake, floating in space… Neat."

I'm so done with this shit.

Outside, the battle raged on. The Steel Locust Mechanized Forces had cleared the area around BIXI of any movements and a few seconds later, more beasts popped out of nowhere. And for a while, they had spawned with odd effects they had contemplated appearing.

Some had been on fire, some could freeze what they touched, a few stank like sceptic tanks in summer (according to memories of Core YSN) and more than a few began appearing with enhanced armor.

The last ones had been the ones cause the most trouble for the YoRHa forces, since they took that little more focus and ammunition. There had been a few pelicans carrying Supply Containers with ammo and weapons. The Berkut TSFs had begun to rely more and more on their Blade Motors (Arm-mounted Chainsaws) as the volume of beasts matching their size increased. The Avengers, in the other hand, still poured flash forged ammunition on BIXI, who had taken to not roaring despite the pain the Machines had begun inflicting on it.

The Harten Flight Units zipped around, engaging the flying monsters and herding the smaller land-bound ones. Their energy weaponry proved to be very much necessary as the armored variants began taking over the other beast strains. Abattle of attrition had begun and neither side could give up.

Until a roar of engines came closer.

The YF-23 Black Widow II was a machine intended as a Jack-of-all-trades. Impressive modularity would allow it to switch loadouts in a few minutes given the proper weapons. Increased weapons capacity of six instead of the usual four weapons all TSF carried. Increased ammunition and fuel carrying capacity for longer operational periods. Reinforced joints and carbonic actuators to be able to last in extended melee combat against its enemy. Engines capable of flying for days without need of maintenance. Limited stealth capabilities due its airframe and some of the best sensor suites to negate any other stealth systems matching its generation.

All except that the first of the previous statements were true. The YF-23 had an intended purpose: It was made as an infiltrator, a hive infiltrator. Where despite their tunnels' size, the TSFs were constrained to tight quarters and would most likely have to engage in CQC. Sharp turns and mind-boggling numbers of enemy organisms required those specifications. Deep inside the enemy's hives, which could reach 4 kilometers in depth given enough time, there would be no resupply.

And even with all that, the machine would most likely never come back to the surface.

But in this world, there was no need of such deep incursions yet. Instead, it was slated to become one of the cores of Steel Locust's mechanized doctrine. Powered by two Lesser Shards of Thunder, the machine now carried enough ammunition to face armies by itself. The swords carried by the machine were durable and sharp enough to cut through a Nimitz-class' hull.
And now, Steel Locust's 1st Air Battalion, Company D had joined the fight. The Grey Ghosts' second mission since their first activation a mere 4 hours prior had begun.

With the recent reinforcements, Company C would be free to resupply and rearm. Containers dropped by Company A's Pelicans filled with fresh ammo and weapons were consumed quickly. Some Blade Motors were ditched completely as the chains were closer to shattering from the continuous use.

There were some containers filled with special cargo. In one, a Mk. 57 SAW equipped with Shotriser-Attache technology hybrids was assembled and put to use. The size of the gun meant that it fit in its barrel's coolant systems it could fire its 120mm flash-forged High velocity armor piercing ammunition at rates that were normally seen in the infantry level SAWs. Honkai beasts tasted the first system derived from Tesla and Einstein (trademark pending) research.

The arrival of the new machines and weapons didn't go unnoticed by the battle's observers.

"What." Flat and without emotion, that's how many let out their disbelief at the newest arrivals to the events depicted on the screens. The last days had been shattering whatever preconceptions the watchers had on reality. Aliens? Ok. Giant monsters? Sure. Giant robots? Ok. Transforming mecha? Nice. Giants Robots brandishing giant machineguns like they were infantry sized? What the hell? Giant Robots with energy shields and big fucking guns? You know what, whatever. Some of the Brass simply gave up on being surprised.

But the Intelligence Community was having seizures. They were working overtime since the attacks began. What once a few months ago was dismissed as PSTD induced hallucinations and fatigue. Cuba was explained as Hollywood making profit from the recent natural disaster. Then Florida was razed to the ground. Suddenly they had to deal with an attack on US soil, massive casualties, and new military powers.

Special Task Force Steel Locust was every analyst's nightmare. An unknown number of backers, an unknown amount of funding, hardware usually left to special operations and/or black ops, unknown manpower and no known leadership. The signs were all over the place, the youth of SL troops meant that they had only fresh recruits for deployment. The hardware displayed meant that they had highly capable special operators. But it was the vehicles where it all fell apart.

Despite the agents deployed to Dobbins, none had managed to infiltrate the hangers the giant machines were being held. The Pelican and Warthog had no known manufacturer, in the images, the only markings denoting one was the logo and name of Misriah Armory and AMG Transport Dynamics. Neither which existed in any known circles the CIA knew of. Then it went sideways with the robots. The 'small' transforming mechs had 'Harten' printed on their wings, which was a dead end as no project, product or manufacturer held that name. The purple ones with the chainsaw arms had that lone red star in their right pauldron, that once upon a time meant Soviet Union, more than half a century ago. The clear Russian letters printed on parts of the frame translated into Sukhoi Su-37 Berkut, which on their databases appeared as little more than a lone technology demonstrator from the end of the 20th century. If this was Russian made, then that meant they had someone supplying them with advanced technologies and raw materials for such a large-scale deployment. But these weren't' Russians piloting them. And the CIA knew the KGB wouldn't have surrendered such machines to foreigners, ever. Yet the seen pilots were young men and women of no discernable ethnicity but clearly were not Russian.

The other machines suggested something even more disturbing. The biggest robot had markings that looked recently changed. What marking were visible identified the mech as both a Grumman A-6 intruder and a Steel Locust A-12 Avenger. It wasn't clear if this was licensed to that taskforce or they had their in-house manufacturers. The ones with rotary cannons on their shoulders were marked with the name of Fairchild Republic, a company long dead. Then there was the newest one.

The F-23 Black Widow II. Something that was rejected back at the turn of the century. But it was only a plane, not a humanoid mecha showing off its prowess in killing aliens. Also, that it was visible to the naked eye while invisible to any sensors located nearby. A stealth-capable flying giant robot. A project that would have been classified to hell and back or murdered on its crib.
The planes began dropping some giant lockers, from where the robots pulled out weapons that the analysts would pour over. One of them was a pair of boxes that one robot put on another's shoulders. And then more of those backpack guns and then one large one that looked like someone took a gun from the history books and turned it into a cannon for giant robots.

They soon learned the purpose of the shoulder-mounted boxes, as they opened and unleashed hell on the respawning horde. Missiles. Those were missile launchers installed on giant robots.
The Intelligence community, not only the American one, were now scrambling to identify who had made those missiles. All agencies except one, the Guoanbu. But that was fine, they had been rather calm lately. They most likely were taking a well-deserved break.

Arthur Watts looked over everything again, making sure that nothing had been snuck in with his tray. The last days had been enlightening, as he had to learn to fend for himself once again. His paranoia was not without reason, as while he wasn't enemies with Director Angelica Mason from the CIA, he knew he'd pissed her off and she wasn't above killing him for the perceived slight. And she knew he knew. It was a game like Russian roulette: If he kept as if nothing was wrong, he would find that the CIA wasn't above using Italian mafia tactics to keep him in line, but if he went full paranoia, he would find nothing wrong and then go crazy by himself. Better just to toe the line and show that yes, he knew that he was in the wrong, and yes, she was in the right, like always.

For now, he improved his home office's security slightly, as to show that he knew stuff was afoot, but not full anti-coup measures. A 'healthy' balance of freedom and restrictions. At least until tempers had cooled.

He checked the reports coming from the frontline. Once again, that man kept doing impossible things and making everything worse for the administration. Not that he cared really, but his job tended to make him rather close to some people who wanted those sweet, sweet defense contracts. And sometimes he got to be dragged to some demonstrations to hook him to some new miracle defense system or the lack of need of upgrade to armaments. Truly, the weapons industry had more in common with carnivals than with militaries…

But he got some contacts inside the industry, a network that most likely had been in cahoots with Mason or one of her lackeys, but he still got access to some rather interesting snippets of information. Right now, some skunkworks had been getting some pointed questions from outside and inside their companies. Some old timers had been unceremoniously dragged from their homes and were now given drugs that wouldn't be let outs in the public until a PR distraction of biblical proportions was needed. Alzheimer's and senile dementia were temporarily cured for the sake of interrogation. Dead Archives were located and scanned for all their worth. Thanks to the action in happening in Florida, the defense contractors were scrambling for anything from the end of the last century that would help figure out who had made fantasy reality without telling anyone.

Arthur wondered if there would be anything to be found. He knew from stories his father had told him that there were some interesting stuffs kept secret, even from the government. And those things usually could turn the world upside down. Sometimes figuratively, and sometimes literally.

Right now, the nation needed those.