A little while earlier…
"Can you crack it?" A-Drei watched as Akira is trying her damndest to crack the Arus signal. To her increasing irritation, it was harder than she thought.
"This is… like… living breathing DNA… turned into 0s and 1s… biometrically based computer encryption…" Akira frowned. "…it's like… not hacking computer per se… more like… hacking a living being… very difficult."
A-Drei nodded. Based on what Cain said, the CPU for these drones used cloned human brains as processors. CPU is, in essence, humanity's vain attempt to replicate the full functions of a human brain. But even the most advanced super computer in the world still fall short on the capacity of a human brain in full overdrive – something a human, who, at best, can only use 10% of their brain capacity, can do. So now they put it backwards. They made a Brain imitate the functions of a CPU. Reduced it on the simple duty of processing 0s and 1s… and not much of everything else. "But you don't have to hack the CPU… you just have to hack the signal they emitted, no?"
Akira bit her lips. "Hack signal. Signal, encrypted, firewalled. But firewall is not brick wall. More like a pulse. There's a gap. Can penetrate if Hansel's frequency aligned. Problem: pulse has biometric organism based digital language. No mere 0s and 1s. Also has 2s, 3s, 4s… many permutations, many possible combinations. Conventional binary based system not enough. Need to learn more of the digital DNA language."
X-Eins, having just found out about the identity of the super hacker of the Sakimori who annoyed him to breaking point back then, had trouble trying to understand Akira's communication vocabulary. But A-Drei had stick around Akira long enough to have no such trouble. "She's saying she can crack that Firewall. The problem is that the computer is unique, but the creator of that firewall still human. It can't be something more complex than the usual bleeding edge, the best Arus can afford, the problem is that they simply used a different language to construct the same sentence, is what she was saying. Even after all these years we're still using binary, while our adversary this time used DNA based algorithm. We need to translate her Binary codes into their DNA codes."
Akira nodded. X-Eins merely blinked in sheer bewilderment. Is it just him, or A-Drei and this girl seems to be… getting along… somehow? He shook his head to dash the thought away. Now is not the time to think this matter through. "Wait… A-Drei, they used cloned brains… but you said there's this rune reactor that also used Cloned Brain, yes?"
Akira and A-Drei quickly caught on to X-Eins' thought process. In short order, they were at the rune reactor of one of the Magius battleships. "…so… we're going to connect the Malefic's system into one of these brains… and then Akira will transmit a tone… through one of these brains… giving it instructions to create a signal that we want." Jeay tried to understand what these kids are trying to do.
"Yes." A-Drei confirmed. "She's going to send in a series of data batches into the simulator matrix and then monitor the responses. Using that data she can create an algorithm to translate binary to DNA based encryption. Then she'll use that as a baseline for Hansel to hack into their system."
"Alright." And as Jeay began the preparation to connect the brain to Melfic's processor, X-Eins had a chance to voice his opinion. "A-Drei… you and that hacker… do you have some kind of history-"
"Let's just say, I owe her kin a great debt." A-Drei shrugged. "…and… I was the one who had the idea of bringing her along in the first place."
Flashback…
"Basically, you had to make a choice." Yusuke began explaining the situation to the commanding officers of their invasionary force. "Even without Pino's supervision, the automated assembly can finish the repairs to the Valvrave in time. But that's a time we no longer have. Given the mission parameter and available resources, I can bring… only ONE of these two…" the bespectacled teen engineer gestured at the partially finished Behemoth and the half rebuilt Amon Ra lying at the back with the recently rebuild Carmilla and Malefic at the background. "…to full operation. Pino had even prepared to throw in some upgrades to go with it, but… you can only bring one. So pick."
"For one thing…" A-Drei started. "We must never again repeat the same mistake we did before. Complementing the Kagerous we've left behind, two Valvraves and two senior officers must remain here, to supervise defense and protect our base while we went on the offense."
"Which means choosing the right Valvrave… for the right situation." Inuzuka Kyuuma, in his Osiris Armor with Aina cradled in his arms stated. "In that case… maybe we're gonna need Carmilla." Kyuuma gestured at Takahi. "This will be an urban battle. A fight in between buildings. A forest of concrete. Carmilla's designed for that kind of combat is she not?"
"Well thought opinion, Inuzuka Kyuuma, but I disagree." A-Drei voiced his opinion. "It has been some time since X-Eins' last report. If what he says is true that Arus went into the Dyson Sphere, chances are, they've already locked the places down with tight knit security, inside or out. And while Carmilla's a good choice, the primary concern of this mission is not infiltration, it's a manhunt. We need a more subtle manner of detection beyond physical infiltration." Akira fidgeted nervously inside the Malefic when she saw A-Drei's thumb jerked at her. "That means Cyber Warfare."
And Takahi's expression visibly darkened, but A-Drei paid it no heed.
"What else?" Haruto, having finished handing over the newly acquisitioned pilots to Ashra's supervision, joined the meeting. "What else should we expect, A-Drei?"
A-Drei frowned. Haruto's grim face changed him immensely. Given the stakes, he's not surprised. "Most likely, Arus had arranged a blockade in the space around the Dyson Sphere. If we are to use the Malefic's sensors to scan the whole sphere, we must first take over the airspace. And after that… I'd say a siege warfare. War of attrition. Amon Ra is perfect for this."
"No." Ryuuji shook his head. "War of attrition will be EXACTLY what Jeffrey would've wanted. If he already has Shoichi, he will do everything he can to wring the secret of Novus Magius out of him. War of attrition will give him the time to do just that."
"So we need to go in, hit em fast, hit em hard…" Haruto shrugged. "That means… maximum firepower."
All eyes turned to the one pair who fit that description perfectly: Raizo who cracked his knuckles and a rather nervous Yusuke.
"It is decided then." A-Drei closed the discussion. Everyone nodded and they all disperse to prepare themselves.
Yusuke sighed. That just means his workload just got double and he had to cancel on rest, because he's going to pilot too. "Okay. All nighter it is."
Flashback ends…
To this, X-Eins suddenly chuckled. A-Drei frowned. "What?"
"Look at us." X-Eins smirked. "We were trained to be heartless war machines and yet… here we are… going into a war for the most sentimental of reasons."
"Sentiments…?" A-Drei shrugged. Then again… if he thought about it now, things had been changing as of late for the Karstein boys. They started of heartless. Emotionless. As their instructors taught them to be. H-neun and Q-Vier were the exceptions, but it started with L-Elf openly defying the Dorssian empire for his star crossed love for a princess, and X-Eins left Dorssia just to get his best friend back. A-Drei is in no position to criticize because he himself let his sense of friendship with L-Elf get the better of him and thus he joined him in his little rebellion. But now… now that L-Elf was broken… A-Drei wasn't sure anymore on why he elected to remain with these… kids. Even help them, any number of times. He's changing. They're all are. And the thing is… A-Drei began to think it's not such a bad thing. "If our instructors could see us now… they'd probably gonna say we're all disappointments."
"I suppose we are." X-Eins smiled.
Before long, Jeay had prepared everything and gave them the go ahead. A-Drei speak to the earpiece: "Akira. You may proceed."
00000000000000
New JIOR Siege of Dyson Sphere, day 4…
There hasn't been a word since they last sent the infiltration team. If the success of Akira and A-Drei's experiments in the Rune Factory can be relied on, the lack of communication stems from the fact that the Arus had jammed the communication. The Malefic tried her best to pick up communication, but all she can pick up was radio chatter of maintenance for machines and droids – in other words, there's not much human communication down there. Which is probably a good thing, for they can safely assume the infiltration team had made it and they had yet to be discovered, otherwise the communication line would be abuzz chattering about it.
There are two ways one can enter a module in a Dyson Sphere. The first is through the underside dock entrance, it's the main gate. Unfortunately, it's most likely the most heavily guarded. The infiltration unit used this entrance to enter the Module when the space forces retreated planetside, but at the moment, it's most likely sealed shut.
The second way is not… exactly a properly recognized way to enter. The outer shell of a module's Weather Dome is designed to endure collisions from space objects, such as meteors or asteroids. However, strong enough collision can still penetrate that shell. Cannon fire for instance. Naturally, the shell also has cutting edge auto-repair system which will automatically seal off the rupture. But only to a certain extent. Of course, if anyone asked any of the Sakimori kids, they can teach one how to use the anti asteroid barrier system as a makeshift shield to survive Dorssian artillery barrage. But that's not common knowledge. Theoretically, a small object, with extremely high density… like a free falling and armored Valvrave throttled to overdrive for instance, can punch its way through that shell, creating a hole enough for a primate engine to slink through one at a time before the auto repair system kicks in.
Knowing this, there were also voices of dissent who insisted they should try to punch their way through their defenses. It's not baseless bravado: they easily plow through Arus' entire fleet in a day… what hardship braving whatever land forces the Arus can throw at them?
Quite a bit of a hardship, apparently.
5 Kagerous braving a rain of steel projectiles learned that first hand. "INCOMING!" A Kagerou thankfully bearing a Hiuchiba shield was knocked off the orbit by a projectile launched at 9 times the speed of sound.
"Watch out! Another one coming-AGH!" No sooner than the pilot said that, another projectile hit his shield head on, shattering the CF shield and rip his arm off, sending the unit spiraling out of control.
"ArgH! Damn you!" The pilot roared to the Dyson sphere, just as another hyper accelerated cannonshell barrage arrived, pushing the Kagerous before they could make any gait into the Dyson Sphere's outer atmosphere.
"That's enough!" An array of red rune lasers rained upon the cannonshells, melting some of them, sparing the Kagerous from further damage. The Valvrave arrived as its glowing power claw fingers cooled off. "Return to the ships! We're not getting anywhere like this."
"Guh… Yes sir." The Kagerous grudgingly retreated back to their fleet, the Valvrave stayed behind a little longer, examining the damage.
As soon as they made a full descent into the Sphere, Akira immediately detected what she can only describe as strange activity. Moments later, they were immediately bombarded by a rain of 12 feet caliber Depleted Uranium shells. Yes. 12 feet. One kid not. Using what visual can be afforded by their long range telescopic scanner, they immediately identified the culprit.
In space, the Bremen is a tank of a spacecraft bedecked with too many guns for a single unit to carry. They were right, for the unit is composed of four units: The Jack which serves as the main platform, the Gun-Hound which is an actual heavily four tracked armored tank with Twin Gatling Cannons, the Feline which is a stealth capable hovercraft carrying an array of missile launchers, and the Rooster, which is a gunship bedecked with anti infantry weaponry and state of the art radar unit and sensor. But their true colors were shown when the Bremen finally landed on a solid surface… namely, the surface of the Module's Weather dome. On solid ground, the Jack revert to a quadruped walker form before unveiling its biggest asset: making up a little over half of the whole unit's actual weight is an oversized Gauss Cannon, designation Jenny, that was designed to literally snipe orbital targets in space from the surface of the planet. The Rooster with its state of the art sensory system will spot a target, the Jack will use the Jenny to snipe them off the sky with almost unerring accuracy, while the Gun-Hound and Feline will secure the perimeter. A firebase concerto efficiently packed in one compact combo.
Arus had deployed dozens of these things dotting the outer shell of the weather dome, creating a blanketing orbital defense network that even a heavily armored Dorssian mechs, much less the light armored Kagerous would think twice of crossing. All perfectly depicted in the holographic representation of the current combat theater, as examined by the commanders of the Fleet, Cain was among them. They just witnessed their attack force was repelled with surprising ease. "Well. I believe this just demonstrated how full frontal assault is the height of idiocy." Cain smiled meaningfully to a silenced Jin Hinomoto who, until some time ago, still advocated such idiocy so hot headedly.
As if on cue, Haruto chose that time to enter the meeting. He's still fresh out of the Valvrave cockpit, judging by the fact he's still wearing his pilot suit. Then again, ever since this operation started, people around Haruto hardly ever see him NOT in his pilot suit. He silently took his seat as the commander in chief, as all eyes turned to him. Judging by this silence, Haruto correctly guessed that Cain had taken the liberty of being witty. If that's the case, no more need to add another harassment. Straight to business. "Colonel Cain, show me what we've got."
Cain punched a few buttons and revealed the scene of their most recent failed assault, but this time, it is accompanied with relevant data analyzed from this most recent skirmish. "Correlating between their reaction time, level of accuracy and effective range calculated from distance travelled by their projectiles, I suspect their AI algorithm was designed to wait until their targets reach a certain critical distance, a distance where their accuracy are maximized, and then they'll strike."
"Which also means all six of us were lucky to have survived that barrage." Haruto shrugged. There are several reasons why Haruto authorized this foolhardy operation, knowing it will fail. The first is to gather strategic intelligence they'll need regarding this enemy. "Have you made comparison between the actual performance with the original blueprint's specification we have?"
"I just did. There's very little to no discrepancies. Which means, beyond the modification of the AI logic, Arus didn't bother doing any improvements or changes of the base performance on the machine itself."
"Which means… what?" Jin asked.
"Which means…" Haruto deduced. "They haven't upgraded their old designs. Which means these set of blueprints the Emperor gave us regarding the units within the Grimm project is still relevant." Haruto pressed another button, and a set of holographic blueprints depicting the many mechanized units produced by the Grimm Project which includes the Bremen, Dvergr, the Hunter, and many more. "Which also means we can use this knowledge to our advantage. Fact is, we already did, didn't we?" Luck is only half the reason these six valvrave units survived being peppered at technically point blank range. "However, considering the Grimm project was a joint ARUS Dorssia effort, it is safe to assume that Jeffrey knows that we have these blueprints. Ergo, he should know these unmanned units are as good as half as effective against us. He massed outdated machines at us, I don't think he expect these things to beat us."
"So he's delaying us… to buy time?"
"Naturally." Cain nodded. "Every second he delayed us is another piece of information he gained from Tokishima Soichi."
"Then… isn't that all the more reason we have to somehow find a way to get down there as quickly as we can?" Jin asked.
"No. It's all the more reason we have to be patient." Haruto frowned as he came to a decision. "These things may be outdated, but they are specifically designed as Magius Slayers. And more importantly, they outnumber us a thousand to one. Underestimate them and we'll pay."
"I'm not, Haruto." Jin argued calmly. "I'm just saying… we can also shoot back, can't we? I'm not saying we should raze a module, heck no. But we do have some pinpoint orbital strike capability, do we not?"
"We do. But that sort of thing will attract too much attention. Yes, they already know we're up here, but they don't know yet where and how are we going to land… or the fact that we ALREADY have someone inside. Fact is, when eventually we DO land, I don't want them to know where we're going to land…" Haruto thought for a moment… "Jin, I want you to organize a group of strike forces. Have them do what we just did: stage a series of failed attempts on forcing an entry. Do it on multiple locations, sometimes you can even do the same place twice, to avoid suspicion."
"And you want to do this… Why?"
"This will achieve several things: firstly, to gather more data on our enemy's capabilities as well as the extent of their defensive perimeters, second, it'll let Jeffrey know that we're watching the skies, so he'll think twice before trying to go off planet, thirdly, this will buy our boys on the ground more time, drawing Arus attention away from them."
"Okay. I can do that." Jin immediately departed to oversee the preparations.
"Are you sure about this?" Kriemhild spoke up.
"I have faith in Jin. He may be hotheaded, but when push became pull…"
"It's not him I'm worried bout. It's the insertion team. Will they be able to pull it off?"
Haruto sighed. Considering the fact he included one of the most hotheaded person he ever met in that team, he can somehow understand Kriemhild's concerns. "Well, don't worry. I've put enough coolheaded people in that team to tamper whatever heated impromptu contribution he might give."
Cain actually snorted at the comment.
00000000000000
Raizo was looking at one of the Aelves. Arus mini drones that serve as their basic foot soldier on the ground. The drone looked like a high tech mechanical human mannequin – slightly taller than a full grown man, red slit for what pass for an eye on its flat face, and another one of its distinct feature is the elongated 'ears' that extended out of the head. Girls would call it bunny ears, guys would probably consider the horns… but the long pointy ears do gave the reason for its name: Aelf. (AN: Aelf: German word for Elves)
The drone looked back at Raizo rather dumbly. The red visor seems to scan him from head to toe, but then it just walk away. Raizo rolled his eyes at what just transpired. "Well I'll be dog dipped. It really worked."
"Get back here you big bonehead!" A-Drei and X-Eins immediately grabbed and yanked said bonehead back into their hiding spot, a hangar where they've parked their hijacked Arus frigate containing all their battle gears.
Inside, Yusuke, Ashra, Jeay and a couple of New Jior soldiers are standing by. Raizo was still excited over what he just did. "Did you see that? I was standing less than three feet away from that thing, and it just walk past me!"
"Yes. While we can say we now have to congratulate Renbokuji Akira for a job well done on her hacking, that DOES NOT MEAN we have the LUXURY OF TESTING ANY FLAW IN HER WORK BY TEMPTING FATE WITH A KILLER MACHINE!" Poor X-Eins looked like he's about to have a coroner. And he thought dealing with Q-Vier's antics is the very definition of testing his patience. At least the boy was clinically diagnosed as insane.
The problem with Raizo is that he's clinically sane. He's just more on the stupid side. X-Eins just could hardly believe someone this stupid is biologically possible.
"As explained by X-Eins, most of their armies are automated drones." A-Drei was more tolerant of the idiocy owing to experience-forged patience. "However, that doesn't mean we can discount the possibility of human personnel on the field. We can still be discovered by naked eye search. Vigilance must be maintained. Understand?"
"Right, right." Raizo nodded half heartedly, earning a glare from A-Drei, who quickly let it pass.
A-Drei let it slide. At least Haruto had enough sense to not leave just anyone in charge, even if it's his own kin. "Alright. Now that we're all gathered here, let's reconfirm our mission: Our main objective is to locate the Main Transmitter that broadcast the control signal for all the drones in this sector – callsign: Queen, take control or shut it down, thereby securing a way in for our boys up in space. Now, Yusuke Otamaya, how goes the analysis on the Aelf drones?"
Yusuke gestured at a half dissected Aelf drone. "Well, it seems their sensor is only some good all fashioned biometric scanner. Which means they recognized their target by the usual retinal scan, voice prints, facial scan, and so forth. Nothing fancy." Which means a Magius hijacked body should be able pass right through detection. "However, this is the 'Naked' Aelf. Their on board servers maybe high tech, but I'm gonna assume it was not strong enough to hold any fancier tech besides the standard issue. I'm not sure about the 'Clothed' ones though. Need to get a closer look."
In general, there are two types of the Aelf drones. The New Jiors had taken to call it 'Naked' and 'Clothed' variant. The Naked are the basics. They walk around carrying a pair of heavy machine guns on each hand. Their frame had a very basic armoring, easily penetrated with a burst of one average assault rifle ammunition. Of course there's a problem that there are thousands of them and if you damage one, it'll notify a hundred more. The one they got in their hand was the result of Raizo's earlier example of shoot first ask question later. First day they arrived, he made one a punching bag before X-Eins could explain the stupidity of such actions. They got chased by a dozen suspicious Aelf drones for the next three days before apparently the incident was ruled out as an accident. There are three goods came out of that incident: 1. Yusuke get his hands on a drone to be studied and vivisected upon, 2. X-Eins now understood just how dumb Raizo could be, and 3. It alerted them to another different variant of the Aelf. The 'Clothed' ones.
The Aelf can be 'clothed' to fulfill a specific role. As the name implies, these are aelves that had been 'clothed' with special equipment for specific roles. For example, there are those geared in a set of thick heavy reactive blast armor with back mounted precision cannons and a hand held rocket propelled grinder axe, some wear underwater suit, loaded with missiles and torpedoes, there are also those clothed with missile bedecked wings for urban aerial reconnaissance, and the most dangerous one: ones clothed in camouflage gear, with sniper rifle for assassination. Still, apart from the specialized equipment they bear, these 'clothed' Aelves displays a more complex intelligence and a greater degree of independence in comparison to the basic model.
"It's quite possible that their 'clothes' also house additional servers, allowing more features to be installed. Such as… perhaps a more complex sensor, like that Gait Analysis or, God forbid, Rune Scanners."
"Thanks to Renbokuji Akira, our data has been inserted to the drones' database, therefore, to their scanner optics, we're one of their human handlers. However, we're still vulnerable to old school naked eye search. Which is why we have to be discreet. Yes!?" X-Eins' glare shot daggers at Raizo.
"Can we not use this Aelf drone to trace the broadcast signal back to its source?" X-Eins asked.
"Thought that…" Yusuke shook his head. "But it doesn't work. The signal is bounced allover the place… and the bouncing point keep changing. I don't know how they do it… it's impossible to track."
"Well, in any rate, it's time we split our forces into small teams of two or three. This is a recon only. I repeat, recon only. So no pyrotechnics." A-Drei thinks quickly. "The team will be as follows:"
Yusuke and Jeay. "P…Pleased to meet you." Yusuke gulped. Jeay merely snarled.
Ashra and two New Jior Soldiers in Arus disguise. Ashra gave her partners a quick nod.
A-Drei and Raizo. "Step out of the line and so help me Yamada Raizo, Novus Magius, or not, I'll break that leg seven times in seven different ways. Got it!?" Raizo excitedly asked: "How would you do that?" A-Drei groaned. "Don't test me."
X-Eins and the scarred New Jior. "The name's Ayase Akari by the way." The one eyed girl chortled to X-Eins. "My friends call me Akari. Never got the chance for some proper introduction right?" X-Eins quietly introduced himself. "X-Eins."
That's four teams, four directions.
Chapter 13:
Infiltration
South…
Akari used the scope on her sniper rifle to look around the perimeter while X-Eins checked the map. "Seriously… what is it?"
"What?" X-Eins blinked.
"Your name." Akari snorted. "Seriously. What exactly is your real name?"
X-Eins scoffed. They have no time for this. "Keep your mind on the mission. We still need to find our way around. It might take a few days just to scout this place around."
"Don't worry about that. I know this place." Akari started.
"Oh?"
"Yeah… this used to be a farm. This entire module was designed as one giant hydrophonic garden. They grow all sorts of crops here. All season around." Alas, Akari's eyes saw a sight quite different now. She saw factories manufacturing droids when it used rice paddies. Bremen Jacks trampled over trees as they reposition themselves… "…then again… that was before these fuckers gave it a makeover."
"You lived here before?"
"My dad was a third generation farmer." Akari paused, remembering one little fact about the parents of the Sakimori students… "Or at least… that's what I know of his legal job."
"Hm." X-Eins merely nodded. "…If you've lived here before… why didn't you tell me this before?"
"You never asked." Akari looked at X-Eins and grinned mischievously.
The bespectacled boy twitched. "Where are we?"
"Welcome to my father's farm." Akari growled. "Or at least what's left of it."
"If this is your home… I trust you know your way around it?"
"Where do we need to go?"
"We need to get to that factory undetected."
"…okay… can you crawl through that ditch? It's about 5 miles long… and before you ask, that ditch is used to be filled with manure so it stinks to high heaven. And at the end of it we have to crawl through pipes leading to a septic tank after passing by the manure processing facility. That would bring us to that warehouse right next to the factory. Ready to get your nose melted?"
"Lady… I crawled through places way worse than manure ditch or a septic tank."
"Lady?" the one eyed girl had to blush.
"That's what you call a girl, no?"
"I just don't think anyone would classify this girl in particular as a lady."
0000000
West…
Yusuke's teeth clattered non-stop as he and Jeay walked past the foot of a Jack looming overhead. They've somehow survived passing over the scanning eyes of the Gun-Hound and the Feline. He gulped quite audibly when he saw the Gun hound's Gatling cannons are rotating their way and the Feline's missile pods opening… but then they just stopped and be about their business.
"Phew… thank goodness for Akira's algorithm."
"Hm." And that's all Jeay will say.
"So… where are we going from here?"
Jeay looked at Yusuke, looking somewhat bewildered. "You tell me boy. This is, as they say, your party."
"W… Wha…" Yusuke's jaw just dropped. "D-d-d-don't you mean the other way around?"
"No." Jeay grunted. "If you recall, it was not lady Ashra's decision to go here, to this Dyson Sphere. It was your leader's, that Tokishima boy."
"B… But I… I can't."
"Can't? Can't what?"
"I can't fight. I mean… I'm an Engineer. I'm a technician, I don't know how to fight in wars." Yusuke laughed nervously.
"If you know you can't fight, why did you come anyway?"
"I don't know." Yusuke laughed. "This is how it happened the first time too. I didn't know what I was thinking, beating down Raizo and commandeer the Behemoth… It's just… like… my brain tell me to do one thing, my body moved the other way. And now today… what was I thinking?"
"Hmm…" Jeay took note of that little tale. "Well, we have a problem then."
"Which is?"
"I really don't know where else to go from here, Otamaya." Jeay finally stopped and turned around to Yusuke. "I'm a warrior. A warlord. And that's it. I'm used to frontline fighting, and from a certain point of view, it may seem my skillset is suited for the current situation, but it's not. I'm… one of those Magius who had trouble with adjusting to the changing of times."
"What are you saying?"
"Despite my lack of variety in skills, I survived this long because I knew when and where I mustn't charge upfront. I know which fight that can be won with a punch out and which one can't. And this war… is one such times. This is not frontline fighting, this is cyber warfare. We can't win this war by punching our way out of it. I'm out of my… field here. The best way we can survive through this… is by helping each other." Jeay added. "Nobody asked you to be able to fight. But if you keep thinking about what you can't do, you'll forget what you can do."
Yusuke blinked.
"Think. You're an engineer. An electrical engineer. Remember what our mission, and think, as an engineer, how would you accomplish that mission."
And Yusuke began to think…
0000000
North…
Raizo was surprisingly calm as he and A-drei made their way past a whole battalion of drones marching. "So… A-drei, right? Look I'm rather stupid, so I had to ask, what exactly are we looking for here? And when we do find it… what exactly are we going to do about it?"
"All these droids are being controlled remotely, Yamada Raizo. That means, there's a long range transmitter emitting the signal that controls them. It controls the droids, and more importantly, it also controls their defenses." A-Drei motioned at the gigantic Bremens with their Jacks.
"And I suppose when we find it we… what, blow it to smithereens to make all the droid stop moving?"
"Eventually, yes. But Tokishima Haruto's instruction is very clear. We're not going to charge through all guns blazing, he wants to infiltrate stealthily. When we find the transmitter, our mission is to hack into it, creating a gap that should allow us to bring in our forces undetected."
"Because he doesn't want to do too many damage on the Dyson Sphere." Raizo nodded. "Okay, I can do that."
This surprisingly rational response drew the interest of even A-Drei. "You understand, as in… understand that-"
"Buddy… the last time somebody invaded this place with all guns blazing… we ripped off an entire module off it. Look what happened ever since?"
A-Drei raised his eyebrows. "In my defense, you Sakimori students came up with that idea. Not us."
"Our Prime Minister came up with that idea. And just so you know, this happened because you forced our hands. Not guilttripping you, but I can tell you it's not a joyride. People actually died along the way thanks to you." Raizo groaned.
"That's war. And we lost more than a few people too by your hands, if you recall."
"Look. It's getting past time holding grudges about that. But I think we're in the loop. What's happening now is exactly how it started for us. A bunch of jackasses came in here in their high horses in search of the ultimate weapon. Only this time we're replacing Dorssian with Arus. The last thing I wanted is for all these people being forced to leave their home like we do." Raizo suddenly turned to A-Drei. "Which brings me to a point… we will be seeing a lot of your Dorssian boys here. And just to be absolutely clear, we're here to free the Dyson Sphere AND find Haruto's big daddy. So don't get any ideas of reinstating Dorssian rule here. Capish?"
"In case you have forgotten, there's no Dorssia anymore."
"Good. Let's keep it that way."
And just when A-Drei made a mental note to reassess his evaluation on one Yamada Raizo…
"Now that's done and settled with, let's CHAAARGE!" And he runs like an idiot straight towards the nearest base in sight.
A-Drei HAD to slap his face in despair. In the time he didn't let his emotion get to his head, Yamada Raizo is actually a reliably rational fellow. Regrettably such moments of rational clarity are rather rare indeed…
0000000
East…
Ashra, leading the other two Jior Soldiers so far hadn't had that much luck of encountering anything out of ordinary. 'Then again…' She frowned in deep thought. 'We're looking for a transmitter. And yet… if one just to take a glance at the surroundings… I see nothing tall enough to be used as a transmitter… so how would one remotely control every drone in this entire sector… I don't see any tall building that can… oh?' She looked up… and found her answer. "Ah."
0000000
"Steins?"
"No."
"Xion?"
"No."
"Martein?"
"No."
"Xavin?"
"No."
"Goldstein?"
"No."
"…Xerxes?"
"…" X-Eins HAD to stop. "…what?"
"Xerxes." Akari also stop and look over her shoulder.
"Do I look like the King of Persia to you?"
"Hey, just a bright idea off the top of my head." Akari snorted. "You won't tell me your real name, I'll just gonna keep guessing until I get it right."
"Concentrate on the mission lady!"
"I AM concentrating! I'm trying to distract myself from this god awful smell of manure while keep going forward! Ah, stop right here." Akari took her sniper rifle and look ahead. Far… far ahead. Around 300 meters ahead. A couple of Aelf drones walked across the edges of the ditch, looked around, and scanned the surroundings… "Get down…"
And the two had to, once again, pressed their bodies against the manure mixed mud… that had also been smeared to their whole body from head to toe. A less than pleasant necessity to camouflage themselves as much as possible with their less than pleasant surroundings.
The Aelf drones scanned and found nothing. And they walked away flatly. "Safe." Akari stated and the two finally dared themselves to crawl up again. "Now we take 20 steps to the left from here."
"20 steps, copy that." In retrospect, apart from the need to avoid Drone patrols, the two are practically crawling blind. They rely on Akari's instruction on how to proceed. "How did you know so much about this ditch?"
"I used to play hide and seek in this ditch rather often when I was a little girl. I covered myself in manure so that my friends couldn't find me. Of course there's a problem with the smell and all. But it's precisely because this place stink so bad no one ever bothered to check here. Of course, I'm talking about humans, not drones."
"Of course." That would explain a lot.
"By the way, when we get to that factory, what's the plan actually? In the event we didn't get what we're after."
"We'll take it out, of course." X-Eins tapped all these explosives packed in his bag. "And that is after we determine there's nothing that will be of value to us in that facility. That's how you fight in a war of attrition against a numerically superior enemy, lady. You strike it from its flanks. Sever the veins of its War Machine industry piecemeal; throw enough monkey wrenches until the gears grind to a halt."
"O~kay… So… Hamish?"
"What?"
"Einstein? Xander? Heinz? Axel?"
X-Eins twitched. The girl is still trying to guess his name. "No, no, no, no, and no."
"Throw me a bone will you? Seriously, what's your name?"
God help him. Is this how it's going to be until the end of this mission? And he thought H-Neun was annoying…
0000000
"A-a-a-are we there yet?" Yusuke peeped.
"No. But we're pretty high up, so keep your eyes closed if you feel the need."
"O-o-o-okay."
As soon as Yusuke regained his wits about him, he surprised both Jeay and himself, at the boldness of his plan: "Let's climb one of those Jacks so that we can dissect its head."
Regrettably, Jeay didn't find any opening, like a service hatch, that is on ground level. Meaning, he had to literally climb the Jack slowly across its towering surface, searching for one. And seeing as Jeay mentioned before, he's not an adept in electronic warfare… Yusuke had to come with. Which means a piggy back climbing experience that Yusuke did not enjoy.
Thankfully, Jeay finally found a door. A service hatch. "We're here."
And Yusuke finally opened his eyes. Jeay was hanging with both his arms nailed on the armor plating up above. They're hanging by the undercarriage of the Jack's base armor… right in the groin area. "Somebody had to question the sense of this machine's designer." Sitting by Jeay's broad shoulders as he continues hanging, Yusuke looked at the door. "Well… the door had security silent alarm on it. If we bust through this door, the alarm will set off and all the drones and guards will swarm allover us."
"Is there any way we can penetrate the door safely, hack through its security or something?"
"Here's a problem… I don't see any kind of keys to get inside. No buttons for password type lock, no biometric scanner… this door can only be automatically opened when the system deem it necessary to be opened."
"I'm not sure I follow."
"This drone is remote controlled, but it also has some kind of rudimentary artificial intelligence to move around and make its own decision based on its programming. However, it will still need human maintenance every now and then, hence the service hatch. But service hatch is a vulnerability. A vulnerability we're trying to exploit right now. So this is how they do it. I suspect that the Drone controls the locking mechanism of the service hatch. It will only unlock the hatch when it deemed it necessary: particularly when its sensor detected damage that requires human assistance in fixing."
"So… you're saying we have to damage the Jack in order for it to open this door?"
"Not just any kind of damage. It has to be carefully measured." Yusuke frowned in deep thought. "Something severe enough that the drone deemed it was necessary for human intervention… but not so severe that everyone else can immediately identify it as an actual attack."
"Like a severe short-circuit, perhaps?"
"Yeah. Yeah, short-circuit will do."
"Hmm… Alright. I got just the thing."
0000000
Miraculously enough, A-Drei and Raizo managed to get very close to the perimeter of the base WITHOUT alerting any of the drones. Correction, is not that the Drones didn't see them, they just ignore them. Fact is, A-Drei is starting to worry that he's been worried for nothing. But in the end, that worry is quashed when he get a good look at the base and realized they've just got through the easy part.
"Look, Yamada Raizo." A-Drei hand him his binoculars. "What do you see?"
Raizo looked through the binoculars and saw… "Soldiers. Human soldiers."
"Finally. This is starting to look like an old school infiltration mission." A-Drei finally began to really get in the game now. His mind began to work, analyzing the base in question from outside in. "First line of defense: four of the deployed Jack firebases, with its complementary drones on patrol both on land and air, a network of laser tripwire of aerial mines, automated anti infantry sentries, and anti air… and then, an invisible laser fence with biometric sensors. If the sensor detects anyone NOT registered on their DNA database, the laser will ignite and slice anything larger than a quarter to size. After that, minefield: Anti personnel claymore, and tripwire termites. And the base itself: There are only 3 way in, and they have gait analysis in every door. 6 guards in every door, with kill team patrols on the ground and rooftops. All of that is also reinforced with more Aelf drones… most of which are the clothed variety geared for hunter seeker operations with their advanced sensor arrays."
"Why do I get the feeling they just take the word overkill to a whole new level?"
"The greatest basic dilemma in a war is splitting your resources between defense and offense. But the bulk of their offensive forces are drones. This allows them to focus their actual manpower to defend critical military installations, such as this base. Besides, considering the opposition, which is you really… this many forces, should be expected."
"Okay. So… how do we get in?"
"Ground is… right out… air is impossible… which leaves…"
"Underground."
"Yes. It's safe to assume that this base may use the local resources for basic necessity, such as water and electricity. Which means there should be utility pipes we can access-"
"Quit yer' yappin and follow me. I know exactly where we need to go."
And for the first time in his life, A-Drei felt that following Raizo's suggestion was a very good idea indeed.
0000000
X-Eins and Akari faced not as much trouble as the A-Drei Raizo combo. Akari's secret pathway through the septic tank pipes provides them a safe, albeit stinky passage that bypassed many sensors and defensive lines. And finally, after a long while, they arrived at the exit: a toilet.
"Well… what do you expect? I told you this is a septic pipe."
Despite all his disciplined stiffness, despite all the hardship he had endured, X-Eins does found the concept of popping his head out of that particular hole rather offensive. "Just… don't speak of this experience to anyone okay? Especially… to H-Neun. I'll never hear the end of this."
"Scout's honor. You scratch my back, I scratch yours." Clearly Akari wouldn't want this particular part for the bedtime story for her children either. If she ever had children.
"Deal."
The two quickly unscrewed a toilet seat from beneath, and with a bit of an effort, they managed to push it away, leaving a gaping hole big enough for them to crawl out. As soon as they did however, they heard noises… human noises.
"I thought I heard something here."
Akari and X-Eins was alarmed.
"Are you sure it wasn't just your imagination?"
"No. I know what I hear."
The patrols. They must've made the noise when they unhooked that toilet. It's too late for them to jump back from the hole whence they came without making louder noise. X-Eins turned to Akari and spoke silently with his glare: be quiet. Be VERY quiet.
That goes without saying.
The Arus patrol searched across the room, their laser sight seem to sweep the whole room. But in the end… all hell break loose because of one simple thing:
"What is that God awful smell?"
"Duh, it's a toilet."
"Dilapidated toilet. Now which one of us took the time to actually take a dump in this place and NOT flush it when we have a fully functioning one in the factory?"
Akari and X-Eins looked at each other in horror.
"Where does it come from?"
One quick sniff… "That cubicle!"
"Kick the door down. In 1… 2… 3!"
Clank!
The patrols were momentarily distracted when they saw something thrown out of the cubicle, clattering on their feet. A metallic can…
The flashbang grenade erupted with a bang. And that was the sign for X-Eins to empty the entire clip of the silenced assault rifle at the toilet door, unleashing a point blank rain of lead at whoever's unlucky enough to be right in front of that door. The Dorssian agent kicked the beehive door as soon as he reloaded a new clip and found his blind luck had took out two Arus soldiers. Two out of five. The other three quickly recovered from the momentary blindness, but not fast enough to escape X-Eins barrage. Two died, one barely survived thanks to his Kevlar. And he ran, but not to the exit, but towards X-Eins. He charged him down to the ground, pinning him there. And then X-Eins heard the sound of engine revving from outside. He miscalculated, there are more patrols left outside the room, and they've heard the commotion. They're not coming in, they're leaving… which means they're runners, messengers, trying to report what just happened. "Lady!"
Akari was already halfway out of the room with her sniper rifle whilst X-Eins struggled with this soldier. The man is choking him… or at least he tried to. As far as X-Eins concerned, the man's pressing the wrong artery. He grabbed his knife from behind his belt and jammed it through his chin. As soon as the dead man sloughed past him, X-Eins quickly catch up with Akari at the warehouse doors. Unfortunately, the two runners had already escaped on a buggy.
"Shit. They're getting away."
"No, they're not." Akari took aim with her sniper rifle. "I got them."
"There are two of them."
"I got them."
"You're sure?" X-Eins blinked. They're probably about 400 meters by now…
"I said: I… got… them!" At that, Akari exhaled and pulled the trigger. The bullet traveled in a curve… first it landed on a soldier who manned the buggy's guns, went through his head and sank into the driver's head in front of him. The bullet didn't get through the second victim's head, but it was planted deep enough in its brain to make sure he's very dead.
The buggy, now without a living driver at the helm, juggled uncontrollably before rolling to a crash and grinded to a halt as a wrecked upturned vehicle.
X-Eins jaw was left hanging. He looked at the sniper lady with renewed sense of wariness. "Ayase Akari?'
"Yes?" Akari responded… with a distinctly colder and firmer tone than the one she had used in all her goof off talks.
"Are you sure… you've never underwent some kind of military training in the army?" Last time X-Eins checked, there were only 3 people in the whole Dorssian army capable of making that kind of shot.
"Joined the Archery club back in school." Akari admitted. "Captain of the team. Champion in Inter-Sphere Archery Olympics for three years straight when I was 13."
"Ah." And that's just about the dumbest response X-Eins ever managed to produce.
"Now then. What should we do now?" Her dead serious tone, the glare in her cold one eye screams she's finished with the fun and games… let's talk business. Something X-Eins would have no trouble acceding.
"I think, the best thing to do right now… is clean up. I'll take care of the bodies on that wreck of the buggy. See if we can salvage anything useful." X-Eins turned to Akari. "That's my job, by the way. As for you, I suggest you take care of the bodies inside… and take a bath while you're at it."
"What?" Akari rolled her one eye at X-Eins to ask if he's still sane.
"As silly as it may sound, fact is, we got made because we stink. We need not more ways for them to detect us. Go take a shower, I believe the water still works."
"I see. Alright, I'll do that. But we better hurry though before the ARUS start wondering where their patrol went." And she quickly went inside to be about her duty. "In the mean time… you might want to grab those dead soldier's gears. We could use the ammo and the disguise."
"Couldn't agree more." X-Eins found himself smiling for once. Could it be that he actually gained the most competent partner of the lot for this mission?
0000000
Once again unto the climb, but this time, Yusuke was able to keep his eyes open and thus he was able to watch the whole trip to the upper surface of the Jack, where its giant Gauss cannon protruded. Then again, when he landed, his legs couldn't stop shaking. "O…Okay… now we're up here. What… exactly do you intend to do to damage this thing? Certainly not bashing it up until it collapses under our feet?"
"Now what makes you think I'm that much of a muscle bound fool?" Jeay glared.
"…" Yusuke now realized that he had been sticking around Raizo a little too often. "Sorry. I meant no offense."
"Hm. Apology accepted. And no. I have no intention to bash it up with my bare hands. No. This situation requires a more… artful approach." Jeay flexed his fingers as he looked at the daunting Gauss cannon before him. "Tell me Otamaya boy… what know you of the… law of the Energy Conservation?"
"That law? You mean the law that stated that energy can't be created or destroyed, merely transformed?"
"That same law also decreed that, when the energy is transformed, the resulting quantity of energy output produced is actually smaller than the one used to produce said energy. Throughout history… all the energies you're using: Steam, electricity, nuclear fission, even Runes… would you believe if I tell you you've only been using 5% of the amount of energy you actually produced? The rest was… dispersed during transference as heat, light, pressure, motion… not to mention the inherent resistance from the device involved in the transference itself. No matter how efficient you made your engines… the resistance and dispersal exists."
"Okay…?"
"We, the Volfrans Magius, developed our secondary trait centered around this theory." Jeay began unfurling his sleeves. "I believe, Pino and Cain had taught you this? Arachabii had their Harvesters, VolFrans had the Quickening."
"The Quickening." Yusuke repeated.
As Jeay explained this, his eyes turned yellow, and glowing cracks that looked like electric circuitry appeared on his hands. "The Quickening basically nullify all the occurring resistance and the dispersal that happened during energy transference. It made any affected device running on any type of energy to be hyper efficient."
"Hyper-?"
"Like I said… you've only been using 5% of the potential energy you produce. All your existing machineries were designed with that in mind. What do you think will happen when 5% throughput suddenly boosted into 100%?"
"I don't know." Yusuke gulped. In layman's term: that ability will make anything that can go boom tens of times louder and bigger. "But among the many suggestions I can think of, the brightest seems to be: 'take cover'?"
"Yes. You take cover." And Yusuke quickly hightailed away as Jeay approached the Gauss cannon, his arms glowing bright. The large man merely touched the base of the cannon with a finger, and the effect was almost instantaneous. Fortunately, not instantaneous enough, allowing Jeay some time to also take cover.
Electricity jumped out of the surface across the surface of the giant gun, its surface actually glowed before parts of start exploding. The rampant electricity coursed through the base and began to spread across the entire unit. Sparks lit up and small scale explosions erupted here and fro as the giant unit's circuitry were fried, literally. The sound of power building thrums as all its sensors are overloaded with too much energy. Finally, one last jolt of electricity and every gun sported by the quadruped simply exploded, their barrels splayed open. What's left was the hiss of smoke rising from every part of the electrocuted drone… and the Jack just… went completely still as the loud sound of power build up died down to an offline hiss.
"Are you sure this will be okay?"
"Hmm… I'm pretty sure I only gave it a gentle nudge…" Even Jeay is starting to have concern if he may have overdone it this time.
The worry was quashed when a brief second later, the Jack's engines hums back to life as neon blue lights across its body lit up again. The backup generator kicked in and the Quadraped Drone gets back up on its feet. But all its guns are still busted… The Jack just stood there… but the sound of its computers whirring beneath its armor plating meant it was hardly idle.
"What's going on, Otamaya?"
"It's… calculating. I think what just activated was its backup servers… and now it's calculating the damage. It's trying to decide on whether or not it can still continue as it is with its current condition… or call maintenance."
After a few minutes of humming, the Jack finally concludes its current next course of action… and start transforming. The Gunhound, the Feline and the Rooster were called back. With great difficulty, the Jenny Gauss cannon were pulled back in as its legs folded. Some of Jack's body pieces actually fell off in the process, but it paid no heed. The other units attached one by one, the Gun Hound almost crushed Yusuke in the process. When the Rooster was finally attached, the Bremen began to float… but barely. Still, it was able to start moving towards a destination, crumbling as it is. It remained blissfully unaware that there are two stowaways standing on its back.
"It's… moving?" Jeay pondered.
"Yes. The damage was deemed too severe… so it chose to return to, I hope, a nearby base where there's a service depot for repairs and resupply, and maybe… just maybe…"
"The transmitter that controls the drone."
0000000
Raizo led A-Drei straight towards a hatch that lead deep down into the insides of the module. The ease of which Raizo discovered the hatch informed A-Drei that this was not the first time the rough Sakimori student had done something like this. Currently, they're descending down the hole through some tow cables. "This is the main Module maintenance hatch. It leads down to the central hub for the utility systems: power cables, and water mains, as well as other crucial system such as the solar panels, climate control, air recycling system, and so on and so forth. This is the place that controls the life support of the entire module."
"How did you know about this place?"
"Remember when I said how leaving our home behind was no easy ordeal? I meant that. We nearly died within the first few days after we left the Dyson Sphere. One of the power couplings broke and it shut down our climate control system. Everybody almost frozen to death. Guess who volunteered to go down and fix the whole damn mess?"
"You?" A-Drei gawked. "You don't strike me as a mechanical engineer…"
"Well of course not, you doofus. I dragged Yusuke along."
The one eyed Dorssian resisted the urge to hit himself in the head for asking such a stupid question. He wasn't thinking, how very unlike the great A-Drei for this blunder. It's official. Hanging around Raizo can be hazardous to your IQ. So his next question is somewhat more intelligent. "If this place is so crucial to the module… why wasn't it guarded?"
"I don't know. They missed this maybe? Anyway, don't jinx it! Maybe we got lucky?"
Soon after, they landed on the ground, it was a bit dark. "Okay, flashlight, flashlight…" As soon as Raizo turned it on…
Hordes upon hordes of Aelf drones all lined up in front of them with guns at the ready. "WAAH! YOU JUST HAD TO JINX IT! YOU JUST HAD TO JINX IT!"
"Wait!" A-Drei maintained his calm. The Aelf drones looked at them, and ignored them like mindless machines that they are. "We're still registered as one of their human handlers in their archives. Renbokuji Akira's hacking is still foolproof it seems."
"Haa…" Raizo sighed in relief.
"But… something's off." A-Drei checked at the Aelves' firearms… there were signs that it had discharged its load… quite recently too. What's more, some of them were marred with still smoking bullet holes and battle damages. "We're not the only ones here."
"Say what?"
"These drones… they show signs of having engaged in a firefight, and it's quite recent. It won't make sense for Arus to shoot at their own drones so…"
Even Raizo can pick it up. "There are others beside us who oppose Arus? Does that mean we have allies here?"
"Arus has enemies. That's not the same as being our friend. Maintain your caution, Yamada Raizo."
"Right, right…"
0000000
Despite what it went through, the buggy remained surprisingly intact. Quite intact that they can actually use it as their new mode of transportation. After loading the dead bodies unto the buggy, A-Drei rode it back to the warehouse with speed.
Upon arrival, he dragged the bodies down into the warehouse, past through the doors. But as soon as he steps into the room, he dropped the bodies to the floor in shock.
Akari had just walked out of the washroom right in full view of X-Eins, drenched head to toe, her hand was reaching for her clothing when she stopped and stood there, staring back at X-Eins.
The two stood transfixed for a few seconds to digest what's happening.
Their faces turned red, one with embarrassment and the other with anger mixed in. Akari forgo clothes and grabbed her rifle, X-Eins ran for his dear life and take cover behind the door in the last few precious miliseconds.
BANG!
A hole appeared right next to where X-Eins' head reside. He felt he should've said I'm sorry, but he will wonder for the rest of his life, why oh why did he instead state: "You missed."
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
Another hole appeared on the left of his head, another at the tip top of his hair, the other two penetrate right beneath his armpits, and the last two at left and right inches away from his waist. "Okay. Point made: You did not miss."
Way wrong answer. "Where's that shotgun I see-"
"Shotgun?" X-Eins had just ruminated on the word when he heard the tell tale sound of cocking…
BOOM!
A giant honeycomb hole appeared right between his legs, just a few inches beneath his groin. That's when X-Eins realized that he's one word away from a head short. In that moment of crisis, H-Neun's word of wisdom comes from high above: X-Eins, the first thing to do when you wronged a girl, even by accident, is to quickly apologize and get even to make sure there are no hard feelings ASAP.
And X-Eins logic translates that advice as: Seeing a girl naked: wrong. Get even. Even: Equal. Equal: the law of Hammurabi: an eye for an eye. ASAP: Right the hell NOW! So…
"Okay. I apologize for seeing you naked. It won't happen again." X-Eins raised his hand and closed his eyes as he walked out of cover. "And just so that there are no hard feelings, I'll go naked too. So all's fair and square, yes?" And before Akari can protest, X-Eins had begun undressing.
One shotgun swing to the head (+one pair of broken glasses) later…
Akari is now a lot calmer, but her face is still red from ear to ear. "J… Just wait there, okay?"
With an imprint of the Winchester shotgun strapped on his cheek, X-Eins quietly complies behind cover. Minutes later, Akari finally walked out in her pilot suit… and a reloaded sniper rifle. "Alright. I'll… also take a bath as well now. In the mean time, I suggest you take the cloth and gear of the man on the left." X-eins pointed at the two dead soldiers lying in front of them. "I think he's about your size."
"How do you know my…" Akari stopped right there when she realized exactly HOW X-eins figure that one out… and clicked her sniper rifle, pondering if headshot can be an effective alternative to brainwash.
X-Eins also wisely decided that at this point, he better shut up.
0000000
"Okay… I might have overdone it…"
That's what Jeay and Yusuke concluded as the Bremen's altitude grew increasingly lower and lower to the ground… and this breadcumb of its own pieces it left behind as it fell apart…
Fortunately, the end of their destination is just in sight. Even before they get there, they can see the factory was massive, almost city sized. The Bremen could barely make it to the service depot: it was but an unassuming hexagonal pad. Yusuke and Jeay quickly hid beneath the rubble of the Bremen.
"Holy what the what? Look at this mess!" As expected, a lone human foreman was on the scene. "Alright. Let's bring it in."
The pad opened up, and large scale mechanical arms grasped the Bremen and dragged it down. Realizing a chance, Jeay immediately made a decision: "Otamaya boy, this is where we split up."
"Eh?"
Jeay suddenly jumped from the descending Bremen and fell upon the hapless Foreman. Before he can let out a word of protest, the large man bite into the smaller man's neck. The foreman eyes rolled upward… and then 'Jeay' dropped down unconscious whilst the Foreman rose up. The Foreman smiled meaningfully at Yusuke before he lifted the giant body and throw it at Yusuke. "Wait! Are you sure this is a good idea? What about the Gait Analysis!?"
"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll take care of it."
"What!?"
But before Yusuke can say another word, the service pod door closed in on him, closing the Foreman that is Jeay from view.
Jeay watched Yusuke's fretting face disappear from his sight with a sinister smile. "Younglings. Best way to deal with them is to throw them off a cliff."
0000000
Despite proof of a recently fought battle can be seen all around them, A-Drei's and Raizo's trip across the Module's pipes was eerily uneventful… until they found the first dead body.
A-Drei knelt to check the body while Raizo held the flashlight.
"That's strange… he's using Dorssian standard issue, but he's wearing salvaged Arus gear… which means…" A-Drei looked at Raizo. "Resistance. Militia. Survivors of the Module who still fights back."
Raizo looked into the darkness. "You think there's more… in there?"
A-Drei looked again at the body laying on the ground. "Well… this one's body is still warm, so he died very recently… but the situation is very quiet. I suspect they…" A-Drei turned to Raizo… "…more likely had been wiped out."
…except the fact that Raizo wasn't listening on virtue of already rushing blindly into the darkness, as was his MO.
"…note to self: shoot him in the leg the next time I try to explain some sense into him."
Then again, there's nowhere else for them to go but forward.
0000000
In their own way, each infiltration team succeeded to avoid detection and made their way into each of their designated targets.
Now normally, this would constitute as good news… except the fact that it's not… considering what Ashra had just discovered.
The other New Jior soldiers stare in horror, just as Ashra's usually calm feature are contorted in fury and horror. "Is there no way we can contact the ground team?"
"No. The whole place is filled with interfering signals from the data communication traffic between the drones. Quantum crypto gear didn't work – so the enemy has no long range transmission. Bad news is… neither do we." The soldier showed the short wave radio they've acquired from one of the now dead human Arusian soldiers. "The only thing that'll work is the short wave radio."
"…" Ashra nodded. "Alright. First thing first. You need to fortify this position. You can use all this debris to funnel that entrance."
"Yes ma'am."
"I'm going down there." Ashra took the short wave radio. "They need to know about this… trap."
0000000
The Factory Guard saw a buggy heading their way. The automated sentry gun aimed its weapon at the incoming vehicle. But as the buggy neared the entrance, the droid guards merely glanced at the buggy's occupants: two troopers, one driver, one gunner. Both are in their archive. And then the buggy went through the gate, where the gait analysis will determine the truth.
The buggy passed through without a hitch.
"No human guards?" Akari frowned. "Something's off."
"For now… let's keep a low key." Said X-Eins. "We've killed a bunch of people. They'll be looking for their missing personnel."
"We did bury the bodies, didn't we?"
"That we did. Which will buy us some time." X-Eins parked the buggy. "In the mean time, we must quickly determine what is this place, and what's it worth for us to keep it, or blow it up to high heaven."
The two infiltrators wasted no time and entered the main facility. Akari winced as a sharp smell immediately assaulted her olfactory senses. The smell of chemical. "What is this place?"
X-Eins easily recognize this smell. "Bio Fuel. This is the place where they create the fuel needed to power spaceship and fighter boosters."
"I see. So… are we going to blow this place sky high or keep it?"
X-Eins frowned. "Maybe we don't have to… let's go to the central mixing chamber."
0000000
The first five seconds Yusuke was alone… and he was virtually paralyzed in terror. Just him with an empty shell of a hulking man, holding on to dear life as the vertical assembly line disassemble the ruined droid limb by limb. Pretty soon, he'll ran out of place to stand.
"Okay… Okay… so…" Yusuke looked around. He's inside a massive factory. Various kinds of droids are being built here. Hundreds of Aelves churned out every minute. Super sized conveyor belts deliver enormous components for the factory to construct bigger units such as the Hunters and the Bremens.
And then one particular assembly line caught his interest and his horror.
An assembly line that carries pods containing… glowing brains.
Yusuke twitched. Against his better judgment… that one particular assembly line did pique his interest. And so, carrying Jeay's mindless shell on his back, Yusuke finally jumped away, just as the assembly line finished up with the Bremen he was standing on. To Yusuke's surprise, he actually made the jump, despite the weight he carried. He then remembered that he's way stronger than human now.
"Okay…" In any rate, now he's standing in the right line… one carrying brains. "…on second thought, maybe this is not such a good idea." Too late for regret, the line is carrying him anyway.
Eventually, the trip ended when the line carry the brains into a massive room, completely separate from the other assembly on the account of being… much cleaner. Unlike the rest of the factory which is understandably messy, this place was kept sterile due to its more sensitive content. It's a massive hall filled with pillars with branching tubes on its surface. This is where the conveyor belt deliver the brains. Multiple manipulator arms took the brain from the assembly line, observe it for a minute, and then placed them into one of the tubes.
Yusuke quickly jumped away from the line before one of the manipulator arms mistook him for a misshapenly huge brain. After placing Jeay somewhere concealed, now he can have the time to study this room. "They bring the brains here… what for?" Yusuke looked closer at one of the tubes. A brain inside amniotic fluid… they're in the process of being encased inside some kind of cybernetic shell. He'd seen something like this before. The Synth rune Reactor in Magius ships used the same kind of system. But this is different. Arus' version does not siphon runes out of it… But of greater interest to Yusuke, are these cybernetic implants that went in the place in said brain where human eyes would normally lay.
These visual implants is connected to the brain… but it was also connected to some kind data transfer system… feeding information, visual information straight into the brain from these… eye implants. The brain… was being forced to watch something. "…what are they doing to these brains?" Yusuke saw a terminal next to the brain. Fortunately, he didn't have to hack anything to gain access. He can see the programming…
"…oh my god…"
Apart from a crash course of first class military training and tactics… there are also children getting shot at for targeting practice, People ripped apart, Woman burned alive, Tank grinding soldiers under thread to mush, Missiles blowing up skyscrapers, execution, assassination, massacre, ethnic cleansing… the whole nine yards of every human atrocity ever committed in their history of murder and violence… And if he's reading this right… the brain is being taught to feel… pleasure and joy watching this atrocity. They're programming these brains, cloned brains of the greatest war veterans on earth to have the mentality of… psychopathic killers. "Damn… They really are trying to kill us all, do they?"
Yusuke looked at this room. Thousands of brains receiving this kind of treatment. And at the rate of the brain coming in… tens of thousands more are to follow. Yusuke shook his head. "This is wrong." Regrettably, there's nothing he can do. The terminal allowed him to see… but it prevents tampering. It needs a password. If only he can contact Akira, she could've… Yusuke shook his head. 'No. Don't be so spoiled Yusuke Otamaya! Remember what Jeay said… don't think of what you can't do; think what you can do… so… THINK! Everything here is automated, but we all saw how it still needs human intervention… so…'
0000000
Raizo hastily followed the trail of broken bots and dead bodies across the utility pathway. He panicked when the trail ended with a shredded clothed Aelf drone lying next to a dead militia. The blood is still fresh, and gunshot marks are still smoking. This one was recent.
As he studied the bodies, he heard sounds. The sounds mechanical clanking… and gunfire. That's all he needs to know to immediately go to that direction. He zoomed away just as A-Drei barely arrived on the scene, who also heard the noise.
On the other side…
"RUN! RUUN!" A handful of militia ran amidst a rain of gunfire hailing from an army of Aelves, marching relentlessly behind them. One of the militia is also dragging a wounded comrade as said comrade loose a few shots at the droids. But it's to no avail. "We're not gonna make it!"
And just when all hope is lost…
"GERONIMOOOOO!" Raizo roared as he plunged straight into the army drones. The first charge pulverized five droids in an instant. The other droid sensed danger and start opening fire. But their bullets merely bounce off harmlessly against Raizo's armored skin. He did train rigorously with Jeay to perfect his rune armor, now unless these drones carried around a tank cannon on their backs, they kind waste all the bullets they want.
A Clothed Aelf came to view, with heavy armor… and an anti tank cannon, which it wasted no time to open fire.
"Oh fu-" Raizo barely had time to finish, but his body reacted first. He grabbed a pair of drones and put them right in front of him just as the bullet landed. It smash through the scapegoat drones, the sheer shockwave hurled him a few miles back. The Clothed Aelf approached, ready to fire another shot.
"HEY! TIN-HEAD!" A barrage of bullets bounced its head distracted it enough to change its attention. A-Drei had just arrived, firing his assault rifle. The Aelf responded with by firing its hand held Gatling gun, forcing A-Drei to take cover. But that cover is fast becoming ineffective at this rate of bullets. "Yamada Raizo! I'm waiting!"
BANG!
Raizo answered the call by slapping a pair of the last naked Aelves right on top the clothed one's head. The Unit is barely intact, but it turned around and opened fire at Raizo's chest point blank. Raizo's armored chest, to be exact. The hundreds bullets did as much good as a hundred water gun squirt. Raizo's arms punched through the Aelf armor before he yanked its upper and lower half to opposite directions. Even after being bisected, the upper half is still firing uncontrollably before Raizo promptly step on it and crush it underfoot.
"Booya! How do you like me now, Drei-guy?"
A-Drei grunted. "Next time, if you are going to go melee on every droid on your way, the most efficient method would be to take em out fast. And in the case where you can't, take out its weapon first – to minimize stray fire. Not everyone is bulletproof." A second later. "And if you call me Drei-guy again, I'll have you keelhauled!"
"Griping, always griping." Raizo sighed. But the most important part is, he get the job done. And he managed to rescue that which had to be rescued. "You guys okay?"
The militias had already picked their jaw off the floor. "Yeah. Yeah, we're alright."
"Are you the resistance?" A-Drei asked.
"Yes." The militia finally sighed in relief, though they're still on edge. "Who are you?"
"That's a dumb question." One of the militia answered. "You're one of them New Jiorians aren't you? The bullet proof guy kinda gives it away."
Raizo grinned wide. "Name's Thunder."
"I thought it was Yamada Raizo. The cyclop Drei called you that?"
Raizo had to resist a snicker at the moniker – Cylcop Drei. He'll never let that one go. A-Drei was not amused. "Who's your commanding officer?"
"Who wants to know?" A female voice answered, and the militia parted.
A-Drei rolled his eyes and Raizo was rendered absolutely speechless.
A girl barely a few years older than the two teens step forth in full battle gear. Despite being Asian descent she had beautiful blond mane nonetheless that matched her beautiful features. "Answer the question, soldier?"
"I'm A-Drei. Formerly Dorssian Karstein Agent. I'm acting commander of this mission." He also motioned to the gawking Raizo. "And this is Yamada Raizo."
"Acting commander." She repeated.
"Yes."
The girl raised an eyebrow. "What about him?" She pointed at the jaw dropping Raizo.
"He's not in command." A-Drei replied. 'Thank God.' "But I am."
"But you're not…" Everyone saw which one is bullet proof… and which one isn't.
"Who wants to know?" A-Drei had indulged them long enough.
"Of course." The girl finally saluted. "Aila Takagi. Commander of the… Former Jior Homeland Security."
"A girl like you?"
Aila was somewhat offended, but Raizo came to her defense. "Look who's talking. You're barely any older than her, mr. Cyclops."
A-Drei raised his eyebrows at Raizo's new found tongue. Aila continued her inquiry. "Where's your leader? Tokishima Haruto, was it?"
A-Drei motioned up. "He's up there, in orbit."
"What is he waiting for? We're being butchered down here!" One of the Miltia moaned.
"Tokishima Haruto understands the need for a more subtle approach. He made it absolutely clear that the last thing he wanted was to blow up this Dyson Sphere in a misfire." A-Drei explained. "We will risk that if we simply charge in all guns blazing."
"So he sent you here?" Aila nodded in approval. So the commander of the New Jior is tactically savvy strategist as well. "What are you looking for in here?"
A-Drei frowned. "He sent us down here to disable and destroy the transmitter that controls all the drones in this sector. We're still looking for it."
"I see. Then our interest aligns." Aila nodded. "In fact, let me save you the trouble. We know exactly where to find this thing you're looking for."
0000000
The Engineer of the 'Cerebro Cell', as they call it, was about to take a nap… when his pager beeped loudly, informing him that said cell suffered a critical malfunction. "Hmm? That's funny… it was okay 20 minutes ago…?"
Moments later, the Engineer arrived in the Cell to find everything seemingly in order… except for the line that brought brains into the cell had malfunctioned. "Okay…" He gleaned closer to check the damage… the gears that moved the belt were clogged up… by something mushy. "Huh?" He plucked it out… it's a… brain. A brain somehow found itself lodged into the conveyor mechanism, squished to mush, causing it to jam. "How did this get here…"
Poke.
"Freeze."
The Engineer stunned in horror.
"Nod, if you can stay quiet."
The Engineer nodded.
"Nod, if you have a gun?"
He nodded again.
"Pull it out and drop it on the floor, move it towards me."
The Engineer dropped the gun on the floor and kicked it back.
Yusuke smiled and grabbed the gun as he holstered his weapon… his bare hand finger gun. "Good. Now turn around."
The Engineer turned around to see his assailant is a 16 year old brat. "What? Who are you, brat!?"
"I'm a brat with a gun to your head." Yusuke somehow managed to keep his voice from shaking. "Now. These are the brains used as the living CPU for the Grim Droids, right?"
And then it clicked. "Y… You're one of them. You're one of the monster Magius!?"
"Guilty as charged. Now. You're gonna help me reprogram these poor brains."
"Good luck with that. It's biometrically locked."
"With your DNA?"
"My living DNA. If you kill me, or cut my hand or anything, you get nothing."
"Thank you for the information." Yusuke nodded as he menacingly approached the Engineer.
"W… What are…"
With one swift move, Yusuke grabbed the Engineer's head and expose his neck. Seeing his bulging veins, Yusuke felt his fangs extended out. Somehow, he just instinctively knew what he needed to do with it.
"W… WHAAAAAAAAA!" The Engineer's scream was cut short as his consciousness fade and Yusuke blacked out.
When Yusuke opened his eyes again, he's looking at arms that don't belong to him. He's now experiencing his first time jacking someone's body. And it's surreally exciting. "Whoa…" Even his voice… it's weird. It's like he hear his own voice… but intermixed with the hijacked's voice. But different body, different voice, nothing compared to what's happening in his head. He still has his knowledge as Yusuke Otamaya… his consciousness is still Yusuke… but then, all these new knowledge and information just appeared on his head. All of them new… and yet he felt a familiarity as if he had been having this information in his head for a very long time.
And it's not just his brain that takes a big boost. When he started, he was scared and terrified of mistakes… and now there's this swelling confidence bursting in his chest. The surety of success and certainty of perfected experience now filled every fiber of his being. "Is this what it felt like? For Haruto? For all those Magius?"
He looked at all these things before him, and he immediately knew what he had to do. "Right. Let's get to it." He cracked his fingers and moved towards a terminal. A hand scanner appeared on the screen, interspliced with a ten digit combination codes, voice id, authorization code, verbal password, and a retinal scanner.
"Mr. Jack Abernathy, authorization code: 75638290CV456DXZ. Phew, that's a mouthful. Password: IRONMANCIVILWARWILLSUCK. The ten digit code is…" And the terminal was open for him to use and manipulate. "Now… let's see what I can do with you guys…" And his hands start to dance on the holographic keyboards…
0000000
"This is a little trick we Dorssian used to play on Arus. The primary tenet of Arus military is efficiency. To cut cost, all their war machines used the same base fuel, which they then tweaked to suit the need, depending on the war machine: for cars, tanks, or space craft." X-Eins had already busied himself gathering up ingredients from his surroundings, creating some kind of eerie looking concoction in large quantities. "This stuff… well, this is one of my favorite."
"What's it do?" Akari helped whilst keeping watch on the surroundings.
"At first… seemingly nothing." One last ingredient, and the concoction is ready. He put in on a large flask, ready to be carried. "But, when you put the mix into the engine and a certain amount of it had been combusted… well… it's quite flashy. H-Neun always liked it. He said it reminded him of fireworks."
"Reminded?" Akari noticed something in that statement. "What do you think?"
"Me? I've never seen fireworks. So I just assumed that's how they looked like."
Akari turned to X-Eins, eyes wide in disbelief. Did she hear that right? "You've never seen fireworks before?"
"No."
"Don't you Dorssian have parties or something?"
"Merry making? You mean like… official ceremony or procession?"
Akari shook her head in disbelief. "My God… what on earth did they teach you in school?" X-Eins gave Akari a look and she understands. "And H-Neun's your… classmate… partner? Like… your fellow agent or something?"
"No. He's a…" X-Eins fidgeted a bit. "He's a friend. And he's in big trouble right now."
Akari blinked… and then smiled. Well. So he's human teenager after all. "We're gonna find him. And we're gonna rescue him." Akari tapped X-Eins' shoulder in reassurance.
X-Eins nodded. "Let's go. We're tossing this into the main fuel reservoir." He tucked the chemical mix in his hand.
Akari nodded with a smile.
The two quickly walked out of the mixing chamber, but then, they paused.
Waiting in front of them was an array of human soldiers, backed by a lot of droids. All armed to teeth, with heavy weapon emplacements arrayed before them. They were being ambushed…
…except the fact that all the supposed ambushers are dead. The droids torn to shreds… some are even outright burnt to stumps.
Even Akari had to resist the urge to throw up. "Wh… What's going on…"
"No… No! Stop!" They heard a scream. A soldier ran as fast as he can towards them but then he jerked and stopped mid run, following a sickening crunch. And then he fell dead, revealing a grim faced and bloodbathed Ashra.
"Ashra…?" X-Eins immediately realized something's wrong. "Why are you here?"
"X-Eins… you should know already, looking at the way these soldiers are lined in preparation against you."
"!?" X-Eins looked at the soldiers… and a solemn realization came upon him. These people were waiting for him. They know he's in there… they know who he is… why he's here… that can only mean one thing: "…it's… a trap…"
0000000
Aila lead what's left of her men, now with additional two new assets. One of them seem rather eagerly following, almost breathing down her neck.
"Look… uh… Aila-san? On behalf of my grim mooded friend of mine, I'm really sorry about that comment just now. I mean I'm okay with girls with real tough brass. It's just… eh…"
And he's flabbergasting. "You have a question?"
"How is it… that you became a commander of the Jior Homeland Security?"
Aila answered quickly. "My father was the commander. He was killed during first wave of the attack, and I took over his job because all the other candidates are dead and I'm the best option left. Next?"
Raizo was stunted into silence, A-Drei immediately took over. "This mainframe… what's your source of intel on this?"
"Hacking the system. We captured drones… lots of drones. Tear them apart, studied them, and track their signal to this location."
"You managed to crack their encryption that easily?" Raizo gawked.
"I didn't say it was easy. And you guys did take your time coming here. So we too take our time. But many good men died to give us this information." Aila grunted as she kept walking. "We managed to decrypt some of their signals, but we've never been able to capitalize on it. But then, when we saw the sky light up, we knew you New Jior are finally attacking in full force. Their land forces were greatly reduced, allowing us to finally able to begin our infiltration. It's just… what we didn't expect… is for the space battle to be over so very quickly." Aila paused to turn to the two New Jiorians. "We thought the battle would last for days, maybe… weeks long siege of attrition… not… minutes of one sided pummeling."
Raizo grinned. "I know. We were THAT good."
Aila glared at Raizo, then turned to A-Drei, expecting a more serious answer. To her surprise, A-Drei has none.
"What he said." A-Drei sighed. Because there really is no other excuse: it was so straight forward there's no need for strategy – safe for this infiltration. "They were THAT good."
Aila rolled her eyes, and she can hear her men murmur in awe amongst themselves. "Okay. But thanks because of that, we were completely caught off guard when the droid forces returned planetside way ahead of our predicted schedule. That's how we became trapped down here."
Raizo's smirk of pride vanished into unnerved silence. "Sorry…?"
"What for? As you said… you guys were that good. We did not take into account of that."
The group finally reached their destination, and Aila ordered the group to stop. "Now, based on our intel, the main transmitter is located right behind those doors. But, as you can see… they're heavily guarded."
A-Drei and Raizo peeked and saw a pair of Clothed Aelves. Both were heavily armored variant with lots of guns on their being.
"Oh, this should be easy." Raizo calmly walked out of cover and straight into full view of the two Aelves. "Hi there! I'd like to go in that room, if you two don't mind?"
"Did he just do what I think he just…?" In a sense, Aila is asking A-Drei whether it is Raizo who lost his senses or they are. A-Drei had already given up long ago questioning this issue.
The Aelves looked at Raizo for a second… before they understandably opened fire. Granted, the bullet they sprayed didn't do much good as Raizo's armor blocked them quite effectively, and the bullets bounced harmlessly allover the place. Still, Raizo had to wonder. "Oi! They opened fire at me. ME!"
"Well of course you halfwit!?" Aila shrieked, taking cover from the bouncing bullet.
But Raizo had other concerns. "That's not the issue, darling." – Aila blurted. "Darling!?"– "What happened to Akira's hacking?"
"I suspect…" A-Drei calmly analyzed the situation. "…the magic ran out when we destroyed one droid too many. The Droids now recognized us as enemy."
"That being said…" Raizo budged a bit when one of the Aelf shot a grenade at his head. He spoke again when the explosion cleared away from his intact head. "…the others are safe?"
"If they didn't destroy Aelf as recklessly as we do? Yes. I suppose so."
"Good to hear." Raizo sighed in relief. Finally, Raizo had too many headshots to his liking and he charged forth like a juggernaut he is. "HRAAAAGHH!"
The noise lasted for some tens of seconds as damaged parts and half beaten components flies out to the air. And then, when it was done… "It's done. Get in here!" Raizo called.
Both A-Drei and Aila gave Raizo a few seconds of a benefit of doubt. And then, A-Drei dared himself to peek in, and noted: "Safe."
And the team entered the scene as Raizo put a few finishing touches on the pulverized droids – making sure the droid's head doesn't look like a head anymore by bashing it again and again. Of interest to A-Drei, he saw the extent of the damage, he can already see the way Raizo destroyed the drones in a systematic fashion. All their weapons are pulverized very efficiently, and then their armors easily torn before its main CPU was crushed in an instant – no more, no less.
A-Drei's attention did not escape Raizo's. "Like you said." A-Drei blinked. "When you can finish a fight fast, finish it fast. But when you can't, take out the boomsticks first to minimize stray shots, right?"
A-Drei rolled his eyes. "So you actually do learn."
Raizo merely grinned. "I have my moments."
Aila rolled her eyes in amusement seeing the dynamics between these two horrifyingly opposite characters.
It's amazing how they worked so well.
"So… now… this gate… how should we open this?" Raizo asked.
"We can hack it…" Aila looked back. "…if our Hacker is still alive. But a bullet to the head tends to lower that chance."
"Hmm." A-Drei nodded. "In that case… subtlety had its day. Yamada Raizo. Do your thing."
"With pleasure." Raizo eagerly cracked his fingers.
"Everybody else take cover!" The militia took the liberty and helped themselves to the armor platings of the two crushed Aelves and used them as makeshift shield. They huddled together and assembled in a phalanx formation behind Raizo.
Raizo waited until the militias are ready. And then, he slammed his fingers through the two piece door and began parting it to opposite directions. They can actually hear machines breaking as the automatic doors were forcibly pried open. And as expected, once the doors were opened ajar, a rain of bullets from hordes of drones welcomed them.
"KORAAAAAAAA!" Raizo charged in whilst the Militia opened fire beneath their phalanx of shields. Thousands of bullets bounced off Raizo's body as he easily plowed through entire battalions of drones. He grabbed a droid by the leg and used it as a bludgeoning weapon, smashing drone after drone with impunity.
"Shoot them! Just shoot!" A-Drei also kept his finger on the trigger.
"But won't we hit Raizo in the process?"
"He's bullet proof, the droids are not! FIRE!" There were just so many drones they could fire blind and still struck bullseye. Before long, Raizo's form was buried beneath hundreds of droids, hurling themselves on top of him. An Aelf aimed and fired a missile at the militia, but Raizo jumped out of the pile and slap the missile midair tossing it to the pile. The explosion sent a rain of parts and mechanical limbs to the air.
In the midst of all this chaos, A-Drei keep an eye of the whole theater of war… and he spotted a single human amidst an army of drones, hiding behind his console. "!? Raizo! Yamada Raizo! There's a human operative in the field. DON'T kill him. Capture him!"
"Roger that!" Raizo bashed one last group of droids before he jumped across the room and landed right in front of the human operative, just before the poor man was able to make a run for it. By that time, only a few barely intact droids were left standing, a short and easy work for A-Drei and the Militias.
0000000
Having finished his work with the brains, Yusuke strolled back to where his body was laid. "Now… Saki-chan said… to go back to your body you only had to bite yourself back. Okay." He grabbed his own arm and bite. He blacked out, and he woke up again. This time, in his own body.
But when he comes back… he felt something more. Yes. His body reverted back to its original state, his strength is his again… but something's changed. When he's inside the engineer's body, his existing knowledge acquired additional information from the Engineer's own intelligence pool. He experienced his surety, his confidence, his capabilities… and when he's back to his old body, the experience… stays. All the knowledge, the information, and the surety, the confidence… it's all a part of him now. "Incredible…" He looked at the poor engineer. He's completely out cold. Yusuke quickly apologize. "Sorry. So very sorry. But I really need to do this."
Leaving the Cerebro Cell, and still carrying Jeay's body on his back, Yusuke was filled with clarity and knowledge of purpose. Now he knows where he needs to go. And what exactly they're supposed to be looking for: there's no Transmitter. Not in a physical sense. He looked around and saw the Wired signal amplifier. In every module nowadays, you can find that thing everywhere you look. It's the modern day equivalent to that technology back in the past… what was it called? Wi-Fi? It used a modem to project a signal that allowed any receivers to access internet. Back in the old day, there used to be free wireless internet. To provide them, they don't use one giant modem to broadcast the signal, they used several, placed allover the city in phone boxes and even electric pole and lamp posts… Later advancements in technology allow the synchronized signal to amplify its strength and range, was wide enough to provide a city wide Wi-Fi. In some places, signal towers erected to broadcast the signal, providing service to cover even entire continents.
Today, one no longer talk city wide or planet wide… today one talk about interplanetary scale. Internet maybe big… but not big enough anymore for humanity that had expanded up to the final frontier with their artificial planets, which were located hundreds and thousands of kilometers apart. That is WIRED: A vast all encompassing network of interconnected internet. If you compare Internet as cities, than WIRED is like a freaking solar system. That being said… WIRED is still internet. And like all Internet it require a modem. Now… just how big is the modem needed to create an interplanetary wide internet network?
That's right. This entire MODULE is a… sun powered Island sized Modem for WIRED. Synchronized with other module, and with every signal amplifier in the city, with all the Dyson Spheres out there, each modem signal synchronized, amplifying its signal exponentially thus achieving a vast interplanetary wide internet network. Anyway… with such a vast all encompassing interface already existed, all they had to do was piggy back that foundation by inserting this DNA based signal, and they'll achieve interplanetary control range. The signal is actually an online Software installed on Cyberspace. Each Droids are connected to the WIRED, where they receive perpetual updates and instructions to their system at real time. If they're going to destroy the software… they have to also destroy the Internet. They have to destroy the module.
That particular unacceptable issue aside. Nowadays, the WIRED is connected to… everything. Bank accounts, e-mails, electrical grid, water system, gas flow… and of course: Military Quantum Crypto communication. The DNA based codes piggy backed the planetwide WIRED network to achieve its all encompassing reach… but at the same time, this code is also interfering the Quantum Crypto signal, the complex DNA signal is disrupting its quantum binary data flow, jamming communications. That's why only Short Wave radio will work: they're the only communication system that did not rely on WIRED network.
Considering he sucked in only the contents of one person's head… that's a boatload of precious information. Precious information that all his friends will sorely needs!
"I've done all I can in this place. Now I need to find Jeay-san and leave." Shrugging Jeay's body on his back, Yusuke made his way, his footsteps are now much lighter and more firm than he first began.
Meanwhile…
Jeay's breathing grew heavy as the fire is reaching up from the blazing ground down below. 'What the hell…' He had to drag himself across the wall as his no longer existing arm left smears of blood allover the wall. It's unbelievable… the things he found out in the lower levels of this factory… 'I had no idea…'
He finally can't stand it anymore and fell on his knees, and then to the floor. He looked at the inferno he had partially caused and know it was not enough. 'Heh… humans… to think they've gone this far…!'
Rising from the inferno is a gigantic black figure, its eyes staring back at him… its crown visor glowed neon violet.
0000000
"They really had us." Akari had just been briefed with the facts by Ashra, and like X-Eins, she too was horrified. "And we took the bait; hook, line and sinker. So what now?"
"We need to get the word out." X-Eins gripped the saboteur compound in his hand tightly. "We have to warn them."
"How? Communication's jammed. As long as the WIRED kept broadcasting the DNA encryption in the web, only short wave radio will work, and they can't reach our fleet in the orbit to warn them!"
"We have to do this old school style." X-Eins nodded, finding an answer. He turned to Ashra. "Lady Ashra, can you find A-Drei's team?"
"Yes."
"Good." He handed the canister containing the sabotaging compound to Magius. "Find A-Drei's team and warn him of the danger. You leave contacting our orbital fleet to us."
Ashra considered asking the exact detail on how this can be done, but he saw little doubt in X-Eins' eyes. The boy knew what he had to do. As expected of an elite agent. "Very well." She grabbed the canister. "Let's move out!"
The three separated. Ashra disappeared, and X-Eins and Akari get outside the building… Ashra had done in most of the human elements in the base, only droids are left. They can virtually do whatever they want. Akari took the chance to ask the answer: "X? How are we going to contact our friend in space?"
"The old American Commando unit called NAVY SEAL used to do this when they're stranded in no man's land with busted broken communication." To Akari's initial wonder, X-Eins start gathering straw bundles and douse them in fuel. And then, he starts placing those straws on the ground and suddenly, it makes sense.
0000000
The human operative whimpered in Raizo's hand as he dragged him before A-Drei and Aila. The poor guy's emitting some strange scent from his groins.
"Alright. I'm gonna take it, considering you're the only human around here, and judging by that stain on your pants, you're not a combatant. Tell us who you are, and we might make this out with as little pain as possible." A-Drei started.
"I… I'm just… I'm just a programmer, man! I'm just a friggin' programmer! Okay? Please… please don't kill me!"
"Programmer?" A-Drei blinked.
"Y… yeah! T… They just grabbed me… and… and told me to write some… algorithm into that… that… thing." The Programmer pointed his trembling finger at the giant bronze colored wall… correction… that's not a wall… it's the surface of something… huge. REALLY, REALLY HUGE! And then it hit them.
This. THIS is the mainframe. A SKYSCRAPER sized server. Definitely something with enough power to produce the signal strong enough control thousands and thousands of smart droids all across this entire region.
"I see… well… that's good. That's very good." Raizo lightly clapped the programmer's cheek. "Now you're gonna help us to tear it down."
"W…What?"
"Just undo what you did. Get into some computer terminal, and unwork your magic. Simple."
"I…If I do that… y… you will spare me?"
"Scout's honor."
"…O…Okay…" Raizo let the programmer go as he made his way to a terminal. "I… I'll do it from here…"
Everyone sighed in relief, but A-Drei frowned. He noticed there's something completely wrong in this picture… but he can't yet put a finger on what is wrong.
The Programmer starts working under Raizo's gaze. There's no sound in the air but the sound of the programmer's fingers typing the keyboard. A-Drei maintained his scrutinizing gaze at the programmer. "Once I'm done… all those droids in this module will stop moving." He stated.
And that's when A-Drei's eyes finally snapped to attention. He grabbed the programmer's hand just before he pressed another stroke. "You can do that?"
"…Y… sorry?"
"What you just said. You can do that? You can shut down all droids in this region?" A-Drei's question was more damning than doubting. "You can do that… and yet they left you alone, in here, protected by nothing but disposable drones!?"
And suddenly, everyone realized that something's wrong. Something's very wrong.
"W… Well… I… I got left behind! W… What do you expect me to do!?"
"It's not what I expect out of you. It's what I expect of your superiors." A-Drei glared. "They ought to know better than to put someone with such critical information without supervision. If you were left behind, they would've made it a priority to know such things. At which point, they will either retrieve you… or kill you. Both are easily achievable by controlling the drones that had protected you. It should've try to spirit you away or kill if they can't… and yet neither happened." A-Drei motioned at the pile of destroyed droids to make his point. "Considering these circumstances, I'm seriously asking you one last time… who the hell are you!?"
This time, A-Drei's legitimate question is backed by a glare from Raizo, and aimed gun barrels of the Militias.
The Programmer realized the gig is up. "DIE!" He suddenly jerked violently, revealing a set of explosives strapped to his chest beneath his jacket, and a finger holding the trigger. He lunged to A-Drei, but Raizo get to him first. He wrestled the suicide bomber and slammed him to the ground, pinning him there.
"GET BACK!" Raizo had enough time to scream to Aila and A-Drei just as the explosion sets off.
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The force of the explosion can be felt all the way up to the surface, where Yusuke felt it the most. "What? What was that?"
But then, he didn't have time to wonder. Something has been feeling a little off ever since he absorbed the information from that engineer. "Jeay-san? Where are you?"
After a while looking, he finally found him… to be precise, he found the body of the guy he used as his vessel. Or at least, only its upper half. Judging by the long trail of blood behind him, he's been dragging said half for a very long way. "JEAY-SAN!"
Jeay vomited blood as he looked up. "O… Otamaya… boy…"
"Jeay-san!" Yusuke quickly rushed to the man's side. "Jeay-san? Are you alright? Argh! What am I saying, of course you're not!" Yusuke placed Jeay's body next to him. "Alright! Bite in! Return back to your body! Quickly!"
Jeay looked at Yusuke, looked at his eyes… the fear and doubt that plagued his eyes were gone. He chuckled. "You've fed, haven't you?"
"!" Yusuke blinked.
"I can tell…" Jeay said weakly. "So…? How does it feel? To finally became a fully fledged Magius?"
"J… Jeay-san…" Yusuke grunted. "Look! We'll talk about this later! Come on! Bite back!"
"No. It's no use." Jeay looked at his old body with some form of fondness. "I've been using that body for so many decades… I don't think it can take it anymore either…"
"What!?" And then… before Yusuke, Jeay's body, the original one, began to wither. The muscular body in its prime began to wither at an accelerated rate before Yusuke's eyes. It already looked like nothing like it was before. "Huh? What? Why!?"
"Now this, Otamaya-boy… this is another fact of life for us Magius. We have to change our body every now and then. It's not about preferences, it's about surviving. Human body wither, they age. Our Runes halt it at bay but… aging still happened either way… Once we removed ourselves from said body… all those years held at bay are now coming back to it. And that happened." As they speak, Jeay's old body that originally looked like in its thirties is fast entering its fifties.
"D… Did you know this will happen when you jacked this man?"
"Of course." Jeay chuckled. "It's not like it's my first time having an emergency jacking."
"What should we do? What should we do!?"
"Well… there's only one thing to do about it…" Jeay gestured at his aging old body. "Yusuke Otamaya… you have to feed on it."
"Eh!?"
"There's still a portion of my runes inside it. Quite a substantial amount, I'd wager. There's no consciousness left in that shell, I've long assimilated it with my own. Which means there won't be any risk of rejection or mind chaos. That thing is now just a huge reservoir of runes, feed on it. You better hurry. Before there's not much left for it to give you."
"E… EHH!?" Yusuke gawked. "W… Why don't you!? You looked like you could use it more than I-"
Jeay grabbed Yusuke's collar and yanked him closer. "No. Look at me. I'm dying either way. There's not enough Rune in it to regenerate my wounds, and even if it did, I won't live long enough to survive the feeding. Besides… you're going to need it more than I do."
"Eh?"
Before Jeay can finish, the corridor behind him was literally ripped to shreds, much to Yusuke's shock and horror. "Eh!?"
And then he saw it. The thing that had done this to Jeay.
It's big. Quite big. A humanoid mech, about 1,5 times of Jeay's original height, which means for Yusuke, it's quite a giant of a humanoid droid. It's slightly smaller than Kyuuma's Osiris. It's colored in gleaming dark gold, and it's heavily armored. It has two back mounted weapons: a single beam cannon and a Gatling gun. With a broad and long armored shoulder, it's arms also sported a pair of built in melee weapons: a massive chainsaw blade on one right arm, and a pile bunker drill on the other.
One look and Yusuke understand: it's not just some specialized clothed Aelf. The endo skeleton is completely different. Fact is… it looked a lot more like…
"…a… Valvrave?"
As if responding, the head area revealed a crown, with neon purple glow… not dissimilar with that of a Valvrave apart from the color.
"They… They've copied our Osiris…!?" And then it hit him. When Arus invaded the Moon base… they've also stolen all the development data of the Valvraves. All the advancements and upgrades they've made, including the Rune engines… They know how to produce runes, and they've already proven that Valvrave is technically buildable with human technology with their Kagerous. And so the enemy has finally done it. A Valvrave Drone pumped full with some Rune derivatives…
"They've cracked our technology." Jeay muttered with his last gasps. "But they haven't necessarily cracked our 'biology'. They don't know that a Magius has a way to become significantly stronger in a heartbeat. I can't fight that thing anymore… but you can."
"B… But…" Whilst Yusuke is still contemplating in doubt, the golden Mock-Valvrave suddenly marched in, axe swinging. Jeay immediately reacted and tapped the ground with his hand. The axe swing and struck Jeay's chest in full. The blade cleaved through his chest, apparently he barely had enough runes left to form his prided skin armor.
"GAAARGHH!" Jeay roared in pain. But that roar is suddenly accompanied by a flow of yellow glowing substance that hardened into crystalline structures. Runes. The last reserves of Jeay's Runes. They quickly formed prosthetics for Jeay's lost limbs and closed the wounds. Jeay grabbed the Gold Mock Valvrave across the waist and pin it in place. The Valvrave struggled to break free, but Jeay maintain his ironclad grip. "This is our way. Within that body of mine is a rune built from hundreds of years worth of battle experience. You have no experience in battle, use mine to complement your weakness. That is the way we Magius had lived. Take it. And you shall become stronger than either of us alone. You shall walk among us as a true full fledged Eldar Magius! You are the Novus Magius of the proud VolFrans bloodline, of the great Aspect Magius Tranvolceires Franthrus Maximllias! So RISE! YUSUKE OTAMAYA!"
"AAAAAGH!" Yusuke finally opened his mouth, and fangs extended out before he clenched it into Jeay's throat.
Jeay watched in satisfaction as his old body shrank even faster as Yusuke drank every bit of its Runes. In contrast, Yusuke's form began to change the more he drank. His skin grew darker, his hair grew longer and wilder.
But then, the Gold Mock Valvrave finally had enough of this dying Magius barring its way, the beam cannon on its shoulder folded down and aimed its barrel at Jeay. In the face of certain death, Jeay smiled. His work is done regardless. One Eldar Magius will depart this world… but in its place, he had ensured another, much stronger than he, to continue on to the future. "This is… the way of the Magius." And he smiled his biggest 'you're screwed' smile.
With a flash of light, what's left of Jeay's mangled body was vaporized. The beam blast continued straight towards the still feeding Yusuke.
0000000
Ashra stopped in an instant when she felt something just disappeared. "…" She looked to a certain direction… and she knew. "…Jeay."
Up above in orbit…
Rasa stopped eating mid bite. She looked to the module from the space ship window… "…Jeay!"
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A palm rise up and welcomed the beam. The beam collided and split apart into smaller streams. Jeay's old body was instantly incinerated, but Yusuke's transformed body was virtually unaffected, thanks to his full body rune skin armor. The split beam strands bounced harmlessly across said body.
Yusuke rise up. His skin turned tan, his originally black eyes now had a yellow golden glint on its pupils. Glowing yellow circular cracks that appear like electrical circuitry formed from his lower jaw, stretching halfway across the lower half of his face.
The Gold Mock raised its massive chainsaw blade and brought it down. But the now Elder Magius… Elder Novus Magius Yusuke Otamaya is no longer easy prey. He grabbed the blade, and the chain saw grind futilely against his diamond hard skin until all its teeth are rendered dull and broken. Yusuke's fingers grasped the now dull chain blade and squeezed. The metallic weapon crumpled like tinfoil in his hand.
The Gold Mock looked absently at its damaged weapon. Its learning algorithm also deduced that it can't beat this Yusuke Otamaya hand to hand. It jumped back, its back mounted weapons opened fire, its shoulder also opened up, firing missiles.
Against all that, Yusuke roared and charged head on. The missiles, the bullets, even the laser beam collided impotently against his supposedly frail body. Amidst the smokes of explosion, Yusuke's fist plows through and it connected with the Gold Mock's face with a loud bang. The visors cracked, but not broken. But that one punch packs more wallop, and the drone was hurled through layers of walls and ceilings until it punched through the roof.
Taking one last look at the embers, all that was left of Jeay, Yusuke gave a brief nod before he stomped the ground, shattering the floor and chase the Gold Mock through the hole.
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In the underground…
Once the explosion faded away, A-Drei looked around to see what's left. Surprisingly, the militia is still intact. They were just knocked down off their feet by the shockwave. He looked at the epicenter, and saw only a crater blast compressed to a small spot. "Yamada… Raizo!? Are you still alive…!?"
No response.
"Yamada Raizo!" Uncharacteristically, A-Drei actually panicked and run towards the ground zero. His soldier's instinct tells him there's no way for even a Super Soldier alien Hybrid can survive a point blank explosion from that many plastic bombs. And yet, there's something else telling him that he might still be alive. "YAMADA RAIZO!" He roared.
"Oh… Shaddup… will you!" Raizo's coarse voice actually flowed out of the smokes of explosion. To the shock and relief of everyone in vicinity.
A-Drei run closer to the crater to find Raizo is actually, defying his belief, surprisingly intact. Although he lost around half of his facial skin and some on the chest to the point one can see the skull and skeleton and the singed flesh, all of which are still smoking. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air. A-Drei paid it no heed and rushed to his side. "Are you alright?"
"Aaah… well… once… I got half of my face and an arm blown to hell… compared to that… this is nothing… gah! Ha! Ha!" Raizo actually chuckled. "Anyway, you should see the other guy!"
Aila gasped and looked like she was on the verge of hurling, as do everyone. It's beyond belief how someone can still be alive with that sort of severe injury. And then they were reminded… the Sakimori kids are not human. They're bio engineered super soldiers using Alien Technology.
"Don't talk. Can you regenerate?"
"I think I am…" Raizo muttered weakly. "Am I… regenerating?"
All things considered, the burnt flesh are sloughing off the bones, and fresh new ones began to grow and re-knit itself, covering the recovering burnt bones, albeit slowly. "Yeah… I think you are…"
"W… What's going on here?" Raizo choked. "All this… a trap? How did they know we're coming?"
"That's a very good question…" A-Drei pondered.
"And I have the answer." Everyone gaped. They turned and saw a woman walked towards them.
"Lady Ashra?" A-Drei blinked.
"This is a trap." Ashra calmly approached them.
"Yeah, we kinda noticed." Aila gestured at Raizo's state.
"No. Not for you humans. For US." Ashra gestured at herself and Raizo. "This was a trap set for Magius. For Novus Magius."
"Us?" Aila immediately surmised that this Ashra is also not what she appears.
A-Drei began to piece things together. A suicide bomber, and then this set up… all this would not be possible if they had not known that an infiltration unit had come beforehand. "How did they know that we're coming?"
"They don't." Ashra knelt next to Raizo and placed her hand on his chest. The glow of runes began seep into his chest, accelerating his regeneration. "But each droid has a compartmentalized action protocol. They have certain… parameters. Protocols that the droids will follow when certain situations occurred. In this case, the situation that occurred is that this module is being infiltrated by a group of Magius. When that happens, the droids followed that protocol… which results in this."
"…but… there also quite a few humans that come with us in this infiltration. How did they know there are Magius in the module… unless…" A-Drei's eyes widened in horror. And he gritted his teeth. "I see… they have one… don't they?"
"Have what?" Aila asked.
A-Drei looked up.
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Up there in orbit…
Akira was looking at the module through her long range telescope. And that's when she noticed something… peculiar. "Eh?"
In the Valravn…
Rasa had just entered the main bridge of the Valravn to report on Jeay's death… but when she get there, a commotion already happened.
"Can you say that again?" Haruto blinked.
"Renbokuji Akira reported that she saw some… writings on the surface inside the module. Some big bright burning letters." Kriemhild reported.
"What letters?"
"Put it on the screens!"
At first, there were mosaics… but then the resolution quickly improved… and the writings became clear. It's just one big sentence made of straws arrayed on the ground and burned alight.
RUNE SCANNER
Just that one sentence, and Haruto and Cain already understood its complication.
Down on the surface…
"You think they read it?" Akari looked to the artificial sky.
"If Renbokuji Akira maintained a watchful attention from the sky, yeah, I think so." X-Eins looked at all the straws they're burning to make sure the words can be seen way up there.
"But… if she can see it… won't the enemy will be able to see it as well?"
"Definitely. We better move. The most important thing is that we've already managed to get the message out. Now it's up to Commander Cain."
"Roger that."
00000000000000
The giant writings in flames were seen not only by the New Jior fleet in orbit… but also to the other side of the war theater…
"God damn it! I want every stupid son of bitch in that Module executed!"
"They found out. No matter. That just pushed us ahead of the schedule. Launch the countermeasures!"
00000000000000
Up in orbit…
The crews of the Valravn are in an uproar. All the officers in the bridge were panicking over the fact they've fallen into enemy's trap like an idiot.
"How can you NOT know when a critical piece of technology was stolen!?" Kriemhild barked.
"It was a riot! Some of us were too busy staying alive!" Goh responded.
"Look. Blaming each other results in nothing! We need to find a way to extract the infiltration team!" Ryuuji tried to calm the situation.
Just before the situation was resolved, alarms blared allover the ship.
"INCOMING HIGH ENERGY READING!" The radar officer screamed.
"TAKING EVASIVE ACTION!" Pino screeched.
The Valravn took a sudden jerk to the left, barely avoiding a massive stream of beam blast. It managed to graze a sizable chunk of the flagship, but it struck a Dorssian Walkit that was escorting said flagship right down the middle. The ship exploded in an instant.
"Wh… What?" Kriemhild gawked.
"We got incoming!" The Radar officer barked yet again. "The number is… 5… 12… 20… too many! It's an entire fleet!"
True enough, out of the darkness, a sizable fleet of Arus warships appeared right on the New Jior fleet's rear and start opening fire.
"All shields to our rear!" Kriemhild shouted. "Prepare to sortie the Kagerous to cover our retreat!"
"Wait! Are you saying you're going to leave the infiltration down there on their own!?" Ryuuji protested.
"They're most likely dead!" Kriemhild pitilessly surmised. "We need to survive today so that we can rethink of a different approach!"
"NO." One voice ended the arguments, but it was not Ryuuji. It belonged to one of the two people who kept their calm reserved.
Tokishima Haruto.
"Tokishima Haruto… what are you thinking?" Cain, the other one of the calm people, breaks the riot by voicing a question.
Everyone fell silent, knowing a plan was afoot.
"…if they've gone through this kind of elaborate setup just to trap our forces on the ground… you can bet your ass there will be ambushers in space waiting to hit us by the butt. They attacked us way too early because they just realize we found out about that trap." Haruto analyzed the situation. "We could use this. Pino… how many back up Fuel Tanks we have on the Valravn… and on each ship we have on our fleet?"
The holographic image of Pino appeared alongside the schematics of all the ships in the fleet. "Valravn has 5 tanks of reserve runes. Dorssian Walkitts has 4 fuel tanks, Arus Carriers had 6, and the Magius Cruisers had 3 reserve rune tanks."
Cain, the other genius on the board, immediately caught on to what Haruto had in mind. "You must've been feeding on some of my students."
"Maybe. Apparently so." Haruto glared at the ambusher fleet bearing down on them. "EVERYONE TO THEIR STATIONS! WE DON'T HAVE BUT A MOMENT TO LOSE!"
In concert, Cain also knew what must be done: "KRIEMHILD! ALL POWER TO SIDE BATTERY AND SHIELDS! RETURN FIRE!"
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Unaware of the battle raging in orbit (at least not directly), the infiltration team that had rendezvoused underground is also facing a problem of their own…
"When the Rune Scanner detected Magius in the module, the Droids automatically activate protocol 010. Let them think we fooled the system, let them in, gather them in one place… and butcher us en-masse."
"And you know all this protocol… how?" Aila suspiciously asked.
"Well…" Ashra answered as she swiped some blood off her lips. "I fed on quite a few humans on my way here. Some of them are soldiers and programmers who were aware of all the protocols. They were supposed to vacate the premises the moment the protocol was activated, but some didn't manage to get away in time, apparently. Thanks to that I've amassed quite a huge amount of knowledge… and Runes. They don't know much… but I deduced the rest myself."
The militia gulped in horror.
"Rune Scanner?" Aila asked, trying to change the subject.
"The most surefire method to detect Magius." A-Drei explained. "The one way to differentiate human and magius… is one simple fact: Magius can use Runes." A-Drei gestured how Ashra is healing Raizo's wounds with the so called substance. "Only a human inhabited by a Magius can have Runes coursing within their system. Rune Scanner can detect that. We've entered this module with the assumption they don't have this technology. Clearly, we were wrong."
"And why did you not think Arus can replicate this technology of yours?"
"It's the most alien technology imaginable." Ashra stated. "A personal invention of Queen Pino when she realized she must now fight her own kind. She found the concept 'kill em all let God sort em out' appalling."
"Right… And they installed this all powerful scanner where?"
"Same place where I came looking for a signal transmitter that doesn't exist. Up there." Ashra pointed up as she finished up healing Raizo. "The weather dome… specifically the artificial sun generator."
No sooner than Ashra said that, the ceiling of the mainframe chamber suddenly shook. With a loud thunderous boom, it collapsed in a cascade of debris and rubble, carrying with them two brawling figures, one easily dwarfing the other.
When the two landed on the ground with a crash, the bigger of the two break the fall of the smaller one… surprisingly enough, or understandably enough, a much more destructive experience for the bigger of the two, considering how crumpled the big one get.
All audience was drawn to attention towards the crater… and then to the figure stepping out of it… the triumphant smaller figure…
"Yusuke Otamaya!?" All New Jiorian infiltrators gawked, except Ashra.
The used to be scrawny boy looked like he had an instant crash course of physical build up in the few hours he had been out of view. His figure is still small, but cords of muscle now filled the lean figure. His skin is now much darker to a tan, and his once curly hair is a bit wilder, with a bit of yellow tinge on its edges. But more importantly, are these markings that now showed as clear as day on his mouth area. Glowing yellow markings that looked like circuitry cracks extending down from his upper lips to his lower jaw. And his teeth turned fangs protruded out of his heaving mouth.
"…Y… Yusuke… my man…? What… happened to you!?" Raizo gawked.
"Raizo…" Yusuke wildly looked at Raizo as he grinded his now fanged teeth. Even his voice seems coarser than usual. "I'm… fine… I'm… great, actually."
"You've fed on him." Ashra answered. Yusuke looked at the Magius. Contrary to what everyone had expected, she was smiling. "You've fed on Jeay, did you not?"
Yusuke frowned. "Yeah. I did."
The human audience gawked in horror. Did that kid just admit he just cannibalized a guy!? Ashra sighed. Not in sorrow, but in relief… and genuine happiness. "Oh, Jeay. My loyal and true vassal… well done. Most fortunate you are."
"Well done!? Most fortunate!?" Raizo gawked in disbelief. "Yusuke just fed on your comrade and you congratulate him!? Aren't you angry or something!?"
Ashra chuckled. "Why should I? I doubt Jeay was angry when he decided to give Yusuke Otamaya everything. Quite the opposite, I believe. This is the way of the Magius, younglings. When one of us is lacking something, the other with excess will complement him, so that one becomes something greater than either. When a Magius is nearing the end of its life, it is his duty to transfer all his knowledge and abilities as inheritance to the next generation." Ashra looked with pride at what Yusuke had become. "I would consider Jeay very fortunate, that at the very end, he found a worthy successor: that which had become something greater than he. That is a luxury very few Magius can afford in his eternity of a lifespan." Ashra gestured at Yusuke. "Welcome, Yusuke Otamaya. You are now one of us. You are now, a true Elder Magius!
"What…!?" Raizo still couldn't accept such cruel logic, but he was stopped from rushing to Ashra, surprisingly enough, by Yusuke. "Yusuke?"
"…leave it be, Raizo." Yusuke spoke. "…this… this is their way of life. I didn't understand it then… but now that I've absorbed Jeay san's experience… his whole life… I… I literally walked in his shoes… I think I understand."
"Yusuke…" As they looked at the boy, the changes upon him began to fade away. His hair turned completely black again, and his skin reverted back to its original color as the markings on his lower jaw disappear. The wild yellow coloring his eyes disappeared and his muscles shrank back to their original shape and size.
"There's no signal transmitter." Yusuke wasted no time.
"What?" A-Drei gawked.
Yusuke then explained his findings. After everything they've experienced in these brief hours, A-Drei was hardly surprised. Aila however, was horrified. "…they… tricked us…!? All this… for nothing!?"
Just before the issue was resolved, A-Drei immediately noticed another danger. "Contact rear!" He pointed at the crater where Yusuke had fallen.
The Gold Mock Valvrave managed to rise up from the rubble. To their disbelief, it actually began to recover. The dented armor plates that bear Yusuke's fist imprints flattened… limbs barely holding together reconnected… the half dismantled drone is literally reassembling itself before their very eyes. Amidst this regeneration, they saw blue silver particles ejecting from every exhaust vents on the said Droid.
"Oyy, oy…! I thought you've ripped that thing apart!? What the hell!?" Raizo gawked.
"Nanomachine Self Repair system…" Yusuke recognized it. "Project Second Wind… I had no idea that thing is already went past design concept! That thing has a fleet of nanomachine stored inside it… machines the size of bacteria… and they're using it to fix that droid at a molecular level."
"So… you're saying that shitty excuse of a Valvrave Knockoff gonna keep regenerating no matter how many times it was bashed up!?"
"No… there are limits. If we bash it enough times until its battery ran out, the nano machine will stop healing it." Yusuke's intelligence now gained some of Jeay's grit. "However, that thing is fueled by Runes. They've learned how to produce some of it. So it's gonna take a while… unless…" Yusuke looked at A-Drei.
Raizo also grinned, knowing what it means. "A-Drei did say subtlety had its day."
"Indeed I did." A-Drei nodded as a go ahead. "Everybody back away!"
Raizo pulled out his… cellphone. He pressed a few certain buttons…
Now why on earth would they went through all this trouble sending the pilots in… if they don't send their units with them?
Up there, on some warehouse, the frigate the New Jior used for infiltration suddenly began to shake. Plating snapped clean off, boosters collapsed, the whole ship crumble inside out. Yellow components burst out of concealed compartments and immediately, and quite literally, punched their way through anything that stands between them and their destination.
The yellow components fly through the air and quickly homed in towards the signal and fly straight through the closest opening, specifically, the hole in which Yusuke had bust through a little earlier. It's a bit small… but the Behemoth components are big enough and strong enough to enlarge said opening.
Down there, the Gold Mock still wasn't aware of what's happening up there and took a step forward…
…and the first that landed right on top the Droid was a fist. Behemoth's Familiar Titan Fist. It stopped the Mock dead on his feet, and it was forced to drop everything and held the falling object aloft with its two hands. But then, others parts followed. A foot, a leg, a knee, another Fist, a thigh, another Fist, and so on, and so forth… Each component flies in and assembled themselves as the form of a Valvrave began to take shape right on top of the Gold Mock. Each part attaching is another pressure on the Droid underfoot. By the time the lower half of the Behemoth had been assembled, the Droid was still struggling, and now it's on his knees. But then, the upper half assembled themselves midair, forming torso, its signature four arms, and of course their accompanying Titan Fists… and they descend – scratch that, free fall straight into the stump of the lower half's waist en masse, attaching with a bang. The weight was more than doubled, and the Gold Mock was squeezed flat on the ground with its chest pressed against the floor.
Yusuke had to peek beneath Behemoth's foot to see that the target is still somewhat intact. The nano machine mist is racing to fix the damage faster than it can be afflicted.
The assembled 33 meter tall Behemoth are on its knees, standing by for its pilot to enter. Rebuilt exactly the way it was before its unfortunate destruction. One change is that its rear end now sports a large and thick back waist armor, which also features a single pair of Green Sense Nerve wing petal. But before Raizo can enter, he noticed a few pieces still missing. "Wait… where are the heads?"
As if on cue, Behemoth's two heads finally came in at top speed and latched themselves in one after another unto their designated spot with two consecutive loud bangs. One in front, one in back. The violent final assembly also provided that one last hammering, and the gap between the Behemoth's foot and the floor finally closed shut with a final slam.
NOW, the 34 meter tall Behemoth is TRULY fully assembled and awaits only its pilots.
"Nice landing." Raizo stated, Yusuke nodded.
And just when they contemplated to relax, an eerie metallic grating sound was heard. And then, the Behemoth began to budge. The leg that stomped the Gold Mock flat began to shake… and involuntarily rise up. What's more, the metallic plates of the floor began to… disintegrate into sand. And like a whirling ant lion pit it began to converge to the center, right beneath the Behemoth's foot.
"The heck?"
"It's the Nanomachines." Yusuke recognized it. "They're eating the metals around it and use it as material to fix the droid!" Unfortunately, one of those materials include the Titan Fist soling the Behemoth's boots. Within moments, the Titan Fist was consumed, and the Behemoth who lost his footing and fell. His fell was stopped when the perpetrator of this anomaly caught it and held the foot, and the Behemoth, aloft. Finally allowing everyone to see the true form of the thing Yusuke had actually been fighting.
They were welcomed with the most unexpected sight. Amidst all the whirling metallic sand and half formed armor plating stood the unmistakable figure of a girl. Her body was covered in a skintight gold and black cybernetic suit, with multitudes of cables attached all over the place, bundles extending out of the back of her head in place of hair. No visible hair or face, because the suit completely covered her head in that Valvrave style human sized helmet, with its neon red glowing head crest embedded over a monocular optic on the spot where an eye would lay. Parts of the girl's limb were covered in partially constructed limbs of the golden mech Yusuke had bashed up. And those components are quickly expanding to cover the entirety of the girl's figure. Before long, the girl's female figure was completely encapsulated inside the Gold Mock Valvrave Armor – as good as new.
"That… that just now was… a girl… right?" Yusuke asked. "I mean… that's not a… robot… or a cybernetic brain… right?"
The Gold Mock looked at the two pilots… and then to the giant Behemoth atop her. And then, before anyone can make up on what to do, she hurled the Behemoth until it fell on its back, and then she jumped very high to the sky, and boosted towards the mainframe. She landed quite gracefully with her back pressed on its vertical surface, high enough that she was able to look down upon the bewildered enemy soldiers down below.
-Activating Goldilocks Protocol.-
A female voice, intermixed with horrid mechanical tone echoed from behind the mouthless head piece. The Gold Mock Valvrave literally sank into the Mainframe's surface. And everything began to change.
The wall collapsing around them is the first cue for the humans that things is about to go chaotic and fast. "Everybody get out of here!" Aila shouted amidst the noise of roaring engines, and the humming of power build up. A-Drei also sent one last look at the two that remained. Lord knows they're the only ones who can probably put up a fight against what's next. Whatever it is.
By the time Yusuke and Raizo finally boarded their Valvrave and activated it, the image of what they're up against is starting to show.
The so called 'Mainframe' finally revealed its true form. Power cables snapped off as redundant armor plating detached themselves, revealing the mechanism beneath it. Parts folded to form limbs, seams parted to reveal bionic muscles underneath. The collapsed walls around them revealed multiple giant sized manipulator arms that assembled large components piece by piece until it began to take shape. When it stood up, it literally stood up on its two enormous legs. The predominantly bronze colored mech is over three times taller than the Behemoth, and three times as wide. Its massive shoulders were broad and long, and easily the largest components of its upper half, noticeably bigger than its massive chest, and they sport a pair of arms so huge, its four blocky fingered hands were big enough to grasp a Valvrave in its palm. Its torso stands out somewhat, for being thickly armored in ominous silver components in the midst all the bronze color that extends to its bronze wide shoulder. To note, it's also located on the same spot where they saw the Gold Mock disappeared into. A massive glowing metallic sphere descended last on the stump of its neck stump and firmly attached to it, before a wide and proportionately large head descend and seal it from view when it completes the final assembly. Said head is also distinct because it bears the Valvrave style crown, despite being more blocky, angular, and thicker than theirs… and they also glow neon purple as opposed to their green.
Behemoth is easily larger than the rest of the other Valvrave, but for the first time ever, it faced an enemy so huge the yellow Valvrave actually had to bend its head up just to look at it in the face. And even then, it was only in comparison to the gargantuan adversary's upper half, considering the other half are still submerged in the cavernous hangar where it rest.
Yusuke and Raizo agreed on one vain point: "We need a bigger Valvrave."
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