Old Paris

In Captain Wards mind being inside of a Mech was almost intoxicating.

Every step was filled with power, every motion graceful. As if every motion you make would become better through the war machine.

These machines were built for one purpose, fighting the Fallen in the tight urban spaces.

Luckily most of New Paris was built with the thought that a giant robot is going to stop by. Which might be slightly annoying to the average pedestrian but extremely helpful in a Mech fight.

“After me mes amis” Louis called over the voice chat connecting all of them.

His mech then proceeded to jump while grabbing the ledge of the plateau they were on and light up all the crystals embedded in the Back of the Mech’s leg to generate momentum and reach the roof of a building they did not see from this angle.

“You make it look easy Nomad!” Kaya said to Louis as her mech slithered on top of a cloud of flying metallic jellyfish. The cloud poured downwards almost creating a slide from where they were towards The Frenchman’s Mech.

“And you just made it easy for everyone Waterfall” Luis said back

“Oath, Undying can you guys get across safely ?” Kaya asked Anya and William.

“It feels like walking on a boat in a storm but its doable” Anya said as both her and Ward walked down the slope made of drones.

“Sorry, I could not get them to stop wobbling because of the weight of the 3D printer I installed in all of them. next time I will tell them to print more support with metal from scraps around” Kaya replied over the voice chat.

“Where to now Nomad?” Captain Ward asked.

“We go over those buildings and get to the highway. From there its just going straight until we get close enough to jump” Louis replied while leading the way.

He moved with unnatural grace as every motion the mech made was assisted by a tiny jet of plasma going the other way. The mech looked the most human out of all other Mechs and the entire thing was covered in tiny blue crystals attached to small engines while on its back it had two giant wing like rocket launchers with twenty-five barrels.

The path to the highway was supposed to be rough, with multiple jumps over dangerous gaps. But with Nomad leading the way and Waterfall’s drones providing something to step on, the journey was quite enjoyable.

William let his team blabber on so long as they were not in danger. It was actually fun, hearing them excited about what the other’s Mech can do.

While they spoke William took the time to use his Sniper Rifle and fifty cameras to scan the surroundings for any potential enemy and place them on a holographic grid in front of his pilot seat.

In this seat every motion of his arms and upper body was tracked to that of the mech while the lower body was controlled with sophisticated pedals.

Ward looked at the position of the group he was tracking, a hundred green Fallen led by a thirty-meter-tall giant. They were stationed ten kilometers away and seemed to be going away from them.

“What can your mech do Oath?” Kia eventually asked Captain ward who was not paying attention to the conversation

“I have two automatic grenade pistols and a stick-shift sniper rifle. I also have really good sensors and optics” Captain Ward replied absentmindedly.

“Wat is a stick shift sniper rifle?” Anya asked.

“Did you mean to say bolt action Mon Frere?” Luis replied with a chuckle.

To that Captain ward flicked his rifle while pressing a button and the whole thing turned into a baseball bat. “No No No. you all misunderstood.” William Said as they all chuckled.

“We are here” Louis Said as they stood next to a huge spiral building that stood ten meters away from the highway.

The building itself supported many bridges and stretched from sea level all the way to the city above. It used to be a main travel route before it had to be blocked off, so Fallen wont climb up and attack New Paris as well.

As Waterfall ordered the metallic jellyfishes to swarm and print a workable bridge, Captain ward scanned the building with his scope.

“The place not abandoned that’s for sure, I see shadows at motion on the lower levels. There is also a group of about a hundred green Fallen close by, but they are moving away from us currently.” He said to his team.

“The motion you see, is it going towards us or are they being nice enough to stay down there.” Anya said as she prepared to step on the makeshift bridge being held together by the swarm of jellyfishes.

“Can’t tell. prepare for the worst” Commander ward replied.

The moment all of them got inside the building the drones started to work on disassembling the bridge, collecting scraps of metal from anything they could grab and scanning their surroundings.

“Hi, Waterfall. How do you control so many of them” Anya said with awe.

“Oh. It’s a touch screen” Kaya replied

“you missundersta –“Anya tried to protest as a sound of stone hitting metal down the corridor made all the soldiers aim their weapons down the spiral.

The place was destroyed with signs of battle everywhere. From bullet holes to craters and cuts on the stone. Every now and then puddles and splashes of blood covered the walls and floor where civilians once stood.

There were no bodies. Not full ones. But bones were scattered about the place with the meat nearly picked clean off.

Some of them were covered in yellow crystals around their backs and jaws while others had purple crystals growing from their eye sockets and random parts of their skeletons.

Very few of them had red crystals growing out of where their necks and shoulders were, and all of the team stayed far away from those skeletons.

“Stay sharp. We might not be alone” Captain Ward ordered.

The team advanced slowly down the spiral. Undying taking the lead.

The four-armed Mech held his hammer with two hands while one hand placed a huge railgun on the Mech’s shoulder. The last hand of Undying went towards his back and removed a plate of metal that extended into a massive shield that could cover most of the ten-Meter-tall metallic Giant, functioning like a moving wall blocking the corridor.

A hideous Crunch sound filled the silence as Kaya said, “I lost a drone. It was moving fast!”

Several more crunch sounds were heard from below the spiral. “Really fast!” Kaya emphasized