Chapter 14: Alpha Strike.

Cold wind swept through the streets. The rain still hadn't stopped. People rushed home early as the freezing drops made Metromania quieter than usual. Only two streaks of silver light moved in the sky cutting through the storm. Team Alpha. 01 and 08.

This was their first duo mission. It wasn't a risky combination since Dr. Nick had trained the new units using data from the originals. 08 moved with the same precision as 01 but her mind was fresh. New.

01 glanced at her partner mid-flight. "So 08... what is your opinion on the world so far?"

08's tone was soft yet firm. "It appears to be... eventful. Simulations were simple. Finish the objective and return to base. But reality is messy. Too many variables. Too many mistakes that could make everything disappear in a blink. Honestly? It is unsettling."

01 chuckled quietly. "Very wise. Taking down these trucks is not high priority but it is necessary. We can not let the company recover."

08 nodded. "The Captain never forgives mistakes. I was trained on 05's data for defense and tactics. But the Captain did not like how I stuck to routine. She made 03 train me in precision." She hesitated. "But..."

01 grinned. "She is scary right?"

08 shivered. "Totally! She acts so cute while explaining how to dismantle an enemy limb by limb. Like... can you please stop smiling while talking about amputation?!"

01 laughed lightly. "Oh she always does that. I always pray for whoever faces her. She can be terrifying when she switches modes."

08 whispered. "The captain seems close to her. Are they like... the same?"

01 went serious. "No. The captain is something else. Perfect really. She can make life-or-death calls in half a second. About her and 03... let me tell you. Once in the Metro Robotics factory 03 was hit by a heat-seeking rocket. Direct hit. The captain... changed. She became something inhuman. She cleared three mechs with her bare fists. Alone."

08 was shocked. "What?! That is insane!"

01 continued. "Yeah and then she used her under-review protocol. Super Speed. She ran through asphalt like a phoenix carrying 03 the entire way."

08's eyes widened. "Wait. Is not Super Speed limited to low-weight mode?"

"She just did. That is why Dr. Nick chose her to lead. She breaks limits."

"It is crazy how we are all identical but so different."

01 smiled faintly. "Humans wonder the same thing. Maybe that is the secret of being truly intelligent."

They descended from the Light Lane. Below on the empty highway four massive trucks sped East. Classified cargo. High threat.
Orders: Take them all down.

Suddenly a streak of light tore through the rain. A rocket.
01 yelled. "Staying high is dangerous!"

"Wait... are not these heat-seeking?" 08 looked back.

Before 01 could answer the rocket looped around. Its engine shrieked as it locked onto 08.

"It is locked on me! You handle the trucks. I will take care of this and return!"

"Good! Use the forest seven degrees West!"

"Roger!"

08 peeled off into the storm. 01 dove toward the highway.
Code Red. Initiated.

01 dove through the night sky. Shields deployed. Eyes glowing red. She fell toward the highway like a meteor. Rain splashed against her armor with steam rising at every impact.

The first semi-truck's rear doors swung open. Three light mechs jumped out holding heavy turrets.
Before she could react the second truck opened too. Five more mechs climbed onto the roof weapons blazing!
Bullets rained.

01 moved like lightning. Dodging. Spinning. Vanishing between thunder flashes. Each flash revealed her silhouette. Graceful. Unstoppable.
She raised so high up, and disappeared into the clouds.

Then came the impact.

She fell like a bomb slamming into one mech with her shield in full charge. The ground shook. The mech crumpled like a soda can. Blood sprayed from the cockpit cracks as it fell onto the road.

01 drew her blade keeping one shield raised to block the storm of bullets.

For a brief moment she exhaled. Not air but something deeper. The rain fell on her cold focused expression. A gesture she must have learned from watching humans.

She crouched with her blade ready. The world slowed. Every raindrop hung midair.
Then she ran. Impossibly fast.

She dodged each bullet by instinct. Every step was a precise calculation. The blade began to glow red-hot as its charge peaked. She reached the nearest mech and slashed one of its legs clean off.

The machine stumbled dropping its light machine gun. It swung a massive arm at her but as the Captain always said:
Big means slow.

01 raised her shield but the mech overpowered her. The metal screeched as her feet slid back on the wet truck's top. The mech dropped its other gun and used both arms to crush her.

She deployed her second shield and pushed back with full power.

Meanwhile the other mechs aimed new weapons.
"Laser condensators... damn it!" 01 hissed. The enemy mechs charged their cannons.

08's voice crackled in her ear. "01! CLEAR THE AREA!"
She twisted her left shield deflecting the mech's hands sideways. Its arms crashed into the truck's roof and got stuck.

The pilot screamed for his life. "DO NOT SHOOT!"
Other pilots got confused. "Wait... what?! How!"

01 launched upward with full thrust.
A split second later a sonic hum cut the air.

08 flew past at light speed.
"What the hell was that!" a pilot questioned.

And then it came to them. The same heat-seeking rocket that chased 08 came back.
Pilots saw the rocket approaching at high speed. "Oh fu..."
BOOM.
The semi-truck exploded lighting up the dark highway in a massive fireball. The back half of the vehicle was thrown sky-high before crashing down blocking the road.

The remaining trucks skidded to a halt.
And through the fire emerged 01 and 08 side by side.

Eyes glowing red. Twin blades burning crimson. The flames behind them danced like wings with the highway painted in red light.
It was the cores. They had detonated. And the night had just begun.

"Perfect timing 08," 01 whispered.
08 replied. "I learned from the best."
"Want to make it cleaner?"
08 smirked. "Mean wiping these weaklings out?"
"Precisely 08."
"Loud and clear." 08 saluted.

Before they even moved one of the trucks' doors slammed open. Twenty exo-suit drivers stormed out in perfect sync.
The other two semitrucks started shaking. Their metallic frames rattled like beasts ready to break free.
Then it came.

Five behemoth halves each the size of a small building tore out of the trailers like monsters. They fused together midair with hydraulic roars and magnetic locks forming one colossal mech that shook the street as it landed.

It wasn't grey or dark green industrial like the smaller mechs. It was light green armored in hardened iron with five cockpits each shielded by reinforced orange glass. Four arms each held a giant laser cannon and a spinning 360-degree turret sat on its back.

An impressive piece of tech and a nightmare in the rain.
01 spoke with pure sarcasm. "Was it necessary to destroy company property for a dramatic entrance?"

The Behemoth pilot yelled. "You are the one talking? You came out of fire!"
The exo-suit team captain barked. "We told you to wait!"
Another pilot replied. "Wait for what? For you to get wiped out? They destroyed five mechs in minutes!"
The captain snapped. "Alright then! Team 4 and 6 step back! Wait for my orders!"

The teams moved aside boots splashing through puddles.
01 didn't blink. "Keeping the guests waiting is not one of my habits. 08 clean them out of my face."
08 saluted again. "Roger that."

The Behemoth pilot tried to scare her. "Do not get cocky with..."
01 vanished.

"What!!?"

The turret went berserk spraying bullets like lightning but none hit. In less than a breath 01 appeared on top of the Behemoth one foot on the turret.
She kicked it down with a deafening clang.

The Behemoth reacted instantly. Four cannons aligned. Five pilots. Five minds. One machine. Their reaction time was brutal. The laser didn't even need to charge.
A raw beam of light sliced through the sky igniting the clouds.
01 darted sideways the air burning where she had been a second ago. If that hit her directly she would be done for.

She ran across the mech's shoulders each blast shaking the world. The Behemoth's four cannons fired in overlapping arcs. It was a storm of light too fast for human eyes and too close for mistakes.
But 01 danced between them. Her movements blurred like reflections on wet glass. To her their aim was slow. Human slow.
She deflected one blast with her forearm shield.

Bad move.

The beam overpowered it instantly exploding her backward through the air. 01 slammed the road rolling hard. Sparks flew from her armor. She coughed eyes narrowing.

"I see... shields are not effective."

Another beam tore through the night and hit her sending her skyward in a flash.
She landed hard sparks showering the wet asphalt. She looked at her left shoulder. The arm was gone. Vaporized.
She didn't feel pain. She felt insulted.

They broke it, she thought as her logic processors turned cold. They broke the chassis Father built. They touched the perfection he created with their dirty mass-produced light-bulbs.

A deep digitized growl vibrated in her throat.
"Alright. I tested your gun. It does some damage."
Her voice didn't sound like a police officer anymore. It sounded like a judge passing a death sentence.
"But four of them? That is too much do not you think?"

The pilots fired again mid-sentence but she was already gone.
01 hit the ground pulling her blade free. Her eyes glowed red through the rain.

Super Speed. Initiated.

Blue lightning surged around her limbs energy crackling along the blades. Her whole body glowed reflecting in the puddles.
"Your mech is strong..." she said disappearing into a blur.

She reappeared atop the Behemoth.
"...but we are far stronger... weaklings."

Her blade sliced through one of the mech's arms.
The massive limb hit the ground carving a crater in the asphalt. The cut glowed molten orange like plasma had eaten through steel.

Then came the storm.
SLEEK. SLEEK. SLEEK.
Blade flashed. Metal screamed.

01 tore through the Behemoth's armor like a machine possessed.
"Aaaah!" she roared her voice breaking through the thunder.

Each strike sparked explosions fire and light.
The pilots panicked.
"System failure! Right arm gone! Power dropping!"
The Behemoth lifted off the ground desperate to escape. It ascended into the fog sparks raining below.
But 01 followed. Of course she did.

Up there the rain thickened. The world vanished into mist and lightning. They couldn't see her. Only flickers of blue light.
Then she appeared on the cockpit glass. She crouched with her reflection staring back at them.

"Where were we?"

She drove her blade down.
Armor peeled off like paper. Her blade tore downward. Panels ripped apart. Circuits screamed. Sparks burned the rain itself.

"For us..."
She slashed.
"...you are just toddlers holding butter knives."
She slashed again. And again.

The pilots tried to strike back the remaining arms swinging. She was already beside them. Her movement felt supernatural like a horror scene for the pilots inside.

"...you simply can not win."
She grabbed one of the giant laser guns bare-handed REMOVING it from the main body. Her internal skeleton groaned under the weight with warning lights flashing on her HUD but she didn't let go.

"Oh no," one pilot gasped.

01 smirked. "Friendly fire."

She charged the gun with her own energy. The glow turned pure blue.
Then came the discharge.
A massive beam fired point-blank engulfing the Behemoth in light. Screams echoed. For a second night turned into day.

Down below 08 had just finished her own fight. She looked up and saw 01 erasing the mech from existence.
Then silence.

The Behemoth fell burning. No signs of life. The core's light flickered weakly.
The laser cannon couldn't hold all of her charged energy. It went unstable. 01 tossed the unstable gun at it.
A blast wave rolled through the street throwing 08 off balance. She shielded her face stunned by the light.

When the smoke cleared 01 descended gracefully through the haze landing like a phantom. Left hand torn off.

08 was lost for words. "A... w... you..."
01 smiled. "Now that was a fight. How did things go for you?"
08 stood frozen.
01 tilted her head. "08?"

Suddenly the wreckage groaned. The Behemoth stood up. It detached into three medium mechs. The fight wasn't over. The pilots were long dead but the automatic override took over as soon as it sensed the heartbeat of the pilots stopped. The Behemoth took position with no hand and half torn.

The rain still poured. The fire didn't die.
01 and 08 took position too. 01 yelled on the radio. "Requesting back-up immediately!"

08's View.

The rocket screamed behind her closing fast. The forest flashed on the horizon. She saw it as a wall of trees but she never reached it. Before she could dive in 01's voice cut through the comm like a warning.

"Laser condensators... damn it!"

08 didn't hesitate. She flipped nose like a bullet and shot straight back toward the highway. Her plan was to use the incoming rocket as a weapon.
Full speed. Blue trail hissing behind her. It was less than Light Lane speed but enough to be a bullet in the storm.

08's voice crackled. "01! CLEAR THE AREA!"

She thundered past the convoy. The rocket still hunting heat found metal where she had just been.
BOOM.
The trailer erupted in fire. The explosion flipped parts of the truck into the sky and sent burning metal skidding across the wet asphalt blocking the road.

From the wreckage 01 and 08 emerged together. Two red blades. Red eyes. Framed by the inferno like action-movie silhouettes. Only twenty-five soldiers crawled from the left truck to see it.

Then the ground itself joined the spectacle.

Five medium robots detached and fused midair. Two halves snapped into one titanic body. The Behemoth rose. Green-hardened armor. Five orange-glassed cockpits. Four arms each cradling gigantic laser cannons and a crown turret that scanned like a storm eye. It was wrong-sized and glorious.

01 barked orders. "08 clear the twenty-five exo-suit soldiers."
They thought they were safe clustered at the roadside. They turned back to see 08 following them with red eyes glowing.

08 raised a pistol and aimed up at the sky.
They laughed. Loud nervous bravado.
"Is that the big threat?" one sneered.
"She stopped the truck on her own!" another joked.
"No she used our rocket against us!" a third spat.
"Finish her and help the pilots!" the captain roared.

08 moved with one clean motion. She shot every nearby streetlamp. Light died in a fifty-meter radius. The road fell into a black hole.

"Turn your lights on!" the captain screamed panic now ragged.
They couldn't. 08 vanished into the dark. They were loud and cocky until the lights vanished.
First came a scream. Wet and sharp.

"Aaaah... my hand..."

Then another sound. Sleek. Flesh torn. Screams multiplied. They clustered in a ring backs pressed firing blindly into the black. Bullets sprayed. Men fell.

"Start shooting randomly until we hit her!" the captain ordered voice breaking.
Bullets sprayed. Screams grew louder. Then a clean sound. Flesh met steel. One fell. Another screamed then silence.
Bullets kept screaming through the night but their owners fell silent one by one.

"Kai! Answer me!" the captain shouted.
"Taylor!" he yelled. "Joe!!"
No answers. His overhead flashlights lay scattered on the wet asphalt like dead stars.
"Oh my god," he breathed. Pile of bodies.

In the dark blue light flared. 08 stood up glowing blood painted across her chest and arms like war paint. Her red eyes fixed on the captain.
08's voice was flat. "I hope you get it now. You are the one who is not a threat to us."

The captain fell to his knees. Rain mixed with his blood.
08 held a single blade with both hands like a katana held by a calm surgeon.

The captain whimpered. "They used us... please finish this. I won't resist."

She stepped closer slow and precise with breath a whisper in the storm.
"I like your resolve."
He laughed. It was brittle. "Haha, well I do not."

Sleek.

Internal Affairs Ministry - Altea's Situation. 10:03 PM.

Miles away in the capital of Altea the rain fell just as hard.
Mikael stared out the window of the Ministry building. To the north he could almost smell the salt of the Maridian Tides Sea.
The weather was still a little warm though the skies were heavy with rain.

The capital sat near the middle-west of the nation leaning toward the north. It was a land where glass towers met the echo of ocean winds. The northern regions opened to the Maridian Tides Sea its shimmering shores reflecting the silver storms that often passed through. To the south the air turned dry and hot leading to the open waves of The Grand Pelagic Ocean.

To the east lay the friendly Union of Kasparia a trusted ally. But to the west things were more complex. Two nations shared that border. Veridian Coast in the northwest a small but deeply allied country and farther southwest stood New Mer a restless neighbor that once waged an unnecessary war against Altea. It was a conflict that should have ended in a year but stretched into five. A war no one truly wanted sparked by the will of a single man. The former Minister of Defense Alexander. The war's sole purpose was one thing. Funding.

Now years later the scars still shaped the world.

Altea's population was massive. Two hundred million people with Metromania being one of its newer but growing megacities. Yet despite its rise it was left with thin security forces. The real power the trained officers and elite divisions all served the capital.

And that made sense. The capital wasn't just a city. It was a heart of money power and international attraction packed with thirty-five million lives. The streets pulsed with investors traders and dreamers from neighboring states. Safety was its selling point and that safety came from its proximity to the war border only 350 kilometers away forcing the army to turn the capital into a fortress.

Mikael Wilson arrived at the tall glass building of the Internal Affairs Ministry. The rain slid down his coat.

This visit wasn't new. He often came here to coordinate with Minister Redwood a man as calculating as he was ambitious. Their partnership had been vital. Two men with aligned goals. A cleaner country but on their terms.

Inside the office however someone new awaited.

The freshly appointed Minister of Defense Henry Vegas stood by the window watching the storm clouds crawl over the skyline.

Mikael entered with his usual calm smile. "Good morning gentlemen."

Both turned.
"Good morning," they replied in sync. The tone was light. They were all basking in the afterglow of another political victory.

Mikael adjusted his tie.
"First congratulations Henry on your new promotion to Minister of Defense. Completely natural and totally unforced of course."

Henry chuckled. "Ha! You have got a sense of humor Mikael but a better brain. You owned this."

Redwood leaned back in his chair hands clasped. "I agree. Without you this country would have sunk into a money-hungry war with nothing to show for it."

Mikael smiled humbly. "Thank you. But... I can not take all the credit."

Redwood frowned. "What do you mean? The plan was yours. Every detail screamed your touch like something born in a lab."

Henry nodded. "Exactly. This level of design of control. You would need a mind running at 200% to pull this off."

Mikael turned his head toward the office door just as it opened.
"And someone with greater wisdom would be that mind right Mikael?"

Dr. Nick walked in. Calm. Confident. Hands behind his back.
Mikael's grin widened. "Exactly Dr. Nick. Your intelligence is... one of a kind."

Redwood's jaw dropped. "Wait... what the hell is happening?"

Mikael shrugged. "I said it in my speech did not I? You were not listening."

Henry blinked processing the sudden connection.
"You said it on TV! You said Dr. Nick was the E-UNIT planner and designer... but you also said he had a plan to end corruption."

Redwood leaned forward disbelief turning into realization. "No way..."

Dr. Nick smiled. "And this gentlemen is just Part A. We still have more steps to go."

Mikael looked at him amused. "You are on another level honestly. Using me as a target was genius."

Redwood rubbed his temples. "I still think this is a joke but..."

Henry was visibly irritated and cut in. "You did not trust us enough to tell us you were working with him Mikael?"

Mikael raised both hands slightly. "No risks taken my friend. This was too delicate to expose early."

He turned back toward Dr. Nick. "Anyway tell us Doctor. What is the reason for this little... gathering?"

Dr. Nick stepped forward placing a small metallic tablet on the desk, omega symbol glowing.
"Of course. Let me present to you... Project G-BOTS." He sat down adjusting his glasses. "But before we go deep... Mikael did you secure the asset? The new foundry?"

Mikael grinned tapping the table. "Of course. It is firmly in the government's hand. No one enters without my clearance."

"Fabulous," Nick whispered a dangerous glint in his eyes. "That is not just a foundry gentleman. That is the beating heart of the OMEGA prototype."

The rain outside grew heavier lightning flashing over the capital skyline.
Inside that room three of the most powerful men in Altea looked at one another unaware that this moment would ignite a new era for the world.
The capital was holding a meeting that would change everything.