When darkness finally fell upon the land, it came very suddenly. One minute it was late afternoon, and then with startling alacrity, it grew darker and darker and then before I knew it, it was dark.

I opened my eyes and smiled. It’s time to put the first phase of my plan into action - Prison break.

With a thought, metal particles surfaced from my skin and quickly formed metal armor over my clothes.

With a whoosh, I was in a mecha bodysuit.

With that bodysuit, destroying locks and chains became as easy as slicing loaves of bread with a sharp knife.

I quickly went around the prison cells and freed the prisoners. There were all enemies of the Red Dragon gang who still had value. As such, most were civilians, traders, landowners and the sort, those with a lot of assets and money.

And so, being mere civilians and coupled with the extreme state of weakness they were in, they were sufficiently cowed by my ferocious looking mecha and obeyed my instructions very quietly.

“I am organizing a prison break. If you go out now, you’ll probably get caught again, or worse, you might die. But if you don’t do that, you’ll definitely die here in captivity. The Red Dragon gang does not have a habit of releasing prisoners. Plus, you don’t have a choice anyway. You have one minute to get out of here before I start shooting. Go.” I rasped in a robotic voice and pointed my machine gun at them.

I wasn’t proud of my actions that night. Out of 28 prisoners, 20 died. 7 were captured once more and after the whole thing was over, were probably tortured to their deaths. The last one… was Emma.

After 27 of them scampered away, I turned to the final person who still sat there, unmoving and staring at me quietly.

It was a little girl, maybe seven, eight years old. She was small for her age, and ridiculously thin. She was obviously malnourished. Even so, she had an extremely obstinate look about her, a determination and strength of will that shone through her physical weakness.

I sighed, there was no way I could force her to go out. I wouldn’t, and I probably couldn’t anyway. I had to save her and bring her with me.

“Let me stay with you.” She said softly, her eyes showed stubbornness, but at the same time, they were also full of fear. Fear that I would force her out, and worse, fear that I would shoot her right there and then.

When I nodded lightly in agreement, relief flooded her eyes and her stiff shoulders sagged a little bit as all the tension left her.

That relief quickly turned to surprise as my mecha bodysuit suddenly shimmered and a large backpack appeared behind me. A hatch opened and revealed a small place where she could sit. I even made a seat belt for her.

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“Justin, you sure are a thoughtful person.” I thought wryly.

“Get in, I’ll bring you with me.” I said as I lowered my body so she could access the backpack.

Emma clambered in and quickly fastened her seatbelt. That backpack was actually just an extension of my back armor, so there was nothing separating it and my body.

“Th-thank you.” Emma said from behind me.

“Don’t thank me yet. We still have to get out of this base alive.” I said cynically.

Prapapapapat!

Gunfire erupted from somewhere in the base. Screams and shouts of surprise could be heard. “It’s beginning.” I said softly.

I closed my eyes and reached out to the blue mechas with my senses. I had to do it fast.

I released the red energy within me and it shot out towards the blue mechas in a straight line, passing by layers of brick, mud, steel and concrete in the process.

Absorb! I commanded once I had a firm grip on a blue mecha.

Poof! The mecha turned into grey and white particles and began to make its way back to me. Amid the darkness and chaos that was reigning outside, nobody noticed the grey and white stream rushing towards the prison.

Whoosh!

An amazingly pleasant feeling filled my body and mind as the stream of metal particles and information hit me. I could feel my body responding by growing slightly as it gorged on high quality metal and a wonderfully delicious blue mecha core.

I closed my eyes and my eyelids began to flutter rapidly as huge amounts of information filled my mind.

I’m a firm believer of God, and the experience of absorbing the blue mecha’s software solidified that belief. Who else but God could create such a wonderful thing as the brain?

The blue mecha was close to the pinnacle of human technology, and the software that powered it was humongous and complicated as hell. Millions of man hours were used to design and program the software to be what it was then. And that humongous set of information only took my brain a short five minutes to store and process.

To me it was proof that God exists. The brain was God’s product, and it had no problems digesting the best and most complicated software that man could ever dream of building. None at all.

It was like an ocean absorbing a swimming pool. Every drop of information simply entered my brain and nestled somewhere, ready to be utilized at will.

I opened my eyes after five minutes. By then, the prison break was in full swing. There were a few fighters in the group, and by the sounds that I could hear, those fighters had somehow managed to get a few guns for themselves. Intense gunfire could be heard.

Time to execute Phase 2 of my plan.

I turned around and stealthily created a hole in the rear of the prison where I knew there were no machines of any sort in that direction.

I left the prison quietly and quickly distanced myself from it. Once I was far enough, I took a deep breath and began to unleash the blue mecha.

Ah yes, I remember that first time. It was a wonderful feeling.

My excitement was palpable and so was my nervousness. Although everything happened extremely quickly, two seconds at most, I could still remember the feeling as though it just happened this morning.

I could clearly feel the potential of a powerful form that I could unleash at will. I could practically see it. All its tiny components, its energy pathways and weapons it had at its disposal. Everything was in my mind, and I felt their potential infinitely clearly within my body.

And when I willed that blue mecha to take form around me, my body simply reacted. Just like breathing out, the blue mecha materialized around me as the helicopter armor dematerialized.

The blue mecha was humanoid in shape and a full twenty meters tall. There was more than enough space in the cockpit for both me and Emma, so I placed her in a seat next to me while I pilot the mecha in the chest area.

Phase two - Absorb a blue mecha, was complete.

Time to start Phase three.

Wiiiiiiii.

I raised my hand cannon at the largest and fanciest building in that base, a three story building with all sorts of communication towers on the top.

HUM! BOOM!

A ray of blue energy shot out from my hand cannon and hit the building, creating a massive hole in the middle.