The first things he noticed when he woke up were the pain and heat. Even as he opened his eyes he somehow knew what he'd see, a left arm burned away to the shoulder and most of his body covered in burns. Then he saw his surroundings, a shattered building and blue flames raging through it. Corpses draped all over it and a massive suit of armor pierced from front to back with a yellow liquid dripping through it laying on its side next to him. He pushed himself to his feet as he shook his head, examining himself first and foremost. He had some kind of armor on, though it was blackened and pitted it was slowly repairing itself. That was it, no weapons or tools. No nametag to tell him who he was either, a shame. Though it'd be best to move before the strange fires consumed all of his escape routes.

"Fuck." His voice was deep with a slight growl to it, he noticed as he cursed from the sheer pain of moving. It felt like he was being stabbed over and over and he knew he didn't have a choice but to move. So he pushed himself to stumble out of the building, narrowly avoiding its collapse as he made it out to look over his surroundings.

It was a hell-scape of shattered buildings and corpses of all sizes and makes. He could see most of them appeared to be wearing similar armor, and bearing an Insignia. A dagger between a pair of eyes. The others varied more with no set uniform or insignia but a myriad of many others, and were clearly the attackers. The blade-eyed ones, as he figured to call them were all behind the remains of smoking or shattered barricades and walls. Not that it mattered much since they were dead. He really hoped he wasn't on whichever side was losing this. Then static suddenly filled his vision for a second as he stumbled, a blinding pain going through his head as he could see words appear in the corner of his eyes.

Electro Magnetic Pulse detected. Systems damaged. Self repair activating.

And they vanished as quickly as they came, static began to play at the edges of his vision as he scowled and muttered to himself.

"Haven't even been awake for a few minutes and I'm already breaking apart, what kind of System is it talking about?"

He forced himself to stumble over to the first of the corpses he could reach and began to check it over, one of the blade-eyes. And this at least yielded some results. A knife with a small button built into the hilt, some sort of handgun with the words 'Arelen Pulse Bolt' etched into the sides, faded but there. A small and glowing violet cylinder was slotted into the back of it and was maybe the size of his thumb, and a small display on the side read out '35' It felt familiar in his hands so he placed it aside with the knife to take with him. That was all he could get without searching the armor the man wore for hidden compartments. He'd need everything he could get though so he set to the task, painful and annoying as it was with one limb.

The armor was sleek and dark in color, made of what felt like multiple interlapping plates on the chest, and as it followed the arms and legs down they became smaller and more frequent, with a helmet that rounded up around the head and became an angular visor over the face. The oddest thing being that he couldn't exactly find any way to take the armor off. Not even the helmet was detachable, no latches or anything. Hopefully his own armor would be removeable once he found set down to rest. He managed to find a small compartment built into the leg, a sliding piece of metal that when removed revealed three slots holding more of those thumb sized Cylinders, each had a small handle on the end that allowed him to pull them out and examine them. As he looked over at the handgun he'd scavenged the static messing with his eyes vanished, as a new set of words displayed themselves across his vision.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Implant Self repair finished: Unable to connect to armor. Diagnosing: Armor lacks power. Please insert fresh power-cells.

"Fresh power cells?" He mumbled as he looked down at his armor, a decent amount of the chestpiece had repaired itself since he'd awoken and he hadn't exactly taken care of examining it. Well powering it up would probably only improve his situation right? Just had to find whatever a power cell was, and then where to put it. First things first what he could do he figured as he examined his armor carefully. Feeling over it with his remaining arm as he grimaced from the burns, he located a small latch on his left leg that slid back.

Revealing nine slots arrayed in a three by three formation, holding what looked like those Cylinders he'd just pulled from the blade-eyes armor, though they themselves had no color. So those were power cells? These ones must have been burnt out by whatever fried him as there were semi melted edges and parts that made removing them a hassle.

He did it though, and as soon as he'd slotted the first another set of words displayed themselves.

Power detected in armor, beginning activation sequence.

"Only needed one? Well...best put the rest in to be safe." He'd slotted the other two in before he finished speaking. Nothing new came up, so he looked over his two new weapons. The knife felt familiar to his hands, and yet uncomfortable. As he pressed down on the button built into its grip, he watched as a blue energy seemed to coat the blade and glow. He could feel heat coming off of it in droves before he released it and the energy died out.

Setting it down and examining the handgun, he gripped it and took aim, noting the small holographic display that sprung up to help with aiming as he did. It felt right in his hands so he took aim at one of the nearby ruined walls squeezed the trigger once. He nearly dropped it when he saw the bolt of condensed plasma fly out and upon striking the wall, enlarge into a shaped explosion the size of his head. The entire section of the wall it'd hit was gone, and the small display on the gun displayed '34' now. A shot counter, useful.

Armor connected: Grarvian Imperium Spearhead Seven Armor is now online. Warning! Severe damage detected! Helm and left arm are destroyed and will be unavailable until armor self repair finishes. Storage compartment on left arm will also be unavailable. Activating right leg and right shoulder storage compartments.

As those words popped up, so too did a symbol. The dagger between a pair of eyes, so now at least he knew what side he was supposed to be on.