This ‘SET’ is what hurts and traps, and it will be what protects you for what grants safety will hurt you.
That is what had been incidentally broadcast to another mind, Diana’s mind, it was. She was to witness what would occur, and to change the tests of this simulation.
Magellan was also present, the designer of this generation’s variation of the armor, Magellan herself had predicted it would last for few, thousand years. Such confidence spoken by anyone else.
Would be pride.
But Magellan hated conflict, she hated the war, so when she was sullen and pained to see this armor would last, they knew they had hit the mark, it was power.
But Diana wasn’t here to think over the armor, she clenched fist and looked out a one-way glass.
Machines were entrenched, false pseudo locations.
It was a false ruined city, small and compact with all advantage to the machine, their armor plating doubled, they had a series of reactive plates to minimize impact as much as possible and disperse damage across.
The Reactive auxiliary plates on top of an already up-armored chassis acted as ceramic armor and would break after being struck to further ensure protection.
Diana was responsible for these machines as Magellan was responsible for who would be facing them.
“ALPHA-VICTOR IS ON DECK DEPLOYED TO SIMULATION.” A machine-like voice spoke
“Proceed Alpha-Victor-Actual.” Diana mouthed back at the static that came after.
She was speaking to Aleph
She saw the Command group head out, they were first to be running training in these circumstances, they were ahead of all the others, and their training with Yervandal made sure they were treated as special subjects.
On each of their hips in darksteel scabbard sword, they were the first to be equipped, the extra training with Yervandal guaranteed them a first-come and first-serve benefit and special treatment.
They were facing an enemy entrenched, with a heavy defensive and powerful offensive, the machines would not relent today….
The group each had bulk on their backs that did not weigh them down. Mobilitypacks meant for fast evasion and limited flight, with two thrusters on each side that moved on a gimbal, swiveled and had legs that could extend and rotate aswell.
They didn’t immediately use them; they maintained enough mobility.
-
Aleph could see ahead; he didn’t need to speak but he was desperate to hear anything other than the wind from the artificial atmosphere that came from this advanced live-fire training deck underground.
He found the reason quickly.
“Alpha-3 Recoiless rifle dead ahead!” He shouted, and in sheer moment Alpha-3’s barrel became leveled and locked with what was a prick in her vision.
She took the initiative of combat by firing a single-shot from her VK-419 Bullpup.
The rounds thundered through the sands, even as high as they ejected from the now 7’7 Vampire
they exited from a miniaturized railgun system that accelerated heavy rounds. Each charged viciously.
The massive twenty-millimeter rounds ejected, the sound akin more to an explosion than a rocketing boom heard from anti-material rifles.
The robot nestled between the rocks was hit by a projectile that moved faster than it could compute a solution to evade or hunker down from.
The sound came sometime after the impact, the head of the machine had already been penetrated by a round that had flung fifteen paces farther and struck another entrenched machine through perfectly simulated granite-rock cover.
The first machine had been impacted by a kinetic round that strangely enough also left metal slag, it had a payload that activated on impact, the payload entering a fourth state as it burned through.
Each quantum Entangled [VIPER ROUND] Possess tremendous capability, the force it struck with being multiplied thrice. Exactly as if it had struck three times where it lands.
These were now the weapons they would train with, their final major training course of seven against machine opponents ten times the efficiency of what they’d encountered before.
Preparation to ensure they are ready, for the weapons, armor and equipment they hold now are what they will deploy with soon…
-
The four of them are now in full sprint, Aleph at the helm.
They are with limited cover, but Aleph already has the plan, he’s merely been in this field for moments and is already predicting his next move as if has native’s advantage
He can see the speedometer on his armor spark on, created to measure a velocity one might fall from above, it flickered on for safety. He had a burst of speed, maintained a clear fifty-miles-per-hour.
Closing gap and distance with an enemy nine miles ahead of him.
“Saiyah!” He sparks sharp into his helmet, it’s wired to him in a way he can’t comprehend, it borders on technology but is far from it, and it shares a message with her helmet.
Saiyah already knows what he wants
She’s happy to hear his voice again finally, if only to hear orders
She’s slowing up digging her feet into the red beneath,
bursting into a cloud of red sand until she explodes into a cloud of it, she’s shrouded by it, when it fades away, she is gone.
This causes the Machines to get aggressive, harsh beeps are heard from distance as highly accurate coil gun fire erupts from afar.
Enemies unleash projectiles measured and rated readily in [HVAP 14.mm] with doubled acceleration from the mechanisms of the coil gun watch the shocktroopers evade as an ambient action.
Aleph isn’t taking it into mental consideration to evade, he’s focused on how to utilize the one-word command he gave Saiyah.
It comes to mind in an instant, as he watches a round fly for him, he can sense the heavy core of the round as it travels at twelve-hundred miles per hour.
Carrying enough energy to knock dents in a lightly armored vehicle isn’t even a worry as he tucks his body left.
A smooth evasion.
It fiercely whizzes by he can hear the zip and snap of it striking the terrain behind him. A crack afterwards as the sound travels to his ears under the helmet.
He hasn’t removed it since it was placed on, he knows he can but it’s new to him, it’s the clothes of a new being born. A new Aleph.
He doesn’t return fire but gets faster, the speedometer giving velocity warning as he clears seventy miles per hour in quick burst, going ahead of Saiyah and Asaph.
He’s assured he can do this; he isn’t who he was before. He laments that boy he names ‘Old-Aleph’ How he finally perished fully when that armor was cast on him, and it melted away with his old flesh.,
Whatever regenerated from the burns was new-Aleph, capable of many more things.
Commanding his unit was one!
He opened his mouth in his helmet again. Watching the visor shake and tactical elements of his digital-HUD fail to keep up.
“Asaph Suppress!”
Saiyah, two-snipers above!”
He strikes out targets and their positions, knowing as soon as he calls them, they’ve died.
He hadn’t needed to worry, the two of them predicted that command, eyes on the targets and rifled leveled, even at the speed they ran, even as they curved around the aim of enemies mailing rounds thundering past.
Asaph stuck a knee into the harsh red sand, he skid, he could read all the information in his helmet processing it as much as the mind of a human would process breathing subconsciously.
[30-MPH] [11-MPH] Asaph and Aleph watched both their speedometers slow as they were both going to hang back and provide precision fire, albeit Aleph had more in-depth plan.
They were tasked with not only eliminating the target but completing this within a limited span of twelve minutes.
They already killed two minutes…
-
“Not fast enough.” Aleph skid low, not stopping as he was still speeding at the targets whereas Asaph had stopped.
Asaph laid down suppressive fire, he let loose a flurry of Viper rounds draining the 40 round magazine completely, laying down twenty in two positions, one where a line of the machines were
The HK9000 Series were military grade frontline machines that had been fruitlessly deployed against the Mechra.
Showing their prowess for how they took the suppressive fire, units ahead of Asaph in two places behind rocks took the suppressive fire, twenty rounds in both directions and they called his bluff.
Ten machines from each position rushed out, calculating a 90% likelihood his magazine was depleted.
The decision for this to be enacted by the two squads amplified by their precision machine sensory mechanisms able to detect the drop of the magazine amidst the chaos of a full firefight.
Asaph knew the machines would act in such a way, in counter the bullpup all four were utilizing dropped into his lower-left hand at his braced knee.
And the AUTEC-944 came into right-hand, a high-caliber automatic handcannon.
The robots coming up were immediately introduced into precise automatic fire, not a single shot wasted in the 19 rounds that swept what would be brain and head of any humanoid target,
an additional nine placed center-mass of all.
All occurring within a second
Deactivated! Asaph thought proudly and braced up, Autec slapped back to his right thigh, magnetizing before he ejected bullpup magazine and got back up into sprint.
Asaph had his aim ready nearby by swinging the barrel and leveling it right, spotting Asaph’s advance.
He saw two dead machine snipers nestled in a fortified elevated position in a greyish ruined structure, sighting them in darkness and camouflage.
He got up and thundered back into his own sprint running as he accelerated.
His ability to sense machines shot into his mind, sensing a machine about to ambush to his left behind several feet of rock and granite with some sort of explosive device.
He countered by throwing himself toward the rock, His sprint came to an end as he tilted and rammed through pre-emptively striking as he gripped the carry-handle of his own bullpup.
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His first led him through the rock which the machine hid behind. He could sense it with his ability almost see through the rock, the shape of the machine behind was as if it was made of the literal digital script that made up its mind in his vision.
It is disturbing the way Aleph saw perceived machines in turn, made crushing through them fulfilling as if he was having hearty amount of blood to drink as a reward.
The machine gave a surprised beep as it went straight through and struck the head of the machine.
Whew
Aleph would’ve been hit by another machine braced to expect him and the others getting as close as they did, squads of machines now having their battle lines filled by three hyper-aggressive and hyper-evasive enemies.
The machine in two hands had more than a recoilless rifle, a guided weapon to take on MBT’s main-battle-tanks.
Locking on to the read off and electronic signature of Aleph’s helmet, the only powered part of his armor.
It arced the aim of a massive cylindrical weapon and fired off a rocket, before a large boxed magazine built into the side allowed it to switch aim.
A rocket thundered toward Aleph who had swept around several targets,
He still coordinating with Anna who had eliminated two snipers and several other squad’s of machines that could’ve reinforced positions.
Unaware of what thundered toward him from thirty feet above in a ruined structure within simulation.
It sliced through the air barreling at him from above.
Anna encountered a group of machines who were reinforcing, they tied her up before she could warn Aleph and forced her to throw herself into sand and rock. Rolling right
A plume of smoke, with projectile trailing toward target, fire as its tail as it whipped through the air and circled toward Aleph.
Aleph didn’t need the innate senses of his power, he heard it coming and sensed its approach naturally as a vampire.
His left arm braced as he lowered again, his rifle to his right-hand only gripping firmly the carry-handle until it cracked.
His left arm whipped into the rocket, practicing extreme precision, timing and showcasing the knowledge of Krul’s part of training.
A full understanding of weapons and equipment he could face.
The rocket bounced off the end of his left elbow, meant for firing into the top of tanks it struck the ground
A fireball erupted that swallowed Aleph.
The Machines’ own mechanical mind computed Critical strike and moved to switch targets onto Asaph.
Aleph albeit now caught in the blast anyway was thankful it wasn’t direct, he’d spotted the machine even from all the distance they first approached from, it was why he gave the command to Saiyah.
Saiyah by now would’ve been up, albeit late by Aleph’s own expectations, going thirty-feet up the side of a weak ruined structure built to deter post-candidates from climbing
did have its difficulties.
2444 Pounds including her in the armor she was above the machine about to launch it’s second lock on to Asaph, the blade that had been clattering about her hip hadn’t been heard.
Her ability to disappear, to in the literal sense fade almost from reality was perfected, it carried with what she carried now.
She felt pride as that blade whipped out of sheath, the machine not even able to sense and then it had no capacity for sensing anymore.
It came down brutal, the edges of the blade glowed a bright-purple, as it powered on mid-cut and slammed through.
She carried a standard-issue longsword that cut the machine straight down the middle with ease.
Leaving bits of burnt slag burning reddish hot.
Glancing back down to the brutality down below in the red sands of the life-fire hall.
Catching Anna routing the reinforcements that would’ve tied up Aleph,
Aleph pounds feet through the sand, the sheer weight of him in a marching-sprint is heard, far less stealthy than Saiyah.
But his presence is felt in how he keeps speed, the fastest and strongest he knows as a Shocktrooper Sergeant, he has to make primary headway to control the engagement.
Anna knows this and fills in, curbing anything that can slow his destructive assault on the primary machines ahead, throwing herself, whilst not as fast as Aleph she is far more evasive.
Open and drawing fire she doesn’t mean to take the role of point man from Asaph but she can fulfill her primary role and fill in for him if need be.
She does it efficiently, she’s become happy with them, happy to have originally been sent to work solo. She’s found more glory in working with them.
A glory earning her sparks and scrap flying into her visor as her fist pummels, her inner heart is excited at the prospect of encountering the Mechra.
Smile upon me in the last day when God Recounts this She says in her smiling heart
It almost beats in same rhythm the butt of her rifle slaps into the torso of a machine, an entire chunk of the machine falling out, angling her hips she digs into the ground, jolting her head back and narrowly avoiding a stray round to the visor.
Several others come and strike her chest plate, as it soaks up the energy of the rounds with ease she opens up with a single-fire, prioritizing precision.
Striking straight for the core of each machine, dumping a VIPER round that with its own payload causes each machine to explode!
A few stragglers advance rather than retreat.
She doesn’t bother hammering the trigger of an empty rifle, she’s quick to grasp her sidearm, but the sound of a barrel dumping rounds ahead is heard above her.
Shell casings bounce off her full helmet as Asaph covers her immediately, having caught up quickly.
The team succeeded in routing, pinching down and finishing the machines.
Aleph gives the last blow by crushing the chassis of a machine, much more importantly they didn’t just break the machines they secured the area.
Pure destruction of the enemy is a consequence of their objective required it wasn’t the only primary objective.
Aleph secured the core area required to success.
And they struck with flying colors blowing away expectation.
Across their heads the results rang through, each of them distant, yet having view of each other, past rocks or ruins give a nod.
Aleph is hesitant though.
I need to bring them better. He’s learned bitter self-reflection…
Saiyah can sense it, how his head falls and she’s worried.
I can say something to him later…
-
A bright armory, they are watched by two figures entering after their success awaiting further information,
purple crates scattered and in view of an aging digital screen, She can see them headed to the racks for their weapons, there is a machine within seen on screen, tied into the wall, repairing Aleph’s broken carry-handle
Machines were not common in the Vampiric Empire due to the Mechra threat, they were relegated to places like New Persia, so deep underground and under the crust they couldn’t be controlled, places like these isolated and safe are what allowed the Empire to rarely, rarely enjoy the luxury of machines.
Magellan was at the least bit happy, she could see more utility from her machines than fighting, but Diana crossed arms behind her back. “Krul won’t be happy, they’re blowing away all expectations.”
“Why would he not be happy?”
“I served with Krul, his hate-love for the shocktroopers has more hate.”
Magellan crosses her arms, flicking a lamp she has brought with her the seat uncomforting for her. Especially considering what she used to enjoy in the “Dark-Ages.”
Diana flicks her head up hearing it turn on before it fully illuminates the corner of the room
“Mag–Ms. Must you bring that everywhere you go.” Sternly interrogates
Magellan gives Diana a strong stare, and Diana lets the presumptuous way she asked the question die in her chest.
“There was a time when I was not as I am now and desperately clung to the light. Before your father was even a thought and his father.” Magellan seemed to answer with far more bite than needed.
It had Diana weakly folding her hands, a veteran twice over of nearly two-hundred years against the Mechra, giving a slight cower.
Albeit it good reason, Magellan had lived alongside Eternia who was ‘Empress’ she was talking to what amounted lifelong friend of the Empress. Not servant– Friend.
Even the room was dreadful, grey and dark with dark-steel lining painted purple.
The additional light of a screen showcasing the team in their locker-and-loadout bay.
-
“Aleph.” Aleph hears something his helmet still firmly latched to his head.
“Aleph!” Aleph is hearing it again, and he’s shaking his head “Wha–.”
Aleph wasn’t expecting to finally hear Saiyah but he felt her too.
A crashing force impacted the back of his helmet, causing his visor to see slight static, the singular red mono-eye etched into the wide visor causing his head to swing around.
He sees her holding the purple helmet, it’s much like his with what looks like a massive rebreather on the front, designed to allow them to intake a safe atmosphere or oxygen to allow them to speak. Otherwise the suit was vacuum-sealed.
The helmet in her hand large, spherical with extrusions raised up on top, with two tubes leading to the rebreather device on either side where cheeks would be. It’s much larger than their heads, but fits fine, the visor has wide coverage and is pitch-black allowing no way to see in only out.
When powered on it has a red-line with a singular squarish oval center– a sphere if it is a sergeant like his, with additional armoring and what is like tusks on the front ends on both sides of where his mouth would be.
He can see the light on her helmet is off and she has teeth bared.
“I was talking to you!” She has cut professionalism, New-Aleph is about to viciously scold, bring down a sword like the one on her hip verbally.
Old-Aleph is revived and kills that.
“Yes.” He says attentively.
Saiyah’s expression softens and her eyes widen a bit. “I’m asking for–Your condition..hotshot?” She is seeking that same sort of spark she had before but struggles to find it.
Aleph is assured, he is cringing under the helmet hearing the words ‘hotshot’ leave her lips, his eyes lingering on them.
Saiyah did have soft-attractive features, they were well enough adults now, but to the outside world they had disappeared at fifteen, it was a strange juxtaposition, and she had grown, she was stocky like him regardless of armor but he could immediately identify her with ease.
She was someone who carried an “exact figure” he himself didn’t know how to identify how she just looked like ‘her’. Even some vampires looked somewhat alike it was only normal but save for her.
Yet even with that helmet Saiyah uncomfortably leans her head back, his helmet is tilted downwards.
“Err–Aleph, you can’t see through the breastplate? Or does the Sergeant’s modification come with blueprint scanning?”
The statement hits him, brings old–Aleph to the forefront and has him cackling in his helmet, coming out as a muffled laugh to her.
“Shut up! I’m fine, we just could’ve crushed that mission harder.” He speaks informally now.
Drawing attention from Anna, “I do agree we could’ve done much better.”
Asaph would’ve disagreed coming in after but held peace thinking Saiyah had said it and halting as he saw it come from Anna, Saiyah turning her head around to those two with helmets.
Asaph kept a strong face; his constant ever-present frown had faded into an ever-present and stern neutral yet still guarded expression.
Anna had sharp expression always, she looked like a monolith, something that would be utilized in propaganda if it were even needed in the Empire.
“It matters I wish we could run this back again.” Saiyah doesn’t fight that she was content with their success, they’re far farther than any others albeit not to discredit them, she along with Aleph and her squad has been tasked with overviewing others and aiding them
She’s seen they are capable, but that them-four who she is apart of is still a cut above edge her own words that caused a frown in one of the candidates for designated marksmen.
Aleph is continuing sternly “But it doesn’t matter we are going to be leaving very soon.”
“Huh, you sure we wont just be exiting out into another simulation?”
No one responds after Saiyah jests those words, she mutters out a “Sorry”.
They hold no fears yet, but one sensitive thing is the anxiety of never escaping, this living facility taunts Aleph still even the new-him who is fighting back against the old one thought to have been died.
They worry they could enter the war, fight for years only to discover it was a perfect simulation hall. Their training was so rule they had deduced two possibilities.
Either the Mechra will be something above understanding, or we’ll be put through simulations unknowingly until God himself brings time to an end.
“Let’s just get ready then?” Asaph irks out breaking the tension and marching over to elbow Saiyah, she just barely smiles throwing a strong nudge back into his hip.
Aleph speaks “Absolutely. I’m to assign your weapons, may as well do that early and confirm your loadouts after.”
Asaph raises a brow, Aleph is being so professional he forgets what they are, he doesn’t mind efficiency, but he hates to waste time for efficiency’s sake, it is no longer efficient in that case.
“Aleph we’re not Vis-stasi, you no need to answer to their checks, we don’t even use their ships.”
Aleph had forgotten, flicking a finger at his own helmet “Oh! Yeah.” He was ready to be orderly to a people who had banned his caste from their navy.
The hatred between Vis-Stasi and Shocktroopers was something Aleph never got to see, raised by humans, but it was there and strong. It wasn’t just jealousy.
The First generation in literal sense had almost collapsed the entire Empire and killed some of the most prestigious members of the Vis-Stasi in a disagreement some called what Aleph found as disturbing “Human”.
They had their own navy but the Vis-Stasi still had some influence.
“Krul is to instruct us, but we’ve reached the threshold Aleph remember, we answer to Delara and others with seniority.”
Aleph clenches his fists “Yes, no need to retread!” Aleph snaps, insulted Asaph needed to retread taking it as an insult to intelligence.
Saiyah goes to speak but Asaph had hand up. “Apologies, you know me Aleph, I’m robotic!” He seems to misstep words.
And it has Aleph shrug “Forgiven.”
Asaph hearing Aleph say that now has him a bit angry, a clear frown
Feelings suspenseful to sour.
Saiyah speaks “Our assigned loadouts?” Saiyah and Anna break in with Unison to cut the sour strings playing.
“Asaph!” Aleph bitterly speaks “Standard VK-419, underbarrel grenade-launcher. You’re pointman.” He dictates policy to Asaph.
Asaph is unhappy with this Aleph who can get bitter, it seems Aleph is unhappy too and corrects himself, stepping away from them.
They form line, heads tilting in unison
Aleph is now opening a crate and digging in, he hasn’t even removed his mobility pack, additionally it seemed still unused.
He repeats himself “Standard VK-419–“ he continues the same sentence but again neutral-tone.
It has Asaph thinking of their bond, how far they’ve come, his hand swinging to catch it as it is tossed to him.
“We can be machines of war and tight-knit, you are why I think that.” Asaph considers, he doesn’t want to just be a kid anymore, he wants to always be a heightened war machine, but in any moment.
Mercifully given he wants to be as much as it grinds his mind alive enough to enjoy he is friends and bonded amongst this squad.
Anna nods her head slowly at their exchange, still feeling far from the clique she was forced to join but to see it lightly strained brings tension to her as well.
“Me?” Saiyah speaks out. Expectantly and with a forced expression, a poker-face.
Aleph nods “I requisitioned Delara for this to be brought to our armory permanently, it’ll be utilized by you effectively.” His hand flung out of the crate
Saiyah had used it a few times, albeit not this last time but hse was happy as his hand swinging out of the crate tossed it into her hands, she gripped it firmly.
Three-barrels-close-range. Albeit wrapped in something, a bandolier of knives.
“I could kiss you y’know.” Saiyah laughs, a chuckle is earned by Anna in rare instance aswell.
Aleph doesn’t respond, Saiyah unknowing of the smile that earned.
Asaph nudges Anna “What are you hoping for? I think Aleph understands your role with your last show around here!”
Anna smiles slamming fists on her hips “Sure as hell he should have! Right Sir!” She pre-emptively commends Aleph with honorifics.
Aleph is chuckling knowing the true reaction.
Her hands are soon only catching the Shamsir marksman rifle by instinct.
She couldn’t let it drop but wanted to, the distasteful long-barrel, chambered in heavier Viper-shells.
Seven round magazine– Dear God it even had a mounted-range finder and screen.
“Aleph what am I supposed to do with this! Inside of a Close-Range Firefight!” She drones on! The honorifics and professionalism are gone but even new-Aleph lets it slide.
He goaded it after all. Maybe even New-Aleph wasn’t much different, maybe there was a room for what he considered weak humanity and his newly revealed true nature.
Aleph reasoned there was now two of him the more recent true name of the newer more clearly revealed with old.
Aleph
And Victor.