It was cold as balls, and I fucking hated being bald, with the chilly night air biting into my skull. 33 had proposed that I shave my head and beard, and we found a knife in the workshop that I was able to use, albeit I nicked myself once on my chin. She said that she discovered that when she let her hair down and put on her jacket, she would generally be left alone and had even been told by a few of her men that they didn’t initially recognize her. Using that lesson, she theorized that since everyone thought I was imprisoned, if we shaved me down and cut my insignia off my uniform then no one would think twice as long as I kept a safe distance.
Sure enough, I had managed to deliver four of the data ports without a patrol giving me a second glance, as they would see I was in military uniform and pay me no heed from there. The city had never practiced any martial law ordinances, and their security was pretty lax at the moment. I was sure once Juliet caught on, she would tighten things up, but the few patrols combined with that lack of questioning attitude of the patrols was paying off.
The fifth and final data port was destined for Logan and was considered my riskiest delivery. 33 had explained he was escorted to his living quarters, and therefore was likely being watched until the mission. This meant that there was a decent chance I wouldn’t be able to safely drop it off, and 33 had told me not to risk our plan trying to force it. Still, I was very determined to get my friend on my side if we could.
I entered the building and walked down the first-floor hallway, which Logan lived on. As I walked down, I saw Juliet’s yeoman, sitting in a chair across from Logan’s door. He was looking down at his tablet and reading. I didn’t care if it was recreational or for work. I smiled and counted my blessings that he was alone. I saw a baton on his waist, but no other weapon as well. Good. This man had killed the Five Star, and I was ready to make him fucking pay. “Hey! Don’t you know there’s a curfew in affect right now?” I called out. My voice sounded off from the damage to my throat earlier that night, but at least I could fucking breath again, if not without the pain of a phantom lump in the back of my throat.
Jason looked up in irritation and glared at me as I approached, “I’m Commander Juliet’s yeoman, who the hell are you?”
I kept my pleasant smile as I approached briskly, “Oh, you’re the asshole who killed the Five Star?”
The man’s eyes lit up in alarm, “What the… Wait! Fuck!” Too late. The man struggled to his feet and started to pull his baton out, but I was already within a few meters of him and took off in a sprint, and I landed a lariat across his chest as I sent him sprawling on the ground and his baton spun out of his hand, bouncing, and rolling out of reach. “How the hell are you out?”
“You have broken three laws,” I responded while ignoring his question, and as the man tried to kick out my legs I took one of my feet and stomped on his leg, pinning his underneath it. For Jason’s part, he managed not to scream, instead grunting in pain. “First, assaulting and murdering a superior officer.”
The man managed to break out from under my foot, and as he scrambled to his feet, I caught his chin with an uppercut as he was trying to get back up. “Second, conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman.”
The man attempted to punch me, but I parried it to the side and met it with my own haymaker, causing him to spin around and fall back down. I immediately jumped on him and put him into an armlock. He managed to struggle free, but it allowed me to get a throat chop in on him before regaining my grip and continuing to hyperflex his arm. He gagged and choked as I declared my third accusation, “Third, you failed to fulfill your duty to disobey the unlawful orders of Juliet.” There was a crack as I broke the man’s arm, and the stifled grunt of pain as he struggled through his damaged trachea to scream was met only by him going limp. I released him, picked him up, and slammed him against his chair. His eyes were hazy, and I had likely put him into shock.
“How do you plead?”
“… Fuck you!”
“Guilty on all charges!” I responded and kneed the man in the gut so he would lose his breath again. I didn’t need him screaming and getting any unwanted attention. I then pulled the man into a fireman’s carry, and started walking him out the building, though I made a point to slam his head in the side of the doorframe on the way out. “Whoops,” I said unapologetically as he groaned some more.
I brought the man to the alleyway between residential buildings and took him over to the bridge railing, before unslinging him and holding his head over the rail while I began some questioning, “I’ll give you one chance to repent, understood?” There was silence. “Understood!?” I coughed on the lump in my throat but managed to keep my grip.
A sickly laugh came from the body beneath me, and the man declared maniacally, “It’s too late, Juliet’s already taken over the city! Under her guiding hand we’ll all escape this world and be led to our salvation!” If he only knew that there was a way out of the solar system, I could imagine how much more ecstatic he would be.
“The hell she will. She’s not some messiah, she’ll be in charge for a few years, but when she dies then what? There’ll be absolute chaos! Humanity doesn’t need a dictator; it needs to put its faith in its people!”
“You don’t get it, do you? El Dorado brought a greater boon than you could imagine!” More cackling.
“The fuck you mean?”
“The super soldier, it had the technology to extend a life for a thousand years! You’re right, no one could lead like Juliet, but they won’t have to! She’ll be immortal! She’s the only one willing to do what it takes to save humanity, the only one who sees how inefficient the politics are, how foolish its people are! She can save us from despair!”
“She is despair you damn idiot!” The man continued to cackle, and I went over my options. I didn’t have the time to find a way to hide him, and while he would undoubtedly be a phenomenal witness against Juliet, he was clearly delusional and dedicated to her. He was also getting loud, and while he was currently in shock, if he regained his senses enough to start calling for help, I would be in trouble. Perhaps it wasn’t my place, but it was time for him to face judgement. I lifted the man, and while he attempted to grapple the railing, I kicked him and sent him tumbling over. A few seconds later as he realized what was happening I could here his scream fading into the distance. Hopefully it wouldn’t be enough to alert anyone.
I headed back into the residential building and walked towards Logan door. I stopped in front of it, and prepared to buzz while I pulled out the data port, and then swore. During the scuffle the thing had become damaged, and I eyed it just to be sure. “Fuck my luck!” I swore again quietly, tossed the thing down, and then began making my way back to the pillar. Without it, I had no sure way of convincing Logan. In the end, I may have to face him in combat, and if so I prayed it wouldn’t come to either of our deaths.
I walked while keeping my eyes cast to the ground as I stepped onto the tarmac. I’d arrived with perfect timing judging by the busywork, though it may be a bit difficult infiltrating considering how many people were running around prepping equipment for the day. There were two other units that used the tarmac other than my own, and each was an Alpha unit.
Unit Twenty-Seven would be the closest to the elevator since I had seniority as pilot. As a result, I passed by the other two Alphas on my way to my own, and I held my breath whenever someone came too close as I hoped against all odds that no one would give me a second look. It was looking like 33’s theory was holding true, however.
The first Alpha I passed by was Gemini, one of a pair that was piloted by the female of the twins. The twins were a bizarre pair, as apparently the program for the vats had managed to randomly select the same parents for both of them, on top of them being in the same batch. The two were very similar, and they tended to finish each other’s sentences as a way of fucking with people back when they were younger, though they had finally broken that nasty habit.
Gemini was an asymmetrical Alpha, with its mirrored half being piloted by the other sibling, both sharing a name. The core was relatively small, with its propulsion system being a hover propulsion system allowing for smooth travel across the surface. In addition, it would kick up dust, allowing it to addle combatants on the ground. Its armaments were one of my least favorite, an actual robotic arm complete with an opposable thumb, the weapon in its hand being able to be swapped out for its mission. The advantage was the pilot could easily control and aim whatever weapon they had, though the efficiency of each would be hurt by lack of a concise design. Where the other arm should be was instead an armored radar array that allowed for it to be piloted in all weather conditions, be it night or day. Finally, was a flat cockpit, that was flattened with a slight curve to increase its surface area to reduce damage from debris kicked up by its speed. It wasn’t as fast as my design, but it was capable of limited flight and could hover over water as well.
I glanced over and saw Commander Cass talking to some of her men as she prepared to board her Alpha, and I glanced back down to avoid making eye contact. Best I avoid standing out, she was a clever bitch, very observant, so she was likely to see through my shitty disguise. The next Alpha I passed by was the Crab, a tank class Alpha with powerful treads and thrusters allowing it to turn on a dime, albeit its max speed was slow. Its heavy-duty core system was armored with N.O. Technologies special enamel armor, and the Crab could take a larger beating than any other Alpha at the time. It had four weapons for its armaments system, a pair of anti-material rifles that could fold up to be replaced by a pair of grenade launchers. All four weapons left literal craters where they landed. I wasn’t particularly worried about the Crab, as it would be essentially harmless until it left the city, as the tremors would cause such catastrophic fucking collateral damage to the city its pilot wouldn’t dare fire it. Its pilot was no where to be seen, and Commander Kamehameha Paiea was likely already inside. He always liked to show up early for missions, and was the oldest pilot still serving, though his public image was nigh invisible due to him purposely staying in the background.
I was closing distance to the Alloy of Justice, but as I approached a cavalcade of people came to a halt and started to stare at me silently. I wasn’t surprised, my own unit knew me well enough that even now, they wouldn’t be fooled. I continued marching towards my Alpha and saw my engineering crew milling about. Since I was a criminal, my unit was likely without orders and had nothing to do besides provide minor support. I scanned their faces, but failed to see my engineer, Ulysses. I had a word, no, a lot of fucking words for that cuck, but if he wasn’t here it would have to wait.
The first crewmen saw me, tapped his buddy, pointed at me, and soon the group stepped around and circled me. I stopped in the middle, “Hmm.”
The senior-most woman spoke for the group, “Aren’t you supposed to be in prison?”
“Yep. Where the fuck is Ulysses?”
She stared me unblinkingly in the eye, “They found him dead at the bottom of the ravine last night, bullet between his eyes. His partner was there with him.”
“Fuck.”
There was dead silence while we maintained silence, and only the distant sounds of the other units carrying about their business broke it. Not a soul in the crowd said anything, and slowly but surely more of my unit was gathering around us.
“So, what are you going to do, Alloy?”
“I’m going to get in my Alpha, find the son of a bitch responsible, and bring them to justice.”
“And what makes you think we’re going to let you?”
“The fact that my Alpha looks prepped for deployment is the only answer you need,” I took a step forward and the crowd parted as I walked by her. There was no more need for words, my unit trusted me inherently, and it would take a hell of a lot more than some shitty propaganda and false accusations to shake them of that.
Even so, as I walked by the woman said, “Don’t make us regret letting you go.”
I stopped, and without looking at her said, “… understood.” I didn’t look to see her reaction, but I could imagine what it was. I was never one to mince words, hell, I tended to ramble. If I only had one thing to say, then that meant I was serious, and she knew that.
“Alright,” she called out, “Everyone clear the safety lines, the Alloy of Justice is deploying!”
I clambered up and got myself into the cockpit. I took a breath and stroked one of the handles as I whispered, “Well, girl, looks like we have one more mission. Sorry I couldn’t make you rank one.” I grasped the handle, and the Alpha flared red as the GEL hydraulics instantly responded to my touch and the screens lit up so that I could see entire tarmac. There was a cleared path for me to go until I reached the other two units, who were blissfully unaware of what was about to happen.
“Alright 33, you asked for a distraction, let’s make a damned distraction, then.” I slammed the controls forward and my Alpha skated forward as it reached max speed in an instant and I closed the distance to where Gemini was, dancing my legs back and forth to dodge personnel until I reached a crowd, leapt, and rolled out of it as I dodged them. There were too many bodies to make this easy, but I be damned if I accidentally killed an innocent. Already there was panic as people screamed and shouted as they ran for cover. In the meantime, I was almost upon the Gemini and held down the button on my right pile.
Beep. I lunged forward and went to take the Gemini down, but at the last second it backed up and I swung and missed, released the trigger, and the pile soared uselessly through the air and bounced with a loud bang off of the hull of the Gemini. That was the only problem with the piles, they lost their punching power very quickly and needed to be fired on impact for maximum effectiveness.
“Alloy, is that you?” The Alpha direct comms buzzed in, and I immediately responded.
“Hey, Paiea, you up for a dance?”
There was a small chuckle, followed by, “You can’t keep us old war dogs down, can you?”
“Paiea, this isn’t funny, if Alloy is in his Alpha, we need to stop him, now!” Cass screamed, and you could hear how shaken she was. Most likely she had barely managed to finish activating her Alpha in time, and if I had connected, she would’ve been fucking dead.
“Eh, you worry too much Cass. If Alloy wanted to kill you, you’d be dead,” he wasn’t wrong. I could’ve easily followed through in my charge, but her Alpha hadn’t managed to arm itself yet, and I had been hoping to decommission her Alpha before she had gotten inside.
Instead, I jerked my right control forward and left back, pivoted my Alpha, and then slammed both forward as I headed to the exit. Most of the tarmac was cleared by this time, though there was a Charlie that was stepping out and aiming its GGG at me. As I zipped forward, I bent over and flipped the Charlie so that it landed on its back. The airbags would keep its pilot safe that way, and it would be out of the way.
“Meet you by old Cronus, you sack of shit!” I radioed out.
“Aye, I look forward to it, boy!” I was anything but a boy, but for the grizzled pilot he could get away with calling me that.
I pulled out onto the bridge and leapt from it so that I landed near where the pillar pierced into the natural stone floor and swung myself around to face it, with each bridge jutting out to the side at angles so that I would be able to see every Alpha that would come out to meet me. Scattered around the floor were stalagmites that reached up, some as tall as my Alpha’s knees. I crossed the Alloy of Justice’s arms, sat back, and waited, with the water reservoir to my back where pipes led from it so that pumps could deliver the lifegiving fluid to the city. I had eleven piles left, and one hell of a fight to look forward to. I could feel my blood beginning to simmer as it raised to a boil. Paiea was right. This was going to be fun.
On the bridge to my left was the Crab and one of the Geminis, its arm now aimed with a high caliber machine gun. The bridge to my right had the other Gemini, with its mirrored arm equipped with what appeared to be… something small and triangular. Shit, I hadn’t looked at our weapons catalogue since its latest update for the Alphas, and that was definitely new. Whatever, I’d make do. In addition, there were another two Alphas on the bridge.
First was Medusa, which had a segmented-magnetic-tread-propulsion system, which was a hell of a fucking lot of words to say the thing was train-shaped and that it could crawl on walls. Its armament system was a set of cabled harpoons that it could embed and then reel in. Medusa was a bunker buster, with its drilling harpoons able to pull down buildings easily while its maneuverable body could easily wrap around and crush. It was a relatively thin, but long design, and I wasn’t too clear where the cockpit was on it, as it blended in quite well with its harpoon system. Probably, where the core was if I could fucking see where it was on there too. Alright, reminder to self, if I somehow fucking survive this, memorize the shit out of the catalogue, cause apparently all these fuckers updated their designs, and I didn’t know what shit was. To be fair, I never thought I’d be fighting other Alphas, but apparently here we fucking were!
“What are we waiting for? Let’s kill him!” Medusa’s pilot said. Commander 67 was a lot of things, but patient wasn’t one of them. Fine then, if we were starting, I was ready. I gripped my handles tightly and prepared to hold the trigger buttons to prep my piles.
“Girl, wait for Legion. Juliet said she wanted a word with him, and unless he engages, we are not to fire,” Paiea reprimanded.
“… Yes, sir,” Commander 67 may be hot-headed, but she knew better than to disobey orders. I relaxed my grip on my controls and breathed out. My heart was pounding, cold sweat dripping down my back, and my blood was like fire, but I needed to keep my cool. Once things started, it was going to take everything I had not to die, let alone win.
“I’m curious on what he has to say for himself. He almost killed my sister earlier. Maybe he’s more animal than man at this point?” The male voice belonged the pilot of the other Gemini, Commander Kass. You would think their names would make communication difficult, but I knew almost all their battle maneuvers would be in tandem, which was what made them such a threat on the battlefield. If I could separate them, it would drastically lower each of their threat levels.
“You know I can fucking hear you, asshole,” I replied. I wasn’t actually irritated, but if he thought I was he might underestimate me. Hey, you never knew.
“Kiss my ass!” Oh, and he is irritated. That works too. “33, you worked with this dickhead for a while, right? What the fuck is wrong with him?”
That was the final Alpha on the right, 33’s Noblesse Oblige, which had faint lines of blue glowing faintly throughout its design, where the GEL powered it. The Noblesse Oblige was the only other humanoid Alpha right now, as she had chosen to inspire her design after mine. She used a different pair of bipedal propulsion systems, one that allowed vertical scaling at the cost of being slower. It did need to have contact with a surface, but the thing could skate on walls unlike me. Her core was sleek and triangular, with her armaments system being one of the most complicated currently on the market for Alphas. The carousel system hung at the hip to the side, like a massive holster, where a metal clamp leads up and is secured by connecting to the shoulder. There was no actual arm on that side. Instead, on the other side were two spindly arms, that had a radial-ulna design at the shoulder where both arms could rotate about each other without interfering with one another. At the elbows was a circular electrical screw that could anchor the arms together to form one, and where the wrists were, it was currently plugged into the carousel. The carousel functioned as six armament systems in one, with the double arms able to fuse as one or separate into two based off the weapons it drew from the carousel. The only issue was each weapon had very limited ammo compared to other armament systems, but it made up for that in flexibility. The thing when standing still looked like a warrior of old resting its hand on the hilt of its sword, albeit the hilt was instead fucking massive and trailed behind it quite a bit so it could store all its weapons.
33 answered Kass’s question icily, “There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just pissed.”
“So, what, he’s going to throw a mutiny over not making rank one? What a child!” Everyone else seemed to ignore his complaint, though whether they knew it was because it was more than that or believed that stupid lie and had nothing to add was hard to tell.
To make things worse, I knew there was likely another Alpha flying around, the Wraith, which was piloted by Commander 99, but knowing that wasn’t going to do me any good. At the very least, its armament system would prove to be not too much of a threat as it wouldn’t be able to reach a height for its “rods from god” to gain enough destructive power. It was a type of stealth Alpha that was invisible to the naked eye and radar or anything else you could pretty much throw at it. There were ways to spot it, but hell if I had access to anything within my Alpha, so I was shit out of luck. The thing would fly up into the stratosphere and drop tungsten rods that would hit multi-Mach speeds and smash through anything without you ever getting a chance to even see it. A silent killer, and one that as far as we knew had yet to be identified by Olympus or Atlantis, making it very useful. Course, even being aware of it wasn’t going to do me much good, I just needed to keep in mind that even if I think I’ve found cover there’s a good chance they’ll still have a bead on me, so I won’t be juking them anytime soon.
I had a small element of surprise, since I knew that 33 was on my side and she was in a good position to take out one of the Geminis. Right now, they thought they had eight against one, when really it was two on seven. Assuming that 33 could eliminate the male Gemini beside her from the get-go, that would make it two on six, with all of them aiming their weapons at me so that if I even moved, they’d blast me to smithereens. Alright, so maybe I didn’t have the element of jack shit.
No, 33 had to have something better prepared than that, but she had insisted I get going as she didn’t have time to explain, and we were pressed for it. A moment later, from the bridge that held the top three Alphas, emerged the Leviathan, its magnetic propulsion clearing it of the cliffside before it angled itself and aimed its globes at me, its lasers probably already prepped to wipe me out. That was one advantage of Logan’s cannons, they would melt the stone and not cause an explosion, so it wouldn’t leave too much collateral damage and could even be fired within the city with some restraint. Most likely the underground factories would receive some structural damage, but the populated parts of the city would be unharmed, and as long as Cronus stood, the ravine would be held together.
“Logan…”
“I have nothing to say to you,” the disappointment in his voice was palpable. So much for trying to convince him, if I had been able to deliver the data port, maybe, but now it was looking inevitable. I needed to take down the Leviathan.
Following him came the second largest Alpha, with its spidery quadruped legs taking each step one at a time. In front of each leg was a large shield that could extend to create a field to protect the Alpha, and on the face of them were the emblems of the Legion, a female knight riding upon a metal-clad beast, two lances in hand. The dame charged forward, seeming to form from a flock of ravens trailing behind her, the whole emblem embossed onto a crest. The Legion had been painted bright orange, to warn civilians of its location as it would come out and begin defending the city.
Each leg could fully extend so that it could climb up the Crossroads using the bridges and pillar like footholds, and its core had a large cockpit on top that looked like a knight’s helm, complete with six glowing blue lines that appeared like a visor, though actually functioned as its cameras and radar. The armaments were two elbow-jointed appendages that the forearm of which was a long shaft, reaching out the full length of the Alpha and then more with round, bulbous globes docked into the pillars, numbering five hundred for each arm. At its end was an open barrel that could fire a blast of flames. The Legion was designed so it alone could defend the city from the entire might of both Atlantis and Olympus laying siege on the city in tandem, no matter how unlikely it was to occur. Both it and the Leviathan were custom-made for its pilots based on their GEL compatibility and preferences so that they could fulfill their jobs. To be top three certainly had its perks, and now I was going to have to face two of them, one of which was in its element. Peachy. Fucking peachy. I glanced at the time on my instruments, 0328.
“Alloy of Justice, I have more than a few questions for you, though I doubt you plan on cooperating.” Juliet’s voice was as unemotional as ever.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
“Fuck you.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way, if you just followed orders and stopped acting overemotional, we could find a way forward where no one has to die.”
“With the exception of Olympus or Atlantis, isn’t that right, bitch?”
There was a mildly frustrated sigh, followed by, “The cities of our enemies are volatile and unpredictable, if the Crossroads is to survive, we must eliminate rogue factors. If you would think logically, you’d realize that this was true.”
“Right,” I dragged out the word as I bid for time. 33 told me I needed to keep them busy until 0330 and avoid open conflict until then. In that case, I’d deliver. “And the rest of you, you approve of killing countless innocents for this bitch?”
Kass was the one to respond to the provocation, his youth and anger spilling out, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Everyone, silence, that’s an order,” Juliet snapped, refusing to let me gain control of the conversation. She wasn’t about to lose control of her pawns that easily, “Alloy, I’m going to give you one chance. Open your cockpit and stand down from your Alpha. If you comply, we can discuss a path forward for you where you don’t have to die.”
She was fucking giving me an ultimatum, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that she wasn’t going to give me time to contemplate it. The time was 0329. I had ten seconds. “Let me think it over,” I said, trying my best not to sound sarcastic. Maybe she’d buy the bait. Doubted it though, she knew I wasn’t thinking shit over it.
“No. You have until the count of three-,” she was interrupted by an explosion, and my ears popped painfully as I grabbed my handles and uncrossed the Alloy of Justice’s arms as I tried to see what the fuck had caused the explosion.
All the other Alphas also swiveled in alarm, as all their radar systems likely were detecting the source and we all looked as one towards the bridge where the Elysium Workshop was. Steam was rapidly expanding over the street and consuming it, as the stream quickly spread out creating a light grey blot across it. There was a loud siren as my Alpha began blaring temperature alarms. I looked down and saw that temps had plummeted to zero degrees Celsius, negative five, negative ten. What the actual fuck?
The street was fully consumed at this point, and the cloud turned snow white, and glistening sparkles could be seen throughout it as I looked at in awe. “What the fuck is that?” I radioed. It had to be what 33 was doing with Aphrodite and Kristoff in the workshop, right?
“That wasn’t you?” Logan asked.
“Quiet! Wraith, get me a visual, now!” I realized that the cloud had become like fine powder and was seeming to get caught on something in the air as it settled on the Wraith. Perfect, now I could see it.
Commander 99 said, “I’ve got nothing! There’s some sort of weird noise coming from it, like a sort of clicking… or chittering. Is this the Olympian’s doing?” Perfect, Juliet’s lies were creating a smokescreen for me to have plausible deniability, so I wasn’t going to correct the pilot’s misconception.
No, what I needed to do was take a shot at Leviathan, but the problem was there was a single Alpha who hadn’t responded to the explosion and still had his weapons pointed right at me. Paiea and his Crab were too experienced for him to be that easily distracted. Luckily for me, that changed instantly.
It soared out of the snowstorm from the bridge like lightning, a glistening bronze form, lithe with great wings spanning across and two forearms instantly snapping up the Wraith as it stood out like a sore thumb from the powdery snow gathering atop it. The thing was covered in scales, golden and creating a beautiful pattern from its reptilian head to the tip of its serpentine tail. The forearms had what appeared to be clawed opposable thumbs, and they grabbed the wings of the Wraith and spread them out as the thing started to fall from the sky under its weight. It curved its head back while staring down to what was likely the cockpit, and the scales on its neck started to lift up, steam spraying out of them forcing the head to lower as its mouth opened. It was a motherfucking dragon, and it was about to breath.
A shimmering effect, like a heatwave on the horizon, issued from its mouth paired with another intense popping of my ears and in an instant the Wraith was shredded through as if under the force of a god, the metal torn to pieces before suddenly a dozen meters underneath it a steam stream started to form and rapidly descend onto the lower bridges covering up all the Alphas and spreading out before turning into a fine powdery snow.
I glanced at the temp, things had descended to negative thirty degrees, and had stabilized. The city was freezing, and whatever that automaton was, it was the cause. More importantly, I pulled back my controls and skated back as the line of sight between me and the Crab was broken, freeing me up, I reached forward and flicked a few switches, thermal vision wasn’t doing shit, all I saw was blue and purple. I grabbed a dial labeled course and twisted it, and soon I had some orange and yellow images in the distant. I grabbed the dial labeled fine, and with a couple adjustments was able to get a good view of the Crossroads again, albeit in thermal. The Alphas were orange and yellow, with Cronus being red and the bridges a green. Most everything else was varying degrees of light blue to deep purple, but it was good enough to go on.
The problem was the other Alphas would be zeroing in on their vision too, and sure enough, I could see the Crab was already swinging its weapons around at me. “No, you don’t, boy!” Paiea laughed, his experience allowing him to keep up with me. I reversed and brought the Alloy of Justice forward and used spins and twists to zigzag forward to keep him from getting a good read, he wouldn’t risk firing unless he had a direct hit, otherwise the tremors would cause the ravine to cave in on itself.
There was a distant boom.
I had no clue where the dragon had disappeared to, but for now I needed to find a way to get Paiea dealt with and get to where the Leviathan was floating in the air, which right now I didn’t even have the beginning of a plan for pulling that off.
The second boom was closer.
The other Alphas were starting to move as well, and as I closed the distance to Paiea I knew it was matter of time before the others started firing on me eliminating any chance I had of getting close to him. If I went straight for the Leviathan, he would be clear to shoot me out of the sky, and my trajectory would be too predictable for me to avoid it freeing him up, he needed taken out now before I even considered finding something to ramp from. Suddenly the stalagmites in front of me shattered as the machine gun of the female Gemini erupted forcing me to maintain my current direction.
Boom.
“Goodbye, boy,” Paiea said as I realized I had fucked up, but it was too late, and in a second he would fire, and I’d be blown to smithereens.
There was a loud bang, and I swung my head around in its direction to see that 33 had drawn her first weapon from the carousel system, which was what appeared to be two plates fused together in a wide paddle design, aimed right at the Crab. The Crab had a white-hot hole where his core was and had become still as its GEL leaked out, shifting from vibrant red to a dormant blue.
Boom!
33 couldn’t have been a second sooner, though the weapon she had just used only had one shot in it. Still, it was probably the only thing she had that could have pierced the Crab’s armor, and it had done the job wonderfully. She holstered it again, and the carousel system began rotating as it disconnected its first weapon and 33 selected her next. The process took ten seconds, but she didn’t have to draw it until she was ready to use it, giving her the slightest element of surprise.
“Paiea? Paiea!?” the feminine voice belonged to the female Gemini, and she screamed, “Someone shot Paiea!” The confusion of the fight had masked 33’s betrayal, and I counted our blessings, maybe we stood a fucking chance.
BOOM.
Juliet’s voice came over the radio, calmly, “33 shot Paiea, and has betrayed the Crossroads. Geminis engage her. The dragon is the same temperature as the ice and using it to blend in, look for something bluish-purple and eliminate it. I will take care of Alloy. Deploying.” Shit, shit, shit! I looked over at the Legion, which had stood still during everything, of course she had been reading the situation before reacting! The globes detached from each forearm on Legion, and started zooming through the air at me, each one a drone that could fire pulse ammunition at me. That was the Legion’s main trick, which combined Juliet’s insane five-minute time delay with GEL to command each of her drones with a mission and cycle them through to create a one-woman-army. Even as I watched, some of the drones instead went to above the bridges to guard possible escape routes for me. Pulse munitions were slow, which were electromagnetic air bursts that could do minor damage, but I was soon to be surrounded by an absolute storm of them, and there was no way I could dodge all of them.
BOOM!
“What the hell is that?” Logan cried as from near the top of Cronus one of the bridges collapsed in response to the most recent explosion. I had not been paying too much attention to the noise in the chaos, but I realized those rumbles must have been coming from there. Wasn’t that N.O. Technologies, bridge, what the hell was happening?
The debris was falling and hitting several roads as it fell, and I winced at the likely loss of life, but I didn’t have the time to focus on that as Logan launched the missiles on top of his propulsion system to intercept the debris coming towards him, streaks of gaseous blue trailing behind the scarlet lights as it broke up the worst of the destruction. I needed to focus on the drones, which were now in range.
Each fired at me as I skated in and out of stalagmites, trying my best to keep my center of gravity low so that the stone could provide some coverage. Even so, occasional shots were slamming into my haul, and I was getting alarms indicating minor damage to my systems. It wasn’t going to be enough to stop me, but it would build up and slow me down, so I needed to avoid it as much as possible.
Sure enough, I realized I was steadily getting corralled into a wall of drones, which were beginning to rotate as a twister with a small opening available for me to go into it, and I had no option but to charge into the death trap. I squeezed my buttons, ready for the beep that would greet me soon. If I was going down, I was going to take a couple drones down with me, even if it was all in vain.
Suddenly the twisting mass of drones began detonating, as red-hot gunfire shredded through it. Spinning, guns blazing, into the mass landed the Noblesse Oblige, GGG drawn in one arm with a spool of ammunition held in the other as she fired into her enemies with her carousel lagging behind her like a tail wing. Behind came trailing one of the Geminis, wielding the triangular device that now had a bright red plasma blade swinging overhead to strike my companion while she was stuck in her tailspin.
I ducked under her as she soared over me and then leapt up after the hovercraft behind, twisting so that the plasma blade would miss me while I swung my right arm just as the beep sounded. The Gemini realized what was happening, and its propulsion system pulled a one-eighty as the torso continued to face me and tried to adjust its blade’s pathing for me. The Alpha failed its swing, but for its effort I was only able to connect with the radar as I fired, tearing the structure clean off its body. The Gemini swung around, and the torso began swinging back and forth, as if blind. Looked like his thermal sensors were all tied into its radar leaving the pilot now blind.
33 was already amid discarding her GGG, which was now out of ammunition, unsurprising as I believe she only had enough munitions for about a second or two. I remember now, she had told me to switch to a private channel once the fight begun, though once they figured out what channel we were on it wouldn’t do us any good. Whatever, I reached above my head and spun a dial, causing her voice to cut in angrily, “you idiot!”
“Hi 33.”
“Finally, why the hell did you stay on the Alpha direct line for so long?”
“I forgot to switch radios, hold on, setting Alpha direct line to background.” It would be quieter, but I’d at least be able to listen in on our enemies and intercept their ability to coordinate, for what it was worth.
“Right. Cover me, switching to arc claw.”
“Copy,” I had already zeroed in on the second Gemini, which was closing fast to cut me off with its machine gun from being able to finish off its twin. If it was on defense, then I would have to keep it that way while 33 switched weapons. I slammed my controls forward into a charge, pulled into a swivel causing a tight spin before slamming forward for a ninety-degree turn, causing the female Gemini to miss. Twice more I pulled the maneuver, switching up the angle as necessary to maintain unpredictability before strafing to the side to position the blinded Alpha between me and her. Sure enough, she held her fire while I prepared to charge forward and finish her brother.
“Emergency. Haul Penetration.” The automated voice of the alarm was paired with a sudden jerk, and I turned around to view my back screen to see that I had several harpoons piercing my thighs and shoulders coming from the Medusa behind me.
“Damnit!” I slammed forward but the Medusa was faster as it started reeling me in, and while its weapon system wasn’t designed to contend with my thrusters, it hampered my movements enough that when the Medusa swiveled to pull the other direction, I found myself losing as metal groans rang out around me. “Little help here!”
“On it,” came the cool reply as I saw 33 prancing towards me, dodging the same machine gun fire I had been subject to earlier as the female Gemini switched targets and moved to intercept. Part of me was proud to see 33 using the same maneuvers I had used to dodge her, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it as she barreled towards me. I released my thrusts, and suddenly I was jerked back as the Alloy of Justice was pulled onto its back and collided with a stalagmite, shattering it, just in time for the Noblesse Oblige to leap over me and streak towards the trailer of the Medusa that had a hold of me. Multiple harpoons were launched, but her aerial thrusters made it easy for her to dodge midair in an elegant twist and slam her arms, now recombined into one, into it, which had a large hand-like claw extension that was way too big for her Alpha drawn from her carousel. The Noblesse Oblige twisted so that it appeared to be doing a one-handed handstand before it pushed off into the air and righted itself to levitate, the claws now missing their points as they had embedded into the trailer. Instead, she extended it, and my thermal sensors failed to properly process the arcs of electricity extending from her hand as it rained down like lightning into the trailer with pops and crackles, causing the harpoons to become lax as their motor stalled, allowing me to slam forward again and right myself just in time to take a swing at the Gemini following like a meteor in hot pursuit of 33.
No, you don’! I swung my left arm, already prepped, at her, but she did the same one-eighty maneuver as her brother and unlike him, succeeded in evading as I ripped free of the harpoons while having a peppering of bullets pierce through my haul without doing any critical damage.
I reeled around and then noticed a massive series of cracks spreading out from beneath me, which looked like blue lightning spreading across purple on my thermal imaging, combined with a massive explosion behind me, “The hell-,” The ground collapsed and suddenly all of us with the exception of the levitating Noblesse Oblige were dropping into the factory below as the floor collapsed and we were all pelted with stone and concrete as it exploded out from the source of the explosion, damaging my thermal sensors and causing all my screens to turn white.
“Shit, I’m blind!” I switched back to traditional cameras, but I couldn’t see shit through the smoke, dust, and snow.
“WHERE IS THE TRAITOR! DEATH TO THE TRAITOR!”
I winced at the sudden shout over the comms, as a blast wave passed over me, cleansing the air enough for me that I was able to look towards the source of the explosion to see a giant, brown, quadruped Alpha standing in what appeared to be a crater. The color seemed to come from an enamel, and I realized it was N.O. Technologies new armor they had been working on, which was designed to be near impenetrable to laser and plasma weaponry that wasn’t on par with the Neon Cathedrals. Each forearm was massive, and it appeared to have large fingers peeking out from underneath its armor. Its hind legs were more animalistic, and its head had two radar dishes that kind of looked like ears. I saw no cameras on what I assumed was its cockpit, which was unusual, and a second later a familiar set of green lasers shot out from the arms and rapidly scanned over every inch of the battlefield, each one setting on each of us Alphas so that I was able to quickly get a feeling for where each one was currently located. Paiea was still limp up on the bridge, as was the Legion on another bridge. The Leviathan floated above, and I could see its laser cannons were fully charged as they glowed a hot blue, bordering on turning red. The rest of us were scattered on the factory floor, assembly lines and conveyer belts akilter and damaged from the still crumbling rock and concrete.
The thing stood up on its hind legs, showing its massive size so that I realized the thing was probably as big as the Legion, hell probably bigger since it was so bulky. I got a good look on its back, where there were two large spherical tanks interconnected with hoses leading to its cockpit. In addition, there were two large box like objects connected to the sides of the smaller tank, the purpose of which I hadn’t the slightest clue. This must be the new Alpha N.O. was working on, but who the hell was piloting it?
“JULIET IDENTIFIED! DEATH TO THE TRAITOR! LONG LIVE THE CROSSROADS!” Every one of its lasers reoriented to point at the cockpit of the Legion.
… So… it was on our side?
“33?”
“It’s Kristoff, but something sounds wrong.” No shit. The thing started turning towards the Legion, when suddenly a solid blue laser blazed into the shoulder of the beast, and it took a knee while lifting its arm to shield itself as the magnificent light show became too intense to witness. Finally, the light faded, and I stared at it in fascination as the beast righted itself, its armor unharmed but instead glowing a neon green where the laser had failed to pierce its armor.
The thing’s ears suddenly expanded, as a noise that sounded like a foghorn shattered the silence and a visible soundwave buffeted the dust around it as the thing bent over while turning its head to the sky, as if roaring. “INTERFERENCE WILL NOT BE TOLERATED! ENGAGE!” The massive thing bent over, and I realized it had changed targets to Logan as every laser landed on his cockpit.
In a panic I switched frequencies for speaking and shouted “Logan, get out of there!”
33 responded immediately as I switched back to our channel, “What are you doing, he is our target!?”
Shit, she was right. Even so, I couldn’t stand still as my friend died, and luckily my warning seemed to have come out on time as suddenly the hind legs of Kristoff’s Alpha extended in an explosive display of speed and power, lifting the green Alpha instantly in a way I could never have imagined the machine capable of moving, diving upwards headfirst towards the Leviathan while swinging one powerful arm.
Logan had already started to veer away, but the speed was too great, and was swiped on the back sending him into a tailspin as he crashed into the bridge causing it to buckle, the same bridge that the Legion was perched upon, knocking Juliet down to us.
“Shoot it while its in the air.” Juliet ordered harshly as she fell, realizing like I did that the beast was vulnerable while it was in the air.
Or so you would think. The thing flipped and its hind legs landed on the ravine walls as it crouched again against it, and in an instant, I realized what was happening, but was busy reorienting myself to aim for the Medusa which had begun maneuvering through the debris while taking aim with its harpoons at Kristoff. “33, where’s the core on the Medusa?”
“Third trailer from the front.” That’s all I needed to know as I t-boned the Alpha and dug both my piles into and released. The Medusa skidded to a halt as my Alpha bounced off its haul violently and I slammed into a set of mechanical presses on a conveyer belt. Simultaneously, the beast with the neon shoulder kicked off the wall headed towards the ground where the Legion would be landing.
“Kristoff, no!” me and 33 shouted at once, but it was too late. The shields on the Legion’s legs extended out, revealing what appeared to be a generator in its center and a massive blue force field snapped like lightning around it as the brown machine crashed on top of it and was immediately repelled off it, rocketing into the air and sending out another shock wave, this one more intense than all the rest. The Crossroads shook as Kristoff slowly spiraled through the air, and eventually crashed into the ground before rolling over onto all four to look over at the Legion, as all her drones reseated themselves in her forearms, ready for their next set of commands. Instantly they detached from her left arm as she swung it to the right and suddenly caught something I had lost track of, the golden, draconic automaton that had started the fight, right out of the air and into a wall, where a large machine toppled over and pinned it down. The dragon’s head was secured underneath, and it scratched and pulled at the machinery to no avail, like lightning caught in a bottle.
In the meantime, the drones were already headed towards Kristoff, and Juliet ordered, “Geminis are to engage the Alloy and Noblesse with my support fire, I’ll take the Oso Verde. Leviathan, fire.” Suddenly another blast of blue light shot out where the Leviathan had crash-landed, it now being stranded, and run aground, yet not defenseless. It struck the Oso Verde in the same spot as before, which shifted from green to orange as the armor finally started to melt. The drones from Juliet’s left arm disengaged and began splitting to fly towards me and 33 while simultaneously I saw the two Geminis speeding at me and 33, the melee coming for me and the ranged one at her.
I began skating to dodge, while the drones began to spread out around the Gemini and keep me from closing the distance between the two of us. Out of the corner of one eye I saw that 33 had drawn a pair of high caliber gauss revolvers with her arms separated once again but knew there was only six shots per gun. Out of the corner of the other I saw Kristoff, piloting what I guess was called the Oso Verde, break into a four-legged sprint as he headed towards Juliet, who was running at him with long spindly steps. Slag dripped from his shoulder and splattered on the factory floor. Certainly, he wasn’t fucking stupid enough to charge her again, was he?
I feinted to charge the male Gemini before reversing, causing a few drones to fire uselessly, not that it would do any good. I needed him to commit to an attack so that I could drive a pile through him, which unfortunately I had lost track of how many I had used and for which arm. I had enough, right? Had to. As I strafed around, I saw the Oso Verde had stopped short and stood up suddenly to unshoulder the blocks on its back, taking one in both hands as barrels extended out of each and it fired them at the Legion, whose generators pulsed to release its force field twice to dispel the explosions before slamming one lance into his exposed molten shoulder and driving him back and disarming that side as it inadvertently lost its grip on its bazooka. The other lance aimed for the other weapon and pierced it, making it useless. The Oso Verde tried to right itself, but she forced it onto its back and started pushing him towards the wall of the factory, on the other side of which was a small drop before the water reservoir, which was several dozen meters deep. That was going to be my window, I somehow knew.
“Hey 33,” I said with surprising calm.
“What?” She had discarded her revolvers, taken cover behind some machinery, and was now pulling out two diamond edged heated blades, that would be good for maybe a hit or two, if she could even land them. She dived out and broke the support beam to a piece of the room that had held out during the collapse, which now fell towards the ranged Gemini as 33 reached back into her carousel to equip her next weapon. She was down to her last weapon, and I knew it wasn’t going to be effective against any of the remaining Alphas.
“I think that’s it, kiddo. Time to abort.”
“What are you saying?” The other Gemini had come round to find her, as the male Gemini finally saw his opportunity and swung at me, but he was too slow and I strafed to his side and slammed my left arm into his side for a solid hit and fired, downing the craft.
“It’s time to leave, you need to get to Olympus and warn them. The Leviathan is damaged, but it will only take a week to repair, Olympus needs to change locations now with the chance we bought them, or they’re dead.” The female Gemini screamed as she realized what had happened to her brother and switched targets to charge me, her machine gun firing well before she reached effective range so that her bullets bounced off my armor, denting it, I was sure.
“How the hell are you getting out, you can’t scale the walls!?” As the female Gemini saw red and turned from her, the Noblesse Oblige pulled out its last weapon, a long cable with a large metal ball on it. She whipped it out, and it wrapped around the torso of the Gemini as thrusters activated on the ball causing it to accelerate as the cable wrapped around and round, faster and faster, until it slammed with terrifying devastation into the Gemini’s torso, destroying the orb on the end of the whip from the collision while causing the Alpha to violent explode out under the force, scraps of the Alpha spreading out like buckshot.
“No time, ice bitch. Go.”
“But-,”
“NOW!” I shouted with a ferocity I had never felt before, and I saw her Alpha appear to hesitate before heading towards the pillar, just as Juliet collided with the wall of the reservoir. There was another violent shake, and it collapsed as she drove the Oso Verde through it and tossed it into the water below, where its weight caused it to instantly drop through into the murky depths below. The drones were already flying back to Juliet, ready for their next deadly mission.
“You two are going nowhere.” Juliet declared over our radio, having apparently finally found the channel we were using as the blaring of horns announced the activation of Cronus. Red lights lit up all up and down the pillar as 33 began ascending the pillar as quickly as she could even as it started to rotate and up above old metal began to move. Cronus was ancient, and long retired, but the old Bravo was still capable of putting up its shield for the city, which was already extending out from the top. Except this time, it wasn’t a shield, it was a prison, and with it all hope would be lost.
I had no way of stopping the Legion or its drones, which were now headed towards me for a final attack. Those drones truly were the ultimate weapon, which when paired with the force field generators on its legs created an unbreakable shield as well. The field could only last for a split second, but I had no way of getting the jump on her when I would be too busy dodging the drones, and she would just wear me down. I switched to the Alpha direct line and then I clicked the buttons on each of my arms. A few seconds later I heard two familiar beeps indicating I had two piles charged. Good, I was out of chances, but maybe there was still something I could do. The Legion was slow to scale, and there was at least one thing here that might be fast enough to escape the Crossroads on time, even if 33 wasn’t. I swerved and then began charging directly towards where the dragon was, which I had gathered to be Aphrodite.
It had been swift, and while she hadn’t released anymore of those frosty blasts of hers, probably due to being out of steam, she might still be able to get out on time. I ignored the fact that I was going to be intercepted by the drones before I reached her. They wouldn’t be able to damage me enough to stop my final mission.
A peace fell over me, and I radioed over the line, “Hey, Logan.”
A despairing voice answered me, “What?”
“Don’t let that bitch kill 33, old friend.”
He didn’t respond, and I crashed into the machinery pinning Aphrodite down at full speed, punching both arms forward and firing to maximize the force of my impact.
I groaned and opened one eye, the other struggling to open due to there being blood pouring into it. Smoke and debris lay everywhere, and my cockpit had been torn asunder so that I could taste the disaster on the air, like ash and salt on the wound. Water was sprinkling on my head which burned before I realized I was looking up into the sky through a molten hole in the blast shield of Cronus. The burning was from the acid rain, which was falling directly over me. Everything hurt, apart from my left leg. I couldn’t feel that, and I didn’t bother looking at it to find out why.
“Fucking fucker’s fucked,” I groaned, and I became aware of a loud rhythmic noise that belonged to a large machine, approaching me.
“You’re still alive, Alloy,” it was the last voice I wanted to hear on the radio, and I looked towards the source of the steps and saw the Legion walking towards me steadily.
“Fuuuuuck…”
“I hope you’re pleased with yourself, the Crossroads is in ruins, and you wiped out most of our Alphas in your selfishness,” I hated the fact that she sounded at most as if it was mildly inconvenient. People were dead, our fellow pilots were dead, and she had turned us against each other, people we had known our entire lives. And she was treating it all as slightly annoying. Bitch.
“Where’s 33?”
An edged voice responded with, “She escaped, as well as that automaton that assisted you, through that hole in Cronus created by Logan. He at the last second decided to aid them in their escape, choosing to trust you over his loyalty to the Crossroads. I’ll deal with his treachery in a moment, but first I think it’s time for your foolish antics to end here.”
“Heh...”
“Excuse me?”
“… Heh… Hehe… Hahahaha, ow… hahaha, oh shit, it hurts, hahahaha!” They were alive! Somehow, through all of it, 33 and Aphrodite were alive! It wasn’t much, but in the end, maybe my sacrifice had amounted to something.
The Legion stopped before me, and she aimed one Lance at me so that I could see the barrel of her flamethrower. The light that emerged from it was as brilliant as the sun.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. I drummed my finger on my console as I watched the Alloy of Justice burn, the fool finally dealt with. It was all such a waste. The best pilot in the Crossroads had given his all and nearly brought down everything that he and I had dedicated our lives to, and for what? A sentimental belief that we could live in peace with our enemies? Absolute foolishness. Worse yet, Logan had betrayed us, and he was the only one with the GEL compatibility required to activate the cannons of the Leviathan, with a capacity numbering in over a thousand liters. It was integral that those be brought back to battle readiness in preparation of destroying Olympus.
No matter, I had already considered using the AI from the Oso Verde to force Logan’s obedience, and sure enough it was to be required. We would have to scavenge it from the bottom of the reservoir, but in a month, I would be ready with a new and improved Leviathan, one that didn’t have the capabilities to betray me.
Better yet, N.O. Technologies would be done with the other tech they had scrapped from El Dorado, and I would soon be able to transfer my neurological system to a powerful, near immortal body. Alloy had delayed the inevitable, but when rank one returned Atlantis would fall, and soon after Olympus. Humanity could finally claim its freedom to reach the rest of the solar system.
Everything would be as it should be.
I would be in control.