Chapter 5
And here I thought this was a magical apocalypse. Turns out it’s a robotic one.
“I, for one, welcome our robot overlords.” I attempt to say to appease the suit above me, but instead, it comes out as a raspy wheeze.
Even though there are no eyes, I can feel the armor staring into my soul as the green lights in its face get brighter and brighter. Chills travel from my head to my toes.
Its light becomes much more intense just before I can brace myself, akin to a flashbang. It’s so vivid that the light ravages my vision with nothing but neon green as I lose my five senses.
Total darkness begins to overtake me.
Gone, with not a bang, but a whimper…
…?!
The darkness is interrupted by a neon green C with a star flickering on it in front of me. A command prompt/terminal appears next to it and beings typing words too quickly for me to understand anything.
[https://i.imgur.com/FX481So.png]
A smooth veil of darkness is gently lifted from my eyes, and my eyes register my sister and the hellhound.
Prim, on top of the hellhound, screams at the top of her lungs as she pins the beast down with her body. The hound, showing signs of tiredness, picks up its head and takes a couple of snaps at Prim.
Prim responds by slamming the beast's head into the ground with one hand. Next, she yells as her hand starts smoking but holds it in place. Then, while her legs trap the hound, she takes her other free hand and whips out a combat knife.
She jams the knife straight into the hound’s lower jaw, and the canine’s yelp echoes throughout the facility.
Prim quickly retreats off the dog as the steam begins below the body. She looks at her hand while grunting and panting before looking directly at me.
Her fierce look of determination and adrenaline slowly shifts into something much more terrifying.
“M-M-Monarch.” She utters with her voice trembling. Her eyes are wide as she raises her burnt hand to her mouth.
She begins to take slow steps toward me. Then, in a quiet voice, she softly asks me one question. “What have you done, Monarch?”
As she gets closer, green lines and circles appear in front of my eyes, pointing at different parts of Prim’s body. The words “2ND DEGREE BURN” and “3RD DEGREE BURN” appear on those lines.
…There’s no mistaking it.
I’m inside the armor.
And it’s telling me that Prim has injuries.
My heart sinks.
“AUTHORITY RING 1: EJECT!” Prim starts yelling at me with a shaky voice.
I jump at the sudden voice raise and instinctively back up—Prim looks at me, absolutely flabbergasted.
“Wh-what?” I manage to squeak out.
“A-AUTHORITY RING 1: EJECT!!!” Prim screams once again.
“P-Prim, what are you even-”
WARNING!
A red warning symbol and the giant words appear on my HUD as I follow the arrow on the hud to the source.
Up at the top where I took the elevator…
Where mom’s logo is…
RADICAL THERMAL CHANGE DETECTED
The Oasis logo is glowing bright orange and begins to start bulging out.
Prim turns around and gasps at the scene unfolding above us.
The hellhound from earlier, the one I escaped…
It rears its head from the middle of the logo through the melted glass, barking and snarling at Prim and me.
“We need distance. We need to move back right now-” Prim begins but is interrupted by the hellhound shattering the glass prison.
The hellhound is airborne and coming right for us. Unfortunately, Prim’s gun is too far away. Mine is out of ammo and missing anyways.
I have no idea what to do, and it doesn’t look like Prim has any ideas either.
AUTO-ENGAGE
?!?!
DESERT TECH HTI ANTI-MATERIAL RIFLE
The best word to describe what happens to me next is “puppet.”
In the span of about 1.5 seconds, the armor forces me to take one step forward, shift my body to the side and thrust my arm up. As this happens, a bright green light full of slightly transparent green squares appears next to my arm as it lifts up.
Then, as the light dissipates just as quickly as it appeared, the armor forces me to grip, revealing that my armored hand is now holding what seems to be a sniper rifle.
And without wasting a nanosecond, the armor pulls the trigger.
The airborne hellhound's body shatters just as quickly as the thunderous bang emits from the rifle. Splashes of lava and lava rock coat the wall behind it and slowly lose their color.
TARGET NEUTRALIZED
AUTO DISENGAGE
I can only stare at the scene as I am still standing in the firing position the armor forced me to take. Below the rifle is Prim, squatting on the ground with both hands on her ears and tears in her eyes, likely from trying to fight through the pain.
With the sound of the rifle going off still echoing in the distance, my shock wears off, and my heart begins pounding once I process Prim’s condition.
With wide eyes, I toss my rifle to the side and immediately lower myself to Prim’s level to meet her eyes.
However, out of the corner of my eye, I notice that the rifle I tossed starts to emit that same green light from before, just before vanishing into thin air. I also just processed that I can control my limbs again.
Forget about that, though; I’ll solve that later!
“Prim! What the heck is going on here?! Are you ok?! Where is everybody?” I start bombarding her with questions.
Prim slowly gazes up at me in response to my badgering. I trail into silence as a mixture of exasperation and fear spread across Prim’s face.
“...Am-am I ok?” Prim begins. “Do you have ANY idea what you’re inside right now?!”
With how increasingly terrified she’s getting, I’m unsure if I want to know…
I visibly recoil at her visceral reaction.
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Prim looks at me before closing her eyes and sighing slowly.
“Monarch.” She slowly says as she begins to stand up. “I’m not angry at you. I just need to know how you physically feel- AH!!” Prim lets out a scream as she collapses to the ground.
With nothing but pure instinct, I drop down and catch her, lifting her. She pulls up on my shoulder as I let her use me as a crutch.
Looking down at her legs, my HUD tells me her burns are getting worse.
The amount of pain she must be in… and her adrenaline might be wearing off.
“Prim, you need attenti-” I begin, but Prim cuts me off.
“Monarch,” Prim says as she turns her head towards my eyes. “I am being literal when I say this; you are infinitely more important than I am right now. Tell. Me. How. You. Feel.”
Looking down at my body, my eyes only register the sight of white and black armor with a green glow.
I can still feel my body, as in I can feel the armor completely covering me without even a centimeter of my skin touching the outside world. It feels smooth and soft on the inside…
It’s actually kind of nice.
What isn’t so nice is the insomnia I’ll probably have tonight due to today’s events.
“I-I think I’m ok… Physically ok, at least. Psychologically, I might be questionable, though.” I say, looking back at Prim.
Prim closes her eyes and releases a heavy sigh before mumbling to herself. “Well, he’s not braindead; that’s a much better start than the last-” Prim cuts herself off before clearing her throat as my eyes go wide.
“Ok.” Prim begins. “Monarch. This is very important. I need you to repeat after me.” Prim says to me in a smooth yet stern tone.
“Determine Account Type.” Prim says.
“Determine Account Type.” I repeat.
My HUD begins to project green text all over my vision, quickly overwhelming me with information. As I try to understand what I am seeing, Prim continues.
“Ok, in the top right corner-”
“Ok, in the top right cor-”
“DON’T REPEAT THAT, YOU IDIOT! WHAT DOES IT SAY IN THE TOP RIGHT CORNER?!” Prim yells at me.
I’m glad this thing has a helmet. The smirk on my face might piss her off more.
“Just trying to lighten the mood, sis. Let’s see…” I say as my gaze follows Prim’s direction.
“High of 62 Fahrenheit, Winds north-”
“Farther right.” Prim cuts me off.
“...Ring 0?” I say, wondering if that’s what she wanted to hear.
But now it’s her turn to have wide eyes.
Prim proceeds to gasp, scoff, look at me to say something, closes her mouth, and look down quietly.
A few moments of silence go by before Prim decides to speak up again.
“...Not 1,2, or 3? 0? As in the number 0?” Prim asks with her head still facing down.
“Y-yeah,” I reply. “Is that bad?”
The only reply Prim gives me is a long and deep sigh followed by quiet cursing under her breath.
“Ok. Baby steps.” Prim begins as she looks at me once again. “We’ll deal with one thing at a time. Right now, the best thing we can do is RTB.”
“RTB?” I ask in return.
“Return to base.” She replies to me. “I need to get you to a safe place, and then get a debrief on what the heck is going on in this city. Or county. Or state. Or country. Or, God forbid, the entire planet.”
“Sure, but, what about this armor?” I ask Prim.
“The only two things you need to know about that armor right now is that its name is Varialax, and God knows why it did this, but it gave you ring 0 permissions. Meaning it booted everyone else registered in the system out, leaving you with supreme authority.” Prim states in a matter-of-fact tone before continuing.
“In other words, you’re the only one that thing is going to listen to.” Prim finishes.
“Holy… Wait,” I begin. “So that ‘ring 1’ thing you were trying to say earlier-”
“Was me trying to get the suit off of you. But it looks like it booted me out too…” Prim says in a low voice as she continues. “But in hindsight, keeping that thing on you might be our best shot if what I’m about to do doesn’t work.”
Prim attempts to reach for her phone in her pocket but yelps and recoils from the pain of her burns.
A moment of silence passes before she looks away from me. A slight blush begins to form on her face.
“C-could you…” She says as she gestures towards her pocket.
“Oh. Yeah, I gotcha.” I say in response as I gently fish out her phone. The haptic sensors in this armor help me feel around for it.
I then hold the phone up to Prim as she uses one of her unburnt knuckles to unlock the screen. She hovers over the phone icon but pauses and releases a “tch” under her breath.
“What’s the matter?” I ask, concerned.
“I always forget there’s no signal on these lower levels.” She says right before sighing.
“You could just use mi-” I cut myself off as I realize I don’t know where my phone is.
“You lost it, didn’t you?” Prim says in a condescending tone.
“No,” I reply. “My phone and I are… just having relationship issues and are currently taking a break.”
“Hillarious,” Prim says, rolling her eyes. “It’s ok. We can just use Varialax.”
“W-we can?” I say as my eyes widen.
“Well, you can. I can’t.” Prim says as she navigates to the wifi setting on her phone. “Tell Varialax to create a hotspot.”
“Wait, I can just… do that? Like, do I just tell it to do that?” I ask.
“Yes! Just ask it. The AI inside that thing runs on a quantum supercomputer beyond our understanding. So it will understand you just fine.” Prim says once again in her matter-of-fact tone.
Well, let’s give this a shot.
“Varialax, create a personal hotspot,” I shout. Green text appears in front as quickly as a blink.
SETTING UP FOR DEFAULT RANGE (1 MI)
PASSWORD?
“I think it wants me to set a password, Prim,” I say as I turn towards her with the text following my eyes.
“Use CutestSisterEver1995,” Prim says to me, smiling.
“PrimCantLandADateToSaveHerLife42069.” I say in response.
PASSWORD SET
The word VARIALAX appears on Prim’s phone as a wifi option.
“I’ll remember that, Monarch,” Prim says calmly as she aggressively taps the name and enters the password in the most violent manner one can enter.
“Each word is capitalized, by the way,” I say with a growing smirk.
“UUGHHHH,” Prim groans as she uses her knuckles to delete her progress. “My hands are injured here, Monarch!” She says as she starts over.
Looking back at my HUD, Varialax says this hotspot has a range of about one mile. And that's the default.
I look back at Prim’s phone to find she has max bars for wifi. Maybe I’ll ask her to run a speed test later…
But this… combined with the sniper rifle from before…
“Just what else can Varialax do…” I wonder out loud.
Prim suddenly snaps to me. “NO! DON’T SAY THAT YOU’LL START THE TUTORI-”
WELCOME TO VARIALAX
(PROPERTY OF THE CONSERVANCY)
TO GET STARTED, PLEASE STATE THE FOLLOWING-
The words fly at me quickly as a little jingle starts playing in my helmet.
“Prim!” I shout in agony. “I regret this! Make it stop!”
“Just say cancel, you idiot!” Prim yells back.
“Cancel!” I shout.
ARE YOU SURE? YOU MAY RETURN AT ANY-
“Yes!” I shout once again—anything to save my ears.
The jingle turns off, and the HUD returns to its previous state. I breathe a sigh of relief.
“Just…” Prim begins. “Don’t say or do anything until I say so. I’m calling MedEvac.” Prim dials a number on to her phone and uses her shoulder to hold the phone up to her ear.
Prim’s voice becomes background noise as I start thinking about… well, all of this.
The dragon… the wyvern and griffin… the hellhounds…
It’s like something out of a fantasy movie or DnD or something…
Did the shimmers have something to do with this? They did react before all of… that.
Based on that fleet of A10s, the military does know something’s happening, but how much do they know? Prim is a captain and somehow connections to black sites and untold technology, but even she seems blindsided by this.
And… are mom and dad ok?
“Monarch!”
“Huh?” I turn to look at Prim.
“We’re all set here. There just happens to be a V-280 Valor in the area. They’ve been told to pick us up.”
“Ever request a ride in the government’s newest aircraft just to flex on Uber drivers?” I say to Prim, which earned me a slightly harder-than-normal breath to come out of her nostrils.
“How to anger taxpayers: 101,” Prim replies, looking up before speaking again.
“I don’t trust that elevator… or anything from up there,” Prim says while looking at the melted elevator. “We’ll go the back way.”
“The back way?” I ask.
“It’s parallel to the route where the dolls were evacuated- AHH!” Prim screams in pain as she nearly falls again after trying to take a step.
Even letting her use me as a crutch is tough for her…
In that case… Oh, I’m going to hate myself for doing this.
I put my arm on the unburnt part of her legs.
“Monarch? What are you- Oh!” Prim exclaims as I hoist her up and horizontally, as I am now carrying her bridal style.
A moment of silence goes by as Prims looks at her position. Then, with a smile, she looks up at me.
“My hero~,” She says teasingly.
“Shut up,” I say with a monotone as she begins to laugh.
…
…
…
Prim points in different directions as she navigates me out of the facility. I follow her guide while thinking about what comes next.
… Actually, I have no idea what comes next. It may not look like it physically, but I rely entirely on Prim.
“Oh, and Monarch,” Prims says looking up at me.
“Yeah Prim?”
“Do you see a bar in your upper left corner?” She ask me.
“Yeah, the one with the percentage? It’s at 72%.” I inform her. “So let me guess; it’s a battery?”
“It’s… a little bit more than that.” She says while downcast begins to take her over. “Just.. Don’t let it run to zero.”
“What do you-”
“Ahh, we’re here!” Prim interrupts me.
As I carry her through the dim, grey hallway, a light awaits at the end of the tunnel, with the sound of powerful propellers roaring just outside.
V-28 VALOR
Varialax identifies the vehicle just as it comes into view. I finally take the first steps outside the facility in what feels like decades worth of stress.
Gazing at the vehicle’s side, I see that the Valor is already on the ground, its two propellers facing upwards. Its sleek and smooth design and black paint give it a futuristic yet intimidating look.
The doors of the valor slides open, and armed marines yell at each other as they jump, connecting boots to the ground.
XM5
Varialax point’s out the rifles to me as they organize themselves. They’re covered in kevlar body armor and are wearing a ballistic helmet + mask combo.
I sigh and relax my shoulders as I watch the marines. Besides my sister, they’re the first good thing I’ve seen since this whole… whatever this situation is started.
One of the marines spots me and looks at me for a few moments. I should probably say something.
“Hey, thanks for-”
“CONTACT!” The marine interrupts me with a his booming voice.
“Whut?” I say in response.
“It’s another one of those freaks!.” Another marine screams as they draw their rifles and point them directly at me, causing my shoulders to stiffen and my blood to grow cold. Why would they-
Ah. Right. The armor. They’ve never seen it. And who knows what the heck they’ve seen and fought on their way here.
“No, stop!” Prim starts to scream. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!!” she yells at the top of her lungs as I feel her tense up in my arms.
“Hold it!” A buffer and taller marine yells in her loud voice. “That thing has Captain Key in its arms!”
“And it looks like she’s injured too! YOU BASTARD!!” A younger marine screams in her light yet loud voice while jerking her gun at me.
THREATENING MOTION DETECTED
“COOL IT!!” The buff marine yells at the others.
“Well? Is this another thing from one of your animes, nerd?” Another marine says in his low voice to a marine on his left.
“N-no…” The last marine says in a timid voice. “The mages, knights, and dragons, yeah. But this…. I’ve never seen anything like this before. Some sort of… Mecha?”
“Whatever it is, it hurt Captin Key.” The younger marine says, her light voice going low. “This warrants multiple headshots.” she says as her laser sights focus on my skull.
AUTO ENGAGE
No! I can’t let it kill anyone here!
“Varialax, do NOT ENGAGE!” I scream desperately.
“CEASE FIRRRREEEE!” Prim screams at the top of her lungs.
The Marine pulls the trigger.