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The room was unusually silent. A holographic presentation floated in front of the collected board of directors: a multi-tiered schematic, rotating in place. A single voice spoke, easily drowning out the subsonic hum of the holoprojector.
“It was said that in ancient times, Prometheus brought the fire of the gods to humanity below, gifting them with the knowledge to progress out of the dark ages. It is my belief that Crey Industries will do this again.” A sharply dressed man in a business suit stepped into the glow projected by the schematic. “The current energy crisis is abated, but only through a desperate reliance on unproven materials. Current fusion power relies on black-box technology developed by super-scientists and other unreliable persons, who are generally the only people who understand the technology they develop. Yet, to avoid inconvenience and high prices, the modern world is forced to use that which these talented few control. As such, I believe that there is no reason why we at Crey should not be the next to profit from such a mindset.”
The presenter clicked a button, and the schematic changed, parts slotting into place in the shape of a large satellite, nearly twice the size of the Hubble Space Telescope which appeared beside it for scale. “Project Olympus is the first orbital energy transfer technology to pass testing into mass production. Once in orbit, the satellite is capable of transferring large quantities of energy to specially-equipped receivers with pinpoint accuracy via a quantum particle wave effect based off the Minovsky principle. This allows it to penetrate most solid structures without interruption or harm to the residents within. Within larger metropolises like New York, Seattle, and Paragon City, the Olympus system would be able to power every motor vehicle in the city limits 24 hours a day. Outside of major cities, the storage medium holds charge far longer than conventional batteries, with less bulk than gasoline or hybrid turbine engines. And capable of lasting three days at full output before requiring a recharge. And that’s merely for transportation. This system can be adapted to power just about anything -- wirelessly and continuously -- and the transmission vector is harmless and unaffected by atmospheric conditions, making the system immune to inclement weather. Furthermore, Olympus requires no Rikti technology like the mediport system, nor supertech developed by reclusive geniuses, thus allowing anyone with sufficient technical background to service it. Someone like us.”
The presenter clasped his hands together as the projection disappeared and the lights raised, revealing his satisfied, confident smile. “And most importantly, the primary functions of the system are already patented by Crey Industries. So, ladies and gentlemen, how would you like to become the sole owners of the new fire of the gods?”
The applause that followed was barely noticed by the man that called himself Brian J. Mason, as he took in the utterly predictable reactions of the little beings that claimed to have power here. The slow nod of Hopkins, sitting off to the side across the room, was all that really mattered. It meant that the Countess herself approved of the idea, and that was all that counted in Crey. And even she had no idea what Olympus’s purpose really was.
“Brian J. Mason” felt his smile grow slightly wider at the thought.
World economic domination through energy control? That was small thinking. No, this was just the beginning.
***
Riot Force Reports: Fire From Heaven
***
“I’m just saying, I think you’re overthinking it,” Nene said as she took another bite of her pasta. “We all saw this back in Megatokyo. Sylia’s just got a new ‘protoge’ she wants to get up to snuff.” The redhead grinned devilishly at Priss from across the table. “You act like you’re worried Noel will steal her away from you just because Sylia has to put in some extra hours getting the girl acquainted.”
“How hard can it be?” Priss grumped, swallowing a piece of burger. “She’s here, there’s government programs to deal with this sort of thing. We saw that with the other Rhea.”“Scowly Rhea or Praetorian Rhea?” Linna asked from her seat, spearing another chunk of noodles with her chopsticks.
“Does it matter? Both,” Priss shrugged. “Anyway, that’s all handled. They do it all the time. I mean, I’m not high maintenance-” she stopped and scowled at both of her friends as they gave looks that suggested they were restraining laughter. “I’m not. But really, she goes to work doing all that...business stuff, or she’s working on her suit again, which is weird because I thought she’d finished rebuilding it from the last time. But now she’s talking about field projectors and phase variances and other junk. And when she’s not doing any of that, she’s fast asleep or working with that kid. I still catch lunch with her every now and then, but it’s kind of annoying,” the brunette finished, practically growling the last word.
“Someone hasn’t been getting any since Sylia got back from Praetoria, has she?” Nene pondered, looking over at Linna.
“Oh, yeah. That’s the dryspell talking,” Linna agreed without a hint of humor.
“Oh, fuck you,” Priss growled.
“Sorry, Priss, but there’s really no room in my love life for you at this point,” Nene replied, completely straight faced.
Priss was about to say something when Linna spoke up, equally deadpan. “And I’ve already got a date. Besides, certain people’s jokes aside, I don’t do pity sex.”
Priss glared at both of them for several seconds before both Linna and Nene cracked up laughing. “You’re both assholes,” she grumbled, working on her burger again.
***
Deep beneath the Steel Canyon Silky Doll building, Sylia continued tinkering as she watched the recording of Noel’s training session. The blonde girl mowed through targets with a single minded will, her shots unerringly accurate, like the movements had been drilled into her from the moment she was born.
Which wasn’t all that inaccurate.
At the time, Sylia had taken Noel in as her student because the girl seemed a genuinely well-intentioned inductee into the brutal Darwinian system of Powers Division. That and the fact that her armor was remarkably similar to Crey designs in some ways. In many ways, she shared the Scimitar line’s tendency to use their armor as amplifiers of powers built into the bioroid inside, but Noel’s own powers weren’t entirely definable within a scientific framework.
In Praetoria, Sylia simply hadn’t had the network of contacts necessary to get Noel properly analyzed. Not without blowing her own cover identity as a Praetorian native. And the only ones she knew that could’ve checked her hunch were the Carnival of Light, under Vanessa DeVore of all people. Sylia simply hadn’t had enough people she could trust to risk Noel’s safety. However, the final confrontation with Maelstrom beneath the Magisterium had essentially left the young girl a renegade from Praetorian justice when Maelstrom revealed he knew she’d been the one to kill Chief Investigator Washington. Sylia hadn’t planned it at the time, but getting Noel out of Praetoria had given her the chance to evaluate things she hadn’t been able to before.
The results of testing in Paragon had been astounding. Noel’s abilities were essentially a combination of both magical and technological expertise, most notably evidenced by her ability to materialize her primary weapons from thin air if need be. The sheer scope of what Noel was capable of developing into confirmed Sylia’s belief that someone in Praetors had been deliberately undermining or sidelining her to keep the girl out of the limelight until they were sure they could control her. That theory had gained weight when Irene had been able to dig up some small hints of the decommissioned “Project Swordbreaker” within Crey, which had had one prototype go rogue and another stolen by a Praetorian incursion.
The chaos of the Praetorian War’s opening shots had left further analysis at a low priority, so Sylia had simply settled for training the girl to defend herself. And by all evidence, the girl was going to surpass her early estimates by a huge amount.
“Sylia, you there?” a voice piped up from another window, Sylia pulling it up as she continued work on the shield emitter she was working on for the third incarnation of her hardsuit since she’d arrived in Paragon.
“I’m here, Utena. What is it?”
“Weird case we ran across in the field,” the pink haired Sabre said over the line. “Ran into an entire group of Council robots that were rampaging on their own without any Council controlling them. We took them out before they got too far.”
“Any hint of a target?” Sylia wondered.
“Not that we saw, though we’re getting some parts together for Nene to analyze,” Utena responded. Sylia nodded in turn.
“Keep me posted of any further developments.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Sylia turned in her chair as the door behind her opened, Noel walking in with AJ. The two girls had hit it off rather well, another small victory. The blonde glanced at Sylia, fidgeting slightly. “Ah, ma’a-er, Sylia?”
“Yes, Noel?” Sylia said, the temptation to smile tugging at the corners of her mouth at the girl’s attempt to actually follow her request to be less formal.
“Well, AJ had a thing that she was going to after she got off work, and I was wondering if it’d be okay if I went along too,” she said, her voice staying remarkably steady through the whole sentence. Being raised essentially as a ward of the Praetorian state after they’d reactivated her from sleep mode hadn’t done Noel’s self-confidence any good. Her first reaction for the longest time had been to simply consider anything that didn’t pertain to her duties as extraneous. The fact that Noel was asking to go out to do something (and given it was AJ, Sylia doubted it was anything that Noel’s military background would consider constructive) and not flinching in anticipation of rejection was progress.
“Of course. As long as you’ve got your training regimen done for the day, you don’t have to ask me for permission about what to do with the rest of your time, you know,” Sylia said with a smile she did let slip through to reassure the girl.
Noel nodded slightly, before smiling back, a bit shyly. “Ah...yes. Sorry.”
“It’s not a problem. Go on and enjoy your day,” Sylia smiled, before glancing at her companion. “AJ, standard rules apply,” she noted. The brunette laughed a bit awkwardly, rubbing the back of her head.
“Right, boss. Don’t spend more than fifty bucks on materials, and no using the company credit cards.”
“Just so we’re clear,” Sylia said, turning back to her work. She felt the smile again at the commentary that sprung up once the girls thought they were out of earshot.
“...what materials would you even be able to get for under fifty dollars?”
“Well...”
***
Operative Katar was fairly pleased with himself.
The guerillas he was supervising stood aside as he strode to the front of the current skirmish lines. Once he got there, Katar focused his eyes on the current objective as his Bane Spider armor magnified the image the exterior video pickups were recording.
The facility was fairly nondescript, but the heavy APCs parked in areas to provide fire support if needed were fairly obvious. The shimmering air around them suggested force fields that his recon loadout identified as producing a similar energy signature to known Sky Raider bands. It seemed that El Presidente had cut some deals with his former enemies. Normally, Katar would’ve considered that a bad call on the local dictator’s part, but the Sky Raiders weren’t quite able to turn down paying work like they had been a few months ago.
In the aftermath of Duray’s turning against his home dimension to side with the Praetorians, the Sky Raiders had fragmented significantly. For the most part, the US forces that weren’t fanatically devoted to Duray had fallen under the command of Captain Castillo, but worldwide, any number of ambitious up-and-comers had taken to carving bits of Duray’s operation off for themselves under the excuse of “not working for a Praet-loving traitor.” Naturally, that meant El Presidente had probably managed to work out a deal with the local Raider captain, especially once Katar’s presence had evidenced Arachnos' support for the rebels.
Katar cracked a wry smile behind his face-concealing helmet. One almost could feel bad for the man, but really, he couldn’t complain too loudly. The people here were just exchanging one tiny tinpot dictator for association with one of the few superpowers on the planet willing to intervene militarily to topple their oppressor. That the country would essentially be indebted to the Rogue Isles after was something they weren’t thinking about right now, but really, that wasn’t that bad a deal. Lord Recluse didn’t give a damn about your social standing at birth, and Arachnos was rich with opportunities for advancement if you were good enough. It was win-win for everyone but the sweating old man sitting in his palace, fearing the sounds of gunfire getting closer. Really, if he’d been anywhere near as open-minded as Lord Recluse was to his population, Katar’s job would’ve been much harder. He’d have had to actually manufacture atrocities of the government instead of using existing ones to stir up the native rebellion that Daos had ordered.
Striding back to the command post, Katar looked over the maps before turning back to Pintsize, his local subcommander and lead for this seizure operation. The burly man was nearly as tall as Katar’s power-armor assisted height, and wider in the span of his shoulders. He cocked his head inquisitively at the Arachnos operative, waiting for comment from the faceless soldier.
“They’ve deployed shields on their local armor,” Katar said, pointing at five markers on the map indicating APC patrol points. “They’ll be tougher than the usual buggies that the army’s been using against us so far, but they’re old Sky Pirate equipment. If you can get a grenade through the outer field, there’s nothing shielding it from the inside.”
“Why not fire RPGs underneath?” Pintsize wondered. “It’d be a tricky shot, but...”
Katar shook his head. “The field is based off momentum. High speed projectiles will be intercepted before they reach the armor. But if it was too restrictive, the APC couldn’t move, and swapping crews would require bringing down the shield, making it vulnerable. Slow moving objects, though...”
“Get through because they’re not moving faster than some random soldier,” Pintsize nodded, before frowning. “Still, getting in close to those APCs to throw the explosives would be tricky, while under their guns.”
“Only if they see you coming,” Katar assured him. “And while our men here may be a bit obvious, I can guarantee you they won’t see me coming. Once I take out the first APC-”“Our men head in from the opposite side in the confusion, getting close enough to take out more. The bomber teams fall back as the shields go down and we can get support fire in.”
“Very good. Once we’re done bringing down the fat man, I’m really going to have to write a letter to recruitment about you, Pintsize,” Katar said, honestly. “You’d be a great benefit to the Wolf Spiders with your grasp on tactics.”
“Get me one of those mechanical arm suits your amigo had the other day, and you have a deal, my friend,” Pintsize said with a smirk.
Katar laughed. “Survive Mako’s training regimen, and you’ll earn it easi-”
Their discussion was cut off abruptly as a loud explosion rocked their immediate area, echoing from somewhere due west. Katar grabbed his mace from its clip on his back as Pintsize grabbed his machine gun, the two heading with their respective bodyguards in the direction of the disturbance.
A tattered rebel nearly ran into Katar as he fled in the opposite direction from the inky black cloud that was rising from their primary munitions depot. The Bane Spider held him still, until the man focused his eyes on the glowing red eyes of his helmet. “Soldier! What happened?”
“M-m-monsters!” the man stammered. “An army of metal monsters attacked us! They weren’t anything like the army men! They tore us apart!”
Katar growled in frustration at the obvious hysteria in the man’s voice and pushed him aside. Looking over his shoulder at his second, he waved him in close. “Prep us to pull out. It’s possible that El Presidente got his hands on some new tech or magic or something. This op is compromised. I’ll scout the depot.”Pintsize nodded, as Katar activated his cloak and vanished, power assisted leaps carrying him closer to the site of the attack. Once he got there, Katar’s irritation turned into a cold feeling of apprehension as he took in the site of the attacks.
The weapons site had been blown apart like it had been hit by a rocket. Nearby, their front security gate had been cut open like someone had taken some sort of absurdly large Exactoknife to it. The edges were still visibly hot from whatever energy weapon had taken it apart. Bodies were sprawled about, blood leaking into the ground and the groans of the dying still vaguely audible through his enhanced sensor suite.
But what scared Katar was what had caused it.
Walking about the camp, huge humanoid machines stalked the camp. Blue armor in smooth plates covered them from head to toe, while the faces of the machines were some bizarre fusion of a skull and an ape. As Katar watched, the machines walked around the camp with brutal efficiency, one terminating a surviving guerilla with a brutal stomp of its armored foot, crushing the man’s skull in. Another barely flinched as a survivor who’d somehow managed to escape the original chaotic slaughter burst out of hiding, unloading his AK rifle into the thing with about as much effect as if he’d been using an airgun. The machine gave what sounded disturbingly like a very low basso chuckle before absently leaping at the man. One hand snapped the rifle in half as the other grabbed the rebel and lifted him bodily off the ground like he weighed nothing at all. The man’s gibbering terror was cut short when the thing opened its mouth and a blue white energy beam rendered his head into a fine mist.
Katar had seen enough, turning and very carefully sliding away, trying not to make any noise the machines might notice. Until two minutes ago, he’d been the single most advanced combatant in this entire rainforest-infested piece of dirt, but these things were something else entirely. They definitely weren’t Raider manufacture, and Lord Recluse would want this intel quickly. The entire resistance movement he’d built up over the last few months was currently second string to informing his superiors that someone was deploying extremely advanced, possibly Praetorian level war machines here.
Another of those disturbingly aware chuckles abruptly interrupted his train of thought, as Katar flung himself forward on instinct. His optics auto-deactivated to prevent him from being blinded as the particle beam he’d more sensed than seen ripped through his shoulder armor, scant inches from the lowest layer of protection the Bane suit provided.
Katar hit the ground, rolled to his feet and ran, getting two steps of momentum before he jumped as far as his suit let him, damage warnings about the blast he’d just barely missed scrolling across his HUD. He shut them down, glancing back and immediately regretting it. Two more of the machines were pursuing, full thrusterpacks extended from their backs propelling them into the air. And they obviously weren’t fooled by his cloak, even if the blast had made its function intermittently erratic due to the damage to the emitter system. He whirled and fired a mace blast at the lead one, forcing it to veer and bolstering his own morale. Whatever these things were, they obviously were worried about taking a hit from his weapons, which meant they weren’t invincible. The soldiers on the ground might be doomed, but he had a chance to escape.
His HUD projected the distance to where he’d stashed his recon flier, loading a waypoint as the second machine took another shot, the blue white spear slashing across the jungle and slicing through anything in its way as Katar veered to the left and arrested his momentum as he hit the ground, letting the jungle cover his position. Several shots, obviously blind but calculated on his last known position, began to probe the canopy as the Arachnos operative continued to run, his spine still feeling that subconscious tingle that was waiting for one of those blue white spears to find its target...just like it had to the soldiers he’d left behind.
***
“I trust you are sufficiently impressed by the showing of my wares, President Panay?” Maximillian Largo said, as the screens showed the utter destruction of the rebel force by the villain’s combat units. Dots on the map representing the soldier units and various thermal blooms that could be surviving combatants moved about a larger screen as smaller displays showed first person views from the optics of the units in the field.
“Indeed, Señor Largo. Your weapons are most effective,” the president said. “Still, you have not yet named your price for such assistance. If I could have afforded such weapons, I would’ve driven off these rabble and their spider masters before you approached me,” he said, his glance suspicious. “Then you appear, willing to end all my troubles with your weapons, and speak nothing of price before demonstrating just that. Why? You are no angel of mercy.”
Largo chuckled at the president’s obvious paranoia. “No, no, you are right. There is something else to this. Most notably, this is a field test. And the units are proving remarkably good at hunting down your rebels, which were doubtless more familiar with this land than I am. But beyond that, my primary reason is a demonstration.”“A demonstration of what, Señor Largo?” the president wondered, frowning.
Largo simply smiled and turned back to the map as a large thermal bloom was registered several miles from the camp site.
***
Katar ignored the vague burning sensation on his shoulder where his armor was still working to shunt as much heat towards the beam hit as possible to prevent further damage while it tried to recreate the suit’s basic ABC seal functions by sealing the armor shut around the breach. Instead, he focused on the startup of his recon flier. Both turbines read green as he engaged the antigrav, bursting out from underneath the camo net he’d pulled across it when he’d initially arrived here however many months ago.
The machines that had been pursuing him turned and made bee-lines as soon as he breached the hillside keeping his startup thermal from the viewpoint of their sensors, but Katar was ready for them, bringing the flier’s chin mounted turret around and switching to full auto fire. Bolts of violent red energy stitched across the sky, intercepting one machine in a brief but impressive explosion as a bolt found its apparently volatile power core and then slicing through another with ease, detaching limbs and head as the thing spun out of control, crashing into the jungle canopy.
Katar laughed in satisfaction as he began prepping to bug out entirely, trying to make sure no more machines were waiting beneath the canopy to ambush him once his guns weren’t actively tracking for them. As the recon net detected the closest units at nearly twenty kilometers from him, the Bane Spider reached for the lever to turn his engines into cruise configuration for the long flight back to the closest Arachnos staging area in Columbia.
Unlike the previous weapons, the blast that destroyed Operative Katar’s recon flier made no noise before it was too late to avoid it. The nighttime jungle was briefly illuminated bright as day as a single thread of pure white brilliance connected the sky above, Katar’s flier, and the ground beneath, blasting a one hundred meter circular swath flat even before Katar’s flier exploded, the burning hulk falling into the crater the beam that’d destroyed it had dug like a prescient grave.
***
The president abruptly broke out sweating again as he watched the video projected from a nearby combat unit that had witnessed the Arachnos aircraft’s destruction. Unlike the combat units, that had not been anything that this Largo had mentioned when he’d suggested his field test. The aircraft that would’ve likely been impossible for his entire army to overtake without tremendous casualties had been swatted like a gnat in the face of an angry god. He turned back to the arms dealer waiting for his reaction with a confident smirk.
“My demonstration, President Panay,” Largo said, his mismatched eyes locking on those of the dictator across from him, their intense gaze preventing him from looking away. “My demonstration is of the weapon that will usher in a new world order. And of the consequences of defying me.”
***
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"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
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![[Image: strikersetcfinal9_th.jpg]](http://www.accessdenied-rms.net/forums/uploads/strikersetcfinal9_th.jpg)
