Amidst the massive command center of the Vector, amidst the command consoles, amidst the technicians, stood Luna and Admiral Karen Adamant. They both wore stern expressions, ones of focus as the Vector completed the dimensional jump.

“It keeps getting worse, does it not?” Luna asked, breaking the barrier of silence.

The woman shrugged. “We shall deal with it no matter what.”

Luna smirked at the display of human endurance, then resumed her stern look. “I’m going out there once we arrive,” she said. “I’m not letting the fight go on without my complete support.”

“If you die, Luna…”

“I won’t,” the Princess of the moon retorted. “You have my word.”

Karen looked down at the pony. “I’m not in a place to stop you. But be careful… The people need you.”

They both looked up at the main holoscreen, just as the Vector broke out of its jump, revealing a broken planet surrounded by Ubor ships, its sun, moon, and another smaller, metallic orb that was the planet dubbed “Aberration.”

“Isn’t there a single place on this damn planet where I’m not drowning on my own sweat or freezing my ass!?” Kent called out as he limped out of the main tunnel that led to the fake Nexus Hub. What Aberration had planned for Pipsqueak’s squad was a scorching desert as soon as they walked out of the cold facility. The Commander looked up, and could not believe his own eyes.

“We’ve got a problem…” he muttered. Everyone else looked up, to see New Earth floating right next to Aberration.

“Well,” Corporal Ramble muttered. “At least we now know where the rest of the Ubor was…”

“Situation’s fubar…” Mirror sighed. “What now?”

Everyone looked about, finding a towering Combat Walker not a few hundred meters away. “Alright!” Pip called out. “Mirror, you’re piloting that thing. Our evac point is on the ‘Data Processing’ tower a mile or two from here!”

Mirror was about to mouth out an acknowledgement when a projectile bounced off of her suit’s shoulder pad. She watched as Sergeant Kent waved her and the twin Corporals over while yelling out, “Leg it!”

Without hesitation, she did as told, beginning a mad sprint towards the stranded walker. She couldn’t see where it was coming from, but she could feel the shots bouncing or being dampened by her armor. Her visor did its best attempt at compensating for the glaring brightness of the sun.

The squad stomped over and took cover behind one of the walker’s legs. Mirror lit up her suit’s jump pack and propelled herself upward, landing squarely on the open cockpit of the bipedal war machine. “Get us some cover!” her Commander yelled through the radio.

As fast as she could, she flipped the main power switch.

:::> Reactor: online…

:::> Sensors: online...

Then came the weapon switches.

:::> Weapons: online…

:::> All systems: nominal...

Having been trained to pilot such a machine, she grabbed a hold of the driving stick with her suit’s mechanical hand, and commanded it to turn over to where the fire was coming. From her new, tall perspective, and assisted by the cabin’s HUD, she quickly locked onto the Ubor troopers: nine foot tall machines armed with railguns, assisted by a couple of heavy hover tanks.

With a single squeeze of the trigger, she fired the walker’s select firegroup. High explosive rounds coming from two autocannons mowed down the infantry, reducing them to small bits of half-molten metal. Sweat trailing down her face, she quickly switched over to the short-range missile battery, aimed at the tanks, and fired. She watched as each of the warheads tore the tanks apart.

:::> Waypoint updated…

“Let’s get moving!” Pipsqueak called out. “Use the legs as cover!”

As Mirror moved the driving stick, the massive walker began to stomp forward, producing tremendous quakes with each step it took.

:::> Warning: incoming missile barrage. Activating counter-measures.

Without her having to do anything, two small anti-missile batteries began to fire upon the missiles aimed for the walker. Mirror then scanned the battlefield, locking onto a large cluster of artillery tanks a few miles away. Once the walker’s systems locked on, she switched the firegroup, and unleashed a single, tactical nuclear warhead onto them along with a dozen decoy missiles. As soon as the ordnance was launched, she switched the walker’s fire group once again and continued moving, soon meeting a large gate, perhaps as tall as the machine itself.

Using the arms of the walker, Mirror slowly moved its arms and thrusted its fingers between the gate’s openings. Shortly after, she forced them apart, making way for her squad to go through.

“Alright!” the Commander called out. “Lock position! Evac is coming!”

“Up above! Watch out!” Kent yelled through the radio.

Mirror looked up to see a bright ball of fire descending from the red sky.

:::> High-priority target.

It landed perhaps a hundred meters away from Mirror and her squad. Soon, the smoke thinned out, revealing a large, heavily armed Ubor walker, it’s armor accented by spikes and red paint.

As her training went, Mirror twisted the torso of her walker and began to circle around the Ubor, all whilst it did the same. The two machines stomped around each other, sharing barrages of missiles and other projectiles.

“Everyone get down!” she yelled as one of the arms of her walker was cut off. Not losing time, she switched firegroup, and launched two nuclear warheads at the other walker.

Her own walker falling apart, she got to watch as the other one was decimated under the strength of the nuclear blasts. Shortly after, her machine shut down due to the damage and heat. She pushed the cockpit entrance open, her suit keeping her tempered, safe from the radiation, and filtering dust and hot air. The gryphon hen then jumped down, landing with a loud thud upon the glass that used to be the sand. She then looked over to her squad while hiding a smirk behind her visor, seeing that they had taken cover behind the walker’s legs.

A moment of peace in times of war. The inside of the dropship, the sides lined with armored guardsmen of all species sitting, anchored to the ship thanks to their suits’ magnetic locks. In the middle of the metallic troop bay, standing upright, was Atlas.

Truth be told, he was not concerned for the upcoming battle in Apex, but rather worried about the aftermath. Normally, he would not know what would come after the war, if not for an old friend who promised a future after the battle. Torres. The giant’s smile had last all the way until he boarded the dropship, leaving Torres behind. If not for her, he would not know what he was fighting for. In reality, if a bit selfish, he now had a future to fight for: his own.

The soldiers sitting in the dropship looked up at him. Why? He wasn’t entirely sure himself. Maybe stories had been told of the titan who endured hell itself. He huffed, the thought of himself being the protagonist of such stories bringing just a pang of honor to his mind.

“Sir?”

The question brought him out of his musings. He looked to the left, seeing a mare inside the standard armor of the Guard minus the helmet, looking up at him along with a few other guardsmen.

“Need anything?” he asked, looking back at the unopened ramp of the dropship.

“You look like you’ve lived through a lot…” The mare coughed. “Are you… uh… the Atlas?”

The question made the giant perk up a little bit. “That’s…” he muttered. “Why do you ask?”

The mare looked down, uncertain. “My mother… she used to tell me stories of the giant man in the Vector war. And then there’s the tale of the titan who went through tartarus and back.”

“We just…” the armored changeling next to her muttered. “It’s the first time fighting a war for many of us. But.. if you’ve endured tartarus and the Vector war… Is there any… tips, that you can give to us?”

Atlas looked down for a moment, then back up, forming a stark sentence within his mind.

“All I can tell you… Not matter if the weight of the world is resting on your shoulders… just keep walking. Never stop walking, okay?”

He watched with pride as their expressions softened, into confident smirks. “Yes sir!” they called out.

“Attention,” the pilot said through the bay’s speakers. “We’ve reached the drop point, prepare to drop…”

Atlas stood still as the ramp opened itself, a green light lighting up to signal those inside the bay that they were to jump out. For a second, he stared at the vast expanse of the planet from inside the dropship, motioning for the rest of the troops to follow him. He walked over to the edge, and jumped.

Weightless, he began to burn through the atmosphere, his armored suit more than capable of withstanding the heat. The feel of falling in a controlled manner, without weight, without nothing. It was enough to clear his mind for that very moment.

:::> Rebooting…

:::> Re-routing power…

:::> Assimilating common code…

Prometheus, formerly ‘Alpha’, powered up. His lenses adjusted to the sight: the sharp, broken moon, and another planet. Little processing power did it take for him to realize that something was wrong. Releasing calls to his squad, he expected at least one of them to respond. But instead, he received silence, not even static.

“Bravo!” he called out again, this time using a more primitive manner of communication. “Charlie! Delta!”

He slowly stood up, finding himself atop the metallic building he had first landed at. A quick scan of his surroundings, seeing fire, and the unpowered bodies of his squad. Slowly, he leaned down to pick up a stray rifle, then walked over to the edge of the building.

:::> “Prometheus…” the Commander called through the netlink. “I am deeply sorry for your squad. All I can promise is that they will be remembered. But, there are more pressing matters to attend to.”

“I understand…” Prometheus replied.

:::> “You were the only unit that managed to establish contact with the Ubor. The fact that they tried to overtake you- an attempt which partially failed- means that you and them share an amount of common code. Right now, I have set your systems to process the code in a background task. Once you complete the catalyst code, you must upload it to the Ubor database.”

:::> “For now, make your way through Manehattan and reunite with the rest of our forces. Once the code is complete, I will assign you your next task.”

“Affirmative,” the android called back. Hesitating just a little bit, he jumped off of the building, leaving the bodies of his former squad behind, and beginning his own journey.