Feeling a nudge on his arm, Arthur lifted his head and peered to the left. There in the seat beside him was Pyro, a slight smirk on his face. Pyro motioned for Arthur to look down to the cockpit of the VTOL. The door to the cockpit was open, revealing a concentrating Scout, his piloting skills not the best.
"Watch this." He said with an Irish accent. "Yo, Scout." He yelled to the cockpit.
"Yea, What." Scout responded.
"How much fuckin longer you plan on taking." Pyro taunted. "Me gama could walk faster than you fly this shit."
"Oh, am I not going fucking fast enough for you." Scout yelled back angrily. "If I'm not flying fast enough how about you get your IRA ass up here and fly it yourself."
Pyro burst out laughing as Scout continued to cuss him out. "Gets him EVERY time."
Staring at him blankly, Arthur told him. "You do understand he's the one flying right."
"I tell him that every damn time." Sebastion informed. "Toying with Scout, who already isn't that mentally stable, really isn't something I suggest doing."
Arthur zoned out as Pyro and Sebastion argued. He watched the blue energy flowing though the exosuit he wore. The X5 Exosuit was built from nanotechnology and covered the entire body of the user. Arthurs exosuit was colored the base silver with blue energy running through it. Next to him, Pyro's exosuit was silver with orange energy running through it.
With the color of the energy corresponding to the power the user wields. Pyros was orange because his exosuit granted him the ability to manipulate fire and create it from the suit's energy. Like Arthur, Sebastion's suit was blue, the base color for energy as silver is the base color for the exosuit.
Blue usually meant the exosuit user held no unnatural ability like manipulating fire, or teleporting as Scout could. Even with this ability, Scouts suit was all the base colors. Looking beside Sebastion to the other side of the VTOL, Arthur examined the two sitting next to each other. One being Musashi, the wielder of Ryu Ken, and the other, Rika, the group's medic.
Rika's exosuit was silver with green energy flowing through it, while Musashi's was silver with blue energy flowing through it. After Arthur finished with his examination of his friends, he realized it was finally time to get ready. He stood up as his exosuit shifted to cover his face.
"Remember everyone." Scout began as he landed the VTOL. "The job is to check out the bunker and retrieve the information inside." He stood up from his seat as his exosuit moved up his head, covering his blond hair. "And since Deadeye felt the mission was little to sketchy, him, Foxtrot, Wolf and Rook are in a VTOL about a mile north just in case something goes wrong."
"Everybody Ready." After getting confirmation from everybody, Scout slammed a button to his left and the back ramp to the VTOL lowered. "Let's go."
The six walked through the jungle, their exosuits alien compared to the vegetation around them. With Arthur leading the way to the objective, an intelligence bunker abandoned after WWIII, they made good time. The entire trip only took ten minutes, and they were at the entrance to the bunker.
The entrance to the bunker was a small hut made of metal with the door already open. "I think deadeye might have been right." Scout sighed.
"Alright everyone, just stay put as I call Deadeye." A moment later, Scout outstretched his hand, palm up, and a hologram of Deadeye appeared above his hand.
"What's going on?" Deadeye asked. Deadeye's exosuit was silver with red energy flowing through it. Over his exosuit was camouflage that blended him in to his surroundings.
"We've arrived at the bunker entrance, and we found the door already opened." Arthur informed. At this, Deadeye raised a large rifle made from the same material as his exosuit and aimed down the sights.
"Alright I see you." He said while scanning the area around Arthur. "I'm not seeing any movement."
"Fuckin shite." Pyro recoiled back as he walked up to the entrance. "It smells like fuckin death lad."
"Alright, I'll cover the entrance as you all search inside." Deadeye ordered. "If I see anything ill inform you right away and send Foxtrot down there to get you all."
"Got it." Arthur confirmed before turning and making his way to the entrance of the bunker. "I'll go first. Musashi covers the rear."
Musashi nodded at Arthur as he let everybody move past him. Once Rika moved past and into the stairway leading down into the bunker, Musashi scanned his surrounding then entered behind her. The whole way down the stairway he was constantly checking behind and kept his hand on the sword sheathed to his waist.
It took a minute to reach the bottom of the stairway but once they did, they were met with a gruesome scene. In the large common room to the bunker lay the bodies of dead soldiers. Blood covered the walls and the whole room looked like a tornado ravaged through it. And in the center of the room a dead exosuit user lay with multiple blades sticking out of their chest.
The more Arthur examined the scene the more uneasy he became. He noticed how multiple soldiers were pinned to the walls with blades while most had limbs missing. While he went through his head, trying to conclude who could have done this, a large explosion came from above them.
Another explosion ripped down the stairwell and was followed by it collapsing in on itself. Distracted from the explosion, Arthur was caught off guard when a sword flew towards him. While he was unable to react in time, Musashi was. Dashing forward, Musashi drew his sword and slashed the sword out of the air before it reached Arthur.
"Thanks" Arthur said while turning to face where the sword came from.
Standing on the second floor of the bunker was an exosuit user with yellow energy flowing through their exosuit. Beside them were two other exosuit users, one holding a Heavy Combat Laser Rifle, while the other had a skull over their face and held a whip made of their exosuits yellow energy.
The exosuit user with the blades jumped off the railing towards Musashi, blade in each hand. The one with the whip dropped to the first floor and dashed toward Arthur. The remaining exosuit users raised their HCLR and began firing at the group. Having to block a shot from the HCLR, Arthur didn't notice when the whip was wrapped around his leg.
The exosuit user pulled Arthur's leg out from under him causing him to fall to one knee. When the exosuit user tried to pull the whip back, Arthur caught it and pulled them closer. Unable to match his power, the exosuit user stumbled forward until they let the whip dissipate into thin air.
At the same time, Musashi crossed blades with the other exosuit user. Even with one less sword he could easily block every attack that came his way. Noticing how ineffective the head-to-head battle was, the exosuit user jumped back and threw both swords at Musashi. With a single horizontal slash, Musashi cut through both swords.
What the exosuit user wasn't expecting was for Musashi to switch to the attack. The moment the swords were sliced through, Musashi dashed forward, closing the distance between him and the exosuit user in almost an instant. But this was all part of the exosuit user's plan. When Musashi took a step forward to attack, a blade shot out of the ground and pierced his foot, leading into his shin.
This caused Musashi's stance to falter, letting the exosuit user dash forward and slash downward at his shoulder. But this attack was interrupted by Sebastion, who delivered a punch into the exosuit user's face that sent them flying into a wall. With Sebastion dashing towards them, sword made of energy in hand, the exosuit user ripped a sword from the wall and faced Sebastion.
On the second floor, the exosuit user still shot down with their HCLR, unaware of Scout standing behind them. Scout moved his hand upward and placed it on their shoulder. "You guys really didn't think this out did you." The exosuit user tried to back away from Scout but ended up having his head smashed into the railing.
The exosuit user was disoriented from the attack and stumbled back. They tried raising their HCLR, but Scout teleported into the air behind them and kicked them over the railing. Before they could reach the bottom, Scout teleported again and punched them mid-air into a wall.
"I mean, what did you really expect would happen when trapping yourself in here with six of us and only three of you." Scout laughed as the exosuit fell from the wall to the floor.
When Scout's laughing reached his peak, he suddenly teleported beside the exosuit user. Picking them up, he punched them back into the wall. He did this repeatedly until the exosuit user's head caved in from one final punch and they fell to their knees. Stepping to the side, Scout delivered another kick that exploded their head into the wall, leaving their headless body to fall to the ground.
The exosuit user Arthur was fighting created a sickle of energy in their hand and dashed forward. Little did they know this was a fatal mistake. The moment the exosuit user was in striking distance of Arthur, a fist flew into their stomach. Unable to react to the speed of Arthurs fist, they could only watch as another fist planted into their face.
This hit sent them stumbling backwards, unprepared for the rest of the fight. Once they recovered from the attack, all they were met with was the exosuit user with the blades missing all their limbs and the other exosuit user headless body to their left. Before they could realize how badly they messed up, they were suddenly looking in the opposite direction.
Now face to face with Arthur, they could only watch as they fell to the ground, forced to stare up at the ceiling as their vision faded to black. With all the exosuit users defeated, Arthur turned and made his way to the collapsed stairwell. In front of it, Musashi sat down with Rika who had her hand hovering above his foot.
A green energy emanated from her Rika's that flowed down into Musashi wound, enchancing the healing process. Arthur outstretched his hand and a hologram of Deadeye popped out. In the hologram, Deadeye jumped from tree to tree firing his rifle into the distance every time he stopped for a moment.
"Deadeye." Arthur yelled to get his attention. "What's the situation up there?"
"It's a fucking warzone up here." Deadeye informed. "After the explosion trapped you all down there, all hell broke loose. There were Jets carpet bombing the entire area and VTOL's dropping off soldiers everywhere." He said while jumping to another tree. "I think we got caught up in the middle of another fucking war."
"How long until you can get us out of here." Arthur asked.
"I'll be there in thirty seconds." Deadeye said before the hologram shut off.
"You all heard him." Arthur spoke up. "Prepare yourself cause the situation doesn't look too good up there."
"Look" Pyro exclaimed as the bunker shook. "I can feel it for fucks sake."
After a couple seconds of waiting, a beam of energy pierced through the stairwell and cleared the way for them to get out. On their ascent upward, the sound of ballistic and laser fire became clearer with the occasional explosion. It only took them a minute to walk and climb to the top and when they did, they were met with exactly what Deadeye described.
Soldiers and Hellfire Hover Tanks marched through the jungle destroying all in their path. Jets above them engaged in dogfighting while VTOLs dropped off soldiers. As Arthur scanned the sky, he spotted Deadeye in a tree and pointed him out. The six ran to Deadeye as he jumped down from the tree and took cover on the ground.
With Musashi leading the way, deflecting laser fire until they reached Deadeye. Once regrouped with Deadeye, they all took a moment to assess the situation. They were surrounded by an unknown number of enemy combatants and were cut off from Rook, Foxtrot and Wolf.
"Where's the other three?" Arthur yelled, trying to be heard over the gunfire and explosion.
"Foxtrot is up dealing with some of the enemy air support while Wolf got into a fight with an exosuit user." Deadeye yelled back. "I lost Rook on the way here after an explosion threw us apart."
"Looks like you were right." Arthur added.
Deadeye let out an inaudible chuckle. "How great." He said while jumping up and raising his Railgun. Once he pulled the trigger, a beam of energy fired from the weapon and zig-zagged through the air, taking out multiple soldiers, an exosuit user and even a VTOL.
"So, what do we do know?" Scout yelled.
"What do you think dumbass?" Pyro asked with a flame covering his hand. "We fucking get to it and kick some arse." Waving his hand to the side, a wave of fire engulfed the area behind them where the bunker was.
After hearing that, Scout teleported away, no doubt in Arthur's mind he was going to get into trouble. When Scout disappeared, Pyro got up from their cover and began his rampage. An inferno exploded from him as he walked amongst the flames he created. Tornadoes of fire sprouting out and crashing through the battlefield indiscriminately.
"I'm going to go find Rook. Where are we meeting up when this is all over." Arthur said after standing up, Sebastion doing the same.
"Right back here I guess." Deadeye sighed. "And what about you two?" He directed to Musashi and Rika."
"I'll stay with you." Musashi answered.
"I'll stay as long as it takes to fully heal his wound, then I'll go group up with someone else." Rike said while healing Musashi's shin. Even with the exosuits enhanced healing capabilities, it took a minute because of how energy reacts with flesh. Its unique properties causing continuous damage even after the initial wound was inflicted.
At this point Arthur and Sebastion had left, leaving Deadeye with Musashi and Rika. Letting out a sigh, Deadeye stood back up and let out another Railgun beam. "Course this shit happens the day before I wanted to go on vacation. Just my fucking luck."
Teleporting from soldier to soldier, Scout delivered death to each of them. The common soldier took Scout no effort to deal with and had them dropping like flies. Teleporting behind one, he grabbed their wrist, punched through their elbow and kicked their body into the air, impaling them on a broken branch.
After that Scout tried to take a momentary break but was interrupted by multiple laser beams hitting his back, dealing no harm. He turned slowly to face a single soldier frantically reloading their HCLR. Letting out a slight laugh before teleporting, Scout appeared behind the soldier.
Scout tried to grab the soldier by the neck but was instead punched in the face so hard he was sent through a tree. Another exosuit user had come to the rescue of the soldier. With a knife in their left hand, they began walking to the tree Scout was sent into. Upon reaching the tree the exosuit user was met with a kick to the back of the head.
The kick sent them face first into the ground where Scout should have been. Raising his leg into the air, Scout laughed as he smashed his foot into the exosuit users head continuously. This went on for a couple seconds until the exosuit users knife flew out of their hand and up into Scouts thigh.
The exosuit user shot up from the ground and ripped the knife from Scout's thigh before he could teleport away. Expecting Scout to teleport behind with a kick attack, the exosuit user was delighted when Scout actually did. This delight came from the fact that multiple blades were floating in the air above and now shooting down at Scout.
But what the exosuit user expected to happen did not as Scout teleported below him. Drawing his fist back, Scout punched the exosuit user in the stomach, causing them to fly up into the air. Unable to call off the blades in time, the exosuit user was pierced in the back by dozens of blades of their own blades
As the exosuit user fell back to the ground, Scout caught them before they could hit the ground. "Nice try." He said before throwing them to the side. Disappointed in that fight he teleported away in the hopes of finding another enemy to face, a trail of death following in his wake.