Apex Games: Legends are Born

Remnants of the War

Boots landed on metal with a heavy thunk. Standing up slowly, the woman scanned her surroundings. She was dressed like a soldier, with a military vest, shoulder and knee guards, the armor colored mostly in red with turquoise accents, except for a spot on one of the shoulders that displayed the orange design of a butterfly. Her face was covered by a helmet with a blue visor. Strapped to her waist was a jump kit and a holstered wingman pistol.

"How's it looking, Chris?" she asked.

"You should be nearing the cargo hold. Just a bit further ahead, Morgan." answered a male voice through the communication system in her helmet.

"Alright. Warn me something goes wrong up there." she requested.

"You got it."

She continued walking down the dark hallway of the starship. As a precaution, she took her wingman out of its holster. The ship may have been a mere wreckage, but you could never be too careful when it came to old military vessels. Many of them still had regiments of military robots, like specters, on board. And these tended to still be in a good enough condition to be dangerous.

She ended up reaching a large chasm. Looking down, she could see the rock ground far below. The metal around her seemed twisted and burnt, as if a hole had been blown into the ship.

"Hey Chris, is there supposed to be a giant hole in the ship on the way to the hole?" Morgan asked.

"Well, you're near where one of the main engines used to be. Odds are the engine got blown up and destroyed that part of the ship. Can you get to the hold from there?"

Morgan inspected her surroundings. Most people would immediately have said no. But not Morgan. She had learned to perceive the world differently. Where others saw walls and barriers, she saw pathways and shortcuts.

"Yeah, I think I can come up with something." she told her friend.

She began planning out her route. There were some remains of a catwalk still barely attached to its original position. Not the safest, but it only had to hold for a few seconds. From there she could make it to the wall of the room. Then a quick hop to the left should get her to the entrance to the cargo hold.

Morgan holstered her wingman and made sure her jump kit was secured. She then took a few steps back and took a deep breath before breaking into a run towards the edge. Once she reached it, she leaped into the air. Just as it seemed she would plummet to her death, her jump kit activated, carrying her towards the hanging catwalk. She swiftly kicked off it before hopping towards the wall. The jump kit gave a controlled burst, holding her up as she ran along the wall. Finally, she jumped off the wall and with a last boost from her jump kit reached her objective.

She straightened up and dusted herself off.

"There we go. Easy as pie." she said as she pulled the wingman back out.

At last she had reached her objective: the cargo hold. It was fairly large, as one would expect from an old warship. There were a couple of crates scattered around, some open and empty, others still to reveal their contents. Morgan also warily took notice of a group of apparently deactivated specters over in the back.

"Alright, Chris. I'm here." she announced.

"Okay. The record says the stuff you're looking for should be in a special hidden compartment." Chris informed.
"Maybe check the floor panels. See if any of them is hollow."

"On it."

Morgan holstered her wingman and began knocking on the floor panels with her knuckles. After a couple of minutes, she finally found what she was looking for. She pulled out a knife and used it to force open the panel. Inside was a small crate.

"Found it." she announced.

"Great! Time to open it."

Morgan frowned.

"And what if it's wired with alarm systems? If it was hidden like that, it was probably important." she pointed out.

"This wreck is decades old. Any alarm systems are probably gone by now. Besides, this stuff is about your father. If anything, you should be the one eager to open it." Chris countered.

Morgan shrugged.

"Good point." she said before using the knife to force the crate open.

She hoped that this crate would finally contain the information about her father that she was looking for. However, it only left her with more questions. The contents consisted of a flash drive and a gauntlet like device. She picked both up, putting the device on her left hand while storing the flash drive away. She then noticed a slip of paper also in the crate.

"Chrono-gauntlet prototype." she read aloud.

"What's that?" Chris asked.

"Not sure. I think it's the name of the device that was in the crate. There's also a flash drive."

"Wait, that's it?"

Morgan was about to answer before getting cut off by loud siren.

"That doesn't sound good." Chris commented.

"Yeah, it doesn't." Morgan agreed, pulling out her wingman.

Suddenly, she noticed the eyes of the specters at the end of the room begin to glow as the robots began to move.

"Chris, we've got a problem." she announced.

"What is it?"

"Remember that alarm system that was too old to be active? Turns out it was perfectly operational. And it was connected to a bunch of specters."

"Shit!"

"Yeah." she agreed.
"I need an exit! Now!"

"Keep going forward. You should be able to reach the titan hangar. From there you can climb up and out. There's a large hole in the fuselage." Chris instructed.

"Got it. Let's hope these specters are set to guard parameters." Morgan said before breaking into a sprint for the exit.

As she ran she attempted to shoot some of the specters while doing her best to stay away from them. Once she reached the next room she confirmed that it was in fact what would have been the hangar bay where titan mechs would have been kept ready for their pilots. Now it was quite empty though, the IMC having probably made sure that no operational or repairable titans remained on the wrecked ship.

Looking up, Morgan could see the gap in the fuselage that Chris had mentioned. Unfortunately, a quick glance downwards also informed her that another regiment of specters was starting to fill the floor below her in addition to the ones already chasing her.

She wasted no time and started running again. However, she only noticed too late that the catwalk beneath her feet was giving way. Before she could react, the catwalk dropped, causing her to fall. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in preparation for the painful collision with the robots below her. But instead of that, she heard the device on her hand whirring to life and saw it glow blue before she felt herself being pulled backwards. Suddenly, she was back on the catwalk at the entrance of the hangar bay, a portion of it missing in front of her.

"What the hell?" Morgan wondered as she panted in an effort to regain her breath.

She didn't have time to think much about what had just happened, as the sound of several fast approaching metallic footsteps pulled her out of her thoughts. She quickly took off in a sprint forwards, using her jump kit to clear the gap. From there, she used it to leap upwards in order to grab the edge of the hole in the fuselage before pulling herself up.

Looking down, she saw the army of specters gazing up at her before they calmly turned around and returned to their original posts. Morgan smirked underneath her helmet.

"Better luck next time, tin cans."