Guardian(Part IV): Revelation

Chapter 13: Morgan

As we came closer to the fortress walls, Maddy flew into the air to survey the fortress' defenses from above with her holographic clothing set to match the grey sky, but still low enough to where she didn't show up on radar. At the same time, I looked for heat signatures through my APID. At first, I couldn't see anything, but it might have been because the walls were too thick. I looked for bricks sticking slightly out of the outer wall to climb, and found some that I could possibly grab onto and step on. I began to climb the bricks to reach the top of the walls, and aura cloaked myself once I climbed over the railing. There weren't any Turned on the outer walls, but looking inward, to the inner walls, there were hundreds of them.

"I'm counting approximately three hundred Turned soldiers," Maddy reported, through our APIDs.

"Do you see anything that looks like it could be an intelligence office?" I wondered.

"I am observing an office with filing cabinets and a small desk with a holo computer on it," said Maddy. "I'm marking its location on your APID. It's near the center of the fortress."

"Past an army of Turned," I sighed.

"And other things," Maddy warned. "I'll meet you in the office."

"Got it," I understood. Our transmission cut, and I studied my path forward. Maddy's marker led to a short building about half a kilometer away. There were storage houses and vehicles that I could run across, along with bunkers and towers between every wall. I was about to make my way across when I heard the noise of an aircraft's jet engines.

"Morgan, cloak yourself!" Master Avanka shouted. I aura cloaked myself again, then frantically looked around. I couldn't tell where the noise was coming from, until a gunship emerged from behind the fortress and began to fly through the air above the island. Both sides of the fuselage had missiles stored in them, and a beam turret was under its nose. If the beam turret hit me, it would shatter my aura shield and kill me instantly, possibly slicing me in half. The gunship flew over me, not seeing me.

"You should be clear," Avanka assured. "But hide yourself whenever that gunship is in a place to see you."

"Understood," I acknowledged. "Advancing."

I warped to the roof of a storage shed, then to the ground to sneak my way to the marker on my APID. I had planned to jump across the buildings and vehicles to avoid the Turned, but with the gunship patrolling, I had to stay out of its line of sight. I would rather deal with Turned instead of a gunship, anyway. I did exactly what Avanka said. As I made my way to the waypoint, I aura cloaked myself whenever Turned soldiers got too close and when the enemy gunship was overhead. I managed to avoid them without even having to form my aura blade, and saw the waypoint in my APID drawing closer. I eventually reached the large opening that Maddy found when she first flew over the place, with the hatch that the large object was lowered through. I wondered what Maddy saw under it ever since the moment she brought it up, but that wasn't my concern right now. Besides, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to know. The building that Maddy marked was in the corner of the field, but there weren't any Turned between me and it. The only threat now was the gunship, which suddenly flew right over the field. I quickly aura cloaked myself before it hovered above me, then rushed to the building marked by the waypoint, warping to the other side of it before my aura cloak ran out. Maddy was inside, too, sitting on a chair next to a flight of stairs.

"You made it," she sighed. "I looked through several files upstairs, and picked out the ones that would be of most interest for the purposes of our mission and translated them to the Common Tongue so we are able to read them."

"What were they written in before?" I wondered.

"The Ancient Tongue," Maddy answered, then she projected several holographic panels on the wall from her forehead.

"Woah," I whispered. The first file that caught my attention was one that had the diagram of what seemed like a person in a suit of crimson armor, with a helmet with a filtered vent on their head. That file was titled "Project: ECHO", which stood for "Enhanced Cybernetic Hell-based Operative". It read that the ECHOs were dead corpses reanimated by necromancy before they were augmented and enhanced by mutations and cybernetic modifications. Worse, the file said that they were controlled completely by remote. They had absolutely no free will. They were almost like Turned, if they couldn't think for themselves and were much, much stronger. The end of that file stated that the ECHOs were intended to be deployed into battle as mercenaries to whatever army would hire them in order to cause more death and destruction in the Desolation rather than for the sake of money. Other details said that they were even capable of warping, forming a dark aura blade, and even dark aura blasts. More said that their human skin had been replaced with dragon scales to make them resistant, or even immune, to mortal weapons, and their fingernails had been replaced with the claws of various kinds of demons.

"Wow," I whispered. "That's... disturbing."

"I know," said Maddy. "But this one I found more frightening."

One of the other translated files flashed green for a second, and I turned my attention to it. It was the blueprint for an LWM. A truly enormous LWM, judging by the scale shown. It couldn't have been taller than an 821 like the one the rebels attacked Valedon with, but it was still very big. It had an energy cannon on its shoulder, machine guns on the sides of its head, missile pods on its other shoulder, and even arms that had opposable fingers, with one of them having an energy blade projector behind the hand. The title of the file read "LWM-1000", and the rest of it stated that the War Machine was of an original design by the Seven, not the military of a country. It had a manned and unmanned variant, with the unmanned one being capable of as much destruction as its piloted counterpart, despite having an AI pilot. I could only imagine what the Seven planned to do with the 1000.

"They're going to sell this thing to whoever will take it," I guessed. "So they can use it to kill more people."

"That must be what I saw last night," said Maddy. "Do you think it's still here?"

"It has to be," I answered. "Master Avanka, we can't let anyone get their hands on it."

"I know," Avanka agreed. "But do you think you can take down a War Machine?"

"We have before," Maddy answered.

"Not one like this," I warned. "We don't know what else this thing is capable of. I'll bet this file doesn't even say everything. Still, I don't think we have a choice. If people find out that this thing exists, then no one will be able to resist having it for themselves."

"Understood, Captain Faye," Avanka acknowledged. "Find the LWM-1000 and destroy it."

"Yes, ma'am," I complied. "Blue Team out."

I aura cloaked myself and went back outside to observe the giant hatch in the ground. Maddy kept her eyes on the sky for the gunship as I formed my seax-shaped aura blade to stab it into the seam of the hatch and pry it open. I managed to, and warped off of it as it began to open. Maddy flew into the air and landed next to me to avoid falling down the hatch. Once the hatch was completely open, we looked down, expecting to see an enormous LWM, but there was no LWM.

"That's not good," said Wilson.

"No, it's not," Avanka agreed. "Where the hell is it?"