Above The Wastelands, in that dead sky where grey clouds and acid rain reigned, Aegis Barracks hung like divine wrath. This colossal mass of metal defying gravity, with its rusted propellers and thousands of cables dangling from its hull, had carved out a kingdom of its own, far from the rotting heart of Nova-Veridia. It wasn't a base; it was a nail hammered into the sky, the embodiment of discipline and raw power.
Appearing as a tiny speck from the dead lands below, but inside the rapidly approaching autonomous supply shuttle, the situation was the exact opposite of the solemn silence outside.
The cockpit resembled a disco created by flashing red lights and mechanical warning sounds. Jester, his purple cape swirling over his black tactical armor, was not in the pilot's seat, but cross-legged on the console. His hazel eyes gleamed with childish excitement.
"Service is terrible," Jester yelled as the shuttle hit turbulence and its metal frame groaned. "No hostesses, no peanuts, just the imminent possibility of death. I'm giving it one star."
Kaelen, in the co-pilot's seat, had buckled his seatbelt so tightly that his knuckles were white. His stomach was in his throat due to the shuttle's sudden maneuvers. "You overloaded the engines," he said through gritted teeth. "This was supposed to be an infiltration operation, not a suicide dive."
"Ah, Detective," Jester said, hacking the shuttle's fuel injection protocols from his tablet. "Rats infiltrate through holes. We're not rats. We're... meteorites." He pressed a virtual button. "And meteorites don't knock."
The shuttle made a final dive towards Aegis Barracks' massive hangar. The Barracks' defense systems weren't firing, recognizing the shuttle as a friendly element, but its speed was far beyond the protocols. While the "Engine Failure" signal created panic in the Barracks' command center, for Jester and Kaelen, it was merely a stage prop.
The crash occurred not with a deafening explosion as expected, but with the sound of massive metal grinding against metal. The shuttle belly-landed on the hangar floor, skidding for a hundred meters, showering sparks, and finally coming to a halt by crashing into a cargo container.
The silence lasted only a second. Then the fire suppression systems activated. The hangar filled with a dense, white, chemical foam in seconds. Visibility dropped to zero.
Kaelen kicked open the shuttle door and plunged into the white ocean outside. His massive revolver, "Judge," was in hand. "Move," he whispered.
Jester glided out behind him. Amidst the white foam, he looked like a ghost in his black armor and purple cape. The dull, melancholic clown makeup on his face looked even more unsettling in this chaotic environment.
***
On the top floor of the Barracks, General Titan watched the chaos in the hangar from the monitor before him. Unlike other executives, there was no luxury in Titan's room. Velvet curtains, gold plating, or works of art... None of it. Just cold metal walls, strategy maps, and a man-sized, titanium-forged battle-axe hanging on the wall.
Titan hadn't abandoned his humanity, but he had optimized it. His right arm was a matte black cybernetic prosthesis from the shoulder down. His left eye had been replaced with a red lens. The rest was pure muscle, scars, and years of military discipline.
"Not a malfunction," Titan said, his voice a deep, mechanical growl. He didn't even turn to the officer beside him. "Assault."
"Sir, the defense protocols..."
"No need," Titan said, grasping the axe from the wall with one hand as if it were a toothpick. The steel plates on the floor vibrated with its weight. "The rats are trapped. I will meet them myself."
***
The corridors were narrow, grey, and claustrophobic. Emergency alarms bathed the environment in a blood-red light. Kaelen advanced, checking every corner with professional precision. Jester, behind him, whistled with his hands clasped behind his back, as if on a leisurely stroll.
As they rounded the corner, they came face to face with them. Praetorian Guards.
These were no ordinary soldiers. Their faces were covered by full-face helmets, wearing boots with silent soles, the Consortium's elite killing machines. They didn't speak. They didn't shout. They were programmed only to kill. Four of them held the end of the corridor.
Jester made a move to rush forward, but Kaelen pulled him back by the shoulder.
"Stop," Kaelen said, his voice was ice-cold. "This is a confined space. Your chaos will burn us too. No magic tricks, Jester. Just bullets and aim."
Jester grinned and stepped back with an exaggerated bow. "The stage is yours, cowboy."
Before the Praetorians could open fire, Kaelen moved. He didn't take cover. He walked forward. "Judge" roared.
*BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.*
The sound of the gun was so loud it echoed off the corridor walls. Every shot Kaelen fired was the product of a millimeter-perfect calculation. The first round pierced the visor of the leading guard's helmet. The second found the neck gap in the other's armor. The third and fourth shots shattered the kneecaps of the remaining two guards, dropping them to the ground, and Kaelen delivered a finishing shot to their heads as he passed them.
The entire event lasted four seconds.
Kaelen lowered the barrel of his smoking gun. There wasn't the slightest hint of triumph on his face, only the weariness of a tired worker at the end of a shift.
"Primitive," Jester said, hopping over the bodies. "But effective. I like it."
***
The massive doors of the Command Room swung open with Jester's touch – or rather, a digital curse whispered into the lock.
Inside, it resembled a vast, circular arena. In the center of the room, General Titan waited. Through the panoramic glass behind him, the clouds and storm drifted below. Titan stood like a statue, his massive axe resting on the floor.
"The others..." Titan said, his voice echoing in the room. "Vex was a fool. Mirage was a dreamer. Your defeat of them doesn't surprise me." He raised the axe. The sound of metal slicing through the air grated on Jester's teeth. "But I am not weak. I am the system's sword."
"The system crashed, General," Jester said, not bothering to hide the dangerous undertone beneath his cheerful voice. "We're just here to format it."
Jester raised his hand, purple sparks danced at his fingertips. He intended to bend reality and pin Titan to the wall. But the moment the purple energy reached Titan, an invisible barrier shimmered over the General's armor, and the energy dispersed.
"EMP Shielding," Titan said disdainfully. "Your cheap tricks won't work here, freak."
And Titan attacked.
For a man of that bulk to move so fast defied the laws of physics. When the axe shattered the spot where Jester had just stood, Jester had already somersaulted sideways. But the shockwave threw him back.
Kaelen fired. Armor-piercing rounds struck Titan's chest plate but ricocheted off. Titan turned to Kaelen and swung the axe horizontally. Kaelen dodged death by mere inches, dropping to the floor at the last second.
"Fast!" Kaelen yelled, ducking behind a pillar. "And his armor is too thick!"
Jester began bouncing on his metal leg, circling Titan. But Titan seemed to know his every step, every move, in advance. Whenever Jester found an opening, Titan closed it and counter-attacked.
A kick landed squarely on Jester's chest, right on his reactor. Jester flew backward, breathless, and hit the wall. Sparks showered from his metal leg.
"Perfect," Jester whispered, coughing painfully. His eyes scanned Titan's movements. "Every step... every breath... perfect."
Jester's mind pushed aside the immediate pain and began processing data. Titan was a soldier. He was a textbook. Every attack had an angle, every defense a mathematical equation. He knew everything written in the book.
*And that was the book's problem. It was predictable.*
Jester spat blood onto the floor and grinned. The sad clown makeup on his face, combined with the blood, had taken on a gruesome appearance.
"Hey, Tin Man!" Jester yelled.
Titan turned to him and raised his axe for a lethal blow. Jester didn't run. He didn't block. On the contrary, he ran straight at Titan.
It was suicide. Titan brought the axe down.
But Jester didn't slide under the axe. At the last second, he jumped, performed a strange contortion in mid-air, and used the axe handle as a springboard to launch himself onto Titan's chest.
Titan was surprised. This was a foolish move, one not found in any military doctrine.
Jester wrapped his legs around Titan's torso and his arms around his neck. He clung to him like a koala.
"Your shield blocks aerial attacks," Jester whispered into Titan's mechanical ear. "But skin-to-skin contact? You don't have a patch for that."
Before Titan could shake him off, Jester plunged the hidden data port in his right hand, like a sharp needle emerging from his palm, into Titan's mechanical eye.
Titan let out a roar of pain.
"I'm not killing you," Jester said, as his mind flowed into Titan's processor. "I'm just... raising your ping."
Jester injected a simple, childish, yet deadly virus into Titan's visual cortex: *Lag.*
Jester threw himself backward and fell to the floor. Titan was disoriented by the needle mark in his eye. He turned to Jester in a rage.
"You'll die!" Titan yelled and brought his axe down with full force towards Jester's head, who was lying on the floor.
The axe shattered the floor. Concrete and metal flew into the air.
But Jester wasn't there.
As Titan stared in confusion at the empty spot where his axe was embedded, Jester stood right behind him, hands in his pockets.
"What you're seeing isn't me, General," Jester said. "What you're seeing is me from a second ago. You're currently living with 1000ms of lag. Welcome to the world of lag."
Titan turned to the voice behind him and swung again. But he cut through empty air. His brain and eyes were out of sync. The target he saw had already moved.
This chaos was the opportunity Kaelen had been waiting for.
He emerged from behind the pillar. He spun the cylinder of "Judge." This time, not armor-piercing, but a high-voltage shock round was in the chamber.
"Game over," Kaelen said.
As Titan attacked Jester's phantom once more, his back was completely exposed. Kaelen pulled the trigger.
The round pierced the weakest point of Titan's armor, that thin line where cybernetic spine met organic tissue.
Blue electrical arcs enveloped Titan's body. The General froze like a statue, his muscles spasming and prosthetics locking up, then collapsed to his knees with a colossal crash. His axe slipped from his grasp and clattered to the floor.
Silence fell over the room. Only the crackling from Titan's armor and Jester's rapid breathing could be heard.
Jester approached the motionless giant. He pulled out an empty data chip from his pocket and brought it close to Titan's still-open, flickering mechanical eye.
"This is the problem with perfect discipline, General," Jester said, as the data transfer began. The hazel gleam in his eyes briefly gave way to a satisfied purple glow. "You never learned to improvise. Life isn't a chessboard; it's a jazz concert."
When the chip signaled "Upload Complete," Jester pulled back. The Third Key was also in their hands.
Kaelen holstered his weapon and came to Jester's side. "Let's go. Before this guy wakes up."
Just then, all the barracks' lights went out. Even the emergency red was gone. It became pitch black.
Then, from the loudspeakers came a synthetic voice, far more unsettling than mechanical. This voice was neither human nor computer.
**"CODE OMEGA CONFIRMED. RONIN ACTIVE."**
For the first time, the smile on Jester's face faded. He looked at Kaelen. On the Detective's face was a kind of worry he had never seen before.
"Ronin..." Jester whispered. "The Architect's last card. And this time, he's not alone."
From the darkness, metallic footsteps began to echo from the depths of the barracks. But these were not the rhythmic march of soldiers, but like the thunder of an approaching storm.
"Run," Kaelen said. "Now."