The ground groaned as the secondary gates of the GUI city slid open. The standard defense line was buckling; several colossal Tiberium behemoths—towering masses of rock and sentient crystal—lumbered through the hailstorm of Porcupine fire, their sheer bulk absorbing the lead like sponges.
From the city's industrial heart emerged the GUI's true hammers: the Mammoth Artillery and the Jaguar Siege Tank.
The Mammoth was a mountain of steel. It didn't bother with the nimble maneuvering of the Coyotes; it simply ground forward until it reached the firing line. With a hiss of hydraulic steam, it entered Siege Mode, massive stabilizers punching deep into the earth to lock it in place. The twin long-range cannons tilted upward. Unlike the Brotherhood's Specter, which relied on fragile Shadow Teams to plant beacons for accuracy, the Mammoth's onboard targeting computer calculated the trajectory in real-time.
Thoom-thoom.
The shells screamed through the air, raining down death from miles away. The first behemoth didn't just die; it was pulverized into green dust before it could even see its attacker.
Beside them, the Jaguars roared. In March Mode, they were fast-moving predators, weaving between the smaller mutants with surprising speed. But as they neared the breach, they performed a mechanical transformation. Each Jaguar locked its treads and shifted into Siege Mode, its chassis expanding to reveal a secondary cooling system. The fire rate doubled instantly. A rhythmic, staccato thunder filled the air as the Jaguars turned the remaining horde into a literal meat grinder.
High on the ridge, Brother Marcion's jaw dropped. He stared at the Mammoth Artillery, his mind racing. His Black Hand had the Specter, but without stealth tech, his artillery was always vulnerable, and the reliance on beacons made it slow.
Kane, however, was looking at the units with a different kind of hunger. He wasn't interested in the raw steel; he was looking at the potential.
His eyes narrowed as a Jaguar's dual cannons glowed red-hot from the fire rate.
Kane turned back to the battle, his mind already sketching the blueprints for his future Avatar and Stealth platforms. The GUI had provided the perfect field test for the next generation of Nod's arsenal.
******
Back within the digital ether of the Prophet's command crawler, LEGION processed the combat telemetry at a speed no human mind could match. Frame by frame, it mapped the hydraulic pressure of the Jaguar's transformation and the ballistic arc of the Mammoth's shells. Kane now understood the logic of the units, but as a scientist and a prophet, he knew that observation was not the same as possession. To build his new army, he didn't just need the vision—he needed the math.
Kane turned away from the holographic tactical map, his eyes cold and focused. Brother Marcion stood behind him, still reeling from the display of raw, efficient power he had witnessed.
He turned to the core of LEGION, his voice dropping to a command tone.
Kane outlined the objectives. He wanted more than just the heavy metal; he wanted the soul of the Union's military.
He paused, a flicker of disgust crossing his face as he thought of his own basic infantry—the fanatical but fragile militants who died by the thousands.
As the orders were encrypted and sent to the deepest cells of the Brotherhood, Kane looked back at the city of white stone. He was no longer just an observer; he was a thief in the night, preparing to strip the "Architect" of his most prized designs to fuel the fires of his own Ascension.
******
The night air within the GUI Command Spire was still, save for the rhythmic, low-frequency hum of the city's life-support systems. In the central data hub, a crowd had gathered—technicians, senior security analysts, and several high-ranking officials from the Senate. At the centre of it all stood Thomas Green, his expression unreadable under the sterile glow of the holographic monitors.
A senior data specialist stepped forward, projecting several security feeds onto the main wall.
Thomas watched the feeds, his eyes tracking the "all clear" signals. The staff looked relieved, almost proud of their impenetrable fortress.
His gaze lingering on the encrypted partition for secret projects.
Thomas nodded slowly.
The crowd dispersed, the tension leaving the room along with them. But as the last technician left and the doors hissed shut, Thomas's calm facade vanished. He turned to Elena Makarov, his jaw tight.
Elena looked confused.
******
Thousands of miles away, in the red-lit silence of his observation deck, Kane was a portrait of dark satisfaction.
Kane murmured, watching the encrypted streams of data finalize their upload.
The heist had been a triumph. Before the GUI's security could even twitch, the Brotherhood had successfully extracted the blueprints for the Jaguar, the Mammoth, the Porcupine, the Armadillo, and the Dragonfly, along with the advanced infantry gear.
But as Kane swiped through the files, he found something that piqued his scientific hunger. Hidden within a sub-directory were partial fragments of a secret weapon called the Wasp and data on a substance called Uranum.
The information was agonizingly incomplete; the spies had been forced to flee seconds before discovery, leaving the core mechanics of the Uranum process behind. It wasn't the uranium of the old world—it was something different, something Thomas had brought with him.
He turned to his lead researchers.
A cold smile touched the Prophet's lips. He had the foundations. Now, he would wait for the Architect to reveal the secrets of the Wasp and Uranum in the fires of the next conflict.