The jungle’s apex predators scoured the darkness even as their prey vied to survive another night - the unwilling participants in a never-ending dance of death. Yet this night belonged to neither. It belonged instead to another breed of predator, one forged from tungsten, carbon, and alloyed steel.

The animals that populated this lush ecosystem were eerily silent tonight. Perhaps it was just MC’s imagination compensating for the monotony that was slogging through dense foliage at 0200 - nobody’s idea of a good time.

This contract was personal. In fact, it was so close to his heart that he was both contractor and client. No one knew about it and no one would, at least not until Liberación HQ went up in a flaming chemical mushroom at 0400.

That’s because they’d stolen what they had no business to take, a precious soul they’d no right to taint. He would annihilate them for their sins, bearing witness to their screams as they melted in a hellfire of acid rain and ash.

But this was as much his punishment as it was their reckoning. He’d failed the one person he had left in this world – his only family whose clock had not already stopped. Whom he’d been unable to protect, despite his overwhelming skill, resources, and wealth. What good was all that if he couldn’t even protect his little sister?

The powered suit shredded shrub and vine, navigating to his destination on autopilot. No effort required; the hundreds of electromechanical servo motors handled the locomotion for him.

Would Nina find it in her heart to forgive him?

After what they’d surely done to her - Abuse? Torture? That might just be the opener. These assholes were known for worse.

He shook his head, the suit’s massive armored headpiece mirroring the lateral movement. Who was he kidding? This was his little sister he was talking about; forgiveness would be the last thing on her mind. To her, he’d always been an infallible knight in shining armor, and that just made living with the guilt of this fuckup so much worse.

The jungle's oppressive humidity smothered his mechatronics yet the viewscreens remained pristine. That was all thanks to the hydrophobic coating that lined the vidcam lenses, feeding him 3D holography of his surroundings in real-time.

He’d brought out his very best tonight, a real experimental-grade walking tank straight from the United Federation of Nations. Active camo, jumpjets, inertial-dampening ballistic gels - you name it. Worth a military fortune, but you can afford these things when you’re the best of the best.

You can also afford to single-handedly assault and destroy a criminal fortress, as he was doing now.

The verdurous jungle finally gave way to blackened fields and bright white spotlights.

A walled industrial compound loomed in the distance, spewing toxic gases of all kinds into the dying atmosphere. It was a cosmic irony that the very chemicals they burned to bake their drugs would be the origin of their doom.

MC opened a secure line to his old friend, an Admiral of the UFN Navy.

“Archangel, this is Machine-One. I am in position and ready for your magic.”

“Understood Machine-One. Standby for the fireworks.”

“Copy that. I really owe you one this time, don't I?”

“One? You owe me a hell of a lot more than one! Just bring her home. We are hot in 10 and I’m syncing your clocks now. Archangel out.”

He’d called in several favors for this op, but this was by far the biggest of them all. Appropriating a top-secret military superweapon for personal use was something that just wasn’t done. Still, Liberación was the biggest fish he’d fried to date, and a world without this blight was a world with just a bit more light, of that there could be no doubt.

“Al,” he said to Albert, the suit's AI, “ready the jumpjets for tactical burn. We’re going in hot, so I’m gonna need you to wake me on the other side.”

“Command confirmed…

“Jumpjets priming…

“Inertial Dampening Gels activated…

“Medical systems standing by…

“All Systems GREEN for low-altitude burn. Ready, on your mark,” the hardass voice responded in its typical drill sergeant cadence.

A warning message popped up on his HUD, informing him of potential trauma that may occur when executing this maneuver. No shit.

MC scanned the premises and took a deep breath. It helped him keep his cool when shit hit the fan.

Because shit always hit the fan out here in the ass-end of nowhere, where organized crime ran rampant and governments took bribes to shut up and look the other way of genocide. The Syndicates were the government, and Liberación was the baddest player in town.

T – minus 5. Al liked to count the last five secs aloud, just to spice things up a bit.

4

3

He took a deep breath and dropped into launch position - palms grounded, knees bent, muscles tensed. He knew it’d do jack squat but he did it anyway, like an Olympic sprinter awaiting the starter pistol.

2

1

Silence. He began to wonder if his clocks were off, but just then the night turned to day.

A spear of light descended from the stratosphere at an unbelievable velocity, a super-heated lance that glowed like the sun. For an eternal instant it screamed towards the earth, yet by the time MC’s vidscreen had registered the phenomenon, it’d already ended.

The hypersonic Wolframite-Tungsten core fired from the orbital mass driver impacted with the concussive force of a one-ton bomb, generating a shockwave that decimated its surroundings and superheated the gases they used for whatever drugs they cooked over there.

A finger of fire erupted from ground zero and touched the sky. For a moment it almost seemed majestic. Beautiful, even. Then came the screams as the burning embers rained down upon the facility, searing and impaling any unlucky enough to be outside.

As for those inside, anyone close enough to the blast would’ve vaporized into oblivion, but the poor souls unfortunate enough to survive were in for a painful death - suffocating as they breathed in superheated plasma, their lungs melting from the inside out.

The ultra-dense mass also kicked up an obscene amount of debris, cutting viz to zilch.

Despite the show, the explosion was still contained to drug processing and he knew that his target was in another area thanks to the blueprints currently displayed on his HUD. He’d come armed with the intel, like he always did. It helped to even the odds.

What he needed was a distraction - a small window long enough to breach the compound, and he’d gotten exactly that.

“Mark,” he whispered, shutting his eyes for the hellacious G-forces that were about to come.