"I don't know what it is, it was like that moment again," Zoomchard grumbled, brushing his left hand down his right face elegantly, caressing the white smudge that plagued his face.

"It's nothing that serious of a disease, it may be a genetic thing," Zenhu informed, placing away equipment inside of the pouch on his chest.

"Genetic thing? I've never encountered a moment where my parents would suddenly have white parts show up around their body," Zoomchard disputed, yanking his legs at a time to ease the limbs from locking into each other and disrupt Zoomchard from moving around standing in one place for a long period.

"I'll find out when I do more examinations on you." Zenhu rasped, eyeing Zoomchard with sinister intent as Zoomchard planned on walking out of the hangar that was built overnight from Smor's technology to build swiftly and not have any problems.

"Alright." Zoomchard hummed, feeling the room was cold because of the eyes that stalked him and had no single kindness in them, all that was in them was a sour indication that nobody trusted Zoomchard freely yet — he had work to do.

"Just in case you've forgotten, I still don't trust you," Zenhu muttered under his breath with a brushy growl, ploughing his hand that was bigger than Zoomchard's head on Zoomchard's right shoulder, squeezing the sharp ends of his fingers deep under Zoomchard's skin to delay him temporarily.

"And for your concern, I do not care. If I was working for Khunex I wouldn't have attacked one of his followers, would I?" Zoomchard finally snapped, blowing out his fury as he turned his head anti-clockwise to frown at Zenhu to demonstrate he's infuriated more than scared, "Ever since I've joined this shithole of a regiment I had your ass and the others prickling my back non-stop. But that's to exaggerate my stay in this regiment, most of you are amazing, kind and welcoming — not you. You and Rolthe have something going on and you are putting all of it on me." Zoomchard glared, bracing his hand over Zenhu's and shrugging it off.

"What are you talking about?" Zenhu asked defensively, prospering more hostile and drifting his eyes everywhere abnormally, lurching to find more words of his vocabulary to respond.

Zoomchard didn't say another word, catching on with Zenhu's flustered face, Zoomchard walked out of the hangar and told Derton, who was waiting for Zoomchard's situation explanation, all about it and still nothing to be certain about.

When the chatter with Derton finished, Zoomchard looked to his left and found Lexperlen captured in a box that had metallic bars going all around. Being interested, Zoomchard got closer and inspected the cage. The cage was big enough to fit a bed in and was the perfect height for Lexperlen. A robot that was insane a minute ago is now sleeping peacefully on her bed and acting as if this was one of her rooms back at home.

Avoiding wanting to have another conversation even when it felt like a pin was dragging Zoomchard down the loop of leaning on the extroverted side of the mirror, Zoomchard left the area and wanted to moisturise his voice box that was beginning to dry up from the unusual usage of speaking the past week.

On his earlier walk to the meeting area, Zoomchard found a perky mountain that overlooked something that Zoomchard wanted to know about.

So he wandered.

Wandering far off the safe border, the mountain drew closer and morphed into a substantial size than Zoomchard originally thought it looked like.

Checking his whereabouts to see if any assassins have come for him, stretched his right leg up onto the steep mountain and already felt tired, Zoomchard launched his other leg on the mountain, dragged both of his arms over his head and into the metallic mountain, then bent his arms inwards and hooked them higher up to push himself upwards, and continued that movement until Zoomchard heeded he was gliding up the mountain inch by inch.

Tiresome at first but the more Zoomchard climbed, it became more of a morning routine to exorcise his body into fitness. The only way Zoomchard found out he was getting higher was the density of the atmosphere that got stronger and stronger in throwing Zoomchard off-balance — Zoomchard held on though, he needed to know what it looked like above the smokey clouds and see the horizon.

Throwing his right arm over the edge of the top, Zoomchard jumped himself over the abrupt edge and rolled over onto the flat ground, stopping on his back as he felt lighthearted with the slightest movements. Zoomchard was a hair's breadth away from sucking himself into a puffy grey cloud and at the end of the cloud, nothing was seen through the thick fog that toppled the sun Zoomchard used to wake up to when he was younger.

Catching his unseen breath, Zoomchard sat up with a monotone and endorsed himself inside the cloud, seeing nothing but greyness. He sighed, stood up and was surprised to find that the cloud was thin in fatness because he could see above the cloud and was hoisted back from the red sky that illuminated Zoomchard all over his body.

The ageless, bubbling orange sphere, that is the sun, isn't seen but a fair drizzling blood sky; polluted with fairness and a glaze where the clouds weren't appealing to interrupt the magnificence of the cosy comfort that melted Zoomchard muddled him with love. A wiry line separated the dark red sky with a venomous gaze on the left from the light red sky with a remedy acceptance on the right.

"So this is what it looked like when the clouds didn't block up the sky…" Zoomchard mumbled, flattening out his arms to welcome the warmth that dominated the sky, "Why does greed ruin everything?" Zoomchard added, distracted by a beep in his ear.

"Zoomchard, uh, it says you're at the mountain but I don't see you." Pacho's voice was heard through the radio.

"I climbed up," Zoomchard answered.

"You did what?..."

--

"H-Help me…" Pacho wailed, sprawling his arm over the edge of the top, concerning Zoomchard as he rushed over to pull Pacho up.

"Do you want to die or something?..." Anatolfia grunted, hovering her head above the edge, glowering at Zoomchard like a disappointed mother as she helped herself over the edge.

"You too?" Zoomchard asked, puzzled, letting go of Pacho's arm after helping him over the edge in a struggle for strength.

"Well yeah, we wanted to check on you-- Ah, it's a very beautiful sight," Anatolfia responded, amazed by the horizon that she met after relieving her arms.

"You climbed up here because of the sky?" Pacho questioned Zoomchard, fumbling himself upwards to sit straight.

"It's one of the reasons. I wanted to see what is behind this mountain."

"A land of nothing is what you'll find. We are on the uneventful border of Northern West QUdesnk and Southern Hrussen." Anatolfia chuckled.

"That neutral nation?" Zoomchard refined, watching Pacho stand up and grate the dust off his back.

"Neutral nation? They joined us eight years ago." Pacho cackled.

"They're the air force you've probably heard about. That country is stacked with war jets." Anatolfia coached Zoomchard, pointing her finger at the sky, imitating a plane flying by with the noises.

Zoomchard nodded nonchalantly to Anatolfia's illustration, groping the feeling of memories as he felt himself subconsciously blabbering on, questioning and answering, telling stories like he was on a close basis with these two robots who acted like parent figures.

"What about the sun? I have heard of it but never seen it." Zoomchard raised a question.

"The sun? Boy, that is long gone. It's been gone for five centuries!" Pacho empathised with a chortle. Zoomchard was surprised to hear the truth but also felt a little bit sad that war had stopped Zoomchard from ever seeing the sun again.

"Do you know what caused it?" Zoomchard implored.

"Some scientific thing about our planet drifting off and orbiting it's kind of gravity that's keeping us high, I don't know. I'm not that brainy like others." Anatolfia murmured, swaying her hand sideways back and forth.

"Are you okay, bud? That girl did attack you after all," Pacho diverted the attention onto another subject as he interrogated Zoomchard with a curious point, placing his hand over Zoomchard's shoulder to caress it gently for a few seconds before Pacho removed his hand away.

"Oh, I'm good. She was barking a lot about me being a monster and having nicknames like 'Phantasma, The Shifty Deuce'. She wasn't that tough in the fight though." Zoomchard rambled.

"That is one chilly name to hear. Phantasma is a real nickname given to a mysterious individual that has traumatised nations opposing the QUdensk Alliance. Their kill count is unknown but if counted, would probably surpass the most dangerous soldier alive." Anatolfia fretted as she played with her fingers anxiously.

"Oh, so it is the real deal? Why are you afraid though?" Zoomchard inquired, glancing his eyes at Anatolfia's frigid fingers.

"She thinks she saw him in one of her battles. Well, she says it's a he, I'm not sure what their gender is," Pacho defined.

"Understandable…"

--

The chat ended after that and Zoomchard stayed up on the mountain while Pacho and Anatolfia went down after hugging it out. Zoomchard continued to walk across the flat ground, popping his head in and out of the clouds to entertain himself as he stopped near another edge. Down below was a mist, there exists an issue with seeing what was below but Zoomchard figured it out and mapped it in his head. In the scattering openings of the mist like a vortex; towers, buildings, skyscrapers, households, mansions, educational systems formed a small city — but it was dim, dark, lifeless and suspiciously quiet.

It didn't look like it was abandoned because it looked polished and well looked after. It didn't look it was bombed because there weren't any signs of fire or gaping holes in large crates where corpses are detached from the core. It was just a dead city, Zoomchard thought things that aren't seen from a robot's eye lived here peacefully. He was about to investigate but the speaker in his ear ripped and a voice on the after end was heard.

"Soldiers, come back to base. I was told we have been given an operation to attack a base in Allon territory." Derton said through the radio.

--

Fully sprinting after jumping down from the mountain had its positives when Zoomchard was getting to the meeting area quicker. But the negatives were that he felt his legs were on fire and was rotting away.

Closing in on the base, Zoomchard was greeted by the Bel Triplets and walked inside the hangar with the three of them, chattering away about something.

"Quiet! Everyone needs to listen," Derton raised his voice, shutting up any robot that was casually chatting, "This may be one of our riskiest operations yet. We've been ordered to launch a sneaky attack on one of Allon's bases that have been keeping their line strong. The thing is, it's seventeen of us against ten thousand of them." Derton added.

Zoomchard scanned the room and counted seventeen heads including him and fell upon Zerine's stare who was curling around Derton on the right far away. They were hinting a smile at Zoomchard and Zoomchard lowered his hand to wave. Zerine waved back after lowering their hand as well which made Zoomchard smile.

Zerine didn't possess an image of a smile but Zoomchard felt the connection and faith that Zerine was smiling back, maybe quietly giggling.

"This is getting us killed." Rolthe grunted, conveying his frustration a few steps away from Zoomchard on the left.

"It won't if everyone followed the script. Keep your heads low and follow my words, do not get impatient, do not speak either. We're sneaking between easily alerted soldiers here." Derton requested.

A new operation was dispatched, another risky operation for the regiment but the second operation for Zoomchard.

The operation was called, "Operation: Overnight".