A crimson red sky stretched on as far as the eye could see. The sun had begun to rise, revealing the truth that had transpired during the night. There was no sign of the Armored Suits that had launched the attack, but it didn’t really matter. They had already done enough damage.

Shay had fallen asleep in one of the relatively untouched hangers. The attack had managed to spare some, and the damage allowed him to sneak in through the heavyset steel doors. He had managed to find a large pack of survival rations and had made himself breakfast. Even though his heart wasn’t there, he forced down the food as if he were a machine.

Light filtered in through the windows, giving him enough to see the interior in its full glory. A large flat bed is lying in the middle of the room, with something lying on top of it, covered by a large black tarp. The hidden thing was large, slightly too large to even get through the front doors. It must have been assembled inside.

Finishing the last of his breakfast, Shay wanted to get a good look at whatever was underneath that tarp. He had already missed the evacuation, assuming there was one, and would be stuck until the army sent someone to check out the base. That wouldn’t be until the war had ended. The Federation was pressed for time and resources and trying to reinstate a destroyed base would be the least pressing of their concerns.

“They wouldn’t mind me borrowing this right?”

The tarp was attached to a nearby truck, with its ring still hooked up to the truck’s hook in the back. It was a simple job to rewire the truck’s ignition to start. The engine made a loud groan as Shay put it into Drive and pressed on the gas at full throttle. With a whoosh, the tarp came off, revealing to Shay what it tried to keep secret.

“No way. This is… a Federation Armored Suit.”

The red, white, and blue machine was lying down. Giving off the impression that it was simply just sleeping. On its forehead, a golden V-fin which shone when the sun’s rays struck it. Mesmerized, Shay stared in utter fascination until he heard a sound. It was faint at first, sounding like a set of distance footsteps. But then, it grew louder, with a mechanical ringing that sent off alarm bells in his head.

“They’re back!?”

Jack Hill scanned the environment, scrolling casually left to right as he waited for the scanners to pick something up. He drummed his right hand on the right control stick and gave off an audible sigh.

“What’s wrong Jack? Tired?”

Over the radio, his fiancé, Jill François followed suit, looking over the areas her significant other wasn’t checking. Their part had been over, but she had never discovered the main target they had been instructed to find. Commander Char had reported in that she never encountered the prototype either, so she gave the task for them to finish.

“What an easy job.”

She said aloud, moving past Jack’s machine and opening fire on a nearby hanger.

“The sooner we confirm the damn thing is gone, the sooner we can get back home.”

“I can’t wait for our wedding.”

“Yeah, I’m excited too babe.”

Jack had met Jill during his time in college. He had been studying archeology, hoping to travel to earth someday to help excavate long lost artefacts, or scour ancient ruins in search of history. Jill wanted to be a registered nurse, and their paths would inevitably meet when Jack was injured during a mock excavation to get used to Earth’s natural gravity. She was the one who took care of him while he recovered.

“Hey babe, you remember the time we first met?”

“How could I forget? You went in and saved all those people during the mining accident.”

“I’m grateful for that. I really am. I got to meet you of course.”

Near the belly of the Armored Suit, the machine’s hatch suddenly opened as Shay came closer. In that moment, something changed in Shay. He himself had no idea what propelled him to do what he was thinking. Without a second thought, he jumped down into the cockpit of the Armored Suit. With a hiss, the machine’s cockpit closed, blocking all light from entering. It didn’t take long for Shay’s eyes to adjust. The cockpit had an emergency light that turned on.

On the instrument panel before him, a booklet had been taped. Tearing it off, he opened the still new booklet. As he flipped through the pages, he came upon the System Operations section. There, he learned the machine is named the X-Gain and ran through the steps needed to activate the Armored Suit. With a silent roar, the X-Gain’s engine kicked into ignition. As Shay wrestled with the controls, the beast sent out a stream of fumes from its chest vents and began to move into an upright position.

Working the pedals, the X-Gain’s left leg managed to move off the bed, and using the right leg as support, managed to get it standing. As it moved into its standing position. The X-Gain tore through the roof of the hanger as if it were tofu. With ease, it moved through the heavy reinforced steel and burst out as if it were an insect emerging from a cocoon.

Jack saw it first. His scanners replied to him that the Armored Suit it had identified was an unknown. Instead of cringing in fear, he gave out a hearty laugh.

“What the hell kind of Armored Suit is that?! Looks like an action figure! What a joke!”

Jill turned in the direction her lover is facing. Usually she joined in on his usual quips about the Federation, but she had a strange feeling. A woman’s intuition is what people referred to it as.

“Be careful Jack! We don’t know what that thing is capable of!”

“Bah! Thing must have been made in under a week! Bardone forever!”

Aiming his machine gun, he fired off in controlled short bursts. Screaming, Shay felt the impact reach the cockpit from a direct hit. Opening his eyes, he realized that that was still alive. The X-Gain’s frame and body were constructed from a special type of titanium constructed on the moon. This made the machine much stronger than the conventional Armored Suits that Bardone fielded and gave it a needed advantage on the field.

The included booklet went into detail on the X-Gain’s inner workings, how to perform maintenance and the various functions of the control panel. It also covered topics of the X-Gain’s weaponry, and it showed how to properly utilize them in combat. The X-Gain came with two built-in beam sabers, located in its backpack. Intense plasma that could cut through even reinforced titanium.

Releasing the beam saber from the backpack, it made a buzzing sound as the plasma formed into the shape of a blade. The saber itself made use of magnetic technology, allowing it to limit where the energy could go and force it into a manageable shape.

“What the hell!? It’s got a sword!”

Jack stepped back slightly, allowing his Armored Suit to record observational data about the X-Gain. Then, with a twisted smile, he threw away his machine gun. Most Vyrans came with a standard issue heat sword, who’s edges were superheated to allow it to cut through solid objects. With a faint red glow, Jack switched on the energy circuit and the Vyran’s engine shuddered slightly. Vyran Model II’s suffered from a weak hydro fusion engine, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous on the battlefield.

“Watch me Jill! I’ll get a promotion and we can live our lives away from this war! Die Federation dog!”

“Jack no!”

Screaming a war-cry, Jack charged forward, swinging the Vyran’s right arm back and bringing it down sideways. Still not used to the controls, Shay watched as the weapon came crashing down. With a loud clang, the heat sword made contact with the X-Gain’s armor. Instead of slicing through it like Jack had expected it to, the weapon instead came to a screeching halt.

“What!?”

“Stay away!”

Panicking, Shay twisted the control sticks and moved the arm that held the beam saber. It tore through the Vyran II’s armor, and had split it almost in half from shoulder to stomach. With sparks, the Vyran II fell backwards, landing with a heavy crash. Shay had cut cleanly through the cockpit and incinerated the pilot.

If Jill could have screamed, she would have. Something inside of her made her retreat, something that surpassed her basic rationality. Over the radio, she had heard Jack scream for help as the X-Gain’s beam saber ended his life. Tears welled up in her eyes, as she put distance between her and the Federation’s Armored Suit.