Sequence 1
A small boy is lying on the grass, an AK-47 by his side, staring blankly at the sky.
Another older boy throws a stone at his head saying, "Kabiru wake up! You are supposed to be on watch!".
Kabiru grumbles and sits up, staring blankly at the trees. He thinks to himself "It feels like I've been here for years now, when will this all end?".
The boys walk around the forest,with Kabiru hurriedly setting traps and improvised explosive devices along the way then head back to their camp to prepare for the Jumu'ah prayers.
They store their weapons away, change their clothes, and thoroughly wash themselves before gathering with the rest of their group which included women and young girls seated separately.
Kabiru sits and eagerly listens to the speech given by one of his commanders, Abba Mustapha.
As he concludes his speech he says, "May Allah bring strength from above to crush his enemies, Takbir!".
"Allahu Akbar"
"Takbir"
"Allahu Akbar".
On completion of the third Takbir, Abba Mustapha and several men standing near him are instantly blown to bits by one of Micheal's fire blasts.
The whole camp is thrown into confusion as smoke fills the area and the insurgents start shooting wildly.
Kabiru frantically looks around, dazed and confused, as Red Eagle grabs one of the insurgents and launches him into the air. He pulls another into the smoke as the insurgents shoot at him, accidentally hitting two girls at the other side who were trying to escape.
Overwatch tells Red Eagle as he snaps the terrorist's neck, "That attack wasn't strong enough, make a wall of fire and cut off their escape".
Michael flies above the treeline and burns the forest below. As he turns to make another pass DIVA warns him "Missile! Missile! 330!".
The miniaturised active protection system destroys the missile before it hits him but the blast knocks him out of the air and into the trees below.
He groans, "DIVA... status report!" and DIVA tells him, "Threat has been neutralised by ground forces, minimal damage sustained".
Still reeling from the blast, Michael pulls broken branches off as he says, "That didn't feel minimal".
A few seconds later Overwatch updates Michael on the situation, "There is a cluster of fighters and vehicles two kilometres northeast of your current position. Air Force jets are enroute to bomb the area, after the strike, descend and eliminate all targets" and he replies, "Copy that".
Unknown to him, Kabiru has been watching, rifle in hand from behind a shrub. He stares at Michael's glowing red wings and scale armour thinking, "This thing is the devil!".
Just then, Michael turns around and is about to blast him but hesitates upon seeing it's just a small boy.
Kabiru however shoots once out of panic but the bullet simply glances off the side of Michael's visor.
The jet flies overhead and Micheal says to himself, "Well that's my cue" before launching himself into the air following its flight path.
As the dust settles Kabiru turns to run away but he accidentally steps on one of the IEDs he planted earlier in the day, killing him instantly.
Sequence 2
The jet strikes it's target precisely and Red Eagle descends into the fray to complete the mission.
The weapons system officer sees a red flash reflecting off the cockpit canopy and asks the pilot "Hey did you see anything?".
The pilot asks "Like a missile? No, I didn't see anything".
The weapons system officer says, confused, "I could have sworn that I saw something".
On the ground Red Eagle is met with heavy resistance by the surviving fighters. Unable to push through the hail of bullets he dives into a damaged building and asks Cypher for help, "That anti aircraft gun is going to shred me, I can't get close".
She tells him "DIVA has determined their firing pattern. Follow the path on the HUD and attack with anti personnel missiles".
A line flashes on the HUD and he flies quickly from the hole following it. Once behind the trucks he destroys two of them with miniaturised missiles from compartments in his shoulder.
Realising the situation, the insurgents retreat and Red Eagle pursues. He sets two trucks ablaze before Overwatch warns him to fall back "An Air Force jet is moving towards your position for another bombing run, leave before you get caught in the blast!"
Frustrated, he pulls away and watches from afar as the jet bombs the convoy then flies back to Cypher's position.
She tells him, "Congratulations on your first mission. You did well although you damaged my suit more than I expected".
A surprised Michael looks down at the suit and says, "I barely scratched it!".
Amina runs her fingers over the suit and points, "Without the suit, this would be fatal... this would have destroyed your legs...and this would have taken your ear off".
His wings and claws retract as he says "Well it didn't" and she responds, "We're covert ops, you can't be with the suit all the time and some enemies have weapons that will damage you regardless of what you're wearing. Either way we'll go over this in the debrief, get changed, we're leaving soon".
Michael enters the container and the suit is taken off his body piece by piece.
Amina hands him an SDF combat uniform saying, "Wear this, you'll need to fit in".
He quickly puts it on and boards a transport truck which takes him back to NAF Maiduguri.
Sequence 3
Once safely in NAF Maiduguri Michael is escorted to an office far away from the other buildings with Dele Bankole,Amina and several other SDF personnel inside.
Dele tells him "Michael sit down" as they put on a projector and turn off the lights.
They show him clips of the previous battle from different angles and Dele explains "You performed according to our predictions, your use of pyrokinesis is devastating but requires more control. Your movement both in the air and on the ground are effective although not very creative, you will need to be quicker and more agile in the future. Overall a decent training mission however you made one fatal mistake".
He shows the interaction between him and Kabiru and asks "Why did you hesitate?".
Michael responds "Because he's just a boy".
Dele slams his hand on the table shouting, "Wrong! That is a threat".
Michael says, "I can't willingly kill a child, regardless of what he did".
Dele interjects "That doesn't matter, what matters is the secrecy of our operations. We can't always have someone on standby to wipe their memories away, reducing our media footprint is what keeps everyone safe, even if it means making hard choices".
Michael relaxes and says "Understood".
Dele stands up straight and says "Good, now I invite Amina to give her own assessment".
She steps up and changes the projected material to a blueprint of the AVES MK5 saying "With the current materials available and the limited time I had, I must say the suit performed beyond my expectations. Michael still needs more time with it, the variety of weapons I could add was limited because of weight concerns and his utilisation of DIVA is less than ideal. If we can sort out these issues we will have a versatile asset on our hands".
Dele shuts off the projection saying "Thank you for that presentation, I will draw up a training schedule, you are all dismissed".
Everyone leaves the room and Michael runs up to Amina asking "Hey I know we're busy saving the world and everything but I can't do it on an empty stomach".
She smiles and tells him, "Sure, follow me I was just about to get lunch".
They walk together silently and Michael notices the SDF guards aren't following him so he asks, "Why aren't they following us?" and Amina replies "They don't need to".
Puzzled Michael asks again, "What do you mean 'They don't need to', what if I decide to fly away?".
She sighs, "If I told you why, you wouldn't like it, so let's work together on this. I'm trying to build something here, don't knock it down".
Michael bends his head, exhausted and says "Well you are good at building things".
She blushes slightly and they walk quietly to the canteen.
Sequence 4
Later that night in the forest, four women wearing traditional Fulani clothes scour the battlefield.
One of them touches the ground and says "A powerful spiritual energy was here, it is long gone but I still feel it's presence".
They search the area for the dead, ignoring the badly mutilated and burnt, then load them onto donkeys.
One of them stumbles upon Kabiru's pale corpse and asks "Shall we take this one?".
Two of the women come in for a closer look and one says "He is young, but may still be useful".
They pick him up and head westward into the night.
The End?