The drive back to base from the bar is mostly silent with the piercing quiet broken only by the sound of a call from Amina, which Dele ignores.
"I just realised we didn't pay for the drinks" Segun says, but judgemental glares from his comrades force him shut up and sink back into his seat.
Upon getting back to the port and exiting their vehicle, they are greeted by an angry Amina who waits at the entrance asking, "What happened!?".
As Amina carefully inspects his battered face, Dele replies "We just had a few drinks, any problem?".
"Why were you taking them to a bar, they are teenagers!" she shouts while angrily slapping his shoulder.
"If they can handle billion naira weapon systems they can handle a glass or two" Dele replies, brushing her aside.
Furious, Amina shouts, "You two are confined to quarters!" at Michael and Segun who try to sneak past and avoid her wrath.
"And you... " she says, pointing at Dele, "We need to talk".
Sequence 2
Dele follows Amina to her room dreading what she has to say.
Once they get inside and he takes a seat, she hands him an ice pack and says, "Dele, what is going on?". Placing the ice under his left eye, Dele replies, "What do you mean?".
"Oh don't start that, not with me. Ever since you got here you've been different, always letting her push you around, why?".
Putting down the ice pack, Dele says, "When you get to this stage in life you will understand that concessions are necessary".
"We are on the same rank!" Anima shouts and Dele counters, "But the experience is different. When you got here you were a scared little girl and now you think you know it all!".
"I'm not that little girl anymore and you can't keep shielding me forever" Amina tells him.
Standing up, Dele heaves a deep sigh before saying, "You know what, do what you like, one day you'll see I'm right" and calmly exits the room.
Once outside, Dele makes a call and tells the person on the other line, "Get a forensics team to the last marked location, I want anything and everything there is to know about who went to that bar".
Sequence 3
Getting back to their room Michael immediately crashes onto the bed while Segun pulls out a tablet to continue work on designs for his suit.
While going over some training footage Segun asks Michael, "Hey did you notice something?"
Michael replies "You're always noticing things, rest jare" while using a pillow to cover his ears. "That woman, the move she pulled to kill that man, it looks very familiar," Segun says. "And? Crazy lady knows martial arts, what a groundbreaking story", Michael replies through the pillow.
"Not many crazy people could land that shot after three beers" Segun tells him as he searches through SDF records for more information. After several hours of sleep, Michael wakes thinking, "Damn I'm hungry" and tries to leave before remembering he's still confined to quarters.
"Want to play whot?" Segun asks and Michael moans, "We've been playing whot for four weeks straight" while playing around with flames out of boredom.
"You know you should probably work on your suit as well" Segun tells him as he tries to lighten the mood.
"Amina will take care of that, my job is to simply do the killing" Michael replies while shooting balls of fire out of his finger guns.
Just then Dele walks in and they both stand at attention to salute before he tells them, "At ease boys, I will keep this brief, during our outing yesterday, we inadvertently stumbled upon a Golden Son member having a meeting with an unknown woman".
"See I told you..." Segun exclaims before apologising, "Sorry sir please go on".
Dele continues on, saying, "The Golden Sons are a known anomalous advocacy group that's been active for several years now, but there's been a surge in violent attacks in the last year. The man who was shot is a high ranking member of the organisation, the woman as far as we know, does not exist".
"Doesn't exist? Like, she's a ghost?" Michael asks and Dele replies, "She might as well be. There's no identifiable information about her, no DNA was found on the cup and fingerprints couldn't be traced to any living person.
Whoever this person is, she really doesn't want to be found".
"So what are we going to do now?" Segun asks and Dele replies "Nothing".
Confused, Micheal asks, "Respectfully sir, why?" and Dele explains, "Going after them now would make it too obvious, their leader already disappeared last week and the group is on edge. We'll lure them into a false sense of security then strike".
"Well if we can't fight then can we at least leave this room?", he asks again but Dele sighs and tells him, "I have given Amina full reign to do whatever she wants so unless there's an emergency you two will have to wait... ".
Before he finishes talking, an alert blares throughout the facility and Micheal excitedly shouts, "That didn't take long" as he rushes out past Dele.
Segun follows closely behind and rushes to suit up in the Phalanx and meet up with Micheal on the exit deck of the facility.
Thirty seconds later, both boys are forced out of their suits onto the ground in front of a very irate Amina who shouts, "I thought I told you two to stay in your quarters!".
Looking up, Michael replies, "But it was an alert!" but Amina insists, "I don't care, get back to your quarters and stay there until I get back" before turning to get inside a waiting transport truck.
As Segun and Micheal pick themselves up and head back to their quarters, they see a figure wearing a strange uniform get out of the service elevator and walk into the truck followed by four other SDF troopers.
Sequence 4
Six hours later, Micheal is woken up by an alert on his watch which he ignores. The alert rings again and Micheal removes his watch, tossing it across the room and lying down to sleep.
Hanging upside down from the upper bunk, Segun taps Micheal saying, "Hey Amina might be in trouble" but he dismisses his concerns saying, "Look she told us to stay here so we're staying here".
Thirty seconds later, Amina forcefully projects herself onto the wall shouting, "What are you two doing!? Get to my location now!"."
" You said..." Micheal moans but Amina interrupts him shouting, "Forget what I said, get over here now!".
Wasting no time, they run to suit up and get on two separate transport helicopters, which set course to Okija.Once they get within 200 metres of the mission site, Micheal jumps out of the helicopter and flies ahead to survey the area. On the ground he sees an overturned truck and seven spots of pulsating light giving off blue and purple flashes.
As Micheal flies closer, he gets a warning notification from DIVA followed by a bolt of lightning from the ground which strikes him directly in the chest and sends him crashing out of the sky into the trees below. Quickly, Micheal retracts his wings before hitting the ground as the warning notifications intensify and purple light begins to flicker around him
Stepping forward, he is swarmed by three spear wielding Leonid warriors who rush at him from behind the trees.
In a half second, DIVA releases three anti-personnel missiles which explode and cover them in shrapnel but send Micheal tumbling back several feet. Still, the fighters are persistent and two more run over their fallen comrades to continue the attack.
Drawing his sword, Micheal leaps up and parries the spear of one fighter then sends her flying upwards with a strong burst of flames. He then turns to face his other attacker but before she can reach him, she is struck by a bolt of blue lightning that sends her crashing into a nearby tree.
The strange figure he noticed from before runs out from amongst the trees and tackles him to the ground just as three purple lightning bolts fly overhead, barely missing them.
Realising the figure is Moise, Michael spreads his wings and flies upwards out of the forest while holding her tightly. In the air she screams, "Let go of me!" and Micheal shouts back, "Do you want us both to die?" as he struggles to maintain altitude.
After several seconds, Micheal lands in a forest clearing and lowers his visor asking, "What happened here?" and Moise responds, "They're after me, just take the others and go!" as she pushes him aside and dashes back to rejoin the battle.
Frustrated, Micheal punches the ground just as a transmission from base comes in saying, "Red Eagle, this is Overwatch, focus on getting the wounded out, you can't fight this many Level 4s at once. Complete the extraction and we will initiate Phantom Protocol".
Micheal replies, "Orders understood" and closes his visor before flying up to complete the task. As he soars over the forest he shoots several fireballs ahead to distract his attackers who take the bait and miss hitting him by several feet.
He makes it to the overturned truck where Segun and seven troopers just arrived. With Micheal and two SDF men standing guard, Segun rips open the side of the truck to find Amina kneeling with a pistol pointed at him.
Realising it's the rescue team, Amina relaxes and holsters her gun as he helps her up asking, "Are you hurt?".
She replies, almost out of breath, "I'm fine, help me get them out" pointing to the four wounded sitting men in the corner.
With the help of the other troopers, Segun helps carry out the wounded before lifting out Amina who hobbles forward on one leg, covering her face with part of her scarf to breathe through the thick smoke.
Once the truck is empty, an SDF trooper rigs the truck with explosives and throws in a black canister before running to rejoin the rest of the squad.
Slowly, they approach a patch of clear land where the two helicopters are waiting and begin to carefully load the wounded onboard with Amina insisting the others go first.
Before she can get on however, a Leonid runs straight towards her and Segun with Micheal too far away to intercept.
Quickly, Segun pushes Amina onto the ground before rising to punch the Leonid in the jaw, sending her flying twenty feet into the air.
Once the danger is clear, he grabs Amina and jumps into the helicopter which takes off immediately leaving only Micheal who flies back to help clear a path for Moise to escape.
He burns a patch of forest creating a barrier between Moise and the other attackers giving her the chance to run as fast as she can eastwards.
Five seconds later, the truck explodes and from the blast emerges a thick white cloud that spreads quickly, killing every living thing in the area from the largest trees to small insects.
Through the radio, Overwatch tells Micheal, "No hostile entities detected, stand by for pick up".
The End?