(UNIFJ command, Hokkaido, October 2132)
"Order our UNSSD SOC element to prepare for battle," said the commander, looking at the 3D holographic map of the area surrounding the factory, with friendly units nearby highlighted in green.
"Hokkaido police SAT and the JSDF are enroute, but they won't be there immediately," he said to his aide. "The nearest asset we have is the US Marines contingent of UNIFIJ, deploy them there at once, those peacekeepers and Japanese police on the ground need backup now!"
(Factory)
The UN peacekeepers and the Hokkaido police have retreated into the factory entrance, firing back at the rioters that are advancing in, using the factory building itself to cover them as they retreated.
Phineas fired all of the bullets in his magazine, tapped a Hokkaido police officer next to him, and ran to the wall, reloading. This leaves the officer the last friendly combatant to retreat. He moved once he is sure that Phineas had reached a safe place, running towards Phineas' position while others opened fire, covering him. Yet, he was too slow, and a suicide drone landed by his feet, blowing him into the air. He landed back on the ground, the impact breaking his Exo-suit.
"AHHH!" he screamed, blood pooling around him.
"Covering fire!" yelled Phineas, rushing towards him.
A Rein subspecies peacekeeper threw a fireball at the snow on the ground near them, which quickly formed a smoke screen of sorts, covering them. This subspecies is characterised by their antlers that grow from their heads, similar to deer.
"Thanks Simo," replied Phineas, pulling the Hokkaido police officer to safety.
A Korean peacekeeper fired back at the rioters, retreating back to reload. "I need another mag!" he yelled.
Phineas passed him a loaded magazine, then checked the officer, quickly and expertly bandaging his wounds to stem the bleeding. Just as he was done, Sean slid into their position.
"Wassup?" said Sean, stunning Phineas and the other peacekeepers.
"Dude, what the hell are you doing here?!" exclaimed Phineas. "Aren't you supposed to have evacuated with the rest?"
Sean did not answer Phineas, instead he reached for the wounded officer's Howa Type 20 rifle. "Not too different from a SCAR, that's good," he commented. "Permission to join the battle?" he asked.
"Permission denied!" retorted Phineas. "You are—"
His sentence was interrupted when Sean pulled the trigger, gunning down several rioters that tried to flank them, killing them with headshots.
"Wow," exclaimed Simo Korhonen, surprised and impressed by Sean's skills.
"The Finnish vouches for me," remarked Sean, referring to Simo's nationality.
"Fine," relented Phineas.
Sean grinned, asking the wounded officer to hand him his remaining spare magazine, which he promptly did.
Just then, a few white UH-10E helicopters appeared in the horizon. "Nice, reinforcements are here!" yelled Simo in delight, seeing them flying the UN flag and the American flag. "Venom Ultras, it's the Marines!" he exclaimed, referring to the nickname of the UH-10E.
His happiness is short lived. An RPG fired by the rioters hit a helicopter in the cabin and it broke into 2, hanging together by a few pieces of metal, and crash landed. The wreckage landed between the UN peacekeepers, Hokkaido police and the rioters, bursting into a ball of flames. The remaining UH-10E helicopters also received hits, and were forced to pull back.
"Man... what can I say...you just had to jinx things…" remarked Sean. "Great, we have Venom down now! And the wreckage is RIGHT in the line of fire!"
Phineas sighed; he knows that they cannot just let the Marines in the downed helicopter remain there, yet its's too dangerous for them to go to their aid.
He signalled to their comrades in other areas, telling them that he will be going to crash site, asking for cover.
"Simo, on me," said Phineas.
"I will go too," said Sean.
"Ok then," said Phineas, counting down to 3. They then bolted for the crash site, miraculously not getting hit.
Sean shielded his face from the smoke, extending his palm out, generating water to put out the fire, with Simo doing the same. Phineas grabbed a working fire extinguisher on the ground and pointed it at the wreckage. The 3 managed to put out enough flames to gain access to the wreckage. Simo and Sean then froze the fuel lines shut.
Simo grunted, setting up his PKM machine gun on a debris, firing back in controlled bursts, covering Phineas and Sean, who are busy moving away debris to gain access to the helicopter's interior.
Sean concentrated, using Cosmic Energy to levitate up the last piece of debris, hurling it aside. The 2 entered the wreckage, gasping.
"Oh no…" said Phineas in shock, looking at the body fragments in the cabin. The blast had basically killed everyone inside, leaving behind piles of scorched flesh.
A white hand with black spots waved at them. "There is one alive there!" said Phineas. He and Sean quickly moved over, moving aside the debris on him and pulled him out. He is a Lita subspecies of the Sellardraxians. He has red eyes, white hair, and gills along his neck, showing the aquatic nature of the Lita subspecies. He is only wearing a JPC plate carrier over his MARPAT uniform, meaning that the Marines chose to enter the battle in light gear instead of full Exo-suits.
"Easy…" muttered Phineas, pulling off his high cut ECH helmet to check the Lita's head for injuries, finding a wound on the small, fin like crown that protrudes from his head, which he quickly bandaged.
"Ok, you are fine," said Phineas, checking him. The Lita stood up. He is clearly in shock and in pain, but otherwise largely unscathed. "Which unit are you from?" asked Phineas.
"Sir! I am Sergeant Louis Fletcher of the 2nd Reconnaissance Battalion," he said between pants, speaking with a Cajun accent. "My buddies…" he muttered, turning around to look at them, breaking down once he realised that he is the sole survivor.
"Hey look at me!" said Sean, grabbing Louis by the shoulders. "It's not your fault, ok?"
Louis breathed in, calming down. He grabbed his M27 RWK carbine, pulled the charging handle, taking up a position behind the wreckage, next to Simo. Simo stopped to reload, and Louis promptly covered him, firing into the enemy, screaming.
Phineas reached for the AR magazines on the bodies of the US Marines, sharing them between him and Sean.
"Oww…" a groan is heard next to them, and the 2 turned around, realising one of the pilots is still alive.
Phineas moved, while Sean covered him. He stopped at the cockpit, igniting a plasma blade from his Exo-suit, using the low power setting, cutting it open. He then unstrapped the pilot from her seat, pulling her out.
Just then, an RPG flew out, blowing off a section of the factory walls and taking the Hokkaido police with it. Sean's heart sank, knowing that their left flank is now exposed. True enough, more gunfire started to rain on their position as the rioters advanced. Louis advanced forward to a pile of debris and fired on them, but he is soon overwhelmed by their sheer amount of firepower and is forced to retreat back to the main wreckage.
A suicide drone carrying a petrol bomb hit Phineas, which immediately enveloped him in flames. Phineas screamed in pain, while the Exo-suit is preventing the flames from burning his body directly, the flames are still cooking him alive as he painfully collapsed, rolling around trying to put out the flames.
Seeing his friend wounded, Sean hesitated for a brief moment before quickly coating his arms with a thick layer of ice by rapidly removing heat from the air around him, running and grabbing Phineas, pulling him quickly behind the wreckage as bullets whizzed past them. The ice shield prevented the flames from burning Sean's hands.
Sean immediately removed the heat from the air around them, condensing the water vapour into water, putting out the flames on Phineas. He gasped when he is done, cooling down objects at such a speed and scale is extremely exhausting.
"Wang Sir!" yelled the remaining UN peacekeepers, one running over, only to get gunned down by a burst of bullets, falling on the ground.
"DON'T COME OVER!" shouted Phineas weakly.
"YOU SHUT UP!" Sean exclaimed, pulling the emergency dismantle chord on Phineas' Exo-suit, allowing it to come off him. He grabbed the medical pouch from Phineas' belt which is fortunately still useful, applying anti-burn medication onto Phineas' exposed skin areas.
"We can't hold on much longer. We need backup now!" yelled Louis into the long-range radio he is carrying as a communications specialist. Next to him Simo screamed, his finger not leaving the trigger of his PKM machine gun in a desperate attempt to keep the rioters away. A .50 bullet then hit him in his chest, and he fell, his hand slipping away from the machine gun. Louis quickly pushed him aside, keeping the PKM firing.
A grenade then landed between Louis and the wounded pilot. Without hesitation, Louis summoned a tentacle, grabbed the grenade and threw it away. Unfortunately, he did not have enough time, and is hit by shrapnel when the grenade exploded, falling to the ground in pain, looking at blood oozing out from the parts of his body not protected by his plate carrier.
Seeing another one of his comrades taken down by the rioters, Sean's blood boiled with rage. Acting on impulse, he grabbed Phineas' helmet, putting it on. "SCREW YOU ALL!" Sean roared, charging out from wreckage, generating a shield of ice in front of him as he did so. The rioters laughed seeing him charging at them unprotected and immediately concentrated their weapons, breaking the ice shield with ease, gunning him down before he can fire any shots, the bullets sending excruciating jolts of pain as they entered Sean's body, blood oozing out around him. "SEAN!" screamed Phineas in horror.
The rioters gathered around Sean's body, one of them giving Sean a kick as she gloated.
As this woman will show, karma is just.
A punch came straight at her arm, and before the woman realised it, her fingers and gun are sent flying. "AHH!" she screamed, her voice rising by a few pitches at the extraordinary pain from this impromptu amputation, while her accomplices froze, stunned to witness what happened. Sean then jumped up with such vigour that one cannot believe that he was just shot into a hornet's nest. He tackled down the woman, violently yanking off her suicide vest, sending pieces of metal and plastic dropping everywhere. He then stomped down on her left ankle, shattering it immediately and leaving a bloody mess of flesh and bone on the floor. The other rioters have seen and heard what is happening and all stood there, shocked by the sight that behold them: a Lin that is bleeding out from multiple gunshots and coughing out blood is on a primordial rampage, dismantling one of their peers with nothing but his bare hands.
Sean threw a fireball at the rioters, prompting them to back off. He then grabbed the woman up and violently yanking off both of the woman's bionic arms and throwing one at the crowd in front of him, prompting all of them to scream in horror, some even scared to the point of tears. They were all to horrified at this monstrosity in front of them that fear have overcame their minds and they all froze, not firing a shot.
Sean threw the still alive woman on to the floor, now missing both of her arms and her left ankle, he planted down the other arm in his hand onto the floor like a staff and yelled at the crowd.
"DROP YOUR WEAPONS, AND SURRENDER!"
The rioters all immediately dropped their guns and ran away in horror, only for them to run head first into the UN reinforcements, who swiftly detained them. The surviving UN personnel and Hokkaido police all looked at Sean in shock.
"Hardcore…" muttered a stunned Louis as he staggered over to Sean, being helped by an equally stunned Phineas, who had done first aid for him.
Sean blinked, feeling his consciousness fading as the adrenaline faded and he grew dizzy, his vision blurring as he fell, barely keeping himself steady and upright. UN reinforcements quickly hooked the woman up to a blood bag and cauterised her wounds and she is chained to the stretcher. Sean stared at the shoulder patch of the UN operator, a familiar low-visibility patch of a silhouette of Earth in space with an acronym pasted over that spells "UNSSD". A ring is wrapped around the image, with white letters spelling out "Special Operations Command"—a patch Sean also used to wear.
"Everything is fine now comrade," assured the operator in a thick German accent. Sean nodded weakly.
"You…must be…one…of those…liv…living robots," muttered Simo, being carried over on a stretcher, shocked too.
Sean smiled, shaking his head. "Now, me and my "siblings" don't like that name."
"My official designation is Artemis 9," he declared, "but I have a name: Sean," he said as he passed out.