Bit hit the ground first. Bubbles dropped a heartbeat later. They split left and right and slammed into the massed Plando line—metal and armor flying, shields cracking, limbs cartwheeling away. In seconds they’d torn through more than a dozen.
Bit’s 2D Blade was exactly as Walt remembered: it sliced through mech plating like it was air. But Bubbles’ style was a new kind of terrifying—his two-meter halberd swept in huge arcs, stabbing, chopping, hooking, scything. Anything that entered his reach stopped being whole.
Up on the roofline, Little White and Merc worked in perfect rhythm. Merc stayed cold, scanning the whole field, picking off targets that could actually threaten the two monsters below. If nobody stood out, he simply chose someone at random and erased them. Little White’s nanovirus arrows were worse: they made enemy units lose IFF and turn on each other. She triggered pockets of chaos all across the plaza.
Walt froze, stunned—not by the raw combat power, but by how casually they were disobeying Julian’s orders, as if “don’t engage” was a suggestion.
“Little White, right side—big one,” Merc said, still firing.
A branch street to the plaza’s right opened onto another avenue. A Bloodthirster was scrambling toward them between buildings.
Little White started to jump down to intercept—then Walt caught her shoulder.
“I’ve got it.”
“You…sure?”
He didn’t answer. He dropped straight off the roof and sprinted through the gap between buildings toward the Bloodthirster.
It locked onto him at once. The red targeting reticle snapped onto Walt’s chest—confused, maybe, that an Exiler was charging it—but ready to kill anyway.
Walt knew Bloodthirsters. He’d lived among Plando long enough to know every flaw in their design.
He accelerated hard, darted into its blind spot, and ignited his ion blade. By the time the Bloodthirster tried to backpedal, Walt had already cut through the left foreleg. A burst from his V30 shattered the right foreleg’s hydraulic strut.
The Bloodthirster pitched forward and crashed. Walt leapt onto the turret, chopping down fast—severing the laser emitter, then the optics. The unit went dead as a fighter.
A red dot still sat on Walt’s chest.
He didn’t think—he just rolled off the turret.
Half a second later, a crimson beam lanced through the air, tracking his movement and raking across the crippled Bloodthirster. Walt snatched the FBZ pulse rifle off his back, used the wreck as cover, and fired on a second Bloodthirster sprinting in.
“Thut-thut-thut—” He targeted the front-leg hydraulics, same as before.
One strut snapped. The turret dipped, then steadied itself on the remaining legs. A panel flipped open on top: an ML-100 multi-tube rocket pod.
Walt swore. A Bloodthirster’s chassis couldn’t absorb that kind of splash. He dove into the nearest building.
BOOM.
The first Bloodthirster was tossed like a toy. The outer wall blew apart—but Walt was already out a different window, sliding behind another structure.
Dense buildings meant broken sight lines. The Bloodthirster lost him. When it reacquired, its rocket pod was already taking pulse-rifle fire from above.
The remaining rockets detonated in their tubes. The whole turret tore free from the base and rolled away in a smoking heap.
Two Bloodthirsters down—and Walt still couldn’t relax. The noise was too loud, the flashes too bright. More Bloodthirsters were turning toward the disturbance and converging.
And if they noticed him, they’d notice the plaza.
Walt ran.
He hit the plaza to find it carpeted in wreckage. Only a couple dozen Plando robots remained, firing as they retreated. Most had their backs to him.
Walt surged in—ion blade in one hand, V30 in the other—and dropped three in a blink.
He slashed at a fourth—
And the fourth’s head lifted off its shoulders and flew away.
Walt jerked, startled, and saw Bit charging in, howling with glee. “Trash! Taste the wrath of two dimensions!”
Walt’s core went cold. He back-rolled just in time. Bit’s first cut missed and didn’t stop—his next slash whipped upward, absurdly fast.
Walt was still rising. There was nowhere to go. The blade was going to take him in half.
CLANG—
And a shriek.
Bit’s weapon was knocked aside so hard it almost tore out of his grip. Bit spun around, bewildered, to see Merc’s smoking barrel…and Little White’s horrified face.
“What the hell was that?” Bit demanded.
“Bit—it’s me,” Walt said, breathless.
Bit’s eyes widened. “Ah—!”
By then Bubbles had finished the last stragglers, and Merc and Little White were sprinting in. Behind them, a tide of Bloodthirsters and Plando units was already pouring into the plaza.
They didn’t argue. They ran—up the ramp to the upper level. At the ramp mouth, Bubbles yanked out a ridiculous, thick-barreled launcher and sprayed the ceiling and walls with heavy cylindrical rounds. The munitions thudded into place and stuck.
***
“You maniacs,” Julian barked over the channel. “You pick the worst moments to play heroes. Don’t forget Walt’s running a standard frame.”
“Relax, Julian,” Bit said. “We’ll protect him.”
“Sure. You almost cut him in half,” Little White snapped as she ran.
“Look around!” Bit protested. “In a melee, who can tell? I strongly recommend repainting him.”
Little White glanced at Walt. Annoyingly…Bit had a point. And the moment “color” entered her head, she got curious.
“Walt,” she called, “what color do you like?”
“Green.”
She laughed out loud. “That’s hideous.”
Behind them, the ramp filled with the clatter of heavy legs. Bloodthirsters were forcing their way in. Bubbles had timed it perfectly: his delayed charges hit zero.
WHUMPH—WHUMPH—WHUMPH—KRAAANG!
The lead Bloodthirsters vanished in fire. Steel beams sheared loose from the ceiling and crashed down, blocking the ramp mouth—at least for now.
***
“I’ll say it one last time,” Julian said, hard and precise. “Stop wasting time. Your job is to leave—fast. Once you’re clear, I’m triggering the T-PTB. I’m not handing Doomsday Fortress to Phantom Forge.”
“Understood.”
“The underground city can hold for a bit,” Julian continued, “but not long. The upper command hub is already taken. My network doesn’t reach above anymore. You’ll be offline soon. When you hit a safe point, message me immediately. Don’t let them kill me first.”
“Understood, Julian!!!”
“See you at Twin-Tower Fortress.”
Julian dropped off the channel.
The team stopped joking. They accelerated.
At the next junction, a few deployed micro-turrets unfolded. They didn’t slow anyone down.
They hauled Walt through the maze of Sector C, cut down a handful of scattered Plando units, slipped through a hidden blast door, and sprinted a long service corridor to a crude freight elevator.
The lift was oversized and rough, built for cargo. It groaned upward for a long, long time. When it finally stopped, the readout on the control panel flashed a simple truth: one more level above this was the open surface.
They stepped out onto a T-shaped loading platform. Ahead, a massive tunnel ran left to right, wide enough to swallow a convoy.
Walt spotted five ground-effect bikes lined up at the edge. They were like narrow one-person ATVs—fast, twitchy, built to skim just above the floor. Perfect for a breakout.
He’d already downloaded the handling package on the way. Little White had warned him: these things were touchy and took getting used to.
They mounted up and tore down the tunnel. Twin rails ran along the floor, leading toward the outside world; this had once been Doomsday Fortress’s supply line, abandoned after humanity fell.
Near the freight transfer station at the end, a concealed hardline relay sat hidden—Julian’s “safe point.”
The bikes skimmed low and fast. Walt found his balance and pushed up to two hundred kilometers per hour within minutes.
Two minutes later, Little White’s voice snapped over the channel. “Why is there light up ahead? This tunnel shouldn’t have any.”
They eased off, then saw it: a hole torn through the ceiling, daylight spilling in.
BANG—
Merc, with the sharpest eyes, whipped out a compact pistol and fired once. A spherical object dropped and bounced on the floor.
“Move,” Merc said.
They gunned it, hugging the tunnel wall as they shot past the opening. As Walt flashed by, he saw the object clearly.
A Plando scout orb.
“It didn’t see us…right?” Little White asked, too tight.
No one answered. No one could be sure.
They kept racing. Nothing happened.
And then the sound came—faint at first, then swelling.
A distant, furious bzzzzzzzz.
“Something’s closing,” Bit said.
Walt recognized it instantly. His voice sharpened. “Full speed. Ghost Bee fighters.”