Commander Fell walked into his office and sank into the wide leather chair overlooking a row of pictures, most of them photos of his Juggernaut and captain days, long before he retired. He let out a long sigh, his joints cracking as he leaned back.
Age, it seemed, was finally catching up to him.
But perhaps... it no longer mattered.
The new generation was rising, and maybe they'd be the ones that finally took down this ever-living threat.
He chuckled to himself, eyes moving to the blank television screen mounted beside his desk.
"I wonder if that boy I met in Yosen made it..." he murmured, reaching for the remote.
Before his fingers found it, the phone by his side rang. A loud ring, much louder than he'd remembered it being.
Fell picked it up without checking the ID. "Commander Fell."
A voice replied quickly, nervous. "Commander, I apologize for contacting you directly—"
"Warston?" Fell recognized the voice immediately. It belonged to Warston Hayes, commander-in-chief of the southern front. One of the few men he still respected.
"Is something wrong?" Fell asked, sitting forward. "Another Havoc-class sighting?"
"No, sir. Nothing like that," Warston said. "This is nothing related to the field."
Fell leaned back again. "So, what's the call about?"
Warston hesitated. "...I heard you recruited a boy of mine into the Federation."
Fell blinked. "Oh yes... Magenta, you mean? He did something reckless during the Wyrm incursion. Something so stupid, I saw it as impressive." Fell said. "I offered him a trial for rider candidacy. I assumed you'd approve."
"I do, sir. It's not that." Warston paused again. "It's just that... Magenta isn't normal."
Fell chuckled. "He seemed perfectly normal to me. Bit of an oddball here and there, but as normal as any adolescent child could be."
Warston's voice turned grim. "Yes... he's a normal kid. Quiet. Average, even. Until he's in a mech."
"...Go on."
"It's like something switches on in him. Like when that cockpit closes, he becomes an entirely different person."
Before Fell could reply, the television flickered to life on its own. To the live broadcast of the exams.
His eyes narrowed as he saw the overhead view: a lone Brandt unit dashing across the sand, blade out. Cutting down one mech after the next. Its movement's were fluid, efficient, and absurdly fast. Bullets rained down, but none of them seemed to matter.
Moving that way in a standard mech, albeit a higher quality Brandt was almost impossible. Then as the camera panned out of the destruction, a name tag appeared just to the side of the screen.
Fell leaned forward, staring in disbelief.
[Rookie Pilot: Magenta Hommes]
[Mechs Destroyed: 6]
[Total Points: 30]
"That's not possible..." he muttered.
Warston kept speaking. "We started putting him in broken down scrap units to see if it was luck... but it didn't matter. He still got the highest kill count in every sim. Every live drill."
A pause.
"Then one night," Warston continued, "he got left behind. Power grid went dark, comms were out. He was stuck on the frontlines alone, with nearly a hundred wyrms closing in."
Fell straightened. "He survived?"
"He came back in the morning. Walked into the mess tent like nothing happened. And the craziest thing. There wasn't even any external damage on the mech. Not even a scratch."
Warston's voice dropped to a whisper.
"After that day... the soldiers started calling him something else."
He gulped.
"The Demon of '62."
___________________________________
Four gunshots rang out.
Magenta bolted forward, his mech cutting through the sand like a missile, much faster than he thought it could even move.
He wasn't used to this.
In the army, he'd only ever piloted Ruspa 81s—slow, durable brutes with barely any finesse. But the Brandt? It moved like a ghost, light on its feet. And before he even registered it, he was airborne.
He landed hard, blade-first, the sharpened metal shrieking as it carved through the internals of the first enemy mech.
The remaining three opened fire immediately, but not a single bullet found its mark.
Magenta shifted sideways, feet skimming over the debris, dodging fire like the bullets moved in slow motion.
He weaved between plasma shots and the swing of a long sword, then with a quick twist, he stabbed through the second mech. Sparks burst from its reactor as he yanked the blade free and shoved the husk aside.
The last two stepped back, weapons still raised, but it was half-hearted now. Like even they didn't believe it would help.
"Not gonna shoot?" Magenta's voice came through the comms. Less like a taunt and more so a genuine question.
"Stay back!" Carter snapped. His mech's arm twitched, swinging its gun in front. "You... you shouldn't be able to do that! Not in a Brandt! That's it, you have to be cheating!"
"Cheating?" Magenta paused as his cockpit lifted, one hand raised, finger pointed like a teacher mid-lesson. "Now, now... false accusations are a dangerous habit."
Just before his sentence was over, a burst of gunfire tore through the air, but Magenta had already vanished, dashing back and to the side. The bullets tore into a ruined building behind him, collapsing its last standing wall.
To his right, Joseph stood frozen. His mech's gun trembled in its hands.
"What are you?" he whispered. The weapon slipped from his grasp, landing with a heavy thunk in the sand.
The mechs cockpit closed again, and it walked forward, reactor core burning endlessly.
"This shouldn't have been how it went down." Joseph said, "we outnumbered you guys..."
Magenta surged forward again. One mech hand slapped Carter's rifle away, the other driving his blade into the reactor with brutal precision. The cockpit lights dimmed instantly. The mech keeling over like a sack of potatoes.
Joseph stumbled backward, his mech scraping against the ground in a desperate crawl.
"This wasn't how it was supposed to go," he muttered, voice cracking. "We planned it out, we planned it all out... that must be it, you must be cheating. YOU HAVE TO BE CHEATING—!"
Magenta's blade pierced the mech cleanly, sinking into its core. A soft whirr followed. Shutdown complete.
Silence.
Then the hiss of hydraulics. Magenta's cockpit opened. Wind whipped across his sweat soaked face. Sirens still screaming from within.
He clutched his chest, heart hammering.
"Oh God," he said, laughing breathlessly. "I thought I was done for."
But no one laughed with him.
Cosmos. Valentina. June.
They all stood out of their mechs now. No one moved. No one spoke. Their eyes locked on Magenta, staring straight through him.
Was something wrong? Did they think he was weird for being able to use a mech that well? What were they about to do... what were they about to say?"
Cosmos walked up, just underneath him now. And Magenta braced for impact, eyes squinting, teeth clenched.
"That was so cool!!!!" Cosmos screamed out, jumping beneath him, arms and legs shaking. "How the hell could you even move like that, I've never seen anything like that before, definitely not in a Brandt!"
"Heh?"
"Did anyone time that?" Valentina said, "that had to be some sort of a new record no?"
"That was cool..." June said, glancing at Magenta's mech, arms pumping. "You were so fast."
Magenta didn't know what to say. Back in the army, once they saw what he could do in a mech, they'd shunned him, called him a demon. Maybe it was fear, maybe jealousy. But whatever it was... this didn't feel like that.
He scratched the back of his head with a nervous laugh. "It's nothing, really."
"But we can't go any further." June added, looking at the cracked remains of his mech.
"Yeah," Cosmos said, turning as well. "I'm sorry, Magenta. Our mechs are totaled."
"We're so gonna lose this," Magenta sighed. "Should I just power down and come out?"
They looked at each other, then back at him.
"You just took out four guys. With only a blade."
"Doesn't matter," Magenta replied. His mech staggered, red icons flashing on the screen. "I still have to deliver the convoy for us to win. And this thing won't get me far in its state."
"So we lost the exam before it even started." Cosmos slumped, hands on his hips. "Well, there's always next year!"
"No there's not, idiot." Valentina smacked him upside the head, stepping forward. "Applicants can't retake the exam two years in a row."
"Oh yeah... that's right." Cosmos blinked. "Well, there's always the year after that!"
"Two years?! My mom's so gonna kill me..." June dropped to the ground, curled up like a flipped beetle. "What do I do? What do I do...?"
"I suppose this is what it's come to." Valentina said to herself as she stepped forward, eyeing Magenta's mech, at the broken leg, torn shoulders, and punctured chest. Most of it was cosmetic, but the real issue was the chest wound.
The reactor had been hit. A few more hours and the power core would drain out entirely.
Unless someone fixed it.
"Alright. Magenta, lean the mech down and check if there're any spare tools left inside. You guys too," she ordered. "Go check your cockpits."
"Wait... you can fix mechs?" Cosmos asked.
"My dad's a federation mechanic. I just watched him a lot growing up." She sighed, already climbing into her own downed unit. "Of course, I'm not saying I can actually do this..."
"I believe in you!" Cosmos shouted.
"Shut up!" she snapped, already rummaging. "Now go search for tools!"
The two scrambled off, hunting through their wrecked mechs for anything usable—spanners, pliers, anything. According to Valentina, she needed something to pry open the reactor casing and replace the core.
But their units were dry. No tools. No spare kits. Just empty compartments and air freshener filters.
Maybe this was really the end. Even if Magenta had finished the convoy run, it wouldn't have been enough. Not with their individual points. No team would've picked them.
"You guys need a toolbox?" came a voice.
It belonged to Ned Lukkes. The first enemy unit who'd spoken to them, the one that had said something about dying with dignity.
"We don't want anything from you!" Cosmos barked. "You ambushed us and you destroyed our mechs!"
"That's how the exam works, no?" Ned shrugged. "I'm not apologizing. But if you don't want it..." He placed the toolbox near their feet. "Your call."
"We'll take it," Magenta said, then looked to Valentina, who peeked out from her cockpit.
"You can use that?"
"Depends."
She jumped down and cracked the box open, scattering the contents across the sand. Most of it was fine tune junk, like gear oil and ultra specific screwdrivers. At least until she opened a hidden latch.
A wrench. Pliers. And a handheld welding torch.
Exactly what she needed.
"Alright, Magenta. Lie down for me," she said, pulling a welding helmet over her face. "This won't hurt a bit."
"You know you're not operating on me, right?" Magenta chuckled as she approached, her grin hidden behind the mask.
"Right?"
"Right!?"
The mech lay flat on its back, lowered close to the ground. Its systems powered down, and the reactor slowly bled out the last of its heat and energy.
And as it cooled down enough, she jumped on, going straight to work.
A proper engineer would've used cranes and scaffolds, maybe even drones to patch it up in a cleanroom. But they had none of that.
Instead what they had was a feisty Latina, wielding a welding torch like the blade of Olympus.
And as sparks flew, falling across her visor, Cosmos and June dragged a reactor salvaged from one of the downed enemy mechs. Magenta helped haul it in, forcing the core into place.
The heart transplant was complete.
And when Magenta sat in the cockpit once again, the alarms were gone. The red lights too. His mech was running again, barely.
And it looked fine... if you ignored the gaping hole in the center where the reactor was held in place with loose screws, burnt metal and what looked suspiciously like tape.
"Think that'll get you through?" Valentina asked, watching him test the limbs.
"If I don't trip... or get shot... or sneeze too hard..." Magenta muttered. "Yeah. Should be fine."
"You better be!" she warned, welding torch still burning in one hand. "If you fail now, the next time I open a chest, it won't be your mech's."
Magenta gulped and with a wave he walked back to the Convoy, standing by it as it began to walk forward. Tracing the path.
The attackers had already set out, and would most likely meet him soon. So he needed to find some cover, getting into confrontations at his state was a death wish.
The mech's cockpit fell over, hydraulics pressing together. And he moved through the sandy planes once more. Though this time. As the only member of his team.