The request went out quietly at first. Sirius Blake walked into Chief Engineer Loras' office, hands behind his back, posture unusually stiff. Normally, he would barge in with a grin and a joke, but today his voice was calm, steady, almost too formal.
"Sir, I'm asking for my deployment to be delayed."
Loras lifted a brow, surprised. "Blake, the higher-ups already cleared you for the field. You've been training for months. You're leaner, sharper—hell, you almost look like a proper soldier now. Why hold back?"
Sirius leaned forward, eyes bright. "Because I can make something better. Not just for me, but for every infantryman out there. Something that'll keep them alive, something that makes the chaos clearer. Let me do this first, and then I'll fight."
For a long moment, Loras studied him. Then the older man exhaled, folding his arms. "Fine. I'll push the request. High Command won't like it, but if you promise me this thing of yours is worth it, I'll buy you the time."
Sirius' grin returned—wide, mischievous, a spark of mania in his eyes. "Oh, it'll be worth it. You'll see."
The approval came down within the week. Somehow, the higher-ups trusted Blake enough to let him delay his first deployment. But the rumors started immediately.
"They say Renegade Blake chickened out."
"Guess he's not so fearless after all."
"All he knows how to do is hide in his workshop."
"If he's such a genius, why isn't he fighting?"
The words spread like wildfire through the barracks. In the mess halls, on patrol, during downtime, soldiers whispered that maybe the so-called Renegade was just a coward with a lucky streak.
But those closest to Sirius weren't so sure.
Stone Varga, gruff and steady, listened to a squad of rookies mock Blake in the heavy infantry prep room. "If he chickened out, then explain why my squad's still breathing thanks to his Carbine X." He silenced them with a glare that cut sharper than any blade.
Bear Ivanov, busy repairing his mech's right arm, chuckled when a mechanic joked about Sirius' delay. "Trust me, he's not afraid. If he's staying behind, it means he's building something big. And if he's building something big, I'll take that over one more body in the trenches any day."
Sparks Novik, always skeptical of Sirius' antics, admitted privately to Whisper Kade: "It's Blake. He doesn't stall unless it's for a reason. He probably has wires sticking out of his ears right now, laughing to himself."
And Shade, quiet as ever, just smirked when the topic came up. "Let the idiots talk. Renegade doesn't need their approval. He'll prove them wrong, like always."
In FAWS, the curiosity was sharper. Technicians peered into Sirius' corner of the workshop, watching him mutter and scribble sketches on scraps of paper, tossing them aside, only to laugh maniacally when a new idea struck.
"There he goes again."
"He's insane."
"Maybe. But insanity gave us the Carbine X."
Sirius ignored them all. He had a new mission.
Inside his mind, ARI's calm voice resonated:
> "Initiating Mission: Optic Helmet – Half-Face. Objective: deploy half-face optic helmet with minimap, ammo/thermal readouts, radio, and zoom functions. Dependencies: Requires Ammo Counter Display — All Weapons."
The sub-missions flickered in his vision, each line like a challenge daring him to fail.
1. Integrate 180° Minimap (upper-left HUD) → Pending
2. Connect Ammo Display (bottom-center HUD) → Pending
3. Install Built-in Radio & Long-Range Signal → Pending
4. Barrel Temperature Monitor (Heavy Weapons Only, left of ammo display) → Pending
5. Add Zoom Functionality: 3× Zoom + Zoom-Out Red Dot → Pending
Reward: Advanced Optic Helmet – Full-Face (360° minimap, squad vitals, overlays, 1x–10x zoom, auto-target red dot).
Sirius leaned back in his chair, grinning at the list. "Beautiful. Just beautiful. Alright, ARI… let's build a mask that'll make even the bugs jealous."
The days that followed blurred into a storm of tinkering. Sirius tore apart old visor tech, ripped HUD displays from shattered mechs, and scavenged every spare comm unit he could find. His bench became a graveyard of broken optics, cracked visors, and tangled wires.
The FAWS personnel gave him a wide berth. Sometimes he laughed softly as he soldered tiny circuits, sometimes he muttered calculations to himself, and sometimes, late at night, he let out booming cackles that echoed through the empty workshop.
"HAHA! YES! The minimap works! ARI, do you see this? It works!"
> "Correction: Prototype minimap functionality achieved. Calibration required."
"Calibration, schmalibration! Look at this beauty glow!"
One evening, Whisper passed by with a medkit in her arms and paused when she heard Sirius' voice. He wasn't talking to anyone they could see. She sighed. "Crazy as ever. But if it saves lives, I'll patch his wounds when he inevitably burns his eyebrows off again."
Progress came piece by piece. The minimap projection finally stabilized in the corner of his vision. The ammo display linked seamlessly to the micro-mag telemetry. The radio system crackled with static, then hummed alive when Sirius shouted into it, laughing at the echo.
"Renegade to ARI, do you read me?"
> "I read you, Sirius. You are shouting unnecessarily."
"Good! Means it works!"
The barrel temperature monitor was harder. He rigged sensors to heavy rifles, nearly melted two prototypes, and singed his gloves before ARI finally chimed in.
> "Thermal integration stable. Accuracy margin: ±3 degrees."
"Close enough to not cook a soldier's hands off. We'll take it."
The zoom was the last. He built lenses by hand, tested them on the firing range, and adjusted until the reticle sharpened like a hawk's eye. Three times magnification, clean, steady. Zoom out to red dot, crisp as a star.
When the first prototype helmet clicked together, Sirius held it aloft with trembling hands. The half-face plate gleamed faintly under the workshop lights, cables tucked into its frame, lenses glowing softly.
He slipped it over his head. The HUD flickered alive—minimap glowing at the top-left, ammo counter pulsing below, a small bar for barrel temperature humming quietly. The zoom lens clicked as he adjusted it, the world pulling closer and snapping back.
Sirius' grin was feral. "HAHAHA! It's alive! My mask! My eyes for the battlefield!"
The FAWS techs nearby sighed, some shaking their heads, some smirking despite themselves.
"There he goes again."
"He's insane."
"He's brilliant."
Sirius didn't care. He laughed again, loud and wild, the helmet glowing on his face.
> "Mission Progress: 100%. Prototype complete. Reward unlocked: Optics Helmet – Full-Face blueprint pack."
He yanked the helmet free, hugging it to his chest like a newborn child. "You'll keep them alive, won't you? You'll keep me alive too."
But even in his triumph, Sirius thought of the whispers. The rumors of cowardice. The doubts in the barracks. He smirked, shaking his head. "Let them laugh now. When this goes live, they'll choke on their words."
His friends would see. His enemies would see. The Hivebugs would see.
The Renegade wasn't hiding. He was building. Preparing. Waiting for the moment when the mask would turn doubt into awe.
And as the days stretched into nights, Sirius kept working, testing, refining, humming with manic joy as the war outside pressed on without him.
Inside his mind, ARI whispered one last reminder.
> "Next step: deployment, Sirius. Your mask is ready. Are you?"
Sirius' grin widened. "Oh, I'll be ready. More ready than they'll ever expect."
The mask gleamed on his bench, half-face, glowing faintly, waiting for its first true trial.
The Renegade's laugh echoed through the FAWS halls once more.