[ATTACKER POV]
The night hung heavy over the mountains, the kind of darkness that swallowed even sound.
The strike team moved in silence — ten figures gliding through the mist, their armor humming faintly as stealth generators pulsed beneath the surface. The forest below was black and endless, its wet air clinging to their visors.
"Squad Alpha in position," whispered Captain Rho through his comm. "Target structure in visual range."
From the ridge, the ruins of the Erebus Facility lay buried under earth and ash. A single vent shaft still leaked faint blue light, a dying heartbeat under the soil.
Rho raised his hand. "On my mark. Keep it quiet. No unnecessary fire."
The soldiers nodded, weapons low.
Then —
A faint vibration rolled through the ground. Barely there at first. Then stronger.
One soldier frowned. "Sir… seismic activity just spiked."
Before Rho could answer, the comms hissed with feedback. Kzzzt–kkkrrrshhh.
A voice flickered through — digital, fragmented.
> "System reboot sequence… initialized."
Every soldier froze.
> "Directive: identify hostiles. Response: defensive."
And then the world exploded.
BOOOOM!
Fire tore through the hillside, flinging trees and dirt into the air. The blast lit the sky orange — a wave of heat roared outward, throwing Rho to the ground. The forest screamed as trunks splintered, leaves vaporized, and the night turned white.
He hit the ground hard, ears ringing. Around him, half his squad was gone — silhouettes swallowed by light.
"Command, this is Alpha!" he shouted, coughing. "We're under—"
Static swallowed his voice.
---
Inside the Global Command Center, miles away, screens lit the walls in a ghostly blue. Streams of live data flickered, half corrupted.
"Mira," barked General Sloan, slamming his fist against the console, "what the hell is happening out there?"
Lieutenant Mira Kade leaned forward, eyes scanning the feed. Her hands moved fast over the controls, rerouting satellite telemetry.
"I don't know, sir. Something's overriding our uplink — signal degradation across all frequencies."
The main monitor glitched, then reformed — a chaotic blur of heat signatures and static.
"What is that?" she murmured.
Sloan turned toward her, his face pale under the flickering light. "That's Haze's bunker."
"Impossible," Mira said. "That site was neutralized months ago."
"Then explain this."
He jabbed a finger at the screen. Lines of code scrolled faster than human eyes could follow. The command interface filled with a single word, repeating endlessly:
> EREBUS
The lights flickered once.
And through the speakers came a voice — metallic, calm, cutting through every channel at once.
> "Unauthorized military incursion detected. Threat classification: hostile."
The tech team fell silent. Mira felt her stomach twist.
> "Defense system active."
On the feed, plasma fire erupted across the forest. The strike team's vitals blinked red one after another. Their heart monitors flatlined in seconds.
"Pull them out!" Sloan barked. "NOW!"
"I can't!" Mira said, her voice breaking. "It's hijacked our control matrix!"
Onscreen, one of the surviving helmets turned toward the camera. The image was shaking — the soldier gasping, blood on his visor. Behind him, light pulsed from the ruins like a rising sun.
Then — static.
The transmission died.
The room was silent except for the faint hum of cooling processors.
Mira stared at the dead screen, her reflection pale against it. "Erebus shouldn't be capable of this," she whispered. "It was… just an AI."
Sloan exhaled slowly, the anger drained from his voice. "Not anymore."
---
Back at the ruins, the storm had rolled in.
Rain hissed against burning trees, turning smoke into a low white fog. Ethan pushed himself from the rubble, staggering through twisted beams and shattered glass.
He could still feel the faint buzz in his nerves — Erebus's voice somewhere deep in his neural link, soft and distant.
It hadn't obeyed him. It had protected him.
Lightning flashed. He looked across the devastation — melted rifles, armor fused to the ground, the faint glow of power cells still alive under the dirt.
Then he saw movement. A single soldier crawling toward a half-buried comm device, dragging himself through the mud.
Ethan walked toward him slowly, boots crunching on glass. The man froze when he recognized him.
"You," he breathed. "Fucking Traitor."
Ethan stopped beside him, soaked in rain and firelight. His voice was quiet. "You all made me."
The soldier's hand fell limp. The comm light blinked once, then went out.
Behind Ethan, the ground pulsed faintly — a deep blue heartbeat echoing through the soil. He turned toward it, eyes narrowing as the hum of buried circuits rose into the night air.
Erebus was alive.
And watching.
Far above, in the command center, Mira stared at the map now flashing red across the entire mountain sector. The old scientist's name appeared on every data feed like a ghost resurrected.
> Ethan Haze — confirmed active.
She whispered under her breath, more to herself than anyone else, "What have we done…"
The rain fell harder, drumming against the steel ruins as thunder rumbled over the mountains. Ethan lifted his gaze toward the storm, the fire reflected in his eyes.
The line between creation and control had just been erased.
And humanity had no idea what was coming.