The thunderous echoes of cannon fire sent shockwaves through the ground; the resonating thumps of metallic limbs across Terra moved in an orchestra. Blackened fields that were once crucial for the survival of humanity had become a no-man's-land of the stench of death and abominations.
Overhead, a tear in dimensional reality appeared as numerous giant ships materialized throughout the sky.
"Precursor ships warping in, Lieutenant Altair!" A static voice resounded throughout a dimly lit cockpit.
"Roger that, Command!" said a man donning the Covenant of the United Earth, with the name tag on his left upper chest reading Lieutenant Leonard von Altair.
"Those warping in overhead are a diversion!" Altair spoke with a clear and firm voice through the communication array before him. "Eagle Squad, defend our six!" His voice was deep but calm, carrying the weight of command.
"Affirmative, Lieutenant!" Confirmations flooded in—one after another.
Altair hovered through the interface, his fingers masterfully sending out commands while multitasking a system check. Once done, he gripped the controls with practiced efficiency, maneuvering his Spider-Class High-Mobility Ironside Mechanized Armor across rugged terrain.
"I can still save Terra..." he mumbled into the silent cockpit.
His eyes swiveled to the right, as if expecting something to appear, and with swift movement, he maneuvered his mech toward lower ground and aimed his cannon upward.
A shadow appeared. His hands washed over the interface as his eyes dilated, and with a press of the trigger, his mech fired the first shot across the cold and dark battlefield.
The entity was struck in the middle, and a cerulean flame erupted from its hull as it cascaded to the ground, followed by a radiant explosion of impossible colors.
"After that, that thing should appear." His eyes narrowed, focused with laser intensity on the forward interface.
"Adjutant, scan the surroundings and alert me if an unexpected variable appears," he commanded the mech's artificial intelligence.
"Affirmative. Based on the current readings, you seem tense, Lieutenant. With the statistical data of Loop 3,424 indica—"
"I don't need statistics currently, Adjutant," said Altair, his voice cracking, his eyes dilating.
"Affirmative, Lieutenant," said the Adjutant.
He knew there would be no more interference. But he just had to make sure.
"I have looped thousands of times, practiced, despaired, and paid with blood countless times." His eyes were forlorn, as if he had long ago jumped into the abyss and disappeared.
Images of families, friends, colleagues, and his lover Elena—their deaths, his failures—continued to haunt him. Yet the nightmare seemed never to end.
He straightened his body, tightly gripping the controls until his palms turned white. He tightened his jaw and gritted his teeth as hate and anger welled up inside his heart. Yet he knew it was all pointless.
How many lives had he wasted? Died, lived, and suffered?
"Emotions... are useless against them." He relaxed his grip on the controls and breathed out to calm himself. Within a few moments, he glanced toward the interface and saw that his heart rate had stabilized.
"Goo—" His words were cut off as the interface before him suddenly flashed bright red.
"Warning! Anomaly detected! Electromagnetic force signatures are rapidly rising around the battlefield, Lieutenant," the Adjutant announced.
His heart sank deeper into the abyss. "What?! There shouldn't be any more variables!" He slammed his fist into the interface board.
"Your stress levels are rising, Lieutenant. Based on recorded dat—" The Adjutant continued before it was cut off by Altair.
"Shut up!" His frustration continued to rise to the point that, to relieve his tension, he bit his lips until a stream of blood flowed down his ashen face.
"Warning. Injury detected. Bypassing authorization... Injecting nanotechnology..." The Adjutant hummed.
Multiple needles appeared from behind his cockpit and proceeded to inject him with a fluid-like substance.
"Hah. Even in despair, nobody wants to let me rest in peace." He mumbled as his vision cleared and his heart rate stabilized, calmness returning to him.
Despite his anger, his hatred, his emotions, he knew that the Adjutant was merely trying to help in its own way. However, despite all of that, a machine—an artificial intelligence—could never understand the complexities of emotions. Yet the Adjutant was right nonetheless.
He gazed back at the interface, his face filled with regret and acceptance.
"So this is it, huh?"
High above in the sky, a dimensional reality tear appeared. However, no Precursor ships emerged.
It was something else.
His eyes opened wide, mouth agape. "Adjutant, sc—"
"Unknown. There is no complete or partial information regarding that entity within the 3,424 iterations of your life," the Adjutant spoke before he finished, and for some inexplicable reason, he felt a strange sensation from the Adjutant.
The sky split open further as a giant Precursor device—or machine—started to fully materialize. Then, in the space of a heartbeat, he had a strangling feeling within his chest, as if hundreds, if not thousands, of souls had disappeared.
Within the middle of the towering machine, a pale blue light appeared and started emitting a strange frequency of sound.
"Agh!" He screamed in terror. "W-What is this sound frequency?!" His eyes wobbled as blood leaked from each of his orifices.
"Warning. Warning. Numerous anomalies detected," the Adjutant repeated. "Error. Error. Error." Until the Adjutant malfunctioned.
His heart was palpitating, adrenaline rushing forth. His body felt as if it were being skinned alive, and the heat—it was burning. Pain, neverending, until he stopped hearing things as his eardrums exploded into a rain of blood.
His vision was getting blurry, energy fading. With his last bit of strength, he glanced back at the interface. Eagle Squad—all over his HUD was the glowing bright red hue indicating fatalities.
He felt alone. He longed for the bosom of his mother, the warm arms of his lover, the laughter of his friends, until his vision began to fade. However, the vision didn't fully fade. A strange sensation came into his mind, as if someone were trying to communicate with him. He felt weird, yet he could understand the language.
"Why do you resist assimilation?" were the words he mumbled before he lost consciousness.
Three... two... one...
R.E.S.E.T.
But the command center did not materialize before him; rather, it was something else. The coldness remained, and the eternal darkness consumed him.
Then a flash of light appeared before him, and slowly he opened his eyes. There was something wrong. He frantically glanced around the interface, but there it was—sunlight, something he had not seen for the past thousands of iterations.
"What?... Where am I?"