Boom!
shockwave ripped through the air as a ZED was hurled effortlessly through the reinforced concrete facade of a crumbling building. Dust billowed, settling like a gray shroud over the fractured concrete.
"Commander! The ZED is down, but we have to retreat more ruptures are coming!" scout said.
"No," the commander replied, his voice chillingly level. Without breaking his cold gaze, he raised his radio, punching a priority encryption code. "Bring it down."
Above them, tearing through the suffocating smoke and ash, a massive spaceship uncloaked, hovering like an apex predator before dropping a heavy-impact drop pod directly into the path of Chatterbox.
HISS-CLANK.
"WAR MACHINE ONLINE!" the pilot roared over the internal vox. The heavy unit spun up its dual barrels, unleashing a blistering torrent of high-velocity railgun fire straight into Chatterbox's torso, tearing chunks of armor away in a shower of white-hot sparks.
Chatterbox shrieked, an ear-splitting sound of grinding metal and fury, charging blindly toward the war machine. But the pilot didn't flinch. The machine locked its hydraulic actuators, threw its weight forward, and drove a brutal, bone-shattering Haymaker square into Chatterbox's face. The impact sent the behemoth crashing into the earth. Before it could recover, the war machine slammed its massive steel foot onto Chatterbox's chest, pinning it fast while point-blank railgun salvos liquefied its faceplate.
Simultaneously, the surrounding building. Phasers mounted on surrounding rooftops stabbed through the gloom with searing energy beams, while a squadron of heavy jets screamed overhead, blanketing the impact zone in a devastating carpet-bombing run.
"Wow..." the scout breathed, his jaw slack as he stared at the carnage before turning back to the commander.
Behind them, heavy boots crunched on the ash. A Refactor walked forward, behind him a Medic. With Kritcregs unit, then a blinding crimson beam lanced out, striking Chatterbox dead center and completely atomizing a smoking hole right through its chest cavity.
"I... I don't understand," the scout stammered, looking between the smoking crater and his superior.
"It's all part of the plan," the commander said smoothly, turning away as the war machine began hoisting the neutralized carcass toward an awaiting heavy-duty trailer. "If we hit Chatterbox with our full force upfront, it would just cut and run. But sending a small vanguard to bait it into a localized kill zone... well, it worked."
He tapped his shoulder mic, striding toward a waiting extraction chopper. "Clean this up."
He hoisted himself into the cabin just as his personal terminal buzzed.
"Yes?" he answered curtly.
A second later, his eyes widened in absolute shock.
"Hurry! Get me in contact with Doctor Xenon now!"
Far above the chaos, suspended in the silent, cold vacuum of the moon, Xenon surveyed the orbital theater. Every single rupture across the lunar surface and the surrounding planetary orbit had been destroyed. Even Earth's primary space elevator had been wrested from hostile control, locked down and fully repurposed under their banner.
"Doctor, you need to see this telemetry feed," an X-scientist reported, rushing over to hand over a ruggedized data tablet.
Xenon glanced down, his optical lenses narrowing as the data streamed across the screen. "Tsk. I should have known. But a mistake is easily corrected... luckily, I always keep a backup plan. Loji."
A shimmering cascade of code and data materialized instantly, solidifying into the sharp silhouette of Loji.
"Head back down to Earth. Wake the Emperor, and initiate the Final Enetradicion," Xenon commanded, his voice cold and absolute.
"As you command," Loji acknowledged with a sharp nod before dissolving back into static.
"Should we begin full preparations to redeploy the main fleet back to the surface?" the X-scientist asked nervously.
"Not yet. But contact the Seekers. Tell them to assist the sweep," Xenon ordered, already turning back to the main console.
"Understood, Doctor Xenon," the scientist muttered, hurrying off.
Deep beneath the Earth's crust, hidden away in Xenon's labyrinthine secret base, absolute darkness reigned. At the center of the subterranean vault, a heavy, cold stillness lingered the resting place of the Emperor.
"Brother. You are needed," Loji's voice echoed softly through the gloom as she materialized directly before the throne. "The Final Enetradicion protocol has been activated."
Deep within the shadows behind the Emperor, a symphony of glowing power cores flickered to life. One by one, the dormant sentinels awakened. Heavy Eradicators and Predator-class units hummed with violent energy: Mk1, Mk2, Mk2 Plus, Mk1c, Zeus, Phobos, Artemis, Predators, Destructors, Avatars, V1 Drones, and Furnace.
"Are you ready, brother?" Loji asked, her digital eyes glowing softly. "Mother needs us. We have to save younger brother."
On the surface, the theater of war was a graveyard. Surrounding a battered, smoking outpost, nothing remained standing except miles of ash and twisted metal. A lone Eradicator Mk4 stood guard over the threshold, its armor scorched and pitted, sheltering a handful of battered, limping units inside the bunker.
Suddenly, the air warped, tearing open a glowing dimensional portal right in the center of the courtyard.
"Who is in charge here?" Loji demanded, stepping cleanly out of the rift and facing an X-soldier.
The soldier swallowed hard, pointing a trembling gauntlet toward the gate. "That would be him."
Loji turned her gaze to the scarred Eradicator Mk4 standing sentinel. "Loji? Did Mother send reinforcements?" the unit's internal vox crackled.
"Yes. Now report. What happened here?" she asked sharply.
"When Mk3 launched the assault on the Queen, it met with relative success. But soon after, the sector was completely overrun by multiple high-tier ruptures," Mk4 explained, its voice heavy with mechanical fatigue. "While Mk3 was locked in combat with the Queen, other divisions were blindsided. Stronger ruptures and the Queen herself tore through our lines. They wiped out almost all the Mk4 units, leaving me the sole survivor of the Mk3 division."
"And Mk3?" Loji ask.
"Mk3, alongside the remaining elite Eradicators, broke away to re-engage the Queen directly."
"Then why didnt you trigger a distress signal earlier?"
"Communications were completely jammed. Signal bleed was non-existent until moments ago," Mk4 replied.
"Mhm. Give me a full tactical roster forces remaining with Mk3, and the coordinates of all other surviving redoubts."
"This is the last base standing," Mk4 stated flatly. "All others have fallen."
Loji paused, processing the grim metrics. "Continue."
"Mk3 took the last three Eradicator Mk1s, two Mk2s, multiple Predator-class units, one Mk2 Plus, and an X-fighter to hunt down the Queen," Mk4 listed off. "Forces remaining in this specific base are limited: assorted railgunners, missile troopers, X-soldiers, X-scientists, scouts, medics, barely functional tanks, and one half-dead war machine factory."
"If your combat readiness is this compromised, why did Mk3 leave you behind?"
Mk4 looked down at its mangled lower chassis. "My lower actuators were blown out. Mobility was zero, making it impossible to keep pace with Mk3's vanguard. Securing the perimeter of the last stronghold was the only logical directive left to me."
"Very well. I will dispatch X-scientists to get your repaired," Loji said, stepping back as the dimensional tear behind her began to pulse violently, expanding to ten times its size. "Clear the area give space. The Emperor is arriving."
With a concussive boom that shook the shattered foundations of the base, the Emperor stepped through the portal into the ravaged world, flanked by Furnace and an endless sea of awakening Eradicators.