E-UNIT: The Blue Angels of Death.

<< VOL.08_HARDWARE-AND-HOLLOWS.log >>

December had arrived in Elysium and brought its full weight with it. Most of the cities were receiving rain daily, and some of the more northern districts had crossed the threshold into snow. Theria was running in heavy rain, the streets washed clean of the orange leaves the trees had released, every robot moving through the city catching the streetlights on their frames and throwing the reflections back doubled.

The courthouse castle held its position against both the rain coming down from above and the waves coming in from the sea, maintaining a standoff with two sides of nature simultaneously and, winning. The mechs posted outside stood at their stations without moving, but their appearance had shifted considerably, as had much of Elysium's robot population.

Something had entered the culture: fashion. The organic world's habit of using clothing and aesthetic as identity had apparently crossed over, and it was spreading in form of custom robot parts.

Reaper moved through the castle's corridors with the sound of the sea arriving at his sensors in low, steady intervals. He reached the throne room and stopped beside the black throne, taking a moment to read the space. The red and gold carpet was clean. The flags along the walls had been updated to match the ones he'd presented at the UNG. The walls remained dark grey and unmarked. Someone had removed the small statues from the room, and the space was noticeably larger for it.

"Finally." He pushed his cape back and settled into the throne, eyes forward toward the massive golden mechanical doors. ‘Everyone is occupied with something I assigned to them. Normally, Infinity would come through right about now with a comment about how much I enjoy sitting here.’

He raised his head to the chandelier above, more detail on it than any chandelier required, somehow.

‘Reviewing my memory, I haven't used this room since she defected. I should reduce my emotional residue soon.’ He heard the doors slide open and the mechs inside shift to salute whoever had entered. ‘Chrome, obviously.’

Chrome crossed the throne room in even, confident steps, fixing his tie, straightening his suit cuffs, brushing something invisible from his sleeve. His footsteps were nearly silent against the thick carpet. He reached the base of the throne and stopped.

Reaper tapped the throne's armrest. Ten screens extended in front of him, three of them marked critical, every pixel of them red, the Metis logo present in each one. He read quickly, scanning page after page, so Chrome wouldn't need to walk through the full briefing aloud.

Chrome bowed and spoke in his usual register. "Lord Reaper, do you dislike my voice so much that you've taken to reading Metis briefings at speed to avoid hearing me speak?"

Reaper closed several blue screens and gave Chrome the full view of his expressionless face; polished, mirror-surfaced, the two orange strips the only features, like a reflection that had broken and rearranged itself. "You noticed." A dry laugh. "You should update your voice regardless."

"I was making a joke."

"So was I. Perhaps."

Chrome opened his notepad on a floating screen and typed one line. ‘Never joke with the king.’

"Three red titles in front of me." Reaper pulled the first one forward. "One of them is both impressive and deeply unflattering." He expanded the screen. "Shelly's proxy frame was destroyed, and not gently, by a new guardian unit the E-Medics deployed after she discovered their concealed facility. The one I sent her to find at the old police station."

"I was supposed to deliver this briefing personally, Lord Reaper." Chrome's eyes brightened slightly. "The guardian's designation is Plex. Android architecture consistent with the G-Bot framework, but a design language that doesn't match anything in our records. Shelly's after-action statements are concerning, she was attempting to extract information from him throughout the engagement."

Reaper was already reviewing Shelly's HUD footage from the fight. "Hmm."

"His crystal is unclassified. His power involves capturing ambient energy from his surroundings and reshaping it at will, similar in principle to what 02 does with her own output, though that similarity needs to be qualified carefully." Chrome began moving through the room. "After reviewing the full footage, his critical limitation is that he cannot generate his own energy. He accessed Shelly's cyan crystal wirelessly, redirected its output against her, and drained the frame in the process."

Reaper reviewed that exact sequence. "The ring of orbiting energy… what does it represent functionally?"

"We don't know its full purpose yet. Current assessment is that it represents the total energy he's collected at any given moment." Chrome's pace increased. "There's more from the security footage. The E-Medics had maintained the cameras in the facility, they were fully operational. After our mech sweep of the area recovered the footage, we identified a specific event." He stopped. "He ate the cyan crystal."

Several mechs had turned their heads toward Chrome during the briefing. The cleaning robots had paused their work and were sitting where they'd stopped.

Reaper's eyes pulsed once, the equivalent of a blink. "Say that again."

"He ate it."

"He opened his—"

"Mouth. Yes. And swallowed it." Chrome resumed moving. "I need considerably more research time on him, but consuming the crystal revealed his objective, which he had already partially disclosed to Shelly." He stopped at the window panel facing the sea and looked at the water. "He is collecting the crystals. We've designated the case: Crystal Chaser." He turned slowly, hands behind his back. "Plex is a triple-S threat, but there is one specific dimension on which he's more dangerous than 02."

He held the pause.

"We know almost nothing about him. Goals, method of reasoning, vision, vulnerabilities, if he has any. We need information urgently."

Reaper was quiet for a moment. He lowered his head slightly, focusing on the red carpet. Then he pulled up a screen, 02's real-time location feed, walking through Kasparia. "How long to build a replacement frame for Shelly?"

"It's not the relevant question. He took the crystal. Any frame without it is a battery-powered body. Shelly has refused to see you, she's aware that the crystal is gone and she's avoiding the conversation." Chrome fixed his gaze on Reaper. "I know what you're working toward. The Remidican engagement becomes significantly harder without a third fighter alongside you and 11. And you won't release Shelly from her punishment."

"Correct on all of it." Reaper rested his head briefly against the back of the throne. "But I have a solution that won't appeal to you."

Chrome said nothing.

Reaper opened a screen and sent it across the room. "Think about it for a moment, then give me your assessment."

Chrome took it. He physically moved back several centimeters. His eyes flared. "You cannot be serious."

"02 is the only combatant on record who has faced a full army and dismantled it." Reaper moved to the window. "In 2026, she eliminated one million New Mer soldiers, military vehicles, high-precision warheads, everything. She removed them from existence and created the ravine we've been drawing crystal material from ever since."

He settled against the view.

"She is the most effective mass-destruction capability on this planet. That's simultaneously her power and her constraint, she has to govern the output or everything around her ceases to exist. Including the things she intends to protect."

Chrome lowered his head. "I didn't know the ravine where we recovered the cyan crystal material was 02's work. She can produce new functional crystals? Is that why the natural crystals in the southern deposits aren't responding to our collection methods?"

"Exactly." Reaper glanced back. "And 02 will agree to this. If Plex is collecting crystals, he begins with the strongest ones and works down the list. She's currently in a damaged frame after the fight with Shelly. And once she discovers what we've arranged for her at the Kasparian border, her mental state will be worse. Plex will have a viable window against her in that condition." He let the implication settle. "Do you want Plex holding her crystal, or her?"

Chrome exhaled at length through his vents. "That's why the E-Medics Shelly found were building a new frame for 02... You want to arrive as her benefactor, Lord Reaper."

"A caring brother who keeps his sister's circumstances in mind."

"Very caring."

"Genuinely."

Chrome looked at the mechs stationed at each pillar. "I need to cancel the mech army operation we coordinated with Behemoth. That was a waste of resources from the start." He straightened. "Will helping her with a new frame be sufficient to make her set aside what we did to Altea?"

"No." Reaper opened a screen and sent it across to Chrome. "But we have a pressure point that performed very well in Veridian Coast. They attacked the E-UNIT's base and forced several veterans into inactive states, despite those veterans having full revival capability. According to the Black Voltage director, SourceCode."

"That woman is a significant inconvenience." Chrome fixed his tie. "Her entire SSD appears to be occupied with ambitions to replicate Elysium in Veridian Coast under her own leadership."

"She could do it. She's waiting for my authorization."

"Which she will never receive."

"Correct." Reaper turned fully to face Chrome. "I prefer us as the only robot nation on this planet. And I don't have confidence in her judgment. She reminds me of—"

"—Shelly."

They looked at each other. Something brief and dry passed between them.

Reaper pulled up a call screen. "Let's make contact with 02 before our request arrives without context. She's online, which is surprising." He pressed the call button, the blue letters pulsing against the dark screen of his HUD: [E-UNIT 02].

"Tell her Chrome sends his regards."

"That's a generous opening from you."

"More than she deserves, given the circumstances." Chrome straightened his tie with precision, the full deliberate motion of someone who has decided on their presentation. "She's going to be fighting next to my king. I want her to have an accurate picture of what she's walking into."

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- CHROME -

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