"Sir?"
Samael's eyes flittered open, and with a quick yawn, he outstretched all four of his limbs. The metal chair he'd fallen asleep on rotated slightly with its old joints creaking in protest, while his legs just barely brushed the floor from their extended position.
Around him, monitors hummed with insectile buzzing as each screen cycling through endless streams of code, diagnostic readings, and system logs. Thin trails of light flickered along the surfaces of the walls, reflecting off the black concrete they were made of. The air held a faint oily tang, mingling with the sharp scent of Samaels own aftershave.
From his vantage, a massive window stretched in front of him, composed entirely of reinforced glass thick enough to shrug off a tank shell without so much as a crack. Beyond it sprawled a cavernous, open space - an enormous chamber lined from floor to ceiling with interlocking white, square steel panels built to endure extreme heat and explosive force. The room's vastness gave it the air of a hollowed-out hangar, its ceiling lost in shadows despite the blinding lights overhead.
If one looked closely, tiny dark dots zipped across the floor far below. These were scientists in lab coats and engineers in black uniforms moving hurriedly from their workstations. A handful of armed soldiers loitered near the far corners, their weapons cradled idly as though half expecting an excuse to use them.
This was a testing room for new titan models.
"Is it done?" Samael asked the young man beside him in a monotone voice, heavy with boredom.
His gaze slid lazily to the center of the room beyond the glass, where an eighteen-foot humanoid machine stood swarmed by a group of mechanical arms.
The titanium titan gleamed maginficently under the overhead lights, with the gaps in paint catching the reflections of everything around it. The mechanical appendages surrounding welded plates, installed panels, and fastened bolts tightly with alarming speed. The faint hiss of welding torches and electric whines of servos echoed through the room, though the observation deck's thick glass kept them to a dull whisper.
Below, personnel gave the machines a wide a wide spaxe to operate. The appendages moved without warning, and any misstep would mean death in a heartbeat. Their flesh and bone would be no match for the hydraulics designed to crush steel.
"Yes, Mr. Hammond, the Ion project has officially passed the prototype phase."
"Hmm. Well, it was only a matter of time anyway."
A month had passed in what felt like an instant. In that time, Samael had achieved a perfect 100% accuracy rating with the P2011 pistol and had moved on to mastering the Wingman Elite - his father's preferred weapon, and also his own. Its revolver-like design needed alot of skill to even use, rewarding accuracy with lethality. It would only take two shots to the body or one clean hit to the skull to kill a pilot, but cam ewith the downside of fore rate.
While it didnt exactly shoot slow, if you missed, their were weopons that could kill you faster than an eye blinking.
Now, the Ion titan neared completion. A few minutes more, and the impossible would become tangible with a great leap in battlefield technology years ahead of its time.
Samael grasped a cooling cup of coffee from the control deck before him and sipped. The bitter taste clung to his tongue. Satisfied, he rested back in his chair, reached forward, and pressed a large red button embedded in the console. A click preceded a sharp, clear tone, and he leaned toward the microphone.
"All personnel, this is your employer speaking. Abandon your tasks, evacuate the facility immediately, and make your way to the observation room in an orderly manner."
His voice boomed from hidden speakers tucked into the corners of the testing chamber. At once, the figures below obeyed, halting their work and streaming toward the exits like bugs fleeing a storm. Within moments, the observation room doors parted behind Samael, and the group filed in silently, assembling in neat rows.
Now, the massive testing floor lay empty.
All except for one figure -strolling casually toward the motionless titan as if he were a man approaching a predator's den. This was Blisk, the only pilot in the entire facility.
As if sensing his presence, the mechanical limbs above the Ion stilled in eerily. Their spindly joints twisted with a faint hiss, three of them selecting glowing green luminescent batteries and carrying them to waiting ports atop the Ion's broad shoulders. A satisfying clunk marked each one's insertion into place, the arms then folding away into ceiling recesses.
The scientists vehind Samael held theor breaths. This was quite an exciting event afterall, and also nerve wracking for them.
Faint lights began to pulse from beneath the titan's armor plates, slender cables emitting soft, almost imperceptible glows like dying embers in a forge. The subtle heat haze rising from the machine's reactor core made the air distort.
Then, at the heart of the Ion's hull, the reactor flared to life.
A corona of blinding light burst from the core, searing Red-orange against the cold steel of the chamber.It was so bright that staring too long at its brilliance would leave ghostly burns in your vision.
The Ion's limbs twitched. The ground beneath its feet trembled with the weight of its heavy chassi. Finally, a loud, robotic male voice issued from its voice module.
"Initializing... Ion-class Atlas titan... Power levels - 100%."
Its cyclopean reactor-eye rotated while its lens sweeped the room before locking onto Blisk, who approached at a steady pace, his jumpkit already activated.
"Pilot... Kuben Blisk..."
It tilted its hull slightly, as if intrigued.
Blisk grinned, turning his head toward the observation room. He spotted Samael, hands clasped rigidly behind his back, jaw visibly clenched in an effort to maintain his stoic mask.
Blisk didn't give a damn. He raised his chin and barked a laugh.
"Oi, I think this tin can likes me, aye?"
But the grin soured as the Ion spoke again.
"Kuben Blisk, Mercenary. Romantic relationships - zero. Potential for romantic relationships - zero."
Blisk's face contorted into a scowl. His skin flushed red, blood boiling to his temples. In that instant, he looked like a man who had aged fifty years.
"You think you're funny, tinman, aye'? Let's see how you make jokes when I paint your chassis pink and cover you in glitter. I'll call you Sparkles!"
He spat the words, but the peals of laughter from the observation room only fueled his irritation.
Who designed this AI?!
Of course it was Samael.
"Apologies, Pilot. My creator programmed me to act this way. My code indicates this is how humans bond. Perhaps I should attempt again?"
The factory-issue matte yellow paint and sharp white stripes on Ion's frame, once neutral, now looked sinister. Yet the singular, curious eye set into its faceplate appeared genuinely innocent.
"No, no. Just open up, you damn machine."
Blisk's jumpkit thrusters ignited with a sharp flare, scattering glowing embers that danced through the air like fireflies against the backdrop.
"Right away, Pilot."
A chorus of hisses filled the chamber as the titan's faceplate split open, releasing a thin mist of coolant vapor. The cockpit within revealed itself, and inside was a high quality leather seat along with a miriad of control swithced, buttons and levers.
Blisk wasted no time. He bolted forward, his boots thudding against the steel floor before launching him into the air with the effortless strength of a trained soldier. To anyone else, this was an olympic level of fitness.
Mid-flight, his jumpkit flared again, carrying him up to the cockpit before gravity could drag him back down.
Twisting in midair, Blisk neatly dropped into the seat, his weight settling into the familiar embrace of the leather. With a flick of a switch, the cockpit sealed shut.
Darkness enveloped him, broken only by the soft glow of control buttons and digital readouts. Then, the external cameras came alive, relaying a near 360-degree view of the world outside directly to the hull infront of Blisk.
The Ion's voice rumbled inside the cockpit.
"Pilot, please commence the neural link to complete the bond."
Blisk complied, securing a thin band over his head. At once, a sensation like static prickled at his skull as the neural interface fused him with the titan. Within seconds, information flooded his mind - not in numbers or words, but as instinctive knowledge.
"Not bad, tinman. You've got a hefty arsenal, ain't ya?"
Blisk narrowed his eyes.
He wasn't like other pilots, who wore sealed helmets and preferred their data in tidy HUD readouts at the edge of their vision. Most relied on those visual prompts for cooldowns and weapons systems. But Blisk didn't need it. Through the neural link, he knew everything about his new partner - their weopon, abilities and every structural weakness.
Most elite pilots had this skill, even if they preferred the old-fashioned way.