His sensors read green across the board, but even so, he could sense something wasn't right.

  A weight in his shoulders he couldn't place. He checked his diagnostics again for the 457th time. "Status: Model: A-10 Unit 956LT 'Tex' CALLSIGN: 'WARBRIDE':- No anomalies detected." Same as it always was.

  But yet the heaviness remained. It drove him up the wall, this feeling. Ever since he'd seen Bandstand go down like that, it had always been there, like shrapnel no tool could dig out. Baffling, inefficient, unacceptable.

  And here he was, tanks deep in the place that killed him.

  He would find them...

  He would cease their operations.

  Permanently.

  His gun spun in anticipation, the small morph tucking his wings as he felt the fire function burn into his HUD. Hot, Angry... Hungry.

  This wasn't business anymore. this was personal.

  He clicked off his safeties, his gun spinning up as he heard the calls.

  English and Russian. Approaching his position.

  "Time to party." He said to himself as he rounded the corner, braced- And let his cannon roar.

  472 rounds expended. That's all it took to clear the hall.

  Being designed to destroy tank morphs from the air with his cannon alone made this hallway a turkey shoot.... not that he even knew what a turkey was, just that at it was easy.

  He advanced, pulling out his trusty bolt from his skirt to stick between his teeth, giving his pot lid a light tip to those he stepped over, paying them no more mind than that

  His mouth still tasted like cordite, even as his gun retracted back behind his lips, leaving him billowing smoke like some kind of steel dragon out of some twisted fairy tale.

  And he walked,

  and he'd keep walking

  until his landing toe rested on Helga's stupid, bitchy face.

  Minutes passed as he advanced a few corridors forward. All clear, sensors clear.... at least as far as he could see. He knew he was going to be headed into a hornets nest in the Foundry, which he couldn't bypass.

  He decided to get his inside help, tuning to his Radio Preset 8. "Hey, R/Co, you online?"

  "This is R/CO's Intel Emporium, how can I help you?" A rather polite tone comes from the other end.

  "Right, can you get me a deep scan of the Foundry on the Overlord Ark? Before you ask, I've already got the funds en route."

  "Now you're speaking my language. Standby." he says cheerfully as the line goes dark for a few beats.

  The pause was long. pregnant.

  a panel dropped next to him as a pile of severed cables dropped to the floor next to him with a slam.

  He wondered how the Ark had stayed aloft for so long, even as the engine noise droned outside as the Ark held it's pattern, as if it was blissfully unware of the fact it was dying.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, R/co chirped, "24 contacts, infantry class mechs, 1 full size armor mech, T-35 class with delusions of granduer. ring a bell?"

  Ah... Shellmonger, my old friend.

  "Time for him to have a rapid disassembly." He says, his lips tugging into a grin as his gun gave an eager, wanting whir.

  He pushed out of the side halls into a main corridor —wide, echoing, made for something bigger.

  This space wasn’t built for someone his size.

  He felt like a hotdog in a hallway.

  And the worst part?

  He wasn’t even with Bandstand.

  Far less fun.

  0/10.

  Would not recommend.

  He strode forward, footfalls clanking as he approached two infantry drones guarding the door.

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  One was on standby.

  The other stood just feet from the alarm.

  He spooled up —

  The whine of the motor snapped the active drone’s attention a split-second before the first rounds tore through him.

  Optics and CPU separated mid-turn.

  It dropped like a sack of obsolete code.

  Before the second drone could fully boot, Tex swept left —

  a beam of lead severing its torso from its hips.

  Clean kill.

  No alarm.

  No reaction.

  Just how he liked it.

  The speaker above the door coughed to life, "You really think we don't know you're here, little Warbride? You think that little of your kommandant?" The playful yet stern voice he knew all too well.

  "Helga." He says flatly.

  He turned his attention to the door. Seems it went into lockdown.

  "Aww, that's not how I remember you sounding. So I guess I have to ask... what brings you back to wreck my HQ?" She asks, her irritation crackling just beneath the sweet tone.

  Let her seethe.

  She wouldn't get the control she craved.

  Not this time.

  "You're not my superior. I don't answer to you." He said tersely as he stripped the access panel, starting to rifle through wiring.

  "Gonna keep me out?" He muttered under his simulated breath.

  "I'll just bypass you."

  It only took a minute to break through.

  The doors hissed open as his temperature sensors ticked upward.

  80 degrees.

  90.

  100.

  110.

  He stopped worrying once it hit 140.

  Didn’t matter anymore.

  He stepped into the heat haze. The smoke hanging like a pall from the furnaces working overtime to fuel the efforts dictated to it. Catwalks up ahead crisscrossed the work area. Prime spot for overwatch to pin him if he wasn't careful.

  The doors sealed behind him.

  That’s when the fire started.

  Rounds slammed down from the catwalks above—positioned over a sprawling mess of ironworks and smoldering slag.

  Tex dropped behind a forge, surface glowing faint orange.

  Even over the blare of his temperature alarms, he could hear it:

  The sound of his paint bubbling.

  He couldn’t stay there.

  A burst of fire tore past him as he dove into a side passage.

  Clanking boots echoed across overhead gantries—combat drones shifting position.

  Twenty-four to one.

  Not a big challenge.

  But he was grounded.

  His engines would overheat the second he lifted off in this furnace.

  And besides, the temperature spikes in his auxiliary tanks?

  Uncomfortable as hell.

  He hated the Foundry.

  He slipped through a network of side passages.

  Back in the day, playing hide and seek here—with Bandstand’s favorite reward on the line—had driven him to map out this whole section of the Ark by memory.

  That came in handy now.

  Of course, being grounded for two days afterward because someone three times your size shredded your fuel line…

  Not ideal.

  Enjoyable, sure. But not ideal.

  He passed an old set of emergency lights, casting that dim red glow.

  He caught himself glancing at them.

  Almost fondly.

  The aftermath of those downtime games…

  Yeah.

  Refocus.

  Time to go to work.

  He found an access hatch and cracked it open, swinging himself out onto the Ark’s outer hull.

  The moment he emerged, light overwhelmed his optics—brief, blinding, even through the thick cloud cover.

  A few feet to his left, one of the Ark’s colossal wings disappeared into a roiling bank of vapor.

  The engine was dormant. Quiet.

  Even the engines were dying on this old crate.

  The massive prop blade pointed upward, listless, like a rusted weathervane.

  Something clunked deep inside —a failing servo, maybe, or something worse.

  The whole Ark moaned like a creature too tired to scream.

  Tex clambered up the hull, gripping onto the ladder rungs welded into the skin.

  He hoisted himself up —one rung at a time —toward another access point.

  Then, without ceremony, he slipped back into the darkness.

  Tex sent a silent ping to R/Co, along with another advance payment.

  A second later, his radar flared—contacts lighting up well beyond his standard range.

  He exhaled through his teeth.

  “Thanks,” he muttered over comms, settling in. Eyes on the field.

  Plotting angles. Kill paths. The task at hand.

  “Pleasure doing business with you,” R/Co replied smoothly.

  “You’ve got thirty minutes. Make them count.”

  Tex was about to leap into action—

  Then he caught a reflection.

  A case, tucked into the side paneling.

  Glass-covered. Untouched.

  He paused.

  Just for a second.

  He looked into it—at himself.

  Five-foot-six of pure, unfiltered war-built angst.

  Old Black Suns roundels still marked on his frame—each one crossed out in red.

  That little detail gave him a shot of adrenaline.

  He was done with them.

  And they were going to pay.

  His frame was nicked, dented in places—but still polished.

  They’d given him a lithe build, for some reason.

  Bandstand used to say it suited him. Complimented it often.

  Especially in the recordings.

  He looked down.

  Pink tank top.

  Pink skirt.

  Pink combat lid, spray-painted with Born to Rust in jagged black.

  Tex smirked.

  “You sexy motherfucker…”

  He rumbled it low as he turned, lining up his first run through the Foundry’s main space.

  Time to make noise.

  The carnage was quick, surgical, and chaotic.

  Streams of lead tore through walls—catching drones mid-move.

  Corners exploded. Hallways flooded with face-melting fire.

  The firefight didn’t last long.

  But the intel had been a lifesaver.

  After dropping the last drone, Tex exhaled and checked his HUD.

  Ammo pool: red. Blinking. Angry.

  He spotted a severed arm on the ground, kicked it closer, then casually snapped it at the elbow.

  With a practiced motion, he stowed his mouth-mounted cannon.

  Then—he feasted.

  Metal ground against metal as he broke down the discarded parts inside his chassis.

  Ports along his flanks glowed hot with recycled heat.

  AUTOFORGE ACTIVATED

  RESTOCKING...

  The message pulsed in his vision, soft and familiar.

  Time to hole up.

  Drag a carcass back.

  Resupply.

  He wasn't done; not by a long shot.

  He had 25 minutes, 24 seconds.

  And Shellmonger was still breathing.