Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Wings of the World ❯ Operation Trap-Nest ( Chapter 2 )

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Chapter 2: Operation Trap-Nest

Please tell me you have a back-up plan.

I wasn’t panicking. Not one bit. You would have no spine to panic in a simple situation like this. Granted, I just found out that I basically got the logical version of ‘chosen pilot’ and the fact that this girl that I happened to meet is both an alien and the defender of the Earth. Sure, there’s this really big alien that’s probably going to kill us and Terry will scream bloody murder as my last mortal words heard.

No problem at all. All calm and cool here.

“We’re going to die! Save us, Rin!”

You see what I mean? Oh hell, I’m joining with him. We’re going to die.

“H…hello? Rin, what’s happening?”

I opened my eyes and looked around for the source of the sound. What was that? It was a weird chattering with static, but definitely not a voice I’ve heard before.

Rin switched something on her arm console. The sounds emitted from the bottom sides of the chair, like some amplifier

“This is Rin Xenon, reporting in. The current situation is under control.”

We are not under control! If this is under control, then I want out of her control!

“It seems your guests don’t agree there, Rin. Ha ha!”

Who can laugh at a time like this? Wait, who is that anyway? It sounds like an older female on the communication device.

“Hey, who is this? I’m Terry and I don’t really want to be here anymore.”

The female laughed again. Honestly, it’s starting to irritate me and that’s pretty hard to do to replace my fear of death right now.

“No problem, kid. The situation will get better soon. We’re sending unit 02 pretty soon. Say, Rin. Did you tell the pilot about his origins?”

“Affirmative. He is prepared to receive unit 02.”

I’m what?! Are you crazy? I don’t know how to pilot a robot! Can’t I just activate the thing and then you take over?

She gave me the straight look again. Curses.

“Incorrect. Unit 02 will shut down immediately after the designated pilot leaves the cockpit seat. It is a bio-sensor security device that locates the vitals of the pilot and locks on to it.”

Why does that look always give me bad news?

So basically I’m stuck as the pilot. I really do have to face that alien, too.

“Correct.”

Damn it. Things can never be simple. It’s not that I don’t want to pilot the robot; I just feel there’s way better qualified personal than me. I just accidentally touched the device and suddenly someone skilled out there was screwed cause of it. Then again, the only way to make it up is the save the world.

Why is always the world in danger? This is like some bad B-movie invasion film.

Fine, I’ll take the job. How do we do this?

“Glad to hear it. We’ll send up the second unit in about two minutes!”

The communicator clipped out and it was the three of us again. Well, us and spiky out there.

Wait a second. Two minutes? How the hell are we going to last two minutes?!

“Do uh…does anyone have a plan to stall out that alien thing? Rin?”

Her expression was the same, but her eyes seemed fiercer.

“Engaging format Tsunami.”

Format what?

I instinctively held on to the seat again, while Terry didn’t get the memo and also asked. Rin punched the gears and the G-force once again pushed us against the wall.

“OW! That really hurt!”

You should’ve figured out that any time she does that, it’s time to hang on.

We rushed all the way under its body and slashed diagonally, spun around and chained a horizontal slash, the other diagonal slash, then repeated strikes from every slash possible. Each one pushed back the alien while making us extremely dizzy. I praise Rin to keep her focus and not vomit like normal people.

Never mind. Nothing about this is normal.

“Please…stop…this…ride…ugh.& #8221;

After probably the 20th slash, I was too busy trying not to let lunch out, Rin used an upper-cut with her shield and held the alien for a second. Then with a powerful slash slammed the alien down back to the ground with a 180 degree overhead slash. It was finished off with a thrust reminisced of a French Rapier move.

I struggled off the floor and started seeing triple of everything. Then I saw Terry. Three Terry’s are never things I wanted to see in any life.

“The next time you…do that, please make sure…I’m not here.”

“Affirmative. I will comply with the request.”

I managed to take a good look at the alien. What the hell? The thing’s still alive? What is its armor made of? Well it is probably superior race than ours with material that exceeds anything we can imagine.

Then again, I’m still wondering where we got the material for the thing we’re in now. This can’t be just titanium steel.

If that didn’t kill it, then what can?

Rin backed off more distance this time. The blade’s energy was starting to diminish, and the shield looked wrecked from all the attacks. I peeked at the body overall screen and there were lots of red spots that covered the limbs. Red is never good in engineer terms, I’m guessing.

“This invader can regenerate its limbs and torso for a set amount at a time.”

Then you can’t deal enough damage?

“Correct. The assistance of a second unit would increase the damage that is necessary to defeat the invader. Otherwise the probability of surviving is 0.32 percent. Also, my unit is decreasing its potential as time is passing. My estimate is a maximum of 21 percent more damage before it shuts down.”

Where’s the second unit then?

Just then, the above radar showed a red dot on the southeast.

“Special delivery! Sorry for the lateness! You can keep the tip.”

“Retreating to the rendezvous point now.”

We jumped using the jets and left the battered alien alone. I looked over the screen and saw another platform rising from the beach. Our unit turned in mid air and landed in front of that robot’s cockpit. The design was almost completely different, save for the size.

Unlike the red visor head piece that resembles a helmet, this unit had a head worn with a faceless helmet. Its eyes were two separate green squares, and mask over its mouth area. The forehead was embedded with a W crown. The body itself was almost pure white with the legs the most heavily armored. The torso was some sort of blue armor worn over the red chest and two exhaust ports on the upper chest level. More like some sort of machine knight.

So this is mine?

She opened up the cockpit hatch and moved her arm to bridge the two torsos. I went out and climbed over the hand and into the other cockpit. It was the same design as hers, except there seemed to be less stuff in general. Also instead of screens on every side, the entire cockpit showed the surrounding area like a sphere.

Hey, wait! How do I pilot this thing?

Rin and my hatch closed before any answer could get through. Man, I have really bad timing or something. I have to somehow pilot this thing and help Rin out soon.

My communicator turned on. Maybe it’s that female earlier and she’ll instruct me on this.

“Hello there! This is your instructor speaking. I’m here to tell you how to save the world!”

On second thought, I ‘m a pretty fast learner. Let’s see, this joystick can move the arm….

“Hello? Is anyone there?”

I guess I better answer before she thinks Rin messed up.

Hi…I’m here. Who’s on the other line?

“This is you friendly neighborhood robot instructor speaking! You can call me Erinu! Well actually I’m not exactly in you neighborhood…unless you count Japan as nearby.”

Japan? Exactly how far does this ‘organization’ go? Hmm…I’ll have to add that in my list of questions when this is over. If I live.

“Now the controls are pretty simple to learn, hard to master. The two joysticks you see near your arm are able to move the arm parts. There are sensor grips on the rubber itself to simulate the finger movements. The pedals under your main control panel move the feet and pressing them both at once activates your feet jets. The rest is really just combinations and use of the panel.”

Seems simple as she said. I turned on the control panel and the frame of my unit blinked on. I pressed on the touch screen and looked over my weapon caches. There was that energy melee weapon I witnessed earlier, a shield, and long range weaponry. Too bad they were attachments. Only the melee seemed to be available. Oh, and I have 40mm Vulcan head ammo. Cheers for mass destruction.

…Why do they let kids have mass destruction weapons?

“Target is moving. Requesting assistance at point 24-B.”

Rin sent the sky view of the beach divided by sections. The green bolded area would probably be my cue to move. I unsecured the restraints and flew over to the area. Her unit was walking at a medium pace under me, showing that the damage was affecting it greatly. I then heard a rapid series of beeping behind me, so I looked around and saw the alien recovering from the last attack.

So what do we do now?

“We will now commence Operation Trap-nest. Phase one will commence when both our units reach the area as provided.”

I hurried along and reached the area, as she arrived soon after. The alien was now backing at full strength and started a rolling charge with its spikes formed around the top as a shield.

“Phase two, commence.”

Yet another platform rose from the ground in front of us. It was the enlarged version of a weapon cache, filled with bazookas, rifles, and machine guns.

I’m guessing the designer simply couldn’t make laser arms for us?

“That would reduce the adaptation ability of the En unit to less than 2.45 percent.”

I sighed to another one of her percentage plays as I picked up a bazooka while she took an assault rifle. Touching the trigger of the weapon activated a targeting system to help my aim.

“On the count of three on three, we will commence firing of all the weapons available to us.”

Wait, ALL of them?

“One….”

“Yeah, all of them man! Just fire like crazy!”

“Two….”

Wait, hold on!

“Three. Commence barrage.”

My fingers pulled the trigger, sending out huge recoil, the worse that pushed me back yet. I kept firing until the ammo counter went empty. I threw away the bazooka and picked up a small black rifle with a sniper scope on the side. I grabbed the trigger handle with one hand and extended the other handle to better aim. As I kept up the attack, I saw Rin rapidly going through the bullet-based weaponry faster than I can with any other weapon.

Fire in the hole!

An intense gathering of beam energy blasted towards the alien and pierced through the spike-formed shield. Without a moment to celebrate, I fired again and again until the alien stopped moving. The generator on the rifle started to overhead, so I laid it down and tried to pick up another weapon but I see that Rin already used them all. I looked to my left and see that she was using double hand action, with the gun barrels smoking out of the nozzle.

I’ll finish this now. Rushing towards the alien at full thrust, I reached on the hip and brought out my melee weapon. The configuration changed it to an energy axe for me, and with two hands I swung it across the body. However, the alien reverted its body with the flow of my attack and managed to point its arm at Rin’s unit before it was split in half. A spike projectile formed and fired straight at her torso!

Damn it! Dodge it!

She didn’t…

I put down the axe and flew to the fallen teal-like robot with now a humongous spike into its cockpit. I desperately tried to find the communication system and started talking to him, but there was no replay. I tried again, and there was still nothing.

Damn it. Answer me!

It was an hour later when Rin’s ‘organization’ arrived at the scene in FBI-style operation, donning black suits and uniforms while the engineer staff pulled out the spike. I was extremely relieved when they were reported to be safe with slight injury. It seems Terry pulled her down to the floor before the impact.

Strangely, I was more worried about her well-being than his. A complete stranger slash alien over my friend. I must be catching his hormone-driven habits.

I let down my unit and climbed out of the cockpit. The medics probably just saw a blur pass by as I sprinted towards the two wrapped in medical blankets. Terry gave me a weak but cheerful smile and waved at me, while Rin conversed with some of the agents.

Never…do that again.

I’m wiped. Destroying aliens, running almost 20 meters in six seconds…this is all very tiring.

“Sorry, man. Guess I didn’t help much.”

Staying alive is what matters. You did what you could.

“Thanks, man. Ah…I just want to go home now. Maybe a nice nap will get rid of this headache for me. Hey, do you think our classmates are okay?

I don’t know. The library is pretty big and there were only us that I know of….

Rin spoke behind me.

“There is no need to concern. There were no civilian casualties during the attack. All civilians were evacuated prior.”

I turned to her and considered grabbing her by the blanket collar and yell for all this manipulation, but there were lots of agents around. Besides, alien or not she’s still a girl.

That’s good, then. That means you planned this from the start?

“We planned the alien to land here using a homing device to mimic their target.”

Their target? What are they after that aliens would come to Earth for?

“There is no real translation for it besides ‘Artifact’, but the organization has codenamed it the ‘Tower of Babel.’ The same Artifact that enhanced the world’s understanding of itself.”

Terry looked at me with excitement.

“The Tower of Babel? That sounds like my topic, right?”

Amazing that he still remembered that. I sighed deeply.

The one you had to read about was a fairy tale concocted by religious zeal. This Artifact is probably the real deal, though. There’s no possible normal way for everyone on the planet to simply understand each other like that just like that. It was either magic or technology beyond what humans could produce.

Rin continued her explanation.

“With the Artifact, my race assigned nine personal to guard and protect it. We have just defeated the second guard. I am the first.”

Then why didn’t you simply take back it when you were here? Or…you couldn’t?

“Correct. As the first scout, I was acting as a second sentiment form inside the Artifact and-”

“Now don’t tell everything at once, cutie!”

She was interrupted with a slap on the back. A woman no older than mid 20’s snuck up on us and hugged Rin tightly, smothering in her bosom.

I quickly checked to see if Terry witnessed it, but simmered my worry when Terry was busy with the medical staff. Cheers for injuries.

“Hiya doing kid! I see you’re a natural at piloting big robots!”

This woman proved one of my two theories: either this organization isn’t a military governed, or it is and they’re really lenient on clothing.

I mean I can see her garnet straps in plain view. How short are those red shorts?!

“Hehehe! I see you’re looking at my goods. You want to see how smooth my legs feel?”

Are you insane?

This woman is very annoying right now, and I don’t think her attitude will change anytime soon. Her long and fiery hair was matched in color only by her small red vest over a very tight black shirt, and the previously mentioned garnets. She really likes red, and she really likes trapping boys.

Then Terry came back.

“Hey, guys. The medical man said I’ll be fine and-whoa! Who’s the good looking? Is she real?”

I masked his eye sockets with my hand and forcefully made him go the other way.

Avoid the impurity…avoid the impurity…

“Hey! Where you guys going? Don’t you want to go to Japan?”

“Japan?”

He ducked under my protection and threw the blanket on me as a decoy. Curses. I fumbled out of the blanket while Terry was up front and ready for the next word out of her mouth. At least his eyes are up…lowering…bring those eyes up Terry!

“Japan? We’re going to Japan?”

She gave a cocky grin. And this blanket is giving me more trouble than the alien. Help me out of this already!

“Yep, you betcha! We’re going to enlist in our organization right away! Attention, soldier! Let’s go!”

The woman and Terry started marching along to the armored van like some marching parade led by the drum master. Rin was slowly following along with the same stoic expression as ever.

This is a dream right? If this is real, then whoever’s writing my script is evil and loves to torture.

I am not a masochist. Leave me alone, you higher powers.