Mothman, looking pale but relieved, glided along on his skates back into the main cavern. Felicity skipped beside him, her fanged grin wide. They arrived just as I was making the final pronouncement.
"Alright," I said, leaning my hands on the console, my voice ringing with finality. "We have the assets. Now, let's talk infiltration protocols for Black Site Onyx. We're not going through the air. We're going through the ground. The Hand is going to dig us a new entrance."
Mothman stopped dead, wiping sweat from his brow. "Wait, dig? You mean this thing," he gestured incredulously at the massive silver bio-steel hand resting submissively at my feet, "is going to tunnel us into a top-secret CENO facility?"
Felicity clapped her hands together, her cybernetic eye glowing with delight. "Oh, yes! Digging is its best trick! It can bore through bedrock and reinforced concrete faster than any traditional mining rig!"
Doctor Syn, finally seeing a logical path forward, nodded, her tension easing slightly. "A sudden, deep-level breach would completely bypass CENO's atmospheric and perimeter defenses. It's dangerous, but ingenious."
I ignored Mothman's skepticism and pointed toward the Hand. "Felicity, prepare the Hand for deep-level terrain excavation. Koba, you're the shield—you ride up front and reinforce the tunnel against cave-ins. Marla, your job is rear guard and anti-air once we surface. Herja, you are our navigation. You will be tracking the geological anomaly that surrounds Black Site Onyx."
I turned to the Hand, projecting my command with my new Beast Commander skill. "Hand. We dig in forty-five minutes. Get ready to move."
The immense silver fingers twitched, and the Hand slowly rose, settling onto its three running digits. It gave a silent, expectant vibration, its spur waving once before it darted off toward a reinforced exit tunnel used for heavy transports.
I looked at Mothman, whose face was a mask of disbelief. He was brand new here, and I didn't want to throw the "new guy" into the fire on his first day; that wouldn't be proper, no. Instead, I would give him the light duty of guarding the Gutter alongside Felicity.
I pointed toward the main tunnel entrance. "Mothman, Felicity, I need you two to stay behind and guard the Gutter. We can't leave the Nest undefended. Felicity will run the forge and monitor the perimeter with Aegis 7. Mothman, you're on patrol duty. Keep the new guy active."
Felicity grinned, recognizing a challenge. "Got it, boss! No unauthorized slime balls gettin' past me!"
Mothman's shoulders slumped slightly, the raw adventure of tunneling into a black site replaced by quiet security detail. "Guard duty? Fine. Just tell me where the emergency console is."
I clapped him on the shoulder. "Don't worry, Hunter. You'll get your action soon enough." I gave them both a look that was half-warning, half-promise. "I expect this place to be standing when we get back."
I turned my attention to the remaining members of the strike team—Doctor Syn, Marla and Koba.
"Forty-five minutes," I confirmed. "Gear up. We're going to Onyx."
Forty-five minutes later, the Forge Room was empty save for the humming AI and the two appointed guards. The strike team was already gone, mounted for deep travel.
I stood crouched atop The Hand's massive wrist, my tiger-stripe armor catching the dim ambient glow of the deeper tunnels. The Hand's three running digits—index, bow, and ring fingers—churned against the damp, reinforced concrete floor, carrying us at a surprising, relentless pace. Koba was positioned beside me, his bulk stabilizing our ride, while Marla clung expertly to the knuckles, her black wings folded tightly, eyes and vipers scanning the darkness behind us.
Doctor Syn was crouched near my position, her civilian clothes a stark contrast to the metallic monsters surrounding her, she held onto the bio-steel skin of the hand , wind flowing through her hair and face plastered with a grin, laughing as we raced through the underground."
In my vision, the System Interface was fully engaged. Herja was no longer purring; she was a focused, and tactical. She was generating a complex, three-dimensional geological map across my entire inner vision, a wireframe of Beast Vein City's forgotten foundation scrolling away beneath us.
"Entering Zone Delta-9. Seismic noise from the Hand is currently masked by the natural flow of the Deep Vein's primary drainage system. Proceed on current vector, Ash." Herja's voice was crisp, military-grade. "Syn, confirm the geological anomaly boundary," I commanded. "Confirmed," Syn replied, her eyes glued to a small sensor she held. "We are moving beneath the ancient iron seam that shields the Onyx site. We are almost there."
The Hand accelerated, the rumble changing pitch as it transitioned from concrete to compacted earth and then, finally, to solid bedrock. Its bio-steel fingers began to twist and bore, generating massive heat that hissed and evaporated the ambient moisture.
Minutes later, Herja's voice sharpened with urgency and precision.
"Target Acquired. CENO Black Site Onyx located ahead." Herja's original military protocols provided a complete structural and schematic overlay of the balck site in my heads up display. A new layer of holographic data snapped into the 3D map: the entire sub-surface layout of the CENO facility. Herja highlighted a specific point deep within the complex.
"Designation: Sub-Level 5, Core Research Block. This is the Element-X Stabilization Chamber—the lowest-traffic point and the closest route. It is heavily shielded, but the external geological shielding is thinnest at this point."
I looked down at the massive, burrowing Hand. "Herja, calculate the optimal breach point for the Hand's mass."
"Calculation complete. Breach point marked." Herja projected a focused, red reticle directly onto the ceiling of the tunnel ahead, exactly where the bedrock was weakest. "The Hand can penetrate the outer shielding and the internal polymer layer in a single, high-force application. Estimate breach window: twenty minutes."
I took a deep breath, the dust and earthy scent of the deep filling my lungs. I was on the brink of an all-out assault on the surface world's most powerful corporation. I projected my command to my Mount. "Hand. Target marked. Dig deep. Prepare to breach!" The colossal bio-steel fingers coiled, ready to deliver a seismic blow. I felt the immense power gathering beneath me. The infiltration phase was over.
"Syn," I said, gripping the Hand's wrist, "get ready. We're going in loud."
Back in the Forge Room, the silence was broken only by the low, contented hum of Aegis 7 and the rhythmic ''whhhhrr-click-whhhrr-click" of Mothman's skates. Ash had been gone less than an hour, and the atmosphere felt almost boring. Mothman, still in his cargo shorts and hoodie, was lazily patrolling the perimeter, moving from the control console to the main tunnel.
In the dim, chaotic light filtering down from the layers above, a figure stood silhouetted: a tall, lean, bat-like woman. Her profile was sharp, dominated by delicate but formidable chitinous wings that arched high above her head. This was Vespa Nox, leader of the Shadow Fangs clan, and she wasn't alone. Two heavy-set clan mates, their bodies covered in thick, hardened insectoid carapaces, flanked her.
Vespa Nox's crimson eyes narrowed, immediately fixing on the spike driven into the altar below Aegis 7. This was the Territory Key—a polished, gleaming bio-steel spike that psychically anchored the Gutter Nest to Ash's control. Mothman was rounding a corner on his skates when he saw them. Mothman's adrenaline spiked, cutting through his boredom." Not so boring now, Hunter." Before he could activate his suit or draw any weapon, a furious shriek ripped through the air. Felicity, her senses far keener than any human's, had smelled the trespassers. She came sailing forward on her wings, launching herself from the bone-tool rack in a burst of speed. Her usually cheerful, fanged grin was replaced by a feral snarl.
"What brings you to our neck of the woods...Vespa!" Felicity hissed, landing lightly between Vespa Nox at the far entrance and the altar. Felicity flexed her talon hands, and the cybernetic eye flared dangerously.
Vespa Nox didn't flinch. She simply offered a cold, predatory smile. "The tiger-stripe ran off and left the children, I see. Hand over the Key, little succubus, and no one else needs to get dirty."
"Over my dead body, bat-bitch!" Felicity spat, bracing herself.
Mothman, scrambling to get his skates under control, whipped out his sidearm, forgetting for a moment that his high-tech weapons were back in the Xun'dral armor. He settled for the basic blade strapped to his thigh, pointing it shakily at the invaders. "We got a situation here, folks!" he yelled, trying to sound more imposing than a man in civilian clothing holding a kitchen knife. "This is private property!"
The battle for the Gutter Nest had begun.
The colossal bio-steel Hand didn't just dig; it was a living drill. As I issued the final mental command, the Hand's three fingers transformed, rotating inward to form a massive, high-speed bore. The noise was deafening—a grinding shriek that vibrated through the Hand and up into my bio-tiger stripe armor. The air around us shimmered with heat as pulverized rock was instantly blasted backward.
"Breach Window: T-minus twenty minutes! Brace for impact, Ash!" Herja's voice was a tight, high-priority alert in my mind.
We were moving through sheer darkness, the only illumination coming from the blue glow of my own systems and the sparking friction of the Hand's work. Koba braced his massive bulk against my side, his colossal Defense stat ready to absorb the shockwave. Marla dug her talons into the Hand's surface, her vipers already sensing the change in atmosphere.
Doctor Syn, however, was past fear. She was laughing hysterically, gripping the Hand's metallic skin, her face caked with dust.
At the five-minute mark, the grinding pitch changed to a deafening screech as the bio-steel hit the CENO complex's outer polymer shielding.
T-minus Zero.
With a sound like a depth charge exploding, the Hand slammed through the final layer. The tunnel wall ahead of us didn't just break; it violently vaporized. The force was immense, momentarily shattering my vision and throwing Syn into Koba's reinforced body with a grunt.
When my vision cleared, the noise had immediately cut out, replaced by a screaming silence and the high-pitched shriek of alarms.
The Hand had punched a perfectly circular hole, roughly ten feet in diameter, directly through the ceiling of Sub-Level 5, Core Research Block. The breach point was roughly twenty feet above the pristine white, polymer floor of the CENO facility.
The first thing that happened was the cascade of consequences.
Massive Alarm Activation: Red lights instantly strobed across the level. Herja's projected schematics in my HUD immediately shifted to show half a dozen CENO security teams converging on the level.
Atmospheric Decompression: The vacuum of the tunnel rapidly met the pressurized, sterile environment of the lab. A violent, icy wind of dusty debris blew into the facility, scattering papers, whipping through the lab stations, and obscuring vision.
Alarms went off, ''Containment Breach! Containment Brach!''
We had landed directly above the Element-X Stabilization Chamber. The violent breach had severed several auxiliary containment lines. A ghostly, ethereal violet mist began to seep from shattered containment units near the perimeter of the room, instantly triggering biohazard alerts.
I pushed myself up, wiping debris from my faceplate. Below us, the research lab was a picture of technological chaos: clean consoles, holographic displays, and specialized containment fields—all now compromised.
"Ash! Security Response is immediate! Multiple hostile targets converging!" Herja warned in my mind.
"Marla, Koba! Go!" I commanded, launching myself off the Hand's wrist.
Marla was the first to drop, unfolding her black wings and gliding silently to the floor. Koba simply allowed gravity to take his massive bulk, landing with a ground-shaking CRASH that dented the polymer floor and set off secondary vibration alarms. He immediately roared, his Defense-scaling attack ready for the fight.
The Hand remained locked in the ceiling, its massive digits providing an anchor and a looming threat. I landed near Marla, my eyes already locking onto the nearest sealed door, where the first CENO security team was about to arrive.
"Syn," I snapped, gesturing to the element-x containment chamber, "Secure the Element-X, while we raid CENO! The hand will cover you from above." Syn, pulling herself together, approached the console, hopefully they haven't locked me out."