SOMEWHERE NEAR NEW KRUSCHEVGRAD, USSR. 2045. Ariane stared down her Frame, officially WU-5, but dubbed Hera by her and her comrades. Its gleaming black armor reaching all the way to the bottom of the hangar, blending in with the caves the hangar was carved out of. Hera, the latest in the WU series, had been masterfully engineered by the finest minds at Syntharms, or so she was told so many times over. Knuckles made out of pure osmium, to deliver kinetic punches capable of boring holes in the ground all the way to underground bunkers. An NBR that would keep it kicking for the next decade. And targeting computers capable of spotting enemy ground units the next country over. Standing on the restraining platform nearly two hundred feet in the air, Ariane was looking at her unit's face. Hera seemed to be looking at Ariane in a way. She thought she could feel the expectations of her unit, the weight of being trusted with several billion dollars in engineering, the weight of her country on her shoulders. Ariane knew that failure would not only mean her death or indefinite capture, but also potentially the death of millions more she swore to protect. And yet, she didn't feel all that nervous. It's not liked she signed up for this. She was up against the latest inventions of the Soviets, the O-series mechs. They're defensive types, slow, but reportedly carrying Defiler-class blowtorch weapons, capable of getting hot enough to melt her armor and triggering a meltdown. She had seen the photos, the reports out of the recent South American clashes, where a guerilla hacker triggered a whole line of smaller Syntharms mechs to meltdown. A quarter of the Amazon, now uninhabitable. A shame. She pondered the size of her mech, and thus the comparatively large size of her reactor. If she became compromised, and melted down, there would be a good chance she wouldn't even be able to eject out of the cockpit. That would be later on though. For now, they had to plan towards the Soviet Research Wing facility, where the competitor prototypes to the WU series were being kept. The facility was being kept 30 miles north of the city of Kruschevgrad. Ariane would have to bore her way down the underground labs and destroy whatever was being kept there. Her intelligence reports indicated that it was somewhere close to completion, but she was told not to be worried about having to face off against it. She hoped not, considering she only ever had fought units about half her size. She didn't know what she would do if she came face-to-face with a unit as large as hers. "Ari? Ari." She came to. Ari had a habit of zoning out, of dissociating before missions like these. "We need you clear of mind for the mission. If you miss any details, it would-" Ariane sighed. "Result in mission failure, I know. I apologize." Her commanding officer, Lieutenant Pot, seemed to be less angry this time and more just... disappointed? She sighed after Ariane said that, and went on with the briefing. "As I said, once you're in the construction zone, locate the main power structure. It should appear as a row of grey metal boxes with yellow signs plastered on them. You got that?" Ari nodded. She went non-verbal before missions, talking only when she had to. Talking felt like a chore, honestly. They should know what she means by glares alone. "Then, you are to destroy the O-series prototypes. Utilize your fists primarily, but resort to destroying harness equipment if that is ineffective." Ari stared. "Okay. That is all. Suit up." Ariane donned her sleek black bodysuit, thin enough that it felt like wearing a napkin. That, of course, was to minimize any heat generated by her body controlling Hera. The suit also doubled as an interface to assist in pilot-frame synchronization, although if she got a blowtorch to the spine, she could probably feel that through her link alone. Walking to Hera, she was informed by an officer that intelligence reports showed reinforcements outside the facility. She was expected. That's okay. She'll reduce them to grimy smears in the snow. Getting in Hera, she felt across the cockpit, all of the manual switches, the levers, joysticks, information Ariane would need only if the neural link failed somehow. Link failure was rare though, mostly only caused by blows to the neck. She jacked into Hera's systems through a gigantic cord extending from the roof of the cockpit, plugged into Ariane's neck. She felt a crisp *click* and all at once she could feel her senses linking into her Frame's. Her whole body felt like it lost circulation somehow, and it was waking up. When it woke up though, it was beyond words. The benefits of a direct link to the brain meant that the limbs of the Frame moved faster than Ariane could move her fleshy, mortal ones. When Ariane jacked out of Hera, her own body felt slow, delayed, out of timing. It took a few hours to get used to after the end of missions. But of course, this meant the beginning of missions was sensory heaven, her body moving as soon as she wanted it to. Preparations to launch were underway. She could hear Mission Control in Washington listing out the different links and measures and statistics proving that Ariane was ready to go. Psychological boundaries, ego synchronizations, neural connections all being wrapped together between her and her Frame. The way it worked, actually, was something they called "Frame Digital Consciousness Alignment." There was another brain, of the mechanical kind, above Ariane in the cockpit. When Ariane linked into Hera, Hera's "brain" and "Ariane's" brain merged, providing her control. Having control over the mechanical cerebellum and parietal lobes allowed Ariane to move, but at the cost of being somewhat of a blank slate personality wise, being merged with Hera's frontal lobe. The engineers mentioned that they had to wipe Hera's frontal lobe, specifically, after every mission. She didn't want to think about what that implied. Having full control over the Frame, her restraints were loosened and she was put on the launch rail out of the hills surrounding Kruschevgrad. Lt. Pot came over the cockpit's loudspeakers. "You ready, Ariane?" She breathed in. Then out. She didn't know if it was her or Hera that did that. "Ready." She launched out of the hill. From here on, she had to sprint towards the facility. To be continued.