Women tended to be more agile and graceful as well as more willing to play dirty in combat, and their power armor reflected that as it made whoever wore it extremely fast and agile while also providing an assortment of offensive and defensive built-in tools that they could use in order to capitalize on those well documented and studied forms of combat. Men tended to be more focused and calculated with how they struck while also not being afraid to charge head on and throw themselves at the enemy, and so their power armor made sure to make them extremely durable as well as increases their overall strength and giving a slight boost to speed but not nearly as much as the female variant does. Both suits were capable of temporarily sustaining low altitude flight and also had inbuilt miniature missiles launchers, flamethrowers, and wrist-mounted plasma guns.
As each of them stepped into the room and began putting on the armor, Charlemagne looked to Javianna and gave her a half order half request, "Javi we both have survived for this long. I know you and sometimes you can get hot blooded in the middle of combat so that's why I'm telling you this. Do not do more than what is needed I don't want to bring you home in a body bag or in pieces. Your family would kill me if I didn't tell you to not do anything too heroic. Do you understand?"
Javianna kissed his cheek and nodded, "Don't worry Charlie. I promise I won't do too much that could put me in danger. After all I got to make sure you make it home too."
John jokes with them, "Looks like Javi's got the hots for you lieutenant. After we survived this maybe the two of you can find a way to get some alone time." He then starts laughing to himself maniacally and Charlemagne looks at him like he'll strangle him.
Velma was the first to suit up and once she was done and the power armor activated she looked to Charlemagne, "You helped make the prototype of this power armor with Dr. Goldsmith and Dr. Shikumara while stationed in Japan, right lieutenant?"
He replied proudly, "Correct. It was mostly my design and the two of them just so happen to be the only ones with the clearance and capability of bringing it to life. They added some things here and there like the gender distinct versions as the original concept I had made had the qualities of both types of power armor integrated into one universal type of suit. I'm just glad that they made sure to credit me as the original creator, and I got handpick two actually test the prototype while conducting the string of missions that saw us retake Taiwan from the Chinese."
John asked after he finished suiting up, "Was Javi there with you lieutenant?" Javianna laughed and answered for herself, "You bit your ass I was. Taiwan was hell trying to retake and Charlie was hell trying to keep up with. Even the prototype made him much more deadly than he already was. You know there's a reason that he's already a first lieutenant even though we're 5 years into this war. With or without any power armor he's dangerous when he feels like he's in a fight for his life. Almost likely become someone else and that's how he gets such ridiculously high numbers of kills in conflicts especially ones like these."
As Javianna and Charlamagne finished sitting up into their power armor they all started moving out of the chamber, and they saw the other 5 remaining soldiers that had made it to this safe area looked to be back in fighting condition thanks to Velvetina. Charlamagne look to them and he said, "We're going to go up and secure the surrounding area. Once it's secure I'll come back and motion for you guys to follow up and join the fighting. Got it?"
The five of them saluted all saying in unison, "Sir yes sir." With that Charlemagne handed each of them plasma rifles and pistols as well as both incendiary and cryostasis grenades. Those in power armor didn't really need the weapons as the suits came with enough for them to work with especially his as it was one that he had modified himself once it had arrived.
Charlemagne and the others in power armor made their way over to be barricaded door that they had set up to make sure no enemies entered in unless they used explosives to blow the door open. He immediately summoned forth a plasma sword from within the power armor and at the same time pointed one of the miniature missile launchers towards the barricaded area and fired off two missiles to blow it open. With that he charged first and the other 3 followed.
As soon as they got out of the smoke there power armor sensors started alerting them to both allies and enemies around. While the others went to charge Charlemagne was stopped as he saw a message pop up on his digital display within the helmet that had the symbol of the Cyber Daemons. In that moment he saw the message and it's simply said, "Nukes incoming." It was immediately followed up by another message that showed that a nuke was set to strike nearby and destroy the base as well as most of the surrounding area to clear path for the enemy.
Charlemagne could not allow that nuke to land, and as he looked and saw that his three allies had almost entirely cleared up any enemies in the surrounding area. Thus giving everyone a chance to push the enemies from behind while they're being assaulted by the other platoons. He immediately went back and signaled for the others to come out and join the fighting.
While the other is moved in to join the fighting with his 3 allies in power armor, he used the suit to try and triangulate a place where he could intercept the nuke. That way he could destroy it before it could reach a point where it would catch everyone else in the blast. It didn't take more than 10 seconds for the system to do the math and come up with a solution and he immediately capitalized on the suggested plan.
Using the modifications that he made to this power armor he was able to fly much higher and much faster than the other suits would allow for and he blasted off in the direction that the suit had pinpointed. Once in range, he noticed that the anti-nuclear cannons were firing and destroying most of the dummy warheads in the air. He spotted at least two dozen more warheads falling and he knew one of them had to be the real deal but he only had enough missiles to take out all the three. Even if he got it wrong with the missiles the anti-nuclear cannons should be able to shoot the other three and destroy them before they can get to close.
He had his systems lock onto as many of the warheads as he could and then he gave the order for it to fire the missiles. As they went fine towards the warheads he noticed that his fuel supply was getting real low and that soon he would start to fall out of the sky and so he allowed himself to slowly start to float on back down. By the time he was almost to the ground his missiles had struck but none of them hit the right warhead that was the actual nuke. He watched as the anti-nuclear cannon started shooting and hitting two more before it's suddenly exploded most likely due to enemy forces planting a bomb on it to cause it to detonate before it can shoot the actual nuke. There was only one more warhead left which meant it was the real deal and it was almost at a point where even if it got destroyed it would still catch him and almost everyone there in the blast radius.
Watching as the headset display how much time he had before it reached the point of no return He aimed his wrist-mounted plasma gun knowing that it could hit it towards the warhead. The windup of the plasma gun preparing to shoot was almost the exact same amount of time that he had until it would be too close and would kill him and everyone there. He just hope that he could get it before it did even if it was only by a single second.
When it was finally ready the shot fired and he prayed that it was just in time. However to his shock at chest last moment the wind took effect on the warhead changing its trajectory slightly enough for his shot to miss entirely. As he watched in horror knowing that it was soon about to be over and that he had failed, he summoned up his courage and decided to use the last of his fuel and fly it up higher and detonate it in the sky with him. He knew he had enough fuel for that at least. That way he could detonate it from up high at an altitude where it wouldn't kill everybody at the base.
He hated this war so much. As his jets started to ignite and he pushed himself farther than he ever could before taking to the sky one last time. Yeah he hated this war more than anyone could ever know and understand. Yet here he was sacrificing his life. It wasn't for the war though it was for his friends fighting on that battlefield with him that all wanted to make it home. He promise that he wasn't going to let Javianna die and he wanted to make sure of that.
However fate had another plan for him as he was halfway to where he needed to be he suddenly got tackled in the sky and pushed far off of trajectory. When he looked to see who did it he noticed Javianna was holding on to him for dear life. He shouted confused, "Javi what are you doing?!"
She shouted back and he could almost hear her crying from inside the helmet, "Getting you away from the blast radius! My suit picked up what you were doing and I'm not going to let you die!" As her thrusters ignited further pushing them farther and faster while also using up almost all of her fuel; they fell towards the edge of the blast radius but still within it surrounded by enemy troops.
The troops started shoot at them and Charlemagne started dicing them up into pieces with his plasma sword while shouting back at her, "You idiot! That bomb is going to kill us all! Why did you stop me?!"
She shouted back while blowing the head off of one enemy, "Because I love you, dumbass!" He noticed that the two of them were on the edge of the blast radius but with their suits they could outrun it. As he watched the warhead seconds away from making contact he cut the head off of one final enemy before turning to run with Javianna.
As the warhead was was just about to hit the ground and detonate, time seemed to come to a stop. As the world seemingly came to a standstill Charlamagne began to hear clapping and laughing all around him. Almost as if the delusional last moments of a man feeling as if he were about to die reality seem to be almost fake as they are opened up in front of him and a man appeared.
The man had pale blue skin, bright red ginger hair that was very curly and long and free-flowing with a full red beard to match almost like a lion's mane. He had two large horns coming out of the top of his head shaped similarly like oni horns but curved more like that of a goat. His eyes were like that of a feline and they were a bright reddish gold. At various parts of his exposed skin that was visible Charlamagne noticed that he had red ginger fur mostly on the backs of his hands, wrists, and elbows. There was a noticeably long tell that the man had that was the same color as his skin and about the same length as one of the man's legs. He was dressed in blue and black robes with gold and silver accessories and a ruby crown. There was a halo behind his head that looked like a flaming circle.
When he spoke the man had a very noticeable accent that sounded like that of royalty. He would place it around a either Swedish or Norwegian nobility accent. The man however spoke with amusement and intrigue, "My oh my...... Look at what you have gotten yourself into man dear friend. Here you stand at the precipice where you may or may not die. But only I really know how the outcome of this moment will play out and if you will survive the detonation of that nuclear bomb. I bet you're wondering what's going on and who I am. It would be rude of me not to allow you to reply."
With a snap of the man's fingers, Charlemagne could move and talk. He immediately took up a fighting stance I'm sure what was happening but the man seem not to care. The man spoke once more, "Much better. I guess a little bit of information is in order for me to help you understand what's happening here. A while back I made a wager no with a specific individual who leads an organization that you know of as the Cyber Daemons. This individual is not human as I am not either. I made a bet that since this war had started you would be able to kill 90,000 people in less than 10 years of the conflict, but he was to get all of his faithful to keep the nuclear option off the table until you reach that goal. After all you can't really kill 90,000 people if you get caught in a nuclear explosion before you get the chance to really get those numbers up there. And before you start getting your undies in a twist; no neither he nor I am responsible for this war this is purely a war bond from the hubris and power hunger of humanity."
Charlemagne glared at him with a calm bloodlust not really sure if this man was friend or foe, "Why should I believe you or anything that you say? Got any proof of what you are saying?"
The man giggled while walking around Charlemagne, "Yes actually. Who do you think forced the Cyber Daemons to alert you specifically that there was a nuclear bomb about to strike you? It was me. They broke the rule of our deal and thus I got to intervene, and I chose to give you a heads up because I knew you could handle it. But it would look like that was not the only thing they did to play dirty. So that's why I'm here. In this last moment before that bomb detonates to give you a way out. A way to change everything and a way to get back at the one who tried to kill you...... While also preventing this war from ever happening. So let me make you an offer."
As Charlemagne looked him in the eyes and can see that there was no trick or deception his muscles relaxed and he decided to give this mysterious stranger a chance. He look to him and he said very sure of himself, "Alright let me hear it?"
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