“Sir, Lieutenant Grak with a report!”

The room was dim, only lit by two lamps downturned to focus on the center of a workbench along the wall. The large figure of a Gremlin was hunched over, the sound of metal clanging together echoing in the room. It repeated a few more times before the figure stood up straight, and turned around. 

Both of his long ears had rounded orange earrings, and a crimson wrap of thick cloth covered his chest and shoulders. Some thick plated armor could be seen under the red wrap, covering his torso and even his legs. On the left of his belt, there were a few black orbs with orange tops: highly explosive bombs, although one appeared to be missing. What was most striking about the Gremlin, though, was that he wore a white mask with a hooked beak. The mask had a red cog painted around it, with a wrench in the middle of it and extending down the beak; the symbol for The Nine, identical to the symbol painted above the workbench he’d just been standing at. Peering from behind the mask were two orange eyes that betrayed the madness of the infamous Warmaster Seerus.

“Well? Don’t keep me waiting, Lieutenant.” Holding a wrench in one hand, he gestured with the other to the shorter Gremlin standing in the doorway to come closer.

“S-Sir!” The reporting Gremlin saluted, and brought out a thick electronic tablet to read off of. “We’ve received word from Facility Three, and they’ve sent the program you requested.”

“Already? That’s rather quick, even for Sergeant Burke…”

“Actually, it seems that Facility Three was unaware of the Sergeant’s imminent arrival, and sent the program before he could properly supervise them.”

CLANG

The head of the wrench was buried in the workbench, and one of the lamps was now shining against the wall. The wrench itself was reinforced to withstand this kind of abuse, and showed no sign of wear or damage.

“Those mongrels! They dared to slow our progress with Project R, and then have the audacity to send me their faulty program? If they delay us any further, I’ll have their Foreman’s head!”

“No need for that, Warmaster Seerus!” Grak swiped on the tablet a few times, and explained. “Sergeant Burke has already dealt with the incompetent Foreman, and replaced him with another in the chain of command.”

Seerus’s eyes narrowed. “...Did the Sergeant happen to give a reason why he made such a decision without my approval first?”

“...Aye Sir, he did.”

“And?”

“...Do you wish to know the Sergeant’s reasoning, Sir?”

“Do you wish to join the aforementioned Foreman?”

“N-No, Sir!” Grak saluted on instinct, and swiped on the tablet once more. When he found the document he was looking for, he held it out for the Warmaster to see. “Sergeant Burke explained in this follow up message the events leading up to and after the Foreman’s… termination.”

Seerus snatched the tablet and examined the contents of the screen. His eyes frantically moved about, and the Lieutenant could have sworn he saw a twitch in one of them, behind the mask.

“So, the surface dwellers infiltrated the facility…” He scrolled, mumbling to himself. “Sabotaged… read our correspondence… freed the test subjects… made off with the plans…” The tablet strained under his grasp, and a crack appeared running down the screen. “Where are those pesky thieves now? Have we begun hunting them?”

“S-Sir, they had an escape plan in place. They used our own weapons to safely create distance between them and those in pursuit, and had made it to the elevator before they could be caught. There’s no telling where in the Clockworks they could be now.” Grak cowed before the Warmaster, worried he would find a wrench buried in his face just as the workbench had.

“Grrr, they’re clever, I’ll give them that.” Seerus shoved the tablet back in the hands of the other Gremlin, and turned around. “Go. Get the new program loaded into the Battle Pod and prepare the test subjects. I want to confirm just how well the targeting system works. Make sure it’s able to identify any possible target, while avoiding any potential Gremlin personnel and Construct. And I want to hear a report in an hour.” He pulled the wrench out of the hole he’d made, and continued working on the item on the workbench. “Do not disturb me until it’s done.”

“Yes, Sir!” The Gremlin hurried off, grateful to still be breathing.

* * *

As the elevator descended through the thick grey clouds of smoke, we were finally able to see the vast level that lay before us. Far off in the distance, much of the ground seemed to be torn up; mounds of soil were piled up, leaving the thick metallic foundations of the Clockworks exposed. At least, what remained of them…

“This is crazy,” Lance said, kneeling against the elevator’s railing. “They call the Clockworks their home, they protect it and ward off outsiders like us at the cost of their lives… But then they turn around to do this?” 

As expansive as the level appeared below us, it was already significantly smaller than it originally was, supposedly. Closer towards the elevator was the remains of what once was a large forest. Surrounding it was scorched acres of black, dead trees and a few flames still fighting to survive. It looked not unlike the after effects of the mortars we’d just finished running away from. “It’s just… almost too hard to believe.”

“They’re rat-dogs,” Zimthose replied. “We know what they’re like. None of this should be surprising or shocking in the least.”

“You’d never catch Vise or Punch doing something as abominable as this,” I reminded him. “Not every Gremlin is always gonna be like that. And that goes for just about anything. In fact, I think you’d be hard pressed to find many Spiral Knights as willing as us to jump out of the furnace, only to wind up in the fire not even half an hour later.”

“It’s not a matter of wanting to or not, though,” Zimthose shook his head. “Just like Silver used to say. Duty calls. It’s up to us to answer it, right?”

He was right. Time and again, Silver would say that before a mission we weren’t sure about. Now was no different.

“Brrrrip?” Bigsby made a questioning noise from Zimthose’s shoulder.

“We’ll answer it,” I said, giving Bigsby a head scratch. “Right guys?”

“Right on!”

“You bet.”

“Of course.”

Zimthose, Lance, and Balldrick all nodded, weapons drawn. The elevator slowed before coming to a halt, hitting the landing platform and lowering the rails around us.

“Same formation as before. Now, let’s move!” I said, leading the way into the forest.