Last Updated:
2024-10-29 19:42:56The interior of the military base was just as drab and boring as I had expected it to be, but that was fine because my mind was still reeling at the revelation that officer Blake had thrown at me.
"Sorry, did you just say you're arranging a tournament?" I asked, "What does that even mean?"
The officer turned to look at me with a glint in his eye and a smirk playing across his lips.
"I'd rather not have to explain myself more than once, so let's go and meet up with the rest of the recruits first shall we?" He said, walking on again.
I kept in step with him, mulling it over in my head.
A tournament was unexpected, but honestly, it was a good way to figure out who the most powerful people in the group were.
There was something else on my mind too, however.
As we had drawn closer and closer to the military base a feeling had been growing in my chest.
A… warmth.
A growing connection that, now I was actually standing in the building, was becoming so strong it was hard to ignore.
It had to be something to do with the exo.
“What would give you that idea?” The AI asked in my mind.
I rolled my eyes. Everything weird that had happened to me in the past few days had at least a tangential connection to the exo. There was no way that this didn’t as well.
I felt a sense of smugness come from the AI as I had that thought.
The damn thing knew. It had to.
“Oh no, I don’t know a thing,” The exo AI replied, “I’m just having fun trapped here in your little human mind watching it furiously try to work things out. I’m sure you’ll get it eventually.”
“Prick,” I muttered under my breath with a shake of my head.
The AI didn’t respond, so I settled to follow Officer Blake through the corridors of the base.
There was no doubt I’d memorize the layout of the building in the future, but as it stood I had already become lost winding my way through the corridors of the building.
Eventually, we came to a set of double doors, and it was at this point that the connection I was feeling flared and grew stronger still.
Whatever was causing the steadily growing feeling, that burn in my chest, was likely behind those very doors.
“A synch-unit… but that’s not possible…” The AI muttered.
I was sure that was something it had been trying to keep to itself, but the level of surprise in its hushed tone betrayed its surprise.
So what the hell was a synch-unit?
The AI wasn’t given a chance to answer as Blake opened the door and ushered me through it.
The room I entered reminded me of a lecture hall from university.
There was a stage with a lectern at the front of the room with tiered seating rising up a set of stairs toward the back of the room.
At maximum capacity, it looked as if the room would hold somewhere between fifty and a hundred people, but at the moment it held no more than nine.
Nine people who immediately turned to stare at me.
And one of them… her gaze was intense.
Her amber eyes bore into mine like a drill as if she were searching for something within them.
After a few moments, she turned her head away, almost dismissively, and let her long violet hair break our eye contact.
What the hell was that about?
“Go take a seat, all your questions will be answered in the forthcoming presentation,” The officer said, snapping me out of my daze.
“Uh… Yeah, sure,” I replied before hurrying over to the chairs to take a seat of my own.
I had no idea what that girl's problem was, or why she had stared at me so intensely before seemingly dismissing my existence altogether, but right now she wasn’t the issue. I had plenty of time to figure her deal out in the future.
“So, as you all know, the ten of you have been selected as potential entrants to a new special squad of super-powered individuals to help manage the ongoing crisis that is occurring not just in the UK, but across the world,” Officer blake said, stepping up to the lectern.
He clicked a button on the pedestal which brought down a plain white screen. When it was in position, a projector beam flickered into life, it displayed a wreckage of one of the alien ships that had come crashing down onto the surface of the Earth.
“The origin of the crisis are these pods, which have been colliding with the Earth over the past week,” Blake continued, “As of right now we are uncertain of the true origin of these objects, though the leading thought is that they are some form of debris left behind by an…”
He paused as if he couldn’t believe he was actually going to say, “the leading thought is that they are debris left behind from some kind of interstellar war.”
He let the words hang in the air.
This was information that I had already been given by my AI, but the reactions of the other people in the room made it clear that this was not common knowledge.
“So what? You’re saying aliens exist then?” One of the other nine retorted, “Like, little green men from mars had a bang-up and now people can shoot lasers out of their arses? Yeah right mate, jog on.”
“As unbelievable as it may seem, this is the leading school of thought at the moment,” Officer Blake reiterated, “The technology recovered from the pods is far greater than any man-made object, and so an extraterrestrial influence is all our scientists can agree on.”
The mood in the room shifted to one of subtle panic and disbelief.
All bar one.
The only person, other than me, who looked thoroughly unperturbed by Blake’s revelations was the girl that had stared me down when I walked into the room.
Was she… like me?
Previous Chapter
Related Chapters
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit Crash From Above
Working an office job was never what I had wanted with my life. When I was younger I’d had all these grand aspirations of becoming a famous writer, publishing articles to the biggest newspapers and writing novels that would be read the whole world over. That had never really happened. My dreams had flickered and sputtered out like the dying flames of a campfire in the depths of the night. All of that had led me to walking home through the park after a night checking emails for spelling mistakes at what some would consider the perfect time, and what others would later come to consider the worst. As I reached the halfwa
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit Exo Online
My heart thundered in my ears. My breaths came quick and ragged.What the hell had happened to me?What the hell had I become?Metal fingers slid across metal skin, screeching against one another but leaving no marks.I had been turned into some kind of mechanical monster. Some alien… thing… had absorbed my body and made me part of itself.Was I going to be digested?Was this just the first stage in-“Oh, would you please shut up for five seconds?” a voice rang out in my mind, “Digest you?
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit The Big Bang
I’d been screwing around figuring out whether what had just happened was real or not for far too long.If there was one thing that I was sure of it was that, if a major explosion had happened in a park at the heart of a busy city the police would be soon to follow in the wake of said explosion.“I can engage active sensors if you wish to watch out for any local law enforcement,” the AI said.“We have active sensors?” I replied, “What does that entail?”I was standing in a super-powerful alien war machine, active sensors might sound innocuous enough but they could also be highly dangerous and damaging to life on Earth. For all I knew they could use some kind
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit Escape Route
I wasn’t sure what the suit did to keep me alive, and frankly, I probably wouldn’t have understood it even if I had the information.All I knew was that, after the explosion, I was the only thing left standing.The trees had been blasted away, leaving only scorched dirt and ripped up stumps where they had been before.The grass had been completely incinerated.In some places closer to the epicentre of the explosion chunks of the ground had been completely vaporised.I turned my eyes further afield, the destruction was no longer limited to the park.Gl
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit The Five Women
I staggered to my feet as the sickening smell of sulphur attacked my senses. The world around me was ablaze with flames, eating away at buildings that had been reduced to nothing but rubble. As far as the eye could see tornadoes of fire stretched up into the air howling as they ripped away at even more of the landscape. Even the sky was a deep blood red. Though, that wasn’t the only thing that was weird about the sky above me. There was also the giant spaceship that seemed to dominate the entirety of the sky above me, it stretched on for miles and miles. To put it succinctly, I had no idea what was going on… and yet,
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit 72 Hours
I staggered through my apartment into the kitchen and hobbled over to the sink, pausing for a moment to grab a glass from the cupboard.One pint of water later and my mouth was feeling somewhat rehydrated, it wasn’t until the second that the feeling of sandpaper finally subsided.An angry growl from my stomach reminded me that I still had to eat breakfast, which was weird considering I didn’t usually eat things in the morning.In fact, the idea of eating things in the morning was usually something that made my stomach do sumersaults.Something else was going on here.“Explain yourself, AI,” I growled whi
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit Mother
I didn’t know where to start. Well, I knew exactly where to start, but it was precisely where I didn’t want to start. I needed to start with the fact that the life I knew before the ship had crashed in front of me and gave me the exo suit was over. I’d lost my job and by the sound of it, my Mum thought I’d done a runner or I’d died, one or the other. I needed to get in contact with her. That was the first thing I really needed to do. With a sigh I thumbed through to the call screen on my phone and navigated to the call now button. With a heavy heart, I pushed it, and let the phone ring.
Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit Breakdown
I’d never liked running before I’d gotten my mecha suit. In fact, before the strange biological changes that I’d experienced while in my two-day long hibernation, I’d never really liked doing much of any physical exercise. For all the terrible things that had happened over the past hour, I was enjoying running now. Each footstep was heavy on the ground, cracking the cement of the pavement, and yet it managed to launch me forward an insane amount at an insane speed. Even crazier? The last time I’d run like this I hadn’t been able to control my movements at all. Everything moved too fast for me to keep track of it. But
Latest Chapter
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Presentation
The interior of the military base was just as drab and boring as I had expected it to be, but that was fine because my mind was still reeling at the revelation that officer Blake had thrown at me."Sorry, did you just say you're arranging a tournament?" I asked, "What does that even mean?"The officer turned to look at me with a glint in his eye and a smirk playing across his lips."I'd rather not have to explain myself more than once, so let's go and meet up with the rest of the recruits first shall we?" He said, walking on again.I kept in step with him, mulling it over in my head.A tournament was unexpected, but honestly, it was a good way t
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Lakenheath
Wherever the recruitment officer was taking me, it definitely wasn’t in London.The jeep had broken the outskirts of the city at least a half hour ago, and now we were plugging through the winding roads of the countryside.“Where exactly are you taking me?” I asked, feeling the itch to activate my exo suit and simply get myself out of the situation before anything could go terribly wrong.“My sensors are not detecting any form of aggression from anyone in the vehicle,” The AI responded to my question mentally before the military man had even opened his mouth to reply.Was there anything the AI couldn’t actually do? How did you even detect aggression using sensors
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Drafted
“I’m sorry,” I said after a moment of consideration, “Did you basically just offer me a job?”“Yes, that’s the short and skinny of it,” The officer replied, “The fact of the matter is that the world is in tatters at the moment, and is declining at an absurdly rapid rate. Conventional means are not currently powerful enough to deal with the emergent threats and so we need to come up with new and innovative ways to deal with the problems that the new situation is presenting us with.”It made sense.From what I had seen of the city yesterday things really weren’t in a good way.For a start, there was the initial destruction that h
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Recruitment
I was woken by a heavy knocking at my door.I waited a few moments.There was no one that should have been knocking on that door.My mother was… not around anymore, and my sister wasn’t someone who would ever reach out to me. Not for any reason.The knocking happened again, louder this time, and much more urgent.Was there a chance that someone had followed me home after my escapades in my suit the day before?It was certainly a possibility.I hadn’t exactly been subtle when I’d
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Jobless
I collapsed into my armchair with a heavy sigh.It had been a long and arduous day. I’d done a lot of good, a lot of stopping mutated villains, a lot of helping people on the street.Honestly, even though the world was ending and there were certain things that I was definitely avoiding thinking about, I was pretty sure that the day had been one of the best days of my life so far.Maybe having a super powered mecha from outer space wasn’t the worst thing in the world after all. At least not now that the world was such a messed up place.It really was a messed up place, too.I’d learnt over the course of the day
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
A Hero For Fun
The man who could fire the directional lasers seemed shocked by the fact I’d managed to take his friend down. It hadn’t been easy, but I’d still managed to do it with just a couple of hits. But it didn’t take him very long to regain his composure. The short mutated villain let out a barrage of lasers, one shooting from each of his fingers and thumbs. They streaked toward me, slower than the speed that light would usually travel, but fast enough that dodging all ten was going to be a bit of a nuisance. With a pulse of thrust from the boosters in my boots, I soared high into the air at the last minute. Two of the lasers
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Elastic Beatdown
My footsteps pounded across the street.I closed the distance between myself and the criminals in less than a second. I must have looked like nothing more than a blur to the two of them, they didn’t even have enough time to react to the fact I’d moved.However, I didn’t really want to kill either of them, so before I ploughed into the one with the elasticity and super strength I stopped my momentum.That was when the reactions came from the two.The elastic man jumped back in surprise, his springy legs sending him flying into the air like a coil that had been compressed far too much.The laser user, on the oth
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Mutagenic Battle
Drawing closer to the two criminals who had used their newfound mutagenic powers to rob the Bank of England, it was clear what the powers of at least one of the pair were.A massive duffle bag filled to the brim with glinting gold was strapped to his back, only it wasn’t a normal set of straps that had secured the bag, instead, it was the man’s own arms wrapped around himself several times.He had some kind of… stretchiness… to him.The ability to contort and extend his body in ways similar to an elastic band, and clearly some kind of super-strength to be able to carry the bag and still run around.It took a few moments of observation to realise what the other crimin
- Mecha System: Harem in The Cockpit
Superhero
Okay, so I’d decided to become a superhero.As far as things went, I had to admit that was a little bit ridiculous even by my standards. But still, I’d made the choice and now I was going to stick with it.So, in my newfound career as a superhero what had, I decided to do?Well, I’d decided to do what just about any superhero does at the beginning of their patrol, at least according to comic books and movies.My armour was wrapped around me, and I was stood atop the Shard, the tallest building in the entirety of London and somehow seemingly one of the only buildings that hadn’t been affected in some way by the falling spacecraft that had been impacting around the world
