Dayle sported a wry smile as he closely examined the monster.

The monster, which appeared to have been created from patching several monsters together, stood at 8 feet tall on a pair of stocky metal legs. Its upper torso was messy, with misaligned tufts of hair from various monsters stitched together over a massive chest. Tubes jutting out from its chest and back ran up to some sort of conduit at the nape of its neck. Even more disgustingly, the monster's head was a massive lump of flesh covered with dozens of eyes, some natural, and others bionic.

A pair of metal gauntlets covered its arm and then ended in meter-long claws that sparked with electricity. Dayle had no doubt that if that thing hit him, he would be carved into two without the slightest resistance. But as if the claws were not enough, the tell-tale muzzle of a miniature Gatling gun rested atop both arms, prompting Dayle to wonder what it used as bullets.

Dayle did not have to wonder long, however, as the monster suddenly raised its left arm without warning. Dayle senses the danger and immediately dashed behind a pod for cover.

Dudududududu!

Dayle's eyes blanched as he watched the ground explode where he'd been just a moment ago. What the hell kind of force was that!? That bullet would obliterate him in seconds! Dayle was still piecing together the absurd difficulty when the hairs on his neck tingled. Dayle looked up and gaped in disbelief as the pod he was hiding behind 'flew' into the air.

The exposed agent's eyes widened in shock as he glanced at the monster. Dense radiation streams revolved around its left hand which was raised in the air. The condensed, yellow energy was the tell-tale sign of a bionic ability being used - but that was supposed to be exclusive to humans!

Before Dayle could question what was going on, the machine gun on the monster's right hand whirred to menacing life. The young man quickly dashed to the left as the onslaught destroyed the ground.

Bang! Bang!

Not one to silently take a beating, Dayle retaliated with two shots as he retreated. The bullets struck true, puncturing holes in the monster's torso. To the young man's dismay, however, the bullets fell out of the hole moments later as the injury healed.

"Fuck! What the hell is that thing!" Dayle cursed. He fired off a series of shots, but the results remained the same. The monster's regenerative rate was beyond monstrous. All injuries healed in the blink of an eye. Dayle grimaced as he once again took cover behind a pod.

For whatever reason, the monster appeared to be heavily adverse to the idea of damaging the pods. It always raised took the extra second to raise the pods before shooting at Dayle. That extra second was more than enough for Dayle to quickly pop out, take a shot, and then run off in a random direction, making it immensely difficult for the monster to pin him down.

However, Dayle did not have it any easier. Every second that passed was one which reinforcements could use to get there, and the only door to the next section was behind the monster.

What was meant to happen would eventually happen. Just as Dayle was about to sprint out of cover, as usual, his hairs suddenly stood on end. "Fuck!" Dayle cursed and dropped to the ground. A salvo of bullets flew overhead and then struck the pod behind him. To his surprise, however, the pod didn't break.

Dayle quickly looked at the monster and then spotted two Nexus bots standing by its side. The bots, whose rifles were trained at him, once again squeezed the trigger. In response, Dayle scrambled into a forward roll that took him past the impact point.

This time, however, he noticed that the bullets bounced off the ground, then struck the pods and bounced off.

Rubber Bullets!

Dayle realized just how prepared the Nexus was for an attack. The foresight to stock rubber bullets in order to avoid breaking the pods was something that sadly, many humans just did not have.

"No choice then." Dayle holstered his pistols as he did not want to antagonize the Nexus into utilizing real bullets. Getting struck by a rubber bullet would hurt like hell, but at the very least it wasn't fatal, giving him a bit of wiggle room.

Patatata!
That idea flew out of Dayle's mind when he saw the bullets leave deep, sparking impressions in the ground. What the fuck!? Even if they didn't kill him, not only would they hurt like hell, but the electricity on the bullets would stun him, if only for a few seconds. However, those few seconds were all the lurking chimera needed to turn him into swiss cheese.

Dayle swiftly abandoned any thoughts of fighting, and instead, chose to dedicate his all to fleeing about the facility. The chimera patiently waited by the door, shooting when it got the opportunity, while dozens of bots converged on Dayle's location.

Dayle, realizing the bots were attempting to form a net around him, suddenly switched strategies. He faked his run, and then dashed at an unsuspecting Nexus bot. The bot angrily raised its rifle, but Dayle was faster.

Bang!

The bots right leg exploded as a bullet tore through it and then embedded into the ground. Dayle, pleased with his little experiment, dashed to the fallen bot, and launched a devastating kick to its head before it could orient itself.

Bam!

Sparks and metal scraps scattered in the air as Dayle's boot crushed a massive depression into the bot's head. Unfortunately, judging by the light in its eyes, the seemingly fatal blow did not finish the job.

Dayle, seemingly not caring, seized the bot's gun and then quickly stole behind a pod. Seconds after he retreated, six enraged Nexus bots converged on that location. They barely spared a glance at the fallen bot before calculating Dayle's possible escape routes.

"Y'all need to work on your camaraderie."

Dayle's smug voice came from above, and the bots promptly looked up to see Dayle standing atop a pod with the gun he seized. "Here's your first lesson," joked the young man as he squeezed the trigger.

Countless rubber bullets rained down on the Nexus bots like hail from the heavens. Three of the six bots did not react on time and were thus struck all over until they collapsed. The remaining three, stealing a page from Dayle's book, dove behind pods to hide from the onslaught.

"Hehe, those who suffer together, laugh together," remarked Dayle with a laugh as he switched his target. "How about this?"

Dayle once again squeezed the trigger. This time, however, the bullets struck pods rather than the bots. Just when it seemed his aim had gone awry, angry sparks erupted behind the pods the Nexus bots had hidden. Dayle grinned, pleased that Operation Bounce-a-Lot worked as well as he hoped.

However, that smile soon disappeared when Dayle sensed even more enemies closing on him. The agent jumped down from the pod and once again slunk his way through the metal forest, intent on playing the role of the hunter from now on. He cast his gaze at the distant door and wondered how Queen was getting along.

Hopefully much better than he was.

Beyond the chimera's door, was a small room with six massive tanks at the northern end. All the wires and pumps in the building connected to a giant 'heart' suspended above that then pumped green liquid into the pods that seemingly nourishing six metal eggs.

Previously, thirty-some Nexus bots were packed in the room, analyzing hovering holograms and engaging in animated discussion. However, due to a certain disturbance, only two remained as the rest had left to capture or kill the intruder.

Intriguingly, at a corner of the room, a strange anomaly gently walked along the wall. At first glance, the figure did not seem to exist, but when 'it' moved, the image behind it slightly distorted like one was looking through a pool of water.

Vroom.

At a certain point, the 'thing' stopped, and then color began to replace the unseen. Slowly, a red outline emerged until it became clear that the crouched thing was actually Queen.

Queen peered at the two Nexus bots. Despite decloaking, the bots did not notice her as they were too engrossed in the six pods. Their gestures and rapid clicking suggested they were very excited about something. Quite what it was, though was unknown as the bots were speaking in a coded language.

Queen's translator had several editions of the Nexus' language, but the damned robots regularly created new languages and codes to deceive the humans. Queen sighed and then shook her head. She needed to get her hands on a bot's chip to download this edition. Kudan's politicians would probably shell out a couple thousand credits for any new Nexus language.

Queen then looked past the bots at the giant 'heart' suspended above the six pods. Her vast experience as a Nexus raider told her the heart was the base's motherbot. She then looked at the six pods. These pods had to be something immensely important to the Nexus for them to be managed directly by the motherbot.

Queen, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, steeled her nerves, and then softly approached the bots. As she neared the animated robots, Queen pulled out a pair of pen-like devices from her belt. Hands poised high, she rushed the final steps and stabbed the pens into the bots' legs.

A massive surge of electricity shot into the bots, immediately frying their systems before they could react. Queen. knowing that reinforcements would be swift, did not dwell on her victory. She raised her gauntlet and then transferred a virus into the console that was plugged directly to the motherbot.

Seconds later, Queen received a notification detailing the motherbot's current resistance against the rapidly expanding virus. The motherbot fell into self-preservation mode and thereby cut off its connection to the other bots in order to prevent the virus from infecting them. It then diverted all processing resources to combat the virus.

Queen did not believe the virus would successfully corrupt the motherbot. After all, it was an Artificial Intelligence going up against programmed, static intelligence. Only a dedicated Etarian hacker could go up against an A.I and win. The virus' main purpose was to buy her time.

While the motherbot was occupied with fighting off the virus, Queen seized command of the base's infrastructure. The first order of command was to seal the door shut to prevent reinforcements from coming in. She then created a new RFID signal which the door would only respond to.

With her safety secured, Queen turned to the console and began downloading every data en-mass whether encrypted or not. If Arthur was present, he would have cried blood. Queen's data download speed was in the hundreds of terabytes per second, whereas he had been struggling with Gigabyte speeds.

Truly, the difference in levels and money played a huge part in the smoothness of a mission.

Queen allowed the download to continue in the background while she pulled up information directly related to the six pods. Initially, Queen only wore slight interest, but the further she read, the more her eyes widened in shock.

Eventually, her mouth agape, Queen exclaimed with a cold shiver, "What the fuck!?"