In the capital City of Kingsted 2 young women lazed around with nothing to do.

"Then why don't you follow the training regiment Dax left you with?"

"I already did that, twice."

"Then how about playing with the royal knights?"

"They keep avoiding me after I beat them senseless the other day."

"I wonder why?..."

"Yeah it really is the strangest thing.."

"..."

"..."

"I'm still bored."

"..."

"Hey what is it that you see in Dax anyway?"

"E-EH!?- I-I don't Like h-"

"Just cut the c.r.a.p please."

"..."

"..."

"... Aved me."

"What?"

"He saved my life."

"Is that all?"

"ARRG! Yeah it is! I'm simple I know but I can't help it!!"

Burying her face in a pillow Alice screamed with all her might in frustration.

"Go ahead and make fun of me, I deserve it! After all I'm just some simple minded brat that falls for the first hunk of man meat that looks slightly attractive!!"

Further self destructing as she screamed out in the middle of the day and scared multiple pa.s.sing people Terra considered further bullying Alice to kill her own boredom, but more sane thoughts prevailed.

"Don't get me wrong I understand why you find him attractive, but his personality is just… Unappealing."

"Is it really?"

"Eh?"

"Eh?"

Coming to a greater understanding of her longtime friend Terra put on a teasing smirk.

"Don't tell me.."

"What?"

"Are you an M?"

"EEEEEEHHHH!?"

Coming to a greater understanding of herself and own nature Alice let out a scream that ultimately killed Terra's boredom as they were visited by guards she could spar with.

---

Moving forward into the Northern Republic's terratorry Dax had reached the great iceplane, a sheet of permanent ice a few kilometers thick which made about 90% of the Republic's 'land'. Traveling at a brisk pace, Dax lead a detachment of some 20 Reaper drones-

"Daaax can't we take a break?"

- and a single arc angel who struggled to keep up with them.

["Nope. You're free to stop following me though"]

"So you can start killing unarmed prisoners again?"

["That would make everything easier yeah."]

"I told you I'm not never letting you do that!"

Feeling a bit bad for the poor angel, Dax slowed down his run slightly and allowed Solaris to catch up, before stopping completely as he put up his rifle.

[CONTACT FRONT, 2005 METERS.]

["Yeah I see them, Solaris get behind me.. It's really hard not to notice them on this f.u.c.king ice sheet, how did they know I'm coming?.."]

[CONTACT FRONT, RIFLE FIRE.]

As Dax wondered how the Northern Republic found out he was coming for them his troughs was rudely interrupted when he was. .h.i.t by a rifle round in the head.

["Now that's just rude.."]

Brus.h.i.+ng off the few remaining fragments from his visor Dax s.h.i.+elded his face with his arm as another round hit right after.

"Dax why are you not shooting back!?"

["They're not f.u.c.king around huh? ICI a.s.sume spearhead formation, activate XMRA active ERA."]

Completely ignoring Solaris that almost hugged his back as he slowly advanced towards the direction of fire, with the drones also falling in behind him.

[CONFIRMED SPEARHEAD FORMATION, XMRA ACTIVE EXPLOSIVE REACTIVE ARMOR ONLINE.]

With ICI's cold and unfeeling voice as a cue, 2 ports opened on Dax's armored shoulder and 2 small black boxes popped up.

[DOPPLER RADAR ACTIVE, READY FOR INTERCEPTION.]

["Intercept all hostile fire, ammunition rationing still in effect, limit suppressive fire to 2%"]

[RATIONING IN EFFECT, KILLSHOTS ONLY.]

"Dax shoot back!"

Now completely covering behind his back Solaris started getting teary eyed as gunshots snapped past them.

["No need. Besides they can't hit us anymore."]

"Nonono it clearly looks like they c hiii!"

As Solaris really started losing it something blew up about 10 meters in front of, almost scaring the c.r.a.p out of her.

"What was that!?"

["Explosive reactive armor, or ERA for short. When the suit detectives rifle fire that'll hit it launches a small shard of my outer armor that then blows up and deflects the shot away. Neat right~"]

"Could you just do something to the instead of bragging like that?!"

["I am doing something, besides are you not the general of the 14th sanctuary? Why the f.u.c.k are you getting scared of a little rifle fire?"]

"Because it's way out of my range! Dax do something please!"

["Then dig a hole or something.. ICI range to targets?"]

[1464 METERS.]

["Time to go to work then, ICI leave one alive for intelligence extraction."]

[DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, READY TO BREAK FORMATION]

Cracking his neck Dax did a few quick jumps before he turned to Solaris.

["Be right back~"]

Breaking into a sprint Dax moved with the power of a freight train leaving deep cracks in the ice sheet and instantly closed another 200 meters towards the republic riflemen before he leaped into the air, leaving deep cracks in the ice below.

["G.o.d I hope the ice is thick enough.."]

Flying through the air as he mumbled quietly to himself Dax landed right on top of the republic formation, kicking up a shotgun blast of ice crystals that decimated the surrounding area. Quickly finding his bearings in the low visibility Dax charged the nearest surviving rifleman which he grabbed by the next and lifted him off the floor.

["That's a nice weapon, where did you get it?"]

"Gha! f.u.c.k yo-" *CRACK*

["Wrong answer, next."]

Throwing the dead copese at another surviving rifleman Dax charged his next target, which response by panicking as he turned his rifle to full auto.

"AAAAHHHH stay away you f.u.c.king demon!!"

["Please exorcise trigger control in CQC..-"]

*SPLAT*

["And always keep in mind all hostiles while keeping mobile. Next."]

Turning away from the rifleman that had made himself an easy target for the Reaper drones and subsequently reduced to a headless corpse Dax continued his slaughter of the hostile forces.

"STAY AWAY!"

Soon only one enemy remained. Looking closer at him Dax notice he was no more than a kid, clearly panicking as he long had emptied his magazine but still held down the trigger as tears formed in his eyes and he half ran away from Dax.

["Okay I won't kill you if you tell me were you got that weapon from."]

"T-this useless thing? it's from-"

["ICI manuel ERA, target front."]

[STUNNING TARGET.]

The second the kid was distracted Dax acted without mercy. Setting his ERA to manuel fire mode he selected the kid as a target for the system, making a armor shard launch towards him, before exploding in his face. Rus.h.i.+ng quickly towards the stunned target Dax grabbed him by the head with his artificial arm and extracted his knowledge, ending his suffering.

[RAW CEREBRAL DATA EXTRACTED, NOW PROCESSING 2.5 PETABYTES OF RAW DATA, COMPLETED. READY FOR EVALUATION BY COMMAND.]

["Never disrespect your rifle.. I swear this f.u.c.king planet is so uncivilized, ICI salvage any useful supplies and form the drones up on me."]

Lazarus XMRA - Next generation eXperimental Modular Reactive Armor

First seen doing the later faces of the Iron race containment war, the Lazarus XMRA is a completely custom made implementation of perfect protection made for the leader of the 125th combined ops...o...b..tal drop troopers, and has come to be a symbol of the Galactic Empire's technological might. Being modular in design the armor can be comprised of anything from 3 to 12 layers of interconnecting nanowaves that each are made to stop a specific treat, which could be anything from hostile HEL, precision high caliber artillery or even 5th generation active biochemical warfare. Truly a complete package of protection, the XMRA's only downsides are it's ma.s.sive price point, both in up front purchase and maintenance, and the fact that it lacks any form of internal long term life support, limiting its use to a select few soldiers that already have the required build in life support. Because of those limiting factors it only saw a handful of sales, prompting a internal investigation when the ma.s.sive development costs disappeared overnight, and eventually lead to a open hearing in the Galactic senate, were the director of technological development appeared through a heavily encrypted voice call, leaving a quick statement: 'The XMRA was never meant to generate revenue, it is a statement of technological superiority against the Iron cooperation, that they sould never have crawled off their sad little planet and commit the crimes they have, for now their reckoning have arrived. As such after the initial sale period I covered the loss myself out of my own pocket, that is all.'

-

(He's truly a unstoppable force…)

Having observed the battle from overhead Solaris wore a difficult expression as she was deep in thought.

(Even if they wield the same weapons as him they stand no chance, and that's properly the case in every instance too…. I need to induckternate him into the sanctuary before he's picked up by a hostile faction.)

"You really are unable to hold back huh?"

["I find it rude to play around on the battlefield. So are you here to tell me I'm a monster again?"]

"No, I've made that point clear already and I don't like repeating myself. So did you learn anything useful?"

"I did yeah, but let's move away from here first and talk while the drones pick through the corpses for supply's"

Taking of his helmet Dax gestured to move away before handing it away to a drone for maintenance.

"Is your helmet okay?"

"Yeah it's completely fine, I'm just having ICI look it trough for any sign of structural damage."

"Is that so? Well what did want to talk about?"

With a wave of her hand Solaris formed a chair out of the ice below and sat down with a air of superiority looking at Dax who sat on the ground.

"Can you make one for me?"

"What did you want to talk about?"

Repeating herself with a large smile Solaris completely ignored Dax's question, making Dax scratch his head.

"Are you perhaps mad about so-"

"So. What. Did. You. Want. To. Talk. About?"

With an ever larger smile Solaris interrupted Dax again.

"Well whatever.. What do you know about the lands to the west across the great sea?"

With the Kingdom laying in the center of the continent it bordered a few minor republics and kingdoms to the west before the continent ended and a great barrier sea seemed to close of the world in that direction.

"To the west? The only thing there is the great empire, and multiple arcangel sanctuaries."

"The great empire?"

"They basically control the entire western continent yeah, what are you wondering about?"

"It seems like the Northern Republic got help to break the biometric encryption on my weapons from overseas."

"That shouldn't be possible, crossing the sea is no small feat you know?"

"And that is why they didn't. This recent winter was particularly harsh right?"

"It was the worst in about 200 years yeah, even made the Northern Republic launch a attack on the Kingdom out of desperation, but what does that have to do with anything?"

"A cold and long winter means the polar ice sheet expands."

"So they crossed over the ice…"

As it finally clicked for Solaris her face turned difficult to read.

"Yep, and it seems they secured a single rifle in exchange for showing the Republic how to make them work, or that is at least what the kid clan leader I just killed seems to think. But that is not the only factor it seams."

"The 'monster' was it?"

Remembering their earlier conversation Solaris brought up what Dax had mentioned.

"Bingo, a monster seems to have been born into a engineering guild, she is the key to their current technological edge."

"So you want to kill this monster?"

"Nope, I want to know how she cracked my encryption."

"Wait the empire didn't do it?"

"They helped, but it was the so called monster of the engineering guild that did it."

"That seems like an interesting human…"

---

"So they were wiped out too? That metal t.i.tan really seems invincible."

"We truly stepped on the griffins tail this time."

"But we still have a chance."

"Indeed. If we can deal with the other one first."

"But we might not need to.."

"That's also true.."

Sitting alone in a closed off room surrounded by alien technology that should be far beyond her, the so called monster of the Republic played around with a small vial marked in every warning label the Galactic Empire used as she talked to herself as if she were multiple people.

"In the end there's also this we can use."

"That is also true, but it would be a waste."