Maximum Overdrive

“So, how are you adapting to everything, Midnight?” Exodus asked the new driver from across the mess hall table while polishing the heavy titanium barrel of his custom belt fed HMG, the pack of which was sat on a large cloth on the table to his right.

***

        The last few hours had been hell for Twilight. The suit bonding process had sucked, the training sucked even harder and she had a funny feeling that tomorrow was going to suck as well. Her body still ached dully, but overall she felt stronger than she ever had been.

Her knees were achy and weak, but refused to give out and her head swam with thoughts of the past, but she’d kept quiet for the last few hours.

The only things that she had really even talked much about was her preferred style of combat. They had explained that her suit was lighter and much slimmer than Exodus’s, fit for moving quickly and silently and to go hand in hand with that, she had chosen a Japanese straight sword for her primary and sub machines guns as her secondary.

The techs had explained that since her weapons were light, she’d also be trained in throwing weapons. She had to admit; that part was a little cool, but it just wasn’t her. Then again, she didn’t exist anymore. Twilight Sparkle had died in a train accident, derailed and she had fallen into the river, her body never to be found.

She was now Subject Midnight, nothing but a soldier in a plan. It was heart-breaking in a way, but the day had been too overwhelming for her to care. Her head was swimming with everything going on and she felt numb as all hell, everything going by her in double time and just passing her by.

She felt left behind in the dust, but nothing mattered now. She had no friends, no family. She would never see her mother again, Flash or Sunset… Every time she thought about it, the tears welled up in her eyes, but she blinked it away, unwilling to cry in front of these people again. They might have broken her for now, but if she turned out anything like Exodus did, they would damn the day that they picked her for this damn program.

Before long, the day was over and the purple haired woman had been lead to the mess hall. The room was blank, white walls and tile floor, with metal tables bolted to the ground. The kitchen was connected to the back half of the room, cooks working silently behind the counter.

She followed Exodus, watching the process of getting plates of food from the cooks and placing them on trays, and then sat down across the table from him. The food looked decent; she guessed it was chicken, what looked like mashed potatoes and vegetables, but she didn’t want to spend time actually thinking about what it was. If high school taught her anything, it was that any kind of food served in a mess hall were questionable at best.

She glanced up at Exodus at the question, then shrugged a shoulder, using her fork to mix her veggies and potatoes together. “Fine, I guess,” She said, looking away. “As well as can be expected. You know, I’m dead now and I’m never going to see my friends, family or home again. Oh, and I’m sore everywhere. Been a great day.” She continued, scooping up a fork full of her food.

Her emotions were all in flux; one second she was numb, the next she was angry and the next sad. Even though she tried her best to blame everything that happened to her on Exodus, something close to her that she could take her rage out on, she knew he hadn’t tried to do this to her. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but the techs and this stupid program, but she highly doubted she’d be in a good situation to yell at the techs. She couldn’t even refuse to do something with Flash and Sunset’s safety being used against her, either by the techs or in her own head. It was always a threat.

***

"Fair enough, was just making sure that you hadn't mentally snapped. Wouldn't have been good for my plan of escape." Exodus told her in an attempt to pique her interest. Exodus then returned to oiling the firing mechanism of his weapon, making sure that it would be ready for intense action.

***

Midnight’s fork hit the plate in a quiet clatter, her eyes slowly rolling back up at meet Exodus. Escape? Her eyebrows furrowed together, trying to figure out how such a plan would even work. In the last seven hours, she hadn’t gone anywhere alone or even without the supervision of cameras. There just might be some kind of way; from what she understood, they were the perfect humans, stronger, faster and tougher than they could ever be, but she’d seen them subdue Exodus on top of the club in mere minutes.

“Excuse me?” She asked, maybe thinking she heard him wrong or something. Maybe he was talking about simply overthrowing them, or blowing up the entire place, or something along those lines. That could be possible.

She laughed nervously, then leaned over the table slightly, resting on her elbows. “I don’t know if you noticed, but I can’t sneeze here without everyone pulling a gun.”

***

        “Which is why my plan is to have all the attention drawn to me while you get the necessary items for this plan to unfold. Namely, security cards.

Now because of your suit build, you’ll be better to sneak into the main security office, program two new cards under our name, adding high enough security clearance to our names in the process, and then we literally walk out the front door.

“Don't worry about the distraction, you don't have enough firepower anyway.” Exodus told her while loading a 42 gramme round into the weapon, a loud clicking as the weapon loaded, with more rounds sitting in the belt; shining brass in the fluorescent lighting. “All you need to do is wait for the signal. We’ll start as soon as the sirens go off. Till then, wait in your room and get prepped.”

Exodus stood up slinging the heavy ammunition pack onto his back, his suit automatically switching on the Maximum Strength module to atone for the heavy weight. Hanging the gun itself off the holster of the pack, Exodus nodded towards Midnight before turning away and walking off, off to prepare for the coming escape.

On the way to Exodus’ dorm, he passed by the lounge room which, normally, would be empty however as Exodus happened past the door looking into the room, he noticed two black figures sitting together at a table chatting quietly to each other. Nudging open the door he only caught the word escaping as the two became quiet and turned their head as one to look at the new body.

        “Who are you two? When did you get here?” Exodus asked them, lifting his visor up to only reveal his eyes. The two looked at each other then back at him before one, presumably a colt from his voice, answered, “We’ve been here longer than you have, Exodus.”

        “The only difference is that you’ve been suited for much longer than we have. We’ve only been at this facility for a few years now, before that we have no recollection of our pasts.” the other, filly from her voice, explained. Exodus noticed that both, foals for lack of a better word, would have only been at most fifteen, maybe sixteen.

        “Right, and what was this I was hearing of escaping?” Exodus asked, closing the doors and leaning back on it, preventing anyone ever being able to push him out of the way to open it again.

        “We we’re just discussing ways we were going to try and get out of here.” the male answered.

        “Our biggest concern was creating a distraction long enough to get us both out.” The female continued her brothers thought.

        “Well, as it so happens, I’ve already got an escape plan in the works. If you want out, don’t get in my way. I’m the distraction, and I have another person in suit getting security to ‘work with us’.

“If you want to join us meet us at the front door, cause some chaos while you're at it, just don't kill all the techs here. We’ll need at least a few co-operative with our cause. You’ll know when we start; get suited and get prepped.” Exodus turned towards the door, exiting part way before turning back and asking, “By the way, what do I call you?”

        “Call us Gemini.” both siblings answered at the same time. Exodus nodded in response before clicking the door shut again, snapping the neck of the tech who had been listening in.

***

Twi’s mind was racing. Escape? Exodus had to be crazy. No, wait, she knew he was crazy. Everybody in this damn place was out of their minds, but she never thought he would be this crazy! She hadn’t been “suited” for long, her legs still feeling weak but steady, her back sore but straight, and he expected her to know perfectly what to do to be able to sneak around this place? He was losing it. Or maybe she was. Maybe she could do this, get back out to her friends, her family…

She sighed, her pacing stopping for just a moment. She looked around the room she had been given, her purple/gray eyes scanning the room carefully. She had to trust Exodus with this. She had little to no choice but to trust him. Otherwise she ran the risk of never getting out and being nothing more than a lab rat, and she would rather be killed in an escape attempt than left here to die.

Her train of thought came to a crashing halt as the alarms went off. Footsteps sounded from outside her room as men went flying down the corridors, shouting orders at each other as they went. It was time.

She looked over the weapons laying on her bedside one more time, then one by one, put them all on. A thin sword was slid carefully onto the sheath on her back, two submachine guns fitted into their holsters on her thighs and small throwing knives were tucked away in every pocket she could find. She pulled her ponytail tight, prepared herself one more time, then threw herself out of the door and took off down a hallway.

***

        Lex and Terra had spent the afternoon in their quarters, weapon parts spread out over a large towel on their beds as they worked at cleaning, maintaining, sharpening, sighting in. Lex was right in the process of reassembling the firing mechanism of his Vector Submachine gun when the alarms began blaring, a facility wide alert that Exodus had gone rogue with his HMG in the mess hall.

Lex looked at his unicorn sister, then speed assembled his weapons both by hand and by magic, slinging them across his back, Terra doing the same. Both standing up once ready, Lex addressed his sister while clicking his knives into their sheaths,

“You go find this Midnight, give her a hand. I’ll go find Exodus and see what he needs me to do.” Terra nodded, kicking the cast iron door open with a glowing red leg, taking off to the left down the corridors as Lex took off to the right.

        The way Lex had it figured as he sprinted down the hall fully cloaked; the quickest way to disable security measures would be to just cut the power and lock it that way, which is why he was presently headed towards the reactor facilities. Pressing a finger to his ear, he activated his earpiece, selecting the channel with the suit’s interface.

“Exodus Prime, do you copy? Over.” Lex kept running down the increasingly darkening corridors, waiting for an answer. After a minute of radio silence Lex tried again, “Exodus Prime, this is Gemini Lex: do you copy, over?” Lex slid to a stop, his cloak shimmering as he did so, eventually stabilizing again. A few moments later his radio crackled to life, “Exodus Prime here, you’ve called at one of the worst possible times. Status update.” Gunfire as well as the sound of Exodus’ cannon filled the background audio came with Exodus’ order.

“Sir, Terra and I have split up, Terra is going to assist Midnight Prime, I’m on my way to the reactors to shut them down, disable security that way.” Lex replied, resuming his sprint once more.

“Copy that, wait for my signal to deactivate the reactors, Midnight is getting us security clearance that we’ll need later on. Over.”

“Copy. I’ll add a timer virus to the deactivation sequence, delay it long enough for us to get out. Over and out.” Lex rounded yet another corner, this time activating his Nano vision due to lack of any light in the hallway what so ever.

As soon as he saw the tiny heat signatures, Lex froze as soon as his foot hit the floor, ducking and keeping close to the wall, attempting to mask his own tiny heat signature with the walls. Getting down as low as he could on only his hands and feet, Lex began to creep towards the heat signatures as carefully as he could; considering he’d just stumbled upon two security team members who’d been suited up in an ancient model, probably two of the last original Genesis suits, hive mind and all: watching the hallway the same way Lex had been, in cloak and with nano vision enabled.

Their biggest drawback for their suits however, was that they operated off an exterior power source, no doubt the reactors in the room behind them. This meant that the guards had to remain exactly where they were, likely using firearms of some kind that would disable a nano suit, if not temporarily.

Pulling the pin on a chaff grenade, Lex tossed it down the hall as he deactivated his own Nano-vision before he blinded himself, then immediately pulled his Vector from his thigh, taking aim at the general direction of the first guard. As soon as the chaff grenade went off, both guards found that their suits had been electrically disrupted and their cloak disabled; which meant that Lex could double tap both guards silently, dropping both of them.

Approaching slowly, muzzle on the guards as he approached, he quickly knelt down next to both of them one after another, looking for a pulse but finding none: Lex reached up and unplugged the suits industrial sized plugs from the walls, before tossing both bodies into a black corner.

Reactivating his nano-vision, Lex stepped before the large sliding doors, placing a cryptographer on the faceplate of the biosignature scanner, setting it to decrypt the locking sequence and unlock the doors.

Once inside, Lex took a moment to take in the grandeur of the reactor itself, or rather, the little bit of the reactor he could see. Stepping up to the guard rail, Lex peered over the edge, gazing far down in the seemingly endless black pit that the reactor hung in, held in place by enormous radioactively shielded arms that must’ve anchored deep into the walls every five or six stories.

I knew this place consumed a fuck-tonne of energy, but damn, this is ridiculous! Lex thought to himself. Following the ledge he was on, Lex eventually found what he was looking for: the Reactor Control room, or rather, the huge bay windows of the Control Room.

Taking off into a sprint towards the glass, Lex vaulted up and through the glass having engaged his Maximum Strength module, leaving the suit to protect him from the shattered glass by itself. Standing up and brushing himself off, Lex stepped toward the controls, noticing a distinct lack of anyone around to try and stop him, and began typing a few dozen lines of code into the computers making sure to add a ten minute delay to the activation.

Having compiled and saved the code, Lex reactivated his comms and requested a link to Exodus while hopping out through the broken window he’d smashed through earlier, retracing his steps out of the reactor chamber, headed towards the hangar.

“Exodus, reactor is on a ten minute delayed shutdown sequence, no sign of anyone around. Will proceed to hangar for extraction.” Lex left Exodus a quick message before silencing his radio once again, engaging his cloak and taking off down the blackened hallway.

***

Terra snuck around another corner, eyes scanning from behind her expressionless mask as she scanned the hallways. So far, no sign of this “Midnight”. Either she was a god at this already, or just got incredibly lucky, but whichever it was, Terra was getting annoyed. Why was she put on babysitting duty? They could be helping Exodus a lot more if the twins were together; that’s when they were strongest after all, but no, she got to run around like a puppy looking for its master.

The alarms blared over her head, the hallways flashing red as panic lights went off, circling like little lighthouses tucked into the corners of the corridors. The small girl paid it no mind, simply slipping quickly down the hallways with ease.

This wasn’t the first freak-out the facility had had in her time here. The only difference is last time, she was on their side and she would never be on it again if this went according to plan, but it couldn’t go according to plan if she didn’t find this stupid Midnight!

As if on a whim a group of stallions took the corner at the end of the hallway, causing Terra to panic but leaving her just enough time to dive into a dark doorway. The men charged past without even a second glance in her direction, panicked radio chatter following them as they went; obviously a lot about the tank causing a lot of problems. The young girl peeled herself off of the wall and quickly went in the other direction, looking behind her to make sure that she wasn’t being followed.

A noobie’s mistake. As soon as she turned the next corner, her body collided with something solid and fast. She fell to the floor, dazed and looked around for whatever it was she ran into only to see nothing. She rubbed her head slowly, and the air in front of her flashed once, twice, then she heard a groan before a purple haired mare appeared literally out of thin air. The other woman looked at her and gave an awkward chuckle. “You can see me… Can’t you?”

Terra stared at her for a moment, then she laughed and gave her a smile. “Yeah, cloaking systems don’t really work that well if you run into people.” Terra said, and the other woman chuckled a little more. “You must be Midnight,”

The embarrassed expression on the woman’s face changed to one of confusion. “Who are you?”

Terra grinned, “I’m backup.”

***

        It was the wait that nearly drove Exodus to start early, but after doing a bit of digging through the internet and the Project’s own database, Exodus had finally acquired the bit of information he’d been looking for.

Downloading the data to his suit, Exodus shouldered his monster of a weapon, and headed out the door. Having reached the main staff offices and with many looks from the staff at to what he was doing there fully armed, Exodus calmly reached back, took hold of his [GAU]http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ffiles.harrispublications.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fsites%252F8%252F2012%252F03%252F19bbest.jpg%26h%3D3AQH9qfEu&sa=D&ust=1452577973310000&usg=AFQjCNGaETLtibho5By6WNub-LnX2aWHIQ]GAU](https://www.google.com/url?q=[url=http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Ffiles.harrispublications.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252Fsites%252F8%252F2012%252F03%252F19bbest.jpg%26h%3D3AQH9qfEu&sa=D&ust=1452577973310000&usg=AFQjCNGaETLtibho5By6WNub-LnX2aWHIQ) 19/B[/url], injecting a single [.50]https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.ca%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D.50%252BBMG%2526source%253Dlnms%2526tbm%253Disch%2526sa%253DX%2526ei%253DW3fqVLHHJIulgwSC74GoBg%2526ved%253D0CAgQ\_AUoAQ%2526biw%253D1680%2526bih%253D954%2523imgdii%253D\_%2526imgrc%253D-eQT\_iJ8bj2nWM%2525253A%25253Bsu7BeF\_Fg3euJM%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fv%2525252Fvspfiles%2525252Fassets%2525252Fimages%2525252F50%2525252520cal%2525252520ammo.jpg%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fcategory-s%2525252F1855.htm%25253B674%25253B471%26h%3DpAQEIVbUp&sa=D&ust=1452577973311000&usg=AFQjCNEB6HY295CqriyAlx5E\_8J\_slOy9w].50](https://www.google.com/url?q=[url=https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.google.ca%252Fsearch%253Fq%253D.50%252BBMG%2526source%253Dlnms%2526tbm%253Disch%2526sa%253DX%2526ei%253DW3fqVLHHJIulgwSC74GoBg%2526ved%253D0CAgQ_AUoAQ%2526biw%253D1680%2526bih%253D954%2523imgdii%253D_%2526imgrc%253D-eQT_iJ8bj2nWM%2525253A%25253Bsu7BeF_Fg3euJM%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fv%2525252Fvspfiles%2525252Fassets%2525252Fimages%2525252F50%2525252520cal%2525252520ammo.jpg%25253Bhttp%2525253A%2525252F%2525252Fwww.freedommunitions.com%2525252Fcategory-s%2525252F1855.htm%25253B674%25253B471%26h%3DpAQEIVbUp&sa=D&ust=1452577973311000&usg=AFQjCNEB6HY295CqriyAlx5E_8J_slOy9w) BMG round[/url] into the first chamber, and took a second to look over the crowd of men and women.

Once the six barrels started spinning up, Exodus activated his MA (Maximum Armour) module, and gave one line to the panicking masses: “Anyone who doesn’t want to die and will work for me, lie face down on the floor or you will be shredded.” As soon as a decent number of staff were face down, Exodus opened fire, instantly shredding anyone or anything who tried to escape or attack him.

As soon as the room was cleared, Exodus began ripping tables up from the floor, using them as a barricade for the staff members who quickly caught on, some vaulting over into safe hiding. Exodus picked one of the staff member up forcefully by the arm with a bout of resistance. Standing her up, he pushed her towards the big red panic button on the wall; she instead fell on it, the small of her back compressing it and activating the facility wide alarm.

As soon as she collapsed to the ground again, she scurried back behind cover as the first guards, weapons drawn rounded the corner and were promptly shredded before the next line wised up and remained behind cover.

“Exodus, stand down, this is a direct order!” One guard yelled from around the corner, narrowly avoiding another quick volley of bullets flying at 6,000 rpm. Another guard raised a walkie to his face, “Command, this is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot four, we need you to activate the suit shutdown command on subject Exodus immediately.”

“Copy that WTF4, stand by for deactivation.” was the lone reply. A minute and four bursts later, the same guard called back, “Command, this is Whiskey Tango Foxtrot four, what’s the ETA on that deactivation, over?” the comms remained silent however, as two guards closest to the door peeked around, then looked up at Exodus’ looming figure before literally jumping back, becoming riddled with bullets. Exodus turned back into the room, standing post still in the middle of the room, occasionally popping a few bursts into a few guards, who eventually turned into riot guards, and then a few guards in full bomb suits.

A few minutes of silence had Exodus slightly uneasy just as a single figure strolled into the doorway, arms folded behind their nano-suited back.

“Well well, Subject Exodus Prime right? I’ve heard so much about you!” the form grinned, as if it could grin beneath the full face black glassed mask. Trailing from his back was the power cord powering his suit, likely connected to an external power source just down the hallway.

Even it’s voice was so inhuman that it didn’t even have a gender attached to it, if that was even possible.

“And you are?” Exodus asked, keeping his finger on the trigger for the slightest provocation but held short of actually opening fire. Who knows, this one may be of use to Exodus’s grand scheme.

“If you are Exodus, then you may call me Genesis.” Genesis replied with a gentlemanly flourish and a bow. At least now Exodus had a gender to put to the lack of bodily identification.

“Genesis. Either you were given a Genesis suit and the hive mind has corrupted you into making you crazy to think that you’re a Genesis driver who survived the explosive sealing those years ago, or you’re actually a Genesis driver who somehow survived all these years and has still been mentally consumed by the hive.” Exodus remarked, still holding short of firing. Frankly, his instincts were screaming at him to pull the trigger and sever the power cord before Genesis could do anything, but Exodus was genuinely curious.

“I’ll let you think about that while you’re looking up at me from the flat of your back with my hoof in your gut.” Genesis replied, his imaginary face dead-set with killing intent.

“Yeah, how about not?” Exodus suggested instead, pulling the trigger as Genesis dodged to the side, out of the way of protecting his lifeline. “You must be someone from after Project Genesis or you’d have activated MA and protected your power line.” Exodus grinned as the cable lay in two and the suit now a worthless leotard with slightly effective plating.

“Ahh, yes. Forgot about that bit.” Genesis replied, having lost all his vigor as he stared looking at his severed power connection. “Well, I fear I must go report to my superiors my failure to subdue you.” Genesis looked up from the cord to Exodus again. “Fair-well good sir! I look forward to combatting you at a later date!” Genesis bowed to his opposition once more before impossibly shimmering away and making his exit.

“Uhm, who was that?” Gemini Exodus asked, stepping into the room just as Genesis had made his leave.

“Someone I foresee giving us issues in the future.” Exodus replied calmly, holstering his weapon and removed the backpack. If GemEx was freely walking around in the hallways, it would be relatively safe to assume that no one else would be attacking. “Where’s your sister and Midnight?”

“Probably with Midnight dealing with security. Regardless they’ve got about four minutes to get what you need and get to the hangar before the Reactor shuts down.” GemEx shrugged, now noticing the remaining staff behind the overturned tables.

“Don’t even think about it.” Exodus warned as GemEx’s Vector came up and took aim. “They work for me now.”

“I thought we were causing havoc, escaping?” GemEx lowered his weapon again in confusion.

“And we have. We are no longer captives of some weak humans. We rule this complex now and I have plans.” Exodus explained while pulling his goggles off as he and his charge exited the room, aiming for the hangar.

***

“So, how did you end up here anyways?” the female Gemini inquired as the two young mares casually strolled through the hallways. It seemed that Exodus’s diversion had a greater effect than anticipated as there was absolutely no security roaming these halls.

“Well, I met Ma- Exodus Prime at a club on my eighteenth birthday with my friends. Some stuff happened, Exodus stuck his fist into an attacker’s gut before revealing the suit to me on the roof of Sub-Zero.” Midnight replied, looking back over recent events with a sigh.

“What’s Sub-Zero?” Terra held up short of a T-intersection with Midnight against the wall next to her.

“It’s a nightclub that is so exclusive that you apparently have to pay a ridiculous amount of money months in advance to even stand in line to pay for the even more ridiculous entry fee.” Of course, this is all information that Twilight/Midnight had heard about from her friends some time ago.

“Never heard of it.” Terra admitted with a shrug, stepping around the corner to have the security office at the very end of the hallway. “Are you thinking that this is too easy?”

“Oh come on, why’d you have to say that?” Midnight complained as the hallway went dark and tiny emitters activated laserbeams while twin miniguns descended from the ceiling at the far end.

“Yeah, in hind-sight that probably wasn’t very smart. At least the lasers aren’t moving...” Terra added with a sheepish grin. Midnight glared at the smaller girl as the lasers began sweeping the area in seemingly random patterns. “I’ll just remain quiet now.”

“Good plan.” Midnight sighed and examined the hallway before her. “How are your acrobatics?”

“Used to be a five time national gymnastics champion in a past life.” Terra grinned before the grin morphed into a look of shock. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

“Is your suit outfitted for taking heavy fire from those guns?” Midnight offered, motioning to the guns blindly looking for targets. “Mine isn’t.”

“Damn, I figured you’d say that.” Terra cursed both the situation that she’d gotten both women into and her own foolishness. “You wouldn’t happen to have any good music stored in your suit’s memory would you?”

“You can do that?” Midnight gasped with a hopeful grin. If this was possible then she had quite the list of music to upload.

“Unfortunately not…” Terra admitted in the process of stretching herself out. “Not that I’m aware of anyways.”

“That sucks.” Midnight sighed as she too limbered up for the task ahead. “Shall we?”

“We shall.” Terra grinned back as the two women took turns performing their acrobatics; flipping, weaving, crawling their way through the hallway as the lasers passed mere millimeters away from them till they stood backs against the door to the security office. “Well that was fun.” Terra announced through heavy breaths.

“Yep. Didn’t even break a sweat!” Midnight agreed, also breathing heavily. “Let’s just get into the security office and get what we came for.”

“Agreed.” Terra turned as engaged her Maximum Strength module to gradually peel the steel door back from it’s frame with Midnight covering the new entrance.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Midnight announced as she entered into the room with her weapons trained on the occupants. “You.”

“Who?” Terra asked for clarification of her confusion as she entered in with her own submachine gun drawn.

“Oh shit.” one of the techs cursed his luck. “I was hoping it wasn’t you.”

“Well, you’ve got some shitty luck then.” Midnight growled at the tech who’d orchestrated her revival into Midnight. “Tell me, how many times have you tried detonating that little explosive charge in the back of my neck?”

“I’m still hitting the button.” the tech replied, showing his hand still on a detonator furiously tapping away at the button. His voice had dropped all the cockiness that he’d shown back when both Exodus and she were restrained.

“What does Exodus Prime want to do with these ones?” Terra looked at her superior inquisitively.

“Probably keep them if they’ll behave and agree to work for him.” Midnight confessed, eyeing over the terrified security officers and the lone tech still trying to kill her. “But i’m sure he wouldn’t mind if we killed that one.” Midnight lowered her firearm and drew a throwing knife, holding it aimed at the technician’s head.

“Eh, heh heh heh. I don’t suppose we could grovel on our knees and plead for my survival, could we?” the tech requested nervously as he dropped the detonator.

“Nope.” Midnight glared at the man through her visor and gave her wrist a strengthened flick. The next instant the technician had a slit right through his throat with the knife sticking out of the steel behind him; his spine cleanly severed and he dropped instantly to the floor.

“Right. As you all can see, my superior is in a fairly bad mood.” Terra began, holstering her weapon to begin rooting through the remaining officers for their own weapons. “So if you’d all co-operate and join Project Exodus freely, we’d really appreciate that.”

“Yeah, hey no problems here!” A guard replied shakily. “Whatever you need!”

“Good. Get into the security database and put Exodus Prime at the top of the command chain. Put me one level below him and the Gemini Twins below me.” Midnight ordered and everyone instantly flew to their chairs to begin work.

“Anything else, ma’am?” a security guard anxiously asked, handing out the new ID cards to Terra who pocketed them in her suit for the time being.

“Let me call Exodus Prime and find out.” Midnight replied before activating her comms. “Hey, Exodus? You there?”

“Go ahead, Midnight.” Exodus replied, sounding like he was stood next to a helicopter or something. “How’s it going with security?”

“We’ve got the cards, you’re at the top of the chain of command with me and the twins under you and we need to know if there’s anything else you need done here before we join you.” Midnight explained, surveying the consoles around her as the screens above flickered around till she could see Exodus standing on the ramp of a blacked out VTOL airship.

“Nope, that’s it. What of the security officers?” Exodus turned to face the camera staring at him from a ways away. Even with a camera and who knows how much space between them, Exodus still looked intimidating with his full mask on.

“Complacent. What do you want me to do with them?”

“Nothing. Bring Gemini Midnight with you and get here to the hangar for extraction. You have four minutes until the reactors shut down.” Exodus ordered before hanging up on the line.

“Alright then. You’re all free to remain here in the base while Gemini Midnight and I take our leave. I feel I should inform you that the reactors are due to shut down in four minutes though, just sayin’.” Midnight shrugged as the two mares sprinted from the room through the deactivated hallway security measures.

“So where are we going?” Terra inquired as the two continued their effortless sprint.

“Hangar for extraction.” Midnight replied as she followed the lines on the walls and floor marked “Hangars”.

“We’re finally getting outta here? Yes!” Terra cheered and front flipped in exuberance while keeping stride with the pace. “Where do you think we’re going?”

“No idea. I figure we’ll leave that up to Exodus.” Midnight replied calmly, entering into the final hallway which opened up into an expansive underground cavern. At the very center of the room sat the black VTOL the two had seen Exodus standing on and turned their aim towards it.

With all the space available to them they cut loose and crossed the half kilometer distance in seconds before skidding to a halt at the ramp to have Exodus and Lex already on board.

“Glad you could make it. Cards?” Exodus demanded as Terra extracted said items and passed them to their new respective owners. “Thank you. Strap in, we’ve got quite a journey ahead of us.”

“Where’re we going?” Midnight requested as the girls and Exodus strapped themselves into the net seats.

“Dracona.” Germany.