While Alex was still lamenting his appalling breakfast, listlessly stirring the grayish paste on his plate, a shadow was cast over his table.
A man stood beside him, silent and rigid in posture. Alex, whose instincts had been sharpened after weeks in the jungle and combat, noticed the new presence immediately. Without startling, he turned his head slowly.
"Oh, Maurice," Alex said with his mouth half-full, swallowing the food with effort. "What brings you here? Did you come to steal my delicious protein porridge?"
Maurice looked at him with disdain, ignoring the bad joke.
"You have been assigned a new mission. You will be in charge of the operation," the administrator said with his usual seriousness, adjusting his glasses.
"A new mission?" Alex asked, intrigued.
He placed the spoon on the table and pulled his communicator from his pocket with a quick movement. He checked the screen, expecting to see the red alert light, but it was dark.
"That's weird... I haven't received anything," Alex commented, tapping the device against the palm of his hand. "No notification, no email, nothing. Is this thing broken?"
Maurice let out a sigh of impatience, as if he were educating a slow child.
"You are a Commander, Alex. You are no longer a grunt," Maurice explained with a condescending tone. "Mass digital notifications are for the infantry and guards. They are insecure and easy to intercept."
Maurice leaned in slightly, lowering his voice to maintain confidentiality.
"Unless it is a global emergency, high-level commanders are notified personally. Sensitive matters require discretion, not radio transmissions."
With that said, Maurice handed him a black clipboard with the Blakk Industries logo embossed in red. It contained physical documents, sealed and marked as "CLASSIFIED."
"Take this," Maurice said, extending the folder. "Here are the preliminary details. If you'll allow me a piece of advice: don't read it here where anyone can look over your shoulder."
Alex took the clipboard, feeling the weight of the responsibility (and the high-quality paper).
"Wow, I feel important. Real paper in the digital age," Alex joked, opening the first page curiously. "Let's see what the boss wants this time."
Alex was barely able to glance at the first page of the report, as Maurice indicated with a curt gesture for him to follow.
They walked back to the Strategic Operations Hall. However, the feeling was completely different from the first time. Now, Alex wasn't standing in the back rows, lost in a sea of anonymous soldiers waiting for orders. Now he was a Commander.
He walked directly to the front of the room and stood next to Maurice, looking out at the rows of troops awaiting instructions. The view from the top was intoxicating.
As Maurice began projecting the tactical holograms, Alex looked down at the clipboard again to read the mission details.
Objective: Incursion and technology recovery at Sergeant Bough's Base.
Sergeant Bough? Alex thought, raising an eyebrow. What kind of stupid name is that? Did his parents hate him or is it a nickname?
Certainly, in this world, names were ridiculous. Between "El Diablos Nacho" and "Sergeant Bough," Alex felt like he was trapped in a poorly written cartoon. But he knew that underestimating someone because of their name was a fatal mistake.
He continued reading. For this mission, a total of 20 elite soldiers had been assigned to him.
The order was clear: Invade the fortified base where this so-called Sergeant Bough was hiding and recover specific prototypes. The intelligence report mentioned that Bough was using some kind of "growth supplement" (steroids for slugs) to train his creatures and make them more aggressive.
However, upon reading the technical specifications, Alex realized the truth.
The priority objective wasn't the steroids or the muscular slugs. Blakk's order underlined in red the recovery of some Automatic Blasters.
"I see..." Alex murmured, running his finger over the photo of the weapon.
Blakk wasn't interested in the physical training of slugs; that was slow and inefficient. What Blakk Industries coveted was the firing mechanism. Bough had designed blasters capable of firing in a continuous burst without needing to manually reload every shot.
"Blakk wants to reverse engineer it," Alex analyzed, closing the folder with a sharp snap. "He doesn't want to train slugs. He wants the automatic mechanism to create assault rifles... or slug machine guns."
If Blakk Industries managed to mass-produce that, any resistance in Slugterra would be wiped off the map in a matter of seconds.
Alex looked at the soldiers in front of him.
"Gentlemen," said Alex, interrupting Maurice and taking control of the room. "Prep your gear. We're going to steal some toys for our boss."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Alex, unable to contain himself.
If this were an anime, Alex would have sparkling stars in his eyes. He was mesmerized. In front of him, resting on a maintenance platform, was the most beautiful machine he had seen in his life.
"Seriously? Are you seriously, seriously going to give me this?" Alex asked, his voice trembling with excitement as he caressed the cold, polished metal chassis.
It was a Bengal Tiger model Mecha-beast. Unlike the standard versions, this one was stronger and faster than commercial mecha-beasts.
Alex turned sharply toward Maurice, with a grin from ear to ear.
"This is incredible! It's fabulous! Fantastic!" shouted Alex, getting dangerously close to the administrator. "Maurice, you're a genius! I could kiss you right now!"
Maurice stood rigid, staring at Alex with an expression of absolute repulsion and coldness, without saying a single word. His look clearly said: Try it and I fire you.
Alex stopped dead, wiping the smile off his face for a second.
"Well... okay, I won't kiss you. You're a bore," Alex huffed, turning his attention back to what really mattered: the Mecha-beast.
He examined it closely. It was much larger, heavier, and more robust than the Hyena-type mecha-beast he had stolen from the bandits. That Hyena looked like a toy next to this monster of engineering.
"All commanders possess a Mecha-beast befitting their rank and personality," explained Maurice with his usual seriousness and efficiency, adjusting his shirt collar. "Even El Diablos Nacho received a modified Bull model when he was promoted to Commander."
Maurice pointed at the machine with reluctance.
"This is the high-performance unit we currently had available in the arsenal. It is a Bengal Tiger with reinforced suspension. Enjoy it, it is all yours."
Alex didn't wait for him to finish the sentence. With a leap, he hopped onto his new mount. The leather seat adjusted perfectly to his body, and the controls felt ergonomic and precise.
"Let's see what you've got, kitty," whispered Alex.
He pressed the ignition button.
VRUUUUUUUM.
The sound the machine made wasn't simply noise; to Alex's expert ears, it was music. It was beautiful.
The engine roared to life with a deep, guttural growl, much stronger and more tuned than his old mecha-beast. It didn't sound like an old, rattling machine; it sounded like pure contained power ready to be unleashed. The "purr" of the metallic tiger vibrated through Alex's body, filling him with adrenaline.
"I love it," said Alex, stroking the fuel tank of his new vehicle. "I definitely love my new beast."
BRRRRUUUUUUUM!
The roar of Alex's new Mecha-beast engine broke the tranquility of the caverns. The sound of the RPMs hitting the limit mixed with the occasional shouts of pure pleasure coming from the young commander.
"Wooooohooooo! This is power!"
To any outside observer, Alex was just a blurry streak of orange and black—the colors of the Tiger model—cutting through the wind at breakneck speed.
The boy hadn't been able to wait. The exact instant the control tower gave him the green light to depart for his mission, Alex peeled out, burning rubber... or paw. He gunned his new beast, pushing it to the tachometer's redline, eager to feel the adrenaline he missed so much from his days on Earth.
Behind him, the situation was much less fun.
"Sir! Wait! Don't go so fast!" shouted one of Alex's subordinates occasionally over the comms, a veteran soldier struggling to maintain control of his standard mecha-beast.
The squad of 20 soldiers was desperately trying to maintain formation, but their mounts weren't modified like the commander's.
"Come on, boys!" replied Alex with euphoria in his voice, the wind hitting his face. "You're falling behind! Hustle! Go faster or you'll get there tomorrow!"
Alex felt invincible. He was the king of the road... or the dirt path.
However, the euphoria vanished instantly a few hours later.
Alex and his soldiers finally arrived at the target coordinates. Alex drifted in style, stopping his Tiger on the crest of a hill overlooking the valley where Sergeant Bough's base was supposed to be.
He took off his goggles, expecting to see a military fortress ready to be assaulted.
But what he saw froze his blood.
"Uhhh..." stammered Alex, getting off the mecha-beast slowly.
In front of him, there was no operational base. There were ruins. Columns of black smoke rose toward the cavern ceiling. The walls were demolished, there were explosion craters everywhere, and collapsed structures.
"Are we supposed to invade this?" Alex asked the air, feeling a knot in his stomach. "It's already practically destroyed!"
He walked a few steps toward the edge of the cliff, looking at the disaster. Someone had beaten them to it. And that someone had done a very efficient job.
"Don't tell me I'm going to fail my first mission as commander before I even fire a slug," whispered Alex, putting his hands on his head.
He looked at the desolate landscape and uttered the only word that described his situation:
"Shit."
Alex turned his mecha-beast around and returned to his platoon. The kid-with-a-new-toy smile had completely disappeared from his face, replaced by a mask of absolute concentration.
"Alright, boys. The situation isn't exactly what we expected," said Alex over the general channel, his voice firm and with no trace of joking. "We don't know if the threat is still active. So I want a V-Formation. Follow me and wait for my instructions before firing."
"Yes, sir!" responded the soldiers, noting the change in tone. Alex didn't want to have fun anymore; he didn't want to fail this mission.
The convoy advanced cautiously toward the main entrance of the fortress. Apparently, the outer wall and the gate were the only things still partially standing, although they blocked the view inside.
Alex braked his Tiger and evaluated the structure.
"Squads 1 and 5," ordered Alex coldly. "Load Grenade Slugs. Bring down that wall. I want a clean entry."
Eight soldiers aimed their blasters in unison. Upon hearing the order "Fire!", eight explosive projectiles flew toward the structure.
BOOM!
The reinforced concrete wall, which was already weakened, fractured and collapsed in a cloud of debris and dust.
As visibility returned, Alex gave the next tactical order.
"Squad 1: Stay at the gate. Secure the perimeter. No one enters or leaves while we are inside. If something moves and it isn't us, shoot it."
"Understood, sir," replied the leader of Squad 1, slowing down his mecha-beasts to take defensive positions at the breach.
"The rest of you, with me," said Alex, accelerating toward the interior.
When they finally entered the fortress courtyard, the magnitude of the damage became evident. The ground was scarred by craters from recent explosions and twisted metal beams.
"Look at this," he muttered to himself.
The scorch marks and destruction weren't old. There were no cobwebs, no layers of accumulated dust, no signs that nature had begun to reclaim the ruins.
"The mission intel we gathered isn't more than a week old," deduced Alex quickly. "And this attack... this happened a couple of days ago, max."
He concluded that someone had beaten them to it by a very short margin. He didn't know who had done it—but that no longer mattered.
His "robbery" mission had turned into a "looting" mission.
"Alright, change of plans," announced Alex over the communicator. "We're going to scrape up the leftovers of this fight. We will try to extract as much value as possible from these ruins."
He stopped in the center of the courtyard and began distributing tasks.
"Squads 3, 4, and 5: Fan out. I want you to look for survivors and, most importantly, the automatic blaster machine or any schematics for it. Check under the rubble."
Alex pointed toward the main building, which looked the most damaged.
"Squad 2, with me. We're going to investigate the command center."
"On it!"
The group separated to cover more ground, hoping to find something of value among the ashes.