3 Chapter 3: To war

(Before you think you've gone crazy, yes, i've deleted the last chapter and replaced it with this one.)

Minutes flew by as Adriano quietly stood still with his back against a wall. His mind replayed flashes of his childhood like a broken player; one moment he was a kid on his father's shoulders petting a horse, the next he was already learning how to drive from his mother. He felt as if someone had robbed him of a piece of himself.

The only thing holding back his tears or an angry reaction was the AI in his mind continually bartending chemical mixes for his brain. This too felt like he was being robbed of the rightful emotions he should have felt. However, he was scared of being unable to face the full brunt of his loss.

Finally, in an attempt to sound composed, he asked Mew. "Why? why have I been kidnapped from my life and transferred in a new body with an IA in my brain?" His voice flatly stated his question, to another person he would sound calm and composed, however, Mew knew of the hatred festering quietly behind his voice. And how could he not? They were the same person!

"Well, sit tight. here I start." After clearing his non-existent throat, Mew started narrating. "Once upon a time a group of enlighted scientists from earth managed to advance their knowledge and make space travel feasible. Mind you; this is literally the information I've, and it sounds like half-truths and bullshits as well.

Leaving the earth behind they spread around the universe in peace and harmony, creating the E.T, Exterran technocracy or Exterranische Techokratie. Apparently, the official languages are English and German. Then yada yada yada, everyone was happy and had everything they wanted until the fire nation attacked, and with fire nation I mean aliens.

Then, it says that even with more advanced technology the people were just too used to peace and thus unable to fight back. Billions died, dozens of planets burned, blablabla. So they looked back on their home planet filled with 'glorious heroes', nice attempt at lip service, and well, you can guess the rest. They have been 'hiring', which sounds to me more like borderline kidnapping, soldiers to defend humanity from the alien threat.

The E.T has been at war with over thirteen alien empires for the past twenty-nine years. Somehow the influx of experienced soldiers has stabilized the situation of the conflict. Right now you are on the space station Mount Olympus, one of the nine pillars of human defense against the Alien threat.

Mount Olympus is managed by one of the biggest armies of the entire E.T, the Folgore, represented by the lightning bolt on your shoulder and on the Mission center in front of you." Mew finally went silent leaving Adriano enough time to reflect.

"Mew, so what you are saying is that I'm a soldier defending humanity from aliens?" Adriano said with an uncertain tone.

"A little brief, but overall correct," replied Mew.

"I see... How do I go back home?" Asked Adriano while getting up and dusting off his butt with a few pats.

"Well, you can't-" suddenly Mew got interrupted, after a moment his voice returned with a hint of worry. "You are not gonna like this. We have our first mission, and if we are not at the mission center in ten minutes, we can say bye bye to our head."

Adriano took a horrified expression, "What do you mean we are going to lose our heads!?" he demanded in an angry tone. "speak now!"

"you know the computer in your brain where I reside?" Mew fidgeted his virtual hands while answering. "Well, there might be a bomb ready to execute both of us in case of betrayal."

Adriano opened his jaw in shock, a motion he repeated so many times in the past hours. "You-" suddenly a bolt of electricity went through his spine interrupting his sentence.

"Stop," Mew said in a forceful tone. "we have to go, now!" On the ground front of Adriano appeared a red path heading towards the mission control, hovering above it two holographic lines of text:

Mission Control

ETA: 00:04:32

After another nudge by Mew, who threatened Adriano with impotence, he sprinted following the line. As he ran, he saw up close the other members of Folgore, the majority was white, but Asians, blacks and different kinds of people appeared too although less frequently. Everybody was running like him, and some of them were inhumanly fast. "Oh my god, Usain Bolt can only take off his hat to that Korean boy," said Adriano staring at an Asian looking boy running at three times the speed of the other people.

"Of course he is," explained Mew patiently. "under that pretty jumpsuit he is either hiding an exoskeleton, genetic engineering or straight up cybernetic implants." then with a hint of yearning he added. "if we do a good job, then we will also be able to buy such things."

"My dream of rocket punching people in the heart!" for a while, Adriano's eyes sparkled in excitement, then they dimmed again. "But to get that I would have to obey some crazy American slash Nazi totalitarianism!" As he discussed with Mew about what was right, he eventually arrived at mission control.

There was no visible door to the building, however stepping closer to the wall would cause the aforementioned to split open. The whole process amazed Adriano; the surface seemed made of tiny grains of sand possessing their own will. After Adriano stepped inside, another amazing scene presented to his eyes. The entire building was empty in the middle, balconies and balustrades spiraled around the walls towards the top. And for those too lazy to walk, hoovering platforms would dive down for those who needed them and work as elevators.

"Ok, I received the briefing," spoke Mew unamazed by the building. "time to arm ourselves." Before Adriano could ask, a drone, summoned by Mew, whizzed by landing at their feet and then taking off the next moment leaving behind a case.

Adriano touched the silver case, and it opened automatically. "Mew, what is this?" asked Adriano looking at the various objects inside the case.

Using his AI powers, Mew highlighted in red a small canister. "this is biogel, spray it inside an injury to fix it until we get back to the base." Then the highlight shifted to an odd looking knife. "this is a progressive blade, imagine it like a miniature chainsaw, it should be able to stab and slice anything, almost better than chef tony's series Z miracle blade."

Adriano rolled his eyes and took the only familiar item he saw, a very ordinary looking machine gun. "that's an m4 from the American army slightly modified to shoot high-density tungsten bullets." introduced Mew, "I know what you are going to ask, why use old earth's weapons? Well, according to my information, producing highly advanced weapons cost exotic materials which are not readily available enough to be given to soldiers who haven't proven themselves."

Adriano felt like retorting, but he had no desire to start another battle which he could not win against himself. "now what?" he asked reluctantly.

Suddenly a horn echoed in the building followed by a loud cheer. On the walls around him, shining blue circular portals opened, on the other side, he could hear the faint sound of screams and explosions coming from ruined buildings. A mecha suit he had seen before opened its front plates revealing a bald African American man standing up with his fist clenched and shouting: "For human Honor and Eart's safety, TO WAR!"

Raising his voice for the last two words, he riled up the people next to him that cheered him on. Then the mecha suit closed and sprinted in the closest portal, followed by thousand others.

Mew's voice appeared immediately after. "look, I don't like this whole thing either, but if the pieces of information I have are half-true, then those aliens will undoubtedly target eart one day if not stopped, we might have lost everything on earth, but that doesn't mean we can just let those fuckers burn down our planet.

Adriano clenched his m4 and sighed. "guess you are right, let's go give those ETs an encounter of the sixth kind."