The Final Gambit

The jungle was alive with the sound of war, the stench of blood thick in the air, but for Blue, time had slowed to a heartbeat. His muscles trembled with the force of his systems coming back online, one by one. Each jolt of power rippled through him, making the blue aura around his suit blaze brighter, more intense.

The world around him became hyper-focused—each leaf, each shift of light cutting through the jungle canopy, the distant echoes of boots trampling over roots. His heart pounded like a war drum in his ears, the blue energy thrumming through his suit, pushing him further from the brink of collapse.

"Grid combat profiling is fully online," Nova's voice was calm, clinical, cutting through the haze with cool efficiency. "Diverting all available energy into repairs and system activation."

He could feel it now—power surging back into his body, refilling the gaps left by Yellow's poisons, by the brutal blows he had taken, by the strain his suit had endured. The cracks in his armor slowly knitted together, blue light threading through the fractures, stronger with each pulse.

Blue's vision sharpened as the jungle bled into focus. The heartbeat of the battle continued to pound around him, each shift in the jungle echoing in his mind. And then Nova's voice rang out again, pulling his attention back.

"The rapid response teams have suffered an 84% fatality rate."

Blue's jaw clenched. The report came with a detachment he had expected from Nova, but the weight of it wasn't lost on him. His allies—soldiers sent in under Kassens' orders—were dying. He could almost hear their last cries, their final moments of confusion and terror as the Rangers cut them down. Kassens hadn't listened. The fatalities could have been avoided.

But Blue pushed that weight deeper inside him. No time to mourn. No time to feel. The cold detachment settled in, disassociating from the lives lost. He could grieve later, when the battle was won. If he survived. If any of them did.

"They're in full retreat... being picked off," Nova continued, as though reading his thoughts.

Blue's grip tightened inside his gloves. He had expected nothing less. His heart still burned with the knowledge that those lives were lost on his watch. But he buried that flame, smothered it with the cold, calculating resolve that came with years of combat. There was no room for emotion now—only action.

"However," Nova's voice cut through the silence, "you've drawn Red's attention."

Of course.

"All four Rangers are moving to intercept you."

A smirk tugged at the corner of Blue's lips, barely visible beneath the visor of his helmet. Typical Red. Always the one to assess the battlefield with sharp eyes, always prioritizing the greatest threat.

And that threat was him.

"Good," he murmured, his voice low, vibrating with grim satisfaction. "Typical Red. Always after the most dangerous target."

The approaching footsteps grew louder, a steady rhythm of impending violence. Red was bringing her entire team—her ruthless tactician's mind had already calculated that it would take all four Rangers to bring him down. She wasn't wrong. But she didn't know what he had in store for her.

"Nova," he commanded, the edge of purpose sharpening his voice, "connect to the orbital defensive grid. The Helios system."

"Accessing Helios grid..." Nova responded without hesitation, already diving into the planetary defense systems, her calculations moving faster than his thoughts. The hum of her work vibrated in the back of his mind. "Connection established. Scanning for orbital cannon coverage."

The plan crystallized in his mind, every step leading to this moment. Facing the Rangers head-on in his state would be suicide. But there were more ways to win a battle than brute force. He needed something devastating. Something they wouldn't see coming.

"One cannon is positioned within optimal range," Nova confirmed, her voice even, steady. "Codename: Old Glory."

The grin widened beneath Blue's helmet. Old Glory—a weapon named in memory of the fallen nation-state, a weapon that had never been used in the war to defend Earth but had stood as a symbol of untapped power.

"Perfect," he whispered, more to himself than to Nova. "Target my location."

"Are you sure?" There was no hesitation in Nova's voice, but the weight of the decision settled heavily between them. Old Glory wasn't a weapon to be used lightly. The devastation it could unleash was almost incomprehensible.

"I'm sure." Blue's voice was cold now, detached, his mind focused on the singular goal. "Reverse our energy shields to be the exact opposite of Old Glory's frequency. Then fire."

The silence stretched out as Nova processed the command. In that silence, the jungle around him came alive again—the faint sounds of birds in the distance, the wind rustling through the leaves, the pounding of Ranger boots getting closer, the hum of their suits cutting through the underbrush.

"Shields adjusted. Target locked. Firing sequence initiated."

The blue aura around him flared like a supernova, glowing brighter with every passing second as his suit drew more and more energy from the grid. He could feel it—like a rising tide, crashing against the limits of his body, ready to explode. The jungle around him darkened, the storm gathering above as Old Glory locked in its trajectory.

They were close now. He could feel them. Red, Black, Pink, and Yellow—each one fast, deadly, precision incarnate. Ten paces out. Five.

They were only seconds away from him.

"Shields fully calibrated," Nova's voice confirmed, calm, unbothered by the destruction that was about to unfold. "Incoming fire from Old Glory."

His HUD displayed the incoming trajectory as the atmosphere above him began to ripple, a faint distortion as Old Glory zeroed in on his exact position.

And then the sky exploded.

A beam of energy tore through the heavens, cascading down like a sword of vengeance. The light from the cannon was blinding, a white-hot inferno searing through the atmosphere and slamming into the earth with the force of a thousand storms. The impact was instant, the world around him detonating in a wall of pure, unrelenting energy.

Blue braced for impact as the beam hit him first, his shields reversing to absorb the shock, but the force still threw him off his feet. His vision blurred as the shockwave blasted outward, leveling the jungle, turning the trees to ash, flinging debris into the sky as the ground beneath him buckled.

The four Rangers were only paces away when the beam struck, the shockwave hitting them full force. Red was hurled backward, her pistols ripped from her hands as the raw energy shattered her morphing armor, splintering it into pieces. Black was thrown to the side, his hammer slipping from his grip as his suit cracked under the blast, his body slamming into a crumbling tree. Pink's decoys flickered out of existence, her suit disintegrating as she crashed into the scorched earth, barely registering the pain before her systems overloaded. Yellow, mid-lunge, was caught in the storm, her daggers dropping from her hands as her armor shattered, her form collapsing into the debris.

The world around them was unrecognizable—a wasteland of destruction, fire and smoke rising from the ground, the trees obliterated, the earth trembling in the wake of Old Glory's strike.

Blue's systems screamed at him, warnings flashing across his HUD as his armor cracked, the blue aura flickering out. He could feel the energy leaving him, his body finally giving in to the immense pressure, the power too much for even him to contain.

His vision dimmed as the light from the blast faded, the world around him reduced to a blur of smoke and ruin. He had done it—neutralized the Rangers, taken the battlefield.

But there was no time to revel in it.

Through the haze, Nova's voice cut through, steady, calm, a beacon in the chaos.

"The retrieval teams are closing in for recovery."

His vision darkened, the edges of his consciousness slipping away as exhaustion overtook him. The last thing he felt was the cold touch of the scorched earth against his hands before everything went black.