The Inquisitor had been standing at the edge of the workshop the entire time, arms folded, watching from start to finish. Her face still didn't show much, but the tight knit of her brows made it obvious: her patience was being worn down, minute by minute.
Finally, after yet another spectacular faceplant on flat ground, I couldn't hold it in anymore. Slumped against the cold inner wall of the armour, I complained weakly:
"Seriously, this damn thing is way too hard to drive… Can't you… can't you get me a chauffeur or something?"
The instant the words left my mouth, I saw one of Brother Zebrun's mechanical arms jerk sharply.
"A chauffeur…" he murmured, repeating the word in that electronic synth-voice. The lenses on his mask began spinning at a deranged speed. "Assisted operation unit… external processing core… distributed control… I understand! A brilliant solution. Blasphemous in spirit, yet incomparably efficient!"
He whirled toward the Inquisitor, practically vibrating with excitement.
"Inquisitor, I require additional time! The wisdom of the Machine God must be guided by rigorous rites. I need a full night to perform the necessary 'consecration' and modifications upon this holy armour!"
The Inquisitor looked at me for a long moment, then at the pile of wrecked equipment beside us, and at the workshop that looked like it had survived a small war. In the end, she gave a curt nod.
"Granted. Tomorrow morning, I expect results."
…
That night, I slept like the dead. Every muscle in my body was protesting the day's abuse.
The next day, before dawn, they dragged me back to the workshop. The ivory-white power armour was still standing there in silence, unchanged at a glance.
But around it hovered three things that looked like resentful wraiths.
On closer inspection, they were three skulls spinning slowly in mid-air.
Yes. Literal skulls.
They looked like human crania, except their eye sockets glowed with red light. Beneath each skull were small mechanical arms, probes, and bizarre modular attachments. They buzzed around like oversized robotic bees, humming as they darted through the air.
And where the spine would've connected, there now extended bundles of cables sparking with tiny arcs and semi-transparent tubes that ran straight into the power armour.
Honestly, even though it looked cyberpunk as hell, I didn't find it scary at all. With the round, bobbing shape, the frantic roach-like twitching of those little arms and feelers, and the camera lenses spinning in their eye sockets, it actually looked kind of… ridiculous.
"These are servo-skulls, a common auxiliary intelligencer unit," Brother Zebrun explained, gesturing to the three little horrors. "Typically used for data processing, equipment maintenance, or… battlefield recording."
Then, in the tone of a priest proclaiming a miracle, he unveiled his grand plan.
"Praise be the Machine God! Even in blasphemy, there is holy revelation!" He spread his mechanical arms as if embracing a masterpiece. "In consideration of your… 'special nature,' I have diverted the armour's formerly integrated machine spirit guidance system into a trinitarian auxiliary processing structure. You, as the central command will, need only input the most basic movement intent via the 'four-direction prayer-rune plate' on the inside of your left forearm."
He pointed at the skull above my head.
"'Servo-skull Alpha' is now your locomotion logic proxy unit. It will relay the litanies of walking, running, and jumping to the armour's machine spirit in your place, and it will maintain balance."
He pointed at the skull floating beside my right arm.
"'Servo-skull Beta,' your weapons-protocol executor. Your eyes need only designate and lock a target. It will handle all ballistic and close-combat calculation protocols and command the armour's arms to perform the correct actions."
Finally, he pointed at the skull behind my back.
"'Servo-skull Gamma,' your integrated status monitor and logistics catechism-engine. It will continuously monitor power output and armour integrity, and when needed, it will automatically execute the sacred duties of ammunition replenishment and related support."
I just stood there, stunned, feeling like I was auditing a doctoral seminar titled Practical Applications of Cybernetic Theology. Every term was more twisted than the last: proxy unit, executor, catechism-engine…
But thanks to years of experience playing MechWar games and World of Tanks, I grasped the essence instantly.
He'd taken a single-driver system and forcibly converted it into a four-man tank crew.
The one above my head was the driver. The one on my right was the gunner. The one behind me was the engineer-repairman-loader. And I was the commander, the guy who didn't have to do anything except tap a few inputs and issue orders.
My mouth fell open.
You can do that?
Of course. If one person trying to operate an excavator with four arms is too hard… just add three more people.
Under the Inquisitor's stare that clearly said, If you still can't make this work, I will shoot you, I swallowed my nerves and climbed back into the power armour.
I felt for the "four-direction prayer-rune plate" on the inside of my left arm. Basically, the WASD cluster on a keyboard. I pressed the rune for "forward."
The red glow in Servo-skull Alpha's eye sockets flickered once.
In the next instant, the power armour trembled beneath me and took a step forward, perfectly smooth, perfectly coordinated.
One step. Two steps. Three steps.
It was as natural as walking like a normal person.
Then I reached with my right hand and pressed the rune for "melee."
The power armour's thick right arm snapped up immediately. Five metal fingers opened and closed with uncanny dexterity. The fist clenched, then punched forward with a brutal surge of servos and a tearing whistle of displaced air.
Precise. Correct. Clean.
Yes.
It worked.
I could actually control this steel beast.
All morning, I trained inside this modified "four-man crew" power armour. Walking, running, lifting heavy objects, simulated firing. The more I used it, the more fluent it became. It didn't feel like controlling my own body so much as playing a VR first-person mech game with full motion feedback.
But that sensation of commanding from above, issuing orders, watching everything execute flawlessly?
It was heaven.
Honestly, if some arcade ever built a full rig like this, I swear it would sell out instantly.
And while I was training, the fortress itself was preparing for war. Every so often I'd see squads of troops in black armour sprinting and forming up. Armoured troop carriers and armed flyers rolled in and out of the hangars. Half-man, half-machine servitors marched in groups, hauling crates and tubes back and forth. The air carried the nervous, metallic tension of an imminent battle.
You'd never guess that the previous night had just seen a purge.
By afternoon, everything was ready.
I followed the Inquisitor to the very front of the assembled force.
She had changed into a set of lighter armour, but it was still ornate: white from head to toe, with a massive pistol at her waist and a long sword with lavish decoration. Her killing intent was sharp enough to cut.
Her attendants had also changed into standardized combat gear, all solemn, all silent.
And me?
I was wrapped in an ivory-white power armour over two meters tall, with one buzzing servo-skull above my head, another by my right arm, another behind my back. Colorful cables and tubes ran all over me. I looked like a walking Christmas tree made out of cyberpunk nonsense, completely out of place in the surrounding atmosphere of disciplined menace.
The Inquisitor stared at my grotesque getup in silence for a full five seconds. I couldn't tell whether she felt the pain of someone watching their beloved car get butchered by a rookie modder and then driven out to street-race.
In the end, she said nothing.
She simply lifted a hand in a cold, final gesture.
"Move out."
I copied her as best I could, clumsily commanding the power armour to follow with the rest. Inside the privacy of my helmet, where no one could hear me, I put on what I thought was a very cool voice and gave my "crew" its marching order:
"I am sortieing in Gundam mode!"
(End of Chapter)
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