The Battle of Death Mountain: Staging

[Albert Wesker]

He was met with the now familiar up-ending of his sense of direction as he passed through the portal from the Nexus to the hellish landscape of the Steppes, and a veritable wall of heat and ash struck him full in his grimacing face. A single wheeze as he quickly forced himself to acclimate to the new environs was all that passed him, and he was right on his way again, the infrequent, loping movements of the massive hulk of powered armor proving its worth on the rocky, uneven terrain.

Bounding from one precarious ledge to a patch of sliding gravel, sailing over a pool of molten rock, and barging through sulfurous clouds, the virtual soldier charged straight-on toward his destination. Along the way, he had Cricket pull up and relate to him the particulars that Nealaphh had outlined in its plans for this event in more detail. His expression remained neutral as he took in the plan of action and pieced together what it was all about in his head.

"It all points toward being a very energetic experience, if nothing else. And likely quite violent, to boot! There is every possibility you will end up gravely damaged, or even destroyed again as a result of this," his helper program pointed out to him.

"I'm aware." His own response was short and almost curt. "Just means more caution and proper strategy will be required."

"Quite so, sir. Shall I draw up possible plans for your own movements, then?"

"No. Wait until we see who else we'll be working with. Plan things out with their strengths and weaknesses in mind."

"Ah, yes. Of course. Making plans without taking such things into account would be unwise indeed, I suppose."

"Yes. It would." The stark contrast between Colonel's iron-hard, no-nonsense demeanor and the professional, yet almost bubbly and easygoing nature of Cricket was not lost on the soldier program. Usually he'd seen that a Navi and their operator were similar, at least on some level, back home...but then again, there had never been a Navi operated by another Navi, to his knowledge. The situation wasn't exactly typical.

"Diagnostics indicate Death Mountain lies slightly due west from our current course, sir. All this ash and treacherous footing has caused us to veer slightly off our projected path."

"Correcting course."

It was just one of the many minor reasons that he was glad the little helper program was present, despite the clashing of personality. He was very detail-oriented when it counted. The minor change in course heading would have only cost a few minutes at most, but spotting it early enough and keeping on constant alert for deviations like he was, Cricket kept those few minutes from being wasted on the avoidable frivolity of being lost. And that was always a plus.

It was an uneventful journey across the unwelcoming landscape, marked only by the occasional correction of course by Cricket, or the navi voicing some curiosity or other it noticed in their surroundings, or on the dataverse.

Within the span of mere hours, Death Mountain loomed largely in the immediate distance, and only a short few minutes later, the hulking powered suit crashed down at the base of a narrow, winding path, leading up to what looked to be a war camp of sorts. A series of bounding leaps and jet-assisted leaps and hops carried it up the rocky mountainside, leaping alongside of, and occasionally over, the pathway, finally coming to a halt at the edges of the makeshift war camp, letting out a long hiss of pressurized air as it powered down, venting excess heat and air as it settled down, losing nearly a foot of height as it buckled, the cockpit opening to admit Colonel to emerge, stepping down onto the ash-covered rock of the mountain.

A faint grinding of servos and gears sounded behind him as the cockpit sealed itself once more. "Locked and secured, sir, and ready for future transport away from here, if necessary!" Cricket announced cheerfully as it jumped back into the PET hanging at his belt. "Affirmative."

It didn't take him long to scour the area, exchanging a few brief words with a goron he passed to point him in the right direction. He strode up to an unexpectedly large gathering of what he could only assume to be Primes. He recognized only one among their number -- the woman, Miranda Frost. He waited silently for the immediate conversation to be finished, Frost announcing the arrival and intent of her and her group to assist in the operation at hand, before Colonel spoke up himself. "Headmaster Nealaphh. My apologies for the delay in my arrival. Colonel.EXE, reporting for duty."