"Boss, dawn is about to hit," T-Rex reported into his encrypted comms.
Perched silently inside a high-altitude mountain cave, his tactical binoculars were locked onto Dr. Philip's sprawling, snow-dusted manor in the valley below. Beside him, Light sat cross-legged on the cold stone, adjusting his satellite link.
"Understood," Terminator's deep, gravelly voice resonated over the squad frequency. "Is everyone in position?"
One by one, green status indicators flashed on the squad HUD.
"Yes."
"In position."
"Ready."
"Set."
"Light, are you calibrated?" Terminator asked.
"Ready, Boss," Liam answered calmly, tapping his tablet screen to lock the crosshairs over the estate's primary structural pillars. "Orbital target lock confirmed on the manor. Just waiting for Vice-Leader's call."
"Good. Stinger, Zero, attack the western perimeter. Scorpion and Cheetah, sweep the east. T-Rex and Light take the north approach. I will breach from the south," Terminator ordered, his voice turning ice-cold. "And remember the directive: Philip must be taken alive."
"Understood!" the unit chorused.
Over the eastern horizon, the first golden rays of dawn broke across the Siberian tundra, illuminating the frost.
"Code: Red," T-Rex growled into his mic.
Light tapped his tactical tablet twice. High above the atmosphere, an orbital missile decoupled, cutting through the sky like a falling star before detonating directly against the manor with a deafening, earth-shattering BOOM. Destroying a large part of the manor.
"DWO Unit, breach," Terminator commanded.
T-Rex raised a heavy, mechanical grappler, fired a reinforced steel cable into the manor's shattered superstructure, and barked, "On it!"
In a flash of hydraulic power, T-Rex launched himself off the cliff, zipping through the freezing air straight into the smoke-filled breach. Light packed his tablet into his tactical pack and followed close behind, gliding down his own line.
Simultaneously, the western and eastern teams breached their sectors in total synchronization.
Suddenly, a crackle of static echoed through the manor's internal public address system, followed by a loud, mocking voice.
"My, my... look who decided to drop by. DWO... DUO... whatever circus name you guys go by these days."
Cheetah paused on a roof beam, her ears twitching as she moved stealthily behind Scorpion.
It's Philip, she thought, her eyes narrowing behind her visor.
"Since you traveled all this way," Dr. Philip's voice boomed over the speakers, "I thought it'd be rude not to send up a welcoming gift."
T-Rex crashed through the ruined wall, his heavy combat boots landing in a spray of stone and shattered glass. What the hell is he talking about? he thought, his senses on high alert.
A sudden spike of raw danger shot up his spine. By pure, animalistic instinct, T-Rex threw himself backward.
An impossibly heavy fist slammed into the spot where he had stood a millisecond prior. The sheer kinetic shockwave pulverized the concrete floor, caving it in completely and sending both T-Rex and his attacker plunging into the level below—a subterranean bio-dome engineered like a dense, synthetic jungle.
T-Rex rolled into a low stance, brushing dust from his shoulder as he looked up. "Who—or what—?"
"T-Rex, report! What's happening?" Terminator's voice cut through the comms.
"Boss, looks like Philip was waiting for us," T-Rex grunted, spotting the subtle gleam of security camera lenses hidden in the foliage above.
"Ah, looks like one of you has met the welcome committee," Philip's voice broadcasted from the dome's speakers.
"Vice-Leader, what are we dealing with?" Zero chimed in over the radio.
T-Rex stared down the opponent standing before him in the artificial mist: a towering, ten-foot-tall construct clad in black composite armor plate, its cold, bio-luminescent eyes glowing green through its faceplate.
"It's the Knights," T-Rex said grimly.
"YES!" Philip cheered over the intercom, soundly genuinely thrilled. "MY INFAMOUS KNIGHT PROJECT! ARE YOU READY TO WITNESS TRUE SCIENTIFIC whatever, just die."
"DWO, stay sharp," T-Rex warned over the open channel. "The Knight Project is no joke."
"He's right," Terminator affirmed. "Light, execute Plan B."
"On it. Give me a moment," Light responded over the radio, already firing his re-grapple line to fall back toward the elevated cave overhang for superior support.
"DWO Unit, engage with maximum lethality!" Terminator ordered.
"Understood!"
On the western quadrant, Zero kicked open a reinforced reinforced bulkhead, but before she could step through, an armored fist burst out from the shadow, striking her chest plate and sending her flying backward through the air.
Stinger sprinted up, drawing his twin katanas. "Ms. Zero! Are you alright?"
Zero flipped in mid-air, landing lightly on her feet with a wicked grin. "Never better."
She charged back into the fray alongside Stinger, who blurred into motion.
His twin katanas flashed like lightning, dicing the first heavy Knight into a dozen falling pieces of steel and biological muscle. But before the pieces hit the floor, a second, faster Knight lunged forward, parrying his blade with terrifying speed.
Stinger's eyes widened behind his mask as metal clashed against metal.
What the hell? This thing is matching my speed?! Philip, what on earth did you build here?!
Within seconds, more heavy silhouettes surged out from the mist.
Across all sectors, the DWO operatives were being pressured back. Cheetah, Scorpion, Stinger, and Zero were forced onto the defensive against an relentless horde of heavy bio-mechanical juggernauts.
Meanwhile, T-Rex stood encircled by twenty-five armored knights.
One lunged forward, but T-Rex countered with a brutal overhead strike. The sheer force drove the knight's helmet straight down through his chest and legs, utterly collapsing his body into a gruesome, crumpled wreck.
T-Rex looked at the other knights, they were trembling despite being an experiment. T-Rex stepped forward as the knights lunged at him, at once.