"But with these new and wonderful suits they are wearing, which I heard about from the papers—do you think they will return, or will they end up like those before them?"
"I don’t know... I think they might win this time."
"Maybe, who knows... I’ll put my trust in them this time and let’s hope for the best. We’ve been through many defeats at the hands of those accursed bastards, and I don’t want it to happen again."
He also heard some children cheering, "Look at them! They’re awesome, like superheroes! I hope I can be like them one day."
Akira and Yousef smiled at their innocent words and at the looks of hope, happiness, and anticipation, and the desire to be like them and the rest of the soldiers. They continued on their way, enjoying these few moments before the great battle.
Yousef whispered in his ear from behind, "Are you scared?"
"Of course I’m scared, I won’t lie to you. We might not come back, as you know!"
"Don’t worry, I’ll protect you if they kick you hard and beat you up."
Yousef smiled. "You’re so witty. We’ll see who protects whom! And who will kill the most of them!"
"Alright. Whoever kills the most and comes back here alive, the morning coffee is on his account for a whole year."
"Deal!" Thɪs chapter is updated by 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✦𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✦𝓷𝓮𝓽
Their conversation was cut off by the echo of the Captain’s voice as he stopped the army. Akira and Yousef hadn’t seen him until now. Everyone stopped steadily and began to listen to the Captain, but only those in the front could see him. The Captain said in a firm, strong tone, "I know it will be difficult for everyone to hear me as I speak, so please activate the suit so I can communicate with you. All you have to do is say the word ’activate’."
Yousef and Akira said "activate." A disassembled helmet came out and began to assemble its parts on their faces until it was completely closed and pitch darkness fell. Then some blue lights lit up, and a blue horizontal line appeared with the word "Loading" written above it. When the line reached the end, several windows, numbers, and words appeared, passing by so quickly that they could not make them out. Then the loading and setup periods ended, and a voice from inside the helmet said, "Welcome to the Enix 2000 super-suit."
Suddenly, the outside world began to gradually appear. Yousef saw the soldiers standing in front of him wearing their silver helmets of a distinctive and attractive shape, with glowing blue eye lenses. The color black covered a part from under the eye to the chin, while a fine black line ran from above the eye to just below the neck.
Yousef heard a calm, steady voice speaking in his ear, "Can you all hear me? This is the Captain here, and I will be leading this mission. From now on, you will listen to everything I say and carry it out to the letter so that we succeed in this mission. And let me introduce myself first. My name is Keno Rinos."
Everyone said in one voice, "It’s an honor to meet you."
The name flashed in both Yousef’s and Akira’s minds, and they looked at each other. They were sure that Keno was the one who would lead this campaign. They had met him many times before and tried to find out from him the location of the rest of their companions, but he had told them that he, like them, knew nothing and was always evasive. So they left him alone. But they did not expect him to lead this dangerous mission, but he was the perfect choice for it thanks to his unique power. Keno replied, with a dignity mixed with some firmness, "The honor is mine to stand with brave and great soldiers like you, who are ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of our country. But let’s leave that for now. As you can see, with this helmet, I can always communicate with you and give you orders. You will also choose a special communication frequency for each of your groups so that you can communicate with each other, because you will be divided into groups, and each group will occupy a position on the battlefield so that we are in complete harmony without mistakes that could cost the entire army its life. And now, we will begin Operation 13 to go outside the walls of Atlantis, to explore and perhaps engage and try to obtain some of the lands that I will specify for you on the three-dimensional map in the helmet. After we have obtained the required lands, we will place some energy capsules around them that will create an energy field around them, similar to the dome placed on Atlantis. Thus, we will have dominated the lands and succeeded in taking them from the robots and dominating a wide area. We will need to split into groups and go to several specific locations to place the capsules so that they are activated and the barrier works."
"And now, the names of each group and their role outside will appear on your screen. Oh, I forgot something very important."
Keno was silent for a moment, then whispered in a frightening tone, "What you see outside, you must not talk about if you return alive, unless the government allows you to. So that there is no confusion among the public, and people do not panic. We do not know what we will see outside. And now, let’s begin."
The army began to march again until they reached the eastern side of the energy dome. Keno approached it and spoke to one of the workers, "Disconnect this part of the dome on the eastern side now!"
After a few seconds, a gap opened up, wide enough for the army and war machines to exit. The soldiers felt tense and awestruck and began to whisper among themselves, but Keno ordered them to be silent, and they obeyed. After that, he ordered them to move outside. He went ahead of them, and everyone followed him in steady steps and in a formation of two long rows, surrounded by the war machines that walked on three legs on the right and left. As soon as everyone was out, the gap closed again, and there was no way back into Atlantis.
Some soldiers turned behind them and looked back with a look that suggested their strong desire to return inside, but it was too late now to go back.