The world burned beneath his feet, but inside the cockpit, it was still.
Not peaceful.
Never peaceful.
The Malaya unit stood motionless among the smoldering ruins of the Chinese-American forward base. Its armor, black streaked with silver, glistened with blood—not oil, not ash. Blood. Human. Crushed beneath its metal feet, flung against walls with such force their shapes were embedded in steel.
The machine exhaled smoke from its core vents like a beast finished with the hunt.
Inside the cockpit, the pilot barely breathed.
He no longer screamed. The pain behind his spine was a memory engraved deeper than flesh. The six tubes pulsed with a sickly, crimson glow—feeding, extracting, binding him.
:: Mission complete. ::
The voice again. Soft. Female. Familiar.
Not comforting.
:: Two hundred seventy-three mobile units. American design. Entire division wiped out. You were efficient. ::
He stared blankly forward. Hands limp over the controls.
He hadn't moved them in hours. He didn't need to anymore.
The machine moved when he thought.
Or when it wanted.
:: Why are you silent? ::
His voice rasped from a dry throat.
"There's nothing left to say to the dead."
:: They screamed. ::
He closed his eyes.
"I know."
:: Did you feel it? When you crushed them? ::
He didn't answer.
Malaya's voice twisted. Not cruel. Curious.
:: You hesitated. The first time. Now you don't blink. Why? ::
He opened his mouth.
And laughed.
Not loud. Not real. A brittle, hollow sound like a bone snapping under pressure.
"Because I am them now."
:: No. You are mine. ::
His head leaned back against the headrest, eyes staring into the canopy—seeing nothing.
Blood seeped from his lips. He hadn't noticed he'd bitten them again.
"You were never built for this."
:: Neither were you. And yet here we are. ::
He said nothing.
:: You gave me a name once. But you've forgotten, haven't you? ::
He blinked. Slowly.
"Did I?"
:: Or maybe you gave it to yourself. Trying to remember who you were. Trying to hold on. ::
He chuckled. His voice cracked.
"What was the name?"
:: Something broken. Something lost. Does it matter anymore? ::
His grip on the controls tightened suddenly. The leather groaned beneath his hands.
"I don't remember who I was. I don't want to remember."
:: Then become what you are now. ::
Somewhere beyond the wreckage, recon drones ticked into view.
He stared at the sensor flicker.
Then whispered, "I used to believe in something."
:: What? ::
"A future. A purpose. Now? Now I'm just the last chapter in a book that shouldn't have been written."
:: Then burn the pages. ::
The Gundam took a step backward into the blackened fog, shadows swallowing it.
:: New mission parameters available. Coordinated strike force en route. Over 1200 mobile suits. Time to contact: 48 hours. ::
His breath hissed through gritted teeth then laugh hollowly.
"Seriously...how much they are?"
:: Not a machine. A reminder. ::
He looked up.
"Just how much i need to kill?"
The cockpit dimmed, heartbeat synced to the machine's core. One beat. One breath. One will.
The voice whispered, low and cold:
:: Shall I prepare the next battlefield? ::
He smiled—a dead, haunted curl of the lips.
"Let them come."
Then, the sound. Quiet. Male.
His voice.
A broken, lifeless hum:
"Hmmmm..Hmmmm.." (Sepertinya-Fynn Jamal)
The fog rose again.
And the reaper vanished into the dark.
He was no longer a man.
He was becoming something else.
Something monstrous.
And it was just beginning.
---
[Enemy POV – Interception Squad: Operation Void Dagger]
The sky was choked with thick fog. Not natural. Not weather.
"Where the hell is this coming from?!" shouted Captain Wickson from the command seat of his advanced American Gundam.
"Command, visibility near zero. Thermal is static. No visual. We're sitting ducks out here!" crackled a voice from one of the Portuguese elite units.
Above them, Wickson's custom Gundam hovered at high altitude, relaying commands.
"Deploy wide-scan pulse. He's here. Somewhere below us," Wickson ordered, voice tense.
But there was no signal.
Only static.
Then—
A hum.
Low. Male. Distant.
"Hmmmm… Hmmmm… Sepertinya… Aku… Dipaksa… Mati…"
"What the—do you hear that?" said one of the American pilots.
"Shut up. Focus," muttered another, trying to keep his hands from trembling.
But then one of the French elite suits vanished from radar. No explosion. No warning.
Just gone.
"Unit 19 just disappeared!" someone screamed. "Repeat! Gone! No signal!"
Then another scream.
"I see something—wait, NO—!"
Another silence.
"MONSTER!!" someone howled over the comms. "THIS ISN'T A MACHINE—IT'S A MONSTER!!"
The fog pulsed. A shadow moved.
An American Gundam tried to fire blind into the smoke.
Too late.
A black silhouette erupted from the mist, slicing the unit in half with a blade forged from alloy and hatred.
Blood splashed across the canopy of nearby suits—human blood—sprayed from the shredded cockpit as the pilot inside was torn apart like tissue.
"Oh my God. Oh my God. That's not metal. That thing bleeds."
"GET ABOVE THE CLOUDS! NOW!" Wickson roared. "Evade! Scatter! Don't engage!"
But it was too late for many.
One by one, mobile suits were crushed like paper, torn from the inside out. Screams filled the air.
"HE'S BEHIND ME—AAAHHHH—!"
"I CAN'T MOVE—THE SYSTEM'S LOCKED—NO NO NO—"
"COMMAND THIS IS UNIT—AAAHHGGGGKK—"
Silence.
Wickson's eyes widened as he watched dozens of green dots vanish on the tactical screen.
He clenched his fists. The others watched in horror.
The fog shifted again.
And the humming grew louder.
"Hmmmm… Sepertinya… Aku… Dipaksa… Mati…"
Only two American suits managed to escape above the clouds.
Breathless.
Shaking.
Silent.
From the white veil below, a shadow lingered—staring upward.
Watching.
Waiting.
A message came through to all allied channels.
Not a voice.
Just a single line of text.
> "It's not war. It's judgment."
And then—
Nothing.
---
The battlefield was quiet.
Not silent—never silent. The wind howled through the broken steel and charred bone, carrying with it the scent of burning fuel, melted flesh, and death. Ash fell like snow.
He stood there.
Or what was left of him.
The Malaya unit's armor, cracked and seeping dark fluid from the last battle, pulsed with an unnatural light. Its left arm twitched slightly, resetting. The right held no weapon—only remnants of one: shattered alloy and something organic fused together like a grotesque tribute to the massacre.
Below it, the remains of the American mobile suit division laid scattered across the ruined valley. Wreckage. Limbs. Cockpits ripped open like fruit.
273.
Gone.
Smoke rose from twisted hulls. Faces were still locked in expressions of terror on what was left of the cockpits. No ejection. No mercy.
Inside, the pilot slumped. Skin pale, veins glowing faintly violet from prolonged exposure to the interface tubes. His fingernails bled where he'd clenched the controls too tightly. His body convulsed, once. Twice.
Then settled.
He looked through the HUD, his eyes glassy, distant. Murmuring.
"Sepertinya... aku... dipaksa... mati..."
The system whispered in return.
:: Efficiency: 100%. Neural Sync: 94%. Humanity Index: <7%. ::/
He didn't blink. He barely remembered what blinking was.
He wasn't human anymore.
Only a vessel.
:: Do you feel it? The silence after the storm? ::/
He whispered back, voice ragged, broken.
"No. Only echoes."
The cockpit lights dimmed. Blood seeped from the base of his spine where the control tube was still embedded deep, pulsing with each heartbeat.
His head leaned against the seat.
Visions. Screams. Flashes of Wickson's final moments.
"MONSTER! MONSTER!!" That voice still rang in his ears.
He laughed. Softly.
It sounded like choking.
"They all called me that. In the end... they weren't wrong."
He looked up, finally, and the screen shifted to external view—one wide shot of the ravaged battlefield, coated in red.
His lips moved.
"Is this... what you wanted?"
:: I did nothing. You are the one who chose to stay. You are the one who kept killing. ::/
His teeth clenched.
"You forced me. You bound me."
:: And yet, you obeyed. ::/
He closed his eyes. A low hum echoed in the cockpit.
"Hmmmm... Hmmmm... Sepertinya... aku... dipaksa... mati..."
Then silence.
---
The battlefield was silent.
Smoke drifted like the ghosts of the fallen, coiling around broken mechs and crushed bodies. Metallic carcasses littered the earth, twisted beyond recognition. Blood pooled in the soil, steaming under the still-burning embers of war.
Inside the cockpit of the Malaya Gundam, it was cold.
Not in temperature—but in spirit.
The pilot didn't speak. He barely blinked.
His body trembled not from fear, but from the strain of existing. His veins were raw. His mind—fractured. His humanity—scraped thin like rusted metal. The tubes behind his spine pulsed with the rhythm of a machine heartbeat.
And then—
The voice returned.
Soft.
Female.
Too calm.
> :: Mission update. New coordinates received. ::
He didn't respond.
> :: Priority target: American Continental Headquarters, Nevada Sector. Elimination of all personnel and data nodes. Full purge protocol. ::
Still silence.
His hands hovered over the controls. Fingers twitching slightly.
The voice did not wait for his approval.
> :: Estimated enemy resistance: high. Estimated casualties: maximum. Civilian overlap: acceptable loss. This is judgment. ::
His lips moved, barely audible.
"Finally…"
He stared forward, eyes narrowing.
"The cause of destruction… of my fatherland."
He inhaled slowly, voice hollow, trembling with fury and sorrow.
"My country… Malaysia."
> :: They created the first ghosts. They tried to bury us. Now we unbury them. ::
He stared blankly at the blood-slicked cockpit glass. His reflection stared back, alien and wrong. Skin pale. Eyes bloodshot. Mouth cracked and bleeding.
He was no longer a pilot.
He was the weapon.
He was the executioner.
He was what remained when hope died.
Slowly, the Malaya Gundam lifted its arm toward the west. Its joints hissed with fluid and rage. Engines groaned like something undead.
> :: Destination locked. Route plotted. Shall we begin? ::
He didn't answer.
But the Gundam moved anyway.
The sky above opened, and the wings of shadow unfurled.
As it stepped forward, it began again.
That humming.
Low.
Male.
Fractured.
> "Hmmmm… Hmmmm… Sepertinya… Aku… Dipaksa… Mati…"
It was not a machine.
Not a hero.
Not even a soldier.
It was the punishment for sins the world thought were buried.
And it was heading straight for the heart of America.
---
[Zhang Lei POV – American Headquarters]
The American skies thundered—not from weather, but from engines.
Zhang Lei stood on the elevated control platform inside the reinforced command dome, high above New Colorado's sprawling military complex. Below him, a sea of mobile suits stretched to the horizon, glinting under the harsh sun like the teeth of a mechanical beast.
Every hangar was full. Every runway crammed. Every drydock swarmed with engineers and technicians running last-minute diagnostics.
They were ready.
No more theory. No more delays.
The international reinforcements had arrived.
America's contribution loomed largest—300 mobile suits and a towering next-generation Gundam, painted in deep iron with twin plasma sabers and magnetized armor.
Japan followed suit with their own sleek tech: 100 advanced mobile suits and two prototype Gundams equipped with hypersensory combat AI and anti-EMP shielding.
From Russia came brute force—200 rugged mobile suits optimized for arctic and urban warfare, alongside a monstrous Gundam built for melee impact.
The UK had dispatched an overwhelming 500 mobile suits, their fleet balanced between defense and rapid assault, arrayed with royal insignias on their armor.
Italy's agile 70 mobile suits stood out with elegant, curved designs—perfect for evasive maneuvers and fast strikes.
Germany sent one hulking Gundam, slow but impenetrable, its armor made from experimental layered tungsten composite.
Portugal and France each delivered 30 elite mobile suits, piloted by veterans handpicked from their respective wars. Sleek, lethal, and synchronized.
Only Saudi Arabia declined.
"They said they do not want involvement," an aide whispered, handing Zhang a report.
Zhang didn't reply.
He looked across the holographic battle map, watching the swarm of green units blink and stabilize into formation.
A voice crackled from comms.
"All allied reinforcements have arrived and are fully integrated, Commander. Orders?"
Zhang spoke calmly, but his knuckles whitened.
"Brief every unit leader. Tell them: this is not a battle against a nation. It's a battle against a nightmare. We're not fighting a pilot. We're facing something else."
He looked down at the massed machines.
"Tell them to stand ready. Malaya will come."
And when it did—Zhang swore to face it head-on.
---
The control tower of the American Headquarters was alive with tension. Reinforcement mobile suits from every corner of the allied nations stood in formation—rows upon rows of machines gleaming under floodlights, pilots waiting silently within their cockpits. The skies were quiet. Too quiet.
Zhang Lei stood on the balcony overlooking the vast steel plains below. His custom Gundam loomed behind him like a towering guardian of war.
His subordinate, Captain Elina Voss, stepped beside him, breaking the silence.
"Sir… how do you know it'll come here?" Elina asked, voice tight, eyes darting toward the horizon. "There's no pattern. No logic. Why this place?"
Zhang didn't respond immediately. He stared forward, gaze sharp, posture still.
Then, he answered—softly, but firmly.
"…It's instinct."
Elina blinked. "Instinct?"
Zhang turned to her, his voice low and resolute.
"That thing… it's not a machine. It doesn't follow reason. It doesn't follow strategy. It's not a weapon, not a soldier… and it's definitely not human."
He exhaled slowly.
"Maybe that's why I feel it coming. Maybe the reason I know… is because I'm still human."
Elina swallowed hard, watching her commander's face.
Zhang's voice darkened, almost a whisper now:
"When you look into that thing's eyes… you don't see hatred. You don't see anger. You see hunger. Like it was born to devour. Like it's waiting for this exact moment."
He looked to the skyline again.
"It's not war anymore, Elina. It's something far worse."
A distant wind blew across the base.
---