Chapter 689: The Mech Frames

Chapter 689: The Mech Frames

After passing through the portal, he arrived at his last shelter, the New Genesis Shelter.

As he emerged from the Portal Hall, Shane immediately used his high Perception and other skills to survey the place…

It seemed that they were relatively safe, because there wasn’t that much destruction aside from the outer area of the shelter.

There may be collapsed walls, but only two areas were heavily impacted…

‘Hmm?’ Shane also noticed that a few survivors died. Apparently, he sensed that a group of people were gathered in the small cemetery within the shelter. Some of them were still mourning and leaving flowers for their friends or relatives who had died from the Zombie Wave.

Still, the shelter was slowly recovering as Arial and the other officials assigned to take care of the shelter were constantly monitoring and assisting with the reconstruction of the shelter, the payment to the Survivors, and the rewards for those who had an amazing performance.

And yet…

Shane narrowed his eyes as he stepped outside and looked across the shelter.

Out in the open, just behind the reinforced hangars, stood four colossal figures.

They were like towers of metal created by such an advanced magical technology…

Needless to say, they were the Aegis Series Mech Frames.

They were four out of the six Mech Frames…

Their existence was no longer hidden from the residents of the city, and Shane knew that their presence would soon become a

“The 24-hour Zombie Wave must’ve forced full deployment…” Shane muttered, lips curling into a small smile. “Guess there’s no point hiding them now.”

AEGIS-01 Juggernaut.

AEGIS-02 Vanguard.

AEGIS-03 Phantom

AEGIS-04 Bastion.

They were all damaged, but Shane could tell that they were still operational… Seeing the damage on their armors, he knew that these Mech Frames had also fought against some Giant Zombies.

Well, since this shelter lacks the number of Elite Survivors, they only compensated with the number of Warden Units, Turrets, Aegis Mechs, and other machines controlled by Arial…

He walked forward, nodding in approval as passing engineers and officers saluted him.

Many were bandaged, but they seemed to be just fine with their posture.

As expected, the New Genesis Shelter was recovering well.

Soon, he arrived at the Command Center. It was a circular hub with various displays and control panels to monitor the whole shelter.

Inside, standing at the center of the neural interface deck, was Arial.

He was still jacked into the command neural link. It was a black cable feeding from his temple into the system. His body remained perfectly still, but his mind was definitely running calculations, giving instructions, redirecting logistics, overseeing structural repairs, and perhaps, doing zombie wave analyses after the 24-hour event that they’ve experienced.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Arial was already coming up with a plan to ensure that even if the Zombie Wave happened again, they wouldn’t be in such a terrible condition again.

But the moment Shane stepped through the sliding doors—

PING.

Arial’s eyes flickered open.

The neural thread disconnected with a hiss as they all retracted back into the console.

Almost immediately, Arial stepped off the platform.

“Commander,” he said with a firm but calm voice. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

“Didn’t want to wait…” Shane replied as he stepped forward and showed a crate to him.s

“I got another batch of Tokens ready.”

Arial’s eyes lifted slightly, but he didn’t show any further surprise. Instead, he extended a hand toward Shane to receive the Tokens…

“As expected, you’ve really created something better… The design is even quite new.” Arial said as it seemed that this was the popular token right now.

Previously, the Tokens were just either a circular or a square piece of wood after all.

“Well, I didn’t make the design…” Shane said with a chuckle.

“Still, you’ve calibrated the tokens for various profiles?” Arial muttered, recognizing that the Tokens were divided into categories. It wasn’t all just shield or healing tokens like before.

Shane must’ve taken a lot of time to do this. So Arial couldn’t help but appreciate the effort of their Commander and Clan Leader.

“Of course.”

Shane said as he continued to explain about Vital Medic, Sentinel Dash, Escape Artist, and other tokens to Arial.

Arial lifted one of the Vital Medic Tokens and activated his internal display system, scanning the item.

His lips curled into a rare, appreciative smile.

“Impressive. This will reduce our reliance on external treatments… Our medical bay’s expenses will be greatly reduced by these tokens.”

After understanding more about the Tokens, about half an hour had already passed.

Shane looked at Arial for a long moment. “You did well during the Wave…”

He said this with sincerity as he also confirmed from Cloud about what happened to this Shelter during the 24-hour Zombie Wave.

It happened after the Cloud here had merged its data with the Cloud that was with him.

Arial smiled…

“The Aegis Series held the line… I just trusted the Mech Frames and your reinforcements…”

Shane gently nodded as he also trusted the power of the Mech Frames that had come from the Anima Civilization. Although their quality was low compared to the ones he had seen during the A.I. Rebellion, they were still quite powerful against the Zombies of this Apocalypse.

Then Arial quietly added, “The crew morale has never been higher. Seeing those Mechs fight alongside them… it gave them that energy and hope that they needed…”

Shane gave a faint smile. “Right… having hope matters.”

***

After leaving the command center, Shane made his way toward the Mech Frame hangars, eager to check on the four AEGIS units that had recently made their public debut.

Though their towering forms had become the pride of New Genesis Shelter during the Zombie Wave, they had also taken a serious beating.

As the hangar doors hissed open, Shane heard the hum of power tools, the occasional clang of wrenches, and the unmistakable sound of someone slurping noodles.

Yes, there was a group of people having their meals right now.

Inside, under massive work lights, stood the four Mech Frames…

“They look a lot better than I thought.” Shane muttered to himself as he was expecting something worse when he got closer to look.

With Cloud, he was able to easily analyze the four and confirmed their main issue.

AEGIS-01 Juggernaut – its left arm is missing more than 80% of its armor.

AEGIS-02 Vanguard – deep scorch marks lined its legs and chest plating.

AEGIS-03 Phantom – leaking faint vapor from its back exhaust ports.

AEGIS-04 Bastion – all weapons or armaments were destroyed.

Scattered across the maintenance bay were tool carts, crates of spare parts, coolant units, and a foldable table stacked with boxed meals and bottled water.

No one knew when they’d experience another huge battle, so they all wanted to repair their masterpiece to feel safer…

Indeed, having their Mech Frames ready for combat would give them a piece of mind. It wasn’t just because they wanted to work…

Still, it would probably take several more days to fix these four…

“Commander in the house!” Engineer Keno called out, standing on top of Vanguard’s foot like it was a stage. “I told you all he’d show up.”

“Commander… Are you going to help us?” Engineer Clyde chimed in, rolling out from beneath Juggernaut on a creeper with a wrench in one hand and half a sandwich in the other.

“I was considering it…” Shane replied with a grin…

From near Bastion’s torso, Chief Mechanic Rhona approached the commander. Her hair was tied back in a loose braid, a smudge of grease across her forehead, and a datapad in one hand.

“Commander,” she greeted with a small nod. “If you’re here to check damage reports, you’re a little early. But if you brought lunch, you’re just in time.”

“I figured you’d all still be in work mode. Didn’t expect a buffet…” Shane said, eyeing the foldable table, where Regina, the pilot of Phantom Mech, was currently devouring her third dumpling while tapping notes into a pad on her knee.

It seemed that she was reviewing her combat analysis from Cloud.

“Hello, Commander!”

Arris, the pilot of Juggernaut, greeted Shane after biting into a giant slab of bread with meat.

“Also, a couple of Crypt Crawler nearly entered when the Zombie Lord put a hole in my Mech’s leg. I’m putting in a hazard pay request.” Arris said, obviously not serious with the request.

“Alright… If there’s a need for a design change, I’ll consider that.” Shane muttered. “I’m just glad all of you made it back in one piece. And so did the Mechs… mostly.”

“Barely…” said Garren, Bastion’s pilot, who was sitting on the hangar floor, back against a toolbox, reading a small survival tactics booklet. “Bastion took a direct acid spray. I thought my HUD was going to melt.”

“It almost did…” Rhona muttered without looking up. “If Clyde didn’t patch the internal coolant routing, you’d be a fried jellybean.”