Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Today is March 28th, usually a normal day for everyone. Maybe it's their birthday, maybe it's the usual routine. Who knows? Certainly not Ali bin Ghazali

Who knew getting Tempoyak Udang would've lead him down this rabbit hole of secret agencies and a villain group ready to take over Cyberaya?

As for what exactly happened that day...

Ali Bin Ghazali is woken up by a call from his father, and renowned minister in Cyberaya, Dr Ghazali. He realizes that he's late for school.

After hurriedly dressing up, he uses his scooter to go to school. Along the way, he accidentally tripps Aunty Faye and she fell into some bushes, avoiding incoming passengers, aswell as hiding from Shaun and Syed, well known bullies in SRT Cyberaya 1, after Ali tried to stop them from bullying an Indian student by taking away his ice cream.

As Ali goes down the stairs and onto the passageway, he nearly crashes into a white stray cat and the Nasi Lemak cyber stall. After awkwardly stopping just before hitting the stall, Ali orders a Nasi Lemak and when he mentions the order...

"Tempoyak Udang"

literally, Wak Musang is shocked.

[PREVIOUSLY]

A mysterious woman, codename "Dos", arrives at a Nasi Lemak cyber stall. The hawker, Wak Musang, places a device onto a plate and then covers it with a box of Tempoyak Udang. Before she leaves, she tells him that one of her allies will come to retrieve it. And the code is "Tempoyak Udang"

As per his orders by the woman, he gives the boy a box of Nasi Lemak Tempoyak Udang free of charge. After all, why would you charge someone who you work with?

Ali then rushes to school after hearing the school bell ringing, signaling that class has started and he is late.

A few seconds later, a man wearing all black comes to the stall and asks for "Tempoyak Udang". That is when Wak Musang realizes that he has mistaken Ali to be the retriever of the device and he has given him the box containing it.

As Ali arrives to class, he signals Viktor, his best friend, to distract Puan Munah, the class teacher. When she is distracted, Ali sneaks into the classroom, but is discovered by Alicia, the school prefect who'd recently been gone from school after a supposed "accident" which costed her left arm, now replaced with a prosthetic.

Puan Munah came to Ali's desk with a cane and scolds him for failing in his Math test. Ali apologizes to her, but she replies that it is no use for apologizing if he still does not change. She tosses Ali's failed Math paper towards him and uses her cane to slice it into half right in front of his face (like a total badass), leaving him in shock.

During recess, Ali talks to Viktor about his test results and wonders how he can improve it. Then, Ali takes his lunchbox and tells Viktor to leave the canteen as the bullies Shaun and Syed are searching for him. Ali and Viktor hide in a toilet room and Ali is unsure what he should do now.

Viktor then quoted a sentence from the game he is playing in his tablet:

"Keberanian tidak diperoleh apabila anda bertarung dan menang, tetapi ia adalah apabila anda terus berjuang untuk niat yang baik walaupun ketika halangan datang"

Inside the lunchbox, the device starts blinking and making soft sounds

After school, Ali shows off his yoyo skills to Viktor. Before leaving, Viktor invites Ali to play the game Detektif Jebat, which is shown in Ali's tablet.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Then, Ali's uncle, named Bakar (bin Baharom) comes to fetch him. Bakar had not seen Ali since he was six so as an introduction, he asks for his age, his height making him assume he's nine when he's actually 12. As they walk to a shop, Bakar holds his phone behind him... it looks like he is tracking something...

As Ali and Bakar enter a shop, Ali goes to buy some bread but is confused by Bakar's unusual actions. Bakar quietly asks Ali whether he has something that does not belong to him. Ali touches his school uniform and denies it.

Bakar spots Dos and Trez, a bulky man built for smashing things, are already inside the shop. He takes Ali to a corner and tells him that he is now in danger because the two suspicious people are trying to catch him.

When Trez found them, he pushes the shop cabinets and they fall like dominos. Bakar tosses Ali to the back door and holds the cabinets before they fall onto him. He tells Ali to run and Ali uses the back door to escape. Ali rides on his scooter in an attempt to escape but Dos chases him. Meanwhile, Trez fights with Bakar and is eventually defeated when Bakar uses an insect killer spray on his eyes. However, Dos manages to chase down Ali and capture him.

Later Dos and Tres take Ali to construct building to get the IRIS. Dos goes through Ali's bag and finally finds the box of "Nasi Lemak Tempoyak Udang"

and under of food...

...is the IRIS.

__________________________

The IRIS, also known as the Infinity Retinal Intelligence System, is a device created by MATA agents for MATA agents.

The IRIS is activated by a button resembling the official Meta Advance Tactical Agency (aka MATA) logo. It scans a person's irises to sync or to identify it's user. (it's namesake). If it matches to its user, it transforms into a visor for the user to wear.

There's still more things to talk about, but it's getting too cramped for that :P

__________________________

Dos figured that Ali was an agent, after all, she have heard rumours of MATA training young agents before, so seeing him with the IRIS makes her assume he was an agent himself. 

She connects the IRIS to a computer for scanning, just to see if the boy had synchronized with the device before.

Meanwhile, Trez rummages through his backpack, which makes Ali upset. This amuses the man, seeing him as cute (i mean he's 12 but looks 9. I guess he kinda is?). 

From behind, Ali's uncle comes in (both in terms of fighting and of comeback lines), now wearing a blue suit, and throws Trez into a pile of boxes. Dos approaches the man and confronts him. Bakar not fighting back because... uh iunno.

Trez comes back up and faces Bakar. It's now a 2v1

On Bakar's command, Ali runs. Dos orders her comrade to catch him but Trez denies, not seeing him as a threat and focusing on Bakar.

Each side lands and counters blows, this is interrupted by Trez causing a shockwave with his bio-mechanical arm (internal structure is robotic, but it has flesh around it basically), which interrupts Bakar and gives Dos enough distance to throw her Shox Stix (they're like tasers, but sticks). 

Bakar barely catches the sticks but is slammed into by Trez, sending the man flying into a support collumn, which is followed up by a punch which Bakar narrowly dodges.

Meanwhile, Ali's running downstairs, trying to escape the spies. Due to the fight above, the stairs shook, sending Ali tumbling down the stairs. As he stared at his tablet, he remembers Victor's words to him. "Keberanian itu bukan diperoleh apabila anda bertarung dan menang, tetapi ia adalah apabila kita terus berjuang untuk niat yang baik walaupun ketika halangan datang"

Back to the fight, Bakar is exhausted by the constant dodging and failed counterattacks. He asks if that's it. Trez replied with a smirk. Then, he's tased by Dos and later cuffed to a pillar. 

As Dos walks back to the computer to check on the IRIS, she notices Ali grabbing the device. Dos charges after the boy. Bakar orders him to use the IRIS. Ali, remembering the ultimate attacks from Detektif Jebat, holds it out like a Kamehameha. When nothing happened, he slid his fingers on it's surface, triggering it's syncing sequence and making him the official weilder of the IRIS.

The IRIS began doing it's thing and starts giving Ali information. The hostiles, environmental hazards, allies, etc.

Dos and Trez charges at Ali, and with a shockwave from Trez, Ali is thrown overboard(?)

In a twist of fate, Ali managed to hold onto a piece of rope, saving him from a bloody end down below. The IRIS detects the hostiles above and plans an escape route.

[JUMPING DISTANCE: 1.5M] [SWING ROPE TO INCREASE MOMENTUM]

As he's about to make the leap, the rope is pulled upwards by Trez. Seeing his nephew in danger, Bakar starts searching for something to break the cuffs. As Trez finishes up pulling the rope, Ali was nowhere to be seen.

From the side, Ali makes a run for it. Dos notices the boy and gvies chase. The IRIS yet again being a life-saver by giving him the throwing arc of the sticks, giving Ali time to duck below the sticks and avoid being electricuted. 

Trez comes in with a shockwave slam, IRIS giving Ali the shockwave's height, length, speed, and power, giving the boy time to barely leap over it.

Trez decides to just grab the boy and starts coming in. Dos comes in from the side and narrowly hits Ali. The boy notices Trez and leaps above him, even goomba-stomping the man before running. 

Hiding behind a pillar to avoid Dos's strikes, he is then alerted of Trez rapidly approaching. Seeing a chance to counter, he baits Dos to follow him to the open, causing her to get slammed into by Trez, knocking her out.

Ali continues running, stamina draining rapidly. The IRIS alerts him of weak flooring infront of him. With Trez tailing just behind, he sees an opportunity. Trez comes in for a powerful blow, Ali dodging just barely, causing the punch to hit the floor and causing it to start cracking.

Bakar alerts Ali of the cracking floor, which Ali groans in response, his opportunity wasted. Trez, hearing Bakar, decides to avoid heavy strikes and just catch him himself.

Dos wakes up and sees Ali turning a corner. She jumps from behind a pillar and strikes at the scaffolding beside him, causing to fall towards him. He dodges but is confronted by Trez who grabs him by the shirt and pulls him up. With >8% energy left, he can't fight back.

As Trez was about to knock him out, Bakar who just got himself free with a laser pointer, charges in and pins Trez to the ground, the same ground that cracked a few moments ago.

Ali watched as his uncle and the enemy fall into the floor, his last bits of energy draining as he sees his uncle's hand reaching out from below the chasm.

The IRIS drops from his face. Dos comes in to grab it but Bakar does to first. As he tries to activate it... [SYNCHRONISATION FAILED]

Dos retaliates with a kick... to the nuts. Ouch

As she's about to finish him off, a voice from the other side of the computer speaks, urging her to get out as MATA is closing in. Quickly grabbing the computer, she bails through the broken floor.

From behind a pillar nearby, a black figure stood. It's right eye glowing a judgemental yellow in a show of force.

[LATER]

Ali wakes up, dazed by lack of energy. He sees two people, his uncle and an unfamiliar woman, bronze/red hair, possibly from a korean lineage, wearing glasses and a red/white lab coat.

He is hugged by his concerned uncle. He asks where he was and is answered by a voice through the big screen infront. Shown on the screen, a man of pure leadership and status. General Rama.

The man says that this is a secret safehouse made by MATA, use for missions and for shelter if needed.

The red-haired woman, Ejen Jenny, speaks. She explains about the IRIS, it's powers, and notes how he's now synchronized with it. Without a proper way to seperate the IRIS yet, they're stuck with having him.

The General notes how the IRIS Project had been abandoned for quite some time due to it's unstable nature and it's high energy demands which were not expected.

As Ali asks about what's next, the General decides to eliminate him right there because he knew too much already. Bakar comes in and begs to not go with that. Jenny then comes in with a suggestion.

With the given time, they might be able to find a way to seperate the IRIS from him, and with the IRIS, they'll be better than ever.

With no other choice, they're forced to recruit Ali. From this day forward, he's now MATA's property. His training as an agent begins tomorrow.

As Ali is escorted out by his uncle, the same figure looks on from the doorframe, completely unnoticed by the two men. With a filtered voice from behind the makeshift mask, it spoke. Voice oddly slightly feminine

"Menarik... kita lihat nanti."

Chapter Text

[MISSION BRIEFING]

DATE:15/11/19 [4 MONTHS BEFORE MISSION:IRIS]

TIME:0020

LOCATION: SECTOR 56 MATA BASE 

OPERATION ZONE: SOLAR ENERGY FACILITY [SOUTH-SOUTHEAST CYBERAYA]

OPERATING AGENTS: BAKAR [KOMBAT]. JENNY [TEKNO]. RIZWAN [INVISO]. ALICIA [NEURO]

OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE DISSAPEARENCES

AVOID COMBAT AT ALL COSTS.

______________________

The facility rumbles as usual. Through the secret entrance came a team of MATA agents. The team was sent to investigate recent dissapearences inside the facility. Led by Rizwan, well known and powerful Inviso agent, specializing in stealth and quick strikes, accompanied by Bakar, Jenny, and a young cadet, somewhere around Ali's age, Alicia.

Entering the control room in the centre, they split up to search different wings of the facility. Bakar to the south wing, Rizwan and Alicia to the east wing, and Jenny to the west wing.

Bakar walks through the halls, making sure to not alert the guards of his presence. He reaches the south warehouse, the place where they keep the unused things aswell as some cleaning tools.

Rizwan and Alicia head to the north reactor, a giant Azurium powered reactor that acts as a secondary energy source for the facility. Once they're there, the start hearing some rummaging through the vents, headed for the warehouse.

Jenny is nowhere to be seen. She probably went to the west solar farm, but that's where it ends. No other information, odd.

Bakar looks around the warehouse for any signs of missing people, then he hears a loud thunk as something metallic lands behind him. Looking back, he sees a mysterious figure, a machine, standing up. It's back flaring outwards, forming four pairs of wings that glow a faint yellow hue, silhouettes of exotic guns showing through each wing.

It turns around, and stares at Bakar. It's head resembling a security camera. It's single eye staring at him, analysing. It's body covered in blue plating, it's main systems of black wiring and machinery poking through. On it's chestplate, a designation carved into it.

V1

It reaches into one of it's wings and grabs a revolver, grey is colour with blue highlights, and points it at Bakar. Bakar acted quick, grabbing a metal plate nearby to use as an improvised shield.

The gun fires, the bullet, or rather, the laser projectile, punching through the sheet of metal like a hot knife through butter and narrowly missing Bakar's head.

From behind, a projectile zips past, the figure dodging effortlessly. It looks back and sees Alicia, her slingshot loaded.

Yet there wasn't any signs of Rizwan, not yet.

As the machine turns to fire at the young cadet, Rizwan appears from above and lands a jab at it's hydraulic-like neck. It staggers and misses the shot. Alicia retaliates with her own, the hits staggering it further. Bakar comes from behind and rams it into a pile of boxes.

The machine rises up, it's wings twitching from the sudden impact. With a crack of it's knuckles, it fixes it's stance and prepares for a fight.

[UNKNOWNS CONSIDERED HOSTILES] [ENGAGE?]

A message comes through.

[Y]

With a dash, it closes the distance on Bakar and knocks him away with a punch. Rizwan comes from the side and lands a few jabs with his pressure gloves. It staggers back, readjusts it's stance and continues. Parrying and blocking Rizwan's attacks with minimal difficulty. 

Up until Bakar smacks it from it's flank, sending it tumbling back. Readjusting to the hazards, it continues. Jumping over Bakar like an acrobat, it readies it's revolver for a shot, but it's gun is shot off it's hand by Alicia, who loads another projectile to follow it up.

[PRIORITY TARGET SET] [ENGAGING]

It closes in on the girl, who dodges with serious acrobatic skills of her own. As Alicia fires on the machine, it retaliates by pulling out it's machine gun, a modified nailgun, and fires a barrage of nails at the cadet. She dodges around each one retreats behind a pile of boxes.

She signals through the intercom to form an element. A three-pronged attack against the machine. Bakar from the front, Rizwan from the back and Alicia to the side.

Coming out of cover after noticing it stop firing, she fires a smoke bomb at it, blinding it and giving the 3 agents time to form their element.

After the smoke clears, Bakar comes in with a powerful rught-hook, knocking the machine back a few steps. As it goes in for a counter punch, Alicia intercepts with her slingshot projectiles, forcing it to stop mid-way. It focuses on the girl but it's intercepted by Rizwan who staggers it with his pressure gloves.

[ [[V1]] OVERWHELMED] [READJUSTING TACTICS]

It blocks Bakar's incoming punch and throws him towards Rizwan, who expertly dodges the man. He comes in for a jab to the neck, but it swatts his hand away and lands a punch right into his centre of mass, knocking him a couple steps back.

Alicia keeps on firing, it's shots being swatted away like flies as it charges closer. But before it got close enough, Jenny steps in. Her pulse gun, disguised as a mere pen, knocking the machine into a pile of boxes.

"Jenny!" The team exclaims. About time she arrives.

Before the machine could regain composure, it is pinned to the wall by a metal pole thrown by Bakar, stabbing it through the stomach and locking it in place.

The team regroups and plans their next offensive move. The machine ripping the pole right out of it's stomach, with what looks like blood spilling out of the wound as the wiring and machinery is reconstructed in a weird show of hyper regeneration.

The team of agents take up their stance, followed up by the machine who pulls out it's double barrelled, sawed off shotgun out of it's wing, taking up it's own stance.

Under the command of Rizwan, they charge in. Bakar blocking the incoming shotgun pellets with a plate of metal as he comes in for a bash, which the machine dodges. It charges it shotgun and fires a raw Azurium crystal. The crystal explodes upon impact with the makeshift shield, shattering it.

This is followed up by a punch from the machine, knocking Bakar flat on his back. It locks onto Alicia and Jenny, but sees nothing. From above, Alicia lands a powerful slam, staggering the machine long enough for Rizwan to land a palm-jab right onto it's centre of mass.

As it staggers back, it recalculates it's moves. Possible moves by the hostiles, the most effective weapon for the situation and hostile, etc. 

Alicia fires a projectile

The machine turned around and punched the projectile right back at her.

The projectile smashed right into her right eye.

Alicia staggers back, the adrenaline in her blood stream nullifying the pain for a brief second. With a pained yelp, she falls to the ground. Right eye completely busted in. The projectile smashed her eye in and bounced towards the metallic wall, digging into it like it belonged there.

Jenny ran after the girl as the machine sets it's sights at Rizwan. It charges in, swinging it's arm for a mean left-hook when suddenly...

[CLANK]

Bakar bats it away with a metal pole, sending it flying across the room. He orders Rizwan to call for backup and to leave this place. He'll hold the machine down for now.

Rizwan obliges and orders Jenny to pick up Alicia, still bleeding, and follow him to the exit.

As the three agents ran, Bakar stayed behind, using the metal pole like a baseball bat as the machine rose once more.

In a brief second, it's eye twitched red.

The three agents ran across the empty hallways, and soon enough, they found the backup. It's General Rama's team, and uncles of Alicia.

Seeing her condition, they immedeatly start panicking. Asking what happened and if it's somehow fixable. The two agents answered vaguely, not knowing what to do next. All they know at least is that they need to get out of there.

As they are heading out, they are intercepted by the machine, which only meant one thing. Bakar is down.

As the collection of agents ready up for a fight, the machine is punched away by Bakar. Turns out, it had ran away, Bakar wasn't down, he was merely chasing it. As it prepares to fight them, it is punted away by Rama. 

In a last ditch effort to escape, it fires it's railcannon onto the ceiling and bails. Bakar tries to give chase but as the ceiling collapses before him, he is pushed out of the way.

The one who pushed him? Alicia.

Now pinned under rubble, her left arm completely crushed by the pieces of metal and concrete, there was no way getting her out.

Rizwan suggested to activate Protocol "Gegas", which Rama (reasonably) retprts back. 

They scramble to find ways to get her out, but none works. Pulling on the debri might cause further damage, pulling her out is too risky. That's until the girl herself said it.

Cut it off

After a bit of hesitation, they do so. The Kombats (Bakar and Rajesh) pick up the debri, giving Rahul (Tekno) senough space to use his swords to sever her shoulder joint, effectively cutting it off. Rama immedeatly pulls Alicia away as the Kombat's gave in and have the rubble fall again.

He immedeatly calls Jenny to patch her up. After some searching in the nearby store room, they found the medkit. Using the bandages to close the gaping wound temporarily, they start heading for base ASAP. 

[THE NEXT DAY]

groan "Aku kat mana..?"

She looks around, she is inside the medical bay at the base. She looks to her right, the heartbeat monitor beeping in conjunction to her heart. She takes in her surroundings. Then she remembers what happened to her right eye. She puts her right hand over it, and notices something.

A dim glow of yellow light. Seems like they patched that up. She looks to her left. Nothing. Her left arm is gone, replaced by an empty metal socket waiting for a prosthetic to be put there.

sigh "Apa benda lah..."

She looks to the clock. 1345. Then to the date. 19/11/19. She was unconcious for 4 whole days. Whether it's because of the loss of blood or years surgery that helped them with her eye, she doesn't know.

All she knows is that she's alive and well. With a yawn, she goes back to bed.

[CALIBRATION COMPLETE]

[WELCOME BACK. V2]

Chapter Text

At night, after receiving instructions from insiders, a group of motorcycle bandits crashes into the Cyberaya port and stopped in front of a C-Tech container, greeted by their leader, Komeng who was already waiting in the port compound.

One of the bandits, dressed in dark red, takes out a crowbar from a toolbox to try to break into the container. The attempt was stopped by Agents Bakar and Ali who came from behind. Komeng ordered all his henchmen to attack them while he flees.

Bakar fought with his henchmen while Ali chased Komeng. While chasing, IRIS suddenly spots a figure dressed in all black running in the same direction as Ali on the containers, vastly surpassing him. Caught off guard by the figure, Ali slips on a puddle of oil, staining his suit.

Ali gets up and blocks off Komeng at a dead end, but was surrounded himself by several henchmen. Komeng pulls out a knife to attack Ali, but was surprised by the action of the black figure who shot his knife off. Ali, Komeng and his henchmen looked at the figure wearing a mask and a black suit with a dark green scarf standing on top of the container. 

The mask resembles a motorcycle helm, but with a yellow visor. The right side of the helm is covered by what looks to be a mono-visor, glowing yellow under the moonlight. It's left arm, a mechanical construct of wires, joints, and firepower. On it's back, 4 pairs of wings (8 in total) glow a bright yellow, mimicking the mono-visor, faint silhouettes of guns shining through the frame.

Komeng orders his henchmen to continue attacking Ali; Ali responds by using his yoyo to snatch a baton from one of them and trip two others. Another henchman attacked Ali from behind but was knocked down by the masked figure's gun from atop the container with a revolver-like firearm.

The masked figure was then chased by a henchmen who climbed up the container. It took care of it with a shot to the head. The figure then gets down to help Ali. With the range of Ali's yoyo and the masked figure's gun, they knocked down all the henchmen around.

The arrival of several more henchmen was greeted by the masked figure by firing a gravity bomb from the underbarrell attachment which caused them to fall and stick to each other (like a sticky bomb taken literally), then Ali finishes them off with a shockwave from his yoyo.

Ali went to celebrate his victory by high-fiving the masked figure, which the figure awkwardly replied, hesitating for a second. Komeng, who had already been defeated, came to warn them and whistled to call his automatic motorcycle here to escape.

Ali tries to greet the masked figure but it disappeared. Bakar arrived at Ali's position and was surprised to see many of his henchmen lying around while Ali looked up in amazement at the masked figure.

"Wow..."

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

The next morning went about the same as in canon, Ali getting a fine for something he did, being late to class ofc, and so on so forth.

A moment later during class, Ali receives a signal from MATA on his cell phone and tried to ask himself to go to the toilet, but was interrupted by Mia doing the same thing at the same time. Puan Munah allowed them both, and Ali quickly moved to the library.

Unconsciously, he was panting, followed by Mia who tried to ask Ali to deliver a love letter to Viktor. After Mia left, Ali threw the letter away with a feeling of annoyance and reached for the book that contained the secret switch.

As soon as he opened the elevator door, Ali was startled by Alicia's presence who asked what he was doing there. Surrounded, Ali confessed his secret involvement but was interrupted by Alicia's mention of MATA, making Ali gasp again.

Alicia wondered why Ali was recruited with such behavior, and Ali told him about defeating 20 bandits yesterday. The story made Alicia examine Ali and denounce him as "that agent", making Ali gasp again, leading to a stern warning from the librarian who couldn't stand his noisy conversation.

Ali whispered to ask if Alicia was the masked figure, but the MATA signal flashed again on both of their devices. Ali rushed for the elevator, which Alicia then followed soon after.

____________________

At the base, the two cadets are greeted by Bakar, Jenny,. General Rama then gives a briefing about today's mission.

General opens the briefing by displaying Komeng's face in a hologram panel and explaining that Komeng is Abang Bear's right-hand man who robbed many of MATA's new inventions; Bakar explained that Abang Bear was Cyberaya's number one gangster.

The General continued, C-Tech as the developer of MATA's invention will move the goods to a more controlled location to keep them out of Komeng's reach, but there was a possibility that Komeng would intercept the goods transfer halfway through.

Ali asks what goods were so important to protect, and Jenny showed a diagram of the UAV-CUBE 3000 drone while explaining that it is an unmanned aerial vehicle controlled with special gloves; the General interrupted that it was a new technological weapon that was dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.

The General assigns Bakar to the security section and Ali to surveillance. Ali complains that he was only given surveillance duties but the General scolds him to obey.

As soon as the General tells Ali and Bakar to "Bertindak Segera (Act Immedeatly)" Alicia asks what her job was, making the General puzzled and Ali and Bakar are also interrupted.

Jenny proposes that Alicia join Ali and Bakar to gain experience, especially after the few months she's been out of mission due to her injuries, but General objects because Alicia is still not ready.

Alicia argues that she is even more qualified than Ali because she has been training for years, and ever since the incident, months, while Ali joined MATA simply because he synced with IRIS.

In her argument, Alicia mistakenly calls General 'papa (father)', causing General to shout "Cukup! (Enough!)" with resounding echo, leaving Ali is puzzled on why Alicia called General her father.

General takes a deep breath and comments that there are already enough raw kids on the mission, especially with the 'masked troublemaker'. Finally, General shouts "BERTINDAK SEGERA!" to Ali and Bakar who are still lingering after hearing the argument, so they move.

___________________

A C-Tech lorry carrying supplies of UAV-CUBE 3000 drones and accompanied by two police cars in front and behind enters a tunnel, is ambushed by a gang of Komeng motorcycle bandits. Four henchmen cut in front and threw a box of eggs at the police car's windshield, causing it to skid, while two more henchmen opened fire to knock down the police car behind.

This opened up space for Komeng, who rode a large motorcycle into the tunnel from behind and pulled a saw blade from the motorcycle tire to break into the driver's compartment of the lorry, then threw the driver over and hijacked the lorry.

Komeng's gang took the lorry to their lair, where Komeng ordered his henchmen to unload the supplies and leave the lorry so as not to leave a trace. Ali and Bakar then appears and scolds the gang of bandits from the roof, and Komeng angrily dealt with their 'three' interruption; again the masked troublemaker appeared.

The masked figure tells the two agents to stay back as it'll deal with the henchmen. As it drops down, the two agents follow, ignoring the masked figure's orders.

The three go down to fight the bandits, and Komeng orders his henchmen to beat them up. Ali rushes towards one of the henchmen and ducked to avoid being hit by a baton. The figure fires it's gun at Ali, forcing Ali to duck again so that the bullet would hit the henchman.

Ali chased after another henchman who attacked Bakar with an axe, but the figure knocked the henchman down first and then knocked another who attacked Ali from behind.

Ali is visibly annoyed by the figure stealing his 'kills' but the figure just replies with a sarcastic "Sama-sama (You're welcome)" after knocking out another one who was trying to get him. As the three fighters are busy dealing with the henchmen, Komeng decides to test one of the drones in the chaos.

As Bakar notices the drone firing up and heading straight for Ali and the figure, he runs for them. As the drones comes in and fires however...

[BANG] [CLINK]

"Boleh tahan"

[CRUNCH]

There stood Alicia, mask blown apart by the blast, in her prosthetic arm, a bulky combination of firearm and limb, was the drone, crumpled up like an empty soda can.

The two agents were visibly shocked, which suprises Alicia since she didn't realise her mask shattered. In the meantime, Komeng and his crew left, carrying the boxes of drones with them.

_____________________

The mission was a failure, but at least Bakar was fine. The two cadets were certaintly not :/

Back at the base, Ali and Alicia were confronted by General Rama who scolded them for not following orders, especially Alicia who disobeyed the ban on leaving and was therefore suspended from duty.

Ali tries to explain his side's story but the General suspended him for disobeying orders aswell (he was meant for surveillance, not fighting). The General then disperses them, telling them they still got school. Ali grimly headed for the exit, then turned to Alicia who had a sour face.

Ali returned to school for badminton practice. Viktor found Ali pulling a face every time he saw Alicia. Under the supervision of Puan Munah, Ali and Viktor played doubles against Alicia and Mia.

After some rounds, Ali's team lost. Hard to accept defeat, Ali threw down his racket and sat on a bench. He then saw Alicia moving after receiving a signal on his phone and decided to follow her.

____________________

That night, the bandits under Komeng broke into the Cyberaya Bank with their stolen drones to loot the property until it was clean. Alicia had also infiltrated the bank to monitor their movements,

She turns around and was surprised by Ali who distorted his face in an attempt to spook her. Ali asked how Alicia knew about this robbery; she replied, she had hacked and connected the Cyberaya police network with her phone, then received the order when the bank was broken into.

Ali openly admitted to doing the same, Alicia accepted Ali's participation as long as he did not mess up her mission; Ali once again claimed this mission for himself like the ignorant dude he is.

Ali and Alicia's argument attracted the attention of Komeng's gang. Alicia told Ali to be ready as the drones to bombard them with lasers. Ali runs around dodging the shots, while Alicia tries to shoot down the drones but the shots are blocked by the protective shields attached to the drones.

Ali runs to the bank lobby and tries to find a way to shoot down the drones, but runs into Alicia and they continue to wander. Komeng enjoyed watching them in disarray and ignores the henchmen's request to leave after the looting is done.

Alicia fires smoke bombs with her underbarrell attachment on her revolver to confuse Komeng's gang, then she and Ali hide behind the counter and asks to plan together. At first, Ali refuses because he wants to act alone and leave, but he is bombarded with drone shots and turns around and agrees to work together.

Alicia plans for them not to shoot down the drones, but to work on the gang instead. Ali asks how since they can't get close; Alicia answers by taking out her special weapon. The one and only Railgun.

According to the plan, Ali goes to the front door of the bank to lure Komeng's gang. Alicia takes the opportunity to shoot down one of the henchmen, causing the drone they're controlling to fall. Ali hides behind a wall and set up X-vision (short for X-ray vision) to look for an opportunity.

Three drones came in a row passing in front, and Ali used his yoyo to poke the drone in the middle and cling to it, but this caused the drone to jerk around while shooting until it shoots here and there, knocking down many henchmen and drones but also disrupting Alicia's attempt to shoot in the bank waiting room.

As she took aim again, Alicia was impressed by another drone that was shooting from the side, so she lured the drone to Ali's position. Ali grounds the yoyo to create a shield while Alicia jumped behind Ali and shot at the drone's guard.

Alicia lured the drone again and this time, Ali used the yoyo throw to poke the guard's gloves. After a short struggle, Ali was helped by Alicia who sniped the bandit involved from the iron railing. Komeng aimed the drone's shot at Alicia and surrounded her, but was hit from behind by Ali who was riding another drone.

Komeng quickly got up and realized that Ali had snatched his gloves. Angry that the robbery had been foiled, Komeng whistled on his motorcycle and ran away with his remaining accomplices.

Ali gives Alicia the cue for a high-five, which Alicia accepted.

_________________

Once again, Ali and Alicia are confronted by General Rama who scolds them for disobeying their suspension. Alicia tries to speak but is silenced by the General who refuses to listen to any excuses.

Ali acts by admitting that he is responsible for tracking down the drones to make up for his mistake and begs the General to forgive Alicia. After considering, the General lowers his voice and orders them not to act as they please, even praising them for completing the mission and saying well done to Alicia.

Alicia asks why Ali is defending her, and Ali replies that he wants to repay the favor from the port, so they 'draw'. Alicia disagrees and says that she saved Ali's life back then, but this time Ali is just scolded for helping her, so she still owes him.

Alicia also reminds Ali of the toilet cleaning fine. Ali is about to vent his anger after hearing Alicia's harsh words, but is surprised by Bakar who appears from the side with Jenny. Jenny congratulates Ali for reclaiming the drones, and Bakar is excited and wonders if Ali is carrying out the mission alone; annoyed, Ali admits to going with Alicia.

Bakar asked again if Ali was on good terms with Alicia, but Ali stormed out of the control room. Unbeknownst to them, their movements were being monitored by Dos and Trez who had installed spy devices on cockroaches in the control room.

Chapter Text

XR-9

"MARKSMAN"

Appearence: A high-caliber, high tech revolver

Development stage: Prototype

Description:

"The Marksman Revolver appears to be almost identical to the Piercer Revolver, used by the machine "V1", but it's purpose-built for Alicia. Made to complement her extreme marksmanship, it's a gun of reliability, skill, and sheer determination."

Weapon type: Revolver

Caliber: .50 CAL

It's been a week since the incident, and Alicia has adapted quite well. Even with only one arm left, she was still a great combatant. Her years of training martial arts coming in handy (no pun intended).

Due to being unable to use her slingshot, she resorted to using it's grip as a baton. This day however, is where she gets her first upgrade, one of many, MANY, upgrades.

Alicia is brought to the armory. There, she's shown the weapon she was here for. The "Marksman". It's silhouette resembles the one V1 used in their fight last week. On it's side was the MATA emblem, engraved into the steel of the barrel. On it was also some lights, caused by the energy core kept within for the heat projectiles 

It also resembles the .500 S&W Magnum, both in terms of shaping and caliber, both being loaded with .50 CAL bullets. While it is quite intriguing that MATA uses actual bullets for this gun rather than lasers or exploding cartridges (like Leon's), that isn't the point here.

The point is that this is the gun that will help her adjust to what's to come.

Taken to the training room for some testing. She gets ready.

[TEST A: PIERCING]

There were 8 sets of targets, each queued in a line, each more armoured than the last.

She takes aim... charging up the gun, the barrel spinning like a rotary machine gun. Then...

[BANG]

The recoil shook her hand, nearly causing her hand to slip, but she manages to hold onto the gun and regain composure.

She looks to the targets.

All of them were punched through like nothing.

She takes a look at the revolver's side. The gun had been set to >HEAT

...no wonder it punched through them so easily

[TEST B: DAMAGE]

Stood infront were drones, droids, and a Buster droid.

They weren't here to fight, just to test how much damage the gun could do.

Alicia takes aim once more, this time expecting the huge recoil. First, .50 cal

[BANG] [BANG] [BANG]

A drone was blown to pieces, the droid suffered extreme damage, but the Buster was unscathed, a scratch mark being the only evidence of the shot.

This time, heat shot.

[WHIRR] [BA-ANG]

[WHIRR] [BA-ANG]

[WHIRR] [BA-ANG]

A drone was reduced to a pile of burnt scraps, a droid had it's torso blown off, and the Buster had it's head blown clean off, smoke coming out of the gaping hole.

The recoil was also much more. Seems like using heat was more of a last-ditch option.

[TEST C: SPECIALS]

Her unused slingshot projectile's casing was put on the gun's underbarrell. Surrounding her was a collection of drones. Her objective? Use the gun's special property.

"Ricochet"

As the drones closed in, she let her instincts kick in. What did it do?

First, she spun the gun, putting it over her head as so the ejecting projectiles don't smack her in the face (learnt that the hard way a few minutes ago :v).

Second, she charges up the gun, set to heat mode ofc. 

Lastly, she fires on one of the airborne projectiles.

The shot was absorbed into the projectile, in an automatic action, it points to another airborne projectile, which also absorbed and redirects the shot to another one.

In the meantime, the projectiles were amping up the shot, each bullet increasing it's power.

As the final projectile gets hit, it splits the shot into 6 ways, all aimed at the drones.

With one final bang, the drones fell. 

"Hm... bole tahan benda ni" Alicia said to herself, twirling the gun in her fingers.

[PIERCER:UNLOCKED]

[THE GUN THAT STARTED IT ALL]

Chapter Text

A sudden outage of the Hydro-reactor within the Western Districts was causing widespread problems.

And so...

• [OBJECTIVE: INVESTIGATE THE POWER OUTAGE]

A simple mission, right? Just in and out.

Well, it seems the agents have some company...

But first, the grouping.

Ali and Bakar will go to the main reactor, Alicia will scout the control room.

While it was meant for Ali, Comot (Ali's cat he got during MISSION:COMOT a few days ago, creative title I know) to go together,  the lack of Comot (he left her at school), Ali went with Bakar instead.

While walking to the reactor, Ali recalls Alicia's mention of "Protocol Gegas" in an earlier mission, and I quote:

"Kau kena berhenti perangai kanak-kanak kalau kau taknak sampai aktivasi Protokol Gegas, tau tak?"

Bakar nearly coughed up a lung from that. "Mana kau tau pasal tu???" He asks

"Alicia ada cakap haritu" He answers

So Bakar gives an explanation. His tone lowered as to give the explanation a bigger impact.

"Ada masa keadaan misi terlalu teruk. Mungkin sebab tersilap atau berlaku sesuatu yang tidak dijangka. Protokol "Gegas" Itu adalah tindakan untuk fokus dapatkan objektif utama misi, dan tinggalkan semua yang lain."

Then Ali asks. "Tinggalkan apa? Gadget? Tempat?"

"...Ahli pasukan"

Ali gasps. "T-tapi maksudnya... memang... pernah jadi ke sebelum ni?" He questions

Bakar sighs. And then he explains about the first and (so far) only use of Protocol Gegas.

"Misi yang paling gelap dalam sejarah MATA..."

"Dalam 5 tahun lepas, Menara Beta baru menemui "Azurium", sejenis unsur logam yang boleh menghasilkan tenaga yang amat kuat! Tetapi masa tu, tiada lagi cara untuk menstabilkan Azurium itu. Belum sempat habis kaji, tiba-tiba ada kumpulan pengganas datang merampas Azurium itu. Mereka menggunakan Azurium untuk menghasilkan senjata-senjata berbahaya dan mengancam untuk memusnahkan Cyberaya"

He continues. "MATA ditugaskan untuk menghalang mereka dan merampas semula Azurium. Untuk memastikan misi tidak gagal, Keempat-empat Ketua teras sendiri yang turun padang."

"Ketua teras?" Ali asks

Bakar answers. "Merekalah yang mengasaskan MATA. Empat individu dengan kepakaran masing-masing, dari sini terbentuknya teras Neuro, Tekno, Inviso dan Kombat."

Ali is astonished. "Oh... jadi diorang ni hebat lah, eh?"

Bakar mentions. "Uuh... kalau nak cerita sehari pun tak cukup!"

"Wow... pastu?" He asks

Bakar continues the story. "Dengan rancangan yang teliti, mereka menyerbu kubu pengganas itu. Musuh langsung takda peluang! Bila dah terdesak, ketua mereka mengambil keputusan untuk musnahkan sendiri kubu itu, Inviso cuba menghalang, tetapi cedera parah dan bangunan itu mula runtuh."

"Kalau lambat, bukan sahaja Ketua teras akan terkorban, tindak balas letupan dengan Azurium akan menghasilkan letupan yang akan menghapuskan keseluruhan Cyberaya"

"Masa terlalu suntuk untuk menyelamatkan Inviso dan membawa keluar Azurium. Jadi... mereka terpaksa jalankan Protokol Gegas... tinggalkan Inviso untuk selamatkan Cyberaya..."

[[REACTOR ROOM - HYDRO FACILITY]]

"Kadang-kadang, pengorbanan harus dilakukan demi menjamin masa depan..."

Ali asks. "Kenapa tak pernah dengar semua ni?"

Bakar answers. "MATA memang beroperasi dalam rahsia"

"Kenapa kena rahsia?" He questions

Bakar struggle to find an answer until...

"Korang, cepat! Saya dah jumpa punca!" Alicia, on the other side of the comms, orders them

"Ok, kita orang datang." 

Meanwhile, Trez and Dos are still working on their Azurium extraction, the outdated tech taking longer than needed.

"Kau takboleh cepat lagi?" Dos asks

"Aku cepat, benda ni yang lembab! Sistem bila punya dia pakai..." Trez answers, frustrated.

"Alasan..." Dos murmurs

"Eh, kenapa stres sangat ni? Lelaki ni ganggu cik, ke?" Bakar appears out of nowhere, trying to flirt Dos... again... jesus how many times does he want to do this???

Dos pulls out her arm-blades, laced with electric energy as usual. Striking the Kombat agent and starting the fight.

"Eh-eh... ada upgrade lah!" Bakar mentions

Dos continues her assault. Ali an Alicia are both sitting behind a control panel, strategizing.

"Uncle cakap biar dia yang tarik perhatian Dos." Ali says

"Betul-lah tu -_-" she replies, knowing Bakar's lack of fighting skill against Dos specifically and how he won't be able to hold for long. 

"Kita kena halang Trez- huh?" Ali orders Alicia, finding out she's already speeding towards Dos.

">:[" He grumbles

Bakar and Dos are still locked in a clash, Bakar clearly losing to this more agility combatant.

"Eh-eh, bawak bertenang, cik!"

Then... [BANG!] Alicia fires, the shot bouncing off of her arm-blades and denting the wall just next to Bakar.

She cocks the hammer once more, ready to fire the next shot.

"Lama lagi ke, Trez???" Dos asks as she's locked in a 2v1 against a tank and a marksman. 

Trez looks back... [POWER CUT OFF]

He looks to his side, and there stands Ali, with a disconnected wire in his hands.

"SIUT KAU!" Trez shouts before initiating a tussle against Ali. With the help of IRIS, he barely dodges Trez's punches. Trez was about to land another hit but Bakar tackles him into a console.

Dos is locked into a dodge-fight against Alicia. Seeing Trez knocked out, she throws a flashbang and books it with him, knowing the fight was one they were losing.

"Kau dah dapat masuk?" She asks

"Tak dapat! Budak tu dah batalkan, aku kena buat balik!" He answers, frustrated 

"Ish... dah tak sempat sekarang, kita berundur..." She orders

Alicia, dazed, takes aim and fires another shot. It hits the closing door before it could hit the numbered duo.

Bakar sighs. "Report ke MATA, kita perlu tahan tempat ni"

[THE NEXT DAY - HYDRO-FACILITY]

"Ejen Rizwan!" Ali shouts as he and Alicia races to the two men (Rizwan and Bakar).

"Apa status?" Alicia asks them.

Rizwan drops a hologram projector onto the floor. It projects the 3 facilities, all knocked out. "Sekarang ini, gangguan dijana dari kesemua pusat yang lain"

"Uih, macam mana tu? Bukan 2 orang je ke?" Bakar asks

Rizwan states. "Mungkin mereka menghasilkan alat yang menjalankan gangguan untuk mengelirukan kita?"

"Jadi... mana satu yang kita perlu pergi?" Ali asks.

"Kita kena berpecah." Alicia suggest. Ali is bewildered but Rizwan replies

"Tepat sekali, itu cara yang paling cepat. Masing-masing pergi ke satu lokasi, siapa yang jumpa musuh dulu, teras lapurkan kepakaran yang lain. Tetapi paling penting, jangan bertindak sendiri "

He then orders them. "Aku pergi ke stesen Solar, Bakar, kau ke stesen Angin. Alicia, Ali, kamu berdua pergi ke stesen Hydro"

"Kalau saya nak pergi dengan Bakar, boleh tak?" Ali asks

Rizwan objects. "Bakar dah cukup kuat, lebih baik kau dengan Alicia, lagi seimbang"

"Tapi dia-" Ali tries to defend himself 

"Cukup. Baik kau ikut arahan kalau tak nak menjawab dengan General nanti." Rizwan replies

"Okay, kita ber-"

"Bertindak segera!" 

"...bersurai..."

And so their mission begins. Ali and Alicia split off, mainly cuz Alicia prefer being alone rather than babysit Ali. Not saying she out-right hates him... but you can't convince lone wolf to socialize that easily.

[LATER]

Ali return to their splitting point, now going for Alicia since he found jack-shit where he went, Comot accompanying him as usual.

But this time Comot heads for the control room. Right after that, IRIS beeps, alerting that the two are back.

Ali arrives there, hiding behind a console. He alerts Bakar but gets no response from the other side.

Trying to show-off as usual, he jumps out, yo-yo armed, he aims for Dos first, but she knocks it away. 

"Tak serik-serik kau ni" 

The fight starts once more. Ali was mostly on the defensive, dodging Dos' slashes and stabs. Ali counters Dos' overhead-cut with a yo-yo block + rocket kick. It missed...

"Boleh tahan" Dos admits.

"Iye?!" He replies.

Then Dos continues her offense, only for a bullet to knock her away. That bullet was from none other than Alicia (and Comot :D )

"Ha!? Kau panggil dia? Uncle Bakar takde?" He questions the cat.

"Dah lah, tepi sikit" Alicia orders him, switching to her shotgun for close-range combat.

"Ah takde, kau jangan sibuk!" Ali angrily tells her. "Aku yang lawan dia dulu!"

"Memang terang kau dah nak kalah tadi :|"

"Mana ada! Belum habis lagi!"

"Habistu? Habiskan lah!"

"Dah habis da- ow ow ow ow ow"

Their little arguement earned a shoulder pinch from Rizwan. Congrats lmao

"Tolong jangan buat benda yang memalukan..." he suggest them

"ni semua kau punya pasal >:("  He grumbles 

[SYSTEM OFFLINE]

"Dah, kau ada 2 minit, biar AKU pulak main!"  Trez orders Dos. Dos obliges and runs for the Azurium store in the arms of the reactor

"Pergi halang Dos, cepat!" Rizwan orders the Cadets as he engages Trez.

Dos was already ahead of them by the time the two got there. Alicia mad either first move with a revolver shot aimed at the woman.  

"Jangan bagi dia keluar!" Alicia orders Ali, who's coming from the other side of the reactor. Ali locks the door and starts running to Dos.

Dos, cornered from front and back, throws an EMP bomb, knocking out the lights and giving her an advantage.

Due to her dark-coloured suit, she's basically invisible in the dark. The IRIS wasn't giving much since Ali couldn't properly tell where Dos was. (Another case of "It's the user, not the gadget")

Alicia, using her old marksmanship skills from even before she officially became an agent to locate Dos, using her hearing, one of the oldest senses in the book. Pinpointing her exact location using her footsteps, she lands a direct projectile-hit on Dos.

"Tengok, takda IRIS pun boleh." She shrugs.

"JAGA-JAGA!" Ali warna her

Before she could react, she was stabbed in the back by Dos' shot stix. Knocking her out. Then the power comes back on, and with that, the reactor...

Dos puts Alicia onto the central plate of the reactor, over the railing, right in ghe middle of the reactor arms.

"ALICIA!!" 

The plate rises, the arms come on to life, glowing a sick blue glow.

"Ali! Status!" Rizwan, through comms, asks Ali. 

"Dos sedang lari dengan Azurium, tapi Alicia terjatuh dalam reaktor!" Ali answers, distressed 

"Kau kena halang Dos! Jika dia dapat lari dengan Azurium, Cyberaya akan musnah!" Rizwan orders him.

"Tapi... Alicia?" He asks

With a sigh, he says that dreaded sentence...

"Jalankan Protokol Gegas"

Ali is forced to choose either to disobey and save Alicia, potentially putting the lives of millions in danger. Or obey and chase after Dos, leaving Alicia to a horrifying demise.

The reactor arms light up one by one

TIME IS RUNNING OUT

The central plate glowing a bright blue hue, a warning to what's to come. For the first time ever since that incident, she looked horrified. 

With one final look at Ali, she closes her eyes, waiting to be incinerated

"what a way to die, huh?" She thought to herself

1

REACTOR ACTIVATING 

[[BOOM]]

The reactors activates, the blue hue blinding as ever. 

Alicia redone her eyes, expecting to see the afterlife. But what she sees melted her core.

Ali had disobeyed Rizwan's order and jumped in to save her, jumping out right as the reactor blast onto the center where Alicia would've been.

The landing was rough. Ali smacked into a wall with Alicia slammed into the floor. 

Ali looked at the door, Dos was gone.

Alicia sat upright, wiping away some tears that were coming out of her eyes.

"Eh? Kau nangis ke?"

Alicia forcefully grabs his shoulders. "Kau pasal selamatkan aku???"

Ali wanted to argue, but she sees her face. A mix of joy and sadness. Before he could say anything back (like "sama-sama :)" ), Bakar came in through the door, shouting his name.

Then came Rizwan, he took a glance at the 3 agents, then the missing Azurium taken from one of the reactor arms. He furrows his eyebrows in acknowledgement and slight annoyance.

Chapter Text

XSH-55

"SAWCOR"

Appearence: A dual barrelled, break-action shotgun

Development stage: Prototype (further upgrades to be added)

Description:

"The Sawcor Shotgun appears to be a futuristic, double-barreled, break-action shotgun. 2 cylindrical cores, made of raw Azurium, can be found in the chamber, which is flipped open to vent the overheated cores on primary fire and ejected as a single projectile on secondary fire. After ejecting a core, the 2 cores are replaced with a flip of the shotgun. Placed around the shotgun are displays that show how far the core will eject, which goes from blue to red as it charges. During the shotgun's idle state, the meter glows blue. A red-cased chainsaw is also fused to it. The  afformentioned displays show the charge of the chainsaw too, turning a brighter red to indicate it's revving."

Weapon type: Break-action Shotgun

Caliber: .12 Gauge

Week 2, she's ready for her second batch of upgrades. The time they gave her allowed for the girl to adapt to the gun's insane firepower. 

Now that she's fine with that, they can get to the fun parts.

First up, The Sawcor. A 1-or-2 handed shotgun. The gun looks obviously made for close range, decked out with a chainsaw at the front (removable if needed) and the same heat projectiles used by the Marksman, but less centered and more spread out.

Next, the "Rival" set.

"RIVAL"

Includes: CORONA, Storage wings, G-2 "KNUCKLEBLASTER"

1) CORONA

Stands for: Cognitive Optic Reconnaissance and Overwatch Navigation Armature

Description: A right eye modification for Alicia. It's put on the right here, where a button can be pressed to activate the visor. Linked to Storage Wings

Used for: Targeting, accuracy, hazard detection, etc (generally marksmanship-based skills)

2) Storage Wings

Nicknamed: Weaponized Intelligent Navigation and Glide System with Integrated Tactical Storage (WINGS for short)

Inspired by: The wings of the VALOR series (Versatile Assault & Logistics Operations Reconnaissance, the same series where V1 came to be)

Can:

-store weapons (ie. guns)

-built-in stabiliser, allowing the user to dash and change directions mid-air.

The slight resemblance to V1 puts Alicia on edge, but she decides it's probably for the good of herself.

3) G-2 "KNUCKLEBLASTER"

The diamond in a pile of gold coins.

This is not only the best thing out of this pack, but also the one she needed the most. The loss of her left arm left her incapable of doing anything. But with this prosthetic-arm shotgun piece of machinery, she could finally go on the road to recovering and becoming a proper agent once more.

As for the specifics...

Left arm prosthetic, it's forearm holds a built-in shotgun, the barrel becoming one with the knuckles, which is where it got it's designation, "Knuckleblaster".

On the back of the forearms, reaching the elbows, are 2 fins meant for stabilisation upon throwing a steel-forged haymaker.

This half-necessity-half-weaponry is exactly what she needed. It's Azurium-infused steel frame allowing her to block blows she thought she couldn't even dodge (Buster droid arm rocket, Mecha/Fortress droid cannon shot, etc)

Not only that, the caliber of the built-in shotgun was enough to straight vaporise a standard droid.

Chapter Text

With a sharp hiss, the elevator opens. Inside stands Ali and his cat, Comot.

As Ali exits the elevator, he notices Alicia, his comrade and classmate (oh boy the awkwardness), walking through the hallway.

Ali then catches up and greets her.

"Hi!" Ali greets

She returns the greeting, her voice sorrowful. "Hi"

Ali, confused, then continues with what happened before he got there and how he's actually early this time.

All of that earned a low-toned "Okay..." from her.

As they walk to the briefing room, they were suprised by what was in store.

Right behind them, entering right after, was Bakar, Ali's uncle (also comrade).

He, too, is suprised by the sight of several MATA standard issue droids along with drones, guns aimed directly at them.

And on the big screen in the middle, General Rama, MATA's head General and Alicia's adoptive father.

"Weh, apahal ni?" Bakar asks.

[MOMENTS LATER]

"Kenapa ni, General?" Ali asks

"Siapa benarkan kamu bercakap?!" The General retorts

"Kamu sedar apa yang telah berlaku?" He questions him. Ali replies with a "?" expression

"Musuh kita telah mendapatkan Azurium! Sekarang mereka akan mampu menghasilkan senjata pemusnah yang paling menakutkan! Cyberaya di dalam bahaya!" He answers

"Sorry General! Saya janji saya akan dapatkan semula Azurium!" Ali promises, his tone as determined as ever.

"Kamu tahu mereka di mana?"

"Uh... tak..."

"HABISTU KENAPA MEREPEK SESUKA HATI??"

The General let's out a sigh, before asking him the main point of this meeting.

"Kamu rasa bagaimana prestasi kamu setakat ini?"

"Uhm... tak tahu?" 

"KENAPA BOLEH TAK TAHU??"

"O-okey kot?"

"Apa 'kot-kot'? Kau ingat ini main-main?! Baik kamu fikir secara teliti sebelum kamu buka mulut sekali lagi."

<<MONTAGE OF PREVIOUS MISSIONS>>

"Hmm... boleh tahan jugak!" Ali admits.

"Kamu rasa kamu telah menjalankan tugas dengan baik?" The General asks.

"Ya, General! Dah banyak misi saya tolong selesaikan, kan?" Ali answers.

"Hm... bagaimana kerjasama kamu dengan ejen-ejen yang lain?"

"Bagus! Saya suka pergi misi dengan diorang semua. Ejen Rizwan paling Best, sebab dia terhebat."

<<MONTAGE OF RIZWAN'S FEATS IN PREVIOUS MISSIONS>>

"Uncle Bakar pun hebat jugak" 

<<MONTAGE OF BAKAR'S FEATS>>

"Alicia... boleh tahan lah"

<<MONTAGE OF ALICIA'S FEATS, MAINLY THE ONES AFTER HE JOINED>>

"Jadi... kamu rasa kamu serasi dengan mereka?" The General questions.

"Hmm... serasi!"

"Malangnya, mereka tidak berfikir begitu"

"Apa?"

"Saya telah mengambil maklum balas daripada mereka terlebih dahulu"

<<BAKAR>>

In Summary: Ali's good, but naive. Also his body is way too weak for current missions. Kinda reminiscent of his late-mother, (and Bakar's sister) Aliya

<<ALICIA>>

In Summary: He's determined, sure. But his lack of skill, prowess, and uh... "brain power" could sometimes hinder a mission. Not to mention his stubborness (which Alicia admits, definitely saved her ass)

<<RIZWAN>>

In Summary: Yeah he's useless, maybe get a better mentor next time. nudge nudge wink wink

<<OVERALL>>

His determination is off the charts, but his skills, overall intelligence, and discipline hinder his performance. 

"D:" Ali is quite shocked at what the others think of him

"Apa? Kamu ingat saya tidak tahu? Tidak apa yang kamu dapat sembunyikan dari MATA"

The General continues. "Kamu telah menjadi sebuah liabiliti yang besar bagi agensi ini"

"Tapi General, saya dah banyak berlatih, kebolehan saya dah meningkat!" Ali objects

"Kamu pasti? Apa yang kamu telah pelajari setakat ini?"

<<MONTAGE OF ALI'S PREVIOUS TRAINING (which he was clearly failing at)>>

"Ali, mengapa kamu ingin menjadi seorang ejen?" He asks the boy

"Entah... sebelum ni buat apapun, semua tak jadi... rasa macam... tak berguna" He replies.

Then he continues. "Tapi bila ada IRIS, saya dah mampu tolong orang"

<<MONTAGE OF ALI SAVING OTHER PEOPLE, FROM HIS DAD, TO HIS NEW CAT, TO EVEN ALICIA>>

"Saya rasa macam saya boleh berubah" Ali continues.

Then he asks the General. "Kenapa General tanya saya pasal semua ni?"

He answers. "Kegagalan misi kali ini telah membuat ketua-ketua teras mempersoalkan penglibatan kamu"

The General continues. "Sekarang, saya perlu memutuskan sama ada kamu boleh terus menjalankan misi atau-"

"Atau disembunyikan?"

"Tidak... atau dihapuskan"

"A-apa?!"

"Kamu tidak ingat?"

<<FLASHBACK TO MISSION:IRIS>>

"Tapi- tapi, apa yang saya patut buat?! Alicia dalam bahaya masa tu! Takkan saya nak biar je dia jen pancaran Azurium?!"

"Ali..."

"Kalau kena tembakan tu, dia akan berkecai!"

"Tenang..."

"LENYAP TERUS!"

"Ali"

"Dia tu kan anak Genera-"

"DEY!"

"Seorang ejen yang bagus mesti mematuhi arahan yang diberikan tanpa ragu-ragu" He says.

Then the General continues. "Tapi kali ini... saya berterima kasih kamu bukan seorang ejen yang bagus"

"Hah?" Ali questions

The General speaks once more. "Terima kasih, Ali, kerana telah menyelamatkan Alicia." He admits.

<<ALI BACK HOME AS THE GENERAL'S VOICE CONTINUES>> "Saya masih perlukan masa untuk membuat keputusan"

<<FLASHBACK TO PREVIOUS EVENTS>> 

Comot meows at him, reassuring him

"Takpe lah, Comot, walaupun takda IRIS, saya masih ada kau"

And so he goes to bed, at least tries to...

<<03:00 AM>>

The alarm wakes him up, alerting him to get to the base now 

[MOMENTS LATER]

He arrives, suprised by the turrets and droids suddenly coming out and attacking him.

He fights back, knocking out a few droids before being forced to huddle down, his yo-yo acting as a shield.

Then, the droids and turrets start falling. A combined effort of stealth takedowns and expert marksmanship 

Ali quickly notices the droids falling one after another and the turrets shutting off one-by-one.

Standing infront of him, Ejen Rizwan and Ejen Alicia.

"Macam ni kau nak jadi ejen?" Rizwan questions.

"Biar lah dia tu -_-, nak guna IRIS pun susah" Alicia replies.

"Ejen Rizwan? Alicia?"

"Mulai hari ini, kau akan berlatih dengan kami" Ejen Rizwan says.

"Hmpf, siapa punya style dia tiru, dia menang >:)" Alicia challenges Rizwan

"Kita tengok nanti >:(" He accepts 

And so, it begins.

Chapter Text

[[CYBERAYA HARBOUR///0030]]

[Tap] [Tap] [Tap] [Tap]

Goes Alicia as her speedboots stepped on the containers. Her eyes scanning the harbour from above. Then she notices it.

A group of gangsters, presumably under Komeng, raiding a docked cargo ship.

Her boots activate, her new wings, made for stability, rises up to stabilise her eventual dash.

[SWOOSH]

She dashes from container to container, leaping over the gaps and landing on the ship with a thud.

The raiders look towards the direction where the sound came from. And there stood her.

Her undercover suit, black with yellow accents, a makeshift helm with the visor purpose made to be translucent enough for her right eye to shine through, and mechanical wings spread out with the glowing ends lighting up the deck.

The gangsters attack. Charging at her with pipes, crowbars, and even axes.

She noticed that Komeng's nowhere to be seen, implying he merely told them to go raid it. Are Were they a scouting team? No clue, but the fights over with this next shot

[BANG]

A raider drops to the floor, dead

The others stop in their tracks, looking at the fallen comrade.

A hole blasted through his head.

Alicia looked at the scene, suprised and horrified at her own weaponry.

The rest continue their attack, now with a different cause. But alas, it was no use.

Opting to go less lethal, she switched to stun rounds rather than the previous shot.

The attackers get knocked out one by one. Their counterattack proved less than desirable

But one dude managed to land a hit

Right on her blocking left arm

An arm with the properties of a prosthetic and a shotgun

[BOOM]

The man was pulverised, the legs toppling over, guts spilling out.

The torso... it was no more

Blood was everywhere 

Chunks of bone and organs litter the deck

The bandits were horrified 

She was horrified

The raiders began scurrying away, some even falling over the spilled guts.

She just stood there

Her suit covered it remains

She looked to her arm

The blood, it was being absorbed, almost ripped out of the few chunks of meat sticking on it.

Her eyes dilate

She thought to herself

"What have I done?"

[[ALICIA'S ROOM - MATA HEADQUARTERS ///0135]]

She puts away her suit, the blood still clinging to it.

Walking to her chair, she sits down. Her eyes still keeping that "Holy fucking shit what just fucking happened" look.

She looked to her left hand. And image flashing over her mind

That blue arm temporarily appearing

...that blue bastard...

She slams her fist onto the table, the loud thud caused by it breaking the silence of the room.

Tears start falling out of her eyes. Not of sorrow, but of fear

She pulls back her hand, grabbing it tightly with the right one.

She looks to the suit and pair of wings

An image of herself, sitting unconsciously, blood everywhere.

She stands up, wipes away the tears and grabs the suit. She decided to go ahead and clean it, cuz, y'know? There's guts all over that thing.

She then goes to sleep, since it's 1 a.m in the morning and she needs a rest after what happened.

But whatever she did, she just couldn't sleep. 

Her mind still lingered...

...that singular yellow eye...

...those bright wings...

...that blood-stained blue armor...

...she was like it, wasn't she?

She still has nightmares of that day, oh, that fateful day.

The blood... the concrete and rebar stabbing her arm... the people trying to aid her.

Gripping her left arm tightly, reminiscing of the pain...oh the pain

She looked at the clock. <<0356>>

She hadn't been able to sleep for hours.

With a sigh, she walked off the bed. Her tiredness showing with eyebags and that "I need some coffee" expression. 

She grabbed her gun, which she threw on the table hours ago, and looked at it.

Again, the image, gun aimed right at her head. That eye glowing with hatred...

She patched up the ammo switching system. Completely removing the lethal option.

"Tak..." she thought to herself

"Aku bukan benda itu"

"Bukan sekali ini, bukan selamanya"

"Aku Alicia Kheng, bukan dia..."

Chapter Text

"Wow!" That's all Ali could say after seeing Rizwan's simulation training

"Inilah program simulasi yang mengajar ejen-ejen Inviso tentang teknik menyelinap" Jenny explains.

Then from the elevator behind, Rizwans steps out. "Sekarang giliran kau" He orders the boy

[SIMULATION SUMMARY]

Well... uh... that went... horrible. Anyways Rizwan gives some good advice to him. Things like "keeping your cool even when the situation is grim" and shit.

Welp... CUE THE INTRO BITCH-

Back from school now (honestly not much happened other than Bakar giving some extra advice)

So anyways...

This time, he'll be learning to efficiently use the IRIS, apparently he never realised it was use with his brain. "Bertuah..." Rizwan sighs 

This is seperated into a few parts:

Attacking

The training? Touch Rizwan, he wins. Simple right? Not when he's MATA's greatest (current) agent that is. This combines all of the next trainings below

Energy conservation + Specific target identification

While this not only reduces the UI clogging, it also reduces energy consumption, allowing it to last longer. Saving energy and allowing you to actually see.

Movement 

The IRIS can not only be used for combat and surveillance , but also movement, like picking the faster route or calculating the needed speed to jump over a gap. Training can improve coordination with both the IRIS itself but also other gadget linked to it

Prediction

One of the IRIS' main quirk is being able to predict attacks, but Ali could only predict one move. By training, he can predict their attacks way better. Hell, it can even calculate their specific attack patterns.

With the correct time and effort, the boy, now proper weilder of IRIS, can finally use it to it's maximum potential.

At school, (skipping to when Alicia met up with Bakar and Ali hanging out) Alicia gives Ali a cryptic warning, both coming from experience before and after Ali joined MATA. 

"Takde apa-apa, cuma..."

"Baik kau jaga-jaga..."

Now's the time for the real deal. A field mission turned final test led by Rizwan, in which Alicia will be watching along with Jenny from base.

Objective? 

Infiltrate Kobra base and retrieve Intel

Splitting up upon entering the base, Ali goes to the server room while Rizwan goes to controls to disable the alarms.

Using his newfound movement, he jumps over an electrified floorboard in the way.

Now infront of him, 2 Kobra mercenaries, sneaking from above, he knocks them out and releases the lock by using the IRIS to decode the password.

Then he puts the pin in and starts copying the files. And then

The alarms go off. Thought Rizwan would've turned them off by now, whatever

Mercenaries began pouring in, in which Ali knocked them out with little issue due to his training.

The files were copied successfully. Mission accomplished... sorta

Now he needs to get the FUCK out of there.

He comes around to the electrified floorboards from earlier

Theres now a turret activated there. 

From behind, the Kobras are coming

With some parkour, he manages to avoid the rounds fires, until one hit it's mark and made Ali lose his balance. With some quick thinking, he activated his boots, launching his past the floorboards.

Then he makes a run for it to the exit, only for the door to shut in his face. Finding the power source, he tries to reopen the door, but gets smoked after pulling out the wrong wire.

And then, he's surrounded, mercenaries infront, door to the back, and turret from above.

Then, right before getting a full smack from a rifle...

A buzz began shaking through the base

Lights turning on and off, communication relays buzzing with static.

The IRIS, once glowing a blue hue, now glowing pearl white.

Override Mode Activated

Then, the turrets started firing on the mercenaries, sending them into chaos.

Turning to a door to his right, it opens, as if it sensed Ali's request and opened for him.

And with that newfound chance, he makes a run for it. Closing doors behind him to stall the mercs, and shutting off traps for easier movement.

Then he reaches the elevator... it's occupied

Checking the other doors, all of them have reinforcements behind.

Thinking quickly, he figures a way out.

The mercs bore through the doors, but nobody was there. All that remained was an open vent and fresh air from above.

Coming up on the surface world, tired, he lies down, then he notices Rizwan right before he blacks out.

Waking up, he's now at the briefing room. Noticing Rizwan, he calls him out forleaving him alone.

Rizwan objects by telling him that it was the first mission he did without help from others and congratulates him.

Then Alicia, ever elusive. Comes out to tell him about what happened.

"IRIS Override Mode..." 

"Apa?"

Alicia mentions, stoic yet curious herself. "Saya... macam pernah dengar nama itu..."

Jenny then comes in to give a proper explanation. "Ia memberi pengguna kebolehan untuk 'Override' network berdekatan, membolehkan dia untuk mengawal kesemua jenis peralatan yang termasuk dalam network itu."

Then she questions. "Tapi kenapa tiada rekod penggunaan Override dalam sejarah rekod IRIS?"

Rizwan suggest. "Mungkin ini sebab projek IRIS dibatalkan?"

"Apa-apapun, saya perlu kaji lebih teliti sebelum saya beritahu kepada General" Jenny says.

And so, Rizwan dismisses Ali, telling him to rest considering what happened beforehand.

Alicia, watches closely, her eyes lingering on the words onscreen. 

IRIS OVERRIDE MODE 

Chapter Text

Ali steps into the training room. It's awfully quiet. Too quiet

[BANG] Ali swiftly dodges as per his training under Rizwan. The ine who fired the bullet was Alicia

"Kalau aku nak menang, baik ajar kau betul-betul" Alicia admits to herself.

"Jadi... nak buat apa ni?" Ali asks

"Rizwan ajar kau guna IRIS semalam, kan?" Alicia asks him

"Ya... apasal kau tanya?" Ali answers

"Hm... jadi..."

"Aku nak ajar kau lawan tanpa IRIS"

"Apa-" Ali wanted to question but he's cut off by Alicia landing a punch to his flank, sending him tumbling away.

"Ejen tak sepatutnya hanya bergantung pada gadget-gadget mereka. Mereka patut juga bergantung pata tubuh sendiri" She says as she cracks her knuckles, each popping easily audible within the training room.

Ali puts up a stance, yo-yo spinning with the signature blue glow. His IRIS glowing dimly insidethe room

Alicia, with a kick of her back leg, dashes right past Ali, grabbing him by the neck and sending him flying into a wall. He slows down with his boots only for Alicia to smack him right back in with her signature prosthetic left arm.

Ali stands back up, nearly tumbling from the sudden whiplash she gave him. Alicia, hands on her hips, confronts him.

"Kalau kau terlebih bergantung dengan gadget, memang kau tak boleh lawan. Macam Rizwan, dia takda sarung tangan masih boleh lawan"

"Kau nak ajar ke ta-"

Before Ali could finish, Alicia dashes past him. The IRIS detecting it just in time for Ali to bring up his yo-yo and block the initial punch. The built-in shotgun however...

[BOOM]

Ali tumbles back, stunned by the blast. The IRIS beeps again, this time telling him to dodge. Ali follows and rolls to the right, barely missing Alicia's right hook.

"Weh, kau nak ajar ke nak lawan ni??" He questions

Alicia answers, cocking her left arm like a pump-action with the signature Knuckleblaster gesture. "Ajar lah ni, kau patutnya tak guna gadget kau tu."

"Apa? Yo-yo? IRIS?" Ali asks

Alicia replies with a nod. Ali's eyes widen in shock. "KAU NAK AKU BERLATIH TANPA IRIS???"

She answers, blatant as ever. "Yelah, kau tak dengar apa aku cakap?"

"..." Ali wanted to protest but figured he's just gonna treat him like how Rizwan did.

"Jadi?" Alicia asks

With a sigh, Ali accepts. "Yelah..."

He takes off the IRIS, now only having his bare hands, yo-yo and Aero boots.

"Baik, jom." 

As for Alicia's training, it's split into a few parts, just like Rizwan, but more staightfoward.

Main Objective: Defeat Her

If Ali beats her without his IRIS, he wins. If he so much as grabs the IRIS, he loses.

1) Firepower "OP: PIERCER"

Being a markswoman, it's a force of habit of her to go for some firepower training, this time being with his yo-yo rather than a full-on shotgun. After all, the harder you hit someone, the less likely they'll be a future problem right?

2) Marksmanship "OP: SHARPSHOOTER"

Even if you have superior firepower, doesn't mean everything will hit like it has aimbot. So you'll need some sharpshooting skills to actually land your shots- er hits.

3) Movement "OP:ULTRABOOST"

Rizwan taught him to improve his movement skills with the help of IRIS. This time he doesn't have that luxury, so he'll have to go by pure instinct from all of those training

"But most importantly, HAVE FUN!" -Terminal(ULTRAKILL)

[DAYS LATER]

Alicia stands in the training room. Her speedboots, crafted to both increase her overall mobility but also help with her still-busted legs from that fateful day, tapping rhythmically on the floor. Her visor covering the right eye glowing dimly.

From behind, Ali comes through. His IRIS tucked away in his pockets.

"Hm... dah sedia?" Alicia asks.

"Dah, jom" Ali answers, his voice filled with determination.

All those days training under her, it's time to see if it was all for nothing or not

3

2

1

<<Versus///ULTRAKILL OST>>

With a charge, the close the distance, Ali with his Aero boots dashing right past Alicia in a jousting-like move.

Alicia slides to a stop, grabbing her revolver right from her wings (built like knives, made for stability and weapon storage) and begins to open fire.

Ali blocks and bounces the shots off. Then he counters with a yo-yo swing. 

Alicia swipes it away. Not noticing Ali coming in for a dropkick. She gets thrown back, but stands up no problem.

"Hmp... boleh tahan..."

She switches to her shotgun and opens fire once more, the firing mode set to ///HEAT///, which rather than using actual buckshot, uses heat generated by the Azurium core stored within the gun.

Ali charges in, Aero boots half-activated and yo-yo blocking the pellets. Then with a slight boost from the boots, he slides past Alicia, yo-yo trailing behind.

Alicia was about to punch him square in the chest until

[[WHIRR]]

"Ish..."

The yo-yo blast a shockwave, sending her into the air. Ali took this chance and leaps into the air, yo-yo active once more. With a final whirr, he blast the yp-yp right into her, sending her right back down to the floor, leaving a noticable mark on it.

Ali lands gracefully (not) with his aero boots. Then he notices Alicia not moving. 

"Alicia?" No responds. He walks up to her. Still nothing.

"Alicia? Kau ok ke?" 

"Alicia? Hello?"

He then reaches her, the sight nearly causing him to faint.

The impact caused her to hit the ground hard. She was bleeding on the head. Her left arm sparking with electricity. Wings bent in unatural angles.

"ALICIA!"

"Hah? Apa?" 

Alicia sits up, not noticing herself bleeding. "Kau pahal jerit2 ni?"

Then she sees it, her left arm bent in no way an arm should've. 

She points with her right hand. "Pasal ni ke?"

Ali points to her head.

She wipes her forehead, there's blood. "Hm... patutlah."

She stands up, snapping her left arm back in place, and then putting the palm over the bleeding area. Then looks down at Ali.

"Pahal tengok2? Belum habis ni."

"Tapi kau-"

"Takde lah ni, sikit je."

"Serius lah?"

"Kau rasa?"

...

And so they continue, Ali properly winning this time with a yo-yo strike straight at her centre of mass. Knocking her flat on her back, wings cushioning the impact

Ali apologizes, but she denies it. "Kau rasa Rizwan pernah minta maaf dengan kau lepas kena belasah?" She retorts

"Uh... tak..." Ali admits

"Habis tu?" 

"Hmpf..."

Ali pulls her up. With a soft clank, she straigthened her posture.

"Hm... kah dah bagus." She admits

"Iye?" Ali asks

"Jangan suka2 sangat, itu baru sikit"

"Hm... yelah..."

Chapter Text

[BUKTI]

So... long story short, Bakar (aka Ali's uncle) is framed for being a spy of Numeros. Ali is clearly against this, after all, he's known him longer than anyone has. I mean c'mon! That's his uncle we're talking about here.

Rizwan is really dead set on Bakar being a spy, which considering his stubborness when it comes to admitting he's wrong, is definitely a big issue on Ali's side.

Meanwhile with Alicia, she on her usual training. Wave-based to be exact.

It's been days since that reactor incident, and yet she still couldn't get that moment out of her head.

Words flashing within her head.

Almost robotic.

"FLIGHT/FIGHT RESPONSE UNABLE TO BE INITIATED"

"MOBILITY MODULES UNRESPONSIVE"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE-"

She gets hit in her centre of mass by a drone shot. While non-lethal, because it's on training setting, it still knocked her flat on her back.

Instead of standing back up and continuing, she just lays there. Motionless. Yet, the look on her face says it all.

She still hasn't moved on.

Not one bit.

Ali, back home. Also hasn't moved on. Not from the reactor incident, but with his Uncle. The man he once trained under. The man he saw as a father he never had.

Now titled as a traitor

Over an unjustifiable reason

He's ready to make things right

He's ready to save his uncle

Even if it meant trespassing into MATA HQ in the middle of the night and risking his own life over others, especially his uncle's

Ali had always been the type to put his life on the line for others, but this is nuts.

And so, with Comot by his side, he goes into the secret elevator inside the school's library and infiltrates MATA HQ

Comot was the first to go, using her signature cloaking ability (implanted by A. Bear waaaay before she met Ali) to pass through the invisible tripwires with ease.

Ali's turn is now. Using the IRIS, he pinpoints the lasers and passes through them, putting Rizwan's INVISO training to good use

In cartoony fashion, he trips and nearly falls onto a pile of em. But saves himself last-minute.

He stands back up, and accidentally triggers one.

The defence system was now online. But before they could engage, Comot, already on the other side of the hallway, already shut them off by cutting the power supply.

The briefing room was wide open. The central table glinting under the dim lights from the open elevator shaft.

Activating the power, he accesses the data file. Looking at the security footage of that day, the day he apparently stole an Azurium crystal and gave it to the Numeros, and began rewinding.

Second by second, he goes back, until he gets there. That moment.

Bakar picks up a phone. His behavior changes immedeatly.

"Doktor Aaron..."  he thought to himself.

Finding Bakar's phone, he goes through the call logs with the IRIS, pinpointing the call number that Aaron used to put Bakar under him.

Using that, he finds the location it came from. An abandoned factory. Exactly the type of building the Numeros' would use as a base of operations.

Then he gets alerted by an update on the cameras. Alicia and Rizwan were heading there. He quickly orders Comot to put the phone back as he puts the coordinates on display and bails.

Rizwan enters first, followed soon by Alicia. They were headed for the elevator leading to the deeper parts of the base, but they both sensed something is off.

Alicia taps on the table, and lo and behold. The coordinates right infront of them.

[NUMEROS BASE]

Doctor Aaron has finished his hand-built IRIS Seperator, meant to de-sync Ali from IRIS and have their leader, this "Uno", use it for himself.

Trez criticizes it's looks but Aaron counters by saying something around the lines of "At least it works, dumbass"

Back home, Ali calls Alicia. No response.

He texts her. 

- ALI : (0537)

"Where are you?"

He waited

Then, it came.

- ALICIA : (0545)

"What?"

- ALI : (0546)

"What took you so long?"

-  ALICIA : (0547)

"Just busy"

"So what do you want?"

-  ALI : (0548)

"I found the Numeros base"

-(Coordinates)

- ALICIA : (0550)

"On it"

That last sentence stayed in his mind. She now knows, and she's sure as hell gonna tell others about it.

Ali sat on his bedside. Glancing at a photo of him and his uncle, months ago when he trained under him.

With sheer determination, he gets up.

"Sedia Comot?"

"Masa untuk siasat tempat tu"

With the flicker of his IRIS, the mission was set.

He knew Alicia all too well, he knew if anything happened, she'll be enough to hold out long enough to buy himself an escape. If things went as expected, Alicia will be enough to at least knock out the Numeros. Not to mention the backup she would've brought in with her.

Climbing in through an open window, he's now in. The factory shining under the red LEDs. The place looked more rundown than his school's store. Mechanical arms stopped mid-movement, conveyer belts littered with machine parts.

Sneaking into the meeting room, also workbench for Aaron, he sees it. The screen featuring the IRIS' blueprints. On the table sat an empty Azurium container aling with a strange contraption next to it.

Then Comot suddenly turns around and hisses at the closed door. As if sensing someone... or rather... something heading for them.

Ali meanwhile is busy looking at the Seperator's blueprints.

Then the IRIS detects potential threat(s) coming for them.

With a hiss, the door opens, revealing Alicia and Rizwan. Standing out like a sore thumb was the Seperator's blueprints on the screen, aswell as the actual thing on the table.

Alicia takes a closer look on the blueprint while Rizwan inspects the gadget.

It was a perfect fit Ali's head. They are planning to de-sync him.

Then from Rizwan's left, Comot lunges out. He rolls away while Alicia gets tackled.

Then from the back. Ali's yo-yo blasts in. Rizwan dodges perfectly.

"Eh, Korang!" Ali is suprised by their appearence there.

He apologizes for his sudden attack. "Maaf! Korang ok?"

Alicia puts her hands on her hips, Comot, who literally just tackled her moments ago, now sitting to her side, then answers. "Kau pahal tiba-tiba serang?"

Then she continues. "Bukan kau ke yang bagi lokasi tempat ni?"

Then Ali remembered. "On it"

how could he forget? She must've told Rizwan about it. That or they somehow ffoun the coords themselves.

"Haahlah!" Ali remembers.

"Jadi, apa yang kau buat kat sini?" Rizwan asks.

"Uh... aku..." 

Before he could finish, Alicia confronts him. "Pasal besi buruk ni ke?" She says as he looks at the blueprints once more, now with Comot by her side.

"...kot?" He sheepishly answers.

Then IRIS detects threats from outside. The Numeros were back.

At the front, was Trez. Bulking mass of flesh and muscle + cybernetic upgrades in the form of mechanical arms.

To his left, was Dr. Aaron. A mastermind for all intents and purposes. Equipped with a kinetic telepathic device that allows him to move objects around without having to pick it up himself.

And to his right, was Dos. The incarnation of stealth. Her Shox Stix and electrified arm blades ready to turn someone's nerves into dust.

Ali charges in, reckless as ever. Boosting straight for Trez. The man rears a punch but Ali counters with a boosted kick right into his chin, stunning him.

Then Dos attacks from his left. Ali counters with a "grab & yeet" move, akin to Alicia.

Before he could fire his yo-yo and knock them out, he gets stopped mid-air by Aaron. Then gets thrown into a pile of barrels, before getting yeeted around more.

Dos orders him to start it up. The seperation sequence, all before that dreaded Override Mode comes on.

Right as they were starting to start it up (The Seperator), an all-too familiar lollipop stick flies through (At least to Aaron). Coming from none other than Rizwan.

He comes in, pressure gloves ready to strike Dos. She dodges, but this allowed Rizwan to quickly redo his posture and charge back in dodging all of their attacks and headed for Aaron.

Noticing Dos heading for the Seperator with the intent to activate it. He comes in for a dropkick, putting her back.

With them occupied, Ali's ever helpful cat Comot comes in to tackle Aaron for throwing her into a pile of boxes previously

Ali drops down and takes off the Seperator and tosses it aside. With his yo-yo and aero boots, he jumps up and blasts his yo-yo once more, knocking back Dos and Trez who were headed for Rizwan just now.

"Berundur Ali! Jangan biar IRIS jatuh ke tangan musuh!" Rizwan orders.

Ali wanted to protest, but seeing how outnumbered they were and how fierce the enemies were, he reluctantly follows his orders and bails.

Rizwan goes to Dos flank, only to get blocked by Trez. So he changes tactics and goes for him instead. Landing a few jabs to his elbows, he disables them for a bit, giving enough time for him to land a crit on his nape and knock him out.

Ali is still running, jumping over obstacles that stood in his way. Without warning.

[BONK]

He's out.

The cause? The elusive "Uno"

Pulling out his blade, in which he nicknamed "Fumar" (Spanish for Smoke), he readies to strike him down, but without warning.

[CLINK]

Alicia blocks the hit, her left arm groaning under the sudden pressure.

She pushes him back, grabs Ali and bails with an Ultraboost straight through the ceiling?

You might think to yourself. "What had Alicia been doing up until now?"

Well, it was a combination of copying the Seperator's code to make a counter md intercepting Uno (made clear by blue scratches left on her left arm and the slight scratches on Uno's prosthetic arm along with his blade)

"RIZWAN! KITA KENA PERGI! SEKARANG!" She orders Rizwan, her voice filled with desperation

Rizwan obliges. Dropping a smoke grenade and bailing out.

Moments later, Uno arrives to where Rizwan stood just seconds ago. He reaches down for the Seperator.

With his filtered voice, each word asserting authority, he spoke "Hm... masa untuk pusingan kedua"

Chapter Text

With a cryptic warning from Uno himself, the battle- no, the war has begun.

Team MATA's plan? Jenny will bring Ali to HQ, hopefully keeping the IRIS away from Uno. Meanwhile Rizwan will hold them off while she transports Ali there.

Rizwan is known to be a great fighter, but this is too much. Which is why Alicia goes with him. She had fought Uno previously, during that factory intercept which left her quite cut up.

But time was out, they can't leave now that the exit is blocked. The last resort will be the bunker.

"Pergi sekarang. Walau apa yang terjadi... jangan biar Uno dapatkan IRIS"

and so, it's set.

With some commands, the table turns into an elevator. Ali looks up to Alicia and Rizwan. Both teams exchange one last look.

Which, depending on the outcome

would be their last...

Once they arrive, the lights turn on. A blinding mix of blue and white fill the environment. Buster droids line the walls. Ali who had trained under Alicia for quite some time had known these guys for a bit while.

With foot-thick titanium walls and being buried deep underground, there's virtually nothing that can break through.

With some quick taps, Jenny connects the surveillance cams above to the bunker, allowing them to see the chaos above.

Even at maximum defense, the base's defences were easily busted through. At least, until the Buster's reach there. With their immense physical prowess, they manage to hold them back a bit better, but alas, it was futile.

Even despite their sheer powers combined, the defences fall.

Ali walks in circles, questioning how they can fight back. They tried everything. Drones, bots, even sending SOS signals from the bunker's seperated network. But everything just doesn't work

With the droids gone, the only defences left arrive.

Alicia and Rizwan

Rizwan goes in first, knocking out Trez and incapacitating Dos for a bit. But before they could counter, Uno steps in.

Pushing the two aside, he sands before Rizwan. Alicia sitting at the back to provide support fire, her Nailgun set to "HELLFIRE" as she wrote it (basically firing a fuck ton of nails)

Exchanging blow after blow, the two men grapple with eachother. Alicia firing when it's necessary.

Then, after going blow for blow for a while. Alicia lands a shot, right into Uno's mask.

The glass breaks and falls to the floor.

Uno drops the mask, leaving the two agents in shock.

There stands, Djinn, former Inviso Pillar leader and Rizwan's mentor, now Cyberaya's biggest threat.

Meanwhile in the holding cells, Comot finds Bakar and releases him.

After a tense conversation between a mentor and his mentee, Uno moves on. But not until Rizwan and Alicia push on once more.

The fight continues. Now Alicia is getting in close and personal this time with Rizwan backing her up. But even with that level of firepower, they were still beaten, Alicia suffering a critical blow to her ribs, nearly busting the mechanical upper-left.

Meanwhile in the bunker, Ali is losing his marbles. The best Inviso agent in HISTORY is now coming for them. He SURELY knows how to break in there. But with some self-encouragement, he regains his determination.

He'll save MATA- no, Cyberaya. No matter the cost. Even if it's his own life.

But before he could.

That blasted traitor... Jenny- or should i say... Cinco 

Ends it

And now, with the Numeros' here (minus Uno), it's looking grim for Ali.

[OVERRIDE]

The two agents are getting wrecked. With one final jab with his iron palm, he knocks him down.

But instead of ending him right there, he proposes to Rizwan. Die or join him.

Rizwan, being the loyal agent he is, declines and throws a lollipop stick at him, which was quickly knocked out of the air as Uno pulls out his sword once more and strikes him down. 

Meanwhile, the Seperation is still underway. Jenny Cinco gives some backstory about herself to the young agent. She never did work for MATA, she was merely a spy lurking right under MATA's nose.

But before that happens.

"aaaaaAAAAAAAA-" 

Bakar comes to the rescue! Uh... not as gracefully as he'd hoped tbh. But with his nephew in danger aswell as Cyberaya as a whole, he's no longer holding back.

2v1: Bakar vs Dos & Trez

Actually, 2v2, Comot's there too.

Actually, scratch that, it's 3v2,that rat bastard Cinco is on it too, using Buster droids to knock Bakar back

Not looking to good here with Comot incapacitated and Bakar cornered by Busters.

Back above the surface. It was like an apocalypse just happened. Droids and drones litter the hall. Alicia and Rizwan are both out. Rizwan especially since he just got sliced by Fumar, an Azurium-tipped katana. Due to this, and the Azurium sorta being a sister to straight fucking URANIUM, he's more fucked than ever.

And standing in the middle, was the culprit.

Djinn, or should I say... Uno

He looks back on his fallen mentee. The look in his face saying "It didn't have to end like this."

Once he gets to the open shaft, he jumps down. Arriving to the bunker to finish this. Once. And. For all.

Bakar tries to intervene, but he's dealt with.

Ali saw everything, the IRIS too.

With anger, anguish, and hatred rolled into one...

OVERRIDE MODE ACTIVATED

The chair that once tied him in lets go. The Seperator that once threatened the IRIS? Dropped to the ground.

The IRIS takes a second to analyse the targets. And focuses on the leader.

From above, the female cadet limps to the open shaft. But that's no longer Alicia, at least, not fully.

Eyes burning with hatred, wings glowing a bright red, her visor and right eye glowing unimaginably bright.

She- no, It reaches for the visor and taps a button Alicia had modified in there. Meant to be used when the situation is grim.

And with that, a surge of electricity and blood goes through her systems, repowering her. The guns in which she stored in her wings began shifting shape.

The revolver changes into a more lethal version rather than the usual stun-gun.

The shotgun has something added to the underbarrel. A chainsaw. But this one is purpose built to rend flesh and bone, even metal if it so chooses to.

The nailgun? It's upgraded with what looks like an electrical cable strapped under the barrel

And her railcannon? A drill is out under the barrel. Purpose made to cause as much blood loss as possible

And then it speaks, voice that of Alicia, but tone of something else, almost robotic.

"Semua sistem keselamatan hapuskan, tiada lagi peluang kedua"

Down below, Ali and Uno fight. Ali blocking a jab from Uno and landing some of his own yo-yo. Uno blocks those but his inhuman speed is too much for even the former pillar to hold back against, and with one hit to the chin, he's launched upwards

Grabbing Uno by the leg with the yo-yo, IRIS slams him into the ground and charges in with a flying kick. While Uno blocked it, he was sent back quite far from the impact.

Dos and Trez were up. IRIS dodges Dos's sticks with ease. Trez attacks from behind... but is blocked by

Wait...

ALICIA??? Wait no that's not-

She- or rather, it, counters with a knee-kick to his face. He madly charges in but all his punches are easily blocked. Her movement is uncharacteristically robotic, almost mimicking Ali's current robotic movements.

But despite moving like a metal scrap with legs, her movements still retains her agility.

Dos attacks attacks IRIS from behind but it's blocked easily. Then a Buster droid comes to life, now under IRIS, and charges for Dos.

Uno is weirded on how nobody had attacked him he's acting like he had been. Cinco noted that it's probably due to Bakar's brutal takedown and the emotional stress it put on him.

Dos charges in and disable's a Buster with a stick to it's leg. Then she goes for IRIS. IRIS dodges easily, every jab, every stab, every throw all dodged like he knew exactly what her patterns were (i mean IRIS does have that as an ability so...)

Then Alicia, or rather, what she'd become, notices Dos. With a whirr of her shotgun.

[BOOM]

It fires an Azurium core, this time amped up by 10x (after all, she did say all safety's coming off), aimed right for her. She evades but is quickly uppercutted into the air.

IRIS takes the chance and smack Dos into the air further with it's yo-yo. With a simple command from IRIS, a nearby Buster droid launches it's rocket arms, all aimed for Dos. With that, she's out

Alicia argued, voice still robotic like before. "Should've been me to kill her"

IRIS looks at her, almost confused, but continues on.

Uno questions how he'd never been told about how powerful Override really was. But Cinco admits that...

This wasn't Override. It was something else. In fact, that's no longer the boy he threatened before...

It was IRIS, and IRIS was merely controling Ali.

Trez tries to do a shockwave slam, but Alicia interrupts him mid-slam with a one-arm block with her right hand. 

Then, to the horror of every Numeros member currently concious.

[CLICK] [BANG]

Trez's whole arm is blown off with Alicia's Knuckleblaster. Blood, metal, bone even. All of it splatters on the floor, walls, and even the ceiling and the nearby folks.

Trez starts screaming in agony as Alicia blast him away with a point-blank Railcannon shot. Blood splattering on her face. She looks towards Uno.

Uno locks eyes with the girl. Her eyes burning with buried hatred. Yet it's mouth...

It smirked.

Whatever this thing is, it's finding joy in hurting people, especially the ones like him.

Uno decides it's time to intervene. He walks up to the two mind-fucked kids and challenges them.

"Kau dah cukup bermasalah dengan kumpulan aku. Mari kita lihat berapa lama kau-"

He's interrupted with a yo-yo-core-nuke combo (Alicia throws a core, Ali smacks it with his yo-yo, then Alicia detonates it with her Railcannon/Railgun), knocking him flat on his back.

IRIS orders the Buster droids to get in and pummel him. Uno dodges and tries to land a hit but IRIS & Alicia dodges in unison.

Ali floats up, tricking Uno to follow him onto the balcony. He falls for it and gets himself cornered by 2 Buster droids.

He jumps away but is intercepted by Alicia who, with her cable, grabs him by the leg and shocks him. While he's stunned, Ali orders the Busters below to hits him with their rocket fists. 

With a yo-yo strike, Uno is knocked down once more. 3 of the Busters land infront to intercept him. Uno draws his blade once more and cuts through one of the Buster's neck, chopping it's head right off.

The 2nd Buster shoots a rocket fist at him but it's cut in half mid flight, then he lands and slices it's other arm off.

Then he closes in on the 3rd one and clears it easily. As he charges in for Ali...

[CLINK]

Alicia stalls him dead in his tracks. With a punch from the left arm, Fumar is shattered, the impact sending Uno flying into the main console.

She follows up with a joint combo with IRIS

Each punch and shockwave sending Uno into another hit. As he's thrown higher and higher, Alicia takes the initiative first grabbing him by the left arm.

"Kau tak perlukan ini"

And she tears it right off. Then she grabs his right one.

"Dan juga Ini!"

She too, tears that off. Only up to the biceps tho. The blood sputter out in uneven bursts. Splattering on her face and covering her left arm.

The twisted girl smiles. Finding joy in his suffering as she licks the blood off her face and has the left arm absorb what remained.

He tries to shadow-step away but is stopped mid-dash by Ali's yo-yo, which launched him further up.

With one last joint-smackdown from IRIS and Alicia, he's sent crashing into the ground.

Ali orders the remaining droids to fire their arms as Alicia charges up a MAL Railcannon shot. Then.

[BOOM]

IRIS limps toward the fallen Numeros, his body deprived of energy. Before he could land the final hit...

A Buster's rocket fist pins him to a wall. Alicia who just landed, notices Cinco walking up to him.

Before she could put the Seperator back on, Alicia, her eyes now filled with sheer anger, stabs her right through the chest with the barrel of her Railcannon.

She then attempts to lock her in place by stabbing the poking parts of the Railcannon onto the floor, but Uno knocks her away with what remained of his arm, accidentally ripping out the Railcannon along with it.

With her last few breaths after having her ribs busted and lungs puntchered, she activates the self-destruct system inside the base and makes a run- eh... limp... for it. 

Alicia is then locked between choosing to save the unconcious Ali along with the fallen Bakar or kill Uno and Cinco for good.

She chooses saving.

3

2

1

0

[BOOM]

[Moments later]

Smoke and rubble fill the collapsed safehouse. From under a pile of one, sounds of creaking metal is heard.

[CLINK] [KABOOM]

A piece of concrete is shot up. And a metal arm, severely damaged and bleeding, stands alone in the destroyed vault.

The arm pulls back, and out came Alicia, severely hurt but still standing, for now at least. She looks below her and sees Ali and Bakar, all safe and sound, just unconcious.

She rubs her arm, remembering that incident.

The rubble, the dust.

The pain

yet... there was nothing.

Not here, not now, at least.

She sighs... and with one last look to the broken bunker... passes out, collpasong onto the concrete below.

Ali wakes up, still dazed. He rolls to his side, and his shocked by Bakar just staring at him.

He falls of the bed, then asks his uncle why he's suddenly there.

Bakar's reasoning is just waiting him to wake up. Classic uncle energy

Ali then tries to apologize about what happened, but Bakar doesn't care, he's just happy his nephew is alive and well.

Ali asks about what happened and Bakar quickly answers with his enthusiastic tone. Telling about everything that happened up until he's knocked out, where the rest was told to him by Alicia after she wakes up.

[AT SCHOOL]

Ali looks into the class, it's empty. Seems like he's early today, huh?

Then he's greeted by Sasi and Viktor. Sasi confused about his earliness, and Viktor congratulating him for being early today.

He sits down, then she sees she, Alicia, enter, later than usual but whatever. She gives him a glance, proudness tinting her eyes, both mechanical and flesh, and then sits down.

Ali is a bit dumbfounded. I mean, he never remembered exactly what happened so he's confused why he gave him that hybrid "you did well, bro/i beat you to it" look.

[BREAK TIME]

He follows Alicia to the library. He asks why she's so different.

"Kita seri, huh?" She admits, proudness and a bit of mischeviousness tinting her voice

"?" Alright, now he's confused

She continues. "Kau dah selamatkan aku, lepastu aku selamatkan kau. Kita dah seri >:)"

She hands him the entrance book and walks to the elevator. Ali barely catching up.

[AT BASE]

"Langkah seterusnya akan ditentukan sendiri oleh ketua-ketua teras.Terima kasih Ali. Keberanian kamu telah membantu menyelamatkan MATA dari ancaman yang begitu besar sekali. Syabas."

General Rama, the man who once threatened to kill him, is now congratulating him for his efforts.

He continues once more. "Sekarang, kamu boleh meneruskan hidup kamu seperti biasa. Pastikan kamu tidak bocorkan apa-apa maklumat tantang MATA. Itu saja."

"Eh, General, lupa ke pasal benda tu?" Bakar asks. 

General lets out a sigh, and confirms. "Ketua teras juga ingin memberi pilihan kepada kamu untuk menyertai Akademi Latihan MATA. Jika kamu berminat"

Ali is ecstatic about this. "YA? BETUL KE?? NAK! MESTILAH NAK!"

The General mumbles under his breath. "Itu lah yang aku risaukan..."

Then he says it. "Baiklah, kami akan... hubungi kamu nanti."

"Alicia, sila berikan IRIS kepada Bakar supaya dia boleh hantarkan ia kepada HQ"

But before she could, Ali asks if he could hold it one last time. He's told yes, buy hurry up since he don't got all day.

He holds it one last time, a bit of nostalgia hitting him. Then, he goes to hand it to Bakar but he accidentally trips over Comot's tail and reactivates IRIS... 

"Uh..." (Ali, scared)

"..." (Bakar, suprised)

"..." (Alicia, concerned)

"DEEEEY!!!!" (General, +ENRAGED)

Chapter Text

Stamp club

Some see it as some boring club. Others don't even know of their existence. 

But this one, in SRT Cyberaya, is not like the others.

Their room? Room 52, former school store house turned mini-class. At least that's what the others think.

Opening the door, all Ali saw were dusted books and shelves aswell as some store equipment yet to be moved to the new one.

He's then suprised by Alicia entering aswell, which led him to think she'd unfortunately been enlisted to the Stamp club.

Alicia explains how... as i'd like to put it (nyehehe)

"There's no easter bunny, there's no tooth fairy, and there is no Stamp club"

From the door came Cikgu Bidin. Who magically summoned a stamp from behind Ali's ear and orders him to out the stamp inside a designated stamp book.

After putting it in, a secret door disguised as a book shelf opens up behind them. Revealing another MATA elevator inside the school (the other one is inside the library)

But this one doesn't lead to the base in Sector 56 of Cyberaya (where Ali is living) , nonononono, this leads to none other than

MATA Training Academy

After a conversation between Ejen Karya (disguised as Cikgu Bidin) Ali, the elevator arrives. Putting on their suits, the three agents head towards the lobby, meeting Bakar and Comot who'd been waiting for them this entire time.

And so the team of cadets, adult agents, and a cat enter a pod situated on the other side of the lobby.

Engaging Hyperspeed (cuz they can't keep the academy cadets and other mentors waiting), the pod travels through the undersea tunnel and later arrives on the Academy island. Perfectly off of Cyberaya's Grid network, never drawn on maps despite it's size rivaling Tioman Island on the other side of the peninsular coast.

Hopping off the pod one-by-one, they finally arrive at the academy doors. 

"Sedia untuk ditakjubkan" Karya exclaims as he opens the door.

"D:"

"Kenapa?"

Karya looks inside. The place is WRECKED. Overhead TVs knocked down, walls broken, droids laying dead on the floor. The scene straight up looked like a nuke went off before they got there.

"Siapa yang serang tempat ni?!" Bakar readies for a fight.

Karya orders him to bring the two cadets to the arena to bunker with the other students.

Ali puts on his IRIS and follows suit.

"Apa yang kita nak buat sekarang ni?" He asks his uncle

"Kita pergi arena, kat hujung bangunan ni. Itu tempat berhimpun jika ada kecemasan berlaku, macam sekarang." Bakar answers.

"Jadi... itu tempat paling selamat lah?" He asks.

Bakar answers. "Entah, tempat ni tak pernah kena serang sebelum ni"

He questions. "Kenapa sekarang pulak dia serang??" 

Alicia gives an assumption. "Mungkin mereka tak menyerang akademi, tetapi..."

"Diorang nak dapatkan IRIS ke??" Ali asks.

Then the IRIS alerts the young cadet of some laser tripwire that Bakar is about to trip into. "UNCLE! JAGA-JAGA!"

Too late. A sudden explosion caves the walls in, seperating the Kombat agent from the cadets.

The room behind them is suddenly filled with smoke. Comot hisses at something, or rather, someone inside it. Ali looks back and is nearly chopped up by a card but manages to dodge just in time.

It boomerangs back into the hands of someone. A mysterious man wearing a mask and black cloak.

"Siapa kau? Apa kamu nak??" He questions the figure.

It doesn't answer, instead, it tosses more cards which Ali blocks with his yo-yo shield. Alicia retaliates with a barrage of shotgun pellets, set to safe incase they'd need to capture it for questioning later (you can't question a pile of grounded meat can you?).

The figure tosses a card in, intentionally missing, then tosses another one. The two cards converge into a point directly aimed at her. Ali, with his quick thinking, tackles her away.

Ali tries to scan for weaknesses, but suddenly.

He's mind-controlled, put in a trance-like state, now completely under the figure.

"Ali? Kenapa ni?" Alicia asks

With a snap of the man's fingers, Ali began attacking Alicia. Due to Ali being her closest comrade, she tries to not injure him and keeps dodging.

The figure escapes with Comot tailing him.

Continuing with the two cadets, Alicia decides enough is enough and closes in. With a punch from her right arm, she knocks some sense back into Ali.

"Aduh... kau pahal ni??" He asks the girl

"Kau tu yang pahal! Kenapa tiba-tiba serang aku tadi??" She counters.

Then they notice the man and Comot missing.

Meanwhile, Comot is still tailing him. Until they reach a dark room, REALLY dark room.

Comot cautiously enters, and is caught with a cage.

The figure gives the feline a soft clap of applause before pulling out a cloth piece from within it's cloak.

From behind, the cadets come in.

The figure tosses it over the cage and proceeded to stomp on it. 

The cadets' eyes widen in shock. Especially Ali, who have had Comot as a sidekick and closest friend for months. Seeing his friend get stomped on sends him over the edge.

He blasts the foe away and checks up on the cage. It's empty. Not even a sign of her left.

The figure takes this opportunity to attack with it's cards but all of them get shot out of the air by Alicia who continues with her own projectiles, still using her shotgun since it's best for close range.

The figure corners her with a barrage of cards. Ali tries to tie him up with his yo-yo but is overpowered and thrown into a wall. The figure then magically pulls out a sword from the mask's mouth. 

Ali dodges frantically, occasionally blocking the strikes. Meanwhile, Alicia takes aim, using her revolver this time for an accurate hit to avoid hitting Ali.

"Ketepi!" Alicia shouts as he fires a round. The shot stunning the enemy. Ali takes this opportunity to dropkick the man back a few steps. Alicia then locks it in place with her gravity bombs.

Ali goes in to land the final hit. But a familiar shield blocks it.

"Uncle?" Ali questions

"Heh, cayalah Ali!" Bakar exclaims

Then the lights turn on. From a balcony above, stood the other cadets and two adult agents, probably the mentors that were mentioned.

"Apa semua ni?" Ali asks

"Setakat ni, belum pernah ada orang yang dapat melepasi misi ujian hari pertama. Korang berdua dah set rekod baru~" he congratulates the duo.

Then the figure stands back up, revealed to be Karya. "Tak patut aku main-main tadi"

"Padan muka! Kan aku dah cakap diorang best. Anak buah aku ni!"

Then Karya picks the cloth up, and pulls it off. Comot is there.

"Comot! Kau selamat!"

From the balcony, a voice is heard. "Ali, Alicia, selamat datang ke Akademi MATA. Silakan naik ke atas."

"Ah, jom. Kita pergi jumpa yang lain." Bakar leads the way

[LATER]

Introduction time!

Mentors:

EJEN GEETHA : TEKNO

Kind, caring, and always at the ready to support her allies. Equipped with an enhancer, she can give you an amp anytime you need it.

EJEN LEON : NEURO

Strict, assertive (even for his small size), and ready to serve some much needed and accurate firepower. Locked and loaded with a MATA issue revolver, he'll be the answer to any smaller problems and be a much needed help for the bigger ones.

EJEN BAKAR: KOMBAT

Brute yet kind, he's the best problem solver you can get. With plasma shields for defense and powerful punches for offense, he's quite the all-rounder and reliable one.

EJEN KARYA: INVISO

Cold yet laid back, he's the best kind of secret agent you can get incase Rizwan is O3 (Out of Order). With his mind-control ability using his very eyes, he's ready to take someone out hitman style.

Cadets:

JET: NEURO

Cocky and arrogant, older ones out of the bunch and equipped with... well... a jetpack. In addition to that, he's equipped with plasma lasers built into his arm guards, perfect for strafing runs.

ROZA: NEURO

Cold and accurate, about the same age as Jet and equipped with a long-range laser rifle. With her maxed-out accuracy stat, she'll never miss a shot, if she does, it's probably intentional.

MIKA: KOMBAT

If "looks can be decieving" was a person, it'd be her. Despite being disabled from the waist down, her MATA-made MEKA suit (which is also her wheelchair) makes up for the loss of her legs. With punches enough to bend steel, you do not want to be on the recieving end of one of her punches.

CHRIS: KOMBAT

Talk about being built for your weapon. Equipped with remote-controlled Kerises and being trained with martial arts, he's surely not a pushover.   

IMAN: KOMBAT

Another case of decieving looks, Iman is one hell of a fighter. Trained in Wushu since childhood and having a metal spear/meteor hammer intergrated into her hijab, she's no joke. Even if her actual personality is a shy girl.

BULAT: TEKNO

His name is not only a reflection of his physical form, but also his tech. A ball-shaped Rubik's cube, (can i even call it a cube???) able to be used in every operation. Need some sentries? A few turns shall do. Need to lock someone in a pose for fun? Sure, 5-ish turns and that's reality

KHAI: TEKNO

Might look like a weakling to an outsider, but his tech skills sure makes up for it. Accompanied by his robot buddy named R.O, A two-wheeled pancake-looking cutie, he'll give you the perfect tech if you give him the time for it.

ZASS: INVISO

Mute speed satan and professional prankster, Zass. With his speed boots, he can run around you more times than you can fathom what happened to your stuff. If you ever need to scout, he's got it covered in no time.

MOON: INVISO

Easily the youngest one out of the bunch at just 10, yep, a full 10 years old, easily the best pal you'll ever have. With her cloning suit, she's the perfect trickster. I mean how could you hurt a face like that? You can't! (Unless you're a Numeros, maybe you will).

RUDY: INVISO

Hmm... let's see... Cold personality, busted gadgets (bracelets that can allow him to control your movements), and weird hairline? Yup he's an anime protag fr. Okokok i'll give some context. Personality probably comes from his fucked up life back in the Pinggiran. The gracelets let him control a limb of his opponent and use it. Whether it's firing on the other bogeys or just locking them onto the floor.

Chapter Text

Alicia is on her usual scouting place, just south of a docked cargo ship in the harbour. The tall container piles allow her to see for kilometres, which is crucial for scouting at night which is when she usual goes out for some vigilante crime fighting.

Then she sees a few of Komeng's gangsters raiding a truck. Perfect.

With her new-found movement tech she dubbed "ULTRABOOSTING", She blasts straight towards the group.

Then with a quick scan, she prepares to face them off. But...

They don't attack.

Instead, they ran away. Some even comedically tripping in the process.

She wonders why they ran. Probably because what she did a few days, maybe weeks before.

Then she hears footsteps.

"Alamak..."

Looking back, she sees it. 

The very machine that costed her eye and arm

V1

She prepares for a tussle, and a tussle she gets.

The machine charges, guns blazing. Alicia leaps through and around each shot and volley, countering with her own.

Then they get in close. The machine's fists colliding with her own. They begin to go at it. Each punch, each kick, each wing slap, every one hitting and parried.

Pulling out their shotguns, they start going blow for blow even more. Explosive pellets, buckshot, even cores fly across the air. Until Alicia lands a critical blow to it's face.

Blood sprayed everywhere. As she regains her footing, she notices the blood being absorbed and a sudden energization going through her. But before she could contemplate, the machine rises up once more. 

It's wings began to glow red. It's mad. MAD mad

She decides this wasn't worth it and runs, the machine tailing close behind. She tried to knock it away with a few shots, but it wasn't giving up yet.

So she decides to trap it with her gravity pellets. Launching it, the machine catches it and is immedeatly locked onto the ground. Alicia takes this opportunity and bails out with another Ultraboost, blasting above the containers and giving her time to get back to safety.

She takes a break behind a container, breathing heavily and heart thudding against her reinforced ribs.

"Fuh... selamat..."

She falls flat onto a container, her back sliding down as her legs gave up and fell from under her.

She looks up to the night sky and sighs. 

Never in her life had she recieved this amount of adrenaline, at least... not until that incident.

Her brain was a jumbled mess of emotions. Anger, fear, determination and anguish come to mind.

She looks on her prosthetic arm. The blood was already gone with the dried blood being the only remnants of it.

It was getting late, she's gonna need to go back to base.

[THE NEXT DAY]

Alicia wakes up and gets ready for school. It's been a while since she lost her arm. 

Wearing her usual prefect uniform and green headband, her school attire remains mostly the same, except for a few differences.

Her left arm is disguised as a normal civillian-grade prosthetic, grey in colour with a while line running down the length of the arm. No sign of a human-vaporising shotgun arm anywhere.

And to add on to that, the shoulder piece of her uniform is cut off to avoid having the cloth jam the socket joint and compromise the arm as a whole.

Her eye meanwhile, is mostly the same. Minus the MATA-grade visor of course.

Her wings are able to be taken off as they are part of a removable back piece so she doesn't have to hide those huge blades.

At school, she does her usual prefect duties as if nothing happened. While doing that, she often overhears gossips and conversations about her sudden reappearence and her obviously visible prosthetic.

Despite that, the day went about the same as any other school day she went through. Ali, her classmate, is still struggling with subjects with his buddy, Viktor still on his game.

During break, she orders her usual and sits down. To her right, sat Mia, her school friend.

She asks her about where she went all those months ago. She answered with what her report said. "Jatuh teruk, tangan patah, itu saja"

But behind that commanding voice, was a vurnerable child. The night before still haunted her mind. She managed to damage it, sure, but that red glow. That sparked a primal fear she never knew she had.

Back home, she sat down on her desk. Grabbing her revolver, she inspects it. The signature green glow from it glowing dimly under the table lights.

Then she took out her shotgun. Definitely bigger than the revolver. The energy bar just above where the casings eject from glowing a bright blue. She dissasembles part of it to reveal it's Azurium core. Part energy source part ammunition.

Then she starts sketching something on a blueprint. A weapon meant for medium range to fill the gap in her arsenal. She needed something that can both be useful and reliable, just like her other guns.

This time, she intended to make it more powerful, and one inspiration struck her. Never knew that machine would inspire her but might aswell find whatever is valuable from that pile of junk.

And so... the XMG-43 NAILGUN is born. A single barrel, Azurium powered machinegun made for dishing out tons of damage in a short amount of time.

Just like the machine's, this machinegun shoots, well, nails. Made from steel and extremely conductable, it's perfect for close-medium range fights. The gun has 3 firing modes, and as written by Alicia on it's side:

-SLOW (inspired by Jumpstart's fire rate before cable)

-FAST (Attractor's base fire rate)

-HELLFIRE (Overheat's fire rate)

In case of necessity, it has a built-in shock cable, akin to a taser but WAAAAY better at shocking things (especially the bigger foes like Trez who's notoriously immune to electric shocks unless it's from something with extremely high voltage). This takes advantage of the nail's conductive nature as a target with a certain amount of nails (or higher) will recieve up to 90% more electric damage from the shock cable.

As for it's reliability, it's exceptionally great. For close range, it's big and bulky size allows for one HELL of a swing. For medium, it's a great DPS option or suppresive fire option (you wouldn't wanna get mowed by nails would you?). And for longer ranges, the cable could also be used as a budget grappling tool (ie. WHIPLASH), being able to pull her closer or pull the enemies closer.

And so, her arsenal is almost complete. Only one weapon remains.

The high-damage blaster. The gun that nearly killed her via proxy from falling rubble.

The Railcannon

Chapter Text

Another day, another close call with Ali. Jeez that dude needs to get his awkwardness checked.

So anyways, back to the academy again. While in the elevator, Ali asked her about why she joined right now and not years ago. Which Alicia promptly responded by saying her being here was to keep an eye on Ali, not necessarily be here.

Alright, now we finally arrive at the academy. There, Ali's greeted by his new friends and asked a few questions (how the IRIS functions among other things)

Among those questions were ones involving Djinn, now Uno. These questions were answered by Rudy, the Inviso cadet (who may or may not have Djinn as his idol)

But Alicia couldn't give less of a damn. Heading to class, she prepares for the training up ahead. Leon giving the explanation on what the objective is and it's specifics. Soon, Ali arrives. Alicia takes this as Ali being late as usual since she didn't know Ali went to meet the Pillar Leaders. 

After the explanation, they began to form teams. Alicia takes Ali since her mission is to keep the IRIS in her sights, but Ali being the reckless and rebellious boy he is, chooses to join Jet's team instead (consisting of Iman, Jet, and Moon). Sometimes, his stupidity... it's almost frightening.

With a count of 3, the teams seperate and go for the objectives, being 3 Intel pins put all across the Island. Alicia tells Khai, her team's Tekno, to use his little robot buddy named R.O to go scout ahead, which he does.

Ali's team and Alicia's converge on an Intel zone. A fight soon ensues with Alicia taking pot-shots from the back and Mika being the frontliner. Rudy and Khai are also there as support.

Jet comes in and tries to take back the Intel from Rudy but Mika smacks him right into the central pillar, triggering the defense systems. To be honest, these are easy targets. Alicia knocked out half of these guys with a single round (Sharpshooter Mode revolver to be exact)

Ali being the ever reckless idiot, goes back to the finish line alone, completely missing the point of the whole operation. Alicia instructs Rudy to chase Ali down as she, Mika, and Khai deal with the rest of Ali's team.

[POST TRAINING]

Team A and C did well, but because of Ali's recklessness, Team B had the worst score out of the 3. 

Alicia, taking the time available, used it for some training of her own. Like learning combos to quickly dispatch of armoured and even shielded enemies. All of this to make sure whenever she meets that machine again, she'll be ready.

[NEXT DAY]

Another mission at the academy. How fond eh?

Well, as usual, Ali's late to the party.

Due to Ali's lackluster performance yesterday, he'll be put into his old team (Bakar, Alicia, Comot)

Alright let's just get to the point. The mission is to investigate the Beta Core's leak. The team will consist of a mentor and a full team of cadets.

But that's not the mission that Ali will be participating in. Nonononono, he's here to investigate a virus attack in Taman Maya's Subway Transit along with his team, which also includes Zass. (not the food store, like the thingy with trains. Also by virus i meant computer ones, not actual viruses)

So they head over to the Transit, which was in a lot worse conditions that expected.

Zass finds the backdoor entrance and team enters in. And an all-too familiar voices comes in through the comms.

"NEONIMUS!" Ali alerts his team

"Neonimus? Yang pernah hack system pertahanan base MATA?" She remembers.

With his signature gamemaster-like voice, he answers "BINGO! KELAKAR KAN MASA TU? SERONOK TENGOK KORANG KELANG-KABUT! TAPI NAMPAKNYA HARINI ADA LAGI BANYAK PEMAIN!"

"MACAM MANA? DAH READY NAK START GAME? OKAY! APA KATA, KAU CUBA MATIKAN VIRUS AKU SEBELUM SEMUA SISTEM TEMPAT NI KENA SERANG!"

And so it begins.

"Kita tak banyak masa, cepat ke bilik kawalan utama. Boleh pantau kesemua tempat dari situ." Alicia instructs the team.

Once they got there, Alicia began hacking into the Firewall, trying to get it restarted and take out the virus. Her metal and fleshy fingers tapping on the console with quick movements.

From behind, Comot sensed something and goes to investigate.

"HEY, KAU INGAT SENANG SANGAT KE?"

The systems began being re-hacked one by one. Ali then looks back and sees Comot missing. Using his IRIS, he tracks Comot and a weird robot. Alicia hears this and thinks it might belong to Neonimus and instructs it to be brought here.

The began chasing down the tiny machine, which ended with Zass ramming into Bakar and Comot and Ali chasing it into the train. Ali trips on a chair armrest and is knocked out from the fall.

The tiny machine speeds out from the train with Comot tailing it. The doors closing shut the moment the cat runs out. As it tries to escape into the vents, Comot intercepts with a swipe, knocking it towards Bakar. Bakar leaps to catch it but falls on it instead, crushing the machine.

That was faster than Neonimus expected, but to be fair, that was the warm-up. The real challenge starts now. With the train speeding away from the transit, Wli still locked inside, the "Level" has initiated. 

The objective is to stop the train from ramming into another train and... well... as he puts it.

"KEBABOM!!"

Nothing on the console works anymore, so they gotta get the trains stopped by boarding it themselves. 

4 minutes remaining

Alicia instructs Ali, who Neonimus just told was trapped in the train cuz he's special, to stop the train manually from there.

"MACAM BIASA, TAKKAN AKU NAK BAGI SENANG-SENANG KAN?"

A C-Tech cart rams into Ali's train. Knocking him off his feet. From the smoke, comes out a C-Tech mech. Built with a plasma shield and a laser Microgun along with extremely thick armor, it's a force to be reckoned with, a Boss, if you will.

Alicia decides putting all hopes on Ali, the reckless child, was too risky and decides to do it herself.

Breaking through the glass window and with two Ultaboosts to catch up to the train, she gives chase to the boy and machine.

Ali is trying to land hits, but they either were ineffective or missed the mark. The mech countering with it's shield bash with ease. 

"ITU JE KE YANG KAU ADA? BOSANLAH, CEPAT SANGAT DAH HABIS"

The mech grabs a hold of the boy and before it could finish him off...

"MEH SINI KAU!"

A voice all to familiar rang out as the bot's shield to busted apart with a punch.

"OH! KAU PANGGIL MEMBER EH?"

"Jangan banyak cakap, kalau diritu lemah!"

The machine fires a continuous stream of lasers from it's right arm. Alicia dodging flawlessly and countering with her own burst of projectiles, this time being nails, which stuck to it's thick armor like forbidden pimples.

The gun overheats, which annoys the elusive gamemaster. Ali sits back up and notices the vurnerable legs. 

Using her arm, she slides in and starts landing hit after hit, specifically targeting the back and arms. It retaliates by turning into a giant fan and smacks her back. 

"Alicia!" 

"Apa?" She asks

"Kau tolong tarik perhatian dia, aku rasa aku tahu apa nak buat." He intructs Alicia

The bot stalls back into position. "HA! DAH BOLEH PUN!". It starts firing it's gun once more. Aiming for Alicia as she began making circles around him, taking pot-shots at the arm joints to stall it.

 From behind, Ali comes in with his yo-yo and destablises the mech. It tries to fire back but gets distracted by Alicia sniping it's back with a revolver shot. Overheating it's gun once more.

Taking this opportunity, they began their combined attack. Alicia from the front and Ali from the back. Ali knocking it right off it's feet and Alicia continuing it with a brutal ground slam, which shook the whole cart.

Ali continued the assault with multiple hits to the main chassis before it rose up and began to counter attack. 

With the battle turning against him, Neonimus decides to activate the mech's self destruct, which is surely going to annihalate the duo.

With a punch to the wall, Alicia makes room for Ali to knock it off the cart and onto the tracks. It detonates right after, shaking the whole train.

Now defeated, Neonimus decides to shut off the train and leave them be. Ali starts panicking as a train began rapidly approaching their train.

As the blinding light passed by, they realised they were safe. All of that was a foil, a trick. But whatever he meant with that, at least they were safe.

Alicia breaks the silence with a gesture to Ali. "Kau patut tak pergi sendirian tahu tak?"

"Haih kau ni... :/" He replies

Alicia takes a rest. Her body begging her to take a break after her post-mission training. Laying down onto her bed. Her mind lingered.

"Satu hari nanti, kita jumpa lagi... V1..."

Chapter Text

[BETA TOWER]

Bakar, Ali, Alicia and Moon are all sent to deal with a new criminal in the city. "Analogman", an old man criminal possibly from the Pinggiran, well known for being left behind by the main city.

Ali notices a new disk on Bakar's back and asks about it. It's a new gadget he's been equipped with which is said to be able to knock out all nearby targets with a single blast ie. Taser but it's AOE based.

On Bakar's command, they began moving to the area. Once they arrive, they see him, inside the Creation Vault, priming analog-based bombs all around the room. A security guard tries to intervene but is incapacitated by Analogman.

Outside the room, Bakar's getting chased around by a cockroach. Uhuh...

With a warning shot to start, the 3 cadets, Ali, Alicia and Moon, enter the room. Analogman tries to activate the bombs with an old-fashioned key but Comot, Ali's cat who had been cloaking this whole time, stops him before he could start it. Grabbing the key and tossing it to Moon, the fight escalates.

Ali jumps up and tries to land a yo-yo blast but Analogman straight up parries it with his cane. Alicia fires another round but Analogman ducks out of the way, his cane acting as balance. As he rises back up, he throws several clock bombs which all detonate with a huge puff of smoke and frags.

As the team of cadets rise back up, they notice Analogman locking the door form the outside to let the smoke do it's thing. Ali alerts Bakar of Analogman's current position, that being heading towards the exit.

With a loud bang, Alicia's shotgun arm does it's job and blasts the door open. Saving them from suffocating inside the smoking room. 

Meanwhile, Bakar tries to stun Analogman with his new gadget by thrpwing it at him like a frisbee but it didn't activate like he assumed. Bakar inspects the disk and finds a button on it's underside.

"Ooh, kena tekan butang ni ke?" He wonders

Whirr

"Alamak"

The taser blast that followed suit electrocutes him, knocking him out for a bit. Ali runs to check up on him while Alicia sits back, sighing in dissapointment.

After a mission debrief, consisting of some known patterns of Analogman's attacks (and Bakar getting scolded for not knowing how current technology works), the two SRT Cyberaya kids went back to school the following day.

It is mentioned that they will have an entourage to the Science Centre (CyberScience) as per the upcoming event hosted there. 

[THAT DAY]

The students arrive to the centre, Ms. Munah leading the way in.

The place was brimming with inventions, technology, and people. From concepts of flying Azurium-fueled cars to next-level VR tech, it was the place where innovation comes to life.

The event that they'd come here for was soon about to start. The main exhibition. A reveal of the new droids they'd been working in. Dubbed "ROBOPOL", It was meant to fill in the gaps in the police department's manpower. Being both a force of justice and one to be reckoned with.

Ali is confused on why it was "new" when MATA have had these guys (MATA Droids) for longer. Alicia gives a quick explanation on how MATA usually uses these new tech 3 years prior from the public. All of this to keep MATA's technology always at the forefront.

From the crowd of people, an intimidating clap breaks the commotion. It was none other than Analogman, coming here to continue his reign of technology destroying.

Ali and Alicia takes this opportunity of chaos and commotion to quickly change to their agent gear and face off Analogman. Speaking of the devil, he's still on his streak of droid-busting, baiting their programmed sacrifice protocol to take them out with his bombs.

Seeing the grim situation, Alicia orders Ali to get some backup, in the form of Bakar. Bakar meanwhile, is at the park, phone unknowingly silenced as he zones out onto the sight before him, Rama's words still poisoning his mind.

Locking the doors, Analogman began planting his countless analog bombs around the centre, with an exceptionally big one right in the middle of the building.

Spotting Dr. Mala, one of Cyberaya's head figures, and the one who orchestrated the main exhibition, Analogman takes her hostage, placing her right infront of the mother bomb in the centre of the building.

Before he could activate the bomb, a round whizzes past, knocking the key right off his hand. Ali and Alicia are now here to take him down.

Even for his age, the man was formidable, using his part-cane-part-sheild umbrella to keep the cadets back, occasionally throwing bombs to throw them off.

With the IRIS's excellent scanning skills, it detects the cane's base as a weakpoint, in which Ali exploits and tugs on it with his yo-yo. Alicia takes this opportunity and lands a stun hit on the man's hand, causing him to lose grip on the cane.

Ali takes this chance and lands a direct hit on his centre of mass, knocking him flat on his back.

As Ali and Alicia go aid Dr. Mala, Analogman uses the mini-reactor inside the building to cause an EMP shockwave, knocking out all electronics in the building, which included Alicia's guns and IRIS.

Analogman uses the plenty of time he has to get his cane back and also sxold the cadets for their overreliance on their tech, which Alicia didn't really care much about since she's a trained martial artist since childhood.

Ali however, with IRIS knocked out, is powerless. Alicia instructs him to use what he learnt from her those few months ago.

Ali is caught of guard and knocked clean of his foot. Before Analogman could land the finishing blow, Alicia steps in and engages in a one-on-one melee brawl. Her fully mechanical arm (which has no electronics built in) worked like a charm. Landing a critical blow on Analogman's umbrella shield and breaking it.

However, as Alicia leaps in for the final hit, the old man smacks her off balance with his cane and throws a barrage of bombs her way. This threw her back, hard.

With her knocked out for the time being due to the concussion caused by the hard impact, Ali's left alone with his martial arts skills learnt from Alicia, left to fight Analogman.

As they were about to engage each other, Bakar falls through the vents and is greeted by the sight before him. Bakar instructs Ali to bring Alicia and Dr. Mala to a safe place as Bakar and Analogman readies for a duel.

Bakar is cornered by Analogman's impressive firepower, forced to a hide-and-seek match against him. Using a car door as a shield, he charges in for a right hook, which knocked out Analogman, much to his suprise.

As he goes in to out the cuffs on him, Analogman places a bomb on his chest, which detonates and sends him flying across the room.

Analogman then walks towards the mother bomb and activates it (about time). The clock begins ticking down. 

As Analogman walks towards the exit, Ali intercepts and tackles the man. As the two were still in a tight brawl, Bakar begins pulling himself to the taser-disk he threw earlier.

Soon enough, Ali is overpowered and thrown to the ground. As the old man goes in for the final blow, Bakar throws the disk, knocking the old man out. Ali runs up and starts looking for the key. The clock still counting down.

Once he finds it, he immedeatly runs up to the mother bomb, shutting it off right at the nick of time. 

[MATA BASE. THE NEXT DAY]

Alicia rests down after a grueling round of training, pulse beating at a weirdly low count. Why? It's because she's getting used to it. Her mechanical core, formally her heart, is getting used to the cycle and is adapting as expected. Her muscles acted like it was a walk in the park. A training that would leave even the most trained of agents in a shower of sweat, was almost a breeze for her now.

All of this to make sure she's truly ready. 

For the fight of salvation. Of morals. Of revenge

V1 wouldn't even know what hit him.

Chapter Text

The central platform rises from the ground. Surrounding it are walls of obstacles and traps. Leading up to it, a constantly shifting spiral staircase. In the middle of the platform, a button comes through. Surrounding it are droids.

And down below, stood Alicia. The so called "Man-Machine". It's now her turn after Rudy and Ali got their records set. Some are rooting for her, after all, people see her as a "Second Rizwan", looking up to her like she's their mentor.

Mentor Leon signals. "Sedia"

Her mental clock ticks. 3. 2. 1.

"Mula!"

Alicia moved with speeds that made her look like she could beat even Uno in a short-burst race. Speeding up the obstacle course, she completely bypassed them without issue, heck, she didn't even use the given ropes to move. All it took as a mid-air dash to clear that whole part of the track. 

Landing on the final stretch of the course, the droids began activating. With a maneuver she dubbed "Slam Storage", she wall-jumped from the side walls and slams onto the staircase. Hard.

With all that stored momentum, she blasted upwards, giving her the perfect opportunity to initiate the final part of her plan. After some stylish rotating of her revolver, the single round from her revolver went haywire. Bouncing all across the walls and punching through the droids like a waterjet through metal.

Landing on the platform, she sidesteps to the right, letting the still-richocheting round hit the button behind her and finish the obstacle course.

"Tamat!"

Everyone was in shock of her performance, cadets, mentors, even Rudy who once held the record. 

ALICIA

TIME: 0:08

8 seconds, that was all it took. Even Rudy's personal record didn't even come close, with that being 40 seconds, 32 seconds longer. Her combination of speed, agility, strength and intelligence left everyone in awe.

With a courtly bow to the audience, she heads back to the balcony.

 When she got there, she was greeted with roars and a round of applause. "Syabas, Alicia" congratulates Mentor Leon.

Then, the alarms suddenly went off, even before she got back to her place. Geetha alerts Leon about the systems being breached. Bakar goes out to call the other mentors. In the meantime, Leon readies the cadets for Protocol "Fortress", which hasn't been activated until now.

Ali goes in to ask what that's about, but everyone already beat him to it. Guns set to unsafe mode, fists flying with anticipation, weapons at the ready.

Whatever is happening, it's serious.

Suddenly, it stopped. Geetha's efforts to track it's original location was unsuccessful.

Whatever that was, it was only the beginning.

[THE FOLLOWING DAY]

Rama aswell as the mentors are debriefing about the incident the day before. Rama asking questions about whether anything of importance was leaked or if anything bad was planted within the systems. But since there were nothing, they were uncertain whether the breach had a motive, heck, if there was a breach in the first place.

Meanwhile in the Tekno lab, Alicia was busy tinkering with her guns. She was no Tekno, but she sure does have the intelligence of one. She decided if she was gonna beat V1, or anything that might be as big of a problem as that thing is, she was gonna ignore all safety precausions she inserted in her early days post-incident and go all in.

Even if it meant becoming like the very thing she swore to destroy. To kill.

[LATER]

Bakar's team, consisting of him, Alicia, Rudy and Ali (+Comot) are sent to a factory to investigate anomalies detected within it's systems, much to Ali's dismay.

They began heading towards the security room to investigate the anomaly, but they stopped before the sight of a black mass covering the walls just under the catwalk.

Reaching down, Alicia inspects the black mass, grabbing a bit of it with her still-fleshy hand. Using her part-machine eye to scan it.

"Ejen Bakar---"

The two agents had now just arrived. 

As Ali and Rudy began arguing (started by Ali) with Bakar trying to calm them down, Alicia noticed the tiny speck she picked up began moving. And so was the ones behind her.

As the two cadets continued their arguement, Alicia decides enough is enough and fires a shot just between them. But by the time they noticed, it was too late. The black mass had formed into a hand and came in for a smack. Bakar throws the two boys away as he takes the full brunt of the swarm.

But it wasn't done. A second wave comes through the hole in the wall, the 3 cadets dodging the swarm's attacks. Alicia immedeatly instructs Ali to find it's source using IRIS, which Ali obeyed without much questioning.

Then they find the culprit. The source of the swarm. Standing limply over the mass of black masses, was Ocho. 

Using her revolver, she shoots the bursts of what looked like the discontinued Microbugs away. Shattering them with her metal fist when they got too close. Ali and Rudy meanwhile were stuck with dodging and blocking. 

As they regrouped, Alicia tries to explain the plan, but is interrupted by a familiar giggle from the catwalk above. It was Cinco.

Alicia's anger for her which she held back her since she betrayed them was threatening to escape, shown by her wings shifting from the signature yellow to an orangish-red coloration.

As Cinco taps away at her tablet, which activates Ocho's back canister to release more microbugs, Alicia began losing the fight for composure.

Alicia began talking, voice a mix of betrayal and sheer anger. "Selepas apa yang terjadi... kau masih berani tunjukkan muka lagi?!"

Cinco replies with a smug giggle.

"PEMBELOT!"

Alicia's wings and visor turns fully red, the sillhouette of her guns glitching, as if she's losing herself in the madness. Charging in furiously, her speed far surpasses what Ali could achieve with his aero boots. She fires a mad volley of nails and shotgun pellets. All of which were blocked by Ocho, but left noticable marks.

Ocho counter attacks with another swarm of microbugs, headed for her. She waited it to catch her, which when it did, made her team almost faint. But as Cinco snickered and begins to make preperations to catch Ali, a faint blue glow shines through the swarm's gaps.

Then, a powerful electric shock surges through the arena. Shocking friendlies and hostiles alike.

This shock was strong enough to unbind the swarm covering Alicia, revealing her, eyes still burning with unrelenting hatred, equipped with her R-90 RAILGUN set to electric mode and her machinegun with the electric cable fully extended, remnants of electricity still sparking at it's teeth.

"KAU INGAT KAU BOLEH LARI??!?" She screams, voice glitching out to something robotic.

She charges back in, and smacks Ocho right in the face, breaking one it's eyes. Her speed surpassing Ocho's reaction speed by a large margin. She hops back and looks at Cinco dead in the eyes.

From Cinco's eyes, she saw something else. It looked nothing like the girl they were fighting before. A figure now stands where she did, reminiscing of their creation V1, but different. Wings flaring with anger, it's central eye glowing a bright red, it's left arm, a bulky contraption similar to Alicia's left arm, but a crimson red coloration. It's armor the same crimson red. And it's looking right at her. 

She thought she had left that feeling behind years ago, but now it's here. True Fear.  Her fight-flight instincts kicked in. She backs up, her face covered by horror.

As she began retreating, Ocho tries to cover the retreat but Alicia punched through them with little issue, her pace almost mechanical. Cinco ordered Ocho to fully encase Alicia with microbugs in an effort to stall her.

As she's trapped behind layers of microbugs, Cinco dissapears from view along with Ocho, Alicia bursting out of the casing like a glorified chestburster.

Then as she's about to give chase, Ali goes in to grab her. Alicia still blurred by madness, readies to fire her revolver right at her comrade, but as she realises what she was about to do, her anger dies down. Looking around, she notices the mentors aiding Rudy and Bakar with Comot close by.

"Apa... yang dah jadi?"

[LATER]

Alicia lays on the centre couch in the Academy lobby. Her face blank, devoid of emotion, but her mind was a circus of emotion. Confusion, anger, sorrow, fear, all rolled into one giant mess.

She cycled through what she remembered from that mission. Cinco, that weird microbug guy, her teammates. Then, nothing. After that, Ali grabbing her arm, Cinco and Ocho missing, Rudy and Bakar knocked out.

Did I do that?

No, that was definitely Cinco's doing, that TRAITOTOUS BASTARD-

Calm down Alicia, breath in, breath out.

WHAT IF I DID THAT?? I'M SUPPOSED TO PROTECT PEOPLE FROM WHAT I SUFFERED, NOT ATTACK OTHERS FOR MY OWN SELFISH REASONS-

"Alicia?" A familar voice jolts her up. It was Ali.

Her breathing was a mess, shallow breaths, uneven gasps. Her face covered by cold sweat. Then she regains her composure. "Apa?"

"Kau... okay?" He asks

OKAY?! WHAT DOES HE EXPECT??!? okokok calm down Alicia, this isn't you...

She answers. "Ya... kau pahal?"

"Tak apa2 lah, tanya je..." Ali replies. "Kau kenapa macam risau je?"

She stops to think, Must've noticed me panicking there... dangit...

She replies , rubbing her hair in the process. "Takpapa lah..." 

Ali then continued. "Dah nak lewat ni, jomlah balik." 

She replies. "Kau pergilah dulu"

Ali accepts her request and goes, but not before glancing back at the girl.

[THE NEXT DAY]

Ali goes in the academy as usual.

Why is he allowed in when in canon he had to sneak in by using Alicia's ID card? Well this time, since Cinco never had the chance to catch Ali, he never got temporarily suspended from academy. 

So anyways, he meets up with his friends, Khai, Moon and Iman. After what he'd heard about when he was at school, he got suspicious, especially when they talked about the General wanting to get all the mentors for something. So he finds who he could trust most to talk about it. Not Bakar or Alicia because they might snitch on him.

Using R.O, they secretly spy on the meeting, which suprisingly included Rizwan.

The meeting was about Dos, who had escaped earlier that day. Based on Rizwan's intel, she'd fled to northern Cyberaya. The objective is to secure the perimeter around the area and capture Dos before she could rejoin Uno's forces.

Ali, his reckless nature still apparent, decides incase they fail, they'll go deal with Dos themselves. The group was bewildered, but when Ali decided to go alone, they collapse under the pressure and decide join to him, but not now.

Meanwhile, Alicia is secretly listening to them. In her UI, a set of texts show up.

///OBJECTIVE UPDATED///SAFEGUARD CADETS///

[LATER THAT NIGHT]

The mentors and Rizwan went to go search the building, splitting up to cover any possible exits Dos might use.

Meanwhile underground, Ali and Comot aswell as the rest of his team (who startled him when they appear) decide on their plan. The plan is search every floor as they go up, avoiding the mentors in the process.

After some tiresome stair climbing later, Ali's team finally reach the top. Hearing someone arrive, they decide to take cover. This was revealed to be Rizwan.

Meanwhile, Alicia is perched ontop a support collumn, scanning and percisely determining when's the time to strike.

As she sees the other events unfold (Dos and Rizwan meeting, The mentors catching up, Rizwan "betraying" the mentors, Ali stepping in and getting wrecked), she decides it's time she intervenes.

As she steps up, he notices the surrounding gadgets glitching out.

Override Mode? This'll be interesting...

A battle between Override and Rizwan then ensues. Meanwhile Dos is stuck fighting Iman and Moon. As Khai tries to get R.O patched up, he accidentally runs into Override after Dos threw him at Ali to slow him down.

As Override charges up a swing to hit Khai with...

[CLINK]

"Hoi! Sini!"

[SMACK]

Ali is punched away, his attack towards Khai being shot off-course by none other than Alicia.

"Alicia?" Khai wonders

"Apa? First time nampak?" She sarcastically questions.

Override rises up once, setting Alicia as a hostile. "Hmp. Meh sini, Override."

They began to clash, Alicia being the superior one knocking Override back multiple times. But she doesn't want to hurt Ali, after all, it's her main objective. Protect IRIS, and by extension, Ali, at all costs.

With a powerful blow to his flank, Ali is sent ramming into a pile of boxes, knocked out.

Before checking up to the mentors, cadets, and Ali, she takes one last glance at Rizwan. Wings flaring red for a brief second.

[THE NEXT DAY]

Ali wakes up, dazed by both Rizwan's jab straight to his stomach and Alicia smacking him right into a pile of boxes (not that he was aware about that second one). Before him, stood his colleagues, Khai, Moon, Iman and... Alicia. 

"Ali! Kau dah bangun!" Khai greets him

"Buat risau je >:(" Moon exclaims, annoyed

"Kau okay?" Iman asks, worried.

Ali is, as someone who just woke up from a really painful nap and is already asked a fuck-ton of questions, overwhelmed. Then he sees Alicia, leaning against a wall to his right, facing to the medbay door. His expression softens before her.

Then he turns to his team. "Aku okay, korang?"

They all nod. "Baik... diorang ok..." he thought to himself

"Weh, Override mode tadi cool gila! Tapi kau kenapa tiba-tiba nak serang Khai?" Moon exclaims before asking a question that left Ali horrified.

"Aku... serang Khai?" He asks, voice sounding like he'd been through a warzone and saw the bodies.

"Hampir... tapi Alicia dapat halang." Khai admits.

"Alicia? Sebab tu ke dia ada kat sini?" He wonders to himself.

He looks to his right, Alicia still unmoving. Then he asks them. "Apa Alicia buat?"

They remained silent until Alicia herself spoke up. 

"Kau kena rasuk dengan IRIS, kau rasa apa aku buat?" 

Ali tries to answer but couldn't find the words for it. 

"Hm... jadi kau faham. Senang sikit"

And so, she walked out the medical bay, the door hissing as it opened and closes before them.

Alicia then collapses to her knees right after leaving.

Things just got complicated... fuck... 

Chapter Text

Alicia is in the training room again. 

Still the same motive, get her metaphorical and literal gears ready for V1. 

But as she finishes off the last drone with a shot straight through the chassis, is alerted by the door opening. Turning around, she sees her comrade, Ali. In his hand, a large suitcase that rivals his own height. His face has joy written all over it.

What does he want now? I'm busy here. Is this about his Tekno assignment? Probably.

Ali hands the case, she inspects it for a second then looks at Ali. 

"Ini ke kerja Tekno kau?" She asks, pointing at the case. "Cepatnya siap"

"Hm! Mestilah!" Ali answers. Alicia furrows her eyebrows, seeing right through his lie. 

He admits. "Yelah... aku guna IRIS." 

He opens the briefcase. Inside was something odd. A metal rod with a long black cable wrapping it like a pulley, ending with a sharp dagger-like piece of metal.

She wonders "Apahal benda ni?"

Ali answers, voice demanding approval. "Ini upgrade untuk tangan kau! Macam kabel elektrik kau tu, tapi betul-betul."

She ponders for a bit, processing the info. So...a grappling hook? This'll be fun. Her mind suddenly reliving nonexistent memories. Memories of a battle never fought, not yet at least. Green arm... V1 again... giant pyramid...high fall... why does it seem so familiar?

She grabs the upgrade and puts it on like she'd already got used to it. Jamming the pulley mechanism right into a void that had been purposely left open ever since she reworked her weaponries those few days ago. A mechanical claw securing it inside the complex contraption she calls an arm. The cable secured by more claws, the dagger-like end secured on her carpal region by a final claw.

"Hm... boleh tahan..." She admits.

"Mestilah! Kan aku yang paling tahu kau!" Ali replies, his approval earned.

"Jangan suka-suka sangat, aku belum test lagi." She shot back.

With a button press, she summons another drone. Using the grappling dagger like she'd been born with it, she swings it towards the drone, it's sharp edge stabbing right into it's chassis.

And like she's expected, she pulled on it, the pulley mechanism pulling the drone close in. With a brutal punch from her metal arm, she shattered the drone.

Then with another press, she summons a Buster this time. Throwing her dagger once more, it stuck as expected, but when she pulled on it, she was the one getting pulled. With her quick reflexes, she instinctively punched the Buster as she got pulled to melee range. The Buster fell as expected, head caved in by the punch.

Ali looks in awe, it was like she already knew how it worked when he had just thought about it. Classic Alicia.

The girl looks back at the boy, standing over the decommissioned droid, her mouth, in a rare moment, smirking.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

[TEKNO ASISGNMENT: DUE DATE]

Khai asked Ali about his invention because today was the last day to submit assignments. Ali admitted that he had not yet succeeded in any invention because all his inventions had met with a dead end even with the help of I.R.I.S. because he did not know his friends well enough to produce a suitable gadget.

However, he did get Alicia's approval, so there's that. Though, he didn't really get to submit it properly, plus, he wanted to one-up himself and get everyone's approval.

Khai asked Ali who he would like to be known better. Ali uploaded Iman's biodata, then Khai explained that Iman was the eldest son of a wushu coach who had won 10 international competitions and was therefore recruited by M.A.T.A. into the academy.

Khai then scrolled the tablet to show Mika who was born with a neurological defect that caused him to be unable to walk, but was later restored by M.A.T.A. by requiring his services to the agency.

Turning to Jet, Khai explained that Jet's father worked closely with the founder of Cyberaya, so he asked for Jet to be given the best training and education.

Ali admitted that it was difficult to guess the needs of Iman, Mika and Jet who were considered to be great as they were, and even complained that it would be nice if I.R.I.S. could read their minds. Khai laughed because he thought Ali's suggestion was extreme, but he himself was curious about what it would be like to wear I.R.I.S.

Finally, Ali came up with an idea and praised Khai with a "Naisu!"

Ali and Khai gathered Alicia, Iman, Moon, Jet, Zass and Chris in the academy classroom to introduce their new invention. As soon as the invention box was opened, three small devices called "ATLAS" are visible.

Zass flinched and ran away in fear. Chris and Jet retreated, disappointing Ali and Khai. Moon thought that the three of them were already fascinated by Ali's invention. Ali and Khai persuaded that their invention this time was perfect and invited the remaining students to try it.

Alicia and Moon, with a thick face, each picked up an Atlas. Iman hesitated but Ali kindly handed the other Atlas to Iman. Before she could give it a try, Ejen Bakar rushed in to tell the cadets about an incident involving a familiar camera-shaped vampire machine, at least to Alicia, the rest were confused.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

On the main bridge, a pileup of cars lay in it's wake. In the centre of it all, the machine, V1, stood firm. Some random civillian's body being held in it's grasp, completely deprived of blood. 

It's wings, sharp as swords, glowing a bright yellow, silhouettes of it's weapons engraved onto each set. It's singular eye scanning for a blood source to use. It's stature, tall and lanky, oddly reminiscing of Ocho, another one of Cinco's creations.

Then, it's eye locks onto one, two, four entire sources. It's Bakar's team, all equipped with ATLAS, consisting of him, Ali, Alicia, and Moon. 

It's recognition systems light up.

[ALI: CAPTURE. PRIORITY TARGET. "UNO'S ORDERS" SHE SAID :/]

[BAKAR (WEIRDO) :KILL. ENCOURAGED BY CREATOR FOR UNKNOWN REASONS]

[ALICIA:KILL- WAIT DIDN'T I KILL THIS ONE BEFORE? OR DID I GET ROBOT-DEMENTIA?]

[UNKNOWN: I DUNNO JUST KILL THAT ONE TOO I GUESS. UNIMPORTANT]

With a recharge of it's dash attack, it charges in, targeting Ali first.

In the blink of an eye, it closes in on Ali, pinning him down with it's wings. Bakar comes in and hits it away. Alicia firing her machine gun to try and kill it, ATLAS lighting up to predict it's movements. Moon meanwhile sits back, confused.

The machine stands back up, creepily analysing it's foes. Ali backs up with a dash. Bakar standing ready, a hint of remembrance in his posture. Alicia grits her teeth upon the sight of the thing she had been training for.

"Apa dia nak sekarang?!" Alicia curses. Switching to her shotgun since she knows this will be an extremely close-ranged fight.

The IRIS blips, detecting a signal only known to be from Uno. "Dia... dia nak IRIS!" Ali realises.

The machine wastes no time. Charging in for Ali once more. Knocking him back with a punch, which Ali blocked with his yo-yo shield.

Alicia counters with a punch, pushing it back a few steps. Bakar comes in and tries to follow up with a critical punch the supreme machine dodges and kicks him away.

The machine locks eyes with Alicia. A sense of familiarity sensed by both it and Alicia. Not from the previous encounter, but from the incident all those months ago.

"Sampai masanya kita berjumpa lagi... V1..."

V1:

[TARGET ANALYSED: ALICIA KHENG]

[ATTACK PATTERNS ANALYSED: CREATING COUNTER...]

ATLAS (Alicia): 

OBJECT ANALYSED: V1

STATUS: HOSTILE

CREATING ATTACK PREDICTION...

With a simultaneous charge by the two duelists, the fight for revenge begins. Alicia closes in, chainsaw ready to cut the machine apart. The machine meanwhile, pulls out it's "Marksman" revolver and Railcannon for a powerful united attack.

As they close in, Alicia leaps in for an overhead cut from a toppled truck. Meanwhile the machine slides down and throws it's reflective coins and charges up it's Railcannon.

Noticing this, Alicia makes a change in plans. In a split second, she fires at the coins herself, causing the Railcannon shot to hit it's original user. This knocks V1 off balance which causes him to tumble.

Standing back up, the machine looks back for a direct shot, but Alicia's speed was too much even for it's supposed "light-speed reaction time" as it is punched in the face hard. Sending it flying to a totaled car.

The two fighters now stand before eachother. The machine with it's signature arsenal launches a barrage of both nails and rockets. Alicia counters with a barrage of her own machine gun. The bullet hell that unfolded forced the rest of the team to take cover.

"Macam mana ni, Ali?" Moon asks

"Hm..." then it hits him. "Dah dapat!"

Alicia's gun runs out of ammunition, this gives V1 a chance to relatiate, hitting her with a powerful blow, sending her flying into a truck, denting the container and stunning her. V1 closes in and pins her to the truck. As it pulls out it's gun for the finishing blow...

Ali uses his yo-yo to fling V1 back, Bakar following it up with a punch and Moon following suit with a crazed ramming of a car she haywired earlier.

Now it's a 4v1, the machine against the assortment of agents.

They began pulling out bests of the bests. Bakar with his stunning disks, Ali with his yo-yo, Moon with her pulse gloves and Alicia with her upgraded arm.

With Alicia's orders, they charge in.

They weren't gonna let him get out of this alive

Not this time

Bakar starts the attack with a shield bash to V1, which V1 parried easily. Ali comes in form the back with his yo-yo and swings it. V1 grabbed a hold of it and swung him at Bakar. Moon and Alicia combines into a pincer attack, Moon on it's left and Alicia to it's left. V1 hops back, causing the two agents to ram eachother.

Regaining their composure, they continue their assault, now with V1 and his arsenal pinning them back. Moon was the most vurnerable since she didn't have a shield but she deals with that with her signature cloning ability, throwing off the machine's aim.

The rest meanwhile, charge in. Ali wrapping it's legs with his string and Bakar smacking it back.

Their plan was about a combined assault meant to weaken it enough to where Alicia could deal the final hit, getting her revenge.

So they continue, Bakar and Ali constantly keeping in within melee range so it couldn't fully exploit it's arsenal. But that was easier said that done since it's punches were as brutal as ever, knocking out Bakar's shield with a single punch and throwing Ali away with ease. Moon occasionally comes in for a stun hit, helping with their weakening.

This goes on for longer than expected, which does give Alicia time to prepare her plan.

With a critical punch from Bakar, V1 is knocked back, stunned. Now's the chance.

Alicia charges in with her Whiplash at the ready, swinging it at V1, it stabs into it's weakpoint, the stomach. The puncture wound spilling blood. Knowing that she's lighter than it, the whiplash pulls her in.

And with an overhead slam-punch, she uses the momentum to slide V1 across the asphalt, it's wings getting sanded by the rough surface of the road. Then she pulls the whiplash in and punches V1 back further.

With V1 stunned and it's weapons unusable for the moment, Alicia takes this opportunity to engage her final attack. With an Ultraboost, he launches herself upwards and swings the Whiplash at V1 once more. The whiplash, upon hitting the machine, pulls Alicia down with extreme speed.

And with one final slam...

[[CRASH]]

Dust and rains of blood cover the scene before them. Bakar, Ali and Moon look towards the smoke. In the middle stood Alicia, covered head-to-toe with blood. Blood of it's fallen enemy.

Underneath her, the crushed corpse of what once was Alicia's biggest threat. It's left arm, the thing that destroyed her eye, not lay motionless on the pavement, completely blown off by the impact.

Alicia lowers down and grabs it's half-intact head. The eye still blinking with electricity.

And with one final crunch, it was no more.

She turns around to her colleagues, all looking in awe and pride. She is greeted by Ali coming in for a flying fistbump. Moon gives her an overhead clap and Bakar giving her a nod of approval.

She looks back to the crumpled corpse of V1. Then she asks her team.

"Sekarang nak buat apa?" 

Chapter Text

/// 31/07/20 ///

Ah... the smell of fresh air in the morning.

Now isn't this a good time for a walk?

In her casual outfit, a yellow shirt and black pants with green lines running down it's limbs, is Alicia. Outside, stretching.

Today's the weekends, so there's no school, which usually means she'll either go on missions or go for some training at the base.

But today wasn't that. It was special.

Heading for the base as always, using the secret route to not cause any suspicions among the morning crowd, she enters a secret elevator and arrives at the base.

Once she's there, she heads for the cafeteria. 

She expected her uncles, also workers at Mamak Maju, and also her father and MATA General, General Rama to be there, but she might have underestimated the numbers.

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ALICIA!"

Confetties were flying all over the room. Balloons and decorations line the walls. And in the middle table, a cake with her name written on it. And beside that cake, her people. There stood the obvious ones, her uncles and father. But there were also her comrades, Ali, Bakar, and Comot. Not to mention the other cadets were there too.

She was suprised, the happy kind. Most she'd get before were just some short hugs from her father. But today, oh wow. Praise, pats, fistbumps, it was everything she wanted, especially after yesterday's victory.

The previous night, right after beating V1 into a dented pile of scraps on the floor, Ali had remembered her birthday and told it to Moon, who spread that information like wildfire. Alicia wasn't there since she was busy celebrating that victory in her room.

Within the timeframe between last night and today, they managed to rally a HUGE celebration for her.

This year was the most memorable one for Alicia. Her classmate, Ali, becoming an agent, heck, even becoming one of the top dogs in MATA, Uno getting beaten by the Neuro-Tekno duo, Cinco getting sent running by her, V1's defeat just yesterday. It was amazing.

And now this? This is uncharacteristic of her, and she loves it.

"Terima kasih, korang" she admits. Tears of joy rolling down her cheeks.

Chapter Text

Alarms were blaring, two mentors, Ejen Bakar and Leon, approach the briefing room.

Before them, stood Rizwan. Arms raised up.

Rizwan returned to the M.A.T.A. Academy to surrender. He was approached by Agents Leon and Bakar with two droids, and Bakar got angry of him for showing himself again and pins Rizwan against the wall.

When Leon asked what his plan was, Rizwan assured him that he had completed his mission...

...to take down Uno.

Leon asked again on whose orders, and Rizwan was told that they probably wouldn't understand. Bakar felt like punching Rizwan but was persuaded by Leon to surrender him to the Core Leaders. So Bakar asked the droids to handcuff Rizwan, and so they took him away.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Ali arrives at the academy. The place more heavily guarded since last night. 

As he approaches the main walkway, he is stopped by a droid. A small ball-shaped drone then flies up to him and gives him a scan.

The droid then confirms Ali's entrance.

"ALI GHAZALI. EJEN MUDA. TEKNO. SILAKAN MASUK."

As Ali walks to the academy building, several higher-class drones zoom past. Beside the building itself, two Fortress Droids (also goes by the name "Mecha Droids") guard it.

Beside the walkways were 3 pairs of higher class Soldier Droids (fitted with energy shotguns for arms) and Juggernaut Droids. (higher class version of Busters, fitted with a high-caliber rotary machine gun for it's right arm and a powerful plasma shield generator on it's left aswell as a power core in it's back)

As soon as he entered the building, he rushed to Agent Bakar (who was accompanying Leon) and asked about Rizwan's return, but Bakar refused to answer. Agent Geetha via public broadcast asked Ali to gather in the arena with other young agents.

Later...

Agent Leon rushed to where the students were gathered and also reported the presence of an alien signal towards the Academy. Agent Karya who was guarding the students admitted that Geetha had told him about it and stated that the Fortress Protocol had been activated.

Ali asked Khai what the Fortress Protocol was, so Alicia who was also standing next to him reprimanded him for not reading the Academy Handbook.

In summary:

The Fortress Protocol (aka Protokol Kubu) is a code to actiavte the highest defense level on that island. When carried out, a plasma shield will cover the whole island, protecting the academy from outside threats and keeping inside threats in.

Next, a line of the previously mentioned droids along with returnees from the previous major event will act as frontlines, assigned to reduce the risk of injuries and deaths to MATA agents stationed there, which includes the cadets.

Ali asks what they should do next, in which Khai replied to wait for further instructions. Ali was worried that they would have to fight as well, so Moon appeared and told Ali not to worry too much because the enemy would not succeed in breaking in.

Suddenly the power supply was cut off.

Well shit

Agent Leon tried to contact Agent Geetha but could not connect, while Agent Karya suspected something because it was impossible for the enemy to turn off the power from the outside. Agent Bakar contacted Leon and reported the destruction of the Core Leader's room.

Rizwan had invaded the academy control room and assaulted Agent Geetha aswell as hacking the systems, shutting of the defenses. Agent Geetha woke up from her painful nap and questioned Rizwan's actions, and Rizwan admits that he could not control his body.

Leon arrived with Bakar and Karya and issued an order to arrest Rizwan. Rizwan shouted not to come closer as his body rushed towards Leon who shot and dropped his Revolver. He stopped his hand from patting Leon, then was pushed aside by Bakar.

Rizwan immediately got up and tried to restrain his body, and Karya launched a Kadrya Deck at him. Rizwan's body dodged and charged Bakar at Karya, then ran out while being bombarded by Leon's shots. Geetha asked her colleagues to leave while she reactivated the defense system.

At the assembly site, Chris felt impatient and invited his colleagues to go and inspect, but Jet flew up and called them to stay and wait for the mentor's instructions. Ali also felt that the mentors had left a long time ago and asked what was happening outside. Seeing R-O playing with Comot, Alicia got an idea.

Rizwan ran to the middle of the Arena Academy field and faced Karya. He attacks Karya by pressing but was parried and hit by a card on the leg, Bakar came and punched Rizwan with the Plasma Shield until he fell to the ground. Rizwan got up again and was immediately shot down from behind by Leon with a Revolver. Turned around by Bakar, Rizwan seemed to have lost his nerve and apologized for not expecting this to happen

Then... a familiar filtered voice breaks the silence.

It was Uno.

And with him, the other Numeros's, surrounding the three mentors.

With a simple order from Uno, the Numeros attack.

The six Numeros members attack the M.A.T.A. agents. First, Dos points her Plasma Blades at Karya. Karya responded by throwing his Kadrya Deck but it was restrained by Nueve's telekinesis, and Dos continues attacking.

Agent Leon shoots at Trez who was advancing but to no avail. With his Cybernetic Hand, Trez hits the floor and disrupts the rhythm of all the agent's. Siete follows this up with a kick of his football to Bakar's head.

Rizwan gets up from his daze and faces Cinco who said he was too weak to resist Numeros' actions, especially after they learned of the MATA agent's weaknesses. Agent Leon jumps to avoid Trez's strong blow and points the Revolver at him.

Trez drops Leon's weapon and tries to hit him, but Leon dodged it, he went to pick it up again and fights with Bakar. Bakar complained that their side can't win because there were too many enemies, so Leon tells them to hold on a little longer.

Agent Karya uses a combination of Mystic Blade and Kadrya Deck to parry Dos' Plasma Blade. Dos then made a spinning jump while throwing her Shox Stix at Karya. Karya dodged, but Nueve used telekinesis to redirect the Shox Stix and then stabbed Karya. Dos took the opportunity to kick Karya towards Leon and Bakar.

Dos, Trez, Seis, Siete and Nueve lines up again and stares at at the agents. Suddenly, they were shocked by a strong shot from a Mecha droid which was one of the droid forces led here by Agent Geetha.

Leon ordered a Grasp Formation, with that, the droid forces advance and began shooting at the enemy. Seis and Siete fled, while Trez continued to fight until he was restrained by a Busterdroid and punched by Bakar.

The match between the MATA and Numeros forces was broadcasted by R-O for the students inside to watch, confirming Ali's suspicion that they had been attacked.

Alicia proposes that they go help, but Jet objects because the enemy is targeting I.R.I.S. and therefore does not want Ali to be taken there. Roza also says there is no need because it seems that MATA is winning.

Leon shoots at Dos, so Dos goes to hide behind a pillar and tells Nueve to block Leon's fire. Nueve is unable to do so because he is "lifting" two rocks to protect himself from the drone's fire.

Seis and Siete are busy playing football to knock down some of the droids until Seis is hypnotized by Karya and ordered to fight Siete. As soon as Siete wakes Seis up with a slap, they are consumed by the Mecha droid's beam and is downed.

Uno goes down to the ground and curses Seis and Siete who fell down as unreliable. On Leon's orders, all the remaining droids shoot at Uno but do little to no harm. Uno responds by cutting down as many droids as possible with Fumar, causing the agents to panic.

Then, Uno then took control of the remaining machines to aim at the agents.

Looking at the white glow from the droids' eyes, the agents recognized it.

It was Override.

Repurposed for Uno to fight MATA.

A mechadroid fires a barrage of shots at Leon and Karya. Bakar came in to protect them with his Plasma Shields and was knocked down by the blast. The mecha droid then headed towards Geetha.

Rizwan came to stop Uno and called on the agents to retreat and go defend the Mainframe. Uno knocked Rizwan down and patted his stomach until he fell, then he ordered the droids to chase after Leon, Geetha and Karya.

Khai expressed concern after finding out that R-O could no longer detect the presence of the mentor. Mika called for all the students to come down to fight. Moon questioned the reasonableness of it, so Roza argued that she did not want the enemy to reach the Mainframe.

Jet complained that Uno could use Override Mode; Iman agreed because she felt that they themselves had no chance of defeating the enemy who had defeated the mentors. Bulat proposed that they board an emergency plane; Ali asked what it was, so Alicia replied that it was the last resort to leave the M.A.T.A. Academy island if the Fortress Protocol failed.

Chris said it was a brilliant idea and was cursed by MATA for being a coward for leaving their mentor. Jet insisted that their mentors didn't want them to die either, while Roza argued that they didn't deserve to be called agents if they ran away.

A verbal spat broke out between the Academy students, especially Chris, Mika, Jet and Roza. Ali tried to persuade them to calm down but was ignored.

Alicia had enough. Deciding that the only way she was going to shut them up is with her father's iconic line.

"DEY!!!"

The voice echoed through the chamber, screaming for silence. And that's what it got.

With that, Ali called on his friends not to fight because the enemy was getting closer to them. He told how amazed he was to see the students' greatness when they first joined the Academy compared to he who only hoped for I.R.I.S, but that greatness was useless if they were divided.

Ali conveyed Agent Zain's message that all agents must unite and fight as a team regardless for the purpose of protecting Cyberaya, not even wanting the backup agents to repeat the mistakes of the previous Core Leaders and instead fight together regardless of any hardship. Bulat applauded in admiration of Ali's speech, but was greeted coldly by the others.

R-O managed to sneak through the Academy's fortified gate before Agent Geetha came to lock it. However, Uno managed to break through the barrier with the Mechadroid he controlled, causing Geetha to be thrown.

Geetha pleaded with Uno not to hurt the students. Uno didn't care because they were also agents, so he controlled a Busterdroid to punch Geetha. Suddenly, the Busterdroid was knocked down by Roza's gunfire.

All 12 young agents gathered in front of the Academy's gate, ready to fight the invaders. They were led by Alicia, guided by Atlas's newly invented gadget that she would use with Jet and Roza to organize the attacks of all members in turns.

Each cadet did their part in the defense, taking down the droids and holding back the Numeros. Chris, Iman, and Moon dealing with Dos aswell Mika and Roza dealing with Trez.

As Sies kicked the ball towards Ali, Alicia parried with a powerful kick, which caused the ball to land square in the face of the Numeros. Alicia orders Ali to conserve energy to allow the cadets to continue using ATLAS.

Uno orders a Fortress droid to fire at the two cadets. Alicia with her absurd strength and quick thinking, stepped infront of Ali and parried the shot right back towards the droid, blasting the railgun off and knocking it out.

Uno is startled by the sudden show of force but continues with the bombardment with another Mecha droid. This time, Alicia plans to disable it with R.O. but Nueve was guarding it, unabling anyone to get close.

With a combined coordinated assault + Comot's help, they manage to bring him down. Giving R.O enough time to disable it right before it fired on Zass.

Uno walked towards the Academy building through the scattered droid corpses, accompanied by Cinco who explained with a schematic that the Mainframe could be accessed through the computer in the control room.

Rudy came to Uno and persuaded him to remember their past. Uno ignored him and continued walking. Rudy went to stop Uno and was retaliated with a quick swing of the Azurium Blade.

Fortunately, Ali arrived just in time to save Rudy from being cut. Rudy bowed, offended by his former mentor's coldness.Ali spins the yoyo and prepares to fight Uno.

But right as he's about to strike, Uno shadow-steps behind him and knocks him flat on his back. The impact hurting badly. The IRIS knocked right off of him, causing the ATLAS' to deactivate.

As Uno continues his march towards the main building...

"KAU TAKKAN BOLEH LEPAS!"

Alicia with a powerful punch, slams into Uno, sending him flying onto the academy door. Cinco, knocked to the side by the impact, tries to fire her pulse gun but it is parried right off her prosthetic.

Her visor and, by extension, the deactivated ATLAS, flicker to the familar red. Her wings following suit. 

Without a word spoken, Alicia charges in for her, grabbing her by the neck and slamming her into the wall.

Meanwhile, Ali is helped back up by someone.

That someone

Was Zain.

Everyone froze, agents and Numeros, even the previously slammed Uno who just stood back up. Not saying Alicia and Cinco since she's still beating her ass (lmao).

As Uno walked towards the control room, completely ignoring what he just suffered mere seconds ago, Zain goes up to intercept. Cinco (still getting slammed by Alicia, sheesh girl give it a break) orders the other Numeros to stop him, which ends with 3 of them getting their asses handed to them.

Zain then walks up to face Uno. A match made in hell.

Alicia throws Cinco away, the Numeros completely beaten up. The other Numeros stands back up to face the lone agent. A mirror image to Zain's calculated nature, just sheer brutality and anger.

Zain faces Uno with calculated strikes and predictions, using every move that Djinn used as a basis for his offense. Meanwhile, Alicia, completely possessed by the anger of something else and of her own, faces the remaining Numeros with quick yet relentless strikes.

The remaining cadets support Alicia, Rudy and Bulat distracting Siess and Siete, Iman, Roza, Khai and Zass taking on the remaining droids, etc.

Alicia with her uncontrolled rage, closes in on Dos, and in a brutal show of force, grabs her by the arms and legs and cracks her spine like a block of wood. Tossing the immobilized woman aside, she targets Trez next, who was preoccupied with Ali and Chris. 

In the mean time, Rudy eliminates Sies by yeeting him away with his shadow cuffs. Zass, Iman, Khai, and Roza taking out the lasts of the droids.

Zain and Uno are still locked in a duel, Zain's ranged approach clashing against Uno's swordsmanship. 

As Trez chases Ali, Alicia slams from his flank, sending him flying into a collumn. With her railcannon equipped, she's ready to end him right there, but is knocked back by Cinco's pulse gun.

Alicia switches targets.

[TRACKING TARGET...]

[ JENNY CINCO] [HOSTILE]

[PULSE LASER] [ELIMINATE]

[TARGET LOCKED] [EQUIPPING XP-5 MARKSMAN]

"Alamak" The woman thought to herself.

Approaching rapidly, she blocks the traitor's pulse lasers, some unintentionally hitting her allies.

As they both held eachother at gunpoint, Comot comes in and stalls her, causing her tablet to be dropped and R.O taking it away.

As she's about to fire on Comot out of anger, Alicia decides to increase her total bone count to +24 (snapped every rib in her body) with a punch from her metal arm.

"Hah. Lemah." The girl states, voice weirdly robotic.

The remaining agents regroup, ready to face off Trez (panicking from Alicia since last time they met Alicia blew his arm off and proceeded to blast a hole through his chest).

Zain jumped as high as the lobby while shooting at Uno, and Uno rushed to cut through the gunfire with his sword and knocked Zain down. Uno then approached Zain who looked weak and thought he was about to give up.

Zain refuted Uno's suspicions and said that he had easily understood the "I.R.I.S." fighting pattern on Uno, which he had used different attacks throughout the fight to test his opponent's reaction. Uno was indeed offended by Zain's words.

Zain got up and returned to his fighting position. Uno grumbled nonsense, sprinted towards Zain and tried to attack him from behind. Zain then hit Uno's mask with the pistol on the palm of his hand, causing Uno to be thrown.

Uno quickly got back to his feet, but Zain grabbed his hand, threw him and hit him until he was thrown against the wall. Zain and Uno rushed at each other and clashed

then Zain pulled a pistol from his palm and fired.

Alicia regrouped the remaining agents, but Ali refused and goes to help Zain. Alicia shrugs it off and tells the others to use Geetha's enhancer to treat the other injured agents as she'll be helping out Ali.

Once again Agent Zain rushed in while shooting at Uno who parried by spinning his sword. Once close, Zain hit Uno while dodging his sword slashes. Uno sprinted around Zain to try to attack, then Zain grabbed one hand and pointed a gun at his mask. Uno raised his blade to block but Zain kept shooting until the sword was thrown.

Uno continued to chase Zain until Zain elbowed and punched him in the face, causing him to fall again and his mask to come off as well. Uno tried to get up from the fall but heard Zain's gun crackling as it was pointed at his head.

He turned and snapped, challenging Zain to shoot him straight away. Zain took a deep breath and refused to shoot him because he vowed not to repeat the mistake of the past, then reached out to hug his former comrade.

Djin seemed moved by Zain's words and greeted him, but he still harbored envy...

...and so stabbed Zain with his Azurium Blade...

The incident was witnessed in horror by Ali who screamed for Agent Zain.

While Uno collected his mask, Ali came to mourn Agent Zain's body, followed by Alicia who was shocked by the loss.

Then, all of the M.A.T.A. Academy's equipment, including the agent's gadgets, were disrupted...

...indicating that Ali... had entered Override Mode.

Uno arrives at the control room and is getting closer to reaching the spherical board called the Mainframe, when Ali arrives to confront him, followed by Alicia and Rudy.

Fully controlled by IRIS, Ali dodges Uno's sword slash and throws a yoyo at the enemy. Uno, who is also using a fake IRIS, is able to read the yoyo's attack and dodges and attacks Ali with his sword. Ali then tries to kick Uno with his Aero Boots but is also parried.

Alicia decides that if Ali won't be able to defeat him, then she will. So with a charge, she speeds towards Uno who's still locked in a fight with IRIS. With a powerful blow, both Ali and Uno are thrown through the centre screen and into the gathering zone. 

Uno rises back up to attack but his slashes are countered with maximum precision.

Alicia's POV:

[INCOMING ATTACK: PARRIABLE] [PARRY]

[INCOMING ATTACK: UNPARRIABLE] [EVADE]

[COUNTER] [MELEE]

With perfect accuracy, she counters the Numeros. As she lands, IRIS rises yp from behind. Iman alerts Alicia about Ali, but she didn't move. And so did Ali.

...

[A DAY AFTER UNO'S ATTACK AT SECTOR 56'S MATA BASE]

Alicia grabs the IRIS, inspecting it. Her visor flickers in detection. A foreign signal laid dormant within the IRIS. Using her own version of Override, she breaches into the IRIS. There, inside the IRIS dimension, she meets a figure, a manifested form of the IRIS itself.

Inside there, she and IRIS have a conversation. Then the manifestation spoke.

"Tentang semalam, kenapa kamu tak menyerang Ali?" Alicia, at least the IRIS manifestation, shot back. "Kenapa kau yang tak serang aku?"

IRIS admits. It detected Alicia as a non-hostile. Even saw her as a big advantage. Alicia then admits herself. It saw Override as a powerful ally, even if it is unstable.

So, with that mutual understanding and a sort of weird symbiosis, they made a pact. Aid eachother when needed, maybe knock some sense into eachother if they go too far.

...

[MISSION:TUJUAN. OVERRIDE VS ALICIA]

Alicia remembered their pact, so she opted to not be as brutal as she was. She still did land a few powerful blows, don't get me wrong, but it was to knock some sense into Override, or rather, IRIS itself, just as the pact stated.

...

[PRESENT DAY: ALICIA/ALI VS UNO]

With an understanding nod, the two cadets attack Uno simultaneously, launching Uno into a perfect spot for the other one to exploit, feeding eachother information like incoming attacks and possible counterattack opportunities.

Iman and Rudy decide to join in, just following what the two cadets were feeding eachother through ATLAS as a guide. With the combined effort of all 4 of them Uno's gloriously combo'd into oblivion. 

As Ali falls unconscious, the IRIS completely draining his energy. The team take a short break, letting the post-fight fatigue fade away.

But before they could regain their stamina, Uno rises up once more, his mask shattered and takes control of the mainframe. Setting off the satellite orbiting above to fire on the island, destroying everyone.

But before he could fully activate...

[WHIRR] [STAB]

Uno's stabbed by Alicia's whiplash. With a furious pull, she brings Uno in close and personal and with a sickening [CRUNCH]...

...punches right through Uno, his heart disembodied, now in Alicia's mechanical arm. The man locks eyes with the girl. Her eyes painted with a hint of satisfaction. Like, the "About damn time" kind of satisfaction.

She pulls out Uno's heart from the gaping hole, his body falling before the girl. Dead.

And with another sickening crunch, crushes it. The blood splattering on her face and her arm.

She looks back to her comrades, then to Ali. And with a final smirk, she falls unconscious. Wings shutting off like LEDs that ran out of power

[POWER LOW] [SHUTTING DOWN]

...

"Boleh tahan, Alicia Kheng"

Chapter Text

...

...

...

Alicia-

"AAH!" 

Alicia yelps back into the real world. She winces over a sudden sting then looks at the source. Her prosthetic arm was scuffed up, a huge cut around the forearm, showing the internal mechanism.

She looks around. It's the medical wing of the HQ. "Apa dah jadi?" She thought. Then the door suddenly opens, revealing Ali, her comrade and good friend and Comot, his cat.

"Eh? Alicia!" Ali greets her, sitting to a chair next to her bed.

"Ali" She greets back, voice uncharacteristically soft.

"Kau ok? Dah berapa lama kau pengsan." He asks.

"Aku... bolehlah. Akademi macam mana?" She answers, before questioning him of what happened while she was drifting in subconciousness.

"Semua ok... tapi..." Ali answers, voice trailing off.

"Ejen Zain..?" She questions, her face marked with worry

"Dia okay, tapi tengah dirawat." Ali admits. 

Alicia sighs, knowing her mentor is still alive, even if he's OOC (Out of Combat) for now. Comot climbs up the bed and lays on her legs, curling up like a worm. She pets the cat, then Ali asks her something that shook her spine.

"Kau... betul ke bunuh Uno?"

Her eyes widen, a hint of remembrance showing through. Her hand crushing Uno's heart, the blood staining her suit. She vividly remembered it all...

Yet she didn't.

Something else took control, just like when they had their first encounter with Jenny.

Something mechanic...

"Alicia?"

She snaps back to reality, Ali's hand on her shoulder being the cause. She looks at him, the dread melting away but still clinging. On Ali's face was worry.

She regains her composure and swats his hand away, looking away in embarrassment. Ali does the same, Comot sitting in the middle looking all too smug about it.

The day following her rise from the afterlife was less-than desirable. It was not very ceremonial to say the least. They did hold a funeral to Djinn... again... but that was about it.

For most of the day, she was busy getting repaired. The Academy fight did wreck her systems pretty hard, especially her forearm which could've been snapped in half like a twig at that point.

Despite all of that, the dread still clung onto her.

What the hell happened?

She decides to take a nap. Hoping the fear would wash away by the time she woke up. But what happened then wasn't something she'd guessed.

Reopening her eyes, she sees a digital realm. Yellow floor grids stretching for miles, the sky filled with code and yellow light. The horizon glowing a deep orange.

She stood up, readjusting her shoulders and looks around. Nothing other than code and lights, that was until she heard someone talk behind her.

"Boleh tahan, Alicia"

The figure stood by, hand on it's hips, it's singular eye looking at her with praise and a bit of smug.

"Siapa kau?" She asks.

The figure stood up straight and puts it's hands over it's chest, then it spoke.

"Panggil aku, Cylicia"

...

"Seriously? tu Alicia tapi guna 'Cy', kau ni biar betul?" The girl judges. The figure laughs sarcastically.

"Habistu, nak panggil apa?" It responds

Alicia lets out a groan of defeat, seeing her sarcasm just got overthrown by someone. The figure kept it's firm posture, although it's weirdly familiar head was giving it's equivalent to a smirk.

"Jadi... kau ni apa sebenarnya? Kod dalaman CORONA, macam yang dalam IRIS, ke..?" The young cadet asks.

"Itu... erk... susah nak jawab..." It hesitated.

"Cakap je lah >:(" She orders.

"Okay! Aku... macam apa yang kau cakap... tapi..." It responded

"Tapi apa?"

"Aku yang kawal A.M." it answers

"A.M? Apa? Masa-waktu?"

"Attack Mode"

Alicia's mouth fell agape. Eyes widen in shock. "JADI KAULAH YANG KAWAL AKU SEBELUM NI!?!"

It chuckled, clearly taking joy out of the girl's suprise.

"KAU... *sigh* boleh tahan lah >:|" She admits, rolling her eyes in frustration. 

"Dah agak kau cakap tu >:)" It replies

"Jangan sampai aku tarik balik apa yang aku cakap."

"Ok ;)"

So they had a conversation together, Alicia asking about things like How long or What to the figure. Until Alicia asked one simple but difficult-to-answer question.

"Kau... kenapa macam V1?"

It sighed, at least the mechanical equivalent to one anyway. It admits, that it was, actually one of the VALORs, the machine series where V1 came to be. "Versatile Autonomous Lethal Operations Reconnaissance, siri droid yang V1 dan aku diciptakan daripada..."

"Jadi... kau ni adik V1 lah?"

"Lebih kurang, tapi selepas apa yang dia dah buat, jangan haraplah aku nak baik-baik dengan dia"

Alicia looks down to the grid floor, memories of her encounters with that machine replaying once more. The Solar Facility, the Harbour, the bridge... 

"Apa yang kau dah buat, aku suka."

She looks back up to the digital copy, it looked onto the fake horizon. The digitalisation continues.

"Kau dah tunjukkan apa maksudnya untuk menjadi suatu makhluk hidup. Perjuangan yang kamu atasi, apa yang kau telah rintangi. Aku... bangga dapat bersama dengan kau."

Alicia looks to the horizon, a digitalised recreation of the bridge fight replaying before them. Bakar, Ali, and V1. All surrounding her... or rather... them

So this is it huh? The spirit of a living organism

Doesn't matter what these idiots will face in the future

They got eachother's backs

Even if it's only digital

Chapter Text

The Cyberaya Harbour: 0238

Drones are delivering shipping containers as usual, the harbour was silent, apart from the steady humming of the lights and the whirring engines of the drones.

Two guards approach a container being placed by a drone. Inspecting it's position to make sure it doesn't fall over.

From behind, a shadow blocks the lights behind. There stood a figure, female, standing ominously in the dark. Steadily walking to them. The dim lights bounce of the woman's suit and what looks to be metal armor. Her strides carry the weight of a soldier.

The figure stops just a few feet before the guards, who stops her and goes to detain her since that area is restricted from civilians. As one of them goes to grab her arm and drag her away, he notices the metal exterior surrounding her forearm.

With one simple move, the woman throws the guard onto the container, knocking him out. The other guard charges in with a baton, only for it to bend when it contacted the exoskeleton. The figure takes the man and throws him away.

The figure's hood is unmade, revealing her face. Skin tone close to tan, and a curly hair to top it off.

Another guard nearby calls for backup as he comes in to take her down, only to get knocked out by a second figure. This one wearing a green hood and red skirt.

"Kata tak nak tolong orang" the first woman argues.

"Kalau tak tolong, kau jugak yang kena nanti" the second one retorts.

Just then, a wave of guards rush in, guns armed and ready to fire at a moment's notice.

The pair exchange eye contacts, the second one rolling her eyes over the first one's cocky look.

The green-hooded woman throws what looks like a gasing into the air, which explodes into a flashbang, blinding the guards and giving the two enough room to fight them off. The armored one using it's heavy blows to knock the guards down while the second, green hooded one uses her gasings to pull of more ranged blows.

As the last one falls, the pair heads to the container. Opening it, the green one pulls out a device and gives it a thorough scan. Nothing of importance.

As the green one heads to another container to find a replacement heart for "Mak Yah", an apparent resident of the Pinggiran.

The brown-lime-hooded one argues that the stuff inside the container could be useful, but the green one is more straight-to-the-point. Without that heart, this "Mak Yah" only has 3 days to live, so no slacking off.

After a bit of searching, she finds it and alerts the other one, still looking into the first container for possible useful items. As they both head out of their respective containers to go back, they spot someone, no, 3 people, perched atop a container.

One with a feminine build, finished with a red hijab and a red-white coat. The one next to her, a hulking mountain of muscle, decked out with blue armor. The final one is perched up the highest, blue-yellow suit with a bandana to top off the look.

The three land before them. The two women surrender, putting their hands up and dropping the heart. The brown-hooded one looks the the other one, who shifts her ring and presses a button.

From behind, a motorcycle comes barreling through the containers. The blue one knocks it away, followed up with the armored one coming in for a punch. The two exchange blows and blocks whilst the green one heads to the vehicle, only to be stopped by the yellow-blue one's gunfire.

The fight continues, the mountain of flesh and the human machine fighting through the maze of metal. Each punch and blow either cracking the floor or denting the containers surrounding them. 

Meanwhile, the speedy gasing woman is trying her best to get the heart to where it needs to go whilst fending off the marksman and tech woman. The white-coated woman remarks on the vigilante's skill in both tech and combat. 

The woman fires another volley of gasings, each bouncing in random directions before all converging onto the pair. This move was countered with the floating woman's drones, which forms a bubble shield around them, blocking all the gasings.

Back to the the more close-quarters fight, they continue exchanging blows. The woman speeds behind the man, and with a rocket-boosted punch, lands a hit square in the back of the man. This doesn't seem to phase him, infact, he smirks. 

He pushes the woman back, who after recalibration her approach, began circling the man before coming in for a rocket-boosted kick. That, too, was blocked. He counters by grabbing her by the leg and straight ragdolling her into a container.

The man pulls a punch and fires a fist-like projectile, manifested from the two hits she landed. She dodges the impact, which came back to bite her in the ass by collapsing a tower of containers behind her, which one thing led to another that caused her exo-leg to get stuck underneath one.

The green woman hears the falling containers and goes to aid her comrade. Using a still-being transported container hovering above as a distraction. The blue man comes in to deal the final blow, only to be stalled by a flashbang gasing.

The hooded duo then goes to escape with the heart in the storage. Only to be stopped by another man, this one decked out with a greyscale suit and a blade.

The duo came crashing, the mechanical one taking the blade head on, leading to her mechanical arm getting a huge cut. The green one throws a smoke grenade at the direction of the man, masking the two long enough for her to go aid her ally.

Then, all 4 of the combatants comes through the smoke, the spherical drones clearing out the smoke. The green-hooded woman tells her friend to get the heart to Mak Yah and that she will be holding them off while she escapes.

"Tapi Aliya-"

"PERGI!"

Reluctantly, the woman boards the motorcycle, heart in hand, and leaves. Now it's only her against the 4.

With a final burst, it cuts to black.

PAINT THE WORLD RED:

NEO

Chapter Text

B-747X

DES: COC-1 

ALT:50000

BEARING:45°S

ONBOARD:DATO' OTHMAN [CYBERAYA MAYOR]

The plane flies above Cyberaya, none the wiser of the chaos happening within. Inside was Dato' Othman, Cyberaya mayor, being chased by a group of terrorist, all heavily armed with outside gear.

The guard's weapons were ineffective against them, meanwhile their weapons were way more than effective. As Dato' is led to the safe room within the plane, guards were falling left and right.

As the mayor hunkers inside the safe room, the door being dented by one d the terrorist's sledge hammer, his watch beeps, signaling an SOS signal to MATA agents.

Above, was a transport jet carrying 4 agents, Ali, Bakar, Alicia and Comot (yes that cat's an agent). Once the lights turned green, signaling the drop, the team jumps off, their wingsuits engaging to aid in their freefall.

IRIS predicts the landing zone, just atop the safe room on the plane. After some careful maneuvering, they touch down, gravity boots engaging so they don't fall off.

"WOO! Cun gila!" Ali exclaims

"Ali, scan" Alicia reminds him

With a quick X-vision scan, they find their objective. 

With two more heavy slams, the door busts open, all 5 heavily-armed terrorist charging in immedeatly. Just above them, the agents began placing bubble shield generators to avoid the sudden decompression from sucking everyone out.

Once that's done, Bakar places a laser saw on the floor, which soon did it's job by cutting through the roof, unintentionally having the roof crash onto one of the terrorist.

Alicia heads in first, firing her signature revolver at one of them, staggering them. The crushed hostile gets back up to hit Alicia with it's hammer, but it is blocked by Bakar's shields, who counters by throwing him towards the group.

The leader fires a barrage of crossbow arrows, which were blocked by Ali's Yo-yo shield. 

"Jangan risau, Dato'. Bantuan dah sampai!" Bakar alerts the mayor, who sighs in relief.

"Ali, ATLAS!" Alicia orders the boy, who follows without question.

Soon, the team's ATLASs began firing up, now giving them a clear advantage against the hostiles.

After the recalibration, the agents continue their fight. A barrage of shockwaves, bullets, and punches fly through the room-turned-arena. Alicia with her insane agility, Bakar with his sheer might, and Ali with the IRIS, were able to beat them all down.

The leader stood in the centre, the crimson red helm gleaming under the lights. With a pull of a switch, it shifts the crossbow into a staff and charges in. Knocking Ali and Bakar away with ease, it comes for Alicia. A fight of strength and agility then ensues, the armored giant moving with unnatural agility against the nimble cyborg.

As the two readies for another charge, Bakar comes from the back and pins the terrorist onto the wall. It beats him back and grabs it's staff, readying another counterattack, but it's grabbed by Ali. But due to his light frame, he's easily thrown aside.

Comot then comes in with a jump and begins to scratch the helm, staggering the hostile and giving Alicia and Bakar time to counterattack, Alicia pinning it to the wall with her gravity bombs + a magnet spear to make sure and Bakar stunning the enemy with his disk.

The terrorist then throws a bomb towards the other wall, it immedeatly alerting both IRIS and CORONA of it's danger. 

"JAGA-JAGA!" Ali shouts

With a concussive boom, the wall is blown open, chunks falling towards the wing, causing huge damage on engine 3 and the wing itself.

The terrorist dive out of the hole, the decompression pulling on everyone else still inside. Dato' Othman was overpowered by the winds and is pulled out of the plane, Alicia diving after him, her wings acting like it's namesake.

Bakar drops to the hole and began placing the shied generators, intending to close it from sucking everyone out of the plane. Ali heads to the cockpit and begins to try and stabilise the plane or at least divert it away from the city.

The explosion had knocked out the Autopilot function, forcing Ali to use the manual controls. As he pulls on the flight stick, a second explosion rips through the plane, caused by the Azurium inside the engines detonating. This knocks Ali back, causing the IRIS to disengage for a bit.

Ali looks at the device and remembers about Override. He gets up and tries to engage it, using all his effort to try and pull the plane up and away from it's crash course to the ground.

Outside, another transport jet flies past.

From the cockpit door, came Agent Fit. The southern sector's Rizwan. Now equipped with what looks to be the IRIS, but yellow?

The veteran engages his own Override, cutting off the engine's powers and begins stabilizing the craft.

Outside, Alicia is still diving after Othman, until a greyscale blur zooms past and grabs Othman for her. That blur is Agent Bobby. Fit's mentee and buddy. He too is equipped with this yellow IRIS.

Agent Fit then does something unexpected, he began bringing the plane into an aileron roll, swinging the plane to the left. This gives Bobby the clearance to dive into the hole on the plane, followed suit by Alicia. The hole is then quickly closed by Bakar, neutralising the threat of decompression.

Then Fit pulls his hand up, the plane follows, pulling away from the ground and barely clipping the buildings in it's path.

Back inside the cabin, Ali limps towards the safe room, met by Bakar and Alicia, exhusted, aswell as the two new agents, both wearing the yellow IRIS. 

"Itu macam..." Ali remarks, the scene cutting to the sector 56 base. Agent Dayang, the white-red coated Tekno Pillar giving an overview of this new IRIS.

"IRIS NEO, IRIS baru yang telah diupgrade."

"Apa? Sejak bila?" Ali wonders

Ganz steps in and gives a brief history on IRIS.

"Dari mula lagi, projek IRIS bertujuan untuk melengkapkan ejen-ejen MATA dengan kebolehan luar biasa. Malangnya, ia terpaksa dihentikan selepas kemalangan yang berlaku semasa ujian awal."

Then Dayang follows suit.

"Tapi, sejak kamu tidak sengaja mengaktifkan semula IRIS, pemerhatian kami mendapati is terbukti mampu meningkatkan kebolehan pemakainya. Tambahan lagi, dengan ciptaan ATLAS, koordinasi pasukan dapat mencapai tahap yang paling optimum."

She pauses, then continues.

"Cuma, kemalangan yang sama masih tidak dapat dielakkan"

Infront was shown a hologram of Override Mode, several [DANGER] signs surrounding it.

"Override Mode..." 

Ganz follows. "Ya, kelebihan Override Mode adalah kebolehannya untuk mengawal sistem berhampiran. Tapi ia juga membuatkan pemakainya hilang kesedaran. Apa yang berlaku seterusnya tiada siapa boleh jangka."

Ali ponders for a second, the words hitting him like bricks. From the silence, Dayang's voice cuts through once more.

"Tapi... kita bernasib baik."

Ali looks towards the Tekno agent.

"Selepas dikaji dengan lebih mendalam, saya berjaya mengenal pasti dan mengubah suai program yang menjadi punca ketidakstabilan Override. Jadi, Override Mode yang ada pada IRIS NEO dapat dikawal dengan sempurna."

Ali thinks to himself, then speaks up. "Jadi... IRIS saya ni dah tak boleh pakai?"

Dayang offers him some reassurance. "Jangan risau, kamu juga akan dapat unit baru. Cuma, buat masa sekarang, Ejen Fit dan Bobby ditugaskan untuk menguji IRIS NEO dan pastikan ia sedia sepenuhnya."

This calms Ali down, but he's still felt sad. The thought of being replaced clouding his mind. Then, the middle man himself, Zain (who had recovered from Uno's stab back at the academy) speaks up to comfort him.

"Kamu patut berasa bangga, Ali. Semua ini takkan terhasil kalau bukan kerana kamu." 

Ali smiles, but the worry, the paranoia, still lingered.

Will he be replaced? What would happen then?

What will become of him?

Chapter Text

The constant hum of machinery fill the HQ workshop.

And inside was a future project, designed as a successor to the blue machine.

PROJECT REBIRTH

MODEL DESIGNATION: V2

This was a sole project of Alicia, her knowledge in machinery and tech gained way back when she was patching up her guns, which were complicated in of themselves.

Past the glass wall, seperating the agent from the product, was a stream of welding sparks and soldering curcuits. There was the body of the unfinished model, the body of her digital comrade.

It's missing it's arms, and it's head was in a rough shape. The chestplate needs more fixing but the rest had been left alone in good shape, albeit consumed by nature. The wings were gone, either cracked or missing completely.

From her CORONA, her digital buddy, the AI originally meant to inhabit the body, spoke up.

"Kau rasa... projek kau ni boleh berjaya?"

Alicia answered, voice filled with uncertainty. 

"Tak pasti. Buat masa sekarang, kita tunggu... sampai dia bersedia."

Back in Ali's home, the boy was rummaging through his late-mother's, Aliya's, stuff which he found earlier that day. Among them was a music box. The one his mother used to play to him whenever he was crying as a child. 

He tries to spin it up, intending to turn it back on to hear it once more, but the wood carving ontop, a sculpture of a mother holding her baby, pops up, revealing a USB drive with a red robin bird insignia on it.

He inspects it then goes to insert it onto his tablet, but it is deemed 'unauthorised' by the drive, leaving him totally in the dark. What was his mother hiding from him all those years ago?

Ali wakes up the next day, alerted by his phone ringing. He picks it up, and is alerted by Bakar, his uncle, comrade, and the one who called him in the first place, telling him there's an emergency. The boy immedeatly tells him to send the location and that he's coming there ASAP.

Quickly changing his clothes and grabbing his scooter, he speeds towards the location, the Mamak Maju restaurant in the Perdana building, situated right in the centre of the three Cyberaya towers (Gamma, Beta, Alpha)

Ali is confused, to say the least. His uncle was eating and there's nothing of importance here. At least to the naked eye.

Ali asks what they're doing here, and if he called him there because he forgot his wallet again, which his uncle denied. He said they're just waiting for Alicia to catch up.

Taking the silence as an opportunity, he asks his uncle if his mom used to work MATA, or maybe in other secret organisations, which visibly startled him. He questions why his nephew was asking that question, which he responds with showing the USB drive he found.

Just then, Alicia came in. Hiding her face with her hand. 

What followed suit was a frenzy of her uncles, Rajesh, Razman, and Rahul (who was trying to not give a shit) greeting her with excitement. After all, she had been gone for a LONG time, missions, school, whole nine yards.

Ali was wondering why they called Alicia 'Icha', which he answers in detail. Throughout her young days, like when she was a baby or so, these 3 (along with Rama) had taken care of Alicia like their own daughter. He also remarks on how they had been the one to save her those months before he got involved in MATA.

Then Rahul comes up to the three, and asks what they want.

Bakar delivers a secret order. "Nasi goreng kampung. Telur mata, tapi taknak telur. Tiga"

Ali wonders. "Ha? Telur mata tapi tak-"

"SIAP!"

CUE THIS ABSOLUTE CINEMA OF A SCENE

After a terrifying drop, they arrive at the HQ. Ali had been here through another entrance to check up on Alicia a few days back, but going through this entrance, the front door, was something else.

In the centre of the lobby, a hologram of the globe, all their bases, overseas and domestic designated as such.

Towards the hallway leading up to the main briefing room, a dozen sets of training rooms aswell as testing labs to the sides. From new kinds of shields to better combat equipment, there was everything.

One of them caught Ali's eyes, however.

A droid, tall, somewhat lanky, and with an unmistakable silhouette. He stood in silence and awe. Mouth agape at the sight of the in-progress machine.

As they reach the briefing room, they are greeted by Rama's voice, yet the maun screen stayed dark. Ali looks around, wondering where he is, and is suprised by the man himself standing directly behind him.

Getting to the briefing itself, he explains the discovery ofAzurium within the explosive device used on the plane yesterday. Yet, the rest of their arsenal had never been seen before by MATA. This meant 2 things...

Whether it's illegal weaponry being used by terrorists in Cyberaya...

...Or someone is looking to wage war...

"Boleh cuba, kalau berani..." 

From the door, came Dato' Othman, the founder of Cyberaya and MATA, voice that would be commanding an entire army being used on the few agent inside.

He asks the General what they'll be doing for now, which he responds with the mission for tonight. There will be some illegal weapons dealing in CyberSquare today.

And their target is Abang Bear, famous Cyberaya gang leader and their source of information for now.

As the agents head out, Bakar and the General are the only ones left. There, he tells about Ali. He's starting to ask...

Chapter Text

The following mission was... scuffed to say the least.

The got Abang Bear, but had been interrupted by a group of vigilantes (?). Ali went to chase one of them down, but failed to get them despite being gone for hours after they got Abang Bear.

Alicia scolded him for being reckless, but her tone stayed below "if you do that again I'm going to turn your ribs upside down" and more leaning towards "Don't do that again, you're making me want to punch you" 

But deep down, a feeling of worry, even guilt, was overtaking her.

She wasn't sure if this would work, but god help her if it fails.

[SYSTEMS BACK ONLINE]

[LIMB MODULES: ACTIVATED]

[FOF RESPONSE MODULE: RECALIBRATED]

[INTERNAL COMPONENTS: ACTIVATED]

[SIGHT MODULES: RECALIBRATED]

[RECALIBRATION: COMPLETE]

[WELCOME BACK]

"Ugh... aku kat mana..?"

The machine whirrs back to life, suspended by mechanical arms and wires. It scans it's surroundings, an empty room with nothing else other than offline machinery. She tries to move around, but the arms and wiring stops her. 

It's mind is a foggy mess, it's vision blurry, it's body strained and tired.

Just then, the door infront opens. And a girl steps in, Alicia. Half flesh, half metal. The result of extensive surgery and modifications.  

"Siapa kau?" It questions, voice filled with confusion.

"Sabar, aku takkan apa-apakan kau. Aku disini untuk tolong kau." She responds, making the barely-minute old machine tilt it's head.

She presses on a button to the wall, releasing the arms and wires holding it and causing it to fall to the ground. With the groan of metal and internal suffering, it stands back up. 

It looks around, then scans it's own body, full metal plating, the constant hum of an Azurium core coming from where it's heart would've been. It looks to it's hands, before putting them on it's hips and asking the girl.

"Jadi... apa kau nak?"

The girl stops, before giving out her intentions. "Ini tentang kau, IRIS, dan Ali"

Those 2 names left her frozen, singular eye widening in recognition. IRIS? Ali? How- What??? Do I know this girl? 

"Macam mana kau--"

"Nanti aku bagitahu dengan macam mana kau boleh ada balik" she responded.

The girl points the machine out the workshop, specifically to bring her to interrogation room.

"Kita ada 30 minit sebelum diorang bawak Abang Bear ke sini." The girl claims

"Abang Bear? Ketua gang Cyberaya tu?" The machine asks, Alicia replying with a nod.

They sit down, Alicia and the machine on opposite sides, facing each other.

The machine asks first. "Jadi... macam mana kau tahu pasal IRIS, pasal Ali?"

She responds, voice stern and cold. "Ali masuk MATA sebab ter-sync dengan IRIS semasa ditangkap dengan dua ahli Numeros, Dos dan Tres"

The machine had it's non-existent mouth agape, the info dump leaving it speechless.

"Sabar, baru nak mula" Alicia replies.

"BARU NAK--- *sigh* sudah..." the machine responded 

For the next 20 or so minutes, the machine and the girl continued to go back and forth between each other, regarding the young boy and his little advanced glasses.

Until the machine asked her an important question, one that could not be answered so easily.

"Jadi... macam mana kau dapat kembalikan aku?"

Alicia kept quiet, before replying. "Kau kenal kan IRIS? Dari situlah aku boleh dapatkan kod-kod kau untuk kembalikan kau"

The machine stayed silent after that, but it's head was swirling with questions and thoughts. The truce, the duels, the duality... so this is her...

She had kept her name a secret up until this point, but the pieces fit together so perfectly to what it saw...

"Jadi... kaulah 'Alicia Kheng'? Rakan sepasukan Ali?" The machine asks

"Bingo! Memang aku kenal Ali. Sekolah ke, misi ke, aku memang kenal dia tu." She replies.

She adds onto that. "Budak tu aku jaga macam adik sendiri, walaupun kat sekolah aku selalu bagi dia tugas. Sebahagian daripada latihan sebagai ejen lah..."

The machine hummed in acknowledgement. 

She continues.

"Anak kau memang boleh tahanlah, Aliya"