Tetsuo scanned the biodome with his electronic imaging recognition program, seeking out any abnormalities in the terrain. He was standing in the entrance way to the massive sub-polar cavern sprawling before him. His squad had transversed a new and unexplored tunnel that connected to the Denkai Pass. A drilling team had uncovered it through sheer luck and managed to send back preliminary data before being ambushed by 'unknowns'.

Activating his commlink, Tetsuo gave orders to the 2 squads of tunnel crawler samurai in his command.

"Spread out, Visiblity high, thermo's on full," he said. He also turned up the thermodynamic layering in his Giant Meka suit. Couldn't afford to have his joints freezing up with possible unfriendlies in the area.

Fresh snow crunched under his hydraulic feet as Tetsuo led the squads, acting as point man, searching for signs of the drilling team. He glanced briefly at the roof of the cavern, and shook his head in awe. The stalactites on the roof were covered in ice, glistening in the light from their flash grenades. Icicles stretched down over fifteen feet, threatening to break and crash into the cavern floor.

A cry interrupted his thoughts, and Tetsuo quickly jogged over to where a Samurai was waving. The samurai turned and point to a small hill below their position. Except, that on second glance, Tetsuo realized that it wasn’t a hill.

It was bodies.

He counted seven bodies of the drilling team that had first discovered the passage. Five of the bodies had been riddled with bullet holes, one was nearly chopped in half, and the last one had been decapitated. There was no sign of the head.

Suddenly, a short alarm went off in Tetsuo’s helmet and his threat display jumped to life. He brought his Meka up to full life and locked positions on 15 blips with his low band sonar. They were moving at about 25 to 30 miles and hour, and were heading straight for their position.

"Incoming enemy troops. Battle formations," he coolly stated and diverted some of the energy in his suit to the Storm Sledge on his left arm. The air around it began to hum with stored electricity. He took the safeties off his Lionclaw Shotgun, loading the shells into the heavy automatic weapon. As his sledge reached optimum level, he saw a glint from the top of the snow drift 50 feet away from him.

A small horde of Cybertronic Machinators came charging over the hill at full speed. Their legs were making abnormal strides that no human could ever hope in matching, trying to close the distance between their foes as fast as possible.

The Samurai behind Tetsuo began firing their shoguns into the Machinators, trying to down as many as possible. One of the robot’s head exploded in a shower of sparks from a Mishima bullet, another fell to the ground, its pelvis hopelessly deformed. He smiled to himself, thinking that his troops were doing well.

At that moment, a large rushing sound echoed and a missile came crashing down amongst the Samurai’s position. One of the Mishimans were completely blown apart and another tunnel crawler ran screaming, engulfed in flames.

The sound rumbled again and Tetsuo moved swiftly, barely dodging a missile that crashed into his position. He didn’t have time to look at where it was coming from as the Machinators were only mere feet away from him. Tetsuo lowered his shotgun and fired two bursts into the advancing robots. Seven of them fell in the blasts of his Lionclaw and he saw the remaining Samurai pick off the last of the machines.

Tetsuo quickly checked his sonar and noticed a blip off to his left. He scanned the area as quick as he could and couldn’t distinguish anything from the snow. He switched to infra-red and finally saw his adversary.

An Eradicator Deathdroid, missile launchers still glowing with heat was hiding against a snow drift, painted entirely white. His sensors detected a lock-on and he dove to his right, just narrowly evading a hail of large caliber machine gun fire.
"Defensive positions," Tetsuo commanded and began running full out at the Deathdroid. He knew that only his short-ranged weapons held any chance against the heavily armored walker.

The Deathdroid rose up, calculating that its surprise had ended and began firing its machine gun at Tetsuo. He felt a couple of the rounds penetrate his arm and his shotgun lost power.

Ignoring the damage he charged headlong into the Deathdroid, swinging his Storm Sledge in a high arch. It slammed into the top of the body of the huge robot, crushing in the armor plating.

Tetsuo at first thought that the droid had been destroyed when it stabbed forward with its gigantic chainripper, shredding the armor on his left leg, and cutting into his own leg as well. He clenched his teeth in pain and fell to one knee, bleeding and spurting oil into the pure snow. The Deathdroid back up slightly and raised up its Gigadeath, preparing to put an end to Tetsuo.
Forcing his Meka suit into action, he swung his hammer, crashing it into the inside leg of the robot. The Deathdroid crashed to the ground, its right leg bent in a 45 degree angle and no longer workable.

Tetsuo slowly stood, intently watching the flailing robot, vainly attempting to right itself. Aiming his hammer, Tetsuo crashed it into the robot’s AI module. The Deathdroid’s body convulsed and went still. Rising up to his full height, he turned and addressed his troops on the commlink.

"Inform Toranaga. The ‘situation’ has been dealt with."