Ulric Stormtalon.
A warrior of the Gryphos empire.
Claw picked at birth to bring honor to his king, and bring justice to the enemies of the empire. Recently, he had just completed special training that would allow him to pilot the most recent addition to the empires already swollen stockpile of formidable weapons. This recent year, there had been a huge influx of weapons development and innovation. Some completely insane, others past the point of ridiculous, but the rest... a disturbing success.
As he padded his way through the hangar, he noted gyphon technicians and minotaur laborers either constructing, repairing or modifying some of the most successful weapons platforms known to Equis. And the gryphons were the only species in the world to have them.
The Kloogine.
Large robotic war machines, capable of tremendous firepower with the ability of traversing even the roughest terrain. Not every single machine was the same Ulric noted as he passed one with a simple box with a square view port as a cockpit, then another with large wings that would fold down in front of the machine to protect it from enemy fire. All were more then capable of being his mount, all were proven battle effective. But none caught his attention.
At this point, he caught sight of a titanic being at the end of the hangar. As he neared, he noted that not only was this thing not a being, but a strange looking Kloogine, but it was easily half the size. But that didn't stop the fact that it simply radiated raw, unadulterated power. Just looking at the large robotic death machine made his blood turn to ice.
It was large and vaguely minotaur shaped. The only thing lacking, was that the knees pointed the wrong way, forwards rather then reverse. That and it just looked like it easily outweighed every single other machine in the hanger, even the famed Vanguard heavy defense unit. And next to it on a rack sat a long barreled weapon, easily more then three and a half meters long, dubbing the machine as a sniper unit.
As Ulric took a closer look, he saw that this machine had seen some heavy fighting. Deep gouges and scratches crisscrossed their merry way over the hull, and the knuckles on each hand were also deeply dented and scared.
"I see you admire my machine".
Ulric nearly squawked as someone made his presence known, which happened to be right next to him. When he whirled around, he expected to see a lesser warrior, a common soldier, but came beak to belly with something that made his spine tingle. Tall and hairless, with a flat face and pale complexion on its bare, furless skin. He didn't like this creature.
"Shove a sock in it gryphon. I don't care if you don't like me, because I dont like any of you pathetic creatures". Then the being leaned down and gave Ulric a sneer that could freeze helium, showing off a set of canines and incisors in his relatively small mouth, "I don't care what squabbles you lot are having, all I care about is revenge. Now, it looks like you're having trouble with finding a mech, am I right in that assumption?". All Ulric could do was nod.
The creature smirked before pointing to a machine in the holding bay next to his own, and Ulric followed his gaze, and he fell in love almost instantly. The machine in the bay nest to the creatures was an extreme rarity, a Crusader. Standard assault rifle clutched in one hand with top and bottom of the weapon having razor sharp edges welded to it, and in the other a large kite shield. Tied around the neck of the machine, a large flowing crimson cape, and its eyes glowed a ghostly silvery platinum. It was perfect.
Ulric then felt the world shake, and whirled around to find the sniper unit from before stomping its way out of the hangar, its armoured feet sending bone jarring tremors through the ground with each step. Weapon in hand, not even looking back. Ulric turned his attention back to his mount, and ogled it with an unhealthy amount of lust.
It was perfect.