It took a moment before she heard back from Valentine and his voice was a relief. Good, he wasn't dead. She couldn't say the same for a lot of the other people in the lab though. "I will make an effort at that," she sighed, closing her eyes for a moment to focus. Please protect this place. I don't care about myself, but this lab... If I'm dead who will protect this...?
If she didn't know better she would have sworn that the moment she mentioned protecting the lab, and therefore the technology and people inside it, Eden acted. She couldn't physically see the field from her point of view; she was still focusing her vision as it was, but she could feel it. She just... knew, somehow that it was there. Now she just needed weapons... She took a few more steps away from the scaffolding; she didn't want to be anywhere near where Valentine was working from when she let loose whatever this thing had to work with. Close range weapons?
Yes.
From the view of anyone on the outside they would see one long cable extending from its right hand with little grappling claws attached. With a quick hand movement she found herself using the right whip to crack at one of the sentinels. The range was amazing on these things, and it cut straight through one of the legs. There were no other noticeable weapons on the Reaper and it made her wonder if there were actually any other weapons to be used.
We are the weapon.
The voice echoed painfully throughout her mind. That would take some getting used to, but Eden didn't seem to care to actually talk right now, like Valentine said she might. Letitia could feel her determination; her sense of mission. With that push, that solid backing she found herself stepping forward even farther, hoping like hell the humans beneath her would get out of the way. With another swift movement, not clunky like some of the older modeled Sentinels and Tracers, a sword was pulled out of a hidden compartment in Eden's chest. Letitia couldn't help but smile at the familiarity of the weapon.
"Idiots. Should have known not to mess with a woman's private affairs," she smirked in confidence before taking two more steps forward and slicing at another Sentinel. They were her main focus; people were easier to deal with, but the Sentinels needed to go before they took out anything else. This was easy enough. Letitia still had little idea of what she was doing, but the Reaper seemed to have just enough power and free will of it's own to be able to carry out her half-finished thoughts. "My vision's still a bit blurry, Valentine. How many do I have left and point me in the right direction.
Her eyes wouldn't seem to clear up, as if this was too much of a strain on her mind for it to translate the light transfered from her eyes to her mind properly. She wouldn't have been surprised after all; it seemed like this entire thing was meant to exhaust her mind and body. She was sure if she hadn't been as well trained as she was, she might have failed entirely by now. Thank you, grandfather.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Valentine watched as the craft was surrounded by the faint shimmer of a Shadow Field; down below, a Sentinel whirled and loosed a blue-tinged railgun blast at her. The only visible evidence was a spark against the shield, and dark ripples spreading from the impact as the high-velocity round ricocheted away and punched through a wall on the opposite side of the room.
The massive craft lurched away from the platform, its gait animalistic and ungainly as it moved - yet fluid, like a confused organic beast instead of the mechanical stomping of a Tracer or Sentinel. She was becoming more fluid vast, though, the movements no longer shaky; the stabiliser fins flickered and compensated for her every movement, helping to keep her on-balance. An excellent design decision.
He watched as a steel wire extracted from one hand, razor-sharp blades at its tip; he paused, confused as to its function, before it lashed out with a supersonic crack!, snapping through the legs of a Sentinel as though passing through air; the back edge of the whip struck it as it withdrew, caving in the cockpit and crushing the pilot instantly. The remaining Sentinels leapt backwards with significantly more grace than the Tracers around them, suddenly having gone from the battlefield supremacy weapons to mere toys in the face of an unrelenting monstrosity before them.
It drew a sword from its chest cavity - far slimmer and lighter than Abyss Walker's massive weapon, but in the hands of the nimble Reaper, no less deadly. The beast stepped forward, slashing swiftly, far more precisely than its other movements - Letitia's skill with a blade having already become apparent in the Sky District.
A Sentinel was cleaved neatly in half, both parts of it collapsing to the ground as the monster stepped over the wreckage; meaningless impacts flared off the Shadow Field surrounding the beast. Letitia's faintly inhuman-sounding voice came crystal-clear through his earpiece -
"My vision's still a little blurry. How many do I have left? Point me in the right direction."
Valentine checked over the battlefield; his own vision was still a little fuzzy with pain, although it was nothing compared to hers. The neural load of a Reaper took a lot of getting used to, and frankly, she was doing much better than any human should've - most struggled to even survive their first time piloting, let alone successfully drop a squad of Sentinels.
"Three to your right, closer to the exit," Valentine said, now able to stand with impunity, the enemy soldiers massacred as they tried to choose between fighting the Reaper and returning fire to Valentine's men. As he checked around, he saw that his Tracers had immediately retreated, well familiar with operating procedure from years of fighting alongside Abyss Walker. "Our forces are out of the way. Wipe them out, then set her down. I'll extract you."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Let's go.
Agreed.
It was effortless. She urged Eden forward with just a touch of her mind and she found the last of the enemy Sentinels. A few quick movements of the blade and two were mincemeat. They had no time to react; her battle instincts took over and she took them down without hesitation or remorse. The third Sentinel's pilot was trying desperately to retreat. Part of Letitia almost wanted to let it go so it could tell the horrors of what it had seen that day... but no. No one would be allowed to live after the destruction they had caused. Her whip shot forward and pierced right through the chest armor. The blades of her grappling hook were sharp and deadly. Like her blade, she'd make it a point to keep it that way. With great force she hauled it forward close enough so she could grab it. A moment of mercilessness struck her like lightning and with no further adieu she ripped the head of the Sentinel off and casually tossed it to the side.
Every bit of her hoped that whomever had sent the military down there would see some sort of evidence of all of this and would know not to mess with the lab again. "They'll send more. Especially if they find out there's a Reaper here. We best get the supplies out of here as soon as possible. I know a lot of your men are wounded, but there's medical supplies in room A3," she turned around in her Reaper body and moved back towards the scaffolding.
Not bad, human.
She ignored the voice. Valentine said it would want to talk and not to listen. She set Eden down back near the scaffolding and let out a breath of relief.
Do you have other weapons? Despite warnings she attempted to make another bit of contact. She needed to know what this thing was capable of.
The time will come when they are useful. For now, they are not.
Letitia found herself a bit disoriented when the lights flickered out and the Reaper settled itself in the sitting position it had been in not but moments before she had entered it, as if it were comfortable like this. What???
If she had been outside she might have noticed the dark shadow that descended over the place, as if it were surveying the damage, before disappearing again. Letitia felt alone in the dark, as if she was no longer linked to the Entity, despite still being harnessed in. That's when she realized it... The Reaper was never inactive... it was merely sleeping.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
With the last few units annihilated in the space of mere instants, the Reaper settled itself down, slumping against a wall lazily, as though bored by its brief exertion. Shadows flickered and moved around it, the Entity reinhabiting the laboratory with little fanfare.
Valentine breathed a sigh of relief, the echoes of battle fading from the chamber; only the crackling of flames around wrecked Sentinels. He picked himself up off the ground, lurching down the scaffolding, vision distorted with pain; he could see well enough, though, making his way over to the Reaper. The shadows left him alone as he moved, the monster perhaps sated for now - he refused to refer to it by name, refusing to give it that much credit.
Soldiers rushed around the floor, tending to wounded; one came up to him, bearing a bandage, insisting that he be assisted. Valentine just took the bandages and wrapped them tightly around his arm; his bloodsoaked right hand stained it with blood, but he managed it. He made a note to grab some proper painkillers before leaving the lab. He could function, though - he'd been shot more than enough times. He also requested a flare, and it was in his hand in a second. His men knew better than to question his orders.
He directed his men to room A3 for medical supplies, and after a few short moments, he'd reached the leg of the Reaper. With a burdened sigh, he grabbed one of the stabiliser fins, and began the long process of clambering up its body. Flare stuffed inside his bloodied coat, he forced himself up its leg, then its spine, then its chest, before swinging around the head. Grabbing one of the sensor antennae with his good hand, he managed to thud a solid boot into the smooth back panel, then a second, then a third.
On the fourth kick, it swung open; he offered a momentary thanks to the Reaper. It clearly understood his intent; whether it allowed him in to save its pilot, or as a trap, he knew not and cared not. He swung himself inside the back panel, thudding onto the metal floor, landing hard. His vision flashed with pain, but he forced himself to his feet - the longer he was in here, the more dangerous things were.
With his wounded arm, he grabbed the flare from his coat, breaking off the cap and flooding the interior of the Reaper in crimson light. Shadows shifted around the walls, illuminated red, like dripping blood; the corridor into the cockpit seemed longer this time, the angles more jagged. He saw shapes move at the edge of his vision, but didn't look at them, didn't acknowledge them - he knew that if he acknowledged them, they would become real.
He saw a humanoid shape move in front of him, feminine, offering a slender, shadowy hand; he brushed past it, and it vanished into dark smoke. Hands reached out from the walls, the floor; he just kept walking, shrugging them off him, still not acknowledging them. With his good hand, he drew his pistol, fired a few quick shots into the wall; they ricocheted off the hard titanium harmlessly, but the message was clear, and the hands receded at his gesture of dominance; it seemed to respect his willingness to stand up for Letitia's sake.
Well, at least it's a little less egotistical than Abyss Walker.
Eventually, he made his way into the cockpit, and found Letitia, hanging in her harness. Her eyes were wider, her body a little more limp; he swore he saw her trembling almost-imperceptibly. Still, she wasn't dead, and didn't appear particularly crazy. He put the flare on the ground, room still illuminated in blood-red.
"Are you okay?" he asked, stepping up to her, unclasping the harness, helping her down from where she hung.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Letitia felt nothing. Her broken arm no longer hurt as much, her fears of failing had disappeared the moment she had taken down the last Sentinel, and her even greater fears of what this meant for her were already calming down.
She simply... breathed.
One intake. Stress was gone.
Two intake. Fear was gone.
Three intake. She was still alive.
Four intake. She had saved her labs.
It was completely silent in the cockpit, but not terrifyingly so. She was half sure that a lot of noise right now would have been worse for her recovering head. There was already a bit of a headache coming on and she was definitely tired. It was okay though. Now she knew that Eden was real, alive even. All of her research wasn't in vain, and maybe just maybe it wasn't in vain that her grandfather had trained her so well.
Fatigue reared it's horrible head and she found herself slouching a bit in the harness, too blind to even find how to unlock it. She heard noises finally; one tang, two tang, three tang and finally she heard the cockpit door open slowly. She remembered that she wasn't alone in the world.
You're ready.
Until that moment, she hadn't had time to think about that voice. There was no curiosity as to where it was coming from or if it really meant her harm or not. It didn't seem threatening, just... lazy, if Letitia had to put words to the echoing, deep yet feminine voice she heard, as if it didn't really care, as long as no one dared to lay waste to its territory. Letitia could feel the rage of the Entity inside her still, even though it was no longer as strong. It mirrored her own, and that terrified her more than anything.
"Are you okay?"
Valentine's voice startled her out of her reverie and she found just enough energy left in her to nod. As he unhooked her from the harness she realized just how wiped out she was. It was no easy feat doing this. She was almost glad she had never tried to until now; no, she was glad the Reaper hadn't let her until now. She knew that's what it had to be; no matter what her intentions, she felt as if Eden wouldn't have accepted her in any less than a situation that threatened its home and it. "I-I'm fine, just tired," she fell into his arms as the last of the harness was undone, unable to stay on her feet for long. She fought to stay awake, yet she knew there was no rest for her. "She's not going to move for a while."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Valentine absorbed the impact of Letitia's body falling on top of him, wrapping his arms around her. He turned, grabbing her legs and bridal-carrying her from the craft - she weighed little, and his body was toned from years of combat. She posed little-
"It's okay," he whispered, brushing a hand through her hair as she fell into him, thin hands clutching his coat tightly. "We're safe now."
Her face buried into his chest, the darkness stepping away from them. The outside of the Reaper smouldered, exposed wiring and carbon-nanofibre musculature torn asunder by the carnage of battle. Beyond the shadowy walls of this place, only silence reigned, and the crackling of a thousand funeral pyres.
"We..." her voice cracked, and watery, bloodshot eyes looked up at him. She felt warmer than she should've; he tried to tell himself that it wasn't blood. He helped pull her away from the harness, stepping away from the craft. It left him alone as he left; perhaps it deemed he had suffered enough.
Perhaps it deemed that he would suffer enough.
"Did we win?"
Valentine laid her down on the soft grass, pulling bandages from his pack. He rolled her over, undressed her gingerly, an action that carried a rather different weight now. A small wound - shrapnel. She'd survive this one.
He wrapped her and tied the bandage. He was out of painkillers, so he just lay down beside her on the grass, watching the smouldering ruins of her Reaper lie where it would; whether it would live or die could be established come morning. He'd no desire to leave this place. He felt them move closer; whether by her volition or his, he didn't know.
A part of him wanted to talk to her. To comfort her. To tell her that he was there, that she'd never be alone. But he never would. Never could.
There were some things you couldn't take back, after all.
The memory faded as he emerged into the sunlight, and he glanced back down at Letitia - features softer, younger, more alive. After a moment's consideration, he simply leapt off the platform, soaring towards the ground; he didn't impact particularly hard, such falls familiar to him. The hatch closed behind him of its own volition. The message was clear enough - Letitia's assessment was correct. It was quite finished.
"We're safe now," he whispered soothingly, walking out from behind the Reaper; he laid gently her on the ground and checked briefly that she was uninjured (broken arm excepted). He strolled over to his men, who'd gathered all the wounded into a reasonably-large circle - all his wounded, of course. The enemy had been duly tended to using a bullet to the head. That was the reality of this war.
He saw Atlas, slumped against a crate; fear gripped his heart as he began jogging towards his comrade, and kneeled before him. The man looked up at him with heavy-lidded eyes, hands fumbling with a bandage around a bloodied abdomen.
"Mind handling the shooty bits next time, boss?" Atlas said, the ghost of a smile cracking his face. For his part, Valentine just grabbed the two ends of the bandage, affixing it properly around Atlas' wounded midsection.
"You're going to be okay, you hear me?" Valentine commanded, and Atlas just grinned a lopsided grin.
"Damn straight I am. Now if you don't mind, I need to complain at the medics about getting me some damn morphine."
Valentine just smiled, and for a moment, ruffled Atlas' hair - an oddly affectionate gesture, and one that caught both of them off-guard. He strode back over to Letitia, who was still laying where he's set her down - exhausted by her exertions, it seemed. He kneeled beside her, grabbing a water flask dropped by one of his men from on top of a nearby crate and pressing it to her lips.
"Drink," he ordered, the warmth of a moment ago gone now as it started to dawn on him that at least half of the men he'd come in here with were now dead.
Nevertheless, he realised, the woman had just piloted a Reaper, and saved his life - he owed her something. So when he spoke again, it was a little more softly, a little more concernedly. "You'll feel better if you drink. Trust me. I've no intention of letting someone who just saved my life suffer for it."
Any more than is necessary, of course.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
All she wanted to do was fade into the darkness. As he carried her away from the harness she buried her face into his chest and tried hard to calm her beating heart down. She ad never been so terrified in her life. Questions overwhelmed her tired mind, and for once she just wanted to curl up in a ball and sleep.
As he lay her down on the ground she took a moment to look around the wreckage that was her beautiful lab. At least half of the servers were on fire or sparking from exposed wires and general damage. There were dead men and women lying everywhere. There was quite a large circle of wounded gathering for medical supplies. Everything around her was falling to shambles.
She half sat up, forgetting her broken arm for a moment and using it to support her weight. These people had come to her for help and in the end had lost so many and she had lost so much in return... while technology were not human lives, these servers had been her only reliable companions for many years. This was the legacy her grandfather and father had left her with, and now she had to save it.
"Mistress! Mistress! Protocol 7 is in place. The main harddrives were backed up off location before too much was lost and the you-know-what is under lock down!" Bot appeared out of no where, reporting to her reliably. That was one last stress off her mind.
"Good. Make sure these men can find what they need. They're our new allies," she whispered before lying back down and closing her eyes for a few moments. Her vision was clearing up and she breathed deeply.
"Drink," the order came in the tone of a cold voice, and she opened her eyes, almost ready to cuss him out until he changed his tone.
She took a few sips of water before making an attempt to sit up again. "Don't worry about me. I'll be fine," she tried to push him away once she managed to sit up fully. She didn't like being taken care of. She had managed so far by taking care of herself and fighting for what was hers. "Damage? Casualities? All the information off of the servers was backed up and stored safely elsewhere... I'm thinking it's about time I move bases anyways..."
----------
"Ma'am, we found the labs but..."
"I swear to God-"
"They had a Reaper. Whoever this group was had a fucking Reaper!"
Isa growled at his cursing and turned to look at him, her pristine ironed business suit looking impressive compared to what she typically wore. "Language. I don't care if they had a Reaper or not! Did you find her?"
"Well... not really, but how did they get a Reaper down there without us knowing?" the captain stood straighter, looking a bit indignant at having to report to the young girl. Her father was his boss though. "It had to have been down there for a long time and inactive... but there are no camera feeds we can hack into down there. Your cousin kept a lockdown on that place."
"Berkley?"
Letitia's right hand stepped forward and nodded. "The Reaper was down there for many years but... it was completely dead, or so we thought. Miss Titi tried all she could to find out it's state but... She's alive. She has to be. No one else could have gotten down there. Only two people have the ability to get in there, and my codes were marked invalid recently. That means she had to get in there and open the doors for those rebel troops," he explained, looking a bit thoughtful. "I never thought she would have worked with such a group though. Her research is too precious to her."
Isa smirked and shook her head. "And you, her faithful dog?"
"I am paid by the de Argentum family. While Miss Titi has been my charge for a long time, she is not responsible for my pay check," he seemed a bit reluctant to say it, but it was true. "And she's slowly been slipping away from everything that is normal and natural for her... I'm worried now. If she was the one who activated that Reaper..."
"Understood. Don't worry, we'll bring her back and bring her back to her senses." There was insincerity in her voice. She could care less if Letitia lived or died. She just wanted what was rightfully hers.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Valentine moved to standing, checking around the now-silent laboratory, taking note of his situation. A decent chunk of Childhood's End's force capability was out of commission. Tracers could be replaced - and would, given that five were little more than smoking wrecks - but men were much harder to find. Good men, hard men, men who'd fight and kill for a lost cause - all were in short supply outside, to say nothing of within this city.
"A dozen dead," he said coldly, unemotionally, his observation of the ruins of the lab complete. "Eight wounded, not including ourselves. Five Tracers incapacitated, the remaining three heavily-damaged."
There it was. A full fifth of his force, wiped out in minutes - and close to half of his combative troops. They'd never been outfitted for defensive actions, and being forced into it had cost them, as it always had. While he had gained out of this affair the overwhelming offensive advantage of a second Reaper, it remained to be seen whether or not she'd be of any strategic use.
He'd lost the advantage he once held; things were no longer proceeding according to plan, and he had no choice but to be reactive now. All that remained was to seize this city as swiftly as possible, and replenish his forces; neither would be an easy task. Once he had both of those, he could track Old King, and then - finally - he would be free of this place.
"We're leaving," he said, offering a hand down to her. "They'll be cautious. When we return to Cocytus, I'll sort out a way to have your Reaper moved. When we've stripped this place bare, I suspect we'd do well to level it."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Letitia accepted his hand up, looking at their surroundings. "There's never a balance in war. In the end everyone loses, and all we can hope is the results we achieve were worth it in the long haul," she said softly, staring at the wounded, the dead, the destroyed Sentinels and Tracers. "I can help with the repairs on the remaining Tracers. There are parts lying around here somewhere, and I see parts that are salvageable on the destroyed ones... What I need is safe and secure, thanks to Bot. But you're right, the sooner we leave the better."
She knew someday she would need to move everything; it was inevitable in order to keep everything safe. "I have a second hideout where there are more supplies and where the data is backed up, but we can retrieve that once we've healed. I think the supplies there will be more beneficial than what I have here," she was merely rambling in exhaustion at this point. So this was the cost of her justice? No, she would find another way. She would find a better way.
Despite how tired she was she helped load things up and get them in place for transport. They had to take everything they physically could with them as soon as possible. There wouldn't be much time for multiple trips, and she already suspected that the place would be watched. With every step she took she muttered something, almost a mantra of sorts, looking distracted. "Moving her won't actually be difficult. I've moved her before with fewer men than what we have now, when we brought her down here. I'll explain later though."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Valentine find himself caught rather off-guard by Letitia's philosophical response to his information. She was more perceptive than he'd anticipated; yet, in his own way, he found himself slightly bitter at her statement. She'd only seen this city, maybe a little of what lay beyond it - never the vast conflicts that plagued the earth, never seen armies of hundreds of thousands laying into each other in battles that left the ground knee-deep in blood. Never seen the truth of just what it was like out there.
Perhaps, though, it were for the best that she hadn't seen it. Meant she still held hope; was willing to fight for the sake of the weak, when she had an easy life standing in front of her.
Futile as it was, the effort was nevertheless worthwhile.
"I daresay you're mistaken," he said, as he helped lift crates of ammunition onto the back of a truck - run down the tunnels from Cocytus the second the lab had been clear. "War's all about winning and losing. Whoever wins, gets to enact their vision; whoever loses has their vision selected out, and fades from memory."
He went through some piles of equipment, seeing a heavy crate labelled x4 Ferromagnetic Ammunition - 155mm Depleted Uranium, Armour Piercing. Checking inside, he spotted what he'd hoped for - long, dull-silver darts, each weighing in at around thirty kilos and capable of being accelerated to up to three thousand metres per second in an instant. A single round did as much damage as three quarters of a tonne of dynamite, and could comfortably punch through eight feet of steel plate. Each round was flawlessly-crafted to maintain the absolute maximal performance.
He gestured to his team to help lift it - even four rounds weighed a full hundred-twenty kilos. After a great deal of exertion, four men (with his help, although with his bad arm, it offered little) managed to lift the ammunition case onto the back of the truck. As he went back for the next case, he turned to Letitia, gesturing for her to follow him.
"Perhaps, indeed, the world was once perfect. But as long as man had a vision, he could not permit it to cease; and thus, we fought onwards. Destruction is not the aim of war - merely its effect. Unfortunately, the side effects became irreversible a long while ago, if you will. And yet mankind continues to fight on - why?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Letitia couldn't have told you when she fell asleep, even if you had bothered to ask. All she knew was one minute she was riding in a truck thinking about the day she had had so far, and the next moment she was jerking awake as the truck came to a halt. She shook herself out of her groggy state, knowing it was overly dangerous for her to be sleeping around people she didn't know. She was so tired from her encounter with piloting a reaper though, that she couldn't seem to stay awake no matter how hard she tried.
She had no idea where they were. She wasn't even sure she knew what she was doing anymore. All she knew was that she needed a really long nap and maybe a shower. She didn't know how long it had been since she had eaten or slept, nor was she even sure she was hungry enough to eat anything if she was offered. All she knew was that she wouldn't be going back home any time soon... it was far too dangerous now.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Welcome home," Valentine said to the resting Letitia, as the truck they both sat in rumbled through the gates of Cocytus. He stepped out of the truck, gesturing for her to follow him; when she stood beside him (after some time - she looked completely exhausted) he gestured towards the stairs leading up to the network of gantries on the roof.
He pulled his coat a little tighter over his shoulders; it was a few degrees below zero in here, the cooling equipment pumping into Abyss Walker still humming away. He realised that he'd need to get Letitia some warmer clothes fast; he went over the female members of the organisation, trying to work out who was both in Letitia's size and, well, not dead.
Come to think of it, for a group numbering close to a hundred people with a 40% female substance, that was a pretty damned short list.
"One of the side-offices up there has a shower," he said, still pointing at the gantries. "Don't think that hot water's working yet, though, so keep it quick. I'll have some bedding set up somewhere of your choosing up there. A hot meal, maybe, if you're so inclined."
Come to think of it, it hadn't been four hours since they last ate - yet Valentine already felt starving. Combat did that to you - digestion slowed down during, but his body compensated immediately afterwards.
As they'd entered, another batch of heavy-duty trucks moved out with gear for hauling Letitia's Reaper - due to its lightweight construction, moving it was a much easier prospect than doing the same to Abyss Walker. And at any rate, maintaining, arming and moving a Reaper with little more than bubblegum and shoelaces was sort of Childhood's End's specialty by now.
It occurred to him that, at the very least, Letitia's Reaper hadn't been hooked up to cooling systems like Abyss Walker had - unsurprising, given its more recent construction. Abyss Walker, despite its abnormally high performance for its age, still had its fair share of disadvantages - for starters, it was absurdly high-maintenance, and was intended to be have a thousand-strong support battalion.
It had taken years of practice and training to manage to get it to run with this few people, and even then, 'run' was overstating matters most of the time - keeping the thing online was a matter of lurching from one mechanical disaster from the next.
"Gives it character," he muttered to himself, with a faintly bemused smile.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
"Home, huh? It's been a while since I called anything that," she shifted herself ever so slowly out of the truck. It was so cold, never in her life had she wanted to curl up in a ball and die. At the same time, the cold felt good on her stuff muscles and she wrapped her jacket around her tightly.
In her tired state she was barely taking anything in, she just wanted to sleep. "Shower's the least of my worries right now. I can barely stand for more than a few minutes," She was already leaning against the truck, legs still shaky. Part of her wondered if she was ever going to feel better. "Is it always this bad the first time? I haven't felt like this since I was 9 and went through my first round of boot camp with my grandfather..."
She wasn't sure she ever wanted to get back into Eden yet she knew she needed to in order to fight. It was no longer an option. This was her new reality, and it was a lot darker than she had ever imagined it. Still she tried to find some idle humor. "Well, already bringing me home after the first 'date'? You move fast sir," she teased, rubbing her temples a bit. The nap had done her more damage than good. She felt even more burnt out than she had while they were packing up and heading out. "Just show me where to sleep. It doesn't matter where at this point. Can I keep Bot with me though?"
She had brought her drone with her... it was the closest thing she had to a friend and she wanted it to stay with her if possible. Everything was changing so quickly and she wasn't sure how to handle it without some sort of stability.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Home.
Valentine realised that the concept had never really found any traction with him. He'd spent his whole life moving, running, fighting. Killing. Even back in Kyoto, he'd slept near Abyss Walker - it was, in a strange way, the only thing he could possibly trust there.
Perhaps that was his home. Abyss Walker - the monster that loomed over them, even now, its black, angular stealth panelling shining in the dark. Far less humanoid - far less human - than Letitia's; becoming more a part of him with each passing day. Perhaps he belonged with it.
But he could not admit such a defeat yet.
"Often worse," he said, looking back at her to answer her question. "Most don't survive. If you had not been a Human-PLUS graduate, you certainly wouldn't have. It takes years of training and partial syncing to be ready. You did well."
He began making his way over to the stairway up to the gantries that hovered above the vast space - as with most of this structure, it was simple, crudely-constructed, left over from the chamber's days as a factory floor. Nothing up there but a few beds and tables, along with the bathrooms left over from before (which, at least, had saved them the protracted and awkward effort of setting up some of their own). He gestured for her to follow him; he walked close enough to her to catch her if she fell, concerned for her exhaustion.
He couldn't help but smile a little at her joke. First Atlas, now her - accusing him of being in a relationship was starting to catch on. Amusing, endearing, in a faintly childish way. Still, it made him smile, and not many things could.
Eventually, they made their way onto the gantries; the steel grate flooring gave one the occasional impression when they looked down that they would plunge a hundred feet to their deaths. Although in their several months of being here, the floor hadn't even come close to giving way, thankfully. Not everything in this world was trying to kill them, it seemed.
He glanced around, spotting a mattress once occupied by one of the Tracer pilots, a few platforms across from the rest. She'd once slept with her husband, but after he'd been killed during a gang fight, she'd just slept apart from the rest of them out of habit. He recalled surprisingly little of her, save admiring her for continuing to fight after losing so much. Her cockpit had been cleaved in two by the plasma blade of a Sentinel; from appearances, she'd been vaporised instantly.
Had she remembered him?
"You can sleep there," he said. "It's a little apart from the rest of us, so you won't be bothered. I can have you left well enough alone. We're good people here."
Just like Atlas said.
The good guys.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
For Letitia everything was different here than what she was used to. It was so cold, and everyone seemed so on edge. It was like they were anticipating a fight that may or may not come anytime soon. The young woman found it a bit sad really. Her world was full of beautiful people that were always too busy having fun or gorging themselves on food to care about what was going on outside their own little worlds... A truck could have hit 15 people and everyone would have shrugged it off and kept walking.
The walk up he gantries was no easy feat, yet she took a bit of pride in him telling her that she did well. It was a fate she knew she had already resigned herself to. All of the information she had been loaded with, everything that had unfolded thus far was making far more sense than she liked it to. Bot followed her silently, and she often found herself using him as a balance whenever she needed it. She didn't want to rely on Valentine more than she had to; the man was injured as well and she knew he had to be exhausted after the long day they had had.
She took notice of Abyss Walker; it was hard not to. It was huge, only the second Reaper she had seen before. "So that's your Reaper?" she wasn't directly talking to him of course, but she was mildly curious. Despite her tired, she was filled with questions she knew would have to be answered later. "After some rest I'd like to take a look at whatever's left of your Tracers and see if I can help fix them."
Her help was all she could offer until they got a chance to check out her secret base and collect what she had there. She was fairly sure that the events that had lead up to this meant she would have limited access to her money and resources for the moment. She had a plan for that though; her family had no access to any of it... and she had put plenty of her money away in places that no one could access but her.
The mattress that was offered to her wasn't glamorous; it was just that, a mattress. It didn't matter though. She could have slept on the freezing ground at that point if she had to. She flopped down unceremoniously, at the end of her own rope. "We'll have to make a plan. The rest of my resources are pretty hard to get to, and if they figured out about my labs after nearly 20 years of them never even suspecting anything like that was underneath the city, I have no doubts they'll find a way to find my warehouse," she spoke quickly and quietly. "If they find that, we're both fucked. I have money stored there and a few other places I can easily access which will help keep our arrangement going."
She was starting to drift off as she spoke and she laid back in exhaustion. "I'm sorry. I thought that place was secure. I should have known something like that was going to happen. I shouldn't have asked your men to protect something that was my responsibility to protect all along."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Valentine followed Letitia's gaze up to the Reaper, its small, angular head's crimson visor of visual sensors almost completely black in its inactivity. It looked completely different to hers; where Letitia's Reaper (still unworthy of a name, whatever the girl claimed) was slim, lithe and feminine, Abyss Walker was hulking, with impossibly broad shoulders and thick, streamlined legs. Four thin wing-like protrusions of its angular flight pack poking out at angles behind it, long coolant pipes draining out of the shoulders, hooked up to the network of life support around it. One of the earliest prototype Reapers - a fusion of the abominable, preternatural hatred of the Entities and the pinnacle of conventional human warfare.
"I wouldn't say that it's mine," he said, looking up at it, voice soft and contemplative. "Possession implies control. I'm not so arrogant as to presume that I can control it."
She flopped down on the mattress; scavenging that which was once another's. That was all this world was. Nothing new was made here. Just trying to get whatever use they could out of a secondhand planet.
"Your assistance with the Tracers would be most appreciated. We've also got some Sentinels in need of a serious overhaul before they're in combative condition," he said, thankful for her help. He knew the basics of mechanics, but most of his knowledge was in how to maintain a Reaper - skills that didn't exactly translate to the far less esoteric units.
After she was finished, he found himself sitting down, leaning against the railing on the gantry; he himself was exhausted, although by no means to the extent that she was. "We'll go looking for your laboratory tomorrow. I'll find a way to do so without getting half my men killed this time."
He caught himself then, realising how tactless he'd been - especially given her subsequent statement. It clicked - she wasn't used to this. He didn't know if she'd ever killed anyone before today. Thousands had fallen to him, either by his hands or acting on his orders. He'd watched countless men march to their deaths, sacrificed them universally and willingly.
He wanted to tell her that it wasn't her fault, but he didn't, because it wasn't true - not entirely, at least. If she'd been a little less confident of how well-hidden her lab was, his men would still be alive. But at the same time, they'd gone there in his orders - and that didn't bother him in the slightest.
"This is war," he sighed, voice cold; he wasn't angry, probably too tired for that, but couldn't keep the iciness from his tone. "People die. It's what happens. Get used to it."
He forced himself to his feet, looking out over the gigantic chamber; he momentarily hoped that the trucks didn't get caught out while transporting Letitia's Reaper. Dark eyes flickered over the men scurrying about, working coolant lines and treating wounded.
"Men lost friends today, Letitia," he exhaled, looking away from her. "I lost friends. If you want to make it up to us, then stand by our side. The second you woke that Reaper up, this war - this world - became your problem."
He turned back to her, staring into her, through her, voice bitter and detached - harsher than he knew he should have been, but unable to summon up the will to cease.
"Make sure it's worth the price we paid."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The coldness should have upset her, but it didn't. She recalled him mentioning he had been around a long time; he was probably used to war and death and destruction. She stared at him tiredly and waited for him to end his monologue. She just wanted to sleep... the sooner she slept the sooner she could begin working on whatever she needed to work on. "I'm pretty adept in working on Sentinels. My mom was a pilot. She did a lot of the upkeep for it herself. Paranoia, didn't trust anyone else to touch it. She taught me pretty well despite being batshit crazy for most of my life."
She took a moment to fully take in her surroundings. Chill was just starting to settle in now that she had stopped moving, but she didn't even care. She knew this was a war. She knew people died. It didn't mean she had to like it when it was directly caused by her. She also knew she couldn't prevent it, no matter what her resources were... she just cared a lot more that her uncles had ever cared about their servants or military dogs. "I know what war is, Valentine. War is what made my mother lose her mind after watching her brother's Sentinel get cleaved in half when she was only the same age as me. I may not have lost a lot of people to this war, but that's because I don't have friends or much family that I give a shit about to lose. I never let myself get that close to anyone... I knew someday it was going to be taken away from me, whether it be because I threw myself into the fight or because my asshole of an uncle decided to take it from me."
The woman sat back up with effort and stared at him. "I swore I would do everything I could to put an end to this war, and if piloting that Reaper gets me any farther than what anyone else has gotten so far, then I'll do it until there's nothing left of me. I'm not all false hope and innocence. I know this will probably be the death of me, but I have a lot less to lose than most people and a hell of a lot more to give than some... Don't doubt my intentions or my alignment. I made an enemy out of my family today. I don't have anywhere else to go."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
She's cold. Again, interesting - a common effect of XK-CULTIVATOR had been a lack of ability to grow truly attached. He'd liked the men who'd died, for certain - he would've counted them as much friends as anyone he'd ever known. But he didn't care. He'd already accepted their deaths; his first thought had been how to replace them. He didn't connect, not with anyone.
And that suited him just fine.
And was she the same? That was the question at hand. Perhaps she could be, in time. A terrible, terrible thought - but a necessary one? Maybe. Another Reaper could be exactly the edge he'd been looking for in this quest. But a Reaper was only ever as good as its pilot.
He let her finish talking, taking careful note of her phrasing. So, she was one of them, then - that was her statement. She was on their side, by virtue of having no-where else to go. From a given perspective, this was his doing - his approaching of her being what started this chain of events.
Necessary sacrifices.
"Then you've shown me your answer," he stated, walking away; he'd check over the situation, debrief the fireteam from the Sky District, and then sleep. However, at the last second, he stopped, and turned back to her, his voice a paradoxical mixture of smirking and solemn.
"Welcome to Childhood's End."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
