As Isaac stumbled forward, the guns continued to blare. Most of the marines on the train had their attention directed toward the new Restorationist assault from the meadows; any of them that fired on Zou Mei had their bullets blocked by her metal shields. She used her magnetism to launch one at a train car, creating a cloud of smoke and shrapnel that temporarily put the marines there out of action.
In class, Isaac had been taught the role of cultivators in modern war - shock troopers. This kind of usage became standard during the war referenced by Dai Hong that brought Arcadia to its knees. When both sides became bogged down by trench warfare, cultivators used their abilities to cross no man’s land and infiltrate the enemy side. By the end of the war, Arcadia ended up use cultivators as mobile fortresses; however, the enemy answered in turn with tanks, planes, and an endless stream of conscripts that eventually forced Arcadia to surrender.
But still - to read about the theoretical power of a cultivator in battle and seeing one in person was another thing entirely. Multiple marine platoons guarded the train, yet Zou Mei continued her advance barely impeded. Even Reed’s wound on her thigh didn't seemed to slow her down. At the front of the train, the marines barely held off an assault by heavily armed rebels; waiting in the wings to take over the locomotive were men in goggles and glasses. Zou Mei’s intentions were made clear when she sent an iron spike at the train; it smashed the coupler connecting the front cars to the car over the damaged part of the tracks.
She’s getting close to hijacking the train!
Isaac took a deep breath and soldiered on. When Zou Mei arrived at the largest container, he blasted an electric charge at her. Without even looking, she sidestepped out of the way, with the charge blasting a metal shield she threw up. When she launched a sharp hunk of metal his way, Isaac didn’t have the strength to dodge it. Instead, he powered up a fist and smacked it into the ground when it arrived. Stingers surged up his arm; bloody scrapes covered his knuckles.
“You again,” she murmured. Isaac had been too busy fighting for his life in Four Eagles to notice, but she spoke the Common language without a trace of a Zhanghai accent. She tilted her head in recognition, her spiky black hair bouncing off her shoulders. “Surprised I don’t have the accent? I’m not from the old country-”
An electric blast interrupted her. Isaac didn’t have time for this. She ducked underneath the ranged attack and dashed toward Isaac.
By striking my wounds, she can paralyze parts of my body-
She struck his wounds and paralyzed parts of his body. He just got concussed and wounded by a tank shell to the face, after all. A palm strike to the knuckles disabled a hand; a spinning back kick to the gash on his temple simply made him collapse to his back. She didn’t finish him off; instead, she stood over him for a moment, utterly calm despite the continuing battle around her.
“Out of respect for my comrade’s wishes, I’ll leave you alive,” she said. Isaac didn’t understand her meaning, but he couldn’t move his jaw to ask her. He also didn’t know which Zou Mei to ask, since he currently saw three of her.
All of them twirled a strand of black hair around their fingers before tossing it away. She spoke in a distant voice, or perhaps the concussion made her sound like she stood on the other side of the continent. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. Perhaps it’s for my comrade, too. To help you join our side. Or perhaps it’s because you’ve been to Four Eagles and will understand my plight. The military doesn’t touch that ghetto, after all. It was triad territory, then it was Zhanghai territory, and now it’s my territory.”
Zou Mei jabbed a thumb at herself. “Dai Hong is my father. Back then, he was just another faceless bureaucrat for Zhanghai working here. He had me with a woman working for a brothel in Four Eagles. He said he’d take her and I home with him. He never did. But I’m one tough son of a bitch and took over a triad. And then, when he came back as head of the Arcadian branch, he had the audacity to seek me out with an offer. He’ll give me Zhanghai backing in taking over all of Four Eagles. In exchange, he gets a cut of the drugs I sell for the Restorationists, and I send him a labor force.”
Somewhere, in his hazy daze, Isaac heard Derry barking out orders. The gunfire intensified around the front locomotive.
The woman standing over him just gave a self-satisfied chuckle. “If he’s using me, I don’t care, because I’m using him. He doesn’t care for Arcadia. But me? This is my home. Not faraway Zhanghai. So, I’m going to help bring it towards Kallipolis. And it all starts with the Heart.”
Still paralyzed, Isaac could only watch as Zou Mei stepped up to the front of the container with the atomic symbol on it. Despite the reality of the situation, his heart still skipped a beat when she slashed the lock and opened it. Derry cried out in desperation; the Restorations let out a cheer; Zou Mei gazed inside.
After a moment, she let out another chuckle, this one far more amused and far more empty. She slowly closed the container door, only to instead rip it off its hinges entirely. She levitated it over her head as she sauntered back over to Isaac. As she walked, red sparks ran up and down the door, stripping it, whittling it, until it turned into a sharp metal shard. When she got close, Isaac realized it had his name on it.
“So, this was all a trap to get us into the open,” Zou Mei realized. “We should have known. Damn it all.” She peered down at Isaac with cold eyes. “And damn my comrade’s feelings. This is for blowing me up in Four Eagles.”
Isaac’s breathing slowed down as the sharpened metal shard tilted toward his heart. Last time he came this close to dying - about five minutes ago - he had thought about the time he went to the movies with his comrades. This time, his eyes just went wide and all he thought was fuckin’ A!
The shard came down. And then bullets ripped through Zou Mei.
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The metal fell onto the grass out of harm's way. Zou Mei stumbled to one knee. Blood stained her qipao.
Behind Isaac, Reed stood, half her face burned off, her stupid pistol in a bloody hand. She fired until the gun clicked empty; the shells littered the ground below her. She tottered forward, but remained standing. The empty clip fell to the grass.
“I use a gun.”
Upon hearing that, Zou Mei gave Reed a snarl that mixed wounded animal with cornered prey. But then the cavalry arrived; a familiar droning sound came over the horizon. Isaac managed to shift his eyes and felt his spirits rise. A formation of Fenner attack planes sped towards the train, flying close enough to the ground for Isaac to see the excited grins on the pilot’s faces. All at once, their weapons opened up, a symphony of rattling machine guns that absolutely tore through the meadow. The marines cheered their flyboys on; one pilot raised his fist in solidarity. While some broke off for another pass, others headed toward the forest and unleashed a torrent of bombs into the trees.
The game was up. The look on Zou Mei’s face indicated the Restorationists couldn’t compete with firepower like this. She herself, even if perfectly healthy, would have had trouble dealing with planes. So, she decided to make her escape, starting with shooting off the spikes of her iron claw at Reed.
Like Isaac, she was too wounded to dodge, so she simply took a spike to the shoulder. She fell to the grass close enough to him for her messy hair to spill over his face. Through the unkempt strands, he saw Zou Mei limp to the container, place a palm on it, and sent everything she had into it. Red lights erupted throughout the container as her magnetism tore it all apart, and then everything exploded into the sky and across the grass, and everything went black.
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When Isaac awoke this next time, he saw a smoldering rock next to him. For some reason, it called to him; he couldn’t help but reach his hand out-
Another hand swatted it away. A nearby man dressed in a hazmat suit shook his head. “Don’t touch anything. The explosion sent atomic material flying everywhere. It’ll take days to clean this up.”
Isaac gave a distant nod at his words; he was more focused on being able to reach his arm out and nod. His legs still remained paralyzed, so he just sat up. He let out a sigh of relief; Reed still sat next to him. A corpsman wrapped bandages around her head while she slowly smoked a cigarette reading STUCK IN THE MIDDLE WITH YOU. When the doctor tightened the bandages, she flinched so hard Isaac thought she’d tumble over and pass out, but she caught herself at the last second. Her shoulder was a mess as well; the doctor still had some work to do. As for Isaac himself; another corpsman came by to work on his head wound.
Isaac tried to stand. “We gotta find Babs-”
“I’m okay.” With tepid steps, Babs approached them. Outside of a few scratches where Zou Mei’s wires got her, she looked no worse for the weary. “Zou Mei flung me at the forest, but once the bombs fell, I was able to escape in the chaos.” She lowered her head. “I’m sorry, guys. Once again, I mess up and get away unscathed while you two end up looking like hammered shit.”
Reed let out an amused exhale. Isaac just mumbled, “Yeah.” He looked away, not wanting to see her.
Lieutenant Derry arrived with his arms held wide. “I’m glad you lot made it out okay! That one was closer than I would’ve liked.”
Some of the planes still circled overhead. The train itself looked heavily busted up, with the track below it shredded. Further down the track, steam blew out of another train that must've just arrived; this one brought with it the medics, men in hazmat suits, and additional engineers. It would likely take them home soon enough as well.
“Did you find anything?” Reed asked.
A grim nod replaced Derry’s jovialness. “You were right. A lot of the Restorationists had August Storm pills on them.”
“August Storm?” Babs asked.
“Strong uppers,” Reed answered. “You can fight longer, take more damage, clear your head of all thoughts besides combat and the mission.” She gave a wry grin. “Some people like to use it carnally.”
The subsequent chuckles made her wince in pain. As Derry helped Reed to the additional train and the corpsman finished his work on Isaac, Babs extended her hand in offer. “Should we go back?”
He could feel his legs again, so Isaac looked at that hand. He tried to see with the same eyes he had after that night of dancing with her, or even the other night by the bay, but so much had happened since then. Nevertheless, he decided to take it, wanting to savor that feeling.
“Yeah…let’s go back.”
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No checkers this time. The train ride was utterly quiet as everyone licked their wounds. Only Reed occasionally hacking her lungs out when she took too much of a drag broke the silence. Babs asked Isaac a couple of questions and made a couple of jokes, but he wasn’t in the mood to answer them. She must’ve recognized this because she spent the majority of the train ride looking at her own shoes.
When the train arrived back at the depot, a truck took them back to the base. Several companies armed new barricades and guideposts outside Elizabeth Pond; it took a few minutes for the truck to be waved inside through the gates. The gate shut closed behind the truck right after it entered; the stone walls of the base loomed large. Activity was at a minimum. Nobody trained on the fields, no soldiers loitered around talking. Cultivator patrols escorted the truck to where hundreds of marines awaited them. Stockham, flanked by Osip and Shokahu, waited front and center.
Babs helped Reed out of the truck while Isaac fell in beside them. Derry followed after, making a mumbled comment about a hero’s welcome.
“I’ve heard there was quite the battle,” Stockham simply said in a neutral voice. “We’ll have much to discuss. Shokahu, escort Derry and his men to the barracks. Reed, corpsmen will escort you to the hospital with the other walking wounded. Osip will escort Spallacio and Morang to the operations room where we’ll have the debriefing.”
Before the marines could all scurry off with their orders, Isaac stepped forward. His mind and heart were at war; emotion won out.
“General, with all due respect…can Babs and I bring Reed to her room first? She, um…has something there she might want to bring with her to the hospital so she can work on it.”
Reed gave him a weird look, then shrugged. “Yeah, might be good to have some reading material.”
Stockham and Isaac locked eyes. They were still General and Midshipmen - the top commander and recruit - but Stockham said their relationship had moved beyond such differences. They were connected now, because if one fell, the other would, too. They needed each other, and perhaps that’s why Stockham slowly sighed.
“I see. Squad 3 has been through several missions now. No doubt, your bond is strong. Very well. You have five minutes. Osip will escort you there.”
Isaac gave a crisp salute. With the orders delivered, everyone there rushed off to fulfill them. Osip’s big frame cast a large shadow on the cadets as they headed toward the apartment. Once there, he crossed his arms. After Reed and Babs entered, he held out a beefy arm to stop Isaac. They briefly shared a look, one full of understanding.
Then Isaac stepped inside and closed the door behind him.