The bad news was that Karu was not plugged into the fortress armor's remote feed like AEGIS was. She didn't have a shield to repel many of its attacks like I did. And she didn't know that it was slowly lumbering into the fight, one massive leg moving at a time, with the intention of killing her, specifically.

The good news was that Karu had a bunch of other shit going for her. Her visor was smart enough to warn her of incoming threats. She had agility AEGIS and I could only dream of. And weapons, maybe even enough to actually hurt it.

The question was...would she have the chance to put those to use. If the fortress armor opened up on her out of the blue and took her out in an instant…

I shook my head, I wouldn't let that happen. Still, the armor crept forward, the fight edging away from the advancing crushing feet.

I'd run out of controls to smash and there was no signs of stopping. As an unfortunate side-effect of my rampage, I couldn't tell if it was moving into range, acquiring her, or even preparing to shoot, but I had to do something.

I went to the glass and looked down at the fight below me. Instantly, I saw the traces of Karu's passing, but found it harder to get my eyes to focus on where she actually was. Aiming as best I could, I began to pepper the area around her with lightning bulbs, as small as I could manage, hoping she'd see them, or even for one to hit her.

But it wasn't that easy. She was all over the place, and I could barely keep up with her afterimage with my eyes, much less acting on it. This would have been so easy if I had my mobile or anything to call her, but I had none of that. I considered flagging Lia down and trying to convey a message through the scope of her rifle, but she was already busy making sure I didn't wind up dead, and I didn't know how I'd get the message to her, anyway. And that's assuming she wasn't tunnel-visioned in elsewhere anyway.

At long last, I did get Karu's attention, by spiking one of the Exhumans she was fighting. She glanced in my direction to see where the attack had come from, and I frantically waved at her. She hesitated in the air for a moment before flying off with a flash.

God fucking damn it all.

Something which wasn't a holo or panel in the cockpit beeped repeatedly, and then I felt the fortress armor surge under me with a pronounced explosion that tore the air. The sound of the blast continued but grew further away, and looking up and out the window, I saw a dozen or more rockets flying straight up from the armor's back.

Did she know they were coming for her? Could she evade them? Why did I have to do something so incredibly stupid and irresponsible as messing her up the freaking night before a fight? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

I watched helplessly as the missiles began to curve back towards the earth, coming towards the battlefield from all sides. I threw some lightning at them but their speed and distance was misleading. Though they looked like slivers in the air, they were actually moving stupid fast.

Stupid fast, stupid me, stupid everything. I felt stupid and slow and exhausted from climbing up a goddamn metal tower with two broken-ass legs, but wasn't sure that even at my best, I had any ideas for Karu.

I emptied my lungs screaming at her, and I thought she heard me but still refused to give me the least of her attention. The missiles were close enough now that I could see them spiraling as the descended. I only had seconds left.

I decided to do the only thing I could left. If I couldn't outsmart the situation, I would just embrace the stupid. I had no other choice.

Stepping carefully over the glass one more time, I closed my eyes and let go. I stood balanced just on the edge of the cockpit for an unsteady moment, thinking it stupid again that I'd worked so hard to get up here just to let it all go...but only for a moment, because the rest of my thoughts were more focused on such primal things as holy shit that's far.

Just...balanced on the edge. I heard the missiles ripping through the air like the sound of a VTOL, I knew what I'd made up my mind to do, my legs just refused to let me do something so monumentally moronic. I felt my throat tightening up and my heart pounding as my brain looped do it...okay...do it...NOW! ...okay...do it...NOW!

I tried to imagine I was just falling a foot into my bed, or diving into a swimming pool. Nothing worked. Frustrated with my own stupid body's refusal to leap to my death, I did the last thing I could think of.

I zapped myself, forcing my legs straight and numb, and firing me into the air over nothingness.

I'd planned to yell out to Karu again, but the shock had drained the air from me with an pained gasp instead, and so I fell, eyes still closed, the sound of the fight and the missiles and the fortress armor all drowned out by the roar of wind in my ears. My hair whipped around with such intensity that it felt like someone was pulling at it, and tears were being forced out of my eyes, even with them closed.

It felt like I fell forever. I kept thinking, man it's been a long time falling. I wasn't that high up, was I? Or maybe this was just how people say time slows down when you're about to die. I didn't know. All I could do was wait, and have faith in Karu.

And I wasn't at all surprised when I heard the familiar engines roar and felt my velocity shift violently, levelling out horizontally as strong arms under me bruised the hell out of my back.

"Ashton, what in the name of God do you think you are doing!?" she screamed. "You nearly died! Are you so pathetic, so infirm of spirit that we quarrel and you throw yourself to your death?"

"Karu, there's no time, fly away from the battle, now!" I yelled back. I opened my eyes and was startled by how close her face was. "Gah, um, I mean--"

"What?" It was amazing how much scorn she could pack into one word.

"Just fly, Karu! Trust me, please."

For a moment it looked like she just wanted to throw me the last ten feet to the ground flying past under us, but instead, she just put on another burst of speed, making my insides lurch.

It wasn't more than a few seconds before her look changed from annoyance to concern as we deserted the fight but still the missiles trailed her. I was completely unprepared as she suddenly spiraled in the air, shooting what looked like flares and snow from ports on her forearms and legs all around us.

Chaff, I remembered, visual and electromagnetic noise which might fool a guidance system of the missiles. While one or two of them did pursue the cloud, the majority stayed with her, closing by the second.

"I need to drop you!" she shouted at me over the wind. "I can scarcely move! Brace yourself!"

In response, I grabbed onto her and held fast.

"Ashton, now is not the time!" she screamed, and instead of holding me, tried wrenching me off of her, even punching me in the arm when I refused to release. "Let go, goddamned fool! Or we shall both perish!"

I was about to argue but the first missile struck us as Karu went into a spiraling descent. The missile impacted my shield and the lightning torched it, creating a small explosion which pushed us sideways through the air. The next seconds were filled with a dozen more explosions, all around us like a dramatic Hollywood escape scene, but I knew we were in no danger from the start, ever since I was there with her, I knew I could protect her. I had just wanted her to draw the missiles away from the rest of the fighters so nobody else might get hurt on accident.

She slowed us and landed, and as soon as we touched ground, she did a move which involved painfully twisting my arms and throwing me to the ground.

"Devil-cursed imbecile!" she shouted at me while I rubbed dirt out of my eyes and mouth. "Idiot of the highest caliber! You are a pox on the battlefield of the noble."

"Karu, chill," I said. "I'm sorry."

"You are sorry. What were you thinking? Hurling yourself from there. In what universe was anything you just did a reasonable course of action. How can you be so inept! Your ability to frustrate me is endless!"

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"Karu, I had to stop the missiles. I knew they were after you."

"The missiles from the vehicle you were piloting? Did you fire them on me yourself so that you could justify grabbing hold of my body? Or are you merely such an exemplar of baboonism that you fired them by mistake? Oh, or allow me to guess--after doing so, you presumed to yourself that you would gladly sacrifice yourself instead of me, as you ever do, as you have ever done. Is that so?"

"Dude, Karu, I wasn't driving, I just saw it target you and needed to protect you from them. I didn't think you could dodge that many or that fast...not if you didn't know they were coming."

"Well, how very convenient for you. When you do meet my would-be executioner, please be sure to pass along your gratitude."

"Karu, stop being such a dick. I know you're mad, I was just trying to help--"

"You dare to presume to give me orders? You. After all you have done. The gall."

"And you're here biting off my head after I just saved your life!"

"Did you expect thanks? A teary-eyed kiss where I remember the greatness that is Athan Ashton, the world's bravest Exhuman?," she spat out. "If you desire such things, find a different girl. You are good at that."

"Damn it, Karu, listen to me. Open your stupid, stubborn meat-head and realize this isn't about you and me, or us fighting, it's about me not wanting you dead, no matter what happened between us or AEGIS. It's the same reason I knew I could jump off the damn fortress armor, and knew you'd be there to catch me--because even if you hate me, you won't abandon me."

I stood up and jabbed her in the chestplate with an accusatory finger. "You might be angry, you might be prideful, you might be convinced that I'm the worst damn person in the world and want nothing to do with me ever again. But you will never let someone die who needs your help, you will never fail to saving an innocent if they are within your grasp, because you're Karu, goddamnit. Protecting those who need you is who you are."

I took a step back and took a deep breath to get myself back under control. I hadn't intended to start screaming at her in the middle of the desert. "Sorry. But I knew that, and that's why I jumped. I knew you'd save me, so I could save you."

I expected her to scream back at me, whip out some more of those brimstone-laden insults, but instead she just made a really, very unusual face under her visor and immediately turned away from me.

"W-we...we are needed...at the fight," she said, her voice wavering.

"Are you...are you crying?"

"No! Insolent...moron!" she shouted over her shoulder at me through grit teeth. She moved a hand to her neck where her choker was, and despite her words, just stood there for several long moments.

"Karu...I don't...know what's going on with...with you and me. And I want to let you have a moment if you need it...but you're right that we have to get back. Listen, the base administrator, she's bad. She's the one behind all this. We need to stop her."

"Why, because she forces you into paperwork?" Karu said weakly.

"No...she...she captured and tortured Saga. They found some way to permanently hurt her, permanently kill her, and have been using that to force Saga to brainwash Exhumans."

I watched Karu, and behind her, watched the superpowered orgy of brutality in the distance. The redeveloped, the resistance, the civilians, the XPCA, all in there, tearing and shooting and exploding at each other in the shadow of the fortress armor, so much death and pain all because of one crazy bitch and one manipulative bastard.

"Half of those Exhumans fighting," I said, "are under her control right now. That's why they're attacking the others. It was why there were disappearances in New Eden, and it might have been why everyone in there was so stressed and angry all the time."

Karu shook her head. "I had always known that unleashing Saga on the world was a mistake, but I never suspected it would be another's but her own."

"We need to drop the fortress armor, and then Targa is operating out of the hangar somewhere. If we can stop her, we can put an end to this. The brainwashed Exhumans were programmed to follow her orders personally. Maybe we can...I don't know...bring her to Saga and make her set them all free or something. But everything starts and ends with Targa."

"Very well," Karu said, her jetpack igniting for a moment before she landed again. "Ashton, a realization. If you were within the juggernaut and knew my life to be in peril, why did you not simply destroy it while you were there?"

"I tried," I said. "I smashed up everything inside I could, but with it being piloted remotely and I guess with me nowhere near the engines or anything--"

She shook her head, still facing the battlefield and away from me. "You know what I mean. The situation was perfect, yet you chose not to. Even when any hesitation might have spelled my demise, should it have chosen to use a weapon against which you could not defend."

"To EMP it, you mean?"

She didn't reply, which I took as a yes.

I hesitated, feeling caught in a lie. I hadn't wanted her to ask this question, hoped she would just gloss over my stupidity as being stupid, but she was sharper than that and I guess she knew I was as well.

Painfully, heavily, I opened my front pocket and held out a transfer core.

"This is the last remaining boot drive for AEGIS in the event she crashes," I said. "I already fried the spare and also her backup drive with an EMP before. If this one goes...when she crashes, she'll be out, until Lia can get back to her data in DC and make a new one, which might mean AEGIS is offline for days. If she dropped here in the middle of a fight and we can't get her back up...she might be helpless to be destroyed, or worse."

Karu didn't respond, just standing there with her narrow-looking back facing me, her armor too dirty and dusty to glint in the desert sun.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"You chose to expose me to imminent danger to spare her from imagined harm?"

"I'm sorry...I didn't...think of it that way. The drive is just something really important to me, so I never even really considered anything which might damage it."

She shook her head, her mane sliding around atop her visor, dust clinging to the sweat of her scalp.

"I was never even a contender, was I? In your heart, in your mind, you had picked her long before you had acted."

"I don't know," I said.

"I shall go to the fortress armor and put it down. In the future, if you have need of me, rather than finding a precipice, please find a flare or something akin to it. But…" Her voice broke slightly. "...should you happen to fall, I will catch you. If that is what is called for, I will gladly waste my life chasing you around."

And with those words, her wings unfurled and she shot into the air with a blast that knocked me on my ass. Before I knew what had even happened, she was gone from my life again.

I knew...I knew I needed to get up. But I felt like the weight of Karu's words were holding me down. I didn't know how anyone could sound so steady, so determined, but still so sad, all at once.

I was still sitting there when something moved behind me. I jumped to my feet like I'd been meaning to all along and identified the target.

I let out a sigh and let Lia wrap me in a hug.

"Hey, we're still technically fighting out here," I said.

"You are the biggest moron in the world," she said into my chest.

"I know. I just heard all this from Karu."

She pulled back and glared at me. "You think that's gonna get you out of my lecturing you?"

"No, stupid me, what was I thinking."

"Well you obviously weren't."

I endured her berating me for a minute which had a more desperate, pleading tone than the anger which fueled Karu's tirade, but did ultimately assure her that I honestly did have a fight to get back to.

"Thank you for saving me though," I said, messing up her hair.

"Hey! I am a lethal bona-fide sniper. I am a certified killing machine. Stop messing up my hair like I'm some brat."

I grinned. "You will always be some brat to me. No matter how cool you ever become, there's no getting rid of the time you peed yourself at the school assembly--"

"AAAGH!" she yelled, covering her ears. "I SHOULD HAVE LET YOU DIE."

"Love you too, sis."

"Here. Take this. But if you say one more embarrassing thing, I will shoot it off of your face." She handed me a comms which I clipped over my ear.

"Hello, testing?" I said.

"Hail," Karu complained.

"Athan!" I heard AEGIS say. "I found a bunch of weapons in a room with a bunch of uh...well...corpses, now…"

"I'm going to get back to my perch," Lia said with a wave.

"Wait, who drove you out here?" I asked.

"Uh. Me? Do I look like I have a chauffeur?"

"You aren't old enough for a license."

She rolled her eyes. "Sorry, I meant Black Shark drove me. The driver's license learner's permit opens only for Black Shark."

"You're an idiot," I said.

"You're the idiot for asking. You think I'm going to worry about a little thing like faking a driver's license after committing acts of national terrorism?"

"Uh," my brain hiccuped. "I guess not. Sorry."

"Ashton, if we could continue…"

"Right," I said, turning from Lia and heading back towards the brawl and the ominous metal beast looming over it. Without Karu to chase after, it had again defensively moved towards the hangars, but was firing its big gun and artillery at intervals, and the fight was consequently turning into a moving battle, as the resistance fled from the sudden onslaught.

"Okay guys, I think we all know the plan but one more time to be clear," I said, breathing evenly as I jogged on my defeated legs. "We bring down the fortress armor. We find Targa. We mess up Targa in the most painful ways we can imagine. We free Saga, release the redeveloped, and liberate New Eden so they can finally live with some happiness and peace. Any questions?"

"Just one," I heard a man's voice say with a cold sneer. "Chariot, just what the hell do you believe you're doing?"

"B...Blackett?" I stammered. "What...what the hell…"

"I arrive a day early for inspection and find this? My own agents inciting a rebellion against humanity?"

It only took an instant for the shock to wear off and the white-hot ball of rage I found under the annex to find its way back into my gut.

"New plan," I growled. "We kill Blackett."