A breeze, cool but full. A gritty sharpness in toe as it gently ebbed against the ridge like a shore line. Grasses tanned to golden waves on the last of the sun’s light, and lapping at islands of rust. The distance expansive, stretching road far beyond visibility. And all of it marked and marred by death massed in broken formation. A graveyard of honor. Of a battle long over. Full of heroes and villains few would remember.

But Micha knew them. Because this was his dream, and his nightmare.

Other Mark 90s, old Mark 85s still proudly bearing their conventional cannons, enemy mechs known simply by code names. Fennec, Hyena, Wolf. Purpose denoted and worked out by experience. Rivals in claiming this world rent asunder. The old enemy or just fellow survivors, it didn’t matter. They wanted what they… what he had.

A grass fire cloaking their approach, an ambush laid out across this massive field, a swarm of light mechs harassing and opening up his column for their heavies to pick apart. But their opening shot was directed straight at him, and took more than he…

Yeah... Now isn’t the time to start reliving old wounds. No matter how numb that hand feels right now. But still, he remembered enough of this. Enough of why he ended up in on this field. And probably why it’s been so long since he’d been disturbed. It’s hard to say anyone made it out of here alive… or still themselves.

A Mark 90 sat slumped at the base of the ridge, its round hull peeled open in thick rinds. A Fennec just opposite, sharp pointed nose for speed rounded into rusting cross section by overwhelming velocity. A Wolf, still bearing a tattered banner on its antenna, drowns in the darkening sea. Pike nose first. A Mark 85 fallen opposite, yet to the wayside like it had been pushed to clear a path. So many units, so much metal, so much death long decayed away. But so much of it missing still.

The units close to the ridge were allowed none of their armaments, the more solid frames stripped for parts and armor nearly wholesale. Hollowed out shells and ripped open skeletons desecrated for their power and strength. Or dragged away to continue fighting this war. Whether they know what it was about or not.

How many followed him in, beat the ground in his frantic tracks? Tilled it with heavy ordinance and watered it with blood. Or ended up succumbing to The Green like he did. How many of those ferals were his comrades? His enemies? Was the one he killed someone he’d known? There he goes asking questions again, but at least it means he’s still holding on.

That softened ground met him at every step, the shrapnel and bones long buried and hidden away. His thieves far from here and everything that it represented. But he would have to linger here by simple misfortune of mortal means. At least the paint and markings had long since been rubbed away. So he didn’t have to come to grips with knowing more certain who was buried here. But still hollow names crept out from the fog to make him worry all the same.

Maytag was watching his back, her little washing machine full of guns always pulled a chuckle when he saw it. She was old enough to feel like a den mother to the squad, always making sure things were getting done. Or that no one was getting left behind.

Her niece Matlock was an exception, she was stuck back at base still working through training. Micha knew her fox bearing an old gun and a bit too much cleavage wasn’t out here. But still he couldn’t help remember seeing her mouth off about being commander someday, and celebrate in the cringiest way possible when she got the tiniest bit of admiration.

Dino was the point man that day, and a soldier from well before the proverbial shit hit the fan. Stories out the wazoo and gumption to tell them over and over till you were begging him to stop. And his crotchety old lizard in a rocking chair always made… always made Rachael laugh.

Something else filtering up between the cracks, similarity and familiarity parting the fog. Red hair cradled in his arms just out of sight, being given a tour of the rows of mechs awaiting their need. Micha pointing out the nose art for her to judge…

Well at least the ones that were appropriate.

Her giggle and shrink making every artist proud by proxy. The lines stretching on and on in his mind, like he didn’t want the memory to end. But a weightless hold and gust of flaking rust blinked it away. Leaving him stranded in the darkened reality beside what all that force meant.

Beside another grave to mark the path that war sets. A sober deceleration, and uneven breath to realign. The Mark 85’s scars shining in the rising dim moonlight, yet it still held tight to its ruined force. Its guns splayed and shattered. The hull still holding, but marred by taken plating. Its dearth a sign to keep moving and keep going. And a serendipitous reminder that this place was both memorial and armory to those still fighting that war.

The one that made its reality more substantial.

A clanking roar echoed off the wind, a sound known too well by the way it shifts down to almost a laugh. The lumbering expression of the extent of metal, squealing gyro wishing for death as it was smooshed by too much power necessary. A unit twice the size of his mark 90 and twice as armed as the rest, four legs sucking all the power they could manage. But offering a platform more a kin to a mobile bunker. And a scavenger of everything broken before it.

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A Hyena awakening from decades of slumber, or sooner as its markings became clear in its ill contained exhaust. Fires piped and excess heat radiant, illuminating the almost too clean red smeared into jaws across its broader pike. Whether real or show it said plainly that it would rend asunder. And leave you open to its new master’s whims.

A hatch just below the lip of that pike screeched open, featureless black hard to make out but green clear in contrasting highlight. A movement familiar, binoculars coming up to its face. A spotter and commander maintaining some semblance of doctrine. And looking far down that expansive road. Like this behemoth was just hiding away from what had just passed it by. A good sign and the absolute worst way to show it.

Micha scrambling in behind the Mark 85 before they turned their eyes on him. Just in time for that commander to free hand their surroundings. And order his less elevated out of their cover. A claw rasped at an already trenched out part of the armor, like manual morse code. A signal that they were clear and to get back to work.

But inversely it dropped Micha’s heart. A nervous peek from around his fallen comrade showing him the deep shit he’d stumbled into. A hand already reaching back to turn his radio off before it drew attention very much detrimental here.

Five forms lifted themselves out of the grass around their leader’s mech, three more from the shadows of the wrecks not far off. Their distance a good three hundred meters away but that pike front pointed well enough to intercept him. He couldn’t make a break for it, even as slow as that thing could be in its prime he couldn’t out run what it still wielded.

That twin barreled cannon couple paired to both sides, conventional but too dangerous to challenge. A separate roof mounted box supported with undoubtedly those same heavy rockets, just with even less targeting afforded. It was already stomping this regrown wasteland by the time Micha realized his only course of action. And regretted ever thinking it through in the first place.

The troop of ferals spreading out to either side, loose but still too close to risk staying put. The wrecks along their path seeming to be their prime targets, stopping some in their tracks as they scrounged for whatever they could want. But the path of that risen monstrosity clear as could be. Just a straight path between with nothing to see and nothing to care for. Meaning the only blind spot was right in front of all that firepower.

Micha was banking on its optics being degraded to all hell, for covetous eyes to be drawn away, for that commander to play taskmaster for long enough to not see him as he crawled into position. And in turn was praying to every possible god that the Hyena’s walk cycle was wide enough for him to fit between. Because that was where he was going to have to hunker down. And truly regret ever leaving his pond.

But he still had to get there, and all those eyes were scanning his way. Zipping his coat up all the way, stowing his radio as much as he could, and scooping up a handful of dirt to darken his streaks with, he was ready physically. Mentally he was just about to shake himself apart.

He was a soldier sure but piloting a mech fades a lot of that stealth training pretty quickly. Still though, it was now or never. And so he chose now. Crouching low to all fours with his pack on his chest, he submerged into the grassy sea. A sliding-by slow motion to keep the grass from parting too wide. The dim moon hardly above the opposite horizon making much of his effort outmoded, but careful he still couldn’t stop being.

The grim glow of excessive waste heat marked the Hyena nicely, and seemed to spread the troop out farther. No torches were lit either, though some small lights danced low toward the ground. An aversion or other reason couldn’t be spared the consideration, careful steps needed everything.

Every thump of one of those four legs was perfect cover, an unstable platform that would cause trouble for seeing simple movement. But Micha still scrunched in tight to every wreck on his path. The darkness suddenly lighting up as flashlights scanned over his cover, demanding even this close to shore that he stay in the shallows. A sweep to a different outcropping and he was away again. But this time keeping his eyes down and ahead. His exact spot locked on and needing to be set in stone.

A vast gap between islands, a slight trench dug into the grassy depths, a low enough fathom that even being overhead would offer little view. A spared glance at his pursuer failing hard to not stare into those barrels more than capable of turning him into fertilizer in an instant. A frozen glare catching the last of the commander’s scanning before that pike dominated over him. Micha scrunched up, side long as best he could. Arms hugged around is radio, eyes shut to just pray, body tensing with everything it had. All as that stomping behemoth bore down.

One foot before the other. The same side but reserved and pushing. Stalking. Hunting in loud order. The ground tearing up beneath cleated articulation. Stubby but like a tree trunk rooted wide. An oblong X grabbing at the ground, ripping up the seafloor and turning it to mundane crush. Each step louder than the last. Each cycle drawing that cackling gyro more into prominence until it was right in Micha’s ear.

A foot landing square in his face, rust and mud spackling its metal to near teeth. His body scrunched tighter and tighter, tail wrapping in to just be close. The whine of the other actuators perpetuating the cycle, raising the back foot high as the bulk filled the sky. Shaking as those hammering claws came down in sequence. Clumps of mud and dirt and buried debris scattered in a whine. Detritus falling like rain as that first foot came up and over, as the moment of truth came calling a name. As it came down with vengeance personified for grievance long forgotten and a toll too steep to afford with just one life.

A life spared as that foot passed him over, crushing the far end of his trenched hide with barely discernible metal on metal crunch. And its subsequent partner landing shy of his head in pre programmed gait. The two beat melody proceeding without hitch or differential. No silent squash of his tightened being. No unceremonious end to his mission. Just that cackling passing over and continuing on its way. A wave of heat pressing him down as the full brunt of the unit’s poor cooling stabbed at his lungs. Well now it’s not hard to wonder why they steer clear, but it was odd that they are even ferals with this much ambient heat surrounding them. Though even if, they wield the weapons of the enemy and Micha wasn’t about to chance that kind of encounter.

He stayed in his trench long enough for the pack to gain ground. Enough for him to poke his head up to periscope depth and spy the surface. Thankful to see that glowing monstrosity away as the night air returned in cooling breeze. And his sudden challenge averted without even- *click*

A frozen moment all over again, fear and adrenaline swirling around but forcing him taut. A painful move to turn met with the sound of tightening grip. And the barrel of a gun far closer and more ready to end his mission here and now.