For one fraught moment, Zelen pushed with all his might, willing his blade to break through the red and penetrate the black. But the Eidolon’s and the Syntropy’s strengths were evenly matched, and neither machine budged from their point of contact.
A flash of instinct. A vision of death remembered and foretold. Fighting down temptation to lean into his attack, Zelen quickthrust to his right, away from a spectre of death.
Not a moment too soon, for that was when the Vendetta’s right shoulder erupted with its third weapon: RS [HARPOON]. The spearhead flew past Zelen’s SPU and flailed harmlessly into the regathering storm.
Zelen answered with an off-balance charge of LS [BOMBARDIER]. It was an overly hopeful attempt, one dodged easily by the Vendetta’s own quickthrust.
Even as Zelen backthrust to relative safety, he cursed his own impatience. More than that, however, he raged at his enemy’s audacity. The Syntropy hadn’t stopped at producing an Eidolon replica; they’d also gone and copied Zelen’s favourite armament!
In any case, he now knew three-fourths of the enemy’s loadout: RA [GLADIUS], RS [HARPOON], and LS [MISSILE LAUNCHER]. It seemed—just like Zelen himself—the Vendetta had opted to forgo shields, but the question remained as to what its left arm weapon might be.
Before Zelen could make any guesses, the Vendetta opened fire, this time with LS [MISSILE LAUNCHER]. A dozen red homing projectiles scattered into the ashstorm before focusing their trajectories onto the Eidolon.
Zelen ducked under the flight of the missiles, then thrust forward. He approached the enemy from its right, peppering it with LA [GATLING] as he did. His own RA [GLADIUS] was still on cooldown, and he had to assume that would also be the case for the Vendetta. Considering it'd also be fresh out of RS [HARPOON], this angle would get him closest to his opponent while remaining relatively safe from a counter. The only thing he had to watch out for was that unconfirmed fourth—
With a flash of murderous red, the Vendetta’s left arm sent out a wave of energy. This wave snaked through the air at lightning speed before solidifying into a crescent-shaped blade, poised to intersect squarely with Zelen’s flight path.
Forced into checking his approach, Zelen quickthrust in the opposite direction. A moment too late, as the trailing LA [GATLING] was caught by the crescent. The Eidolon’s left arm, cleaved clean off at the elbow, sank into the ashen haze, even as the rest of Zelen flew directly into the homing missiles from earlier.
Down an arm. Ate (embarrassingly enough) a faceful of missiles. The Reiter didn’t need his Spiegel to explain how badly his fight was going.
LA [GATLING] amputated! AU is down to 45% after that sequence. Zelen, please—
“What was that?”
I… don’t know. It appears the Vendetta doesn’t merely duplicate existing Eidolon designs.
“Well, now we know. Even though… I have this weird feeling I should’ve already known.”
Never mind that, Zelen! You’ve lost half your armour and one of your armaments. Perhaps the sensible thing would be to—
“Finish this fight. Because I just saw how I’m going to win.”
Was it bravado? Perhaps a little. Mostly, however, it was a certainty born of instinct, experience, and bloodlust.
The Vendetta sealed its fate the moment it showed its entire hand while failing to make good on its finisher. Now the Reiter pointed his one-armed phantom toward his obsidian quarry and the death that loomed clearer than ever.
Once again, the Syntropy was the first to re-open the fight. With all four armaments back online, it began by firing off a volley of LS [MISSILE LAUNCHER], intent on harrying its opponent toward finisher range.
Zelen obliged, not that he had much of a choice. With [GATLING] gone, he now had at his disposal an area-of-effect weapon in LS [BOMBARDIER], a ranged finisher or gap-closer in RS [HARPOON], and a melee finisher in RA [GLADIUS]. [BOMBARDIER] wouldn’t do much against an agile single unit, [HARPOON] required set-up, and [GLADIUS] would put him at risk of the opponent’s melee counter.
The only real option left to him was to play the dutiful prey and bait the predator into committing first. To that end, he glided away from the homing missiles and toward the Vendetta’s left side. At the same time, he raised his intact right arm, feinting a melee attack.
The Vendetta bit the bait. It flicked its left arm, once more summoning a wave of red murder that then converged into a crescent blade. This Zelen met with a resolute swing of RA [GLADIUS], splitting the crescent into tongues of fading energy that grazed the Eidolon’s frame. In the absence of a shield, a well-placed blade could also do the trick.
Now two of the Vendetta’s armaments were on cooldown, and as long as Zelen stayed out of melee range, he could bait out—
A spearhead with a trailing chain. RS [HARPOON], imbued with Syntropic red energy. The Reiter himself had fired this exact weapon a thousand times, but never before had the sight of it filled him with such cold fury.
Zelen stopped mid-air, braced himself, and let the [HARPOON] hit him.
The spearhead buried itself into the Eidolon’s left shoulder with a resounding crash. At the same time, Zelen reached across with his good hand, grabbed the [HARPOON]’s chain, and pulled with all his might.
Even as the spearhead and its chain faded from view, sheer momentum proved sufficient to send the Vendetta careening through the air. Off-kilter and out-of-control, the Syntropy nevertheless turned to its only recourse, with its right arm now glowing with a red [GLADIUS]. By then, however, Zelen had the firm upper hand.
“I’ll show you how it’s done.”
First, the ghost-blue spear of RS [HARPOON] tore through the Vendetta’s central chassis, with the impact also halting its melee charge. Next, a savage kick sent it reeling, and that was enough opening for Zelen to lean in for the coup de grâce.
He reached, with his bare hand, into the gaping wound left behind by the fading [HARPOON]. He then grabbed as much of the Syntropy’s innards as he could handle, before wrenching his fist in an upward motion.
The Vendetta folded in on itself as the Eidolon ripped its insides to shreds. Zelen’s fist eventually came up for air at the base of the neck, causing the Syntropy’s SPU to flop to the side and barely hang on by a mechanical sinew.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
Zelen let go of the Vendetta, and watched its lifeless obsidian body crumble and disappear into the ashstorm.
Elation was redemption was vengeance. And yet—
Vendetta eliminated, Zelen. But… at what cost? Will you finally heed my warning and remove yourself from battle?
Yet no sooner had he watched one enemy fall did Zelen thrust himself back into the storm, seeking the next enemy to die at his hand.
What are you doing? Your AU is at 16%! Surely, the next engagement would kill you!
“The mission isn’t done,” he snarled, barely able to hear himself over a rush of blood. “Have you found that generator yet?”
No, Zelen. Enough is enough. I refuse to aid your madness any further.
“Then I’ll find it myself.”
He continued his flight along the curvature of the shield. The red mist had well and truly descended. He saw nothing of the green morsel that remained of his Armour Units, nothing of the dwindling pale blue of his Energy Reserves, nor of the red dots that gathered in numbers across the radar display.
He saw only ash. Ash and the deaths that beckoned from beyond the planet’s haze.
The Syntropy found him first. More red munitions flew across the sky, all converging upon the lone Eidolon behind enemy lines. Zelen dodged them all, but even as he did, death painted the sky with evergrowing density.
Multiple enemy units ahead! And… and there are more of them, Zelen. More Vendetta. I place your chance of survival at 0%. I beg of you, please turn back…
“I can’t.”
You can and you must. To proceed can only be suicide.
“I can’t! I have to finish this! I can’t rely on anyone else. You won’t under—”
I understand perfectly, Reiter Athelstan. I understand better than anyone else possibly could. I’ve been your mirror for four years. I saw every moment, every choice, every death that led us here. And if you won’t do this for yourself, then do it for me. Please, Zelen… I’m not ready to lose you.
Sorrow. Fear. Yearning. Love. Love and the endless void that awaited beyond the planet’s haze.
Extraneous emotions. Distracting thoughts. Everything Zelen had tried to shed. Everything that stopped him short of becoming a perfect warrior. That and more now spread through every fibre of his being until they weighed down his progress, until they threatened to break down his bridge to the Nexus.
A beam of red energy shot through the storm and blew more pieces off the Eidolon’s decomissioned left arm.
… AU down to 9%, Zelen. More enemies incoming.
“Arrrrrrgggggggghhhh…”
With an anguished scream that only he and his Spiegel could hear, Zelen turned tail and ran. He thrust himself back into the ashstorm, this time to seek its protection.
With every lurch into the storm, more of the red mist washed away, until all that remained—all that he could hold onto—were the emotions that could only distract from his mission.
~January 8th, 140 AH~
~Joint Base Akra, Kurator Corps HQ, Colonel Shiranui’s office~
Zelen leaned back on the steel folding chair and tapped his foot incessantly, waiting for his Kurator to finish making his notes. Yuito Shiranui wore his usual frown as pen raced across notebook, but the young Reiter couldn’t care less about the words this pen might’ve conjured. If anything, he was more preoccupied with the underside of his left elbow, where some irritation still remained from an earlier cannulation.
More out of agitation than a real sense of curiosity, Zelen scanned the bare-bones office of the Kurator Corps Commander. An near-complete lack of personal effects: not even pictures of the man’s family—pictures of… Zelen’s fiancée.
Even in his distracted state, Zelen had to let out an incredulous snort. He couldn’t even remember the last time the thought of marriage had entered his mind. And it couldn’t have been farther from his priorities as he waited impatiently for Colonel Shiranui to dismiss him.
Zelen needed to be dismissed from this charade before his day could begin in earnest. Before he could finally get to the only reason he’d returned to the JFB at all: a meeting with Fenix Duodecim.
Eventually, a barely concealed sigh announced that Yuito was ready to begin the debrief. The older man first took the time to switch from bifocals to single-vision glasses—further adding to Zelen’s irritation—before fixing his permanent frown upon his subject.
“Let me start by saying,” he spoke slowly, “that I’ll have to inform the General of your borderline seditious comments about him and the Joint Forces’ leadership structure. Even if your words were the unfortunate byproducts of heightened emotion, I have a duty to—”
“I believed every word I said,” Zelen cut in, absent any and all hesitation. “And sure, inform the General to your heart’s content, sir. I have nothing to hide from him.”
That of course wasn’t entirely true, but Colonel Shiranui also didn’t need to know that.
Yuito’s expression didn’t change, but he let his silence linger for a moment before he gave a barely perceptible nod. “So be it. I’ll let the General himself be the judge of what to do with that information. There is, however, still the matter of your Spiegel.”
“What about my Spiegel?”
“I’ve learned over the years not to question your over-familiarity with Spiegel Delta-Upsilon. If the General is happy with your results on the battlefield, it’s not my place to interfere. However, this latest exchange is… unusually concerning. First, this notion that you wish to end the war specifically in service of your Spiegel. In order to… what was it, liberate her? What exactly is the thinking behind this?”
“What’s strange about that? If the war ends, then the Spiegels too are released from their duty, are they not?”
“In a manner of speaking, yes, but you seem to harbour a disproportionate fixation on the welfare of an… an AI entity, when there are far more—”
“I care about my Spiegel, what can I say? And what does it even matter? My goals are aligned with the General’s, aren’t they? So they should also be aligned with yours… sir.”
Yuito’s frown deepened just a touch. He then changed tack, “Even putting aside your fixation with your Spiegel, your latest memory fragments show clear signs of a bidirectionality in these… irregular sentiments. Delta-Upsilon herself appears to have bought into this… this emotional bond you purport to share between the two of you. Now, whether that’s something organic or merely the result of her conforming to your delusions—”
“Really, Colonel?” Zelen blurted, barely keeping a lid on his rapidly rising temper. “I brought back intel on the construction of a new Mothership, only a year after we destroyed the last one. And this is what you want to waste my time on? Who’s the one that’s fixated? Or maybe, that snippet wasn’t enough for you? You want to spy on more of my private conversations with Silon, is that it? Go on, then. Hook me back up and have your fill. Maybe then, you’d finally leave me alone to do my job!”
Zelen hadn’t noticed himself getting to his feet, but he was looking down at his future father-in-law by the end of his outburst. Albeit the latter was tall enough that it almost didn’t matter. Indeed, Yuito maintained eye contact throughout, and continued to frown calmly as he gave his response.
“I merely wish to point out, Lieutenant, that you tread on dangerous territory. The job of a Reiter is challenging and volatile enough as it is, without needing to add… extraneous variables.”
“Great,” Zelen spat with a grimace. “Thank you, Colonel, for your advice on Reiterschaft. Now, it just so happens that there are actual Reiters waiting to speak to me about matters of Akropolitan security. In fact, I could hand-deliver your notebook directly to the General himself, save you the trouble of a walk across base. What do you say?”
Yuito’s frown remained a mask of calm and control, save for the faintest flicker of doubt, indecision, and fear in the back of his cold gaunt eyes. In the end, he too made his choice.
“That won’t be necessary, Lieutenant. You’re dismissed.”