Zelen Athelstan checked his forward thrust, hindered by the weight of a half-forgotten past. Hesitation. Overcomplication. The crimson frame of Spindrift didn’t react, inaction the answer to his opponent’s lack of commitment.
Suddenly wary of a counter that wouldn’t come, Zelen backthrust to a safer distance. This wasn’t right. Wasn’t how a warrior ought to behave. He took a moment to correct his mindset.
Where had his bravado gone? When he’d ‘ordered’ Graeme and Feray to stay out of the way, he’d been so sure of himself. So sure of what needed to be done.
I’ve already killed Fenix Duodecim. He reminded himself. And thousands of Syntropy before that. This is no different. This is nothing new.
And yet, the leaden fragments of a half-forgotten past continued to sink into his immediate awareness. Two training model Eidolons. Facing off inside a crater not unlike this abandoned quarry. Did he also hesitate then? Or did he believe in possibilities that couldn’t be defined by [THE INEVITABLE]?
Zelen made the first move. A speculative RA [GATLING], with no real purpose nor momentum behind the attack. If anything, he just wanted to kickstart the fight. To force himself into the same singular focus with which he’d ripped through the Kentavros earlier.
In response, Spindrift needed only to glide sideways, always a line ahead of the fire, a step ahead of his opponent’s intentions. And despite those intentions, Zelen’s opening salvo succeeded only in overheating one of his own armaments while his opponent went through the motions of the most basic of evasive manoeuvres—a training drill straight out of a proto-Reiter’s fifth-year curriculum.
Still, Spindrift refused to come any closer, to turn this training drill into a bona fide duel. A pair of pale blue optics glowed serenely from a crimson SPU: watching, studying, waiting. Waiting for possibilities to condense into inevitability.
Zelen ground his teeth in frustration. Black flames roiled within his chest and seared the base of his skull. He had the faint notion that something was decidedly wrong with this picture. That even the heat of battle—the prospect of death—shouldn’t have anguished him so, made him feel so alone.
But he had no other voices to heed than his own. Right now, that voice told him to shake off the fragmented memories that threatened to weigh him down—to fully forget the past and instead focus on the here and now.
Maximum forward thrust. Get within range, then RS [HARPOON], aimed slightly off-line to anticipate the target’s evasive trajectory. It missed, inches wide, with Spindrift checking his lateral thrusters at just the right moment. Too predictable? Or simply inevitable?
No matter. The exchange had given Zelen license to advance further into melee range, close enough to take advantage of LA [BLUNDERBUSS]’s high spread and potency.
A violent clash of blue against blue. The shotgun blast from [BLUNDERBUSS] dispersed against the solidity of Spindrift’s spherical shield—LS [AEGIS].
No damage. And now Zelen was exposed, having expended his weapon charges and moved himself into range of Spindrift’s finisher. He expected [MJOLNIR] to materialize at any moment, and wondered if his LS [SCUTUM] could withstand the full force of the hammer.
He decided that it couldn’t, and changed tack, opting to backthrust out of melee range. But even this sequence of indecision proved far too predictable. Instead of [MJOLNIR], Spindrift’s crimson left arm raised [WINCHESTER] and fired, landing a clean hit against Zelen’s retreating frame.
Zelen saw black, but he quickly blinked it away to eye the data on his HUD. AU down to 65%, ER at 40 and steadily ticking down. As he shifted his focus back onto the fight, blackness roiled with renewed intensity.
Checking the health of his Eidolon. The most basic of procedures, straight out of a proto-Reiter’s fourth-year curriculum. And yet, something was decidedly wrong with the picture. Since when had war become this complicated? This burdensome?
The first real trade in the fight had gone terribly for the younger Reiter. The second go of it wasn’t much better. Another exchange where Zelen expended all his armaments in quick succession, only for Spindrift to dodge everything and counter with a prescient round of [WINCHESTER].
AU down to 45, ER at 30 and ticking down even faster. Zelen was under no illusion about the state of battle. He was losing. Badly at that.
Spindrift’s Einkunst allowed him to reliably dodge every one of Zelen’s attacks, no matter how well-disguised. After that, all he had to do was whittle down Zelen’s armour and eat away at his Reserves. He didn’t even need [MJOLNIR] as a finisher.
Was it so strange? Spindrift, after all, was Akropolis’s killingest Reiter, armed with an Einkunst that gave him absolute advantage in 1v1 encounters. What was a warrior to do than to admit defeat to a superior opponent?
And yet, the blackness within Zelen roared with ever-rising desperation. Something was decidedly wrong with the picture. Fragmented memories dug into his Psyche anew, showing flashes of someone else’s duel against Makiri Shiranui. A barely-a-man against a seasoned killer.
In that fight, Spindrift had been the aggressor, putting on constant pressure as though himself driven by a kind of unquellable desperation. The barely-a-man shouldn’t have won, but he did win, aided by a natural immunity against [THE INEVITABLE], in the form of his own Einkunst.
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How did he know this? This wasn’t his memory was it? Yet the picture flashed all the same, and fed the blackness within him.
Someone else’s forgotten conversation. Someone else’s past and future. Who was the saviour and who was the destroyer? What was real? What was real? What on god’s barren earth was real?
Zelen roared into a cockpit where no one could hear him. He thrust himself back into the fray, desperate to shake off the blackness that threatened to drag him into its abyss. He needed to win this fight. Needed to move forward. Needed to be not nothing.
Possibilities condensed into inevitability. Spindrift accepted [THE INEVITABLE] and raised his crimson right arm, poised to put the past behind him. To put a forlorn young Reiter out of his misery.
Just then, a ray of pale blue energy flew between the two model ES-Vs and shot toward the crimson unit. Spindrift powered down his [MJOLNIR] as he was forced to quickthrust out of melee range. He then transitioned smoothly into [WINCHESTER], its barrel still aimed at Zelen’s midnight-blue phantom. It didn’t connect, intercepted by the shield on a tank-form Eidolon.
“What are you doing?” Zelen shouted into the radio. “I told you to stay out of it!”
But it was too late. Zelen’s allies had already become active participants in the fight, which in turn spurred the second Akropolitan Reiter into action. The pale green Eidolon flew down from his perch, now firing liberally at the two smaller Eidolons. No warning shots this time.
Zelen snarled in frustration as he swerved in midair and shot toward his teammates. He activated his own shield, LS [SCUTUM], and stood in the way of the new wave of enemy fire. [GATLING] bullets snuck through the gaps in his defense and chipped away more of his Armour Units.
Feray and Graeme’s interference had been unwelcome, but it nevertheless served to snap Zelen out of his black mist. He realized whole-heartedly that any chance at a victory had well and truly slipped away.
“This mission’s over,” he radioed, considerably calmer. “We need to retreat before they eliminate all three of us.”
“Negative, Lieutenant. We still need that Anaminum pod!”
“If we wanted the Anamnium pod, we shouldn’t have waited for the Joint Forces to show up. You said yourself that the success of this mission hinges on me, and I’m telling you that I’m in no shape to finish this fight. Retreat now, or we risk losing everything.”
Static buzzed for another second as hesitation and inexperience simplified into stark reality.
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant. All units, disengage and fall in behind me. We’re getting out of here.”
Finally an order that made perfect sense in the moment. Zelen obeyed, but not before letting off another burst of [GATLING] to suppress the pale green Eidolon. Then his model ES-V and Feray’s cannon-form Eidolon both hid themselves behind Graeme’s enlarged shield as the re-formed triumvirate withdrew from the quarry.
Zelen’s focus stayed on and jumped between the two enemy units, ready to re-engage should they give chase. But the Akropolitans made no such attempt. Right before Zelen rose above the outer rim of the quarry and lost visuals, the last thing he saw was Spindrift’s crimson frame turning its back.
For some time, the trio flew away from the erstwhile battle at maximum velocity. In truth, they were never in any danger of being pursued by Spindrift and his young partner. Zelen knew that for a fact, as surely as he felt the bitter taste of defeat. The moment Zelen’s failure and escape had become an inevitability was also when Makiri Shiranui lost the will to fight.
Danger hadn’t passed completely, however. Out here in the field, the Syntropy threat was ever-present. Even in the midst of his flight, Zelen performed a cursory status check. AU at 35, ER at 22. All limbs and armaments functional if somewhat worn.
But just as he was about to look away, the blue bar on the right edge of the display ticked down by one more increment. Down to 21. He was still leaking Energy Reserves, and at a far faster rate than could fully be attributed to his flight.
Something about the picture was wrong. Zelen was alone inside the cockpit, and as such, he was alone with his dark thoughts and dwindling Reserves.
Thankfully not for long. The radio soon popped back to life, along with Graeme O’Riordan’s gruff voice. The Panzer had evidently recovered his volume and certitude, with the frenzy of battle now far behind him.
“Forgive me for being blunt, Lieutenant, but that was a complete and utter shitshow. Why did you insist on fighting alone? It’s not like you haven’t seen how we can work as a team.”
Zelen swallowed the blackness in the back of his throat before answering, “You saw what happened as soon as you joined the fight. Two Reiters against an untested trio of mismatched parts. We wouldn’t have stood a chance.”
“You only call us ‘untested’ because you don’t believe in the knowledge we gleaned from the Caverns. You haven’t bought into Captain Varana’s vision of a new Akropolis.”
You’re right. I haven’t bought into Akash’s vision. Mostly because it’s an untenable fantasy. Black thoughts rose and died in Zelen’s throat. His Reserves diminished by another unit.
“We’ll leave all that for the debrief, Lieutenant,” Graeme said after a few seconds of silence, “but there’s one thing I gotta ask. I know Makiri Shiranui is a powerful Einkunster, which is why it would’ve been a massive boon for us if we could take him hostage. Yet… I was given to understand you’re an Einkunster as well. Theoretically more powerful even than Shiranui.”
Zelen considered for a moment, then offered, “That’s also my understanding.”
“… Strange turn of phrase, but so be it. Why then didn’t you use it? [ENTROPY], was it? When the tides were turning against you, why not reset the encounter and try again?”
Why indeed?
In truth, Zelen didn’t know much about his own Einkunst—only what he’d been told by Asena, along with the frayed fragments of someone else’s memories. Yet he still felt the same discrepancy that had distracted him in the midst of his earlier battle: the certain knowledge that it was [ENTROPY] and its myriad possibilities that had once allowed him to overcome Makiri Shiranui’s immovable grasp of [THE INEVITABLE].
He didn’t have an answer for Panzer Graeme, nor for the blackness that roiled within his chest and seared the base of his skull. Within the gaps of his consciousness that once agitated with possibility, only doubt remained. Within a soul that once burned with the imperative of his self-chosen mission, he felt only nothing.