~March 3rd, 140 AH~

~Sector Capricorn, the Caverns, surface perimeter~

Asena Shiranui pointed her metallic phantom toward the eastern horizon and the memories that lay buried beneath the barren earth.

The sensations were at once startlingly novel and solidly familiar. Her body knew what it wanted to do: which muscles to activate and sync with the Eidolon’s movements. Strangely enough, it was her mind that needed catching up.

The model M-024 was one of the Reiter-specialized Eidolons recovered from the Caverns’ depths. Where Akropolis’s model ES-Vs were svelte aerodynamic assassins, the M-024 was something of a ‘gentle giant’: smaller, stockier, and defined by softer curves. It certainly felt heavier and slower than what Asena ‘remembered’ of Zelen’s midnight-blue killing machine. At the same time, however, it agitated with a latent yet undeniable reserve of dynamism—knowledge and memories of the violence it’d wrought in someone else’s war.

Perhaps this would’ve been easier if she had a model ES-V to work with instead. As it stood, her choice was limited to the selection of foreign Eidolons the Apfel Alliance had dug up from their underground base. And her ‘control’ of the M-024 was both helped and hampered by the assumptions that had been ingrained by her erstwhile [EVOCATION] sessions with Zelen Athelstan.

What is there to complain about? She reminded herself. It’s absolutely incredible that I’m piloting an Eidolon at all.

She’d been so wrapped up in wrestling with her metallic phantom that she’d forgotten she was with company. As such, a crack from the radio broke her concentration and nearly caused her to stumble.

“… Whoa, careful there, Asena,” spoke Akash Varana’s even-keeled voice. “I just wanted to check in and see if you were alright to proceed. I can see all your parameters are within normal limits, but… you never know with these things.”

The de facto leader of the Apfel Alliance was yet another non-Reiter who piloted an Eidolon as a matter of fact. Presently, he sat inside what was referred to as a ‘worker Eidolon’, one even smaller and stockier than the M-024, and presumably specialized toward maintenance and construction. It did also come equipped with a sidearm: a carbine-like contraption that the Gaertner now held at the ready as he accompanied Asena on her first field test.

“I’m fine,” Asena asserted, not entirely truthful, “although I still wish this could all have been done in simulation.”

“Fair,” Akash said mildly. “It is rather unfortunate. For all their forward thinking, the Cavepeople didn’t have the kind of sophisticated applications of Old Earth technology we Akropolitans managed to preserve. Same can be said for their Eidolons. Remarkably varied and far better incorporated into ‘daily life’ than ours ever were, but none of their designs approached the power and efficiency of a model ES-V. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? What if these people had been as advanced in their engineering as Akropolitans are? Combined with their social structure, perhaps they—”

“Akash,” Asena cut in as her ‘unsophisticated’ Eidolon stumbled again, “not now, please. Let’s focus on the mission?”

“You’re right. Sorry, it’s a bad habit of mine.”

In truth, Asena could sympathize with the talkative Gaertner. The Caverns—and the people who’d built an entire city inside them—were an endlessly fascinating topic, one that kept the Kurator herself up at night.

From what the Alliance had been able to gather, it was clear that the former inhabitants of the Caverns shared many similarities with Akropolitans—the most significant being that they too had been at war with the Syntropy. Nearly everything about their city had been designed with that war in mind, from its several layers of defense to its numerous avenues for evacuation should the need arise. Not to mention their own army of Eidolons with which to conduct the fighting.

Yet, as Akash had alluded to, the Eidolons were also where the Cavepeople diverged most dramatically from Akropolis. As far as Asena could tell, these Eidolons could be broadly classified into four distinct categories, each of which more or less corresponding to a Seher differentiation. There were of course the frontline fighters like the M-024 she wrestled with now, clearly meant to be piloted by Reiters. Others included defensively minded tank-forms for Panzers, long-range cannon-forms for Jaegers, and various ‘support’ vehicles that were favoured by Gaertners like Akash.

Asena couldn’t help but note that Kurators seemed to be the odd ones out, at least as far as Cave Eidolon specializations went. Indeed, it was only after extensive trial and error that she discovered herself to be most compatible with the M-024. It did make her wonder how the typical Kurator had contributed to the Cavepeople’s war, if not with Eidolons that had been specially designed with them in mind.

Frustratingly, the Caverns had no shortage of manuals, journals, and other abandoned documents that surely provided all the answers to any question she or Akash might conceive. Frustrating… because they were all in a foreign language: utterly undecipherable, even for someone as widely read in Old Earth literature as Asena herself.

As such, as much as the Caverns were a treasure trove of knowledge and culture, they also remained an impenetrable mystery, one that could only drive speculation, never to be confirmed. Even so, at least one truth felt self-evident in Asena’s mind. It was that the Caverns represented a kind of beacon: a way to be for Akropolitans to aspire to. A society that was flatter and freer, and therefore—as Akash Varana believed—more resilient.

Asena wanted to believe it too. As whole-heartedly as her Gaertner companion did. Yet one question loomed largest out of all that the Caverns and their treasure trove refused to answer: just what had happened to the people who once lived there?

On that count, Asena was also in agreement with Akash. He’d spoken of an ‘unknown Seher’, one who’d tripped his [ALLIANCE] signals some twelve years ago, then was never found. This mystery Seher more than likely held the key to unlock the rest of the Caverns’ mysteries. But unless this figure were suddenly to appear at their doorstep, there was no point dwelling on the murky past.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

No, what they—Asena, Akash, the Alliance, Zelen—needed was to move forward. To show the real live people entrenched in Akropolis that there was a different way to be. A different way to fight. And to that end, she first needed to prove herself capable of that way of fighting.

The Brutus units, much like the Hornets, were a comforting constant in an ever-evolving war: bipedal riflemen that had barely changed in any meaningful way since their earliest iterations from 140 years ago. Presently, a small group of them roamed the hilly terrain just on the outer edges of where the Caverns would’ve extended below. Perfect target practice for a Kurator getting her first real taste of Reiter action.

“There they are,” Akash announced needlessly. “One final confirmation, Ms Shiranui. You sure you’re ready to go through with this? It’s not too late to turn back. Maybe give it a few more days of practice before we try again.”

“I’m sure,” Asena asserted, this time entirely truthful. She’d already had two decades and more of sitting on the sidelines, of letting the war pass her by from the safety of what she now knew to have been a sheltered life. No more. It was time to move forward, with herself in the driver’s seat.

In truth, she was also impatient. It was important that she do this now, while Zelen was still gone on his mission. While she was free from self-inflicted distractions. Free to be her own person.

“Alright,” Akash said. “Have at it. I’ll cover you best I can.”

Asena took a deep breath and closed her eyes. By cutting herself off from external stimuli, she was better able to focus on what her body tried to tell her. At the same time, she gave her mind—along with its memories of someone else’s war—a chance to catch up to the present, false assumptions and all.

In her metallic phantom’s hands, she held a slender pole, nearly as tall as the Eidolon itself. And as she channelled the memories of war that lay dormant in her own blood, the Nexus heeded her call, in the form of a ghostly blue blade that materialized at one end of the pole.

[NAGINATA].

The curved blade stabilized upon its shaft and stayed there. Asena, finally feeling confident enough to open her eyes, noted the blue bar of her Energy Reserves slowly but steadily ticking down.

This was yet another mystery that had to be cracked with trial and error. Instead of the four armaments available to an ES-V, the M-024 was only capable of equipping one weapon at a time. In Asena’s case, for reasons that weren’t immediately clear to herself, the weapon that felt the most compatible—the most solid in her hands—was this [NAGINATA], one that had never even appeared in the annals of Akropolis’s war.

The limitation to a single armament type appeared to have been a kind of trade-off. For one significant advantage the M-024 held over the ES-V was that its weapon wasn’t tied to a cooldown system. As long as the pilot maintained her focus, the Nexus rewarded her by keeping [NAGINATA] intact and functional for the full duration of her fight.

But that was assuming she had Energy Reserves to spare. Try as she might, and even with assistance from Akash’s [ALLIANCE], the Kurator couldn’t fully replicate the cold-blooded resolve of a seasoned Reiter. Her ER dwindled at an alarming rate, signalling the mere minutes she had to finish the job.

There were three Brutuses within sight. The two closest became aware of her presence as soon as [NAGINATA] went up, and immediately started to fire. Asena wasn’t yet proficient enough with an Eidolon to have mastered its thrusters. As such, she let her armour tank the damage while she focused on one task at a time.

First a lateral sweep from left-to-right, which cut the closest Brutus cleanly in half, as easily as a knife through synthetic pudding. Asena fought down her shock and forced herself into a second move: turning the shaft over and skewering the second Brutus with a simple forward jab.

Just like that, two obsidian carcasses fell at her feet. Oddly enough, the shock too had already worn off, and as Asena pulled the blue end of her [NAGINATA] out of the second enemy unit, her eyes had already turned toward the third. The last Brutus maintained its distance as it fired its rifle, evidently wary of the polearm’s range.

But distance was just another aspect of battle that a warrior must learn to manipulate. Asena dug her heels in and pushed off, trusting that her memory-honed instincts knew to generate the correct amount of force.

Her instincts proved a touch overeager. The M-024 drove forward, aligned perfectly with its opponent but with more speed and momentum than Asena had anticipated. She hastily brought [NAGINATA] up and down into an overhead swing.

She overshot it, and managed only to hit the Brutus with [NAGINATA]’s physical shaft. Still a substantial impact, but not enough to disable the Syntropy unit.

She was back inside melee range, but if anything, she was too close. [NAGINATA] wanted some room to operate, and this wasn’t that. I need to backthrust! Asena thought desperately, then: wait, how do I backthrust again?

Even as she struggled to regain control of her Eidolon, the enemy gave her no pause. Its rifle was just as effective from point blank range, and it continued to fire, thus draining Asena’s AU even faster than her ER.

That was when pale blue bullets flew into the fray, landing upon the Brutus and knocking it backwards. Akash’s covering fire. The Brutus momentarily ceased its own attack as it processed whom to target next.

This was the opening Asena needed to remedy the situation. Instead of backthrusting, she took a couple of deliberate backward steps before sweeping with [NAGINATA] again, this time right-to-left. The third Brutus fell… and silence with it.

Asena stood over the carcass of her fallen enemy, breathing hard. She still gripped the shaft of [NAGINATA] tightly, and it took some seconds for her to realize that the blade was still up and eating into her ER. She shut it off and turned to her back-up with an expression of gratitude, before she remembered that they were both hunks of metal who couldn’t see each other’s faces.

“Thanks,” she radioed instead. “I kind of lost my head back there.”

“I’ll say,” Akash admonished, though ever in his even-keeled tone. “Seems we need to review the basic movements again before we can send you into real missions. But I will say your skill with the [NAGINATA] is rather impressive. It’s almost as if you’ve always known how to use it.”

Asena considered this with a slight frown. Indeed, this was also something of a mystery, though not one likely to be solved by trial and error. There were many parts of Eidolon combat that still felt awkward. Yet certain aspects—like wielding a giant Nexus-molded naginata—came as naturally to her as sifting through someone’s memories.

“In any case, it’s probably a good time for us to head back,” Akash continued. “I’m sure you’ve expended quite a bit of your Reserves and could do with some rest. Besides, I think Graeme’s team should be returning soon… hopefully with good—”

Akash’s compact Eidolon suddenly jumped backwards, surprisingly agile for a ‘worker’ unit. He had to be agile, for the ground he’d been standing on a moment ago had exploded, and out shot a fourth obsidian monster, hitherto undetected by radars.

A roughly circular central chassis. Eight spindly limbs that stretched in a radial pattern. A Voras.

Asena recognized it immediately, having killed—and been killed by—it countless times in someone else’s war. At the same time, her stomach sank to the floor of her cockpit as she realized that, in her haste to prove herself combat-ready, she’d bitten off more than she could chew.