~March 5th, 140 AH~
~Sector Capricorn, Vallemor Desert~
Makiri Shiranui pointed his crimson centipede into the southern wind and the future that shifted with the planet’s haze.
For the first time in his fifteen-year career as a Reiter, he’d left the transit gates of Akropolis of his own volition. Had sortied on a mission of his own design and directive, sans orders nor permission from above. For he needed to know. He needed to see [THE INEVITABLE] with his own two eyes, before everything he thought he held dear dissolved into the fog of war.
His first ever solo flight—truly solo, with neither team nor Spiegel support—was dogged by a constant headache. The pain served as a steady reminder of the path he’d strayed from, of the doubts that now clouded his once single-track mind.
Doubt was not something a man like Makiri Shiranui was accustomed to. Why would he be, when his life, until recently, had been a series of one knowable certainty after another?
The manicured childhood of a Tetrarch heir. The regimented doldrums of proto-Reiter training. Even the chaos of the battlefield—of its kills and its deaths—had been but the realization of destinies that had been written upon ancient stars. Stardust colliding, reshaping, and disintegrating until they reached their natural conclusions.
His brother Otaga’s death had been one such conclusion. So had Bearclaw’s, Lionheart’s, Uppercut’s, and countless other deaths before theirs. His only duty, Makiri had always believed, was to honour his comrades’ deaths by making the most of his own [INEVITABLE] sacrifice.
Everything changed when a man called Zelen Athelstan entered the sphere of his awareness. The changes had been subtle at first, too distant and too unknowable to jostle the wavelengths of Makiri’s consciousness. Then, gradually over years, as the boy grew into a young man with his own duties, beliefs, and doubts, the full extent of his entropy revealed itself.
The man himself changed, and as he did, so did the war around him. Even Makiri’s own sister—dutiful and sensitive Asena—was swept into the swirling cloud of stardust where Zelen Athelstan had kicked out at destiny. How could one man have affected and changed so much, when for 140 years previously humanity had hurtled along a single track?
No. Makiri realized—thought he understood—that was the wrong question.
The last 140 years of Akropolis had been but one reality out of multitudes, constructed rather than predestined, cinderblock by cinderblock and choice by choice. How else could he account for the final moments of Gerech Athelstan who, at the end of his days, chose differently—denounced the history that had led him to that final choice?
But something that had been built could also be destroyed. That was why Makiri had to see it for himself. Who was Zelen Athelstan? Saviour or destroyer? Friend or foe?
[THE INEVITABLE] or the possible?
Despite sortieing against orders, Makiri had nevertheless made use of Joint Forces intel to guide his solo flight. The latest data gathered from scout drones had pointed to Vallemor Desert as a possible site of hostile activity. It was a region that had been largely ignored by both Akropolitan and Syntropy forces, but that, Makiri supposed, would only make for an ideal hideout for a group of deserters.
He spotted the Panzers—three of them, in their Eidolons—before they him. Strange looking things: rotund, top-heavy, and limited in mobility. Yet his previous engagement with one such Eidolon had told him that they could hold their own in the heat of battle.
LA [WINCHESTER]. Aimed at the tank treads of one of the units. Caught by surprise, the other two units at first scattered, then stopped. Hesitating. Weighing their choices. Makiri understood what must be going through their minds. For he himself had weighed the same choice countless times—without realizing he had a choice.
He also saw the moment when hesitation congealed into certainty. One Eidolon activated its spherical shield, enveloping the whole team within its temporary safety. Meanwhile, the pilot of another unit exited their cockpit to retrieve their stranded comrade. The choice was made.
The base of Makiri’s skull burned anew with more questions. At the same time, he launched a volley from RS [MISSILE LAUNCHER], knowing full well they’d whittle down but not fully penetrate the Panzer’s defenses. He needed to inspire fear. Make them believe that he was here to end their lives. Make himself as, if not more, formidable than the Syntropy.
Yet… the Syntropy wouldn’t stop at whittling down defenses. The Syntropy wouldn’t have given the Panzers a chance to survive as a team, not when one of them had already been disabled.
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Makiri ignored his own headache and focused on the task.
As soon as one shield went down, another went up. Down to two functional units, the Panzers transitioned into a retreat, sharing and alternating protection duties among themselves.
It was the correct choice. One Makiri was thankful for. For if the Panzers had tried to fight back, his own choices would’ve narrowed to one.
As it stood, he was allowed to continue harrying the Panzers, driving them farther away from their mission and back to their base. Any moment now. One of two [INEVITABILITIES] should present itself. Either the deserters would be forced to reveal the exact point of entry into their hideout, or—
The reinforcement came in the form of a midnight-blue phantom. Kingfisher flew over the shield of his deserter allies, spraying [GATLING] in Makiri’s direction as he did. This too was the preferred outcome. One step closer to Makiri’s self-imposed objective.
“Show me,” he whispered into a cockpit where he was all alone. “Show me this future you fight for, that I might see my own.”
The base of his skull flared again, with enough intensity to momentarily blind him. He checked the display as soon as he regained full use of his senses, and saw the downward drain of his Energy Reserves. Whatever he needed to see from Kingfisher, he needed to do it fast. Before he’d be forced to cut short his solo flight.
He drove toward Kingfisher. Initiate rather than react. Make a choice. Force Kingfisher into making his.
A round of [WINCHESTER] flew astray, evaded with a timely quickthrust. [MISSILE LAUNCHER] bore down from the opposite direction, which Kingfisher then deflected with [SCUTUM]. Kingfisher simultaneously launched [HARPOON], forcing Makiri into his own quickthrust, powering down RA [MJOLNIR] as he was pushed out of melee range.
This was more like it. This was closer to the Kingfisher he knew, the boy-going-on-man that had once bested him in single combat. But he wasn’t fully there. Just the shadow of [INEVITABILITIES] yet lingered, which made Kingfisher vulnerable.
Which gave Spindrift the edge.
Makiri made his choice. Concentrated all of his hopes and doubts into one decisive manoeuvre. He drove into the heart of Kingfisher, right arm poised to fully lay bare his own intentions.
His anticipation of Kingfisher’s response gave him the leeway needed to time his defenses perfectly, down to the millisecond. LS [AEGIS], at the exact moment when Kingfisher’s [BLUNDERBUSS] hit. Makiri continued his forward thrust within the safety of his own shield, chasing his prey as it backed off and freely unloaded [GATLING].
Then Kingfisher stopped in mid-air. As Makiri knew he would. For he’d harried and driven the young man straight into the pair of Panzer units that still slogged through their retreat. A moment of hesitation. Which was an [INEVITABILITY] in itself.
By this point, Makiri’s [MJOLNIR] was already mid-swing, conviction writ large. This time, it found its target, meted out punishment for a moment’s hesitation on the battlefield. Impact against a midnight-blue central chassis. Powerful shockwave to strip away the last of Kingfisher’s armour.
Reeling from the impact, naked and defenseless, Kingfisher presented himself for Makiri’s judgment. Makiri obliged, raising his left arm now to point [WINCHESTER] squarely upon the cockpit where a young man’s future—and the futures of everything he might yet touch—hung in the balance.
“Show me!” Makiri screamed, louder than the pain that surged and seized his entire body. “Prove to me that you’re worth saving! That your future is worth fighting for!”
And yet, what poured out from Kingfisher then and reached across the Nexus and into Makiri’s wavering consciousness wasn’t the future.
Instead, it was history. Multiple histories. Too many. All the myriad possibilities and predestinations that had flashed and passed into a graveyard of the universes’ memories. Stardust that had risen and settled into the defeated young man that now cowered before Makiri Shiranui.
Makiri saw not the salvation he’d been promised. Neither did he see the destruction he’d feared. All he saw was blackness. All he saw was death.
Saviour or destroyer? Friend or foe? Neither? Both? The wrong question? One question of an infinite many?
No.
Just a broken young man whose future couldn’t bear the weight of his history.
Doubt congealed into grim certainty. Makiri made up his mind then. He borrowed another segment of his quickly draining Reserves and powered up LA [WINCHESTER]. Aimed into the cockpit. Poised to pass down judgment.
He missed.
Not because he’d changed his mind. Not because he’d veered once more from his path. But because a new possibility presented itself, one he had no way to foresee, no way to understand.
Another Eidolon had flown into the picture, now landing next to the crater left behind by [WINCHESTER]. Cradled in its incongruously bulky arms was the limp frame of Kingfisher, defeated but intact.
The newcomer laid down its comrade with a tenderness that could never belong on a battlefield. Should never belong. It spun to face Makiri, summoning in its hands a staff that was nearly as tall as itself.
Then the end of its staff burst to life, with the ghostly blue blade of an alien weapon.
Makiri recognized the weapon, but didn’t know what it was. He also recognized the Eidolon, but didn’t know who it was. What did that mean? How was that possible?
Certainty disintegrated into doubt and shifted with the planet’s haze. Makiri’s entire being exploded with a pain that was both familiar and unknowable.