Raiden Metron was at a loss for words at the moment. Upon arriving at the abandoned factory (that they had to walk through a raging desert to get to), he had sat down his hundred soldiers, familiar faces one and all.
Then he went through the Paladin’s seemingly improbable plan, with each one of his eight lieutenants, especially Jory, giving him a stupefied gaze.
Raiden wasn’t even surprised. He was sure that if someone told him that one man planned to take on the bulk of the opposing army on his own, he would have had the same expression etched onto his face.
That was, of course, if anyone other than Paladin Cole had said it.
He wasn’t truly a fan or proponent of Joshua Cole, in the truest sense. It was just the most convenient for Raiden to ally with someone who had no real stakes in the quagmire that was Metronian politics.
That being said, Raiden’s ideals had come back to bite him in the ass. Letting Joshua have access to the bar where his lover resided turned out to be a bad idea in hindsight.
He thought he could use the show of compassion and trust to build up a rapport with the otherworlder. Instead, he was wrapped around Joshua’s finger, so to speak.
The most infuriating thing? The fact that Raiden hadn’t even seen the plot coming until it was already too late. Joshua exploiting his unwavering trust in Leray had shown him a fatal flaw within himself.
For all that he was grateful, he was equal parts annoyed. He shouldn’t have been on cloud nine to begin with, even if she was the first person that he ever loved. Bringing a potential enemy into what was essentially his home was inexcusable, at least not until he had a clearer picture of who he was inviting.
Regardless, all that was in the past. Now, whether he liked it or not, Raiden was on the frontlines with Paladin Cole now, and couldn’t allow his personal feelings to cloud his judgment.
“We’re getting a reading on the radar!” One of his female lieutenants, Firla, shouted to their gathered troops. Raiden checked his own Judgment radar, and confirmed the information.
Raiden opened his mouth to order his troops, but stopped himself as he saw Joshua exit from the stairwell across from him. “I already sent messages to the other team leaders.” He said, walking right up to Raiden.
Firla growled and Jory stood up to intercept the Paladin, but a single snap of his fingers was all he needed to rob them of their mobility. “You have some poorly trained mutts, Raiden.”
His eyes narrowed as he stood face to face with the Metronian prince. “Bring only your most trusted and strongest people. We’re going to make an example out of them.”
Just like that he turned and left, heading for the entrance hall of the building. When he was out of range, Jory dropped to one knee, and Firla massaged her jaw, which had been clenched shut during their interaction.
“What in the Starlord’s trash pit was that?” Firla spat out. Jory stood tall, towering over Raiden, and massaged his legs.
“The stunning power. Didn’t you read the reports that Raiden sent a month ago?” Jory looked at the short, red-headed woman incredulously.
“Shut up!” She shouted in defense, and pinched the dark-colored skin on his arm while twisting in anger.
“Firla, that hurts.” Jory spoke in a deadpan voice, rubbing his bald head. When Firla realized she wasn’t going to get a bigger reaction from the giant, she huffed and began walking in the direction that Joshua went.
“Well, aren’t you guys coming?” She spoke, doing a half turn to look at Raiden and his confidants. “He might be an asshole, but he’s a powerful one. Surely you’re also curious as to how he’s gonna take care of business?”
Raiden grinned and stood up. Of course, he might’ve regretted what had happened in the past, as well as the problems he had with Joshua. However, at the end of the day, those problems were caused by him, not Paladin Cole.
Raiden began walking after Joshua. There were some murmurs of disgust, but the remaining lieutenants followed behind Raiden obediently, leaving the regular soldiers in the room to pull up a live feed of the war in their Judgment devices.
---
“I really should have known that it would be you.” I said. I had moved to a particularly raised dune just outside of our temporary base, and was now standing and facing the entirety of the Primal Air Force.
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In truth, there were only about thirty members there, but that was still about one sixth of the entire enemy forces. Below them, massive mechs stood tall, slowly creeping towards our base.
“So that’s what the mechs were for.” Lilian said as he reached my side. “Guess I should’ve guessed there’d be more mechs where the shipment I saw came from.”
“Don’t worry, I’d already done a complete scan of the complex you saw them in.” Three materialized, and shook her head at Lilian. “I had to double check your shoddy work once I realized that the place they were shipping them to was far larger than would be expected of that size.”
“Meaning?” Lilian asked, looking to me for answers.
“Ugh, men.” Three spat out. “Meaning there should have been a larger amount of mechs than initially thought. I had the correct number sent to Joshua beforehand.”
“Oh.” Lilian muttered weakly. “Well, how many are there in total?” He turned to Three, who rolled her eyes.
“Ask Joshua if you’re so curious about it.” Three left with just as little fanfare as she entered with.
Lilian looked at me, a hurt expression on his face. “Did I do something to offend her? I mean, she’s always been abrasive, but it was never to the extent of just straight up ignoring me.”
Despite the conditions we were in, I couldn’t help but find myself smirking. “After being with me for a week, maybe she just realized that your control was lacking.”
“What!?” Lilian roared and walked up from behind to face me, but upon seeing my expression, he calmed down.
“Ha ha, very funny. So what’s the real reason?” He sat down, watching the impending mechs on the horizon. “And how many of those things are there?”
“To be honest, I think she’s jealous that you’re spending so much time with a ‘woman’ that isn’t her. X was the same way.” The smile vanished from my face as I sat down next to him. “One hundred and fifty mechs.”
Lilian’s jaw hung open and his gaze turned back to the desert battlefield. “What the fuck? Why so many?” He flung a loose pebble towards the far off weapons, which were coming over the hill in droves.
“They wanted to empower their soldiers even further, so that they could have a two-stage attack. When the mechs get beat up too much to continue, they would eject and start fighting using their nanite enhanced physicality.”
“Guessing by the fact you know all that, I’m assuming they’ll be disposed of momentarily?” Lilian said with a sigh.
“Well, I won’t deny that they have a horrific matchup.” I said candidly, noting Lucina and Reya, plus her second in command, joining us on the dune. Raiden and his squad brought up the rear.
“However, we need to make the Kingdom look strong. Not just me.” I stood, and turned to face the thirteen people gathered before me.
“Your honor guard is ready to move out whenever.” Winter appeared from behind me, and slinked along my side to stand ready with the others.
“I’ll be leaving the ants in the mechs to you all. I’ll make sure that they can’t eject, so just take down their lumbering asses and slaughter them there. I’ll take care of the aerial unit.” I walked up to the dune’s peak, and started to raise my hand, when a voice broke through the silence.
“Ah, Paladin Cole. How lovely to see you again.” The veteran pilot, Victor Dormiana laughed through a speaker in his cockpit. “I hope you’re prepared to surrender before you lose someone you might regret.”
This prick. My eyes narrowed. So he was just acting when he drove us before? I guess he’s just a war-mongering buffoon at heart.
“Of course not, Victor.” My visor clacked down over my face. “I would extend to you that same kindness. Surrender now, and take yourself out of the game, or I will kill you.”
“Ha!” Victor had to mute his microphone while he got his coughing fit from the laugh under control. “It seems like the younger generation does have some balls after all.”
I rolled my eyes under my helmet. “It’s always, ‘the younger generation’ this, or ‘when I was younger’ that. The older generation should just learn to step out of the way, and let us live our lives. Oh, but I guess you didn’t see that opinion coming, what with your head being so far up the Primal’s asses that all you can see is their colons.”
“You insolent fool!”Victor screamed, and pressed a button. Several weapons came out from the manned drone, and the others in his legion followed suit. Soon, the dune was surrounded by guns, and very angry traditionalists.
“You will pay for your remarks with your death! On my mark!” The guns began gathering a pulsing, purple energy, and I smiled.
X, like we planned. “By your will.” X’s voice chimed out, and she appeared over my shoulder. She extended her left hand, and her fingers digitized into mist. Soon, the leftmost ship exploded, unable to handle the energy that it continued to gather.
X had removed the limiter for the amount of electricity that their guns accumulated, and the resulting overload caused a critical malfunction in the ship, causing spontaneous combustion.
“What in the Starlord’s name!?” Victor shouted as several more drones exploded, sending both debris and charred corpses sailing back down to Ethia.
“Well look at that? A malfunction. I guess using antiquated methods of combat wasn’t the way to go, after all.”
“You-” Victor’s curse didn’t get that far, as it was cut off by his own ship exploding. When the thirty ships had ceased to exist, the mechanical, human-like structures stopped their march directly below us, and looked down at the remains of their comrades silently.
I started walking down the dune, making it to the base. A mech raised it’s arm to attack me, but was stopped in its tracks by X. I continued walking down the rows of paralyzed bots, and when I reached the last row, I turned back to face my soldiers.
“You know, I have a date with some very unfortunate officials in about twenty minutes. Can you all do me a favor, and clean up this trash in that time?”
The tranquility was broken by Lucina, who had pulled out a glowing blade twice her size from seemingly out of nowhere, and charged the nearest mech, bisecting the construct and the human pilot inside.