CHANNEL 6,
FREQUENCY: 398.050,
TRANSMISSION TRANSCRIPT BELOW:,
Hizak Four Two, this is Klentu Three Three! Requesting fire support on our position, over! Grid location is-
*GUNFIRE*
Hizak Four Two, do you copy?! We can’t hold this position any longer! My men, most of my men are dead! I’ve got two holding out and one dying here! Klentu Two Three and Four Three got wiped out in an ambush!
*GUNFIRE*
*SCREAMING*
Zikri, cover the left flank! Rig the bodies, we can’t come back for them! I don’t give a damn if that’s your friend, we serve even in death! Hizak, please respond!
*GUNFIRE*
*EXPLOSION*
This is Hizak Four Two, we read your transmission. Strike package has already been requested by Captain Varquil and is being prepared, stand by.
Oh, thank Tuah! Varquil the saviour! How long until those shells drop?
T-minus two minutes, we are adjusting for elevation.
Okay, then we’ll get moving! Boys, we’re retreating!
Negative on retreat, Klentu. All of your elements have been ordered to hold the line at Checkpoint Corsair by Varquil, over.
What? Say again? That sounded like fucking insanity, Hizak! I don’t give a shit, we’re leaving!
Aiff on that transmission.
*SILENCE*
*GUNFIRE*
Klentu Three Three, barrier team Batu is now assigned to your grid location. Any attempt to disobey orders will be met with capture and court-martial post-combat.
Fuck you and fuck them! I’ve lost too many of my friends to give a shit! Grab Shen, quick! What do you mean you can’t feel a pulse? Just get him on your shoulders and run!
*ARTILLERY FIRING*
*ARTILLERY FIRING*
*ARTILLERY FIRING*
Strike package has been delivered. Barrier teams, ensure that Klentu elements do not leave their posts. Coalition 44th Infantry Division estimated to be heavily crippled by our barrage if they hold. Make sure those shells count.
TRANSMISSION CONCLUDED.
BARRAGE STATUS: SUCCESS,
44TH INFANTRY DIVISION DECIMATED AND IN RETREAT,
KLENTU PERSONNEL SUSPECTED OF INSUBORDINATION OR COWARDICE TO BE CHARGED BY DAWN UPON ARRIVAL OF REINFORCEMENTS.
----------------------------------------
The trench had many bodies scattered around. There was one that stood out to Yumiko though. It hung from the remains of a ruined tank above Yumiko and her group. Napalm and some other bodily fluids slowly dripped out of a twisted coil of a ruined intestine. There was no telling whether it was a man or woman who died; nothing remained of a face, chest or anything below the waist. Yumiko’s frown stiffened, yet she couldn’t remain. They moved on with burning flesh in their noses.
Up ahead, the senses in her head only told her how deathly still the trench was after an ear-shattering artillery strike. Within its blasted confines, the only sounds that Yumiko could hear was faint whimpering, soft shuffling and whispering. The air was crisp with the stench of death and burning metal. Coming across a forked path whilst trudging forward, she cautiously signalled to the people behind to slow their pace. Not that they could go any faster with a wounded soul.
“Boss, what’d you see?”
Yumiko shut her eyes and reached out. Her potential had already been cut down from her prime in Ishimura, but here they were even more suppressed. The chaos that had left half of Yarma as burning ruins rendered her essentially blind, limited to only her five senses. Repeated mantras about how her training put her above the others without question had not provided her ease in the slightest. Every burst of heavy machine gun fire put her on edge, every voice that wasn’t her group put her on extreme guard, and every moaning of material stress made her hair stand on end.
Her mantras tried to be white lies. They failed. Now it was costing her as she couldn’t find anybody within the trench line that was an active threat to them. Yumiko recoiled back with staggered breaths, having to be supported by one of her subordinates, “Ay, ay, Boss, there we go. Take deeper breaths.”
Yumiko felt parched. When she turned around, the person behind her, one of the lower-ranked mercenaries who had abruptly been promoted to secondary squad leader going by the name of Rufus, immediately reached out for his canteen. His voice was soft, but made it known he needed more, “The lieutenant needs some water, I need a check on that right now.”
There were many shrugs. Some came after they checked their belongings. Only one person could muster up a small metal container, meekly speaking underneath a mess of gravel and dirt on her face, “Only a few drops of alcohol, Rufus. I used the rest just now for Yusuf.”
“Pass it to me anyway.”
With shaking hands, Yumiko drank, though only enough to get her into functioning order, “Thank you, Corporal.”
“Don’t mention it, nushi. Now, did you see anything up ahead?”
“Nothing. Just death.”
“That’s not lost on us,” sighed Rufus, “how far are we from the source of the jamming?”
Yumiko turned to the last remaining radio operator of Baoqu Squad. He was meekly standing there, gripping a battered service rifle, and seemed to shudder in the darkness when she called him up.
“You, operator, I need your radio again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, approaching her. With Rufus and a dirty, silent mercenary who Yumiko knew as Chehza helping the operator, Yumiko made another call towards their salvation; a medevac team that they had managed to reach out before the Coalition set up one of their jammer vehicles nearby. The operator pointed out the logic in this move- or, to him, what lack of logic there was in it, “miss, we’re still in range of the-
“I know.”
She tuned the knobs and ran the dial and fiddled with the antenna. Soon, she was transmitting live.
“This is Phenex Lead to Helix One Two, I need status on our casevac. We are running low on supplies, stranded in no-man’s-land and have wounded with a soul bleeding out. Respond immediately, over.”
As expected, there was static. However, this burst of white noise was much stronger and more intense. The closer they listened to it, the more they realised that there was something else breaking through.
“Ma’am, that’s Coalition ciphering. Standard-issue, but it’s new to me, let me take a listen.”
The operator has lost his meekness. He took back the radio and tuned with the device intensely. Yumiko watched him quietly, resting her head on the hilt of her blade. The others took their time to rest up, regain their bearings and maintain watch over their sectors. The soldier carrying his legless friend put her down gently against the wall of the trench. It must not be comfortable, especially with the splintered wood and tossed gravel, Yumiko thought.
For the others, they had different stories written all over their faces. Private Chehzad had seen his superior and the rest of his squad get blown in half without a second of warning. Corporal Rufus seemed to be more happy that he was in some position of power than sad over losing his comrades.. These were only her men- or at least those in the company- the rest were Regalian regs who were desperate to rejoin the rest of their army. Half a day spent fighting here had considerably wracked all their bodies with scars, wounds, ripped clothings and all sorts of physical ailments.
She had no other words for her own state except one; tired. Checking her blade only hammered this home with just how long she was out here for. Swiping a finger over it, Yumiko found out that the blood could no longer be removed with thorough wiping. The discovery soured her expression, as she could not remember exactly when her slaughter ended. Was it two hours ago? Three? Even probing her mind weakly revealed no certainty. The only sense of relief that came through was when the radio operator perked up.
“Ma’am, I triangulated the direction of the jamming vehicle.”
Yumiko sheathed her blades and offered her ears visibly.
“The signal is stronger down this trench to the east. We need to keep moving straight, though I can’t tell what we’ll be encountering.”
“Issues?”
“Heightened encryption and new ciphering techniques. The bastards are learning fast.”
“I would be sad if they were lacking,” Yumiko folded her arms, “what can you glean from the noise?”
“New troop movement to strengthen the jamming vehicle’s position. Not much, but there’s some. Orders?”
“We keep going. If we’re going to get your friend to medical aid, we need to move fast. Everyone, stack up and move out.”
The journey through the trench continued. Fortunately, there was no need to expend ammunition when they encountered Coalition soldiers. The few that seemed to even notice them only stared vacantly, into distant horizons that seemed to only exist to them. The rest either curled up or let Yumiko’s group through, clutching what remained of their bodies, friends or weapons. They were lucky to be able to even cry, their sense of zealotry obliterated hours ago. For the lucky few, someone unscrupulous moved to end their suffering through the squelching of flesh and thrusting of blades. Yumiko didn’t need to look behind to even guess who it was, all gleeful and satisfied with killing dead men.
Fifteen minutes passed. Exiting the trenches brought them to stretching streets that were still very much alive with activity. Yumiko had to stop the inertia of their march from time to time, seeing medium-sized convoys roll by and occasionally a lance of walkers galloping to the front. Each and every one of these vehicles headed for Yarma’s frontline; one that was slowly but surely collapsing underneath the cover of darkness and steady enemy barrages.
The noise, no matter how far away, was deafening. The invisible timer ticking down for the wounded, unconscious soldier added to it, ticking ever downwards. Yumiko adjusted her canister of psychogen gas to steady her mind more frequently, up until they had moved up far enough to locate the jamming vehicle- and its escorts.
“Holy shit, that’s a lot of security.”
“They don’t want to lose ground here,” said the operator, “they know if they even give a second of less caution to us, we’d roll right in.”
“Makes sense, but we’ll still hit ‘em hard. Right, boss?”
“As we always have done,” Yumiko approached the soldier carrying the wounded one, “how is she doing?”
“Her heartbeat is slowing down. I’m… I’m not sure we’ll make it, miss-
“We will. Do you have any more stabilisers?”
The soldier whispered to another for help. Digging through his pockets, three yellow-marked sticks were visible in the light of a nearby fire. There was only enough to sustain the woman for another hour or so. The grim expression of the soldier pierced through her heart from the weight of his broken stare. He was trying so much harder to keep himself composed, knowing there wasn’t much time left. Without a word, she made a flat hand to tell him to stay put, then walked right in front of the group to analyse the situation.
The situation was weighed in the defenders’ favour. There was a tall walker guarding the vehicle, armed with a chin-mounted gun, a swivelling cannon and distinctive rocket tubes on both left and right of its main body. Walking by its feet were multiple Coalition regs and two exo-soldiers, who looked completely different from the ones at Sapland. A pair of triple tube rockets were mounted on their shoulders, while their hands gripped the hilts of formidable lances at their tips. From looks alone, they were made for killing tanks; she had gutted several already with her blades.
Yumiko and her men were outgunned, plain and simple. When she went back into cover, Rufus spoke again.
“Boss? What’d you see?”
Yumiko said nothing. Rufus started fidgeting.
“Boss?”
“I’m thinking.”
Yumiko thought long and hard about some kind of strategy for the others to follow. She was certain of her role, that she could distract and kill a lot of these soldiers on her own. The rest, however, were in almost no shape to coordinate their fire effectively as she wanted. Chehza was skittish after Luzen’s untimely death, more likely to be a problem than an asset, while Rufus seemed to skew towards being a gloryhound than a smart fighter. That left the Regalian regs and the radio operator, who were more than capable of laying down a field of fire. Their ammo, however, prevented this from stretching too long. Yumiko herself was down to three mags for her gun and a single grenade, with the others ranging between ‘running low’ and ‘completely empty’. To this end, she scanned the surroundings, calling up Rufus for an extra set of eyes.
“We’ve got the advantage, corporal, but we don’t have the firepower to take them all on at once.”
“Right, right.”
“Destroying that jammer won’t be of much help if we can’t take down the guards. They’d be eager to go after the casevac chopper once we get the signal out.”
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
“Makes sense.”
Her eyes caught sight of something useful in the dark. The psychogen in her body was quickly twisted, edited and transfigured. Immediately the world around her was much brighter, allowing her to recognize the shape of an abandoned fighting vehicle.
“There, do you see that vehicle?”
“Where?”
“Where I’m pointing, near those fortifications.”
Rufus squinted.
“I don’t see it, Boss. Too dark.”
“Look harder.”
He squinted even more.
“Oh, you mean that hunk of scrap? Yeah, yeah, I see it.”
“Are you good with gunnery?”
“No, but the kid is.”
Yumiko looked behind. Chehza was rocking back and forth, whispering something incoherent repeatedly. She turned to Rufus again, “What makes you say that?”
“Because it’s the only place he might be useful to us without being a walking hazard. At least if he gets shot, he’s got a layer of armour around him.”
“I meant to ask if he was good at gunnery, not whether he’d be useful.”
“He’ll figure it out, we learned this in basic.”
Hmm.
Her eyes turned towards the jamming vehicle. Three ruined buildings stood high above it to its south and west, possible places for enemy snipers, alongside a ruined series of shanty houses that were just shy of touching the jammer itself. Barbed wires and makeshift barricades ringed the compound, alongside a series of gun emplacements and supply boxes. All of these had been set up haphazardly, as if the defenders themselves were expecting to move out just as quickly as they had settled.
Then she looked around the group: there were multiple vantage points, with one in front of the building they were taking cover in. Her group had a machine gunner and a few others she could order up there, alongside the wounded soldier for safety. Before she even thought about sending anyone out to investigate the wrecked vehicle, Yumiko took a deep breath in and jogged her powers. The body stayed in place; the mind breached the armour and looked within.
To her relief, most of its turret’s firing mechanisms were intact and ready to go. There was more than enough ammunition in its hold, the only things being cooked was its engine, parts of its armour and all of its wheels. From within, however, there was a strange soft buzzing, almost like radio static. It was oddly familiar, but fleeting as well. As quickly as it came, the sensation vanished. Yumiko shrugged it off.
As it were, it was a stationary turret and nothing more. Once the walker and the jamming station went down, they would have to ditch it. Someone can pick up the remains later. However, Yumiko still needed a distraction, seeing that the walker was panning its searchlight across the street. Immediately, there was one way that came into her mind. She gathered the rest and discussed her plan.
“Listen closely. We don’t have anything of sufficient firepower to knock out the jamming vehicle with our current weapons. There is, however, a stranded fighting vehicle nearby. It’s still armoured, still functional where it counts, but it is right in a walker’s line of sight.”
“Walker?” The word alone made Chehza panic and shuffle backwards madly. Rufus quietly but roughly pulled him back into the group, baring his fangs as part of a disdainful grimace towards the younger mercenary. The ruffled white-blonde hair on the top of his head covered his eyes as he curled up.
“What designation, ma’am?” asked the machine-gunner, racking the bolt on his weapon with his scarred arms. Underneath a helmet with the words ‘Gila Babi’, Yumiko could make out a toothy smile spreading across the gunner’s face. It made her write off his attitude as suicidally overconfident even before he resumed speaking, “maybe me and ol’ Sarah here can give it a good spray, run it down a notch so that you guys can take out the station.”
“Shut up, Gila,” said one of the other soldiers, a grenadier whose belts were empty of any explosive munitions, “just shut up.”
“Ay, I mean it could be worth a shot? Right, lieutenant?”
Yumiko gave him an unamused look.
“I’ll take that as a no, then,” Babi said, still smiling, “right, right, covering fire. Fine by me.”
She continued, “I have an idea to buy time, but I need absolute trust from you, Corporal.”
Rufus’ eyes lit up. It was as if someone had given him a raise.
“We’re going to be the distraction.”
That glow instantly vanished, replaced by stammering lips.
“You already know the drill from Sapland, whether you were in the infil tasking or not. We don’t have much in the way of an alibi, but with the fighting around us, I am sure the jamming team will be open to a stranded squad making it back to one of their outposts.”
“Boss? I’m not… I’m not sure about that. I was thinking-"
In the middle of Rufus’ sudden lack of guts, the quiet Chehza spoke aloud.
“I’ll do it. I’ll come with you, miss.”
“Private?”
He crawled his way to the front. Rufus’ anxiety turned into visible frustration. The regs either watched them or discussed the plan amongst themselves. Chehza continued, “I’ve g-got nothing left to lose, and I look like shit. Those soldiers m-might be better fooled, if you know what I’m saying.”
“I understand,” Yumiko looked down and swapped Rufus’ place with Chehza mentally. The plan immediately flowed better- much to her spiking discomfort. At least if Rufus got shot and killed, there wouldn’t be as much regret. With Chehza, it would be a tragedy. The young man’s hollow valley-for-eyes had seen too much, he deserved a chance to get out of here with as minimal harm as possible. The idea only contributed to a growing headache.
What a headache it was; one that was very, very real, very sudden and ringing right outside her ears.
The moment she scanned the broken down fighting vehicle, something had wormed its way into her mind silently. Now that Chehza put his life on the line on a whim, it had dredged up this uncomfortable sound in her mind. When she keeled over for a moment, the Private’s query was of alarm.
“Miss, did I say something wrong?”
She said nothing, trying to suppress the sensation with the help of a psychogen whiff. Rufus replied instead, “Yeah, you fuckin’ did. Sayin’ something stupid’s bound to give someone trouble.”
“I’m only tryin’ to help, Ruf-
“Shut it, coward. I know you. I watched you, and you’re gonna be the death of us right after you put your squad through the wringer, you hear me? You ran, tucked tail in-between your legs, when your Sarge asked for help and ate a belly full of lead.”
“F-fuck you! You don’t know shit!”
“I know more shit than you do, Private! So don’t be a fucking idiot for once and just put yourself out of our way so we can all get home quicker. Everyone wins, right, boss?”
Before he knew it, something socked him in the jaw with the force of a speeding truck. He fell backwards onto the ground, his world careening and tumbling. Gila Babi and his companions didn’t even see the blur, only hearing the sound of someone’s jaw cracking. They spun, saw the offender and slowly backed up with wide eyes.
“B-boss?!”
Yumiko loomed over him. Violet glints pierced through his soul, partially hidden behind heavy eyelids. Instead of standing up and challenging her, Rufus slowly crawled away, his heart beating out of his body. When it looked like she might just strike him again, the Corporal cowered with a yelp. She did not, choosing to instead make an ultimatum.
“Private Chehza will be providing fire support. You are coming with me. There will be no more arguments from here on out.”
Chehza attempted to withdraw from the menacing atmosphere. She reeled him back in with a subconscious order.
“And you will not put your life on the line so recklessly. There will be time for that, but never when we are working together.”
Yumiko offered a hand to Rufus, who gingerly accepted it. Without saying a word and leaving him hanging, she rallied the others. They greeted her with tired gazes. Gila seemed to have simmered down; there was focus in his eyes as he delicately handled his machine gun. The same focus that was in most of them, all in agreement for leaving this place for the moment.
“Ammo check, everybody. Controlled shots and only at soft targets. Scatter if the exo-soldiers charge you down, leave them to me.”
The radio operator chirped suddenly, checking his rifle.
“What about any intel we can scavenge from the truck itself? Are we gonna burn it all down?”
“Yes,” she said flatly, “there will be plenty of opportunities in the future if you live. Right now, it’s too dangerous.”
“Agreed. I’d like a full regiment backing me up if we’re doing anything but killing Coals,” spoke the grenadier.
“Once we get outta here, I’ll make sure we don’t need them, brother,” Gila boasted, “strap so much ammo to this rocking chest, they’ll call me the bullet god. Not that they’ll have time to speak.”
“You’re full of shit, Babi, but damn if I don’t like that attitude.”
Yumiko motioned for them to go silent. Her voice was now much, much softer, yet somehow audible.
“Quiet. Take up firing positions. The grenadier accompanies Private Chehza on the way to the fighting vehicle.”
The regs felt something wriggling in their heads. Not enough to be painful, but just enough to be noticeable. The only one who had a gist of an idea was the radio operator, who looked at Yumiko’s mask. It glowed purple along jagged lines, causing him to gulp. He obeyed nonetheless.
All of them left in short order, including the mercenaries, their boots crunching up gravel and concrete. The only one who didn’t move, however, was the soldier from before with his friend. Yumiko saw him with his back towards the wall, cradling the other one. She didn’t need to walk over to immediately assume the worst, but did so anyway. He looked up and barely stuttered out a word, his throat choking up.
“Ma’am.”
She gripped the hilt of her blade extremely hard. Something she did not want to hear was coming. There was no stopping it, and confirming it with a mindswipe only made her heart sink. The soldier saw her face, held on to his duty with a broken gulp and spoke.
“I’m sorry. She’s left us. I tried giving her another shot. She didn’t want it anymore.”
Yumiko stared at the body. Her eyes were closed. They looked so peaceful in this bombed out hellhole. Approaching the body, her mouth uttered an old prayer for the dead and looked to the soldier.
“Can you still fight?”
He looked at the body, then looked at her.
“I think so.”
“Cover her up as best as you can. We will retrieve her when the fighting’s over. I need you to support one of my subordinates in his boarding action.”
The soldier nodded slowly. He put the body sideways against the wall. The only signs of her after they left was a light blue shade of a tarp over the burnt earth. The contrast stuck with Yumiko, even as she straightened out Rufus’ uniform.
“I need you to be twitchy, be out of shape, as if you’ve been shot somewhere. My mind-trick might be weakened out here, so you will need to step up to sell the act.”
He said nothing. The punch had clearly knocked the wind out of him, though not enough that Rufus was unable to carry out her orders.
“We will pretend that we’re a lost pair of Coalition soldiers, detached from our squad due to enemy interception. There will be no codes needed to disguise ourselves, only that we pretend we’re desperate for help. We just need to buy time for Chehza to get the fighting vehicle up and running again. Understood?”
Rufus nodded. The thought of her punch having dislocated his jaw hard enough to make talking an uncomfortable task made her smirk. Once he looked suitably dishevelled enough, Yumiko looked around and saw everyone at the ready. A deep breath was drawn and then they were off. The first part was a quick jog towards the street, identifying where they could take cover at. The darkness, at least to Rufus, made it hard to pick out what could be big enough to cover them, but eventually a large rubble stack was where they decided to shelter behind.
With eyes above cover, Yumiko delved into her mind and spread herself like a burgeoning cancer amidst the jamming station’s soldiers. Soon she was hiding within their minds, waiting to cast illusions on their senses to cover Private Chehza. The only reason that there was any delay was because the soft buzzing from earlier had come back; only this time, there was now a high-pitched whining in her ears. Scratching her ears, then her head, did nothing to ease the discomfort. Yumiko brushed it off to focus on ‘tweaking’ their appearances to the Coalition soldiers’ preferences mentally.
The more the buzzing and whining pounded on her head, the more the back of her mind seemed to recall something very familiar about this noise. Even her actions did not distract her from this strange sensation. She would have to ruminate about this later, finishing up her work.
“Done. Let’s go.”
Rufus cocked his head, holding on this rifle, and clumsily stood up. Both of them were being watched by Gila Babi and his compatriots. To say they were unnerved by this ‘witch’ of theirs was an understatement.
“How on earth did we get stuck with a witch? She’s giving me the creeps.”
“Beats me. You’ll never find any of them outside of that blasted hellhole they call Ishimura and some dark corners of this world. Not that there’s any of them left ‘cept for her.”
“The stars have blessed us with a walking curse, it seems. Did you feel her going through your mind?”
“Nah. Only an itch when she talked. Then again, there was that slight burning when she looked at me weird.”
“She was going through ‘em. I felt it. Glad she’s on our side then, or else we’d be having a real big issue.”
Yumiko heard all of this. She focused on the path ahead instead. When the both of them were close enough to the station’s perimeter, someone ahead of them noticed them- or, rather, what she wanted them to notice. The rushing of soldiers and the panning of searchlights greeted them alongside the noise of a very loud man.
“Check fire! Unknown targets moving in!”
She coughed. The psychogen made her voice take on an entirely different pitch.
“Hold fire, hold fire! We’re friendly! I repeat, friendlies!”
The walker turned to face them. She could make out the silhouette of two pilots within its cockpit. The loud soldier addressing her came out from behind its leg, wearing an orange pauldron that identified him as someone of rank. Yumiko planned to kill him first when the fighting began.
“ID phrase, now!”
She ran through their minds and inserted a phrase of her own.
“Solbright! Solbright, just don’t shoot us!”
The man backed down. Even at her weakest and with a pounding head, her mind-trick was still quite effective. No time to celebrate, even behind a mask, as she focused on coming up with a response.
“What squad are you from? Where are they?”
“We lost them on the way here. There was an ambush by enemy stormtroopers. My men were killed except for him,” she pointed at Rufus, who just nodded and pretended to be injured, “we’re trying to link up with any friendly forces in the area and found you guys.”
“The orders were to head up front even if your squad gets taken out. There’s a few more comrades up there that need help. Why did you come to us instead?”
Shit.
“We got lost, my comrade here got wounded and we lost our maps in the chaos. We just needed-”
She turned her head briefly for a moment towards the left. She could make out Chehza’s figure before he disappeared into the fighting vehicle. On the commanding Coalition officer’s side, her face was still facing him. When she delved into the vehicle and saw the Private working as quickly as he could to start the vehicle alongside a reg, she turned around and delayed the man even more, “we need some additional supplies.”
“The hell? There were a few patrols coming by from our side, friend. You didn’t wave them down?”
“We didn’t know if we were being targeted.”
“By Gaillich’s will with these idiots,” the officer said. He looked back at the jamming station, all around him, and then returned back to Yumiko, “alright, get your sorry asses over here. I’ll get Tharrapat on the comms to get you a pickup. Make yourselves useful where the fighting’s at. Can’t believe these kids, good for nothing villagers.”
“Thank you, sir, we’ll do our best to make ourselves useful.”
There were only two more steps taken from her before the buzzing from before erupted into a full blast of painful noise. Yumiko keeled audibly, feeling her head almost burst from the sudden outburst of noise. The commanding officer noticed this immediately and shouted, “Man down! You two, medical EQ up front on the double!”
It was then that he realised something was terribly off about the two of them now. They were alternating between Coalition uniforms and some kind of custom attire that was entirely alien to him. Her face twisted, shifted, warped and so did her proportions. Once the illusion was completely dispelled, he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulder. Immediately, he raised his weapons and called for the rest to do the same. There was still confusion over what was happening, but there was no doubt these two weren’t allied forces
“Hands up! Don’t move an inch! What’s going on, who are you two?”
The two exo-soldiers nearby boosted themselves up to the front, raising their lances towards Yumiko and Rufus. The Regalian regs readied their weapons and prepared for a fight, while Chehza, hearing the commotion outside, fumbled around with a set of wires. The ex-Yakuza was paralyzed by the pain, writhing on the ground, leaving Rufus to try and come up with some kind of explanation in her absence to no avail.
In her writhing, the pain finally unlocked an answer to why she found the buzzing so eerily familiar.
It was wielded by someone she knew a long time ago. But who?