Elvera watched in disbelief as the West face of Salan court was decimated by sixteen bursts of seismic force. Her brain froze, and her body couldn’t move from her desk. She tried to contextualise what she had just witnessed through the window of the makeshift office.

Tanks? No, the streets weren’t wide enough. S.H.I.A. had no artillery to speak of, and hell would have frozen over before the military were allowed to station an ordinance unit anywhere near the city. The truth clawed away at the back of her brain, she knew what that had been, but did not want to believe it.

They had said that without legs, the machine wouldn’t be able to fire. The recoil of the first shot would’ve sent it tumbling to the ground. That was sixteen times just then.

She got a hold of herself and stood up, joining the crowd that had already scrambled to the windows like a gaggle of school children. She stuck her head out, her mind unable to even remember the possibly of snipers.

The bullets had punctured Salan Court’s walls and demolished the buildings across the road. Debris was still falling from what couldn’t even be described as ruins. Even calling it a pile of rubble would not do it justice.

The door to the office slammed open, yet Elvera only realised once the person in question was standing right by her.

“You said that thing couldn’t fire!” Evalyn shouted.

“That’s what I was told!” Elvera shouted back, the sudden jolt bringing her back into the present.

“Who the hell told you that!” Evalyn roared; this time addressed to the entire room.

“We’ve got nothing on that thing! We only assumed it couldn’t fire because the legs weren’t attached yet! That’s what the design documents said!” an officer shouted back from amongst the crowd.

Elvera scoured her short-term memory, replaying every single report from Deity division she had gotten up until that point.

“There had been a pilot in there for a while, ever since they propped the machine against the trucks…wait…they knew they couldn’t fire it without the legs, so they propped it up against the trucks to mitigate the recoil. We assumed it was just an assembly procedure.”

Evalyn gritted her teeth.

“What the hell is Deity division saying now!” she shouted towards the communication officers, the only ones still planted in their seats, headphones over their ears.

“The machine’s crushed both the trucks it was supported on, and it’s back down flat on the ground. Everyone, police, hostage, and terrorist who didn’t evacuate in time are incapacitated…at least.”

Evalyn turned and began to walk away. Elvera could barely react in time.

“Where are you going?!”

“Where do you think I’m going?”

“You know what will happen to you if you go out there!”

Their argument to everyone else present sounded as though Elvera was desperately trying to keep a leash on a zealous soldier with a death wish. Yet what would happen to Evalyn if she chose to mobilise herself was a far cry from that. Composed, Evalyn fired back, yet the tension peaked at seemingly almost every syllable.

“Then I don’t care what in the damn world you do, who the hell you talk to, I don’t give a rat’s ass if you have to get the Queen to sign the paper herself. Get me out there and let me finish this!”

Sick of it, Elvera grabbed her goddaughter by the collar, pulling her close and muttering into her ears, their eye lines threaded like chains.

“You’re fighting the wrong person here. You know that’s not your call to make, nor is it mine. If you aren’t going to protect yourself when you have so much to lose, then I’m going to have to do instead, even if it means beating the sense into you. Do I make myself clear?”

Evalyn’s eyes would not waver, yet her aggression waned, the heat of the moment subsiding in both of them.

“I’ll make that call now; they won’t resist this time.”

Jamie’s breathing calmed, and his grip on the controls waned as the bright sun shone through the peek hole, almost blinding him. The surrounding air was warm and stilted, and he could feel the sweat drenching his clothes. The heat of the engine right below him permeated through his seat as he looked around. Levers, pedals, the controls were laid out like that of a regular tank, yet the complexity was incomparable. A cockpit made for a single human, the layers upon layers of steel existing only to emulate their movements as precisely as possible.

The pushing of a pedal, the pulling of a lever all ran motors that would shift the anthropomorphic structure at his whim, and he had used that to decimate buildings. The city would be easy.

The cartilage of his joints was doing its best to keep his quaking bones in check. He was a difficult man to faze, let alone shake. The absolute power of the machine shook something primal from inside him, simply by virtue of being fathomable. The war had brought gods to bare, but the scramble for power and continental dominance had brought with it predators. Overbearing, massive fangs, things that Jamie had evolved to fear.

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He felt the entire cabin shift upright as the crew began propping it up onto another truck. They’d be working under gunfire, but the barrage had left them at a numbers advantage, he was sure of it.

He grabbed the small handle at the base of the hatch. Pushing it then twisting, he opened the steel door, and a gust of fresh air hit him. Fresh as an urban war zone could get, at least. He was careful not to expose himself too much, he had little idea what sight lines he had opened with the damage to the wall, or the aerial precision capabilities of the attackers.

He slipped out, his knees almost buckling under the drop, yet he feigned immunity to the shock. He reached for the pistol holstered in his coat, finding a matching magazine in the adjacent pocket. He pulled the slide back, checking if there was a round already chambered. Confirming it was empty, he slid the magazine up the mag-well until he heard the clink of the magazine release. Finally, he pulled on the slide, listening for the sound of the first bullet entering the chamber. The familiar routine was a stark contrast to what he had just accomplished, and it eased his nerves, yet his thumb still fiddled with the hammer.

The fighting continued, but it was dying down. No matter the advantage that Aether gave to the enemy, numbers and defensive positioning were ultimately more important once the element of surprise and initial momentum depleted.

Gunfire grew sparse as the first attack was repelled successfully. Their preparation had been thorough, yet it was still true they had lost a fair few men, enough that they likely could not spread themselves throughout the complex as effectively.

“Jamie to anyone remaining, once you’ve cleaned up, find every hostage that isn’t severely injured in your vicinity and re-secure them. We’ll regroup in the ballroom and reassign positions throughout the complex with whomever we have.”

Two hostages every hour sounded about right, considering the head count. The legs would not take long to attach, perhaps the hostages weren’t even needed any longer. His higher-ups would most likely have his head, but by then there wouldn’t even be a war to fight.

He exhaled deeply, watching the sun’s rays dance across the dust-filled air. He wondered if Hardridge was planning on entering the fray, or if she was already dead.

Three hours later, Elvera watched Evalyn remove her trench coat, her figure becoming much more delicate than she could remember in recent memory. She hated the idea of treating her like a child, yet she sometimes could not help herself. Scars littered her arms, but all were several years old, none younger than her armour. After she had forged it, scars were but marks of a bygone age.

On her other arm were the infamous markings, drifting from her shoulder to her wrist, depicting artistically an autumn breeze and the orange leaves they carried. She had told Elvera, once, that those maple leaves carried many meanings. Love, abundance, decline, death. Whichever one that the Wishing Whale had intended, even the woman in question didn’t know exactly.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Elvera asked from the doorway, knowing full well how hypocritical her question was.

“You always ask that when it’s already too late,” Evalyn chuckled, folding the coat neatly, and placing it on the table next to her weaponry. A freshly serviced rifle, clips of rounded ammunition from an era before magazines were invented.

“I know, but…” Elvera started, she couldn’t finish her sentence with any logical capacity, it was made up of her emotions, and only her emotions.

“You know that it’s my choice,” she said, smiling. She turned to face Elvera, only chuckling when she saw her expression.

“Do you want me to tell you something embarrassing?”

“What’s that?”

Evalyn picked up her rifle by the hand guard, aiming it at the wall behind her, checking if the weathered iron sights were still level.

“This must’ve been almost five years ago, after you and Elly had gotten close. He told me that no matter how he looked at you, you always looked more like a mother than a General to him.”

That’s because I’m always around you when I see him, was what she wanted to say, yet the thought of admitting that formed a lump in her throat.

“So that must be why he thinks he can act so friendly when we’re on duty. Remind me to show him why I’m in charge next time I see him,”

Evalyn laughed, taking a clip from the table beside her, and checking each bullet before loading it.

“Even so, when he told me, my first thought was that I couldn’t agree more. I love who you are, and I know it’s rude, but I catch myself thinking about what it would’ve been like for you to have children. Or, maybe, what it would have been like for you to have raised me instead.”

The last sentence, neither could look at the other in the eyes. Elvera could only bite her tongue; the love, and regret she felt towards her almost spilling in a way she couldn’t allow.

“If I had known, I would’ve done everything I could until I knew you were safe,” she said, knowing full well that the past was the past. “I wouldn’t have let Florence’s last gift to the world suffer.”

“You loved Mum a lot, huh,” Evalyn said, fitting the clip to the internal magazine and sliding the rounds down the metal spine, into the gun. With a faint smile, she sent the spine flying with the flick of her thumb.

“She was the best friend I could’ve ever asked for. So was your dad.”

Evalyn smiled. She did so whenever she heard of her father before she was born. To both, it made his memory feel redeemable.

“I’m sorry, I’m talking nonsense,” Evalyn said, “I don’t mean to blame you or anything. Thinking about Iris made me think about how I’m going to go about this.”

“You’ve been thinking about her?”

“Can’t stop as of late. Still thinking about how I’m going to do this.”

“Parenting?”

“…yeah….”

“No one knows. You just do the best you can,” Elvera said, casually.

“That’s right, I guess. But right now, I need a General, not a mother.”

Elvera sensed the tone change; the window of preparation was over. Elvera ventured closer as Evalyn stuffed the remaining clips into the various pockets of her pants. Elvera’s body stiffened, and so did Evalyn’s. They looked more like soldiers now, more than ever.

“Evalyn Hardridge, do you accept the terms of this business contract, issued by decree of the crown?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Under no circumstance shall you disclose the contents or parties involved in this transaction. You shall be given full support by Deity, and the handling of all mission objectives will now be at your discretion. Your mission is to neutralise all hostiles, arrest any surrendering combatants and retrieve as many remaining hostages as possible. Under no circumstance will you reveal yourself to anyone not currently standing in this room. Your base pay for this mission is five hundred thousand Ixa and another ten thousand for each successfully rescued hostage. Do you accept your mission?”

“Yes ma’am.”

They saluted each other, no more words were required. Evalyn walked past Elvera, brushing shoulders as she walked, the clack of her boots the only sound in the brief silence.

“Thanks again, Marie. I’ll see you soon.”

A warm, regal glow engulfed the room, and all Elvera saw upon turning around was a warrior of gold, clad head to toe in the most beautiful armour she had ever seen. No matter how many times she saw it, she would never grow tired of it.

“Come back in one piece.”