"Oh c'mon Penelope, you can't be tired yet!" Rhod laughed. He caught Penna against his arm as she lost her footing, almost tripping face forward on one of the tires she was hurriedly trying to hop through.

"Sure I can." She snapped, launching herself from his brace.

It was well into the morning now, and though it was beginning to warm up, Penna found herself unable to enjoy the subtle sunlight.

The Drill-Sergeant blew his whistle. Most of the soldiers, herself and Rhod included, lined themselves neatly in front of him. Apart from the few stragglers aside, who had been farther along the obstacle-course, cantered back.

"That's it for this morning!" He barked. His whistle dropped from his mouth to his chest, adding a light jingle to his stern voice.

As if Rhod knew she would, he nudged her before she had the chance to heave an exasperated breath of relief.

"Meet back here at twelve-hundred hours!"

The sergeant turned to make his leave. He stopped short, spinning on his heel to fire a piercing stare at his ranks.

"And I will come after you personally if you are not present."

The sergeant dismissed them and continued his stride to a building undoubtedly serving as his office.

Another blasting medley rang through the speakers, signaling the option to attend breakfast.

"C'mon Penelope! Let's go let's go!"

Penna didn't even bother resisting Rhod's hasty tug this time as he pulled her along to the mess hall.

"Don't you ever think about anything other than food?" She chuckled, so as not to offend him.

He nodded, replying to her chuckle with his own hearty laugh.

Once the two were inside the mess hall, Penna was a little thankful this time he allowed her to fill her own tray. Not that she placed much on it however, she didn't have much of an appetite after the morning she'd had.

Finally being able to sit down was such a wonderful feeling to her. She could feel her muscles cry out in gracious, yet exhausted pulsations.

"Are you still worried about the Captain?" Rhod asked. The expression Penna gave must have inspired his concerned tone.

She perked herself up a little, rubbing the ache out of her legs.

"Wouldn't you be? I mean he's obviously not going to give me a replacement carrier..."

Rhod chewed his food, at a safe pace this time.

"Well, I mean, yeah he sounded pretty adamant about that, but I mean all those people you left behind! Maybe when those guys from Mexico get here he'll change his mind."

Penna shook her head. "How long is that going to take though? I am kind of on a tight schedule."

He rose a slightly confuse-ridden brow, but it quickly faded as he came up with his own assumption to her statement.

"Right! They're counting on you." He nodded excitedly.

She looked down at her plate, gingerly toying with the sloppy mess strewn on her tray.

"Yeah..." She nodded once.

She remained silent as Rhod devoured his plate. He would occasionally take a break from inhaling his food to talk about his life from before the war. He mostly talked about his life in the country. How he and his brother were orphaned when they were just kids, how Cordin worked so many jobs to be able to provide for the both of them.

Penna couldn't find the words to respond, she had heard and seen this sort of story quite often. Depressingly often.

"What about you? What got you into this?" He finally asked, hoping to have another chance to take a mouthful.

Penna took a deep breath, trying to remember what she had told him so far.

"Well," She began, deciding to delve into her own, truthful past for a moment.

"Before, I worked at a fairly nice restaurant; I was a hostess. It paid pretty well, I guess." She shrugged a little.

"I also worked with my mother in her business. The money I made from the restaurant pretty much went into keeping that up. I didn't mind though, we had everything we needed."

She didn't quite know how to explain the feelings rushing in her mind. She'd never really had the chance to talk about her past to anyone before. The only one who ever asked and actually listened was Jared.

She offered Rhod a soft smile. It faltered as she realized she had best come up with something to tie it in to the lies she had already told.

"Then the civilian attack started and ever since I've been running."

"So, your mom got killed?"

Penna shook her head again. "No, she died before the war began."

'Thankfully...'She added in her mind.

Rhod slunk back in his seat, giving her a moment of silence with her thoughts.

His attention quickly shifted to one of the barred windows.

"Did you hear that?" He asked, rising up in one swift motion.

He hadn't been the only one. Other soldiers in the mess hall heard what ever it was as well.

A dull crashing sound reverberated in short bursts, gently shaking the floor. It began to grow louder, as if it were getting closer.

Suddenly a startling alarm blared throughout the mess hall, echoing in one long, screeching wave.

Penna instantly covered her ears, recoiling from the piercing siren.

"What is that-" Her confusion was interrupted by another low explosion.

The soldiers quickly formed two orderly lines, wasting no time, bolting out the door. The crashing noise now blasted in the air, barely masked by the rising alarm.

Rhod moved to follow his fellow soldiers. Just as he was about to burst into a sprint, he stopped to look back at her.

"I've got to go find the Captain, Penelope! You just stay right here until I find him!"

"No wait!" She called after him. She attempted to chase after him but found her foot had become somewhat tangled in the leg of her chair.

"Rhod!" She called again as he became lost in the unison of marching soldiers.

Soon she was the only one left inside, still struggling in her panic to rig her boot free.

The alarm continued. A faint wave of gunfire erupted, almost lost in the cacophony of explosions.
She finally loosened herself from the cluster of chairs and ran to the open door. She had to find him and the Captain before it was too late.

'Goddammit Warden! This isn't the kind of distraction I had in mind!'

A stream of bullets fired off to the side of her, directed at something in the sky. The gun-toting soldiers shouted angrily at their target that had just become lost in a cloud of smoke.

Another explosion, this time much closer to her. The resulting blast tore off the edge of the storage unit ahead, the debris crashing down on the supplies and trucks inside.

A few soldiers scrambled to the undamaged sheds, hastily trying to salvage what trucks they could before they were hit. The others were determined to shoot whatever was causing the attack down.

The lifeless bodies of those that had been hit lay across her view. More and more were dropping like stones by the second. Cries from those suffering their last agonizing moments could be heard fading in and out in the noise erupting from burning buildings and gunshots.

More gunfire shot across the yard of the base. Penna had no idea where the safest place to run to would be. She clenched her fist and sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her to the one place she could only hope to find Rhod.

A sharp grasp on her arm pulled her out of any concentration or sense of self she had.

"You little traitor!" The vicious, booming voice from Cordin screamed into her ear.

"You sent them here, didn't you?"

He pushed her against the side of an undamaged building, holding her against its walls with all his strength. A glinting, metallic object caught her eye. A pistol clung to his thigh, held by a holster on his leg.

"I don't know what's going on! I sure as hell didn't ask for this!" Penna tried to push him off her but found she possessed little force to even budge him.

"Where's Rhod? He went off to find the Captain, is he alright?" She continued to struggle under the pressure of his palm against her shoulder.

"Who, Rhod or the Captain?"

"Your brother! Argh! Let go of me!"

"No, I have a better idea." Cordin gripped her arm with a crushing fist, digging his wide fingers deep into her skin. She winced and tried to pull away, only to be dragged along harder.

She frantically searched for any sign of Rhod through the scattered men, though each one looked just like the next to her as they blurred past. She spotted a truck pulling out of a unit, barely given the chance to embark fully as it was quickly incinerated by a bright, red beam of light.

The rain of bullets continued to spray above them, another sharp explosion destroyed a nearby shed. The impact from its blast had caused Penna to lose her footing, yet Cordin's grip remained firm and tightening. It didn't even seem to phase him. She stammered to her feet, not wanting to be pulled along the ground, trampled under a soldier's boot.

Suddenly, she caught a glimpse of something sleek and black zooming overhead. She hadn't had the time to make out its exact shape but her instinct told her it was not something to willingly let yourself get caught in its line of sight.

"Cordin you have to listen to me! Let go!" She shouted. They were getting closer to the Captain's quarters, she could make out the outline of the building through a wave of smoke that slid past in a choking sheet.

He paid her no response, only trudging forward.

The guards that had been stationed around the Captain's gate had joined in the fighting, manning a massive armored-truck with a mounted gun in its bed. Two soldiers positioned themselves next to it; one to hold it steady and feed it bullets, the other to aim and fire. It soon sped past the struggling Penna and her 'escort', firing away relentlessly at the shiny, dark object flying above.

Cordin yanked harder, jerking her into the building as they barely reached the door.

"Sir! I found her!" He flung her in front of him, giving her back a hard shove to keep her moving.

One more powerful surge from an explosion, this one strong enough to cause Cordin to fumble with his balance.

The Captain's door burst open. He stormed over to the two of them, clutching his pistol in his hand.
He took a hold of her collar, shaking her violently.

"I want answers and I want them now!" He shouted in her face.

It took her a good second to regain her focus from having been shaken so roughly. She placed her hand on his arms in an attempt to keep herself still.

"I...I don't know what's happened!" She cried, using her free hand she tried to brush away the hair that had fallen into her face.

"Bullshit!" He shook her again.

"What are you doing sir, let her go!"

"Rhod!" Cordin lunged to his brother, almost tackling him to the ground. "Thank God you're alright!"

"Th-they're destroying everything Captain!" Rhod feebly tried to yell, his voice strained under his brother's weight.

"We have to evacuate- Ack! Get off me Cordin!"

Suddenly, a calamitous shudder rocked the entire building. The deafening shriek of steel ripping against steel tore through the roof, followed by a hard, shaking rumble. All at once the four of them were knocked back by a powerful blast. The side of the Captain's quarters had been completely blown off.

Penna, hardly conscious by now felt something round and cold wrapping around her middle, soon to pick her up out of the mess of brick and stone. She found the humming of mechanical working to be quite soothing in her fading mind. She couldn't place her finger on why she couldn't feel anything solid under her feet.

"There you are Howl. That is you, isn't it? Oh good, I was so worried you may have been caught in the cross-fire."

Her eyes flew open. She saw the metal arm that held her in the air, and what it was attached to. The neon-green dot-matrix display blinked a cheeky, happy grin at her, soon to phase into a frowning scowl as it extended another arm.

The view below her, as she forced herself to find a point of focus was a vast clutter of all that remained of the devastated base. The siren had stopped. The bullets ceased.

What had managed to remain steady on their foundations, though they had taken a substantial amount of damage, were a few sparse units, housing the air carriers and a few trucks that had not been piloted by the scurrying soldiers.

"Oh Daniel! Daniel my good man, I know you're alive under there. Come out and play, won't you?"The voice of the Future-Warden echoed tauntingly through a speaker placed in the center of Jailbot-X.

The free arm of his creation flipped over a few rocks to find the unconscious Captain. Next to him however, a long, jagged, and blood-splattered piece of shrapnel extended out of the back of a slightly less bulky man.

"C-Cordin...?" Rhod whimpered, trying to wriggle free from under the body of his brother.

His eyes shot up to the source of the voice. His face contorted into a look of horror, only outweighed by his own disbelief.

As the mechanical arm swiftly grabbed the Captain by a limp wrist, Rhod had managed to free himself.

He looked to his brother, then to Penna, tears starting to stream from his dust-caked eyes.

"Y-you..." He muttered, stumbling over a loose stone, trying to crawl his way closer.

"Oh, what's this? It looks like Howl's made a friend! How splendid!"

"P-Penelope-"

The static voice of the other Warden burst into a shrill, maniacal laugh as Jailbot-X began to hover higher in the air, making his way to head back. His pixelated face had changed to an animation, matching his creator's humor.

"'Penelope'? Oh Howl, you really are the creative type aren't you?"

A compartment opened from Jailbot-X's chest, revealing the shining barrel of a gun. One bullet was fired, tearing into the flesh on the edge of his shoulder. The boy collapsed almost instantly, weakly clutching his oozing wound.

"Well, that settles it then. My what a bore this has all been. Come on boy,"The Future-Warden cooed out of the speaker.

"It's time to go home."