Chapter 24 – The Last Round

Ducking behind the remains of a loading crane, Valkyrie winces as the laser round hits the crane, and shears through the base, causing it to fall. Ahead of her, the Large MT's energy cannon arms begin to charge for another shot. "Get out of there!" Megan shouts as she fires at the MT from its left. Ignoring her small calibre rounds, the MT raises its arms up to fire. "You call this a massive MT?" Kain asks as he flies into the hangar behind the MT. Firing the KAWASARA, Kain hits the MT twice in the back, badly damaging one of its thrusters. "This thing's barely huge!"

"About time!" Valkyrie shouts at him. "Hey!" Kain shouts. "You wanna deal with the two NEXTs next time?" The MT starts to turn to face Kain, but the black AC keeps boosting around behind it, firing his KAWASARA. Finally, after about a dozen shots, both thrusters explode, and the MT starts to tilt dangerously. Seeing this, Valkyrie boosts forward, and slashes at the MT's underbelly with her laser blade. Meanwhile, Kain, from the other side, attacks with his own blade, dealing it several deadly slashes, one of which shears off part of the cylindrical head.

Boosting away from the MT as it falls, Valkyrie breathes a sigh of relief. "That was close. I'm out of ammo."

"I have some rounds left." Megan informs her. "Enough for another short skirmish I think."

"Hopefully you won't need it." Kain says. "Between me taking out the bridge and whatever you guys set off in this thing, it looks like the Arms Fort is down for the count. Not permanently, but enough that we shouldn't have to worry about it until re-enforcements get here."

"ECM levels have also dropped to normal levels." Diana joins in the conversation. "However, the remaining Alliance forces are preparing to retreat. I suggest you escape the Sky Claw as soon as possible. I have uploaded a way point to your systems."

"The Sky Claw?" Valkyrie asks. "Your attack, though not as successful as we had originally planned, has done enough damage to the Arms Fort that I was able to break through some of the network security. This Arms Fort is named Sky Claw."

"You okay?" Kain asks Diana. "Your voice sounds, weird."

"I am well." Diana replies. "Please evacuate the area immediate."

"What about the ground forces?" Valkyrie asks, suddenly remembering them. "They were pinned down by enemy-"

"The ground forces that accompanied you onto the Arms Fort have already debarked." Diana assures her. "After the initial explosion, they were able to commandeer a small shuttle. They are already on route back to Mars Base." Valkyrie breathes a sigh of relief. "That's, good. Alright, let's get out of here."

"Before those two pains in my ass decide to come back for more." Kain mumbles. "What?" Valkyrie exclaims. "You still haven't taken them out yet?"

"Hey!" Kain exclaims. "I'm only one man in a souped-up AC! You try fighting the two of them at once, dodging all that damn cannon fire from the ship, and do a fly-by blow-up of a-"

"Enough Kain." Megan tells him wearily. "Please, let us just go."

"Seriously." Kain grumbles as the trio boosts towards the hangar exit. "Those two are freaking S-ranked pilots. I had a hard enough time trying to keep ahead of them more then anything else."

"I just hope all the Order pilots aren't that good." Valkyrie says worriedly. Jumping out of the Hangar, she begins a booster-controlled fall towards the ground far below. "Don't think so." Kain says. "From the way they talk, I get the feeling those two are elites of some sort. We should get Diana or Sumika to try and find out where the Order's hiding. I don't think they'd want their home base to be too close to a strong Alliance presence. Not with all the advanced tech they've got."

"Could they have really built the Arms Forts?" Megan wonders. "They probably came up with the plans." Valkyrie replies after some thought. "But they needed Alliance's resources and funding to build them." Landing on the ground, Valkyrie waits for Megan and Kain to join her before boosting towards the way point Diana had sent them earlier. "The main thing is that Mars Base survived, and we gave them a bloody-"

"Incoming missiles!" DK shouts. Checking her radar, Valkyrie curses when she sees them suddenly appear. "Watch out!" Kain shouts. Some of those have proximity triggers!" Boosting forward, Valkyrie takes to the air and starts to jinx. Her action is partially successful: allowing her to dodge all but a few of the missiles. "Where'd they come from?"
"I'm going to put my credits on the two NEXTs and swarm of BATS coming our way." Kain replies. Turning slightly, Valkyrie sees the group approaching, White Glint and the other black NEXT in the lead. "We cannot fight them here!" Megan says frantically. "Keep going!" Kain shouts at them as he stops. "I'll hold them off!"

"You can't handle that all by yourself!" Valkyrie tells him. "I know! But I can slow them down long enough for you to get away. Don't forget, I'm the one with the souped-up AC. Now go!"

********

"I knew this was too easy." Kain growls. Activating the FOXFIRE, Kain targets the closest BAT MT and fires. Did you get the klink online yet?"

"Did we stop at a repair bay yet?" DK retorts. Before Kain has a chance to reply, Anjou flies forward on her OB, cutting it as she gets close, and using her momentum to carry her the rest of the way to Kain, laser blade flashing. Slashing with his own laser blade, Kain deflects the attack, and follows it with a shot from the KAWASARA.

"What? No 'surrender or die' speech this time?" Kain asks over the general frequency. "Shit." Kain utters when he gets no answer, boosting away from Anjou as she starts to fire at him with her machinegun. "Looks like these two are really out to get us this time. Keep an eye on Megs and Val, and let me know as soon as they are clear of the combat zone." Coming up, White Glint fires another pair of missiles from her launchers. Quick boosting backwards, Kain starts to prepare for the evasion, when several BATs swoop down at him firing their lasers and missiles at him.

Cursing, Kain quickboosts to avoid the fire, and losses track of White Glint's missiles as they split apart. "Look out!" DK warns him. "I know!" Kain shouts activating the tracer rockets. Facing the oncoming swarm, Kain fires the tracers, and winces as the two opposing forces meet, creating a series of blinding explosions before him. "Get us back!" Kain shouts, his sight blinded by the mayhem before him. DK complies, boosting to the right and back from the explosions, firing the KAWASARA as she goes. "We're almost out of rockets." DK warns him. "Definitely won't be able to do that again." Kain grunts in acknowledgement, his vision now clear once more.

Taking aim at another BAT, Kain fires, taking it out with a shot from the KAWASARA as he continues to boost away from the NEXTs. "Kain!" Tina calls out on the Mars Base Frequency. "Head to the way point now!"

"Kinda busy right now!" Kain fires back. "Just get there! Re-enforcements are waiting!"

"On it!" Kain replies, punching the OB. Instead of turning away from the NEXTs though, Kain starts to boost right at them, forcing the two to quickboost aside as his OB fires and sends him hurtling right at them. "Those two don't give up." Kain says when he sees the two following on radar. "Guess they want to take us in as a booby prize." DK says. Shaking his head, Kain checks his radar as he turns, OB still active. "I just hope they don't, ah hell!"

Seeing the two NEXTs separate, Kain changes his direction slightly. Undaunted, White Glint continues to follow behind him as Anjou tries to move ahead to cut him off. Taking to the air, Kain cuts his OB, boosting backwards to slow himself down hard. Apparently anticipating his moves, White Glint, having followed him into the air, also slows down, managing to stay a short distance behind him as she fires missiles at him. "I hate smart pilots!" Kain exclaims, quickboosting forward as he drops towards the ground. Continuing to follow him, White Glint fires her rifles as the missiles split apart. Punching the OB, Kain closes his eyes until the booster fires, the missiles impacting against the ground where he had been a quarter of a second before.

"Blade!" DK shouts out suddenly as Anjou comes up ahead of them. "I see her damnit!" Kain shouts. "Then why aren't you moving?" DK demands frantically, her voice starting to get frantic. "Oh, I'm moving alright." He growls back, keeping his trajectory aimed straight at the black NEXT.

********

Firing her weapons, Aaliyah quickly realizes that the AC has no intention of stopping, and quickboosts aside at the last second, her primal armor sending feedback through her NEXT's systems as it grazes the AC's strange energy shield. "Is he mad?" Aaliyah exclaims, turning and activating her OB. "He certainly has little regard for his own life." White Glint says as she catches up to her. Her OB firing, Aaliyah gives chase, the last Raven now out of range of her weapons.

"We must finish this soon." Aaliyah warns White Glint. "Before Outer Heaven re-enforcements manage to arrive."

"I know!" White Glint snaps angrily. She is letting her emotions get to her, Aaliyah think, more then a little surprised. Who is this Raven, to have gotten under her skin so? Thinking about it, Aaliyah almost wishes they could have a chance to meet the man who has caused the Order so much trouble since the beginning of the new offensive. The thought it short lived though, when she sees that the Last Raven has suddenly stopped. "We have him now!" White Glint exclaims. Ahead of her, Aaliyah spots the canyon that the Last Raven has dropped into, and catches a glimpse of something moving around near the rim on the opposite side of their approach. "Wait!" Aaliyah shouts out the warning. "It's a trap!"

Whether White Glint did not hear her, or did not care to hear her, Aaliyah does not know. Nonetheless, as she cuts her OB, White Glint continues forward, taking to the air and flying towards the center of the canyon, where the Last Raven awaits.

********

"Time for the last round!" Kain calls out when he gets a visual of White Glint. "Let'em have it!" Firing at White Glint with his KAWASARA, Kain watches as the others appear on radar and come out of firing. Maya, Saru, Jerky, Jouster, Valkyrie, and Megan, now re-armed, come out of hiding and start bombarding the white NEXT with everything they have. "Don't let her out of the canyon!" Valkyrie shouts as they start firing. Caught by surprise as she lands, White Glint quickly tries to evade, but Kain cuts her off with several shots from the KAWASARA.

"Black NEXT incoming!" DK shouts out the warning. "Let me take her while you guys-" Anjou comes flying into the canyon, hitting Saru as she goes by with her blade. "Raiden's down!" Jerky calls out, frantically boosting aside to avoid Anjou's large blade. "I am really starting to hate these two!" Kain growls, activating the FOXFIRE. Sending a volley at Anjou, Kain puts one last round into White Glint before going after the other NEXT.

********

Quickboosting to avoid the strange laser weapon the Last Raven uses, Aaliyah turns her attention to another of the Normals as it comes at her. "Foolish." She declares, quickboosting towards the machine. Slashing wit her blade, Anjou is surprised when the reverse-jointed Normal boost hops over her attack, and slashes at her with its own over-sized blade. "Impressive." She admits, the blade passing through her primal armor and scoring a hit across the core.

Boosting backwards, Aaliyah outpaces the normal, and fires at it with her machinegun. Though the normal tries to use its dual-back chainguns, the large rounds from her HITMAN quickly make short work of it, the smoking AC dropping to the ground in a shower of sparks and small fires.
"That's it!" The Last Raven shouts angrily. Turning, Aaliyah has no change to evade the Normal as it collides with her, its laser blade scoring a deep hit on her left arm. "We cannot win!" Aaliyah calls out to White Glint. "I will hold them here! Escape!"

"Understood." White Glint replies, her voice neutral, a bad sign from what she knows of the other pilot, and second of the four. Putting the thought aide, Aaliyah breaks away from the Last Raven, surprised that she hasn't received any feedback from the clash of their respective shields. Firing her HITMAN again, Aaliyah is surprised to see that his shield is down. Taking the risk, she activates her KAMAL sluggun, the barrel swinging down over her shoulder.

********

"That's really going to hurt if it hits us!" DK tells him worriedly. "I know." Kain replies, Zig-Zagging as he boosts towards Anjou. "Just get ready to turn the damn thing back on when I tell you to." Her weapon active, Anjou fires from the left shoulder, and Kain quickboosts to avoid the hail of slugs. Anticipating this, Anjou follows him with her machinegun, but is unable to stop his forward momentum. "Now!" Kain shouts as he crosses the edge of her primal armor and slashes with his laser blade in an upwards stroke.

Static criss-crosses the screens as the blade connects, the two armors once more sending feedback through Dark Knight's systems. Nonetheless, Kain catches glimpse of the damage, and of the NEXT also being affected by the feedback. "Hope they stuck to the plan." Kain grimaces, walking backwards from the NEXT when the boosters don't respond. Seconds alter, the screens come back online, and Kain catches sight of Albatross hammering at the black NEXT as it struggles to recover from the attack. "I'm down dudes!" Jerky calls out. "We can't keep this up!" Valkyrie calls out. "Let them go if they try to run!"

"What?" Kain exclaims, firing the KAWASARA as soon as the weapons come back online. "That's an order!" Valkyrie exclaims. "White Glint is taking to the air!" Megan shouts.

********

Hearing the blast of static and garbled words from Aaliyah, White Glint can only surmise that she too is in trouble. How do they keep defeating us, she wonders, her thoughts once more calm and collected. Inferior machines, but still, they bring us to the edge of destruction. Locking on with her missiles, White Glint fires a pair at the fast moving Hover Normal before taking to the air. Looking around, she sees Blade Gash being hammered upon by the last Raven and another Tank-legged Normal. "Retreat!" White Glint shouts at Aaliyah.

Taking aim at the heavy Normal, White Glint fires a barrage of rounds at it from both of her rifles as she quickboosts several times to avoid fire from the remaining two. Though her fires does not destroy the Normal, it drives it back, giving Aaliyah the chance she needs to fire several of her own missiles at the white Normal she knows to belong to the new Warlord. "Retreat Aaliyah! I will cover your escape!" White Glint orders. "Understood." The other Pilot replies. Looking back at the warlord's Normal, White Glint sees that it was unable to avoid all of the missiles, and though damaged, still functional. "Perhaps a consolation victory is in order." White Glint muses.

********

"I'm fine!" valkyrie shouts when she gets hit by Anjou's proximity missiles. "Let the black one go!" Following her order, Kain turns his attention to White Glint, and quickly realizes what she is going to do. "Get out of there Val! The bitch's gunning for you!" As he shouts out the warning, White Glint fires two missiles from her launchers at the Warlord. Cursing, Kain punches the OB as he boosts towards Swiftwind. "Die!" Maya shouts furiously as she sends more heavy weapons fire at the NEXT, the combined fire from several of her shots taking out the right flight pod.

Ignoring the exchange, Kain takes aim at one of the missiles, and fires the KAWASARA as fast as he can. The first shot goes wide, the second shot just misses, but the third strikes the missile as it starts to separate, destroying it. Unfortunately, Valkyrie is not so lucky, and tries to backpedal as the missile splits, the smaller projectiles flying at her with deadly speed. Hits OB finally kicking in, Kain goes shooting forward as he cuts it, and manages to reach Swiftwind as the missiles reach her.

Blinding briefly by the explosion, Kain sees Val's AC drop to one knee as his vision clears. "We're good!" DK calls out. "That was too close." Kain growls, turning towards White Glint, only to see her boosting away from them. "Let'em go." Kain says reluctantly before turning his attention back to Valkyrie. "You okay in there boss?"

"Don't, you dare, start calling me boss." Valkyrie growls. Hearing her voice, Kain breaths a sigh of relief. "Just making sure you're with us."

"I'll need a few days." Valkyrie grunts in pain. "But I think I'm fine."

"Tina says that the rest of the Alliance forces have pulled back." DK reports. "And the Sky Claw has begun its retreat. Looks like we, oh shit! Incoming!" Before Kain has a chance to spot the threat, his screens go white, and the core is rocked by a powerful explosion, the force of which rams his head into his chair, knocking him out.

********

"Who ordered that attack?" White Glint demands when she gets in contact with the Sky Claw. Already from a distance, White Glint can see secondary explosions ripping through parts of the Arms Fort's underbelly as a result of her main guns firing. "I demand to know who gave the order to fire!" White Glint shouts. When she still gets no response, White Glint checks her comm., and sees that it is being blocked. Frowning, she starts to try and break through the block, when she spots a new contact on her radar coming from the canyon she is fleeing from.

Too slow for it to be him, she thinks. Checking her NEXT's systems, she sees that the her engine is producing low amounts of Kojima particles, too low to make her Primal Armor effective or use her Overed Boost, even if both flight pods had still been operational. Sensors are also damage, and though she is critically low on munitions, all her weapons are ready for battle. "AP at thirty-five percent." She reads, then stops and spins her AC around to face the oncoming foe. "More then enough to deal with a Normal. Come then, let us do battle."