Chapter 3

If you were alive in Japan in 2017, you heard about the Battle of Narita. Of course, some people will say calling it a battle is generous to the Britannians, but the "Narita Great Landslide" just doesn't have the same ring to it. (I never quite got used to Japanese word order, either.)

They say that everyone old enough to understand what was happening can still remember where they were and what they were doing when they saw the news about Narita. For most people I've heard talk about it, what stood out was the sight of the mountainside slowly sliding away to smother the Britannian advance force, and then the city. For me, it was a little different. I didn't have a good vantage point like the news recordings or the frontline soldiers. When Kallen Kozuki's Guren Mk. I channeled its death arm into that buried amplifier, I didn't need a vantage point to feel the water under the mountain blow itself up.

Everyone around me was cheering at Zero's masterstroke while the Britannian advance ground to a halt, mired and easy picking for our—well, the Black Knights'—counterattack.

I still didn't feel like I fit into the Black Knights. I looked Greek enough that nobody gave me trouble for being non-Japanese, but I didn't really know anything about their history, language, or culture, and except for Ohgi, that meant relations were polite, but cold.

I missed Annabeth.

A blare of static came from my earpiece, making me wince. "B-3, with me. We'll deploy with the reserve when our target enters the battlefield." Target, Viceroy Cornelia. B-3, me. I put on the helmet that had been provided. It was similar to the Britannian version, but black rather than grey, and surprisingly comfortable for a full head covering. Especially considering how… military and stifling it looked. Nothing fancy like Zero's, but it only had to keep my face from being photographed. I'd already made a public appearance, and I didn't need it to get out that I had joined the Black Knights.

I caught sight of Zero's Knightmare Frame by the edge of the plateau and jogged to catch up. He lowered the robot's hand to let me climb on, and I scrambled up to the handholds behind the cockpit, well clear of the harpoon guns—slash harkens—whatever they were. And then we waited.

A large-scale battle is a struggle of timing. Every second counts, and every moment we sat there, no matter how necessary, was agonizing. Our side was winning for now, but the enemy was regrouping. The landslide had only caught their first wave, leaving the second working uphill on unstable terrain, but still at full strength. We were outnumbered.

Kallen's death arm hit another enemy robot — sorry, knightmare — and cooked it on the spot.

We still had a chance.

In the distance, yet another set of small figures dropped from the Britannian airship...and this seemed to be the signal Zero was waiting for. "Viceroy Cornelia and her knights have launched. They'll head for the front line where the melee is thickest. Our aim is to capture her alive. On my mark, follow me!"

The distant figures crash-landed and began to approach our lines steadily. Suddenly, they struck. Our forces below tried to pull back around them, but Cornelia and her guards were simply too fast, driving a wedge into our formation. Perfect for us to spring a trap, even I could see that. Our battle line was holding everywhere else.

Zero's voice broke in over the distant clamor. "Ready...Mark!" The Knightmares around us spurred into motion, following Zero's course. For the moment we crested the edge, the whole battlefield lay open before us—Knightmares buried and wrecked, trees uprooted by the grove, flashes of fire and flickers of sunlight on shells. Then we plunged into the forest.

It was an odd feeling, going into a big battle again so soon and not doing anything except hide from projectiles. My ADHD was going full throttle, like a full-body itch to just get out there! And I couldn't, because I was too slow to matter on foot. Not that I was a slow runner, but I couldn't keep up with a car, let alone knightmares moving through a thick forest at forty miles an hour. The best I could do was to go like a marine soldier boarding an enemy ship—with the disadvantage that I didn't have open water to work with, just mud.

A giant bullet screamed overhead and I reflexively ducked. The things were flying everywhere, and while Zero hadn't let us get hit yet, a lot of those near misses felt more near than miss.

"B-3, how are you holding up?"

"Still in one piece," I answered.

"Good. If we can force Cornelia to eject, you'll get your chance to show off."

I didn't respond. Not that I minded showing off, but...none of the people I really wanted to show off for were here.

Something blew up ahead of us, framing a squad of Britannian knightmares as they burst out of the trees in full assault. Shells flew, scoring hits on both sides. Two of our escorts fell, pilots forced to eject. I ducked further behind the cockpit as we drew back to regroup for the next clash. Only, it didn't quite come.

"Zero!" The scream came not over the comm channels but a Knightmare's loudspeaker. "Is Zero here? If he is, then face me! Come forward and face Jeremiah Gottwald!"

Unwilling to wait, the angry Britannian's companions charged with lances. But our remaining escorts deflected their strikes, allowing Zero to slip us through untouched. "Ah, Jeremiah," he said, his tone amused. "It's been a while. So, you're still in the army?" He dodged a wild stroke of Jeremiah's lance. "I'd love to stay and catch up, but I'm afraid I don't have time at this minute, Orange Boy."

Jeremiah's response was an incoherent scream of rage and a head-on, reckless change at us that was abruptly interrupted by Kallen's Guren falling from the sky. I managed a glance behind us as we drove away. Jeremiah got the death arm. And he didn't eject in time.

After that, things became...monotonous, I guess. Not that there were any fewer explosions or broken robots, but my adrenaline died down. I might as well have been hanging on to an off-road car in some wilderness park, except that the scenery was a lot more unpleasant. And so it was until our squad drove into a ravine with a lone Knightmare trying to climb the cliff on the opposite side. Viceroy Cornelia's Knightmare.

She must have seen our Knightmares preparing to fire, because she let herself fall before any of our shots could touch her, landing on her feet with weapons intact. Our troops stopped firing, and now that I looked, Zero already had her trapped. Another of our squads pulled up at the top of the cliff, and as if on cue (it probably was), Kallen's Guren appeared at the bottom end, blocking the easiest path of escape.

Zero didn't mince words. "Can you hear me, Cornelia? This is checkmate!"

"Zero!"

"Yes. Shall we celebrate our reunion? Of course, you'll have to surrender to us first, and there are a few questions I want to ask you. And in case you're wondering, your reinforcements won't get here in time. I win, Cornelia."

Cornelia's Knightmare slammed its lance into the ground. "You're a fool, Zero. This one!" The Knightmare's arm extended, pointing at Kallen. "If I take this one out, I'm free and clear!" Her Knightmare turned, gunning its engine and opening rifle fire on Kallen. But the Guren and its pilot were too fast, dancing around the line of fire to close the distance. At the last second, Cornelia countered Kallen's rush with a thrust of her lance.

Kallen caught it with the death arm. The two Knightmares struggled in place until the lance exploded like a microwaved potato.

Not that I would know what that looks like. I, uh, heard about it from kids at school.

Zero took advantage of Cornelia's lost balance by sniping her Knightmare's rifle clean off the hand. Recovering, Cornelia leaped back to create some distance. "Coward!" she snarled. "Attacking from behind?"

"Is that so?" asked Zero. "And your own tactics don't show acts of so-called cowardice?"

Rather than respond to the taunt, Cornelia charged Kallen again, bare-fisted.

I wondered how Zero planned to resolve this. Cornelia seemed like she would fight to the death, and Kallen couldn't go all-out without going for a killing blow with the death arm. He might have said Cornelia's reinforcements wouldn't come in time, but we surely didn't have all that much to spare.

Zero's Knightmare shifted under me, raising its rifle for another shot. I braced myself. But instead of firing, Zero leaped back. Across the gorge, Kallen disengaged, backflipping away from Cornelia. Moments later, something impacted where her Knightmare had been, throwing up a cloud of thick, choking dust. As the dust cleared, a new Knightmare emerged, sleek and white, nothing like the standard boxy design. It unsheathed two silver and crimson swords, each nearly its own height, assuming a protective stance—facing away from Cornelia, and towards us.

"Hey, isn't that the knightmare the one from Shinjuku, and lake Kawaguchi?"

I blinked some dust out of my eyes. This knightmare had been at the hotel? I hadn't seen it, but that didn't mean too much. Whatever it was, it meant business.

"Q-2, take out the special unit!"

"Right!"

Kallen surged forward, her advanced knightmare moving to engage the other special force on the field.

But I couldn't concentrate on it much as Cornelia rounded on us, charging straight at our group. Now I, being from a logical world, figured that someone charging at a group of heavily armed pseudo tanks while seemingly completely unarmed would be akin to suicide. Unfortunately, I was not on my earth, and I was wrong. She launched giant hooks at us, and our knightmares fired back at her. I let out a manly yelp, ducking further behind Zero's knightmare to evade the hook which shot just over my head.

I had to admit, the princess did an awfully good job dodging what attacks were launched at her. The couple knightmares surrounding Zero were quickly disarmed, and Zero himself could only do so much to dodge out of the way. She was good. Almost as good as the white knightmare. Somehow she was able to fend off Zero and his squad, with just one of those hook things. Or Hades, maybe Zero and his men were just really bad at piloting knightmares. Maybe it was a combination of both, but I was mystified either way.

Before the fight could develop much a plume of smoke shot into the sky in the distance. I heard from the barely-understandable crackling of my radio that Kallen had lost to the white knightmare, and the battlefield ground to a halt in a moment.

Kallen's knightmare outclassed all of us, every vehicle that Zero had in his armada, almost combined. If the white knightmare had dealt with her with what sounded like some level of ease, we stood absolutely no chance.

I was waiting for Zero to call the retreat and the implications that would entail when he crouched a bit lower to the ground.

"Q-2. Do your best to hold off the white knightmare while we secure the viceroy."

There was a stunned silence over the radio, and I wasn't ashamed to admit I was a part of it. He wanted me to take on that thing? Little old me, against that several ton killing machine?

Oh wait, he thought I was immortal. Shit. I guess if I was immortal it'd make sense that I could deal with a little mortal machine pretty easily. I glanced at my hand, clenching my nails into my palm and feeling the reassuring kevlar of the curse of Achilles. Even though I wasn't quite immortal, I'd dealt with immortals before. What was one little mortal machine?

I replied in a stunned affirmation as I slid off his knightmare. The white knightmare came barreling back and I was reminded that one little mortal machine was quite a bit faster than me. And bigger.

Sighing, I resolved myself to fight this thing anyway. Even in a worst case scenario it likely couldn't kill me unless I got really unlucky. I prayed to Tyche that wouldn't be the case, even though I knew she couldn't hear me.

Reaching into my pocket I pulled out Riptide in its pen form and started walking towards the white knightmare. Here went my cover, it seemed. But if I didn't reveal my powers in some capacity, we were all dead meat. Myself included.

Picking up speed my walk turned into a jog, and a jog into a run, and a run into a full out sprint. There was a stunned silence behind me, nobody but Zero knowing why in Hades I, an unarmed, single person was running towards this death machine. Really I didn't know either.

But that didn't change that I had a battle to win.

The knightmare seemed to spot me and angled itself to drive right past me, apparently not even considering me worth the effort of killing. The pilot just wanted to get to the viceroy.

"Oh no you don't." I muttered to myself. In a bid that probably seemed crazy to anyone else (meaning it probably was crazy, to be honest) I threw myself at the knightmare, leaping and bounding to get in its path. It adjusted slightly at the last moment so that its legs would race just past me, but that's what I'd been waiting for. Ripping the cap off of Riptide it sprung into the form of a sword. Swinging Anaklusmos like a baseball bat in an awkward left-handed grip, I let a small grin cross my face as it made contact.

Now, the angle I was swinging at wouldn't let me completely take the bottom part of the leg off, unfortunately. That being said Celestial Bronze could still cut through steel like butter, where it actually made contact. And cut through steel it did.

A high-pitched screeching noise rang out as Riptide dug into its target, leaving a long gash in the side of the leg. It didn't quite leave it inoperable, but the machine tripped up and stuttered as it tried to maneuver past me.

The white knightmare turned back to me. In hostility or surprise I wasn't quite sure, but I didn't stick around to find out. I dashed under its now halted form, stabbing Riptide right into the joint of the other leg at where the knee would be. Again, hardly disabling, but I hoped it'd cause the pilot some discomfort.

I held onto Riptide as tightly as I could when the white knightmare sped back quickly. The erratic movements caused me to be jerked around, and after a few seconds of it I decided it was better if I just let go.

I grunted as I slammed against a cliff face, quickly thanking the non-existent gods of this world (at least, as far as I could tell) that a particularly sharp rock hadn't found its way into my mortal weak point.

I sighed into the dirt. This couldn't last forever. Eventually I'd get tired of being smacked around and have to tap out, at which point everything we came here for (namely, the princess) would slip away, and I'd have revealed some of my powers for nothing.

I grunted and pushed myself up again. Nah, not today. This was, after all, just a machine. And I had faced a lot worse than machines.

Rising slowly, I hid my hand behind my leg and made a clenching motion, feeling water in a river about a kilometer away begin to obey my command. It would take some time before it was here, but well, I made sure there would be a lot of it.

Charging back into the fray, the white knightmare looked very surprised to see me again, if its hesitation was any indication. But I didn't wait for it, leaping up and burying Riptide — which had returned to my pocket — into the front of its knee joint.

It made to swat me off and I let it instead of taking the blow. After all, I just needed to stall for a couple minutes. Being sent to the other side of the clearing would help that (Even if it wasn't the most pleasant experience in my life.)

I looked up after smacking into the wall shoulder-first to see the white knightmare barreling down on me from across the clearing, apparently deciding to end me as a threat.

Shit, I had a few more seconds until the river reached the ravine, which means I had to either take another hit or stall. And while I could almost certainly survive another hit my shoulder was still aching, and I wasn't apt to repeat the experience. Plus, this time it had a red sword which I really didn't feel like taking head on. So, I did the last thing it expected… probably, and ran towards it.

I avoided its panicked swing and dove through the legs, avoiding the red blade in its entirety. I grunted, turning the dive into a roll and waiting for the knightmare to attempt to spin around and swipe at me again before striking, sending both my hands forward with all the force I could manage (Though, I was perfectly aware it didn't actually matter how quickly I pushed my hands forward, thank you.) and feeling the enormous torrent of water behind me race down the side of the cliff like a waterfall and into the ravine, directly at the white knightmare.

I wish I could have seen its reaction. I wish I could have seen Zero's reaction. Hades, I wish I could've seen the reaction of everyone here today. But all I was left with was the enormous swathe of water moving past my ears and into the knightmare.

I couldn't really tell how effective it was. Even if I could vaguely feel its shape in the mass of water, it was hard to tell exactly where it was or if the water was making all that much progress with it.

I relented after almost a minute of pushing the water against the machine, only stopping when I was able to shove it off the same cliff it'd shoved Kallen off of. Karma was a bitch, huh?

I sat there breathing heavily. Even with the nice revitalizing boost from the water going over me, it was still quite the feat to move a river — even small as it was — from so far away.

Perfectly dry, I turned back to where the viceroy had been to see Zero's knightmare standing there silently, a single hand extended to the ground in a gesture I now knew to mean it was offering transport.

I stepped into the hand tiredly, waiting for Zero to actually tell me something about how the mission had gone.

"We've captured the Viceroy. Good work, Q-2. We'll have to have a chat when everything calms down."

Speak of the devil, and he shall start talking to you through his Knightmare's speakers, apparently. That wasn't a conversation he was looking forward to, but as he sat down on the hand and let himself breath, he couldn't quite find it in himself to care that much.

For now… for now he'd just helped to capture a viceroy.

Hey everyone, hope ya'll liked the return from the dead, at least temporarily. Sorry it's taken so long, Jerome and I have been working on it, we are just very different writers. We literally met up back in somethin like march just to talk this out over lunch, and then promptly didn't release another chapter for about 5 months. Yeah, you could say we're professionally.

That being said Jerome has just left on a mission for about 3 quarters of a year so uh, we'll see what happens with that next.

My pat-reon and discord are on my profile if you feel like checking them out.

Happy birthday Percy.