—She was shivering, despite all the blankets she draped over herself and the warmth radiated by the basement generator. There were hardly any unbroken windows left in the building now, nor people to replace them, and only the thick concrete ceiling could block out the unending warning of the speakers, blaring at top volume.
No, it couldn't. She could hear it just as clearly: Guardians of the ancient Tari nation, let not the people suffer your great folly any longer, hand over that wretched criminal, who has committed great transgressions against a member state of the Panason Coalition—
She clutched her forehead, trying to shake the noise out of her mind.
It wasn't about Filina, Lynka said. It was about promise, dignity, tradition. Did you really think they'd spare anyone in this city, if we surrendered at the last moment? After mercilessly slaughtering our people in the past several months?
"But everyone who could leave was already gone," she whispered to herself, before switching on the flashlight, "The ones who are staying, t-they want to fight till the bitter end..."
Which was why she couldn't betray them. It was cowardice talking again. A moment of weakness. Nothing more.
Tomorrow, they, too, would fight. To their last breath. She had hesitated for a long time before she came down here to spend the night, about the things she should bring with her, the fun she wanted to have before she marched into the final battle.
Fun. That sounded like such an alien word. She didn't know if she was capable of having something like that anymore. Yet, when she saw the faded book covers that had greeted her before bedtime for decades, she gripped them and just couldn't let go.
"Quest in Tower Talisman Found..." She read out the line of the familiar prophecy on the first page, the letters clean and crisp under the flashlight, "Lead to Chalice Power Abound..."
The Legend of Terra and Tarr. The twin prophets of Lady Cyan Heart, who sailed to the PC Continent in a search for her sacred artifacts. Who united her true faithful on the New Tari islands, sheltered the Commord Emperor's young heirs from the evil traitors of Ami Lorraine, led the fleets back to their ancient homeland, and rebuilt Tari from the ashes.
How she always saw herself and Lynka in the legends. Playing her make-belief games with cardboard talisman, plastic cup, and paper crown, decimating toy soldiers with these "sacred artifacts", just to get a smile out of her only audience.
But the legendary twins were the saviors of Tari, keeping the flames of faith burning, despite the many suffering and setbacks on their journey home. And the last tiny bit of that flame would be gone soon, extinguished at the hands of another pair of twins.
There would be no magical artifacts to turn the tide, nor an army of faithful believers on a continent far, far away, ready to return and keep the torch burning.
Just the two of them.
"I don't wanna be the last Goddess of Tari either," she said, thinking about the despair and fear in that lonely, formless voice, haunting the last remnants of old Tari, "Pamola. But I have to. A real badass...keeps going, even if they know they can't win, no matter how scared they are inside."
She didn't know how her eyes were still open. She couldn't read a single word on the pages now. They all blurred together, like white noise on a television screen.
When the basement door opened, she thought she was dreaming again. Maybe this time there wouldn't be soldiers with guns, or monsters, or killer robots.
Maybe it would be her one and only friend (wherever she was, please let her be okay). Maybe she'd wake up and find out it was all a long, drawn-out nightmare, and Lynka would soothe her fears with songs and more stories, and they'd spend the day and all the future days to come together, and no one could take the happiness away from them ever again.
Then her sister's cold fingers touched her cheeks, and everything was real once more.
She bolted up before Lynka could speak. Less out of panic and more out of reflex, a reflex forged by countless mid-night flights and evacuations.
Lynka gestured for her to get on her back, and she did so quietly. She had been memorizing the defense layout for the entire day, but if there were any new changes, then she still had the duty to inspect them, no matter how futile it was—
The speakers had gone silent, perhaps sensing that no one was going to take up their offers. Before she knew it, she was halfway across the Basilicom building.
They were not moving towards the lasers and barriers. No, Lynka was carrying her up the stairs, to the open roof.
"Careful," she protested, "They could see us from the air—"
"They wouldn't be wasting more bombs at this point," Lynka said, as she knelt down besides the door, allowing her to get off her back. Her sister looked more pale and ghostly than ever, her long white hair flowing in the wind.
The door creaked open with a single push, revealing a small triangular jet with a camouflage sheet draped over it. Compared to the grey and purple Defenders and the boomerang-shaped Tempest jets, it was a lot less distinctive in appearance, and she couldn't remember the name of this model.
Lynka crawled under the sheet. She stood there, unsure of what her sister had brought her here for. Until the jet's underside slid open, and she saw the glowing blue crystal.
No, the Sharecite. No matter how tired she was, she couldn't mistake the first thing she saw after her birth.
"Why are you putting it in there?" Frowning, she bent down and also moved under the sheet, "It's not safe."
"It won't be safe until it leaves the border of Tari. Same for you."
"What do you mean?"
"This is an Asteroid jet." Lynka pressed down on something, and the gate to the pilot compartment opened, the lights inside switching on one by one. "Not easy to steer, and only has enough room for one pilot. But once the Hyperspace Drive is activated, it will teleport to a designated coordinate."
"Y-You can't be..."
"I'm not the one leaving!" Lynka shook her head. "You are. I'll stay here, to buy as much time as I can. Go meet up with our refugees, take them back to—" A deep breath, "I know some of the New Tari settlers stayed behind, when the main fleet departed from the PC Continent—"
She was too stunned to say anything, as Lynka reached towards her, with a painfully relieved smile on her face.
"As long as you are still alive, there is hope for Tari. And I can at least die, knowing that I've done something right for once. So go. Fly to safety, and forget about me."
Lynka grabbed her shoulders and was about to carry her up again, when she slapped her hands away.
"No."
"Flare..." Her voice became just a little harsher, once the shock in her eyes faded away. "I'm the one who made that decision. Whom they will hold responsible for. You don't deserve to die alongside me."
"No!" She stomped down on the floor, for extra emphasis.
"Please. This is not the time to throw a tantrum. You don't know what you'll be facing—"
"Y-You gotta' be kidding me! After all these months, I know very damn well what I'm facing! I can run, but how long can I keep running?" She was screaming at the top of her lungs now, "They won't let me get away, and if I did escape, they'd make you pay for it! They'd make the rest of our people pay for it! And if I'm dying, I'm gonna die defending them, not to be hunted down like a rat, or quietly waste away on some backwater islands!"
"It's for Tari's future—"
"We DON'T have a future anymore." She stared into Lynka's eyes, half-expecting her to retort, perhaps even get angry at her. But there was only dead silence. "If we are gonna be the last Goddesses of Tari, if Tari is fated to end at our hands, then we can't go down like cowards! We'll go out with a roar! Isn't that what Lady Cyan Heart would expect of her successors?"
Lynka's lips twitched, in an almost habitual attempt to shift into a smile, but it wasn't enough to keep the tears away. The next second, she fell on her knees. Her sister didn't let the sobs escape her throat, even when she could feel the violent shaking that washed over her body in waves, after she pulled her into a tight hug.
"Everything you've ever done, it's for me. Y-You've sacrificed so much for me." She barely held back a sniffle, as she patted Lynka on the back, "So lemme protect you for once, okay? It's my turn now."
"I-It shouldn't be, you shouldn't have to..."
"Sheesh. You are the best big sister in the world, and a future without you..." She shook her head, "Is gonna be horrible and lonely and not worth living in. So promise me, if we are gonna die, we'll die together."
Lynka was nodding, nodding like her life depended on it, as she hugged her even tighter, with a crushing force that made her feel like she was never going to let go. Even the bone-chilling wind and the darkness couldn't dispel the warmth, and for a moment, there were only the two of them.
Dawn faded into morning behind the ash-grey cloud. The sun was a pale shadow hanging over the ruins.
She heard explosions in the far distance. Lynka headed in that direction, after the last remaining platoons called for reinforcement. It was only a single threat. She'd be back soon. Any second now.
She glanced around the courtyard. Despite the debris, the charred marks, the boarded windows, she could still recognize so many familiar things. The rock under which she buried her treasures, the bench Lynka would sit on and enjoy the sunlight when she wasn't doing paperwork, the tree Ubi used to climb into the building for their late-night meetings...
And Lady Cyan Heart's statue in front of the gate. Miraculously, it survived the bombing, despite its size.
For once, her stony gaze was no longer intimidating. Had she stared at the statue any longer, she might have even discovered a slight warmth, an approval that none of them could ever gain.
She considered transforming right here, right now, but refrained from it in the end. Conserve the Shares. There isn't much left. Leave every bit of it for the battle to come.
A black dot appeared on the horizon. She thought it was another drone, until she saw the metallic sheen of these wings, and the chains in her hands.
To her surprise, there was no seething anger, no crippling fear, as Aqua Heart landed in front of her. Just a deep sense of relief.
Finally.
She thought about the faces, familiar and unfamiliar, of soldiers and commoners, of children and elderly folks. When the white light engulfed her vision, she saw Lynka too, and Maria, the scary woman in the photo, and Pamola, whose hair she imagined to be a much deeper shade of blue, and of course, Lady Cyan Heart.
The heat flowed freely into her, materializing into red and black fabric and clawed gloves and Processor Units. When she opened her eyes, Lynka still wasn't back.
Aqua Heart was spinning her chains, ready to strike, her face an expressionless mask.
"I am Scarlet Heart, CPU of Tari," She raised her twin daggers, and squeezed out the next sentence through gritted teeth, "I'll squash you like the bug you are."
[Verifying Credentials...]
[Signal Detected from Subdermal Implant #U81]
[Begin Transmission]
Good evening, Operator.
Ah, if it isn't my favorite, Commander Sexy AI Voice. Is your colleague still too pissed to talk?
I may or may not be a real AI, just so you know. If I'm not, there is always the possibility that I will become one.
Please don't. I'm sure you'd sound absolutely gorgeous, whispering lines like "I rule here, insect" and "Welcome to my DEATH MACHINE", but if I want to flirt with a murderous AI overseer, I'd head to the nearest Planeptune lab. Speaking of—the—devil—
Operator?
Sorry. Signal's bad down here. This place is pretty far from the coast, but I'd rather not breathe in more radioactive dust, especially with the wind outside. Thanks for that, Commander.
The United Azure State did what had to be done.
Of course. I'm too old to hold grudges, especially against generous employers. Now, let's get back on topic. There was an earthquake in the area. I could feel it from inside this cozy basement of some old government building. Several hours before that, a car was spotted inside the evacuation zone.
You saw the passengers.
Two prisoners, one escort. The drone footage quality is awful, so I don't know if the escort was a swatty bot, or a real person in body armor. They were venturing into the cave systems, just outside the old city limits, about two miles from where I'm at. Well, for these expendable assets on the other side, today isn't their lucky day. The earthquake buried them in there.
They didn't send the drones into the cave?
Some were keeping watch around the entrances. But I bet they'd stuck a "camera" straight into the prisoners' heads, for security's sake.
Are there other anomalies observed, prior to or during the earthquake?
Nah. Nothing on the ground level, at least. But after the landslide, all drones in the area were summoned back to their pods.
All of them?
All of them. Looks like they won't be making an effort to retrieve their lost team. Unfortunately, the mass recall also deprived me of my best means of sur—veillance—
Ah crap. Another earthquake. Wait, no. It's coming from above. Let's hope they haven't deployed a giant death robot from the air.
You know the drill, Operator. Take care.
Aww, that's so sweet of you.
[Unable to End Transmission. Please Consort System Administrators.]
What? This is completely illogical. I AM an administrator.
Can't end the call? Yeah, I'm doing it on my end too. It's not working.
OH FU—
Operator?! What is going on?
Woah. There goes the basement ceiling. And the exit. Rest assured, it's not a giant death robot—
What is it?
Huge blue vortex, sucking up everything nearby—
[Activate Detonation Charge on Subdermal Implant #U81?]
Your colleague wasn't kidding, everything's...coming apart at the seams.
No wonder it could break the di—mension lock—
[Password: LookingGlass]
Fuck! These tendrils—!
[Detonation failed]
Oh for the love of...don't be taken alive! That's your final order, Operator!
Guess that's it for auntie, huh? On the bright side, you've saved yourself five thousand credits. May I suggest donating it to a charity of your choice?
[Signal Lost]