Interlude 3

-27 days after the 4[sup]th[/sup] Eruption. [Classified]

·Inspiration.

Mei stared at the faces on her screen, her mind having become numb to the vitriol thrown between the participants and the usual jab at her. She didn't mind, she was still high from the events a few days earlier. The camaraderie, the sense of belonging, even the first time she'd drunk alcohol and had to be carried by Zea's deceptively small frame. A memory stuck in her mind as the bickering on her screen went on.

"After an endless dream,

in this world of nothingness

It seems as if our beloved dreams will lose

Even with these unreliable wings,

covered in images that tend to stay

I'm sure we can fly, oh yeah"

"GLORY TO MANKIND!"

Mei felt her face flush as she remembered both sights, one in the middle of the night, as waves parted before the fleet that achieved the impossible, and one atop the heart of a metropolis that never slept. In her mind… the sight his back bore the weight of the war… and beckoned her to follow.

"…What will you do in face of these accusations, Doctor?" She could hear the sneer on that one's voice. Mei never liked that woman.

Mei hadn't heard anything at all about what they had been saying, and she made her decision. Using her best smile, she said her piece.

"I quit."

…

-Hours later.

Mei walked over the barracks, using the time before they deactivated her access to the base. She reached the room where Miss Himeko and her team were, and Kevin was nearby. "I'm leaving with miss Himeko, would you like to come?"

Kevin looked a bit conflicted but nodded, quickly taking the offered papers off her hand, submitting them in record speed as Mei quietly waited for the other to come out.

It was hard to think of them as a heavily armed team capable of going toe to toe against the beasts with kicks and punches, but it was what it was.

Kevin returned just as the team got out the barracks, their meager possessions with them in the standard issue packs. Mei still had her old school bag from Senba Academy, as did Kevin.

"Hey, mind if we come with you?" Mei walked up the redhead leader, who looked at the two and simply snorted.

"I think you would stick to us even if we say no. Come on then, kid."

The group left though the gate quietly into the night.

-The Next Day.

"…and then we used Himeko's phone to call one of your… Pelicans, was it? To pick us up. And they got us here." The air in the little isle in the middle of the northern pacific was chilly and there were clouds that foretold a heavy storm. The group stood outside of a lighthouse where a pale bleary-eyed man pinched his nose and breathed in.

"You know what? Sure, whatever, this day can't get any weirder. Welcome to Arsenal City." Edward Yinsen motioned them to get inside. "Just let me turn the kettle on, I didn't expect any visitors and we might have to make a bit more dinner for you all…"

-1 month after 4[sup]th [/sup]Eruption. Japan

Golden Wind

She looked at her phone for the newest post about her current topic of interest. Nothing but pure speculation this time, so she sighed and slid her phone into her purse.

The Song, as fancifully named in English, as did everything in Japan to try and sound cool, had been a mildly strange event at midnight a few weeks ago.

No one knew, but someone had hijacked almost every speaker in Tokyo, and sung a drunken rendition of a song that only old people remembered. It had been found to be from an anime from close to a century ago, long forgotten since the dissolution of Toei entertainment.

But she didn't care about the song or its origins. She wanted to know the voice behind it. Despite the drunken slur, it was clear, the feelings…

Oh, she hadn't heard such thing in a long time!

The voice called people to trust him, that he didn't know what he would do, but to beat the ugly reality of the world, even if it went against common sense he would keep going forward.

She could hear that whoever sung that, completely believed those words, that they were made his.

Eleanor Eckhart, stage name, Eden, continued her search. A photo of a famous tower during that breathtaking night looked like her best lead.

-45 Days After 4[sup]th[/sup] Eruption. USA.

Tremors

"Is this valid?" Secretary of Defense Arthur Watts demanded of the poor attendant chosen to deliver this news, his compatriots quite a few paces behind to avoid the reaction they knew would come out of the man.

"Y-yes sir. Our engineers are crunching the numbers, but so far everything looks plausible" Arthur motioned the clerk his dismissal and began reading the report.

Steel Locust. That name so far had been the cause of many migraines he didn't know could pile on each other.

Congress wanted them both commended and brought into sole American control. Foreign nations had demanded access to the technology that Americans had kept for they supremacy. A few idiots had accused them of orchestrating the attacks on their own cities.

A load of bullshit. FEMA was overwhelmed with the whole of the east coast on fire, many highways bore the marks of the attacks form those monsters and one couldn't even think about the hospitals flooded with wounded and sick.

The Task Force had left as soon as it arrived, admittedly, before any assets had managed to mobilize to seize those (incredibly quickly) designated WMDs. He had hoped to get a proper explanation from the man that rudely interrupted him in his own home, but so far there had been nothing. How a fleet half the size of one of their own disappeared from satellite coverage was beyond him, but he knew those idiots were planning something.

And he had been proved right. A few days ago, there had been some sort of leak on the internet. Once more had warnings of a strange sickness been posted, along with the supposed symptoms and the possible consequences. The Health Department had dismissed it for it outlandish claims, but soon the first cases of the new AHRS (Acute Houkai Radiation Syndrome) had been reported, and while no one wanted to recognize them as such, many had turned to the strange 'leak' in search of a cure.

There was nothing. The paper claimed that the sickness was lethal. 100% mortality on their test (and how that data was obtained, Arthur wanted to know) but a cure could be made. But that would be a lie. The paper said that there was no cure, that the most they had found was a symptom reliever, but the thing was so brutal that the damage would continue until the death of the patient. Projected life expectancy of the infected was 10 years.

Arthur knew from his own channels that there were at least 20 thousand 'unreported' cases across the east coast. With how contagious this was, he knew it was another disaster in the making.

And then there was the robot thing.

He checked the papers once again. The world had kept demanding why there weren't giant robots on every army around the world. The army kept demanding robots of their own, the marines wanted robots of their own, the navy wanted transforming robots, and the navy wanted those flying carriers of their own.

Arthur kept going through the pages, the design was far inferior from the flying robots kept talking about, although some noted their absence on the battle of New York. The flying carriers had dropped the smaller mechs to clean up the monsters they hadn't managed to kill with their own weapons. He observed the annotations form his people surprised that no one had thought of such a thing.

He had to admit, this looked like one of those money-sink projects that kept congress blinded by it promises for a decade. Only this time they knew it worked. The materials were surprisingly mundane, just some alloys that required specific ratios to work and the manufacture of certain reactants for it to hold.

But the blueprints hadn't been released to America only, they had been posted all over the internet in so many languages he'd forgotten some even existed. Already had the Intelligence community tried to take everything down, but one could count on the internet to keep reuploading the blueprints as soon as they were struck down.

But the other nations already knew. Mason had reported unusual movement from the Russians and the Israelis, who had begun reactivating some factories that had never been used. It was more incriminating once they deployed those AA Defenses the US had sold them so long ago. He'd heard nothing of the Chinese, but he knew they had to be doing something with such armaments dropped on their proverbial laps.

But America still had an advantage, as the Taskforce had left about a dozen wreck of their fallen mechs, sure, it looked like the cockpits had ejected but even having pieces of the robots would give a needed insight on the weapons currently aimed at the world.

Arthur hoped that it would be enough.

-27 Days after 4[sup]th[/sup] Eruption. [Redacted]

Spurned

"How dare she, HOW DARE SHE!" A voice raged on a lavish office, the feminine voice loud with anger and fury. The attendants lining the walls simply evaded the objects thrown around, some discreetly cleaning up the mess. It was a shame really, some of the glasses and picture were old-made, nothing of the usual 3d-printed stuff usual to commoners. The one responsible for the destruction was a stout woman, her clearly tinted hair and badly covered surgery scarring. She panted like a boar ready to charge and she wasn't above using her own hands to destroy the object of her ire.

Right now, that was out of her each but not for long. "She won't get away with this. To spit on my generosity? I am the sole reason she could stand in our level! And she dares throw it all away? The gall! The entitlement! Maxwell!"

"Yes, Milady?" A well-built man came closer to the woman.

"Call the Pupils. I have some… homework for them." In the screen atop the desk, a photo of a young girl with dark blue hair and white-haired man with strange eyes looked back at the suddenly pitying audience.

-31 days after 4[sup]th[/sup] Eruption. Russia.

Faded Footsteps.

"Sir, the reports are here."

"Ah, don't try to leave so soon, comrade. Let us partake in the legacy of our forefathers, yes?"

"Oh, course, sir."

"Don't worry, you will not be held accountable of the mistakes of your parents, all right?"

"Sir?"

"Now, what did your grandfather mean with Полное Затмение-

Lieutenant Sandek?"