Presidia Airspace, AC 432
Hitman 1|Monarch
Monarch… The voice rang in his ears. That damned voice… it had taken so much already, it had ruined so many lives.
When you hear the thunder... The airframe around him screamed, steel and titanium bracings struggling to survive the forces he forced upon them.
When the storm comes for you… The wheezing breaths of the woman seated behind him, the only thing driving him forwards. His family, long gone. Sicario, MIA. Comic and Diplomat, dead or lost.
Remember me…. Wind whipping past his head. Holes in the cockpit around him, 20-millimetre cannon rounds having missed him by inches or even centimetres.
You'll be remembered, Crimson 1, remembered as the man who renewed the apocalypse! He screamed into the microphone, voice hoarse from a decade or more of rare or complete lack of use.
The madman laughed one last time, silenced before he could finish by the Cordium core powering his aircraft detonating. The air trembled, Monarch raised a hand to block the blinding orange light, and the Tomcat groaned around him once more. It was done. Peacekeeper Squadron Crimson was dead and gone, dust on the nuclear winds of Presidia.
The city burned beneath him, heat lightning striking everywhere it could. Few would have survived the initial blast, Federation or Cascadian. They would need help. They would need a guide. He could do that.
The F/A-14D roared between collapsed skyscrapers, comms blaring a looped call to any who might hear. This is Hitman 1, callsign 'Monarch'! My IFF is active on all frequencies, follow me to safety!
The plane shuddered around him, afterburners straining as the plane stood ready to fall apart around him. The old girl was never meant to undergo the amount of stress he'd put her through, and it wasn't the first time either. The aircraft frame surrounding him had been rebuilt three times before this, customized and tuned to his exact preferences in the ways only veteran pilots understood.
None of that was important though, in comparison to the utter ruin around him. His heart, long thought to be frozen over, shattered once more as he gazed upon the devastation. Nothing, it seemed, had survived. No one responded on the radio, not even Galaxy, who would've been thousands upon thousands of feet above the devastation. Unless that is, that bastard Crimson 1 had silenced him first.
It really was a shame that the man was dead, Monarch would have happily taken the opportunity to kill him again. Caught up in his own thoughts, Monarch grit his teeth and jerked the plane to the side, a double-pronged streak of lightning shattering the air in front of him. Behind him, Prez shifted in her seat, and he hoped she woke up after they'd left the city. Seeing this would ruin her, he was sure of it.
The radio crackled, and for a moment he dared hope. He waited, and waited, and waited, as long as he could, as long as his fuel would last. No one answered, no one waved from the ground, and no other aircraft appeared around him, he was alone apart from the woman sat behind him.
Monarch had long thought his tears spent, his sorrows buried beneath enough ice and steel to sink a battleship. He was wrong, and as he guided the Tomcat out of the ruined city, and back towards the Airbase they'd been using since Prospero, he broke down and cried.
He almost slammed the F/A-14D into a cliff-face when a hand reached out and gently touched his shoulder, realizing it was Prez a moment later. Peering up into the rearview mirror mounted above the cockpit canopy, he found two emerald eyes staring back at him, full of concern and confusion.
"Y-you're crying, Monarch, what happened…?" She asked, voice barely above a whisper. Over-G'ing was a painful experience, and to be honest he was surprised she was able to speak and move so soon. She'd never seen him cry. None of the Sicario had. He'd never let his walls down enough for that.
His voice, raspy and rough from misuse and crying, was another jarring experience for Hitman 4(otherwise known as President, or Robin Kuo) as in the near-decade she'd known him, he rarely spoke, and even then it was barely more than a few words or maybe sentences. "They're all...They're all gone!"
Her arm disappeared from his shoulder, and he heard her gasps as she tried to understand what he meant. "E-everyone?"
It hurt simply confirming what she already thought, and his anger towards the Pacific Federation grew all the more. "Kaiser, Galaxy, Comic, Diplomat. Nobody responded, and nobody appeared. Presidia is burning."
The wheels shrieked as they touched the ground, and the starboard engine finally gave up the ghost. Monarch cursed as he yanked the joystick and slammed the brakes, keeping the failing Tomcat on the runway and not in the grass. The skeleton crew that had remained behind to man the base during the invasion ran out to greet the plane, towing tools and stretchers with them.
The canopy came up, and Monarch was moving practically before the ladder was hooked to the side of the plane. He spoke to no one, despite the fusillade of questions directed his way, and devoted the whole of his attention towards Robin as she was pulled from the plane, still weak and shedding tears.
He took her in his arms and sent a scathing glare towards the lone paramedic who approached them. She needed rest. They both did, really, but she was in worse shape than even he was. He carried her to the barracks and set her on her bunk, the empty racks around them a stark reminder of what had happened. Rather than leaving her, he pulled a chair out from a nearby desk, and set it next to her bunk. He didn't want to be alone with his thoughts now, afraid of what he might do or think. Quietly, he doubted she wanted to be alone either.
He eventually drifted off to sleep, sometime after Robin did, her sobs eventually drifting off into a fitful slumber. The last two soldiers of Sicario, together alone, or alone together? He didn't know, but he hoped that it wouldn't stay that way.
A/N:Hey everyone! I know this probably wasn't what you were expecting(or maybe hoping? The response so far to TINTEWK has been astounding.) but since I beat Project Wingman, I haven't been able to get it out of my head and needed to get this down on paper, so to speak. I don't know if I'll ever expand on this, but maybe I will. If I don't this'll be a One-Shot, if I will, it won't be, lol.