Fallon and KN tore up the grass and dirt as they ran; several tons of living metal in an all out sprint had a tendency to do that.
It was becoming a bit harder to navigate through the thicket of trees, but he tried to maintain their pace as best he could. Blue-Team would need all the help they could get, and every second spent out here was one wasted in helping them. He only hoped they could hold out long enough to clear a space for their Titans to drop- then they'd have a far better chance.
Thankfully, it seemed he'd reached his destination- metal debris and wreckage was scattered all over the surrounding area. A good portion of the downed dropship had actually been caught in the trees, and it didn't seem like it'd be going anywhere anytime soon.
"I know what I said earlier, but … I'm having second doubts about anyone surviving that crash," Fallon said grimly, swallowing hard.
"Movement detected. FOF tags have marked it as friendly."
"I stand corrected," he replied, immediately becoming more alert. "Where?"
His question didn't need answering as he plainly saw for himself in the next few seconds. Leaping out from behind the cover of a large tree, he saw Four as the Pilot fled from an unseen enemy. A moment later, his adversary revealed themselves to be none other than … a familiar white Simulacrum.
"Ah, shit. This isn't good."
…
Gray unleashed all one hundred and forty rounds of her predator cannon's magazine into the waves of stalkers, spectres, and infected riflemen. The latter weren't nearly as numerous as the previous two, but still present all the same. Pushing into the compound was becoming increasingly difficult as the resistance grew to match it.
"Why do you continue to defy your fate?" they began to speak in unison, their voices joining to grow louder than the gunfire. "I offer a future without pain, without war-"
"And without choice," she retorted with a grunt through her Titan's voice box. "So I'm gonna take a pass on that one!"
Directing her Legion's aim forward, she spun up the cannon and blew a power shot right through the rows of enemies before her. Humans and automatons alike were blown apart from the spray of metal, and she waved her other team members forward.
Despite her bravado, she wasn't too hopeful for the near future, let alone the long-term one Spyglass was offering. Even after they'd called in their Titans, they were slipping in both advancement and numbers. Their opponents continued to replenish their ranks as they were gunned down, but the Pilots, Titans, and riflemen of Blue-Team didn't have that option. They were quickly being cut apart, and if help didn't get here soon-
"This is Red-1 to Blue-2; the cavalry has arrived, I repeat, the cavalry has arrived!"
She'd have recognized that wisecracking voice anywhere. Hope growing in her chest, she turned around to see a line of cars barreling towards them. As they came closer, the mounted machine guns atop them began to unload into their attackers and weakened the front phalanx of NH forces enough to drive across and cut off the gunfire by providing cover for the surviving members of Blue-Team.
"I knew you had a flair for the dramatic, Davis, but this is a bit much!" she called out while returning her focus to thinning the rows of targets behind the cars.
"Oh c'mon," she heard him say, and saw him approaching quickly with his gun drawn and Gates at his side. "You know you loved it!"
"At this point, I'd have loved if the Apex Predators came to our rescue, so long as it got the fire off my people," she muttered, popping open her Titan's hull and letting him go back to the fight while she crouched with Davis and Gates to discuss their next move. "We're low on people and firepower, but we're holding."
"What are those things?" Gates questioned, gesturing towards a row of massive capsules roughly twenty feet in width and height. They were spherical in shape with large seams in them that indicated some kind of opening or door- currently, they were all closed and otherwise stationary.
"As best we can tell, those are the storage pods for the nanites," Gray explained. "We think he's going to drop them like bombs on planets, spread the nanites amongst the populations like a biological infection- but we can't exactly destroy them yet."
"What?"
"If we bust even one of those things open and the nanites inside are active …"
Gates subconsciously rubbed her throat uncomfortably. "I see your point."
"So don't shoot at the big round things, got it," Davis agreed dismissively. "Any idea how he's getting them out of here? It'd take a hell of a long time to drop even one of these on every planet before people evacuated."
"Haven't figured that part out yet," she shook her head. "He's got a point A and a point C, but I have no idea what 'B' could be to get there."
A shower of sparks graced them as a stray bullet ricocheted off the metal of the Samson they were using as cover. Standing up, Davis took aim and laid down suppressing fire.
"We'll figure it out when we get there- let's just focus on surviving until then!"
"I like that plan," Gray agreed.
…
The only thing Tobias had going for him at the moment was that she wasn't trying to kill him- at least, he didn't think she was.
"Kay, stop! This isn't you!" he shouted as he thrusted backwards and away from another one of her potentially lethal swipes. She leapt towards him and he barely had reflexes quick enough to roll out of her way and come back on his feet.
"I knew you'd say that!" she growled, recovering quickly and standing back up to stare him down. "You told me you understood, that you saw me as me-"
"I do!" he yelled, crouching in preparation for whatever attack she might be planning next. "Artemis is a part of you- a part without the other fragments to regulate and guide it! You're more than just the sum of your parts, you're all of them working together-
"How can I trust anything you say anymore? It's been manipulation-"
She swung a leg out at him, and he leaned backwards to avoid getting kicked in the head-
"- after manipulation-"
Taking advantage of his position, she continued with her momentum and used her other leg to sweep his feet out from under him-
"- after manipulation!"
With one final cry, she arced her fist downwards towards his gut. He used his left arm to grapple one of the trees behind him and pull himself away just before it made contact, resulting in a billow of dust as her hand drove forward into the ground. She retracted it with some difficulty, as the magnetism in her wrist fought with the static friction of the dirt her hand was buried in.
"Manipulation?" he questioned while noting the potential weakness and thinking of how he could exploit it.
"Of course," she spat, facing him angrily. "When we first met, you repaired me just to save your own skin- you wouldn't have ever lasted on your own in that storm! Gates and the Militia would have killed you if I hadn't spoken for you on Nedar. And when you need me ready to fight, you're there for me- but never anytime else!"
"That's not true!" he argued, his eyes widening in shock-
"Who was the one who saved you on Erebus and woke up with a knife in her optic?!" she yelled, pointing accusingly at him. "Who gave their life to activate the Tempest? Who left to fight while you hid in isolation?! I've always been there for you- but you've only ever been there for me when it suits your own needs!"
"I … I've never-"
"You know what your problem is, Tobias?" she crowed. "You're a coward."
He was so dumbstruck by the insinuation that he didn't react in time to counter her jumping and kicking out at him with both of her legs. He cried out in pain from the blow as he flew backwards and slammed into a tree. Sliding to the ground, he clutched at his chest and groaned, reasonably sure that she'd cracked one of his ribs.
"When the Militia killed your mother, you ran away on a quest for revenge," she growled, stepping closer slowly and meticulously. "When you thought the IMC had abandoned you, you joined the Militia. When I wanted to fight, you abandoned me on Luma. And …"
She looked down dejectedly, seemingly in pain herself. "And despite all of that, I'm the only one of the two of us who was brave enough to admit I love you. Not just as a friend- but as something more. Even now, when I've recounted every time you've done me wrong, when I've listed off the ways in which you leave once the going gets tough … I can't help but love you."
She held out her hand.
He stared at it with a blank expression, not comprehending her intent.
"Please," she urged, "stop this. Spyglass offers peace- and even if you don't agree with his methods, you can't fight results."
"You don't believe that," he replied, narrowing his eyes. "You know exactly the cost of his 'peace'. You're just rationalizing your own doubts."
"Maybe," she admitted, "but I'd consider just about any price worth it to keep you alive. I want to have a chance for us, don't you understand? I'm doing this for us, I've always been doing this for us! We have no chance of winning against him, the only way either of us makes it out of this is if we work with him."
He was silent for a few seconds, processing her plea. Finally, he came to a conclusion.
"I … I understand."
Her face lit up in anticipation as he reached out and accepted her outstretched hand. She'd done it- he was going to be saved, and then the two of them could-
Clack.
He glanced upward at her, regret in his tone. "But the answer's still no."
Swinging his left arm outward, he used the grapple he'd attached to her hand to yank it away from its magnetic lock and out into the forest where it disappeared from view. As he retracted the cable, she looked incredulously at the rounded base of her wrist, now completely sans hand. Her visor turned back to him as he stood up.
"I don't think you understand- this isn't up for debate."
She drove her right hand forward to punch him- just as he'd hoped she would. Sidestepping at the last moment, all of her enhanced momentum caught her off balance and instead of meeting wood, her arm went through a crook in the tree's trunk.
He quickly rotated, grabbed the end of her hand sticking out and exposed, planted his feet in the ground and against the base of the trunk, and thrusted away to pull it free of its attachment as well. Hurriedly, he chucked it as far as he could with the time given to him.
Kay stepped back and held both of her nub wrists up to look at them in apparent disbelief. He took that as his cue to leave the area as quickly as possible.
He began to sprint away, alternating between jumping on the ground and wall-running from tree to tree. He heard the sound of cracking sticks and disturbed grass as she chased after him, and knew it wouldn't be long before she caught up to him-
BOOM!
The dirt and tree right behind him exploded and propelled him forward as he cried out from the startle. Landing on his stomach, he spun around to see that Kay had fared no better, evident having not expected whatever that had been.
"Four, this way!"
Tobias heard the call, and immediately zeroed in on the voice- a Tone roughly twenty meters away and closing. Not one to waste time, he hastily followed its instructions.
Kay eyed the new threat warily, and slinked off behind the cover of a tree to collect her bearings.
"Are you alright?" the Titan asked as he approached.
"No- but we don't have time to worry about that," he confessed. "Is that you, Dean?"
"The one and only. Let's get out of here before she comes back for another round-"
Without warning, the aforementioned 'she' fell from the branches of the trees above the Tone and landed solidly on the hull. Fallon instantly reacted to her presence and began trying to claw her off while Tobias watched in stunned helplessness.
Suddenly, the Titan stopped all of its attempts to remove Kay and froze in place.
"What the hell- KN? KN, what's happening?!"
Tobias' mind flashed back to the hangar of the frigate, the last time he'd fought Artemis. There had been Titans there too, and she …
"Oh, no-"
In one quick downward movement, the now Artemis-controlled Tone aimed its tracker cannon at Tobias and fired.
…
Vale dodged the incoming railgun projectile, and quickly entered a full on sprint to close the gap. The Northstar in front of her tried to reload, but it was too late- pulling Skids' sword off of his back, Vale swung it outward in a clean arc that sliced right through the hull of the enemy Titan and resulted in a toppling of two separate halves.
"Clear!" she called out to Buck and Rose, the other two moving to meet her as they and the rest of Green-Team fought their way through the east facility.
"How much farther do we have, Buck?" Rose asked over the comms.
"Not much farther," their leader assured them. "Just a hundred meters more, and we'll be in the center to plant the transmitter. Then we can reconvene with Red and Blue at the south site."
"Does anyone else think it's odd that we still haven't seen what Spyglass is gonna use to spread the capsules?" she questioned cautiously, voicing her concern over the radio.
"The scan of the planet was analyzed a bit more closely- looks like the front ends of each site converge on a single point in the mountain range to the north."
"What's up there?"
"Just the mountains and an ocean bay beyond them. I'd tell you if I knew more- but if I had to guess, that area's got something to do with answering your question."
"And it's also probably our best bet at finding where Spyglass has holed up during all this," she muttered darkly.
Rose piped up, "Then am I right in assuming that the convergence point is our next target?"
"That's right."
A sudden hiss of gas alerted Vale to an unseen threat. Looking down, she noticed a greenish vapor beginning to seep throughout their feet.
"EVADE!"
Phase dashing backwards, the world turned into that familiar gray-scale for a moment before coming back into focus. When it did, the ground was on fire and a very large Scorch stood between her and rejoining the other two on the opposite side of its wall of flame.
"Clint- before we focus on the next target, could we prioritize making it through this one?"
"Point taken."
…
She never thought it would end like this.
The leaves of the trees rustled softly, the only ambience in the otherwise silent forest besides the background noise of the assault far off in the distance. The wind provided a cool breeze and a slight howl that only cemented the haunting reality of the situation before her.
"… Urk …"
Ten meters away, Tobias weakly tried to lift himself from the ground. He glanced over at the ember-lit crater where she'd nearly blown him apart.
"That was a warning. Stay down."
He knew enough to be aware of the thinly veiled threat behind her words; she would not give him a second chance.
His legs trembling with the strength of a newborn foal, he rose to his feet and drew his weapons. With a knife in one hand and a pistol in the other, he entered as best an offensive stance as he could manage. "I've come too far to give up now."
She fought with herself on how to react. In spite of everything that had transpired between them, a sliver of her still saw him as her best friend, the one she'd survived countless battles with, would have willingly given her life to protect.
The rest of her saw him as he was now; the one who would end everything.
They'd met each other on opposite sides of a war- she'd always imagined that they'd either live out their lives or die together- one way or another. However, it seemed that they'd end it in the same way they began.
As enemies.
"I can't allow you to do this," she begged him, pleading with him to reconsider. "You'll be throwing away all that we stood for!"
He did think on her words- was he actually discarding all those promises? The ones where he promised to take her to see the stars, assured her that he'd never abandon her, that they'd be together to the bitter end.
Somewhere along the way, he'd realized that he didn't stand for peace anymore- she'd helped him realize it. Instead, he stood for a brighter future- a future where the two of them could be one.
But he'd made one more promise, a promise that he hadn't been sure he could keep.
You know what he's done to me, what he's turned me into. You've seen how he uses others- their bodies, their minds- to further his own goals. Please … don't let me be another puppet for his to control. Promise me.
Kay, I-
Promise me.
I … I promise.
So after a lengthy pause, he nodded grimly.
"I know."
She gave a sad sigh, and prepared to do what she knew must be done.
They both began to charge towards each other, two warriors locked in a battle to the death. He leapt into the air with his knife outstretched, and she raised the Tone's fist upward to meet him.
Right before the Titan's hand made contact, she leapt off of the hull and issued one final command to it. Tobias had no way of stopping his momentum, and was incapable of preparing himself for the sudden explosion of the Titan's chassis. She watched as he was flung backwards onto the ground, dazed and unmoving.
Looking up, she saw the Pilot- Fallon- as he rocketed up into the sky due to the eject sequence she'd initiated. She wouldn't go out of her way to kill him- so if he was smart, he'd simply try to land and then keep away.
Walking over to Tobias, she watched him sadly as his breathing slowed to a ragged drawing of breath. He was unconscious.
"Forgive me- but it's the only way to protect you."
Looking up at the sky above the forest, she began to broadcast openly. "This is Ka-"
She stopped herself, feeling a pang of regret. "… this is Artemis. I've regained control- I have the asset."
There was a moment of silence over the comms.
"Acknowledged. I will send transport for you both immediately. Well done."
She terminated the connection, unwilling to continue the conversation and potentially let him see just how much this was hurting her.
Looking back down at her wrists, she gave a synthetic sigh. "I'm going to have to find those."
A/N: Getting close to the end here- I'd say we have about another four or five chapters to go, but no guarantees.
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- Matteoarts