1/26/18: Condensed both parts of Achilles into one chapter for the sake of space.
Chapter 31: Achilles:
Agea
Mars
February 22nd, 2841
They didn't have time to mourn. With their ranks decimated, they needed to split up even further to accomplish the mission objectives. Darrow's army outside the city hurled itself against the impenetrable walls, expecting to receive help from the inside. Ragnar and the surviving Obsidians were assigned the task of opening one of the walls gates for the Legates who waited in reserve with thousands of Grays and Obsidians. Shiro and the rest of the group prepared themselves for battle while Darrow had a quiet conversation with Ragnar. Shiro noticed Thistle eying the giant evilly as the rest of the group armed themselves with whatever they could scavenge from the field of corpses.
"Darrow!" Thistle gasped as the Reaper placed a razor in Ragnar's hand. "What are you doing?" It was a death sentence for any Color but Gold to even touch the things, but the Reaper clearly didn't care. It looks like we've lost the Howlers, then, he thought to himself as he powered up his weaponized right hand. Golds may be able to accept things like giving Orion command of the Pax, but everyone has a limit to how much of Darrow's tactics they consider acceptable. If we tell them the truth, they'll turn on us. He readied himself for a fight as Sevro told Thistle to shut up.
"He can't do that!" the Howler protested as she stomped forward and tried to rip the razor out of Ragnar's hand. Shiro smiled when the Obsidian refused to let go. "Give it up, slave," Thistle snapped as she drew her own razor. "Give me the blade. Give me the blade or I'll cut away the hand that holds it."
"Then I will cut you down, Thistle," Sevro sneered.
"Sevro?" she replied as she turned back with her eyes wide. She looked up at Darrow in confusion, then at the other Howlers. She was hoping to find support from the rest of their team, but Shiro felt a surge of satisfaction as he realized that while the remaining Howlers weren't actively supporting the action, they weren't violently opposing it like Thistle was. At best, they appeared to be confused as to what was going on. Maybe I spoke too soon, Shiro mused as he looked around at the Howlers.
"Have you gone mad?" Thistle demanded as she looked at Darrow. "It's not his right. It's ours. He doesn't…"
"Deserve it?" Shiro snapped angrily, losing his patience for Golds who talked about the inferiority of the other Colors after almost drowning. "Who are you to decide that?"
"I'm a Gold," the Howler shrieked before calling out to the others for support. "Clown, Pebble…" But the two Howlers in question only tilted their head in silence.
"Darrow," they asked. "What is this?" Shiro felt his hopes bolster as he remembered his conversation with Roque the previous day. There might just be a chance the Howlers would sidie with the rebellion after all.
"It's my army," Darrow said bluntly. "You remember the Institute. You remember how I bleed for those who follow me. How I do not take the allegiance of slaves. Why now are you surprised by this? Because it is real?"
"It's a slippery slope, is all," Clown answered as he looked at the war going on around them. "Even here."
"You're right," the Reaper replied. "It is." The young warlord bent over and grabbed another razor out of the mud, tossing it to another Obsidian. The woman was half Darrow's size (but still taller than Shiro) and held the polyenne sword like it was a snake, glancing at the Red-turned-Gold in fear. The Black Paladin bristled at the reminder of what the Board of Quality Control had done to uphold the hierarchy, raising the Obsidians to believe that the Golds were gods. He forced that anger out of his mind as he and Sevro walked through the field of corpses and tossed more razors to the giant warriors.
"Don't cut yourselves," Sevro said.
"I'm counting on you," Darrow told the Obsidians. "Go." And with that, the Obsidians disappeared, sprinting into the darkness along the back side of the colossal wall protecting Agea. All the Howlers except Thistle shook their heads quickly when Darrow asked if there was a problem. Thistle required a bit of pressure before grudgingly accepting Darrow's decision. We may be able to sway the others, but Thistle won't follow Darrow after this, Shiro thought as he observed her reluctance. A quick glance at the Reaper confirmed that Darrow had come to the same conclusion. But that was a problem to be dealt with after the battle.
To win, they needed to move fast. They'd only been able to salvage one working pair of gravBoots. Darrow elected to give them to Sevro before they tried to see if he could lift them the way that the Reaper had carried his Howlers to Olympus during their year at the Institute (which Shiro considered his favorite part of the footage Mustang had showed him), but the boots sparked and sputtered as the team tried to lift off. They were too damaged in the fighting and rescue to carry anything more than Sevro's weight. Quiznak, Shiro cursed to himself as he realized that their only option was to proceed on foot. This ambush may have just cost us our chance of taking out the Sovereign.
"Armor off," Darrow ordered as he pointed to the reoilPlates of the few Howlers lucky enough to still have them after the loss of their starShells.
"What?" Shiro asked incredulously, chuckling internally at how the Howlers spluttered the same thing in unison.
"Armor. Off," Darrow repeated. "Except scarabSkin."
"Unarmored against Praetorians?" Thistle retorted. "Do you want us all to die?" While Shiro had similar protests, he refrained from voicing them. He had come to know Darrow well enough to know that there was always a method to his perceived madness. As he thought about the state of the battle and the different possibilities, the Black Paladin couldn't help but feel that the other Paladins would be drawn in by the Reaper's magnetic charisma if they were in his place. And sure enough, the man did indeed have an explanation.
"We need to move fast," the young warlord explained. "If the shield goes down before we get to the Citadel, the Sovereign will slip away. If we do not capture her, she will have a chance to regroup. She will join her Ash Lord. She will summon all of the Society, and they will come here with ten times our number to crush us. We'll win the battle, lose the war." Shiro nodded as he followed the Reaper's train of thought. It made sense.
"But if we take her…" Sevro growled as he walked to Darrow's side.
"We're talking about the Sovereign," Clown protested. "She'll have Praetorian Olympic Knights…"
"And?" Sevro asked. "We have us."
"Seven of us," Clown retorted, shrugging sheepishly as the rest of them stared at him.
"Numbers don't mean anything," Shiro replied. The odds were starting to remind him of his time as a Paladin of Voltron. It was just the five of them, plus Allura and Coran. Seven people against an empire that had ruled unopposed for ten thousand years. And yet they always managed to find a way to win.
"We have fifteen kilometers to cover on foot," Darrow said. "My pace." Everyone exchanged worried looks before starting to take off their armor. "If you fall behind," the warlord continued. "Find a place to hide." Shiro had seen all the footage of the Institute. Compared to his baseline human physique, Darrow might as well be The Flash. Even with everyone's bodies in prime shape and the Martian gravity one third that of Earth's, the Reaper had been carved so that he could run far faster than the average Gold. Even if we all miraculously manage to keep pace with him, the Paladin thought to himself. This is still going to be hard.
Shiro was terrified. Even more so than when the Iron Rain began. They were about to go up against the best killers of the Society with no protection. While the circumstances were completely different, he found himself reminded of Sendak's attack on the Castle of Lions. Not the details of the event, necessarily, but the emotions. The fear and desperation were uncomfortably familiar. Despite his months of experience fighting Zarkon's empire, his hands shook as he moved armor and weapons, strapping them to his body. The Howlers were terrified as well, their hands frenzied as they rubbed mud on their faces for camouflage. While all of this was happening, Sevro and Darrow conversed in private, although the Black Paladin was too far away to hear what was being said.
"On me!" Darrow finally shouted. With all but the lightest layer of armor shed, everyone set off silently, taking nothing with them from the ambush site but their razors and scarabSkin. They wore rubber-soled undershoes instead of armored gravBoots. The eight of them followed the river as they left the wall behind. Shiro panted heavily as he scrambled to keep up, sprinting through acres of grassy parks and woods separating the wall from the city as the high-tech war raged in the distance. Tree branches shuddered, and leaves fell as ships roared past overhead. To his right, ground trams shuttled troops to the battlefront. Explosions plumed in the distance as the group made their way into the Martian capital.
The Black Paladin struggled to keep up at the back of the pack as Darrow led their desperate sprint to the Sovereign's hiding place while explosions flashed inside the clouds beyond the shield. If Mustang is still alive, Shiro thought to himself as he took a running leap over a fallen tree. She should be nearing the shield generators by now. Pain stabbed his sides as his muscled hungered for oxygen keeping up with Darrow's ragged pace. Shiro had taken half a pack of stims earlier to keep his energy up, but he still felt exhausted. Like Darrow, he welcomed the pain, because it kept him from thinking about the dead as he ran.
They didn't stop to rest when they reached the edge of the woods. Instead, they sprinted into the paved streets of the commercial district, cutting through buildings that tower over a kilometer up into the sky. They ran through the deserted lowDistricts of Agea, a bazaar where winding corridors lead the party through rough streets and walls stained by graffiti. Occasionally, a Brown, Pink, or Red would scuttle out of their way or peer at the from windows or alleys. Shiro was heartened to see graffiti of Darrow's late wife in the center of Gold's reign as they passed a massive painting of Eo, her hair stylized to resemble a blazing inferno. Sevro flew ahead with gravBoots to chart their path through the city.
For the second time that day, Shiro threw up, emptying the contents of his stomach into the streets as his muscles twitched and spasmed from the pain. There wasn't time to stop so he left a trail of vomit as he ran, the reek of bile following him during the mad sprint for the Citadel. Sevro flew back, gave them directions for them to avoid a platoon of Grays ahead, and took off again as the group followed his instructions. Suddenly, there was movement in the sky and Darrow allowed the strike team to slow to a jog, so they could watch. Shiro and Pebble collapsed onto the pavement, their chests heaving as they caught their breath. When will this gorydamn day end? The Black Paladin thought to himself as his lungs sucked in as much oxygen as they could.
Up in the sky, but still beneath the shields, a horde of shuttles ferried soldiers from the south side of the wall, where Lorn was laying siege to the capital, towards the northern wall where Ragnar and his Obsidians had been dispatched. Dozens of shuttles filled with the Bellona's reserves emerged from the hangars and ports lacing the seven-kilometer high walls of the Valles Marineris to the east and west of the city. The team remained out of view from the enemy aircraft, but Shiro noticed the change in the air from the way their foes were acting. Something had happened at the north wall. Darrow helped Shiro to his feet, while Thistle assisted Pebble. With everyone set, they took off through the city once more. Sevro rejoined them a few minutes later, his left arm hanging limply at his side. Shiro and Darrow eyed it worriedly, but the Howler ignored their concern.
"Ragnar opened the gorydamn gates," he reported, his face splitting into a smile. "Twelve of them in the wall's face. Our boys are pouring in. And…" He trailed off as he stood there, grinning. What exactly happened that has him so excited? Shiro wonder to himself.
"And what?" Darrow asked.
"And Ragnar killed the Wind Knight and almost cut down Cassius," Sevro finished, with an evil grin on his face. Almost immediately, a stunned silence fell over the group.
"An Olympic?" Clown gasped. Even Shiro was stunned at this pronouncement.
"Cut him down in front of the entire army," Sevro explained. "The Obsidians in the army are going absolutely manic." With the status update delivered, the lead Howler set off once more. They didn't get far before a squad of Gray policemen waylaid them. They all took cover as gunfire pockmarked the sidewalk. It took a few minutes before the party managed to divert into an alleyway to avoid them. Just four kilometers left to go, Shiro reminded himself as everyone stumbled coughing and gasping into the exterior fringes of the Citadel's grounds. The group paused to catch their breath, hiding in the trees like a ragged pack of castaway demons. As Shiro sucked in air like that one Robeast's vacuum-like weapon, he looked through the woods towards Mars' central government complex.
The Citadel was a network of white spires laced with red, still decorated with the lion statues of House Augustus even though the blue and silver banners of Bellona flapped in the breeze from atop a weathervane. The silver eagle of the enemy house looked so proud before Sevro waved down to them from the weathervane and cut one of the banners free with no resistance whatsoever. Clearly the Bellona never expected anyone to get this far, the Black Paladin remarked to himself as he observed their surroundings. Despite its beauty, the Citadel was a fortress that he knew they wouldn't want to tangle with. If they went searching from room to room, they'd be overwhelmed, pinned down, and killed.
The complex wasn't shielded, but Shiro knew from tactical briefings that a network of bunkers rested deep beneath the city. If the Sovereign stays in those bunkers, he thought to himself. This will turn into a siege. It'll take months before we dig her out, if we can do it at all. Which was why Darrow's plan hinged on giving Octavia an escape route. Mustang and Tactus needed to take down the shield at exactly the right time to flush the Sovereign out of hiding. The path inside the Citadel grounds was blocked by a decorative wall, shorter than the city's defensive barrier but still high enough to be a significant roadblock. If they had more gravBoots, getting over the wall would be as easy as a hop, skip, and a jump. But they only had one working pair. Let's see how much I can lift, Shiro resolved as he made his way up to the front of the pack.
He moved past the Howlers to where Darrow was asking Sevro if the lead Howler's gravBoots had enough power to lift the rest of them over the wall one at a time. All around them, the grounds were silent. They crouched low in an abandoned park, surrounded by trees, fountains, and white marble patios where Golds and Silvers would have afternoon tea but now sat empty. It was eerily quiet in the eye of the storm. While Sevro lifted Darrow to the top of the wall, Shiro turned to face the Howlers his hands out in front of him, getting himself into a stance that would allow him to lift someone up like a cheerleader. Weed went first, taking a running jump and spring-boarding off Shiro's metal hand until he reached high enough for Darrow to pull him the rest of the way up the ten-meter wall.
Pebble was pulled up next. Then Thistle, Clown, and Screwface. Finally, it was Shiro's turn. Since he was the only one left, Sevro carried him up to the top on gravBoots. The two slowly floated upwards until they reached the top of the wall. But a moment later, Sevro's gravBoots sparked and whined, causing the duo to dip downward. With one last mechanical pop, the boots gave out, causing Sevro and Shiro to fall the rest of the way to the ground. Their attention was drawn elsewhere as a massive boom thundered across the city and smoke rose in the distance. Mustang and Tactus had done it. Up above, the translucent shield separating the Martian capital from the battle above failed. The barrier wobbled and shattered into prismatic mist, the smooth shield fragmenting until it looked like a distorted version of Atlean particle barriers. Or at least, one eight of it shattered, sending a flood of pent-up rainwater falling on that section of the city in gigantic gray sheets.
"It didn't work!" Pebble cried out from the top of the wall. Have a little faith, Shiro commented silently. I trust Mustang and Tactus to get the job done right. And sure enough, he was right. The nexuses maintaining the shield began to overload one by one, triggering a chain reaction as sheets of water from the storm finally rained down on Agea. If Roque was winning the battle in space, this was his cue to launch reinforcements. The city was as good as taken, and even now, the Sovereign would likely be extracted from the bunkers by her cadre of guards to escape the about-to-be-conquered planet. But the shuttle pads are still on the other side of the grounds, Shiro realized. Even at Darrow's pace, we'll never make it that far before she escapes. The Black Paladin looked up at Darrow to see if he had any ideas, but the young warlord was looking at Sevro with an expression that Shiro hadn't seen since Kieth and Allura had left the castle before their arrival on Taujeer.
"No, Darrow," Sevro begged. "Think of your mission." The leader of the Howlers jumped and clawed at the wall as Darrow turned away. Immediately, Shiro activated the energy weapon in his hand and began using it to try and melt a hole in the wall. "Don't do it, Darrow," Sevro protested. "Wait! They'll kill you!" But it was too late, and the Reaper of Mars dropped over the other side of the wall, hitting the ground running as he landed in the gardens of the Citadel.
"DARROW!" Sevro screamed desperately. "STOP!" It was taking too long for Shiro to melt through, so before he knew what was happening, to him, Sevro grabbed him and lifted him up the wall until the Howlers pulled him to the top. As soon as the Black Paladin was up, the Howlers formed a human chain to bring their leader over the wall. By the time they dropped off on the other side, Darrow was already too far away and moving too fast for them to ever catch up.
"We have to go after him!" Sevro exclaimed, trying to rush after the Reaper. Shiro stepped in front of the Howler and held him back, putting his full weight behind him.
"We can't," he said firmly. "We still have to finish the mission." Once they'd gotten inside the city, the original plan had been for Sevro and the Howlers to break off from the group and infiltrate the Citadel to rescue the archGovernor.
"Slag the mission!" Sevro snapped. "Darrow's going to get himself killed!"
"If there's one thing I've learned about Darrow," Shiro replied. "It's that he's too gorydamn stubborn to die. He'll find a way back. He always does." At last, Sevro stopped struggling, and the Black Paladin relaxed his grip. "We'll never catch up to him anyway," he went on. "And even if we could, everyone else is counting on us to rescue Augustus. If he dies, then all of our plans fall apart." This finally got Sevro to calm down and focus. If the remaining Bellona loyalists killed the ArchGovernor before they could reach him, they would lose the support of many of the Golds would had allied themselves with his house, and the rest of the solar system would turn against the remaining Augustan loyalists to save their own skin. Even if Sevro disliked having to rescue the man, they still needed him to win the day.
"Let's get to it, then," Sevro said as the group set off through the gardens into the Citadel complex. Lightning flashed as they made their way through the grounds towards the main building where they knew the ArchGovernor would be kept. With the Bellona caught off guard by their sudden infiltration, the team made it through the grounds and into the atrium of the main building before the enemy could regroup and shore up their defenses. Once they stepped into the atrium, Bellona Golds began to scramble into the room, trying in vain to drive out the invaders. Shiro spotted a lancer wearing the blue and silver eagle coming out of a side passage and charged away from the pack. He unsheathed the throwing knife he'd scavenged from the river and drove it into the Gold's neck as he dodged scorcher fire.
As hot red blood gushed from the woman's neck, Shiro wheeled around and hurled the knife at a lurcher charging towards him into the atrium. It hit home right between the man's eyes, killing him instantly. Fear, adrenalin, and guilt warred against each other in the Black Paladin's heart as he danced across the room, felling opponents left and right. From what he could remember, he hadn't been this brutal of a fighter since his days in the gladiator arena, and he wasn't proud to be slipping back into the mindset of The Champion again. He slit the throat of a Bellona lancer with a second dagger before he took the man's razor for himself.
Shiro wanted nothing more than to be back aboard the Castle with Kieth, Lance, Hunk, Pidge, Allura, and Coran. He was even starting to miss Slav's annoying comments about other realities. But as much as he wished that all of this was a bad dream and he'd wake up from a coma back in his own time and everything would be all right, he knew that was a pipe dream. He was on the surface of Mars fighting for his gorydamn life, and the only thing he could do was stay alive until his friends managed to find their way to the future and bring him home. He bit back a curse as a scorcher blast hit him in the leg. Weed killed the offending Gray with a stolen pulseFist before turning and offering the Black Paladin a hand up.
We won't last in here much longer, Shiro realized. They'd been pinned down in atrium by the chaos of the incursion and it was only a matter of time before the Bellona picked them off one by one. Without thinking, he picked up the scorcher off the dead legionnaire's body and opened fire on the Bellona forces. Most of the Golds managed to either dodge his shots or block with Aegises and pulseShields, but he was lucky enough that some of his shots caught a few Golds and most of the remaining Grays in the head or chest. With the tide turned, Sevro and the others managed to dispatch the remaining Bellona. The skirmish finally reached its end when Shiro activated the pulseShield in his arm to send a pulseFist blast ricocheting back at the lancer that had fired it.
Once they had managed to catch their breath, Shiro and the others went around the battlefield scavenging what they could from their fallen foes. As he finished helping Pebble into a suit of duroWeave armor, he spotted movement out of the corner of his eye. One of the Golds was stirring on the floor, and Shiro felt a wave of relief wash over him knowing that not all their opponents had been defeated lethally. But as the Aureate pushed himself up off the floor, the Black Paladin caught sight of an armed pulseGrenade in the man's hand. He followed the fallen Gold's line of sight towards where Sevro was standing with the rest of the Howlers, trying to use a stolen comm to contact Mustang or Roque for support. None of them could see the Bellona soldier as he pulled back his arm and lobbed the grenade into the air.
Without hesitation, Shiro leaped in front of Sevro and threw up his right arm, leaning his body forward to swat the grenade away. Inches from his outstretched hand, the explosive detonated. The flash of the explosion temporarily blinded him, and the shockwave muted most of his senses. For a brief instant, Shiro was weightless. There was no sight, save the flash of the pulseRocket. No sound, except for the ringing in his ears. No smell but for the acrid stench of smoke from the battle. No taste, save the tang of salty wind and oily metal in the air. No touch, except for the sensation of the hairs of his left arm standing up on end. Despite the circumstances around him, the moment was surprisingly tranquil. This is what the Black Lion must feel flying through space, Shiro thought to himself. No gravity. Only the stars for light. It feels so beautiful.
And then it abruptly ended as he felt an agonizing pain in his right arm. It felt remarkably like the first time the energy weapon in his hand had activated. Only this time it was worse. So, so much worse. That time the pain had only hurt because of how sudden it had been, and it had been confined only to his hand. This was a searing fire that spread up his entire right arm, past where metal and flesh intersected and all the way up to his shoulder. He hadn't felt a pain of this magnitude since Haggar had taken his arm all those months ago. No, Shiro thought frantically as realization hit him and he bit back a scream, only to fail as his lungs reflexively let out a wail of pain. Please, no. Not again...
The pain made it hard to focus, but Shiro managed to fight through it as the blinding light of the pulseGrenade explosion faded from his vision. He furiously blinked the spots out of his eyes even as he fought to keep himself from passing out. As darkness crept at the edge of his vision, he looked at his mangled, bloody shoulder and followed the trail of blood, liquid quintessence, and human flesh until he saw his right arm lying on the scorched marble of the atrium three feet away. Blood pooled around his body from the wound as he tried to keep himself awake. But he quickly lost that battle. The last things he saw and heard before he lost consciousness was Sevro gunning down the Gold who'd thrown the grenade while the other Howlers screamed into the com for a Yellow.
Don't worry, Shiro will live. But I'll be leaving you all in suspense for a few days before you find out what's going to happen to him now that he's lost his arm (again).
Terminology:
-recoilPlate: A type of medium strength armor typically worn under starShells.
-scarabSkin: Basic body armor for soldiers, but weaker than recoilPlates or pulseArmor.Terminology:
-lurchers: Grays who work as contracted mercenaries.