Why We Stayed, Part 2
A/N: Lila and Gino are just NPCs with helpful blue speech bubbles. They have no business trying to save New Los Angeles. So explain to me why they are still here.
Chapter 8 hard spoilers, because it is on! Contains swears (go Gino go). Also, explosions!
Lila, Gino & the station are mine. Everything else belongs to the geniuses of MONOLITHSOFT.
Lila's return to the station was quiet, except for the continued blaring of the sirens. All the BLADEs were already in their positions, only a few groupings still shifting into place. Not a single skell was left in the main hangar. Everyone was up or out, ready to fight the advancing army. A nice steady rain began to fall, adding a natural sound on top of the more threatening mechanical noises everywhere. Lila gave a silent thanks to unnamed powers. Even the slightest cloud cover relieved her difficulties with something she called agoraphobia and which was closer to complete distance blindness caused by utter terror. Heavy rain like this, and she could almost be a normal person.
Lila tucked herself behind the clumsy barricade, already smelling like several kinds of wet barnyard animals. Stupidest thing going; it would be useless. But what else were you going to do? This station had been the thing that saved her when she hit New Los Angeles, that kept her from being useless, worthy of abandonment. She didn't want it destroyed. Plus, the fuel storage tanks could put a nasty dent in the area directly below the East Gate if somebody blew them. There were safeguards, there was fire suppression, they'd drained as much as they could, but better to keep them protected.
Gino didn't reappear for a good 20 minutes, soaking wet and burdened with a large and bulky package. He was wearing a very pleased expression. Also, some serious body armor. He dropped without grace to the deck beside Lila. His mim ran like the wind, but standing was never his strong point. Usually he hid it, but today he wasn't bothering. Lila approved.
"What's all that?"
"I went shopping. Blew all my credits. I got you something special." He handed her a solid looking gun, more than a rifle but less than a bazooka. But not by much.
"What's this?"
"Shotgun."
"No, it's not."
"Its daddy was. I figured you can't aim for shit, so you might as well be able to hit without looking. That puppy is augmented up the wazoo. I'm gonna enjoy watching you blast stuff."
"Your faith in me is gratifying."
"That is, if anything gets past my baby," he said, hoisting up his own weapon with a look of glee. He held a Candid & Credible strobe gun lovingly in his arms. "They promise this'll turn skells into slag. I'm looking forward to testing it out."
"Talk about not needing to aim."
"This is my house. You don't come into it and wreck shit," he said fiercely. Well, thought Lila, maybe the station's been the saving of him too.
Over their heads, a familiar voice was spewing unfamiliar titles. "Huh, sounds like your boyfriend got a battlefield promotion. He's Supreme Commander now."
Lila snorted. "Supreme pizza force."
"That's the Ma-non division." Gino laughed.
"I wonder where the Captain is?" Lila asked. She'd slipped back to the language of the Whale.
"Nagi's in some skell, ready to kill shit, probably."
"They're going to be so sorry when they mess with him."
"Amen to that. I wanna be like him when I grow up." The two glanced at each other, and nervously re-positioned themselves, aiming at a space still empty of threat. "Hey, I got you a head brick, too." Gino passed her some rectangular head gear. Vivid level, and augment slots filled with beam resist, bless him. She snapped it on quickly.
"I prefer a tiara but this'll do."
"Well, excuse me, princess."
How scared could they possibly be if they could keep making these bad jokes? Plenty, she thought. Plenty scared.
She listened as Commander Vandham's voice kept blaring at the opposing troops. He's really talking to us, she thought. The Ganglion don't care.
"Blah blah blah. So why isn't boyfriend out there?"
Lila shrugged and gave a guess. "Somebody has to keep the lights on. The Chief can run the whole city singlehanded, same as the ship. And he's not…"
"Uh huh, sure. You know Mara and me got a bet going. Hey, look out!"
Above them, they heard the rows of BLADE skells readying their weapons. Lila couldn't repress a shiver. The rain did nothing to soften the sound as Vandham's countdown reached down to one. On his command, weapons fire ripped from the upper edge of the city wall.
"Whoo whee, let's go, kids," said Gino excitedly. Or maybe he shouted it, but you could barely hear it for the blasts.
For a long while, the air rang with gunfire. Long, endless gunfire. Maybe in waves, but so close together Lila couldn't be sure. Until there was a clear pause.
"That's it?" Gino said in disbelief. Lila said nothing. Neither relaxed. And they were correct, because once again, the sirens shredded the space above them. Something massive was approaching NLA from above. Gino had looked up, and readied his gun. Lila kept her eyes down. She didn't need to look up. The wind itself was shifting, shoved aside by something hot and metallic and impossible to fight.
"It's black, Lila. Three dangling legs. Bigger than BLADE tower. It's dropping troops, like killer paper clips."
"Let's go, kids," Lila whispered back at him. "I hope you're right about this gun."
"Me too."
Explosions were going off high above the city. Debris was starting to ping down. Not all of it Ganglion. Lila wiped her eyes. Rain, it was just more rain. If she started shaking, she'd never hit anything, even with Gino's monster of a present. BLADEs that Lila didn't even realize were still in the city were jogging past them, out into better positions. She and Gino stayed put, crouched behind their hastily constructed wall. Under pressure, she couldn't see and she suspected Gino couldn't stand. They were best where they were. At least, they wouldn't get in the way. She didn't think anyone even noticed their little holdout, or cared.
In the shortest of times, she could tell that the defense force had organized itself within the walls of the city itself. Skells firing at incoming attacks, some right beyond the shipping containers that surrounded the refueling station. They weren't holding back. Each shot pushed them backwards, digging their treads into the deck. The grip's pretty good, but it could bear improving, Lila mused absently. That one on the left, pushed past its neighbors, for sure needed better maintenance. We'll run a special deal at the station, tread cleaning half off, after this is over. Random thoughts, comforting and strong. Anything to distract from her fear, boost her confidence.
The darkness was eerily lit by embers floating with the rain and laser blasts shooting upward against it. She didn't think it was even close to evening, but the light was blocked by whatever it was above them. Suddenly, she could feel a shiver through the very deck of the city. Something very nasty was happening over about 30 degrees ahead, not close, but big. "Commercial district?"
"Something's throwing fucking cars, Lila!"
"Don't tell Ricky Bobby. He'll cry." The BLADEs ahead of them rushed in that direction. Lila felt very alone.
"Yeah, you go show 'em," shouted Gino after them. "We got this."
"We got nuts."
"That too."
More time passed. Nothing. Explosions, above, far off, fires and flames. To the left, the residential sector was fairly quiet. Most fighting seemed to be directly across from them, in the commercial and industrial sections.
"Do you think they're going for the west gate?"
"Why bother with a gate if you can hop over?" Just talk in the darkness.
Gino stiffened, and looked towards the regulation hangar. "What the… I'm seeing things!"
Lila snapped her head up and peered into the area across the walkway. Again, her vision buckled and warped until she had to slam her eyes shut or start screaming. But two fighters, running towards the restricted hangar at the far end. She'd never heard them pass. They looked like…
"Kittens? What the hell?" marveled Gino.
"Shoot them."
"Wait, there's one of our skells. They've got a line of defense, they've got…"
What happened next was brutal. Lila didn't know how one recognized the sound of a skell being ripped to shreds, but it was unmistakable. A shinging slice, a bounce wrapped with a crunch, and a sickening slide. Two fighters, on the ground, and they'd done it in seconds.
"Oh my god, the line's down, the line's down!"
More BLADE skells were chasing after the fighters, rushing past the station area. Gino stood up to look, but Lila grabbed the back of his belt and shoved him down. Not really necessary as three more crunching shudders almost buckled the floor below them. She could barely stay upright, and she was in a tight crouch. She couldn't look far, but she caught a glimpse of a group of alien mechs, black and huge, plucking the smaller BLADE skells off their feet and impaling them with cruel efficiency.
"Now! Shoot shoot shoot!" she screamed at Gino.
Pointless. So pointless. Their weapons could have been perfection itself, and maybe they were, but they were way out of range. She'd have said the enemy didn't notice them, except one casually tossed the better half of a skell chassis at them before moving off. It caught the edge of a shipping container with enough force to shove it towards them, twisted at 45 degrees. If it had skidded 2 meters more, they'd have been paste.
Gino was clambering out, headed over the container on shaky legs. Lila hoisted her ridiculous box of a gun and followed. She tried not to look at the skell wreckage, with its pilot compartment darkened and gutted. Didn't stop her from using it as a handhold. She felt cold.
At the far end of the regulation BLADE hangar, Lila recognized the grating rumble as the great blast doors of the restricted section opened. Gino reached back to pull her up onto the top of the shipping container.
"We could chase them, or we could wait for them," he panted.
"What do you think?" Lila said, sourly. Neither of them were in any shape to move.
"I could go."
"And do what? You can't stand. You're only good if you're moving. Let's give these toys of yours a try when they come back."
"…" She never found out what Gino had to say as a tremendous explosion ripped through the hangar, flicking them off the top of the container and back into the station area. Orange flame followed them, stealing the air, the space. Lila slammed backwards onto the deck, Gino right beside her. Luck was with them. As Lila and Gino landed, the wrecked skell shifted and groaned, following them. They were almost but not quite pinned under it. Lila looked upwards through the tangle of wrecked technology into pure flame. The skell's armor protected them from the worst of the blast. Even dead, thought Lila, this BLADE is doing his job. I owe him something fierce. Or her. The fire suppression system snapped on, spraying the area with halogenated hydrocarbons and blast gel and whatever other crazy science experiments the designers had decided on. Plus the off-market improvements Lila had managed. For once in the battle, the home team was ahead. After a minute, Gino and Lila helped each other out and onto their feet, scrambling to get their weapons ready.
No point really. Already, the black mechs were in the air, hauling something out and away from the hangar area. The weird alien relic that people weren't supposed to know about, much less discuss. Lila thought it had been some kind of vehicle, but she'd been a good girl and hadn't asked. Gino fired off a few shots, but his heart wasn't in it.
"God dammit! I spent all my money on shit all! It didn't matter a lick!"
"Well, we're ready if we ever have a stick up," comforted Lila.
Gino glared at her and continued to swear, and throw things, and generally act as if he had lost all sense. "Shhh, shhh, stop it." Lila held up a hand.
It was quiet. Not peaceful, but the sirens had stopped. The great hulking transport ship overhead had drifted away. There were no new explosions, no scream of missile barrages. Forms were hurrying towards the hangar, through the smoke, but they were the good kind of skells, followed by human teams. The rain was just rain, with only a few embers.
The Battle for New LA was over. Time to start fixing what could be fixed, rebuilding whatever couldn't. It was going to be a long week.
A/n: In game, when Vandham demonstrated he could count backwards, I almost died.
Next up: No one feels exactly like celebrating. Vandham reads Lila the riot act. Bonus: I get to to to write Ma-non, okay? Which is so so so fun, don't you think?