Chapter 14

Daze held Dio in his arms as she wept in front of the safe door. The rest of the stranded had come filtering back a half hour before morning. They had mopped up the rest of the locust and then opened the vault to a distraught Dio.

There was little of Dio's father left, but she grabbed whatever relic she could to keep his memory close. Daze looked down and noticed that she was holding a bloodstained, wooden teddy bear in her hand. Half of the bear was rough and coarse while the other half was completely smooth and painstakingly carved.

Dio began to cry again as she stared at the small carving. She picked up the carving knife and tucked it away in her pocket as tremendous sobs racked her body. Daze pulled her head into his shoulder and tried to comfort her. He even cried with her, their tears mingling and falling to the ground until he stopped and waited for Dio to finish grieving.

She eventually quieted and sat motionless except for her heavy breathing.

Holly watched this all unfold with a kind of detached empathy. She was sad for Dio. She could remember the way she had felt when her parents died, yet even after her emotional talk with Daze, it was a strained, far away feeling. What Daze was doing was confusing to her. They had shared a moment in the vault. It had been romantic, hadn't it? Yet this wasn't romantic at all, but the feeling of love was as strong, if not stronger.

Holly knew that she had felt comforted, she knew that Daze had loved her in that time. Yet was it the same kind of love that he was showing now? Or was it what she hoped it was?

Holly felt herself doubting whether or not it had been as important as she had first thought. Maybe Daze had a strange empathy for anyone who needed comfort. Maybe he was drawn to the broken. Or they were drawn to him.

She wondered about this. She didn't want to detract from the feelings she had felt earlier, yet she doubted her own intuition in the matter.

Maybe I shouldn't think of him that way, Holly thought to herself, Maybe he doesn't think of me like that at all.

She looked toward him longingly. He stood up as he held Dio in his arms and walked toward the man that Kurt had called Sev.

"Does she have any personal belongings?" Daze asked, Dio still curled up in his arms.

"No." Sev stared at her, his expression blank, unnerved.

"Then I'm taking her with me." Daze turned and walked toward the exit.

"Where will you go?" Sev asked. "Why don't you stay and help us fight?"

Daze hesitated a moment, then continued walking. "We have something we have to do first. We might come back when we're done."

"You're always welcome to." Sev stood at a loss for words. The other men had come up around him and were watching as the group of teens loaded up their weapons and started after Daze.

Holly picked up her lancer and followed Daze.

"Are we gone yet?" Dio asked, eyes shut tight.

"Yes, but I can still see the building." Daze comforted her.

"Tell me when we can't."

"I will."

Daze and his friends walked on for a while until Daze finally set Dio on her feet and then continued on.

"Where are we going Daze?" Dio asked quietly after they had walked for some time.

"There." Daze pointed to where Jacinto rose from the surrounding city of Ephyra, with its large, ornate buildings and imposing watchtowers with hulking sentry guns and mortar emplacements, as well as it's large smokestacks spewing steam into the morning sky.

"Why are we going there?"

"Because those guys wanted to get married the right way." Daze said as he pointed to Susan and Jordan.

"That's stupid." Dio said sullenly.

"I thought so too," Daze said as he walked, "but its probably the only thing that saved us."

"Well I guess it wasn't all bad."

They heard a roar and then an explosion from somewhere up the road.

Daze ran to the sidewalk and ducked into an alleyway. He looked around for the others. Jack, Holly and Jet were just disappearing from sight, everyone else was gone except Dio who had followed him.

"What was that?" Dio whispered.

"I'm not sure." Daze looked down the street for anything that could have made the noises. There was another explosion a few blocks down as the street erupted in a shower of concrete. There was a screech as a Centaur tank skidded through the intersection and came racing towards them.

Almost as soon as the tank had passed, a large Brumak rounded the corner and fired the large cannon on its back.

The tank's armored side exploded in a white hot ball of flame and shrapnel.

Daze saw the mangled figure of a human thrown out of the tank as it veered left and crashed into a building, sending glass and concrete flying. The Brumak turned and stalked away when nothing moved inside the smoking mass of metal.

As soon as the Brumak was out of sight Daze was running for the tank. Clara reached the body of the gear who had fallen from the tank first. The head was hanging limp to the side, part of the neck sliced through. Half the gear's face was burned too badly to be recognized but the other half revealed feminine features and long brown hair. She was missing her left arm, but also had a jagged piece of metal protruding from her chest.

"She's dead." Clara shouted to Daze.

Daze hurried over to the tank just in time to see a gear pull himself out of the burning wreckage.

"Are you all right?" Daze asked as he knelt next to the gear. The man coughed and choked as he struggled to pull off his helmet. Daze helped him as he looked over his wounds.

"Thank you." The man coughed. "Is Seda alright?"

"No."

"Was it painful?" His expression saddened.

"She probably died instantly." Clara said as she walked up.

"Lucky btch." A grim smile crossed his face, "Well she's better off then me. You think I'm going to make?"

"I doubt it." Daze looked at where the man's legs had been.

"Well I was wondering why I couldn't feel em." The man leaned his head back in resignation. "You kids wouldn't happen to have a drink on any of you would ya?"

"Here's some water." Daze said as he offered a canteen to the man.

"Thanks kid," He spit out a mouthful of blood then took a drink, "what's your name?"

"Daze Jericho, why?"

"Old Veritas eh?" The man let out a weak laugh, "I thought you reminded me of someone. Well you kids take care, just give our Cog tags to the first Gear you come across."

"Will do sir."

"Thanks again son." The man coughed a few more times and then rested his head back and closed his eyes.

Daze pulled the cog tags off the dead soldier and stuck them in his pocket along with the bloody set that Clara tossed to him.

"Lets spread out and look for anything useful." Susan said solemnly as they stood around the body.

Slowly, one by one, they fanned out and began looking for any items of interest.

"Hey Jack, look at this!" Jet called out from a pile of wreckage next to the destroyed tank.

"What is it? Holly asked as she walked up.

I don't know but it looks like a gun. Should I touch it?" Jet was so excited that it looked to Holly like it was his birthday.

"I don't think so." Holly said, eyeing the object in question. To her it looked more like a jumble of pipes with a strange disc attached to it and a nozzle.

"Aww come on!" Jet pleaded, "It's got a trigger!"

"Only if you make sure to point it away from me." Holly grumbled.

"Sweet!" Jet rushed to pick it up. He grabbed it and pointed it at a wall a few feet from him.

Suddenly there was a sound like a gunshot then Jet let out a cry and doubled over, moaning in pain.

"Jet!" Holly screamed as she rushed to him. "Jet, are you okay!"

The others looked over in surprise as Jack stood still, face buried in his hand.

Jet collapsed on to the ground and rolled over as Holly reached him.

"Jet! What happened?" Holly tried frantically to pull his arms from his stomach, "You have to let me help you!"

Jet's moans presently turned to intense peals of laughter as he pulled his hand from his stomach to reveal a snub pistol.

Jack shook his head as Holly slapped Jet across the face.

Jet continued to laugh as the others went back to what they were doing.

"You little jerk!" Holly said as she slapped him again. "What were you thinking! You want that Brumak to come back?"

"I just couldn't resist!" Jet finally stopped laughing, though he did allow the occasional chuckle, "Sorry about that sis!"

"Bullsht!" Holly said as she stepped back. "Now lets see what this thing does."

"Sure thing!" Jet picked up the device and pointed what looked to be the business end towards a pane of glass.

A spray of liquid fire leapt from the nozzle and splashed against the glass, sticking to it as the flames spread outward.

"Woah," Jet said as he watched the glass burning, "This is so awesome!"

He looked down at the flamethrower to see if anything could tell him how much was left.

There were several small click wheels that would scroll whenever he fired the weapon. The far right wheel would scroll very quickly while all the others would scroll at progressively slower rates. The amount left on the wheels was one hundred and thirty-two.

"I wonder how you reload this thing?" Jet looked around in confusion.

"That disc shaped thing looks like it might have something to do with it." Jack pointed at the flamethrower. "I see a couple of extra discs sitting over there."

"Lets see here," Jet mumbled to himself, "There's gotta be a button somewhere on this…"

Suddenly the disc popped off in his hand. He took one of the extra ones and snapped it on then looked at the click wheel. It was unchanged. Jet pointed the flamethrower at the glass again and pulled the trigger. Fire spewed from the nozzle as the click wheel quickly scrolled to two hundred and forty-three.

"There it is!" Jet said as he unhooked the fresh disc and put the old one back. He loaded the three extra ones on his belt.

"New toy Jet?" Daze asked as he walked up.

"Oh yeah!" Jet looked like a puppy about to pee from sheer excitement.

"Calm down there Jet!" Daze laughed at the show of excitement, "I don't need you changing your underwear in the middle of the street, so if you don't mind…"

An explosion shattered the building across the street. Daze's heart fell into his boots as a tremendous roar swept the street.

He looked back to see the Brumak emerge from the street it had disappeared down a few minutes before. Flames leapt from the wrist mounted machine guns and then the ground around them exploded in a shower of concrete.

"Run!" Daze shouted as he tried to escape into the building next to them.

He ducked behind the tank just as a wave of bullets ricocheted off the heavy armor. Daze looked around frantically to see if everyone had made it. He was about to breath a sigh of relief when he heard a cry of pain.

A spray of blood darkened the colorless concrete as Dio fell to her hands and knees. Blood poured from her stomach as she dragged herself towards the tank.

"Daze!" She screamed through the pain, "I think the tank is still working!"

"What?" Daze shouted back over the noise of the distant machine guns.

"The tank!" Dio pointed as she continued crawling, "I think we could use it."

Daze understood what she was saying and immediately jumped onto the tank and started pushing at the barrel. "Help me out guys!"

Justin, Holly and Jordan all ran up to help him heave the heavy cannon into a more useful position.

"What are we doing?" Holly asked as Dio pulled herself up into the gunners seat.

"It's armed Daze!" Dio shouted from inside the shell of the tank.

"Will it shoot?" Daze asked as he took cover and fired his carbine at the now advancing Brumak.

"I think so! There's a glowing button that looks right!"

"Okay! Now get out of there!" Daze reloaded as he hid behind the tank.

"No Daze! I'm staying!"

"Absolutely not! You have no idea how many times this has happened! I'm not letting you stay!"

"But how will we fire the…" Dio let out a pained gasp as a bullet ripped off her arm. Time seemed to slow around her as an explosion bathed the tank in heat. Dio's small body jerked as another bullet pierced her back and ripped out of her chest. She sat in the seat for a moment, stunned.

"Dio?" Daze shouted from behind the tank, "Dio!"

As if in response, the tank's machinegun roared into life as the Brumak stepped into the sights. The Brumak roared in pain and staggered back.

"Sorry about that Daze," Dio's voice was strained and weak, "I think I found the right…"

An explosion from the tank drowned out her words as the tank rocked on its wheels. The round slammed into the Brumak's right arm and exploded sending the beast crashing into a building along with a shower of blood.

Daze was about to jump over the tank and grab Dio when the Brumak staggered back into sight.

Daze saw the Brumak start to aim its back cannon at the tank when Jack and Jet grabbed him and dragged him back.

"I see a river Daze, he's waiting, he's proud of…" Dio let her head rest on the seat back as white heat enveloped her.

"No!" Daze shouted. The round gutted the tank and sent it's wheels and turret flying. There was nothing left of it that resembled anything.

"Let's go Daze!" Holly shouted from somewhere up ahead.

Daze pulled himself up and began to run, the roar of the Brumak haunting his steps.