XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Rhodes dug his Titan's fist into the cockpit of his adversary's Titan. His Titan then wrapped its metal fingers around the unlucky Pilot inside the mech. Pulling the struggling figure out of the wreckage, Rhodes saw that it was the female Pilot from earlier that had kidnapped Sarah and put a bullet in Nils. Punching the wreckage away, Rhodes pulled Pilot free. He opened up his cockpit, and stood on the edge of his seat, looking at the bloodied Pilot.
"Well, well, well." Rhodes said, boorishly. "What do you know?... A common foot soldier like has just kicked the ass of a so called 'Pilot.'"
Behind her cracked visor, the Pilot glared at Rhodes. "Put me down, now." She barked.
"No, no, no." Rhodes scoffed. "After you put a bullet in my nephew, I think it's about time I returned the favor."
The Pilot gritted her now visible teeth as her helmet fell apart. "I hope he died slowly." She spat.
Rhodes chuckled. "Sorry to burst your little imagination, but he's alive and well."
The Pilot's eyes widened.
"Thanks to the guy standin' in front of ya." Rhodes added.
Rhodes outstretched his right arm, pointing it at the female Pilot. Then, he curved his hand into a half-open fist. He saw the Pilot struggle as the Titan tightened its grip on her body.
"Now die."
Rhodes clenched his hand into a fist and the Titan followed suit.
A chunky red spray flew around him and the open Titan cockpit. Wiping his face with his left hand, Rhodes opened his fist. He then heard the fleshy remains from the Titan's hand fall to the ground and splatter the immediate area.
"God damn, Rhodes." Shin said, opening his cockpit and throwing an unlucky Pilot out of his own. "You took it all the way with the whole 'revenge' thing, didn't you?"
Rhodes stared at his current blood-stained self in disgust. "Yeah… I am kind of reconsidering what I did… God I smell horrible…"
"That's gonna take a while to scrub off… the blood…" Shin said, standing up and scratching his head. The Titan followed his movements. Shin was amused. "Well, these neural connections are working pretty well, considering that they are prototypes."
"Aye." Rhodes said, pointing at the headband he was wearing. "It felt pretty natural… Hopefully Dominic did the same, noticing the lack of signal and all."
"Shit." Shin said, settling back into his seat. "We better get moving. deFranco waits for no one."
"Copy that." Rhodes said.
"It's about time we crashed this little party of his."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"Come on, come on, come on!" Dominic screamed to himself.
His Titan had sustained major damage against his enemy earlier. He had fired the homing rocket barrage way to close for safety concerns and forgot that his Titan was something of skeleton compared to his adversary's. The enemy Titan withstood the massive damage and still came after him, despite being engulfed in flames. Then, the Titan had delivered a solid blow with a punch to the cockpit. It had disoriented the display systems and knocked all balancing systems astray. Head-pounding, Dominic trust his Titan's saw blade forward into his enemy's right arm, cutting it off and knocking the weapon aside. The enemy then grabbed the saw arm and tore it off after much tugging. Dominic's Titan fell onto its left leg, cracking and breaking some of the frame work with the shields disabled. The Titan had then alerted him the Dash Core Drive was active. Taking advantage of his situation, Dominic's Titan dashed forward to the enemy Titan and fed it with a dozen tons of lead from the cannon. With a satisfying explosion, the enemy went down.
Dominic had just heard the Titan blare an alarm over his head. The red-spiral alarm system turned on, lighting the cockpit in a red light.
"What?!" Dominic exclaimed. "What now?!"
The metalized voice crackled back to life. "Titan is… all systems failing… ject eject."
"What?!"
Then, Dominic saw an encased switch in front of him flip open. The box around the button was striped yellow and black, almost like a hazard sign. The button, which was red, started to blink. Desperate, Dominic brought his fist down on the button. Then, with a blow of steam, a lever extended itself from beneath the cockpit seat. Dominic looked at the lever and then looked back at the display screen. There was a vitals sign on the screen and it was depleting rapidly. Putting his hands on the lever and holding it tightly, Dominic pulled on it.
Dominic was catapulted through his Titan's cockpit and about 30 feet into the air from the seat of the Titan. Still attached to the seat, Dominic quickly unbuckled the seat belt and look below to only see his Titan blow up into smithereens. Shielding himself from the blinding light, Dominic put his hands in front of his face. As he did, he forgot to grab onto the now-ejected seat.
Oh shit!
Falling away from his seat, Dominic now fell at full velocity to the ground. His mind raced. He remembered several times where he and his friends would jump from rooftop to rooftop in the town central. He then remembered one time when his friend miscalculated his jump and fell to the ground from about four stories. The sickening crack replayed through his head. It made him shudder.
And now it was going to happen to him.
Preparing for the worst, Dominic positioned his body as he was falling to allow the shock to disperse evenly throughout his body instead of one concentrated area. Only several feet away from the ground, Dominic braced for impact.
Instead of having every bone in his body shattered, Dominic felt himself land softly onto the dirt ground. Amazed, Dominic stiffly brought himself up and checked himself, just in case. Nothing was broken, maybe an occasional bruise here or there, but nothing too severe.
"Thank God…" Dominic muttered to himself.
There was a ground-shaking thud behind Dominic and he quickly turned around to see two Titans standing behind him, scathed from their previous battles. From one of the Titans, Dominic saw Shin stand up from the cockpit. He was smirking.
"Well…" Shin began to say. "You did manage to take out a Pilot-Class IMC soldier… and you also managed to demolish that Prototype Titan I lent you
"Oh shut up." Dominic grumbled.
Shin chuckled. "Need a lift?"
"Is that even a question?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
"What do you see?" Shin said through the CommLink as he piloted his Titan. Dominic sat on the hull of the Titan and rode along.
Dominic, looking through the high-powered binoculars, gritted his teeth. "The IMC are lining the civilians up for execution. Damn it! Can this thing go any faster?!"
"Calm down Dom." Rhodes said over the mic. "Keep a clear head. Do you see Sarah in the crowd?"
Dominic let out an agonized sigh as he looked back into the binoculars. "I don't see her."
He scanned the area to see a girl with tied back hair in brown-black combat armor. With hundreds, maybe thousands, of people huddled together, he couldn't see her.
Then, Dominic saw an IMC solider go into the crowd and pull out a person. The IMC soldier dragged her out by the person's hair. Upon closer inspection, Dominic saw that this person was wearing combat armor.
"Shit, it's Sarah!" Dominic yelled over the mic.
"What?!" Shin exclaimed, dumbfounded. "I thought you couldn't see her?"
"Some IMC operative pulled her out by her hair!" Dominic said behind gritted teeth. "Now he is holding her at gunpoint."
"Damn." Shin said in a low voice. "What direction is he in?"
"Your eleven o' clock." Dominic said.
"Alright. Dominic, hang on." Shin said over the mic. Dominic heard several switches being flipped in the backdrop of sound. "This ride is about to get a little bumpy."
"How far are we from her position?" Dominic asked desperately.
"Several hundred yards Dom. Hold on." Shin said.
"There is no time to hold on!" Dominic said. "I have to get there right now!"
"How the hell are you going to manage that kid?" Rhodes asked. "This Titan is faster than you'll ever be!"
Dominic thought hard for a moment. Then he remembered his recent ejection from the Titan.
"Shin!"
"What?! If you have an idea, stupid or brilliant, say it!" The mic crackled.
"I want you to catapult me over there."
"Now that's definitely stupid." Shin said.
"Make your Titan throw me over there!" Dominic said. "With the speed and momentum we are going, we can faster than this Titan!"
"You sure about this, Dom?!" Shin said, still holding the forward thrusters at maximum. "If I throw you with max power, I might overthrow or throw you to low. You are at risk of breaking every single bone in your body or even getting killed!"
"Does it look like I have the time to listen to all the technicalities and risks?!" Dominic yelled. "Just throw me already God damn it!"
"Whatever you say!" Shin said. "Get ready!"
His Titan lanky metallic arm reached for Dominic and grabbed him tight enough. Then, with tremendous force, the Titan threw Dominic into the air.
As Dominic sailed through the air, the crowd of civilians became clearer to him. He could now fully make out the IMC soldiers and civilians. His mind then began to think about how to handle the IMC. Then it hit him.
He had forgotten all of his weapons. All of his guns were in his previous Titan's cockpit and it blew up from battle.
Awww Shit…
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sarah felt as if her neck would give out. The IMC commander, or whatever he was, held her hard so hard and tight, it felt like the skin around her scalp would tear away. Holding back her tears, Sarah clenched her fists and furrowed her brows in disgust. It was the least she could do to express her "discomfort" at the hands of the IMC.
"You insurgents have delayed the inevitable for far too long." The Commander said. "Today you shall all receive equal judgment."
She prayed for a miracle.
She opened her eyes and saw a speck in the sky racing towards her. Squinting towards it, Sarah saw the object was approaching incredibly fast.
What is tha-
The object came so fast that Sarah felt the wind of speed the object flew at her vicinity. There was a sickening sound of impact, alerting her that the object was organic, and a huge cloud of dust was kicked up. The Commander that held her hair let go of it very briefly. Sarah took this opportunity and tried to run away.
She looked behind her shoulder as the dust cleared away and could not believe her eyes.
She saw Dominic.
He held a gun towards the convoy of IMC troops, outnumbered and outgunned. When Sarah saw this, she stopped in her tracks.
"Dominic run!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.
But as she did, a towering metal object flew from behind and passed her. It went terrifyingly fast. She saw the metal figure wheel a punch towards an IMC solider and saw the mercenary get thrown into the air. Sarah also saw that Dominic was as dumbfounded as she was but took advantage of the situation and started firing upon the IMC.
She then heard a familiar voice from the metal figure.
"IDRA-MKII is back in business baby! WOO-HOO!"
It was Adrian.
Then, the civilians, who had been cowering in fear until this very moment, all rose to their feet and run to assist the two brothers, Dominic and Adrian, their battle cries soaring in the sky.
Sarah saw the IMC stragglers try to retreat to their own Titans, but there a shower of led that demolished the IMC operatives as they ran. Looking to her left, Sarah saw two more tall metal figures come to their aid, each of them holding menacing weapons.
Soon, the skirmish had died out.
Dominic threw his emptied pistol onto the ground and hunched over, out of breath. He then felt two arms locked behind him, in an embrace.
He briefly looked over his shoulder to see Sarah tightly holding onto him.
"A-Are you…" Dominic tried to say, at a bit of loss for words. "Are you okay?"
Sarah nodded silently, tears streaming down her face, as she let go of him.
Dominic saw the smaller of the Titans come to stop in front of him. From the cockpit, Adrian popped out.
"Adrian!" Dominic said, running towards his brother. "H-how did you?!"
"Thank Shin for it." Adrian said, pointing at Shin. "It's all thanks to him."
Shin shook his head. "I didn't do anything."
All the civilians then gathered into a crowd. Shin then stood on top of his Titan as if it were a podium.
"The IMC today came to our colony and destroyed everything that we have worked so hard for without mercy. I know today, that many of you standing before me have lost your loved ones and friends. The words I say to honor the dead won't do our fallen ones any justice. The IMC will merely mark today as just another work day, lost to the papers. What happens to the truth? What happens to the massacre we have suffered today?!"
"WE have been haunted far too long by the IMC! WE have toiled in these fields while the IMC takes and enjoys the fruits of our hard labor! WE suffer while THEY prosper!"
The crowd of people cried out.
"If we can all rise against the IMC together, we can rewrite the history of the Frontier! We can show all the systems just what kind of people these IMC are! We can show the injustice the Frontier suffers at the hand of the IMC and make a name for ourselves! TO TRULY SHOW WHAT THE PEOPLE OF THE FRONTIER ARE!"
"TO THE PEOPLE OF THE FRONTIER!" Shin yelled.
"TO THE PEOPLE!" The crowd answered.
Dominic knew that the Battle of Colony H-24 was over but then he knew that the fight was far from over.
The Battle for the Frontier had only just begun.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
END OF PROLOGUE