3 years ago, Apal cliffs.
It had been hours.
Rhiem had stood in front of the machine that killed Noa for almost four hours straight.
Snow was falling. It was falling in heavier clumps now; snowflakes the size of coins drifted from the winds that the Dao Ku-Long stirred up and blanketed everything with their white beauty. It was an instrument of death, but for this one second... this one moment... it was something beautiful.
To Riu, it looked like Rhiem was surrounded by swirling white flowers.
Riu shivered for a second and then quickly made her way to his side.
"Rhiem." Riu held out a steaming cup of cocoa. "Drink." She wasn't used to the cold; every word brought her raw lips to the stinging cold air.
Rhiem nodded, and took the cup.
The first sip he took, he spat out, laughing.
"God! That's awful! What did you make it out of, dirt?"
Riu shivered, gripping her jacket tighter.
"I couldn't find any brown crayons.
"You're joking. Tell me you're joking."
She smiled in response.
Rhiem grinned, and took another sip, grimacing.
They stood there for another minute.
"Rhiem..." Riu looked up at the Krav IOS. "What are you doing here?"
He sighed, and glanced at Riu.
"...Talking."
Riu's eyes drifted down, from the spiky, crown-shaped skull of the Krav IOS, to the exposed belly of the machine, where the "integrated" operator of the machine still hung. His fused arms and fused torso left him hanging as if he were crucified to the metal beast.
"To him? Talking to him?"
Rhiem sighed.
"Riu, I hated this guy, you know? I hated him for taking my friend, taking Noa, who I knew only for a couple days. Some part of me still hates him. But... in death..."
Rhiem bravely walked up to the corpse of the Krav IOS operator. Stood face-to face with the hideous mask that the Archerians fused onto this poor soul.
"He's just another human. He was a soldier, just like me. In his home, his city, or whatever Archerians live in, he's now a hero."
Rhiem pulled out a faded picture from his pocket.
"Riu, you remember O'Connell?"
She nodded vigorously. Who wouldn't remember him?
"This was him."
Rhiem offered the picture to Riu. This picture of the young, smiling O'Connell. The O'Connell with a bright future.
"He held the city of Vurms for 32 months with just six of his buddies, against an entire Archerian mechanized division. After Vurms fell, it took another 17 weeks for the Archerians to capture the band of guerrillas he formed to resist them.
"You see Riu, my goal at first was to protect the ones close to me, at any cost." He hesitated. "Especially you."
"But these guys, O'Connell, the Krav IOS guy, Noa, they all had people close to them, too." He stared back up at the blackened metal heap that was the Krav.
"I can't be so selfish, to just save those close to ME."
"Rhiem, of all people..."
Riu closed her eyes, remembering... "the medical bay at the Firebase. You gave me your jacket for me. Now it's the most important thing I have."
She reached up, and slapped him lightly on the head.
"You are not selfish."
Rhiem grinned.
"Riu, what I want to do... is to make a world where you, and everyone else, can live happily." Rhiem pulled out a blackened gear from his pocket. The Soul Gear of the Krav IOS.
"This is to remind me that everyone is important to someone.
He held out his raw, near-frostbitten hand.
"Riu, you'll help me build this world for you?"
She hugged Rhiem.
"Only if you leave a little bit of this world for yourself."
Rhiem leapt onto the back of Brendan's bike, Southern Eagle in hand.
"KJ! Grab on! Bren, gun it!"
The motorcycle roared, and raced down the main street, dragging it's three riders with it.
"Frenchie! Don't tell me your master plan is triple suicide!"
"Don't worry."
Rhiem reached inside of his anacholite suit, to his old military uniform. He then found it. Noa's and the Krav Guy's Soul Gear. The gear was now slightly rusted, and most of the teeth were chipped.
"The gear that the old man gave me, was the gear of a Baras IOS, the pre-construction of a Krav IOS. If the Southern Eagle's style with the Baras Gear is a gun that is designed to capture humans... then the Eagle with the gear of a Krav..."
He clicked the tiny black gear into place. The chipped, rusted gear started spinning in it's place, and taking on a slight glow.
Rhiem could see, out of the corner of his eye, the wide eyes of Brendan and KJ.
When the glow faded, his gun was transformed. Where the barrel was, now a giant claw, attached to a link cable, and where the sights were, now a miniature grenade launcher.
"The gear of a Krav would be designed to capture wyvoids."
He lifted the gun, aimed at the floating Amatsu
"Your first shot...I dub thee..."
Titan Launcher