[Location Redacted]
Forever Fall Forest, Remnant
March 17, 3067
Blake walked out of the barracks to see her boss, mentor, and maybe even lover, Adam Taurus, glaring at a dropship ascending into the night sky, his vibro-katana held at his side, but still sheathed. She recognized the stance as his favored intimidation technique. "What's that about?"
He turned toward her, revealing the vaguely chevron-shaped white mask with elaborate red markings and thin eye-slits he always wore. "It's nothing. We need to get moving, and quickly. The train will be here at dawn."
She nodded and followed him to the hangar, but not before casting a last glance at the departing dropship. Emblazoned on its side appeared to be the thick outline of a stylized black heart cleft in twain by a broadsword with a glowing orb at the base of the blade.
March 18, 3067
The rising sun revealed the lush, vivid red foliage that gave the forest its name: Forever Fall. Also illuminated was a set of stark white and black battlearmor sitting on a rock, its "face" tilted toward the sky. The armor looked to have once been a Raiden suit, but not anymore. Both of its arms ended in battle claws, and there were no other visible weapons.
Blake stared at Remnant's morning sky, contemplating the world's shattered moon and her similarly roiling emotions.
She was brought out of her musings when Adam walked up. "Blake, it's time."
She looked down, schooled her thoughts, and turned her gaze toward his armored form, an up-sized and otherwise heavily-modified Asterion battlesuit. "Okay."
After getting off the rock, Blake joined Adam in a thirty two kilometer per hour sprint through the forest. A few minutes later, they reached their next NAV point, a cliff overlooking the primary Schnee Mining Consortium rail line on Remnant. Blocking or derailing the train wasn't an option, as the SMC trains were heavily-armored, high-speed battering rams meant to ensure that their cargoes made it from the mines to the spaceports quickly and intact. However, the big engine, heavy armor, and high cargo capacity combined to leave the trains rather bereft of armament, especially against airborne targets.
As the train approached, the pair of troopers hurtled themselves off the cliff and essentially skated down the leaf-covered rock face. Halfway down, they coiled their legs, and the mechanical jump boosters in their armors catapulted them tens of meters into the air. Their parafoil units engaged, carrying them down to the top of the train. Although unnecessary, Adam stabbed the blade of his vibroclaw, more of an oversized vibro-katana, really, into the roof to halt his movement. Blake simply landed, and they both took off across the train-top, vaulting the gap between the cars with ease.
In less than a minute, arrived at their next NAV point, a hatch in the roof of one of the forward cars. Adam slashed the lock and held the hatch open for Blake as they dropped inside. However, that was where the operation ceased running smoothly.
Adam pointed out that they had landed on a laser tripwire grid…in his own way. "Looks like we're gonna be doing this the hard way."
Around them, a dozen SMC AK-130 drones came online. Blake stood and readied her suit's vibroclaws. "Don't be so dramatic."
The sound of a round being chambered drew their attention to one of the Knights, which was pointed its arm-mounted support machine guns at them. "Intruders, power down and prepare to be detained."
Adam answered with a blast from his suit's LB-X autocannon that tore the drone apart.
To save on personnel costs, the SMC liked to deploy remote-operated drone suits. As she eviscerated a pair of drones that tried to sneak up on her, Blake scoffed, "Cheapskate amateurs." A drone would never be as good as a real soldier.
In short order, the pair of troopers ripped the nine remaining Knights to shreds, Adam using the prodigious strength of his heavy battlearmor to kick the last drone out the door at the front of the car. The new entrance revealed a flatbed car swarming with AK-130s.
Adam and Blake shared a look. "Let's do this." With that, their perfectly-synergized assembly line of death started back up.
It was all a blur to Blake as she whirled from one opponent to the next, often tag-teaming a group with Adam. In a couple of minutes, and a final blast from Adam's autocannon, they were in the clear and pushed forward.
When they broke into the next car, Adam lifted up the lid of one of the crates they found, revealing a number of volatile materials. "Perfect." He shut the crate and turned his horned helmet toward Blake. "Move up to the next car. I'll set the charges."
That caused Blake alarm; there were still innocent civilians on the train. "What about the crew members?"
He tilted his helmet, and she would swear that she could see his glare even through Blush's nigh-opaque visor. "What about them?"
Blake's blood ran cold. She had watched Adam grow more and more brutal in his methods, but she had been sure he would draw the line at out-and-out murder.
Before she could voice her displeasure, a synthetic growl drew their attention to the back of the car, where they had entered. Lowering from the ceiling was an extremely large drone that looked like it had once been a suit of Fenrir battlearmor. However, it was clear that the drone had traded speed and turret capacity for armor, while using infantry support weapons to ensure a minimal drop in firepower. Two laser barrels jutted out from its turret, while four smaller weapon barrels hung two to a side.
Adam stepped forward to engage the new drone, much to Blake's dismay. "Adam!"
Before either person could say anything more, the drone opened fire, a chain-fired quartet of man-portable plasma rifles deluging their position with white-hot molten blobs of plastic. The both of them were already on the move, though, and avoided the barrage. Knowing that they needed to bring their foe down quickly, Blake charged the drone, weaving between plasma blasts, and leaped, intending to exenterate its cranium with her vibroclaws.
Instead, it lunged forward, ramming its head into hers and sending her tumbling. It stepped forward to finish her off, but Adam was there, slashing at the drone to attract its operator's attention. He got it, and received a kick to the chest for his efforts, followed by a volley of plasma.
Blake, still rattled from the mechanized head butt, struggled to pull herself upright. A whirring sound drew her attention upwards, where the drone was preparing to drop most of its two-ton mass down onto her head. Before it could, Adam used the manipulator of his suit's cannon arm to grab her and yank her out of the way.
Regrouping at the forward doorway, and with her faculties fully recovered, Blake turned to Adam. "We need to get out of here!"
As though saying "Wish granted," the drone charged them, hitting with the force of a rampaging raxx and sending the duo crashing through the wall to land on the next car, also a flatbed. They looked up in time to see the drone clambering through the hole.
Adam slung his blade across his back and popped open one of the cargo containers on his armor. "Buy me some time."
Blake looked on, eyes widening in panic. "Are you sure?!"
"Do it!"
And she was off, dodging plasma and laser-fire along the way with ease. Hooking one set of her claws into her target's foreleg, she let momentum carry her into the air to drop down onto the drone's back. In a near frenzy, she tore at the plasma rifles until they were reduced to metallic confetti. Its turret swiveled toward her, and she back-flipped off of the drone. She could see the air above her ripple as two powerful (clearly Clan-grade) lasers burned parallel paths of ozone in it.
Her flips eventually brought her back to Adam's side. The drone's turret swung around to face them. "Move!"
As Blake darted off to safety, Adam drew his sword, his eyes scanning his foe and telling him where to place his blade to ensure the success of his plan. The drone's lasers spat death at him…and his chokuto was there, its mirror-polished blade reflecting the lethally-coherent light. When the discharge ended, he cackled to taunt the drone's operator for his or her ineffectiveness.
Showcasing their lack of training, the drone forwent more weapons fire for another charge…exactly as Adam wanted. When it was nearly on top of him, he struck, laying open its neck with a lightning-fast slash. Just as quickly, he stuffed a bundle of five two-hundred-kilogram pentaglycerin charges into the wound. Leaping backward, he used his heads-up display to trigger the explosives.
The front half of the drone simply disintegrated. Then its power cell suffered a sympathetic detonation that blew apart what was left. In retrospect, a full kilogram of pentaglycerin maaay have been a bit…excessive. Adam dismissed that thought. His foe was dead; that was all that mattered. He ran toward the front of the train to check on Blake.
Then his radio crackled. "Goodbye."
He looked up just in time to see her claws shear through the coupling between this car and the next one. Relieved of most of its trailers, the front of the train rapidly accelerated to over one hundred ninety kilometers per hour, leaving the section Adam was on far behind. And he could only watch.