All 32 infantry warily watched the Nightfall and the four new smaller ships pass overhead, none of the craft made any hostile moves, nor changed course even slightly from their existing lazy circling of the burning facility. It wasn't until Sasha landed her Titan nearby and marched over to the rally point that anything noteworthy happened, which was her arrival in an annoyed mood.
"No signs of her from the air, anything new to report on the ground?"
"Negative, ma'am..." Sergeant Kamrov tilted his head back to address her, and suddenly noticed a small black dot plummeting towards them through a gap in the trees above her. "CONTACT OVERHEAD!"
Everyone scrambled for cover, and Sasha scooped up the Sergeant into one hand before covering him with her other arm and ducking to the side as the object made a resonating impact that sent all of the infantry flying back several yards, and even made her Titan stumbled into the side of the cliff with the Sergeant still in her grasp.
They all directed weapons at the middle of the dust cloud from the impact, waiting for it to reveal itself as... a person.
But not just any person... They all thought only one person could survive a freefall like that... But it wasn't that person. It was his son...
Valentine.
"So... little Valentine himself graces us with his presence... That must mean she's nearby after all."
"Ma'am... his eyes..." Sergeant Kamrov noticed how Valentine's normally blue eyes were a spine-chilling white glow. "He's entered some sort of state we've never even seen him use before."
"Hmmm... Not in the right state of mind, is he? How amusing. He can't face a Titan, no matter what state he's in!" Sasha laughed arrogantly as she put the Sergeant down onto the ground and marched towards Valentine, who only barely turned his head to the side, and up slightly, to acknowledge her approach. Otherwise, he hadn't moved since they confirmed he was what had dropped from the Nightfall. "The little nigger didn't last long against me, what makes you think you will too, you fucking fairy?" Sasha spoke in English to Valentine as she reeled her fist back to punch him. "LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN OUTLAST HER!"
With an almighty crash and cloud of dust, her fist slammed into the spot where Valentine had been standing, but as she withdrew her arm, she was greeted by the sight of Valentine standing on the back of her hand, putting on some sort of metal glove onto his left hand.
"YOU CHEEKY PIECE OF SHIT!" Sasha swung her arm back wildly to dislodge him, and in doing so thought she'd thrown him up into the air, but watched as he seemed to almost glide in a gentle arc to the nearest tree branch, still staring directly at her sensor pod in that same deadpan, expressionless, glowing-white-eyed stare, barely even blinking. "OPEN FIRE ON HIM!"
32 assault rifles were brought to bear on the white haired and eyed teenager standing on the sturdy tree branch. It was at this point that the 34 people presently observing him noted that he wasn't wearing his usual sleeveless black shirt, nor his white hoodie that went with it to cover his usually hidden Quinque Steel corset-like body armour. That armour was on full display, and his exposed arms and upper back strongly showed off his muscle tone in an astonishingly masculine way that strongly contrasted with his distinctively androgynous appearance.
"Koko, hack my phone with Big J, make it play the song called Waking The Demon. Have it broadcast from Val's radio, I can see it on his hip." Sheva spoke in her DNI on the existing line, and Koko immediately knew that it held some sort of reason to be chosen at this particular moment for Valentine.
"Should start playing... Now." Koko replied as she finished typing and pressed the play command... Only to realize that Rico had just stopped the signal suddenly. "Or not... Rico, how're you feeling?"
"I have something better in mind. Trust me." Rico's voice joined the line, bring out a happy tear in Sheva's eyes as she listened to the sounds of gunfire and thundering crashes from Sasha and her men to try and land a successful strike on Valentine, with little luck.
"How long until you're fully online again?"
"Minute and a half, maybe two." Rico replied. "All vital systems are up and running, still trying to get the fuck up. Yuuki, I require a lot of Aced Inspire right now. Think you could help? I got Taser'd."
"You smartass!" Yuuki yelled back, ignoring Rachael's laughter beside her as she waved her hand in an upwards, flat palmed gesture. "GET THE FUCK UP!"
With a mechanical rumbling and a fist pounded onto the deck's surface to push himself upwards, Rico hauled himself to his feet and sealed his armoured canopy as he glanced in the direction that his existing lock onto Sasha's Northstar gave away her position.
"Drive me closer... I want to hit her with my sword." Rico glanced back to the command deck as he spoke on an open channel to the entire Nightfall crew. "And my fists. And my shotgun. And my foot..."
"Do that." Valentine's voice suddenly came through the line, sounding very menacing, monotone and a lot deeper than his usual uptilted Russian accent. He almost sounded like Tobias. "I'll keep her busy, you drop in and say hi."
"Cute, you think I have anything polite to say to her." Rico replied as he retrieved his fallen weapons and paused at the sight of the railgun sniper rifle. "Not even gonna say thanks for the rifle she left me."
"SHE HIT YOU WITH IT!" Sheva snapped.
"That's why I'm refusing to say it." Rico laughed as the Nightfall banked around to his provided location data.
"I ORDER YOU TO THANK HER FOR THE RIFLE!"
Back on the ground, Valentine had killed 14 of the soldiers, and used several of their own grenades to cripple Sasha's legs by jamming the unpinned grenades into gaps in between her leg servo's armour plating at the knee, and had spent most of his previous dodging antics leaving behind a network of nearly translucent nanowires that came from his glove on his left hand, and made sure that he didn't trigger the specific line that would apply all of the necessary amounts of tension to the rest of the wires that were laying in wait for the right trigger.
Sliding on his knee past two surviving soldiers, he smoothly grabbed the knife out of a fallen soldier's shoulder sheath as he went by, then flicked his wrist to impale one of them in the throat before reaching the nearby tree and swinging around the trunk in a horizontal two-foot kick aimed at the back of the second soldier's head.
With a dull crunch, the kick made contact, severed the man's neck and let Valentine use the crumpling corpse as a springboard to fluidly dodge an incoming punch from Sasha to land right on top of the fallen tree where Sheva was hiding.
"Valentine, we're in position, tell me when to jump." Rico spoke up into his earpiece.
"Now." Valentine replied in the same low, menacing, very masculine voice as he pointedly stepped backwards to snag the hidden wire he needed, just as Sasha came running over with her arm pulled back for another swing...
And stopped dead in her tracks with an almighty lurch and creaking of both trees and metal simultaneously.
"Wires?!" Sasha snarled as she strugged to untangle herself from the faintly glinting lines of light wrapped around her Titan's hull. "What the fuck are you trying to pull on me, you fucking fairy!?"
"He's not pulling anything." Sheva spoke up in the open comms line for Sasha and the Nightfall. "I am."
"WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU, YOU LITTLE NIGG..."
Sasha never got to find out where Sheva had been hiding, because the next thing she knew, there was an almighty crash right on top of her that caved in the canopy of her cockpit and caused her world to explode in agonizing pain.
When she came back to reality, she was in excruciating pain, and most of the cockpit was beyond repair. So she weakly reached her less-injured arm towards the manual release lever, only for the whole canopy to be torn off with a sickening screeching and creaking of straining metal to reveal that Rico was now present, and staring down from atop the Titan's head were Valentine and the little bitch herself.
"Not really one for theatrics, personally." Rico commented as he pointedly held up the crushed canopy in one hand before crushing it into his giant fist and tossed it aside. "Too bad she missed my grand entrance too, guess I'll just give her what she wanted from the start..."
"Not yet." Sheva spoke up to stop her Titan. "You should at least show her what Val did to her grunts, since we've still kept pretty true to the original Viper fight by tearing off her canopy like that."
"If she pukes on me, I demand that you clean it off my hull in a bikini." Rico grabbed the top of the mangled spherical cockpit in his free hand and turned the limp Titan around to present the defeated pilot with the sight of Valentine's wire massacre.
All of the infantry, including the already dead ones, were sliced with laser-like precision by the sudden lethally fast tension that the wires had when he'd touched the wire he needed to pin her Titan into position for Rico to land feet first on top of her, blaring the classic Dukes of Hazzard General Lee car horn as he made contact with a powerful shockwave.
Sasha wasn't even able to muster the energy for a reaction, she just slumped forward in defeat and weakly tried to pull her pistol from her leg holster, unsuccessfully tugging it against the holding strap several times until Rico tossed the whole chassis onto it's back and caused her to scream in agony before realizing he was standing over top of her with her husband's sword now in his hand.
"I've been ordered to thank you for the new sniper rifle... But I feel pretty good about disobeying the order. Fuck you, and fuck off... Cyka." Rico shoved the sword straight through the back of the cockpit, vertically slicing Sasha's head and torso cleanly in half before yanking it roughly back out and pointedly raised his huge foot to stomp on the cockpit. "And nobody has the right to call my pilot any racial slurs." He ground his heel back and forth to rub add insult to injury as he added. "Not even once."