CHAPTER 3
Invaders Must Die
Yoko found herself in a familiar space when the static dissipated. A spherical white room, twenty meters in diameter and brightly lit, where the walls, roof, and floor all blended into one another. She was standing in front of a green leather boat seat that was floating about a meter in the air, a black overcoat made of chitinous scales folded up on its seat. It was all as expected.
The boat seat was at the base of a horseshoe-shaped formation of fifteen chairs. Much like the boat sea, they were floating, decorated with black coats, and facing inwards. No two chairs looked the same, yet they all appeared human, even mundane, in origin.
However, there was something new about the horseshoe; behind each of the original chairs was another outward-facing seat, creating a second horseshoe. Not all these new seats fit the traditional definition of a chair. For instance, Yoko's boat seat was paired with her trusty crimson mountain bike. She knew it was a replica, for she was sitting on her actual bike and still wearing her backpack.
Yoko got off her bike and walked it around the boat seat. She leaned it against the replica bike, which remained floating, then took her backpack off and leaned it against the replica's other side. She was about to remove her helmet but stopped when she heard a whooshing sound and saw a flash of golden light out of the corner of her eye.
She looked behind her and saw a stocky boy, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt, sitting on a seat cushion in the horseshoe's right arm.
"Daichi," she said, "You're here early."
"Well, Iwasgetting ready for work," Daichi replied. "Then I saw the cracks disappear and remember what you said that would entail."
He was Yoko's senior by only a few months, but his square jawline and black buzzcut make him look years older.
"Oh, right, today's Monday." Yoko took off her helmet, vest, and denim skirt, leaving her clad in little more than a t-shirt and spats. She stuffed her clothing into the helmet and set it next to her backpack.
Daichi looked over his shoulder at the yellow moped located behind his seat cushion. "What's with the new chairs, and how did my Vespa get in here?"
"It's complicated," Yoko answered while retrieving the coat from her seat, "But long story short, Zearth now knows us well enough to create a second set of chairs. And don't worry, that's just a copy of your moped."
"Zearth 'knows' us?"
"It has a mind of its own." Yoko unfolded the coat and wrapped it around her body. "Well, it's a little more complex than that, but you get what I'm trying to say, right?"
"Maybe. Anyways, what purpose do the new chairs serve?"
"They're connected to Zearth's teleporter, just like the old ones." Yoko zipped up her coat and settled into the boat seat. "Come to think of it, if I had known, I could've used my bike to get up here."
"Well, at least we'll know in the future." Daichi got up to examine the moped. "Wait, how did you even get here? You're on vacation, right? You should've been nowhere near your hometown, much less your seat."
"True, but I took a piece of it with me," Yoko showed Daichi the bolt in her hand. "It can still access Zearth's teleporter."
"Really. Would that trick work for the rest of us?"
"Of course," Yoko grinned.
Daichi returned to his seat cushion. "Anything else the new chairs can do?"
"Yeah, but I'd rather talk about that when everyone else is here." The conversation was briefly interrupted by the same whoosh and flash that heralded Daichi's arrival. "Speaking of which, we got company."
There was someone new sitting on a chair in the middle of the horseshoe's left arm. A blond boy wearing khakis and a purple dress shirt.
"Hello, Moji," Yoko told the sharp-dressed blond. "Glad you could make it."
"Back in Zearth's cockpit after all these years," Moji calmly but bitterly stated. "What a way to start a day."
"Yeah, sorry. I don't choose when the Echoes show up."
"You're forgiven."
"So, how's life going?"
"I'm doing fine, but we should probably focus on Zearth and the battle for now."
"Of course."
"Now, first things first, where's your brother?"
"My brother?" Yoko took a somber look around the cockpit. "I have no idea. I haven't heard from him, much less seen him."
"I see," Moji mused. "Considering the circumstances of his departure, we shouldn't be surprised by his absence. Still, that's going to make things tougher for us."
"All it means is that I'll have to be Zearth's admin for now." Yoko reached out in front of her. A black mask, the same one she was carrying when she first met her friends at the camp, appeared in her open hand in a flash of golden light. She held it in front of her, staring at it as if she were in a trance.
"Yoko?" Daichi wondered with concern.
"It's okay," Yoko assured her stocky friend. "I'm just uploading the knowledge I need to control Zearth's programming. It shouldn't take long." She gently set the mask on her lap. "Okay, done. And now for a visual confirmation of the Echo."
An elliptical screen appeared a few meters beyond the horseshoes and grew until it was nearly as wide as the inner one. The screen gave Yoko and the boys a bird's eye view of the city. From their altitude, it felt less like a city and more like an imitation of the night sky, pitch black and glittering with countless pinpoints of artificial light. The actual stars, on the other hand, were hidden behind the city's ambient light.
The Echo was hard to miss. It was standing on the coast, so tall it made the urban sprawl behind it look flat. Its torso was a narrow tower intersected by a large crescent moon that served as the creature's chest and shoulders. Segmented arms ending in tube-like fingers hung from the moon's horns. It was motionless save for the occasional glitching of its iridescent armor. Much like the hole in the sky above, it glowed in a way that made it feel like it came from another time of day, not just another realm of existence.
"What do we do?" Daichi wondered.
"What we agreed to do. Wait for it to make a move, give people time to evacuate."
The three heard an eerie rumbling sound in the distance, like a rusty gear creaking or an unearthly beast growling. They watched as the Echo marched towards them in a lumbering gait, churning up water with each step and creating a trail of abstract white footprints on the ocean's dark surface.
Yoko groaned, "Or we could just start the fight here and now."
Zearth's cockpit dimmed from a bright white to a dark gray. There was no visible light source, and as such the light appeared to simply exist as a faint spherical cloud that illuminated the open space in the middle of the horseshoes. After all these years, Yoko still found something unsettling about the effect.
"Yep," Moji commented, "We've activated Zearth."
"Wonderful," Daichi sarcastically sighed. "At least we're moving out of the city."
Zearth took a step back and raised its arms, shifting into a fighting stance. However, instead of interreacting with the black behemoth, the Echo veered to one side and walked around its would-be foe.
"Wait." Daichi uttered. "Shouldn't it be attacking us?"
"Yeah, it should." Yoko speculated, "It must be on a mission."
"Mission?"
"Believe it or not, Echoes can think and come up with plans."
"I suppose that makes sense. Still, what could it be planning?"
Moji leaned over to get a better look. "Well, if I had guess, I'd say it's heading east."
"That sounds about right." Yoko continued, "And nothing's east of here except the center of Tokyo Bay."
"Hold on." Daichi clenched his fists. "Is it going where I think it's going?"
"Exactly." Yoko scowled. "It's trying to reawaken the Hive."
Daichi gritted his teeth. "And what would that mean?"
"A lot of things. On one hand, it would guarantee that the rest of the Echoes would spawn near the Hive, which would make their attacks much more predictable. On the other hand, they would also spawn more frequently."
Moji added, "Not to mention it would turn the Bay into an active warzone."
Yoko grimly nodded in agreement.
"That would make it inaccessible to anyone except us or the military." Daichi lamented, "Even if we keep collateral damage to a minimum, shutting down the Bay would wreak havoc on the economy."
"So, we don't want it reaching the Hive." Yoko cracked her knuckles. "Sounds like we should take it out as soon as possible."
The boy heard a rumbling sound not unlike the one the Echo made when it started moving, only it was loud enough to rattle the walls of Zearth's cockpit. It was followed by a series of deep thuds, one every six seconds, the sound of Zearth walking. Through the screen, their view of the outside world shifted and followed the Echo.
"Yoko," Daichi questioned, "What are you doing?"
"Following the enemy," Yoko calmly answered while remaining focused on the screen. "I don't want it to get too far away."
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Moji added. "Zearth's teleporter doesn't work when it's in motion, so our friends can't get in while you're chasing the enemy."
"I know what I'm doing," Yoko insisted.
"Didn't we agree that we'd always get everyone inside before fighting an Echo?"
Yoko gritted her teeth. "I know that, but I don't want to lose this guy."
"Moji's right," Daichi added. "Stop Zearth and let our friends in."
"No, I can do this!" Yoko grabbed the mask and pulled it to her chest. "I need to do this, for everyone's sake."
Daichi gave his freckled friend a look that expressed equal parts concern and annoyance. "Judging by your temperament, I'm not sure you can."
Yoko looked away, muttering to herself as she tried to come up with a response. Then she felt her phone vibrate. She went silent, staring down at the mask. She then looked up at her friends, who both had their phones out.
"Who is it?" Yoko bitterly asked.
"Our friends," Moji answered. "All of them."
Yoko grimaced. "They're asking about the teleporter, aren't they?"
Moji nodded. That was all Yoko needed.
The rhythmic thudding suddenly came to an end; Zearth had stopped walking. Yoko reached into her coat and pulled out her phone, and after skimming through her friends' text messages sent one of her own: Teleporter ready. You have 3 minutes.
Yoko watched through the screen as the Echo walked away, though she kept a half-eye on her phone. The first hints of morning were visible on the horizon. She couldn't wait for the sun to rise and provide her with another source of light beyond the unnatural glow of the Echo and the Realm Between Realms.
Kanji and Kana appeared on the chairs next to Yoko's, the latter of whom had two briefcases resting at his side. A boy wearing a hi-tech visor and black military fatigues teleported in not long afterwards.
"Hello, Ushiro," Yoko told the boy in black.
"Yoko," Ushiro replied, "What's going on?"
"Nothing's wrong. I was just trying to get Zearth into position."
"We're supposed to get everyone into Zearth before attacking, remember?"
"Hey, the Echo moved first. I didn't want it to get away."
"Echoes aren't exactly hard to chase."
"Take it easy, guys," Kanji said as he got up and gave Ushiro one of his briefcases. "We're inside, right? That's what matters. Now, let's get ready."
"Right." Ushiro took the tall boy's case.
Kanji returned to his chair, set the other briefcase on his lap, and opened it, revealing a laptop within.
More of Yoko's friends continued to appear on the surrounding chairs. Ushiro got up and opened his briefcase, revealing a collection of earpieces.
"Alright, I hope we remember the drill," Ushiro said while he slowly made his way around the horseshoe. "Everyone, take an earpiece and get your coat on."
Yoko watched her friends prepare for the battle as she waited for another minute to pass on her phone's clock. Once time was up, she would resume the chase no matter what. In meantime, though, she focused on remembering how to pilot Zearth and reminisce about the day she shared that knowledge with her friends.
When the static cleared, the kids were back in the white void from the start of the game, standing just outside the circle of floating chairs. Yoko was about a meter away from the rest of the group, her hands resting on a green leather boat seat.
The boy in the striped, red shirt walked up to Yoko's side and took a closer look at the chairs. They were all unique, yet mundane, in appearance, and the circle was more of a horseshoe, with Yoko's boat seat one of the furthest away from the open end.
"What is this place?" he wondered.
"Glad you asked, Waku," Yoko said. She ran her fingers across the seat's backrest in a vaguely sentimental manner. "We're currently inside Zearth's cockpit."
"Really." The boy in stripes continued to study the horseshoe. "No offense, but I don't get it. Where are the controls? How do we even see outside?"
"Patience. I'll explain everything soon enough." Yoko walked around the boat seat and settled down. "For starters, it looks like this because we wanted something that would stand out from the crowd."
"Props for originality, I suppose," Maki shrugged
"Now, controlling Zearth is actually pretty easy." Yoko reached out, and the black mask she was carrying with her when she first visited camp appeared in her open hand. "This here is the called the Contractor, and it allows whoever's touching it to control Zearth with their mind."
"Interesting," Waku proclaimed as he leaned over Yoko's shoulder to study the mask. "So, we have to wear this thing to control the robot?"
"Not necessarily. You'll be fine as long as you're in contact."
Yoko set the Contractor on her lap and pulled her coat's hood over her head. "Now, when I say I can control Zearth, I don't just mean its movements. I can also summon screens that let us see through its eyes. Like so."
The white void, Zearth's cockpit, dimmed to a dark gray. A large elliptical screen appeared beyond the open end of the horseshoe, allowing Yoko and the others to view the otherworldly landscape they had just been in.
At their high altitude, and the Echo looked more like a human-sized arachnid than a walking mountain. They could also see that the small plateaus were spaced about a hundred meters apart from each other in a grid-like pattern and that the sea was shallow, for the black fog didn't make it far past Zearth's ankles.
"So, how exactly do we fight Echoes?" Waku pondered while he and the rest of the group gathered behind Yoko.
"We have a lot of options when it comes to combat," Yoko explained. "Or rather, we will as we gain experience. For now, we're limited to two types of weapons: lasers and good old fisticuffs. I'll start by showing the lasers."
Dozens of pinpoints of lights appeared on Zearth's chest and shoulders.
"Zearth can fire lasers from any part of its body." Yoko instructed. "First, imagine where you want the lasers to come from. Then think about where you want them to go."
Within an instant, dozens of beams of light shot out of each pinpoint's on Zearth's body. They traveled through the air at blinding speeds until they reached the Echo and struck its glitchy, iridescent surface, creating dozens of small fiery explosions that enveloped the creature in a veil of smoke. However, it didn't take long for the creature's mantis-like legs to emerge from the veil, followed by its bulbous head.
"Did that even do anything?" Ushiro wondered.
"Probably not," Yoko conceded.
The boy in black rolled his eyes. "Then why even bother?"
Yoko suppressed her annoyance. "I wanted to show you guys how to use Zearth's lasers. Trust me, they aren't completely useless." She noticed waves of static rippling across the Echo's body. "Ah, it looks like the Echo has a ranged attack of its own."
There was a large opening at the front of the Echo's head shaped like the gaping maw of a hungry fish, and within it was a small round appendage, either a tongue or a second head. The waves of static converged around the mouth, and then a jagged bolt of lightning shot out of the head-tongue. The bolt meandered through the air for a second or two before striking Zearth square in the chest, engulfing the black behemoth in a fiery explosion. Yoko gasped and twitched the moment the attack connected.
"Yoko?" Kana questioned, "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Yoko grunted while the front of her coat smoldered for a bit.
Ushiro observed, "What's happening to your—"
"I said I'm fine!" Yoko snapped.
Kana and Ushiro were visibly taking aback by Yoko's sudden outburst.
"Sorry." Yoko cleared her throat and resumed in a more subdued tone. "As you all just saw, the Echo's thunderbolt did as little damage to us as our lasers did to Zearth. Basically, ranged attacks are only good for distractions in the early stages of these fights. If we want to do any real damage, we'll have to break through the enemy's armor, which is where 'good old fisticuffs' come into play."
The walls of Zearth's cockpit rattled with a semi-rhythmic cacophony punctuated by dull thuds every six seconds. It was the sound of the black behemoth marching through the smoke, arms chambered and ready to stab at the Echo.
"Again, Zearth's movements are controlled by my thoughts," Yoko explained, "I think about walking, and it walks. I think about punching, and it attacks."
The Echo thrust one of its bladed forelimbs forward. A few seconds later, Zearth parried the attack with its elbow, making a noise like lightning. Zearth slowly raised its other arm before swinging it down on top of the Echo's head. The blow created an even louder thundercrack, and the area where Zearth struck glitched out for a second.
"This seems easy enough," Komo mused.
"Easy to learn, but a lifetime to master," Yoko elaborated. "There are many ways to go about it. Some people imagine Zearth as an extension of their body. Others approach it like a puppet, with them just controlling the strings."
"What would you recommend?"
"Everyone's different. You'll figure out what you prefer through experience."
The two titans continued to trade and parry blows, each motion taking at least a few seconds to complete. The battlefield sounded like violent thunderstorm even though there wasn't so much as a cloud in sight.
While most of the kids were fixated on the spectacle visible through the screen, Moji's attention was instead focused on Yoko. The sharp-dressed blond found it strange how every time Zearth was struck, Yoko flinched and grunted as if she were the one getting hit. Just as suspicious was the way her breathing got more labored as time passed, as if she were exerting herself physically. Then there was the general unease he felt about the game and environment he found himself in.
Daichi glanced over at Moji and asked, "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Moji replied with only partial sincerity. "I'm just thinking about this game."
"Anything in particular?"
"This might sound strange, but this all feels too real. The cockpit, the environment, the chairs, the strain on Yoko's body. It's all so… visceral."
"I wouldn't know," the stocky boy shrugged. "Computers games aren't my thing."
Moji rubbed his face, trying to clear his thoughts. "I'm probably overthinking things. If this were more than just a game, that would mean a lot of crazy things would be real. Aliens, giant robots, interdimensional—"
Moji's train of thought was interrupted by Yoko yelping in pain while the right cuff of her coat shattered like glass. She doubled up and grabbed her right wrist. Through the screen, the kids noticed that the Echo had just sliced Zearth's right forearm in half with a downward swipe.
"Yoko!" Nakama called out, "Are you okay?"
"I'll be fine," Yoko coughed out as she adjusted her posture.
"What happened?"
"It's just a bug." Yoko let go of her wrist, which was rapidly turning red. "A very persistent bug, but nothing I can't handle as long as I have this coat."
"Just a bug? But you're bleeding!" The frail girl glanced around to make sure she wasn't the only one panicking.
Yoko let out a brief but unhinged giggle. "Trust me, I'll be fine."
"Should've known this was a bad idea," Kanji grumbled.
"I don't think this is a game," Moji whispered.
Daichi grimly nodded in agreement.
One of the Echo's limbs came swinging down. Zearth parried the attack with its left arm. The pointed end of said arm opened into a small three-clawed hand that grabbed the Echo's elbow and pulled the limb in, closing the distance between it and the colossus.
Yoko let out an angry scream as Zearth drove its knee into the fetal, vestigial body that dangled beneath the Echo's head. Glitches rippled across the Echo's surface while its chest cracked open, revealing a writhing mass of black wires within. A volley of lasers shot out of Zearth's thigh and into the crack, creating a series of explosions that would've blasted the Echo back had Zearth not refused to let go of the creature's limb.
"Wow," Maki commented, "So that's what the lasers are for."
The glitching become more frequent and erratic as the crack crawled across the Echo's head and towards the limb Zearth was holding. A lightning bolt shot out of the head-tongue and struck Zearth square in the face. Yoko was thrown back into her seat, her hood falling back as blood splattered into the air.
The kids took a step back from Yoko's chair, visibly unnerved by what just happened to their freckled companion.
"Yoko?" Kana whimpered, "Are you okay?"
Yoko leaned forward and let out another angry scream. Zearth slammed the remains of its right forearm into the Echo's maw. A second later, the two titans were engulfed in the largest explosion to date while the rest of Yoko's right sleeve shattered. She clutched said arm as it went limp.
The Echo was the first to emerge from the fireball. It sailed lifelessly through the air and landed on its back, half-submerged in the dark ocean. Lightning danced between its glitchy, battered limbs, arranged like those of a dead spider, though at their size they resembled the spires of a gothic cathedral.
After the flames from the explosion had mellowed, Zearth marched out, its black silhouette contrasting with the column of pale smoke behind it. Another three-clawed hand had grown out of the stump of its right arm, which it used to sling the forelimb it had ripped off the Echo over its shoulders like a giant sword.
The group's fear slowly gave way to awe, at least until Yoko let out a pained gasp. She would've fallen out of her seat had Maki and Kana not rushed in to catch her.
"Easy there," Maki assured her freckled friend. "It's over."
"Is it?" Yoko questioned. Blood oozed from the deep gash on her cheekbone, and the look in her eye lacked any of the fury she expressed during her final attack. There was only an exhausted, thousand-yard stare, as if she had woken up from a nightmare.
Komo walked up to the screen to get a better look at the Echo. "It looks dead to me," she claimed.
Yoko gently pushed Maki and Kana away. "No, this isn't over," she stated, "Not until I harvest the Echo's Core."
Zearth took a step forward but stopped when Yoko saw ripples of iridescent light emanate out of the Echo's body and across the seas. They coalesced into glowing cracks, as if the black fog had suddenly become hard and brittle. "It can't be."
A new screen appeared within the original one. It depicted rocky black coast beneath a steep forested mountainside. Interspersed amongst the trees were at least half a dozen fires of various sizes. The group watched as a new explosion added another one.
"Is that the camp?" Waku wondered.
"Oh no," Yoko muttered.
A new screen appeared within the previous one. It showed a structure resembling a small motel built into the side of a grassy hill. Its roof was on fire.
"Oh no," Yoko gasped.
"That's the main lodge!" Kanji shouted.
Another screen, this one showing the kids the inside of the lodge. The view was focused on a pair of women lying unconscious among a bunch of broken and overturned chairs and tables. A fiery glow was visible in the corner.
"Our teachers!" Kana cried.
"Oh no," Yoko growled.
"What's going on here?!" Ushiro yelled, equally angry and scared.
Yoko looked away from the boy in black. "I need to log you guys out."
"That's not an answer!"
Yoko made sure the Contractor was still on her lap. "No time to explain." She started tapping on the mask as if it were a tablet. "Go, rescue your teachers."
"What?!" Waku stammered, "How are we supposed to do that!?"
"Figure it out. I need time to shut this game down. I'll catch up when I'm done."
"Yoko, wait! Don't—"
For an instant, Zearth's cockpit was engulfed in golden light, and once it was gone, so were the kids and the screens depicting the camp. Yoko was alone, staring at the Echo as its bladed legs swayed back and forth.
"You're still wondering why we presented the Echo War as a game of all things.
"There are many reasons we did so, but the one I like is among the simplest; fighting an Echo is like playing a turn-based game. Their movements feel slow enough to give you time to contemplate both their attacks and your response. Of course, seeing how Zearth isn't any faster than its enemies, they have chances to plan against us as well. The battles are as much about wits as they are about strength and endurance.
"Yes, I know I said Zearth and the Echoes 'felt' slow. They may look like they're moving ten times slower than a human being, but they aren't. Even when walking casually, Zearth is traveling at a hundred kilometers per hour, about as fast as a car on a highway. At a full sprint, it can get up to a thousand, faster than a commercial jet. And the reason its punches are so loud? They're breaking through the sound barrier."
It had been three minutes since Yoko texted her friends about teleporting into Zearth. It was time for her stop reminiscing about past battles and focus on the present one by resuming her pursuit of the Echo. She took one last look at her friends, who looked out of place on their chairs, dressed in coats that make them resemble living shadows. Then she focused on the Echo.
Zearth was so tall that the ocean didn't make far past its ankles, yet there was still enough water to prevent it from moving any faster than a trot. Thankfully, the Echo's pace remained leisurely at best, meaning it would only be a matter of time before the distance between the two titans closed. Still, waiting for that to happen made the minutes feel like hours, and thus Yoko's friends used the downtime to assess their readiness.
"Okay," Kanji observed, "I'm counting twelve of us present in the cockpit, meaning that three of us are missing."
Kana added, "And they would be Waku, Kako, and Kodama."
Ushiro continued, "Kako's still in a coma, so his absence is unsurprising. As for the other two, I'd say Waku's the more likely one to show up."
"I second that," Maki commented. She was on the couch to Moji's right. "Kodama and I were up late last night gaming." She paused to let out a big yawn. "Frankly, I'm amazedIwas able to get up in time."
"Right. Now I that I think about it, it's likely we're all currently experiencing some level of sleep deprivation due to the Echo's time of arrival."
"Yeah, we won't be going into this battle with a full tank, that's for sure."
Kanji remarked, "Not like we ever do."
The conversation was interrupted by a thundering rumble as Zearth shot a volley of lasers at the Echo. The iridescent colossus stumbled for a few steps while the beams bounced into the sky, then continued as if nothing had happened.
"Damn," Yoko muttered, "Looks like I'll have to get more aggressive."
Zearth did what it could to pick up its pace, and after a few tense minutes, it was able to get close enough to the Echo to strike it with a sweep of its arm. This time the Echo stopped to turn around and deliver a punch that Zearth was able to parry with ease.
For a time, Yoko's friends watched while the two titans traded thundering blows beneath a sky in the gray zone between night and dawn.
"Aren't Echoes just the worst?" Aiko quipped. She was sitting on the ottoman at the end of the horseshoe's right arm.
"Yeah," Maki chuckled. "Always seem to show up at the most inconvenient times."
"Who knows how they schedule their attacks," Komo mused. "But it does make sense for them to make things hard for us." She was sitting between Maki and Aiko.
The conversation was interrupted once more when Zearth successfully impaled one of its spear-like forelimbs through the Echo's moon-shaped chest.
"All right!" Maki cheered.
Rainbows of static danced across the Echo's cracked moon without rhyme or rhythm, and the colors only got more erratic as Zearth pulled its forearm out.
"What do you think, Yoko?" Kanji asked while the Echo stumbled backwards, "Did we get it, or did we just piss it off?"
"No idea," Yoko responded, "But I'm not taking any chances." Pinpoints of light appeared across Zeath's chest and shoulders, ready to fire at her command.
The Echo took one last step backwards before stabilizing itself in a wide stance. The ever-changing colors on it moon grew brighter and more erratic until they became a white blur of intense light.
Kanji remarked in an artificially calm tone, "Yeah, it's angry."
A crescent-shaped wave of light blasted out of the Echo's moon. A moment later Zearth fired the lasers it had been charging. The two attacks collided in a series of midair explosions that turned the dawn sky into daylight for a split second. The crescent wave had been broken up into amorphous blobs of light that continued hurtling towards Zearth. The black behemoth crossed its arms in front of it in a defensive manner.
Some of the blobs struck Zearth's forearms, chipping off bits of armor. Similar cracks appeared on Yoko's sleeves, while others zipped past the black behemoth. A few seconds later, Yoko and her friends heard a series of distant explosions behind them. She could practically feel the tension in the air as she and her friends quietly speculated over what the noise could've been.
Yoko summoned a screen next to the one displaying the Echo, which was currently hidden behind the smoke from the explosion. What she saw through this new screen confirmed what she and her friends feared; a few of the blobs had struck the city they had been trying to protect. Billowing pillars of black smoke rose above the skyline, climbing up to the hole in the sky that led to the Realm Between Realms.
"That can't be good," Nakama remarked.
"Yeah," Yoko sighed, "Try as we might, we'll never be able to avoid collateral damage in these battles."
"Got some initial readings," Kanji announced. He was furiously typing on his laptop. "Several areas that were struck were the midst of being evacuated."
"What does that mean?" Kana inquired.
"It means there were probably authorities in the vicinity of each blast. Police, fire, military, the works. Still trying to figure out how they're reacting, though."
"We should go down and see what we can do to help."
"That we should," Ushiro stated as he got up to address the rest of the group. His voice was just loud enough to be heard above the nervous chatter. "But we can't just rush in without a plan. First, we need to decide who's—"
Before Ushiro could finish, everyone except Yoko vanished in a golden flash. The screen showing the city also disappeared, leaving behind the one showing the Echo marching through the smoke, its large, tube-fingered hands reaching out to Zearth.
Zearth opened its claws and grabbed the Echo's hands. It then took a step back to prevent itself from being pushed off balance.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Ushiro's voice yelled through Yoko's earpiece.
"I just sent you guys down to help evacuate," Yoko casually answered while the two titans continued to wrestle with each other. "That's what you wanted, right?"
"We don't need everyone down here!"
"Well, there's not much you can do up here."
"That's not true!"
"The Unit System is currently inaccessible, and Zearth is using its Cores to stay tethered to our reality."
"Who cares about the Unit System!? What are we supposed to do if something bad happens to you?"
"Don't worry," Yoko said in a falsely reassuring tone, "I'll bring you guys back in if I need any help." Zearth pulled the Echo in and kneed it in the gut.
"Damnit, Yoko! If that thing kills you before you can summon us, Zearth won't have any pilot and we'll all be as good as dead!"
"I promise you'll be back inside before I die."
"Listen to my brother," Kana's voice pleaded. "What you're doing is crazy."
Zearth let go of the Echo and kicked it away. Meanwhile, Yoko reached into her hood and removed her earpiece. "I'm just trying to atone for everything I've done to you guys," she somberly proclaimed. "I'm sorry."
"Yoko, no!" Kana and Ushiro shouted.
Yoko turned off her earpiece before returning her attention to the Echo. She repositioned Zearth so that it was no longer between the Echo and the city before commanding the black behemoth to strike its iridescent foe on the shoulder. Not long after the attack connected, the Echo's moon started glowing. It was just like the first time it launched its energy attack, only now the crescent wave wouldn't be aimed at the city.
Yoko tuned her earpiece back on just long enough to deliver a final message. "Make sure you watch my final battle. Learn from my experience."
Zearth launched a volley of lasers right as the Echo unleashed its attack.