Chapter 55 #2
Elio shook his head. “Because you’re going to get us into the hangar so I can get in Lamassu, and I need you to already be synced when that happens.”
“Are you sure?” I didn’t know if I was shaking out of fear, surprise, or if I was just overjoyed that he was prepared to trust me that deeply.
Elio offered a wry grin. “Have you ever known me to not be sure about something?”
A valid point.
“Neither of us have our imperium suits though.” I frowned. The proposal sounded great, but I’d long since changed out of my gear.
Elio raised a brow and Lochlan did too, until I felt adequately shamed. Then Lochlan unceremoniously opened a small vault against the wall and pulled two bright white suits out of a stuffed storage box. He tossed one to each of us.
“These are better anyway,” Lochlan said. “Get changed. I expect you to bring all of this back in one piece.”
“Yes sir.” We both promised in unison.
We were dressed in short order, than we took the ladder to the cylindrical cockpit in the back side of the prototype suit.
Garuda, he’d called it. A legendary bird from old world mythology. I bet Elio named this one, too.
It was silly that such a thing made me smile when the situation was as dire as it was.
Elio opened the hatch, and I climbed in first. The cockpit was as cramped as always as I got into the pilot’s seat. I wasn’t exactly sure where exactly Elio was going to—
“Oof,” I exclaimed, as Elio dropped down practically on top of me, his heavy and too tall self taking position on my right leg. It was horribly uncomfortable. These things needed a passenger quarters. Or at least a second seat.
“I’ll navigate us back to campus,” he said, as the LYNC helmet clamped down around my face, and the synchronization sequence began.
Garuda ripped me into its mind with startling ease, faster, less painfully, and with more of a sense of balance and clarity than even my VR suit. I tested the limbs, and the different HUD options in a quick orientation sequence.
“This is amazing,” I muttered, genuinely dumb struck.
“It’ll be more amazing when we chase the Ghuls out of Mictlan,” Elio corrected. “If you’re done getting acquainted, let’s go.”
“Sir, yes sir.” I offered in mock compliance.
I was going to listen to him, of course, but the fact that he’d kissed me in multiple places was not going to make me any less obnoxious about it.
Lochlan opened a hatch in the ceiling, revealing the red sky, as our always dark part of the universe was tainted by the residual glow of ash and fire, slowly spreading from the academy into the city dome.
He offered one last ‘good luck,’ before I was springing from the hatch and out into the artificial sky.
“Due northwest, 38.8353° N, 104.8216° W,” Elio said, as I scanned the overwhelming shapes of the city beneath me, trying to figure out what way we’d actually gone to get here.
“Noted.” I pointed Garuda back toward Astaroth, and I used the fastest, smoothest, and most quietly efficient thrusters I’d ever heard as I covered the distance in record time.
I dropped to a tunnel, connecting the dome of the city to the dome of Astaroth, and I came in, weapons in hand, ready to smash directly into a Ghul near the hangar.
It was destroyed with a single swing of Garuda’s baton, and by the stars, this thing was strong and smooth and sweet as fuck.
“You’re actually laughing,” Elio noted from his position on my leg, and I sheepishly attempted to rein the crazy in a bit. I forgot that my real body was likely expressing all the little mental bubbles I was feeling.
“Is this what piloting Lamassu feels like? Because this is so much better than the stock unit.”
“We don’t fuck around with engineering in Lochlan’s shop, we’ll say.” Elio’s grin was obvious through his words.
“No wonder you’re ranked two. You’ve been cheating with superior tech this whole time.” I poked with more joy than I should have, as I was fighting my way to the hangar in the second academy I’d ever attended that was burned to the ground by Gehenna.
“Is it really cheating if I invented half of it? Some of us have more than one talent. Though I’m still trying to figure out what yours is.
” He dismissed me, and I appreciated that we still had this.
Nothing had to change between us. “Now enough fucking around. This is cramped as hell, and I would like to get in my own machine now.”
“You’re not the one who’s trying to fight a war with a leg that’s more than half asleep.”
“All the more reason to hurry the fuck up, sweetheart.”
I wasted no time getting to the hangar, landing Garuda on the roof right over the holding bay for Unit 2.
Elio thanked me, before he climbed out of my cockpit.
I used Garuda to shield him as he hopped down and opened the panel to access his mobile armor below.
Lamassu was half built from stock parts now, but he was together enough to be useful, and that was all that mattered.
Elio dropped in, and climbed into the cockpit cylinder, before the winged lion of lore lit up with life, and we were both ready to take on anyone who didn’t belong on our campus.
“Need some assistance?” Breaker’s voice came through on the COMM, and I immediately added his frequency to my call signs.
It was convenient that we had at least one universal, intergalactic channel that had been solidified in an old treaty, because it meant I could talk to my friends in my foreign mobile weapon.
With superior equipment and fresh battlefield experience, we got to work taking down every Ghul we could, hacking and slashing and shooting and dodging our way through.
We were the only ones on the battlefield, and all I could think was that too many of our soldiers were still tied up fighting in the training sphere, making us the first responders.
It would likely be an hour or more before the Generals up in the sphere could respond to this threat down below, so we would have to be the heroes.
It would have been a well calculated attack, if they hadn’t underestimated us.
Sebastian, unfortunately, was nowhere to be found, but he was likely stuck in the bunker. They would be on full lock down by now, so it was unlikely he’d been able to get out before everything hit.
The dull hue of the Saturn sunset was dimmed by the black smoke collecting at the top of the Mictlan dome, while the fires around us cast the bright white buildings in oranges and red.
And still we fought, the three of us side by side, thrashing through man and machine with the ferocity of cornered wildcats.
After hours that felt like eternity, I had my double bladed sword in hand, and I cleaved the last Ghul in two. I was still breathing heavy, still buzzing on adrenaline, when I turned to face my companions for a congratulatory cheer.
I was looking directly at Lamassu, who was still pulling his two handed sword from the wreckage of a drone, when a black and red suit came slamming down on top of him, and a massive plume of dust and debris and smoke exploded in the wake.
I shielded my eyes with my hand, instinctual despite the protection of my Shinka, as shards of destroyed buildings ricocheted off my armored body.
Then, when the dust settled, I found myself staring right at Kishi, crouched on top of Lamassu, holding an ejected cockpit cylinder in his hand.
What?
I blinked several times, as if I just needed to restart my vision until the image it showed me was something I could believe.
I ran toward them with confused but near automatic strides, my sword drawn, and ready to attack this imposter who couldn’t possibly be Breaker. It must have been another false Shinka.
Fuck, what if it was another bomb.
I leaped into the air, and I propelled myself forward, needing to destroy this machine before he could kill us all.
“Sync Override, Passcode: 5900172. Disengage.” The voice of Breaker came through my COMM, and my machine froze in its tracks, mid swing, mid leap, mid everything.
My mind was ripped from my machine, and I fell to the floor like a statue pushed off a building.
The hard impact of my suit crashing into the ground was only non-fatal thanks to the powerful harness and impact absorption of my seat.
My cockpit hatch door opened without my command, and I watched on my internal screens as Elio was dumped out of his cylinder. His unconscious body fell limply onto the ground.
With no way to restart Garuda, I got out of my seat and out of my cockpit. I ran toward Elio, dropped to my knees at his side, then checked his pulse, and thank the stars he had one.
“Wake up,” I yelled at him, as Kishi stilled in my periphery, and the sound of his cylinder releasing and opening was audible through my haze. “Wake up, Elio. We need to get out of here.”
Was that really Kishi? Did Breaker betray us? I didn’t understand what the fuck was happening or how his voice was able to override my machine.
I shook Elio again, knowing he was alive, but wanting so badly to have his help right now.
Breaker emerged from his weapon, and jumped down to our level, removing any remaining doubt.
He started toward us with steady, predatory steps, and all of my hackles rose.
“S-stay back.” I stumbled over my words, but I didn’t have any way to defend myself from him, and we both knew it. Normally, our pilot uniforms had basic hand tools and weapons, but I didn’t have any of that on me now.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Breaker rolled his eyes playfully, like he hadn’t just smashed Lamassu with his own Shinka and rendered Elio unconscious.
“But I’m going to need you to hear me out, because I think I might have an interesting proposal for you.
” He glanced down at Elio. “For both of you, preferably.”
Somehow, that was enough to convince me to accept his eye contact, though not with any sense of trust or confidence.
“What do you mean a proposal?”
Breaker continued toward us without answering, until he was just feet away.