I was sandwiched between Karu and explosives, strapped to Karu's soft chest, which I was having a hard time not focusing on, and the backpack backwards on my chest.

"We are still overweight," she explained breathily, her voice warm on my neck. "I will be able to get us up but not to maneuver.

"As long as we get it up there, I'm happy with whatever you want to do," I said.

AEGIS gave me her best 'are you an idiot' look while Karu inhaled deeply against my back.

"Uh, I meant--"

"I know what you meant, Ashton. Please just stop talking." She paused. "Or...continue."

"Karu!" AEGIS yelled with disbelief.

"It is through no fault of mine that he is pressed against me, and that his...his hair smells of...city streets...in fresh rain…"

"That's the ozone of his electricity, and breathing it is bad for you. So get your fucking head out of my boyfriend's hair."

The top of my head tickled as Karu nuzzled me gently with her nose.

"Oh you fucking--" AEGIS said, starting in towards her, but suddenly we were in the air, AEGIS disappearing into the sands below like a small, angry, screaming dog.

"Why do you have to antagonize her?" I asked once my stomach had settled from the launch.

"You presume that I act this way for her benefit?" Her arms wrapped around me and buried themselves between the backpack and my chest, clinging to me tightly.

"Uh…"

"UH IS DAMN RIGHT!" something shrieked in my ear. AEGIS, over comms, and she was about as pissed as I might expect from someone who's boyfriend just flew away with his ex.

"AEGIS, calm down, we're just planting a bomb."

"Athan, you shut up. I'm talking to the buxom bitch you're wearing as a backpack right now. You keep your hands off him, you hear me!?"

As though in response, the hands drifted lower on me until they were at the edge of my pants.

"Karu...could you not?"

"Oh it will be fine. Is a pilot not expected to inspect her cargo?"

"No. No they're not. VTOL pilots do not manhandle their passengers."

"How ideal that this is no VTOL then."

"Um, what the fuck is going on up there?" Lia asked.

"I admit curiosity myself," Blackett added. "And what is this about a bomb?"

"SHUT UP," all four of us yelled at him. He did, but I realized that I had almost let slip about our plans over comms.

The flight was brief, even at Karu's reduced speed, and her molestation stopped by necessity once we were halfway in, as the amount of sheer firepower pouring off the fortress armor and into my shield was staggering, blinding, and deafening, and getting us onto the thing without her touching down and electrocuting herself on its surface charge took all her focus.

I was just glad she didn't decide to pad the trip with a few circles. Horrible as she might be at the moment, she still followed the mission.

She pulled the appropriate strap and I fell loose, landing on the leg only inches below us. Here, on the surface, she was safe from the guns for the moment, but it wasn't long before I heard a familiar clinking noise and saw drones beginning to emerge and pursue us.

So basically, a real pity, but I didn't have the luxury of offering Karu a lengthy goodbye. She had to drop basically straight down and get out of there as fast as she could once out of range of my shield. I paused only for a moment to watch her go, and saw the sand around her exploding with shots, but nothing hit her and it was just an instant before she flashed off.

I'd recovered some during our brief planning session and found climbing easier this time, especially since I knew where I was going and many of the surface defenses had been disabled by the last time I was here. There were still some half-melted drones attempting to shuffle around which I now had to avoid, but on the whole, the trip was much easier the second time, and it took only a few minutes before I was sitting to rest in the ruined cockpit again.

I fished in the bag for some blast charges and as AEGIS had advised, looked for any floor panels I might be able to open, while I heard the reassuring booming of Lia buying me time yet again. Almost directly under the seat there was a hatch that went down a ways, ending in more machinery which must have been important enough to put an access hatch to.

Perfect. Blow this stuff up, and hopefully the fortress armor dies. I dropped a pair of charges down the hole, closed the hatch, and ran outside to the side of the cockpit before hitting the detonator.

The monster shuddered under me and a gout of intense heat and flame shot out of the breached cockpit like the armor was breathing fire. The flames only lasted a moment, and curled into wisps of smoke rising in the air. An acrid smell drifted outwards, strong enough to make my nose pucker.

Had...it worked? Did we win? I was already thinking of how best to use the rest of the explosives on Targa, when suddenly the armor swayed under me for a moment and then stepped forward like nothing had happened.

"I believe you will find our machines of war more resilient than that," Blackett said calmly in my ear. "Please do come down and have a civil conversation instead of pursuing this insanity."

I ignored him this time, though Lia told him to shut the hell up which was nice. I saw also that Karu was armed and armored again, and back to zipping around the battlefield, peppering the redeveloped Exhumans with fire.

I rummaged through the bag looking for what else I could use. Lots here wouldn't help in the slightest...I doubted that ice or adhesive would slow it down in the slightest, fire was even less effective than the shaped charges. Gas, stun, frag, concussive, all useless.

Acid seemed like it might be promising, but if it didn't work out, I wouldn't be able to go back in the hatch or even cockpit again with the caustic fumes. There were EMP grenades as well...which...I couldn't use. Even if they might be effective.

I had put a lot of hope in the blast charges, they were designed for shaped detonations and destruction of structures, but the fucking thing was just too...much. Too hard, too well-defended. I began dumping out the grenades all over the cabin floor when one caught my eye, one I'd seen before in my own belongings, never actually used by the XPCA that I'd seen.

This...might help, I thought, reading the caution label on the superconductor grenade, shaped like a can on the end of a stick. It worked with my powers, but how best to use it?

There was only one, maybe rare because the XPCA never used them...or the reason they never did. I had to plant it somewhere good. It had a magnetic foot for precise placement, but the fortress armor didn't seem to be magnetic.

I stood there thinking for a while, feeling stupid as the machine moved under me.

"Sooo...doing something?" Lia asked.

"I feel like I'm missing something," I said. I went back inside, down the hatch, looking for the most important piece of machinery I could spot.

There was...plenty, I think. If only I could blow it up. But nothing I had which could be carried around in a small pack had the punch I needed. If only I could get inside the suit and lift some of its own megaton-sized armaments.

I blinked in realization of what I could do like seeing the pieces fit together in my mind. Maybe I couldn't get inside at its weapons but I could get at the ones outside.

I climbed back up and rooted around the grenades rolling on the cockpit floor, finding a white one of adhesive. Without priming it, I dropped it in the hatch, closed it up, and poked my swords around in there until I heard it pop. I looked inside and was happy with the mess.

Like I'd learned cutting open the adhesive grenade in the annex, if you ruptured them instead of letting them go off, they just kind of puked out their contents instead of splashing them everywhere. The bottom of the hatch was now a thick carpet of the goop, and I carefully went down, making sure not to touch any of it.

I put the end of the superconductor grenade into the mess, and with a lot more effort than I thought it should have taken, ripped it back free, taking some of the liquid goop with it. Now armed with a sticky grenade, I carefully located an important-looking panel and stuck the grenade to it, the arm of it sticking into the middle of the shaft like a snaggletooth.

I took a few deep breaths and readied myself. The grenades only lasted a few seconds, and I only had the one. I couldn't mess this up. I twisted the primer and pressed the stud, holding onto it long enough to feel it begin to go cold and then climbed out as fast as I could.

I went to the broken mouth of the cockpit and stepped outside the glass, feeling the now-familiar tingle of the fortress armor's surface defense electrical field swirl around me. It hardly took a thought to channel the electricity through me and out my outstretched arm into the cabin.

Once loose in there, the power jumped to the superconductor grenade and the short-circuit was complete. With huge waves of arcing white bolts, electricity coursed across me in current and voltages I'd never felt in my life. Almost instantly, I felt the armor shudder to a stop, but until it was well and truly done, neither was I.

I helped the flow along, forcing ever more power over me until I felt like I was holding up a river, as the white tide of electricity flowed endlessly around me. I couldn't see anything but arcing white bolts, couldn't hear over the crackling roar of energy.

I heard Lia scream in my ear at the spectacle. I couldn't reply, every bit of my focus was on pumping this monster's capacitors dry, right into its own heart.

I heard a distant boom and the armor began to tilt to one side by inches, but the tilt became more and more pronounced as more explosions began to erupt within the machine. Soon, the power washing over me slowed until it was just a trickle, as either the grenade's potency expired, or the machine was so badly damaged it couldn't keep its field up anymore.

And just in time, too. It was coming down, and if I didn't move, I'd be coming down with it.

"Karu!" I shouted.

"I see you! It is going down. Fantastic work as ever, Ashton!" she cheered.

I steadied myself but found it much easier to jump this time. I think the fact that it was literally falling over under my feet helped. I fell only for a few seconds this time before Karu caught me and began to slow both of our descents and level us out.

"You truly are remarkable," said Blackett of all fucking people.

"You're next, asshole," I informed him.

"I am looking forward to it."

Karu brought me down next to an exultant AEGIS with a bit of a rough landing, and I realized she was hurt, too.

"Karu? What happened?" I asked, looking closely at the bloody medical gel seeped into her flightsuit.

"I caught some shrapnel whilst flying away from the armor," she said, almost apologetically. "I knew there would be some risk in flying close to it...I am fortunate that this is all I endured. Still," she winced "I would prefer not."

"Damn it, Karu," I said, but I was really berating myself. All my plans had been to get me up there, and her escape was only an afterthought. Maybe I could have had her in the cockpit with me, or come up with something else if I'd considered it, but I hadn't, and now she was hurt too.

The whole battle sort of...hesitated now, like we were all holding our breaths. Us three on the outskirts watched and waited, but the rest of the fighters too, all attention focused on the leaning fortress armor after the lightshow I'd just put on.

The inches and degrees it tilted grew into feet which grew into yards as the moments passed and the leaning became more pronounced. The more it leaned, the faster it tilted, and the faster it tilted, the more it leaned. It wasn't even thirty seconds from when Karu and I touched down that it began to groan and fall, its impossible bulk the only thing massive enough to defeat its own impenetrable armor. As it felt, it tore itself apart.

It sagged, lunged downward, only to be stopped for just a moment by some final frail vestige of integrity, before that snapped and two of its legs sheared off, rolling it forward with a crashing finality which sent a cloud of sand into the sky taller than the city and moved the ground beneath us so violently I thought I might fall down.

We cheered, and I think so did every Exhuman on the ground, the remaining XPCA in exosuits moving into tight formations and beginning a controlled retreat. Even those fighting for the XPCA, the redeveloped, they didn't know why they had to fight, and the toppling of a colossus was as much a spectacle for them as for any.

We had that one moment, that one sweet slice of victory. And then Targa took it away.

Through the hangar's open doors, another fortress armor slowly rolled out into the light, looming over its collapsed sibling, its electrocuted whip-arms dragging through the sand behind it. Unlike the first, this one showed no interest in guarding the hangar, and as soon as it took its feet under it, began to walk straight towards the three of us, murderous intent gleaming on every gun it levelled at us.

We'd just barely beaten one and it had taken all we had. I looked at Karu, bleeding and with more empty spots for munitions and ammo on her than full. AEGIS was torn up, barely human-looking anymore and had been hurt so much. I was exhausted, pained, and after the last climb and fall, my legs were about ready to collapse under me.

It seemed fucking impossible. Had Targa orchestrated all of this just to wear us down with the first one so she could send the second to kill us outright? Was she willing to throw away that much just to dick us over?

The unfairness of what I saw after that made my eyes burn. I wanted to cry, wanted to lie down and give up. It was so messed up. There was no fucking way.

A third fortress armor began to emerge from the hangar. It took up pace coming after us as well, leaving the defense of the hangar to the fourth, which emerged shortly after.

Three of them. Bearing slowly down on us, weapons primed and deadly.

"Chariot, I believe you may wish to reconsider negotiation," Blackett commanded me. "I know that you value the lives of your peers. If you come to terms now, they will be spared."

"No...no fucking way," I heard myself saying, rooted to the spot at the titanic legs shook the ground under me arrhythmically. "It's not possible."

"Ashton, we need to move," Karu said, her voice urgent. "We are lost, best to retreat and regroup."

"Everyone, to the car, now!" AEGIS yelled, prodding me to move, and when that didn't work, bodily dragging me along.

I heard ominous whooshing which my stalling brain recognized as rocket fire. One glance told me everything I needed to know.

"LIA, GET AWAY FROM THE CAR," I screamed. She was already moving, her enormous gun on her back swaying as she sprinted. Ignoring the pain in my legs, I sprinted also, pushing myself as fast as I had ever run, passing AEGIS who looked at me with shock and alarm.

I hardly saw her. My focus was on the car and the grey figure next to it. And a moment later, the missiles hit, and I saw the grey figure go flying. From this distance, she looked so small, the blast looked so remote, she only flew a tiny distance.

But what was inches to me here was a dozen feet or more to her. She lay crumpled and unmoving as the wreckage of her car burned.

"You are not allowed to leave. You will come to terms, or you will have proven your uselessness to me," Blackett said icily.

I screamed as I whipped around, barely aware that I had hundreds of swords filling the air around me as I turned to charge the three fortress armors. I would tear them apart with my bare hands if I had to. I would make Blackett feel every hurt he'd ever inflicted on me, on Saga, on Lia.

If he had a thousand fortress armors, I didn't care. I would go through them all.

Tears blinded me as I staggered forward, stumbling with the earth shaking under my feet. I saw nothing but Lia's prone body. The foremost armor opened up on me, most of its bullets not even reaching my shield, but withering as they passed through the legion of my blades. I felt nothing but hate and rage.

Explosions tore through the earth around me, but I only barely recognized them. I kept running, but the closet armor never seemed to get any closer. It was too big, and too distant.

Something roared past me and veered towards my side. I hacked away at it with a hundred blades, but it slammed into me anyway.

I found myself on the ground, under what was left of AEGIS. I'd torn a good chunk of her body away and one arm. Her hair hung lopsidedly, I'd slashed through both of her twintails unevenly.

She smiled as the big gun erupted and the place where I'd been running exploded with a plume of dirt as tall as I was.

"AEGIS? Wha--why?" My heart and head were pounding in time with the gunfire pouring into my shield. My mind felt broken. All I had in me was so much hate, but what could I do with that when there was a broken woman I loved in my arms?

"I tol-told you," she said through her broken smile. "My place is...is next to you."

My tears spilled over as though her simple words forced the events of the last minute to hit me again, and I bawled like a small lost child in the arms of my mother.

Blackett was talking in my ear, but AEGIS just took the comms out and put it on the ground next to us. Tears fell from her face as well as she stroked my check with gentle warmth with her remaining arm.

"It's gonna shoot again," she whispered, sounding like she was trying to calm me. "I...I don't...know that I'll be able to survive this one, even with your shield."

I shook my head, tears staining the dusty sand. "...no," was all I could get out before my throat closed.

She smiled and looked so at peace, brushing my hair from my face like nothing was wrong, like we'd just woken up from a shared night together, like she wasn't half-destroyed and her skin torn from her metalic flesh, waiting atop my prone body for a death which would be hers or mine, with a weight I found so familiar, so comforting by this point.

I tried to move but she wouldn't let me, pressed down on me, making sure that when the shot came, no inch of me was exposed for the shrap to hit.

"I love you Athan," she said, sounding like she was choking as well. "I don't think...dying like this...would be so bad."

I shook my head violently, thrashing under her, but she just leaned forward and with the lightest possible touch, kissed my lips.

There was a thud which shook the ground, and a boom instants later. I closed my eyes and waited, waited for AEGIS to collapse on me just like the broken shell of the fortress armor. Waited for her unnatural warmth to fade, for her to peel apart until there was nothing but machinery left of the woman I loved.

Instead, she kissed me a little harder and then turned around to look.

"Am I uh, interrupting something?" Tower asked. I sat up and saw him standing between us and the fortress armors, Jack by his side, leaning on a crutch with his leg in a cast.

And on the ground next to Tower, still spinning like a drill but with all its forward momentum totally robbed, a cannon shell the size of a coffin, kicking up sand in all directions.

It took me longer than AEGIS to realize we weren't dead. "Tower, you beautiful son of a bitch!" AEGIS screamed, launching herself off of me to give him a one-armed hug.

Jack smiled at her. "Language," he chided.

"Of fuck off," AEGIS said, crying as she laughed. "You came. You really came. I didn't think you would."

"Well, Moon believed you," Tower said. "Speaking of which, we should get back to her. I uh, don't know how many more of these I can catch," he said, jerking his head towards the still-spinning shell.

AEGIS ran back to me and pulled me to my feet even though I was the one who was in one piece, and hauled me over to Jack who greeted me with as pleasant a smile as I'd ever seen him with.

A few seconds later, and all of us huddled around Jack disappeared, vanishing to elsewhere as the fortress armor fired again.