●　● West Marikina District, Manila, The Philippines

“Your timing is ass but we’ll take it!” crackled Kerry’s intercepted voice over Isaiah’s left earpiece. He carefully ducked between several alleys, keeping a close watch on how much space he kept between pedestrians, buildings, and passing cars or scooters. “We’ve been stuck in a standoff! Can’t flank either of them without causing a mess!” he heard as he continued to listen in.

I really hate having to do this, but we’ve already run out of time it seems.

“Charlies, pull back and execute the next phase!” Isaiah barked out in rare form, having used lines outside of his own personal ones for the first time since Dhaka. “I got the rest of phase D from here!” He came to a stop in the middle of one of the narrower streets, causing somewhat of a calamity as motorists screeched to a halt to avoid hitting him. He then checked his map and started mentally counting off the steps the dots on the radar were taking. And as one dot farther away showed up on screen, he immediately took off straight into the sky and then blasted off northbound.

“Wait, what?!” Kerry’s voice crackled off again. “They just… up and left?!- Oh shit, Sam! Those two are headed for you! Watch out!!”

“That’s fine! Let them!” Sam’s voice cut in and out.

He then pressed a button next to his thumb’s hat switch just before adjusting his angle of descent. The Ap50 and Ai20 markers became clearer with closing distance, showing both to be on the opposite side of the block from him, and with easy access via several alleys between.

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Kerry watched her radar while she used the time she had to catch her breath. “Devin, what’s your ammo reserve looking like?” she asked in between gasps, having a bad feeling about the lone target approaching.

“This and a half mag’s all I got,” he answered back with equal apprehension in his voice. “Look, Kerry, I think all signs point to that guy headed here is Reaper himself.”

“Let him come, then,” she replied with an attempt to garner any last bit of confidence she had left in her, tightening her grip and propping her shield up with her barrel aimed down-street. “So, you think ROE is out the window by now?” she asked as she took a quick look around at how emptied out the area had become since the last firefight began. Not a single building took any damage, which was one of the reasons the Kappa frames that just took off were able to without ever taking a hit.

“If that’s Reaper,” Devin continued with a gulp, squaring his Ai20’s feet up right next to her, shoulder to shoulder. “It’d have to be, or we don’t have a prayer.”

She wanted to say something to ease the tension, but even she knew it’d be best to save her energy for focus. Knowing she could at least fire more freely, she reached over to switch her rate of fire to a higher setting. “Here it comes!” she shouted the second she heard the proximity alert go off, aiming between an alley exit between two buildings fifty meters down the street. But what emerged from there wasn’t what she expected, sending a shiver down her spine, trigger fingers paralyzed.

The glitched blur emerged three different times, each one emerging in a stuttering manner before disappearing only to instantly start back from the same exit point. It was like a ghost’s trick you’d see in a horror movie and with equal lack of forewarning. She had nothing to lock her rifle onto despite the imaging, and before she could switch her aim assist off, the blur this time fizzled in and out of view only forty meters out, only to disappear yet again.

“Above!!” she heard Devin scream out as he fired off all boosters right into her, knocking her out of the street as she yelled out in confusion and panic, scrambling to right her feet.

She then heard a heart-stopping screech of ripped metal, followed by a series of a rifle’s burst fire. “DEVIN!”

She swung herself around the absolute instant she got her feet planted back firmly in the concrete below, aiming to once again see only a fuzzy semblance of an image she couldn’t register a lock on, remembering to turn off the aim assist. As she rushed to switch it off, she heard the scraping and dragging of metal from the ground and from the LTAC it was buried into. Fingers and toes already numb from the panic and uncontrollable breathing rate, she finally got her reticle over where the target should’ve been. But with the pull of her trigger, she only heard ricochets and the roaring of jump boosters.

And without even a split second to react, something drove squarely into her with double the force she just felt from seconds ago, throwing her directly into the apartment behind her. Dizzied from the impact, she lost a few seconds before she could realize what was going on as a blade drove in directly above her, missing her helmet by a few inches. Emergency exit sequences were triggered as what was left of her cockpit hatch doors released, and she wasted no time snatching her visor up in a flash. Ducking away from the falling sparks and debris, she allowed herself to roll out without abandon, more afraid of the hot metal above her than the potentially lethal fall as she felt herself freefall.

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Riding a hover scooter at the highest speed it could handle, Sebastian had just emerged from an alley opposite from the horrific sight that unfolded at such a rate even he couldn’t believe what he saw. Realizing the Seraphiel was still on the move, he brought it to as quick of a stop as he could before determining his next move. He initially looked to his right to see a downed Ai20 struggling to lift an arm, holding onto the rifle it managed to keep a grip on. He then took a quick look straight ahead to see what he thought looked like Kerry’s Ap50.

Without a second’s hesitation he darted off for her, taking a wide angle to avoid what was about to transpire to his right in the middle of the street. And as he looked up along the way, he could make out what looked to be her falling straight out of the cockpit. Her body hit the side of her Ap50’s leg unit a few meters just below, bouncing off with all of her wind knocked out of her before crashing into the concrete debris below.

He pulled right next to the pile of concrete, almost slamming into it in full slide, and nearly falling off himself. As he hopped off halfway out of control, he stumbled right into her path as he reached out to catch her. The collision knocked the both of them back, but he held onto her as tightly as he could. Having to negotiate having his own wind knocked out of him in the process, he finally came to enough to look up and see the Seraphiel pulling his sword around, looking right down at them.

“Kerry!” He yelled out as he pulled her closer, now realizing she was either out of it or wasn’t conscious at all. He scrambled to get up, lifting her up and away by the wrists in a desperate last attempt to toss her to safety. Sweat working against him in tandem with his heart beating out of his chest, he felt one of her hands slip loose from his grip, causing him to let out a scream of frustration. He fought hard that instant against his sudden desire to throw himself instead out of the way of certain death, stepping back forward to get a better grip before he heard a sudden blast of rifle fire, stumbling back to the ground with ears covered.

He felt like he lost his hearing, but he knew what he felt that next second. Heavy thuds from the Seraphiel turned to find the Ai20 had indeed a live pilot with a will to fight.

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Devin’s helmet was off and in his lap, cracked and broken. Light poured in through the fully opened window above amongst the smoke billowing out from behind and below as the electrical and fuel supply management systems failed to control the fires. What was left of the door system left him an open exit, yet he firmly remained in his seat, still strapped in. He could only focus on one thing as he spoke through his teeth into what was a disconnected communications system: “Get up, Kerry! Get the fuck out of there!”

He pulled the trigger again, hoping his angle estimations at least clipped part of the Seraphiel. A wry smile then grew as he looked up at the shadow cast overhead. He heard all the stories of Reaper’s cold efficiency, but that was always from the viewpoint of a fellow member of the Underground. Now, and only now and for the first time, he felt what it must have been like from the other side for countless souls.

But he did catch sight of someone there to scoop her up just now, bringing him some semblance of comfort for that one short-lived moment. “Sorry, girl.” He then swallowed one last difficult breath, feeling the strangest, sickening sensation rapidly flashing throughout his body.

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Sebastian knew not to waste such a valuable opportunity to make a mad dash for his exit. Out of the corner of his eye he knew what he had to refuse to confirm, knowing that sword came down at an angle that could not miss this time, instead focusing on efficiently pulling Kerry’s weight up and over into his arms, carrying her as carefully as he could without tripping over the loose concrete chunks below. Thankful for how short and light she was, he finally managed his way to the scooter and held her in front of him firmly with his left arm while using his right to pull the accelerator, speeding off through the alley from which he came.

[I got Kerry with me! Both our A-P’s are down and out! We’re on the retreat now, but she needs medical attention!] he shouted through his communicator which he kept on him after bailing out earlier, zipping through the next intersection, constantly looking back when he could to see if he was being tailed.

“10-4!” an operator responded quickly and to his relief. “Get to safety and we’ll send the next escorted medevac to your location!”

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“No! Stop! Why!?” Sam cried out angrily, watching the Kappa frames that left Kerry and Devin’s sortie from moments ago sail past her, headed straight for HQ. “This is nothing more than mindless terrorism!!”

It would take such a drastic turn of events to keep her mind off what just happened to her two friends, unable to make sense of the radio exchanges without access to their vital monitors she’d normally have on screen. All she knew was Kerry was knocked out, albeit safe with Sebastian. The thoughts of the worst happening to Devin then flashed across her mind as she landed with a sharp U-turn and bolted directly for the two Kappa frames.

“Devin, you OK back there!?”

She couldn’t wait any longer for the silence to haunt her, now unable to hold back the guilt-fueled rage building up to the point she forgot even more what not to do given the angle she had looking down at the Kappa targets on their descent. She armed her main weapon she kept shouldered on the back of the Axiom, having saved it earlier after ditching her armor. And as she brought it out in front at the apex of her jump, a shoulder stock extended out and revealed that what she had equipped wasn’t the usual anti-armor launcher, but rather a five-barrel gatling with a special muzzle brake that from its silhouette looked not much different from the originally equipped launcher.

She made her mid-air posture adjustments while spooling the firing system, taking her time to adjust her sweep angle. Her initial reaction was a split-second’s hesitation as the path swallowed up a street full of cars-

-They’re moving out of the way! she thought the exact moment the onlookers saw the Kappa’s approach.

The intense, numbing rush of vibrations and the deafening, droning hum of the fully cycling gatling made it hard to keep her tight sweep angle, sweating all the while keeping her focus off of her targets and on the center line.

One of the Kappa’s pilots had instinctively pulled to his left the second he heard the ripping of LTAC armor alloy mixed with the brilliantly glowing, panic-inducing path of countless asphalt fountains that surged ahead. The moment his rollers hit the ground with an awkward slam given his approach angle, he threw his shield up and carried his momentum all the way up next to an office building. But before he could take another moment to gather his bearings, a dozen rounds ripped through his shield and proceeded to knock a series of windows through his cockpit hatches.

“Where is Reaper!?” Sam screamed through her huffs, catching her breath upon landing. She then turned to head back to the last place she knew Sebastian to be, squeezing the controls more tightly than ever. “Command! Where– is- Reaper!?”

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Marian almost dropped her ocular from the building top from which she witnessed the swift downing of the last two support LTACs they sent. Bristling with a sudden fear of what could easily go wrong, she clicked her headset, breaking the dead heat’s silence: “Isaiah, listen! They armed her with a bloody hybridized minigun! Get out of there! Call this off before we lose anyone else, damn it!”

“I can handle her!” he shouted back through the radio noise, much to her surprise and further concern.

“Cut the heroics! Your equipment isn’t going to handle that!”

Her watch alarm then began screaming out, sending another cold chill up her spine. “Bloody hell!” she blurted out with a look to check the alert, feeling her heart continue to work its way further up her throat. “Movement!” she screamed out again. “ID on purple- no, there’s confirmed movement from purple over at their HQ! That’s… that’s Rodgers moving out!”

Unable to wait for Isaiah to make any response, she let the oculars drop to the ground this time as she turned and made a dash for the rooftop stairway. “Isaiah, damn it! Get the fuck out of dodge right now!”