Jasvinder Krishnan

As Don stalks through the village, gunning down any beast folk that cross his path, I hide behind the wall of Jackson's house, praying that Thomas finishes packing as soon as possible. The thunder of Don's guns gradually draws closer as he methodically sweeps the village. We have at most a few more minutes before Don gets here. Just as I am about to yell at Thomas to hurry up, the door of the house bursts open and a pair of figures burst in without warning.

"Jackson, you stay here," Sammie speaks in a rush as she pulls Jackson inside, "I'll get Jas and we'll deal with that psycho together." As the duo stagger into the living room, they come face to face with me and a stunned silence ensues.

"Good, you're here as well." Sammie quickly gets over her shock and takes up the thread again, "Where is Thomas right now?"

"Inside." I say but Sammie immediately cuts me off.

"That guy's here looking for you," she states, "and none of the villagers have any means of fighting off a bulwark. We need to get out there and deal with this problem."

My eyes go back to the window and I see Lena rushing through the village, trying to evacuate as many people as possible. Don doesn't bother with chasing after her and instead begins firing his rockets at the ramshackle buildings, blasting them apart. A village brave charges at Don with her spear but my former best friend casually guns the woman down without even bothering to look at her. Fires have broken out all over the village, illuminating Don's machine as he strides through the carnage, cutting down beast folk the same way a farmer would harvest wheat.

"Village being destroyed!" Jackson wails at the sight of the carnage, "Soon nothing left!"

"Jackson, you stay here with Thomas." Sammie orders, "Jas, you're with me. Let's go take that guy down."

There's an explosion and yet another building collapses into rubble from Don's rockets. Agonized screams fill the air as the villagers that had been hiding inside bleed out from being torn apart by high explosives.

"No." I shake my head at Sammie, "Neither of us can handle Don. Thomas and I are escaping. You should come with us."

"Don? Don Kuat?" Sammie repeats the name in dumbfounded surprise.

"Who cares about that?" Jackson nearly screams out in agitation, "Everyone being killed and village being destroyed! We can't abandon them!"

"The guy attacking the village is after you," Sammie snaps at me furiously, "and all you can think about is running away?"

"Don's not just after me!" I shout back, "He's going to murder everyone here regardless. We need to escape while there's still a chance!"

"No." a flat voice joins the conversation.

"Thomas?" I turn around in alarm, "Why aren't you packed yet? We need to go!"

"We need to help, Jasvinder." Thomas pleads, "The village only became involved because of us."

"Is no one listening to me? Has everyone gone deaf all of a sudden?" I shout over the commotion, "There's nothing we can do!"

"Fine. Stay here." Sammie growls at me with open disdain, "I'll handle this. Coward."

Sammie storms out of the house and into the conflagration where Don holds court. The three of us watch in silence as she openly walks up to Don and confronts him. Don on his part stops rampaging and silently regards Sammie. I can't tell what he's thinking behind that helmet. Admiration? Amusement?

"You saved me once," Thomas says in a tone filled with palpable disappointment, "what happened? Why can't you do the same thing for others now?"

"Because we can't save anyone." I whisper from behind gritted teeth, "Sammie is just going to get herself killed for nothing."

"Sammie strong." Jackson insists.

The stage is set, with both combatants staring each other down. Sammie seethes with anger while Don waits calmly, content to let the Valkyrie have the first move. Behind them, the village continues to burn.

"Don Kuat." Sammie snarls, "Or should I say Mr Auxilia who does not like men?"

"YOU FINALLY REMEMBERED MY NAME." Don booms from his machine.

"I always remembered it," Sammie growls, "I'm just not messing around with you now."

Sammie's deployment earring erupts in a blaze of divine energy as she summons her own bulwark. Metal plates materialize and assemble into that armored trash can, sealing her body away. Her hands reach out and grasp the chain cannon as it is summoned into existence, flash forged on the spot. The barrels of the cannon begin to spin, emitting a menacing whir.

"One chance. Surrender." Sammie announces.

"KEEP DREAMING." Don laughs, an obnoxiously confident sound.

Sammie swings the cannon straight at Don and it vomits a stream of shells. The jets of Don's Skirmisher roar in response, sending him flying high into the sky, easily dodging Sammie's attack. The chain cannon instead slashes into a nearby building, turning it into matchwood.

Sammie then drops to a knee and the metal pack attached to her bulwark's back opens up, revealing three large arrowheads mounted within. With a deafening blast, jets mounted in the rear of each arrowhead propel them into the sky, in pursuit of Don.

"What are those?" Thomas asks, spellbound at the fight.

"Attack drones." I comment, "Sammie's piloting a Fortress. She can't maneuver very well with all that bulk. Probably going to try cornering Don with the drones before dropping the hammer on him."

"Go Sammie!" Jackson cheers at the top of his voice as the Fortress clumsily heaves itself into the sky as well.

The drones move in a synchronized fashion, spreading their formation out to surround Don from all sides. A cannon mounted within the tip of each arrowhead fires away but Don dances through the air, evading all the shots without much effort.

"TRY HARDER." Don mocks as his pistols flash, and a drone explodes out of existence.

The remaining pair of drones react by moving towards each of Don's flanks, giving Sammie a clear field of fire. The chain cannon is leveled at Don once more and it begins vomiting firepower once again. Don's machine performs a series of sharp dives, far quicker than Sammie can aim her weapon. She keeps firing doggedly, but the tracer rounds are always a few steps behind Don's latest acrobatic trick.

The drones accelerate and try to cut Don off, but he throws his bulwark into a barrel roll, firing his pistols all the while. Sparks fly across the frames of the two drones as they bleed fire, in stark relief against the black night sky. Don's pistol volley quickly shatters both drones hulls, sending metal shards splintering all over the clouds.

Sammie stops firing her cannon and instead a pair of cylinders pop up from the shoulders of her Fortress. The top of each cylinder snaps open, releasing puffs of smoke.

"Try dodging this!" Sammie shouts.

A nova of light lances out from each the cylinders, blinding me temporarily. As I squint, allowing my eyes to refocus back on to the fight, I realize that Sammie had launched a pair of missiles at Don. My former 'partner' zig zags crazily through the darkness, but the missiles pursue him like hounds that have scented blood. A fire and forget solution. Almost impossible to break their lock without advanced electronic warfare equipment.

"Yeah!" Jackson shouts, pumping his fist, "You can do it Sammie!"

The Skirmisher pulls up as the engines howl in defiance, causing it to gain altitude like an ascending angel. Sammie's missiles follow suit, trailing after Don's machine. The light from the blazing engines against the night sky makes the scene resemble a constellation constantly shifting into new positions. Don no longer bothers to try dodging the missiles and instead keeps going higher and higher.

"No way!" Thomas protests, "He's actually faster than the missiles?"

By now, Don had pulled well away from the missiles and even Sammie merely hovers in place, stunned into silence. At the apex of his ascent, Don performs a swan dive and fires a snap shot each at both missiles, causing them to blossom into great balls of fire in an earsplitting eruption, forcing the three of us still in the house to duck and cover. But the sound of the chain cannon firing kicks in again as Sammie tries to retake the offensive.

The jets mounted on Sammie's Fortress flicker as they propel her forward in a straight line against Don's incoming machine. No dodges or clever tricks this time. Just a direct charge at each other. The sounds of both sides' weapons echo throughout the concrete desert. A test of both nerves and strength.

And its a contest that Don cannot lose.

His Skirmisher shifts about in subtle movements, dodging the cannon fire at the barest of margins while allowing the pistols to effectively engage Sammie. The Valkyrie on her part relies on armor and bulk to carry the day, not dodging at all as bullets impact all over the frame of ndthe Fortress. There's a loud sound of something breaking a a large piece of armor falls away from Sammie's bulwark, shredded off thanks to all the punishment. Sammie immediately begins to lose altitude as the Fortress bleeds wisps of divine energy from all the wounds Don had inflicted on it.

Sammie seizes control of the bulwark, preventing it from entering a downward spiral as she guides it back towards the ground while the engines begin to short out. Don bears down on Sammie, swooping forward like a striking hawk, eager to end this fight.

"No!" Jackson cries out, well aware of what will happen next. Thomas grips my arm tightly, tears running down his face.

As death closes in on Sammie, a living shadow passes over the roofs of the village. And a third set of jet engines joins the cacophony.

"What's that?" I yell in alarm.

The shadow is cast aside like a discarded coat revealing its owner, a Stormer bearing an amputated arm. The newcomer carries a rifle with its bayonet extended in the remaining hand and it rockets up into the sky straight towards Don, the bayonet stabbing outward like a spear. Taken by surprise at this intervention, Don hurriedly swings his arms in an attempt to block, but the newcomer's bayonet slips past Don's guard, piercing through the armor of the Skirmisher.

There's a bark of pain from Don and he breaks off his attack run, backpedaling through the sky. At the same time, Sammie lands hard on her bulwark's feet, sending a rumble through the ground. As the newcomer begins firing away at Don one handed with the rifle, Sammie brings her cannon back into play, lighting the sky up with tracer fire. Under the combined pressure, Don is forced on to the defensive, taking the odd potshot, but spending most of his time retreating.

"That new bulwark," I mutter, "I'm sure it was the one which attacked me back in the Citadel."

"Its helping Sammie!" Jackson interrupts, "Anything else can wait!"

Both my would be assassin and Sammie set off in pursuit of Don, the three of them darting to and fro above the roofs of the village. Gunfire blazes in an ineffectual exchange between both sides, but Don is slowly being forced into a corner, being pushed from both up high and down low.

Suddenly, a set of chains tear through the roof of one of the buildings, lashing at the assassin's bulwark. The chains loop around the legs of the Stormer and swing him hard toward's Sammie's Fortress. Both machines slam together with a crash are sent tumbling back down into the mud. The chains retract from the Stormer's legs with a mechanical whir, disappearing back into the building they emerged from.

"About time you showed up." Don pants tiredly from his machine.

The wall of the building collapses with a loud crash as another bulwark strides out into the battlefield. A boxy looking civilian model, unarmed except for a pair of mechanical rollers loaded with coils of metal chains carried in each of its hands. Don lands his Skirmisher next to the newcomer as Sammie and the assassin get back to their feet.

"Jasvinder has deigned not to reveal himself I see." the newcomer states indifferently.

"He's being stubborn." Don shrugs, "And he's got help. Shall we, Wu?"

I stagger backwards as the identity of the new pilot hits me like a pile of bricks. The Management had actually redeployed Wu to deal with me.

Wu raises one of his bulwark's arms and the roller begins to whir, releasing a length of chain. Wu then cracks the chain hard on the ground like a whip, the harsh sound demanding everyone's attention.

"We had a deal, Jasvinder." Wu says calmly, "You owe me for sparing your life decades ago."

"And now I'm going to collect, with interest."