The screech of the radio at his side brought the world back into sharp focus. Elijah quickly dressed himself before reaching for it.

“Echo Whiskey responding. What's the Situation? Over.”

“Switch to 8, Boss is waiting. Out.”

Elijah fumbled with the radio’s dial with one hand while shrugging on the Exo rigging for his rifle with the other. He quickly realized it wasn’t working so he pressed the radio to the bare skin of his neck and pushed with his power.

[Hello World.]

[Channel 8] He pushed with his mind, then quickly finished adjusting the various harnesses and swung out the stabilizing arm on his rig to attach to the stock of the Railgun.

[Acknowledged.]

Elijah moved the arm, gun now attached to it’s neutral position on his back, barrel pointed down. Then grabbed the radio.

“Go for Elijah.”

“I was a bit surprised I must say.”

“Surprised at what?” Elijah said, dropping the usual radio etiquette. His mother had never cared for it anyhow.

“That you aren’t scrabbling out in the sand with Evona while all this excitement has been happening.”

“What excitement? What’s the situation?” He asked.

“A few of our drones were taken out on their patrol, Emily and Maria went to check it out and took some fire. Normally it wouldn’t be an all hands on deck situation but JB are guarding the princess who decided on some late night practice and is outside the palace walls.”

“Well shit.”

“Yup."

Elijah made a mental checklist as he moved towards the door, knives, guns, cutter, radio? Check. “What kind of resistance are EM looking at?”

“They haven’t been responding to comms requests. Hence the alert. Palace guard has secured most of the entrances, I need you to hook up with Zaza in the meantime to secure the repair bay. Move what you can, torch what you can’t.”

“Yes Ma’am.”

“Be alert, be cunning, be vicious.”

“Love you too ma.” He said clipping the radio to his belt and rushing out the hallway in a sprint.

======================

Evona as it turned out was no longer feeling like a genius nor a prodigy. Something made abundantly clear when the pile bunkers in both of her heels had accidentally discharged, halting her momentum long enough for Falak to fall flat on its face. She was certainly grateful that Jenny had warned her about putting on the seat belt, for some reason she had assumed the cockpit would move and shift to keep her “upright” so her remaining stationary as the ground zoomed in on her screens was a bit of a surprise. To her credit that was the only major mishap of the night and she had quickly mastered walking, running and even a thrilling sliding maneuver using thrusters that had elicited cheers from Jenny and Benni and a quiet well done from Saif.

“When do I learn to fly?” She asked, unable to tamp down on her enthusiasm.

“RI-”

“At the Academy.” Benni said cutting Jenny off. “Besides, the palace and our little firing range here are strict no fly zones and I’d rather spend the rest of the night not getting shot at thank you very much.”

At that moment the trio received a transmission as if mocking Benni’s declaration.

“BJ be advised, patrol’s gone dark in your area. Weapons free.”

“We packing up for the night?” Jenny asked?

“We’re waiting on word from EM, they were sent to check it out, but calling it a night might be for the best.”

“Copy that.”

The transmission ended and Evona’s mind was sent reeling. A patrol had gone dark? What did that mean? Were people dead? She decided to ask as much rather than spiraling in her own head.

“Nah, camera drones went dark. Most people don’t bother with drones but whoever supplies them to us at SSS is amazing, they’re easier to shoot down than they are to hack which isn’t normally the case for drones of that kind.” Benni casually replied. “Alright Evona, teachable moment. Take a good look at our GMs.”

Evona focused on their VGs and was shocked as they materialized equipment in a flash of light.

“The Same way that Jenny can get her GM to materialize, most Vain Glories can summon and banish equipment registered to them.” Benni explained.

“The techs and mechanics hate those terms bee tee dubs so be sure to use them.” Jenny chimed in.

Evona chuckled as she took in the equipment each GM had “summoned”, Jenny it seemed was fond of close combat if the glaive and round shield combo she sported was anything to go by. Benni on the other hand seemed to think that enemies should be kept at range. Her GM sported a shoulder mounted cannon on its right. Held in the right hand was a massive segmented tower shield with what looked like enourmous lenses lining one side. In her left hand was a strangely balanced rifle, the stock extending past the left shoulder.

“I feel positively under dressed.” She said.

“Don’t worry about it.” Benni chuckled. “We’ll start making our way back, Jenny takes point and you’ll be right behind me okay?”

“Alright. I’m sorry to ask, but what’s the pace? Am I running or...?”

“Right, it’s not efficient in atmosphere but try and maintain that slide with your thrusters. If that’s too difficult just do what you can and we’ll adjust.” Jenny responded.

As they set off across the empty stretch of desert on the way back to the palace, Evona did her best to fight down the rising sense of dread. The sky was clear and the moon bright, its colonies sparkling on the surface but she still seemed to twitch at every passing shadow. It had taken them a good half hour to arrive at the makeshift training ground outside the palace walls but their pace was significantly slower, what with her still grasping the basics of walking. A harsh beeping sound coming from her screens pulled her back to the moment as Benni’s GM stretched her shield in her path to get her to stop. There ahead of them were the wrecks of two Great Machines.

“Fuck, fuck fuck.” Benni cursed. “Base, this is GM B.”

“Mixed company Benaiah.” Jenny stepped in to remind her. “Report it on 3.”

Benni grunted in acknowledgment before Evona could no longer hear her.

“JB reporting, EM are wrecked no coffin signal. Requesting backup.”

Before she could get a response her system registered a target lock and she shifted her shield in its direction. The lenses to the side focused and three beams lanced out striking the missiles before Benni could even properly register them.

“Base we are under fire.”

As Benni occupied herself reporting the situation Evona heard the same irritating beep, she saw nothing in the immediate surroundings then noticed a group of red flashing triangles gathering at the top of her screens she looked up and shrieked as 8 Identical black suits descended on her position, curved swords drawn and pointed downward like Fangs.

======================

“Chico, over here quick.” Esperanza called out to Elijah.

He made his way over to her dodging around the general hive of activity that the courtyard had become. People were rushing to and fro, clearing the way for vehicles to smoothly move in and out as necessary, others were prioritizing the clearing out of various hard drives and tablets, he noticed that the APC with the tablet issues he’d worked on was gone and a truck loaded down with scrapped drones had taken its place, a handful of techs analyzing their data without bothering to get them off the truck. A quick look to the back wall confirmed that the GM was still there, no one foolish enough to commandeer something with an exposed cockpit.

“What’s the deal Zaza?” He asked her, eyes alert and hand on his sidearm.

“We have confirmed Cult presence on site. At least eight hydras so far and a handful of technicals with Echidna's markings.”

“Hot damn, orders?”

“Nothing too difficult. I want you to get somewhere up high, help watch the gate.”

“I don’t like the walls for this.” He said adopting a thoughtful expression. Then had a truly awful idea, a wonderfully awful idea. He gestured to the Downed GM. “Can that stay standing without being powered?”

“Ha ha, sure can. Let’s go.” She said with a snap of her fingers.

They clambered into the GM and she quickly got it into a standing position then turned it slightly to the right to make the gaping hole in the chest a more difficult target.

“Alright Chico. If we need to bug out you need to wreck the console and sever the pilot input.” She said, disconnecting and idly passing the plug in his direction. “If they can’t easily bring it back with them they’ll likely leave it.”

Elijah pulled his plasma cutter from his belt and twirled it. “Reckon this’ll get the job done.” As he took the input in hand he nearly staggered as a piercing shriek of feedback tore through his skull. What was normally a gentle warmth was searing heat and a sensation behind his eyes that made him think they were on the verge of bursting. He was overwhelmed with the scent of melting plastics and slagged metals. Worst of all was the phrase that floated up to the center of his mind’s eye.

[ |-|3LL0 //0rLD. ]

Elijah fought the bile building in his throat and dropped the input. Missing his distress, Esperanza looked down at the plasma cutter that slipped from Elijah’s grip and picked it up to pass back to him.

“Jeez kiddo, this isn’t a toy yeah?” She smirked at him. “Hey chin up. You’re gonna do fine.”

“R-right. A-okay.” He said.

As Esperanza clambered down the ladder and started coordinating the eager hive below, Elijah took a deep breath and tried to center himself. He had a job to do and world shattering revelations could wait until he was somewhere safe. The rig holding up his Railgun was awkward to maneuver in the confines of the cockpit but eventually he got it into position, barrel peaking out of the crash webbing. He put his eye to the scope and settled in. Unfortunately he didn’t have to wait long before spotting trouble.

“This is Echo Whiskey, spotted two APC units headed to point 0r.” he reported.

“Clear to engage.”

“understood.”

He took a centering breath then held it for a moment and gently pulled the trigger between heartbeats. The fist sized dent to the lead vehicle was gratifying but not enough to hinder. Four shots to the same spot later and the vehicle careened wildly to the left, his last shot piercing through its armor and into the tires. He watched with satisfaction as the APC embedded itself in a dune.

“Chico, we’re done here. Anything of relative value has been carted off. Site is as clear as it’s gonna get.” He heard over his radio. “If you wanna play pop goes the weasel some more feel free but remember to wreck your nest before you go if you have to.”

Before he could respond, a flash of white filled his vision and he felt the GM Crash into the wall. As he was launched from the webbing into the pilot seat he heard more than felt his right arm snap and was both glad that no one was around to hear him scream and ashamed that he had. His vision blurred and his head felt hot as he grabbed his radio with his good arm and flipped channels to find out what was going on. He didn’t have to search very hard to find out.

“I repeat, Echidna Command unit Cerberus is confirmed onsite. It’s got EM’s coffins strapped to its front and back and fired on the inactive GM commander probably hoping to score another coffin.”

Fuck he thought to himself. This was probably bad. What did he do in this situation? What was the play? When asked later he would 100% blame the concussion, but in that moment he could only think of one option. Elijah carefully wedged himself into the maintenance space behind the pilot chair, he tried to hold the radio with his left hand, but it refused to cooperate. So he quickly pulled the input down with him behind the chair and shoved it in his mouth as he held the radio with his good hand. Then surged his power into both.

[ |-|3LL0 //0rLD. ] Surged to the forefront of his mind once more and he pushed his power to respond.

[GREAT MACHINE ACTIVATE.]

The world seemed to hold its breath as the great red eye of the GM lit.