“Power to sixty!” Shou exclaimed.

Power set to sixty, Reggie replied.

They swung the repulsor to their side and fired. They could see the wave ripple through the atmosphere and hit the landmass in mid-air, slowing it enough that the giant rock simply stopped and dropped vertically down to the ground. Another rumbling quake came from the smashing impact and they could see a crack rupture outward from the crash site.

Just as Shou let out a sigh of relief, another titan projectile rockets past them and slammed into one of the outer buildings of Citi. An explosion followed from one of the apartment room soon after, sending more debris flying into the air. Right and white lights flashed from the outskirt highway as whatever little prepositioned emergency vehicles that could be gathered rushed to respond to the devastation.

“Shit,” Shou cursed.

A smaller rock was dropping fast towards the east. They swung the repulsor in its direction and fired. Another blast emanated out, this time throwing the rock back instead of just dropping it.

Friend Shou, thirteen percent energy was wasted on the last shot.

“Alright. Change of plans. You aim, I shoot.”

He could feel in the back of his mind Reggie switching gears to calculations while handing him more control of its body. A wave of three smaller stones were now soaring overhead.

N-thirty-two. A-seventy-six. Power to forty-three. Three shots.

Shou set their feet to the ground and raised the repulsor over their shoulder like a cannon, aiming up. He mimicked the pull of a trigger with his finger and fired three successive shots, one of which pulverised its target while the other two rocks simply got pushed aside and fell to the ground without hitting anything.

Lacking Reggie's stabilisers, the recoil forced Shou to stagger back.

Friend Shou, are you okay?

“I'm fine. Focus on the calc-” A blur movement shoots by the corner of his eyes and Shou swung around and fired a concentrated shot into the distance.

The penetrating blast shrapnelised the siege rock, barraging the city with a mortar's impact. However, the smaller pieces failed to do more damage than simply cracking a few concrete walls.

A shock ran up the stump of Shou's leg and he grimaced in pain.

Friend Shou, energy spike. Overheat temperature increased by two degrees.

“Keep going!” he yelled, returning the repulsor to the front.

But bio-cell overheat might cause an explo-

“Keep going!” he shouted again.

N-forty-eight. A-thirty-two. Power to eighty-one.

Shou followed the instructions and adjusted his aim and power output. As he released another blast, his radio crackled in.

Miu's voice echoed, “Shou! We just confirmed that Adelle took out Lachesis. Over.”

Another shot into the sky. “So why is Exodus still attacking us? Over.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I don't know. But it's likely just following its last command. Over.”

“So if we take out the core the barrage ends? Reggie!”

Affirmative, friend Shou. Core located. Firing angle calculated. N-fifteen. A-seventy-nine. Power to one-three-nine.

“Firing!”

Cancelling.

“Reggie? What are you doing?”

Power levels above one hundred risks overheating and explosion of bio-cells.

“Just do it!”

No. Friend Shou's life is at risk.

“If we don't do this, even more people will die!”

No. Friend Shou's life is at risk.

“Reggie!”

Shou found himself standing in the middle of his old schoolyard. But something felt off. There were no feelings of wind or heat on his skin. He did not sense the choking Taint burning his exposed nose nor taste the metallic tang of rust in the air. Before him stood Reggie, not as the giant it was in life, but rather human-sized, with all the parts shrunk down to fit. It would not be a possible configuration, given the required size of some of its joints needed to function.

“Hello, friend Shou,” Reggie spoke in an electric vocal that was like an auto-tuned version between Arnold and Miu's voice.

“Reggie...” Shou greeted. “What's going on?”

“I've engaged our neural pathways to increase your processing speed.”

He thought for a moment about the nature of those words with his knowledge of tech jargon. “You're sharing your processor with me so I can think super fast?”

“Basically,” it nodded. “We are currently in a simulated mental hyperspace chamber.”

“You can do that? Why have we never done this before?”

“I never knew I could. It's... an act of desperation.”

That was the most sentient thing Shou had ever heard Reggie said. Desperation. Mere programs never grew desperate.

“Why?” he asked. “We're kind of in a rush, aren't we?”

“I needed a moment to speak with you. I cannot allow you to go through with such a dangerous course of action.”

“You can't control me, Reggie.”

“And neither can you, me.”

“So what? You're just going to let all the people in Citi die while trapping me here?”

In the pause, Shou wondered if the lack of physical sensation was simply how Reggie experienced the world and it was simply projecting its vision into their minds. After all, metal could not feel heat. There were no nerves for pain or senses for euphoria. Just the idea of existence in the life of a mech.

“No,” Reggie finally shared. “You have taught me all life is precious, and I shall do my best to save them, including yours.”

“How?”

“I have hacked into your legs and ejected your body from it.”

“What?” Shou looked down and found his leg still attached, but realised a second later that it was just a mental projection of his actual body. “Wait! I'm not going to let you sacrifice yourself! We can figure something out together!”

“It is already too late. I have already begun the ejection of your physical body from the pod. Once your mind disconnects with mine, this hyperspace cognitive construct will fade.”

“This is reckless!” Shou wanted to move, but found his body unresponsive, as if frozen in a terrified dream. “There's no guarantee this will work!”

“I believe you called this, “Living life on the edge”.”

“Of all the things you learn from me you pick up the dumbest one!”

“Friend Shou,” Shou froze. Something in the tone of its voice rang bells of finality. “I wished I had known you longer. For this life was worth living.”

The image of the world crackled. The magnetic clip connecting their neural networks was being strained, coming apart. They likely only have seconds left.

Shou finally said, “You're such a selfish bastard.”

“I know.” And even though Reggie did not - could not - smile, Shou felt that it did. “I learnt it from you, friend Shou.”

Shou was looking back in on his pod as his body was flung out. His mind took one last second to stay in slow-motion, looking back on his arms and legs flailing as his body was forcefully thrown out by Reggie.

He blinked, and the next thing he knew, he landed on Reggie's palm as the Titan quickly dropped him to the ground, him landing on his one leg, hopping in place.

For the first time in its life, Reggie used its mechanical sounding voice box. “Get clear,” it said.

There was a rock cropping nearby and Shou bolted for it as fast as his hops could take him. Halfway, he tripped and rolled onto his shoulder. On the ground, he crawled as quickly and frantically as possible towards the cover, kicking with his one leg up and going onto another roll just because it was faster than hopping. As he swivelled behind the rock, he turned back one last time to look at the back of his friend, carrying the giant repulsor in its arms, aiming at the glint of silver in the sky.

Outside of the cockpit, the repulsor blast sounded like a sonic boom, a long drawn out bawl of a bass. For a second after, nothing happened, and Shou was about to let out a sigh of relief. Then, the cockpit exploded, his leg's bio-cell was the first to go, cratering the bottom half of Reggie's spine. Then, a second explosion near its heart, easily thrice the size of the first. The Titan's body was lifted off the ground, its arm ripped from the upper torso which was summarily destroyed. Shou duck behind the rock cropping as shrapnel slashed through the air.

And just as quickly as it had happened, silence erupted like a volcano of nothing. Shou could feel the heat coming around the corner of his cover from the burning wreckage of his friend's body.

He covered his eyes, a migraine setting in. Around him, the last of Exodus's projectiles lost their propulsion and fell straight to the ground, booming giant heartbeats into the core of the planet.

The open truck rumbled through the torn terrain with Luce standing on the back, eyes scouring the land. Giant spikes of earth and mount of dirt from the fallen pieces of Exodus stuck out on the plains.

“There! Two o'clock!” She yelled, pointing towards her vision to a driver who could not see her hand.

The truck turned slowly. In the middle of the empty battlefield of a war fought by just five people laid two of its combatants, one victorious and another defeated.

Before the vehicle even came to a full stop, Luce had jumped off the side, hitting the ground running as she rushed for the lump of green in the desolate wasteland.

She skidded to a kneel at elf's side. “Hey! Adelle! Come on, wake up!” Luce shifted the former's head into her lap.

Slowly, Adelle's eyes flickered opened and focused onto Luce. “Oh. Hi. I saved Josh. Don't get mad, but I think I killed Lachesis.”

“Hah!” Luce let out a genuine laugh. She leaned over and kissed Adelle's lip softly. “You saved everyone.”

Adelle smiled a smile of relief, her eyelids slowly lowering smaller as she relaxed. “Let's not play hero for another year, eh?”

The two medics from the truck were rushing over with stretchers and kits. The one soldier driver was moving to the body of Lachesis with his rifle drawn and pointed, as if the dead was about to rise back and smite him.

“Yeah,” Luce admitted with another chuckle. “Let's get some rest.”

Author's Note: Hi everyone. Thank you for reading Tearha: Titan War, which will continue to release a new chapter every week on Friday until its completion. If you like what you've read so far, and would like to support my writing, you can buy one of my books at my website. Or you could check out my Patreon to help out for the long run. Of course, just sharing, commenting, and reviewing helps a bunch as well!

Website: adenng.com

Patreon: patreon.com/aden_ng