Luce jumped off the steep hill seconds before the Rankor's paws crashed down behind her. She slid down the incline, turning around to fire a quick shot at the Titan. Her round went straight through the air, smacking into the Rankor's body and exploded on impact. At the bottom of the hill, she looked up to the creature which readied itself to pounce on her, undaunted by her attack. But a volley of rifle fire from the top drew its attention away as it stepped out of her view and onto its new prey.

She took the chance and reloaded her weapon just as Josh and Shou came sliding down the same slope.

Adrenaline pumping, she snapped at them,“What are you two doing?”

Josh replied, “We've got a plan. We're going to fight the Rankor.”

“Are you crazy? It takes a whole squad of Titan Hunters to bring a golem down and you want us to do it with five people? Can't we just retreat?”

“Hear us out!” the Guide pleaded. She bit her teeth and nodded. “Rankors are trackers. They're not particularly good fighters, but we can't outrun it. So we're going to reactivate the mech these guys are here for and have it fight with us.”

Before she could question the plan, Shou answered, “It's definitely near here. Our squad has already searched the rest of the sector. That's why we were here in the first place. We were waiting for our squad to meet up with us.”

She looked to Josh, searching his eyes for any signs of faltering. They seem to instead twinkle with conviction. “Fine. Does Jacques know about this?” They nodded in reply. “Okay. We'll buy you some time then. Go!”

The pair bolted off into the wasteland. She turned back to the hill and aimed her rifle up and between two large boulders. She flicked the modular switch at the grip of her gun, pulled, and held down the trigger. The grappling-lance blasted out of its attachment barrel and into the gap between the two rocks. She released the trigger and the lance tip sprang open into eight hooks. Another press of the trigger and the hook locked into place. A final release and the tube within the attachment began to turn, reeling the chain back, and Luce used the pull to climb back up the steep hill.

At the top, she manually removed the grapple, only looking up to see the Rankor swipe at Jacques. The woman stabbed her spear into the ground and gracefully pole vaulted over the attack, landing perfectly on her feet with a gymnastics grace. She aimed the spear-cannon down at the Titan and fired at its face. The golem staggered, dazed, but otherwise unscathed.

Arnold ran to the boulder beside her for cover and told her, “We're not denting it! The skin is too tough!”

“Do you have incendiary grenades?”

He looked down to the explosives on his belt. “I've got two. Why?”

“One on the front left leg, another on the back right. To the shoulder joints.” she ordered. If what she had learned in the academy was correct, fire should weaken the dirt armour.

Arnold nodded and ran out of his cover, using Jacques' distraction to his advantage. He lobbed one of the grenade to the front left leg as he was told. The grenade exploded on impact, sticking flaming goo onto the creature, the fire shattering apart like fireworks. He ran around the tail and chucked a second grenade at the opposite back leg.

Luce jumped out of her hiding and shouted to her partner, “Jacques! Burn and turn!”

Jacques nodded and circled around to the back leg. Luce set her station-rifle sight to the front, her targeted limb burning. Arnold ran around to the head, taking over for Jacques as the distraction, firing his rifle randomly at the golem.

Luce pulled the trigger and her lance flew through the air, piercing the heated joint. She released the trigger and the lance blasted open into its hook, breaking apart an area of the shell. Without retracting, she aimed her rifle and fired an explosive round. The bullet exploded on impact and cracks splintered along the rock limb from its hit.

The Rankor turned towards her, head held low in a muted growl. It made a step forward to attack, but the damaged shoulder shattered and crumbled under its weight, the leg breaking off from the joint.

On the other side, Jacques right shoulder glowed a soft brown, the lines of the blood vessel from the magic circuits shone through even her shirt. Her left hand stretched out in front of her as she focused the energy. Dirt and dust rallied before her opened palm, spiralling, spinning, condensing and forming, taking the shape of a large spike.

Chants were not needed in magic, but it did help in focus, and it helped the velocity of the earth spike when she yelled, “Fire!”

The spike rocketed through the air, smashing with the force of a launching glider and piercing into the earthen limb. The second leg snapped, and the Rankor lost its pillars of balance, toppling over in a crash to the ground. Its remaining two legs kicked desperately, trying to push the body back to its feet but to no avail.

The trio gathered before the fallen Titan, breathing heavily and panting like they had ran a marathon. Luce could feel her sweat soaking through her gloves. She had just taken down her first golem in real combat, but she did not feel any elation or sense of accomplishment. The creature before her, with its glowing grey eyes, seemed to stare at her, into her mind and soul, and she felt the familiar sense of pity.

“Well,” Arnold started. “Guess we don't need that mech anymore.”

Just as he said it, they felt the ground shook. Jacques reprimanded, “You just had to open your geared mouth, didn't you?”

They turned around. Closing in on them from just a stones' throw away was the second Rankor.

***

Josh knew the mech even before he saw it. Lying face up in the midst of debris and rubble rocks, it was no wonder the search for the Titan took the Dogonian squad as long as it did. The brown steeled mech camouflaged well with the dirt and rock, and the spires jutting out of the ground gave good cover.

“Shou!” he shouted over his shoulder. “I found it!”

The Guide made a beeline for the machine, heading towards where the chest should be. Climbing onto a large boulder beside the Titan, he got the full view of the lost Regalia model.

“You're a thing of beauty, aren't you?” he muttered. Then he noticed the squad of dead soldiers that surrounded the fallen Titan and his spirits fell. He forced himself to ignore the corpses.

The Regalia mech was the longest serving humanoid model there was. Easy to build and transport, they were 3 pletz tall, just over twice the height of most mortals, and were versatile in their capabilities. This one was equipped for scouting. Its armour were thin plated, with most of its internal structures exposed. Its human shaped head was mostly unarmoured, leaving the cameras and censors unhindered in sight, though also making them dangerously easy to be damaged. Overall, it looked like a mechanical version of a human without skin.

Josh climbed onto the chest and ran to the head first. The 'eyes' were like that of a spider, with eight different cameras installed in a thin winged helmet. Save for an optional thermal camera, the rest were undamaged. He checked the microphone and antenna hidden within the wing of the helmet, the two parts acting as the mech's main method of communication for orders, and found the antenna damaged.

“Hey!” He turned to see Shou climbing onto the machine's chest. The scout asked, “How is it?”

Josh climbed back onto the torso and headed for a hatch in the mech's abdomen. “The wireless is damaged, so we'll have to command it by voice.” He pulled out a circuit board the size of his chest and checked through the damages. “Are you registered in the Mech Audio-Visual Directory?”

“Of course. All soldiers are.”

Josh jammed the board back in and closed the hatch. “Good. Then you will pilot it.” He turned on the spot and opened another hatch. “Oh crap.”

“What is it?”

“The bio-cell's shot. We won't be able to get it up.”

“Oh!” Shou quickly sat down and rolled up the right of his pants. “Will this work?”

His leg shone with a metallic glow, the aluminium bar that made up his shin covered a steel tube within, wires jutted in and out with the sound of whirring gears within.

Josh exclaimed, “You're a cyborg!”

“Yeah! Type-V2 bio-cell.”

He smiled, “Sweet.”

***

Jacques had only ever been out on the battlefield once before. Three siege golems had crossed the borders of Reveries and they were sent to intercept. Back then though, she had three squads of twenty Titan Hunters to back her up. Now, she had a single greenhorn Titan Hunter and a questionably sane soldier. Yet, she would not have it any other way.

Her magic circuits flared as she delivered an uppercut to thin air before the Rankor. A spike of earth shot out from the ground and punched into the underbelly of the creature. It stumbled back, and she took the opening to fire another explosive round at its face with her spear-cannon. The explosion knocked the golem back further, but there were no further dents in its armour. She wished the Seracuens did not spell lock their earth golems. But they did, and they would be stupid to do otherwise, especially against terramancers like her who could manipulate the earth.

The downed Rankor continued to flail, struggling to stand on just two of its four legs. The newcomer regained its balance, before continuing to circle its partner. But whenever the trio tried to retreat, the golem jumped at their escape route.

Arnold shouted, “I'm out!” He waved his emptied rifle.

Jacques was nearly out as well. She had maybe three explosive rounds left, and she was running out of seither for her spells. She looked across the battlefield to her love. Luce loaded in the last launch cartridge for her grappling lance and looked back in worry. She was on her last few shots as well.

“Damn it,” Jacques cursed under her breath. “Where's Josh and that mech?”

The Rankor set its sight back on Jacques and she knew that was it. The creature charged and she stood her ground, shoulder flaring as her circuits activated. Ground shaking, she bit her lips till she tasted blood. She would need to either make an earth shield that could stop a proverbial building barrelling down at her, or create an earth spike powerful enough to punch that same building aside. Neither option was something she could do. She heard Luce shout but could not make out the words in the deafening stomps of the Titan.

Straight out of a movie, the Regalia mech barrelled into the side of the Rankor. The smaller but much faster Titan smashed into the golem with enough force that the resulting shockwave sent dusts flying, tumbling across the field. As the smokescreen cleared, the two Titans stood silhouetted within in their face-off. Shou held onto the shoulder of the Regalia, shouting orders to the Titan. His right leg missing and the stump that was left dangled precariously from the height. Reinforcement had arrived, but Jacques did not loosen her stance, did not sigh a relief. The fight began now.

The scout ordered, “Attack!” It was now or never.

The Regalia raised both its fist and the Rankor charged. The mech pummelled down. Jacques swung another uppercut for another earth spike shooting out of the ground. The two forces met just as the Rankor jumped, its head sandwiched between the two attacks. The force was too great even for the golem's armour and the head exploded, shattering into dust. Its body ran into the earth spike, knocking it off trajectory. It stumbled on and past the Regalia, staggered around for a second, before finally succumbing to its damage and crumpled to the floor with a crash, the glow of the sigils around its body slowly fading away.

The silent after was deafening, the only sound being the occasional desperate struggle from the disabled Rankor. Tired, bruised, with muscles she did not know she had screaming, Jacques bent over in fatigue, finally letting out the sigh of relief she had held in.

Josh ran up to her, “You okay?”

“Yeah...” she replied in short breaths. “Just... let me... catch a breather.” It was common for mages to get tired after battles. Especially if they had spent all their magical energy into the fight.

Shou warned, “Uh... you might not get that chance.” She looked up at the scout from his perch atop the Regalia's shoulder. “I can see our squad from here. Look's like they're on their way over.”

Arnold added, “You guys should go.”

Josh nodded in thanks before slinging Jacques's arm over his shoulder, helping her to her feet.

“Wait,” she stopped him.

“What? We don't have time to rest here.”

She gestured to Luce with a tilt of her head, and the Guide turned to see the girl kneeling before the eyes of the fallen Rankor.

“What is she doing?” he asked.

“Apologizing,” Jacques replied solemnly. “She's asking it to go peacefully.”

“What...?” Before he could get the sentence out, Luce got to her feet.

She turned away from the Rankor, the glow in its eyes no longer there. Whatever life was in the Titan had left it. Picking up her rifle and pack, she started walking towards them, eyes staring blankly to the ground. Jacques pushed away from Josh and ran up to her. Luce looked up to her partner and smiled. Jacques pulled her in for a hug and kissed the girl on the lips and forehead.

“It's over,” Jacques whispered, holding her girl close.

“Yeah,” Luce replied, tears streaming down her face and into her chest. “Let's go.”