SHIT!

The Axiom had just barely turned itself around with its shield up, and even though she saw absolutely nothing barreling down on her, it was as if she could feel what it was Sebastian could sense as he watched the Cloak roar in uncontested.

Sebastian flinched, covering his face with his arm as the deafening clash of metal on metal rang throughout the area, sending echoes out as far as Kerry and Andre’s location, drawing even their attention momentarily. He then watched as the much heavier Axiom stumbled backwards, nearly falling over on its back as the Cloak was sent backwards momentarily. “Sam, it’s pulling its sword back! Jump!” he coached wildly from his viewpoint, though still trying to remain hidden from sight.

Sam paid no heed to the painful physical jarring that reverberated throughout her entire skeletal frame, realizing the preciousness of his voice and commands and how much she felt a sudden surge of mental steadiness as a result. She pulled both control sticks all the way back with all her might, fighting against the simulated resistance feedback mechanisms that tried to tell her the move would be physically impossible. Move, damn it! She gave it one last pull with her whole frame, finally feeling the Axiom lunge its weight forward, taking the cue to step on both pedals, sending her int a controlled, stable path upward.

Sebastian then watched as the Cloak took its own lunge forward just where the Axiom left the ground, narrowly missing its initial thrust of its ignited plasma-arc sword. “He’s under you now!” he continued in suppressed shouting from the sidelines, unaware of how much he was jumping with each command he input. [Shit!] he shouted as he hid for cover as the next swing missed, sword falling just five meters away. Popping his head back out, he saw Sam instinctively backing up, holding her thrusters level. [I’ve got to land her in the right spot! Think, think!]

Requiem by now wasn't surprised by the feats the Axiom pulled off, rather he was confused by the misinformation he felt he was given. "Guys, I think there is a third pro here. Not sure who kept intel up to date but there is no way in hell little miss Knight is dodging me like she can see me." And to add to that, the patchwork auto-repair mechanisms may not hold out long. I have GOT to at least take down this one special ops model before I make my exit! he calculated, fighting to keep pace through intermittent, disruptive flashes of camera display static.

The Cloak’s sword then quickly deactivated as it retreated on rollers, backing up the direction from which it came. [Ah, he’s avoiding IR tracking. Sam definitely needs me!] He carefully rounded the corner of the building’s entrance hallway, spotting the Cloak taking a turn onto a different street at the intersection, hiding himself from view behind the larger of the surrounding buildings. “Go ahead and land! Recharge your boosters!” he barked as he took off running across the plaza, hopping over and around potholes, small craters, and scattered hunks of metal debris.

“Where are you going?!” Sam shouted back as she landed, watching him diving into one of the abandoned buildings across the plaza.

“Getting a good view for you! Don’t move!” he fussed back as he panted. Using his hands to stop his motion as he came in contact with the first wall inside, he quickly turned and crouched and began intently listening for any sounds of movement from anything heavy enough to send vibrations his way. A few seconds passed before he could sense something coming in from the window to his right. Wasting no time, he darted for the window and sure enough spotted the Cloak creeping from around the other side of the block, shield up and pulling its unignited sword back. He then looked to see the three-story building behind it was a solid, dull pink. “Shoot the ground in front of the pink building to your left behind you!”

Sam whipped the Axiom around, desperately searching for the mystery pink building. Pink!? Her mind continued to race. Pink where- WHAT? This one?! That’s not pink! She switched off aim tracking and placed a manually fired round in the street adjacent to the building she had perceived as lavender. The anti-tank round bounced off of the asphalt with a gravel-scattering impact before bouncing off the hidden shield of the cloak, exploding just meters away in mid-air. The shockwave didn’t do much to hurt the LTAC just beneath, but it was enough to disrupt the metamaterial covering, allowing her to see a pixelated “flash” of it before it reverted back to its hidden state.

“Knight! Listen!” she heard Danielle shout out over the radio through her caved emotions, no longer able to keep them shut out on her knowledge. “You have to aim for the dust movement on manual aim! Shoot where you look or you don’t stand a chance!”

Sam had to delay her response as she found herself already in a full retreat, unsettled by how shockingly close the Cloak came to making another approach on her. “I can try, but…” Lady! Do you realize how hard that is to do in this windy-dusty of a town!?

Sebastian then jumped back in on the channel: “It went to the other side of the block! Sam, hold on right there again!”

“Which way?” she asked as she grinded to a halt. “Tell me which buildings again!”

“I can’t yet, hold on!” he said as he raced across the street and back to the same apartment building as earlier. “Let me get a look from the…” He was interrupted halfway as he heard the rushing of hot air through from the opposite side of the hallway. “Sam! Above you!” He then turned to head back to the plaza but was too exhausted to make a sprint for it. Before he made it to the end he saw the green glow of an ignited plasma-arc sword smashed into the gravel and asphalt in the middle of the plaza, having narrowly missed Sam by the miraculous fortune of her timing.

She had involuntarily pulled back on her controls, backward boosting just out of the sword’s path, now able to get a good look at his location. In a mix of panic and fury, she swung her launcher back around to fire in its vicinity, but the time it took was a half second too long. The Cloak’s sword was slung forward and off from the ground as it jetted forward, landing it directly into her shield, digging halfway through before it became lodged in.

Shit! … Come on come on! Get off me! Sam couldn’t see much behind her shield other than the hot, partially molten alloy surrounding the green arc that was quickly removed with a shove of her left arm. She then caught glimpse of the green arc and the arm holding the blade swinging back as it got ready for another attack.

That was my last boost! My reserve line is fried! Requiem thought as he resorted to an approach by his LTAC’s own legs this time. He brought his sword this time down toward the upward lifting launcher the Axiom was slow to bring around one-handedly. He felt the impact of the sword once more digging into the ground, but this time amongst a sea of sparks and flung bits of molten armor alloy.

“SAM!! NO!! GET OUT OF THERE!!” screamed Sebastian in fright, witnessing the whole spectacle.

Sam watched her right arm and launcher fall to the ground with a sickening thud, feeling herself go instantly pale. At that instant, unaware of the sword being picked back up and swung right towards the core of her LTAC, her pinky fingers latched down on the two auxillary switches that were on her controls, unused this whole time. That input combined with her reflexive, instinctive pull back on the controls allowed the sticks to lock back into a different position on the control arm consoles as a loud, rapid series of intense, high-pitched bangs rang out. At every corner of the Axiom’s frames were force-ejected armor panels designed to break away on-demand, instantly lowering the total mass by more than 33%, allowing its backward jump to occur much more quickly.

What?! Requiem reacted in frustration as his swing carried through nothing but air and loose armor pieces mid-fall. Wasting no time or opportunity, he continued dashing forward for the next swing. His frame was still faster than hers, even with her having that unexpected jump on him. But then he saw the shield she held was now falling to the wayside, left hand free, reaching for her left hip. Shit!

Her left arm control and input motions were awkward but fast enough, pulling her NGF-Hybrid round-equipped SMG around that had been stored under one of the detached armor panels.

PTATATATATATATAH!!!

Shrieked the sounds of the high rate-of-fire submachine gun, completing its firing arc from left to right in a wide, single sweeping motion.

“Rngh!” Requiem grunted loudly and painfully as he felt a screamingly hot sensation in his side as two small windows were punched out of his cockpit area amidst sounding alarms. Something in the midst of that one single second of chaos had thrown his aim off just enough to only graze the lower torso of the Axiom just below the cockpit, slicing and disconnecting several joints and hydraulic cables. He then used that last swinging momentum to make a full retreat while his cover still functioned somewhat.

Sam felt the Axiom stumble and fall as it collapsed under its unsupportable weight, letting out several screams of her own each time a corner of her frame hit the pavement below. After a series of violent thuds, the Axiom came to a rest on its side, rolling over on its side until the cockpit module’s front corners stopped it from rolling further. Her breathing was now so heavy and rapid it was making her nauseous, rendered completely unable to assess the situation.

[Damn it! That was too close!] Sebastian ran out to her as soon as he could, watching the Cloak not only backing up but turned as if to remove himself from the battlefield. He ran around to the cockpit door area, finding there was enough room for it to open as he banged on it with both his hands furiously. “Sam! Get out, hurry! He might come back again!”

The first panel opened, seeing that the bottom was malfunctioning as her hands reached out in appeal for help. “I can’t… get o… help!! H…Hurry!!”

He used the back of his shoulder to push the upper door open further, watching Sam’s head as he removed her carefully, ensuring she wouldn’t get hung up on anything so much to the point he didn’t pay enough attention to his own balance. With her free from the cockpit, the two tumbled to the ground, rolling to a similar stop. “We got to keep moving!” he spoke through his clenched teeth, struggling to pull her back up to get them headed back for the hallway, noticing she was having trouble keeping balance. “Come on, get up! Stay with me!”

After coming to just enough that she could sense his urgency, she now was able to find the strength to restabilize herself, pulling her own weight on her own now as they continued making their dash for the apartment entrance hallway. Once under the comfort and safety of the darkness the stairwell offered them, she grabbed him in a full embrace, finding herself once more crying uncontrollably.

Sebastian could only stop, realizing it was her trauma and not his, returning the embrace and letting out a sigh of relief. He began to pat her on the back as if to tell her everything would be alright, feeling her only squeeze his back even more firmly as her sobs deepened.

“Sebastian! Sam’s radio is out! What’s going on over there?!” cried Andre’s voice from the earpiece Sebastian had dropped out in the plaza during his sprint from earlier.

.

.

Requiem had distanced himself a fair distance from that plaza, slowing his retreat to a walk as he found an abandoned garage building large enough to fit into, grunting intermittently all the while in extreme pain. He parked his LTAC under the cover of the building and quickly opened the door, taking off his helmet as he winced. The ladder extended as he made his way down and out through the smoke and thick smell of burning electronics, but at a crawling pace. Finally reaching the ground, he grabbed his left abdomen, feeling a large, gaping entry wound surrounded by blood-soaked uniform material. He limped to the wall nearest to him, slouching to the ground as he stretched out his legs, letting out a long, painful sigh. As his breaths became more labored, he continued applying pressure to his wound, pausing moments later to take in a proper breath as if to speak. “Rev’, I need a pick up. I’m down and out… coordinates on radio. Come… come get me, man.”

“Req’!” he heard him shout back, distraught by the unexpected cry for help. “I’m on my way! Just tore apart a pair of abandoned A-P’s a second ago, was attempting to track the pilots but never mind that- forget them! You just hold on, alright?!”

“…Yeah… that’s… what I…. plan on doing,” he spoke through the ever-increasing numbness that took over what had been almost too painful to bear, still pressing on a wound that he didn’t realize had an equally large exit wound leading out his backside. His lips began to grow cold, focus began to fade, back and buttocks now soaked in blood.

.

.

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▽　▽　▽

Sam and Sebastian remained in the stairwell, both still seated on the floor, laying their backs against the wall. The two shared the only water bottle they had as Sam’s survival pouch had been left behind in the Axiom. Seeing earlier that it had been in a slow burn from one of the ruptured fuel cell management systems breaking down and igniting, she knew she was not only out one additional bag of survival supplies but was also once more without a communication device. But that was the least of her concerns. Her head remained propped on Sebastian’s shoulder; weary, battle-fatigued eyes closed.

Sebastian remained calm as he had been earlier, glad the two had the luxury of sitting there to collect themselves enough to start calculating their escape. [I hate to bother her with all this… she was the one after all to tag that Cloak. Although I wish it would have been me out there instead. I would’ve finished that bastard off for good. I wonder when we will meet again to finish settling that score...] He then remembered he didn’t have his radio earpiece on him anymore, reaching to press a button that led to him simply mashing a finger into his open earlobe. [Shit…] “Ahn, Sam, I need to go find my earpiece. We can’t do anything without a radio, and we have no idea where we are or where to go.”

She gently lifted her head up from his shoulder, nodding at the notion. “I will be right here. I think the coast is clear- it’s been so quiet.” She watched him slowly make his way up and out towards the exit, looking like soreness was already kicking in. She knew she wouldn’t even be able to stand up given how stiff she felt just sitting there, content to remain in place in thought. I can’t even believe I got out of that mix up in one piece. I never hoped to be the one to face the Cloak. I hope Sebastian isn’t too mad at me for blowing the opportunity I had…-

-A sudden explosion in the distance rattled her once more, although this one felt much farther away and without the head-pounding echoes that she had almost grown accustomed to that morning. Still, something had a shiver run down her spine and her heart and stomach tense up. Kerry and Andre… and Director Norris… She now had the energy enough to stand up and make her way towards Sebastian who was now jogging back with his earpiece in place. She waited for him to get closer so she wouldn’t have to raise her voice and incidentally attract unwanted attention. “Hey, what happened just now?!”