I rolled to the side and barely dodged his attack. For its size, the mech was extremely fast. I rolled to the other side as it smashed its fist onto the ground where I just was.
"Just stay still, it'll make this easier for both of us," he said, gritting his teeth as he swung the mech's left arm back at me.
I put up my sword and pushed my arm up against it to brace myself. The hand struck and I flew into the back wall. It nearly knocked the wind out of me as I fell to the ground, but I quickly recovered.
I charged him, slashing at his hand. The plasma from my blade sparked against its armor and left a large, melted gouge. He backed off and looked at the mech's hand.
"Hmm, it's made of pure talamite. Hardlight shouldn't be able to even scratch it. Unless — ohhh, I see."
He focused on me again.
"I'm not surprised that technology found its way to you, given it shouldn't exist on this planet."
"Just shut up already, I'm sick of your voice!"
"Come on now, Vera. That's no way to treat a future colleague. You're just as much a part of this fight as me."
"Why are you doing this? What fight are you referring to?"
He lunged at me.
I sidestepped and took a defensive position.
"Well, you see — the best way to weaken an enemy is to deplete them of their resources."
"If that's the case, why turn on Ghost? They were helping you."
"You don't get it, Ghost is the enemy, an arm of the united corporations government. Sticking its hands in places it doesn't belong. I had no choice but to work with them if I wanted my plan to work, but now that I have the upper hand I'm taking them out of the picture. Pulling the rug right out from under their noses!"
"Still, why Nazul?"
"Come on, Vera. Use that smart brain of yours. Eloq energy is the power of the world and Nazul is sitting on the largest cluster in existence. With all of that power, we'd be unstoppable! Not even the UCG stands a chance."
"But what about the people of this city? Your robots are killing them as well!" I yelled as he threw another punch with the mech. I jumped up on his arm and slashed it several times before he swatted me with the other. It struck me hard and I crashed onto the floor.
"They need to die. They're a part of it, it's for our survival!" he screamed.
"Like hell it is! All you corporations want is control — and if it means taking out people in the process, then so be it."
"It's far greater than that, and if you refuse to listen then I'll just have to show you!"
"I refuse to stand by while you let thousands of people get slaughtered — as my guild gets destroyed. This ends now!" I retorted as we charged at each other.
I've lost too many people already.
I refuse to lose anyone else.
He threw a punch with his right hand. I deactivated my sword and caught it with both hands. He pushed into me, and I screamed as I pushed back. My body ached from the tension, but I continued to push harder. We were at a standstill for a brief moment in the middle of the room. I gritted my teeth as I continued to push and my feet slowly began to slip. I started to push forward harder, and I began to slip more. I couldn't let this go on.
I pushed down and flipped up onto his arm. He fell forward and into the side glass. It shattered with a loud crash, blowing wind in through the room.
The city outside glowed in the growing darkness that slowly covered the sky.
The building shuddered as explosions continued to ring throughout the city.
Seran got up in the mech and looked at me before jumping out the side of the window. He began to climb the building. I raced out after him and watched from the broken window as he climbed up onto the roof.
I shot my grappling hook onto his leg and launched myself up after him.
He stood on the flat rooftop and I flew over him and landed in front of the mech.
"You're not going anywhere."
"You say that like I was running. I just wanted some fresh air, and a space where I didn't need to hold back." He growled as his right arm changed into a cannon. Not the kind of thing I needed right now.
Suddenly he paused.
"I'm busy right now, what could it possibly be?!" He screamed.
I heard faint voices and gunfire, "We can't hold this, there's too many of them!"
"Goddamnit, I worked too damn hard for this! You cannot lose that!" It went silent and he focused on me again, "Sorry, I'm sure you know what it's like to have shitty work partners, that Tessara girl can be a real piece of work."
"Don't talk about her that way!"
The cannon began spinning and glowing a faint yellow.
I charged him before he could shoot anything and double kicked the mech in the chest, cracking the glass between Seran and me.
It offset him, but only slightly. It was just enough to get another attack in. I ran in again and activated my sword, then stuck it in between the crack on his mechs' chest.
"Aaaghhhhh!!", he screamed as I sunk my blade in. He then grabbed me with his left hand and threw me into an antenna. I slammed against it and smashed onto the ground.
That one hurt. I dry heaved as I got up.
"Damn. I knew you were gonna be tough, but not this fucking annoying. I don't see how you're worth it to my superiors, so let's see how you handle this."
I stood up just in time to see his arm cannon charge up. I glowed a vibrant yellow and electricity sparked around the barrel. It was so bright I was nearly blinded.
"Goodbye, you pathetic excuse of a luminary."
The blast shot at me, covering my whole body in blinding yellow light. My body began burning. It felt like it was being torn apart at the seams — as if my cells were eating each other alive. I screamed in agony as the energy surged through me. The light stopped. He laughed, and then he looked up at me.
"What the hell?"
I sat there on one knee, panting. I didn't think I was going to survive that one.
I slowly stuttered back to my feet. My body ached and several of my muscles convulsed.
Electricity sparked all over me. I was covered in it and it danced all along the floor around me like I was some crazy experiment gone wrong.
"How are you standing? What is all over you?" he exclaimed, surprised. I could tell he was trying to hold back his fear.
"You corporate leaders think you control everything. You think this world is yours. That you say what we can and can't do. Then you kill us if it fits your goal, and helps you. You think we're just gonna stand by and let this happen? You are not in charge, you do not determine whether we die or live, you do not own us. And I'm going to make sure the whole world knows it, starting with you."
"You can't defeat me! I'm the head of the most powerful corporation in the world — in charge of almost twenty cities. I've worked my entire life for this. Hurting me hurts you. You need me! We can do this together, I have the power."
"I doubt this'll hurt me anywhere near as much as you."
Voices once again sprang up from his mech, this time far more clear, "We've lost too many! Ghost's forces are overrunning us! AHHHH!" Static filled the cockpit.
Seran clenched his face in anger.
"Hit me with your best shot, bitch."
He charged me. I leaned back and met his fist with mine.
I felt the power of the electricity focus into my fist and straight through his.
I pushed as hard as I could, with all of my strength.
I was blinded by a bright flash of yellow that turned to white as the energy pushed out. A small cracking noise began to ring out as we pushed and the arm exploded. Sending a shockwave through the mech shattering the cockpit and contorting its limbs in all directions.
Seran flew out of the mech and rolled onto the ground, several feet away.
I ran over to him. My body ached as I ran, but I didn't care.
I needed to turn the robots off now. I turned him over and saw he had a large shard of glass in the side of his chest that was bleeding. He slowly opened his eyes.
"Now, shut them down!" He started laughing as I said that.
"If I can't have it then no one can," he flipped over his watch and there was a countdown timer.
"What the hell is that?"
"A self-destruct sequence." He mumbled.
"For what?"
He just laughed.
"FOR WHAT?" I screamed, grabbing the collar of his shirt.
"The tower, it's for the tower."
"The tower? The tower's going to explode? But that could take out the whole city…"
"Yup! Like I said, you can't win. Now do yourself a favor and just roll over and die. You did nothing but stunt our cause. If my superiors want you they can recover your charred remains!" he yelled. Then violently cough. He turned his head and spat blood onto the roof.
"Shut it down," I said, gritting my teeth.
"I can't."
"SHUT IT DOWN!"
"I told you, I can't, even if I wanted to. Once activated, you have to manually deactivate it through the main system, which requires my authentications."
"Damn it, get your sorry ass up and go shut it down!"
"This will be easier without you anyways. All you've ever done is get in the way of their plans. I'm making their lives easier."
"Who's plan?"
"No need to worry your little head, you won't live long enough to find out, you may have snaked your way out of death before, but you won't today." He pushed a button on his watch.
"What are you doing?!"
"Now I can rest easy knowing my work is complete. The experiment is closer to ending. This planet will fall." Something black shot up his arm and his body twitched violently and then became still.
"Fuck!" I yelled, dropping him on the roof.
I wasn't wasting any time. I jumped over the side of the building and grappled back into the main room. I ran to the screens and started to pull out the plugin on my wristech. Only to remember it was smashed.
"Damn it. Damn it. Damn it!" I screamed as I kicked the panels.
Xarne, I needed Xarne to get into the system.
"Self-destruct sequence initiated, you have five minutes to vacate the premises."
The sound echoed through the metallic room. The room turned a bright red, lights flashing all over the walls.
I needed to find them immediately — Which means I need to get to the hangar on floor fifty-three, and I'm on floor one hundred now.
"Four minutes remaining." The voice echoed again.
I quickly scanned the room and noticed the elevator doors.
I ran to the back of the room, where the broken elevator shaft was. I pulled the doors open and grabbed one of the metal cords, then started sliding down. I squeezed my legs since I didn't have any hand protection. I'd have to rely more on them than my hands.
I slid down the cord rapidly gaining speed. I began to try and slow myself down by about level seventy five.
I was still going way too fast.
I quickly started to spin to create momentum, then flung myself forward towards the wall at floor fifty-two. I gripped the pipes on the wall as hard as I could trying to slow my descent.
My whole body jolted to an immediate stop and it felt like my arm was about to be ripped off of my body. There was no time to think about the pain in my arm, though — no matter how much it hurt.
My entire body ached — and my muscles were still twitching a bit from the energy earlier.
I climbed up to floor fifty-three using the pipes and pulled myself onto the base of the elevator doors. The elevator doors were partially opened, just enough for me to fit my hand inside the door grooves. I flung my other arm up and gripped a pipe on the side of the doorway and pulled myself up.
I got up onto the ledge which was maybe only an inch wide, I was on my tiptoes trying to stay on the ledge. I put my hands in between the two steel doors and pulled as hard as I could, my right arm searing in pain as I pulled. It only made me pull harder. Then I felt the door loosen and slide a little bit.
I heard voices of people inside. Fwoosh!! The door flung open and I fell through the doorway with a hard thud.
I looked up to see Xarne fighting Anasu and Tessara laying on the ground unconscious.
No, this is the last thing I needed.
I slowly stood up, but my knees buckled and I nearly fell back over. I straightened myself and watched as Anasu's blade plunged through Xarne's chest.
She slashed across and cut her in half and she fell to the ground. Sparks sputter across the metallic floor and its body stopped moving.
"So you decided to finally join the party. I'm killing you next!" she growled.
She lunged at me and I drew my sword immediately blocking her attack.
"Fucking move, I don't have time to deal with you! The building is going to explode!"
"Yeah? Well I have time to deal with you and guess what? You're on my time!" she retorted, swinging several attacks at me. I managed to block most of them, but a few got through my defense and struck my chest and shoulder plates. The plasma cut it relatively easily leaving blackened cuts in the armor.
"Getting rusty are we?" she remarked.
"Just shut up already, I don't have time for this. If you couldn't tell, this place is about to blow!" I yelled.
"Yeah? That's too bad, I don't really care! All I care about at this point is not looking like a complete failure to my superiors. They're not the most forgiving."
"Well if you keep this up you won't be alive long enough for them to see you as one!" I said gritting my teeth as we met blades again.
"It's you who won't live long enough." she spat, knocking my blade away and struck the edge of my thigh. I gritted my teeth at the pain, and watched as black blood spilled out of my leg.
"Jeez, you really are a freak! I wonder why you're so important to them, when you're nothing but a sorry excuse for a person," she yelled as she kicked me down.
My body, at this point, was so weak I collapsed to the ground.
"Stay down and burn with the rest of these pathetic city rats," she exclaimed, gritting her teeth as she stabbed me in the side.
I screamed in pain as the blade seared my skin and melted my clothes.
She put her swords away, walked over to Tessara, pulled her pistols out and dropped them on the floor, then started to carry her off.
"What are you doing?" I said, trying to stand up.
"Just taking a souvenir. You know, for safekeeping."
"Like hell you are!" I grunted as I stumbled back onto my knees.
She dropped Tessara in a carrier and started it up. I crawled over to Tessara's guns and started to shoot at the carrier's engines, but it wasn't doing anything. I hooked her guns onto my belt and started to stand up. I stumbled a few feet and almost tripped on something.
I looked down and saw Xarne's cut up body, still sparking slightly. It was face down, tattered and in pieces.
I noticed there was a small drive sticking out from the back of their head.
I quickly grabbed it and continued towards the carrier. I put it in my pocket and the carrier started to lift into the air.
I shot my grapple hook at it as it began to move forward out of the hangar. We flew out of the hangar and over the city. Explosions and flashes of light were still going off. All of Artech tower was lit up red with lights and sirens blared from the exterior.
"Self destruction will commence in one minute," said a loud, robotic voice.
There's no way I'm stopping it now. I slowly grabbed onto the side ledge of the carrier. Tessara was sprawled out on the floor and slowly began to move. She looked up at me.
"Vera, what's going on?" she whispered, weakly.
"Tessara, I'm gonna get you out of this. Just hold on." We were over the sandy dunes outside the edge of the city now.
The ground suddenly shook and I turned my head back towards the city. Artech tower started to slowly explode until a huge burst let out, sending shockwaves through the air that shook the carrier.
I held on as tight as I could, my grip was so weak and I nearly slipped off.
"Vera, where am I?"
"You're on my ship, and I'm taking you somewhere very special," said Anasu.
I reached for Tessara, but Anasu stepped on my hand.
"Sorry, no guests allowed."
I pulled myself in a little farther and then lunged, grabbing onto her. I managed to grab a hold of a part on her arm, but then the whole carrier shook and whatever I grabbed came loose and I desperately reached for something, anything . I grabbed hold of something on Tessara, but whatever it was also broke free and I began to fall towards the sandy dunes around Nazul.
I looked back at the city as I fell and was blinded by white, as I was thrown across the dunes by a shockwave, and everything went dark.
When I woke up, sand was covering my whole body. I tried to stand, but couldn't. In fact, I could barely move at all. I just laid there for what felt like hours.
I slowly began to get onto my knees and crawl up the dune in front of me. I got to the top and slowly stood up, only to see the worst sight possible. A crater where Nazul once stood, blackened completely. I fell to the ground and my knees sank into the gritty sand.
There was nothing I could do at this point. It was all over. I lost. I lost all of my friends, the few I had, the only family I had ever known and the first place I was able to call home. I lost my best friend, Tessara.
Well not quite, there is still hope I can save her. It's the only hope I have left now, and it's the only thing that might even make me want to keep living. No, I can't think like that, this isn't over yet. Ghost is still out there, and if they continue the way they are, things are going to get far worse.
I felt my hand hurt, and I realized I had been clenching it this whole time. There was something in it, too. I lifted up the object and saw it was a necklace, with a silver bullet with a poorly engraved T, attached to it. I'm going to find her and end Ghost. I don't care if I have to spill the blood of every person on this planet to do it.