On the western flank of the wasteland, the ground groaned under the weight of titans built for god-like destruction. Wolf and AstraPrime moved with a predatory grace, their sensors sweeping the desolate horizon.
Will Rogers leaned back in his pilot seat, his hands resting lightly on the twin joysticks of his command console. "Hey, Charlotte," he crackled over the secure line. "Seems you've been busy since the last time our paths crossed."
"Whatever do you mean, Will?" Charlotte's voice was cool, filtered through the high-fidelity comms of her Rank 2 Garrison tech.
"Oh, nothing. Just the fact that Kingdom Come is sitting at Rank 2 now instead of 3rd. I bet Luke isn't happy about being overtaken."
"Who gives a damn, Will?" Charlotte snapped. "If you were actually serious about taking the Blood Hounds up a rank or two, you wouldn't have drafted that 2% nobody. You're playing with a broken deck."
Will let out a low, gravelly laugh that echoed in the cockpit. "You say that now, but trust me... drafting Reyes is the best decision I've ever made. Right after loving you."
"Shut up, Will!"
Suddenly, Charlotte's titan pivoted with blinding speed. Her shoulder-mounted railgun hummed for a fraction of a second before a beam of pure white light lanced out, vaporizing a massive boulder half a mile away and obliterating the head of a hidden Kaiju crouched behind it.
"Show off," Will muttered, though his eyes gleamed with respect. He clicked onto his squad's private channel. "You see that, Spector? There's a reason I let her talk to me any way she pleases. She's pretty, but she's twice as dangerous as she looks."
"Yes, sir," Spector replied, his voice flat and focused.
They continued their march, but the silence of the wasteland was becoming eerie. The frequency of Kaiju encounters was dropping. The red dots on the long-range radar were vanishing.
"Will... I have a bad feeling," Charlotte said, her voice losing its edge.
"Maybe it's just your stomach," Will joked, though he shifted his grip on his blasters.
"Yeah. You're probably right."
***
On the eastern flank, Trevor was leading the "junior" squad through a canyon of rusted skyscrapers. Xavier's Ghost was lagging slightly, the movements of the black-and-white titan looking sluggish and uncoordinated.
"Hey, Reyes," Trevor's voice cut through Xavier's fog. "Listen up. You remember how we rank the Red Army from E to A? That doesn't apply for the big ones."
Xavier turned Ghost's head to look at Trevor's yellow titan, Bolt.
"Anything bigger than fifty feet is ranked by number—from 6 down to 1. Those Kaiju Kiko just sliced up? Those were Rank 6s. The bottom of the barrel. The weak ones."
Xavier took a hard gulp, his throat feeling like it was lined with sandpaper. Without the System to tell him his survival odds, the words felt like a death sentence. If those were the weak ones...
"Do you see that?" Kiko's voice interrupted.
"See what?" Trevor asked. "My scanners are clear."
Suddenly, the asphalt beneath Bolt exploded. A multi-legged, insectoid Kaiju surged upward, tackling the yellow titan into the dirt. Trevor reacted with veteran instinct, Ghost's sensors catching the blur of Bolt's legs kicking the beast into the air before vaporizing it with a twin-plasma blast.
Another lunged at Kiko; she drew her axe and took its head in a single, fluid motion.
"REYES! WATCH OUT!"
Xavier's vision was blurry, his heart hammered against his ribs—the panic attack was winning. By the time he looked to his left, it was too late. A four-legged Kaiju, built like a prehistoric hyena, slammed into Ghost's side. The 70-foot titan was sent flying, crashing into the nearby hills with a bone-jarring impact.
Mikhail roared in panic, unloading his blaster into the creature until it was a pile of blue ash. He ran toward Xavier. "Are you good?!"
Ghost stood up, its head shaking mechanically. "I'm... I'm fine," Xavier gasped into his comms
Trevor approached, his titan looming over Ghost. "How could you not see that? It was so obvious! I told you to stay sharp, Reyes. If we lose you now, the squad suffers. Get your head in the game!"
"Yeah... I'm sorry, Trevor."
The group began to move forward again, their shadows lengthening as the sun dipped behind the ruins. Trevor moved the squad passed him, ordering Xavier to take the rear.
As they battled small skirmishes along the way, the fog in Xavier's mind grew thicker. He felt like a passenger in his own cockpit. The lack of the System made him feel blind, deaf, and helpless. He drifted. He lagged. And in the twisting labyrinth of the ruined city, he simply... vanished.
"Wait. Where's Xavier?" Mikhail called out during a brief lull in the fighting.
Trevor spun Bolt around. The rear of the formation was empty. "Damn it, Reyes! McGregor, Petrov! How did you lose him?"
They scrambled the comms, shouting Xavier's name, but all that came back was static and the low howl of the wind.
Kiko's titan stood tall, her axe resting on her shoulder. "He's a liability, Trevor. We're in enemy territory. One mistake gets us all killed. We have a mission to complete. Let's move."
"How could you say that?!" Mikhail shouted, his blue titan stepping toward her.
"She's right, Mikhail," Trevor said, his voice heavy with regret. "In this Garrison, we keep moving or we die."
"Fine!" Mikhail shouted. "Since I'm the only one who cares, I'll turn back for him!"
Finn let out a smug laugh. "With me and Kiko here, we don't need the two of you anyway. Don't bother coming back, 19%."
Mikhail didn't answer. He turned Blue around and sprinted back into the ruins.
***
Back at the main battlefield, Will's comms crackled. "Commander, it's Trevor."
"How's it going, Trevor?"
"Good and... not so good. We lost Ghost. Reyes is gone."
Will's grip tightened on his controls. "What do you mean you lost him? Where did he go?"
"He wasn't in his right state of mind. He drifted off. And Petrov went back to find him. We're continuing the mission with the 2nd Garrison."
Will was about to roar a command to turn back, but Charlotte's voice cut in over the joint channel. "Good work, Lieutenant. We are on a high-stakes mission. You made the right tactical choice. Don't let sentimentality kill the rest of your squad."
The communication cut. Will sat in the silence of his cockpit, his jaw clenched.
"What are you gonna do about this, Commander?" Spector asked quietly.
"There's nothing I can do," Will growled. "Let's just hope those two idiots survive this. Damn it all!"
Up ahead, the horizon turned red. A horde of Rank 5 Kaiju—at least fifty of them—emerged from the rubble. They were larger, more armored, and radiating heat.
"Stay put," Will commanded the squad. "I need to blow off some steam."
Wolf stepped forward. Will didn't reach for a heavy cannon or a sword. He pulled two handgun-style blasters from the titan's hip holsters. They were small compared to the titan's size, but the mana humming within them was blinding.
He walked into the center of the horde. The Kaiju roared, charging from all sides. Will didn't even look at the first two on his right; he fired two shots, blowing their brains out in a spray of black ichor. One leapt from a ruined building—Will shot it mid-air, looking it straight in the eye as the blast tore through its stomach.
It was a gun-kata massacre. A dance of lead and mana. When Wolf walked back to the line, the black-and-bronze armor was doused in so much blood it looked purple.
"Let's continue," Will said coldly.
Spector asked, "Did that help, sir?"
"No."
"Did it feel good?"
"You bet your ass it did."