General Goulet sat atop a mountain, watching the war unfolding beneath his Goliath. Next to him was Grimsley in Memini te Pater, gripping the controls to his machine tensely. Ronald was outside of the warmachine, relieving his bladder in a bush on the ground, obviously to the grander situation.
"You hold fear in your heart Grimsley." Goulet spoke softly through the radio network. "But anxiety. You wish to be in the fight as much as you want to run from it. That is good. You must overcome this if you wish to become the true warrior you are striving for."
"How do I overcome it General?" Grimsley had now fully adopted Goulet to be his master and teacher, hanging on his every word.
"You cannot do it here. This is not where we make our stand."
"What?" Ronald had hopped back into the cockpit and tried to pick up on the middle of the conversation.
"Quiet old man," Grimsley snapped. "Go back to peeing. Tell me General, why is this not our place? I have fought the Bahari before and I'm sure we could do it again."
"And we will. Not here though. This battle is but a front. It is simply an initial confrontation meant to test the armies that oppose the Jahari. The wisest understand that it is not this where we fight but rather, at the source." Goulet swept his hand out over the expanse of land in front of them where the war raged, and then he moved it underneath him, brushing past his body to end up pointing in the opposite direction. "Beneath these lands are catacombs and caverns. How else do the Jahari move within the ground itself?" Grimsley nodded as he followed along with the Artisan's logic. "Within them walks a very unique being, one who is different from the others. Perhaps he is some sort of leader."
"How do you know all of this?"
Goulet smiled in his battlesuit, feeling inspired once more by the energy of youth. "It is my gift, my speciality. That which helps to feed your machine life can also be used for many other purposes. I could be considered a detector of this energy."
"So you can sense this stuff if someone has it?"
"Everyone has it. Chi is the essence of life and flows within every living being. Some are simply more apt at manipulating their own than others, such as myself. But whether you can use it or not does not mean you do not have it." Grimsley nodded in understanding and the pair heard the soft snores of Ronald over the speakers as the elderly man had fallen asleep during the lecture.
"You stupid buffoon! You're supposed to be my partner. You're the worst co-pilot ever!" Ronald simply snorted in reply and rolled over in his seat, eyes still shut tight. "I'm sorry about him Goulet. Please ignore his...ignorance."
"Ignore his ignorance?" Goulet mused a little at the expression before turning his back on the battlefield and motioning for Grimsley to follow. "Let us move. We must hunt for the signature beneath our feet. It will be through stealth and strategy that we will dismantle the Jahari, not through the brutality of war and loss."
Grimsley followed his master as the two descended the mountain, his heart heavy to be abandoning people to die behind him. He sucked in a deep breath and tried to expunge those feelings from his body but it was no use. As he moved away he saw nothing but images of Raven, of Aunt Shauna, and of Gretta all lost in the fires of war. He had to remind himself that the fight was far enough from Easley, and that Gretta was safely in the stars but his emotions would not leave.
"Come now," Goulet spoke softly, seeming to read Grimsley's mind. "It is not dishonourable to enter into useless combat. You always have to think through your actions before committing to them without the constraints of emotions or honour codes. We are not bound to aid them for they need no aid." Goulet pointed back at a little glint in the sky above the battlefield. "Things will be ending their shortly, trust me, and it would be in our benefit to be as far away from the ending as possible, for there will be much loss." Goulet continued down the mountain, his eyes scanning over the area as he searched for a way to breach the tunnels beneath them.
He's right, Grimsley thought. I don't owe the world anything and I don't owe them my life. There was a flash of the warship crashing, of Grimsley driving his old tank through the wreckage and carnage and staring at his dying comrades. There was an image of his father's face, blurred and faded as he barely was able to cling to memories of it. His father was gone to war. Old acquaintances were buried in the ground from war. He knew he was lying as he tried to convince himself he owed the world nothing. He owed the world everything. It was the world around him that let him live and the efforts of a thousand, million dead soldiers who had kept things together up until this point.
Porter and his crew crept into Grimsley's mind, and he remembered the group that had inspired him, the one that had shown him the possibility that lies in each person, even when young and inexperienced. A little group of six Goliaths who had almost died trying to save a town they had never heard of, protecting a place they did not know one person in. What had they owed him when they came to the aid of Easley? Nothing. Sometimes it wasn't about repaying favours or following codes. Sometimes it was just the right thing to do, regardless of logic.
Now though, Grimsley knew that while it tore at him to leave this battle behind, he would win the war by striking at the heart of the Jahari. This was like Raven's flowers, and those books she had shown him. You could clip the leaves, the buds, the blooms, but if you did not extract the root it would always return.
"Here." Goulet stopped and pounded into the ground, watching cracks web out underneath his Goliath's might fist. He stepped back a little as the earth collapsed, opening up a hole into darkness. "Are you ready Grimsley?"
"Yes," came the firm response.
* * * * *
Ur'wrath wandered along the Jahari tunnels, his body aching and yearning for combat. His mission did not allow him to engage in the coming war with the humans, restricting him only to his hunt for the one called Sigma. Why the mind had commanded this he did not wish to process but he could never argue against it. Even with the gift of independent consciousness, granted to him by the mighty and venerable Al'jade, he would always listen to the whispers in his ears, to the voice of the hive speaking to him. It's wisdom was absolute, the collected mentality of the Jahari's great leaders pooling to make all decisions on behalf of their race.
Humans knew nothing of this wonderful life. While they scarred the planet, the Jahari watched and grew. They evolved as a community, making strides that would crush the minds of human scholars were they to even attempt to comprehend them. There were no wars anymore between the Jahari, not since The Binding, and they achieved the peace that all of the surface dwellers preached as a goal. Independence was meaningless. What was the point of free thought and action when you were living in constant fear of death and of war? Why would you want to make choices if they would all be made meaningless by someone's foolish actions?
Were the human race to give up itself into the bliss of one mind they would realize how right the Jahari were all along and would cease their petty conflicts. Then again, if homo sapiens indeed committed to a singular consciousness then Ur'wrath would be out of a job of killing them. The Bahari smiled to himself, reminded of his one true purpose and how much joy he took from it. There was still blood on his hands right now from his last trip to the surface and he enjoyed the feeling on his flesh. He would let it dry and flake off, preferring to keep it as a reminder of the deeds he had committed.
The little town of Roda had been no use to him ultimately though. Slaughtering it's inhabitants was simply entertainment for the most part, while also covering his tracks. They had been touched by Sigma, that much he could be certain. The "S" burned onto the ground there was more than enough proof, but the people had spoken of a purple angel that had descended from the sky. It was the babbling of a tiny village that was ignorant to comprehension and understanding. It was that fault that had caused their downfall. Perhaps if they had been a little more helpful in the details of Sigma or even in a direction he had travelled in he would have killed them all so much faster to minimize pain.
Still, he had picked up Sigma's scent there, locked onto the metallic taste it left in his mouth and he had begun to track it. He would fulfil the wishes of the hive soon enough. Sigma would make an error. He would stay in one place for too long, linger in an area until Ur'wrath caught up with him. It was inevitable. Even now he knew he was closing in on Sigma, drawing ever closer to his smell. Ur'wrath knew where the tunnels were taking him as he followed the trail above ground. He was going to the first Pit, where the Jahari armies were bursting from the ground to test the mettle of the humans. He wasn't too far now and he could hear the chatter of his comrades in combat. There was excitement and bloodlust, glee and joy all mixing together as they lived and fought and died and Ur'wrath's body was filled with their happiness. There was nothing the Jahari loved more than the thrill of the slaughter.
Soon, he thought, very soon.
* * * * *
Rosalyn Scoly sat on the steps on the ground floor of her building. She had done this every day since she had been visited by the military, since that terrible day they had brought the news to her. "I'm sorry miss. This is war and this is a casualty of it. But he gave his life defending our country." She had recognized one of the two soldiers as a friend of Viktor. An old friend now that he was deceased. While she had never had a relationship with him before, she could see the young man struggling to hold back his own tears as he fulfilled his obligations to report General Scoly's death.
It usually took Rosalyn an hour to leave this spot on the stairs. Her apartment was many floors above, where her and her boyfriend had once lived together. It felt like it had been an eternity since he passed away, eons since she had last touched him and held him and smelled him. Forever. At the same time, almost yesterday she was meeting him, was sharing their first kiss and first night together. Just a few hours ago in her mind he had made a promise to return to her once he reached minimum mandatory service in the army. Just last minute he had given her his last kiss.
It was strange that memory pushed happiness to the front of her mind, made it seem like it had just occurred while the darker, painful memories were pushed back in time. Her first few remembered birthdays seemed to have happened sooner than Viktor's death. Time was a mess in her mind and she could only reset it by looking at the calendar. She had to stare at a clock until it all made sense again or she would be completely lost in the abyss of memory.
There was a buzz at the door as someone called an apartment to get in. Rosalyn could hear it all through the walls as she sat staring at the entrance. Another buzz. The person upstairs wasn't answering. They must not have been home to receive their visitor. Perhaps she should let them in. It would be nice to have a little company while she wallowed in her misery. Besides, it was cold and raining outside and she didn't have the heart to leave somebody out there.
"Please," came the voice of the person outside. "Please let me in Rosalyn." She sprung up at hearing this, puzzled to have someone searching for her. Was she late for work? Was it a friend in need? She pushed the button beside the door to unlock it, letting it slide open with its pneumatic hiss.
There in front of her, silhouetted by the rain, was Viktor Scoly. His face was coated in little scars, lines all across from multiple cuts and burns, but it was certainly his face. It had grown older, more mature, but Rosalyn could never forget that face. His body, on the other hand, was a mess. He was wearing shorts and a shirt with a coat draped over his shoulder, as though someone had tossed it onto his back. It slid off of him, exposing his arms to the cold and revealing their state to her.
Each one was as beaten and scarred as his face. One of them had metal rods down each side, screwed into the joints, with circuits and wires travelling along them. She recognized it as a prosthetic enhancement, a machine built to give his arm functionality. He had one on each leg as well that travelled up and tucked under his pants. As Rosalyn's eyes scanned over every inch of his body, trying to take in all of her love at once, she noticed the bump on his chest and her eyes lingered there long enough for Scoly to notice.
"Implants," he coughed, wiping rain away from his mouth. "Lot of implants in a lot of my organs. I'm your metal man now." He smiled and she collapsed onto him, weeping as she squeezed her boyfriend in as close as possible.
"You're...alive..." she gasped, trying to breath and cry and speak all at once.
"Barely, but alive." Viktor pushed Rosalyn back a little, holding her between his arms so he could stare at her. "Legally I was dead for quite some time. But the doctors did their best to save me. They said I owe my life to Sigma. Without him, they can't bring me back." Scoly sighed, a little reluctant to accept he had been saved by the rogue android weapon of the Federation.
"But...you're...alive..." Rosalyn pressed herself into his chest once again, her face nuzzling against him, not minding when she rubbed over the new bumps on his body.
"Yes." Viktor stepped back, separating himself once again. His augmented limbs shook as they strained to help him kneel down on one leg in front of Rosalyn. "Rosalyn, I'm free from the military. My service is complete, my time done. All of my life is left for you, given to me by these machines I am attached to. And I want to spend every moment of that life in your arms, by your side." He grabbed the jacket and rummaged through its pockets until he found what he desired. "Rosalyn," he said, his voice quivering. He had been to the brink of death and back but nothing was more nerve-wracking and terrifying than what he was about to do. "Will you marry me?" He uncurled his fingers to reveal a small ring. It's singular diamond glimmered from the light. "I couldn't afford to get a really pricey one and this one didn't have a box but..."
"Yes! Yes, yes, yes! Yes I will marry you!" She leaped onto her new husband, knocking him over onto his back. There was a flash in her mind that she might be hurting him but she ignored it, overcome with bliss. When she felt his fingers in her hair and his lips on her cheek she knew everything was alright, and that everything always would be alright from now until the day she died, wrapped around Viktor.
"Now let's go inside before I rust."