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It was only after a half hour’s walk that the Corporal felt safe to slow it down, the tall walls of the back alleys providing a modicum of security as the squad took refuge between the buildings. One of the soldiers passed him a canteen, Andreas thanking him as he leaned against the wall and unscrewed the cap.

“With respect, Sarge, you look like a dead man walking,” Torres commented once Andreas flipped up his visor. “But considering what you’ve been through, I’m not judging.”

“When you’re jacked up on appetite suppressants, stimulants, and enough caffeine to fill up a bucket, I’d doubt you’d look pretty either,” Andreas replied. He could almost feel the bags under his eyes weighing on his face. It was a good thing there wasn’t a mirror around.

“Back when we sent expeditions into the city, we had to hammer entire districts with artillery just so patrols could have a clear space to walk through,” Torres said. “I don’t know how on Earth you survived out here.”

“I could ask the same thing to you,” Andreas replied. “Nearly every country in in Europe is gone, so how are you guys still operating?”

“We were spared the worst of the invasion,” Torres explained. “The first portals started in the north. UK, Norway, Denmark. While Hell dealt with them, it gave us and the local UAC brass time to prepare, as horrible as that sounds. By the time they swept south, we had almost everybody evacuated, and a defensive strategy in place. Are we really all that’s left?” Torres pressed. “Word from the outside is hard to get as you can imagine, and Command doesn’t tell us much. Is all of Spain… gone?”

The rest of the squad was looking at him intently, Andreas taking a sip before replying.

“If your Command is keeping you in the dark, it’s for a reason,” he said. “But you deserve a straight answer. I wasn’t told much either, but I’ll say this, ever since we arrived off the coast a couple weeks back, we’ve been sending broadcasts out on all frequencies every hour, every day. You’re the only ones who’ve answered.”

“Shit…” Torres muttered. “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Andreas added. “ARC has several smaller flotillas in the Mediterranean. There’s a chance they managed to fly some people out of here before we came in.”

His words seemed to put Torres and his squad more at ease. These people had been trapped in Spain for a long while, bad news was something they were able to take.

“What’s the status of the Rallypoint?” Andreas asked, changing the subject.

“Morale was at an all-time low. We’ve been living off canned food for months now, and rationings made it worse. When your section came in with relief supplies, it helped, but after we heard that one of your ships didn’t make it, we assumed the worst. Without those Shards, all we could do was sit there and wait for the demons to starve us out.”

“Then pow, one of the gore nests goes up in flames,” another of the soldiers continued. “That really was your doing, sir?”

“Who else would it be, numb nuts?” Torres asked. “But yeah, some of your men said it had to be you, and it looks like they were right. I think spirits among the men will surge once you get back there with those Shards.”

“Then we’ve got no time to lose,” Andreas said, tossing the soldier his canteen and straightening up. “How far until we get there? I’m about through with this city.”

“It’s an hours’ walk, maybe two,” Torres replied. “Sir, with respect, you should take a breather. God knows you need it.”

“I’ll have plenty of time to breath once I’m inside this fortress I keep hearing about,” Andreas said. Torres conceded, nodding for his squad to collect their gear and get back on their feet.

“It’s this way,” Torres said, walking out of the alley and pointing a finger to the left. “Since you’re the ranking officer, I defer squad lead to you, Sarge.”

“You won’t defer anything, Corporal,” Andreas said, shaking his head. “You’re not ARC, I’ve no authority over you or your men. Besides, this is your country, you should lead the way.”

“Oh. All right then, Sarge,” Torres said, surprised by his answer. “If you could take up the rear, we’ll be travelling in line formation.”

The squad followed the Corporal out onto the street, each man keeping a few feet of distance from each other, Andreas filing out after them and watching the team’s back. It felt good to be surrounded by his fellow mortals again, that sense of safety in numbers calming his boiling nerves.

Tens of minutes passed without demonic interruption, and while Torres and some of the squad commented on the situation, Andreas kept to himself. He had a pretty strong idea why the demons were leaving them alone, as they had bigger fish to fry – said fish being a certain Baroness. He’d seen a few isolated cases of infighting, but that was only between the lesser demons, like zombies or cacodemons, but he’d never seen a Baron being challenged like that before. He knew she was skilled, but could she handle the numerous amounts of imps he’d seen since the crash?

Andreas chuckled inside his helmet. Was he concerned for her? For all the grief she’d caused him, all the chasing and the teasing, it’d be a shame if she went out when he was just starting to get to know her.

“What are you laughing at?” Eva demanded, her sudden voice startling him.

“Oh, hey Eva. It’s just the way the Corporal talked about me just now,” he explained. “You’d think I’d be the Slayer or something, coming in and lifting everyone’s hopes with these Shards.”

“There’s a key difference between you and the Slayer,” Eva pointed out. “He kills demons, while you stand around and have a chat with them.”

“Here we go…” Andreas sighed, bracing himself.

“It’s bad enough that you continued to discuss your personal life with a Baron of Hell, after I told you the dangers, mind. Hell forbid you show a shred of concern for your safety after your capture.”

“Look, I-”

“Oh, but then it gets better! Just when we’re about to escape, you have the sudden urge to turn around and give said Baron a helping hand! Why did you not shoot her instead? Or better yet, let the rest of the demons solve the problem for us?”

“What’s done is done, Eva, what matters now is we get to the Rallypoint.”

“Oh, no no no, you’re not brushing this one off. You can walk and talk. Explain to me why you’re so… obsessed with her?”

“She’s a demon that likes to talk,” he said, feigning indifference. “That’s enough to spark my interest. Yours too, right?”

“That doesn’t change the fact that she works for the most evil entity humanity has ever witnessed! Or is this Baron not like other demons, is that what you’re getting at?”

“In some ways, yeah,” he agreed. “You’ve been there every step of the way, you’ve seen how unique she is. She could have killed me a dozen times over, but she didn’t. Hell, she even saved me from that imp. And when she said they were justified in betraying her, and wasn’t trying to kill them… Since when have you seen a demon show mercy? It’s unheard of.”

“You don’t… You don’t respect her, do you?” Eva asked, as though she was accusing him of murder.

“Well, I think it’s one of the things I like about her.”

Eva didn’t reply, and when the silence dragged on, Andreas reached up to tap his helmet.

“Hey, you good in there, Eva?”

“Don’t hit me, my lattice is preoccupied trying to ascertain your sudden cognitive dissonance!” Eva barked. She used the following pause to collect herself, her tone levelling out, but still edged with anger. “How can you like her!? She tried to whisk you away to a cathedral and threatened to eat your soul! Didn’t your mother warn you about women like her?”

“I was being an ass,” Andreas pointed out. “I deserved a bit of a scolding. Besides, she’s cute when she’s pissed.”

“Of all of Earth’s soldiers, I had to be paired with a… a promiscuous heathen,” Eva lamented. “Please for love of all that is holy, don’t start thinking with your… thingy. Your penis.”

She said that last bit as though it caused her physical trauma, Andreas rolling his eyes.

“Look, all I said was I like her, it’s no big deal…”

“Oh, so you staring at her chest thirty percent of the time is no big deal, is it?”

“Thirty percent? It’s a good thing I had the visor on, huh?”

“Be serious for a second, Seargent. You are walking a very fine line. Sympathy is the first step to possession. Hell can and will take advantage of any weakness.”

“I thought you were my aid, Eva, not my critic.”

“I’m not doubting you!” Eva chided. Andreas couldn’t remember the last time she’d raised her voice at him, if she ever had.

“I’m trying to help you because I’m concerned! I’ve seen so many humans be seduced by Hell, become monsters. I can’t let the same happen to you. You might not be afraid, but I’m afraid for you. That’s why I’m criticising your actions.”

Their exchange simmered in silence as Andreas followed the squad through the next intersection. Flights of winged demons screeched through the skies, too high to be of concern, but a troubling sight nonetheless.

“Listen, Eva,” Andreas began. “I know you’re just looking out for me and I appreciate it. How long have you and me been together?”

“Since the invasion started,” she answered. “Every step of the way.”

“And how many times have I let you down since?”

“Never…”

“That’s not changing, you hear me? Sharrya is a demon, through and through, and I’ll treat her as such until I’m dead.”

“I hope it will not come to that…”

-xXx-

---

After an hour of walking, the squad began to emerge from the ruins, unfiltered wind pushing against his chest as Andreas took in the view of a mostly unobstructed sky. Bits of wall and housing frameworks still littered around him, but the majority of the cluttered streets was now behind him, the territory in front taking on the look of a barren wasteland.

The sloped ground was pockmarked with craters tens of feet deep, the ground taking on an ashen quality. The ground was free from detail save for a few strewn pieces of metal and glass. It was as though the thumb of God had come through and wiped the Earth clean. The empty canvas ahead was a stark contrast to the winding streets Andreas had crossed the past two days.

“Our artillery pounds the crap out of the area around the Rallypoint every week,” Torres explained when Andreas quizzed him. “Helps thin their numbers, at least we think so. Thousands of them get caught in the blasts, but they just replace them like it’s nothing. Some days you can’t even see the ground, that’s how many there are.”

“If there’s that many, how’d you get to me?” Andreas asked.

“We snuck out on our own two feet. Any vehicle or aircraft and we’d have too much company to deal with.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“I’ll show you, just a couple more ash dunes, and we’ll be there.”

Andreas could see lights permeating the sky before them, but their source was obstructed by the dunes, Andreas following the men as they manoeuvred through the craters. Their steps were careful, precise, as though they were following a route known only to them. He wondered how many times Torres had done this.

As the squad crested one more hump in the Earth, Andreas finally saw his destination. As the ground sloped away, a sheer slab of grey metal greeted his view, towering some two hundred feet into the air. Buttressed projected from the very tip of the wall, giving it a very castle-like appearance. The metal seemed to be overlaid with segmented plates, perhaps as an extra reinforcement layer. Its closest point was a corner, the wall turning away and continuing on for hundreds of meters before ending at another turn, Andreas assuming the wall was shaped like a square.

At each corner of the walls was an impressive mounted gun, their twin barrels turned at various angles towards the sky. They looked bigger than houses, probably responsible for the scarred ground surrounding the Rallypoint on all sides. These weren’t the only defences in place. Nearly the whole length of the wall was bristling with smaller weaponry, autocannon barrels and machine gun mounts turned towards the ground, protected by improvised sandbags and draped in camo netting.

Andreas could see the tops of buildings beyond the wall, a glass dome taking up the most space, with a few flat tops spaced around its flanks. If Andreas had to guess how much land the fortress covered, he’d compare it to the size of a city block, maybe more. It was massive, and its numerous defences reflected that. No wonder they had held the line for so long.

“I’ve read the reports, seen photos,” Andreas remarked, hunkering alongside the squad. “but that’s a fucking huge base you’ve got there.”

“Samuel Hayden liked to dream big,” Torres replied, adjusting from one knee to the other. “You’re looking at all that’s left of Spain, Sarge. It’s people, everything.”

“What’s the headcount?”

“Two fifty k. All the civvies are packed in like canned fish in the underground section – UEC thought ahead, thank God. Only soldiers are allowed topside, since the demons like to drop napalm in the courtyard.”

“How do we get in?” Andreas asked. “I don’t see a front door.”

“The main gate’s on the far side, but we’re not going that way. Here,” he added, sliding off his rifle’s scope and passing it over. “Take a look at the far side of the wall, where it meets the coast.”

Andreas took the detached scope, opening up his visor and peering through the lens. The view of the wall panned right as he moved to where the Corporal was pointing. From their vantage point, he was able to see a straight view towards the sea, the land terminating in a series of rock pools and steep drops, the waves throwing up clouds of froth as they crashed into the cliffs.

The corner of the Rallypoint sat a short distance away from the beach, the fortifications built into a nearby incline. Andreas spotted what Torres was pointing out. Nestled in the pools was a jutting length of pipe, three meters wide and just as tall, its angle protruding from the direction of the wall. Its lid was covered over in two pieces of blast shield, connected to the pipe by what looked to be hydraulic clamps.

“That pipe’s our ticket in?” Andreas asked, Torres nodding as he passed back the scope.

“It’s how me and the boys got out. Demon patrols are light on this side, and they’re not a fan of the water. It’s about as safe as anything.”

“I have a question,” Eva said, her voice covering the local channel. “It does not seem very concealed. How has this secret entrance not been detected?”

“You see that tide pool it’s in? It’s actually man-made. There’s a control booth inside that can flood it or drain it at a moment’s notice, like our own little aquarium. They’ve probably had eyes on us for a while now, that’s why it’s drained right now.”

They began to move down the slope, Andreas struggling to keep his footing on the silt. The way the chain of craters was formed made it seem like a great moat surrounded the wall. The squad didn’t move down it, however, turning off just before the drop and walking parallel to the Rallypoint.

“You said something about demon patrols?” Andreas asked. “How big?”

“Couple dozen each, I’d say. Imps, arch-villes, couple revenants too. They like to stay close to the wall, set up shop where the guns can’t get an angle. You can see a camp just over there.”

Torres pointed down the length of the wall, the opposite direction they were going. Clustered around its footprint were a handful of stone walls, sunken into the ground at odd angles. Lanky figures moved between the gaps, mostly imps, but Andreas could also spot the tall profile of a hell knight and even a paunchy mancubus, two of the heavier casts employed by Hell.

The lingering demons were sheltered from the sky by what looked like suspended stretches of tarp, but when Andreas took a closer look, his face contorted in disgust. The stretching fabric was pink, streaked with veins and bearing an uncanny resemblance to taut skin, its corners hooked into the concrete via ivory claws and teeth.

There were other, similar encampments stretching along the moat, demons of all shapes and sizes scattered in and around the abhorrent structures. Laying between these camps were appendages dozens of feet tall, their undersides brimming with suckers and thorns, their tips ending in wicked points. They looked like disembodied tentacles from some giant squid monster. Some tentacles were propped up against the wall, severed from whatever monstrosity had birthed them. Perhaps the demons had once tried using them to climb over the defences.

The whole scene looked like some perverted version of a medieval siege camp, the demons taking on the strangely passive role of waiting out the defenders. Maybe that was why Sharrya was after him so much – the Rallypoint hardly made a good outlet if they stayed behind their two-hundred-foot wall and never came out.

Enjoy it while it lasts, Andreas thought, touching the pocket where he kept the Shards.

A bestial cry permeated the air, Andreas and the squad turning around, spotting a figure about a hundred meters across the grim, blighted land. It was a Baron, Andreas locking eyes with Sharrya as she brandished a claw and jabbed it in his direction. Spittle flicked from her chops as she repeated the call, the noise sending a chill down Andreas’ spine.

He chanced a glance back towards the encampments. The demons were no longer lingering, they were moving, emerging from their fleshy camps and charging across the ash.

“This Baron’s really out for your ass!” Torres called, waving his men on. “Come on, boys, double time!”

They started to run, racing towards the shore. Andreas could feel the impact of Sharrya’s hooves as she gave chase to the squad, her long legs carrying her swiftly over the silt. A glance over his shoulder told him they’d never outrun her out in the open like this.

Andreas turned about, dropping to a knee as he raised his rifle, Sharrya baring her long tusks at him as he opened up on her. Plasma bolts singed into her arms as she used her limbs like a shield, protecting her face and chest. Torres’ squad immediately knew what he was doing, the clatter of their ballistic guns joining his bolts as they laid down suppressive fire on the Baron.

She grunted something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like miscreants, Sharrya throwing herself behind a dune and out of sight, flicks of ash thrown up as some of the soldiers kept her pinned. Swinging ninety degrees to the left, Andreas prepared to fire on the oncoming swarm, but a glove on his shoulder stopped him.

“You need to go, Sarge!” Torres shouted. “Get to the pipe, we’ll cover you!”

“Now’s not the time to play the hero, Corporal,” Andreas replied.

“Sir, we’re just the expeditionary force. You’re the ranking officer, and you’ve got precious cargo. You’re the priority.”

“Fuck your priorities, nobody’s getting left behind. We’ll leapfrog,” he said. “Three at a time, you and two others go first. That’s an order. Go!”

Torres hesitated, but a strong shove on Andreas’ part spurred him into action. He called for two of the men, and they joined him as he raced towards the sea. By the time Andreas had returned his attention to the demons, the swarm had already crossed half the distance, dozens of imps interspersed with heavy-class demons baring down on him.

Andreas squared his sights up with a hell knight spearing the pack, easily the fastest of the lot. The beast had a bulkier build compared to the imps lagging behind it, nearly rivalling Sharrya in its overall height. It stomped on a pair of digitigrade legs tipped with fat, clawed toes, the pink flesh on its thighs and arms bulging with each stride. The top half of its head looked like an exposed skull, vacuum-packed in a thin layer of skin, while its lower half was more or less human, albeit with a lack of eyes or a nose.

Andreas put a burst of plasma bolts into its chest, the last of which melting a chunk out of its pectoral. The demon tried to continue to charge them down, but a round from one of the squad members put it down for good.

“We’re covering!” Torres called into the channel. “Vamos, vamos!”

Andreas and his two cohorts leapt to their feet, following in the footsteps of the Corporal and his team. Leapfrogging was a common tactic in most units, where two teams took turns to move positions while one covered the other. It was a coordinated move, but everything around Andreas was pure chaos. Bullets flew one way, fireballs went the other, the loose ground causing him to stagger more than once, making him feel like he was trying to sprint through ankle-deep tar.

He passed the Corporal’s group, continuing on another thirty meters before the ash gave way to uneven shards of rock. The rocky shore spread out and below him, the formations of the stone taking on the appearance of angled stalagmites, clusters of algae and moss growing between the cracks adding a splash of colour that was striking in this hellscape.

His two counterparts turned to lay down covering fire, picking off the imps and arch-villes that were closing in on the Corporal’s team, Andreas raising his rifle to join them. He fired between Torres and one of the soldiers, the plasma stream cutting a swath through the demonic ranks, but they must have drawn the attention of the entire siege, more demons moving down the Rallypoint wall towards the commotion. Torres had said there was enough of them that he couldn’t see the ground, and Andreas was starting to believe him.

“Smoke out!” one of the soldiers called, pulling a canister from his rigging and unlocking the pin. He tossed it over the head of Torres, where it rolled to a stop before exploding in a puff of grey gas. Another soldier chucked another canister, a low wall of thick, obscuring smoke coalescing at the Corporal’s flank.

“Down here, come on!” Torres exclaimed, hopping into the closest pool, his boots splashing in the water. The rest of the team followed him down, Andreas moving down last. The smoke would help conceal them, but they only had precious seconds before the demons would simply walk through.

Pure adrenaline fuelled the team as they crossed from one pool to the next, the sounds of splashing water and gunfire mingling over one another. When they arrived at the pipe, it was bigger than Andreas first thought, about as large as a vault door and just as heavy, steel plates inches thick forming a cap over the entrance.

There was a whir of electronics, and the cap began to part down the middle, the two halves sliding away to reveal a gaping darkness. The lower rim was suspended a few feet off the ground, one of the soldiers throwing himself onto the ledge, slinging his rifle as he turned to help the next man up.

Andreas, Torres, and the third soldier kept watch as they filed into the pipe one at a time, barrels scanning the cliffside for targets. They didn’t have to wait long, Sharrya’s hooves kicking loose stones as she appeared on the cliff, smoke ribboning over her emerging form.

“You’re not getting in that fort, Andreas,” she purred, as if this was all a game to her. Andreas replied with an eye roll, exaggerating his head movement for emphasis. Torres tilted his head at their exchange, then fired his rifle at her.

“You on a first-name basis with that thing?” the Corporal asked, pulling the loading bolt back.

“It’s complicated,” Andreas replied.

The bullet ripped through Sharry’s bicep, blood misting behind her arm, but the demoness didn’t even flinch. She leapt from her perch, the ground quaking as she landed on a knee amongst the rocks a stone’s throw away.

Her lips peeled back in a grin as her underlings leapt to join her. Two, three, four arch-villes landed at her feet, along with another hell knight, more pouring in by the second as the swarm breached the smoke cloud.

As the sound of plasma bolts and high-calibre bullets rose into the air, the clatter pervaded here and there by a warbling cry from a felled demon, a new sound rose above the tumult. The reinforced mechanisms securing the pipe’s cap were shifting back into position, closing off their escape one slow inch at a time.

“Come on, sirs!” one of the soldiers yelled. “We’re out of time!”

The rest of the squad had clambered up, leaving just him and the Corporal out in the open. Two men stood in the pipe’s mouth and covered, Andreas and Torres breaking cover and moving for their exit.

Andreas hoisted himself up first, his kneepads soaking as he crouched over a small dribble of water running along the cusp of the ceramic pipe. As he turned to help the Corporal, his eyes tracked a yellow fireball coming straight for them. He tried to yell out, but too late, the inferno slamming into the small of Torres’ back.

He'd been in the middle hoisting a leg into the pipe, and the impact threw off his balance, the man loosing a pained grunt as he was sent falling back. He would have been crushed by the doors, or worse, if Andreas hadn’t reached out and seized his arm and pulled him back.

One of the soldiers knelt down to help him, the two dragging Torres out of the closing doors’ path. Another fireball was sent their way, but it splashed harmlessly against the pipe’s lip.

“Get back,” Andreas ordered, passing Torres off to the soldiers, the men dragging the groaning Corporal further down the pipe, the three other squad members making room. Andreas turned and unloaded his plasma cell into the closing gap, knocking down two of the demons trying to close in on the pipe.

When the sliver closed to the point he could no longer shoot safely through, Andreas held his fire, smoke wisping from the end of his weapon. Barely a sliver remained between the doors, and Andreas made to release a sigh of relief, when two red hands slipped through the gap.

Andreas watched in startlement as fingers as long as his hand curled, gripping the steel edges and pulling outwards. Complaining metal groaned down the length of the pipe, Andreas blinking as the familiar features of Sharrya appeared through the gap. Her face was scrunched with effort, the muscles in her streamlined shoulders flexing as she fought against several tonnes of pneumatic pressure. Surely even she wasn’t strong enough to fight against pistons… was she?

“You think this changes anything?” she growled, meeting his eyes through the crack, the Baron chuckling as he pulled up his rifle threateningly. “You’ve cornered yourself, like the rest of the rats in there. You can’t run anymore, and now you can’t hide either. When I break down these walls, nothing will stop me from claiming you.”

“I think you’ll find these walls are for your benefit,” Andreas replied, putting a light pressure on the trigger. “Earth’s our home, Sharrya, and I think you’ve outstayed your welcome.”

“Even with your back to the wall, you still possess so much fire,” she mused. “Being my prisoner isn’t as bad as it sounds, I believe I made that quite clear by showing you much leniency. If only you hadn’t been so foolish as to try and escape,” she sighed, her eyes glazing as she chewed her lip. “I never got to show you the true extent of my hospitality. I can be oh so generous to mortals I find… intoxicating.”

“I like you too, crazy-horns,” he laughed, not sure if her ‘hospitality’ involved torture or something… more than that. “You’re right about one thing, though. This is the last time you’ll see me running from you. If I could shit on your parade all by myself,” he added, pointing a finger at her face, his glove barely an inch from her snout. “Imagine what I can do with an army at my back.”

He had intended that as a threat, but instead, Sharrya responded with a gleaming smile, a sparkle of anticipation in her emerald eyes.

“If it’s your intention to meet me on the battlefield… I welcome the challenge.”

“I know you do.”

“Until then, Seargent,” she cooed. With a wink, her hand fell away, the theory of whether she could overpower the doors left unanswered as she let the doors close the rest of the way. Her curled lips was the last thing Andreas saw before the lid closed and he was plunged into darkness.

A tumbling mechanism nearby sounded off, the doors locking with an audible clunk of metal on metal. With that, the treacherous streets of Spain were sealed away, Andreas fighting the urge to collapse right then and there. Never before had he spent so much time exposed to the elements, every moment promising an attack from above, below, behind, anywhere, with Sharrya on his case since the moment he’d crash-landed. He felt like he’d gone through Hell and back, and in a way, he had.

Andreas was filled with a sense of elation, like he’d just spent an extended period of time underwater, and finally breached the surface to breathe, all the adrenaline bleeding out of his muscles to leave them sore.

“Corporal,” he started, using his rifle like a crutch to prop himself up. “You good?”

“Armour took the most of it, I’ll live,” Torres replied. Deeper into the pipe, the rest of the squad lingered around their officer, one of them supporting him by the arm.

One of the men offered a hand, pulling Andreas to his feet. With the pipe shut and the demons safely behind it, he took a moment to take in his new surroundings. The walls of the pipe were worn, discoloured markings giving away where the water level would usually sit. It was almost pitch black, a solitary fluorescent cast a deep shade of red at the rear of the pipe, which terminated at a wall with a sloped bottom a short distance away.

Torres’ team began to move deeper inside, Andreas taking up the rear. There was a step ladder just beyond the wall-mounted light, Andreas craning his neck to see it led to a hatch. Once Torres was able, he climbed up first, a box of white light shining down as he opened the hatch.

They moved up one at a time, and when it was Andreas’ turn, eh found himself emerging into a metal corridor, bulbs suspended from the ceiling bathing it in artificial light. The hatch leading from the pipe was by a junction, the path splitting at a right angle. Doors numbered in incremental order lined the walls every few meters, more intersections splitting off in the distance leading deeper into the compound.

“This is one of the wards,” Torres explained, noting his stare. “One of three, they make up the first few underground levels of the base.”

“The civvies live here?” Andreas asked.

“Not in here, no. People don’t like sleeping this close to the pipe. Go figure. The Commander said to bring you to her once you were inside, shall we go?”

Andreas replied by removing his helmet, and passing it off to the Corporal, Torres flashing him a skeptical look.

Before Torres could speak, Andreas stepped up to the closest door, finding it unlocked. Inside was a small bedroom with a walk-in bathroom, and after a quick check to make sure it was empty, he moved over to the bed, and collapsed onto the mattress face-down without a word.

A bewildered Corporal and his team stood just outside the door, looking to one another, unsure of what to do now that their mission of complete.

“So,” Torres said. “Should I get the Commander, or…?”

One of the men shrugged, his pauldrons creaking with the movement.

“I wouldn’t,” Eva said, using the helmet’s speakers to address them. “He’s not slept in over forty hours, leave him be. Now, if you would bring me to Valeria, I’ll debrief her.”

“Oh, sure. You got it, robot lady,” Torres said, giving the helmet an affirmative tap.

“It’s AI,” Eva corrected. “And don’t hit the lattice.”

-xXx-

The pocket of condensing energies gave off a resonating hum, its pitch screaming into her eardrums as the manifold collected her, thrusting her across dozens of kilometres. Sharrya was already marching by the time the portal deposited her back into the courtyard surrounding her cathedral, her hooves making deep clicks against the paved path.

The throngs of cultists parted before her as surely as water parted around a stone. Her tendency to walk straight through anyone caught in her path probably had something to do with their eagerness to move aside. Only one of the possessed turned to follow her, dipping his hooded head in respect, one she replied with a nonchalant snort.

“My esteemed Baroness,” the priest drawled. “It pleases me to see you return safely from the front lines. I assume your endeavours were a success?”

“Success?” she barked, storming up to the cathedral doors. “Maykyr’s be dammed, I’ve never experienced such a catastrophic failure! That little delinquent escaped my grasp once again, all thanks to the petulant efforts of these mutated upstarts!”

“Word reached me of the betrayal some time ago,” the priest said, leading with his staff as he followed her inside. “I’ve already sent messengers to all corners of your territory; their skulls shall adorn your mantles within the day. I beg your pardon, Baroness,” he added, glancing between his bare feet. “I swear, I possessed no knowledge that such disgruntled creatures were present in the legions.”

Sharrya paused, turning to face the priest. Her eyes were quite literally on fire at that moment, the corrupted human uttering a pitiful squeak that barely caught her ear.

“Yes you did,” she accused, bending over to demonstrate her superior height. “Every time you request an audience, you’ve always made a note that something should be done to occupy our forces in this period of waiting. You knew something like this was inevitable.”

All that came out was air when the priest opened his mouth, his quivering breaths washing over her snout. He winced away as if expecting her to strike him, but she responded to his fears with a deep sigh.

“And so did I.”

Sharrya rose away from him, dragging a hand down her face. The priest’s expression remained timid, clambered with insecurity, but now a shade of surprise crossed his puckered face.

“I failed to heed your warnings,” she added. “Boredom and inconsideration clouded my judgement, and you remained ever incessant despite this. You were more dutiful than I, and I apologise for it.”

The priest had the expression of an adolescent discovering his first raunchy magazine, nearly dropping his staff as he processed the last eight seconds.

“M-My Baroness,” he began, exasperated. “I am unworthy of your apologies, it is you who suffered from the imp’s tactless decisions, not I.”

“Priest, I do not give out apologies lightly, and there will not be a second time. Do yourself a favour and just accept it, I order you.”

He nodded enthusiastically, perhaps not trusting his voice to get the message. Usually the lack of a verbal answer annoyed her, but she let it slide this time. Despite her lingering troubles, she was in a very lenient mood, and it wasn’t just the priest who was shocked by the development.

Perhaps her recent interactions with Andreas had something to do with it. In all the worlds she’d hopped to and from, she’d never opened up to someone before. Sure, there had been a few flings with other Baron’s she found worthy of her attentions, but there had been no meaning to them, and the deep opposition she felt with the Seargent was just the right amount of thrill in such a connection.

Oh how she couldn’t wait to get her hands on him. Andreas had to feel the same as she was – how could he not? She knew it was difficult to form connections when you served your people in all things, never stopping to ponder on how you could serve yourself. She wanted him to see she was his answer to that.

But wanting would not make it so. Waiting around had got her nowhere, now was the time to act.

“Recall your messengers,” she said, regaining her composure and making for the end of the hall. “Leave the rebelling imps be, we have far more pressing issues that need tending.”

“O-Of course,” the priest replied, nearly dropping his staff as he hurried after her. “And… what might those issues be?”

“Andreas has slipped into the fortress – assisted by one of those meddlesome patrols they like to send out. It does not take a genius to realise he is there for a reason.”

“’A-Andreas’, my Baroness?” the priest inquired. At first she thought he was joking, but she realised only she knew Andreas by name.

“The… soldier, the would-be Slayer?” she explained, the priest nodding in understanding. “He entered the fortress through this passage I wasn’t aware of.. At first I thought it was for survival’s sake, but the harder he fought, the more we spoke, and when that patrol picked him up… I’ve been led to believe that something more is afoot. He is of special importance to the Rallypoint, and I must know why.”

“But, he is beyond your reach now,” the priest muttered, giving her a weary glance as he considered his next words. “-what I mean is, he has encased himself in a highly defensible position. The Rallypoint has access to hydroponic farms, water purifiers, and sophisticated robotic foundries according to scouting reports. They are self-sufficient and heavily armed.”

“Yes, yes, I know of the Rallypoint’s capabilities.”

“Then, in your expertise, how do you plan on getting to this, ‘Andreas’? We cannot bypass the walls with portals while that suppression field of theirs is in place.”

“You just answered your own question, priest.”

The echo of clopping hooves bounced off the gothic walls as Sharrya swept to the rear of the lobby, passing through a set of iron doors at the rear of the space. Beyond the threshold, the ground ramped through a corridor, the priest following Sharrya as she walked deeper into the Earth.

“You mean to disable the field?” he asked. “But the generator lies in the very heart of the fortress, how can it be accessed? Do you plan on using the same passage Andreas used to get inside?”

“They flooded it with neck-deep water shortly after he escaped,” Sharrya explained, moving through another set of swinging doors, the hinges creaking as she thrust them open. “And such a narrow bottleneck will be lethal for any infiltrating force regardless. Any plan involving stealth is out of the question.”

“That only leaves one option,” the priest remarked, sparing her a pensive glance. “You wish to assault them directly.”

“Wish? I do not wish, I demand an assault. For too long have we been sitting idle, a fireball’s throw from their refuge, spilling our own blood while the humans rest and recoup. Our forces are fickle, I see that now. The only way to save ourselves, bring us victory, and earn myself distinction among the Maykyrs is to take the fight to them.”

They emerged into a dim cellar, the sconces lining the obsidian brickwork duplicating their shadows. Alien weapons and armour pieces suspended on chains and mounted on pedestals scattered among the room. Their ethereal nature and layout gave off an exhibitionist flair, but towards the rear half of the room were more familiar apparatus. Swords, battleaxes, cybernetic augments that replaced regular limbs, among many other tools and armaments favoured by Hell.

“My Baroness, I would never question your decisions,” the priest murmured. “But, your forces failed you the last time you gave such an order, and the cost of the attempt took a toll on your war effort.”

“I will not let such defiance go unanswered,” Sharrya growled. “When Andreas and his dropships deployed to the continent, it was you who suggested I let them pass as a means of introducing change. Well, change has been bountiful as of late, and this time there will be change…”

“Our legions at the camps are too thin to stage an attack,” the priest reminded.

“So bring them more,” she growled, growing impatient. “Whip the summoners, deploy the reserves, send your messengers to the corners of the front, bring every single claw and horn to bear on that Rallypoint!”

A section of the wall on their left broke off into a narrow passage, the sounds of metallurgy and pumping heat echoing from the depths. Smithed weapons were created directly beneath the cathedral to arm the masses, but the pieces here were for her use only.

“And send for the gore nest guardians as well,” she added, striding between two weapon racks. “and deploy my cyberdemon honour guard, too. They have spent enough time sitting on their hands here at the cathedral.”

“H-How many do you wish – demand – to send?”

“All of them! Did I not just say I want every legion we have moving to that Rallypoint?”

“W-We would leave the whole continent undefended,” the priest said. “The nests, the cathedral, it would all be open to attack.”

“Annihilating the Rallypoint is all that matters,” she said. “They will hardly pose a risk to our assets if we occupy them with a surprise attack. With each of my legions deployed on the offence, our superiority in numbers will assure a swift victory.”

“The humans have access to the largest artillery guns left on the planet. Heavy bombardment will make quick work of such sheer numbers. With respect, Baroness, in comparison to your prior attacks, I fear little to no change.”

“Change,” she muttered. “is exactly what will assure our victory.”

“Baroness?” he asked, following Sharrya as she reached the far end of the cellar, stepping up to a gate built into a section of the wall. A small space was released behind the bars, Sharrya turning a nearby switch. There was a bumping noise, and then the gate began to maw open, the priest going speechless as he stared at what lay behind it.

Draped over an arranged set of poles, a suit of mechanical armour posed in a resting position, its bright blue colour contrasting against the dark bricks. The leggings were comprised of three pieces total - a sloping plate for the thighs, a thin piece for her shins, and a angled piece that would fit comfortably against her digitigrade legs, with a splayed open cap so her hooves stuck out from the bottom.

The chest piece was narrow and slim, the section covering the belly protruding out into a pair of distinct orbs as they neared the clavicle. There were textures engraved into the alloy, thin white lines branching over and around to the back piece, the tracings similar to what one might find on a circuit board.

Heavy shoulder pads spikes with coils capped one end of the gauntlets, pads designed to fit around the knuckles making the other. Conjoining them was a sleeve of blue alloy, more metal teeth forming rings over the forearm.

Lastly, the helmet, Sharrya having to angle her head a little to meet the solitary, narrow slit forming the visor. The mouthguard was split in twain, designed to be worn with the user’s mouth exposed, while the metal cap was a whole piece inches thick, with two branching horns of grey metal poking out from the ears.

She could see her reflection in the battlesuit, the light from the sconces making it sparkle under her scrutiny. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the priest regarding the armour with wonder, and Sharrya couldn’t help but share the sentiment. She had not worn this armour in centuries, but she’d be dammed before letting it fester in the darkness of her cathedrals.

“This is change,” Sharrya muttered, reaching out to pluck at the suit with her claw. The suit made a little plinking sound as the keratin touched the breastplate. “I, along with my elite guard, will be the tip of the spear. The legions will be the haft, and together we will tear down that bastion once and for all.”

She reached for the right-hand gauntlet, where a bright red flail stood at the side of the armour. She gripped the wrappings on the pole, then brandished it in front of her chest, its familiar weight hitting her in a wave of pleasant nostalgia.

“Your personal involvement will certainly even the odds,” the priest mused, flinching when she thumbed a mechanism that let the spiked ball slink off the handle, the attaching chain making an echoing, rattling noise throughout the cellar.

“I will do more than just even them. Once I disable the guns, I will personally rip out the heart of their suppression field generator. That will be your cue to flood the fortress with portals, from there you will portal through every possessed you can, sowing chaos and allowing the rest of the legions to bypass the walls directly. From there, victory is inevitable.”

The priest locked his fingers together thoughtfully. “Your wisdom is matched only by your tactical supremacy, my Baroness. Ripping apart that eyesore shall be your most glorious hour.”

“Indeed,” Sharrya said, rolling her eyes. She must have assuaged his concerns if he was switching back to petty compliments. “Now, send for the legions, direct them to the Rallypoint, I will be there to assemble them shortly.”

The priest nodded, turning for the exit. He got about halfway through the armoury before she called out to him.

“Priest!” she shouted. “One last thing.”

He turned, bowing for her to continue.

“Listen to me very carefully. The human, Andreas, is mine. He is not to be touched or harmed in any way. Any demon who so much as growls in his direction, I will burn them so hard they will have blisters the size of cacodemons. And if you or any of your messengers fail to get across my point, priest, being burned alive will look like paradise in comparison to what I’ll do to you. Am I clear?”

The priest’s eyes widened to the size of plates, but he did reply with a nod. Or maybe that was him just trembling like a leaf, but Sharrya motioned for him to leave either way.”

“And if he is spotted, I am to be warned and portalled to his location immediately,” she added. “Now begone, I have work to do.”

The little taps of his naked feet quickly faded, leaving Sharrya alone in the armoury. She let the flail rest on one shoulder, using her other hand to pluck the robotic helmet from its stand. It was heavy, even for her, and for a minute all she could hear was the crackle of flames as she and the little yellow visor had a staring contest.

If I could shit on your parade all by myself, imagine what I can do with an army at my back.

“Oh, Andreas,” she chuckled. “Such poor, poor choice of words…”

-xXx-

Andreas awoke with a chortle, an uneasy sensation causing his eyes to drift open. A dangling chain of drool curled onto his cheek as he propped himself on his elbows, the soft texture of the pillow lingering on his scuffed cheek as he took in his surroundings. A set of drawers were propped up in one corner, its surface stacked with a small potted plant, and a framed photo of a lighthouse sweeping its beam over crashing waves. Beside it was a sliding door, a tiled bathroom visible through the gap. A table and chair were the only other things decorating the room.

How had he wound up in a hotel, what had happened? It took a moment to regroup his memories. Sneaking around the siege camp, the pipe, the Baroness taunting him as those reinforced doors closed her off from him. His shoulders and neck ached like a motherfucker from power-napping with the armour still on, but the sense of refreshment coursing through his blood put such complaints to rest.

He swung his legs over the mattress, his boots touching soft carpet. As he rubbed his crusty eyes, his thoughts turned to that feeling that had woken him up, and part of him concluded it was a sensation born from being watched. He took another glance around the room, and this time he saw something else.

Hovering five feet above the ground was a drone, peering down at him with a bright, blue sensor that served as its eyepiece. Its circular body was about sixty centimetres in diameter, with its upper half composed of a white, smooth lid capping a set of hydraulic pincers with rubber-lined grippers. A quiet humming noise filled the room as its unseen propulsion systems kept it gently bobbing in the air.

“Fuck off, drone, I’m napping.” He plopped back onto the bed, face-first.

“I know you’ve never been a morning person, but can’t you make an exception for me, Seargent?”

He did a double take on the drone, eyebrows raising in recognition. “Eva? Where the Hell did you get a Dropper from?”

“You like it?” she asked, the lower pincers staying in place as she twirled the casing in a full three-sixty. “The engineers at the foundry had a couple lying around. I felt bad having Corporal Torres carry your helmet around all the time, so I had them upload a copy of myself into one. The sensor suite is a little rustic,” she added, flexing her pincers at him. “but now that I have arms, my abilities have expanded tenfold compared to that cramped little helmet. If you’ll turn your attention to the table, I think you’ll agree with the sentiment.”

She gestured with a pincer, a pile of steaming bacon with a side of poached eggs sat on a tray on the table, the crispy smell finally registering in Andreas’ mind. Eva hummed in amusement as his prior tiredness was instantly erased, Andreas taking a seat before the food.

“Breakfast delivery? I think I’m all for this.”

“Technically this is supper, you’ve been sleeping for thirteen hours.”

He paused with a forked piece of bacon an inch from his lips, giving the drone an are you serious look. “Shit, thirteen? How come nobody woke me up?”

“A couple tried, but I had the door locked. I considered it a health risk to interrupt your sleep cycle – though it’s more like a sleep scribble at this point. Few dirty looks from the senior officers, but they don’t have the authority to order ARC around.”

Andreas regarded the drone thoughtfully. She was usually a stickler for the rules, so imagining her sectioning off this room from the base’s owners was an odd shift in character. Odd, but far from unpleasant.

“Thank you, Eva,” he said. “Going through debriefing was the last thing on my mind once we got through the pipe. Still is.”

“Thirteen hour-long naps are the least you deserve,” Eva replied, hovering closer as Andreas dug into his meal. “You made it. It came down to the wire several times, what with all the leaping off buildings, blowing up nests, slicing through demonic hordes, all while having this estranged with that Baroness, but you made it, Seargent.”

“Never doubted me for a second though, right?,” Andreas asked, speaking between mouthfuls.

“Oh, no, I definitely had my doubts, especially when we were captured. But you pulled through, like always.”

“Hey, we pulled through,” he corrected. “It was a team effort. I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t been there to reign me in when things got hairy.”

“You’d likely still be out in the streets, fighting the good fight,” she chuckled. “In all seriousness, the credit is yours. You’re the one who was shot by eighty-seven fireballs, nearly a quarter of which hit or grazed you.”

“Well that’s going to change soon,” Andreas said, smirking. “Now that you’ve got a drone, you can charge right into the line of fire with me.”

“On second thought, being confined to your helmet wasn’t all that bad,” she mused, Andreas chuckling at her.

His meal was had double portions, but Andreas scoffed the meal down in a matter of minutes, Eva filling him in on what had happened while he was out. She had written up a digital report and used the Rallypoint’s intranet to send a status update back to the carrier, and apparently the Admiral expressed relief upon hearing that he was still alive and well, and to continue the mission to the best of his ability.

He asked about Torres and the rest of his section – the ones that had come in on the dropships, Eva explaining that they were somewhere in the main headquarters.

“Commander Valeria is there too. Remember her?” Eva asked. “She wished to speak with you as soon as you woke up, so we can hit two birds with one stone if we go straight to her.”

“Duty never stops calling, I guess,” Andreas said, burping into his hand. As much as he enjoyed a hot meal and the warm bed, he knew that Sharrya was on the move right this moment, and he should do the same. “Lead the way, Eva. Wait,” he added. “Where’re my guns?”

“I took them to the armoury for cleaning and refitting,” Eva explained, her drone tilting in his direction. “Don’t give me that look. These people have been safeguarding the complex for months by themselves, you don’t have to carry a gun everywhere you go.”

He took her word for it, following the drone out into the hallway, shutting the door behind him. Eva floated off to the right, Andreas glancing back at the hatch that led out into the pipe, the sound of sloshing water very distant and quiet. As Torres had said, they must have flooded it once they were all safe inside.

The ward was a series of whitewashed hallways, arranged in perfect grids. Eva hovered at around chest height as she drifted around the corners, the intersections signed with arrows pointing to different sectors of the base. Wards from A through to D took up most of the list, along with Barracks and Security, but the one they followed was ICC.

After a few turns, Andreas saw a pair of men walking the other way. They were dressed like militia, wearing surplus armour with submachine guns slung over their shoulders, carrying themselves not quite like soldiers, but not quite like civvies either. They called him by name and rank as though they had just enlisted in his unit, regarding him with an awe that didn’t sit right with Andreas. He gave them a curt nod and went on his way, but he could still feel their eyes on his neck long after.

At the next turn, three more people idled around a door, two men and a woman. Military surplus and close quarters weaponry was present also, and once again Andreas found himself being noticed and saluted, their displays of respect underlined by looks of surprise and reverence. Andreas decided to speak up once they were out of earshot.

“Why’s everyone looking at me like I’m the al-Gaib or something?” Andreas asked.

“I told you,” Eva said, her drone flying backwards as she turned her eye on him. “These people have had little to do but watch the world around them slowly be consumed. You can imagine how hard it was to hold onto hope that any of them would live through this seige. So when reports that a lone man fought through the hordes and destroyed a gore nest in the process gets around, well, you can imagine how people might see you as the next best thing to the Slayer’s return.”

“Don’t tell me I have to give a speech or something.”

“Once word starts to spread that you’re awake, it may be possible the Commander would ask such a thing,” she replied, spinning her chassis in a drone-version of an eyeroll. “Come on, Seargent, facing down a horde of imps while a Baron of Hell threatens to seduce you, that’s nothing, but you’re scared of speaking to a crowd?”

“I’m not scared,” he insisted, but deep down, a part of his chest tightened with anxiety.

A couple passes with more militia groups later, and Eva was leading him down a corridor capped with a reinforced bulkhead, the frame flanked by two guards in black combat armour. They carried heavy assault rifles, their gear equivalent to his. This must be the way to the ICC.

Either the two guards recognised Eva’s drone, or they knew who Andreas was, one of them turning to hit the control panel. They saluted crisply as the metal door opened up like the bars of a gate to a castle’s keep.

As he stepped through, the glow of dozens of terminal screens reflected off the front of his armour, the climate-controlled air leaving a chilly taste in his throat. Most of the command centre’s floorspace was taken up by concentric rings of polished desks, wide curved monitors and data projections lining their surfaces. Men and women typed furiously as they leaned over their workstations, the clacking of keys rising above the murmur of conversation. Instead of walls, a large monitor curled around the room, the display broken up into smaller sections to show numerous data feeds of the base’s critical systems. A map of planet Earth dominated the majority of this display, with red blobs showing Hell’s forces, and blue blobs for ARC’s. There was a lot more of the former than the latter.

Beyond the terminal rings, circular tablets flanked the room, soldiers in combat gear pouring over maps and discussing among themselves, one of the groups catching Andreas’ attention. About ten men were clustered around one such table, wearing black shirts with rolled up sleeves, and dark pants that ended just above their combat boots. Over their vests they wore tactical rigs with pockets full of weapons mags, and while most of their combat armour was missing, the ARC logo on their shoulders was easy to pick out.

When he looked at their faces, recognition bloomed inside him, and he suppressed a grin as he made his way over, going completely unnoticed even as he stood right behind one of the men.

“Stand up straight, Kowalksi. I’m gone for a couple days and you think that makes it okay to slouch?”

The Private, Kowalski, stood to attention without missing a beat. Then he furrowed his brow and glanced over his shoulder, his suspicion morphing to surprise.

“S-Seargent? Holy shit, man, it’s good to see you!” He slapped the Seargent on the shoulder. “Hey, everyone, look who’s back from the dead.”

The team had been engrossed in their report, but now they were turning their attention to Andreas, the men lining up to welcome him back to the section. Among the Privates was their Corporal, the team leader explaining that the rest of the section was down in the canteen getting some R&R, and he’d let them know Andreas was up as soon as he could.

Once they’d all welcomed him back, they didn’t waste time pressing him for details on what had happened since his dropship was shot down. Andreas did his best to fill them in on his journey, with Eva adding in her own comments, usually ones that explained in detail on how Andreas preferred to hold his ground rather than cede it.

This did not surprise the men in the slightest. In fact, the squad filled the command centre with laughter at the suggestion of retreat, the little drone scowling at them grumpily. They earned a few odd looks from the terminal operators, but the squad was too engrossed in his story to pay them any mind.

What did surprise them, was his interactions with Sharrya (he called her the Baroness, just to save face), and while some of them thought little of it, a few of their number regarded him with a keener interest. Perhaps they’d picked up on his subtle shift in tone when forced to discuss her, and how he didn’t quite speak of her like she were a demon, but a combatant who was both skilled and cunning.

“You speak fondly of that Baron,” a new voice said suddenly. New, but not unfamiliar. “For me, fondness is the last way I’d describe that puta.”

Andreas turned around. A woman in a white, pristine uniform stood with her hands clasped behind her back, the dark trimmings of her belt and collar standing out against the ironed fabric. She looked older than Andreas by a few years, scars blemishing the sides of her face, the wounds giving her the look of a veteran.

Her brown hair was tied up in a neat bun, Andreas catching sight of it as she dipped her head in greeting. “You are Seargent Andreas, I recognise your voice. It is strange, that after all the suffrage Hell has caused us as a species, I expected antipathy for the Baron and her forces, not partiality.”

Her dark eyes regarded him with a sliver of confusion, or maybe that was suspicion. He recognised that tone – Eva’s complaints had run along the very same lines. Something told him he shouldn’t be as flippant this time around. This Commander had been harassed by Hell’s legions since day one, she’d no doubt lost people.

“Commander,” Andreas began, bringing his hand up for a salute. He continued after she waved for him to be at ease. “It’s true, I find the Baron’s strategies commendable, but that’s not because I’m sentimental. Fighting’s only half the battle, studying your opponent is where the real fights are won.”

“Know your enemy,” she said. He had a feeling that was as close to agreement as she was willing to say. “The only thing I’d like to know about that Baron is how to kill her, but it is good to know ARC has professionals leading their teams. Welcome to Rallypoint Gamma, Seargent.”

“Feels good to be behind some walls, Commander,” he said, appraising the room.

“I’d imagine so after the lengths you took to get here. Mi fuerte es to fuerte. Anything you need, just ask.”

“If you could give me and my section a target, I’d appreciate the hospitality.”

The corner of Commander Valeria’s lips curled. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you? I was hoping ARC would send someone like you. Walk with me, I would speak with you. Privately.”

“Just a moment, Commander,” Andreas said. “Corporal.”

One of the men from his section stepped forward. Andreas reached into his pack, and brought out a bundle of chainlinks. Hooked onto said chain links were silver tags with names printed into the metal.

“Keep these someplace safe,” Andreas said, handing the dog tags over, the Corporal handling them like they were made of glass. “They’re all that’s left of my squad.”

The Corporal made to pocket them, but the Commander held up a hand.

“You can take them to my personal office on level two, nobody but my most trusted are allowed there. May I also have the names of your dead? I made a promise to your Seargent that I would honour them.”

The Corporal looked to Andreas, who nodded wordlessly. He followed after Valeria as she turned to the door, the Commander’s leather shoes making crisp clicks against the floor.

“Thanks for that, Commander,” he said as they stepped into the hallway beyond. One of the door guards followed, escorting at a few paces behind them.

“So many have fallen these days,” Valeria muttered. “The few of us left should make time to pay respects.”

Eva slipped through the closing doors just in time, her lens exchanging a glance with their bodyguard as she floated down the hall.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” Andreas prompted, Valeria pausing a moment before answering. She was a little shorter than he, her eyes level with his chin.

“Your superiors, ARC,” she began. “When they answered my distress call, they made it abundantly clear that my country was beyond saving, and they insisted that our next course of action should be evacuation. Are you of the same opinion?”

“This on or off the record?” Andreas asked.

“You can speak freely in my Rallypoint, Seargent. ARC may have absorbed all of Earth’s assets into itself, but I was in command here long before Samuel Hayden came back from his little trip to Mars Spain and its people are who I answer to first and foremost.”

Seeing he wasn’t about to be in for a reprimand, Andreas spoke his mind.

“Personally I like what you’re doing here,” he said. “There aren’t many places out there that can hold their own without ARC support like you have. Earth’s our home, it’s about time we started taking it back.”

“Couldn’t have put it any better myself, Seargent. My demand to your superiors followed those very same lines. War cannot be one through retreat alone. Did they tell you much about what your mission here in the Rallypoint would be?”

“They were a little more vague than I’d like,” he said, keeping up with her clean, measured strides. “They said we were to head out and lend you whatever assistance we could.”

“-Within reason,” Eva butted in. “And to ensure the safe delivery of our cargo.”

“That too,” Andreas added.

“Interesante. It does sound vague when you word it like that,” Commander Valaria said. “And when do you return to your carrier?”

“Not until you’re satisfied, I suppose.”

“So, in a manner of speaking, you are now under my command, si?” she asked. “Your entire section as well?”

“The section answers only to the Corporals and the Seargent,” Eva said, hovering urgently between their shoulders. “You’re not even classified as ARC personnel, you can’t give us orders.”

“No, I’m not ARC,” Valeria said, stopping at the next hallway to address the drone. “but the chain of command still applies, and as commanding officer of this facility, I’m responsible for every soul inside these walls, AI’s notwithstanding. You’ve been ordered to assist me, which makes me your CO until the moment I relieve you.”

Eva’s drone made a series of stuttering noises. She seemed to have lost the computation power to form words.

“And it’s all above board, too,” Andreas mused. “Is that why you brought me out here? Want me to go let the boys down easy?”

“I want your personal involvement in the next stage of our operation,” Valeria explained. “And don’t look at me like that,” she added, turning to Eva. “We are all in the same boat now, everyone must pick up a paddle.”

“Very well,” Eva sighed in resignation. “What would you have us do?”

Valeria pursed her lips in a small grin. “Row. Not to worry, I have the exact paddle in mind for you. You especially, Seargent, should find it most pleasing given what you’ve told me.”

The Commander led the way down the left turn, Andreas lingering back for a second. Eva buzzed up beside his head and used her pincers to shrug at him. Told you what? she seemed to say, but Andreas only replied with a confused shake of his head.

After a few more turns, Valeria led them to another bulkhead, the reinforced door sliding open to reveal an expansive courtyard, rays of afternoon sunlight drawing dusty beams in the air.

Rectangles of pristine grass danced in yards of green, spaced by pathways of cobbles flanked with tall lampposts. Pockets of wildflowers and even a few trees with wide tops lived in these luscious patches, without a shred of demonic flesh or blood in sight, recollections of that park he’d come across flashing through his thoughts.

These pockets of Eden gave way to enormous structures, warehouses with sloping roofs hundreds of meters long and tall, along with other facilities capped with glass domes, their sizes rivalling that of mansions of palaces. The walls of the Rallypoint dominated the backdrop of it all, the fortifications making it seem Andreas was stood in the middle of a supersized prison.

The place they’d emerged from was a structure extruded from the base of the southern wall. Only a sign above the bulkhead gave it away, the ward camouflaged directly into the fortification. Valeria led him out into the middle of the yard, a pair of soldiers walking down the path the other way stopping to salute her.

Looking to his left, Andreas saw a groundskeeper tending to a small garden flanking a shallow pond, a trowel clutched in his gloved hand. For all they knew, that might just be the last natural pond in Spain, or maybe all of Europe.

“Since its inception, the Rallypoint’s purpose was always to be a sanctuary,” Valiera said as they walked. “Underground hydroponics bays, state-of-the-art water recyclers, nuclear generators for electricity, all of it hidden behind four walls of concrete lined with automatic aircraft guns. It all culminates as a point of safety for humanity, as its name suggests.”

“And in order to maintain this safety, we were given blueprints to a robotics foundry, so that even our weaponry could be self-sufficient. Guns, vehicles, drones,” she added with a pointed look to Eva. “We could print anything we needed, but without access to an income of raw materials, we could not do so indefinitely. Nor could we defend ourselves indefinitely.”

“So you had ARC bring you a supply run,” Andreas said, nodding in understanding. “I remember seeing one of the dropships getting loaded up with crates of alloys. You want to get this foundry up and running again.”

“More than that, I want to turn this place from a Rallypoint, to a staging point. A dockyard for your fleet, and a beachhead to spear into the heart of Spain and the rest of Europe.”

“That’s a tall order, Commander,” Andreas said, a hint of doubt in his voice. “There are bigger and badder demons out there that make Baron’s look sweet in comparison.”

“

“Fortunately for us, the foundry has allowed us access to ‘bigger’ and ‘badder’ things as well, as you will soon see.”

Valeria was making her way to the warehouses on the far side of the complex, Andreas picking up the whirring of tools and the smell of copper as they drew closer. The one she was bringing him to rivalled the Rallypoint walls in terms of its size, the structure tens of storeys high. The massive door on its front side was yawned open, cargo trucks rolling in and out of the building, sticking the yellow lines painted on the stone before the entrance. The paths turned to stretches of road as they neared the barbed fence forming a perimeter around the warehouse.

Two armed guards stood at the end of the pathway, but they moved aside upon recognising the Commander, Andreas and Eva following her through a gap in the fence. They made a right turn, drawing into the warehouse, the bloom of the sun falling behind its slanted roof.

The interior of the warehouse was as vaulted as its exterior suggested, but the base personnel had made use of every square inch. Shelving units as tall as a house rowed the left and righthand sides, automatic forklifts weaving through the aisles, loaded with reinforced crates. These vehicles dumped their cargo off at the production lines centering the sheer space, where cables and beams drew metal webs over printing beds. Metal arms painted over in bright orange zipped across the beds, each sweep chased by hissing electronics. The way the arms swerved from one bed to the other as they completed their tasks was mesmerising in its fluidity.

Deeper into the complex, the clustered foundry opened up to a vacant floorplan, the space was wide and open as a stadium. There was something standing in the middle of the gallery, something massive, Andreas’ jaw dropping as he beheld a titan.

A giant battlesuit stood in wait beneath a wireframe of gantries. A set of robotic legs upheld a pair of jointed legs, each one measurable to a grain silo. The toes were splayed into four flaps, with nozzles that looked like they’d been ripped straight off a jet plane built between the armour plates. It seemed to grow even larger as Andreas’ eyes trailed upwards. There were two cockpit canopies on its torso, one on the sternum, and one where the head would be, the glass coloured a deep shade of crimson. Radar dishes and camera lenses were mounted behind the main cockpit, and to either side of this equipment were a pair of dual-barrelled turrets set atop the shoulders. Its armaments didn’t end there. Missile silos were built into recesses all along its flat chest, coupled with automatic gun turrets jutting from the belly and oblique areas. Its biggest weapon was the right arm, where the elbow joint gave way to a railgun barrel the size of which he’d only seen on ARC battleships. The left arm was more comparable to a human hand, save for the forearm attachment that looked suspiciously like an underbarrel grenade launcher.

The battlesuit was painted over in a matte grey colour highlighted with orange strips, standing at forty meters tall. Meters of room separated it from the ceiling, and this only seemed to add to the behemoth’s size.

“Holy shit…” Andreas muttered, Valeria letting slip a small grin at his bewilderment. “You built a first gen mech?”

“At considerable cost, and at the expense of the last of our alloy reserves,” Valeria affirmed. “We faced considerable delays during the evacuation efforts and the constant sieges, but now that things have somewhat calmed, it’s almost ready, bar a few critical components.”

“I take back what I said, you can do some real damage with one of these on hand.”

Valeria led him closer, he and Eva weaving between the production lines for a closer look. A sense of vertigo dreamed over the mech as he craned his neck to look at it in its entirety. Samuel Hayden, ARC’s founder, had personally designed the blueprints for planetwide distribution some years ago, though where he had gotten the inspiration for such never before seen weaponry had never been disclosed.

“I have been keeping this card close to my chest, so to speak,” Valeria added. “Its existence is only known to a handful of people, and I’ve had this particular part of the foundry as automated as possible to prevent an information leak. We’ve had issues in the past of demonic brainwashing.”

“So why’re you showing me this?” Andreas asked, turning his attention to the Commander.

“This will be the spearhead of our new offensive, and I want you to be personally involved when it’s time.”

“You… want me to pilot that thing?” Andreas asked.

“You have shown dedication, resilience, and exceptional ability getting here in one piece. You even said yourself you lean more towards offense than defence. I can think of no one more suited to becoming a mech pilot.”

“Commander, you have me sold,” Andreas said, cracking his knuckles. “I’ve always wanted to take a first gen for a twirl.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean would be piloting the gen one, Seargent. That one is yours.”

Andreas searched either side of the mech, but he couldn’t see any more battlesuits. That was, until his gaze lowered, his expression of excitement dwindling as he spotted a second, far smaller mech. This one was painted in olive green camouflage, its composition similar to the first gen, only scaled down to about a fifth of its size. The top of its cockpit skirted maybe six meters, maybe more.

“What the-? You show me this monster and then tell me I get the fun-size one?” Andreas sulked, Eva floating over to pat him on the shoulder with a manipulator.

“Seargent, gen ones are crewed by eight individuals, each having to go through six months of training at the minimum. A gen two is far easier to pilot in comparison, being a single-seater.”

“We only had so much material to spare after completing the chassis of the gen one,” Valeria explained. “but if you’re not happy with the mech, Seargent...”

“No no I’ll take it,” Andreas butted in. “Any suit’s better than no suit.”

“Good. Now, Eva has told me you still possess the cargo from your dropship. Do you have it with you?”

Andreas nodded, he’d brought his pack with him after Eva’s breakfast. He produced the two glass spheres, the argent shards suspended in their very centres, wisps of energy flowing from the metal like flames off a campfire.

After days of handling such delicate (and unstable) cargo, it felt good to relieve them, knowing that the delivery part of his mission had been a success.

“For such limitless sources of energy, they are such tiny things,” Valeria mused, holding a shard up to the light. “With just one of these, we can power that gen one for fifty years straight. Double that for the gen two. Eva tells me you lost the third one,” Valeria added, her eyes fixing on his. He could swear a hint of suspicion was lying beneath that gaze.

“Ah, that’s right. I only had enough time to grab two,” he lied. “Crash site was getting swarmed by the time I came too.”

That suspicion subsided, replaced with understanding.

“I’d have preferred to power both the gen two’s we’ve fabricated, but you’re not to blame, Seargent. Two mechs will suffice. They have to.”

The Commander pocketed the shards, returning her hands to their neatly clasped position.

“We should bring these down to R&D, make sure they’re ready to be plugged into the suit reactors. You can start getting a feel for your mech as soon as we get the go ahead,” Valeria said. “I plan to move forward with this new offensive in three days’ time, so there’s no need to rush over just yet.”

“Actually, there is a need to rush. Three days is too long, Commander.”

Valeria and Eva shared a glance, the Commander gesturing at him. “And what makes you think that, Seargent? Does my schedule not align with yours?”

“From what I’ve heard, you know who Sharrya is, right? The Baron of Hell who leads the demons in the city?”

“I know one or two things about her,” Valeria admitted, folding her arms pointedly. “Though, I wasn’t aware of her name. How do you know that?”

“She’s intercepted me more than once as I made my way over here,” he explained. “We’ve gotten a little familiar with each other since.”

“In more ways than one,” Eva whispered, Andreas shooting her a look.

“What are you getting at, Seargent?” Valeria asked.

“I think I’ve figured her out. Not too much, but enough to know what her gameplan is. She made it her personal mission to see me dead after the nest. She followed right up to the pipe your man Torres led me through. We had a few chats along the way, she’s proud, stubborn, aggressive.”

“You talked with her?” Valeria gawked. “What could a human and a demon have to discuss?”

He didn’t think Valeria would come take too kindly with the truth, of the kinds of advancements Sharrya had made on him, so he paused to make up something she’d believe instead.

“She likes to gloat,” he replied. “She was sure she’d had me cornered a couple times, but it was that arrogance I took advantage of, what we should take advantage of. Shar… the Baroness, has it out for me, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s mustering every demon under her command for another siege. She’ll be back, sooner rather than later. We need to be ready before she is.”

“She has not struck at our walls in months,” Valeria countered. “How can you be sure?”

He made to answer, but Eva spoke up first.

“I’ve been analysing the Baroness also. If looks would kill, Andreas would be dead on the spot. As such, there is a significant chance that the Baron and her demons will retaliate before this three-day time plan you have set. With this knowledge, a pre-emptive strike would increase our chances of catching them off-guard, especially with a pair of mechsuits.”

“Very well, I trust the judgement of a supercomputer, and you as well, Seargent. You know this Baroness more than anyone.”

“Yes, he knows she’s interested in his-” Eva’s voice morphed into a surprised – ‘oof!’ – as Andreas nudged the drone with his elbow.

“In any case,” Valeria added, producing a phone from her pocket. “I must inform the officers about this change of plan. Go take a look at your mech while I make a call, then we can head down to R&D.”

Andreas saluted her, one she returned. When she was out of earshot, phone pulled up to her ear, Andreas turned to Eva, his distorted reflection visible in her lens.

“You didn’t tell her the truth about the third shard,” he noted.

“Seargent, I may be a lot of things, but I’m not a tattle. If you think my reaction to you shooting at an Argent shard was bad, the Commander’s would have been far worse. She definitely would not have given you a mech to play with if she knew.”

“Thanks, Eva.”

She would have grinned if her drone possessed the will, her tone turning sly as she hovered closer.

“What you said about manipulating Sharrya, was that true?” she asked. “Have you been goading the Baroness into being reckless this entire time, or was that you flirting with her?”

“A little of both,” he answered. “But back at the pipe, she basically handed me her next move on a silver platter. I played her like a… like a string puppet.”

“Thank goodness you didn’t say hand puppet. I already know you want to put your arm up her behind, Seargent, I don’t need a reminder.”

Andreas retracted away from her as though she’d physically struck him. “Damn, Eva!” he said, his laughter echoing down the noisy foundry. “The fuck did that come from?”

“I could hardly call you out in front of your new boss, could I?” she replied. “And it’s the new body, I’m still getting used to having a metaphysical presence.”

“You’re not the only one with a new look. Come on, let’s go check out the mech.”

Eva floated beside him as they made their way across the gallery, Andreas unable to help but gawk at the far larger first-generation suit. He’d give his arm and a leg for the chance to crush some demons with that thing.

“Why do you think I want to do that to Sharrya’s ass anyway?” he asked.

“From the way you look at it.”

“Eva, that’s not… I’m not into that sorta thing, and I doubt Sharrya is too… is she?”

“Bozo. I’m sure you’ll ask her the next time you see her,” she teased.

“Alright, alright. Even outside the suit you’re still a pain.”

“Technically not true. A copy of my algorithm resides within this drone. The rest of me is still in your gear.”

“Fantastic...”

They followed the yellow-striped pedestrian lanes across the gallery, pausing by the ankle of the first generation mech, its size comparable to a flatbed truck. The second generation battlesuit had all the scope of a toy soldier, but that was only because of Andreas’ bias towards its bigger, older brother. Standing at five meters tall at the shoulder, the mech was a diminutive replica of the far bigger suit, though there were a few key differences. Its build was far more sleek, its edges rounded out to give a more smooth appearance. Its thin limbs allowed more manoeuvrability at the cost of its sturdiness, but that didn’t mean the hull was fragile by any means. It was more comparable to a walking tank, and it had the weaponry to compliment the fact.

Like its larger predecessor, the right limb was comprised of a whole weapon, Andreas noting the copper coils ringing its length through gaps in the mechanics. It was longer than he was tall, and from what he knew about railgun weapons, this was not one of them.

“That is a particle cannon,” Eva noted, her drone swerving up to where the cannon joined to the chassis. “capable of delivering a superheated pulse of energy in short, infrequent bursts. See the heatsinks on the side, here? A single shot generates enough heat to melt aluminium.”

Andreas nodded in approval, though he still shot glances at the gen one every couple moments. “I’ve always been partial to energy weapons. What kind of damage can it dish out?”

“Aside from melting anything set in the path of the beam? The shot is followed up by a secondary blast as the beam dissipates. The explosive is equivalent to six of your plastic explosive bricks. That’s slightly bigger than what you did to the gore nest.”

Now Andreas voiced his impressiveness in the form of a whistle, earning the glance of a few nearby engineers wearing high-vis overalls.

“It’s no BFG, but I can make do with that,” Andreas said.

The centrepiece of the mech was the cockpit, the canopy made of three narrow, red-tinted windows. They didn’t provide much of a field of view, but there were no doubt cameras all over the chassis that could be visible from the inside. Above the cockpit, a driving lamp crowned the mech, the high-beams currently switched off. Below it, a pair of chainguns were mounted onto the sternum, Andreas guessing they were fifty calibres. The last of its armaments was on the opposite prosthetic limb, where below a giant metal fist was a serrated knife, the wrist-blade longer than a spear. It seemed the builders had designed gen two’s to fight at range as well as close-quarters.

“This model slightly differs from the base ARC mech,” Eva mused as she floated over its shoulders. The left hardpoint should be a ranged weapon, not a fist with a knife, but it should prove adequate in the event a demon should get too close.”

“It’ll be more than adequate,” Andreas said. “There’s enough firepower here to take out a mancubus … or a Baron.”

-xXx-

Research and Development was the facility situated behind the foundry warehouses, the footprint of its box-shaped structure taking up less room than a church, but the reason for this was because most of its contents were belowground. The surface access was mostly barren, save for a kiosk and an access lift. The lift was industrial-grade, big enough to fit a forklift on the platform with room to spare.

As Valeria led him and Eva into the elevator and thumbed the key labelled 1, he guessed the first level was fifty feet deep, but the facility must run triple that depth judging by the numbers on the panel.

A delicate ding announced their arrival, Andreas following Valeria out into a carpeted room. Filing cabinets and office terminals were propped up against the sterile-white walls, open archways to the left and right leading to adjacent rooms, their signage marking them as Laboratories one through to six.

There was a desk off to one side of the lift, and despite the racket it caused when it pulled up to the level, the woman typing away at her terminal didn’t look up at the newcomers. She wore a white lab coat with a blue tie wrapped over her collar, one hand reaching up to push up her black-rimmed glasses as the other continued to clack away on the keyboard.

“Selena, I have the shards you requested at long last,” Commander Valeria said, reaching into her coat for the glass spheres. “Drop that last project we talked about, getting these shards ready is top priority.”

“Valeria!” the young woman, Selena, said, her eyes a pretty shade of blue, and blazed with startlement. These two must be familiar if they weren’t referring to each other by rank. “The Argent shards, of course! Thank you, ma’am.”

“Don’t thank me, it was Seargent Andreas here who did the heavy lifting.”

“Oh! Seargent, hello,” Selena greeted, flashing him a meagre smile, one she broke before he even had a chance to return it. She must not get out of these labs very much. She turned back to the Commander. “Lab four is still prepped, like you requested, we can begin running diagnostics immediately.”

“How long will that take?” Valeria asked. “I need the mech reactors powered as soon as possible.”

“I’m not sure. An hour, maybe?” she replied. Like Valeria, Selena’s Spanish accent had her rolling her R’s. “Are we expecting an attack?”

“It’s very likely,” was all Valeria was willing to say, and Selena seemed to get the message, shutting off her terminal and proceeding down the passage on the left side of the room. As they passed over the small lip in the threshold, the floor took on an unbroken, ceramic texture, the lab illuminated by light strips running across the ceiling in an unbroken line, a warm breeze brushing his face Andreas followed the two women inside. A quiet, humming sound filled the lab. At first he thought it was air conditioning, but as he looked up at the little grills built into the walls at head height, he realised they were air recyclers, pumping cool, fresh air from the surface.

There were two men gathered around a workstation at the far side of the lab, also wearing white coats, and Selena called them over, holding up the shards and relaying Valeria’s orders. They wasted no time in bringing them over to a strange device propped up in the corner of the room. It looked like a photo-copy machine, except its surface was comprised of a capsule that looked suspiciously like the argent canisters that his dropship had been ferrying before it had crashed. Selena popped the glass spheres into the capsule, and with a button press, glass windows sealed over the container, and the glass balls began to suspend in the air.

Readouts started appearing on the machine’s surrounding monitors, Andreas thinking of heartrate monitors he’d seen in hospitals, the three scientists muttering among themselves as they got to work, Valeria watching them over their shoulders. Andreas wandered over to the other side of the lab. Where another bulkhead separated an adjacent room, Andreas spotting a dash of moving colour through the door window.

The doors didn’t slide open at his approach, a glance at the retinal scanner nearby confirming a level of security was required to pass through, and the reasons were obvious after a few moments. Lining one side of the hallway beyond were a series of containment units, their glass cylinders stretching from floor to ceiling.

There were things inside some of these pods.

Every second or third container along, demons idled behind the glass in various states of agitation. An imp was raking its blunt claws along the glass in furious swipes inside one, a whiplash flicked its cybernetic tail in agitation in another, slithering around its prison in slow loops, its eyes zeroing in on any hint of movement. There were a couple of zombies too, and at the far end of the room, the last pod along housed an ethereal humanoid, Andreas able to see the wall through its transparent body. This was a spirit, and Andreas had only seen their caste in pictures. They were ghosts through and through, able to possess any demon and grant them unnatural resilience. He wondered how they managed to capture one.

“We used to run tests on any wounded demons we could safely recover from the field,” Valeria said, standing beside him as he peered into the containment room. “Autopsies, mostly, a few live fire exercises as well, anything that could give us an edge.”

“We had something like this back at a research base I used to work at,” Andreas explained. “They broke out once and we lost control of the whole facility. Hope that doesn’t happen here.”

“I’m guessing you did not have a suppression field in place,” Valeria said, dipping into an explanation when he shook his head. “It’s an invisible bubble surrounding the Rallypoint. Any demon caught inside it has its powers significantly reduced, and it also prevents portals opening inside its radius. It’s one of Samuel Hayden’s inventions, so don’t bother asking me how it works. As for the pods, they’re reinforced with alloys imported from Mars, which are also owned by Hayden. They’re not breaking out unless the field shuts down.”

“How’s the suppression field powered?” Andreas asked.

“What do you think? It’s Argent shard compatible, and can run uninterrupted for eighty years straight before needing a replacement. I’d show you the generator, but even I need to go through five levels of security just to access it.”

Across from the containment pods, the wall was lined with reinforced doors, Andreas asking the Commander where they led. She explained they were holding cells, where demons could be stored before security transported them to other parts of the base.

“How do you move them around?” Andreas asked.

Valeria led him over to a nearby cabinet, pulling one of its swinging doors open. Inside was a wall mounted rack with a dozen odd devices suspended on the hooks, Valeria lifting one that looked somewhat like a pillory, with two holes for securing one’s wrists.

“We place their containment pods on a trolley, or we use these for the more compliant subjects,” Valeria said, handing him the shackles. They were heavy duty, the bands inches thick and made from solid steel. Magnetic hardpoints ringed around the clamps, the locking mechanism must be electronic.

“I struggle to imagine that,” Eva noted, hovering between their shoulders. “A demon would fight to its death before being cuffed by one of those.”

“You’d be surprised how docile a combination of the suppression field, sedatives, and electric shock therapy can make them,” she replied. “After a few days of capture, most of them just stand there, like their brains have switched off. One time a scientist even touched the shoulder of an imp and it didn’t even flinch.”

Andreas handed the shackles back, Valeria securing them in the cabinet. “Selena’s work will take some time, Seargent. If you wish to return to your quarters, I’ll send for you once the shards are ready.”

“I think I’ll stick around here for now,” Andreas replied. “No point walking off if I’m just going to come back again.”

“I too, wish to stay and study some of your equipment,” Eva said. “If that’s alright with you, Commander?” she added, a little more tactful than Andreas was.

“Bueno,” Valeria said. “Just make sure you put anything you touch back the way it was. Selena and her team are picky like that. If ARC was good on their promise, you’ll be in your mech before you know it Seargent.”

-xXx-

Andreas spent the next day familiarising himself with all the mech’s capabilities, with Eva and a couple of the engineers giving him pointers. His already scuffed sleeping schedule had seen him stay awake during the night but sleeping through the days, leaving him with little to do but wonder the base during lights-out.

There’s been a few mishaps during his mech induction course, and he had even toppled the battlesuit over, forcing one of the workers to fetch a crane, and a part of him wasn’t sure if one day of training would be enough. They hadn’t even let him use the particle cannon to see its true capabilities, but Eva insisted that he wouldn’t be disappointed when the time came to use it, and he trusted her judgement.

His wonderings took him up one of the walls, the westward wind hitting his face as he emerged from the service lift. The floor panel inside it had about thirty buttons, tiers of facilities built into the outer wall like books on a shelf. Andreas wouldn’t even place a restroom so close to where bombardment was likely to strike, but he guessed space was a commodity in the Rallypoint.

There was a guard stationed just outside the lift, a service pistol and rifle strapped to his combat armour. He offered Andreas a familiar nod, kind one reserved for regulars, although Andreas had never been up on the walls yet. He didn’t fancy himself a celebrity, but everyone seemed to know who he was all the same.

Looking left, the length of the rampart stretched on and on, until it terminated at a corner a couple hundred meters out. Running along the boardwalk at regular intervals were the buttresses he had seen on his way in from the ground, each one a bunker in its own right. He could see turrets mounted on hardpoints bristling all along their three outer faces, with their roofs occupied by radio antennae and other sensory equipment. Along the inner face of the boardwalk was a waist-high wall, there to provide a safety net from the sheer drop into the courtyard.

On the right, the view was the same, except the walk along the wall only stretched a few dozen meters before it met the corner, the vector change occupied by a plateau, with one of those great guns sitting upon it. Soldiers milled about along the outer wall, some dipping into the bunkers, others peering out into the city through scopes or binoculars.

Andreas made his way down the right side, the metal thrumming with each touch of his boots. It was just after four in the morning, the sun grazing the sky, the skies turning a mysterious shade of pink with its welcome. The skies were still congealed with clouds of endless soot, making the heavens seem much closer than they really were. If the wall were twice as high, Andreas might have been able to pass through the wisps of cloud. No wonder all these people felt cut off from the rest of the planet, his senses were convinced he was stuck inside of a box of smoke.

The plateau which supported the heavy anti-air gun was ringed with a warning radius, there to stop people from being clocked by its lamppost-sized barrels. Like the mechs, the gun emplacement was gigantic, as big as a house.

There was no visible place for the controls that he could see, the controls were likely right beneath it, or in some of the more secured facilities dotting the courtyard. Perhaps it was fully automated by an AI like Eva.

There were no safety barriers on the plateau’s outer edges, perhaps that was intentional, so the gun could have as wide a firing arc as possible. Andreas got as close to the edge as he dared, a lump forming in his throat. He thought that jump from the rooftop might have gotten his fear of heights in order, but it seemed he had a few more leaps of faith before that happened.

From this height, he could see the full destruction of the city in all its infested glory. Craters and urban ruins formed endless bands of rings in all directions, forming a skyline that to Andreas, appeared like the metal jaws of a cyberdemon. While the direction Andreas had travelled in on foot from was a mix of intact and blasted ruins with more of the former than the latter, the same could not be said for the other cardinal directions. Building blocks to the east looked like they’d been subjected to nuclear blasts, craters hundreds of feet wide pockmarking the concrete grids. A mountain chain scabbed over a section of the metal maze to the northeast, casting great pools of shadow over that portion of the city. Towers and skyscrapers had once dominated the wealthier districts, but now only their foundations remained, their long bodies draped over the streets like shattered corpses.

Draped over most of this doomed vista was a shade of unsettling pink, its colour like that of gums with the skin peeled off. It wasn’t as apparent closer to the Rallypoint, but it dominated a couple miles out towards the skyline, forming a sea of flesh mingling with the broken metal. If Andreas unfocused his eyes, he could see movement out there, little microshifts that weren’t demons or humans, but the flesh itself, squirming in tidal ripples. It was like watching grubs wriggle in poisoned grass, the sight making his skin crawl.

He turned his eyes downward, peering over the drop towards the encampments sieging the walls. Commander Valeria had informed him that they had seen very little activity in the camps aside from the occasional departing demon, leaving only skeleton crews hugging the walls. Even the winged demons had stopped their attempts at coming down on the Rallypoint from directly above, which she had told him were very regular occurrences.

She’s preparing, Andreas thought. No two ways about it.

He remembered the Baroness mentioned something about her cathedral, Andreas wondering what kinds of surprises she’d pull out for her coming attack, and if she had anything that could compare to the battlesuit’s Valeria had kept under the rug this whole time. He had a feeling the forty-meter-tall mech would catch the Baroness off-guard.

Perhaps she’d be stunned just long enough for the mech pilots to finish her off for good. She was as tough as bricks, but even she would be vapourised if she got caught in the path of a railgun or particle cannon.

He frowned at the image, the thought of Sharrya reduced to a pile of ash troubling him. Sharrya was his enemy, just like Eva always tried to remind him – she was responsible for this hellscape that had overcome Spain, and yet he didn’t harbour as much hatred for her as he should have. If he had grown up here, he’d share the same hatred, but he didn’t share the same prejudices as Valeria or her men did.

He'd only known Sharrya for a few days, and while she was on the opposite side of this war, she was more a rival than his sworn enemy. A mindless demon would have cut him down the moment the chance arose, yet her obsession with him was born from intrigue, not malice, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t reciprocate said interest.

He closed his eyes, conjuring up the image of her feminine silhouette, how her pronounced curves drew her muscular form into a streamlined hourglass shape despite her brawn. Andreas had to admit it was a little flattering to be hit on by someone at the very peak of personal physique, even if she had the lower half of a goat, although her fur looked very soft…

Andreas shook his head, dispelling such thoughts. As Eva had said, he had to stop thinking with his ‘thingy’, and look at the bigger picture. Sharrya had made his journey more interesting than not, but she had her side, and he had this, there was nothing to be done about that. Still, it would be a shame to watch her die, and this war wouldn’t end until either she did or these walls fell. There was no other option… was there?

He had to wait until the operation was in full swing, the coming fight could go either way. Sharrya didn’t know about the mechs, of that he was ninety percent positive, but likewise, they didn’t know what Hell had provided Sharrya with.

All he could do was meet her on the field, protect as many people as he could. Sharrya might offer him lenience, but that lenience did not extend to the Spanish people. Mutual intrigue or not, he would do everything in his power to see the civilians through this mess.

-xXx-

It had taken her legions sooner than she expected to answer her new orders, and while she’d always loathed the lesser demons for their lack of backbones, this time she was glad for their swift obedience.

The possessed had opened up gateways around the gore nests, using them as focal points to transport her demons to the staging point. There had been delays getting the demons in the destroyed nest’s quadrant into action, but that was to be expected, and the few remaining forces that Andreas hadn’t suffered were hardly worth the effort anyway.

She had watched from the rooftops as her legions amassed, filling the concrete streets with their red bodies. The occasional brawl cropped up here and there from the fodder, but that was to be expected from such a brittle, yet numerous force.

By the time the portals had dispensed the last of her ranks, she was gazing upon an army, their battle-hungry faces surveying her just as she surveyed them. It was a far cry from the cosmic battleforces she’d been granted during her first conquest of the continent, before the Dark Lord had decided to whisk portion after portion of her resources for more ‘important’ campaigns, but that did not detract from its substantiality.

Just shy of ten thousand demons had free run of Spain, and with little else to do but to fight amongst themselves, they had leapt at the chance for action. Imps made up the vanguard, while a mix of mancubus’, cacodemons, knights and revenants made up the backbone.

The former would soak up as much gunfire as possible while the latter spearheaded the siege. Hell had used such a stratagem across many worlds, and had proven equal parts effective and reliable, Sharrya had a backup plan all the same.

She was not alone up on those rooftops. Flanking her were two of the biggest demonic castes ever spawned from Hell, towering over even Sharrya. Their humanoid bodyplans were pungent to look at. One leg was entirely synthetic, while the other was a glistening tan colour, the wrinkled flesh sleaving over three ivory toes. The mechanics from the leg spread up into the crotch area, where circuit boards and thick wiring veined into the torso, hooked up to sockets and pumps that had replaced most of the organs. Their ribcages were five layers deep, visible through rips in it’s sinewy flesh.

Like its legs, one of its pink arms was whole, tipped with four clawed fingers, while the other had been replaced with a missile launcher with four rotating barrels. Any fraction of movement from them, even just a flex of its claws, was followed by a whir of motors. If Sharrya were to tear a gash through its fleshy parts, she doubted she’d see very much that hadn’t been replaced with metallic counterparts.

Not that she would entertain such thoughts lightly. Cyberdemons were cruel, sadistic, and blessed by the Hell-gods themselves. It was only through the Dark Lord’s orders that they served Sharrya as her bodyguard. Without such prestigious orders, they would have strung her corpse on the cathedral’s walls and usurped her operation long ago.

“Neither of you are to engage until the imps have done their duty,” Sharrya said to them, the cyberdemon’s long, upswept horns slicing the air as they turned their flat faces down on her. The shape of their features reminded her of bats. “Once the gate opens, or the field collapses, whichever is first, only then you may commence the slaughter.”

The one on the left nodded his horned head, while the other grunted. The two monsters followed her silently as she stepped between them, moving for the far side of the rooftop. A winged imp was perched like a gargoyle nearby, his arrowhead tail swishing back and forth at her approach.

“Give the order to your kin,” Sharrya said. “On this day, we march for glorious battle.”

The creature nodded, its leathery wings flapping hard as he took off like a missile, streaking over the heads of the army and toward the rearguard. Sharrya took up the demon’s place, pausing to admire the view for a little longer before stepping into the open air.

Her cybernetic armour was layered with shock absorbers, but she would have survived the four-storey-tall drop without it. Electric whines cut through the air as her heavy frame crashed to the street, spiderweb cracks blooming from her hooves.

Panicked squawks rose from the surrounding crowd of imps and revenants that had gathered at the foot of her procession, scrambling to get clear as the cyberdemons fell down to either side of her, their prosthetic legs falling to kneeling positions as they absorbed the fall’s impact. The crashes they made as they hit the ground were like two miniature earthquakes.

Sharrya moved through the crowd without delay, the demons parting around her. Before her lay the streets of the city, some of the blocks obliterated under artillery and weapons fire, a vague sense of recognition passing her mind as she examined the walled streets. She must have walked this place at some earlier point in her conquest, though the details escaped her in favour off the present.

Her chest surged with passion as her demons joined her march, the sounds of their cries for bloodshed muffled through her helmet. This was what she was born to do. Her at the spearhead, her elite guard behind her, and her legions behind them, their desire for conquest enunciated by every step. Leading a standing force was a euphoria like no other, it was the one thing that gave her purpose, and it had been denied to her for so long that she had become lazy, content, weak.

No longer.

Now she had structure, she had a goal, and with those she would not be stopped. She would break down the Rallypoint’s walls, secure her human, and prove to the Dark Lord she didn’t need all those resources he had taken from her. It was all so very simple.

Though she imagined Andreas would find some way to complicate things. That was all well and good – the challenge would erase all her congealing faults – and she welcomed, no, insisted that he try and stop her. It was more fun that way.

For the next half hour, the stomp of hooves and feet cut through the pervasive silence of the decaying city, her legion trailing along in her wake. She kept her eyes forward the whole way, though in her mind she could see the way they flowed through the ruins after her. They crept through every road and sidewalk, climbing the broken windows and moving over every crater with a disciplined ease. Her army was like a giant cloud of gas, flowing through the destruction unhindered as it zeroed in on her target.

The tips of the Rallypoint’s walls rose into view before long, the sun setting on the horizon directly behind it, the domed rooftops inside the complex glinting in the light. The great guns on the corners were set in their resting positions, meaning no forewarning had reached the defenders about her oncoming force.

A stew of intermingling feelings settled in her stomach as the lower ends of the walls became visible, and she beheld the fortress in its entirety. It felt like an age had passed since she’d last laid eyes on the Rallypoint, and its image brought forward all those sequestered memories she’d rather kept locked away.

She remembered a section of the eastern wall had sunken away, splitting the whole section in twain as the giant slice of metal had fallen into a recess. Thick lines of humans dressed in everyday clothes were rushing through the gap in the wall, columns of tanks with their treads lined with sandbags forming two protective lines to either side. They filled the air with fire and tungsten as her legions gave pursuit, tides of demons slamming into the first layers of the point-defence. Her minions were endless, but their bullets were not, and the lack of ammo and her personal oversight of the offence ensured steady progress towards the gate.

She remembered one of the humans screaming strings of numbers into his radio, and it was only a little later on she realised those had been coordinates. The fools had called down artillery right on their positions, but she supposed that wasn’t really a foolish decision. They were overrun, and were dead the moment the gate had begun to close.

The terrible racket as the sixty-meter-tall gate closed had been terrible, rising up at just a slow enough pace that if she pushed her forces enough, they might be able to climb over before it closed too much. The tanks and the soldiers had delayed them too much, however, and by the time her legion had cut down the last vehicle, the gate had risen over thirty meters. She remembered about eight imps had made the climb anyway, but only four of them had managed to reach the top lip, their clawed toes the last thing she saw of them before scrabbling over the gate. They had likely been shot a few moments later on the way back down the other side, but she had to respect the dedication.

That had been the only time she’d seen the interior, and when she tried to remember what lay inside, all that came to was an explosion of green.

She had given the order to fall back, both because trying to scale those walls was suicide, and because the oncoming bombardment was battering the masses. There had been a rise in the Earth about half a mile off from the fortress, and she had used the vantage to analyse the grounds for the follow-up attacks she was already planning that day.

She stood on that vantage now, one hoof slightly raised above the other as she perched on the slope, eyes scanning the section of wall she knew to be a gate. It was camouflaged into the wall very well, but to her trained eyes she could just about spot the grooves running down the barrier from top to bottom. She had made the mistake of splitting up her forces to hit the three sides of the Rallypoint accessible by land, but now the true place to strike was more obvious than ever.

“Legions of Hell!” she roared, her voice booming across the immediate area, her voice carrying in the still air. “For too long have these humans cowered right under our noses, mocking us with their very existence. That ends today! They are marked for Sin, and you shall be the ones to do the branding. Go! Cauterize this scab once and for all! Go!”

The legions had taken off before her speech had even ended, the frenzied imps and groaning possessed sprinting and leaping into the no-mans-land dividing the ruins from the Rallypoint. The heavier castes hurried to keep up with them, tiding across the barren ground in a mad dash.

Craters tens of meters in diameter pockmarked the terrain, but her legions flowed between the obstructs without delay, fuelled on by their hatred for the hiding mortals. Sharrya wished to join them, to rip through those walls with her own two hands, but she tempered her excitement. She could not afford to be impulsive.

The imps crossed the first hundred meters unmolested, thousands of them breaking cover from the ruins and pouring into the open. She thought she could see figures up on the walls, perhaps those were lookouts trying to raise the alarm.

On the second hundred meters, even more movement lined the fortress, followed by a distinct clanking of metal that carried over the distance. Sharrya watched as the heavy gun emplacement on the left corner began to shift, its motors cranking as it rotated on its housing. The quad-cannons turned from the skies to the ground, adjusting its sights across the charging imps. The gun on the right corner mirrored its movements.

There was no delay, the great guns opened up on the encroaching horde, each barrel erupting in fire and filling the air with thunder. The canons fired in slow succession, first the two on the left, then the two on the right, the muzzles rocking back to adjust for the heavy recoil.

At this range, there was no travel time. Each payload threw up great clumps of dirt and ash, obliterating tens of demons with each shot and sending dozens more scattering. Body parts mingled with the tossed Earth, showering down on the imps who attempted to make their charge more erratic in the hopes of becoming less easy targets.

The fort guns walked their sights across the charge, explosions of detritus travelling down the imps as though unseen landmines were cooking off. Not even the full scope of possessed had stepped foot into the killing field, but Sharrya didn’t need the height to realise the spearhead was taking heavy casualties.

Heavy, but not unexpected, though that correction did little to quell the troubled pang in her heart.

The guns turned back the other way, shaving off the demonic ranks ten layers at a time. No imp or possessed change course, as going back or seeking cover would only prolong their time in the no-mans-land. The guns had a wide firing arc, but their size meant they couldn’t get a line of sight directly at the wall’s base, but it was almost two full minutes of evisceration before an imp made it through.

He was only a red speck at this distance, but he stood out against the fort, and he began to hurry up the vertical face, claws and toes digging into the metal for purchase. When he was halfway up the wall, gunfire erupted from between the buttresses, a stream of bullets sending the imp careening into freefall.

More imps were breaking through to the wall, their numbers reduced to the dozens, but they followed in the imp’s example regardless, scurrying up the metal like questing ants. The corner guns disembowelled the charge all the while, the tips of their barrels glowing with heat.

The cyberdemon on her left growled, a sound that made even her uneasy, and she had travelled far more nightmarish places than Hell. He made to step forward, but Sharrya held up a hand.

“Not even you could withstand those heavy guns,” she warned. “Victory relies on your discretion, so get a hold of yourself. Your time will come soon.”

The cyberdemon bristled, staring into her soul with those beady eyes, but it seemed to decide a fight wasn’t worth it. She had to be firm with these monsters, it was the only way to keep them in check. She could relate to its growing impatience, however. It was not easy watching her legion get torn to shreds while she stood safely at the far rear.

Her troubles were quickly put aside, however, when the flap of dozens of wings reached her ears. She turned to look behind her, her spirits soaring as winged imps swarmed the skies, their calloused bodies weaving between the skyscrapers. They banked over her army like locusts, rising into the air on their spread, veiny wings. Their number was countless, the fliers resembling a blob if one unfocused their eyes.

The swarm careened across the battlefield, their flight path curving high above the Rallypoint. Such a tightly packed aerial body would have been chewed up by flak rounds, but the Rallypoint’s guns were focused on the ground forces.

The gun on the right attempted to correct this critical mistake, but the winged demons were already halfway across the battlefield, angling their bodies head-first as they swooped into a collective dive. They rained down atop the walls, slicing human figures apart through sheer momentum.

The winged legion fell upon and between the buttresses, taking the posted humans by surprise. Sharrya could see humans being tossed from the battlements, others being gripped by the shoulders and hoisted into the sky by pairs of imps, bringing them to soaring heights and then dropping them to grisly fates. The attention of the scampering imps was relieved as the fliers sowed chaos, but the true clause of the attack was more than a simple distraction.

She was too far away to make out details, but the corner gun that had turned to face the fliers fired off three more salvos, and then abruptly stopped. She could see flapping wings all around the weapon, her demons flocking to the emplacement like moths. She could imagine them ripping into its mechanical guts, slicing the components with their claws, sending fireballs into its exposed logic circuits, perhaps tearing apart the compartment of its gunner crew. Whether it was any of these things or none, it mattered not, the massive gun had ceased firing. Its counterpart continued to walk its devastating barrages across the ground, but the loss of the gun was a significant stepping stone.

The winged legion had roosted upon the battlements in full, choking the fortress’ immediate air with their lithe bodies. The mortals on the walls turned their weapons to the skies, filling the air with bullets, clipping tens of demons in each volley, but such casualties were acceptable with such sheer numbers.

“You should have given yourself up, Andreas,” she muttered. “Now look at what your pride has wrought upon your friends. If it were only so… what’s that noise?” she demanded, darting her gaze from side to side.

There had been a tremendous thunk a moment ago, as though a thunderhead had set off nearby, yet the only storms overhead were those of the demonic quality. The sound carried on into a series of small clicks echoing across the battlefield, as though great cogs were grinding together.

When her gaze fell upon the Rallypoint, her question was answered. A portion of the wall was lower than the rest, sliding away into a gap in the ground, the imps caught on the moving piece flinging themselves clear. It was the gate, blooming open with a dramatic slowness, the realisation making her tilt her head thoughtfully.

That was ahead of schedule, and not at all part of the plan. The winged imps were to target the guns, then the field generator. Opening the gate was unnecessary and dangerous, but not unwelcome. Perhaps she should give the imps more credit.

The demons that had made it through the anti-air gun’s blanket fire gathered eagerly around the foot of the gate, forgoing their climbing attempts now that they could simply walk through in a few moments. A second echoing bang chased the first as the gate lowered a quarter of the way, the weight of the construct palpable in its gentle descent.

Sharrya’s confidence tapered into uncertainty, when she looked over the gate’s threshold and saw something standing behind it. First appeared a metal head as big as a house, attached to a robotic chest piece, its surface bristled with guns and missile hardpoints. It had a giant gun for one arm, and a fist that could clobber a cyberdemon for the other. Its towering bulk was considerable at this distance, but to the demons by the gate, it must have looked gigantic.

The giant robot didn’t wait for the gate to fully open, lunging one of its giant metal legs over the withdrawing obstruction when there was room. A cluster of gathered possessed stood in stupid wonder as the foot came down and crushed a dozen of them beneath its heel, Sharrya feeling the impact even from her vantage.

Seeing their brethren squashed spurred the rest of the legion into action, mancubus’ opening up with their arm cannons, hell knights galloping forward to close distance. The battlesuit bent at the waist, gears clicking as it presented its chest to the horde, the automatic guns on its stomach opening up on everything that moved. Missiles scribbled through the air as the pods on its neck and chest activated, the payloads screaming through the air. Dozens of explosions shook the Earth as the ranks were carpeted with ordinance. The mancubus’ high-powered energy guns didn’t so much as scratch its pain, and the hell knights were kicked away like pests before the machine.

“What are you two waiting for?!” Sharrya exclaimed at her bodyguards, who watched the destruction with fascination. “An invitation? Get your metal asses down there and destroy that thing, you useless imbeciles!”

The cyberdemons grunted, sliding down the slope on their steel legs, taking off into the fray at a run. Sharrya turned her attention back to the battlesuit, wondering how such a giant thing could have slipped her notice. Had it been delivered to them, or built on-site? This must be mankind’s answer to the titan’s of Hell, and by the way it chewed through her legion, it had the firepower to back it up. If only she had access to her own titan, none of this would be necessary, couldn’t the Dark Lord see that?

She put such thoughts aside, complaining now of all times would do less than nothing. The battlesuit was pushing her legion away from the wall, back into range of the anti-aircraft gun, which was still operational, even as her winged imps continued to swarm the emplacement.

She had to resist the urge to wring her hands as the towering cyberdemons closed in on the robot – if it even was a robot, and not manned by a small crew of some sort. The cyberdemons pushed aside the throngs of imps and knights, stepping through a firing line that a squad of mancubus’ had set up. The battlesuit turned to face this new threat, ignoring every other demon even as its hull was battered and clawed by a hundred smaller targets.

The cyberdemon’s brought their robotic arm launchers to bear, the battlesuit presenting its giant arm cannon in kind. Aside from the glowing, electric rings running down the exposed parts of the barrel, there was no telegraphed attack, and little to no windup. The battlesuit levelled its cannon at one of the cyberdemons, and there was a flash of light so bright that Sharrya had to shield her eyes from the oncoming blindness.

A terrible, electric crack carried through the sky, so loud she would have heard it if she had been sitting in her cathedral at the time. When the flash cleared, Sharrya peered between her fingers, blinking her eyes back into vision as she observed the fortress grounds.

One of her cyberdemons was ravaged from the chest up, arms and head reduced to a pile of mush far behind it. Its counterpart watched in a rare expression of trepidation as the bodiless legs fell like two decapitated trees.

Her heart sank. One of her most cherished warriors, obliterated before it could even fire off a single rocket.

The battlesuit moved its arm cannon aside, wisps of smoke rising from the barrel. It was obvious that it couldn’t fire the devastating weapon in quick succession, but she dreaded the time it took to fire again. It could be five minutes, or one minute for all she knew.

At least the other cyberdemon wasn’t privy to being troubled by the display of power, the demon using its robotic leg to leap into a sprint. It charged towards the suit’s leg, the machine swiping down at the demon with its regular arm, but the intended swat missed, the cyberdemon shoving its synthetic arm into the suit’s leg.

It pulled a chunk of mechanics from the hull, sparks flying from the mechanical wound. The suit tried to stomp on it like a bug, but the demon easily moved aside in time, the movement telegraphed. The cyberdemon prepared its launcher, firing off a cluster of rockets that crashed into the battlesuit’s left thigh, explosions rippling along the limb.

Despite the battlesuit’s attention now focused on the robotic demon, the weapons on its chest and shoulders continued to fire independently, its guns and missile pods cutting down swathes of the demons trying to support their heavier counterpart. None of them survived long enough to help. What was worse, the opened gate had revealed a barricaded entryway lined with sandbags and machine-gun nests, dozens of barrels poking through little murder holes lining the fortifications.

Plasma and bullets alike fired off from this new avenue of attack, felling any demon trying to circumvent the battling titan’s and get inside the fortress. No portals were opening up either, which meant her winged legion was also facing setbacks.

“Maykyr’s curse it all,” Sharrya muttered, adjusting her shoulder pad as she jumped from her vantage point. “Must I do everything myself?”

The ground level rose up to meet her, Sharrya outstretching her armoured legs as she slid down the incline. She was moving into range of the anti-air gun, but her cybernetic armour should prove invaluable should it decide to make her its next target.

She ran around the craters, stretches of cadavers lining the paths, some of them two or three bodies deep. Yet more were joining the charge, both behind and in front of her, the sight of their leader reinvigorating the troops, not that morale was ever a matter of doubt. Such charges like these were common for her kind.

She stepped nimbly through the legions, the battlesuit drawing closer. The autocannons on its front were harrying the cyberdemon with endless streams of rounds, yet they did little to the demon’s reinforced exoskeleton. She was almost there, just a few moments more…

In the next instant, she was flying off to the left, arcing clear over a crater ten meters across. Ash and dirt splashed against her visor as she landed in a heap, the pain in her side swimming up into her skull. She shook her head, and looked up to see she had been flung straight towards the Rallypoint wall, coming short by a few meters.

On her hands and knees, she turned towards where she had been running at full tilt, blinking when a second battlesuit was striding down the crater after her. It was far smaller than the one fighting the cyberdemon, taller than Sharrya but not by very much. Its chest was riddled with guns like its bigger cousin, and the right arm transformed into a weapon at the elbow.

Gears and engines rumbled as the suit stomped over the crater lip, holding its arms at the ready as Sharrya pulled herself to her feet.

It planted its clawed feet in the ash not ten meters away, her eyes drawn to the glass canopy situated on its upper torso. A crackled of static produced from some unseen radio transmitter, and although the voice that followed was synthetic, garbled with a tinny quality, Sharrya recognised the accent anywhere.

“Baroness Sharrya,” Andreas greeted.

-xXx-

He had expected the gates to be flooded with the demonic once it was opened, but the gen one was giving Hell a run for its money. One of its weapons was always in use, be that the missile pods, or the chainguns, or the shoulder turrets, it was always dealing with a threat at any given time, and that disappointment he’d felt when Valeria told him he wouldn’t be using it swelled up inside him again.

The feeling was quickly nulled when Eva gave the order he was clear to advance. He cleared the sandbags stacked against the gate’s inner side, bullets streaking all around him as the soldiers behind him put down cover fire.

“Remember what I told you,” Eva warned into his helmet. She still had her drone, though it was safely floating somewhere back inside the base. “Mind your foot spacing, and don’t forget your right hand is not a hand.”

“I got it,” Andreas replied, and then promptly forgot as he backhanded an oncoming revenant with the particle cannon. Being inside the mech was like stepping into an exoskeleton. He still had to move his hands and feet to manoeuvre the suit, but the motors supporting the hand and foot grips made such efforts use up barely any strength. The contrast between such easy movements and the heaviness of the mech made it almost feel like he was floating.

He was on support duty for the gen one, their crew’s channel linked up to his mech’s speakers. He could hear about six voices calling out targets and adjusting parameters, their voices cool despite the onslaught their battlesuit was taking part of. They didn’t look like they needed support to Andreas, although the cyberdemon was becoming a pain in their prosthetic rear as it continued to eat up all the bullets they sent their way.

Andreas prepared his particle cannon, but as he took aim, a far greater target presented itself. There was a flash of reflective blue on the far side of the skirmish, and Andreas spotted an armoured Baron sprinting into the fray. Sharrya was wearing some sort of combat suit he’d never seen before, its blue plating glinting in the afternoon sun. It covered her from ankles to neck, even her horns were protected by a conforming helmet with a glowing eyepiece serving as the visor. She must have taken his challenge more literally than he thought if she was busting out her best toys.

He retracted his cannon, stepping round the larger mech and making a beeline for her, timing his interception like a quarterback making for the ball. He thought she might notice him, but her gaze was fixed squarely on the duelling mech, and he crashed into her like a freight train.

The internal lining of the cockpit was made from resilient stuff, but the mech still rang like a gong around him, the noise drilling into his eardrums. Sharrya launched off the ground and sailed across a nearby crater, crashing into the dirt on the other side.

The gruelling sounds of gunfire, both demonic and mortal, morphed into the backdrop as Andreas moved his mech around the obstruct, pausing with a dozen odd meters spacing him from the Baroness. There was a control panel next to the grip on his right arm, and he flicked the one that activated the mech’s communicator.

“Baroness Sharrya,” he announced, Sharrya glancing up from where she lay. He expected her gaze to be full of malice, but of course there was a shit-eating grin below her visor, her eyes no doubt reflect her humour.

“Seargent Andreas,” Sharrya replied, but her tone wasn’t aloof. In fact, it was the exact opposite. “You said you would ‘shit on my parade’ as you so eloquently put it, and you have not disappointed me. Nice suit, by the way.”

“Was about to say the same thing to you,” Andreas said, gesturing with the cannon arm.

“You like it? I wore it just for you,” she cooed, propping herself on her plated arms and presenting her breast to him. She looked like a yoga teacher holding a pose. The armour was slim and conformed to her curvaceous form, and he knew from the way she’d been running that its weight wasn’t a hindrance on her, whatever alloy it was constructed of must be very light. “I only wear it when confronting my most challenging of opponents, and I consider you to be among their number.”

“You look good in blue. It’d bring out your eyes if you ditched the helmet.”

“Oh, Seargent, always with the flattery. Perhaps challenging was the wrong word just now…”

She raised herself up, nursing the shoulder she had landed on. Her eyes flicked over his mechanical shoulder, and Andreas was about to dog her about using such lowly methods of distraction, when his proximity sensors warned of three demons moving up behind him, breaking off from the main battle.

“Leave him!” Sharrya roared, Andreas twisting his mech to see three startled imps giving her strange looks. She tossed a fireball at them when they didn’t move. “Away with you, he’s mine.”

The demons scampered, Andreas chuckling under his breath. “Sure you don’t want their help, Baroness? I’m not one for boasting, but Pilot Andreas hits a lot harder than Regular Andreas.”

“They are needed elsewhere,” Sharrya replied, her meaning obvious. He could hear the gen one mech stomping around the Rallypoint gates, endless streams of ordinance firing from its torso.

“I’ll say. I bet you and your whole legion soiled yourselves when that big fucker came walking out of the gate.”

“Your robot toys won’t save you, even with the aid of surprise,” she replied. Her tone was offhand, but there had been the briefest hint of hesitation in her voice. “But none of that matters now. The last we spoke, you said you were not going to run any longer. I hope you aren’t planning on forfeiting now, of all times?”

“Why do you think I came charging over like a bull?” Andreas spread his mechanical legs wide, just like Eva and the foundry engineers had trained him. “You wanted a showdown, now you’ve got one.”

“Yes…” Sharrya growled, adjusting her footing as she dropped into her own combat stance. “Just your augmented strength, versus my augmented strength. No more running, no more distractions.”

They both stood defiant against each other, a moment passing where nothing else seemed to exist but themselves. Sharrya reached behind her and produced a spiked mace, the handle longer than his entire torso. She beckoned to him with it, and in that moment, her shiny armour caught in the last embers of the sun and bathed in fury, Sharrya looked as beautiful as she was deadly.

“Come then, Seargent, this rivalry has gone on long enough. Let us put an end to things.”

Andreas seized the moment, bringing his particle cannon to bear. The barrel became wreathed in blue light as the energies were brought to life, his finger pressuring the trigger. He was warned there would be a slight delay in the cannon, but not slight enough for the Baroness.

Her arm flung out, the one holding the mace. Andreas blinked when the spiked ball dislocated from the handle, arcing across the space between them like the deadliest basketball. It crashed into the joint at his mechanical elbow, close to the base of the cannon, the mech twisted away by the forceful blow. The arm went wide, Andreas’ blood freezing as the barrel swerved onto the Rallypoint wall on his immediate right. He let the trigger go, the barrel losing its strange glow. That had been too damned close.

A blur of movement occupied one half of his canopy, Sharrya closing in on him rapidly on her long legs. Rattling chains chased her every stride, and he noted that the mace was still connected to the handle by a link. Sharrya’s form bloomed until she was right on top of him, throwing all her weight into her shoulder as the two collided.

The mech left trails meters long as it skidded through the ash, the hydraulics wheezing in complaint against Sharrya’s weight. He could feel his world spin as his centre mass was thrown off kilter, Andreas teetering like a bowling pin. With his left arm, he gripped Sharrya’s bulky shoulder with his metallic fingers, using her for both balance and leverage to drive his leg into her stomach.

Her grinning face filling his vision turned into an expression of pain, steel meeting steel in an echoing crash. He made to backhand her with the cannon, but she planted a hoof into his chest and dodged away.

She thumbed a mechanism on the handle, and the mace-turned-flail began to retract, the chain links slithering along the ground, the mace leaving a long furrow. With a snarl, Sharrya twirled on the spot, handle held out in front of her like she was a hammer throw athlete. The flail whistled through the air, too fast to keep track of until its bulk slammed into Andreas’ shoulder.

Even though he was protected by inches of steel, the metal crumpled inward in a visible dint, a critical warning system blaring an alarm through the cockpit.

He let out a trying grunt as he seized the chain links in his fist, pulling it in the hopes of throwing her off-balance, but Sharrya was charging towards him. He dodged out of her path, letting the chain fall from his grip, pushing out a leg into her knee. His leg collided with a satisfying crunch, Sharrya stumbling into the wall hard enough to leave a dent.

Before she could recover, Andreas darted in behind her, grabbing her by one of her branching horns. The motors in his arms groaning, he drove her helmeted head into the wall of steel, the impact of the blow travelling up his arm.

Her head lolled as he pulled his limb back, then rammed it into the wall a second time, a crack spitting down the middle of her helmet.

On the third swing, Sharrya came to, her elbow swinging into the cockpit glass. A grainy crunch was quickly followed by a pair of tendrils blooming from a point on his lower right vision, not thick enough to blind him, but enough to obscure parts of it.

“Not bad,” Sharrya growled, leading with her flail as she whirled on him. He blocked the attack with his forearm, the impact knocking him back. “Your technology is formidable, even if it is not true strength…”

She grabbed up the chain, swinging the flail in lazy loops as she sized him up, searching for an opening. Andreas activated his weapon systems, the sound of priming guns reaching his ears as the guns on his torso powered on. Muzzle flashes left yellow afterimages as he opened up on Sharrya, the Baroness covering her face on reflex. Like bullets ricocheting in a spaghetti Western, the rounds pinged off her cybernetic armour noisily, even the fifty calibre bullets rendered useless against her protective layer, but he knew firsthand that she couldn’t be brought down by conventional means.

The burst of gunfire gave him enough time to dart forward, clocking Sharrya across the chin before she could block. He followed up with a brutal jab to her gut, the raw power of the mech the only thing allowing him to knock the wind from her lungs, the Baroness expelling her breath in a wheeze.

Andreas delivered another swipe to her helmet, but Sharrya recovered, grabbing him by his metal wrist. She dropped her flail, reaching down with her other hand to grab his shoulder. It looked like she was about to break his arm, but even she wasn’t strong enough to do that, was she?

He tried to break her grip, batting her with the oversized particle cannon, but she shrugged off the swipe, Andreas’s eyes going wide as a sense of weightlessness settled over him. His suit had to weigh upwards of sixty tons, but he could have sworn he felt his feet leave the ground as Sharrya hoisted him to the side, tossing him away like a sack of bricks.

His bulk worked against him, and Andreas was staring at the sky once his mech settled, the first few night stars fading into the blue canvas. His chin touched his neck as he glanced own the length of the cockpit, seeing Sharrya stoop to retrieve her flail.

She thumbed the mechanism again, and the chain grew in length, Sharrya holding it in both hands over her head. She brought the flail down on where he was lying, leaving Andreas only a moment to roll onto his shoulder and let his side take the brunt of the attack.

As his mech shook, another warning appeared on the canopy, this one telling him there were malfunctions in the joint circuits in the arm. If he took any more hits like that, or she’d disable him.

She threw the flail into the air, the chains curling like a whip into the sky. It hung motionless at its peak, and then Sharrya gave the chain a tug and it fell right down again. This time it smashed into one of the machine-guns on his chest, the barrel exploding in a shroud of plastic.

Andreas snagged the flail that had come to rest on the canopy glass – another glass crack forming beneath its bulk – and yanked it hard. Sharrya snarled as she came stumbling into range of his leg, his metal joint connecting with her face in a loud smack. She threw her hands to her mouth, and when her fingers came back, the tusk growing from the left corner of her lips like an ivory stalagmite was broken.

Andreas twisted the mech’s legs one way, his torso remaining as level as a gyroscope. He used his knees to raise the mech from the ash, keeping the arms out straight, just as he’d been taught to do should he lose his balance.

Andreas primed his remaining chaingun, but he didn’t fire on the Baroness. He lenaed forward, squaring the sights over the flail, severing the middle of the chain with a thunder of gunfire. She gave the handle a questioning look, then discarded it.

“Give it up, Sharrya,” Andreas breathed, his chest rising and falling as though he’d just run a marathon.

“Now why would I do that?” she snarled, spitting a wad of blood between her feet. “Your bastion is overwhelmed, and my legions are unstoppable.”

“You sure about that?” he asked, kicking the flail away. “Turn around.”

She narrowed her eyes, then glanced over her shoulder, suspicion turning to shock. While the two of them had been occupied with eachother, the battle raging around them had developed. The skirmish between the gen one mech and the cyberdemon was the focal point of the battle, and one side had emerged victorious.

Sharrya’s trembling hands turned into fists, the Baroness quickly returning her attention to him. She seemed to meet his eyes even through the canopy. “This changes nothing,” she snapped. “The cyberdemons were a distraction, and their usefulness ended once you came to me.”

“The mech’s going to tear your legion’s a new asshole,” Andreas replied. “You’re not getting into the Rallypoint.”

“Damn the Rallypoint! Damn the cyberdemons, damn the Maykyrs, damn everything! All of that is beyond the scope of our bout, and I care not for any of it.”

Andreas thought of ancient Roman gladiators, basing their whole lives off glory and honour, and thought Sharrya fit that bill pretty well.

Sharrya voiced a war cry as she rushed him down, the sound chilling his blood. He raised his arm to block, but she feinted, harrying his canopy with a series of swift, savage punches. The glass creaked in protest, more cracks worming up the canopy as Sharrya pushed all her strength into the attacks. It was becoming harder and harder to see.

Andreas raised his knee into her gut, then backhanded her across the jaw, the demoness stumbling away in a daze. He grabbed her two horns like they were bike handles, then brought his forehead to hers, pulling her against the metal bars looping over the top of the canopy. The headbutt sent her swaying, that yellow eye-slot in her helmet shattering to pieces, its glow pulsing on and off like a fried lightbulb.

He thought her vision might be impaired, but she came right back at him without pause, delivering a swift kick to his knee joint. He buckled under the blow, failing to dodge away as her fist came pounding into the glass. He could hear it threatening to give, and when she struck him a second time, it did.

Shards rained over his face and chest, clinking off his combat armour as a small, two-inch wide hole appeared in the opaque window. Sharrya punched that spot again, and the gap grew another inch, Andreas feeling fresh air woosh into the cockpit.

Panic began to spread its roots through him, Andreas groping with his hand to shove her away, but she caught his limb in her armorued fingers, so strong that even the mech’s power wasn’t enough to break free. He batted at her with his particle cannon, unable to shoot her from this range, but it bounced off her spiked pauldron harmlessly. She held him like that, like he was an action figure she could pose at a whim, and her voice took on a much more surreal quality as she leered closer to the breach in the canopy, their eyes almost level.

“You’re mine,” she growled. “I’m going to pluck you from that toy suit and whisk you away. I wonder how the mortals would react, seeing their saviour abducted right before their very eyes.”

“And I wonder,” Andreas replied. “how sensitive are your eyes?”

She cocked her head as Andreas activated the floodlights topping his mech, millions of lumens worth of power shining directly into her face. The pressure on his mech released as she raised a hand to her head, failing to see Andreas readying his fist.

He pulled back his arm, bringing all the mech’s power to bear in a vicious uppercut, the attack as solid as it was deadly. Andreas felt a white-hot sore travel from his hand to his bicep as his limb connected, Sharrya’s head snapping at an awkward angle as she was lifted off her feet, flying for a few meters before touching back down, flipping once before she settled in the ash.

She lay there in hesitation for a handful of moments, and when she looked up she was staring down the steel barrel of his particle cannon, that blue energy coalescing over its length. She made to rise to her feet, but too late, the cannon was fully charged, a green indicator flashing on Andreas HUD.

He pulled the trigger.

A blue line connected the muzzle to the ash between her hooves, like a laser pointer, and then a white ball about three meters in diameter was drawn around the point, Sharrya’ bulk disappearing behind the sphere. It grew to a brightness that slowly became unbearable, and as Andreas shut his eyes, a thunderous report like a nuclear bomb erupted all around him.

His mech was tugged backwards by the shockwave, and for a horrific moment he thought he was too close to the blast radius. The light cleared in the next second, and Andreas put such worries aside. He was still in the mech, still outside the Rallypoint, but there was one thing that had been removed.

The place he’d aimed the cannon, Sharrya included, was gone. In its stead was a neat hole in the ground, the exact same dimensions as that glowing sphere. There were wisps of smoke rising from the ash, which had taken on a look of black glass.

He’d put an end to things, as Sharrya would have said.

He turned to the side, the giant outline of the gen one drawing his gaze. With the cyberdemon’s gone, it was cleaving the ranks of the lesser demons with its many guns, the Earth trembling whenever it put its railgun to use. Towards the rear ranks of the legions, some of the imps had seen their Baroness obliterated, and their morale crumbled, Andreas spotting clusters of the demonic taking to the ruins.

Not all of them were fleeing, but it was a clear tell that things were over. Their attack had failed, the mech was cleaning up the main force, and their leader was dead.

A strange feeling settled when that last one reinforced itself in his head, Andreas staring back at the new crater in mild disbelief. All these days of fighting, all his interactions with the Baroness, and now it was all over, in a single blink. It seemed rather anticlimactic, and a little disappointing, but perhaps not for the right reasons.

For a long while he just stood there, the motors in the mech hissing as the adrenaline from the fight bled away to leave him tired. He expected to be relieved that his mission was finally over, that the Baron was gone, yet relief was the last thing on his mind, he realised.

“Seargent?” a voice called, and for a second he thought it was Sharrya, and his heart skipped for some estranged reason. “Seargent, are you well?”

A drone came floating into his view from on high, Andreas recognising it as the one Eva had borrowed. “Yeah,” he replied. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You did it,” Eva said, patched into his helmet’s communicator. “I watched the whole thing. You did it, Andreas! I’ve already sent word to the Commander, she should be more than happy of the news. With the high command gone, the attack is doomed to fail.”

“Yeah,” he said again. He was still looking at the smoking crater.

“Seargent? Are you sure you are well?” Eva asked, hovering closer. “Your voice patterns are analogous to distress, but you’re not critically injured. What’s wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong,” he said. Eva tilted her drone, like a parent who’s just caught their kid out on a lie.

“Andreas, come on, it’s me. I read your emotions almost any day, I can tell when the cat’s caught your tongue.”

“It’s just… she’s gone,” Andreas relented. “You know?”

“Yes…” she replied, dragging the word into another syllable. “I do in fact, know that to be the case. Why are acting so weird?”

“Well, I thought… I thought things would go differently.”

“Andreas, you shot her with a particle cannon. Everything caught in the blast is reduced on the atomic level. There was only one way that could have gone.”

“I thought she’d, I don’t know, get out of the way or something.”

Eva hovered closer, scrutinising him with that single lens. Like Sharrya, she seemed to know exactly where his face was. Maybe the canopy wasn’t all that opaque after all.

“Seargent,” she snapped. “You can’t be seriously…. Are you upset that she’s gone?”

“What? No,” he said, but the denial didn’t come out all that well.

“Yes you are! Andreas, Hell is mankind’s greatest evil, and Sharrya was one of their top generals! How can her death make you feel anything but joy?”

“She wasn’t evil,” he replied, Eva scowling at him. “Alright, maybe there was a little evil in her, but she’s far off from being a monster. Monsters don’t show mercy, and she did that to me several times before.”

“Be that as it may, she tried to destroy the Rallypoint, its people included. This isn’t to mention all the things she’s done to Spain before our arrival, plus whatever other crimes she’s committed on these other worlds she’s mentioned. She had to answer for all that.”

“I… I suppose so,” he relented, but that feeling still weighed in his chest, one that wasn’t quite disappointment, but very close to it.

“I’m sorry, Andreas,” Eva said. “I know she meant something to you – even though I cannot comprehend why this is – but what’s done is done. You saved a lot of people by bringing her down.”

That cheered him up somewhat, and he brought up his argumented hand, Eva responding by extending her claw and slapping it.

“We should report our success to the Commander firsthand,” Eva said. “I’m sure she-”

“Ooohhhh that’ll leave a mark...”

“Did you say something, Seargent?”

Andreas turned to the source of the voice, which had come from the particle cannon’s crater. He realised he that was wrong, it had come from beyond it, where a deep trench furrowed into the ground beyond in a long gash, following the curve of the Rallypoint’s corner section.

The trench was around ten meters at its lowest point, and as he stood upon the lip, he saw something blue odwn there, and it didn’t take a genius to know what it was.

“Oh come on!” Eva complained. “She lived through that, too! How?”

Andreas supposed his aim with the cannon had fallen just short enough she could get out of its range, though it seemed she hadn’t gone unscathed. The front of her chestplate was completely gone, a giant burn mark bloomed beneath her breasts. Her hands were charred black, a couple of her claws and fingers missing, and just like the ash, smoke was trailing from her cybernetic armour.

His approach brought the Baroness out of her fugue, one of her ruined hands reaching up to her head. Her helmet was cracked all over, and she ripped it off with a kind of lazy patience, exposing her snarling features. She let the helmet roll away, where it settled by her ankle, Sharrya looking up at him tiredly.

“I think… I should have taken you up on your offer, Seargent,” Sharrya chuckled, but the laughter only seemed to hurt her more. “What on Hell did you hit me with?”

“Particle cannon,” he said. “Supposed to destroy your atoms or some shit.”

“It destroyed more than that,” Sharrya said, holding up her hand and staring at the stumps she had for fingers. “Something tells me I’m not regenerating this one anytime soon.”

She reclined on the slope, staring up at the heavens. “I have finally found my match,” she mused. “Thirty-nine worlds it took, and you have fought for this one harder than any other. Fought very well.”

“I blast you to Hell, and you still compliment me?” Andreas asked. “You are one crazy bitch, Sharrya.”

“I can neither confirm nor deny that,” Sharrya replied. Her eyes flicked to Eva, then to him, her arms bobbing in a shrug. “Well? What are you waiting for? End it.”

“Easier said than done,” Andreas replied. “You took a particle cannon like it was nothing. If that couldn’t do it…”

“Oh, I’m sure a second attempt will do the trick,” Sharrya said. She tapped a claw to her temple. “I may be immortal, but even I can’t survive without a skull, and regenerating brain tissue is beyond my ability. So hurry up and get on with it.”

Andreas stood over her, raising one robotic leg over her head. Even with the weight of a tank looming above her, there wasn’t a hint of fear in her eyes. He believed her when she said that this time, she wouldn’t survive such a blow, beaten and battered as she was.

“May you reclaim this Earth,” Sharrya said in the following silence.

With a grunt, Andreas brought his leg down, and even when its heavy landing rumbled the ground, Sharrya didn’t so much as blink. One side of her brow did quirk, however, when she turned to see the limb had pummelled the ash right beside her head.

“You’ve been fair with me,” Andreas muttered, his mech clunking as he moved back a few steps. “Now I’ll be fair with you, just this once.”

“Well that was overdramatic,” Sharrya said, gazing up at him in wonder. “You could have just said that instead of pretending to stomp my brains out…”

Andreas found a suitable place to stablise the mech, the joints locking

together as he activated the resting mode. Eva was doing one-eighties as she gazed from him to Sharrya, spinning like a floating top.

“If you won’t kill her, Seargent, now what?” Eva asked.

“Indeed,” Sharrya agreed. “What happens now? Am I free to go, wallow in my failure to best you?”

“Not quite,” Andreas said. The cockpit bloomed open like two petals, splitting into two halves that opened to the left and right. The cracked canopy glass grinded and produced a few more stray splits, but it held, the mech crouching of its own accord so Andreas could hop out onto the ash.

Sharrya’s eyes lingered on him for a second, her tongue snaking out to wet her lips. “Don’t tell me you plan on going hand-to-hand with me? While I’d enjoy the prospect of getting my claws on you, I don’t think you’d say the same.”

Even reduced to her ruined state, she still summoned up the will to chuckle at him, as if him holding her life in his hands just a second ago was now a lost memory. When he disappeared behind the mech’s bulk, then reappeared a moment later, he was holding something in his hands, and when her eyes darted toward it, that confident smile dropped off her mouth.

“What’s that?” she asked warily, shifting in the ditch as if she’d grown uncomfortable.