Pull the Throttle

His eyes snapped open.

Sparkles glittered through his vision—red and black and phantom white, bursting like stars as his lungs abruptly inflated. Air flooded them, his heart pounded; his blood roared in his ears as a tingling buzz surged up from under his skin—

"Lockie, close your eyes."

_________________

He stumbled back, sparkles wavering across his vision, his foot skimming air and his stomach shoving into his throat as he fell like a stone. Slamming his left hand forward, he—

No click, no movement, no clearing of vision.

That was the second damned time— He cursed his hand in three different languages, gripping the handle tight enough to crumple the damned thing and slamming it forward just as the shock of impact kicked the air from his lungs.

Letting his vision clear to see the point of a sword about to pin his skull to the road.

"Lachlan? Are you okay?"

His Samurai moved a fraction of a second behind him, the blade scraping off the edge of his helmet, the disconnect between his real body and the projection grating behind his teeth. Getting a little far off sync.

"Just fine," he gritted, throwing a kick up into Hirano's epitome of a Samurai as he flipped up onto his feet, the return swipe screeching off his helmet. "Ariake?"

"How far off sync are you?" The bird demanded. "Just go to four!"

"Not my question." He threw out a full-body barrier to weather Hirano's flurry of strikes, flicking out a handgun and pounding him with blind shots. "I need some help here!"

"I've found his teammates," Drake practically growled.

"They're converging on you." Ariake finally swooped down, his own ridiculously large broadsword slamming for Hirano's back.

"Trying to swamp us. They're the net and he's the bait." He grunted as Hirano dodged the swing by flipping over his head and trying to split him in two on the way down.

His shield shattered instead, the sword flicking around and glancing off his gauntlet buckler almost before it flashed to life. Shoving back against it, Lachlan punished him with a shot to the helmet, driving him back.

Ariake jumped smoothly into the gap with a stab Hirano casually directed over his shoulder, a chuckle abruptly crackling to life. "You've decided to fight with your team, Ari-kun. Good for you."

Conversation time now, was it? Lachlan kept his senses peeled as Ariake and Hirano had their little stand-off, Ariake's voice coming both through the radio and the Core's speaker. "I'm sorry, Goudon-san, but I'm not losing. I'll come at the top."

"Really." Lachlan raised his eyebrows, switching to his laser-rifle and snapping a white-hot shot under Hirano's arm as he parried away another strike. "Every time I suggest it, you laugh at me. But Goudon-san here says a couple words, and suddenly you're all determination."

He quietly snatched the flag off his hip as Ariake pressed the advantage, sculpting an opaque little armour plate over it and materialising a copy back in its former spot.

"I never said I didn't want to win, gaijin—"

Shooting Hirano square in the visor, forcing him to shield his face, Lachlan slapped the hidden flag on the back of Ariake's hip. The teen's slice twitched a little off-centre, a hiss spitting in his ear. "What did you—"

"Just a little swap. Pretend you're keeping Hirano occupied while I make a run for it." He smiled tightly, leaping up for the rooftops. "Nokami, cover him when he breaks off, but keep it subtle. Drake, release the hounds!"

"On it."

"Hmph. Your plan might actually work."

"Maybe Kyubi-sama did see something in me after all." Maybe it was the crackle prickling the hairs on his skin and thrumming in his veins, but he couldn't help baring his teeth a little in a grin as he spotted a flock of Samurai leap above the skyline. "Now the fun begins."

With Ariake now keeping Hirano pinned, Lachlan dashed for the little city's edge, leaping across onto a long, low garden-style rooftop, complete with trees and bushes. That shattered into sparkles when he slammed into it, a jolt searing through his back.

"Ngh!" He caught himself, rolling back into a coiled crouch and gritting his teeth. Didn't feel like a bolt had hit him—

A spear flew for his face, its owner right on its heels. He managed to dodge the one, his Samurai lagging painfully behind, dragged more by his mind than the fuzzy sense of its arms and legs overshadowed by his own body huffing for breath. But the other twisted like a cat, complete with a ghostly trail like a tail, and slammed an axe down on his shoulder.

Shite— Biting back a growl, he snapped a hand around her wrist, ramming the muzzle of a pistol under her throat with the other pins-and-needles consumed right, trigger already squeezed.

Twelve jerked back and left the blasted axe stuck there, her Samurai helmet fizzing. Couldn't fend her off with his arm out of whack, dammit. He had to waste a precious second yanking the axe out, the harsh breathing against the inside of his helmet clashing with the half-numb sense of his Samurai's fingers. Couldn't fight properly like this, either.

"Dammit!" Ariake's yell nearly distracted him from Twelve rushing forwards, aiming to tackle him. "Hirano-senpai got away!"

He picked his Samurai up and threw it to the side, dragging it like a puppet. "That's what we—"

"He activated Ki! He's in Spirit-state!"

"The hell what-now?"

"Synced five, gaijin!"

"You don't know what Spirit-state is? Unbelievable."

"Well it'd be nice if people told me—" He clenched his teeth as he danced around Twelve, crushing bushes and levelling trees, belatedly noticing ghostly ears right before she pulled a massive hammer on him and crunched him off into next Tuesday. Skipping, tumbling, and falling off somewhere he didn't quite notice thanks to the breath punched out of him, he never got to finish that sentence.

He slammed into the road and lost awareness for another flicker of a moment, lights in the cockpit blurring into the sapphire blue sky, a glimmer storm swirling around him mixing with motes floating up against the terraced side of the building. Felt like hanging halfway between his body and nowhere with his soul drawn out on a line and drifting on a kite-string. The kind of feeling he'd happily do anything to never replicate again.

Like feeling the light squeezed from the corners of his eyes, despite forcing them to stay open, going black anyway. Leaving the clammy pain of his skin behind despite clawing for the last dregs of it and flung away into a fuzzy black, bloody shapes strung out on a floor far away.

A sea of red reflected off dead green eyes.

"Don't look, Lockie."

He dragged in an aggressive breath just to reassure himself he still had lungs, squeezing his hands around throttles tight enough to shake. Dammit. This de-syncing thing was a pain in the arse.

A star falling from heaven only made it worse. A glowing sun appearing through the dizzying darkness of space, outshining streaks of pinprick-sized light.

He blinked and it had a sword.

Move. He jerked to the side on instinct, the thing moving sluggishly like he was dragging a metal behemoth instead of a glimmer projection with its control stick shoved up his spiritual arse. Move dammit!

A sharp point stabbed through his arm, the tingle of it spearing into his elbow, and he clamped his teeth around his tongue, materialising a pistol and yanking his other hand up—

The glowing, blurry visage of death's angel pulled out another sword and pinned that one, too. Before he could catch his breath, two more flipped into its hands and cracked through his legs like they were made out of butter.

Didn't feel like they were made out of butter, dammit. He ground his teeth, attempting to jerk away eons too late, and must've made some kind of noise despite his best effors, because a voice buzzed straight into his ear. "Lachlan?"

"Gaijin?"

"Ryu, can you see what happened?"

Multiple voices. Hirano loomed over him, and were those... pointed ears? Didn't look like a Samurai so much anymore. Had a fuzzy edge, a furry edge between points of armour, glowing blue dots—no, eyes—in a shadowy canine-style helmet bending down to look at him. And fangs.

He's a bloody wolf too?

"You'll have to do better than that if you want to win, gaijin." Could hear the smirk in his voice as Hirano looked him in the eyes.

An irrational part of him started up a rumble in the pit of his chest, and he bit it off, clenching his jaw, ignoring the radio chatter in his ears and sucking a deep breath in through his nose. Superpowered arsehole. Tapping the speaker toggle on the side of his right throttle, clenching the handle till the safety clicked, he smiled tightly. Ariake needed as much of a headstart as he could give. "Wouldn't be so sure about the winning. You've got two other teams after your head as well."

He threw the right-hand throttle forward just as Hirano gave an arrogant little chuckle and casually reached to pluck the flag, bracing himself.

This'd probably hurt.