File 2.1 - Crushing Pressure

“Why?! My…village…” Shizuka dug her fingers into Edgar’s arms. The pain that she felt pierced deeply in her core. Images of the people that she knew from the village flashed across her closed eyes. It became unbearable to watch, but her mind had a will of its own. The flames burning in the distance combined with the crashes of thunder from the machines fought to drill into her terrible images. Each flash stole a piece of her voice until she had nothing to scream.

At her side Edgar paid little attention to the fact that Shizuka held on to him despite the situation minutes before. He worried more about his life. While his life experienced more risk and danger than many, the center of a combat zone between giant machines scared him. He didn’t realize how much he shook because Shizuka rattled him to his core. Edgar prayed he made it out alive.

The reddish-pink blast from the Jiaolong slowly faded away into a winding column of smoke. Wreckage from the Skin laid scattered across a deep crater with most of the body obliterated. On the edge of the raised lip of earth at the crater broken pieces of homes struggled to stay standing. Spread out from the blast in all directions was debris from Welest. Faint screams raised from the ruined village drowned out by the fires and explosions from the fighting machines.

The giant demon that Callein faced down granted him no pause to mourn for his fallen subordinate. It forced him to keep moving to stay ahead of the beam fire. The lift from his flight pack kept him away from death’s door by a narrow margin. “The pilot’s getting more accurate the longer this battle drags on. I won’t be able to keep up if this goes any longer! I have to end this quickly!”

Callein forced his Peng for more output beyond a thick red line drawn in by hand on the system panel. The scientists and Jade developers that personally worked on the team made that line from their research. They insisted repeatedly to him never to take it past the line they marked while on Earth. It was the maximum thrust output deemed safe while in full gravity. The human body beyond that point took severe strain on the organs and body potentially causing the pilot to pass out or have organs rupture. The g-force alone made it difficult for Callein to keep his hands under control.

The Peng dodged the next blast that left a crater in the farmlands they trampled through. While the energy beam finished to dissipate heat the Peng went airborne again to make full usage of all the thrust capabilities. It drew closer to the Skadi avoiding the shots skillfully.

Inside the Skadi, Aerona maintained a flat expression monitoring the battle. Her plan to destroy the transport was delayed when forced away from the crash site. She knew that the battle remained on her side from judging the strength of the enemy. However, the flight type continued to elude her fire despite her refining the calculations. ‘The enemy is moving faster now. What has made it so fast that it was not doing this before?’ She only considered the thought for a moment before discarding it. ‘I should end this battle so I can get back to the unknown craft. Command has ordered it destroyed.’

The Peng roared closer to the Skadi beams shooting all around it making narrow adjustments barely holding together. At the last moments before a collision the Peng unleashed rapid shots from its Pair. A thick barrage of beams exploded upon the armor of the Skadi covering everything in light and dirt ruining the Peng’s cameras. The Peng changed angles of its thrust to clear the Skadi in time before a collision occurred, but a large hand broke through the cloud grabbing the Peng’s head in its palm.

Callein flung forward feeling his stomach tightened violently from his pilot suit stretched at his back seat plug unwilling to let him slam into his view screen. Internally, he felt a ripping pain through his chest and stomach that threw blood up into his throat making him smell copper. It made him strain to cough and keep focus with only one eye open through the pain. The primary camera that made up his head no longer functioned, destroyed on impact with the Skadi’s hand. A popping and groaning of metal above Callein echoed through him. He struggled to break free from the grasp witnessing his visibility on the screens disappear in pieces leaving a delayed static filled view of a metal palm and fingers. The perspective made it feel as though a giant hand wrapped around his body threatening to squeeze him, only held back by pure whim.