File 10.10 - Cruel Paths

“Freya secured,” the pilot of the transport said over the comm. to Shizuka.

With it positioned on its back, the cockpit seat hugged around her more than usual. It had a further unnervingly surrounding and engulfing feeling to it. It felt less like she controlled something and more that she just sat inside a machine with a will of its own.

The pull of the acceleration of the transport reminded her that they were taking her away. Being inside the transport, the screens only showed the interior. She had almost no sense of her location, short of the small port holes that viewed the sky.

Suddenly, a video popped up on her monitor followed by another and another. Shizuka stared at them for a moment not sure what she was looking at, but quickly realized what they showed. “Edgar, Ensign Toule and Aerona…this is the battle…” She tried to move in close to the feeds, but they didn’t respond to her commands. They kept appearing, filling her entire vision until that was all she could see. “Why are you showing me this? Ms. Trimlore, what’s going on?”

Silence.

“Ms. Trimlore?” Panic began to set into the back of her mind as she couldn’t escape the images. No communication went out and she couldn’t even power the machine down. “Why is everything locked?! What’s going on?”

She watched explosions going off in the city. The flying machine hunting down Ed. Out of the city, Ansgar and Aerona took heavy fire, unable to provide support. Even with Edgar sent to help, he looked to be struggling as well. The terrorists had them trapped still.

Shizuka closed her eyes not wanting to look at it, but it only made it worse as the sounds still filled her ears. Without any of the context of the images, she didn’t know if an explosion might have meant harm to someone that she knew. Tightening her hands up on the control sticks, she couldn’t do anything. She was stuck inside and sealed away doing nothing. “Why…make it…stop…”

“Cal, take the next right!”

Pulling the Peng sharply around the building, the street widened out, but it also gave the Green Devil on his tail an easier time quickly coming around the turn. He dove down to the streets just as Wells fired off a double shot from his rifle. His Peng groaned as the metal frame started to show the wear from the battle.

“Shit!” Ed yelped, yanking back on the stick getting clipped by the beams on his wing. Warnings shot through his monitor as the temperatures rose. He could still fly, it wasn’t enough to affect his flight. But he stared down at the enemy Ormt recognizing it. “Two shots at near super human reactions…it’s YOU! Yer the one! You bastard!”

He immediately gave up the chase on the flight machine directly targeting Wells’ machine with a concentrated beam fire. “I’m gonna kill you!” Ed’s eyes widened with his pupils flaring up at the sight of the one. One of the reasons that he got his act together was to find this man. He was grateful to whatever god put them in front of them.

“Got his attention!” Beams ripped through his Jiao completely destroying the left arm and blowing up his rifle, which he threw before it exploded. Blasts rocked his Skin around as he hung on, hugged by the air pockets. “Schir! Do it!” His Jiao knelt down under the stress.

“Pol!”

“Firing!”

Out from behind Wells’ Jiao came another hidden beam emplacement. The high powered beam shot over his head striking directly on the Green Devil’s head and shoulders. Engulfing the machine in light, it disappeared briefly before shooting out of the blue energy smoking.

“Edgar?!” yelled Shizuka watching his AESIR crash into the earth throwing debris high into the air. She slammed her hands up against the monitor staring at the smoking wreckage not knowing if he lived. The wings and fins on the back melted or burned away. “Edgar! Edgar! Get it up!”

“Nice shooting, Schir!” Wells praised and then his line went dead as a beam shot through his Jiao completely incinerating the cockpit with him. Through the hole in the machine, the Od’s arm dropped to the ground with a rifle in hand.

Ed coughed roughly with blood streaming down his forehead from a cut. Sparks blew off from the destroyed or damaged monitors. Only the center monitor remained together with his main camera flickering. He stared darkly at the Ormt exploding where it stood. “See ya in hell…”