Losing the War

It took only a couple seconds for the Queen to be upon him. Harrison hadn’t even begun to fall yet when the Queen closed her hand around his throat. Tearing through the snow, ash, and smoke the Queen left a contrail behind her like the smoke behind a rocket as she caught the Pilgrim in her trajectory. Harrison was slammed against his cockpit with the sudden change in direction. He desperately tried to get his bearings, but the speed of the change left him feeling sick, almost as if the Queen had her hand around his own throat. He couldn’t tell which way was up. The Queen had her left arm extended out in front of her grasping Harrison with her right sticking out to the side to assist in her trajectory.

Just as Harrison thought he had enough of his sense back to formulate a counter he abruptly stopped moving hearing a large crash, sparks flying around him in all directions. Harrison was launched to the back of his unit before hanging back down in his cockpit swaying back and forth violently. Focusing on his cameras again trying to catch his breath, he saw the Queen staring at him dead in the eye. Backlit by the red flare and speckled by the sparks flying all around her, he tried to comprehend what she did until he focused on what was happening behind her, or more accurately underneath her. The town lay below them. Where was he?

Several chunks of the artificial sky fell past them, glitching in unison like static petals before cutting all together and falling to the hellscape below. As more sparks shot out around them, patchily illuminating the Queen as Harrison looked on, he came to a unnerving conclusion. The Queen had smashed Harrison into the ceiling of the arena. The arena glitched out as the red sky mixed with place holders of different stock arenas from forests to deserts to mountains and oceans before settling back on a shaky connection to the town’s snowy night sky and an error screen. Harrison tried to move but he was embedded in the machinery behind the screens enclosing the arena. As he twisted and turned the weight of the Pilgrim began to dislodge itself as its limbs loosened in their craters. But as his legs and arms began to fall the Pilgrim remained pinned by the Queen, who still had her hand around the Pilgrim’s neck. Harrison needed a plan quickly before she decided to drop him. He fumbled to right himself in his cockpit and pulled up his drone’s feed. And was astounded by what he saw.

From it’s perch on the skyscraper looking up through the clouds of ash and smoke the drone observed Harrison and The Queen, or more accurately just the Queen as he was completely obscured by her. Her jets emanated a blue light from her feet and hem as she propelled herself upward to keep the Pilgrim in place. She appeared in the center of a large crack that spread out in a jagged flower like pattern from where the Pilgrim and her struck down, small and large shard alike hanging and falling like petals in a sea of sparks and wires. If it wasn’t so terrifying it would almost be beautiful.

Then the queen clamped down harder straining the Pilgrim’s neck as she pulled him out of the hole. Harrison saw this as an opportunity to break free and grabbed her arm, placing his legs on her shoulder plate and attempted to wrench himself free, but he didn’t budge. Before Harrison could try again the Queen grabbed him by his left leg then let go of his neck as he flipped a complete 180 in the air, now held up upside down by his ankle. The Queen floated gently downward as Harrison struggled to grab hold of anything. He attempted to free his foot to no avail, her grip was too tight. He tried swinging towards her to punch her, stun her long enough to let him go so he could retreat to a better position. Wasn’t close enough. He searched his stores for his knife not realizing he had dropped it the second the Queen had initially collided with him. It now lay embedded in a bus station down below. As the Queen came to a halt she grabbed Harrison’s other leg with her right hand holding the Pilgrim similar to how a hunter would hold a doe they just bagged. Then she began to spin.

Not around mind you no, she began to flip head over heels dragging the Pilgrim with her. The Queen had brought her arms close to her with her hands still holding the Pilgrims ankles up next to her head. The Pilgrim hung on her back. Her jets in her legs and arms were on full blast as the iron hem’s shards were angled in all directions causing the spin she flip she was performing. HArriosn now pressed against the roof of his cockpit tried to focus on anything but his cameras couldn’t pick up a steady stream, he just wanted to turn them off so he wouldn’t be sicker than he was going to be, and then it just stopped.

For a few quick seconds Harrison was free. The Queen had let him go. Did she lose her grip? Did she do it intentionally? Harrison wished he had time to answer these questions before he collided with the roof of one of the skyscrapers abruptly coming to another stop. His head still spinning, Harrison tried to keep down his dinner while righting himself in the cockpit. He had to move. Recalibrating his cameras, he came back online resting in the now exposed top floor of the skyscraper. Desks lied scattered around him and papers fell from the sky along with the snow as the red glow of the flare still permeated around the town. Now seeing the crack with a more direct lens he could see just how large it was. The night sky was interrupted by what looked like a mechanical tear, or a portal. What pieces hadn’t fallen hung precariously by damaged rafters and wires as they struggled to keep the snowy night facade. He could stare at it for hours if the Queen wasn’t coming down on him at that moment.

Harrison activating the Pilgrim tried to scramble to his feet only to be pinned by the Queen striking him at an incredible speed. Error warnings and messages flashed all over his hud as he felt the force of the impact collapse several more floors underneath them. A dust cloud now covered the top of the building, Harrison tried to make heads our tails of what he could do to escape but his movements weren’t registering. A massive head came through the cloud hovering right over his and he realized the Queen had him pinned, straddling him. He tried reaching for his grenades, but they were stuck underneath her. He tried to punch her again but just as he brought his fists up the iron hem appeared from the cloud and pinned his arms into the rubble. Harrison struggled frantically spamming an electric stun key sent a strong current through his arms, but the hem shards nullified the effect on contact. He was stuck again. Not only stuck but trapped. As the cloud settled, he could see just how massive the Queen’s mech was compared to his own. His confidence or what was left of it disappeared as she raised her arm back slowly forming her right hand into a fist, the bringing it around with lightning-fast speed onto the Pilgrim before repeating the process with the other fist. Then the other, then the other. Pummeling him. The sound of metal on metal was almost overbearing as the Pilgrim took hit after hit, doing its best to withhold the barrage.

Eventually the hits moved u p from the chest to his head as the reinforced steel glass struggled to keep them camera array safe. Each hit caused them to black out momentarily only turning back on right for a split second before each punch, showing a fist colliding with the glass for half a second then repeating. At this rate, the match would be called once Harrison could no longer see his surroundings. He was growing desperate. Several more floors collapsed as the hits just kept coming creating a burrow into the building with the corners of the skyscraper now forming four several story high spires reaching into the sky. Harrison cross from this embarrassing display finally formulated a plan he believed could work, and he took off his headset. Flipping around in his harness he too off his helmet and dug underneath his manual weapons control board finding his electric stun battery and disconnecting it, then hooking it up to the Pilgrims lighting array. This move would risk burning out all the lights in the cockpit and the Pilgrim, but he would still be able to move, that’s a problem he’d have to figure out later.

The shaking and pummeling continued to jostle Harrison around as he climbed back into his harness putting his helmet back on. He quickly ignited his flood lights simultaneously turning down the brightness on his camera feeds as a blinding beam of light shone from his chest, the recessed bulbs were miraculously unshattered as they only got brighter and brighter. The Queen’s attack stopped as she brought up one of her hands to shield her eyes punching blindly with the other missing Harrison as she couldn’t find her mark despite being right on top of him. She lifted her hem freeing Harrison and leaned backwards falling off the building to escape the barrage. Several bulbs started to pop as Harrison quickly turned off his flood lights forcing his eyes to contrast to the muted red shining in the dark. He wanted to take a moment to collect himself but there was no time, and he jumped to his feet hearing an exceptional amount of twisted metal and rusty movements. The Queen had done a real number on him.

Quickly he jumped off the side of the building hoping to avoid another surprise landing and fell down the side of the skyscraper dragging his arm in the glass until he found what he was looking for. A place to hide. With the pummeling the building suffered major damage and several portions of the sides of the buildings had broken away leaving cave like holes in their wake. He dug his hand into the glass to stop his descent and dove into one of the caves quickly turning around and scanning the sky for the Queen seeing nothing. He then ran a diagnostic scan of the Pilgrim expecting for a unit rating of at least 50%. “40% Structural Integrity, Repairs Recommended.” The Pilgrim reported. Harrison peaked out of the hole once more before looking cautiously for the Queen before retreating and running a minor repair program. Four drones came out of a damaged bay door in the Pilgrims abdomen that quickly found their way around him. One flash melted the glass covering his array on his head together as the others flew around replacing wires and bending armor plates back into shape. It was practically the equivalent of putting on a fresh pair of clothes after getting beat up, but anything would help at this point. Harrison checked his hud for the game timer, only two minutes remained. “Even if I don’t win, I can at least survive to the end of the match. I’ll run if I must, but I can’t let her humiliate me further.” Harrison thought, just as the sounds of jets flew by. He shuddered quickly flipping for his drone’s camera. But once he found it, he was confused. Instead of the sky from down below or the intersection where he left the drone, he was looking at a hole in the side of a skyscraper with the Pilgrim in it, catching on just a second too late.

Harrison jumped out of repair mode and began to run forward looking up to his right. The Queen hovered holding her left hand out, presumably holding his drone as she crushed it with her hand tossing it to the street below as she shot towards him. As he fell Harrison tried to flip around the buildings corner like he did before succeeding in grabbing the column but not before the Queen struck him, launching him from his grasp and colliding with the buildings below, landing in a small parking lot off an alley behind the remains of a bar. Luckily he aligned himself to land on his feet almost loosing his balance, but before he had the time to run the Queen landed behind destroying a pharmacy. She instantly crouched low and ignited her jets to assist in a sweeping kick that knocked the Pilgrim off its feet and into the air. Before he could fall, several parts of the hem formed a shield attached to her arm that caught the Pilgrim mid fall. Extending herself into another launch as she held the shield with the Pilgrim on it out in front of her as she rammed him into the second skyscraper, angling the shield upwards as she boosted her jets even further. Harrison reached for his grenades in his legs but the ones he did manage to get a hold on had no affect against the shield and couldn’t reach the Queen’s unit.

After another large burst from her jets the two mechs took off up the side of the skyscraper, the Queen smashing the Pilgrim upwards floor by floor as glass and concrete flew around her like snow off a snowplow. Harrison mentally exhausted and couldn’t think of a counter. He was doomed. The Queen had played him at the beginning of the match waiting for him to enact his plan then completely flipped the tables by throwing him around like a rag doll. The Pilgrim’s error messages resumed as the structural integrity began to decline rapidly, entire subsystems turning on and off as they struggled to keep the unit running the higher the two went. Harrison thought back to the Queens first move behind Adeline. He thought many things in that time believing it was a protective move for the Pawn to make the Sentinel’s avoid lining up for battle there, but he now saw it clearly for what it was. A threat, just like their own, predetermined, and single minded through both Adeline’s and Nick’s matches. “She wanted to fight me, she wanted me to know it.” Harrison thought as the two mechs passed the roof flying clear into the sky. Much of the Pilgrim’s armor had been stripped off revealing the basic Gazelle unit skeleton underneath. The head no longer moved smoothly on it’s neck joint as it felt like it would break off every time it tried to move more then a couple degrees in either direction. His armor was all but gone, scattered in the climbing trail in the skyscraper of in the ground down below. Harrison tired to move any of his limbs as the Queen cut her jets and dove from under him, leaving him to float a bit upwards before stopping for a second floating in air.

His legs were unresponsive and one of his arms moved at a jutted and injured pace while the other did nothing at all. Harrison tried to ignite his thrusters so he could catch a large piece of the ceiling and use it to bash the Queen on her return, but he was just a tad short as he began to fall again. The thrusters didn’t help as expected as the few working ones just propelled him to the left, now dooming him to another collision course but this time with the side of the arena. Reaching out with his one good arm he hoped to grab anything that could help him, eventually catching something, but once realizing what he caught, or more accurately what caught him, he desperately tried to let go. The Queen had come around once more and stuck out her hand catching Harrison’s who desperately tried to pull away and wiggle free to no avail. The Queen launched another flair into the air, colliding wit the arena’s ceiling and exploding over the crack causing more shards and sparks to fall, the revived red glow infesting every shadow and corner at the top of the arena. The Pilgrim continued it’s struggle but it was trashed so thoroughly you couldn’t even tell he was trying to move.

The Queen tossed Harrison up just a bit before catching him again holding one of his arms in each of hers. He hung there, silently, as she brought her arms apart stretching the Pilgrim across her chest as the unit began to strain. Harrison watched his feed now staring right into her face as she continued to pull the Pilgrim in different directions. Harrison would be continuing his despairing freak out if something didn’t catch his eye.

Through the abundant sounds of straining metal and the fear of his cockpit being torn apart and falling to his death, Harrison noticed something about the Queens head carapace in the fresh vibrant red glow of the flare. Even with the black security glass the flare was close enough to penetrate it revealing a giant face like shape beneath the cover. He couldn’t see it clearly, but it was almost like looking in murky water and seeing a vague shape of something looking back at you. Harrison was shocked at what he’d seen distracting him to the point of not realizing the iron hem spinning around the two mechs as they reached top speed flying at Harrison putting several cuts into his legs and arms while avoiding the Queen. The hem shards passed quickly and repeatedly effectively cutting away at the joints until finally, Harrison’s left arm came free in the Queens hand as the rest of the body went slack.

Harrison’s attention was yanked back to the matter at hand when he felt his unit lose a significant portion of weight and fell loosely by one arm. Harrison tried to move his remaining good arm only to find it unresponsive. The hem adjusted coming back around severing his legs, both falling to the town. The Pilgrim was now just a single limbed torso that the Queen was holding at arm’s length out in front of her. She crushed the left arm before dropping it, then rose her other arm holding the Pilgrim. She quickly yanked him up, then spiked him down to the street landing on the handle of his own knife imbedding it into the Pilgrims shoulder, killing his one remaining arm. Harrison didn’t even bother to move as the match timer rang out. The game maker stuttered his way through the loudspeaker until he found his words, breathless and shocked himself. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE GOLEM’S TAKE D5 AS THE QUEEN DEFEATS HARRISON ANDROSS”.