September 13, AD 2880
Area 11, Former Miyagi Prefecture
Sakuradite Extraction Zone
Was it safe to utilize Knightmare Frames near a deposit of infamously unstable minerals?
The roar of Landspinners answered Fenton's thoughts, and he shook off the dreary dawn with a ragged sigh. His fingers fumbled for his Sutherland's ignition as a matching unit blasted across the flattened expanse of dirt, weaving through a silent lot of dead machinery. Behind it, the entrance to the mines still yawned wide, black jaws in the faint light of a waking sun. When he turned his machine's Factsphere skywards, experimentally lifting the delicate camera's shielding, it was as if he was seeing the crimson wisps creeping over the horizon with his own eyes.
There were worse sights elsewhere in the Empire. Perhaps there was something inherent to this land that made it worth retaining even after war and bloodshed.
"They've pushed this shaft to the brink," the incoming KMF chirped. The pilot's voice was professional but uncharacteristically tense. "The workers are - "
"The Elevens have kept output stable for the last two months." Fenton's flat voice creaked to life in response, bearing the signature edge of a long shift. His Knightmare moved with a slight lag as its drive warmed, and it hefted its assault rifle into its hands. A few beeps punctuated targeting uplinks in the cockpit, onboard computers compensating for wind and pressure. He steadied the mobile weapon's feet as it rose and watched his companion whirl to a halt. Dust rose in a faint puff as wheels ground to a sudden stop, briefly marring his still-exposed Factsphere. A leisurely conducted system sweep resolved the brief visual glitch, but the annoyance prompted an almost caustic reply.
"As long as it stays that way, there is no need for concern."
"Y-yes, but - "
"They're Elevens. They've been through worse."
He gently tested the control sticks, teasing them forwards. The sluggishness was gone, now, replaced with smooth motion. He boosted forwards, making a wide turn, and tracked back towards the mine's entrance, bypassing the same lot of inactive vehicles. The waning activity in the previous weeks had occurred quietly, beneath notice - perhaps there was credence to the claim that the supervisors were overworking the Elevens. There were alternative explanations; perhaps more delicate operations were being run deep in the earth, or the failure to locate new veins of Sakuradite had led to resources shifted elsewhere.
Sakuradite. Volatile. Temperamental. He was piloting a walking bomb.
At the very least, his duties were on the surface. If the unrefined material below exploded, he would be untouched.
"...This place isn't the worst, huh? The sunrise is beautiful."
It was an awkward attempt to change the topic, but it succeeded. Lost in thought, Fenton failed to compensate for the first set of tremors. His Sutherland toppled forwards as the ground rumbled, and when he regained his balance, he could taste blood on his tongue. Panic flared in his chest, then shock, and lastly, an unreasonable rage.
"Damn Elevens! What have they done now?" He furiously reset his orientation, bringing the Knightmare back onto its feet, and broke into a sprint. A moment later, he extended Landspinners, transitioning into rolling motion. The realization hit as he forced the machine to glance over his shoulder, futilely glancing for a viable explanation.
His companion voiced it at the same time as the thought blasted across his waking brain.
"The heavy machinery isn't in use! The tunnels are -"
The tunnels were collapsing.
Why?
He tapped into the local network, immediately overwhelmed by the cacophony of screams and blaring alerts. Useless, disorienting, not what he needed - he flicked them off, charging the mineshaft in a futile attempt to grasp the situation unfolding. The other Sutherland was right on his heels.
Together, they reached the entrance just in time to see it cave in.
"No, no, no!"
It was a hasty, desperate act, but he leveled his assault rifle and fired. The oversized rounds chewed directly through the loose rock and shifting gravel at a nearly breakneck pace, but before he could make any real progress, his companion reached out and shoved the weapon's muzzle skyward. Already agitated, he broke loose and threw an ill-considered punch, sending the other machine reeling. A fresh set of alerts roared to life around him, reminding him incessantly of the fact that he had just attacked a friendly. Discordant, wild thoughts bounced into each other and fused. There was a madhouse dancing in his head.
"What are you doing?! We have to - "
"It's Sakuradite! If there's a payload coming up, you'll kill everyone on the other side of the blockage!"
"You - !"
A blur of black metal cut his words in two. The Sutherland before him stood with Stun Tonfas extended, arm raised as if to step forwards, but it was still. Hydraulic fluid streamed from sundered metal. His eyes had failed to register the event - it was when he blinked, shaking hands translating into stumbling steps, that he finally saw.
A fiend materialized in the rising sun, sliding into reality.
"Wh-what-what?"
It hadn't been there a moment before. Just over twice as tall as Fenton's machine, it hardly towered, but it filled his vision and sensors with angular shadow and alien lines. Even with its humanoid frame, it seemed entirely divorced from the human consciousness. A dream plucked from a child's feverish mind, beat and twisted into steel and carbon. Although he had no way of knowing its codename, he would have found its actual designation entirely appropriate.
Fenton fired. His steed obeyed with unquestioning, unflinching fury, unleashing the last of its ammunition in a horizontal column of steel-shattering shells.
The Belial was by his side before he could blink.
"Lambda Driver. Operation Pattern - "
Pain scythed through his body, and the demon's claws found his cockpit before he could do anything else.
"...You all die the same way."
Basking in the silence, the Belial turned away, pulling its hand free from its fresh kill. Behind it, the tunnels and shafts of the mine still teemed with muffled anguish. The same Sakuradite that had prevented Fenton from simply breaking the trapped workers free would disrupt rescue efforts for some time, and it wouldn't make its way into Britannian hands as long as the entrances were blocked. It was satisfying to see everything fall into place - and to think that he'd only had weeks to plan the operation.
Lavrentiy Morden sat back in his Arm Slave's cramped cockpit and regarded the blinking displays surrounding him with faintly disguised contentment.
It worked.
All of it worked.
"Deploying ECS."
The Belial vanished as if it had never been.
Area 11, Former Miyagi Prefecture
Sakuradite Extraction Zone
Was it safe to utilize Knightmare Frames near a deposit of infamously unstable minerals?
The roar of Landspinners answered Fenton's thoughts, and he shook off the dreary dawn with a ragged sigh. His fingers fumbled for his Sutherland's ignition as a matching unit blasted across the flattened expanse of dirt, weaving through a silent lot of dead machinery. Behind it, the entrance to the mines still yawned wide, black jaws in the faint light of a waking sun. When he turned his machine's Factsphere skywards, experimentally lifting the delicate camera's shielding, it was as if he was seeing the crimson wisps creeping over the horizon with his own eyes.
There were worse sights elsewhere in the Empire. Perhaps there was something inherent to this land that made it worth retaining even after war and bloodshed.
"They've pushed this shaft to the brink," the incoming KMF chirped. The pilot's voice was professional but uncharacteristically tense. "The workers are - "
"The Elevens have kept output stable for the last two months." Fenton's flat voice creaked to life in response, bearing the signature edge of a long shift. His Knightmare moved with a slight lag as its drive warmed, and it hefted its assault rifle into its hands. A few beeps punctuated targeting uplinks in the cockpit, onboard computers compensating for wind and pressure. He steadied the mobile weapon's feet as it rose and watched his companion whirl to a halt. Dust rose in a faint puff as wheels ground to a sudden stop, briefly marring his still-exposed Factsphere. A leisurely conducted system sweep resolved the brief visual glitch, but the annoyance prompted an almost caustic reply.
"As long as it stays that way, there is no need for concern."
"Y-yes, but - "
"They're Elevens. They've been through worse."
He gently tested the control sticks, teasing them forwards. The sluggishness was gone, now, replaced with smooth motion. He boosted forwards, making a wide turn, and tracked back towards the mine's entrance, bypassing the same lot of inactive vehicles. The waning activity in the previous weeks had occurred quietly, beneath notice - perhaps there was credence to the claim that the supervisors were overworking the Elevens. There were alternative explanations; perhaps more delicate operations were being run deep in the earth, or the failure to locate new veins of Sakuradite had led to resources shifted elsewhere.
Sakuradite. Volatile. Temperamental. He was piloting a walking bomb.
At the very least, his duties were on the surface. If the unrefined material below exploded, he would be untouched.
"...This place isn't the worst, huh? The sunrise is beautiful."
It was an awkward attempt to change the topic, but it succeeded. Lost in thought, Fenton failed to compensate for the first set of tremors. His Sutherland toppled forwards as the ground rumbled, and when he regained his balance, he could taste blood on his tongue. Panic flared in his chest, then shock, and lastly, an unreasonable rage.
"Damn Elevens! What have they done now?" He furiously reset his orientation, bringing the Knightmare back onto its feet, and broke into a sprint. A moment later, he extended Landspinners, transitioning into rolling motion. The realization hit as he forced the machine to glance over his shoulder, futilely glancing for a viable explanation.
His companion voiced it at the same time as the thought blasted across his waking brain.
"The heavy machinery isn't in use! The tunnels are -"
The tunnels were collapsing.
Why?
He tapped into the local network, immediately overwhelmed by the cacophony of screams and blaring alerts. Useless, disorienting, not what he needed - he flicked them off, charging the mineshaft in a futile attempt to grasp the situation unfolding. The other Sutherland was right on his heels.
Together, they reached the entrance just in time to see it cave in.
"No, no, no!"
It was a hasty, desperate act, but he leveled his assault rifle and fired. The oversized rounds chewed directly through the loose rock and shifting gravel at a nearly breakneck pace, but before he could make any real progress, his companion reached out and shoved the weapon's muzzle skyward. Already agitated, he broke loose and threw an ill-considered punch, sending the other machine reeling. A fresh set of alerts roared to life around him, reminding him incessantly of the fact that he had just attacked a friendly. Discordant, wild thoughts bounced into each other and fused. There was a madhouse dancing in his head.
"What are you doing?! We have to - "
"It's Sakuradite! If there's a payload coming up, you'll kill everyone on the other side of the blockage!"
"You - !"
A blur of black metal cut his words in two. The Sutherland before him stood with Stun Tonfas extended, arm raised as if to step forwards, but it was still. Hydraulic fluid streamed from sundered metal. His eyes had failed to register the event - it was when he blinked, shaking hands translating into stumbling steps, that he finally saw.
A fiend materialized in the rising sun, sliding into reality.
"Wh-what-what?"
It hadn't been there a moment before. Just over twice as tall as Fenton's machine, it hardly towered, but it filled his vision and sensors with angular shadow and alien lines. Even with its humanoid frame, it seemed entirely divorced from the human consciousness. A dream plucked from a child's feverish mind, beat and twisted into steel and carbon. Although he had no way of knowing its codename, he would have found its actual designation entirely appropriate.
PLAN 1055
BELIAL
The Sutherland's head lay by its feet, exposed Factsphere sputtering uselessly, and the ejection mechanism lay in a tattered set of shattered alloy behind it. What was left of the doomed Knightmare's cockpit sat in the Belial's mechanical claws, leaking silence. It tossed away the wreckage as Fenton struggled to find his voice, kicking aside the immobilized body, and turned its gaze to him. The strange, wing-like fins attached to its shoulders flipped up, and an ephemeral glow burst into existence between them. Within his next, hurried breaths, the Belial was shrouded within a gossamer shell of mounting wind, already stalking towards him with serpentine grace.BELIAL
Fenton fired. His steed obeyed with unquestioning, unflinching fury, unleashing the last of its ammunition in a horizontal column of steel-shattering shells.
The Belial was by his side before he could blink.
"Lambda Driver. Operation Pattern - "
Pain scythed through his body, and the demon's claws found his cockpit before he could do anything else.
"...You all die the same way."
Basking in the silence, the Belial turned away, pulling its hand free from its fresh kill. Behind it, the tunnels and shafts of the mine still teemed with muffled anguish. The same Sakuradite that had prevented Fenton from simply breaking the trapped workers free would disrupt rescue efforts for some time, and it wouldn't make its way into Britannian hands as long as the entrances were blocked. It was satisfying to see everything fall into place - and to think that he'd only had weeks to plan the operation.
Lavrentiy Morden sat back in his Arm Slave's cramped cockpit and regarded the blinking displays surrounding him with faintly disguised contentment.
It worked.
All of it worked.
"Deploying ECS."
The Belial vanished as if it had never been.
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