October 04, 4021 09:33 [Lahab Mutajamid Desert]

The air had become ashen, and the sands were stained red with the blood of friend and foe alike. Amidst a sea of confusion stood Akula, lashing out at anything that didn’t adorn the insignia of Yuèliàng. The Lancers had been deployed, charging at the fortress with a terrifying purpose.

Though it aimed to encircle the battalion, the Levantan Mobile Fortress now found itself engaged in combat with the greater portion of Yuèliàng’s armed forces. Had they waited for the regiments to disperse accordingly, their situation may have fared better. Yet, as they were, the Levantans faced a dangerous prospect.

It was only reasonable then that they should launch as much of their military might as the mobile fortress’ capacity allowed for. Its ground compartments opened to heights mirroring those of the Lancers, almost as if inviting their enemy inside. However, these compartments held a new kind of vehicle; one whose purpose was to subjugate Homunculi, not that of raging metal behemoths.

Still, the need to survive begot adaptation and that was precisely what the Levantans did—they adapted. Ghastly machines wrought of iron and steel, puffed black smoke as Virya deposits stoked their fires; they were as large in stature as the Lancers themselves, though ten were not nearly as powerful as one of the Uturian models.

What these machines lacked in power, they made up for in number, clashing with the Lancers in a brutal fashion. They threw themselves and their weaponry to the slaughter, content in their sacrifice, so long as they slowed their enemy enough for their comrades to land a strike to the hull.

Beams of energy rained down upon the battlefield, scorching the earth and blooming glass from the superheated sands.

“Machina!” Dot exclaimed over the radio.

“Focus on providing cover fire!” Hart ordered. “Mirai, Gauss! We’ll work on breaching the walls of the fortress. Anari and Kafka, deal with the Machina and see if you can take out the outer turrets and railguns—give our troops a little breathing room! Ground troops, protect the supplies, and stay alive. Follow Temujin’s orders!”

“Yes, sir!” they stated in unison.

Akula had lost sight of the mechanics in the chaos, attempting to contact Aisha, only to hear static over the speaker. He grew panicked as the situation devolved around him. Soldiers were massacred in droves, their entrails spilling out.

A myriad of scents assaulted Akula’s senses. The innumerable sources of blood attacked his nose from such a range of directions he could not differentiate a single progenitor. It all became a wave of the same metallic odor.

He could smell the aftermath. The air was putrid; the acrid aroma of burnt flesh lingered throughout. The noxious atmosphere and the carnage that ensued made Akula sick to his stomach.

He had seen death before—on numerous occasions. Yet, this was beyond the scope of his imagination. Death was not swift here; it was painful and agonizing. He witnessed a man crawling across the battlefield as his organs spilled out of his severed torso. His blood seeped into the sand, wetting it as his movements slowed and his eyes stared blankly into the distance.

Another held the side of his face, trying in vain to cover a wound that had had the tissue ripped from it, leaving parts of the skull visible. He whimpered softly, rocking back and forth as he cried out for his mother.

Machina rushed past the Lancers, breaking rank as they launched an assault on the ground troops. Blasts of energy from their shoulder cannons and their sheer size devastated the regiments as the machines vaporized some and pulverized others underfoot.

Temujin relayed orders swiftly and efficiently, directing the regiments into formations to carry out countermeasures against the Machina. A combination of Traits and weaponry felled many a machine as their forces collided.

Akula stood frozen, his senses overwhelmed. All the training, the preparation, and the sleepless nights felt wasted on him as he stood face-to-face with a Machina. He craned his neck as it loomed over him.

He could not feel his fingers, or his toes, for that matter. A numbness had overtaken him and a ringing noise permeated through his ears.

What am I doing here?

“Move!” A flash of green slammed into the cockpit of the Machina, crushing the pilot inside. The machine toppled over, sending a plume of smoke and sand into the air, blinding Akula momentarily.

“What the hell are you doing?!” Skadi scolded him as she emerged from the wreckage. “Don’t just stand there! Keep moving! We need to help the others!”

“But Temujin—”

“He has things under control here! We should be at the fortress helping them take it down!”

“Skadi, I don’t know where Aisha is!” Akula exclaimed. “I have to find her first!”

“She’s safe. I saw her crawl into the cockpit of Phantom//Fracture with Anari,” she said, pointing to the white Lancer cleaving through Machina with an ivory sword. “She must have dropped her radio in all the commotion.”

She’s safe.

Akula breathed a sigh of relief. Another beam of energy exploded near them, sending shards of glass their way. Skadi pulled Akula behind her wing, shielding him from the fragments.

“Is your mind clear now?”

Akula nodded, steeling himself. Mirai and Aisha would be safe inside the Lancers for now. He followed Skadi into the thick of battle as they rushed through a sea of enemies, hacking and dodging their way through projectiles. Heads flew and limbs were torn asunder as they slaughtered Levantan soldiers entering the fray.

They targeted the legs of Machina and the pilots inside, neutering the brains and means of transport, evading the rain of bullets from the fortress turrets and cannon fire from the shoulders of other Machina.

Akula gnashed his teeth, struggling to maintain focus as stimuli from the battlefield continued to bombard him with information and overload his senses. The horrible scents lingered, permeating the air. He could not tell where his comrades were for more than a second before his vision was impaired by another plume of sand, ash, and glass.

He spotted Ghost driving around the field in the Crawler, healing injured soldiers as Slump and Temujin guarded her. Akula grimaced. She would not be able to heal everyone.

Slump created a circle of fire around Ghost to ward off enemies as she treated the injured. He snapped his fingers, causing an instantaneous combustion reaction that incinerated those foolish enough to try and breach the flames.

The enemy wisened up, dispersing into the ranks of Yuèliàng’s troops, preventing Slump from attacking them with ‘Flashfire’. The tactic lasted all of two minutes, however, proving ineffective in Temujin’s presence. He punched the ground forcefully, causing pillars of black stone to erupt from the sand and shatter the bones of the Levantan soldiers as they tried to disappear amongst Yuèliàngian soldiers.

In the meantime, Skadi and Akula had finally broken through the enemy ranks just as Mirai and Hart did the same with their Lancers, parting the vanguard of the Levantan Mobile Fortress. Mirai swept the soldiers on the ramparts aside with False//Frame’s long arms as Hart shattered one of the fortress’ reinforced walls, throwing Hollow//Fragment’s pronged lance at it. The weapon burned violently, its flames’ blistering heat causing enemy soldiers nearby to melt into puddles.

Hart quenched the flames of the lance, allowing their troops to rush the fortress.

“Move in!” he ordered Mirai, directing the other Lancers to stay outside and deal with stragglers and Machina as they destabilized the fortress from the inside.

Gauss alerted the others of the breach to the inner walls, lifting soldiers over the rubble and into the fortress with his ferrofluid. He helped Akula onto the remaining ramparts, shielding him from projectiles as Skadi followed.

The three of them dodged a maelstrom of bullets, raising up shields.

“You think these bastards would give up once their walls were destroyed,” Gauss grunted. “I gotta hand it to ‘em. They’re really willing to go down with their ship!”

The three launched a counterattack when the enemy started to reload.

Gauss magnetized the weapons and crumpled them all together into a large sphere. He feinted off the ramparts and slammed into the ground, directing shards of metal straight through the skulls of the Levantan soldiers. A cannon aimed at Gauss’ back was set off from a corner of the ramparts that remained standing.

Akula quickly cut the soldier operating the cannon down to size as Skadi jumped in front of the projectile, shattering it with her shield.

They continued to fight their way through the fortress, picking off enemies as they went. The three used the Lancers as scaffolding, climbing over and around the machines to travel easily between the upper and lower floors.

Skadi, Akula, and Gauss alternated their attacks, switching back and forth while covering each other’s backs as they finished off the last of the soldiers and incapacitated the engineers.

Outside, flashes of purple lit up the battlefield. Swarms of pink drones flew about, carrying turrets and gunning down every enemy in sight with pinpoint accuracy.

As Akula emerged from the destroyed fortress, he witnessed Phantom//Fracture cut down the last of the Machina with its ivory sword. Some damage had been dealt to Anari’s Lancer, though it remained in one piece. Aisha was safe. He watched as False//Frame and Hollow//Fragment pushed the rubble aside, allowing the troops inside to exit the fortress. Mirai was safe as well.

“We’re…alive,” Akula said softly.

Skadi smiled, punching him in the shoulder. “We sure are. And, with all the Bloodhounds to boot.”

“You did good, Gilly,” Gauss said to Akula, giving him a nod of approval.

Soldiers cheered, embracing one another. They had survived their first battle. The victory was not without loss, but the ones who lived would carry on the spirits of the fallen. It was a moment meant for respite as they tended to the wounded, rounded up prisoners, and recovered bodies. Yet, this moment would not last long.

Along the horizon, near the glacial mountain range, the silhouettes of three monolithic airships floated above a line of Levantan Mobile Fortresses. The fortress they had defeated was simply a scouting party. The main force had been lying in wait, observing them from afar.

“They won’t meet us in the middle,” Hart sighed. “Guess that was expected. Hey, pale face,” —he addressed Akula over the radio— “you asked me how long I thought this war would last. Pray you see the end of it, because either way, it looks like it’ll end soon. They brought all of Levante.”