«Vanguard 5 to —guard 1, co— in.»

“This is Vanguard 1…” Mote responded quietly to Major Hackett’s comm call. As he did, he stopped walking forward and silently indicated for Mark and Kate — who were following him — to do the same. “…You’re breaking up, Vanguard 5,” Mote eventually replied.

«Damn ca—. One —ond.» Static briefly overtook the line. It died down a second later, but remained in the audio backdrop as Hackett continued, «…alright. Is this better?»

“For now. What do you need?”

«A status report. Have you found the targets yet?»

Mote paused for a moment to look around at his dark surroundings. The rocky walls of a small, linear cave served as the only objects within sight, aside from Mark and Kate — and the only illumination came from the electricity that Mote arced through the air from his right index finger to his left. His armor had a brighter method of illumination, but in the dark caves, too bright a light source would simply give the group away to any enemy observers.

The Electrotechnic then glanced toward the rocky ground. While no cords could be seen, Mote could sense a nearby active electrical wire — likely hidden within the rocky walls. But aside from that one wire… “…We haven’t found the targets yet,” Mote responded. “They must be deeper in the caves.”

“It seems dangerous to go much farther,” Mark commented. “We don’t know what they have with them. What if they cave everything in…?”

“Then I’ll just use my explosives to blast us out, duh,” Kate retorted.

“No, he has a point…” Mote muttered. “We need a way to deal with this…”

«If you go much farther, you’ll be on your own,» Major Hackett said, though the ever-present sound of static in the background of her voice made her words somewhat difficult to understand. «There’s just too much rock for the comms signal to punch through.»

«U-um, actually…» MacTavish’s timid voice appeared on the comms, barely louder than the background static. «…One of the wires i-in the cave is, um, a c-comms wire. I-if I splice into it, we could, um… well, use it.»

“Sure, we could hijack a Black Suns comms wire, but that would be insecure as all hell,” Kate pointed out.

«It’s better than nothing, so long as we keep contact minimal,» Hackett stated. «Vanguard 7, get on that. Vanguard 1, 2, 3, once she’s set this up, only use it for emergencies. Understood?»

“Right,” Mote replied curtly. “How are things on your end?”

«It sounds like the battle outside is wrapping up. MacTavish also seems to be making decent progress, hacking into these wires running into the caves… but it’ll still be a while before we know anything. Vanguard 4 hasn’t detected any nearby hostiles.»

“I see…” Mote muttered in response. Major Hackett and Researcher MacTavish had stopped only a few dozen meters into the caves; while the Eximius Vir could potentially free themselves if they were trapped in a cave-in, the members of CSF-1 could not, so they stayed behind. MacTavish discovered a bundle of wires running through the caves in the meantime, and had quickly set to splicing into them and trying to see what kind of data passed through them. And Danielle — Vanguard 4, in this instance — had stayed behind to guard the Researcher while she did. Mote, Mark, and Kate were the only three to progress deeper into the cave, which had proved to be long and eerily linear. Still, after covering a couple hundred meters of ground, Mote still couldn’t figure out where the Black Suns Chaotics had fled to.

“…Do you think they have a Geotechnic with them?” Mark questioned, putting to voice Mote’s own thoughts.

“There was one back in the outpost, but I blew him up with the rest,” Kate declared.

«That doesn’t mean there can’t be another one hiding in the caves,» Hackett pointed out. «There could be anything down there. Vanguards, are you certain you can handle this?»

Mark glanced warily between Mote and Kate. “Can we…?”

“Of course we can. We’re the fucking Eximius Vir!” Kate exclaimed as she slammed her fists together. “Nothing can stop us!”

“Only if we’re smart,” Mote countered. “…And I might have a solution. Vanguard 5, we’ll need to go deeper into the caves. You won’t be able to contact us.”

«Roger that, Vanguard 1. A warning, though: I’m sure the only reason the Suns have let you into the caves as far as you’ve gone is so they can trap you more completely and effectively. If you get trapped in a cave-in, there won’t be a lot we can do to help; even Frigate-grade beaming sensors have trouble with this much rock. Don’t let the Suns get the drop on you.»

“Understood.”

«Good. I’ll trust your judgment to get you through this, Vanguard 1. Go bag us some Suns. Vanguard 5, out.»

“What the hell?” Kate passed Mote an irritated look as the comms connection cut out. “No one ever tells me they’ll trust my judgment!”

“Perhaps if you didn’t run your mouth so much, they would,” Mote shot back.

“The fuck are you saying—?!”

“Now isn’t the time for this,” Mote interrupted; Kate’s expression immediately collapsed into a furious scowl, but she stopped talking all the same. With that, the Electrotechnic continued, “now… it would seem that we’ve lost all of our advantages. It’s hard to sense electric or magnetic fields around here due to all of the rock, and I’m pretty sure that the Black Suns Electrotechnic has started sending out false signals anyways — so that manner of detection is out. We have no way of detecting any side passages that have been temporarily closed off by a Geotechnic, or similar.”

“We could just blow everything up,” Kate suggested.

“And bring everything down on top of us? As well as any Black Suns tech or info that might be down here?” Mote shook his head. “That’s far too dangerous, and you know it.”

“What solution do you have, then?” Mark questioned. “As you said, we don’t have any way other than our normal senses of detecting other Chaotics. They’ll certainly detect us before we find them.”

“That’s correct… but also not.” Mote glanced back toward the way they came, finding nothing but the pitch blackness of a dark cave. “…The Suns have seen us in action. They know how powerful we are, and that we can use our powers in CENT fields. If they haven’t tried to trap us yet, it’s only because we haven’t yet passed them — they must be deeper into the caves.”

Kate and Mark exchanged a glance. “…Yeah? So fucking what?” Kate eventually questioned.

“It makes the next part easier,” Mote declared. “There is still one way I can detect hidden caves: by forcing a massive current through the cave walls, and seeing where the current goes. However, the Black Suns Electrotechnic will definitely be able to sense me doing that — which means that we have to strike them at the same time.”

“…I see.” Mark nodded sagely. “You want to use the railgun.”

Mote nodded back. “Railgun”, in this instance, referred to a technique of Mote’s based on the weapon of the same name. In simple terms, a railgun operates by sending an electric current up one rail, across a sliding armature, and then back down a second, parallel rail; the current generates a net electromagnetic force that accelerates the armature down the rails at incredible speeds. Normal railguns required conductive rails and armatures to function, but the raw power behind Mote’s electricity allowed him to force even non-conductive materials to conduct electricity — even the air. This allowed him to fire objects down hallways as though launching them from a railgun, using nothing but the walls as rails and the very air around the object itself as an armature. His raw power, and additional control of magnetism, could even make up for walls that weren’t parallel — a restriction that would seriously hamper a conventional railgun.

Mote was no stranger to using this technique, and had even used it during his fight with Telregina to launch his battlehammer down a hallway. The technique was particularly effective in that the generated kinetic energy had the potential to outstrip the power of his own lightning strikes, especially when he had a long stretch of walls to wind up — such as with the caves the group now stood in. Furthermore, forcing a massive current through the cave walls would also allow Mote to detect hidden caves, giving the technique a beneficial second purpose.

“Well, what are we firing, then, huh, smartass?” Kate questioned. “We don’t know where those fucking Suns are, so shooting your hammer through the cave won’t do us much good. We won’t know if it hits anything!”

“That’s true if I used my hammer, but there’s another option here.” Mote glanced toward Mark. “…Are you up for it?”

Mark nodded. “Of course. Given the situation, however… hmm…” He glanced warily between Mote and Kate. “Just in case… do you think we can wrap this up in under ten minutes?”

“Of course we can. Who the hell do you think we are?!” Kate exclaimed flippantly.

Mote’s response, on the other hand, was more measured and slower to come. Fully ending the fight and capturing the Black Suns in ten minutes or less was a lot to ask, but there was a reason behind Mark asking for it. As incredibly durable as he was, the forces generated by Mote’s railgun technique could sometimes be too much for even Mark. Mark’s only option to mitigate the force was to activate his Overdrive: Immortal Slumber. While his Overdrive is active, Mark gains immunity to all damage — with the catch being that, once his Overdrive wore off after the typical ten minutes that Overdrives last for, he would fall into a coma for an amount of time proportional to the damage that his Overdrive prevented him from taking. And if that happened, he would quickly become a liability.

“…Ten minutes should be enough,” Mote eventually replied. “My armor’s flight system can move pretty fast. Once you’ve cleared the route, I can grab Kate and join you in no more than half a minute.”

“…Then let’s do this,” Mark replied as he moved to the center of the cave, and Kate backed away from him. “On your signal.”

“Right.” Mote backed up several meters as well, leaving nothing but empty air between him and Mark. Electricity began to gather in his body, small sparks jumping into the air and then to the surrounding walls as he prepared to produce the massive currents he would need. “…Now!” he shouted.

“Overdrive: Immortal Slumber!” Mark declared — and then, barely a second later, Mote unleashed the electricity in his body, forcing it through the air to his left, down the cave wall, across the air around Mark, and then back toward Mote along the opposite cave wall.

The sound of arcing electricity filled the air as Mark shot forward, carried by the incredible magnetic forces of the makeshift circuit. Mote himself used his control over electricity and magnetic forces to locally negate the magnetic field around himself, allowing him to remain standing exactly where he was as he continually forced electricity through the cave walls to propel Mark even farther.

Cold, dank, cave air rushed over Mark’s face as Mote’s lightning railgun carried him through the cave, guiding him around corners and into the deeper recesses of the underground path — all while traveling at a velocity well over the speed of sound. At this high speed, the cackling of the electricity that surged across Mark from the walls failed to reach his ears, resulting in a world of eerie silence as he flew through the cave faster than he himself could react.

«Get ready!» Mote shouted over the comms. Mark still couldn’t see anything, but he knew that Mote wouldn’t speak up needlessly. He quickly summoned his green and silver halberd, prepared to swing at the first thing he saw.

A split second later, the light from the lightning surging across Mark dimly illuminated a couple of silhouettes in the distance. And then, in the blink of an eye, Mark found himself upon the silhouettes in question. As he approached, he could feel the air around him diving in temperature — and out the corner of his eyes, he could see the beginnings of an ice barrier forming around the cave walls. But in the end, the Black Suns Cryotechnic was too slow; no longer than a second after Mark first spotted the two silhouettes, he snapped his halberd to the ready and slammed its pointed spear tip into the Chaotic standing directly in the center of the cave, combining his own superstrength with his current hypersonic speed to impart a truly devastating blow. Instantly, the Chaotic disappeared from where they stood, leaving behind only the dim visual static fuzz effect that results from energy shields being overloaded.

As Mark rolled to a stop on the ground, the lightning from Mote’s makeshift railgun no longer surrounding him, he passed a brief glance toward the darkness. He had little doubt that his blow had completely incapacitated the Black Suns Chaotic — their shields had overloaded when he hit them, after all, and few Chaotics could survive slamming into a wall at hypersonic speeds. …At least their death must have been swift, Mark thought to himself, involuntarily grimacing. But unfortunately, I don’t have time to think of the dead…!

He quickly swung his attention back toward the way he came, but without the arcing electricity of Mote’s virtual railgun, the only thing that met Mark’s eyes was complete and utter darkness. Nevertheless, he began charging forward; he had passed a second Chaotic while sailing through the air, after all, so they had to still be present and behind him. The enemy Chaotic’s presence was confirmed as Mark found himself enveloped with the static fuzz effect of his shields shutting down. So the one left is the Electrotechnic, then. I must’ve hit the Cryotechnic, Mark mused. But that also means that they can probably sense my location through electrical fields, just like Mote. Which means they don’t need light to see me—!

As if to confirm his thoughts, a bolt of electricity leaped from the cave wall beside him, briefly dispelling the darkness and generating a cackling boom as it struck him. Mark continued rushing forward, however, undeterred and feeling no pain whatsoever thanks to his inherent durability. Several more bolts of lightning lashed out at him, each just as ineffective as the last — and none of them originating from the same direction. Just like during the fight on the surface, no attack comes from the same direction twice… this misdirection tactic is surprisingly effective, and very annoying. I’m surprised I’ve never seen Mote try it— wait! Mark furrowed his brow as he strained his ears to focus on a quiet new sound that had just reached them. It was the sound of foot falls — though muffled, as though the person making them was being careful to make as little noise as possible.

That must be them! Mark immediately honed in on the sound and renewed his charge, readying his halberd to swing down on top of the Black Suns Electrotechnic. As he rushed forward, he could hear his opponent’s footfalls grow louder, as though they had given up on trying to be stealthy and were now positioning themselves to evade. Several more blasts of lightning hit Mark as he approached, but none of them did any better than tickling him as he raised his halberd and began to swing it down over the Black Suns Chaotic. At this close distance, Mark’s ears were good enough to discern which direction the Chaotic was moving from the sounds of their footfalls and armor clanking; they began to dodge left, causing Mark to adjust his swing, but then they released a blast of electricity that launched them to the right. Expecting a feint, Mark took advantage of his own superstrength to override the momentum of his swing and cut to the right toward the Electrotechnic — but just before his weapon could connect, he felt a sudden pressure from his armored gauntlets that managed to slow his swing just enough for the Electrotechnic to flee.

“What…?” Mark muttered to himself in confusion. He then turned around toward where the Electrotechnic had fled to and made to pursue, only to feel the pressure from his gauntlets once again, as if they were trying to hold his arms in place. His own strength was more than enough to overpower the sensation, but it was a confusing one all the same. Is that Electrotechnic also a Magnetechnic, like Mote? Or perhaps—! In the middle of his thoughts, every piece of Mark’s armor — gauntlets, chestplate, codpiece, and greaves — all began squeezing down on his body with a pressure that would certainly have killed any individual with regular, human-level durability. Mark’s massively increased durability allowed him to simply ignore the pressure, however; he didn’t even need the effect of his Overdrive to override this level of force, though that didn’t stop it from being annoying. Damn, he thought with a scowl as he began moving to rip the already-defunct pieces of armor off of his body. This can’t be the work of a Magnetechnic. There must be—!

As soon as the armor pieces were separated from Mark’s body, a streak of lightning jumped across them and blasted him in the stomach, knocking him back several meters. He managed to remain on his feet, however, as several small, sharp, serrated objects began whipping past his skin and clothes. None of them did any damage to him, but just as he began to move forward to retaliate, he noticed a dim light appearing in the caves behind him — a dim light in the shape of sharp, golden triangles, arranged so as to look like wings.

Instantly, Mark made to react. “Stay back!” he roared toward the approaching figures behind him, “there’s a Metallitechnic here!”

“…Tch! Understood!” came Mote’s response from further back. The golden wings immediately disappeared, followed by a brief flash of white light around Mote’s body. As soon as the light disappeared, the cave was again plunged into darkness — darkness that Mark was used to by now. He charged forward, watching out for not just one, but two enemy Chaotics, while at the same time fearing little in the way of reprisal. Several lightning strikes and serrated blades lashed out at him as he rushed through the cave, but he simply ignored them all as he bared down on where he had spotted the enemy Electrotechnic just a couple seconds prior. With a powerful swing, he brought his halberd down on the spot — only to hit nothing but the bare rock of the cave walls. Quickly, he jumped back and readied his halberd again, focusing on the ambient noise around him in an effort to track the Black Suns Chaotics.

“…You won’t find them here. They fled down the cave.”

“Hmm…?” Mark glanced back at Mote, who approached from behind while arcing electricity across his fingers to provide light. In that light, Mark could see that Mote was no longer wearing his Alredian armor — or any armor at all. And Kate was no where to be seen. “Where’s Ka— Vanguard 3?”

“She went back with my armor,” Mote replied. “She said something about not wanting to lose it to a Metallitechnic — but that’s not here nor there.” He began running down the caves, Mark quickly following behind him as he stopped the electricity running across his fingers — and instead forced a much larger electric arc across the cave walls in front of the two men while they ran. “As far as I can tell, there’s only two Chaotics left — and this cave has no offshoots.”

“No offshoots?” Mark echoed incredulously, easily keeping pace with Mote as the two continued running through the cave. “So this goes to a dead end?”

“I’m not sure. There’s a large cavern connected to it, but I didn’t have the time or the power to voltage-check all of those walls…” A scowl formed on Mote’s face. “Something seemed off about it, though…”

“Something seems off about this whole situation. Are you telling me that the Black Suns are actually retreating into a dead end? Why would they do that?”

“They must have some sort of plan. But even if they don’t, be careful. There’s nothing more dangerous than a cornered opponent.”

“Perhaps… but it also gives them more reason to surrender, if we offer.”

Mote passed a wary glance toward Mark before turning forward again. “…We can try. But these are the Black Suns we’re dealing with — I wouldn’t count on a surrender. Not to mention… an Electrotechnic and Metallitechnic pairing? If we let them get past us, then they could take out the entirety of the SERRCom assault force, all on their own.”

“Couldn’t we just beam them up?”

“Only if the assault force is expecting them. I wouldn’t put it past two Black Suns Chaotics with those ability types to be able to create a beam jammer on the spot, anyways. So stay on your guard.”

Mark fell silent in response to Mote’s assertion. Mote made no attempt to continue the conversation, allowing the quiet darkness of the caves — filled only with their own foot falls — to overtake them. Nearly a minute passed with the two of them simply running, following the gently sloping and twisting corridor that was the suspiciously linear cave.

“…I think I only have six minutes,” Mark eventually commented. “We need to find them, fast.”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Mote replied. “The cavern isn’t far ahead.”

The two rounded one final corner just as the words left Mote’s mouth. A long, dark corridor stretched out in front of them, with a light at the far end — a light that seemed to grow in size as the two rapidly approached. Before long, they reached the end of the cave, and then stopped to look around at their surroundings in awe.

A massive cavern stretched out in front of them, appearing to be at least a hundred meters long in every dimension. Several artificial lights were attached high on the walls, revealing the incredible extent of the cavern, as well as the cavern floor that laid nearly ten meters below the small overhang that the two men were standing on — a floor that was covered entirely in mounds of unmined gold. While still unrefined, the gold shimmered brightly under the floodlights, causing both Mote and Mark to squint their eyes as a pained response to the brightness.

“…What is that?”

Mote passed Mark a quick glance, and then followed the latter’s finger toward the middle of the cavern. Sprawled out over the gold was what appeared to be a massive carcass, laced with dull silver all over. The corpse was mangled beyond belief, however, such that its original form was impossible to discern.

“I don’t know what it was…” Mote muttered, “…but those silver markings are suspicious.”

«An astute observer, I see.»

“What?!” Mote and Mark both immediately summoned their weapons and adopted defensive stances as they searched the cavern for the mystery voice. It wasn’t long before a metal box, shaped similarly to a speaker, floated up into the air next to them.

«You really are persistent, huh?» came a voice through the box, as though the box was some kind of speaker. The voice itself sounded tinny and metallic — undoubtedly a result of being produced by a metal box, but the words it spoke were clear enough to understand.

“I take it I’m speaking to one of the Black Suns?” Mote replied tensely.

«I think we both know that we aren’t actually working for the Suns,» the voice replied cheekily.

“Do we?”

«Ha ha! I suppose that would depend on who you ask.»

Mote and Mark exchanged an uneasy glance before returning their attentions to the floating metal box. “…Now that we have your ear, we’d at least like to give you the option of surrendering,” Mark offered.

«Saner people would take you up on that. Unfortunately, few properly sane people take up this line of work.»

“Tch…” Mote scowled as he adjusted his stance and began scanning the cavern for signs of the Black Suns Chaotics. “So you insist on fighting until the end?”

«A mission only ends when you give up, or die. And I don’t plan on giving up.»

“This doesn’t have to end in your death,” Mark pleaded.

«Oh? Interesting that you would say that now, after you’ve already killed all of my compatriots.»

“You’re the ones trespassing in SERRCom territory,” Mote countered.

«Is it trespassing if you weren’t using the planet in the first place? And even if it was, surely death is a bit harsh of a response. If you had just asked nicely, then we would have left.»

“I somehow doubt that. You had a full squad of mechs with you. Not to mention all of the autoturrets you set up around the Interstellar Gate; they fired on me when I arrived. That isn’t exactly the move of peaceful researchers.”

«I’ll grant you the mechs, but autoturrets? Come, now. Does SERRCom really need to resort to fabricating evidence to justify their raids?»

Mote and Mark exchanged a glance again, this time in confusion. “…I’m not lying,” Mote eventually responded. “There were Black Suns autoturrets when we arrived. Don’t tell me you didn’t know about them.”

«As a matter of fact, I didn’t, but I doubt SERRCom will believe me.»

“Enough with the bluffs.” Sparks began to wreath Mote’s arms as his brow furrowed in irritation. “For someone who sounds so sure of yourself, you certainly are trying to stall for time.”

«Ah, so you did realize what I was doing! But to indulge me for so long, anyways — you must be either very sure of yourselves, or utter fools. And I have plenty of experience dealing with both.»

“…He has a point,” Mark muttered to Mote. “We’ve wasted a lot of time. I don’t have much of my Overdrive left…”

“Tch. Show yourselves!” Mote shouted out into the cavern. “The sooner we end this, the better for us both!”

«At this point, I agree!»

Just as the words left the metal speaker, all of the gold in the center of the cavern began to shift and move. The silver-laced carcass began sinking into the shifting gold, as though being submerged in liquid metal — only for a massive form to begin standing out of pool of metal, shimmering just as brightly as the gold and silver that made it. With four bestial legs, a reptilian snout, and vast shimmering wings that adorned its massive, dozen-meter tall body, the moving metal statue bore a striking resemblance to a dragon.

“What the hell?!” Mote stared at the dragon with a mixture of confusion and fury. That—! It looks like the dragon creature we faced on that space station a month ago!

«Well then, Chaotics of SERRCom — or should I say, the Eximius Vir?» echoed the tinny voice throughout the cavern — though this time, it seemed to originate from the mouth of the metallic dragon. «Since you claim that we’re part of the Black Suns, I feel it appropriate to cite their motto here: ‘Never die. Failing that, die last.’ Not exactly the catchiest or most optimistic of mottos, but an appropriate one for a PMC, wouldn’t you say?» The dragon slowly reared up, sparks wreathing its wings as it prepared to pounce. «So, Eximius Vir — show me! Show me just how strong SERRCom really is — and show me exactly which half of that motto will apply today!»