— Saturday, February 18, AD 2130 —

KRA-KOOOOM

Thunder and smoke rolled through the air, only to be immediately dissipated as Mark lunged through the smoke, swinging his halberd down on the massive Eta robot. Quickly, the robot clapped its two hands around the edges of Mark’s halberd, successfully stopping the attack — at which point it whipped its two massive gun arms toward Mark and blasted him in the chest, sending him recoiling back. The Eta robot lunged forward, grabbing Mark by his shoulders before whirling him through the air and throwing him straight at Kate, who at that moment was busy dodging the Theta robot’s blades of light.

“The fuck—?!” Kate exclaimed in surprise as Mark slammed into her, knocking them both to the ground. As soon as they fell, both robots leaped towards them, with Theta swinging its light blades and Eta bringing down its fists — but Kate quickly fabricated an explosive under her chest and detonated it, flinging herself and Mark into the air and launching the two robots away. As she sailed through the air, Kate cast a quick glance to the side, noting that CSF-1 had managed to escape the ire of the two ‘elite’ robots and were now attempting to fight their way towards the Interstellar Gate. Seeing this, Kate fabricated another missile launcher and made to fire a rocket at the robots harassing CSF-1, but before she pulled the trigger, the smoke created by her recent detonation dissipated — revealing the massive Eta robot standing in the center, a large fan exposed on its lower chest to blow away the smoke.

Immediately, Eta turned its guns on Kate and Mark, who had only then begun to fall back to the ground, and were thus helpless to dodge. In response, Kate whipped her missile launcher towards Mark and shouted, “Mark! INCOMING!”

He barely needed to even glance her way to know what she meant; as soon as Kate’s words reached Mark’s ears, he braced himself for an incoming impact — but not from the robot. Instead, Kate fired a rocket straight at Mark’s back, detonating it in the air above him to generate incredible explosive force that slammed Mark down to the ground, right at the feet of Eta. As Mark was fully prepared for this, he was easily able to catch himself on the ground and then transfer the momentum into a mighty upswing of his halberd, catching Eta between its legs and flipping it onto its back. But before Mark could follow up, Theta slammed right into his side, using its rocket thrusters to rapidly cross the yard and knock Mark to the ground.

Even so, the mass of Theta’s lithe build wasn’t enough to keep Mark down; he soon jumped back to his feet, using his overwhelming strength to simply break through Theta’s follow-up swings with its energy blades, thus throwing the robot off-balance. Instead of pursuing the off-kilter robot, however, Mark quickly dodged backwards, just in time to evade Eta as it lunged for him — and then a massive explosion as Kate fired a rocket at the two robots.

“Ha, fucking dumbasses…!” Kate remarked as she tossed aside her spent missile launcher and fabricated another — but before she could re-aim, Theta came blasting out of the smoke cloud straight toward her, successfully catching her by surprise to grab her face and then slam her into the ground. “Ngh—! You fuckwit…!” she growled out as Theta began swinging its blades rapidly at Kate’s chest and head, brightly lighting up her energy shields in a clear attempt to blind and stun her. She reflexively grimaced as bright golden light filled her vision, but she quickly acted to fabricate a powerful bomb in hand and instantly detonate it. The force of the explosion pounded her into the ground and winded her, but more importantly, it launched the Theta robot high into the air. Without even climbing to her feet, Kate immediately fabricated another bomb, shoved it between her back and the ground, and blew it up — thereby launching herself into the air in pursuit of Theta.

“…There she goes…” Mark muttered warily as he watched Kate out the corner of his eye. A split-second later, he shifted his attention back to the broad-shouldered Eta robot, just in time to bring his halberd around to block a powerful punch. He immediately moved to follow with a counter-swing, but Eta instead blasted him with its twin arm-mounted cannons; Mark managed to stay on his feet, but the blast nonetheless knocked him several meters away and out of melee range. He braced himself to take another shot, but just before Eta fired again, Theta came careening onto the scene, launched by one of Kate’s explosions straight toward Eta. While Theta seemed momentarily stunned, however, Eta deftly grabbed its compatriot out of the air, using Theta’s momentum to spin around once and then launch the lithe robot right at Mark.

Caught by surprise, Mark was knocked to the ground as Theta crashed into him, only to quickly begin slashing away at his face with its blades. His shielding flared brightly, blocking his vision, but Theta’s location was easy enough to discern. With an annoyed grunt, Mark reached up to grab the robot by one of its arms and then chuck it away, allowing him to jump back to his feet and turn his attention back to Eta — which had just been obscured by one of Kate’s explosions. Kate herself soon slammed into the ground nearby, a large chunk of plastic explosive in hand as she slapped it right onto Theta’s back and then detonated it, flinging the robot through the air and into the smoke cloud that hid its compatriot.

“You should be careful with all of these explosions,” Mark muttered as he side-eyed Kate. “The smoke makes it hard to fight.”

“Bah. It helps just as much as it hurts!” Kate retorted, and then snapped her attention back to the smoke cloud as the Theta robot lunged out of it, using its back-mounted rocket thruster to rapidly cross the yard in an evasive, zig-zagging path. Mark quickly brought his halberd to bear, preparing to swing at Theta the moment it got close, while Kate jumped away from Mark and then blew up the ground beneath her feet to launch herself into the air and gain some altitude over the combat. As she sailed high into the sky, she fabricated another missile launcher and aimed it down at Theta, only to think better and turn her attention towards the smoke cloud that had masked Eta. The cloud was already beginning to disperse… but Eta was no where to be seen within it. Instead, the robot appeared to be charging away from the fight, having already crossed a sizable portion of the yard with its massive legs.

“That fucker!” Kate snarled, quickly detonating another explosive at her feet to launch herself through the air in pursuit of Eta. Her shields flared brightly, and her heads-up display complained about the constant blows to her own shields, but she paid the warnings little heed as she focused on the robot. Upon getting closer, she realized that Eta wasn’t fleeing the fight — it was actually charging straight for CSF-1’s current position: locked down by enemy gunfire on the side of the yard. And just as she realized that, the Eta robot opened up a compartment on its back, revealing a large weapon: a massive scythe, wreathed in magnificent silver, gold, black, and white designs.

“What the…?” Kate muttered, watching as the robot reached behind itself to grab the scythe and then whip it around, clearly preparing to use the weapon against CSF-1. While initially confused, an instant later, Kate recognized the scythe: it was the exact same weapon as the one that EA’s Zeta robot had used against her and Mote months ago at the Aldredian outpost. And in that fight, Zeta had revealed a particularly powerful trait of the scythe — one that could easily be the end of CSF-1:

The scythe could penetrate energy shielding.

With her brow furrowed in frustration, Kate detonated another explosive under herself to give herself more altitude, all while whipping out yet another rocket launcher. “Overdrive: Critical Overload,” she muttered to renew her long-worn off Overdrive, all while turning to aim at the scythe-wielding Eta robot — but by the time she could, it was already nearly upon CSF-1, with Saito and Hackett both turning to fire on it.

But that didn’t stop Kate. Without any hesitation at all, she fired a rocket straight at the ground between CSF-1 and the robot. The supersonic projectile careened through the air and slammed into the ground, detonating with an incredible roar and shockwave that launched CSF-1 out of position and — more importantly — blasted Eta back across the yard, where it tumbled along the ground towards where Mark and Theta were currently vying for melee supremacy.

“Ha!” Kate smirked to herself as she fell back to the ground, landing on her feet as she turned to aim her rocket launcher at Eta again. Just as she fired another rocket, however, an angry voice shouted into her ear.

«What the hell was what?» Saito demanded over the comms. «Are you trying to get us killed?»

“Oh please, I just saved your fucking lives!” Kate retorted.

«By blowing us half to shreds?!»

“You’re fucking fine, you have energy shields. Besides, don’t you remember that fucking scythe? I’m pretty sure it’s an Ayas Weapon, with Subspatial Storage! And the last time we fought it, it went through our shields like fucking nothing! Would you rather that than a little rocket to the face?!”

“It went through your shields—?” Mark questioned incredulously as he turned his attention to Eta, which had barged back onto the scene to swing at Mark with its scythe. Mark quickly moved his halberd to deflect the swing, only for Theta to lunge toward him and knock his halberd away with its own energy blades; caught off-guard, Mark was little able to do anything to stop Eta as it swung the scythe’s blade right at his chest. And indeed, the telltale golden glow of energy shielding failed to appear — instead, the scythe fully pierced Mark’s shields to slice into his armored chestplate, transforming the entire piece of armor into a cloud of blue particles before deflecting off of Mark’s skin.

“What the…?” Mark quickly jumped back, looking down at his now un-armored chest, covered only by his uniform. His gauntlets and greaves remained, so his energy shields did as well — but without the centerpiece that was the chestplate, his shields were now far weaker than before.

“Oh yeah… you weren’t there, were you?” Kate responded with an uneasy smile, only to quickly turn her attention back to the robots.

«Tch…» Saito clicked his tongue in annoyance. «…You raise a good point. But watch yourselves, going forward! And keep those lettered robots off our backs, we’re making little progress towards the Gate as is!»

“Understood!” Mark shouted back as he squared up against Eta again, this time fully wary of the mysterious scythe gripped in the robot’s hands. Now that I look at it, it looks a lot like the scythe that EA used, back when he was on Earth… Mark mused, is it the same weapon? But what does that mean? And more importantly, why didn’t it turn me into a blue mist, like it did my armor…?

Mark’s musings were cut short as Eta lunged for him again, but this time, Mark knew to dodge instead of attempting to block. With surprising deftness from someone of his size, Mark just barely dodged around Eta’s incoming scythe blade and then followed up with an uppercut into the robot’s massive torso, knocking the robot onto its back. As the robot fell backwards, it quickly readjusted its grip on its scythe to hook Mark by the back of his head; again, the blade pierced straight through Mark’s shields, but was utterly unable to penetrate his skin, instead dragging him to the ground alongside the robot. A massive explosion soon followed, as one of Kate’s rockets finally blew Mark and Eta apart — and flung the massive scythe out of the robot’s grasp.

Seeing an opening, Kate fabricated a big chunk of explosives and threw them at her feet, with the intention of launching herself toward the scythe that clambered to the ground — but before she got the chance to detonate her explosives, Theta burst onto the scene to grab the explosive device and hurl it away. Then, using the momentum from the throw, Theta whirled around to bring its two energy blades down on Kate, using a burst from its rocket thrusters just as the blade connected to impart a monumental amount of force into Kate’s side. The blow sent her tumbling haphazardly along the ground, with Theta immediately engaging its rocket thrusters to give chase; but with an irate scowl, Kate quickly fabricated another set of explosives and detonated them on top of herself just as Theta reached her, thus blowing the two apart.

This time, Kate was able to catch herself after being flung through the air, allowing her to whip out a massive missile launcher to fire a homing rocket at Theta. As the robot moved to dodge, Kate then aimed her launcher at her feet and fired at the ground, using the incredible force behind her Overdrive-enhanced explosives to launch herself towards the scythe — and where Mark and Eta were vying for its control. “Incoming!!” she shouted as she tumbled to the ground right next to Mark, already moving to aim her missile launcher groundward once more.

At the sound of Kate’s shout, Mark glanced her way; upon noting her movements with her launcher, he quickly lunged in a diagonal direction to put himself directly between Kate and Eta. Thanks to his superstrength, he was able to move just quickly enough to reach his desired position right as Kate fired and detonated another rocket at her feet. The force from the explosion again rocketed her into the air — while also propelling Mark straight at Eta, where he caught the robot off-guard and slammed his fist into its sensor orb. Golden lights flared up as Eta’s shields protected it, while simultaneously blinding it, allowing Mark to reach up and grab the robot’s cannon arms. And then, Mark began to pull. Hard.

Eta began to struggle against Mark’s hold, but was unable to break his grasp. While the robot was twice Mark’s size, it still was no match for Mark’s superior strength; the robot’s shielding flared brilliantly under the incredible forces that Mark put upon them as he attempted to simply pull Eta apart at the seams. A second or two passed that way, with the robot unsuccessfully struggling… until it leveraged its massive size to simply hoist Mark into the air and then turn him to the side — where Theta was flying in, leading Kate’s homing rocket from earlier.

Just as Theta closed to within a meter of Mark and Eta, it turned its torso to the side and then flashed its rocket thrusters to blast sideways, leaving the rocket that was chasing it to continue on towards Mark and Eta. But Mark had noticed Theta just in time, and was already releasing Eta to throw himself to the ground, so as to dodge the rocket himself — and as Mark did that, Eta also lunged to the side. In a split-second, the rocket shot by Theta, Mark, and Eta, barely missing all three to continue flying straight forward… and then disappearing into a cloud of blue mist as Kate swung through it with the scythe.

“…What…?” Mark questioned in confusion as he jumped to his feet, eying the space that the rocket had once inhabited. “What did you—?”

“I fucking knew it, this thing IS an Ayas Weapon!” Kate remarked as she looked the massive blade up and down, and then turned her attention to the two robots. Notably, both were now keeping their distance, seeming to carefully watch Kate and the weapon she now held — a sight that brought a smug grin to her face. “I’ll explain the details later,” she shouted to Mark as she held the weapon to the side and began charging toward the two robots. “Just hold those two still, for me!!”

“Right!” Mark acknowledged, already moving to lunge towards Eta. Seemingly able to sense what was coming, the massive robot rapidly turned its free arms to slap Mark away and then blast him with its arm cannons, all while it began moving away from Kate. The force from the consecutive blows knocked Mark back, but he quickly recovered and bounded forward, bringing his halberd to bear just in time to deflect Theta as it flew directly into him. Mark followed by continuing the movement of his halberd in a fast, wide circle, using the momentum from his deflection to bring the halberd’s blade down on top of Theta and force the robot to the ground. He then stooped over to try and pick up the robot, only for two bullets from Eta’s cannons to knock him back…

…thus making space for Kate as she launched herself onto the scene with another explosive. And, before either Eta or Theta could react, Kate swung the scythe down on top of Theta — piercing clean through the robot’s shields to strike its metal armor, and dissolve the entire chassis into a cloud of blue mist.

“Al-RIGHT—!” Kate began to whoop, only to be interrupted as Eta lunged onto the scene. Immediately, it grabbed the shaft of the scythe with both of its free hands and attempted to yank the weapon out of Kate’s grasp; her own grip proved tight enough to keep holding on, but her strength and weight were far from enough to prevent Eta from swinging her around in the air. “Tch—!” Kate scowled in frustration, but was able to do little else than cling tightly to the scythe as Eta violently attempted to shake her free — until Mark pounced onto the robot’s back, bringing both of his fists down over the robot’s torso to slam it into the ground.

Mark then jumped over the robot’s massive body to grab the scythe’s shaft; as soon as he did, Kate let go, allowing Mark to leverage his incredible strength to rip the weapon right out of the robot’s grip. Eta quickly moved to climb back to its feet, clearly attempting to make distance between itself and Mark and Kate — but Kate reacted faster, grabbing the scythe from Mark to swing down on top of Eta and pierce its shields to turn it into a cloud of mist… just as she had with Theta.

“…Phew.” Mark released a sigh of relief as the blue particles dissipated into the air, leaving behind nothing. He then passed a wary glance toward Kate, and the scythe in her hands. “Just what the hell is that blue mist? And how do you know that’s an Ayas Weapon?”

“Huh. So y’all figured it out already, huh?”

“What—?” Kate snapped her attention in the direction of the new voice — a young male voice, amplified by a loud speaker. But as she turned, the massive scythe in her hands disappeared in a flash of light… and then reappeared in the hands of a young man with disheveled hair, sitting in the cockpit of a giant mechanical beast on the other side of the yard.

“EA…!” Mark muttered as he eyed the man uneasily. He then snapped his gaze to the Interstellar Gate, noting that the device remained active. “Did CSF-1 not reach the Gate in time…?”

“What, to block it?” EA remarked, and then smirked. “If that was their goal, then yeah — they must have failed. As did y’all.”

“Failed? Ha!” Kate scoffed as she cracked her knuckles. “Now we get a chance to kick your smarmy ass! How is that a failure?”

“Heh.” EA shook his head, and then looked over at the scythe in his hands. After a brief second, the scythe simply disappeared into thin air, allowing EA to sit back and close the canopy over his cockpit — and then rear up the massive, quadrupedal beast that was his mech, with slate blue armor, distinct wolf-like features, and a massive cannon attached to the mech’s back. “…Admittedly, I’d hoped that Eta and Theta would perform better, but I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when I send half-finished robots into battle,” he shouted over the mech’s loudspeakers. “But thankfully, you decided to Subspatially Store them, instead of destroying them — so now I can finish up their kits. So thanks for that.”

“So… you didn’t actually destroy them…?” Mark questioned as he passed Kate a confused look.

“Eh, it’s fucking whatever,” Kate responded dismissively. “The important part is that those heaps of scrap are out of our fucking faces!”

“What did you even do? How did you know that scythe could use this ‘Subspatial Storage’?”

“It’s fucking obvious. We’ve seen the thing be used, before. I looked it up after we lost the Superspace Drive to that one robot, and…” Kate turned to glare at EA. “Subspatial Storage seems to be the only thing that produces that ‘blue mist’ effect. And only fucking Ayas Weapons can do it!”

“So you’ve done your research. Wow,” EA deadpanned, and then brought his massive mech to life and swiveled the spinal cannon to aim at Mark and Kate. “I’d say ‘good job’, but you idiots also ignored direct advice to NOT raid the place where I’m doing invaluable Nanocreature research! Do you have any idea the kind of damage you could cause, if those specimens were let free?!”

“And we’re supposed to believe that’s what you’re actually doing?” Kate retorted. “You’ve lied out of your ass, before! And besides, look at the size of this complex! Who needs this much fucking space for Nanocreature research, huh?”

EA sighed in annoyance. “…Fuckin’ hell. I knew I should’ve just listened to him from the start, but no, I had to just go and spout a bunch of bullshit without thinking. Now no one listens to me…”

“Sorry… ‘him’?” Mark questioned.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” EA replied. “The important thing is that I have important plans to get back to, so let’s wrap up this little intrusion, shall we?” Sparks began to wreathe the main cannon of his mech, while its wolf-like tail curled around to reveal a myriad of long, sharp spikes on its end. “Meet the B-04 Rail Wolf — my answer to you Eximius Vir! This mech is my most powerful yet, with a railgun and shielding that can rival even spacecraft! Feel free to surrender or flee at any time — but until then, I’ll make you regret ignoring Athena’s orders!”

“Ha! Fucking bring it on, you bastard!!” Kate whooped as she and Mark each lunged sidewards to evade the first shot from the Rail Wolf’s cannon — the start of a long fight against SERRCom’s mysterious nemesis.