"Cecile, give me a sensor sweep."

She taps a few buttons on her radar system. "No hostiles nearby. One-twenty clicks from target." She reports back.

"Urgh, still? We've been driving for hours..." Lira spins her Ragnarok in a barrel roll. Cecile tries not to laugh.

"Stop doing that, you're gonna make yourself dizzy." Maven said, strict, but with a playful spin.

Cecile relaxed back into her seat. It was nice being able to banter like this again. It's been a long time since her squad, Unit-17, had the chance to take on a more chill mission. This phase of the war might not be going great overall, but it seems the Empire's push is finally slowing down. With both armies at a stalemate, it means most missions tend to be more low-stake affairs, more scouting and travel escort stuff, and less live fire combat.

She appreciated the peace and quiet, as any good soldier does, but it gave her an itchy trigger finger sometimes. Thankfully this mission was gonna be different.

"Did they really have to send all of us though? It's only eight Imps, I could take them out all by myself!"

"Don't get too cocky Lira, it's bad form!" Lira's attitude is charming sometimes, but she can't let the rookie get ahead of herself. Girl's only a few years into her service and is already out for blood.

"If you must know, Command said they were suspicious. A unit this small is not a real threat, but, as they say, better save then sorry." Captain is, as usual, all business. She admires that about them; despite them having similar levels of experience, Astrid has always been more pragmatic than her. Good quality to have in your leader.

"Seems like total overkill..."

"Let's not jinx it, okay?" Maven is nervous. Cecile doesn't get to see her like that often; guess she isn't the only one on edge today.

It was a hard feeling to pin down, just a vague sense of danger she can't track the source of. Thinking it over logically, there's nothing to be afraid of really, especially with all of her comrades by her side.

It just feels... Too easy. Lira has a point, and she can tell Astrid doesn't buy Command's reasoning either. There's a bigger picture here that she's not seeing, and she really, really doesn't like that. The terrain feels familiar too, the memory is vague now, worn down by time, but wasn't this where Amalia was—

She shakes her head. It's probably just a coincidence.

"Cecile, another sweep."

Thankful for the distraction, she follows the command. "I spot hostiles ahead, eighty clicks, behind that cliff." She watches her sensors light up with red lights. "I'm counting eight of them."

"That's our target." Astrid says. "Remember the plan, turn on your active scans, and let's finish this fast."

The group of four mechs fly off. Despite her weariness, Cecile feels her blood pumping already.

Thirty clicks from the ambush point, Astrid orders everyone to slow down, mask their heat signatures, and prepare for engagement. Cecile moves away from the rest of the team, looking to scout ahead for a favorable spot. Eschaton is the kind of machine that lives and dies by its positioning, frail and relatively rigid at close-range, but deadly and evasive when it's firing down superheated-railshots at you from high altitude. The rest of Unit-17 maneuvers closer to the ground, hopping from cover to cover, looking for the best place to entrap their prey.

"I'm in position, ping me when you're ready. Stay vigilant, don't get spotted." Astrid instructs over the comms.

Cecile starts making a mental note of all the potential vantage points she'll have to work with. This kind of terrain is ideal for Eschaton, great line of sight from multiple spots all over the canyon, with many ways to pivot between each of them. A sniper's dream hunting grounds.

She picks a spot, making sure to stay low to not get spotted early, and sends a ping over to Astrid. As soon as she gets a ping back, they call out: "Charge!"

Eschaton flies over the rock formation, anchoring itself firmly to the ground and aiming its railgun down at the skirmish bellow. Lira's Ragnarok and Astrid's Armageddon are already clashing with the front line and keeping them busy, and with Maven's Kali Yuga on the sidelines attacking the flanks, the enemy mechs are too preoccupied to challenge Cecile on the high ground, practically assuring victory.

It's a cheap tactic, but an effective one, honed and sharped with hours and hours of training, on-site and with whatever simulation pods the rebellion could scavenge. At this level of practiced cohesion, teamwork becomes second nature, like pack animals on the hunt.

The first Dominus falls, Armageddon punching a hole straight through the machine's torso with its pneumatic gauntlets. Four versus seven now.

Cecile is nervous, however. As familiar as the slaughter down below has become, as easy as firing a fully-charged rail at a target is—two down, six more to go—a strange unease grows the back of her skull. This isn't right... there was something odd about the mission from the very start. Intel suggested only a single battalion of Imps, an easy job, right?

But why are they here? So far from base for no obvious reason?

Missile lock-on warning. Coming from under her, a desperate attempt from the cattle down below to stop the slaughter. Eschaton reposition to another vantage point, firing a railshot at its attacker in mid-air.

Five-on-four, almost even.

Cecile hears swearing from comms—Lira took a bad hit. She immediately aims towards the enemy who attacked her, but before the charge is primed, Maven has already slashed it to shreds.

"You good, Lira?" Cecile asks.

"Yup, it's gonna take a lot more than that to take me out!" The bravado is clearly exaggerated, her voice cracking a bit towards the end, but that only reassures Cecile more. She'll be okay.

Four-on-four. The Imperials finally got the memo and are running away with tails between their legs.

This is her favorite part.

Kali Yuga takes the front line, barely a scratch on its metal, and starts lunging forwards, Armageddon and Ragnarok providing cover fire. As for Cecile? She gets to enjoy the view from high on up, fire stun shots at those farther down the valley, and watch as those lagging behind stumble over their allies.

From four, to three—cockpit cleanly slashed in two by Kali Yuga—, to two—reactor exploding from a barrage of vulcans from Ragnarok—, to one—

Crunched underfoot by a metal colossus. A very familiar frame.

Demiurgos. Amalia's machine. Her sister...

Standing at over six meters tall, Demiurgos is a splitting image of its old self. Cecile remembers the many times she would stare at it in the hanger, standing at attention even while chained to its chamber, golden spear canon in its left hand. The lights on its head flickering softly, letting her know Amalia was inside. Her sister had a slight neurotic streak, the type of woman to slip out of her quarters in the dead of night to run last-minute diagnostics in a fruitless attempt to calm her nerves; forcing her sister to, inevitably, notice her absence and have to drag her back to their quarters.

It's all so familiar to her, comforting almost. Except—

"Ames...?", she says, a quiet prayer.

The behemoth of steel looks freshly painted, not a scar coating its metal. Amalia was always the sentimental sort, and she loved to wax poetic about her baby's injuries. They meant a lot to her, every battle, every kill, every struggle...

She would never—

Things move fast. Too fast. Demiurgos is lunging forward, its spear's tip splitting the air in half, and—

"Look out!" Astrid's voice. Panic.

Ragnarok is too slow to follow the chaos, stumbling backwards only a second too late. Coolant fluid bursts from the cockpit, and soon, blood trickles down from—

It was a great shot, specially for a pilot as young as Lira. The girl had only joined Unit-17 a couple of months ago, but she was proving to be an excellent soldier already; sharp, idealistic, and very eager to please. Lira puts the helmet of the simulation pod aside, grinning like a young cub savoring the taste of its first kill. She looks back at her comrades, eyes wide as saucers, begging for their approval oh so sweetly. It reminds her of how Amalia would look at her after an intense sparring match, before she disappeared...

Only static from Lira's channel. Her comms must have been destroyed by the impact before she could get her last words out.

"Fall back! Group up! Don't let it—" Demiurgos steps forward, its weapon trained on Astrid...

Maven intercepts the spear's trajectory, using Kali Yuga's blade to push the spear to the ground, stopping its strike before vaulting over the staggered mech.

"Cecile, do something!"

Right— Fuck, this is bad, really, really bad.

Cecile moves Eschaton to a new angle, keeping her distance. Demiurgos spins in place, trying to evade Kali Yuga's relentless attacks. That doesn't make sense though, Amalia would never...

The way the machine is moving—snappy, twitchy, enraged—Amalia doesn't pilot like that. Demiurgos is a walking fortress, designed to bulldoze the enemy front line and pick off anyone that tries to run from it. It moves with deadly precision, iron-clad purpose and stoic efficiency, but this? This is nothing like that. It's only a rabid animal jumping from target to target guided only by instinct. It's sloppy. Amalia doesn't move like that when she's behind the controls. So, then...

Clarity strikes her violently. It all makes sense now.

That's not her, she resists the urge to snarl. Just some shithead conscript the Imps strapped to her machine... Her blood is boiling over. How fucking dare they!

Eschaton fires at the impostor mech's boosters. You're not getting away from me, not until I'm done with you. The shot lands true, cleaving the one of the propulsion jets.

The others notice the impact, and they up their efforts. Armageddon flies farther down the cliffside, blocking a potential exit, and begins pelting the enemy with machine gun fire from a far. Meanwhile, Kali Yuga dashes across the open terrain, slice after slice threatening to topple the machine's legs. Demiurgos is trapped.

And then, the oddest thing happens. It stops chasing after Kali Yuga. It takes cover behind a pillar of rock and then... Just stops, for a moment. Cecile aims down at its neck, but hesitates. For only a second, the sounds of battle evaporate. She watches the lights dotting Demiurgos' head blinking a gentle soft blue.

The lights flash brightly as the machine suddenly jerks and twitches, it's iron muscles spasm at the behest of some unseen force. It's lights die out, before blinking back to awareness. Bright red.

If Demiurgos moved like an dumb animal before, now it moves like a trained killer. In the blink of an eye, it dashes away from cover, somehow even faster than before. It zips over to Kali Yuga's cover and pulverizes the rocks around it with such force that the air seems the glow white from the sheer speed.

"Maven!" Cecile screams, the cloud of dust and debris covering the place her friend once stood.

Only seconds after, Demiurgos emerges from the chaos, dashing backwards out of the incoming rock slide. Kali Yuga doesn't. An avalanche of boulders comes crashing down from above, a brief gurgling scream can be heard from Maven's channel before it shuts off.

The walk back to base was quiet and mournful. Maven said nothing. Later, Command would call this mission a success, but Cecile knew better, as did the rest of Unit-17. The entire squad had to watch a part of Maven die that day, each one of them helpless to stop the carnage from happening. Cecile can already picture the nightmares she'll have tonight, of Bree's machine laying prone on the ground, dismembered, bleeding oil and viscera. She can't imagine how much worse Maven's are going to be. Gods, to watch a lover die like that... She so glad Amalia will be there to comfort her when she gets back.

Chaos over comms. Too loud, everything is too loud. Cecile goes to mute it, but...

"Get off me, bitch!" Astrid... She's never heard her captain like this. So afraid, so raw and haggard.

No. She can't give up now, not after everything she's had to endure. Over two decades of this never-ending war, and not once had she backed down from mortal danger. No matter how many of her comrades died, no matter how many fresh faces came to replace them, no matter many bright, young people she had to watch hollow themselves out and become killing machines. Even through all the pain and suffering the Empire put her through, she persevered, she kept fighting.

Eschaton takes to the skies, renewed vigor propelling it forwards. Ahead of it, Armageddon and Demiurgos are locked in a fierce duel. Demiurgos might be battered and leaking oil all over the place, but it fights through it with raging ferocity. Armageddon is not looking too good either, having started the battle on the back foot and still harboring injuries from the earlier engagement. She watches it stumble briefly, catching some unstable terrain...

Eschaton fires a EMP charge at Demiurgos' shoulder, stunning it and nearly causing it to drop its spear. The mech dashes away, taking refuge and fleeing Eschaton's line of sight. Armageddon takes the chance to stabilize itself and take cover.

"Cecile... Are you alright?" Even at death's door the old bastard's still looking out for her.

"...I'll be okay. How're you holding up?" She tries not to let the panic show in her voice.

Astrid doesn't answer.

Demiurgos is hiding now. Cecile doesn't know where exactly, but she can see the entire battlefield from here. If it tries to ambush Astrid, she's ready to intercept. She has time to think now.

"That machine... It was Amalia's right?" Astrid is panicked too, she can tell.

"It's her machine, but she's not behind the wheel. Can't be. Amalia's dead." MIA, officially. Not that Cecile ever believed that. Her sister wouldn't go down without a fight.

Astrid doesn't reply, taking a few centering breaths instead. A moment later, they ask, "Where did it go?"

"I don't know, didn't catch it." She was too angry to think clearly back there. Sorry captain. "Think it's bidding its time, looking for an ambush..." There won't be an opportunity, Cecile will make sure of it, she can see everything from the peaks. If that monster tries to rush Armageddon down, she'll blow it apart before it can even make it halfway across the field. Astrid is safe.

Unless...

Proximity alarm, unknown heat signature, moving fast—

Eschaton's leg shatters at the joint, a spear jutting out of it. shit-shit-shit-SHIT! Full throttle, quickly!

She escapes Demiurgos' grip by inches.

Fucking hell! Cecile feels her dizzy. How did it sneak up for her so quickly?

Demiurgos lands on top of the cliffside, its spear canon popping open, charging up a shot towards—

"Astrid!"

But it's too late. Armageddon is heavily crippled, and as it tries to dodge the blast, it's right leg collapses from the sudden shift in velocity, previously dented during the first skirmish with the patrol unit they came to destroy. Armageddon is engulfed in a blinding light, the exotic matter from the canon blast superheating its reactor until it explodes in a cacophony of shrapnel. Over comms, Astrid yells—

She could only laugh. It had to be a joke, right? Cecile had only earned her wings a few months ago, there's no way she was good enough for that! The officer in front of her—Ast-something?—seemed serious though, they had examined her piloting records and were very impressed. They saw potential in her. But, she was just a teenager, and there's gotta be more qualified people than her right? Doesn't matter—they said—Command wants a swift end to the war, and Cecile was the perfect candidate to join Unit-17 on their counter-offensive against the Empire.

Cecile wanted that too. Her little sister was going to be graduating from boot camp in a few years. If she could end this war fast enough, maybe Ames wouldn't need to join the force. Maybe she could keep her sister safe...

It was an easy decision. She shook her new captain's hand.

Astrid's last words go unheard, as Cecile only hears herself scream. No, no, this can't be happening, this can't—

Demiurgos turns to face her.

All hope leaves Cecile's body. It's over, she can't fight that thing. She just watched it tear apart three of the strongest and bravest people she's ever met. Eschaton is a delicate weapon, it can't survive a one-on-one spar with a monster like that. Exhaustion takes over as the adrenaline flowing in her veins ferments into despair. She's not making it out of here alive.

Demiurgos walks closer, slowly, like a hunting dog savoring its prey. It knows she won't fight back.

Astrid, Maven, Lira... I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't good enough to save you all...

Cecile watches the red lights that pepper the machine's face, blinking in and out in a regular pattern. Amalia...

... No, not yet. If she'll die here away, she can't let her sister down like this. She won't let her sister's pride and joy, the machine she used to stay up all night tinkering with, keep being violated like this. Amalia poured her heart and soul into that thing, and to see it in the hands of some Imperial bitch...

It really pisses her off.

Eschaton's arms flop limply to the side, all power from them being rerouted to the propulsion engine. The twin boosters on its back come alive, white-hot plasma briefly melting the stone underneath its feet, before catapulting Eschaton straight up towards the skies.

Overheat warnings blare over the cockpit, but Cecile doesn't bother clearing at them. She's looking down, at Demiurgos. She watches it jump to catch her, and a grin forms on her face. This might just work!

Demiurgos gets a grip on Eschaton's last remaining leg, and it begins climbing towards the cockpit. This is it, her last resort.

Amalia, I hope you'll forgive me for this.

Cecile cuts all power from the boosters and forces it down the reactor. The temperature of the cockpit becomes boiling hot in an instant, leaving her head spinning. She has only seconds left to live now. Cecile pull the ejection lever, braces for impact and—

Movement is beyond her. It feels like her entire body is one big bruise, even breathing hurts. Cecile, in all her years of service, has never felt pain like this before. Slowly, her vision returns, and she finds herself in a sprawled across the floor. The escape shuttle made it out, but only barely, half of Eschaton's cockpit is just gone, only melted steel frames remain. In the far distance, she can make out a smattering of disfigured metal and scattered electronic components.

Somehow, she's alive. She laughs. She laughs and laughs, over and over again. Holy shit, that actually worked!

She spots Demiurgos in the distance, or rather, what parts of it survived the blast. Seems her plan worked even better than expected, that thing looks more like a scrap heap than a billion-credit war machine. She can't be certain from afar, but she's pretty confident the pilot inside is dead too...

... But, Cecile has to know. She needs the certainty.

She starts marching towards it, the horrid pain all over her body momentarily forgotten. She's a woman possessed now, animated not by physical motion but by raw willpower. The howling winds of the mountainscape threaten to topple her over so she has to wobble around like a drunkard just to maintain a semblance of balance. Finally, she make it to the remains of her sister's dream. She finds the emergency cockpit release level, briefly reminiscing on Amalia's long rants about the intricacies of the design.

Those happy memories quickly fade once she recognizes who is strapped inside.

The pale, bloodied corpse in front of her hardly looks human, an awful, rotten smell permeates the air, a mix between antiseptic, rubber, and machine oil. The person inside has a dazed, almost comatose expression of her face, but her chest still heaves and sputters, desperate to take in the fresh air from outside. The jaw is disjointed from the impact, a large trickle of blood and drool flowing down the chin at multiple points. The eyes are distant, bloodshot, and blown to the extreme, the pupil so dilated that the iris is near invisible. Cecile can only identify the body once she spots the thin strip of emerald green coating the cavernous void of her sister's eyes.

The most unsettling feature is the attire, a black neoprene piloting suit, bare of any detail expect for the serial number resting on the left breast, followed by the Empire's insignia on the left. Complementing the ghastly ensemble is a leather collar on the woman's neck, decorated with wires attached a black box attached to the side.

And of course, the muzzle.

"Ames...?" The woman's body is silent, not a sign of recognition.

Suddenly, the entrance to the cockpit closes behind her, shrouding Cecile in darkness before what few still functional lights brighten the inside. The machine's internal systems attempt to boot up, but they fail repeatedly, blaring warnings over the displays and spewing sparks all over the place. Soon, everything sputters and shuts down again, except for the radio transmitter, still somehow unharmed. The static background noise emitting from it is abruptly cut by a cold, bloodless voice.

"619, subdue her."

The body that had been slumped down on the chair just moment ago suddenly comes alive. With an animal ferocity, Cecile is tackled to the ground, her arms pulled forcibly behind her and her legs forced apart. Her assailant pulls her up to a kneeling stance and grips her jaw tightly, muffling her cries of protest.

A sigh comes from the radio. "Great, just great..." A brief silence follows, Cecile desperately trying to break free. "This was meant to be an easy one for you 619, a way for you to earn my trust back after all your repeated failures. You had every advantage I could afford to give you, I spent months currying favor with high command to get permission for this mission, and this is how you repay me?!" The person holding her down whimpers at the voice's rage, but manages to keep an iron grip on Cecile's throat.

"Not only did you fail to eliminate all the rebels, you managed to fail in the most expensive way possible! Millions and millions of credits gone in an instant, all because you decided to play with your food instead of shooting a surrendering target! Do you get off on this? Do you want to make me mad? Is that it, Amalia?"

Ice fills Cecile veins. No. No, no, no that can't be...

"Fucking hell, I'm so off kilter that I'm saying the wrong names again!" The voice giggles mirthlessly. "I guess it's partly my fault, put too much faith the oh so great Amalia Eswarren, the rising star of Unit-17! You rebel aces never quite live up to the hype. Guess there was a reason you were kept in the bench so many times, even your comrades saw your inadequacies."

Cecile's head feels like its about to split in half. She wants to berate the voice on the other side for talking to her sister like that. She wants to brutalize her sister for betraying all of them. She wants her sister to kill her so she can escape this nightmare.

"You know what this means right, 619? I have to punish you now."

A horrible, shrill moan escape her sister's mouth. Cecile feels a wetness building on her back, where her assailant's crotch quivers in ecstasy. The ringing in her head grows to fever pitch.

Then, it crescendos.

"P-Please, please Handler! I've been a bad dog. Please, you have to punish me!"

The wanton, hopeful need in Amalia's voice breaks something inside her.

"Good dog."

buzz—

Pain. Blinding, white-hot pain flares across Cecile's neck, bolting down the rest of her nervous system with violent haste. Every fiber of her being, every muscle in her body is vibrating in pulsating agony, wave after wave the pain burns her nerves to a crisp.

A second later, it ends, leaving her in heaving breaths and sore aftershocks, roasted by live-wire and still, somehow, unable to escape in her sister's grip.

The wetness on her back grows.

An irritated grumble silences the two of them. "Well 619, this is your third strike. I was really, really hoping it wouldn't come to this, but it seems I... miscalculated with you. I'm not faulting you for this, as much as it pains me to admit. You're just a tool 619, the blame for your failures lies squarely with me. For not training you properly, for pushing you too far... I truly am sorry that things had to end like this." Perhaps it's delirium caused by the pain, but Cecile almost feels sympathy for her...

"However, I can't have a stain like you on my record, 619. I have a reputation to uphold, spent many, many years building it up. I can't just let all that work go down the drain. You understand don't you, 619?"

Amalia is rigid for a moment, unsure of herself. She nods quietly.

"Thank you." The woman clears her throat. "619, you're being decommissioned."

Cecile falls prone to the floor, the solid grip she'd been clinging to suddenly retracting. Amalia stumbles backwards, hitting the back wall of the cockpit.

"No, no, no, please Handler don't do this! I-I promise I'll be good, I promise, I—"

"619, take out your weapon."

Cecile feels very alert very suddenly. Her muscles feel corroded, but she fights her the growing soreness of her body to look back at her sister. Watching her slowly unstrap the pistol holstered at her hip, her movements eerily serene. Her face however, is trembling in fear.

"On your temple, 619."

Cecile tries to scream, to beg, but her voice is still strained and hoarse from the vicegrip her throat had been under. All she can do is gurgle and spew incoherently, pleading with her sister not to shoot.

Amalia's fingers wrap around the trigger shaking ever so slightly, fighting her most primordial, base instincts to follow the order. Hot tears run down her pale ghastly face, her head turning looking at her sister for the first time since she walked into this cursed place. Cecile sees a deep sorrow submerged in those hollow eyes.

"Shoot."

Cecile's hopeless screams are drowned out by the deafening bang, her vision is momentarily blinded by the muzzle flash. Once she comes back to reality she smell gunpowder in the air.

Slowly, she crawls. Her arms are still shaken from the blast, actively wanting to collapse from exhaustion, but Cecile pushes further, dragging her body across the cold metal floor like a dead weight. Eventually, she reaches her sister's corpse. She grips onto her boots and drapes herself over the lifeless corpse. She continues climbing towards her sister's face, putting her hands under her head and cradling it with a fragile gentleness.

The void that engulfed Amalia's eyes before is even more hollow now.

"What a damn mess..." Cecile hears the voice but doesn't even register the sound. She drops her head low, touching her sister's forehead with her own and lets her tears flow freely, her sobbing echoing over and over and over inside her head.

"I hope you end up being a little more useful than your sister, Cecile."

The entrance to the cockpit opens again, an army of soldiers on the other side. Cecile doesn't remember if she fought back when those men dragged her away from hell.