The morning light had risen upon a desperate, scrambling defense. Markov had not been prepared for an assault of this strength. The setting sun found instead a haggard, belabored force. The crumbling remnants of Markov's defenses refused to surrender the field, fighting on in spite of the increasingly bleak odds.
Private Kerric was curled up behind the shredded tatters of a support pillar. The mechanical crunching of zoids sounded from the street outside the parking garage what was left of his squadron had taken shelter in. They were pinned, but they might be able to take down a few of the bastards in the offing if they could draw the smaller zoids in here.
Tired fingers fumbled open the locket he kept around his neck, pictures of Elisha and their little Davis. He fervently hoped Cytokine would have them evacuated by now. Surely Elisha had gotten them both to safety? There was a quick bark from his sergeant, a call of warning. He kissed the locket, then stowed it away. gripping his pulse rifle, as he made ready. He would have to make sure he lived to see them.
The heavy weapons opened, a trio of rockets that managed to cripple a tiger zoid out in the street. The zoids retaliated with their characteristic metal howling, missiles thudding into the building around them, as several akata and some smaller raptor-like zoids stormed their position. Private Kerric stepped out of cover with a yell, pulse rifle ripping through the ever-silent akata, scoring large tears at this short of a distance. akata fell, but the zoids pushed through their assault. Already bloodied raptor claws gleamed in the light of muzzle flashes, and Private Kerric grit his teeth, preparing for death.
"Coming through!"
A magical missile smashed into the raptor zoid from behind, sending it sprawling. It rebounded with an indignant screech only to be bowled over by the fender of Lee's Van. The Guild band sped through the bottom floor of the parking garage following the illusory arrow's path up the parking garage's sharply turning ramp. Lee spun the wheel with frantic energy, hardly braking. The edge of the van was showering sparks as it scraped along the guardrail.
"Step on it, Lee! The CBA's tracking that damn eagle zoid, and it'll be swooping right past here any second!" Beezlebub shouted, "Exodus's marked that one worth extra!"
"Shut up! I know!" Lee hollered, wrenching the steering wheel around as they ascended floor after floor.
The open air of the top floor spread wide in front of them as they sped out of the spiral and across the rooftop. The Eagle zoid was in hot pursuit of a pair of star fighters, weaving through the abandoned buildings at high speeds.
"Let 'em have it!" Lee shouted, swerving the van broadside as Giorno, Beezlebub, Simone and Filigree brought their weapons to bear. A high octane barrage of arcane bullets caught the eagle zoid completely off guard. It spiraled away, colliding with a nearby skyscraper as it fell. Their celebration was short lived as a pair of zoid missiles slammed into the rooftop near the vehicle.
"Shit!" Lee hissed, "This is why we don't fuckin' stop rolling, Bee!" She slammed down the gas pedal. The van lurched back into motion as the structural integrity of the rooftop gave way and sections of it began to collapse underneath them. The van bucked and heaved over chunks of duracrete, before another zoid missile struck mere meters ahead of their bumper and sent it tumbling end over end into the air. The world spun outside as Lee desperately tried to keep her orientation.
They had gone over the edge of the roof, there was no way the van would hold up from a fall this big. Lee almost started to say something when there was a metal clunk! and an abrupt halt to their trajectory. Lee craned her neck out the windshield to see a mech had caught the van in mid-air as it swept in towards the street level.
"Carver here! Good shooting, but you should leave the sky fighting to us Pilots, guilders!"
Lieutenant Nathan Carver ignored the rude gesture Lee flashed from the window as he set the van back down on street level, already powering the mech's thrusters to get them airborne again.
"How's our ammo holding up, Halen?" He called as he scanned the surroundings.
"Bad Lieu... Carver." Airman Dasha Halen answered from the back of the mech. "We've got a few bombs left and several flares. We're out of rockets though and running low on the flak cannons too."
"Incoming on our eight! Forty-five up!" Nathan announced, positioning Dasha perfectly to riddle the incoming gryphon zoid with shots as it swooped in. The perforated creature faltered mid-dive and fell away to the ground below.
"Correction, left cannon's depleted, right has probably three more good bursts left." she stated, eyes sweeping over the diagnostics and reports. They wouldn't be able to keep the fight up much longer, but she also didn't think it was likely that Carver would have them abandon the battlefield, especially not at this point. She took a deep breath, mentally refocusing her attention. She would need to make these last couple shots count.
"Noted, we'll do some spotting then!" Carver announced. He wheeled the mech leftwards, weaving between buildings until he found a street heavily occupied by Zoids. Carver danced the mech through the air to keep them from locking onto their signal, ducking around a water tower and back into the street.
"This'll be a good target for the bombers, Halen. Fire off some signal flares!"
"Sir!" She punched the buttons, and a quartet of pink flares arced away from the mech, sparkling brightly in the fading light. Carver banked upwards hard, evading a missile that was a little close for comfort. They couldn't stay to drop their own bombs, the mech wouldn't be fast enough to avoid getting hit. With a frown he wheeled away between two skyscrapers. Hopefully someone else had noticed the target. A voice broke through the background chatter to Carver's headset.
"We see you Lieutenant Carver, This is Blair Williams coming in for a bombing run!"
A trio of fighter jets streaked out of the sky, Blair taking point, with Auburn and Duvan forming a V-shape behind her. The street was packed full of zoids that had wrapped around from a few different blocks to this choke point. A perfect target if they could hit it.
"We didn't get away clean, Blair!" Auburn shouted, a pair of Vulture Zoids were in hot pursuit, anti air fire exploding around the trio as they tried to position the start of their run.
"Got you covered!" came a new voice over the channel.
At first Blair thought the vehicle speeding towards them was another zoid, but as it neared she saw the unmistakable shape of an arwing in flight. Fox McCloud zipped past their formation with ridiculous speed, Laser cannons tearing into the unsuspecting zoids. One exploded on the spot, and the other peeled off, chasing down the arwing with a scream of rage. Fox McCloud worked the controls with a veteran's practice, the G-diffuser humming to life as Fox sent the arwing spinning in a barrel roll to evade the vulture zoid's fire.
"Bombing run is cleared!" He shouted into the intercom, "Now somebody get this bogie off of me!"
"That's disgusting, use a tissue or something." The dry sarcasm that greeted his call for help gave Fox pause, that voice didn't sound right for a normal human, but was strangely... correct to him.
"Boo-Yah!" Rocket Racoon shouted into his headpiece, locking onto the vulture zoid with his own "borrowed" fighter. A pair of missiles sent the vulture zoid crashing to the ground, and the two independent pilots fell into formation behind Blair's trio as they swept over the street, bombs and missiles raining destruction down upon the zoids below.
"Now this baby is what I'm talking about!" Rocket cackled, fingers dancing over the weapons options with anticipation.
"I owe you one!" Fox thanked, but Rocket only laughed.
"Put it on that Mustard guy's tab!" he paused, "Unless you got like a robotic arm or something..."
Fox glanced with some alarm at his cybernetic legs, but wisely didn't bring up the subject, instead, contacting Blair's fighter jet.
"This is Fox McCloud, ready to assist!" he barked with a dash of pride, "What's our next target?"
"Yeah! Who's asking for it?" Rocket piped up.
Blair looked down at the intercom screens with some small degree of surprise. Duvan's incredulous voice spoke up.
"Auburn, am I seeing things, or are that fox and racoon piloting fighters with us?"
"You tell me, Duvan. I still swear there were some yellow rodent critters running off that zoid before it shorted out."
"Hey! You take that back!" Rocket shouted angrily, slightly peaking the audio channel, "I'm not a racoon, and I ain't no freaking rodent!"
As the pilots rocketed back towards the ensuing dogfighting, four such rodents scampered through the destruction with intent and purpose. Pikachutwo had split the group into two teams, trying to disable as many of the not-steel-types as they could. It had been hours of running, hiding and ambushing but there seemed to be no end to the zoids and they were running low on power.
Pikachutwo darted up several chunks of broken piping and concrete, scouting out the route for a way towards shelter. Their part in the conflict was drawing to a close, they had done all they could to help the humans in their fight, now Pikachutwo's responsibility was to get the rest of the pikachus to safety. They had put their trust in him and he couldn't fail them now.
There was a roar and shouting from up ahead. A group of human soldiers were fleeing from a rhino zoid. They were occasionally firing at it as they fled, but the shots were sparing, and more to slow it than a hope for any real damage. they wouldn't get away from it without help, Pikachutwo could tell. He glanced back to his fellows, catching their breath in the shelter of a zoid carapace. If he asked them to, they would help him fight. He knew they wouldn't even question him either. They had so far escaped the fighting with only some slight burns, incredible luck when the enormity of the chaos was considered. But they were tired, and running low on energy. Could he really ask them to risk their own lives again, this late into a battle that showed no signs of ending?
He glanced back to the battle with a troubled expression as a new human dashed out of a side alley, slicing at the rear legs of the rhino zoid with a curved sword. It wasn’t very effective at disabling the creature, but as it’s head twisted backward he realized she was just trying to draw the beast's attention. The Zoid bellowed, more in anger than pain as it whirled on the newcomer. She evaded several stomps, then backed away, running desperately to stay ahead of the minigun fire coming from the creature's shoulder-mounted weaponry. It shredded a good portion of the street with bullets before a rocket smashed into it from the direction the soldiers had fled. A direct hit severely dented the minigun, and it sputtered into silence with a grinding of metal.
"That was our last one!" the soldiers called towards the newcomer, who nodded in response. She dashed over to protect them from the zoid, holding the blade in front of her and focusing her energy into it. Lightning began to arc into the blade in a way that Pikachutwo didn't think a human should have been capable of doing. She was clearly tired though, as the rhino zoid prepared to charge directly into them, Pikachutwo was confident she would not be able to accumulate enough power in time.
"Come on, everyone!" he shouted back to his fellows, "We need to help the human with the sword!"
With a cry, the four pikachus raced down to the group of humans, arranging themselves around Blade.
"We're here to help!" Pikachutwo hazarded an explanation, fully expecting the look of confusion that passed over Blade's face.
"What?" she asked, trying to focus her power into her weapon in the face of an impending metal wall.
"Pika-pi! Pika, Chu pika-pika, CHU!" one of the rodents chattered at her. As the phrase finished, lighting sparks arced from the four of them, forming a web of current between the five of them. Power suddenly replenished beyond her expectations, Blade refocused her attention on the rhino zoid. It was charging in, bellowing with corrupted rage. She swung the katana forward, the sections elongating into a chain-like structure that wrapped around the zoid's neck. With a shout, she poured all of the electricity she had accumulated into the blade. It glowed blue with power, lighting spitting off of it in globes as the excess current coursed through the rhino zoid. It's thundering charge faltered, smoke wafting off of it with the smell of burning metal. With her remaining strength she twisted the blade with a growl. The zoid's head sheared clean off as the blade-whip retracted to its normal state. Blade fell to one knee, barely sharing a glance with one of the yellow rodents before they scampered away into the streets.
"Are you alright?" one of the soldiers asked, walking over with a somewhat mystified expression. Blade nodded, slowly stepping back to her feet
"Yes, Do you know where we are?" she asked, sheathing her blade once more. There was an audible groan from one of the soldiers.
"Not ANOTHER newcomer!"
"Shut up, Cade!"
"Honestly though, what are the odds we'd find another one out here today?"
"This one hasn't threatened us, at least."
"Yet."
Knox looked back at his crew then towards Blade.
"We're attempting to link up with another squad, get back to somewhere we can at least get more ammo. Care to join us?"
Blade considered before nodding, "For the moment." she said finally.
"Uh... yeah, sure." Knox shrugged. The electric adept held up their arm, where one of Ohm's temporary communicators had been affixed.
"Ohm, are there any allies nearby we can make our way towards?"
There was a moment of static, then the Zoombini visage of Ohm Zui flickered into place in the display screen.
"Zoo! You guys are way out there in the field! Get back towards the barrier! I'll see if I can find someone nearby to link you up with."
Ohm Zui flicked between diagrams and charts, pulling up a feed of the reports near their coordinates. They briefly glanced towards the holomap, noting the progress of the disengagement. Markov's forces were preparing to fall behind the barrier, they needed to get these people moving before they were isolated from any support. There was yet another ping from the communicator, This time, showing the one eyed face of the mercenary known as Orion. He was bleeding from a jagged cut just below his good eye, it looked serious, but the veteran seemed not to think it was worth his attention.
"Chara just finished off the last one from the flanking force in this sector, that knife isn't normal. It cuts too clean for my liking. We're letting a child fight out here, but..."
"But we certainly can't argue with her results." Ohm nodded with agreement, "Zooo... I hope that we can maintain a line well enough that Markov's children are not placed at risk during their evacuation. Governmorne was not so lucky..." The Zoombini flicked through a running list of target assessments from the Crystal Ball Array. Several of its key members had already evacuated, and in the mounting fear and panic it’s effectiveness had somewhat faltered. However, several brave souls were still actively at work, and a few of the evacuated members were signing back in to do what they could remotely. There weren't any targets of particular note within easy reach, should they just pick up those stragglers and head back to the barrier? There was a roar from the screen behind Orion, and the mercenary’s face fell away to a jumble of moving concrete and metal.
"More coming!" a child's voice called from the screen. There was a shout, and the unmistakable sound of a ki blast that also temporarily saturated the camera's lense.
"There's more than those two. Too many." the child said with a strange calm.
"Right, then we're going airborne! Grab on Chara!" The sound of rushing air fuzzed the audio before Orion's face reappeared, Chara slightly visible arms wrapped around his neck as she hung from his back.
"Any more targets?"
"Zooks, no! Get back to a secure point near the barrier, we're going to pull back and..."
"Belay that order!" a new voice broke into the dialogue, "Link up and join the offensive, we're taking the fight straight to the Doomsday mech."
"Understood!" the mercenary answered without hesitation. Ohm was slightly more incredulous of Mustang's declaration.
"Is that advisable, Major? We don't know very much about the danger it presents and the cost to our forces could be severe!"
"Maybe so, but I'm not about to let Cevanti go without a fight, not while I'm still on my feet and able to try and stop it." Mustang answered with what was likely undeserved confidence, "Collect as many CBA users as possible to join our force, any guilder runners who are still alive out here too. We're going to drive a wedge straight through the front and into that Mech!"
He put down the communicator, and got out of the jeep. Second Lieutenant Hawkeye was there with the other officers, she saluted with a restrained smile. He saluted the group of them with a nervously eager grin.
"It's going to be bloody fighting, men. We aren't going out there to thin the numbers of Zoids, no need to confirm kills, just disable, disarm and keep moving. Keep pushing forwards, with any luck enough us will make it to deal some damage to that bastard in the mech! Dismissed!"
A cry went up as Markov's forces charged out towards the front in force. Lasers and bullets tore into Zoids, missiles and claws sent good men and women flying and screaming. A wave of flame rolled down the street, Roy moving from cover to cover, ignition cloth gloves snapping as soon as he could confirm a good target. The streets exploded into chaos as akata swarmed into the counter attack. The man to Roy's left was blown away by a zoid missile, and before the smoke had cleared an Akata was there, pouncing in towards his throat. A rifle bullet intercepted it, thudding into its neck and dropping it without a sound. Roy turned to give Hawkeye a wave of thanks, but she had already shifted targets to the boar zoid that was charging her position. One, two, three rifle shots snapped into its head, but the bellowing creature barely slowed.
"Woo hoo!" came a hollering shout, "Flesh'n blood beats scrap!" A scrawny looking kid shouted from the back of a massive boar. It slammed into the zoid mid charge, redirecting the creature into a nearby concrete column with a rending crunch. "That'a boy Tusker! This is our kind of scrap!" the kid shouted from the back of the beast, it bellowed, goring the zoid several more times for good measure.
Roy breathed a sigh of relief, then grabbed the nearest soldier.
"Hey!"
"Sir?" the hapless man yelped in minor surprise.
"Whatever your name is, get some more guards on the left flank. We need to get sharpshooters into the buildings and off the streets."
"Erm, Steve, Sir. Steve Nessing. I'm just a PFC sir."
"Then get your C.O. to do it!" Roy verbally snapped before physically snapping another burst of flame into a cluster of his men that had risen as void zombies.
"Right, Sir!" Steve barked before scampering off to find Sergeant Swift or maybe just a good place to take cover in this hellscape.
"Major Mustang," came Ohm's voice from the communicator, "I'm bouncing a message we just received back to you. It's information about our target from Ashe-0."
Roy ducked behind the broken shell of a gundam and glanced at the communicator, the diagnostic info all but ignored when he saw the message that accompanied it.
"Woah." PFC Steve remarked as he risked a glance from behind the wall he had taken shelter behind with PFC Axle and Sergeant Swift, "Now THAT is a bright light!"
---
Three successive waves swept outwards from the point of Ashe-0's detonation. First, an electromagnetic pulse that raced the flash of light as it swept outwards. Even hampered by the magnetic fielding of Ashe-0's failing power cells it scrambled communications lines and downed lights and screens all the way through the near edge of the barrier. This was quickly followed by the ever-growing sound of igniting air, drowning out the screeches of zoids and the cries of Markov's defenders with its overpowering roar of sheer obliteration. Finally the shockwave of air pressure hit. A few of the closest buildings were leveled. Across the outskirts supports weakened by time and conflict gave way in an expanding crescendo of destruction. The characteristic second flash swept out, but only the truly insane would be looking on to see the fireball expanding outwards from the point of impact on the fade itself. The shockwave impacted the great barrier of Markov with an audible exchange, a fizzing static of burning air that further drained the waning barrier's energy supply. The mushroom cloud rose above the ruined skyline, smoking red with nitrous oxide as it expanded away from the super-heated air. A temporary monument for the war droid's sacrifice.
---
In the forward command post, Colonel Herrick struggled to his feet. Ohm Zui's lack of footing had benefited them in recovering quickly from the impact and they were already at work restoring the holomap to functionality. It winked back into fuzzy existence, the red and green markers populating the map like blooming flowers as radar arrays recovered from the emp.
"What the hell was that?" Herrick demanded, ignoring the static feed his disabled cybernetic eye was screaming into his brain. Ohm only shook their head, flitting over to the portion of the map the Doomsday mech had occupied. The entire sector was a blur, coupled with several warnings from the holodisplay to avoid the area.
"No idea... Zoooo-ie! The heat readings in this zone are still off the charts, and its saturating what sensors are still operational to the point we can't make heads or tails of the readings we do get!" A philia scratched their chin thoughtfully. Eventually, Ohm gave what could best be approximated as a shrug.
"Either one of our number has hit the doomsday mech with something quite significant, or it possesses enough firepower to have leveled the city this whole time! Zounds, but I wish I could see what is happening out there!"
---
Starscream pushed his engines to their limits as he raced to escape the fireball expanding outwards from the giant mech's face. That idiotic hero had really gone and blown herself up on the the thing, and hadn't even thought to warn them all to get distance first! The red energon had been burned away, and even his vaunted speed wasn't going to be enough. Starscream strained his engines for their last shreds of extra speed. This would not be his end!
The shockwave buffeted his jet form, throwing him off balance and tumbling through the air. Unable to reorient his momentum as he plummeted, Starscream transformed back into his robotic shape, crashing into the roof of an empty building with enough impact to smash clear through three stories. He lay there in pain and barely able to move. Starscream watched the small hole of sky above him literally catch fire as the oxygen ignited in the chain reaction. Regardless of its crude application, that power was something that Starscream could appreciate. Why did that idiot listen to anything the humans told it?
With aching servos, the decepticon crawled his way up out of the desiccated structure. clawed hands grabbing and lifting him through the stories until his head crested the rooftop. He cringed, shielding his optical sensors against the angry glare the mushroom cloud was reflecting down onto its surroundings.
Primus preserve them all, the Doomsday mech still stood. Small sections of the mech were melting and dropping off of it to the ground far below. Smoke wafted off of its superheated metal in waves of acrid black, steaming up into the mushroom cloud. Starscream sunk back into the hole his impact had made in the rooftop, thoroughly cowed. Just how powerful was this foe? just before he ducked back down to hide, Starscream noticed something that gave him pause. It was most likely some byproduct of the distorted air that surrounded them, but it almost looked like the Doomsday mech was moving backwards? That couldn't be right, it wasn't stepping, and it almost looked... fainter?
---
"No!" the blackened and charred form of Lord Zedd bellowed with a rasping voice. He surged muscles of pure defiance, refusing to die buried in rubble like some forgotten creature. With a final effort he burst free, shoving aside the inert form of Baymax, sparing barely half a glance to see the robot's back half had been utterly shredded by the explosion it had been shielding Zedd from. Zedd took a shaky step onto the surface of the blast zone, staring up at the Doomsday mech as it smoldered with more light than the fading sun provided. It looked transparent.
"No!"Zedd's fury overcame his utter exhaustion and he forced himself forward, managing to reach a staggering half-jog by the time he neared the Fade's feet. They were sliding away from him, moving away without sign of motion from the mech itself.
"You cannot escape me!" Zedd howled, motor functions failing as he body screamed its need for rest, to stop. He screamed louder at it to do what he demanded. Zedd crouched down and sprang with his full energy towards the Mech's left leg. He threw all of his remaining energy into a punch that sailed right through its knee, passing through it like smoke as Zedd crashed back to the ground, unable to muster the energy to try again. He lifted his head to stare up at the massive mechanical being as it faded away towards the forest's edge.
"You cannot escape me!" He shouted, but the Fade gave no response, Disappearing from view completely as the sun set behind Markov's skyline.
There was a moment of pause on the battlefield, then a distant scream of frustration, pain and rage swept out of trees, washing over any defender who had managed to recover their wits, causing them to clamp their hands to the ears, curling up to seek any sort of respite they could. As one mind, The surviving Zoids turned towards the scream, and began to race towards it, heedless of their previous quarries.
The stars of Multerra twinkled into view above an eerie and suddenly still battlefield.