Gap Stories #21

[B.E.A.S.T.]

Log Date: 11/25/12768

Data Sources: the Lantern Logs

Event Log: 11/25/12768

Genista: Civilian Overlook

3:53pm LPT

“Ambush a Fringe Captain. The nerve to suggest something like that…” Xivé grumbles while her twin helps her adjust the sling that her arm is in. “Why did we agree to that? We knew it wouldn’t go well, and we didn’t get anything to show for it aside from a lot of bruises.”

“It didn’t sound like Rofty really understood what he was asking us to do.” Raph says as she locks her sister’s sling in at a notch above where it was before. “Maybe he didn’t understand how dangerous a Fringe Captain is. Or maybe he thought a little too highly of us. We are the Exile’s daughters, after all.”

“We’re good, but we do have our limits. And everyone knows that Fringelings are ruthless.” Xivé says, rolling her eyes as she tugs on her sling, then leans back against the overlook’s railing. “I’ve heard rumors about their Captains before, but I’ve never fought one. That shield he had was crazy powerful — I don’t think I’ve ever seen a non-magical shield that strong before.”

“You think he was bad, you should’ve tried fighting his secretary.” Raph puffs, grabbing her drink off the ledge and taking a sip. “Textbook definition of a killer robot. She punched me so hard it left bruises, even through my armor.”

“And that’s another thing!” Xivé says, throwing up her free arm. “We should’ve skipped the regalia and just gone in there as Mask Knights. We probably would’ve done better using our own combat styles, instead of sticking to the Lantern handbook.”

“You know the rules.” Vakalahi speaks up at this point. The petite blonde is standing to the left of the twins, arms crossed as she stares out across the plains surrounding Genista. From their place on the outpost’s domed wall, one can see for miles in all directions. “When we’re carrying out Father’s orders, we go as Black Lanterns. We can’t be seen undertaking his missions as Mask Knights.”

“Oh, don’t give me that, Vaka. You were getting your ass handed to you just like we were.” Xivé scoffs, holding a hand out for Raph’s drink. “You can’t tell me you don’t wish you could’ve busted out some of your signature spells. We could’ve put up more of a fight if we were able to do our own thing.”

“Yeah, that’s what I wish we could do.” Vakalahi says as Raph hands her drink over to her twin. “But there’s a reason we can’t do it that way. And I already told you what that reason was.”

“We have to protect his agenda.” Raph adds.

“Yeah, I know, it’s just… frustrating.” Xivé sighs, motioning to the arm that’s in a sling. “I can’t help but thinking this wouldn’t have happened if I could’ve cut loose, properly. Don’t get me wrong, I can clobber most people as a Black Lantern, but for something like this… second-best isn’t gonna cut it. You need to be able to bring all your cards to the table when you’re taking on a Fringe Captain.”

“Well, now we know for the future.” Vaka says, looking up at the cloud-laced sky overhead. With the Genista’s location near the coast, clouds and thundershowers seemed to be consistent elements for the outpost. “Next time we go up against a Fringe Captain, we’ll plan out the attack, instead of charging in there hoping brute force is enough. And it’s not like this has ended the mission; we can still get the Cherriki clones. We just have to wait for Rofty to do what he needs to do on his end.”

“He sure is taking his sweet time…” Xivé mutters, sipping from the drink.

“He probably has a lot of eyes on him.” Raph points out. “He is the project lead. And he seemed pretty shaken up after meeting with the Fringelings.”

“He’s probably soft after years of deep cover. Sleeper agents often have low risk tolerance.” Xivé says, handing the drink back to Raph. “They get so fixated on maintaining their cover that sometimes they forget why they infiltrated in the first place. Maybe we should go remind him.”

“We’ll do that if he’s taking longer than he should. In the meantime, we can work on what the Council sent us here to do in the first place.” Vaka says, her pale blue eyes coming back down to gaze across the outpost’s buildings, before settling on the Titan yard. “We might get a second crack at figuring out what makes Feather and her handler tick.”

“Color me doubtful on that one. If Father couldn’t figure it out, I doubt we’ll be able to either.” Xivé says, tugging on the frosted bangs of her black hair. “If you ask me, it’s probably just because Songbird’s built different. He literally walked into a Fountain, picked up the pieces of his girlfriend, and walked back out.”

“Father should’ve kept him for a bit longer. Figured out how he did it.” Raph says as she holds her drink close, sipping from it. “She’s so lucky to have a handler that won’t die after a few combat missions.”

“You think we could convince the Council to let us try to tangle with non-Masklings?” Xivé muses. “Feather and Songbird made it work…”

Vakalahi snorts at that. “You’d have better luck convincing Father. Remember how hard the Council resisted the idea of Songbird being Feather’s handler?”

“I mean, it couldn’t hurt to try it, right?” Raph points out. “Just a test run…?”

“They’re politicians, not scientists. ‘Test run’ isn’t in their vocabulary.” Xivé says. “Vaka’s right; we’d have better luck convincing Father to let us try it. He’s open to learning new things… but that’s probably why he never tried to run for a Council seat.”

“Father knows he can do more good when he’s not tied down to a political office.” Vaka says, and it seems like she’s about to say more, but pulls back when she notices a couple walking the civilian path on the outpost wall, angling towards the scenic overlook where the three Mask Knights are reposing. “Raph.”

Sighting the pair, Raph sets down her drink and shakes her wristmarks to life. As the blue runes start orbiting her wrists, she picks out three of them, merging them together before flicking them towards the couple as a loose, amorphous wave of sapphire light. The pair notice it coming too late to get out of the way; some of it seems to soak into them as it passes through them, their eyes going blank as they slow down, then adjust their trajectory to pass by the scenic overlook altogether. The three Mask Knights watch the couple in silence, and only go back to speaking once they’re out of earshot.

“I never could get my head around deterrence spells.” Xivé remarks. “Best I could do was disorient people, but you make it look so easy.”

“It’s all about the suggestion. You want to guide their intentions, rather than forcing them to change.” Raph says, lowering her hand as her wristmarks go dark again. “Instead of telling them that they don’t want to come here, you suggest that there’s probably a better view at the next overlook. There’s nuance to it; you want to push the suggestion in a way that lets their mind latch onto it, so they’ll believe it’s their own idea.”

“You’re better suited for it than the rest of us are.” Vakalahi says before taking her eyes off the couple and returning her attention to her sisters. “I don’t think Father would allow us to try tangling with non-Masklings at a time like this. He probably wouldn’t mind the experiment itself, but there’s a lot going on right now with the war, and we can’t afford chaos factors at the moment. Maybe in a couple of years, when things have calmed down a little.”

“Shame.” Xivé mutters. “I could’ve gone for tangling with someone new.”

“Not happy with your current handler?” Raph asks.

“Think he’s starting to get cold feet now that he realizes what tangling with an S-Two will do to him.” Xivé says, using the heel of her boot to scratch her other shin. “All that bluster about being willing to die for our nation and people, but then when it becomes a reality, they start having second thoughts… you know the type.”

“He’s the young one, isn’t he? Recently recruited into the service?” Vakalahi asks.

“Yeah. Have you noticed the quality’s gone down over the last year or so?” Xivé queries, her brows coming together. “Just seems like they aren’t making them like they used to.”

“Well, the Republic has gotten more involved in the war over the last year…” Raph points out. “We’ve actually committed ships and battle groups to some of the combat theaters to help prop them up against the Collective invasions. So maybe it’s a manpower issue.”

“They keep feeding us the cannon fodder since they actually need the competent Mask Knights they used to give us.” Vakalahi says, pulling out her phone and checking it. “I can’t blame them for it. Condemning your best people to a guaranteed death sentence is a luxury you can’t afford in the middle of a war.”

“All the more reason to figure out what makes Feather and Songbird click.” Raph says, glancing in the direction of the Titan yard. “The fact that she’s got a handler that can actually handle her has probably saved… what, half a dozen Mask Knights by now? We’re no longer sending good soldiers to their deaths for the sake of keeping her powered up.”

“What, you hoping to find your prince the way she found her man?” Xivé says. “Get your fairytale ending and ride off into the sunset after leaving a trail of dead handlers behind you?”

Raph scowls at her twin. “Are your painkillers wearing off?”

“We’ve all got a list of dead names, from the S-One all the way to the S-Fives. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.” Vakalahi says, putting away her phone and turning to look back out across the plains. Brown furrows and blackened patches on the green mark the areas where Genista’s Titan squad has intercepted Leviathans time and time again; in one patch not far from the outpost, the grass is still smoldering near the fresh-dead carcass of a Leviathan that had been downed less than an hour ago. It was that spectacle that had brought the S-Twos to the overlook in the first place, to watch the Genista and Valiant Titans in action, and they hadn’t been disappointed. “We didn’t choose this. Just like we didn’t choose to be born as Masklings, we can’t help that we drain the people we tangle with. We just have to make the most of it and do as much good as we can with the power we get from it.”

“Speaking of which. Anyone know what’s up with that last spell that Father sent to us?” Xivé asks, fishing around in her jacket for her phone. “I took a look at it, but it’s a real chonker, and he added a warning that it would probably burn through a handler, even a freshly tangled one.”

“Yeah, I saw that too… he said we might need it here on Genista?” Raph says, rattling the ice in her drink as she checks how much is left in it. “Based off the rune arrangement, it seemed like some sort of construct or manifest spell. He even gave it a fancy acronym. Battle-Enhanced Avatar or something like that?”

“Battle-Equipped Avatar, Size: Titanic. BEAST for short.” Vakalahi says, leaning her forearms on the railing. “Cast it and you turn into a giant magical mecha monster or something like that. Unique to just the S-One through the S-Fives; apparently the capability was built into us when we were designed, so it’s not something that normal Masklings would be able to do. But he’s only shared the knowledge with us, so the S-One, S-Threes, S-Fours, and S-Fives aren’t aware they can do it.”

Xivé gives Vakalahi a sideways look. “You’re pulling our legs.”

“That’s what he said when I asked him about it. He was more regal about it, actually made it sound cool and dignified, but that’s basically what it boiled down to.” Vakalahi replies, scanning the grounds outside the outpost. “Giant mecha construct. Blueprints are stored within us, and the rune sequences he sent us are what activates them. If it wasn’t coming from Father himself, I’d assume it was a joke, but…”

“Well, this is the same man that basically designed and built the Cradle.” Raph points out. “He’s definitely capable of it.”

“Did he think we were going to be getting into fights with Leviathans?” Xivé scoffs as she starts typing out a text to her handler. “That isn’t what the Council sent us here to do, and it sure isn’t what he asked us to do here. The Council wanted us to check on Feather, and Father wanted us to collect the zygotes from Rofty.”

“You never know. The longer we’re here, the higher the chance we could get dragged into it.” Vakalahi says, her eyes remaining fixed on the plains. “Intel shows the Leviathan attacks have been getting more frequent. I’ve heard that the hangar crews are starting to fall behind on repairs between operations. The Collective might be ramping up their attack schedule to grind them down and wear them out.”

“Then we better grab those zygotes, check in with the Council’s brat, and get out of here. Feather might enjoy mech therapy with her man, but I’m not ready for a crash course on kaiju kickass.” Xivé says, looking up from her phone. “I’m asking my handler to grab us some lunch from one of the local burger places. You guys want anything?”

“Do they have a menu?” Raph says, leaning over to glance at her sister’s phone. “I’m feeling a chicken burger.”

“That’s not a burger.”

“It’s on a burger bun, isn’t it?”

“Burgers are made with beef.”

“Then why do they call them hamburgers? There’s no ham in a hamburger.”

“Look, that’s not the point. Burgers are made with beef. If you put chicken in a burger bun, that’s a chicken sandwich.”

“Even though it’s in a burger bun and burgers aren’t made of ham.”

“Exactly.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Look, I don’t make the rules. That’s just how it is.”

“Fine. Do they offer breaded chicken between two buns?”

“That’s a chicken sandwich.”

“I’m not calling it a chicken sandwich. Sandwiches are made with loaf bread, not buns.”

“What? That makes no sense. Buns and bread are both bread.”

“And burgers don’t have any ham in them, but they’re still called hamburgers. I can make up arbitrary rules too.”

“I could just tell him to get me a hamburger and not let you order anything.”

“Or you could stop being a bitch and let me see the menu, like I asked earlier…”

Vakalahi has long since zoned out the bickering of the twins, her silent gaze fixed on the plains between the ocean and the outpost. Though there is nothing altogether remarkable about the scenery, she finds her attention inexplicably drawn back to it, again and again. By now it should be familiar to her, with how often she has glanced at it; and yet every time she looks, it feels like she is discovering something new. Another plowed furrow of earth, an irregular scorch mark she didn’t notice before; it was like the landscape was changing every time she took her eyes away. And so, for the last couple of minutes she had simply stared out at the plains, taking in the positions of every crater and ditch, every scorchmark and bloodstained spot.

“What about you, Vaka? You want anything from the burger place?” Xivé asks.

Vakalahi blinks, glancing at Xivé. “Mmm? Oh, lunch. Get me three extra-large orders of fries with salt on the side. And a milkshake, if they have them.”

“Dayum, girl. Really packing on the calories today.” Xivé says, starting to add the request to her text.

“I mean, we burned a ton of calories fighting that Fringe Captain.” Raph points out.

“That was three days ago, Raph.”

“I’m just saying, it was a hell of a workout…”

“It changed.” Vakalahi mutters, starting to push off the railing.

Raph glances at her. “What was that, Vaka?”

“The scorch marks and the ripped-up earth. The positions keep changing.” she says, keeping her eyes fixed on the terrain outside the outpost. “There’s something out there.”

Xivé looks over her shoulder. “Are you saying the ground is shifting around?”

“Yes, but not when you’re looking at it. It doesn’t move when you’re looking at it, but when you look away and look back again, everything’s off, or shifted by just a little.” Vaka says, walking a few steps to one side as if to get a different angle. “I memorized the scorch marks around the recent Leviathan carcass. They shift position a little every time I look away and back again.”

“Really.” Xivé says, the doubt in her voice clear. “Maybe we should get you a second milkshake. Your blood sugar might be a little low.”

“Wait, do you guys feel that?” Raph says, looking down. “It feels like the ground… no, the wall is shaking.”

Xivé and Vakalahi go still for a moment, and Raph’s observation quickly becomes apparent. “Tremor. You think it’s an earthquake?” Xivé asks Vakalahi.

“No, earthquakes start big and get smaller. This tremor is getting stronger.” Vakalahi says, snagging hold of the railing and glancing back over the wall again. “Oh shit—”

Outside the outpost, the illusion has finally frayed, a fading shimmer that parts around an emerging rupture in the ground. Rising from the sundered earth is a long, triangular horn that narrows to a point, followed by the head of a colossal Leviathan, its many eyes blinking open as it surfaces to the daylight. The ground around it seems to be vibrating to the point of liquefaction, and it seems like this is what the beast was using to ‘swim’ through the earth around it as if it was water. Now, having surfaced, the vibrating is scaling down as the Leviathan frees its limbs from the ground and clambers up from the depths.

“Wha… where did that come from!” Xivé exclaims, scrambling to put away her phone as she rushes to the railing. “That thing’s huge, why did we not see it until now?”

“It must’ve been masking its approach. The Collective aren’t much for magic, so it was probably a psi illusion, and a damn big one at that.” Vakalahi says, moving along the railing as klaxons within the outpost start blaring. “There, behind the head’s crest, along the neck — that blue bulge. Leviathans rarely have exposed organs; that’s probably the thing it was using to project the psi illusion.”

“Oh no. It’s heading straight for the outpost.” Raph breathes as the Leviathan finishes clambering out of the ground, and starts lumbering towards Genista. Atop the wall, in the spaces between the scenic overlooks, heavy autocannons spin up and swivel to face the Leviathan. The air soon fills with the echoing booming of heavy rounds being fired at the colossal beast, but it just puts its armored head down and continues marching towards the outpost. The explosions scatter along its head and burly shoulders, and on any other target they’d leave gaping holes — but with the size of this Leviathan, all it does is leave behind little pockmarks on its chitinous plating. “It’s less than a mile from the outpost. Will there be enough time for them to dispatch the Titans to intercept?”

Vakalahi glances over her shoulder to the Titan yard, where she can see some of the Titans parked in their alcoves. “No, there won’t. They’re still winding down from the last operation; they’ll have to rush the pilots back to their Titans and the startup sequences will take minutes, even if everything goes perfectly. The Leviathan will reach the outpost before they can get out there.”

“What happens then? Does the outpost have any internal defenses?” Xivé says, rushing over to the walkway and peering down into the outpost below. “Will even matter? Those cannons aren’t doing shit to the Leviathan!”

“Even if they had internal defenses, which I doubt they do, you’d need a full artillery battalion focusing their fire on that thing to make a difference.” Vakalahi says, pulling out her phone and shooting off a quick text. “We need to buy time for the Titans to get out here. Call your handlers, it’s go time.”

“What?! What for? This outpost isn’t ours to defend!” Xivé demands, turning on Vakalahi. “We weren’t sent here to fight their battles; why should we put our lives on the line for them?”

“We’re not doing it for them.” Vakalahi snaps back as she pockets her phone. “The Collective are after the Cherriki clones, just the same as the Fringelings, and the Valiant, and us. If the Leviathan breaches the outpost and makes it to the command complex, there won’t be anything for us to take back to Father.”

“Uh, guys, guys, you should probably grab a railing and brace!” Raph shouts at both of them. Xivé and Vakalahi both look to see that the Leviathan has reached charging speed, its long horn lowered towards the outpost’s curved wall. Despite the continued pounding from the turrets, contact is imminent, and nothing short of a Titan is going to change that fact.

All three Mask Knights grab onto the railing and cling to it as the Leviathan reaches the outpost, the triangular horn shearing through the wall before slowing to a halt halfway through. Violent shudders run through the barrier as chunks of rebar-laced concrete and metal plating rain down from the point where the chitinous blade has punched through. But it does not stop there, because the Leviathan starts twisting and turning its head, the horn starting to shear away more of the wall with every scrape, widening the hole that has formed. As the breach grows larger, it shoves its horn in deeper and deeper — and it’s clear that it plans on eventually forcing its head and the rest of its body through the breach.

“We need to get down from here. This portion of the wall might collapse if it takes too much damage.” Xivé says as tremors continue to shiver through the wall beneath their feet.

“Agreed.” Vakalahi agrees as her runemarks glow to life around her wrists. “Raph, take Xivé and get her to safety; she can’t fight in her current condition. Once she’s safe, come join me at the breach.”

“I’ll see you soon. Don’t do anything too crazy.” Raph says, grabbing her twin and heading along the wall, away from the point where the Leviathan has breached.

Vakalahi, on the other hand, runs straight for the wall’s inner railing, shaping the golden runes in her hands into a tri-pronged hook. Vaulting out into open air, she snags it on the railing as she flies past it, a tether forming as she starts to fall. Hanging onto that citrine line of light with both hands, she hooks it to her belt as she descends lower and lower with every swing. In a little over a half minute, she’s managed to descend two dozen stories, legs out and boots scraping over the ground as she skids into her landing. The hook and line dissolve in a long shower of sparks as she releases the spell and starts running, moving towards where she can see the Leviathan’s horn grinding a hole in the outpost’s wall.

“This is a red advisory. All noncombat personnel are advised to shelter in place. If you are in the fourth quarter, please evacuate to quarters two or three, depending on which one is closest to you.” The warning carries over the outpost’s speaker system, almost drowned out at some points by the sound of wall rubble crashing into the outpost. Vakalahi ignores it all, focusing on activating the rest of her rune circles; she can feel them lifting off her shoulders and her back, and glowing in her eyes. Where the residents near the breach were fleeing away, she was running towards it; she could people starting to stream out of the buildings near the hole in the wall, some of them hauling hastily-packed bags.

Reaching the main street that led to the center of the outpost, Vakalahi paused to take stock of the breach. Fresh rubble and debris were still crashing to the ground as the Leviathan continued grinding its horn through the hole in the wall; it was now nearly to the base of the horn, and the monster was occasionally pulling back and ramming forward. Every impact sent cracks across the wall’s interior, with compromised chunks of concrete being knocked loose and plummeting to the ground below. Several buildings at the base of the wall has already borne the brunt of this rain of rubble; there were people fleeing out of the cloud of debris dust there, and doubtless several that were still trapped there, either injured or killed.

“Vaka!” The shout has Vakalahi turning around to see her handler running down the sidewalk towards her, his runemarks active. “Why did you call me here? We need to get out of this area — if it gets through the wall, it’ll be coming right through this street on its way to the command complex!”

“I’m aware. That’s why we need to be here.” she replies, moving out towards the center of the street. “We need to buy time for the Titans to redeploy.”

“We aren’t here to defend the outpost! The only reason we’re here is to check on the S-One; we don’t need to get involved in any of this!” her handler exclaims, following after her as he gestures to the massive horn grinding away at the hole in the wall. “And even if we were supposed to protect the outpost, there’s nothing we can do against something that big!”

“You’re right; we’re not here to defend this outpost, and it’s not our responsibility to do so.” Vakalahi says, stopping in the middle of the street and kneeling down on the asphalt. “But the S-One is part of the Titan squad responsible for defending this outpost. She’s one of us; we need to support her mission while we’re here. And besides, there’s no good reason to stand by and watch all these people get stepped on like ants.”

“Okay, but we still don’t have a good way to deal with this!” the handler says as circles of runes begin printing themselves into the ground around Vakalahi. “This is what they have Titans for; we don’t have any spells in our arsenal that can deal with something this big!”

“We do.” Vakalahi says, looking over her shoulder. “But it requires sacrifice. Are you ready for that?”

His brows draw together; he looks up at the horn tearing a hole in the wall, then back down at Vakalahi. “You want me to throw away my life for these people?”

“Only if you’re ready.” she says, returning her attention to the circles of golden runes around her, and laying down lines of runes that cut through them and form smaller circles at their ends.

“People we were not asked to protect.”

“You knew when you tangled with me that it was a death sentence. I even told you myself that it would only be a matter of time. And you committed anyway.”

“I did. I knew I was a dead man walking after I tangled with you. But if I have to die, I want it to be for the right reasons; I want it to have meaning, not on a passing whim.”

“This isn’t a passing whim. I know we don’t owe these people anything. We weren’t sent here to protect them. But just because we were not given orders does not mean we should stand by and watch them die.”

“If you’re going to ask me to sacrifice myself, at least respect my intelligence, Vaka.” the handler demands as the runes start burning into the asphalt. “I’m tangled with you. I can sense you aren’t doing this because you want to protect these people. You have a different reason for wanting to fight this thing, but you’re trying to sell me on the virtue of protecting these people to get me to go along with it.”

Vakalahi pauses and looks over her shoulder. “…fine. This outpost cannot fall; we have a sleeper agent inside the command complex that must retrieve something for us, and we need the command complex to remain intact for that. I don’t care about these people; protecting them is just collateral of fulfilling that mission. But I know you care about them, at least in a general sense of duty to the weak and less fortunate, so that’s what I’m offering you — the assurance that your death will protect others. Is that good enough for you?”

“I just wanted honesty about what I’m being asked to die for.” he answers, shaking his runemarks awake. “I just want you to promise that you’ll make the most of what I can give you. I just want to know it won’t be wasted.”

There is a moment, ever so brief, where one can almost see the pity in Vakalahi’s pale blue eyes. A passing instance where you can catch a flicker of empathy, a second of self-awareness, of understanding the cost at which her power comes. But it is gone almost as quickly as it came, scared away by the grinding boom as the Leviathan manages to force its head through the hole in the wall. More of the wall crumbles around its neck, a muffled scraping audible through the concrete as the colossus mounts its forelegs on the structure and begins pressing on it.

“It won’t be spent in vain. I’m just hoping it’ll be enough.” Vakalahi says, one of the lines of runes running back and forming a circle around her handler’s feet as she stands. “All I need you to do is surrender to it. Let it take you.”

If he could say something, he chooses not do. Perhaps he yields his last words in favor of a dignified silence, because he closes his eyes, taking a deep breath and letting it out as the circle of runes around his feet start printing inwards, over his boots and up along his body. Vakalahi keeps her focus forwards as the circles of runes around her begin to rise, each row twisting in a countervailing direction like gears slowly spinning up to speed. The spell at least feels somewhat familiar to her; the fundamentals are similar to the ones she uses to manifest her magical armor — but far more complex, and on a much grander scale, taken to the not-so-logical extreme.

“Alright.” she breathes, reaching up and taking hold of the circle closest to her. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

With that she yanks her arm across, setting all of the rings spinning around her. Rather than slowing down over time, they begin to speed up as the runes cover the handler, and he begins to glow. It steadily becomes brighter and brighter until he dissolves in a storm of bright motes, which feed into the rings spinning around Vakalahi. This injection of energy ramps up their speed to the point where they’re blurring into a sphere around her, one that sets the air vibrating as shapes begin to coalesce. At first they appear transparent and numinous, like mere suggestions, but they soon begin to solidify as more shapes appear and start to layer over the original ones. Distortions in the air become hardlight, and hardlight thickens into black metal, hardening into a scaffolding that cradles the sphere containing Vakalahi. A framework forms around that scaffolding, and begins to spread outwards as a self-assembling skeleton with the golden core at the chest; plates begin to form around the torso and limbs in layers, providing a protective black armor cushioned by muscle groups, composed of what appears to be pure energy.

In under a minute, a colossal B.E.A.S.T. has manifested out of almost nothing, towering over many of the buildings that line the main street of the fourth quarter. Once wide and empty, that street now seems small and cramped with what appears to be a serpentine dragon now filling it. A golden glow peeks through the black plates that make up its armor, and it is not shy about flexing its wings, formed from taut curtains of topaz light. For a moment, it seems like the colossus is preparing for takeoff; but then the wings fold back in again, and the B.E.A.S.T. surges down the street towards the breach, slamming into the Leviathan as it muscles a shoulder through the hole in the wall.

The impact is a loud one, and dislodges the Leviathan from its spot in the breach, pushing it back somewhat. However, it also dislodges weakened portions of the wall, with more sections cracking and falling into the outpost; light from outside the outpost seeping through those new openings as the rubble starts to pile up below. One may not have thought it possible, but the residents of the outpost begin fleeing away from the site of the clash even faster than before. They have a good reason to, with the violence escalating as the B.E.A.S.T. grapples with the head of the Leviathan, hooking its claws into the chitinous plating while it tries to force the monster back through the hole it created.

Elsewhere in the city, Raph has just managed to get Xive down to ground level when the crash echoes through the outpost. Both of them turn in that direction to see Vakalahi’s B.E.A.S.T. wrestling with the Leviathan as it thrashes and snaps, trying to dislodge its attacker. From where they stand, sizable chunks of the scuffle are hidden from view by the larger buildings, but they can still catch glimpses of the dragon construct snapping and clawing at the Leviathan’s head, bracing its hindlegs against the ground as it tries to push the Leviathan back through the hole in the wall.

“By the Nine… she actually did it.” Raph murmurs in awe as she moves away from the monorail rail station a few strides, trying to get a better view between the buildings. “That spell that Father sent us… she actually cast it.”

“No surprises there. She hates it whenever she gets shown up by the S-One.” Xivé says, furiously typing away at her phone in a group chat for the Mask Knights that were sent down to Halcyon’s surface. “She can’t pilot a Titan the way Feather’s doing with Songbird, so this was the next best thing.”

Raph gives an exasperated look back at her twin. “Really, Xivé?”

“Look, I’m just telling it like it is. We all know that Vaka hates her.” Xivé says, looking up as low rumbling echoes across the outpost. The wall that the Leviathan had rammed through is starting to collapse, massive chunks of the curved dome cracking and falling into the outpost. The violent struggle between the Leviathan and the B.E.A.S.T. seems to have finally taxed the structure to its limit, with the hole becoming a gaping V in the wall as the strained portions fold and fall. A few of the smaller chunks hit the B.E.A.S.T. on the way down, and perhaps realizing what’s happening, it disengages from the Leviathan and backs further into the city as the rest of the wall comes down around the monster.

“Jeez… the Leviathan, it’s huge.” Raph murmurs as the horned colossus starts to shoulder its way into the outpost through the new opening in the wall. The monster is built like a cross between a rhino and a gorilla, all muscle and girth. Even though Vakalahi’s B.E.A.S.T. towers above most buildings in the outpost, the Leviathan is larger still. “I didn’t know they got that big.”

“It’s been decades since the Collective have deployed Leviathans like this, as a standalone force.” Xivé says, glancing down the track as the train starts to arrive. “You need to get out there to her. I’m not sure how much juice she squeezed out of her handler, but she can’t maintain that form indefinitely. We need to be nearby to extract her once she runs out of steam.”

“Yeah, I know.” Raph says, coming back to the boarding platform as the train pulls in. “Do you think you can go pressure Rofty into getting us the Cherriki clones while everything’s going to shit? This chaos might give us the best cover we’re going to get; the whole outpost is gonna be in a panic.”

“I can give it a shot.” Xivé says as the train glides to a halt, and the doors open. “Text me if anything goes sideways.”

“I will.” Raph nods as she steps into the train and grabs one of the hang straps. “See you soon, Xivé.”

The doors soon close, with the train gliding along the track towards the fourth quarter as part of the evacuation route. Other trains on the monorail system had been similarly tasked, rearranging their schedules on emergency orders to create a rolling loop of trains to help evacuate those in the fourth quarter of the outpost. And it was working better than expected, largely due to the fact that the Leviathan still had not made it entirely through the wall. Despite cleaving an opening for itself, it was being harried at every turn by the B.E.A.S.T., whose jaws and claws were never far from the intruder. Most recently, Vakalahi had discovered that her B.E.A.S.T. could breathe fire, and had immediately proceeded to vomit a flood of excoriating golden flame directly into the side of the Leviathan’s face, searing several of its eyes and causing it to thrash. The violent flailing hit hard enough to slam the B.E.A.S.T. to the side, knocking it into a block of buildings that were crushed beneath its giant frame. Vakalahi was quick to pilot her B.E.A.S.T. back up, but the Leviathan had pulled itself halfway into the outpost by this point, and was raising a burly forelimb to slam it down on the attacker that had so far stymied it.

But the blow never arrives; as the limb starts to descend, a streak of light hammers into it with an explosive force that shatters one of the chitin plates protecting it. Kneeling in the main street of the fourth quarter is one of the Genista Titans, its particle pulse rifle braced against its shoulder as panels along the barrel snap open, glowing red-hot as they vent waste heat from the massive gun. As it lowers the rifle, the Torikago comes bounding over it in its Jeger configuration, charging down the street towards the Leviathan while another two Genista Titans jet past the first Titan, their arclances out and crackling with energy. And outside the wall, there’s flickers of movement as the other half of the Titan squad swarms the back half of the Leviathan that’s still outside.

With the assurance that Genista’s Titans have arrived to defend their outpost, Vakalahi begins backing her B.E.A.S.T. away as they set upon the Leviathan. Though her current form has not yet exhausted its reserves of power, she still needs to start exiting it so that she can slip away while Genista’s defenders were preoccupied. And it would be a shame to leave this form with fuel still in the tank, so to speak; her handler had sacrificed his life for this, and letting all that power go would be a waste of his sacrifice.

So she braces in the wreckage of the buildings she fell on, hooking her claws into the ground as she arches the back of her B.E.A.S.T. Black panels on either side of the spine flick open down the length of its back, revealing golden channels of light that start releasing rapid-fire streaks of energy; they arc over a short distance to the Leviathan, raining down along its head, shoulder and side. Each one explodes on contact with small blast of erosive light — individually, not very impressive. But when a dozen of these streaks are being fired off every second, and the B.E.A.S.T. shows no signs of stopping, the effect is a ruthless, pounding barrage. The damage quickly begins to accumulate, grinding down the Leviathan’s chitinous armor and starting to expose the softer dermis beneath, and it’s only after several seconds that the rate of fire starts to slow as the B.E.A.S.T. burns through the last of its reserves. As the barrage slows and Vakalahi feels the B.E.A.S.T.’s movements becoming sluggish and less responsive, she closes the panels lining the spine of her construct, and starts to back off as its framework start to soften and lose coherency.

The Genista Titans either do not notice or do not care, with their attention remaining on the Leviathan as they dodge its sweeping limbs, searching for exposed points along its body to drive their weapons in search of a killing strike. All the better for Vakalahi, who turns her B.E.A.S.T. around to slink into one of the smaller, nearby streets; though her B.E.A.S.T. barely fits between the buildings, the squeeze quickly becomes more manageable as the outer layers of her avatar start to fade away, the black metal plates becoming transparent before disappearing altogether, like water evaporating in the sun. This continues, layer by layer, as the B.E.A.S.T. slithers along the street, until all that’s left is the skeletal framework, and even that disappears, leaving behind the golden sphere that contains Vakalahi. It rolls along the street for some distance before dissipating, with Vakalahi staggering out of the fading swirl of light, her clothes seared and scorched by the power of the spell she had cast, and hanging off of her in tatters.

She quickly diverts down a nearby alley, still trailing residual energy as a golden aura; it clings to her like a wobbling bubble of light that shrinks, ever so gradually, as it continues burning or evaporating. Once she’s found a dumpster she can hide behind, she sits down, digging around in her barely-intact pockets until she can find her phone, and activate the beacon within its protective casing. And at that point, she leans back and closes her eyes, doing her best to catch her breath as the thunder of the Titans and the roaring of the Leviathan continue to wash over the outpost.

Even if it was fleeting, it was an unbelievable power that she had been given, with an equally high cost. And it was astounding that her creator had waited almost fifty years to tell her about it.

It isn’t long before Raph locates Vakalahi, thanks to the activated beacon. “Good golly, you look rough.” the twin remarks as she kneels beside Vakalahi. “Are you okay? Did the transformation hurt?”

“No. But I am sore from getting smacked around by that Leviathan.” Vakalahi says as Raph starts pulling her jacket off so she can wrap it around Vakalahi. “I did as much as I could to delay it. I think it worked.”

“It did.” Raph says, pausing as a fit of roaring rumbles over the rooftops. It sounds like the Leviathan is losing the battle against the Titans swarming it. “It won’t get past the wall. There will be some damage and casualties, but they’ll be restricted to the edge of the outpost. And your handler…?”

Vakalahi shakes her head as she pulls Raph’s jacket around her, covering up her tattered clothes. It didn’t really need to be said, and Vakalahi wasn’t interested in saying it.

Raph exhales at that. “Well, Father did warn us…” She stands, holding a hand out to Vakalahi to help her up. “We’re going to have to explain this to the Council. What’s our story?”

“I’ll come up with something later. For now, we need to get out of here.” Vakalahi says, accepting the hand to help herself up. “We’re too close to the fighting. Did you get Xivé to safety?”

“Yeah. She’s headed to the command complex to see if she can pressure Rofty into getting us the zygotes while everything’s on fire.” Raph says, putting an arm around Vakalahi to support her as she stands. “We figured it’d be easier for Rofty to pull a fast one while everyone’s distracted with the breach.”

“I doubt it, with how risk-averse sleeper agents are, but it’s worth a try.” Vakalahi says, leaning on Raph as they start to make their way back out of the alley. “The sooner we can get out of here, the better… with the way things are going, this outpost isn’t going to last for much longer.”

The remark is a sobering one, especially as they exit the alley, and over the buildings Raph can see the Leviathan in the wall, still struggling against the Titans. It wouldn’t be long before they brought it down for good, but even in its death throes, it struggled and thrashed, destroying more of the wall around it and sending chunks of rubble flying, while the Titans dodged as best they could. Their movements were awkward, like they were struggling with where to place their feet as they moved; it was clear that most of them were used to fighting out in the open, and had never battled in an urban area before. They were doing their best to avoid stepping on buildings, cars, and infrastructure, and avoid being knocked down; because every time one of them was knocked down, collateral damage was inevitable in an environment this crowded. Even if they ended up killing the Leviathan, this would be a bitter victory — it would take months to fix the hole in the wall, even more time to clean up all the rubble and crushed buildings, and you couldn’t do anything about the civilians that were killed during this breach.

In that moment, watching the destruction resulting from both the Leviathan and the Titans, Raph saw the metaphor clear as day. This struggle over the Cherriki clones would be the end of the outpost; it was being torn apart from the outside by external parties that would do anything to get them, and it was being torn apart from the inside by those same clones, trying to defend their home but wielding a power that could so easily destroy it. Vakalahi was right; it would only be a matter of time — days, weeks, maybe months — before this place completely unraveled.

And they did not want to be here when it did.

“Let’s go.” Raph says, turning and helping Vakalahi in the direction of the nearest monorail station. “The rendezvous is at the starport. If we’re lucky, Xivé will have the zygotes when we get there…”