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Votecount 5.9

Votecount 5.10 (Final)

~Hidden Machina Village~
Four days later.

Linada frantically searched through the town walls, industrial machinery, houses, hell, anything she could get her hands on.

Since the sentry bots had found the first bomb almost six hours ago, Linada and a team of others had been working around the clock to comb the entire town for more. So far, no one had taken responsibility for the act.

An isolated attack on the lakeside wouldn’t have made any sense, they surmised, and it didn’t take the machina long to mobilize. Their fears were confirmed later when the second device turned up -- this one planted on the roof of her own clinic.

Hers were a hardy people. There was no widespread panic, no mass evacuation. Those non-fit for bomb disposal were safely relocated to the beach, away from patrolling mechon, and those, like herself, who could do even a little to protect the town, remained.

Linada herself hadn’t found anything so far. She was a doctor by trade, not a mechanic (although to the Homs they probably appeared to be one in the same) and she didn’t truly have any more than the impromptu briefing some hours earlier, which she was already beginning to have a hard time remembering.

A siren sounded somewhat close to her, and Linada knew, having heard that sound off and on since the day began, that another one had been found.

Without thinking, she ran. Not away from the area, as any sane person would, but toward it.

There was no need for hesitation. Their home, once a part of Mechonis but cut free eons ago by the Bionis itself, was the only place in this tumultuous world mostly free from the ongoing strife between the two titans. They would all sooner die than see that home taken from them, turning them into refugees once more.

She reached the source of the siren, emitted by a sentry bot shining its tracer on what it had found. This one was near the generator, and the bot was shining the light on the convex part of the metal casing; the bomb had probably been planted on its underside.

The sentry bots couldn’t do anything by themselves -- they possessed barely a rudimentary intelligence usually used to identify wayward mechon wandering in vicinity of the village so that patrols could dispose of them. The mechanics had reprogrammed some to detect explosives, but no one had the means, much less the

to get them to do anything else.

Linada climbed the fence keeping the general public at bay, and immediately got to her knees. The devices had no attention grabbing features, likely by design, but so far they had all been black boxes, attached with a simple adhesive to various surfaces. This one, in such an obvious location, must have been missed the first time through.

Linada grabbed her multitool from her belt as she positioned herself underneath the generator stack. The casings, more for camouflage than anything else, were easily pried off, but once inside.

Her panic turned to despair as she examined the inside. There was a sequence of wires she could remove, but she needed to use her multitool to supply a certain amount of current to the circuit while she did, otherwise the bomb could detonate. It was difficult even in good light, but she could barely see anything. She rolled onto her side and looked for the sentry bot.

It was nowhere to be found. The damn thing must’ve gone off searching for more, confident that the problem was dealt with. She cursed to herself -- she could have used the light.

She jacked up the light on her multitool to full, knowing it would drain power quickly, and began to work, rattling off the wire combinations in her head. Linada had performed plenty of surgeries over her tenure, but she was still out of her element and under an unspecified time constraint, to boot.

She continued like this for what had to have been an hour, she thought, when the device started to emit a soft hum. Linada didn’t know for sure what that meant, but she was damn well positive it wasn’t good.

Her multitool flickered. She jammed it against the side of the generator and it came back on. She was almost through, but--

She hit the button to apply an electrical charge. Nothing. The damn thing had spent so much of its power acting as a flashlight that it didn’t have enough left to supply any power to defusing the bomb. She threw it on the ground, and rolled on her side again. Still no one around. The humming began to become more intense.

Her nerves began to spasm in anxiety, and she knew that she’d failed -- the device was going to go off any second. Not knowing what else to do, she pulled on the box with all of her might, and was able to pry it away from the generator column. Not knowing where else to go -- she ran to the only place she could think, the village wall, and threw the device over.

That wouldn’t be enough -- she was still in proximity to the power plant, and so she climbed up the rather precarious, but not unscalable from the inside, wall.

Reaching the top, she looked down, and was so surprised by what she saw that she lost her footing, toppling over the other side. She came down hard on her knee right next to the thrown bomb, which was now vibrating almost uncontrollably, and both felt and heard the leg break. Through the pain, she forced herself to make eye contact with what stood between her and the gated village.

Around 15 mechon -- she’d never seen so many in one place -- lay waiting, and it was immediately obvious to her what they’d been waiting for. As her entrance had been less than graceful, it did not surprise her that all of their weapons were trained on her.

Soon they’d have a wide open back route into town, newly created by the generator’s explosion as the bomb attached to it went--

Linada did a double take. The bomb, now almost ear splittingly loud, still sat on the ground next to her. Grabbing it, she threw it with all her might toward her aggressors as the mechons’ guns tore into her.

Her countrymen had to experience the satisfaction meant for her as they discovered her handiwork mere minutes later.

~Colony 6~

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The second in command of the Colony 6 militia let the letter fall to the desk.

He’d had enough.

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~Valak Mountains~
Three weeks later

Lorithia’s telethia soared through the snow covered caps with rampant disregard for her surroundings.

Although she thought herself well-suited to the subtleties that went along with infiltrating the High Entia Royal Court, Lorithia had been so shocked to learn of Zanza’s apparent demise that she’d almost failed to realize that she’d been made. Someone had tipped off that damnable Argentis and his two fanatical daughters to her true purpose, and she’d been forced to get out of town. She’d summoned her telethia just in time to see the Royal Guard magically rip the door off its hinges, and flown away to the northwest, eager to put as much distance between herself and High Entia lands as she could.

The duplicitous diplomat cursed herself for being unable to sabotage the experiments that the science wing had been conducting to suppress the latent ether around prison island, but she was soon forced to accept the truth: Lorithia wasn’t nearly as good a spy as she thought she was. Argentis had probably had her under surveillance for months, and she’d been deliberately cut out of the Prison Island project because she couldn’t be trusted.

Zanza could never truly be killed, of course; not without the Monado, which Lorithia was confident beyond a reasonable doubt that the High Entia still did not possess. Still, this had been a major setback, and she doubted the current wielder would even be compelled to visit Prison Island at all without the subtle guidance provided by Zanza and those loyal to him.

So Lorithia had fled to the mountains, the site that the Monado had been found by the Homs a few years ago. Zanza

have had a backup plan; maybe a way to accelerate his return, a way for her to gain more power personally, or a way to create another vessel...

She’d found nothing here, so far, either.“Damn it all!” she yelled across the vast, icy chasm, which responded in her own voice seconds later. The telethia she rode, her only companion, simply blinked.

None of the Nopon merchants, with their ears constantly to the ground about all things rare and valuable, knew of anything else in the region besides the Monado excavation site. It was there she was headed, in the hopes that perhaps a clue would make itself known in her presence.

It was a rather calm day for as high up as they were; her mount had been having little trouble negotiating a route, and Lorithia could not help her mind wander as she settled in for a mundane straight glide, when a sudden squawk brought her back to attention.

Moments later, a loud *crack* sounded in the distance, with the acoustics of the mountain range both amplifying the volume and masking the source.

It wasn’t until she gave up trying to determine from which direction the sound had come that she realized she was losing altitude. Her telethia’s left wing had been struck by something, and it could no longer stay airborne with an injured appendage.

Lorithia attempted to steer herself toward a level landing zone, and she thanked her luck as there were no jagged peaks or large drop offs in the vicinity. The lower portion of the Valak Mountains, upon closer inspection from above, was actually rather flat. Her approach was quicker than she’d have liked, but with a completely manageable jolt, the telethia impacted and Lorithia hopped off, curious as to what had hit the beast. She lifted her mount’s wing -- no small feat of strength -- and examined it.

A small, spherical wound was the only sign of an object that had punctured the flesh. Telethia were not easy to bring down in a fight, but flying was another, more delicate matter.

Lorithia circled around the front and peered into the eyes of her companion. She had never given it a name -- she would not do it that disrespect -- and although she knew it could still feel pain, if it truly was in agony, it was doing a convincing job of hiding it.

It seemed to know something she didn’t, though, as a single tear rolled down its cheek. “What’s wrong?” she foolishly said aloud. She began to worry, looking around at the utter lack of resources in the area. They’d have to move soon, as night was beginning to fall, and Lorithia was stil no closer than she’d been when Zanza had been defeated to finding a way to reverse that turn of events.

*Crack!*

Lorithia screamed as the telethia’s head exploded into a mass of flesh, blood, and bone, ducking into a roll and darting for cover. She scurried behind a snowbank and kept her head down.

They’d followed her; they must have! Who else would be crazy enough to pursue her to this frozen wasteland?

“It’s no use.” A decidedly masculine voice boomed. “You’ve nowhere to run. Face me.”

Lorithia did no such thing, but instead found her voice. She decided that, if nothing else, she would not be taken without her dignity. “You’ve made a grievous error, announcing yourself like this. Did you think you could take me back alive? You won’t get another opportunity.”

“You seem to have mistaken me for someone else,” came the even-keeled reply.

She had no choice now; Lorithia hazarded a peek over the snowbank. Where she expected the domineering visage of her High Entia pursuers, she instead was shocked to see a single Homs man holding mechanical weapon pointed at her current position.

Apprehension turned to disdain, which quickly gave way to pride.

Instead of responding, Lorithia retaliated with a burst of thunder ether, aiming as best she could with the element of surprise still intact. She was well wide of her target, who did not seem the least bit phased.

“High Entia, I ask you: your thrall is dead. Did its sins die with it, or does the blame lie with you?”

Lorithia had no idea what the man meant, but her curiosity got the better of her. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m mixing up the groups of people I’ve managed to cross today. Would you care to elaborate?”

“This beast, and others like it, attacked my village, and murdered an entire squad of my people.”

Lorithia fought to maintain her neutral tone and expression, as this bit of news was unbeknownst to her. She’d simply summoned this High Entia across the net of ether that permeated the entire Bionis; she’d had no idea where it had actually been beforehand. “Perhaps you should train your soldiers better,” she retorted, in an attempt to both goad him and cover her slip.

“Your words ring true even if you do not mean this in earnest. Most of my people are ill-equipped to defend ether -- the mechon do not employ such...precise methods.”

“How unfortunate for you,” she deadpanned, sending another blast at him, and this one hit the mark.

Lorithia’s celebration was cut short as the blast harmlessly fizzled around the man and dissipated into the air.

“I am not most of my people,” he explained.

“Who, then, are you?” Lorithia countered.

“I am Gadolt,” introduced the soldier, “Second in command of the Colony Six Defense Corps.”

“And you’re here...all by yourself?” Lorithia continued for him, not quite comfortable with this man’s state of mind.

From the distance, Gadolt’s gun still trained on her, Lorithia could see him nod.

“I hate to be the bearer of, well, even more bad news for you, but I am not the one who orchestrated that attack.” This was, at least, true. She did not generally handle the situations on the Lower Bionis, and this was no exception. This entire meeting was nothing more than an ill-timed coincidence.

Still, by some miracle of luck or pure determination, this man managed to find his way to her, tracking a telethia all the way from the southern lands of Colony 6 to Alcamoth, and then to this frozen hellhole, of all places. She knew even her counterpart would be impressed.

“I know. Your reaction when I mentioned this was one of genuine surprise.”

Lorithia allowed herself to relax, if only a little. She had a chance. “What do you want from me?”

“It returned to you; it clearly saw you as its master, even if you do not seem to mourn its passing,” Gadolt astutely pointed out.

The man allowed the rifle to drop, just a hair, so that Lorithia could see the grizzled, weathered face behind it. This man had aged ahead his time, and it was written all over his face. The words came out slowly and deliberately.

She decided, in lieu of the truth she could not give, that candor was her best approach. “Will my answer change anything? Besides, what possessed you to make this journey by yourself? Why not bring your soldiers?”

Gadolt snorted. “Soldiers. Truth is, in troubled times, we take anyone who is fit to hold a gun. They’d never have made it out here.”

Lorithia had never been to Colony 6 in person, and she certainly didn’t have any insight as to the general quality of life there. She said nothing.

“Then of course,” he continued, “we have the mechon, which still need to be mitigated.” His expression hardened again. “We know all about the mechon, what they stand for. We know they won’t stop until every last one of us is dead. A dire situation, but one that can be planned around, rallied against.

“We don’t know a damn thing about these telethia, save that they seem to be intelligent. We did not expect an attack, but rest assured we will not make that mistake again.”

Lorithia actually found she felt sorry for the man. Pitted in an unending war with a seemingly limitless enemy, only to find himself attacked on two fronts? A lesser man may have succumbed to despair.

This man, however, likely deserted his command to gain exactly the answers to the questions he probed her with. And that meant she was more use to him alive than dead. She could work with this. “What happens now? I clearly cannot beat you in a fight, and you’ve robbed me of my only way out.”

“You’ll come with me, of course. I don’t believe I’ll be able to get back very easily without that telethia to follow. You mentioned you are also on the run?”

She winced at that error, recalling her initial assumption that he was a member of the Royal Guard sent to arrest her. Gadolt didn’t need any more advantages on her than he already had, and the tone of his ‘suggestion’ implied it would be better served taken as an order. “...Of course,” she managed. “Where are we going?”

“For now, to shelter, and perhaps even food. I trust you have no objections?”

Despite all that had happened in the past few minutes, Lorithia managed to flash a smile. “Lead the way.”

Votecount 6.0