Another late upload! This time due to illness. Man am I bad at sticking to this schedule, but it's not going anywhere because as previously mentioned it helps stop me from procrastinating. I have now thoroughly burned through all the advance writing I had to help with busy months, but thankfully that's coinciding with me (hopefully) getting a bit less busy, so if I'm lucky then you won't notice the difference.
I've seen some wondering about the rate at which secrets are being revealed; all I can say in response to that is that I'm trying to make sure the final reveal of each secret coincides with the point at which it's relevant to the plot without rushing it. I'm reading all the comments as I write and taking criticisms on-board. I really appreciate all the high ratings and the amount of people following along, this originally started as a fun little writing exercise that got way more popular than I was expecting; I can only hope to make it worth it for you guys and girls. Now that I've stoked my ego a bit more...
Are you sitting comfortably?
*****
Alex found himself sitting slumped against a wall staring out into infinity. There were no aches in his muscles from what should have been a very uncomfortable position, but he shifted to a less contorted position from force of habit. There was also no Anna, as had happened a few nights previously.
Waiting patiently, eyes fixed on the location where Anna had disappeared before, Alex took a deep breath that didn't seem to refresh his mind at all and began to focus. He thought back to the conclusion of the day's battle, willing the implant in his skull to replay the last messages he had received through it. Rather than the clean, digital signal his analogue brain had been trained to communicate with since he was a child, only dull static met his probing thoughts.
Alex's brow furrowed. Nothing should be able to interfere with a neural-link implant except a neural spike - like the kind that connected him to his mech - yet it seemed to be either offline or too busy running other programs to load the inefficient direct interface. He tried another tactic, relaxing his efforts and waiting patiently for any sort of signal. As his thoughts cleared a single tone presented itself; white noise that he couldn't ever remember not hearing. Active then, but busy. Busy doing what?
Shaking his head, Alex brought his attention back to the world around him. There was still no sign of Anna and he got the sense that he had been waiting quite a while, as strange as time was in this place. A familiar, sickening scream sounded from far too close by. Masculine. Deep. His own voice turned sideways.
Startled, Alex didn't even have time to process the direction when it was replaced with a tumbling, slapping sound. Flesh hitting the ground again and again. From around the corner a city block away, a naked body - identical to his own, but covered in blood and bruises - rolled out perilously close to the edge of the world.
Alex pressed himself deeper into the corner between the building and the floor. There were no shadows in the omnipresent gray light but he hoped to minimize the shape he made against the angular horizon, but his efforts proved ultimately useless.
Number one climbed slowly to his feet on powerful legs, looking first back the way he had come, then scanning the area when his opponent failed to present herself. Maddened eyes picked Alex out easily against the monotone background, the anger lessening for a second as surprise won out, only to return with a vengeance.
"You," the original mech pilot hissed between his teeth, so quietly Alex barely heard it.
With the momentum of a meteor, he turned and began to charge across the intervening distance. Alex tucked one of his legs underneath himself and pushed off, springing up into a low crouch on all fours, bracing for impact.
As the mad pilot picked up speed he reached the gap between the buildings zeroing in on his target. An arm like a steel girder swung out of the alleyway, catching him in the neck and sending him flat on his back as his feet kept going.
Alex took the opportunity to leap upright, backing quickly away as the Empress stepped out into view, also naked and bloody. She spared a passing glance at number one, sprawling on the floor and gasping, then fixed Alex with a predatory glare.
"Number eleven! What a surprise to see you here!" she exclaimed, stalking towards him, bruised and bloody breasts swaying hypnotically.
"I'm as surprised as you are," he said slowly, continuing to keep his distance.
"Stop right where you are," she snapped suddenly, "Unless you want to play, like big-boy back there?"
"I'm good thanks," Alex stopped walking backwards, feeling his heart begin to race and his blood begin to pound as a potent cocktail of stimulating hormones was released from special glands all over his body.
"There's a good boy," the Empress smiled, causing her lip to crack and begin bleeding again.
Behind her, number one was taking heaving breaths and staggering to his feet. Alex did his best not to look and risk drawing attention.
"Now," the Empress purred, "Would you care to explain what you're doing here, child?
"I wish I knew. I just keep waking up here when I go to sleep," He kept his posture neutral and his voice calm, even as he prepared himself for a fight.
"Interesting," the Empress paused, just outside of arm's reach, "I wonder..."
She never got a chance to finish her thought as number one came running up from behind and clocked a terrifyingly powerful punch right on the side of her head. She crumpled like a wet paper bag as the mad pilot kept running.
Alex was faster, stronger, and more skilled than any normal combatant but against a pilot twice his age with the strength only unbridled rage can grant, he barely lasted seconds. He swept the first punch aside as he slipped easily into a combat stance but couldn't bring his other arm across in time to stop the hand that torpedoed towards his throat.
"No!" the pilot shouted, "She is MINE!"
Alex's feet left the ground and he was slammed painfully into the wall, breath leaving his lungs.
"She is MINE and this place is MINE!" number one screamed, "Do you even know WHO I AM?"
"Number... one," Alex gasped out,
"Wrong," he growled, slamming him against the wall again.
"You're... Adam," Alex wheezed.
"WRONG!" the unnatural roar echoed around his head.
Suddenly, Alex was no longer being gripped by the throat against a wall. He was suspended far above the city, being crushed between the finger and thumb of a metal hand the size of his mech. Holding him, towering over even the skyscrapers, was the biggest mech he had ever seen. Stocky and broad, with the head of a renaissance statue - marble white, and crowned in leaves. It looked almost demonic in the red lighting from below, and stared at him with eyes like black holes.
"MY NAME," the voice boomed, nearly deafening him, "IS ATLAS!"
Alex felt the grip tighten, squeezing the life out of him slowly but inevitably. As his vision began to fade, there was a flash of light from off to one side of him. A ball of fiery orange energy burst across the hull of the mech, knocking it heavily aside.
Alex was flung from side to side as the arm that held him flailed to maintain balance, he caught brief glimpses of a similarly scaled mech a little distance away. Slightly smaller, and much lither, a glowing aperture on the single raised arm revealing where the projectile had come from.
The weapon fired again, impacting with a massive explosion. The other arm raised and a beam of light lanced out of another opening and scored a line across the armor. Atlas turned to face the new foe.
"PROMETHEUS!" it roared, and began to charge.
On the first upward swing of the arm Alex slipped through the giant fingers, forgotten, careening through the sky. He desperately sucked in lungfuls of air as he tumbled through it. He reached the top of the arc and began to fall just as a thunderous crash signaled the two mechs meeting.
The ground drew closer and closer, faster and faster. Alex racked his brains for any possible solution and drew blanks. As he passed the tops of the skyscrapers he closed his eyes and winced.
He snapped free of the obstruction keeping him in the cargo hold and fell through space, accelerated by the ship's artificial gravity field. His mech just barely passed through the hole in slipspace and with no warning at all he was suddenly entering the atmosphere of a planet. Gyroscopes strained to orient the rockets in the right direction. Plummeting feet first, he fired the retro boosters. This was going to be a hard landing.
Heavy metal boots slammed into the ground with a burst of spent rocket-fuel. Alex looked down in a daze, seeing the body of his mech. He blinked, and was looking at his own body again. The boom of metal fists against metal bodies sounded from behind him, so he put his head down and ran until the world around him faded into black.
Alex awoke with a gasp, alone and drenched in sweat. His bedroll was the only one left in the empty tent, and from outside he could hear the sounds of the camp making ready to march. He dragged himself out from under the sheets and rolled them up into a bundle, carrying it out through the tent flap and into the grey dawn light.
Talia was perched in the cockpit of the mech, her hands pressed to one of the forearms and her brow furrowed in concentration. Alex observed her as he took deep, slow breaths of the mild and humid morning air, enjoying the difference from the stale averageness of the dream city. After a short while, a satisfied grin spread across the elf's face and she opened her eyes. Spotting him immediately, she leapt nimbly down to the ground and bounced over to him, enthusiasm leaking out in waves.
"Good news?" Alex's mood broke with an infectious smile as he knelt down to tie his bedroll onto the bundle that was to be loaded onto the cart.
"I think so," Talia passed the fire and picked up a bowl of porridge and a mug of tea, handing them to the captain, "It's not completely done, but I think I got your cannon working."
"The blast cannon?" Alex grinned, "Nice. I've been missing the heavy firepower."
"You've been missing firepower," Elizabeth's deadpan voice drifted over his shoulder as he shoveled in a mouthful of breakfast, "You. Missing firepower."
"Hey Elizabeth," Talia waved as Alex hurriedly swallowed, "What's up?"
"We'll be camping on the Ravenholm estate by the end of the day," she clapped a hand onto Alex's arm, "I was hoping to cash in that promise that I wouldn't have to face the Ravenholm family alone."
"Sure," Alex mumbled around another mouthful of porridge, "What do you want us to do?"
