86 - Volume 2 - Chapter 5.5

INTERLUDE 

WHEN “JOHN DOE” COMES MARCHING HOME 

“The northern front´s first ward´s first defensive squadron Sledgehammer to all Eighty-Six… All Processors hearing this broadcast.” 

His partner was lying demolished nearby, its main armament and armor crushed brutally by a kick delivered by a fifty-ton Löwe. It would never move again. He himself crawled out of the wreckage, dragging his injured right lower half as he made his way to an old bridge on the edge of the battlefield. Reclining against the stone guardrail was the most he could manage, and keeping his eyes open was agony. The blood smeared over the bleached armor of his machine and dripping from his lower half was a dark shade of red, noticeable even in the darkness of night. 

“This is the Sledgehammer squadron´s captain, Black Bird.” 

His squadmates had all died in battle by now, and he didn’t know whether any other squadrons in the ward were even still alive. They truly had been beaten, hands down. 

The Legion boasted high power and fidelity the Juggernaut could normally never hope to match. And a massive army of them, the size of which they’d never encountered before, had suddenly invaded. A small force like them hadn’t stood a chance. And despite that, they’d still sortied. Even though what stood at their backs was neither a homeland they were to defend nor a family to return to. And they fought on despite that. 

“Our war is over.” 

Because that was the last pride they—the Eighty-Six—had left. 

A single Löwe drew close to him, the moonlight reflecting off its frosted armor as it carried its heavy, metallic body with near inaudible footsteps. It probably couldn’t be bothered to waste a shell to kill this mouse it had cornered, as it didn’t even aim its 12.7 mm heavy machine guns or its menacing 120 mm turret at him. It drew on him with the composed confidence of a predator, its massive frame occupying the full width of the bridge. 

Looking up at the metal menace looming over him, Black Bird smirked thinly. He knew, somehow, there were fellow Eighty-Six out there listening to the words he spoke into the wireless, set to a one-directional transmission. 

“All Processors listening to this. All those who fought to the bitter end. All those who survived. We´re finally discharged. We all…did a great job.” 

Here in this battlefield of zero casualties, where there was no salvation or recompense, and the only thing that waited was an uncompromising death. 

Having said all he had to say, Black Bird switched off the transmission and threw away his headset. He took the small remote control his crushed right hand had still grasped, holding it up in his left. The Löwe drew closer, standing right before him on the bridge as he powerlessly leaned back. 

Five years ago, he met the captain of the first squadron he was assigned to. He was a soldier in the Republic’s old ground forces and an Eighty-Six banished to the battlefield. And he taught him how to fight, how to survive, and how to use this thing. And there sure as hell wasn’t anyone among the white pigs who would be capable or willing to pull this stunt off. 

Despite his hideously burned lips and cut skin, he smiled almost cheerfully. He wouldn’t give up on living without yielding to despair, and he wouldn’t let hatred taint his dignity, either. He’d fought all the way here, having chosen to live as such. 

But he was allowed to say this much in the end, right? Looking up at the metallic limb swung over him like a scythe, he pressed the SELF-DESTRUCT switch with a smile. 

You pathetic, wretched white pigs of the Republic who forced your war on others, shut your eyes from reality, and in so doing lost all means to defend yourselves. You who forfeited the right to choose your own deaths… 

“—Serves you right.” 

The plastic explosive planted on the bridge girder detonated. On this old bridge, which served as the river crossing’s key position, one metallic tyrant of the land was consumed by flames and tumbled into the river, accompanied by one tenacious Eighty-Six who wouldn’t even be counted among the dead. 

Year 368 of the Republic calendar, August 25, 23:17. 

When the alarm rang in the military’s headquarters, not a soul present knew what it meant. It was understandable, in a way, as it had been configured ten years ago. It was the members of the ground forces, who’d defended the nation before them and been decimated down to their rear personnel, who’d set that siren with the resolve and hope that it would never have to be heard. 

The large holo-screen set for briefing purposes switched on automatically. The holographic screen, set over most of the wall, projected distorted footage corrupted by the darkness of the night and electronic jamming. As her colleagues gazed at the monitor with annoyance and grumbling, Lena alone swallowed in vague terror as she looked up at the footage. 

The footage showed the ruins of a structure built in the shape of a wall, shattered from top to bottom, its destroyed concrete and armor plates large enough to cover a small house each. Due to the structure’s size, the scars of its destruction were as massive as a ravine. And crossing over that ravine like a metal-colored stream was a massive army of multilegged machines built to maximize their potential for slaughter. 

Lena felt a shudder of horror rush up her spine. 

“What is this, a movie? Looks cool.” 

“Someone turn off that siren; it’s annoying.” 

She took a staggered step back, distancing herself from her colleagues, who wallowed in blissful ignorance because they were not aware of the crippling fear that they could inspire. The Republic had shut itself in, pushing the war onto the Eighty-Six for a decade now. The grand majority of its civilians—even its military personnel—had no knowledge of what their enemy even looked like. Lena was the exception, because she had seen them before. 

Six years ago, when she was taken to see the front lines—when she lost her father, and Rei saved her. And another time, when she Resonated her eyesight with Raiden’s to provide covering fire for the Spearhead squadron. 

The ones leading the stream, with an angular shape reminiscent of a man-eating fish, were the Scout-type Ameise. The ones with six legs, which granted them exceptional maneuverability and allowed them to hop over the collapsed walls with ease, were the Dragoon-type Grauwolf. The ones crossing through in an orderly line, their 120 mm tank turrets swerving in all four directions, were the Tank-type Löwe. And finally, the ones who crushed the rubble beneath their massive weight, rushing through the uninhabited fields like haughty tyrants, were the Heavy Tank–type Dinosauria. 

And the collapsed structure, constructed with only absolute, impenetrable defense in mind…was the Gran Mur. 

This siren…was to alert the fall of the final defensive line. 

“……!” 

The time was finally upon them. 

The Legion had built up their forces, cloaked by the Eintagsfliege’s jamming, and today was the day when they would go on the offensive. The day when the Republic would collapse under the weight of its hubris, having shielded its eyes from reality and chosen to live in a fragile dream of fabricated peace. Just as Shin once warned her. 

A multitude of Legion crossed the collapsed Gran Mur in swarms, in hordes, in droves, with nothing standing in their way to the eighty-five Sectors… To the Republic of San Magnolia, which had forgotten how to defend itself in its dream of eternal peace. The majority of them were probably Black Sheep, Legion that had taken in human neural networks to conquer their set life spans. An army of the ghosts of the hundreds of thousands of Eighty-Six the Republic had cast out and used up on the battlefield. 

That army of ghosts had finally made its return. 

Something flashed on the black horizon beyond the ruins of the fortress walls and the tidal wave of steel, like a will-o’-the-wisp meant to lure men into a bottomless marsh. That awn-like blue light was the glare of an optical sensor. Its silhouette wavered in the moonlight, perspective warping its massive size—a colossal shadow, as large as a building or some gigantic monster of myth. 

It lifted its front half up in a hulking fashion, and for some reason, the noise distorting the footage became more severe. It was then that she suddenly realized. This disastrous sight of the Gran Mur, which looked as if it had been repeatedly beaten and crushed by this titan… As if it had been destroyed by bombardment. 

A flash filled the screen, and the footage was lost. 

The holo-screen turned eerily black instantaneously. The camera… The place where it was set was probably blown away. The siren screeched without end. 

It was the same as that time. The Spearhead squadron encountered something like this once before on the first ward’s battlefield, forcing even elites like them into retreat. A high-speed, high-range shower of shells that exceeded the range of what should have been possible for artillery. The new Long-Range Artillery type. 

“…Railgun.” 

Lena whispered, pursing her lips. 

Lena turned on her heels resolutely, leaving behind the office and her colleagues, who kept on yammering without any sense of impending crisis, dubious at best. Her military boots clicked against the wooden corridor’s floor as she made her way to her control room. 

Her RAID Device singed with illusory heat, and she activated her Sensory Resonance. She had received two concurrent calls—one from one of the wings of the research division and another from one of the Queen’s Knights in a faraway combat sector. 

“Lena! That siren just now…!” 

“Letting you know just in case, Your Majesty! The northern front…!” 

“Yes, Annette. And I’m aware of the situation, Cyclops. They’ve finally come.” 

She changed her RAID Device’s setting, allowing her to Resonate with all possible targets in range. Normally, a Handler would be allowed to Resonate with only one squadron, but Annette had cooperated with her over the past year to set up this hidden setting. 

An army of ghosts of countless Eighty-Six the Republic had cast out and used up on the battlefield. If they were to fight back against it, they would need to consolidate all their forces. To fight back. To live on and answer the words they left behind. 

“Bloody Reina to all Processors on all fronts!” 

The Federacy military officially dubbed it the Railgun type. This new type of Legion single-handedly toppled the Gran Mur and burned the Federacy’s fortress base to cinders. It was what appeared on the last observed footage discovered in the headquarters’ ruins… 

(To be continued…)