Fortuna Verto

34-Complete Reversal

As a bright new landscape resolved around them, Kori's mind raced with thoughts on how to face their upcoming future. Once again, the time was 18:47, and they were standing once again before the outpost.

Rosa immediately tumbled to the ground, her prospective having been that she was in a fluid of motion before suddenly finding herself standing on normal ground. Upon standing once again, she quickly determined exactly what had happened. Kori had pulled them into the past, a desperate attempt at fixing the various mistakes they had made. Rosa also had found that Kori had outright removed the holo disguise she had been using, so Rosa too followed suit. Kori then made her way towards the outpost, knowing exactly where to find Velvet. This time, the guards at the entrance actually stopped her, being a suspicious conduit and all. The guard who put an arm to her shoulder was the same one who flipped over it soon after, landing squarely on his back. Rosa rushed to follow, dodging another guard that went wailing past her into the wall. A bit further, she found Velvet's gathering of makeshift soldiers all over again.. the original speech having been completely interrupted.

"Kori, really, is this really necessary?" "Your stupid plan is about to fail. Your enemy is a swarmer, going to hit you with numbers, and has a huge distaste for high energy sources.. like your stupidly named turret." "Ah, so this would be a future Kori.. and things went wrong." "Seriously, I blame your lack of combat training right now too." "Oh... Shit." "You said that before, too. Old speech sucks, time for something new. Do you have anything other than this bucket tower that would be good for obliterating our enemy? Do you have any good way to deal with seven threats at once?" "I.. uh.. haven't gathered enough resources yet for a threat of that scale." "You light this thing up, we'll just get another 'moth to the flame' incident here. Sadly, this moth doesn't burn, the thing instead takes out the entire main barrier and starts going to town." "So we need a way to divide their numbers, then to drive them quite a distance away." "If you plan to actually use this thing, it closes the entire distance in about fifteen seconds. You're going to need to take the shot on the leader too, who will ravage the barrier once it finds it a threat. That means it will have to be at least twenty kilometers away when the shot is called, even more would be ideal. This then leaves you fighting a long range battle, about halfway between here and HT." Velvet considered Kori's news, visibly considering the best approach for everything. However, that wasn't even the end to bad news, as a technician rushed into the scene.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to report, but.. we've discovered a critical failure in the main turret. Repairs are underway, but may take quite some time." "Oh hell, that's even better. Not only are things a lot more questionable, but our equipment is malfunctioning. Does anyone else have good news that I would love to hear right now? Anyone at all? No? Great. This has suddenly become quite the shitshow. Honestly, dealing with DMAs is always a shitshow, but it sucks when misfortune bears its fangs too. I need our turret up quick, high priority. Having seven threats.. we can't even count on the turret to save us. The thing will be able to deal with only one of them, the rest would need alternate solutions. Quite honestly, that might even include small arms fire whittling the things to nothing. Artillery fire is actually going to count, direct hits would do much more than suppressive fire." The technician ran off to complete their work as Velvet considered their battle ahead. She knew it was quite the meaningful battle, but not that it would be so crazy. Certainly this was just supposed to be a blaze of glory, right?

"Ma'am, just wondering.. but why are you treating this conduit so highly? They are even armed, too, isn't that.. illegal?" "I'm sorry, good sir, for your concerns, but is this really the time? Death is on our shared doorsteps, and it simply won't care which species steps before it. I must then question how me being a conduit plays any role whatsoever. Much like yourself, I'm just another soldier on the front lines, standing in the defense of my home." "You're no soldier, you're an airhead, so you should..ahh!" "Good sir, please do not grab my hand so carelessly. You will find that beyond the typical dual blooded system my kind is so famous for, I'm also powered by something less natural. Anger my mechanical arm too much, and I will be unable to guarantee your safety." The soldier let go of Kori's arm, clearly flustered by the circumstances. One of the other soldiers however perked up at this display, having recognized a very similar scene.