Iron Phoenix

Rocks and a Hard Place

A/N: This chapter was written on a plane - for thematic appropriateness, I guess lol. My first flight in over two years - yay! Anyway, we're finally here - the huge fight. Enjoy!

The scream hardly had time to echo before Kana sent herself into a wild dive, her hand blindly slamming into the button which released the dual controls. The crane grew larger and larger below as she raced towards it, her frenzied mind suddenly realising that the plasma sabres wouldn't have enough time to deploy. Her hands punched through the control hoops, reaching for the joysticks desperately.

Instead, they kept going. In her mind, there was a crackle, something akin to two ends of a live wire meeting, lighting up her body with hot, raw power. Except, it wasn't her body anymore - or it was, and yet it wasn't at the same time. The only thing she was really conscious of was the power surging within her. It crackled and burned, a raging flood where once had been a stream. And it was only growing, tearing through her flesh until she was certain that she would simply shatter like glass.

Then, as suddenly as it had hit her, it was gone again. Her hands were indeed on the joysticks and the yellow embers of sparks danced around for the briefest second, before fading. In a final, confused shot of adrenaline, Kana pulled herself up and around, noticing the clouds tugging at the fuselage. Before the dimming thought that she had missed even entered her mind, she had wheeled around enough to see it.

She had landed a hit. And not just any hit - a damn good one at that. A melted hole pierced right through what could be thought of as its chest, the grey, rock-like flesh now oozing and bubbling as the Goliath teetered on the crane's leg. It's tendrils seemed to loosen, and for a second, it hovered in midair before plunging into the cloud bank, sending wisps flying in all directions. Kana's heart finally rose back up to its normal place when her eyes landed on the crane's cockpit. Intact. Teetering slightly, but intact. Kana could only hope the same was true of Melissa.

As she climbed back up to meet the others, she finally became aware of the cacophony of voices in her ear. Roth was barking for a rescue operation, Jackson was yelling something too, then someone was telling him to shut up - probably Roth again. Kana was in shock. She stared at her hands - they felt perfectly normal now, but a few seconds ago...

Roth's voice called her back to herself once more, barking her name. "Y-yes sir?", she said, the shake in her voice audible.

"Get back into formation.", he paused for a few seconds, before saying far more quietly, "Good job."

Once Kana was back in place, Roth began speaking to them once more. "A rescue operation has been launched and will take approximately half an hour. The retrieval mission has been abandoned. Now, we only have about ten minutes until that thing regenerates, so we're going to have to act quickly. You have all been equipped with a rocket that will collapse the geyser and bury that thing for good."

"Wait - what about the techies?", Rick interrupted, his voice laced with a rather alien tone of genuine concern.

Roth sighed. "Their sensors are needed to guide the rescuers. They'll evacuate as soon as the operation is complete - our aim is to keep the wolf from the door until then."

That seemed to finally snap Kana from her trance and she felt her pulse quicken. Melissa was one thing, but there were four people down there, sitting on some flimsy ledge in the dark. Four people she had - no, that sort of thought wouldn't help her now. Focus on the mission, she told herself,  focus on the damn mission.

"What, we can't just kill it?", snarked Rick.

Roth laughed, a humourless sound. "In an ideal world, maybe, but with all our resources on the rescue, we can't pinpoint the core."