"Kiara?!" Ame yelled over the general voice channel, "Kiara, what's going on?!"
Silence. Nothing. Not even a vestige of static to denote an attempt to communicate back.
"Calli! One of you respond if you can hear me!"
It was to no avail. Ame's desperate pleads fell on deaf ears. The pair had gone offline. Even the signal from their Exos had disappeared from the map.
"Ame, I'm heading in!"
It was Marine who acted first. Her Type-A Exo immediately launched towards the coordinate of the distress signal where Calli and Kiara were last seen. She wasn't the only one headed in that general direction, however.
Goddammit. I knew it.
Vesper winced as he watched the top side of his map suddenly become flooded with a wave of red. From the north, a legion of Incursions was also swarming towards area, seemingly drawn in by the distress signal. In just a few seconds, the mechanized army would be over the horizon.
"Suisei, monitor the progress of the Incursions! Shiori, Vesper, prepare anti-structural armaments! We're going to create a blockade!"
Ame's command blared over the voice channel. Vesper stared dumbly at his screen while gawking at his control interface. The various buttons and toggles scattered in front of him suddenly became a blur. He struck the side of his head, trying to recall his training. The details of the Exo's operation had been drilled incessantly into his mind over the past week. He knew what to do. In the midst of his panic, however, he blanked out.
There's a button. A toggle. Some parameters that I have to enter. It's supposed to switch the weaponry of the Exo.
But where the fuck is it?!
"The Incursions are entering into view! Estimated ten minutes from the distress signal location!"
The bottom of his seat began to rumble. A familiar sensation. Earth tremors.
Vesper glanced up. Over the horizon, between the innumerable rows of colossal steel buildings, silhouettes of the mechanized Incursion army stormed into sight. The sheer mass of steel and the number of the machinery was mind-numbing.
It felt like he was staring at a vortex of bugs and insects. In his home world, attacks from locust swarms were a common threat. Every few years during the arid summer season, the endless horde of bugs would raid the farmlands of the continent—dense enough to fill the skies and blot out the sun.
The Incursion legion reminded him of those rare, but devastating events. Only except instead of bugs, he was facing an army of machines built to obliterate life. Each one of the mechanized robots had enough weaponry to destroy armies.
What the hell did I get myself into?
"Vesper!" Shiori yelled over the chaos, "Press the purple button on the side of the control wheel. Then select the first option. The Exo will take care of the rest!"
He did as he was told. As he entered the instructions, he could feel the rear of his Type-B Exo creak and groan as the inner mechanisms of the machines moved on demand. Soon enough, a notification appeared on the screen, indicating that the armament was complete.
"Ame, we're ready!" Shiori said.
"I'm sending visual instructions over! Follow the guidelines on the display and aim at the target locations! Fire on my timing!"
His screen flashed with a torrent of indicators and notifications. Vesper grimaced at the influx of stimuli.
Fuck man, get it together!
YOU ARE READING
A Distant Reverie
Fanfiction"Careful now. Try not to move too suddenly, alright?" Vesper Noir wakes up one day in a foreign land with gaps in his memories...and a sharp blade pressed against his throat. His assailant? A beautiful, self-proclaimed female pirate with a sweet voi...
