Inferno

2 - Group Therapy

For what had to have been the fifth time in as many minutes, Tobias began scraping hardened snow off of his shoulder plates. The white powder was falling in torrential gusts now, and it caked onto anything it touched. That included a freezing human and a lumbering Titan trying to make their way through a blizzard.

They'd finally made it out of the woodland area, but they weren't much better off; they were crossing over an open plain that was pretty devoid of cover. It forced Tobias to move a bit slower than he would have liked, considering he had no real protection from the elements. His pilot suit's thermostat systems were gonna fail soon, and then the armor would be the only thing keeping him even remotely warm.

Suddenly, he felt something shift in the air and the snow ceased to blow directly into him. Looking to his left, he saw that the Titan had moved in line with him, shielding him from the wind with her legs. Whether it was intentional or not, he appreciated it.

They'd been walking for nearly an hour before the Titan spoke again; "We'll be coming up on the station in half a mile. It's not large; we were in the middle of establishing a greater presence here on Nedar before you attacked us." There was still a little bite to her voice. She might be helping him, but he was pretty sure that she was still probably feeling similar to how he did when he saw all of the other pilots get blown up.

They didn't speak again until they actually reached the outpost a bit later. She was right, it wasn't very large; just a few makeshift buildings as barracks for the soldiers and a main compound. A garage like warehouse stood nearby for Titans to reside in. It definitely wasn't much, but it was more than enough to get warm and wait for evac.

Figuring that the Titan was probably only going to fit in the warehouse, he decided to follow her as she made a beeline towards it. The large door on the front sensed the weight and movement of the Titan as she approached it, and he watched as the doors began to split at a seam in the center, moving towards the edges of the building to allow them access. He jogged in after her, and she forced the doors to cease their progress, and immediately begin closing to keep out the snow.

Finally with a resounding slam, the doors were closed and they were completely protected from the storm. He turned towards the giant mech and nodded appreciatively.

With a slight quake in the ground, the Titan let herself fall back into a sitting position. Then, the trapezoidal 'eye' of hers set its gaze upon him. Its blue light shone with a sort of neutral feel; not yet friendly, but not hostile either. He began to ascend a ramp attached to the wall of the building, one that led to a balcony where he was about even with her height.

"We have approximately an hour before Militia forces will deem the zone safe to land in. Once the IMC has moved off, as you have indicated they will, I will activate a distress beacon that will alert them to survivors here in the base." It sounded like a solid enough plan, and after a few seconds of processing it, he nodded his approval to her.

With that, she stopped looking at him and decided to stare off at the wall. He probably would have done the same thing, but there was just something so surreal about the situation; he was intrigued, he wanted to know more. But he didn't really have a proper way to segue into a proper talk. So he went with the most obvious conversation starter he could think of.

"Do you have a name?"

She looked at him sharply. Every time she did that, he couldn't help but feel like his insides were wilting; neutral or not, the Titan still had the power to crush him like a bug. It freaked him out a bit.

It was a few seconds before she responded with an even tone, "My designated serial number is KT-0298."

He raised an eyebrow, though she couldn't see it with his helmet still on. "I never understood that."