Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #45 – Rules of Nature

Slaugh Hasegawa wasn’t a paragon of virtue by any definition of the term. He was an averagely good soldier who performed well on the field and snatched several key objectives by virtue of being reckless, thus seizing the attention of his superior officers. Having been promoted captain had been his highest achievement in life, one that he treasured and loathed. Treasured, because that meant his value was recognized. Loathed, because it also implied that he had to take responsibility for the mistakes and the lives of his underlings. Now, though, all of that felt like a distant problem. Even Bantam’s untimely death was a rounding error, in the face of the monster that just blocked his strike, a monster that was standing tall, staring at him with that eldritch flower that grew inside her eye socket. Captain Commander Lily. The Harbinger of the Apocalypse. The rebel who opened the vault against the will of her human masters. A mockery of a human shape that wrapped nothing more than a glorified tree, under an appearance of apparent normality. That creature was now pointing her foul blade at him, without saying a word, in what was the most ominous silence he ever heard in his life. He pulled the trigger on the thrusters, boosted away from the roof, hovered ten meters above it, switched his needle guns back on.

A salvo of metal pierced the concrete, a rain of steel and vengeance falling at terminal speed on the compound. Slaugh kept shooting, as the ammo count went down quickly, but not fast enough to be his problem. Shoot first, ask questions later. Aim at the iron bitch. Kill her with all he got.

“Captain Hasegawa! Request to support with cover fire!”

Slaugh growled inside his armor, almost chewed the microphone.

“Why aren’t you shooting already, idiot? Do it, you don’t need my permission! It’s her! It’s the iron bitch! Shell her with needles, now!”

The black Seraph looped in the sky, boosted down to close the distance, improve the precision of its shots. Its needle guns sang the same song as Slaugh’s, in a concerto of bullets.

Yet, Lily.

Didn’t seem to care.

Her blade.

Her tendrils.

Were stopping all of them.

Were deflecting them.

Protecting her vital parts.

While running around the roof, dashing at the last second, avoiding the incoming salvos by mere centimeters, in a dance of reflexes that felt unreal, inhuman. Slaugh was growing more hesitant by the second, eyed the ammo counter, bit his lips. Why couldn’t they hit her even just once? What was that… thing, really? He boosted lower to the ground, trying to close in enough to make his shots harder to dodge, while still being at a safe distance. Five, seven meters maybe. He pulled the trigger, unleashed another burst of needles.

Lily recoiled.

Stumbled back on the roof.

Her shoulder trembled, leaked lymph.

One of them.

Hit her.

Rupta closed in on her too, lowering his Seraph on the compound, right as Lily pulled the needle out of her body, threw it to the ground, still bathed in green fluid. A waterfall of projectiles homed on her one more time. She avoided again with an elegant dash, rolling on the roof, offering no target to the cannons. She rose on her knees, breathed, analyzed the situation. Two enemies. One damaged. One in pristine state, but of a clearly inferior build and with a more inexperienced pilot to boot. She eyed the cage of vines that had been Calendula’s shield, saw the relieved expressions of the two wounded rhizomes, still holding the fort inside it. Lily gritted her teeth. Heroes are dumb and die fast. Still, for them, for her sisters, she had to be a hero, no matter what. So, she raised her sword, aimed it at the flying machines. It was an empty gesture, one of challenge. The Seraphs were out of her reach. They could shoot and shoot for minutes, a death by one thousand cuts. She couldn’t let them do that. She had to take a chance.

So, she started running.

Running towards the edge of the roof.

Running as if her life depended on it.

Ignoring the needles.

Ignoring the bullets hitting her body armor, cracking it.

Ignoring the pain.

Defending her head with her sword, deflecting all the projectiles directed to it.

Then, she leapt. In the air. Between the two Seraphs. In the line of fire of both.

Slaugh stared at her, stared at that elegant, unexpected jump, a jump defying human skills, a feat that only a monster could achieve. He moved his fingers away from the trigger, to avoid shooting down Rupta, raised his blade instead, preparing to swing it.

But Lily was faster.

Her vine arms.

Extended.

Multiplied.

A net of green tendrils closing around Rupta’s Seraph, catching it like fish, wrapping around the wings, the arms, the legs. Using him as the fulcrum of her spin, stealing his momentum. Landing on his headless core, blade in hand.

And cutting through the wings, ripping the boosters away from the Seraph.

Before cutting her vines too, releasing her grip on Rupta’s mech.

Leaving it in the grasp of gravity, under the the tyranny of its endless dominion. A tyranny that dictated that everything going up had to fall down.

A rule of nature that not even Eastcol technology could defy.

A rule of nature that forced the black armor to crash among the trees, cracking under its own weight, as its arms and legs broke, as its cannons lost their aim. Leaving only an intact core, jammed by a net of vines that prevented it from opening.

“Fuckin’ Lagash! Rupta!”

Slaugh boosted up, put as much room as possible between his Seraph and that crazy plant woman. He browsed through the displays, cycled through the screens. Rupta’s vitals, what where Rupta’s vitals? His terror turned to relief, as soon as he realized that his underling was still alive and breathing. Rupta’s Seraph was done for, but the security core saved his hide. Slaugh cursed, turned his mech to face the rhizome, saw her landing again on the roof, after having disposed of his wingman. He aimed his guns at her, trying to keep her in his sight, unleashed another salvo, dotting the concrete with holes, under a rain of harpoons.

A red icon showed up on his HUD, a beep blared inside his brain.

Ammo low.

He was almost out of needles.

Which left him with just a choice.

Close combat.

Against a close combat specialist.

He wielded his plasma sword again, reignited it. Whatever. No specialist was at his level. He was the ace of his unit. No way a New Netherlands plant, no matter how skilled, could be his equal. So, he threw away all hesitations, charged his boosters, raised his sword. The thrusters blasted him forward at full speed, a human bullet using his momentum to squash a weed. He swung his blade in a wide horizontal slash, aiming at her torso, ready to burn her in one fell swoop. He savored the crisp smell of burning leaves, the taste of ashes, right as his weapon set the air on fire.

Something wasn’t right, though.

No resistance.

No nothing.

His blade

missed the target

completely?

He stopped his thrusters, activated all sensors, turned the full-view cameras around. His field of vision encompassed a sphere, all four pi steradians laid before his eyes.

And, in that instant, he saw her.

Leaping.

In the air above him.

Her sword ready to slash.

Her vine arm growing back at an amazing speed.

The tendrils reaching for his Seraph, almost grabbing it.

Wrapping around his boosters.

Slaugh performed an emergency evasive maneuver, made her slash miss by inches, got away at the last possible instant, losing only part of his already clipped wing. His thrusters burned Lily’s vines, destroyed their grip on them, freeing the Seraph, letting it go up faster. Lily landed on the roof one more time, with a loud thud, cracking the concrete under her boots. Slaugh fired up his boosters, rose up in a vertical take off, put more distance between him and the ground down below. From his vantage point, he examined the situation again. Bantam was dead. Rupta was incapacitated. His Seraph was low on ammo, lost a wing and an arm. If he went back to the base right now, he would receive a solemn reprimand, maybe a demotion or two. But, if he could bring the severed head of the iron bitch, he would be hailed as a hero. Nobody would have remembered Bantam or Rupta. Acceptable casualties, in the grand scheme of things. He waited for a minute longer, watching his enemy from above, staring at her catching her breath, right as her wounds kept leaking that foul green liquid. Slaugh felt better. Up in the air, he was safe. That rhizome couldn’t reach him, no matter how hard she tried. Rupta had been reckless and was punished for it. In addition, the Spear-type rhizome was definitely out of ammo, so no way she’d manage to strike again. He ran a full scan of his Seraph, glanced at the damage report. The structural integrity of his remaining arm had been compromised by that plant’s blade, in a way that made him livid. Knowing she couldn’t stop the plasma sword, she went for his hand, for his hilt instead, almost smashing the mechanical fingers while stopping his momentum. That had been a clever strategy, one befitting of such a deadly foe. Still, despite that lucky strike, his cleaver was still intact and sharp enough to send her and the other two rhizomes to meet their maker, in whatever afterlife they believed in. He activated his thrusters, ignited the blade. Then, started rising up, up, up, spinning like a top, a drill from the heavens ready to devour whatever resistance he met.

A sparking, shining firebird, coming down like a meteor.

As powerful, as unstoppable as a natural disaster.

It took Slaugh too much time to understand it, but it was all there, all laid out before his eyes.

Captain Commander Lily.

Was defending the compound.

Its occupants.

So, in order to defeat her, he had to make her choose.

Between her life.

And the compound itself.

Stopping his charge would have been her death.

Not stopping it would have caused the old building to crumble.

A binary choice, whose outcomes were both in his favor.

Either way, he would have survived thanks to the safety core, even if he failed the approach maneuver. And, if everything really went wrong, he would have been still hailed as a hero because of his decisive strike on a key enemy facility.

With that thought in his mind, he turned down from the sky.

And started to dive.

Like a roaring phoenix.

On the roof of the Grove, Lily cut out the burned tips of her vines, let more of them grow, replace the damaged parts. She saw the Seraph dancing in the sky, followed each and every one of its movements with her eye. Spinning, starting a reckless dive. That’s when realization struck her. A suicide bomber. That was what he wanted to do. Annihilate the Grove and her with it.

“How cute.”

Those words escaped her lips as liquid spite. Humans were truly a bothersome ilk. One that didn’t know when to stop. She kneeled down, spread her vines behind her, coiled them while keeping her sight on the target. Impact in five seconds.

Four.

Three.

She leapt.

Two.

The vines altered her trajectory, putting her out of the mech’s reach.

One.

The Seraph missed her, Slaugh saw her on his left side, a red iris glaring at him.

Zero.

She swung her blade, slashing through the robotic arm, cutting it out under the shoulder, kicking the Seraph away.

Slaugh lost control of his mech, his momentum deflected, his trajectory compromised. He tried to steer the boosters, shifted the power to correct his bearing, pulled all the brakes. The Seraph rose up, turned to the sky, avoided an impact with ground at the last possible second. The armor grazed the concrete, scraps of metal broke out of its legs, one of the feet got stuck on the ledge, was trounced off the mechanical ankle. The mech blasted off to the heavens, before finally decelerating, hovering thirty meters above the ground.

Slaugh breathed. Breathed. He was sweating, swearing. That was close. That was so close. Red alerts, icons flaring up on his screens, all around him. Critical damage to the left leg. The left arm lost. The right arm already dead and buried. The right wing torn. The left wing still partly operational. The boosters were hanging in there by some sort of miracle, keeping the blue mech from falling down. Breathe. Breathe. Slaugh felt his inner world crumbling. He lost. Every weapon. He lost. To a plant. He lost. Control. Whatever he was piloting now was no more than a flying coffin, the one witness to his upcoming death.

Because she was still down there.

Staring at him.

With something akin to disgust painted all over her face.

Or, rather

indifference.

She was simply

indifferent to him.

Indifferent to his woes.

Indifferent to his panic.

Towering over the severed arm of the Seraph. On the inactive plasma cleaver. Smashing her heel on the broken joint. Keeping her cracked, broken black blade in her hand. A blade thrashed by the high speed impact, but still strong enough to carve through the metal, to smash it to bits.

Breathe. Breathe.

Slaugh considered his options. No way to attack. No way to defend. Retreat. Retreat was the only venue left for him. Even if that meant being court-martialed. Even if that meant admitting failure. Shouldering the death of an Ensign and the capture of another. Losing his rank. Losing his privileges. Unless he went rogue. Going rogue might have prolonged his life, at the cost of becoming a lowly criminal, a rat, a parasite of society. That wasn’t acceptable, that wasn’t the way he wanted to be remembered.

Breathe. Breathe.

That’s when he noticed something odd. The rhizome. Was wrapping her shattered blade in her vines, bending them like a slingshot. He suddenly realized what it meant, pushed the throttle, dashed up, farther up.

Only for the blade to be launched like a spear, to almost cut out his mech’s left leg, missing it by mere centimeters, scrapping the paint job, the outer protective layer off it, leaving only a mockery of metal skeleton hanging barely under the safety core.

Breathe. Breathe.

That was it, her last chance. A chance she missed. He was alive. He had a plan. Information on her whereabouts. That was his coin. If he reported back to the base, if only he shared his findings, he could be a hero. Nobody would have remembered Bantam or Rupta. Nobody.

He dashed up, up, forty, fifty, seventy meters above ground, further away from the compound, away from the rhizome, out of her reach. Then, burned his thrusters to the max, boosting out of sight, like a comet in the morning sky, leaving only a trail behind him. And a fading sound. The sound of a broken elite mech, trying its best to remain intact after a crushing defeat.

Lily gazed at it from atop the roof, heaved a long sigh.

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. Eastcol troops were pouring out from the Eastern Fringe like ants. Still, she hoped they could enjoy a little bit of peace for a little bit longer. Now, that hope was dashed away, destroyed by a random flying patrol that happened to be in the right place at the right time.

She kept staring at the trail on the horizon, till it disappeared completely as the mech turned eastwards with the speed of a fighter jet. She let her shoulders slump, reached for her arm vines, grabbed one of them – one that already looked solid, covered in bark, thicker than the others. She pulled it out, still bathed in lymph, extracted it completely. A new blade. Slightly shorter than the previous one, nowhere as solid. Still, good enough as a temporary weapon. She swung it once, twice to get accustomed to it, smirked with relief. Her lymph production was more active than ever, enough to replace a sword on such a short notice. That was the perk of having it boosted and put to test by Lea – she always came out stronger, her body never going completely dry. Contrary to that of those two rhizomes, looking at her with puppy eyes, slowly emerging from behind the wooden shield of Calendula. There was a mixture of amazement, awe and reverential terror in their gazes, hidden behind the usual attempt at a lack of expression rhizomes were known for. The first to speak was Dandelion, before slowly standing up, trying her best not to limp.

“C… Captain Commander Lily, sir! Th… thank you for saving us! We would have died if you didn’t intervene! We… we are deeply grateful for stepping in!”

“Y… yes, what Dee said, sir!”

Dandelion glared at Calendula, with a deathly cold stare, one that would have frozen hell itself.

“Dee?”

“Oh come on, you don’t like Lion, you don’t like Dandy, but you called me Callie! I’m just…”

“Quiet.”

Lily’s utterance interrupted their quarrel, her red eye scanning their bodies, their wounds. Only surface level, nothing worth worrying about. Such a relief. Her sisters were fine. She kept the most neutral expression, avoided showing her feelings as much as she could.

“This place is burned. Once they know I’m here, they’ll send more battalions to get me for good. We should prepare for relocation ASAP.”

Dandelion groaned, averted her gaze.

“If only we killed that pilot…”

“It wouldn’t have changed anything. The Seraph sensors upload the footage to the Eastcol military network. The moment I showed up, it was already game over.”

Dandelion groaned at Lily’s remark, feeling an even heavier weight on her shoulders.

“Sir, it’s our fault. If we managed to shoot down the mechs without you, we…”

“Hush. You did well.”

Despite her willingness to do so, Lily couldn’t conceal a slight of warmth in her tired voice. She resisted the urge to pat Dandelion’s hair, because that would have been something very un-Lily-ish – enough to freak both rhizomes out. So, she kept it objective, down to her tone.

“Flying enemies are outside of our expertise, but you held the fort admirably. Dandelion. That spear shot was perfect, but you can only use it once, right? Focus on speeding up dart production, quantity over quality. They don’t need to be perfect, they just need not to break immediately. If you have more of them and they are lighter, you can even use less lymph to throw them at the same speed. Calendula. Shielding that missile was an incredible feat, but you need to focus on mobility. You are a fortress, we need a shield. While your coordination with Dandelion was remarkable, your sphere wall prevented you from retaliating in any significant way. Even if you had ranged weapons, you could have not used them behind total cover. Still, all things considered…”

She closed her eye, causing something that approximately resembled a smile open up on her lips.

“…you make a good couple.”

Calendula blinked, tried to parse those words in her head.

“A… good couple?”

“In a strictly operational sense, I mean.”

Calendula sighed with relief, performed a perfect military salute.

“Of… of course, sir! Strictly operational sense! S… so, not a couple of the fluid-exchanging kind, like you and Deputy Captain Commander Olean…”

Lily’s eye blazed up, her eyebrow frowned. The fire in her iris became so hot that it could burn both rhizomes alive. Dandelion gasped, Calendula covered her mouth. But it was too late. Lily. The ever stoic Lily. Was smirking at them. With a truly mischievous smile. One that would have killed a puppy or two, just by virtue of existing. Her voice’s tone changed too, dark undertones seeping through the cracks, turning every word into a knife.

“What I and Deputy Captain Commander Oleander do in our time together is not of your concern, Calendula. If anything, since you miserably ran out of juice at a critical time, you should consider… taking a page out of our book and learn how to boost and regulate your overall lymph production. Possibly, together with a trusted partner. One that miserably ran out of juice at the wrong time too.”

While saying so, Lily’s eye homed on Dandelion, causing her to jolt and want to whither to ashes on the spot, shrink into a corner never to be seen again. Calendula couldn’t do anything except shiver, feeling every bone of her body shaken by that sudden turn of events. Till something came out of her lips. The last thing she would have liked to say. An automatism driven by her stress. At the wrong time. In the wrong place.

“M… meow?”

She pushed her hand in front of her mouth, tried to swallow whatever escaped her throat in a moment of weakness. But it was too late. Lily already heard it. And her murder smile became even more haunting.

“Never do that ever again. Am I understood?”

Calendula gasped, gulped, nodded, almost bit her tongue in the process.

“Y… yes, sir! Understood, sir!”

Lily’s demonic expression disappeared as fast as it came up, welcoming the return of her stoicism, even if a bit more relaxed.

“Good. Now, we should extract the surviving pilot from that fallen Seraph’s core and bring them in for interrogation. They might be our only bargaining chip, when Eastcol troops come knocking at our…”

Lily’s ear buzzed. Her communicator was ringing. She tapped on it with one of her vines, opened the channel.

“Captain Commander Lily.”

“Sir, this is Ginestra! We’ve got an urgent incoming call!”

“An… incoming call? From who?”

“It’s Agave, sir! She’s calling us from Atropos!”