Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #61 – Solid

Mimi’s hand danced on the metal surface, trying to discern its shape. She had seen pictures of Seraph mechs, while jacked into the comnet, but seeing a picture and touching the real deal were completely different experiences. The surface was rough, but not uneven. Each of her fingertips felt a pleasant feedback from the paint job, while still finding some bumps and sections that might have needed a second pass. A voice surprised her from behind, powerful, authoritative.

“…so, is that the costume you’re gonna wear during the assault, gal? Ain’t it a little tacky?”

Mimi didn’t even mind the terrible accent. She knew who her surprise guest was, just from her tone and choice of words alone. Deputy Captain Lenarea Mariakidis of the Niteowls. A mountain of muscles to rival Dobrio, one that learned the language of exchange by watching B-grade flicks, causing her to sound like a stereotypical action movie hero. Mimi didn’t find it grating, though. It was a little charming quirk, for such a rule-abiding paragon of military virtue. Of course, Lenarea’s rather caustic remark referred to her Kryzalid outfit – that cape with large sleeves and hood that barely covered her thighs, leaving most of her legs for show. Her blindfold probably didn’t help, turning her into a sort of weird, time-misplaced dark fantasy violinist. Except that was exactly the point. Kryzalid was the villain of a fairytale, the antihero with a violent origin story. Not only she was allowed to dress like that, she was required to, by the role she decided to take. Besides, her outfit alone caused Laccy’s lymph production to accelerate, just by the power of inhabiting her thoughts, so it was a net positive. Mimi wore her best smile, grinned at the newcomer.

“Wonder how you’d look in it, Cap’n?”

“Not really. Showing your legs like that is something only a bitch would do. At least wear shoes, Lagash take you!”

“Well, it so happens that I use the vibrations in the ground to move around more comfortably. You know, being blind and everything.”

“Oh, is that so? Or is it just, I dunno, a way to flash yer funny painted toenails? ‘Cause that varnish must have taken ages, especially without seeing…”

Kryzalid licked her lips, smirked.

“Captain, Captain… I didn’t take you for a feet enjoyer. Naughty, naughty girl! Dr. Zonta would be so proud of you!”

“…shut up.”

Lenarea averted her gaze, found herself embarrassed by that remark, her cheeks going red. That Kryzalid woman was a pain and a half to deal with, one that shamelessly said whatever she thought without filters. Not the kind of person she was accustomed to deal with. Still, she felt fascinated by her elegant, delicate motions, by the routes her fingers traced on the skin of the Seraph. An ethereal vision, one that didn’t belong to that age, to that place. One that was a cocktail of contradictions, the subject of questions that rummaged through Lenarea’s mind. Questions she wouldn’t have any other chance of asking, if she didn’t do that now. She glanced at the clock. The next incursion window would open in forty-five minutes. One per each hour, as they learned days before. Once every sixty minutes the seedship unleashed a new wave of nanos, joining the existing swarm in their blind race to eat and despoil the planet. Every time that happened, their sensors detected an EM spike. That was the metronome that drove their explorations. One hour at a time. As soon as the Panopticon strike group took care of their deal, the clock would have started ticking and the next window would have been the beginning of the operation. There was a chance that would never happen, but Lenarea tried to be positive, at least a bare minimum – that was what Captain Gravess taught her. So, she drew a deep breath, turned back towards the caped woman that was now playing with her violin’s strings.

“I have a question for you, Kryzalid.”

“Shoot.”

“Why do you like rhizomes?”

Kryzalid fell into a short, contemplative silence. It was a good question, one that she never really thought about. It simply happened.

“I dunno, I just have the hots for plant girls. Seeing Prim naked was my lesbian awakening. Lagash forgive me, but that evening at home I…”

“Okay, but ain’t it hella creepy? The roots around their necks, the bark, the tendrils, that… green thing that drips out of them? And their eyes, Lagash take me! They look at my comrades as if they were snacks! Those monsters… they give no value to human life! Their morals are twisted, insane! They have no qualms about literally drinking people!”

“Those are all good points, but have you ever considered…”

“What?”

Kryzalid smiled, pranced around Lenarea with light and fast steps, before stopping close to her, whispering in her ear.

“Vine bondage?”

Lenarea’s cheeks turned red like a traffic light, her blood boiled, burned in her arteries.

“What.”

“Laccy’s very very good at it. I dunno where she learned, but oh Lagash, it was divine.”

Kryzalid crossed her arms, almost hugging herself, swung like a pendulum left and right. That memory of the previous night, the memory of countless vines wrapping her body, touching, caressing, slithering all over it, filled her with warmth, with a pleasant sensation of fulfillment. Laccy’s scent. Her skin. The moments they shared. Mimi’s body was still basking in the aftertaste of their union, savoring every second of that reminiscence.

“…but, see, Captain, with Laccy it’s… not just a question of having the hots. True, I love doing her. And she sure as heck loves doing me – I’m still a little sore down here, she played hard. But Laccy’s also… one of the few people who accepts me for what I am. No questions. No pity party. No rebukes. She knows I’m a good-for-nothing freak, but she doesn’t ask me to change. And I…”

Mimi caught herself sighing, as her tone calmed down.

“…I like how childishly excitable she is. About birds. About everything she holds dear. She… she’s still wearing the necklace my aunt gave her. Because she treasures it, you know? Laccy… Laccy can get attached to people. She’s… not just a cold murdering machine, yes? She can feel. She can give value to human life. And… and she’s jealous as heck! You should have seen how angry she was ‘bout me sleeping with Prim! True, her brain is wired differently, she has different values, different things she prioritizes. But… she likes me. And I like her. That’s all it takes, right? I’m weird. She’s weird. I need lymph. She needs someone who needs her lymph. And… huh, we just happened to find each other.”

Lenarea’s eyes widened, her mouth almost fell to the floor.

“Oh Lagash strike me! That plant’s your girlfriend? Seriously?!”

Mimi’s heart skipped a beat. Girlfriend. Laccy was her girlfriend? She felt blood flushing through her cheeks, her throat suddenly dried out. Dobrio said the same, but Dobrio was always jesting, that idiot. Hearing that spoken out loud by someone who didn’t know her, someone as deadpan and distant like Lenarea Mariakidis, made her determination waver, her soul flutter. Girlfriend. Was she? Were they? That short circuit made her brain make rounds, desperately trying to confirm or refute that claim. Girlfriend. Laccy and she. A couple. No, that was impossible. She didn’t deserve that. She didn’t…

She heaved a sigh.

Correct. They weren’t at that level yet. That was the sad reality. Their relationship was a pure physical transaction, with extra benefits on top and quite a bit of feelings, but not something that deep.

“Nah, she’s my house plant and I’m her watering can. That’s… all there is.”

Still, somewhere inside her, Mimi knew that she was lying. Girlfriend. She never considered that as a possibility. But was it even possible to have a romantic relationship with a rhizome? How long did rhizomes live, anyway? What if Laccy withered in less than a decade? What if she lived for a century? Too many uncertainties. Too many roadblocks. Humans and rhizomes weren’t made to be together. Yet…

Kryzalid gritted her teeth, started stepping away.

“Now, excuse me. I need to tune my violin before the sortie. Call me when we have to go, I’ll… wait inside my room.”

Lenarea watched her slowly going away, moving unsteadily, clicking her tongue to follow the echo. She waited until the blind woman left her sight. Then, she crossed her arms, shook her head.

“…yep, she’s totally her girlfriend. My goodness gracious, those Neodutch bozos are creepier than their plants.”

**

A cloud of smoke emerged from the rubble, from the remains of the entrance. Slaugh gloated, chuckled, laughed in the darkness of his cockpit. The Raphael missile, the Michael triplet squashed it, ruptured it, crushed the concrete, almost left the metal bare. Yet, the bunker was still standing. Red lights flashed, sirens blared. The scattered bodies of many Peacekeepers dotted the corridor, some still moving despite being ripped in half. A bloody carnage, an attack to the core of the enemy fortress. One that left a wide gash on its structure, turning it into a charred mockery of what it once was. And the plants… yes, the plants had to be gone too. No way they resisted. No way they tanked that missile massacre. So, the smoke, he enjoyed watching it. He enjoyed the sight of burning rocks, of crumbling pillars. He glanced around on his radar. Sanbucco and Koshnatta were still behind him. Kizman too. Mitsugashi and Oriola…

He turned his mech around.

Oriola.

Oriola was attacked by one of those plants.

He tapped his fingers on the controls, recalled the HUD. Her life signs. Her life signs were…

“…fuck.”

Gone.

Her life signs were gone. But not only hers.

On top of her downed blue mech.

He saw it.

An armless rhizome.

With blades sprouting out of her ankles.

Tendrils all around her body, in a spider net of vines.

And a head wrapped among them.

A human head.

Freshly ripped away from a body.

But it wasn’t Oriola’s head, no.

It was Mitsugashi’s.

Slaugh boosted backwards, regrouped with the rearguard. Mitsugashi’s ‘heron’ was lying close to Oriola’s. Its safety cell was split open, slashed in half, ripped like paper-mache. That was wrong. That was all wrong. A rhizome couldn’t do it. No plant could do it. So, how? How was it…

It dawned on him. Oriola’s plasma blade. The plasma blade of her ‘heron’. Was now in the hands of the Whip rhizome. One who was standing on top of Mitsugashi’s Seraph, with the sword shining in the rain, vaporizing the droplets. That blade cut the mech in half. That blade severed Mitsugashi’s neck. Now, her tendrils were delving into the cockpit. Lumps of water swelling them, in a chain of boils squelching up her roots, slithering to her back. A lighting bolt flashed behind them, black silhouettes on a white sky. The shapes of two demons, looking at him in disgust, while drying the corpses of his soldiers. Slaugh’s breath died. His heartbeat accelerated, his hands sweated, his fingers trembled. Monsters. Devils. Freaks. He raised his twin blades, screamed in the microphone. It wasn’t over. Burn the witch. Burn the monster. Burn them all.

No.

Calm down.

Calm down.

Calm.

Down.

They sent him for a reason.

They sent him because he was the only one who could do that.

He couldn’t disappoint them.

He couldn’t disappoint himself.

Burn the witch. Burn the shield.

Burn the tulips.

He raised his gaze. No more flak turrets. The railgun was dead. Only a decoy flare dispenser still intact. He glanced down. Plants aside, the soldiers were battered, wounded. So many wounded. So many dead. He lost three pilots, yes, but he was still winning.

Winning.

There was no reason not to

Calm

Down.

Slaugh ignited his thrusters, boosted forward, under the cover fire of the three surviving pilots. He flew through the Peacekeepers, cut two down, raised up, over the ceiling. He crossed his plasma blades, spun around in circle of death.

A smoldering cross-shaped slash.

The last turret.

Was gone.

“Sanbucco! Kizman! Koshnatta! Keep firing! Keep firing!”

That’s when Sanbucco’s signal blipped out of sight. He turned around, turned down. The rhizome with the branch stubs. The rhizome with the ankle blades. Were dismembering Sanbucco’s mech, hitting it with the stolen plasma sword, sneaking from behind, their tendrils having their way through the broken metal. Slaugh screamed, felt like retching. Animals. They were bloody animals. Beasts shaped like people. He cut Sanbucco’s comms, he cut all the comms.

While.

Still.

Screaming.

Whatever happened to them.

Whatever happened to his comrades.

It bore no weight.

They did their job. Now, he had to do his.

He boosted back, hovered above the ground, slipped through the downpour. No flak. No guns. The Spear rhizome already shot her only javelin. He let go of his blades, attached them to the legs, went for his back. His hands grabbed two pieces, two long pieces of a cannon. With the corner of his camera, he saw Koshnatta’s mech flying up, up above, getting over the clouds, escaping the plants as fast as it could.

Red dots on its armor.

Red dots all above him.

Tulip.

Slaugh braced for impact.

A tremendous explosion shook the sky.

The Seraph went off like a firework, its fragments falling down, burning through the atmosphere, burning in the rain. Slaugh gritted his teeth. That was the reason why Panopticon hadn’t been taken. The Tulip drones shot down whatever came from above. The flak turrets shot down whatever flew too low. The rest was handled by the soldiers on the ground. There was no way to take Panopticon till Tulip existed, till the turrets vomited fire.

He joined the cannon, raised it up, aimed it at the sky.

And pulled the trigger.

The recoil sent him almost to the ground, as the projectile went up, split into two, four, eight, sixteen, thirty-two smaller stingers, each aiming at a different target, each going for a drone. All while the slower shards spread their payload, spitting it high above the drones.

In the beginning, it was darkness.

And Slaugh said.

Let there be light.

A chain deflagration, flames devouring the clouds, spreading from drone to drone, the whole sky turning into a charred wasteland, even the rain flashing red, vaporizing for the blast. A drone exploded. Then another. Another. Another. Two. Four. Eight. Going off, incinerated, consumed by the fire. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Sixty-four. One by one, falling down. One by one, bursting open. Till all that remained of the Tulip shield was cinders, ashes, pieces of molten metal falling to the ground.

But that wasn’t enough. That wasn’t enough for Slaugh.

They needed Panopticon.

Not the bunker.

Not the plants.

Now, without Tulip.

He had it.

The line of sight.

He thrusted up, accelerated at high speed. Fifty. One hundred. Two hundred meters above the ground. He hovered there, watching everything from his vantage point, watching the ants spreading and taking cover, scrambling in front of the divine destruction of Meteor. He gloated. He had one last present for them. One last goodbye. His hand went for his back, grabbed the last projectile, loaded the gun one more time. Fire was going to rain down. Burn everything. Char the plants. Cleanse the land.

“Captain Hasegawa! What are you doing? That will…”

Kizman.

Of course it was Kizman.

Always interrupting. Always bothering. Now he was flying close to him, his red mech already without an arm but still functional. Slaugh pushed a button, oriented his Michael missile launcher towards him.

“I have command over this operation!”

“We took down Tulip and the turrets! We’ve already won! We’ve cleared the mission! The bunker is defenseless! The carrier will come in one hour at most, sir! You don’t need to…”

“I said shut up!”

“But… but if you shoot Meteor, you’ll damage the…”

He pulled the trigger.

The Michael missiles pierced the mech, burst through it, breaking the boosters, thrashing the wings.

Kizman’s Seraph lost control, spiraled down.

Till it smashed against the bunker, cracking the concrete, half burying itself under the rubble.

Kizman.

Slaugh didn’t need him.

Slaugh didn’t need anybody.

Just.

Meteor.

So, he aimed his gun down.

Aimed at the center.

At the Shield rhizome.

At the Spear type.

With glee.

He had been there, before.

Aiming his Raphael at that compound.

Only, this time.

There was no Captain Commander Lily to defend them.

There was no chance to survive.

Yet, a shiver went down his spine, right as he finished preparing the cannon. He recalled his HUD, zoomed the cameras on the ground, on the Spear rhizome, on that monster that looked exactly like the one who broke his mech and killed Bantam. Almost the same. Biological clones. Ugly. Scum. Monsters.

But that clone.

That pathetic excuse of a living being.

Her hand was pulling something out of her own spine.

She already used one.

It’s a bluff.

That’s what his brain said.

Before realizing that he didn’t see her extracting the first spear.

Before realizing that it could have been already there. Maybe brought with her. Or, maybe, not even her spear.

So, when she took it out of her body, his mind lost an instant to elaborate.

An instant to gauge the situation.

And, in that instant.

Primula threw it.

In a supersonic boom.

Hissing.

Blasting.

Reaching him.

In just that instant.

The javelin trounced his cannon.

Pierced the tank.

Pierced the bullet.

The arm too.

Colorless fluid spread out of it.

Spread all over Slaugh’s mech.

The rain couldn’t wash it.

The rain wouldn’t wash it.

So, when the spark came.

Everything turned white.

Inside the cockpit.

The heat.

The metal burning.

Turning yellow.

His hands burning.

His body burning.

His HUD going offline.

Everything burning.

Melting.

Burning.

Melting.

His helmet.

His visor.

His armor.

Slaugh Hasegawa screamed, screamed from the bottom of his lungs.

Before being devoured by the fangs of hell.

Charred alive, consumed, turned to ashes.

The flames reached the fuel tank.

The Seraph

Exploded.

And the blazes from the boosters.

Turned into wings.

The wings of a rotten, dying angel.

Cleansed

by his own

fire.