His fists clenched, knuckles turning white as he raised his superior against the wall. “Where is she!?!”
“I don’t know.” The superiors voice came calm and collected.
“I’ll kill you–” He slammed his superior against the wall again. “–I promise you!”
His threat cackled as tears streamed down his cheeks, reminding the superior of just how young the boy was, only in his late teens and expected to fight a war – to see family perish.
“Zack. I am sorry, we will find her.” The superior said to him in a tempered voice, desolate of authority or animosity.
Zack’s lips moved his grip loosening, but no words were heard as red sirens blared over his voice, an emergency voice on the speaker. “Superior Crain, we are under attack, a giant target is approaching us at mach ten speeds. Four Raptors have been deployed to intercept as procedural protocol, awaiting further instructions.”
Crain put his hands against Zack’s arms lowering them down. “I promise.” He gave him a final glance as he walked away to the deck, taking a few flight of stairs down. Crains voice boomed, screaming to initiate delta formations and to prepare the Blaze.
The Blaze stood upon a craned system, two giant metallic beams supported it, both wretched upon its archaic wing system which helped propel it in aerial battles. It was a machine past its time but it remained like a haunted dream from the first battle upon the mechanical contrivances were founded. The Blaze ran upon hydraulic systems which were faulty, still using a leathered induction system, which fueled oil to its joints, often freezing them up in the midst of battle, but Zack felt it differently, it was capable of infusing its pilots spirit, by reading biorhythms; an archaic project in which the conviction that humans and machines were only an organic link away.
He knew Crain would not let him pilot it, not after his outburst, it was a cardinal rule to never let a hotheaded pilot on the field, yet the world pilot never sat right, as with the Blaze it was not as if he piloted it — he willed it to be his right hand, his legs and his own convictions — but it was piloting him.
“Superior Crain!” A soldier dressed in camouflage approached his way, handing an radio with an incoming transmission. “We have the Blaze’s pilot sister, and we demand his surrender immediately to the pilot of the mecha we have deployed. Comply or we will destroy her…” The voices crackled on the transmission but it was clearly that of General Prevair. “…and the rest of you.”
Those words pierced his delicate heart and time became a blur, Zack had forced himself onto the boarding pass over the Blaze, hopping down through its entry shaft into a leather seat that flexed at his weight. Within the Blaze it was nothing but darkness, the convoy to his soul, but there was no need for luster for his hands knew where to press, as mechanical whirs took on musical cues, intricate triggers lighting up, followed by the camera-ed screen that gave him view of the outside, at every sheet of metal upon the machine were cameras situated flush along its body that helped the pilot see their constant position in proportion to the world around them.
The screen lit in front of him, a curdling cue of the computers logic board. Its legs moved heavily, still not at full operation, hydraulic fluid still running from its central processors, filling its veins with the blood it needed to function. He pushed it forward it, past Superior Crain and his soldiers, lining it up with the launchpad as the metal braces clipped its wings.
The Blazes heart beat with a synchronized beat as the day it was born, a machine driven, lifeless, involuntary matter-of-fact operation. Its cores were now running at 75% according to the on board computers.
He had no intention of waiting to let the beast wake as he was its soul and the soul drives the heart and body farther than they can ever imagine, the ephemeral being he had become to the machine, pushed it to the point of no return as sirens beeped with the ceiling opening, the launchpad cleared and the machine jutted upwards.
Centrifuge force pressed upon his body, unable to ever get used to the exalting thrust of walking a monstrous behemoth he tumbled into the air, the machine turning sideways its limbs pressed down by gravity yet the catapulting force was still driving it upward its waist and chest jutting upwards. It corrected its trajectory now rising from its grave, now his hands at the controls, he gave it purpose.
The sun no longer blinded his view, but now he saw Raptor Jet fighters explode as if they were fireworks shining in the bright sunny day, behind them the red and black machine shimmered, slicing them with its bare extremity. The machine was a newer generation — belonging to a first world continent while Blaze was reflecting of a transient second world technology attempting to keep up — obvious by the reflection of its paint coating, its sheen and harsher edges which made it stand out against the Blazes black and green tones.
The Blaze’s thrusters picked up, emanating from the winged thrusters upon its behind midsection. No weapons were in its metallic cold hands, nor did it need them, for when it collided against the other machine it used the strength of inertia to plunge the hard steel into the body of the other machine.
“Kill him or your…” The words hesitated through the new generation machines intercom. “…brother dies at the hands of this enemy machine.”
The mecha grasped its red hands against the archaic machine, pressing it backwards, where it lacked in experience it made up in technology, its thrusters gave it enough power to drive the other one jetting its body into a nearby skyscraper, sending it rumbling collapsing against the force of two giants.
He lost focus as his mecha was scraping along the tall rise, its body creating debris which cackled against the aged machines body. “Sister…no…” His voice rose through the ashes. “Where is she!?!”
The Blaze didn’t rise, the concrete ashes filling its grave. The other machine hovered above it, its body swatting like a fly attempting to keep a leveraged float. “May…I see my brother now…” She spoke in a hushed tone, eyes blood shot, her legs beginning to shiver again, the medication no longer holding the same lengthy healing on her body. “Please…just let me see him, I don’t want to–”
“–die without…seeing..” Before she could finish her words the Blaze came surging from the rubble, its surged upwards its grip with an open palm, it rushed through the first layering of defenses on the new age mecha, tearing through its underside, aiming straight for the pilots cabinet harbored within the middle of the robotic machine, the core and soul that once stripped would leave the machine dwindling to its dissolution.
Around her tiny frame came tumbling the cabinet, impenetrable fingers rose around her, tightening their grasp at her, not a single tear rolled down her cheek, the clear blue sky shone through the fragmented cabinet and in between the metallic claws crushing in on her, she saw one final sun and made one final wish. “If I could have only seen him before I–”
Then her words went deaf as the stannic leaden womb shut around her, shattering his promise to never kill as he commanded the womb to close, suffocating the life from her.