Battle Cry - A noncanonical canon.
Posted: Fri Aug 31, 2012 8:03 pm
I hate the suit. It fits so tightly that it's hard to breathe, not to mention embarassingly revealing. Supposedly it's worse for the males, though, so that's one small mercy for me.
I rest my hand on the side of my partner's foot. Tisiphone, the third Fury, a thirty-foot tall avenging angel of steel and ceramics, servos and aethertech. Every one of the Erinyes has a different color scheme and design: Tisiphone, with her bronze and scarlet accents, is my favorite. I'm sure that Suzumiya feels the same about his Megaera, or Asano about her Alecto. There's an old saying about beauty and the beholder that comes to mind.
"Enomoto." It's Dr. Ayanokoji, with her assistant. I can tell by the way that she's carrying her clipboard that she's come to give me bad news.
I don't feel like hearing it.
"I know what you're going to say," I tell her. "I don't care."
". . . I'm going to tell you anyway. Your condition is accelerating," Ayanokoji explains. "Marked deterioration in motor skills and. . ."
". . . how long do I have?"
". . . about two years. If you stopped piloting. . ."
". . . I'd be dead in seven anyway. No thanks. If I'm going to die, I'd rather die fighting, not sitting on my ass."
"You wouldn't be sitting on your ass!" Ayanokoji points out. She rubs the bridge of her nose wearily. "I've told you before. We need experienced pilots in Control. You're a brilliant tactician, and a strong leader. Why won't you transfer to where you can do the most good?" Her voice lowers, and sadness touches her eyes. "How many more of them do you need to kill?"
The soft ping of my comm tells me that I've been put on Ready Five alert status. I pull myself out of my wheelchair and press the button that opens the canopy of the pilot's pod. It's getting harder to climb into the pod itself - my own body betraying me, the death in my genes doing, slowly and inexorably, what the death out there cannot.
". . . when I'm done killing," I tell my doctor. "I'll let you know."
Ayanokoji shakes her head, but she nods to her assistant anyway. They help me put on the seven-point harness and close the canopy for me.
Ayanokoji says one last thing before she dogs the last hatch. "This isn't what he would have wanted."
She doesn't know that.
-----
The interior of the cockpit always reminds me of the color of blood. It's the red emergency lights. Once it's plugged into its main body, the lights will be pure and white once more.
I take the photograph from my suit glove and rest it on my control console. Two young people, smiling and laughing at the camera. He's taller, with messy, light brown hair and a pleasant smile. She's got long hair that has now been chopped off into an efficient buzzcut, and a delighted, innocent laugh.
We were so naive back then. We thought that the worst thing we had to live with was the death inside our own bodies. We thought that our lives, as short as they would be, would be spent together. We didn't know the hell our lives would become.
You died in my arms on the day that the world went to war: one of the first casualties of the last battle song of humanity. Saki Enomoto died holding you that day. Now there is only me.
Tisiphone.
The Avenger.
Ayanokoji asks me how many I need to kill. The answer is always the same: enough to make the hate go away.
I'm going to be killing for quite some time yet.
My pilot pod is slammed into place like the magazine of a gun, and my world becomes light. Tisiphone's mind becomes my mind. Her body of steel and servoes will serve as my own.
I launch into battle, into a sky full of tracers, into a sea made of chitin and horror, into death and war.
And for a few short hours, I can forget that I miss you, Hisao.
I rest my hand on the side of my partner's foot. Tisiphone, the third Fury, a thirty-foot tall avenging angel of steel and ceramics, servos and aethertech. Every one of the Erinyes has a different color scheme and design: Tisiphone, with her bronze and scarlet accents, is my favorite. I'm sure that Suzumiya feels the same about his Megaera, or Asano about her Alecto. There's an old saying about beauty and the beholder that comes to mind.
"Enomoto." It's Dr. Ayanokoji, with her assistant. I can tell by the way that she's carrying her clipboard that she's come to give me bad news.
I don't feel like hearing it.
"I know what you're going to say," I tell her. "I don't care."
". . . I'm going to tell you anyway. Your condition is accelerating," Ayanokoji explains. "Marked deterioration in motor skills and. . ."
". . . how long do I have?"
". . . about two years. If you stopped piloting. . ."
". . . I'd be dead in seven anyway. No thanks. If I'm going to die, I'd rather die fighting, not sitting on my ass."
"You wouldn't be sitting on your ass!" Ayanokoji points out. She rubs the bridge of her nose wearily. "I've told you before. We need experienced pilots in Control. You're a brilliant tactician, and a strong leader. Why won't you transfer to where you can do the most good?" Her voice lowers, and sadness touches her eyes. "How many more of them do you need to kill?"
The soft ping of my comm tells me that I've been put on Ready Five alert status. I pull myself out of my wheelchair and press the button that opens the canopy of the pilot's pod. It's getting harder to climb into the pod itself - my own body betraying me, the death in my genes doing, slowly and inexorably, what the death out there cannot.
". . . when I'm done killing," I tell my doctor. "I'll let you know."
Ayanokoji shakes her head, but she nods to her assistant anyway. They help me put on the seven-point harness and close the canopy for me.
Ayanokoji says one last thing before she dogs the last hatch. "This isn't what he would have wanted."
She doesn't know that.
-----
The interior of the cockpit always reminds me of the color of blood. It's the red emergency lights. Once it's plugged into its main body, the lights will be pure and white once more.
I take the photograph from my suit glove and rest it on my control console. Two young people, smiling and laughing at the camera. He's taller, with messy, light brown hair and a pleasant smile. She's got long hair that has now been chopped off into an efficient buzzcut, and a delighted, innocent laugh.
We were so naive back then. We thought that the worst thing we had to live with was the death inside our own bodies. We thought that our lives, as short as they would be, would be spent together. We didn't know the hell our lives would become.
You died in my arms on the day that the world went to war: one of the first casualties of the last battle song of humanity. Saki Enomoto died holding you that day. Now there is only me.
Tisiphone.
The Avenger.
Ayanokoji asks me how many I need to kill. The answer is always the same: enough to make the hate go away.
I'm going to be killing for quite some time yet.
My pilot pod is slammed into place like the magazine of a gun, and my world becomes light. Tisiphone's mind becomes my mind. Her body of steel and servoes will serve as my own.
I launch into battle, into a sky full of tracers, into a sea made of chitin and horror, into death and war.
And for a few short hours, I can forget that I miss you, Hisao.
