>>5161986Before you think your observers zoom in, red hand prints marking her exposed pale flesh, her neck, wrists, chest. You look away and lower her to the ground. Sitting up in a daze, the girl manages to climb down. You turn your attention to the senior pilots. They were around Anastasia now, another Prince class joining them. The girl's Sabre type was only partially restrained, they were giving her a chance to pull herself out. Just like command had with you. You could hear the faint signal of their conversation, but couldn't understand the words. Kat was making her way towards ground staff that rushed to meet her, a few others were lingering around. Eyes pinned on the main show. You continue on moving onto Grisha next, the forty second feeling like a lifetime as you stand over the still Phobos. Reaching down as the device pings you drive the ejector in and repeat the same process, you taste blood.
Coppery and rich, you notice it coming from your nostrils. Your quick breaths sent splatters along the bottom of your visor. Your top lip matted and slick. The boy flopped out, unconscious and unmoving. You carry him to the nearest staff and they shift him onto a gurney. He was terribly pale. Moving in you crouch over Alex's prince, his arms were rotating back and forth through neural coordination. You pull him out with the shocker, and pass him off to staff. He limped but managed. As you make it to tony, you focus entirely on the slowly filling bar. You are waiting for that ping, for that brief rush of relief. The ping was eclipsed. Instead the clash of heavy lumps of concrete smashing against the metal floor rang out, whispered curses and another horrifying screech joined in. The Core fluxes. Your world snapping away as you are hooked by something unseen and torn down into the dark, you choke as the air is squeezed from you.
Throwing up a mouthful of blood against your visor, painting it with speckles of congealed blood. It was too much, you felt your body buckle and fold. Fighting against your flexing muscles, you pull the helmet off. Escaping your confined hell and allowing everything to rush into you. You fall. Your knees finding a new home among the points or jagged metal, digging in as your palms follow. They cut deep, more crimson ichor leaking from you. Opening your eyes you witness the hot life essence bubble up around your fingers against the countless rusted shards of shrapnel. Evaporating into a wispy trail, climbing high into the sky to join the hazy red mist that surrounded you. Your shell couldn't help you down here.
