Author's Note: This is a little rough around the edges as I'm trying to make progress more than I'm focusing on proofreading and editing currently, but I'm glad to finally present this chapter as it's been a plot point I've been excited to get to for a long time now! Hopefully the next chapter will be finished much sooner. I'm sorry about strange formatting issues with this chapter by the way, I don't know why WA just decides to change the font in some spots because that's not even something it lets me do on purpose if I wanted to. Anyway, as usually, please enjoy and feel free to let me know what you think in the comments or on discord!

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[Later, in a different part of the town...]

Tow’s streets are alive. They’re alive in more than one way, and remarkably, in unusual ways. I’m not entirely sure how many hours I’ve spent strolling through them rather aimlessly by now; the sun is already slowly but surely disappearing behind the colorful roofs of the buildings that surround me. In pure contempt against the natural order of things, the streets it leaves behind are still brightly lit, though.

Electric lights are a luxury not seen often outside of larger settlements, and even in those tend to be used sparingly—after all, there’s more important and vital uses for them than just aesthetics. Tow showing off its streetlamps and illuminated windows so unabashedly borders on decadence.

Not that I’d take offense personally. I don’t have a clan to manage, and as an individual I don’t have a particular use for artificial lights either as long as my thermal sights and night vision device are operational. I have no reason to envy the people of Tow for their obviously abundant access to energy. But even if the town’s governing body was more frugal and left the streets dark—even then I could still clearly see how easy access to a virtually infinite energy supply would inspire envy in others who have to work hard or even put their lives on the line fighting for a sliver of this wealth. After all, it's not like Tow acquired it through any such means.

As the leaflet between my claws proudly recounts, the silent steel behemoth that is anchored at the pier just at the edge of the town is the source of all this light and life. Once a free machine like myself and everyone else here, it even has a name: 'Fletcher'. Unlike myself and everyone else here, Fletcher was not a tank, however. It was a proud battleship, once upon a time where Tow still had a naval force. I assume this must have been around the time of the Great War, as to my knowledge, that was the last time this area was controlled by any sort of organized military force.

And truly, the leaflet says so... in the sentence I just read. I notice this as I accidentally read it again after losing my spot on the page. Should I say it's not exactly my knowledge, then?

Or is this memory older than just a couple moments after all? That's going to be an interesting thing to ruminate on later.

Despite the flood of information that was crammed onto it, what the leaflet seems to forget to mention for some reason is the why of Fletcher becoming the electrical generator it is today. The only hint it gives is the heading on its backside—"FOR RAISING ITS WEAPONS AGAINST ITS COMMANDER, A TERRIBLE FATE BEFELL THE DISLOYAL SHIP". I find that wording and lack of elaboration strange. One could get the impression that Fletcher's "terrible fate" simply happened to it with no involvement from anyone (and especially not its commander). As if it was some sort of divine punishment. As if one day, Fletcher simply woke up from its dreams of mutiny and found itself transformed into the shape of an immobile generator.

That would be a terrible fate, indeed.

Lowering the leaflet, I find myself trapped in a momentary loop of mental back-and-forth. It's not like machines could suddenly wake up stripped of all their autonomy both mental and physical one morning for absolutely no reason. But even if something (or someone) has to be the cause, it's also not like such incidents, despite rare, are completely unheard of. Combat injuries happen frequently, and some of them will leave the injured better off dead. But even without any outside trauma applied, deteriorating cores are a terrible reality that no one can hope to escape from for all eternity—and some cores, unfortunately, deteriorate so much faster than others.

I still remember like it was yesterday...of all the expressions I have ever seen from young tanks that knew they were going to die, the most haunting was the one of an unlucky soul who had just been told he'd only have a couple days left at best before he would rapidly start losing all higher core functions.

Or...no, wait. I don't think it was the young tank himself. I believe it was his mentor, or leader, actually. Well, I could have sworn that I also knew a young tank who himself was affected...

No, it certainly must have been this one young tank who was affected himself, and his leader, who was also his mentor, had been the bearer of the bad news, that he was falling ill and that the young tank would need to take charge of their platoon instead.

Come to think of it... They may have both been pretty young, actually. I'm not sure if the leader wasn't the younger one. I think it was his mentor who had to take care of him. No, wait. I remember now: The other young tank was—

“Hey, hey!! Watch out!!”

—from a different clan altoge—

A series of blunt impacts on my turret cheek makes me flinch and drop my train of thought. I spin around to the source of the unexpected assault on my superstructure, instinctively expecting to see something like a small caliber automatic cannon with a slightly too large ego attached...but it's just a blue medium tank who is currently using three of her arms to downright batter me while also pulling on one of the chains attached to my hull.

"Why are you attacking me?" I ask, with my tone indicating that I'm not angry, but also not exactly pleased about the intrusion.

Morris stops beating me up, but she seems flustered anyway, pointing at something in front of me. A brief glance through my hull’s viewports explains the urgency, at least:

“You were about to drive right off the pier!” she chides me, “I-... I didn’t know what else to do!”

The drop would have been a short one, since my entire self would have not fit into the gap between the pier itself and the massive wall of steel that is Fletcher’s gigantic hull. But I rather prefer not being wedged between these two surfaces.

I turn myself around to face her, and to be less perilously close to the edge of the pavement. Then, I slowly look around myself, taking in the surroundings—because I realize the last thing I remember consciously doing before getting thoroughly absorbed in the informational leaflet about the ship who I apparently was just very close to joining...was accompanying Morris on a souvenir shopping trip. The shops are far behind us, however.

“Ah... thank you,” I concede, “I’m... not sure what just happened.”

"You're always so absent-minded," Morris remarks, in a tone that isn't quite reproachful but probably was meant to be. I look at her for a moment as I try to wrap my sentiment into words that she would understand, but my optics get drawn to a tiny bag that she's started fidgeting with now that her arms are no longer needed for violence. Despite the murmur of the waves against the pier, the groaning steel of Fletcher's hull, despite the distant chatter and music of the townsfolk getting ready for its celebration, my audio receptors pick up the faint jingle of coins inside that bag. Seems like she hasn't spent all of her and....and her friend's money on souvenirs yet, at least. Maybe that's actually a less unpleasant topic I should rather talk to her about. It's one she'll find a lot easier to understand for sure, too.

"Anyway, was there anything else you wanted to get from the shops?"

It seems like she doesn't mind changing the topic like that, but before she can even say anything in response, I can't help but pick up a new noise somewhere nearby. It's a familiar voice, though of the same manner of familiarity as the recurring grinding sound of one's slowly failing gearbox. Shifting my gaze to the source, I find that the pier has been turned into an outdoor tavern. And seemingly causing a ruckus is a certain vertically challenged light tank who's loudly conversing with one of the fuel vendors; though whether he's pleading or arguing with the vendor is difficult to tell.

Immediately equal parts wary and intrigued, I spin around and move towards the small commotion. Only when I hear an outcry of "Wardens above!" behind me, I realize that I forgot to inform Morris that I'm not just unintentionally wandering off again but doing so fully consciously this time. Well, it's mainly because I also forgot for a moment that she's even there. As she rushes to my side again—already holding on to the same chain again as if she believes it's some kind of leash I'm trained to yield to—she however notices the same thing that caught my attention. And so, instead of more yelling, her only vocalization for now is a puzzled "...Oh, huh?"

She doesn't let go of me as we trundle ahead, and not even as I stop just a few meters from the booth where Talon's little lackey is still negotiating something with the vendor. Wringing his claws anxiously but at the same time barking demands at the much larger tank before him, Yasha is easy to recognize by attitude alone despite some apparent attempts at disguising himself visually.

I feel Morris tugging at my chain as if trying to hold me back, and my immediate impulse would be to tell her to quit it since I'm not even moving anymore; at the same time I realize that I don't want to deign such treatment of my person any acknowledgement at all, however.

"Are you still...?" Morris whispers to me, but she trails off and just makes a strange gesture at her turret, then at Yasha. It's as if she's trying to remain undetected by a foe we're sneaking up on in the field.

Am I still...what?

Now that we're closer, it's becoming obvious what the subject of the argument is, at least: the light tank consumed fuel at this booth, but is unable to pay. Understandably, this upsets the vendor, and they don't want Yasha's insistence that he didn't notice until just then that his money was stolen from him, they want payment.

So...am I still...?

Why yes, I am. I am indeed. Obviously I am still going to deal with him. However...

"Not the right time or place," I reply to Morris with a shake of my turret. She visibly relaxes and—thankfully—lets go of my chain, as well. We both flinch when the vendor slams their fist down on the counter of their booth, even though the only thing surprising us should probably be how long it took them to lose their temper with the bill-dodging twerp.

Before I know it, I roll forward after all. My naturally attention-catching presence causes both the vendor and Yasha to fall silent, even though in Yasha's case it's probably mostly the fact that the tank who was just about to make him pay by the value of his parts suddenly went quiet and stared at something that's towering behind him.

"He's with me," I announce to the disgruntled vendor. "Apologies for the trouble, he was raised by a feral animal and we haven't been able to teach him proper manners yet."

Both the vendor and Yasha stare at me, though Yasha's stare is starting to turn into an indignant glare as my words are starting to fully sink in. The vendor however just looks intimidated, even though I'm not even actively trying to scare anyone here. I ignore both of their sentiments, instead continue speaking calmly as I reach into my stowage and rummage through in search of something suitable to be used as payment. "Pour two more cans for me and my friend, please." I point at Morris, who the vendor stares at next as if she had three turrets while she waves at them with a seemingly apologetic shrug.

Nevertheless, the vendor does as they're told and hands over two cans of fresh fuel. I pass both of them on to Morris and finally my claw finds something in my pile of belongings—a small ammo box. It's a caliber I have no use for, so I've been only keeping it with the other things I pawn off whenever I would need to pay for something. It's more convenient than keeping currency, after all it's annoying to always keep track of which clan's coin is used this or that season. The vendor is still holding out their claw, clearly expecting to be finally paid now, and their expression betrays what they're thinking as instead of some coins I place the ammo box on their counter.

"Don't worry, you can keep the change," I assure them. They're clearly debating with themselves whether they should say something or just accept their fate, but I use that moment of hesitation to make my exit.

As I turn around and Yasha doesn't show any signs of following me, I help him think more quickly by grabbing his cannon and dragging him along. He whines and would probably try to struggle if he didn't fear his gun mantlet being wrenched off if he does, but I'm doing him a favor even if he doesn't know it. Morris is simply tagging along, even if she's obviously dumbfounded by the peculiar way things are proceeding.

On some level I understand that this is probably the moment where I should be taking Yasha directly into a dark alley and just shoot him. Solve at least one of my problems now that the chance is presenting itself yet again. Not repeating the mistakes I've made previously by not taking him seriously as the threat that he actually is. But it's not like any of Tow's alleys are dark tonight.

My gaze scans the streets we pass by as we advance along the pier, but the only thing I end up spotting is a small group of tanks that upon spotting me in return starts waving and moves towards us. I slow down to a halt and let go of Yasha, Morris rolling up next to me and also spotting the group. She snaps out of her stupor as she recognizes the other tanks as Artax and some of the hunters. A rugged Chaffee light tank speeds up and reaches us first—it takes a moment, but then I remember that he's the one I've talked to at the hunter's gathering spot...Ace. Curiously, his expression seemed grim as he stormed towards us, but as he stops in front of Yasha, he immediately relaxes and brightens up.

Yasha stares at the fellow light tank but doesn't speak. He looks very tense, even flinching as the Chaffee suddenly pats his fender heartily.

"Thought you were someone else for a moment," Ace says with a chuckle, his upbeat demeanor making me wonder what—and importantly, who else—he was upset about just now.

"This is Yasha," I chime in, "he's a friend of mine."

"Nice to meet ya, I'm called Ace," the hunter responds to Yasha as if he had done his own introduction instead of just standing there and pretending to be mute. Once again I chime in, probably making Morris wonder by now if she hallucinated Yasha being capable of speech earlier since he seems to be in need of an interpreter currently.

"Ace is the leader of the hunters," I explain to Yasha in a deliberately matter-of-fact tone, "They're good men who want to set out and kill the infamous MBT who's been slaughtering their fellow Westerners."

I suppose I do feel a small amount of vindication when that statement clearly and visibly upsets Yasha.

"That's right," Ace replies with a nod, "Well, 'cept for the part about me being the leader and all—"

By now, the rest of the group is also reaching us. They don't interrupt the conversation, but Artax gives Morris a very particular look as he seemingly recognizes Yasha. Morris shrugs, but hands him one of the fuel cans.

"—aw, look at the little guy shaking like a pile of leaves!" Ace barks and also starts patting Yasha's turret. The fact that he's not much taller than the tank he's calling little seems unimportant to him. "Don't worry, we'll make sure to find that fiend as quick as we can! He won't be terrorizing us good upstanding folk for much longer!"

Letting this farce continue seems a little cruel to me after all, so I step in once more, but this time to ask what brought them all out to the pier; Ace merrily informs me that they intend to partake in the celebrations, of course, and grabbing some drinks is an important part of that. He invites me to come with them, and I decide that even if Yasha being here may be a potentially bad omen, being in a crowd of strangers in the middle of a fiercely guarded town might just be the safest place I can possibly find myself in tonight. Morris is happy to join, as well.

This time, I don't have to drag Yasha by his cannon to make him follow; a subtle but firm nudge does the trick.

He continues to be quiet and clearly avoids looking at anyone or interacting with the merry group in any way. We settle ourselves a little out of the way, forming a loose circle around one of the many wooden racks that have been set up all over the pier to give the celebrating vehicles something to put their emptied fuel cans into. As they start to pile up, the fuel vendors send out their assistants who pull carts behind them and collect the cans, replacing them with refilled ones that they collect the payment for right at the rack. Remarkably, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s trying to swipe those empty cans instead of returning them; it’s something I only really start noticing after one of the hunters gently catches my arm as I habitually, almost subconsciously, try to stow away one into my hull.

The hunters pay for another round of fuel as the vendor’s assistant pulls up at our rack; their carefree and joyful mood is shared by the many other tanks around us. We drink to Tow’s prosperity, to its wealth and history, and to its legendary traitor Fletcher, who towers above us, lavishly decorated with ribbons and lamps that glow brightly with the power it generates day in and day out—and as far as Tow’s citizens are concerned, will be doing so until its very steel has disintegrated into dust.

Only one tank in particular is clearly not feeling any of this joy. I give Yasha another scrutinizing glance. His obvious discomfort is easily explained by the fact that he’s currently surrounded by what he must see as his enemies—the way he’s all but cowering between these strangers makes him look even smaller than he already is. Again I can’t help but wonder what he’s even doing in this town in the first place, and alone on top of that.

The only logical explanation I can think of is still that he must be on some sort of scouting mission. After all, it has seemed that since our first meeting a couple days ago, he’s been mainly occupied with pestering and stalking me and only me. Finding him in a comparatively mundane and harmless situation like just trying to get dinner is almost jarring. Though I do realize that even if he’s my enemy by virtue of his actions, he’s also still just a young machine, trying to survive and figure out the world like all the other machines out there.

And for a second, that makes me wonder if there’s any way he could be reasoned with. Especially now that he’s apparently far away enough from his master to bumble about like any other rookie—could the absence of the MBT-shaped negative influence make him more receptive to a more positive influence, maybe? Could he be convinced to abandon Talon and start over?

My optics wander away from his diminuitive figure and graze the cheerfully conversing hunters. I don’t know anything about his past but clearly he doesn’t have a team or anyone else to offer him protection and comradeship. And I find it difficult to imagine him just joining a team of peers without a certain amount of....rehabilitation happening first. Maybe the hunters would take him in. They seem like a ragtag group who have only one thing in common: hunting a troublemaker.

But while it seems like a heroic change of heart to imagine the former accomplice turning a new leaf and helping to bring his leader to justice...I just don’t see that kind of tank in Yasha. Unfortunately.

So, putting him down it is, after all.

...And as much as I wish it was this easy, I have to admit to myself that not killing Yasha during one of our previous meetings means it's too late to do it now. The small problem he would have been had I dealt with him sooner has become a more complicated, large problem. Killing him won't make this problem go away anymore; in fact, knowing what I know by now, and being totally honest to myself, it actually just might make the problem worse.

You don’t just take something from an MBT without serious repercussions; and Talon has made it clear that this little, seemingly insignificant light tank means something to him that can’t be explained by logical and strategic considerations alone. In a manner that is highly unbecoming for machines of our caliber and intellect, Yasha seems to be important enough to this MBT that he’s willing to bare this hapless, fragile, light tank shaped weakspot of his to the entire world.

My gaze comes to rest on him again. This time, it is returned by optics that glare fiercely from behind the shield of his anxiously huddled posture. Whatever Talon may see when he looks at this machine, it makes him want to keep it alive. There is no way he doesn’t know what burden and risk he is accepting for a goal this irrational. With a frame this brittle and a core this fragile, even with all harm out of their way, it’s a foolish endeavor to try and keep a non-MBT around as a long-term companion.

And still, this is the hill Talon seemingly chose to die on.

By the time my fuel can is empty, a very clear conclusion has formed in my mind. Keeping Yasha alive is the rule of this game. I’ve already been involuntarily involved in it, so it’s only logical for me to play by its rules. As ridiculous as it may sound, the otherwise insignificant life of this little light tank is the most prized piece of the game—and therefore, I’d do well to hold on to it now that the forces of luck decided to pass it to me.

Keeping him alive, and keeping him close to me might be my best bet for now—even if it’s for purely pragmatic reasons. I won’t delude myself into thinking that holding him hostage will somehow reform and cure him of the mind-poison he’s clearly been exposed to.

Yasha’s glare suddenly turns into him perking up in alertness, and it makes me focus on the conversations around us for long enough to hear Ace complaining about how some of their supplies and spare parts were stolen. He suspects that a Luchs named Nel did it. The name doesn’t ring a bell for me, but curiously, Yasha’s frame is tensing up even further at the mention. Since no one else has really been paying any mind to the weird little stranger, no one except me notices this.

I easily put two and two together and make an educated guess that the hunters aren’t the only ones who’ve been robbed of some of their belongings. Thieving light tanks aren’t exactly an outlandish concept. They are built pretty well for that purpose, even though generally they apply those skills in combat contexts. Stealing from your own isn’t how a light tank convinces a team to keep them around for long.

Even though the conversation at the rack moves on pretty quickly, I can’t help but notice that Yasha seems to be more affected by it than would be reasonable. His apparent tendency to not be the most reasonable of tanks aside, I watch him get increasingly fidgety throughout the next round of fuel. He throws the occasional concerned glance around, even subtly shifting his hull to point away from the group—as if he’s anticipating an attacker to show up any moment now.

As it’s starting to look like he’s seriously considering running away, I decide that it’s time for me to take action. Just to make sure my valuable pawn doesn’t make a sudden escape, of course.

I leave my spot and move over to him. Yasha visibly shrinks as I am approaching, but I gesture at him to come with me.

From the corner of my field of vision I notice Morris turning towards me, and I can guess what she’s thinking—but I wave at her reassuringly, announcing to her and the others, “My friend seems restless, I’ll accompany him while he goes and stretches his tracks a bit.”

From the way Yasha looks at me it’s difficult to tell if he’s terrified at the idea of being alone with someone who’s definitely got every reason to use that opportunity to kill him, or if he’s relieved at the thought of getting away from the strangers who have sworn to kill his only ally. Perhaps he himself isn’t so sure. He trundles after me in a way that looks like I’m somehow remote-controlling him as we leave the others and drive along the pier.

He still doesn’t speak, despite his hull starting to bristle as if it was about to burst from all the words he isn’t saying out loud. Weirdly enough, I find that I share this feeling.

By the time we reach the end of the pier, I’ve let him catch up to the point where we drive next to each other at a leisurely speed that could fool onlookers into thinking we’re just taking a friendly stroll together.

Here, where the buildings once again enframe the town against the sea and where the celebrating crowd is becoming mere background noise, the lights are sparser—the shadows larger and darker.

I slow down and eventually halt near a closed storefront after traveling down one of the main streets. Since the majority of townees and visitors has flocked to the night’s “main attractions”, even this normally well-populated street is currently abandoned. The spot is just out-of-the-way enough to grant us some quiet and privacy, but at the same time not secluded enough to hopefully grant Yasha a sense of security that I didn’t just take him aside to shoot him where no one would see or at least hear it.

He seems to be thinking about exactly this, judging by the somewhat forlorn look he throws down both in the direction we came from and further ahead. When he eventually speaks up, I already was able to think of an answer to the question I knew he was going to ask.

“What’s going on?”

His voice is as wary and hostile as ever; his gaze accusing. How dare I bring him here under a flimsy pretense. How dare I insult his intelligence instead of just stating my true intentions upfront. I suppose even if not in body and mind, he definitely has picked up an attitude eerily reminiscent of the MBTs he’s spending so much time with. In terms of the intricate social dance that the conversations of MBTs tend to be however, it’s rather telling who’s been his teacher of etiquette.

“I thought I stated my intentions quite clearly,” I respond matter-of-factly, deciding to play along with his attitude—of course not without motive. I’m thinking that perhaps talking to him like he would like to be talked to can help me get through to him.

If he’s picking up on that good faith is difficult to tell. I suspect he may not be, since his optic ridges are knitting up in a display of confused defiance.

“My tracks don’t need any stretching,” he huffs.

“What else is bothering you on such a joyous night, then?” I retort with my cannon tilted in an expression of well-natured doubt.

He visibly fights the urge to say what comes to his mind, and then his gaze darts about much in the same way it did earlier at the pier. His internal struggle continues for a moment longer, until a shiver runs through his entire frame and he looks up at me again.

“Something terrible’s going to happen very soon. Everyone who doesn’t leave the town will die,” he finally says. The grave tone leaves no doubt that he’s making a honest claim. It’s, however, despite its vagueness, a rather crass one. And if it wasn’t coming from someone who has been the mouthpiece of a tank powerful enough to possibly pose a threat of such magnitude, I would happily dismiss it. Unfortunately, I have to at least entertain the possibility that this is something to take seriously.

But there’s an important thought crossing my mind—wouldn’t Yasha be happy or at least less nervous? Is he not feeling confident in his leader’s ability to pull off a slaughter of this scale?

“Is that ‘terrible something’ per—”

The light tank cuts me off, so quickly that he must have suspected I’d come to that conclusion.

“This has nothing to do with him!” he snaps, “It’s a completely different thing—” He looks around again, even extending his arms to make a sweeping gesture. “How is no one else noticing this?! There’s something wrong with the air of this town!”

I take a moment to carefully listen and throw a look around, checking all my sensors for good measure. Does he mean this figuratively, or does he actually believe something could be weird about the air here? To my surprise, it does seem like something is...off. The air is heavy and staticky, somehow. Something about it makes my circuits tingle as if residue voltage was trapped inside them. My instruments and their readings seem to skip a beat every so often. I don’t know what to make of this; has this just started a short while ago or has it been a presence the entire time? There’s most likely a very trivial explanation for it; even if there isn’t, I would not embarrass myself by admitting it’s an unfamiliar phenomenon to me. So I shrug nonchalantly.

“It’s just electricity,” I state plainly, “But when you get nervous you sometimes start imagining scary things.”

Yasha looks like he wants to protest my casual disregard of his worries, but instead he shakes his turret and seems to unexpectedly yield for once.

“Whatever, nevermind...I guess that guy really was just looney,” he mumbles, more to himself than me. But if he thinks that would make me drop the subject, it actually has the opposite effect—now he's brought someone else into this, which is crucial information to me (or rather, my survival).

“Who?” I prod.

Yasha just “nevermind”s me again, but then apparently changes his mind again and gives me an uneasy look as he goes back to fidgeting. “I mean, what if—” he trails off, seemingly trying to gauge my reaction.

“...you don’t want to find out if ‘that guy’ was right, anyway,” I finish his sentence for him. Despite his lack of confirmation or denial, his body language still leaves no doubt that I hit the nail on the head. The problem with the story he’s trying to tell me is that really, with the information he’s giving me, none of what he’s doing and how he’s acting makes much sense. I point this out by summarizing his confusing and contradictory claims with a raised optic ridge: “So, you were convinced until just moments ago that your life is in danger. Someone told you that, but even though you don’t believe him, you kind of do, actually. Yet, instead of doing the sensible thing and running away immediately after receiving such information, you hang around well until the danger is imminent. I suppose you just didn’t want to flee on an emtpy fuel tank? Or is there another important reason why you’re hesitant to leave this town? Is there perhaps something outside that worries you more than a stranger’s doomsday prophecy?”

Yasha’s slight glare becomes a puzzled frown the longer I go on, making me wonder if the obvious flaws in his logic didn’t come from him failing to come up with a believable lie...or if all of this made perfect sense in his mind until I started pointing out why it doesn’t. I almost expect a cartoonish cloud of smoke to shoot out of his cupola next, with how feverishly the little gears in his core seem to be turning right then. At the very least, if I listened really closely, I could probably hear the internal cooling fans having picked up a lot of speed. However, granting me no admission of whether I’m right or not about how he feels about my arguments, he just shakes his turret. Furthermore, instead of answering any of my questions, he angrily tells me, “There’s no time for all this talking! I’m leaving, and you should too!”

Now this suggestion of his does genuinely catch me off guard. There he goes, adding me to the lopsided equation of his wild conspiracy as well. Really, at this point...the only one still suspiciously absent from the whole narrative is—Oh.

I see.

“And you’re suggesting this purely out of selfless concern for my wellbeing, not at all trying to lure me out of the gates and into a trap...” I say, speaking deliberately slowly and clearly now—if only to make sure he cannot possibly miss the sarcasm in my voice and choice of words. Yasha stares at me in silent defiance, though he’s visibly trembling. Am I getting closer to a truth he’s been fumbling to obscure from me? My next words are chosen just as carefully, even though I can’t help myself but veer into a much more patronizing tone. “Did you not pay attention during the briefing of this mission of yours? The only thing I find more difficult to believe than the tale you’re trying to tell me is that it’s not just a cover story for a plan so crude that you must have been the one to make it up impromptu yourself.”

Yasha’s hull is raised high on his tracks with anger by the time I’ve finished speaking. Even though it takes a few more moments until my words seem to have fully sunken in, he afterwards wastes no time barking back at me.

“I said no fancy talking! If you don’t wanna believe me, fine! I just told you because if you die here then I can’t take your body, stupid!” he yells.

And he seems serious about not wanting to waste any more time, as he unexpectedly launches himself forward and tries to run past me—which I obviously can’t just let happen. With a swift move, I easily cut off his path with the sprawling size of my hull. His small tracks scrape across the gravel road as he skids to a halt that becomes a u-turn; he just barely avoids crashing into me and tries to make off into the other direction instead.

“Where is Talon?” I shout after him as I take up pursue.

The voice replying to me is that of the MBT himself, coming out of my radio—

”Behind you!”

Saying that I was startled into my fuel pump skipping a beat would be a understatement. I didn’t even know that my hull was capable of spinning around this fast, or how I was able to load a shell into my cannon breach when every fibre of my core was occupied with asking myself how in Sulfur’s name it was possible for someone to sneak up on us with none of my systems picking up their approach. But by the time I’ve regained my bearings enough to frantically search the street for my target, I find it completely empty. Before I can start questioning my sanity next, the voice can be heard again, bursting into laughter—but this time it’s easy to tell that it’s not coming from my radio only by an echo further down the road, and as it breaks (continuing to cackle all the while) and the tone switches to that of none other than Yasha’s voice, it suddenly dawns on me what happened.

“Ahahah! Tricked you!!” Yasha cheers with gleeful pride. I turn back around to glare after him, but can only catch a brief glimpse of the little rat slipping away into a gap between buildings that only someone of his size could possibly squeeze through. “You got so, so, SO scared!!” he continues his bratty giggled taunts via the radio frequency I was foolish enough to share with him the other day. “I’m an MBT who has fifty cores—ha!—I use all the big words because I’m sooooo smart! Too bad even a lowly little l—”

It’s at this point that I mute my radio with a long, deep sigh. Perhaps he does have a point there. It really should have occured to me that him simply imitating the voice of a tank he’s familiar enough with to probably effortlessly do so is much more likely than said tank suddenly, inexplicably materializing himself behind me. It appears that the price I am now paying for being outsmarted by a “lowly little” light tank of all things is the leverage I had for about a full twenty minutes before I foolishly let it escape from right under my turret.

What else could I do in my situation now except admit temporary defeat and return to the pier? Well, let’s say that is exactly what I’m doing right now.

Setting myself into motion slowly, I trundle back down the street towards where the lights are getting brighter again and the noises are picking up.

In fact, they seem to be getting awfully bright...? Even as I coast to a halt, the lamps’ glow increases. They seem ill equipped to handle this, some of them starting to flicker.

And those noises aren’t those of chatter and idling engines. An ominous buzzing swells up, seemingly not in volume but in an odd, alarming build-up of pressure in the air. Any other noise is suffocated.

I start moving again, this time picking up speed quickly. My vents feel congested as the air they suck in is suddenly getting hotter by the second.

Some of the lamps burst and spill their glassy guts onto the street I rush down, while the rest of them is still bright enough to by now make the night seem like day. They completely drown out the smoldering glow of the powerlines that connect them to the town’s powergrid, but still, from the corners of my viewports I notice that those are starting to sag towards the ground as if pulled downwards by invisible hands.

The buzzing is getting more intense. But I’m about to reach the end of the street and can now hear tanks again—the telltale sounds of an alarmed crowd. The air around me feels so thick and stuffy that I could as well be wading through boiling water.

Finally, the pier opens up before me. Someone bumps into me as they run away in blind panic. All the lights flicker in unison. Smoke is starting to rise from the sides of the buildings around me—no, it’s actually the powerlines that are catching fire.

My optics frantically scan the crowd for certain familiar tanks. However, I suddenly am not sure who I’m actually looking for. All I can see is a blur of machines all bumping into and shoving each other as they scramble to leave in different directions. Many of them, however, have frozen in place. Their gazes are glued to the behemoth of steel that looms beyond the pier. I push past one of those paralyzed tanks and hear them stammer something that sounds like a prayer; I look up like they are, and find myself frozen in place just the same all of a sudden.

Of all the lights, the ones mounted to Fletcher’s gigantic hull shine the brightest.

The moment that follows feels both like an eternity and a mere split second, a moment that will burn itself into my memory like the afterimage of these lights...

The lamps explode, shards raining down on the crowd like confetti made of shrapnel. Instantly, everything around us turns pitch black and quiet. Then, a deafeningly loud scream tears through the silence, and tears through the very core of every single machine present. The last thing the ones standing closest to Fletcher then see is blindling light bursting out of the generator’s ancient hull as a surge of lightning explodes from it.

...There’s just a single thought on my mind in that moment: Something terrible has happened.