//Report: Quinn, Jackson

//The Via Claudia.

//Rome.

//Currently being arrested.

//Resume log.

The next thing I knew, I was being arrested.

The cold barrel of a gun pressed against the back of my head. The soldiers swarmed us, seizing the power converter and tablet from my hands and pinning my arms firmly behind my back as I was forced to my knees.

I turned toward one of the soldiers in front of me, a tall woman with black hair peeking out from inside her helmet.

"It's nothing personal, guys," I attempted. "I know you must just want your paycheck."

The soldier's ballistic-fibre mask stared emotionlessly back at me, a reflective black sheet. I felt a gun barrel tap my neck from behind.

"Quiet," a gruff voice snapped.

I leaned my head backwards as far as I could, shooting a glare at Gruff Voice. A moment later, a hard shove from behind sent me crashing to the pavement. My arms had yet to be restrained so I caught myself just before I hit, hands striking the hard flagstone.

Amani looked stricken as she was pushed to her knees, following me to the ground in quick succession.

Black Hair glanced at her partner, then down the barrel of her rifle. She seemed somewhat hesitant. No wonder—most of Axion's ground forces got little to no training. The real money, after all, was in mech pilots.

Gruff Voice glanced up at Darius' Erebus, then down at me. He leaned forward, imposingly, his reflective black helmet hiding his expression.

"Tell your friend to power down the mech," he commanded, "or we'll power it down permanently."

He leaned in closer, until I could practically smell his breath.

"Believe me," Gruff Voice whispered, "it would be far more fun if you let us do it our way." He made a whistling sound and a downward motion with his hand. "Splat."

Black Hair chuckled, and I couldn't help but wince at the mental image.

"Fine," I sighed. "Darius—"

"Mechs," Darius responded.

I hesitated. "What?"

"I see mechs," Darius repeated. "Two legs, two weapons. They look like Predators, but they have white armour!"

Black Hair tapped my leg with her boot.

"Well?" she snapped. "We don't have all day."

I turned to Amani, wondering how to warn her without tipping off our captors. She merely stared back at me, eyes wide. Her comms were on. She'd heard.

I glanced up at Black Hair and smiled.

"You're not gonna like this next part."

"I was about to say the same thing," Gruff Voice snapped.

Darius gasped.

"Jackson, Amani, duck!"

I rolled forward, making myself as small as possible as the street exploded in a tidal wave of stone fragments, shattering pavement like glass as something massive impacted the ground. A wave of dust swept over me, blotting out the sun, and I heard a shout of surprise from Gruff Voice.

The rifle barrel pressed against my neck disappeared for a split second and I lashed out in front of me, sweeping Black Hair's feet out from under her with a swift kick. She went down hard, ballistic mask striking the ground, and lay still. Amani pulled me to my feet, the power converter already in her hands, and we took off running.

I both heard and felt Darius's Erebus begin moving, quick thumping footsteps headed our way. The klaxon alarm from the factory had blessedly fallen silent, but now it was drowned out by another familiar sound.

Gunfire.

The true power of the Iron War had come to Rome.

The smog was thick, but I could still hear. A shout to my left. Footsteps to my right. Not a soldier to be seen, but for all we knew someone was right behind us.

I heard Darius gasp again, and genuine fear filled his voice.

"Oh, no, not you! Stay the hell away from me!"

That was when Amani and I emerged from the smog... directly at the feet of a very familiar red and gold mech.

The indomitable Exodus towered over us, a gleaming beacon of hope and destruction. The fifteen-meter tall mech looked exactly like it had hours before during the fall of the Firmament, its crimson armour cracked and blackened, but even a damaged mech was a site for sore eyes.

My comms crackled. Someone new was on our frequency.

"Laura?" Amani cried. I could see her disbelief. "What the hell are you doing here? I thought you were headed to Horizon City!"

"I was already there!" Laura exclaimed. I could hear the joy in her voice. "You folks were running late, so we decided to bring the party to you!"

The Exodus turned away from us and marched down the street. As we moved further and further out of the cloud of dust I could begin to see more of the battle.

Several more Titans and Aegis had emerged from Axion's various factory entrances in various stages of assembly. It was clear that Cassius' pilots had not been ready for an attack.

However, I wasn't sure anyone could have been ready for what I saw next.

Dozens of brilliant white mechs marched through Rome, firing calculated shots at the gathering enemy forces. Each mech was like nothing I had ever seen before—at nearly nine meters in height, their bipedal stature and raptor-like angled legs slightly resembled our Wendigo mechs, but that was where the similarities ended.

Unlike the flat, rotund Exodus, these new mechs were sleek and sharp. Each mech's eggshell-white armour rose upwards into a sleek body that angled forward like the nose of a fighter jet. It flared out to the sides, exposing two air intakes, before coming to a point near the top of the mech's upper body.

Despite their differences, it was easy to tell that our mysterious new saviors were cut from the same cloth as the Exodus—each was adorned with the same brilliant gold decals as the crimson mech, ornate markings that traced up their armour in delicate patterns, merging with the reinforced planting to fuse style and substance.

"Come on!" Laura exclaimed. "Those Guardians will handle it from here, get out of there!"

Thumping footsteps approached us from behind, and Darius's Erebus burst through the dust. His Erebus marched down the street a few blocks before crouching closer to the ground, compressing its legs with a pneumatic hiss.

"Jackson, Amani, grab onto the mech!" Darius shouted. I can carry you to safety!

A few streets away, the Exodus' weapons swiveled towards the Erebus.

"Blackwell?!" Laura exclaimed. "I'll—"

"No!" I barked. "Laura, he's with us! He helped us infiltrate Axion's factory!"

"I didn't believe it, either," Amani chirped. "I still don't."

"I never will," Laura snarled. Her Exodus leapt into the air, covering several city blocks in a single bound. It smashed into the street a few hundred metres away, nearly shaking me off my feet.

"Blackwell is trying to save his own skin," Laura snapped. "He hasn't just turned over a new leaf over the course of a single day. That bastard deserves to burn for what he's done. For Taewon. For Martin. For everyone!"

The Erebus did not move. It remained crouched on the street.

"He'll get a fair trial," I replied. I tried to keep my voice as firm as possible, but it only barely hid my doubt. Blackwell had done horrible things—even if the fall of the Firmament was not his fault, he was a warmonger, at best. He'd killed my father, Taewon, and, indirectly, Martin.

Like Dan had told me a week ago, I couldn't trust a word that Darius Blackwell said.

So then why did I climb aboard the Erebus? I found myself grasping the mech's rough armour, standing on the ridged side of a cooling vent and helping Amani aboard as well. Deep in my heart, I knew that Darius Blackwell would never change. The fact that he had not betrayed us today only meant that he wanted something else tomorrow.

I felt the Erebus shake as Darius carefully raised it back to it's full height, lifting us off the ground. It was from here that I finally got a look at these so-called Guardian mechs in action.

As I stared out across the Roman skyline, I watched as a Titan leapt through the air, descending on the nearest Guardian with its claws outstretched.

To my surprise, as the Guardian turned to meet its challenger, I saw that it carried a pair of strange, boxy weapons in place of the usual plasma launchers or railguns, one mounted on either side of the mech's chassis. Each of the odd boxes, longer than they were wide, flared with blue energy as they were brought to bear against the Titan.

I expected a missile barrage, but what I witnessed instead was far stranger.

Instead of firing traditional ordinance, the weapons seemed to thrum with power, and a second later there was a bright flash and a rumble that I felt in my chest. A wave of blue light swept through the air, moving too fast to follow.

The Titan's armour buckled.

It was as if the clawed mech had struck a wall mid flight, so severe was the damage. The Titan impacted the field of blue energy and simply stopped, its momentum carried into crushing it against an immovable object.

The Titan struck the ground with a cacophonous crash, collapsing to the street. Equipped only with a test capsule for manufacturing purposes, there was no ejection for its pilot.

"What the hell was that?" Amani breathed. She gave me an enthusiastic grin that I heartily returned. "That looked like—"

"An energy shield," I finished. "Amazing."

"Oh, trust me," Laura replied, "You haven't seen anything yet. Now let's get to safety, shall we?"

As unfamiliar mechs waged war on Axion's remnants, the Erebus surged to life and began to slowly, carefully, follow the Exodus through the burning streets of Rome.

✦✦✦✦

A distant plume of smoke wafted lazily into the sky, painting a haze of grey across the vista of blue and white.

The warm afternoon air rushed past my face as the Erebus stomped toward the nature reserve, its half-finished body swaying with every step. Darius did his best to keep his Erebus following the small, two-lane road in order to avoid damaging the forest around us.

I slowly turned my head as the Erebus continued to sway, being careful not to release my grip on the power converter—or the exposed strut that was my only handhold. A short distance behind us, the Exodus stomped along, heading up a squadron of two-dozen Guardian mechs.

It was a lot to take in all at once—Darius' willingness to aid us, the reappearance of Laura and her powerful new allies.

Amani seemed to silently echo my sentiments—she clung to the Erebus' armour a few meters in front of me, staring into the lush forest.

Our world was very quickly changing, and only time would tell if it was changing for the better.

My earpiece crackled, and Amani touched her headset in turn.

"That coward, Cassius, got away," Laura informed us. "It seems he was prepared—my scouts say he had a private dropship in case of emergencies."

"I have a feeling we'll be seeing him again," Amani remarked. Her mouth twisted into a frown.

"I sure as hell hope so," Laura responded. "He has a lot to answer for—as do you, Blackwell."

Darius said nothing, and the Erebus remained on its steady march towards the nature reserve.

"I do have a bit of good news," Laura continued. "I have confirmation that any remaining Axion Industries soldiers have been taken into custody by the local police force. They'll likely be released when the corporation pays, but their factory was pretty severely damaged by the rioting mob. It's safe to say that Axion's presence in Rome is no more!"

I smiled. Although I wished it had arrived under better circumstances, a victory was still a victory.

From her perch near the front of the Erebus, Amani turned to face me. She seemed pleased as well, but her smile didn't reach her eyes. We were both still processing the loss of the Firmament in our own ways, and it was harder to celebrate something that would have been monumental only a few hours before.

A faint rumble drew my thoughts away from the turmoil of the past day. I turned my head towards the horizon as I tried to trace the sound, but an instant later a blur of white and gold roared by overhead, shaking the foliage on either side of the road. As the rumble of its engines reached a fever pitch, a sleek dropship descended into the trees only a few hundred yards away.

We had arrived, and so had Laura's allies.

The trees that framed each side of the road began to grow sparse as the scenery widened into a broad expanse of flat grass. We had reached the centre of the nature reserve, as well as the landing site of Dropship 13.

Our dropship was far worse for wear than I had ever seen it. Removed from the industrial environment of the Firmament and lacking its usual reflective camouflage, it looked like an alien spacecraft had crashed in the middle of the Italian countryside.

The dropship's boxy superstructure and four maneuvering thrusters were almost completely buried beneath the soil, furrowed into the ground where the vessel had made its inelegant final descent.

The boxy grey vessel's camouflage panels were stained by ash and fractured by impact, and a large hole in its fuselage exposed a tangled mess of wiring and various other mechanisms.

With its bottom-mounted hangar doors pressed against the ground, the dropship's emergency exit had been opened—a discarded segment of the fuselage about the size of a door lay discarded in the grass, providing entry and exit.

However, my eyes were drawn away from Dropship 13 and towards the vessel that now occupied the field next to it.

Nearly twice as large as our own ship, the dropship that had roared by us moments ago now descended into the field. Painted the same dazzling white as the Guardians, the dropship appeared similar to our own, only far larger and more heavily reinforced.

Instead of four thrusters, the newcomer had six—three on each side that swiveled in unison, providing the football field-sized vessel enough thrust to allow it to settle into the grass with all the grace of a falling leaf.

Black block letters marked the vessel's side panels, spelling out its designation for all the world to see.

Seraphim 1.

The second the dropship's engines were shut off, the vessel exploded to life in another way, numerous doors and ramps extending from its hull. I could make out rows of figures clad in white body armour exiting the vessel.

"Are those... soldiers?" Alex inquired.

"You're correct," Laura replied. I could hear the smile in her voice. "That's the reason we wanted to come retrieve you. Despite recent events, SPEAR isn't as dead as you might think."

"These people are part of SPEAR?" I pressed. "Laura, we never had any standing army aboard the Firmament, only a handful of guards."

"Until now," Laura shot back. "There have been some changes since we last spoke, Quinn. After the Firmament, we're no longer fighting the Iron War the way that M—that your General wanted."

I stared at the soldiers as they swept across the field, rows of armour-clad men and women moving in lock-step to secure the vicinity.

The soldiers wore sleek, white body armor that almost seemed to resemble the segmented plating of Axion's own soldiers, subtle gold markings along the shoulders and chest. However, instead of the faceless black helmets I'd come to expect from Axion Industries, the white-clad soldiers didn't cover their face.

Instead, each soldier's open helmet featured a transparent visor that flashed with green light, displaying some kind of information feed that flashes across their vision at all times.

Most impressive, however, were their weapons—to my surprise, every soldier carried a handheld version of the force field weapon carried by the Guardian mechs, compacted to the size of a rifle. The sleek grey weapons were roughly the size of an ordinary rifle, but with far more bulk; it was clear from the weapon's glowing blue muzzle that it didn't fire normal bullets.

As our convoy of mechs left the road and entered the field, two more stark white dropships roared by overhead, buffeting us with wind. Each was uncloaked and completely visible, making their presence known by circling the perimeter of the area before roaring off into the distance.

I heard Darius sigh loudly over the comms, and Amani grimaced at the unpleasant noise.

"They always did have a flair for the melodramatic," Darius huffed.

"Who's they?" I replied.

"Who else?" Darius shot back. His next words were dripping with undisguised animosity. "The second biggest thorn in my side, after SPEAR, of course. It's Saint Corp."

"Damn straight it is," Laura replied. I could hear the pride in her voice. This wasn't just business as usual—she was enjoying this.

"Saint Corp," I breathed. For the first time since we'd escaped the heart of Rome, I finally allowed myself to relax. Against all odds, we'd made it.

"Let me be the first to welcome you all," Laura grinned, "to the big time."