Atria sat in Volandpanzer’s cockpit in front of the Eastern Army Headquarters building, enjoying the morning air through the open upper hatch as they waited for The Destroyer to arrive at the outer perimeter.  Near where the mech was standing, Captain Infinite stretched his shoulders, back in his silver tights and black cape.  To the other side of the mech, Daiki Yamato crouched, sword in hand.  The first task would be to dispose of the orb.  Once that was done, they needed to capture or kill The Destroyer and his followers.  If all else failed, they would be the second-last line of defence, just ahead of the soldiers inside the building.

    Stella and the creators were with Colonel Sato in a command and control centre in the Eastern Army Headquarters building.  As Sato said, it was the safest place to them to be.  Well, at least, that is what he had written in a note.

    In the end, all of their strategic planning had been done with traded notes.  With The Destroyer able to watch and listen in on anything they said and did, it was the closest they could get to operational security.  Atria didn’t like it, but nobody had come up with a better idea.  Still, the principles of a defence-in-depth were the same no matter what the intelligence picture.  At each intersection leading to the headquarters building were tanks and dug-in infantry, with space for her or Cap to land behind each position and provide support.  Cap had set it up well.

    “So,” she said over the radio.  “Your real name’s Matthew Markham?”

    “That’s right,” Cap stated.  “At least, that’s the name I was given when my parents found me.  I don’t have any memory of who I was before falling out of my home dimension.  Once I stopped working at the paper, and all I was doing was being a superhero, there didn’t seem to be any need to use it anymore.  But, I was always Matthew Markham as well as Captain Infinite – it just took meeting all of you to make me realize that.  So, please, just call me Matt.”

    Atria smiled.  She remembered passing Cap...Matt...and Alice sharing a tender moment in the hallway as they prepared to take their positions.

    “Matt,” Alice was saying.  “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

    “I know,” Cap had replied.  “But, Captain Infinite is a nom de plume, a title and a job, not a name.  I think I’m ready to be Matt Markham again.”

    “I feel a bit outclassed here,” Daiki said to Atria in Japanese.  “Matt can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes, you’ve got a battle mech, and I’ve got a magic sword.”

    “With luck you won’t need to use it,” Atria said.

    “Speaking of such things,” Cap began, “in the interests of full disclosure, after the war I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t take any more lives.  Since there’s just three or four of them, I’m going to try to keep that promise.  I’ll be aiming to disable and capture, not kill.”

    “I understand,” Atria said.  “Just remember that I’m a soldier, so if I have a kill shot on an active combatant, I will take it.”

    “Understood,” Cap said.

    “We have them approaching the outer perimeter on the southeast side,” Colonel Sato’s voice said over the radio.  “Estimated time to contact, fifteen minutes.”

    Atria pulled the hatch closed and flipped the switches to turn on Volandpanzer’s antigrav.  “Matt, we’re up.  This is Silversword, commencing overwatch.”  Together, she and Cap rose into the air to an altitude of three hundred feet.  “I have three targets on the ground, one male, two female.”

    “This is command,” Sato said.  “We confirm three targets.  You are cleared to engage at will.”

    “Colonel Sato,” Atria said.  “You once asked me what I thought of your tanks.  I’m afraid I gave you a less-than-honest answer.”  She grinned and flipped on the targeting.  “I think they’re cute.”

    And then she fired her first volley of missiles.

Jenny took a deep breath as they walked down the street towards the headquarters building.  Beside her, The Destroyer strode with purpose, the orb floating behind him.  Behind them, Saline walked so quietly that even with her enhanced senses, Jenny could barely hear her.

    “It has begun,” the Destroyer said, pointing to two dots rising into the sky.  White streaks shot out from one, rocketing towards them, each streak dividing into four.

    And then the world exploded around her.

    Jenny covered her ears and screamed.  The magical barrier kept out the shrapnel and the worst of the shock wave, but not the deafening noise.  She opened her eyes and looked around in shock.  The Destroyer stood unmoved, his expression placid.  But the ground underneath them was gone – they hovered in the centre of a crater at least fifteen feet deep.  The faces of the buildings around them had been reduced to rubble by the blast.

    And then the second, third, and fourth volleys arrived.

“Volleys are off,” Atria said into the radio.  “Resuming overwatch.”

    Atria took a deep breath, reminding herself of the plan.  Stage one: attack The Destroyer’s shield and force him to drain his power using it.  Stage two: separate him and the orb from his followers.  Stage three: separate him from the orb and destroy it.

    The three targets began to move forward on her scanner, right into the range of the first defensive line.  It was time to start working on step two.

    “This is Silversword,” Atria said.  “Targets are within firing range of line 1.  Commence bombardment.”

    Even through the inches of Volandpanzer’s armour, she could hear the din of the JSDF tanks beginning to fire.

Jenny was getting used to the noise as the tank shells exploded around her.  The barrier around them sparkled with light as the shrapnel ricocheted off it.

    “I will deal with the war machines,” The Destroyer stated in both English and Japanese without raising his voice.  Somehow, despite the noise, she heard him perfectly.  “You deal with the survivors.”

    The Destroyer raised his hand.  In the distance Jenny saw dozens of tanks rise into the air, lifted by an invisible force.  As they reached a height of a hundred feet, the force rotated them until they were upside down.  And then they crashed to the ground.  From the corner of her eye, she saw the mech that had been firing missiles plummet to the earth alongside them.

    Explosions rippled along the line as some of the tanks exploded, sending the men around them scrambling in disarray. Screams and acrid smoke filled the air.

    “There are no war machines left between us and the creators,” The Destroyer stated in English and Japanese, waving his hand again.  “Accept my protection and deal with the rest.”

    Jenny felt a pulse of energy surge through her body.  Drawing her knives, she dashed towards the first line of men.  She was aware of Saline running beside her, almost keeping pace.  She heard and felt the gunfire around her, but nothing hit her as she leapt into the defensive line and got stabby.

Warnings screamed at Atria in the cockpit as Volandpanzer crashed to the ground, the shock knocking the wind out of her.  Frantically flipping switches, she brought up the internal diagnostics.  Autopilot offline – that was no surprise – and she had also lost all of her missile launchers.  One of her rapid fire cannons was out of action, as well as the reserve antigrav unit.  Servos in the left leg were also damaged – not catastrophic, but it would slow her down.

    Pain shot up and down her right leg.  She ignored it.

    Other than that, she was still fighting fit.  She hit the antigrav and brought Volandpanzer back into the air, checking the sensors.  “This is Silversword on overwatch,” she reported.  “We have lost the ground based armour across all lines of defense.  It’s up to the infantry now.  Targets have separated – repeat, targets have separated.  Matt, you ready?”

    “I’m good to go,” she heard Cap say over the radio.

    “We are starting stage three,” she said, training her remaining rapid fire cannon on The Destroyer and manoeuvring to get closer.  She pulled the trigger, sending a stream of tracer rounds on target.  The high explosive rounds exploded against his shield.  The minute she ceased fire, Cap slammed into the Destroyer, driving them both several blocks away.  Atria nodded – everything according to plan.  Cap would keep hitting him until he was too far away to interfere, and then use his superior speed to return to help dispose of the orb.  And then she saw the warning indicator.

    The radiation levels from the orb were spiking.

    A cold sweat ran down Atria’s back as she landed Volandpanzer beside the orb.  It was now glowing red hot.  This could only mean one thing.

    The containment had reached critical failure.  There were only minutes left before detonation.  There was no time left to wait for Cap, and even if she did, the radiation was orders of magnitude higher than it had been – Cap wouldn’t be able to throw it far enough anyway.

    She swallowed.  “This is Silversword,” she said into the radio.  “Power source has reached critical failure and is building up to detonation.  I’m going to deal with it.”  She grabbed the orb with one of the hands of her mech.  The orange-hot power orb fused to it.  She reached for the afterburners.

    “I’m afraid I’ve got no autopilot,” Atria said.  “It was an honour to know and serve with all of you.”

In the control room, Alice glanced around the room as they heard Atria report.  Kaguyama gripped a table, while Stella slumped into her chair and began to weep.

Atria was about to hit the trigger for the afterburners when she heard the upper hatch open behind her.

    “I don’t think so,” Cap said, already pale and sweating from the radiation exposure.  “Show me where the controls and the throttle are.  I’ll take it.”

    “No!” Atria cried.  “You can’t!  This is from my world – my responsibility!  This is from my story!”

    Cap placed his hand on Atria’s shoulder.  “We’ve all grown beyond our stories since we got here,” he said.  “And you have a promise to keep to Kaguyama.”

    Atria opened her mouth to protest, but nothing came out.  She glanced at the orb – it was glowing orange from the heat.  She climbed out and pointed as Cap climbed in.  “Steering, throttle, afterburner.”

    Cap nodded and looked back at her as she jumped to the ground, wincing in pain as she landed, and limped back.  “I wish I had somebody who needed me like Kaguyama needs you,” he said, and then, with a roar of the afterburners, he and Volandpanzer rocketed into the air and out to sea.

Cap fought back wave after wave of nausea and held the throttle and control stick as steady as he could.

    “Matt, what are you doing?” he heard Alice shout over the radio.

    “I’m getting the orb to safe distance before it explodes,” Cap said.  “And making certain an important promise gets kept.”

    “But you’ll die!” Alice cried.  “Look, there’s got to be some other way – jump out at the last minute, something!”

    “I’m afraid not,” Cap said.  “Truth be told, this radiation is already doing a number on me.  I’ve barely got enough strength left to control the stick.”

    “But Matt–”

    Cap smiled.  “Alice, it’s okay.  Really, it’s okay.  Just today, I get to be just like all of you – I get to be mortal.  I’m–”

    With a blinding flash, the orb detonated, and he was gone.

    In the control centre, Alice collapsed to the floor, sobbing.

NEXT: “Reckoning”