Callie knew that Charter was, in certain ways, a logistical marvel. It was hardly perfect or unique in that capacity – it didn’t have the independence of Myron’s Arm or the internal storage of Cristina’s – but being able to move something on a human scale from one point anywhere in her sight to anywhere else in that sight was a flexibility that few could match.
Not even… Him. Probably. God knows whether I saw everything he’s capable –She put the thought out of her mind as one of the least relevant to the current situation, let alone something she
wanted to be thinking about at the moment, to place her focus below. She’d already shuttled their three catatonic rescues to the same hospital and Master Sergeant that Callie herself had recuperated in and with, along with the suggestion that Sergeant Janssens be assigned to guard them together with Sister Marta; now, after a brief sojourn to the evacuation point for the hall’s personnel, she rose through the sky under her own momentum as she waited for as many of them as were willing to help organise the excavation effort to pass through her portal back.
Slowing in her ascent – momentum gradually arrested by the selfsame gravity, inverted, that had granted her it – she gazed out. The view was epic, the vast bay to the south with Manila clinging to its shore matched by the near-endlessness of the Luzon plains to the north, framed on either side by high mountains with only the verdant spire of Arayat standing, defiant, between them. Only near-endlessness, for there was a further sight to the north: Lingayen Bay, where she had first matched Charter against the soldiers, ships and Arms Masters of the People’s Republic of China. Where, by its power, she had committed many of them to oblivion.
Charter didn’t answer me.Over the past few months, Callie had felt a lot of things about herself. Sometimes, she felt like a bird on the wing, flying through a sky that only a very few would ever see – and that even fewer could soar as high as she could. In those moments, she knew it was her duty and her joy to carry as many to the highest heights that they might climb to. At other times, she felt like a living weapon, forged by far too many hands to far too many purposes. In those moments, she knew that even as her hand had been one of those in the forging, it was also the one on the haft, with all of the power and responsibility and guilt that that brought.
Fewer but no less striking were the times she felt like her younger self, bargaining with and puzzling out forces that she was only beginning to glimpse in their fullness, let alone comprehend.
I thought I needed to kill her. That I needed Charter to kill her. To save the rest. The thought sat uncomfortably in the centre of her mind, unmoving.
Was it… Charter can see through to the future – did it know it shouldn’t, that I could save everyone? It’s only been in the most limited of ways before...Her gaze fell upon the spyglass in her hand – beautiful in its form, of course, but still so unassuming, not even a weapon itself after the fashion of most other Arms.
That day, when we pulled the team back from the ship… I broke through to something with you. Broke myself in the process. I invited that state again in desperation because I thought we needed to go beyond the rules that bound us – but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t still rules... Just that I don’t know about them.How do I learn what they are?She hung in the air.
I can’t. Not without risking myself… Or with help I don’t know about.What, then?...For now – reduce the chance I need to use it in desperation.Her arm flowed up, Charter falling into place against her eye to seek out a ruined hall and the increasing numbers gathered about it – including a few of particular note, standing to one side.
“Preparation,” Callie answered Cristina as she fell through the portal to land just adjacent to them, giving a half-bow to the Japanese prince born of familiarity and respect both. Teleporting for hours through hostile territory with someone guarding you with their life would engender such things.
“Done all I can to move people around but we’re not shifting that rubble until we’ve got a structural engineer here who can assess how the building’s likely to fail when we start taking it apart. Myron’s liaising, I think.”She sighed.
“After that… Look, we’ve proved we can go toe-to-toe with individual members of the Zodiac and win, but the way this war’s going, it’s only going to be so long until we face them in numbers again.” Because you just proved that conventional forces were irrelevant in the face of an A-Rank Arms Master, she thought bitterly.
“Once we find out where our next base is and we get a moment to breathe, we need to stabilise our captive and pump her for whatever information we can add to the dossier our ‘rogue emperor’ just handed us.” She stared at the place where Jin Li had been, practically cutting into the empty space.
“At the same time, though, I want us training. We’ve got too many combat-trained Arms Masters here with overlapping skill-sets not to take the opportunity to show one another our tricks and work out some new ones.”“Cristina, if you’re up for it, let me know how your powers interact with momentum – if you don’t know, we can figure it out. A good third of what I do with Charter is abusing that interaction and I’d be glad to show you how to do the same with Sinagtala. I’d also be happy to take on Ben, depending on what he can do – what I saw in that last battle caught my eye.” Of course it had – she’d looked over his file that came with word of his attachment to the unit and, after raising an eyebrow over how light on details it was, had spent a good chunk of time revisiting the techniques she’d learned to hold off mental intrusion.
“Peony...” Callie set her eyes on her as one would tear off a plaster – quickly, to hurry through the pain.
“You’ve got power a lot like Lei Qingshe’s – a Zodiac defector, one of our teammates.” She of jade-spun hair and fire opal eyes. “She’s missing right now and none of us can teach you like she’ll be able to – and she wasn’t one to share secrets about her own power,” she added with a soft laugh –
“but we’ve all seen her in action. Maybe we can walk you through some things.”
