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Mercy tore past the ground at breakneck speed, reactor pouring every ounce of power into the Frame's thrusters as it rocketed forwards towards the Gorgon. 422's breathing was steady, precisely controlled by the Frame's life support system to provide the exact amount of oxygen needed for the pilot to function. Sensors reached out into the world, feeding the ballistics computer a firing solution on the Gorgon that Mercy was rapidly approaching.
The shrill tone of a good solution pushed itself into the pilot's mind, and less than a moment later, it responded. The thrusters shut off, Mercy moving forwards only on inertia as the Frame's heart dumped everything it had into the shotgun. The beam of coherent energy lanced out, taking only a few nanoseconds to connect to the Gorgon. Its armour plating sublimated at the point of contact, exploding outwards from the sheer amount of heat that had just been dumped into it.
A dozen different alarms and warnings screamed out in Mercy's cockpit - every safety on the energy weapon had been disabled to fire that shot, and the capacitors were sparking in protest.
422 ignored them all as the thrusters slammed back on with enough g-force to push the pilot back into its cradle. The Frame shuddered around it as it began to pick speed back up, the shotgun raised again as 422 closed on the Gorgon. Its heartbeat increased as the life support system compensated, dumping more combat stimulants into the pilot's system.
The two giants met, Mercy's bayonet burrowing into the flesh that had just previously been covered by the Gorgon's armour. More alarms screamed out, metal groaning in protest at the sudden force it was being put through.
422 ignored them all yet again, pushing the bayonet as deep as it could go into the stunned creature before tugging upwards with all the strength that the Doctordoctor Frame's servos could put out.
Even in the cockpit, buried deep in the armour of Mercy, it could hear the Gorgon's wails of pain. It made Violet hesitate for a moment, the Frame not quite properly pulling the bayonet out of the nearly bisected bea-
Something slammed into Mercy's back, knocking the Frame away from the Gorgon in a blur of speed, the pilot letting out a grunt of pain as it was jolted against its harness - the alarms screamed, much more desperately this time. 422 tried to desperately pull itself out of the nearly uncontrollable spin that the impact had imparted into it, but Mercy's built-up inertia up to that point was fighting it, and fighting it hard.
The cockpit was a rattling mess, 422's breathing a sharp, rapid thing as it tried to correct, the ground rapidly approaching metal groaning and creaking from stress screaming alarms terrain terrain terrain
Mercy smashed into the ground and came apart at Mach 3, an explosion of brilliance that briefly lit up the night.
Violet came to with a jerk of muscles and a cut off exclamation as the simulator disconnected from her Link, the displayed text of [SORTIE FAILED] floating in her vision for a moment. She sighed, reaching back behind herself to unplug the cable from her neck, letting it automatically retract back into the housing built into the side of the growth tank.
Her entire body felt slightly stiff as she stretched out, the gentle tingle of disconnecting still running through her nerves, though it was beginning to dissipate. She never could quite get used to the sensation of disconnecting, and it'd only gotten worse after the..
Violet's thoughts drifted off from the unpleasant memory as she looked at her slightly warped reflection in the glass of the tank.
The pilot's eyes were bloodshot, and the bruises from last sortie still dotted her skin - although the gash that had been caused by a fragment of armour spalling off the interior of Mercy's cockpit and burying into her stomach had turned into a faint scar at this point.
She frowned, looking through the glass and into the rest of the lab. No one else was there, and the three other growth tanks were empty. Violet focused her gaze onto the screen on the wall opposite her, and the information it was displaying.
TANK ONE - EMPTY
TANK TWO - EMPTY
TANK THREE - 422 - 00:17:43 REMAINING
TANK FOUR - EMPTY
Seventeen minutes left before she could get out.
Violet sagged her shoulders, pushing gently away from the glass wall and drifting back into the centre of the tank, letting the comforting warmth of the fluid wrap around her body.
Her thoughts drifted back to the simulated sortie, the sensation of g-forces tearing away at Mercy, the scream of stressed metal and servos.
Her hesitation to finish the job.
Why did she hesitate?
She closed her eyes, letting the muffled sounds of the tank's life support system wash over her. It was a familiar comfort to the pilot, one that she knew she'd always have. The soft whirring of the pumps, the bubbling of the biofluid around her, the quiet beeps and boops of the bio-monitoring computer. For a prison, it was one that Violet did not mind too much.
The Gorgon's pained wails echoed in the pilot's mind, and her eyes shot open again. It had been such a human sound, even in the simulator. Hauntingly familiar.
She was meant to be a weapon. Weapons didn't hesitate, didn't show mercy, didn't pause at the sound of violence. Maybe Handler was right. Maybe she was better off as 422. The ace. The weapon.
It had been so much simpler when Violet couldn't think.
A hand drifted down, running gently across her stomach - across the injection site.
The scars and bruises from that day had long since healed, at least physically. Violet closed her eyes.
422 opened its eyes and reached for the link cable again.