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There was something to be said about the familiar sounds of a battlefield after the fight. Sparking wires and shorting circuits peppered the dim hum of dying reactors, the final groans of Rüstov power cores. The last of the Imagine Nation’s own wounded soldiers had already been picked up and sent to the nearest infirmary--that, or the nearest graveyard.
Allegra took a moment to close her eyes, to give the fallen at least some semblance of respect in such a gruesome place. Just how many had they lost? How many had fought and died as a result of the war? And how many more would live on with the scars of their pain?
But she wasn’t here to deal sympathy to the dead, or even salvage from them tech and resources. She was here to find the one weapon they couldn’t afford to lose. Revile . Not that they could ever lose him if they tried. He always managed to find his way back, regardless of his wounds or if they sent anyone out for him at all. This way just happened to be faster.
Metal and flesh alike gave way beneath Allegra’s boots as she made her way across the ground. So far, only death as far as the eye could see. She took it all in, scanning the remains for any movement or sign of life. Or perhaps who she was looking for was another of the dead, one devoid of life. Who really knew, at this point?
By the time she found him, mangled and torn and trapped under the hull of a crashed starship, he had already regenerated enough of his body to be awake. With most of his lower body gone (likely from an explosive if his charred torso and arms were anything to go by) he must have been just barely holding on to consciousness. Allegra briefly wondered if that was a blessing or a curse. It probably didn’t matter to him either way.
Lengthening her arms along the side of the broken starship, Allegra wedged them under the jagged scrap of metal, her hands enveloping and accommodating each sharp ridge that would have shredded her skin if she was human. With some maneuvering, she managed to shift the wreckage off of Revile’s immobile form.
As Allegra’s arms retracted back to their original shape, she gazed down on him, the punctured skin on his left arm sealing itself before her eyes now that the ship had been lifted. Almost subconsciously, Allegra kneeled down beside him, gazed into his eyes, and god , he looked just like—
“Allegra.” He said her name softly. Whispered it almost, like she was a mirage, an illusion about to disappear. “...you are here to take me back.”
Yes. I’m here to take you back. Here to take you back to the makeshift base of operations that is now Hightown. Here to drag you back into suffering through another war. Here to make you play murderer in defense of a world you owe nothing to.
Why does she suddenly want to cry?
Without thinking, almost without even knowing it, Allegra reached over to gently grasp his hand. The condolences one offers to a dying man, she supposes. With how much of him is missing, he certainly looks like one.
“Will you be alright?” She finds herself speaking quietly too, like he’s something fragile, something framed in glass and pieced by gossamer threads.
And he’s looking behind her, looking up at the grey sky, where Allegra knows the Rüstov ships hover in orbit, a constant reminder of what they have to lose. What they are all risking. “Yeah.” He breathes.
“Yeah, I’ll be alright.”
There’s something resigned in his voice, something so empty and hollow in the way he says it. There’s pain in his eyes, palpable and unending, and Allegra can’t help but want to look away, lest she drown in it. Lest she think of how things could have turned out. What might have been, in another world. Another timeline.
“I always am.”