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Rafahel aan Drusus spews expletives into the ceruleum-fumed air. A cough punctuates each one as he pushes himself up by his arms to witness his failure.
To say he hadn’t made friends in the XIVth would be an understatement. He faced an uphill battle on the Gyr Abanian soil; derogated by his pureblood peers and distrusted by those without Garlean blood, his dual heritage left him without an ally. He could have resigned to waiting for camaraderie to grow over time, forged in the fires of war, but that was not the sort of man he was. Rafahel wished fervently to prove himself, to rise to the admiration of those around him. To restore honor to the name of Drusus, which he besmirched by his birth.
And this is where that led him. Broken on the ground in Gabriel’s wreckage. Panic spreads in his burning chest as he crawls closer. Each shift jolts pain into his shin, which juts in a nasty angle under his armor. He doesn’t care. He cannot care. He has to ensure his mech has survived.
His brother’s name was well-known well before he enlisted. It left everyone’s lips attached to the very mech itself. A prodigy, a genius of a pilot, the rain of fire on any rebellion that dared to sprout under his skies. Deservedly the namesake of the machine entrusted to his care, the cutting edge of airborne warfare. And this is how Rafahel treats his inheritance—reduces it to rubble in a worthless bet. He punches the dirt and curses M’hotchi’s name under his breath for daring him to fly through the loop at the castrum’s crest. Gabriel would have pulled it off! He would have done so blindfolded with his arms tied behind his back! Rafahel flew right into the tower and came crashing down with his pride onto the ledge below.
In a more just world, he could have coasted under the name back to greatness. But everyone saw right through him. He couldn’t hide his self-loathing under a fog of bluster and bravado; it could be smelled from malms away. The legion didn’t reward blood ties, not under Gaius van Baelsar. His skills, or lack of thereof, did not either.
The ceruleum engine emits another deafening whir as the mech slowly struggles back to life. Its armor is cracked in several places, its wing has snapped in two, but it lives. It should be fixable. Rafahel hopes and hopes and hopes it’s fixable.
“C’mon…” he urges the machine with a strained plea as he drags himself up into the pilot’s seat, against the agonizing resistance of his broken leg. He winces as he presses his palm to the pilot screen, feeling the familiar tingle as the interface reads his blood flow and unlocks the controls. The systems boot up, but refuse to respond. The intact wing does not budge. The radar remains silent.
Rafahel tries again and again, his irritation growing by the second. He slumps back into the seat, groaning. “Oh, of course, of all the godsdamned times—”
Someone snickers behind him. He cranes his busted neck to see a duo of grinning soldiers. Though elevated on his brother’s legacy, Rafahel feels so very small.
“Need a hand there, Drusus?”
Rafahel’s blood curdles. He knows who those voices belong to, even from under the anonymizing helmets. The worst of his squad—attitude-wise, at least. He glares at the pair, his lip curled back in disgust. “Shut your damn mouths,” he snaps, “unless you want me to shut them with my fist.”
The soldiers laugh, completely unbothered. One of them gives him a mocking salute, while the other walks closer. His gait is casual, almost leisurely as he stops right below the mech. He glances up at Rafahel while grinning, showing off a set of crooked teeth. “Quite the landing, hm? I’ve seen chocobos with better flying skills.”
Rafahel’s blood boils. He clenches his fingers so tightly around the armrest that they turn white. “It was a mistake, alright?” he insists, his eyes narrowed to slits. “I can fly circles around you any day—”
“Can you, now?” the man jeers, louder and more obnoxious than before. He leans against Gabriel’s scuffed side. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you can’t even fly a straight line.”
His fellow soldier chimes in, chuckling. “That crash was something else. The whole castrum heard the boom.”
Rafahel grits his teeth so hard they might shatter. His face grows ever redder, both from embarrassment and anger. “Shut the hells up, or I’ll—”
The first soldier interrupts him. “Or you’ll what? Throw another tantrum? Fly into more towers? Make an even bigger fool of yourself and disgrace your brother?”
Rafahel freezes. Every muscle in his body tenses. A low, guttural snarl starts to build in his throat.
Disgrace. He hates that word. And he hates even more the disgrace of accepting these bastards’ help. But as he considers his options—stuck with a broken mech, too banged up to fix it himself, and his two lovely companions having the time of their lives watching him struggle—he’s left with little choice. He must relinquish his pride.
“Not a word about this at the base,” he grumbles.
The soldiers exchange looks. Rafahel finds nothing reassuring in the energy coursing between their eyes. “Oh, we’ll keep quiet,” one of them says with a sly grin. “On one condition…”
Rafahel groans, rubbing his forehead. He has a hunch he won’t like this condition. “What?” he asks exasperatedly. “What do you want?”
Their devilish grins only broaden. They both look up at Rafahel with mischief.
“Let us have a ride,” one says. “Just a short one. We won’t even go far, we promise. We just want to see what it’s like to fly an expensive, top-class imperial mech…”
The suggestion punches Rafahel in the gut. Let them have a ride? In Gabriel’s aircraft? There are few things he would rather do less. The thought of them sitting their asses behind the controls, running their greasy hands all over the console—it makes his skin crawl.
But then again… what choice does he have?
“Fine,” he spits before he can regret it. “One. Short. Ride.”
The soldiers cheer in unison, far more excited than two grown men should be, practically jumping up and down with excitement.
“Yes! I’ve always wanted to get a feel for the controls!” the first exclaims, rubbing his hands together eagerly.
“And the guns!” the second chimes in. “We can use the guns, right?”
Rafahel suppresses the impulse to smack his head against the console. This is already a terrible idea, and now they’re talking about the guns? Great. Just great. “Yeah, yeah, go nuts,” he mutters, waving a hand dismissively. “Just bring it back in one piece.”
“That will be better than what you managed,” one of the shitstains cannot resist a jab in between their celebration. “C’mon Drusus, let’s get him to the mechanic so we can fly, aye?”
Rafahel shoots him a look of pure venom. He’d love nothing more than to wipe that smirk off that ugly mug, but he swallows his urge for violence and forces a tight-lipped smile. “Right,” he grits out. “Let’s go.”
He begrudgingly releases the control panel and climbs out of the mech. There’s solace in knowing that no matter how hard he screws up, whatever these morons will do in the machine is a greater insult to Gabriel’s memory—but insurmountable shame in allowing it to happen.