Tempest

8 - Departure

Four's Logbook

Gates wants to do the briefing later today, and iron out the details of what's going to happen.

Usually, this would be the part where I'd ask Briggs for clearance on the mission; but now that I'm part of the 6-4, I'm technically not under her command anymore. As far as anyone's concerned, this is just me taking a personal journey. To an unknown system. With basically nothing but nightmares for an idea as to what might be waiting there for me.

Yeah, I'm still a bit nervous about this whole thing.

I've been pondering that word in my head for the last day or so; 'amalgamation'. I wrote it all over the damn floor, but don't have any idea what it means. I mean, I know the definition easily enough, I just don't know why I would have engraved it everywhere like a damn mantra. What kind of unification? Do I need to get these 'arrays' or whatever together? That doesn't seem right, but I don't have anything else to go on at the moment.

She's right, in a way. I do tend to stick my neck out for others more often than I need to. And nobody, myself included, has nailed down the exact reason for it; but I've got an theory.

Back when I was IMC, and KT and I were staring each other down in the snow, I would never have done all the things that I've done so far. I wanted peace for the frontier, yeah, but ... man.

I was a rifleman for a long time, watching Pilots fly overhead and use the environment not as a battlefield, but as a playground. Everything could be used to your advantage, become your weapon ... as a Pilot.

Now, as a grunt, I didn't exactly fit that description. I learned to take care of myself, no one else. After all, who would keep the dream of peace on the frontier alive if I was gone? That was my rationalization, anyway. When I was trained as a Pilot, that view didn't change. All it meant was that now I was better at keeping myself alive. Not at completing the mission, not saving my teammates. I was all that mattered. I hadn't been given a Titan yet to care for, a partner to fight with. I didn't have that sense of trying to care for someone else, even if I didn't realize it.

When I met KT, my mind screamed 'enemy'. I'm sure that hers did too. So we sat there, fully expecting the other to kill us.

But then she did something I never would have expected; not from a member of the Militia, and certainly not from a Titan.

She let me go.

I had no idea what to do. All I'd ever cared about was keeping myself alive, and she'd just given me the opportunity to do just that. But then it became apparent that she was not as fortunate as I was, too damaged to move from her spot in the snow.

I knew that there was no way that she'd make it ... at least, not without help.

A sort of realization hit me then; if you had the power to make things right, was it not your responsibility to do that? It kind of clicked for me that her fate rested in my hands, whether I wanted it or not. I snapped out of that 'sole survivor' mindset, and repaired her. I'm so glad I did, because now she's my best friend and I shudder to think of a life without her.

Maybe I take my own motto too literally, but I can't help it. When I was the only one who thought we needed to look for Erebus, it was my responsibility to ensure that we stopped whatever the IMC were planning. When I was the only one who could locate Typhon, it was my responsibility to be captured and lead the Militia to it. And now, yet again, I'm the only one who has even the slightest inkling of what the hell is going on. As the Inferno, it's my responsibility to find whatever these dreams are leading me to and see if there's a potential threat.