When the Titans Fall

Impending Disaster

Alpha was many things to Fox. He was violent, sometimes excessively so. He was cold and apathetic. He was kind of creepy. But most of all, he was relentless and so was his training. In the two available weeks, he gave Fox and the others lessons in hand-to-hand combat, shooting, sabotage, stealth, knife proficiency, athletics, mobility and more. Fox ended each day weary and sweat-soaked and woke up each morning sore and tired. Downtime was minimal. It was the most exhilarating experience Fox had ever had. Everyone seemed to change in training. B and Dee became sterner, less smiles and more discipline. Three lost some of her hostility but made up for it in violence in combat training. Echo seemed to break out of his shell of quietness and tap into a torrent of rage, fueling him with an anger filled determination towards the goal of whatever the task was. Alpha was still impossible to read. He seemed the same, but perhaps looser, more relaxed. And after a while Fox realized the she was different too. She was more driven in training, less nervous and distracted. Dee told her the secret to putting her all into fighting one night, as they lay in their bunks.
"It's not just about reaching the goal or impressing people. You're going to be using this in real combat. You have to stay focused on what you're fighting for. That's where you draw your strength from."
She put in everything she had for the thirteen days of training, and on the last day before their deployment, Alpha gathered the squad.
"So, what is it this time?" Asked B, as Alpha led them through the now familiar corridors of the ship.
Alpha made a hand gesture as if tightening a bolt with a spanner. Three groaned
"Do we have to Boss? I hate maintenance. It's boring."
"It's not about enjoyment Three, it's about staying alive." Replied B.
The six of them arrived in the Titan hanger and made their way over to their Titans. Fox observed the immobile chassis of the Vanguard that had been assigned to her, before sighing and observing what the others were doing. Three was checking over her Titan's body with little interest whilst Echo glanced over at her, slight confusion on his face. With how competent he was at fighting, Fox sometimes forgot he was nearly as new as she was. Dee was quietly humming to herself as she inspected some of the joints around her cockpit.
B walked over to the two newer pilots.
"So, what we're doing here is making sure that your Titan doesn't malfunction during combat. First, you have to check the joints for rust. If you find any, just chip it off with your data knife."
"How do you reach the joints on the back of the chassis?" asked Fox
B smiled.
"Remember grapple training?"

Fox did not like the sensation of climbing on her Titan's back, twenty five feet above the metal bay doors that, she was convinced, would dump her into the empty air if she fell onto them and didn't die from the impact. Echo on the other hand seemed entirely fearless, standing horizontally and letting his grapple hold him almost entirely whilst leaning in to scrape off the infrequent patches of rust he found. Fox couldn't see any problems with her chassis, so fortunately, she managed to climb back over her Titan, disconnect her grapple from the wall and jump back to the walkway before long.
"The next step" B told them after Echo had made it back to the balcony, miraculously without managing to kill himself, "is to embark and get the Titan to run a diagnostic on itself, to identify any electrical problems."
Fox breathed a sigh of relief. No more climbing on her Titan sounded good.
"Wolfpack Five and Wolfpack Six, scan biometrics."
The Titans each opened their 'eye' and observed the pilots.
"Hello pilot. I am Titan designation Wolfpack Six. What would you like me to refer to you as?"
Fox paused for a moment.
"You can call me Fox."

After she and Echo had got their titans familiarized with them and the scans had come back clean, Alpha came over to the two recruits and beckoned for them to come with him. Fox and Echo obliged and walked along the walkway to the orange and black Scorch.
"Hello, pilot designations Echo and Fox. Alpha would like me to tell you about him, since it seems you are both curious."
Fox glanced at Echo in surprise. She hadn't known that he was also in the dark about the squad captain.

"As you've probably already been told, Alpha's body was badly damaged, and also enhanced, by an experimental machine trying to upgrade pilots, similar to the regeneration technique that is already used on elite pilots, but far more effective. However, the damage runs deep below the surface as well. Some areas of his brain were damaged, and some were closed down as the machine broke. The results, as you may have seen, are seizure-like fits, unresponsiveness, spontaneous blindness and an inability to verbally communicate. Despite this, the squad captain refused to stop attempting to participate in the war, but due to his damaged mental state, syncing with a Titan was almost impossible. His brain wave pattern was incompatible with any IMC or Militia Titan created. A new interface had to be created, but was impossible to apply to Vanguard class Titans. Salvaged IMC Titans could work for a short time, but even they broke down after only a few missions. It was on one of these missions I was deployed. A fresh type of elite IMC Titan."
Fox blinked. It had never occurred to her that reprogramming a Titan to change sides was possible. Simon continued.
"The captain gave orders to capture my chassis, and so after the battle, I was taken in. But my IMC programming was intertwined with a failsafe and could not be removed without irreparable damage to my critical systems. So the Militia integrated a personality core with my base systems and added Alpha's compatibility matrix. The result was me, the peak of IMC engineering and Militia ingenuity." A small amount of pride crept into his mechanical voice.
"Alpha gave me the name Simon, to signify how unique I am."
Fox was once again caught off guard. That was surprisingly sentimental from Alpha, especially since he didn't let the squad members use their names.
"You said you were an elite Titan." Echo asked, snapping Fox out of her thoughts. "What do you mean?"
Simon "Each IMC Titan has access to a range of upgrades, but only one can be used at a time. My larger and improved chassis allows me to utilize all these upgrades and a new experimental weapons system named 'Aegis'."
"Well then," Echo paused. "I'm glad to have you on the squad."
"I look forward to working with the both of you tomorrow." Rumbled the Titan as B clapped them both on the back.
"There's your explanation. My personal opinion is don't treat Alpha any differently to any other squad member, he doesn't mind."
The squad captain nodded at this, then signalled for everyone to follow him. Again he led them out of the Titan hanger and through the hallways, this time taking a different route than usual, going to a part of the ship Fox had never seen before. Fox briefly wondered what training they would be doing now that could further prepare them for their operation. Suddenly, the six of them turned a corner and arrived at a door, which opened with a hydraulic hiss. Inside was merely a large, empty room. Alpha strode inside and went straight to the opposite wall, typing on a control panel embedded there for a few moments.
"What're we doing now?" Whispered Echo, his voice bouncing off the high ceiling.
"You'll see." Replied Dee with a small smile. Echo rolled his eyes. Then the walls flickered and black began to spread from the centre of each wall, until the room was transformed into a glinting black abyss sprinkled with pinpricks of light. Fox gasped.
Alpha slowly sat on the floor, cross-legged, a bright burst of orange amongst the sea of darkness and patted the floor to his right. Dee took up his offer first and was followed by B, then the others. The six of them sat in a line, staring out into space in silence. For the first time in two weeks, Fox took a deep breath and felt peaceful.