Max was sitting on the bunk inside Stalwart and meditating to clear his mind of the fog that has lingered in the background his whole life. He has suspected that these are the hidden memories of his past life since the first memory of battle came back to him during training.
Today, the fog seemed thinner than usual and Max continued to push, hoping for a relevant memory that could help him train Pilots that didn't have a System.
Other nations did it, surely he could decipher the method in time, but he didn't have time, they had to leave soon to join the offensive.
His focused mind was like the sun on the lingering haze, until suddenly memories came to him in a rush.
The end of his old life, the promise of reincarnation, and then his time in the womb. He was supposed to transfer in cleanly, like Nico did, and recover his memories as he grew up and his body could handle them. Instead, his mother's drug abuse had killed the body he transferred into, and only the lingering effects of the divine intervention allowed him to be born at all.
That was why it took so long to remember his past life, and even now, so much of it was either lost or locked away.
He still couldn't recall his youth at all, but there were some flashes of training recruits. But these were no ordinary Pilots, most of them weren't even human, or any species Max recognized.
The thought that he might have come from a far away place with many species but similar technology never occurred to him. His few memories of himself had shown him as a human, so had thought his old life was more like his current one.
Since his own memories were a loss, Max focused on Nico's memories. Her people genetically engineered their Pilots, but that should give Max something to work with.
There weren't many childhood memories, and what he found when he looked deeper through what he had skimmed from her memory as a child was increasingly disturbing.
Her past life did not believe in human rights, or war crimes. They believed in war and blood. When they went to war, billions died in the most horrific of ways, with the intent to honor some sort of religion that Max couldn't seem to understand.
Looking deeper through her past life taught Max a lot about Nico. She wasn't an aggressive pilot without concern for her own life. No, his best friend was a genocidal maniac without concern for her own life. At least she was before she was reincarnated.
The question was, how much had what she learned from her past life and then locked away during this one influenced her personality?
For sure, she didn't follow that blood soaked old religion anymore, he would have sensed it with all the time he spent in her mind, but she was still a combat maniac, which could be either a side effect or just part of her personality.
While Max thought about her personality, the person in question was being rudely awoken by the Crusaders attached to the Carpe Noctem.
[Ghost, oh Ghost. We have need of you again. The mines are clear and we are moving forward to the next battle.] The pilot tried over the open channel, with no luck.
Then a solid bang on her carapace armor almost shook Nico out of her seat.
"Get up, it's time for war." General Mons declared out loud with his intercom and Tarith's Rage stood up, grabbing the sword and freshly repaired shield prepared for it.
"There we go. I'm guessing that your radio isn't working, so just follow the group for now. We are supposed to meet up with Stalwart Special Tactics Unit in a few days and you can return to your little lover boy." General Mons' speech brought a round of the creepy laughter from the speakers of Tarith's Rage, but the Mecha gave him a respectful salute before falling in beside the Phalanx Class Giant Mecha as its personal guard.
"Is it just me, or does that Mecha just seem more and more like an angry ghost every time the General talks to it?" One of the infantry soldiers, now seated in an amphibious transport for the long journey, whispered to the man beside him.
"Quiet, or she might hear you." The other man responded with a wink, not believing the rumors.
The then the bone and blood red Crusader turned his way, and the eye like sensors under the front armor plate affectionately dubbed the helmet were firmly locked in him.
"Sorry." The second soldier muttered, and the Mecha looked away again.
There are sensors all around the carapace of a Crusader, there was no need for it to look his way to see or hear him, but somehow it felt like the Mecha was actually alive the way it turned to face him when he spoke about it.
Inside his cockpit, General Mons turned to his copilot with a sad tear in his eye. They had managed to establish a video link with Tarith's Rage using the Command override. Major Nico was in there, and most likely alive, despite her horrible condition.
But she clearly lacked the physical capability to control the Mecha, sitting stock still in her seat even as Tarith's Rage smoothly walked and interacted with the people around it.
"Do we have an analysis?" The general asked his second in command, whose Innate Talent was analyzing the status and condition of other System Compatible humans.
"Other than the obvious, there are signs of recently healed internal damage, her vocal cords have been burned away and the wound is scarred, and there are no eyes under that helmet's visor. But her condition is stable and slowly improving." The pilot whispered reverently, unable to believe anyone had survived those injuries.
[What are we waiting for? There are no enemies here.] The message appeared as text on the displays of the Carpe Noctem, tagged as having come from Tarith's Rage.
They could see the pilot hadn't moved at all, but General Mons recalled that Major Nico was supposed to be a hacker, using her Innate Talent. That certainly made more sense than a ghost or a possessed Mecha.
"Everyone move out." The General announced, getting the convoy moving, and he could have sworn he saw a smile pass over Major Nico's mangled face before the video link was abruptly cut.
"Arrange for an augmentic surgeon to meet us at the staging area. She is having far too much fun messing with people who think she's a ghost." General Mons ordered, following his troops through the swamp.
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