Chapter 5

'I almost killed her! What is she doing here?' A second later, when the shock had worn off enough, he asked the question aloud. "What are you doing here?"

"C-Callum?" Valencia looked up, her blue eyes almost perfectly round. "Is that you? Are you...in that?"

"Yes! I found it here before and...well, it's a long story but I am going to rescue Cat using this thing. You need to get out of here!"

"Hold, young buck!" Russell commanded. "This actually may be quite the lucky break! As you might have noticed, Angra Mainyu has a double cockpit. You need a co-pilot to be able to operate all of his functions."

"No way!" Callum shot back instantly. "I can't ask her to do that. This is going to be really dangerous."

"You can't even walk straight, son! You need all the advantages you can get."

"I...I'll be fine. I just need a little practice."

"I thought there was some urgency to this," Russell replied. "Putting aside your time for 'practice,' the flight of Angra Mainyu is controlled by the co-pilot. Unless you want to hoof it there, you need a partner."

"Maybe but I...I don't…" Callum was still resistant but he was having difficulty coming up with arguments as to why.

"Who are you talking to?" Valencia called up.

"Wait, can you hear him? Can she hear you?"

"Of course! I have a speaker set up. How could I deprive the world of getting to hear my words of wisdom and passion!"

"What the hell is happening?!" Valencia shouted. "Callum!"

"Sorry," Callum said quickly, before Russell could jump in. "The mech came with a guide or something? I'm not really sure."

"A guide not just to Angra Mainyu but a guide for life!" Russell said. "A vanguard for the soul and destiny of all humanity!"

"And he wants me to help you pilot?" Valencia asked.

"No!" Valencia flinched at his explosion. "I just mean...I can't take you into this kind of danger, Valencia."

"Warning," Cosmos suddenly cut in. "Leaving the woman here may expose her to more danger than taking her into Angra Mainyu. There is a high likelihood that creating a hole large enough to leave through will cause a chain of cave-ins."

"There!" Russell crowed. "You see! Let's get her in here. Young miss!" Valencia jerked as Russell addressed her. "Hurry and take your clothes off."

"What?!" Valencia covered her chest.

"What, what?!" Russell asked, seeming legitimately confused at her reaction or doing a hell of an impression of it. 'I honestly can't tell if he is doing this on purpose.' "Get naked and get up here!"

Even in the dim light provided by Angra Mainyu's light, Callum could tell that Valencia's face was getting red. Likely with both anger and embarrassment. "Listen, Valencia," he said hurriedly. "Russell is...strange." He ignored Russell's indignant protests. "The mech...there is this orange kind of goo stuff that lets the pilot's connect to it, I guess? I'm not sure how it works but the reason he wants you to take your clothes off is because they interfere with the connection." Callum could tell Valencia was skeptical and he couldn't blame her. "Listen, just run. Get out of the mines. I'll wait for ten minutes before I try and break out. That should give you enough time to get clear."

"What?!" Russell squawked. "This is a gift from the chaos gods! Maybe literally! There is only one person that could control Angra Mainyu alone and that man's name was Russell Jones! Not...what was your name again?"

"Oh my God," Callum muttered. "Hurry and escape, Valencia."

Instead of running, she straightened up. "You're going to rescue Catronia?"

"I have to try," Callum said apologetically.

"And you think I can help, Mister Russell?"

"My best guess is that it will increase the probability of success by one hundred thousand percent!"

"Warning," Cosmos broke in. "Such an increase is statistically impossible."

Callum ignored them. His eyes were locked on Valencia. 'She can't really mean to...' She undid her robe and shrugged it off so quickly that Callum wasn't able to avert his eyes. Her breasts were much more modest than Nita's but his blood heated just the same. He closed his eyes and shook his head violently. 'Get it together. You need to focus on saving Cat.' He opened his eyes to see Valencia stepping out of her short pants. 'My God, she's beautiful.' He wondered why he'd never noticed before. She had a calm mask on but her body was trembling slightly, betraying her understandable anxiety.

Callum was trying to think of something tactful to say when Russell, who apparently never bothered with such considerations, said, "Bravo, young miss! Your breasts might be small but your courage is immense!"

Valencia's eye twitched and then she smiled sweetly. "Are you in the cockpit, Mister Russell? I'd really like to meet you in person." The smile and tone were signs of incredible anger for those that knew Valencia. Russell did not.

"I am! Where else would I be? Hurry up here, sweet thing! Open up, Cosmos."

"Acknowledged." Angra Mainyu's hatch opened up.

"What? I have to climb up?" Valencia muttered.

"Oh! Hang on." Callum lifted one of the mech's hands and set it palm up next to Valencia. She inspected it for a moment and then climbed on. Callum did his best to focus on his task and not the fact that one of his closest friends was stark naked. He lifted the hand up and slowly brought it to the cockpit. Since the access port was right behind the mech's head, he couldn't see it at all. "Is this good?" he asked.

"Yeah," Valencia said. She grunted as she hopped off the mech's hand onto its back. After a moment, he heard her say, "Wow. You weren't kidding about the orange goo. And you must be Russell Jones." 'She must be peering down into the cockpit.' He suddenly grew self-conscious, wondering what she could see. "You're quite a bit smaller than your attitude suggested." Callum could hear the smirk in her voice.

"I'll have you know that Russell Jones is two hundred and three centimeters tall!"

"Twenty and three if I'm being generous," Valencia grumbled. "How do I get down?"

"Just jump down. Like into a swimming pool!" What is a swimming pool? Callum wondered. A moment later he heard Russell say, "Careful now!"

Before he could quite think about what he was doing, Callum let go of the handles that connected him with Angra Mainyu, twisted around and glanced up. Only to see Valencia lowering herself into the cockpit. Bottom first. Which gave him an absolutely exquisite view of both her bare bottom and everything that rested between her legs. Callum's jaw dropped and then he quickly spun away. The image was burned into his brain though. A flicker of motion made his glance over his shoulder, where he saw Valencia floating in the other half of the cockpit. Her eyes widened in anger and she motioned for him to turn around.

'God, how humiliating. I never thought this would be the way I revealed myself to Callum.' Callum blinked. Those hadn't been his thoughts. 'Is that Valencia? Callum? Can you hear my thoughts?!' Callum shook his head. This was insane. It was hard to separate his own thoughts from Valencia's. He quickly grasped his handles. "Russell!" he shouted and then quickly changed his mind. "Cosmos, does the...what did you call it...PCP liquid transfer thoughts?"

"Correction: it is PFC liquid. Answer: affirmative. Surface thoughts are often experienced by co-pilots in the same mech." 'Oh my God.' Callum had no idea if the thought had come from him or her or both.

"Of course you can hear each other's thoughts," Russell said. "When you're piloting the mech, you need to be able to react instantaneously to the other pilot. Use your heads, children!"

"You could have given us some warning," Callum grumbled. 'Can you hear him?' That was definitely from Valencia. 'I can't hear anything in this orange crap.'

'You need to grab the handles. They let you connect with the mech.'

'I don't see any handles. Are you talking about this stick thing?'

'Probably.' Callum was surprised. Now that he knew what he was dealing with, it wasn't so difficult to communicate this way. 'I just have to make sure that I don't think of anything like...' Callum realized his mistake too late to stop it. The image of Valencia climbing into the mech popped into his head. Her resulting mental scream flooded him with guilt.

'What? How did you...why?!'

'I turned when Russell warned you to be careful. I thought you might be falling.' He hoped that his earnestness reached through the mental link.

He felt grudging acceptance coming from her and a wave of relief coursed through him. 'Fine. But you'll forget it! Wipe it from your memory.'

'I'll try.' But right on the heels of sending her that message, he couldn't help thinking, 'But I doubt I can. I don't really want to.' This time both of them screamed.

"Hey! Just because you brats can talk to each other without speaking is no reason to leave poor Russell out of the conversation," Russell complained.

"Let's just move on," Valencia snapped. "I've got a hold of this stick and now I see a bunch of numbers and such. I don't know what they mean."

"Good!" Russell said. "That control stick allows you to control the flight and ranged weapons of Angra Mainyu. Those numbers show altitude, temperature, radar power reserves, ammunition levels and so forth. Stuff the primary pilot would have a tough time keeping track of."

"I don't think I can keep track of all this…" Valencia muttered. "Did you say flight?"

"I did. Since we don't have the same weird-ass fish brains the carcha have, it is easier if the co-pilot controls the direction of the fight as well as the targeting for ranged weapons. The God of Chaos here has two shoulder mounted ether beam cannons and several banks of missiles. Though we don't have any actually loaded right now."

'Flying? I don't know if I can do that.'

'You can!' Callum thought with as much encouragement as he could muster. 'I believe in you!'

'Ugh. It would be nice to be able to keep my internal doubts to myself!' Callum was stung by her thought but feelings of apology came from her right after.

As if he somehow had heard her thoughts, Russell clapped his hands. "Let's learn by doing. Callum, get your ass up and get going!"

Callum jumped up and Angra Mainyu reacted. 'Let's go! Don't embarrass yourself in front of Valencia.' He chose to ignore the fact that Valencia had just heard that. Callum set off and this time the steps were smoother. He stumbled a couple of times but didn't lose his footing this time. Cosmos stopped him when he was in the correct spot. "Destination reached," she chimed. "Please turn seventy-one degrees to the right and bend your back back thirty degrees."

"Uh…" Callum did his best to do as he was told. "Like this?"

"Turn nineteen more degrees and bend back five degrees." Callum did what he could and Cosmos said, "Correct." He felt an irrational burst of pride at her praise. "Co-pilot, please trigger a full burst of the shoulder cannons at this moment."

"Ummm...how do I do that?" 'Probably not a good idea to just start pressing buttons.' Callum whole-heartedly agreed.

"Answer: the forefinger of your dominant hand should be resting on the trigger for the ether cannons if you followed proper gripping protocol. Additional information: the stud on top of the control stick activates the thrusters that allow the mech to fly and the two buttons under your other fingers are connected to the banks of missiles that are normally loaded onto this mech."

"I see." 'Well, here goes.' Valencia triggered the cannons. Two bright white, cylindrical beams shot out of the mech. They were both angled slightly so that the beams converged shortly in front of the mech into one thick beam. It drilled through the roof of the cavern, superheating the rock it touched to a red glow. The beam cut off after a couple of seconds. Callum gasped and sagged. The tendrils of power had flared and power seemed to be sucked out of him. 'What was that?'

He shook his head and glanced through the hole, wondering if they were supposed to fire a few more times to make the hole wide enough for his mech to squeeze through. Before he could ask, the cavern started to shake. A large slap of the roof broke off and crashed down next to Callum. He instinctively raised his hands, which were now the mech's hands, over his head and crouched down in fear. The cavern continued to shake and Callum felt, more than heard, the tunnels collapsing around them. After a few seconds, it was all over. Callum cautiously lowered Angra Mainyu's hands and looked up. Above him was a hole that was more than large enough to fly the mech through. Rocks had crashed down all around him but none had so much as touched him. 'Did Cosmos really calculate that?'

"What power," Callum breathed. The whole village together probably would have had to dig for a year to make a hole of similar size.

Russell clicked his tongue. "That was nothing. Just wait." Callum wondered what he could possibly mean. Russell didn't elaborate. "But now that we have an exit, it is time to fly! Fly, girlie."

"My name is Valencia," Valencia snapped. "Did you say I press the button on top of the stick to fly?"

"Yes! Jam on that baby!"

"Warning: depressing the booster stud all the way may--"

Whatever she was going to say was lost as the mech shot straight up at incredible speed. They rose to the lip of the hole so fast that Callum only had time to throw his hands over his head before they clipped it. The impact sent them tumbling violently through the air. "Oh, no!" Valencia screamed. She lifted her thumb, cutting the mech's booster. This left Callum flailing for a brief moment as the mech dropped like a rock. He managed to curl up a bit before they hit the ground. And then they were rolling and rolling down the side of the mountain. All he could do was weather it, though he noticed that the cockpit didn't react that violently to either the fall or the rolling.

When they finally stopped, the feelings flowing from Valencia changed from panic to shame and humiliation. Callum tried to send soothing feelings her way. 'That was more Russell's fault than yours. He's very...enthusiastic...but it might be better to have Cosmos explain how Angra Mainyu works than him.' As he was thinking this, he was also testing out the mech's damage. He hadn't felt any pain so he didn't know if anything had been wrecked. He managed to roll onto his hands and knees and stand the mech up. He lifted each hand and opened and closed his fist. He did a couple of squats. 'I think we are fine. This mech is pretty tough.'

"Are we alright?" Russell asked. "We're alright! Of course we are! Hey, I like the full speed approach, young miss, but you need to work on your aim." He laughed loudly.

"Shut up, damn it," Valencia grated. Callum could feel how shaken she was.

'I'm going to try and get a little more used to this thing. Let me know when you feel up to trying again.'

Thanks, Callum. I will. Callum began walking around. He was feeling more comfortable now. More like he was one with the mech. The key was not overthinking it. Maybe having Valencia in his head was keeping him from doing that. 'Happy to help,' Valencia thought sardonically. Callum laughed softly. He tried a couple of experimental punches and had a thought.

"Hey, Russell. Does this thing have any other weapons besides the cannons?" Nita had taught him some self-defense basics but he wasn't sure he wanted to get into a fistfight in a mech.

"Of course! Though I would prefer if you referred to Angra Mainyu as Angra Mainyu. Or the God of Chaos. Or the Red Comet! Have you two seen…?" Russell sighed. "Of course you haven't. Do you even know what television is?"

"I think my Dad described it to me once," Valencia said. Callum suddenly saw a box with people dancing inside of it. 'What the hell is that?'

"Ugh. You kids are depressing," Russell muttered, sounding down for once. He rebounded instantly. "Anyway, Angra Mainyu is armed with a spectacular sword! Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar!"

"What?" both Valencia and Callum said at the same time.

Russell laughed. "Quite the name, eh? A very impressive name! But I understand not being able to pronounce it. You may call it Shamshir."

"Sh...shammy…" Callum tried.

"Shamshir."

"Shammer," Valencia threw out.

"Lord help me. How about King Solomon's Blade. Can you say that?"

"King Solomon's Blade," Callum said.

"Who was King Solomon?" Valencia asked.

"He was a king of Israel. The last king of a united Israel according to the Old Testament…you kids don't have the Bible here either?"

"What's that?" Callum asked.

"Wait, I think I've heard of that," Valencia said. "It's a book about Jesus the Human God, right?"

"Uh, the New Testament is…"

"Oh," Callum said. "We don't have any books here but my sister tells me stories about Jesus. Like how Jesus healed the blind men."

"Or fed an entire city with only a fish and a slice of bread," Valencia chimed in.

"I like the story of Jesus fighting a giant with only a sling."

"My favorite is the one about him saving a swan shot by his cousin."

"I think my favorite is when he freed the African slaves by defeating the Klan."

"...What the fuck are you kids talking about?" Russell shouted. "I don't even! How did…?!" He took a long breath. "Know what? Doesn't matter. I don't even want to get into all that, so let's move on, okay children? Don't you want to see the sword?"

Callum nodded eagerly, though he could feel annoyance from Valencia. 'He's looking down at us for being ignorant,' she thought. Callum didn't get that sense. Russell just seemed upset they didn't understand his references. "Yeah, let's see the sword."

"I like your eagerness! Now, you need to open the storage compartment in Angra Mainyu's leg. Just think as if you were opening a storage compartment in your own leg."

"Um. How do I do that?"

"Just picture like you were keeping something in your leg and you wanted it so you open part up part of your leg to take it out."

"Oh, my God! That is so gross!" Valencia squealed. The image he saw in her head was indeed disgusting but it did give him an idea of what to try. He glanced down at the mech's leg and imagined he was opening up a long vertical chunk of the leg and drawing it to the side. To his excitement, it worked perfectly. The vertical leg compartment opened sideways, revealing the black and gold hilt of the blade. Callum reached down, drew it out and held it aloft. The hilt was long enough to be grasped with both the mech's hands though he found it perfectly easy to maneuver it in one hand. The blade was gold but it glowed with a greenish hue. Callum was surprised at how radically curved it was.

"Behold!" Russell shouted. "The Shamshir-e Zomorrodnegar!"

"It's beautiful," Callum said wistfully. He swiped it through the air.

"Isn't it, though?" Russell said.

"Yeah, I guess it's pretty nice," Valencia said, throwing cold water on them. "I think I feel like trying to fly this bastard again if you are."