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Gunfire hailed down around Takara and Vandal. The two dashed for new cover as 88's and 99's stopped firing and zeroed in on new targets, most likely other Evolutionary Forces trying to break into Cologne farther north.

Vandal's squad had died though, with Doktor flying up and down the frontlines, overwhelmed with the amount of casualties. Alyxand his squad crashed through a weak part of the sewer roof and were wandering around somewhere down below. Only Takara was able to help Vandal and whatever troops they could fine, although whoever stayed with them had a notoriously short services time.

Takara leaned out and pulled off a few shots, before more bullets rained down around her. A shell landed nearby and Vandal grasped his helmet as dirt showered them. "Dammit Takara! We're low on ammo as it is!"

Takara opened the cooling vents on the barrel, hot steam escaping, the bright red metal cooling back down to flat black. As she waited, she retorted back "Shut your muzzle and find a way out of here!" She leaned out and fired a few more rounds before it started clicking. "Darwin fucking dammit!" She yelled as she chucked the rifle away and reached for her Scorpion submachine gun.

Vandal simply sighed and leaned out to see what they where facing. There was a squad, one machinegun crew currently trying to reload, but no Sergeant or ranking Officer.

Suddenly, the Clunkers stopped firing, turned around, and began shouting. They dismantled the LMG and ran into some houses. Takara and Vandal simply watched as they pulled back for no reason.

Then a wall came crashing down, and the reason for no Officer was well explained by the hulking sight in front of them.

The Officer was a Panzermann...

The ugly, lurking beast of a machine stood at 7 feet tall, covered in metal, and his hands removed and replaced with a Flingerfaust B, 9-barrled ground-to-air and ground-to-ground unguided rocket launcher, in his left hand. His right hand was replaced with a Shipunov 2A42, most likely fed 3UBR8 Armor-piercing discarding sabot rounds.

Incased in an entire chase of angled plates close to 6 inches in some areas, and as little as 3 inches in joints, they where the combination of Super-heavy tanks, Mobile Weapon Platform, and Augmented Warfare. Although slow by comparison of Evolutionary Mobile Artillery and Tank Units, the ability to change equipped weapons, deflect many of the smaller plasmid calibers and kinetic rounds, and fill many roles in war have made them the most deadly Regular Armed Soldier the ClunkerNaughts have.

And the sheer fear it brought to their enemies was a moral breaker. A metal helmet covered his face, his red optics shone in contras to the shining silver metal. A metal grate was placed in front of his mouth, and a metal collar encompassed his head. His feet had the same three-toed design as did the Walkers, and his elbow and knee joints had long metal, four sided blades meant to keep infantry away.

"May Darwin help us..." muttered Vandal.

Takara hooked her Scorpion back to her leg, and pulled her Black Vulture off her back and snapped it open. "I was saving her for a special occasion..." she muttered, as she loaded a 40mm plasmid grenade in and snapped it closed, "But this is as good as time as any."

"How many you got left?" asked Vandal.

"As I said, I was saving it."

"Well, let's celebrate, shall we?" Vandal asked as he ejected the gas canister and firing caps, and loaded full canister and clip in.

"What shall we celebrate?" Takara filled with the sights and checked to make sure she had all her equipment.

"Eternal life, liberty and happiness?" replied the Wolf.

They stared at each other for a second, and then began to laugh hysterically. "I almost believed that bullshit when I first signed up!"

"Same here! Heh, on the count of three?"

"One, two, thr-."

Long drones flowed out without words. When he finally spoke, it was cold and heartless which flowed. In a metallic, raspy voice, he said, "Van...dal... Ta...kara... We...know...who you...are... We will...free...your mind...and...body...if you...surrender...to us...and become...Transcended..."

"We will never surrender to the abominations like you!" shouted Takakra. "Transcendences that you speak of are the neglect and rejection of Life itself! You do it for power! And we! We do it for survival! We are survivalists, not transcendences! You hide your senseless genocide behind the veil of transcendence! You are a lie! And we! We shall be the light of truth you ignorantly and senselessly massacre in the streets!"

The ruins were quite.

The Panzermann shifted stance, bring one foot slightly forward, and the whining of his Autocannon spinning up was heard.

"If...that is...what...you choose... Transcend...Life...by...Death!"

"RUN!" yelled Vandal, as he clamored into an expose basement in front of them, while Takara ran into a building to their left.

The Panzermann tore chunks out of the wall with the Autocannon, before following Takara and shot up the lower floor. Takara continued up the stairs to the third floor. She found a window peering out into the courtyard and aimed the Launcher. She aimed and was about to pull the trigger, when the Panzermann looked up and aimed his Fliegerfaust at her.

In reflex, Takara brought up a leg and pushed hard against the window sill, half leaping back, half pushing. The window exploded and threw Takara farther back, debris and rubble pelting her as she fell to the back of the room.

She struggled to move, her back aching, entirely sprawled out and a low pitch ring in her ears. "Takara?!" yelled Vandal, "TAKARA!" before the Panzermann opened up with the Autocannon on the building Vandal had moved to, spewing bullets in his general area.

Takara coughed up dust and staggered to her feet, the ringing in her ears slowly dying out and being replaced with normal ambient sounds. The Autocannon began to fill her ears and she knew what to do. She ran to the new hole in the wall and jumped off the edge.

The Panzermann had a blast shield protecting the back of his head so no grenades or rockets could hit his neck. The only other way to kill him was to jump up onto his back and fire the Launcher point blank. It was risky because the blast could kill her, if the Panzermann did not turn to fire at her.

She rolled as she hit the ground; pain surging up through her legs, and let out a long, painful, sigh. She breathed again, and looked up to see the Autocannon had emptied the last bit of its bullets into the building Vandal was pinned in.

So, by rockets, then.

The Panzermann heard the crushing of dirt and wood beneath Takara's feet, and began to lumber around to aim at her. He saw a charging Ocelot, too close to fire a rocket without damaging his own protective plaiting, and instead made to swipe at her with his Fliegerfaust.

He swung, and missed, as Takara jumped up onto his arm near the elbow joint, ran up to his shoulder, and jumped again. Like the feline she was, she quickly crawled up his arm before he had time to react or even follow her up, before sailing over his head.

She was facing down, looking straight into gap between his head and blast plate, and pulled the trigger. She saw the bright orange-yellow bolt fly forward, cracking through the air as it lost energy to the surroundings, sailing towards the expose neck of the Panzermann.

There was a sudden explosion, one much larger then the one she created. She was still too close to the Panzermann, and the force from the bolt was felt by her too, being thrown away from the lurching beast. She felt the harsh pricks of rocks and wood against her back. She faced up to the sky, filled with smoke and dust and ambers.

The Panzermann let out a low pitched groan. His left arm, the metal plating blown off, showing the gears, pistons, fluids and muscles beneath, his chest plate blew wide open, showing his body writhing, while his helmet missing half, showing his horrid, disfigured face.

He walked towards Takara, slow and hesitant. Steam escaped around screws attached at the Autocannon and Fliegerfaust, which he dropped to the ground with the ammo belts. Beneath them, where metallic hands, without flesh and resembling bones, clicking together as he curled these hands into fists.

He continued to move towards her, now stumbling. Closer and closer, a few feet from Takara he was now. Suddenly, he fell to a knee, crawling, struggling to lift his left arm. He reached out to her, his metallic fingers now extending out. Takara had turned over and was lying on her side, and saw him as he reached for her. She wanted to move, to run, to shoot, but she could not.

He was closer now, his gruesome, destroyed face mere inches away from Takara's, the stench of Death about him. His cold metallic fingers touched her fur and flesh on her face, the feeling of frost-bite at that spot he laid the tips. He spoke without the drone or echo.

"Thank you...for free...ing...me..."

The Panzermann sighed, and rolled over onto his back, the "Clank" of metal hitting the rubble echoed into the silence of the evening. Takara got up and looked into his chest cavity.

Before her, the inside of the Integrated Augmented Tank Unit, the Panzermann, lay his tortured body, his flesh ripped back, his nerves connected to wires that ran into the suit, blood vessels connected to his heart, pumping fluids throughout the machine. His bones where replaced with metal bars and his muscles with hydraulics. His organs where practically removed and replaced with mechanical organs, so as to not need sleep, thrust, hunger or fatigue. He was strung up like a tanned hide. His hands where still curled around levers that lead to the shoulders, and his feet where strapped to levers.

This was the most disgusting sight Takara had ever seen in the entire war. She puked...She coughed up chunks of the last meal she ate, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and slowly stood up.

She thought she was going mad, when she heard the voice of her lover call her name...

"Takara..."

She looked around, but found only Vandal, climbing out of the rubble of the destroyed building he was hiding in.

"Takara!"

She looked up, and there, across the street in the third floor of a building, the crimson scales that shimmered in the evening sun, belonging only to the one person who she needed the most right now.

Alyx waved to her, before turning around to talk to someone behind him. He handed over the Jaguar Plasmid Launcher and jumped out of the window to glide over to Takara. Arms outstretched, the two meet half-way, embracing in the warmth of each other. Alyx gazed down into the eyes of his beloved Ocelot; Takara gazed back at her loving Dragon.

They kissed, two tongues entwined, missing the taste of each other, the comfort of being in each other's arms, the warmth of each body. With Takara's arms around Alyx's shoulders, and his hands on her hips, he drew his wings in around them. There was warmth here that penetrated deeper then skin and scales, into the Heart and Soul, drowning out the cold hatred of War.

There lips parted, locking hands, Alyx spoke, "I've missed you my love...I saw your squad go down and I...I...I feared the worst...."

"You know you don't have to fear for me, baby... I can take care of myself..." The two where overjoyed at being reunited, of not fearing the worst, of just standing together, hand in hand, again. Takara rested her head on his chest, listening to his beating heart. Alyx placed a hand on her head and petted her slowly. "I'm just glade you're still in one piece. Darwin knows I could not live without you."

"And neither could I." Takara sighed and snuggled up close to her lover and mate.

The Jaguar Infantry had gathered together in the garden and where conversing with Vandal. He ended there conversation with a salute and walked over to his two squad mates, still embraced, there bodies surrounded by the glow of the setting sun.

"Alyx, it's good to have you back. Scarred we might have lost you on assault. Apparently, you where hunting for Panzers and where pretty dam good at it. Command would give you a promotion for helping to knock out a squad of them!" Vandal patted him on the shoulder.

Alyx grinned then looked down to his mate, poking at Takara's head with his muzzle, before speaking softly, "Command is ordering a retreat from Cologne..."