Shining Armour

"You bitches want some of this? Come in here, I'll show you what I got! I'm gonna kill all you when I get outta here! You freaks hear that?"

Jace Stratton knew two things at that point. The first was what he'd known for the past few minutes, if not hours – he was going to die. The second was that he'd uttered the most hollow epitaph this side of Sera had ever seen. And given how the stunted grubs continued to hammer away at his cage, ignoring the blows of his baseball bat, they seemed to know it as well.

"Come on! Come on!"

Could the things get in, Jace wondered? None of the Locust had ever struck him as being particularly intelligent, but these…Wretches, if he remembered the term correctly, seemed to be the lowest of the low. The shortest, the weakest and considering that they couldn't access the control panel on the other side of the vault's bars, probably the stupidest as well.

Great, the teen thought to himself. So not only am I going to die, I'm going to die at the hands of the grubs' most pathetic creatures.

One of the things jumped onto the bars, grabbing them with its gorilla like hands, the monster snarling at him with its non-gorilla-like teeth. With a start, Jace brought the bat onto its skull.

Take that you mother-…

The thing fell down. It sprung back up. And it let out a hiss that told Jace that while he'd hurt it, in the long run, all he'd done was make it even more pissed off.

Great…

God, this sucked, the Tyran reflected, going back to swinging the bat and not even caring if he hit the Wretches or the bars they were trying to get through. He was trapped. He had no weapon worth a damn, and given the stalemate he and the grubs were in, he'd probably starve to death before they got through. Provided grubs with guns didn't come down to finish the job that was. He thought he'd heard some gunfire earlier on, but the bank had since fallen silent.

Jace stared at his bat, wishing it could turn into a gun. Or a sword, or any weapon that could actually do some real harm to these things. It was a sick joke, he reflected – he was like the damsel in the tower of Tyran myth. Without escape, without weapons, waiting for an armour-clad knight to come to the rescue.

I'm going to die, Jace told himself again. And I'm going to be the fucking damsel in this scenario.

One of the Wretches leapt up onto the bars again. With a roar, Jace brought the bat down on its skull.

"Hah! Kid's got spirit!"

With a start, Jace looked at the source for the voice. With a start, he flinched from the gunfire the source let out – quick bursts at the grubs attacking his cage. He looked up to see one of them jump at said source, only for it to be blown out of the air by bullets from his lancer.

It was at this point that Jace realized that the source was a Gear. One of four Gears actually. An entire squad, come all the way down into the vaults to rescue him. His mind and pride screaming, for a moment, the teen thought he was better off with the grubs.

"You okay kid?"

Yep, definitely worse.

Bad enough he was in a room of Gears, three of whom were men. Worse was that the fourth was a girl. A girl. Weren't Gears meant to be universally male or something? His pride going down an E-hole, Jace noticed that her armour was the shiniest of them all. Nicely fitting, not large. Either way, she opened the door.

Knight in shining armour indeed…

"Hey," the Gear said, walking towards Jace. "What's your name?"

"Jace," the boy answered, still clutching his bat, fighting the surge of adrenalin and the instinctive desire to keep swinging it. "Jace Stratton."

The boy glanced at the other three Gears, all of them trying to hide their amusement. One a South Islander, one a Pesanga, one a Tyran – all large, all muscular and all armed with guns with bloody chainsaws attached to them. It was no wonder the woman of all people was coming to see him.

"Good to meet you Jace," she said, speaking in the calm, collected tone of one who knew how to talk to young children. "I'm Alicia. You're safe now, all right?"

Jace's adrenalin seemed to be thinning out. Certainly he was clutching his bat less like a madman and more like a pro baseball player.

"Thanks…" he murmured. "I thought I was done."

The woman seemed to be good at her job. Not just killing grubs (obviously she was good at that, otherwise she'd be dead by now) but at the whole "we're here to rescue you, you're safe routine. Because seeing her comforting gaze and her shiny armour, suddenly Jace didn't feel so embarrassed. Not at his situation nor at the presence of the other Gears in the room.

"Are there any other survivors in here?" Alicia asked.

"I don't think so…" Jace murmured, reflecting on the fact that the Gear had given him her forename, and not a surname accompanied by rank. Maybe he was reading too deep into this, but-…

"Well, stick with us, we'll get you to safety."

With those words, Alicia walked out of the vault, leaving Jace to follow her. The other three Gears all glanced at him, all with a varied level of amusement.

Somehow, he didn't care anymore.

Because it seemed that not all knights in shining armour had to be male…