Arc 1.5. /x/
Ange stared dumbfounded at the holographic image of her daughter, checked the contents of her water bottle before she returned her gaze to the hologram that showed her house on Earth Bet.
"Run that by me again, Taylor. Because I heard some crazy shit of freaking Shadow Stalker having tracked us down and then wanting to join us."
"Positive, Mom," Taylor huffed while Ange heard Vivian's squeals of delight and the sound of a unfamiliar woman's grunts in the background. She squinted her eyes to try and figure out what's happening in the background before she shrugged and gave up. Momoka and Vivian are usually stable enough to run things without her input on Bet.
"Y'know Tay, I've half expected you to shoot her when you found out Shadow Stalker was the one who both poisoned Emma against you and outed our secret ID."
"Mom..."
"Okay, okay." Ange said while she raised both hands in mock surrender, much to the chagrin of her daughter. "I was kidding. You're not your sister after all."
Taylor winced, before she turned her head as she heard a particularly loud strike and the unfamiliar female voiced yelled out in pain and rage.
"Got to say. I'm not that much different from Claudia, Mom. Just a little push and..." Taylor allowed her sentence to trail off and turned to face her mom once more, before she noticed the evening sky behind her.
"Where are you, anyway?"
"The Mana world, Taylor."
Taylor's eyes widened in horror at her mother's news, and let out a yelp when several midair explosions blossomed around Ange. The screen shook as Ange saw Taylor press her face against the hologram on her side, followed by a series of screaming instruction.
"Mom?! What the hell do you think you're doing?!"
"Oh, y'know," Ange shrugged. "Attacking the resurgent Mana nations to trim their numbers, defending our allied settlements and being a general pain in the ass for them. "
"Mom! I swear I'll-"
"Oh, and distracting thirty-odd automated Blade Drones from a reinforcement transport full of civies and Norma infantry. No pressure."
"Mom!"
Ange blew a kiss in response her daughter's distraught scream and topped it with a wink, before she raised her left hand towards the hologram.
"Love ya, Tay! Chat later."
Ange broke the hologram into green, fading shards of light with a brush of her fingers, before a transparent red window appeared on her lower left just above her command console. Ange sighed as she saw the call sign- CM-1- and awaited the inevitable.
"Commander Ange!" Ange winced as her internal speakers shook when the voice of a certain Captain Salia Tereshkova blasted her with its sheer volume and the shrillness of her tone. Ange swore under her breath before she brushed away the voice message from her 2IC when she typed out a response in code on her dashboard mounted keyboard and send it to the Cleopatra, who choose this exact moment to zip past her front with several spinning drones hot on her heels. Ange whistled as the black and white frame of the Cleopatra broke hard to the left and blasted two of the bladed drones with a single burst of her torso mounted vulcan autocannons, before the frame of the Cleopatra rippled out of existence just when the remaining five saucer shaped drones whisked past the now empty air.
"Oh fuck you, Salia," Ange growled as she gripped the handlebars of the Vilkiss and her mail responded, a stream of beam fire from her rifle sliced cleanly through half the oncoming drones which now sought a new target.
Clipped two of those Blade Drones, Ange thought as the Vilkiss dodged the remaining three saucers with a hard dive downwards. Another three more. With god knows how many lurking beyond visual and my jammed sensory range.
The saucers, with their grey bodies and the glowing greenlight of their Mana power source streaked downwards in hot pursuit of the Vilkiss and ignored the chaff fired from the back of the white Ragnamail. The three drones broke off their triangle formation as they closed in, and Ange's ears rang as she heard the screech of the blades as they spun on the surface of the drones when they closed in. The Vilkiss zigzagged across the night, firing widly at the darting drones which slowly began to encircle Ange's mail to box her in. One saucer dipped below the Vilkiss and blew of a chunk of the right leg as it grazed the thigh, while Ange barely avoided having the head of her mail cleaved off when another drone moved to decapitate her machine.
Ange hissed in pain as she felt a jolt of sympathetic pain thanks to the link she had with the Vilkiss and glared at the drones as they hovered around her, with one to the back, front and above.
Then, Ange watched as the ponderous gunship which carried their precious cargo of infantry and Riley fly pass, her propellers seemingly waving goodbye to her before Ange smiled.
"Michael."
The white and gold of Vilkiss was engulfed as a crimson tide swarmed her frame and covered her in a coat of ruby, glowing red. The Blade Drones contacted, and their spinning blades, forged with a strength and speed enough to cut across a mountain range a mile wide with virtually zero resistance stopped as it touched the red light barrier before Ange drove her mail's right fist through them.
Ange watched as the debris of the drones scattered over the ocean over, while she imagined her old frenemy Salia laughing at the thought of leaving her to the tender mercies of the Manaist remnant. A blaring alarm and a red light from the right of her panoramic display alerted her to someone opening a singularity portal and Ange brought her beam rifle to bear, with her fingers resting on the trigger. Ange lowered the nozzle just slightly when the black and blue frame of the Cleopatra solidified, but kept the weapon trained on supposedly friendly unit.
"What the fuck, Salia?!" Ange banged her command console when a hologram with Salia's face appeared to the right of her. "You abandonded me to a junkie ambush!"
Salia's blue eyes glared at her with a rage that burned within, while her her long, light purple hair was soaked with sweat. The Cleopatra's right arm reached beyond the rifle that Ange kept trained on her and touched the right shoulder of the Vilkiss, and Ange's eyebrows rose when she saw the video being streamed from the Cleopatra.
"Huh," Ange said while she watched the records from the Cleopatra where the blue Ragnamail faded in and out of existence to blast half a dozen Blade Drones with steady streams of machine gun and beam fire, before she finished the deed by teleporting behind a destroyer with a radar array that glowed with the Light of Mana and sliced the bridge in half with a beam sabre. The video ended, and the Cleopatra flew backwards before she folded her arms and waited.
"Objection withdrawn, Captain Salia. Good work."
"Thank you, Commander," Salia retorted while she rubbed her sharp nose to keep herself calm and her tone even, for her sense of professionalism demanded she keep in mind Ange is technically still her superior officer. "Permission to chew you out?"
Ange winced.
"Granted."
"Using the command frequency to have a chat with your daughter even as we were jumped on a routine escort mission to our settlements, is- with respect-" Salia added almost as an afterthought, "fucking stupid."
"Look, Salia. I-"
"Not done, Commander. My own daughter barely contacted Mykonos Settlement while missing an arm, and I still kept my family issues off-duty, "Salia fumed. "Whereas you on the other hand-"
"Man," Ange said, "no one can make with respect sound like screw you like you do, Salia."
"I've got plenty of practice, and don't interrupt me," Salia said before she saw the report on her scans for enemy jamming.
"Bad news, Commander," Salia said, this time her tone was all business. "The level of Mana interference with our long range comms are seriously high, like engaged in a gun battle right now high."
"Didn't you just wreck one of their Mana beacons on that ship, Salia?"
Ange frowned as she joined her fellow Norma commander to go through her communications and the frown deepened into a scowl as her radio gave nothing but static, while only the Light of Mana based communication holographic display still worked. Ange flew her mail closer to the Cleopatra, and placed the right hand of the Vilkiss onto the back of Salia's machine.
"There's more of them. Lots more," Ange said grimly. "Going by the amount of dragonium that OPFOR requires to maintain this level of ECM and radio jamming, we should assume that the Enderant Union's recovery of their pre-fall military capabilities are faster than we had anticipated. Two armour regiments with another support fleet?"
"Not too sure about that, Commander, they just suffered some losses last week when they clashed with the Rosenblum Kingdom over some pre-fall Dragonium deposits." Salia countered as she continued to monitor the amount of Mana interference. "The Junkies deployed this after they sicced the Blade Drones on us and there was a steady build up of the strength of their ECM. I believe that they're expanding precious limited resources to try and ensnare Arzenal and Mykonos settlement reinforcements, thus hurt us enough to cease our raids against their recovery."
"Or they're just hoping to kill more Norma, and are being smart and patient about it."
"Honestly," Salia shuddered. "The part about them being smart and patient fills me with dread. They already outnumber us a thousand to one, even with our Auric DRAGON allies and our rescued Normas from the Manaist populations."
"Well, the good news is," Ange said as she looked towards the agreed rendezvous point for the new Norma and their Manaist families. " They're probably not expecting us to deploy Ragnamails since their ambush force is a mere thirty Blade Drones and a single Olbert class ship."
"Or this could be a trap to lull us into complacency," Salia pointed out. "Isolate one of our strongholds on Earth Mana deep on their turf, box them in as bait and leave an opening for any reinforcements including Ragnamails."
"Well then," The red eyes of the Vilkiss glowed, while Ange bared her teeth at the thought. "Let's make use of their trap then, shall we Salia?"
A swirling portal opened above the two Ragnamails, followed by a thunderous roar and the flapping of wings.
/x/
Naomi peered through her binoculars at the distant figures that surrounded their camp, a drab abandoned hangar with minimal decorations and lots of reinforced steel in the walls and doors. From afar, the building Naomi and her unit guarded resembled a cross between a concrete marble with a hollowed out door and a Brutalist art-piece. Naomi lowered her binoculars and wiped the lenses with her tan-green sleeves, before she gave up in face of the relentless rain that had suddenly descended. It was some relief from the unrelenting heat and humidity that had plagued her all morning, but Naomi found herself missing Arzenal already. She kept her silence as she settled deeper into the sandbags piled across the hastily dug trench, her mind focused on the enemy that surrounded them rather than how her uniform and body armour was soaked thoroughly or how she was pressed against the mud that was reminded her of a chunky stew.
Several of her soldiers had removed their raincoats from their field packs to shield themselves and their weapons from the sudden onset of tropical rain, but the remainder of her unit settled and rapped their rifles or in the case of her MG and SAW crews to cover their guns instead. Naomi swept a clump of soaked pink hair away from her eyes to the side, before she tightened the knot that kept her long hair in a ponytail as she looked at the remainder of her unit still capable of fighting.
Out of one squadron with eight Paramails and twenty four Norma, only eighteen who aren't WIA or KIA.
Naomi glanced at Claudia who remained still to her left, arms resting on her rifle with her gaze firmly fixed on the Manaist forces lurking within the vegetation surrounding them. Naomi felt a surge of pride at the redhead's display of maturity and discipline, and hoped that two weeks in detention had cleared her head. But before Naomi could speak, a loud blast rippled through the air and jolted both Norma into a state of near panic as they felt the world churn. The older Norma turned her sight towards the explosion, and her eyes narrowed when she saw the faint green glow of treated dragonium fade away along with the fires and smoke into the torrential downpour.
"Claudia."
"Cap'n?"
"Any idea why there was a Liquid Drag explosion to our six o'clock?"
Claudia rubbed her chin in thought, before her eyes widened in understanding.
"That area's guarded by Squad Two, so Trish and Millia probably rigged some of our anti Mail mines with Liquid Drag? We were discussing this last night."
"So," Naomi said as she glared at the younger Norma," thirty six hours after we got pinned down by a Junkie armoured regiment and you had a discussion with your girlfriends to do something incredibly dangerous. Why wasn't I informed about this?"
"Uh..."
Naomi grabbed Claudia and stared into her face.
"Five days, if we survive. Ten for your two fuck buddies."
Claudia sighed and almost saluted when her captain released her, before she remembered she was out in the field and refrained. Naomi then looked back at the building and the precious cargo inside they guarded with their lives, checked her watch before she turned back to Claudia.
"It's almost time, so I'm going to execute our planned breakthrough with some changes to the plan."
Claudia's jaws tightened at the resigned tone of her commander.
"Changes, Ma'am?"
"We're not waiting for the reinforcements or Vice Captain Medea anymore, Cadet. Instead, we're breaking through to the coast through our three o'clock towards the coast three clicks from here."
Naomi pulled out a soaked map, shook off the water before she pointed to the symbols drawn in coloured markers which indicated their location and that of the estimated Manaist positions. Naomi ran her finger from the rectangle in black which stood for their camp to beyond a green circle that surrounded their current location.
"The contact we had with the junkies last night clearly indicated that local enemy ECM is based around one Mana Beacon here at point 12-B," Naomi pointed at a crude drawing of a truck with a radar array, "and since breaking through the dozen or so Bloodhound Ground-type Paramails with armour and infantry support is ill-advised with our two Musket Paramails and only half a platoon's worth of infantry, we're making a break here with me piloting the experiment inside."
Naomi's finger cut through the layer of water that had pooled on the surface of the waterproof map, the wake in the rainwater mapping out the route they're supposed to take.
"Mykonos Settlement will not abandon us. After we've not sent our scheduled coded signal, they're sure to send reinforcements. Being outside the range of Junkie jamming will enable them to find us."
Claudia looked at the route, and frowned in disapproval at both the route and the unwarranted optimism of her captain.
"Captain, this route's too-"
"Straightforward, yes. But we've got only three clicks from here to the shore. Even with the usual sloppy command and control of the average junkie unit, this unit was well-coordinated enough to pin us down and down all but two of our mails."
No room for fancy zig-zagging routes, thought Claudia.
Naomi folded the map and stuffed it into her armour before she turned back and started walking towards the building.
"Hard to believe a people once so spoiled and docile can be so good at war huh, Claudia?"
Naomi was at the door before she felt Claudia's hand grab onto her shoulder.
"Captain, what about the fifty or so new Norma and their families?"
Naomi fished out a bunch of keys and shoved them into the younger Norma's hand.
"Open the armoury. Everyone walks because the junkies aren't going to take prisoners."
/x/
Major Henri Pearson swore as he swatted yet another bloody mosquito feeding on his collarbone, before he reverted to viewing the burning wreckage that was once an assault lance of three Hunter(G) Paramails. Much as the wizened soldier would like to rag on the brass being complete dunderheads who had their collective heads up their asses, the rank and file to be frank were capable of utter idiocy of a different kind.
Figures, thought Pearson. After successfully preventing the box dodgers from escaping the dragnet they had set for them and their new ground type Paramail, the boys and girls of his regiment had gotten cocky and gotten an entire lance of four Hunters wrecked and their accompanying company of infantry either KIA or WIA.
Pearson spat out a gob of rainwater in disgust at the results of the attempted attack gone wrong, before he looked at the frame of his vehicle to take his mind off the mishap. His cracked lips smiled at the twin barrels of the 120mm cannons, the low profile of the his Type-95 tank, before his lips curled in disgust as a flash of lighting outlined the massive humanoid shape of the Hunter Paramail that knelt facing the objective with its fingers within the trigger guard of the rifle it reminded him too much of the Paramails that the Norma used, even if the eye-visor was replaced with a moveable mono-eye camera.
At least this variant had weapons built into the torso, thought Pearson before he re-entered the hull of his vehicle. His driver, a fresh faced young man in his early twenties turned to face him with a look of concern evident on his face.
"How bad is it, sir?"
"We'll still snuff out the Norma filth by the end of the day, Corporal. Don't worry."
The corporal nodded and turned back, while Pearson sighed at the nerves on display. Still, a far better sight for the old soldier, for at least now after everything gone to hell. Thanks to the Norma Angelise, soldiers were no longer glorified police and game hunters as they used to be before the Fall. Pearson breathed and filled his lungs with air, a personal switch he developed to prep his body to adapt to the liquid dragonium coursing through his veins before he summoned the Light of Mana and opened a comms hologram with the rest of the 2nd Armoured Regiment of the former Enderant Union Armed Forces.
"Attention all personnel. This is your commander speaking. The attempted pincer has failed, and the Norma are now aware we're going in for the kill."
Pearson bit his tongue to prevent himself for cussing out the poor excuses for soldiers under his command at the chorus of groans, and promised to discipline several particularly loud grumblers before he continued.
"To that end, we're doing a frontal assault. The remaining elements of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Squadrons will commence a frontal assault on the objective in-"
Pearson paused as he heard a high pitched whine which reminded him of a positron cannon before it fired, a lull of silence where the only thing he could hear was the rumble of his tank's engine and the rain, before his eardrums nearly broke when the roar of the beams ripped through the air. Pearson was thankful for the dim environs of the tank, for he shivered at the weapon that sounded way too loud, too angry to be the positron cannon he was too familiar with thanks to having once been on the receiving end of them.
"Someone get me a visual!"
Pearson was glad that someone in this unit showed some initiative, as another hologram opened to display something. It looks like a Paramail, but it's too big. Too bulky.
The Manaist commander watched in silence at the image of a forty feet tall humanoid machine burst out of a building that wasn't that big to begin with, before the cameras showed a gaping hole in the floor of the now ruined facility. Painted a rusty brown, the torso of the titanic mail bristled with gun ports that spewed rapid volleys of beam fire that pounded on the shields and armour of his Hunters mercilessly until they caved under the relentless assault of lasers. Even at four kilometres away, Pearson felt the ground shake as the unknown giant mail stomped forward, while two of the more familiar Musket Paramails fired on Hunters, tanks and infantry that attempted to flank and surround the machine.
A pair of Hunters fired a volley of rockets from a makeshit foxhole and Pearson watched as the projectiles streaked through the rain to collide against the titanic machine. His elation turned to despari as the smoke clear and the giant mail lumbered on, the only visible damage was the charred armour on its torso. The Paramail responded to the rocket attack by turning the large arm cannon it held on the right arm, and the screen went white when a massive beam emerged and fell upon the pair of Hunters and their another hologram opened up, Pearson watched helplessly as the eyes of the giant mail glowed and ominous red before it too went dead.
"Nothing left," Pearson muttered as he saw the slag and boiling earth that was once two heavily armoured Paramails and fortifications made to withstand aerial bombardment. "There's nothing left."
"Sir!"
The corporal pointed at a new screen that had appeared and the continued onslaught by the remaining elements of the 2nd Armoured that refused to give up. Pearson's spirit rose and he tightened his jaw when he saw parts of the giant mail's armour get whittled down and the machine faltered in it's relentless march. His morale rose further as he received a message from the commander of the reinforcing fleet en-route to cut off the Norma at the coast.
"All units, pursue the Norma. No prisoners!"
/x/
Claudia felt the chill through her pants as her boots splashed on the waterlogged mud and grass, while the rest of the Norma and their Manaist allies trailed behind her. She continued her run, and made sure to pace herself to prevent exhaustion while she kept her rifle slung over her shoulder and nozzle pointed downwards. Claudia came to a halt once she saw a stump of a tree that was split in half by lighting and raised a clenched fist, which prompted the other Norma infantry behind her to stop. Several of the newly discovered Norma or their families continued to run in a blind panic, before they were grabbed and shoved behind back into the cluster of shivering civies and upset Normas too injured to fight.
Claudia gave her nastiest glare, thankful that the red eyes she inherited from Ange helped to intimidate the stragglers into silence before she checked her pedometer. In the distant east, Claudia heard the thundering of cannon and beam, as well as the shattering of steel and earth. Several of the more curious Manaist and new Norma looked at the sight of battle in wonder, but most of the experienced Norma kept their eyes-and guns- trained on their surroundings. Claudia smiled as she saw the number on her pedometer and compared the image of the burnt out tree to the picture she fished out of her flak jacket.
"Good, one thousand steps exactly. This means we're at point 7-C."
Claudia raised her right fist again, before she opened her palm and pointed to the east before she dashed in that direction. The crowd paled at the prospect of changing direction towards where the sounds of battle were coming from, but grudgingly began to move when the Norma escorts started to nudge them. Claudia kept point, and turned back every time she heard the footsteps behind her falter. She counted about a thousand or so steps before she heard the dreaded splash as a body slumped into the waterlogged ground, which prompted her to spin on her heels to see a young teenage girl. The girl was slumped on her knees, which buried itself into the mud, while her formerly pink blouse and skirt was now a muddy tan that matched the jacket she wore. Claudia frowned as she saw the armband with Arzenal's crest of a dragon with a sword through it tied to her right hand, and shoved her way pass the others and loomed over the kneeling girl.
"Can't run anymore? Don't wanna fight anymore, Norma?"
The girl stared at Claudia, her brown hair soaked and dishevlled while she alternated between heaving sobs and rapid breathing. A sub-machine gun was slung over her shoulders, which now laid abandoned next to her open right hand laid palms up in the mud. Claudia looked at the Norma over with disgust, before she hauled the younger girl to her feet by the blouse.
"You really don't wanna fight and live anymore, Norma? I can make things real quick for you y'know."
A older woman dressed like the new Norma screamed and tried to dash out from the crowd towards Claudia, before she got tripped and pinned down by a Norma infantry escort. Claudia shrugged as the distraction was subduded and looked at the younger girl again.
"So," Claudia said as she glared at the Norma. "Not going to say anything."
The girl shut her eyes and tightened her jaw. Claudia sighed and raised her rifle.
"I really don't wann do this, you know. Not in front of so many people."
Claudia's right hand snaked out from beneath the rifle and into the girls blouse. She yelped before she burst into shocked laughter as Claudia made cooing noises and tickled her.
"Coochie Coochie coo-"
"Quit it!" Claudia laughed lightly as the girl shoved her away pulled down her blouse, her flush visible even in the dim light. Claudia picked up the waterlogged sub-machinge gun and shoved it back into the girl's hands.
"You sound energetic and look positively adorable, sweetie," Claudia said with a wink before her face reverted to it's usual stony mask. "Now let's get going."
Claudia had just turned around when she heard the sound of some kind of aircraft approaching and the girl calling her back.
"Ms Claudia. Are we expecting anyone to come rescue us?"
Claudia blanched and raised her rifle when she saw a VTOL craft approach them from the sky, followed closely by a Paramail in flight mode close behind.
/x/
Naomi tried desperately to keep her cool as the Morningstar's onboard computer showed yet more damage inflicted on the external armour. The Screamer Rocket pods on her left arm and torso were now spent, and the autocannons located below them was out of ammo and blasted to hell by continous volleys of tank fire from the Type 95 and Type 112 tanks while her right legs Mass Distribution System was all wonky after her torso armour absorbed the fourth round of Manaist beam fire. The slightly malfunctioning MDS meant that the weight and mass of the Mail sunk the Morningstar every time the left foot touched the waterlogged floor, and the junkies had caught on, directing fire at it to try and turn her mail into what it used to be before the Liberation from Embryo.
A coffin for the Norma,and the worst part is she didn't even get to customise the paint job on this one like she did with her Halberd mail which she had painstakingly upgraded over the years from a Glaive. How distressing.
Naomi pushed the morbid thoughts out of her mind as she continued to take the shortest direct route to the coast, while she made sure that her attacks were loud, flashy and determined to attract as much Manaist attention as she can. A squad of five Type 95 twin-barrelled MBTS rolled out of the vegetation, the roars of their guns doing insignificant damage to the leg armour, but raised the concern of Naomi as she blasted clean through the tanks with several bursts of beam fire. Another two Hunters charged at her from the left guns blazing, believing her spent launchers were no more a threat as they closed in.
"Good thinking, Junkies."
Naomi ejected the launcher, before she pulled out the hilt of a beam sabre from the discarded launcher and dissected the two enemy machines with a single stroke.
"But not good enough."
Behind her, Trish and Millia in their Muskets picked off any oncoming enemies that attempted to hit them from behind her. Naomi though to herself that the two girls more than made up for nearly killing all of them in an unauthorised detonatation of liquid dragonium, and decided she will rescind their punishment.
If they survive of course.
"Trish, Millia. You girls okay back there."
"Right as rain, Captain." Trish's husky voice sounded over her external speakers in response to her own hailing of them, much to Naomi's surprise. The captain had expected the usually more extroverted member to answer. Naomi moved the Morningstar in front of Trish's Musket so her head was right above the smaller Paramail in order to establish a direct connection between the two, and her voice cracked over the abused speakers of the radios within their machines.
"Alright, girls. Last one click before we're home free," Naomi said as she ejected the beam cannon from her right arm after the energy was spent, before she approached a firing line of Hunters firing at her while hiding behind a shield wall. Naomi glanced at the damage report that the computer was blaring a her, and did some calculations.
If I went at full throttle while laying down suppression fire, I might be able to make it.
Naomi nodded as she made her decision and charged towards the firing line, much to the surprise of her two squad mates who hit their engines to the max to cover the rampaging Morningstar. The intensity of the beam fire soon overwhelmed the attempts to answer by the singular shots fired haphazardly towards the Morningstar. The silver-white surfaces of the rectangle shaped shields soon glowed red hot as volley after volley of beam fire poured into them accompanied by Naomi's frenzied warcry, before the larger mass of the Morningstar dived onto the Hunter firing line and brought them down. Naomi and the two Muskets quickly fell on top of the downed Hunters and melted off the torsos of the machines, before Naomi stomped through the back of a Hunter that attempted to crawl away. The Norma captain allowed herself one smile of grim satisfaction, before she calmed down the two Norma currently flooding her radio with wild cheering and crying with a raised hand and shuffled slowly towards the coast.
"Hey, Captain."
Naomi thought of ignoring Millia, but decided she deserved an answer.
"There's a reason you chose volunteers out of us sorta experienced pilots, didn't you."
Naomi remained silent as the Morningstar trudged towards the coast.
"There's probably an enemy fleet waiting for us at the coast," Trish said with an acceptance Naomi didn't expect. "You're a complete cunt, Naomi for doing this. But if it means Claudia survives, I'm okay with it."
"Uh..."
"Millia!"
"Yeah, same here...I guess?"
Best to not dishonour their sacrifice, thought Naomi as she continued the walk towards the coast. As the coast entered visual range of the Paramail's external cameras, Naomi zoomed in to see who was going to deal the final blow, only to frown in confusion.
"This is...where did the enemy go?"
When the two Muskets caught up with her, Naomi heard a familiar song envelope the battlefield.
The Towagatari- Song of Light. But how?
Above them, the golden figure of the Vilkiss shone like the sun.
/x/
Pearson watched the holographic display relayed to him by his men as it showed the Norma Paramails being herded to their doom. True, the lost of almost one whole regiments worth- almost forty Paramails- hurt the Union bad and they would likely feel it in future battles. But the display of awe inspiring power by that new Paramail has- much as it galls him- earned his respect for the tenacity and technical skill of the Norma. Preventing that machine from supplementing their already fearsome arsenal of Ragnamails was well worth the price paid. The major smiled even as the last five of his mails he sortied got crushed. He had left only two mails and some AFVs worth of infantry to hunt down the race traitors and the straggling Norma, but that will have to wait. Another holographic screen popped up to replace the ones that was sent by the firing line, this time round it showed the view from the reinforcement fleet as they approached the coast and Pearson allowed himself a content smile and sigh.
"Checkmate," he muttered.
Then a golden light blotted out the screen, a song played in his head before the holograph faded and Pearson saw the sky light up. He felt the world rumble and his ears almost bled when the sound of tearing metal made him cup his ears. The freezing downpour pelted him and the howling wind roared at him, before a shadow fell over him and he was faced with the metallic head of a Paramail which leered at him.
No, not a Paramail. A Ragnamail.
"Now what do I see here? Here I am to pick up my daughter on her first official mission, and I find that she's surrounded by some fucking junkies trying to murder the fuck out of her. Tsk, tsk."
Pearson glared at the red framed robot as it shook its head, before it pointed its beam sabre at them.
"No one said you can bring friends, or extra toys for that matter. So I'm going to confiscate them, and your lives as well."
Pearson remained passive as his driver broke and fled, only to be cut down by a beam fired from the torso of the red Ragnamail which tore off the upper half of the young corporal. He felt the curiosity of the pilot, who peered at him intently as the cameras on the head of the machine zoomed in on him and the visor glowed.
"Not going to say anything? Some denial perhaps? Begging? Maybe some racial slurs about genetic throwbacks or box dodgers. You guys love that last one."
The wizened soldier removed his pistol and unloaded it into the the visor of the Ragnamail, before he tossed the weapon at it and began to smoke a soggy cigarette. Pearson puffed out some smoke rings as the Norma burst out laughing.
"God, and I thought the likes of you existed only in those shitty French movies Salia loves so much."
The Ragnamail drew the beam sabre back.
"Names' Hilda, old man. Nice to meet ya."
Hilda brought down the sabre on man and half tank.
"Nice killin' ya too. "
/x/
Taylor looked down on her mom, who had just crashed onto the couch in the living room after kicking the door in at two in the morning. Her nose wrinkled from the sour smell her mother exuded, but decided to ignore the stench and shook her mother while Momoka worked to repair the door. Ange cracked open one eye as she felt her daughter touch her, looked at the 9mm handgun in her right hand with approval before she shut it again.
"Tired," Ange murmured. "Sleep now."
"Mom," Taylor said with rising irritation evident in her voice. "It's about Shadow Stalker, the cape that wants to join us. She's here out of costume."
Ange sat up as Sophia walked towards the older Hebert with a scowl on her face. She scowled further as Ange's ruby eyes appraised her from head to toe, before the older woman extended a hand. Sophia looked at the extended hand, snarled and attempted to slap it away before she found herself pulled in and thrown over the couch. Ange whistled as Sophia took her immaterial form and landed without harm before she turned towards Taylor and Vivian, who grinned from ear to ear at the sight.
"I'll allow her to take the jungle survival test," Ange said while she threw a coin to knock Sophia's bolts out of her hand when she reached for the ones in her pocket. "But on two conditions."
"Which are?" Sophia growled.
"One, I will be the one doing the testing."
Vivian barked out a laugh as she slapped Sophia on the back and dodged a snap kick.
"Two, Taylor's almost old enough, so she takes the test too."