Chapter 9:
That's a HUGE MACHINE!

It had been several weeks since they had returned home. Ace went back to his own place in the city. Darien woke up very early, he needed a drink of water. Since his room was next to Chiyo's, he looked inside to see if she was still asleep.

She wasn't there.

"...?" He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. "She must have pulled a Tomiya and went on an early mission..." he whispered to himself before heading towards the kitchen for a drink.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chiyo was sitting in the cockpit of her AC, she named it "Titanium Ion", It was a middleweight, but it had a lot of armor for a middleweight. It was also armed extensively with Energy ammo, in order to keep AC costs low.

"...Launching!" The pilot of the transport copter announced, unlatching Chiyo's AC from the copter, dropping it into the forest below.

"Remember, your target is the enemy prototype, you shouldn't encounter any other resistance." The operator told Chiyo.

Chiyo nodded, adjusting her glasses. "Got it" She replied. Setting her AC into motion, she was picking up a large read on her radar. "Woah...that signal is huge." She said to herself. A dull buzzing in her head made her look through the leaves of the trees, and boost to the side to avoid a huge particle cannon blast.

"WHAT? Now, No AC can even carry a weapon like that!" She shouted, looking in the path of destroyed trees.

The prototype, the MTHA-08, looked a lot like a huge green pod with one visor and a glowing monoeye. Supporting this beast was a pair of large legs with fairly sized clawed feet. It was lined with barrels, for other particle cannons, and a large circle in the middle, for the main cannon.

"...Is this the prototype?" she asked herself, raising her right arm, firing the XCB-75 Laser Rifle. The long green string of focused energy sailed through the air. It came in contact with it's target, but did no damage, instead, the laser dissipated and sent a shimmer over a spherical form around the huge machine.

"?" Chiyo kept firing the gun at the target, as it turned around and it's Mega Particle Cannons began to prime again, to fire.

She was about to boost to the side, when three separate rounds from a different angle slammed into the huge MT, knocking it's aim off and sending the particle cannons in wayward directions.

"Hey! Wait! Why does your weapon hit it but not mine?" Chiyo asked, if anyone was listening.

"Because it's Generator is also making an improvised I-field, it dissipates lasers." the female pilot said, coming to a halt in front of the machine. It was a lightweight AC equipped with a spread bazooka.

The AC bounded into action, sliding between the legs of the MT and shooting upwards, damaging the shield generator in the process.

"Hit it! The shield is down!" The pilot said.

Chiyo boosted towards the MT, firing her laser rifle, tearing holes through the body of the MT.

The pilot got out of the damaged machine with an assault rifle, standing on a shoulder while shooting down at Chiyo's AC.

The pilot shouted "I'm not going to let you beat me! I'm going to destroy you! For the ideals of Sakata industries...!" There was an explosion, which incinerated the pilot, and the giant MT fell to the ground with a crash. Chiyo let out a sigh of relief.

"Mission accomplished" She said to herself, heading away from the area.

Tomiya was on his way out, he was leaving, he had recieved an assignment from an unknown source. He climbed up a rope leading into the cockpit of Cold Dragon. Once inside, he pressed a few buttons and gripped the two control sticks and manipulated them to get Cold Dragon to get up. He followed directions that the source had given him.

"There's nothing here..." He said to himself, then he heard the chatter of machineguns in the distance. Looking up, he saw smoke in the distance.

"It's probably over there!" and with that, he kicked his thrusters forward in that direction.

Inside a bunker, a woman in a white lab coat, and a somewhat short black skirt and a red undershirt was sitting at a computer, trying to get a communication computer running.

"Dammit, where's that Raven? Those Crest MTs are getting through the defense perimiter and I can't use any of these prototype weapons here, because they're just actual size dummy models!" She pushed her glasses up her nose and tucked some of her short black hair behind her ear, crossing her fingers.

Several bullets tore through an MT, Cold Dragon seemed like it was gliding across the air as it fired downward at the MT. Cold Dragon landed in front of the bunker, and the MTs stopped for a moment, shocked.

One of the MT pilots commed in to Crest HQ. "Headquarters! We've encountered a Raven! What should we do?" A video feed of a shadowed man appeared in the video display. "Kill him." The man said, looking up slightly, his glasses the only thing being seen, and the video turned off.

Another MT pilot turned to look at their Commander, which was shown by it's black color and a radio antenna on it's head. "Commander Mag, what do we do?"

"Open Fire!" the commander shouted, firing a bazooka round at Cold Dragon.

Something clicked in Tomiya's mind, and in a moment of what was easily explained as a fluke, his body moved to the right and his left hand grabbed the Bazooka round by the side. Tomiya looked down at the ground beneath him. The maneuver would have normally been an impossible one with all the rubble on the ground, but he didn't even tell himself to do that, he just...did it.

The MT commander's eyes went wide. "FIRE! FIRE!"

The MTs opened fire with their Machineguns. Cold Dragon slid behind a building, boosting around the building and blading the MT from the side. While the blade was still going through the first MT, Tomiya unleashed a barrage of bullets at the other MT, knocking out it's head lens for the camera, then piercing it's arm, and raking a line from it's shoulder to it's opposite leg, killing the pilot in the cockpit on the way. By that time, the blade had cut through the first MT and thrust into the cockpit of the commander's MT. The commander wasn't even able to scream. Tomiya pulled the blade out and let the MT fall, he looked up and there were more reinforcements on the way.

"HEY! OVER HERE!" The woman shouted, running out of the bunker towards the AC.

Tomiya narrowed his eyes. "What are you, stupid? There's more MTs coming and you're just standing around like nothing's happening? Oh, let me guess, I'm supposed to protect you or something?"

"Yes." The woman said.

Tomiya was silent for a few seconds, then sighed, kneeling the AC and holding his empty hand out. The woman stepped onto it, and Tomiya picked her up and set her in the empty hangar in his core unit. "Wait here." he told her. "You know, I would at least like to know the name of the princess I'm saving today." he said.

The woman blushed a little at being called "princess". "My name is Stephanie Eym...I used to work with Crest Industries, but allegedly, I sold info about Crest prototypes to other companies and now they want me dead for something I didn't do." She sighed, wiping off her glasses. "And may I be granted the name of my Knight in shining armor?"

Tomiya looked down from a high hill at the confused MTs, he got away in time. "Just call me Tomiya". He said.

Stephanie paused for a moment, before looking up to where the cockpit was. "Hey, can I stay at your place?"

"Ye-wait, what?"

"Yeah, Seeing as my home was one of the dorms in a Crest lab, and, yeah, Crest wants me dead now, so I don't have anywhere else to go."

"...Well, Alright, but I don't have any other beds, you'll have to take the couch."

"Fine by me." She said.

"...So what did you do over at Crest labs? Human expiriments, combat testing?" Tomiya asked.

"Kind of...I was on the R & D team, you know, developing new weapons/systems, stuff like that"

"Hm...well, I guess you could continue your work while staying with us." he said.

"Wait. "us"?" she asked.

Tomiya nodded. "Yes, I don't live alone."

"Oh"

Meanwhile, Till and Kaosu had wandered far away from the house, and decided to sit down on a large, grassy field.

Kaosu looked up at Till, who was sitting next to her. "Till...did you have something you wanted to tell me...?"

Till looked down at her, his visible eye blinking. "Well...It's going to be a bit difficult for me to tell you...because I don't know how you'll respond..."

Kaosu just looked up at him.

"I meant to tell you this a long time ago, before I left the Roter Tod...but I had never gotten a chance...The mission I meant to return from to tell you...I was hospitalized...because Dennis...He sent me on that almost suicide mission, and after that, I decided to leave, I wasn't going to put up with it."

Kaosu grabbed his hand gently. "What is it...?"

Till squeezed her hand back gently. "Kaosu...I...I love you."

Kaosu's eyes widened a little. "Till...I've wanted to hear those three words for the longest time...I was angry, and that's why I stayed with the Roter Tod, so I could find you...And give you another chance..." She leaned up, placing a hand on his cheek, and pulled him into a deep kiss. She lost her balance and fell over on top of him, their lips still locked.

The sun crept behind the mountains, leaving them to do whatever they wished to do within the night...

Chapter 9 End...