Akio blasted out of the hangar last with a great view of the cluster of spiral warrior mechs. Amber cried out in excitement, a smile taking over her face as she clung to the back of Akio's seat. Akio's hushed her, turning on the comm channel and tuning into the chatter. The tumultuous speaker made it hard to catch much intelligible words - though the intelligence of the soldiers themselves didn't help – yet Akio managed to catch enough to rule out the idea of the Anti-Spiral already being here. With a slim hand, Amber flicked off the noise.

"Don't waste your brain cells on them. You don't need them anyway; you already have backup. I'm here." Amber winked playfully.

"If you're going to be my wingman, you can't be sticking your head in my direction." Akio pressed a button which turned the cranial cover of the Daichi transparent. "If you spot something that doesn't look right, yell." Amber repositioned herself, sitting backwards on both the top of Akio's seat and his head, though mostly the latter.

"Gosh, it's so beautiful…" Amber took a moment to watch colorful galaxies, stars, and nebulas as they passed through her viewing port. "With this kind of view and a pretty girl in your backseat, how can I be sure you're not gonna park this mech somewhere?" Her sultry grin found its way back to her face.

"Trust me, if I had a backseat we'd be using it right now." Akio gritted his teeth. His black hair was flattened to his cheeks from the weight of Amber on his head.

"Listen to yourself!"

"Hold on and don't say anything, I'm gonna open a line with Bjørn." Akio's dexterous fingers splayed out across his dashboard, quickly selecting a multitude of buttons that made the speaker come to life with a scratching noise.

"Akio?" Bjørn's Scandinavian accent came through the speakers. Akio's eyes found Bjørn's black heavy artillery mech within the cloud of soldiers. It had four, wide legs, made to mount to a planet or ship surface, with a large cannon mounted atop the head.

"Strap in Bjørn, we're transforming." Akio smiled, the rush was coming and he could barely wait. Being caught in a current of spiral energy as your mech underwent a mechanical reconfiguration was thrilling. His Daichi's arms and legs disappeared into its shell, while a drill as wide as the mech shot out underneath it. "Coming at you!"

"Show me what you can do." The smile infected Bjørn as well as he strapped in, bracing himself in his cabin.

Akio's mech slammed into Bjørn's, shaking both of their cabs and sending Amber flying forward. Psychedelic colours streamed around both of their mechs as the different pieces shifted and changed. Metallic screeching and grinding filled both their cabins as a completely new mech assembled. With a wave of its arms and an experimental pose, the new fighter was assembled.

It stood on two legs four times the height of a Daichi. Its armour was patterned black and red, with silver joints. The head was identical to Akio's Daichi, and one of the two arms was replaced with the cannon from Bjørn's mech.

"Not too bad!" Bjørn's lightly bearded face appeared on Akio's screen without prompt. His face went from excitement to confusion and then laughter. Akio blushed when he realized that his own cabin was being fed to Bjørn's screen. "Akio, is that her? I didn't know you were that smitten!"

"Hello!" Amber's smile nearly filled the screen, waving while Akio's face darkened a shade per second.

"This is Amber…" She could feel the heat come off Akio's face. "She snuck in and couldn't leave."

"Your secret is safe with me," Bjørn chuckled. His face shrunk on the screen until it disappeared.

"The good news is, it's a lot roomier now." Amber leaned back in her new chair. The entire back area was now transparent, a wide view of both the battlefield and sparkling stars. "How kind, thanks for the consideration."

"If you're going to be here, you might as well not be getting in my way," Akio didn't look at her when he spoke, his eyes were too busy taking in the new controls and dashboard design. The entire mech was a child of his spiral power, and so it seemed he only need guess what any particular control's designation was for it to do just that.

"Akio, duck!" Amber's sudden warning was barely enough to dodge the blaring red beam that shot over his mech's head.

"What was that?" Bjørn's face was shown desperately trying to look over his shoulder and spot the attacker. Akio couldn't blame him; he was trying to do the same thing.

"Coming at us hot left side, dash right!" Akio didn't hesitate and threw the right handle forward, sending the new mech flying right. A flash of metal and colour flew past his right viewport, so close it made the cabin shudder. It was in front of them now, a small black Daichi mech probably designed to mock the spiral opponents. Though it was small, Akio knew better than anyone the damage that a single one of them could do.

"We've got it in our sights, lock onto it while I warm it up!" Bjørn yelled. A crescendo whurr sounded as the cannon-arm of the mech fired up. The tiny black target began to dart about, beginning evasive maneuvers.

"It spotted us charging up!"

"I know that!"

"Then lock on to him!"

A series of thick blue beams of energy shot out towards the mech, barely missing it as it dodged and flew away. It disappeared above their viewports, followed by a great shaking of their combined mech. Akio swiped and spun in an attempt to knock it away, but it proved impossible to pinpoint, like a mosquito you can hear but not see.

"That lookout of yours could be useful right now, Akio!"

"I can't find him either!" Amber defended.

"It could be a stolen Daichi." Akio concluded. "That would mean it has all the same specs. Even if it's fast, it can do barely anything to us on its own."

"What would it have to combine with?" Bjørn asked.

Everyone went silent for a moment. Akio was the first to realize, his hand flying to the comm to warn the others. It was too late, for the moment it switched to the public channel he could hear the scream of a man.

"Down there, by the ship engines!" Amber spotted. Akio saw it too, a black daichi had hijacked a friendly mech and was in the process of transforming. The man that screamed had been jettisoned out into empty space, though luckily other mechs rushed to his aid.

"Get it before it can transform!" Akio threw forward the main controls, thrusting the mech forward faster than it was meant to go. "Lock on now Bjørn!"

"Done!" The black Daichi now had a set of crosshairs hovering over it on Akio's screen.

"Firing!" Akio yelled, smashing a fist down on a button. More blue lights streamed out of their cannon, which was now glowing red, and coalesced on the locked on target, nearly sure of hitting. They did hit, sending the daichi back and stopping him from completing his transformation. The friendly mech now stood out, separate from it.

"Whew." Bjørn slumped down in his seat. "That was close."

Their cabin rumbled again, causing each of them to shoot back to attention.

"One is trying to board us!" Amber exclaimed. Moments later she dived back into Akio's seat.

"What the hell? Stay on your own side!" A drill slammed through their cabin and into the seat that Amber was sitting on not moment before, highlighting her decision.

"It's trying to force its way into our programming to take us over!"

"See if you can stop it!" Akio's mind and eyes scrambled over the available controls, trying to think of something that could shake off the enemy. Nothing came to mind, an incredibly frustrating realization for him. He always had an idea, that was why he was a Daichi pilot. He could think smarter and faster than a normal soldier, but not he was dumbstruck as a large drill was about to bisect his mech and take over, probably jettisoning them all out too. Amber shoved him out of the way suddenly, gaining a better position in the heap that the front seat had turned into. She threw off his hands and her hands made it to the dashboard. Her fingers danced across it not unlike Akio's, hitting a selection of buttons. It only took a few for Akio to realize what she was doing.

Amber was forcing the mech apart.

With the flick of the last switch, the two mech's separated. Bjørn was fired off downwards while Akio and Amber firing upwards. With how interlocked the mech was before, the enemy daichi was left drilling into nothing in space.

"Nice move, gal!" Bjørn whooped.

"He's too fast for a big mech like that." Amber panted, even though any of them hadn't really done any physical exertion.

"If we split apart, we can match its speed while Bjørn takes it down." Akio finished. It was brilliant really. Anything was brilliant to Akio if it was thought of in a situation that stumped him. "Bjørn, mount on the Vigilance for stability. We're gonna dogfight this thing."

Amber climbed back on top of Akio, sitting on his head again. This time he swore she shuffled her butt around much longer than necessary.

"It's there." Amber spotted it once again. "Trying to get behind Bjørn."

Akio shot off after it, faster than the previous mech ever could. The moment the opponent saw them racing towards it, it shot off upwards. Akio was now able to follow, and chased it with a brilliant blue stream coming from his engine. He matched it loop for loop and dive for dive, making sure to never lose sight of it.

"I can't lock onto it if it's moving like that, try to send it directly at me." Bjørn explained. Akio nodded, since now they had live streams sent to the other's screen. He cut it off when it tried to turn, making sure it could go nowhere but directly at the massive Vigilance, and Bjørn.

"Make sure it doesn't get away, I don't want to hit you instead."

"Don't worry about that." Akio flicked a cover away and pressed a button down. The hands of his Daichi disappeared and were replaced by small drills. They spun and extended, sinking into the black daichi's back and keeping it in place.

"Firing!" Bjørn reported. From the barrel end, the shots that Bjørn's mech made were just blue light that were too bright to look at. Akio had no hesitation in covering his eyes, he trusted Bjørn's accuracy. Sure enough, the weight on his drills went away. He opened his eyes, pulling up his mech moments before it could slam into the Vigilance.

"We got it!" Amber exclaimed, throwing her arms in the air and hurting Akio's neck. Strangely, he didn't seem to mind right now.

"Yeah..." Akio chuckled. "Yeah, we did."

"It doesn't look like there are any more of those." Bjørn said through the speaker. "There were five, maybe ten in all. They were probably send to test us; see how we would react."

"Seems logical enough, except for those black daichi." A drop of sweat fell down Akio's face. "Those things were totally new to us, and as far as I know no other battleships have encountered them either. If it was just a test, why not send something a little more disposable?"

"That's why... Akio, look at the one we hit." Amber gulped.

Akio looked and couldn't believe what he saw. A human pilot in a black suit hung out of the cabin, dead, killed by him. What's more, the mark of the Akio's battalion was embroidered upon his chest.