Author's notes:
No reviews for me once again, judging from the look of things… (sigh) …Or well, I'll just keep writing this story of mine anyway! (forced smile) And now it is time for…
Showdown in Tinsel City, part 2This time, with Lucy fully aware of the danger, her opponent's shot failed to find its mark. Priss, the Blue Saber was an excellent marksman, but Lucy's superhuman reflexes were also at the height: she couldn't tell that dodging the Blue Saber's quick and very precise shots was exactly easy, but she was able to do it so far.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lucy noticed that the Green Saber also sprang into action, running in half-circle around Lucy while quickly closing the distance between them. From the look of things, she was going to engage Lucy in melee combat.
Lucy grinned: the Green Saber will be the first to die, then. Though her head still hurt and was bleeding profoundly, the initial pain shock from the shot she took has passed, and she was fully able to use her Vectors again, as the Green Saber will soon learn.
Dodging several more shots from the Blue Saber, Lucy waited for the Green Saber to come into the reach of her Vectors, and as soon as it happened she immediately released all her Vectors with intention of killing her opponent on spot. What happened next, however, took Lucy by surprise, as in the last moment the Green Saber made a summersault backwards and then quickly jumped out of the reach of Lucy's Vectors. It was almost as though this was what she was planning to do from the very start…
"A feint!" Lucy realized immediately, as she tried to quickly jump away, fully aware that the Blue Saber ready to take advantage of her momentary surprise.
Not quickly enough, as it turned out to be, for the next moment Lucy felt a stab of pain as the Blue Saber's next shot found its mark on her left side, leaving another non-critical, but profoundly bleeding wound.
Feeling a sudden chill, Lucy looked at her enemies who paused before pressing the attack. Though none of her injuries were critical, the beating she took earlier from Nana together with the more recent laser shots were beginning to take their toll on her, and as the blood flowed profoundly from her wounds, Lucy could feel her strength slowly draining along with it. And with a sudden dread Lucy realized, that she probably wasn't going to walk out of here alive…
Unlike Lucy, Nana had somewhat easier time fighting these new enemies: though the White Saber kept firing at her with both her laser cannons, her aim wasn't as infallible as that of the Blue Saber, which made the job of dodging the White Saber's shots much easier for Nana. And the Pink Saber's shots were even less accurate, going wide off their target as often as not.
But even so, Nana knew that she couldn't let this go on forever: sooner or later she would make a mistake, and taking the White Saber skill and reflexes into account, it would likely take but a single mistake on Nana's part for the situation to change dramatically.
Nana fully realized that she will have to go into offense, and soon, if she wanted to get out of this mess alive, which she REALLY wanted. But it was easier to say then do: with skill and reflexes the White Saber displayed, Nana knew that getting into a striking distance from her without getting hit by one if not more of her laser shots wouldn't be easy. And not only that; Nana was rather unsure of how to go about "disabling" her new opponents when, or if, she gets into a striking distance from them. She could somehow feel that unlike all the previous enemies she faced, these new opponents were human underneath their metallic armor, and she wanted to harm them even less then her fellow boomers; after all, she was painfully aware that both she and the combat boomers she faced were made with a sole purpose of fighting and killing, while these humans, on the other hand, must have had much nicer things to live for. Why humans would want to fight at all, when there were combat boomers made exactly for that, Nana had no idea.
But the next moment Nana's thoughts were very rudely interrupted, as a laser beam went through her right side, narrowly missing any vital parts of her as it cut through her body. Though Nana didn't allow herself to be fully distracted from the combat, she nevertheless couldn't help losing her focus just a little as she considered what to do, and that was as much of a distraction as her opponent needed.
"Perhaps I shouldn't have worried about how to disable them before I even got a chance to do that?"
Tough sudden pain prevented Nana from using her Vectors for a while, she nevertheless managed to jump backwards and to the side, avoid two more shots from the White Saber, and another one from the Pink Saber.
But the White Saber was nowhere near being through with Nana yet, and the next moment what looked almost like two streams of light shot downwards from two short wings that were coming from behind the White Saber's shoulders, as the White Saber's jet thrusters sent the White Saber into graceful flight. Under different circumstances, Nana would probably find this sight quite beautiful, but the White Saber was quick to show her just how deadly this beauty was, as the very next moment she began to literary rain numerous laser shots down upon Nana.
But by that time Nana has already coped with the pain from the shot she took, and was fully able to use her Vectors once more. Wasting no time, she pushed herself off the floor with her Vectors and made a long and nearly instantaneous jump to the side, which took her far from the White Saber's zone of fire.
This maneuver somewhat took Sylia, the White Saber by surprise, as she hasn't seen Nana doing something like that yet, and she couldn't help cursing slightly under her breath; at the speed she was flying right now it would be very difficult to change the trajectory of her flight in mid air, and it meant that she will have to land before going after BU-07V again, which in turn meant that BU-07V will have more time to recover and perhaps even counterattack.
But what happened the next moment took all three combatants by surprise, as Nana's jump inadvertently took her into close proximately to the Pink Saber, Nene. Though initially taken completely by surprise, Nene recovered from it rather quickly, and in a few seconds she raised her arm and shot at Nana with her laser cannon, forcing her to quickly make a short half-jump half-step to the side in order to dodge her shot. Nene may have been the worst shooter among the Knight Sabers, but it didn't mean that she was completely hopeless, and the close proximately to the target gave her a fair chance of hitting it.
Nene herself was neither surprised nor particularly disappointed when her first shot missed, after all, she was kind of used to missing more often then not, and determined to prove her worth in combat this time, Nene was preparing to shot again when she heard Sylia shouting to her.
"Nene, the distance!"
"Na-nani?"
A quick consultation with her tactical computer shed light on what Sylia was talking about as well as explained the fear in her usually calm voice: there was but a meter and a half between Nana and Nene, and Nene's tactical computer promptly told her that her survival possibility was zero percent. In fact, according to her tactical computer's calculations, she should have already been dead by now…
"IIE!"
With all her determined to prove her worth in combat this time gone in a blink, Nene tried to hurriedly back away from her opponent, hoping against hope that her tactical computer's calculations were somehow wrong and she will be able to get out of her deadly opponent's threat range before something bad will happen to her.
But as per Murphy's Law, this wasn't destined to be the case, and as panicky Nene tried to hurriedly back away from her opponent, she unsurprisingly stumbled and fell hard on her rear, able only to stare in horror at her opponent, who was probably going to end her life any moment.
But on her part, Nana was more then a little bewildered by her opponent's antics: at the moment, she looked nothing like a merciless killer sent to kill her, but more like a girl caught in the situation she would have very much liked to avoid. In this regard, the Pink Saber kind of reminded Nana of… Herself.
Needless to say, Sylia was more then a little surprised to see Nana just standing in front of Nene and looking at her; she has already began mourning Nene and cursing herself for taking the youngest Knight Saber to a mission as dangerous as this the moment she saw her stumble and fall. In their short but intense battle, Nana clearly demonstrated abilities that went well beyond that of any human, but then…
"Why doesn't she attack?" Sylia asked herself.
But needless to say, Nene was not in position to ask herself such questions, and as the horrified girl was looking up at her deadly opponent standing just a little over meter away from her, she finally did the only thing left for her to do in this situation: she screamed "KYAAA!" on top of her lungs and opened the wild auto-fire she was infamous for.
Not a very good shooter at the best of times, right now Nene didn't make even a minimal effort at aiming, meaning that most of her shots went wide off their target. But the sheer amount of shots fired at completely off-guard Nana over a short period of time ensured that quite a few of them found their mark nevertheless, delivering a number of light injuries to Nana. This time, it was Nana's turn to back away from her opponent; though none of the injuries she received so far were critical, the sheer number of them weakened her, and the pain made her temporary unable to use her Vectors once again.
Luckily for Nana, Nene's fire lasted for but a few seconds, and the next moment her overheated laser cannon suddenly went silent: Sylia has never designed it for the kind of berserker shooting Nene performed from time to time. But of course, Nana was fully aware that even now when the Pink Saber stopped shooting for the time being, she still had another opponent to worry about, and her physical condition left a lot to be desired, to put it mildly…
The battle between the Knight Sabers and their opponents was quickly drawing to an end, but unbeknown to all the combatants, somebody has taken a keen interest in it…
Unnoticed by the combatants, and invisible on Mackie's radars due to a powerful ECM system it possessed, an unremarkable truck painted in plain grey color slowly approached the improvised battlefield and stopped at some distance from it. It all happened a few minutes ago, and now the truck's single crewman observed the unfolding battle and the turn it was quickly taking with displeasure: his superior wasn't going to like it.
But he had little choice in this matter, and the man quickly contacted his superior via the comlink.
"I'm sorry to report that Lucy and Nana are unable to handle the Knight Sabers, just as you predicted."
But against the man's worst fears, his superior's response was very calm, which was understandable considering that this was the most likely turn he expected this three-sided battle to take, and he was in fact preparing against it.
'Very well… Do it.'
The man didn't waste more time, and on his command the truck's rear door opened and one by one four human-sized shapes stepped out of it. They were painted dark red and more or less humanoid in appearance, but their size was the one thing that was deceiving, for the moment boomers stepped out of the truck into the open space they seem to unfold, becoming a little over half again as big as they used to be.
These boomers were one of GENOM's less known boomer models, BU-62C Combat Boomers, specifically developed to be sold to communists and indeed exclusively sold to them. Their current owner obtained them as a side gain during one of his schemes, but although they were more notably more powerful then the common BU-55C, originally he never intended to use them: the enemies he had weren't going to be brought down by the measures that ordinary, and it was the fact these boomers' owner has learned the hard way. But today, these boomers will serve their purpose…
Seeing injured Nana backing away from Nene removed all of Sylia's doubts regarding what to do with her: it was an opportunity she couldn't afford to miss. She will save her friend's life, and if it means that she won't be able to ask questions later, so be it.
Sylia instantly broke into the run, quickly reducing the distance between Nana and herself, and the moment she was in range at which she could hope to his boomer girl she opened fire. But Nana was fully aware of the danger she left behind and the moment she heard metallic footsteps she jumped sidewards, throwing herself to the floor and rolling over, thus getting from under Sylia's fire. Though her injuries were numerous, she was not finished yet…
Lucy, on the other hand, was in notably worse condition: by now, she had another more or less serious injury, this time on her right side – a courtesy of Priss, and a more light wound on her left shoulder – a courtesy of Linna, the Green Saber. She was bleeding, she was in pain, and her enemies always remained just outside the reach of her Vectors, almost as though they were mocking her. More then anything she wished to take at least one of them to the grave with her, but now, it didn't look like it was going to happen…
But even as her enemies were preparing to move in and finish her off, the was a sudden roar of engines, and in a few seconds two large dark red vaguely humanoid figures appeared on the building's upper intact storey – BU-62C Combat Boomers.
Though neither Linna nor Priss has faced this type of boomers ever before, they both immediately recognized the danger they posed: in addition to standard torso-mounted heat cannon and mouth-mounted laser cannon BU-55C had, these boomers also a heavy caliber anti-tank railguns built into their right arms, and an anti-personal heavy assault rifles built into his left arms.
The boomers' hostile intentions were plain to see even before they opened fire at Linna and Priss. But two Knight Sabers didn't allow themselves to be taken by surprise, and the next moment both of the jumped away, dodging the railgun shells the boomers shot at them. And while several shots from the boomers' rapid-firing assault rifles managed to find their marks on Priss' armor, whose hardsuit was the heaviest and therefore the slowest of the two of them, they were nowhere near being powerful enough to penetrate her heavy armor.
Priss calmly stood her ground as the boomer, who was slower still, turned to face her, shooting more bullets from his assault rifle at her, which however merely grazed her heavy armor. When the boomer fully turned, Priss readily returned the favor by placing two shots from her laser cannon into the boomer's torso, which however had equally little effect on a heavily armor boomer.
"Huh, our lasers are not powerful enough to penetrate that armor? Well, how about this?"
Quickly switching her laser cannon from normal to power shot mode, Priss fired another laser shot at the boomer, neatly taking his entire right arm off as she hit the boomer where his right arm connected with his shoulder. Priss couldn't help smirking behind her helmet: without his main weapon, the boomer was no longer a threat to consider, meaning that she was free to take care of other business…
Unlike Priss, who calmly took all the shots she knew wouldn't cause any significant damage to her hardsuit, Linna took personal pride in dodging every shot the boomer fired upon her as she sprinted towards him. Not fully aware of what kind of opponent he was facing, the boomer viewed the closing of distance between his opponent and himself as advantageous, and as soon as Linna was close, the boomer slid his torso plates aside, revealing the white slots of his heat cannon, which he intended to use to fry his opponent in her armor.
This was not destined to be the case, however, for the next moment Linna jumped into air, and after making a summersault landed on the boomer's shoulders, pressing the palms of both her hands to the sides of the boomer's head. The next moment there was a loud sound of explosion, and the boomer's head seemed to simply disappear without a trace, as Linna fired her knuckle bomber, blowing the boomer's head off.
With the boomer clearly disabled, Linna jumped off him, landing gracefully to her feet even as the boomer's body fell to the ground, where it remained lying still. Afterwards, Linna proceeded to glance around, as she tried to appraise the changed combat situation; she had no doubt about Priss' ability to deal with both her boomer and apparently heavily damaged BU-01V, but she was aware that her other friends could be under attack of these new boomers as well, and at least one of them would likely be in dire need for help…
Sylia was about to press her assault on Nana, when a new boomer appeared, blocking her path.
"Damn it!" Sylia couldn't help cursing out loud
Though Sylia was known for usually keeping her cool under almost any circumstances, she didn't like the turn this battle took over the sudden, particularly the fact that this new boomer cut her off from Nene, and Sylia knew that her youngest teammate was probably in desperate need of help. Sylia could hear the sound of more shooting behind her, and she quickly realized that Linna and Priss were attacked by these new boomers as well.
"Is it a trap?" Sylia wondered, "No, Fargo would have never done that to me, so I have to assume there are forces in play he was not aware of…"
Sylia's thoughts were interrupted as the new boomer opened fire at her, but she was ready for it.
'Mackie, back Nene up with a motorslave!' Sylia shouted through her comlink as she charged at the boomer.
Though Sylia usually was nowhere near as reckless as Priss in combat, this time she knew that time was of the essence, and with her hardsuit even more heavily armored then Priss', Sylia bothered to dodge only the heavy railgun shell as she quickly covered the distance between herself and the new boomer even as the twin laser-edged swords slid from her powered gauntlets. The next moment – and Sylia made two lightning-quick slashes, neatly severing both of the boomer's arms off, depriving him of his main weapons.
But not all of them.
Sylia realized that she acted too hastily only as the boomer opened his mouth and shot his powerful laser cannon at her, which Sylia had no way of dodging at this range. And despite Sylia's heavy armor, the shot left an almost through hole in her torso plate, causing her to stagger backwards, almost falling.
But despite the pain she felt, Sylia still managed to turn a near fall into somewhat controllable summersault, tumbling away from the armless boomer even as he slid his torso plates aside to fire his heat cannon at her, which would have had a deadly effect on Sylia if only she hasn't already got out of its range.
Now when she was out of danger for a moment, Sylia could take time to use a little "trick" she was able to perform to disable the pain receptors in her brain, and she immediately felt the pain from the shot she took becoming nothing more then unpleasant memory, at least for the time being. But even so, things weren't developing up to Sylia's liking: the armless boomer didn't pose a serious threat to her now, but it will likely take her some to get past it to Nene. Sylia could only hope that the youngest Knight Saber will last this long…
'Mackie, back Nene up with a motorslave!'
But Mackie, who was also observing the unfolding battle on his radars didn't need this instruction: he has already been acting since the moment four new boomers appeared on the battlefield out of nowhere.
Upon Mackie's command, Knight Saber Trailer's side door opened, and then a hydraulic boom arm took a large pink-colored bike out of Knight Saber Trailer's cargo bay and placed it on the street. And in a few seconds the bike quickly changed its shape upon Mackie's mental command, transforming into the large humanoid robot, easily twice as tall as any human.
The next moment, the motorslave's back-mounted thrusters came to live, as the vehicle rushed upwards towards the building's upper intact storey. Lacking a hardsuit of his own, necessary to truly pilot a motorslave, the best thing Mackie was able to do is to mentally take control over it using the neuro-control gear that Knight Saber Trailer was equipped with, among other things. But even though Mackie now guided the motorslave with but his thoughts, the machine's response was nevertheless slower then if it had been truly piloted, making the already slow motorslave reacting even slower. It was obviously not the way a motorslave should have been used in combat, but in the current situation, it was nevertheless better then nothing…
Nene was already frightened as much as she thought was humanly possible before the most recent development, but now she realized that things could always get worse: with the new boomers attacking the other Knight Sabers over the sudden, the pink-haired boomer girl Nene knew she didn't fully disabled yet somewhere nearby and…
"Oh no!"
Among the overall chaos, Nene suddenly plainly saw the other V-type Boomer slowly approaching her, with killing intent clearly written in her red eyes.
Though for a while her own enemies were busy with the new boomers who suddenly attacked them, from the speed and effectiveness with which they dealt with the new threat Lucy could plainly see that her chances of killing them wasn't particularly improved. She was about to strategically withdraw from this battle when her eyes suddenly fell onto the Pink Saber, who was still sitting on the floor and didn't look like she could pose any threat worth mentioning.
In fact, Lucy was even more right then she knew, because Nene's main weapon, a somewhat lightened laser cannon comparing to that of other Knight Sabers was still out of working order; Nene really overloaded its heat-sink cooling system with her last burst of fire. Which left Nene with her weakened versions of ankle bombers as her only remaining weapons, and she was even worse in melee combat then she was at shooting. Not to mention that melee combat was not an option against the kind of opponent she was currently facing…
But even as Nene was ready to give in to complete desperation, a familiar pink silhouette suddenly stepped into her view, given her a new surge of hope: it was as though her motorslave personally came to her rescue! And Nene knew the person who was controlling it right now too well…
"Mackie!"
"Hiya, Nene-san!" A surprisingly boyish voice came from the huge armored robot, as it turned its head to Nene for a second as if to cast a glance at her before returning its attention to the red-haired boomer girl.
The said red-haired boomer girl, on her part, didn't like the way things were developing in the least. She started to think that perhaps she has made a mistake by decided to kill a seemingly helpless enemy off before taking her leave, when her much larger opponent finally raised a kind of a large assault rifle he was armed with and opened fire at her… Surprising her with the fact that it was actually firing conventional, even if very heavy caliber ammunition at her.
And despite all the pain and the past injuries she took, Lucy smirked: there was no way this would work on her, something like a railgun or a gauss rifle – maybe, but not ordinary bullets, no matter of what caliber they were. Their caliber was still a little too heavy for her to simply stop them in the air, but she was able to deflect them off their path with effortless ease, as she began to slowly advance at her larger opponent.
Back in Knight Saber Trailer, Mackie was openly surprised at the lack of effect a heavy assault rifle, as much anti-tank as it was anti-person, was having. Sure, his sister Sylia made it a point that tell them that these boomers were capable of stopping or deflecting most conventional ammunition with relative ease, but even so, that was a bit too much in Mackie's opinion.
But the problem was that he didn't have much of a choice in regard of a weapon: at their current stage of development, the most powerful projectile weapons were notably more effective against heavily armored vehicles or boomers then any laser weapons of the same size, and as these were the kind of opponents motorslaves were designing to fight, they weren't equipped with any laser weapons.
The was one other thing Mackie could do, however, and even though this particular weapon would be hard to fire in motorslave's humanoid mode, as it was originally designed to be used primary in motorslave's bike mode, particularly over such a relatively short distance, Mackie thought that it was a chance nevertheless…
And the next second the pink-colored motorslave suddenly stopped its rather ineffective fire, and instead bowed over in Lucy's direction as much as its design allowed it to. At first, Lucy was rather surprised by her enemy's actions, but this surprise quickly disappeared as she saw a small puff of smoke appearing from the large machine's back: the motorslave shot a missile at her!
However, even in her current physical condition, Lucy's reflexes were at their height, and she was aware of the danger handling missiles very well: though she could have easily stopped the missile in mid air with her Vectors, such an abrupt stop would likely cause the missile to detonate, and the resulting explosion was one of few things Lucy had absolutely no protection from. Her best chance would have been to carefully change the missile's course with her Vectors so that it would miss her, or to simply jump from the missile's path, or…
Lucy's smirk grew only wide as the missile suddenly made a graceful U-turn, now going straight for the motorslave that launched it: it was quite an accomplishment even for a V-type Boomer like her, and Lucy couldn't help but feel proud of it.
On his part, Mackie barely registered what has happened, when his own missile hit the pink-colored motorslave straight in the chest, burying into it before exploding. The missile was a HEAT one.
The missile was still nowhere near strong enough to destroy the heavily-armored motorslave on spot, but the combination of the blow and the resulting explosion nevertheless caused the vehicle to stumble backwards, with much of its torso armor gone. But these news were less important comparing to the fact, that the next moment grinning Lucy stood right before the pink-colored motorslave…
To her disappointment, Lucy was fully aware that there was no human pilot in this vehicle, or any other kind of conscience for that matter, but it didn't prevent her from disabling the vehicle in the way she found the most enjoyable: first its arms, then its legs were neatly separated from its body, before Lucy used her Vectors to throw what was left of the vehicle away with all the strength she could master, cutting though the pink-colored motorslave's torso a second before it was thrown out of her Vectors' reach. The result was spectacular, to say the least: a few seconds later a blazing flower bloomed at some distance away from the building they were fighting it, quite a majestic sight if you don't think about what was at the bottom of it.
Lucy enjoyed the sight she was responsible for creating for a few seconds, before finally turning to even more dispirited Nene, who didn't quite remembered that she still had to get to her feet as she was watching a quick but intense battle between Lucy and Mackie, and now she was more then a little dispirited by its outcome. Even though Nene was fully aware that Mackie wasn't physically present in her destroyed motorslave, she was nevertheless rather depressed by the fact that he came to aid her only to be defeated like this.
At least it was definitely a good thing that Nene has never given much thoughts to the way Mackie remote-controlled their motorslaves when it was necessary, for at this very moment Mackie was breathing heavily back in Knight Saber Trailer, and for a good reason too: there was one major drawback in the neuro-control he was using, as any serious structural damages done to the vehicles were registered by the controller as his or her own. Of course, the neuro-control system had a safeguard feature for the case of critical damages, and the control was immediately terminated the moment Nene's motorslave's arms were cut off, making the entire experience very brief and therefore somewhat less traumatic for Mackie. But he nevertheless got a very good idea of how it would have felt to have your arms cut off, and it took him a few seconds to recover enough to use the same "trick" Sylia used earlier and block the pain receptors in his brain. But even so, the memory of what has just happened wasn't something he would be able to shrug off easily, particularly since it was the first painful experience he has had since he started to offer his limited help to his sister and the Knight Sabers.
But meanwhile, Nene had her own, and in many ways far more important concerns to worry about, which were centered on the red-haired boomer girl that was once again advancing towards her. With her friends quite far from her, and most of the fighting the remaining boomers, Nene was painfully aware of the fact that she wasn't going to get any aid from them. And now looking into the grinning face of her enemy, Nene realized that this was probably going to end very badly for her…
"Hey, what do you think you are doing? Don't you think it is time for you to get out of here?"
Notably annoyed to be distracted from killing her enemy off once again, Lucy half-turned sidewards to look at the speaker, who turned out to be none other but her "little sister" of all people. Saying that Lucy was surprised would have been an understatement, in fact, she felt compelled to mirror Nana's questions: ask her exactly what did she think she was doing. With both herself and the armored people who attacked them busy, Lucy would have imagined Nana would take this opportunity to flee from this battle, as any reasonable person would have done in her position, but why she was still here, and moreover, why did she seemed to be opposing to Lucy killing at least one of their new enemies off before she will take her leave? It was completely beyond her.
But as a matter of fact, Nana wasn't quite sure why she was doing it herself; the only thing she was sure of that the Pink Saber didn't deserve the kind of fate Lucy clearly had in store for her. It was true that the Pink Saber attacked her earlier, but while Nana bore her share of wounds from this attack, she realized that the Pink Saber attacked her in a panicky attempt to save her own life rather then for any other reason: Nana wasn't really going to hurt her, but the Pink Saber couldn't know it for sure, could she?
"She did what I could have done if I was in her place… No, she rather did what I HAVE done in her place," Nana realized, as she recalled her battle with Lucy.
Of course, Nana didn't forget that the Pink Saber tried to kill her earlier too, but still, she was human while Nana was a boomer, so in her opinion this was sort of excusable, in a way… In the very least, Nana was fully aware of the fact that the most humans didn't value a boomer's life in the same way the valued the life of other humans.
Meanwhile, Lucy was for once unsure about what to do. Things between her and Nana weren't over yet, far from it, but even though sharing the same enemies didn't make them allies in any way, Lucy fully realized that now it was not a time to resume her fight with Nana. Not only both of them had other enemies to worry about at the moment, but she also couldn't help noticing that Nana was in better physical condition then her right now, which effectively reduced her chances of defeating the younger girl in battle to zero.
It was at that moment when another voice, distant but empowered by a loud-speaker broke Lucy's doubt about what to do.
"Lucy, Nana, get down here quickly!"
Casting a quick glance at Nana and seeing that a younger girl made no move to follow this command, Lucy quickly decided to follow it herself. She didn't feel particularly compelled to follow it, unlike it was normally the case before, but she was smart enough to quickly realized that whoever gave this command was most likely responsible for releasing these new boomers upon her enemies, and therefore – for saving her life.
Lucy didn't feel particular gratitude towards this person or people, after all, it was plain for her that they just wanted to use her in some way; during her short life, Lucy learned that to use her, obviously as a living and thinking weapon, was the only thing she could expect from humans. But even if they intended to use her, they helped her, and Lucy knew that she could use the right now; she was forced to admit, even if only to herself, that she wasn't really in condition to continue fighting right now. And they'll see who will end using whom in the end…
Lucy rushed towards the edge of the building's upper remaining floor and her salvation, but…
"Not so fast!"
…The next moment she was forced to jump sidewards to narrowly dodge a laser shot fired at her. She turned to face her attacker and frowned: it was the Blue Saber again.
But before the Blue Saber could fire more shots at Lucy, one of the new boomers interposed himself between Lucy and the Blue Saber, firing bursts of shots at the Blue Saber from his heavy assault rifle. Lucy saw the bullets merely grazing the Blue Saber's armor and then the Blue Saber charging towards the boomer, but it was as much of their battle as she saw, as she quickly turned away and ran off once again. And within but a few seconds, Lucy has finally reached the edge of the building's upper remaining floor and jumped off it, stopping her fall with her Vectors just before she hit the ground.
The unremarkable grey truck was already waiting for her there, with its rear door invitingly open, and the moment Lucy was inside it took off, hastily taking the seriously injured boomer girl away from the battlefield…
Unlike Lucy, Nana was far less certain about following the new voice's instructions.
The aid the voice's owner has provided them with seemed to be benevolent enough at first, but the fact that the message was addressed to both her and Lucy was somewhat disturbing: after all, Nana was now fully aware of what Lucy's feelings, and instructions too, regarding her were. And besides, from another point of view, exactly how benevolent the aid the voice's owner has provided them with was, was a good question…
"Ahh!"
Yes, a good question indeed.
Turning to the scream and more shooting in the close proximately from her, Nana saw the Pink Saber backing away from yet another boomer. She finally got her laser cannon functioning again, but being weaker then the weapons the other Knight Sabers' hardsuits were equipped with, the Pink Saber's laser cannon seemed to have almost no effect on the heavily armored combat boomer, and all her shots seemed to all but bounce off his armored body. Needless to say, this fact did little to lift the Pink Saber's spirits: she was somewhat unused to fighting on her own without assistance of her more skilled and better equipped friends, and although her current opponent was nowhere near as alien or powerful as the V-type Boomers they originally came here to fight, he was nevertheless notably more powerful then her, not surprising, considering that the Pink Saber's hardsuit was originally designed for scanning and electronic warfare rather then direct combat.
The boomer's return fire was likewise doing almost no damage to the Pink Saber's hardsuit, however; it may have been weaker armored then those of any other Knight Sabers', but it was nevertheless capable of holding quite some damage, particularly assault rifle fire. But unlike the Pink Saber, the boomer had other, more powerful weapons at his disposal, he was merely waiting for a good opportunity to use them. And it was going to happen very soon…
As rather worried Nana watched the battle between the Pink Saber and her boomer opponent unfold, for a wonder finding herself rather concerned over the Pink Saber's safety, she could see what somewhat panicky the Pink Saber failed to notice: the Pink Saber's backing away slowly but surely took her to the edge of the building's upper remaining floor. The Pink Saber realized that only when she tried to make another step backwards and was surprised when she felt nothing under her foot.
It was almost a miracle that often a little clumsy Pink Saber managed to keep her balance this time and put her foot back on the solid floor. But this did her little good in the end, because the boomer didn't hesitate to use the Pink Saber's momentary distraction to his advantage and fire his main weapon at her – a heavy caliber anti-tank railgun.
The shot took distracted the Pink Saber completely by surprise, and in a blink a heavy railgun shell struck her square in the chest. Though the heavy railgun shell still stopped just short of making it through the Pink Saber's armor and thus killing her on spot, it nevertheless succeeded in knocking a couple of feet backwards, and thus – down from the edge of the building's upper remaining floor.
It was only halfway though her fall when Nene recovered enough to remember to turn her back-mounted jet thrusters on, but even so, they weren't powerful enough to break her fall, only to soften it somewhat. As a result, instead of possible broken bones, Nene suffered only more or less slight concussion and backache.
Her troubles were nowhere near being over, however, for the next moment the boomer followed Nene down from the building, using the notably more powerful back-mounted jet thrusters of his own to land perfectly on his feet at some distance away from the prone and somewhat stunned Nene.
The boomer was about to raise his railgun to fire at somewhat stunned Nene again, when another figure suddenly landed on the ground between them… And the boomer suddenly found that he couldn't move his arms anymore. He tired to take a step forward, but his legs wouldn't move either: it was as though some kind of invisible force held his arms and legs back, preventing him from moving them.
Still on the ground, Nene could only watch in shock as she looked at what her eyes failed to catch in the heat of battle: four transparent arms coming from Nana's back, each holding one of the boomer's limbs firmly in place, preventing him from attacking or even moving.
Or at least that was what Nana thought…
The boomer had one more weapon Nana clearly forgot about, and the next moment this fact became all too obvious to her, as the boomer opened his mouth to reveal a laser cannon hidden within it, which surprised Nana had almost no chance of dodging at this range.
But before the boomer could fire his deadly weapon, one more figure fell from above, landing on her left hand right on top of the boomer's head. It was the Green Saber. And the next moment a powerful electromagnetic blast went through the boomer's head, and in fact, his upper torso as well, bringing an end to the boomer's existance.
Nana not even fully registered what has just happened, let alone withdrew her Vectors and allow the boomer's lifeless body fall, when the Green Saber pushed herself off what was left of the boomer's head, once again jumping into air, this time in Nana's direction. And Nana was barely able to trace the Green Saber with her eyes as she flashed through the air in her direction.
"She is so fast! I am not sure if I can catch her with my Vectors even if I try to…"
Nana's thoughts were interrupted for the next moment she cried out in pain as the laser shot the Green Saber fired at her went right through her left shoulder, almost taking her left arm off. Linna's aim was nowhere near as good as Priss' or even Sylia's, but this shot nevertheless served its purpose: the pain temporary made Nana unable to use her Vectors, giving Linna a perfect opportunity to engage her in melee combat, an area in which Linna truly excelled in. And before Nana recovered from her pain, Linna indeed stood before her, ready to take her opponent down in a second…
"No, Linna, wait! She… she saved me!"
The last thing Nana felt before the darkness engulfed her was the metallic palm of Linna's powered gauntlet connecting hard with her chest…