Chapter 7 Bones to pick
On the day of the raid
The raid on the harbor began with a signal from Yuuko. It didn't take long for the three of them to split up into their assigned sector with their ISes equipped. The Liliumites were using the updated Uchigane Fieras sent by the Terrazi, each was tuned with anti-DEVA specs in mind. At least, that's what they said during the briefing.
The types of equipment on hand were a far more basic version of the K12, tuned with rather covert operations in mind. What with the close-range weapons they load onto the wings and their bus slots, with their high-powered beam rifle as their reserves? Besides the upgrade on the armaments, the armored parts that cover their bodies were far more sophisticated than the usually onna-bushi-inspired looks found in the normal and slightly upgraded models of the Uchigane.
With Spectra, however, the only pieces of equipment he had were the ones he got by default. The folks at Terrazi said that due to bus slot issues, the updates can't come fast enough to D-day. So the only performance tweaks are just the limb unit's servos being made even smoother and increasing the synaptic response so the machine can be even more responsive to maneuvering commands.
And the raid… progressed as expected.
Hiroki advanced further at his sector, as he quickly evaded each blow and barely avoided the bullets from nicking him. The hits that he got barely scratched the points of his Shield barriers and the unit's paint job. He knew the crammed training sessions with Ichika held some merit, in evading objects and the correct methods of closing in. Of how to subdue most of these… miscreants non-lethally, considering that Ichika had said himself that the DEVAs were veritably IS-Killer IS Units on steroids, because Tabane never was a believer in half-measures or any kind of restraints.
Advancing. Advancing. One of the Hongwanji remnants' pilot charged at him with her Uchigane's greatsword coated with heat with intent of bisecting him in two, vertically or horizontally. The other pilots were giving her a covering fire, be it from high-powered beam rifles or from heavy-duty sniper rifles, to the super-heavy duty bazooka shots.
'Where the hell did they get that weaponry?' was pretty much what was buzzing through Hiroki's mind. Considering that the group was on the run and all that….
He then deflected the advancing swordswoman with his cape-claw, and hoisted her above him, before throwing her to the ones that gave her covering fire the moment she ran out of shield energy to be used as an impromptu human shield.
If you cannot by any other means deplete them of their shield energy non-lethally. You could just knock them down flat. After all, even if they have shieldings like that, they are still human. Because frankly, with your kind of machine, any other method of threat removal will be lethal, and putting them back together is backlogging the rescue service for weeks already.
Just as Ichika taught him, they went out like candles. Just like the other pilots, who were thrown to the swords of their compatriots, or their guns. The order which hit did not matter to him, all the threats within his vicinity, all 10 pilots, and their retinue of goons were currently unconscious and posed no threat anymore.
'At least they're still in one piece' He noted.' Unlike the last few ones….'
As he pondered about the conditions of his adversary, he peered at the containers that the pilots in his sector tried to protect with utmost importance. It looked like your run-of-the-mill container found in dockyards, containing the best American car parts imported from the US of A, electronic parts, exotic foodstuff ingredients, and garish clothing far befitting to a set piece of a terrible sci-fi written by a hack than your normal everyday clothes. All of them except the usual essentials were just that, imports of some questionable taste and presumably good quality.
However, his attention was drawn to a container that they very specifically tried to protect from his prying hands. A rusted-red container, presumably rusted from the sea salts, no bigger than the other containers that littered the dockyard. As he approached closer to the container…
" I advise against looking deeply into the cargo, Spectra…." a voice intoned from behind him.
A cannon hoisted itself at his shoulder, the beam belched from its barrel formed a blade ready to separate his neck from the rest of his body. He recognized the voice. It was her
" Meltfire…."
" Seeing you alive is a bit surprising, though. I reckoned you'll spend the entire month in the infirmary, or the morgue." She toned in, apparently fine enough with those hypotheticals.
" What brings you here, then? I suppose working with these is a bit degrading for your station…"
" Hey now, don't get all snippy on me, Spectra. That question can be said to you."
" Answer me, Meltfire."
The blade of light crawled closer to his neck, a feat possible when the sword's handle was normal-sized ( relative to the user's hand.), not when an entire cannon was the blade's handle.
" Do you really think you're in the position to play 20 questions with me?" She asked
" Wouldn't this risk pissing off Lord Angelus?"
Her blade dissipated for a moment at the mention of Angelus.
" A little."
The blade flared back to life near his neck.
" Why are you here, exactly?"
" Just an invigilator watching over an exam, nothing more, nothing less."
" Whose exam, exactly?"
" Mostly our new DEVA candidate," She noted, " and you, specifically."
That piqued his interest.
Him, specifically?
" Why me, then?" He asked as he looked at his surroundings, looking for a way to escape the deadlock.
" Hmm... I too, wonder why's that, Spectra. Considering you're not exactly his first choice and all."
"Don't play coy with me!"
Her blade inched even closer.
" I'm not playing coy with you, boy!" She hissed, "Don't sell yourself high when you just have a better machine hard-carrying you."
Hiroki felt the sting of that statement hard. He knew that he only survived the constant assaults from the Remnants by the machine's superior specs compared to their illegally-obtained high-powered IS units. He definitely did not need to be reminded of that fact.
But as he kept his rumination within himself, he noticed an opening in her hold, the fact that he can get out of this lock was a hope he can gain from this.
However, his comms let out a weak signal. Which also signaled the one doing the lock, which was very unfortunate for him.
" Aww…Spectra, you brought friends?" She bemusedly noted.
' Damnit, Not now!' Hiroki thought to himself.
He knew very well what that signal meant. They are facing a DEVA.
The bits that accompanied her blade in locking him inched ever closer. The mouths' beam threatened him with their ever-closing brightness. He knew that just breaking free from her lock would at least cost him 50% or more Shield Energy points. But he knew he had to do this, or else he could look forward to attending their funerals.
Here goes…..
He then used his legs' thruster units to push her off, staggering her for a wee bit.
She countered the push with the roar of her Bit units, taking out a not-so-insignificant portion of his Shield like a torrent of rain. The pain of the weapon stung Hiroki as he used his StrikeVeil as a backhand, the Cape-claws integrated arm servo motion to hit Meltfire with that slab of malleable super-alloy.
That second strike staggered her further and gave Hiroki the opportunity to finish her off in one stroke. The blade then descended, bisecting her in half diagonally. What he expected was that his blade ended her life then and there. But alas, she did not die, the slash felt like cutting through the air, Meltfire's body, which should've been split into two parts, each spurting at least a gallon of redness, was disappearing into the light. Leaving no trace of her body, or her involvement in the combat zone, and leaving Hiroki alone with the part of the harbor strewn with unconscious bodies and the automaton unit that housed the visage and skills of Meltfire.
" You've got lucky that this is just the entrance exam," She quoted as her body began losing coherence on the automaton, " I'll see you at the 'Midterms' Exam."
Her visage then well and truly left the automaton, letting the bisected non-descript doll plop without a sound nor a squeak near him.
Hiroki did not have a moment of respite, the signal was used, so the other DEVA was still in the equation.
He engaged his main thrusters at the general direction of the source of the signal. In sector B. The thrusters roared to life and flung him to his destination with great haste.
' I'll inform them about the container at the rendezvous.'
At Sector B.
Yuuko was in trouble. That alone was a fact enough.
Kei was unconscious after dodging most of the first wave of the DEVA's barrage, thankfully her luck was there, as the amount of damage did not surpass the Absolute Defense field. And Spectra was currently entangled with Meltfire, so the hope of any reinforcement en route was slim at best, no matter how much she spammed the signal.
However, the problem was not from the Hongwanji goons, no. But it was from someone familiar to her at the Lilium. Her familiar red hair complemented her deep-red DEVA IS unit well. The unit she used now, Vanquire, compared to her previous Uchigane+ supplied by Lilium, was very much not a paper tiger. Her red shoulders were adorned with a set of three half-crescent units suspended by their own arm servo, filled with a set missile launcher complete with their own auto-forge units in each unit to launch more missiles than even the legendary Uchigane Nishiki. Her back held host to a pair of wings akin to a pterosaur, with the membrane wings spewing excess energy that can be used as a localized Hyper-Ignition Boost, while the wings' palms revealed a laser cannon each.
Yuuko did not want to believe it, that her beloved Asagi-senpai was the turncoat to Lilium.
" Asagi! Why did you take her offer? Was our friendship really a lie?"
" A lie?" Asagi retorted, " Why would I lie about that?"
" Then why?"
Asagi could not hold it in her anymore, her raison d'batalle, as her arm-mounted beam blades clashed with her opponent's Hyperalloy Katana
" Because I want power, Yuuko. Ever since that time, he offed my friends, I know what it meant to be powerless."
" And you think siding with Meltfire promises you that?"
" What do you know, Yuuko? You think you can just say that, and not look into the facts?"
The clash inched closer to Yuuko, the sparks emitted from her blade clashing with her opponents' wordlessly indicating that even the Hyperalloy blade will soon no longer hold.
Yuuko gritted her teeth, " You think that justifies you joining them?"
" Where else do you have in mind?!" Asagi retorted, " It was very clear that Lilium was a gust away from collapsing after that incident! Look at our condition now, even with the DEVA-lite equipment we made, it didn't guarantee we can give fighting a DEVA, a reasonable shot!"
" But we are making progress!"
" I refuse to call mere baby steps progress!"
Yuuko then broke away from the clash and sprayed her with the belch of her rifle in rapid-fire mode. However, Asagi used the beam blade to project a shield in front of her, reducing the damage taken from somewhat threatening to tolerable levels.
" Give me back my friends then! If that progress were not a mere exaggeration, surely you can do that right?"
Asagi closed in on her again in a mad dash to her opponent's neck. The attempt was met with another clash, this time with the Greatsword Yuuko drew from her Bus Slot, instead of the already-at-this-point well-worn katana.
' You're still grieving about them, then.' Yuuko internally noted.
" What's wrong? Is this the best can do?" Asagi taunted as Yuuko's shield is chipped away by the residual damage from the clashes. " Is this the limit of the proper path's progress? Just a glorified tickle?"
Her taunt did hit the mark, and made Yuuko angrier, as she began to push her greatsword onto Asagi, previous admiration be damned. But… Asagi's smirk tells another story. Right as the clash reached the equilibrium she repositioned herself to be below Yuuko's altitude, and with both palm cannons at the ready she began opening fire, reducing Yuuko's shield energy from a somewhat moderate 5000 to a meager 500 in a single volley.
The force of the blast separated both fighters, with Asagi holding the more advantageous position. Asagi noted the energy signal that is enroute to their battle, and paid it no heed. Her sole focus was on finishing Yuuko off, then Kei, and then Spectra.
And just as her blades roared to life with the full intent of destroying Yuuko, a familiar cape halted her advance with a resounding clang. She knew very well who was it that denied her victory.
" Spectra…."
Her utterance of it was laced with all her pent-up venom.
All of the venom was well and truly justified.
After all, this is the machine that offed many of her girls.
To say that they left the Hongwanji fiasco unscathed was akin to them selling another Rainbow Bridge as a goddamned souvenir. Not many were left alive, let alone in one piece, and even that was an overstatement. Seeing it with her former Lilium compatriot drew even more repulsive things from the back of her mind. And rage, mostly the white-hot variety, as whatever Lilium stood for, was utterly defiled by his presence.
It did not take Asagi very long to reach her breaking point, as she rushed towards the Caped Devil with a great frenzy, with all available weapons systems sprung online.
"SPECTRAAAAAAAAAAA!"
It didn't take long for Asagi's Vanquire to close the distance between her and Mori's Spectra, the two machine was well and truly in knife-fighting distance. He cannot use his Kirmizi when the blade's middlingly sizable frame proves to be a bit of a liability in CQC.
His opponent, however, did not have that disadvantage, much to Yuuko's horror.
The speeds involved in each movement were fast, even by IS user's standards. She was barely able to make out a few moves each from both fighters via her IS' Hyper Sensors.
Asagi's beam tonfas lashed out in a great flurry, each strike chipped the Spectra's shield energy reserves, dropping it into somewhere in the region of 35% with the help of the wing cannon's peppering of energy rounds.
"HRAAHH!"
Asagi's assault grew more fierce by the time, the beam blades locked with his Kirmizi, as she attempted to use the stalemate to fire all her ordnance at him, point-blank. Damage to her shields be damned. She had to avenge her friends, their killer's head would be a rather nice gift for them.
As the missile containers and energy wing cannons started firing, Spectra broke the stalemate and dived below. Her firing solutions were instantly recalibrated following the broken stalemate, missiles, and energy rounds howled from her many barrels. The ground below were the casualties from said ordnance, having been caved by the heavier blasts, or being swiss-cheesed by the lighter ones. Spectra took to using his shield to block the few rounds that managed to tail him.
*BOOM*
The blasts covered him with smoke, the once sturdy shield was starting to wear out from the night's battles. However, the relief was short-lived, as the smoke lifted, she saw something pierced the StrikeVeil and hooked itself into the inner parts of the shield.
Asagi's arm blades, as it turns out, were equipped with a rope dart-like function.
Both of them, Vanquire and Spectra alike were once again locked in a stalemate, this time it's similar to one's tug-o-war.
Hiroki attempted to use the Shield's powerful arm servo unit to pull her towards him, as was Asagi who attempted to do the same with her powerful arms.
The rope barely budged, if at all.
While the stalemate was going on, Yuuko's own comms hummed a low tone. It was a message from Spectra.
[[ There's a red container in sector C that is of great interest to Hongwanji. They're very desperate to keep a hold of it. I've managed to leave the unit unharmed. All next is up to you.]]
Yuuko then looked at her surroundings and noted that she landed not that far from Kei, and Kei herself started to regain her bearings.
" What happened?" Kei asked
Yuuko answered with a hint of relief, " You were KO'ed by Asagi-senpai, and rather quickly at that."
" What about that guy?"
" He's currently going at it with her." She told her, " It's not looking good... But he did send me a message."
" You mean the sector C's container units?"
" I'm glad you're still sharp, Kei."
" You're not in better shape yourself, Yuuko."
What Kei said, when she herself was covered with bruises and burns, can well and truly apply to Yuuko. Especially when Yuuko herself struggled to keep herself conscious when her body was truly at its seams.
DEVA-class weapons were not a joke, was a sentiment that both of them could understand very well.
" What's your plan, Kei?"
" We go there while big guy over there's holding her at bay. There's no longer any readings of enemies in that sector, and the findings will go straight to Lilium High Command."
" But what about your shields?"
" I still got at least 100 after using the frame's emergency power. You?"
" 500. Not that many left."
" Noted. Yuuko, let's go to the sector," Kei affirmed, steeled with resolve.
Then the both of them silently used their boosters to fly themselves to Sector C. Their units sustained enough damage that they cannot truly use the entirety of their unit frames.
The battle above raged on, both machines were at their last legs.
Minutes of using her rope dart as a means to dictate their opponents were attrition for both combatants, with Hiroki throwing Asagi to a container in Sector B using her rope, and she did the same to him. Other than the occasional push and pull from both of them, they also locked blades with each other.
"GRAAH!"
With Asagi currently holding the upper hand. She pulled Hiroki towards herself using the rope blade tethered to his shield. Hiroki lost his balance the moment she pulled him closer to end him with her other blade.
The puller drew him closer at high speed, fully intent to bisect him or worse when he neared her effective range. He had to think fast, and pronto.
He readied Kirmizi for one last attack, its safeties unlocked.
He knew very well, that one single misstep is fatal. But it was an all-or-nothing proposition. He had to take the chance.
Her pull was as expected, hard, and the distance between the two fighters soon became close. Asagi then used her other blade to slice upwards, But Hiroki swerved and jinked downward, opening a good attacking point for a slash or a blast.
Hiroki turned around and let loose Kirmizi's beam cannon function. The pinkish-red beam of light shone through the night sky, and streaked past Asagi's left arm, dismissing her of her wings, rings, and her left arm blade, the light spared not even her arm underneath as she tried to evade the powerful beam of light.
The pain seared her in Ultra-high definition, making her more desperate as she once again tried to pull him towards her, this time intent on finishing him for good. But the weakening of her focus caused her to waffle a bit in her pull, giving Hiroki time to pull her and knock her down using his recently freed StrikeVeil's sharp talons, the claw descended upon her in full force. The claw narrowly missed her, however, her shields were not granted the same luck
As expected, she was down. All the remaining 4500 of her Shield energy, was gone the instant his weapon bit her. Hard. The sheer pain from the damage accumulated rendered her unable to continue fighting.
" Hah…hah.."
Fighting the remnants, Meltfire, and Vanquire in one sitting was quite a trial.
He then plopped to the docks' concrete floor, fatigue starting to set in.
As he reached for a nearby crate as a support two familiar figures neared him.
Kei whistled. " As expected from a DEVA and the Tabane-Killer's protege, I suppose. The rumors were not of exaggeration."
Both of his allies neared him, Yuuko could only muster a bit of a smile, which drooped down ever so slightly at the sight at his opponent, who was laid on the pool of her blood, only lacking a left arm. Kei, however, was nonplussed at the state. Maybe it was because of her experience in these kinds of stuff, Hiroki thought.
" I respect your restraint on them, but you could've been kinder, dude," Yuuko noted.
" She's still alive, right?" He replied as he pointed to Asagi's facedown body, sharing a readout of her vitals. " My part is just for sector C and the DEVAs."
Yuuko can only give a light touche for that statement. " Kei, tell High Command about this, maybe they can wring one out from her."
" Noted. I'll "
" What about Melfire?" she then asked Hiroki. " You're the one that struck her down."
" Her? She's no longer a threat, but... I don't know if I can classify her as dead or alive at this point." he posited.
" How exactly?" she questioned further
" I mean, when I slashed her down, she went 'poof'" he clarified as he regained his footing, " all that's left is just an automaton with the exact same slash as the one I gave her."
" You mean she's still a threat?"
" No. She said she'll see me at midterms, not even an " I'll be back!" he quoted.
Yuuko's thoughts on that keyword were interrupted by another question from Hiroki.
" What exactly is in that container anyway? They seem keen to protect it with their lives."
The question was answered by Kei, who was just now finishing her debriefing with her high command. " We did check the container you mentioned, and we found several caches of DIABLOs, automata, and IS-grade weapons, including a few Fold-out based ones along with their ammunition magazines."
"DIABLO?" Hiroki asked.
" A kind of performance-enhancing cocktail of drugs, used by desperate pilots." she divulged.
" Weren't IS pilots considered to be the high-performance elite?"
" Not all of them were cream-of-the-crop high-performance elites, or born with innate S-ranked compatibility rating," Yuuko interjected. " Especially when most of them got powercrept by the DEVA. It's just gotten worse lately because after Cerbera's sealing three years ago, many countries were desperate for anyway any bandaids to avoid that kind of screwup again." she continued as she felt a shiver when she recounted that incident.
" What happens now, then?"
" What happens now is that the others will clean up this mess, and we can pretend we will never have to ask for your help again. Most of us already lost hairs dealing with your kind." Yuuko snootily remarked.
The atmosphere became awkward, and as expected the cleaners they mentioned came to the pier and started their sweep for more clues, while the medic-oriented personnel tended to their wounds. It was a signal for him to leave the premises.
Hiroki then looked at his bracelet as he used the codec feature to connect with Ichika. A thought crossed his mind.
' This'll be a long one.'
Current Technical Reports:
Vanquire:
Maker/Gen:?
Pilot: Yukiko Asagi
Battle Type: All-rounder
Armaments:
Vajra beam tonfa+ whip function
2x 3-layer 8-barrel missile launcher + Autoforge auxiliary equipment
Variable Fold-out Armor Wing " Valiant" + Auxiliary beam saber-energy cannon module
Glossary:
DIABLO: A cocktail of drugs, used by desperate pilots to increase their IS core synchronization ratings. It is said to be able to boost the pilot's skill level along with it. It was banned in 2023 by the Association after the screening for the junior leagues showed that some of the participants imbibed themselves with the drug. Despite the ban, there are people at the fringes of legality who further the research of their capability to further enhance their pilots.
Fold-out armor: Special armor that is symbolic of Gen4 ISes. Noted for their swing-role optimizations, it was said that any IS equipped with FO Armor will have their offensive and defensive capabilities multiplied by the most advanced of the Gen3 Prototypes. However, one massive demerit for this tech is that it is too energy-hungry for normal ISes. So corporations looked to other methods to match the Gen4 suits' capabilities.
Automaton: Humanoid blank drones used as a way to pad out the infantry's numbers. IS-tech compatible
A/N: Finally got a chance to finish this chapter! Sorry that it took so long. Life and work happened, as usual, so the times I can work on this is ever so scarce. I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter. Thank you, and you can leave a review if you want to say something about this fic. That's all.