RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission 31: Wakusei

An orange Mishhu aether bolt from one of the Killthyar caught Aiko's mecha in its left side skirt, shattering a hole in the zesuaium armor that hung there at its waist. Though she'd seen the enemy's attack coming and heard Hoshi's warning, there was little the princess could do but follow through with her slicing attack to fell the enemy mech she'd caught and take the oncoming volley where it landed. Just as the Killthyar protected their pilots within, Aiko's mobile suit had done its job just then. But the enemy had a vast advantage in number, so she knew their luck could only last so long.

Jettisoning the clutch of drone funnels from her backpack once again, Aiko did her best to evade the enemy's fire as she darted through the air. If nothing else, those gun pods would hopefully make more target signatures to confuse and draw the attention of her enemies' sensors. So she fanned them out and ordered them to return fire, tracking the Killthyar flanker while moving fast and low across the dunes to intercept it. From the distant domed metropolis, Aiko called upon the mammoth aether shock cannon she'd left there to soar high above Urtullan and prepare to fire.

"Steer yourself to land closer to the city if you are able, but bail out and regroup on Hoshi if you have lost control," Aiko advised to Rio. Part of the team's training had included dismounting in the event of catastrophic damage, and they'd even practiced continuing to fight with small arms or SLAM launchers in the event of an ejection. "You should be afforded some measure of safety when you clear your machine. One Nekovalkyrja flying away from them will not even register on their scanners."

With the flanking Killthyar closing in her sights, Aiko thrust her mecha's aether katana again. She aimed to drive it through the enemy's chest to knock out the pilot there quickly. Far in the skies over Urtullan, her cannon ascended quietly into the twilight atmosphere and trained on where the Mishhuvthyar robots had congregated. It would only get one shot before needing to cool down—and was required to return to Aiko's grasp for more power on top of that—so the princess didn't fire it just yet.

"Byrne-hei, are you able to disengage?" Aiko asked as she attempted to take care of the flanker. It was no matter if the Nepleslian soldier could not, it simply meant the princess would meet up with her next. "Incoming fire will be danger close to your position, and we may need to retrieve Yoshida-hei should she go down near the fighting."

"Finally!" Koizumi Aratani's cracked into comms. "Took you long enough to need me help! Coming down from the Kaiyo to your position now! Hope you're okay, though, Yoshida-hei! Aiko-chusa's right, you're a sitting duck now!" As she spoke, the Shoi was swan-diving out of the Kaiyo's power armor bay with a hefty duffel bag in arm, honing in on the battlefield in order to repair Rio's mecha enough to at least withdraw it.

Whatever tumultuous places Molli had gone underground, it brought new life to the sandy dunes. Shooting out of the ground behind her was a four segmented beak followed by a ruddy cylinder of mevar core worm. It hadn't caught at her, but it did snap into a low-flying Killthyar nearby. The worm dragged the mecha back underground the moment a second one popped from the sand in an attack. The species on Urtullan had been fighting mecha so long in their city-destroying undertaking that seeing so many was like seeing a great banquet in their honor. Molli's similar ambush attack struck out at the enemy mecha, slicing into its leg like butter.

At William's position, before he could get to the side of any Killthyar mecha, another core worm popped up from the sandy ground at the edge of the dome meters from him. Laying its tubular body into the street, goo spurted from its beak and a stench-filled steam rose from the buildings it covered as they melted under the acidic ooze.

The Killthyar mecha that had positioned themselves at the end of their line of mecha struck out at Aiko with their own sword. It was a last ditch effort, though, as the Killthyar's arm fell mid-swing at the moment Aiko's blade had left the torso. Momentarily, nothing happened. Then a gush of torrent of orange fluid burst from the incision, spraying out dozens of meters in front of the decimated mecha.

The rest of the Killthyar kept shooting, either with their aether or with secondary guns that took less time to charge. Molli and Aiko remained their main targets, but as Hoshi shot out from her position, so too did they target at the Kaiyo shooters on the buildings.

"Rio, I'm falling back to behind this building for you to enter my pilot pod and get safe," Hoshi said to the Santo Hei with a failed mecha. Even as she spoke, she found a defensible position and began the process of opening up the pod and the mecha's chest moorings so that the Kaiyo's newest recruit could find refuge.

Sif followed the killthyar that fell to her spear down to the ground, buying herself a moment to cool her thrusters as it would have been unfortunate if they gave out in the middle of the chase. But the rest was not meant to last so long as her HUD lit up with multiple new targets. She had fallen behind the others, which was a bad look for someone who was supposed to be at the front, soaking up the firepower brought against them. The volley from the killthyars lit up their section of the desert, and while the Shield Maiden was far enough away to not be in danger, she still had her shield hoisted in front of her.

The report that Rio had been hit sent Sif's mind to a slight panic. Given the number of enemy mechs and where they were, the stunt she had pulled before was not likely to work a second time, but looking to the fresh kill at her feet, she recalled the concern they had when they were in the hangars below. "Yamatai, give me strength. I hope this works." Putting her spear in her shield hand, she tore open the gash she put behind the mech and pulled out its core, softly humming with life. Scans say it was stable for now, but she wouldn't want to wait until it said otherwise.

With a burst of speed that kicked up what felt like a few metric tons of sand, the Shield Maiden took to the skies, aiming to get as high as she could all the while looking for the juiciest bunch of Killthyars. Once she felt she was close enough, she would take a breath and go on the comms saying, "Grenade out!" as she threw the humming core towards the center of the Killthyar formation and released her spear to follow its trajectory. She would then strafe down and to the left, her shield's projectors on full power to make her presence known as she shone brightly in the sky like a shooting star just so she could pull eyes towards her, and not the make-shift bomb that may or may not explode like she'd like it to.

Once the core was close enough to the enemy, the spear that followed it fired into it in an attempt to set it off. It was at a presumably safe distance, but Sif had never seen how big a core explosion could be, and she was bracing for the fact that that spear wouldn't be back in her hands if the explosion did happen. It was okay though. A disarmed opponent was a lovely prey.

Leaping backwards out of his cover, William let loose a string of curses that would make the saltiest sailor blush. Changing from air burst to high explosive rounds, his cannons snapped forward and began raking across the worm's body. All the while the marine was trying his damnedest to get away from the goo it was spewing into the streets.

As much as he wanted to help his team, he now had his hands full. There wasn't even time to look at his radar. It took everything in him to avoid the goo.

It only took a glimpse at a Killthyar getting dragged beneath the sands for Rio to decide she did not want to ditch her machine outside of the dome perimeter. "Understood. I'm fine Koizumi-Shoi and still have some control. I'm going to try and put down inside the dome perimeter ." Rio said as she fought to guide her failing machine in the direction of Hoshi's position in the city.

Rio's mecha made it over the dome perimeter and almost to Hoshi's position before Rio felt she had no choice but to ground it while she still had the machine under control. Landing feet first before the legs buckled and folded underneath it, the mecha came to a skidding halt in a rough kneeling position, it's rifle dropped by it's side. Even before her machine had come to a stop Rio had disconnected herself from the Thought system, removed her rebreather from the pilot pod's storage compartment and punched the manual release with a smoothness born from Aiko's rigorous training.

"I'm down safely and heading to your position now Taisa." Rio called over comms as she yanked her rebreather on while exiting the pod and was on her way. Using her inertial control to propel herself forward, Rio rushed to Hoshi's mecha and safety.

The mecha with its oversized shoulder-mounts and exceedingly huge rifle was splitting open at its belly like some strange, horrific beast whose maw was at its core. But the diminutive captain came out of the giant mecha rather than being swallowed up and she floated at the egress, waving as she spotted her ship's newest recruit.

"Rio-hei! You okay, you fine?" When she could ascertain that Rio was, Hoshi pointed towards the pod within her mecha. "Use mine while Aratani-shoi repairs yours. Stay safe and stick close to Ketsurui-chusa from here on." She turned into the mecha's internals and took a few fast, shallow breaths before jumping out with a small salute to the blue-skinned Neko about to man the machine.

Out of her mecha, now, and with only her fanny pack that carried her SiZi and the hair tie at the nape of her neck, Hoshi felt more exposed than ever. Her button-shaped nose wrinkled as she took in the egg-like smell of the sulphur air. Though a Neko could hold their breath for a good ten minutes and survive in low oxygen levels for double that, the Kaiyo captain found pleasure in being underwater and had trained her lungs to endure much longer.

But she was still exposed beyond that; her body's volumetric projection had quickly created the visage of a Type 35, but the awareness of her truly naked condition in the middle of a large-scale mecha battle was not lost on the captain. With worms eating the city from the ground up and the Killthyar mecha dispersing, she had to get to higher ground and obtain a vantage point.

Flying close to the few buildings that were still standing to avoid detection, she noticed the Kaiyo crew in disarray. William needed backup and Molli couldn't disengage after having taken up her bipedal form. Sif's ploy was head-turning as Hoshi caught the tail end of it, able to see the the shield maiden's spear jettison into a group of Killthyar only to be swallowed up by an intensifying ball of aether that grew and grew for dozens and dozens of meters. Its brightness was a shock against the darkening night, but it died shortly thereafter. Milliseconds later, a second burst of aether shot out like a small aetheric firework. Tendrils of pink light whispered into the sky and towards the city, setting buildings ablaze in small but growing nooks and crannies. Whatever Killthyar had been there before along with the giant Yamataian mecha's spear were dark, burned husks that had fallen to the sand below and ash that still floated idly in the aftermath.

But something that was magnitudes smaller in spectacle and far off in the desert also made Hoshi's head turn. The moon's shine glinted off of something moving only for a second, but Hoshi locked in with her Nekovalkyrja vision to see far in the distance. Someone walking from the battle, deeper into the chokingly sulfurous air of Urtullan.

"Aiko-chusa," Hoshi relayed to the Ketsurui princess. "Work with Boss to strike at designated targets. We need to get William to safety, too. You've got command."

The figure was hard to ignore for Hoshi and she found it trying to pull her eyes away. Unzipping her pack, she pulled out her SiZi and started towards the virtually empty sand dunes.

Molli was momentarily stunned by the appearance of the worms -- an event that she should have anticipated -- but quickly regained her senses when their attacks presented an unexpected opening. Given the relatively diminutive size of her frame in comparison to the Killthyar's machines, as well as their rigorous sparring sessions with the beasts of the sand, Molli reasoned that the worms were only registered theirs as an immediate threat for the time being. It was likely the only reason they hadn't killed her the instant she submerged beneath the dunes -- a sobering thought, for sure.

Unfortunately, the barrage of enemy fire didn't give Molli much time to think about anything beyond avoiding being ripped to shreds. Even with her frame's thrusters pushing her across the sand like a skater on ice, the worms providing their own, unintended assistance, and Molli's pods shooting down any artillery that had locked on, the Nepleslian knew she was living on luck that was rapidly running out. More than once, she would believe her time was up, only for an emerging worm to give her a body to hide behind, or distract the pilot that would've punched her ticket. "Can't get away!" Molli shot back over the squad's communications, as she side-eyed the panel that presented a flat image of her mecha's systems. Switching back and forth between bipedal and starship forms was disabled as a means to relieve the frame of stress from repeated inputs.

When another worm emerged between Molli and the Killthyar gunning for her, the Nepleslian was struck with a plan--a crazy plan, but it was all she had. Boosting toward the thrashing beast, Molli drew her blade, dashed around its massive body so that it was her between it and the Killthyar, and brought the aether-coated weapon across the beast's body in a massive horizontal slash. The idea was to spill its highly corrosive body fluids directly onto her assailants, which she hoped she could dodge by shooting straight upwards.

Things weren't looking good for William as he tried to dodge the incoming acid. A lucky glob had landed on the back of his mech. Warnings began to blare as the mech's propulsion gave out, the acid eating through the thrust nozzles. As he began to fall, and idea struck him. A truly, unequivocally stupid idea. Landing on the ground put him at greater risk for getting caught in the acid spit. Landing on the worm however...

Kicking off one of the nearby buildings he angled his fall to let him land directly on the worms back. He held both swords up over his head and as the mech hit the back of the worm, he drove both swords down with as much force as his damaged mech could manage. "Warning, hull integrity failing." His ACE cautioned. "Noted." William replied. Standing on the worms back he began to run, swords cutting through the monster's skin as he ran.

Beneath the orange splatter that'd fountained out of the Killthyar Aiko had just impaled, the carmine plating of her mecha still shone through the Mishhu robot's semi-translucent viscera as the princess stood surveying their fight from where she'd intercepted the flanking Killthyar. It was a glorious melee now to be sure, Aiko thought, but she wasted no time admiring the scene's poetic angles and launched away toward the main enemy grouping where only Molli was still engaged. With her mech's massive aether katana poised and ready in her machine's right hand, she flashed across the twilight sky to assist her comrade.

For the Nepleslian soldier's part, Molli's ploy was immediately successful. The core worm's flesh split open easily, and its caustic internals ballooned out from the wound, eager to flood out atop the Killthyar nearby. The Mishhu mechs unlucky enough to fall under the leviathan worm's spray held their mechanical arms up instinctively in an attempt to shield themselves from the oncoming ooze and entrails, but were soon smothered by the deluge of fatty muscle matter and ichor. Beneath it, the Killthyar stood rigid for a moment, propping up the worms' spilled flesh like grotesque skeletal tentpoles, but quickly deflated as their armor and chassis disintegrated under the cover of corrosion that engulfed them.

"Clear the combat area!" Aiko ordered, slamming her mecha into Molli's smaller machine as she spoke and pulling it away after she intercepted it. "Focus on the Mishhu that remain in the city."

The princess had already given her aether shock cannon a command to fire by then. The terrifying weapon's targeting vector had been placed essentially where she had caught Molli's mech—precisely in the center of where most of the desert-bound Killthyar had fled to—and lit the night's sky for miles as its aetheric arc spasmed and slashed across Urtullan's atmosphere. For a moment, the weapon's bright, wicked lightning erased every shadow in the desert as it darted to its destination amidst the Mishhuvurthyar position. And then, when the beam's trailing end had followed its jagged zig-zag trajectory into the sands, only suffocating darkness remained for an instant before a flash and shockwave blew across the planet's surface. Whatever had been positioned within a few hundred meters of ground zero simply ceased to exist, and Urtullan's earth rumbled to fill the void left there.

"Sorry for the sudden reroute, Molli-san," Aiko told the Nepleslian girl. She released Molli's mecha from the grasp of her own as they flew high enough to escape the blast zone. "Good work, now we must regroup with the others and finish this!"

"Engineering's going to kill me for that..." Sif thought to herself as the aether core explosion faded, knowing full well that her spear was indeed in the blast radius. That explosion was magnitudes larger than she had even dared to think. Now she had to make sure she and the mech survived as she did not want to forget such a spectacle of such horrible and awe-inspiring power that lasted only as long as a breath of air.

But once the awe made room for the situation at hand, Sif had to consider what action to take next. Without a weapon to fight with, she'll either have to punch or bash the Killthyars away, or cover for someone else. Rio's distress call had already been answered by the Captain, but what of the others? Impacts upon her shield served to remind her of the ordinance trained her way. Moving to cover others in this situation would only serve to put them into more lines of fire, which would be counter to what she had aimed to do.

Another blast of light lit up a different piece of the desert where Molli and Aiko's tags appeared on her HUD. It was perhaps safe to assume that another group had been wiped out. "Offensive options for Shield Maiden are limited, but here's the mechs I can still detect," Sif chimed into the comms as she sent live positions of Killthyars that still registered on her sensor arrays as she regained altitude.

Molli didn't have time to appreciate the success of her ploy before Aiko slammed into her frame, sending Molli jostling in her seat harder than any other impact thus far. The Nepleslian's neck was starting to ache from the repeated whiplash. From the outside, it must have looked surreal and comedic, seeing Aiko's massive mecha pulling Molli's away like a parent would to their child. Molli had little cause for anger when her screen flashed white from a massive burst of energy-- a gargantuan pillar of pure light that pulsated with energy so powerful, Molli's cybernetic eyes automatically shut down to protect their internal hardware from damage. With darkness as her companion, Molli only had Aiko's voice to reassure her until her retinas rebooted.

"T-Thanks, Ketsurui-sama," Molli said, her voice trembling from the residual fear of her repeated brushes with death. "Owe ya again." At least this time, the Nepleslian made herself useful before needing another royal rescue. Molli's vision returned to her once Aiko released her mecha, and the pilot immediately shifted it into starship mode around the time she heard Sif's voice over the radio.

"We gotta help Sif!" Molli said urgently, 'limited offensive options' sounded ominous. Her spindly mecha shot off towards the shield neko's signature, with special attention paid to the hostiles she'd marked.

Understanding awakened inside of Hoshi as she approached the figure from the air. Hoshi had noticed the sand caked on their mustard yellow coveralls and the flat position of their ears against their head, a distantly familiar sight from her undercover trip to Urtullan months ago. The knowledge grew in her like some hungry living thing that ate a cavernous pit that formed in the captain's heart and chewed through to her stomach. There was still a duty to eliminate the enemy that was almost impossible to ignore for the captain as she raised her SiZi.

Looking over their shoulder, the Neko seemed ready to stop before she did a double take and kept walking.

"Here to kill me again?" The Neko yelled out and her hand went to her mouth a second later, regretting having breathed in the acrid air.

"You're Overseer Charbon," Hoshi didn't breath in as she wagered, recalling the name another NMX Neko had asked for after Hoshi had killed the Overseer as she now looked down the iron sights of her raised SiZi.

"'She needs a resleeve,' you said that before you killed me, yes?" Charbon said, this time turning to Hoshi to speak in a quieter, more conservative voice that made Hoshi's pink triangular ears swivel in order to better hear her. "You know, very few of us NMX Neko are actually important enough to resleeve, unlike the soldiers of the Star Army. You were unlucky to have made an enemy out of one that could be rezzed like me."

"We were already enemies before I killed you," Hoshi noted impassively as she hovered just above the ground. "You're Mishhuvurthyar."

"I am a Mishhu no more than you are, you know."

Hoshi countered, "You fight for them and live for them."

"I die for them," Charbon corrected. "As you have firsthand knowledge. And not all of them even want that for me. Or us, you and me. That is to say, will you kill me again?" Charbon turned away from Hoshi, ready to find refuge in the desert or be shot in the back by Hoshi, though she was betting on the latter and her proud, ashy ears were perked regally as she held her head high.

Any sanctuary the sand dunes could offer was soon enveloped by the barely removed battle they had just come from as Aiko's aetheric shock cannon's discharge bloomed in a wide swathe. The pair were just barely out of the blast zone but were not safeguarded from the tremors that followed in the wake of the newly formed pit created in Urtullan's crust. The grit rippled underfoot then billowed out in different sections, pitting and raising at random.

Charbon fell to her knees and shakily set off to fly but the sand did not hesitate to consume her body and soon she was swallowed up in a newly formed and quickly sealed chasm.

Hoshi yelped out which made her breathe in the sulfurous air for the first time. Between wet, hacking chokes, she stuffed her unused SiZi back into her butt pack. She followed the NMX Neko's last position with her own body, diving in to the shaking sand like a diver into water and as Molli had with her mecha moments earlier. Groping erratically, she searched for the solid feeling of the other Neko in the sand.

Rio had no real time to answer Hoshi's question beyond a quick nod before receiving her new orders. Whatever the Taisa was off to do, it was not her place to question. As Rio closed the piloting pod up she gave a parting salute back to Hoshi. The last sight she caught before it fully sealed was the sight of pink wisp of light entering the city. Pulling off and stowing her rebreather in the pods utility compartment next Hoshi's own, Rio then connected to the mecha's Thought system. The now somewhat familiar sensation was a relief compared to the stinging, blowing sand outside. Except this was not her machine, the one she had spent months training with.

Things had clearly moved fast as Rio had made her transfer into Hoshi's machine. Fully reconnected with the Thought interface and team datalink Rio caught Aiko's orders as well as the shadow of the blast from the massive shock cannon strike, her view directly obscured by her position behind a building. Running quickly through her motion checks to get used to the differences between her mecha and her currently borrowed one, Rio flexed the shield wings and shouldered the massive long rifle several times before taking off to regroup with Aiko and Molli. As she approached, Rio called over the comms system to Aiko "Ketsurui-chusa, Taiyou-Taisa ordered to me take her machine and keep close to your position while mine is under repair. What are your orders?" In the back of her mind Rio's orders to stay close to Aiko felt like she was being admonished for nearly destroying her machine but she would think more on that later.

A wake of core worm acid followed William's mech as it ran across the towering macro-beast's back, showering the ruined city buildings below with even more of the corrosive goop. Any straggling Killthyar unlucky enough to be caught beneath the caustic shower, too, would soon find themselves melting down as the nasty fluid crept into each machine's servos and caused catastrophic failures that slowed them and heralded the total disintegration to come. When the Nepleslian Marine captain had ripped through enough of the worm's muscle and flesh, the terrifying creature's ability to stay upright failed and crashed onto the dilapidated streets. This section of Urtullan's old abandoned buildings shook and quaked, and some nearby crumbled to piles of rubble.

And still running atop the fresh corpse, William's mech remained proudly upright, now able to easily egress onto the ground free of any immediate threat from neither the core worms nor the last handfuls of Killthyar. Only about twenty of the sixty-odd Mishhuvurthyar machines remained in and around the city now that the larger grouping out in the desert had been taken care of.

"Ryokai," Aiko confirmed, agreeing with Molli that they should proceed to group up with Sif. "Everyone: Converge on the enemy signals closest to Ignemar-hei's position and fan out together in an elimination pattern. Now we can focus together to finish them off!"

While Aiko's noble red mecha sped off to fulfill her part in the fight alongside the others, Aratani was hard at work fixing Rio's ruined robot. With a nanomachine repair torch in hand, her Mindy 4 orbited around Rio's suit, patching up whatever parts she could and attempting to restore basic fighting functionality to the mech. For now, Aratani's work out in the desert went unnoticed by the Killthyar nearer to the city. Most were firing at Sif up in the sky from ground positions in cover within Urtullan—or were at least trying to keep a bead on her—though some had turned their weapons toward the oncoming reinforcements.

The constant barrage was starting to take its toll on the shield, its surface now blemished with craters akin to a planet's surface suffering from orbital bombardment, or a moon that dutifully bore the brunt of asteroids to keep its planet safe. The outer rims, where the shield was thinnest had the most visible damage, as ordinance chipped away at it. Whether it was luck on the Killthyar's side or a coordinated attack, a blast of aetherfire from multiple sources congregated on a spot near the rim and took out a chunk from the shield, which got lodged on the left side of the shield maiden's head.

The damage looked worse than it actually was as the melted edge barely cut into the armor, but it did weld itself to it, giving the Shield Maiden's head the profile reminiscent of a winged helm, at least on the left side.

The diminishing cover was a cause for concern, but it was keeping the enemy distracted. Were it not for the fact that the giant worms are something to contest with, she'd have landed where her IED was to try and pick up something to arm herself with. Low chance of finding working weapons, but a severed mecha arm could still serve as a club. The combat had gotten her somewhat shaken, her heart racing just like in her first mission, if not faster. The tips of her fingers felt numb, oblivious of the fact that she had them clenched tightly for who knows how long. Her mind momentarily flashed to the moment of their retreat all those months ago. That feeling in her gut, the sensation of numbness in her muscles... she thought she recognized them: A creeping panic as the situation grew less ideal, a nagging at the back of her mind that reminded her that a slip up could cause the veterans of the squad their lives.

It very nearly did the last time they were here after all.

The haunting memory of Molli's pale, pain-ridden face after she was injured following Sif's moment of panic caused Sif to pull the shield closer to herself. She swore she wasn't going to let that happen to anyone again. She wasn't going to let anyone pay the price for her mistakes. She hit her head with the back of her shield as she steeled herself. "Gah! Get yourself together, Sif!" she scolded herself, her thrusters flaring as she re-oriented herself to keep the shield between her and as many mechs she could manage, going once more into a wide circular pattern to keep them chasing and not get encircled.

As the crew approached, she taunted the enemy mechs by using her projector array on the shield to literally paint a target on herself. "Maybe pretending that you're still at the range will help! Come on! I bet you guys can't event hit the bull's eye!"

Molli's crimson-colored mecha shot through the city's skyline, weaving through tight squeezes in ruined buildings at speeds that'd make a stone-shattering impact, were it not for her deft hands steering her through each crack in the wall or girder-lined building that stood in her way. At several points, she had to evade a massive worm emerging to spray its lethal acid, or swoop over a Killthyar that was ready to shoot her out of the sky. A single goal burned at the forefront of Molli's thoughts, overriding all sense of self-preservation, culling the wild fear that threatened to jeopardize her capabilities:

Get to Sif.

They were a team, after all, and Sif had promised to be her right arm. It was only fair that Molli repaid the favor. Thankfully, her reckless flying expedited the process of reaching her neko companion, who was easily detected thanks to that unfortunately large target she'd thrown onto her frame. "Idjit!" Molli cursed through gritted teeth, though she scanned the area and found several trails of artillery fire from the Killthyar hiding in the ruined buildings. There was no time to waste now that Sif had committed to drawing their fire, so Molli flew high into the air, then dove down into an opening on one of the building's ceilings. As she landed, the mecha's sensors guided Molli through the floors that held enemy targets, where her aether katana and her frame's superior close-quarters capabilities could shine.

As the worm began to fall, William lept from the monster's back. As he landed, the ID-SOL let out a long tired sigh. After taking a few seconds to collect himself, he addressed his ACE. "Damage report." He ordered into the silent cockpit.

It took what felt like minutes, but William was only left in suspense for a few seconds. "Hull integrity at 75%. Thrusters 1 and 2 inoperable." The marine waited for more, but it never came. "I can live with that." With that settled, he tuned back into the squad comms just in time to hear Aiko's new orders. "Aye, Aye. Heading to rendezvous point. Be advised, I've lost flight capability. It might take me a minute but I'm on my way." He reported, hefting the sword onto his mech's shoulder as he pushed the machine into a jog.

"Orders received. Rejoining the formation." Rio commented as she rejoined the group, sliding into a trail position high above and behind Molli's mecha. She had just learned her lesson about getting too close to the fight in a machine not designed for it, her downed mecha was hard proof of that. Hopefully Aratani could repair it enough that it could at least be retrieved.

Being careful to maintain her distance, Rio recognized that she had an excellent opportunity to begin culling the enemy. For every distracted Killthyar that turned to fire on Molli's machine as she raced towards Sif's position, Rio would fire on their exposed backsides. As she had done earlier, Rio took care to target armor gaps and weaker sections of the rear chest armor for precision shots.

Touching hands with Charbon beneath the weight of sand and the more demanding heft of duty felt like putting some delectable but blisteringly hot morsel to her tongue. Hoshi reveled in the act of helping the other Neko as she was buried, but the captain knew all too well of her obligation to kill her enemy. Even as she strained against gravity and the mass of shifting sands over her, Taiyou Hoshi toiled with the fact she was saving a Nekovalkyrja who bore the qualifier 'NMX'.

Covered only in a volumetric projection of her uniform, Hoshi felt the sands stop their assault on her bare back and knew she had pulled them both free. Instinctually when she was out of the sand, her body wanted to breathe in the sulfurous air, but Hoshi stopped herself and relied on her Nekovalkyrja body's depleting oxygen reserves. The hand that had just gripped Charbon's went to her buttpack, hand on the familiar revolver she carried.

"One million NMX Neko," Charbon said, floating up from the settling sand and away from Hoshi's hand. "Make that one million and one."

Knowing that the NMX Overseer was talking about the million NMX that the Kaiyō had traded one Warlord Mishhuvurthyar's life for and treated with clemency earlier in the year, Hoshi nodded solemnly. It had been a quick and dirty trade for a ceasefire at the time, nothing more. But now, her past choice felt like one more obfuscation onto what path to choose for her future.

"Word gets around, Taiyou Hoshi of the Star Army. Perhaps that act of compassion had some of my sisters wondering what Yamatai would do if it knew they seek freedom from this endless war."

"And killing you now would make enemies of those wavering, I suppose." Hoshi wagered as she looked through the darkness of night down her iron sight at Charbon, knowing that sparing this NMX Overseer would be making an enemy out of many in her own Empire.

"I suppose," Charbon said. "But that is all to say, will you kill me again?"

-

Back in the city, broken glass from one of the many destroyed buildings glinted bright white as it reflected the moonlight cast from above. For a brief moment, though, the shining glass flashed a dark, murky green as William's mecha jogged past it. His now flightless machine strode towards the battle where the Killthyar's newfound stronghold amongst those buildings still standing and the wreckage of those now downed in this urban sprawl meant there were plenty of places for the enemy to dig in and find cover as they bombarded the Kaiyō ground team from their hollows and shelters behind broken buildings and around corners with modular artillery.

With Aiko having started the imperial charge back into the city, the Yamataian team could see how rooted in the remaining twenty enemy mecha were. Though they still outnumbered the Yamataians, most of the enemies had positioned themselves where the Kaiyō couldn't batter them from above. Those that lingered out in the open, especially those instigating close to the shield maiden Sif, were hit with the rapid pulse firing mode of the starship. Any and all that dare remain in the open scattered to where the makeshift foxholes and cover of their comrades. Still, the enemy shot from their new positions in an unrelenting, zealous frenzy.

The precedent for the battle had been set and there was no doubt who would escape with victory today. Months ago the Star Army of Yamatai had asked the Kaiyō to go undercover and seek out what new weaponry was being created on Urtullan and they had. After the long trial of training had taken place afterwards to be able to pilot their state-of-the-art mecha, the Kaiyō team had been sent back to this planet to be sure none of the new Killthyar mecha would fight for the Mishhuvurthyar war machine. Now, even with the end of their long assignment in sight, all too many of the Kaiyō crewmen understood that a misstep even in this final hour would be disastrous.

As if beckoning forth whatever mayhem she could, Sif Ignemar had become the object of interest and consternation for the enemy and her own crewmen alike. The valkyrie-like warrior was playing with the enemy's attention, though, which meant the Kaiyō team could converge without too much notice on their opponents.

Aiko, with her mecha ready for this next sequence in the long-sustained string of melee attacks, could close in on those positioned around an anti-tank cannon that blasted aether shots every handful of seconds at her crew. One such shot became the last Sif's shield could bear this battle as the pure energy of aether disintegrated the shield where it had been hit most and was worn thinnest. Scorching a hole more than half the shield's size, the edges of aether sizzled pink as it sheared the shield even at the atomic level.

Another aether cannon shot grazed the Santo Hei Yoshida Rio's borrowed mech, knocking one of the shoulder wings clean off of the hulking armor as she flew towards the NMX's last stand. Despite such, she followed the line of fire meant for Sif and Molli dutifully. Rio's precision targeting on the mecha that had marked the other enlisted crewmen meant the Killthyar's integrity took a steep decline, but the enemies weren't balking at the sureness of the Santo Hei's shots and reoriented themselves to begin firing on her now.

To Sif's left, Molli dove into the building that had been hollowed out due to the recent tremors and found a trio of unwitting enemy Killthyar. On the ground floor they were handling some modular pieces of big pink pieces that had come off of different parts of their own mecha, putting it together carefully but quickly.

Their attention focused on firing at the Kaiyō's mobile suits, the Killthyar pilots manning their mecha-scale cannon emplacement were caught unawares when Aiko swept into their position from a path that obscured her behind ruined buildings and began attacking. The first Mishhu mech got impaled from behind through its chest, stopped from triggering another shot from the artillery piece, and was held in place for a few seconds even as the soldier within died and left the machine hanging limp on the Ketsurui's gargantuan blade.

Wasting no time, though, Aiko ripped her mecha's katana upward and through the defeated Killthyar's head and then swung her weapon around to bisect another enemy robot mid-thigh. Then with a third quick strike, the princess brought the sword down again into the bulk of the cannon emplacement's machinery. In an instant, she and the other remaining Killthyar were engulfed in a blast of pink aetheric flame that sent the Mishhuvurthyar mechs crashing to the ground or smashing into the hollowed out buildings that they believed provided cover a moment before. And when the optical sensors on those surviving Killthyar began to resolve images again through the static and smoke, they would see the vibrant azure eyes of Aiko's mecha piercing bright behind the fiery blaze she'd started.

Aiko pounced her mecha atop one of the laid-out Killthyar, plunging her sword down into her next target's vital systems. The proud scarlet-and-silver livery that once painted it was now charred a darker crimson, and a few of the feather-like cowlings on the mecha's shoulders had splintered and shattered at their tips after shrapnel from the now silent cannon blasted into them. Aiko looked up through her robot's eyes and surveyed the scene from its place perched squatting over the latest Killthyar's ruined form, searching for the next enemy to savage.

Instead, though, the princess was forced to leap away as the powered sword of another Killthyar struck at her through the flame with a determined agility that left a parting slice in the wafting smoke that filled up the area. Aiko landed nearby beside the smoldering husk of the artillery piece she'd just destroyed with her katana in both hands at her mecha's right hip. Staring at the brave Killthyar pilot, she noted the damage it'd already sustained and remembered this particular machine from earlier in the battle—the melee oriented half of a pair that'd attacked her earlier—now scarred from the flurry of fire her weapon pods unleashed on it back then.

This foe would not wait to strike again, and neither did Aiko, rushing forward toward the Killthyar even as it ran to stab at her mecha again. If this Mishhuvurthyar wanted a duel so badly then she would joyfully oblige it.