There was a stillness, if not momentary, that Hoshi took in just as Charbon absconded from her view into the swirling desert sands. She wanted to take a deep breath in and sigh it out, but the bitingly sulfuric air that cut into that moment of reflection. With a huff out, she turned around and surveyed what she could of the city as she drew nearer it, trying to form a plan for both her team and then for her own options on how to get clean oxygen before her stores depleted.
What she saw between the Kaiyo cutting into the city intermittently with its deadly pulses was the exchange of fire and a lone mecha ascending to the skies. It took a second to see it as Sif, shieldless but all the more threatening without it. With an impending grace, she watched Sif find a crow's nest of sorts above the battle as she heard the young soldier's callout over comms.
"I could use you looking out over Rio-chan's mecha. I'm going to access it whether Aratani's cleared it for combat or not." Hoshi directed over digital telepathy. "I'll need it to breathe soon, Aratani."
"I'm about done," Aratani responded in a voice that sounded like a confident lie.
"Good," Hoshi said, redirecting her focus to another budding soldier. In Hoshi's dismembered mecha, Rio looked shell-shocked and Hoshi relayed a message to her. "Following Sif to her position above the battle may be a wise decision with the rifle on my mech. Set it to precision automatic targeting and support us from up there and keep out of danger."
Most of the cannons were being destroyed, whether that be by Aiko or Molli. From inside the hollowed building, Molli's try at diplomatic words came too late. The mecha she had shot at were already damaged and with her marked placement of shots fired into their most vulnerable areas, two of the mecha seemed to falter as if at the end of their lives. The third wasn't so hurt, though, and jetted towards Molli. They were unable to reach her, though, as the cannon Molli had shot at had also expired. Except, unlike the mecha, it didn't just limply lose life. Instead, it exploded. At first just a roiling small black and pink ball, it escalated as it grew, consuming the broken mecha before enveloping the third as they pushed towards Molli. The heat wave pushed the Yamataian mecha out of the side of the building before it could decimate it as it had the Mishhuvurthyar ones.
Taking a charge at Aiko's charred and changed—but not mangled or impaired—mecha, the Killthyar swordsman was tired but not dispassionate. Both machines showed signs of the battle, a testament not just to the breadth of the assault but to each side's zeal for triumph over the other. As their swords met, it was obvious to Aiko that her opponent didn't just want to win this action and abscond with their prized Killthyar mecha. It was about much more to many NMX Neko. About superiority and pride.
The pair broke apart and the enemy mecha twirled its sword in hand. Their wrist slowed at each interval disjointedly, cutting jagged swirls through the dust and smoke reminiscent of the clearer lin it had cleaved during its initial charge moments earlier. The Killthyar bounded forward again, closing their chest to take a short series of quasi-flourished jabs rather than a long piercing blow as they had before. Something new became clear to Aiko as they made these movements that this mecha's pilot was fighting like a trained swordsman for power armor or perhaps out of it, but not for mecha battle. Their swift movements were stunted by the hulking machine they were now in.
After all, Aiko and her crew had months to train in these mecha while the NMX in theirs now were just picking them up for delivery to a Mishhuvurthyar base where they would have trained. With the Kaiyo cutting in when it had, the NMX hadn't gotten the opportunity to connect with the Killthyar machines and know how to best translate their movements into practice. Where a movement from this swordsmen would be graceful out of a mecha, it was almost ungainly and easily predictable in it.
