Approximately 20 kilometers to the east of the capital of Deltas a single closed type AEHWP transport was parked under a large tree. Inside sat Iris and hugged a slightly shaking Abel that she had finally captured after a short scuffle.

"Don't worry Abel, they'll be okay."

Even as Iris treated Abel like a body pillow she carefully patted his head as she spoke words of encouragement without a hint of emotion in them.

"Will they? Lilly too?"

After traveling with Iris for a while Abel had learned that Iris never expressed any kind of emotion in her speech or expression, but she generally always meant what she said.

"Of course."

"Lux is a firce fighter that can even fight Dax to a draw within certain constraints."

"Terra is a disciple of Dax and Lux that has an extremely strong intuition that she uses to combine several types of martial art into a deadly combo."

"Lilly might not look like it but she's a master mage with unparalleled strength when it comes to manipulation of wind magic."

"They'll be fine, even if they have to fight the entire city."

"... Okay, I believe you."

"Good child, let's think about how we'll welcome them back."

While carefully patting Abel's head to calm him down Iris however was not calm at all as she received a message through her ICI unit.

(LIDAR, RADAR AND VISUAL HAVE CONTACT. THREAT LEVEL 4, APPROACHING FORMATION @21.4 METERS/SECOND.)

(Tell Zephyr to hide, she can properly sense her mana…)

(DIRECTIVES AFFIRMED.)

(Connect us to tactical overlay.)

(PREPARING FOR MIND MELT PATTERN RED. WARING: PARTIAL MIND MELT IN EFFECT. EXPECTED CORRUPTION AT 23.5% PATTERN RED NOW IN EFFECT.)

At Iris' command her vision tuned dark and was then replaced with a tactical map of her surrounding terrain.

HOSTILE CONTACT: RANGE 18 KILOMETERS, 309 METERS, HEADING 271 AT FLIGHT LEVEL 150.

ENGAGE? Y/N?

"Establish visual first please."

COMMAND REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGED, ESTABLIs.h.i.+NG HIGH BANDWIDTH DATABRIGE FORM FORWARD ELEMENT ECHO…. COMPLETE, RELAYING VISUAL DATA FEED FROM SPECTOR 2-42..

Looking through the eyes of a UAV Iris was shown a lush plain wheat field outside of Rochdale. As the sensors calibrated the view switched to a figure above that field that flew through the air directly towards Iris' location. The figure was immediately recognized as an angel, she had 3 black wings extending out from her back and had a caracteristici dense layer of mana that surrounded her.

"Have forward element Echo open up on target, suppressive fire."

"Laser target for guided munitions then have strike 01 deliver 1 times airburst with relative coordinates as follows: D4 + 26 -12."

"Reconfigure and retask 1 times Viper HV-ARM MaRV from SEAD to AMS tasking, isolate mana signature and lock proximity fuses to organic, detonate within 10 meters."

"Wake up all anti material and anti personnel UGAV's and form a second line of defence, configure strike 02 to reactive anti material fire with UHV-APDSFS as fire support."

"Relocate CIC to fallback point Charlie while EWS, drone tender, ammunition stowage and fuel breeder AEHWP's move to fallback point Omega."

"Have all leftover Reaper drones mobilize with type 3 equipment. Orders are to pop and shoot, no prolonged firefights, no engagements within 1 click."

"Relay all directives and updates back to us and estimate Viper HV-ARM AMS tasking ETA please."

Demonstrating the reason why she was chosen to partic.i.p.ate in this mission as Iris made the most of her fragmented ego and relayed seval orders to the drone network around her in a split second before returning to the real world where she still patted Abel on the head.

"Big sister Iris?"

Sensing the AEHWP they were both inside starting to move Abel had a worried look on his face as he looked to Iris for an explanation.

"Don't worry, we're just moving a bit."

"Nothing out of the ordinary."

"Now why don't we try and sing a song?"

"What about the one Lilly taught you?"

"But you can't sing Iris."

Demonstrating a child's brutal honesty Abel looked to Iris with a hint of petty in his eyes that made Iris forgive his rude remark almost instantly.

"You know saying that to a girl can be hurtful Abel."

"Then why don't you try and teach me?"

"Then I might forgive you."

"O-okay.. Then let's start with-..."

Seeing a hint of rage in Iris' mostly blank eyes Abel covered a bit in fear and then hurriedly started the futile task of teaching Iris how to sing, and soon forgot his worry about why they were moving when Lux said that they should stay put.

-

Flying through the air towards her objective Melisha noticed a glimt of something in the forest below, and not a moment too late.

"!!!"

Suddenly the forest in front of her erupted with rifle and machine gun fire that only just missed Melisha as she had hurriedly changed course and but up a defensive s.h.i.+eld made out of golden crystal.

"f.u.c.king pests!"

Understandably she was quite upset at the countless golems that suddenly tried to kill her Melisha formed countless 3 meter long golden crystal in the air around her as the golems fruitlessly fired at her crystal s.h.i.+eld.

"Time to paris.h.!.+"

Launching the crystals at the drones below her, Melisha was momentarily distracted, just as Iris had predicted.

On a hill over 20 kilometers from Melisha a Guardian-G097 indirect fire railgun carrier had set up itself and pointed its primary weapon at the angel as the primary capacitors slowly charged with a hum.

[FIREMISSION RECEIVED. TARGET ACQUIRED, LOAD HV-CANISTER.

RANGE TO TARGET: 23.619 METERS.

FUSE: AIRBURST -500 METERS.

ADDITIONAL ADJUSTMENT: D4 + 26 -12.

FIRE AT WILL.]

Discharging the capacitors rapidly into the 2 rails, the Guardian-G097 railgun propelled a 1005 kilo anti personnel round towards its target at several times the speed of sound. Reaching its destination in a matter of seconds the sh.e.l.l exploded 500 meters from its target and spread out a shotgun-like hail of half a million small metal slugs and flechette darts in cl.u.s.ter that completely saturated the target area. Melisha didn't even react to the attack, in an instant the s.h.i.+eld spell that surrounded her was cracked and fell apart as she was. .h.i.t with countless metal projectiles.

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"ARGH!-"

Being a archangel her body was extremely tough so she didn't outright die form the hits, but her body was completely littered with bruises and deep cuts as several of her ribs fractured.

"INSOLENT CREATURE, I AM NOT TO BE PLAYED WITH, PREPARE TO DIE!"

Now truly p.i.s.sed off Melisha channeled an absurd amount of mana into a single spell that she let loose on the golems that still annoyed her, the spell took shape of a small glowing orb that exploded into a flas.h.i.+ng light when it hit the ground. The result was devastating, like a high explosive sh.e.l.l had hit in the middle of the reaper drones a small crater had formed as the forest they used for cover was set alight while multiple drones were simply smashed to pieces.

-

(UPDATE: FORWARD ELEMENT ECHO IS COMBAT INEFFECTIVE, CONTACT ADVANCING TOWARDS SECOND DEFENSIVE LINE.)

(What are the losses?)

(PRINTING DAMAGE REPORT:

OF THE 32 REAPER DRONES

DRONES DESTROYED: 21

HEAVY DAMAGE: 9

LIGHT DAMAGE, STILL OPERATIONAL: 2

OF THE 2 REAPER TYPE DRONE AEHWP CARRIER'S

UNITS DESTROYED: 1

HEAVY DAMAGE: 0

LIGHT DAMAGE: 1, WARING REACTOR BREACH, UNIT DISABLED.

END OF REPORT.)

"f.u.c.k."

"Big sister Iris?"

As Iris broke the silence inside the transport Abel looked to her slightly confused.

"Ah sorry we were just thinking out loud, continue playing."

"... Okay."

Not completely convinced Abel went back to playing by himself just as Iris received a ma.s.sage and once more entered mindmelt.

["Iris we have contact!"]

"Busy!"

["s.h.i.+t! Lux we have contact! Iris too!"]

["Same here! Draw out the fight I'll be there as soon as possible!"]

Felling the line disconnect Iris was left alone once more.

"Even if you say that…. ICI bring me up to speed."

COMMAND REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGED. STILL TRACKING 1 TIMES CONTACT: RANGE 16 KILOMETERS, 813 METERS, HEADING 271 AT FLIGHT LEVEL 45. APPROACHING SECOND LINE OF DEFENSE @14.5 METERS/SECOND.

"So she has slowed down quite a bit.. What's the contact's ETA to CIC?"

ESTIMATING TIME OF ARRIVAL BASED ON KNOW FACTORS AND DEFENSIVE POSITIONS, STANDBY… COMPLETE, ETA: 129 MINUTES.

"And what's the Viper HV-ARM MaRV AMS tasking ETS?"

ESTIMATED TIME TO STRIKE FOR VIPER HV-ARM MISSION IS 59 MINUTES, DUE TO STRIKE PROFILE 9.

"So as long as nothing goes wrong we're still okay… Switch second line of defence to pop and shoot, try and draw out the time more."

DIRECTIVE CONFIRMED, SWITCHING UGAV'S TO FORMATION SIGMA, STRIKE 02 PREPARING FOR RAPID RESPONSE, SWITCH TO ACTIVE COOLING CYCLE #4.

-

After dealing with the first golems and 2 large machines Melisha slowed her speed while lowering her alt.i.tude as she surrounded herself in several layers of s.h.i.+elding to protect her from another long range attack like the last one that had almost crippled her.

(What the h.e.l.l was that attack earlier? It seemed like it required a great deal of guidance so I quickly eliminated the golems so the opponent knows that it didn't work and will most likely try something more extreme next time…)

Immediately after destroying what she had believed was the final golem Melisha quickly healed the worst of her induires with magic, but that in turn had been a great mental drain so she now approached her target flying quite a bit lower and slower than before. Reaching a large open plain Melisha regained a bit of her confidence in spotting new treats she slightly lowered her guard, but not for long.

"HII! What the f.u.c.k was that!?"

Out of nowhere a explosion tore through a quarter of the s.h.i.+elds she had formed to guard her back, frightening the angel that had not expected an attack from the rear. Looking around for the attacker Melisha spotted a small black machine behind her that had hid at the edge of the forest.

"f.u.c.king bug!"

Quickly putting 2 and 2 together Melisha figured that the small machine was the source of the attack from the rear, and launched multiple crystal spikes after it. But alas the machine proved more tenacious than the others she had faced so far, quickly retreating from its initial position it zigzagged backwards while shooting its attached Rex-0999 machine gun at the p.i.s.sed off angel with relative accuracy.

"YOU!"

With her anger flaring Melisha formed a sword out of crystal and charged the annoying bug to kill it herself, but as she closed the distance it suddenly launched several grenades at her that exploded mid air and created a smokescreen.

"What!?"

Slas.h.i.+ng through the smoke the machine had disappeared, but the frustrated angel hardly had time to think about that as another explosion hit her in the back.

"I SWEAR WHEN I FIND THE ONE CONTROLLING THESE MACHINES I'LL RIP HIM APART WITH MY BARE HANDS!"