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"Do you see it?" Akihiro yelled, throwing his voice over his shoulder to Bernard.

"Hard to see anything from back here!" the pilot called out loudly from behind him.

"I can help with that," Aki cried out. With a flick of his wrist, a huge section of the Serval's cockpit windshield instantly magnified. "I see five ships remaining. The big one, in the center and four smaller dropships."

"It's there! Off to the side!" Bernard exclaimed excitedly as he pointed to the light brown spacecraft in the distance.

"Alright! Let's get Misaki then," Aki felt confident that they could pull this mission off. Given there weren't any major units coming in to defend and that nobody shot the shuttle down after they took off. He pushed his concerns away. They would just have to do the best they could manage under whatever circumstances presented themselves.

He engaged the throttle on the Serval's engine and hauled ass across the concrete parking lot. Even being a relatively small mecha, the speed and force of the running Serval created indentations in the pavement with cracks spreading out from the center. Aki leaped on top of a car, crushing it down to the ground with one huge footprint as he propelled himself off of it and towards Misaki's Kuroma.

Several heavily armored security guards were now surrounding her mecha as well as all of the dock workers and extra personnel that she had been helping out. For whatever reason, Aki hadn't seen her use any of her weapons in defense and had just been trying to fend them off using simple means. Every time they got too close to her and really started unloading their firearms into the Kuroma, she'd knock a whole shelf of cargo over sending them all fleeing. Misaki could hold out for a very long time against regular guns though. Unless it was a fast bullet with a lot of luck, it had little chance of penetrating the thick armor of a mecha.

The towering Kuroma turned to face him as he dashed even closer towards it. There were a lot of people between them though and things were about to get messy if they didn't get the hell out of the way.

Aki held in a switch on his command stick, opening his microphone to the comm channel again. "Misaki, use overwhelming force now. That's an order!" he barked over the line trying to snap her out of it.

"Negative," she said calmly. "I don't want to risk damaging the vessel."

He had honestly thought she was in a panic up until he'd heard her stoic voice over the speakers. Aki couldn't deny that it was smart of her to avoid using any plasma weapons without knowing which ship they were actually taking. But now that he knew exactly which shuttle they were taking, there was no need for her to hold back. She needed to break through their line in order to reach him.

"I know the location. Cut a path through towards me! Now!" his words shot out firmly. "If they're stupid enough to get in your way, then it's their own fault for dying."

"If you think I give a shit about the lives of these scumbags, you're mistaken, Aki," she explained over his comm speakers. "I just don't want to start a fire that might strand us."

There communications were constantly interrupted by the blaring of other voices in the background sending out endless alerts.

"Back up then!" Aki had reached the edge of a concrete embankment and was now waiting for her to make a turn towards him. "Hurry!" There was an underpass that Misaki could take that would go right below him and come out at the Peregrine dropship.

Akihiro saw her moving towards it finally, stomping through a couple of security guards and turning them into mincemeat beneath the Kuroma's massive feet. She drew a line between herself and the rest of the crowd into the pavement with one laser before turning for the underpass.

Good girl he thought to himself feeling secure that she would come out the other end and meet him safely. The Serval's engine roared as he hit the pedal and high tailed it all the way down the ramp towards the lot where Bernard's Peregrine was parked.

–

Misaki backed up step by step towards the tunnel as a soldier decked out in power armor hopped off a truck with a thud. Instantly, he began lining up his sights on her Kuroma with an armor piercing round that was sure to do significant damage if it hit.

Not today she mused with a snicker as she unleashed three bright orange lasers straight across the unit's chest turning him and his bazooka into molten slag. Misaki then turned her remaining three plasmas on the truck to make sure it didn't deliver any more dangerous surprises. The driver got out of the cab and ran for it just as the gas tank caught fire and combusted sending pieces of shrapnel flying through the air.

The crowd was now dispersing in fear as they should have done from the beginning. She scanned the horizon and didn't see any more threats looming. Now is a good time to leave. Misaki passed by the massive cargo ship that she had been helping to load until not too long ago. There was a huge scaffolding that ran the length of the ship and across the gap to the other platform. It looked like there were tracks running on top of it, likely for hauling freight into other storage bays on the spacecraft.

It was the perfect way to block off her escape. But first, she had to do something about this ship. It was likely stocked with every valuable asset they'd stolen from the people of Midori no Mori. She couldn't let them get away with profiting off the death of so many. Leaving them all stranded here to face their fate when the Legion inevitably turned up for retribution sounded like a good idea as well.

She fired off her plasma lasers, cutting into the side of the cargo ship as cracks followed all the way down. Misaki took care not to hit the engines, lest she set off a massive explosion that would take out the whole spaceport. She just needed to make sure that they could never fly it again. Aiming towards the front of the ship, where the pilot's crew would have been, she sliced right through the nose of the vessel. It fell down with a massive quake as it hit the pavement and shook the ground below her.

Satisfied, she backed into the tunnel and aimed her crosshair on the metal scaffolding. Misaki began tearing it to pieces with laser fire. The metal burned hot and fiery as it fell to the ground in huge chunks. Beyond the newly created barricade, she surveyed the absolute devastation she'd caused on the the Badger's facilities. Everything was on fire and it couldn't have happened to nicer people.

As she turned around to go full speed through the tunnel, Akihiro's voice piped up over the line.

"Misaki! We need you to cover us! Keep alert!" his voice echoed over with a static as he left the channel.

I wish we could be more specific she complained to herself internally, even though she knew being vague was necessary in the current situation when using unsecured channels. It was hard to know exactly what was going on when she didn't even have eyes on him or the shuttle though.

The underpass opened up ahead of her and to the left she saw a tall parking garage with a ramp passing down from the upper level. Straight ahead was a medium length runway with a brown shuttle parked at the end of it. Beside it she could see Aki's Serval standing still with two small figures along the outside of the Peregrine.

"Oh Shit!" she found herself saying out loud. She had never even considered the possibility of Akihiro leaving his mecha. The very fact of him not being protected while all of this chaos was going down terrified her. Misaki had thought the worst of it was over and now she had to protect them while they got the ship operative.

The Kuroma's engine roared fiercely as she kicked it into full throttle, running like an unstoppable juggernaut towards the Peregrine. Akihiro Saito had been the best thing to happen in the living nightmare that her life had become. Before getting to know him on this failed Legion mission, she hadn't given a shit if she lived or died. Now she desperately wanted them both to get out of this alive, if only to see where the future might take them together.

"I'm coming Aki!" she yelled out loud, swiping one errant tear away from her eye.