Alex laughed so hard to the point that she was out of breath. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. After Alex had somewhat recovered, she asks Vincent, “What are you doing here anyway? Someone like you shouldn’t do D class missions.” Vincent felt offended, “What do you mean someone like me?” Alex clarified, “You know, a newbie.” Vincent answers, “For the past week or so, I’ve been doing nothing but E and F class missions with a friend. I wanted to challenge myself.” Alex gave him a weird look, “And you thought solo-ing a D class mission was a good idea. Especially when the mission is defending a ship.” Vincent nods and Alex sighs, “You do know that protection missions are the most tedious and difficult missions right?” Vincent shrugs.

Alex stood up and stretched when the alarms went off, “Looks like another wave is here. Come on, we’ve got a ship to protect.” Vincent and Alex both returned to their frames. Just before they were moved to the catapult, Alex gave Vincent some advice, “Vincent, think of flying in space, like swimming or sky diving. You can move at any angle. Just get into the right form and use your thrusters.” Alex moved her frame to the catapult, “Alex Johnson, Milady, launch!”

Vincent commanded his frame to move towards the catapult, “Like swimming huh.” Vincent tried recalling all the times he went swimming. The position of his body determines the angle he would be moving. “So I need to get the right angle and activate my thrusters. Sounds easy enough. Vincent Porter, Jakqoo, launch!”

The catapult moved and Vincent’s Jakqoo was launched forwards. Vincent angled himself and he flew in a 60° ascent the moment he was launched out of the catapult. Vincent was excited. He was finally flying in space. After a while, he suddenly noticed a problem. He was still flying at that angle and was flying higher than the ship. Vincent panics and Alex contacted him. She saw that he was panicking. “Vincent calm down.” Alex quickly flew and intercepted Vincent. “Vincent, calm down.” Alex slaps the Jakqoo.

It took a while but Vincent eventually came to his senses. Alex slaps him again, “Vincent, get it together.” Vincent was finally able to shake off the panicked feeling he felt after getting another slap from Alex. “Remember what I said, angle the body in the direction you want it to go and fly.” Having calmed down Vincent angled his Jakqoo towards the Pegasus and activated the thrusters. “It’s okay Vincent. You can do this.” Having returned to the side of the Pegasus, Alarms started blaring inside his cockpit. His radar had detected multiple targets

“There’s more of them than last time,” said Vincent. Alex gave a snarky remark through their communications channel, “What did you expect? It’s the second wave, of course, they’re going to be more of them. Now get ready.” When the enemy units came flying in, Alex made short work of them. She fired her bazooka and beam machinegun on all the enemy units in her vicinity.

Vincent could see several orange spheres appearing and disappearing around the debris field like fireworks. “Damn, she is good.” Several enemy units came close to the ship and they began firing. Vincent angled his Jakqoo and flew in their direction before stopping. He then angled his frame again and fired. He was able to destroy two more units that were attacking the ship.

After defeating the two enemy units, Vincent was alerted and he received fire from above. He tried blocking it with his shoulder-mounted shield but he was only able to block a few of the shots from hitting. While three more units were firing on him from above, he retaliated by firing his machinegun. When he destroyed one of the attacking units, the other four dispersed and started firing on the Pegasus.

Vincent flew towards one of the units and took out his axe. Just as he was about to swing the axe, his alarms blared as he was shot from behind. The enemy unit that he was going to attack took this opportunity to distance itself from Vincent. When it tried to run away, Vincent fired his missiles before turning around to face his assailant. The enemy unit easily shoots down Vincent’s missiles before throwing a dispersion grenade at Vincent’s Jakqoo. Vincent slowly angled himself and was about to fly towards his attacker when something exploded behind him. The explosion sent him crashing into the hull of the ship.

Just as he was about to crash into the hull of the ship, Vincent placed his frame into the fetal position and the moment his feet were about to make contact with the hull of the Pegasus, he used the ship as a jumping-off point and springboard himself in the direction of the enemy unit that threw the grenade. He activated his thrusters and flew at the fastest speed that he could muster.

With the speed and momentum carrying him, he tackled the unit with his shield before drawing his axe. He held his axe downwards and stabs the enemy unit right beside the neck. He increases the pressure and pressed the axe even deeper into the body of the enemy unit. Afterwards, he pulled his axe out of the enemy unit and kicked it away. Vincent shouted, “The grenade was totally uncalled for.” The body of the enemy unit drifted away before turning into a ball of flame. It had exploded.

Seeing its comrade being destroyed in such a violent fashion, the other unit retreated and flew away. Vincent eyed the unit, “Ohoho, you’re not getting away from me that easily.” Vincent angled his Jakqoo in the direction the enemy unit was flying in and activated his thrusters at full thrust. He quickly caught up to the unit.

He was flying right over the enemy unit when he took out three of his dispersion grenades and released them right at the enemy unit’s thrusters. After letting go, Vincent stopped and angled his body back in the direction of the Pegasus and flew back. The grenades exploded one right after the other upon being heated by the thrusters of the enemy unit. It was enveloped in three fireballs before becoming a fireball itself.

Just when Vincent was headed in the direction of the ship, he received a notification, ‘Second Wave Ended’. With that notification, Vincent knew he had earned himself some time to rest. He had earned a moment of reprieve. Vincent had to angle his frame just right in order to get back into the hangar. It took him a while to get the angle right but eventually, he was able to return to the hangar.

When he exited his frame, Vincent found that Alex was already there waiting for him. She commented, “Not bad. You still need more practice but not bad. But you really need to work on your reaction time.” Vincent arrived in front of Alex, “What do you mean?” Alex gave him her honest answer. “The way you were moving earlier, you’re practically a sitting duck.” Vincent then asks, “What do you propose I do?” Alex observed Vincent’s Jakqoo, “You need to be able to change directions and move mid-flight. You can’t stop every time you want to change directions. You need to work on your aerial acrobatics. If you master that, then you will have an easier time against these small fries.”