Shoji Gatoh: Fighting Boy Meets Girl

In terms of damage to the mechs, the Arbalest was in more serious condition. However…

I win.

Sousuke still had weapons. It was close range, and he would not miss.

Sousuke blasted away with his shot cannon. Gauron's mech still staggered from the previous attack. The small warhead flew from the barrel, separated into eight pieces, and continued toward the other mech's torso.

Sousuke didn't believe what he saw next: Every piece of the shot shattered before hitting Gauron's AS, as if it were crashing into an invisible wall. Sousuke didn't understand.

Shortly after that, a violent shock rocked the Arbalest. It seemed as though a great force were pulling Sousuke forward, but then it threw him back.

The Arbalest arced through the air, spun, and tumbled shoulder first to the surface.

Gauron's loud laughter resounded through the ravine.

"Dammit, there it was," lamented Kurz.

From a faraway vantage point, it still looked like some incomprehensible phenomenon.

It couldn't have been a fragmentation mine, nor explosive reactive armor. It was a force field and some kind of shockwave. There simply was no other way to describe it.

The white AS didn't move.

Although Kurz and Kaname couldn't see it, they imagined it to be damaged. After all, an M9 in good condition had been blown to pieces from the same device, so this prototype surely couldn't withstand it.

Kaname remained still.

"Oh, God," she pleaded.

Sousuke gasped, shaking his head. He literally was seeing red; it must have been "red out" from the G-force of the crash. His whole body felt numb, and he barely could move his fingertips. His side felt wet, indicating that his wound had reopened.

He remembered Kurz's words: "It was like being hit with a hammer."

So, this is what he had meant.

He knew Kurz's mech had been destroyed by a hit like that, so Sousuke assumed that his was in a similar state. There was no way it could be functional after that kind of shock. His AS had lost. He had lost to Gauron.

This time, it really is the end.

After a moment, his reddened vision returned to normal, and he studied the on-screen letters. Blue letters.

Contrary to his expectations, the screen read: "Damage slight—no hindrance to combat."

Now, it was Gauron's turn to question his eyes: With great effort, the white AS sat up. And then it stood.

Although the head was partially destroyed, the machine appeared to be otherwise unharmed. The Mithril AS that Gauron had defeated earlier had blown apart completely!

"Ah! Why didn't that work?"

Shaking his head, Gauron checked his drive system. He used the Lambda Driver properly—having charged its personal condenser—so it wasn't an output problem.

"A misfire? Weird."

In any case, it was an imperfect device; at times, it did not operate as desired.

The personal condensers were in a cylinder like a six-shooter, and Gauron revolved it, causing a new one to lock into place.

"There." Gauron chuckled, planning to attack with the Lambda Driver again. This time, he'd make sure to get the job done.

"What's going on?" wondered Sousuke, still in awe of the damage report.

Outside of the head damage, the machine virtually was unharmed.

"How the hell…?"

It sounded like something was turning around on the Arbalest's back—some kind of cylinder. Then, there was the sharp sound of something connecting.

"What did you do? What's that movement?"

Ignoring those questions, Al said, "Lambda Driver initialized."

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Unable to respond. Resuming combat."

"Answer me, Al."

"Unable to respond."

On the screen, Gauron's AS unsheathed its knifelike monofilament blade.

"He's alive? How the hell?" Kurz was gobsmacked.

Kurz wondered why Sousuke was okay when his own mech had been obliterated.

"Oh, okay," Kaname began, putting her hand to her temple. "S-somehow… I get it."

"Kaname? Are you okay? Hey."

Supporting herself on a tree trunk, Kaname coughed a few times before gazing at the white AS in the distance.

"I feel sick. The TAROS… he doesn't… understand how to use it." Her dainty shoulders heaved up and down as she mumbled frail incoherencies. "Only keeping up… with his opponent. Strong self-defense urge…"

Kaname's eyes looked far from sane, the same way they had appeared earlier.

"Get a grip, Kaname. Cut it out! "

"Can't. I've got to… i-instruct…"

"Instruct? What are you talk—"

"Always being saved… not this time… must instruct."

Finally, Kurz understood Kaname's cryptic ramblings. She knew something valuable that could help overcome the enemy. It seemed as if she were wrestling her own mind to extract the information.

"Pseudo… lam… fa, fa, fa." She sobbed in apparent anguish. "Ph-phase interference is th-the t-t-TAROS… Hn… ah. No. N-n. But not."

Kaname grabbed her disheveled hair and arched her back.

Kurz couldn't help getting the willies from the manifestation of her madness.

"Hey!" he called, but she did not respond.

"I… won't lose!"

With that, Kaname bashed her head against the tree trunk. The recoil knocked her down, and she rocked back and forth vigorously. Curving her body backward, she spewed gibberish in an inverted crying voice.

"Kaname!" Kurz thought he might go crazy, too, just from watching. What the hell is this? I'm a soldier, not a nurse in a nut house! What am I supposed to do about something like this?

'Ha! Ha. K-Kurz…" Kaname stood in front of Kurz and attempted to speak, but she couldn't quite inspire her tongue to the task. She glared at him with ghastly eyes, inhaled, and said, "Ku– Kurz. G-give me your transmitter."

It was entirely urgent, a different tone from before.

' Fine by me, but why—"

"I must hurry and tell him."

"Tell him what?"

"Hurry!"

No matter how many times Sousuke asked, the Arbalest's AI would not answer his question.

It was no time to bicker: The enemy approached. Having already dropped his shot cannon during the last impact, Sousuke extracted the monofilament blade from the mech's armpit.

But if he does that to me again…

Even if the mech survived, Sousuke's body couldn't take another shot like that. With that thought, his whole body broke out in a sweat.

Suddenly, he heard a new voice—a short-range transmission from outside.

"Sagara, can you hear me?"

"Chidori?"

"Listen carefully! Your enemy has special equipment."

Kaname's voice was hoarse, as if being wrung out of her, and Sousuke wondered if she was wounded.

"It's a mechanism that converts the pilots attack impulses into physical power. This is im-imporant."

"Chido—"

"L-listen. And… I don't know why, but your AS also is equipped with a Lambda Driver. That's why you're still alive!"

Lambda Driver? That's the phrase the Arbalest used.

Gauron's AS was only about a hundred feet away now.

"Surely, you thought about protecting yourself, right? The mechanism reacted to that. With it, strong images in your mind take shape!"

"Images? In my mind? No weapon like that could ever—"

Stopping in front of the Arbalest, Gauron's AS glared with one red eye. With no warning, the surrounding atmosphere waved and distorted.