The battle didn't begin with a roar of engines or a heroic shout. It began with the silent, synchronized movement of the silver swarm. Three hundred Megilots detached from the Archangel's rear formation, surging toward the Earth Alliance fleet and the Strike Daggers lining their decks.
Lemon had kept two hundred in reserve. A wise choice—efficiency over excess.
As the drones closed the distance, the Alliance fleet—a massive flotilla of assault carriers, Aegis cruisers, and submarines—unleashed a desperate wall of fire. Long-range missiles, rapid-fire cannons, railguns, and beam batteries lit up the horizon in a chaotic display of defensive might.
The Megilots wove through the barrage with inhuman precision. Some were caught; a few were vaporized by high-output beams, others shattered into scrap by railgun slugs that sent their remains raining into the sea. But the drones felt no fear. They didn't break formation or hesitate when a comrade was destroyed. They simply recalibrated and pressed on, cold machines driven by a singular purpose: the total suppression of the enemy.
"Hey, Axel... Axel-san! Are we just going to sit here and watch?" Dearka's voice crackled over the comms, tense with disbelief.
I shook my head, even though he couldn't see me. "Just Axel is fine. And yes, for now. We're going to let the Alliance savor the performance of our 'mass-produced' units."
Our next destination was space. Once the Archangel and the Shadow Mirror contingent left the Earth, Orb would be vulnerable again. I needed to ensure that the Atlantic Federation was so thoroughly traumatized by this encounter that they wouldn't dare look at Orb's coordinates for a decade. This wasn't just a defense; it was an education.
"Besides," I added, "breaking that line of fire is a headache, especially for you two on those Guuls."
I could have used the System XN to warp directly onto the enemy flagship's bridge, but the Orb high command was watching this live. I wasn't about to show all my cards to the people I was currently protecting—at least, not yet.
"Incredible..." Mu muttered.
I looked back to the front. The Megilots had begun firing their Circle Lasers, the ring-shaped beams burning through incoming missiles and swatting down shells mid-air. They closed the gap until the Strike Daggers were finally within range. A rain of ring-lasers met a desperate volley of beam rifle fire.
"Are you kidding me?" Dearka gasped.
The result was a slaughter. The Circle Lasers carved through the Daggers' armor, severing limbs and piercing cockpits. Meanwhile, the Alliance's return fire did almost nothing. Part of it was the Megilots' superior mobility, but mostly, it was the pilots.
The Alliance had only put mobile suits into mass production after the fall of Panama, barely two weeks ago. These pilots were "short-term miracle" recruits—half-trained, panicked, and forced into machines they didn't fully understand. Against AI combat logic honed through the conquest of countless worlds, they never stood a chance.
"Axel-san," Milliaria's voice broke through. "Thirty large transport planes are approaching from the rear of the Alliance fleet. They're carrying mobile suits."
An airborne drop? They likely intended to paradrop units over Orb's mainland. But that only worked if there was land to land on. Out here in the open sea, their only target was the Archangel.
"Understood. The reserves will handle it."
I tapped a command into the control interface Lemon had provided. One hundred Megilots peeled off to intercept the transports, while the final hundred began a wide flanking maneuver to encircle the fleet.
"If they think they can do anything with slow-moving transports against a hundred drones, they're welcome to try," I mused. "Ah, and it looks like the party's started below, too."
Geysers of fire erupted from the Alliance cruisers. Ships were sinking without a single Megilot having touched them. Lemon's Sealion units had arrived, striking from the lightless depths where the Alliance's sonar was useless.
The surface battle turned into a nightmare. Megilots began "biting" the Strike Daggers—literally. Using the insectoid mandibles designed to crush armor, they clamped onto the Daggers' limbs and heads. One Dagger was hoisted into the air by its arm, only for four more Megilots to descend, tearing the machine apart piece by piece like a pack of silver wolves.
One pilot managed to swing a beam saber, but the Megilot dodged with a sickeningly smooth pivot, retaliating with a point-blank Circle Laser that vaporized the cockpit. Any pilot who showed a modicum of skill was immediately flagged by the AI as a high-threat target; a dozen Megilots would converge on them instantly, shredding and burning them until only scrap remained.
It was overwhelming. It was absolute.
"They're moving to phase two," I noted.
With their mobile suits failing, the Alliance turned to their traditional air power. Spearhead fighters and combat helicopters launched from the rear carriers. They were faster than the Megilots and far more maneuverable in a dogfight.
"Axel, what's the plan?" Mu asked, watching the drones take hits from the Spearheads' hit-and-run tactics. "The Megilots are good, but they're getting picked off by the interceptors."
"Right. Let's not let the drones have all the fun. The Alliance has been sufficiently softened up. It's time for the main event."
The primary goal was to burn the image of our power into the Federation's retinas. Since Blue Cosmos was a cult of fanatics, they were beyond help, but the military brass could still be taught the meaning of the word 'fear.'
"Mu, Dearka—take out the aircraft."
"Got it!"
"Leave it to me!"
The two Guuls accelerated. Mu's 'Agni' beam cannon vaporized Spearheads in a single stroke, while Dearka used the Buster's combined shotgun configuration to spray the slower combat helis with a wall of anti-armor flak.
"Cornelia, Kira—clean up the remaining mobile suits."
"Hmph. With pleasure," Cornelia replied.
"Understood!"
Cornelia was a storm. She pushed the Rapiecage through a hail of fire, her five-barrel chain-gun turning Daggers into Swiss cheese. She dived into the thick of them, dodging a beam saber before her Magnum Beak tore through a Dagger's torso—cockpit and all—shearing the machine in half.
Kira was no less impressive. The Freedom danced through the sky, a blur of white and blue. He picked off Daggers with surgical precision, his beam rifle never missing, his sabers carving through those who got too close. Both were masters of their craft, though I knew Kira still had another gear—the SEED—if things got truly dire.
"The transports are gone," I noted, watching the silver swarm return. The flanking Megilots had torn the bellies out of the transport planes before they could even deploy their cargo.
"Echidna, you and I are taking the ships."
"Acknowledged."
Echidna's Weissager and my Glowsaver ignited their drives. We dived toward the lead Aegis cruiser. I closed my eyes, syncing my mind with the machine.
"Phantom, go!"
The T-LINK system screamed in response. Twenty Phantom remotes launched from the Glowsaver, their laser blades igniting as they dived straight through the cruiser's deck. They tore through the hull like hot needles through silk, detonating stored ammunition and puncturing the engine room from the inside. I recalled them as the ship began to buckle.
I drew the Halberd Launcher from the weapon rack and leveled it at the sinking wreck.
"Sink."
The twin beams lanced out, snapping the cruiser's spine and sending it to the lightless depths.
Beside me, Echidna was a whirlwind of steel. Her Five Great Swords carved through destroyer turrets, her Rekka-jin daggers ignited the magazines of escort ships, and her Jisin-shippu blade took the bridge off a carrier in a single pass.
"By now," I muttered, "even the most delusional commander should realize they can't win with conventional forces."
And that meant only one thing: the Atlantic Federation would play its final cards. The three 'G' units of the second-stage GAT-X series.
Milliaria's voice confirmed it seconds later. "Axel-san! Three unidentified high-performance mobile suits have launched from the enemy flagship!"
I looked toward the horizon. The Alliance fleet had been halved. The survivors were battered, smoking wrecks. Only a few ships at the very rear remained untouched.
"Milliaria, tell Lemon to hold the Sealion teams," I ordered. "But tell her to keep the flagship locked. Be ready to sink it the moment I give the word."
"Wait, what? Yes, sir!"
I needed survivors to spread the word, but I also needed to finish this personally. I opened a wide-channel comm to Cornelia, Echidna, Kira, Mu, and Dearka.
"Back off. Those three new machines are mine. I'll handle them alone."
"Are you serious?!" Dearka shouted. "It's three against one! We have the advantage, why take the risk?"
Mu and Kira looked equally skeptical, but Echidna—who knew what the Glowsaver could really do—and Cornelia—who had seen me dismantle entire fleets—simply nodded and began to pull back toward the Archangel.
"Just watch," I said, my voice dropping into a cold, focused register. "I'm going to show you what it means to lead the Shadow Mirror."
"You... you're sure about this?" Mu asked with a wry smile.
"Who do you think you're talking to?"
Mu chuckled and pulled his Guul back. Kira and Dearka followed suit.
The stage was set. The final act of the Orb invasion was about to begin.
Pilot Profile: Axel Almar
Level: 36 | PP: 185
Stats: Melee: 254 | Ranged: 274 | Skill: 264 | Defense: 264 | Evasion: 294 | Hit: 314
SP: 446
Ace Bonus: SP Boost
Terrain: Air: S | Ground: S | Water: S | Space: S
Spirit Commands: Accel, Effort, Focus, Direct Hit, Awaken, Love
Total Kills: 292
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