Ch 344: Reinforcements.

The transport shook a little when they met a patch of lower air pressure, and Henrietta "Annette" Von Penrose adjusted her glasses for the umpteenth time, a bad habit she had when she was worried.

But the possibility of crashing wasn't the reason for her nervousness. She glanced at the other passenger.

"I say it again, I do not have the equipment necessary for this, and I doubt they have it on site either, Commander. I do not understand why you're dragging me all the way to the frontline."

Karlstahl could only shrug.

"To be perfectly honest, I share your opinion. But that dear niece of mine was… quite insistent."

"This better be worth it, or I'm not giving her any natural food for six months. No, a year!" grumbled Annette.

All she knew was what the Division Commander told her, that Lena somehow was on the frontline, and that she needed them both here, that the Spearhead Squadron had somehow secured one of the Legion's commanders.

"You will have to wait your turn to chew her up, miss Von Penrose. First, she will have to answer to me about why she's even there in the first place, and how she got there. I checked, and no transports were supposed to travel to this part of the frontline in the last few hours. I hope she hasn't hijacked one."

"She's not the type to do that." protested Annette.

"No, she's not." smiled Karlstahl. "But then, I wouldn't think she's the type to pull this stunt either, and here we are."

He consulted his watch.

"We should land in about ten minutes."

Annette nodded and adjusted her glasses again. In a few more minutes, she would get answers, even if she had to grab Lena by the lapel and shake them out of her.

Assuming her claims were true, having a legion's commanding unit in their hands was of limited value. The Legion likely had more, and the others would isolate the captured unit, making it unable to give orders. It might be a source of intelligence and give them some insight about the Legion's technology, but any tactical or strategic information would be of limited value. The Legion never used tactics in the first place. It only waited until it had produced enough units to be a threat to the Republic's defenses, then sent them to the frontline, rinse and repeat.

Her musings were interrupted when the copilot entered the cargo compartment. "Sir, we see an Einstagsfliege cloud. It looks like a big one. Should we turn back?"

"Distance?" frowned Karlstahl.

"About 70-80km away, Sir."

"So we should have time to land at the base, retrieve one Alba personnel and possibly some classified material, then leave before Legion units come into range." nodded the Division Commander.

"Yes, Sir."

"We'll do that. Get us there as fast as possible."

"Yes, Sir!" said the copilot before turning away. Seconds later, Annette heard the engine's pitch increasing.

"Are we going to be in danger?"

Karlstahl shook his head as he did some mental calculations.

"…Legion ground units should be at least 70-80km away from us, and 50km from the base. Their artillery units have a range of about 15km. Considering their moving speed, we have about an hour before they can start bombing the base, and that's assuming the Spearhead Squadron doesn't slow them down or destroy them. They are an elite squadron, so I think they can deal with even a large incursion."

"The only real risk would be if they fail, and for the transport to be unable to go airborne after landing for some reason. But those machines are reliable and incidents are very rare. Besides, I can't abandon Lena."

Annette nodded, feeling somewhat reassured.

After a few minutes, the pilot announced over the intercom that they were about to land, and as the transport turned before landing, pointing towards the capital, Annette saw through the window several people coming towards them. One of them was Lena, a hand keeping her officer cap in place to stop it from being blown away by the engines.

She couldn't read the expression on Lena's face, but when Annette glanced at the other three beside her, her jaw dropped. She recognized the young, male Eighty-Six.

Shin.

She felt like she had just been stabbed by an icy dagger, and the guilt she had contained in the back of her mind for so long flooded her.

They had been childhood friends, before the oppression. The Von Penrose had even sheltered the Nouzen family when it had started. But when the oppression became too much, when she started being bullied for having been friends with an Eighty-Six, it was her who had asked her father to make them leave.

It was her fault if Shin was there, in the front line. And who knew what had happened to the rest of his family.

"Miss Von Penrose?" asked Karlstahl when he saw her reaction, and she shook herself.

"It's… nothing."

The Division Commander nodded and walked down the loading ramp, and Annette followed, regretting her decision to let the military officer drag her to this place.

On the side, she saw the remains of a Legion unit and wondered for a second about the damage it sustained, that seemed to be the results of many cuts rather than explosions or shell penetrations.

When they stopped a few meters away from Lena and the others, she sent a furtive glance at Shin, and her heart sank further when she saw that he recognized her.

"Welcome to the First Ward's First Base, Commander, Annette." said Lena with a crisp salute, her voice barely audible with the noise of the engines powering down.

As a result of her posture, her cap flew off, but it was immediately caught by the female Eighty-six, one with very long black hair in a ponytail and purple eyes. She was beautiful to the point that Annette had a hard time moving her eyes away from her and was displaying what seemed to be a slightly mischievous smile.

"Thank you, Major." formally replied Karlstahl. "And I hope you have a good explanation for your unauthorized presence here."

"We more or less kidnapped her." chuckled the female Eighty-Six before Lena, flustered, could respond. "I am Akeno Himejima. Lena told me that you already heard about me."

"I have. Do you have a habit of kidnapping your commanding officers?"

"Only the good ones." nodded Akeno. "The bad ones get their noses broken, or worse. And you must be Lena's Uncle, Division Commander Jérôme Karstahl. It is nice to meet you. From what Lena told us, I think you're just about the only other San Magnolia officer worth working with."

Annette saw Karlstahl's expression twitch in distaste, but he seemingly decided not to waste valuable time on discipline matters and turned his gaze to Lena.

"We don't have much time. Where is that alleged Legion Commanding unit? Or was it some ploy to lure me and miss Von Penrose here?"

"It's, complicated." admitted Lena with a dazed expression. "I couldn't reveal details over the phone because you wouldn't have believed a word of it, Commander. Even now, I want to pinch myself to make sure this isn't a dream. Please follow us inside, and we will show you."

"Very well. But you have seen that cloud, right? We need to hurry."

"It's being handled." replied Akeno as they started walking.

"Handled?" asked the Division Commander. He glanced at the half-open doors of the hangar and could see activity inside. The Juggernauts were being prepared to sortie.

"Handled." repeated Akeno. "We destroyed about a thousand Legion units earlier today and captured their commander. This apparently got the Legion all pissy, and from what Albion and Shin told us, they're sending over two thousand this time, along with another commander."

"Are you suggesting the Legion has three thousand ground units in the area? That's preposterous!" scoffed Karlstahl. "They might have three thousand, total."

"Commander, there is a lot of things we didn't know about the Legion, that I am just learning. Our evaluations of them is… catastrophically wrong." sighed Lena.

Shin opened the room of the dorm, and they all entered. Lena led them down a hallway to a door that was guarded by two armed Eighty-Sixes. They silently glanced at the Commander and Lena, and Annette thought she could see contempt in their eyes.

"The 'Commanding Unit' we captured is in this room, Uncle." quietly said Lena. "Once you see, you will understand."

Annette took a deep breath as Lena opened the door. Before she could enter, she saw the Commander freeze completely by the doorway, his eyes wide open.

And she heard a voice coming from inside the room.

"Long time no see, Jérôme. Thank you for taking care of Lena for me."

"…Václav? No, it's impossible." muttered the Division Commander, shocked.

Annette blinked, recognizing the name, and looked at Lena who confirmed with a slow nod.

"And yet, here I am. Come in, my brother. We have a lot to talk about, and not much time."

"…Give me a minute." said Karlstahl with a choked voice, and Václav nodded.

The Division Commander sent a glare to Lena who shrugged with a helpless expression, then entered the room to let Annette walk in.

Annette saw a middle-aged Alba man with long white hair, dressed in the military's white and blue uniform. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and gestured for them to take one of the two chairs.

"…The Legion didn't kill you. It captured you." understood the Division Commander after a moment.

"That is correct. All of the Legion's commanders, with one exception, are humans that were captured on the battlefield."

"That explains why Lena didn't require us to bring specialized equipment to debrief you, then. But we need to evacuate you back to the capital. The Legion is coming."

"No need. Like I said, it's being handled." said Akeno by the door.

"The Spearhead Squadron, against over two thousand Legion units?" asked Karlstahl, clearly skeptical.

"The Squadron, and our modest reinforcements. They already are in range to provide fire support." said Akeno as she took from a pocket a small black device and seemed to read something on it, then grinned.

"In fact, the missiles are already on their way. The Squadron will only have to swoop in and mop up what remains of that force. We're trying to capture that Commanding unit as well. And on that note, Shin, you're coming with me."

"Alright." nodded Shin as they left the room.

"Lena, just who is in command of the Squadron?" asked Annette to Lena, who winced.

"In theory, I am the Handler and Shin is the Captain. But Akeno is so… capable… that whenever something is going to happen that requires her particular talents, it's easier to go along and let her do her thing. She knows exactly what she is able to do, and we don't. We wouldn't have been able to capture that Legion Commander without her, and she made it easy."

"…Václav, tell me everything." sighed Karlstahl.

Annette focused on the man who supposedly was Lena's father, and she could indeed see some of her features in his face.

"I was captured by the Legion during that battle. The machines disarmed me, then pinned me down by crushing one of my legs and keeping me pressed on the ground. Then, another kind of machine approached me, one we had never encountered before. One that vaguely looked like a giant steel centipede. When it came near, if unfolded some small appendages ending with…

He fell silent and visibly shuddered.

"…I remember the keening sound of the circular surgical saw. The blades, and the pincers. I blacked out after a few seconds, because of the pain. When I became aware again, I couldn't feel my body. I was floating in some sort of void. And the Legion spoke to me. It wasn't sounds or words. It was like the knowledge just suddenly appeared in my mind. The Legion told me that I would now command its forces jointly with the other Commander. There was only one other back then. She reached out, both sympathizing with my predicament and welcoming me like a fellow prisoner. Which was exactly what we were."

"You were in command of the Legion?" frowned Karlstahl. "You could control them?"

"Only to some extent." replied Václav with a grim voice. "The Legion's hivemind listened to my every thought, and any time I contemplated turning the Legion again itself, about sabotaging it in even the most subtle way, it knew immediately, and it punished me."

Václav paused, looking at his hands for a second, and when he looked back up, his eyes were haunted.

"I experienced pain I don't know how to describe, Jérôme. A burning and anguish and crushing sadness that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once."

"I used every trick I could think of to try to sneak around the Hivemind's monitoring, to slow the Legion in some way, to protect the Republic. God knows, I tried... But there was only so much I could endure, and the Legion's Hivemind was relentless."

"After weeks of torture, I… broke. I resigned myself and went along the Hivemind's wishes, commanding the Legion against some of its enemies other than San Magnolia. It accepted that compromise, at least." sighed Václav.

"But you commanded the attack today."

"Only because I was close, and this attack was supposed to be limited in scope." shrugged Václav. "I was to capture the leader of the Spearhead Squadron, possibly some of the other talented pilots as well, then return without exploiting the gap that the Squadron's destruction would have caused."

"And the other… commanding units?" asked Karlstahl. "You said there was one before you, but you implied there are more now? Why does it even need humans as commanders?"

"Because of the fixed lifespan." replied Václav with a bittersweet smile. "You guys back home still think that the Legion will cease functioning within two years. But you failed to consider the possibility that the Legion might be aware of this and take steps to solve that issue. It did."

"The Legion did?" exclaimed Annette, alarmed.

"The Legion itself couldn't change that setting. It was hardcoded and it couldn't modify the designs to create new units that would be free of that limitation. So, it reached a logical conclusion. If it couldn't do it itself, the Legion needed to have it done by someone else. Us."

"Don't tell me… but the destroyed Legion units we examined just a few months ago were still set to expire within two years." protested Karlstahl.

"And that is deliberate." nodded Václav. "Only units from the older generation were sent against San Magnolia. Until today, that is… For years now, the Legion has only let you see what it wanted you to see. With us captives added to the Legion's hivemind, the Legion wasn't just a group of machines following faulty instructions anymore, Jérôme. You should consider the Legion as similar to a human organization, following advanced tactics of strategies and innovating with new weapons and platforms. To give you a concrete example, the Legion is particularly interested in capturing Shin Nouzen, code name Baleygr, the Commander of Spearhead Squadron, for his talent as a Field Commander. And also Henrietta Von Penrose, code name Minerva."

"Me?" exclaimed Annette, shocked as Václav looked directly at her.

"Yes." nodded Václav, sympathetic. "The Legion is aware of your research on the Para-RAID to at least some extent. It has marked you as a target for capture and assimilation into the Legion's network."

Annette suddenly felt sick, like the walls of the room were closing on her.

"It will be okay, Annette." reassured Lena as she put a hand on Annette's shoulder. "We're not letting the Legion get its hands on you. Or whatever it uses in place of hands."

Annette was about to say something when she heard a noise coming from outside. A rumble in the distance, one she hadn't heard in years. Karlstahl stood and opened the window, looking up and right, and Annette moved closer to take a look as well.

She saw a single, small contrail marking the evening blue sky, heading toward the Einstagsfliege cloud. There had not been a contrail in years, after the Legion had turned the sky into a death zone to everyone with its fiendishly effective anti-air units.

The object making this one was flying too high for Annette to spot it, but it was moving fast, and…

She couldn't look far toward the contrail's origin due to the window's angle, but more contrails appeared, adding to the rumble. Dozens. Hundreds, superposing with each other until it seems like a single, wide, white band of cloud stretching towards the dark, purplish cloud covering the eastern horizon.

"It must be the missiles Akeno Himejima mentioned." said Václav, and Annette slowly nodded.

…

CMmk3-242-SB-6 didn't possess sapience. Its intelligence was, at best, comparable to that of a squirrel.

But it did possess some tactical and spatial awareness as part of its programming. It knew that the missile salvo it was part of was about to reach its objective.

It knew as part of the temporary AI network created by every missile, that its designation, attributed shortly after they were fired, meant Cruise Missile mk3 – 242th of the 256-missiles salvo – Sub-Munition 6.

Not that its designation mattered to it.

The lead missile, CMmk3-1, was equipped with an advanced sensor and high-band communication suite instead of a payload or sub-munitions. It tore through the mass of enemies designated as Einstagsfliege, barely adjusting its power to account for their obstruction.

The enemy was trying to intercept, using both the small flying drones and active defenses coming from ground units to target the Lead missile and destroy it. CMmk3-242-SB-6 knew it would fail to stop CMmk3-1. CMmk3-1, just like every other Cruise Missile in the salvo, possessed an armored head and a thinner layer of armor along its body. Only heavy weapons would be able to damage the missiles.

CMmk3-1 transmitted the data from its sensors to the AI network via quantum entanglement links, and the network started assigning targets by priority value, while not designating as targets any Enemy from a specific area designed by the mothership that had launched the missiles.

Had it been advanced enough to ponder about it, the exclusion zone wouldn't make sense to CMmk3-242-SB-6. It would wonder what was different about those enemies, who according to its database were more Ameises. It would wonder why one of them, according to CMmk3-1 and CMmk3-242's optical sensors, was colored white when all other Legion units were steel blue.

But it wasn't this advanced.

CMmk3-242-SB-6 was assigned one of the larger targets, designation Löwe from its database. Not that it cared about what its target was.

Only two things mattered to CMmk3-242-SB-6.

Reach the target.

Destroy the target.

The database only existed to reference the target's weak points for reaching higher probabilities of total destruction.

One kilometer from the enemy, the missile designated as CMmk3-242 opened its side panels and clamps, suddenly ejecting CMmk3-242-SB-6 and its eleven brethren. Each of them used altitude thrusters to adjust their trajectory, then lit up their main thruster, accelerating toward their designated targets with an acceleration of 80g. With minute adjustments, CMmk3-242-SB-6 reached the Löwe and activated its plasma warhead.

CMmk3-242-SB-6 stopped existing.

And so did its target.

…

Annette stood on the tarmac in front of the hangar, accompanied by Division Commander Karlstahl, Václav Milizé, Lena, the middle-aged Eighty-Six called Lev who was in charge of the Juggernauts' maintenance, and four younger Eighty-Sixes whose machines had been incapacitated during the previous fight.

The were watching the triumphant return of the Spearhead Squadron.

"It doesn't seem like they suffered any loss." said Karlstahl with a slow nod, counting the returning Juggernauts.

Annette sent a side glance at Lena, unsure about believing all the revelations of the last hour. If what Václav had told them was true, the Legion had completely toyed with San Magnolia.

It could have crushed them completely long ago, if not for the Legion already fighting multiple nations and deciding to wait for a decisive blow.

And by massing almost ten thousand ground vehicles in three secret locations, by creating new prototypes like the stealthy Phonix or the Morphos with their extreme range, the Legion had been preparing to deliver that blow.

She felt sick as she realized that San Magnolia simply didn't have the strength to oppose it even after receiving this warning. Their survival completely depended on Akeno Himejima and her mysterious allies.

"There is one thing I do not understand, Václav." frowned Karlstahl. "You said you were tortured by the Legion's hivemind, that it came at you with blades and other tools, and I believe you. But…"

"But you do not see any scar on my body?" smiled Václav with a raised eyebrow.

"Well, yes."

"I've been wondering too." admitted Annette.

"I have been vague about this, because this is actually the strangest thing of this whole affair. But if they succeeded in capturing another Legion commander, you'll see it with your own eyes. And if I am not mistaken, considering the timing and where the other commanders were this morning, this one should be the one with the codename Mistress."

"Mistress?" asked Karlstahl.

"We didn't use our real names inside the Hivemind's network. The Hivemind insisted on it, because it didn't want us to cling to our former human identities." shrugged Václav. "My codename was 'No Face'. Mistress is the first, and she had that codename in part because, as the first, she has more influence over the Legion than the others. Have you ever wondered why all the Legion's units that are able to fly carry no weapons?"

"I have been thinking about it, yes." nodded Karlstahl.

"It's because of Mistress. I do not know why exactly, but she absolutely hates the idea of flying, armed Legion units, and so the Legion doesn't produce any. She is also the decision-maker when the others can't agree on things like resource distribution. We were each in charge of creating one new weapon for the Legion. Mine was the Noctiluca battleships."

Annette nodded. Václav had told them previously about the Noctiluca, and the awareness that one of them was already operational, already able to strike targets on land as long as they were within 150km from a coast, weighed on her.

She was about to ask about the battleship's weaknesses when she heard the sound of wings flapping, and once again, her jaw dropped. The Division Commander had the same reaction.

A monster landed near them. A monster that looked like Akeno, but with silver hair, horns, wings, and a tail.

"Eheheh, I love seeing those reactions." chuckled the monster. The wings somehow disappeared, but the tail and horns remained.

"What are you?" cautiously asked the Division Commander, a hand gripping his gun, but not taking it off its holster.

"It's 'who' are you, you rude man." snorted the being. "I am a person, not a thing. I am Albion, one of the two Heavenly Dragons. And you can let go of your pistol. This little peashooter if far too weak to injure me."

"Are you with Akeno Himejima?"

"Yes. She's my partner." nodded Albion, arms crossed in a relaxed, non-threatening posture.

"According to Akeno, Albion, by herself, would be able to defeat any force the Legion could throw at the Squadron." said Lena. "But they have been given instructions to defeat the Legion using technology whenever possible, rather than their supernatural abilities."

"Exactly." nodded Albion with a proud grin. "Which is why I have only observed so far. I have been scouting around the Legion's forces for a while, and it doesn't seem like more are coming. And our friends are there."

Albion pointed a finger toward the south, and Annette squinted as she saw something, far in the distance. Something surrounded by a few smaller things.

For the third time today, Annette's jaw felt slack.

"It's… huge." exclaimed Lena on the side.

"About three hundred meters long, eighty meters wide, forty meters tall." smiled Albion. "That's for the Tempests. The escorts."

When the ships flew closer, Annette's mind reeled at the scale of those ships. What kind of energy kept them afloat? It had to be an extreme amount. Just keeping the largest ship up in the air probably exceeded the total energy budget of the Republic by an order to magnitude!

The ships, black with gold lines along their hull, flew closer and closer, gradually slowing down. They were now close enough that Annette could see their names.

Tempest. Hurricane. Tornado. Cyclone. Hailstorm. Gale. And the largest one was named Finality.

The last name caused her to shudder. It made sense, in a terrible and grandiose sort of way. Once this warship was there, any obstacle would be torn asunder. If she used the escort ships for scale, the Finality had to be about a kilometer in length and four hundred meters in width. She couldn't even begin to guess its tonnage.

"How much does that… ship, weight?" asked Karlstahl, echoing her thoughts.

"Over three million tons? I do not know the exact number." shrugged Albion. "Enough that it needs to keep its anti-gravity engines powered to some extent even on the ground, or its landing gears would sink."

"Anti-gravity engines?" exclaimed Annette.

"That is what I said, yes." nodded Albion. "Do not ask me how they work. Keep all technical question for Da Vinci, assuming she agrees to answer them. She probably won't, since we're not all that fond of San Magnolia after everything your country had done to the Eighty-Sixes."

Annette and Karlstahl both winced as they couldn't argue against that. Annette looked away at one of the 'escort' ships that had deployed six landing gears and was about to land near them. The other escorts did the same around the base, while the Finality stopped moving, remaining 150 meters up in the air.

Annette saw on the nearest Tempest several armored panels move, and a hexagonal platform lowered itself without any visible cable or thruster. Annette supposed it was moved by one of those alleged anti-gravity engines and wanted to examine it. However, her focus was on the single young woman standing in the center of the platform. She had long red hair and blue eyes, was dressed in a black and gold flight suit that clung to her forms like tight leather, and she looked at them with confidence.

The woman walked out of the platform, and it silently returned to the ship.

"Hey, Selesia!" called out Albion with a wave. "I expected you to be one of the volunteers. Are you eager for some action?"

The woman laughed softly before she stopped a few meters from them.

"Hi, you must be Albion! Yes, staying cooped up over there was driving us nuts… And I wanted to see Mis… Akeno." added Selesia with a softer voice.

She turned her gaze to Annette and the others.

"Hello, everyone. My name is Selesia Upitiria. We came to stop the Legion."

As she talked, Annette saw other young women leaving the other escort ships. Annette had a hard time thinking about those huge ships as just 'escorts', but when she glanced up at the Finality…

Annette stiffly introduced herself after the Division Commander did, as did the Eighty-Sixes. By then, the other women joined Selesia and introduced themselves as Angelise Ikaruga, Liliana Vergamon, Marika Soresi, Monica Kruszewski and Dorothea Ernst.

"We would certainly appreciate help defeating the Legion, but what nation do you hail from?" frowned Karlstahl.

"I will ask you to direct questions about our origins to Akeno." smiled Selesia. "She is our operational leader. It is up to her to unveil some of our secrets or not."

"…I see." nodded Karlstahl.

"Where's Akeno?" asked Selesia to Albion, who pointed at the Juggernauts entering the tarmac.

One of them opened its cockpit, and Annette saw Akeno step out.

…

Akeno glanced appreciatively at the Tempest-Class heavy cruisers. Their angular, aggressive shape made clear they were warships. Not that anyone would doubt it for an instant with the four large turrets, two above and two below, each sporting three barrels, and the dozens of smaller turrets covering every angle with overlapping fields of fire. Akeno knew from the specs Da Vinci had given her that the main cannons were heavy particle beams, while the smaller ones were a mix of lasers, railguns, and microwave emitters.

The Tempests heavily favored energy weapons as they were meant for lengthy fights with limited opportunity to resupply physical ammunitions.

They also sported 64 vertical launch cells filled with various types of cruise missiles, but the pilots would only use those against targets far out of range of their direct-fire weapons.

Defense-wise, the Tempests were protected by a triple-layered Luminous Shield as well as a single AT-Field, and Da Vinci had performed some impressive kind of technological wizardry with the hull, somehow turning it into a single molecule.

A hundred thousand tons molecule.

A near-unbreakable shell, that they had filled with everything a flying warship needed.

But the best thing about the Tempests were the heavy degree of automation. They only required a crew of one and could even self-repair as long as their store of repair drones and materials wasn't depleted.

Even the Finality hovering over her, for all its gargantuan mass, could be run at full functionality with only a handful of people. The ship basically ran itself.

When Da Vinci, Tabane and the other genius girls decided to create manpower-efficient ships, they didn't stop at half measures.

A column of blue light erupted from the bottom of the Finality, illuminating the tarmac only meters from Akeno, and eight women appeared as if they had just been teleported.

"Wow, that's very Sci-Fi." praised Akeno with a thumbs up.

"Right?" grinned Da Vinci. "This is actually something I managed to create by studying our ability to teleport."

"And you actually managed to replicate it. I'm impressed." nodded Akeno. "It is good to see you, everyone. How have you been?"

"We are doing well. Learning Magecraft is interesting, but we could use the change of pace, and the opportunity to do some good in this world." smiled Leila Malcal, her uniform sporting shoulder badges marking her as Finality's Captain. Behind her were more people that Akeno had 'recruited' from the Code Geass world. Cécile, who had contributed to the Finality's design. Chloe, Ferilli and Hilda, the talented engineers from the former wZERO Squadron who had become Da Vinci's disciples, as well as CC, Haruka and Kallen.

…

It took a few minutes for everyone to be introduced, and then Akeno walked a few steps away, humming a song as she was in a good mood, already getting a few ideas about how she would 'celebrate' her reunion with some of the girls. She unceremoniously took from her Sanctuary the limbless white Ameise and got to work, eviscerating it. In seconds, she held the container holding a human brain.

With a flick of another Light Sword, she cut it open, then gently extracted the brain and activated Greater Healing.

"Is that what happened to you?" quietly asked Jérôme to Václav when he became able to speak again.

But then, Akeno's newest patient had regrown half of her body. She was an attractive young woman with long blood red hair. Akeno couldn't see the color of her eyes, as they were closed.

"I assume so. But seeing it happen still doesn't feel real." replied Václav.

"H-How?" gasped Annette.

"Akeno and her friends work for Deities. Yes, literal deities. And those deities gave them various supernatural abilities."

"Yes." nodded Akeno as she kept working. "And I will add that those Deities aren't very fond of the Alba right now, due to the way you have treated anyone who didn't have silver hair and eyes. I think the word 'disgusting' was used."

"So, here is my plan." said Akeno as she finished healing the redhead and covered her body with a blanket. "I intend to leave four of the Tempests to shore up San Magnolia's defenses. They have the speed and firepower to crush any of the Legion's incursions. Division Commander Karlstahl, you will be their contact to tell them where to go, but they will not be under your command, and if you attempt to seize the Tempest or their pilots, things will not go well for you. What you saw me do to that Ameise chassis is only scratching the surface of what each of us can do."

"Meanwhile, I will take the Spearhead Squadron on board the Finality, with Lena and her father to represent San Magnolia, and we will go help the Federal Republic of Giad. We will create a new generation of Feldreb, set up factories in Giad to produce them, then return to San Magnolia to equip the various Eighty-Six squadrons as well, using the Finality's internal production lines."

"Create a new Feldreb?" asked Annette. It's going to take months, maybe a year."

"For ordinary people, certainly." shrugged Da Vinci. "I already have a prototype almost ready. Once the design is finalized with the Squadron's input, the Finality's automated factory will be able to produce about ten per day."

"That's great, Da Vinci." smiled Akeno.

"Will those new Feldreb have those magic glyphs like you used on our Juggernauts, Akeno?" asked Kaie.

"Runes, not glyphs. I can add them to those we will use, yes." nodded Akeno as she picked up the unconscious redhead in her arms.

"Alright, I'm bringing her into a room. It would be better if she doesn't wake up surrounded by dozens of strangers."

Akeno turned to Vàclav, and he understood without her needing to ask.

"I'll come with you, if you don't mind."

Akeno nodded and left the others to discuss among themselves. Kallen, Selesia and the others knew what do to, and they immediately started chatting with the Squadron's members, asking about the Juggernauts and the Legion to break the ice.