She’d successfully drawn out the enemy units — but apparently her work isn’t done.
She has to hold off two units with her antique Allrounder while keeping the Jackalope — which can’t fight — shielded behind her.
Impossible, Chihaya thinks, instinctively leaning back.
Reading the shift in Chihaya’s posture, the Allrounder retreats.
The Jackalope falls back in step with the Allrounder, until they end up back-to-back with the battlefield where the Keeper team is holding off the Hafrondes.
“Hey, stop crowding over here.”
A complaint comes in, and Chihaya’s eyes go watery.
“s-sorry”
Guilty for getting in the way of their fight, she looks around her monitors trying to find some way to salvage this.
What catches her eye is the corpse of a Hafronde — the massive crocodile-like creature. Apparently one that had slipped through the Keeper team to try ambushing the Jackalope from behind and got taken out by a Cyclone backwards shot.
Not the hardened head but the torso, with bullet wounds in several places. Hafronde scales are so tough that rounds can sometimes bounce even at range, which naturally pushes engagements toward close quarters.
Having closed in from behind into that kind of fight — Chihaya’s movement must have been quite the inconvenience.
With the stomach ache getting worse by the second, Chihaya has the Allrounder pick up the Hafronde corpse.
Nominally a construction machine, after all — the Allrounder effortlessly lifts the enormous Hafronde one-handed.
The Jackalope issues a warning.
“Enemy, seven hundred meters. Entering range shortly.”
“heheh”
At this point it’s do or die. Knowing machine damage means going in the red just cranks up Chihaya’s tension further.
Chihaya’s Allrounder raises the Hafronde corpse as a shield and breaks into a run toward the enemy units.
The Jackalope hangs back near the Keeper team to stay out of the fighting.
Through gaps in the trees she can see a camouflage-colored unit approaching. Leaf-spring legs — the speed-specialized Leaf Sprinter. Behind it, the Conductor can be glimpsed in and out of view, providing drone support.
The Leaf Sprinter raises the Sengan handgun. It opens fire on Chihaya’s Allrounder while running, still closing the distance.
The plan is probably to force the Allrounder back into the Hafronde pack — outnumbered overall, they need to trap her in a pincer.
As the distance shrinks, armor-piercing rounds punch through the Hafronde body and start connecting with the Allrounder’s armor.
Heart in her throat wondering whether the rounds will punch through, she fires the assault rifle one-handed. With only one hand on the grip the aim is all over the place, and the Leaf Sprinter keeps pressing in unfazed.
Now inside range where missing would be the harder outcome, the Leaf Sprinter is right on top of her — Chihaya drops the Hafronde corpse and retreats.
The Leaf Sprinter probably figures she ditched the shield because the armor-piercing rounds were making it useless.
She ignores the Leaf Sprinter raising its handgun for the follow-up shot and slides the Allrounder behind the trunk of a massive nearby tree.
The Leaf Sprinter naturally gives chase — and the moment it advances past the Hafronde corpse — the corpse explodes.
The shockwave from the close-range blast tears off the Leaf Sprinter’s fragile leaf-spring legs.
“You put a grenade inside the corpse!?”
The Jackalope’s Actor is equal parts stunned and horrified.
But the words don’t reach Chihaya.
The fight isn’t over yet.
Chihaya’s Allrounder bursts out from behind the tree, drives a wire anchor into the Leaf Sprinter’s wreckage in passing, and runs for the remaining enemy.
The Conductor — which has no direct combat capability — hastily turns tail, using its drones as a shield.
The moment the Leaf Sprinter went down, the outcome was already decided. Retreating to preserve the unit is the natural instinct.
At least, Chihaya would retreat.
So she’d read the Conductor’s move.
The Allrounder is faster than the Rannoid-series Conductor.
Chihaya triggers the wire anchor’s winch, using the acceleration to whip the Leaf Sprinter’s wreckage into the Conductor’s back.
The large drone that had been covering the retreat with its mounted guns gets scattered by the Leaf Sprinter wreckage and goes down.
Chihaya’s Allrounder carries its momentum straight into the Conductor with a full-body tackle and drives it to the ground.
“……heh heh heh”
Clang — Chihaya’s Allrounder pins both of the Conductor’s shoulders down with its mechanical feet.
The Allrounder crouches, grabs the Conductor’s back armor with both hands, and tears it away with a cracking sound.
The Conductor’s internal circuitry and components are exposed to open air.
Chihaya’s Allrounder rips through cables and wiring, wrenches out the Conductor’s black box, and renders it incapacitated.
All while an unsettling laugh leaks through the tension.
“heh heh heh heh, I won……heh”
With no spare thought left to wonder what everyone listening on voice chat must be thinking.