Chapter 131 – I Do Apologize for the Wait!

Both Photon Sabers locked in a grinding stalemate.

The dazzling blades of light clashed fiercely, scattering blue-white high-energy particles into the surrounding darkness. But that fierce equilibrium had gradually begun to break down.

Riese's Photon Saber was slowly being pushed back.

An instant before he lost the contest of raw power outright, Grain made his decision. Twisting Riese's stance smoothly to deflect the blade's pressure, he drove a sharp front kick at Priscilla's Radure as it closed the distance.

Priscilla's machine instantly fired its back thrusters and pulled away, dodging the kick without difficulty. In the very same motion of retreat, it launched a small throwing blade formed of photon particles from its left hand, out into the darkness.

"--?!"

A no-motion surprise attack. The throwing blade struck true, lodging itself in the joint of Grain's Riese's right arm. Violent static and errors surged through its right-arm control.

"Tch... you really don't go easy, do you...!"

With the freedom of his right arm about to be lost, Grain didn't hesitate -- he released the Arcian, his main weapon, from his right hand and switched it to his left with quick, practiced movement. Then, without a moment's pause, he unleashed a smooth, sweeping triple burst, angled to cut ahead of Priscilla's machine's turning arc.

Priscilla's machine managed to dodge the first shot on reflex, but the second and third shots followed a trajectory that had perfectly anticipated exactly where she'd flee to. The high-output photon beams struck precisely through the Radure's right leg and left shoulder.

Amid a shower of sparks, a warning reading RIGHT LEG / LEFT SHOULDER: MINOR DAMAGE flashed onto the screen.

"A superb counter...!"

Priscilla let out a voice of admiration as she recovered her posture.

"You'd have no face left as Vigilante captain if you couldn't bite back at least this much, would you..."

In truth, Grain found her a genuinely formidable opponent.

In raw output, Riese in its current state was clearly outmatched. What was he to do about that...

Grain steeled himself at once and diverted Riese's remaining generator energy to its absolute limit, concentrating it all into the Arcian held in his left hand. He operated the console swiftly, force-switching the Arcian's function into "Assault Mode."

With an electronic tone signaling the conversion complete, the Arcian began spitting out a hyper-fast-cycling rain of photon rounds, like a machine gun set to full auto.

"It still has... a function like that?!"

Priscilla's machine opened its back thrusters fully to their limit, weaving through the rain of light-rounds that filled the space with hyper-fast evasive maneuvers. But Grain, turning his own machine in fine increments, steadily and gradually brought his line of fire in line with her erratic evasive path.

The swarm of beams finally caught Priscilla's machine, blowing off her remaining left shoulder, arm and all, in a spectacular blast.

"Ngh--!"

With the ruling of total loss of her left arm, a violent shock and blaring alarm tore through Priscilla's simulator pod.

"...I've taken quite a bit of damage. But it was 'worth exactly that much.'"

Priscilla murmured this quietly, bracing against the violent impact.

"What do you mean by--"

Grain tried to ask what she truly meant -- and it was in that very instant.

Riese's main sensors let out a shrill emergency alarm.

Above, in his field of view -- what came raining down from there was a swarm of missiles. From directly above Riese, striking through the blind spot created by the debris, countless missiles poured down like rain.

"Damn it--!"

The composure vanished from Grain's face. Throughout his fight with Priscilla up to this point, he simply hadn't had the room to spare a thought for that first volley of missiles she'd launched skyward.

There was no time left to evade. A chain of impact-flames erupted across Riese's exposed back and joints, one after another. Alarms blared, and the damage meters across the machine's whole body flashed red in an instant.

Before long, the words COMBAT CAPABILITY LOST blinked red across the main monitor, and Riese fell quietly silent.

"Whew... that was truly a close call. I'm deeply impressed, Mr. Grain."

Priscilla's words of praise came through over the comm.

"Frustrating as it is, that was a masterful pincer. ...I suppose the rest is hers to handle now."

Grain said this with a wry laugh -- and just after.

Tearing through the pitch-black void of space, a single Makina slid into position directly in front of Priscilla's Radure at a speed like a gale.

Battered yet still radiating power, the deep-indigo-armored Makina -- Letaria's Arden -- had made its appearance.

"I do apologize for the wait!"