Humans, Elves, start of the war. ⑥

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Chason Base, Palmian Kingdom. AU 64 

HAFF Magic Defense Force, Valfreyja special research team

Pvt. Ames Ennard

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One more Adder left to defeat. Ames scanned for him and found him gaining some distance.

The elf had abandoned all his previous tactics. He was moving rather than floating and bombarding Ames. And unlike before, he was flying forward not backward.

There was no intent to fight from the elf. He was desperately fleeing the engagement.

"This is Pixy 4! I'm chasing the bandits!"

"Copy that. Do not go too deep- eh?"

"WHAT! eh?"

Two voices answered Ames. The first one was the girl he was familiar with, Nensa. The other voice, however, was the first time he heard that voice. And it seemed like Ames's comm system was connecting the two sources of voices somehow.

After a while, Ames realized that the unknown voice was coming from the magic communication (MAG COM) system. It somehow connected to the elf's magic comm.

Well, that mattered little at the moment.

Ames was in a high morale after killing the two elves. Then seeing how the final elf was fleeing with small to no resistance, his confidence grew.

Riding the great momentum, Ames chased the fleeing elf. To Quickly shorten the distance, Ames put his thrusters into maximum output.

"GET AWAY!"

The elf was somehow still connected to Ames's MAG COM. There, he screamed at Ames to let him go. From his voice, Ames caught on how desperate he was.

Although Ames was not a person who would do the unnecessary killing, the enemy is still the enemy.

There was no need to answer the enemy. He pointed his gun at the elf's back.

He fired.

There were no more enemies in the sky. After taking care of the elf, Ames would certainly go back to the base. With that as the reason, Ames dumped all his bullets at the elf.

The bullets fired hit mostly on the jet engine. They penetrated the engine and created a malfunction. The result of that malfunction was an explosion large enough to swallow the elf whole.

"Valfreyja, this is Pixy 4. All bandit is down."

"Copy that Pixy 4. Return to base."

"..." Although he finished his enemies, the battle was still going on. Ames hesitated to go back.

"Pixy 4? Do you copy?"

"Ah! Yes! Umm... returning to base." But there was nothing he could do. He had exhausted all of his weapons. Even if he joined the battle, he could do nothing but fly around the area.

Even that was impossible.

"!!!"

The battle high Ames had before dulled his attention. For all the tight maneuvers he did and the thruster power he used, Vawln's mana storage was drained. Not even a particle of mana was left in the mana crystal inside the Vawln.

Because it lost all mana to run the armor, it fell.

As he was racing to the ground, Ames started to panic. He was flying at a high altitude, it gave him some time to think.

He double-checked the mana storage, it was empty. Ames searched through AMK-X0 Vawln's spells, what spell could save him?

There was one. A simple spell that was always turned on by the magic armor. The body-strengthening spell.

Normally, humans and elves could not possibly wear the magic armor. Not only the material used was thicker than normal armor, but the magic armor also equipped with many devices that increased its weight.

That was why the first spell that the armor cast on the pilot was the body-strengthening spell. With that, the pilot can move freely as if they are not wearing any armor.

If Ames triggers the spell and adds it to the armor's innate defensive capability, he might survive the fall.

To cast the spell, Vawln's system needed mana. But its mana storage was empty. So, Ames chose to give Vawln the little mana his non-mage body possessed.

BAM

Fortunately, Ames's mana was enough to cast the strengthening spell, letting him survive the fall. Unfortunately, even with all that defensive prowess, heavy injuries were inevitable.

The fallen Ames had broken several of his bones. In that condition, he couldn't move inside the armor. Well, even if he managed to abandon the Vawln, there was no way he could escape the desert in his tattered body.

There was only one thing he could do, call for help.

Using MAG COM would be too much for his small mana left. So, he chose to jumpstart the electric battery inside of his armor. He was hoping that using the battery's charge he could contact the Valfreyja.

"This is Pixy 4. Valfreyja do you copy?"

"We hear you Pixy 4. Send it."

"I'm down. Requesting extraction. I repeat I'm down."

"Ames!? what happened!? Is there more enemies?"

"...no." It was embarrassing for him to admit, but "I ran out of mana, the armor couldn't fly anymore. I survived, but I'm injured."

"Send us your co-ordinate! I'm sending people to retrieve you!" the one who answered was not Nensa, but Capt. Lyto.

"Damn it. I shouldn't have trusted my guts..." the captain mumbled was picked up by the microphone.

"Ames hang on there!" Nensa cut Lyto's mumble.

There was no answer from Ames. He was looking at the sky. There, three objects were approaching him. "is it an ally or enemy?" Ames thought to himself. Then...

"Ah! It's fine, you don't need to send anybody. We got him."

"Pixy 3!?" Nensa recognized Loclynn's voice.

"Affirmative! Team Pixy coming home."

Loclynn lifted Ames up. Holding him in his hand, Loclynn flew while carrying Ames.

"Um... Loclynn, Where were you guys?"

"We're also taking down the elves. Is that a problem?" 2nd Lt. Pommeline was the one to answer Ames's question curtly.

"Ah... no, ma'am"

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Chason Base, Palmian Kingdom. AU 64 

HAFF Magic Defense Force, Valfreyja special research team

2nd Lt. Pommeline Suzuki

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Thirty minutes before Ames met the other Pixy.

2nd Lt. Pommeline was flying around in the sky with Pixy 2, Sgt. Kyle. They had just finished launching to continue the mock dogfight. After them the next one to be launched was Sgt. Loclynn, Pixy 3.

"Pixy 3, launching!" Loclynn reported.

They just needed to wait for Pvt. Ames. Then they would restart the Air Combat Training.

"This time, we'll win!" Linn declared.

While Ames's flying was very much overpowered, it was not invincible. Linn's confidence wasn't unfounded.

In the previous mock dogfights, there were several rounds where Linn managed to shoot down Ames. Some shots only grazed Ames, but some shots started to hit him. Slowly but surely, Linn started to catch up to Ames's movement.

"That's why, I'll hit him next time..."

BAM

"What's that!?" Kyle screamed.

Just when Loclynn reached operational altitude, there was an explosion in the distance. Startled by it, both Linn and Kyle stopped flying and tried to investigate the situation from afar.

It was hard for Kyle to do that, the commotion happening outside the large base after all. To see what happened, one needed a great pair of eyes, like Ames.

But Linn didn't need to see what was happening to understand the situation. She had a sense of magic that was strong enough to reach the commotion. What she 'felt' was mana.

She felt several dwindling sources of mana. That means there were dying people there.

"It's an attack! This base is under attack!" Linn shouted.

"What!? Who!?"

As the ACT was supposed to divide the Pixy team in two, the communication system was also split in two. Because of that, the communication Linn was connected to at that time only connected her and Kyle.

She knew the base was under attack, next she searched for the enemy. Outside of the base, to the east. There she found multiple signs of life. just shy of a hundred people.

According to their mana size, all of them were mages. Even more than mages, their mana was at least one step above the average mage. They were elves.

Once Linn realized that, the memories of her old captain flashed in her mind. Capt. Omar died in the hands of an elf, there was no way for Linn to keep her calm knowing those elves attacked the Chason base.

"Kyle! IT'S ELVES! Give Loclynn the signal to change the comm line. We're going!" Although seething with rage, Linn could still give her orders around.

Pixy 2 tapped his helmet around the ear while facing Pixy 3. Loclynn understood the meaning and quickly switched his communication channel.

"What happened Linn? I heard a large explosion. From the east?"

Linn proceeds to explain the situation to Loclynn. After she finished, she asked Loclynn to follow her.

She was going to where the elves were. If the elves sent out that amount of soldiers, that must mean they knew about the magic armor. It was clear that their objective would be the AMK-01 Fulst and the AMK-X0 Vawln.

That would also mean they were ready to fight magic armor. For that, they must bring their own magic armor.

Those were Linn's targets.

It was a simple motivation, grudge. To Linn, the sight of an elven MAS-22 Adder was enough to trigger her.

However, there was another thing too. If her assumption about the elves was right, how could they know about the magic armor? The Ivaldi project was supposed to be a tightly guarded secret.

The only time it almost got breached was on the operation where Capt. Omar died. Does that mean someone from the elven side survived? If so, Linn will find them. And with her every strength, she will kill them.

Even if defeating those Adders would help the situation, she was convinced that there was no way Lyto would allow them to fight. Because of that, she planned to go even without permission. She also asked her two comrades to join her.

"Are you in?"

"Yes! I'm going!"

"Uh..." Loclynn was hesitating. It wasn't because he was afraid or things like that. He started to feel a companionship with Ames. In his eyes, leaving Ames alone while the other Pixies went attacking, felt somewhat cruel.

"Loc. We're going with or without you." Linn spoke out her mind seeing the hesitating Loclynn.

"Fine... I'm in."

He was hesitating to choose between the two and Ames. But, he couldn't leave Linn and Kyle to go on a rampage out of a grudge. If worse came, he wanted to be there to protect the two younger pilots.

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