Chapter 51

"Monkey, take her with you, the camp can no longer be defended, we are retreating to the mining area. Here take my car, I'll provide cover fire for you." Ajax ran out and fired two shots to attract the attention of the mech team before fleeing in the direction of the buildings.

Monkey wasted no time as he held Lily's hand and ran towards Ajax's home, ignoring the pain from his bleeding shoulder.

Lily, still in shock of losing her mother didn't resist Monkey's tug and let him drag her along, her teary eyes glued on her mother's corpse until it was no longer in sight.

They made it to Ajax's home after a minute or two of jogging. Monkey opened the garage door, jumped in the garbage truck, and started it. He couldn't take that Rakshasa-Level mech that Ajax had repaired with him since it needed equipment to move it.

Although it was a pity to abandon it since it had taken Ajax a long time to fix it and Lily had also spent a long time tinkering with it and its accessories, their lives were worth more than the eddies this mech cost.

He realized that Lily wasn't in the truck with him and when he looked around he saw Lily standing in front of the Rakshasa-Level mech at some point. "Hey kid, lets go!" Monkey yelled as he glanced around anxiously.

But Lily just stared at the Rakshasa-Level mech in a trance before boarding it under Monkey's gaze in the next second.

"The pilot's credentials were not detected. Forcing the connection will have unpredictable consequences. Please confirm."

The CI system of this mech is a female voice.

"Confirm," Lily said in a childing voice that was also resolute and filled with conviction.

"Connecting...1%2%3%...100%."

"The connection is complete."

As the core of the mech lit up, Lily's perspective came to the outside world. She tried to move her hands and feet and walked out of the tool room.

Monkey stared dumbfounded since he didn't know that Lily had been secretly driving this mech for a while now. He knew that Lily was less than ten years old, so this scene was frying his brain as it worked overtime trying to process what his eyes were seeing.

Just then, a couple of members from the Hell's League came here in an off-road vehicle. They were laughing as they cracked jokes, rifle in hand. When they finally pulled into Ajax's residence and their vehicle's headlights shone upon the Rakshasa-Level, their hearts dropped.

Monkey panicked and subconsciously looked for his gun. But Lily's was faster on the take as she raised the particle gun in her hand at the same time as the Vulcan cannon that Ajax had used before, and made a random sweep towards the newcomers.

Although her aim wasn't perfect, the Vulcan cannon made up for it as it obliterated the off-road vehicle, turning its occupants into pink mist before catching on fire.

"L-Lets go..." After witnessing such a scene, Monkey couldn't help but swallow as he looked at Lily again. He had just bore witness to a child less than ten years old piloting a Rakshasa-Level mech and had just killed five people in an instant. Such a thing was unheard of.

"You leave, I'll go help Ajax." The tears on Lily's face in the mech had dried, and a small nosebleed had sprung because although she had piloted the mech before, she had never fired its weapons. Her brain was still under heavy load the moment she fired the gun.

But she liked this feeling, a power to erase life at will, and a power that you can use to protect yourself and those around you. Although she has no family to protect now...

"But..." Monkey recovered from his daze, and just about to say something but Lily was already moving in the direction Ajax had left. Monkey looked at the back of Mech and smiled wryly. Another monster had been awakened, the future was shaping up to be quite scary...

***

The operators who were retreating as a convoy from the defense area rescued the civilians that they found on the way and killed any members of the Hell's League they came across. Although most of the civilians had been massacred, there was still quite a number of survivors. Rescuing them would take some time.

There were mechs from the Hell's League here, so the risk of rescuing these civilians was quite high.

Ajax realized that he was getting closer to the retreating operators and stopped immediately, choosing to run in the opposite direction so as to not bring the Mech team of the guard to them.

Ajax was not very familiar with this area, so he basically kept on running circles. The mech team of the guard had the jets help them with navigating, so they quickly figured out the surrounding terrain.

The remaining ten mechs from the guard mech team blocked the nearby streets as they slowly cut off Ajax's escape. Ajax stopped for a few seconds to locate were within the camp he was. As he did so, he noticed an Echo-type mech rounding the corner just a few steps in hand.

It was painted black with an orange stripe running down along the right side of its face and body and it held an energy ax that whose edge glowed orange. Ajax turned around to make a break for it, but standing behind him was another Echo-type mech identical to the one he had just come across.

"Fuck..." Ajax mumbled under his breath as he noticed that 2 more identical mechs had come. He knew he was surrounded, so he looked up. He wanted to get on top of one of these buildings to be able to make a break for it, but these buildings were generally taller and his thrusters could not get him up there.

Knowing that there was no escape, Ajax activated his Particle Compression Cannon and a blue light appeared on his chest. If he can't run, then he'll take as many of these bastards down with him as possible. He opened fire on the mech standing in front of him and given the short distance, obliterated it. The enemy pilot never had the chance to react.

However, that was all Ajax could do as the other three mechs rushed over to him at the same time, gripping their orange glowing energy axes in their hands. 

Ajax used his thrusters to dodge the swings of two of the mechs, but he was hit by the third. Ajax tried to use his rifle but it was sliced in by one of the axes at its forestock. He laid on his back as he saw the other 2 energy axes swung at him. Just when they were about to crush his cockpit, a sudden "BRRRT" came from the end of the street, and the two melee mechs that were swinging on him got pushed back and slammed into a wall.

Ajax was also hit and forced to retreat a few steps back, but he seized the opportunity in time to condense the Particle Compression Cannon again, aiming at the unaffected mech and firing. The Mech was hit in the core and a bright blue explosion followed, engulfing half the street in flames and damaging multiple buildings.

He moved to retreat when he saw the silhouette of a mech at the end of the street. He recognized the silhouette as that of the Rakshasa-Level mecha he had repaired.

"Uncle Ajax? Are you ok?"

"Li....Lily?!" Ajax immediately recognized Lily's childish voice. He was the only one who knew that Lily could pilot the mech, but being able to pilot and being able to fight are two different things. He never expected that Lily would pilot the mech and come to his aid...

"Hurry up, they're about to get up." Lily urged.