The operators had returned to operating their girls and the artillery bombardment eventually stopped. Colonel Briggs ordered loud and clear “Cease fire! We leave the mopping up to the MGs!”

Two minutes later Elya piped up:

I have collected enough data to assess the effects of the artillery fire. Eighty-eight per cent of the kills were achieved with your mortars. From that, you receive 3032 points. On top of that, the point defense turret on your van intercepted another six Sixes. You receive another sixty points from that.

This brings your total balance to one token and 5172 points.

In the meantime, others were looking closely at where the Type Six drones had hit. In most cases only the paint was scratched, if it was paint what the Advent used. In one case it looked like a sensor was broken.

On the big screen, the vast majority of the red icons had been replaced by black icons for “wrecked unit”.

A few red icons for “Class Four unit” were still active. These might be Type 32s, the most common Class Four threats. The recon drones shifted to observing those now. Just in time to show Magical Girl strike teams ripping into the metal monsters.

One fight caught my special interest because there was not only a Type 32 and a few smaller Macks of familiar types, but also a Magical Girl that clearly aided the Macks. Or was it really a Magical Girl?

She stood on the Type 32 and used an orange energy shield to block the fireballs that a flying MG launched at a cannon of the Thirty-Two. Not being destroyed, that cannon returned fire and hit the girl with a high explosive grenade.

Despite a Green projecting a shield over her, some of the explosion got through and she dropped like a stone. A healer in Pink immediately sprinted to catch her and get her to safety.

At the edge of the fight the Pink laid her patient down in the cover of a ruined building and started patching the unconscious girl up. She had shrapnel wounds all over the side of her body, and her costume was drenched in blood. It was bad enough that we could see it in the video feed from the drone.

Meanwhile a new MG team appeared on the scene. I recognized Team Z-4 from a public appearance a week before. Overclock was helping out as support again, color code Yellow, which meant that she was augmenting the others' powers in some way. They also had a new Pink I only knew by her code name, she was called Mercy.

Suddenly, Team Z-4 turned into colored blurs, except Overclock who remained standing. They ran up the leg of the Thirty-Two and climbed on the hull, far faster than I ever had seen a human move. Even so, the hostile MG managed to turn around and fire off a handful of flaming arrows. It did not help her. Team Z-4 easily sidestepped the projectiles, and then they were upon the enemy.

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I saw some kind of beam coming from Luciole, which the enemy MG blocked with her shield. But that distracted her long enough that Li Mei managed to flank her at light speed. Li Mei slashed away at the neck of the enemy, and two powerful swings connected. The head of her target came off and the body flopped down like a puppet with its strings cut.

Then whatever had powered Z-4’s super speed ran out and they stood a little unsteady on the giant Mack’s back. It did not matter. Where they stood, none of the six cannon of the Type 32 could reach them. They were in the dead angle where its weapons were useless.

While they still caught their breath, the head of the girl Li Mei had just cut down rolled off the machine and fell under its feet. The body of the defeated female appeared strangely bloodless though, and her clothing appeared rigid like steel plates. Perhaps the rumors of demonic robot-Mack-girls were based on facts after all.

Palace Athene ordered “Secure the remains of that gynoid! One of Z-4 hold the body in place. Anyone who has the opportunity, recover the head!” Apparently, the rumors were actually facts. And SHOCKS had not extracted all intel about the evil robot MGs yet.

In the meantime, the cannons of the Thirty-two continued firing at the surroundings. One brave but unlucky HANAF soldier who tried to evacuate a wounded Magical Girl was hit and reduced to a spray of gore.

Then Li Mei had regained her strength and started stabbing the cannons from above lying on her belly, Luciole holding her from behind so she did not slip off the Mack. From her position, Li Mei could just reach the rotating mechanism of the guns. After a few stabs through each, bearings ground to a halt with a grinding noise and the cannon was stuck in position.

Now others could approach at much diminished risk, and even regular soldiers who would normally avoid getting close to a big Mack started to help. Limpet mines on the joints of the Type 32 crippled its mobility, then it became an acceptable risk to get in front and try shooting out the eyes with light anti-tank missiles. Not all of the Thirty-Two was immune to anti-tank weapons, and now this one was worn down by hundreds of minor injuries.

An hour later

The fighting was over except for hunting down a few smaller Mack stragglers. Palace Athena announced “I believe the worst is over. But stay in your positions for a few more hours and remain vigilant.”

One by one, the Magical Girl teams reported in. A few of them had been injured, but none fatally. So far. The girl who was hit by the cannon was still in critical condition.

The regular HANAF soldiers had a few fatalities among them, but far less than what was considered normal for an Emergence that size.

After the last reports had come in, Palace Athena replayed the video with the fight against the Type 32 with the machine girl on top.

“These female machines, designated Type 42, are among the most dangerous we have encountered yet, because they can make smart tactical decisions. See how this one protects the cannon that is about to fire? The one that already has Aetna in its sights? By shielding the cannon it helps the larger machine to perform a very dangerous attack. One that almost killed Aetna. On top of that, they have nanite-based attacks that were previously only available to our Magical Girls.”

After a dramatic pause she added “Their weakness is that their bodies are not tougher than other Mack units their size. So if you have the opportunity to attack them directly as Team Z-4 has demonstrated, you may be able to quickly destroy a major asset of the enemy.”

Eventually the operations center returned to non-alert mode and B.S.O.D. escorted me to the exit. On the way out I asked “Is there any research about how to penetrate the armor of a Type 32?”

“Sorry, that is classified.”

It seemed I would have to do some experimenting on my own.