Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume12 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 6===

When the entire tower shook, Quenser looked up as he and Catherine used their powered suit to deal with a burning metal drum.

“What? Did something happen?”

“Don’t move the powered suit on your own, big brother. It reacts to your motion too. We need to focus on fanning these flames.”

“You’ll get your ‘have a campfire’ stamp either way, right?”

“It’s ‘have a campfire with everyone’!!” said Catherine Blueangel as she carried the metal drum through the tower’s entrance and used a handmade tool like a giant fan.

But with an intense metallic sound of destruction, something heavy fell near the exit.

“Wah!!”

“Junk is falling down…”

But Quenser and Catherine had their own task and could not focus on that too much. They just figured something was going on up above.

If they left their post and the smoke thinned out, that would only cause Heivia’s group more trouble, so they focused on their job and sent plenty of smoke on up.

“There’s so much going on here,” commented Quenser.

“Yeah, all four world powers are here.”

It had all started with the rehabilitation program for Catherine Blueangel, the former Pilot Elite used as former Councilor Flide’s pawn. They wanted to grant her wish of retiring, but since sending her to a safe country right away would be too dangerous, they were sending her to relatively safe and mild battlefields to gradually defang her. And the ideal candidates for that were Quenser and Heivia because they had met her when rescuing her.

The mission chosen for them was to protect Second Venice, a giant artificial island and world-class resort that had been temporarily taken from the Information Alliance. A satellite drop weapon from the Legitimacy Kingdom’s past was going to fall on the island “by accident”, so the Baby Magnum and the Rush had been tasked with shooting it down with their anti-air lasers.

It would have been a simple mission if the Appetizer Asteroid had not caused such a disaster.

“There was that old astronomer man, wasn’t there?” said Catherine.

“Come to think of it, the asteroid was named after him and he was attacked by someone in the south side. Who were they?”

That had been a small incident and they had not had time to focus on it.

The asteroid itself had been destroyed in midair, but the shockwave and the pieces of the asteroid had crashed into Second Venice and caused severe damage.

“And then the Capitalist Corporations showed up,” continued Quenser.

“They gave people copies of Legitimacy Kingdom launchers and had them shoot at us, right?”

“It looked like they came from a floating restaurant near a north side container yard and we went there to check it out, but we never figured out what exactly the Capitalist Corporations were after.”

“They said something about Second Venice’s system not being safe and destroying it being the only way to bring safety.”

After that, a Legitimacy Kingdom transport ship had arrived.

“The ship full of food and water was blown away by the Rush. And that means we’re still short on food.”

“But why did they do that? That’s a surefire way of turning the world against you.”

And an enemy for the Rush had indeed arrived from outside.

A Faith Organization Object had shown up.

It had been an outdated First Generation known as the Old Fashion. Its technology had been inferior, but the Pilot Elite’s skill had put it on equal footing with the cutting-edge Rush. However, it had not tried to push things too far. After a short skirmish, it showed no sign of returning to defeat the Oh Ho Ho and open the way.

“The Legitimacy Kingdom, the Information Alliance, the Capitalist Corporations, and the Faith Organization. All four world powers are indeed here.”

“But it’s obvious who our enemy is.”

Yes. It was the Information Alliance.

They were the absolute worst. Why were they blockading Second Venice after the asteroid explosion had torn it apart? Why were they allowing all the civilians to starve?

To find out, they wanted information from the soldiers who had left the Information Alliance and holed up in the Pillar of Truth.

“ ‘Reminisce with someone.’ Heh heh heh. Another stamp.”

That summed up the environment Quenser and the others found themselves in.

Powered suit Catherine fanned the metal drum fire with her giant fan.

“But this has gotten really complicated, big brother.”

“That’s what we call real life.”