[h1]Hanazawa Maria[/h1]

A bright green power gathers in the gunner's left hand cannon, and the Gatling gun in his right hand begins spinning. He points the gun at me, and I move to the right, meaning to move out of the way of the spray of bullets... But what comes out is instead a very wide spread of bullets, like a shotgun, wide enough that I haven't moved quickly enough to be outside its arc; I wince as the acid-coated bullets pierce my flesh once again. Suddenly, I feel another attack coming, from behind me; is that the jammer? The orbs of light around me move to form a shield, blocking the attack, a beam of paralytic black haze. But as I do that, I see the gunner unleashing the beam he's been charging, the caustic energy coming straight at my heart.

They're serious... Of course, not like I'm expecting anything else. My disguise seems to be working so far, and they aren't linking me to Hanazawa Maria, whom they think they've already killed. So it's okay for me to be a little more serious too, isn't it?

For a brief moment time seems to slow down, and the beam of acidic green energy is moving toward me at almost a snail's pace. I dissolve into light, swerve to the right and then toward the gunner, moving at a seemingly normal speed in this state of accelerated thought when everything else appears many times slower. The green beam tears into buildings as if they're made of wet tissue paper, but by then I've long since moved out of the way... relatively speaking, at least. I can't keep up this kind of accelerated mental speed for long without straining myself, but I don't need to. By the time I deactivate it, I've already moved into melee range of the gunner, as a blast of bright white and lilac comes out of my hand and strikes the gunner point-blank. It passes straight into the gunner's shoulder and torso, disrupting and jamming up any magic circuits in the way, while burning through any magical defenses it may have had. An instant later, the gunner shudders violently, sparks and smokes coming from underneath his armor. Looks like I'm right, and this is just a remotely controlled drone after all...

Suddenly, the gunner drone's backpack splits open, and a bronze spider-like robot with a large glowing green crystal attached to its back comes out of it. That must be the gunner's PCU! I prepare to unleash another blast, but then sense an abrupt and alarming rise of energy levels in the gunner drone. Its circuit lines are so much brighter now, but sizzling and crackling with energy. It's self-destructing! I quickly turn my whole body intangible, an instant before a massive burst of corrosive green magic engulfs me. At first, it still hurts, but then I pour more magic into my mana vessels to protect them, and the pain quickly disappears. A few seconds later, the blast dissipates, having dissolved all the concrete, bricks, and everything else within more than ten meters, and dug a large crater into the ground. And... The spider-like PCU is nowhere to be seen. It must have used the self-destruct as a distraction to teleport away, and the acidic explosion scoured everything around it, leaving almost no residual magic that I can use to trace back to the PCU's destination... Dammit.

Sweeping out with another scanning wave, I sense my ally impale his opponent with a spear of blue energy, and the Protectorate soldier fall to the ground, his life force rapidly fading away. I wince for a moment, but quickly steel myself. They can't be reasoned with, so this has to be done... And now there is only the jammer left. I begin sending out more scanning waves, trying to see where he's hiding.