As Zim requested Black Star to obey in the critical task of rescuing Yeager from the floral embrace of the rose Framewerk, he barely felt a presence of some kind from deep within the black machine; it felt somehow familiar, and Zim saw that his synchronization rate spiked to 60%. Black Star lifted the cumbersome Thermal Scythe to its side, and with a determined charge swept horizontally. The rose Framewerk responded by releasing Yeager and crouching down, its rose petals on its head and arms extending to form a shield. However, the shield's weakness to heat proved to be the Frame's undoing, as the Thermal Scythe burned through the defences, and cleaved the Frame's upper body in two with a mighty strike. One female scream later, the Frame's beautiful rose petals scattered to the wind, and its uprooted existence withered and fell down to the fertile earth; The universe had never seen gardening of this scale before.

Yeager, once freed from its green prison, took the opportunity to counter against the electrified Frame, and shot at it with its machinegun. While the weapon was unable to damage the moderate armor of the Frame, it staggered and wobbled on the water as a result. It touched the water accidentally, and electricity violently surged through the Frame, causing it to miss as it threw the lightning bolt. It hit the water right before it, and the high voltage of the blast caused both the pilot to scream and an internal part of the Framewerk to explode and ignite, causing its torso to burn as it dropped down to the water, sinking to the depths.

However, the fight was far from over, as the sword-shaped Frame climbed up from the sand and clicked in furious fashion, seemingly out for revenge. It charged behind Black Star, punched the back of the Frame, and then unleashed the Stake-Driver on its fist. The attack blew a hole through the Frame's torso, and messages of critical damage flared on Zim's screen.
[hr]
Elsewhere, in the command deck of Solaire, one of the bridge personnel reported to Lorenzo: "Sir, the Black Star's system are failing!" Lorenzo shrugged its shoulders in response. "Well, it was only a matter of time. Good night, Zero..." He pushed a red button on his remote, and in that instant the Black Star shut down completely, turning limp as it was held upright by the fist piercing it. Ritsu looked sternly at the screen, tapping her holster out of habit. [i]Hang in there, Sigma squad.[/i]
[hr]
While Rostosov's gatling weaponry were effective against light opponents, they only bounced and ricocheted off the enemy Framewerk's wide body, failing to cause any notable damage. However, Rostosov's cruise missile locked onto the black behemoth, and the earth shook as the high-yield explosive punched through the layered armor and created a gaping hole on the adversary's shoulder. The machine audibly clanged and growled in response, and continued shooting at Rostosov; this time the full volley was showered over the other heavyweight. Bullets coated with the rage of lightning screamed as they made their mark, but even the most powerful automatic kinetic weapon on Solaire only dented the front armor of the Rostosov at best. But the clash of colossi took a turn for the worse for the Sigma side: Rostosov's twin gatling cannons didn't prove as durable, and they twisted and churned under the weather of the storm of death until a warning display came to Harold's screen that informed that the primary weapons system was lost due to major damage, the barrels too full of holes and bent to shoot anything. Harold then saw that the other enemy Frame recovered, and charged straight at him. It seemed that all hope was lost...

Until Dynasty charged in, and brought its blasters to bear on the brute. The white Frame brought up its sper powered shield, but too late; a salvo already landed on it, and though the Frame absorbed both shock and kinetic damage like a sponge, it was also a Frame weak to heat, and the white luster of its chest was charred black by the hard light of the energy bolts, melting it away. In response, it bellowed with the sound of grinding gears, and unleashed its Imperator system; the Frame created a field around it that drew in all ammunition and Frames inside it, though it was interrupted before Rostosov was in range.

Katya attempted to follow behind, but just as she reached the border of zone C an explosion erupted right before her feet. She looked up, and saw a gray Framewerk fall down from the tower as it shot another round from its Hellstorm Cannon. It landed on Caretaker's leg, reducing her movement speed to a cautious walk as a result. In response, she shot the marker shots on the enemy the moment he landed between her and her comrades with a tumbling roll before it quickly stood up, unable to pass past it.

Elora, just moments before, noticed that the gray Framewerk flew up to the tower from the Broken Hills, where it seemingly stumbled. Elora was scared; this was the first time she was this close to a real enemy unit; virtual enemies were static, like videogame characters, but this was observing and moving like a real, living pilot was controlling it. However, her resolve grew when she realized the thing didn't spot her invisible Logic Gate, and she proceeded to initiate a scanning protocol as she's trained. Her fingers turned red and bruied as they tried to keep up with the rapid typing Elora did in her attempt at collecting and transmitting the data as fast as she could. She sighed in relief once she was done, happy to have performed the procedure so quickly, and reported: "Data transmitted of enemy unit You should now see statistics and weak points of the unit."

However, her joy turned to dread as she realized the enemy Frame shot at Caretaker. She decided to put an immediate stop to it, and tackled the thing from behind, causing it to fall from the tower. It was then that she realized that the cloaking device was easily disrupted by physical damage, and it sizzled off, causing the egg Frame to be visible again. "Uh-oh..." Elora yelped.
[hr]
"You saw that? Your little friend got skewered like karja!" Irina taunted her younger duplicate as she hovered over the Abyss, lifting the Eiswolf's head purposefully towards the lake, before turning it around to the Mystery Zone. "And another one is about to be crushed between a rock and a hard place!"

[u]"I...I have one thing to add."[/u]

"Hmm? What could itty bitty Siggy piggy have to add or subtract?"

[u]"Don't go gentle into that good night..."[/u]

"Hah! What's that-OH YOU SLUT!" Irina screamed out as she saw what Sigma did; with a baseball athlete's finesse, Sköll spun and threw Eiswolf towards the Mystery Zone just as it was about to explode, leaving her unscathed. "Close, but no cigar, bisque bitch! You can't touch this!"

But then, Irina's smug grin turned into a grimace as she now realized what Sigma's true plan was; Sköll lifted up MORS, her trusty sword that glew with a purple light, attempting to parry the high-powered shot. It split into two when it made contact with the sword instead of reflecting, and hit the sides of her lower body. While it only dented her armor due to being a glancing hit with its power split in half, it still hurt Irina as if she was the recipient of the attack herself, causing her to recoil. [i]She held onto that rifle all this time? Spunky kid...[/i] She looked as Eiswolf crashed, and was subsequently disabled. It was exactly then that Paladin unleashed the Pompey's full might on her, but with disappointing results; most of the shots were missed due to the Emperor's Imperator field, but one did manage to hit Skäll on her thrusters, causing her to lose altitude. "Oh, you boys want some of this? Then come and get it!" She spotted a lone silly-looking Framewerk floating close to the tower, and stabbed the round exterior with her sword as she landed on top of the tower, causing Elora to scream in both pain and fear. Her nose started bleeding, a sign of the girl's high symbiosis with the machine. "Uughh...please don't hurt me!" She pleaded, but Irina only laughed in response as she used one hand to take a shot at Paladin, hitting it straight on the head and causing it to be slightly caved in by the sheer force of the weapon. Critical damage messages sprayed out to Ariin; they informed him that the visual sensors were lost, rendering it blind as the visual feed only showed static. Despite this, Lorenzo deemed the machine to still be capable to fight and didn't deactivate it. "Maybe the Cadet can hit Irina again while blinded...or it accidentally destroys the allies around it! Either way, this is going to be entertaining."

Irina swung Logic Gate around and finally threw it, causing it to land on zone A with a loud crash. The little girl seemed to be in catatonic shock inside, and whimpered even as critical damage messages blared out. [i]I was useless...I didn't get a full scan of that, so I can't submit it...[/i] However, she remembered Ariin's warm smile, Harold's encouraging praise, and the trust that the others seemed to have in her. While she first thought she only had data to contribute to her team, she now understood that she had so much more to give: a courage to fight that only fear of death may awaken. She stumbled up from her seat, and activated the Combat Analyzer. She stil had one last submission to send, and she sniffed with a pout as she finished combining the inefficient data of Sköll combined with the tempalte of data she acquired from the Frame designated as Black Komodo. She pressed the send button only mere seconds before Lorenzo deactivated Logic Gate, causing the cockpit to darken. She dropped back to her back, and stared at the ceiling. She didn't manage to send a report of confirmation, but she believed that the contents of her data, which was the approximate data of Sköll, conveyed her feelings more than any word could have.