It Slices and Dices

Anna's mech smashed its head into the robot standing in front of her. It dropped its gun and Anna grabbed it with her left hand. She aimed behind her and pulled the trigger, decimating the group of flying enemies behind. At that same moment, her left hand went through the chest of the robot to her right and pulled it to the left, crushing it against another enemy.

Anna was focused and processing her next moves so quickly that the first nine robots seemed to go down in a fraction of a second. She already had plans to wipe out twenty more and aim for the leader as the twenty-first.

The mech moved so fluidly that there were no mistakes in her plan. Everything was lined up as it should be. It was almost as if she was clairvoyant.

Pop a knee joint here, lodge it into the torso of a robot over there. Collect three heads and toss them at the barrels of three guns about to shoot the red balls of destruction, causing those robots to take the explosion in the face. Trip one robot and kick it toward three more and toss a rigged gun over to the pile and watch it explode.

All that was left was the leader of the ground unit. There were others flying high above, sure but, they were ignoring the battle below.

The leader didn't seem too special. It looked a shade lighter in color compared to the others. But his only major threat was his gun. It was different, larger, and longer. Considering he didn't attempt to use it while Anna fought off his subordinates, it must have a lot of destructive power.

"Hmmm... Yes-yes-yes, and no-no-no. His gun has pinpoint accuracy, but the target will erupt into a massive explo-lo-losion. This close, he cant use it without worrying about damaging himself. That's why most commanders with that gun use holographic technology to create distance so that they can get to safe-safe-safe proximity."

Anna's eyes nearly bugged out. She picked up a piece of a robot off of the ground and tossed it at the commander. Sure enough, it flew through without impacting anything.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU WARN ME!"

Anna jumped to her right, just barely escaping the shot. She took cover behind a hill.

"I thought you said the target would explode. There was no explosion."

"The ground was not his target. By the way, this dirt moun-oun-ound is useless. He can see and shoot through it. Please do take care. I'm almost done with the installations of the final systems. Once that is done, I can reinitiate the self-defense system."

"Re..."

Another shot just skimmed by between the mech's arm and torso. Anna picked up and started running. If he could still see her, a straight shot would be a death sentence. She had to move erratically. One more dodged. Another, and another.

"System installation complete. Reboot-boot-booting."

"What?" Anna asked in shock. Just before the screen shut down, the mech came to a sudden halt and another shot went by directly in front of the screen.

"Hey... What are you doing? I need to move... HELLOOOO!?"

Her prayers were answered. The screen booted up and the mech seemed to jump up on its own, landing and holding position standing on a single hand. Another shot pierced the mountain and came right at Anna. The mech automatically dodged and started charging right at the mountain where the hole from the previous shot came from. The mech picked up a gun from a defeated enemy with the left hand and the right tore off one of the jetpacks.

"What are you doing now? Why are we running toward the one shooting at us?"

"Not to worry-orry. With the automated self-defense system, we can dodge anything he has. It's easy when I can hack-ack into his sight and track his vision of us."

Another one just barely missed. Almost every shot was too close to be comfortable. The mech jumped up. They seemed to be in low gravity, it was like they floated over the mountain and got a clear shot with the salvaged red ball gun. It was over. The commander's robot was destroyed. Anna's mech landed softly and walked over to the commander's remains.

"Why..."

"Because he has-as codes. I can assimilate them and impersonate another commander. In a moment, I'm going to disable the communications jammer so I can send a message to the command ship in orbit. If done correctly, the entire force should be recalled from the Earth-th."

Anna just looked out at the destruction as the A.I. did its thing. After he was done siphoning the codes from the enemy commander, she clutched the controls and moved the mech toward her home. It was almost nightfall when she got there. The remains of the house were still burning that deep red color.

"We should know if the message worked. I sent it in a highly encrypted code meant for only the top brass. I'm-I'm listening to the communications of the enemy as I wait for confirmation."

Anna stayed silent as she reminisced about the past. Before the invasion. Before the First Rapture. Something caught her eye in the rubble.

"Let me out."

"But, My Moon... It's still-ill Dang-"

"I don't care. Let me out."

She kicked the eject button that was being overridden by the A.I..

"Very well."

The mech knelt down and used its hands to make large steps down from the now open cockpit. Anna hopped down and dug out the object that she saw. It was one of her father's medals. She held it to her chest. She was about to let her training go and allow her emotions to take over when she heard a click.

"Freeze!" An older husky voice said. "You came out of that machine. What are you doing here?"

Anna turned her head to see one of her father's commanding officers. He had his gun in hand, but it was pointed down.

"Pete..." She sobbed. "My dad, he's..."

She turned to face him and he reacted by aiming his gun at her. The A.I. wasn't fond of that, it reacted by nearly crushing Pete in hand. Luckily, it stopped. Anna hadn't said it out loud, but she felt the desire to say stop, and it seemed to listen.