Last time, Yekase drifted in Professor F’s gentleness and nearly bared her true self. Her resolve held. She took the out, slid down the slope, and spun a half-true spiel to drop her academic seniority a notch.

Fear still clung like mist to her ribs. She swore to keep silent through the rest of the checks and simply drink in the sight of Professor F’s thighs—soft lines, slender but not frail, golden ratio under the lamplight.

This wasn’t lust. It was pure appreciation of beauty, like a brush pausing over a perfect curve. Mechanics are tools, and the greatest, most exquisite tool evolution forged is the human body itself.

She wasn’t a sketch-obsessed art student who’d draw bones on every passerby. Frankly, she was hooked on Professor F because this woman’s body was the most flawless she’d seen—every detail, every muscle a clean stroke. As a mecha engineer, a craftsman chasing precision, admiring that and stealing design sparks was only natural.

The infirmary lurched like a ship hit by a crosswind.

“An earthquake?!”

Yekase clicked her tongue, snapped off the bed, and she and Professor F bolted out into the hallway, shoes slapping tile like quick rain.

Crimson Field and Dragon God Shark had been napping in their rooms. The sudden jolt knocked them into the corridor too. Zhang Wendao stepped out to check, hair loose like a startled sparrow. Crimson Field hadn’t even transformed—still in pajamas, prints fluttering.

“Gear up, idiot! Did your nap scramble your brain?” Dragon God Shark barked, voice cracking like thunder.

“O-okay!”

Crimson Field fumbled out the Beast King Cube and slammed the transform sequence.

“King of the heavens—Dragon God Eagle!”

Even now he hit the pose, clean as a blade. Of course he did. That’s you.

“Professor, Doctor! What’s happening? Are we under attack? Where’s Flashblade Red?”

“She said she wasn’t tired. She should be wandering nearby. If there’s an enemy, she’s probably engaged already—if there’s really an enemy,” Yekase answered, each word a stone set true.

“So even this island isn’t safe…” Professor F’s face tightened like cloud cover. “I laid several layers of signal jamming. Did a zone that shows nothing draw more attention instead…?”

Not gonna lie, you made it easy to spot.

It’s a blacked-out patch on a map for no reason. Who wouldn’t come poke it?

Though Jiang Bailu probably traced the Flashblade System’s unique band and walked right in.

Before they picked sectors to check, a roar like a rolling boulder yanked every gaze toward the mountains.

On the ridge sat a colossal—tricycle?

“What the… is that?”

“Did it crawl out of the ruins?”

Even Yekase blinked, mind snagging like thread.

She’d guessed Jiang Bailu would deploy the Gauntlet Ling Yi didn’t know well as the main hand. She never imagined this scale. In her memory, Gauntlet couldn’t fly, had no ranged kit, weak firepower. Only armor and regen were decent. It was built to stall when the other three forms were crippled.

So when she heard “enemy,” she didn’t sweat it. Treat it as Ling Yi’s exam. Let her solo it—then what is this thing?

Jiang Bailu tinkered and turned it into a mountain-crushing brute?

You filial disciple!

Ling Yi’s silhouette circled the giant trike like a hawk, but she couldn’t land real damage. She even lit her two-color flame. Fine. Risk or not, it’s her only buff. If not now, when.

“We’re moving! To me—Dragon God Core!”

“What the hell is going on… To me—Tail of the Dragon God!”

Two mechs, one red, one blue, fired off the armory roof like comets. As they crossed overhead, both pilots flashed into white light and dropped into cockpits. No matter how many times you watch it, it’s sleek and stupidly cool.

Dragon God Core flies solo as a falcon-shaped fighter and knifed toward the Gauntlet, guns waking like sunrise. Tail of the Dragon God was trickier. It defaults to a shark. It spun mid-air into a compact mech and sprinted across the shuddering earth toward the fight.

A doctor, a professor, and a Magical Girl stayed where the wind died. No right to jump in. They watched from afar.

In its Earthshaker form, the Gauntlet didn’t swap modes. The trike lacked proper weapons, so it threaded the ridgeline, crushing stone and scrub. Sand flew like a storm. Day dimmed as if a curtain fell. The quakes deepened, as if the thing meant to drown the island whole.

Ling Yi braced and kept firing her railgun. She carved several wounds, but nothing vital. She wanted to gamble on Blastwind Bias. The tank read empty.

Worse, a fatigue she’d never felt washed over her, like iron weights tied to her limbs—

“We’re here!”

Crimson Field slid in beside her, wings casting a blue shadow. “Switch! We’ll hold this. You go rest!”

“This—”

“Protect the Professor.”

“…Thanks.”

Ling Yi took one last look at the Gauntlet, then peeled away. She wobbled down to the three on the ground, dropped into Yekase’s arms, and before words could form her armor unraveled into light and dust.

“Ah…”

“The Flashblade System carries an emergency power source,” Yekase said, voice like a steady hand. “If you can’t safely dismiss the armor, it keeps you going till you reach a safe zone, then releases.”

“Designing… such a useless thing…”

Yekase held her tighter and murmured to her ear, warm as breath on winter glass. “Safety isn’t useless. You can lose a fight. You can give up profit. I won’t let someone who trusts me enough to wear my armor die.”

“The ground’s tossing us. How do we rest?” Professor F frowned, brows like drawn bows. “I’ll grab energy drinks!”

“Thanks.”

Yekase said it. Ling Yi had gone limp—two-color flame backlash, most likely. Even through cloth, the heat burned like a brazier. She was almost too hot to hold.

Yekase sat cross-legged and let Ling Yi’s upper body rest against her, becoming a human cushion. Zhang Wendao wanted to help but her hands had nowhere to land. She exhaled hard, fists knotting like stones.

“A loli face shouldn’t carry grief like that.”

Yekase even had room for a joke.

“Every time… I can only… watch…”

“Can you grab my tablet? The one I lent you.”

Zhang had rushed out empty-handed. She sprinted back, snatched the tablet, and passed it over.

“After the Flashblade System got slammed by a strong enemy, leftover Flash Energy mixed with Mind Energy that flooded the circuits. Lucky thing it didn’t clog. But power fell, and stability jittered. I thought the island was safe, planned to keep it as weight training…”

She set the tablet on Ling Yi’s head like a stand, opened a control pane, and her fingers blurred like rain on strings.

Lines of code flowed like a score being written. Images and error prompts popped like fireflies, and she caught and cleared each one.

Zhang Wendao watched, mind blanking. In her head, Yekase was “I’ll Ora-Ora you in Gundam form,” pure violence in boots. She hadn’t expected this cool blade of reason.

Professor F came back with drinks. She shoved a cup into Zhang’s hands and knelt to feed Ling Yi, hands steady as a nurse’s.

“Emergency procedure for a Mind Energy surge… Doctor, move your tablet. I can’t touch her forehead!”

“Check under her arm. We’re racing the clock.”

Yekase’s hands didn’t slow, keys tapping like hail.

“How do I check under her arm with my hand—ugh. With this heat, it’s high. Skip to the next step!”

Up on the mountain, three mechs braided into a fight.

Tail of the Dragon God pinned the Gauntlet on the ground and cut its angles. Dragon God Core poured fire from above, bright arcs like shooting stars. Only two of the five had arrived, but their coordination was a locked gear. In minutes they outpaced the damage Ling Yi had stacked.

“Doctor, head… head…”

A voice drifted out from under the tablet.

“Headache?”

“The… the shaking…”

Ling Yi’s voice was thin and plaintive, like a kitten stuck in a box.

The three around her couldn’t help a soft snort. The tension broke like chalk.

“How’s your body?”

“No strength… My buff form is way too short. Shorter than your uptime, Doctor.”

“Should I take that as an insult?”

“That one’s not.”

Good. Ling Yi’s mind was clear. Flash Energy hadn’t backflowed into her body. That was a lucky star.

“I’m hot-fixing the Flashblade System. The ground’s shaking hard, so I’m using you as a buffer cushion. Bear with it.”

“Doctor, if you don’t mind, I’ll be the cushion. Let Flashblade Red rest.”

Professor F volunteered, voice firm as steel. She slid in between Yekase and Ling Yi like a quick current, forming a human centipede line, and let Ling Yi rest her head on her thighs.

Then she caught Yekase’s raised wrists, dipped her head between her arms, and set the tablet on her headlights, cool and shameless.

“…”

Yekase didn’t dare type.

“What is it? Classified code? Don’t want me to see? I can close my eyes.”

That’s not the reason!

…Okay, partly.

Pressure wins. Yekase gritted her teeth and kept typing, and silently added one more reason to never show her real self to Professor F.

“Mmm…”

If you’re the cushion, stop humming!

She finally finished tuning every parameter and fled from Professor F’s back like a startled fish.

“I refit the circuits to accept Mind Energy. It’s temporary, but much better. And if you feel your Mind Energy slipping out of control, route it into the thrusters. They’ll vent everything.”

“Thanks, Doctor. I’ll—”

“You still want back in? Those two are enough.”

“But, look…”

Ling Yi pointed toward the battlefield.

Only then did Yekase realize—

The tremor underfoot had stopped sometime in the chaos.