The XX-frame was finally unveiled. With the way they designed it, the cockpit was in the chest plate. It was heavily armored and there was a protrusion to give the pilots some space. In the 2-pilot variant of the XX-frame, there was a dichotomy of roles. One AEP unit would serve as the operating system by connecting directly to the mecha via their chest ports. The other unit with them would pilot the operator from behind them. It was a very intimate set up. As long as they were okay with it, that was good enough for me. There was a large, scaffolded platform to allow the AEP units to reach the cockpits. The leaders of every main clan were all there to watch. The coalition chosen AEP units were going to activate the XX-frames for the first time on the platform. The rest of us were watching from the ground a safe distance away. If it went wrong, we could be in danger otherwise. We wished both of the pilots luck as they got in the cockpits. That was when everything went dark. A red flashing alarm began blinking as a siren rang out. "We are under attack!" a Pierce clan leader screamed.
I ran to Niko. "You are my family. We're making it out of here together." I said as I picked him up and placed him over my shoulder. He said "Put me down Brianne! This is sub-optimal for fighting." "We're not fighting. We're all leaving this hell hole!" I said out loud. Paul and Brett both nodded in agreement. They went to the leaders of Heat and Radioactive Clans respectively. The AEP units had handguns and they were covering us. We went for the exit. It was crawling with armored government goons. The whereabouts of this hangar must have been leaked somehow. It was not us. We had to blast our way out. Killing the goons was easy. It was taking on the commandos that were among them that was hard. The Conquerors were also fighting. The government was here to kill us and destroy our all of our progress. We had to gang up on them when they appeared. There seemed to be 3 of them. All we cared about was getting our people out. Once we got to the street level, we were still chased by one of the commandos. I over looked at the AEP units and told them to slow him down a little bit.
Both of them looked at their leaders for their say. "Kill them!" the leader of Heat Clan demanded. They nodded and charged the commando. The commando just smirked as he took a drag from his cigarette. "Heh." was all he said as he slung his giant gun forward and shot one of them in the face at point blank range. The AEP's head exploded. It did give the other one the opening needed to tackle the commando to the ground. We were not sticking around to see the results. We just needed to get the hell out of there. Brett had a car waiting for us. We put Niko and the Heat Clan leaders in it quickly. "Drive and get home. We'll meet you later." Paul said. They peeled off without any hesitation. We now were left with the Radioactive Clan leaders. It was not too uncomfortable because we knew them. They were still a bit shaken up about the situation. We were still making our way through the streets. Once we got a safe distance away, we could take a moment to breathe. It was easy to let Paul go around the block and let him bring us a car. We dropped them off before heading home ourselves.
