A Warm Welcome-Yes, Very Warm

"All recruited units, proceed to Fourth Starport and await orders. A Faith-class transport vessel will take you to the battlefield. This is a special mission. You will receive no fire support from space, and your enemies are the Abyss's minions. The glory of His Majesty the Emperor will guide you to victory—provided you deal with the thorns along the way yourselves."

In the Shadow Base plaza near the starport's Teleportation Gate, formations of valiant Armored Scorpions marched toward the gate under Vega's command. The Dual Blades in her hands clashed in midair with booming clangs, displaying the battle fervor the scorpion girl could barely contain. Over the past few days, Vega had nearly been driven to collapse by lost little brats and festival equipment that needed carrying around. The helium-3 she had drunk to relieve stress over the last two days had almost exceeded the beneficial dosage by fifty percent.

Although Armored Scorpions did not mind carrying things, they clearly preferred having a Train Cannon or two tons of Battle Blades on their backs.

Above the Armored Scorpion formation was Shadow City's Magical Girl unit: the Ravens. These girls flitting through the air were far livelier than the stodgy Armored Scorpions. Although the Shilin Apostles' discipline kept them from laughing and fooling around, their Supreme Commander being an idiot, combined with their upbringing beneath the Empire's upper echelons' shameless aura, meant these identical girls always had plenty of little tricks up their sleeves—for example, mischievously using teleportation flashes to provoke the Armored Scorpions marching properly below.

This was how these two troop types, Ravens and Armored Scorpions, who had never gotten along since the Empire's earliest days, interacted: whenever a Raven flashed down, an Armored Scorpion's tail would whip out with a snap. The Ravens' repeated blinking turned the whole