After her suggestion, the group went past the doorway and walked down a long hallway, taking care of more enemies as the three wondered how exactly Bronya was gonna use the mechs.

Their questions were answered as after a bit further down they looked to their left and saw a row of powered off mechs.

They approached them as Bronya then had a couple of holographic screens appear in front of her as she began to interact with them.

"Password protection, disabled. Pilot access, granted. Combat systems, activated. A trojan? No...it seems like a minor Honkai leak. Minor event, categorized. Moving on. Anti-Entropy specialist combat mech, armed and ready." Said Bronya who successfully managed to get the mechs to power on as the others were impressed.

"Woah! This is super cool! I wanna pilot this one!" Said Kiana pointing to one of the three mechs which Bronya immediately rejected.

"Negative." She said which got Kiana upset.

"Huh why not!? It's my turn to do something cool!" She said with a frown.

"Mech piloting recquires at least 10,000 hours of training. Candidate pilots must also be well versed in the basic principles of EM theories, fluid dynamics, and aerodynamics." Said Bronya which got a sigh from Kiana.

"Ah really? You must be kidding. This mech looks simpler than a bike." She said.

"Stop fooling around Kiana." Said Mei.

Alex noticed that there were only three mechs available to pilot as he then offered his opinion.

"Judging by your suggestion to take the three mechs for use, its clear that you will pilot one and Mei will pilot the other to help keep her stamina stable right? That just leaves one mech left to pilot. If I were you, I'd let the snowflake pilot the third one. Even if she has no experience I'd rather let a teen with no experience pilot a mech than a 13 year old with no experience as well." Said Alex.

"Hey thanks kid! Maybe you aren't all that ba-HEY WAIT WHAT DO YOU MEAN SNOWFLAKE!?" Shouted Kiana.

Though she didn't want to, Bronya knew Alex was correct as she begrudgingly gave in as Mei, Kiana, and Bronya each entered their own mech as Alex decided to climb up and ride on Bronya's mech trusting her to provide the most safest ride out of the three.

With that settled, the three mechs were on their way to the end of the path as now they were easily plowing through the remaining enemies and beasts like nothing.

After a couple of minutes, they reached the end of the hallway as one of the mechs wound up exploding seemingly from damage but the group of four managed to easily jump away and land back onto the floor in front of the doorway that led into the control room.

"Heheh! How's that? My piloting skills are simply spelled with awesome." Said a confident Kiana with a smile.

"Awsomely inept." Bluntly said Bronya.

"Huh!? But I reduced all those hostile mechs to slag!" She shouted.

"Kiana Idiotka had destroyed the only operational mechs we managed to hack." Said Bronya.

"Can't do anything about that, but at least we've destroyed a ton of enemy units." She said still being upbeat.

"True but you somehow managed to press the self destruct button after the battle was done." Said Alex.

"What? How'd you know?" Said Kiana being in genuine shock.

"A-Anyways, since we can't pilot the mechs anymore lets just move on with the mission." Said Mei wanting to get a move on already. "According to the prints of the battleship, the bridge is beyond that door, right?"

"Affirmative." Confirmed Bronya.

"Alright then. Let's bust through and seize control of this bad boy." Said Alex as they walked through the door and after walking through one final corridor, they reached the end to meet what seemed like the main control terminal that powered the air ship as Bronya approached it and began to take control.

"No hostile units at the bridge. Project Bunny 19c, force access into the main control system." She said ready to break through any security systems until she got shocked at what she saw on her hologram.

"No login passwords...full administrator's privileges granted...non conformance with standard protocols."

As the process went on, Himeko's hologram suddenly appeared for a chat.

"This is strange. They're just giving us a free battleship? Be careful Bronya. The enemy may have hidden a few trojans in the code." Warned Himeko.

"Major Himeko, the Bronya found a strange message in the master control unit."

"Message?" Asked Himeko as Bronya began to read what it said.

"It reads, "Dear Kiana! Greetings. We hereby return you the battleship Selene after 14 years. You shall ascend the throne and rule this world. But before that, you'll need to find four keys. The Lighting of Conquest, Fire of Affliction, Storm of Desire, and Death of Tranquility. P.S. The password to the bridge is your birthday." Said Bronya finishing the email.

"Wait. Why's this message written for me?" Said a confused Kiana.

"Kiana, do you know anything about this? Do you know anyone who would write letters like this to you?" Asked Himeko.

"No...I'm clueless... Don't you think I'd remember if I had a friend so rich they could give me a battleship? Plus, my stupid old man probably can't write anything like this." Replied Kiana.

"Lightning of Conquest...Storm of Desire...they sound really familiar to me. Kiana! Tell Bronya your birthday." Ordered Himeko which caught Kiana off guard.

"Huh? Why would I tell you all my birthdate? Himeko, this is just a stupid prank." Said Kiana not wanting to say though Mei went against her wishes.

"Bronya, Kiana's birthday is December 7th." She said.

"Huh!? Mei! Don't tell me that you believe this prank!?" Said an upset Kiana.

Bronya typed the birthdate in and pressed accept as the system P.A. of the ship spoke.

"Navigation privileges granted. Rerouting vessel. New destination set: St. Freya High School." Said the voice which had Kiana in shambles.

"Huh!? They really used my birthdate as the password!?"

"Well, at least now we'll be able to fly the battleship back to St. Freya and get to the bottom of this." Said Mei, noting out the positives. "It seems that the people who had sent this battleship had no ill intent."

As the two girls were beginning to focus on ahead Alex noticed how after inputting the password, Bronya had remained perfectly still and had not said a single word, almost as if she were frozen in place.

'Something's up.' He thought to himself.

Shortly after that, a warning sign appeared in front of Bronya.

"What's happening Bronya?" Worriedly asked Himeko.

She gave no response as in front of the three, Bronya's form began to change.

Now, she wore a primarily dark outfit with red lining as her eyes were now an ominous crimson red.

"Valkyrie System. Bio-Chip anomaly detected...force activate emergency system. Rebooting." She said as she turned back to look at them with nothing but a cold expression on her face as her tone of voice was a lot more monotone and robotic than what it was before.

No one could understand what was happening, but something definitely wasn't right with Bronya.

"Switching to troubleshooting mode. Purge all surrounding hostiles." Said Bronya as she stood up, holding her hand out in front of her as behind her, over what seemed like hundreds of cannons were aimed and ready to fire at them.

Kiana and Mei were simply too shocked to even move as Alex impulsively grabbed the two girls' hands as he helped them jump and just barely dive out of the way as they got behind one of the machines in the control room for cover as the cannons were now raining fire non stop.

"Hey snap out of it you two. Now's not the time to clam up." Said the boy who was a little annoyed but quickly shrugged that off as he then gave the rundown of his plan.

"Alright listen. Once this assault begins to let up I'm gonna go and distract her. As I'm doing that, you two go around and blind side her until sense is knocked back into her got it!?" He said as the two girls nodded to his plan.

They then got into position as Alex waited for the assault to slow down.

Eventually it did as he drew out his sword and aimed from the left side of the machine as he let the flame loose, launching a fire ball straight at Bronya.

Bronya saw this and just slightly let off of her assault a bit more as Alex then got away from the cover and ran towards Bronya in an attempt to further distract her from the other two.

Sure enough it worked as Bronya kept trying to shoot down Alex with the boy managing to avoid all of the shots and even blocking some as well.

As that was happening, Kiana and Mei had successfully managed to sneak around and get behind Bronya as the two would successfully blindside the girl as the numerous hits from Kiana's bullets and sword slashes from Mei's sword was enough to take the girl down as she fell onto the floor unconscious.

Eventually, Bronya had reverted back to her prior form as she then slowly woke up afterwards, awakening to see herself being held in Mei's arms with Kiana standing next to her as Alex was off to the side.

"Bronya! Thank goodness you're okay!" She said as Bronya groaned a little, her vision being a little blurry until they became fully clear again.

"What happened, Mei?" She asked.

"Ain't got a clue. You just suddenly attacked us." Said Kiana as Bronya quickly pieced together a logical reason as to why she had attacked them.

"The Bronya...may have lost control over her chip..." She said slowly as Himeko appeared again, this time on a video call.

"Valkyries, are the communications back online? Bronya? Are you alright?." Asked Himeko who ended up being disconnected during Bronya's assault.

"The Bronya is alright...Major Himeko, please arrange a full physiological exam for the Bronya at school. The Bronya will not drag anyone down in any way." She said with a smile.

Himeko saw this and simply gave a chuckle before she gained focus back.

"One last thing, Alex Mustang can you hear me?" Asked Himeko.

Alex walked in front of the video call as he got his first glimpse of what Himeko looked like.

She had long red hair and orange eyes as she wore a crimson colored coat with a white collar as she also had a white and black shirt underneath the coat and had black gloves on.

"Yeah I'm here. Hear ya loud and clear." Said Alex.

"Good. Let's save the proper introductions for later okay? After all, we'll be seeing each other in person very soon." Said Himeko which confused Alex.

"Uh, excuse me? I appreciate the gesture and all but I'm done here right? My job is finished." He said.

"Well, yes your job is indeed finished so you're allowed to return home however, something has come up that recquires your presence." She replied.

"Oh really? What would that be then?" He asked as Himeko's response was one that he didn't expect at all.

"You'll be accompanying Kiana, Mei, and Bronya on the way back. The Principal of St. Freya would like to have a word with you."

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Chapter 4: Complete