Neo mech

After Garden Academy's launch court erupts as a training mech tears across the deck, warning strobes flashing while scattered students scramble behind safety barriers.

Yunito Harisha, a small athletic young woman with short dark hair and a focused face, lies trapped beneath a collapsed maintenance gantry in the machine's path.

Inside the mech's cockpit, a gaunt young adult man in a red utility coat hammers the controls. Torn Industry hardware glows around his frantic hands, refusing every command.

Academy systems stutter between evacuation orders and shutdown pulses. The training mech pivots, raises an energy weapon toward Yunito's wreckage, and locks its aim.

Daven reaches the edge of the danger zone as students vanish behind barriers. The weapon begins to charge, bathing the court in a hard blue glare.

Daven reaches the gantry and shoves upward. The twisted frame rises a fraction, then grinds sideways, trapping Yunito's legs tighter as the mech's blue weapon charge intensifies.

Daven changes his grip and forces the metal again, but one support leg collapses across the deck. The gantry settles into a locked angle, leaving no clear space to pull her through.

He reaches for the tech marble he built. The expected weight is absent from his pocket, and his searching hand finds only torn fabric before the mech's targeting tone peaks.

The mech fires. Its energy blast slams into the deck beside the wreckage, throwing up a hard wave of heat and fractured plating that cuts off Daven's approach.

Daven sprints through the heat wash, snatches a jagged chunk of fractured deck plating, and reaches the mech as its armored legs grind against the court.

He swings the metal into the cockpit window. The impact blooms a spiderweb of cracks, but the transparent armor holds. Inside, the gaunt pilot jerks back from the blow.

A segmented shutter slams over the damaged window. The mech bucks sideways, throwing Daven across the plating before he can force an opening or reach the pilot inside.

The failed strike leaves the mech's damaged cockpit turned away, but its sideways lurch exposes a sparking maintenance seam beneath the left knee. The weapon begins charging again.

Daven runs at the mech, grabs a loose rock from the fractured deck, and charges beneath its swinging weapon arm as blue light floods the court.

He hurls himself against the machine and smashes the rock into the cockpit window. The cracked armor flexes, but the emergency shutter absorbs the blow and holds.

The mech bucks, knocking Daven sideways. His rock skips beneath the left knee, striking the exposed maintenance seam instead of the window.

The seam bursts open with a shower of sparks. Behind it, a narrow service conduit pulses beside a manual release lever, reachable from the deck.

The weapon charge stutters as the damaged knee actuator grinds. The cockpit remains sealed, but the exposed lever offers a new way to halt the mech.

Daven charges beneath the mech's weapon arm, snatches the loose rock, and drives it into the already cracked cockpit window. The armor bursts inward.

Daven climbs through the broken window as blue charge-light flickers across the cockpit. The gaunt pilot recoils, his red utility coat catching on the jagged frame.

Daven reaches past the pilot and tears the exposed control spine from its socket. The weapon charge collapses into darkness, and the mech's raised arm locks harmlessly overhead.

Outside, the mech settles onto its damaged knee with a heavy hydraulic hiss. The cockpit falls still, leaving Daven inside with the stunned pilot and dead controls.

Daven climbs fully into the cramped cockpit and pokes the gaunt pilot in the chest. The severed control spine spits fading sparks between them.

Rusk holds Daven's stare, but the confrontation drains the last of Daven's borrowed composure. His hand pauses against the red coat, and the hesitation is obvious.

Beyond the broken cockpit window, warning lights sweep across the launch court as After Garden students regroup behind the barriers. Rusk's claim hangs over the dead controls.

Daven climbs back through the broken cockpit window and drops onto the fractured court. He reaches Yunito's gantry, bracing both hands beneath its twisted frame.

He heaves. The metal rises, but the collapsed support shifts with it, wedging tighter across Yunito's legs. A warning groan travels through the wreckage.

Daven releases the gantry before it can settle further. Through the gap, a narrow actuator housing is visible, its manual override cable running toward the mech's exposed knee panel.

Daven drops from the cockpit and crawls beneath the mech's tilted frame. He wedges his shoulders under the gantry, reaching toward Yunito through the narrow gap.

He lifts. The gantry rises just enough for Yunito to pull one leg clear, but the actuator housing twists and the remaining support slams down across her other boot.

Daven releases the frame before it can tighten again. The motion leaves a hand-sized opening beside the actuator, revealing the cable's bright yellow emergency sheath and a cracked retaining clamp.

Daven reaches into the opening, but the bent metal catches his sleeve and stops his arm short. The clamp is within reach, and the gantry now rests on the actuator instead of Yunito's leg.

Daven crawls back beneath the tilted mech and braces himself beside Yunito, reaching through the hand-sized opening toward her trapped boot and the yellow-sheathed cable.

Daven wedges his fingers against the cracked retaining clamp and hauls. The metal refuses, then twists sharply, dragging the actuator housing down against Yunito's boot.

Daven releases it. The cable retracts half an inch and vanishes behind the warped housing, leaving Yunito's boot pinned but the frame no longer pressing directly on her leg. The clamp must be opened from the other side.

Daven braces the warped housing with one shoulder and works the clamp sideways, following the metal's tension instead of fighting it. The cracked retainer snaps free cleanly.

The yellow-sheathed cable loosens. Daven pulls it clear, and the knee lock releases with a controlled hydraulic sigh, lifting the gantry enough for Yunito to slide both legs free.

As Yunito grips Daven's arm, the freed clamp exposes a recessed diagnostic port. Its display flashes the mech's transfer seal, destination, and a Garden Corp recovery code before stabilizing.

Daven helps Yunito crawl beyond the gantry's reach. Behind them, the disabled mech remains kneeling, while the diagnostic screen keeps the depot coordinates lit in steady green.

Reach the Garden Corp depot