The Promise of Tomorrow

Chapter 22

'What's taking him long to pick his phone up?' a blonde man in his 30s complained in his head, he was impatient as ever, and was tapping the cafeteria's floor with his black leather shoes. 

Jakob Amerhauser is the leading head of the Amerhauser Productions. Despite his position as the founder and one of the leading head of his business, he is often seen doing day to day operational work and working on designs for the exosuits for both battle and heavy duty purposes. As such, he is always seen with an outfit befitting as a mechanic passionate about his trade.

Right now, Jakob was awaiting Ryo's response and was getting more and more hasty with how Ryo wasn't responding. Suddenly, after a short while, Jakob finally received a response. However, he could hear gunshots and people screaming. "Hello? Ryo?! Please respond immediately!" Jakob requested in a panicked manner, heavily worried about his fellow colleague. Ryo could be heard breathing heavily.

"You... really had 'ta call in the worst time possible." Ryo joked, wanting to relieve the tension as the chaos was rampant in his area. "Status report then." Jakob commanded and Ryo sighed. "Well, Mana got shot down a couple of times by a Kurumi clone and I am currently in a gunfight with her. Bastard picked the right time to ambush both your and AST's aces." Ryo answered as he could be heard reloading his gun.

"Tch, we have no choice then. Get out alongside Takamiya and we'll head to our base."

"Are you sure with your decision, buddy? You know you'll risk having our base found out right? We could call Ratatoskr right now to pick us up.

"The more we can lure 'him' here in Japan, the better. Besides, we run the risk of them being caught in the crossfire if you did that. 

I'll prepare the getaway vehicle. Do not try to die now."

Jakob then hung up and Ryo sighed. "Welp, looks like we're going to meet the boss." Ryo told the unconscious Mana. Her shirt was riddled with bullet holes, as a while ago, she had protected Ryo from being shot by Kurumi who had been plotting an ambush on them.

Rising up from the table of the cafe, Ryo then fired two bullets that blew off the clone'e arms. Immediately while carrying Mana, he started to run away and was about to head towards the nearest Spacequake shelter. However, he realized that he may bring the other civilians in danger if he hid there.

Weighing his options, Ryo decided to keep running and shooting. As tried to keep away the clones that kept on increasing in number with how persistent they are, the lesser the magazines Ryo has left on his arsenal. 'Damn it... I'm running low on ammo...' Ryo complained as the clones giggled in glee with anticipation of claiming their prey.

The way they had cornered Ryo and Mana was something similar to zombies cornering a group of survivors. No matter how much Ryo had defeated them, more kept coming and finally, Ryo ran out of ammo. The clicking could be heard which signalled that he was now in grave danger. He cannot fight safely in a distance anymore and there was no way out. 

The leader of the clones then approached both Ryo and Mana, grinning maliciously. "Remember when I said I had two contingency plans?