2010-12-03 - We're in Heaven

Constructed to provide the Orb Union - particularly the Sahaku family - with a powerful orbital presence and weapons production facility, Space Fortress Ame-no-Mihashira was one of a few powerful symbols of the Union's - and, in time, Katharon's - will to rebel against the oppressive warmongering and perceived tyranny of the Earth Federation Alliance. For a time, it served admirably as a defensive bunker point and mobile suit production plant.

And then the A-LAWS came.

And the August Pillar of Heaven became a symbol not of rebellion and determination, but of the Earth government's reforged zeal to quell the fires of revolution amidst the disenfranchised elements of the Sphere's populace. Since Ame-no-Mihashira's capture, it has been one of the A-LAWS task force's major bases of operation; it is, after all, no less the bunker and resource production point it once was for the Orb Union.

Now, many months removed from the Pillar's capture, spikes of localized gravitic anomalies lance across its sensors; after months of combatting the Seventh Fleet of the Ze Balmary Empire, practically nobody aboard the Fortress has to wonder what they mean. At most, a scattered curse their luck, perhaps having hoped that /this/ post would avoid the rapacious blitzkriegs that have fallen upon so many other installations across the Earth Sphere.

In under a minute, space is thick with Megillots, Mishleis, Jeremiahs, Zechariahs and Ezekiels exhibiting the same kinds of high-speed swarm tactics that have made the Aerogaters nuisances at the very least and difficult to placate foes at worst; Ring Lasers and Optical Cannons and Laser Blades flood the darkness with violent, clashing radiance as the unmanned shock troopers do what they can to harry Ame-no-Mihashira's automated point defenses and first waves of protectors. Amidst it all, distress signals have found Federation captains throughout local space in the hopes of beckoning more defenders to the crisis in progress before it's too late.

Just as the A-LAWS before them, the Ze Balmary Empire has come to claim Ame-no-Mihashira for its very own; it's doubtful that the transfer of ownership will be half as civil as the one that preceded it, should they be allowed to have their way.

Meanwhile, aboard Neviim, the orchestrator of the attack is frantically splashing water on his face; Baraq Sheraga's been awake for days, both because he's been throwing himself into preparing for this offensive... and because he's afraid of what he'll see staring back at him if he allows himself to sleep.

"Main units," he quietly transmits to the manned units, "get ready to make the slide to Ame-no-Mihashira--and be on the look-out for any and all Sample machines equipped with GN Tau Drives." A small pause, and then he lowly reminds, "They'll be the /orange/ things on the back."

Aitan Chazak rumbles quietly to himself as he settles into the cockpit of his custom Ezekiel Har, feeling... slightly off for some reason. he can't quite put his finger on the reason why. The change in him has been so subtle as to be near undetectable. Every since his encounter with that strange woman and her skull faced machine, something's been not quite... /right/. Aitan, the man renowned for having all of the patience of a mountain is quickly running out of it. Where as before, he accepted the strategies taken by his superiors calmly and without question, now he looks at them and finds them... needlessly wasteful and pointless. So much so that at times he catches himself on the verge of questioning an order or arguing with others. Even the way his comrades speak now fill him with irritation instead of pride and patriotism. They no longer sound like the words of loyal and passiona soldiers, but the hubris of arrogant men feeding their own egos. The behavior of Baraq as of late seems to especially wrangle on him. The man is clearly trying to hard... acting too desperately and irrationally to be trusted. He is quickly becoming a danger to both himself and the Seventh Fleet. Gripping the controls of his Har tightly, Aitan pushes such thoughts out of his mind. The familiar surroundings of the Neviim quickly warp and fray as reality twists around him thanks to the gravitational jump an within moments, he now stares at the vastness of space, with the far distant space fortress ahead of him, surrounded by tellatale signs of weapon fire and explosions. 'Hmph, he hasn't even arrived yet to oversee the attack. How is he supposed to lead the attack when he isn't even /here/ operating in a tactical role?'

When the Integrated Design Bureau offered her a long weekend for a business trip to take care of some A-LAWS assets at the Ame-no-Mihashira, Tori Adenbright didn't really have any reason to say 'no'. In part, this was because she knew that if she wanted to visit this part of space, she'd have to do it now... while it was in A-LAWS space.

And so it is that the blue-haired veteran is here, donning her fresh A-LAWS uniform and completely feeling that special brand of guilt and sadness at the only reason Tori is even anywhere near the fortress is because the task force took it over by force. It's a beautiful place, to her -- there are scarce few places that aren't, to her, in some fashion.

The dossier detail included that there 'may be a chance of sortie due to surprise Balmarian attack', a new clause that basically applies to every single excursion while their alien guests are around. They can show up anywhere, of course, and thus no place really is exempt from it.

The GNX-609T-AE GN-XIII IDB Custom deploys, bearing the distinction of 'most unpronounceable mobile suit ever', barring perhaps one of those kooky La Gian demon-possessed incidents buried somewhere in Federation top classifieds with no vowels at all in it. It is navy-torsoed and possesses off-white extremities, and bears a White Rose on its shoulder.

Inside, the helmeted Tori Adenbright attunes herself to the flow of the oncoming battle. She stares toward the waves of unmanned units and frowns slightly. "That I can feel nothing from any of them... truly, this is the most uncomfortable thing to fight against," she comments. However, she is a soldier in the end, so off she goes.

"First Lt. Tori Adenbright, IDB Custom... responding to the defense detail."

This was of course Baraq's operation - Ingram had no desire to steal the glory of actually succeeding from him. The Administrator was simply along to help... supervise the operation, and as this was actually a battle against Orb, he was also here to see if the humans would attempt to use whatever psychic weapon it was that they had employed in the past against them. It would depend if those who were associated with Celestial Being made an appearance, but there was a modest chance that they might - it was certainly worth deploying for. "The GN Drives would certainly be an interesting prize," Ingram transmits as he slides into the seat of the Astranagant, the black machine awakening at the touch of his fingers to the controls. Most of the bay where it has been stationed has slowly been engulfed by various sized shards of black crystal over the past few weeks, all of them resonating with the central core of his unit, helping to focus the machine's power and to absorb every bit of information it had picked up in battle. The disconcerting aura of the room helped to give Ingram a little more privacy right before he launched - something that he greatly appreciated. "Still, I think the original drives would be a much more interesting prize to capture, but they are less likely to appear than the knockoff units." The Astrangant shimmers... and then reappears a moment later on the battlefield, a quick teleportation hop moving it across the gulf of space from Neviim to the Ame-no-Mihashira. Ingram checks to ensure that all of the systems are functioning properly, a single hand wave bringing all of the relevant data to the surrounding screens. "Very well then, Baraq - let us see just what you have in mind for this offensive." The fact that the man was beginning to strain at the edges hadn't escaped Ingram's notice - but he was willing to let this act play out, and see just how far Baraq was willing to go, and how far the humans were willing to push things. The real question would be if Lord Laodicea or Lord Euzeth made an appearance on the battlefield...

Space. The endless black void, symbolizing infinite freedom for those with the capability to grasp it. It is a place where nothing holds sway, no tethers can find pull; not of society, nor of gravity, nor anything else in this universe.

It is the place that Soldato J-002 loves more than anywhere else, except for Earth's blue skies.

But just as they once violated that beautiful blue, so too do the Balmarians seek dominion over the darkness, an empire between the jewels of the tapestry of space. And to the last warrior of the Red Planet, this is unacceptable.

"Balmarians detected near coordinates designated Ame-No-Mihashira!" Tomoro-0117, advanced supercomputer, warns his partner in a loud and tinny voice echoing through the halls of the immense white spaceship. Soldato J-002's eyebrow quirks upwards, and he frowns. He had no love for the organization known as A-LAWS, but the Balmarians were a threat to all...and Ken would never forgive him if he allowed them to smash one of their bases.

"Too emotional," Arma observes on his way out of the bridge, repeating the same observation he'd made every other time.

The supersoldier grits his teeth. "Tch...it doesn't matter. We have an obligation to this world in whose blue skies we fly to crush the Balmarians wherever they rise." J throws out his hand. "J-Jewel generator, Full Power! ES Window, open! We'll burn them out of the stars themselves!"

"Roger! Roger!" Tomoro chirps cheerily. Ahead of the great white starship, space is ripped open...

...and, at Ame-No-Mihashira, the other end of the hole appears. The great white prow of the J-Ark explodes from the darkness, suddenly jutting forth like the beak of a great bird of prey. Its cannons bristle, already seeking targets; on the bridge, J's eyes suddenly go red with light.

"If you're looking for a war, Ze Balmary Empire...you've found it!"

Territory disputes are generally not Jack King's problem. Oh sure, if there's a weapons factory under attack or something, Jack King has to push forward, but in general, politics are not something he works for. He is usually busy fighting off giant ninja robots from stealing the Statue of Liberty.

Overhead, a McDonald's satellite floats lazily through the air. Using it to track the progress of the Balmarians is the Texas Mack. The nuclear powered American Robot easily powers through that atmosphere. He stands with other waves of Leos of Federation forces, leading the way and letting the bulk of the Texas Mack draw fire while Federation soldiers behind him fire. Gunshots crack, bullets ripping out into the smaller waves of drones as Jack King and Mary work furiously to get the Federation units up closer to the Pillar.

It was a good plan, she also owed Baraq for his aid on her own operations. Still her superior had been running himself ragged. To the point he was considering using sample made stimulants? IT worried her, but to be fair she had a lot on her mind. A whole lot on her mind, that strange sample girl with a altered GM was it? Why did she know that machine, and why did that girl seem so much like her own sister. She takes a deep breath, the samples ability to mess with minds was getting to people. she couldn't let it get them, she would see that those sample who wanted to be with other so badly would get their wish. IF they surived to be uplifed tha tis. Soon like Aitan the bay of the Neviim is gone and now she hovers in a battle site.

"So this is the target hummm?"

A FEW MINUTES AGO

Meriden, who had actually been filling out some paperwork on behalf of people from Augusta who did not need to go themselves, is shocked out of her haze of remembering exactly what her Federation citizen number is by squalling alarms. She runs, not walks, to the loading bay she came in from, grabbing her helmet on the way. "'Scuse me, coming through, emergency, get out of my waaaay!"

NOW

The colossal Ame no Mihashira opens a bay.

It looks like a small loading bay at first, but as it keeps yawning wider, it is revealed to be one of the ones they bring battleships into for repairs. But what slides out of it is not a battleship at all.

The machine stretches almost four hundred feet from tip to tip and is shaped like a giant polygonal diamond, topped with a painted Egyptian 'eye' at top and bottom. A seam runs along its middle, slightly indented, along with a few lines elsewhere, armour plate seams and such. The black of its frame reflects the light almost mirror-like, except in the places where it is marred by bluish-white patterning that looks like solar panels. It could be the ghost of Ramiel in how it moves; floating ominously, with no visible thrust systems whatsoever.

"Ensign Almace," Meriden says, "QRX-006 Geminus, deploying!"

To the accident-prone pilot of the Astelion, it seems like it was just under a week ago a fallen angel with skin of ebony and wings of burning emeralds appeared before her and tried to obliterate everything and everyone she knew and loved with a personal touch, turning the culmination of her dreams and hopes into a shattered metal husk carved into a dozen melted peices. Oh, wait, it /was/ just under a week ago.

Ibis Douglas is only even out here because the Tesla Leicht Institute's way too banged up to have a shot at putting her poor, smashed-up space plane back together again. The paint has barely even finished drying on the Astelion before the call to scramble sounds, and you know there ain't no rest for the wicked. Suck it up, Douglas.

The Astelion, hopefully fated to survive this encounter rather than get punched around by black holes again, comes zipping out of the launch bays in cruise configuration at breakneck pace trying to catch up to Tori Adenbright's GN-XIII. Ibis' eyes scan the horizon and the controls in equal amount, keeping a sharp eye out for any signatures closing in to attack. Anywhere. Bitch is nervous.

"Can't catch a break, huh." she murmurs to herself, quietly.

It was another normal day for Max Jenius in the hangar of the SDF-1, made complete by another Balmarian attack. "and here I thought today was going to be uneventful." He says as he climbs into the cockpit of his Valkyrie. It doesn't really take him too long to get to side 5, responding to the alarms and eventually passing Adenbright's GNX to respond...

Months ago, she was sitting here under different circumstances. Then, her wrists and ankles were shackled with heavy chain. Her hands were secured to her waist, and her hands were bagged to keep her fingers from being able to get a grip of anything. They even put a muzzle on her, /just to make sure/. Months ago, it was a whole other world-- a whole other life. When she sat in the chair in the middle of the office, under the hot lights, surrounded by some of the A-LAWS top brass--

-- it was to get her orders.

Today, she was seated in a chair in their offices to submit a formal report on all of her activities to this day, another moment that the boys in teal had to pull on the choke chain to make sure their perfect little investment and poster child for "reform" was doing just what she was supposed to do. They were also going to release a new GN-X to her, with a strict finger wag and warning not to get it broken this time.

Arian-16 just didn't seem to care much.

"You can't fly it in space with the assault lander equipped!" the normal suit-clad engineer screamed, flailing his arms about. Bent forward a bit, the GN-X-- not GN-XIII-- looked rather silly, like it were wearing a cardboard box around it's head and chest. The Boosted Child in the cockpit didn't care too much. Not only was it a convienent shield, but the image of looking like some kind of Big Zam knockoff was far too amusing.

"Arian-16, GNX Six-Twelve-T Double A, Superbia Jinx!"

Diving out of the shuttle bay and spraying a wash of burnt orange GN particles in it's wake, the legs swing around to aid in manuvering, the whole time the Boosted Child in the Mobile Suit's cockpit grinning like a shark.

"Assault Lander, GO!"

The sheer force of the Balmarian war machine is here for Ame-no-Mihashira tonight -- and chief among them, as it often is, more frequently lately (and usually in space, rather than confined to the Earth), is the White Death Cross, Judecca. The immensely powerful war machine is ready for the slide with the rest of the men; nothing sets it off from the rest, for the moment.

It is strange for Levi to be in a somewhat subordinate role in an assault, but curiously, she seems not to mind for the moment; it is right and natural for her, and for Judecca, to be used as a high-powered siege weapon against the forces of the Earth.

She settles neatly into the cockpit, ready to go. Glancing over toward the Astranagant as they make the slide, she takes a deep breath, opening her mind to the universe.

SKY OVER VIENNA TWENTY-FIVE SECONDS AGO

Fiona Graydon has asked permission to do something kind of incredibly dumb. She has been a lot more combat-ready than usual because of that. Lloyd does his own thing on the Tintagel, Fiona contributes while turning things over in her head...

And then the alert comes out. Aerogaters at Ame-no-Mihashira. Trust the Elevens to name something like that. Fiona zips up her jacket, and says to Cecile, "Keep Lloyd busy for a while, OK? I am probably going to come back in more pieces than I'm leaving with."

A few minutes later, Fiona Graydon is calibrating Excellence's computer with the Tintagel launch computer, the resonance mainframe they've developed to /try/ and aim the Time-Flow Engine's transfer capability, and the target zone - the flickering in the fabric of space left behind by the Balmarian mass jump. She's got it. She knows she's got it. The lights around the machine flare in every hue and color. "Alright," she mutters. "Excellence Cosmodriver - Launching!"

AME-NO-MIHASHIRA ABSOLUTE DEFENSE LINE NOW

There is a sense of disruption, as space creaks open and flecks of green and yellow burst through the walls of space - before the whole body of Excellence Cosmo-driver does much the same, leaping over the world wall and reappearing not /too/ far away from the Federation defense line. Fiona takes a second to get her bearings straight, figure out which end is up -- "oh, huh," she mutters, spotting her chronometer, "fell back a couple minutes" -- and then...

"Judecca," Fiona sighs, spotting the White Death Cross. She knows she agreed to this, but...an enemy like this...can she really--?

She'll hope she gets back up. "Excellence 2! Cosmo-driver Frame, engaging the White Death Cross!"

The Willgame, an ancient ship from the future of an alternate dimension where this has all already happened, does not go into space very often. Zero gravity made most of the crew queasy. It took several of them a few weeks to get over the idea that they couldn't jump out a window and parachute back to Earth.

Yet, the yellow space submarine is trying its hand at silent running. On the bridge, the mixed Earthrace and Moonrace crew has donned their normal suits in case of rapid depressurization. The Willgame may be nano-augmented but they dug it out of the ground a month or two ago and they're still finding small animals nesting inside cabinets.

Guin Lineford, onetime president and current captain of both ships and industry, resists the urge to attempt to slick back his hair since a helmet is in the way. "Bruno, Jacop, are we within enemy sensor range yet?"

The stocky and pug-ugly Bruno hunches over the monitor in front of him. "I think we're okay. All of these sensor sheets the Argama gave to us are working great! It's like they can't even see us, ha ha ha!"

"Minovsky particles are very strange things," Guin murmurs. "No wonder so much capital is built around them." He turns his head as Laura walks onto the bridge. "It's a good thing there's so much of that technology in the White Doll. Laura! We're sending you out by yourself. The Suicide Squad is still having their Borjarnons refitted with parts at La Vie En Rose. Can you handle it?"

LIKE TWO MINUTES LATER AFTER LAURA TRIED TO POINT OUT THAT BRIGHT SAID THEY SHOULDN'T RISK THE WHITE DOLL RECKLESSLY BUT YOU REALLY CAN'T SAY NO TO GUIN LINEFORD:

"I don't really know how that happened," Laura laments, her machine doll awkwardly stepping out of the airlock and then pushing off. Its leg-mounted thrusters carry it toward a nearby asteroid, its bizarre systems warping space around it to hide its energy signature. Once it reaches the checkpoint, the White Doll reveals itself, heading in at a trajectory that masks the Willgame.

Ame-noMaahabarah....goddamnit, Juku can't spell this damn place's name.

The redhead irritatedly pokes at a command screen on her new machine and sits back as the weapon cruises through space. The large blocky machine is not the type normally known for being able to manuver in space at all. But this machine is the result of Juku's hard work... and someone telling her it was impossible.

Never tell Juku Reimaru something is impossible for her.

The signals of Aerogators teleporting into the area causes Juk to abort her space flight tests and turn her machine around. "well, nothing like a little trail by combat, is there?" and accelerates towards the asteroid base. It's not fast, but it's like a goddamn fright train.

"Enie mieanie minie... moe~!" Juku picks a target totaly at random, fate just happens to point her in the direction of Aitan's Ezekiel. "Suprise!" the chest opens, revealing the innersphere built LRM15, the light of the distant sun glemaing on the skull face making it seem like it's grinning maliciously.

"These people can't duplicate the real drives, Aleph," Baraq lowly transmits. "But the fakes will probably give us a leg up in doing so, because we aren't idiots."

The bright, spacious place in Neviim's heart where the Uriyah rests and remakes itself between sorties became Baraq's home not so long after the Balmarian Titan was gifted to him, initially because he bordered on obsessive when it came to rooting out its every mechanical secret, and now because the gleam of the crystals studding its body and the hangar around it helps him keep the ridiculous hours he's been insisting on.

"Shield your eyes."

A violent gravity spike like an enormous warhead crafted from abnormal physics explodes amidst a flank of drones; it's closely followed by enough golden light to suggest the birth of a small sun right here on the A-LAWS' door step, and as ray after brilliant ray slices through through spaces, the Aerogaters' automated combatants hurry to avoid being caught by stray expulsions or, worse--

--the appearance of a gold-cloaked giant at the heart of the nascent star, several seconds after its formation; the details may prove a bit difficult to make out with the naked eye because it's /still/ casting light from its figure from every angle. Even the cloak is mostly only distinguishable because bits of it visible flutter in the airless void--its coloration is owable to the fact that it seems to be responsible for, if not /all/ of the brightness, then certainly a significant amount of it.

"A-LAWS task force," Baraq transmits across all open frequencies, "this region of space has been declared the sole, rightful territory of the Ze Balmary Empire; as such, you are unrighteously occupying Balmarian property. You have thirty seconds to transmit your willingness to comply with our demands and cede the Space Fortress Ame-no-Mihashira, all technologies and all assorted personnel to the Empire; failure to comply will result in the slow, grinding, and altogether regrettable dissection of your selves to make way for enlightenment."

Rather than wait for a response - because, let's face it, how many times have Earth's defenders actually gone along with surrender demands? - Baraq casts the light clinging to the Uriyah's body and cloak away from it. Rather than nearly dissipate, the photons compress together, undulating through the void like radiant serpents hungry to burn the life from the Samples and their machines.

"Decide," he intones as the Uriyah's arms emerge from beneath its cloak to fold across its massive chest.

Even /after/ that initial stroke, it still glows--it's just that now, the light rages within the transparent containment dome at the crown of its head or bubbles in disassociated motes from the crystal embedded in its brow and studding its cloaked figure.

TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES AGO SKY OVER VIENNA

Lloyd Asplund spins clockwise in his chair. He spins a pencil balanced sideways on his fingertip counterclockwise. He stares at it very intently when the notification for the Excellence Frame's launch pops up on his console.

"/Hmmmmmm/."

TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, GIVE OR TAKE A FEW TEMPORAL MECHANICS ARE KIND OF SCREWY

Lloyd Asplund spins counterclockwise in his chair. He spins a pencil balanced sideways on his fingertip clockwise. At the same time, Lloyd depresses a red button with his free hand--and promptly appears in a window on Fiona's display without any kind of warning.

"Hello, Fiona! What seems to be the emergency?" Lloyd smiles.

He continues spinning his pencil. The chair becomes stationary.

'About time he showed up,' Aitan thinks to himself irritably, 'And showboating already.' The aging warrior just rumbles quietly to himself inside of his cockpit and presses forward, taking aim at the various defenders with his Olga Cannon. By the time he hears the missile warnings in his cockpit, it's too late. The long range missiles impact against the back of his machine, rocking him in his seat as he turns, "A sneak attack. Clever but futile if you fail to use it decisivel--" Then all of a sudden, Aitan totally makes a >:| face as he see what just took a shot at him, "/You.../" his grip on the controls tighten as he swings around and unleashes a pair of spark torpedoes from his hip armor towards the Atlas III, "I am going to put an /end/ to you..." The irritation in him grows as he swings up his cannon and opens fire.

It seemed that the others had things well in hand here - which meant Ingram could pick and choose his targets, just in case someone happened to come along that he found interesting. The overall mission was important, of course - but Lady Levi was on hand to assume control if things went badly, and Ingram could just indulge for the time being. There was no more perfect place to be. Except for, of course, what he had in mind for this coming weekend... The first machine that catches his eye is, naturally, the Astelion. Miss Douglas had taken to the air once again, but this time without her usual support. Interesting. Ingram swings the Astranagant around, the black machine launching through space until it comes within hailing distance of the white and red machine. "Ah, Miss Douglas. I can't tell you how pleased I am to see that you have survived," Ingram transmits pleasantly. "I hope that your partner was not too put out by the fact that you stole all of the glory from the last battle?" Even as he speaks, the blue haired Administrators eye flick back and forth, selecting targets. One GNX unit - an excellent bounty given Baraq's desire to capture some of these drives. And another, strangely ominous machine - Ingram isn't one to dismiss the resemblance that the Gemius has to one of the Angels, and it is interesting that someone chose to copy that design for a Mobile Armor. "Still, I seem to be encountering you with an unexpected frequency on the battlefield - luck, or a twist of fate, I wonder." The two Gun Familiars break off the back of Ingram's machine, spinning about in space for a moment as their drives light up... and Ibis should be familiar enough with the weapons to know what is coming next. The two Familiars rocket past the Astelion, slewing about on their axis to open up with a barrage on Ibis' machine, before soaring off in two directions - the first open blazing away at Tori's unpronounceable machine which shall here forth be known as 'Bird-Bot 1', while the second swings about to harass the cubic looking robot that Meriden has flown into battle.

Light pierces through the Texas Mack, ripping against the white material and savaging through it. Jack leans his head back against the brace as the robot shakes around him. The jets along the feet flare to life, steadying the Texas Mack as it shifts.

"Hey, jackass!" Jack King calls up at the Uriyah. "This isn't just about property. This is about you tube bred monkeys not getting any INCH of this whole solar system if I have anything to say about it!"

The Texas Mack brings either pistol out of its holster, holding them up towards the wall of drones, ships, and capital ships. "Now I'm going to give you to the count of three before I start sho-THREE!"

The Texas Mack whips its pistols about, firing off steady cracks of bullets into space at drones and Balmarians alike, hitting random targets. "Why don't YOU give up and spare you the shame!"

There is a sensation out there in space... where is it?

Suddenly, Tori's mind snaps to reality as the lance of light flares out from the sun giant. "Over there," she muses, the spiralling whirr of the GN-Tau Drive bringing the IDB Custom in a shower of orange sparks across outer space, up and over the rays of light that come.

Her attention, however, is more drawn to the presence of the Black Angel on the battlefield. The Gun Familiars are too fast for her, and rend shots through the relatively mundane armor of the IDB Custom with ease. It's just the outer armor, though, designed to soak damage, and thus the Newtype flies onward.

She's heard of it before... but who hasn't, at this point? The 'traitor' is only one of a million names the man has accrued at this point. The GN-XIII -- or should one say, the Bird-Bot 1 ... no, one may not say that let's just call it the BEATA PLANE -- flies in closer. Its eyes gleam for a moment as Tori's biosensors spark into life, the pulsating rhythm of the bio-sensitive machinery attuning to that of her own mind. She opens her senses, and tries to get a read of Ingram's own emotions as she flies in closer.

The GN Lance is out, a long conic weapon with beam gatling mounts on each of its cardinal sides. Tori raises aim and concentrates further. "Ingram Prisken, isn't it...? Tori Adenbright," she introduces, a small, wry smile on her face. She just hopes she won't catch flak from Ensign Douglas later. "How do you do."

That greeting is accompanied with a single lancing beam of GN particles cutting forth towards the Astranagant's black armor.

Max only shakes his head at baraq's demand. "yeah yeah. That's the same thing Bedolza said before we blew up his ship." Max says before he actually dodges the glowing light array by....ducking behind Meridan. Oh yeah....he's quick. However, he still turns back around and fires quick burst at Baraq's Uriyah. "maybe you should take off that stupid as hell cloak...."

The Geminus moves pretty quickly for something that does not have any visible thrusters. It glides without any particular effort.

It doesn't really /steer/ that well, though. The wash of light from Baraq's sudden appearance scorches at one side, and it doesn't make Meriden turn aside; neither does the drilling blasts from Ingram's single gun familiar.

Meriden bites her lip, but the Geminus is so massive that she didn't even feel the impact, even though one of the lower armour plates is noticably scorched and blasted. She slumps down in her seat, slightly, before the holographic array she sits at, images floating in space around her, before she suddenly jerks up straight.

The 'eyes' on the Geminus, sub-pyramids at the top and bottom, swivel to stare balefully at the Astranagant. Ingram and Tori might get a sense of psychic pressure as Meriden begins to concentrate, not at them but in general, and from the central 'seam' of the Geminus several yellow beams lance out at Ingram's Astranagant. SUDDENLY

Something is approaching the space around Ame no Mihashira... Really fast. Really, /really/ fast. Like it is patently ridiculous and unsafe how fast this thing is coming, a black and white comet with two trails of brilliant burnt orange behind it lighting up the night. "It's been far too long," a deep voice says over an open frequency, clearly audible to anyone who might happening to be listening. "Entirely too long." Finally returning to active duty after the battle for the Moon Cradle... Finally, the repairs to his machine have been completed. He feels an odd mixture of relaxation and excitement as he races towards the field of battle at absurd speeds, G-forces pushing him into the reclining seat of the mobile suit's cockpit. "But at last... At last I return!" Gloved hands tighten over the suit's controls, and behind the faceplate of his flight suit's helmet, his mouth pulls into a lopsided, wolfish grin below the gunmetal grey of the half-mask that covers his burned face. Green eyes, alight with madness, widen as matters outside the August Palace of Heaven begin to resolve themselves to his sight. Yes... Now, with his strength renewed, his sword rebuilt... Now he can show the Balmarians their folly, thinking that the Zehirut was enough to stop him! The other machines - A-LAWS and others - don't even really register to the One Man Army as he races in, his machine - the GNX-901TW Susanowo - slowly bleeding off momentum as it approaches the battlefield, reaching a speed only slightly less ridiculous but much better suited for battle, the black hybrid-state katanas in its hands glinting despite the darkness. "COME, BALMARIANS!" Mister Bushido's voice echoes across the open frequency. "/DEATH WALKS AMONG YOU/!"

The White Death Cross is drawn to Fiona like a beacon -- after several encounters, Fiona's presence has become oh-so-familiar to the immensely powerful Psychodriver. The Shrinemaiden of Hell turns her attention to her the instant she notices that that particular Sample has decided to come so much closer.

"You again," Levi transmits, tone forcefully disdainful. "I enjoy our frequent games, Sample -- but I'm starting to grow tired of them!" Judecca bears down on the smaller Excellence Frame, arm glowing with the unholy light of Zehirut.

Swinging that claw forward and attempting to catch the machine in it, Levi calls out, "First Hell -- Caina!" as loud as she can. Applying as much crushing force as she can muster, she attempts to leave the machine hobbled right from the first blow.

J's fortunate to have that giant goofy bird helmet covering his eyes when that giant golden light shines. And Tomoro, reacting in the span between a breath and an instant, opaques the windows instantly.

And it's still blinding.

"What...is that?!" J manages. It's like a star being born in the sky. J's lips open, shouting out the command before he fully is aware that he's doing it: "GENERATING ARMOR TO FULL!"

And the light still burns. It is a feeling not unlike that of when Pizza was hit by the terrifying power of Hikari Ni Nare; when he was struck hard enough to nearly reduce him to molecules.

But the J-Ark is stronger than Pizza ever was. It takes the full brunt of the blow, the Generating Armor rippling ruby in the golden light. It's a challenge between two forces of luminescence...and in the end, the Generating Armor still holds strong, as the light dies, and the J-Ark is still there. Proud and strong.

"Hmph...you think we're intimidated by such displays?! You're not the only side with such an enormous machine! J-BIRD! PLUG OUT!"

"MEGA FUUUUUSION!"

The J-Bird segment of J-Ark removes itself as the huge machine's prow folds forward, the engine section splitting into a pair of massive legs. The J-Bird section rotates about, linking up in a shining ruby lightning storm. And it slams together, the bridge landing atop, and the eyes shining with a brilliant light as J calls out the name of the last superweapon of Red Planet, the form of the alien Titan:

"KIIIIIIIING J-DER!"

King J-Der's massive arm rises to point at Uriyah. Bolts of crimson light lance out towards the equally massive machine's chest, threatening to tear into its armor and rip it to shreds.

Adom Nazir did not likew the GN tech or anything that the CB's had created at all. That mental networking weapon they used was horrific, how it just blindly connected any mind near by to it. Still orders were orders after all right? The drives likely had nothing to do with that, at least she hoped so.

Her thought go to the mission at hand, she had to focus on the mission at hand. Then comes a machine she's seen a few times. Texas Mack.

A image pops up on her hud of the machine with some read outs. A big note that unlike it's contemporay fom Japan, the pilots were not socipathic in nature and might actually be fit to be taken as samples.

She smirks and opens a comm as she counter shoots the american machine.

"So Texas Mack and it's pilot! No you should be the one giving up!"

She keeps firing at a distance looking for a chance to get close up and personal with the super robot.

A very pleasant female voice says in the cockpit of the Atlass III "Warning, enemy energy discharge incoming."

"Zuh?" is Juku's oh so intelligent response. Fortunatly her hands on the controls respond in a much more constructive manner.

The Battlemech's 3D Gyro engages and thrusters fire, allowing the 100 ton assault mech to twist out of the path of the beams of intense light. Firing the Ultra AC/5 in the right side of the chest at the same time. "God /damn./" Juku gives her impression of the Uriyah.

"That is the tackiest giant robot I've ever seen." Unfortunatly she didn't shake of Aitan and he returns fire at her, but the assault mech again proves to be strangely capable in this environment and twists around raising it's left arm to fire a pair of medium lasers at the Ezekiel, but to little avail.

"...AH-HA!" Juku grins almost like a shark. "/Found/ you." she swings around the other arm, the split rails of a home-designed snub-nosed particle projector cannon charge with electricity and immediatly fire at the Ezekiel of Aitan. "Time to wake up, you old fart!"

Against the backdrop of space, white paint with red highlights makes for an obvious target. Of course the Astelion stands out to the eagle-eyed systems of something as wickedly advanced as the Astranagant. The apparent plug-and-play nature of space communication means that, for a few moments at least, she finds herself face to face with Ingram Prisken one more. There's a heartbeat pause where she can do nothing but stare at the little animated portrait on her HUD, dumbfounded. She isn't sure how to feel, and for a moment can remember only the sickening lurch of gravity turning itself inside out from their last encounter.

"You..." is all she can say, stunned in that instant of dawning comprehension.

Well, that'll do it. The Astelion accelerates to full combat speed and then some, breaking away from Tori Adenbright in a wide arc. There goes her cover. The white Lion custom, currently looking more like a space superiority fighter proper, banks wide around the Astranagant as the Gun Familiars come in for a snack.

"You tried to kill everyone I've ever known! Tried to take everything I've ever loved from me!" shouts the American redhead down the communication link at mean ol' Ingram's face, even as the Astranagant's winged servants line her up for a dissection.

It is with a well-timed transformation sequence in Totally Bad-Ass Slow Motion (tm) that the Astelion unfolds itself into humanoid doll configuration, legs and arms twisting seemingly out of nowhere from it's fighter figure as it rolls inbetween the streams of fire from the Gun Familiars and returns the favour with a stream of hypervelocity rail slugs from a hand-held rifle, aimed to chase the alien gun-drones away as manoeuvring jets burst rapid jets of viridian flame that push and pull the assorted limbs on the white Armored Module out of harm's way and speed up the form-change.

"If there's such a thing as /fate/, you bastard, it'll be when I blow you away for hurting Sleigh, and Filio, and Tsugumi!"

Pointless chatter for sure, a needlessly heroic sentence punctuated not only with exclamation marks, but with a burst of high-explosive missiles that roll and twist out of the Astelion's ordinance bays on thick plumes of white chemical smoke towards the Astranagant.

For a moment, there's a light-- one as bright as the sun, blazing across her screens and making the whole world go white. Arian-16 clenches her jaw and closes her eyes, twisting the Superbia GN-X around in an awkward manuver to deal with the glare-- but then, it doesn't stop her from getting caught up in the attack, slamming into the AL Pack and tossing the Mobile Suit head over heels. Almost instantly, the Mobile Suit retorts-- and missiles propelled by and packed with concentrated GN Particles are sent back his way, exploding with light, concussive force-- and beam energy.

She turns back around and notices one other thing-- The Astranagant.

That commander... and Ingram. If her eyes could turn red, they would. If they could glow with fury, she'd probably be an Innovator or just that seriously pissed off. She recognizes the Astranagant from briefings and personal experience, and those experiences haven't been good on any level. And so-- the Superbia flies.

"Ingram!!"

It flies to catch up with the Geminus, the custom GN-XIII, and the Astelion. Still bearing the bulk of the Assault Lander on it's frame, the last-generation black Jinx twists to line up it's torso and sets open ports at their tips. Beat her once, it's luck. Twice, ... ... three times, or so, it all blurs into one big beating that she never, ever wants to be reminded of again.

Beam guns mounted in the Assault Lander start to fire, sending sprays of concentrated GN beam energy flying his way!

Twitch. Aitan growls as he accelerates his ezekiel towards the Atlas, his knuckles white as he grips the controls. As the lightning gun unleashes it's energy, he weaves and ducks away from it, then pulls out his laser blade, "I am /NOT/ a old fart--!" the blade lashes out to slice into the heavy duty armor of the Assault mech, leaving a red welt in it's frame. But that isn't enough for Aitan as he looks at that skull faced machine in front of him as irrational anger swells up in his heart. there's just something about that visage that just... /pisses/ him off. Like some primal part of him ways up and starts bouncing around in his brain desperate to escape. The Olga Cannon is released as Aitan pulls back his arm and balls up his fist, then lashes out with a fierce right cross.

Fiona grunts - tries to bolt away from the incoming screaming rays of fire in every direction, but she wasn't expecting that move. "Dammit--!" Fiona grunts out. She could really use some /not/ being crippled from the start while fighting the most powerful machine in the enemy fleet, /thank you very much/!!

Fiona is about as psychic as a brick, from a world where the power called "Newtype" has long since vanished - but that does not make her completely null, and Levi Tolar is more than mighty enough to detect her presence. Besides which, Fiona is thinking about her, which surely makes the gap easier to bridge.

"Hello again, Levi," Fiona says back, neutrally, tense. This is SO STUPID, but...! "Uh, wait, which is it, do you enjoy it or not!?" Fiona demands, as an opening jab, but then AHhHH SHE'S COMING. Her thrusters flare, and then-- "Ll-Lloyd, not the time!" Fiona snaps, pressed back lightly in her seat by the G-force of her acceleration away from Judecca's wrath. "Uhh, I need to use Excellence, that's all! I can't let these guys just get away with whatever, right!?" She taps a key, minimizing Lloyd's window so she can talk to Levi.

Fiona blurs around Levi, the fairies already falling out from Cosmo-driver's back. The antenna on the head slides forward, a burst of green light leaking out of the skull (and briefly washing through Fiona's cockpit). Then the Fairies dart around, taking up formations to quickly sprinkle Levi in laser fire, while Fiona reaches for her hi-coat magnums, muttering, "Something's been bugging me, Levi," she insists on using the woman's name. "Is this what you guys always do? Just...rush in and put a world under heel?"

The Texas Mack doesn't back off. It heads right into range with the Ezekiel. Mary King is steady and calm while Jack shouts against every blast that rains against the Texas Mack. The beam blasts score heavy holes against the white robot of democracy, ripping thick chunks of armor off and blasting a hole in the leather vest. That will be another whole cow needed to patch it. Soon PETA will take notice. "I'm going to reach down your throat and pull everyone you stole from us back out!" The Texas Mack cracks hammer down one shot after another, firing steady blasts into the Ezekiel as they close. "If you aren't scared enough of us yet, you should be! We've overcome greater threats than you with just the power of love!" Jack twists his controls, flipping the revolvers out to either side. The cylinders slide free, letting shell casings tumble out. Steady dextrous fingers of the Texas Mack work to reload. In the mean time, Jack shifts his feet, changing the direction of the jets, spiraling the Texas Mack around into a kick.

"Think about what our weapons will do!"

The White Doll flutters into the chaos surrounding the A-LAWS battle station, its shield raised and its free hand empty. This devotion to defense is what allows it to react quickly to the invasive light assault from one of the alien dolls- when you only have a shield, why not keep it raised?

Plowing through the assault, rainbow-tinted light curling around it but never penetrating its I-Field, Laura Rolla presses onward with more concern for her current bit of subversiveness rather than any immediate danger.

The systems of her doll patch into the secure frequency straight to Bright Noa.

The brief conversation they share finds the mustached Gundam turning abruptly and heading toward the dark shape of the Astranagant. Laura reaches up for her doll's shoulders as she picks up speed, drawing both thin sabers as she plows forward, heedless of the firepower leveled against her target by the Superbia, Geminus, and IDB Custom.

In fact, the awkward looking suit seems to bend unnaturally through the rage of war, its hands whirling rapidly to drill its underpowered sabers forward in an aggressive maneuver intended more to put the alien doll on the defensive!

SOME TIME AGO

A volcano explodes in Japan.

A gigantic plane--no, scratch that, a gigantic /samurai/ full of people cling to it and one another for dear life as the Invincible samurai and a burning alien weapon of mammoth proportions wage war.

NOW

Images stream into King J-Der's cockpit: Gunbuster, Daitarn 3, and--well, King J-Der; they're all pretty neutral images, mostly there to serve as visual aids for Baraq's reply:

"I know," he murmurs, frowning at the weird tingling at the back of his skull, "but what could possibly make you think that size alone is at play, here...?"

While the masers and gunpod rounds from J and Max respectively do manage to find the Uriyah's body through the chaotic effects of its Gravity Territory, both are similarly robbed of momentum and diverted to the point that when they /do/ strike, the bullets have sporadically sunk into small divots all across its chest while the masers leave scorches - and burned crystalline 'fabric' between a few of the entry points. Along with a smattering of similar damages inflicted by Arian and Juku in the wake of its opening attack, the Uriyah... still sports quite a bit of mechanical real-estate unscarred by the defenders.

"You all would have to be /exceptionally/ stupid to be intimidated by sheer scale and nothing else--superior defenses, superior weaponry, and a superior ideology behind them, /those/ are the intimidation factors." He pauses, then; in the empty space, a number of drones halt and turn towards the Susanowo.

"But I guess it's telling, that that's where you'd go first, isn't it?"

To punctuate that question, the Uriyah--tasks those waiting drones with buzzing through the void to converge on the A-LAWS' one man army; all along the way, the darkness fills with concentric blue rings and the dull gleam of sharp horns waiting to bury themselves in the fearsome mobile suit's armour. Their paths are erratic, shifty--Mister Bushido is a terrifically dangerous opponent, and while the loss of at least /some/ drones is inevitable, they seemingly mean to minimize these losses through sheer unpredictability.

"My Lord's crystal body is the only personified death I know, but hey," Baraq transmits to the Susanowo as the Uriyah's head turns towards the mobile suit, "if you're going to /present/ yourself to us, maybe you can be one of His messengers. Promise."

The Right Cross comes in for the Atlas III's head, but the balled up left hand of the Atlas comes up, smashing aside te Ezekiel's arm as Juku grins from ear to ear.

"Fart, fart, fart, FART!"

Marcus will kill her later, but whatever. Juku flips up a weapon switch and presses it down with her thumb. The twin Ultra AC/5s mounted to the side of the Atlas III's chest cycle at full speed right at the bottom half of the Ezekiel.

"And you smell funny."

"Hmm, a polite one - I'm always glad to hear such," Ingram comments in reply to Tori, even as the Bird Plane rushes in on the attack. "Too often I keep hearing things like 'raaarg' or 'uggghr' or 'Me Robo-Cyborg Person, me beat you up', that sort of thing." He rolls his eyes for a moment, and then the black machine brings one hand up, activating it's defense field as Tori's blasts of energy come roaring in towards it. Several of them bounce off, but one breaks through, slamming into one shoulder and staggering the Astranagant slightly. The missiles from Ibis' machine are to be expected - it's perhaps one of the fast moving plane's strong points that she can launch that many in such a short period of time. Ingram doesn't counter attack at this point, instead deflecting as many of the guided rockets as possible. Several beams from the Gun Familiars lance out, picking off some, but others break through detonate in a wide pattern around the Astranagant, bracketing it into a cage of explosions. Ingram seems rather prosaic about Ibis' rage, and instead inclines his head politely - and in apology? "Ah, do forgive my rash actions, but I believed that your partner would jump into the path of the beam - it wouldn't have killed her. Just a well taught lesson about some things being more important than her pride. While your reputation might not be sterling compared to some others, you are a good pilot Ibis - capturing you would be much more profitable to the Balmarians than killing you." The next voice is familiar, although the machine is not. The Astranagant boosts out of the way of Arian's assault, countering with several blasts from its Familiars even as a shot from the Beam Gun flies underneath it. "That voice is familiar," he muses. "Ah, from Bejing I believe? And the battle I had with Katom. Yes, I remember you - back for revenge, I take it?"

And the last threat - Ingram spins around as he senses more than notices something coming at him from the side. The Zol Orichalcum Sword is pulled from its holding at the black machine's side, and Ingram parries the twin beam sabers in one blow that crosses both of them, knocking back Laura's mustached machine with a follow up blow. And in the corner of his screen, a small box appears.

EXISTANCE CLASS 2
A single blue eyebrow is raised, and Ingram turns to face the Turn A, his blade brandished between the two robots. "I see. Quite the anomaly, I must say. This must be the 'White Doll' I've heard so much of." The black machine dashes forward, and Ingram slashes left and right with his sword, pressing his momentary advantage. "My masters have quite an interest in your machine - we'll see if you're worthy of that expectation." After a few slashes, Ingram sends out a strike command, the Gun Familiars swinging around and launchin their own attack. They swoop down towards Ibis, Arian, and Tori, continuing their attack as they swing about, doing their best to engage from odd an unexpected angles. The last target is Mediden, who hasn't done much to attract Ingram's attention - besides a pair of yellow energy beams that sear across space to strike the Astranagant the moment that it disengages from its assault on the Turn A. "A rather powerful weapon, but I'd expect that from something that size," Ingram muses - and the Astranagant's green wings erupt into existence, the psychic driven weapons spawning a number of razor edged feathers that launch across space, trying to slam into Meriden's machine one after another in rapid succession.

That eyebrow just twitches a little bit more as Aitan practically /snarls/ in his cockpit. He pulls back his fist again, anger clouding his judgement, "Shut UP you little harpy before I--" Oooooo, gutshot! Aitan staggers from the blow and gets knocked back, having just enough presence of mind to grab his cannon before he ends up losing it. "Hnnng... you annoying little /wench/! I'll shut that mouth of yours!" The hip armor glows as the Spark Torpedoes form before flying out in a steady barrage.

Peeking at the mostly stationary Uriyah, Max shakes his head. "I've gotta get past that armor somehow." He says to mostly himself as he spins around and fires at the Uriyah, using the most of his momentum to 'strafe' laterally across baraq's line of sight...

The Excellence draws Judecca like a beacon, though as the Fairies dart around, the machine shifts between its slithering and scorpion-like forms, high-speed back-and-forth getting her out of the way of the rapidfire shots. "I told you -- I'm growing tired of them!!" Levi shouts at Fiona, taking a long, deep breath.

Settling further back in her cockpit even as she shouts further, Levi gets a question from Fiona that she should know the answer to -- she's a member of the noble house of Tolar -- but... "... I -- we --" she starts to stammer, before abruptly settling into a full-force, firm, "That information doesn't matter to you, Sample -- appreciate your own situation, rather than try to analyze it!"

Judecca's motions are slow, then fast, jerky, then smooth -- even Levi's own voice alternates between languid and clipped. "Your questions prove irritating, Sample," she whispers, voice breathy. "Enough!" Judecca's tail lashes out, striking for the Excellence.

There's a clipped laugh from Tori for a moment, though sher mind is still largely positioned and vested in the battle. Really, it isn't that she disregards Ingram as an opponent... they clearly have some irreconcilable differences, as much as Tori finds that unfortunate. But it doesn't mean that etiquette has to vanish into the nether, all of a sudden.

"Hmm. Pleasing, then, that we can speak civilly," Tori muses as a sensation starts to flow over her senses.

The GN-XIII begins to glow; there's a shimmering pulse akin to the GN Tau Drive's particle shower that peeks on out of every joint of the machine, before the Mirror Bits deploy. They are large, hexagonal platforms coated with anti-beam weaponry, moving in an erratic and yet graceful swarm, much like a dance.

"A sense of humor certainly seems to be something Ze Balmary Empire could use more of..." she finishes, before the Mirror Bits move into position with a final burst of finely-controlled Newtype mind extension.

A 'corridor' of Mirror Bits has been lined up that Tori takes advantage of, firing her GN Beam Rifle and angling her shot to ricochet off the beam-deflecting mirrors to guide the beam past Ingram's defenses to strike him in the back.

Lloyd's window gets minimized. He frowns, looking up at the frame that has trapped him at a corner of the display. He doesn't seem to realize that Fiona is in the middle of a fight for her life with her mortal enemy (or maybe just one of many). "Why isn't it the time? I wasn't notified you were launching. We only have the facilities for the Engine's stress test for another two days, and you take off in the middle!" Lloyd shakes his head in disappointment.

His portrait looks up. "Oh, watch out for that one," he chimes. He points helpfully. His window suddenly gets larger, jumping to the other side of the screen to better show the INCOMING DOOM TAIL.

Adom Nazir gets shot, she feels it but the Ezekiel Esh is fat but not fast enough to evade everything after all. Jack also wasn't given one America's few Super Robots for nothing after all. The damaged machine stares down the super robot for a moment and smirks as she says."Ah yes the Zentradi but unlike them we actually have a culture of our own!"

"You can try sample, but in the end I'll be standing over your broken machine, just as the empire will be standing ove the ruins of your world. You are children playing with things you don't fully understand. You contiune to destroy one of the most valuable resources in the cosmos being habitable planets."

Jack's attacks are well timed, she counter attacks and doens't let up with the rapid punches and kicks of her own attacks on him.

"You fight out of desperation at this point!"

There. That's the reaction he was hoping for. The Susanowo is suddenly the target of a horde of Megillot drones, a faint 'heh' escaping its pilot as the mobile suit begins accelerating again. It weaves and jukes through the oncoming horde, slashing at any Megillots that get too close... But it doesn't manage to escape harm entirely, the strange beam weapons used by the drones managing to land a few hits here and there. Not much, individually, but they do start to accumulate into something more noticeable... But by then, the custom built machine is already past them, rushing towards the source of the transmission, the Uriyah that looks towards the Susanowo. "Such arrogance, Balmarian," the One Man Army chides, amusement laced through his voice as the black and white mobile suit charges in. "I suppose your loyalty does you some sort of credit... It is almost unfortunate that I shall have to demonstrate to you the depths of your folly. Your forces will break, your 'Lord' will falter, and this world will be unchanged for it! BUT!!" Susanowo twists, suddenly driving the hilts of its two katana together, combining them into a single off-set double bladed sword, grasped in the suit's gauntleted left hand. "Worry not, for you will see none of it! For here, today, I... WILL TAKE YOUR HEAD!!" Black blade whirling, the Susanowo attempts to carve off a chunk of the Uriyah, going in point of fact - right for the head.

Once again the Geminus is rocked by assault even as she continues to fire. This time Meriden /does/ feel it; a distant thump, a dull shift of the colossal mass of the mobile armour. She feels it more in her head; the psychokinetic weapon is like being jabbed in the gut. It's not really painful, but it's uncomfortable, cramping. "Hey!" she yells, into her radio. "Stop that!"

Meriden shifts uncomfortably as she reaches for a previously unused system. It takes a moment to set up, and her face blanks out, looking slack, as if she was napping.

Several fragments of the Geminus break free from the 'rear' of the polygonal weapon, six little triangular shards - though they're not that little, each one is nearly two thirds the size of a mobile suit. They whirl out, around in front of the mobile armour, and attempt to circle Ingram. Halfway there, they open up, no longer triangular but instead tiny stumpy vaguely-humanoid figures 'wearing' an outer shell, like stubby mobile suits.

The ultra-heavy bits, controlled by Meriden's mind, fire pink beam shots as fast as they can; each of them mount a pair, one in each shoulder, and they reach out to try to strike the Astranagant. The mental pressure is significant.

"Enemy missile weapon detected." the pleasent voice says again in an almost soothing tone. "Nuts."

For a 100 ton chunk of metal, the Atlas III is suprisingly capable of manuvering even here in the weightlessness of space. The BattleMech twists around sideways and fires it's thrusters, shooting away from the path of the Spark Torpedos. "Oh you'll make /me/ be quiet will you? Hahaha!" A spread of Streak SRM-4 missiles lock on to the Ezekiel and fire, exploding against the Blamarian machine.

"You can do better then that!" The Atlas straightens up and it's chest opens. Both the LRM-15 and the Streak SRM-4 lock on and fire, the spread of missiles leaving 19 trails of smoke in the air, only to be suddenly bcked up by the twin Ultra AC/5 auto cannons in the torso.

"OLD MAN!"

The Astelion comes plunging forward out of its' nest of thick white missile plumes at full combat clip, hip-firing burst railgun slugs at the Astranagant. They go wide, winking out somewhere into the infinite blackness of space, forever forgotten and alone. Poor, poor 75mm tungsten spike, your efforts were in vain. Ingram's cool, apologetic nature only heaps more fuel on the fire for Ibis, who is so busy shouting back at him that she makes a point of using one of the Astelion's bulky arms as a makeshift shield against the incoming hailstorm of firepower from the Gun Familiars.

"Your /stupid/ lesson about pride left Filio fighting for his life!" Ibis roars back, that tomboyish voice hitting a nice timbre when she's angry. She's never angry. It's a learning experience for everyone involved. She doesn't even notice the damage readout telling her to, you know, stop taking shots in the arms to make a point because her freshly-rebuilt machine doesn't appreciate it.

"All you've taught Sleigh is the pain of watching her /own brother/ struggling to live! I won't forgive you!" is Ibis' addendum to this point, nearly maxing out the transmitting quality in this space full of icky minovsky particles and static.

The Astelion, ridiculously, throws the burst railgun away and punches one hand into the other as the pilot rushes in for full aggressiveness. Transversal velocity is high as it enters into a strafing pattern around the Astranagant, taking advantage of the vacuum's cooling properties to throw huge bursts of high-explosive minigun slugs at it. It's time for a 30mm handshake.

"Urgh-gh- ...aaaa!"

The White Doll, ungainly as it is, briefly gets in the Astranagant's face. This is immediately followed by it completely over-committing itself, lunging past the machine and then charged by it afterward. The fragile doll whirls around, losing a beam saber and the top of its oval-shaped shield by the reprisal from the alien attacker.

"There's too many things going on at once!" Laura laments, her eyes darting from the heads up display to the virtual battlefield in front of her. "Come on, focus, focus, there's that... and there's that... and there's..."

Somewhere, deep in space, the Argama fires a missile. It is not a missile. It is a hammer. It is a hammer missile. It barely even looks like a hammer in the first place.

Its defenses wounded, the White Doll engages its thrusters and backs off quickly while still facing the Astranagant. This seems like a bit of wary cowardice until its hand extends, reaching toward a dark inert shape darting through the cosmos. The articulated fingers of the 'mustache' wrap around the handle of a time-tested weapon.

"Gundam Hammer?! When did the Argama even get in range?! Captain Bright is really a great tactician!"

Still, Laura strafes the center of battle, the Astranagant, as it is inundated with remote weaponry of multiple sorts from other attacking dolls. The flare of beam fire is thick, yet--

"The I-Field generator inside the Gundam Hammer... could I use it to get through?" Laura taps at the controls, siphoning power from the internal power matrix within the weapon.

Briefly supercharged, the White Doll rushes forward, swinging its hammer overhead like a lasso before sending it out at the maximum possible range to minimize 'friendly' fire. The main difference is that instead of a loop there's a giant spiked ball.

"Size alone? J scoffs, "You think this is nothing but size? Think again!"

There was something so damn *familiar* about this whole fight. Except, this time, the shoes were reversed; instead of a great alien machine emerging from lava, it was a great alien machine emerging from space. And instead of J-Ark being the aggressor...it was the defender. And instead of J...

No, that was impossible. That simply wasn't possible.

"Hmph..." J's eyes sink shut in the void of nowhere. "If you think it'll be that easy, then why don't you just come test me! Or better yet...I'LL COME TEST YOU!"

The great red engines of King J-Der roar to life, ruby energy pouring from the bottom of its feet like rocket boots; its massive fist rises into the sky, silhouetted against the black by the stars that twinkle in the distance.

"LET'S SEE WHAT YOU'VE GOT, BALMARIAN SLAVE!"

And the fist of the Red Planet descends...in a really, really nasty right hook.

"I do appreciate it!" Fiona snaps back. That hesitation, again. It's easy to score /hits/, but how can she really get /through/ to her? Is there a her to get through /to/??

"I'm kind of fighting someone here, Lloyd! It's...important!" Eyes tick over. "Uhh, well, we got another successful transfer test! That's pretty good, right!? It looks like those distortions they use can anchor the other end, so that's good! Uh." ...squint. "...is the engine doing something funny...?" she wonders, squinting at the monitor. "I don't like that reading, it's like it's reacting to huh?" She looks up at Lloyd, looks at where he's pointing, and then says, "WHAAA TAIL!"

The Cosmodriver blurs to the side, narrowly swinging around the incoming tail smash, and Fiona flips channels to pay attention to Levi instead. "I...do, I do appreciate just what situation I'm in!" Fiona yells, trying to psyche herself back up. "Just like I appreciate how much your people are like my people!" She swings her hi-coat magnums around, quickly firing off rounds - one, two, three, four, massive slugs from each hammering into Levi's machine. A few seconds more, then maybe it's time to try and get in close...

The Astranagant flits and zips out of the way-- and Arian-16 does just the same, pitching and rolling the GN-X out of the path of the gun slave-familiars. In the process, Arian-16 lets out a harsh, angry breath, her eyes narrowing while the Superbia continues to accelerate toward him. "This time's gonna be different, you bastard!"

It's hard to say what kind of melee weapon Arian-16 is planning to pull at the range she's coming into, the distance closing. And then... more gun familiars. The Boosted Child's eyes flit across the battlefield, looking for each one, calculating angles, locations, places-- and trajectory.

The whole machine twists in a corkscrew motion, blasting upward, flipping and turning on all three axis at once as it seems to dance between the familiars. Slamming her feet down on the pedals, throwing the control sticks forward, Arian-16 squeezes down on the buttons under her other fingers, mashes down hard-- and then lets go.

The Assault Lander purges with an explosive POP, but the sound does not carry further than the inside of the Mobile Suit's cockpit-- damn space and all it's limitations. At that close range, the AL Pack is pushed off, blasted forward like an impromptu projectile-- one that plans on crashing into Ingram!

How much her people are like Levi's people... that digs right in -- but Levi's focus has changed now. Rather thna draw the attention of the deep recesses of her mind, at the moment, it just makes her angrier and angrier. "Sh -- shut /up/!" Levi shouts, voice clipped as if she intended to say more but abruptly refused.

The magnum shots rip through the TK Field as Levi's distraction rises, leaving big holes in the armor; Judecca's insides spark, but just the same, Levi pushes forward all the harder.

Raising the fearsome claw-arm of the White Death Cross again, Levi seems to be coming in for the First Hell again -- but instead just begins to beat and beat, swinging arm after arm into the body of the Excellence Frame.

"Unfortunately, they don't make us with a sense of humor most of the time. It tends to imply a little more... unpredictability than most of our leaders would like to see," Ingram counters to Tori, even as the two of them continue to exchange fire. He watches the Mirror Bits deploy, guessing as to their cause fairly quickly - but that didn't leave too much in the way of 'good defenses' for the attack. Instead, Ingram waits patiently for the assault to begin, the beam bouncing from mirror to mirror... and then the Astranagant just disappears from view, teleporting a short distance away and completely out of the mirror field. "Still, there is something to be said for spontaneity," Ingram adds to Tori, before he turns to address the next threat. The larger unit - yes, another bit using design, it seemed. Ingram rockets forward, but Meridan has done a good job of projecting where he'll end up next - and so Ingram unleashes both Gun Familiars at her, their cannons blazing away as they aim for her more vulnerable areas. The beams converge in, striking the Astranagant from all sides for a moment. The TK field does it's best to fend off the attack, but it's a losing battle - the beams break through, hammering the black machine from several different angles. Ibis' screams of rage, on the other hand... well, not unexpected, but she was usually much calmer. Much more in tune, or at least willing to face problems rationally, than this. Part of Ingram regrets that he's had to prod Ibis so much, but there is little to be done here. "I'm unfortunately not interested in your forgiveness," he replies to Ibis, even as she comes driving in at him. "Just in how well you can fight." Ibis' cannon shells slam into Ingram's field, causing a shower of ripples to appear in front of him, occasionally separated by a flash of light followed by a small explosion of crystal as one of the bullets punches through. The Astranagant swings its head around, and liberally hoses the Astelion down with a barrage of photon shells, rattling off a long string of shots to tear up the front of the super speed space craft.

The Gundam Hammer can be fairly formidable, and Ingram watches as the launched weapon is caught by the White Doll and swung about for a moment. He waits patiently, a cat crouched in the corner in an amusing game of cat and mouse with a particularly brave rodent. But at the last moment as Laura comes rushing in, Ingram states, "Movement pattern analyzed. Evading." The black machine shimmers for a moment, flickering out of existence for a moment as the Gundam Hammer passes straight through it at the precise moment that Laura makes her swing. The Astranagant jets back out of the way, keeping clear of any followup swings... Which leaves it vulnerable to Arian's strange little suicide maneuver. Who would think that someone would deliberately try and ram part of their mech into you as an attack? But the Astranagant is made of sterner stuff than that - it is struck head on by the attack, but Ingram shoves back - and launches the platform out of the way, sending it spinning off into space. "Well, that was admittedly unexpected," he allows, and smiles. "Five of you at once. I'm honored by your attention, especially given everything else going on here. I hope that you find the battle to be worth the effort." That said, the Astranagant throws both of its hands up, a massive shower of energy projectiles flying out into space in a single wave. It looks like some sort of crazy energy flower blossoming in the depths of space... at least until the beams swing around and start aiming for the robots attacking Ingram. They weave about, following their targets in an attempt to close in and overwhelm the defenses of their prey. Each one strikes with a considerable amount of force, and taking a good bit of the barrage may result in serious damage.

The Texas Mack snaps back the pistols back into place as it follows down with the wide swinging kick. The cylinders lock in with a simple flick and spin. The machine lock in steady blows, fierce slams of fists and legs battering into the metal. Craters appear on the machine, metal shrieking. This is going badly. The machines seem to be evenly matched. And luck is quickly disappearing from Jack King's bucket. The Texas Mack brings back up its hands, firing off wild shots to try and get distance once more instead of staying in range.

"I'm sure all the other aliens in the world are better at taking care of their planets! Have you seen the fucking dinosaur empire?! They are huge dicks!"

The Texas Mack kicks off, thrusting booster jets backwards to pull out of range of the other robot. "You aliens think you are all so high and mighty. You die and bleed just like the rest of us and you need resources just like the rest of us! We just aren't huge dicks enough to put down people and then come back and enslave them!"

Both pistols go down into either leather holster. Out comes the single barrel shot gun. The Texas Mack pumps it once and levels the weapon at the Ezekiel. "And bullets work just as well against you as they do a deer!" As the Valkyrie strafes past the Uriyah's front to lay down a line of fire - some of which winds up exploding against its /back/, blame the Gravity Territory - the Balmarian Titan uses its cloak not to protect itself - though the number of pits and scars in its armour are only increasing - but to violently sweep the Valkyrie off course with a broad flourish.

The Uriyah's gaze doesn't break from the Susanowo as it does this; Baraq's ability to multi-task is good enough to not require it to.

"My head? You want my head? Hehn--" Baraq transmits, managing to smoothly combine smugness with weariness in the process. Its right eye, the eye where a large cannon nearly identical to the one Baraq repurposed into a melee weapon for his Ezekiel glows balefully blue as it studies the mobile suit's approach.

"--come here and /take/ it, if you've got the stones to."

Turning with a fluidity that somewhat belies its stature, the Uriyah whirls to face the Susanowo; its left arm is thrust towards the mobile suit as it races in on a trail of burnt orange, and without warning... the protective distortions of the Gravity Territory extend just so, pressing beyond the exposed palm to present a barrier to the Susanowo's continued momentum. At about the same time, a sizable beam unfolds from its glowing right eye, but it finds no purchase--likely due to a mixture of the One Man Army's talents and close proximity.

Baraq's lips press into a thin line at the neutral exchange, but he doesn't have much time to be annoyed, or rethink things, or anything--an enemy larger than even the Uriyah approaches, and while the few Megillots remaining from the attack run on Susanowo regroup to try tying it and the Valkyrie up a little while longer, the Balmarian Titan turns to deal with the threat.

The same hand it used to direct the Gravity Territory rises to catch King J-Der's fist, and while a lot of the impact is blunted, King J-Der's size advantage cannot be ignored. The Uriyah's palm bows inward a bit beneath the pressure, and after firing back with a quick cross of its own, the Aerogaters' shining giant withdraws its hands. Golden bands course along both, generated by the crystals sprouting from their backs; they waste no time in flowing towards its palms as they converge on one another.

"Of course I don't think this is /just/--we covered this, didn't we? Hells--I know you can't help but fail to keep up with me martially, but you could try keeping up with the things I /say/, Sample."

Just as the bands coalesce into a great, triangular blade of scintillating light, an explosion of photons from the Uriyah's feet and back send it racing towards King J-Der, and as the Uriyah flies, so too do the drones it's tasked to delay the Valkyrie and Susanowo; Spider-like Jeremiahs do their very best to avoid Susanowo's blades while seeking to wind energized webs destructively around its body while silently screeching Mishleis race after the Valkyrie firing rounds from the Optical Cannons secreted beneath their wings.

The Uriyah, meanwhile, wants nothing more complex than to crack King J-Der's protections and bury its blade in the chest of the Red Planet's last protector, while within--Baraq prepares for the frustration he inexplicably expects upon finding his weapon turned aside by Abel's creation.

Unfortunately for Ingram doing his little shimmery alien super technology thing, the White Doll has put way too much effort into spinning its hammer around and you can't stop all that poorly thought out spinning at the drop of a hat. Oh, sure, you can act all cool, but the hammer is everywhere. It is eternal.

Still whirling around like a skirted dervish, the White Doll dances through the barrage, energy skating across its I-Field, leaving an elegant shower of sparks behind it. It's so pretty you would even know that the sapped energy from the hammer is about to cause it to explode.

"It's about to explode?!" Laura shouts as the popup briefly obscures her vision. "I just got it!"

The young girl covers her face with a gloved hand. "Okay, okay, we have to get rid of this. There's no rocket system, so..."

The White Doll promptly lets go of the chain, letting it whirl off into the distance toward the Astranagant. The mustached Gundam goes spinning off in the opposite direction because that's how space works.

This feeling...

/!NEWTYPE FLASH!/

The arc of lightning invisibly sparking through Tori Adenbright's forehead allows her to weave through Ingram's swinging beam shower. She detects one step ahead of time where the beams will be through sheer predictive powers, though the attack's impressive scope and might is too much for her to completely avoid. The beams chew through the outer layers of the GN Tau-equipped machine, and there's a frown from the Newtype pilot as she pulls on through.

"Not yet... I'm not through yet," Tori comments adamantly, as the GN Tau Drive goes into overdrive. The Mirror Bits may have been foiled last time, but the advantage of this kind of weaponry is that they can be reconfigured to work to any angle. Her imagination and creativity are their only limits.

And possibly yellow GN particles. Just saying.

The Biosensor glows brighter as Tori invests herself further into the battle. She takes a deep, centering breath as she has her mobile suit dual-wielding weapons now: the GN Lance first sprays a feinting field of orange beam particles -- more to box the Astranagant towards a certain area... before they strike the Mirror Bits positioned on the back, refracting them into a wide spread to catch him in their conic burst.

It doesn't stop just there, though -- Tori then pulls her other weapon, the GN Beam Rifle, and launches a shot to be obscured through the field brought upon by the beam gatling before, aiming for another weak spot of the Black Angel.

"That is a pity..." she comments as she launches her next offensive run, "A soldier without soul is but a mere weapon, isn't it? You would not be half as effective an officer of theirs were it not for your wit."

Knocked out of the sky by the optical cannons shot at him, Max's Valk switches to Gerwalk mode and rights itself rather quickly, using both of the foot jets to keep himself upright. Max however, shakes his head. "That actually hurt." He then flips a couple of switches, unlocking the safeties of a few missiles and waiting for the low buzz of a target lock signal before firing off a volley.

A certain British someone's advice rattles in Ibis' ears, not mentioning any names like Tori Adenbright, throwing a bucket of cold water over the silly bonfire of righteous anger burning in her heart. The Astelion brakes hard, or at least moves to. But air brakes don't work in space, so it fires all of its manoeuvring thrusters in a complicated dance to get it turned around, putting the thinnest profile possible between it and the Astranagant. Raking trails of photon fire come in crisscrossing, luminous trails for the white Lion unit and stitch a glowing trail of blast marks across the legs and chassis.

Ibis opens her mouth to give Ingram another dose of newbie sass, but finds herself transmitting nothing but the sound of practiced pressure-breathing as she sends the Astelion rocketing up somewhere above the Astranagant's position, making herself an irritating target to hit even as she slips up and forgets to actually engage any of the leg thrusters or boost drives. Transversal velocity is clearly the key to being a dodgy bastard in zero-g fights.

"You're awfully polite, you know..." hisses Ibis, whose thumb clicks down on the little red button linked to the Astelion's minigun configuration with far too much ease. "Shouldn't you be /happy/ about all the pain and suffering you've caused?"

Contradictory words from the pilot of the white Astelion, zipping overhead the Astranagant in a showy loop-the-loop and raining high explosive shells on it in a continual rain. Sure, it's barely a match for alien technology, but eventually the sheer quantity of them is bound to be a quality in and of itself. There's no muzzle flare in space, unfortunately, which makes it a magnitude less cool than it would be in-atmosphere.

The Geminus does not /have/ a visibly vulnerable area. It's a pyramid stuck on another pyramid. Still, Ingram manages to strike the small seams with the gun familiars, blackening the armour plating. Meriden frowns again and reaches for another new system. This thing is really getting the whole workout, she thinks. Hopefully it can manage it... "Geminus!" Meriden yells. "TRANSFOOOOORM!"

And, improbably, it does.

The upper half of the Geminus bulges and splits as something inside begins to move. Segments slide out of the way, the flat planes breaking apart, revealing a still-unfolding humanoid torso - arms, chest. Even the 'eye' opens, the sub-pyramid breaking in half and sliding to be a helmet, the eye itself a crest on the vaguely craggy face of the giant mobile armour.

Meriden makes it rotate its body left, then right, getting the feel for it. And then it winds up, punching empty space. "ROCKET PUNCH!" With blazing thrusters, the entire lower arm of the Geminus rips off - but it doesn't just fly straight, it swerves, itself a massive bit like the hastas (currently returning for docking in the Geminus). It drives in a straight punch at the Astranagant, whirling aside, and comes back in an open-hand palm strike.

There it is - the one Balmarian trick Mister Bushido isn't sure how to deal with yet. The Gravity Territory. Baraq manages to deal with the vicious slash of the double bladed Souten, but is unable to land a clean strike in return, the Susanowo suddenly juking back, its two GN-T drives providing it with all the momentum it needs to get out of the way. Unfortunately, this leaves the black and white machine perilously vulnerable to the drones, energy webbing striking the God of Storms from every direction, battering it quite visibly. "Your boasts of prowess are ill-founded, Balmarian," comes the One Man Army's voice, dangerously quiet. He's tempted, for a moment, to activate 'that system', but... No, this one isn't worth it. He'll surpass the Uriyah and its drones without unleashing the full extent of his power. Building up momentum again, the Susanowo chases after the Uriyah, fighting past the Jeremiah drones with slashes of its Souten blade, while energy coalesces between the jagged prongs of its samurai-style head crest. The burnt orange light, concentrated and refined GN particles, builds at a feverish pitch, whipping around in a circle between the crest's prongs... And then is suddenly RELEASED, a cutting energy ring scything through the night towards the Uriyah. Yeah, seriously.

"I won't!" Fiona snaps back. "You...I feel like I can understand you if you'll just say.../something/!" Fiona cries. And then she starts just, talking.

"Britannia went and conquered anyone who even looked at them funny!" Fiona yells. "Britannia took over anyone who had anything of value to them! We were taught that that was /OK/, because Britannia was stronger and that made the world theirs by right!"

The claw arm comes at her. Fiona is used to claw arms. Cosmodriver darts to the left, blurs to the right, and finally surges not away but /toward/, just HAMMERING against the TK Field, while the Fairies blast all around Judecca, trying to get the barrier weakened enough for Fiona to smash her way in. "And my Princess is gonna throttle me to say this..." Fiona rasps, as the the Time Flow Engine gauge begins to resonate with some unseen other force, "...but I was never really OK with that. That's why I do what I do. I help people. I rescue people! What about you, Levi? What do you think about all the people the Balmarians have hurt!? Not just killed, but the mothers crying, the children with their homes destroyed! What does that make you feel!?"

"Can't keep up...with /you/?!" J sneers, "Don't make me laugh! You're a million years too early to be my match in anything, Balmarian!" Anger crackles in the supersoldier's eyes; rage, pure and unrelenting, charged to life by the power of the red jewels strewn not only throughout the J-Ark but the warrior's own body. "Why don't we see if your sword can match my shield?!"

The sword crashes into King J-Der's ruby energy armor, and there is a flash of blinding red-and-yellow light as they meet, explosively. Warnings go off in the back of J's mind about hull breaches and crumple zones, the weak points of King J-Der's armor exacerbated by the force of the blow.

"Damn you..." The Red Planet Soldier snarls, "If you think that's enough to stop me, you're sorely mistaken!"

"Try this!"

King J-Der's arm sweeps upwards as the Gravity Territory crackles to life. The only way J had to deal with the Gravity Territory was...

"ES MINE! DEPLOY!"

The mine pops out of the chest, ripping a hole open in time and space. It's a precision assault, meant to bypass the defenses of enemies with force fields...normally, meant for the Zondar, but in this case, perhaps it could do some good to slide through that annoying trick of Balmar's.

Not /by itself/, of course. The ten fingers of King J-Der blaze to life, lances of destruction striking out towards the hole opened by the ES mine. Joining them are more destructive forces, deployed from the Meson cannons all along the arms; the combined assault was able to vaporize a weaker Primeval in one shot.

Somehow, J doubted it would be enough.

But it would be a start.

With the range that Arian-16's at, the flowing lights look more like a death knell. The Boosted Child throws both sticks backward, digs her heels in, and throws the weight of the GN-X backwards through space-- at a velocity and angle that are decidedly not natural or healthy for the pilot. Pressed to the back of the seat with a deep, straining grunt, the teal-haired girl twists the controls one way, then the other, trying to cease the backward movement and the uncontrolled flipping.

Dazed for just a moment's time, watching as the HUD catches up with the activities in front of her, the Boosted Child catches her breath. "I've got a whole lot more where that came from, don't worry!!"

Breaking out a standard-model GN Beam Rifle, the Superbia shoulders the weapon and takes careful aim-- careful, steady, and waiting for the reticle to turn red with a lock-on notice. "Nobody /wants/ you guys here, so just piss off already! Go back where you came from, and leave us the hell alone!"

Her thumb clicks, her index finger pulls the trigger-- and a beam fires from the rifle, aimed to strike the Astranagant square in the face!

The battle is getting to be quite intense as she's locked in combat with the alien super robot. At least from her point of view. "Such great char your race is infamous for being one of the few prone to butchering it's own kind!" THe Dinosaur Empire so far she knew they were not on the sample list at all. She deoesn't run, she summons her spear, it expands to full size, she then charge even as Jack opens fire, the blast does terrible things to the machine. Worse she feels it via the feedback,but she manges to keeo going, right for Jack. She starts to attack, most of them are feints to try and fake him out, but the real attack comes at last. She tries to run the machine's gut through with the spear.

Rescuing people. Bringing people back to the homes, the loved ones they were ripped from. Crying as the television replays the nuclear bombing of Tokyo over and over. Ripped from her family by --

-- no, that isn't right.

Shaking her head as the raw power of the Fairies rips through her armor, through her TK Fields, Levi says, "I don't feel anything at all!" even as she begins to feel the physical ache of sadness through her body. "Our presence here -- this is the will of Zehirut!!"

Megillots spring forth toward Fiona, swarming the Excellence, ramming into it with their bodies. The swarm starts small, but grows thicker and thicker -- by the end, dozens, maybe hundreds of them try to glom onto the Excellence, trying to hold it down.

"/Enough/!" she demands. "If you refuse to see reason -- then I will force it upon you, Sample!"

An exploding Gundam Hammer? That... well, Ingram has heard about them breaking after heavy use before, but he's never seen one just out and explode. And so as Laura hurls the hammer at him, Ingram has a moment to blink in surprise before the weapon crashes into his mech, the explosion engulfing the entire unit in one massive cloud of debris and finely ground crystal. In fact, as the cloud begins to clear Ingram is simply *gone*, lost from view. This is mainly because of the fact that he suddenly teleports right behind the White Doll, bringing his shimmering green telekinetic blade around to plunge right into the back of Laura's machine. Tori's barrage of shots is met by the raised Nendou Field, the TK barrier repelling quite a few of the shots. Ingram has noted that his one can be tricky to hit, but there is no real benefit in using tricks against a 360 degree defense system. Certainly it might hit from an odd angle, but the Astranagant can take the blows as well. Still, this one is good for conversation. "Ah, but we have souls. The question is what we are bred to do, and how we view success. After all, much of the reason people have humor and creativity is to make themselves stand out. Ultimately, humans do what they do for the ideal of passing on their genes to the next generation. Not every society has the same imperative. Look at the Zentradi, for instance." Ibis' question catches Ingram's attention, and he shifts around to look at her for a long moment. "Happy? I'm not happy about what I have to do, Miss Douglas. I do what I must - on my masters' orders. This is the reason why I exist. Anger, hatred, happiness, sadness - these things mean nothing to any good Balmarian. Isn't that also the ideal of a soldier - to become a small part in a greater machine, always working towards victory?" The Astranagant watches as the Astelion comes around on its next attack run, and then a small window pops up as the black machine suggests its own plan of attack to its pilot. Ingram nods once - the Zehirut crystal laced throughout his machine's hull had learned quite a bit about fighting this girl, and it was ready to start applying those lessons, it seemed.

As the first bullets start rippling out of Ibis' cannons, the Astranagant flickers back and forth for a moment, not quite moving out of the way, but forcing Ibis to move a little bit to try and actually land a hit. And then the machine vanishes completely, appears behind Ibis, vanishes again, appears above her... And the two Gun Familiars come in from below, a pair of energy blades slamming into the bottom of the Astelion's frame. Meriden's attack is not exactly expected. "What? Someone actually put a rocket punch on a Gundam?" Ingram asks, sounding more amused that he should be by this mode of attack. He breaks off, the two Gun Familiars returning to their docking points on the back of his machine. Unfortunately, a rocket punch tends to be rather predictable, and Ingram boosts aside as the hand swings about, and again at the follow-up palm strike. "You might want to put a bit more hot blooded shouting into your attack," he advises. "It seems to work better when you completely abandon any semblance of self-dignity." The last one - the belligerent young person from before - seems improbably fond of shooting Ingram in the face. Which he just doesn't like, when push came to shove. As Arian unleashes the shot, the Astranagant brings up one arm to deflect the blast off of one bracer, the beam arcing off into space. It does leave a melted chunk of the black crystal on the machine's arm, and Ingram shakes his head. "Clearly that isn't going to happen - and if you want to convince us to leave, you're shooting at the wrong person. Unless of course your desire is to bring even more pain upon yourself," Ingram adds. He wasn't in strategic charge of the situation - and no amount of shouting was going to change that. The Astranagant boosts upwards, above the level of fighting, and Ingram glances across his screen. Two there, the others were further apart... he'd have to give it a try. The black angel-looking machine spreads its wings, the two streams of green energy spreading outwards for a moment as Ingram unleashes another barrage of energy feathers. Instead of the concentrated blast he had thrown at Meriden before, he instead unleashes a wide spray at Ibis and Arian, attempting to catch the pair at some point within the falling mass of telekinetic explosive blades. The heavier shot, unfortunately, is reserved for Laura and Tori. The Astranagant raises one hand, energy surging through the machine's fingers as Ingram prepares one of the heavier weapons in the Astranagant's arsenal. "Axion Cannon," he states, a massive pulse of orange energy appearing above one of the machine's hands for a moment, then collapsing inwards to create a black vortex like a fallen star. "FIRE!" The black sphere roars straight down at the Turn A and Tori's Bird Plane, gravity distorting to literally pull both units into the terrible depths of the attack. If they are pulled within they find a single distant ring of blue light - which warps and twists their machines as they are pulled into it, only to be spat back out into real space with a tremendous explosion. And finally Ingram pivots around and gives Meriden a full burst from the Astranagant's photon vulcan, trying to strike one of the vulnerable points on the machine with a concentrated burst of fire.

The Texas Mack simply throws the shotgun to one side, hands snapping downward to pull up either pistol. At first, the Texas Mack keeps the spear at bay, firing shot after steady shot at the spear, battering against the feints. Strings of bullets fire between each spear thrust, firing into the Ezekiel. "I doubt that! Aliens always say that! In every movie! You guys are like some sort of body snatchers stereotype! Now you'll say you don't have an economy! You communist DOGS!"

Jack swings both guns together, pushing them against the Ezekiel's chest and firing twin slugs just as the spear lands, ripping straight through the Texas Mack out the other side. A misjudgment. The Texas Mack's power systems begin to fail. "Dammit!" Jack slams his fist against the side. Mary works to pull up any sort of power.

"We can't get anything Jack!" "Fire off the last of the jets."

Jack hits an emergency power button, lifting the legs slightly and slamming down power into the jets long enough to get the Texas Mack plummeting towards the Earth.

This missiles comes first; though they halt, then stutter through the distorted space of the Gravity Territory and wobble erratically the nearer they get to the center of the Uriyah's mass, they do ultimately find places to explode across its overlarge body; when the smoke has parted somewhat, it's apparent that great, gaping holes have been ripped into the cloak the Balmarian super robot has resorted to holding protectively around its body.

And then, there's the chakram; if Mister Bushido's intention was to in any way defeat expectations based on his notoriety by striking from range, he succeeded. The Susanowo charging through the ruins of defeated Jeremiahs meant that Baraq was readying himself to deflect the One Man Army a second time; when instead a chakram roars through the Gravity Territory, the only thing that saves him from grievous injury is the barrier itself successfully dissipating enough of the energy that what cascades across the Balmarian Titan's chest is a destructive burnt orange shower sufficient to expose alien circuits, instead of a complete chakram burying itself deeply in its body.

"And the A-LAWS' One Man Army seems to be losing his touch," Baraq taunts in turn, a smirk touching the corners of his lips. "Are the drones too /much/ for you?" The Uriyah raises its sword and twists towards Susanowo as if preparing itself to meet the swordsman in the manner it's most accustomed to. Susanowo and the Valkyire are both targetted with slender green beams from the Uriyah's left eye as he begins to goad, "Come on, then, let's /settle/--"

Baraq doesn't really see the last attack coming; gross spatial manipulation is a huge pain in the ass to accomodate, it's just that he's rarely if ever on /this/ side of it. Before he knows it, the Uriyah's systems are flickering off and on as King J-Der's meson payload violently interferes with the Balmarian Titan's ability to regulate its energy production. With the Gravity Territory flickering along with everything else, the maser discharges perform a strange stop-start-stop-start dance as they progress towards the dimmed giant before finally terminating when they splash fully across its body.

The end results are ten deep scars all down the Uriyah's front, each limned with scorch marks and spurting the occasional photon as the Uriyah's systems struggle for function. Within its cockpit, Baraq is splitting his time between frantically trying to force its Pulse Ion Engines back to proper function and dispelling the feelings of familiarity being suddenly robbed of power at the hands of a massive, alien weapon.

After several long seconds, he succeeds at one of these things; not only does the Uriyah power back up for good, it's begun to glow again, almost as brightly as when it first arrived--though the majority of the light is focused on its brow. Once it's able to send commands to the drone army against, the Uriyah tasks a number of Megillots with delaying the Valkyrie; even with King J-Der on the field, Susanowo and Max's Valkyrie are impossible to outright ignore, which means that the Macross' ace will be pressured with Ring Lasers in the hopes of keeping him a hair too busy to focus fully on the Uriyah.

"It's a beginning," he growls. "If my /sword/ could match your 'shield', the Light of Zehirut will atomize it." Speaking of the Uriyah's sword: it's gone, so in lieu of arrogantly seeking to test Mister Bushido's swordsmanship, he seeks to hold the Susanowo at with another burst of superheated blue from its right eye; the longer he can keep it and the Valkyrie from fully asserting themselves into the combat, the better, lest he be torn down from all sides by his opponents.

Completely off-balance as it is, the White Doll has no obvious back to present to the teleporting Astranagant but is also in no condition to be sly about its own positioning. The machine doll is an easy target for the rear shanking.

Yet, even as the Astranagant attempts to prey upon the mustache, the blade warps and distorts when it gets near. The alien technology still pierces the strange shield, but once through it finds itself only carving into the side rather than the heart of the machine! Just a little more pressure might...

"Is this... the end?! I--"

GUNDAM HAMMER INCOMING GUNDAM HAMMER INCOMING GUNDAM HAMMER INCOMING

The White Doll reaches out once more, its spiky guardian angel-hammer catching its fingers again, pulling it quickly away from the Astranagant. "I owe you a lot, Captain Bright!"

While the Astranagant is still on the offensive and dealing with the rest of the barrage, Laura darts away, making rendezvous with two other hammers, gathering them in its free hand. The one still holding the savior-hammer begins to whirl its weapon about, cautiously darting nearer once more to the alien machine!

"I just have to... coordinate with these other machine dolls! One, two, three... one, two, three..." Laura squints.

"...THREE!" she shouts, releasing the hammer-turned-missile, as this one ignites thrusters hidden in its spiked carapace, spinning viciously in a straight line toward the distracted Astranagant.

"I yelled just fine, thanks!" Meriden sounds, over the radio, very young. She's about fourteen, fifteen at the most. "And this isn't a Gundam! It's a mobile armour, can't you tell the difference? It's way bigger than my Gundam!"

The photon vulcans tear up part of the Geminus as it tries to hold the hand it doesn't have in front of itself like a shield. Eventually the rocket fist slams back into place, and then Meriden /can/ defend herself acceptably, but by that point the gigantic mobile armour is already sporting a new string of blasts up its front.

Meriden checks her status, calls it fine (for now) and elects to press the attack. The Geminus holds its arms to the side, straight; a volley of mega particle guns, each as powerful as a small ship's, fire outward at the Astranagant like stripes of yellow fire. Meanwhile, the giant generator in the lower segment of the Geminus starts to charge; Meriden keeps her fingers over the triggers, waiting for an opportunity.

Igniting the foot rockets of the Valkyrie, Max somehow avoids the Uriyah's attack once again, flying above it as Max levels it's gun pod at Baraq's mech. "Your aim's getting worse bud. is the strain of constantly battling getting to you?" Max doesn't even have a comm line open, or else Baraq still wouldn't hear Max over the barking of the gun pod.

"What the /hell/ orders are you even being given?" snarls professional firey carrot-top Ibis Douglas in response to Ingram, perhaps a little insultingly given the complexity and well thought-out nature of his answer. What an ingrate. Finding a point in the Astranagant's firing pattern that keeps her from being chewed to bits by the onslaught of glimmering green blades, the Astelion swings away from the Astranagant, buoyed on a plume of electric blue fire almost as long as the craft itself. The machine cannons nestled in the craft's chest compartment report angrily to the pilot that, in fact, maybe she should lean off of them for a bit, lest she wants the carbon-steel barrels to start melting.

She doesn't do angry too well at the moment, as though something's smothering the fire burning in her breast and keeping it from exploding back into a bonfire of illogical, shouted rhetoric. "How do you justify all of the dead at the Leicht? What did /they/ to do deserve being caught in ths crossfire of this stupid, pointless war?"

From a distance, the Astelion's ordinance bay doors all flip open and a goddamned mess of red targetting circles overlay on top of the Astranagant. It's a formality, considering the Black Angel has been pissing around the targetting computer for a while now, if you think about it. There's a burst of white smoke in every which direction as the little white Lion spits missiles everywhere.

Missiles hiding missiles. Missiles in front of missiles. Missiles crisscrossing with other missiles. Even if none of them hit, they leave a veritable choked forest of voluminious white chemical smoke across the battlefield as they trail towards the Astrangant. More to the point, they keep launching, the Astelion disgorging dozens of the little bastards as it zips beneath Ingram's unit. Oh, how the pilot wishes she'd stayed somewhere where there were some buildings to hide behind.

"Or is it some greater plan you wouldn't expect weaklings like us to comprehend?"

The Astelion, circle-strafe mostly complete, is already beating a path back from the Astranagant even as the last missiles come flying out and the poor, exhausted ammunition stocks try to sort themselves out. God, who launches that many missiles for one attack? Rookie.

Redux: This feeling...

/!NEWTYPE FLASH II: FLASH HARDER!/

"That's..." Tori is interrupted when she senses the incoming rush from the Axion Cannon's tremendous, devastating void space. The blue ring nears, and her mind expands outward towards a greater consciousness for a moment. She flashes back to the time of the Solar Ray. Her eyes see blue -- an infinite horizon expanding before her as the rush of darkness starts to overtake her.

Then, there are flashes -- ghosts, figments of her imagination -- rushing to her mind. One particular ghost's vision is strong, a woman in a United Nations uniform. "Mother?" she mutters, surprised.

Then, that ghost reaches over and mentally gives her a slap upside the chops for freezing up mid-battle.

Mental-Tori reels for a moment, and then her eyes narrow. "... I understand, mum," is all she gets off as she comes /rushing/ back into real-time. The IDB Custom's eyes shimmer as it escapes the gravity hold of the Axion Cannon, the GN Tau Drive shimmering extremely brightly, trailing her over towards the other side.

"Adenbright, commencing direct attack. I'll stop the enemy's movements," she declares, as she looks towards Ibis' homing missile rush. Within the span of a moment, she takes stock of where those missiles are going to strike, and the Mirror Bits move accordingly -- and the GN Lance gatling is in full fire, rebounding off the mirrors to snake further into the already impugned bits of the G-Territory.

"I understand what you're saying, and I certainly can appreciate the different views of other cultures. Some will value honor and valor, others might and prowess. Yours no doubt appreciates the will of this... 'Zehirut'. And yet... why do you force us 'Samples' to oblige with mind-washing machines? Is that not contradictory to what you just said?"

Fiona's surging in, but there's only so much Fiona can do about that damn FIELD. It almost works, but she's not sure what she was doing with it anyway, some insane impulse. "You don't!?" Fiona demands. "Then why do you sound /sad/, Levi!?"

What she hopes is a hammerblow is cut off. Fiona cries out in surprise as the Megillots, which had not been in the area to her awareness, suddenly swarm down upon her, grappling - she's too focused on /Judecca/, the automated units easily finding her, grappling her, restraining her.

Fiona grits her teeth as the cockpit shakes and rattles, and then jerks her head to stare down as something starts...keening.

It's not supposed to keen. Chirp, OK. Keening is...


 * ENGINE CORE STABILITY COMPRIMISED **

Fiona swallows a lump the size of the universe.

Outside, the Excellence Cosmo-Driver flickers and sparks, motes of green and yellow and white flashing and flaring in every direction, as a pinprick singularity, the source of the Time-Flow Engine's power, a portal to the Time Flow itself, is removed from the stable isolation of the Engine core, and exposed to the laws of real space.

"Hah. You talk a good game, Balmarian."

King J-Der's fists flex as it slides away from its foe to give the smaller machines an opening. It's big enough to match sheer size with Uriyah and probably come out on top, but Uriyah undoubtedly had hidden techniques and weapons that J didn't want to deal with; even if it was just talk, whatever the 'Light of Zehirut' was didn't sound good, and any soldier knew that risking a battle when one had no information on the target was absolute foolishness.

Which meant he had to provoke the target into giving up the information.

"But do you have it where it counts? You're large, and you're somewhat powerful I suppose - but is this 'Light of Zehirut' all that?! Why don't you show us what your little toy can really do?"

"Unless it's just what it seems to be...all talk! ES MISSILES! DEPLOY!"

The numerous holes on the chest of King J-Der open, shutters unfolding like triangles as missiles streak away towards the Gravity Field. Now that J knew the ES Space could break the hold of that defensive shield, he could take advantage of it - by bombarding the living hell out of Uriyah with everything he had.

And maybe he'd get the Balmarian to show off his true strength in front of the EFA and A-LAWS, and let the proverbial cat out of the bag... Adom Nazir sees as Jack King goes down, she has too many targets to go agter at this point. She watches him flee, there's not much more he can do. She poauses for a moment. "We do indeed have an ecnomomy. Do you think an invasion like this is cheap?" She laughs for a moment.

Then she sees the death head machine. It's a battle mech she knows that much, and she speeds for it. Juku would find the Knight comming in to punch it the heck out.

"So your next!"

"Tch. I'm used to pain-- and I don't care what crap you guys spout about watching worlds end and despair. I'm gonna do this my own way," she says, swaying the Mobile Suit to the side, a little closer to the Astelion. It proves to be a mistake as those feathers start swarming in toward her, and Ibis. The telekinetic feathers rip and burst across the Mobile Suit's armor; holes rip and tear in the shoulders and chest-- but the cockpit bloc remains intact.

"Urrrrghhh-!!"

Getting the machine to steady, even out again, the Boosted Child releases the GN beam rifle... and flies dead on toward the Astranagant. Spraying a wash of burnt orange GN particles, the clawed-finger hands lift, the palms present-- and the guns-slash-swords mounted on the underside of the forearms.

"Then I'll rip through you guys one after another-- line 'em all up and I'll take you all down until I'm goddamn satisfied!"

The muzzles beneath the wrists unleash a spray of narrow beams, closer in shape to needles rather than projectile fire. It's a little uncontrolled with the strength of the barrage, but she doesn't care... her intent here is to catch him up in the sheer amount of needles fired, and rip a hole right through the Balmarian machine!

The speed of the Susanowo is often its best asset, particularly given the masked A-LAWS ace's preference for operating at velocities other pilots would consider at best reckless, or much more likely 'actively suicidal'. The beam launched from the Uriyah's eye doesn't hit, the spindly black and white mobile suit juking easily out of the way, propelled and maneuvering by the power of its two false solar furnaces. Losing his touch? The very idea causes the One Man Army to bark a harsh laugh. "Balmarian, I suspect you may have bitten off more than you can chew," Bushido notes, given the continued assault from J and Max as well; he's not /completely/ oblivious to the rest of the battle, especially the others fighting his own opponent. His tunnel vision only gets incredibly bad when he's facing... Certain individuals. The power cable extending from Susanowo's back GN Condenser attaches - seemingly of its own volition - to the Souten double-bladed lance, additional power from that accumulator pouring through the mixed-state blades, reinforcing their strength, honing their sharpness. "Now then..." Susanowo accelerates /again/, aiming to use sheer speed and power to overcome the Gravity Territory as Bushido's custom machine lashes out with both curved black blades of the Souten, slashing repeatedly at the enormous Balmarian machine, a whirling dervish of razor-sharp destruction. "...YOUR STRUGGLES ARE NEAR AN END!!"

"Warning additional enemy on attack course." intones the pleasent female voice.

"What?" Juku turns towards Adom's Ezekiel, throwing a punch at the descending Balmarian, and misses, taking a hard hit right in the center of the Atlas' chest for the trouble.

"Nhg!" she grunts and scrolls through the weapon selection and targets te Ezekiel that just bumrushed her. "Get lost, would you?!" the LRM-15 in the chest opens, releasing a full flight of 15 missiles.

This machine was certainly potent, Ingram decides, but he doesn't see evidence of the tremendous power that is unleashed in the battle that made Lord Laodicea decide that he would claim it. As it was, it seemed very highly advanced, and it used technology that was well beyond what he would have expected out of other machines that the humans had made, but that was it. As the Gundam Hammer rockets right at him, the Astranagant takes appropriate steps - it literally drops down, brings one foot up, and kicks the rocket hammer right as it passes over where the black machine had been a moment before. The blow cracks the armor on the Astranagant's leg, but the hammer itself goes flying off into the infinite void, where it travels forever before probably hitting an asteroid in twenty years. "Clearly every young person has a Gundam these days. I'm just not sure if they believe that there is a chance of duplicating Amuro's Ray's amazing success, or if there are just that many gifted children in the world," Ingram states, a faint sigh escaping his lips. Well, he couldn't blame Meriden for her enthusiasm, but her aim was certainly not the best in the world. Still, he does take note of that charging energy core. That would be enough to do a considerable amount of damage if she could actually make the shot. On the other hand, what sort of data could the Zehirut gain from encounter it? Questions, questions. Ingram weaves left and right as the beam cannons from the Gemius roar out, but their blasts are predictable enough that he can map a safe route through the barrage with little trouble. Ibis continues shouting, no matter what Ingram says. Really, he doesn't want to make her all that upset, but there is little he can do about it. But she was also naive - too naive for her own good. But Ingram responds none the less, his voice a bit colder now. "Did you somehow think that TLI would be immune to paying the price for their advancements? The very foundation of the Terrestrial Dream Project is based upon the Extended Over-Technology that was recovered from Meteor-3. The machine you fly in was inspired by technology that Balmar sent ahead to test you. The fact that you fly through space, dreaming of the stars, is because of the Balmarians! Both their technology, and my assistance in unlocking it!"

The circling barrage of missiles hammers away at the Astranagant, and Ingram grimaces as his screen is completely blocked by explosions. He can't see *anything* at this point, and he waits for the faintest sign of what he is looking for... yes! There. The black machine erupts from the smoke as Ibis' turn returns almost to her starting point, and the Z.O. Sword snaps forward, aiming to plunge right into the center of her machine. "Did you think that after such a gift, Lord Laodicea was going to sit back and not test the limits of how far you had come?!?" Tori's assault is much the same as it was before - and the Astranagant responds in kind, flickering out of range of the attack even as Tori's machine begins firing. Ingram coolly checks the instruments - the TK field has just about given out, and the rest of the systems are losing power. He won't be able to fight for much longer before the Astranagant must withdraw and recuperate. He glances back at Adenbright, and shrugs once. "It is the will of my masters that this is how humans are dealt with. My opinion has nothing to do with it." The needle barrage Arian throws at him is a reminder that he'll need to keep his guard up - Ingram pulls out the Z.O. Sword and spins it around like a giant propeller, the blade cutting through the needle barrage that Arian has launched his way and sending it scattering in all directions. A few manage to break through none the less, gouging a small line out of the Astranagant's hull here and there, but not doing a ton of damage. For all this one's rage, Ingram doesn't feel that it is as focused as Ibis' - perhaps more a matter of pride than of true vengeance? Still, there was no time to think on it. The black machine flickers and charges forward - the heaviest strike coming at Meriden first. Ingram dashes forward, the Gun Familiars breaking off as he rockets past Tori and Ibis, spinning around to launch their own attacks at the pair. The first one tries to ram Ibis head on, sprouting an energy blade as a melee weapon, while the other cuts behind Tori and tries to put a shot up his engines. The Z.O. Sword is held up to the black machine's shoulder, and Ingram aims for the charging generator in the Gemius. "We'll see if you have a chance to fire that," Ingram states, and thrusts forward - aiming to transfix the entire machine on the point of his blade, before ripping it out with a shower of parts and sparks. And as he pulls away from Meriden, one wave of the Astrangant's hands unleashes another barrage of energy beams, aiming to catch Arian and Laura in their deadly wave as they follow to continue their attacks. Ingram narrows his eyes - he'd have to use his full power soon, or he wasn't going to get a chance...

The conversation is abruptly derailed by the sheer force of the Time Flow Engine shrieking out of control. The Megillots begin to scatter away from it, reflecting Levi's sudden confusion; it's not something psychic, not something she can /sense/, but it's something distinct, something she can feel in her /gut/ rather than in her mind --

"Wh -- what are you doing?!" Levi demands of Fiona, feeling something that she has not, in her entire life as the Shrinemaiden of Hell, ever known:

Fear.

"What is this --?!" she demands of Fiona, feeling something wrong through Judecca, feeling the body that is hers and yet not hers quake in fear.

Fiona grates, "I'm not...doing anything! You broke the engine! Just..." Fiona swallows hard. "Just like before...just like the hit that brought me here, this--!"

The light around Excellence Cosmo-driver flares and bursts in a rainbow, except the rainbow is every different hue of green, except they're all the same hue. It is an impossible situation. The world itself creaks and groans, as judecca's engine, the psychic powers of Levi TOlar, the spacetime distortions of Balmarian teleports and the /naked time distortion/ of the Time-Flow Engine all collide, combine, coalesce---!

"..." Fiona sighs, hangs her head. "..well," she murmurs. "I guess I always wondered when I'd get to go home," she murmurs.

Close by, at a resonant point of a thousand forces, gravity and timeflow and getter ray, the world creaks...shudders...and bends.

-Another Time, Another Place-

"What're you doing!? Let go of her!!" Raul Graydon's knuckles are white from the tense grip his hands have on the controls of his Excellence Frame. He looks in muted fury at the sight of Axel Almer's Soulgain standing before him, holding his sister's machine. Despite it being over twice his Excellence's size and designed for war, Raul's fury is such that he would decimate it in an instant if it weren't for-- "Let Fiona go!!" The demands are simple: let give Axel his Excellence. Raul Graydon's teeth gnash. Sweat drips down his brow. This is not a weapon for war. And if he gives it up, that is what it will become. But his sister-- It is that indecision that costs him when something happens he will never be entirely sure of. Sabotage -- treachery -- attempted assassination. Some stranger Shadow-Mirror ploy. Something -- --something takes his sister away in the flash of light and the distortion of time and space.

---

"ALMER!!" The heavily armored form of the Excellence Gunner rips across the skies, fueled by the Time Flow Engine and Raul Graydon's rage; his destination is single-minded: he aims for the site of the Shadow-Mirrors' System XN. "Raul, you need to be careful!" Raji Montoya tells him over the communication lines as their support vehicle tags behind. "We have barely any intel on just what the Shadow-Mirrors might have in there, and the stuff we've gotten isn't promising! Even with the Gunner Frame, the Excellence isn't designed for warfare! You might be putting too much strain on it going in solo--" Raul turns the radio off. "... Sorry, Raji," he murmurs. "But I know you want to be here just as much as I need to be...!" The Gunner's cannons unload; the cannonade volley rips fireballs and havoc across the already wartorn landscape. "ALMER! I don't know what you did, but I'm going to take that machine apart--" Space-time fluctuates as, off in the distance, the Shadow-Mirror's Systen XN is sabotaged. "--until you give me back--"

FLASH -This Time, This Place-

Space and time are ripped and rent apart by anomalies by the clash between the Balmarian's pride and joy, the Judecca unit, and the Excellence Frame. Quantum Wave Engine meets Time Flow Engine, two units built to disrupt distort and traverse the very flow of time and space making contact in a blindingly furious moment. Space tears. Time tears. And out of the seams, comes--

"--FIONA!!"

A large, bulky green machine, outfitted with massive cannons, missile racks, and one enormous gun. Only one person here might recognize it: the EXF-02G Excellence Gunner. "... Huh?" Raul Graydon, hero of the Britannian Empire, finds himself in space for the first time in his life. "... What." He is deeply confused.

The White Doll rockets forward, impassioned by the damage its fellows are taking! Moonrace or Earthrace, there's no difference here, because there was never that split! The pain of the A-LAWS is the pain of the human race!

Laura darts daringly into the energy barrage, the white mobile suit juking the incoming blasts with barely-there skill, augmented by the awakening systems of the Gundam called 'Turn A'. The beams slide off of its incredibly dense I-Field, allowing the aggressive suit to raise its hand, one that palms the second of three Gundam Hammers!

"If territory is so important to you, why do we have to settle it on a battlefield?! There's intelligent beings living here, too! If you can't recognize that, then I have to destroy you!"

Even as the White Doll makes a dramatic cross against the Astranagant with its exploding hammer fist, the pilot pulls sharply back on its controls, bringing the relic machine upward. It tilts its head toward the anomaly.

"White Doll, you know what that is, don't you?" Laura Rolla frowns. "Because I really don't know!"

"A bound soul that cannot opine is a truly sad thing indeed... can you not agree with that?" is the extent that Tori can comment to the pilot of the Astranagant before the A-LAWS combined radio gets busy with the warnings of the Time Flow Engine going out of control.

There is a restricting, oppressive sensation that is starting to overtake Tori Adenbright's expanded mind; yet, she tucks this back in, shaking her head, rallying her strong will to gird and hold still. Then, as soon as it snaps back, the Newtype is left exhausted and wondering what in /Earth Sphere/ just happened.

She shakes her head, and turns her attention back towards the Astranagant. The GN Tau Drive is starting to deplete its own supply... it needs to recharge. However, mobility functions are unhindered, and if nothing else, Tori can still fly as a spotter -- to let the big guns get their licks in.

The IDB Custom shimmers inward, as she continues that interrupted train of thought, "Devotion to a master is a wonderful thing. And yet... no master is infallible. One always needs to exercise judgement for their own selves." The GN Beam Rifle is struck outward, firing shots in such a way that she hopes is capable of further limiting the Astranagant towards an open, precarious position for the others to exploit.

A warning light appears on Lloyd Asplund's control console. He flicks a switch and changes to a real-time diagnostic of the Excellence Frame and it's systems, and then...

"...oh."

"Fiona--" Lloyd's picture solidifies for a moment. He stands from his chair, voice rising in alarm. "The field is in flux! Something is damaged. Shut down Excellence Frame, Fiona, you don't know what's going to happen. Shut it down! The Engine is--deactivate the Engine, Fiona!!"

Lloyd's voice starts to play in reverse, words twisting this way and that, coming from the /then/ and the /after/ and going to the /now/. It sounds like he says things that aren't actually said, never were, but now are.

Lloyd starts to freak out entirely because he isn't there to see it.

Meriden Almace lets the charge build.

This is because she is somewhat distracted - distracted by the warnings in the background, shrill sounds in her ears; distracted by Fiona's alarm, which is a slightly different one, shriller; distracted by Ingram charging.

The colossal Geminus actually catches the blade between its hands; it moves remarkably fluidly for something as big and as heavy as it must be, and the double palm strike is enough to stop the Z.O Blade from shearing into its 'torso', though it does make a mess of the hands. Meriden fires the closest mega beam gun in an attempt to drive Ingram off, shoving with the hands.

The mobile armour floats. Meriden starts to rotate upwards and backwards, but she aborts that as Raul appears, space twisting. Her head hurts; her mind reflexively tries to find something to hold onto, pressing against Tori's, against Ingram's in a gentle nudge. The distortion in space and time makes it worse; she lets out a little whimper, under her breath.

And then Meriden decides not to fire the big gun. She'll miss. She can feel no possible way for her to succeed; her hand jerks left and slams down on a different set of holographic controls, passing right through them.

The smaller mega particle guns all over the Geminus' upper body pulse brightly for about half a second before discharging a veritable explosion of energy, stabbing beams lancing deep into space and forming an almost solid blast of cutting light from every available point on the giant machine's upper half.

Dire, dire warnings and klaxons ring through the interior of the Astelion's cockpit as Ingram's Z.O. Sword bites through the torso of the white-painted machine, even as the Gun Familiars miss. Scrap and pressurized fluid spray everywhere like some kind of twisted mechanical wound, and Ibis grits her teeth as the fight begins to take a turn for the worse. At this kind of range, her elusive tricks aren't going to buy her much, if any, of an advantage to press. And then, while the Lion custom tries to pry itself off of the giant sword, the Excellence erupts somewhere off to one side in a queasy explosion of quantum fuckery that tears space and time itself apart.

Ibis has no more she can say in reply to Ingram, in part because he's dumping all kinds of exposition on the poor pilot she has no idea about, and also in part because the unfolding time/space catastrophe on the battlefield has her scrambling to keep the battered Astelion's electronics in one peice. She's taken enough damage for now that it's time to, maybe, start putting some distance inbetween Ingram and herself. Though it doesn't turn to retreat, the front panels of the Astelion come aglow with green flame, hurling it backwards away from the Astranagant at a fair clip.

Oh, and almost as an afterthought, it also continues to vomit clouds of explosives everywhere as if to cover its retreat. The Astelion and its pilot zip backwards through the thick, intertwining clouds of white, praying they make it a less desirable target. Besides, Ibis has no wish to get Infinity Cylindered for a second time.

Adom Nazir says, "I'm afraid I will." She pauses for second "I remeber you!" There are missiles inbound, there's no way to dodge. She does however manage to shoot themissiles down with a barrage of shots from her. Her gravity scanners go off the scales off the charts and then a sister unit to the one Fiona is using appear. She pauses her sensors are going hay wire. Then there is another of the strange units fighting Lady Tolar, she pauses locking in ot the alien unit for a moment to scan. But she's got the battle mech to deal with.

"Lady Tolar if you need aid with the new sample you need but ask!"

As for Juku she's comming in again to punch the hell out of the battle mech.

"So Sample, it has been sometime hasn't it?! Let's see how your skill has improved!"

The spatial apertures bearing King J-Der's missile payload directly into the Uriyah's radiant body prove convenient for Max and Mister Bushido, too. Confused by the effort of trying to manipulate so many missiles after it's already too late to affect them, the Gravity Territory is as good as down; given a moment or two free from the rigors of playing truly impossible physics games, it would surely return to its usual levels of effectiveness, but right now... not only do the Valkyrie's gunpods successfully leave the Uriyah's cloak in tatters and seriously scar armour designed to render the Balmarian Titan the equal of an enemy fleet, it leaves Mister Bushido entirely free to get in close.

And there's nothing between the Uriyah and the Strongest Sword.

All Baraq can do is grip his controls tightly and look for an opening in the Susanowo's offense, but as the smoke and fire of King J-Der's incredible ordinance builds and builds around the duo, it seems increasingly unlikely that any will be given; each stroke peels huge curls of armour from the Uriyah's body, suspending them in space to float alongside the shattered remains of mechanical soldiers from wars long past. The occasional crystal is shattered in the midst of the Susanowo's aggressions as well, showering it with harmless photons; given enough damage to those formations, the Uriyah will be incapable of utilizing its deadliest weapon, and that won't do. In the absence of the Susanowo and King J-Der just outright /handing/ him an opening--Baraq seeks to try and take one for himself.

What's left of the Uriyah's cloak suddenly folds around Susanowo mid-stroke, and while it won't save him from the blow, Baraq seeks to hold the mobile suit against its body long enough to bombard it with violent expulsions of light from all of the crystals studding its body at various points; as nimble as the Susanowo's false furnaces and high end mechanics make it, it's entirely possible that Mister Bushido won't /be/ there for the energy discharges, but that's fine too; Baraq's goal is ultimately to free it of Susanowo for even a second, before it's too late.

"You don't seem to understand," Baraq lowly transmits as he tries to pin the Susanowo. "You /still/ don't understand--all this time spent smashing yourselves against the inevitable--turn me away today, and all you'll have accomplished is teaching me--teaching /all/ of us how best to take you when we come back. You're living on /borrowed time/. If Ame-no-Mihashira isn't ours today, it will be tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. My struggles don't /end/ until you've /all/ been given enlightenment, Sample!"

As the smoke begins to part from about the Uriyah's body, it becomes apparent that its right hand--or, more correctly, the first two fingers of its right hand are pressed against the glowing crystals on its forehead. It also becomes apparent that the Uriyah is staring right at King J-Der. In the back of Baraq's mind, he hears the Red Planet's only surviving defender warn him against the dangers of designating something as a certified killing attack when it--isn't; his brow knits and teeth already clenched in frustration grit that much tighter against one another.

"I borrow the Light of Zehirut!" Baraq bellows as a globe of artificial sunlight builds against the Uriyah's forehead; a chill courses through him like someone just walked on his grave. "You /Samples/ are obsessed with bluffs and false bravado--we've /outgrown/ them!"

The Uriyah tears its cloak from its body and sends it spinning off into space, then, and with all the speed it can muster, it races towards King J-Der. The globe at its forehead precedes it, launching like a great, wobbly grenade intent on catching against the Red Planet mecha, exploding and coating its body with destructive, clinging heat. If Baraq had anything /more/ to say, it's lost amidst the impassioned roaring he can't hold at bay. And even if he /weren't/ screaming instead of speaking, if King J-Der is still there when the Uriyah tries to invade its space--

--the clash of its foot against Abel's creation as it seeks to burrow /through/ the Generator Armor, through the frame beneath it, through /everything/ would doubtless drown out anything he had to say.

In the back of his mind, he's--/aware/ of the second Excellence Frame because it's difficult to miss something as improbable as time and space vomiting an entire mecha out of another dimension entirely; he is, however, entirely too preoccupied to /do/ anything about it.

Levi Tolar finds herself -- more baffled, than anything else, at the sudden appearance of a second Excellence, and more importantly, at... time... warping. Eyes wide, Levi realizes that one machine /already/ had her on the ropes for a moment -- two would be entirely too much.

"... So that's it -- you were calling for reinforcements!" Levi replies, seeming to completely ignore Fiona's insistence that she broke the engine. "/That's/ it! So, even though you were able to defend yourself this well on your own, you brought reinforcements..."

Unfortunately, Levi cannot afford to dilly-dally with something that she can be reasonably confident would actually give her a run for her money. Not with Judecca. It's too important. The White Death Cross begins to retreat at full speed from Fiona and Raul, discretion proving to be the better part of valor.

Megillots mostly just float there going 'derp,' because they're Megillots.

Max looks somewhat apprehensive for a moment before shaking his head. However, after a couple of moment, and Baraq giving return fire that Max hides from.....Max finally comes out of hiding and fires a TON of missiles at baraq, after getting a target lock....

Fiona stares in a sort of bleak horror, expecting...something. Suction. Maybe for the void to vomit out some abyssal horror. Not...

'FIONA!!'

Fiona's eyes snap up as her comm intercepts the line. "What--" she gasps out. "That voice...!" She looks down, over at the fleeing Judecca. She's repeating herself. ANd leaving. "Levi--!" Fiona calls. She wanted to say more, but...at the same time, she'd mostly emptied her bag of words. What can she do? She watches Judecca go, and then checks the engine core - unstable, uneasy, but apparently no longer in imminent danger of /rupture./

So instead, she does the other thing, which is immediately open a channel to the other frame, and slump back in her chair while adrenaline explodes through her head, shrugging off those megillots as they fall dormant. Fairies pick them off automatically.

"Excellence 2 to Excellence 1," Fiona says. And then... falls quiet for a few seconds.

Finally, she manages a weak, choked, "Hey, bro. It's good to see you."

"Incorrect," Mister Bushido replies. The Susanowo, crafted to the masked ace's specifications by his friend Billy Katagiri, an instrument of vengeance and a ghost from the past, is caught by the enormous Uriyah - for just a moment. There's no space to bring the Souten to bear, and most of its other weapon systems require time that he just doesn't have, so in the split second before Baraq unleashes all that beam fire at point blank range, the One Man Army does the only thing he can; one GN-T spins up higher than the other, and the Susanowo twists in the Uriyah's grasp, delivering a tremendous kick with one leg that enables the black and white machine to free itself, clearing the range of the Balmarian's energy discharge with nimble speed. "Your struggles will end when you die, Balmarian," the masked man says with cold certainty, Souten splitting back into two blades - Unryu and Shiranui - before the high-speed close-combat mobile suit dives at the Uriyah and seeks to drive both hybrid state katanas into the target, his intent from there to drag both blades back out again. The hard way, though.

Raul Graydon's radio crackles on. And it is not Raji or Mizuho that greets him, but an unknown voice. Talking about A-LAWS, about this combat zone -- in space -- all it does is confuse him further. There is no A-LAWS in the Britannian forces. There is no A-LAWS in Shadow-Mirrors' detachment. What is this place? Was it a trap by Almer? Is this some Moonrace trick? Is it...? His eyes drift, slowly but surely, surveying the battlefield. Countless machines he has never seen before, bug-like drones whizzing past him. He grips tighter onto his machine's controls as his eyes narrow. The twin cannons at the Excellence Gunner's shoulders begin to glow. "Don't worry, Raji, Mizuho..." he mutters into his radio. "No matter where this place is, I'll get you out safe, and I'll find--" And then, he sees something in the distance. Crackling, damaged, but distinct. Familiar.

It is only slightly dissonant and surreal that some sort of giant, naga-like war machine is slithering through space away from the Excellence as that voice crackles in over his radio-- "--sis?" Raul just stares, wide-eyed, and then-- --he manages a smile, for the first time in what feels like ages. "Fiona, it's you--! You're safe! Are you injured, did Almer do this to you, did that-- that--" He has so many questions, all about whether she is alright, if she is injured, where she has been, if anyone has tried to hurt her, if-- But instead, he settles for: "... it's good to see you here too, Fiona. "... wherever 'here' is."

"WARNING! WARNING! TEMPORO-SPATIAL ANOMALY DETECTED!"

"What the-" J barely has time to react to the sudden appearance of RAUL GRAYDON, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM (of Britannia) when the SURE KILL ATTACK suddenly explodes into the chest of King J-Der. It rips through the generating armor like it was nothing; it parts the crimson field like a sea and penetrates the white armor within, ripping through decks and tearing apart rooms and systems. In every part of J's body, he can feel the pain of his machine, the pain of the machine that is his partner and body; he can hear Tomoro's screams, warnings of all those decks exposed to thin air and all the J-Jewel energy lost and the Generating Armor's current weakened state.

And he ignores them.

Because he is not yet dead. And he is a survivor. He has always been a survivor; since the world fell around him and all of Red Planed died to the Zondar, since the stars that were his brothers and soldiers fell from the sky, since Abel kissed his brow and told him of his mission: survive, and live on, for Red Planet.

And he would survive now. He would survive, because that was what he did. He did not give up; he had fought his way through the Machine King army, he had fought the Arm Primeval to a standstill, he had endued the ten long years of being a soldier in the army of his most hated enemies - a GENERAL in their army, a twisted and evil thing that was more a mockery than anything else - and he had come out on top. And now, this warrior of Ze Balmary Empire threatened it.

But not for long.

"IT'LL TAKE MORE THAN THAT!" J roars, the roar echoing across all the radio channels, "IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN YOU HAVE, BALMARIAN, TO CRUSH MY BODY - OR MY SPIRIT! IT WILL TAKE MORE THAN ALL YOUR EMPIRE PUT TOGETHER HAS!"

"BECAUSE I AM THE LAST OF THE RED PLANET!" King J-Der's hands blaze again, that terrible crimson light sparking to life. "I AM THE ONE TO WHOM LADY ABEL ENTRUSTED A SACRED MISSION...AND IN HER NAME, I WILL CARRY IT OUT!"

"I!" The generating armor focuses around the hands.

"WILL!" The hands raise forward, pointed squarely at the head of the Uriyah, as more of those mines pop out to open the way.

"SURRRVIIIIIIVE!"

Ten ruby lances streak across the darkness, carrying the will of one who refuses to fall no matter what.

The temporal distortions send the Atlas IIIs sensors systems. The pleasant female voice constant chirps alerts at Juku as she tries to focus on Adom's mech. "MUTE!" the voice silences at Juku's command.

The Martial arts attack from the Ezekiel is evaded by a flare of thruster - Battlemechs do not have these kinds of thrusters, infact this thing isn't nearly as hot as a Battlemech should be, there is some kind of cooling system or something innately different about it's power source that is keeping it from turning into a molten humanoid statue.

"/My/ skills?" Juku tchs and starts flipping switches. That previously running cool machine suddenly spikes in temperature as all of the cooling systems shut off.

"See for yourself." The thrusters of the Atlas III fire, running it directly towards the Ezekiel as Triple strength Moymer bundels extend and contract in the extreme heat as Juku's machine reaches for the arms of the Ezekiel and just pull them outwards.

With all the strength needd to tear them right out of the sockets and beat Adom's mech with them.

The beam needles are cut down, scattered into their comprising GN particles by the swinging sword. It's kind of unusual how the processing works-- they are usually vented in an orange color, but these scatter and break up into more of a pink hue. A side-effect of the processing?

Before she can state her opinion of Ingram's showy-- and effective-- defense, the bloom of light opens before her one more time. Beams blaze and rip by and around and all over the Superbia GN-X and impact like crushing weights, ripping and tearing against the arms, the chest and hip, through the legs. It looks fairly terrible, the GN-powered Mobile Suit being blasted backward through space and trailing thick plumes of smoke.

Arian-16 opens one eye as sparks leap and dance across her consoles, while systems read in the red or some just not at all. The legs are missing just above the knees, and the left hand and most of the forearm is missing. The face is torn in half, and the armor on the chest is stripped off to the glowing crystal inset in the chest-- and the inner-most layer of the armor that protects the cockpit hatch.

Despite this, the Boosted Child's machine still has it's right hand-- and as fate would have it, Ingram has blasted her back toward the beam rifle. Snapping up the weapon and aiming it, the stump of the left arm hefts and aims forward as well. The GN Vulcans on the waist twitch and line up, as they barely function.

Time and space tore. There's something weird going on. Meriden's giant robot is spraying beams everywhere.

Arian-16 flashes a bit of a toothy grin as she wishes that this thing were equipped with a proper shank. Instead, she fires-- she fires every goddamn beam gun that she has, even as sparks and thin wisps of what might be space-bound fire lick and ripple out of the left arm, as the whole Mobile Suit seems to be coming apart at the seams. The beam rifle, the GN Vulcans, and the two needle launchers fire, and they just don't stop.

"I SAID HIT!!"

Really, Ingram wonders if Laura has been listening to any of the conversation going on here thus far. But the same attack as before - he probably won't be as lucky in trying to dodge it this time, so the only option was to cut straight through and try to deal with the enemy pilot in one single motion. As Laura launches the Gundam Hammer, the Astranagant leaps forward, bringing the black around and rolling the attack off of the side. The massive hammer still strikes home, crunching into the black machine's shoulder with a shower of broken bits of crystal, but Ingram doesn't stop, and brings the blade of his sword straight down towards the Turn A's head! Tori's comments might bear a bit more weight if Ingram had different masters - but there is no way that he can really explain, so he settles for just shaking his head instead. "Ah, the innocence of youth. You assume too much of what happens occurs through the narrow lens of your own perspective..." He boosts away, adjusting the scanner as best he can to avoid the effects of the spreader. The jammer is rough, but he can deal with it, for now. Meriden's barrage of mega particle beams - and it is an impressive barrage, Ingram has to admit. He's not seen that many beams attached to a unit in a long time - completely brackets the Astranagant in. There is nowhere to go, and nowhere to run from the bombardment. And so he simply disappears, the black machine vanishing in a blur of motion that allows the beams to pass right through it. Ingram smiles thinly, although he does give a faint sigh of relief as he realizes just how close he had come to being vaporized by that blast in the process. "A very nice display of firepower," he congratulates the young girl. Unfortunately that doesn't leave much room to escape from Ibis' bombardment a moment later. Missiles come blasting in, all of them slamming into the Astranagant in a long, continuous wave of firepower that batters the machine brutally. As he's rocked in the cockpit, Ingram counters with a massive barrage of the TK feathers, but his aim is off - or even in her damaged state, Ibis is too nimble to catch with a direct hit.

The last attack comes from Arian, and Ingram unleashes the full power of the Axion Cannon in reply. The black vortex erupts in one hand as he prepares the attack - and hurls it right at Arian. While the blast misses as it roars past, it devours every single needle and beam shot that Arian-16 has thrown at Ingram, the two attacks effectively canceling each other out. Taking down one of them would have been a nice bonus... but such was life. There were more interesting thing afoot. It is not until all of this is finished that Ingram spares himself a few moments to look at the data screen, and takes in everything that has occurred with the new unit appearing. The Astranagant had detected the time breach within a few moments of its appearance, and had determined that despite the spectacular nature of the event, it was non-threatening. To be precise, the event ITSELF was not threatening, and it was like the second half of a whole coming back home at long last. One of those things that had been subtly wrong is once again made right as the two Excellence's are rejoined in this dimension at long last. It's enough to bring a smile to Ingram's face. So there were things that should be done, no matter which side you were on. Not to mention the fact that they had sent Levi running as well. That was unexpected - that the Shrine Maiden of Judecca would retreat rather than face this threat... it spoke of the skill and power of that pilot. And of possibilities that had not yet been fulfilled. "Very well then. As Lady Tolar has decided to withdraw, it seems my time here is at an end as well," Ingram states as he looks back at his opponents. Some of them old foes, some of them new. All quite talented, and all well suited for his needs. "I expect that I will see you again quite soon. After all, Europe has a few spots left that are ripe for the taking, and I expect that strong defenders such as yourselves will be present to try and hold out to the very last." With that, the Astranagant spins about and disappears from view - vanishing not in the usual method of the rest of the Balmarian fleet, but instead of it were disappearing behind a heat mirage in the distance, becoming indistinct and hard to distinguish as Ingram teleports the machine away. As he moves across the vast distance back to Neviim, Ingram glances back over one shoulder. "...yes, I think things are finally moving according to plan."

Fiona laughs, her voice rapidly overwhelmed. Oh, man. She knew...she always thought, knew, /hoped/, blindly, stupidly, that this moment would come, and...

She laughs, again, to mask a sob. "Yeah," she says, warmly. "Yeah, it's me, bro!" She can't stop smiling. She sniffs, once, loudly, wiping something wet off the corner of her eye with a knuckle.

"It's...a long story. The Engines...and whatever else... this isn't home, Raul. But a lot of stuff from home came through, and..."

She laughs again, bubbling out of her. "Oh, God, I thought I'd never see you again! I... they're still here, I'll... explain. C'mon, there's a safe zone. I shouldn't fight anymore, anyway, the Engine's damaged."

Tori frowns very lightly at Ingram's last comment. It's not that she's offended -- it's more that she knows he's /dodging/ the question. Then again, she expected nothing else. These masters were enigmatic people indeed... yet, Tori feels frustrated, for they were not the types to really desire to engage in diplomacy.

The IDB Custom turns around, as the data-logger finishes the report of the battle. There's a /hell/ of a lot of results that the Integrated Design Bureau should be happy about from this one. Tori leans back on her seat and looses her helmet as she flies back towards one of the deployment bays of the Ame-no-Mihashira.

"What a day..."

In the fading light of the Uriyah's fury, Baraq /still/ finds himself faced with three implacable enemies.

And when too many missiles to count piece the Gravity Territory and explode /everywhere/ across the machine driven by a stolen Sun, he also finds himself incapable of forcing the Uriyah to move normally; so many of its crystals shatter on impact that the energy meant to be directed through its entire body to keep it functional is spraying every which way.

And before he can take any measures to fix the problems, to cut the flow of energy to the Uriyah's various emitters so that it may focus on trying to finish the fight out normally, Mister Bushido's blades are jutting from its body and ten extensions of the Red Planet's courage are not far behind.

In the moments before the explosion that occurs when viciously withdrawn swords and explosive willpower take their simultaneous toll, Baraq sees a shining giant, and an exploding volcano, and King J-Der on the run, and is very confused; fortunately or un, the catastrophic failure of most of the Uriyah's systems triggers its recall circuit, whisking it back to its sunlit womb on Neviim.

In a few hours, once he feels a little bit more like himself again, he'll probably start draughting plans to do it all over again; the desire to claim the place remains as difficult to shake as its defenders.

The Geminus floats there as Ingram retreats.

It folds back up several moments later into its original diamondoid formation, parts slamming home as the humanoid form shrinks in, bending downward. It looks a lot less battered like this, but that's mostly because the severe damage is now on the inside, not on the outside plating.

Meriden rubs at the bridge of her nose and her eyes, which are abruptly even more pained than they were before. She keeps the Geminus moving, but slowly, in case Arian changes her mind and wants a ride.