2010-01-02 - I Left My Heart In Neo-Mexico

ONE DAY AGO, JUST OUTSIDE OF MEXICO CITY

The police walked calmly down the stairs. They had discovered this room only an hour ago and it was hell getting it open. They practically had to knock down the strip club that was sitting on top of whatever this was. An hour ago, they raided this club due to suspicion of it being involved with a local cartel. The raid had paid off and the bad guys were being hauled off as they continued to walk down the metal steps.

What kind of club has a basement with metal steps?! Geez this place was weird and it smelled like hell. The only reason they found it was because they moved a jukebox in order to check for secret rooms exactly like this one. And what a pain it was. It took jackhammers and dynamite to get in. Whatever was down here didn't want to get out.

Finally the police in the lead find a switch and throws it.

The mysterious room was massive and built into the rock that surrounded the area. As the lights came on, it was clear this was some kind of hanger with some modified living space. Down the way, the lights revealed a section that could be opened for a mobile suit to land. The smell was from a dinner that was never eaten and left to the rodents that scurried as the lights came on. The police looked around in awe, stopping when they saw a symbol on the wall.

It was the Celestial Being sign, fading from water damage from the club above.

NOW, EFA/A-Laws Side

The call went out earlier today. Apparently after a drug raid on a questionable establishment, the police had discovered an old safe house from Celestial Being. Judging by some of the stuff they found, it seems it hasn't been opened since the Orb Union fell over a year ago. What is more interesting was the discovery of parts from one of Celestial Being's machines. No GN Drive but other things such as a large sniper rifle, computers, etc. There was also reports of several unfinished Haros.

Today's mission is simple: Load up the parts and take them back to base. The order has just been give to deploy zoo...

NOW, KATHARON SIDE

The report of the discovery of one of the old Celestial Being safe houses couldn't have come at a worse time for Johnny. He had been trying to get Bright Noa to take him out there for a week but there were bigger missions to handle. For that period, Johnny had been without Dynames in working condition. This was why he was forced to get an Astray from his connections in Katharon. The story for this mission was simple: Celestial Being was an ally to AEUG and to let any of those parts fall into the enemy's hands would be bad. Plus the parts were "similar" to the ones the Dynames needed...Johnny had not let his affiliation with Celestial Being come to light. He felt Bright already didn't trust him.

Today's mission: Recover the Celestial Being parts and documents or destroy them.

Johnny sighed as he sat in the cockpit of the Astray, plugging the makeshift Haro port before setting Haro in place. "Not the same at all, is it?"

"Gundam! Gundam!"

"Heh. Yeah. I guess it is close enough. Right. This is Johnny reporting in! You guys know the score?"

The mass produced Astray Gundam launches from the Argama, preparing to play sniper.

Miles away from the site of the equipment recovery effort, a single aircraft ascends past the clouds, its nose pulling above them as the engines thunder, wings shredding wisps of high cloudcover. It flies well above any potential defense systems of the Federation or its allies; the cockpit's holographic displays throw blue light back into the helmet visors of its three pilots.

The M-0209 Skytalon is a large fighting jet; a good twenty feet longer than most, all sleek curves and predatory angles in its swept wings and tail. Verniers line the former as as well as the latter, though right now, the main engines are in full afterburner -- rushing for the Mexican desert.

All three of its pilots wear their oxygen masks, this high up; they travel at speeds that would put any high-altitude spy aircraft to shame. They must be in a hurry -- so much so that they seem not to care that they risk being detected over Federation radar or satellite.

Then again, they're moving so fast...

<> In the last seat of the cockpit, Liese reaches forward, calling up a tactical map of the area. Still clear; for now. That's good. <>

At the front of the cockpit, Isa Reichert glances down through the cockpit canopy, briefly looking out on the field of high-altitude clouds passing by beneath them.

"You two, are you ready?"

"Let's rock and roll," Dominic responds, calling up his own tactical screens.

"Sir," Liese says simply, eyes locked on her glowing navigational displays and charts.

Gradually, drawing contrails from its wings, the Skytalon dips a wing and begins its gradual descent towards the area -- at a speed that would leave most air traffic controls and others baffled. It's big, but it's /fast/.

Meanwhile somewhere over Mexico City ...

"Huh." Kazuma Ardygun looks at the radar, where Mihiro's highlighted a contact. "What's the Argama doing out here?"

"No idea," Mihiro muses, "but they're launching mobile suits and other units ... should we say hello?"

Kazuma shakes his head. "Nah, they already saw us, I'm pretty sure. If they wanted our help they'd probably have let us know ... how's our fuel supply?"

"We can fly a holding pattern for a while, but the local government and defense forces might not be happy about it."

Kazuma nods. "All right, holding pattern, and let Pops know we're going to be a bit longer ..." He doubts the Argama's going to need any help, but if they do, he'd rather be on-site and ready to lend a hand, if he can linger long enough to be of assistance.

Ah, it's good to be back in a Gernsback. Gundams are nice but there's something so immensely comfortable about that which she (sort of) grew up in. The M9E 006 strides along, ECS enabled, while Mao considers the young woman on her wing.

She's... mousy. But there's a lot of respect that the others have for her, so she gets a test. Though it would help if Rachel wasn't downright terrified of her... "Alright, simple smash and grab, we know the drill. I definitely don't want those terrorists to get their hands on this stuff, and if we can find out what they want with it so much the better. If you get the chance to drop one of their boys, keep him alive for questioning."

She gives a feral grin, shifting slightly in her seat and letting that skintight outfit cling /just/ right. "And watch your backs! Noone gets killed; this means you Athha; without my written permission - and I didn't see you lot before we got here so I assume you didn't want it. Spread out, targets as you see them, stay frosty, and stay alive.

"Or you answer to me."

TWENTY MINUTES AGO

Outside the club above the safehouse, the Mexican police are hard at work guarding the scene until the EFA/A-LAWS forces arrive to confiscate the mysterious equipment below. That equipment in the gross, smelly, mildewed, water-damaged safehouse.

It could be hazardous to the health of these fine officers if nothing were done to sanitise that whole situation!

Two men in sombreros and ponchos are pushing a cart full of brooms and mops towards the police. One is shorter than the other, and wears a thick black moustache which does not quite match with his curly brown hair.

"We've-a just-a got to clean up-a the mess!" he exclaims, flashing an official-looking badge. "Didn't-a Lieutenant Stenbuck tell-a you about us? The paperwork was-a sent through HOURS ago!"

The Mexican police Captain frowns, but can't dispute how official the badge looks. It has stamps on it and everything. And signatures!

He sighs. "Very well. I'll send Sanchez down with you-- no funny business, now," the Captain allows, secretly thinking: damn Italians, taking all our jobs!

"Thank-a you very much!" exclaims the shorter man, pushing the heavily-laden cart down towards the safehouse. Sanchez, a no-nonsense young lady cop, follows after.

The M9 Gernsback: Mithril's iconic Arm Slave, better than the rest. It may not be known by name to the Federation, but it is renowned for it's abilities-- it's agility and mobility, the varying weapon systems, and... perhaps most of all, for it's ECS stealth camoflage suites. Their sleek frames, the silvery-gray color to them. They /are/ the consummate 'urban stealth' unit-- and when they appear, conflict will surely be resolved.

And then, there is the pink one.

The backpack is retrofitted to support the weight of a single booster, flaps built into the sides for some modicum of directional thrust. The M9 was never meant to be a space-use unit, but this machine has been put to the test and through extremes that would otherwise annihilate others. Affixed to the thighs, weapons packs. Sheathed and slung over the left shoulder, one /hell/ of a monomolecular sword.

Inside the pilot's cradle: Rachel Miu Athha, Second Princess of the Orb Union.

With ECS engaged and the Arm Slave striding ahead invisibly, Rachel hears the voice of Melissa Mao ring out to her side, and there's a moment when the Lieutenant speaks that causes the white-haired girl to swallow back her fear and respond with a more solidly-spoken, "Roger!"

As the taller, more dishelved and frankly uglier janitor bangs around in the cart, there seems to be a plethora of dull thuds being elicited with each unkind jostle. And then all of a sudden, there's a sound that -seems- to be akin to the most barely-restrained, suppressed growl ever.

It's probably the wheels on the cart. They must be getting a little rusty.

The tall janitor who only appears uglier because he is far better at rearranging his facial features to create an instant disguise and not at all because he is genetically deficient when compared to the people around him and actually cuts an exotic dash that pulls off the off-putting eyes and the lustrous hair that isn't actually grey at all looks pleased with himself.

Renais Kerdif-Shishioh doesn't approve of Mexico /or/ Celestial Being, so when the call went out to investigate the scene, she was, easily, the second in line to sortie. For that matter, she doesn't really approve of Mazinger Z, either, but she is nonetheless making a final fly-by over Central American airspace, borne by fire and its demonic red wings; launching from a battleship or something probably would have been easier, but no fewer than three captains who she tried to convince to bring her here were afraid of having their vehicles stripped of all their valuables and left propped up on bricks on some Tijuana side street, so here she is.

"Agent Shishioh of 3G, coming in for a landing; I will need an extraction team of some sort. Mazinger Z is entirely too fat for... much of anything, much less this."

There's a lot to be said for self-delusion. Which some might say the tall janitor is guilty of. You beady-eyed, gray-haired motherf--

..er, um.


 * wheel squeak*

"Hua hua hua!" crows the shorter man, in what is probably supposed to be a laugh, but sounds more like a camel's death cry. "A-yes! The wheels are-a getting old! Old and-a wrinkly! And-a they smell bad, too!"

High above Mexico City, on an ariel carrier, a GNXIII emerges from the internal hanger, and disconnects from the internal GN Particle supply. Painted in black, with blue and gold highlights, the mobile suit stands out as an ace custom... But the stylised golden eye draws the hanger crew's eyes. The pilot barely looked human, at times, and creeped out anyone nearby, because with a name like Eight Murasame, they knew that /something/ had to be wrong with her.

Emerging from the locker room, fully suited, the pilot hooked herself onto boarding winch, and lept up into the cockpit. Sealing it shut, the GNXIII moves to the open hanger bay doors, and says, almost in passing, "The attack should begin soon. I will deploy immediatly, and neutralise any... abnormal operatives. Is that a problem?" she asks, not expecting an answer, before hurling herself out of the aircraft, and dropping towards the city.

"A task such as this is ill-suited to my temperament," mutters a man in a black and teal A-LAWS flight suit. His helmet is left to one side; unlike the standard issue helmets, this one has a red panel just above the visor, with small horns rising off of it. Faded burn scarring is visible down the right side of his face, like two wide veins of darker flesh, stretching down from the mask that covers his face from brows to nose. "I am a restless man by nature. This waiting does me little good." His black and white mobile suit sits in the hangar bay of an A-LAWS carrier ship in the Gulf of Mexico, cockpit open while a few unfortunate techs are left to run last-minute checks, making sure the custom tuned machine is ready to launch at any time. They give each other worried glances as the man sitting in the open cockpit talks. He doesn't seem to notice. Scrubbing a gloved hand through shaggy blond hair, the masked man is... Agitated. Far more agitated than he should be. He's tried to meditate, attempted to use his teacher's lessons to calm his mind, to still his fiery soul, but it's done little good. The conversation he had with Leo Stenbuck might be the problem. But... "Incoming!" comes a voice over the ship's intercoms. "Unidentified aerospace fighter descending towards the city -- extremely high speed!" That puts a smile on the masked man's face, as he presses a few buttons on his console, the seat of his cockpit pulling back inside, settling into a reclined position; the cockpit seals itself, panoramic displays coming to life, even as he puts on his helmet. "I shall perform an interception," he says, as the techs begin to clear out: They know better than to argue with him. The ship's captain knows better than to argue with him. This is /going to happen/. Moments later, a spindly mobile suit, armored in white and black, shoots out into the sky over Mexico City at speeds best described as 'patently insane', a streamer of burnt orange GN particles trailing behind it as the GNX-Y901TW Susanowo climbs into the air to meet the Skytalon. It moves with a strange mix of recklessness and precision, but the machine is easily identifiable as being assigned to one, specific A-LAWS ace. "Attention, unknown aircraft!" the One Man Army transmits over an open band. "Stand down and submit to questioning. Resistance would be... Ill advised."

Wufei heard of this build with Celestial being in it. He normally didn't care since the Balmarians were gone, but he figured it didn't hurt to get readings on it and perhaps get a few tech pieces for Juku to help Duo out. However, when he spots Shishioh's Mech, he only grumbles. "Somehow, I'm not surprised the rest of the EFA are here. I wonder how long it'll take the rest of katahron to get here." he then rubs his nose. "The Argama should be here too. Hope no one captures them."

Goddamn immigrants. Should've left your asses to die on that col-- uh.. Buenos Aires. It's rough. In Buenos Aires. Huge problem with asteroids.

"Aha!" The tall janitor stops rattling the cart, picking up a can of powder with 'ZONKER' written on it, pointing at it happily. "De disenfectant!"

SOMEWHERE VAGUELY NEAR MEXICO CITY

Something explodes in a glorious and intentional fashion. There's fire everywhere. It's kind of awesome.

"Not bad," Spectre remarks, looking at the detonation through a pair of handy binoculars. He hands them off to the man next to him, a scraggly type chewing on a toothpick. "See if we can increase the blast radius and the lock speed. I--"

There's a beat. Spectre looks aside and taps his earpiece, listening to his tactical officer break down the sudden job offer they were given. He turns back to the tech next to him. "Is my 'mech powered?"

NOT LONG AFTER

EFA and A-LAWS forces are informed that they have backup from the Wolf's Dragoons incoming to secure the building and the area. They do not /see/ the reinforcements, because it turns out Mithril isn't the only group with stealth equipment.

Spectre idly wishes he brought some bigger guns. There's bound to be Gundams incoming at a Celestial Being facility.

Staren sighs as he stands in the hangar, considering his choices. He hates urban fighting. Civilians could get hurt. Not just by him, but every time he dodges an attack from his attackers. And if he takes advantage of the terrain, hiding... That's bad PR. On the other hand, how much does it really help to be stomping around clumsily? What to do...

It sounds like Mithril's doing their usual stealth thing here. Well then... He may as well make use of Katharon's historical advantage in urban combat, right? Especially if, now that it's no longer an advantage, the enemy brings appropriate units themselves...

A Sol Tekkaman keeps close to one of the other machines launching from the Argama, vanishing into the streets below once it lands. Let's play guerilla warfare!

Johnny lands the Astray a good distance from the safehouse. Inwardly, he is dreading this moment since he knows he'll have to keep anyone from those parts. However, at this moment, Katharon was the only force he could kind of trust being near that safehouse.....plus he needed some of those parts and blowing it up would just hold back Dynames' recovery.

Johnny holds up his targeting computer and pulls it to his one good eye, zooming in on Mazinger as it races by. He licks his lips, positioning the Astray's rifle to take aim at the super robot. "Lets see where this gets us."

"Nowhere fast! Nowhere fast!"

"Heh. Someone is more pessimistic than I remember....then again, you never were my first choice for co-pilot....My brother has him."

"Jerk! Jerk!"

Johnny grins and fires two beams at the Mazinger's left wing.

She so friggin' called it. She can't directly see Rachel's machine in its ECS camouflage (thank god), but she got more than a look at the Pink Satan and the...thing on its back. Sure an M9 can't handle that kind of acceleration. So why not put one on? It'll go fast! Melissa swears Tessa's reading her mind sometimes.

The thin machine she pilots is equipped with no small amount of advanced jamming and electronic warfare equipment. And this equipment springs to life, providing a near-unbreakable communications link to all the Katharon personnel assigned to this particular operation. In addition, a very strong jammer begins operating, flooding various non-Katharon screens with ghost targets, static, and general hard-to-determine garbage. "Jamming active, full power. Watch yourselves, kids."

It won't work against the old-fashioned Mark 1 Eyeball, but it should play merry havoc with anything more advanced than a laptop.

Meanwhile, the young woman piloting the machine gives a sweet smile to her companion on the ground. "Uruz 13," she says with Rachel's provisional SRT designation, "Pick your targets as you see fit, I'll hang back and provide cover." You're supposed to be a melee specialist, Mao thinks. Let's see how you do.

The big 40mm rifle is readied, and she waits, still cloaked. Can't quite yet shoot, but she'll see where ...

Kazuma and Mihiro both jump a bit in their seats at the sudden directive from the A-LAWS. "Wha - Mihiro, who's demanding we stand down?"

"I'm not sure it's *us* they mean ..." Mihiro checks her displays. "Should we answer?"

"Yeah." Kazuma takes a deep breath, trying to get his heart to slow back down to a normal pace. "A-LAWS, this is Kazuma Ardygun of the Valstork Family, piloting the independent mobile unit Valhawk. What seems to be the trouble? We didn't hear anything about this being interdicted airspace or anything."

He and Mihiro are both completely unaware of the contract which Wolf's Dragoons just accepted, and similarly unaware of Spectre and company heading for this general area. If he *did* know, he might be rethinking whether to stay friendly towards the Argama and its forces. Or more likely, he might just be figuring to be somewhere else in the very near future ... but he intensely dislikes it when somebody makes it sound like he's not supposed to be somewhere, and that's exactly the vibe he got off of Bushido's transmission. He's being polite, though - for now.

It's in Bushido's hands, more or less, whether Kazuma STAYS polite.

"De disinfectant!" choruses the shorter man, winking hugely at the taller janitor holding the bottle of 'ZONKERS'. Clearly, they are sharing an inside joke-- or perhaps something more insidious?

The janitor pushes the cart down into the safehouse, turning and walking behind Sanchez to close the makeshift door which has been constructed over the hidden entrance.

He winks again at the taller janitor. Is there something... /more/ going on between these two??

Contrails draw from the wings of the Skytalon. Dipping one wing, it angles towards the airspace surrounding Mexico City at a shallow slope... until the radio message goes through, anyway.

The IFF signature identifies it as a Katharon aircraft, but beyond that, there doesn't seem to be any information. It's like a ghost.

At the sound of Mister Bushido's radio contact, Isa scowls in the cockpit, exhaling sharply through her nose. "...Damn. We've been spotted."

Twisting sideways in flight, the Skytalon noses up and yaws to one side; a motion that should have shorn the wings right off moving at that speed. Whatever this thing is, it's reinforced like nobody's business, not to mention manoeuvrable as all get-out. It's definitely not a standard interceptor or attack aircraft...

<>

Isa curls her lip in scorn, looking over the black-and-white mobile suit. It's only a mobile suit. The Skytalon was designed to counter those kinds of units; though Rachel seems to have an almost unhealthy fear of this thing. She'll treat it carefully... but--

<> Her voice is almost nonchalant. <>

With that retort, the Skytalon screams past the Susanowo, the cannon at the root of the port wing, reports flashing and ammunition chattering against the armour of Isa's target.

"De disenfectant," the tall guy finishes, slapping the bottom of the can once, twice. There's a faint hissing noise familiar to anyone that's ever stood near a mobile suit as it prepares to spit that sticky white... sealant.

Suddenly, the dopey grin stops, the underbitten chin sinks back forward, and the glazed look leaves the janitor's eyes. Kai Shiden locks eyes with Sanchez for half a second, stepping forward. "Sorry."

His foot snaps out, catching her in the abdomen, catapulting her up against the now-closed door. He tosses the 'disenfectant' and springs back - the can erupts into a gob of the sealant that both grips the door firmly in place and soaks the cop like the end of a Japanese gangbang flick, burying her in white. It takes just a second to harden into a foam - and just a few more seconds for Kai to scrape just enough away for the cop to breathe. "You'll be fine. Might need a new uniform." Straightening, he shoves his hands in his pockets, leaning on the wall as he watches the cart. He can't miss this part.

Mazinger Z is bigger and blacker and fatter than Martin Lawrence in any given movie in the 2000s, so despite its wings, a sniper of Johnny One-Eye's caliber has little trouble scoring one of the Jet Scrander's wings.

The problem is, Mazinger Z is big and black and fat enough to turn the rifle rounds aside with little lasting damage--also, it helps that its body is composed of Super Alloy Z, which would be pretty effective for stopping minor damage even on a machine with a sleeker frame.

"Merde," Renais whispers to herself as her eyes lid and briskly scan the output her Library lens is feeding her. "Where are you, where are you, where--"

She pauses; a little of an Astray's fuselage is visible near a building. Accordingly, she grabs a dial and sloooowly turns it to the right, causing Mazinger Z's eyes to well up with golden Photon Power.

"There," she murmurs as the gauge shifts towards red. "Photon Beam!"

With a smoothness that belies its make, Mazinger Z whirls 'round to fire a pair of piercing golden rays of Photon Power from its eyes; they'll cleave through buildings, palm trees, and stray tourists too stupid to be elsewhere on their way to the Astray.

"Trailers, is it," Bushido mutters to himself, his disdain for mercenaries creeping into his voice. Though the original target of his transmission was the Skytalon, well, it /was/ an open frequency... That it reached the Valhawk as well is hardly surprising. That the Valhawk /replies/ is even less so, under the circumstances. "Your assistance is unnecessary," the One Man Army replies to Kazuma. "Allow the actual soldiers to handle this, and find somewhere safe to cower, civilian." Well, he managed to not shout at them, so there's that. Meanwhile -- Skytalon!! The Katharon fighter plane rushes by, its movement punctuated both with cannon fire - which rings against the e-carbon and GN composite armor of the Susanowo, a faint chuckle escaping Bushido at Isa's words... And the Susanowo is /moving/ even as it gets shot, swinging around to bring one spindly leg to bear, actually /kicking/ the Skytalon as it makes its deadly pass. "Well said, terrorist," the masked ace responds, and in a heartbeat the Susanowo has drawn both of its black, curved hybrid state blades, power thrumming through them as the custom built mobile suit gives chase. "In truth, I would have been disappointed with any other response!" But, the A-LAWS pilot doesn't try to hit the Skytalon with its swords, no. More problematically... The machine's waist binders extend, becoming a set of spindly sub-arms, each tipped with a claw of e-carbon infused with GN particles... Which Bushido tries to use to clamp /onto/ the advanced fighter. Uh oh?!

"...Nnngg.." A soft groan escapes the confines of the janitorial cart.

Then all of a sudden, a pair of hands reach up to grasp either side. There's a pull, a protest of metal, and then a figure comes wrenching itself up into the air.

"../Kai/.." Captain Bright grimaces from under the dirty dreadlocks of a mop head hanging over his head, barely obscuring the fresh shiner that's starting to bloom under his right eye. "You're still an asshole." He reaches up, snatching the mop-head off his head and flinging it right at the beady-eyed dashing-my-ass freelance reporter.

Without wasting another precious second, Bright briefly bends down to pick something from the storage beneath him. "Hurry up," he grunts tersely as he shoves snazzy suitcases in the direction of Amuro and Kai.

Johnny curses under his breath as the Mazinger isn't only dinged by the shot. Damnit. The Astray wasn't strong enough to handle a super robot like that and now it's got the Gundam in its sights. As the photon beam is fired from the robot's eyes, the Astray Gundam takes evasive action, attempting to get out of the way of the destructive power of the beam. It manages to miss the critical parts of the Gundam but blasts off armor from the mech's side.

Johnny swings the rifle around, taking aim at the head of the great super robot, waiting for the computer's to lock on. Johnny quickly fires a counter barrage before the computer locks on to Mazinger with the beam rifle. "Sorry about this but I can't lose here today."

Kazuma's eyebrow twitches at Bushido's reply. "'Somewhere safe to cower' ... ?"

Mihiro hurriedly mutes the outgoing radio signal. "Oniichan -"

"Bring us up to full combat power, Mihiro," Kazuma says flatly, opening the throttle to maximum thrust. "And tell that guy that unless he wants to give a better reason for us to pull out - like, an operation in progress he doesn't want us interfering with - then we're not going anywhere."

Mihiro shakes her head. "You're going to get us in trouble again ..." But she opens the frequency again.

"This is Mihiro Ardygun, Valhawk sub-pilot. You ... um, do you have more of a reason for us to stay out of whatever's happening her than to say we should run away like scared children?"

Pressure.

As they advance, Rachel's head tilts upward, indicating for the cameras in the head unit to swivel in the same movement. Systems search and track, and the young pilot's mind files through to try to find where she felt that before-- that familiar sting, the person that...

Kati?

The white-haired girl frowns hard before the comm lines to Mao are re-opened, her voice sounding a little more harsh and strong-- not as mousey as before, not in the /least/. "Lieutenant Mao, I'm sorry: I have to go after one... I'm disengaging ECS!"

And then the 'pink satan' is revealed to the world with a flash of light and a sizzle of electricity, accelerating in speed as it runs across the ground. The legs tuck in tightly, and the M9 Gernsback /leaps/. The jump is nothing short of astounding, carrying her into the sky and toward the A-LAWS carrier-- toward one Jinx in particular.

And then her hands mash down on the control grips, firing the booster. It draws closer, carried by the force of the blue burst that erupts from the backpack, and the 40mm machine cannon is slung around. The thrust cuts short, but she's high enough now that she can be regarded as a threat-- especially as, as she reaches the apex of her leap...

... she starts firing a /lot/ of bullets.

The shorter janitor pulls off his fake moustache and sombrero and-- AMAZINGLY-- it is Amuro Ray himself! "I told you the accents would work," he grouses, pulling a customised Haro v.8 out from under his poncho.

"Let's get to work," he agrees, stopping the suitcase with his foot and leaving it where it is for now. He looks up at the faded Celestial Being insigna and shakes his head. "Those guys never trusted us... and now it's come to this."

The cannon silences once the Skytalon streaks past the Susanowo, preserving what it can of its ammunition. Unlike all these fancy beam weapons, there's only so many bullets to go around... and right now, they have Bushido's name on them.

<> Isa snarls.

Wrenching the flight stick to one side, stomping her foot down so hard on an aileron pedal that the impact shivers up her leg. She glances out the side of the cockpit as she does, rolling the aircraft around and quickly reaching over to kill the engine.

It's just enough to give the grasping sub-arms the slip, and watch as one of them scratches along the fuselage, drawing a line of chrome where the paint's scratched off.

<> She snorts, glancing over to look over her shoulder, before her single eye turns back to the Skytalon's glowing instrument display. <> Calmly, Isa adjusts flips and pulls on the airbrake, further wheeling the Skytalon around in its track. <>

She snorts, bringing the aircraft into a nose-down stall, engines guttering. As she does, she glances up through the canopy, watching the black-and-white unit carefully.

Then, at the last possible instant, she kicks the engine back to life and wrenches the aircraft from its earthward float -- but it doesn't snap into a charge. One would think a jet would have to, but this one just...

It /hangs/. It /hovers/, in midair. Verniers fire all up and down the wings as the Skytalon pivots, turning its nose towards Mister Bushido's distinctive unit.

And in about the same time it takes to do that, there are suddenly a whole lot of missiles dropping from below the wings, corkscrewing their way towards the Susanowo.

<> Isa grunts, eye turning briefly towards her instrument readings. <> Sorry. <>

Even as the rifle beam races towards Mazinger Z, the Photon Power Labs'(and, for now, 3G's) guardian, it soldiers forth.

Even as the compressed Minovsky particle stream pushes against its grill, Mazinger Z stops before the Astray and reaches forward, intent on grappling the OU mobile suit.

Even as sparks and brilliant particulate light shower from Mazinger Z's face, it's dead set on holding the Astray for a single, crushing moment before letting it go.

It'll be long enough for its pilot to transmits, "Non, non, non," in her cold, delicate, thickly Francophonic voice. "You can, and you will, and before you do, you will tell me what you know of Celestial Being and Mithril's operations; they are /terrorists/. It would only /help/ you to help me."

Even as Mazinger gets attacked, Gundam Altron lands near the building. Wufei lands pretty heavily and looks for a suitable entrance for Altron. No, he's not paying attention and is open for attack from behind. Be warned, his reflexes are quick.

Kai, coolly, "The cart was a mess. I had to find de disenfectant." He gives Sanchez one last look before doffing the sombrero, tossing it onto the other one, looking up as a particularly loud explosion rocks the battleground. "Let's hurry." The mops smacks into his face. Kai's mouth pulls into a thin line as it sloughs off.

Kai shucks the overalls as he moves, leaving them in a pile and revealing his standard journalist gear, the blue shirt and white pants - with a tie. He pulls his coat from somewhere on the cart where it really should've gotten dirty but didn't, settling it on his shoulders, barely sparing the CB logo a second glance. They're not too different from Mithril... except that Tessa's always dealt fairly with him. Or is at least good enough to make it look like it. He picks up his white-and-blue suitcase as he passes into the safehouse, taking out a small camera from his jacket pocket, snapping pictures of things as he passes, so that he can study things later in closer detail. "I'll leave the computers to you, Amuro." Kai makes for the nearest documents.

A BattleMech roams the streets. Spectre skirts around town, trying to get to the designated nav point without giving away that he's actually on the approach. Of course, the noise from the 'Mech marching through town is kind of obvious, even if the source isn't. The lightweight (comparatively speaking anyway) machine comes around...

"There's a few," Spectre mutters. He stops, looking up, and waiting for an opportunity. Spectre moves forward, reaching over the control console to tweak the ECM suite a little and get it to counter the field of it he's wandered into--

--and then practically trips over something /else/ that's invisible in a stunning display of how things can go wrong when one is out of sight and radar range. "What the shit is--"

Johnny breaths heavily as his shot hits the target. He quickly throws on the reverse thrusters, pushing back to avoid the super robot's grapple. He knows now that he is going to have to move and shoot to win this fight. Otherwise, this robot will defeat him and he won't be able to keep this whole situation from getting a whole lot worse.

Despite the tension eating away at Johnny's mind, he remained outwardly cool as he makes adjustments on the targeting computer. "Help you help me? I've already helped out the wrong side and I don't think I'll make that mistake twice."

The beam rifle is brought around and fires two quick shots toward the Mazinger's chest wings. "Just back off and we'll call it square."

"/Obviously/, there is a military operation occurring," the One Man Army replies to the transmission from the Valhawk, the Susanowo's sensors picking up the spike in power from the Trailer machine. "You children have had your warning. There will not be another." The Skytalon, meanwhile, does things planes are not supposed to do - and, as the onetime ace of the US Air Force, the masked man would know - hanging in midair before launching a barrage of homing missiles. For the moment, the Valhawk is dismissed from his thoughts, his whole focus put into the enemy he needs to deal with. The black and white Susanowo dives, moving at high speed /towards/ the missiles; its blades move as it reaches them, cleaving the projectiles in half... But unfortunately, none of these strikes carry the A-LAWS mobile suit clear of the ensuing explosions, leaving it buffeted and burnt. But it keeps right on moving. "UNFORTUNATELY," Bushido replies, "YOU WOULD BE BETTER SERVED WORKING TO KEEP /YOURSELF/ SAFE!" He, uh, he might be a little... Not stable, you know? Closing with the Skytalon, the Susanowo's two black blades slash down in a pair of precisely vertical strikes, with the intent of dealing with the plane in the simplest way possible. Cut off the wings.

Staren watches the A-LAWS machines land... and what luck, that Gundam is coming in for a landing nearby, and is facing the other way... Staren sneaks around the building between them, then suddenly LEAPS! Into the air, trying to pounce on the Altron's back and slice it open! If he can manage to cut through and hang on, he'll be free to attack the internals directly... And with any luck, a non-innersphere pilot will be as confused as heck by the attack!

Rachel's sudden leap up is followed swiftly by a sudden *rush* downwards. The GNXIII charges towards Rachel as soon as she makes her move, but not *quite* fast enough. Cannonfire rebounds off the armoured frame of the mobile suit as it closes range, unheeded as it reaches behind itself.

Eight calmly taps a few commands on the control pannel, and gripped the controls. not even flinching as Rachel opens fire. The eerie sensation of being seen from all angles is focussed on the Newtype, as Eight slowly begins to smile. Drawing its massive combination lance/rifle, the GNXIII lunges at the Pink Satan, attempting to skewer it in mid-air, before continuing it fall to earth.

Chang Wufei lurches forward into the building as Altron's cut on the back. The Gundam turns around, slowly compared to the Tekkaman, and flicks out a Dragon Fang to hit him. However, even as he misses, it's double trident comes out, extends and ignites, only to takes one major swing at the mech!

"The more things change, the more they stay the same." Bright glances back at Amuro. He dislodges himself from the cart, stopping once more to grab a suitcase of his own and a bundled coat. The suitcase he puts down on the floor, the coat he unfurls and slips over his arms. As the lapels settle over his chest, it's a well-cut length of Parisian orbital duster. Over the left breast, a stitched-on diamond patch with the words 'KARABA COMMAND' surrounding a needlepoint Earth. It's like Bright has one for every occasion.

At Kai's comment, Bright nods to imply his agreement before turning away. He reaches into his duster, pulling out a pair of space-binoculars to peer through the building's walls at the battle outside. "You'll have to move quickly," he advises. "That battle is progressing hard and fa--" He pauses, his fingers rolling over the adjusting dials to center on something. "...are those Trailer suits?" Bright's lips press into a thin line of pure annoyance. "...Fucking mercenaries."

Well that was unexpected. As Rachel breaks camo and goes tearing across the battlefield, Melissa nods once - and chastises her instinctively, the barking voice of a drill instructor over the radio. "That's Uruz One, Uruz Thirteen! Callsigns only!" But one little mark isn't much. Meanwhile...

...holy mother of god it worked.

She can't help but marvel as Rachel goes skyward, the booster lighting up the field some even in daylight. Damn, Tessa, you build them right. The approval switches to a businesslike formality, as she isolates the target that Rachel's going for.

"Suppressing your-shit!" She can't help the sudden exclamation as another stealthy machine detects her own with the oldest and most cliched means possible. And it downright pisses Melissa off something fierce. As the Spector retreats slightly, the Arm Slave drops its camouflage in a whirlwind of technicolor vomit, and raises the big 40mm cannon.

The cockpit display shows it's not at all a Katharon unit, and Melissa sure as hell hasn't seen one of those before - and as a flashing A-LAWS alarm identifies it she's already pulling the trigger. 40mm shells rip downrange at the EFA unit, going wide as they both manage to avoid each other somehow. She quickly follows it up with the heavy chaingun, hoping to strike at least something.

Isa stares in astonishment as the Susanowo actually charges into the salvo of missiles, sustaining a fair amount of burnt armour for its trouble. Incidentally, the machine is still moving. That's not really...

All three Geist pilots express their startlement at about the same time.

Isa. "What the fuck is he doing--" Dominic. "Shi--it! Move it, babe, /move it/!" Isa. "I am trying, I am trying...!" Liese. "AAAAGHH--!"

In response the aircraft's engines flare to life again, screaming as Isa pushes them for all they're worth, at the same time sliding the tail around. It would be a perfect slide turn if she were actually travelling fast; but this one's done from a dead standstill.

And it still works.

Isa finds herself laughing a moment later. It doesn't sound particularly stable, either; but she's still controlling the aircraft as she does, sending it into a shrieking dive towards the Susanowo. Beneath the cockpit, mechanics whirr and groan as /some/thing reconfigures itself... bay doors open -- special ammunition of some sort? -- and a cannon telescopes from the glowing depths.

Oh, well, that's special.

<> Isa roars, in response to Bushido's reply. <>

The cannon takes a split second for a flare of light to travel up the length to the nose, build for an instant, and then lance out toward the Susanowo with an almost blinding flash of cyan; a cutting, searing laser. It only lasts for a few brief seconds, but it definitely packs more power than that warning shot with the cannon earlier...

Mazinger Z raises both arms and flexes, its rippling biceps and pectorals allowing it to tap the esoteric power of Muscle Mystery and shield it from the Astray's rifle; particles scatter wildly in every direction as the Earth Federation's Hero of the Beach--

Actually, pretty much all that happens is that Super Alloy Z is pretty difficult to properly damage and for some reason, Mazinger Z's autonomous systems caused it to raise its arms at the moment of impact; it's likely that it has something to do with the beam's thermal output, as it automatically does the exact same thing for its chest mounted weapons system for similarly mysterious reasons. Within the cockpit, Renais frowns disapprovingly, almost entirely because she's in yet another giant robot constructed and programmed by crazy people.

"Then you are choosing terrorists and criminals as your 'right side'...? Monsieur, I believe you are /confused/," she coolly replies as the Black Castle of Iron drops its right arm to begin whirling it 'round and 'round at increasingly high speeds. As it does, she's lining a targetting reticle up on the Astray; as soon as a lock is achieved, its eyes flash yellow and then it takes to the skies on a wash of smoke and Scrander fire.

"Rocket Punch!" she exclaims; Mazinger Z responds to her command by suddenly ejecting its right fist and forearm, leaving the rest of the limb to slowly spin back down into stillness. Curiously, the flying fist travels rather directly towards the Astray after an initial end-over-end tumble, and between the jets built into its form and the extra momentum lent to it by all the spinning, Renais hopes that it'll be enough to make the Astray's pilot think twice about aiding and abetting terrorists.

Try as it might, Altron can't seem to get a good stab at the nimble little power armor clinging to its back. "Woah! Looks like you've got one of those itches you can't... quite... reach! And it's about to get a lot worse!" The Zetron cannon folds into position, as Staren sets the Tekkaman's strength to peeling apart the armor plating... and, if he has his way, fires through the hole into the gundam's unprotected insides!

It's not a secret that Rachel isn't a great shot. Ricochets and dings across the armor, but it's good enough, for the time being. The lance comes screaming down at Rachel with the full intent to drive through the cockpit and skewer both the Arm Slave and her chest, a direct, perfect blow--

-- that misses?

Perhaps less that 'it misses' and more that Rachel has slung the machine cannon around in both of the Arm Slave's hands. The length of the gun is used to slam down on the tip of the lance and skims along the shaft with a series of sparks while she descends, hopefully with the GN-XIII not too far behind.

Releasing the gun as she drops, the legs spread out a bit wide and the customized M9 lands on it's feet, arms thrown forward while the weight of the machine goes into a near-tripod stance. It's /miles/ from a textbook landing, and she can almost /feel/ the muscle packs ripple and strain from the shock of such a high fall, but somehow it still ends up working.

Rising from the cratered asphalt and rock, the right arm drops low to the pack mounted on the hip. Pulling it free, a brace swings up under the right arm while armor plating pulls back just the slightest to cover the hand. From the front-- a long blade.

And she runs.

The M9 charges down the street before springing into the air again, legs drawn up and left hand extended. The right arm draws back, and with a violent shift of controls within the cradle, the Newtype thrusts the blade out in a sharp, violent jab before swinging the blade out to the side!

Johnny smiles as he listens to Renais call his side 'terrorists'. It is one of those smiles that keeps one from going into a murderous rage or Irish rage. Johnny didn't like being called a terrorist even if he did some things that one might do. "I suppose I am if this is your definition of a terrorist." He quickly switches controls to get out of the way of the spinning fist. The Astray spins back around and stops to take aim. "So you are pretty well armored... lets see if that's inside too."

The Beam rifle fires three rounds toward the opening in the Mazinger's arm. You know, where the fists docks. Johnny growls under his breath, prepared to get out of the way of any more crazy attacks.

Amuro nods, turning with his Haro to plug it in to a computer on the wall. Red eyes light up as the little basketball machine comes to life, flapping its ears. "HARO! HARO!" it squawks. "AMURO! GENKI! AMURO!"

The father of Haros shudders, but manages a wan smile. "Sure, Haro. I'm genki as hell. Now help me find something useful in here."

The Haro seems just ecstatic to be of use, and the computer screen abruptly turns on and begins scrolling rapidly through a file system. Most of the files are encrypted, but some pop out here and there, giving Amuro a look at what's inside.

"Porn... porn... porn..." he counts off, voice monotone, flipping through them boredly. "Porn... cartoon porn? Gross. More porn..."

Then, his eyes light up. Is it because of the porn??

No. There's a picture on the computer, showing Lyle Dylandy, his former wingman, standing beside... his dancing eyes turn to a frown. What? "Bright... check this out," he calls, gesturing at the screen. "Isn't this that Johnny guy?"

Altron has a really tough time trying to hit the Tekkaman, but really, Wufei isn't really trying. Raids aren't his sort of thing, but he's here to get a reading on the tech there. However, he still tries to hit the Tekkaman with a dragon fang, despite getting hit by the blade.

Kazuma's jaw clenches at the riposte - sort of - from Bushido, and even Mihiro is looking somewhat peeved by now. That's when the radio picks up a transmission from the Valstork.

// Kazuma, Mihiro, get back to the ship. Getting the Valhawk shot up out there isn't going to do anyone any favors. //

Kazuma grits his teeth, but if there's *one* person in the entire Earth Sphere whom he'll listen to and obey orders from with minimal argument, it's his father. "Affirmative. Valhawk, RTB."

Technically it should be RTS, but only the shattered sound barrier is in a position to care as the Valhawk tears off into the distance.

It's true; Mazinger is marginally less well protected on the inside, just because it's infeasible to make /everything/ out of Super Alloy Z. A loud explosion blossoms from the Devil God's stump, and while it frantically windmills the limb to try and put the fire out, the rocket punch is left to fly around with no place to dock.

Thankfully, a rocket punch is still a flying hand composed of superhard material and propelled by powerful jets; thus, while it waits until it can dock with Mazinger Z without being inadvertantly blown up, it opens wide, spirals high into the air above the Astray... and then just falls to try and squash the mobile suit flat against the ground.

The problem with the growing amount of stealth tech in the Earth Sphere, Spectre reflects, is stupid shit like this.

The Spector bounces off the invisible mech, Spectre thrown against the restraints in his 'Mech's cockpit. He looks confused for a second before he realizes what the hell just happened, and as the Arm Slave's colorful barf reveals itself, the Spector... doesn't, so much. It's ridiculous stealth armor works wonders, but the damage to the outside...

The chaingun's rounds pepper the 'Mech, pinging across it's heavy(ish) armor and forcing it back. A beam of red light lances out of one of the hidden weapons on the BattleMech as it becomes actually visible in response, and the Wolf's Dragoons-aligned BattleMech--marked as such by the black wolf's head emblem on a red field on it's shoulder--keeps firing. Where Mao has a chaingun, it has lasers, firing two more searing, mech-melting beams into the AS and then retreating around the corner.

"God damn Mithril!" Spectre curses loudly in his cockpit.

"What..?" Bright glances back at Amuro, confusion playing across his face when he name-drops Johnny. He turns from his position, the soles of his boots clacking against the floor as he walks right up to the terminal. Bright squints at the picture, not entirely making the connection until he reaches out and places his thumb against the picture's eye -- effectively making him one-eyed.

"..but isn't this...?" Bright leans back, his expression annoyed. "What the hell is going on." He cannot help but find his attention slowly drifting to the direction of one Kai Shiden. If there's anyone in Known Space with his finger on the pulse of intrigue, it's this man. "I'm starting to get sick of being played like a fiddle by this Celestial Being."

Kai is like a desk ransacker. With his carefully trained freelance journalist analysis, he's already amassed three piles on the desk he's at - one with apparently irrelevant files, one with relevant files, and one with anything embarassing enough for him to get certain CB agents to get him a cup of coffee or a burger every now and then. Kai Shiden, blackmail king.

Unceremoniously, Kai dumps the irrelevant files - boring personal correspondences, minutae, TV Guides - into a convenient wastebasket, dropping a match in it and nudging it away. He glances over Amuro's shoulder, scratching the side of his chin. "Well." He reaches into his jacket and produces a manilla folder, shoving the other files into it. "I can't say I'm surprised."

He looks at Bright, expression carefully neutral. "The original Lockon Stratos, the one who went missing... until recently, apparently... is Lyle's brother. That's why I set Lyle up with CB - he had that in."

Beat. "Also, you shouldn't wear your command boots on insertion missions."

The GNXIII doesn't land, but instead hovers several meters over the battlefield. Lifting its arms up to parry the incoming blow, Eight forgets, momentarily, the strengths and weaknesses of a GNXIII.

The large chunk of armor shorn from her arm demonstrates this point sussinctly.

Undettered, Eight takes the mobile suit back up, and readies the lance again. But now, she's not readying a charge...

She's readying a barrage. A moment later, a hail of GN beam fire rains down towards the Gernsbeck, as the Cyber-Newtype attempts to flood the area.

Wufei finally makes some progress by using the dragon fangs to grab Staren off his back. And then crush him.

Warnings flash on the inside of Staren's helmet, as metal begins to creak and buckle ominously. What would at worst cripple a mobile suit's limb could _crush_ him if he gives it the chance. This could get ugly FAST. Only one option: He's got to cut his way out! He swings the vibroblade around, trying to cut through the Dragon Fang's mechanism and ruin it's usefulness as a weapon -- and give himself a chance to escape!

Hah! Take that, A-LAWS! She grins as the heavy machinegun bullets hit home, sparking across the surface of the other target. And grunts, when there's a minor explosion on the front of the M9 - some kind of laser weapon that vaporizes a chunk of the armor. Still intact, though, and not that bad...

And good, this one's a professional. She throws the Gernsback to the side, just barely getting the corner of the building in time - as that corner explodes in the torrent of laser fire. Well, then, let's see what you've got, A-LAWS!

One hand picks up a piece of the rubble from the ruined wall, and she throws it at the far wall - hopefully enough to cause a distraction, but not all that much. But instead of peeking around the corner, she follows it up with another similarly-sized object that also bounces off the far wall to, hopefully, land at the feet of the big BattleMech.

When the antitank grenade explodes, /then/ Mao rounds the corner and charges, trusting her ECM and the smoke from the grenade to cover her advance.

The Astray rockets out of the way of the falling fist. The Gundam is hit by the dirt from the impact as it stands just out of the way of the wayward Rocket fist. The Astray takes a leep backwards just incase there is more that fist can do. In the air, the Astray lets a quick barrage of shots at the Mazinger, aiming for the the joint where the leg connects to the torso.

"I'm getting sick of super robots." Johnny fires again.

"Hn," Bushido murmurs, as the Skytalon manages to avoid the slashes, both black blades carving through nothing but empty air. Though it's large for a fighter-type craft, the machine is quite maneuverable, he thinks to himself, his green eyes hooding for a moment. The pilot is clearly talented, too. In some ways, he always feels a bit of regret, that skilled individuals find their way into working for organisations like Katharon, but at the same time... Well, if there weren't talented enemies for him to face, he'd get bored rather quickly. The taunt from Isa causes him to look up and back, the mobile suit mimicking his movement, and he sees the beam begin to charge, to fire... And he hauls back on the controls. Invisibly, GN particles stream from the Susanowo's spiked protrusions, and the dark machine /moves/, blurring out of the way of the laser and twisting about to face the fighter plane, and even as it moves it connects its two swords at their hilts, creating an off-set, double bladed weapon, grasped in the machine's gauntleted left hand as it rushes towards the diving Skytalon. "It seems the era of knights is at an end," the One Man Army notes. "But worry not - consider this a demonstration of my respect for your warrior's honour!" Right about when it's directly under the Skytalon, the Susanowo whirls about, slashing with both ends of its connected blade - the Souten - trying to sever the fighter just behind its cockpit.

Staren was making good progress on the dragon fang. However, Staren forgot about one key component of the Dragon fang. It wasn't the mechanism that was currently crushing the power armor. Nope, not at all. it was the plasma throwers, which Wufei has currently engaged to make the power armor run away.....

All the fist can do /now/ is spiral through the air on its way back to Mazinger Z; as expected, there are some awkward grinding noises as it reattaches to the rest of the super robot's body, but the connection is ultimately successful.

"I am getting sick of super robots," Renais quietly exhales to herself as the Devil God dives to pan across the city in search of the Astray. It doesn't take long to find the mobile suit, either; it's the thing whose beam rifle ends up compromising several of Mazinger Z's leg servos. For the /moment/, this isn't a problem, but as soon as it lands it'll be tipsier than David Hasslehoff five minutes after waking up in the morning.

"Merde," she hisses as the Jet Scrander increases its speed across the city skies; both hands are thrust forward in appropriately heroic posture. As soon as she's gotten an appreciable distance from the Astray, she wheels Mazinger Z around; light glitters off of its right wing.

"Scrander Cutter!" she exclaims, and with that the Black Castle of Iron /screams/ towards the Astray, slicing through the tops of buildings on its way towards trying to bisect the mobile suit with one of its razor sharp demon wings.

Pause.

"..So Lockon Stratos, the Celestial Being Gundam Meister..." Bright glances past Kai's shoulder. "..has just resurfaced pretending to be this 'Johnny One-Eye.'.."

The Captain starts to look right back at Kai. "...and meanwhile, his brother, Lyle Dylandy -- who was one of Amuro's Karaba pilots -- is the current Lockon Stratos..."

You could almost -hear- the sound of Bright's eyes narrowing at Kai. "..who -you- put there.. without telling /me/?"

Kai might find the lapels of his outfit being scrunched up by Bright's hands, who is trying to reach out and grip the freelance journalist up like he was a redheaded step-child. Make that a beady-eyed, grey-haired sonofabitch. "/Kai/..."

Squint, squint, squint. How the hell can he squint so damn far?

A grunt passes Bright's lips. "...Good. Work." His jaw just about juts out past his face when he says that, like he needs to summon every ounce of strength to even say that. Then, he lets go.

"So..." Amuro says slowly, squinting at the picture, then pulling out a space microfiber cloth and wiping Bright's thumbprint from the monitor, "If Lyle is Lockon... and Lyle is the previous Lockon's brother... and this is the previous Lockon's bunker... and the previous Lockon looks exactly like Johnny..."

This is one of those moments which exists purely for the younger and slower people in the viewing audience, who are incapable of inferring and never bothered to pay attention in English class.

"Then that means... Johnny is the previous Lockon... AND Lyle's brother!"

Watching the pattern of the processed, weaponized GN particles, Rachel makes her move-- and her move is straight /up/. The M9 vaults into the air while using the back of the katar pack as an impromptu shield; shots catch and ricochet off along the length while the Arm Slave ascends. Rachel feels the tension of G-force through her legs, her shoulders-- and then her hands mash down on that booster trigger.

Hurtling forward through the sky, the booster's burn carries her toward Eight and her GN-XIII, the left hand swinging out in a sharp, powerful punch-- that just barely misses the A-LAWS Mobile Suit before it lands, clumsily, atop a nearby low-level building. Sliding across the surface of the roof, the windows in the top floor take the time to /explode/ from the forceful impact, and the heels grind against the waist-high (/human/ waist-high) security wall, scattering bricks and mortar to the Mexican streets below.

"Watch where you're shooting, you could cause a lot of damage!!"

And then the Arm Slave moves again, docking the katar pack to the right leg once more. Springing into the air, lunging toward the A-LAWS Jinx, the M9E Gernsback draws a flat blade-- an Anti-Tank Dagger-- and she tries to drive the blade down into the Mobile Suit's armor, to bury it ... and to leave it. If it works to plan, Rachel drops to the ground...

... and then the dagger /explodes/.

Johnny watches the Mazinger pull, following the machine the entire run before its charge. Johnny smiles, taking aim the entire time. He shuts his eyes tight. It was time to end this once and for all. The Astray begins targeting the Mazinger as it starts its charge. The pilot empties his lung and then takes a sharp swallow of air as the computer locks on.

The Mazinger is almost on the Astray now. Johnny opens his eyes, firing directly into the super robot as the wing zips past.

The Wing digs into the Gundam, cutting through the armor around the torso. Still the Orb Union machine stands tall, swinging around as the Super robot pulls past. It quickly fires several rounds into Mazinger's back.

Staren frees himself _just_ in time, as the gout of flame spews past him. Whew! What to do now....

What would the enemy _never_ expect?

Still clinging to the fangs, Staren _pulls himself back in_ and sets to tearing apart the flamethrowers (He's _pretty_ sure he'll be protected from a single gout of flame long enough to get away, and the dragon fang's crushing mechanism he's already taken care of). And then he starts making his way up through the arm, slashing and tearing apart machinery as he goes... possibly even into the shoulder and main body!

Kai lays his hands on Bright's fists, meeting the gaze evenly. In a mobile suit, Kai remains terrified at all times. Anything can go wrong at any time.

Outside, he is completely self-posessed. Professional.

"The point of a spymaster is to keep all this shit straight so you don't have to worry about it until you need to." He doesn't move to push him away, though. "Besides, his reports have been getting vaguer. Either CB's quieted, or..." He lets it hang as Bright drops him, straightening his jacket. "Anyway."

Kai holds up the folder, stuffing it back into his pocket. "This has all I could find. There were plans of some kind, right where Johnny said, but I'm no engineer - I'll pass 'em to you when we're outta here, Amuro."

He pauses for a long moment, and then looks at Bright, letting him make the next decision. "...unless you want me to make copies, first.

The unspoken addition: 'So I can send along the originals.'

The two machines rush towards each other; one diving, one ascending.

As it screams toward the earth, the Skytalon reflects the desert below in a haze of reflected golden light. The occasional score here or there baring the chrome beneath its black paint upper surfaces. Though largely untouched, that's most likely a matter of luck.

"Shit. This does not look good..." Isa narrows her eye at the trajectory, and the sudden manoeuvring as the Susanowo forms one weapon from its two. Going by the way the weapon juts up into the empty desert sky, it...

Isa's mental calculations are interrupted. "Oh, shi--"

The Susanowo's double-bladed weapon slams into the hull right behind the cockpit. With a scream of metal (which drowns out Liese's panicked screaming), it rips through the equipment directly behind the cockpit block, evidently doing all sorts of lovely things to the inside of a very tempermental fighting jet.

It gives another tortured shriek as the weapon is dislodged, mainly by the Skytalon rolling sideways. The blade comes dangerously close to ripping through a wing, but thankfully it doesn't; instead tearing more of the upper surface of the fuselage apart in its exit trajectory, leaving a broken gash. Leftover pieces and scraps flutter, some of those in turn tearing themselves free at the sheer force of wind around the aircraft.

As one, all three of the holographic cockpit displays suddenly dissolve into static and wink out.

"Shit!" Isa doesn't bother disguising her fury, this time. "Shit! Liese, bring those back up!"

"I can't! He took out the whole goddamn package!"

"God dammit. We're onto visual targeting, babe." Dominic sets his jaw. "Bring her around. We can still do this."

Snarling, Isa banks the aircraft, turning its nose back around for the black-and-white Susanowo.

<> Isa snarls. The transmission is so chewed up by static that it's difficult to tell what she's saying, but it seems that it still works. <>

Adjusting its path slightly, the Skytalon now trails smoke as it rushes for the Susanowo again -- but this time it banks up, trying to gain some alttiude on the unit, screaming past in a flash of thick black smoke and cyan afterburners. Where's she going? Are the Skytalon's systems too messed up to target properly?

...Nope.

That's because as Isa passes her fighter overhead, it looses an unholy /barrage/ of ordinance from the wings. Bombs, of just about every sort and designation -- big ones, small ones, even a slew of highly volatile (and highly damaging) FAEBs.

<<Surprise, you bastard,>> Isa rasps furiously, pushing the engines into a hasty vertical climb to get away from the impending fireworks.

Each rifle shot dents Mazinger Z's broad black back, slowing its flight beyond the Astray until it's finally forced to draw to a halt; when it does, it slowly turns - still under assault, and now beginning to suffer small /holes/ tunneled into its supposedly invincible body by the neverending stream of compressed particles - and sets both eyes on the Astray.

Within the Hover Pilder, Renais clenches her teeth and grips one of the levers arrayed across its bizarre command console. As she nudges it forward, aerosol devices secreted behind Mazinger Z's already damaged grill are primed and the unmistakable whirr of turbines spinning up to full strength echoes across the city.

"Rust Hurricane!" she exclaims upon sharply forcing the lever to the very end of its path; between the movement and the vocal command, what was a building storm suddenly explodes into gale force winds bearing an acidic payload towards the Astray.

"It is not too late," she informs its pilot as the buildings before her are pulverized and pitted by wind-borne solvents.

"You may turn yourself in at any time."

The man in the Tekkaman Power armor was foolish to climb onto Altron's Dragon Fang to try and take it out. Wufei Extended that same dragon fang, but not into a building. He extended it towards the ground. The Force of the hit on the ground seemed to be enough to power down the armor and dislodge the armor with it's pilot, but Wufei CATCHES the armor before it can hit the ground, then lowers it to the ground near a building. Checking for life signs, Wufei smiles. "he's a warrior, that one. I'll have to keep an eye out for him in the future."

Spectre knows what he's doing, and as a plus, he is definitely not one of the many kids running around this planet with a giant robot. Mao can appreciate this fact while he's trying to take her Arm Slave to the junkyard. He doesn't fall for the distraction; his eyes flick that way but the 'Mech doesn't turn, and when he starts to advance again, there's something... else.

KRA-KOOOOOM. The BattleMech stumbles backwards, and Spectre swings one hand out to catch the Arm Slave in the side before it can get to him--which doesn't quite work. The smoke makes visibility awful, but Spectre can't see the enemy anyway.

The trick, therefore, is to aim at the empty spot in the cloud.

The Spector disappears. Mao might spot strange particles, violet and blue, lingering in the smoke. The sound of the 'Mech nearby is mysteriously absent. There's a sort of telltale whining sound, something vaguely like an A-LAWS GN-XIII coming near...

The Spector suddenly drops out of the sky, right on top of where he thinks Arm Slave is. Earth mechs, he finds, are awful fragile when confronted with multiple tons of force dropping on them...

Bright Noa sets his jaw in thought. "Any hope at letting Celestial Being think nothing has changed is going out the window once they get wind of this." He turns and lifts his space-binoculars up, sweeping it from left to right to observe the battle outside. "...We'll talk about this later. Right now we need to get moving."

It's as Wufei turns the Dragonfang and begins to punch it down that Staren realizes that he's made a serious mistake -- The Gundam could use its strength to punch _into_ the ground, and trap him with flame to be cooked. Now he's going to die, because he realized a split second too late.

But the Gundam doesn't pound into the ground that hard -- only hard enough to dislodge him. And then it _catches_ him _without_ crushing him, and sets him down. He's been spared. "Thank you." he transmits, before activating the retrieval beacon and hitting the emergency release to get the now-nonfunctional armor off, and then starts running away on foot.

Though Mister Bushido has faced many deadly and dangerous opponents before... So often it's a question of raw power, not finesse. The skillful way in which Isa and her two copilots handle the Skytalon is certainly impressive, and it's enough to keep the masked A-LAWS ace on his toes, as it were, forcing him to coax every bit of maneuverability he can get out of his custom high-speed machine. Which proves to be a good thing, because if there's anything the Katharon fighter still has up its sleeve, it's... Munitions. The Susanowo is left to weave and dodge through the oncoming bombs, heedlessly letting them fall towards the earth below - the consequences being of little interest to the One Man Army, focused on the battle at hand as he is - rushing up after the climbing Skytalon. "It seems you choose to reject my sentiments," Bushido says, sounding a little bit disappointed. Nobody ever seems to really /get/ him on that level, the savage razor-edged purity of the warrior's way... But he keeps hoping. Not that he would balk at killing the first person who did, of course. No, that would make it all the more fitting. The two GN Drive Taus that power the Susanowo spin up, producing a hellacious volume of particles as the mobile suit speeds after the Skytalon, and as it goes a trailing energy connector snakes to secure itself to the Souten, linking the weapon directly to the back-mounted GN condenser, its supply of stored, compressed particles streaming into the hybrid state blades, strengthening them, sharpening them... Somehow, the Susanowo actually /passes/ the Skytalon in midair, pausing briefly in front of the fighter before lunging forward at top speed, aiming to scythe the Souten through the Katharon craft, in a display of frightening, bloodthirsty precision. "Surprise," the masked man says, his voice pitched dangerously low.

Attempting to react to the smaller Gernsback is harder then Eight realised, as it manages to catch up to the Jinx-3's wild movements. Catching a dagger in the outer hull wasn't terrible, and it now deprived her of a --

The explotion tears the front of the mobile suit clean off, exposing the inner frame and mechanisms to the open air. Even the GN Drive has problems keeping it aloft with that much damage, and it slowly lowers itself to the ground. Eigh switches off the glaring emergency lights, leaving only the bright red status indicators on her HUD. A trick knife. Why had /she/ never thought of that? Getting back into a standby position, Eight readies her lance once again. The low whine of the GN Drive flares into a roar once again, and *charges* forwards, leaving a thick, heavy trail of red particles as she lunges, full-speed, towards Rachel!

Johnny smiles as the holes start appearing in the Mazinger's armor. He is doing pretty well against the hero of Japan. He watches the machine start to turn and start to hover. He listens to the whirr and starts to raise his rifle. "No where to run, Haro." He takes aim, taking another deep breath.

"Thats the thing. I already spent a year of my life being captured. I'd rather die than have my comrades save me again. That's the way it is." He smiles, taking his time to aim as the hurricane winds start to blow. The Gundam shifts back and form as the winds batter the hull. The Rust particles begin to eat away at the armor and yet it doesn't try to move away. It aims toward the grill and hopefully hits the off switch with one decisive shot. "This is the end."

"Too slow, fascist!" The Gernsback ducks underneath the flailing attack of the Spector, and Melissa grins. Heh, that big...wait, what the hell?

As the Spector lifts skyward on its own jets - what the hell, him too - the smoke cloud blows away, revealing the pale grey Mithril machine. The M9 brings the big 40mm up, opening fire on the airborne machine - as he cuts the jets and lands practically right on top of her.

"Son of a bitch..." Earth machines may not be as strongly-built as Melissa might like - but they're a hell of a lot tougher than that silly baroque statue in front of her. She can't help but taunt, as the Gernsback ditches its cannon and draws a sword nearly as big as it is - with the blade of a chain.

"Come on, scumbag, let's see if your momma was wasting her time!" And with a roar of anger, she swings that sword around as hard as she can, aiming to cut the Spector clean in half.

The moment after the rifle shot sizzles through one of Mazinger Z's wind generators and cauterizes its acid emission devices, the Castle of Black Iron has brought its arms high to flex once more.

This time, however, the faintly vanity-induced gesture is accompanied by amber light spreading across the symbol attached to its chest; composed of hundreds of heat emitting panels, the symbol is both a stylish mark of individualization in a world /full/ of improbable super robots and a dangerous weapon in its own right.

"Yes," Renais agrees. as she quietly calculates her escape from the machine whose offensive options are rapidly falling away. "This is the end."

"Breast Fire!"

Mazinger Z itself is lost behind the rampaging tide of ruby fire pouring from its chest. It pulverizes the city streets, melts brick and glass, and most of all /roars/ as it traces its way towards the Astray, where its punishing heat will be focused for as long as it can be generated.

Hands tight around the flight stick, boots set firmly on the aileron pedals, it takes all that Isa Reichert can give to keep the Skytalon in the air. Small wonder Rachel seemed terrified of this opponent. He's a skillful pilot.

Isa exhales, slowly, shakily.

"Domino, how are we on ammo?"

"We've got plenty to waste on that cocky bastard." The second pilot takes a quick glance out the cockpit canopy, ignoring his dark HUD screens. "Weapons hot, ready to fire. No software, but I can get a visual lock on him."

"Do it. We will not last long like this, I think.

<<Forgive me if I do not want to die just yet,>> Isa spits; not quite scornful, but not exactly accepting, either. As before, her signal is so chewed up by static that it'll take some concentration to make out what she's actually saying. <<There is thing or two I need to do before I die. It cannot wait!>>

Before she becomes a second sun over the battlefield, she /will/ either clear her name, or help to dismantle the Federation, one unit at a time. Whichever comes first. She can't let herself die until she's no longer an unjustly accused criminal. Until that's lifted from her record, no grave will hold her.

She'll see to it.

<<Have you ever done something that was not understood?>> The Yuktobanian's voice sounds almost subdued. Or, maybe she's just leading him along. It's hard to say. <<Something that was not meant to happen like it did? Something you would do anything to change? Prastitye.>> Sorry. <<That is why I cannot die here...!>>

Isa looks up, around, over, keeping her single eye on the Susanowo for as long as she can. If she loses sight of it, they'll be done for. The electronics systems still haven't come back online yet.

"Liese! Get those goddamn computer back up!"

"I'm trying, I'm trying...!"

Turning the Skytalon around again, Isa glances over her shoulder. "Domino! Missi--"

"Babe! /Move it/!"

Dominic's panicked shout is the only thing that keeps the Skytalon from being skewered. Without even thinking Isa jerks the jet down so far it actually rolls all the way around, cockpit glass facing the desert sand below; the move throws all three of them against their harness restraints, Isa grunting as her helmet bounces painfully against the cockpit glass above. Er... below.

"Owe you one for that."

"I stopped countin' years ago." Even Dominic sounds shaky. "Where'd the bloody bastard go?"

"There!" Liese points, in between her desperate attempts to bring the Skytalon's computers back online.

Isa lets the Skytalon roll, falling into a partial stall. If not for the lack of smoke or explosions, it might seem as though the Skytalon had been struck, drifting aimlessly, only its forward momentum carrying it to drift in a gentle arc back earthward...

...but in reality it waits, letting the Susanowo pass overhead, before gunning the engines. Ripping straight up, the aircraft's engines thunder, shaking the cockpit so hard that all three pilots' teeth chatter.

"Got 'em!" Liese's triumphant crow preceeds all three cockpits' display screens flickering back to life. The Skytalon runs a brief damage diagnostic before it seems that normal function returns.

"Domino! Talon! /Now/!"

"Two steps ahead of you!"

As before, the cannon telescopes from its bay, catching the sun as the aircraft makes a straight, vertical climb. It goes quite high -- before simply looping over and heading for the earth, nose-first, in a suicidal death dive.

There is an ominous cyan glow from deep within the cannon bay; it arcs up the length of the cannon, and then out toward the Susanowo in a brilliant flash and lance of destructive light.

The Jinx-Three's movements become a bit better, a bit more direct. She may have torn a massive hole in the Mobile Suit, but Rachel didn't disable it-- she would have to do better for that. She'd have to force the GN Tau Drive to purge, for that. The lance rips across the M9's outer armor, shearing through layers of protection until the tip snags against the core protections of the pilot's cradle.

Rachel keeps a steady hand on things even as her screens momentarily blitz to the glow of static, eyes squinting just slightly as she trusts-- well, she trusts her feelings, her senses instead.

The M9's hands reach out to slam the lance away after that moment of hesitation, and the hands sling up over the shoulder to take hold of the fairly lengthy monomolecular sword sheathed over the Arm Slave's shoulder. Held at first in the left hand, Rachel swings the blade down to crack against the lance, to unsteady the weapon and perhaps the Mobile Suit at the end of it.

And then, with all of her knowledge and experience in the form of Federation Mobile Suits, Rachel steps forward with a /perfect/ overhead, two-handed swing worthy of a Japanese swordsman or someone with a goddamn Zankantou-- and aims to bring the blade down into the middle of the GNX-III's torso, well above the cockpit bloc in the hip!

The Gundam keeps it's aim on the Mazinger. Johnny doesn't stop when he sees the wings on the super robot's chest start to glow. He isn't going to stop now. He has to make this shot. He fires again and again as the crimson flames comes down on him like the fist of an angry god. The Gundam's computer's scream as they over heat and the mobile suit is burned into malfunctioning.

Johnny smiles as he leans back in his chair, prepared for what happens next.

Amy. Mom. Dad.

He can see their faces as he shuts his eyes and waits for everything to stop.

And it almost does....until the flames stop and Johnny opens his eyes. He looks down at the Haro whose been with him the entire Balmarian invasion. The one Tapud abused and battered. The one who came back from it all still as cheerful as ever. He sees the dark eyes and the sphere smoking.

Johnny frowns and looks away. "Guess only one of us got out of here.... Goodbye, old friend."

Johnny sighs, wondering if he can pry open the door before Mazinger takes him off to space jail.

Jumpjets are a staple of Inner Sphere engineering, especially for the lighter weight classes... but they don't tend to normally have something resembling a GN Tau Drive attached to them. The Spector kicks off of the Gernsback and starts to come down--and then gets caught by a chainsword, of all things, ripping into the side of the leg and tearing right into one of the 'Mech's leg servos.

The Spector hits the ground, hard. It pitches over backwards, but the pilot twists the torso and swings the damaged leg behind it, bracing it enough to stand back up. He can move it, but not much; she's limited his mobility by hacking the thing to sparking pieces, the gaping wound in the 'Mech's armor leaving myomer and internal structure visible.

"Shit," Spectre utters. "We'll see if I let you do /that/ again. C'mon, show me why Mithril keeps you on their payroll!" The Spector 'hops' backwards with a burst from it's jumpjets, firing down on the Arm Slave that's practically on top of it. The two medium lasers talk like guns, alternating fire to keep up the barrage. The bigger barrel finally flashes, the larger beam threatening to do like the Gernsback.

That is, put a very large hole in something.

"I'd say to make copies, but it's up to the Admiral," Amuro replies, unhooking the Haro and turning back to the blue and white suitcase behind him. "We've got to get out of here... the EFA will be arriving any minute, and it isn't sounding good for our boys out there." And girls, of course. A vague worry for Rachel tugs at the back of his mind, but he shoves it away. She can handle herself.

He's been a terrible mentor, anyway.

With more force than he really needs, Amuro kicks the suitcase, which springs open immediately. A gleaming white breastplate is revealed, and he pulls it out to place over his chest. A small helmet is next, also white slashed with blue. "Let's rock and roll."

SOL TEKKAMAN: ONLINE

The armor seems to grow out of the pieces already attached, and more bits are pulled from the suitcase to form the diminutive but effective personal suit of armor. The whole process takes about a minute, but when it's done, Amuro Ray is fully protected-- and armed. A Zetron pistol blast destroys the computer, and then he sets to work on the rest of the safehouse. After a few more blasts, he turns to pull Sanchez off the wall, kick the door down, then dash out into the middle of the battleground.

The agility of the Skytalon, and the ability of its pilots is once again not to be underestimated; Bushido's deadliest technique is /avoided/, which is rather impressive no matter who's at the controls, the Susanowo's charging slash meeting nothing but air, eliciting a widening of the masked man's green eyes... And a slow pull of his mouth into a small smile. Oh, but there are worthwhile opponents all over. "You would be surprised," the One Man Army replies to Isa's remarks, even if she is possibly stalling for time. "There are few who choose to pick up a weapon and fight who exist without regrets, and of course... I am little but a wandering ghost, still walking this world to set right that which once went wrong!" 'You should talk to her,' Leo Stenbuck's voice says in the back of the masked man's thoughts, he shakes it off. 'You're distorted!' shouts another young man, one to whom Bushido is connected by a destiny of battle. But either way... The Susanowo screams through the protesting air as it climbs towards the diving Skytalon, the advanced inertial compensation system - derived from leaked Celestial Being technology - barely enough to keep the G forces from crushing the One Man Army against his seat. "COME!" he shouts, the deft machine skimming /along/ the beam from the Skytalon's cannon, close enough that alarms begin going off inside the cockpit, alerting him to a rise in surface temperature - a warning he ignores. "SHOW ME!!" It's like a game of chicken, in midair, between an oversized jet fighter and a crazy samurai mobile suit, and the Susanowo seems disinclined to break off, particularly as this results in, well. It sort of... Headbutts the Skylaton? "YOUR WILL TO EXIST!!" Between the great prongs of its samurai-style crest, /something/ begins to coalesce. GN particles, burnt orange, spinning rapidly as they gather, forming into a ring of brilliant light. The ring launches out from the space between those antennae, hurling itself at the Skytalon with cutting force.

Johnny won't have to find out, because while Mazinger Z is looking pretty good on the outside - some dents, a few holes pockmarking its surface - it's a goddamn /mess/ inside. Juzo Kabuto designed it to be unassailable from the outside; engineering limitations have prevented him from making its inner workings similarly invulnerable, and so while it pains her, Renais is forced to fly from the scene rather than trying to lift the Astray and risk blowing out its arm servos or something.

Before she's too far away, she will transmit the Astray's coordinates in the hopes that some other pilot manages to pick its pilot up before it's too late.

"Another time," she informs Johnny, " you will tell me what I need to know; I am very patient."

The Gernsbeck's sudden strike was sudden, smooth, and... perfectly predictable. The GNXIII slides away to one side, smoothly evading the overhead slash, and backing away. Far away, given the damage Eight's suffered, but that won't be possible... Unless.

Drawing its left arm back, the GNXIII reaches for a storage compartment, and withdraws a large grenade. With a smooth, rapid toss, the A-LAWS mobile suit hurtles it at the Gernsbeck, where it will hopefully be caugh in a massive blast of GN Particles, soaking the area in a choking, luminescent cloud, and momentarily tearing away control systems and electronics!

"No, there's--" Kai starts as Amuro kicks at the case and goes about it all wrong. Sigh.

He crouches down, flicking open the tabs and thrusting his hands inside. The suitcase springs open, falling away as Kai brings the entire chestpiece-head setup onto his chest, which snaps on automatically. It saves a whole two seconds! Once the last of the armor covers his feet, Kai lifts off, turning in the opposite direction of Amuro, blasting his Zetron pistol where the Newtype of Newtypes doesn't hit it. He's right out at his heels, files well-protected, dragging the freed Sanchez out with him. With the way Mao was shouting to 'take it out', hoping the cop would leave under her own power would be... unwise. "Get everyone out of here, it's going down!"

The cop that let the three of them in in the first place, valiantly staying his ground during the firefight, is nonplussed by the Tekkaman egress.

"So this is what I've been throwing the two of you into for over a year," Bright considers aloud as he trips his suitcase's trigger with his boot. Armor plating slides over his shoulders and chest, followed by helmet and gloves. Neuro-linkage cables click into place and the visor over Bright's face comes to life with a transparent display and HUD details.

SOL TEKKAMAN: ONLINE

Sol Tekkaman: Bright Noa Use rockets after Amuro, laser cannon in both hands. Natural light is filtered through the myriad sensors of the combat suit, enabling the Admiral to pick apart targets in the sky. There's a pink Murasame on the field -- it must obviously belong to Rachel. A quick clench of Bright's jaw and the muscle command queues up the radio link. "Rachel, you'll need to put your target down like a dog and move to the next one. There's no time left to screw around!"

Johnny forces the hatch open and quickly exits the Gundam with a repel line. He coughs as he hits the ground, looking up at the cockpit one last time. He shoots the 'dead' Haro a salute, quickly moving out of the area. The scene looks rather grim and it doesn't look like katharon can do a pick up as of yet.

This is why Johnny quickly moves to an overturned cop car and starts pulling at something.

A FEW MINUTES LATER

A cop in a rather battered uniform stands up and starts for safety aka AWAY from the former safe house. Johnny adjusts his eyepatch and then his cop hat. He is going to need to make contact later when there isn't feds around.

One moment is spared to glance skyward at the Skytalon overhead. One moment is spared to glance at Rachel's own Gernsback. And a whole lot of moments to glance at the chainsword's strike and pretty sparks when it bites into the BattleMech. However, it pulls something gutsy she doesn't expect.

Normally with that much damage to an Arm Slave, the idea of jumping around - with rocket thrust no less, and far too much of it to be that mobile - would be dangerous as hell. But the Spector pulls it off, and she can't help but be startled by the unexpected and likely impossible maneuver.

Which leaves her wide open for the energy weapons on the other target to cut the smaller M9 wide open, shredding the musculature and dropping it like a poleaxed bull. Giving the order to destroy the target over the radio's emergency batteries, Mao can only climb from the crippled machine and scuttle like a very pissed-off rat into the damaged building nearby.

"Hola. Mi nombre es Melissa Mao. Ese mat mi robusteza. Preprese para ser reservado." Did that have any of the words she's not supposed to say? Perro, tu mama, mari - nope, she's safe. And with that and a big smile to the family hiding under the bed, the SRT lieutenant skedaddles like a goldfish in a shark tank.

The grenade explodes at close range-- and systems start going haywire. The wash of burnt orange GN particles blows across the hull of the pink M9, disrupting it's ECS suites-- and they aren't even /running/-- disrupting targeting, disrupting... well, everything. Still, Rachel Miu Athha is not someone to give up, especially when Bright Noa is now on the line, breathing down her neck.

"Yes, sir!"

The M9E Gernsback CIS-Type does not shy away from Eight Murasame or the GN-XIII. Instead, it charges. Her screens blitz with static, ripple from false signals and damage, but all she cares about is how fast, how far, and how /quick/ she can move. Aiming to chase down the A-LAWS Mobile Suit in one massive lunge as the space-use booster burns, throwing the lunging Arm Slave through the air. Her initial stab misses, but she abandons the katar pack to the ground.

Reaching out with two more of those Anti-Tank Daggers, Rachel attempts to drive them both into the wide-open hull of the GN-XIII, straight into the inner workings to leave them there-- and then the machine swings up one leg in a pose that mirrors Quattro Bajeena and his Hyaku Shiki to KICK.

"GO DOWN!"

Smoke trails from the open gouge over the top of the Skytalon, right behind the cockpit block. No doubt that same blow also managed to wreak havoc on the ejection systems.

In spite of it, the Skytalon keeps on flying -- it seems that it's manoeuvrable /and/ tough. Or, maybe its pilots are the tough ones. One or the other.

"What the hell is he doing? Why isn't he breaking away!?" Dominic stares in disbelief as the Skytalon thunders forward, the light of its laser cannon dying away. The cannon itself retracts back into its bay, doors closing, bolts turning home to lock the bay doors. Everything running as it should, but--

"Oh, /shit/! Pull up, pull up! Get us out of here!"

"Nyet!" Isa snarls. "No time!"

Any attempt to pull themselves to one side would only result in gutting the aircraft like an aluminium fish. Instead, Isa pushes the throttle for all it's worth, throwing the Skytalon low, dipping beneath the Susanowo. She can't avoid the energy, though.

Mister Bushido manages to score a devastating blow on the aircraft, and the ring of light manages to glance off the cockpit glass. It lances straight along the back of the aircraft, ripping up its light armour and shearing through part of the fuselage, one side of the tail, a wing, and completely ruining one of its turbofan engines, which ruptures in a brilliant fireball.

The concussive force of all of this is enough to wrench the jet in midair, like a great hand picking it up and flinging it off its course like a broken glider made of balsa wood. All three pilots are jerked in their harnesses; Isa is thrown against the console like a broken ragdoll, while her two cohorts seem to fare only marginally better.

"Shit." Dominic takes over in a hurry; it seems Isa was thrown forward with enough force to knock her out. "Override, override...!"

The control rewires to the Skytalon's beleaguered weapons operator, and not a moment too soon. Trailing thick black smoke where the engine is still burning, he shakes his head, growling under his breath; he seizes the controls and fights the crippled jet into an eastward trajectory. "Shit," he adds, for good measure, glancing toward the forward seat where Isa sags.

"Rabbit, get me those waypoints."

"Y-yeah."

<<Geist Two to allied Katharon forces. The Skytalon's crippled and my captain's been incapacitated. We're bugging out.>> Dominic shakes his head, even though no one's going to see it. <<Sorry we couldn't be more useful -- he was too strong for us, this time.>>

Twisting, the Skytalon punches its remaining engine. It must say something for it, that it can still function after an engine's been destroyed. There must be all sorts of reinforcement and suchlike beneath the surface. In fact, some of that baffling is visible through the /giant gaping hole/.

Well, it'll be enough to get them out of here, anyway.

The Spector is a remarkable machine, but it takes a good pilot for it to really be useful when it gets crippled like that. The BattleMech turns slowly, watching Melissa Mao evacuate the machine and run for cover and maybe help. Spectre doesn't bother taking shots at her as long as she gets out of there. He's not here to murder people; just their war machines.

Limping forward, the Spector moves alongside the ripped up M9 and starts looking to the sky. Spectre flicks his comm onto another channel, connecting to his own people. "Castle, this is Spectre. We've got some salvage here for a change; have the crew start moving in to pick it up. I'll be on-site until the rest of Katharon's mechanized forces have withdrawn or been shot to hell."

The voice on the other end replies in the affirmative. Spectre nods a little to himself, turns, and looks to the sky. He watches the other M9 dive to and from, waiting for a clear shot or the all-clear...

Amuro passes Sanchez back to Kai on the way out the door, and immediately opens up on the EFA forces with covering fire from his Zetron pistol and rifle, held akimbo. "Kai, pass that officer back to Bright-- you and I need to cover this retreat!"

As Mao and Isa are forced to scatter, Amuro pounces up to the roof the strip club in his Sol Tekkaman, then clears a city block with his next leap, landing far from the building in question. Then the Zetron weapons open up again, harrying Mazinger Z and the Spector, giving his allies time to get clear. At the least, he can draw their attention to himself.

As the GN Chakram strikes the Skytalon, Mister Bushido pulls back hard on the controls of the Susanowo, and the black and white mobile suit lifts and pulls back away from the fighter jet, its weapon still held at the ready by its gauntleted left hand, but otherwise... "Hmph, withdrawing, are you?" the masked ace wonders, and the idea of finishing the job briefly occurs to him - it wouldn't be that hard, as badly damaged as the advanced plane is, he could simply destroy it, and then-- No, he decides, shaking his head. "It would be a shame if you died before I could kill you honourably," the One Man Army declares, and the Susanowo turns from the departing Skytalon, returning its attention to the rest of the debacle in the city below.

The GNXIII goes up.

Evading the Gernsbeck's wild swings with its katars, Eight drives her mobile suit high into the air, watching Rachel wildly swing, stab, and kick at empty space. Climbing hight into the sky, she turns around, and casually drops another grenade, hoping to keep Rachel distracted for just a scant few seconds more, as she signals the carrier orbiting overhead.

Kai pulls up just for a second to hand the cop off to Bright - and then he splits off from Amuro, twisting in the air to fire the Zetron pistol basically randomly into the air. It's covering fire, it doesn't need to /hit./ But...

"No you don't, war profiteer..." Kai growls, gritting his teeth. He has a couple reasons for doing this. First, slap a Trailer in the face. Second, slap a Trailer in the face. Third... he likes it when Mithril owes him favors, even little ones. A white light blooms from the end of his laser cannon as he rights himself, putting feet on the ground, and dropping onto his stomach. "You ain't getting that!" He yells, the Tekkaman broadcasting it out, a bright beam shooting from the cannon, burning toward the Gernsback's power source. Or, at least where Kai surmises it is - if he misses, he'll just keep firing, trying to reduce the salvage all the way to scrap.

Miss. Again.

The chainguns mounted in the Arm Slave's head only belch out a small amount of gunfire before ceasing, before it becomes clear that the pressure-- the presence that is Eight Murasame-- starts to go further and further away. Bending down, the fingers of the machine manage to scoop up the katar pack again by it's handle, collapsing it and connecting it to the thigh.

Springing up into the air, the M9 lands on a short, nearby building, the rooftop managing to support the weight. The Arm Slave stumbles, briefly, before it manages to keep it's footing. Rachel grunts, and then does something stupid-- really, really stupid.

She opens the pilot's cradle for a moment, just to get a glimpse outside that is not filled with static and distortion. White hair whips around as her head turns, getting the look she needs-- and then closing it back down tightly.

The tactical data from Bright is immensely helpful, now that she has something better to lay over the images and data breakages, but then the Arm Slave slings out the length of the monomolecular sword and levels it--

-- on the Susanowo.

"Stand down, Captain Aker!! I'm not as good as you, but if you go after more of my friends, I..." she calls, a familiar voice without a familiar accent. A ghost, if you will.

Just like him.

"I'll stop you!!"

Bright Noa takes the cop in his powered arm. Meanwhile, tactical data streams past his display which is promptly transmitted to Rachel's Gernsback. With a life in his hands, he begins to fall back. Wary eyes glancing skyward, at the Spector in the air. A Trailer's only loyalty is to coin. Amuro was right about them all along.

As Bright skates along the rapidly ruining landscape of Mexico, a sigh escapes his lips. He took all of a week for the Argama to undergo maintenance while returning to Earth to spend time with his family. One week and Katharon is a mess and a new enemy has reared its opportunistic head. Celestial Being, Mithril, the Trailers. Not to mention the A-LAWS, Princess Shine, and the Divine Crusade.

Once again, the Captain finds himself to be a very busy man. The universe is a mess and as just as before, it falls upon a chosen few to right the wrongs and put some goddam sense back into the human race.

All in all, just your typical day.

Spectre has all the luck. First he runs into Mithril, and then he runs into a Sol Tekkaman! He's alerted to it's presence by the beams slamming into the Gernsback, his radar still fouled by ECM. He curses a little. If they start using anti-'mech infantry and power armor squads, it's gonna be a bitch to get equipment to detect things that small.

The Spector turns, stomping it's good foot on the ground. It raises it's arm and starts firing down the street at the power armor-clad Kai Shiden, apparently unaware of the nature of his opponent--that is, him being of the most dangerous journalists of their age. Laser fire streaks down the street, cutting up the pavement as he tries to hit the small target. This is the weapon he just used to put all those huge holes in the Gernsback, so Kai may want to be quick about his business. Or his running.

Spectre also backs off, because he thinks the reactor just got hit, and those things almost definitely do /not/ have the safe kind 'Mechs do.

Still floating above the battlefield, looking for a place to intervene it seems, the Susanowo is suddenly assailed by... A transmission? "Hn?" the One Man Army wonders, turning his attention to the little VOICE ONLY window that pops up on his panoramic display, as Rachel Miu Athha calls him by name, with her Arm Slave's sword levelled at his flying mobile suit, tells him to stand down. "That voice..." he mutters, brows furrowing behind the dark metal of his mask, mouth pulling into a faint frown. Where has he heard that voice before? She sounds familiar, but not quite right... But... "There are few who still call me by that name in this world," the masked man says, as the two GN Drive Taus spin up again, and the Susanowo dives like an orange-tailed comet towards the M9, splitting its two swords back into their original configuration as it goes. "BUT I MUST SALUTE YOUR DETERMINATION!!" He seriously looks like he's going to run the AS down, like something well and truly awful is going to happen on that rooftop, when /another/ signal comes through. "Tch," Bushido mutters, suddenly coming to a halt just outside of striking distance. "Run away, little girl," he transmits towards the Athha princess, turning the Susanowo to move to a more defensive position, as per the (false) distress signal he just recieved. "It seems Buddha smiles on you today."

Kai rolls left and right, the laser blasts scouring the ground to either side, Kai continuing to blast the cannon at the Gernsback as he does so - until he starts rupturing the reactor, a few tell-tale crackles spreading out. "There--!"

The Tekkaman takes off from the ground, energy flaring from its back, and Kai puts the cannon back along the left arm. The Tekkaman's hip opens, and Kai pulls out the Zetron pistol. Left, right, dodge the shots... he drops dangerously close to the ground, and fires a single shot before peeling up into the air.

The blast sinks right into the ruptured spot on the reactor, the M9's rumbling explosion giving Kai a badass silhouette. "Get your weregild elsewhere," he spits contemptuously, peeling away. There's just one more fight that has to end... Kai fires the Zetron pistol again, three times. Two shots buzz right across the cameras of the GN-XIII, and the third is aimed right for the lance, trying to foil the aim.

Her voice has changed, quite a lot. It's full of life, full of emotions. It's grown, just as she has, into something different-- a girl with determination, courage, and... lacking a certain English accent.

Rachel shifts her stance with the monomolecular sword as the Susanowo comes charging down at her from above, radiating color and fire and light and the promise of a tomorrow that will never come. She steels herself for the stance, even as her screens flicker and glare and display false information, as she draws intense focus. Rachel draws in a breath, and--

-- he stops.

Rachel settles down, but not much. A cold sweat breaks across her brow, and the young pilot can feel every part of her from the top of her head to the tips of her fingers and toes feel cold and tingly. Rachel Miu Athha just looked into the eyes of a devil, and somehow she managed to not blink.

And then, a sensation runs up her spine.

The M9 twists and shifts it's footing, ducking and dodging through the beam gunfire that comes down her way. It rips holes in the rooftop, damages the structure-- and Rachel steps the machine backward, the booster hucking the Arm Slave into the air just enough to get it clear as the top floor of the building is reduced to rubble.

Rubble that could have killed someone.

Rachel tenses-- her mind flares, her emotions run wild, but-- she has to move. Fast. The M9 ducks down between buildings and triggers the ECS suite to camoflague the machine to even the naked eye-- and the young newtype withdraws as quickly as she can.

Her eyes close after a few moments, and she sags forward into the pilot's cradle. "That was close..."

Amuro continues working methodically across the sky with the Zetron weapons until Rachel's Arm Slave finally beats a retreat. At that point, he looks over to Kai's suit and transmits, "Time to go!" He know Bright has already fallen back with the captured, no doubt furious Sanchez.

And then it's time for him to go as well. With a burst of Sol Tekkajets, he leaps from building to building, and finally out into the trackless wastes of Mexico. El Gringo Chupacabra vanishes like a legend.