2011-03-23 - Attack! The Guarlion of Mumbai!

Neo Zeon Battleship Gwaden Delaz Fleet In Orbit of planet Earth 07:40 - Local Space Time

The comm system chirps and a young bridge officer, dapper in her Zeon finery, lifts her head. "Commander Hawker has given the signal, Admiral. Barrelions standing by are."

Vice Admiral Aiguille Delaz offers a gentle tilt of his shorn head in acknowledgement. "Very well," he glances over to his tactical officer. An easy motion of his hand conveys his intent, "Deploy the Schreischneider* unit at once."

The tactical officer complies. Buttons are pressed and a radio down to the Gwaden's hangar takes place. Moments later, the soft series of whoomp whoomp whoomps echo throughout the red battleship's lower decks.

The Federation's orbital defense grid goes haywire -- a series of unidentified blips race across the Direction-RAnge-DIStance grid...


 * Squallcutter

Mumbai, Hindustania Now

In the skies, several objects streak toward the city... Flames and smoke billow in their wake, their re-entry bringing down a thunderous disruption to the nightlife of Mumbai.

People point to the skies, a hue and cry ripping across the streets. The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

The sky is..

Ooooooooooooooooohhhh-ohhhh...

The first impact touches down amid a packed parking lot. Cars are flattened or otherwise simply explode from the force. Those untouched have their alarms going off in great whooping cries. There's a flash of orange light and from the twisted heap of steel and fiberglass, the wide-shouldered frame of a DCAM-005 Barrelion wrenches itself into view. Its Tesla drive lets out a whomp of activation, enabling it to lift above a now-shattered pavement.

o/~ Tunak tunak tun o/~ Tunak tunak tun o/~ Tunak tunak tun

o/~ DA DA DA !!

The second impact follows at a nearby condemned warehouse, a second DCAM-005 Barrelion appearing amid ruined concrete. This one is in green.

Worse, the Barrelions keep coming! In red, black, brown, and other colors of the rainbow! They emerge from their points-of-arrival, their arm-mounted missile launchers twisting left and right before their enormous fuselages twirl in place.

Seconds later, missiles start flying.

The skies are dominated with the firepower of the Divine Crusade.

o/~ Sweetheart, the strings of the instrument play o/~ Listen to what the heart says o/~ Come and love me

Chunks of brick fly and people start scattering, screaming. They're frantically racing toward whatever safety they can find, to their homes or colony-drop-'proofed' bomb-shelters. It's madness. The clear night skies of Mumbai blotted out in thick smoke and fire.

What they need is a hero!

One who can deliver them from the vengeful grasp of Bian Zoldark's lethal legacy.

"MAZIIIIIIIIIN GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

They get a boy from Japan and his Invincible Iron Castle, instead.

Sorry, Mumbai!

"This is Ensign Kabuto!" Koji, OUR MAN IN BATTLE, calls out over the radio. The sounds of the apocalypse can be heard over the open com as it filters past the clear canopy of Mazinger Z's control-unit. "I'm in Mumbai! There's Barrelions -everywhere-! I'll try to hold them back, but.. but I think I'll need help! I'm dispatching my coordinaa---whoaaah!!"

A chunk of magnet-backed gauss-power slams against Mazinger Z, sending the Armor of Miracles tumbling back several steps.

"... Just send help!"

SPACE

Jung Freud lifts her head up from the abdomen of someone with blue-tinted hair, shone poorly. A little Mazinger head is flashing on the alarm. "Ah, fuck," she mutters, straightening up, rubbing her face...

LIKE THREE MINUTES LATER

The Fraternity Unit Machine Weapon prototype RX-212 "San" descends from orbit, riding what can best be described as 'it's completely not a Ballute even though it fulfills exactly the same function.' For one thing, it is painted teal, and for another, it is much better, of course, than such a thing.

Jung is leaning back in the cockpit, sipping a juice pod as she watches screens from the not-Ballute's forward camera feed. The vector is towards Mumbai but at an oblique angle. Max-Zoom and Enhance reveals the cartoonish sight of Mazinger Z drowning in a sea of Barrellions. Unfortunately, the intense plasma coming from the ablative reentry device temporarily prevents radio contact. Only a faint tendril of psionic awareness accompanies Jung Freud in her temporary isolation from the human race.

Her philosophical observation, as she scratches one breast and adjusts her Top Squadron uniform slightly, is, "That's a lot of Barrellions. Like... all of them."

Mumbai, Hindustania, Now

The Schreischneider aka the Squallcutters deploy down upon one of the biggest entertainment media production centers on Earth. The intent of the master mind behind this is to take a shot to the moral of the Federation. The cold hearted man behind this attack is Tempest Hawker. There were Lions everywhere and this was the way he liked it. He had a strong fondness for the Lions. He'd ordered the member of his units into support formations then when he things are going perfectly? It is Koji Kabuto and Mazinger Z!

"All units continue the assault but intercept any hostile responders!

The odd thing about Tempest rail gun shots is they are timed to what almost seems to be music, and perhaps even Tempest is not immune to the power of Bollywood?!

More and more Lions just descend they are here with one intent slash and burn many of the studios involved with movie creation in the area!

"Lowe. Radulf I am trusting the bombardment to your squadrons!"

The alarm goes out, especially with Koji's warning over the letters.

Blue Mist Leader, wearing the strangely cthulhuesk pilot uniform for a KLF, signals that he is moving to assist and then turns...

The others in the squadron similarly move to assist, flying in strange, formations, military but still fluid as if they were moving on the ocean.

"Stay ready, stick in close with your wing men. Continue signalling for heavy assistance defenses from the command units." Blue Mist 2 transmits, "Who is the main commander in this situation?" Blue Mist Leader transmits, "I am until we hear other wise. My primary order to you is to avoid getting killed. Training pilots is expensive." "You're all heart, Sir," Blue Mist 3 transmits.

Meriden Almace got a ballute. She doesn't rank fancy non-ballute ballutes. (It's red.)

The heavy form of the Full Armour Seventh Gundam descends somewhat behind the RX-212 San. What started out as a sleek, slender Gundam has been built up with additional plating, thrusters, armour blocks and weapons to bulkiness. With the ballute system on it mostly just looks fat.

Meriden has experienced re-entry before in the Gundam and didn't like it then. She doesn't much like it now either, but there's not a lot she can do about it other than suffer; she takes the time in descend to a) check the weapon readouts one last time and b) make sure her helmet is on properly. Sometimes, with all the hair, it gets tangled.

While the Gutsy Galaxy Guard maintains more or less worldwide surveillance against extraterrestrial threats such as the Zondar, their mandate is somewhat looser when it comes to such human menaces as the Divine Crusaders. What *isn't* loose is their priority of defending civilians - and for that matter, *everyone else* in the face of extraterrestrial hostiles.

So when Koji Kabuto yells for help, Guy doesn't waste time dithering around - he heads for the Amaterasu's launch bay, and is fused with Galeon even before they get their deployment orders. Shortly thereafter, the twin-hulled maintenance vessel (which also happens to be the best mobile launch platform for GaoGaiGar) descends over Mumbai, GaiGar leaps out, the three GaoMachines sortieing right behind it; Final Fusion is approved, Program Drive is initiated, and the mechanoid plus its three support machines combine and transform within the protective swirling mists of the electromagnetic cyclone.

"GAO!!! GAI!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!" Guy roars as Final Fusion is completed and the EM cyclone dispelled - and the King of Braves immediately heads towards the nearest cluster of lions. Guy's not out to kill pilots (is he ever?) but he can certainly maul the Lions badly enough to render them incapable of effective combat.

Before he arrived on Earth, Adam Steiner had only done three orbital drops in his entire life.

Since coming here, he'd doubled that number.

The way war seems to work on Earth, you need to be ready to fight in space or on ground at a moment's notice. Luckily Adam's ship, the Sundered Heart, has plenty of drop-pods available for such an occasion, and so once again Adam finds himself inside his Berserker, rapidly descending to Earth in a shielded pod, designed for the sole purpose of throwing a mech from orbit and letting it survive the fall.

"This is Captain Steiner," Adam transmits once the pod blows, his shining silver and blue Berserker falling like a comet though the atmosphere. "I'm headed down to the target zone. ETA in..oh, let's say two minutes." He doesn't have any breaking thrusters this time. This time, he's relying on the Tesla Drive to slow him.

As it turns out, the Tesla Drive does slow him, but a bit less rapidly than he expected. While he had intended a fairly smooth landing outside the target zone, he quickly realizes he's coming in too fast for that. Time to make new plans. However, as he's looking over the situation trying to find a good landing spot, he's interupted by Rachel Specter's voice over his radio.

"Adam, you're moving too close to those Barrelions. If you don't break soon, you'll risk running into them."

"Good idea," Adam transmits, a slight smirk on his lips. Tesla Drive is pumped to max as the Berserker changes course, Adam now aiming it to slam down, feet first, on the head of one of those Barrelions. "Let's see how these Divine Crusade boys handle an old fashion DFA maneuver."

Neo Zeon Battleship Gweden Launchpath

A series of browl Barrelions are locked in the launch clamps, their engines releasing a soft murmer whilst their Tesla Drives come to a hightened state of activity. The order to launch just came in, and within the barely lit cockpit of his custom Barrelion, the pilot nods his head. "Jawohl, Herr Delaz!" The lights before Bertham Lowe are slowly coming to life, springing from red to orange. The drives on a squad of five barrelions, with him as the head, activate and begin burning more fiercely. "Bertham Lowe! Schreischneider Riege Braun, Ausziehen!" He pushes both joysticks forward just as the green light comes on, and the entire squad bursts off together in perfect harmony.

Mumbai, Hindustania Now

The skies over Hindustania are soon joined by this fivesome of Barrelions, quickly pushing down towards the ground and pulling up to chase over the ground. Rather than remaining in the air, this particular squad remains low whilst firing missiles on at the outlying town's buildings before quickly pulling up and all of them land on random surrounding tall buildings. With a heavy clanking sound, Bertham's Barrelion too sets down on the top of a nearby Musical Theater and opens up missile fire on a series of young men and women dancing around a train. Something about a slumdog and a lot of credits.

"Kommandant Lowe, we are detecting a series of jets nearby. Orders?" One of them men in his squad breaks through the radio. He recognized him as Einheit Drei. "Engage and destroy. Coordinate your attacks with Vier and Funf." And so it is that three of the Barrelions suddenly change their weapons' trajectories and send an onslaught of missiles into the air, targetting Blue Mist Two.

The Hindus call them Avatarah- the incarnate bodies of the Devas who watch over all creation and enter it, on occasion, to save the world from destruction and decay- whether at the hands of man, or at the hands of demons. These fonts of divine will can take many guises, from beast to man, but are, at their core, everything that they have been and shall be, possessing of countless faces, countless arms, and impossible, divine strength. Normally, they take animate form--

But when you're divine, why should you limit yourself to the living?

> Being reckless again, are we, Koji?

It arrives from the East in a rolling, black thunderhead, its dark body concealed by the thick clouds surrounding it. Lightning arcs and crackles across its metal body, pooling into bright, golden eyes. It hovers, arms at either side, its horns collecting stray bolts of electricity every other moment.

Below, the pilot can see his adopted brother engaging a small army of Barrelions. It seems the boy needs a hand.

Great Mazinger's arm reaches towards the heavens. The towering thundercloud flashes with sudden activity as, at the Guardian of the Sky's command, its vital electric energies are channeled into the colossus' horns. The roar of his voice echoes the rumbling sky!

"THUNDEEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRR BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!"

Great's arm reaches out swinging in a wide arc- lightning leaps to its finger, then explodes toward the Barrelion swarm, seeking to cleave through their ranks, to disrupt them, to bring their attention toward the sky, and away from the city of Mumbai.

You ask for help, and it shall arrive.

"Aaaand ACTION!" Edward watched, trying hard to mantaine a surly look on his face even though in this perticular scene he was little more than background decoration.

Unfortunatley that's right about when people started doing Bad Things like...oh... assaulting the nearby city. So cue Ed herding people into a less flamable/less likely to become a pile of rubble area while his Haro happily blipped and beeped along till it found his suit. Why did Ed keep a fully loaded and equipped Jenice on hand when he was supposedly just doing a bit part in a Bollywood movie? One of lifes little wonders.

"Traveler. Launch." Calm voice from the Big Man when his suit took to the air searching for targets.

Flanking Meriden's Seventh Gundam on their equally ballute ballutes is a pair of GN-XIIIs. As they drop toward the Earth, the young man on the left side grins while communications are restored, speaking to the other via encrypted line. "So, are we going to?"

"Fine," she says, letting out a sigh. "I figure after the thirty-six times you've asked, I'll let you at least take me out to dinner. But that's all it is, all right? Just dinner-- let's just focus on getting through this!!"

And that is the last thing that comes over the line. Two flying objects that are about as long as an average Mobile Suit's forearm come blasting out of the cloud layer below them. Almost instantly, the right-hand GN-XIII is bisected by two beams of a purple hue, one carving through the head and chest, the second ripping through the lower body. The air inside the ballute superheats, and the Jinx is consumed in flames just as fast as it explodes.

His eyes widen in disbelief. "What the hell just--"

A large, bulky black machine explodes through the cloud cover, the right arm drawn back as it comes close to the second GN-XIII. He's a little quicker to respond, disengaging the ballute before it can become a hinderance, but...

The armor on the massive right forearm of this black machine shifts, and a whole other Vernier engine ignites. The reinforced fist slams squarely into the center of the hips, crushing the cockpit bloc into the torso in a single blow. The left hand reaches up to grip the machine by the head, casting it toward the clouds while two more of those flying remote bits put shots straight through the GN Tau Drive. Like the other one, it erupts into flames before the false solar reactors go critical, exploding into a morbidly beautiful rain of particles and fireworks.

And then this hulking black, heavily modified Ashsaber turns slowly toward the Seventh Gundam, the eyes bursting with a dangerous yellow glow under it's visor.

That's when the attack comes, not from the front... but from the sides.

All four of those deployed Shadow Bits turn on the Seventh Gundam, taking turns at pot-shots at the Mobile Suit before it can get it's bearing!

He loved to fly.

It was one of those little things, the rare excesses that Soldato J-002 allowed himself. Normally the ultimate soldier, the consummate warrior, the disciplined warrior, there was so little room for error. One single slip up could cause the end of an entire world.

He'd already seen it once. And now that the Red Planet Soldier was making a new life for himself on this beautiful blue-and-green world with its spacious blue skies, slowly but surely (with the help of a particular woman and a wonderful lack of Zondar activity) finding his way through his new homeworld, he was determined not to allow one of those singular slip-ups to cost him all that he had found the ability to care about once again.

But for now, he flies. He flies through the night sky with the rare abandon he never got to show, his scarves spread wide behind him. He's not even wearing his helmet, today; just the casual gear he had come to appreciate over recent days, his inhuman, impossibly blue eyes shining in the night like sapphire stars. He could think about things - think about his lost world, his dead people, the changes in his life that even now confused and confounded him - when he trained. For now, he would relax, and-

From below, smoke begins, a sure sign of trouble. Mazinger Z's arrival mere moments later is what gets J's attention, however; superhuman cybernetics whirr as J pauses mid-flight, standing up in the sky to look down below with hawklike vision and examine the situation. The Barrelions...he remembered them vaguely from his time as J, a mainstay weapon of the Divine Crusaders' forces. If they were fighting Mazinger Z, then they were trouble - destroyers out to do something terrible to the people trying to live their lives in peace on this glorious blue planet.

J closes his eyes. It's not his problem, he tells himself. It isn't his problem. He can just...go, keep flying. Enjoy his first relaxing night alone in so long. He can just keep going, let the humans deal with it...

...but then she'd never forgive him for such selfishness, would she?

J lets out a sigh as his eyes open. A ring of red light jumps to life as alien circuits are connected by the power of his will, the power of raw courage shooting through his body. Twin <-J-> symbols shine from his eyes; his scarf whips around him as he throws his hands outwards and shouts to the night sky a word half born of anger at the interruption to his private musings, half born of a righteous fury that even the Zondar Metal could not destroy.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEQUUUUUUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!"

J crosses his arms over his chest as his armor forms from nothing, red lines growing across his face and solidifying into his white bird helmet that was his most distinctive feature. Similar lines trace his arms and chest, replacing trenchcoat with breastplate and armguards; his fingers close into fists as his shoulderpads grow out into spikes and his legs are hidden by heavy boots that grow from his feet to his knees. In moments, the armored form of Soldato J-002 is complete, and he's heading down towards the battlefield of Mumbai, arms swept behind his back, scarves trailing behind him.

He wasn't sure he'd have time to call Ken tonight.

It was going to be a very, very long night.

The Lions converge on Mazinger Z, successfully unloading upon its red-deco'd chest.

Gunfire comes into contact with Super Alloy Z construction, kicking up a variety of pitter-patter sounds and sparking flashes. The Steel Guard stumbles back a half-step, ribbons of smoke rising from its light dents.

"Oof!!" Koji groans slightly as he rocks back in his seat. Over the radio, Tetsuya is questioning him. Doesn't he understand? As a pilot, he's required to defend the territories of the Earth Federation. Even if it comes at the cost of his personal safety. What did the drill instructor say back in boot? The most noble fate a man can endure is to place his own mortal body between his loved home and the war's desolation.

Or something.

"Gotta hold out.." Koji grunts as he worries over the controls. The displays on the Pilder flash and the angled shape of the Guarlion Custom reads-out. "Wh-- is that.. is that a Guarlion!?!"

Mazinger Z takes one step forward, swinging its black fist forward to smash aside a Lion. It stands before the green Guarlion, its arms raised to challenge its threat!

"Tempest Hawker!!" Koji calls out over the distance. He's got one hell of a voice that carries. "What's your game!? These people don't deserve this! I can't let you continue this rampage!"

Mazinger Z's eyes flash. Photonic energy spools into optical capacitors!

"PHOTONIC BEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!"

Jung Freud looks up - and feels a twinge. Her eyes widen as the San's cameras zoom in on that black figure ripping ass on the GNX-13s, rending them apart even as they burst into hellish fireworks. She straightens up, reaching for the emergency disengage.

Then the retrorockets fire. The not-Ballute shifts suddenly, diving downwards and throwing Jung dozens of kilometers from Meriden. "Fffff--" There may be a faint sense of Jung clawing at rarefied atmosphere to try to get back, but unfortunately, the cruel dictates of Isaac Newton have left Meriden on her own. With this kind of a challenge, can she prevail?

Jung's not-ballute detaches, tearing off to land in a harbor and get picked up by the Federation's dolphin allies later. The San floats in midair, the temperamental Inertial Canceller buffering its descent. Jung cannot simply dive-bomb into Tempest Hawker even as she draws steadily closer; the impact could devastate blocks, blocks that might not yet be evacuated or under shelter.

But what she can do...

Her eyes narrow. "King, go! one three one," she says-then-murmurs, as a bulge on the back of the San detaches, streaking first slightly away, and then power-diving downwards to try and rebound with brutal force off the top of the Barrellion's head and/or upper fuselage!

"Kabuto!!" she shouts downwards. "Let's hurry this up! Someone's right behind me!!"

Meriden Almace doesn't even get that much. The drop interferes with her radio; she's almost deaf in there aside from huge gouts of static and the occasional psychic touch.

It's the second that draws her attention. She does /not/ feel the surge of aggression from the attacker, which is unusual but not unheard of; instead she feels the flare of panic from the pilots, their sudden absence - she's reaching for the controls before she even realizes it.

When Meriden's radio comes back on, she's yelling into it. " - the target!" she yells, through static. "They blew up some of the GN-XIIIs, someone please go look for their cockpits, I can't do it myself, I'm fighting some black robot - "

The Seventh Gundam doesn't really fly. It achieves, very briefly, hang time; Meriden fires the space-maneuvering thrusters to give her a slightly more stable position to fire from, a yellow blast erupting from a concealed barrel in the palm of the hand as she sprays fire wildly at the Flickerist.

Then she starts falling again. At least she's aiming at water. More or less.

Five Barrelions. Edward frowned at this. He wasn't suited to fighting these buggers. Even so he made his suit head in that general direction while he pulled a machinegun from his weapon's rack. Maybe he could get their attention away from the city below. He just hoped falling shells or stray shots wouldn't... y'know, do the predictibly nasty things they do no matter if it's the right target or not.

 Edward Fawkes transmits, "Any other units inbound for Hindustania?"

"Type confirmed, DCAM Barrelions. Older models..." "Incoming attack! All forces scatter! Manuever 3-a!"

The Monsoonos break in all directions, but its sadly too late for Monsoono 3.

The comedian of the group disappears in a beautiful pink explosion, the specific details of the burning corpse that's tumbling to the earth wrapped in flaming metal is best not thought on. Its just fun robot fighting, after all? Right?

The Other monsoonos align...

"Missiles! Full forward patterns," Blue Mist Leader shouts.

Lethe Rusina's eyes are barely on the forward monitors.

Surrounded by screens and keyboards, consoles and inputs, the young woman better known as W18 says nothing to the fact, /feels/ nothing to the fact, and shifts her hands to type at command prompts at either side. Trajectories, coordinates, acceleration and adjustments for wind speed are all factored in her head at once--

-- and that is when those remotes fire at the Seventh Gundam.

Only when she isn't immediately destroyed does she look up, her eyes focusing through those lenses on the Mobile Suit that looks back at her. Her lips part to utter one word: "Gundam..." Reaching to her forward console, she taps one button, then two more while the on-board systems start the scanning process, trying to ascertain what it can of the machine's secrets.

The blast from the hand-held beam gun lances across the ASK-UC90 Flickerist's left shoulder and chest as the Seventh Gundam continues to fall from the sky, searing the heavily modified Ashsaber's hull and leaving a deep, two-part wound in it's armor. Lethe frowns as the black Assault Dragoon begins to duck and weave out of the path of other shots, cutting thrusters while the Gundam falls.

On the burst through the cloud layer, the Flickerist's thrusters fire with an angry, forceful push that sends it diving after Meriden and the Seventh Gundam. Flanked by the four Shadow Bits, the Flickerist swings up it's left hand, wielding a rather heavy-duty revolver. Energy surges inside of it, and the components inside the large cylinder start to spin up.

The Flickerist fires-- not just once, but a repeated pull of the trigger, aiming to catch the A-LAWS Mobile Suit in the hail of gunfire on it's descent!

Mazinger Z, a machine that the DC not even the Turn X it self could keep dead. Koij comes at him and is locking on to him. He replies rather coldly to Koji.

"They support the federation that's all they needed to do. It will bleed for what it's done!" The Guarlion evades the blast of powerful Photonic Energy and counter fires with his machine's railgun. Slugs are fired back at Koji at super sonic speed and he now has even more combing at him. One that surprises Soldato J. the strange alien cyborg. Only some extra sensor or another installed by someone picks up the partially biological unit and Tempest barely has time to fire while he's evading the incoming attack.

"So your here alien? Feh, die like all the REST! All units be on alert for the Dividing Driver."

Tempest knows where J goes, GaoGaiGar is sure to follow like a lost puppy. Or is it the other way around? No matter really because Guy is clearly giving him warning by all of the shouting. His men manages to keep out of harms way while Tempest himself opens fire.

"Ah I should have expected a dog like your self to appear. I was counting on it!"

Then one he did not count on appears Jung Freud on the attack in s his machine is unable to evade her as she caught him totally off guard.

"/Freud/. One of the ones who gave up."

J and Guy would find some strange pods being launched from the Guarlion and they would fly at them before exploding into the dreaded DC weapon known as spider webs, oh yes, like all spider webs get a huge surge of electrical power run through them. Koji and Jung Meanwhile would get a barrage of Autocannon fire at them both as Tempest started trying to fly through the attacking formation to put them at risk of hitting comrades over him. Is he trying to lure them into melee?!

The Seventh Gundam, with its full armour mode, doesn't follow some of the rules of Gundam design. For starters, it's too bulky to easily dodge, and the space-use thrusters don't work very well when falling at terminal velocity, especially after Meriden overburned to try to slow herself down.

Second, of course, is that it doesn't die immediately when shot. The energy revolver tears at the frame and burns off armour along the chest and shoulder, but doesn't cause an immediate destruction of the suit - rather the opposite, it withstands it remarkably well.

Meriden recovers from the impact. The big central plate in the chest flips upward, revealing four squat launchers; in the privacy of her own cockpit, Meriden yells, "CHEST MISSILES!" for no discernable reason, jamming her thumb down on a trigger.

Each one of the launchers fires a single missile before Meriden hits the water, causing a colossal splash and a spray of steam, hiding the Seventh Gundam from view. Underwater, Meriden snaps the launcher doors closed (the launchers can take water... briefly) and starts to move, orienting herself in the deep water towards shore and heading that way.

 Tempest Hawker transmits, "Continue the attack."

 Lethe Rusina transmits, "Roger."

 Bertham Lowe transmits, "Jawohl!"

"This is madness, Tempest!!" Koji Kabuto gasps. "You can't expect this to continue!! No one deserves this terror!!" The young pilot is doing everything he can to keep up with such an experienced commander like Tempest Hawker. A bead of sweat rolls down his brow, a fretful look cast across the battlefield.

Elsewhere in Mumbai, the Seventh Gundam faces the Flickerist. Koji's thoughts -- and his attention -- briefly wander there. "That all-ranged attack!" he worries. "Can there be any defense for it!?"

Koji's attention is pulled back by the battle at hand. He couldn't even land a scratch on the Guarlion. "He's so fast!" he admits. "It's like he can see my reactions before I can make 'em! There's no way I can keep up, unless I just force through!"

Autocannons hammer Mazinger Z, the sheer force pushing the Steel Guard back several steps. "Nngh... nnngh!!" Koji grits his teeth, unable to keep himself from being brought down to his knees. "That Guarlion's strong! I gotta be stronger!"

Mazinger Z's fist blasts out from its elbow, fwhooshing forward on a tail of white smoke to batter away the Autocannon. It swiftly returns, enabling the Armor of Miracles to reach back..

..and draw the Mazinger Blade!

"Hai soo desu, Cap'n Freud!" Koji lets out a nod. He has to sound like he's in control. After all, he's gunnin' for that ass. "I'm on your six! Let's do it! MAZIIIIN GOOOOO!!"

Mazinger Z launches forward, its shining blade held high above its gleaming crown. It comes down before the green Guarlion Custom with a roar of its foot-thrusters, its Mazinblade swinging in a deadly arc!

The Berserker smashes hard into the ground, shattering the earth under its feet when it crashes into the ground. The armor holds up well enough, Battletech designed to more or less withstand this kind of stress, although some of the surface armor does crack. Adam didn't break them up as much as he'd hoped with his initial strike, but he's got more than a few tricks left.

"Adam," Rachel transmits once again, sounding a bit more professional now. "Watch out for the main gun on those Barrelions. They're high-impact railguns. They can outrange everything you've got right now."

"Can they handle things close up?"

"Can't say," Rachel comments with a frown. "I've got no intel handy about minimum ranges."

"Well, let's find out," The Berserker breaks into a full-out run, charging heedlessly at the closest Barrelion. Right now they aren't focusing on Adam, and he wants to make sure he's broken them up before they know what happens. The Berserker can be a fast mech, especially when atmospheric reentry builds up enough heat to get the TSM running. When he's gotten some good speed, he hits the Tesla Drive to send him flying though the air, and throws his Berserker arms-first into the nearest Barrelion.

"Come on, let's see what you've got."

Stormclouds continue to roll in as the battle continues to crescendo. The sky trembles with thundercracks and flashes with brief glimmers of electric fury. The missiles that come Great Mazinger's way are largely ripped to shreds by the lightning that surrounds it, but a couple of projectiles do impact against its body, erupting in flashes of light and concussive force- but the Guardian of the Sky remains stalwart, its silhouette dark against the periodic surge of light through the skies. But it does not remain so for long.

Tetsuya Tsurugi stares down at the battlefield below. His face is unreadable- the glare of his helmet's visor all but hides his expression as he finally decides that the time has come to engage the enemy forces in earnest. Great Mazinger's eyes shine with the impossible might of the Photonic reactor as crimson wings spread from its back.

It descends like a thunderbolt, streaking towards the earth, fists outstretched. Contrails of electricity break from its shoulders and legs as it parts from the stormfront. "DC Forces," Tetsuya booms, "Barrelion squadron! This Great Mazinger will be your opponent!"

Great's eyes flash brilliantly. It turns, seeking to cleave several of the Barrelion units in two with a quick snap of its wings, "I will not allow you to have another inch! This city- this place- will not fall to you tonight! Prepare yourselves!"

"PROTECT WALL!!!!" roars Guy, and the spider web pod slams harmlessly into GaoGaiGar's barrier, the charge wasted. It's not something that Guy can return the energy from, either, but it doesn't even slow GaoGaiGar down significantly.

In fact, as soon as the electrified web runs out of charge and collapses, GaoGaiGar is thundering after the command Guarlion as if nothing had ever happened. "PHANTOM RING, PLUS!!" Guy shouts, prepping the Phantom Ring as GaoGaiGar's right arm starts spinning up. "BROKEN ... *PHANTOM!!*"

And with that, the G-Stone-driven rocket punch goes flying after Tempest's machine.

Jung's eyes twitch.

"Gave up!?" she says, totally forgetting any transient ideas about using logic or reason to try to talk down Hawker from his assault. King, damaged but still game, zips back up to meet with San's back as the machine touches down in a withering hail of autocannon fire, dimplling the red and white outer carapace of it as it hunches down.

Hunches down and draws out its spear. As some smoke rises from the machine's shoulders, Jung continues with soft but volcanic anger. "You fucking... you..." The worry over Meriden, in deadly peril a few distant miles above her head, bursts outwards!

As the Machine Weapon stands bolt upright, Jung screams, "You're hanging out with mass murderers and a pack of super-terrorists and you have the balls to tell ME /I/ gave up???" As Mazinger makes its bladey sweep, Jung screams, jerking the inertial canceller into reverse to add mass to the machine's dashing charge forwards, drawing back the spear. "After all the SHIT I've had to SWALLOW while YOU got to be Mister Fancy Aggressor?!"

Koji Kabuto is being temporarily ignored but this is not his fault. "I SHOULD RIP YOUR D-" There is a transient burst of static from solar weather as the San leaps the last fifty yards, spear drawing back and crackling with electric force "-T IT! JACOBINI THRRRRRRRRRRRUST!"

Thunder booms as Jung stabs at the reinforced Barrellion. For once, it's completely explicable!

With the Flickerist descending as fast as it is, there comes a point when Lethe realizes that she needs to pull up. Warnings blast on her screens, and the Assault Dragoon's legs swing forward to aid in the maneuvering. Not quite caught up to the Seventh Gundam on the drop, it gives her a little more time to cycle up the Tesla Drive to full power and fire /all/ of the machine's verniers.

Lethe shifts in her chair, shoulders lurching forward and feeling the sudden down-and-up tug in the cockpit chair. There is the Mazinger Z... as well as the RX-212, and nearby are the Lions...

The frame rattles angrily, but Lethe's grasp does not slacken at all on the controls. The Ashsaber variant's right arm swings around to guard the chest as the first of the missiles reaches her, too. The black robot lurches backward once, bucking to the right and left, the fourth striking against the heavier armor plates while concussive force and pulls the limb away from it's protecting position. Swinging high, it comes back around to the DC unit's side, smoke and flame spilling from the damaged armor while it lands on it's feet a distance down the beach.

And crushing someone's umbrella and drink cooler in the process.

"Damage is still within acceptable limitations," she says to no one in particular. Who knows, maybe Echidna is watching. "Continuing with assault."

The four bits that are currently airborne drop down from the sky while the Flickerist ascends to hover over the sand, sweeping toward the last position that the purple-haired gynoid is able to track. They sweep back and forth while firing high-output beams, searing the water into steam, aiming to catch Meriden with all the power they can muster-- even when she makes it up out of the water!

When there suddenly art arcs of lightning to be had in city, the Barrelion squad under Bertham quickly push their joysticks forwards and rush off of the rooftops, leaving a series of burnmarks and cracked tall buildings in their wake as the electrically charged attacks come down. None of them seem to suffer any damage. And them having lift off was a good thing, because a volley of bullets quickly comes from above. Edward's Jennice is firing at the squad, which luckily is too quick and too maneuverable to be caught by such simple tactics.

"Zwei speaking, we're being attacked from multiple fronts. Einheit Einz, please advice?" Einheit Einz, unit one, contained Bertham himself. His Barrelion was not exactly distinct or anything. He believed that if the leader would be indicated, then it would be that much easier to take them out. The man tips against his own helmet quickly, taking down the visor, and quickly locks his eyes onto the Great Mazinger.

A volley of missiles then suddenly approaches his entire squad. They all quickly lower the noses of the large artilery flies towards the ground and soon are chasing through the streets, zig-zagging between buildings and crashing through random cars parked here and there. The missiles end up exploding against the pavement, and pieces of rock come flying against the thick armor of number five, though it doesn't seem to affect their performance in any way shape or form.

They continue to chase along the streets, remaining low. "Siege Braun, fire at will!" The brown painted Barrelion squad spreads out, though Bertham himself is the only one to pull up towards the skies to meet the Janice there. He flicks open one of the little plastic locks on his right joystick and pushes the switch forwards, which begins an aiming system - trying to lay a path towards his opponent. And then suddenly, a gigantic electric net fires from a thick gun beneath the right main beam rifle that tries to reach up and 'grab' Edward Fawkes' unit.

One of the units, unit Zwei, ends up meeting with the Great Mazinger and quickly lands onto its feet, before engaging its side thrusters and disappearing into an alleyway to get away from the wings coming down. When it has circled around and comes out of hiding again, it is /covered/ in wires and clothing. A bra is hanging right in front of one of its beam barrels. It fires! A blue stream of energy rips through the air, but the air-displacement causes the bra to simply 'lift off'. And when the beams finally get close to the Great Mazinger, the /bra falls onto its eye sensor/.

The Barrelion Adam finds however, isn't alone! Units three to five have somehow surrounded him, And when Adam goes running at number three, it simply hits the Verniers and quickly moves into the air whilst pelting the unit with beam shots, and the other two quickly appear from behind and let their shots ring towards its back.

He's distracted.

Distraction was fatal in any combat situation; a glance at the wrong time, a wandering mind, a lapse in concentration, could get an entire squad killed easier than any soldier could or would like to imagine. Worse, with Kabuto and Shishioh there, he had been distracted when the lives of others were at risk - not to mention one of those 'others' being his astoundingly hated rival.

The Spider Web Shot shoots towards the combat cyborg from another world, and that distraction costs him; while he manages to move out of the way of the attack (with that absurd, preternatural speed), it still manages to clip him in the arm, sending him smashing into a nearby wall. The building shudders from the force of the alien's impact; the imprint he leaves is painful to peel out of, but he does in short order, gritting his teeth irritably and leaping back up from the streets to rejoin the fight.

Jung's insane stab and Guy's Broken Phantom give J a moment's pause as the supersoldier cyborg darts between the attacks, trailing red light behind him as he gathers up his attention. J flips over the Mazinger Blade as it comes swinging down; his eyes flash beneath his helmet as ruby energy coaslces around his hands, forming into the spinning plasma drills that had replaced his blades ever since that fateful fight with the Gurren-dan.

And those blades come down on Tempest's Guarlion hard; each hand behind those energy drills is strong enough to rip through steel on its own. He wouldn't be satisfied with just the initial stab, of course, the spinning, whirring energy seeking to dig its way into Tempest's machine; no, he'd be off and darting over the Guarlion to its back, to attack its more vulnerable parts as soon as was possible.

And, you know. Get out of the way of Guy, Jung, and Koji before one of them accidentally caught *him* up in their flurry of rage-driven attacks.

Legs tangled. Great. Lovely. Edward grunted and did a litle juggling with his thrusters to keep mobile while he tried sorting this one out. Oh and just for the guy that shot at him he has a nice lovely thank you present for making him have to deal with this. Said gift comes straight from the forward end of a bazooka. From Me to You.

SUDDENLY, BRA. Tetsuya grunts as the Barrelion opens fire, feeling the beam weapon slam hard into the mighty giant's shoulder. It charges forward, sword swinging! That poor, unfortunate piece of lingerie is sliced clean in two with a single snap of Great Mazinger's mighty wrist! Unfortunately, it doesn't quite connect with the Barrelion. Instead, it merely ends up cutting through a few clotheslines in the process of trying to hit the damn thing.

This probably ends up ruining more than just a single bra. Men across the city are either rejoicing or weeping, depending on just what it was that Tetsuya accidentally sliced to bits.

But the pilot of Great Mazinger isn't about to stop just because he's ruined a few ladies' wardrobes! Most of the clothes are intact, I mean, really. Just needs a bit of a wash. Tetsuya Tsurugi pushes his joysticks hard, straining Great Mazinger's powerful body against the beam cannon shot. Its eyes flash briefly as it flicks the blade in its undamaged hand to an upright position. The arm pulls back, and lashes forth, hurling the blade in an attempt to pin the Barrelion's leg to the pavement!

He looks to the skies. To his allies. How are they doing? It seems as though these Barrelions have skilled pilots. But they would almost assuredly pull through. Would they? Who's to say. But Tetsuya is a Super Robot pilot- and one of the prerequisites is being able to stare a challenge in the eye and punch it in its metaphorical glass jaw.

Meriden Almace's landing was a lot harder than intended. She really ought to have some kind of floating system, but she didn't - about the only thing that saved her was the fact that she hit water deep enough to land in.

Slowed as she is, though, Meriden still manages to see the bits taking aim at her. She can't feel them - she's not feeling a lot from her opposition, really. It's strange. Normally she's picked up something by now, some stray feeling; Meriden is easily powerful enough to do that but there's nothing there /to/ feel.

Instead she just sees them the normal way, and reactions take care of the rest. The Gundam jumps forward, beams vaporizing the seawater around her and leaving plumes of steam; Meriden finds a rock underwater and stands on it, leaving the Gundam about chest-deep in the sea. Water trickles off its head and down its chest, slow but constant.

"Okay," Meriden says, reaching over her back. She brings down the oversized beam cannon there, gripping it in both hands and keeping the barrel end out of the water. "I'm going to shoot you before you shoot anyone else!"

Meriden fires. It isn't a single cohesive beam so much as a tightly focused spray; the two dozen little beam shards are so close together that from the side and at a distance they /do/ look like a single blast, though one that slowly spreads as it radiates further away from the cannon that launched it. Meriden fires a second shotgun-like spray, and a third, trying to catch the evasive Flickerist before it can dodge again.

Beams strike along the heavy armor on the torso of the Berserker, blowing off some of the gleaming silver and blue painted metal, but doesn't manage to punch though the heavy armor and damage anything within. Meanwhile, Adam is struggling with the controls a bit to bring the mid-air flying machine to a stop. Momentum is a bit more of a bitch to deal with when you're flying than on the ground.

"Come on you stupid piece of... Turn it around!"

Adam hits his control console, which doesn't seem to have much effect, but he does still manage to bring the machine to a stop. Alright, angle and position. These enemy machines aren't too fast, but they are large. As long as he can keep them blocking each others' shots, he can knock them down one at a time. He's underestimated their speed once though, and doesn't plan to do that again.

Instead, Adam charges at the Barrelion, sword held forward. He punches his Tesla drive to fly upward suddenly and then just as suddenly drops down on top of the enemy unit, shining mech-scale blade thrown forward with the entire 100 ton weight of Adam's Berserker behind it, aimed to drive the blade straight though the railgun of one of the machines. If it works, it'll both disable, and possibly destroy the machine, while still keeping him close enough that it provides cover to block the shots from its two friends.

Unit one, facing Edward, has managed to web the unit. Yet somehow, it had not fully taken hold. Bertham only just barely manages to hold his surprise and react against the sudden lifting and bringing about of the bazooka. "Verdammt noch mal!" He curses, as the rocket propelled grenade explodes in close proxity in response to the countermeasures he was pushing out of his Barrelion. He hits the verniers again as the machine rocks heavily, getting behind the Janice, its beam cannon focussing in on the unit, and then fires four shots in short succession, trying to take out the enemy's arms - to stop it from reaching any further modules.

On the ground, Adam continues to underestimate, or generally is outdone, by the sheer ability and speed of the unit three Barrelion. The pilot sways left and right almost unnaturally, whilst its barrels move up only ever so slightly, trying to line up a shot for taking out the left shoulder of the unit, seeing as there was something sticking out there that looks vulnerable. The other two hit their jets and try to get closer to the Berserker whilst pelting it with machinegun fire, trying to hit its own verniers.

In the meantime, unit two, facing the Great Mazinger, is showing just how fast it is as well. The flung blade is dodged by quick reactions that send it straight into an actual building. And when it comes out, the entire unit is covered in white poop and... chickens!? A whole army of chickens suddenly flutter straight for the Great Mazinger, as they jump and attempt to fly to safety! Is unit four using chickens as cover? THAT'S RIGHT! Suddenly, a twosome of GIGANTIC beams rush out of its barrels, and attempt to strike it, whilst it is hiding in the chicken-coop house. In its path, some of the unlucky chickens are hit. And when they fall to the ground, somehow, they are all in medium carton boxes that claim: Chicken! Now with a thirteenth secret ingredient!

Plumes of steam burst up into the air along with the displacement of sea water. It takes Lethe a few seconds to realize that the Seventh Gundam hasn't been caught up in the damage from the blasts, against her expectations. In some circles, what crops up in her mind at this inability to strike may be called 'surprise,' but don't let the secret slip.

For all the things the Flickerist can do, it can't turn on a dime or twirl and dance around the assaults that would ruin a lesser opponent. Certainly it can haul ass in a straight line, but she needs a few moments to build up a true head of steam. Thus: The black Assault Dragoon's main vernier engines fire up again. The legs spread a little wider than shoulder width while the machine starts to kneel down, virtually skating across the ocean water toward Meriden and the Seventh Gundam.

The cannon's collective beam-- more like a beam pellet spray-- starts to rip and crash against the armor without getting total penetration. The second volley hits, the third, and it just-- keeps-- coming.

Her voice is soft. "Boost Knuckle."

The right forearm splits open again while the thrusters cut, carried aloft by the momentum built up and by the power of the Tesla Drive. The hidden vernier in the forearm is revealed again, and the massive, nasty-looking fist hooks forward in that crouched pose. The vernier fires, and the Flickerist aims to drive it's fist squarely into the Seventh Gundam's head.

Continuing to glide after the strike, the Flickerist ascends while the four Shadow Bits sweeping toward the machine. The feet tips down as locks clear, and two more of those bits drop out of the Assault Dragoon's knee guards.

"I will shoot you, instead."

The six bits fly down into a tight formation around the left hand and the revolver pointed at Meriden. They start to spin around the limb in a manner similar to a gatling gun, releasing a roar of wind as they accelerate. And then, the Ashsaber variant pulls the trigger.

It isn't the standard plasma shots that came before. Instead, the full fury of all six bits are focused on a single point, aiming to vaporize everything in it's path, from water to Mobile Suit!

Plumes of steam burst up into the air along with the displacement of sea water. It takes Lethe a few seconds to realize that the Seventh Gundam hasn't been caught up in the damage from the blasts, against her expectations. In some circles, what crops up in her mind at this inability to strike may be called 'surprise,' but don't let the secret slip.

For all the things the Flickerist can do, it can't turn on a dime or twirl and dance around the assaults that would ruin a lesser opponent. Certainly it can haul ass in a straight line, but she needs a few moments to build up a true head of steam. Thus: The black Assault Dragoon's main vernier engines fire up again. The legs spread a little wider than shoulder width while the machine starts to kneel down, virtually skating across the ocean water toward Meriden and the Seventh Gundam.

The cannon's collective beam-- more like a beam pellet spray-- starts to rip and crash against the armor without getting total penetration. The second volley hits, the third, and it just-- keeps-- coming.

Her voice is soft. "Boost Knuckle."

The right forearm splits open again while the thrusters cut, carried aloft by the momentum built up and by the power of the Tesla Drive. The hidden vernier in the forearm is revealed again, and the massive, nasty-looking fist hooks forward in that crouched pose. The vernier fires, and the Flickerist aims to drive it's fist squarely into the Seventh Gundam's head.

Continuing to glide after the strike, the Flickerist ascends while the four Shadow Bits sweeping toward the machine. The feet tips down as locks clear, and two more of those bits drop out of the Assault Dragoon's knee guards.

"I will shoot you, instead."

The six bits fly down into a tight formation around the left hand and the revolver pointed at Meriden. They start to spin around the limb in a manner similar to a gatling gun, releasing a roar of wind as they accelerate. And then, the Ashsaber variant pulls the trigger.

It isn't the standard plasma shots that came before. Instead, the full fury of all six bits are focused on a single point, aiming to vaporize everything in it's path, from water to Mobile Suit!

Barrelions. Butt end of many MANY jokes. Edward was only mildly annoyed at their mobility since crummy armor equates to... uh.... one hit and it's a dustcloud of parts. Trouble is the guy in Unit One seemed to actually know what he was doing. OH and a beam canon, at practically point blank, to the back kinda doesn't do Nice Things to you.

So armor scorched and his suit skiding face first along the gorund, blundering into cars, a building. Possibly some people.

Edward groaned in his seat trying to reroute power. Figure out just how much of his suit was actually still working, and if he could salvage anything from this mes.


 * clung*

The Boost Knuckle hits the Seventh Gundam square in the head. Meriden feels the impact in her body as the Seventh lurches, barely able to stay up on its rock without sliding off the back. But it makes it, barely, standing upright again.

"Fine!" Meriden says, and then - she feels it. Still nothing from the enemy pilot, who may as well be a void, but an instant of foresight is enough for her to throw herself forward. Seventh hits the water again with a splash, vanishing from sight, as the massive bolt arcs past its back so close the paint sizzles.

It reappears closer to shore, having used its space-use maneuvering thrusters inadviseably in the salt water to jet through it. Meriden will be hearing /all/ about how she damaged them tomorrow, but that's a good thing; it means she /survived/ until then. Micromissiles fire vertically from the pack on its back, turning in midair and leaving smoke trails behind them as Meriden tries to bombard the Flickerest before it can escape her!

It truly is a day of miracles in the streets Mumbai. Tetsuya Tsurugi's jaw hangs ever so slightly loose as the cloud of white avians suddenly charge out into the city, putting themselves in between he and his target. Unfortunately for the chickens, Tetsuya is not a bleeding heart tree hugger. As he sees the railgun shots explode out of the Barrelion's cannons, he sets himself into action.

One of the many dials in the Brain Condor is turned from grey to yellow to orange. Great Mazinger unleashes a terrifying growl as its torso suddenly erupts in dull, red light. Heat from the Photonic reactor is channeled to the crimson crest on its chest, and then fired right at the Barrelion and the chicken swarm! Several of the birds burst into flame, but mysteriously appear in glass buckets on the ground below. Mumbai would feast tonight on the flesh of the glorious chicken!

But Tetsuya's assault doesn't stop at a poultry attack such as this! No, he has yet more to do! Great Mazinger charges its opponent, ripping the Mazinger Blade out of the pavement while its other hand fetches its twin. Golden eyes blaze as it launches into a painful combo- a series of raking slashes followed by a double overhand cleave with both swords! Even if he doesn't hit, Great Mazinger's advance is... Directed. Purposeful. Driving the Barrelion further and further out of civilized areas toward where Tetsuya would no longer need to rely on Great's more precise munitions.

Because a full powered Breast Burn in a crowded street is just a bad idea all around.

Tempest Hawker does not reply as he's locked in combat once again, he sees how angry Jung is getting. There's a smirk on his face and it's not a very nice one as he picks up speed he's closing with Jung as shes attacks him. He wanted her in melee.

"SONIC BREAKER!"

The machine's Tessla drives make a barrier and it picks up speed as he flies head first into Jung's attack. She strikes home through the barrier and into the machine it digs in deep before he pulls away and rips free of the weapon.

"So easily provoked."

He is however distracted and dealing with something so small isnt a common thing that Tempest and it makes him pay for it the damage is bad but it's not the worst it could be as the blade rip into the Guarlion. Still it's adding up, he almost manages to hit J on the counter attack but he's just too fast for him. As Guy comes in he sees the attack it's clear he's read up and watched the combat data on Guy as he evades the attacks and opens fire with his rail gun emptying the entire clip at the super hero. Let's face it what guy is.

"Tch too slow Cyborg!"

Did he just jack J's nickname for him? Yes, yes he did!

Then comes Koji Kabuto.

"I will continue until the Federation is destroyed!"

But Koji is met with the roar of the assault blade the whirring blade locks with Koji and then He gets past Koji's guard? Yet Koji does the same.

Tempest falls back at this point and opens up with his Railgun on Koji, and also fires off another burst from his autocannons at the rest.

"Are you all just talk?"

Adam was right about one thing: These things don't seem to be in their element up close like this. His blade smashes though the ground, and Adam leaves it there for a moment, wheeling his Berserker backwards as railgun shots scream though the air around him. For the moment, he'll leave his blade there, buried in the earth, while he focuses on a much more direct method here.

These guys look like they have to 'set' to fire, which gives Adam a bit of time, he hopes. He keeps his weapons quiet, and doesn't go in with his sword this time. Instead, he charges a nearby Barrelion again, this time using his mech's empty hand. The PPC arm is aimed to smash into the top of the Barrelion, while the empty hand actuator moves to literally grab the railgun.

If he gets that far, he uses the powerful TSM-backed strength of the Berserker to attempt to literally tear the Barrelion in half, ripping the railgun that forms the core of the mech clean out of it.

The blade comes through the streets and cuts up at the Barrelion, which fires its missiles at him and disappears in a gigantic explosion that rocks its cockpit! But because if the suddenly mist of junk and waste, it manages to get right out of the way and circle the Great Mazinger. Unit one in the meantime has decided that Edward Fawkes' unit has been damaged enough that it would probably disengage, and quickly jets down and aims its head-weapon at the top of the Mazinger. Combining together with unit two, they try to strike the Mazinger from two locations!

Unit three to five however, manage to somehow outrun the Berserker! One of the support Barrelions quickly crashes against the one which is mainly facing Adam, allowing them both to get away from the punch and grab of the PPC arm. And to try and cover their own run, a whole storm of missiles goes flying at Adam to blind his sensors as they dive into random streets to try and make it harder to find them.

Indeed, she is a roving psychic void. It isn't as though there is shielding set upon the cockpit or some kind of interference, it's more like whoever this soft-spoken girl is... she isn't normal.

But neither is the pilot of the Seventh Gundam. Lethe's head cocks to the side once she realizes what's going on, following the Mobile Suit's movements with keen interest. She has a good idea of what it /can/ do from what the computers have told her, but it seems like there's more to the machine than advertised.

The Flickerist once again charges, rather than shy away from the Gundam and the micromissiles. It leans to one side, shifting out of the path of one missile while making a hard left to avoid another, the machine seemingly flying in jerky, erratic lines to stay out of the line of fire.

Once she's close enough, she doesn't even guard herself from the micromissiles, letting them impact against the armor or deflect to the side before air-bursting. Instead, the left arm reaches out before the hand comes toward the chest, the long blade mounted on the back of the elbow slashing at the Gundam as it passes by!

Sand kicks up as the Assault Dragoon lurches to a halt, bursting upward with a puff of superheated air as vertical thrust holds it upright. Twisting around, the heavily-modified Ashsaber spins and boosts forward again, bearing down on Meriden with everything that the engines have available to them. The right fist draws back, but she doesn't seem to be content to throw that strike immediately.

"Mach Knuckle."

Setting the left shoulder into the charge, Lethe intends for the two machines to crash together, to knock the Seventh Gundam off-balance before throwing another punch. This one aimed for the middle of the abdomen, the vernier mounted in the arm fires at full thrust, throwing /everything/ into the punch-- and if all of this insanity does hit, she plans on trying to boost forward with the Seventh Gundam planted on the end of the fist!

Sloppy.

J had the speed advantage, and he allowed it to get the better of him. As he dances between the railgun bullets - and occasionally *off* the railgun bullets - he wasn't really thinking; wasn't really paying attention to how the bullets could hurt him, because to him, they couldn't. They were so slow, as slow as an escalator, a clear path to Tempest. So when one of the bullets is just a bit higher than he'd anticipated - when it catches him right in the stomach, a bullet nearly as big as his torso - at the speed he's going at, it's only thanks to his incredibly inhuman durability that he's not ripped to shreds in an instant. Instead, for his troubles, he's slammed into the ground, letting out a horrible *whuffff* sound as he hits the concrete with a nasty-sounding *thudd* and a loud cough. The bullet rolls to the side; he certainly wasn't bulletproof, and he certainly wasn't pain-proof, but the force of their initial impact might've killed enough momentum to make it decidedly less lethal.

Thankfully, Abel had designed better than that.

J pulls himself to his feet, wobbling. He was dazed from the sheer force of the impact; he'd recover soon enough. For now, he was still feeling it, and boy, was 'it' a lot. As J-Jewel energy flooded his systems, kickstarting his basic self-repair enough to regain his ability to see straight, his eyes flare with light; the alien's teeth grit against each other as he refocuses on the Guarlion. It was his own fault he'd been sloppy.

Mistakes could cost a world, after all.

J's scarves flatten out into that sharp, terrible wing-shape as ruby energy covers his fist; the supersoldier takes off, drawing his arm back as the ruby gauntlet covers it entirely, taking raw, undefined courage and hammering it into the form of a weapon suited for the speedfreak alien martial artist. J's going straight for the Guarlion's head without pause - he's going right for the eyes, to neutralize his enemy as efficiently as possible and allow the bigger units a better chance. Koji and Guy had lots of strength behind them; Jung had fury, which J knew from experience was more effective than any weapon. Pizza had taught him that. Tactically speaking, they were better-suited to destroying the Guarlion.

A ruby-colored fist comes swinging for the Guarlion's head at the speed of a bullet.

He'd never been much for tactics when he could just punch the hell out of something, of course.

The "San" rebounds off the Sonic Breaker as the spear is dislodged. Jung herself is now apopletic. She may in fact be in danger of some kind of medical condition from fury, which is probably painfully clear to anyone psychically sensitive. Why is this?

Well, let her tell you.

"You smug, terrorist, FUCK!" Jung snarls as the San skids to a stop half a block away. Its head lifts up, the machine itself striking an awkward but tensed pose. "'So easily provoked'! You -"

A thought occurs to Jung, quieting her for a moment. She doesn't voice it, but... There was reconditioning occuring. Even Takaya got a little of it, though at the time Jung thought it was just psychotherapy so she wouldn't cry and hug Smith Toren's dirty laundry for the rest of her life. Is it possible, she thinks, that they've resorted to using it on -

SO ANGRY

The simmering injustice of the Aggressors existing returns to Jung, granting her power. "If I hadn't had to save you from the Space Monsters I'd have been ruling your little dick-stroking club," she seethes, as the spear is slowly turned in San's grasp. "And I'll show you the kind of discipline --"

CUT IN: "That you never seemed to have! Jacobiniiiiiiii--"

The San goes free, streaking forwards at immense speeds under token thrust. Then inert again, then further, gaining mass as it flies forwards. The first brutal strike is aimed to shock and shudder the Guarlion, discharging another crackle of thunder into it. Then...

"Meteor--" The spear draws back, San's monoptic head gleaming with a sparkle of blue for a moment.

"ATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK" even as a chorus of ringing, brutalizing blows begins, starting slow and coming faster and faster like a twisted and furious reversal of Zeno's paradox. Hopefully, Soldato J will be the anvil for Jung's brutal Soviet hammer!!

Screens flickered back to life. Ed allowed himself a small smile as his suit stirred. People started to crowd around him ran when it started to stand.

"C'mon shelly... Attagirl." He coaxed the suit back to it's feet. It's left arm wasn't responding and he was using a mangle of systems that really werne't intended to handle what he was doing. However he had a job to do and By God so long as he was capible of fighting he was going to fight.

"My Name is Edward Fawkes." Slow deliberate voice. Words spoken in Gaena, or at least some variation thereof. "I stand between anyone wanting to hurt those just wanting to live thier lives." He found his quary. The fact the Barrelions looked the same and the fact Everything was down for several minutes meant he couldn't know who attacked him. He didn't care either. Heat Hawk was out and hot enough to cut through metal. "Your. Madness. ENDS!" Cue one broken Jenice flying into a simi-random Barrelion with dismemberment on it's mind.

When the missiles come in, Adam Steiner backs off his mech as fast as he can. He's got a secret weapon here: A small, turreted machine gun mounted on the chest of his Berserker. The gun has one purpose: To use fast-tracking turrets to shoot down incoming missiles. Adam moves backwards as fast as he can, using cover where he can to shake off some missiles, while his Anti-Missile System shoots down the rest. What few missiles do hit him don't succeed in doing much but scuffing his armor.

Meanwhile, the Barrelions split up and move off into the city. That's fine with Adam. He reclaims his blade, and syncs up with Rachel again.

"Rachel, I need a satellite feed on the city. The enemy are scattering. Give me a path to hit them one by one."

"Copy that, Adam. I'll feed you positional data now."

The Barrelions thought they could hide, but Adam has more support than they expected. Once he gets the information, he goes to work. Guided by Rachel Specter, Adam charges through the city, hunting down the Barrelions like a wolf stalking deer though a forest. He tries to avoid contact at the last moment, until he's right on top of them, at which point he rounds a corner, or just bursts over, or though a building, to bring his blade at the cores of the enemy mechs.

Great Mazinger's foe is... Suddenly no longer where it should be! Tetsuya grunts, turning as soon as he realizes just what's happening. But it's too little too late. The railgun shots slam into Great Mazinger's armor, leaving huge dents in the Super Alloy Z plating. But if these bastards think they're going to slow down just because of a little thing like that---

Well, he's clearly never fought a Mazinger before.

"Let's take this somewhere--" Tetsuya roars, rushing both machines. Great Mazinger's eyes flash as its arms lash out to grab hold of the head-cannons on both Barrelions, "--Where we can really cut loose! SCRAMBLE DAAASH!"

Again, those wings spread wide! The Super Robot's impressive thruster systems kick in, shooting them into the sky and then, toward the countryside! Tetsuya's yell carries over the rolling thunderclouds overhead as he dips, descending with both machines in arm to slam into a nearby hillside. Now there's nowhere left to run!

The Seventh Gundam, half out of the water, appears to be a relatively easy target for the Mach Knuckle. That is, however, what we call a 'lie'. Sort of.

Meriden doesn't /quite/ panic, but there is a decided amount of urgency when she defends herself. Her left hand opens up, a beam saber in the wrist dropping into the hand, grabbed with a click and activated all in the same gesture. It is very, very clear that Meriden has almost no idea how to properly use a beam sword, and it is equally clear that she may not need to; instinct puts the blade where it needs to be to parry, and she delivers an awkward but moderately successful chop immediately afterwards.

"I've still got you!" Meriden drops the blade entirely - it hits the water and sizzles out. She grips the shotcannon with both hands, pulling and holding the trigger; a dull yellow glow starts to build up inside the barrel as she takes a half step, turning to follow the still-flying Flickerest.

She fires. The beam is significantly more massive than the last one, and though it is still theoretically made up of a bunch of littler ones, they're overlapping and penetrating in such a way that it really doesn't make a difference - it will leave one really, really big hole behind if it hits.

Tempest is trying to shoot GaoGaiGar full of holes; Guy responds by looping around and away from the bullets, intercepting the returning Broken Phantom - but he doesn't manage to get close enough to hit the Barrelion with his knee-mounted drills.

At least not yet.

GaoGaiGar pours on the speed, heading straight in at the Barrelion - but this time, Guy's leading with the super mechanoid's *left* hand, and he calls out, "PLASMA HOLD!!!" as he tries to make contact - not just with GaoGaiGar's hand, but with the tendrils of yellow lightning which crackle forth from the emitters arrayed around its left wrist. All he needs is to grab hold of the Barrelion with those, and fling it across the sky ...

Lasers meet railgun fire.

The end result is.. explosive, to say the least.

WACHOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

"Uwaaaaaaah!" Koji cries out as Mazinger Z is thrown back by the resulting blastwave. The Steel Guard's heavy stomps resound all throughout the street it stands on, leaving Mazinfoot-sized holes all throughout the blacktop. Its arm swings out to catch its balance, cutting a wide swath into a nearby building.

Concrete and glass shards fall to the ground.

Koji winces, "..I hope no one was in there!" he bites his lower lip with concern. But all of a sudden..

"AIEEEEEEE!!"

The screech is piercing and bloodcurdling, jolting Ensign Koji from his seated position in the Pilder. He pulls on the control yoke, turning Mazinger Z's chromed head around.

Beneath the Invincible Iron Castle, a little pale Hindi girl in a blonde wig and cape points.

"Whhaa...?" Koji sputters, his eyes wide with confusion. A slight lift of Mazinger's head and he can see further. He's standing amid a production area for Mehboob Studio. Its backlot transformed into a wonderful world of an idealized Japan, where the colors are brighter and the belief of a wonderful world further instilled.

It is a fantastic world..

A world of..

MAGICAL GIRL LYRICAL NANOHA A BOLLYWOOD JOINT

Dread fills young Koji Kabuto. "Y-you.. YOU GUYS GOTTA GET OUTTA HERE!!" he hollars at the film crew and its actors, waving his hands frantically within the confines of the Pilder. "THIS GUY IS CRAZY HE'S GONNA TRY TO KILL US A--"

The Pilder sends out a whooping alert! Gunfire detected!

Mazinger Z's head turns around with a whirring clank. Tempest Hawker's DCAM-006C Guarlion Custom is continuing to unload its railgun. Everyone's in danger!!

"SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT," Koji wails. He yanks hard on the control yoke!!

Mazinger Z takes one stompy step forward, bringing its black body forward to protect the film crew! Magnetically-propelled slugs slam against Super Alloy Z-reinforced plating, rendering out a rapid series of thumpity-clank-clank-thumps akin to a solo by the legendary Lars Ulrich. Koji shuts his eyes, tears rolling from his cheeks.

When the sounds end, Koji's eyes slowly flutter open. There's smoke, but as it passes, and when Koji focuses his wet eyes-- he finds the little Hindi actress standing in the palm of Mazinger Z. Safe and sound. The film crew beyond are running for safety, spooked but plenty alive.

"wh--- wh--" Koji pants, staring bug-eyed a bit at his fortune.

The little Hindi girl, clad in all the finery of Nanoha Takamachi herself, looks and stares clear to the quickly-ruining city of Mumbai where the Guarlion Custom stands. She casts a faintly thoughtful look... before drawing her prop Raising Heart staff from her back and pointing it in the direction of the Guarlion.

"Hmf!" she wiggles her pert little nose and whirls the staff around. She squeaks out something in Hindi and whips the end of Raising Heart forward.

Nothing happens.

"...." Koji sits and stares, slightly bewildered. He takes a moment to consider just what the hell happened. And then, realizing this little girl has just out-couraged him, decides to do her one better. "/HAI/!!" he declares. He pushes a button on the console.

> Iron Cutter engaged.

Scythe-blades slide out from either side of Mazinger Z's left forearm. Its arm thrusts out, pointing for Tempest Hawker and his Guarlion Custom.

Koji's brow narrows, his eyes filled with a yellow light.

ALERT: Koji has gained DRIVE!!

BURN IT UP! MAZINGERRRR!

Mazinger Z rises and stands!! With a little Hindi girl in its right and its bladed left arm aimed at the Terror That Has Come to Mumbai. Its pilot, Man in Battle Koji Kabuto, full of rage and righteousness. "TEMPEST HAWKER!!" he bellows so loud that it eclipses the din of battle. "YOU CAN'T WIN!! YOUR REIGN OF TERROR WILL COME TO AN END..!!"

GO!! IRON CUTTAAAAAAH!!

When Tetsuya grabs hold of the two Barrelions, only one thing starts happening. Number one and two both start firing missiles, missiles, more missiles, and even all the missiles -- which is an ammo two attack by the way. But they don't seem to be doing very much at all. A few of the missiles go flying up into the air as Edward tries to rip onto the #2's armor, cutting off its left arm. The wing goes flying and blows up a few meters further, destroying some of the plants at the countryside. Damn those Divine Crusaders, they'll blow things up and kill things even when you take them somewhere SAFE! Not waiting one second after being rammed into the ground, their machines shuddering, both Barrelion units quickly try to wrest themselves from the Great Mazinger's grip and run around in a circle, firing all the missiles. Again. And still there's ammo left!

Adam in the mean time, has found one of the unfortunate Barrelions which had park itself in front of a beautiful fountain. For some reason, three colorly clothed men were dancing on top of the machine, and the pilot had opened the hatch, yelling at them and shaking his fist. Adam's wrath is soon delivered upon this foolish Barrelion pilot, as the blade rips through the building he just crashed through and SLAMS the entire thing in half, which then explodes beautifully! Tanuk tanuk tun!

Missile to the face. Edward seemed past registering the level of damage his suit took. For that matter so did the suit. It just took the hit and aside from it's momentum being reduced to nil and having been flattened against a building it seemed to function better than something that's been beam---hosed and missle spammed has any right to. This is when Ed closes in on the Barrelions. The guy he clipped? Ed starts in on him. No heat hawk. Just fist, feet, maybe a headbutt or three... Ahh the wonders of being close enough to actually TOUCH your enemy.... in a busted suit that might fall apart at any moment.

The fist impacts with the beam saber's blade, the edge searing into the Flickerist's metallic fist and reinforced knuckles. It doesn't get too far in, especially when Meriden takes the offensive and breaks into a new strike, cutting a gash in the Assault Dragoon's hull, across the chest.

Lethe looks down at the consoles and frowns, checking the data that she had been able to glean from the scanning systems. Is this pilot better than she thought? Surely this couldn't be one of the Federation's aces, one of their wolves in sheep's clothing. Shifting her grip on the controls, the pull of G-forces causes even the gynoid to sway in her seat as she makes a turn at full speed.

As she comes back around, Meriden's shotcannon is waiting for her. The beam-birdshot floods the space in front of her, catching the Flickerist square in the robo-abdomen for all the trouble. Armor twists and cracks, leaving a gaping wound in the machine's body... and leaves W18 with the oddest feeling. Her lips twitch and her eyes narrow under her sunglasses.

"... This Gundam..." she murmurs, looking for something, /anything/ that could be construed as a weakness or flaw in it's design.

The left and right arm swing forward, the Flickerist now carrying two of those large revolvers. Staying at close range to Meriden and the threat of her shotcannon, she just starts pulling the trigger-- and does not stop. The shots are wild, flooding the space before her with more and more gunfire, aiming to sink as many of the green-hue beam shots as possible into the Seventh Gundam.

"... I /will/ pierce your armor."

The blast from the exploding Barrelion catches the Berserker, which is totally unable to do anything but stand there and take the blast to the face. For a long moment, the whole area where the Berserker stands is obscured in a cloud of dust and smoke, and nothing of either machine can be seen.

And then, the Berserker comes charging right out of it. Damage on its armor all across the body from the torso to the feet, but it's still running as strong as ever. "One down..." Adam says to himself as he rushes though the city, using the Tesla Drive to get past buildings and civilian groups as he guns right for the next Barrelion down the line.

When he gets there, he doesn't slow down, he just keeps charging forward, rushing all 100 tons of his mech at speeds that would be considered seriously unsafe by most pilots, aimed to just run right over the enemy Barrelion.

The shotcannon is a terrifying weapon and Meriden doesn't need that much room to wield it - but she has to be careful, here, because she wants to fire out to sea and not, say, into the city. That would be bad.

Meriden knows she is going to have trouble dodging, but she has to try anyway. She watches where the guns are pointed, and she remains just a hair ahead of them; some of them chew through armour, fracturing and burning it, but the frame itself seems, if not intact, at least still functional.

"I'm not going to let you!" Meriden says, her voice rising up into a half-squeak. "You guys are awful, attacking a city! You don't even have a good reason, I bet, you just want to frighten people because they won't listen to you any other way and I won't let you! That's what I'm here to stop!"

Meriden fires the shotcannon on wide spray, parallel to the coast. It's angled to catch Flickerest, not blow it up; that honour goes to the barrage of missiles Meriden launches from her back, raining down on the black machine like deadly hail.

Missiles, missiles, missiles everywhere. Explosions rock Great Mazinger's form. Its arms are crossed protectively over its head and chest, its golden eyes peer out at the Barrelions as they continue to circle, continue to strafe. To use so much ammo- these men are clearly using technology taken from the SDF-01!

But even that sort of overtechnology cannot match the power of a Mazinger!

For, even as Tetsuya keeps Great Mazinger's arms crossed and carrying the brunt of the missile assault, he prepares. The dial that controls Great Mazinger's central heat sink is turned up, and up and up, until even turning it becomes a matter of fighting against the machine, but still, he forces it to climb! Simultaneously, he slams his fist into a nearby panel- sending the signal across the globe, to Japan, to prepare for the launch of 'that' weapon.

He would use it now, to finish this, but first...

Underneath Great Mazinger's arms, its chestplate glows red, then gold, then white hot. Fire licks out from over and under the super robot's arms. Light pours forth from its eyes as excess heat spills out of the grill built into the Super Robot's jaw. "Great Mazinger," Tetsuya thunders, "Let's show them the power of Photonic Energy! The light of hope!"

"Now, do it!" Great's joints groan as its arms spread, thrusters pushing it just off the ground, skyward, its torso parallel to the circle the Barrelions weave onto the ground. "Great Mazinger!! BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAST BUUUUUUUUUUURN!" Burning with all the rage of the gods themselves, the Photonic flames issue forth, firing in a great, and terrifying cone, the two Barrelions at its heart!

There will be a small crater of glass and burnt vegetation when all is said and done. But...

Adam's incredibly approach on one of the other clueless Barrelions, number five, which actually manages to notice Adam. The pilot just stares for a while, as that gigantic thing comes its way. And in that pilot's head, he hears Adam go: 'I'm gonna kill you!' Which results in... "AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" The Barrelion turns around and tries to thrust away! The giant body of Adam's Berserker smashes into its back, doing severe damage to its thrusters. But it keeps going. Using its two legs, it begins to FROG HOP forwards. "Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!" The pilot continues to scream, tossing many missiles back at Adam, hoping to take him out before he gets to him. And the number three unit suddenly comes flying out of nowhere, giving the other unit assistance by spamming more missiles! MORE MISSILES!

As Adam lands near the Great Mazinger, and goes for the Einzeit Zwei Barrelion, he finds himself quite capable of hitting it. With its wing clipped, it is severely disabled, and it starts spinning around in circles whilst Edward releases his attacks onto it. Each hit, and it spins, it's like some kind of game of pop the weasel, only, it's remaining popped. "What kind of Zaku is that!?" The pilot screams, yelling just before enough punches and kicks finally lead to a gigantic explosion! Then, as Edward gets out of the way, Tetsuya's attack sends any recognizable pieces of hardware straight to hell. The red energy attach washes over the entire area...

It chases unit one, and cuts into its wings, but the pilot is skilled! "Verdammt!" The man calls out again as his unit wags about, and starts rotating, which somehow helps him evade the attack. And during this spinning, some might call it... a barrel roll... more it aims its gigantic twin barrels at the Great Mazinger and tries to force the railgun beams INTO its chest, hoping that whilst it is active, the unit is more vulnerable. More missiles also go flying, trying to take revenge for Edward taking out his buddy!

Tempest Hawker is aught in the plasma hold as Guy's technology brings his /Guarlion/ to a halt for the moment the damage isn't too bad but he does counter fire and doesn't stop shooting at Guy until the next attacker comes after him that is the AM that Tempest is using is clearly got some crazy armor with all the punishment it's been taking so far. But here comes Soldato J as he comes in how is something so small so freaking lethal? How is it so freaking lethal? But this time he's repaired for it and while held the Guarlion lays down a massive barrage of fire hopefully pushing J back or does he just manage to move his stricken Guarlion just enough to avoid J's wrath.

Speaking of wrath he's got Jung to deal with.

"You were quite the terrorist your self. If I remember right it was the crusade that saved your fleet!" It's easy to forget Jung only slightly younger than he is.

But damn the soviet hammer crushes into the unit. While J failed to do damage Jung clearly makes up for it.

Then comes Koji once more the Mazinger Z can not be stopped but heh's down and Kojis going after Mazinger and he's going to start opening fire, as the Icon Cutter kicks in and smacks Tempest machine sending it sprawling across the studio he pauses looking down, seeing the outfit. Anna liked the show... Tempest twitched as things he'd like to forget. Tempest now gets angry and starts to close in on Koji with the assault blade. Jung herself is treated to a burst from the railgun and empties the entire clip at her.

"So this is how you want it then join the FEDERATION IN DEATH!"

The missles keep coming... Ed managed, somehow to not get hit but at a cost. His suit's tapped out. IT ground to a halt. He swore under his breath and before popping the hatch to bail (since mobile suits that can't move are not safe places to be) he hit a button to cause the vulcans to go off in a final 'salute' to his enemy.

After running over one with a charge, Adam backs off while the other takes off and starts tearing though the air. Adam could try and fly after it, bringing his sword down on the machine, but he opts not to. He doesn't like trying to bring his big 100 tons of mech into a situation it wasn't designed for, against a machine that was.

Instead, Adam backs off. The incoming missiles get mostly shot down by his AMS, though some do manage to score solid hits on his armor, blowing off more of his heavy ferro-fibrosis armor. However, Adam barely notices. Instead, he keeps his machine still. He may not be able to chase down the enemy, but he's not completely helpless.

Instead, he trains his weapons on his enemy, bringing some of his long-range firepower to bear. Specifically, he starts cycling though his ER Medium lasers, filling the air with beams of crimson lasers. He links them into groups of threes, cycling though half his lasers per shot. The steady fire like this builds up heat pretty quick, but Adam doesn't mind that. All he cares about his smashing that Barrelion with tri-laser beams.

 Edward Fawkes transmits, "Need a pickup.... Hindustania...."

Lethe's eyes widen the moment that the massive gun is about to fire again. It isn't so much a Newtype Flash, but an acute awareness of just when Meriden is about to pull the trigger based on the timing and detectable signs a split-second beforehand. The ASK-UC90 Flickerist shifts it's footing again, leaning hard to one side as it finally manages to avoid the hellish gunfire from the shotcannon.

The missiles come raining down toward her, but Lethe has yet to be hit by any of them-- not because of pure evasive skill, but because of the six Shadow Bits that are still airborne, poised over the battle between Gundam and modified Ashsaber. Purple beams zip and zap down from on high, angled to work around the mother unit while all at once catching the missiles and take them out of the air. In the meantime, the Flickerist stows it's revolvers.

"I do not understand," she says, voice emotionless and bare. "I do what I am ordered to do."

The elbow blade swings forward at Meriden again, though the shallow strike proves to be a feint. Instead, the arm shifts, aiming the thrusting point of the weapon straight on toward the Seventh Gundam's chest, the reinforced right hand closing over the left fist. The armor on the foreram splits, the vernier fires and provides acceleration for the thrust--

-- and the blade-wielding elbow strikes forward with lethal intent!

Meriden Almace automatically fires the shotcannon again, though the beam is rather faint compared to the others except for the middle quadrant of bolts; it's a more direct shot, and it doesn't spray very far.

It's all she had time for while jerking aside. She stumbles in the shallow water and barely stays up, the mobility of the Gundam crippled by the heavy armour plating, the salt crust in the thrusters, and blunt damage; if she wasn't as good as she is (surprisingly so, given her age and experience) she /would/ have pitched over, or be impaled by the blade.

More missiles launch, not automatically but fired slightly erratically as Meriden backs up, launching whenever she sees an opportunity. At this range, that's rare, but a few drop down onto the battlefield, the ones that don't hit blowing chunks out of the beach.

The San faces that onrushing cannonade, hunching down and reaching at its waist. Jung takes an anxious breath inwards --

"SHUT UP!" she shouts, hurling the beam sword out like some kind of horrible shuriken and stalking the machine forwards afterwards.

Her voice is lower. "Fine, you fucking son of a bitch, every single thing you're all saying like a fucking CHORUS LINE is true, I'm a horrible dog of the government and not fit to be in the fucking roll of sacred martyrs like you."

She breathes in and out twice, rapidly.

"Because that's all men like you really care about in the end. You don't give a /fuck/ about people. You just want /power/. Power and people telling you you're /right/. Oh -- but isn't it sad, how they keep dying." She breathes in again.

"But who CARES - about the DEAD - they weren't PEOPLE anyway, WERE THEY, TEMPEST HAWKER??"

God that felt good, Jung thinks, before concluding. "So you can take your righteousness, your mocking, and your smug insults with you --"

She adjusts two controls, murmuring somethign off hand to the radio. Then she finishes her thought: "/TO HELL!/"

The Machine Weapon moves in a way that should not happen. Operating entirely without inertia, the beamtipped thousand strikes of blurring force coming from the machine's spear erupting from the affixing of the /other/ holdout beam saber shrieking an electric whirlwind in the air. It's like a wall of lethal force aimed at the side of the Guarlion from a demon lunging out of nowhere. Nothing, of course, that the Guarlion can't survive.

Right?

RIGHT??

The Photon Energy Research Laboratories are a testament to human science and ingenuity. The building stands, stalwart and white against the mighty Mount Fuji. It, and every scientist working within, symbolizes the bright and shining promise of humanity's future. But it is not without its enemies. To deter them, the facility houses the two great giants, Mazinger Z and Great Mazinger, that fight without rest to protect the facility and those who rely on it.

And, of course, the facility is well equipped to support its mighty champions when the need arises.

The signal goes out. Great Mazinger requires assistance, and assistance is what it shall get. A nearby hillside parts, revealing a hidden catapult, upon which, supported by an array of rockets, rests a colossal sword, almost as tall as Great Mazinger itself. The entire mechanism swings and swivels to get a lock onto the Super Robot fighting on the mainland.

--3--                                                                        --2--                                                                          -3-                                                                --Now Dispensing Justice--

The weapon launches, leaving a great plume of smoke trailing behind as it streaks across the sky! Clouds are cleaved in two as it passes, slicing the firmament like it was a knife weaving through butter. Its edge gleams, reinforced with layer upon layer of Super Alloy Z- the Divine Blade, the new sword of the gods!

In Hindustania, Great Mazinger has just taken a Railgun shot to the torso. But as the round collides, it slams tip-first into the great wall of heat and power radiating out of the crest on the Super Robot's chest. The attack melts into a pool of slag and collides messily, splattering across its chest, but doing no lasting damage.

Over the horizon, a new star shines.

It cuts through the clouds, rending the heavens apart and gathering bolt after bolt of electricity as it races toward Great Mazinger. A lightning bolt collides with the rockets attached to its hilt, scattering the clouds with a massive explosion- but the blade is not deterred! It races toward its master, spinning like a dervish until Great Mazinger leaps to snatch it out of the air!

The weapon shines with an inner light. Its blade gleams with electric fury. This is it--

Tetsuya points the tip of the weapon toward the Barrelions that are still up and running. Lightning pours out of the sky, onto Great Mazinger's horns and down the colossal weapon's edge. "Now, behold! This is the result of your ambition! This is my finest sword! This is the Blade of Olympus!"

"Great-"

"It's time to finish this!" The sword is drawn to the colossus' side, held parallel with the ground. Its thrusters ignite, pushing it toward the nearest Barrelion. The great sword is brought down in a devastating arc, before Great moves to the next Barrelion with incredible speed- and again, another, single, crushing strike! And again and again, and each time, the blade shines ever brighter, before Great finds itself without a new target and, gripping the hilt tightly with both hands, swings it in a mighty vortex, unleashing the electricity building within in a mighty, wall of lightning!

The railgun's projectiles rip into GaoGaiGar as Guy makes another attempt to drive a Drill Knee into the Guarlion's flank - to no particular avail, but that STILL doesn't stop Guy from trying. Although in all honesty, he'd rather have something bigger to hit with.

... and it's a wish which is quickly granted, as Goldymarg flies in. "Chief Taiga figured you could use an extra hand right about now!" the big orange robot shouts to Guy.

Within GaoGaiGar, Guy chuckles, shaking his head. "As good a time as any ... Chief!!"

And high above Earth, within Orbit Base: "GOLDION HAMMER!! OPERATION ... *APPROVED*!!!" "Roger! Goldion Hammer, safety device ... RELIEVE!!" And the authorization codes are transmitted.

"SYSTEM CHAAAAAAANGE!!!" thunders Goldymarg, beginning his transformation from one big robot into two big parts - the Marg Hand and the Goldion Hammer itself.

"HAMMER CONNECT!!!" shouts Guy, as GaoGaiGar's right arm latches into the back of the Marg Hand - and its fist opens, to seize the shaft of the descending "GOLDION HAMMER!!!!!"

And with his most devastating weapon equipped and on-line, Guy descends towards the Guarlion - but he doesn't strike to completely photonize the command Guarlion; instead, the gravitational shockwave unleashed by the Goldion Hammer is tuned and focused for the specific purpose of immobilizing the Guarlion. If he has to destroy any specific part of it, he's taking out the flight engines.

The Assault Blade swings down on Mazinger. Its left arm has been brought up to protect it from the savage hackings of Tempest Hawker. The edge of the blade bites into the thick Super Alloy Z-plating, resulting in spurts of rust-colored mech fluid and sparking of circuit systems beneath.

"Nnygh... nyaagh!" Koji grunts as he weathers Tempest's fury. It's as if both boy and machine were as one and what Mazinger suffers, young Kabuto feels. He resorts to blasting the Guarlion back with a launch of its rocket-powered fist. There -- just enough space to move!

Mazinger Z stomps back two steps. It holds its right arm back, in reserve to keep the little Hindi Nanoha from harm's way. But, as Koji realizes when he wiggles the Steel Guard's left arm-stump, he's going to need that other hand!

> "Shishioh, keep him in place. Koji, get the pressure towards me."

Koji bobs his head. He realizes what he has to do! "Hai!!" he calls out over the radio.

The Pilder's canopy flips open as Mazinger Z raises its hand up to its crown, allowing the little girl to board the Armor of Miracles. She stands beside Koji, barely tall enough to see past the console.

"We're going to do this together, hai!?" Koji asks.

The little Hindi girl nods smartly. She is so brave.

With a pull of the control yoke, Mazinger Z turns its head to stare down Tempest Hawker and his Guarlion Custom yet again. Its optical sensors flash with Photonic Power. With a yearning of twisting metal, it straightens in its posture. Its right arm flexes, its left stump wiggles.

> Photonic power to maximum.

One after one, the multiple cells that comprise Mazinger Z's heatsinks within its red chest fins begin to light up. Photonic power wells up within the reactor and floods into neighboring capacitors. Thermal exchangers swap in, converting and channeling all of Mazinger's generated heat into its chest. It glows so bright!!

o/~ Oma to nara kanjite knight-o o/~ Omae naraba dekiru o/~ ROCK ME

o/~ YOU ALONE ARE THE STRONGEST KNIGHT O/~ YOU CAN DO IT o/~ ROCK ME

"We'll do it together!" Koji reasons. "Ready!?"

"Hnf!" the little Hindi girl nods smartly.

"Let's do it!"

The screen splits as the left half of Hindi-Nanoha's face slides up while the right half of Koji Kabuto's face slides down.

She squeaks,

"BUUUUUURESTOOOOOO.."

...and Koji bellows,

"FIYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

Overhead, the skies darken, the heavens rumble...!!

And everything on the ground turns red.

After the missiles go flying, Edward manages to run away after firing his vulcans at the Barrelion unit number one, the unit's missile counterattack however taking down some armor before it finaly manages to get out of range. And that leaves Bertham dealing with just the Great Mazinger. It was kind of scary, for a mere Barrelion pilot to be standing up against a great Super Robot like the Great Mazinger. He knew that one single wrong move could take him down no problem.

In the meanwhile, the remaining Barrelions facing Adam's rage are having a severe amount of trouble trying to work against the Berserker. The one which had been pounced into barely is alive. And with the gun being reared up at the one that is trying to get out of Adam's distance clearly must not have noticed the giant guns. Silly elite Barrelion squadron. However, just before Adam gets a good lock onto that unit, the heavily damaged one suddenly hits its Verniers and rushes out in front of Adam's weaponfire. Like a missile, it explodes before the Berserker, but protecting the last Barrelion - which blasts gigantic beam after the other at Adam's unit, hoping to knock it off balance.

Back with Bertham, the Barrelion Pilot is trying his best to stop himself from taking too much damage. He fires a gigantic wave of missiles around itself, halting some of the swordstrikes, making it harder to know where it was. Then a suddenly FLASH of blue as it unleashes its railgun and burrows into the ground. The Great Mazinger however cuts into its back wings, slicing through its right side and taking out its other wing and the one of its barrels. Not willing to give up quite yet however, the man raises that last barrel at his enemy. "I can no longer flee. So this is my final word! TAKE THIS!" FWOOOSH! And thus fires its last energy from the unit, trying to cut into the Mazinger's head!

It's an odd way to put it, but the Flickerist doesn't look that bad. Sure, it looks fairly rough from the holes put into the armor from the shotcannon, and it has a few rips and tears in the armor from things like the hand-held beam gun, but it has more than done it's job against this Gundam-- even just by staying upright. Lethe's green-eyed gaze flicks to the right-hand screen, displaying the combined assaults and their result on Tempest Hawker.

"I will finish this."

The first two Shadow Bits come closer. The second two follow it. The third and final pair virtually drop dead from the sky, carried by their aerodynamics toward the Flickerist as it twists at the waist, reaching with it's left hand to snatch up one of those paired revolvers.

The Assault Dragoon ducks and weaves between missiles as they drop from the sky, rupturing the sands or air-bursting behind it. One impacts with the chest, deflecting at an odd angle while exploding against the hulking black machine's side. The thrusters increase, the Shadow Bits accelerate, and as the revolver swings outward to point again, the six remote weapons, those heavily modified Sword Breakers, start to spin around the arm. With a heavy crunch of the sands and an unfortunate boardwalk under it's foot, the ASK-UC90 comes to a rumbling halt at point-blank range.

"This is the end for you, Gundam."

The trigger pulls. All six beams blaze at once...

The beams from the Barrelion strike the Berserker, bypassing the torso armor and completely blowing out the power to the lasers. The Berserker stumbles back, energy weapons smashing though its heavy armor like it was paper, wrecking system after system on his internals.

"Adam!" Rachel cries out from over the radio, "I'm showing critical damage to the internals of your mech!"

"Yeah, I see it," Adam says though gritted teeth. This has to be ended, decisively. And he's out of weapons. Well, except for one...

The Berserker suddenly charges into the air, throwing itself at the Barrelion as fast it can manage. As it flies, Adam swings the blade though the air, and suddenly punches an override on the hand actuator, releasing the blade. It flies though the air, a shimmering missile of steel thrown by the powerful TSM arm of the Berserker class Battlemech. Adam has only ever done this move once before: When he last fought Nicolai Malthus, deep in the Clanworlds.

The Berserker continues to fly forward, however. Throwing the blade into the chest of the Barrelion is just the first step. He follows the blade in, a half second behind it, and a half-second after the blade would slam into the Barrelion, the Berserker slams into it, acting as the hammer, to slam the nail that is the Battlemech Longsword straight through the chest of the enemy machine.

Adam isn't quite done /yet/, though. He grabs his sword once again, and twists his mech around, ripping it out with one hand as he kicks with both legs, his mech held aloft by the Tesla drive. The combined action of swinging the enemy Barrelion around and kicking it off should, if Adam aims perfectly, cause the Barrelion he was attacking to slam into the final Barrelion from the squad, just before it explodes. It's a trick Adam has only tried once before in his life, in a Trial of Possession to free the people of his planet from Clan rule.

It became known as the Somerset Strike.

"My name isn't Gundam!" Meriden hears/feels the aggression/elation/determination behind her, a direct counterpoint to what she /doesn't/ feel from the one she's fighting. She's starting to get that low-grade headache she gets sometimes in a fight, when she's randomly reaching out, mentally.

The beams pierce right through the Gundam's shoulder armour, Meriden having darted forward and low. Something explodes with a dull thump and a rising plume of greasy smoke; the left arm goes entirely limp before, with a squeal of badly overstressed metal, the remaining parts of the shoulder start to literally tear apart.

But Meriden, herself, is still moving. She can (barely) use the beam shotcannon one-handed; the blast is wild and aimed very low, to avoid tearing up anything but the boardwalks and some water, but burning white hot. It may, if nothing else, bisect the black Flickerest. "It's Meriden Almace! And I really, really don't like people who do things like this!"

 Tempest Hawker transmits, "All units fall back and recover ejection pods."

 Lethe Rusina transmits, "Roger."

 Einsatz Vier transmits, "I can't eject! I ca~ARRRR" *FZZZZZZZZT

Charged particles slam into Great Mazinger's skull like a hammer on an anvil. Tetsuya grits his teeth as the energy courses through the cockpit, cooking his flesh under his flight suit even as the controls surge nigh uncontrollably in his hands. But, no. It does not stop. No, it does not come to a halt. The inexorable advance continues. Great Mazinger marches forward, into the beam, into the pain.

A little burnt flesh, a little charred skin- isn't about to keep Tetsuya Tsurugi from his foe! For a man who has endured hardship beyond imagination, who has withstood pain day after day after day since the morning that man came to him and took him into the home that turned him from an innocent boy into a hardened soldier- a weapon- a blade- this is /nothing!/

Great Mazinger's grip about its mighty weapon tightens. "You're not bad," Tetsuya admits, "It's a shame that we on opposite ends of the same battlefield." Golden light pours out of the super robot's eyes, dispelling the beam shot with a sudden burst of energy. "DIVIIIIIINE BLAAAAADE--" The colossus twists, holding the blade like a javelin over a shoulder. "TOOOOOOOSSSSSSS!!" It lurches, hurling it forward, into the Barrelion's main cannon. The other, smaller blades launch from its hips into its hands. With a single swift flick, the weapons lodge themselves into its legs. And still, Great does not stop advancing.

Bolts of electricity streak upward from its horns, pouring into the heavens as the storm above redoubles, building upon itself and gathering in a mighty vortex over the super robot's mighty shoulders. The whirlwind turns into a vortex of lightning and pours into the Super Robot's crown. Tetsuya winces. He can feel the electricity coursing through his muscles, disrupting his synapses. But he can handle it- Great can handle it. The electricity arcs, lashing onto the three swords impaling the DC unit. Flame licks the earth as its thrusters fire, pushing it toward the Barrelion, its arm pulled back for one final punch- for a direct collision with the machine's cockpit. This must be the end--!

"It would be a shame, to lose an opponent like you!"

Great Mazinger's palm opens, and as it slams its arm into the machine, the tendrils of electricity lashed to the blades suddenly intensfy, exploding the Barrelion around the cockpit block. With a single motion, its fist pulls away, holding the core of the machine between its mighty fingers.

For a soldier who knows only how to be a soldier, the best friends you can possibly have are those foes who are or one day may be your equal.

The Barrelion that is still live stares in absolute fear at the oncoming blade. It tries to use its thrusters to turn about and get away, but before it manages to do so, the blade is already striking into its side - ripping into its hydraulics. The ejection-seat suddenly is no longer working. Eisatz Vier starts pulling on the lever, then looks up at the oncoming unit. "Sheeeeeeiseeeee!" He cries out and he throws up his hands. The gigantic body of the Berserker then crashes into it, the sword stabbing further, now cutting the fuel-lines and connecting the oil to the fuellines. It catches fire, but before it manages to explode, Adam surgically cuts the sword upwards! KABOOOOM! In a display of pink clouds and yellow explosions, the unit finally detonates when it is thrown onto the wreckage of the other nearby Barrelion - a few houses falling over. Luckily, the people had evacuated.

Back at the Great Mazinger, the man inside the Barrelion doesn't stop firing his lasers and missiles at the oncoming Great Mazinger. The whole vortex, lightning, /everything/, it overwhelms him, but not overcome in fear at all, he tries to get his weapons to take out his enemy's weak spots. There is no way he can win, but as a warrior, he must continue to try. But when that sword suddenly crushes into the barrel, sending his entire unit rocking and flying back a few feet, he finally is forced to give up. The fact that lightning was coarsing nearby didn't make him want to hit the eject button. There was but one thing he could count on...

And that which he counted on, was something that somehow came to fruition. When the Barrelion finally explodes before the magnificent display of lightning and power being rammed into the flight-capable artilery unit, yet also the grace and speed of the retrieval of the cockpit, a prayer was spoken by the German elite pilot. His hands to his heart, he prayed for his patron female, and when he finally looked up, and found himself gazing at the visage of the Great Mazinger. For a moment there... for a moment, he believed he was looking at a god.

The signal is fired for the DC to fetch escape pods and retreat. Already, members of the Divine Crusaders start to pull back and flee, some carrying the wreckage and slag of their compatriots and teammates, some carrying cockpit blocs and escape pods. Lethe does not get the signal just yet, as she's still going toe to toe with Meriden and the Seventh Gundam.

The Flickerist shifts weight and attempts to move to the inside of the shotcannon as it fires, to move out of the firing arc and where it is most dangerous for the A-LAWS Mobile Suit to be.

'My name isn't Gundam!'

Armor is shorn off of the hip and thigh, torn clear off the torso and shredding it right down to the chassis. The whole of the Flickerist lurches as it stumbles like a giant with a wounded knee, over the beach and kicking over a lifeguard tower in the process. Water bursts up when the Assault Dragoon comes to a lurching halt, and it does not make way for Meriden again.

It doesn't, because now the retreat signal pops up on a few of the monitors that crowd her cockpit. Wordless, the thrusters fire and propel the machine into the sky, followed by the Shadow Bits.

'It's Meriden Almace!'

The gynoid pauses for a long moment in the cockpit before she responds with a definitive: "Roger."

And then it climbs, and climbs, and climbs, aiming to escape the battlefield before any other critical damage comes to it.

GaoGaiGar comes in at his machine he pauses as the troops are taking a beating but still the rage he feels would be plain as day to even the weakest of newtypes. Tempest wants the federation to die, he wants it to die in fire. There is no denying this but here comes GaoGaiGar. There a giant freaking hammer at this point as one of his hand picked squad commanders is taken out by some outer system hick there's not much more he can do.

AS As Guy desends upon him he's hit with shockwave. His machine is tyring to recover at this point. He looks at Jung for a moment he actually does have a reply.

"All I care about is the death of the Federation."

An honest reply to her words against him.

"LAP DOGS ALL OF YOU!"

He bellows in defiance as here machine rips into hte Lion he manages to parry some of them but not so much as the damage contiunes but Tempest does not fall it's as if his hate is keeping the machine togther. It tirns to face Koji nd tries to take the incomming attack he knows the damage, then he hears what Koji is doing the heat, the horribole heat a teaste of the hell he's doubelessly earned for when the reaper finally takes his soul. The Guarlion starts to take off and is forced to drop it's weapons ironically out of harms way but the maion unit it's self is starting to melt from the heat, it's all tempes can do is to pull away before he's reduced to ash.

 Lethe Rusina transmits, "W18, retreating from combat zone."

The Flickerist departs along with its Shadow Bits, leaving the Seventh Gundam behind.

"That mobile suit.." Koji Kabuto comes to rest his chin against his fist as he props it up against the edge of the Pilder's console. "..and that girl," he murmurs aloud. "I can't seem to ever see her again.."

Little Hindi-Nanoha stares at Koji for a moment before making a face. She whacks him atop the head with her prop staff.

WHOP!!

"OWWWWWW!!" Koji rubs the back of his head and whimpers.