2011-06-24 - A Poke In The Eye: The Battlefield

The Spiral Empire stretches from its headquarters in Teppelin to both above and below, outward in every direction, as far as their forces can fly. Which is a distressing border - because it seems that although the forces of Teppelin are not especially /powerful/...their numbers seem to be without end. In the years since Teppelin's occupation, villages have been systematically emptied and burned to the ground - men and women, forced underground or occasionally just murdered and left in the wastes, a warning against...anything one might wish to be warned about, a silent, grim spectacle.

Only rarely has anyone ever pushed into Teppelin's space. The Generals, for all their strangeness, are terrifyingly effective at preventing breaches...and on the rare occasions anyone has gotten to Teppelin's doorstep, they are soon ushered out again by the terrifying power of the Spiral King himself. Normally, offensives by the small bands that have been plaguing Genome's life for some time falter about 100 kilometers away from the site, at the towering structure's absolute defense line. From here, Teppelin can be seen towering in the distance... a looming threat, and a promise of the final goal. Such a broad zone shouldn't be easily defensible, but with the Beastman Army's massive numbers, there always seems to be a swarm awaiting would-be attackers.

But today, someone saw a chance - a breach in the line. Lord Genome is moving his forces /somewhere/, in massive enough quantities that not even his prodigious production capacity can keep up. Genome's crimes are manifold, and whatever goal he may have in mind cannot be allowed to reach fruition. So the method is obvious: Cut off the head of the hydra. Word leaked through to everyone with a grudge against Genome - today might be the day.

An orbital drop on Teppelin itself would be suicide, but here, blitzing toward the mighty tower's defensive zone, it's possible to bring a ship down rapidly through the atmosphere into the heart of the Spiral King's empire. Of course...getting out again will not be easy if this goes awry.

And as the line is approached, it becomes clear it may already have. There is a mound awaiting at the weakest spot in the line, the targetted point. But as ships approach, the ground trembles, and the mound slowly, grindingly, shifts forward.

HARDENED TERRESTRIAL GUNMAN MOBILE FORTRESS DAI-GUNDO

And in the commander's chair of the great mobile fortress, Guame, the Immovable, smirks broad and clutches a pipe in his teeth. "So, these humans think they'll just pierce right through!? As if we wouldn't expect that!" He peers over at his anteater-man comms officer, yelling, "Get in touch with the Human Extermination Army Central Command Center! We're under attack! We need land and sky-types, on the double!"

He turns to the eclectic cross-factional mix of attackers, sneering. "I think we need to swat some flying monkeys."

BATTLE AT THE TEPPELIN ABSOLUTE DEFENSE LINE Mission Objectives: *Defeat all enemies. *Survive.

THE BRIEFING ROOM FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AGO

Teppelin.

A monumental construct that takes over a grand section of the Siberian wilderness. Even looking at the glowing monitor from the main screen, the grand city stands as a testament to the unknown, the horrifying, and the plain ol' strange-- and for some reason, they've been given the assignment to arrive in force.

Bright Noa calls it a 'poke in the eye.'

Rachel Miu Athha taps a pen to her lip and frowns, watching the screens closer-- letting the sinking feeling sink in. The white-haired girl has been given the responsibilities of being the flight commander after Katharon forces link up with the Iron Gear in China.

That rare frown on her face is due to a single fact: To her, this isn't a poke in the eye. Something deep down in the Newtype's heart makes her think this is much, much more akin to something else-- something a little more terrible.

More like kicking over a hornet's nest.

RIGHT THE HELL NOW

"Target zone in sight. Be prepared to break formation," Rachel says, voice muffled by the helmet's visor. "Field I is our fallback zone. Keep an eye on your engine output with the climate... Use the terrain to your advantage, and everyone be ready to support each other. If you get shot down, you're on chicken duty for a week!"

The MBF-02 Gundam Strike Rouge flies front wing to the Argama's pilots, peeling over the horizon and cutting through the chilly Siberian wilderness. Clad in her black and pink flight suit with the Orb Union patch and an AEUG flag underneath, the young girl sucks in a breath as the pink Gundam reaches under one arm and drags one of the massive Anti-Ship Swords free from the housing of the Integrated Weapons Striker Pack and swinging it forward.

All the shield hand needs is a flag.

"Let's GO!"

SOME TIME AGO WHEN WE WERE YOUNGER AND MORE CAREFREE AND CONSIDERABLY LESS TRAITOROUS, ALL TOLD

It's really not the best of days for the stern despatcher with the aviator sunglasses who heads up the specific branch of A-LAWS control dedicated to pilots who play rough and don't follow the rules, god damn it. Not only is he finally starting to realise that - given the current state of A-LAWS in general - that means he has to deal with /all of the damn pilots in the organization/, but to top it all off, one of them's asking for clearance to go out on an unscheduled patrol. Overtime. An A-LAWS is actually asking for unpaid overtime. Maybe the universe really /is/ about to end at the hands of an angry spiral, like his horoscope said this morning.

He punches through - literally, by driving a fist into his control panel - to the dock staff; the rather beleaguered engineer on the other end of the two-way link has had enough of this shit today but does at least confirm to the despatcher that yes, Ensign Saitani just took off in the Brynhildr to go on patrol. With, uh, sir, with a young lady in tow, who was giggling and excitable and seemed really eager to get into the cockpit and get going with her and uh, sir, y'/know/...

The despatcher closes the connection, thinks in silence for a moment, then slowly removes his glasses to rigidly but fervently salute the air. Godspeed in your quest, girl.

RIGHT NOW TRAITOR LEVELS: RISING CONSIDERABLY

Aki Saitani isn't exactly sure what to make of the situation. No, not the fact she's got another girl in the cockpit. That was part of the plan, that part's okay. But an assault on an unknown enemy with unknown capabilities who by all accounts - especially the accounts of those people who have fought him and only just lived - is exceptionally dangerous? While also not-quite-double-crossing her superiors and possibly bringing a very visible and recognizable mech onto a battlefield consisting of who knows how many factions?

That bit she's not sure on. Still... sometimes you just have to man up and be a Big Damn Hero, Ibis reckons, and maybe it's about time she took that to heart herself. Besides, when Bright Noa tells you to man up and roll a hard six, you goddamn roll a hard six. Not to mention that she's been given trust and support way beyond anything even vaguely reasonable, and it's time to repay that a bit. Not to /mention/, she adds internally as the Altairlion floats into view alongside her, easily keeping up with her machine and then some, it's a little too late to back out now.

As the pair of shiny, sparkly Tesla Leicht mechs race towards Siberia on low-level flight, the speed boom coming off of Aki's spearhead cutting a wide swathe through the Pacific to sluice water behind it, her console starts to ping with contacts - one after another, until her radar resembles an angry artist convention involving five different kinds of paint. "Hoooly moley, that's a whole ton of people there," she whistles to both Nia and Ibis through an open com-link, eyebrows raised in surprise. A deep breath later, and she's reaching for her radio, searching for Katharon's frequency. "You guys ready?"

Hours ago. Folka sits on the Arguma, This was a Alpha Team Operation, and that was all that was really needed. The man is very stoic, saying very little and just simply hearing the explanation. As they walk to their robots, he looks towards his Student.

"See if you can change the trajectory of our decent. Aim it for the middle of their lines." He says to Macua, with a slight smirk.

Now.

Two of the Pods shot from the Arguma veer off course from their original destination, aiming to not strike just outside for a group offensive, but instead aim to crash right into the line of the beastmen themselves.

The two pods collide with the ground, causing an immediate explosion. Some might be destroyed, but most others are knocked clear. All that sits there in the crash zone is a lot of dust, and a large crater.

Until the Ialdaboth launches out of the dust, soaring through the air and immediately punching one of the Gunmen in the 'chest'. Folka's fist rapidly strike, as Folka's voice is clearly heard...

"MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA!" he screams, before he stops, backhanding the grunt, and sending it veering off into a group of it's friends.

"I am sorry, but it appears that we are 'crashing' your party." Folka says, making an attempt at Human quipping.

 Aki Saitani transmits, "Saitani to Argama and co., Ibis an' I are comin' in at speed, and I gotta princess on board! Would be /super/ cool if you could avoid pickin' us outta the sky!"

 Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "Roger that!"

Somewhere over the snow-filled skies of Teppelin... a sad Gundam in snow...!!!

Wait, what.

A feathered white capsule blasts through the outer layers of Earth's shimmering shield, burning flame coalescing around its soft-white surface. It breaches through, in a trail of translucent, glowing feathers, and cracks open down the middle, splitting into two. Large angel wings flourish outward, beating gracefully against the snow as they arc to full length to reveal the Wing Gundam Zero Custom underneath. At full speeds, the battle is joined, its pilot ready to help this push come alive.

He stares down towards the console in front of him. So similar, and yet... nothing alike. He clenches his fists against his flightsticks, and narrows his eyes. "ZERO..." he says with some reservation in his voice. It didn't feel right to call it that. This... /this/ is not ZERO. Not the ZERO he knows. "Let's go."

The feathered, angelic Gundam flits forth, commandeering the air around it, Twin Buster Rifle held aloft and apart in each hand and ready to reduce any Gunmen and other intruders that dare cross them into nothing more than slag.

 Heero Yuy transmits, "I'm with you."

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AGO

Macua is one of the few who has assaulted it and lived to tell the tale. She knew they'd always go back some day, but this was the first step in a long road to get there. Genome has had years to build up his forces even as humanity battled other threats. They had been fools to let the threat on their front door grow to such a level. It's not kicking a hornet's nest, it's waking up a colony of pissed off honey badgers. Still it had to be done.

The Amazon CI was part of the forces, she knows just what they will be doing here. She looked back to Folka and smirks back.

"They won't be expecting that.'

Now.

Another of the pods falls along with the other it slams into the ground and there's smoke, dust and other things thrown up into the air. A pair of green eyes acan be seen as the Amazon CI rises out of the crater after the Ialdaboth.

"It's been a while you freaks but I'm baaaaaaaaaaccccck!"

 Meriden Almace transmits, "This is, uh, Spark, I deployed to take advantage of a percieved weakness in the Beastman lines and, uh, there's an /awful lot/ of their walky things. Gunmen! And they're shooting rocks. Can I engage?"

 Ken Marinaris transmits, "I'm right behind you."

 Ibis Douglas transmits, "Let 'em have it!"

 Meriden Almace transmits, "Oh, okay! I can't see up when I'm holding this thing. - Ibis, are you here too?"

 Ibis Douglas transmits, "Yeah, Saitani and I are here to hold it down, but it's serious SNAFU over here!"

 Aki Saitani chimes in. "Tesla two present an' accounted for!"

 Meriden Almace transmits, "I'm kind of off from the main force, this is /hard/ to steer."

 Meriden Almace transmits, "But there's a ship over here, so I'm going to see if I can get past it!"

 Ken Marinaris transmits, "Likewise I'm picking up trailer contacts however."

 Meriden Almace transmits, "Yeah, I saw the Battlemech, I can look /down/ okay..."

 Ken Marinaris transmits, "two Armored coures, one battlemech and an unknown also Boss."

A weakness in their defenses? That was as far into the briefing that Kamina got into before the plans were drafted. Dropping the Dai Gurren into enemy territory was not something people with a lot of sense came up with....plans also weren't usually drawn in red crayon with green construction paper---but that is how Kamina laid out the plans to those who were at the official Team Gurren briefing in New York.

While Simon was the defacto leader of Team Gurren now, Kamina was the leader of this operation's veteran forces for the evening. This was why Kamina was pulling out no stops because tonight they could end this war. Tonight could be the end of the past that united the team back when they were just a bunch of jerks for La Gias.

The Dai Gurren begins it's decent toward the drop zone with a sharp dip. While most ships were only launching their troops, the battleship is actually coming down with it's pilots, firing all forward cannons as the atmosphere burned red around it. As it became hot, cooling systems begin to keep the massive battleship from exploding before it made landfall.

Finally, the Dai Gurren makes a hard turn, pulling around to hover over the battlefield. It fires more of it's main battery, giving the Gunmen pilots all they need to deploy out into the field of battle.

The Gurren is among the first to launch, coming on to the main deck with the usual list of characters. "KICK THEIR ASS!!!!" Kamina yells, pumping his arm into the air as he leaps off the main deck and toward the battle as the Dai Gurren attempts to thin out their numbers!

 Aki Saitani transmits, "I'm pickin' up /everyone/ contacts, I don't think we've time to be picky!"

 Bruno J. Global transmits, "Engage beastmen targets only, unless you are fired apon first or otherwise threatened."

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "Okay, sir!"

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Ken Marinaris transmits, "Aye sir."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Aki Saitani transmits, "... uhhhhh... Katharon command, is that /Janitor Rosenburg/?"

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace adds, "You can stay behind me if you want, Ken, I'm armoured! Some, anyway. Mostly I'm armed."

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Ken Marinaris transmits, "I'll be fine, anything short of their generals is slower than me."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "Don't know who you mean."

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "Okay. /I'm/ not. And I don't have the really big gun, either."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "..."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "My name is Heero Yuy."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> K-Secure Ibis Douglas suddenly snickering uncontrollably.

Some time ago, in a darkened room...

A number of men in business suits sit around a boardroom table. Well, they're probably men. It's hard to tell, given that each of them is wearing a different--and very realistic--animal mask. The only one without a mask is a woman who may be about thirty but looks at least fifteen years older. Sometimes, stress and insanity can age the appearance.

Up front, the man(?) in the tiger mask is gesturing to a display monitor. "The Ancient Jinkis aren't the only threat that comes from underground! Those Beastmen... -things- are there, too! They may be stationed halfway across the world, but who knows how far their tunnels spread? If they can't be stopped there, then how long until they reach us?"

Shizuka Tsuzaki seems rather unconcerned, occasionally glancing from the tiger-masked man to the shadows. "It shouldn't really be our concern. Let everyone else throw waves of men to die against their walls." After a moment, she lets out a sigh. "Well, what can it hurt... She can handle things that it took a small army to survive." A dark and humorless smile crosses her features. "If she can't survive this, then it wouldn't be worth cultivating her any further anyway."

Here... and now!

Even though this was not a Divine Crusader operation... even though she was being sent in with no aid... Aoba Tsuzaki still did not question when she was asked to go see if she could help in the assault on Teppelin. This Lord Genome has long been a thorn in the side of someone very special to her (or it might be the other way around, depending who you ask and when), and if she could do anything to aid the fight against him, she would.

Still, a little caution is in order. Moribito-02 is a known Crusader-aligned robot, and Aoba really doesn't want to start the day by being shot at by those she's come to help. But this isn't much different than fighting the Angels, is it? They'll all be too busy shooting the true enemy to try to shoot at her, and that will give her enough time to show that she's on their side for this.

Still, there -is- a bit of a nervous twist in Aoba's stomach as she sees the gathered battleships ahead... and the towering Beastman city rising above it. "Here goes nothing..."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Aki Saitani transmits, "... s-sir, I mean, I know you always swung the laser pointer around like it was a beam sword but there's /seriously/ a /world of difference/--"

MEANWHILE IN ORBIT

A massive assault on Teppelin? You don't even have to *ask* Guy if he can be there - he very nearly hears about it *before* anyone gets around to telling him. Sure, GaoGaiGar may have been built for fighting the Zondar first and foremost ... but reality had other plans, way back when the Spiral King first made his presence known to Earth's surface population, and GaoGaiGar's maiden battle consisted of punching Beastmen and their Gunmen in the collective faces.

And so it is that five heavily modified missiles are launched from the Macross, descending into the atmosphere in formation with a lot of similarly altered missiles ... but they aren't armed with explosive, chemical, or nuclear warheads. No, they have an entirely different payload - something more dangerous than all of those put together.

It's just as the missiles are cooling off from re-entry that all five of them adjust their formation, settling into a four-pointed diamond with the fifth missile at the center - and they all come open at once. The central missile seems to have been empty - but Guy Shishioh, barely visible as a gleam of reflected light on his armored cyborg body, makes up for lack of visibility by yelling "FUUUUSION!!!" at the top of his lungs - and Galeon, who was in the rear missile, accelerates and swallows the cyborg in a single gulp, before transforming from a mostly-white robot lion into a lion-chested white humanoid form, which yells "GAAAAAIGAAAAAAR!!!!" as the initial Fusion transformation is completed.

Now, the white mechanoid and the three other missile-delivered components ascend above the plane of the reconfiguring missiles, and with a yell of "FINAAAAL FUUUUUUSION!!!" GaiGar begins spinning, releasing a green-tinted electromagnetic fog around itself,, the mists intensifying and swirling into a veritable hurricane (albeit a spherical one). StealthGao II, LinerGao, and DrillGao plunge through the swirling emerald mist, maneuvering, reconfiguring, and interlocking with GaiGar and each other ...

"GAO!!! GAI!!! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!!!!!!"

The King of Braves is reborn - and just as the EM hurricane dissipates, the five missiles finish their own reconfiguration and come together ... forming a giant, diamond G-shape of a sky-surfing board, supporting GaoGaiGar as it continues its descent towards Teppelin's weakened defensive lines.

The princess is excited! She's a traitor! A double traitor! To her father, and to whatever group trusted her with just alliances to the Numbers. She doesn't see the world in such shades though!

"Aki, look!" She points past the girl, leaning over her, "It's my house! I can see it so easily from here!" The princess exclaims, excitedly hanging onto the pilot as she takes up precious manuevering space from Aki! "Of course I am ready, dear Aki! I have you, and we have everyone else!"

Until Nia gets right in the way of Aki, moving before her, pointing at the screen. "Aki! Look Aki! It's so pretty, isn't it?" The feathered Gundam flitting like a pixie in the air. "We should be fine, especially with Heero here with Ibis, and you would be fine as well Aki!" The Dai-Gurren arrives as well, with /the Gurren/.

"Kamina!" Nia waves, despite no radio being opened, nor Nia's knowhow! "And Aoba! See, Aki? There's so many! We'll be very fine!"

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "... you should focus. Nia is in there with you, isn't she."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Staren Wiremu transmits, "He is a skilled pilot. Do not worry."

A SPACE STATION SOMEWHERE WHEREVER THEY STUCK PROJECT TD NOT AT ALL LONG AGO

A bizarre scene is unfolding in the hangar, where the sleek and silver form of the YAM-008-2 Altairlion sits pointed towards the darkness of space like a dagger waiting to be thrust into the heart of evil itself, terrifying and heroic and pure all at the same time. Beneath it, two pilots in completely nondescript grey flight-suits with heavy black visored helmets are having an argument.

"Look, just take them, okay? You always suffer from nerves in combat, they'll calm you down. Trust me, Tsugumi!"

"Ibis, /no/! What's gotten into you?"

Flame-haired A-LAWS hopeful Ibis Douglas is currently brandishing a bottle of neo-diazepam at her copilot, the Project Terrestrial Dream big-note Tsugumi Takakura, whose hands are clutched to her chest and a worried expression on her face.

"Really, Ibis... why are you acting so strangely? Where are we /going/? What do you know that I don't?"

To that, Ibis can only stare grimly into the brunette's eyes as she pulls her helmet on and fastens the seals, becoming a faceless avatar of destruction, the picture-perfect portrait of a lethal fast-attack pilot, so far removed from the gentle soul and kind heart that lay within. She stares a moment longer, and then turns to start climbing into the Altairlion.

"We're gonna be heroes, Tsugumi. That's all."

The mousey engineer-girl frowns deeply.

RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW SHOW ME YOUR WAR FACE

Let's get one thing straight, the Brynhildr can't hope to keep up with the Altairlion.

Now, proceed with the entrance.

A silver streak lances through towards Siberia at the kinds of altitudes reserved for stunt flying, peeling apart the ocean in its wake. Great plumes of shining spray fill the air as the Altairlion speeds along at suicidal speeds, easily catching up to the Brynhildr and throttling down slightly. In the cockpit, Ibis Douglas is currently sitting with breathing mask undone, a grin on her face.

A comm channel opens. Most likely to Aki and Rachel. You know, not that she's a vigilante who works with the enemy or anything.

"Goooood morning, girls! It's a beautiful sunny day here in Siberia--" perhaps not actually true "--and I couldn't think of a better way to spend it! Now let's make it happen!"

The Altairlion, looking very pretty and planelike in cruise configuration, waggles its wings at the Brynhildr and accelerates to full throttle, leaving it behind as twin tesla drives scream to life.

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Ibis Douglas transmits, "So... Heero, do you still have those earmuffs? The, uh, pink ones?"

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Aki Saitani does not sound wholly convinced. "Well-- yessir. Yessirs, even. We've got her covered. ... pink?"

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "... I don't know... what you're talking about..."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Staren Wiremu transmits, "My drop pod has malfunctioned, I'm going off course... I will try to rendezvous after re-entry is complete."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "Watch yourself."

EARLIER

"Bright Noa is completely mad." Is the only comment from Bruno J. Global as he looks at the message on his display, and promptly deletes it. The Macross floats in orbit, slowly circling the planet. There is a reason the EFA has not tried to expunge the beastmen and they are nto the lackluster excuses of being stretched too thin that the media is usually fed.

It has much more to do with the unending /waves/ of enemies the Spiral King is capable of drawing apon. "Claudia...prepare forces for orbital insertion." he says grimly.

RIGHT NOW

The combined forces of Humanity advance towards Teppelin, fortress of the Beastmen and the Dai-Gundo. A call is put out for reinforcements. For Land and air units. A squadron hears the call, their call! THe call they've always wanted to hear!

Four black and white Gunman race out from Teppelin, running as fast as their stumpy legs will allow. "Kawolski!" The shorter one in the lead points forward with a dramatics...flipper. "This is our time! The time of....!"

"Yes Skipper!"

The four Gunman come skidding to a stop, striking a dramatic pose.

"THE FLIGHTLESS WATER FOWL SQUADRON!"

"Uh...I thought we were penguins, uh, sir?" The smallest of the lot says hesitently.

"Private, no one respects a short, uncomplicated unit name in the humanworld. Their all 'Alpha Numbers' and 'A-LAWS'. It's just a shame we didn't have the budget to develope a truely meaningless acronym."

"Sorry about tha' skipper."

"Don't worry about it Kawolski. RICO! Your point man!"

The largest Gunman salutes with a grunt and begins to...cough...something...up...

The mech, heaves, shudders and coughs as it horks up a massive gattling gun, whic it then picks up with a maniacal grin as the weapon barrels spin to full speed and begin firing into the massed Katharon/EFA/Trailers/And their dog forces as the pilot of the machine laughs unintelligently with some kind of thick impenitrable accent.

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Rachel Miu Athha transmits, "You should have come with the assault team from the Iron Gear, but... whatever, just get here as fast as you can."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Aki Saitani has lapsed into quiet wonder. "... oh. Oh gods, the pink. I think I'd blocked that out, Ibis."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Staren Wiremu transmits, "Wait, wasn't I assigned to try and flank with you guys? ...What's going on?"

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy actively ignoring, "Just make getting into recovery range a priority, Staren. You don't want to be overrun."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Staren Wiremu transmits, "If worst comes to worse I can abandon the armor parts and return to space."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "Okay, good."

NOW

"OKAY, OKAY," booms a frankly /enormous/ voice, a basso echo underneath. It's broadcasted over a wide channel, letting anyone who might be inclined hear it. "THAT'S FAR ENOUGH!!"

At this point, missiles start falling from seemingly nowhere at all, strangely-shaped Zentradi munitions that seek out attacking human machines, along with heavy fire from a number of Regult battle pods which suddenly erupt out of whatever cover they've been able to find, their commander having waited long enough for the attackers to get into position, setting them up for a perfect (?!) crossfire.

Inside the cockpit of his ancient Glaug officer's battle pod, KAMJIN THE DESTROYER grins maniacally.

BEFORE

"Boss, are you sure this is a good idea?" wonders Gerao, Kamjin Kravshera's primary lieutenant. Having left Laplamiz in charge of the bulk of the Zentradi Loyalist forces, Kamjin himself elected to lead a smaller strike force into battle today. The purple-skinned giant turns to look at his lieutenant with a dangerous look... That soon fades into one of smug self-confidence.

"Of course it's a good idea, Gerao. The Miclones have us outnumbered too badly for the moment. But, hey, maybe with this guy's help we can clear 'em out a bit."

Gerao seems unconvinced. "But, Boss, it's /Genome/. You really think we can work with him...?"

This time, Kamjin barks a laugh, rising from his ship's command chair to head towards the mecha loading bay. "Who knows? But, Gerao..." Kamjin's voice drops into a low, deadly purr. "Don't forget my /other/ nickname."

NOW

The Glaug charges headlong into battle, most of the other Zentradi machines providing cover fire, while the Ally-Killer himself seeks out the heart of the human forces. After all, that's the most delicious part.

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "They say they're here to fight beastmen too!"

"...!!"

Heero notices the presence of the missiles incoming, out of nowhere. No, that's not... those are not Gunmen forces. Zentradi? That's going to be a real twist in the plans. His eyes narrow as he throws off his cruise course and the wings fold down to combat, the Rifles going to work to shoot down several of the missiles --

And his shots missing by narrow inches as the missiles continue to sail and bomb against the wing's surfaces, warping off-white snowy surfaces and putting dents in the ice-blue Gundanium armor underneath. "Hn..." Heero rubs his head for a moment, more thrown off by the sudden flash of insight in his head than the missiles themselves.

"Zentradi... what do you think you are doing?" Heero questions Kamjin directly as he dips down, the shoulder-mounted machine cannons primed and ready as the Wing Zero Custom sweeps down on a long and fast run, light-blue vernier afterburners trailing a course and shedding feathers in its wake. The cannons themselves open fire, mercilessly and powerfully in a style Trowa would most definitely approve of.

"Are you looking to repeat the Zentradi war over again?"

Far away, in Teppelin, the Spiral King looks out across the plains, and witnesses a battle spark to life.

A small hand takes his. His eyes tick down to the shorter girl, sinew growing on a frame that was once frail, and meets her own, empty, gaze.

"They're coming," she murmurs.

"Mm," the Spiral King rumbles. "They are fools. We have no need to worry."

He turns away, a barrier slamming down over the window like a hammerfall. "Come," he says. "It is time for your lessons. 'He' will handle the worst of them."

"Yes," the girl murmurs, "Father."

MEANWHILE:

Guame smirks even wider, somehow, despite the clear limitations of his own skull. "Ahhh, that's the guy," the Immovable chuckles. "Not bad, not bad." A dangeruos gleam crosses his features. "So! Let's not get left behind! SMASH 'EM TO BITS! A HA HA HA!"

And so the smashing commenses, as mole-shaped Gunmen with huge talons are disrupted by Folka...and promptly turn on him, dangerously, and leap to tear into him. As for the others...

It's mostly a matter of how well they can dodge the sudden seriously incredible number of bullets.

Zentrati?! This was certainly...interesting. Folka turned, seeing the bomb, and attempting to use a technique passed down from Shura to Shura for generations. However, it was still INCREADIBLY dangerous. Folka turned, aiming to smack the barage back towards it's intended target with his feet...

Which explodes on his foot and causes the Ialdabaoth to stagger backwards. That is why it was increadibly dangerous...it sometimes didn't work.

Then the Gunmen Came, Folka ducked and weaved, before repeatedly driving his FOOT into the offending Gunmen...but for the one he struck down, two more jumped in his place. Folka did not have time for both...

So he used a age old technique.

"Macua! Improvised foe method!" he says, reaching out to grab two of the Gunmen in each hand, and turn...

Throwing them right towards the Zentrati ship.

"Evasive maneuvers!"

Rachel yells this as bullets rip and scream through the sky, the Strike Rouge bucking to one side, swaying to another. The pink Gundam twists a couple of times in flight maneuvers that probably shouldn't be done to the flight-empowering IWSP. It's when those bullets finally catch a piece of the Gundam that Rachel stops trying to totally avoid the gunfire, instead bringing up the crimson shield to absorb the brunt of the gunfire /not/ striking the rest of the body-- that's what the Phase Shift Armor is for.

More and more contacts flicker up on her HUD. Some look like Alpha Numbers, some are Zentradi with no IFFs that they can detect, and there's even the Altairlion and the Brynhildr. The latter two are a bit of welcome relief, at least.

Immediately, the Strike Rouge's arms snap up a pair of the Armor Schneiders from the holsters in the hips, both blades flung with an upward swing toward the Beastmen below. Though ineffectual, this does give Rachel a little more leeway...

"I'm going in!!"

to charge the entire goddamned horde

... and pull out one of the pair of massive anti-ship swords. With both hands clamping around the blade, the thrusters fire and Rachel aims to bring the blade down at the shoulder of one of those Gunmen... then with a sharp shift of the blade in her Gundam's grasp, the sword aims to cleave across one after another in an attempt to take out the legs from under them!

"Ibis! Missile lock!" comes the shrill report from the copilot of the Altairlion, who /cannot believe/ the number of red blips and warning lights on her console right now. "Flares, flares!" yells Ibis, who is surprisingly not too incensed at the fact she has to remind the poor girl what she is supposed to do when missiles are incoming.

The Altairlion responds by twisting into humanoid form almost instantly and disgorging a wonderfully pretty starburst pattern of flares from beneath each arm and juking to one side in a brilliant green burst of jet flame, putting the G-forces on the pilots inside. Between that and the head vulcan fire stitching a glowing line of tracers into the few missiles that /don't/ lunge for the flares, the threat is gone. Good work, team.

Except it isn't, because Gunmen immediately begin taking pot-shots at the big fancy silver noble knight Armoured Module loitering around in midair, and it is forced to seek shelter on the ground as it descends into the throng of Beastmen mechs with a bone-grinding buzz of a report from the Gravity Guidance cannons nestled in the chest. And if you're not up to speed on what those are, well, imagine some genius tied eight railguns together like an autocannon and then put two of them together.

Explosive, near-liquified slugs rain on the Gunmen and throw great geysers of shattered earth and stone into the air, stirring the ground to a miserable quagmire of broken machines and upturned soil as the Altairlion buzzes the enemy forces from close range, speeding past the front lines and continuing on in its quest to cause as much collateral damage as possible.

"Aki! Don't let 'em range you, get in the thick of things and tear it up! Look for the HQ unit!" a pause. "No, I don't know what it'd look like either!"

Ibis chews thoughtfully on her lip and fastens her breathing mask in place, pulling her visor down and flicking her thumb across the biggest, reddest button on her flight stick as her craft secures missile lock on four targets of opportunity. Four... bizarre black and white Gunmen. Some might say they look like penguins.

"I, uh... Douglas, engaging! Light 'em up!" whoops the A-LAWS pilot as she presses down on that button and there's a burst of flame from beneath the Altairlion's arms as CTM-02 Prominence missile packs light up and hurl a storm of rocket-motor propelled death towards a certain squadron of flightless fowls. That's an awful lot of missiles.

Helpfully, "Oh! Guame is in the upside down bowl like Gunman! But it is very hard to break!" She warns, nodding. What are the odds she would know? "Take care, Ibis!" Nia exclaims!

You know what, screw you, Altairlion. With your over ninety mobility and your paper-thin armor and your inexplicable ability to /blow up at the drop of a hat that is sat on top of a missile/, yeah you heard me. "Showoff!" mutters Aki Saitani as the primary Tesla machine screams forwards into the dogfight, making damn sure her comlink to Ibis is still open enough for her to hear the sulky slur. "I know, I know, I'm already right /behind/ yer!" She makes sure to emphasize the 'behind', too, because damn it Ibis Douglas.

Her machine almost lazily swings through the bombardment fire; Aki dodges two of the explosions, curves around a hail of bullets, then straight up slams her spear into the side of an incoming missile, diverting it sideways to explode against the face of a poor hapless unnamed Gunmen and its owner. As best as she can, she chases in the Altairlion's path, darting from Gunmen to Zentradi with lateral blasts of her engines in a madcap dance as she repeatedly rams her spear home, the brightly igniting tip of the weapon carving wide sweeps and trails of plasma backwash through the space around her.

"I've never seen this many allies! --that /said/, there's a whole lotta enemies as well!" the pilot adds at a yelp as her cockpit rocks, some fire raking the wing manifolds of her machine. She finally breaks concentration long to tug Nia towards her seat and more importantly her seatbelt, shaking her head. "We could really use some of that thing from last time, Nia! Do we gotta pray, or fervently offer cash, or what?!"

<Pose Tracker> Guy Shishioh [N] has posed. And just as GaoGaiGar is entering combat range of the defending Gunmen, here come a batch of Zentraedi missiles. Guy is taken slightly by surprise, bringing GaoGaiGar's arms up as he plows through the sudden barrage - and, in fact, steers *into it*, still defending until he comes out the other side, bearing down on the rogue Zentraedi ...

And the G-Stone-powered super robot lowers its arms, optics blazing with the color of fire as Guy picks out his target. "You picked the wrong time, the wrong place, and the wrong ally," he snarls, his words relayed towards the rebel Zentraedi both via external speakers, and on a radio transmission as well for good measure. "And most of all - you just picked a fight with the *wrong super robot*! PHANTOM RING, PLUS!!!"

GaoGaiGar's right arm is brought straight up, the Phantom Ring floating into place and starting to spin, as do the fist and forearm, the latter two components glowing magenta as the ring shines with an even brighter gold.

"BROOOOOOKEEEEEEN ... *PHAAANTOOOOOOOOM!!!!!*" roars Guy Shishioh, and GaoGaiGar draws its arm back before throwing its punch - 'throwing' in the oh-so-literal sense that only a *rocket* punch can be thrown.

That is a lot of bullets flying through the air! It's a good thing that the Jinki is still well out of range. Well.. for now.

After landing on the Siberian soil, Moribito-02 begins to run. After a few steps, the thrusters in the center of its back light up, propelling it forward at an amazing pace. "Here I come..." It only takes a few seconds to close the distance at this speed, and Aoba doesn't let up one bit. She doesn't even bother getting out the weapons yet. Speed is what she needs right now... and it isn't as if Moribito isn't dangerous enough unarmed.

As she closes in on the grounded Gunman, Aoba curls her hands into fists. "This may be our best opportunity! Time to go for it!" The first mole-machine she encounters is greeted with a straight punch, but Moribito-02 doesn't even slow down. It continues on, charging right into the thick of the pack and swinging out with punches and kicks.

Zentradi had joined the fight? Wait those can't be Britai's men, they were attacking them, it had to be one of the Bodolza hold out groups. Had they made a deal with Genome or were they just making use of the humans focusing on the Beastmen to attack them? Damnation, it was a clever tactic that was just going to make this battle even harder to deal with but it doesn't matter. She knew it wasn't going to be easy as the Gunmen come after her he detaches her funnels, and in short order they open fire, she's just trying to keep them back for a moment. She sees the incoming Gunmen and starts evading the incoming fire, by black flipping. She lands out of harms way but really what is safe. She sees the logic in her Master's plan, she grabs one Gunman and then tries to fling it towards the Zentradi forces followed by another one while yelling at both of them.

"Here I thought I'd be just taking out Beastmen!"

The Amazon CI picks up speed, as she knows this fight just has hit insane levels but hey she shouldnt be too surprised given this is Genome they are dealing with. Who knows what else is going to happen, today its never been easy to deal with and never will be.

As the mole Gunmen come into range, the Gurren leaps into the air. The red gunmen even gets a lens flare as it extends it's foot and comes back down to jump kick a Gunmen into three of its comrades. As more fire upon the Gurren, Kamina turns his shoulder to catch most of it harmlessly into the shoulder pad.

"Heh. You guys are getting old! YOU GOTTA FIGHT BETTER THAN THAT, YOU STUPID FURRIES!" Kamina rips the shades off of his Gunmen, holding them as one carries a sword. He then charges again, swinging his sword with much more collected swings that still had a bit of reckless spirt to them.

If his time as Dr. Hell's General taught him something, it was some manner of control of his insane tactics. It didn't put a stop to them, however.

Kamina swings again and again, trying to take as many of these guys down as possible.

"Oh no!" Nia giggles, shaking her head as she is forced to her seat. "You cannot just ask for it! I do not believe it works then!" She notes. "But you do not need to ask, Aki, because I believe in you, and in Ibis!" Her hands clasp!

Clover eyes sparkle! "And Kamina as well - I am certain that everyone will be able to defeat Guame!" But what of father? And what of the other /three generals/ and their armies?

Of course they can!

Arms slide around Aki's neck as Nia uses it instead to keep her balance. "And you know how much I believe in you especially!" The entire fight on the outside is lost to her, sadly, so is much of the conversations!

Folka reaches for two Gunman! One jukes to the side, being apparently not too bad at this fightin' thing. The other attempts to shoot Folka in the face, but instead just goes flying, yelling, "MOLES AREN'T AIRBORNE MAMMAAAAAAAAAALS" in protest.

This rather closely mimics Macua's experience.

Meanwhile, Rachel saws through a wave of Gunmen, several of which attempt to jump on her and punch her lights out, and mostly get cut the hell in half in a conspicuously nonlethal way.

This ends, however, when a titanic ox Gunman trundles into view from the horde, rising to fully the Strike's own height (rare; Gunmen are short). It then does one thing.

That one thing is 'attempt to smash the Rouge into the ground like a nail.'

Aoba wades into the fray attempting to display her incredible Kung Power, and finds out that moles are surprisingly nimble! They are also full of claws, which they proceed to demonstrate all over her person. Kamina wades in with his blade, cutting, slashing - and the Mole-men leap and bound, and a kangaroo mech leaps out from apparently nowhere and lands on his head before bouncing away and soaring into the sky.

Then its little joey-mech pops out of its pouch with a cannon half the size of both machines, and takes a couple potshots at him.

Guame smirks. "Like they could penetrate the lines of Guame the Immovable!!" he crows. "Hey, you!" he adds, turning and pointing at the first person who catches his attention. "Yeah, you, get the video equipment set up! I wanna /talk/ to these punks! A HA HA HA"

'You' turns out to be a tall cat-shark man, who grumbles about his destiny as a pawn of whoever Genome feels like throwing him at this week as he skulks off to the A/V closet.

Meanwhile: ADDITIONAL BULLETS. No, seriously, there's just so many bullets.

One can never say that Kamjin Kravshera is bad at getting attention.

The mad Zentradi warlord's eye-catching Glaug mecha draws foes naturally, especially after he and his underlings fire tons of missiles at basically everyone in the universe; frankly, he wouldn't have it any other way. Gunmen are hurled at the towering Zentradi war machine, and Kamjin honestly couldn't give less of a shit about the lives of the Beastmen piloting them... Missiles tear out of the Glaug's launchers /at/ the hurled Gunmen, blasting through them so that Kamjin's mecha is showered in debris, although some of the larger pieces do rattle the ancient machine something fierce - a single missile continues on past towards Folka, because hey why not.

The GaoGaiGar is a more directly dangerous opponent, and even Kamjin can see that. With the keen tactical sense that has served him for thousands of years - a longer life than most Zentradi shy of Britai himself can boast, since Gorg Bodolzaa got his giant purple ass blown up - and the uncanny reflexes of a born survivor, the Destroyer ducks his Glaug /under/ the super robot's rocket punch, a beam of destructive electrons violating the air as it crackles harmlessly past GaoGaiGar.

At which point, the Wing Zero Custom's fire slams into the Zentradi machine.

"....Ha ha ha ha!!" the madman laughs, eyes wide and wild. "YOU SHITTY MICLONES!! /I/ am Kamjin the Destroyer!! Repeat the Zentradi war?! That wasn't a war, you pathetic little monkeys! I'll show you a war!! I'M GOING TO KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU!"

He might be a little unbalanced.

Swinging around, Kamjin aims all four of the Glaug's arm-mounted impact cannons at the back of Macua Huitl's Amazon CI, while the heavy electron laser swings around, dragging its destructive beam like a blade of hellish light, across the space where GaoGaiGar and the Wing Zero Custom each are.

This probably kills some background goons, too.

The Penguine Gunman with the chaingun grunts as he looks up, the Altairlion firing missels down at it. The Gunman grunts and looks left and right like it sort of doesn't know what to do. The missiles streak closer and closer as the Gunman waddles back in forth in fit of incesiosion and the missiles come closer still.

Bitting on it's flipper, the Gunman stares up at the missiles just as they come down...

And it opens it's mouth, forcing it wide open with it's flippers, /swallowing/ the hailstorm of missiles and shutting it's mouth/beak/thing.


 * BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP*

A litterally explosive belch knocks the penguine gunman backwards across the siberian ground to it's teammates causing the others to look down at it. "Skippa, I don't think thats right." "No private, infact it's very very /wrong/. Those shamefull humans. Incoming!" 'skipper' Jumps up and dives off to the side in a martiala rts roll complete with a landing in fighting crane stance as Aki's blasts smash the rest of the squadron silly to the ground. "Now that really was uncalled for!" Well, no it wasn't, but Skipper says so anywas. The leader of the Flightless Waterfowl Squadron leaps up in to the air in a summersault, "HIOOOYYYAAAAAAH!" and kicks at Aki's machine as he sils through the air. "Kawolski!"

"Yessir Skipper!" the previously downed Gunman snaps to his feet and salutes then reaches into 'Rico's stomach to pull out an ubsurdly long cannon from hte Gunman's gullet, and aims it right at Altairlion.

The Electron Laser drags across its space with its absolute light, the Wing Zero Custom dragging in close and threatening to be reduced to ashes. Heero pulls on upwards and weaves at the last moment, however, feathers shredding wings apart like it's molting season for the Wing Zero. At the last moment, the retro thrusters pull away with a flash from the ZERO System, with Heero muttering, "ZERO... it isn't like that."

He shakes his head at his own machine, staring down almost balefully at it, a sickness churning in his stomach. How cruel is it that he has to start again from the beginning? He knew the risks, he knows how long it'd take him to have to make this one come to understand what the original ZERO did. And yet, defiantly, the ZERO System in front of him only silently sheds its prediction, oblivious to anything but absolute victory...

There's another flash of insight from the ZERO System, and Heero lets out a snarl as he pulls in closer against the Glaug. "Try it if you can," Heero taunts. "I'm going to put you down before you throw away everything that everyone's fought so hard for."

The Twin Buster Rifles come into sight, and even Heero has to be marvelled at how far the design has been taken. He lifts the left Buster Rifle forward and fires a series of steady blasts, closing in all the meanwhile, before hefting the right one for a sustained beam not altogether dissimilar to the Electron Laser's wide, devastating girth.

Chapter 9: The Part where Kamjin Kills you.

Folka watches as a mole goes flying into space.

In space there is a strange core sitting next to the Gunmen trapped in space. SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE

Back on earth, Folka looks towards Kamjin. "Macua, gimme a boost?" He asks...

Seconds later, Folka was flying up...up...up...

He turns, mid air, aiming with a single foot. "KAMJIN THE DESTROYER?! I AM FOLKA. FOLKA ALBARK! ADEPT OF THE MACHINE FIST STYLE! AND PILOT OF THE CRIMSON SHURA GOD IALDABAOTH!" He says, as he dives in, his foot catching fire as he drives it down, aiming to bring it as hard as he could INTO the ship.

"IALDABAOTH KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!"

/Very/ conspicuously non-lethal.

At the end of her strike, the Strike Rouge twists a little, it's head twisting to look to the right, then the left as Rachel flexes one of her control sticks in one direction, then another. These machines' heights make her particular method of combat a little hard to pull off--

And then, a startling sense of awareness.

The Newtype twists the Gundam around in a circle with a short burst of the IWSP's extra thrusters, just in time to see that massive ox of a Gunman rear right up. Rachel's reaction is immediate, the shield-mounted chaingun starting to blaze bullets back at the Beastman's unit in reply, but this little cross-counter ends a little poorly. The Strike Rouge takes the impact /hard/, Phase Shift Armor or not, and the pink Gundam topples backward onto it's weapons pack before tipping to it's left side.

"Agh-!!" Rachel cries out, and because we're at Teppelin, there's even some Gainax bounce involved. Her gaze flits off to the right, at the red Gunmen that is ... hitting others with it's pair of sunglasses??

Weird.

The Gundam rolls onto it's front and fires the vernier nozzles in it's calves as it pushes off from the ground, getting up to it's feet with a heavy, awkward forward charge that puts a little space between the white-haired pilot and the massive ox Gunman. The rudders on the flight pack flap to one side as Rachel twists the machine around again... and the Mobile Suit's eyes burst with a green glow.

"This is Cagalli's Gundam-- this is my Gundam..."

The sword ... /flips over/? Indeed, with the blunt edge presented, the Mobile Suit charges in for a wicked horizontal cleave at the Ox-Gunman, swinging the sword up high over it's head...

"... And I won't lose here!!"

... and comes /down/ for a crushing hammerblow!

Even as the mole Gunmen claws tear into Moribito's armor, Aoba doesn't panic. The sound of metal scraping against metal echoes through the cockpit, but she's confident in her Jinki... it's taken a lot more than this before! "Back off!" Thrusters fire, and Aoba spreads her arms wide in the pilot harness, directing her Jinki to do the same and shove some of the clinging Gunmen away.

...which leaves her wide open to gunfire. "Kyaaa!" It's more surprise than anything else, really. With the mole Gunmen everywhere, it's hard to see exactly where those bullets are coming from... so she can't really try to dodge it. She can, at least, try to clear a little room, though. As the left arm swings around, a panel slides back, and a small chaingun pops out, peppering the ground with bullets. They don't actually -hit- anything, but space is really what Aoba needs. Leaning back slightly for balance, Aoba raises her right hand high. "Alpha Ball!" Nothing happens... at least not immediately.

A few seconds later, however, a strong psychic pulse can be felt by those sensitive, coming from the horizon. It comes closer, closer... and when it's finally visible, it appears to be... a ball? A soccer ball, specifically, bursting with telekinetic energy. It flies toward the Moribito-02, as the Jinki stands there patiently. "I've been practicing with Elnie-chan... she'll be upset if I have to tell her this didn't work!"

Just as the ball passes by in front of the Jinki, it takes a single step back, then kicks hard with its left foot. The instant the foot makes contact, the trajectory of the ball changes along a new, perpendicular path, to blaze a trail through the sea of Gunmen. "Drive Shoot!"

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "Ken, I can't see you because they're climbing on me, are you okay??"

Guy has only one response to Kamjin, and it is best summed up in two words:

"PROTECT WAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!"

The Electron Laser scythes towards GaoGaiGar - and runs right up against a shimmering barrier of extraterrestrial superscience, *catching* the energies of the beam and denying them any further liberty to travel forward, back, or in any direction at all, at least until Kamjin's aim moves past the King of Braves. But as soon as the laser's aim has moved on, the 'captured' energy from it is put back to use - the energies bent back on themselves, the beam reshaped into a five-pointed star, a pentagram - and it goes flying right back at Kamjin's Glaug!

As for the assorted mook Gunmen .... well, Guy's focused on Kamjin, so a number of bullets find their mark, slamming into GaoGaiGar's armor, chipping away at it en masse, but hardly distracting Guy from his main focus. Only once the electron laser has been returned to sender does Guy turn any attention to the Gunmen - and the glance GaoGaiGar directs their way is more dismissive (for now) than anything else.

The next thing Guy does, though, is take flight and head for Kamjin's Glaug, letting out a roar of fury as he closes in and begins laying into the Zentraedi mech with a barrage of punches, kicks, and more punches. He *will* give the Beastmen his attention - but he wants to give them his *undivided* attention when the time comes, and that means putting Kamjin out of the fight.

Guy's a thoughtful guest like that, when it comes to paying proper respects to his hosts.

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Ken Marinaris transmits, "Systems at 7 percent, regeneration systems offline, primary weapon fully charged."

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "Seven? Get out! Hold on, I'll try to cover you -"

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "Stop hanging on my gun! I need that to shoot!"

"Tch! Of all the luck...!" hisses Ibis as her high-explosive assault mostly does wide, doing little else but further scarring the landscape. It looks like today, the Project Terrestrial Dream collateral will be nothing but heavy earthworks.

The silver Armored Module continues to juke and weave about in the air like some kind of rocket-powered boxer, making an annoyingly difficult target to keep a bead on as it weaves a zig-zagging arc around the Gunmen units it appears to have been drawn into a fight with. One manipulator arm extends towards the leader of the most daring of Beastmen units, the valiant commander of the Flightless Waterfowl Squadron! What is she doing...? Is that...?

Yes, the Altairlion levels its sloped head at the biggest and most important unit of the bunch and proceeds to flip it the middle finger, which is why you should never let pilots actually program in macros for their own unit's limbs.

Ibis laughs to herself merrily in her cockpit. Her copilot, well, just stares at her disapprovingly.

And when the downed Gunman yanks a giant cannon out of another one in a manner most inappropriate, well, Ibis is ready, standing there making a 'bring it' motion with her unit's hand. When it fires, the Altairlion simply jukes to one side with another burst of jet flame and resumes the dance anew, darting through the sky and bringing to bear the G-Accelerator nacelles as they swing up from behind the Armored Module and aim forwards, already bristling with gold and green light.

"See, Tsugumi? Nothing to worry about, we've /got/ this!" chirps Ibis, who not a few hours ago was /actually/ stonily preparing for death.

The Altairlion pauses only to discharge those enormous-ass railguns at the assembled enemy Gunmen, loosing brilliant streaks of hypervelocity carnage capable of crumpling a capital ship in half at them. No such thing as overkill in this business.

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Ken Marinaris transmits, "I'd be picked off."

Guy has only one response to Kamjin, and it is best summed up in two words:

"PROTECT WAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLL!!!!"

The Electron Laser scythes towards GaoGaiGar - and runs right up against a shimmering barrier of extraterrestrial superscience, *catching* the energies of the beam and denying them any further liberty to travel forward, back, or in any direction at all, at least until Kamjin's aim moves past the King of Braves. But as soon as the laser's aim has moved on, the 'captured' energy from it is put back to use - the energies bent back on themselves, the beam reshaped into a five-pointed star, a pentagram - and it goes flying right back at Kamjin's Glaug!

As for the assorted mook Gunmen .... well, Guy's focused on Kamjin, so a number of bullets find their mark, slamming into GaoGaiGar's armor, chipping away at it en masse, but hardly distracting Guy from his main focus. Only once the electron laser has been returned to sender does Guy turn any attention to the Gunmen - and the glance GaoGaiGar directs their way is more dismissive (for now) than anything else. He'll give them his attention shortly - by preference, his *undivided* attention.

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "Yeah, but they'll just shoot you anyway!"

Macua Huitl doesn't even think more about the Beastman she tossed other than it was right. Moles are not a flying mammal at all, she can't help but smirk however she's got a lot of attention from her last action both the Beastmen and the Zentradi are upon her and this could be very well messy as heck. She comes under fire from an Officer Pod, and is dancing away from the heavy fire it's dishing out and all the while never losing track of Folka's location also the fact it's Kamjin fills her with dread, she's not encountered him since the incidents with the Blue Eyes in South America. This isn't good it's really all she replies.

"Let's see how you fight them Kamjin!"

She sees there's more Gunmen to deal with so many of them she takes a deep breath and unleashes a full out assault she'll lunge for the first one start punching it in the face the nest one she'll kick, and flip over. Following that she dodges fire from another and shoulder checks it hard. She just doesn't stop from attack to attack and finally the last one she'll attempt to kick it up into the air and spike it back into it's comrades.

However she's concerned She's pretty Sure Rachel isn't doing so well in this mess.

"Can't just ask for it, huh..." Aki seems to barely register Nia's presence around her neck as she faces down wave after wave of Gunmen. One, two, three... she rapidly loses count of how many are gunning for her alone, and it's all she can do to swing the Brynhildr around in a wide arc to outrun their tracer fire across the skyline, her teeth gritted in rising frustration and anger.

"--fine, then, then let's just do it! Hold on!" she finally decides, lunging forward in her seat to really start opening up the throttle of her machine. The hum of the frankly ludicrous reactors installed in the machine's centre ramps up considerably as her boosters fire pick up their pace, their edges tinged with greenish light amidst the bright blue of energy wash. Aki uses the sudden boost of power to throw herself and her mech sideways, earning a few light hits for her trouble but rocketing in on the aggressing force at a speed that really isn't intended for combat use.

The mech grasps for a power cable at its hip, ramming it home into the body of the spear at the last possible second; with little to no fanfare behind it, the end of her spear ignites into a solid and bright white lance of light as she tears along the front line of the squad of beastmen. With a twist and spin and especially a /lunge/, she suddenly scores a single brilliant line across all of them, explosions and brimstone following in her wake as she rockets away from ground zero.

Kamina fights on with his shades. He is doing pretty well for the most part. The red Gunmen continues to slash against one particular Gunmen. He is going to do this! He is going to finally end this stupid battle against the goddamn old man and his stupid furry army.

In Kamina's mind, he sees his father's skeleton over and over, filling him with rage as he continues to try to take out this one particular Gunmen.....

And then a Kangaroo mech stomps on him and he hears the Gurren's kneels pop as the metal digs into the ground. The Gurren is visibly hurt and Kamina bangs his head into the controls as metal digs into his shoulder. "DAMNIT!" He quickly begins trying to keep the Gunmen together by forcing more will power into it. "I won't lose now!" He attempts to grab another Gunmen and hurl it at the fleeing Kangaroo machine, growling un his breath.

"Heh! WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!"

The Ox-gunman grunts, snorting smoke. "Is that the best you can say!?" it crows, braying obnoxiously. "Lady, take a hint--"

He swings a fist down, and SWINGS upward, sharply, plowing his fist into Rachel's blade...where both stop, cold, and he laughs. "/Guys don't like pushy girls/!" the Ox laughs, and while her blade is locked with his, a half-dozen Gunmen leap out from behind him and open fire on the Rouge, blasting away at it with rapid-fire assault rifles.

Aoba encounters her own mess over in the corner, as she unleashes the terrifying power of her ALPHA BALL - DRIVE SHOOT!! It blasts through a series of Gunman, rampaging through and sending so, so many to their makers, cutting a path straight to Dai-Gundo...

Where it bounces off harmlessly. Ping!

And then a video appears of the interior of Dai-Gundo, broadcast openly to everyone. By which we mean, it hovers on a holographic screen in the sky. The Immovable, Guame, who is an armadillo-man that is mostly armadillo, chews on his huge pipe and looks smug, arms crossed. "I think you're a moron!" he answers Kamina with a laugh. "You think you'll come to my house and just bowl on through!? Ha ha ha! As if you'd ever have a hope against /the Immovable./"

He leans forward, sneering. "And someone kill the one that scratched my paint!!"

Bullets fly. From the direction of Teppelin, the sky begins to darken - bomber gunmen beginning to swarm toward the battlezone. But Dai-Gunten is not among them...the flying fortress must be busy elsewhere, but with what?

Kamjin Kravshera's last pose: A faint chortle escapes the Destroyer, although that's faint on Zentradi-scale; it's pretty loud. "Too slow," he says.

Folka's Ialdabaoth doesn't impact the Glaug as it lands, the massive Zentradi war machine moving with uncanny speed to evade the incoming kick, slipping under the shots from the deadly Twin Buster Rifle, evading the devastating dragged shot in the process. These evasions bring the Glaug face to face with GaoGaiGar in the process, the reflected shot scarring the side of the Zentradi mecha's armor as Kamjin ducks subtly to one side, the impact cannons of the Glaug's right arm firing a blast at the super robot. It's not much, but...

Well, he's just getting started.

"I don't care who you Miclones are... You're all just a bunch of future corpses!!" The surprisingly agile Zentran machine charges directly at GaoGaiGar, aiming to slam its mono-eyed front end into the super in a manner not dissimilar to some sort of melee attack one would accomplish with their head; using its backwards-articulated legs, the Glaug kicks off immediately afterwards to get more space, lining up a shot with all four impact cannons on the Ialdabaoth in the process, before landing... Just long enough to turn /all/ its guns towards the Wing Zero Custom, impact cannons and electron laser opening up in a furious barrage... OF FURY.

The ZERO System declares, not so ceremoniously: Heero, you're going to die.

What's shown next in the troubled youth's mind is a FRAME BY FRAME ANALYSIS of the chunky death that awaits him should he in fact stay /perfectly still/ and let all of the Glaug's impact cannons and electron lasers hit him head on, each still lovingly crafted from sheer predictive analysis like a glorified money shot.

However, Heero knows better than that, because in fact, he is so gatlyke. He blocks! How do you block a series of impact cannon shots and a laser? YOU OUTPRIORITIZE IT. The Twin Buster Rifle extends outward all of a sudden, faster than the eye can follow, as Heero links his failed attack with a subsequent one, the wrath of Kamjin's cannons engulfed with a searing beam that causes the temperature in Teppelin to spike up for just a moment, cutting a swath and cancelling the Electron Laser headed Heero's way out to try to punch back into the Glaug.

WILL IT WORK.

'Kawolski' P. Penguin takes a hit from the G Driver directly to his Gunman's forehead. Which is to say, chest. The machien stumbles backwards clutching it's firehead "Ah! Skippa! Th-they got me!" with a melodramatic exhale, the Gunman spins about on one foot, and falls over backwards... only jerk back up "Hurk, gah! cough!" then fall backwards again.

Aki Saitani's spear cuts through the side of Skipper's Gunman forcing it back to the ground. "Rmg! Rico!" The large stalwart gunman snaps back to it's feet as if it had never eaten a mouth load of missiles and salutes. "Time to catch some air soldier!" Skipper's Gunman holds out it's flippers and squats down. Rico's Gunman nodnodnods enthusatically and runs for his commanding officer, jumping into his hand.

The Gunman goes sailing up into the sky, launched by it's commander and curls up into a ball as it cackles with glee, aiming to ricochet across the battlefield.

"Yes, you cannot!" Nia exclaims to Aki! But it's not hard to see what Aki manages - as the throttle joins with the green light! It's not /too bright/. But it's there! But something has her attention. More than Kamina being Kamina, more than Ibis being queen of space!

Nia manages to work the communicator - from watching how Aki does it!

"Sir Kamina is the strongest Bro I have ever met!" She protests, "And I am certain that these people are fighting for each other, like before! Guame - I do not believe father is a match for these people, no matter his strength. They are so willing to help each other, no matter what the risk. That is what makes them so strong!"

"Though I am sure he has his reasons....Must Father and these people fight?" The princess finishes.

Or could be drowned out by gunfire, too!

The fist collides with the sword, the sound of metal impacting with metal echoes around them. Rachel's eyes narrow under the yellow-tinted visor, and the white-haired girl's grip tightens up that much more on the controls-- and as if mimicing the pilot's movements, almost as if the machine responded like a certain red Mobile Suit, the hands tighten and wring on the handle of the sword. The Strike Rouge leans into it a little more.

Her teeth clench, and she pushes harder and harder, machine parts spinning up faster and faster. Her eyes flick right as Gunmen spring up out of nowhere and /unload/ with their assault rifles. Rachel breaks the collision and draws the Mobile Suit backward, the pink machine's hull stopping bullet after bullet with the power of the Phase Shield-- but even the pink outer energy shield can't keep /every/ shot away. Holes rupture in the armor along the lower side, on the left arm... and where the shield does not seem to extend: The IWSP.

"The flight unit--" she exclaims with concern, glancing at an operations display to her left.

With smoke and sparks belching out of her flight pack, the Gundam's feet spread wide and it assumes a much more formal stance-- one that allows it to, even with the damage to the arm, bring the sword up over it's head and /swing/. Thunderous and loud even with the blunt side of the sword exposed, Rachel aims to swing it straight around, the hands sliding to the edge of the anti-ship sword's grip to extend her range that much more... trying to get the Gunmen surrounding caught up in the strike as well!

Folka can not believe that that large ass ship was dodgy.

The Ialdabaoth lands on the ground, the shockwave flattening beastmen all around him as he turns around.

A bunch of high yeild fire rains down, dust is kicked up, and for a moment nothing happens. Kamjin appears to have succeeded on his word...

Until a sharp wind cuts through the clouds, breaking the obfuscation, as the Ialdabaoth, worse for ware, stands, channeling strange energy all around it. This was not unlike many of the other various forms of 'strange energy'. However, this technique had only been unvealied a few times...one that is unique only to the Practioner known as Folka.

"DIVINE TECHNIQUE!" he booms, the aura growing to an absurd barrier, before it explodes in all directions around him, leaving nothing but a crater. Folka, standing on a jut of land that survived by sheer nature of being where the Crimson God stood crumbles as he leaps off of it, flying through the air towards the Zentrati ship.

The fists roar, as he attempts to dive at the ship, repeatly trying to punch through the hull, through the various defensive measures...and straight to where something important was. It didn't matter WHAT...it just had to be important.

Before the first of the Shura god soared, punching reality so hard that a large energy dragon appeared around the ship itself, attempting to enrap it...while it's maul fell on the ship, aiming to snap a piece off, before exploding in a display of pure devistation.

Unless he misses, then he'll fly off camera. Like a goober.

The all-but-headless Glaug tries to headbutt GaoGaiGar.

GaoGaiGar headbutts back, and it actually *has* a head to headbutt with.

The King of Braves may or may not have taken the worst of that exchange, but either way it hardly stops Guy from giving chase - only for a ricocheting Gunmen to get in his way briefly, causing GaoGaiGar to come up short for a split second as it rebounds on its way.

Within the control chamber, Guy shakes his head in near-disbelief, then surveys the battlefield. Kamjin is making a nuisance of himself; Beastmen in Gunmen are all over the place, and it doesn't look like the sort-of-united forces of the Earth Sphere are making much forward progress ... so Guy decides it's time to fall back on a time-honored principle of human engineering:

If it doesn't fit, use a bigger hammer.

"GOLDYMARG!!!"

A previously-concealed compartment in the Big G - formerly part of the missile which had deployed Guy for a mid-air Fusion and Final Fusion - splits open, and a Goldytank falls out before yelling "SYSTEM CHAAAANGE!!!" and transforming into Goldymarg, then activating his flight engines to control his fall.

... well, sort of control it. At least he can make sure he lands on something hostile - such as, say, a rampaging Glaug piloted by an unbelievably rogue Zentraedi - before leaping away to rendezvous with GaoGaiGar.

After drilling its way through that many Gunmen, of course the ball doesn't have the momentum to get through that thick armor! After it hits and bounces away, it flares with psychic energy once again, turning that ricochet into a long, flying arc away from the battlefield. The Alpha Ball will return... when the need is dire.

Or, you know, when someone wants a game of Jinki soccer.

Aoba blinks as her comm screen blinks on. "What... is that who's inside there?" Blue eyes narrow, and she leans forward. "He's... he's..." Her eyes widen and her hands clasp together. The sound that comes out of her mouth can really only be described as 'SQUEEEEEE!' "He's so cuuuuute!" That... is probably not the usual reaction people get when they see Guame.

But she can't be distracted for -too- long... there's fire incoming! Aoba quickly james her arms back into the pilot harness bars, bringing them up to cross over her body. Moribito does the same, taking a step back and just enduring the bombardment. It begins to lower its arms... but Aoba suddenly gets one of her Bad Feelings. "What... oh!" She just barely catches sight of the peng--the flightless waterfowl cannonballing toward her. The Jinki's right arm comes up, its feet brace, and it uses the shield to neatly deflect the penguinbotball away from it. "Phwew... now then."

Slowly, Aoba turns to face the dome machine. "Now, you! You're being a very bad armadillo!" Aoba leans in and gives a stern expression, which she somehow manages to pull off. "If you don't start behaving, I don't care how adorable you are! I'm going to have to punish you!" The girl crouches slightly in her harness, fingers running along the inside of the arm bar. Panels flip open on the backs of the Jinki's legs, revealing a set of thrusters, which sputter several times.

"PHANTOM!" The thrusters fire, and Moribito-02 is no longer -there-. It didn't teleport... it just dashed forward at amazing speed, and by the time it even appears on sensors again, it's already in the air above the machine and descending, feet first. "Glittering Dragonfly.... KIIIIIIIICK!"

"Direct hit! Keep 'em coming!" roars Ibis victoriously as the Altairlion socks a Gunman directly in the foreheadchest with a super duper high-speed rail slug. Her look of jubilation falters when it jumps right back up as if nothing had happened. What the hell is /with/ these things?!

The flame-haired lady scowls to herself beneath her totally gnarly generic black flight mask as she starts flipping every switch and pressing every button within reach, craning her head backwards to yell at her copilot even as she hauls on the flight stick and narrowly avoids getting dodgeballed by the launched enemy Gunman. In totally Extraneous Slo-Mo (tm), the Altairlion whips around and follows the trajectory, sending a single heavy air-to-air missile to go deal with it.

"Tsugumi! Attack pattern mamba, let's go!"

"W--wait, what's attack pattern mamba...?"

In a brilliant emerald flash of light, the experimental Armored Module is hurled deeper into the sky as the twin tesla drive thunders up on output, and there's a brief moment where it /isn't/ hurling missiles and vulcans and railgun slugs into the landscape while it twists and turns about itself, reconfiguring back into the shape of a ludicrously high-performance space jet, lining up for an attack run...

... right about now.

A noise as though the sky is being torn apart thunders from on high as the Altairlion, now in cruise configuration, circles above the elite beastman troupe like a hawk waiting to strike, looking ever-more eager with each pass, until it finally dives for them.

Reflected in Ibis' opaque black visor is a blistering mess of red target lock symbols. The ever-present tone in her ear is the sweetest music. She waits for just a moment, diving further and further downwards at truly reckless speeds, and then unleashes a heaping helping of her craft's firepower as she draws near, like some kind of crazy dive-bomber of old.

Missiles of varying sizes break free of the Altairlion's ordinance bays and streak after their targets on crisscrossing streams of white, brilliantly glowing bursts of rail fire rip from the nacelles and lash both Gunmen and ground alike with tremendous force, and cannon fire seems to fall everywhere at once, HEAP shells only further making things worse.

In not so many words, the space-jet does a sweet flyby and suddenly there are more explosions than there really ought to be.

"EH?!" Kamina responds to Guame with an angry look, his eye twitching. This guy really thought he was hot shit. The pilot of the Gurren was not happy with that smirk on that thing's face. Kamina growls, raising his hand for his new weapon to be fires from the Dai Gurren.

The Dai Gurren fires a single cannon straight into the area. The projectile breaks a part with a brilliant lens flare as the cargo rockets down to meet Kamina.

With a sudden flared movement, Kamina catches what looks like a large gun with a cooking pot on it. From the gun, a straw like device comes into the Gurren's mouth, chomping down.

Kamina fires it once, launching a purple ham with green veins running down it into the nearest Gunmen. That's right. They just weaponized Nia's cooking.

What's the straw for?

Kamina eats the same ham with ravenous fury, pumping himself up with "good" food. Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you stronger!

"ENJOY OUR LEFT OVERS ROCKETING BIOHAZARD SHOOTAAAAAA!!!!!" Kamina fires again and again, aiming for any Gunmen that decided to talk and open their mouth.

All is chaos she sees the Zentradi but she's got more to focus on She sees the various bestmens she just keeps fighting heer way therough them and leaving them a mess as she keeps making for the Dai-Gundo her self whe keepps fihging towards them and finally as her little assault comes to an end ans she looks at the huge thing and readies her mecha's spear. She launches her self into the last of the various mooks. They may see several CI's weaving and dancing through their ranks, only one's real though and it's attacks can be quite lethal. STill the damage from the eariler attacks is adding up, her machine's starting to lose some sections and she's certainly feeling her machine's pain s it were.

Things have started to get awfully busy for Kamjin the Destroyer. The Zentradi warlord is generally happiest in this sort of environment, though, as he finds himself assailed by at least three elite units for a prolonged period of time, the ominous-looking Glaug officer's battle pod never staying still for very long at all... With this many targets, and this many assailants, standing still is a good way to get incredibly killed. The alien war machine barely manages to avoid getting hit by the incoming Goldymarg, a barrage from the Glaug's various weapon systems hurled fruitlessly in GaoGaiGar's direction mid-dodge, Kamjin's personal machine stopping just long enough to get an energy dragon punched at it by the Shura god. "...What the fu--" the madman starts to wonder before once again leaping to avoid the Shura's strange attack, which is when the blast from the Twin Buster Rifle slams into the Glaug, nearly knocking it right out of the air.

"HA HA HA!! You're pretty interesting for a Miclone... That's a powerful weapon," Kamjin says, something in his tone of voice suggesting that he'd like to grind Heero's face in the dirt under his boot and then steal said crazy-ass gun. "BUT FIRST--!"

A predator prefers the most injured target, and as such, the Glaug descends towards Folka's damaged Ialdabaoth, the mouth of the electron laser mounted on the dorsal section glowing ominously. "TIME TO DIE!!" Kamjin roars, unleashing a hellish, crackling beam towards the Shura!

The Brynhildr doesn't move the slightest inch away from the careening path of the ball Gunmen as it rockets down onto her; the bright azure mech just stands there, engines blazing and spear on high heat, as if to peacefully accept the attack and it's inevitable defeat at the hands of Gunmen forces or somesuch. Anyway, it's certainly very allegorical and symbolic of accepting your fate - or it would be had Aki Saitani, Spiral Warrior in Training, not just juked to one side at the last moment and wrenched her spear around to slam the head of the weapon directly at the incoming enemy.

The solid blade at the tip of the weapon suddenly shifts colour at the same time as her engines ramp up even further, the greenish bluish twisted colour at their edge starting to pervade through into more and more of the exhaust flares. Gritting her teeth in effort as she fights the momentum of the attack, Aki suddenly yells out as she wrenches her controls forwards; her machine suddenly bursts forwards, a huge arcing kick flinging the poor hapless Gunmen missile straight upwards.

Aki throttles her machine back several steps, whooping in victory as it spins its spear in a hand far faster and more controlled than a low-finesse machine has any real right to. "Nia--!" she yells back, completely forgetting how small the cockpit is and how little she has to shout. "If you need t'get close to someone to talk 'em down, just let me know where!"

As the Gunmen arcs back downwards, the Tesla machine rockets forward to meet it, spear drawn back and then wrenched forward in a massive roundhouse of a blow; another burst of green light heralds the new and improved version of the Gunmen's attack, which sends the ball hurtling into the bulk of the enemy forces.

In the mind's eye of all spectators there's a rousing homerun jingle, or a bowling ball noise, or... well, you get the idea.

Skipper just sighs as Rico misses /all/ of his targets. The Gunman puts a flipper to it's face and shakes it's head slowly. "Rico, you're supposed to turn the gaidence system /on/ not off!" This comment is lost on Rico as he careens across the horizon.

"Lets try this again."SKipper's Gunman takes out a gigantic whistle from nowhere and blows on it, producing an incredibly shrill sound that makes ears ring even through cockpit walls. A hoard of Gunman crest a hill in ridiculous numbers, shouting and yelling at the tops of their lungs "ALLRIGHT BOYS! GO GET 'EM!" Skipper waves them forward with a fin.

Quiet possibly half the Gunman army charges after the heros of Earth, whooping and hollaring as they fire machine guns, rocket launchers and other, smaller gunman at the couragous daigur-....combined earth defenders.

<Radio: G - A-LAWS Secure> Meriden Almace transmits, "I've got Ken! We're pulling back because Ardjet crashed. I'm okay thouh."

A few minutes don't go well for the Gunmen Team! Rachel gets dogpiled by a dozen mecha who try to bury her in a sea of bodies...until she /cuts them to pieces midair/, and they all fall in scattered hunks in the field around her. It's a similar story all around. Macua tears into the swarm and they fail to retaliate effectively. They leap upon Kamina's MANLY MEAT and proceed to fall over, wailing in agony.

Guame actually looks over at Aoba, despite that making no sense at all using any kind of video production technology that actually exists. "Cute!? Brat! Watch your tongue! I'm the great general, Guame! The Immovable!!"

Aoba charges at him in judgment!! And...ping.

Nothin'.

"HA HA HA!" Guame croaks. "It's right there in the name, kid! I'm...IMMOVABLE!"

The top of the Dai-gundo pops open, and a big hand on a spring erupts outward carrying a mallet, which it uses to whack the Moribito into the ground.

"Now!" Guame laughs. "Boys! /KILL THESE APES!!"

"YEEEEEEEEEEEAHHHHHHHHHHH!" the Beastmen cry, and leap to the fray...which gets all the more horrifying, as the /air support/ arrives. Except the air support is just more gunmen, dropping from heaven with swords and spikes and claws.

The problem with seeking refuge in the air is that when the enemy has hundreds if not thousands of guns with which to fill it with stuff that might qualify as 'anti-air fire', you start running out of places to actually hide. As such, bursts of flak fire and rockets send the Altairlion seeking refuge back towards the ground as warning tones ring in Ibis' ears and she begins to sweat a little bit.

"Ibis, ready to change into Doll Configuration!" yells Tsugumi Takakura, the only engineer-graduate whose daily routine consists of getting shot at and programming pretty missile patterns. "No, the hell with that!" yells back the A-LAWS vigilante, bringing her somewhat sizable silver jet around on what appears to be a collision course with the enemy gunmen. "Reload all our bays, quick! I've /got/ this!"

Save for the turbo-screaming whine of the twin tesla drive hammering through the cockpit, there is a dull and nervous silence as Tsugumi quietly tightens her harness and does what she is told.

Another roar of engines and tortured air ripping itself in half as the Altairlion makes another suicidal charge, and once more the attack craft bathes as much of the Beastman attack force in ludicrous firepower as it can, spraying complicated patterns of explosive munitions into the hordes, ground and air alike. It's like an airstrike that /never stops/.

The princess nods to Aki, holding on tight as the shouting starts! it must be that Nia has learned! Anyhow, the words cause Nia to nod in agreement.

"I do not know if Guame would listen to me, even if I was lower." She notes to Aki, cheering her on after as the machine knocks the Gunmen away! Nia is proven right moments later as Guame focuses more on Aoba than others. "I do not believe they wish to hear from me." Nia notes, moments after, looking down to Guame.

"But... I still want to ask him something! The princess declares. Pause, "But do not worry Aki... I'm sure I'll be able to still, when the armoring is peeled off!"

Heero is quite used to stalkers, so if Kamjin thinks he can just jump to the top of the Heero Yuy list, he's got another thing coming for him...!

"You're just a spectre," Heero taunts aloud. "Disappear like the rest of your war-hungry friends, and leave us be--" And then suddenly the air in front of him is filled with jumping Gunmen, all swarming from ever which way with their swords, and spikes, and claws, and FACES.

ZERO flashes again as the Wing Zero Custom disappears underneath a rising pile of Gunmen, and the youth's eyes shut...

...and all of a sudden, a blasting force flings the Gunmen back where they piled on the winged Gundam, roiling power sweltering out from both ends of the Buster Rifle barrels as the Zero Custom, rising to full height, begins to roll... and roll...

And with each roll comes the terrible sustained beams of the Twin Buster Rifle.

"Guame, huh..." Now she has a name to use! "I should introduce you to Jirou. I bet you'd get along well... and maybe he can help you learn to behave better!" The descending kick strikes and.... doesn't seem to do much. "Hmph... fine then!" The girl takes a breath and puffs her cheeks out. "Even if you -are- cute, I'm not gonna let up at all! I--" Another bad feeling.

Slowly, Aoba looks up. She lets out a squeak of surprise as her Jinki leaps backwards, landing in a crouch with its shield raised high. Ton upon ton of Gunman falls down upon her machine, and the creaking of metal accompanies the massive dogpile. For a short time, there's silence.

But then, the Gunmen are flung out in every direction, and Moribito-02 stands, arms flexed. Surrounding it is a bright crimson] and gold] aura of psychic energy. "Mister Guame, you're a bad armadillo! I'm going to come right over there, right now!"

The Jinki gathers back... then quickly darts forward. "EXTEND.... CHARGE!" As it flies toward the immovable dome, it extends its left arm, telekinetic energy bleeding off the fist in sparks of red and gold. It may not be a drill, but sometimes Spiral Power takes mysterious forms.

"Don't understimate Miclones just because of our natural size!" Guy shouts at Kamjin as Goldymarg and GaoGaiGar reach each other on the battlefield -

Only for the Beastmen to interrupt, very rudely, stampeding all over the battlefield, including the King of Braves and the Herald of Hammers.

"I'VE HAD JUST ABOUT ENOUGH OF THIS AND I JUST GOT HERE!!" thunders Goldymarg, punching and kicking at the swarming Gunmen, as Guy engages the Drill Knees and forces the Beastmen to scatter. "So've I, Goldymarg. CHIEF!"

Far above the battlefield, in the Main Order Room of GGG's Orbit Base, Taiga stands up, pulling an official-looking case out of his jacket pocket; the case opens, a stylized yet high-tech key emerges, and Taiga withdraws it fully, holding it aloft. "GOLDION HAMMER, OPERATION APPROVED!!" he shouts, slotting the key into the authorization lock on his desk, and twisting it.

"Roger!" Mikoto Utsugi answers, her console reconfiguring, the normal monitor pivoting out and a different one pivoting into its place. "Goldion Hammer ..." She reaches into her uniform vest, pulling out the Goldycard. "... safety device - RELIEVE!!" She slots the card into its reader along one side of her console screen, and swipes down with a two-tone chime and a hum of authorization codes being transmitted.

"HERE WE GO!! SYSTEM CHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGE!!!!" roars Goldymarg, rising into the sky on the thrust of his legs' Ul-Tech engines, and beginning to transform - starting by his head and upper back detaching and flying upwards, followed by the remainder of his body folding itself into a huge, blocky forearm, complete with a fist folding out into place.

GaoGaiGar follows Goldymarg skywards, the right forearm detaching, fist retracting, and sliding back onto the pylon which normally keeps it as part of StealthGao II. This frees up the elbow joint as GaoGaiGar closes in behind Goldymarg. "HAMMER *CONNECT*!!!" Guy shouts, thrusting the elbow joint into the connector port on the back of the Marg Hand; the control circuits interlock, the fist opens - and as the hammer comes back down, the fist clamps shut around the handle. "*GOLDION HAMMER!!!!*"

And with that roar from Guy, plus a brilliant golden light suffusing both the Hammer and the King of Braves, GaoGaiGar comes plummeting down hammer-first, beginning to plow a path through the Beastmen machines ...

Folka leaps back, soaring backwards as the shot aims to put him down once and for all. Dispite his efforts into that shot...the backstabber was able to evade. His student, however, calls his aid. Folka, looking towards her at long last, nods...

"Let us thin the numbers of these beasts before we finish off the defeated." Folka says...

Folka's body is covered in a blue aura of energy as he dives in, right next to Macua, putting his back to her.

"KISHIN!" he calls out his student would know the rest. The two would become litterally a flaming ball of punches and kicks, each one swarming around to try and break through the various beast men. Folka kicks, and spins, Allowing Macua to come in with various punches. Folka spins and lays a barrage of punches on the next Gunmen, while Macua continues her back up.

The attack ends, as both raise the fists, causing a aura of flames to surround them, charging through the entire line of beast men...

"KEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEN!"

The suddenly influx of Gunmen comes at a time when Kamina has pretty much eaten all of his ammunition. It was now up to him to use the nourishment that Nia's cooking gave him. He could feel the Spiral Power pumping through him as his body attempted to survive the sudden case of extreme food poisoning.

The red Gunmen tosses the gun away, redeploying the shades into his right hand. He is suddenly caught in a draw as his blade clangs with another Gunmen, locked in battle and canceling out both attacks. He growls, feeling the arms' hydraulics crack under the pressure.

"God that fucking dog is annoying" Yes, he thinks Guame is a dog. Yes, he probably heard that. No it is not an insult. Kamina actually thinks the pedo-dillo is a dog.

Kamina charges, swinging his shades around him in whip like movements to try to smack gunmen after gunmen into the air. Each of them seem to be aimed where Guame's bigger Gunmen is...or whatever big gunmen are around. "CHOKE ON YOUR DAMN KIBBLES AND BITS STUPID UNDERLING SEND BACK SLASH!!!!" Kamina roars.

The Brynhildr is borne down by the weight of the Gunmen piling on top of it; it all but disappears for a moment, hidden from sight by a massive combination of both a heavy dogpile and a sudden roaring sea of firepower. Within the cockpit Aki struggles to both fight the sea of attackers trying to overbear her machine and to listen to Nia's hesitancy without getting angrier at the whole situation than she already is, searching for that well of reserve that'll help her get out of this situation. "--get off'f me... and leave her alone...!"

Oh, there it is.

The Gunmen around the machine suddenly explode outwards in a violent show of piercing and bright lights, as all of the Brynhildr's joint-mounted engines fire at once to produce a violent and vivid corona of drill-shaped exhaust flames. The next moment, Aki has used the breathing room to pause to ricochet off of a ground-level Gunmen, delivering a brutal kick to its midsection that tears it in two and launches her upwards into the midst of the sailing enemies.

"You're goin' down! /All/ of you!" Aki yells into her radio, probably forgetting that the enemy aren't regularly in the habit of tapping into secure frequencies in the middle of a pitched battle. Whatever, she doesn't care, she's busy being shonen over here. The spear reignites in another blazing arc of glory as the Brynhildr slices another enemy in two with a rocket kick that sends it swooping low through the crowded beastmen ranks; as she sweeps it around, the head of it spinning in a fashion that was never included in the design documents, it tears through the enemy ranks like Boss through breakfast goods.

"It doesn't matter whether they wish to or not!" she yells to Nia, flicking switches somewhere in the middle of her mad glowing dash. "I've got loudspeakers on this thing, so /use 'em/! What harm can it do?!"

The collective Gunmen leap in, about to pile right onto the Strike Rouge and /physically/ force the machine down to the ground. As they do, the sword's whirling blade strikes the collective group in a conspiciously non-lethal way /again/, but hopefully deep enough that none of them will have the smart idea of getting right back up and going after the pink Gundam again.

With a wrenching tear and a lurching noise, the flight pack of the Strike Rouge seems to give out, and the Gundam drops the rest of the way to the ground to land on it's feet with an angry impact, throwing up the Siberian soil and barren terrain around the point of impact. Rachel sucks in a breath between her teeth while warning klaxons blare just over her shoulder.

Driving the Anti-Ship Sword into the ground tip-down, the Strike Rouge's freed right hand grips the odd handle on the shield and /flings/. A beam blazes to life, and the weapon takes the form of a boomerang that whips end over end in the air, cutting down one of those missiles mid-air... and starts a chain reaction of explosions, with a few more blasts erupting in the ground around her, but none close enough to actually cause the Gundam damage.

This isn't the P2/3C, Rachel reminds herself. This isn't the Zeta Gundam. Even without the workout of the free-standing, motion-controlled cockpit, even with the training that she's had with Arm Slaves under Melissa Mao, this is still a vaguely exhausting endeavor. Her own mind pounds against the inside of her skull. If she had that power-- if she had the Red Zeta-- if she could use 'that'...

Pressure strikes like a spike.

The Strike Rouge grips the anti-ship sword's handle and jerks backwards, firing the thrusters in the legs just enough to get a hop out of the Mobile Suit. With a swift turn of her sword, she starts to deflect Gunmen and their weapons, soaking blows against the flat of the blade or with the machine gun-clad shield.

Rachel Miu Athha wears her heart on her sleeve, and in front of her, and all around her. She is, in short, an empathic nightmare-- a person that just can't turn off all of her outward-broadcasting emotions, putting her feelings and heart into almost everything she does; thus, the young Newtype's voice isn't just on the radio... at least to those who are nearby and your preferred variety of psychic.

"Get /away/ from me!!"

The sword plants in front of her like a shield all of it's own. Hefting a pair of stout rifles, the barrels crackle and sizzle scant moments before both guns fire with the stench of ozone and a crack of metals, sending solid slugs straight toward the Gunmen in front of her.

That is a completely ridiculous thing to do.

No doubt, the Wing Zero Custom's rolling motion as its overpowered weapon fires continuously does untold damage to the landscape, and it's certainly not enjoyable when it strikes Kamjin's Glaug, lighting up brilliant red damage readouts inside the cockpit of the alien machine even as the Ally-Killer returns fire, one forearm's worth of impact cannons firing back at the Wing Zero. Inside the cockpit, Kamjin kicks the console with one booted foot, until the alarms and lights stop; this is the closest the warlord comes to 'maintenance'. He's a warrior, after all. Not a /technician/.

"What... Where are the rest of you going?!" the mad alien warlord demands, as both GaoGaiGar and Ialdabaoth go after Kamjin's putative Beastmen allies rather than attacking him. The problem with this... The /problem/ with this is that it means exposing their backs to Kamjin. Is that really a good idea?

All four impact cannons thunder as the Glaug focuses fire on the Wing Zero Custom, but Kamjin Kravshera is not idle. "Hey, you shitheads! /Fire at those other guys/!" he orders in Zentran, and the scattered Regults start shooting at GaoGaiGar and the Shura god, missiles and cannon fire serving as a reminder that the Zentradi is still there.

Regult fire converges on the King of Braves, and Guy whips around, twirling the Goldion Hammer to deflect as much of it as he can - and not entirely incidentally to swing a gravitic shockwave back at the Zentraedi mobile units. "So many people trying to get my attention .... fine then - if you want me to focus on you? THEN I *WILL*!!!"

And GaoGaiGar thunders back across the battlefield - but he's not heading for the Regults. Oh, no. That would be too obvious. Instead, he's heading for Kamjin's Glaug ... and he's not even bothering with the Mirror Particle 'nail' like he'd normally produce when he's ready to deliver the finishing assault. This could mean one of two things for Kamjin:

The good possibility is that he's not really out to obliterate Kamjin's unit - yet - but is just trying to eliminate the source of the distractions.

The *bad* possibility is that he *is* out to take the Glaug off the field the permanent way .... and doesn't intend to try and rescue Kamjin in the process, the way he normally would - Guy is notorious for trying to save human pilots, even enemy human pilots. But then, Kamjin is very definitely not human, and he's been driving the point home ...

The Hammer comes down, unleashing a powerful series of gravitic shockwaves ...

The quad impact cannons' fire is cut short, but to Kamjin's credit they are very much accurate and dead on. Only...

"I pity you... you know of nothing but fighting."

Whether he says that to Kamjin, or ZERO, or both of them is unknown. Heero's eyes reflect the blue gleam of the ZERO System for a moment, allowing himself to immerse in its data. For nearly two years and change he has been doing this. If he tried this two years back, his mind would've just flat out broken. But now... either he can say his mind is damaged enough to sustain it, or perhaps he just knows how the ZERO System works...!

The Wing Zero Custom's eyes flash as it moves, gliding along to the side to evade the first blast, then the second, its movements precise and with a grace that exceeds Heero's own movements. The youth's expression is firm as he sees nothing but the output of data presented to him by his machine, and with each moment he selects nothing but the most favorable. For him, for his opponent, and for those he's fighting for...

And then the Wing Zero Custom sweeps on past, diving straight in on the Glaug's territory. Twin Buster Rifle in one hand, saber in the other, Heero sweeps in for a flash mixup, saber sweep connected into quick rifle blast to wing turn to rising saber slash, attack upon attack coming unrelentingly with the efficiency and precision... of a machine.

Macua Huitl contacts Folka over the radio, she knows what has to go down. She knows it's a risk but it has to be done, she feels while dangerous Kamjin isn't the one calling the shots the commander of the Beastmen is calling fall more of them and has far many more troops under his command.

"Agreed we need to do so Master."

She moves to follow Folkas lead as she now is fighting back to her teacher and friend. Oddly she does feel alive, somewhere deep down she knows she's a weapon but she's got something. Choice standing along side a friend in the face of like this for the sake of others? She just unleashes the full fury of what Folka has taught her along with a few manoeuvres of her own invention.

"MMMMMOOOOOUUUUGGGGEEEEEKKKKKKIIIII."

The Amazon CI's movements are fluid even with the damage she's taken. She lashes out at the Gunmen that are near her, she just moves to take them out of the fight, if she destroys them so much the better, kicks, punches are the order of the day, as she refuses to let up in her assault upon the minions of the Helix King. Some would be grabbed and crushed, others would have there eyes smashed out, one would get kicked din a place should he feel feed back? Theyd not be walking right for a while. Then the spear comes into play, it expands out, giving Macua more reach and she lets out a flurry of attacks, yet the Beastmen still come, even with all the thinning the attack force is doing, they still come in large numbers. But theres still people to deal with them and still dishing out the pain. Inside Macua is pushing her self harder than she has since the fight against the Balmarians final super weapon in the waning days of the invasion of earth. Its not shes slacked off shes just been pushed hard and the spear fill in vanishes as it collapses back away as she launches one final all out strike.

"KKKKKKKKKKKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENNNNNNNNN!"

The Gunman piled on the Brynhildr suddenly explode upwards as the machine go flying backwards as the machine drills through, attempting to pierce the heavens!... or at least the Gunman.

It's unclear to everyone just how many of the Gunman are torn to bits as Ibis douglas and her ultra-sweet space machine tear through their ranks. But boy, there are a lot of them.

Skipper hmmns. "Well, Private!" THE little Gunman that hasn't done anything yet is suddenly at Skipper's side. "Y-yessir?" "It's all up to you now son!" He pushes the little Gunman forward then shoos him along. "Go on, just like training now."

"Uhm...O-okay." The little Gunman holds up a pistol in one flipper, which Skipper dodges away from "Woah! Watch it kid! You remember gun safty training!"

The Gunman of Private uhs, "Right, of course sir! Always point the weapon downrange or at the ground and never at someone's face! Unles it's a human." Private points it towards Aki Saitani's Brynhildr and looks away, using it's other flipper to cover where it's 'ear' would be as Skipper's Gunman suddenly turns and runs off. The trigger is pulled.

A positively ridiculous blast emerges from the gun. A rolling ball of compressed energy the likes of which that lgihts up the entire battlefield, and sends Private hurtling backwards over hill and dale towards Teppelin.

"Darned Noisy Crickets." Skipper comments from behind cover. "Just too pwerfull for the contemporary battlefield."

Private mumbles from his position, stuck upside down in a hill "Y-yessir."

It's vicious and powerful. Guy comes at the new wave of Beastmen with full intent to smash them to bits. The hammer rockets in...and slams into one /particular/ Gunmen, a massive bear-gunman with huge talons. Which grasp the edge of the Hammer, ridiculously, because that's impossible.

"Never underestimate the SPIRAL KING!!" the Bear Man thunders from inside. "HRRRRAAAAGH!!" And the bear /pitches/ Gaogaigar and the Hammer away. Just in time to get vaporized by the Rolling Buster Rifle. Whoops!

And then Aoba SLAMS into the side of the Dai-Gundo, aiming to strip its damn armor off and tear the machine to pieces. The force ripples back /into/ the Moribito, so great is the Dai-Gundo's mass...but it is shifted back a good couple hundred meters by that hit. "What the!?" Guame squawks, staggered. "The hell was that!?"

In Teppelin, the Spiral King cracks his eyes open, peering back toward the battle.

"They are using 'it'," the girl says.

"They are," Genome replies.

And out beyond, Folka shows just as much terrible power, aiming to thrash through a crop of Gunman in a single swing...

When his fist is met with another, a monstrous tiger gunman who throws its full weight into simply absorbing the wrath of Folka's mighty fists. The counterattack fails...but Folka's power fizzles as it is exposed to the Gunman's fists, eyes flashing behind them. "Who is defeated?" the Beastman rumbles, dangerously. "A bunch of halfwits will not defeat our Spiral King!"

And then Macua comes through and hits him in the face, causing him to explode. Whoops!

But he had a point. Teppelin seems to have /infinite/ ability to reinforce the line. Or is it? The sky is clearing...and although Dai-Gundo seems damn near invincible, there's only so many Gunman that can remain here. Which raises a question, as the bullets resume flying in every direction.

Where the hell is the rest of Genome's forces, if not /here/?

Folka's fist meets one of the tiger beast man...

Such a pain, he thinks, the attack redirected. Pulling back, he notices that the punch itself cracked the armor on the fist, however, this comes only to be a passing knoweldge as Kamjin starts raining more pain on him. Jumping, running, and once more kicking off of another Gunman he soars towards the Zentrati.

"I grow tired of you." Folka states flatly, aiming to float beside him. His hand comes up, aiming to cause a shockwave of that blue flame to try and catch the ugly Zentrati unit...

Before he spins, aiming to rapidly kick at the machine, trying to break through any defenses, before he aims a single powerful punch to try and send it flying towards the ground. "KISHIN KEN!"

"Yes... if father will not answer me, then he will be the only one who can." So it is decided! "Aki! When you are able...!"

Aki's machine slices through Gunmen, bashes through the beastmen, and rockets about! "Aki, it is amazing what you are able to do!" She declares, sitting near the girl, stuck next to her due to the lack of actual space within such compartments!

"So just take us there, Aki!" But she doesn't see 'it' coming.

The entire machine shakes, swallowed up by it - and the princess might, sooner than later, find out what it is like to be in a crashing ship!

Aki's rampage -- and her incoming reply to Nia -- are both cut short as she suddenly gets a massive cannon-blast to the side, sending the Brynhildr scattering sideways in a sea of sparks and peppered explosions of exhaust ports. Buckled in, she's mostly fine from the impact, if rattled, but she has presence of mind to grab for Nia for fear of sending her sideways into a cockpit bulkhead.

Wrestling with her controls, the pilot manages to stabilise the craft, but only in time for a large chunk of both her console and her starboard engines to flicker out in a power shortage then a pop and fizz of electronics.

Catching it in the face, she recoils with a very un-ladylike string of words, shielding her face from the worst of it; from over her hands she surveys the battlefield, or what's left of it. "... sorry..." she just grumbles out to Nia as her controls start to get choppy, then almost cut out completely. Her hands quickly fly over what's left of her console, trying to get her power restored.

Ibis furrows her brow, and voices her concerns aloud, possibly just to herself.

"Why the hell are there so many of them? We're fighting an entire goddamned army out here!"

The sweetest space-ride this side of the Vic Viper banks hard and peels around in a tight turn that sees it perform half a barrel-roll for the sheer sake of it, effortlessly darting inbetween streams of enemy gunfire and loosing another barrage of micromissiles that stream into dozens of mook suits, which fill the camera with super duper colourful explosions. Bombing run after bombing run, and Ibis is starting to flag.

Or at least, was, until the little IFF blip for the TL-XBPR-004 Brynhildr changes to red, which signifies that shit ain't good.

"Change of plans. Tsugumi! What's the status of our accelerator coils?!"

"They're overheating!"

Shit, well, that never stops Heero from using his giant overpowered beam weapon, why should Ibis let it stop her from using her giant particle accelerator? There's a groan of a warning report from the Altairlion's computer before the pilot throws caution to the wind and once more tries to jam hypervelocity slugs into the most important-looking Gunmen.

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Aki Saitani sounds a /little strained/. "--need a lift to the Argama here!"

Fortunately, Moribito is built for powerful punches... but the backlash of force still sends a powerful shockwave up its arm, and up Aoba's arm within the cockpit. "That was me... Aoba Tsuzaki! Gundam Fighter for Neo-Venezuela!" She stands back and clenches her fists. "Proud mama of a cute armadillo!"

Moribito-02 begins running again, though it seems to be moving at just normal speed. Perhaps that supercharged speed has run out? As more Gunmen come flying in, Aoba doesn't even hesitate. The shield is raised, neatly deflecting incoming bombardments. A neat spinkick takes out the Gunmen that land in front of her, and a swift uppercut takes care of those trying to drop on her from above. "I'm not finished with you! If you insist on acting so badly, I'll come right in there and have a talk with you myself!" As she approaches Dai-Gundo, more of those red and gold sparks begin flowing over the Jinki. Instead of forming an aura of energy, though, they bounce along its cracked armor and down its arm, collecting in the left hand.

The final distance is closed with a thruster-assisted leap, and that left fist is slammed into the side of the Gunman fortress. The right reaches out to grab any sort of hold it can on the armor, and the left hand opens up. "BEAT BREAK!" Moribito thrusts its left hand forward, slamming into the damaged armor with all the force it can muster, bolstered by the telekinetic pressure channeled from Aoba.

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Macua Huitl transmits, "Copy that, but i'm knee deep in Gunmen right now, your location's flagged, play dead and keep yer side arm ready."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Ibis Douglas very loud pew pew noise in background. "I'll bomb the shit out of anything that even looks at you!"

No matter what she does, they seem to keep coming. Given, she hasn't exactly been trying to kill /any/ of the Beastmen that she's fighting, preferring to destroy arms and legs or simply crush the monsterous faces and take out their eyes, no matter how hard she's fought and kept them at bay, /more keep coming/.

This grim realization hits her as yet another wave of them seems to just spring out of the woodworks, but even as strands of white hair are matted down to her face with sweat and tension flowing through her shoulders and arms and chest. The Strike Rouge has taken quite a beating, and although none of the damage has been enough to keep the Mobile Suit down, she's going to have a hard time keeping the machine in the air /if at all/ with the damage to the IWSP.

Briefly, her thoughts turn to Judau, and the rough-hewn star that hangs around her neck, under the layers of padding and protection given by the flight suit. Her thoughts turn to Bright Noa, and the bracelet worn under the padding of her left glove, around her wrist. Captain Bright would give her just one message.

Judau would just do what comes naturally.

The Strike Rouge again deflects blades and the limbs of Gunmen, the shield soaking up more than it's fair share of bullets and the occasional stone or everything short of the kitchen sink. Pushing her way ahead, wading through them, those two thoughts cling to her memories and her heart, and give her a little more strength.

"Increase--" The Strike Rouge's left hand leaves the Anti-Ship Sword's grip, the sword settling into an odd and vaguely unbalanced hold, the sword's tip lowering. The knees bend, and her footing shifts to reflect this as the Gundam starts to squat. "-- the--" The shield-arm grips the second anti-ship sword mounted under the Strike Rouge's right arm, drawing the sword with a wide-angle swing... and even with the issues of balance in the Mobile Suit and the damage done to the left arm, the Mobile Suit's eyes blaze a brilliant green. "-- BARRAGE!!"

Her hands roll forward. Her feet stomp down on the controls. Her index fingers pull triggers while her thumbs hold down buttons. All of this leads to the the Strike Rouge hurtling forward with both swords swinging in smooth motions, cutting in one direction, lashing out in another. The damaged IWSP keeps the Gundam in an odd flight path, and that is exactly when she does what Judau would.

The insane thing.

The swords continuing to swing, Rachel subjects herself to an incredible amount of G-forces as the Strike Rouge blazes through the air in a vaguely ironic form-- a spiral-- and continues to strike out at the remaining Gunmen forces, aiming to blaze straight through the line until she's stopped or she's damn well blacked out, because, well... a busted Gundam is not exactly at the same tier as a Petite Mobile Suit and a crazy driver.

Macua Huitl could only smile at Aoba's words she did have pride of her adoptive country she's become the Gundam fighter. She is one too and she still takes pride in it. She knows one thing is strange where is the rest of the army two Generals are missing. The ones who have a personal bone to pick with her as well. She cuts a path through the Gunmen and that one who was sassing Golka, gets exploded in a single punch she knows Teppelin has huge numbers of troops and likely could crank out Beastmen like the Zentradi could troops in their day. Still they got to deal with the matter at hand.

<Pose Tracker> Kamjin Kravshera [U] has posed. "Come on!!" Kamjin the Destroyer bellows. "COME ON!!"

Everything happens with alarming speed and suddenness, as it generally does in the middle of battle, and the Glaug is assailed on every side by a trio of powerful opponents, with varying results. Folka's Kishin Ken slams into the Zentradi war machine at the same time as the vicious assault from the Wing Zero Custom, beams and beam sabers carving deep gouges in the ancient mecha's armor, slagging it along the edges... But even as this happens, the warlord opens fire in turn, unloading the impact cannons of either forearm at the two targets with varying success... And then the hammer comes down, which would be /extremely/ bad if Kamjin's Glaug were in the way, rather than leaping backwards out of range, only feeling the very edges of the gravitic shockwaves, the eddies caused by the warping tidal forces.

"Pity me?" Kamjin wonders, his voice deceptively calm and soft. "Tire of me? Like any of you pathetic little shits could even understand! I was killing stronger enemies than you while this 'civilisation' was figuring out how to make a more complex weapon than a rock!! There are worlds out there where soldiers would rather kill themselves than face me! I AM KAMJIN THE DESTROYER, AND I'M GOING TO /DESTROY THIS PISSHOLE OF A PLANET/!!" Missiles fire, and the Glaug's impact cannons unload as Kamjin bombards GaoGaiGar and the Wing Zero Custom with a hail of fire... But the dorsal-mounted electron laser unleashes another hellish beam of its own, directly for the Shura god.

"...TOO BAD YOU'LL ALL BE TOO DEAD TO SEE IT HAPPEN!!"

"Aki?" Nia asks, "Is everything okay?" She still smiles, despite the popping and fizzing. "Oh! it is making very nice fireworks! You must be doing very well!" Her understanding is shoddy at best. But the words that Nia hears only tell her a few things - there's so much to learn yet, and...

Things are not well. "Ah... I had wished to ask Guame about father, but perhaps it will have to be another day!" She says, optimistic to the end. Hopefully it will not be the end, however!

Macua Huitl could only smile at Aoba's words she did have pride of her adoptive country she's become the Gundam fighter. She is one too and she still takes pride in it. She knows one thing is strange where is the rest of the army two Generals are missing. The ones who have a personal bone to pick with her as well. She cuts a path through the Gunmen and that one who was sassing Golka, gets exploded in a single punch she knows Teppelin has huge numbers of troops and likely could crank out Beastmen like the Zentradi could troops in their day. Still they got to deal with the matter at hand.

Even as the numbers seemed to thin out she lets out another shout as she breaks off From Folka as he goes back to dealing with the Zentradi. She sees as Rachel is still alive, she's also kicking pretty hard too. That makes her smile and she can feel her friend's presence over the chaos of battle but she maintains her focus. Rachel might feel the brush of her comrades mind almost amused at what she's doing. Prehaps it's over what bright's reaction would be to it?

Macua contiunes pressing forward and follows up on Aoba, there's been enough of a rank thinking to join the attack and she'll follow up on her fellow fighter's work aiming it exploit the possible weak point with the fury of every strike she can muster.

"Idiot." Folka says. "I am a SHURA. I am not a human." he says. The laser grazing...but even that was deadly. Armor of the Crimson Shura god was near destroyed...but he was still functioning. "MY race has been destroying words accross dimensions, as well as subjegating our own gods." He says, firmly. "Just because the history of bloodshead and devistation is in your past, does not mean you MUST follow that path! Your path is your own too choose, like the others of your race have chosen." he says...

"HOWEVER! IF WORDS WILL NOT DETER YOU...THEN SO SHALL THE FIGHTING SPIRIT OF THE THIS WORLD, AND MY OWN AS I JOIN WITH THEM!" He booms.

Folka leaps, repeatedly kicking at the machine, trying to match the redicious speed of the unit, before aiming to flip kick it back towards the ground...

"GLORIOUS SOLAR RAIN!" he booms, as his foot sweeps back down towards him, creating a cutting wave of energy to try and 'befriend the shit' out of this man.

The Wing Zero Custom's luck has to come to an end sooner or later, and Kamjin's mad bombardment finally catches up with the winged Gundam as it stops to cool down after its suspiciously Trans-Am-styled relentless assault. It did not turn pink, though, although you know deep in Heero's heart HE WISHED IT DID.

Heero hears a loud crack from just outside his cockpit as the bombardment rains in, Gundanium armor warping and the wings fraying further and further still. And yet... he keeps his expression still as he stares towards Kamjin and his Glaug, and just responds with:

"You're doing a shitty job of that."

The console in front of him unfolds, a simulation of the Twin Buster Rifle's firing path affixing itself in front of him. A haze of crossfires flood in, profiled from a thousand different simulations.

"Target, auto-locked on. Mission: Eliminate the 'Destroyer'... Attack order confirmed, charge complete. Twin Buster Rifle : Maximum Discharge...!"

The green flash of the Wing Zero Custom's eyes precede everything turning into defiant radiance. The exhausted metal of the Buster Rifle warps slightly as it's subjected to the absolute limit of its heat tolerance, inner systems scrambling a little as its circuitry corrupts with the intense fire of the shot.

And visible even from miles away, a trailing light erupts from a pair of wings that screeches straight for the Glaug...

"THIS 'PISSHOLE OF A PLANET' IS *OUR HOMEWORLD!!!*" roars Guy, spinning the Goldion Hammer again - and *THIS* time, it deflects every single missile which would otherwise have hit the King of Braves. "And if you haven't figured it out yet - after every threat we've faced down and beaten, INCLUDING the Zentraedi warfleet - including *YOU*! - then let me spell it out for you .... YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE AS LONG AS HUMANITY CAN STILL UNITE IN THE FACE OF AN ENEMY WHO THREATENS US ALL!!"

The bombardment subsides, the Goldion Hammer stops spinning - and GaoGaiGar hurtles on after the Glaug like a Zentraedi backstabber-seeking missile in the shape of something terrifying. Because while Guy Shishioh makes his living out of overcoming fear by the virtue of willpower and hot blood ...

He's oh so very content to inspire deep, pants-soiling, nightmare-worthy fear in the enemies of humanity, be they Zondar, Beastman, Zentraedi, or otherwise.

And despite the fact that every swing takes a big bite out of his power reserves, the Goldion Hammer charges up and swings once more - even if he can't obliterate the Glaug, he can at least gravitically photonize more and more of its armor, and probably weaponry as well.

The most important looking Gunman on the battlefield is a tall lanky looking Meercat stlyed machine, with a giant gold crown studded with rubies and emeralds, bossing around a shorter fat machine and a generally smaller, cuter looking machine. Ibis' G-Accelator Driver blasts the three of them across the battlefield and into Teppelin, where they slowly slide down the front of the behemoth tower. "Ohhhh, that looked nasty Skipper!" "Indeed it did. glad it wasn't me.

IN ORBIT OVER SIBERIA.

Bruno J. Global frowns at his tactical display. "Contact Siberia base..."

RIGHT THE HECK NOW.

Beastmen advance towards the heros of Earth inexorably forward like an unending tide of soulless mac--

A massive crater suddenly forms in the middle of the Beastmen ranks, a hundred meters across. A full 30 seconds later, the sound of a sonic boom can be heard as the sound of the artillery shell finnaly catches up.

HUNDREDS OF KILOMETERS TO THE SOUTH.

The Tactical Surface Fighter, specially modified for this roll braces the massive 1200mm Over The Horizon Cannon against it's padded shoulder. "Target is a hit, no blue on blue. Fire the next two rounds."

THe entire siberia EFA base shudders as two more 1200mm shells are fired, flying directly over the horizon and mountains and smashing straight intoht e basemen lines.

Change it out!" THe massive cannon is released and picked up by a crane. It's barrel glowing white hot as a new fresh weapon is placed in the mech's hands "Fire!"

A fourth shell crashes into the Beastmen lines, sending the beastmen scattering backwards towards the impenatrable walls of Teppelin.

Folka, finally...

Collapses...the Shura god finally spent of all energy, and it's armor completely devistated by the stupid counters of a now befriended Jolly Green Giant.

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "Ngh... finally."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "Aki. Do you copy? Do you still require pick-up?"

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Aki Saitani is talking through static half the time, but she's still alive. "Ibis-- --ing me. Requestin' a fix up-- --gama."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Macua Huitl transmits, "The Feds are giving artillery cover fire, we better pull out, they are trying to hit the beastmen, but if they fall short."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Ibis Douglas transmits, "I got her. We're gonna need a stealthy exit, though."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Heero Yuy transmits, "Good. I'll cover any of you from the sky for your retreats, and we'll reconvene in the Argama."

<Radio: A - Katharon Chat> Macua Huitl transmits, "I may have to catch a ride with a friend, but i'll meecha back there."

Kamjin is, notably, purple, not green.

Also not particularly jolly.

The situation deteriorates pretty rapidly, as the warlord's Glaug gets hammered pretty literally, doing impressive damage to the front end of the ancient war machine, though one forearm's impact cannons go off at the super robot in the process; as the strangely formed bipedal robot lands, the Shura god Ialdabaoth is attempting to violence the hell out of it in turn... But Kamjin is clearly having none of this, instead unloading all /four/ cannons into Folka's machine, which just leaves...

...The Twin Buster Rifle putting an enormous hole in the Glaug. Again, Kamjin manages to return fire with one forearm's cannons, moments before that arm is /blown up/, and what eventually leaps out of the explosion is a barely functional remnant of a mecha that has survived for centuries.

"Ha ha ha ha... Ha ha ha ha!! We'll see, miclones!" Kamjin laughs, barely paying attention to what's going on anymore as his Glaug retreats, moments ahead of the massive artillery fire from quite some distance away. "We'll see who has the last laugh!"

And then he's pretty much gone.

What a /dick/.

Ibis squints as the blinding flare of the twin buster rifle melting something dead in the ass fills her viewscreen and pulls her craft into a steady ascent to a holding pattern far above the chaos on the ground, and keys open the radio. Tiny magical video-radio windows open to Heero Yuy and Aki Saitani.

"Knock-knock! Coming in on a rescue vector for the Brynhildr, and then we're outta here! No way are we hanging around here while they're firing for effect!"

The Altairlion snaps back into doll configuration as it plummets back towards the ground, sonic sabers blazing fiercely from their focus lenses near the Armored Module's wrists as it proceeds to carve a glowing, melted swathe of chaos through whatever melee might be left around the fighting machine belonging to one Aki Saitani.

Twin Tesla drives roll their eyes and strain as the Project Terrestrial Dream machine grabs the /other/ Tesla Leicht experimental robot and lifts off once more, showing very little of its usual speed as it suddenly has to deal with carrying more than twice the usual load. Ibis and Tsugumi stay very quiet and prey that their machine does not, in fact, decide to fail on them before they make it to safety.

SPACE-BROS.

"We'll be waiting and ready," Guy snarls as Kamjin flees - and it starts raining destruction, courtesy of EFA support artillery. And here's GaoGaiGar without an umbrella.

"Hammer Disconnect!" orders Guy, and the Marg Hand lets go of the Goldion Hammer before disengaging; GaoGaiGar has to help Goldymarg get his head (and the Hammer) back on, which is thankfully pretty straightforward. Goldymarg promptly converts back to the Goldytank to make good his departure; GaoGaiGar, however, lingers long enough to turn and pick up the Ialdabaoth, to carry it off the battlefield and back to the recovery point.

Because let's face it: Folka is just as courageous a hero as any, and Guy's not about to abandon an ally in the face of artillery bombardment.

Guame sits back in his chair, puffing his pipe smugly. "This all you pansies got!? As if you'll ever put a ding in my Daigundo with crap like this!"

"Uhhh, sir," comes a mutter from offscreen, "I don't want to interrupt, but the engine's going to explode, and I thought--"

"CAN IT!" Guame snaps, reaching over and throwing a plate of grapes at the anteater. "We'll retreat when I'm good and rea--"

KABOOM!!!!

The 1200mm shell smashes into the ground, sending Beastmen scattering. "What in blazes?!" Guame demands, before another shell slams near Daigundo's side, knocking the machine a fair few feet as the ground erupts from the impact. The screen falls quiet. The Beastmen scatter in an attempt to flee the barrage.

In Daigundo's control center, Guame is chomping inches off his pipe. "Damn, damn, we can't...if this keeps up--!"

"It's fine," comes a voice across line to Teppelin. It's not LOrd Genome's.

Guame sneers. "Oh, the pretty princess thinks she's got a word!? He leans in, licking his chops. "Well come down here and I'll listen to all you've got to--"

"Operational success merely requires the defense line not be pushed to Teppelin's door. We will not need to replace the forces lost today."

"Are you out of your head, brat!?" Guame snaps. "With this number I can't even--!"

"What you can do is irrelevant."

"The line does not need to hold for much longer."

"The end is coming."

The screen goes blank, and Guame stares, blankly...and shivers. "That is," he decides, and eats the last of his pipe, "one creepy dame. I didn't think even 'he' liked them that blank."

"It seemed," supplies an engineer, helpfully, "as though some human weapon ate her very soul!"

"Don't be a fool," comes the voice of Viral, as he finally pulls his head out of the console it was lodged in. "Can you not see? It's obvious." His eyes turn to Guame.

The armadillo man grunts, snorting smoke. "Girl's got no reason to live."