2011-02-01 - Million Miles From Home

SEVERAL DAYS AGO

Axel Almer watched the fires burning against the blue-fading-to-pink Martian sky, where one of the Earth Federation's long-range communications stations had been. He torched the base after he was done with talking to the Divine Crusade, and making certain that BAHRAM knew to be looking for him. He had since gotten off a signal to the Earth Sphere, saying he would be moving south of there and to keep an eye open.

He screws the helmet of his CVR-51 body armor on, and it tightens with a hiss. A smile spreads across his face, as he straddles his idling MOSPEADA cycle.

He gives it a final look, before kicking off the ground. The motorcycle turns, circling, and sends up dust in its wake as it begins riding southward.

NOW -- MUSGRAVE HEAVY LAUNCH STATION

Just two days ago, an attack north of here had drawn the few Federation forces' eyes on the surface. A pirate assault on a floating island city had involved more A-LAWs and Katharon forces than anticipated, and turned into a battle. It made this coastline launch facility's personel nervous, fearful that Katharon could come ahead of them.

To the two GM pilots on the ground, this is exactly what appears to happen. Two blue Nemos come crashing down in the middle of the facility -- one slams down on the tarmac, crushing downward. The first GM turns, its beam saber coming to life, as it charges the blue and aqua wreck. The beam saber comes back--

A second Nemo slams into the concrete and steel wall around the launch facility. Rock crumbles in around it, and the second GM raises its beam rifle, firing several shots into the wreckage. The first GM plunges the beam saber into the cockpit block of the first Nemo, a moment later.

"Wait," the pilot says. "This thing's engines aren't even on--what the hell--"

The answer comes as a sleek, white and light green motorcycle hurtles up over the second wrecked, deactivated Nemo. The machine flies into the air, rubber tires spinning in the air, as the front has panels open. Axel Almer grins wide, as missiles hurtle from it and slam into the GM's knees. They rip through, fireballs erupting out the back, and the torso collapses forward.

His cycle hits the tarmac, sending smoke up after it, as the GM's body slams into the ground behind it. "C'mon." Axel mutters. "You better see this, BAHRAM."

 BAHRAM Command, "Orbital satelite surveilance has identified the location of Axel Almer. Sending the coordinates to all available units tasked with the retrieval mission. God speed."

 Pascal Ambler transmits, "This is Muspelheim. Doing as asked."

 Divada Kirador transmits, "DCS Ark Hammer, En Route...."

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Heh, some new faces. Welcome to Mars! The God of War wasn't named thusly for no reason."

 Erika Keese transmits, "RF Gouf, moving out."

 Glemy Toto transmits, "Bawoo, launching!"

 Echidna Iisaki transmits, "SMSC Angelg on approach."

 Puru Two transmits, "Yeah, yeah. No need to sweat it, Axel's gonna be just fine. He likes this sort of thing."

 Axel Almer has a lot of static. "I read you guys. I'm piggybacking off a receiver."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "Cool. We'll be right down."

 Divada Kirador transmits, "Right. We'll be watching just in case a Katharon Cruiser comes by..."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "I bet the Argama's around here somewhere. Thing always is."

 Puru Two transmits, "I hope so."

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Oh, please, don't say that..."

 Samuel Flynn transmits, "C'mon Ascian, don't be a baby."

 Puru Seven transmits, "Bah, and I got stuck back here? Bo~ring."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "It's just a ship full of Newtypes and cutting-edge mobile suits."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Tssk."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "We can take it!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Pascal Ambler transmits, "You aren't afraid of them, are you?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Sorry, still a bit out of it due to last day..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Me? Nah. Ascian over there's just got cold feet, too."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I took another trip on The Beast, Samuel."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Oh yeah? How'd that go?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Ripped an LFO a new one."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Niiice. See, just took some practice."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Puru Two transmits, "What does that stand for anyway, Lame Flying Object?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> James Heller transmits, "Actually they are living things wearing powered armor kinda like EVA's cept not crimes against nature and God."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I don't quite recall."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat transmits, "Light Finding Operation."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Thanks, Duat."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Puru Two transmits, "Sounds pretty lame to me. Well whatever. Let's get this done."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Alright! Sam Flynn, Efreet EXAM Custom, coming up on the target zone. Lets hit it!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Erika Keese transmits, "It's nice to see Neo Zeon finally getting into the action.."

Angelg is a) large and b) obvious.

The fact that it appears and then descends in an actual, literal pillar of light doesn't really help things much.

Mars does not really have the cloud cover for Echidna to make the entrance the way Angelg normally does, but it still descends, mechanically feathered wings spread wide as it slowly drifts down, like some deranged mech designer's version of an angel. But this one, unlike the older model of Angelg, is black - ranging from a deep blue-grey to actual inky blackness, all over its body except for some rare gold accents.

Its wings beat once as Echidna hits a point low enough in Mars' atmosphere that they're worth something more than decoration, though they still can't possibly be what's holding it up. She begins to scan, attempting to locate Axel more precisely while on her descent.

Muspelheim escaped the Argama, only to be led astray by Haman Karn. Now the mech and the pilot it posesses are in the Divine Crusaders. Controlled yet again, with no freedom in sight. But it wouldn't have freedom even if it did escape the DC, would it? No, it never does, really.

The black-armored dragon robot is a dark shape on the horizon, its eyes flickering red and a faint orange glow coming from within the metallic joints. The red runes it has displayed ever since it took over the body of its pilot pulse light, and the wings "fly" in a rhythmic pattern. Inside, what was once Pascal Ambler glowers at the radio, the posessed youth looking pale and moving stiffly. Orders. He's still stuck in the war these humans insist on having. There simply has to be an alternative. But in the meantime, at least Muspelheim will get a chance to fight someone or tear something apart.

Slowly flying towards the launch station is a large, angled ship. The nose is blunted, with shielded launch bays on each side of the ship, however there is more activity near the top of the ship, in the bridge. Right about now, a blonde strides her way from an elevator into the command center, where there is many people working, but most notably, a brunette. "Captain." The Brunette says softly. "Miss Helmsley." the Blonde says back. "What's going on?" "A few minutes ago, someone named Axel Almer requested help in the launching platform." - "All right then. Shields up, Launch fighters. Keep our sensors wide open to make sure there aren't any larger ships entering the area. The rest of the Crusaders can handle the smaller fires." "Yes, Captain Kirador." A few seconds later, the ships shimmers a bit of a blue glow before fading back to it's normal color....

Katharon Flagship Argama Day Six of the Martian Campaign 19:10 - Local Martian Time

"It'll be a while before Anaheim has our next batch of supplies ready and with us this far out of the Earth Sphere, we'll just have to rely on the Daybreaker crew for help in getting around," Bright mentions to Roux in between sips from his 'SPACE'S BEST DAD' mug that he got for Space-Christmas.

It was an awful lot better than the gift Katz Kobayashi got for him, let me tell you.

He rubs his nose with a sigh, the eternally overworked Captain glances blearly-eyed at his fashionable pilot. "I don't suppose you've gotten us any closer to figuring out what the hell is happening inside the Trailers, have you?"

But that's when everything goes to hell. There's a whooping beep of an incoming alert and it's sounded across every deck of the Argama.

> Spread the word, spread the word! Captain Bright please contact the bridge! This is a priority alert!

"...." Bright glances at Roux, conveying every sense of 'Oh god what the hell is it now' that he can without even saying it. He turns for a nearby com panel and twists the dial to activate it. The monitor winks alive, fizzing heavily from the ambient metatron interference.

On the other end, a wide-eyed Beecha Oleg is jabbing a finger at the tactical screens. "Wh-hey! Captain! We've got a problem! We're picking up Crusader transmissions by Captain Axel Almer at the nearby Musgrave Heavy Launch Station! There's also all kinds of Crusader contacts on radar! I think they're trying to leave Mars! Come up here and do something about it!!"

"L-leave Mars?" Bright stares, puzzled. "Why would they want to leave Mars..." he casts a perplexed look, yet the realization soon dawns upon him. "..unless they're trying to moving to reinforce Haman Karn back in the Earth Sphere while we're distracted by the Federation...! Beecha, scramble all alert mobile weapons! Pull Rachel's team off CAP and deploy them to the Musgrave station at once!"

With a glance over his shoulder, Bright realizes Roux is still with him. "Find Judau and /go/!" he jerks a thumb to the door.

Without another word, Captain Bright reaches for a large red button that is always handy in a case like this. He swings his hand down, mashing the plunger hard with his palm.

Alert klaxons sound off through the length of the ship, marshaling Katharon's immediate response.

The situation in Zeon has been increasingly unstable. So Glemy Toto, being a man who wishes to take advantage of instability, spent the first phase of this mess doing the rational thing: 'not becoming embroiled in it.' Now, though, he realizes the folly in this -- Zeon is part of something greater than itself now, and as such, he needs allies in that greater whole if he is to take the piece that is rightfully his.

As such, when the request for help from the Shadow Mirror pilot comes in, Glemy is more than happy to assist. The Bawoo, atop a Dodai, streaks toward the wreckage Axel is rapidly creating, ready to assist.

Some days, you just gotta go for cool factor.

One of the many approaching Divine Crusader units is a pretty rare one indeed. The normally blue and red EXAM Efreet Custom is done up in the bronze and dark grey favored by Samuel Flynn, and is... hitching a ride on the dragon. Muspelheim is probably a good deal faster than it, and when the opportunity presented itself, he really could not resist. After all, he's kind of a dork at heart, and what kind of self-respecting pilot would /not/ take the opportunity to /ride a giant dragon robot thing/?

"Wooo! Alright, lets get 'em!" Sam gestures dramatically with one of the Efreet's heat sabers. It looks kind of awesome.

No psychic insanity has begun being broadcast from the Efreet just yet.

Erika's entrance is far less grandiose than some of the others who arrive. There is no radiant stream of light guiding her down from the heavens, nor is she a massive, firebreathing dragon. "Tch, I wish the Dom didn't need an overhaul... it would be faster than this," Erika complains to herself as her ReFined Gouf speeds forward atop a grey Dodai, "Not to mention smoother." Erika glances towards the other arriving machines and the voices that accompanies them, and picks out a few she didn't expect. Namely several Member's of Neo Zeon. "Nice to see Neo Zeon finally getting in on the action," Erika mutters under her breath, "About bloody time /someone/ there did." Yes, Erika is still miffed about Karn's complete neglect about anything that doesn't factor in to her ridiculous schemes. That old hag can die of radiation poisoning for all she cares.

Getting passage to Mars when your family's company produces Jump drives is relatively easy. Half the shipping companies from Earth owes you a favour for giving them the ability to stay competative with Lucifarians.

So Meiya booked passage here, to Mars, the Red Planet on her own out of a desire to see the conditions through human inhabited space without the filtering lense of a news camera. Mars definatly deserved a stronger look.

However one cannot stop being an Alpha Number. One also cannot get several tons of cargo moved on meer whimsy. So the Type-00R and Raptor had to stay back on Earth. Instead when called up to defend EFA assets, Meiya pointed across the hangar bay, and the flight officer had no choice but to let her have the start up codes for the machine.

The blue and white machine streaks across the red martian desert and crests over the wall of the launch facility, it's own jet fighter like wings sread out behind it. It comes down with both feet sliding across the tarmac of the base. Shield attached to one arm and beam saber in the other.

"Divine crusaders, attacking here? BAHRAM probably..." the GAT-04 Windam looks at the wreckage of the Nemos and GMs and it's ehad turns to track the relatively tiny Mospedea. Meiya activates the loudspeak of the mobile suit. "You there. Halt!"

Puru Two's custom(-colored) Ashsaber appears with not nearly as much fanfare as the Angelg, though it stays near the Dark Angel while it scans for Axel. Which is kind of noteworthy in itself, it's more traditional for her to just storm off ahead and look for something to shoot. "Didn't we just do this? Kind of feels like we did," she half-complains. She doesn't really sound much like she cares either way, just kind of bored, lacking motivation. Not concerned at all about Axel's safety, because she's pretty sure that guy isn't going to die. These stunts are just how he has fun. Which is kind of awesome, actually, but her mind's just not really on this. She's had other things to concern herself with.

The prospect of possibly running into the Argama here was really the only part of this mission that sounded promising. If she doesn't see any of the best of the best coming out to fight, she has very little motivation to even lift a finger here. Maybe take a few pot shots playing point defense, but otherwise...

It boosts her spirits to see that Glemy's dropped by, though. She's been stuck at the Earth Cradle with the Shadow-Mirrors for so long now, it's been ages since she's gotten to see him. If he's here, that means things got more important by definition. Got to look good to impress him. "Come on Argama, don't let me down..."

"Unfortunately," Roux, with her fashionable side ponytail being toyed with by one hand, "we aren't any closer. Aa-" And then the crisis is coming! She turns her head to look at the monitor, blinking repeatedly. She stands bolt upright and raises one hand in a sharp salute. "Yes sir!" With that she turns to run downwards, towards the hangars.

SOON.

"Judau!" Roux shouts as she sticks her head into the little game nook just off the mess hall. "The Neo-Zeons and their DC allies are moving a force off the planet! We have to intercept them!!"

Her head pulls back out as she shakes her head, resuming motion to the hangar. He's always playing that dumb King of Street Fighting game, Roux thinks: what the hell kind of fun can a game about thugs with flashy powers hitting each other in the balls be?

A LITTLE SOON AFTER THAT

Fortunately for Roux, the Z II had been fully repaired! As she powers up the testbed sidegrade unit, Roux reports, "This is Roux Louka in the Z II--" God, she thinks, saying this never gets old!!

"Launching!"

FSHOOM

"I'm not halting," Axel replies, as he looks up at the GAT-04 Windam. His lips purse, behind the visor of the CVR-51 body armor. His face is not visible from such a height, hidden by the tinted helmet faceplate. A grin splits across his face, as he sees the multiple units coming in, projected on the HUD of the MOSPEADA unit. It shows the radar.

He lets out a whoop, and then begins circling around the base. His eyes scan the air. He hopes for a Divine Crusader unit -- but before he even sees the titanic Muspelheim, he spies a Zeta.

His eyes narrow. "Shit!" he swears. "What the hell is Katharon doing here?!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> BAHRAM Command announces, "To all mission units. Katharon forces have been detected in mass quantities. Prepare for combat, and remember your mission."

The Crusaders are leaving Mars!

Wait, isn't that a good thing?

No, not if it means reinforcements for Haman Karn... and what they really want, is for both the DC _and_ the Federation to leave Mars alone...

Staren walks out into the hangar bay in his Safety Orange armored normal suit, looking at the machines and the pilots climbing into them. They need to wreak as much devastation as possible, he thinks. In fact, what would _really_ stop them, would be to kill the pilots... No. He's not going there yet.

He's going to trash the heck out of some Crusader mechas, though.

The Star Hawk rises on the launch elevator, the distinctly bulky red-and-white form of the assault armor parts hefting the giga launcher bazooka.

"Alright... let's do this. Staren Wiremu, Star Hawk, taking off!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Yeah, we got it."

Alexis has been loaned out to the AEUG for a time, helping provide cross-training; familiarizing them with BattleMechs, and in turn she learns about their various war machines and how they operate. This should have been a purely academic exchange, but the realities of war have her on the Argama... and the Argama is currently operating around Mars. Thus, she joins those scrambling to suit up -- made a little more odd in her case since she's not used to wearing space-capable piloting suits -- and get to the hangar. Climbing into her Thunderbolt, she goes through the process of powering it up and loading it onto a launch catapult... then being flung out to join her allies. The 65 ton 'Mech is nowhere near as fast as the various mobile suits out here, leaving Alexis to bring up the rear.

For as long as Adam Steiner has been a general in the Lyran Commonwealth, he's never actually used a Jumpdrive before today. It never seemed worth it to go from one Commonwealth world to another. So the jump to Mars is the first time Adam ever got to experience the wonders of a fold jump.

He doesn't care for it.

However, as weird as it was, it is quick and painless, and it doesn't take long for the ship to link up with the locals. It DOES take a while to arrange all the details, though. The Sundered Heart, while one of the best Dropships the Inner Sphere ever made, isn't quite right for the mission profile of an Alpha Numbers taskforce ship, and needs some refits before it'll work, and so it was directed to a Mars repair facility to have the work done. Adam wasn't sure why they didn't do this at Earth, but it was their call.

Still, it means some downtime before they'll actually see action. At least, that's what Adam thought.

Of course, Adam isn't long in the Mars Sphere before Rachel Spector perks her head up. "Adam, I'm getting a distress call from the surface. They seem to be under attack."

"What's the local defense?"

"Not good."

Adam sighs. He isn't officially a part of the taskforce yet...He hasn't met with General Shi or Captain Global and gotten his assignment. He can't just leave those people hanging, though... "Alright, bring the Sundered Heart down and have my Berserker prepped for drop."

"Should we bring the ship into combat range?" Spector asked, her voice just a little hopeful.

Adam shook his head however, dashing her hopes to see some action. "I'm not going to risk the ship before she's even been rightfully assigned. You keep safe distance and provide logical support. I'll go in myself."

Mars..

Far away from home, however he was sent here to see how well he could handle the lower gravity. What did this mean for fully converted cyborg?

Parts were far lighter, life was easier, and lifting things became far more fun. Though he was more on guard duty here at the space port when the excitement broke out. One of the single antenna's twitched gently as the ruckus started, before the white optical sensors flickered for a moment and then altered into a green spectrum as the cyborg slowly started to glance over his shoulder at all the ruckus.

Lifting up the two assault rifles off the box he was sitting on, he swung the strap over one shoulder, then over the other. One of those assault rifles looked far larger then the other.

The cyborg slowlyed walked inside, to hear the screeching of tires inside, which then his optics flickered again, before he broke into a full out run. His legs carrying the seven foot man across the area quickly. He wasn't away of the other trouble yet, though he soon be.

He brought one of the Assault rifles around as he at last spotted the trouble maker. His metal boots slid across the ground before he took aim, firing off a few warning shots which intentionally missed the man on the bike. "Hey!" The cyborg called out to help the punk catch who made the shots, "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way." The optics glow softly before he reaches up and moves down plate over his bottom optical sensors and center sensor. "Your choice, but either way, you are coming with me."

This cyborg was Briareos - Member of Olympus' finest: E-SWAT and with the service of the A-Laws.

After his more recent outting to Earth, Ascian is tired. Between arriving back on Mars and being sent out to a new mission, he hadn't even had a chance to see Hera in between. But there was at least /some/ good news. After his devastating defeat surrounding the Mars Daybreaker, during which his own foolish actions had caused his Orbital Frame to be severely damaged, BAHRAM had dregged it up from the ocean with him in it, and repaired it at high speed. With Mars under attack, a lot of their resources are going into the repairs and preparations of their war machines - and things that get easily fixed by the royal application of Metatron... sure are more popular than LEVs.

Looking seriously miffed, the young man's grip on the controls is a bit more firm than normal, his expression one of annoyance - yet his eyes somewhat unable to focus, and he clearly has bags under his eyes. The Orbital Frame is not even flying on its own force at the moment. A large flying freighter is moving around the man in his unit. In its cargo bay, Amenthes is seated on the floor, and around it stand a series of A.I. Raptors which BAHRAM had so graciously granted him command of. Probably to test him.

"Sir." Ascian gets the broadcast from BAHRAM command. "Roger that. Open the hatch." The large cargo freighter begins its descent towards the tarmac beneath, and begins to prepare for landing near Axel's unit. The hatch then opens, and at the same time all of the Raptors' singular eyes flash red and shift around. Having done their system checks, a quick signal begins to flash brightly at the corner of the console - indicating that the Raptor control A.I. has been activated.

The Amenthes then boots up itself, whilst the Raptors suddenly fly out of the machine en masse. A good twenty to thirty units, which spread out and form a protective sphere above Axel Almer's unit, lifting their heads up towards the sky and erecting the beam sabers from their noodly thin limbs.

The wings of the Amenthes finally spread, burning in bright red Metatron energy, and finally it lifts off of the metalic surface of the freighter - leaving the unit floating freely in mid air. "Tsssk... BAHRAM really is having to spread its forces thin, I am the only Orbital Frame unit here." Ascian mutters to himself, letting his gaze quickly skip over the radar - indicating the massive quantity... and... quality of the units. Gigascundo, obviously, is the one which stands out immediately. "My god... they too THAT out!?" He shakes his head.

The unit then suddenly opens its speakers, and Ascian speaks. "To all Katharon forces! There is no reason for you to attack us at this point in time. Please retreat from the combat theater. We have no beef with you!" He calls out. He... had to try.

The Phoebe was undergoing maintance at this point in time, she'd recenly returned from a short hop to earth to convice a shipping captain about an untapped market which would help some of their allies in the northern oceans of Mars also given the captain was generall unhappy with the feds for a number of reaons it should hopefully work out. She's not without a machine Jenice which was an refitted model of Zaku II which had orginally been created by several groups in the Trailer Network and had spread from there over the years. It's still a pretty good machine. It was certainly worth deploying still.

As bright's call for more pilots goes out she.

"Fire Dance, Jenice Custom launching!"

The bright green machine launches shortly after that gripping it's machine gun. Things were likely about to get interesting.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Axel Almer, I have brought a freighter that can take you up to the Urenbeck catapult. But it is dangerous for it to lift off under these conditions. We will have to clear some of the enemy forces first."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Roger that."

Sitting atop her desk, in her quarters, Rachel Miu Athha has finally finished the mountain of paperwork relating to all of the tasks that've been set before her in the last week. Acting CAG, mechanic, pilot, reports for Anaheim Electronics, and just-- everything else in between. That same mountain of paperwork, digital or not, set aside, Rachel has consigned herself to the comforts of her bed, one arm and one leg dangling over the edge. She's been asleep for about ten minutes.

'"...everyone to their alert stations!"'

Her eyes open, and she frowns just a little. "... Dang it."

Time passes, she rushes to the locker room. Settled now into the cockpit of the MSZ-006-P2/3C Zeta Gundam P2/3C Type, the Mobile Suit strides to the catapult before assuming a stout crouch on the platform, feeling the familiar grip on the heels and sides of the feet through the rattle in the Gundam's frame.

"Rachel Miu Athha, Red Zeta!! Heading out!"

Lights and colors along the track shift, the bay entrance giving way to Martian skies. Springing into the air with another burst of the thrusters, Rachel turns the Zeta Gundam to fall in line with the other AEUG pilots...

There's a high risk Earth base insertion to perform in mere days, but Bass Nahor is skulking around Mars instead of preparing for it because he has no work ethic, or is crazy, or doesn't give a shit about tiring himself out before entering into an intensely life-threatening situation.

Nevermind the hours he had to spend on meditations and self-affirmations to even get himself to /come/ to Mars; the Frighteners unit begged investigation, and so he's found his way to the Musgrave Station to do a little preliminary snooping.

When the station inexplicably erupts into absolute chaos with mass-produced robots exploding and busty angels and Efreets and dragons descending from the sky, he pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs in exasperation.

Thirty seconds later, he's found his way to his Armored Core; a minute in, and he's set his black Balmarian mask over his face and secured it tightly.

Two minutes in, and his AC is breaking from the space port's hangar, Cereberus Sabre clutched tightly in its right hand, WH04HL Rifle in its left. Bass' eyes quickly flick across his monitors so that the Raven can tabulate the IFFs of the forces on hand.

He then opens a channel to Bright Noa.

Angelg continues to descend on a ray of light.

Echidna has located Axel by now - it's not hard, he's broadcasting for their aid. She is descending towards him, as obvious as she can make it, so that he can look up and see that he has protection -

And that means there are Katharon units around her, and Alpha Numbers; she recognizes several. Echidna's lips purse; Angelg summons a bow from nowhere in a glimmer of light, a high-tech longbow with no visible string. She 'draws' nothing in particular, a flickering line appearing where the string should be and an arrow made of pure light forming on it.

Echidna looses. The arrow flies through the sky silently, but leaving a glimmering trail of sparkles behind it, as Echidna tries to shoot out one of the faster-moving units before it can finish its approach.

"I don't think that's happening," Axel snaps at Briareos. His bike surges forward -- picking up in speed a good bit, as he makes a wide turn. The man leans to a side, the armored knee of his body armor nearly scraping the ground. He straightens up as he comes around a pile of crates that were ready to load.

Both hands grip the handlebars. One pushes on the accelerator with a gentle squeeze, and it picks up speed far from gently. The motorcycle comes whipping right at the combat cyborg. Axel tries to run the robot over with the sudden increase in speed.

The Argama. Glemy is a little more pleased than, perhaps, he should be, with this particular turn of events; sure, it means a drastically increased opposing force... but it also means engaging that enemy that he is most interested in: Gundam.

There sure are a lot of them, he thinks for a second -- the Gundam Team has become a force to be reckoned with. His eyes scan over them, each in turn... and then he spots what he thinks is the newest model. It's a little spindly, he thinks -- it doesn't look that sturdy to him.

Can even this hold the power of Gundam?

Firing a quick shot from the arm-mounted grenade launchers of the Bawoo, Glemy concludes that there's only one way to find out. And just in case... Opening a comm line to the pilot of the Z II, Glemy requests, "Identify yourself!"

Meiya tchs and starts her Windam after the speeding Mospedea. She doesn't recognize the man, but engaging in a solo assault on any EFA held asset takes a lot of guts.

The GAT-04 Windam strides around the corner of a building to follow the speeding motorcycle. Only to see roughly half of the DC and Katharon descending towards the base. "...Katharon too!?" the Mospedea eascapes from her sight at that time. Well crap, thats bad. Scanning around she finds what she deems to be a more preferable target, an Armored Core.

The Windam replaces it's Beam Saber with a it's Beam Rifle and takes aim, firign a single blast of energy towards it. She didn't hear about any mercinaries hired for defense, it's a fair target.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "This is Captain Divada Kirador to the... Amenthes. Please respond...."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Amenthes here."

A FEW HUNDRED OF KILOMETRES AWAY, ON MARS! Tasuku seriously can't catch a break. In bettewn reassignments, from his removal of the EFA and into the newly formed Alpha Numbers, this left Shinguji with some free time -- and a problem. The color scheme on his mechs will no longer match the Alpha Number's! Sure, for the Gespenst, that's no problem. Unfortunately, there is only one place that can be found a lot of paint for the Giganscudo currently in the Earth Sphere: Pip-Boy's Canvacle, a paint shop set over in Mars! Unfortunately, it seems to be far too close to the massive onslaght that the Divine Crusaders -- and the opportunist of Katharon -- are in. An half-demolished garage later, the GIGANSCUDO, half painted red and white and... completly colorless, flies the faster it can toward the battle, Shinguji gritting his teeth at his slow speed. Very much like being stuck in traffic without a traffic. It might take a bit.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "After this operation, I would like to have a meeting with you, sir. I stress 'after the operation', however...."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Ehhh... roger that..."

BEFORE THE MADNESS

Judau Ashta, having spent all night creating elaborate plans for the infiltration and total kickass defeat of Axis, is currently practicing his strategy through simulation.

"UPPER CUT UPPER CUT UPPER CUT! Heh heh! I'm the best at this thing!"

In the form of a fighting game.

So exhausted is he, however, that about through his tenth or twentieth Bhoryuken (which is not a Shoryuken) he just passes out, planting face first on the controls. So, when Roux screeches 'Judau!'

a bleary green eye opens to squint at Roux. The game is still playing; somehow, Judau's been winning even with his character stuck in the quick punch animation. He squints at Roux. 'We have to intercept them!' she says. "... with uppercuts?"

NOW

"Ugghhh... uhhh... Judau Ashta's like -- launchin' or somethin', in that mobile suit I'm always usin'."

And with that very well-thought-out launch announcement, the twin parts of the Double Zeta launch off, combining mid-flight; the cumbersome Gundam falls to the hard Martian earth with the impact of metal feet and the kick up of rock and dust, even as Judau blearily shakes his head.

"Alright -- I'm -- I'm totally awake, just gimme a sec here--" wait, these IFFs-- "Are we fightin' the DC?!" Thirty seconds pass. Then: "Holy crap!"

And abruptly, the ZZ blasts off, launching into a high leap through the air directly towards the nearest cluster of Crusader IFFs. It is a particularly not-bright move in a long history of not-bright moves. But--

"Hey, you dumbass dragon, are you here?! I'm gonna uppercut your sorry ass for bein' a dumbass dragon!!" At least he likes to think he has a good reason for it.

It takes a while for the massive Sundered Heart to get to the engagement area, but not too long. The ship is using some reverse-engineered Zentradi technology, and is made for rapid deployment like this. It never comes very low, staying well out of weapons range, but passes overhead slowly enough for a single object to be deployed.

A massive, 100 ton Battlemech is dropped, single-burn thrusters attached to its legs to slow its fall. The mech is a bit unusual for a few reasons, that anybody who is familiar with them could tell as it drops. First, the model is very new; A Berserker from the new Defiance Industries line. However, unlike a normal Berserker, it does not carry a hatchet in its left hand. Instead, it carries a massive, broad sword-like weapon, normally seen only in ComStar variants of Black Knights. The blade shines like liquid silver in the mech's hands, coated with some sort of anti-beam material.

The rest of the Berserker is designed similarly. A shining coat of polished steel dominates the machine, which is made far less blocky and with much sleeker curves than a typical Battlemech. Bands of red and blue are painted across the chest, while a simple of the Alpha Numbers squad is proudly displayed on the right torso.

The mech continues to fall, the height it was dropped at meaning it won't touch ground for a while, but the pilot does broadcast over an open channel, announcing, "This is Captain Adam Steiner. Your hostile actions here will /not/ be tolerated. Stand down now, or you'll be removed by force."

Camille Bidan has done precisely jack and shit since managing the extraordinary feat of breaking off combat with what may have been Paptimus Scirocco and then getting lost on board a city ship in a futile effort to aid Quattro Bagina with his secret agent-style shenanigans. It was a wonder he'd gotten off the ship in one piece and, since arriving back, had seen fit to mope around the ship like a whiny, teenaged bitch.

Rumor around the crew was that he struck out with Kallen. Again.

That is why instead of being in important conversations with the Captain of the ship or responsibly filling out dictation and paperwork and what have you, Camille re-enacts the crowning momen of Risky Business, underwear and all, withing the confines of his personal bunk.

Headphones on, so he doesn't hear the alarm.

Eyes closed, to heighten the experience of the sound (He heard about that one on the internet). Also, it prevents from seeing any inconvenient warning klaxons.

Yeah, it was good to be the guy.

Briareos just shakes his head gently, "Alright then. Lets rock n' roll." The cyborg states calmly as he just stands there not seeming even concerned, at least by his body stance, since he doesn't have any facial features to express just what he is thinking.

As the bike moves in closer, Briareos continues to stand there, his Assault rifle by his side, his other hand free, and slowly, as the bike moves in closer and closer, accelerating on him..

That fist then fully tightens as the very last minute and punches it right into the bike, allowly his fist to make impact, the metal screeching agaisnt metal. The Cyborg's fist seeming to take the impact and knicking up the knuckles little like it would flesh meeting flesh.

Briareos then quickly, spun around, not sure if the Bike was still going or not. No time to really calculate the damage he had done, but that Divine Crusader wasn't leaving here by bike if he had anything to say about it. Briareos pulled the trigger on the assault rifle and tried to take out the tires (or the wheel-bearings if accessible for shooting).

Catching up with the majority of the Zetas that have already been let loose on Martian skies is a fairly easy task. With the lower factor of gravity in play, it means that her Mobile Suit has the ability to cruise a bit faster than normal, one thing that she keeps an eye on while her hands stay steady on the control sticks.

And then, an arrow of light.

Rachel's eyes widen as pressure dances across her mind, the young Newtype's famously uncontrolled empathic abilities coming into play almost immediately. The crimson red Zeta jerks to the right, Angelg's left, choosing to close the gap as fast as she possibly can in the instant.

"That unit is..."

As she accelerates, the young white-haired pilot lifts her hands from the sticks and taps the palms of her hands against them, reaching out with her mind, her senses-- and then the legs of the cockpit chair drop, the seat shifting position. The monitor and console drop out from between her legs, and the control sticks themselves fold back as the free-standing piloting mode comes into play.

Once the holographic console emerges and the HUD updates for the change, Rachel swings her hand forward, fingers clenching while one finger thrusts forward as though to replicate a gun motion. The shortbarrel beam gun in it's hand, stout and black and spiky along the barrel follows the angling in realtime-- targeting sensor lighting up while she starts to fire-- fire, and /still/ close the gap between them.

"I thought that was a Federation unit," she asks, comms engaged.

She can remember that much, but ... was it always that boobtastic?

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Axel, do you require assistance against your opponent?"

"Perfect," Bass exhales as the Rosenthal stops, immediately transitions into a dash ninety degrees to the right and blurs the air around itself with the excessive heat its systems can't help but exude. The rifle burst nicks one of its calves; it doesn't miss a beat, though Bass can feel the slight shift in its equilibrium and winces uncomfortably as he adjusts to compensate.

The Rosenthal disappears into another hangar, and while its heat signature will make long term concealment difficult, Bass hopes - assumes - that he'll be able to enjoy a few seconds of peace before the Windam finds him.

Long enough to open a channel with the Divine Crusaders forces and transmit, "Hey, Crusaders, this 'Fed, or 'Numbers, or A-LAWS, or whatever they're callin' themselves these days mobile suit: how much do you all want to keep it off your backs?"

And long enough to break through the hangar's roof in a thruster-assisted leap; as soon as he spots the Windam, he cuts those thrusters, holsters his rifle and orients the AC to fall towards it. The AC's left hand is extended to grab onto the mobile suit once he's crashed into it; the Cereberes Sabre is raised high, ready to be plunged into the Windam's body should he make contact.

"Do you all give bonuses for heads, or anything?"

And then, the Argama arrives. Puru Two's gotten her wish, and she couldn't be happier about her mind lighting up like a Space Christmas tree, figuratively speaking. "It's here, it's here!" She takes a look back at the black Angelg, quickly deciding, "Yeah, you're fine. No reason to hang around here, I'll go help head off the rest of the Argama's mobile suits." The Ashsaber rockets off immediately, its pilot not bothering to listen to any response there might be. Clearly this is the best course of action. For her.

It's a real party out there, one which others might find chaotic. But not Puru Two, she can tell where the enemy Newtypes are with ease, and they're the only ones she's interested in fighting. Everyone else is given the cold shoulder and subsequently the slip. Rachel, too, is passed right on by, being already 'taken'. She hates it when people interfere in her fights, so she isn't going to meddle in other people's. But she does leave a message to her long-time nemesis in passing: "You got lucky this time!"

...and proceeds to barrel straight into /another/ long-time nemesis, the Ashsaber throwing all caution to the wind and diving into melee range with the ZZ, a beam saber-equivalent drawn to assist with the task of leaving her mark. "Double Zeta! Judau Ashta!" Puru Two is sounding just a little bit too gleeful about this for comfort. Even her emotions are closer to happiness than anger. "No more temporary alliances, this is it! This time we're going to settle this!"

Macua picks up the incomming dropship and a huge battle mech drops out of the dropship. It's got a melee wqeapon that looks like sword. What the heck is that thing. She seldom see those on battlemechs but it's not one she knows. She watches it come in, there's not much choice the unmarked machine tht's she's in speeds in hovering across the martian landscape. A voice distrorted by a computer scrambler comes over Adam's comm.

"Nothing personal but I can't do that Captain Steiner." The machine opens up with a machine gun of some sort as it speeds in and seems to be trying to keep out of range of that sword. But a Steiner that's one of the ruling families of the InnerSphere?! Things just got kinda nuts for her.

"Why are you riding me?"

The voice from inside the Muspelheim, which may or may not be coming from the pilot, sounds uncharacteristically irritated. It flies over the area, rearing back and blowing fire when it sees a suitable target, but seems mostly to be playing 'guard' to the escaping DC forces for now. The dragon forms a great, looming shadow as it flies over the base, and its 'passenger' will notice the metal getting hotter and hotter and the tail starting to lash.

Really, the dragon robot is just a bit irritated at being treated like a steed.

Staren looks across the battlefield as the fight gets going... Huh, so the Feds have inner sphere pilots too? That shouldn't surprise him, really... Adam Steiner... for some reason that name sounds like he'd seen it while reading about the Inner Sphere, but he can't place it... And anyway, here comes a Gouf! A ReFined Gouf, specifically. Could it be the same one...?

"Mars won't be free until both the Federation and the Crusaders leave it alone, you know!" He shouts, and opens up with a shot from his railguns.

"Until you try to take us over once you've wrapped up the Federation, right?" Roux answers Ascian, snarkily. But then.

Then she's being addressed.

Roux reaches over to kill the video feed and clams up tighter than Haman Karn at a pride march, not saying a single blessed thing even as she drives the Z II into a sharp dive through the martian atmosphere, that launched grenade going long and detonating in mid air. Shit!! Roux thinks.

She thinks it several, several more times even as the Z II pivots around, bringing up the rather weighty Mega Beam Rifle and taking aim at the Bawoo. Several low-powered shots sizzle out, snapping like thunder in the rarefied atmosphere. That, clearly, is her identification!!

Or is there a sense of something else??

The punch slams into the front of the motorcycle and causes it to bounce backward, denting the armor in along the front. Axel is knocked backward. His machine goes into the air, as he flips a switch with a thumb control -- and the panels on the front of the bike open. Two fat, short, flat-nosed missiles launch out.

They hurl at Briareos, passing just underneath the bullet that he fires. The round slams into the armor on the shoulder of the machine, denting it deeply, and knocks the pilot back. He starts to stumble off the bike.

He activates the variable system. The bike splits in half down the middle, as the wheel is carried back. It folds up around Axel's body -- the hubcaps attaching onto the forearms. His feet hit the tarmac, skidding and sending sparks up. A single, sharp blade tears out of the new forearm armor, and then a second comes from the left.

He stabs the sword hard, forward, trying to bury the double-edged blade into Briareos.

<Radio> Tightbeam to Bass Nahor: Ascian Luddite says, "This is Divine Crusader unit Amenthes speaking. If you assist us, we will pay you well - depending on the result -- on BAHRAM's expenses."

<Radio> Tightbeam to Ascian Luddite: Bass Nahor says, "Works for me; they call this here an oral agreement, alright? Stick to your end and I'll get mine."

<Radio> Tightbeam to Bass Nahor: You Ascian Luddite, "Roger that. You have my word."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "The Rosenthal unit is allied to us for this battle."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Treat it as an allied unit."

Aboard the Argama,

"Mobile suit depletion at eighty percent!" Ron Keith reports from his operations console. "Alexis, Judau, Macua, Rachel, Roux, and Staren are all engaging the enemy!"

There's a distinct lack of a hard 'kuh' sound that catches Bright's attention. "Where's Camille?"

"Not responding!" Ron Keith shakes his head.

"Ngh.." Bright grunts hard. "Call Fa and have her find Camille ASAP!"

The ordinary controlled chaos of the Argama's Command Information Center is disrupted by a series of whooping beeps as the tactical maps start lighting up with all manner of purple dots.

"Captain!" Caesar shouts as he grimaces over the ear-shredding warning sounds. "Multiple contacts! Additional Crusaders are coming out of the woodwork! Crusader Regulars, Mars Zeon, the Muspelheim, and several idents of Neo Zeon are all taking the field! We've even got reports of a customized Bawoo bearing Glemy Toto's ace colors and they're being supported by a dreadnaught-class battleship!"

Bright's eyes widen, "Glemy Toto? Here!? But if Glemy Toto is here... then... where is.." He flings a hand out, "Patch a line to Judau! Tell him not to loose his damn head and to focus on the battle at hand! We can find his sister later! I want firing solutions on the Crusader battleship and fire main guns at will! Deploy emergency atmospheric dummy balloons!"

The Argama begins rocketing toward the station, its port and starboard launchers deploying numerous packets of self-propelled self-expanding balloons to cloud the immediate vacinity. Its cannons twist around in their mounts, angling for the Ark Hammer nearby. Guncrews center their targeting recticles on the dreadnaught and immediately thereafter, condensed particle-beams begin streaking across the distance.

lexis looks up to see a dropship overhead, something she finds strange since she represents one hundred percent of Free Worlds League forces here right now; it has to be some other nation... or even a mercenary unit, perhaps. Cycling through her radar contacts yields that it's a Lyran ship, which immediately baffles her; League intelligence last indicated the Lyrans are working with the Divine Crusaders... which means that said intel agency has once again made a massive blunder, even if she doesn't know that. This gives her a lot to think about. Ascian's plea for her to leave is met with silence, as she's not sure what to say. Instead, Alexis turns her Thunderbolt to stomp off toward Adam Steiner's landing site. A Steiner? In such a valuable 'Mech, no less... taking him down would be a pretty nice help for the budding League/Lyran front back home, the question is whether taking her fights with her is going to cause problems for Katharon. Apparently not, since Macua just flew by to attack him before Alexis could! That's a load off her mind, and Alexis begins to march at about a 45-60 degree angle aside from the landing Berserker. Torso twisted to face Adam's 'Mech, she aims her particle cannon low to track his descent and fires a crackling ball of blue-white 'man made lightning'... hoping that she has compensated for his fall enough to hit him, given the great distances involved.

Meanwhile,

"Camille!" Fa shrieks as she happens by where Camille's been hiding. She reaches out, donking The-Boy-Who-Pays-Her-No-Mind on the head. "We're having a battle! Captain Bright says you better get out there!"

Technically, the Angelg - when it was a Federation unit - was white. A partially black one has been seen a couple times with the DC. One painted black all over, however, is new. As is the build.

The mechanical face of Angelg shifts slightly as Echidna goes in for an evasion that doesn't quite work. She brings the left-side shield up, firing green spikes of energy at the smaller approaching robot, but the Shadow Lancer goes wide; on the other hand, Rachel's beam gun starts leaving essentially invisible blackened marks along the side of Angelg's torso.

"I do not choose the design," Echidna says into her own comms, before otherwise ignoring them. She needs to defeat this unit so she can pick up Axel, who is fighting below, and deliver him to the dropship. Which means she needs to fight offensively.

Still using the shield's launcher as a weapon, Echidna fires several volleys of the green spikes. They glimmer in the air, acting like physical objects for several seconds as they drill in before exploding into green shards of light. She fires them as fast as she can until the shield overheats slightly and she is forced to slow.

Briareos's antennas which can oddly remind one of Bunny ears stand up on edge as the missile launch, "Ah hell.." He then attempts to leap back, but one of the missiles finds his shoulder armor and slams him into the ground. His body slames down hard cracking the surface of the tarmac. Then as the other missile comes, He attempts to roll out of the way of it, but the explosion of the impact on the ground, blasts him into a few barrels.

The Cyborg sits there for a moment with his optics offline, before they flicker white, that is when he sees the normal human now with some interesting battle armor coming at him with a sword. "Cute." He said calmly, before reaching over to one of the Barrels and letting the sword slam into it.

He almost has to suck his gut in a bit closer as the tip of the blade almost finds him. Briareos looks down at it, then at Axel, then back at the sword tip, before he quickly leaps back, letting his foot impact the wall.

With his foot firmly on the wall, he pushes off, before rolling down on the ground in a forward tumple before riding back up to his feet, he pulls off his other Assault rifle, as he stays crouched down, spinning around and then opens fire with the larger weapon.

However it seems, that isn't an assault rifle after all, instead the thing blasts off a massive shell designed for tanks.

Hey, the guy has armor now!

Something teases at the back of Glemy's spine for a moment -- and then he whips the Bawoo forcefully to one side, out of the way of the incoming heavy beam shot. So whoever this is won't even humor him long enough to identify themselves...

Narrowing his eyes, Glemy says, "If that's the way you want this to be, fine... but know that you're trifling with Glemy Toto!" For an instant he feels like a ridiculous youth trying to wear his father's blazer. The feeling quickly passes, however.

Adding the Argama to his list of transmission targets and addressing both the unknown pilot of the ZII and the captain of the Argama, Glemy decides to make a bluff while he fires on Roux. "We have four times our current numbers en route! This is pointless -- take the BAHRAM pilot's advice and retreat!" he advises, while raining down beam shots from the Bawoo's light beam rifle on Roux.

Erika grits her teeth and tries to keep her annoyance at Neo Zeon at bay... it isn't Glemy or Puru's fault that Haman is batshit insane after all, and if they're willing to stick their necks out for the rest of the DC, then that automatically puts them above /That/ woman. Her attempts to wrestle with her feelings gets put on hold when a familiar voice calls out, "What--" She snaps her head up just in time to see the railguins flash. One shot wizzes by and craters the martian soil. The other however pierces clean through the Dodai and takes out the motor, causing the hovercraft to pitch forward as it's thrusters die out. This ends up with Erika taking a sixty mile per hour tumble through the dirt. Not something that Mobile Suits are designed to handle. "Nnng... d-damnit..." She growls as she forces her machine to it's feet, "And I suppose Katharon is here to make it better, huh? The same Katharon that preaches about Spacenoid rights while blotting Mars out of their minds?!" Erika grabs the beam rifle from her back and snaps it up, unleashing two shots towards the Star Hawk, "Who the hell are you to say what is best for Mars when you have never actually lifted a finger to help?!"

"My Lady! Argama on approach vector and powering weapons." The sensors officer blurts out. Divad shakes her head. "About time." She says before she grips a rail. "Brace for impact." Just as the Argama's cannons hit their shields. "Ma'am?" Miranda says as Divada glares out the window. "Return fire. Power the Ion Cannon." Miranda nods and barks out "Return fire, Heat seekers, engines and weapons only!" Divada literally stares down the Argama as one missile turret turns and fires a barrage of rockets at the Argama.....

Meiya tracks the Rosenthal until it disappears between buildings. "Where did it...go? Hmn..." Meiya methodically replaces the beam rifle on to it's recharge holster and draws out the Windam's beam saber again, igniting the blade on minium as the Windam's ehad begins looking from side to side. It's impossible to tell, but Meiya has closed her eyes inside the cockpit, and waits...

"There!" the instant the Armored Core descends for the Windam, the beam saber extends to full length and catches the AC's own saber against it's magnetic field, and quickly turns it aside, opening up Bass' defense long enough for Meiya to score a hiton the smaller machine.

A second beam saber drops into the Windam's hand and ignites as Meiya drives the attack in, attempting to slash over the Rosentthal's body once with each blade as it coems full turn.

Judau can feel it -- that weird pressure, the same kind he felt when that thing took over Pascal's mind. It feels like some sort of an intense heat, burning at the back of his mind. "He's here," Judau breathes out to himself. Green eyes scan quickly -- it doesn't take long to notice the LARGE DRAGON ROBOT, even for Judau. His eyes widen, and just as swiftly narrow.

"Alright! I'm gonna give you a piece of my mind, jerk! An' my fist! My... mind... fist! Yeah!"

And, even as Bright shouts about 'keeping your cool,' Judau just crams down the acceleration of the ZZ as hard as he can, leaving Bright's wise advice in the wake of two massive contrails of rocket exhaust.

He's ten seconds away. The ZZ yanks free one of the cannon barrels at its shoulders.

He's five seconds away. The barrel in the ZZ's hand becomes a hilt when the elongated blade of the Hyper Beam Saber surges to life with a whipcrack of energy.

He's three seconds away. The beam saber lifts.

"GIVE BACK OUR FRIEND BEFORE I BEAT HIM OUT OF Y--"

He's two seconds away when a familiar and sharp pressure stings at the back of his mind like a lightning bolt of aggression.

"Wh--?!"

On instinct, the Double Zeta lands, pivots on its right heel, and presents its large blade just in time to meet the Ashsaber's laser blade cross-wise. The sudden and violent contact of conflicting energies creates an abrupt and surge of light as particles annihilate each other and energies duel within the saber lock.

"P-Puru?!" Judau asks, surprised. His eyes narrow; happiness meets frustration. "I can't -- dammit, I can't do this right now, I gotta help Pascal! I'm sorry, Puru--"

And then suddenly the left heel of the ZZ attempts to greet the abdomen of the Ashsaber in a ramming blow.

"--I'd like to talk to you but right now you gotta get outta the way!"

Because clearly she just wants to talk. A fact she might not get to ruminate on before the rocket exhaust from the bottom of the ZZ's booted heel ignites to knock the Ashsaber away.

"'cause you're pretty cool-looking and it seemed like a good idea at the time," Sam replies, sounding only a little bit nervous now that the Efreet is registering rapidly increasing heat sources right below it. The mech 'jumps' up and stands on Muspelheim's back, lifting it's sword in salute. "I just wanted a quick way into the fight. Good luck, hope you find some kind of, uh, Cow Zoid, I guess!"

The EXAM Efreet dives off, it's rocket thrusters propelling it into the spaceport. Sam flicks open a panel and thumbs a switch, activating the EXAM System before it hits the ground. A cloud of red sand shoots up all around it, the machine rushing forward, the steady hum of the system powering on and a timer appearing in the corner of Sam's forward monitor giving him the first indication it's working.

The second is the presence. It feels so familiar, so close to the 'other' presence that Sam has experienced time and time again. Something guiding him, helping him move along the right path, to do the best he can before he thinks to do it...

A notification appears. EXAM SYSTEM: ONLINE

The timer starts counting down. Sam exhales, jinks to the side, and drags the heat saber through a watchtower's struts on the way past it. The structure collapses, the Efreet moving further ahead without pause.

"Okay. Lets see what you can do."

The trip would have taken a while. Tasuku seriously need to do something about the Gigan's acceleration, there HAS to be something he can strap on, wont explode when he activate it or something. Accelerating at full speed takes some time for the mighty Ultimate Shield. However, as he have proven multiple times, when it get going... It's rather hard to stop. The sweeping radars of most present will detect a MASSIVE form, speeding at a speed that something this massive, beyond a battleship going at full tilt, really shouldn't be doing. "OUT OF THE WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!" Shinguji shouts, not realising he don't have his radio on. His goal was to come in fast enough to support the EFA Forces -- or Numbers, now, considering what they are right now. The problem becomes: how the hell do he stops? Oh, hey, a Gundam fighting some sort of axe-wielding mech. That ought to make a great stopping point. Probably. He hopes. If not, Mars might have a new crater to call it own.

The sheer force and power of GLEMY TOTO weighs on Roux, feeling something in between an unusually unpleasant period and the intense sensation of someone staring at the back of your neck on the public tram. Her eyes squeeze shut for a moment as she presses against the sensation of greasy discomfort. The Z II jinks abruptly, enough to avoid that streaking ray of light from the Bawoo's smaller and therefore much inferior beam rifle.

She should answer, she thinks. No, she also thinks, she shouldn't. If she speaks up it's going to complicate everything and he might go into some kind of berserker rage! Ugghhh, Roux thinks further even as the Z II dives nearer to the Bawoo, why can't this be easier? Why can't the DC stop mixing and matching everything like some kind of variety pack? Why can't Glemy fly into an asteroid and break both his legs? Why can't Judau Ashta actually do something useful in his life?? The assault upon the Bawoo, then, comes abruptly!

And twice! Not just one beam saber, but rather, at the same time, not even merely two beam sabers. But rather, in a sweeping X-strike aimed at the lower end of the Bawoo's center of mass--

"Adam, you've got two units breaking off to intercept you," Spector reports over the radio, leaving Adam to shake his head in his neurohelmet. "Well, so much for a peaceful first day." Machinegun fire smashes into the mech's armor, cracking and smashing off pieces of the shining machine's armor, causing Adam to frown a bit more. This was supposed to look all shining and impressive when he first got to Earth, too. Victor is probably going to frown over that when he finds out.

The single-burn thrusters kick in suddenly, rapidly slowing the Berserker's decent, and just in time, as a crack of PPC lightning strikes the air just below him, where his mech would have been had they not. "That was a PPC discharge," Adam remarks, a little surprised. "Looks like it came from a Thunderbolt. The more things change, eh Rach?"

A second later, the Berserker smashes into the ground, the two boosters breaking off with the force of the impact. The Berserker is forces into a crouch by the force of the landing, but it stands up quickly, just in time to see another machine, broadcasting an EFA signature, move in to intercept one of the two mechs attacking him.

"Hey pilot," Adam radios, unsure of who it is, "Thanks for the save. Catch me after this little skirmish and I'll buy you a beer."

His focus shifts entirely to the other one, now. He didn't expect a Thunderbolt would be his first target in this side of the solar system, but fate is funny that way. "Alright, let's see how you like that favor returned."

A second later, the Berserker is running towards Alexis, right arm raised to fire a crackling burst of PPC fire right back at her machine.

"Nggh--" Bass hisses as the Windam's beam sabers sever a number of the Rosenthal's few coolant lines. /With/ coolant, the AC's interior is too hot for most men to safely pilot; /without/, he may as well be fighting in the middle of the Sahara Desert while on fire with a mouth full of ghost peppers.

He has no choice now; the Windam is inside of his guard, and while he'd normally be comfortable with an engagement breaking down to CQC, he could imagine better scenarios for such. Nonetheless, he boosts into the mobile suit to try and catch its pilot - who he prays expects retreat over aggression - off-guard. Rather than resorting to the Sabre for another stroke, he draws the Rosenthal's rifle.

"Entirely too close," he chides the Windam's pilot via video connection. His face is guarded by the ovoid, quad-optical black sleekness of an Aerogater commander's mask; simultaneously, the Rosenthal is trying to jam the barrel of its rifle in against the Windam's abdomen.

When he pulls the trigger, the Windam will fall victim to a coruscating tide of concussive force, should its pilot fail to pull away in time; either way, the recoil will give Bass the distance he more than likely needs to remain in one piece a little while longer.

From the Argama,

"Incoming transmission from the Bawoo -- it's Glemy Toto!" Saman reels in shock.

Everyone save Bright gasps slightly.

> "We have four times our current numbers en route! This is pointless -- take the BAHRAM pilot's advice and retreat!"

"...nnngh!" Bright grunts. "You're out of your damn mind if you think we're letting you get back to the Earth Sphere. The Federation might not be able to do anything about you, but like hell I'm going to let the Crusade and Neo-Zeon have free reign over Known Space!" he spits back. The moment the transmission cuts, he leans back into his chair and pinches the bridge of his nose. Why does he feel so tired all of a sudden?

"Missiles incoming!" Caesar shouts.

"Torres, hard to starboard!" Bright demands.

"..I'm -- I'm trying!" Torres protests as he takes the helm. "We're not meant for these atmospheric jaunts!"

The Argama attempts to turn, yet suffers its assault of heat-seeking projectiles. They explode one after another, hammering the thickly-plated hull of the white battleship.

The crew is jerked hard in their stations, the lighting flickering faintly.

"Return fire!" Bright demands as he glances over the tactical read-outs. "They're powering up something... we can't let them just sit there and do it!"

The Argama's cannons continue their assault. Heavy firepower shrieks from the barrels, forming lances of destructive light that light up the Martian sky.

"I'm not into clankers," Axel spits back at Briareos.

The red-haired man flies back with a thruster boost that sends him high into the air. The shoulders -- the same as the front of the cycle -- open, and missiles come whipping out, hurtling down at the cyborg. A moment later, the anti-tank round slams into the armor on the chest. The explosion roars through the air, near the ship that came to get him, and sends the powered armor flying back.

It strikes the ground. Sparks explode in its wake, and the thing comes up, standing slowly. The arm blades remain extended. His machine goes running forth -- and he leaps, starting to cut down. The sword chops down from the right, and then the left circles about. He slashes with both, rapidly, in what is clearly a martial arts form.

"GENBU GOUDAN!"

Her eyes narrow as the shots land, biting into the Angelg's side. Something seems odd about the machine before her-- not just it's design, familiar as it is, but the voice of the woman in the other cockpit. The coldness, the void, the-- utter lack of anything she can feel from the black machine. Rachel tries not to be intimidated by it as she continues to approach, the legs swinging back just enough to help increase angular momentum toward the angelic robot.

The shards of light, drill as they might, meet only resistance across the distance of the /Zeta's/ shield. Designed to be as angular and aggressive as the silhouette the red Gundam bears, a few shots strike directly into the shield, some skipping across it's surface or otherwise impacting-- one or two deflecting along the angles and skimming the Mobile Suit's so-to-speak cheek.

"Ugh, she's good..."

In the same motion, Rachel closes her left hand into a fist, while the gun is swung down to the skirting armor. Her arm swings outward in a broad hook, and the Red Zeta's shield is used to batter the Angelg back with one shallow strike.

Shield shifting backward along the arm, on it's mounting track, panels in either forearm lift up while Rachel attempts to take advantage of the point-blank range between them. Canister grenades erupt outward with spirals of smoke and flame, each one aiming to strike before the inevitable explosion!

The classic and elegant rhymes of Marky Mark were rudely interrupted by a savage knock to the back of Camille's head. "Ow, what the hell Fa-" He grimaces as his oft-ignored childhood friend broke down the situation to him, "Oh /crap/, this is gonna be my ass!"

He was in a flight suit and the Zeta as fast as reasonably possible, joining a veritable armada of Zeta derivatives in a pitched, unexpected fight. "Camille Bidan, Zeta Gundam, launching!"

The Gundam cruised the battlefield for prey, but with so many already taken....where was his?

"Wait." Camille squinted, "Is that mobile suit shaped like a dragon?"

Well, it was as good a target as any. Engage lasers.

Newtype Flash

An image of her machine being crushed like a beer can under the Gigan. The lone mono optic under the grid like facplate of hte Jenice looks right up and almost seems to bulge out much like it's pilot's eyes are as one fo the most massive mechs in the solar system ius about to land on her!

She fires her machine gun for all the good it will do Macua. She does leap up and manage leap into he ait, each round she fires? Bounces off the Gigan's thick hide, it's almost like a replay of the Zaku II vs the orginal RX 78. Yet she lands on top of the other machine looks down, shoulders the gun, then gets the heat hawk out. She activates it and drives a single powerful strike at the gigan! Adam will have to wait, she's got to deal with this monster. But there's no real malice to it's pilot at least!

Alexis continues to be puzzled by more and more facts she receives, such as her radar updating the 'Lyran' dropship to actually be a Davion one... which does not explain why a customized Steiner 'Mech, piloted by someone from the Steiner family, is here under their colors. It suggests three different possibilities to her, but they all add up to Adam still being an enemy. ...An enemy now being backed up by some big red thing, Giganscudo. She can't worry about it too much however, because she has Adam's attention... and she has to watch his aim, watch the PPC arm move... He has his shot lined up. Alexis hits reverse throttle and throws the Thunderbolt into a hard left turn, losing enough speed that Adam misses in much the way she did; it would have hit if not for a good yet narrow dodge at this range. Returning to a forward run, Alexis keeps her Thunderbolt's feet turned about 45-60 degrees away from the Berserker while the torso faces his 'Mech. With both the Thunderbolt and Berserker being of equal speed, Alexis cannot keep him at long range forever; her goal is to nonetheless keep him out for as long as possible, taking advantage of her superior long-range weapons. He's in missile range now, but she wants to save her ammo since she doesn't get much to start with. Thus, she continues trading PPC shots with Adam for now and sends another particle-bolt flying across the landscape at him. In a way, it's not too dissimilar from the 'beam rifle duels' one sees in the earlier stages of a mobile suit battle. Just slower.

The Amenthes remains in flight above the tarmac, arms crossed, wings flooding the small area behind it with ember like red flakes of energy amidst a similarly colored but dimmer mist of the same. Its glowing crimson eyes flare up, but do not move, behind the black helm that forms a large part of its head. The Raptors hang around lazily as Briareos combats Axel Almer. One of them in particular is following their motions, giving Ascian a direct feed on the battle.

In fact, all the Raptors are providing the Duat A.I. on board of the Amenthes with a low resolution view from multiple directions of the entire battlefield. He listens as multiple units begins their combat, and converse amongst eachother.

And he just remains watching, the raptors at the ready for anyone who dares to get between Briareos and Axel Almer, he is starting to get bored. His right hand twitches a bit. He's in a pissy mood, and wants to /kill shit/. And on his radar, there is one /particular/ large blip that just stands out. Still remaining where he is, the tailfeather-like tendrils of the unit begin to flow energy into their tips, where diamonds refract the light and begin building a single large ball of energy between the all of them.

The wings flare up for a short moment, a quick extra flow of Metatron piercing its bioluminescent veins and finally when it reaches the pulsing orb, it is sent flying! Flame like embers follow it like a trail, as it is flung straight towards the Gigascundo, quite a distance away!

For one shining moment, Glemy decides to lament the size of his beam rifle. If it were bigger, he might be able to take down the ZII, he thinks; if it were smaller, well... at least it'd be so small and shitty that he'd only use it as a hold-out weapon, or there'd be something bigger on the machine.

Momentary laments are ended by explosions -- or, well, down payments on explosions, made by beam sabers. The Bawoo nearly loses a leg to the incoming X-slash, and for a moment, Glemy wonders if he wouldn't be better served by just getting out of here and letting someone else handle it...

... but he can't abandon Puru Two to fight the Gundam Team by herself. Not /yet/, anyway. "Nngh," he grunts under his breath, raising the shield of the Bawoo to both give himself some defensive options and, more importantly, some offensive ones. "If you won't leave on your own... then I'll just have to give you no other choice!" In another bluff, Toto boosts toward the Argama, firing a few shots back at Roux's ZII. In truth, he just wants to get the new unit to himself to get cleaner data (and thus, perhaps, some leverage in negotiation attempts with Anaheim), but it looks for a moment like he might try to do something ridiculous like keep going and eventually do something untoward to the bridge.

Divada grips the handrail again as the guns rock the ship yet again. "My Lady. Knight Squadron is on approach vector." This only causes the blonde to smile a bit. "Fire at will. High speed fly by." Miranda walks towards the tactical station and looks towards the console. "Captain, The Homing laser battery is 80 percent charged." Divada nods. "Hold off on it until after Knight Squadron has made it's attack run. We don't want to hit the fighters." "Yes ma'am." Miranda says. Divada touches her head set. "Knight Lead. Green light. Begin your attack run." "Yes My lady."

Sparks fly from the saber duel between the Ashsaber and the ZZ. Puru Two's melee weapon is the one with the lesser amount of raw power, she should know this. But she doesn't seem to care, persisting in this course of action regardless. Needless to say she's not going to get through the other saber. But it does freeze her target in its place. Which is what she wanted, for Judau to not go anywhere.

Judau is still talking about going elsewhere. This is annoying. Unsurprisingly, Puru Two doesn't respond well when annoyed. "You think this is a joke?! You're not getting away from me this time, this may be the last chance I have!" She immediately bites her tongue. Why did she say that? He didn't need to know that. He just has to die.

The incoming kick forces her to break off the saber lock if she doesn't want to get stomped (spoilers: she doesn't), but she only backs away for long enough to avoid being given the boot. The Ashsaber quickly returns with a vengeance, now dual-wielding the saber and a hand-held beam weapon. "And when will you finally learn, I'm Puru Two! Puru /Two/!" Judau's frustration with the matter is clearly no match for the clone soldier's, especially because hers comes with a hail of beam fire.

The Muspelheim was one a Katharon robot, at least for a while! That's when the pilot was still Pascal Ambler, cheerful ex-Zeon teenage chef, and not Pascal Ambler's body and mind being posessed by a sentient dragon robot thing.

It's complicated. Lasers are not! Lasers hit the dragon from a strange angle and it turns to glare at the Zeta with remarkably realistic movements for a robot, sending a gust of flame in an angry response.

Once it gets a better look at its target, the dragonbot weaves through the air and rushes closer to the Gundam. With eyes aglow, it swerves in and attempts to thwack the Mobile Suit inelegantly with the end of its long, blunt tail.

Oddly enough, Camille might get a very faint, muddled Newtype ping from inside!

The Angelg, at close range, towers over the Zeta. It is nearly a hundred fifty feet tall, and thus close range can make it hard for Echidna to actually /target/ the Zeta with ranged handheld weapons. It just moves too fast around her.

So she doesn't bother. Echidna turns, hovering in place without benefit of wing-beats; she wraps Angelg's black wings around her like a shroud instead, the grenades hitting the reinforced plate-'feathers'. A couple bounce off; the rest shatter some of the feathers, fracturing them into smaller, razor-sharp metal shards.

Then the wings beat, showering the area with the debris.

Echidna attempts to back up, ascending slightly; she has clear airspace on Mars, since there's not a whole lot of heavy weather, and she's going to use it. Unsummoning the bow - it vanishes in a shower of light sparks - Echidna instead removes the sword hilt from the back of the shield. It ignites into a pink spike of light as Echidna dives, thrusting with all the force of a full-body dive behind it, wings spread.

Absolutely nothing, in Newtype terms, escapes from the cockpit.

The beam rifle barrel presses into the Windam and fires, only to be knocked aside by the Gundam ripoff's large shield. The blast misses the center of the machine and instead carves out a chunk from the machine's waist. Meiya looks at the video screen and narrows her eyes slightly.

Meiya just laughs. "What, you picked through Balmarian wreckage and you think that maks you special among mercinaries somehow?"

The Shield of the Windam turns over and a new pair of beam blades ignite from it's tips as itswings out to try and claw directly through the Rosenthal.

"If they haven't offered to pay you through that escrow service yet, you should run away from here."

Staren lets out a sigh of relief at the familiar voice. "So you're alive... I'm glad." Staren braces for impact as the beam rifle shots slag some armor... but it'll take far more than that to take down his creation. The Star Hawk leaps into the air, and then starts closing the distance surprisingly fast for something that bulky. "Not being able to do anything about Mars _sucked_. Now we're finally here. I'm sorry we took so long... But I'm helping now! Are you telling me you, as a Martian, think Crusader rule would be better than independance? Have you _seen_ the Crusaders lately? Do you really want to help Haman Karn??"

The Star Hawk begins to drop out of the sky, then puts in a final burst of speed as it charges the RF Gouf and tries to jam a forearm-mounted spike into it (but avoiding the cockpit), and then inject slagging-hot plasma into the machine to melt important things like motors and structure. "So, what do you think of the final version of these weapons? I guess you could say you helped me with a beta test..." Staren tries for a little witty banter, but it... just doesn't feel right, somehow.

Laserfire from the Elite Cutlass Squadron races across the sky!

The bolts pepper the Argama's white hull, rendering little more than minor damage to the protective plating.

"Glemy Toto's Bawoo is setting off our proximity sensors! He's practically up in front of us!" Caesar delivers alarming news.

However, such an update is far too obvious to Captain Bright, who stares at Glemy's red-orange Bawoo through the duraglass windows of the Argama's bridge. "..Yes, I can see that!" he mutters, annoyed. "How the hell did he even break through our barrage!? What're our gunners doing!?"

Caesar just shakes his head, "Forward barrage has thinned out by thirty percent!"

"Nng!" the Captain grunts, "Increase the barrage! Tell our missile batteries to target the enemy ship, its fighters, and that Bawoo! And what the hell is Roux even doing out there!?"

The Argama's port and starboard batteries slide open, revealing rows of warhead-readied launch tubes. They swoosh out with a faint *funf* sound and a blast of smoke, trailing off in numerous directions at the enemy.

"Roux!" Bright barks into his command phone, "Get that Bawoo out of our immediate vacinity! He's too close!"

Sam doesn't believe in things like fair play in a fight like this. The EXAM Efreet rushes in, closing on the battle that takes place on and close to the ground. BattleMechs, a Gundam, and a... Giganscudo? Gigan is a pretty unique robot; Sam would know that Ultimate Shield anywhere!

Time to see exactly how 'ultimate' it is.

The Zeon mobile suit closes on the battling Gundam and Giganscudo and adds even more chaos to the mix. While the two of them duke it out, it lobs high explosives into the mix, circling around the outer 'rim' of the battle of MechWarriors and Gundam Fighters while the leg-mounted missile launchers fire. Maybe he's helping Katharon?

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat transmits, "Samuel Flynn, be careful."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "I'll be fine, Duat. Watch out for Ascian, he's got a penchant for the insane."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Hey!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat transmits, "Affirmative."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn laughs.

The foot of the ZZ swings through open air; the lack of resistance makes it stumble with a series of fumbling steps across the harsh Martian terrain. Its head snaps up as it recovers itself in time with Judau focusing those bright green eyes on the custom-colored Ashsaber beyond.

"'Last chance'...?" he echoes in confusion. "What d'you mean by that?? Hey, is somethin' bad happening to you--"

Judau's answer comes in the form of the ZZ's shoulder being clipped with a burst of blue energy bolts. "Wh-whoa?!" Beams ricochet off, leaving a smoking scorch where they land; the Gundam responds almost immediately, its entire, heavy body shunting itself to the right in a swift strafe quickly accompanied by the burst of thrusters.

Beams go wide as the ZZ's shoulder compartments open up, revealing multiple racks of missiles. "I don't need a number to know who you are!" shouts the Newtype in equal frustration and additional confusion, sufficiently distracted now as he flicks open and smashes down on a small red button. Small rockets fire from those shoulders, first a small volley -- and then a full load, corkscrewing through the air to drill for the Ashsaber.

"Why are you so mad!? I don't wanna fight you, Puru! What's goin' on?!"

He's going straight towards the bridge!! Roux thinks with a moment of flustered panic, not helped by Bright Noa calling her out. Her face reddens in the suit as the Z-II gives chase, the streaking fire-linked cannons slamming sideways along the Gundam's armor, raising smoke and sending carbonized streaks of half-melted metal primarily along its right side. The beam swords are put away.

What can she do to get him away?! she thinks. Then in a sudden flurry of insight it all comes into her head, based on a report from a DC terminal she read while she was involuntarily visiting one of their bases. She opens the visual feed.

She squinches her eyes shut and bites her tongue, hard enough to draw out tears. "Aaah! I can't - I have no choiiiice!!" she squeals, even as the Z-II shifts, metamorphosizing and extending its thruster apertures out for additional delta-V. Delta-v that will hopefully go right into the Bawoo, shoving it 'down' towards the martian surface, and more importantly, away from the Argama!

"They're trying to keep me at range," Adam notes to himself. He can understand why...The Berserker is known for its melee focus, and is carrying a giant sword. Still, it's got one trick Adam bets they won't see coming.

The Berserker moves to the side suddenly, a second or so before the PPC fires again. It's a safe bet she was waiting for that weapon to cool a bit. No other fire had gone his way, so it was likely that the pilot was waiting for the weapon to cycle before firing again. It takes about five seconds for a PPC to cycle over, so changing his direction 4 seconds after the first shot is a good bet to get him out of range. Adam also fires his ER Medium lasers back as fast as he can, though can't quite manage a good hit.

"Alright then, let's see how you deal with this!" Adam angles his cockpit down, and fires his flamer, not at the Thunderbolt, but directly in front of him! The plasma weapon ignites the air just in front of the Battlemech, bathing the outer armor in waves of shimmering heat, rapidly driving up the heat inside the mech, which was already climbing due to the rapid use of energy weapons. Alexis might think he's gone crazy...Until he hits the right threshold.

Most Berserker mechs are built using MASC to close in quick with enemies. Adam's is different, however. The C3 variant doesn't use MASC, but instead uses TSM, which is a heat-activated system that greatly increases the mech's speed and strength when it gets hot enough...

On que, the mech lurches forward, gaining nearly 50% in speed as it suddenly storms forth, feet slamming rapidly into the ground as the mech charges forward, blade held low until it gets close enough, at which point the blade is swept rapidly upwards, Adam looking to slash off the PPC right off the Thunderbolt.

"You could have fooled me." Briareos replied back calmly as the optical sensors flickered green for a moment. "After all, isn't what all you Crusaders are doing these days? Some new fad up here right?"

When the ship starts to come down, it was enough of a distraction for Briareos to miss his change from the rockets that red glare, and blasts him back this time into some cargo-boxes, which fall over him. However with lifting a box this time and tossing it to the side. It seems the full cyborg was still functioning with his battle vest torn to shreads by the missile explosion, however his metallic skin seemed to only suffered some scratched.

As Axel then moved in, Briareos stepped to the side, before he started to remove the no longer decent armor vest. Tossing it to the side just in time as the twenty four year old tries to chop up the thirty plus cyborg into pieces.

Briareos quickly blocked one with a combat dagger he had down at the side of his belt, before twirling out of the other, and then blocking the next blow.

Spark of the two blades scattered along the ground as Axel continued to shove Briareos back, however with the last swing the cyborg quickly stepped out of the way to let the transformed crusader impact one of the metal cargo boxes.

While he had the chance, he slid over and picked up his tank rifle from the wreckage of boxes, then took aim once more, firing two shots this time.

See, shit like this was why Camille hated fighting the Crusaders. They could never just come at you with conventional mean of attack, it always had to be wacky shit like a mobile suit that thinks it's an animal or some goddamned magic physics-fucking black box. At least with jackholes like the A-LAWS you had a sense of what to expect. Cyber-Newtypes, poison gas, giant lasers, that kind of thing.

Not so with the DC, and having a damned Newtype convention going on didn't make things any easier in Camille's head. He had to focus just keep the other thoughts and emotions out of his brainpain when he registered a flicker of consciousness from witthin the metal beast itself.

"What the?!" The Zeta's verniers engaged in reverse instinctively, narrowing avoiding cruel lick from the Muspelheim's tail and momentarily forgetting that he was fighting a machine. "Who... who's in there?" It was faint, but it was there. Something about that machine wasn't right, more so for knowing there was someone in it. But Camille couldn't let it matter.

"Don't..." He pushed forth on the control sticks, blasting the thrusters forward to push the Zeta into closer range, "GET IN THE WAY!"

Shield and beam sword were brought to bear against the Dragon's iron hide, the Zeta Gundam looking every bit the part of a futuristic Knight-Errant.

Divada grips the handrail, but the ship barely moves after that shot. "It seems their attention has shifted from us." "Captain, the Homing laser battery is fully charged!" Miranda calls out to Divada as the Communications officer calls 'Knight Squadron reports they're clear and are taking fire!" Divada shakes her head. "You are going to regret that, Argama. Tactical... Target the Argama with the homing laser!" "Target locked!" "FIRE!" A single white beam shoots out from the bottom middile turret on the Ark hammer firing where the Argama is flying... before suddenly bending towards the bow of the Argama, aiming for one of the 'legs' of the ship.

"Ripped it off'a one of the fucks, more like," Bass snorts in reply.

Even as he /gives/ this response, he's being forced to turn away from the Windam's onrushing claw, and while the not-quite-Gundam is unsuccessful in shredding straight through the AC, a significant swath of its belly falls to the ground where the two robots met. More distressingly, its front is absolutely /covered/ in luminesous cooling fluids and lubricants, all of which glitter beautifully beneath the stars. The cockpit is only getting hotter; sweat is pooling beneath that mask, running from its two false eyes like tears.

"My deal's already set, anyway, sweet-cheeks."

Something needs to be done about the heat build-up, and quickly. Something drastic, something--"

Bass smiles beneath his mask. The Rosenthal explodes into forward motion that quickly becomes tight, erratic circles traced around the Windam.

And when he thinks he's found an opening, the AC performs a sideways flip through the air, its body parallel with the ground. The air shimmers around its feet for a split-second before smoke and fire /pour/ from its soles in a scything arc aimed towards the mobile suit.

The increased barrage clips Glemy's Dodai, sending him into a sudden spin that leaves him open to fairly heavy fire from the Argama; a second later, the Bawoo finds itself the target of a deceitful crashing technique that hurls it to the surface of the red planet!!

With a hard crunch of metal, Glemy attempts to force the Bawoo back to its feet while simultaneously realizing that he, in fact, is fighting the very person he'd assumed he /wasn't/ fighting -- Roux Louka!

In fact, he feels the need to exclaim that precise thing. "Roux Louka! I -- I didn't realize --" Glemy starts, a little flustered by the presence of GIRL ON THE BATTLEFIELD. In fact, for a moment, he just kind of sits there doing nothing.

Alexis is facing a serious problem... she has yet to land a hit on the Berserker, and it has already entered medium range... a range where it, to her great surprise, opened fire with extended range lasers; she had assumed she still had another hundred meters or so of 'safe distance.' Seeing him continue to fire even when she's not in good attack range would normally look insane... ...But her mind runs through several simulation videos she has seen, narrowing down possibilities... and the truth hits her, a chill running through her: He's overheating on purpose to get the myomer systems warmed up, which means...! Exactly. Adam's Berserker is charging for enhanced-strength close combat. She turns the Thunderbolt's legs to face forward, knowing she can't run away from him in time; their speeds will always be equal. Torso twisted to bring the Thunderbolt's empty left arm forward as a sacrificial limb for the TSM-enhanced sword, Alexis braces for the worst... and hits her jump jets even as the Berserker barrels down upon her. It works, the Thunderbolt rising just out of the Berserker's reach and spinning in mid-air to land a good sixty meters behind Adam, though he's probably already going to be turning to meet this. In her cockpit, Alexis is gripped by fear; she knows that the normally 'weak' sword now has the potential to slash through her cockpit in a single blow and kill her. A Thunderbolt versus a Berserker is close combat is absolutely to Adam's advantage; he hits harder, has more weapons, more armor, and equal speed. All she can do is try to mitigate that last advantage, starting another semi-circular run and pointing the torso down at the Berserker's legs, chain-firing a trio of extended range medium lasers of her own!

"Oh crap." Shinguji has only time to say before the massive Giganscudo rushes for the lush martial soil -- but not befor flailing an arm around and accidently smashing the Gundam on it's way down. A tremor shakes the earth. Mars has a new Crater to adorn it's surface. Not that huge, but it definately have Giganscudo's imprint on it. The collision also saves him from a particularly burning onslaught of flames, which is always a bonus. "Uuuuuuuh," A groggy, slightly shaken Shinguji replies to Adam Steiner, readjusting his helmet straight. "Yeah, sure, sure, no problem, sure. Ow." With all the care in the world as if he wasn't in a hurry, the Ultimate Shield flies upward, using it's Telsa Drives to lift it off, turning around to look around. Okay. He got a wierd freak, and... Macua. Well, damn, he didn't want to fight Macua. He think that's Macua, anyway. It felt like her. "Hey! Who are you, in there, anyway?" He lets out, charging foward by brandishing his shields, sparking them up to add one plus one on the Jenice.

The difference in height is intimidating, to be sure-- even when she did remember the old Angelg, with it's white and pink casts, she never really had the chance to see it up-close. Lamia Loveless was in one arm of the Federation... and she was in quite a different one, following an entirely different man through his own military career. Rachel's eyes widen as it ascends, then falls with the sword coming down like an unholy, brutal god-hammer.

"Awwwwww hamburgers--"

The shield swings up again before the impact and the devistating CRUNCH against the armor. The blade sinks down against the spray little Mobile Suit, digging through the shield itself and starting to sink into the left shoulder's spaulder. Rachel struggles against herself, even, trying to hold her arm steady and straight while the pseudo-Trace suit's sensor packages keep the girl's arm rigid. Her right hand drops to her hip, and grips the saber sticking out of the recharge rack for--

-- a slash!

The fingers of the right hand opens immediately after this, the saber rolling across the palm in a spin before the hand closes to a backhanded grip. The left arm reaches to the shoulder, just as Rachel moves the Zeta in swift movements, jerking one way, the other-- and trying to get into the shadow of the Angelg's chest, aiming to plant that one beam knife straight and squarely into the machine's ribs...

... and then /wrench/ it.

Somewhere during that time, a bunch of missiles impacted agains the Giganscudo's hide. It didn't seem to rattle the giant very much, beyond making a few rough dark spots.

The serpentine Muspelheim is big, and being such a big target, it's not hard for Camille's beam sword to strike true. Looking every bit the monster looming over the knight, the Muspelheim shoots beams from its eyes in quick retaliation and then speaks-or rather it seems the pilot speaks on the radio while the robot itself speaks, in synch. It's a little bit creepy.

"It doesn't matter who is inside here. /He/ doesn't matter anymore." At least one of those voices was human, if with a creepy edge to it. The creature rears back its head, those eyes glowing as if still cooling off from the laser fire.

"I don't care about why you're here, human, or why you're interfering in our mission. I've been given a chance to destroy you, so I'll take any chance I can get." At this it opens its wide mechanized mouth, the rune marks illumiated briefly before it launches searing fireballs down at the Zeta.

Again with that same tired arguement. At times it almost infuriates Erika when someone starts spouting about how evil the Crusaders are as if their own side was faultless by compaison. She opens her mouth to speak back. Then Staren mentions Karn. "The Divine Crusade--" The beam sword is drawn forth and ignites into a blazing beam of light. A beam that Erika sweeps in a vicious arc up at Staren's outstretched arm, seeking to sever it at the elbow. "-- IS MORE THAN JUST KARN!" The Gouf spins and twists, it's leg sweeping up to lash out at the midsection of the Star Hawk, "So /quit/ speaking as though--" the RF Gouf surges forward as it's hand pulls back into a fist and lunges right at Staren's face, "-- THE REST OF US ARE JUST LIKE HER!"
 * HATE* flashes through erika's Newtype mind, expanding out to the consciousness of any other Newtypes in the area. Erika's eyes just harden and her hands grip the controls tightly. she ducks her machine down as the beam spike scraps across her Gouf's shoulder and the beam rifle clatters to the ground.

"What's wrong with this thing?!", Puru Two shouts out when her beam barrage heads for the ZZ's shoulder instead of the cockpit. Wasn't that what she was going to aim for? Clearly this must be due to faulty machinery. That awful, nagging headache that plagues her almost constantly is flaring up again too, that isn't helping matters.

Nor is getting shot at with missiles. "Nrgh!" Puru Two lets out a grunt of general frustration when the first few missiles impact with the Ashsaber's frame, a bit too late to respond, but it's enough to prompt her to spring into action. Dancing through the air, and from the air to the ground and back up again, the Shadow-Mirror machine becomes a blur as it somehow manages to stay ahead of the missile barrage at every turn, no longer being in the relevant parts of the Martian skies when said skies are lit up with explosions. To make matters worse, she somehow managed to squeeze her /own/ missiles between the incoming ones, paying the Double Zeta back in kind.

Though while she may be in good fighting shape, the Newtype clone's mental state is already starting to crack. Somehow it always ends up that way when fighting this guy, what is it about him that messes her up so much? "It's not just a number, it's part of who I am, you jerk!" She's shouting back in what could only be described as impotent child-like rage, that is it would be impotent if the source of that rage wasn't flying a heavily-armed giant robot. Because that means rage might be accompanied by things such as Funnel-like weapons, blasting off from the back of the machine and heading for the ZZ, taking it under fire with purple death beams. "Why should I tell you anything, you're just going to die here anyway!"

"I got shot down and I'm getting the hell out," Axel snaps back. "We've /always/ been here. Just ask about BAHRAM some time!"

Axel slams into the metal box. His blade explodes off the steel crate, sparks flying airborne as he does. He turns his head, eyes widening as he sees the tank rifle aimed at him. He opens his mouth -- and the first shot slams into the armor, exploding and blackening it all over the chest. The second flies over his shoulder before ti detonates.

He flies forward, slamming into the ground, and rolls over a few times. Axel breathes hard. The faceplate is cracked, and the armor scuffed, burnt, and broken. He cannot take another hit like that.

Almer turns on Briareos -- and runs forward. The ceramic blades come back, as he begins firing punch after punch at the robot. Each one sends a blade cutting at the armor, stabbing at it with vicious punches. At the end, Almer turns -- and launches a massive roundhouse aimed at kicking the cyborg back through the air.

"MAI SUZAKU!"

The missile launchers open. A massive swarm of them explode from the shoulders, red-tipped short missiles whipping into the air and hurtling up after Briareos.

Adam Steiner gives a slight grunt of frustration as his blade fails to wreck the enemy's weapons like he hoped, only to have the Thunderbolt jump away. This person is more than a casual jock. They know exactly what they're doing. Adam expects to be attacked immediately when they land, and so starts moving right away, circling around to face them. As he expected, the ground around him gets smashed by lasers, one striking the blade of his sword; Damage that would have probably wrecked it if it wasn't for the beam-shielding it was given.

"Adam, listen to me," Rachel Spector suddenly says in his radio, "That Thunderbolt is using MASC to keep pace with your Berserker."

"So what?" Adam asks. He knows there's some trick with MASC, but never used a mech with it.

"So," Rachel says, drawing out her words a little, "MASC puts a lot of strain on the actuators with sustained use. If it keeps up that speed for too long, the actuators will lock up and it'll be disabled!"

"Right," Adam nods, fully understanding now. "While I just need to keep my heat balanced so I don't slow down or shut down. Got it!"

The Berserker turns once again to charge at the Thunderbolt, heading right for it, straight on, moving at the assault mech's full speed. As it runs, it fires all its weapons right at the Thunderbolt: Lasers, PPC, and Flamer all filling the air with fire, as well as driving the heat on Adam's own mech up quite a bit. "Just have to keep them running a little bit longer..."

The Homing Laser strikes across the Argama's bow and tears through the plating. An explosion rips out of the wound torn into the battleship, belching fire and black smoke into the Martian atmosphere.

"Damn it!" Bright grunts. "Torres, we're sitting ducks in this position! Do something!"

"Nng.. I'm trying, I'm trying!" Torres grunts. It's like flying through pudding -- a lot of resistance everywhere, thanks to Mars's native gravity.

"Deck ten, bow side has taken heavy damage!" Ron Keith reports. "We're shunting wounded personnel to another location and activating containment fields!"

Captain Bright leans back into his seat, yet looks like he's fixing to leap out of it. "Deploy damage teams! Caesar, ready the mega particle cannon and continue firing from our main guns. High-bore suppressive fire while the mega particle cannon is priming!"

"Yessir!" Caesar acknowledges.

Elsewhere,

A red light on a console within the Argama's Mega Particle Gun Control Room lights up.

At the seat, a lone chicken darts its head to the side and peers curiously. "Bwok?"

The Argama's guns continue their sequenced firing at the Ark Hammer. This time, they're joined by an additional set of cannons from its rear and underslung mounts. The onslaught is constant and overwhelming, a steady stream of firepower.

Roux's face stays burned. This is SO EMBARRASSING, she thinks, even as she coughs pathetically, doing her best to sound as if she is dying of the consumption or perhaps from too much sex abuse at the hands of Bright Noa.

The Z-II continues to thrust downwards in its waverider mode, Roux making a sort of agonized noise into the radio with deliberate falsification as she tries to figure out just what to do here. The sensible thing is to kill him, and yet something stays her hand. Love??

Or perhaps more that Judau is doing something else, something in his strange and peculiar way that is noble and caring for others. If Roux just stabbed a beam saber through the cockpit of the Bawoo...

But if she did something else. Something simpler, less piercing...!

And so, the Waverider shrinks, drawing back together and banging several times against the Bawoo as it forces the unit further and further from the Argama. Ending with a squeal and a final, "Stay away from me---!!" Combined with a fist slamming into the Bawoo's upper torso.

Briareos underestimate the opponent it would seem. As Axel comes in for another attack, Briareos goes to block a few of the punches, but the blocks were not the wisest of ideas but better then the alternative, as they start to cut up his arms, slicing into the metal and mecha fluid starts to drop from his arms. One of the slices he misses and impacts him right across the side and jabs into him, deep enough that it wasn't mech-fluid that found its way out onto the ground, but blood.

Then when the cyborg attempts to make a move in, he finds the kick right in his head at which sends him spinning and then planted onto the ground.

He then reaches for his tank rifle, coughing gently as he does as he tries to get a lock on. His optical sensors going from the green to red lens glow. However just as he got the aim, there came the missiles.

The area exploded in a great display, cargo boxes flying into the air, barrels exploding with their chemicals igniting and which all this blasts Briareos right out and onto the mars surface outside.

The Cyborg then attempts to get up once more, even as he can see the smoke, but as he tries too, his gears within grind, his body shakes, and he just collapses onto the iron rich soil.

He just needs time to get himself back up or someone to get his armored aft off the sand.

Alexis hasn't been using MASC yet, though Adam's field advisor has accurately pegged this model of Thunderbolt as one of the ones that has it. With a mere ninety meters or less separating them however, Alexis has to start using it just to maintain that tiny gap of safety from the Berserker's sword or feet. As she and Adam continue to circle and trade shots, Adam will see the Thunderbolt's gait develop a momentary lurch; the telltale sign that MASC has just been turned on, followed by the smaller 'Mech speeding up to equal the Berserker's pace. This momentary speed boost is what carries Alexis just out of Adam's aim, yet another in a series of misses explained only by sudden shifts in momentum foiling otherwise good target leading. Needing a moment to cool, Alexis switches weapons and tactics. The missile launcher on her Thunderbolt's torso opens its ports, then fires a salvo at the Berserker! Interestingly, Adam will not hear a target lock warning; Alexis knows he's too close for the guidance system to work correctly, so she's forced to 'dumb fire' them and hope for a manually aimed hit. It's just one in what will likely be a desperate string of attacks, given she is fighting from a massive disadvantage.

Meiya reaches up, and pulls the video camera out of the cockpit monitor, she can't be bothered to find the right switch for it right now. "Then you've made a poor business decision, mercinary."

The Type-HOGIRE zooms around and around the Windam, causing Meiya to pause, but not to be suprised at it's speed...

The improvised flamethrower thruster kick comes screaching in from behind and impacts with the jet pack and wings on the back, breaking through the armored skin and causing an engine overheat to erupt into a fireball that sems to consume the entire Windam.

Until it comes rushing in from the HOGIRE's blind side, somehow having jumped free of it's own jetpack in mid detachment and leaped to push off the side of a building, and come down towards the Armored Core with both Beam Sabers raised, slicing down at hte smaller machine in a cross cut, and drops both of the sabers to swing around it shield bearing arm with both of the beam claws activated as it grasps of the HOGIRE's head. "I thought there was someitnhg unusual abouwut your fighting style. You're not used to using such a fast machine, are you?"

The Windam's remaining jump thrusters ignite, and the machine slams forward, trying to take the Armored Core with it. "The Divine Crusaders will not have this installation!" The Windam slams it's armor out and down, trying to slam the armored core into the tarmac at full speed. "SHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The slash is not enough to discourage Echidna from a follow-up attack, though she does briefly reconsider her course of action; the other pilot certainly seems to know what she's doing in close range.

Echidna pulls back again, the great wings of Angelg beating only once. She gets her proof a moment later, when Rachel flies in, attempting to stay in the front blind spot of the oversized robot; Echidna keeps Angelg moving, catching the thrust with her black shield. The size differential is such that the beam knife can't even penetrate very far into the arm after passing through the shield; not enough to take more than incidental damage.

And then Angelg vanishes, a silhouette of light where it was that fades into a vague halo. It reappears a few hundred yards away, already drawing that bow she used before; the pink of the beam arrow fades to red as Echidna holds it, overcharging the shot.

That may explain why it explodes into flame as it flies, leaving a vortex of fire behind it as it lances through the air directly; Echidna is trying to embed the arrow of flame, probably as long as the Zeta is tall, in the mobile suit.

"Wow, that thing is fast!" says Judau wonderingly as his target weaves and bobs through the sky like an aerial ballerina. The backdrop of explosive light is almost dazzling, until Judau remembers that:

a) those explosions are his missiles missing b) that robo-ballerina (or roballerina) is his enemy at the moment c) she seems really pissed off,

And comes to the conclusion of:

"Ah, crap."

His conclusion is helpfully emphasized by a rain of remote weapon fire that Judau does not even have time to gawk over before they consume his Gundam in a wash of violet rage. Beams superheat through and slice into heavy blue armoring, the resultant sensor explosion at the torso of the ZZ knocking it backwards until it crashes ass-first into a massive rock.

"Gh... damn, she's scary..." mumbles Judau as he shakes his head and gets his bearings. Still, she said something. His eyes blink and refocus.

"... Heh. Alright then, how about this:"

Suddenly, the ZZ swings its right arm up. The double-barreled rifle attached to it swells with twin points of crimson light.

"If I beat you, then you gotta tell me what's goin' on! Got it?!"

And shoots two precise bolts of light -- aimed not directly for the Ashsaber, but for two of those Sword Breakers, just as they begin to dock.

"An' if I loss -- well, I guess that's it for me, right?? It's a deal!"

The Gigan attcks, she's still trying to not get crushed. The Jenice moves quickly and takes a swing at Tasuku's machine the axe hits but doesn't domuch damage in all likelyhood. This is the Gigan and it's going to take more than a single heat hawk strike to do any real damage to it. She hears the question but she's not sure if she should even reply t least not right now the readies the heat hawk again and this time launches the smaller machine at the massive Gigan. She strikes once, twice and then a third time. The machine's pilot doesn't reply at least for now maybe it is Macua but prehaps she doesn't feel like talking?

"Eye lasers?!" Camille actually shouts on disbelief as the twin beams carved a set of impressive gouges in the Zeta's armor along its flank. Dragons didn't shoot eye lasers! He was beginning to think whoever designed this thing got a whole lot of material from some old movie.

Also, it starts talking to him. That is right-out creepy, especially now that he knows it's from La Gias. All kind of werid un-sciency stuff came from that Hollow Earth Kingdom.

"It matters to my friends." The Newtype asserts, feeling very out of place in playing this particular hot-blooded trope, "And that's good enough for me to save them from you...whatever the hell you are!" His conviction came just shy of the impending glow of death-breath, but the ace's instincts are quicke: A wrist-mounted grenade launcher pops one straight for the Dragon's gullet before the flame's launch and subsequently backtracks it's way out of any impending backwash.

'Well' The pilot thinks to himself, 'At least it isn't a Codarl.'

Since he doubt it liked one grenade very much, what's a couple more?! The Zeta lets loosed as Camille tries to keep abreast of the situation on the radio, "Judau, Rachel, Roux? Are we getting our asses handed to us or not?!"

Axel comes to a stop. He stands there on the ground, panting hard. His eyes look about, as he scans the battlefield, and then he looks up at the BAHRAM ship. He activates the jump jets -- and his armor leaps, up into the cargo bay. It hits with a clang, and he comes down, kneeling.

Missiles do approximately nothing to the Giganscudo. "Okay, noted," Sam mutters to himself. He breaks off from the attack on /that/ mobile weapon, letting the Gundam handle it. He doesn't really want to get between them in shots like that just bounce off, even if he thinks he can find a weak point... somewhere.

BattleMechs are something that he knows, though. Sam feels a surge of confidence, and a gentle, guiding presence helping him. He thinks he can hear something... but he knows he /should not/ listen to the voices at a time like this. He takes a breath and forces himself to exhale it steadily, guiding the Efreet through the spaceport, turning--and then /blasting/ forward, the rockets propelling him at the 'Mechs.

"Bee arr zee see three Berserker," Sam mutters to himself. "Luciferian design. Triple-strength myomer, anti-missile system, electronic warfare package... okay, easy. C'mon, EXAM, lets put you to the precision test."

The Efreet comes up behind the Berserker, diving right into whatever passes for the 'Mech's personal space. The bronze and gunmetal machine holds it's broad heat saber in one hand and draws it's second, darting behind it and focusing on the backs of the Assault 'Mech's legs. Myomer is artificial muscle, Sam thinks, and the bundles might be hard to cut, but it isn't pleasant if he hits something passing for the Achilles tendon. The sabers swing one after the other, the crouched mobile suit swinging the superheated blades at the exact spot the armoring is weakest on each leg and then breaking off before one of them gives him a face full of lightning.

Meanwhile, Sam snickers at his own private joke. Heh heh. Test. EXAM.

The Argama's combined fire rocks the ships just a little again. "Ma'am. we're not going to be able to keep this up forever." Divada sighs. "I know Miranda. We just need to hold out for a little longer. Is the Ion cannon charged?" Miranda looks at the console and taps her finger. "yes ma'am." Divada peers a bit at the Argama and puts her hands behind her back. "Target the area right below the bridge. Scare them a bit. Then begin our retreat." "Retreat? But My lady." The Sensors officer blurts out before Miranda is able to shut him up. Divada looks over towards the Sensors display. "The Argama is NOT an alien threat. I want them to be able to defend earth when it needs it most, even if Katharon wants to get the government off of earth, they still will defend earth. remember that." Divada then looks back out at the Argama. "Target the Argama's Engines with the Ion cannon. FIRE!" One turret on the top of the Ark Hammer turns towards the Argama and sends out a Blue laser blast....

The shield comes up in the appropriate place this time, intercepting the blows from Roux's Z II's fists, the punches glancing off of the tough metal. "R, Roux, listen, please --" Glemy starts, his nerve continuing to evaporate. He may be a warlord-aspirant... but he's also kind of a hopeless romantic, and really, there's nothing more romantic than a woman telling a man to get away from her.

And then he remembers the most important thing about that particular situation: proving one's aggressiveness to a woman. Feeling a momentary resurgence in willfulness, Glemy bursts forward toward Roux, drawing the twin sabers of the Bawoo and sending them into a rapid whirl, attempting to carve off the machine's limbs in one quick burst of motion!

"Yeah," Bass retorts, filled with sarcasm even as his AC is forced backwards at the Windam's behest. "You caught me--this thing's a /loaner/. My real machine's like a hundred meters high and weighs a couple mil'."

It's a tactic he's already utilized, but their proximity combined with the extremely likelihood of the Rosenthal's cooling systems shutting down /completely/ and leaving him covered in burns should this forced movement last much longer force him to try and jam his rifle against the mobile suit a second time. Its left leg extends behind its body, ready to be planted againt the nearest structure so that he can garner enough momentum to make an escape.

"What can I say? You caught me sans chest beam."

His right leg kicks forward as concussive fury unfolds from the rifle; its thrusters fire to assist it in distancing itself from the Windam, and from there he'll plant his feet against his building of choice, spring forward and apply a few brisk, sharp bursts of thruster fire to assist him in controlling his momentum while maintaining an appropriate altitude; if the Windam survives, he'll need enough space to facillitate mobility.

If /not/, the quicker he can get out of this death trap, the better.

"Tssk, it went wide." Ascian mutters. "Sir." Duat suddenly interferes. "Please concentrate on the area closer to you." Beneath him, Axel Almer had boarded the freighter. The Raptors of course, immediately form a squad around it as the machine begins to slowly take off. Ascian quickly calls over the radio, indicating to Axel that he will protect him - whilst the freighter begins to take off.

The Heat Hawk does not leave the Giganscudo's armor indifferent. It creates solid burning cuts into the armor of the massive machine, but other wise does not cause any serious damage. Several dozen tons of armor kind is there for that, you know. "C'mon, I can sense you in there! I think. Anyway." Shinguji replies to the silence, the Ultimate Shield flying up ward rapidly(as rapidly the Giganscudo can lift away from the terrible grasp of gravity) before... letting off all powers. On Lucifer, they call that a Death from Above. Except Gigan is 200 tons.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Good work, Luddite."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "Almer....are you away?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "The ship's taking off."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "We'll cover your escape, Almer. Amenthes, head into the Hammer's Hangar bay. We're retreating as soon as Almer's away."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I am staying near the Freighter until it has enough distance."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Understood. Continuing to engage in the meantime."

Pascal was weirded out when he found out Muspelheim had eye lasers, too.

Muspelheim definitely does not like eating grenades, however. It reels back in an explosion as chunks of steel fall off of its cracked maw, electrical sparking and some kind of glowing machine fluid dripping from the damaged areas. It can still talk, probably because it isn't moving its mouth when it speaks.

"Shut up. He's dead anyway, so you're wasting his time! As soon as I finish--" For a moment, the dragon hesitates, reeling back and lashing as if struggling against something. The eyes flicker and the flames around it flare up, and for a second, Camille might hear something.


 * I'm still here! Whoever you are. Please let them know, I don't have much time but--*

The desperate Newtype 'voice' is cut off by a wave of rage and hunger, the message drowned out. "You're like HIM, aren't you? Another one. That just means I have to get rid of you sooner..." Muspelheim's long body lashes around, and the end of its tail bursts into flames and lashes hard at the Gundam.

Staren is unaffected by the feeling of hate. Yet he winces at her words. But he doesn't take his focus off the battle. The Star Hawk suddenly twists out of the way of the beam saber, and tries to grab the leg, to keep the Gouf off-balance.

"I _KNOW_ THAT! It also has people like Dr. Hell and Gym Ghingnham... and then it also has people like _you_. You just want to help Mars. Federation tyranny is terrible here, and it seems like _anything_ would be better, and the Crusaders were your only other choice even if they're not perfect, because you can't overthrow governments by yourself... But how do you know you aren't just trading one tyrant for another? Wouldn't Mars be better off without _either_?!"

He yanks the leg to pull the Gouf closer, and it almost looks like he's going to... hug her?!

Wait, no, he's just stabbing those spike things into the RF Gouf's sides. Phew. That woulda been awkward.

She disappeared--

T-Teleported?!! But how is that possible, on a machine that size? A jump like that would require tremendous amounts of power, wouldn't it? Rachel's mind runs ablaze with all of these wild thoughts and theories-- some instantly explained down by vague fragments and bits of knowledge that come from the footprints of another in her mind and soul once before. All she knows for sure is that there is one hell of an arrow coming her way.

And it means to hurt her.

Rachel's eyes clamp shut as her forearms cross over her chest, left over right, and the legs swing forward. The Zeta's matching pose seems a little too animated to truly be a standard Mobile Suit-- and that is when the Bio Sensor catches the risen emotions within her, the survival instinct--

-- and then the Zeta Gundam starts to glow. Washed in the fiery arrow, it's only after those few tense moments that it becomes clear the Gundam is unharmed by the attack, encased in a shining marble of golden light-- a sphere, formed by thin, small arcs of light that wick out of the body.

Rachel's eyes open, and she exhales one deep breath.

"You can't... you /won't/ win against me. Just back off and go home!!"

The sphere fades, but the Mobile Suit continues to glow. And then it /moves/, accelerating across the Martian sky in direct lines, making subtle corrections of course as it becomes a shining light in the sky. The legs swing one way, then another on the flight to help guide it's path from going way, way too fast. Rachel bares her teeth to the G-force, enough even in Martian space that it's a bit of a strain.

But then, two beam sabers are in the Mobile Suit's hands.

Leading off with the back-gripped blade, Rachel starts to cut and slash in sweeping arcs at the Angelg with one arm and the other, trying to, oddly enough, /not/ strike the critical and typically most explosion-prone parts of the machine. She's aiming for the shoulders, for the head and neck-- but pointedly avoiding where, at least she surmises, the cockpit rests...

Puru Two's tone switches instantly once her attack is met with success, laughing gleefully as the ZZ goes down. "How's that? Are you ready to take me seriously now?" Her glee lasts precisely as long as it takes the Sword Breakers to return for a recharge, because in that instant, two of them go up in a rather violent explosion, obscuring the machine's upper half from sight for a moment.

The girl can be heard coughing over the radio for a moment, some of the thick smoke enveloping her machine evidently having made its way into the cockpit somehow. She's just about ready to hurl a few choice insults her opponent's way--

...when he makes her offer of some kind? It's a ridiculous one, too. There's absolutely no reason why she should agree to that, she was already going to kill him anyway. And yet... this is nothing less than an open challenge. He's saying that she'll never beat him. And that has a way of blinding her to more rational thinking, and she laughs once again, in much the same manner as before, except interspersed with the occasional cough. "Still trying to make deals at a time like this, Judau Ashta? I've come to expect such ridiculous things from you. Well, why not?! I'll play along, it's not like I will lose this time!"

After such a blatant challenge to her abilities, she's looking to end this quickly, and as such, it's time for the big guns. In a show of defiance, the Ashsaber just chucks the Beam Machine Gun and Laser Blade off to the side, they will no longer do. Instead, the large forked rifle known as the Halberd Shooter is brought to bear. No time for charging, she just fires off a quick snap shot with the weapon. But since this is the Halberd Shooter, a quick snap already means that a considerably wide blast of energy is sent towards the Double Zeta.

Adam Steiner frowns a little as the exchange between his mech and the Thunderbolt continues to result in a lot of missed shots. Some missiles are shot his way, but Adam isn't willing to even try and dodge, his tactic right now requiring him to put as much pressure as he can on the pursuit. Instead, he relies on his Anti-Missile System, which shoots down a few of the missiles, but a few more get though, slamming into the mech all across the armor, doing a modest amount of damage all along the torso.

"I can keep this up longer than you can," Adam remarks to himself, though he's forced to hold his ranged fire at the moment. His heat is spiking too high, and while he could plink away with shots, he'd rather let it cool a bit and keep the option to fire everything if an opening presents itself.

That all changes when another machine comes out of nowhere, weapons shredding right though his rear armor! Alarms sound though his mech as damage reports come in from the rear armor across the torso and left leg. Adam is lucky that the pilot isn't attacking the leg actuators, or he'd be hamstrung right now. Instead they went for the internals in the leg, which get considerably wrecked, but not badly enough to hinder movement. More troubling is the torso damage, which doesn't quite manage to damage the fusion engine, but would have certainly blown any ammo he had if this unit wasn't an all-energy machine.

"Ugh! Can't take another hit like that," Adam mutters as his machine stops, carries it's momentum down around in a tight circle, and holds the gleaming mech-scale sword high for a moment. "So I'll have to take you down fast!" The sword is brought down in one single, powerful stroke, the entire weight and momentum of the mech being put behind a single downward snap, the blade shooting forward right for the enemy mech's hip, Adam's aim to bisect the hip joint of this new foe in one powerful hit and separate its top half from its bottom.

"You don't understand --"

Roux feels a sudden surge of energy.

She draws the Z-II back sharply, dipping like a swallow away from the Bawoo's strike. As she does, a sudden torrent of force flows through her mind. Like she's just been poured out of the cup of her body, spreading across the battlefield --

All of them hanging there like sparkling jewels, she thinks irrelevantly. The smoky topaz of Glemy before her; a glittering ruby for Rachel, a dark-toned sapphire -- Camille? she thinks. Others as well, but there is a blinding outwards surge at the sight of what - who? she thinks, her head turning fractionally in the several milliseconds that the psionic inspiration lasts.

But that Silmaril-like brilliance is coming from...

The Double Zeta??

And yet even as this happens, Roux feels her hand move, slowly and languidly and with a curious thrill, as if through a perfectly heated bath. She hears herself speaking, or remembers speaking. It is with the perfect delivery of a born actress. "I have no choice!"

The Mega Beam Rifle is raised up almost casually, held with one hand as it's pivoted towards the dark form of the Bawoo. The trigger is pulled four times, each shot aimed towards one of the machine's limbs. A mirroring perhaps of Glemy's own technique?! Roux herself feels her eyes roll back and slips into an extremely momentary swoon, however, as the hateful pull of Martian gravity draws her fully back into her body.

Alexis hadn't noticed the Efreet earlier, her tunnel vision so great that even Sam fighting the nearby Giganscudo didn't get her attention. It's only when the mobile suit jumps in to swordfight Adam that she finally realizes there are more than two people on this battlefield, which does a lot to get her head back on straight and downgrade wide-eyed terror to just very worried apprehension. She quickly turns the MASC system off, grateful for the chance to reverse throttle and walk backwards from the Berserker now that Adam is busy with his new foe. It's a very welcome respite, letting her step far enough away to use her own array of lasers and the particle cannon at a comfortable medium range to try building on what Sam has begun with his sword-fighting. She's not aiming for anywhere in particular, now too far out to easily target specific parts of his 'Mech... general hits to the Berserker will do fine.

"The Ark Hammer is charging some kind of high-density ion weapon!" Caesar realizes. "They're firing!"

"Evasive manuevers!" shouts Bright.

Torres's fingers wrap around the controls. "H-HANG ON!" He yanks back -- hard. Every bit of his strength, shoulders and back, go into the most difficult manuever of his life.

The young helmsman winces at first, eyes gritting down as he puts everything he has into it. It strains at his arms, tightening at his biceps and works its way up to his shoulders. "...NNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" he cries.

Every inch of the Argama -creaks-, as the gravity of Mars bares down on the battleship. Its main engine block blasts with hot blue flames, propelling the ship forward for the Ark Hammer. Secondary thrusters kick in, supplying additional push. The Argama is elevating and fast -- pulling an unheard-of J-shaped curve as it bears directly on the Crusader dreadnaught.

The Ion Beam lances out...

...and the Argama favors its portside -hard-. It twists forward, passing its starboard-side launcher up.. and over the Ion blast! It screams across the length of the ship harmlessly, likely to disintegrate something in the distance.

Such is war.

"Ready all weapons!" Bright says as he lurches forward in his chair -- a hard proposition, considering the heavy G-forces buffeting every inch of his ship.

Meanwhile in the cafeteria, Mondo Agake shoves an entire hamburger into his mouth and happily chews.

OM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM NOM.

..nearby, Inno Abbav blinks. "Hey, uh, Mondo. Aren't you supposed to be manning the mega particle cannons.. in case we need them?"

"...."

Mondo Agake's eyes go wide. "OH SHIT."

He suddenly goes running off for the gun control room.

"Charge mega-particle cannons! Ready all missile batteries!" Bright rattles off the laundry list of details that go into attacking another ship. With an ounce of strength, he leaps out of his seat and stands forward, sweeping his hand outward in a side-chop.

..and somehow, Bright Noa's image is projected outside of the Argama. Awesome speed lines race past him as sweeps his hand out and demands action.

"Target the enemy battleship! Full ordinance, maximum kill-yield! Heavy bombardment... FIRE!!"

..and then Bright disappears, leaving the Argama to speed forward and begin its torrential assault.

The laser rifle blast sheers through the hip of the Windam, causing an internal explosion. "Nhhg!" The Windam recoils from the Armored Core. "Damnit." She isn't about to let the Divine Crusaders win this.

The hip armor of the Windam opens up and presents the handle of a short throwing knife to it's hand, but htere isn't enough room /too/ throw it.

Instead, the Windam drives right back in and uses the short blade to slice at the Hogire and trying to drive it like a wedge between it's head and shoulders, cutting through what would be it's throat.

Then leaves it there so it can explode.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Ark Hammer, retreat and follow the freighter. I will be right with you."

Erika grits her teeth as the leg is caught and her Gouf is yanked off balance. But before Staren can embrace her with hot plasma-y doom, she raises both arms to her sides and uses them to fend of the attack, holding the spikes at bay as plasma leaks out across her armor. "You are /just/ like everyone else!" Erika clenches the controls until her knuckles go white, "Always saying you'll do what's right and offering help, even when you can't do anything to change what's happening! But what Mars needs right now is /STRENGTH/! We are tired of words, but most importantly, we are tired--" The Gouf surges with power as it throws Staren's arms away from it, then takes a brief hop back and launches into the air, it's beam sword held high as it descends. "OF EMPTY PROMISES!"

<Radio> Tightbeam to Bass Nahor: Ascian Luddite, "You may retreat. Our mission is complete. You will be sent money for work well done, and a small bonus for help on your repairs. Please - do business with us again."

Smoke plumes over the Ashsaber; Judau Ashta can hear coughing. Distantly, he wonders if he overdid it. But--

"She's way too tough for that," he correctly surmises as the smoke wafts into the endless skies to reveal the damaged, but intact Ashsaber, casting its weapons to the side.

"Maaannnnn, still though, I was really hopin' that would do the trick, too!"

But Puru Two's words ring loud and clear; clearer still is the sight of electricity arcing between what looks like the prongs of a tuning fork. That, Judau decides, does not look like a good sign. "Aaaahhhh damn damn damn damn--"

A brief flash, and the Halberd Shooter launches off a wide burst. "--dammit!!" And the Double Zeta lunges. Right into the blast. "AAAAAHHHHH THIS REALLY WASN'T A GREAT IDEA--"

Metal protests as the Double Zeta swings its arms up to intercept the blast in a cross formation. Multi-toned energy washes over those appendages likd a turbulent wave, the force enough to cause the ZZ's cockpit to rattle within its well-armored chest. The force is enough to even slow the Gundam down...

... But it's not enough to stop it as it pierces THROUGH the shot, energy finally cleaved in twain by two large beam sabers held by blackened, crackling arms. Beam sabers that continue their stroke by changing the direction /downward/ to slice into the torso of the Ashsaber in an cross formation.

In the back of his mind, Judau Ashta feels something distant but familiar tickling at the back of his brain. For now, he disregards it to focus on his -- this is important.

Inside of the cargo bay, Axel begins to remove the heavily damaged MOSPEADA. The armor folds off him -- and rather than fold into a storage block mode, it sort of bends over on itself and turns into a hunched over, headless body with no hands or feet. Almer stands backward and frowns, before he groans and starts walking away.

He begins to make his way towards an elevator. He wants to get up to the bridge, and will head that way unless stopped.

"My Lady. Deck 2 reports a hull breach." "So where are the repair drones?" "Already sealed ma'am." "Good. Prepare Anti-ship Torpedoes. Charge the Ion Cannon for another shot." She then recieves a transmission from the Amenthes and smiles. "Acknowledged Amenthes. Retreating now. Don't be too long, Amenthes." She says before turning. "helm. Take us out. Power down the weapons. All power to shields. Begin Charging the Jump drive. As soon as the Amenthes is aboard, we'll jump. Set course for the Earth Cradle." The Ark Hammer begins turning away from the area and starts for space, and it's fighter squadrons starts for orbit as well.....

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Ark Hammer, come in."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "Acknowledges Amenthes. Retreating now. Don't be too long....""

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "hmm?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Clear the deck, the freighter will land on the Ark Hammer, and move to the coordinates I am sending you now."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "Opening hangar doors. We have fighters to retrieve too, Amenthes."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "No need, Amenthes is in perfect condition."

Glemy has no choice either -- specifically, no choice but to break the Bawoo into Attacker and Nutter in a last-ditch effort to escape. The limbs are hit mid-transformation, leaving the Bawoo an awkward, barely-spaceworthy wreck of a machine that doesn't quite so much 'fly' as it does 'wobble through the air embarassingly.'

It does manage to float through the air for about thirty seconds, placing itself very nearly off the battlefield; however, all at once it comes tumbling down again, smashing pseudo-Nutter first into the ground and breaking neatly in half, proving its ridiculous splitting model out as an overdesigned piece of shit.

Glemy doesn't say anything. Unconsciousness is great for that.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I am retrieving Glemy Toto's unit."

Macua Huitl looks up at the huge machine comming in at her, she make a stupid move and throws the damn heat hawk at the Ultimate Shield, this is going to force her to go open up with her own ranged weapons at this point. She'll have to recover the heathawk in a moment. She now opens fire with the chest mounted guns at Tasuk's machine and findally he does get a reply.

"What?!" The voice is distorted though someone's using a voice scrambler today it seems like. She's not mad at tasuku prehaps it's just the situation.

The Amenthes escorts the freighter out of the range of the enemy forces - the transport quickly drifting past. From the top, this would look like a giant square-grid with a isometric view of the craters and mountains and buildings -- and little faces indicating the enemy. And the freighter quickly goes to the edge of the map, where there is a yellow block around Divada's unit, and disappears on board of it.

The Amenthes however, remains hanging at the edge of the map. A reticule kind of circles above, as it views the entire battlefield - units spread all over the place. Then finally, when Glemy's unit suddenly moves nearly off the map, Ascian's unit suddenly speeds forth.

Its wings spread, crimson firey energy once again flushing the air above the red planet, traveling straight towards Glemy's unit, until it lands straight in front of it - rifle aimed at Roux as a deterant... but it's not firing. Though it definitely is charging the weapon!

The tendrils at the back of the unit grapple for the downed Bawoo, and wraps around it in order to pick it up. A direct transmission is set up with Roux. "We will be leaving this place. Please do not try to follow, or fire at me, because you WILL NOT get away in one piece." The unit then begins to float back up, carrying the heavy Bawoo.

That was new.

Echidna has seen forcefields before; very little in the field of mobile suits is entirely new. She has not seen them /here/, though, and that is enough to make her typically unexpressive face move; she frowns when she sees the flaming arrow of light simply break apart on the shield, wisps of fire trailing behind the Zeta.

She moves, instantly. The sword comes out again, and Angelg attempts to counterattack - but Echidna can find no time to do so, and has to settle for parry after parry, each one causing a spray of sparks from the larger super robot's weapon. Echidna keeps up the rhythmic defense.

And then, uncharacteristically, she has an insight. This is not a Newtype insight; Echidna is biologically incapable of such a thing. Even the regular sort, though, is not something she normally does; instincts are for people.

Echidna suddenly thrusts without seeing an opening. The blade never gets anywhere near the Zeta but Echidna didn't think it would; all she wanted was to convince the Zeta to focus the shield in that direction and ideally dodge while her free hand, the one with the shield, rains Shadow Lancers at point-blank range into the mobile suit.

"Pull back," Echidna transmits, suddenly, "and I will retreat."

People are exploding all over the place. Sam isn't sure what kind of ridiculous bullshit Katharon is pulling /now/, but it isn't really helping their situation. Axel at least is evacuating successfully, so all they have to do is hold them off... and he feels a little bad that he cut up some, on second glance, /really/ fancy-looking BattleMech like that.

Well, fair is fair--which is probably why he almost gets cut in two. Sam suddenly has this /feeling/ as he starts to break off, something he can't explain. It's a nagging thought, a persistent... what, exactly? He stumbles for words. "This... this /pressure/, is this a--"

NEWTYPE(?!) FLASH!

The EXAM System saves Flynn's life. He suddenly thrusts one of the heat sabers into the air, up and outward. The heated edge shoots sparks as it clashes with the 'Mech's sword, and if it had struck dead-on, the weight would have carried right through the red-hot weapon. It didn't. The deflection is perfect, a fencer's parry, knocking the blade off-course with uncanny finesse instead of raw power.

The other sword darts in. It jabs into a portion of weakened armor and dips beneath the surface, the heat saber leaving a nasty gouge that was perfectly aimed for the gyro without even a moment of forethought. It doesn't have the force to penetrate, and he draws both weapons back and flies straight backwards, away from the Berserker and around again.

"Sorry Marikite, I'm putting my money on the Steiner," Flynn suddenly transmits. He blitzes past Alexis's Thunderbolt with the heat sabers out, spinning like he was dancing on the sand and using the whirl of blades like a buzzsaw aimed precisely at the 'Mech's waist and the servo controlling it's rotation on the way past.

The EXAM Efreet gives off a distinctly unsettling feeling, though what it is exactly isn't apparent. Sam doesn't even notice, letting the presence guide him as the activation limit ticks down.

Macua Huitl looks up at the huge machine comming in at her, she make a stupid move and throws the damn heat hawk at the Ultimate Shield, this is going to force her to go open up with her own ranged weapons at this point. She'll have to recover the heathawk in a moment. She now opens fire with the chest mounted guns at Tasuk's machine and findally he does get a reply.

"What?!" The voice is distorted though someone's using a voice scrambler today it seems like. She's not mad at tasuku prehaps it's just the situation.

She's barely avoided getting sat on by the Gigan with is a fate that few would enjoy and she'd prefer to not be a pancake.

Dead?! Then were the please of Judau and Amuro pointless?! For a moment, Camille wavers in uncertainty. There'd be no reason to restrain himself if the pilot's life was no longer a consideration..

But then a pleading voice echoes in the Newtype's mind. A voice he doesn't know, but nonetheless tries to reach him. He instinctively 'reaches' back, trying to get something, anything. 'Let who know? What are you trying to tell me?'

But it's too late, the voice was quenched by the oppressive other that must have been the machine itself. For Camille, it was like a curtain lifted from his mind's eye even as he felt the awareness of Rachel and Roux spill into his consciousness like wine from sexy-shaped decanters.

"I see." The Newtype nods to himself, hand clenced around the Zeta's controls, "I get it now."

The burning tail lashed at the Zeta Gundam. It did not dodge, but /caught/ the burning appendage in its bare hand, steel grip closing, ideally keeping it from using it even if it costs some damage to the arm as it melted and fused with circuits and alloys. "You're something like the Psyco Gundam except maybe worse." He seethed with renewed angery now that he knows another Newtype is trapped in that hellish machine, "A system that violate the pilot's mind, bending them to it's own well. Even in La Gias, you make such terrible things..." He doesn't know the man inside, what he is a good, bad or simply normal person. It didn't matter. No one deserved that kind of fate, except maybe Haman Karn, who'd probably willingly inflict it on herself anyways. The Zeta tore free of it's imposed confines regardless of damage, beam sword flaring anew in the other hand.

"I WON'T LET YOU HAVE HIM!!!"

SOME TIME AGO

"Listen closely Camille." Amuro Ray was clearly running out of patience trying to teach his alleged second coming much of anything, but there was some merit in trying, "If you ever find yourself needing to cut the cockpit out of an enemy mobile suit in a series of precise and delicate beam sword strokes, you mus-are you even paying attention?!"

"Absolutely, one hundred percent." Camille flipped a page through a nudie mag (Marked: PROPERTY OF KAI SHIDEN), "Go on, I'll remember."

NOW

"/Shit/!" Camille cursed, mind racing for where the cockpit on a mobile suit like that must be, "Here goes nothing!!!" The chest, of course. You kept everything in the chest.

Beneath its neck is the Rosenthal's last remaining coolant line; the moment it's severed, Bass has no choice but to disengage as quickly, as safely, as efficiently as humanly possible. He jams the Rosenthal's free hand into the Windam's body to forcibly create a little bit of space between them before the knife can dig in too deeply, and from there he engages its thrusters to leap away from the Windam.

He'll /keep/ leaping away until he's a safe distance away, at which point he'll climb out and let the thing melt down at its own leisure; some corp or another will be able to get him a new one anyway, if need be.

He probably won't bother using it unless he's on a sortie in Antarctica, though.

Roux breathes heavily, recovering herself after that strange reaching-out. The Z-II moves carefully more or less towards the Argama but doesn't shoot anyone. Maybe its rifle needed a cool down cycle. Yeah, we'll go with that.

Putting the Ark Hammer on blast wasn't enough. Bright Noa watches helplessly as the Crusader battleship turns for orbit and flies beyond the Argama's reach.

- Ark Hammer has withdrawn from battle! - - Glemy Toto has been defeated! - - Bass Nahor has been defeated! - - Briareos has been defeated! - - Axel Almer has withdrawn from battle! -

MASTERY CONDITIONS:

Axel Almer dead 0/1 (Failed) Glemy Toto dead 0/1 (Failed) Ark Hammer destroyed 0/1 (Failed)

MISSION FAILED

"Ark Hammer and Axel Almer have withdrawn from battle!" Caesar reports unhappily. "They're already on to Earth!"

"... Damn it!" Bright cusses, slamming his fists against the arm-rests of his chair. "We let them get away! What the hell were those Federation idiots doing in distracting us!?"

Bright reaches back for his command phone, dutifully informing his crew. "We weren't able to stop Axel Almer and the Crusaders from leaving Mars! I'm scrubbing the mission, everyone begin falling back to the Argama at once!"

Staren gets out the hybrid swords to block, but too late. The beam sabers leave glowing scars across his armor. "Rrgh... What am I supposed to do?! I can't join the crusaders! Even if they did help mars, I can't turn the Earth over to new tyrants!" The order to retreat comes through. "Dammit... Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT!" The Star Hawk starts backing away. "I hope that we'll be able to help while we're here. But if we're forced to return to Earth... then I'm sorry. If I can ever help mars without betraying my own home, I'll do what I can. Until then... I guess we'll keep being enemies when we meet! And you'd better live each time, so that one day you can see a free Mars!" The Star Hawk leaps into the air and then takes off for the Argama at astounding speed for such a heavy-looking suit.

Absolutely, one hundred percent accurate. Camille's sword strikes true, carving a very careful chunk out of the Muspelheim's chest. Chunks of steel, eerie-looking machinery and strange tubes filled with something glowing and burning-hot fall out, leaving a nasty, gutted hole in that part of the machine.

And no pilot.

In the Muspelheim's large head, (sorry, Camille,) the pilot inside widens his eyes and grabs his chest, shuddering for a moment in extreme pain. The physical shock is enough that for a moment, a chain is lifted and a wall cracks within Pascal's mind, and the voice who speaks briefly-pained and weak-is different somehow. And has a slight French accent, incidentially.

"...Tell them I am going to hold on as long as I can, okay? No matter what he says, I'm still here. I won't let him...let him..."

The voice changes again as Muspleheim seizes control once more, its flight pattern wavering from the damage it's taken. "I didn't create myself, human! I was created by a human just like you, to do just this! A human who didn't even finish the job! Do you think you can 'fix' me?!" Whatever THAT last bit meant, it's unclear-because a moment later, the serpent tears free, flying after its DC brethren while the runes on its body flicker.

Well, that settles it. Judau Ashta is completely crazy. Puru Two can't believe her eyes when he actually dives /into/ the blast to get at her. It's unexpected enough to provoke a fearful reaction, especially when the ZZ manages to carve its way /through/ it somehow. "Wh-what?! What are you... stay away from me!"

The Ashsaber responds by... fleeing. There's no other word for it, the machine just dashes in reverse as fast as the pilot can make it go, ending up much, much further away from the Gundam than was necessary. "Are you completely insane?! You're acting like one of those crazy Super Robot pilots!" The accusation is spit out as if it was some kind of horrible insult. She levels the Halberd Shooter for another shot...

Or she would have, but she ends up extending an empty hand instead. She dropped the weapon in her hurried scramble to get away. Argh, how could she be such a klutz?! "Damn you, Judau Ashta! Look what you made me do!" Blaming him for everything, of course. He's already guilty of the crime to try and stay alive, he can't sink much lower than that.

And then yet /another/ thing hits her fragile mind. "...Glemy? Glemy, what happened to you...?" With that on top of everything else, something just sort of... snaps in Puru Two's mind. There's a loud yell, and the Ashsaber suddenly speeds forward, the pilot flying into a berserk-like rage. Ironically, she's ended up doing a similarly crazy thing to the one that Judau just did. Especially because she's doing this without any weapons.

Or is she? As it turns out, Puru Two brought /two/ Laser Blades to this fight, and the second now flares to life as she seeks to carve up the ZZ in whatever way possible, striking again and again to try and brute force her way past those more powerful beam sabers.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "Good work, people."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Axel Almer transmits, "I owe you."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "The Divine Crusaders will always have a loyal ally in BAHRAM."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "Speaking of which, Amenthes....."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Woah--uh, n, no problem!"

Disorted voice. Well, considering what kind of attack this is, on the DC with the Federation caught in the middle. Go figure. "What the hell was that this all about!? You--" Shinguji pause, a prompt of every ships with the Alpha Numbers' other units present. The one BattleMech, a Berserker class, apparently, seems to be roughly beaten up, but the Windam of Meiya is in rather critical shape. Time to do what he does best, besides sit down on people. "Hey," Shinguji's voice suddenly shift, to a distracted on, just as twin beam cannon blasts rattles into the frame of the ancient monster. "Hold on a min, 'kay?" Without anything further to say, the Giganscudo turns around, blasting away and heading straight for the Windam, shadowing the smaller mech with it's frame as several repair arms unfolds from it's back, effectuating some quick and dirty repairs on it. Armor is refused together, some replacement electronics. Some good ol' jury-rig. "Here we goooo! Hey, Meiya, y'hanging in there?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> BAHRAM command announces, "To all units. Retreat from the combat theater. This war is expensive enough on us, any additional losses will be costly. Also, we are making the NUT facility available for repairs -- the coordinates will be sent to you. The mission is a success. Good job people."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Pascal Ambler transmits, "Muspelheim... retreating."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "The Ark Hammer has repair facilities...."

When Roux doesn't attack the Amenthes, the unit turns about and flies straight up towards the Ark Hammer at the edge of the map, gets on board... and the Ark Hammer disappears entirely from the map.

On board, Axel Almer finds himself perfectly able to find his way to the bridge of the freighter, or even off of the freighter. Nobody is stopping him. The only thing that might give him trouble is the hangar suddenly opening up to let in a perfectly in shape Amenthes, and a trashed Bawoo in its 'tailfeathers' -- closing right behind it.

The machine gets set down peacefully, after which the Amenthes lands its feet to the metalic flooring and begins to wander to one of the nearest walls... then suddenly kind of... flops down onto its knees - puts its hands on the 'knees', and retracts the wings around it: making it easy for the framerunner to disembark.

The glowing Zeta Gundam is perhaps a little more intimdiating than the others-- even with the difference in sizes. The eyes glow green through the gold, the iconic V-crest on the forehead is black rather than gold, and the pseudo-camoflague print that rips across the paint are all accentuated in this state. It may make no sense to Echidna, but that glow is her feelings, her /heart/-- strengthened and given form by the Bio Sensor.

Blades clash against each other time and again, sparks fly and flame chases some of the more brutal collisions, but it becomes clear after a few moments that neither of them are going to get the upper hand. That is, until Echidna raises the stakes a bit, breaking out the Shadow Lancers for one more point-blank barrage.

The beams rip and rain across the armor, even while Rachel does her best to defend herself against it. Pulling back, the beam saber in the right arm readies for another go, and then stops as Bright Noa's voice rings out over the comms. The Red Zeta pulls back while the retreat notice fires across her screens, staring at it in some level of dismay. Rachel tightens her jaw...

... and then the sabers disengage all at once, returned to their racks as the Gundam looks down on the Angelg from above. The legs spin, arms shift, and the damaged shield moves into place, the Zeta Gundam P2/3C Type becoming a golden streak of movement blazing toward the Katharon troop line.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "You are not likely to have the supplies necessary to repair Angelg. I will pull back, however."

Adam is put in a very difficult position here. With someone attacking behind him, he's forced to expose his rear armor to one of his enemies to fight the other one. On top of that, he fails to manage any damage at all to his target one more, this odd machine moving just a bit too fast to deal notable damage. "Arg! I can't manage to land a hit on anything out here!"

Again, more attacks come at Adam, and out of position as he is, they strike against the back of his mech, doing considerable damage across the rear armor, stray beam fire striking into the internals and damaging the workings of his mech a lot more than he's like. Things look pretty bad..but then the pilot of the smaller, fast-attack unit completely jumps away and goes to attack the one he was fighting.

"Who are these guys?" Adam inquires to nobody in particular as he turns again. All he knows is, he can't let this fight continue. It's moving into complete chaos here. So which one is the bigger threat... It looks like the Thunderbolt wasn't damage too badly by the attack, but the fast-attack unit probably will fly off to somewhere else.

"Alright, let's end this now!"

After a moment, Adam decides to go with the threat he knows instead of the one he doesn't. His mech still running hot, he charges in, picking up speed quickly as the sword is raised again, this time bring brought around in a broad, torso-high swing. His primary goal is to strike though the center torso armor of the Thunderbolt, hopefully screwing the power systems and disabling the machine.

Echidna Iisaki may be a horrible attack robot - but she keeps her word, unless she has a reason not to.

Echidna does not follow the red Zeta. Angelg merely floats there for several seconds before turning, wings beating strongly as it accelerates, apparently going to catch up with the DC ships midflight. Her goal, after all, is achieved - Axel is retrieved, which is what she wanted. Anything else is a waste of resources and time.

Macua Huitl pauses at the radio transmission from bright, the Jenice pauses at Tasukue for a moment tit shifts quickly scoops up the heat hawk, and then the machine pulls way, turns and runs.

"Head hunting Almer."

The Jenice turns and heads aways from the fight going full throttle for the Argama. The Jenice does pause once to look back at Adam Steiner's machine for a moment. Before it turns and gets the hell out of here. It's really time to go and she's not wanting to stay much longer.

Alexis is given a huge surprise when the Efreet's pilot goes from attacking Adam, to going after her! Is this pilot some sort of lunatic? Apparently so, when he talks about who he has money on... she can only manage a stunned "What?" in lack of comprehension. She doesn't have to understand his motives right now anyway; she needs to understand the heat sabers trying to carve into her Thunderbolt's torso. She once again offers up her Thunderbolt's left arm as a sacrifice to her attacker's blade, torso-twisting to put it between her 'Mech's torso and the heat sabers while throwing her mech into erratic turns... anything to throw his aim off. These very same efforts are used to defend herself against Adam Steiner, as he closes in and strikes... and almost lops the arm clean off! It hangs on by a few wires and myomer strands, effectively disabled and had his aim been only a bit more on-point, he likely could have cleaved through the limb and into the torso past it. As his strike ends, Alexis triggers her jump jets to rocket away, spinning in mid-air and landing with her back turned to both Adam and Samuel. The legs lurch, that sign of MASC systems being engaged again as she begins running away from the battle as best she can... very much hoping she can get back to the Argama and jump-jet back aboard it. So much for headhunting Adam Steiner to deal a blow against either half of the Federated Commonwealth (Alexis is not rightly sure who he represents, presently)... she may be lucky to get out of here alive.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat transmits, "Samuel Flynn..." (Why did the A.I. just randomly state his name?)

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn grunts.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Echidna Iisaki transmits, "Preparing to dock. Please note Angelg is quite large and will require additional berth space."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Duat suddenly comments, "Don't you grunt at me!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn, startled, "Uh, sorry?"

Beam sabers collide with the Martian earth with such force they carve deep, smoking furrows alongside the Double Zeta. Judau squints a little at the empty space where Puru Two's Ashsaber used to be.

"Man, you gotta like -- stay still or somethin'!"

As indignant as this might sound, Judau's tone is still almost insufferable light-hearted. This is a serious situation. He knows that. He can feel the Muspelheim's presence fading away. Was that pressure before--

"I guess I am kinda dumb," he admits to Puru Two's accusations, even as the ZZ rears up to face the fleeing Ashsaber, dust and dirt wafting from its body in thin waves.

"But you want a serious fight, so I'm gotta give it my all, right?! I got things I've still gotta do!"

And then-- something-- snaps, like a thin red thread. Judau can feel it, and he can feel the torrential downpour of anger that comes from Puru Two after. Abruptly, the Ashsaber is no longer there.

Abruptly, it is carving the Double Zeta like a Thanksgiving turkey.

"What--?!"

Though the cut is shallow, the explosion that erupts from the already damaged ZZ is not; the Gundam bends backward from the impact, electricity surging across its green optics as it clenches its beam sabers tighter.

"P-Puru? Puru, what's wrong!? --Dammit!"

He doesn't have time to think or get through to her right now, though. All he can do is act. Beam sabers come down, to /stab/ the Ashsaber in its shoulder joints. If he can, Judau will imbed them there, and use them as a fulcrum to flip /over/ the Ashsaber, land behind it, rip the sabers free --

--and press its twin barreled rifle against the midsection of the Assault Dragoon to unload one bright and mighty crimson blast.

Erika huffs, letting her anger bleed out into the air. It's not his fault that she's so angry though. Between the issues with Karn and the renewed aggression against her home, she's strung tight and ready to snap. The Beam sword flickers briefly before disappearing, then the Gouf tenses and leaps away now that it's mission is accomplished.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Pascal Ambler transmits, "I am docking. I need repair."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "hmm... You'd be a tight fit in the hangar."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "I'm sure we can make room."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Divada Kirador transmits, "Right. Commander Helmsley... see if the Gunships can be moved to storage...."

Ah, so the cockpit was in the head. Whoops.

"I hate it when they build them that way." Camille muttered, perhaps feeling like Amuro Ray did once, long ago, when blowing the Zeong's body up did not in fact end the fight (Go go Team Char). Still, the message is received, and the Newtype nods his head, "I'll relay that. Good luck, whoever you are.."

And that's that. The unit is withdrawn, and the order to retreat has been given. Judau seems to still be locked in his own battle, but seeing as he has Rachel /and/ Roux backing him up if needed, the AEUG ace isn't too concerned for the ZZ pilot's health, despite the drama over the radio.

"I believe in Judau Ashta." Camille muttered, throwing up a bit in his mouth as he guided the Zeta into the hangar.

"I'm fine." Meiya responds as Tasuku repairs her machine. "But it looks like things are ending here. The enemy is in retreat, and so is Katharon." she watches th eHogire retreat until it's no long visible. "We should move to secure the area."

Everyone tells Judau they believe in him. Roux yells at him for defacing company property. This is even more embarrassing than feeling Glemy Toto slithering along her mind.

"/Dammit/" she mutters, the Z-II powering closer and circling around the ZZ's current location. Then she pauses, doing a double-take at the radio.

Then, /oh/. Right. The space broccoli.

Puru Two seems to have lost all capacity for rational thought, and when that happens there really is only one thing to do. Disable her as quickly as possible, because she sure as heck isn't going to stop for any other reason.

For all the dumbness that he claims, Judau seems to have figured out at least that much. The Ashsaber gets pinned like a butterfly, stopping the blade assault dead in its tracks when the limb requires to swing it goes limp as a result. The subsequent acrobatics allow him to take further advantage, blowing the Personal Trooper down to the ground, nearly ripped in half. Nearly, but not quite. The two halves are still connected by their wiring, even if the armor in its midsection is just about completely gone.

The sudden vicious attack, and all the alarms blaring around her, seem to have been enough to snap the pilot out of her moment of irrational uncontrollable rage. Make no mistake, she's still seriously pissed off, evidenced by how she slams a hand down on the alarm override to shut them up. But at least she's capable of realising a few things. Such as that the mission is already over, and she could end up left behind if she doesn't get out of here. Also, how her machine is almost in two pieces and lost most of its weapons, which doesn't give her much of a chance at victory anymore anyway.

And so, after a moment of deliberation, Puru Two just throws up her hands. "Never mind! It doesn't matter anymore! I..." Oh, this is a hard one to say. It takes her a moment to force it out of her throat. "I c... guh... I c-concede this battle. Okay? You've won! You happy now?!" If guilt tripping Judau is the only small victory that she can still attain here, then she'll take it.

The Ashsaber manages to slowly scramble back to its feet, still functional despite looking like it might come apart at the seams at any moment. Before she leaves, though, Puru Two still has something to say. She has many faults, but she doesn't break her promises.

"Lady Haman... I've decided to put a stop to her madness. For Glemy. For Neo-Zeon. This... things can't go on like this." The Ashsaber bends down to collect the fallen Halberd Shooter. Still, there's no more signs of aggressiveness. She just doesn't want to lose that weapon. The others are expendable. Instead, she activates her machine's still-functional thrusters and starts to back away.

"She thinks I'm on her side. I'll bring her what she wants, then strike when she least expects it. But, if I fail..." Well, it should go without saying what she thinks will happen then, so she doesn't bother voicing that part. Instead, she ends that thought with, "...I'll leave it to you, Judau Ashta. You act like a total clown, but I know your power. I know you can stop her. So you'd better do it, you hear me?!" Spitting out the last part like she were barking orders, she turns her unit around and rushes to follow the retreating transport.

Meanwhile, the Red Zeta stands on the Argama's bow after a shift to Mobile Suit mode, watching the battle below with an intent, worried, vaguely frowny-type face. Rachel's worried about Judau, and worried about getting the ol' open-hand greeting from Bright when she does make it back inside-- but right now, she's got other things to think about.

Sam is kind of a nutjob right now, and he is pretty sure it has to do with actually getting this thing to work. The Efreet takes off into the desert, chasing the retreating Divine Crusader ship and the scattered units it carries. He disappears in a dust cloud, streaking into the distance... and then hits the button.

EXAM SYSTEM: OFFLINE

"Aaagh, that was /crazy/," he says with a sigh. Sam pulls off his helmet and runs a hand through his hair, letting the feeling of a presence vanish. He keeps his foot on the proverbial gas, and, with a cloud of red, the Efreet rides off into the sunset...!

Then, as suddenly as the fight started, both the enemy units break off, leaving Adam Steiner no idea why the fight began, or why it ended. All he knows is that, at roughly the same time, most of the non-Federation forces broke off their their respective evacs.

Adam could follow (Or at least attempt to) but he didn't come here to score kills, he came here to secure this place and protect the people here. To do that, he's got to stick around.

"Alright Spector," Adam radios to his ship, "It looks like the enemy forces are breaking off. Try and track them as best you can, but don't put the Heart out there. We don't want to lose her to an ambush before she's even had her first day at the office. I'll stay down here and secure the area until things calm down."

After getting an acknowledgment from the ship, Adam opens a channel with the rest of the defenders. Guess it's time to introduce himself. "Attention EFA forces...This is Adam Steiner of the Lyran Commonwealth. I'm here to assist. Anybody need a hand out there?"

Alexis is fortunate in that the Efreet has left her alone and so had Adam Steiner, making the issue of just how durable her rear armor is really not that big a deal now. She eventually makes it back to the Argama, jump jets carrying her Thunderbolt onto the deck leading to the mobile suit hangar. She walks it back inside, turning to face the Martian sky as Judau bickers on the radio, stubbornly refusing to return despite the mission at hand being a failure. Not knowing the special circumstances at hand, she can't understand why he's being so thick-headed and has tried to talk him into coming back. He has refused. She sits there wondering what to do... what would her heroes do? They would in all likelihood send out at least one reasonably fast machine to run over and help Judau get clear, then bring him back. And with their elite skills, they could do it easily enough. Alexis on the other hand is not that good, and her Thunderbolt is not that fast. She knows that if she goes back out there to help, it will only throw Katharon's withdrawal into further disarray and could cost lives. It's an unhappy decision to make, but probably the smart one: Alexis parks her Thunderbolt and stays in the hangar.

"Yeah... It sure looks like it." Shinguji replies, unfolding back it's repairing arms into the Gigan's. "Apparently, they were after Almer, or something." Then, that guy in that BattleMech he helped out just a few minutes ago starts hailing them on the radio. "Oh, yes, actualy. This is Lieutenant Tasuku Shinguji, of the Alpha Numbers. We're with the EFA, Adam Stiner. Help us secure the permietre."

Smoke belches from the superheated rims of the ZZ's cumbersome rifle barrels as it lowers its weapon. The battle, for the most part, seems to have dissipated. Judau knows that the Muspelheim is gone now, too. Even as he prepares to defend himself if Puru Two attacks again, he knows, even if he succeeds here--

--He's also failed, too.

"... Dammit," he curses under his breath, even as the Ashsaber collapses. He remains tense for ten more seconds before he takes note of the fact that the enemy machine has been nearly split in half. Puru Two's words reach his ears seconds after this realization, and his brows scrunch up. Part of him /does/ feel guilty (way to go, /Puru Two/). But the other part--

"Whew! Damn, that was close!" --is the part that allows the ZZ to fall flat on its ass in a sitting position. "See? I told you I'd take it seriously! Heh heh!"

He definitely thought he was going to die for a second there

But Judau's levity comes to an end when the Ashsaber pulls back up onto its feet. Green eyes close in a slow, stupefied blink -- and his gaze transforms into a widened look of shock when he finally registers what she's saying. Haman--

Something familiar and disgusting creeps into his brain, and Judau forces himself to shake it off. "Wh-- that's dumb! What the hell are you thinking?! Puru, don't do somethin' like--" he abruptly shouts, but by the time he's registered the words -- the Ashsaber has already taken off in retreat.

"..." Judau Ashta frowns.

"Dammit, don't throw your life away for dumb things like that! I'm not gonna accept it, you hear me?!"

He shouts at nothing. He also forces the ZZ to kick a nearby boulder in nothing more than petulant frustration.

Seconds of silence pass as Judau watches that boulder tumble listlessly down the rocky Martian terrain.

"... Stupid!"

It's the last thing Judau mutters before the ZZ finally picks itself up, and walks off -- in the opposite direction, to the Argama.

He needs to come up with a /plan./

Roux transmits to the ZZ.

"Did you seriously just kick a rock??"

BUT THEN:

"Shut up, you can't tell me not to kick a rock!" And for emphasis, Judau will kick another. So there.

The Argama lingers for as long as its mobile suits are still on the field. Once they've recouped everyone, it begins speeding off for other parts of Mars.