2011-07-06 - Tank Raid

Somehow, Roruda Nell, quite possibly one of the least aggressive Zentradi known to humanity, volunteered himself to run a base raid. On Earth.

Somehow.

Of course, it's for something he needs. Life will be a lot more convenient for him if he can get ahold of a Miclonization tank-even if it's not completely intact, he could repair it. It's really only fair that he lead the Divine Crusader assault force, as this is kind of personal for him. Even if he'd take up the rear, or the middle, or really anywhere /but/ the head of the assault force...

Which is where he is. The Red Moon Armor greatly resembles a medium-size robot in the shape of a masked red 'sentai' superhero, complete with white scarf and helmet, but it's actually an armored and reinforced power suit for the young Zentradi. He's flying in towards Langley Base using the suit's jet thrusters, something like a red-clad Rocketeer, as he uses his radio to communicate with the other assualt team members.

"This is...T-team Leader, callsign Hepheastus. We're approaching the target. Iron Mask has given us two orders-recover a Miclonization tank and do as much damage to the base as possible in the meantime. Begin assault...!"

 Iron Mask transmits, "Your orders are clear, team leader Hepheastus. Let us descend immediately."

 Ouka Nagisa transmits, "Aurum-1 speaking. I am on standby for recovery and support. Stay safe, everyone."

Rezaline looks down at her hand, inside of the RX-99's cockpit. It will not stop shaking, She wishes it would, and she is grateful that no one can really see her hand with the cockpit. She swallows, then looks up, as the Red Moon Armor leads the way. Her eyes narrow, and she grasps the controls with both hands. With a quick urging, she feels the machine lurch forward.

"This is Rezaline Cassius," she says. "We're on your six, Hephaestus."

The blue and white Neo Gundam blitzes over the California lanslide, grass blasting up behind it. One finger hovers over the beam rifle's trigger. In the Gundam's hand, the large Generative Beam Rifle Device extends past its back, the thruster flaring to life to drive it forward that much faster.

 Iron Mask transmits, "Dorel. Are you prepared?"

 Roruda Nell transmits, "I am honored to have you on the mission, Iron Mask sir...!"

 Iron Mask transmits, "It is the duty of the nobility to serve the common man's needs."

 Iron Mask transmits, "It is my duty, my obligation, my honor, and my pleasure to support you in your endeavor, for the sake of Cosmo Babylonia and the Divine Crusade."

 Ouka Nagisa transmits, "I think I've heard of this... Noblesse oblige?"

 Iron Mask transmits, "It will also be an excellent opportunity to field-test the Berga Dalases. Yes, that is correct - the obligation of the nobility is the founding principle upon which the Cosmo Aristocracy rules."

 Samuel Flynn, offhandedly and half-listening, "Watch out for the wing cannons."

 Roruda Nell transmits, "The big guys looking out for the little guys is a nice philosophy..."

 Ouka Nagisa laughs softly, "Sorry... it was a bit funny to have you say that, Roruda."

 Iron Mask transmits, "All men in this world have duties to attend."

 Roruda Nell transmits, "Eheh..."

When the assignment came across her desk, Alina was one of the first to sign up for the mission. Normally, she might have cleared such a thing with her superior officer, but this time, the young framerunner makes the choice on her own. Something about Roruda - the Zentradi - she just didn't feel right letting him go into this without some backup. "This is assault Orbital Frame Mayet, pilot Mistwalker. Flying support for you, Hephaestus."

The white-haired girl sits back, lit by the glow of the metatron sweeping through the cockpit of her unit. The more bulky looking frame is sporting a particularly large gun held within her her hands. There is a pulse of energy that runs down through the Orbital Frame and down into the sniper rifle, even as she speeds along behind the others in the main assault force. "You've got backup if you need it." She switches off her main radio by tapping a finger to her helmet.

<"Miss Lin. Orders?"> With a small press of her lips together, Lin nods her head, gripping her fingers over the controls. "Keep an eye out for incoming, they'll probably have heavy defenses. We need to take fire away from Hephestus." For now, though, the Orbital Frame lingers back, ready to offer covering fire.

 Alina Luddite transmits, "This is assault Orbital Frame Mayet, pilot Mistwalker. Flying support for you, Hephaestus."

A Den'an Zon flies right behind the Red Moon. It's not Iron Mask's Kai, rather a simple, unnoteworthy unit used by many of the Crossbone Vanguard's soldier. Nothing about it really stands out, apart from the beam being emitted from its back in the shape of the Cosmo Babylonian flag. The pilot hasn't even said anything on the radio since he launched. Could he be too nervous to speak? Or maybe he's keeping an eye out for a surprise attack from Federation forces?

The reality is actually much simpler. Dorel Ronah just doesn't have anything to say. It's a basic mission, after all, nothing to really talk about. Just go in, grab a miclonization tank, smash the place up a bit, and leave. He doesn't even need his Berga Dalas for a mission this simple. By the look of it, the defenders haven't even mobilized to meet them yet.

Dorel reaches up to move a stray lock of hair away from his face, but remembers that he's wearing a helmet. No sense in taking it off, not this close to the enemy base. So he goes back to checking the radar, heat sensors, and other systems designed to scream at you when there's an enemy about to shoot your face. Nothing yet, but any second now...

The moment Alina signed up for the mission put up on the 'board' by Roruda, Ascian of course was not long to sign up for the same thing. In fact, it was exactly ten seconds later that the young man submitted his response to the assignment. Twins. Tisk. His own reasons were similar. He'd spoken to Roruda on the channel a few times before, and believed that the 'young man' could use the help. Besides, it wasn't like he had much better things to do at the moment.

So the young man is currently sitting in the Amenthes, tapping his fingers against the glowing half-orbs of his machine. The Phoenix styled machine flies right after the Mayet, its wings spread out far and leaving behind a trail of crimson feathers, falling and flaring in the skies like fiery embers. "You have my backup too." Ascian calls through the radio, after his sister calls out. The young man isn't wearing a helmet though. He rarely wears any protective gear when in combat. Probably should do something about that one of these days.

The machine then pushes past the Mayet along the left and rushes off towards Roruda's unit, and waves the Orbital Frame's hand at the man. Sitting on the left of the machine is a similar weapon being held by the Mayet. He then lets himself drift a bit back again and lets Duat, his on-board A.I. start creating visuals on all of his allies, so he can keep track of their status.

As always, it is the duty of the Crossbone Vanguard to support the citizens of Cosmo Babylonia. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, and the nobility's duty is to the common man, just as the common man's duty is to the nobility - thus is the guiding principle of the Cosmo Aristocracy as set down by Meitzer Ronah.

And despite the incapacitation of his Den'an Zon Kai, Iron Mask has rolled out to show his support to his loyal and brave citizenship as a soldier must. And more importantly, today is a perfect day to roll out one of the latest machines in the Cosmo Babylonia arsenal.

So Iron Mask has arrived in one of the brand new XM-04 Berga Dalas units, his own personal machine painted a gunmetal grey to match the color of his iron soul. The Berga Dalas's helmet-crest is painted a brilliant white, a clear reminder to the world around him just who this machine belongs to, as if there was any doubt. Iron Mask's personal ace colors, and a new test machine...

"The Berga Dalas will support you," Iron Mask radios the assault squad, coming into flank behind the red power armor, "Let us show them the might of the Crossbone Vanguard once again."

 Iron Mask transmits, "Team Leader Hepheastus, do you have a plan of attack?"

Russel Bagman was here the last time Langley fell, he lost a lot of friends that day, whose names are painted on the hatch of his Gespenst to this day. He will not let it happened, to another pack of crazed Spacenoids. He had been here to give a update to some of Lloyd's people about the Knightmare he's been using. Russel runs for the machine and scrambles up and barks an order.

"Get every mecha we have deployed."

He situates himself in the machine and puts on the headset, and the machine boots up, the Brit OS appears, with a short sound byte of their national anthem, he chedks his systems and it starts to power up in the hanger. The machine face opens and the scanners do a quick check while Russel has the machine reach out and grab a rifle off a wrack. The face closes again, while the mchine hunches over a bit and launches from the docking bay, around him Gespensts, M9 Armslaves, Helldivers Labors and Wanzers power up as their pilots scramble to deploy. Many of the machines bear the flag of America, it seems a number of American regular forces had still be stationed here, while Russel in his Knightmare speeds out, churning up dust as he goes.

Not again Russel thought, the last time the DC siege of them here and then deployed MWAPS upon them.

"Aggressor Seven here, keep an eye on the hostiles, seek out their command units, and we're not going to let them do this again, keep aware they may try deploying MWAPS again."

they may be out numbered but they are not running, Russel has seen too much happen to his country since he was a child. Hes had enough, as he told Kallen long ago take your god damn holy war the hell out of his country. The machine seems to dance as its wheel spinners are being pushed for all they are worth as Russel speeds over the bases blacktop, if they wanted a fight they were about to get one. He was intent they shall not pass,

EARLIER

The Fraternity Unit, like the meddling busybodies probably fueled by Coach's lengthy folder of blackmail material that they are, go all over the place. Today, a portion of their flight regulars were visiting a hangar where something Jung Freud is fond of is kept in the reserve hangar.

"Look at this," Jung says, gesturing with a well-chewed pen towards the low-slung Sutherland unit. "This is one of the finest fruits of extradimensional technology, capable of immense high-velocity assault. It uses methods we never even thought of." She taps her teeth with the cap of the pen. "And it runs off that shit Koji Kabuto mines out of the ground. Seriously!"

Outside, sirens begin, and Jung's eyes flick towards her estimable companion. "/Hm/," she says, thoughtfully. "I think I'm going to try it out. You want a ride to your Gundam or do you think you can make it?"

SHORTLY THEREAFTER

The Sutherland rips out of the reserve-mobile suit storage, accelerating at breakneck speed towards the DC forces.

"Hahaha!! It feels so different at ground level!!" Jung shouts, enjoying herself more than she ought to.

EARLIER

Langley is a nice base. Meriden vastly prefers it to some of the other ones she occasionally goes to, like Augusta (because they poke and prod at her there) or Leipzig (because she doesn't speak German, and while the base crew does, most people in the city don't know what she's saying).

Plus, the fact that she's mostly on a tour with Jung means that there's not a lot of work. "It's little," Meriden says, though only in comparison to her own Gundam. Okay, a lot of Gundams. And most other suits too.

NOW

Unfortunately for Meriden, her Gundam didn't have its armour on. It's heavy, and it makes it a little bit awkward for long-range transport. Fortunately, it's still operational - and with all the equipment here, she helped herself to some of the weapons on her way out.

That doesn't change the fact that what runs out of the hanger looks just like an ancient relic from the One Year War. The robot is almost as old as Meriden herself is! It is carrying a beam rifle of slightly unusual design in one hand, a shield in the other, and has another gun grip of some sort sticking out from behind the shield, where she wedged it in for transportation.

The Sutherland pulls ahead of the old machine pretty easily. "Wait for me!" Meriden calls after Jung, accelerating as much as she dares.

 Roruda Nell transmits, "A...plan, yes! Well, I was planning on...trying to break through the base defenses and see if we can grab the tank while the Federation soldiers are too busy fighting off our assault."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask transmits, "Understood."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Rezaline Cassius transmits, "Is that...an RX-78?!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Rezaline Cassius transmits, "Those things are bloody ancient!"

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Iron Mask transmits, "Gundam...the symbol of the Federation."

<Radio: A - DC Chat> Rezaline Cassius transmits, "Hm! We'll see about that, sir."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "A Gundam, eh?"

"Yeah, but ... they look fuck ugly."

Standing next to her Fraternity teammate and colleage, her ol' pal aboard the Exelion, Lune Zoldark stands with her hands on her hips and looking up at the Sutherland with furrowed eyebrows and a pensive expression. She said something similar once, and it prompted Bian Zoldark, Supreme Commander of the Divine Crusade, to drop everything and immediately work it over from scratch-- all for his little girl.

Lune has an odd sense of aesthetics, by the way.

And then ... the call. The sirens howl, and she shoots a glance to the redhead, and then to cohorts on the deck.

AND THEN

Bursting out of the main hangar of Langley Base is the DCSMH-02 Valsione, the white armor gleaming and the mighty wings extending to full length before flapping out one hard beat-- one that blows dust, debris, and Scott the Intern off his feet and tumbling off away.

With it's shock of bright red hair trailing behind it, the taller super robot flies at a flanking position to Jung... but then one arm draws closer and the legs sway forward, as though the flying machine were aiming to come to a sliding stop, mid-air, on it's feet. The head tilts up to look at their incoming offensive line...

In the cockpit, clad in skin tight black and blue, Lune punches her fist into her other hand and grins. "I /knew/ comin' here today wasn't gonna be a waste."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "That robot has a...face! I mean a face-face!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ouka Nagisa transmits, "A Face... Face?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "That'd be the Valsione."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "...I thought I saw a face for a second. Huh."

Another Gundam!

Rezaline's mouth opens, then her eyes narrow slightly. The RX-78 series Gundam, too -- something she honestly thought had been long-retired. It seems that she was mistaken, on that. The RX-99 Neo Gundam drops down to the surface, feet touching down on Langley's tarmac. She brings the G-BRD up in its right hand, sun glinting off the barel.

She fires a shot over it, which slams into one of the radar installations at Langley. The armor crumples inward around the blast of energy, then it detonates in a fiery blast. The woman turns her aim, then -- the crosshairs line up on and lock onto Meriden's Gundam, and a quick burst of energy fires thereafter.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "Looks like some kind of super robot, unless it's an unusually large Meltrandi."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ouka Nagisa transmits, "The Valsione... then it's his daughter."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "I admit, this mission seemed pretty boring at first. But now..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "Hey 'Lin, see someone tasty?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "It'd be a huge Meltrandi-Oh, that's what it is!"

KAMJIN KRAVSHERA'S SUPER SECRET SECRET HIDEOUT - EARLIER "Boss," says Gerao, carefully, as he watches the mad warlord suiting up in his powered armor. "Should you really be doing this? I mean, if we're really going to work with Genome, he might need us around to--" Kamjin Kravshera, Kamjin the Destroyer, is having none of it, settling in to the suit of Nosjaedul-Ger powered combat armor, which is older than the pyramids. "Tch... Like I care what that stupid baldy wants," says, cutting his second in command off. "I already told you, we're only cooperating with him because it's convenient. The second it isn't..." The Ally-Killer gets a broad, toothy smile on his face that says everything... But he elaborates, regardless. "I have to pay him back anyway, Gerao. You see, he went after Britai... And Britai is /mine/, just like the Macross. Zentradi have to take care of Zentradi problems... Don't you think?" Gerao, seeing that his boss is somehow even more crazy-ass than normal, nods quickly. HERE - NOW On a rise overlooking Langley Base, a small but effective strike force of Loyalist Zentradi have assembled - at their head, the Destroyer himself, clad in that aforementioned power armor. They even brought some Miclone infiltrators with them, the better to be able to secure the very cargo they're after. "All right! Listen up, you shits! Today we strike a blow for Zentradi independence from these disgusting Miclones... Today, we secure ourselves a Miclonisation chamber, to be able to restore our brethren to their full siz--" "Uh, Boss," says another Zentradi in similar armor, trying to get Kamjin's attention, pointing down at Langley. "--size and power! Once they realise they don't have to play by the rules of this so-called 'Earth Federation, we'll be able to--" "/Boss/," says the other Zentran, insistently. "--WHAT?!" Kamjin demands, furious at being cut off in mid-speech, before following his subordinate's pointing finger and looking down at Langley... Where the Crusaders are already mounting an attack. Kamjin Kravshera frowns behind the faceplate of his armor, the wind taken out of the sails of his glorious revolutionary rhetoric. He lets out a huffing exhalation through his nostrils, he puffs up his cheeks like a petulant child. At this point, Kamjin Kravshera mutters a very impolite English word. After a moment, Kamjin recovers his composure. "Oh, who cares!!" the Ally-Killer declares. "It's a perfect distraction! Get down there and /get that chamber/!"

As the DC forces descend on the base, the Red Moon Armor lands and fires from its wrist-lasers at the early defenses before just starting to rush forward. Clearly the red robot-not-a-Zentradi-in-a-powered-armor-suit-honest is going for /something/ in the base, but what?

Well, secretly Roruda is cursing at himself for not figuring out exactly WHERE the tanks were stored on the base. He might have to tear through until he can find it. Which is fine, as that's part of Iron Mask's orders anyway, but he's also...not the best at that sort of thing, or at least doubts his confidence.

Meanwhile, Kamjin's forces are gathering outside! Roruda has no idea this is the case.

And that's when he spots what he briefly mistakes for a particularly huge Meltrandi. The Valsione's face is realistic enough that he briefly blushes before being corrected over the radio-that is /some/ kind of robot, just built with a face. Which seems odd to him. It looks like it could be a lot of trouble, so he redirects his wrist lasers up at Lune's girlish robot.

While some might be a bit thrown by the number of units that come to the aid of Langley, Lin is well aware that most of these are nothing compared to the 'ace pilots' that she'd seen fly for both the Federation and the A-LAWs. For the most part, they're ignored, with the exception of a few who get too close as the Orbital Frame flies in closer to the base, taking up a position a bit away at first - using the higher ground to get a better view of the base's defensive force.

<"Identifying possible targets."> The computer display on her viewscreen zooms in across various individual units chosen by the computer as 'key' entitites. Perhaps they fly smoother - or are different makes than the mass-produced units. Either way, Amit has chosen them as the ones to bring to Alina's attention. "That one." She stops on a particular unit - one of the smaller ones, and taps on the screen. "Get me magnification." <"Affirmative."> The camera begins to zoom in, covering the distance and giving a sniper-scope style HUD, complete with cross-hairs.

The Orbital Frame raises up that sniper rifle, cocking it against one shoulder as it begins to charge, waves of energy giving a warning sound as power wells up along the barrel. "We'll try to draw their attention, and then move in to keep the path clear for Hephaestus." <"Inputting flight path for assault. Sniper rifle fully powered."> Lin's cold blue eyes don't waver for a moment as she fires off a powerful shot in the direction of Russel's Sutherland, picking it out from among the swarm of other units, perhaps even damaging a few along the way.

Once the shot is fired, though, the blue Orbital Frame goes into motion, shouldering the rifle and switching her hands over into the form of two small beam pistols - the framerunner's weapon of choice for close encounters.

Ascian watches as Mayet banks off to head after one of the targets present. The red Orbital Frame turns about whilst Ascian has no issue with picking off the mook units which Alina decides not to head after. After all, when you have mass-targetting systems the like of the homing beams on the Amenthes, why not use them!? So red beams start cutting through the base, defying physics whilst going after any and all targets that seem meek and weak.

But then finally, Alina decides on a target. Now, normally, Ascian heads off and tries to take down targets other than hers. But today is different. Today, he wishes to actually fight side-by-side properly with his sister. They could use the practice after all. Last time, things had not gone so well - mostly for him. Today, he assured himself, things would go better!

So the Amenthes darts straight up into the air, to a position orthogonal to the vector between Alina and Russel's machine. ... that means he ends up behind him. Ninety de... okay, so fine, the player is taking a calc 3 test tomorrow. Shut up.

Either way, the Amenthes ends up hanging high and behind the Sutherland and tries to synchronize his own firing methods with the woman. The red light of the Amenthes' bioluminescent flow quickly coarses through the shoulder-mounted cannon, and then within moments, fires off straight at the target, hoping to catch it within their cross-fire!

It's the seams and some of the near-doll like joints, especially around the hips, that give away who-- and what-- the Valsione is. The face is impeccably sculpted, and is actually a reproduction of Lune's own face, and that long shock of messy red hair... well, before the joints come into play, it's pretty astonishing how lifelike the machine looks.

A few beeps sound from her left. The lasers snap Lune to /rapt/ attention, and the Valsione's wings spread wide-- and then the robot changes directions with seemingly no worry for G-forces or regard for inertia, hurtling straight up to avoid those lasers from punching through the armored frame. At first, it's the strangest thing-- the Valsione is /smirking/.

Folding her arms inside the spherical cockpit, held by the odd claw that grips her hips and also passes under her legs, Lune Zoldark pauses long enough to take stock of what just fired at her. It doesn't look ... /too/ much like a robot. It looks fairly sleek, and ... then her jaw drops, jealousy in her face. "That--"

"That scarf is awesome."

Her arms unfold and lash out to the sides, Lune spreading her legs and leaning forward in the claw. "But I'm gonna kick your ass and send you packing!" With a flourish, the Valsione's arms spread just the same, leaning forward-- and then it /moves/, accelerating at a speed that borders 'obnoxious.'

"DIVINE ARM!!"

Gripping the air at it's side, a sword in sheath appears. Drawing the weapon and casting the sheath aside-- that disappears in a burst of light-- she gets two hands locked around the blade. The wings rise and fall in powerful flaps, the hair flapping in the wind, and the face assumes a determined expression... moments before swinging the blade, aiming to slash the Red Moon Armor from hip to shoulder!

And there they are, the defenders of Langley Base. Dorel has to admit, he was expecting this to be boring, with all the standard GMs and Gespensts and whatever the A-Laws are using on Earth nowadays. But two Gundams, a super robot, and a couple of new units he doesn't recognize? Maybe it won't be so bad, after all. "This is Dorel Ronah. I'm beginning my attack." he transmits, deactivating the beam flag and flying down to meet Jung's Sutherland. It's a strange machine, so tiny yet so fast. Built for quick assaults, by the look of it. It should be an interesting fight. The Den'an Zon draws one of its beam sabers as it lands on the ground, maneuvering its thrusters to propel it along the asphalt at the knightmare frame. Dorel isn't the type to yell battlecries when he strikes, and now is no different as he slashes at the smaller mech's legs. Maybe he can slow it down a little.

<Link: A - Chat> Buggabix says, "But I DO know I am going to BEAT IT UP."

<Link: A - Chat> Nova says, "A demon, you say?"

<Link: A - Chat> Buggabix says, "Oh and OW OW YEOW, watch it with the fire, Talan!"

Rezaline is correct: the RX-78 is retired. The One Year War ended ten and a half years ago; the machines from that era are outdated. That is why Meriden normally pilots the RX-78 wearing a modernized set of additional armour and weapons.

It's just that all the gear is sitting inside a hangar, unattached.

Still, old as it is, Meriden can make the RX-78 move; it's been well-maintained, at a minimum. That, and being a Newtype undoubtably helps, even if Meriden is slightly distracted by the (in her mind much cooler) Valsione. Hauling hard on the controls, Meriden jerks the entire mech sharply left; it comes close to tipping over before she regains control of it, turning and raising the rifle all in the same motion.

Meriden hesitates only momentarily. "Hey! It's another Gundam!" she says, startled, but that doesn't stop her from firing the heavy scoped rifle a moment later; it emits a beam of green light as they are prone to do, but brighter than the usual, and probably more powerful as well.

If the Valsione's nature is given away by the doll-joints and seams, the Red Moon Armor might seem a bit stranger becaues of its lack of doll-like joints and eerily lifelike movements. Such as right now, when it slides away from the incoming sword-slash of the Divine Arm, cape blowing in the wind behind it.

"Thank you!" The voice coming from the Red Moon is young-sounding and kind of nerdy, and yet there's a strange booming reverb. Maybe something is wrong with his speakers. Inside, Roruda catches his breath and tries to assess his opponent's capabilities. That robot is clearly pretty strong, and probably has some nasty melee skills. So he'll just have to keep up!

And not die! And get the tank anyway!

He rushes in to meet up against the larger Valsione, bringing back an armored fist and sending it at the midsection of the robot! Meanwhile, he tries to look around, to figure out.../where/ that tank is, anyway....

The Knightmare Frame tears up the ground, accelerating with boggling speed, even as it is restricted to the ground. For that is the key weakness of the Knightmare Frame in the modern world of jet-powered dinosaurs and Double Zeta Gundams: it is stuck on the gr-

The Sutherland leaps.

The sudden gimmicking of its legs is almost ridiculous; less ridiculous is when the beam saber slash is exploited, the Sutherland actually slamming one leg /on/ Dorel's XM-01 when Jung lays down upon it with the maser-edged battleaxe that the Knightmare Frame seems to have produced out of nowhere.

"Oh, look, a monarchist!!" Jung says, with unholy glee, even as she leaps AGAIN, this time away from him -- towards the unit of powered armors which were entering the base perimeter, not so terribly far away. "Why don't you show me the power of your ideology over HERE," she cackles, even as the Sutherland does a completely unnecessary, and possibly borderline-impossible, backflip.

Unfortunately, the Sutherland can jump but is not so good at doing more than comically energetic hops; as such, Jung is forced to resort to /ranged weapons/, a squat-barreled armament firing three or four fat-bellied grenades towards the rogue Zentraedi units.

Around firing #2, Jung wonders in passing if she should have made sure -- but no, she thinks; she'd know if they weren't enemies.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "...Are there other Zentradi units on the base?!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask transmits, "So it seems."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "...That's weird..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "Are they targets as well, sir?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "I think so! None have contacted me to identify themselves as allies..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ouka Nagisa transmits, "How do they identify on IFF? EFA?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "Well, you're leading this mission. Give the word, and I'll start shooting."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "...Not EFA. Not ours. That leaves only--yes, they're enemies."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "Good."

"One of the latest models," Rezaline counters, calmly, over the radio. Her eyes narrow, as she sees the rifle come upward. She fires the thrusters, causing her machine to lift up off the tarmac. It tries to move to the side -- but proves too slow, as the beam rifle shot clips the right shoulder. A fiery explosion erupts into the air, sparks and bits of debris raining down and blackening the concrete.

"D-Damn!" she spits. The RX-99 stays airborne, as it goes blazing across the ground. It zig-zags, coming in closer at the RX-78. The machine slides its beam rifle back over its shoulder, onto the hooks -- and then the Neo Gundam's fingers clutch a beam saber on the back.

It screams to life, as it leaves the recharge unit. The blade of red energy swings out to the side, and cuts at the side of the older Gundam, as the machine goes flying past.

Russel Bagman spots a pair of Orbital Frames, and knows they are often made to take on large number of units, but some times they are not. This is one of those times, as he gets warning of a weapon lock detected. The small mecha springs barely getting out of the majority of the harms way, he comes around again only to find another Orbital frame after him as well. This day is just getting worse, the computer meanwhile sends some data to Lune, which may be of use to her.

The second sniper is more lucky, as their shot lines up the shot and manages to get the Sutherland, but he twists taking the shot up the front, damage reports go off, but the small machine still clearly is able to fight and it opens up with it's assault rifle focusing on the first sniper while trying to keep up being rather high speed and avoiding making it an easier target. He's got to keep them tied up before they get into the ranks of the regular troops here.

So anyway, the Zentradi Loyalists try to take advantage of the confusion, and charge like hell. Most of them are on foot, but there's another guy aside from Kamjin in a Nosjaedul-Ger, and a couple of guys in Regult battle pods; they're outfitted less for a big toe to toe slugging match than for what was intended to be a quick in and out raid, but then the Divine Crusaders had to go and ruin everything, just like usual. Kamjin himself is more than happy to run in and start killing some Miclones, of course, so it's no surprise that the warlord makes a good target for Jung in her hilariously tiny wheeled robot. Grenades launch towards his ancient power armor, and the Ally-Killer swings up his right hand, carrying an equally ancient laser pistol, which he uses to shoot the grenades out of the air; he can't hit /all/ of them, unfortunately, and some get through to deal some superficial damage to his armor, which mostly just annoys the crazy giant. "Ha ha ha, is that the best you've got, Miclone?! That tiny machine... I'LL MAKE SURE IT'S YOUR TOMB!" He punctuates this laughing mad declaration by firing the chest-mounted impact cannon at Jung's Sutherland, jagged shards of armor-piercing flak filling the air /with danger/.

The strike goes wide, much to her surprise, and Lune is already bringing the Valsione's legs forward with a swift kick as though she were trying to stop herself cold mid-air, the wings swinging up high and curling just enough to act like a drag-parachute to slow it down. Inside of another few seconds, the odd power armor-- and the odd reverb-- come sailing her way with a big, mean fist, perhaps taking advantage of this close-ranged situation.

The right hand extends, gripping the air as a hefty beam launcher sizzles into being just in time to be caught by the Super-Human Machine. Releasing a brilliant blast of sky blue and white at the same time as Lune throws the machine into reverse, the shot narrowly misses Roruda's power armor and sails off into the horizion, likely flash-frying a passing flock of birds in the process.

"Tch, he's a lot faster than I thought...!"

Lune's machine lunges again, moving in to close the gap with the Red Moon Armor in short order. Releasing the rifle to dismiss into the thin air, the Valsione's hands wrap tightly around the sword's grip as she strikes out once with a climbing slash... then with a spin and a lash of red hair, the Valsione follows with a downward strike from shoulder to hip before accelerating forward, fully intent to streak by the Zentradi machine for one last swing!

Ooh, this one's got even better reflexes than Dorel expected. The pilot must be very experienced, maybe even an ace or a Newtype. This has suddenly gotten much more exciting. The small gash on the Den'an Zon's arm goes unnoticed as Dorel flies after the Sutherland.

"The power of my ideology doesn't need to be shown. It should already be apparent!" Dorel transmits back, watching his opponent execute a backflip that should by all rights be impossible. The thing looks absolutely silly the way it hops around, like a little bug, but there's a certain grace to it that Dorel can't deny. A shame that he will have to destroy such a fascinating machine.

But wait, there are Zentradi coming to join the battle as well? They don't appear to be aligned with the Federation, but neither are they part of the Crusade. A rogue group, then. Well, they are courageous, that's for sure. But as long as they're keeping his opponent occupied, he doesn't mind their presence. Just aim, get a lock, and let loose with the shot lancer's heavy machine gun.

While Alina's shot may not have hit, it does seem as if the two Orbital Frames were quite capable of working together, because her attack only seems to get the Sutherland into the right position for the one fired from her brother's unit. "This is going to take some teamwork, brother." Her voice seems a bit cold, lacking that usual animation that made the girl one of the more social of the Crusaders. This isn't the time for that. This is battle, and their success or failure depends on everyone pulling their weight.

<"Proximity alert."> The AI blares, causing Lin to jerk her hands against the controls. Mayet raises one hand, warding off a melee attack from one of the mass-produced units which seems to put her right in line for a far more powerful attack from the Sutherland. "Tssh. Evasive maneuvers." <"Thrusters engaged."> The voice of the Orbital Frame's computer sounds almost interested, although it lacks some of the emotion more realized AIs might have. The blue sphinx moves quickly, pulling up just in time for the vast majority of Russel's hit to not strike Mayet - but slam into one of those MPs attacking her.

That's one down, although there's quite a few more like it. That's the problem with mass-produced units. They tended to come in large groups. Luckily, they also tended to fall in large groups, too. Cocking those two pistols, the blue Orbital Frame weaves between them, firing off shots here and there in order to intersect flight paths as she goes. Unlike her brother, who favored staying at a distance, Lin tended to stick to the up-close and personal method, puting herself right in harm's way. As she draws upwards with a sweep of the metatron 'wings' of her Orbital Frame, Lin spots the Sutherland weaving about again. It's as good an opportunity as she's going to get. "It's on the west quadrent, near the radio tower." She informs her brother, and then squeezes off a quick series of lower powered shots, strafing them across the Sutherland's path.

There are Zentradi units showing up on Roruda's radar. They're not Federation-tagged or allies. That...really makes him nervous. And distracts him, just in time for him to take two powerful swings with that sword!

The Red Moon is reinforced enough to keep Roruda himself from being chopped into pieces, but chunks of its armor fall right off, and others are melt or burnt. No good. He can't go down so quickly during his first mission!

The armor jets upwards to hover for a moment, and Roruda scans the area. -There! The two cylindrical, glass machines held deeper in the compound are unmistakable. There are his targets, he just has to...not die along the way.

He starts diving downwards again, cape flapping behind him, rushing towards the destination point. Of course, Valsione is between himself and the destination point, which is why as he rushes close to her, he whips out an oversized....wrench from the backpack-like storage device on Red Moon and attempts to thwack Lune's beloved robot with it.

Meanwhile, he hears an eerily familiar voice broadcasted, and shudders. No, it couldn't be....

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "I've spotted the tanks! And...I think I...recognize the voice of that Zentradi. I heard him during a battle once..."

How come /hers/ can fly? Meriden thinks, somewhat randomly. The Seventh Gundam can't. It jumps real well, but flight? Not in a gravity well.

Without the ability to maneuver as well, Meriden doesn't. She stands her ground as best she can, putting herself near a wall for cover. That works against stray fire, but not against Rezaline's more precise attacks.

Rezaline's red beam sabre shears through the arm just above where Meriden has the shield attached. It doesn't sever it, but there is a decided score there and the edges of the metal glow brightly from heat. Even that doesn't dissuade her, but despite the fact that she has several, Meriden doesn't pull out a melee weapon. She doesn't know how to use most of them. Instead she keeps firing that rifle, no longer bothering to aim her shots quite as well.

And Zentredi too, Meri thinks. Aliens! Actual attacking aliens! She'd thought a lot of them gave that up.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "We just need one. Even if it's damaged in the process, I might be able to repair it."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask transmits, "I understand. I will begin my approach."

They would attack here, now. Fiona digs around the insides of the Argent's fighter's engine, trying desperately to get the arcane mechanism within to respond the way it should. "I just don't /get/ it. It's like it doesn't even want to start!" she pulls her head and arms out of the fighter's hull and exclaims her aggitation in a loud sigh. Then pulls back her leg and gives the fighter craft a swift kick with the sole of her boot.

The fighter emits a high pitched whine that fades as machinery spins up and charges, leaving the red head perplexed. "Hugh, better not tell Mizuhou I did that..." She climbs into the cockpit and checks the guages. "Time particle flow increasing, Now at eighty percent..." She scratches her head.

no one really realizes that the engine is powered by /destiny/.

Or at least Timey Whimy Stuff.

"Allright, only one thing I can do in a situation like this..." she pulls the canopy of the little blue fighter closed and taxis it to the front of the hangar.

The hangar doors blast open as the small one person fighter craft launches into the air. "Gonna have to buy some time first..." THe little fighter craft soars high up into the sky where Fiona manages to get a good look at the chaotic battle field. "Man this is /nuts/!" She peers at her instruments and huhs as she sees one unit just... standing around. "I spy with my little eye..."

The Argent Fighter swoops around and locks on to the Crossbone Vanguard machine, a pair of beam arays under it's nose lighting up as she straffs hte weapons across the ground. "A commander unit!"

Moments after she passes by on her straffing run she blinks "Wait. Attacking the commander in this little thing was probably really stupid."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask hm?

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask *kzzzzt*. "A new enemy has approached. Team Leader, I am disengaging to strike them down."

Hah! He hit! If there was anything Ascian had learned, it was that it was really hard to keep track of two opponents, especially if one kept in the blindspot that the other created. This was a basic tactic he and Alina had been trained in, something he remembers, whilst she may just know it is right. There is so much training that they went through in the years past - but he had to wonder just how much of it Alina still actively remembered. Still, her skill on the battlefield showed that so much of it was ingrained in her... it amazed Ascian. She'd always been the better pilot amongst the both of them. "Right. Teamwork. Just like we bested Neith." God, just remembering that battle...

The young mans shudders for a moment. Duat quickly snaps him out of that moment. He watches Mayer disappear into the wad of units, and follows her well on the radar, along with his opponent as it chases her. Now, whilst the girl may be trying to signal him just where their target is... Ascian is rather capable of quickly picking out his opponent - and a path for his rifle to strike.

So the Amenthes suddenly moves straight down, and lands on the ground with a loud 'thunk' that sends a shockwave of sand throughout the base. The two rifle arms of the Amenthes comes up, and energy quickly flows into the machine. Faster and faster goes the machine's bioluminescent pulse, rushing to those two weaponized arms, before a spray of two gigantic red lasers flare out and converge on the group of MPs, before moving inwards. He keeps a good track of where his sister's unit is. Simply, the Sutherland would catch the lasers before the Mayet would - and he was betting on the fact that its armor was strong enough to not just melt through immediately on contact.

Kamjin's volley of impact shards do indeed perforate the Sutherland -- to some extent, at any rate. The machine is wriggling in the air like a fish on neo-angel dust, and when it lands, there is a piece of penetrator material sticking comically through its left leg.

But other than an oil leak, this appears distinctly non critical.

Jung throws the Sutherland in reverse, backing between and through the Zentraedi, the Sutherland in fact managing to be distinctly lower than them. This may be what she's counting on, even as she swerves right, putting a hapless giant space-man between her and the incoming volley of machine gun fire.

As the Sutherland is BAPTIZED IN GIANT BLOOD, Jung lets out another witchlike cackle. "Do you know who I am, you Zeon running-dog?" The Sutherland hucks itself upwards, using the back of the falling Zentraedi as a completely gratuitous ramp, Jung driving up the back of the power armor to accelerate and lunge over the head of that lead unit...

To lead with that menacingly-glowing battle axe, in a head-slicing downwards chop from above.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "Understood...!"

The Neo Gundam keeps flying -- it hovers low along the ground, its feet occasionally catching the concrete of the tarmac for a split second that shoots sparks into the air. Meriden's beam rifle shot slams into the ground, leaving a patch of blackened, burnt concrete where it struck. A small trail of smoke makes its way up into the skies, as Rezaline sets the RX-99 down on the tarmac again.

The G-BRD is drawn over the shoulder, with the other arm. Rezaline's eyes narrow -- as the crosshairs sweep along, and lock briefly onto the other, older Gundam. She pulls the trigger, and a wide beam of energy erupts from the barrel -- hurtling across the tarmac and towards the RX-78.

"Do you have an idea how old that thing is?" she says to Meriden. "It belongs in a museum! Or a scrapyard!"

Russel Bagman keeps on going and readies the machine's grenade launcher as he closes on Alina, he's not showing any sign of stopping, anf fires off a grenade as she shoots up his Knightmare, but the damn little thing keeps comming. Russel has said nothing yet and the Sutherland is still in the fight from the look of it. He's got the idea he's being spotted on and he's orders the AI to load a chaos bomb, but that may be a moment before the weapon's ready to go. However one of the shoulder cannons are ready and he opens fire, sending a barrage of shells at Alina's machine even as Asican's fire comes in, and he rolls with the force of the impact, psues scoots awya trailing smoke from the damage and still firing on Alina without stopping he's got to take this one target at a time, really. He however sees he's been successfull keeping a pair of Maritans away from his comrades and that's what he's aiming to do and will keep doing it. As the smoke from AScian's attack fades there are several ripples in the air and afar fewer wrecks that one might expect from that.

Despite the unexpected presence of the extraneous Zentraedi forces, the plan was proceeding on target. All Iron Mask had to do was continue to direct the extraneous forces while Team Leader Hepheastus secured the objective, and the DC could pull out without risking-

FLASH

It is a sudden burst of inspiration, the depths of the power of a Newtype within, that causes Iron Mask to look up and feel the presence of that incoming blast. It is that burst, which comes just at the nick of time, just as the blast is about to connect, that causes the Berga Dalas to jerk backwards, very narrowly escaping the beam - almost. The blast digs across the chest of the Crossbone Vanguard's experimental commander unit, digging along the thing and leaving a wide scar of melted metal and scorched paint like the cut from a blade. Iron Mask frowns behind his helmet as the Argent Fighter swoops past on its strafing run. That wasn't pleasant.

But he did not need to think 'you'll pay for that' or 'I'm going to crush you'. A scratch was, ultimately, a scratch, and any pilot daring enough (and skilled enough) to lay such a blow on him in such a tiny machine was...intriuging. Was it another Newtype?

It would bear...investigation.

The Berga Dalas roars to life. Its engines blaze behind it, blue flames bursting forth from underneath the rack of launchers as it tucks its lance underneath its arm. The shot lancer was a powerful weapon, both in melee and ranged, and Iron Mask would utilize it now - aiming to tear off the wing of that little plane and bring it down to get a better look at the pilot within.

Oh, to be that one thing that keeps someone from their goals. She is the rock, she is the hard place, and she is in the machine that looks like a girl. Lune's eyes follow the Red Moon Armor's movements as his accessories flap out in the winds in the same way that the Valsione's hair flows while in flight. The one thing that she tends to expect from a battle like this is fancy footwork and flying, tricks of the trade, that sort of thing...

... she has no words for a /wrench/.

The Valsione's arms hook forward, holding the Divine Arm in a one-handed grip once again as the wrench narrowly misses striking the machine. Kicking back from the armored Zentradi one more time, Lune... does not seek to close the gap. At least-- not with a sword.

"You tried to hit me with a /wrench/!!"

The Valsione's left hand grips air, to whit a length of chain forms, rapidly scaling up the links to the right hand as it draws further, further, and even further back... eventually ending in a massive sphere of dark metal, dotted with what can only be described as 'oh god, why are there spikes on that thing.'

"BOOSTED HAMMER!!"

There's a line drawn through the 'Gundam' part of 'Gundam Hammer' right now, kids.

Swinging the weapon overhead like some kind of lasso, the weapon is eventually released toward Roruda's armor to travel on a relatively straight path-- and just when it looks like it's about to lose momentum, and possibly lose some of it's impact power-- /rocket nozzles/ fire, and the Valsione is forced to grip the chain to keep the weapon in check as it ferociously attempts to bash into the sentai-themed armor!

Rezaline gets dead silence from Meriden for several seconds while she deals with the assault. Mechanically, she's outclassed, and judging by the sound of the woman she hears speaking, she's out-experienced too.

A spray of bullets erupts from the concealed (small) vulcans on the head of the Seventh Gundam even as the broad beam clips Meriden when she dodges; the Seventh straightens up again, using its shield to cover its rising. "It's old," Meriden agrees, "but it's mine. And it can still fight, same as me."

Meriden draws the weapon she'd jammed behind her shield. It is proven to be a short-barrel grenade launcher, something suitable for demolitions more than long-range bombardment. Meriden uses it anyway, firing a spray of high-arcing grenades in the Neo Gundam's route - and she does it without really aiming, trusting to Newtype intuition to get the grenades in the right place at the right time.

That would be less annoying if it didn't work so often.

On of Kamjin's nameless, faceless Zentradi goons gets perforated, his giant life snuffed out to save the significantly smaller life of one Jung Freud. Naturally, under these circumstances, you would expect the mad warlord to be infuriated, that a lesser being would dare to do such a thing to one of his proud Zentran warriors and so on and so forth. Instead, Kamjin's reverberating voice can be heard over his power armor's loudspeakers, laughing uproariously, like that was the funniest thing he's ever seen in all his centuries of existence. Maybe it is. "Ha ha ha ha ha! Aren't you an interesting one, Miclone?!" Kamjin declares, because hey - he's the Ally-Killer. Do you really think he places much value on the random clone warriors he has serving under him. That's ridiculous. But then, the tiny woman in the tiny robot does /not/ attack him, but instead chooses to focus her attention on some other guy, one of the Crusaders involved in the attack on the base. Behind the faceplate of his armor, Kamjin Kravshera frowns. "Okay then," he decides, and the massive liquid plasma cannon mounted on the Nosjaedul-Ger's shoulders rotates into firing position. "I guess I'll just have to kill both of you!" He actually sounds pretty cheerful about this, /especially/ as liquefied, superheated plasma gouts out of the cannon's barrel, the weapon sweeping across in an effort to catch both Jung and Dorel's machines. What a dick.

Just how much Alina remembers of her battle training is sometimes hard to tell. So many things just seem to be physical responses that come to her quite naturally in such dangerous situations. Still, there is an uncanny sort of way that she pilots - something that can't just be picked up by sheer luck. And right now, she's doing her best to keep the Sutherland's attention focused on her, and away from her brother. Amusing how both sides can think they are 'winning' a battle because they are getting things their way.

Lin grits her teeth as the cockpit ends up rocked slightly by the blast of those shells against Mayet's armor. The muscles in her fingers clench. "He's focusing attention on me, brother." She notes, as if that wasn't obvious enough already. "We've got him right where we want him." That emotion finds a way back into her voice, although it still is nowhere near her usual enthusiasm. "Amit, I want a clear path to the Sutherland. Get me a flight path." <"Calculating now.">

In the mean time, the two pistol arms are replaced once more by the Orbital Frame's arms as she reaches over one shoulder, unhooking what looks like the equivalent of some old-school shot-gun. Click-click. The machine makes a motion of cocking the gun. A whine builds up from within as energy charges, starting to glow just at the muzzle. <"Engaging flight path.">

Alina leans back in her seat, allowing her hands to rest easily along the controls as she keeps her targeting locked on the smaller unit, following the path it takes with the end of that shotgun. Then, just as soon as she emerges from behind an MP that had been blocking her view, Lin tenses her hand and fires off a powerful blast. It's enough to make the Orbital Frame's hand recoil, drawing the gun upwards and even sending the machine back in the air - the powerful metatron wings flexing to keep her steady.

So he hits a Zentradi instead. Big deal, it's just another point added to his kill count, even if it was an accident. Dorel is, however, still focused on the Sutherland, that elusive little purple and black thing that zips around and between the Zentradi like a fly on crack, so to speak. And then it leaps at him, and he draws his beam saber to meet it. But the knightmare frame is just a little too fast, and the Den'an Zon is just a little too slow. The arm holding the beam saber is cut off at the elbow, leaving Dorel with no choice but to hit the reverse thrusters and quickly back away. He has clearly underestimated the opposition. "No, and I don't actually care. You're an enemy of Cosmo Babylonia, and more importantly, you are a target." Dorel answers, strangely calm. Unfortunately, while he's talking to Jung, Kamjin decides to shoot at him with some kind of plasma cannon, carving a furrow through the Den'an Zon's upper torso, just barely missing the cockpit. It's a good thing the blast was at a low setting, or Dorel would have found his fight with Jung being cut unsatisfyingly short. Still, it's knocked out several of his sensors, leaving him with just his main camera. But that's plenty. The Den'an Zon's thrusters fire up again, sending it flying not at the Sutherland, but at Kamjin's Nosjasomethingorother, the shot lancer having been dropped in favor of drawing the remaining beam saber. And when he's gotten close enough, Dorel just starts slashing at the alien machine repeatedly, aiming for whatever looks vulnerable.

Rezaline breathes hard, and she does not immediately process Meriden's remarks. She tries to leap over the grenades, but Meriden's aim is (quite literally) otherworldly. As the Neo Gundam leaps, the grenades arch up higher than she expected, and detonate against it. Two large fireballs erupt in the air, where they strike into the armor of the blue and white Gundam. It flies backward -- slamming it down. It strikes into the wall of a hangar, tearing metal down around it, as it lands down on the ground.

She grimaces, then with a burst of thrusters and shove of a hand, her machine stands back up. It is blackened all over -- and the armor is cracked in places, but it still stands. "You're good, but--"

Something, finally, clicks for Rezaline. Her eyes narrow and there is a flash of insight. Her machine leaps into the air, aiming down with the large rifle. Rapid-fire bursts of green light come raining down around Meriden. The rocket booster on the back of the B-BRD fires, and it goes whipping over the other Gundam's head; then, with a carefully controlled vernier burst, it does a mid-air turn.

The rifle then fires a long, continuous beam. It slashes into the ground, burning a deep trench into it, before adjusting slightly, to strike at Meriden's machine.

"Everyone always seems offended by the wrench," Roruda observes, more aloud to himself than anything else. He's trying to rush towards the tanks, but then there's a ROCKET POWERED HAMMER BALL THING rushing after him!

"...AAAAHHH!" Brave Sir Roruda hits the thrusters and runs away from the Boosted Hammer as best he can, half-running and half-flying as the speed of the Red Moon just barely keeps him safe from the reach of the hammer weapon. He's tempted to try to catch his breath-boosted Zentradi endurance only goes so far when you're the runt of the litter-but suspects doing that might cause him to die. Instead, he puts the wrench away as he moves towards the tanks, which are...larger than the Red Moon. He should have thought of that. Still, if he can just lift one...

In the meantime, he can't ignore Valsione. Lune will notice how close he is to those Miclonization tanks as he pulls out a classic Zentradi plasma rifle from that backpack, something not terribly sentai-ish but just fine for the long-range beam fire he throws her way. Even he knows how to shoot something.

Fiona Graydon is not a Newtype, but she willingly pilots a machine powered by the flow of time.

'Fearless' is pretty much right on top of her resume. That is not to say the prospect of the Berga Dalas impalling her on it's lance isn't a little bit /concerning/. It is in fact so extremely concerning that Fiona throw the little Argent Fighter around in a tight spiral to evade the spike of metal by a hair's breadth. "He's trying to /run me through/? Hhhookay, I think thats plenty enough time bought." Fiona presses the comswitch "LAUNCH IT!"

Concrete slabs and metal plats in Langley's tarmac shift open, and metal rails extend from the underground launch system. The crackle of electromagnetic acceleration rails fills the air with ozone as the catapult accelerates it's payload upwards, and freely into the air. The grey and green mass of metal is clearly a robot but with no head, curious--

Until the Argent Fighter swings around and seems to be pointing itself towards a head on collision with the headless machine. "Argent Fighter! DOCKING MODE!" she hits hte transformation lever like the fist of an angry God, and the tiny fighter craft folds itself in half and it's wings drop down to it's sides as it's back opens up to reveal the bald looking mechanical head, clearly this is how 2+2 works.

"Ohcrapi'mcominginbackwards!" Fiona grasps the controls and rolls the transformed fighter as hard as she can to swing the head around just in time for it to dock with the headless machine in a spray of sparks as the docking clamps grab hold of the wings, and an additional headpiece swings up and clamps down on top of the fighter to lock it in place.

Teh heavy set machine drops towards the ground to hit with a *THUD* that can be felt more then heard throughout the battlefield. "EXCELLENCE...!"

The machine reaches behind it's back to take out a heavy multi-barreled weapon and point it at the pursuing Crossbone machine, the weapon spinning up to spray a saturating volley of beam fire at the enemy commander.

"GUNNER!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask transmits, "Fascinatin-*kzzzkt*"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ouka Nagisa transmits, "Come again, sir? Is everything alright?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Iron Mask is on radio silence, but the beam flag springing up from the back of the mech at least ensures that Iron Mask is alright.

Jung is taking it all in stride, at any rate. The Sutherland accelerates, zipping (tragically enough) to the far side of the Cosmo Babylonian unit, the plasma spray missing it save for frying the blood that had splattered onto it.

Jung's main attention is on her fellow human, however.

"Oooooh," she jeers, even as the Sutherland executes a bootlegger turn. "I'm unimportant - an enemy - and a target! You're embracing the dream of Zeon zum Deikum, there -- soon, if you work at it, you'll just be a puppet with some dictator's hand lodged up your ass!"

The Sutherland screeches to a halt, and Jung lets out another of those rippling, ear-grating cackles. "But as a special service for the benefit of you and your monarchist friends, /the unimportant target enemy/ will show you what a Newtype can really do." Jung hunches forwards, bangs shading her eyes in the dim light of the air conditioned cockpit.

The Sutherland then bursts forwards, bouncing involuntarily over the increasingly battered landscape as it accelerates. The weapons are not brought to bear; indeed, the Knightmare Frame hunkers downwards, as if to shield itself from an impending collision. Yet it seems to be going past Kamjin.

Not really; it swerves into a spiral, aimed to slam with full force into his armored hip, a few scant tens of meters before it would have blazed past him. Jung screams incoherently while performing this particular absurdity, and perhaps, in a sense, it helps.

Well, the fact that he'd killed only so few mook units doesn't particularly make Ascian happy. After all, if he didn't keep up a steady output of mook-kills, he would never unlock his square-button attack. You know, the really good one! But nooo. Russel had to take that away from him. So the Amenthes lifts right back into the air and starts picking off units one by one. Hah! That you can't counter.

Funny business to the side. The Amenthes is taking a new flightpath, much like the Mayet, and is somewhat matching its movement to that blue Orbital Frame. Unlike normal however, he actually remains amongst the many enemies, quickly swirving in and out, turning and firing, trying to take a book out of Alina's fighting style. It's nowhere as fluid or beautiful as the way she does it. But that's alright. After all, his purpose is not to stay there for a long time.

Not, his intent was upon something else. But remaining this low, amongst the other EFA units, he could get closer to his opponent without getting noticed as easily, nor let the enormous power-output at the back of the Amenthes be so obvious, as little orbs of Metatron power start to build at the tips of the tailfeather-like tendrils.

Then finally, when he knows they have been charged up far enough, Ascian's grin widens. The Amenthes' wings spread out, and the velocity of the machine quickly rises to high speeds, as he rushes straight in for the Sutherland and swings the machine around, trying to /smash/ the four orbs of explosive power right into the back of the machine- whilst his sister takes him on from the opposite side - trying to cut off Russel's path.

Success!

Meriden glances at a few of her readouts after her successful strike, and her face lights up into a somewhat incongruous grin given the violence surrounding her. The Seventh Gundam breaks into a jog, then a run toward the hangar that the Neo Gundam impacted with, grenade launcher at the ready and rifle on its charging connection.

She was expecting the other robot to be down. When she gets there, though, it's already rising - rising and beginning to shoot. Meriden brings up her shield even before Rezaline starts to fire, a flash of intuition raising it for her.

The beam lances across the ground and into the shield. Meriden holds it even as it starts to heat and scorch; steam rises from the already-damaged arm as some of the hydraulic fluid simply boils, locking the shield arm in place.

Meri uses it as a brace to fire the very last grenade in the launcher. Discarding the empty weapon, she retrieves the rifle again, forced to hold the Gundam's almost-destroyed shield arm at an awkward angle. "I don't care! You're not going to win. We need this base to protect the world!!"

In the distance, Meriden feels a brief surge of strong emotion from Jung. She hopes that doesn't mean someone exploded.

Hm. Troublesome.

The lack of Newtype Skills didn't mean squat when the unit is such a high-performance once. Iron Mask barely has time to turn around as the Docking Mode is completed; he is given a brief instant to express his fascination with the docking/transforming mobile suit over the radio, and was about to say more to his comrades...

...before the gattling gun blasts across his array, the lasers blowing apart most of the casing and nearly piercing through the mech itself. It's stopped only by the well-constructed frame, and a little bit of dumb luck, and a little bit of raw reflexes; the 'wound' is deep in the shoulder/chest area, right near the cockpit block.

A beam flag sprouts up from the mech's back, ensuring that allied forces know the Berga Dalas is still functioning and that its iron-clad pilot still lives; within the cockpit (which is now blazing with integrity failures), Iron Mask's frown deepens considerably. Certainly the Berga Dalas was no prototype too valuable to damage, but his own carelessness had caused this unnecessary destruction. His own overconfidence had left him vulnerable, and the enemy's transforming unit would have to pay the price. Not merely scratched, but unable to use his radio...

Yes, a heavy price indeed, Iron Mask thinks as the beam saber falls into the free hand of the Berga Dalas. The blade blazes to life as its blue fire kicks up again, sending it screaming towards Fiona's unit. He doesn't intend to give her a chance to change into any other forms, or to unleash another volley of that gattling gun - he would engage her in melee combat, blade to blade, and teach his foe how deadly dueling with a nobleman could be.

And given where Fiona's from, that's only a *little* coincidental.

Beam melee weapons are... Kind of a /thing/. The Zentradi don't so much have an equivalent technology, and as such they were a definite advantage for the Earth Sphere during the Boddole Zer Main Fleet's invasion, but Kamjin Kravshera... Is not your average Zentradi. If he were, he would've died thousands of years ago. No, he's made of sterner stuff. He's a survivor, an improviser. And he actually knows how to deal with this. The power armor essentially turtles the barrage of beam saber strikes from Dorel Ronah's Den'an Zon, using the heavy armor of its forearms to /deflect/ rather than block head-on. This can't completely mitigate the damage, because beam blades, but it does turn what would be a burtal savaging of the Zentradi war machine into a much more manageable level of damage, the machine's forearms badly scarred up in the aftermath... But still functional. And then, something tiny attacks him. Twisting around the Nousjaedul-Ger power armor swings a mighty fist, aiming to punch Jung's Knightmare Frame right out of the air... But they manage to both miss each other. It's a little anticlimactic. "Tch... Little pain in the ass. Hey, you!!" Kamjin bellows, turning towards the guy who just beam saber'd him. "Why don't you just--" The liquid plasma cannon's barrel gleams again, before it unleashes a cutting beam of superheated matter /directly/ at the Crossbone Vanguard machine, focusing its fire on Dorel this time. "--DIE ALREADY!!'

They want to protect everybody!" Meriden doesn't quite /snap/ back because she's not nearly angry enough for that. She does say it pretty stridently though; she really does believe it. "I'm not even from Earth! I came here to help!"

Meriden was /really/ impressed by that beam shield. She wants one! But she doesn't have one, unless the one approaching Seventh Gundam's upper body at high velocity counts. Unable to maneuver her own shield, Meriden ends up taking it solidly, bullets spraying wildly into the air as the head of the Gundam snaps back.

Warnings ring out in Meriden's cockpit, and some of the screens begin to flicker and die. Half-blinded, with a machine on the verge of shutting down, Meriden puts the feet down right anyway; she manages to stay up, though just barely.

And there's still that rifle in her hand. Meriden brings it up, still not entirely able to see where it's pointed but knowing anyway. Narrowing the beam to minimum spread, maximum precision, Meriden fires a single precise blast of pure drilling energy, one able to punch through the entire Neo Gundam and out the other side if she gets a lucky shot. "And if that means stopping you from breaking it, I will!"

She does aim away from the cockpit, though. She doesn't need to /kill/ Rezaline to drive her off.

Russel Bagman is keeping moving at this point, he knowing where Alina is, he knows where Ascian is, but he's also focusing on what he feels is the weaker of the two targets. He knows what they are up to and he's happy to play target, he's pretty sure he can handle this one and it's very likely the other will move to save their partner if they get into trouble. Well that's a gamble on his part, given how many BAHRAM pilots are a little off in the head, such as Viola or Volkovo whom he has fought in the past.

Alina's attacks seemed to have been guessed, the attack from the hand of the orbital frame is missed, even as the explosion is fading, Russel is turning away to face the other machine and opening up with the assault rifle, jetting away, built even as he doe so he is hit, but still he's getting closer. The machine is rocked from the blast, and as they fade an odd thing flies up out of the explosion it hovers over Alina.

Then hell rains down as a storm of grenades are just unloaded on her, and they don't seem to be stopping, while Russel jets the heck away, but the little mecha's starting to look pretty damage, he's got one chaos bomb left and he's better make it count. He knows it's only a matter of time before he goes down, he is tracking the other machine he's also got something else prepared for them, he just needs a little more time. But the question is will the Twins give him that time or will he be cut down before then?

So the Nousjaedul-Ger has thick enough armor to parry his beam saber. Not the first time today that Dorel has underestimated his opponent. But as soon as he sees that plasma cannon starting to move, he cuts the Den'an Zon's thrusters, falling just in time to avoid getting a faceful of superheated death. "I'm not the kind of person who dies so easily. Sorry if that bothers you." he says to Kamjin, a hint of a mocking tone in his voice. Then he turns his attention back to Jung. "I could care less about Zeon. Right now, with an enemy like you in front of me, all I can think about is how much gloating I'm going to do when this is over." And the Den'an Zon hits the ground, reverse thrusting toward its dropped shot lancer. Dorel puts his beam saber back in its recharge rack and picks up the larger weapon as he hovers by it, bringing it up to aim at the tiny Sutherland. He's pretty much doing the aiming entirely by eye now, but maybe he'll get lucky. Without further ado, he pulls the trigger, launching the lance's rocket-powered tip at the knightmare frame.

"You're from the colonies?" Rezaline asks, a note of disbelief in her voice. As she brings the Gundam's arm backward, the beam shield deactivates. Instinct, instead of training, takes over. Instead of panicking at the beam rifle shot that comes at her, she just focuses on it -- and leaps, Newtype senses kicking in so she hurtles over it.

The RX-99 reaches over its shoulders with both hands. The paired beam sabers come free, as it comes downward, landing in front of the Seventh Gundam. The beam sabers explode to life -- and two flashes of red swing down.

"I won't let myself be stopped here!" she yells. "And I will certainly not let a Federation Gundam stop me!"

The beam sabers cleave down -- trying to hack the arms of the Seventh Gundam off at the shoulders with two simultaneous slashes.

"Ugh, I missed!!"

With a heavy pull backward as the nozzles die off, the Boosted Hammer reels back toward Lune with a loud rattle and quake of the massive chain, singing a song of metals on metals all the way back to where one hand catches the giant wrecking ball of a weapon on one hand-- and then it disappears.

Of course, this miss also gives Roruda the opportunity he needs to start darting toward those Miclonization tanks. The lights click on at roughly that moment, realizing a lot of things about what's going on here: The reverb in that voice, the odd look to that "machine," and now the tanks-- he's not just a Zentradi, he's here to /steal/ those! Or destroy them, but...

... that rifle's blast strikes the Valsione square in the chest, impacting with enough force to throw the machine off it's bearings. It doesn't pitch and dive toward the ground, but there's a grand amount of wobble in it's motions while one hand rests on a pitch-black scorchmark. The Valsione herself grimaces as Lune does, as though that blow struck flesh instead of metal.

Then, she yells: "Make sure your IFFs are broadcastin'!"

The on-board computer cycles through data and information, flooding a massive surrounding area with markers, calculating for buildings and terrain, running the mathematics to very specifically identify and choose targets. Then, the Valsione flies to a point marked at a waypoint on her HUD-- a waypoint that puts her into a rather centralized location, all things considered.

"Here it comes: Psycho Blaster!!"

One hand cuts into the air, reaching to the sky as a red, flame-like glow trails from it's fingertips. The other crosses over, mimicing this same effect. The arms sweep out widely while the Valsione seems to form a snarl on her face-- and a cloud of red energy erupts around the machine. It spins, and spins, and spins, and it begins to form a veritable /cyclone/ of energy that lashes out around the Super-Human Machine, ripping and tearing through the air like a miniature hurricane. Of course, enemies caught up in the assault will undoubtedly feel the rotational pull.. and the ripping, shredding red energy that lashes around with incalcuable precision!

Weaker of the two targets? Well, perhaps in some ways Alina is the one without the combat experience, and with the swiss-cheesed memory. Damnit. Okay, so maybe she's a good target to choose of the twins - but that doesn't exactly make her the easy one to take out. In fact, Mayet is the far tankier of the two Orbital Frames, even if her damage output is lower than Amenthes.

There is a small sound from the female framerunner as the blast misses. Lin's eyes track the movement, knowing just where to expect that counter-attack to come from. Rather than trying to dodge out of the way - which is far more common for Orbital Frames, it seems - Mayet simply raises that shotgun bearing arm up, taking most of the damage against it. It's not enough to disable her, but it certainly does cause that arm to look a little blackened - cracks showing in the metatron lines.

"Report." <"All systems still functional. Power output reaching maximums."> "Amit." <"Shields are at 40-percent."> "Thank you." Sometimes, getting the AI to tell her just what she wants to know is a bit of a pain. The feathered wings of Mayet flap as they shoot her skyward, the individual crystals starting to glow as energy is powered through them. From each diamond-like tip, a single beam shoots outwards, forming together into a ball that is held within Mayet's hands as if she were charging some great blast within that condensed space.

The wings move quickly, turning the Orbital Frame right towards Russel and his Sutherland. Then, with an outward push, that ball of condensed energy is sent spiraling outward from the Orbital Frame, taking out a few smaller units along the path as it arcs toawrds that small target - trying to suck him up into that force of crushing metatron energy.

The counter-attack from Russel's machine is easily evaded by the young man, who is using the nearby enemy mooks as a shield of sorts. To be more accurate. The nearest GM unit is held in front of the Amenthes like a shield, and gets to take the full brunt of the attack. Sadly, that little machine doesn't get to take much more. And when Lune unleashes her attack, Ascian can feel the pull on Amenthes arms as the machine gets lifted up. The fact that the Orbital Frame is an Orbital Frame helps it remain fairly unaffected by the attack. Sadly, not-so-much by the sudden explosion that takes place from the explosion of the GM!

The Amenthes is thrown back, and little red bulbs light up to claim that the machine has been damaged... and then quickly move back to green as the SSA of the machine begins to repair the frame with the large quantities of Metatron within its core. This time though, the little bulb besides his console lights up. The Homing Beam chambers had recharged within those wings since his initial onslaught upon the mook units.

Immediately, he activates it, grabbing the orbs of the machine firmly whilst concentrating on that darned Sutherland. It'd been concentrating on his sister all this time now. <"Will you stop shooting at my sister!"> He shouts out, obviously peeved, and at that same moment lets the rush of red beams fan out from those wings, and skew around straight for his opponent's arms and legs - trying to disable the machine entirely.

"You're a person? I'm surprised you're admitting it," Jung says airily. (Because everyone is speaking directly to her.) When the Den'an Zon fires that lance's rocket powered tip at the Knightmare Frame, it raises a hand upwards, as if to fend off --

The rocket bursts on a Slash Harken, hastily deployed. Jung sags in her seat after the spasm of terror that had gripped her, but the impromptu technique seems to have worked. Exhaling, she says, "Gloating, huh? Because you got to fight the Red Moon??"

Jung has unfortunately not been able to force her chosen call sign through the cultural zeitgeist hard enough for this to likely be familiar. However, if Dorel is looking at his visuals, that dumb retro hairstyle....

And the reckless blitzing charge forwards. The Knightmare Frame's IFF pings loudly, no doubt related to the Valsione's adorably petite death-blossom. The MVBA is raised once more, this time held with two hands and in a strange low-hanging grasp. The blade of it slides into the tarmac, leaving strange, randomly scattered divots in it...

Until at the last moment, the blade is whipped up and Jung says, almost playfully, "Psyche!!" Something is fired from the front of the Sutherland even as it turns, sailing fatly through the air towards the Den'an Zon:

It's a bomb. It bursts with a hellish rain of shrapnel potent enough to kill three cattle in a row.

Roruda cracks his (machine's) knuckles out of old habit, which really doesn't do much in the suit, prepares to summon his strength, and....finds a terrible whirlwind of energy roaring his way. Instead, he just grabs hard onto that tube, wrapping his arms around it, not to protect it but to anchor himself so he isn't torn to shreds!

...And it works, somehow, as the pull of the roaring red vortex doesn't pull the sentai-robot in. Roruda realizes this, opens his eyes, remembers to breathe and looks around. Did he really just do that? Did he manage to make it out of that without being shredded? Really?

Beneath the helmet, he smiles and even laughs a little in relief, and then pulls out that wrench as he begins smashing at the mechanisms keeping the tank in place. Not willing to ignore the powerful Valsione, he pauses, firing a longer and more precise barrage from the plasma rifle. He'd get in there to fight her up close, but he's got his objective in mind!

Meriden Almace corrects, "I'm from the Belt!" No colonies for her; they're not nearly far enough out. Her family has never thought of themselves as colonists.

The Gundams continue their little duel near the hangers. Nothing is wrong with the Seventh's /legs/, and so Meriden jumps backwards when the beam sabres come at her. This would not be enough to get her out of range, but Seventh, unlike the original few Gundams, was designed for space use. There are a few extra thrusters scattered across their body for extra maneuverability in space; they are not designed to be used in an atmosphere.

Meriden activates them anyway, burning through the emergency fuel rapidly but accelerating her upwards in ways the Seventh Gundam was never meant to experience... or Meriden, for that matter; the sudden surges in motion are uncomfortable at best. She lands again some seconds later, holding...

Seventh Gundam is holding a beam saber instead of its depowered rifle. It only has one, and Meriden clearly does not know what the hell to do with it; she charges the Neo Gundam using it to thrust with, then whips it rapidly side to side, trusting to instincts yet again to take her where a complete lack of knowledge of melee weapons has not.

The beam saber of the Berga Dalas slashes down at the Excellence with a brutal overhand attack. "Heh." One hand releases the beam gatling gun and swings upwards, the blade of an unpowered heat knife striking against the beam saber enough to deflect the weapon from a kill shot to glancing off the Gunner's heavy shoulders. "You shouldn't under estimate me pal!"

The Exellence gives a shove back at the lighter machine, forcing it away as the grind rollers in it's feet spin backwards to open up even more space. "From that flashy projector...thing... on your bac I'd say my guess was right, and you are a commander unit."

Long cannon barrels flip up over the frame's shoulders and lock into position as they start to glow. "So if you go down, they'll have to retreat." She hopes, anyways. "So, you listen to me."

The weapons crackle and surge with energy, blasting across the tarmac and up into the sky with two beams of plasma, each almost as thik around as hte Excellence is wide.

"And GET OUT!"

Meriden's beam saber is met by Rezaline's. The Neo Gundam catches it with the left beam saber, lightning erupting between the two weapons, as it holds it at bay. She drops the other beam saber, clutching the beam rifle -- and then she pushes back, making a hard slash with the remaining beam saber.

The thrusters fire -- and the RX-99 sweeps past, flying low along the ground. She turns her machine rapidly, aiming the beam rifle back at the Seventh Gundam. Another long blast fires, trying to strike it in the side.

The RX-99 sets down on the tarmac a moment later. Rezaline's eyes narrow, as she sees the warnings shooting across it. "I guess even Anaheim's best can get overdone..."

The heat knife parry was impressive, but not impressive enough. This unit had caught his eye and forced his hand, and more importantly had broken his radio and left him unable to guide the flow of battle. This unit had some payback coming...

No, Carozzo forces himself, it was not retribution. Retribution was the way of the weak-hearted, the angry, those who fought with naked emotions unable to tame their baser instincts. Carozzo Ronah - Iron Mask - was not such a man. He was a tool, a machine in the cogs of Cosmo Babylonia, dedicated to its greater-

FLASH

-again, it is mere dumb luck and the Newtype Instincts that save him as Fiona's cannon strikes. At nearly point-blank range, it would've been like looking down the barrel of a gun; as the Cosmo Babylonia unit twists backwards on its axis in a way it was absolutely never designed to do, the Berga Dalas' backpack cracks and crunches, the mobile suit's armor breaking behind it even as the cannons melt across its chest and arms. Dripping its gunmetal grey paint, the Berga Dalas rises back to its proper stance, sparking with damage. The beam flag has, of course, gone out from the impact of the connection.

How irritating. This federation soldier was truly beginning to irritate him. Those of a Newtype persuasion upon the battlefield might feel those inexorable gears of the inhuman mind of Iron Mask begin to turn faster, flashes of red emotion beneath the cold metal. His humanity was an unfortunate side-effect of his existence.

And now Fiona was about to be on the receiving end, as a second beam saber falls into its hand, the shot lancer holstered at its side as it comes charging forth. Twin beam sabers, to tear at the machine and press his advantage even further; she might have one heat knife, but could she parry both with one? Could she continue to dodge him forever? Either way, he could not give her a chance to change into some other form, nor could he allow her to return to her jet form and become more maneuverable than the Berga Dalas once more. He had few chances; he had to take what he could get, and if he continued these close calls, he would likely find himself in a very poor situation indeed.

The Berga Dalas bears down on the foreign machine, blades blazing red as they swing with expert timing and precision for key points (as far as he can tell) on the Excellence Frame...

Life very nearly gets super difficult for Kamjin Kravshera.

Though he doesn't manage to hit Dorel with his beam of superheated matter, the Zentradi warlord isn't /completely/ neglected, as his machine becomes one of those targeted by the Valsione's horrible death beams. Looking towards the source of this sudden surge of power, Kamjin the Destroyer squints as, for the first time, he notices that it looks like a giant person. He frowns a little, as Lune begins her barrage.

"What the f--"

The Nousjaedul-Ger is forced to move with sudden speed to avoid the Psycho Blaster's fire, his eyes widening gleefully as he witnesses the destructive energy. As much as he hates the Miclones and wants to personally grind every last one of them down into dust, he has to admit that they come up with some /very entertaining/ weapons. But the Ally-Killer has no time to bother with giant robot women (?!) at the moment, instead turning his attention back to the two he's been tangling with already. Breaking into a dash, the power armor-clad Zentran tries to grab the smaller Knightmare Frame, to apply the ancient Zentradi combat art of 'picking it up and them smashing it into the ground, because he is a goddamn giant.'

Sometimes, even Newtype powers aren't enough to save you from the latest and greatest of machines piloted by someone more experienced than you are. Who also has Newtype powers.

It doesn't help that Meriden really doesn't have any experience with melee combat; she is a gunner. One of her mobile suits doesn't even have any hands to hold a beam saber with. She turns automatically to follow the Neo Gundam, making another one of those long loping leaps -

Only to be shot right out of the air by the RX-99. The Seventh Gundam's side explodes when struck solidly, launching the older mobile suit sideways at a strange angle. Meriden lets out a startled yell as it accelerates rapidly before hitting a hangar door. The door doesn't actually stop it, either; it penetrates and keeps going, sliding along the ground and spraying sparks and smoke before finally coming to a stop somewhere inside.

Meriden, dazed but concious, hangs in her straps for a few moments.

When this vortex of heat and light and energy dissipates, ally units are left unharmed... but for the most part, so are the enemies on the field. Lune tightens her jaw at this development, but at least she got a piece of one of them-- and now the capacitors are going to have to charge for awhile before she can work up enough power in the Valsione's systems to pull off that attack again.

Lune frowns at Roruda as he starts to beat his wrench not against the tank itself, but against the parts that /hold it/. Sucking in a breath between her teeth, she starts to consider her position: On one hand, she could attack with something powerful and risk destroying the tanks that he's stealing and the ones that he isn't stealing, or...

... she can go with a more precise sort of attack.

The Valsione ducks and weaves through the barrage of beam fire with swift, careful movements that leave very little room for error. "Mastery" of his weapon or not, Lune is taking this fight as seriously as she would any other. So serious, in fact, that as the robot closes with the intent to break to melee range, the hands flit to the side once again.

"Divine Blade!!"

Instead of that wicked sword, a sheathed katana appears, the hand closing around the handle. Striking at Roruda on the draw itself, the blade whips and lashes and strikes out at an alarmingly high speed that doesn't quite seem possible even for a robot to accomplish, going high and low, to the middle, and randomizing the sequence as best she can.

"You're not gonna get away with that!!"

Dorel grimaces a little in annoyance as the knightmare frame's slash harkens tear his shot lancer to pieces. Oh, well, at least he has a spare. "Because I got to shoot down a Newtype ace piloting a new and very high performance machine. Let's see Zabine beat that." he says, the last part muttered under his breath. While he may be prone to judgment-obscuring hotheadedness from time to time, he still manages to see through Jung's feint in time to fly back up into the air, just barely avoiding the shrapnel from her bomb. He loads the spare lance tip onto his shot lancer, a difficult task with only one arm. "So...Red moon, eh? Never heard of you." Dorel says, flying back down to his opponent with his shot lancer at the ready, aiming it at her knightmare frame's head. And then he drops the lancer, drawing his beam saber again and sweeping it in a horizontal arc from its recharge rack to the Sutherland's neck. "Psyche."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "Damage to the suit is getting severe..."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Dorel Ronah transmits, "...Did...did I just hear something go 'shpadoinkle'?"

Russel Bagman is proving to have an idea of how Alina has been shooting at him, to at least being lucky it's hard to tell with Russel, he continues skating across the ground a the fire from her unit tracks him, and avoids the majority of the evil space rock blast, but there's just too much being sent his way to evade, armor melts, the machine sags a bit, it's not looking too good, but he's got a full salvo ready and he's not tracking the other Orbital Frame now, as Lune does her thing, it may buy him a moment.

Given the speed of an Orbital frame, the GM's hatch was open, the pilot had been quick enough to bail, the pilot's likely scrambling clear. Russel's still not a happy man about, it, he tracks Alina again and opens up firing a salvo from the rifle, the shoulder cannon, followed by several grendes as well, he speeds along firing, then suddenly the fire stops, as he turns, checks seeing the area is clear of any remaining friendlies and lays down fire at Ascian. He knows how fast that frame is and it may be unlikely to hit him even with that much massed fire, but it should keep the guy on his toes at least.

He also checks his HUD over all he sees an A-laws Gundams down, this isnt good, but the base hasnt collapsed yet so its not a lost cause yet. Fionas also on a tear as well against one of the Crossbone Vanguard command mecha. He stops his assault as the cannons and rifile run dry. The reload starts but thats going to take time.

The Knightmare Frame is still slippery with the blood of Kamjin's war-brother.

Jung: /always three steps ahead/

As the Knightmare Frame squeezes out of Kamjin's evil clasping grasp, Jung cannot help but produce another deranged laugh - which is cut short as she sees the Gundam crash across the field. "Sons of bitches! I don't have time to tease your dicks!"

Just as this happens, a brutal mushroom slapping scores the front of the Knightmare Frame, even as the systems recoil and send it tumbling backwards, away from most of the strike. The tires on the legs strike the Mobile Suit's arm, producing an improbably forceful scream/squeal and a comical sound effect as they rend away some armor. Whoops!!

The Sutherland lands on its side, rolling as it goes as Jung grips the maser-bladed battle axe. "Brag about this one IN HELL!" Jung screams, before she lunges the blade forwards -- and upwards, aiming to force it by main strength (well, robot strength) through the Denan Zon's groinal actuators and possibly even further upwards!

The RX-99 leaps away, and lands a distance away. She takes a breath, as she looks down at the console. The displays are all squawking warnings. She looks up and frowns. "This is Rezaline," she says. "I don't think the Neo Gundam can keep this up. I'm withdrawing back to base!"

The thrusters fire, and the machine lifts off, blitzing back towards the Killer Whale they launched from!

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Samuel Flynn transmits, "Watch out, that's Science."

Unfortunatly, Fiona only has the Gunner Frame on hand at the moment, so there will be no use of all frames in one fight... yet.

When the Crossbone Vanguard commander machine comes sailing for the Excellence again, the beam gattling gun is swung back onto it's storage rack, and te heat knife is held up again. "Tch, going to underestimate me again, huh?"

"I'll just have to teach you why you can't do that!" The grind wheels on the feet of the spin up again, rushing the Gunner towards the Mobile Suit in a head on charge. "HAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Just as the beam sabers come down, the Gunner Frame throws aside it's heat knife, and reaches up with both arms to grab the Berga Dalas by the wrists. Blockign the strike from ever connecting, locking hte two machines in a titanic struggle of strength and raw force. "Tch, it's stronger then I thought."

"Plan B!" Fiona flips up a weapon selector and mashes the button down. Missile launchers from the shoulder pop open and fire, but instead of firing missiles into Iron Mask at point blank range, the weapons just sail past and impact with the ground. "Here we GOOOO!"

The Gunner twists and throws the Crossbone machine to the side, seemingly just to allow itself to escape as it's grind rollers carry it away from the Mobile Suit.

Only to have those same, missiles /burst out of the ground/ with high speed spinning drill tips on each one having tunneled them through the ground around both mecha and back towards their target.

Dorel just can't hit the knightmare frame, no matter how hard he tries. The Den'an Zon can't keep up with its speed. Maybe he should've brought the Berga Dalas after all. As the Sutherland's axe cleaves through his mobile suit, Dorel fires up the thrusters again, managing to pull away with most of his machine's upper body still intact. But man, that groin sure is in rough shape. "Dorel Ronah here. I'm...retreating." he transmits, turning around and flying away from the base.

Seventh Gundam doesn't move.

Inside, Meriden joggles some controls, but none of them are responding. She lets out a deep sigh, which turned into a pained hiss as her hand goes up to the side of her ribs. The safety strap apparently left a painful bruise behind... if they aren't broken. She isn't checking that right now.

Instead she just shifts a little until she's sitting more comfortably, and stays there, listening as best she can.

There is no small amount of luck that sometimes comes into play when piloting. As much as the attack should have struck Mayet, it ends up accidentally slaming into the empty wreckage of one of those nearby MPs, littering it with tiny holes while the Orbital Frame remains mostly unharmed. If nothing else, the blue glow given off by the unit shows that there is still quite a bit of fight left in her.

Those diamond-like feathers sweep forward again, looking like a pair of huge angelic wings that come forward towards Russel and his Sutherland. In fact, they actually seem to be moving to wrap completely around the smaller unit, giving it less space to get away. Rather than one single condensed ball of energy, though, they seem to each be welling up a separate shot. "Amit, shoot it down." The AI doesn't respond outloud, but after a moment, each feather creates it's own blast.

In a flurry, all those balls of energy lash out into the space between, giving the Sutherland little hope of escaping unscathed. At least - that's Lin's intention, anyways.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Suriel Misaki transmits, "OH SHI- NOT SCIENCE!"

With the Knightmare Frame slipping out of his power armor's mighty grasping hands, Kamjin Kravshera makes what would be a very comical expression, were his face not hidden behind the ominous headpiece of the Nousjaedul-Ger. He lets out an almost exasperated sigh, and then the mighty Zentradi warlord gives a 'what can you do?' shrug, right then and there in the middle of Langley Base's airfield. It seems like it's probably time for a change in tactics, so that's exactly what Kamjin the Destroyer does. Turning around, he start dashing towards the facility itself, because hey, maybe he actually /can/ steal that Miclonisation Chamber while the humans are busy killing each other.

"Damn it!!" Jung curses.

On the one hand, this giant asshole is running in one direction.

On the other hand, Meriden is in at least some degree of peril; this may be a secure location, but stray fire...

Jung then slowly, slowly, realizes the solution to her problem. "Of course," she says, with dawning comprehension. "I can attack him... /without/ moving in his direction!"

With that, the Sutherland peels out like a tiny coke-addled squirrel is controlling it, swivelling partway to lob several Chaos Bombs and a barrage of high-velocity firearm in Kamjin's direction. /The perfect crime/.

Oh, Russel is able to keep Ascian on his toes alright. The red Orbital Frame weaves in and out of mobs of allies, using the fact that the guy doesn't seem to fire when he gets too close to his friends, but doesn't stick around too long because... well... he doesn't want to be too much of a jerk. In and out, in and out, he shows that Ascian is quite the skilled pilot when it comes down to it. It also seems like he is somehow doing... better. Maybe he's simply trying to show off to his sister, and that's why he's concentrating so well. Whatever the cause, not a single of those charges lays their bodies upon Amenthes.

The red machine then finally dances right into the skies and lets the wings of the Amenthes move forwards, like a shield of sorts. Only, their ends end up forming what looks like a circle somehow. One that slowly rotates whilst the arms of the Amenthes come together and form what looks like a single rifle between the two. Metal molds and washes over eachother, as the pulse of the Amenthes' bioluminescence moves faster.

<"I got this, Lin."> Ascian radios his sister, and concentrates as well as possible on the Sutherland and then finally... a rush of compressed space creates a tunnel of sorts between his unit and his opponent, just after his sister's attack goes off - and quickly is filled with a massive wave of red energy whilst the wings feed in their homing beams for more accurate targetting - winding around the beam and bending it as it goes!

Valsione's blade cuts into the Red Moon armor again and again, slashing off pieces of armor and even through the outer lining in a few cases. Roruda winces and grits his teeth, sure he's going to lose his head or a limb any minute as he shields himself with his arms. He doesn't, but the blade cuts a bit too close and deep in some places; once or twice it slashes right through the Red Moon Armor and the normal suit Roruda wears beneath, and a trickle of blood leaks out of the armor.

He pants and stares, and realizes after a moment that it is...quiet. And that's because the guy he is pretty sure is Kamjin the Ally-Killer, notorious killer of allies, just distracted Lune with an attack. Which means Kamjin may have, inadvertently, saved his life.

Huh.

He's almost got the tank loose, too! Crouching down despite his injuries, Roruda reaches into that storage unit and pulls out one last tool-a motorized drill, which he uses to grind against the connecting wires. Grind, grind, grind...

And he cuts it loose! Which means he has to carry it, which is going to prove a little more difficult. As the big tank leans over and starts to topple, he manages to catch it, a few cracks in the glass leaking fluid on top of him as he radios his allies.

"This is-this is Hephaestus. I need help carrying this thing...!"

Humans are totally killing each other. Except for the ones who aren't.

Lune's attention shifts from Roruda's Red Moon Armor to the Nousjaedul-Ger armor as Kamjin breaks away from the Sutherland of Jung Freud and starts making a beeline toward her-- toward her, Roruda, and the tanks, to be precise.

Hoping to intercept him in the midst of this, Lune ... dashes to the side? Which proves to be a wise decision, a decision based on firing arc and timing and a desire to keep the collateral damage down to a minimum whenever possible. The arms of the Valsione sweep out to either side, the Divine Blade and it's sheath disappearing.

"Let's go, Valsione!!"

Disappearing-- so the crystalline nodes in the shields on the shoulders can release a charge of energy from the Valsione. One shines red, the other shines blue-- and they start to swirl in an orbit around the redheaded machine faster and faster until it forms a ring-- a ring that hovers over the robot's head, then blazing down to it's feet.

Energy /erupts/ from the ground in a pillar, surrounding the Valsione and blowing it's hair straight up in the process, wings spreading wide as the hands cup over this rising force-- and form it, with some effort, into a ball. Lune's hands hover in front of her as she does this, the feedback attempting to force her hands apart...

The Valsione's palms thrust outward at Kamjin... and a /devistating/ beam of white light bursts forth from it's hands, sailing at narrow arcs, bending and swaying as the double helix of red and blue swirls around it almost like a containment field. It flies, and flies, and flies-- and it threatens to ruin Kamjin Kravshera's day pretty damn fast!

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "This is-this is Hephaestus. I need help carrying this thing...!"

Russel Bagman is proving this little thing is fast, and also very durable. But is Lloyd's mad science from another dimension or is it just Russel's ability to keep a stricken unit going, but there comes a point when further fighting isn't a good idea. It's starting to look like that at this point. Alina's attack is close, it nearly does finish off Russel's machine the damage adds up, against the small ground mech even with it not being a direct hit. While he's reeling from that hit it Ascian follows it up with a devastating attack, the test machine is holding together by spit and wire at this point. Alarms going off, Russel pulls out to stay would be mean his almost certain exploding. The machines wheel spinners peel rubber and he darts way into the structure of the base.

If Kamjin knew he had inadvertently saved the nerdiest of all Zentradi, he would probably go over there and shoot Roruda Nell himself. Just... Just out of spite. Fortunately, though, for everyone who /isn't/ the Ally-Killer, Kamjin is beset by attacks he can't possibly ignore. The fire from the Sutherland would almost catch him unawares, since it's at his back angle, but the Zentran is far too canny of a warrior to ignore his instincts, and the power armor-clad warrior jukes to one side, avoiding the brunt of the fire, although he feels it when the Chaos Bombs go off with him in the blast radius, shaking him around inside the armor suit... And then, a faceful of Valsione. The Super's terrifying Cross Smasher tears through the air down towards the Zentradi battle armor, but Kamjin looks up just in time - and barks a laugh. The Nousjadeul-Ger's back thrusters fire, hurling it up into the air /after/ the Valsione, skimming dangerously along the Cross Smasher beam, which warps and tears at the armor of the suit's underbelly, but his attempt to strike the Valsione at the end of his flight comes to no effect. That doesn't seem to deter him much, though. "Hiiiiiiiiii," Kamjin offers over the loudspeaker, his voice full of malicious cheerfulness. And then, the Zentradi power armor's armored fist swings out, as Kamjin tries to bury powered knuckles into the Valsione's 'gut'.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Alina Luddite transmits, "Enemy Sutherland is retreating."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Ascian Luddite transmits, "That pilot was tough."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Alina Luddite transmits, "We'll provide covering fire for you, Hephaestus."

With the enemy Sutherland retreating, Alina doesn't even let out a breath of relief. In fact, she'd expected him to fight to the very bitter end. An end which Mayet seemed more likely to come out of intact. The Orbital Frame, while quite damaged, still seems in good enough shape to continue the fight. "Good shot, Ian." There is a hint of a smile that pulls on her lips, although the framerunner's muscles remain tense.

The blue Frame backwings, drawing up to get a better view of the battlefield. The shotgun is unfurled once more, held in those robotic hands as she runs interference, trying to make sure that Roruda has a clear escape path once he has hold of the unit. Afterall - that was the main reason they were here - the damage to the base is only secondary.

And as Lune and Kamjin do battle, distracted with one another, Brave Sir Roruda bravely runs as fast as he can while trailing a very large cylinder with cracks leaking some kind of fluid. He finds it's easier to carry it from the top while running and then flying than it is to carry it on his back, though he still has the urge to just pass out from his injuries anyway. He manages to avoidt his, because PEOPLE ARE COUNTING ON HIM and also because if he passes out Kamjin might kill him for the kicks, and starts flying off with one of those tanks!

(Just one of them. He's not greedy or anything.)

The Gunner Frame skids to a hault as Fiona turns back to look at Iron Mask dodging all of the missiles "What-?! Ahg." She turns back to face him, getting ready for another attack when she notices the shot lancer is spinning... "Uh...thats bad." The Excellence quicky whips out a shield from behind it's back. The slab of armor is chewed through by the ensuing storm of bullets at a rate that would best be described as astounding. "Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit-" Fiona says through clenched teeth.

The shield is wethered away like sand infront of a stream of water and the remaining bullets tear through the armor of the Gunner's left side, but fails to destroy it. "I'm kinda getting tired of this." The Grind Rollers turn the Gunner towards the Mobile Suit again. "I really wish you'd take my advice..." The missile ports on the shoulders and the gattling beam gun are swung out and begin spinning up.

"..and leave!" Misisles, beam gattling and shoulder mounted plasma cannons stagger blasts across the field, attempting to just blanket the spce Iron Mask's MS inhabits with too much fire to dodge.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "I think I got it...!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Cecilia Utani transmits, "If you /want/, I /guess/ I can get Primordial to help carry it."

The sky is filled with blasts of eldrich flame and unholy magic - but for some, time slows down as if to stand still. In the air, a pair of swords meet, held by a pair of warriors. For just a moment, the katana and the greatsword scrape against each other with a ring and a spark that would be notable if the air was not so filled with flame and wizardry. Then the weapons are in the hands of their respective holders, and raise for their respective strikes. "Until the bitter end!," Wyatt echoes back at Artemis - and as one, they plunge back down. As he falls, it occurs to Wyatt in the back of his mind that this is good practice. It was not long ago he told the dark guardian Lulu that he would defend the temple at Doma with his life if her summoner came there. To battle Ifrit, wielded by the power of a heretical summoner... this is what it will be like. To battle a god. But that thought is for later. Wind screams at his ears. The templar falls, dropping from the sky at the aeon. His cape whips behind him, trailing flames of it's own as it remains alight from the close encounter before. This will have to be timed perfectly. That hide is resistant enough as it is. The blade in his hand glows once more, holy white light igniting in a blaze that no true fire could rival. A heartbeat. And strike. As Wyatt falls past Ifrit's face, the blade in his hand lashes out with lightning speed. Four strokes in blinding fast succession at the creature's already wounded face, carving a rather familiar shape. There is no battle cry or prayer to Faram this time - merely a primal yell of effort as Wyatt pours all he can in to end this rampage.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "That'd...be good, I don't think I can get this all the way to Cosmo Babylonia by m-myself."

The beam rips through the air loudly and quite angry-- and even with an odd, eerie sense of control over that beam, Lune can't quite get it to drag into the path of the Zentradi warrior. When it becomes all too clear to her that she's going to have to deal with him in point-blank, close range, the hands part, killing the beam with a loud BANG.

The Valsione's weight shifts backwards, the long and slender legs touching the ground one after the other to help /push/ the machine along while the wings flap to an upright position. Waves of hair spill over the shoulders, and the fist of the power armor catches the machine across it's side with a glance of the knuckles-- but it still causes Lune to wince, held in the claw-grabber of her cockpit.

"You jackass!" she growls back, the Valsione's expressions rotating from a wince of pain to a more angry expression. "I'll make you regret that!"

Reaching back, the hand closes around the grip of the next weapon to manifest-- a Magna Rifle. Though typically used as a ranged weapon, Lune grips the weapon next at the barrel, bringing the gun around with the intent to SLAM the butt into the faceplate of Kamjin's power armor. Then, she pulls back the rifle-wielding arm with one arm and drives it forward as though she were channeling the spirit of Kyosuke 'MFing' Nanbu.

She's trying to drive it into the Zentradi's power armor right in the gut.

"Say hello to this!"

And then BLAM, BLAM, BLAM. Or ZOT ZOT ZOT. Your sound effects mary vary by platform.

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Cecilia Utani transmits, "Okay. But /only once/. Primordial isn't a moving van!"

<Radio> Tightbeam to Roruda Nell: Ascian Luddite says, "Wow. The princess is going out of her way to do something for you. Dang. She must like you."

The Knightmare Frame skids to a stop near the wrecked Gundam.

Shit, Jung thinks: this thing really is small.

"Lune!!" she calls towards the pilot of the Valsione, gritting her teeth. Caught between a rock and a hard place!!

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "I know, I know!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "Once I get this fixed, you can make use of it too, you know. I mean, you Miclones in general, if you...need to for whatever reason."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Cecilia Utani transmits, "Why would I need to do /that/?"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "I don't know! I'm just making the offer."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Cecilia Utani hn. "Fine."

"Ha ha ha ha!" Kamjin the Destroyer laughs, the sound audible to anyone with ears, because he /still has the loudspeaker on/. The natural basso reverb of a full-sized Zentradi's voice just makes it all the worse. "You're so slow!" The Magna Rifle misses, because the Zentradi power armor slips /over/ it, Lune's furious fire arcing out through the empty air while Kamjin in turn jams the barrel of his handheld laser pistol against the Valsione, and opens fire, laughing maniacally all the while. The Nousjadeul-Ger power armor remains airborne throughout, through the application of mysterious Overtechnology thrusters and so on, and despite Lune's claim, the madman within the armor doesn't seem to be regretting it in the least. "Now then~" Kamjin practically coos, as his armor jets back away from the Super Robot, an alien fighting the legacy of the man who sought to prepare mankind against aliens. Brandishing a /second/ laser pistol in its off hand, the armor primes its chest-mounted impact cannon, and swings its heavy liquid plasma cannon into firing position as well, taking aim with all four guns on the enormous form of Valsione. "I'll make /you/ regret /everything/ -- you shitty Miclone!!" /All/ thoe guns start firing at once, a furious barrage of laser bolts and armor-piercing impact cannon flack, finished off with a horrifying blast from the liquid plasma cannon, superheated matter searing the very air around it as it streaks towards the body of the Valsione!

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "Anyway, objective secured! If you need to return to base, do so!"

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Cecilia Utani transmits, "You can meet me on the way. I'll carry it."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "That was Kamjin the Destroyer, by the way, the leader of those other Zentradi. Also known as the Ally-Killer because he would shoot through his own troops if it would win him battles."

<Radio: B - DC Tactical> Roruda Nell transmits, "He's the reason I didn't join the Earth Zentradi rebels."

Given his radio has been destroyed, it's pretty clear that Iron Mask can't hear the conversation about the objectives being secure over the radio. So instead of backing off, he's still fighting as hard as he can; the Berga Dalas weaving between the plasma fire, sliding with unbelievable skill away from the enemy machine towards cover. He knows he can't keep it up forever; however, he cannot retreat, either-

The IFF signals of his soldiers beginning to pull out, however, is enough for him to pause. His endless rage begins to curl beneath the iron mask once more as logic asserts itself. Either they have taken too many losses, and need to pull out, or they have secured their objectives. In either case, while he did not /approve/ of retreat...

He was more valuable to the Ronah Family alive than dead, at the moment. He had no fear of his own death, but the Cosmo Babylonia movement would not survive his death, not without a strong military hand to guide it...and Dorel simply wasn't that hand, yet. Perhaps some other day.

The Berga Dalas peels away from its foe, sparking as it heads towards the Rendevous Point. He would remember that machine.

Next time.

The damaged Excellence Gunner slows it's rate of fire as it becomes obvious that the Mobile Suit is retreating. "Finally." She huffs a sigh. then turns to look at Langely base and the condition it's in. "Uuuu...." Her expression falters.

Looks like she'll be putting Excellence to it's originaly intended use after all: Search and Ruscue.

The shots strike nothing but the air-- and Kamjin Kravshera blasts the Valsione in response. The machine falls back a step and the machine's feet hit the duracrete with a fairly good amount of force, one of the machine's hands swinging up to grab the shoulder as the face takes on a notable grimace of pain.

In the cockpit, slumped down and holding her left shoulder, Lune Zoldark looks up at Kamjin as he holds himself overhead with all of his weapons and his Overtechnology, his arrogance bleeding through her speakers and hitting her ears. Her teeth clench, her eyes draw into sharp focus. Once upon a time, doctors called her superhuman.

The blasts strike the Valsione from on high, scorching the ground and blasting up chunks of the ground in the process, chewing through the ground until the infamous Zentradi backstabber has had his fill of firing. That's when it happens--

-- the Valsione comes to a sudden halt above the Nosjaedul-Ger armor, literally bleeding color as it moves faster than cannons can track, data can display, and perhaps, for a moment, faster than the eye can follow. The Valsione has no legitimate system to achieve this kind of effect, this kind of speed... literally, it comes entirely from Lune herself.

Her teeth bare, body wracked with G-forces. "Says you."

Hefting the bulk of twin Magna Rifles, their stocks tucked under the Valsione's shoulders, Lune repays the favor of Kamjin's violence with an eruption of blasts raining down from above!

Clearly, this is not getting anyone anywhere. Kamjin the Destroyer is many things, and most of them would not be complimentary. But, like many violent psychopaths who live for battle, he is /very/ good at reading the pulse of a fight, of figuring out what's going to happen next, whether his machine's instrumentation can keep up or not. Only a mild bit of annoyance appears on Kamjin's face as the Valsione manages to avoid getting horribly wrecked by his barrage of firepower, but he doesn't have much time to consider the full implications or anything because the Super Robot is busy getting above him at high speed. The twin magna rifles fire, and it's clear that no normal individual could hope to respond in kind... But Kamjin is not, and has never been, a normal individual. Not even for a cloned race of space vikings. The Nousjadeul-Ger /twists/, moving between the beam fire as it responds in kind, firing its pistols upwards in what proves to ultimately be fruitless, and-- "Boss!!" comes a voice in Zentradi over the armor's radio. "Boss we gotta pull out!" Kamjin sighs. Always with the pulling out. "HEY, YOU!" Kamjin declares, pointing up at the Valsione. "I WANT YOU TO REMEMBER, TODAY IS THE DAY YOU EARNED THE WRATH OF KAMJIN... THE DESTROYER!" And with that, the power armor jets back and away at high speed, firing wildly to discourage pursuit before moving to regroup with the rest of his strike team. DUN DUUUUUN?!

Crap-- for a Zentradi in power armor, he's moving a lot faster than she expected. But there's one saving grace to all of this-- Kamjin Kravshera is leaving the battlefield, allowing Lune a moment of respite.

In reply, the Valsione smirks, and Lune folds her arms with all the confidence in the world-- no matter how badly her shoulder hurts through the DML system and the damage taken to the chest. The Valsione mimics the pose while Kamjin flees, and the Valsione's wings flap once, then twice before she lands back on the ground.

"I'll remember it as the day you ran away with your tail between your legs!"

Lune Zoldark: She's gotta get the last word in.