2024-02-17: The Pot

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<Pose Tracker> Shuffle Alliance Kill Team Omicron has posed.

"It's bad."

That's the first words out of Mithril Admiral Jerome Borda's lips, transmitted to meeting rooms across the Earth Sphere.

"Since the Bloody Princess Massacre, we've completely lost track of every asset that was in Nagoya at the time, including a couple that weren't supposed to be. Dead, alive, flipped, no idea." He grimaces. "The Partholon battlegroup in the Mediterranean has lost six stockpiles and two entire ships. NUNE just seized two of our reserve accounts out of PLANT. Someone, somewhere, has talked, to somebody. Normally, filling in those variables would be Intelligence's job, but..."

He motions across the table, to the silent terminal where General Mayer Amit, head of intelligence, should be.

"I haven't heard from Mayer in a month. I don't want to consider the possibility it was him, but..." He grunts, unhappily. "...it's under investigation. For now, we're able to stay afloat, but we might need to engage another full-scale security ref"

His terminal suddenly goes dark.

"Admiral?" prompts an attendant from the Fir Bolg battlegroup, representing the Indian Ocean, then they also disappear.

Like a wave, every Mithril attendee suddenly blacks out without warning other than growing alarm.

One of the Shuffle Alliance attendees slams his hand into his desk: "It's a coordinated attack! Figure out the how later, everyone get--" Jamil Neat yells, then turns off camera and yells, "The hell do you mean 'Garrod's in prison!?'"

A bespectacled young man who has looked deeply uncomfortable the whole time, if anything seems to calm down as chaos erupts. "...we've only got Zenon, but I'll tell them to get moving if you tell me--" Then he also looks up, distracted by a loud off-screen alert. Then his eyes bug out. "Nouvelle Tokyo? There's HOW MANY Snoobies!?"

Inside the hidden comms room behind her study, Sayla Mass desperately tries to get back through to the secure call- only for a second alert to pop up. "...The Nubia Connection? Here? Why would they-" No. There's no time to pause. Even if they're not attacking the villa directly, they're too close to home. She rushes for the nearest balcony, raises her gand, and snaps her fingers.

As the Shuffle side of things more vocally descends into chaos, the Merida Island virtual conference room goes largely quiet...until the lights go red, as the attendees surely expected.

"Ma'am!" comes an intercom to Tessa's console. The voice is Sachi Shinohara, the comms officer on duty at Merida Island's command center. "I'm sorry to interrupt but it's critical! ECCS radar has detected a perimeter breach of the island! They're huge and they're coming in fast." She stops, taking in a breath she can't stop from shaking, and says: "Five cruise missiles, and..."

"...and three Behemoths, Ma'am."

    --

The first wave of the raid was the cruise missiles. That already wrought havoc across Merida's tropical expanse, cracking open subterranean structures and ruining defenses. But it was just softening them up.

While plumes of smoke began belching out of emergency vents and ruined elevators, the hammer arrived. Three Behemoths - all painted a navy blue, compared to the original's fire engine red, with the one in the lead tagged with orange command stripes. They came in from the northeast, over an old sunken coral reef. It was nearly comical, the disproportionate ASes trudging through hip-deep seawater, weapons that looked like too-long cigars in their hands...but those weren't cigars.

They were howitzer cannons.

And so the second wave of bombardment began all too soon, as those massive weapons belched flame and shells across the island, approaching the heart of the Tuatha de Danaan fleet. It wasn't even that slow.

They'll get to mainland soon. But...with weapons like those, and the supreme power of the Lambda Driver, do they even want to?

<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.

Behemoths. Front and center. The reaction time between hearing Shinohara's voice and orders was less than a second, Tessa already standing up from the seat of the conference room. "Evacuate all staff located at above-board observation posts. Ping the SOS signals, and have all ground personnel evacuate." Vacate the area. Prepare for combat here.

The sirens of Merida Island blared. Red alert. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Red alert. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. All personnel, prepare for combat. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. Tessa took the short trek to occupy the commander's chair of the command center of the base, sitting herself down. Work. Forget about the dull headache of everything in the moment, shove away the worries, comparmentalize the dread, and force yourself on a singular task.

"Cruise missiles! Incoming!" The yell from the officer in charge of anti-air interception. Multiple missiles. Area F2. Distance, seventy miles. Speed, Mach 6.3. Time to impact-"
"Sixty-five seconds." An immediate response. "Fire all missiles to intercept."
"Roger. Firing missiles." And the hatches of the island popped open, the defenses of Merida Island used, for the first time, in live-fire combat. To belch and streak out, pinpricks of light breaking through the azure sky to scream towards the incoming volley.

There's only a small, unprofessional sigh from the Captain at the head. "If these were nuclear, we're dead without warning."

---

"Personnel losses?" With the impact of those missiles, the majority of the anti-air capabilities of the island were taken out in one fell swoop.
"Thirty lightly injured. Ten heavily injured." There's a pause from the security officer. "Five dead. The second observation tower was hit."
"I see." As calm as hearing the weather, pushing the thoughts, the names she knew, the people she heard talk about their favorite sports, their habits, the way one lit up when talking about their kids at home...
"Captain..."
"Not now." Mardukas's intent to comfort was stopped. "We have this to deal with before thinking about them."

<"The enemy's finally here. Hold nothing back. Come back alive."> The simple orders to the inhabitants and current guests of Merida Island, brow furrowing as those three blips on the radar crept ever closer. Three. Three of them. Here. Now. Work. Get back to work. The submarine is under maintenance. The airways are destroyed. Six-plus hours to get them functional. They're serious.

... <"You have full permission to give them hell."> If they want a fight, I'll give them one.

<Pose Tracker> George de Sand has posed.

         The beauty of the Shuffle Alliance in its current form, George had always thought, was that becoming a far-reaching organization took much of the leadership role off of the five Gundam Fighters of the Alliance themselves. When you looked at Domon, Chibodee, Argo, and Sai, you weren't exactly looking at four men with much of a head for administration. Those delicate matters were typically left to George's stead, the Neo-Frenchman quietly listening in on the meeting, waiting to provide input if so desired.

         To tell the truth, even though George was the most equipped for such matters, he, like the rest of his Shuffles, hardly felt the most comfortable in such an environment. Which is why, when the ground beneath him shook and everyone around him began to panic, he smiled and calmly made his way to the hangar.

         "Raymond, am I ready to go?"

         "You were ready to deploy five minutes ago, Sir."

         "Good man!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tquS2v4Xajw


         Let it never be known that the Gundam Rose was fashionably late to a sortie. Bursting from the Merida Island compound, it flies forward with its blade raised, leading the defense against the Behemoths. Its epaulette opens up, deploying an array of Rose Bits that shoot out in front of it to initiate by firing at the closest Behemoth.

<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.

        Seolla Schweizer had dreamed that Merida Island was an enigma that could never be breached.

        When conditions on the island turn to red alert, she's sweating from fears both rational and illusory. Breathlessly sprinting down the halls towards Merida's hangars is second nature, barely even registering as an action, but the whole time, distant voices in her ear, in those shrill, creaky voices, breathe out-

                ((This is your fault, Bronzo-27.))
                        ((Bronzo-27, you're supposed to be better than this.))

        A cold bead of sweat at the echoes of driving Seolla to the brink, for the sake of her 'improvement'. She can't even remember what she did wrong to earn their ire - only that a single mistake was unacceptable for one of their 'brightest stars'.

        And yet, clambering up the gantries into a Lion, a pinprick of doubt seeps into her thought.

        ...is this somehow happening because of that picture I took?

        A single picture of herself and Jezebel Richens one sunset here at Merida, on a device that never once left Merida and was never once connected to any cell service or internet, which only showed the sea.

        Seolla can't help but stare at her hands during the Lion's bootup routines, and think, (Is this somehow my fault?)

        Sweat pasting her bangs to her brow, Seolla grits her teeth and stiffens upright, gasping herself free from the lingering spiral. "That's impossible. That'd be STUPID AS HELL. Get your head in the game, augh!!!"

        Switching comms on, Seolla hastily belts out, <"Uruz-11, Seolla Schweizer, launching! -It's those red Arm Slaves from back when I heard of, right? I know everyboy in the world's seeming to be out for our blood these days, but - any idea who in particular sent them? Who in particular found out where we are?! I'll never forgive anyone who sold us out - even if there's not much we can do if the enemy just had better ability to sniff us out than we dreamed...">

        Even if it was maybe a fantasy to think that this little slice of the world could stay safe forever even when they fight the rest of it...

        Contrails streaking behind her, the vivid blue Lion screams into the skies above Merida Island, a fierce glow in the visor as Seolla tracks the three Behemoths setting the space aflame. She's heard of what their Lambda Drivers can do - and she knows it's not going to be easy, but... <"Launching missiles - they're big and lumbering, surely we can drain their power supply, or...something before we gotta move in...!"> From the modules on her Lion's shoulders, a hailstorm of micromissiles erupts and arcs to the three crimson demons, Seolla trying to draw their fire and holding faith in her mobility to bail her out...

<Pose Tracker> Rain Mikamura has posed.


Rain is included in this meeting. Mostly as a stand-in nominally for the leader of the actual Shuffles (so, Domon), because she's also better at gathering the data and breaking it down for them to work on together later, precisely as she did during the Gundam Fight. George is a welcome sight to join her on this escapade, and he at least gets a smile from her at some point. She looks tired, on the cameras; the loss of Nagoya killed what she was working on in that area, and the loss of those that were in it weigh heavily on her mind.

Her gaze is quietly fixated on the missing monitor of their Intelligence leader, and her frown deepens as reports roll in, before she glances at something else on her monitor, and those payinga ttention can hear her call, "Go! Rising Gundam!" As she disapepars from her seat.

"Toybox- can I get you to run as much overhead administrata as possible?" She asks briefly. "Which is to say, the coordination?" She adds on, cheekily. She doesn't mind doing it, but Tessa and crew are better off for this matter than she is trying to do it solo from the Rising.

"George, Seolla, just watch out for shots coming from range!" She adds on, as the Rising makes it to the scene, the beam lifting as she exhales, sights, and runs calculations, before a crack of blue fire races across.

<Pose Tracker> Shuffle Alliance Kill Team Omicron has posed.

There are men in there - somewhere - but don't count on cackling villains giving away their plans. The Behemoths approach at a stable walk - actually, to be moving as fast as they are on the water, there's likely some kind of drive pack installed. It gets worse! That's neat!

Two Shuffle Alliance machines and a local SRT arise to defend the base, but for those who didn't see the first Behemoth, the fearsome power of a trio is evident at once. Seolla's missiles crash into the head machine, but the only sign of the collision afterward is a flicker of blue-white light and a cloud of smoke and dust. Rain's rifle shots rake across the Behemoth's head - the old reports did say that had worked for Kurz during the A21 incident in Nagoya - but firing straight on allows her to see the beam shot impact an invisible force some centimeters from the face, halting the particle beam and scattering it harmlessly.

The last machine turns to look straight on at Rose Gundam as the Rose Bits sweep about...but an image forms in the air, effortlessly visible to the naked eye. A Newtype can all but taste it, a raw projection of *intention* forming an impervious shield that the Rose Shots collide with harmlessly.

"...no lasting damage..." comes the shocked report from Merida CIC.

The lead Behemoth, in a comical mix of navy and construction orange, putters onward unphased even by its brief clash with George, and then the shoulder armor slides away to reveal an array of missiles that darts up into the sky, corkscrewing and crashing toward the island to blast away any semblance of cover or, for that matter, the Rising Gundam.

Another turns its attention on Seolla, this one all in Navy, and after a moment the facial vulcan cannons spin up into a relentless torrent that could shred through even an armored fortification in seconds.

As for George, a different Behemoth suddenly raises the long tube its carrying at him, and there's a tremendous thundercrack before a shell that could blow a hole clean through the island on Merida comes barreling straight at him.

<Pose Tracker> George de Sand has posed.

         George grits his teeth as the Rose's beam glances off of a wall of...pure will. Ranged attack was probably a no-go, then.

         "It's got a barrier! Be careful!"

         As he warns Rain and Seolla, his awareness flashes and he darts to the side just in time for the cannon shot to miss, sweeping around and barreling towards the Behemoth that just shot it.

         "Better to get up close and personal!"

         The Rose Gundam's arm pulls back as it charges forward, saber held straight out, then pushes out, combining with the mobile suit's momentum to deliver a powerful opening thrust.

<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.

<"On it and doing so, Rain. Focus on what you need to."> This was the best spot for her. Coordination and dissemination, watching the radar blips course towards each other. To think that after all this time, there'd be a coordinated effort...

<"Codename: Behemoth. There was one before, but three...In any case, the most likely culprit is Amalgam. Focus on taking out the Lambda Driver in the back. And careful. They're more agile than they look."> No anti-air capabilities meant that these three and the other SRT members on-base were the best they had for this endeavour.

Six-plus hours, she thought. Six-plus hours. The initial ETA was made under the assumption that the ASes were able to help in any capacity, and with the rest of the Shuffle Alliance tied up as they were, there was no escaping this. There's a small, minute point of admiration, the teenage side of her crooning over a simple fact.

Ah, what a brilliant ambush! The sea, the sky, both sealed off, and we're just sitting ducks! Really, she'd rather punch the supposed orchestrator and yell at him for being an idiot...Unfortunately, such wishes had to be squashed.

"What's the ETA on the de Dannan maintenance?"
"Six days."
"Push it up. Miniminal operating conditions." The only way in or out of the island, a set jaw and a mask of confidence on her face.

Sitting ducks. Sitting ducks! That's all it was now, the SRT members spreading out, PRT members behind to brace themselves in the wilds of the island. Kurz taking potshots every so often before deciding better, opting to weave himself into the island's forests and wait for the perfect spot. So much manpower, here, useless against those Behemoths.

"Brace for another wave of missiles. Keep the Behemoths occupied. Fire at will." She can't discard the possibility. The fact that their base was exposed like this...It's frustrating. To have this kudgel, to be taken out and waiting for three bogeys to stomp in before having any sembalance of doing anything.

<"We can't do much against them from range. Do what you can.">

<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.

        It's a small comfort that George and Rain are here - especially when she still owes Rain her life from that difficult escape in Kabul. <"Tch, this really is looking to be tough even for the real-deal Shuffle Alliance...I'm waiting on the right chance to get in close, but-">

        Seolla's interrupted with a shrill scream as the overwhelmingly tearing vulcans rip at the Lion's armor - this isn't exactly a heavyweight machine, but she didn't realize just how hard even head vulcans were hitting! Smoke fumes from all across Seolla's suit, and she's already compensating hard in flight, gripping the control sticks with white knuckles. <"Haaah...I'm okay...I'm still trying to clear their range, but I can't screw around - I'm going around back, and hoping we can get through those damned barriers, even if it's just by luck! The two of you, don't let them flatten you!">

        Plunging directly over the navy blue Behemoth, Seolla wheels around with spine-pressing g-forces, machine gun spinning in hand and focusing on any ports or apertures in the hulking machines menacing Merida Island, eyes sharp and fixed on even these distant pinpricks. All while weaving a bit of a dance through the salvo of missiles Tessa launches. <"Don't be afraid to launch them near my position,"> Seolla reiterates to the Toy Box. <"Just send me the coordinates, and I'll maneuver between them. I've done worse before, and by now, I could recount the way you organize launches in my sleep, Captain."> 

<Pose Tracker> Rain Mikamura has posed.

"Rising, backing Rose's judgement. Hold that thought, aiming for something." Rain's voice comes through on the edge of George's statement.

Missiles are coming, but Rain moves, going in towards the Behemoths with grace. It's not fast enough, though, even as sthe shield swings around from the arms of her machine, kneeling slightly to help break down the spread of hits as missiles impact and send Rain-Rising back several feet.

"Thanks, Toy Box. Knowing you're always with us is ... really nice, you know." She adds on. Tessa needs to hear it. Another pause, then: "Actually, that's not a judgement, George's the right of it. There's a barrier, but I don't know if it's explicitly for ranged or just for our style of attacks." A pause, then lightly: "Luckily, I'm prepared to try to figure that out." Rain, please, now is not the time for levity.

Then she moves on a more controlled tightbeam, straight to Tessa directly: <<"... These odds are not in our favor. What's the concern for backup plans?>>

She rings Domon as the Rising moves back a few steps. She inhales, exhales; inhales again, and then drops it all momentarily. In, out, in, out- the rifle fires.

<Pose Tracker> Shuffle Alliance Kill Team Omicron has posed.

Tessa cautions them, range won't work well. It's true enough. The lead machine catches Seolla moving to firing position and that flickering field appears again, a near perfect impression in the air of a medieval chevron-shaped shield. It's force projection is absolute, and Seolla's weaponsfire patters against it harmlessly.

Something in the movement stands out to Rain's intuitions, her senses, and when she fires - there's a plume of smoke and the machine it hits actually staggers back.

"Impact? Impact!" CIC yells over, excitedly.

Meanwhile, while George zooms in, the navy Behemoth he's engaged SURGES SKYWARD. That's...

"Impossible..." Sachi mumbles, like her heart just fell out of her chest. "A machine that massive making a jump like that?! Just impossible!"

Regardless, George finds himself confronting it as reality, the colossal mass coming down feet-first to smash Rose Gundam to flinders.

At the same time, the lead Behemoth lurches forward MUCH faster than it had been, lashing out with its off hand to simply swat Seolla out of the sky.

Finally, the third machine continues its assault on the island itself, releasing a pair of massive howitzer shells - on impact, each one EXPLODES, shattering the island's surface and sending meters of jungle flying into the sea.

<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.

There's no response from Tessa for Rain's assurance. Even the slightest bit of out of thought work for the people involved, for the state of affairs involved...No. Distance. Disconnect. The dead are piling up, the reports of one person after another coming in as the personnel deal with the aftermath of the missile barrage. Keeping mental tabs on the logistics side of things, pulling up a tablet to help with keeping everything together. Double duty, triple duty, the nerve head of the defenses of Merida Island focusing on a singular girl.

The question, however. <"Lambda Drivers are vulnerable to direction. Fakeouts, quick distractions, or catching them offguard."> The simplistic idea: You can't guard if you don't know what's coming. <"The engine for them should be at the same place, barring technical upgrades."> There's data beamed out; Here. Backside. Known mechanical plans of the Behemoth.

"How many missiles left?"
"Twenty."
"Fire all of them." The barrage of chatter across the Command Room were starting to reach a crescendo, the situation changing one after the other. Telemetry data sent to the units outside, to keep missile from colliding against their own units.

SRT units shot down. PRT units disabled. Another sector of the island left to be abandoned as resources quickly dwindled, the manpower shifted about. Tessa never stopped ordering, only a second or two to listen to the latest comms chatter, the newest death, the latest injury, the destruction of so and so place, and mentally form new strategies and plans on those minor variables. Again. And again. And again.

"Brace for impact." An order delivered as dryly as any other in a focused situation of stress, the explosions of topside sounding out in the veins of the island's base. The sounds of crumbling infrastructure, of foundations failing, of men and women caught in unfavorable situations in an island that was stricken off the maps, working for people that could never acknowledge them in anything other than words and memories.

Every death was slotted away. The happy smiles, the warm gazes, the multiple soldiers on base who followed her orders...Comparmentalize them. Don't worry about them. Slough the weight, and deal with the grief ater. There were too many dead to try and process each and every one.

This was her home.

"Captain." Mardukas's report. With the best available speed, it'd be two and a half hours until the submarine was sea-worthy. Refueling the reactor was the most important part: It wasn't a necessity, but fuel was fuel, and sourcing that on a timely basis...The air compressor, needed for noise cancelation. Provisions. Supplies. ALl this merely for basic functionality.

Rain's private message had a comparatively simple Text-To-Speech response. <<We run. TDD-1 readiness ETA 2.5h.>> Two and a half hours. <<Not enough.>>

Not enough. This isn't enough. The feeling of being so exposed, so stripped bare. "Move to these coordinates. Ensure PRT six through ten route with formation charlie." Hands moving as quick as her mind, divesting her mental faculties to routing people, mapping routes, and keeping watch for landfall. No use. No use.

Each and every plan in her head, winding towards the same conclusion.

<Pose Tracker> George de Sand has posed.

         George's Newtype instincts don't do him as well here, the Behemoth simply too large to sufficiently react to. The impact rattles him in the cockpit, bringing him to his knees. "Ghhhn!"

         "Are you alright, Sir?!" The voice of his ever-reliant butler comes over his comms.

         "I've had far worse, Raymond. Don't worry about me. Maybe if I can push through the barrier..." The Rose Gundam struggles back to its feet, pushing forward once more with a lunge of its saber, attempting to find a weak point in its defense!

<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.

        They're not automatic. They're not perfect. They're fallible machines that Mithril has taken out before. And Tessa warns that the approach is misdirection - but it sure seems like those barriers flare up with remarkable reaction time no matter how many dizzyingly fast angles Seolla tries to fire on the lead Behemoth from.

        They were marching forth at a steady pace, and Seolla makes so many assumptions about their gait from that. Indeed, the way the island itself is being ripped up and torn makes Seolla feel faint at just how monstrous these things can come off as.

        But then, her target leaps skyward, and the world becomes crushed in a vise of time.

        ((Less than three hours until we escape.))

        ((So many are dead. And we're taking everything we can and leaving.))

        ((They were prepared, one day, for this all to be over.))

        ((I need to do everything in my power to hold them at bay.))

        ((Even if they have to leave me be_hi-n d _ - - ))

(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)
@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_
)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(@)_(
)_(Say, Seolla. When we get out of here-
_(@Let's make a promise.

"...Arado, Ouka, Lat, Tessa, Sousuke, Rain, George, Mao, Kurz, Dr. Goldberry, Leina, Sayla, Renais, Rikka, Akane, Alouette, Kallen, Qivi, -even you three, Chienne, Chien, Chiot, I can't let that happen to me- I'm not just TAKING THIS LYING DOWN-!!!"

        Every thruster alights at once, sending Seolla hurtling backwards at a speed that feels like a truck hitting her square in the chest, a streak of blood spilling from her mouth as she kites away from the Behemoth's pulverizing fist with everything she's got. Spitting over her monitor, Seolla kicks her leg upwards to draw her blade, resetting her position point-first towards the hulking disaster, and over broad-waves, cries out, <"I've got one chance to put you down right here, right now! Get ready, cause I'm ripping your heart clean out!!!">

        Wings spread wide, Seolla takes the lunge with all the force of pure devotion to skewer the Behemoth right through the gut, the hopes and dreams of everyone at the point of her sword. Desperate, blood boiling with determination-

        -Except at the last second, she halts mid-air again, blazing upwards and swiveling the Lion's hips around, unfurling a bolt from her railgun stowed away at the rear skirt, arcing at point blank range towards the Behemoth's head.

        <"...kah. I...wish. I'd kill the three of you right now if I could. I'd put my life on the line to help Tessa escape...if I could.">

        <"There's just too many people counting on me now to die like this, though. Even if I can't stop you, I'm making sure not a single other person dies today, as much as I possibly can. That one's hopefully distracted, Rain, George...!">

<Pose Tracker> Rain Mikamura has posed.

"Oh dear." A pause, and Rain and the Rising are suddenly -booking it- across the field toward the Behemoths. The rifle gets tucked away as the shield comes up and goes on behind her, as the Howitzer impact, well ... does what it sounds like. The shock of it is enough to blow her forward, the shield luckily taking some of the impact, but Rain and the Rising go for a hard ride and when Rain picks herself back up again, she's getting all sorts of fun alerts from the computers.

"I know, I know." Rain coughs out, spitting out a globule of ... something onto the floor outside of her main working area in the cockpit.

"You're going to have to work with me though, Rising; I know neither of us are Domon or the God or Shining, but you were never designed for that. We never were." A pause, and the rifle and shield pack up, and with the grace of the Yamato Nadeshiko, a pole comes out and to life, the beam naginata appears in her grip the way a warrior priestess would hold it.

"What were we designed for, though?" A pause. "Protection and care of those around us." She echoes Seolla, to herself. The Rising abruptly moves into melee, the blade reaching out with a swift slash as she makes herself known to the other two.

Tessa: <<" We run? If this keeps up, there won't be any of us left to run. That time, though... I'm guessing that's already as fast as we can get it?">>

<Pose Tracker> Shuffle Alliance Kill Team Omicron has posed.

And yet the Behemoths simply stare on. The head is large - the forehead huge, accommodating all four facial vulcans, with optic sensors gleaming red-orange below them. They shine unrepentant in the sun. Daylight...the audacity, to strike at the very height of day!

They're apelike, almost, and manlike, too, with a silhouette like a fat man. But no - not fat, but thick, powerful, the width of a warrior of old. They barely even slow down even under the assault of everything Merida Island can bring to bear against them. How long until they make landfall? Minutes, now? And you have to hold out for hours yet.

There's people in there, people with hearts and souls, but they're murderers just the same. Soldiers sent to this place to kill, and given some of the finest killing machines imaginable to do it. George bullets up the inner thigh of the Behemoth but his sword simply scatters to motes as the Behemoth pilot's barrier resists the thrust. The third turns its eyes up, its own barrier expanding this time - it's a round shield, this time, for some speckle of personality. It stops all of Merida Island's last-gasp missile barrage just the same, and then squares its stance - the water only comes to its knees now - and fires. These missiles GLOW, and there's only one thing that could mean; each impact erupts in a psychokinetic burst, stripping away dirt in neat plumes and digging toward the tender meat of the facility beneath.

With power like this, they could have already obliterated the island...

....do they mean to take it, then?

George finds himself staring down the barrel of a howitzer cannon, and the demonic Behemoth simply fires it STRAIGHT INTO HIM, creating a massive explosion nearly at its FEET. It does not fear this; despite the enormous bloom of light and the terrific wave created in the aftermath, the sparkling sea spray around it reveals its barrier has survived its own assault.

Seolla quite cleverly switches up her attack. Distraction is the key, of course!

But the barrier still flickers around its skull where her shot hits. Maybe she can all but sense the disdainful sneer of the pilot. Saw that coming.

But that whole maneuver does leave him open for Rain's next attack, which cleaves through what must be full meters of armor across its belly. That gets its attention, and the Behemoth's head vulcans spin up and then rake from sky to sea, encompassing Seolla and Rain both in the arc.

<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.

It's with the slight sense of amazement to watch pilots do their work. To hear the comms chatter working as intended, to have the smallest sliver of mindspace dedicated to appreciating the insanity of confronting a massive mechanical beast.

"Brace for impact." The order, once again, is delivered as dryly as ever. The double impact is more noticable; Land gouged out by those two massive blasts and the resulting psychic energy, reveberations of energy that lacerated the earth obscuring the tunnels of the base. The shockwaves of impact echoing out, leaving the scarred, the mangled, the dead in its wake as a forcibly carved record of the Behemoth's actions.

"PRT Squad two has been wiped. Squad three is out of operational capacity." ...She knew all of them by name. Push it away. Shove it away. Think. Think. THINK.

...It had to be done.

Rain: <<The safest and fastest time. We're running.>>

"Mardukas. Finish up whatever maintenance you can."
"...I understand."
A flick. PA on. Comms on. Whatever sort of intra-message capabilities this place had had long been destroyed.
<"Abandon ship. All hands. Abandon ship. Alpha Omega. I repeat. Abandon ship. Alpha Omega, auth 2395. TDD-1 safe."> Translation: Abandon ship. Abscond where possible. Destroy what you cannot take. Leave as little as possible. Get to the Tuatha de Dannan or offsite ASAP.

Tessa sighed out. Losing. The bitter pill that was never easy to swallow, the thought in her mind as she pushed herself off of the Command Chair of the Command Center in Merida Island for the last and final time. The crew was already pulling out armaments...

And she was gone from the comms line.

<Pose Tracker> George de Sand has posed.

         Firing at the Rose's feet? The Rose will simply make sure its feet are not on the surface, then! The Rose leaps into the air, carrying itself well out of reach of the explosion. He bites the inside of his cheek, letting out a sharp breath at the narrow escape.

         "If we can divert their attention in enough directions..."

         ...then they might not have the concentration to maintain shields!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JU3vYHPVC68


         "Alright! Please observe my greatest technique!"

         As the Jack of Diamond crest on George's hand glows, the Gundam Rose holds out its left arm, the epaulette on its shoulder opening once more to unleash every Rose Bit he has, the funnels spinning in a spiral and beginning to form a vortex of energy.

         "ROSE...HURRICANE!"

         The cyclone begins to surround the Behemoths, the Rose Bits inside shooting off a near endless barrage of fire in every direction, with little time between shots.

<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.

        It's an unimaginably bitter pill for Seolla as well.

        After all, this little island in the middle of the sea, untamed and borderline just a secluded little paramilitary installation...

        ...It felt like home. After a decade raised in a hellish panopticon without anywhere to turn to, one that she can't believe she ever made herself believe was right - this island felt like somewhere to go. Somewhere to run away to. Somewhere to help and live whenever she could.

        And now it's all gone. Slipping and crumbling and lit ablaze.

        The twin fires of wanting to exact vengeance, right here, right now - and needing to survive at all costs - all sap from uncertainty when another salvo of vulcan fire starts bringing her Lion to billow smoke uncontrollably.

        "...god, how I want to take this place back. God, how I want to hunt you down. What I'd give to have that in me." But the radar ping of the Tuatha de Danaan offshore, Tessa's signal that they're retreating, all tells Seolla that there's one way forward. One single stone on this path towards the light.

        <"George, Rain, I've confirmed they haven't laid mines or traps along route 19-A towards our rendezvous. We can't make a damn dent in these guys, it's the worst...we've gotta get out of here. None of you are dying here."> And Seolla pulls towards the sun, slowly losing altitude as she drifts towards the waiting submarine.

        ...

        ...

        "Like hell I'm letting them just get away with this without a sign."


To the trio of Behemoths, Seolla's Lion would barely be a speck consumed by the sun. To Seolla, they're three distant, hazy, lumbering shapes.

        But she sees them. She feels the wind. She knows where they'll step next.

        "You people are on my list. Next time I shoot, it'll be at your bare heads."

        At this elevation, with this much shakiness in one's wings, it'd take a lunatic to even think aiming a railgun in the enemy's direction will accomplish anything.

        Eye narrowing, Seolla weaves the thread between herself and these unforgivable raiders. Her arm extends to pull it taut-

        And one last salute to this island she calls home, in an impossibly tightly aimed bullet riding the winds.

        There.

        Now that she's done everything she can with her eyes-

        ...Now Seolla can allow her vision to go useless with tears.

<Pose Tracker> Rain Mikamura has posed.

Vulcan fire is not many peoples friend tonight. Rain is quiet for a moment, just a moment, before the naginata gets thrown to the side for a brief moment, as she charges further into the Behemoths. The vulcans are indeed catching her as she goes, but she's got the Rising Shield up again, and that is, in fact, a valid attack to use, as the Rising skids to a stop, Rain lifts it back, and then with all the brutality of a teenaged girl in love, slams the Rising Shield forward into the Behemoth's head like it were named Domon Kasshu.

She has, in fact, taken lessons from Sayaka Yumi.

"Schweizer, de Sand, move!" Rain practically snarls over her radio, proving that she does, in fact, have a purpose to this, as she forces her way past them in a long loop back to the evac point, naginata getting nabbed on the way.

<Pose Tracker> Shuffle Alliance Kill Team Omicron has posed.

The Behemoths are so close now - in fact they're basically at the island's doorstep. But they haven't, quite, made landfall. George ensures it, forcing one to focus on defense with his Rose Hurricane; its barrier flickers, its armor burns. It's hard to be sure, but a few of those hits definitely got through. But...still, it stands.

Merida's local defenses have fallen silent; expended or no longer manned.

Seolla's shot from the blue does manage to actually slow a second Behemoth's approach; her shot, so fast and so far, doesn't encounter a barrier at all. It simply slices right in and CRATERS armor. But...

Dented armor. In the end...that's all she can boast even from that.

Rain follows on after it, and the Behemoth bends forward and SMASHES its face toward her. Then it shifts its head back up, sighting up toward where Seolla was, and a WAVE of autocannon bullets come out of its face - this time, flying too fast and too true. Enhanced by the pilot's will. If they hit...it's over.

But maybe it already is. Because one of the Behemoths has gotten close enough, and found the cave through with the Tuatha will have to escape.

It SLAMS its foot down, a seismic wave ripping away and shaking the entire island...and creating a presence that the Tuatha simply cannot steer around.

It must be moved. Or everyone here dies.

<Pose Tracker> Teletha Testarossa has posed.

Through the halls, people in tow. The rumble of action above, the minute frustration that legs could not move faster, that the body had a finite pace it had to go at to get from one location to the other. To shift through the hallways, down in as the island was left to its own devices. Screens smashed on the way. Locks made useless. Electronics doused with nearby water bottles. Leave nothing useful behind, make it quick, make it dirty, make them work for every last inch of space here to be made livable.

One turn left towards the dock, running with people in tow. Instinctually berating her own body, the focus of adrenaline forcing not a trip. Ragged breathing. An aching body that was only now releasing tension after the time on the Commanding Chair. In. Into the dock...

"ATTENTION!" Marduka's voice rang out. The TDD-1 ready for sailing, as beautiful as ever, as best prepared as it was in this situation. The crew in perfect formation as per usual, her XO, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Mardukas leading the line. "We've awaited your arrival, Miss Captain. The unparalleled vessel Tuatha de Danaan, ruler of the seven seas, is ready to depart. On your order, ma'am!" Even covered in oil, duty called.
"...Formality? Now?"
"Yes, ma'am. It's paramount in times like these."
There was no argument there. Even as the audible sound of an explosion boomed mutely overhead...The reasoning was evident.
"All crew, come aboard!"
"Aye, ma'am!"

Generator: Working. Fuel: Enough. Provisions: Slightly worrying. It'll be enough. Compressor: the fix of engineering knowhow and a wrench. Armaments: Some vacancies. Usable. The most one could be in this sort of situation.

Seating herself in the bridge, the one moment of released breath the only break she had in the past few days. One breath...and back to it. "Is everyone aboard?"
"Aye, ma'am!"
"Forward, one-third!"
"Aye, ma'am!" And the submarine heaved, beginning its final voyage from Merida Island.

The base was crumbling. Rocks falling from above. The rumble of failing infrastructure.
"Open the fourth hatch!" The hatch for machines to come in from the top. If any were around, the open hole was a perfect port.
"Aye, ma'am. Open the fourth hatch!"

Moving. Pushing. The submarine slowly picking up speed, aiming for the sole exit out, the hole towards a world different than the one that they exited when entering the base. "Load ADCAPs one through six. Flood and open all launch tubes." Be prepared.
"Aye, ma'am. Load ADCAPs one through six. Flood and open all launch tubes!" Simple.

It takes only a moment.
"Warning! All launch room and armory crew, evac to the aft!" "Warning!" The obvious. The simply obvious.
"High-frequency array, new contact! Something huge dead ahead!"

Teletha Testarossa smiled.
"...As expected. Perfect."

BGM - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHfxPll9FPA - Rough Edge ~Arrange~ - Shade


"FIRE ONE THROUGH SIX!"
Six torpedoes shot out from those open tubes, 300kg live warheads surging forth to the obstacle ahead. 1.8 tons of violence surging forth to crash against the obstacle at the tunnel exit.

Hit. Hit. Hit. Hit. Hit. Hit. The shockwaves coursing through the narrow corridor, forcing vibrations through the de Dannan. Not enough. Not enough.

"It's still alive!"
The periscope showed the obvious: Even with the display of brutal violence, it was still there. It was still standing. If the submarine moved forward, what would happen was-

"Plow through it." An immediate order.
"I-"
"RAM IT!"
"Aye aye ma'am! To hell!" The helmsman obeyed the order, the 210,000 horsepower reactor roaring to its full capabilities. To pour every bit of energy into acceleration, to turn the submarine into a missile all its own.

"BRACE FOR IMPACT!"

Impact. The brow of a submarine versus the hip of a Behemoth.

The Behemoth weighed 1500 tons.
The Tuatha de Dannan weighed 44000 tons.
There was no comparison to make, the sheer disparity forcing the Behemoth to take the full impact by surprise, machine flung away with a deafening splash away from the island.

Freedom. The bloody, bruised sort of shameful retreat, but the taste of freedom nonetheless.

"We're out." The engine cooled back down, the black streak of the TDD-1 quickly shifting in the water. <"Get here if you can. We dive in one minute or next attack, whichever is sooner.">

Think. Think. Never stop thinking. Too much to think about. Can't stay here long. George de Sand has places to hide in. So does Rain. Seolla...Seolla. Get here. Please.

<Pose Tracker> George de Sand has posed.

         Hell hath no fury.

         "Got it, Rain!"

         The Rose leaps backwards out of the way of the Behemoth's stomp, boosting backwards in a tactical retreat as the Rose Bits provide cover fire!

         "Sir, the base is being evacuated. I'll rendezvous with you in the dropship at a safe distance."

         "Just stay safe, Raymond!"

         The battle's been lost. George bites his lip hard enough to draw blood. He hates having to run away, but pounding at a brick wall isn't going to do anything. "That goes for you two as well, Rain, Mademoiselle Schweizer!"

<Pose Tracker> Seolla Schweizer has posed.

        -The arrogance on this kind of day of getting the last word in.

        Seolla hoped she could be bitter. Seolla hoped that she could watch and seethe in disgust as they went about destroying what she held dear.

        Naivete.

        Smoldering, descending towards the Tuatha de Danaan's hangar bay, Seolla can only imagine - they're too far away. Being this far back is her domain. These murderers aren't equipped for fighting a bird of prey on the horizon.

        She barely has time to react to the first bullet lancing through the Lion's upper body.

        Bracing, twisting, the world going monochrome around her, sounds swallowed by countless building alarms and rippling explosions. Fire licks at Seolla's boots - the corner of her eye sees them dancing around the legs of her suit like taunting tongues.

        Her lungs slowly draw the one breath she has between now and oblivion.

        ((Get here. Please.))

        -Of course she will.

        That prayer of an eternally racing mind trickles into Seolla's thoughts. Here. Where is 'here'? Her monitors are blinded - she can't tell which way is up in this increasingly smoldering wreckage of a mobile suit.

        But she can feel it.

        Tessa's desperate hope is something Seolla can still see in the world.

        She has one maneuver to make this count, a twist and a pull back on the Lion's fuselage, the frame cracking with a sickening creak.

        Eight hundred meters above the Tuatha de Danaan, a horrendous firework of death erupts as though some twisted celebration of Merida Island's ruin.

        Seven hundred meters above the Tuatha de Danaan, a cockpit block aimed straight towards the slowly opening hangar bay rockets directly downward-

        And SLAMS into the floor of the gantries hard enough to gently rock the entire submarine downwards, like the recoil of a gun.

                ((I'm here.))

        That single intense thought is all Seolla can even try to communicate before the impact knocks her completely unconscious.

<Pose Tracker> Rain Mikamura has posed.

"Sometimes I regret my choices." Is all Rain has to say before she and a Behemoth are getting to know each other in a way she'd rather not.

Naginata and shield in hand, she attempts to tank the facehit the best she can, but the shield is not capable of holding up to the sort of force that the behemoth's have on her, and it shatters, and the Rising Gundam goes down, and goes down hard. Thankfully for everyone involved, however, her status, while dangerously low, is still showing as 'conscious'.

"Ough." Is all she gives, before shutting the comms so no one can hear what follows. (It's not pretty.)

Knowing that she can't risk staying in melee - and also knowing that her rifle and arrow techniques take too much time to really be effective, especially with the barriers that she knows the Behemoth's have. Well aware she isn't going to make it to a normal spot (Rose yes, Rising no), Seolla is followed to the TDD and the Lion is joined by a Gundam on the floor as Rain quietly barely avoids dropping off herself.

"Rising and Lion on board, Toybox." She croaks out, before muting comms again.

<Pose Tracker> Shuffle Alliance Kill Team Omicron has posed.

<poem> The Behemoth's full mass is difficult to imagine, but...its very nature works against it here. The pilot must focus on keeping the machine light, so it does not tear itself apart. And, therefore, they cannot simultaneously inflict forces that would stop a ramming submarine. The shockwave strikes of the torpedos would kill anyone still inside the hangar, if there was any such person left. But finally, the tip of the whale-like Tuatha de Danaan slams into the very belly of the Behemoth, SHOVING it backward. It tries to dig its heels in, tries to GRAB the Tuatha to prevent its progress--

Flickering rose bits spray true, the pilot's whole attention on the Tuatha, but their sheer tenacity forces him to look aside, and finally that breaks the stalemate.

The Tuatha punches entirely through the Behemoth, sheering it in half with raw force. The two halves fall to either side as the world's deadliest submarine speeds away.

The other two machines continue on to Merida.

Apparently, killing everyone was not a mission requirement. Merely a bonus. They've gotten their real prize. 

       *

Soon, the word will go out, unavoidable. Mithril is as good as gone. The Argyros building in New Zealand, formerly the organization's secret headquarters, was bombed suddenly in broad daylight by unknown attackers who vanished before they could be intercepted. Merida Island, headquarter of the Tuatha de Danaan battlegroup that worked closely with Shuffle, was lost to the enemy. The other three battlegroups, Partholon, Nemed, and Fir Bolg, were similarly incapacitated. The entire Intelligence division has as good as disappeared. And Research's team is scattering as quickly as they can into the Shuffle Alliance's channels to protect the abused persons and awesome technologies they have kept safe. And Lord Mallory, the head of the organization, who once helped build the Shuffle Alliance back up once already after the death of the last generation of Shuffles, is now nowhere to be found.

The other bodies of the Shuffle Alliance escaped better; the attacks on them were more distractions rather than attempts to destroy them. But now the army of justice within that had dared to raise its sword into the darkness has been struck down to ashes. Is there a way forward from this?

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