2022-05-27: Upheaval

• Log: Upheaval
• Cast: Anti, Elisa Kafim, Ryoko Subaru, Saraven Vai Suberoa Zinnerman, Riika Sheder, Leito Igaguri, Heero Yuy, Nidaime, Milly Ashford, Puru Two, NPC GINN Forces
• Where: Junius Four, PLANTs
• Date: 2022-05-27
• Summary: Thanks to a little help from his 'friends' in BioNet, Anti takes the battle for Tsutsujidai's soul to a new frontier: Side 2's most prominent spaceport. Here, the PLANTs will know the horror which came to Earth...
  ... the Death Army.

---

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

'A Vessel of Light is something other than a human that responds to the pain of humans. When humanity is in danger... well! Vessels of Light do not always arrive -- how quickly our universe would burn itself out, if every pained cry called forth 'Ultraman'! ... But it certainly encourages them.'

'I will take you to space... and you will allow me to participate in your battle. I will help you to defeat these Vessels of Light. What I get out of this is to gather data on the Vessels of Light for my own purposes.'

        There are many paths to Tsutsujidai, carved into the world. Along one path lies train-tracks, on a sleepy route to Nouvelle Tokyo. Along another -- shuttles, sailing out from Junius to another place. And there, the wreckage...

        It is not wreckage which Anti concerns himself with today.

        Destroying what has been destroyed will not make them suffer.

        Junius Four works hard as an agricultural hotbed; it handles grain growth, storage, and processing. Huge silos stretch upwards, into a sky split by the support bars which betray it as a space colony. Factories churn behind them, splitting and crushing those kernels, packaging them into bags for the people of the PLANTs. Chutes carry material from one building to another; heavy vehicles dot the land around it. Beyond, fields of grain do not stretch out nearly far enough.

        Abruptly, this pastoral vista has two new visitors, bathed in a flash of stark green before the light fades. On the ground of Junius Four stands JDG-5555: the Death Knight. It is much like a Death Army unit, but for the way it is silver instead of brown, its eye purple rather than green. It has a rifle to one side -- knuckles which buzz threateningly like sawblades in the other. On one shoulder is mounted a slab of a shield; on the other, a bazooka, suited to shrapnel rounds.

        The voice which comes from it is not immediately identifiable as Anti's. There's a little too much scratching and tearing at the edges. The result of vocal manipulation, surely.

        "Come and defend your city -- IF YOU CAN!"

        His hands grasp -- twitch a shade too tightly -- in the hefty wires he's buried his hands and feet in with which to control this machine. Death Knight didn't grasp his feet, before. Didn't grasp him so tightly, before. But the digital connections still heed him, as he presses his fingers to the wires within those leads. And through them, he feeds the data; through them, Death Knight moves.

        It lumbers forward, and for a moment, one could believe that Death Knight is slow. One step, two -- and then Anti slips into the trick of it, enforces his existence on the live DG Cells which lie inert (are they truly without skill?) in those connection feeds. This is the moment in which Death Knight SURGES the rest of the way, too fast, too angry, to smash its spinning saw-knuckles right into one of those silos.

        It topples; it falls. What spills from it is not a full silos' worth of grain -- which may make the violence inherent in the motion all the more stark.

        "If you can't bear it, CRY OUT! Cry out for help!"

        Someone taught him he didn't have to scream to be heard -- but he's still all noise, all aggression.

<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.

The second visitor, arriving at the same time as the Death Knight, is a reptilian monstrosity of great size. Those familiar with Tsutsujidai's kaiju may recognize the form of Ghoulghilas, but where ordinarily its underbelly is red, this verion has an altogether greenish cast, down to the glowing eyes within it. It is huge, hunched over, and possessed of arms, legs, tail, and long neck... along with the eternally burning flames in its form.

It is like a reptile. But it is not a reptile. It is a kaiju. It lumbers messily behind the Death Knight, stomping and smashing the ground where it passes without even needing to mean to be destructive.

It has no words to offer apparently. It is all set to move foward to start smashing the remnants of the silo beneath its feet, and move on to the next.

Stomp. Stomp.

<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Subaru has posed.

As the alert comes in to the Nadesico Bridge, the Communications Officer Megumi announces from her station, "Distress call from Side 2 - Junius 4 - a PLANT." The Captain, Yurika Misumaru taps a finger against her chin in thought. "Change heading towards the origin of the Distress Signal." Minato cheerfully complies- "Will do."

-even as Megumi offers an 'Oh my.' at the implications given the state of open war. "Shall I put out a shipwide alert Captain?" Yurika gives Megumi a blank stare, which then changes to a pleasantly pensive one, before waving her hands. "There's no need for that until we assess the situation. Do let the hangar staff and pilots know though how attracted I am to the idea of lending a hand!"

Megumi and Minato trade a stare... Minato then shrugs pleasantly at Megumi and says, "I guess it can't be helped."

-=-=-

"Can't you move any faster? I need them down here right away!" Lead Mechanic Uribatake shouted at pilot Izumi Maki, who was pushing a crate on a dolly towards the hangar at top speed while chuckling to herself. "An electrifying encounter...oh Lorentz, you're too bold!"

As she crossed the room of Federation Admiral Sadaki Munetake, a second dolly comes careening from a perpendicular hallway to ram into her dolly, in a head on collision, scattering the contents of the crates everywhere with a horrendous crash. Hikaru Amano promptly blares the pair of bike horns she's hooked up to her ears to look like alien ears. "Whoopsie! Would you look at that rush hour accident? It's going to take us forever to clean all of that up..." The two shrug at each other, and start moving as if they were going to pick them up.

The lead mechanic promptly shouts at them both through his viewscreen, "MORONS! JUST - JUST FORGET ABOUT IT! I'll figure it out somehow without it - just get down here!"

Hikaru shrugs at Izumi, and the two take off down the hallway.

Among the litter, a large number of industrial grade magnets when scattered have attached to the domicile's door. The door tries to open - and fails the moment one of the magnets strikes the frame, resetting it back in place. It tries again, then again - and then there's a loud banging echoing throughout the empty hallways.

-=-=-

On the bridge, Admiral Munetake's portrait TRIES to appear, but the image is distorted as Megumi adjusts her instruments with expert precision, "-What is going on! The door of my room isn't opening! Send someone to fix it immediately!" "Sor... hshssss ...ral-" Megumi blows into her closed hands to create the sound of static, as she hits the switch to start the shipwide alert. "Minov...sshhhhshshhhh... ference...sshhhhshhshs state of...hhshss...emergency... unable to...spare hhhshshsssss..." "What do you mean emergency!? We were supposed to be entering atmosphere by now to drop off the prisoner for interr-"

Megumi promptly cuts his feed. As Minato gives him a thumbs up from across the Bridge, "A+ Voice Acting." Megumi harumphs and looks proud. "Of course, I'm a professional after all!"

"Fools." Ruri, the ship's Systems Operator offers in response to the whole exchange.

-=-=-

Down in the 'brig' which is definitely an empty crewmember room they spared Riika rather than an actual brig, a viewscreen comes up with Yurika's serious expression. "We're currently responding to a distress call from Junius-4. As you would know more than anyone else here its layout and capabilities, we would appreciate your assistance in our response." As it becomes a sympathetic smile, "It wouldn't be right to make you sit here doing nothing while we help resolve the situation so we'll be setting up a dedicated communication line for you. If you'd like to offer tactical advice or words of encouragement to allied mobile suits... we leave it up to your discretion." She puts a finger to her lips and winks, "It'll just have to remain our secret."

With that, Megumi patches Riika through a line that will allow her to contact any allied mobile suit - just not the PLANTs or ZAFT for perhaps obvious reasons.

-=-=-

In her Aestivalis, Ryoko Subaru says one simple thing to Riika, she doesn't know her well other than what she did, but there's still an air of sympathy in her tone, "Don't worry... we won't leave your people in the cold."

A Spacenoid herself, the division to Ryoko has always been between Earth and Space, not between Coordinator and Natural. While she might find herself often jealous of their greater inborn potential and talents - she knows what side her heart is on.

"Alright team - let's put out some fires before this gets out of hand. Tenkawa! Remember that your Gravity Wave Antenna won't reach through the Colony walls. Keep an eye on the gauge!" "You don't need to tell me that! It only happened one time!" "That's one time too many! If I have to boot you back in range again I will!" Launching in their Zero-G frames, the thrusts of a quartet of Aestivalis burn bright before three break off to offer assistance in various places.

"Riika - if you can guide us in, I'd appreciate it. Megumi's negotiating a ceasefire right now to prevent any misunderstandings."

Once inside the Colony, Ryoko cuts the power consumption substantially on the thrusters, letting the low gravity of the place do most of the work of propulsion for her. While gliding across the field of silos, she spies Ghoulgilas, and starts opening fire with the Rapid Rifle. In three shot bursts, trying her best not to let any shots go astray, "Damnit! How'd this thing even get this far inside?" And then as her scanners catch its partner more distantly, which would be enhanced on Riika's screen as well, "Is that a Death Knight!?" She immediately sounds aghast at the implications of one of these things getting loose in here.


 KTS: Ryoko Subaru targets Elisa Kafim with Semi-Rapid Rifle!

<Pose Tracker> Saraven Vai has posed.

        'Come and defend your city -- IF YOU CAN!'

Somewhere in the outer reaches of the colony cylinder, near where several ships are conveniently docked - one ship in particular - there's a flurry of movement. Something rises from within a heap of cargo containers, pushing a large tarp aside with a sweep of an arm. It is not a ZAFT machine.

It's tall, slender and coloured a distinctive shade of dusty lilac, and it's drawing a long-barreled beam rifle.

The Lilac Gale of Mars has somehow turned up in the midst of Junius Four - but it's not moving to join the attack. It's tracking its heavy rifle towards the lumbering kaiju.

"That's familiar," Saraven murmurs as she slides her gloved hands over her control board, letting her consciousness extend into the Varguil's psycoframe cockpit. Sensor data streams through her awareness, mingling with the foggy impressions of chaos and fear flooding out from the residents of the colony cylinder. She feels them only distantly and academically. They don't sink in. They can't - and it helps that they don't. It lets her stare at Ghoulghilas and put pieces together.

Her trip to Tsutsujidai was a couple of months ago and her largest impression had been of Akane Shinjo herself. A lonely bird in a silent cage, surrounded only by paper faces. A crowd of nothing.

A crowd of something that's staring down Junius Four.

        ...Akane... do you have something to do with this...?

"I've seen something like that before," she says into her comline. "There's a... portal of some kind, in the Junius Seven wreckage. It takes you to a place with creatures like that."

As Saraven assesses the situation, the Varguil hoists its long beam rifle and takes a sighting look down the barrel. Saraven guides the mobile suit into a quick sidestep, squeezing off a shot as she goes and letting her enhanced mind triangulate things by instinct and training, assessing her own motion and the gut feel of how something with the presumed mass of Ghoulghilas will move in colonial gravity. The magenta bolts rip across the colony sky with striking precision.

Saraven's voice comes a second later, over an open line.

"Why are you here?"
 KTS: Saraven Vai targets Elisa Kafim with Long Beam Rifle Shot!

<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.

The needs of a guerilla operation require the Garencieres to occasionally play the part of the civilian freighter it is contracted as, delivering food to the PLANT as part of the agreements with ZAFT, in return for totally ordinary scan-shielded cargo. It's probably fine.

And then the blight of the Devil Gundam comes to Junius Four, precious grain - all too little of it - spilling onto the ground and being crushed under the foot of a monster that can only be called kaiju.

From the bridge of the freighter, Lieutenant Suberoa Zinnerman watches the carnage along with his bridge crew, hands clenching.

No.

No more atrocities upon colonies.

"All hands, this is the captain. Garencieres Team, prepare for full deployment. Saraven, you're with me. Gilboa, protect the civilians." His voice has chilled drastically from its usual charismatic warmth as he turns and heads down to the freighter's hangar.

The starboard, port and aft hatches of the Garencieres burst open, and dark green Geara Zulus bearing the markings of the Sleeves deploy, boosting towards the attackers. Zinnerman takes up formation behind the Varguil, assessing the battle as it begins to unfold.

"Don't hold back, Lilac Gale. The sooner we take this monster down, the better." In keeping with the spirit of his words, the Geara Zulu switches its beam MG over to full-auto and holds the trigger down at the Ghoulgilas.
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Saraven Vai
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Elisa Kafim with GZ Beam MG Full Barrage!

<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.

Junius Four is more well-defended than most of the PLANT's colonies. It has to be; the remaining agricultural colonies are all precious things, to say nothing of the quarter million people that live here. And, after Junius Seven, everyone in ZAFT is very aware of their fragility - and that means defenses.

But even ZAFT can't plan for everything, and a kaiju appearing inside the colony - two kaiju - without having gone through the outside first is enough of a surprise to wrong-foot the defenders.

Only briefly. ZAFT defense troops - GINNs, the slightly aged mainstay of PLANT's internal colony guard - are quick to arrive. Inside a colony, they don't carry heavy weapons like bazookas or beam cannons; the sword and machine gun that all GINNs are assigned, and a telescoping stun baton, are enough for them. Usually.

But usually they don't have to fight kaiju either.

There are more than three GINNs, but most of them are otherwise occupied, assisting with evacuation and guidance. The squad assigned to actually try to drive back the kaiju is a trio, formed up in a wide wedge.

"Brooke here. Are we ready?"
"Schneider here. When you are."
"Farkas here. All armed."

The squad leader straightens her GINN out. "Then follow me in. We're going to have to drive these kaiju away, or..." They might be colony defense, but they are ZAFT and now that they have a chance to prove themselves, they're taking it. "Be aware that we've got some respondants that aren't part of ZAFT. Behave."

The trio of GINNs orients themselves before taking long, loping leaps, using their thrusters to hang at the lower-gravity levels. The opening shots are machine guns, to try to attract the kaiju away from wrecking any more agricultural equipment. "Where did all these people come from?" she says, more surprised at the quantity than anything else.

---

Riika Sheder has not had a great week.

It's nothing the Nadesico did. They treated her better than she expected - probably better than she deserved, given what she'd done to the Federation, she thought to herself. But she's the sort of person that has trouble sitting still and doing nothing, and ultimately, she hadn't had a lot to do. She certainly didn't have any mechanical work or reading or anything of the sort. She didn't even have a model she could put together.

And so while she was glad that they'd called her, the reason for it sucks. It sucked a lot! But even then, she thought to herself, they'd been thinking of her. But Junius Four? Who would be attacking Junius Four...? Was the Federation... no, the Nadesico wouldn't be responding to a distress call then. (Or would they? Riika honestly wasn't sure.)

Right now, though, she is talking mostly to the Nadesico bridge crew and Ryoko. Obviously they cannot use Riika's access codes for a couple reasons, but Riika does know where the standard accesses to the unusually designed PLANTs are, and if they've negotiated entry and a cease fire she can guide them to the correct area faster than someone who's only seen O'Neill colonies can manage.

"I don't know," Riika says. She has a slightly staticky image (thanks, Minovsky disturbance - the Nadesico may be close enough to pick up signals but it's not THAT close). "But I know that one!" Riika didn't use a Ghoulgigas, but the silhouette is damn familiar. "And - if that is a Death Knight, does that mean there are DG Cells? On the PLANTS?" She sounds aghast. "I know you don't want me to talk to ZAFT, but can you warn them about that, if they're live? Here, let me see the scans - "

Riika reads fast. Even complicated scans in a format that is unfamiliar to her, because she's presumably never seen the inside of an Aestivalis before, or ever worked with one. "...Definitely warn the GINNs. Please?"

 KTS: Riika Sheder targets Anti with MMI-M8A3 Heavy MG Burst!

<Pose Tracker> Leito Igaguri has posed.

Leito Igaguri is not a pilot. He may have a mech, an old Savage, for reasons nobody seems to understand, but he's barely gotten into it except for a training episode that went hilarious. But when the Federation may approach on the PLANTS? When this may get worse than a kaiju attack, for a people whose conflict he barely understands but sympathizes with anyways?

It's the shouts he hears over a comm unit, cries from below, that steel him. He 'heads' to his quarters, probably to quarantine, right?

"Zero. Let's go." He says to himself, with only a bit of confidence, as he grabs a pair of strange sunglasses, a sort of alien gadget. He presses them to his face while viewing the window out towards his destination...

Arms spreading outwards, ribbons of light bind together as he disappears, and right outside the ship, Ultraman Zero suddenly appears. There's probably curses of 'what the hell' inside.

The Giant of Light lands in sight of the Death Knight and the Altered Ghoulghilas. The cries of the people below only resolve him, as he brushes a hand over the side of his head, confidently.

And then, Ultraman Zero leaps into the air, fire forming around his feet as he moves to 'greet' the kaiju with a two foot kick to the chest.

 KTS: Anti successfully evades Riika Sheder's MMI-M8A3 Heavy MG Burst
 KTS: Leito Igaguri has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
 KTS: Leito Igaguri has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Heero Yuy has posed.

        Heero is... travelling.

        Despite being, ostensibly, a student in a number of schools -- Tokyo-3 among them -- he never sits in one place. No, he hasn't been staying still at all; in part, it's because he has families to visit, families whose relatives were consumed in that one fool action of his that changed the world. The action that stoked the flames between the Earth and ZAFT;

        Come to think of it, the Bloody Valentine conflict erupted in a similar way. With suspicion cast on a delegate who happened to be 'conveniently' late... on a shuttle, too.

        Today, his plans are simple -- to just simply people-watch and observe. He's out in the pastoral greens to watch ZAFT agriculture at work, with his trademark olive green tanktop, a white jacket, faded jeans, and...

        A big straw hat. There's a cute ribbon on it. Who gave it to him?

        ~~

        FIVE MINUTES AGO

        Heero tumbles down a hill of grass and collapses with his arms spread, T-posing on the ground.

        A young girl appears in his vision, partially blotting out the reflection of the PLANT's shine.

        "Hey mister! You're going to get sunburnt if you don't have a hat! That's what my ma said! Here!" she smiles, handing him an oversized hat.

        Heero freezes for a moment, then quietly accepts the hat.

        Just like that day...

        ~~

        If you can't bear it, CRY OUT! Cry out for help!

        The Death Knight lumbers forward, driving its knuckles with a defiant and horrible noise of cutting metal into the silos. It topples -- Heero hears screams. A mixture of adults, children, and even animals.

        It's going to happen again...

        Heero grimaces, and begins running along with the refugees -- beckoning them towards the nearest shelter doors. "Over there, hurry!" There's a pause, as errant debris flies across as he spots Ghoulgilas, marching in errant direction. It's enormous. How did something like this get into Junius Four?

        How many times is that little girl and her dog going to die?

        He grimaces. He has no power here. His battle is over... he's lost the reason for battle. The colonies have disavowed him, refused to let him fight for them...

        ...

        Is that a reason to stop fighting?

        woof!

        He's snapped out of his thoughts by the barking of a teensy little puppy. It's a scottish terrier. He blinks a few times, then instinctively scoops the pupper into his arms and runs, to the reverb of Ghoulgilas' stomping.

        Then-- there is a glint of light.

        Heero looks towards it; it descends, further, further, until... it lands, with a loud, earth-shaking crash. He squints his eyes open from where he's taken cover. It's...

        It's not a Gundam.

        It's a Leo! It's kind of a pile of crap! It's kinda cute and mrrpy. But it seems functional. Where... where did it come from? What just happened? Junius Four shouldn't have any Leos as part of its defence forces. Who...

        There's no time. Straw hat on his head, doggie in his arms, Heero leaps up onto the magic mint-coloured Leo and pulls on the hatch and enters. A few button presses, and it starts up... sure enough, it's just a regular Leo. Who...

        ~~

        NOT FAR AWAY

        click clack click clack

        An extremely suspicious-looking elderly man with graying hair and a definitely suspicious metallic claw arm chuckles very faintly. "Your story isn't over yet..."

        ~~

        He hasn't done this in six months. All of his senses are rusty and sluggish. But... he has to do this. Or it'll happen again...

        "This is-- Heero, a civilian. Engaging the target."

        The Leo hurtles forward -- its circular shield held out on an angle with its elbow leveraging force behind it, seeking to just bash straight into the Death Knight and send it toppling over.
 KTS: Heero Yuy targets Anti with Leo Circular Shield Bash!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to evade Ryoko Subaru's Semi-Rapid Rifle, taking 5160 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Ryoko Subaru's In the End All I Do Is... activates, causing Insight L1!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to charge.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Saraven Vai's Long Beam Rifle Shot, taking 4000 damage!
 KTS: Leito Igaguri targets Elisa Kafim with Ultra Zero Kick!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Suberoa Zinnerman's GZ Beam MG Full Barrage, taking 4440 damage!
 KTS: Anti rushes into the attack!
 KTS: Anti fails to react to Heero Yuy's Leo Circular Shield Bash, taking 3520 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Heero Yuy's I Just Feel Rhythm Emotion... activates, causing Insight L1!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Heero Yuy's The Wings of a Boy Who Killed Adolescence activates, causing Sparkle!
 KTS: Heero Yuy has engaged Anti

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

How did a giant turtle get out here? Well, that's the thing isn't it? If Anti can make his way to Junius Four through Tsutsujidai so can others. And the giant turtle isn't alone. Nidaime is sitting on its back wearing a green spacesuit with a turtle head shaped space helmet.

But why would Nidaime interfere with a DG Cell augmented mech?

 Four Years Ago
 Guyana Highlands

Nidaime had been waiting for a while. Luckily Uncle Max taught her how to fish! Anosillus lingered nearby, resting his eyes. He was an old kaiju and preferred to take things a little easy these days. But...

They'd been gone for a while. Their business must have been pretty tricky if it took all of them.

She spt the fish in her mouth, hanging it over the campfire with a stick. Just like Max taught her.

She hummed to herself. It was getting a little lonely since daddy wasn't much of a talker.

She felt mother's presence before she saw her. She jolted up and spun around and there was Unison--scarcely visible--hovering like a ghost.

"My dear child... We have to go." She murmured.

Nidaime didn't understand but she was always happy to go places with her mother. "Oh okay! But how will Uncle Max, Gramps, and everyone know where we went?" They could be pretty frustrating to pin down, even Nidaime knew that by now.

There was a sad look in her mother's eyes, a little wet that she could see in the translucent visage.

"Mom...?" Nidaime asked.

She would only find out later what killed them, who orchestrated their fall, and why.

 Present Day, Present Time

Anosillus wobbles around inexpertly as Nidaime resets a hand on the turtle's back.

"BRAAAP." Anosillus tells Heero as it charges ahead.

And then it turns its gaze towards the Death Knight and emits a SONIC BLAST at it outside of its mouth, rings of sound aiming to impact against the craft.

"Brap." Anosillus adds with a firm head nod.

Nidaime's fingers are shaking.
 KTS: Nidaime targets Anti with Sonic Blast!

<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.

It honestly floors Milly Ashford that anyone is still doing business in ZAFT. It's not that she, personally, is enthusiastic about the war or wants to put it to those patchworker bastards or anything like that; it's just that, well... this isn't technically the worst war of her lifetime but only because the like four worse ones were REALLY BAD, ACTUALLY?

Then again, maybe that's itself the answer; for all we might want to pretend otherwise, the Earth Sphere continues its steady rotation regardless of warfare. In turn, it is still sometimes necessary for companies with outstanding business in the PLANTs to travel to the PLANTs.

(Today's topic is of course cancelling a sell-off of old Ashford family assets; there's a complex multi-year deal involved that every party was quietly hoping would not come up again before the war ended. Well, here we are. The Bloody Valentine Conflict persists. There's some contention about whether unarmed early-type KMFs count as arms, legally; there are four engineers and six lawyers involved.)

Milly herself is not involved; rather, she's stuck wandering around one of the residential areas inside Junius Four doing a whole lot of nothing. Her travel documents were fine on the Britannian end of the trip, but here in ZAFT there's some contention about her passport.

Milly, for once, has decided this is her mother's problem and not hers, and that her time is better spent shopping. Her cards are cut off in the PLANTs (yet more war-related nonsense), but she knew that going in and has...

... enough...

... gilla in hand.

When things go sideways -- specifically, when a grain silo goes sideways -- her first plan is to take cover; unfortunately, she's in an open-air market on an agricultural colony, so this raises some questions. Questions like, well: 'Is there even any cover?' 'Is there any cover that matters when the belligerent is 18 meters tall, short of a full-on bunker?' 'Is supporting an offensive war machine making it difficult for ZAFT to build sufficient shelters here at home?'

(That's no, no, and yes, for those of you keeping track at home.)

There's a few moments where Milly stands around looking stunned; it's only after that that she begins to move. There are no particularly good options for that -- but she does reach into her purse and pull out her phone. She tabs through her apps, and --

-- her phone begins emitting a bright light in short pulses. A signal for help.

<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.

ABOARD THE NADESICO
MINUTES EARLIER

        Londo Bell Lieutenant Junior-Grade Callisto Diana, not known to her friends as Zeonic superclone Puru Two (because she's a guilty liar), is hanging out with the ship's Systems Officer because she's got the friend-pass and is ostensibly part of the detachment fostering better relations with Nergal. She's writing a halfassed report on a tablet, clicking the end of her stylus.

                > Distress call from Side 2 - Junius 4.
                > Minovsky interference successfully feigned.
                > At least 250,000 civilians in trouble.

        "Sorry," the redhead half-apologizes to Ruri as she bails on their shared activity, disappearing around the corner and through a pair of sliding doors in a flash. She has an idea.

                                        '

        In the hangar, two mechanics adjust their cool naval engineering-caps and share an uneasy look as a slim figure in a black normal suit commandeers one of the repair bays with eerie speed and precision, fingers flying across the diagnostic terminal and hurriedly queueing up some emergency works. What the heck could they be doing? And why is that AMX-004 Qubeley in for repairs? It's not even a Nergal mech, and hasn't been deployed in weeks!

        There's a hiss of mechanical paint-sprayers flaring to life. The deception begins.

JUNIUS FOUR LOCAL AIRSPACE (IN SPACE)
NNOW

        A black shadow bolts from the Nadesico's launch catapults, a hint of gold emblem winking in the sun's reflection as it soars through space on vernier plumes of sky-blue. "Callisto, launching." she calls after the fact, thus completing that check-box on the QA list. Keep it 100, baby. It chases after Ryoko's Aestivalis on the far flank, playing catchup.

        Puru Two's eyes flit from one readout to another. Patched intelligence streams flicker across the panoramic monitor, and her eyes narrow coldly at the sight of the JDG-5555 Death Knight. The bladed terror she saw back on Earth is back, it seems. "Tch. You." she mutters.

        Onto the local net, she barks her report. Uncaring who hears. "I'm going into the colony before that thing infects it. I'll be careful." and the Qubeley banks hard left, rolling with an eerie, human grace as it flies straight for the open hangar. Charting a course for the Death Knight in the colony's interior at speeds usually reserved for long-distance travel.

        To those within and near the colony: it's like a ghost from the past has suddenly emerged. A beaked, long-shouldered Mobile Suit with a hefty tail. Black as night with a burning yellow eye, and a gold Neo-Zeon Emblem on the left pauldron, but with an X carved through it. A phantom from the Neo-Zeon conflict erupting into the present.

        "This is the Ghost of The Newtype Battalion."

        A black streak rushes through the open air and across the plains, wielding in one hand a blazing sword of light. It bears down on the Death Knight with overwhelming aggressive pressure!

        "Engaging the enemy."
 KTS: Puru Two has deployed in AMX-004-03 Qubeley Mk. II 'Cybele'.
 KTS: Puru Two targets Anti with Beam Sabers Strike!
 KTS: Milly Ashford has deployed as a Sub Pilot for Riika Sheder!
 KTS: Anti successfully evades Nidaime's Sonic Blast
 KTS: Anti fails to evade Puru Two's Beam Sabers Strike, taking 2250 damage!
 KTS: Puru Two has engaged Anti

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        All manner of defenders -- expected and unexpected, warriors and normal men -- rise, to meet the kaiju Ghoulghilas and the Death Army mechanical unit designated "Death Knight".

        And one Rises.

        "Hahaha... shit, it really worked!" The voice in the Death Knight -- it's young, even though the tearing that much can be heard now he's talking -- crows, as Ultraman Zero appears, quite violently, by Ghoulghilas. "YOU!" He yells, ostensibly to the kaiju. "You'd better crush him!"

        The GINN force -- plus one -- fires on the Death Knight, but the Death Knight is unfairly, blindingly, astonishingly quick. Quicker than it was, last time! Perhaps Anti has better figured how to transfer his own knowledge to the unit. The suit leaps out of the way of the gunfire -- and keeps dashing, here-there-here, to evade a much more sonorous assault.

        Here, the Death Knight grinds its heels into the earth -- crushes a tractor with all the thoughtlessness of someone who doesn't look where they're walking. (Thanks to the evacuation efforts, there's no one inside, at least.) "You..." He starts, recognises the hulking terrorpin. "GET OUT OF HERE!" He screams, aiming a bazooka blast at Anosillus's feet. "This doesn't INVOLVE YOU!"

        Which proves that not all kaiju are on the same side, perhaps, because the Death Knight is clearly working with Ghoulghilas, and not Anosillus.

        This is when the Ghost of the Newtype Battalion strikes -- while the Death Knight is distracted. He snarls, as the suit turns to face her and her beam swords, instead. The feeling from him --

        The FEELING, from him --

        It's a little hard to tell; a little strange, around the edges. Not quite, not entirely right, but... underneath all those clarifying clauses... this feeling must be 'desperation'.

        He lashes out, with his buzzsaw knuckles, to grasp the Qubeley, to drag down.

        And when the Leo comes to him, he turns to meet it, his impossible motion halted for the moment. His buzzsaw knuckles scream, as he punches in towards the very ordinary mech, piloted by a very ordinary civilian. He just needs to clear enough space around him to fire that horrible beam rifle he's carrying into the fray of the GINN.

        "Call out! Cry out!"

 KTS: Anti targets Puru Two with Anti Saws A Strange Bird!
 KTS: Anti targets Riika Sheder with Rifle Barrage!
 KTS: Anti targets Nidaime with Death Shrapnel Shrapnel Burst!
 KTS: Anti targets Heero Yuy with Carcass Carving!
 KTS: Anti rattles Heero Yuy, making his next maneuvers more difficult.
 KTS: Heero Yuy fails to parry Anti's Carcass Carving, taking 5160 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Anti's DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE! activates, causing Sparkle!
 KTS: Anti has engaged Heero Yuy
 KTS: Riika Sheder successfully Evades Anti's Rifle Barrage
 KTS: Anti anchors Puru Two, forcing her into close range.
 KTS: Puru Two fails to parry Anti's Anti Saws A Strange Bird, taking 4500 damage!
 KTS: Anti has engaged Puru Two

<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.

How did it get this far inside? The kaiju appears to have simply appeared within the colony. But it is very real, as the crunched landscape beneath its feet will attest--and the sound of its roar as Ryoko's Rapid Rifle slams into its torso. Similarly, the beam shots slam into it, knocking it a step backward as it wails its dismay (dismay?) at what is happening. There is no immediate answer to the hails, nor to the machinegun fire of more beam blasts from Zinnerman's machine. It is definitely stopped, however--stopped in its tracks, just in time for an Ultraman of all things to appear, the Giant slamming with fiery feet into the kaiju, which is knocked backwards into a building, crashing down.

Lines and comms work well enough, but there is a strange hiss before any response, and the pilots will find it not over the radio, but aloud in their cockpits. "Why am I here? To make you cry for help, of course." The voice is feminine, dark line red wine and quite pleasant--jarring given the horrors occuring at the moment. "So cry more! Wail more!"

But that's before the Giant of Light shows up. Delight creeps into that voice, and Ultraman Zero too can hear it now. "YES! Show me your power, vessel of Light!"

To Zinnerman next, though all can hear her speaking to each, "Can you take this monster down quickly? In time to save your colony?"

The Ghoulgilas lunges to its feet, waddling upward with a burst of green flame belched forth from its long snout.

"I will," the voice says to Anti.

It belches forth a fireball at Zinnerman's machine, followed up with a bigger blast for Saraven's. But then it crackles with strange, dark energy, which suffuses its entire form--as a blast of green-glowing black crahses out woards the Aestivalis next, before the Ghoulgilas charges Ultraman Zero with its hands aglow with some profane sorcery, aiming to put a deep, deep chill into its foe.

"HAHAHA!"

 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Suberoa Zinnerman with Ghoulghilas Mouth Blast!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Saraven Vai with Ghoulghilas Mouth Lob!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Ryoko Subaru with Saturnine Bolt!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leito Igaguri with Touch of the Void!
 KTS: Saraven Vai has activated the Focus Spirit Command.
 KTS: [Lucky] Saraven Vai's Clutch Foresight activates, and luck goes her way!
 KTS: Saraven Vai successfully evades Elisa Kafim's Ghoulghilas Mouth Lob
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru blocks Elisa Kafim's Saturnine Bolt, taking 2050 damage!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim begins a Formation attack!
 KTS: Leito Igaguri's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim rattles Leito Igaguri, making his next maneuvers more difficult.
 KTS: Leito Igaguri blocks Elisa Kafim's Touch of the Void, taking 2175 damage!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim has engaged Leito Igaguri
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman successfully evades Elisa Kafim's Ghoulghilas Mouth Blast
 KTS: Leito Igaguri has activated the Trick Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.

"Junius Four defensive garrison," Gilboa Sant, ace of the Garencieres team, transmits as his custom Geara Zulu crashes down to protect some workers fleeing the agricultural warehouses, "this is Gilboa Sant of Neo Zeon. My team and I are at your disposal; put us where you need us!"

A crash from the Ghoulgilas's tail sends another tall building tumbling over them. Sant steers his suit backwards exactly one step, leaning it back over the civilians and raising its shield to smash the debris aside. "I've got you, get to safety!"

=== MEANWHILE ===

Zinnerman catches sight of the black Qubeley intercepting the Death Army mobile suit, opening a channel to it on an old frequency. "Ghost of the Newtype Battalion, this is Lieutenant Suberoa Zinnerman. Thank you for your assistance. Can you handle that Death Army unit?"

On the bridge of the Garencieres, watching the battle, knuckles are clenched white against the command chair's armrests as a red-haired woman stares at the Ghost's mobile suit on a dedicated feed, terrified yet unable to turn away. Despite herself, she reaches out: 'Sister...?'

Zinnerman opens his comms to a wider frequency again. "Lilac Gale - " what are those mechs Nergal built again? " - unknown Aestivallis, focus on evasive maneuvers. It's bigger and slower, use your speed to your advantage." To their opponent, that ice returns as the seventeen-year veteran ducks his mobile suit under the fireball seemingly without thinking about it. "There will be no crying until this is done." When the toll of lives and futures can be established.

<Pose Tracker> Heero Yuy has posed.

        Heero is momentarily distracted by a giant turtle going 'blarp' at him. More to the point, however, it seems like that turtle is eliciting a reaction from the Death Knight...? Were they related in some way? The turtle seems allied, however, so Heero doesn't worry except to input a response of--

        "Brap," Heero responds to the turtle.

        The boy notices a signal from help from the open-air markets from Milly, but before he can move to respond to it, Anti's already getting him shredded as his saw-knuckles shave into the Leo's infamously poor armour and carves a path through its chest armour, fortunately avoiding the brunt of the cockpit.

        "Nggh... moderate damage to torso armour, no integrity loss detected, shock absorbers functioning at eighty-seven percent," Heero reads out to himself, as is his habit.

        woof

        "... it'll be okay," Heero answers the puppy now sitting on his lap. He can't die here...

        Call out! Cry out!

        "Are you just doing this to make them cry out?" Heero questions Anti, even as the puppy in his lap cries out. "... I get it. I was frustrated, too. I just wanted to make them cry and call out..."

        His eyes narrow.

        The battered Leo draws a bright magenta beam saber from underneath its shield, and continues to proceed in close combat as Heero moves the flightstick to thrust the beam saber into the centre-mass of the Death Knight. He flinches for a moment--

        --The Wing Gundam rises into the air, reflective Gundanium armour gleaming off the bright sun shining over New Edwards base. Its beam saber is drawn, bright and emerald, descending down upon a shuttle escaping the spaceport.

        Unbeknownst to him, Marshall Noventa whispers: "Don't be hasty, young man..."

        --and agitatedly draws back with a wince in shock at the intense flash of memory before him.

        "... It didn't end well for me. This won't end well for you either."

 KTS: Heero Yuy targets Anti with Beam Saber Thrust!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Saraven Vai and Ryoko Subaru with Coordinate.
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman coordinates maneuvers, raising Ryoko Subaru's Piloting!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman coordinates maneuvers, raising Saraven Vai's Piloting!
 KTS: Anti rushes into the attack!
 KTS: Anti fails to react to Heero Yuy's Beam Saber Thrust, taking 3440 damage!
 KTS: Heero Yuy has engaged Anti

<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Subaru has posed.

As the Qubeley joins the rush to assist the squadron, Ryoko just grows still, not saying much at all. Radiating similar emotions to what she might have felt from her before around the Nadesico. Once inside the colony Ryoko's attention shoots to Saraven's comment in the commline, "A portal? There?" Unsettled and even more aghast at site of such a tragedy spewing out monstrosities, "As if they weren't dealing with enough here..."

Ryoko's cybernetics automatically feed Riika the information requested. And when she's given the request to warn the GINNs, Ryoko's normally tough and tense exterior softens at the idea of Riika saying 'please' for such a request, "Don't worry. Be happy to." Ryoko's cybernetics momentarily mute Riika's feed as she opens her commline to a more general band - Riika can hear her doing it even if she can't talk during this, "GINN squadron. This is Ryoko Subaru of the Nadesico. We've identified the enemy mobile suit as a Death Knight of the DG Army. Recommend keeping your distance if possible - getting infected by its cells is the last thing you want to happen."

It's only then however that she catches sight of the Varguil and the Geara Zulus, and Ryoko's hands tighten over the cybernetic control globes at her blunder over the comms. What's done is done though, she doesn't regret doing as Riika asked of her, just for saying too much with it.

"Got it." Ryoko replies to Callisto's comment after a moment, voice more measured than before, "I'll keep that Kaiju busy so you're not fighting on two fronts - Callisto."

And then ZERO shows up with that two foot kick, "Wait - what is that?!" Ryoko says, unfamiliar with Ultras and Vessels of Light, before noting, "On our side at least."

The taunts that seemingly come out of nowhere cause Ryoko to suddenly try to scan the radio band, "Who is that!? Is there someone behind the Kaiju!?" Ryoko sends the data of whatever she gets to Riika to try and sort it out. When the Kaiju itself spews a blast of growing green. Raising her Distortion field in a short burst, the tiny Aestivalis briefly disappears as its whole frame is rocked underneath it.

And then she shoots out of the smoke. Ryoko always errs on the side of teamwork, and falls into the habit of backing the others up as they engage. To that end, she buzzes behind it, like a tiny fly compared to the sheer size of Ultraman and even some of the other Mobile Suits assisting.

Raising her distortion field, she suddenly thrusts forward to plow right into one of the Kaiju's giant feetsies - using the distortion field as a weapon, trying to stagger it to set up the other suits. "'Use speed to my advantage'?" Ryoko replies to Zinnerman's advice from earlier only now, "Who do you think you're talking to?" Ryoko says cheekily.

 KTS: Ryoko Subaru targets Elisa Kafim with Killer Move - Set Up!!

<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.

"Take the one we can't," is Farkas' response to Gilboa Sant. Not that they can take a kaiju by themselves, but the point is clear. "We need to split our forces and there's not enough GINNs here to do that."

The GINNs break formation after firing against Anti, scattering in the hope of avoiding a return blow.

"Hey!" One of them (Schneider) calls, initializing radio contact with Heero. "Where'd you get that?" They have records of a lot of the units in here entering, but not the Leo. "If you're not actually trained, get out of here!"

"Oh my god, who cares?" Farkas snaps back. "It's a Leo and it's on our side. Why don't you ask the turtle where it came from! Is that a kaiju too? Are we going to have to fight a turtle?" (Farkas has never actually seen a turtle before.)

There is a pause, then Schneider says, sheepishly, "I don't know how to radio a turtle."

That's when Ryoko calls in, which fortunately gives him some cover. "We recognized it, but you think it's live? Thanks for the warning," says Schneider. "We'll have to keep that away from... basically everything."

"Shit," says Farkas. This seems to be a trend. He repeats it, with more force, when the Ghost of the Newtype Brigade swings by, mostly because he's surprised and it worked for him the first time.

Meanwhile, the third member of the GINN squad has landed with a surprisingly light touchdown in a farming field near a signal, going into a crouch. There's a pause before the cockpit door opens. "Get in!" comes the order from inside. "There's no open shelter close enough, you'll be better with me."

The pilot in question proves to be a blonde with hair cut unflatteringly short and spiky, wearing a green piloting suit with the tag BROOKE on it. "Sit," Brooke demands, as the GuAIZ takes back off. "Or at least try to. I might have to maneuver." She assumes anyone who came in is a Coordinator, which may make things difficult in a few moments.


---

Riika is grateful for Ryoko's response. More than she can easily say. They shouldn't be allies, her training tells her. But why not? They're helping. They're defending Junius Four when they could have just kept going and nobody would have thought they'd done something wrong.

"I don't know who's driving it. It's not me," she adds, defensively. "I mean, obviously. But even I couldn't talk through the kaiju, I had to be somewhere nearby to keep an eye on it. Oh, and he's right," Riika says, coming back on to speak to Ryoko after Zinnerman. "It's a little like the Devadadan - well, don't worry about that, but it's going to be slow and a little awkward. I bet it's not used to the gravity either, which won't be a problem as long as it stands, but..."

Riika hesitates for a long moment. What did Alexis tell her? It only came up in passing, and it never mattered for her, so it takes even her memory a moment to dredge it out - "Right! Aim for the neck," she says. "They're a little delicate, especially if you can twist them - I mean, don't go grabbing it in this!" It's not nearly large enough. "But - look how it's stiff, how it has to aim the fire! I don't think it can bend it as much as it looks like it should be able to.


---

Scattering wasn't enough to stop return fire, but it was enough to stop any of the GINNs from taking a solid shot. Schneider and Farkas are playing hard-to-get, and Brooke is returning to the fight, now with Milly. (It's better than waiting to be shot without armour, Brooke thinks.)

"You in?" she asks Milly, before gunning the engine. "Schneider! Farkas! Formation three beta!"
"You want us to get CLOSE to something with DG Cells??"
"Better under our terms than its! If electricity disables it, let's give it a shock!"

Despite the reluctance, there really is a plan, and a formation. They circle, spreading again into a rough triangle, before sweeping in. Their weapons: the stun batons, far more suitable for in-colony work than the usual Cattus. They use diving, sweeping strikes, pulling up after a fly-by - they can't truly fly, but their thrusters are capable of taking them up high in the colony, high enough that low gravity does the work for them.

<Pose Tracker> Saraven Vai has posed.

Saraven isn't used to having an openly supportive senior officer deploying with her. Too often, she's been treated as a weapon. Suberoa Zinnerman's encouragement hits different - 'don't hold back.'

"I won't," she says quietly, and for a moment her lips pinch at the outer corners. An expression wants to form but she can't fully manage it. She settles for letting the minor, seemingly routine spark of humanity drape over her like a comfortable cardigan.

Any sense of comfort vanishes at the sudden appearance of an all too familiar model - and a feeling of bitter cold that races through her with the cutting sharpness of a brisk wind off the pole of a world she's never visited. A frigid southern clipper carrying a hunting seabird over a frozen sea. The Varguil's head turns with Saraven's, monoeye staring into the beaked visage of the Qubeley. Her teeth close around her lower lip. A steady pressure radiates off of her - a quiet, scratchy sort of pressure aimed at the woman behind the Qubeley's controls. Not hostile, but curious.

        ...Storm petrel... how come you're over there...?
                ...All of you....

The Varguil's Zeon emblem is distinctly not crossed out, but it's a little wider and with slightly different flourishing than the one commonly seen in the Gryps Conflict era. Mars Zeon's styling is marginally divergent. The machine's origins would be evident enough even if the Lilac Gale's reputation didn't precede her. The Varguil moves laterally, Saraven trying to filter her thoughts back towards the important task - that of dealing with Ghoulghilas and the Death Army machine - despite the strange pressure radiating off of the Ghost of the Newtype Battalion. For all that there's a lot going on, training and conditioning take over. The node of presence that is Suberoa Zinnerman acts as an anchor in Saraven's mind.

She can't let him die here. The people on the Garencieres rely on him. For a moment she closes her eyes --

        shpwing

"Captain," she breathes, moving without thinking.

Ghoulghilas breathes its flame. The blast rips towards the Sleeves machines, strong enough to tear the mobile suits asunder. Saraven's distraction should, by all rights, give the giant kaiju its chance.

Until the Varguil lifts its left arm and leans just slightly - a millisecond before the fireballs come.

The blast comes so close that it appears for a moment to swallow the lilac mobile suit up. Fire bursts out in a massive, exploding cloud, consuming much of the surrounding area. Crates go up in flames, some of their cargo detonating and spewing chunks of half-melted self-sealing stem bolts across the loading dock, mixed in with the shrapnel of boxes and pallets.

A few seconds later, the Varguil comes lunging out of the flame cloud. It trails a little smoke behind it, mostly from its left arm. A few streaks of carbon scoring there betray what happened.

The fireball passed under the Varguil's arm and hit the crates behind it.

"Acknowledged," Saraven answers Zinnerman, her voice level and calm despite all the sensations gnawing into her mind - despite the node of pressure radiating from Puru Two, despite the other beating on the bridge of the Garencieres behind her. She exhales and puts it out of her mind for a moment, bringing the Varguil down to a landing in a near-seraphic pose, toe pointed down as she lets gravity guide her descent. The lilac mobile suit's arms sweep out to its sides.

With them, the machine's funnels lunge off of their racks and fan out to either side - three to the right, three to the left.

The knowledge that Zinnerman has her back, even if she's the better pilot, gives her a sense of assurance she's not used to. It translates. The funnels move with greater snap and alacrity than she's used to as she steers them out in an erratic pattern around Ghoulghilas. A latticework of magenta beam fire fills the space around the giant kaiju as the funnels open up, Saraven trying to catch the monster in a deadly cage.

She reaches out again, voice quiet over the comline.

"Why do you want people to wail?" Saraven's voice is still neutral, the edge of confusion muted.

"...You're not Akane, though.... Are you here because of her...?"
 KTS: Riika Sheder targets Anti with Colony Defense Stun Baton Heavy Discharge!
 KTS: Saraven Vai targets Elisa Kafim with Funnel All-Range Attack!

<Pose Tracker> Leito Igaguri has posed.

The Ghoulghilas - no, the person who created(?) it, cries out. Evil. Their words are evil. Their actions are evil.

Ultraman Zero says nothing. Not even at the delight towards seeing him. But as Ghoulghilas charges with that superpowered claw, and it strikes true, that sorcery causes Ultraman Zero to take a step back. He's rattled, his moves are sluggish, and his karate isn't at top form right this second.

Grabbing the two slugger-like horns off his head, he takes one in each hand, before forming them into a twin sword. The double-bladed sword is held tightly, as Zero takes a moment to remember his training.

And then, with a martial artist's precision, he slashes thrice, trying to carve into the kaiju, manipulating his large size to allow the other defenders on Ghoulghilas the slightest cooperative inch in. Only the slightest.

Ultraman Zero can handle this, after all.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to parry Ryoko Subaru's Killer Move - Set Up!, taking 3690 damage!
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru has engaged Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru begins a Formation attack!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to evade Saraven Vai's Funnel All-Range Attack, taking 5280 damage!
 KTS: Leito Igaguri targets Elisa Kafim with Zero Twin Sword!
 KTS: Nidaime blocks Anti's Death Shrapnel Shrapnel Burst, taking 2460 damage!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim fails to react to Leito Igaguri's Zero Twin Sword, taking 7320 damage!
 KTS: Leito Igaguri has engaged Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Leito Igaguri completes the Formation attack!

<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.

Milly is the very worst passenger in history. She gets into the GINN and offers a pleasant, "Thanks" --

-- begins looking at the displays as she squeezes into the cockpit --

-- and takes a moment to find the comms button. She doesn't hit it just yet, instead offering Brooke a, "Thanks," ending up in an awkward half-sitting, half-squeezing position behind the pilot. Once it actually gets moving, Milly... turns a little green, but to her credit, doesn't pass out. "... ghh --"

It takes her a second to get reoriented again. When she does, though, Milly watches the movement of those fighting for the colony. Her eyes rest, in particular, on that Leo. She can see the rust, the sluggishness -- he's moving, but those movements... they're tentative. He's flinchy.

Milly Ashford can't abide flinchiness in a situation where decisive action draws the boundary between life and death.

"You! In the Leo!" she half-barks over the comms, probably startling her poor savior. "I don't know if this is your first time out or if it's just nerves because you're fighting something scarier than just another mobile suit -- it could be anything. But your life doesn't belong to just you right now. If you're going to fight, you're fighting for everyone on this colony."

Casting her guts spell would be a little ridiculous (and probably eardrum-damaging for Brooke), but she does say, "You can't keep moving like you're distracted. You can do something, right now." In a rare moment of vulnerability for Milly, she notes, "A lot of us can't."
 KTS: Milly Ashford targets Heero Yuy with Prospect!
 KTS: Milly Ashford has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Heero Yuy
 KTS: Milly Ashford has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Heero Yuy
 KTS: Milly Ashford assesses Heero Yuy's prospects, increasing his SP!
 KTS: Anti successfully evades Riika Sheder's Colony Defense Stun Baton Heavy Discharge

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Anosillus is shocked to learn that Heero Yuy actually can speak his language as well.

"Rahhhhhhmmm..." He groans at Heero trying to communicate something important. What is he trying to communicate? It's a mystery. To everyone. Except perhaps Heero Yuy. He has the name of someone who strongly believed in peace. And also turtles, perhaps.

Anosillus of course assumes this is the same Death Knight as last time. Has no idea who it is. It does, however, backpedal when missiles start blasting up his feet. Did you know that turtles need feet in order to walk themselves over to some nice lettuce and get their munch on? It's true.

"DG cells are really dangerous." Nidaime meanwhile sends a message over comms. "If the Devil Gundam is back, make sure you do not get any of the DG Cells on you." Nidaime has no reason to not use an abudance of caution here. Some people comment on Akane but outside of the proximity to Tsutsujidai--why would they attack here? She doesn't know.

Instead of advancing, Turtle turns its head and opens fire on Heero's Leo!! With actual sparkles.

...It doesn't do any damage. Actually, if Heero can tell--it's actually repairing some of the damage to his unit! Who needs a Gundam when you have a turtle friend??
 KTS: Nidaime targets Heero Yuy with Sparkle!
 KTS: Nidaime has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Heero Yuy
 KTS: Heero Yuy has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
 KTS: Nidaime sparkles, reducing Heero Yuy's incoming damage!

<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.

        There's a blinding shower of sparks as the beam saber's blade catches against the edge of the Death Knight's buzzsaw knucks, and then the two units recoil backwards for their next collective strike.

        "You, that's the same voice as before..." Puru Two sneers beneath her helmet as recollection tickles her memories. "That feeling from him--it's not right..."

        The Qubeley's verniers flare as it prepares for another strike. But Anti is quicker! The black mobile suit is still winding up when a circular saw lunge bites deep through the saber-wielding hand. Said saber flies in half in an arc of brilliant sparks. Oh well.

                (He's desperate... why? What is this feeling? This race against time?

        The soft edge of 'Callisto Diana' takes a backseat in the heat of this covert little operation. The Qubeley tries to grab Anti's death Knight's hand while they're tangling together up close. "Why are you doing this? Why are you always attacking cities, you brat?" Puru Two challenges him over the ever-handy unsecured frequencies. "What's your angle!?"

        There's a moment's hesitation as Puru Two feels another mind brush up against hers, uninvited. She doesn't know Saraven whatsoever, but she can feel the sensation of being felt out. "Are you--no... you're not from our family." she mutters through gritted teeth. It's not hostile, just... tense. Maybe her words cross the gulf between them, buoyed on waves of mental force. Maybe not.

        Oops, incoming message from a ship called the Garencieres. A video link patches up between the two units. A certain redhead on the bridge can only see a ghost of a face through Puru Two's helmet, but it's probably enough to confirm her worst fears--or most far-fetched hopes, depending. "I hear you, Lt. Zinnerman. He's mine." she replies without hesitation.

        But beneath that quick confirmation, something much more powerful is happening.

        Another pair of hands touch her soul, seeking answers. A familiar voice from ... from how long ago? A lifetime. A familial glow thought lost.

        'Twelve...'
                'Twelve!?'
        Wispy tendrils of hazy light roil and drift upwards from Puru Two's form as her mind recoils from the shock. It can't be. A lifetime of fruitless searching for something, and she's... found it? Maybe?

        We fade in the from the dialogue cutscene and the Qubeley is struggling against the Death Knight, suddenly more animated than it was. Just trying to sock it one, punch it, get up in its grill. "You! I can't waste time here! I've got something I need to do!" Puru Two is suddenly roaring at Anti. Poor Ryoko's communication line is still open, and uh, she's never seen 'Callisto Diana' act like this.

        The Qubeley tries to shoulder-check the Death Knight and blast it with one of its arm cannons. It's kind of simple, really, because like all good mecha: the devil is in the details (the details are the mulched children and their complicated feelings).
 KTS: Puru Two has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.

 KTS: Anti rushes into the attack!
 KTS: Anti fails to react to Puru Two's Forearm Beam Cannon Burst Fire, taking 3520 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        Death Knight grasps the Qubeley's hand in a finger-crushing grip, its one baleful eye centred on her. "There's no other way!" He screams -- and he believes it. His other hand, holding his rifle, comes up to jam against the other suit -- and blast it away.

        "When humans cry out in agony, Vessels of Light are drawn to help them!" The Death Knight yells, now freed, to the Leo. "I can draw them out like this, and then...!!"

        And then what?

                Kill them?

        Buzzsaw knuckle meets beam saber -- but because the beam saber is a beam, it's hardly something he can grapple. It carves into Death Knight's arm, and the bright spots beneath are far, far too ominous.

        Better pull back quick -- before they heal in over Leo, as well as themselves.

        (Is this really so artless?)

        Anti answers the Leo's attempts, in the end, with a point-blank shot from that bazooka on his shoulder.

        The GINN forces circle the Death Knight -- and the Death Knight breaks through their formation, with a horrible charge which places the threat of those cells at plain issue. "Forget it!" He yells, back to them. "No matter how many people fight me, I'll NEVER stop!"

        And to the GINN who transmits, to that Leo, he adds: "There's nothing you can do! Without help, you're DEAD!" He thinks he's talking to a combat unit, of course; he has no idea how right he is, saying such a thing to Milly Ashford.

        He fires on them, as well, of course, that shrapnel bazooka carrying a payload into the middle of the squad. He cares very little if he hits a factory in the process.

        To the turtle, the Death Knight once again yells: "Go HOME!" And there are strong feelings here, as well -- reluctance primary amongst them.

        He's distracted.

        The Qubeley chooses this moment to descend on him again, with all the aggression she can muster. "You bastard!" The Death Knight screams, as it receives a good few more holes -- "AAAaargh!" -- and surely he's pained because of the attack he wasn't able to mitigate.

        ... as inside the cockpit of the Death Knight, clasped by too-too many seatbelt wires, the machine's controls bite into Anti's limbs.

 KTS: Anti targets Puru Two with Way-Clearing Shot!
 KTS: Anti targets Heero Yuy with Death Shrapnel Blast Shot!
 KTS: Anti targets Riika Sheder with Death Shrapnel Hammer Down!
 KTS: Anti targets Nidaime with Goad!
 KTS: Anti rattles Heero Yuy, making his next maneuvers more difficult.
 KTS: Heero Yuy blocks Anti's Death Shrapnel Blast Shot, taking 3450 damage!
 KTS: Anti has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Anti has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Anti has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Anti has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Anti has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Anti goads Nidaime, reducing her Intuition drastically.
 KTS: Riika Sheder successfully Evades Anti's Death Shrapnel Hammer Down
 KTS: Puru Two has activated the Focus Spirit Command.
 KTS: Puru Two fails to react to Anti's Way-Clearing Shot, taking 3240 damage!
 KTS: Anti repulses Puru Two, forcing her to disengage.

<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.

"Oh, but there must be tears! I have gone to all this trouble to arrange them!" The witch's voice sinks into hearing again, and 'Evil' is a very good word for the chill feeling her words might inspire. To the Newtypes and other sensitive, there is no one inside the Kaiju; the search for someone behind it finds no radio signals, no easily traceable sign of any kind of where this person might be. She merely speaks through the kaiju, and into the ears of those who will hear.

"I am she who will open the gate," comes the voice to Ryoko next. "This is only the beginning."

The kaiju is tipped, staggered by Ryoko's distraction; the Aestivalis plows into it with distortion field active, and the kaiju shrieks its pain as the others roll in. The beamfire fills the space of the kaiju; it cannot hope to dodge all the funnel fire of the Lilac Gale, and parts of it blister and burn away into nothing.

"Hm hm hm. You haven't figured it out?" the voice asks of Saraven. "But no. I am not here because of 'that girl'."

"But you--you're so quiet! I called this party just for you, and you have nothing to say to me? I'm almost hurt!"

Slash. Slash. Slash. The Ghoulghilas roars in dismay as Ultraman Zero carves into it, making it all the more open to their further attacks. It is glowing desperately now, green in its eyes starting to show through in cracks in its entire form, as if something horrid within strains to get out.

"Hm. The vessel cannot contain the power. ...I will have to make this quick."

The kaiju abrubtly rushes towards Saraven, blazing through what remains of the cage of light heedless of its own safety. It rushes her--and that green light within pulses once before space itself tears between them. A whirling spiral of utter darkness slowly rips into view, and pieces of buildings and grain and cars all start to wend towards it, forming a vortex that may hold the Lilac Gale fast.


It reaches next, its neck splintering and letting loose more cracks of green light as it stretches beyond what should be possible towards the Aestivalis and the Geara Zulu both, discharging round after round of green fire bombardment, over and over.

And finally, the Ghoulgilas faces Ultraman Zero himself. The entire kaiju begins to rise into the air, buildings crunching around it as they are caught up in the swell. The green eyes of the creature buckle inward, imploding, their collapse leaving something like black stars radiating out of nothing. Where the spiral a moment ago drew things toward it, the rift that tears in space before the Ghoulgilas repels all things, forces connections back, brings only isolation, enervation, and death.

Its full force shines down upon Ultraman Zero.

 KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Accel Spirit Command and Has Engaged with Saraven Vai
 KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Suberoa Zinnerman and Ryoko Subaru with Ghoulghilas Mouth Bombardment.
 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Saraven Vai with Absolute Spiral!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim targets Leito Igaguri with Tenebrous Rift!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim enervates Suberoa Zinnerman, reducing his Morale significantly.
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman fails to evade Elisa Kafim's Ghoulghilas Mouth Bombardment, taking 6480 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Elisa Kafim's Beyond the Void activates, causing Deject!
 KTS: Saraven Vai has activated the Focus Spirit Command.
 KTS: Saraven Vai successfully evades Elisa Kafim's Absolute Spiral
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru has activated the Focus Spirit Command.
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru fails to Evade Elisa Kafim's Ghoulghilas Mouth Bombardment, taking 4320 damage!
 KTS: Leito Igaguri's Will Barrier activates, negating 500 base damage.
 KTS: Leito Igaguri blocks Elisa Kafim's Tenebrous Rift, taking 1350 damage!
 KTS: Elisa Kafim repulses Leito Igaguri, forcing him to disengage.
 KTS: Leito Igaguri has activated the Trick Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Heero Yuy has posed.

        Heero's eyes scan over the other defenders. An 'Ultraman', was it...? And... a Quebeley, from the Neo Zeon wars -- no, that Zeon emblem's been visibly crossed out. An Aestivalis, from Nergal's line... Zeon's responding as well, alongside the colony's defences.

        Heero hears Schneider's call and winces for a moment. "I... was hoping you'd know, to be honest," on the topic of where he got it. He was assuming it was hopefully surplus between his own colonial liberation movement and ZAFT, but... clearly not. That raises even more questions.

        Schneider urges him to get out of here if he's not trained. "I'm..." He's struggling at the moment. He's never had this before -- flashbacks in the middle of combat. He hasn't been in combat since.

        To his surprise, though, Milly cuts in, having seen his movements, his hesitation. He's fighting... for everyone in the colony. He can do something... where many people can't.

        "... you're-- right. There's a colony that needs defending here... I have to do what I can, where I couldn't for my own. I'm not... going to see Heliopolis be repeated..."

        He has support not just from Milly, but from Anosillus. From a turtle that he somehow intuitively understands. "I understand," Heero whispers in turn to Anosillus the First. "You have something important to do here today as well..."

        The Leo receives Anosillus' sparkles! The fires are fading as its power washes over the battered mobile suit. Is this the power of turtle...? Nidaime warns him about DG Cells as well. If it gets over him...

        Anti is more responsive than Heero thought he would be. "... I see. You must defeat this 'Vessel of Light'... is that your purpose?" A longer pause, as Anti's other words resonate within him. How he'll never stop fighting, no matter how many people fight him...

        No matter how many people get in my way... I will fight. Longer than anyone else...

        "What happens... when the person who wants you to fight no longer wants you?" Heero finds himself asking. It's a question not only for Anti, who he finds a disturbing similarity to, but also...

        Maybe for him as well.

        Milly's right. He's very distracted at the moment. Just like Anti. He's dead without help; fortunately, he does have help, as the Leo's shield raises in time to take the brunt of the sharpnel bazooka's shots. The impact is so hard that the Leo is thrown off-kilter and has to stumble a few steps back; Heero grimaces as he tries to make sure he doesn't step on something. The terrier whines quietly in his seat.

        "There's an auxiliary EWACS module on this Leo... let's try to use it," Heero grimaces as he accesses the keyboard even as he's thrown back. "Activating countermeasures... calibrating jamming protocol and tuning away known friendly signals..."

        That's the best he can do at the moment, sending disruptive waves over the air to try to mess with the Death Knight's controls. Anti was already screaming on the other end. Maybe...
 KTS: Heero Yuy targets Anti with Jam!

<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.

=== GARENCIERES TEAM ===
"Understood!" Sant responds. "Garencieres Team, take shots at the kaiju when you have a moment but prioritise defending the civilians! The Captain is relying on us to do our job!" Shouts of assent across the Garencieres private comm channel.

=== GARENCIERES BRIDGE ===
Marida Cruz swallows the dread in her soul at the sight of the Qubeley, focusing on the familiar presence at the controls. 'I'm with you, Two.' Even as the "Ghost" is sent cartwheeling from the Death Knight's strike, a sense of assurance and focus fills the cockpit.

=== THE CAPTAIN'S EYES ===

The Geara Zulu is engulfed in flames and Zinnerman grunts. But that's all. The monoeye mobile suit launches upwards out of the inferno. "You need a more engaging hobby if you think making people suffer more is that important." His voice is almost eerily calm for the damage his machine has suffered, but the big man knows what he's doing and has absolute faith in his team and the other defenders.

'Who do you think you're talking to?' a cheeky riposte to his order over the comm. Zinnerman watches how the Aestivallis moves, then switches over to isolate the line and replies to Ryoko with two words: "A Subaru."

Flipping back to broad comms again, Suberoa addresses the defenders at large (particularly large in the case of the Ultraman (!?) aiding them). "Lilac Gale, Pilot Subaru, unknown fighter: Target the neck. Drive this monster and whoever's speaking through it back to the Hell it crawled out of. GINN defense team, keep it up. Pilot Heero, don't give up." There are no words by which he can guide a giant turtle, but unbeknownst to him Anosilius understands a father's will to protect all too well.

<Pose Tracker> Leito Igaguri has posed.

Ultraman Zero hasn't said anything, but when the others are attacked, and the massive void collapse hits, his hands suddenly go up. A sparkling purple energy barrier forms, diffusing some of the damage as he's pushed backwards untiil it cracks under the stress. But, despite that, Ultraman Zero is still standing strong. He rubs his thumb against his mouth.

And then, radios around the area pick up a transmission. It's directed at the kaiju master, but he can't actually talk directly to her easily, so...his alien voice crackles out. "You're twenty thousand years too early to beat me. Zero Driver!"

Ultraman Zero leaps into the air, and moves straight through the void storm, his mantle cloak protecting him from the worst of it. He tries to grab Ghoulghilas around the head, force his power downwards...

And smash the kaiju head first into the colony, hoping to stun it and force it back into melee combat without an escape.
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Puru Two, Heero Yuy, Nidaime, Saraven Vai, Leito Igaguri, Ryoko Subaru, and Riika Sheder with All-Out.
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Leito Igaguri's Skill!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Puru Two's Skill!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Saraven Vai's Skill!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Heero Yuy's Skill!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Ryoko Subaru's Skill!
 KTS: Leito Igaguri has activated the Accel Spirit Command and Has Engaged with Elisa Kafim
 KTS: Leito Igaguri targets Elisa Kafim with Zero Driver!
 KTS: Saraven Vai has activated the Valor Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Subaru has posed.

"As if I'd think it was you!" Ryoko sounds a bit annoyed by Riika's comment but not hostile, "There's not a single reason why you'd do this!" It is suspicious that Riika just participated in a Kaiju attack, so it's understandable that Riika might worry about perceptions here but...

... she doesn't. She attacked Ptolemaeus to protect her home. Not destroy it. As she offers advice on how to fight a bigger target, Ryoko just clucks her tongue at first but then... "The neck?" Ryoko gets this intense expression as she examines it. "Heh. It's in the bag then... just need to wait for the right moment. Don't suppose you've ever seen what a distortion field can do with a little oomph behind it Riika?"

Every time the Varguil's emblem crosses into visual range, there's this emotion of... guilt, regret, shame - and ultimately she just feels guarded. Like she's trying to prevent herself from reacting at all. However she doesn't seem to chafe at the idea of backing up Zeon units in defense of a Colony. Callisto's roaring over the comms, and Ryoko suddenly sideeyes Callisto, puzzled by that comment until she checks and sees the Qubeley engaged at close range. Even if she's been avoiding her on the Nadesico, while out here - she's a teammate in Ryoko's eyes, "Hey Callisto! What's your status? Don't do anything reckless! Back off if you need a-!" Promptly she watches the Qubeley get knocked away by the Death Knight with multiple blasts, "... nevermind?"

Elisa's comment suddenly unnerves her... but she tries to keep her composure, responding in her own fiery way, "What's that supposed to mean!? Right now you're just another jackass performing yet another Colony attack!"

Zinnerman's statement of 'A Subaru' though causes her to still, becoming filled with... utter dread. "What's it to you?" She challenges Zinnerman over the horn.

Despite pretending to brush off Zinnerman's advice, she doesn't really, as she tries to use her speed to stay ahead of the Ghoulgilas's attacks. Banking up, and down as she pushes her IFS system to the max trying to avoid the blasts. However they're just too large, and eventually one utterly consumes the Aestivalis as the pilot lets out a pained yell from the relatively small Aesti being blasted to the ground with an ominous metallic crunch of impact. "Damnit... we need to end this now."

Ryoko mutters - though as Zinnerman calls out for them to target the neck just like Riika... "Don't worry..." -as her Aesti simply propels itself off the ground... and forward at a low altitude. Propelling herself to just ahead of the Ghoulgilas, it appears like she's put herself in a dangerous position save for the fact that she's much faster. Suddenly stepping off the ground, she uses the low gravity to increase her speed rapidly, her distortion field warping upon a single point, its fist - becoming like a crackling concave cone, arcs of electricity roiling off of it. "Got a real cold place in hell reserved for it already."

As she tries to uppercut the Kaiju right in the neck and drive the Aestivalis distortion field encased fist right through it if she can. Those familiar with the Aestivalis Squadron on the Nadesico will totally understand she just did the Gekigan Flare - but didn't call it out as that! A huge Faux Pas to a ship full of Gekiganger fans.

It's totally not the Gekigan Flare though, shut up.


 KTS: Ryoko Subaru has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru targets Elisa Kafim with This Is Not the Gekigan Flare Shut The Hell Up!!
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman orders an all-out attack, raising Nidaime's Skill!

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Reluctance?

Nidaime senses reluctance. Devil Gundam opponents, she was given to understand, don't usually get 'reluctant'. "Dad..." She murmurs, pressing her cheek down against the turtle's shell. That kind of comment makes her hesitant to stirke back. Maybe this mysterious Death Knight isn't the only one who is reluctant now?

But they can't just hang Heero out to dry either. He's a good guy. He saved a dog. Definitely not the sort of person who would threaten a lady when receiving an invitation to a birthday.

And that phrase. Vessels of Light. Did Akane make another? But why would she send a kaiju here? This is only going to ENCOURAEG people to go into her world. She doesn't understand the lady's reasoning here.

Could it be Alexis instead?

Maybe it isn't a kaiju, she thinks, but another friend like Ren? That makes more sense to her.

Nidaime sends a transmission back, oblivious to the pilot's identity. "I don't know why you're doing this, but you don't have to if you don't want to. There are innocent people here who could get hurt and fighting in space is dangerous..."

Anosillus knows that there are dads here. Maybe even daughters and sons well beyond those he knows. He has learned a lot about family dynamics since starting his own.

It lets out a roar!! Not an offensive roar, while Nidaime is trying diplomacy, but one that might bolster the spirits of Heero, Leito, and Suberoa!

<Pose Tracker> Saraven Vai has posed.

She's not part of their family. Saraven presses her lips together and exhales slowly through her nose. She can feel Puru Two almost recoiling, in some way - and curling towards someone else. Someone who feels entirely too similar.

"...You must be...." she murmurs, unsure if Puru Two can even hear her or even feel the way the understanding lands in her consciousness with the psychic equivalent of a blunt thud.

More connections between people she can never be a part of. More bridges built for others that can never exist for her. The only bridges that exist for her end at the walls of the Newtype Research Institute. Everything else feels like a temporary fording of this or that stream or brook she crosses in the path of her life.

Even that seems far more faint than what she is getting from Ghoulghilas. It's as though there's no soul behind it - as though it were somehow even less than a mobile suit. There's not even a pilot to feel the intentions of. Just a voice.

One dripping with menace. Saraven presses her lips together and breathes out through her nose, leaning forward with hands sliding across her controls. "This isn't a party. You're hurting spacenoids," she answers, the confusion a little more clear now. "So this can't be for me.

"Isn't it for you? You want to hear us wail, right...?"

The kaiju rushes her, green light pulsing and rippling - and what emerges is so unexpected that Saraven's instincts nearly fail her. Surging darkness roils around the Varguil. The Lilac Gale sucks in a breath, her normally practiced calm interrupted by a surge of inner anxiety that's immediately clamped down on by an intense focus. Chunks of debris whirl around her as she fires her thrusters and leaps, instinctively twisting the Varguil through the air and off to one side.

The funnels swirl around in the cyclone of bizarre energy. Saraven clicks her teeth together and focuses on their movement. They ride the vortex for a few seconds before bursting free with a sudden jet of thrust, straining to escape the magical grip pouring off of Ghoulghilas - or is it Ghoulghilas doing it? Somehow she manages to get them back where they belong, the Varguil descending to land not far from Zinnerman's Geara Zulu in a crouch.

"Captain Zinnerman," she says, voice a little more tense. "Are you okay?"

Then she's reopening her comline to Ghoulghilas and the Death Army, rotating back with her beam rifle coming to bear. "What gate are you opening...?" is the first thing she asks, before she takes a longer look at the kaiju.

What's left of it. She presses her lips together as she takes stock of the crumpling kaiju and the hellish rifts of starry darkness that radiate from behind it. Even without a person within the thing, Saraven can feel something horribly there.

She shudders. It is one of the most visceral emotions she can remember feeling.

"You're not like most people," she murmurs, her normally soft voice beginning to tighten with focus and something that could be either tension or disgust - she's not sure which. "I thought you must have come here for an objective... but you really do just want to hurt people, don't you...? People say Zeon is evil, but someone like you, who just wants others to suffer...."

Zinnerman's orders come over the comm again. 'Target the neck.' "...Yes," she answers, covering the comm to the kaiju for a second before swinging her rifle into readiness. The Varguil jets to the side, maneuvering to try and cover Zinnerman's more vulnerable machine.

She opens the comline again, hunching forward. Her heavy eyebrows furrow into a scowl. "...You're a horrible person," she says, the softness of her voice muting the harder edges of one of the harsher judgments she's made on another human. "This place... Riika and Lily and their friends care about it. I won't let the Earth rule it... and I won't let you hurt these people, either."

The Varguil plants its heels, and Saraven stares forward with uncharacteristic intensity as she maneuvers to unload a high-powered shot - one, two, then a moment to let the capacitors charge, Ghoulghilas blurring in her vision as she predicts. She lets foresight dictate--

And lets the shot go, trying to put a hole through the kaiju's neck.
 KTS: Saraven Vai targets Elisa Kafim with Long Beam Rifle Charged Shot!
 KTS: Nidaime targets Suberoa Zinnerman, Heero Yuy, and Leito Igaguri with Sound Spirit.
 KTS: Nidaime's sound spirit flares with his performance, raising Leito Igaguri's Morale!
 KTS: Nidaime has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Anti
 KTS: Nidaime has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Anti

<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.

"That's why I asked if you were in," Brooke says to Milly, sounding very faintly apologetic. This may be as close as she gets to saying sorry.

Milly raises her voice next to Brooke, and Brooke just kind of takes it. It's fine. She has a helmet on. But it does surprise her squadmates.

"Hey Brooke, you picking up girls on a battlefield? Maybe you should wait for after."

"Ha ha," Brooke says, sounding spectacularly unamused. "Shut up and punch the goddamn kaiju before I come over there and punch you, Farkas. It's bigger, but I fight dirty." Off-mic: "Ignore him," she adds to Milly. "I'm going to deck him either way."

The three of them may not have been able to land a solid blow, but having the off-colony support is (as much as certain PLANT pilots would probably not like to admit it) very helpful. AND it looks like they won't have to fight the turtle.

They have to break again against the charge. While none of them are hit directly by the rushing Death Knight, they have to abort their next attack formation entirely to avoid the incoming bazooka shots. "Break, break!" Schneider calls, even though he is not in any way the boss here.

It's suddenly every pilot for themselves as the GINN's formation is disrupted, leaving them apparently open. Schneider's tendency is to fly defensively, and he pulls back, putting himself between the rampaging Anti and the roads, on the off chance he wanted to go somewhere else and rampage there. Farkas' instict is to start firing in bursts, focusing on penning in Anti.

And as for Brooke...

One of the GINNs slips in, empowered by Zinnerman's suggestion. She's hoping that the Death Knight is so busy, so focused on the Qubeley, that she can get up behind him, relatively close. From here, it's harder to dodge. From here, she has a shot.

"Hey, buddy," she practically purrs, before she opens up with her machine gun. She does not stop firing until the clip is empty.

--

"I know you know it's not me, but - I don't even know this person!" Riika is sure she'd remember a voice - an attitude - like that. She's too far away, so she certainly doesn't get any real feeling, but frankly she's creeped out even at this distance, with her voice crackling from Minovsky distortion as the battle continues.

"I've never encountered an Aestivalis before, so no," Riika says, when Ryoko asks if she's ever seen the distortion field before (though she's seen a bigger one, on the Nadesico). "Should I close my eyes so I don't learn anything?"

Too late. She's already seen the readouts. Though Riika doesn't make a fuss about it most of the time, she is a Coordinator, with all that entails. One look is enough to learn something. Such as at least two pilots who she recognizes, though she cannot call to them. She'll have to find a way - later. Not now. She's behaving.

A few moments later, then: "Watch out!" She doesn't know what that glowing green crack is, what the rift is. Riika doesn't need to understand it to know it's not good. And the worst part is that it seems, just a little bit, familiar. "I think it's going to break!"

Riika's kaijus imploded. This one seems, to her, like it might be the reverse.

 KTS: Riika Sheder has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Riika Sheder has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Riika Sheder has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Riika Sheder has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Riika Sheder targets Anti with MMI-M8A3 Heavy MG Blitz!
 KTS: Heero Yuy jams Anti's sensors, reducing his accuracy.
 KTS: Anti fails to react to Riika Sheder's MMI-M8A3 Heavy MG Blitz, taking 4950 damage!
 KTS: Nidaime's sound spirit flares with his performance, raising Heero Yuy's Morale!

<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.

Milly has been -- near? A few? major battles, in her life. This is the closest she has ever been, and moreover, the most in danger she's ever been. The suit she's in does evade -- but it's at strain, and Milly isn't even particularly well-situated in the cockpit, since. ... well, she's in the second (non-)seat of a single-seat mobile weapon.

She has to brace herself against the rear corner awkwardly, and even then, she gets rattled around -- the corner of some panel or another bites into her thigh, and her shoulder slams into the wall of the cockpit.

Milly takes a breath and finally actually gets herself comfortably positioned, now that she knows what she's doing. "Nhh -- I don't have your G-force tolerances," she admits, breathing out. "I'm just a Natural. My family's here on business... we were trying to sell off some failed KMF prototypes for use as farm equipment."

Her expression turns into a wry smile as she notes, "And you don't need to deck him just because you're not quite my type."

She considers getting back on comms, but instead, she says, gently: "I'm going to remember this. ... even in Britannia, not all of us want this war to keep going." ... ignore the 70% approval rating for how Britannia's handling the conflict, perhaps, but still...
 KTS: Milly Ashford targets Riika Sheder with Awe!
 KTS: Milly Ashford has activated the Rouse Spirit Command targeting Riika Sheder

<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.

                (The Death Knight's pilot isn't a military man.)

        The Qubeley trades blows with the Death Knight, the two grappling amidst the fields. Spalled plating and showers of luminous sparks spray into the distance, and it's a miracle no fires have started.

                (It's a boy--he's shouting, desperate, lost.)

        The Qubeley isn't designed to stand there and trade hits like it's a boxing match, despite the emotional tension in the air. So when Anti brandishes a damn gun on her, Puru Two throws the Mobile Suit into a vernier-boosted backdash. The cannon fire strikes at an angle, instead of dead-on, so it just throws the Qubeley like a rag doll instead of snapping it in half. A marked improvement.

        Ryoko's communications -finally- make it through. The name 'Callisto' rings a distant bell. (Oh right.) she thinks. (That life I worked so hard for, that ... real name...).

        "Subaru, it's fine." her response is fast, but not... curt. Just not much time to waste on talking. It's so inefficient compared to communicating with feelings. "If he's knocking me around, he's not stomping on the colony's residents. WinWin."

        The redhead whose mind is looking suspiciously like the Galaxy Brain meme panel right now feels a sense of partial calm settling over her as she starts to more closely parse the waves of panic and aggression pulsing off of Anti. She's getting a taste for the flavor. "You idiot. What if you die?" she challenges, even as her own suit comes to a skidding halt some hundred-odd metres away. "If you throw yourself into this cause blindly, over and over, one false move and it's over."

        Despite the damage, the Qubeley is still a zippy foe. It doesn't so much as stand back up as it jumps, buoyed on rocket-fire from its back and shoulders. Levitating into the air above the fields. The hefty tail at its back stands on end like a predator ready to strike.

        "There's something, someone, somewhere, you're doing all this for! Am I right? What are they going to say if you bite the dust and disappear?" Puru Two declares her thesis here against Anti. The Qubeley's big black fist points at him, accusingly.

        She can feel that presence from the bridge of the Garencieres, too, and it makes her want to quit this war in an instant and start crying big, snotty, stupid tears. She has to swallow this feeling -- now's not the time for it. Six flying remote beam cannons whisk outwards from the Qubeley's tail in an unfurling spiral as she points.

        Saraven has her answer on whether she can be perceived--even if she's not part of whatever distant family is having a powerful mental moment over there. Their attention isn't so narrow. We say 'their' because there's a cluster of souls hovering around the Qubeley. A ghostly flock watching over the living. They're curious, innocent, maybe even naive: why is the strange lady so sad? Did we do something wrong? Hey, don't cry!

                A lot of voices.

        "Answer me, Death Knight's pilot--your life's worth more than this, am I right? What are you trying to protect!?" Puru Two's last challenge for the moment is yelled aloud. The funnels dart outwards and chase down the Death Knight, careening around Anti at off-kilter angles and shooting him with Beams (the capital B is important). ugh psychic chicks and their magic GARBAGE
 KTS: Puru Two has activated the Valor Spirit Command.

 KTS: Puru Two targets Anti with Qubeley MK-II Funnels - Spathi Formation!
 KTS: Puru Two enervates Anti, reducing his Morale significantly.
 KTS: Anti fails to react to Puru Two's Qubeley MK-II Funnels - Spathi Formation, taking 6480 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Puru Two's Pressure of Aggression activates, causing Deject!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Puru Two's Pressure of Aggression activates, causing Control Bonus!

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        No, Two -- he's not a military man.

        Perhaps someone like Anti could fit in well, in a place like this -- if not for his dogged insistence on their suffering. He came here to wreck things, after all, and if not for their defence he'd be doing a remarkable job.

        "Nngh-- you're DAMN RIGHT it is!" Anti screams, to Heero, when he asks whether defeating Vessels of Light is his purpose. There's another tearing edge, to his voice, all frayed at the edges.

        But -- what happens, when the person who wants him to fight no longer wants him?

        The Death Knight staggers back. One step, two. The horror rolling off of him is strong enough to feel, even given the strangeness of his condition.

        "So long as I defeat them-- SO LONG AS I DEFEAT THEM--!!"

        He screams, the sound growing only more distorted as the Leo disrupts the signals coming from the Death Knight. Anti doesn't care, occupied only with bringing his beam rifle about. It flares, along the edges, and he and Death Knight are of entirely one mind about what to do to the Leo:

        Destroy it.

        (In his cockpit, Anti draws in a sharp breath; he blinks -- he swallows.)

        He is interrupted as one of those GINNs recognises a moment of weakness -- not from the Ghost, but an opening is an opening -- and sneaks up behind him. "Huh?" The Death Knight grunts, as it turns, only to get filled all full of holes. "Shit!" He yells, as he jerks away, but all the speed in the world won't save him from being caught unawares.

        He blasts Brooke's GINN with his rifle in a snap response, but this volley, at least, is not quite so sickeningly empowered.

        And from the other end of the scale comes the Qubeley. No wonder, perhaps: having heard the anger in his voice over not mattering, who wouldn't ask what happens if he does? This, if anything, causes just as much conflict, raging from inside that horrific machine.

        "I won't die! Not until I kill--!!" The Death Knight clamps down on his automatic response, and yells: "Grrahh! Who cares if it's a lie?!" He screams -- always yelling, always screaming, always shouting. Anger is just a better-defended version of pain; he's just throwing a phone at the entire COLONY. The Fin Funnels pepper him with beams, but they're not the things which are hurting, not really. "Because I exist, I'll keep fighting! Because she wanted me to exist...!!"

        He springs back, finally, out of the range of those beams. That one, purple eye turns, finally, to regard Anosillus. (The first, and the Second.)

        "... I..."

        Anti grunts, and tightens his grip, in those twisting wires.

        "Who cares about innocent people?! I never said I gave a SHIT! If you don't get out of here, it's YOUR OWN DAMN FAULT, THE SECOND!"

        Bazooka fire careens from him, blasting a wide area -- threatening Anosillus and the Qubeley, and a processing factory, to boot. Death Knight does not stand defeated... and left to his own devices, he'll destroy everything in the area.

        Even an angry boy is a horrific danger, in an existential threat like Death Knight. Respond!

 KTS: Anti targets Heero Yuy with Consumption Blast!
 KTS: Anti targets Riika Sheder with ME AGAIN - Liquidator!
 KTS: Anti targets Nidaime with Death Shrapnel Blast Shot!
 KTS: Anti targets Puru Two with Death Shrapnel Shot!
 KTS: Anti has activated the Spirit Spirit Command.

<Pose Tracker> Elisa Kafim has posed.

A more engaging hobby. The witch's voice resounds in laughter. "Perhaps it is so! But my research demands results."

"Poor, poor girl," the voice says to Saraven. "You don't understand. They will not let you understand. Your pain is a means to an end; that is all." She does not answer what 'gate' she means. But she does answer Ryoko, "Hahaha. Yes. It makes you angry, doesn't it? It drives you forward. Yes, brave pilot... Come forth. Save the colonists."

Zinnerman's orders are quite effective at coordinating the assault to come. Ultraman Zero calls out his defiance--and the voice's owner does hear him, despite that difficulty. "Hm hm hm... Perhaps you're right. Too early, yet..." He moves through the storm, and grips the kaiju tightly; it is able only to hunch itself up, to break its fall into the ground with its shattering arms, before it is driven down. Down, down, where its neck is exposed--to the Aestivalis's (definitely) Gekigan Flare. The fist goes straight through the kaiju's neck, covered in green light for an instant, even as the Varguil's armaments put a hole through its chest. The kaiju has intent to sense, even if its 'pilot' doesn't, and that is enough.

Riika's warnings may be vital. The kaiju glows brighter and brighter as its head is separated from its body, becoming brilliant and radiant in a horrific green light. That light bathes the combatants, its unwholesome presence building, and building--

There is a crack in the air, as the rifts disappear, and collapse inward. The kaiju, too, collapses inward, imploding in a rush of light and folding space. It, and all of the rifts it opened, are gone in an instant.

DOWN ON EARTH:

"Hmmmm," Elisa Kafim says, looking down at the tablet in her hands. There is text on the center of its screen.

CONNECTION WITH SUBJECT LOST

She regards the wreckage in the city impassively, tilting her head as she looks over once again the form of the Giant of Light in particular. "Hm hm," she reflects. "A horrible person..."

"Ara."

She smiles, and sets it down amidst the ring of candles on her table, each guttering now, nearly expended, black with strange green flames.

"Anti~!" her voice comes, to the pilot of the Death Knight alone. "My readings are complete. Good luck out there. I'll let you finish before I bring you back, yes?"

BACK IN SPACE:

The voice says no more, for now. There is an eerie silence where the Ghoulghilas once was; no trace of it remains. But the battle with the Death Knight rages on...

 KTS: Anti rattles Nidaime, making her next maneuvers more difficult.
 KTS: Nidaime blocks Anti's Death Shrapnel Blast Shot, taking 2300 damage!
 KTS: Puru Two has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Puru Two successfully intercepts Anti's Death Shrapnel Shot

 KTS: [Lucky] Riika Sheder's Ace Maneuver activates, and luck goes her way!
 KTS: Riika Sheder successfully accepts Suberoa Zinnerman's All-Out
 KTS: Milly Ashford inspires awe, increasing Riika Sheder's Morale!
 KTS: Riika Sheder successfully Evades Anti's ME AGAIN - Liquidator
 KTS: Heero Yuy has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
 KTS: Heero Yuy has activated the Wall Spirit Command.
 KTS: Heero Yuy fails to evade Anti's Consumption Blast, taking 4720 damage!

<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.

For a moment it seems like the kaiju might explode in sickly green and Zinnerman raises his machine's shield - but then it collapses in on itself, vanishing into a void.

Shaking off the sense of unease at the strange phenomenon, Zinnerman replies to Saraven's inquiry on a private line. "The Zulu's a little shaken up, but I can keep going. Let's finish this, Saraven." To Ryoko, he smiles wryly: "I know that piloting style well, that's all. You shouldn't leave the people who care about you thinking you're dead."

"Captain!" Gilboa calls in. "Garencieres Team stands ready to assist!"

"Good. Time to go on the offense. Gilboa, with me!"

"Roger that!" Gilboa and Zinnerman's Geara Zulus take off for a better firing line. While Zinnerman aims his beam MG again, Gilboa puts his custom suit's weapon to use:

A long, four-barreled beam gatling gun, spinning up to fill the sky over Anti with particle death.
 KTS: Suberoa Zinnerman targets Anti with GZ Beam MG Full Barrage!

<Pose Tracker> Saraven Vai has posed.

Magic is one thing. The phantoms hanging around the Qubeley are another for Saraven. She looks to the side for a moment, her focus drifting back to Puru Two and...

...and her entourage...? Saraven bites down to her lower lip.

        ...You didn't do anything wrong....
        ...You're all like her, aren't you...?
        ...What happened...?

She forces her consciousness to re-center not on the source of pity, but of menace. Evil, maybe. Leaning forward again, Saraven opens her mouth slightly, then presses it closed once more.

        'Your pain is a means to an end; that is all.'

"What end requires you to terrify the innocent," she begins, but there are so many questions left unanswered that she can't possibly expect one more to be made clear. Her shots, at least, strike home, and that glow intensifies. The unwholesome presence burns into her psyche. She recoils even as the Varguil does, gaining distance with a pulse of thrust.

The light builds - and then Ghoulghilas, if that's what it was, is gone, leaving Saraven to stare into the cold silence. The Varguil lowers its rifle partway as the Lilac Gale closes her hands against her controls, then reopens them.

She has to run through a mental exercise twice to clear her thoughts the way she's supposed to. The realization leaves her frowning and looking down into her lap.

        ...I'm feeling....
        ...I don't know what it is, but I don't like it.

Lifting lilac eyes back to her monitor, Saraven takes stock of the situation. The Death Knight is still out there. The defenders of Junius Four are still fighting. The girl who feels so much like Marida Cruz, surrounded by the phantoms that feel so much like her....

...And there's another presence. One she can feel the edges of. She straightens and draws a breath.

"Riika," she whispers. "You're counting on us, aren't you...?"

That, if nothing else, helps her to clear the grimmer thoughts - the emotion she rarely feels and can't put a name to but wishes she could jettison yet at the same time wishes she could cling to forever. She resolves to meditate on it later, once the objectives are complete. When Zinnerman responds, she nods, martial focus and Tuned calm returning as they always do. "Moving to engage now, Captain," she transmits quietly. "Be careful. This one might also have... weird energy tricks."

The Varguil's moving already, funnels whipping out to either side of the mobile suit before darting off into the colonial sky. The lilac mobile suit brings its rifle to bear and squeezes off a couple of shots.

They come nowhere close to hitting. They tear into space off to one side of the Death Knight as the Varguil maneuvers into this side of the engagement. She's coming in fairly close to the black Qubeley.

The funnels aren't. They come sweeping in from the opposite side of the engagement, then fork off in three directions before swirling in to attack the Death Knight like a swarm of demented hornets. Each blast of beam fire is a sting, and they come again and again, seemingly from all sides.

"You're so angry," Saraven transmits, her voice a murmur underlaid with focus. "Will winning the fight make you feel better?

"Would you go away satisfied if I let you kill me right now?"
 KTS: Saraven Vai targets Anti with Funnel Cage!

<Pose Tracker> Heero Yuy has posed.

        Pilot Heero, don't give up.

        It's only a few words, and he doesn't even know who's speaking to him, but Heero can feel a strength and a warmth behind the gruffness of that voice; something that takes him far, far back, perhaps. It's strange and perhaps a little unsettling how at the front his emotions are, but perhaps...

        Live life by your emotions.

        Yes, he said that once to Trowa...

        Anosillus' roar... somehow, he understands the meaning behind it. It's something on the same wavelength of Zinnerman's own words. yes, Zinnerman, today, on this day, you exist on the same wavelength as a turtle, for you are united by the power of Dadliness.

        In this moment, though, Heero has a window into Anti's being -- and finds that it's uncomfortably like staring into a mirror.

        So long as I fight... longer than anyone on this Earth... than anyone else... this... will be my resistance!

        The Leo's too compromised to react well; Heero tries to manoeuvre around the beam rifle, and--

        WARNING WARNING WARNING

        --oh, that's the legs giving out into molten metal as the top part of the Leo falls over and crumples against a building.

        Heero groans, taking hold of the puppy in his arm and checking on it for a moment. He's a fighter, though. He'll pull through. But it looks like their resistance is over at the moment...

        ...

        ...

        At least, he thinks it is -- but there's a second glint from the air, out of nowhere, the second time now in so long.

        A long metallic object lands with a crash in front of the legless Leo.

        "That's... the Buster Rifle...?" Heero sounds surprised. With a laborious grunt, he pushes the lever forward -- and the magic mint Leo takes hold of the rifle in one hand. "We'll only have one shot at this... the force from the rifle will likely melt the Leo's hands outright." He's further silent. "I can make the shot. Shape the beam for close-range..."

        He's further silent.

        "I don't know who you are, but... you're blind with rage right now. So remember this after you've calmed down... from someone who used to be in your situation."

        Subrouting reactor to external attachment 3 and 4...
        Error correction for low-G within acceptable means.
        Calculating trajectory path, identifying all obstacles...
        Strategic level 1, firing solution accepted.

        "Target... Death Knight, locked on."

        (BGM: https:''www.youtube.comwatch?v=dWz2BWGxqMI )

        The Leo does an... unexpected... manoeuvre -- it tips itself off the building and kind of lazily rolls to its side, like it were a cat turning over in bed. As it does so, its arm -- armed with the Buster Rifle -- finds itself raised up into the air...

        ... which goes KTHOOOOOOOM as it erupts into a shaped beam of particular length, effectively transforming itself into a glorified beam sword at present that goes doooooooown along with gravity and that arm--

        "Make a plan for when that person doesn't want you anymore. It's gonna hurt like hell either way... so you might as well be ready for it."

        --to hopefully just slam straight onto the Death Knight in an indefatigable roar of beam fire. Hit or not, that's it for that Leo -- the force of the buster rifle's just melted the arm holding it entirely, and it clatters to the ground uselessly afterwards.
 KTS: Heero Yuy has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Heero Yuy has activated the Strike Spirit Command.
 KTS: Heero Yuy targets Anti with Rolling Buster Rifle!

<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Subaru has posed.

"Not if you get infected!" Ryoko calls over the comms to her, "Don't put it on me to send that news back to your friends!"

It's... genuine concern beneath the surface. Whatever is causing her to act as she does she definitely doesn't want her to get hurt - and definitely not die.

"You're damn right it does!" Ryoko shouts at the mysterious voice behind Ghoulgilas hands tightening on her control globes, "What gives you the right!? These people have all suffered enough!"

"I believe you. You wouldn't work with someone like this!" Ryoko says to Riika... while she has mixed feelings about her unleashing that Kaiju, to her - that motive was the most sympathetic reason of all.

Riika offers her concerns about whether she should see a distortion field in accident or not - it is a concern perhaps, that watching the data might allow ZAFT to develop such a weapon eventually - but Ryoko isn't an engineer herself. She only knows the bare bones basics on how the Nadesico does what it does from the 'Get to Know the Nadesico' segments (They're really well done okay!?) However...

... Ryoko kind of doesn't mind the thought of a Coordinator seeing that data if it sticks it to certain people... "Don't worry about it. You earned that peek." It's a good thing that she warns her though, as Ryoko suddenly uses a burst of the Zero-G frame's thrusters to blast through its neck and zip away from the resulting explosion, "Appreciate the warning..." She says, a touch breathless.

It's that moment though that Zinnerman speaks, and Ryoko just grows still. All those negative emotions radiating off of her all at once.

Look for the first star inside yourself

This is the last thing I would have wanted for you! I didn't go through all that so you could follow in my footsteps!

"I don't know who you are that you think you know me. But you've obviously got the wrong girl."

Deny
        Deny
                 Deny

"So mind your own damn business!"

Hissing in a calming breath through her teeth she tries to focus on the task at hand. "... Let's not leave the job half-finished Riika. Want you to sleep soundly tonight." Ryoko checks the gauge, glad that she's been using short bursts of power, as it stands she's gonna be lucky to get out of the Colony after this is over without being carried out given how much she's used her Distortion field... but... she suddenly shunts what she has into the IFS system, the second cybernetic brain in her head set up by nanomachines allowing her to push herself. "D.G. cells are a problem but... think we have the solution right here."

Launching herself at the Death Knight, she skims the ground of the Colony before rising up off of it, just enough altitude to strike something vital, she tries to come up at its back while the others have it distracted, "Just give up already!"

She announces, as she raises her distortion field for one, brief second. Aiming the fist of her Aestivalis right at the Death Knight's shoulderblades. Rather than trying to plow through him, she tries to simply drive the energy of the distortion field into that singular point, right inside the chassis... to tear it apart from the inside out.


 KTS: Ryoko Subaru has activated the Valor Spirit Command.
 KTS: Ryoko Subaru targets Anti with Stop Calling it the Gekigan Shoot!!

 KTS: Anti fails to evade Suberoa Zinnerman's GZ Beam MG Full Barrage, taking 4440 damage!
 KTS: Anti fails to evade Saraven Vai's Funnel Cage, taking 4590 damage!
 KTS: Anti fails to react to Heero Yuy's Rolling Buster Rifle, taking 6600 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Heero Yuy's I Just Feel Rhythm Emotion... activates, causing Insight L1!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Heero Yuy's The Wings of a Boy Who Killed Adolescence activates, causing Sparkle!
 KTS: Heero Yuy roots his unit, coming to a standstill and leaving him vulnerable.
 KTS: Anti fails to evade Ryoko Subaru's Stop Calling it the Gekigan Shoot!, taking 5760 damage!
 KTS: [Dynamic Hit] Ryoko Subaru's In the End All I Do Is... activates, causing Insight L1!
 KTS: Anti's Death Knight has been disabled.

<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.

'I'm just a Natural.'

Brooke makes a face when Milly explains it, but fortunately she is facing away from Milly, so this may not be obvious from her point of view. Brooke doesn't much care one way or the other if Milly sees it, though.

"Ah," she says. "Well, I can't slow down, not unless you want to get pasted - so I guess hold on a little better." She isn't saying anything about the rest of it. This is really not the time.

True to her word, Brooke doesn't slow down - but she does take the turn wide, so that Milly isn't thrown around quite so much and has a bit more time to react. It's not a lot, but it's better than nothing.

The turn is necessary because holy shit is Anti mad at her. Which is only fair. Brooke is mad at him too. She takes to another leap when he fires at her, and that looks like it might be the end of her for a moment -

Except Farkas comes in from the side, swinging his blade downward at Anti. "Ha! I don't know where you came from, DG Cells, but we care about innocent people! The PLANTs didn't do a damn thing to you, but we'll sure as hell throw you out! Now!"

Farkas throws himself forward in a dive, going flat, as Schneider shoots directly through where he was moments ago.

--

The Ghoulgigas is gone. Riika feels relieved for a reason she cannot clearly express. It must have come, she thinks. It must have come from Junius Seven, and because I took a kaiju to space now they all think it's a great idea.

She's not quite so egotistical as to believe it's all her fault, but Riika is definitely willing to believe that what she did made it seem like a better idea. She told Akane that that's why she was there, after all; she was afraid someone would wander out of Tsutsujidai, hit vacuum and die, but instead it was a kaiju and it didn't. And who was the person controlling it? Riika doesn't know. Riika -

"NOT IN A COLONY!" she practically screams, when she sees the Buster Rifle fire. It's going up, though - and up is a 'safe' direction in a PLANTs-style colony unless it goes for dozens of kilometers without diffusing. There's a lot of air between here and the core. Still, she can't help but have her heart in her throat, because it's kind of concerning!!

She lets out a breath she didn't really know she was holding. "...I suppose it's better than letting DG Cells out, but still! Where'd - is that a Leo? Do Leos usually pack that?" She's pretty sure she's had G-Hound engagements that would have gone worse if they did! (It's different to encounter it from the other side.)

Riika does not respond to Saraven. She can't. She doesn't even know a response is necessary.

Instead: "Is that a turtle?" Riika asks, because she is a bit behind the times.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

Oh, Nidaime thinks with recognition. So ti IS him.

There's some hesitation from Nidaime for obvious reasons even as her father takes more shrapnel across his body, backpedaling quickly and assuredly on the defensive.

Shouldn't she be angrier about this? She can't get mad at Anti, not the kind of mad she'd ususally get if someone trounced around in a Devil Gundam mech thoughtlessly because she knows that Anti was not given the kind of life the average human would get, he didn't really have the same choices.

But as time went on, she knows, the choices become more and more real. At a certain point he is less God's angel and more his own man. Where does that line begin? Where does it end? It's not so clear cut and she knows that if he does kill innocent people--

--It could be a regret one day...if he lives along to make it that far.

NIDAIME'S MOM BGM: https:''www.youtube.comwatch?v=QkF3oxziUI4&ab_channel=LedZeppelin

She doesn't want to hurt him.

But she can't let him just hurt others either. Every moment of hesitation is another life that could have been saved. These are the choices Gridman has to face, she knows. And despite it all--he was able to save her father.

"Anti." Nidaime transmits, but it's a private transmission to the boy. And she answers the question.

who cares about innocent people?!

"You do." Nidaime says "Is this what Akane wants? ... or is it Him..?"

She lets that hang for a moment before adding, "I've...been thinking a lot about what happened. As far as I know, there's only the two of us who are like us. So..."

"I hope one day we get to decide what that means, being who and what we are. And what that means. And sincen you're like me, I'll tell you a fundamental truth."

 "Akane can't remain in Tsutsujidai. No human should. It is not good for them."

"But I owe you a debt," Nidaime admits, smiling. "So I'm going to stop you from hurting any more people. I hope you understand!"

The turtle rears back with its head and unleashes a full blast of SOUND towards the Devil Gundam unit. It'll take that much to even so much as rattle the mobile suit.

Can Anti feel it?

The intense grief in Nidaime's heart for even having to do this? That smile does not hide it well. Nidaime will remember today as one of the worst days of her life.

Alongside when she learned she'd never see Uncle Max again, strangely enough.

<Pose Tracker> Milly Ashford has posed.

The little bit of consideration does help; Milly manages to keep herself fairly braced. She's tall, and fairly robust besides; it makes for a cramped fit, but it does make it a little bit easier to get and stay comfortable.

Milly does notice that face; she can take it in stride, a bit. This woman... has no reason to like or trust her. Part of respecting other people's agency includes respecting their decision to be upset with you, even if it's pre-rational.

Besides: this is REALLY not the time.

She stays quiet, rather than being particularly verbally aggressive, at this stage; the fight is at a fever pitch, a tension high -- at the moment, the best thing she can do is trust.

<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.

                >> SO LONG AS I DEFEAT THEM--!!

        Heavy artillery shells spiral out of the Death Knight's bazooka, trailing thin contrails of smoke. Emotions surging as they are, Puru Two's mind races to the point can see them moving in slow motion. She can feel them in the distance. Chart their course down to a simple equation.

                >> I won't die! Not until I kill--!!

        The Qubeley darts to one side, but... there's a lot of Colony behind where it once stood. The vengeful spacenoid is mindful of this, and now older and (slightly) kinder, wouldn't happily write them off as collateral.

                >> Because I exist,

        The arcs of emerald psychic fire are palpably visible to even the mundane, at this point, flickering between the black Qubeley and its funnels. They whirl and return to the Qubeley's flank, branching three-strong outwards from each shoulder. Like the joints of invisible wings.

                >> Because she wanted me to exist...!!

        Unit Two of the Puru subject line exhales. Her senses curl around the artillery shells. The funnels, an extension of her body, reach out to touch them with mega-particle arms. Pencil-thin beam fire lances through the oncoming weapons and they pop midair in flashing clouds of smoke.

        "If someone wanted you to be," she starts up back at Anti. It's not a lecture, her voice is too thick with emotion for that. "Wouldn't you leave them alone if you died here?"

        The black Qubeley adroitly turns to one side, arms folded. The Varguil could slip past mere inches away, if Saraven has the nerve for that kind of manoeuver. Certainly, the Qubeley pilot doesn't seem unnerved! The psychic pressure that roils off of her is ... it's precise. It's shaped. Wielded. Like being near a powerful furnace, instead of an uncontrolled bonfire.

        "You're lost! And confused! And taking it out on these people! So stop it, before your regrets are too many!"

        In the blinding glare that briefly fills this sector of the colony in the wake of the dread Buster Rifle firing, the avian-looking Mobile Suit dramatically swipes one arm across its body with Puru Two's declaration. The funnels, hovering over her shoulders, fire a low-powered fusillade at the Death Knight! Specifically: at its big weapons, because there's a confused child in there who needs a talking to. (This blast would be Maximum Overdrive if, uh, say, Glemy Toto was alive in inside.)

"Because you can never take them back!"

 KTS: Puru Two has activated the Trust Spirit Command targeting Saraven Vai

<Pose Tracker> Anti has posed.

        "What?! YOU MESSED UP!" Anti screams, as Ghoulghilas explodes. With a growl of frustration, the Death Knight turns, to the people he was fighting. "FINE! I'll crush the Vessel of Light MYSELF!"

        He makes his target entirely clear -- so perhaps it's no wonder that everyone else gets in the way.

        Zinnerman's volley crashes in, followed by Saraven's fin funnels. "I'll feel GREAT!" Anti yells, to the latter, with far too much anger to be entirely convincing. "But killing YOU doesn't matter! Who cares!"

        From behind, the Aestivalis launches in -- and it's a good thing Ryoko raises her Distortion Field, because it might be all that's saving her from the DG Cells she exposes in her assault. "Grrraaaaaghhhh!" Death Knight screams, as he WRENCHES himself off of the field, charging a short distance away. "I'll NEVER give up!"

        He turns to match Farkas's blade with his buzzsaw, which would have been a fine response -- had Farkas not been working together with Schneider. The GINN team successfully runs another line of holes through the Death Knight, though --

        All those holes, with the glittering DG Cells beneath ---

        None of them are staying holes for very long.

        "You..." Anti doesn't know about private channels; to the rest of the colony, he's responding to nothing at all. "He... he told me it would work! And it works, doesn't it?! Doesn't it?!" That tearing rips, at the edge of his voice, as his demand stabs through.

        Anti should not be able to feel the grief carried by that wave of sound, as it rocks the Death Knight. He is a kaiju; he doesn't understand the hearts of others.

        He shouldn't be able to feel it -- no.

        Why, then, is he so damn miserable?

        The Buster Rifle locks on.

        KTHOOOOOOOOOOOM.

        It is a thing of unparalleled violence -- but despite being a civilian, the pilot of the Leo doesn't miss. That beam fire blade lances in through the Death Knight -- though it misses the cockpit -- and SIZZLES.

        It will take some time to repair that.

        "I don't have to be ready for something that won't happen!" Anti screams, as his hand grasps at the hole where his mech ought to be. He has to yell quite, quite loudly, to be heard over every instance of rejection running through his mind.

        Perhaps that's why the Qubeley calls him lost -- calls him confused -- and then she says something else. The Death Knight halts, turning towards her. "I'm... taking it out on them...?" The Death Knight's hand twitches, holding its rifle. Is he just throwing...

        The fusillade explodes the bazooka which has been fitted to his back; his rifle gets a sizable hole where it would normally generate power. The Death Knight staggers back, looking around, at all the defenders of Junius Four --

        -- past them, to the Vessel of Light helping the little people he doesn't care about stepping on --

        "... rrrrgh!" Anti yells, as he takes a step back. "This ISN'T GOING TO WORK!" The anger and frustration which lances through that declaration is entirely audible. "Get me out of here--!!"

        Who he's screaming at isn't entirely obvious -- but a moment later, the Death Knight is consumed by a terrible green light, not unlike the one which graced Ghoulghilas. It becomes clear how they got here a moment later, because as that light fades -- he's just gone.

        ---

        As that green light fades, Death Knight sinks down, into Treasure Robotics' hangar. Anti wrenches, in his bonds -- stuck, for a moment.

        "Shit," he says, his teeth coming to bite down on the broad wires, as he pulls his arm back. Around it, he snarls: "Let me go!"

        Pull -- puuuull --

        And finally, he comes free.

        Silver glitters on his arm, uncertainly, for a moment... before it fades to a deep, dark, evaluating grey. Anti looks down at his hand, eyes widened, for a moment.

        Never mind. Keep working. The next arm is easier; once they're freed, he can wrench his feet out, too.

        Blackened arms; blackened legs. "She wants me," Anti tells himself. "Since I can do this for her." He itches, at the back of his hand.

        His lips curl up, in a momentary sneer. It turns into a wince, as he thinks of the Second, fighting there. Forcefully, he puts her out of his mind.

        "I won't die," Anti insists, as he vaults out of the cockpit, down, down, down to the ground. "I won't die..."

<Pose Tracker> Saraven Vai has posed.

Saraven more than has the nerve. The black Qubeley flashes close. The lilac Varguil zips past it without slowing down. It's actually so close that the distance can be measured in millimetres.

For all that Puru Two's mental air is precise and focused, the one at the heart of the Varguil is similar, yet different. There's a knifelike sharpness of focus to it, a simple knowledge that the maneuver is not going to be dangerous, that the Qubeley pilot knows they won't hit. Those intervening millimetres might as well be a thousand kilometres in her mind.

And yet, the Gale's presence is no furnace. It's meticulous, but chilled. Where the Qubeley's pilot is a roiling sea of magma, the Varguil's pilot is an utterly still pond.

There is, for just a moment, a touch. An awareness that the other woman is aware that it will be fine.

        Thank you.

The stillness remains, at least, until the Leo unloads something no Leo should have. Saraven draws a breath. "Not in a colony," she begins to whisper at the exact moment Riika shouts it. There's a sudden flash of intuition--

She sinks back in her seat as the weapon goes off. Disaster is averted. Somehow. There is no hole in the colony wall, anyway.

Calm takes over her relatively quickly. It was never going to breach.

The gunlight fades, leaving Saraven practically swimming in the screaming display of emotion roiling off of the Death Knight's pilot. The Varguil drops to a knee, funnels reorienting and slotting into their racks again. She rests her rifle against the lilac mobile suit's shoulder, but she already knows she won't need it.

She doesn't. The Death Knight's gone. "Captain Zinnerman, maybe we should return," she says quietly. "The longer we stay, the more trouble it will cause for the PLANTS if they're seen as letting us remain."

The words come out, but Saraven's mental focus is on Puru Two. There are no words taking shape, only a pensive consideration, as if trying to figure out whether what she's feeling about this stranger is a feeling.

<Pose Tracker> Nidaime has posed.

"Anti..." Nidaime says.

She should have called for him sooner, she thinks. She should have...

She takes in a deep breath. "You can't trust him, Anti. His reason for being there..."

She can't say for sure, but one thing she does know for sure is that it's not for Akane's sake. Not in the longterm anyway.

She is quiet for a bit longer and she adds, "...I wanna go home,"

There is a brief pink burst--and then they too are gone.

<Pose Tracker> Suberoa Zinnerman has posed.

The Death Knight vanishes in a crackling green rift and Suberoa exhales, his Geara Zulu descending slowly to the ground of Junius Four alongside Gilboa's. "Agreed," he replies to Saraven. "We were due to depart anyway." The mono-eye sweeps the colony, assessing the damage. "I would like to help see to the cleanup, but..."

Gilboa speaks up at this point: "Captain, we could leave a team member on the colony to keep us apprised, keep their mobile suit hidden. We'll have to come back here in two months anyway."

Zinnerman nods. "Kwani will be a good choice for that." With that settled, there's a couple more things to take care of. He opens a line to the Aestivallis, activating visual. On Ryoko's readouts, the image of a much older man appears, a stern but kind countenance she may well recognise. "I'm no fool," he says simply. "Whatever you think awaits you... It would be better to get in touch than to let them grieve." He cuts the channel before she can respond, opening a new one to the black Qubeley: "Thank you for your aid, Ghost."

Now to the half-slagged Leo: "You are a brave and skilled individual, young man. Thank you for your hard work."

And finally: "ZAFT defense forces, we will be leaving one of our number in your care to keep us in touch about your reconstruction efforts. Good fighting. Captain Zinnerman, leaving the field."

With that, the Garencieres Team (minus one Geara Zulu) return to the dock, where they discreetly dock once more with their home. Stepping onto the bridge, Zinnerman is greeted by a Marida Cruz trying her best to appear professional, even though tears are streaming down her cheeks for reasons she can't quite articulate as she snaps a salute. "No damage to report, Lieutenant," she manages to say.

"Marida..." The Newtype Battalion, he thinks, wondering just who that Qubeley pilot might have been. "At ease. Go rest." She nods and departs the bridge, as he, Gilboa and Alec take up their usual positions. "Right then. We have a Unicorn to find. Set a course."

The trapezoidal olive-green freighter pivots away from Junius Seven and burns towards the next leg on their journey.

<Pose Tracker> Heero Yuy has posed.

        The Death Knight is consumed in a green light that Heero barely sees past the cooked sensors. He also hears Riika's shouting, but he of all people would know the limits of his own signature weapon... and how much he wants to see a colony intact. There was a colony that needed defending today. Sacrificing it be throwing away everything that Milly was speaking of, earlier.

        And she was right in the end.

        He was in a position to do something.

        The half-melted cockpit door to the Leo creaks open, and Heero Yuy-- tumbles outwards and rolls to the ground, face up with a terrier on his lap still.

        The terrier sniffs at his face for a moment, nuzzles him, then runs off to join his beloved master a few paces away, where relief efforts are gathering.

        ...

        On this day, for the first time ever in years, that little girl and her dog didn't die.

        Maybe that's step one to breaking a cycle that's been haunting oneself forever.

        He can only hope Anti will learn that lesson before it's too late.

        "... mission complete."

<Pose Tracker> Puru Two has posed.

The Qubeley lands again as the Death Knight ceases all movement, tall stalks of wheat flattening beneath those enormous heels. As quickly as the storm blew in, the whirlwind of aggression ceases. Snuffed out. Like a candleflame pinched between wet fingertips. Puru Two sucks in a deep breath and pulls her helmet off, fingers soon digging into the collar of her normal suit. It is as if her mind might explode from the whiplash, and needs the additional space to vent.

The HUD doesn't point out Anti's falling form to her. Where did the pilot go? Will he show up again? What of the girl who was waiting for him?

This is why it sucks when all you know is Gears and Fighting.

A half-dozen spectral nudges bump into the edge of Puru Two's consciousness. "I know." she mumbles into her palm, gloves soon slick with sweat. "We'd better run."

From Saraven (or anyone suitably Newtype enough to see literal ghosts fr fr) perspective, it is as if the familial flock are all but carrying the one who still lives. Pushing her onwards before she can wallow too deep. The Qubeley lifts into the air again, turning to leave. The fewer questions answered, the better.

The calm voice over the radio is a lie, but a practiced one. "Ghost of the Newtype Battalion here. The colony is safe, departing." and she's off. Pausing as the camera lingers on a mint-green Leo with a curiously oversized weapon. "...? That's odd..." Puru Two mutters to herself again.

Luckily, with the clone on her way out, the powerful sense of longing goes with her. Even as it grows in strength. She knows she must leave, before the urge to lose control and run, crying, screaming, to the Garencieres will take over. And when you lose control, things go badly.

Gloved hands cover her eyes briefly. "No," she answers nobody at all, "I'm not crying. You're imagining it." she lies. Poorly.

<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Subaru has posed.

Riika's panic brings her attention to Heero's Leo, and she seems just as aghast - while Megumi is keeping Riika off the general bands, Ryoko's cybernetics respond to that emotion by relaying that specific transmission straight into the Leo's cockpit, keeping it off the general band, "Not that I've seen." She answers, before adding another transmission of her own, "Hey Dumbass! Do you think we're packing projectile weapons for the challenge?"

She of course doesn't know his limits, or what he's feeling... how haunted he is by that past. If she did, she wouldn't be able to bring herself to shout.

Anti's screaming reaches a frenzied fever pitch, as she watches his emotional attempt to hang on amidst so many reaching out to him. She doesn't understand why people are to someone in a Death Knight, she doesn't have the context to understand it. Just that it's important to them... and then it's over. And she breathes a sigh of relief. "What is even going on today with these people?"

And then the image of an older man appears on the comms. Ryoko tries to only look at him out of her periphery like it barely rated a response, "Who the hell do you think you are?! Are you going deaf in your old age? Like I said you've got the wrong g-"

It's a quiet thing, the word that cuts through what might have turned into a heated rant at the man.

'Zinnerman'

Ryoko's whole body tenses up as she stops speaking - no more like her whole being. She was told shockingly little about the man, but she definitely knows who he is. Sinking once more into that quagmire of self-loathing.

Her cybernetics suddenly flick off all the comms, even muting Riika hearing her for just a split second, long enough for her to feel a single word. "Fuck." It's a swear that seems uncharacteristic even of her. She's not someone who makes a habit of dropping an F-Bomb on a ship with an actual twelve year old serving on it.

Taking a deep breath, she tries her best not to exude how she's feeling, just becoming a little abstracted, "Power reserves critically low... withdrawing. Need to get back in Gravity Wave Antenna range before my Aestivalis goes dark."

Using the bare minimum power she starts making short leaps to try and make an effort to get her Aestivalis on the exterior of Junius-4 before it shuts down. They did something good here today, but she certainly doesn't feel good.
How typical...

<Pose Tracker> Saraven Vai has posed.

Saraven looks on at the Qubeley, her mind seeing far more than her eyes ever could. It's as though the phantoms have put the living Puru on their shields and borne her off the field. Where her feelings fail, the spirits play their part.

The Lilac Gale, haunted by no spirits, bites down to her bottom lip once again and watches that feeling of longing go.

The Varguil is the last machine back aboard the Garencieres. It's far too distinctive to leave behind. Saraven's made enough of a mess of things for the Federation recently that her presence would raise a lot of awkward questions.

She's subdued as she disembarks from the mobile suit. When Zinnerman makes his way to the bridge, the Lilac Gale's behind him by a few paces. The command chatter is so far outside of her pay grade that she lets it slide.

Her focus is on someone else. As Marida pulls back from things, Saraven looks after her. Her expression hasn't shifted from the muted neutrality she usually wears.

Behind it, she tries to capture a sliver of those feelings radiating off of the other woman - to take that momentary snapshot of her feelings and hold it up in her mind beside the memory of Puru Two's anguish and longing. Side by side, there's something about them she can't place. For all that she can feel the two, she still has to hold the other women's feelings out at arm's length and try to name them. In her outward silence, Saraven examines the sensations from the other two minds and souls, mentally digesting the feelings even Marida herself can't articulate.

If Marida Cruz cannot find the words, and if Puru Two cannot give them voice, Saraven Vai has absolutely no chance in Hell. She looks up at the bulkheads, parting her lips to breathe a faint sigh before tucking her chin into the high neck of the collared yoke she wears with her flight suit. She wraps her arms around herself and glances off to one side, a hint of colour coming to her cheeks.

        Ghost... and Marida, too... is this what being in a family is like...? Hurting together...? Struggling and crying and feeling so many different things at once? Maybe that's why I can never be in a family. Why I'm always alone.
        Feeling things... it hurts you both so much. I remember how much it hurt me, too... before back then. How much I hated hurting....
        ...So why do I wish I could cry with you...?

The Garencieres sails on. Saraven sails no closer to understanding.

<Pose Tracker> Riika Sheder has posed.

Riika had been about to say something else to Heero. 'Sorry', maybe. He controlled that a lot better than she was originally going to give an unknown pilot in a Leo credit for.

She loses the ability to communicate with him as Ryoko shuts down her comms, and says nothing to him instead. Sorry, Heero!

But she certainly noticed Ryoko's reaction to... Something. Something Zinnerman did, or represents. Riika doesn't need to actually hear the bad language to understand what was said, at least in a general sense. With the Ghost of the Newtype Brigade here... She probably shouldn't say anything. She should let her depart in silence.

Instead, Riika tentatively turns the connection to Ryoko back on, once she's talking to the Nadesico again. "...Thank you for helping," is what she says, instead. "Even if it was hard."

She dumps an infographic of how to get out of the PLANT by the simplest route, then cuts the comms before Ryoko responds. She doesn't really want the actual military officer on the Nadesico to get them in additional trouble for having her talk outside an emergency. That can be rationalized. Having her keep chattering can't.

<Pose Tracker> Leito Igaguri has posed.

SOMETIME LATER:
Ultraman Zero disappears, giving all defenders and rescue teams a thumbs up.

SOMETIME LATER:
Leito returns to the rest of the gang, wherever they might be on the Nadesico. "B-boy, that was scary! I'm sure glad I hid away in my room..."

<Pose Tracker> Ryoko Subaru has posed.

"Yeah that's probably for the best." Ryoko looks in no way actually recovered from the battle as she glances at Leito, "Now our real task begins though. Mind lending me a hand...?"

'23 hours 17 minutes later aboard the Nadesico.

~Inside Admiral Munetake's room~

Megumi apologizes once again, "Sorry Admiral. We're still having trouble. It turns out those magnets are really strong. I assure you that we're having our top minds working on it around the clock."

~Outside~

Ryoko dressed in mainly a tank top along with Leito wrenches backwards on a crowbar that the two have finally wedged under a single magnet. "HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN-!" Beside them is Hikaru with a Megaphone shouting - "Heave! Heave!" Izumi chuckles to herself, "A murder... a murder in a speakeasy..."

"YOU CAN LEND A REAL HAND ANYTIME YOU KNOW!"

~Inside~

"Ms Howmei is going to make sure you get your meal again through the vents. Our intern has volunteered for the job." "Can't you just get ME out through the vents?" Megumi gives him an apologetic look. "Sorry Admiral, Hikaru is insistent that they could only barely support her weight - so it'd be a hazard for you."

"JUST WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?"

"That you're a strapping fellow of course! I'll give you an update as soon as we have one. Megumi out-!"

~Meanwhile~

Riika gets an extra scoop of ice cream with her dessert course.