2022-12-04: Neo Getter, Neo Helios
- Cast: Liam 7-020, Neo Getter Team
- Where: Tokyo - NISAR Primary Base
- Date: U.C. 0096 17 04
- Summary: Gai Daido has a gift for Liam - the Helios Gundam, reborn from a cage to a vessel of liberation.
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
While NISAR Corporate HQ is found in Tokyo, of course, its primary deployment base is outside the city, an OCU/NERV joint airbase that specifically handles NISAR's special operations aspect.
It's here that one can usually find Captain Hayato Jin and the three... unorthodox pilots known as Neo Getter Team, as well as rotations of Ichinana Corps squadrons and a large amount of hardware for developing and testing new machines, and it's here that Gai Daido has invited a friend of the team.
As usual, the three pilots Go, Sho and Gai are in their colour-coded reinforced pilot suits with a bare concession to actual clothing thrown over them. This is pretty standard - with the Dinosaur Empire demonstrably active again but their behaviours hard to predict, and NERV's attention split between Angel activity and the dimensional peculiarities in PLANT space, the Getter Team are on more or less permanent readiness status. With every day that goes by without seeing any action, Go gets more fidgety and Gai gets into every other mechanic on the base's work, so Sho recommended they break things up by actually trying to socialise with their peers.
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Yesterday, Liam took some leave time to fly up to the Nadesico and spend some time with his girlfriend. He ended up meeting a strange new friend, and the memory of that meeting still lingers. If Liam remembers his dreams, it's because they're deeply melancholy, or frightening enough to awaken him. This one... wasn't so bad. Liam keeps it in mind as he heads in to his meeting at NISAR. He has a strong suspicion--if not a certainty--about why the team called him here.
It still feels so strange for good things to happen.
Liam's NERV clearance gets him through the base checkpoints. His uniform--a modified version of the NERV security officer uniform--clearly marks him as someone who is Supposed To Be Here, and no one gives him any trouble. As he sees Go, Sho, and Gai, his eyes widen a little, but he smiles anyway. All three of them. This /must/ be important.
"I'm here," says Liam. "You had business with me?"
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
It might seem important to have all three of the team there to meet Liam, but by the way their faces all light up - with a cocky smirk for a second on Go's face, a confident, professional smile from Sho, and Gai absolutely beaming, they were each hoping to see him.
"Business?" Gai asks, tilting his head. "Well, I guess it is, but it's more like - so, after the Giant's Causeway incident, I asked Captain Jin to take command of what could be salvaged of your mobile suit - which turned out to be pretty much just the cockpit block and the OS. I meant to ask you what you wanted done with it once you were out of the hospital, but then - " then CK-12 happened and Liam disappeared. Gai shrugs. "So I guess it kind of turned into a personal project, because - " a flash of anger crosses his face - "that thing was gonna kill you, sooner or later."
"His engineer's soul couldn't stand for it," Sho says, and it's both a gentle ribbing of her wingman and a fond affirmation of a friend. Go nods. "Wouldn't be right to just put it back together and shove you back in it." The blue-suited, wiry young man, shorter than Liam in stature but certainly not in attitude, hops down off the console bank he was sitting on. "But I think the question Gai wanted to ask you still stands - what're you gonna do now, Liam?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam's relationship with the Proto Helios is complicated, to say the least. The engineer who had to make it hated every step of the process, and treated him with a margin of decency because she knew he would have to pilot it. Dr. Jacket lead knew it would kill someone who didn't have the right augmentations, and he changed Liam, rather than the Proto Helios. It's been his other half, and melting it down was as much an act of violence against himself as it was against the assassin.
Liam listens. He blinks as he sees the anger in Gai's eyes, and it's different, because at least some of that augmentation is gone now. The eye-shields are gone. "You didn't know where I was," he says, glancing between the three pilots once they've said their piece. "And you still..." Liam touches his hand to his chest, and bows his head as heat wells up behind his eyes. "I hated it," he whispers. "I wanted to understand it. It's half of me, and I--thought I'd never see it again." Even if it's just parts of it. "I want to see it."
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
Gai's smile lessens to something more awkward but no less genuine - he's a little shy about this, now. Sho takes control, as squadron leader. "Alright then, let's go down to the hangar." She leads the group over to the elevator to the main development hangar, buzzing them in on the Getter Team authorisation.
As the steel box descends into the earth, Go rolls his eyes. "Whenever we weren't expected to actively deploy, this joker here had us running around trying to get it just so. Sim after sim of the Mobile Trace settings, heat tolerances... The guy's a lunatic, y'know."
"I seem to remember, Go," Gai rebukes with a grin, "someone wanted to get into the piloting sim and 'push her until she explodes' specifically so we knew where the weaknesses in the reactor stability were."
Sho grins too. "I handled testing the maneuverability and general performance. Holds up well against our usual sim targets!" So Mechasaurs, then. It is their specialty, after all.
"I wanted to move away from 'A Gundam to kill Gundam Fighters'," Gai explains. "But she won't be complete until we get your feedback on it - if she's half of you, you're half of her just the same, and what our expertise makes of her isn't gonna be what yours does."
The lift doors slide open into the main hangar. The three Neo Getter Machines, chassis gleaming blue, red and dark green in the artificial light, are mounted in jet form in their vertical launch chutes on the eastern wall. A bulkhead door easily large enough for the combined Neo Getter Robo ahead of them looms as Gai approaches its operations console. "Okay then. Drumroll please." Go and Sho, rolling their eyes, oblige him as he taps buttons on the console, the bulkhead slowly grinding open. "Presenting... the NRV-00 Plasma Gundam! Official-name-pending."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam offers Gai his most reassuring smile. It's so strange for it to come so naturally, but it does, lighting up his whole face. "Lead the way," he says, to Sho.
The cyborg steps into the elevator, and leans against the wall, listening with interest. His chest still feels tight, but his grin only widens as he learns just how much they all put into this.
"Captain Jin told me one of you was working on it," Liam says. "He didn't mention all /three/ of you had chipped in. I'm..." Liam closes his eyes for a moment, presses his hand to his chest. "I'm honored." But Gai brings up a very practical concern. "I know," Liam says. "It has to be able to deal with Angels, with kaiju. With whatever else BioNet's going to throw at us." With the assassin and her robot, he thinks, but doesn't say. "I'd be happy to work with you on that."
Liam steps forwards as the drumroll starts, and the doors grind open. His chest tightens. It feels like those few Christmases when his parents got him exactly what he wanted--and even those ones where he was happy to get new shoes, new coats, and new mittens.
The machine behind the door is--much like the Proto Helios--distinctly a Gundam, but there are hundreds of tiny differences in the silhouette. The way the V-fin fans out into six long rays, like a golden half-sun seen on the horizon. The shape of its helmet. The paint scheme, all blued-steel, gunmetal, and bronze--the same sort of heat-resistant enamel used on ballutes, and everything that has to survive reentry. The dozens of heat vents studding its frame, and the plasma-extrusion ports.
Liam immediately notices the more relevant differences, as well. The SUNBURST system would melt most forms of armor when operating at full capacity, so LeBlanc put together a form of ablative armor that melted into a stable-ish, flexible form as its outermost layer. That's still there, but it covers most of the frame, which seems... more solid. The overall silhouette is similar, but the plasma vents aren't running every which way through the frame.
Liam stares, his eyes gleaming. "Neo Helios," he says, trying the words out.
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
Gai sounds out the newly-dubbed Neo Helios's name after Liam says it, tapping in the characters on the control panel for the maintenance hangar (and doing it again in English for clarity). "Perfect. So! You've probably noticed just from how the heat and plasma vents are configured, but the reactor performance has been completely overhauled. My expertise with Neo Getter's own reactor was real handy to draw on. You'll definitely notice less maximum output, but - let's be real - you didn't need most of that anyway, it was just... overkill commissioned by an asshole with more money than sense or regard for life. It's wild how even a difference as small as an eight percent reduction in output dramatically changes the safety margins, so now you aren't fighting the suit itself as well as your enemies."
He looks up at the blued-steel and bronze colossus standing on the hangar's launch lift, silent for a moment. "... Do you want to take her up?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
It takes a moment for Liam to peel his attention off the brand-new machine, and an apologetic look crosses his face as he turns back to Gai. "Can't imagine there was much of the SUNBURST left after that," he says. There wasn't. The only parts that survived were the controls in the cockpit block, and those could be stripped-down and repurposed for a less dangerous system.
Liam thinks back to the radio, and what Renais told him about her own augmentations. There's an uncomfortable parallel there. One BioNet team was willing to make a prototype cyborg whose implants were slowly /cooking her alive/. Another was tasked, much later, with implementing the same theme in Gundam form.
Renais mentioned surgery. Liam's face falls for a moment as he thinks back to it. He hopes she's okay.
"SUPERNOVA was designed to counteract Hyper Mode," Liam says, turning his thoughts back to the task at hand. "Useless for our purposes. I don't think I'll miss that eight percent." He follows Gai's gaze up, and a bit of that eagerness returns to his eyes. "Of course."
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
Gai grins and taps a few more buttons, and the Neo Helios kneels, its cockpit opening up in sync with the hangar launch doors overhead. "You two," he addresses his teammates, "get over here and help me with the operational data!"
Sho joins Gai first, with Go following behind. "You know I don't know what half of these are for, right?" "Just keep an eye on the gauges and let me know when any of them are lighting up," Gai sighs, before grinning to Liam. "Ready when you are!"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam doesn't need to be told twice. The big cyborg approaches his new old machine at an eager pace, continuing his inspection up close. They definitely trimmed down the plasma conduits--the vents are smaller, but there's some sort of additional machinery visible just inside the handful that are open. Focusing coils? Definitely additional insulation in there, not that Liam can see it from outside.
Liam clambers up the scaffolding, nimble and agile and well-practiced. He presses a hand to the hatch access and waits for the panel to shut. Once he has some privacy, he starts unzipping his coat.
Liam had almost forgotten what it was like to fight with the Trace Suit extrusion ring. High-spec nanomaterial pours off it in layer after layer, with enough force to drive someone unprepared to their knees. As the last layers harden into place, he flexes his fingers, studying the armored, insulated gauntlet they've formed. He glances back at the machinery that /should/ contain the hookups for the neurotransmitter regulators, only to find... they're not there. What's supposed to keep him from running?
Liam thinks on that for a moment, and shakes his head. He steps onto the Trace platform, and waits for the synchronization to begin.
The Neo Helios rises to its feet. It drops into a crouch, and then rises to roll its shoulders, each motion natural and fluid. "Looks good," Liam says. "Take us up."
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
The lift rises. The Neo Helios ascends, out into the light of day on the NISAR testing field, the winter noonday sun gleaming off its lovingly-polished armour.
"Alright. How's the Trace System feel, Liam?" Gai's voice over the radio... there's no hiding it - he's just as thrilled as Liam is to give this former symbol of oppression and abuse a chance to feel like liberation. "We'll follow your lead. Put her through her paces!"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Will do," Liam says. The panoramic screen comes to life around him, lighting up with all the familiar way-markers and ID symbols. As the lift rises, actual daylight trickles into the cockpit secondhand, and it feels different without the eyeshields to protect him. The lift snaps into place, leaving the Neo Helios in the middle of the testing field.
The Mobile Fighter steps forward, onto the field. Liam starts by slipping into a boxer's stance--the Neo Helios follows, effortlessly--and limbers up with the form he was first taught. The punches come rapid-fire, distracting jabs mixed in with heavier body-blows. The machine surges forward into a knee strike, then twirls in mid-air--aided with a thrust of its jets--into a roundhouse kick.
"Looking good so far," Liam says, glancing at the heat gauge. It's barely cracked five percent. "Activating plasma extrusion system."
This is where things get unorthodox. Mapping the movements of other objects onto a Mobile Trace system is tricky, and BioNet's designers didn't have the Rose Gundam's specs to work from. Instead, they installed small, basic nodules within the Trace Suit, sensitive to micromotions instead of the larger motions of normal combat. Combined with presets built into the machine's OS, the system worked well enough that they didn't need to install anything /else/ in him.
Liam clenches his right hand, paying specific attention to the tendons tightening. (If Gai's somehow refined BioNet's solution, it'd be a new one to him.) Either way, the palm emitter springs open, and a burst of white-hot plasma erupts from inside. The magnetosphere catches it, and shapes it into a gleaming blade. Liam works his way through a basic knife form, focused.
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
"Reactor holding steady," Gai says calmly. "Nothin' we haven't seen in the sim tests. Let us know if it starts getting hot in there, it's the one thing we couldn't effectively test."
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
"Acknowledged," Liam says. He glances at a section of the panorama just above where his gaze falls, where a set of numerical descriptors describe the magnetic field properties in real-time. They're green, and that's all Liam needs to know. He holds his wrist still, and opens his hand. The knife winks out of existence as the field falls, and the plasma escapes. All that's left is a patch of superheated air. "...Initial field testing reveals more responsive controls," Liam says, shifting back into a more clinical tone for a moment. "Gai, was that you?"
But Gai's also got a big ask for him; as far as he knows, none of the three NISAR pilots could tolerate what he can. Liam glances at the internal temperature gauge, and blinks. "Barely cracked 20 Celsius." The Proto Helios would've at least hit 25 by now, even if it wouldn't go much further without SUNBURST active. "Let's put it through its paces." He grins.
Vents flare open at the machine's sides and back. The CIWS ports on its shoulders iris open, and spray plasma downrange as he locks sights on a stationary target further downrange. No sooner is he done with that than another port on the back of the machine's hand opens up, and whips out a long, thin streamer of plasma. Another joins it from the other port, and Liam sweeps them through the air like incinerating whips. There's a bit of a dance in his step, freeform and whirling. He feels... free. The cockpit temperature remains stable.
The Neo Helios rushes forward in a sudden burst of speed, its jumpjets propelling it towards the target downrange. It holds its arm out, and its fingers clutch around something invisible. A magnetic field forms, spear-shaped--
Liam's eyes hood as he remembers himself standing in the stream, holding Gae Bolg, with Rita beside him.
The cyborg lets out a roar as he drives a spear of blazing plasma towards the target's center mass. The field reshapes itself on contact, funneling burning sun-fire from the secondary reactor, through the field, and into the target. The temperature gauge inches upwards, but it isn't the spike that would happen in the Proto Helios. Liam strikes again, and again, and again, but still only a minor change.
"It feels... nice and warm," Liam says. He's beaming as the spear dissipates.
<Pose Tracker> Neo Getter Team has posed.
"Barely twenty?" Gai whistles. "That's about two degrees better than our projections." He falls silent, then, as Liam exults in getting to put Neo Helios through its paces.
Until the spear blazes forth, and all three Neo Getter Pilots cheer through the radio (Gai has the presence of mind to crank Go's volume down just in time). "Now that's what I'm talking about!"
Chuckling still from the second-hand adrenaline, Gai clears his throat. "Is there anything else you wanted to test out?"
<Pose Tracker> Liam 7-020 has posed.
Liam has barely worked up a sweat. Part of him wishes he could be here all day--especially with Go, Sho, and Gai cheering him on, enjoying the vicarious combat rush. But...
The Neo Helios steps away from the target, its hands falling to its sides. "Thanks," Liam says, and he can't stop grinning. Is it the cheering getting to him, or is it the thought of piloting something made just for him, in a space where no one's in danger? Is it all the love and care that the three of them put into restoring his machine, and freeing it from its original design constraints? He knows that he might have to deploy tomorrow, against an Angel, or a kaiju, or someone possessed by Triple Zero. There will be higher stakes, then.
But they seem less impossible, now.
"I think anything bigger's going to need a proper target." Is that just the /faintest ghost/ of an accent in Liam's voice? Somewhere Brittanian, Old Kingdom. "I can do more tests. Should do more tests this week. But deployment's going to be the real test. And I think we're going to meet it, together."
"I can't thank you enough."