Wing Zero and Epyon attack Kavkazsky

- Caucasus Region, Southeast Europe -

The two men, both essentially guinea pigs of the Earth Sphere Alliance’s weapons research programs, stood near the crest of a low hill outside the city of Stavropol.
“Tieren… Tieren… brown Tieren…” Dmitri Strathmore remarked, scanning over the mobile suits visible through his binoculars. “League sure is inventive with its mobile suits, isn’t it.”
“Not like you could really call those things mobile suits in the first place, if you ask me,” Alex O’Rion said smartly, arms crossed. The weather was passable, but it was still cold at their altitude and the wind wasn’t helping much. “How many does it look like?”
“At least ten… surely more where we can’t see them,” Dmitri said, returning his binoculars to their pouch. “Well, it’s nothing to be concerned about. Between my rifle and your sword, we shouldn’t have much of a problem with those outdated two-legged tanks.”
“Heh, you didn’t think I was worried, did you?” Alex grinned, planting a fist into his open palm. “Our Gundams are scarier than those relics. Watch out for yourself,” he said, offering a handshake. Both knew that the Zero System in their respective machines was quite an advantage, though simultaneously was also rather dangerous to their mutual well-being.
“Same to you, friend,” Dmitri accepted, bidding his ally/partner in crime adieu and starting to slide down the hill towards where his mobile suit was stashed. Alex took a moment to watch him go, then followed suit.

A League pilot yawned in his thickly insulated pilot suit. The Tieren’s cramped cockpit was rather poorly protected against cold, reliant on the pilot ensuring to have personal provisions. His mobile suit was buried up to its head along the side of the valley, camouflage netting hiding it among the hardy brush that grew in the region. The pilot was alerted by a proximity buzzer, jumping and refocusing on his sentry duties as a pair of mobile weapons whizzed past his location down the narrow canyon. One was shaped vaguely like an avian of some sort, the other had a distinctly more reptilian appearance with a long tail hanging out behind.
“Oh boy…” he muttered, fumbling for his radio. “Comrade Colonel, two birds coming in from canyon 2312,” he said, making sure both had disappeared around the corner before beginning to excavate the bulky green mobile suit from the ground.
“We hear you, #19,” the command center radioed back. “Return to base at your discretion.”

As the base came alive amid alert klaxons, Tierens began marching out of their massively reinforced hangars, bazookas and machine cannons at the ready while defensive emplacements turned to face their attacker’s approach vectors. Within the base’s command center, the situation remained collected and methodical.
“Do we have an approach vector?” the swarthy colonel inquired, regarding the large electronic screen dominating the far wall.
“It’ll just be another moment…” a technician reported, rapidly applying projections from the data sent by the sentry. The topographical map zoomed in to a more local level, identifying the location of the city and the outlying hills and valleys. “And… there it is.” Two red dots appeared in one canyon, with a number of possible approaches into the city indicated by arrows of varying thickness. It was only a projection, not real-time updates; only the most important League bases had systems of that level of technology. Of course, that level of precision wasn’t always terribly necessary…
“Great,” the colonel smirked. “Start the fireworks, total saturation. Mobile suits move to intercept whatever survives.”

Dmitri and Alex deftly navigated the narrow canyon, the former letting the latter take point. Soon, they’d spill out at the northern edge of the city, opposite the heaviest defenses and the most logical approaches to the base. From there, it’d be a simple matter to flank the garrison and have a field day with the lot of them.
“Still looks quiet,” Alex noted, breathing a little heavily in the Epyon’s mask. The gridded array in front of him didn’t show any hostile targets, at least for the moment.
“You say that now, but don’t jinx it,” Dmitri remarked, following close behind. “They might be communists, but that doesn’t mean they’re totally-” he trailed off as a literal cloud of white smoke trails streaked into the air from above the ridgelines. “Didn’t I say don’t jinx it!”
“Must’ve been a lookout…” Alex said flatly, dozens on dozens of hostile indicators appearing on the screen of his helmet. The huge heavy rockets blossomed like flowers, spewing forth an apparent sea of fast-tracking micromissiles.
“No choice now…” Dmitri muttered, noting the Zero System was beginning to power up on its own accord. A few moments later the valley seemed to disappear in fire.

A giant puff of smoke blew out between the ridges, clearly visible from the city, indicating the precipitous amount of missiles detonating within the canyon. More joined them, resulting in a huge upheaval of smoke and dirt from the continued blasts. Not satisfied with just that, Tierens began taking positions at the northern edges of the city, kneeling around corners of buildings and ducking under low obstacles. A few poked their heads up from trenches meant to prevent approaches from the north. They didn’t have long to wait – two objects burst out of the rising column of smoke, one towards the city and the other straight up.
“Visual confirmation of both targets!” a Tieren’s pilot reported.
“They’re flying types, use your antiaircraft shells and lead accordingly!” the colonel ordered from within the command center, indicating for the rest of his mobile suit forces to begin forming up to track the pair of irritating red dots. A medley of cannonfire broke out as torrents of tracers streaked towards the sky; machine gun batteries atop the thick hangars joined by the Tierens that pointed their guns skyward. The sheer volume of projectiles lighting up the air above the base seemed almost like a spectacular light show, with bursts of light from the antiaircraft missiles joining them for added effect.

Unquestionably, the Zero System seizing control of both mobile suits had saved them from annihilation at the hands of the League missile barrage. Neither Dmitri nor Alex had escaped unscathed, however, and both of their machines were scorched and scarred from near-misses of the fusillade. Neither spoke with each other, fully under the effects of the Gundams’ control systems and only focusing on the small army of mobile suits and the defensive batteries that lit up the air around them. Alex spun and rolled, diving down to just above ground level and streaking towards the city while Dimitri rapidly gained altitude. Climbing nearly straight up, he began leveling off above a thousand feet and reconfigured Wing Zero to its mobile suit mode; Alex did the same, lighting up his beam sword.

“Those are mobile suits…!” a League pilot exclaimed, noting the red machine sailing to the city perimeter. The Tierens’ machine cannons shredded the ground around Epyon as it hurtled towards them, scoring direct hits and flaying the Gundam’s armor off like the skin of a clove of garlic. A missile smashed into its face, blasting the mask armor plate off to reveal a skull-like visage with ducts and piping standing in for teeth.
“That thing’s got a blade, get back!” the squadron leader exclaimed, waving the arm of his purple Tieren backwards. The Tieren jetted to the side, barely evading the cleaving blade of the rust-colored Gundam and sailing through the streets. Tierens that had occupied spaces around the corners of structures jerked to the side as well; one pilot was understandably horrified when the bottom of his machine was cut out from under him – Epyon’s sword had merely cleaved through the entire lower part of the building. Another stepped in and swung the bladed portion of its gun, removing the Gundam’s shoulder before it was split in half by the vengeful machine’s heat rod.
“Keep your distance! It hasn’t got any artillery,” the squad leader remarked quickly, lining up a shot with his GN Beam Rifle and plugging the Epyon from behind. The shot went straight through the Gundam, but didn’t appear to slow it down much. It boosted up into the air, lashing out with its heat rod and seizing the Tieren’s rifle. “Just restrict its mobility…!”
Suddenly, the sky seemed to brighten as if a second sun had appeared. The League pilots stared upwards as Wing Zero’s twin buster rifles ignited, scorching great swaths of destruction across the hillsides on either side of the city. Great volumes of dirt, rock and plants were blasted into the air and vaporized in flight as the beams died out, revealing huge channels in the sides of the mountains. A rumbling like an earthquake began to grip the city as the tops of the mountains seemed to start moving, and then abruptly toppled over, turning into a considerable landslide that rushed towards the city. Inside the command center, the staff gripped onto their stations to steady themselves from the shaking.
“Crafty…!” the colonel said angrily, watching as individual screens on the giant display showed rockslides tumbling down into the edges of the city, rolling between the buildings and bowling over several Tierens that were about to start shooting at the flying mobile suit. As soon as it began, the crashing wave of earth ended, its momentum dying out before the slide had gotten very deep into the city. The base was essentially unscathed. “Stop screwing around and keep shooting!” the colonel demanded, slamming his fist against the side of his chair. Outside, finding his attempt to cause a landslide and bury the base significantly less effective than he’d intended, the Zero-possessed Gundam recombined its rifle and leveled it at the base concourse itself. As particles began gathering around its muzzles, a barrage of missiles appeared from the unscathed hills to the south, which quickly converged on Wing Zero, and it disappeared in the expanding blast.
Down below, Epyon lashed out at the Tierens with its heat rod, forcing them to back behind cover and knocking several over. Their prodigious armor spared them immediate destruction, instead leaving partially slagged rends in the heavy mobile suits and often knocking them on their backs. The skilled League pilots fought on, however, and Epyon constantly had to keep darting about to avoid bursts of gunfire and bazooka shots. A massive blast went off behind it, nearly forcing the Gundam to the ground from a direct hit from a Heavy Cannon across the city. It spun about lashing its heat rod and preparing to take off in the direction of the southern defense line.
“Oh no you don’t…!” the squadron leader growled, blasting into the air on the Tieren’s jets and grabbing onto the superheated rod. The Tieren’s arms began melting almost immediately, but not before it was able to deliver a firm yank and literally drag the Epyon out of the air, the battered Gundam crashing to the ground in a heap. “Now, comrades! Get him!” the squadron leader yelled, his now-armless Tieren boosting back out of harm’s way. With a collective roar, the other Tierens surged forward and proceeded to begin beating the Gundam with their rifle-mounted blades, not allowing it the chance to get back to its feet.

“Why, you…!” Dmitri hissed groggily, beginning to come to from the Zero System’s total takeover of his mind. Wing Zero had survived the missile barrage relatively intact, but its buster rifle was scrapped. That put him down to beam sabers for the most part, and Alex was rather superior in that regard. “Wait…” he began at that thought, “Alex?” he said, searching for his ally. Epyon registered below him, and more specifically, below a small group of Tierens that were apparently stomping it into the ground with their heavy feet. “Shit…” he remarked with shock and distaste. Producing a beam saber, he began to dive towards the ground to rescue his friend when a proximity detector buzzed. “…behind me?!” he exclaimed, whipping about and opening fire with his shoulder-mounted gatling guns. A Tieren Flight Type careened towards him, machine cannon blazing and more or less shrugging off the small-caliber projectiles. With a colossal crash the Tieren plowed into him, its tremendous inertia pushing him up at considerable speed. The machine cannon’s muzzle slammed into Wing Zero’s torso – at point-blank even Gundanium would be mangled by such a piece of artillery. Dmitri was faster, though, and chopped the offending mobile suit’s arm off with his beam saber.
“You can keep that arm…!” the Tieren pilot growled, coming through loud and clear on Dmitri’s radio.
“Get off, you dirty Red!” Dmitri exclaimed, flipping his beam saber over and stabbing it into the Tieren’s body. A few explosions emitted from the Tieren’s engines and it abruptly croaked, but refused to release its one-handed grapple on the Gundam’s body. Suddenly, Dmitri felt the floor fall out from under him: the incredible weight of the mobile suit, no longer supported by the dozens of powerful jet engines, was easily dragging him out of the air. Dmitri thought of a tank being dropped on a fighter jet and powered on his boosters for all they were worth, but simply could not get out from under the burly League mobile suit. With the ground spiraling up towards him, he quickly went for his other beam saber and rammed it home as well, bisecting the Tieren both horizontally and vertically, and was rewarded with a potent blast moments before slamming through the roof of a building.

“Christ… where am I…” Alex groaned, feeling rather pained and confused as to his surroundings. He went to rub his head, only to find his hands secured cuffed behind his back. “Oh, great…”
“Great indeed, comrade,” the colonel remarked pleasantly from the other side of the table. “So, to whom do I owe the pleasure, bourgeois dog?”

OUTCOME: Kavkaszky Military District remains
Kavkaszky: 4 machine gun emplacements destroyed, 2 Tieren Ground Types destroyed, 1 Tieren Flight Type destroyed
Epyon: 11 VP, captured
Wing Zero: 11 VP, captured; Zero System mastered