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Blue on blue-- one Gouf slammed into another, a blue cylops barreled into Finus Yamamoto's Mobile Suit from the sky. The machine fell over, and the twin crouching on it drew itself to full height and disappeared from Finus' sight. His mobile suit tried pushing itself up, boosters firing to aid the clumsy ascent. He growled, angry and a little confused, as he looked around to find his assailant. "Are you SERIOUS?! What the hell was that?! Of all the tricks..! Of course, that kind of cheating won't work on me again!" The red lens mounted in the Gouf's head scanned his surroundings while it readied the gatling shield. It scanned over a river, and over a bit more river, and then finally some land, littered with haggard weeds and coarse grass. Apparently, whoever it was that attacked him when he wasn't looking had got away. Slightly less apparent was the other mono-eye type camera signature of Zeon Mobile Suits under the river's surface. Water was ripped from the river's body as a Z'gok jumped from its hiding spot and jumped with claws extended at the Gouf, crushing the camera and scarring the head. The Gouf was knocked over again, but it was now in no state to get up again. Inside the cockpit, static filled the main monitor screen facing Yamamoto's wordless gaze. "But I don't this how you can't why you this... I must be having an off day. Hmph." The pilot crossed his arms and sat in his cockpit, stuck waiting until the combat practice was over. He decided to pass the time by figuring out just how it was that the other Gouf and Z'gok had cheated him of his glorious victory. "I see you there, Obersturmfuhrer," Rose muttered under her breath, "but you don't see ME!" She jumped out of sparsely vegetated crevasse, not far from the fallen Unterscharfuhrer Yamamoto's tactical resting spot, and in turn, Xavier Brennan. A tight smile decorated her face briefly as she thanked Yamamoto for his help. "You were a wonderful trap, not good for much else." The Gouf landed next to the Z'Gok and brought its sword to bear, a quick swipe of the blade would be enough to put the Z'Gok out of service, even unheated. Instead of the dull clang of the sword hitting armor, the sharp, percussive twang of blade meeting blade rang through the cockpit, a defeaning scream outside of the Mobile Suits that chased fish away for thousands of yards along the river. "I guess you're a little closer to my level, huh?" Xavier surmised aloud. "But we'll see how long you can keep it up." He twisted the Z'Gok's claws, shooting the Gouf's sword away from the mobile suit, and with a flick of his wrist on the joysticks, he slammed his other arm into the Gouf. The unheated blades scraped along the Gouf's torso, scraping lines of paint away from the Mobile Suit from its chest to its neck, where the Z'Gok's forearm slipped past into the air. Rose saw an opening, and swiped at the Z'Gok with her gatling shield with enough force to push the aquatic Mobile Suit out of close combat range. "Fine, if you want to play that game, we'll see how you like guns," Rose spat the words at the Mobile Suit on her monitor, "but I think you'll fi-" "Hold on now, y'all," a voice interrupted over the communications frequency, "I know you're havin' a good time and all, but I reckon you forgot all about poor ol' Aldo, and I just can't have that." A Dom roared across the ground, skating around a corner of a rocky outcrop into the Schutstaffel officers' vision at full speed, revealing a machine gun in its hands. Xavier tried jumping back into the river, but was caught by a volley of paint rounds that he couldn't pretend didn't hit if he just dove into the water. Rose took advantage of her slightly less open position and Aldo's focus on Xavier to let loose a volley of her own, splattering paint across the dom's purple legs and black torso. "Aww, well, I guess you didn't forget about me completely." Rose Adeline: 5 VP gained, Repairing 1 Xavier Brennan: 3 VP gained, Repairing 1 Finus Yamamoto: 4 VP gained, Repairing 2 Aldo P. Armistad: 3 VP gained, Repairing1 After departing from a runway located in Ireland, Jim Irwin rendezvous with a Dish at an altitude of approximately 50 thousand feet. At that height, it was no surprise to Jim that the frost had begun to build up on his Tin Cod, as it passed in and out of cloud formations. The top brass had ordered Jim to scout the Zeek base known as Archangelisk. They would be supported by a squadron of Tin Cods, which would attack the base giving Jim enough time to scout. Jim didn’t agree with the action, but he knew there was nothing he could except hope that at least half of them would make it back. He knew it was a suicide mission, and he also knew a few of the pilots participating in the attack. He had instructed them during the mission briefing, and he just hoped they paid attention and heeded his warnings. As Jim stared directly below, he could see that the battle had begun. He cursed the federation under his breath, since the attack started, he already noticed two Tin Cods crash into the Earth in ball of fire. Just two more body bags sent back home. If they were lucky they would get a ten gun salute and some sort of minor speech on the topic of heroism, but it was doubtful. The Federation didn’t have time for such things with such a high death toll and the Zeeks on their doorstep. As Jim couldn’t take it anymore, he blurted out a question to the Dish pilots, their names he had yet to memorize. “Are we done here?” “Yeah, this information will be sufficient.” replied the copilot. “Order the men to pull out. We’re returning back to base.” ordered Jim. The remaining Tin Cods scattered, splitting up and diving into altitudes where the mobile suit fire could not endanger them. The Dopps that had tailed the Tin Cods, refrained and retreated, not without sending another Federation pilot to his death. If he hadn’t been followed, the Dopps may have been able to whip out all Tin Cods. Back at base, Jim Irwin debriefed the pilots involved, or what was left of them. Only a fraction of the pilots made it back alive, and the worst thing about it was he didn’t even remember their names without the manifest. It was confirmed that for their sacrifice, only two dopps were downed. The sacrifice was not a worthy one, but at least they left some sort of mark on the base despite being overwhelmed by superior aircrafts and the presence of mobile suits. All that for some information on the base. After the debriefing, Jim found himself pressing a cold bottle of Harps to his lips. “We’re all just a number…” he muttered before taking a swag of the beer, drowning his sorrow. He would get over it, he always had in the past. Jim Irwin: 3 VP Gained, No Damage |