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"Lieutenant Shoji! Zak Machine Eagle is ready for launch!" His scarf only slightly got in the way as Ando smirked at his radio and pumped his fist in the air. Almost as fresh as his Zaku, the Dodai was voice controlled and ready for combat. "Alright! Shin Zaku II, LAUNCHING!" The Zaku shook violently as it leapt into the air and began to cross the landscape, running at a whirlwind pace, and before it had even touched the horizon, a Dodai roared off the airstrip tarmac, chasing after its owner. "Alright then, let's go! ZAKU WIIIIIIIING!" Sho jumped up into the air, all of his Zaku's rocket motors firing at full thrust, and the Dodai maneuvered under him before meeting the Zaku's feet and steadying itself for the Mobile Suit's ride. The Zaku rode the Dodai with its legs spread wide, two Heat Hawks gripped viciously in its manipulators. The wind whipped around the Zaku, and as if by some power of a shared spirit, Sho's scarf ruffled unoticably. The lieutenant smirked again. Elsewhere, the Xamel was waiting, and in this case, Elsewhere was a few thousand meters just outside of Ando Shoji's visual range. It was an excellent spot to be-- in addition to the lack of visual confirmation Shoji had, the terrain gave the Xamel both cover to take refuge behind and plenty of flattened earth for high fuel efficiency while hovering from point to point. All in all, Sergeant Irusk was confident in his choice of location, and even now, he was readying his Howitzers to fire on the Zaku. Truthfully, he could fire now, he had sufficient targeting data, but he felt like it wouldn't be fair if he didn't give the famous Lieutenant a sporting chance. The idea of a man piloting a melee dedicated Mobile Suit-- ridiculous! It went against every principle of MS architecture. It was true that Zeon did employ the Heat Hawk, but at least it wasn't the only weapon Zakus were deployed with. "Ahhh," Sergeant Irusk sighed, "Lieutenant Shoji, you are doing your country a service. Military and entertainment." He laughed a little bit, but it was an awkward laugh that faltered against his growing sense of unease. "I'm probably just overthinking it." He cleared his throat, stretched his neck, and tightly grasped the control levers. "Ha! Anyone could do this! All you have to do is grab the levers and hold on!" Lieutenant Shoji was thrilled with his Zaku and Dodai combination, and the idea that he could fight as hard as he wanted and use the Dodai however he wanted without risking a pilot's life was a great relief. "That Xamel will be in my sights any second now!" He spoke not a moment too soon, and there the Xamel was before him, a slight movement visible, right around the shoulders of th- "ZAKU WIIIIIIIING! UP!" The Dodai struggled to gain altitude quickly, and just as it leveled out, two gigantic Howitzer paint rounds (how they made those, he could only guess) passed underneath him. "Damn! I need something speedier!" "Rargh! Time to show him the soul of a courageous man!" The Dodai zoomed towards the Xamel, but Lieutenant Shoji dismounted, dropping to the ground while his Mobile Suit's hands worked to find the biggest weapon they could hold, and finally, the Heat Boomerang was hanging at his side as he ran, low and dangerous. The Zaku jumped into the air. "ZAKU TOMOHOOORR- OOF!" The grunt was like punctuation that got too excited to wait until the end of a sentence, and the Zaku was thrown to the ground bodily by an assault of training missiles (WHY DO THEY MAKE THESE?! He thought, and the answer is of course perfectly logical). "You BASTARD! Alright then, TOMOHORK BOOMERAN!" The Zaku dashed to its feet and slung the overlarge heat weapon at the thick armor of the Xamel, and surprisingly to Sho, but not much so to anyone else, the axe-like projectile skimmed the Xamel's armor and bounced off, landed on the ground behind the artillery Mobile Suit, and slid to a halt. "You'd need a drill to get through that bastard's skin!" "Oh well, if there's no hole, it's a man's job to make one! And then thrust into it!" Sho jumped at the Xamel, arm blades extended, and then-- Nothing. "...oji! Lieutenant!" "...Who is it?" "Sergeant Alec Irusk, are you okay? "What happened? "I... uh, shot you with my machine gun. You've been out for a minute or two." "...Good shot, Sergeant." Alec Irusk: 5 VP gained, Repairing 1-1 Ando Shoji: 3 VP gained, Repairing 2-1 Ritter Novosad stood on the bridge of the Schmerz with binoculars. He wasn't on watch, but he was so bored that he was searching in hopes of spotting a Feddie target to kill. "This scenery's getting old..." He groaned as he swept the landscape again, suddenly catching sight of a pair of Medea transport planes moving in on their position. As the launch alert sounded, he rounded up his Panzergreanadiers and moved to a better position, outside the Dobday. All mobile suits began launching, as Ritter's unit radioed in pertinent information on the enemy's apparent attack. Hildolfr came to a stop not far from Ritter's position and began taking aim. Four other mobile suits converged under a cliff just ahead of the Medeas flight path. "Isn't this a little overkill?" Duncan Keystone asked, getting a giant robotic shrug from Ferusha's Zaku in reply. "All right people," Ritter said calmly, "There's no point in wasting ammo here, so the Hildolfr will fire one shot at the lead Medea, and the rest of you will jump and hit the trailing one with melee weapons. Attacking from below means they can't return fire before it's too late." "They've gotta be crazy taking us on with just two cargo planes..." Marko Dresner scoffed, readying the Dowadge's heat saber and waiting for the signal. As the pair moved in, readying their miniscule armament to fire on the strangely dormant Dobday, Hildolfr's cannon leveled on the Vermillion's cockpit. With a thunderous sound, a three-hundred millimeter shell screamed into, and through the Vermillion, obliterating it's cockpit and punching a hole into the cargo container of the aptly named 'Too Dead to Name.' "NOW!" Alain Grace shouted, as his Efreet along with Keystone's Gouf lept into the air, each cleaving a wing from the 'Too Dead to Name.' As soon as they'd fallen away from the plane, The Dowadge's heat saber skewered from bottom to top, and Ferusha's Zaku brought down it's heat hawk on the cockpit, the combined attack sending the Medea into an end-over-end tumble to the ground. "Too easy." Ritter grumbled as he and his comrades returned to base. Alain Grace: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Bryce Hollerfelt: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Duncan Keystone: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Ferusha Glavadeen: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Marko Dresner: 7/2 VP Gained, Fatigued 1 Noelle Everett: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Ritter Novosad: 1 VP Gained, No Damage "Hey, Captain, you might want to take a look at this." Aboard the Mule, a freighter in Frederick Von Heinz's employ, and he and his Executive Officer, paired up not unlike a certain acquaintance of his and his XO, weren't too excited to hear the pilot's tone of voice. Especially not in that obnoxious accent he picked up on Earth. The XO sighed. "What is it?" He ran his fingers through his bushy white hair while he contemplated their choices. "It's a, uh, frickin' Musai, and those look like Zakus. I'm not an expert or anything. Oh, and they look wicked pissed off. Again, not an expert, though." The pilot bounced around in his seat and rearranged his headset. "Well, they didn't shoot, so I think we'll be okay," The XO reassured the bridge crew, "I mean, the worst that could happen is that they're waiting until we'r-" "They're trying to open communications with us, Captain." The pilot cut off the XO, not even paying attention to what the old man was saying, and upon reflection, the old man decided that was a morale-sustaining turn of events. "Let me talk to them!" The captain was very excited to be lying through his teeth, he enjoyed the feeling, and he hadn't had much of it in the last few hours. The XO sighed. "This is Captai-" The captain's junky-style adrenaline rush was brought to a screeching hault as a Zaku approached and held up a five fingered hand, palm facing the bridge. "Okay, that's cool, and I'mma let you finish, but you gonna have to leave." The pilot announced the news rather obnoxiously and smugly, and everyone on the bridge had the sneaking suspicion that he thought he was the best pilot of all time. Of all time! "Bu-" Captain Von Heinz began again, but was interrupted once more. "Yeah, that's nice. By the way: Five, four, three..." "Book it!" |