Colony Drop Part 2
The knife slams into the Lagann's face; it, unfortunately, only scrapes along the surface. The pilot grits his teeth and growls, seeing the Codarl looming large there. Simon shouts, and the Lagann moves its mouth with his lips. "Get the hell off me, pal!"
He grabs one of the control paddles with a free hand. The Lagann's left arm moves backward, its hand balling up into a fist with a thought. Simon thrusts the paddle forward, throwing a hard punch for the Codarl's stomach. At the same time, with one hand, he rapidly presses on the screen - identifying more points of entry. He takes care to press at one that appears to be life support, if the smiley face inside a heart is any indication.
Simon misses Gauron with his ONWARD! (3/4) action.
Simon hits Gauron with his PUNCH! jab.
Rei presses the duck button, misestimating the incoming Kaiser Kikai. The Gurren throws itself down, the craft sailing merrily overhead and into the void!
The sunglasses whip past, too.
Rei rises, sees where the sunglasses have embedded themselves, and steers over to recover them - they seem kind of important. She tries to turn the Gurren's head -- but there's a really big problem with that...
Ikari, she thinks, looking upwards anyway, towards where EVA-01 is contending with the former Aya Kobayashi. Can they really manage to save her from this sort of a fate?
"..ugh!" Didn't this happen yesterday? No, that sort of invasion was a different kind of violation. Mercade had earned a /special/ place in the Zondarian's heart with that one. This, this was just disgusting. Ugly, raw humanity. Full of potential energy for a zondar plant, yes, but just...disgusting.
Parmesan reels, one hand falling away from the cannon to clutch at the Zaku's...helmet thing. The green eyes narrow to slits. "No."
The shield spines break away, reshaping into full shield bits now, each nearly the size of a small personal trooper due to Parmesan's current form. The bits promptly swarm around Unit-01 like an angry cloud of bees. An angry cloud of /laser bees/ that shoot /lasers/. Unlike the strike sheilds though, these don't explode.
Parmesan juggles Shinji Ikari with her OH CRAP BEES combo.
Shinji Ikari breaks Parmesan's combo.
Yurika has enough time to say, "Oh poopie." Before the traded blows favor the larger, heavier ship. The Nadesico rocks as the power of the blast cuts through the Distortion Fields and smashes into the vessel. The Nadesico rockets forwards as its engines flare, passing underneath the Vorticon ship. This is a very bad positioning to be in. Megumi starts rattling off damage reports. A fire on this deck. Hull breach on these three decks. Yurika starts shouting orders for fire control teams to move in and minimize damage and start looking for casualties. Ruri coughs, then fights down the sanguine taste it produces. Her hands lay on the black field in front of her. The horseshoe shaped marks on the back of her hands go clear as she interfaces with the Nadesico's computer, then opens up a comm line to the Voritcon vessel.
And then invades. They Mothership's techies will quickly find that they have a ghost in their machine, flitting though various controls and systems. Searching... looking for... something. But they are many and she, though very, very good with an innate advantage, is only one person. She's losing. So she shifts her tactics.
The Mothership's speakers start to play that familar drum roll and intro. The consoles come alive with a video. "We're no strangers to looooove. You know the rules and so! Do I-ee-aye-aye..."
This may disrupt operations as the Vorticons attempt to get their ship back in order.
Ruri Hoshino stuns Mortimer McMire with her RICKROLL'd action.
Mortimer sits back in his seat, still smiling to himself at a job well done. That was but a FRACTION of this ship's true power, a fully powered Tantalus Ray would've ripped the Nadesico into shreds and gone on to completely obliterate the planet below. The thought makes the Grand Intellect quite pleased.
What's not so pleasing, though, is the news that someone on the enemy ship is trying to hack the Mothership's systems. "The usual countermeasures should be enough." he says dismissively. "My security net is faultless, no one can penetrate it. Not even that meddlesome Commander Clown."
This is about the time when he hears a curious drumroll over the speakers, and then horrible '80s synth.
"............"
The tension is so thick, it could be cut with a knife. Finally, Mortimer speaks. "I will executing all of you," he says as he draws his HyperPistol from his belt. "One at a time, every time the chorus repeats until you stop this song from playing," he says darkly. The Vorticons frantically begin trying to track where the worm is and delete it.
Shinji Ikari's mind disgusts a horrible alien robot.
Wow, Shinji thinks, that's really depressing. This is about when the Laser Bees attack, lasering the crap out of Unit-01. A hunk of armor falls off, as the smoking machine shoves back, lumbering for a second...
...before making a clumsy grab for the Zaku's leg! "You're not getting rid of me...that easy...!" Shinji shouts, snarling, "I...I might be...a terrible person...but I'm not going to let you...!"
Shinji Ikari hits Parmesan with his FINISH A SENTENCE!!!!! attack.
The Codarl gets pushed back by the punch. The Lambda Driver's shield doesn't come up in time to react. "Heh..." His Knife, for the moment, is a little ways away. He keeps getting disarmed, as he swings out with a leg, aiming to put the boot into to the Lagann.
The AI, for the moment, seems to have gotten a lucky break, as it tries to resume operations, and get it's protections up to full strength. Hopefully, it can keep control. Mostly, however, it's doing this because Gauron is a sick enough bastard have fear installed into an AI.
Gauron hits Simon with his GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL jab.
Gauron successfully targets Simon with his Personally, I think computers would mess up less if they were afraid of you (3/4) action.
"Damn, damn, no time for this CRAP!" Simon shouts back at the Codarl. The foot comes crashing down - and Simon decides to make a necessary sacrifice. The hand of the Lagann comes up, and the foot crashing down into it. Armor plates splinter and shatter, flying off every which way, and the armor on the arm of the thing simply buckles and crumples like an accordion. Simon snarls and makes the fingers of the Lagann crunch down.
He looks at his screen; he sees a file arrive, from Major Katsuragi. Maybe it will prove useful in a moment, if he can't succeed here. But, for now, he has to focus. He has to give it all.
When those systems start rebounding, he starts hitting back - striking for them, desperately, poking at them. "Come on... COME ON!"
Simon misses Gauron with his *crunch* jab.
Simon successfully targets Gauron with his Rebound! (3/4) action.
Ruri withdraws from the enemy system in the face of superior firepower. She didn't find the self destruct systems. Clearly, they're a big red button that awaits at the end of a needlessly hard platforming level.
Nadesico banks upwards on the other side of the Mothership, now well and truely out of the firing arc of that powerful cannon. But of course, it is also not pointed in the right direction to retaliate with it's own heavy cann-- oh, wait, it is.
The iridescent beam launches out into space along Ruri's calculations. It then banks on a ninty degree angle upwards, and then again back, passing over the prow of the Nadesico as the beam rips backwards at the tail end of the Mothership. Sure, it can only merely crack the crust instead of destroying a planet outright, but can your slime powered laser bank in mid flight?
Ruri Hoshino critically strikes Mortimer McMire with her It Can Also Play The Piano (Well Not Really) attack.
You take 31 damage.
Kaiser Kikai continues to sail on into eternity - still laughing merrily.
But there is villainy afoot in that laugh, because Kaiser Kikai's machine body is exhibiting an all-too-familiar trait!
Namely, it is HEALING ITSELF using, uh, something. There's no real ambient matter. Perhaps it is canabalizing things inside it.
Either way, when it returns...the Machine General shall be in far better shape to CRUSH HIS FOES
Reiji Kageyama heals Reiji Kageyama with his Machine Guys Do This A Lot For Some Damn Reason action.
If Shinji was expecting the leg to rip off completely with a yank, he will be sorely disappointed. While it's 'pulled', the metal seems to slide and stretch as if it were flesh or muscle being tugged on.
"Not going to let me /what/? There's no hope for you. RUN AWAY! You know you want to!"
Annoyed, Parmesan plants her other foot against Unit-01 and pushes off-though even the 'pushing' is accompanied by a burst of laser beneath the sole of Parmesan's foot.
Parmesan gets a glancing blow on Shinji Ikari with her Shoo jab.
The enemy is not attacking. Rei is relieved, if only fractionally. She turns her attention to the direction of the Lagann, then, and the eyes on the front of the Gurren squint as Rei re-affixes the shades.
There he is. That man. That man who -
Strange images flicker on the inner walls of the Gurren for a moment, confused and schizophrenic ones. Rei feels a pang in her forehead and then draws the machine back. The Gurren takes two steps, clanging as it does - before hurling itself in the air!
Something streaks out from the side as the Gurren hits the top of the leap, shoving the Gunman down on a sudden dizzying kick from above towards the enemy ARM Slave. Rei doesn't speak during the attack - but perhaps she does in her heart. And why is she aiming for the head?
Rei Ayanami misses Gauron with her Only Managing This Level For Now But Just You Wait Until The End Of The Episode INAZUMA KICK jab.
"Just kind of ment to be a general, uh, forbiddence of..." Shinji pauses, and shrugs. "Everything bad? I-AUUUGH!" Shinji screams as his shoulder and Unit-01 explode with pain at the laser kick, falling back towards the vastness of space! Shinji tries to grab onto his pink mecha ride, but he's also frozen for a crucial second...will Parmesan take advantage of it, adding another Zondar to her army?!
"Oh, that is just no fair," Mortimer says as Rick is finally removed from the bridge, along with the corpses of three Vorticon officers, just in time for him to see the Gravity Cannon banking in midair. "Gravity doesn't work that way."
There's no time for the ship to move out of the way, and it instead takes the gravity plast square up the tailpipe. Armor shreds and decks depressurize, sending more than a few Vorticons into the cold vacuum of space (both adults and children, should anyone care to look). Emergency bulkheads slam shut to prevent further decompression as the Grant Intellect issues his next order: "Turn us the hell around, I want that ship /destroyed/!"
More fighters launch from the underbelly of the beast, with a fresh loadout of torpedoes for the Nadesico.
You hit Ruri Hoshino with your Like bees stinging bears, huh? With enough stings, even a bear will go down. jab.
Surely, with a bit of hotblooded yelling, that would have done the trick. As it stands, though, Gauron is prepared, jumping back as the Gurren flies at him. And then, he sees a Golden opportunity, leaping into the air to launch a snap kick with some added punch to send the Gurren flying into the Lagann. Sure, it may be asking for trouble. On the other hand, it might also get the smaller gunmen off his damn colony.
The AI, meanwhile, keeps on trucking. Or colonying, as the case ma be, but it's running out of options. In fact, it's window to keep control is very much closing fast.
Gauron gets a glancing blow on Rei Ayanami with his KERPUNT jab.
Gauron gets a glancing blow on Simon with his YOU DROPPED THIS feint.
Gauron successfully targets Simon with his LagannOS has suffered an error and must close. (4/4) action.
"Not very articulate tonight, are we." Parmesan muses, twisting her now-free leg around so it can snap back into place and heal connected again. She notes his lagging and makes a low cackling noise. Would she take the opportunity?
Well, if she were on foot, perhaps. In her Zaku-merged form, she doesn't have the minute manipulation needed to take a piece of the metal to Shinji. She'd have to leave the Zaku shell, which not be a good move in t his case.
Instead, the cannon is pulled, light gathering at it's mouth as the barrel suddenly unfolds, blossoming into a larger, grander cannon. It doesn't fire, not yet.
Parmesan buffs her POW to +2.
The chase is on! It is not difficult for small snub fighters to bullseye a (comparatively) very large spaceship. Impacts start to mount and hits start to slip through. But Nadesico is a tough little ship and its armor holds even as the damage starts to become serious. "We've got to do something about those fighters and that ship... but we can't fire the cannon and we don't have the arc for... wait, that's it! Simon has the answer!" The bridge crew looks up at their captain, expectantly.
"Our missiles, plus the delay timers... GATTAI INTO TIME BOMBS!"
"That isn't ho--" Ruri stops herself as she transmits the orders to set the delay timers on the missiles to maximum. It just isn't even worth explaining what 'Gattai' means.
A trail of missiles starts to fall out of the Nadesico's sides. They aren't even truely launched, just dumped out behind the ship en masse, forming an impromptu minefield that is damnedibly tricky to detect. It might just look like they're jettisoning their garbage in preperation of a jump. That /is/ stardard Imperial procedure, at least. Okay, so that isn't a Star Destroyer, but the thought is there and that's what counts. Well, okay, so the missiles/mines count for more.
Ruri Hoshino critically strikes Mortimer McMire with her Okay, So They Actually Count For Everything attack.
You take 29 damage.
"Damn it!" Simon shouts, as he keeps working at it - pressing rapidly, and then sees the Earth looming ahead. There are faint, trace readings of heat; the very outer limits of the atmosphere have touched them. He grits his teeth, before looking up - and sees the Gurren get kicked, slamming it right into the Lagann, and the little Gunmen gets pushed right out.
"Not today, Gauron!" Simon shouts, as he looks down at the Gurren - and extends one of its arms backwards, firing a drill. The drill shoots off into space, and then sends it hurtling downward, throwing the Lagann downward.
The drill on its bottom begins spinning, and slams into the top of the taller, red Gunmen. "Today... No one's going to die in that colony!!"
Simon resets his buff status to neutral.
Rei feels moved - moved to speak, even as her head slumps forwards in the Gurren's cockpit as the Gurren itself goes flying, landing on one knee with a cracked armor plate on the side.
"Each life," she says, "alone, and afraid. Wanting to hide, fearing to be hurt." Simon speaks. "Fearing closeness and pain; fearing to be alone. Afraid and only able to run away... but..." Her head raises up. "Combine."
The drill hits the top of the Gurren, drilling downwards as it seems to shimmer with a greenish prismatic spray of colors, arms spreading out; armor plates crack, swell, restored to new freshness.
"When they find each other," Rei says, leaning back in the seat, "bonds form... we may never understand each other, and we may be using each other only to ease our loneliness... False solace. But..."
With a flash of light, the restored combined Gunman stands there. "Together, we find strength." One of the Gunman's hands raises up, fingers spread out as if to catch the distant moon.
Rei Ayanami switches armor modes to Gurren Lagann.
"That's right!!" Simon finishes after Rei, and the arms and legs of the Lagann fold back into the Gunmen's body. Green energy explodes outward, flowing up and giving the newly combined robot a mighty glow. The arms spread out and the fingers tense, as the Gurren-Lagann's left leg takes a step backward on the colony. The green prismatic light glows and flows around it, before it suddenly explodes outward in a brilliant flash. "And with that strength that we find together... we can break through any barrier! We can stop any obstacle! We can save the world!"
Then, it burns with a brief, ghostly light, and forms into an emblem: a stylized skull, with the glasses on the Gurren's chest across its eyes. "And that strength's name is..."
The Gurren-Lagann stretches one arm upward - and points a single finger up into the heavens, defiantly. "GURREN-LAGANN!!"
Simon switches armor modes to Gurren Lagann.
Simon heals Simon with his GATTAI DA!! action.
Yurika pumps a fist into the air triumphantly. "GATTAI!"
Ruri makes the Kif Kroaker noise.
FINE DON'T ASSIMILATE ME I SEE HOW IT IS.
Shinji doesn't, but he also doesn't have time to care; his hand flashes, and GRABS one of the blasting rocket-missile deals from the Nadesco, struggling for a second before flying through the air, charging shoulder first in an attempt to shove Parmesan's mecha out of firing position!
"I don't know what Gattai means!!!" Shinji shouts, for lack of anything more heroic to do.
Shinji Ikari critically strikes Parmesan with his E..even The Zondar Don't Want Me!!! attack.
Mortimer is smart enough to know that that's no garbage. He's also arrogant enough not to care. "FULL SPEED AHEAD," he demands as the Mothership charges through the impromptu mines, explosions rocking the ship and breaching the hull in a few more places. The Grand Intellect doesn't care, however. Someone aboard that ship is smart. Smart enough to bypass his network security via remote interface.
This cannot go unpunished.
"Power to the forward guns! I want that ship to be space dust within the next five minutes, OR ELSE!" he snarls at his bridge crew, who begin entering commands frantically.
The front paws begin to glow once more, but it is the controlled glow the Mothership's opening volley of attacks, as opposed to the UNLIMITED POWER charge of certain death. Lasers fire accordingly.
You critically strike Ruri Hoshino with your Stop running away while I'm killing you! attack.
"...Is that it?"
Let it be known, Gauron never really cared for long speeches. But now is the time to see how well the Codarl can fight in space, as his stable platform is now getting dangerously unsafe. Leaping off, the Codarl points at the Gurren Lagann, floating, as the purple aura of the lambda driver makes itself noticeable. "Don't waste my time."
Then, like a brilliant beam of bullshit science, the Lambda Driver fires at Gurren Lagann. Or maybe it's just trying to make it explode. It's never quite been adequately explained just what it does when it does this.
Gauron hits Simon with his Bang super.
Rei's eyes flick to the little display icon. "Ikari," she says, with a tone of near-warmth in her voice. "It means --" Is the ice breaking? Is this the power of the spiral? Maybe, at last -
The Lambda Driver beam strikes into the main body of the Gurren-Lagann. Rei's explanation to be is cut off with a sudden, wavering scream as she's thrown halfway from the seat, shoulder slamming hard enough against one of the side-panels to crack it and send it into dull darkness. "Ghh, hhgk-"
"Ayanami...!" Simon shouts, as he sees the beam slam into the body below him. The energy gathers - and the Gurren-Lagann twists and shakes, light exploding off it, but as the explosion dims, the machine still stands there; tall, proud, and resplendent in red, gold, and black. The pilot narrows his eyes and grits his teeth, before he swings out one arm. "Hang in there!" he tells her, before switching back to the communications system.
The swung out arm shudders; green light erupts from it, crackles, and flows outward to form a long lance. The drill spins rapidly, and Simon twists the Gurren-Lagann backward. The drill cuts into and through the hull of the colony, slicing through the wall. Air begins to pour out - but the hole is small enough that it will take some time. Simon grits his teeth, before he swings it back around, and points the drill right for Gauron.
"That was it? WHAT THE /HELL/ DO WE HAVE TO BE SCARED OF?!" The drill lance explodes off it in a shockwave of green light, and then flies straight for Gauron. As it does, the Gurren-Lagann leaps into the hole cut into the colony, and comes crashing downward. On the screens of the Lagann and the Gurren alike, a map appears: one showing the interior layout of the colony, with a flashing golden dot. "That's the map that Major Katsuragi sent us!" Simon explains, "And that's the shelter! We've got to get to it!"
Simon misses Gauron with his Drill Lance attack.
The Zondar want you...DEAD.
She Unit-01 slams into the Great Zaku, sending it spiraling through space, though it doesn't make any effort to right itself. It still holds onto the laser, keeping it charged, aiming /still/ at the Eva as the distance between the two widens. "...heheheheh..."
She fires again, haphazardly it seems, but much like the other, this purple-hued laser bends and twists unnaturally to home in Shinji! "Black hole cannoooooon!"
Parmesan gets a glancing blow on Shinji Ikari with her MORE LASERS attack.
Parmesan says, "This is tiresome. Has it been retrieved yet?"
"Arrgh!" Shinji screams, as the laser aims /right/ at his plug location: The ATField slows the laser's blast somewhat, but the pain of being shot in the spine is still very real, even as Unit-01 struggles to keep hold of the machine...
"You know what's funny?" Shinji asks, as he pants, keeping the hold on the machine as best he can, "If you think about it...charging head first into battle's just another kind of running away. Really, heck, anything is. And that's what people have been telling me not to do for...ever."
"Funny, huh?" Shinji smiles a sad little smile, as Unit-01 pulls a progressive knife out of its damaged shoulder, trying to slam the weapon between the Great Zaku's "ribs", aiming to stab the monster's core!
Shinji Ikari hits Parmesan with his Cutting To The Heart Of The Matter attack.
Gauron says, "Breaking a mountain open is not as easy as it sounds."
Mortimer McMire says, "It will be done when it's done. The beast is under the highest of securities. Even now, the true operation has yet to begin. This entire exchange is but a distraction, in a way."
Parmesan says, "I know that."
The Grand Intellect says, "Then stop complaining. The Interplanetary League and Earth Federation still believe we are simply attempting to sow chaos by destroying a colony. They would never be able to guess that we are after their pet monster, and it is my intention for it to remain that way until it is too late."
As the drill comes, the Shield comes up, and Gauron slides out of the way, the newly added thrusters activating. But then the Gurren Lagann heads inside, and Gauron growls. "Oh like HELL are you ruining my fun now!" The Terrorist swears. Time to test these thrusters out. The Codarl was not built for space combat, and this is a modified one. And he can't be as reckless with it now. Getting a replacement is that much harder. But he's not planning on letting them go.
The Codarl follows through the hole, nowhere near as concerned with collatteral damage. "AI! Cut them off, and show me where they are!" Misato may have the map, but Gauron still has the colony itself, as he attempts to try and close off some of the pathways to the massive drillbot. It may not be succesful, but it will hopefully slow them up so he can catch up, the autocannon on the codarls head firing when he sees them.
Gauron hits Simon with his Headbullets jab.
Lasers rock along the Nadesico's backside. Something out the back explodes in a fireball and the smaller ship starts trailing smoke. But Yurika holds her ship to tis course, even as the ship rocks and rattles. Ruri's mind flies through the Nadesico's computer systems, stealing power from this system, that system, anything non-vital that she can find and even life support on Deck 9 which is currently unoccupied. This isn't energy that can be funneled into the Gravity Blast Cannon. That's something else entirely and runs off of a different power source.
However, she can throw this energy into the Distortion Fields and strengthen them. They've taken a very heavy beating throughout this engagement.
Ruri Hoshino heals Ruri Hoshino with her Shield Recharge action.
Parmesan says, "Your digging should move faster."
Gauron has good and bad luck, today. The bad luck is that a colony's interior is simply a city; it has no real systems to /stop/ a giant robot, as both sides of the One Year War could attest to. The good news is, giant robots can easily be tracked in such an environment. The Codarl catches up easily, finding the Gurren-Lagann running across the ground, taking high-powered leaps with its wings. The vulcan guns shoot into the Gurren-Lagann, pelting its armor hard, as it makes one of those leaps.
It lands on a street, and Simon looks at the map. "Not far!" he shouts, before he starts running. "Ayanami! You handle him!"
The Gurren-Lagann's run stops as it reaches the shelter. The feet kick outward, crushing concrete and throwing it into the air, before Simon looks at the shelter - and fires four drills to the corners of it. The man focuses - and then light erups around it, through some of the concrete of the street, and wraps around the steel-encased building.
The Grand Intellect says, "My 'digging' is at the whims of gravity."
Gauron says, "Relax. We'll be hitting re-entry soon."
Gauron says, "After that, it'll only take a minute, tops."
Rei recovers, more or less. She thinks her shoulder's dislocated. She looks over towards the side, at the hateful machine that contains that man. That man who -
She can feel something waver in her, and her hands start to slump, when suddenly, something falls onto her head from above!?
"Buuu!" says the valiant molepig, Rei's eyes going up in frank and unhidden astonishment. Boota, for his part, grasps both of the A10 nerve clips on Rei's head and turns her head around towards the Codarl, pointing: "Buu! Buuuu!"
Rei squints. And then sees it - not the enemy mech... but the building near it.
One of Gurren Lagann's hands raises fractionally and /something/ streaks out from the arm, a strangely two-pronged drill twisting outwards to smash into the underside of the building. The rotational gravity still prevailing in the colony means that instead of collapsing downwards like a planetary building, it topples forwards along the line of rotation...
That is to say, towards Gauron.
Rei Ayanami critically strikes Gauron with her (guame did 9/11) attack.
"They're not dying fast enough," Mortimer snarls. "What nonessential systems can we reroute into the main cannons? We can't spare the gravity dampeners, not with that damn arcing cannon they've got." He thinks for a moment. "Cut the engines. We're out of the planet's gravity well now, inertia will be enough to carry us forward, we can reactivate them if we need to turn. Just keep firing!"
And fire they do. The laser batteries in the paws, with the added juice from the engines, begin to fire more rapidly, hopefully washing away the Nadesico in a torrential flood of acid green lasers.
You get a glancing blow on Ruri Hoshino with your Never Let A Retreating Foe Live To Turn Around And Fight A Second Time attack.
"...ngh.." This was starting to get tiresome too. The compostion a Machine King differs vastly from the average Zondar-it doesn't have a 'core' so to speak, its form distributed pretty evenly throughout the mass. "..."
With one hand, Parmesan calmly repositions the massive laser cannon so it rests over her shoulder and turns the mouth to aim at Unit-01's head.
She says nothing, content to let the point-blank blast of laser do the talking for her.
Parmesan hits Shinji Ikari with her Do dee doo more lasers attack.
Okay. That? That wasn't nice.
The Codarl is pretty solidly smashed into by the building, and while the shield prevents it from being flattened, it comes out far from unscarred. "Alright you bitch..." Gauron mutters, the Codarl emerging. "Let's stop playing nice." The Codarl boosts forward, tying to close with the Gurren Lagann, the Lambda Driver being the main weapon now, Tiny bursts trying to hobble the gunmen. But collectively, they'll still, hopefully, hurt.
Gauron misses Simon with his Like a Thousand Tiny Lasers attack.
There is something of a reason why shooting an Evangelion in the head is a bad idea.
The Good News: The laser hits a hell of a lot better than before, blasting the monster's face and causing hunks of metal and flesh to fall off, flying into the void as the strange meat-machine almost groans in pain, while Shinji Ikari screams...and screams...
...there's a change in the third scream, though, which leads directly to the Bad News: Unit-01's horrible maw struggles, and RIPS open, the eyes actually regrowing from the blazing white to a horrible, radioactive green, and the complex mind of Shinji Ikari suddenly becomes brutally simple.
The Beast simply lunges forward, attempting to bite into the chest of the Great Zaku. If successful, it will start /chewing/, and /chewing/, and /chewing/...
Shinji Ikari switches armor modes to Berserker.
Shinji Ikari juggles Parmesan with his Hungry Hungry Corrupted Jungian Archtypes combo.
Shinji Ikari heals Shinji Ikari with his I'm eating your courage! Your rich, tasty courage! action.
Parmesan breaks Shinji Ikari's combo.
Simon wastes no time when the building comes down. He reaches down with the Gurren-Lagann's right hand, and grabs for one of the drills on the corner. Inside the shelter, people begin screaming and tumbling - falling down in numbers, as the angle of the shelter changes. Many start sobbing, fearing the worst; the lights go out, and darkness fills it. Then, through sheer Spiral Power alone, Simon hacks into the television circuits there.
"All of you!" the Spiral Knight says, "hold on! The colony's about to hit the atmosphere, and I'm getting you out of here--" Then, he sees the Codarl rushing in, the Lambda Driver alive around it with a brilliant, burning glow. "SPIRAL SHIELD!"
A wall of green energy erupts in front of Gauron. If he should rush right into it, it will burn at the Codarl - but the energies of the Lambda Driver hit it and are repelled offward. Simon grits his teeth; the best exit, Misato said, was to the right. He looks around - and then straight up, as does the stoic face of the Lagann. "LET'S /GO/!"
The Gurren-Lagann's wings burn a bright blue, and then the red Gunmen takes off into the air, going up in a spiral pattern; the result is that it flies straight for the colony wall. "
"AYANAMI!" Simon shouts, seeing it grow closer, "SMASH THROUGH IT!"
Simon gets a glancing blow on Gauron with his Burning With Spirit attack.
Things are getting tense on the Nadesico's bridge. Ruri's technomancy buys the battleship some extra time in what is rapidly becoming a losing battle. Ruri coughs up more blood from the stress but wipes it off of her lips with the back of her hand and stays at her console.
The barrage hammers into the reinforced shield of the Nadesico. And a good thing it is that Ruri reinforced them, too. Nadesico keeps its course for the colony, holding its shot to destroy the colony. Ruri looks over her display. "Captain! The engines have sufficiently cooled!" That means more shots with the cannon.
"FIRE!" Yurika shouts. "BLOW HIM OUT OF THE SKY!" The glowing prismatic beam lances out of the front of the Nadesico and then pulls its previous trick of inexplicably bending in space again; this may discourage close persuit.
Ruri Hoshino critically strikes Mortimer McMire with her Geometry Kills attack.
You take 33 damage.
You have been knocked out!
"Buu," Boota concurs with Simon's instruction.
Rei stares at the rapidly approaching colony wall with some dismay. How is she supposed to break through that with only - With only, she realizes, what's there. And if the Fifth Angel can do it -
The left elbow of the Gurren Lagann, which is handily not intersecting the recovered shelter, bursts out with a black cylinder tipped with diamond-like growths, striking the weak surface and burrowing through the lunar concrete. More air will be going out, but such is life - and they can always build more colonies. Right?
/Now/ it happens. It's a pity, had this happened sooner, Parmesan may have tried to hop in and pay poor Shinji himself a visit. But now, something didn't seem right. Perhaps it was the nature of the attack itself, of colony dropping. Allies...something was off. Something was familiar.
...didn't Parmesan see something like that before? Yes...only it was a different color. And there was a train...and a large black robot...no, that can't be right. The Eva chews away at the Machine King's chest and the monster looks dumbfounded for a moment before it pulls away, allowing the entire breastplate of the Great Zaku to be pulled away at the cost of breaking free.
"They better hurry up." she scowls, the strike shield spines spreading out again, then extending into the grappling wires once more. She doesn't try to bind him, not yet as she darts about, trying to get above the Eva. Any grabbing is warded off by the tentacles. Should he leap up at her to continue to devour, Shinji the Beserker will find that she is more than ready to accomodate him...
...by jamming the Black Hole Laser down his throat. A quick manipulation of the metal quickly renders the firing device stuck in its 'on' position as it fires down into the Eva.
Parmesan quickly clears the area afterwards.
Parmesan misses Shinji Ikari with her Black hole sun, won't you come and wash away the rain... super.
Stupid gravity cannon. Once again physics is bent to the breaking point, and Mortimer pays the consequences. The blast strikes cleanly through one of the Mothership's front paws, blowing it right off and sending it spiraling down to Earth, where it will burn up during reentry.
Aboard the bridge, klaxons blare as the damage reports come in. Structural integrity failing, life support failing, Big Purple Space Amoebas highly agitated... that one lucky shot as pushed the Mothership to its breaking point. The Grand Intellect snarls at the retreating ship in the view screen, then sits back in his chair. "Let them go," he murmurs. "We'll get them next time. Retreat back to the Gate while we still can. Our mission is accomplished regardless, it's too late for the Interplanetary League to prevent Tau Gamma's fall now."
The Mothership's engines sputter back to life, then it ends its pursuit to return to the Gate out of this plane.
'Fueled by monsterous, cannibalistic rage' does not nessicarily mean 'Stupid', as many a giant monster had learned all too late when facing Unit-01 unchained. The jaw tightens and the hand surges forward, grabbing the gun and /pulling/ just as Unit-01 spits the rifle out, causing...
...well, causing...
...causing the rifle to fire /up/, sending Unit-01 rocketing /down/ towards the gentle embrace of the Nadesco, who's shields are still active enough to electrocute the mad dog, shaking Unit-01 with electrical energy as Shinji is violently shocked back into sanity...
...okay, it doesn't mean 'genius' either, but at least its head wasn't blown off.
Gauron swears, as the Spiral Shield pushes him back. "Damn you!" And then he gets the warning. The warning being 'unless you want to crash and die with this, get the hell out now." "Fine." Activating the Lambda Driver again, Gauron makes a beeline for the thinnest point in the colony wall he can get to, preparing to blast his way out. He doesn't really have time to make it back to the exit. Blasting through, he comes out the side opposite to the Gurren Lagann. "Well, I did what I came to do." He says, the Codarl's thrusters moving it back to the regroup point, for the moment, waiting to see what happens.
The Gurren-Lagann's drill finally breaks through the top of the colony wall. It cracks and shatters apart, before the red machine takes a hard twist - and then begins flying away, full speed. The machine twists hard, then - and the Gunmen has to bank around one of the colony mirrors. It winds up grabbing onto the side of it for a split second, and the torque twists the thing off and sends it flying away.
The shelter remains in one hand, the people inside safe. Simon takes a deep breath. "We're clear..."
Megumi looks up at Yurika from her control panel. "Captain, the Gurren Lagann is clear... and they have the colonists!"
Yurika looks to Minato. "Helm come about and line up to fire. Ruri, prep the cannon for full blast!"
Ruri runs the math over in her head five times. She does not want to miss. A miss would not be an 'oops'. A miss would be 'tomorrow Africa, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, and most of India's coast doesn't exsist'. "We are ready to fire at full blast." Ruri announces.
Yurika points at the doomed colony. "HEAVY GRAVITY CANNON... FIIIIIREEEEEEEEE!"
Light gathers at the prow of the Nadesico and then the warship fires its primary weapon. This time, it doesn't hold back because its only firing at one ship. It gives the full spread, meant to combat fleets of ships of equivilant size to itself. The beam buckles hull plating inwards, colapses bulkheads, melts solar mirrors. The colony shrinks inwards, before exploding in a massive fireball from just that one hit, the EMP radiating outward. The people below are saved from Third Impact and the Nadesico's crew gives a cheer.
But...
TO BE CONTINUED...
"...sub-optimal.." Parmesan hisses, mentally calculating how long it would take to create another Z.O. Black Hole Cannon thing. The wire tendrils reform into the strike shield spines, then detatch. She prepares to send them after the Eva when she hears something.
"...finally." she murmurs and zooms backwards, farther, farther-until she disappears into nothing but a speck of light in space.
The Earth Federation was watching, nervously. Indeed, there were all sorts of smaller skirmishes, as Gihren's renegade Zeon forces intercepted EFSF patrols throughout the Earth Sphere. His forces took heavy losses; they had already taken a beating at the Republican Zeonists' hands. They did, however, buy time to prevent the Earth Federation's 5th Fleet from arriving.
Below, in Mount Kilimanjaro, there are a few cheers. Basque Ohm, bald and muscled fleet commander, sits down and frowns. "Well done. The colony was--"
Then, all of the lights go out in the command center. His eyes widen, as he stares; there is a large glass window ahead. Thin beams of natural light hit it, and it glints. Then, there is a shudder that ripples through the whole mountain. A groan, that reaches through the stone. Metal can be heard, creaking softly. Basque steps backward. "Our systems... are they..."
"All down, sir!" a technican screams. "Including the containme--"
"GET THEM BACK ONLINE!" Ohm shouts at the top of his lungs, as those few beams of natural light catch something else - a great, orange eye that opens. There is an inhuman screech then, before he feels the air briefly grow hotter. The resulting Buster Beam rips clean through the command center and out of the side of the mountain, melting away half of Kilimanjaro in a second. Clouds part away, as the orange beam fires off well to the side of everyone in orbit.
Then, inside the remains of the mountain, great, chitin-covered limbs rip through shackles that once coursed thousands of volts through the body of the monster. Something tears out of the mountain, a long and spindly form, and opens its great mouth, showing the pink inside. It is visible, if not clearly, from space. The Uchuu Kaiju /screams/--
--and vanishes in a column of light, as it goes to 0.66 of the speed of light in a second.
He grabs one of the control paddles with a free hand. The Lagann's left arm moves backward, its hand balling up into a fist with a thought. Simon thrusts the paddle forward, throwing a hard punch for the Codarl's stomach. At the same time, with one hand, he rapidly presses on the screen - identifying more points of entry. He takes care to press at one that appears to be life support, if the smiley face inside a heart is any indication.
Simon misses Gauron with his ONWARD! (3/4) action.
Simon hits Gauron with his PUNCH! jab.
Rei presses the duck button, misestimating the incoming Kaiser Kikai. The Gurren throws itself down, the craft sailing merrily overhead and into the void!
The sunglasses whip past, too.
Rei rises, sees where the sunglasses have embedded themselves, and steers over to recover them - they seem kind of important. She tries to turn the Gurren's head -- but there's a really big problem with that...
Ikari, she thinks, looking upwards anyway, towards where EVA-01 is contending with the former Aya Kobayashi. Can they really manage to save her from this sort of a fate?
"..ugh!" Didn't this happen yesterday? No, that sort of invasion was a different kind of violation. Mercade had earned a /special/ place in the Zondarian's heart with that one. This, this was just disgusting. Ugly, raw humanity. Full of potential energy for a zondar plant, yes, but just...disgusting.
Parmesan reels, one hand falling away from the cannon to clutch at the Zaku's...helmet thing. The green eyes narrow to slits. "No."
The shield spines break away, reshaping into full shield bits now, each nearly the size of a small personal trooper due to Parmesan's current form. The bits promptly swarm around Unit-01 like an angry cloud of bees. An angry cloud of /laser bees/ that shoot /lasers/. Unlike the strike sheilds though, these don't explode.
Parmesan juggles Shinji Ikari with her OH CRAP BEES combo.
Shinji Ikari breaks Parmesan's combo.
Yurika has enough time to say, "Oh poopie." Before the traded blows favor the larger, heavier ship. The Nadesico rocks as the power of the blast cuts through the Distortion Fields and smashes into the vessel. The Nadesico rockets forwards as its engines flare, passing underneath the Vorticon ship. This is a very bad positioning to be in. Megumi starts rattling off damage reports. A fire on this deck. Hull breach on these three decks. Yurika starts shouting orders for fire control teams to move in and minimize damage and start looking for casualties. Ruri coughs, then fights down the sanguine taste it produces. Her hands lay on the black field in front of her. The horseshoe shaped marks on the back of her hands go clear as she interfaces with the Nadesico's computer, then opens up a comm line to the Voritcon vessel.
And then invades. They Mothership's techies will quickly find that they have a ghost in their machine, flitting though various controls and systems. Searching... looking for... something. But they are many and she, though very, very good with an innate advantage, is only one person. She's losing. So she shifts her tactics.
The Mothership's speakers start to play that familar drum roll and intro. The consoles come alive with a video. "We're no strangers to looooove. You know the rules and so! Do I-ee-aye-aye..."
This may disrupt operations as the Vorticons attempt to get their ship back in order.
Ruri Hoshino stuns Mortimer McMire with her RICKROLL'd action.
Mortimer sits back in his seat, still smiling to himself at a job well done. That was but a FRACTION of this ship's true power, a fully powered Tantalus Ray would've ripped the Nadesico into shreds and gone on to completely obliterate the planet below. The thought makes the Grand Intellect quite pleased.
What's not so pleasing, though, is the news that someone on the enemy ship is trying to hack the Mothership's systems. "The usual countermeasures should be enough." he says dismissively. "My security net is faultless, no one can penetrate it. Not even that meddlesome Commander Clown."
This is about the time when he hears a curious drumroll over the speakers, and then horrible '80s synth.
"............"
The tension is so thick, it could be cut with a knife. Finally, Mortimer speaks. "I will executing all of you," he says as he draws his HyperPistol from his belt. "One at a time, every time the chorus repeats until you stop this song from playing," he says darkly. The Vorticons frantically begin trying to track where the worm is and delete it.
Shinji Ikari's mind disgusts a horrible alien robot.
Wow, Shinji thinks, that's really depressing. This is about when the Laser Bees attack, lasering the crap out of Unit-01. A hunk of armor falls off, as the smoking machine shoves back, lumbering for a second...
...before making a clumsy grab for the Zaku's leg! "You're not getting rid of me...that easy...!" Shinji shouts, snarling, "I...I might be...a terrible person...but I'm not going to let you...!"
Shinji Ikari hits Parmesan with his FINISH A SENTENCE!!!!! attack.
The Codarl gets pushed back by the punch. The Lambda Driver's shield doesn't come up in time to react. "Heh..." His Knife, for the moment, is a little ways away. He keeps getting disarmed, as he swings out with a leg, aiming to put the boot into to the Lagann.
The AI, for the moment, seems to have gotten a lucky break, as it tries to resume operations, and get it's protections up to full strength. Hopefully, it can keep control. Mostly, however, it's doing this because Gauron is a sick enough bastard have fear installed into an AI.
Gauron hits Simon with his GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAL jab.
Gauron successfully targets Simon with his Personally, I think computers would mess up less if they were afraid of you (3/4) action.
"Damn, damn, no time for this CRAP!" Simon shouts back at the Codarl. The foot comes crashing down - and Simon decides to make a necessary sacrifice. The hand of the Lagann comes up, and the foot crashing down into it. Armor plates splinter and shatter, flying off every which way, and the armor on the arm of the thing simply buckles and crumples like an accordion. Simon snarls and makes the fingers of the Lagann crunch down.
He looks at his screen; he sees a file arrive, from Major Katsuragi. Maybe it will prove useful in a moment, if he can't succeed here. But, for now, he has to focus. He has to give it all.
When those systems start rebounding, he starts hitting back - striking for them, desperately, poking at them. "Come on... COME ON!"
Simon misses Gauron with his *crunch* jab.
Simon successfully targets Gauron with his Rebound! (3/4) action.
Ruri withdraws from the enemy system in the face of superior firepower. She didn't find the self destruct systems. Clearly, they're a big red button that awaits at the end of a needlessly hard platforming level.
Nadesico banks upwards on the other side of the Mothership, now well and truely out of the firing arc of that powerful cannon. But of course, it is also not pointed in the right direction to retaliate with it's own heavy cann-- oh, wait, it is.
The iridescent beam launches out into space along Ruri's calculations. It then banks on a ninty degree angle upwards, and then again back, passing over the prow of the Nadesico as the beam rips backwards at the tail end of the Mothership. Sure, it can only merely crack the crust instead of destroying a planet outright, but can your slime powered laser bank in mid flight?
Ruri Hoshino critically strikes Mortimer McMire with her It Can Also Play The Piano (Well Not Really) attack.
You take 31 damage.
Kaiser Kikai continues to sail on into eternity - still laughing merrily.
But there is villainy afoot in that laugh, because Kaiser Kikai's machine body is exhibiting an all-too-familiar trait!
Namely, it is HEALING ITSELF using, uh, something. There's no real ambient matter. Perhaps it is canabalizing things inside it.
Either way, when it returns...the Machine General shall be in far better shape to CRUSH HIS FOES
Reiji Kageyama heals Reiji Kageyama with his Machine Guys Do This A Lot For Some Damn Reason action.
If Shinji was expecting the leg to rip off completely with a yank, he will be sorely disappointed. While it's 'pulled', the metal seems to slide and stretch as if it were flesh or muscle being tugged on.
"Not going to let me /what/? There's no hope for you. RUN AWAY! You know you want to!"
Annoyed, Parmesan plants her other foot against Unit-01 and pushes off-though even the 'pushing' is accompanied by a burst of laser beneath the sole of Parmesan's foot.
Parmesan gets a glancing blow on Shinji Ikari with her Shoo jab.
The enemy is not attacking. Rei is relieved, if only fractionally. She turns her attention to the direction of the Lagann, then, and the eyes on the front of the Gurren squint as Rei re-affixes the shades.
There he is. That man. That man who -
Strange images flicker on the inner walls of the Gurren for a moment, confused and schizophrenic ones. Rei feels a pang in her forehead and then draws the machine back. The Gurren takes two steps, clanging as it does - before hurling itself in the air!
Something streaks out from the side as the Gurren hits the top of the leap, shoving the Gunman down on a sudden dizzying kick from above towards the enemy ARM Slave. Rei doesn't speak during the attack - but perhaps she does in her heart. And why is she aiming for the head?
Rei Ayanami misses Gauron with her Only Managing This Level For Now But Just You Wait Until The End Of The Episode INAZUMA KICK jab.
"Just kind of ment to be a general, uh, forbiddence of..." Shinji pauses, and shrugs. "Everything bad? I-AUUUGH!" Shinji screams as his shoulder and Unit-01 explode with pain at the laser kick, falling back towards the vastness of space! Shinji tries to grab onto his pink mecha ride, but he's also frozen for a crucial second...will Parmesan take advantage of it, adding another Zondar to her army?!
"Oh, that is just no fair," Mortimer says as Rick is finally removed from the bridge, along with the corpses of three Vorticon officers, just in time for him to see the Gravity Cannon banking in midair. "Gravity doesn't work that way."
There's no time for the ship to move out of the way, and it instead takes the gravity plast square up the tailpipe. Armor shreds and decks depressurize, sending more than a few Vorticons into the cold vacuum of space (both adults and children, should anyone care to look). Emergency bulkheads slam shut to prevent further decompression as the Grant Intellect issues his next order: "Turn us the hell around, I want that ship /destroyed/!"
More fighters launch from the underbelly of the beast, with a fresh loadout of torpedoes for the Nadesico.
You hit Ruri Hoshino with your Like bees stinging bears, huh? With enough stings, even a bear will go down. jab.
Surely, with a bit of hotblooded yelling, that would have done the trick. As it stands, though, Gauron is prepared, jumping back as the Gurren flies at him. And then, he sees a Golden opportunity, leaping into the air to launch a snap kick with some added punch to send the Gurren flying into the Lagann. Sure, it may be asking for trouble. On the other hand, it might also get the smaller gunmen off his damn colony.
The AI, meanwhile, keeps on trucking. Or colonying, as the case ma be, but it's running out of options. In fact, it's window to keep control is very much closing fast.
Gauron gets a glancing blow on Rei Ayanami with his KERPUNT jab.
Gauron gets a glancing blow on Simon with his YOU DROPPED THIS feint.
Gauron successfully targets Simon with his LagannOS has suffered an error and must close. (4/4) action.
"Not very articulate tonight, are we." Parmesan muses, twisting her now-free leg around so it can snap back into place and heal connected again. She notes his lagging and makes a low cackling noise. Would she take the opportunity?
Well, if she were on foot, perhaps. In her Zaku-merged form, she doesn't have the minute manipulation needed to take a piece of the metal to Shinji. She'd have to leave the Zaku shell, which not be a good move in t his case.
Instead, the cannon is pulled, light gathering at it's mouth as the barrel suddenly unfolds, blossoming into a larger, grander cannon. It doesn't fire, not yet.
Parmesan buffs her POW to +2.
The chase is on! It is not difficult for small snub fighters to bullseye a (comparatively) very large spaceship. Impacts start to mount and hits start to slip through. But Nadesico is a tough little ship and its armor holds even as the damage starts to become serious. "We've got to do something about those fighters and that ship... but we can't fire the cannon and we don't have the arc for... wait, that's it! Simon has the answer!" The bridge crew looks up at their captain, expectantly.
"Our missiles, plus the delay timers... GATTAI INTO TIME BOMBS!"
"That isn't ho--" Ruri stops herself as she transmits the orders to set the delay timers on the missiles to maximum. It just isn't even worth explaining what 'Gattai' means.
A trail of missiles starts to fall out of the Nadesico's sides. They aren't even truely launched, just dumped out behind the ship en masse, forming an impromptu minefield that is damnedibly tricky to detect. It might just look like they're jettisoning their garbage in preperation of a jump. That /is/ stardard Imperial procedure, at least. Okay, so that isn't a Star Destroyer, but the thought is there and that's what counts. Well, okay, so the missiles/mines count for more.
Ruri Hoshino critically strikes Mortimer McMire with her Okay, So They Actually Count For Everything attack.
You take 29 damage.
"Damn it!" Simon shouts, as he keeps working at it - pressing rapidly, and then sees the Earth looming ahead. There are faint, trace readings of heat; the very outer limits of the atmosphere have touched them. He grits his teeth, before looking up - and sees the Gurren get kicked, slamming it right into the Lagann, and the little Gunmen gets pushed right out.
"Not today, Gauron!" Simon shouts, as he looks down at the Gurren - and extends one of its arms backwards, firing a drill. The drill shoots off into space, and then sends it hurtling downward, throwing the Lagann downward.
The drill on its bottom begins spinning, and slams into the top of the taller, red Gunmen. "Today... No one's going to die in that colony!!"
Simon resets his buff status to neutral.
Rei feels moved - moved to speak, even as her head slumps forwards in the Gurren's cockpit as the Gurren itself goes flying, landing on one knee with a cracked armor plate on the side.
"Each life," she says, "alone, and afraid. Wanting to hide, fearing to be hurt." Simon speaks. "Fearing closeness and pain; fearing to be alone. Afraid and only able to run away... but..." Her head raises up. "Combine."
The drill hits the top of the Gurren, drilling downwards as it seems to shimmer with a greenish prismatic spray of colors, arms spreading out; armor plates crack, swell, restored to new freshness.
"When they find each other," Rei says, leaning back in the seat, "bonds form... we may never understand each other, and we may be using each other only to ease our loneliness... False solace. But..."
With a flash of light, the restored combined Gunman stands there. "Together, we find strength." One of the Gunman's hands raises up, fingers spread out as if to catch the distant moon.
Rei Ayanami switches armor modes to Gurren Lagann.
"That's right!!" Simon finishes after Rei, and the arms and legs of the Lagann fold back into the Gunmen's body. Green energy explodes outward, flowing up and giving the newly combined robot a mighty glow. The arms spread out and the fingers tense, as the Gurren-Lagann's left leg takes a step backward on the colony. The green prismatic light glows and flows around it, before it suddenly explodes outward in a brilliant flash. "And with that strength that we find together... we can break through any barrier! We can stop any obstacle! We can save the world!"
Then, it burns with a brief, ghostly light, and forms into an emblem: a stylized skull, with the glasses on the Gurren's chest across its eyes. "And that strength's name is..."
The Gurren-Lagann stretches one arm upward - and points a single finger up into the heavens, defiantly. "GURREN-LAGANN!!"
Simon switches armor modes to Gurren Lagann.
Simon heals Simon with his GATTAI DA!! action.
Yurika pumps a fist into the air triumphantly. "GATTAI!"
Ruri makes the Kif Kroaker noise.
FINE DON'T ASSIMILATE ME I SEE HOW IT IS.
Shinji doesn't, but he also doesn't have time to care; his hand flashes, and GRABS one of the blasting rocket-missile deals from the Nadesco, struggling for a second before flying through the air, charging shoulder first in an attempt to shove Parmesan's mecha out of firing position!
"I don't know what Gattai means!!!" Shinji shouts, for lack of anything more heroic to do.
Shinji Ikari critically strikes Parmesan with his E..even The Zondar Don't Want Me!!! attack.
Mortimer is smart enough to know that that's no garbage. He's also arrogant enough not to care. "FULL SPEED AHEAD," he demands as the Mothership charges through the impromptu mines, explosions rocking the ship and breaching the hull in a few more places. The Grand Intellect doesn't care, however. Someone aboard that ship is smart. Smart enough to bypass his network security via remote interface.
This cannot go unpunished.
"Power to the forward guns! I want that ship to be space dust within the next five minutes, OR ELSE!" he snarls at his bridge crew, who begin entering commands frantically.
The front paws begin to glow once more, but it is the controlled glow the Mothership's opening volley of attacks, as opposed to the UNLIMITED POWER charge of certain death. Lasers fire accordingly.
You critically strike Ruri Hoshino with your Stop running away while I'm killing you! attack.
"...Is that it?"
Let it be known, Gauron never really cared for long speeches. But now is the time to see how well the Codarl can fight in space, as his stable platform is now getting dangerously unsafe. Leaping off, the Codarl points at the Gurren Lagann, floating, as the purple aura of the lambda driver makes itself noticeable. "Don't waste my time."
Then, like a brilliant beam of bullshit science, the Lambda Driver fires at Gurren Lagann. Or maybe it's just trying to make it explode. It's never quite been adequately explained just what it does when it does this.
Gauron hits Simon with his Bang super.
Rei's eyes flick to the little display icon. "Ikari," she says, with a tone of near-warmth in her voice. "It means --" Is the ice breaking? Is this the power of the spiral? Maybe, at last -
The Lambda Driver beam strikes into the main body of the Gurren-Lagann. Rei's explanation to be is cut off with a sudden, wavering scream as she's thrown halfway from the seat, shoulder slamming hard enough against one of the side-panels to crack it and send it into dull darkness. "Ghh, hhgk-"
"Ayanami...!" Simon shouts, as he sees the beam slam into the body below him. The energy gathers - and the Gurren-Lagann twists and shakes, light exploding off it, but as the explosion dims, the machine still stands there; tall, proud, and resplendent in red, gold, and black. The pilot narrows his eyes and grits his teeth, before he swings out one arm. "Hang in there!" he tells her, before switching back to the communications system.
The swung out arm shudders; green light erupts from it, crackles, and flows outward to form a long lance. The drill spins rapidly, and Simon twists the Gurren-Lagann backward. The drill cuts into and through the hull of the colony, slicing through the wall. Air begins to pour out - but the hole is small enough that it will take some time. Simon grits his teeth, before he swings it back around, and points the drill right for Gauron.
"That was it? WHAT THE /HELL/ DO WE HAVE TO BE SCARED OF?!" The drill lance explodes off it in a shockwave of green light, and then flies straight for Gauron. As it does, the Gurren-Lagann leaps into the hole cut into the colony, and comes crashing downward. On the screens of the Lagann and the Gurren alike, a map appears: one showing the interior layout of the colony, with a flashing golden dot. "That's the map that Major Katsuragi sent us!" Simon explains, "And that's the shelter! We've got to get to it!"
Simon misses Gauron with his Drill Lance attack.
The Zondar want you...DEAD.
She Unit-01 slams into the Great Zaku, sending it spiraling through space, though it doesn't make any effort to right itself. It still holds onto the laser, keeping it charged, aiming /still/ at the Eva as the distance between the two widens. "...heheheheh..."
She fires again, haphazardly it seems, but much like the other, this purple-hued laser bends and twists unnaturally to home in Shinji! "Black hole cannoooooon!"
Parmesan gets a glancing blow on Shinji Ikari with her MORE LASERS attack.
Parmesan says, "This is tiresome. Has it been retrieved yet?"
"Arrgh!" Shinji screams, as the laser aims /right/ at his plug location: The ATField slows the laser's blast somewhat, but the pain of being shot in the spine is still very real, even as Unit-01 struggles to keep hold of the machine...
"You know what's funny?" Shinji asks, as he pants, keeping the hold on the machine as best he can, "If you think about it...charging head first into battle's just another kind of running away. Really, heck, anything is. And that's what people have been telling me not to do for...ever."
"Funny, huh?" Shinji smiles a sad little smile, as Unit-01 pulls a progressive knife out of its damaged shoulder, trying to slam the weapon between the Great Zaku's "ribs", aiming to stab the monster's core!
Shinji Ikari hits Parmesan with his Cutting To The Heart Of The Matter attack.
Gauron says, "Breaking a mountain open is not as easy as it sounds."
Mortimer McMire says, "It will be done when it's done. The beast is under the highest of securities. Even now, the true operation has yet to begin. This entire exchange is but a distraction, in a way."
Parmesan says, "I know that."
The Grand Intellect says, "Then stop complaining. The Interplanetary League and Earth Federation still believe we are simply attempting to sow chaos by destroying a colony. They would never be able to guess that we are after their pet monster, and it is my intention for it to remain that way until it is too late."
As the drill comes, the Shield comes up, and Gauron slides out of the way, the newly added thrusters activating. But then the Gurren Lagann heads inside, and Gauron growls. "Oh like HELL are you ruining my fun now!" The Terrorist swears. Time to test these thrusters out. The Codarl was not built for space combat, and this is a modified one. And he can't be as reckless with it now. Getting a replacement is that much harder. But he's not planning on letting them go.
The Codarl follows through the hole, nowhere near as concerned with collatteral damage. "AI! Cut them off, and show me where they are!" Misato may have the map, but Gauron still has the colony itself, as he attempts to try and close off some of the pathways to the massive drillbot. It may not be succesful, but it will hopefully slow them up so he can catch up, the autocannon on the codarls head firing when he sees them.
Gauron hits Simon with his Headbullets jab.
Lasers rock along the Nadesico's backside. Something out the back explodes in a fireball and the smaller ship starts trailing smoke. But Yurika holds her ship to tis course, even as the ship rocks and rattles. Ruri's mind flies through the Nadesico's computer systems, stealing power from this system, that system, anything non-vital that she can find and even life support on Deck 9 which is currently unoccupied. This isn't energy that can be funneled into the Gravity Blast Cannon. That's something else entirely and runs off of a different power source.
However, she can throw this energy into the Distortion Fields and strengthen them. They've taken a very heavy beating throughout this engagement.
Ruri Hoshino heals Ruri Hoshino with her Shield Recharge action.
Parmesan says, "Your digging should move faster."
Gauron has good and bad luck, today. The bad luck is that a colony's interior is simply a city; it has no real systems to /stop/ a giant robot, as both sides of the One Year War could attest to. The good news is, giant robots can easily be tracked in such an environment. The Codarl catches up easily, finding the Gurren-Lagann running across the ground, taking high-powered leaps with its wings. The vulcan guns shoot into the Gurren-Lagann, pelting its armor hard, as it makes one of those leaps.
It lands on a street, and Simon looks at the map. "Not far!" he shouts, before he starts running. "Ayanami! You handle him!"
The Gurren-Lagann's run stops as it reaches the shelter. The feet kick outward, crushing concrete and throwing it into the air, before Simon looks at the shelter - and fires four drills to the corners of it. The man focuses - and then light erups around it, through some of the concrete of the street, and wraps around the steel-encased building.
The Grand Intellect says, "My 'digging' is at the whims of gravity."
Gauron says, "Relax. We'll be hitting re-entry soon."
Gauron says, "After that, it'll only take a minute, tops."
Rei recovers, more or less. She thinks her shoulder's dislocated. She looks over towards the side, at the hateful machine that contains that man. That man who -
She can feel something waver in her, and her hands start to slump, when suddenly, something falls onto her head from above!?
"Buuu!" says the valiant molepig, Rei's eyes going up in frank and unhidden astonishment. Boota, for his part, grasps both of the A10 nerve clips on Rei's head and turns her head around towards the Codarl, pointing: "Buu! Buuuu!"
Rei squints. And then sees it - not the enemy mech... but the building near it.
One of Gurren Lagann's hands raises fractionally and /something/ streaks out from the arm, a strangely two-pronged drill twisting outwards to smash into the underside of the building. The rotational gravity still prevailing in the colony means that instead of collapsing downwards like a planetary building, it topples forwards along the line of rotation...
That is to say, towards Gauron.
Rei Ayanami critically strikes Gauron with her (guame did 9/11) attack.
"They're not dying fast enough," Mortimer snarls. "What nonessential systems can we reroute into the main cannons? We can't spare the gravity dampeners, not with that damn arcing cannon they've got." He thinks for a moment. "Cut the engines. We're out of the planet's gravity well now, inertia will be enough to carry us forward, we can reactivate them if we need to turn. Just keep firing!"
And fire they do. The laser batteries in the paws, with the added juice from the engines, begin to fire more rapidly, hopefully washing away the Nadesico in a torrential flood of acid green lasers.
You get a glancing blow on Ruri Hoshino with your Never Let A Retreating Foe Live To Turn Around And Fight A Second Time attack.
"...ngh.." This was starting to get tiresome too. The compostion a Machine King differs vastly from the average Zondar-it doesn't have a 'core' so to speak, its form distributed pretty evenly throughout the mass. "..."
With one hand, Parmesan calmly repositions the massive laser cannon so it rests over her shoulder and turns the mouth to aim at Unit-01's head.
She says nothing, content to let the point-blank blast of laser do the talking for her.
Parmesan hits Shinji Ikari with her Do dee doo more lasers attack.
Okay. That? That wasn't nice.
The Codarl is pretty solidly smashed into by the building, and while the shield prevents it from being flattened, it comes out far from unscarred. "Alright you bitch..." Gauron mutters, the Codarl emerging. "Let's stop playing nice." The Codarl boosts forward, tying to close with the Gurren Lagann, the Lambda Driver being the main weapon now, Tiny bursts trying to hobble the gunmen. But collectively, they'll still, hopefully, hurt.
Gauron misses Simon with his Like a Thousand Tiny Lasers attack.
There is something of a reason why shooting an Evangelion in the head is a bad idea.
The Good News: The laser hits a hell of a lot better than before, blasting the monster's face and causing hunks of metal and flesh to fall off, flying into the void as the strange meat-machine almost groans in pain, while Shinji Ikari screams...and screams...
...there's a change in the third scream, though, which leads directly to the Bad News: Unit-01's horrible maw struggles, and RIPS open, the eyes actually regrowing from the blazing white to a horrible, radioactive green, and the complex mind of Shinji Ikari suddenly becomes brutally simple.
The Beast simply lunges forward, attempting to bite into the chest of the Great Zaku. If successful, it will start /chewing/, and /chewing/, and /chewing/...
Shinji Ikari switches armor modes to Berserker.
Shinji Ikari juggles Parmesan with his Hungry Hungry Corrupted Jungian Archtypes combo.
Shinji Ikari heals Shinji Ikari with his I'm eating your courage! Your rich, tasty courage! action.
Parmesan breaks Shinji Ikari's combo.
Simon wastes no time when the building comes down. He reaches down with the Gurren-Lagann's right hand, and grabs for one of the drills on the corner. Inside the shelter, people begin screaming and tumbling - falling down in numbers, as the angle of the shelter changes. Many start sobbing, fearing the worst; the lights go out, and darkness fills it. Then, through sheer Spiral Power alone, Simon hacks into the television circuits there.
"All of you!" the Spiral Knight says, "hold on! The colony's about to hit the atmosphere, and I'm getting you out of here--" Then, he sees the Codarl rushing in, the Lambda Driver alive around it with a brilliant, burning glow. "SPIRAL SHIELD!"
A wall of green energy erupts in front of Gauron. If he should rush right into it, it will burn at the Codarl - but the energies of the Lambda Driver hit it and are repelled offward. Simon grits his teeth; the best exit, Misato said, was to the right. He looks around - and then straight up, as does the stoic face of the Lagann. "LET'S /GO/!"
The Gurren-Lagann's wings burn a bright blue, and then the red Gunmen takes off into the air, going up in a spiral pattern; the result is that it flies straight for the colony wall. "
"AYANAMI!" Simon shouts, seeing it grow closer, "SMASH THROUGH IT!"
Simon gets a glancing blow on Gauron with his Burning With Spirit attack.
Things are getting tense on the Nadesico's bridge. Ruri's technomancy buys the battleship some extra time in what is rapidly becoming a losing battle. Ruri coughs up more blood from the stress but wipes it off of her lips with the back of her hand and stays at her console.
The barrage hammers into the reinforced shield of the Nadesico. And a good thing it is that Ruri reinforced them, too. Nadesico keeps its course for the colony, holding its shot to destroy the colony. Ruri looks over her display. "Captain! The engines have sufficiently cooled!" That means more shots with the cannon.
"FIRE!" Yurika shouts. "BLOW HIM OUT OF THE SKY!" The glowing prismatic beam lances out of the front of the Nadesico and then pulls its previous trick of inexplicably bending in space again; this may discourage close persuit.
Ruri Hoshino critically strikes Mortimer McMire with her Geometry Kills attack.
You take 33 damage.
You have been knocked out!
"Buu," Boota concurs with Simon's instruction.
Rei stares at the rapidly approaching colony wall with some dismay. How is she supposed to break through that with only - With only, she realizes, what's there. And if the Fifth Angel can do it -
The left elbow of the Gurren Lagann, which is handily not intersecting the recovered shelter, bursts out with a black cylinder tipped with diamond-like growths, striking the weak surface and burrowing through the lunar concrete. More air will be going out, but such is life - and they can always build more colonies. Right?
/Now/ it happens. It's a pity, had this happened sooner, Parmesan may have tried to hop in and pay poor Shinji himself a visit. But now, something didn't seem right. Perhaps it was the nature of the attack itself, of colony dropping. Allies...something was off. Something was familiar.
...didn't Parmesan see something like that before? Yes...only it was a different color. And there was a train...and a large black robot...no, that can't be right. The Eva chews away at the Machine King's chest and the monster looks dumbfounded for a moment before it pulls away, allowing the entire breastplate of the Great Zaku to be pulled away at the cost of breaking free.
"They better hurry up." she scowls, the strike shield spines spreading out again, then extending into the grappling wires once more. She doesn't try to bind him, not yet as she darts about, trying to get above the Eva. Any grabbing is warded off by the tentacles. Should he leap up at her to continue to devour, Shinji the Beserker will find that she is more than ready to accomodate him...
...by jamming the Black Hole Laser down his throat. A quick manipulation of the metal quickly renders the firing device stuck in its 'on' position as it fires down into the Eva.
Parmesan quickly clears the area afterwards.
Parmesan misses Shinji Ikari with her Black hole sun, won't you come and wash away the rain... super.
Stupid gravity cannon. Once again physics is bent to the breaking point, and Mortimer pays the consequences. The blast strikes cleanly through one of the Mothership's front paws, blowing it right off and sending it spiraling down to Earth, where it will burn up during reentry.
Aboard the bridge, klaxons blare as the damage reports come in. Structural integrity failing, life support failing, Big Purple Space Amoebas highly agitated... that one lucky shot as pushed the Mothership to its breaking point. The Grand Intellect snarls at the retreating ship in the view screen, then sits back in his chair. "Let them go," he murmurs. "We'll get them next time. Retreat back to the Gate while we still can. Our mission is accomplished regardless, it's too late for the Interplanetary League to prevent Tau Gamma's fall now."
The Mothership's engines sputter back to life, then it ends its pursuit to return to the Gate out of this plane.
'Fueled by monsterous, cannibalistic rage' does not nessicarily mean 'Stupid', as many a giant monster had learned all too late when facing Unit-01 unchained. The jaw tightens and the hand surges forward, grabbing the gun and /pulling/ just as Unit-01 spits the rifle out, causing...
...well, causing...
...causing the rifle to fire /up/, sending Unit-01 rocketing /down/ towards the gentle embrace of the Nadesco, who's shields are still active enough to electrocute the mad dog, shaking Unit-01 with electrical energy as Shinji is violently shocked back into sanity...
...okay, it doesn't mean 'genius' either, but at least its head wasn't blown off.
Gauron swears, as the Spiral Shield pushes him back. "Damn you!" And then he gets the warning. The warning being 'unless you want to crash and die with this, get the hell out now." "Fine." Activating the Lambda Driver again, Gauron makes a beeline for the thinnest point in the colony wall he can get to, preparing to blast his way out. He doesn't really have time to make it back to the exit. Blasting through, he comes out the side opposite to the Gurren Lagann. "Well, I did what I came to do." He says, the Codarl's thrusters moving it back to the regroup point, for the moment, waiting to see what happens.
The Gurren-Lagann's drill finally breaks through the top of the colony wall. It cracks and shatters apart, before the red machine takes a hard twist - and then begins flying away, full speed. The machine twists hard, then - and the Gunmen has to bank around one of the colony mirrors. It winds up grabbing onto the side of it for a split second, and the torque twists the thing off and sends it flying away.
The shelter remains in one hand, the people inside safe. Simon takes a deep breath. "We're clear..."
Megumi looks up at Yurika from her control panel. "Captain, the Gurren Lagann is clear... and they have the colonists!"
Yurika looks to Minato. "Helm come about and line up to fire. Ruri, prep the cannon for full blast!"
Ruri runs the math over in her head five times. She does not want to miss. A miss would not be an 'oops'. A miss would be 'tomorrow Africa, the Middle East, Sri Lanka, and most of India's coast doesn't exsist'. "We are ready to fire at full blast." Ruri announces.
Yurika points at the doomed colony. "HEAVY GRAVITY CANNON... FIIIIIREEEEEEEEE!"
Light gathers at the prow of the Nadesico and then the warship fires its primary weapon. This time, it doesn't hold back because its only firing at one ship. It gives the full spread, meant to combat fleets of ships of equivilant size to itself. The beam buckles hull plating inwards, colapses bulkheads, melts solar mirrors. The colony shrinks inwards, before exploding in a massive fireball from just that one hit, the EMP radiating outward. The people below are saved from Third Impact and the Nadesico's crew gives a cheer.
But...
TO BE CONTINUED...
"...sub-optimal.." Parmesan hisses, mentally calculating how long it would take to create another Z.O. Black Hole Cannon thing. The wire tendrils reform into the strike shield spines, then detatch. She prepares to send them after the Eva when she hears something.
"...finally." she murmurs and zooms backwards, farther, farther-until she disappears into nothing but a speck of light in space.
The Earth Federation was watching, nervously. Indeed, there were all sorts of smaller skirmishes, as Gihren's renegade Zeon forces intercepted EFSF patrols throughout the Earth Sphere. His forces took heavy losses; they had already taken a beating at the Republican Zeonists' hands. They did, however, buy time to prevent the Earth Federation's 5th Fleet from arriving.
Below, in Mount Kilimanjaro, there are a few cheers. Basque Ohm, bald and muscled fleet commander, sits down and frowns. "Well done. The colony was--"
Then, all of the lights go out in the command center. His eyes widen, as he stares; there is a large glass window ahead. Thin beams of natural light hit it, and it glints. Then, there is a shudder that ripples through the whole mountain. A groan, that reaches through the stone. Metal can be heard, creaking softly. Basque steps backward. "Our systems... are they..."
"All down, sir!" a technican screams. "Including the containme--"
"GET THEM BACK ONLINE!" Ohm shouts at the top of his lungs, as those few beams of natural light catch something else - a great, orange eye that opens. There is an inhuman screech then, before he feels the air briefly grow hotter. The resulting Buster Beam rips clean through the command center and out of the side of the mountain, melting away half of Kilimanjaro in a second. Clouds part away, as the orange beam fires off well to the side of everyone in orbit.
Then, inside the remains of the mountain, great, chitin-covered limbs rip through shackles that once coursed thousands of volts through the body of the monster. Something tears out of the mountain, a long and spindly form, and opens its great mouth, showing the pink inside. It is visible, if not clearly, from space. The Uchuu Kaiju /screams/--
--and vanishes in a column of light, as it goes to 0.66 of the speed of light in a second.