As the sun rose over the city of Marketdome, the citizens within went about their daily lives as if nothing would ever disturb them. Parents shopped, mercenaries did some job hunting, and gunshots rang through the streets as per usual. It had been a long time since the city had seen any significant threat. As far as many were concerned, it would remain that way since Marketdome was a neutral party when it came to politics in the Earth Sphere. However, not all threats came from other human beings. Far to the south, an army of massive machines slowly moved towards the densely populated city, independently of another group that was moving in from the east. As time went on their numbers seemingly continued to multiply. Small insect-like machines scurried too and from the larger pack, returning with plentiful amounts of raw resources. Towering above them were their masters, some which looked like over-sized mobile suits, and others that floated in the air. While the machines themselves were not visible from Marketdome to the naked eye, the cloud of dust they kicked up was. And if that wasn't enough of an indicator of their arrival, each step from these massive machines shook the Earth due to their sheer numbers.

The surface of Marketdome may have been peaceful but it's defense force scrambled beneath the surface. The Rustbucket sat in the middle of a swarm of activity as King GMs loaded themselves onto the angular ship. The approaching contact had been large enough to force Kayla to scramble the entirety of her small force as soon as it had been reported and the slender woman stood beside the ramp into her ship with a scowl on her face to hide the nerves that twisted her stomach into knots. The commander straightened her light uniform jacket and glanced at her executive officer as he came down the ramp behind her and gave her a nod. The sheer mass of the contact had been mind boggling and the plume of dust on the horizon only confirmed that trouble on a massive scale was on its way towards her home. She strode up the ramp as Daine fell in behind her and it was hard not to hear a deep funeral gong each time her boots struck metal. Half a dozen pilots waited in their machines, three on each side of the Rustbucket's hangar, with their cockpits open to watch their commander as she addressed them. A quick tap on the headset she wore activated the communications equipment and her voice reached the entire ship as she addressed her forces. "We don't know what we're flying into," Kayla began bluntly, her tone clipped, "Its something bigger than the usual bandits we've dealt with so far but we don't know anything more than that. Stay on your toes and hold the line."

Disconnecting her headset, Kayla turned towards her own mobile suit and grumbled, "That was terrible."
Daine laughed his usual deep laugh and it bounced off the walls of the hangar as he clapped his commander on the back with a hand easily the size of a dinner plate. The hit staggered her for a moment but Kayla took some small comfort from her XO's implacable happiness. He had kept her sane for the year she'd been in command and always seemed to know just how to drag her out of her own head. "You've never been good at speeches," he agreed with a quieter chuckle, "But they know you care. They've fought with you before and this is our home, boss. If you want to see someone fight like hell then just threaten where they live."

Kayla only nodded as she stopped at the feet of her bulky Gundam. Stepping into the stirrup of the line hanging from the open cockpit doors, she gave Daine another nod and simply said, "Talk to me. Keep the ship safe if you can but Marketdome comes first." She didn't wait for a response, eager to escape the conversation, and quickly engaged the motor that pulled her up to the dimly lit cockpit. Kayla snatched her helmet off the rigid seat inside and dropped into it with a sigh as her fingers nimbly fastened the protective gear over her head while the cockpit closed and left her in comforting darkness. She had a few moments to enjoy the respite solitude provided and she closed her eyes as displays came to life around her with a dull hum. The Blossom's eyes lit with green light as the suit came alive around it's pilot and Kayla said the single word she dreaded. "Launch."

A tremor shook Marketdome a second later as a feature of the city that was rarely used came to life. A massive cleared area just outside the South of Marketdome's namesake slid open with the grinding rumble of heavy machinery as the underground hangar used to house the MDF's sole ship was revealed. The howling roar of jet engines amplified by the confines of the hangar rolled over the city and became both louder and more distinct as the refit Zanzibar blasted into the skies on a straight course for the horde about to assault it.

"What the hell is actually going on out there!?"

The woman at the bridge of the Hekhal paced around in a tizzy as the crew (who had been taking it easy since arriving at Marketdome) scrambled to their posts and starting reading through the reports and safety advisories coming from the MDF. Abernethy, even more dressed down from what one would expect of a Captain than normal, was desperately trying to finish a shake as they got their data in from the preliminary sensor sweeps.

"It seems that Marketdome is being attacked on two fronts by unknown assailants," one of the operators noted, his partner besides him in the port command module bringing up the first results of their sensors. At starboard, the others typed away, pulling up third-party reports from across the dome of just what the threat was. "Defense Forces and independent operatives both seem to be mobilizing in order to meet them outside the Dome."

"Which area is the MDF heading towards?" The voice came from the green-haired man stepping onto the bridge, hearing the discussion before the door slid open. Viridian was also dressed much more casual than usual, for entirely different reasons: a tight white polo with a jacket tied about his waist. This place was starting to get to everyone, and the combination of the damn weather and their ship not being designed for work under gravity meant that the crew had been stuck refitting Viridian's new mobile suit outside of the safety of climate control.

"Looks like the Defense Force's flagship is heading South, Viridian."

"Good. Everything should be ready. Looks like I'll get to give the suit a spin and hopefully let the Defense Force know we appreciated their generosity."

Abernethy stared vacantly as Viridian turned right around, heading back out the door to obviously go outside and get in his new machine. A deep, exasperated sigh left the woman's mouth as she kept staring at the now-closed door, letting her hand hang over her shoulder and let go of her drink. It unceremoniously went straight to the floor, smashing open and splattering its insides all over the otherwise spotless steel floor of the bridge. The action shook everyone in their seats, most of all Abernethy herself.

"UGH I HATE GRAVITY SO MUCH. Where the heck is the Dynast!?"

Mobile armors standing 30m in height emerged from the cloud of dust, marching ever forward. Behind them, hundreds of small Pluma's also burst forth from the dust cloud, surrounding their masters. They detected many, many life signatures from the large settlement in front of them. It was a sight these lifeless machines had long waited to see. And yet, before them stood an obstacle. A Zanzibar ship appeared from beneath the ground and headed straight for the herd of machines. The life signs aboard were more than enough to get the attention of the lead three Ishim units. The glowing orange vents that adorned their faces parted in the center, revealing a cylindrical hole. A light began to radiate from within as they continued to move. They fired one after another. 1, 2, 3 beams streamed from their maws and headed straight for the Zanzibar-class.

The ride out to a combat drop was always the worst for Kayla. She sat in silence, cocooned in her cockpit while her subordinates filled the squad frequency with idle chatter and pointless boasts. No one spoke to her or tried to bring her into the conversation and she was grateful for it. They had tried at first because that was how soldiers apparently worked. Where Kayla sat with her hands clasped together tightly in her lap, they joked with each other and placed meaningless bets on how many pirates they would shoot down. Typically the person who got the least would buy the others drinks when they returned to Marketdome. They knew by now that their commander wasn't a soldier, not really. However skilled she was with her outdated mobile suit and its heavy weapons, the defense force commander never pretended to be anything other than someone thrust into a role she didn't think she was capable of. Daine had gone a long way in cementing their respect for her in the early days of her command and smaller sorties had solved the rest but every pilot in the MDF knew that Kayla Emregan was no veteran. So she in silence with the artificial glow from the Blossom's monitors turning her eyes an unnaturally bright green in their light as the Rustbucket drew closer to the veritable horde of contacts approaching her home. Her only motion was to slip a bottle of pills from her pocket and down four of the generic low-strength painkillers contained inside without a second thought. That was her pre-battle ritual, a preparation for the inevitable headaches that came any time she went into battle, and she hadn't mustered up the courage to tell anyone about it. Even Daine didn't know the physical pain that mobile suit combat entailed for his commander and she intended to keep it that way. For all of the constant fear and the pain from near crippling headaches, made worse if she ever used the Blossom's large beam cannon, the cockpit of her mobile suit was a comfortable place for Kayla. So she sat stoically in silence with the voices of men who were willing to die in defense of a city that only cared about them in terms of credits, only speaking when Daine asked for her opinion on a subtle course correction for the ship that rumbled beneath her.

Maybe it was the silence that caused it. Maybe it was her anticipation of pain. But for whatever reason, Kayla felt something difference as the Rustbucket came into range and the strange mobile armors opened their mouths to spew death. Where she had only felt varying degrees of pain before, she felt something truly different for the first time. It wasn't music but it was how her unique body interpreted it, an inaudible tune that rang in her head like an opera in three distinct tones. Her hands tightened on her controls and the Blossom took a single step towards the closed ramp of the ship before she realized what she had commanded it to do but even the heavy impact of metal on metal didn't drown out the strange painful notes. Kayla's eyed widened as her head whipped towards the front of the ship and the enemies arrayed outside it a second before the defense of Marketdome truly began. "They're singing..."

-

Only the refit Zanzibar's course saved its occupants from total destruction. The expectation of beam weaponry dictated an irregular course with frequent course corrections meant the ship was ascending when the first mobile armor opened fire. The glowing orange lights in the distance gave Daine just enough time to order a sharp ascent before beams tore through the sky. His deep voice boomed through the bridge of the ship in a sharp, almost hostile tone that his commander had never heard.

"HELM, TAKE US UP!"

The Zanzibar's four jet engines roared to screaming life a second after the order as the aged ship clawed for altitude in a move that threw every mobile suit jockey in the hangar against their restraints as gravity fought against them. The first beam came the closest and ripped apart the air feet beneath the ship in a torrent of energy hot enough to melt a distinct line alone the armor panels it passed by. The following two went wide but the tone was set and a heavy air settled over the Rustbucket's bridge. The battle was joined.

-

Kayla was snapped out of her stunned surprise when the light of dawn filled the Zanzibar's hangar. There was only one reason the doors would open and it was something her force had trained for. In a move that made her involuntary step forward seem like unnatural prescience, Kayla began stomping the Blossom towards the rapidly widening gap even as the ship tilted upwards beneath her. "Ricart, take Alpha and deploy on my three o'clock after I hit the ground," Kayla barked as her bulky mobile suit stepped up to the edge of the ramp, "Palis, you and Bravo take my nine."
Then the over sized thrusters on the Blossom's legs flared to life with the howling whine of jet engines while the set of modern thrusters on it's back lit with a dull blue glow. The mix of engines filled the confined space with a roaring, discordant cacophony of propulsive power that vibrated through the entire suit like a miniature earthquake mere moments before Kayla launched herself out of the Rustbucket.

Kayla was not a soldier but her men followed her for a reason. For all of her projected hostility, she always dropped first. Always engaged Marketdome's enemies and lead the way. Daine had spent a week trying to convince her that she was a good leader for that simple fact alone but she'd heard none of it. It was simply a desire to end things as soon as possible to her combined with haunting memories of combat in space against the Black Guard. She had hesitated when the 1.5 Gundam had been taken from her. She had hesitated they had literally cut their way into her cockpit to capture her. Kayla had resolved never to hesitate like that again. Never to cower when she had an ounce of fight left inside of her. So she jumped first and while others called it bravery or leadership, she knew the truth; Fear threw her out into the rising sun faster than any training could account for.

A casual onlooker might have been impressed by the veritable rain of heavy metal that all but spilled out of the ship after it evaded the three beams meant to destroy it outright. The Blossom's frame was impossible to mistake for anything else as it fell through the sky. Orange light spilled out from the wide vents on it's legs and the blue flames of thrusters illuminated the weaponry attached to it's back as it clawed for every ounce of thrust it needed to slow it's descent to a less than terminal velocity. Six more mobile suits followed her in pairs of two with their own thrusters igniting, each sporting a pair of large disposable tanks to give them the power needed to land safely.

Kayla hit the ground with a shuddering impact that slammed her teeth together with a painful CLICK that soon filled her tongue with the faint copper taste of blood. Desert sand exploded up around her Gundam as it was blown away forcibly by the roaring hoverjets in the Blossom's legs and combined with the dawn's light to form a muted orange aura around the unit that cast the unit's white armor into shadow. Only the Blossom's glowing green eyes were clear to the human eye as it raised it's machine cannon, the barrel already spinning to life with a loud rattle of ammo belts running down the feed to the high caliber weapon. Marketdome's defense force slammed into the sands of their home territory seconds later with weapons blazing. Each of the six King GMs carried twelve missiles, four on each shoulder and a larger pair of munitions on each hip, and the entire unit fired all seventy two missiles in a wide spread into the advancing horde before the dust of their impact had even settled. Discarded launchers ejected from each suit threw up smaller clouds as the twin beams of each GM's spears ignited and their pilots sought targets for their beam cannons.

The final note of Marketdome's initial barrage was the deep-throated tearing roar of the Blossom's scavenged gatling cannon as it came to life. Kayla grit her teeth against the ceaseless vibrations rolling through her suit as she launched a barrage of shells in a ballistic arc towards one of the advancing mobile armors. While the rounds would spread out and pepper the area rather than home in on her target, the sheet amount of smaller contacts around her chosen target meant that each round threatened possible destruction to anything near the larger enemy.

Viridian was moving at a leisurely pace through the Hekhal, heading back out into the heat of the outdoor hangar they were docked at. His newly acquired machine, the Tallgeese, was standing tall a couple hundred feat away in something resembling a dry dock since the suits couldn't be worked on under gravity within the ship's own hangar.

When they bought it, it was fairly bare bones - bereft of its main thrusters and any weapons save the shoulder-equipped long barrelled cannon. Two things had brought him to choose the suit when Kayla Emregan brought the Dynast and he on their personal shopping tour: that Dober Gun was one of them. The other was that in Alexandrine's time, the Tallgeese was a prototype for their entire Gundam line, even though it was actually developed originally by the Jovians. It meant that it worked easily with the Seraphim they had on board, and could be compatible with their parts with minimal adjustment. That compatibility was what led it to its current state.

Viridian got down to the ground and walked over to the majestic machine, cleaned up from its original state and looking brand new. His mechanics were quick to greet him, one wiping his brow before speaking up.

"Is it that bad out there, Vir?"

"Seems like it. Attack on two fronts," he was quick to respond, getting the attention of one of his nearby wingmen.

"Need us to scramble, sir?"

"Negative for now. Prepare to sortie but you'll remain in case things get closer to the dome."

"Sir, the suit is ready but," the head mechanic was a bit hesitant, but continued, "I just want to warn you." It was enough to give Viridian pause, even as he grabbed the line to the cockpit hatch.

"We've never worked with a machine like this before. This thing at its core is an experiment just to see what would happen. This is a beast that can't recognize its own strength."

"We loaded the beam cartridge into the Dober Gun since we have no idea the reliability of the shells yet. However we gave one of each cartridge in case you need to swap. What John is trying to say is be careful. Don't push the thrusters too strong yet, we're afraid the power supply will burn out the feather verniers with how much power output this thing is emptying out."

"Beginning's reactor-" Viridian began to interject.

"This is different. Beginning's proton drive was well tuned and very precise. This Tallgeese doesn't know what to do with its power and is constantly firing on all cylinders."

Viridian slowly nodded, then hit the button on the handle to pull up the line

"The beam sabers installed?"

"We fit in six!" They both yelled up at him as he got to the hatch. He climbed in, settling into the well worn seat and testing his fingers on the rakers. It was different but... similar enough to the Seraphim that it wasn't too awkward. And with the wing vernier system he understood how its basic flight control would work. It wasn't the Beginning, but...

The system came to life and the visor of the machine lit blue. Stepping aside with thunderous footfalls, the titanium monster got away from its shorter fellows and began to open up its numerous thrust nozzles.

It felt good to be back in the cockpit.

"Viridian, Tallgeese Flugel. Taking off!"

With a blast of heat and wind, the suit burst from the ground, unfurling its wings as it cleared three hundred feet and taking off towards the scene, just in time to see the beams flying in the distance.

The three Ishim that were firing on Kayla and her men calculated the number of new individual targets and communicated back and forth.Two stopped moving and brought their still firing beams down in a diagonal motion, intending to sweep them across the now landed mobile suits. The third unit, however, moved its beam upwards, intent on following the mass of life signs aboard the Zanzibar.

The forces that had spilled out of the Zanzibar opened fire before the Ishim's beams had even reached them, ballistic rounds of all sorts peppering the area. The mobile armors didn't stop moving as the rounds impacted on their armored shells, the nanolaminate coating stopping the impacts. It was like a cage being rattled. The smaller Pluma's were more of a mixed bag. Some tilted forwards and exposed more of their armored backs as the bullets struck, having the same effect as it did with the Ishim. However, some were not so lucky as the rounds struck their unarmored heads. Many Pluma's turned into smoking husks. But that wasn't the end of the assault. Seventy-two missiles came flying in the hordes direction. The Ishim, immediately recognizing the threat, evaded direct hits with their great agility. The Pluma's fared far worse. Their armor plating could only take so much force before breaking and exposing the components underneath. In moments, the horde of Pluma's was decimated. Many were still left, but their numbers were far less. The three Ishim that were in the front firing their beams had been forced to turn them off and evade the incoming missile fire. Out of the many Ishim present on the battlefield, only one sustained any kind of significant damage from the barrage. However, four Pluma rushed to it and clambered up its body, moving to the hole in its torso. They worked quickly over the hole, using collected raw materials to create replacement components and armor to repair the damage. While the Ishim unit wouldn't be back up to 100% due to the Pluma's quick repairs being a rough job, it was more than enough to protect the machines innards. If they had had more time and a more concealed location, the repairs would have been much finer.

With the volley of fire ended, the mobile armors restarted their march, replacement Pluma's falling from their backs. Four Ishim fired their beam cannons at the assembled Marketdome forces.

The Defense Force's deployment had been as smooth as an emergency deployment could have been. Vigilant training unusual for a small unit had kept them mostly safe on their descent even as the pair of beams chased them down to the ground. Their landing threw up great clouds of dust as thrusters flared to soften the bone jarring impact of each multiton suit to a painful jolt familiar to each man or woman in their cockpit. Unfortunately Kayla hadn't expected a continuous beam and her forces were equally unprepared and the crucial seconds they used to launch their minimally effective salvo cost them. One member of Bravo Team barely had time to get his missiles out of their tubes before the stream of incandescent energy cut into his suit at the shoulder and swept through the cockpit. The explosion rocked the Blossom and the next closest GM and Kayla cursed as she was thrown against her restraints. Her mind was filled with the haunting melody the mobile armors emitted but the loss of one of her men incited enough anger and grief to shove the distracting noises to the back of her mind even as an all too familiar headache began to swell to life just behind her eyes. As for Bravo Team, the uparmored frames and thick shields saved the next pilot caught in the beam. Never one to sit idle, Palis' men had always been the more aggressive of the MDF's two teams and they were already moving even as their comrade died. The fifth member of the element barely got the King GM's thick shield into the path of the beam as he leapt into the air and the powerful weapon melted it into unusuable slag in the split second it remained in contact with the evading suit. The force of the beam threw him off course and melted the uparmored mobile suit's shoulder as he finally cleared the beam and rejoined his team as Bravo flanked around to his enemy's left.

Kayla's Alpha element managed to escape without a casualty, if only barely. Ricart had always had his element hold the line while his counterpart outmanuevered his enemy and each unit under his command had been under direct fire countless times. Already moving as they fired, Alpha lost two shields as they cleared the top of the beam. The mobile armor's twin beams had left Kayla trapped between them and she used the seconds provided as each swept away from her on opposite sides to bring up a smaller camera feed from the ballistic sight mounted on her cannon. Her curse filled her cockpit as she charged forward, the Blossom's scavenged hoverjets letting it skim across the sand with surprising mobility, as she saw that each mobile armor was unharmed or was being repaired by the swarms of smaller units that followed them. The math was easy; As long as the smaller units remained then any damage she could do to the mobile armors wouldn't stick, nevermind that her cannon only seemed to irritate the larger units. "Focus on the larger suits," she ordered as the long barrel of her gatling cannon began to spin up again, "One per team!"

The King GMs used by the Defense Forces were not lightly armored by any measure. Even with their missiles expended each unit packed a powerful bunch on their own. Bravo, flanking right, picked the closest Ishim and fires all five pairs of their shoulder-mounted mega particle cannons. Alpha, flanking left, targeted the closest mobile armor on the right flank with one addition pair of cannons. The resulting twenty two brilliant lances of energy streaked across the desert in defiance of each Ishim's single beam.

-

The Rustbucket evaded with less grace than the mobile suits on the ground. Daine barely had time to finish buckling himself into the command seat on the ship's bridge before his helmsmen tilted the ponderous vessel steeply to the right and let the ship slide diagonally towards the ground as the stream of particles cut through the air beside it. The large man grit his teeth as the desert seemed to grow larger and larger and he hammered on the intercom built into his chair with enough force that the hard plastic button cracked. "Gunnery! Target one of those monsters and bring it down!"
The crew manning the gunnery stations of the ship, buried further inside the ship's hull, had already been preparing for the order to fire before the evasive maneuver threw off their aim. It took a precious second to reacquire one of the center-most Ishim but they fired all four of the Rustbucket's mega beam cannons as soon as they could.

Daine only allowed himself a glance around the bridge after the cannons fired and his helmsmen leveled the ship out and prepared for another attempted evasion. A female voice to his right drew his attention and he silently cursed at what she told him. "Sir, I have an unknown contact approaching from the city at high speed"

It felt good to be back. Even as he accelerated towards the combat zone (taking it easy, relatively speaking, as he didn't want to burn out the thrust nozzles as warned) Viridian casually looked over his control consoles and began dialing in adjustments with his right hand. Once the slight shaking ceased, he looked over the growing spots in the distance, all being designated as potential targets. The same hand danced over his transmitter panel, calmly preparing a data package to send over to the Zanzibar-class ship that was currently dodging beam fire. Continuous streams. Must have some decent juice in those reactors. Once he was ready, he opened up his comm channel and laser hailed the Rustbucket.

"Attention MDF battleship. This is Viridian of the Trident vessel Hekhal. I am transmitting IFF tags for friendly handshake now, requesting completion as soon as you are able. Tell your boots on the ground they're going to get some air support."

Viridian kept the comm channel open, figuring when they were done dodging life-threatening particle cannons the ship could patch him through to the rest of the team. With his right hand returned to the raker, he switched up one of the control dials with his outstretched left and began to lean into both foot pedals. The Tallgeese took the order smoothly: the wings closed around its frame and pushed it forward like a missile whilst it reached over with its right hand to wrap around the grip of the Dober Gun. With a whistle through the cockpit he could hear the shoulder pylon disengage, allowing the long cannon to move freely with the multi-jointed mount that secured it to the suit proper. There were what looked like hundreds of targets, classified on his HUD three different ways. First there were the mobile armors, tall and fairly abstract looking in their shiny curves and pseudo-humanoid forms. Next was the mobile suits, all similar sizes and builds, save the one he noticed whistling about on the dirt. He was fairly certain this was Kayla, considering all they had talked about not so long ago with her 'Blossom' and its bevy of bells, whistles, and flaws. Finally there were the little bug-like things, more the size of Petit Mobiles and seemingly whistling about like they were a chaff unit or something. Either way, until he had shared IFF with the Defense Forces, he couldn't just fire idly on whatever he had sights on. They'd have to handle the smaller stuff for the moment, he'd focus on the nice, large targets before him.

The two teams were firing on one of the monsters each, while the majority of the ship's fire was being focused on the third. That meant one was being ignored at the moment, and he was ready to suppress it as well. Closer now, the Tallgeese opened its wings and revealed itself fully for everyone to see. If the Ishim had any form of sensor warning systems, it would suddenly realize something in front of it was staring it down, marking it for death. The open wings acted as an air brake, slowing its approach with a shift in negative g-force that barely made the Green One break a sweat. The Dober Gun was raised to shoulder level, straight at the center mass of the Ishim in his sights. Viridian didn't hesitate to pull the trigger, unleashing a larger-than-anticipated wave of mega particles from the slender barrel of the weapon. It was enough to punch the torso of the beast clear away from its limbs, if it had its way.

As the Ishim and Pluma pressed forward, their optics saw massive streaks of light being emitted from the horde of mobile suits in front of them, and a larger beam coming from the ship above. Registering that these were beams, the Ishim braced themselves. The three that faced the mobile suits beams moved their arms in front of their torso's, while the forth, being stared down by the Zanzibar's four beams, transmitted commands to the Pluma's surrounding it. A the last second, twenty of the Pluma's leapt into the air in front of the Ishim, grabbing onto each other and forming a large disc shape that completely blocked the Ishim behind them.

All of the beams struck in unison, but the results were likely not what the mobile armors attackers had expected. The beams slammed into the three front Ishim. Despite the size of the beams that the mobile suits had managed to create, they practically seemed to disperse across the Ishim's armor plating. Streaks of particles flowed behind the Ishim and struck the land behind them, causing explosions that tossed numerous Pluma's forward. Any that were hit by beams didn't have the same kind of luck as the Ishim. The Pluma's managed to dilute the power of the mega particle beams, but were ultimately overwhelmed and destroyed in a flurry of explosions. The Ishim themselves were not left unscathed, but nor were they dead. Their armor was scorched black, the colorless paint that had once adorned them stripped away by the beams. There were holes in the armor that had been melted, exposing the innards of the beasts, some of which were not entirely intact. One of the three, which had been previously struck and hastily repaired, ultimately collapsed and shut down due to important parts that had been melted.

The fourth Ishim, the one that had been assaulted by the Zanzibar and shielded by the Pluma's, faired only slightly better. The ship-mounted mega particle beams slammed into the disc of Pluma's almost as soon as it had been formed. Beams flowed across their metal carapaces and scattered all around the Ishim. However, the sheer power of the beams inevitably punched through the Pluma's and washed over the Ishim. The blinding light soon faded away, revealing a charred Ishim amidst a mountain of Pluma's that had been turned into slag. Unlike its brethren, this one didn't have any obvious holes in its armor or internal structural damage, but it had lost all of its nanolaminate paint in the process. On top of that, a majority of the Pluma's that had been created up until now had been lost in that massive assault, leaving a total of 25 Pluma's remaining in addition to the four Ishim which had taken a beating.

All of the explosions caused by the beams created a massive cloud of dust and debris that had washed over the mobile armors, obscuring them from view. Before the dust could clear on its own, two beams streamed out of the debris cloud. One swept right while the other swept left. The blast from the beams blew away the cloud, revealing them to be covered in a few Pluma's each, sealing the holes and reapplying the nanolaminate coating as much as possible. Some Pluma's crawled over the body of the deceased Ishim, meticulously working away at its body. Whether they were stripping it for raw materials or attempting to repair it was unclear. The third remaining Ishim, the one that had taken the blast from the Zanzibar, had two Pluma's attempting to repaint it as well. However, this one did not try to fire despite being the least effected, it merely stared down the Marketdome forces.

The cheer that went up as one of the monstrosities collapsed filled the team's channel as the Ishim collapsed but the cry barely lasted a second before the remaining machines returned fire. Sweeping beams ripped across the desert, ripping through the desert sand as they sought out Marketdome's Defense Forces. Both teams scattered and abandoned their attempt at unit coherency to evade the attacks with roaring thrusters. Two suits fell, one slamming into the dirt after its lower body was incinerated while another was reduced to slag when it was caught entirely in the powerful beam. The Defense Force pilots advanced on the trio of remaining Ishim at their commander's direction and a new strategy. The nine remaining suits began to fire one after the other as they skirted the swarms of Pluma surrounding their larger targets and lit the morning sky with an almost continuous barrage from their twin beam cannons. Each shot was aimed at a separate part of the Ishim's body while some swept along the ground to clear the units that were both shielding and repairing the mobile armors.

The bridge of the Rustbucket was a scene of barely controlled chaos as Daine guided his ship around the edges of the conflict. Despite all of the competency the crewmembers showed, the Zanzibar was an aging ship and it was a constant struggle to keep the ship in the air. The MDF's second in command had just ordered the shutdown of one of the ship's four engines when an urgent call from his communications officer drew his attention. The big man leaned forward in his command chair with the expression of a man expecting more bad news as he demanded, "What is it? Engineering is trying to keep us in the air and our Commander is diving headlong into those monsters. If this is something from the 'Dome, I swear..."
"No sir," the officer cut in quickly, her eyes wide in surprise, "Its... reinforcements. Someone with the callsign Viridian from... Trident? He just arrived in the area in a mobile suit I don't recognize. I think he's here to help!"
Daine's eyes widened and a disbelieving grin. The man's booming laugh cut through the tense atmosphere as he dropped back in his seat and nodded. "Viridian isn't a callsign, its his name. He's the bodyguard for that supposed Queen the Commander took shopping a few days ago. Send that to my chair and send his codes by laser to our pilots."

The headset barely fit over the man's head as he pulled it on and rested one hand on the transmit button built into the arm of the command seat. "Viridian! Normally I'm supposed to chastise a civilian for interfering in a Defense Force operation but I think the Commander likes you so I'll let you off easy this time. We've got your codes and Kayla will have them in another few seconds. The situation is pretty much what you see on the ground. We've got those damned huge mobile armors and you've seen their beams. The support units are something else. My observers are saying they're repairing the big ones. We're sending you our IFF data now. Link up with the Commander."

Kayla was surprised that the mobile armors had ignored her head on charge. The Blossom raced across the sand as she neared the perimeter formed by the swarming Pluma's and it raised its cannon to fire when a contact that had been yellow, signalling an unidentified unit, changed to the bright green of a friendly on her radar. A terse update from the harried comm officer onboard her ship brought her up to speed and she allowed herself a small smile as the gatling cannon began to spin. "Glad you could make it," she said as she sent another barrage of cannon rounds into the massed Plumas around the mobile armors, "Please tell me you're packing some serious weaponry. These things are just ignoring my cannon."

A smirk crossed Viridian's lips at Daine's comment to him, settling comfortably in his seat as he observed the results of his initial attack. It seemed the things had two defenses on their hands: some sort of anti-beam coating that was working on overdrive, and those weird bugs that were hard at work keeping the monsters moving. The large wings of the Tallgeese flapped in sync with its many verniers flaring up to take it into the sky, where the mobile suit could improve its assault.

"Not serious enough, apparently," Viridian mused, based on how they reacted to his initial attack alongside the Defense Forces. "But I might not be trying hard enough. Let me get back to you, and don't get too close to those things, there's going to be a lot of particle wash."

Worst case scenario, he had the solution back on the Hekhal, but he wasn't sure that was worth it at the moment. He had more tools at his disposal, after all. Since the Blossom was targeting one in particular, it seemed a half-decent idea to really dump the pain onto that one particular unit. He was at a high angle of approach to the Ishim compared to the hovering Blossom, so he wasn't too concerned with hitting her as long as she didn't do anything unexpected. His pupils danced about, tracking the other bogeys on his HUD as he formulated his approach. The second target - the one nearest to Kayla's focus, currently being pummeled by repeated fire from the Defense Forces.

The wings of the Flugel flared as it began a sharp descent straight for the Ishim, in hopes to catch its attention. A flip of a switch commanded the reactor power to start flowing into the lance on its other arm, even as the Dober Gun came up once more to take aim at the beast. The trigger was pulled, and another wave of mega particles was blasted across the sky at the Mobile Armor. At this point, Viridian wasn't even sure an attack like that would do any lasting damage, but it would blind the thing's visual recognition equipment for at least a few seconds, giving Kayla more time to react. And maybe if her gatling cannon was enough to rip through the strange bugs, they could see how much focused fire could work on the things.

But that wasn't all Viridian had planned. Once the beam left the barrel, he jerked his body alongside the entirety of the Tallgeese itself. The Mobile Suit leaned left and its wings curled in, flares of thrust taking it into a wide barrel roll while maintaining most of its momentum. He brought the wings back open and cut his acceleration almost right above the second Ishim, the Dober Gun already humming as it dropped a second shot onto the Armor's head from above. Based on their shape and the fact no attacks had gone directly atop it thus far, he didn't expect this to be damaging. But the wash would likely be enough to shove the Pluma off it, and blind its cameras with a wall of pink as the attack peeled off like all the rest.

Gravity took hold of his multi-ton war machine as quickly as one would expect, dragging Viridian along with it as his organs felt like they were happy at the altitude he initially cut thrust at. It was a familiar feeling that did little to slow him down - he simply waited the full second it would take to get the acceleration of unaided descent going before tossing himself in the other direction in his seat and bringing the wings up in the opposite direction. The wings pulled tight, flared, and spun the Tallgeese 180 degrees mid-fall to face the back of the Ishim. Now needing to keep himself level, he targeted the Ishim as the particles were glassing the sand beneath its feet and brought the suit full bore. The waist-and-feet rockets worked to halt its fall as the wings shoved the Tallgeese forward. The Dober Gun was released to fall alongside its shoulder as the now-free hand rose up as a brace. The other gripped the Lance, now glowing orange from tip to vamplate, and pulled it back before thrusting forward to shove it right into the mobile armor with all the muscle the Tallgeese had to bear.

As the Blossom continued its advance towards the front-most Ishim, the Pluma's guarding it began to move up, leaving only a handful behind to surround the parent machine. They sped forward like bullets, taking up a formation that saw them zigzagging in front of one another. In an alternating manner, they began firing their front-facing railguns. Twenty Pluma's made up this formation, taking their turns firing as they moved side to side. Rounds from the Blossom's gatling cannon splashed across the armored carapace of the Pluma. Slowly, but surely the nanolaminate coating was chipping away. But the goal of the Pluma's was not to survive, but to simply draw fire away from the parent unit. The Ishim in control of them largely ignored the Blossom itself, instead focused on an incoming target that was moving at high speeds.

The Ishim rapidly sifted through its various scanners, nailing down every bit of information it could on the Flugel. It detected the massive amount of heat building up inside the machines gun, and did not take the threat lightly. It shift its thrusters to the side and darted out of the line of fire. The second Ishim that was nearby became the Flugel's second target. It had already received the data from its sibling unit and knew exactly what to look for. It was learning. It followed the Flugel with intense concentration. As soon as the Flugel stopped above it and the heat in the gun barrel rose, the Ishim prepped its thrusters, waiting for the shot to fire. As soon as it did the Ishim tipped its camera down and blasted backwards. watching the mega particle blast slam into the ground, busting the five Pluma that had been gathered around the machine. There was no time for it to stay still. Its sensors detected the Flugel directly behind it, having descended quickly. It turned to face its opponent and brought its super-hard claws to bare, unafraid of the lance. The thrusters kicked on and sent the Ishim charging towards it. However, the claws did not move to block or knock away the lance. Instead, the Ishim's tail whipped around and knocked into the Flugel's lance, hoping to either knock it away or hold it at bay, while the Ishim's right-hand claws lunged towards the Flugel. Off to the Flugel's right side, the first Ishim returned, rocketing forward, claws at the ready and tail whipping around behind it.

Meanwhile, the third and final standing Ishim had begun to engage the Marketdome forces that had been pinging the Pluma from the side. It burst through them, its super-hard tail targeting them indiscriminately. Leaving any survivors behind, the Ishim darted towards the Blossom, it's feet and thrusters propelling it at high speeds. It jumped into the air and lunged at the Blossom, left-hand claws moving in towards the machine.

The Blossom threw its legs forward and the aging suit's frame groaned in protest as the powerful hoverjets violently slowed the unit's forward momentum and avoid most of the oncoming railgun shots. Kayla's teeth slammed together as she was thrown against the straps of her harness and she tasted copper as pain shot through her, both from the inevitible bruising along her torso and, she belatedly realized, from where she'd bitten her tongue during the desperate manuever. A desperate cry for help followed by the panicked shouts of the men in one of her squads halted her before she could resume her charge and Kayla whipped her head to her left monitor even as she sprayed the advancing Plumas with another sustained burst from the roaring machine cannon mounted on the Blossom's arm. What she saw was a scene straight from her nightmares.

The Ishim had little trouble carving through the King GMs when it closed within range. How it had shrugged off so many beam cannon shots would remain a mystery but somehow, either through superb engineering or magic, it had. It's deadly tail shredded all but one of the squad it assaulted with all of the calculating brutality of a machine built for destruction... then it turned towards her. Kayla's eyes met the glowing cameras of the Ishim and time stopped. She'd heard of the phenomenoma before, always recounted with just enough variation to make her believe it was a myth. Some small part of her mind still believed it even as she stared at the towering mobile armor backlit by the smouldering remains of her men and a rising crimson sun. After all, she was about to die and her life wasn't flashing before her eyes.

Kayla felt numb and she couldn't make her hands work the Blossom's controls as the Ishim began its charge towards her. The MDF commander's vision narrowed until she could only see the advancing mobile armor and she found that, for the first time since the skirmish began, she couldn't think of anything else save her impending death. She had felt so helpless, so powerless, at one other point in her life; When the Black Guard had captured her in orbit above the very planet she had come to call home. Terror made her arms tremble as death came for her over the cool morning sand and with that fear came clarity. There was no sound of shattering glass or a helpful mental image to let the woman know what happened in her mind as fear threatened to overwhelm the struggling sense of security she had built for herself. There was no massive release of power and Kayla made no audible cry other than a startled gasp as the world snapped into focus and with focus came clarity as her pupils dialated to tiny black pinpricks set against the vivid green of her irises. She slammed all of her terror and all of her doubt into a small locked box and let her knowledge of machines fill the void it left behind. She was keenly aware of the strain on the Blossom's reactor, hyper aware of what each minute shudder meant for the joints and mechanisms of her own war machine. More importantly, she had a plan.
The Blossom shot towards the advancing mobile armor with all of the acceleration its hoverjets could provide, the massive plume of sand rising behind it and the audible scream of turbines heralding its approach. Kayla's hands flew across buttons that were never meant to be used in combat as the Ishim came into range and lunged with one wicked claw. The Blossom jumped off the ground and spun, back thrusters roaring in protest against a weight they were never meant to lift, legs angling just so to bring the modified Gundam just inside the Ishim's reach with it's back facing the monstrous machine. Metal screamed as the machine cannon's barrel was ripped away but Kayla barely noticed the shudder that rumbled through her mobile suit or the alarms that began blaring. One final switch was toggled and the massive ammo canister detached from the Blossom's back and fell into the mobile armor's face. Kayla completed her spin and stared at her opponent, allowing herself a split second in the tranquil precision that possessed her to sneer in disgust.

"Now fall," she growled as the Blossom's shoulder mounted beam guns fired, aimed for the ammo canister and not the mobile armor itself. The large ammo drum, still more than half full of high explosive rounds the size of a grown man's legs, detonated against the Ishim's head and upper torso with the roar of an angered beast. The pressure wave slammed the Blossom back into the ground and sent it skidding across the desert as a cloud of sand and debris rocketed into the sky to mark the detonation. Kayla rocked in her cockpit as that wave of condensed air punched her in the chest and made it impossible to breath for a second even as her body moved to steady the now disarmed Blossom.

Then she was moving again, only pausing to scoop up a pair of spiked shields from the ruins that had once been a squad of her men, and the Blossom roared in towards the Ishim engaged with Viridian.

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