Gundam-fall: Changing Fate

Episode 36: Fight for Flight

A/N: Sorry I took so long everybody, to make a long story short, I have a job I hate now (which I was forced to get) that eats my time and things have been getting rough for me at home. I know this chapter might not be as good as usual but I'm doing my best with what time I can spare.

-LATER: WITH COOPER-

Cooper and his team were busying themselves with prep work, checking over their MS units from top to bottom for the next battle in case the KARABA held airfield, Hickory, would be attacked when they landed. As he checked over BT's systems, the beleaguered leader of the motley band of advanced warfighters was still thinking over how he'd accepted Katz's voluntary decision to receive training. Something bugged the hardened militia pilot when it came to being an instructor, it was certainly not a job he'd never seen himself doing at any point when he enlisted. Being a career soldier on the frontlines fighting for colonial independence against the IMC, was in his opinion, a noble profession. But to be embroiled in civil war and training kids how to fight, it didn't sit right with him, but he understood that it was a better decision than allowing the youngsters to get themselves killed when it could be prevented. He was only a few years older than them, yet here he was, a hardened warfighter with a team of pilots at his side, fighting to end this civil war and go home. He stopped for a brief moment and sighed, thinking over Simon's own words to him, and reasoned once more that it was a necessary call, whether it was right or not, he'd have to figure that out for himself.

The ladies of Cooper's team were having a moment to chat with each other, both of them briefly snickered, whatever it was about, it seemed… personal. The veteran looked out of his cockpit to see Simon the simulacrum sitting in meditative position on top of his titan, all while the sound of CCR 'Bad Moon Rising' played over MT's speaker system. That crazy tin-head was certainly an oddball if Cooper had ever seen one, being goofy one moment and capable of deadly seriousness the next. He had to respect the guy though, he certainly proved himself to be a loyal friend and a true patriot to the Militia's cause. Of course when it came to friendship, nothing would beat his partner BT.

"Cooper, I detect a fault in subsystem 27-Alpha, the user interface uplink module." The trusty vanguard AI directed his pilot to the faulty system.

"Got it BT, just let me make a quick… *huff* adjustment… *CREAK* *CLICK* There, how's that?" Cooper said as he twisted a few bolts and spliced some wires.

"My scan shows system efficiency restored to 100%." BT reported.

"Good, now what's next on-" Cooper started to ask but was interrupted by a loud commotion.

*SNAP!*

"OW! That's not my wrench!" Simon shouted in pain from a large rat trap that clamped onto his metal hand as it reached into the toolbox.

"Hah serves you right bolt for brains!" Serah pointed and laughed at the metal man's pain.

"As ironically funny as this is, and I'm dying from it, believe me, …how can tin-head feel pain?" Lin said in confusion between her own fits of laughter, wiping a tear of humor from her eye.

"Experimental nerve tech, that's how! Don't say anything MT!" Simon retorted and then looked up at his mobile suit's head.

"I have yet to say anything, pilot."

"I know what you're thinking big guy! So not a damn word!"

"…You did have that coming with your behavior towards the female pilots."

"So I take one innocent little picture-!" Simon griped, about to chalk it up to karma when a certain beautiful blonde interrupted him.

"Of me naked in the shower, to sell, you perverted cyber prick!" Serah snapped with her fist shaking at her sides.

"Of course you realize, this means war." Simon said to the angered 6-4 pilot as his hand twitched and sparked.

"You started it bolt face!" The legionnaire shot back.

"Might I say as to whom one of my buyers would be…" Simon said as turned his head towards Lin whose cheeks went bright red and started profusely sweating under her helmet and gear. If the simulacrum had a face, he'd be grinning with the thought of revenge at who spilled the beans. Lin quickly turned on her helmet's mute function and spoke over the radio to Simon.

"Don't you dare!" Lin threatened over the radio. "Tell her and I blow you to bits."

"Then-" Simon started to retort but he was cut off.

"Hey knock it off!" Cooper shouted to his team.

"Oh hey Coop, we were just-" Simon replied but was interrupted once again.

"Whatever it is, it ends now. We'll be landing soon so all of you knock it off, and finish whatever adjustments you need to make. Like you said Simon, we're professionals, so let's act like it while we're on the clock! We're not getting paid by the hour! Hooah?!" Cooper said firmly, putting his foot down and snapping his team into shape. He had a feeling another fight was around and decided it was time for a slight pep talk to his team.

"Hooah!" The team replied with salutes.

"Good, now let's show the AEUG and KARABA guys how we hustle back home!" Cooper said proudly as he raised his fist in the air.

"Yes sir!" The motley crew of pilots said proudly. Cooper could honestly say it felt good to have a proud moment like amongst all the drama. It was up to him to lead them, that meant putting on a brave face and shoving his own troubles aside for them. He looked upwards to the titans, and the mighty war machines nodded their heads and voiced their approvals.

As the now veteran titan pilot stood back for moment, beaming under his helmet with pride, he looked over to see Katz hanging out with Kamille at the MK.2. The older boy seemed to be taking a more relaxed approach with the newest addition to Cooper's tutelage appeared to be getting along well in a surprisingly short time. From what Cooper could see, Kamille had forgiven Katz for what he'd done earlier, and with the current situation being what it is, the secretly daunted hero of typhon was grateful for a peaceful coexistence between his two students. As he thougt of those two, another thought crossed his mind about Kamille's friend Fa Yuiry. He couldn't help having an inkling of her wanting to join in battle as well eventually and if necessary when it came to pass he'd have to train her as well. He shoved that aside as he listened to their conversation, eventually Quattro showed up and mentioned something about space. Now the mention of outer space had definitely grabbed Cooper's attention immediately, reminding him that this would be their second chance to get back into orbit and return to the Argama.

-LATER-

After a few more well spent moments of tune up time, the pilots were preparing to launch once more and be ready to either leave for space or battle it out to defend those who could escape. Katz had been allowed to ride with Amuro in his Rick Dias and the one year war veteran promised Cooper and Hayato he'd keep Katz safe. All the members of Cooper's team had their suits ready to mobilize with each one suited up and ready for the chaos of combat. It was a moment of excellence in the titan-verse pilot's time with the AEUG as they moved their units into a well ordered formation, standing side by side with their weapons primed. The AEUG and Karaba members watched with a sense of awe at how elite the team presented themselves at that moment, bringing an aura of confidence to the four heroic pilots.

"Comm check, Cooper. Alright everyone ready?" Cooper asid over the radio to his team.

"Affirmative Cooper. This is Lin, thrusters are hot and flight systems are green, over." Lin answered, flaring the Polaris's thrusters.

"Serah checking in, minigun is loaded and the barrel is primed." The legionnaire said as the gun barrels spun.

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your friendly neighborhood simulacrum, you know me, you love me, Simon!" The simulacrum said bombastically as he pulled out the beam rifle.

"Simon's jokes aside, let's show them how it's done people." Cooper said professionally.

"Hey Coop, I can't help but notice they don't have shuttles for all of our suits again. Is it me or does it seem like the writer is being lazy? Wonder why he's taking his sweet time." Simon broke the fourth wall.

"What was that Simon? There's some *hiss* interference." Cooper tried confirm his teammate's status.

"I said- *ZAP* Yeeeouch!" Simon started to reply but an electrical surge tripped his nerve system, causing him pain. "Damn it, I thought I fixed that! MT did you do that?!"

"Negative pilot, that was due to a lack of maintenance." MT replied nonchalantly.

"Focus Simon, and quit jamming up the channel!" Lin berated the tin headed cyborg.

"Roger that. Looks like Serah and I will have to stay up here since there's not much room for us all on that shuttle and I know there's no way we're leaving our partners behind." Simon stated.

"You two get out of formation then and stay up here to provide support. Lin with me, 30 seconds!" Cooper said over the radio as the Serah and Simon stepped aside while the two other gundam hybrid suits crouched into a launch position. A timer appeared on their HUDs alerting them to the approaching drop zone over the allied base. The timer quickly reached zero and then Cooper suddenly gave out the command to deploy. "Launch, now!" He shouted over the radio, and like a well-oiled machine two of the four Gundam units deployed in almost perfect synchronization with each other. Suddenly a moment after launching, Cooper and Serah felt a strange sensation of some sort and they could feel the presence of a deployed, yet still unaware enemy force.

"Cooper-!" SErah tried to alert her comrade/leader.

"I know Serah, it's them." The veteran militia pilot replied.

"Let me guess, your spider senses tingling?" Simon said comically.

"You could say that." Serah said with a vain of frustration appearing on her forehead.

"Things are about to get sporty." Lin said coolly.

"Just watch your balls." Simon said with a hint anticipation.

"All friendly channels this is major Cooper, part of my team will engage and distract the enemy. We'll buy you all some time to load the other mobile suits, Cooper out." The typhon veteran said over his radio to the rest of the friendly forces, he then swapped channels to his team's frequency. "Lin, you and I will take care of the fighting up here, Simon, you and Serah know what to do aboard the transport. Am I clear?"

"Understood." Lin said coolly as she lined up beside Cooper, then the two of them dropped Serah and Simon to the ground.

"We'll get it done Coop." Simon replied, as he and Serah engaged aimed their weapons out of the hangar door.

Cooper and Lin put more power into their thrusters and zoomed towards the enemy strike team. The typhon veteran threw out a barrage of X016 rounds at an enemy mobile suit on a fight sled, getting the enemy force's attention. He then gracefully dodged a group of poorly aimed retaliatory beam strikes from several enemy Hizack suits. The buster's weapons were then holstered and a beam saber was drawn, in a flash Cooper sliced a Hizack in half, not even giving its pilot a moment to react. Even more beam strikes were directed at him as he cranked the thrusters into a higher output level to avoid them. He holstered his saber and drew the tracker cannon, firing a group of explosive flak rounds in the enemy's general direction. The explosives caused major damage to the enemies they hit directly, even tearing off a mobile suit's arm at it shoulder joint. One suit suffered a cascade of system failures and lit on fire before its engine went critical and caused a fiery explosion in the sky. Without a moment of hesitation, Cooper flew off to battle more enemy units, carving a path of destruction in his wake.

Meanwhile, Lin was doing far more than just holding her own in huge air battle. Getting a bead on some enemy units, she held down the trigger and let go, discharging her railgun at max charge. The high powered shot tore straight through two unlucky Hizack units, causing them to erupt more spectacular explosions. She whipped around discharged a round at a Hizack that was about to try and surprise Cooper. Just as the Hizack pulled the trigger on its beam rifle, the offending arm was reduced to slag and bits of scrap. The pilot rotated his mobile suit's head just to barely miss getting sliced cleanly through by a beam saber with a graceful yet devasting display of the awe inspiring power of a Gundam-Titan hybrid. Lin holstered her plasma railgun, swapping it out for her suit's beam rifle, and fired a highly precise beam rifle shot at an enemy near Amuro's Rick Dias. In the span of seconds, the suit lit on fire just after the beam cut through it, making it fall from the sled, straight down to the ground below and blowing to bits. She then looked to her core meter and saw that the barrage was almost ready for use. The Polaris sniper then caught up to cooper who was duking it out against an Ashimar Mobile suit.

The two machines exchanged weapons fire at each other but Cooper using his suit's speed and maneuverability in the air to his advantage, outpacing the enemy unit now that he was prepared for it. Unfortunately he would be unable to use the salvo core as it stood a high chance of leaving him exposed in the situation and would save it for the right moment to use the barrage if it came. Since his core wasn't an option at the moment, he then decided it was time to be unpredictable and slammed a downward kick onto the hull of the beetle like mobile suit. The enemy war machine transformed and grappled with the Buster as they erratically flew through the burning skies. Cooper kept up his assault and kneed the enemy suit in its torso, knocking the pilot around somewhat like bug in a jar. The enemy pilot's retaliation was a heavy metal fist to Cooper's head and a follow up punch that was countered accordingly. Cooper broke off his battle with the Ashimar and the enemy pilot was about to chase after him but a quick low power shot from Lin sent the transformable mobile suit downward. Knowing he was outgunned, the enemy pilot made a tactical choice and abandoned his fight against the two airborne Gundam units, only for a third Gundam to join the fight, a standard MK 2 unit, Kamille's mobile suit.

Kamille valiantly flew into the dogfight to aid Cooper and Lin against the federation forces despite the perilous odds. He fired his gundam's bazooka at the gold and green mobile suit resulting in a decent effect as the warhead exploded on impact, but the enemy suit had some thick armor protecting it. The rookie pilot remembered his previous battle with the large gold machine and made sure to keep his distance from it. A beam blast raced from his rifle towards the enemy suit, but he missed as the federation junk heap used its maneuverability to dodge the shot. An exchange of weapons fire ensued between the two of them as the student did what he could to aid his teacher in the air battle. The rookie did his best to battle the enemy pilot and avoid any further close up fighting as he had learned from his previous mistakes when battling the powerful enemy suit. If he was left with no choice but to fight this guy up close though, he wouldn't hesitate to take down his opponent in defense of himself and his fellow rebel pilots.

Maintaining his cool in battle as Cooper had taught him, Kamille continued his struggle against the federation suit but it was getting to be a very intense situation for him to handle on his own. The enemy unit then landed a lucky hit on him and he began to lose altitude rapidly, but he was then caught by Amuro who had flown back to join in as well after he'd dropped off Katz to Quattro. The two of them then worked together to face down the Ashimar while they were aboard the sled, with Amuro directing the rookie on where to place his bazooka shots. Kamille didn't question the veteran and fired where and when he'd been told to, and he actually managed to hit the enemy mobile suit. Amuro then followed up Kamille's bazooka blast with a burst of rounds from the Rick Dias's secondary machine guns, damaging the enemy unit's main camera system. With all that brutal damage done, the Ashimar finally had no briefly retreats and seemingly disappears.

After the enemy unit had fled to safety and most of the federation assault force had been repelled for now, the scattered group of pilots made their way back to the Audhumla. Upon their return to the immediate proximity of the Karaba transport, they bore witness to a storm of defensive fire that was erupting from the airship's hangar. During the battle Serah and Simon were keeping themselves busy, holding the tide of enemy units back with their coordinated AA fire. Although, despite some decent aiming from Simon on his end, most of the heavy lifting was being done by Serah's hulkingly powerful minigun. The smart core had deadly effectiveness in this situation as federation suits were being torn apart by sheer power of the gun, combined with fact that its rounds were being guided towards the target for lethal accuracy. To say Simon was a bit salty at that moment was an understatement, the fact that he couldn't perform at his best since this was a dogfight in atmosphere sucked for him. But being the big picture guy he is, the simulacrum did his part and kept on taking down the enemy pilots all the same. With enough time having passed and the battle neared its end, the remaining enemy suits that weren't blown to scorched bits of metal began to break off their pursuit. Their newfound motivation to flee was out of fear of death from the storm of gunfire that they simply weren't equipped to deal with. One of the remaining enemy suit that was foolish enough to keep attacking, had its backpack sliced off by a determined Amuro in a show of his old skills coming back, and subsequently blew up a moment later. Out of nowhere the Ashimar returns in one last ditch attempt to destroy Kamille's gundam MK.2 but is swiftly destroyed thanks to a quick save by Amuro, which Cooper would be grateful for. With the battle over, all the allied suits returned to the transport's hangar, their pilots eager to rest up, rearm, and plan the next move.

-END CHAPTER-