MS Gundam Wing: Revolution
Book Three, Part Eleven
Akio Ohtori smiled as he watched men and women die at the weapons of his Mobile Dolls. There was something profoundly... satisfying seeing years of effort come to fruition.
Maya, the head of his bridge crew, was monitoring the combat. "Mobile Doll losses are higher than expected," she reported, "we're losing two Dolls to every allied kill."
"That's still within acceptable numbers," Akio noted dryly.
"Yes sir," Maya agreed.
"WING ZERO sighted!" Yuki called.
Akio leaned forward excitedly. He knew, on a deep level, that he and Wing Zero would duel. He in the Epyon, Utena in the Zero. It HAD to happen...
"There's something odd about it's profile," Maya noted, frowning. "Zoom in."
Zero had already deployed it's Twin Buster canons, interestingly. And it was carrying a LOT of extra power packs.
"Why...?" Akio blinked.
Maya paused, then cursed loudly. "SHIT," she yelped.
"WHAT?" Akio demanded.
"The power packs are tied to the Buster Cannons," Maya explained, "they're overpowering them for one huge discharge. They'll likely only be able to do it once but..."
"It could decimate our Mobile Dolls," Akio realized. "Get them to evade!"
"Too late," Yuki said flatly as the gun discharged.
The huge stream of raw power swept across a chunk of the battlefield, a cone of destruction that burned away all the metal and electronics in its path. A huge swath of Mobile Dolls were just GONE, erradicated in one moment.
"Holy shit...," Maya muttered.
"Repositioning Mobile Dolls," Yuki started to input commands.
On cue Wing Zero released the extra power packs, then it and the four other Gundams raced through the gap, running towards Libra at top speed.
Flatly Akio said, "Can we intercept them?"
"Working on it...," Yuki started to say, then a LOUD security alarm wailed.
"What NOW?" Akio snarled.
"Patching into internal security," a frazzled looking Hikari noted.
They were operating Libra with a small crew, much less than the huge ship really needed. They had to rely heavily on the automated systems, and honestly the women weren't that good at their various jobs. Still, they tried.
"UNE. That bitch!" Hikari yelped.
"What?" Maya demanded.
"She's escaped from medical... and attacked the command center for the Mobile Dolls. We've lost direct control, they're all on autopilot now," Hikari revealed. That had killed the Zero sytstem connection, too... the Dolls would be reverting to base settings.
"Well, the Dolls will do what they can," Akio took that surprisingly calmly. He rose from his seat, "I will face the pilots in Epyon, along with the reserve Dolls."
"Yes sir!" the women chorused.
"Hold the other Gundams off with Libra's cannons and the main gun," Akio declared as he strode off, "I believe in you."
"SIR!" the women repeated.
Akio's uniform shimmered, becoming a flight suit as he headed to the elevators. Clearly he should have killed Une when he had the chance...
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
"Holy SHIT is that thing big," Duo Maxwell noted, his Deathscythe racing along with the other Gundams.
"Just a bigger target," Trowa Barton noted. The laconic pilot of Heavyarms was already plotting where he would shoot it up.
"Do we have a plan?" Wu Fei asked, piloting the Shen-Long.
"We let Wing Zero kick Akio's ass," Quatre said with a shrug.
"HEY! Why me, damn it?!" Juri demanded, the pilot of Wing Zero running system checks. She was certain some systems were fried by the big Twin Buster shot/
"Because Akio has the Epyon, which is a sort of dragon. OF COURSE he's going to want to fight the angel, Wing Zero," Quatre said reasonably.
"Uh huh," and "Yep" both Trowa and Duo agreed.
Juri cursed softly even as they saw the Libra deploy a small swarm of it's Mobile Dolls. "Incoming!" she yelled.
"There's Epyon," Duo noted.
It quickly became evident that the Dolls were targeting the others, while Epyon was chasing Wing Zero.
"I hate it when the rest of you are right," Juri muttered as they bobbed and weaved in combat.
"Damn it, I wanted to fight Epyon!" Wu-fei complained as he demolished a Doll.
Juri ignored the conversations. The Zero System in her Gundam gave her enhanced concentration and focus, but it was easy to lose control. Epyon had a matching system, so Juri HAD to stay on top of it.
Beam sabers flared as they fought back a forth, Akio having a advantage, then Juri. They would fight closely, break apart, then shoot at each other as they gracefully dodged.
A communication request came through, and Juri hit accept. Akio's face appeared on the screen, the handsome man frowning, "You."
"Me," Juri agreed cheerfully.
That seemed to piss off Akio more, as he growled out, "Where is Utena?"
"Who knows?" Juri said airily. "Clearly she can't be bothered with you. Maybe she and Anthy are out on a date," Juri suggested.
Akio clenched his jaw, "Do not mock me."
After talking with Anthy, Juri had figured Akio had cared about his sister, in a possessive, controlling way. "I mean, they OBVIOUSLY no longer care," Juri added, "why else would they send me and the other Gundam pilots."
"Shut up," Akio growled.
"You'tr just a left over problem for other people to solve," Juri added.
"SILENCE!" Akio howled as he attacked wildly.
Juri fought back a smirk. An angry fighter was a careless fighter, as they say...
0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0
The united forces against the Mobile Doll force was a grinding sort of battle. Once the Zero System cut out, the Dolls went to automatic systems. They fought dumb, but there was a LOT of them.
Noin piloted her Tallgeese through the mayhem, beam saber in one hand, rifle in the other. The ace pilot was more often than not assisting others, distracting the Dolls so others could go in for the kill.
"NOIN!" an angry voice cut into her communications.
"Dorothy," Noin recognized the voice instantly, "are we going to settle things, finally? Though this isn't really the time."
Dorothy ignored that, "Did you know the Gundams were going to take off to fight Libra alone?"
"Of course. We planned it out," Noin agreed cheerfully.
"But WHY?" Dorothy demanded.
Noin snorted, "It should be obvious."
"Oh?" Dorothy asked.
(Incidentally even as they talked both pilots were casually dodging and shooting down Dolls. It was eerie, how both women were doing it almost on reflex, while focusing on their conversation.)
"EVERYONE wants to seize the Libra intact and then use it for themselves," Noin said to her bluntly, "including you. The Colonies don't want to be worrying about that forever, so they decided to take steps."
Dorothy blinked, "Ah."
In fact, Dorothy knew Treise had intended to use Libra against Earth to try to force global unity. But admittedly the Colonies couldn't have known that. And otherwise, she had to admit she was pretty much right.
"So," Noin asked coldly, "is it time for that re-match?"
Dorothy sighed. Not that she really could blame Noin for hating her guts... "Not really the time, hmm?" she drawled. "We can meet once this is all over."
"It's a date," Noin said.
Dorothy and her calmly shot down the nearest mobile dolls, then raced off to fight elsewhere. Almost at the same toime each though of the other, 'She's GOOD.'
To be continued...
Notes: End of Juri/Akio fight next chapter, probably. Need to rescue Une from Libra, or possibly kill her off. Haven't decided yet. Then wrap up chapter, probably...