Xenogears: Ragnarok

Chapter 3

"And this time, Mr. Stamper, could you please kill the bastards!?" –Carver, Tomorrow Never Dies

***

"The Invincible has launched 10 more Gears, including two Calamities!" Bob shouted into the comm.

Upon hearing this, Jason's heart almost stopped. He had heard of the destructive power of a Calamity Gear from Bart. Apparently, Bart and Fei had run into one of the giant Gears underneath the desert. Jason later got a visual display of the destructive power of such a gear, when Seibzehn and Achtzehn fought over Shevat.

"Stay as far away from the Calamities as possible, and keep moving north!" Jason told Bob, as Jason fired a couple of rockets at an oncoming Hatamoto Mk3. The enemy Gear took one hit to the left leg, and moved back out of range, while it's escape was covered by two Neo Musha Mk100s The Gebler Gears sent machine gun bullets towards Grim Reaper, and scored several hits on the Gear's center torso. Jason fought for control of his Gear as the bullet impacts shook Grim Reaper around. It's like a grab bag of almost every Gear widely used by a military force, Jason thought, All that's missing is…

A Duermod holding a sub machine gun made a charge at Jason. Well, now I know that Gebler didn't build the Gears in the hangar, Jason thought as he shot at the oncoming Gear with his pulse lasers. The Duermod took the pulse lasers in the chest, armor boiling away. Jason followed up with three rockets, the last one piercing the Deurmod's fusion core. The Gear exploded in a powerful blue-white fireball.

"Thank god I didn't steal that Gear!" Jason laughed. Then he saw the lead Calamity accelerating directly towards him. Then Jason noticed he was 50 feet from the ground, so he landed and started running. Next to him, he saw Bob was doing the same. Despite this however, the Calamity was gaining on them, as were the other 10 Gears.

***

From behind a ridge, Citan was witnessing the battle only 1 mile away. Next to him stood the gears of Billy and Maria.

"What do you think?" Billy asked Citan

"Well, the two gears are displaying a friendly IFF code Bart used to use before taking the throne back. On the other hand, the 10 gears attacking them are displaying Gebler IFF codes. My guess is that we should try to help the two friendlies." Citan responded. With that he activated Fenrir's boosters and flew towards the raging battle. Renmazuo II and Seibzehn following close behind.

***

Jason's threat indicator gave off a wailing siren as the lead Calamity locked its weapons on him. He decided to at least face death head on, and turned to face his attacker. All of a sudden, a green and white Gear with a Katana rushed at the Calamity. Almost too fast to see, the mystery gear brought its Katana across the Calamity's torso in an impressive draw cut. A second later, the torso of the enemy Gear split open and exploded, it's fusion core breached. The other Calamity fired missiles at Bob's gear, only to be blocked by a massive dark blue gear similar to a Calamity. Jason recognized it as Seibzehn. The blue gear fired it's own set of missiles, immolating the enemy gear. Then, a black gear that looked strikingly similar to Renmazuo flew in and finished the second Calamity off with twin pistol shots to the head. The black gear then went to combat the other Gebler Gears as they flew to attack the three new threats.

Jason's communicator beeped. "This is Colonel Citan Uzuki of the Fatima Heavy Guards, identify yourself!" came a voice. Jason found it was coming from the green and white sword-wielding gear.

"Dr. Uzuki!" Jason shouted, "Man, am I glad to see you."

"And you are?" Citan asked

"This is Leftenant Jason MacKenzie of the Sand Pirates 1st Gear Division, formerly commanded by General Maytriea."

"Leftenant MacKenzie disappeared over 2 years ago." Citan said

"I was captured by Gebler, it's a long story. Right now I'd like to get rid of these 8…no 7 Gears still trying to kill me and my friend in Renmazuo. The last part about the gears was because Seibzehn downed one of the Neo Musha Mk. 100s.

"Who is your friend, and what is he doing in my old gear?" Billy suddenly cut in "And furthermore, why have the 7 remaining Gebler gears stopped trying to attack us?"

"Well, first of all," Bob said "I think they're waiting for us to finish the explanation of why I'm here, and why Jason is here. Secondly, I am Bob Smithson, I used to be training as an Etone, but when the Ethos was attacked, I was captured and sent to the same work camp as Jason. We escaped from a Gebler battleship, and to do that we stole two Gears. Jason stole that Gear, which I believe he aptly calls Grim Reaper, while I stole Renmazuo, which was inside the battleship's hangar for some reason."

"All right, we'll have to go over this in detail later, but for now, we need to get rid of the enemy." Citan said as he boosted towards the enemy Gears. The other 4 gears followed suit. The Gebler forces were no match for the 5 gears, and were soon destroyed.

"Okay, we should take you back to Bledavik so that you can find out just exactly what has been going on for the last two years, and so that you can explain why there were Gebler forces attacking you." Citan said to Jason and Bob

"Why would that be odd?" Jason asked as they started flying back towards Bledavik

"Because Solaris and Gebler have been destroyed for two years now." Was Citan's only response.