Chapter 29
The pelican shook from the sudden acceleration, and while we were able to take off on our own, the catapults would let us save precious amounts of fuel for the oncoming battle. I saw from the cargo bay's cameras that the other occupants were shaking from the forces imparted on them. The seat orientation did little to help.
From behind us, I could see that the rest of my forces had followed. The larger Condors soon overtook my bird. Their larger and more numerous engines flaring as they pushed themselves far beyond what my passengers could handle. I let them, their energy shielding would be essential to our operations.
The Harten Flight Units were next, followed closely by the Berkuts. Their own speed just above mine, but their avionic would let them maneuver like they didn't weight tons or had an irregular shape. They would keep Bixi's attention away from us.
From behind me, the other pelicans and the massive frames of the Thunderbolts and the Avengers. Those monsters had been fitted the extra-large Jump Units. The Plasma engines powered by the Greater Shard of Thunder dedicated solely to their operation shone like stars, but despite the power, the Avengers were still massive 20-meter-tall machines, so they flew like rocks. Well, no, more like meteors. Once the Condors were in position, they would stablish our perimeter and let the lighter units harass Bixi in peace.
The distance seemed so large in paper, but having the larger units create enough draft for us to follow meant that we were at Jacksonville in a few minutes. We knew we were close enough when the large beam of pink energy was split by the Condors' shields. As we split into our units, I caught a glimpse through the eye watering beam.
Beasts, as far as I could see, there were beasts. This far from Bixi and there were no inches where a monster wasn't standing. As soon as we flew close to them, all their heads snapped to glare at us. They wanted us dead.
Be it far from me to return the sentiment.
I got the confirmation that the Condors had reached their positions. The Hartens and the Berkuts were beginning thinning operations, and soon the Avenger would land to create our stage.
The beachhead was ready before we arrived, and I saw the mechs firing without stop, creating a circle of death around where the Avengers began landing. The Pelicans offloaded their cargo and I kept to the air behind the forming barriers.
I forgot to mention, the Pelicans participating in this operation were all Gunships. All except mine.
The roar of artillery and autocannons took over any sound there might have once been in this city. Clear of any friendly unit but themselves, the mechs tore apart the horde with fully automatic fire. Flash-forged shells and energy bullets ripped through whatever hide the Honkai put in front of them. Catapults were located and detonated among the maximum number of their kind the mech could find. Fire, frost and other weird effects began dotting the city amidst the explosions.
And Bixi turned its head to us, it fired its beam at the first Avenger it saw. The Avenger's shield popped to reality in front of it and the angle was just enough to make the beam shoot towards the sky instead. The machine's jump units flared as they fought to stop the Avenger from being sent flying, as we now knew that it was both a laser and a particle beam combined. But the TSA held and soon the beam faded out, the machine vented heat as the surrounding light units opened fire on the horde coming for their exhausted teammate.
While all this happened, the other Avengers hadn't been idle. The firepower hitting Bixi would have leveled the state twice over. I knew the theoretical limits of the armaments I had helped bring to life but seeing them in action was impressive. The Shoulder mounted 120mm Shotrisers had a slower rate of fire, but the power they hit with was just…. Damn.
Yet Bixi's shell was unscratched, expected but, what the hell.
I saw the indicators that brought one of the best parts of this plan. We needed to clear all the Honkai -beasts from this area, so we needed an AoE weapon of something to clear them out in one go. And I had prepared just the thing for this.
You see, the original EML-99X had two parts. The cannon and the shell container. So we worked with that format. The Cooling technology from Freezing Bear was used for the Cannon, the Electromagnetic rails were made of Hiden Space Alloys, the barrel was covered in the same photonic laminate the Shotrisers used. The backpack had an improved flash printer. The Gun part had a Greater Shard of Thunder as a power source, the ammo pack had a Lesser one to feed the forger.
It was bulky, slapdash and it needed further refinements, but as the Berkuts carrying the weapon landed around us, I knew I made a good choice. MuvLuv's thinning operations were very, very good against the Honkai. Even better when there were no friendlies around to get in the way.
Some debris from the battlefield began floating as the enormous magnetic fields grew. Some stray lightning covered the railguns and began making contact with the earth, scorching wherever they hit. The Honkai unfortunate enough to try and rush to the newest threat got carelessly shocked to death.
The next avenger was hit by Bixi's beam. And while the kaiju was occupied the other Avengers raised the own shields while the Berkuts lined up their shots. The shells loaded into the railgun were set to a mix of DU Armor Piercing and High Explosive, and the results showed. The horde between us and the Kaiju were vaporized into pink mist, then the 'beams' coming out of the railguns converged on Bixi's head… its mouth. With it still firing upon the Lone Avneger, Bixi was unceremoniously hit in the mouth by the rest of its brethen. The beam didn't stop immediately, but a lot of its focus was lost.
The Kaiju finally stopped its beam attack and roared in pain, allowing the Thunderbolts to unload their own brand of heavy firepower, all on the things mouth. More roars of pain came from it and I knew that it soon would be time.
Himeko let out a really cute yelp as I jerked the Pelican, turning away from Bixi. "Wait, Yinsen, where are we going?"
"Exactly where we need to go, everybody strap in! We're going in dry!" I shouted as I pushed on the throttle. The Pelican did an arc before accelerating towards the gigantic beast. The stream of bullets stopped for a second and if the beast's thoughts were able to be heard, I could see it wondering what was going on. Then our Pelican rammed thought its throat.
Shit got weird after that.
"What the fuck, what the actual fuck?"
"Bruh…"
"Oh, this is so much bullshit…"
Those were the main comments as I unloaded our weapon crates on the floor, the Pelican having landed safely. The Marines and Watchpoint had somehow figured out they could connect their Hud to the external cameras, and panic had ensued once they saw me accelerating towards Bixi. As would have happened in the future, inside the beast, there was what could tentatively be called a pocket universe.
Much like Chiyou would have in the future, the 'Sky' was a deep purple mixed with some neon colored 'stars', the ground was made of some rock I couldn't identify and there were some beasts wandering about on the other made of what appeared to be platforms made from squares ripped from the former city. And I mean whole squares with streets, buildings, cars and everything almost intact on their respective shards.
All of this should be impossible since it was razzed via particle beam, not eaten… unless… well shit. Unless the beam scanned everything it destroyed and then recreated it inside Bixi… hmm… "All right people! Welcome to Bixi City! Population: a fuck ton of beasts!" I swept my arm as if to show off the ginormous space residing inside Bixi. "Marines! On question! You guy were Kings Bay SFB?" Captain Jackson tuner to look at me with an inscrutable face, and simply nodded. "Great! Then you guys know how many Subs were killed there when this fucker we're inside burned the place to the bedrock?"
I saw the Captain struggle with answering me, loyalty to his mission fighting over the current situation, as I knew he knew why I wanted to know all this stuff. "The Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Pennsylvania made it out. We saw the Wyoming blow and we don't know about the Rhode Island or the Maryland." In knew he had known people on those subs from how tight his voice was. But now I felt a plan forming in my head.
"Alright then! Operation Nexus Leviathan phase two has begun! Next objective! Find any of the missing subs, then verify that at least one of the nukes is operational and prep it for transport. We find Bixi's main energy source, its heart, in other words, and set up a way for the nuke to blow as close to the heart as we can get it. If we can have more than one Trident on site, better for us." I could feel the stares of everyone on my, so I put on the Cycloneriser and let myself relax.
"CYLCONERISER!"
Having on the driver just felt right. Then in even voice I called for those that 'shouldn't' be here. "Ark, Zea, you girls ready?" I saw as the two 'stowaways' came out of the VTOL, clad in similar Armored Fortified suits fitted to their smaller size, which made them look like adorable juggernauts. The came to my sides and took out their own drivers.
"FORCERISER!"
I took out my Progrisekey and heard that satisfying voice.
"KAMEN RIDER!"
"JUMP!"
Huh, didn't Ark get the Scorpion Key? Eh, I'll ask later. I crossed my hands right in front of the buckle, as if holding something back from hitting me from below the belt. Then I raised my left hand, holding my key on it, in an angle to my right. We all inserted our keys into the drivers at the same time. The standby sounds began playing and we saw the Rider Models appear and begin their jumping around. We put our hands in the drivers and pulled the trigger.
"HENSHIN!"
"CYLCONERISE!"
"FORCERISE!"
My cry was echoed by the two androids next to me, and we felt the rush of power as the Rider models landed on top of us and exploded into the armor component before the straps pulled them to us to form the armor.
"ROCKING HOPPER!"
"RISING HOPPER!"
"Kamen Rider will fight to protect humanity."
"A jump to the sky turns to a rider kick."
"Type-One."
"Break Down."
Putting the suit again felt comforting, this was the one thing I could do and do well in this life.
Fight.
"Watchpoint! Suit up! We're off the deep end! Marines! Grab some gear and check if there are any places you recognize! We find those subs, arms the nukes and shove them deep in this thing's heart, we fly out and let them blow! Ooh-rah?"
That snapped them out of whatever trance kept them still. "Ooh-Rah sir!" they went back into the Pelican and sorted through the crated I had unloaded.
"WING!"
"HARD!"
"AUTHORISE!"
"SHOTRISE."
"RAIDRISE!"
"FLYING FLACON!"
"INVADING! HORSESHOE CRAB!"
"Spread you wings and prepare for a force"
"Custom Battle Armor made to evolving combat specifications."
"Huh, it's been a while since they made these sounds, why is that?" Himeko, Kamen Rider Wing asked while looking at her armor. Watchpoint began checking their SMGs and readying their suits, which now had changed from the bulky Raider suit to a more Rider-like one. I could only guess how it would work once they switched to their Shotrisers.
"Depends, were you in a hurry to put on the suit or otherwise didn't need it to make too much noise? The Risers can detect that and enter quick equip or silent mode. Neat huh?" I explained while looking at Zea and Ark. Zea was the normal 001 armor, while Ark's had whiteish paneling instead of the yellow ones. It felt odd, but they looked good. "Okay, stock up on ammo or any other gear. Himeko… Wing, fly up and try to see if there are any interesting spots, Marines, if you recognize anything important, call it in so we can get there. Zea, Ark, you girls stay and protect the Pelican, when we give the signal, come get us. Watchpoint, you guys escort Wing and try to find the where the hell this thing's heart is. Your HUD has a setting for Honkai energy detection, find places where it concentrates the most so I can verify and then smash it to pieces. Come on, we're burning sunshine in here."