Two people ran through a forest, laughter echoing around them. Smiling as they went, joking and enjoying the serenity of the nature around them. The girl's purple hair fluttering behind her, the ring on her right-hand glittering in the sunlight that broke through the leaves of the trees. The boy chased after the girl, smiling at her. The gold and white object at his waist reflecting the light that struck it. As the boy caught up to the girl, he tackled her to the ground, and the two went rolling. When they came to a stop in a clearing in the forest, the two began to giggle. The girl laid on top the boy, both staring up at the clouds moving across the sky. She let out a happy sigh. Content for a bit of peace. The girl closed her eyes. A loud voice began to speak, starling the girl.
Mirage opened her eyes and looked up at the ceiling. The familiar voice of Freyja called out.
"Mirage! The commander wants everyone at the briefing room. Apparently, something big is happening!" The excited girl's footsteps then zipped away. Mirage sat up, letting out a sigh. As much as she liked Freyja, sometimes she really wished she was calmer. She got up to get a shower and get changed, but as she did, she thought back to that dream. It wasn't the first time she'd had dreams like that. She'd been having them for a while at this point. Only her diary, and Q-Lulu, know about them. Shaking her head, she went off to get ready for the briefing.
"The situation is this. Lady M has ordered us to go and do a Waccine concert. The reason we're having this briefing is well…" Arad began to trail off and looked over to Kaname, who was standing beside him. She sighed and picked up for him.
"The reason for the briefing is the planet we're heading to isn't in the Globular Cluster. We're heading pretty far outside our standard area." Freyja perked up at that. She had never left the cluster before, so this would be a new experience for her. Chuck meanwhile wasn't as thrilled.
"Wait, but what about my siblings? Marianne is better but I'm not sure she's better enough to run the place without me for a long while." Everyone nodded at that. It had been about six months since the end of the war with Windermere. In the months that passed Delta Flight and Walküre had been sent around the Cluster to do Waccine concerts, both to deal with the aftereffects of the Windermerean's control and outbreaks of Vár Syndrome. Arad spoke.
"It's a simple trip Chuck. Should only be about a maybe three to four days. It'll be fine. I'm sure nothing will go wrong." Mirage then spoke up.
"Where exactly are we going, sir?" Kaname brought up a hologram of a planet. From the hologram they could see the planet was beautiful. Blue oceans, green continents, deserts, and mountains. Mirage felt it looked oddly familiar.
"This is the planet of R'lyeh, in what is called Nebula M78. It was found by a colony ship around thirty-nine years ago. The inhabitants, the R'lyehians, were an advanced race, on par with Earth at the time. The colonist were welcomed with open arms and that's about it. There was an incident five almost six years ago, but we don't have much information on it." Kaname answered Mirage's question. Mirage let out a small gasp at the name of the planet and spoke under her breath to herself.
"R'lyeh…why does that sound so familiar?" Arad spoke up, grabbing the girl's attention.
"We'll be working with the planet's defense team while we're there. They'll be providing aid should things go wrong. That should be all. You should all go and pack what you need and then get back here to the Aether so we can get going." The commander smiled, and everyone nodded and left to go and grab their travel stuff. Mirage lagged behind, looking at the hologram of R'lyeh. She had a feeling that this wasn't going to be a by-the-books operation, something told her that things were going to change. But she didn't know if this would be a good change or not.
As Mirage packed her stuff for the trip, she heard Hayate and Freyja talking. Things had been awkward for the past few months between Hayate and herself. She did confess to him after all. But he and Freyja were in love, and she cared for them both. She sighed. Everyone had noticed how much the white spots had spread up Freyja's hand. It had begun to spread up her hand, slightly past her wrist. Freyja had just laughed in that way of hers and said she was happy it hadn't started to appear on her face yet. Mirage considered leaving the cluster might be a good change for Freyja. Getting to see new things, places and peoples. She looked up from her bag and noticed that Q-Lulu wasn't around.
"Q-lulu? Q-lulu, where'd you go?" Mirage called out for her mercat. But didn't hear or see her. Distractedly, Mirage continued to pack, zipping up her bag. She looked around one last time, before sighing, picking up her bag, and leaving her room.
As the Aether came out of fold space, it gave the passengers their first view of the planet. It was a large planet, covered with blue oceans and continents and islands seeming full of life. What was strange to them was how beautiful it was. The planet seemed pure. And to Mirage, that gleaming planet seemed so familiar. The intercom came on announcing that Delta Flight and Walküre were to launch down to the planet's surface. Coordinates for when they'd be landing appearing on the screen in front of her, Mirage began her final check before takeoff. She heard Freyja talking through the radio.
"This planet is so pretty! I've got a great feeling about this place, and this concert!" Mirage smiled and saw on the screen that Hayate was smiling at his girlfriend's antics. They couldn't see her, but from the sounds they were hearing, Freyja was spinning around excitedly. Mirage checked behind her, making sure her bag was secure in the second seat, nodding and looking forward again. Time to go.
As the Siegfrieds and shuttle came in for a landing, Mirage took scope of where they were landing. It looked to be an air force base, with many hangars, runways, and a large building that appeared to be the headquarters of the base. As the Siegfried landed, Mirage noticed a few people standing nearby, not looking like marshallers. The group consisted of four people, an older man, a young man around Mirage's age, an older woman and a young woman also around Mirage's age. As Mirage brought her Siegfried to a stop where she was directed and climbing down, she noticed the commander waving her and the others over to him and the group of people. Once she came over the older man of the group stepped forward. The man had black hair that was going gray, wore a black suit and had an air of professionalism and experience. He spoke.
"Welcome to R'lyeh. I hope your journey was calm. I'm Mitsukuni Shizuma, Chairman of Defense. I'm glad to be the first to welcome you to our world." The Chairman then turned to the woman standing next to him. She had long black hair, a serious expression but her face was kind. She wore black boots and pants, a mostly white jacket, with black sleeves and patches of red on it, the left breast held a patch on it. Strangely enough it was her belt that caught Mirage's attention. On it was a holder that held three small devices, and strapped to her leg was a holster, containing a large white object that appeared to be a pistol. The woman smiled and began to speak.
"I'm Captain Megumi Iruma, head of GUTS. We're here to make sure you have a safe and pleasant time here on R'lyeh, and that your concert goes well." She nodded at Walküre when mentioning the concert, Kaname nodded back at that. Captain Iruma then turned her eyes to the Commander. "Commander Mölders, Miss Buccaneer, if you would come with me so we can discuss the flight area for the show and other such arrangements." Captain Iruma, then gestured at the head of Delta Flight and the head of Walküre, the two nodded. Kaname quickly exchanged some words with Walküre, and Arad turned to Mirage.
"Mirage, you're in charge of Chuck and Hayate. Please keep them out of trouble." Mirage nodded at that. Captain Iruma spoke up again, looking at the two silent people next to her. Mirage noticed they wore the same jacket as the captain. Along with the strange devices and gun.
"Will you two take them to the venue for the concert and then either to their hotel or around the city?" The two nodded at that. And the captain and the chairman then lead Arad and Kaname to the main building. The young woman then turned to the remaining group a smile on her face.
"Well, I guess it's our turn to introduce ourselves. I'm Yuna Shizuma, one of the members of GUTS. We're here to make sure that everything goes well, if you have any questions don't be afraid to ask me or my partner here." The young woman had long black hair, and a very relaxed aura about her. The young man next to her rolled his eyes and then smiled at them. Mirage finally looked at him and something about felt familiar, like she'd seen him before many times.
"I'm Malcolm Akemi, pleased to meet you." His hair was covered by a baseball cap but looked to be black. The baseball cap had the GUTS emblem on it. "We'll be taking you all to the arena where the concert is going to be held so you can get a look at it and doing any personal set-up that you need. After that, well it's only around, let me check the time." He paused and looked at a bracelet on his wrist. Tapping it, a hologram screen popped up, with a clock on it. He continued. "Ah, 11:45 in the morning, so how about after we take you guys out to lunch?" Freyja jumped up at the mention of food. Makina then asked a question that had been burning in her brain, her mechanical side coming to the front.
"Can I ask what's kept in these hangars?" She smiled and bounced. Yuna just laughed. Malcolm did as well, though his was interrupted by a yawn.
"Sadly, that's one of the questions we can't answer. Classified and confidential." Yuan replied. Makina just pouted at that. Yuna then gestured for the group to follow them to the main building, where a garage was located. Hayate then spoke up.
"So, what is GUTS anyway? Military, PMC, what?" Yuna shot a look to Malcolm, who nodded.
"I'll take this one. GUTS stands for Global Unlimited Task Squad. We're essentially a special investigations, defense, and technology development/testing. Which means our job description is pretty large and would take far too long to really get into right now. And we're here." They stopped inside the garage, next to a large van. Malcolm then turned to Yuna. "Alright let's do this. Winner get's shotgun, loser drives." The two glared at each other, then put their hands out, one hand palm facing up, and the other in a fist.
"Rock, paper scissors!" The two stopped, and Malcolm had his fingers in the shape or scissors, while Yuna's was flat for paper.
"Dammit!" Yuna cried out. Malcolm just did a little fist bump, then tossed the key fob at her. Yuna caught it, pouting, and unlocked the van. "Alright people. Let's get you all loaded up and get going. We can discuss lunch while we drive."
"While you drive." Malcolm shot in, already sitting in the shotgun seat. Yuna just flipped him off, while climbing into the driver's seat, starting the van and driving out of the garage.
"Shut it Mal, I'll find out how to cheat at that someday. You'll see!"
"Yes, my way of cheating at rock paper scissors. It's totally that and not you just never choosing anything other than paper."
Driving away from the arena, the group was chatting with each other. Comparing foods from their homes, and where they should eat.
"Wait so Windermere really only has one kind of apple? Man, that's weird. Though I guess it makes sense, as the planet is one biome type, right?" Malcolm questioned to Freyja, who nodded at this.
"Yeah. How many apple types does R'lyeh have?" Malcolm looked thoughtful at that, and tapped his bracelet, typing in something.
"We have over 7 thousand kinds of apples." Freyja froze at that. Hayate and Mirage looked at her, worried. Until they noticed she was drooling.
"Freyja! You're drooling!" Mirage cried. Freyja then shook her head and wiped her mouth on her jacket sleeve. "Sorry about her."
"It's no problem. Here's an idea. After lunch, we can stop buy a grocery store and buy a few kinds of apples for her. What do you think about that Freyja?" Malcolm turned his head back and smiled at them. Mirage felt her heart race at it, hoping her face wasn't blushing. Freyja just cheered.
"Speaking of food, maybe Musashibou's?"
"Yuna, that's just fast food."
"I know but I don't hear you making any suggestions right now Mal."
"We could go to Dash Diner, that's always good food. Plus… "Stifling a yawn, he paused then continued. "I could use some coffee."
"Ooh that sounds good. What do you guys think, want to try out a really good diner?" Yuna inquired to the group behind her. After sounds of agreement, Yuna began turning down the road. As they drove the group noticed some broken buildings. Shattered windows, smashed in roofs, outside walls crushed in, and other such damage. But despite the damage, people seemed to just ignore it, or were rebuilding. It was strange, they'd seen damage before, Vár outbreaks could get bad if not dealt with quickly. But those always held this feeling of oppressive sadness. Here though? The area held this aura of hope, and light.
"Hey, was there a Vár outbreak recently?" Hayate asked. Malcolm looked back at Hayate, then looked at Yuna who shrugged, then back at Hayate.
"There hasn't been any Vár outbreaks on R'lyeh. The damage is from an incident that happened a week or two ago." That got the group's attention. Mirage spoke up.
"Wait, there hasn't been any Vár outbreaks here, none?" Malcolm just nodded. After that they continued their drive to the diner in stunned silence. With only the sounds of the van, construction they passed by, and the chatting of the GUTS agents to fill the air.
After arriving at the diner, the group had split into two, being seated at two tables. Makina, Reina, Mikumo, and Chuck at one, and Malcolm, Yuna, Mirage, Hayate, and Freyja at another. Chuck was trying out multiple things and seeing what he'd like to try and replicate back at Ragnyannyan, while Makina and Reina were trying to help Mikumo get better at eating with other people. Meanwhile at the other table, Freyja was happily chowing down on an apple pie, and the other three were chatting while eating their dishes. Malcolm meanwhile was slowly picking at his food, and on his second cup of coffee. Seeing this Mirage raised an eyebrow. Yuna saw this and spoke.
"Ah sorry about him. He's been working on an investigation for the last couple of days. So, he hasn't gotten a lot of sleep. I've warned him about this, but he can't help it when a case catches his attention." Freyja frowned at this.
"Isn't it kind of rude to talk about him when he's sitting right there?" Yuna smiled at that. She moved her hand to Malcolm's head and snapped her fingers. The young man didn't react at all.
"Yeah, he's not here right now. Just give it some time for that first cup of coffee to kick in, then he'll be alive again. Still weird seeing him drink it. Never used to before we started working at GUTS." She muttered that last bit but was heard by the other table occupants.
"You knew each other before working together?" Mirage asked.
"Oh yeah, we've known each other since we were kids." After Yuna said this, Malcolm spoke up.
"That's what happens when your dads are both test pilots for the same program." Looking over at him, the once unresponsive agent was now sitting up and eating his food. Adjusting his hat slightly.
"Wait your fathers were pilots? So was mine!" Hayate interjected, stealing some of Freyja's apple pie. Much to her indignation. The two quickly became caught up in stealing the other's food.
"Yeah, my father and Uncle Mitsukuni-I mean Chairman Shizuma, were the test pilots for the program that preceded GUTS."
"Dad left piloting about 4 years ago when he was appointed to Chairman of Defense. One of the first things he did was restructuring his old program into GUTS as it is now." Yuna explained.
"He wasn't exactly happy when you told him you were going to apply for GUTS, but he didn't stop you." Malcolm said while sipping on his coffee.
"What about your father?" Mirage asked, looking at the young man. At this Malcolm stopped, and slowly put down his cup. Yuna looked over at him, but he just shook his head. He spoke, and as he did a hush filled the table. Freyja and Hayate stopped their food stealing war and looked at him. Mirage felt like she asked something she shouldn't have.
"My father died in the incident 5 years ago." After this, he began eating again. Yuna looked at them and smiled sadly, then went back to her food. The mood at their table was quieter after this. The other table was still having a great time having Mikumo eat random things.
As Mirage entered her hotel room, she was shocked with what she saw. Sitting on the bed, was something she had not expected.
"Q-lulu?! What how?! How did you get here?!" She rushed over to her mercat and saw that on her bag was a note. The note was from Kaname, and it was about how they found Q-lulu in Mirage's bag and figured the mercat must have snuck in while Mirage was packing. Kaname had fed her and left her in here. After reading it Mirage picked up her mercat and hugged her. "So that's where you disappeared to. You worried me." The mercat just mewed. "This has been a strange day Q-lulu. This planet feels so familiar, like I've been here before. A thousand times. And then there's Agent Akemi. Q-lulu I feel like I've met him before, but when he smiled at me, well it probably wasn't at me directly and at everyone, my heart raced." Flopping onto her back on the bed, Q-lulu on her chest Mirage let out a sad sigh. "I haven't felt this way, and didn't expect to again for a while, since Hayate." With that Mirage took Q-lulu off her chest to get ready for bed. As she reached into her bag, she felt something, then pulled out an item she didn't intend to pack. Her Mercat onesie. At this Mirage let out a quick, embarrassed, high-pitched squeal.
The purple haired girl ran, ducking down behind a large boulder as an explosion sounded behind her. She was getting tired, but not drained. She could keep going. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she heard the roar of the creature that was lumbering forward, towards her. The roar got louder as it got closer. Preparing to get up to continue running she heard another sound. And voice echoed, and light filled the area before her. Opening her mouth, she began to look up and speak. Suddenly a loud meow was heard.
Mirage woke up, to Q-lulu on her face, and her alarm going off on her phone. Picking up Q-lulu and turning off her alarm, Mirage sighed to herself.
"This is going to be a weird day isn't it." After that she got up to get ready. She had an airshow to perform today.
Walking out of the arena, Mal adjusted his hat. Behind him he could hear Walküre singing. It wasn't one he recognized so he figured it must be a new one. Yuna's voice sounded in his ear.
"How's everything going over there?" Yuna was at airbase, in case something went wrong. Mal was meanwhile at the arena keeping an eye on things from there.
"Everything's going fine. People were really excited about the girls landing and Delta Flight's first stunt. This is good for everyone, it's been a crazy couple months, people needed something like this." Mal said, looking up at Delta Flight doing their stunts along with the music.
"So, what do you think of their flying?"
"Really? That's what you're asking me right now?" Mal chuckled at the question.
"Come on, we both grew up with pilot fathers. You're there right now, and we both know your personal relationship with flying. So…what do you think?" Yuna asked again. Mal rolled his eyes, smiling.
"Their commander is pretty good. Experienced, probably former NUNS. But he seems to have fun with this kind of flying. Mustang, I'm not sure. He's okay but seems to be putting a bit too much power into it. He's flashy. Mirage is as good, if not better than her commander, but her flying seems very…standard. Like I can see moments in certain turns where she pulls something incredibly hard of easily, but then other times she seems to slightly lag behind. She seemed a bit distracted early too, so that might be part of it. But there's passion there. And Hayate…" He trailed off. "Hayate loves this. He's got passion for flying. And the way he flies, he's synced up with the music. Specifically, he's synced with Freyja. Which is cute, he's synced his flying up with his girlfriend's singing. I can say this for a fact though, the way he flies it's obvious that this is how he loves flying. And not combat flying."
"Hmm. Hayate sounds similar to someone we both know very well, doesn't he?" Yuna said, humor obvious in her voice. Mal just let out a laugh at that. Tapping his bracelet, he brought up the reports he'd been looking over. Tremors had been felt from the countryside for the last couple of days, and they weren't normal. As such GUTS was assigned to investigate. Looking up he caught a glimpse of Mirage's Siegfried as she was in Battroid mode, dance with Hayate's. He smiled at it. Something about the girl felt familiar to him. He couldn't put his finger on it yesterday, due to his lack of sleep, but he slept rather well last night, so he might be able to figure it out today. Looking back at the reports he noticed something.
"Hey Yuna, check out this report I'm sending you. Does this seem strange to you?" A moment of silence, indicating that his partner was reading it, along with the map of the tremor locations.
"Yeah, the tremors are moving in a straight line. Where are they aiming at?" At this question, Mal pulled up a larger map and put the locations over it.
"I'll give you three guesses where it's aimed."
"Oh, please tell me you're kidding." Yuna slightly whined.
"I wish I was. Yuna, due to my lack of sleep over the last couple of days I have to ask. What day of the week is it?"
"Friday. Why-Oh shit!"
"Yeah. Shit." Switching the call to the main channel, Mal spoke. "Captain, I'd suggest you get Yuna up in the air ASAP. We've got incoming." After saying this a large shaking was felt, followed by a booming roar. "Or it's already here. I'm going to evacuate the audience!" With this, Mal turned and ran inside the arena, accessing whatever systems he'd need to use to get people out via his bracelet.
As Walküre preformed they hadn't expected for what they felt and heard to happen. An earthquake was felt, followed by a booming roar. Seconds after the first roar stopped, the audience began to panic. Though the girls could swear they heard some voices saying things like "Not again." and "Why today?". Which confused the idol group. After a minute of panic, Agent Akemi jumped onto stage, tapping something on his holoscreen, and began to speak, his voice coming out of the speakers that the girl's voices were just moments prior.
"Everybody please calm down! I'm Agent Malcolm Akemi of GUTS. Now I know that everyone is rather scared right now, but this isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. So, I want you all to calmly, but quickly, evacuate the arena and get to the shelters. I promise this will be dealt with." With that he shut off his connection to the sound system and turned to Walküre. "You should all evacuate as well, for your safety." Kaname interjected at this.
"If there's anything we can do to help, then let us. We're trained to handle dangerous situations." Malcolm sighed, then pulled up a map on his holoscreen.
"Fine. Here are the entrances and exits of the arena. I want you girls at them to help people get out safely but quickly. Once everyone is out, I want you follow them. OK?" At this the girls nodded and jumped off the stage, using the boosters built into their equipment, got to the doors and began to direct people out. Malcolm jumped off the stage and began directing people from the ground.
As Mirage heard the roar from her Siegfried, she had one thought. That roar was the same as the one she had heard in her dream the night before. She saw the arena being evacuated, and then she saw it. A dinosaur like creature stomped its way through the city, shooting blast out of its mouth, melting buildings and causing explosions. Its back spines glowed red as more shots came out of its mouth. Mirage stared in shock at the grey scaled beast. It was impossible and yet…so familiar. She heard Chuck's voice.
"What…what is that thing?!" The Ragnan pilot's voice was high, clearly freaked out.
"I have no idea! What the hell is going on?!" The commander's voice rang out. Mirage stayed silent, her vision flashing in and out, one moment she's in her Siegfried, the next she's on the ground in the mountains facing this thing. Hayate's worried voice brought her back to reality.
"What about Freyja and the others?! Freyja what's going on down there?" Hayate rushed to contact Freyja. After a few seconds they heard her voice.
"We're fine, we're helping Agent Akemi evacuate the audience out of the arena." At this Hayate spoke to the commander.
"Then we need to do something to get this thing away from here!" Mirage looked at her screen and saw Arad shaking his head.
"We don't have clearance to engage here. Typically, we could but that's if the enemy attacks us directly." Hayate growled at this. But then another voice came on their comms.
"He's right. So I'd suggest that unless you get that clearance, that you hightail it back to the airbase. Leave the Kaiju to me to hold off." Looking at her radar, a new signal came on and flew past her. The voice belonged to Agent Shizuma. Looking up Mirage saw what the GUTS agent was flying. It seemed to be a VF-25 Messiah in fighter mode. The Variable Fighter was mostly gray, with yellow and red lines. On the wings were the GUTS emblems. Mirage grit her teeth at this. Not being able to help was just not right. Looking at her screen she saw Hayate's face. The two shared a look and nodded. Neither could just leave while a literal Kaiju was rampaging.
"Sorry commander, but we can't just leave. Delta 2 engaging!" Mirage cried out, then flying in to assist against the Kaiju. Hayate following after her. Both ignored the orders of Arad, though they could tell he wasn't really putting his all into his orders more just doing it because he had to. He and Chuck stayed over the arena in a defensive position.
"So what is this thing and where do we hit it?" Hayate asked Agent Shizuma.
"It's a Kaiju called Demaaga. And from the scans Mal is sending me from the ground, we'll want to shoot at the yellow horn on its forehead. That'll hopefully do something. Oh, and since your helping, you can just call me Yuna." The three fighters than began to batter Demaaga with shots. But as they did so, Mirage's vision was constantly flashing back and forth from reality and somewhere else.
Back on the ground, the girls were finishing up with getting people out. All that remained in the arena were them and Agent Akemi. The girls all came back together and noticed that Agent Akemi had pulled out his strange pistol and aimed it upwards. Looking up the girls finally saw the creature. It was terrifying seeing that three VFs were shooting at it and it only seemed annoyed. They noticed Agent Akemi begin to speak.
"Yuna! Let's try using our keys at the same time to maybe knock it back from the arena!" He paused and they saw he pulled out one of the devices from his pocket, but not the ones on his belt. Putting it in the grip they heard a voice coming from the gun.
"Boot up! Fireball!" The girls saw the muzzle of the gun begin to glow and then flames come out of it. Agent Akemi aimed at the monster. Looking up the girls saw the GUTS VF-25 switched into Battroid Mode, holding its gun pod forward. They saw the gun pod's muzzle glowing as well and giving off red energy.
"Ready? FIRE!" With that yell they saw Akemi pull the trigger and a fireball launch out of his gun. Meanwhile above them the gun pod of the VF-25 shot out a beam of red energy. The two shots slammed into the Kaiju. Sending it back, but it recovered quickly. Looking down at the arena it opened its mouth fired its heat ray. Right at the girls. They'd been in life-or-death situations before, a lot really. Makina had been shot and was still recovering really, but this was different. There were no drone shields to block this, no VF to come in at the last second and save them. But then suddenly, in a blur of light, Agent Akemi stood in front of them. Right as the blast was about to hit them, he put forward his hands. And appearing before him was a barrier of energy that stopped the beam. The shockwave of the heat ray hitting the barrier sent Akemi's cap flying off his head. As the blast died, he put his arms down and turned to face the girls, he smiled at them.
"All you all alright?" And it was with this that they finally saw his eyes, shining violet, and his hair that they thought was pure black was now freed from the hat, his dual color hair, mostly black but the tips were same color as his eyes, was messy.
"What…how did you do that, Agent Akemi?" Kaname stuttered out. Mal turned his eyes to her and shrugged.
"There's a lot of things out there. Also just call me Malcolm or if you're comfortable with it you can call me Mal." He turned back to the battle. "Looks like things are going to get big, so honestly I'd suggest staying here till it's all over." His eyes narrowed at the Kaiju.
Mirage let out a sigh of relief seeing that the girls were alright. Though she was confused by the light that stopped the attack. Shaking her head, she focused back on Demaaga. She noticed that aside from Yuna, they were doing basically nothing to it. And then another vision flash happened. She saw a light similar to the one that saved Walküre. Shaking her head once more she was too distracted to notice, a beam coming right at here. Reacting at the last minute she was able to not get directly hit but she was still going down. She heard the other members of her squad cry out her name, heard Yuna as well. She tried to eject but the system wasn't responding. She was going to die here.
Down on the ground the group saw Mirage get hit. Freyja screamed in terror for her friend. Mal's eyes narrowed.
"Alright, I'm engaging. Now!" Grabbing one of the keys off his buckle he hit the button, right as Demaaga roared, so the girls couldn't hear what it said. He put the key into the grip the girls heard the gun's announcement again.
"Boot up! Zeperion!" The girls saw Mal pull open the gun, which shocked the engineer in Makina that a gun can just be opened like that, and then lifted the now open gun and pulled the trigger.
Mirage saw the light, recognizing it from her dream. And suddenly, her fall was stopped, and her VF was righted as this light held it aloft.
"What…. what the hell is that?" Mirage heard Hayate's voice. Yuna's voice followed it.
"That's who we've been waiting for. Who we were holding Demaaga off for. That's Ultraman-" Mirage softly spoke, finishing for Yuna.
"Trigger." As she said the name, the light faded revealing the Giant of Light. He was huge, 53 meters tall. He had a silver head with glowing yellow eyes, a blue diamond on the forehead, and gold stripes. His body was tri-colored, purple, red and silver. On the arms were golden armbands, and the legs had golden shin guards. His chest had a golden chest piece that went over his shoulders and to his back. And in the center was a glowing blue diamond. Mirage looked up at him in both awe and recognition. She knew this being. Somehow, she did. Trigger nodded at her and gently kneeled on the road. Figuring what he was doing, Mirage put down her landing gear, and was set on the ground. Trigger than rose back up and turned to face Demaaga. Getting into a stance, he let out a grunt.
"TWCH!" Trigger ran forward, his fist slamming into Demaaga's chest and sending the creature flying back. He looked to Yuna's VF and nodded. The Battroid's head nodded back, changed back into fighter mode and pulled back. Meanwhile Demaaga roared and charged Trigger and slammed into him, but Trigger grabbed the Kaiju at the last second, and only being pushed back a bit. While the two battled it out, Walküre had ran out of the arena to see what was going on.
"What is even happening here?!" Fryeja cried out.
"It appears to be a kaiju battle." Mikumo said calmly.
"Why are you so calm about this Mikumo?!" But then their focus returned to the battle.
Trigger jumped above Demaaga and fired quick slashes of energy at the spines of Demaaga's back, destroying them. The Kaiju howled in pain and flailed around. While flailing it fired off a heat ray right at where Walküre was. The girls prepared to run but Trigger rushed over and raised a barrier, stopping the attack. Demaaga prepared to fire another ray, but Trigger responded. He pulled his arms back, fist straight up, then pushed his arms forward fully extended, his chest piece, armguards and shin guards began to glow with sparkling light, opening his fist and then facing them down he pulled his arms apart, a purple line appearing before his hands, and then put his left arm horizontally underneath his right, which was vertical, and a white beam fired out from his right arm. The two beams met and held for a moment, but then Trigger kneeled down and his armor and eyes glowed brighter. The beam became more intense as lightning came off the beam, sparkles falling from the armor onto Walküre. As his beam became stronger it pushed Demaaga's ray back and then slammed into the Kaiju, purple lightning coming off the beast as the beam hit it. As the beam began to die down, Demaaga let out one last roar of pain before exploding into a ball of flame. Trigger stood up. Looking down at the girls, and over at Mirage, who had opened her canopy and was standing watching the battle, helmet off. He nodded at them.
"Schup!" Trigger then jumped and flew off into the sky. Shortly after Trigger vanished into the sky, Yuna flew off back towards the airbase. But not before telling Mirage that a crew will be there shortly to pick up her Siegfried so it can be stored at the airbase till, they leave. Leaving Delta Flight and Walküre alone. Delta Flight landed on the road near Mirage, and Hayate and Freyja hugged. Walküre went back to grab anything they left in the arena, Freyja noticing Mal's dropped hat and decided to pick it up to give back to him. As she picked up the hat Freyja looked at her hand and gasped. The others rushed over.
"Fre-Fre what's wrong?" Makina asked, worriedly. Freyja shook in place, her face full of confusion, hope, and uncertainty. She looked up at the girls, her rune flicking quickly. She raised her hand and they gasped in collective shock. The white that had spread due to using her powers in singing, that showed how much she had used her own life force…was less than it was just an hour ago. From covering most of her entire hand even her palm, was receding back to the back of her hand where it first started to appear. Freyja quietly spoke.
"What… how is this possible?" Kaname walked over and put a hand on her shoulder.
"I don't know, but we'll find out." The red-haired woman smiled at the younger girl. Freyja nodded.
"I think we need to talk to Malcolm, and GUTS."
Author's Note
Welcome to Macross Trigger, a thing I've created solely out of spite for how Ultraman Trigger was handled and how Macross Delta happened to Mirage. This isn't a full retelling of Ultraman Trigger as many things will be completely different. This is a reimaging/AU. I'm using an OC in Kengo's place because Kengo wouldn't work with the story I've crafted, and I hate his catchphrase it ruined the climatic final battle. The world this is set in is a weird mixture of Macross and Ultraman. The version of Delta this is using is the show version and not the movies, though certain things from both movies will appear in the story in some shapes and forms. Thank you for reading, this will be cross-posted on both and Ao3 so in future chapters the author's note may feature replies to reviews while comments on Ao3 will be answered in the comments. Special thanks to ZeroEnchiladas for putting up with my constant ramblings about this, and for helping with fleshing out scenes in this wonderful mess.