Archangel's Amazing Adventures

by CSS Stravag

Mass Crossover fic. Chapter 51 UP! Powerful magic draws the Archangel and the ZAFT Creuset Team into a world of magic and intrigue like nothing imagined by the straight-laced CE residents. Their battles on Cephiro are only the beginning of their nightmarish journey as they give Odysseus a run for his money in the 'bizarre trip home' category...

25. Attero Dominatus

(Archangel's Amazing Adventures, Section 3, Chapter 9: Attero Dominatus)

(Author's Note: Though officially I am only listing this as a double-crossover for elements to come in this chapter and the next few, the Espers are going to be more than just from Final Fantasy 6. Expect to see Summons from 6, 8, 9, 10 / 10-2 in the FF Series as well as from Tales of Phantasia and maybe even more. This is going to get very messy very fast.)

Are we ready to move? Rayearth asks as Hikaru looks idly on at the Espers that had arrayed to take the fight to Vector.

"We stand ready, Divine Ones," one of the elder Bahamut replies.

The whole force, numbering in the thousands of Espers and led by the three Rune Gods, had been divided up into three forces. Fuu called them Regiments, based on how big they were, which if she was right brought the total force in play up to eight Regiments, or two larger and one smaller Brigade when assembled into a larger size structure. Fuu had to admit, though, her understanding of things military was still a bit on the weak side. To Hikaru and Umi, size did not matter in this case, since a regiment of Espers would be more than enough to destroy the spirit of the enemy, maybe even force them to surrender.

Fuu's force was the mobility crew, the fast hitters that could fly and subsequently move from one theater to another too fast for the enemy to properly counter them. The main heavy hitter among the flying was the Bahamut, followed closely by the more agile but less combat powerful Aska. Hikaru had the ground-mobile forces, the shocktroopers such as the Raiden, Volt (which really was shocking), and Ifirit. Umi's task was the most straightforward and brutal of the team's tasking, for she had the real heavy-hitting units of the team in Alexander, Tritoch, and Pandemona as just a representative sample.

Likewise, each team had their own objective. Fuu's force would move to and support the invasion force under King Edgar, or barring that would attack Vector from the southwest. Hikaru's force would go in on the backs of any enemies engaging the forces from Doma, or barring that would assault Vector from due south. Umi had no tasking other than to hit Vector hard and fast from the southeast and east, to drive through the defenders and right to the Imperial Fortress to force the issue. In this fashion, the whole force could not be tied down fighting the Imperial Ground Forces, someone would still be challenging Vector directly.

Maintain no illusions, Magic Knight Fuu, Windam begins telepathically. You will have to involve in the melee to come, he notes.

"I expected it," Fuu replies immediately. She did not know what manner of support she could provide, but if the Rune God says she was going to be in the battle, she didn't have much of a choice in the matter.

Ours shall be the difficult portion of the battle, Magic Knight Umi. Do not for a moment underestimate thine foes, for we cannot yield lest the hopes of this campaign be crused underfoot the Empire, Selesce cautions his respective Magic Knight.

Of the three, it was only Fuu that really understood what they were about to delve into. Hikaru was ignoring the part of her conscience that was trying to equate this to some of the battles she had prior fought, namely on Twycross and the almost random encounter with the Wolves in space. Umi really thought of this one as a real battle intellectually, but the rest of her being considered it little more than another adventure she really did not want part in. Their respective Rune Gods could sympathize to a point, but being hundreds of thousands of years old apiece they knew far better than to misgauge such a campaign. Though their connection to the other divinities in Existence was tenuous at best, they knew well how easily even the trained and empowered forces directly serving Gods could be sundered by technology-and-magic forces similar to what they were about to engage. The one thing that really served the Allies' side of this campaign in their opinion was that the enemy lacked any real artillery forces, though their ground armor and air support were worth noting...until you stacked an Air Armor against a decent Esper, that is.

The forces under Rayearth moved out first, headed not directly into the field but into the Imperial base that 'serviced' the Sealed Gate. The mass exodus of forces would surely alert the base, which would phone back to the main Imperial Garrisons that something evil that way went, therefore taking the base down hard and fast was high on their list of priorities. Selesce would move out second, as Windam's forces could make up lost ground and lost time in the skies headed toward their objectives.

There was a sense of unreality to it, Hikaru thought, as she observed the growing battle inside the base from afar and upon the shoulder of Rayearth. Part of her did feel something as she saw through Rayearth's eyes the battle as it happened, or more appropriately the one-sided slaughter that was transpiring in the base. The Imperials may have been prepared for a clandestine raid to the Cave of the Sealed Gate, but by no means were they prepared for the Espers coming out of the Cave with a serious case of blood in the eyes. A sense of dread, a sense of regret tinged her conscience as the battle evolved, consuming the whole base in the end.

The rest of her lamented that they were simply enemies; disdained enemies that would be repressing, ravaging and raping civilians in the North were the Returners and the Archangel Team not stomping on them right now. A detachment of the Ifirit had taken up the banner of this opening strike, to be supported by the Volt who would engage the Magitek armors. The base itself was horridly small, actually, barely enough to count for a hundred infantry and ten Magitek. The twenty Ifirit were upon them, their claws and fire magic crushing, roasting enemies without fail. Four Volt Espers had followed close, the electric energy balls hovering mere inches over the ground on some form of magnetic field, lashing out at the Magitek and any foolhardy infantry that approached with powerful electrical assaults. The overload was more than enough to cause the armors to explode catastrophically, but this was less than an issue to a glowing ball of electric energy that might be nearby.

In less than a full minute, the battle was over; the forward base was no longer Imperial. There was no contest, not even a decent injury in the assault team's ranks. Hikaru expected this, yet the battle still left her feeling empty in the end. The invasion continued as planned; there would be no relent, for the first real lesson that Hikaru had learned from the Archangel was that giving up meant you never went home. And Hikaru never believed in giving up.

-x-x-x-

Lord Cyan Garamonde's mustache twitched with the news. The enemy lay ahead of them now, confirmed by sightings by the Stormcrow of sparse air cover forces over enemy Magitek and Infantry formations. Mechwarrior Pytor estimated a total of two regiments enemy strength, mostly weighted to Infantry. Likely easy prey for the all-riflemen force from Doma and the armor support in the Omnimechs, Cyan figured, though casualties were a given. The Imperials were not weaklings or cowards by any measure of the words, and yet neither was Doma's forces. A good contest of it was to come.

The Invasion Force had an advantage here in the North that they did not coming in from the West: there was no chokepoint. Edgar's forces would undoubtedly be subject to a restricting battle in the pass in question, since only a complete fool among the Imperial Garrison would ignore the strategic value of such a location. Herein the plan compensated for that, even if one vector towards Vector was bogged down, there were still two other thrusts to take the fight to the Imperial Capital.

The stroke of genius in the planning from the second-in-command of the Archangel, Natarle Badgiruel, was manifest with the elegance of her planning. Everything was timed perfectly to point, with breathing space in the planning on the ground and redundancy in the attack method. The other Lords of Doma had been rather impressed to learn that, despite being female, she was one of the best tactical commanders of her unit, of her original homeland, and had a pedigree of naval admirals in her family like few others outside noble bloodlines. There was no question whatsoever as to her command competency, and the plan had been signed off by no less than two Kings.

"What is thine foe's orientation?" Cyan requests of the Warhawk's pilot, a born-and-bred warrior he had found out over the prior weeks.

"Orientation due south of our position five klicks, strongpoint appears to be centered to the left, but it appears their whole force is headed southward away from us right now."

"Perchance we have frightened them?" Cyan opines, given that his three regiments of crack troops would be enough to scare a force double their size if the enemy knew his real strength.

"Unlikely," Pytor replies immediately. "Imperial strength and morale is supposed to be very high, despite the perception of facing the Archangel as a losing battle. If they are moving away from us, it is probably for some other reason or tactical necessity." The cold precision of Pytor's voice translated well over these portable radios that they carried for unit coordination.

"We shall drive forth," Cyan replies. "Thine foes' strength is frittered as they flee. We shall capitalize upon the moment, that we hammer through their ranks and continue onward upon the heart of thine foes. Pray the Battlemechs would relish taking the front?" Despite the nature of the request, it was more or less an order from Lord Cyan couched as a question.

"Roger that," Commander La Flaga replies. "Omnimechs forward, we'll play the part of the dutiful armored spearhead. Pytor, your 'mech has the most armor, you're in the lead. Timber Wolf, Mad Dog, Stormcrow will follow close. Weapons live, people, this is where it begins."

"Aff, Commander La Flaga," Kristen Redmond replies from her Omnimech, the Vulture.

"Stormcrow reads loud and clear," Kira replies in a neutral intonation. He had done marginally well in the Warhawk in battles past, but he had a need for speed and the Warhawk was just too slow for his fighting style. The Stormcrow, however, made all the difference in speed and maneuverability, while retaining a goodly amount of firepower. Definitely not a Strike Gundam with the Aile Pack, but as a substitute it would have to do.

"Ready to move out," Pytor replies from the unit's largest 'mech.

Cyan had to remind himself that the Warhawk was literally forty-times-plus heavier than the Magitek armors it was to face down, and had the firepower to turn any of them into an instant flaming pile of scrap in one shot with the massive Particle Projection Cannons. Lord Cyan could naught but guess how such machines of war came to be, for they bore no resemblance to the Magitek they were now preparing to slay and were made from technologies never seen on this world until the day of the Archangel's arrival. As the four Omnimechs stomped around the flanks of his formation they led off the advance march of the infantry, headed toward the disorganized Imperials that were themselves headed southward toward other action. The whole ground quaked to the feeling of their footsteps as they moved onward across the sun-baked grass of the valley, though this was accented by the mirror feeling of the Infantry doing the same.

"Command, Timber Wolf, we're going to move ahead and begin shooting up their rear," Mu says after a few minutes of approach march. "If we can get them to stop where they are now, our side will have the high ground and enfilade to almost half their rear regiment," Mu notes, which indeed would be a powerful advantage if used properly.

"Please begin at your leisure," Cyan requests.

The four Omnimechs stomped forward at a quickening pace, marching line abreast into the gap and toward the enemy rear. "Requesting open fire range, command," Kristen asks.

"Open fire range at two kilometers. Prioritize targets by net firepower, air first, then ground. We will deal with the general population after we've taken down their armor support."

"Understood, command," former Star Captain Kristen Redmond replies. She reached over to her weapons console and flipped the master arm switch, turning her machine from a walking formation of metal and myomer parts to a weapon of insane destruction potential in less than a full second. "3-1-hundred meters to targets," Kristen declares.

"Keep it steady, people, if they're walking away they are not going to focus on shooting back yet. We have some time to spare," Mu cautions. Through training with the Clanners, he had found that they had a very high sense of aggression, and usually the cunning to back it up, but he had also schooled them in why blindly fighting offensive all the time was a bad idea.

"Commander La Flaga, would it be possible that they are trying to draw us into a prepared position? An ambush similar to how you took down the remnant of Nikolai Malthus' forces?"

"Possible," Mu notes. "Pick up the pace, full run, we'll blitz through to their rear and begin the attack. If they are trying to suck us into a stonework death, they will have to sacrifice their own forces to accomplish it."

"I somehow don't think they would hesitate to do that," Kira grumbles but does as ordered nonetheless.

The quick, sharp bark of laughter from Kristen Redmond chilled Cyan's spine momentarily. "Such deceitful tactics will not work on us as well as you used them on Nikolai."

"They made us," Mu says after they just barely passed 2 kilometers range to the rear of the formation. "Enemy is turning around, preparing to engage. Let's take down their armor, people, you know the drill."

"As ordered, sir," Kristen replies as she sights up the enemy sky armor in her hunting area. With practice honed over years of battlemech combat before she even set foot in the Inner Sphere, much less battle experience against the Archangel's forces several times over, her first two shots of Large Pulse Laser did not miss their mark on two separate Sky Armor.

Just like that, the battle was on and two Sky Armor hit the ground with hellish holes in their armor. From where Cyan stood, seeing what each Omnimech was shooting at was difficult at best, but the urgency of the matter was not entirely difficult to understand, for in short order the legs of the Omnimechs would be invested by Infantry unless someone kept them off. "Move it up! We've a long way to go to get there!"

"Praise be! They're drawing the Imperials back towards us!" One of the Sergeants nearby Cyan shouts. Indeed, once the Omnimechs had their attention, they began walking slowly backwards, slow enough to draw the Imperials with them in an attempt to lead them right into the waiting sights of the Riflemen.

"Excellent," Cyan replies. "Keep moving forth!" He says, knowing that despite his overwhelming advantage in numbers and firepower, the battle would still come down to melee combat, hand-to-hand with the Imperials. This he did not object to, his life spent learning the sword would come in handy as he reached down to the hilt of his sword to verify it was still there. Assured that the Kotetsu he carried was still present, Cyan continued forward and led his troops the same.

The Omnimechs continued firing at the various knots of Magitek among the ground forces ranks, their lasers and particle cannons easily shredding apart the significantly smaller forces and causing collateral casualty among the infantry. The range was rapidly closing between the forces, only two kilometers separated the infantry as the Omnimechs stopped moving backwards to allow the Infantry to close up on them. When stopped, their already murderous aim improved significantly as they did not have to compensate for the movement of their machines, only for the movement of their targets.

Though the Omnimechs had stopped moving, the ground had not stopped trembling, and in force it only got worse. Two hundred meters forward of the Infantry advance, the ground ruptured and calved a large machine like no other Imperial abomination ever seen, though Cyan could look upon it and see the taint of Magitek like no other weapon in Existence. "SHIT!" Someone shouts to Cyan's left, though that was as far as panic reaction went. Before Cyan could even order it, a pair of the wondrous LAWS rockets were fired at it, the first missing overhead by several meters, the second striking a curved surface of the armor and glancing off, only to redirect skyward and who-knows-where for an eventual landing. A third rocket faired better, striking the center of the left arm on the machine and blowing it clear apart, the stub of upper arm flaming and smoking severely.

"Another! Hit it harder!" Cyan orders. It was an order the Infantry were all too willing to comply with as the demonic armor began driving forward on treads towards them, clearly intent on running the Infantry over. Cyan dropped aside his rifle and drew his sword as a laser from the machine passed him by a mere meter, killing two separate troopers in one shot. A fourth and fifth rocket were fired, one missing, one striking a protrusion on top of the machine that appeared have no battle value. The strike of lightning nearby momentarily distracted Cyan as it cooked another of his troopers, but when he looked back he saw what he had to do.

A sixth rocket jammed in the tread of the machine and detonated, blowing the tread apart and rendering it immobile as the tread piled up and the machine ground to a halt a mere twenty meters in front of them. Cyan capitalized on the moment as he set his sword and charged down the armor from twenty meters farther behind the front, with the shout "I shalt dispatch you to hell!" (1). As he approached close, the venerable but highly skilled Cyan jumped and came down, in the process clearing over a Tek Laser aimed at him from the armor he was assaulting, and brought his sword down to impale the armor at the red gem on its front, and thereafter the pilot below in the armor's enclosed cockpit. His sword penetrated clear to the hilt, and when drawn out was layered with the blood of both man and machine. From the ranks of the Infantry came a tremendous shout as Cyan wiped his blade clean and sheathed his sword in the traditional fashion.

A second burrow came to be three hundred meters forward and the same to the right, another TunnelArmr that was patrolling the rear of the enemy. This time, however, the armor made nary an offensive maneuver before an Infantryman struck the center of the armor with an anti-tank rocket fairly close to where Cyan had impaled the first, and in this the weapons of the Infantry outmatched the armor of the Empire far beyond their wildest dreams, when the rocket punched a discreet but lethal four-inch hole in the armor and blew a massive amount of spall into the inside of the cockpit. The pilot's hatch safety release blew from a fragment severing the lock, showing the bloody red mess that was once a Magitek pilot of the Empire after the fragmentation from the rocket shredded his body to pieces and paste.

"What evil we can bring in pursuit of thine good," Cyan says as he gets a good look at the remnants from atop the first TunnelArmr he took down.

"Shall we continue, my lord?" A Lieutenant asks, holding Cyan's rifle.

"Indeed," Cyan says as he gestures to the Lieutenant. With a quick toss, Cyan regained possession of his rifle and thereafter jumped down onto the ground to continue the rush forward.

-x-x-x-

Matters were a lot less cordial on the western front, and philosophy was precisely nowhere to be found.

"Damnit!" Edgar shouts rather uncharacteristically. "We have to push forward to that gap! Get a move on! Call the Archangel for support!"

"Archangel from Washington Beach, uh, we could use a little help here," the radio officer requests.

"Go ahead, Washington," the radio officer on the Archangel replies.

"Requesting fire mission, area denial against tango forces east of the narrows, area saturation bombardment preferred, in support of ground advance to the narrows, over," the radio officer near King Edgar requests.

"Archangel rogers your request, wait one," the radio officer at the far end replies. "Washington beach, stand by for missile barrage," the Radio Officer replies.

Edgar had a little bit of a time picking out where the Archangel was in the skies, but not a huge problem in the end. The majestic Warship of note was floating behind his lines and angling immediately toward the front.

Even as the crew of the Archangel moved to enhance the capabilities of the local ground forces, they did not slouch in enhancing their own capabilities. In particular, Commander Natarle Badgiruel knew that the invasion forces would have to face down massed enemy formations. In response, she had engineers from the Archangel's weapons team draw out and implement designs for area denial and anti-personnel missiles to be used in both the Helldart and anti-ship missile launchers. After all, a five ton anti-shipping missile refit to drop hundreds of baseball sized explosive charges from 500 m above ground level could easily kill a third of the troops and enemy armor in this space 300 m wide and 1500 m long with extra results outside of that area. And the results only became more thorough the more missiles dumped into a given area.

Edgar knew he had other things to do than watch the missiles dive into the ground. All the same, he could not help but watch has some missiles slammed into the ground, blowing large rents out of the enemy formation and sending bodies flying hundreds of meters into the air, though the thing that stunned him most was the missiles detonating in air and scattering their bomblets down onto the enemy formation, as more then a half dozen missiles had done so. Though it lacked the visual sensation of watching a body tumble through the air, King Edgar could tell instantly that the cluster munitions had caused far more casualties in one strike than the solid missiles ever would.

"Glory be, King Edgar! That one strike just annihilated half a regiment in one shot!" The King's radio officer shouts.

The King did not relish seeing such casualties even to such a hated foe as the Empire, though he knew it was not enough. Even as the radio officer shouted such, more enemies were literally pushing over the piles of dead bodies to continue the advance. And his forces, who were nowhere near the gap that they wanted to be at, were still wildly exposed on open territory. Things had the propensity to become incredibly bloody incredibly quickly for both sides, though an idea came to mind. "Can we pen them up in the gap?"

"Sir?" One of his messengers asks for clarification.

"Can we pen them in the gap and hold them there, eliminate them as they come toward?"

"We'll have to chase them if we make the gap too bloody, sir," one of his Captains replies.

"We can't rush the gap right now, our front-end will get mulched and spit out," another of the Captains replies sourly.

"We hold the line, let them try and force the gap," Edgar notes. "We shoot them as they come. Start digging in and prepare to deploy our machine guns," he orders. "Call the Archangel and advise of the change in tactics. We will need the Gundams to provide fire support." Such new concepts were still a little hard for Edgar to wrap his brain around, but he could not deny the usefulness of the Gundams and their amazingly powerful weapons. Without doubt, were it not for the Gundams and their insane pilots, his force would already be dead from airstrikes above.

"Yes, sir!" the more cautious of the two Captains replies. "You men, fan out and start getting foxholes and fighting positions set up! They ain't gonna give us all day, so move it!"

"Yes sir!" The infantry nearby begin moving outward to spread the word.

The training from the Archangel crew had been very thorough, including both defense and offense training. In this, a preset series of tactics were unfolded and the Infantry began the process of digging in, a skill not uncommon among their ranks prior to their training, though the concept of using foxholes to defend themselves against armor and other Infantry was a new one to most of them. Fighting Holes for use of a Machine Gun were something else, and an ingenious use of a machine gun position plus the accompanying Infantry since they provided defense as well as a good field of fire for the machine gun.

In ten minutes, most of the Infantry had dug into decent fighting positions. Two minutes later the fighting holes were set up and ready, the machine guns placed, loaded, crewed and armed for action. The Gundams had halted their advance and hunkered down to reduce their exposure to fire themselves, preparing to unload their remaining arsenal on the enemies as they came on through the gap.

The enemy had hesitated after the Archangel's first strike, clearly ready to break ranks and flee from having to face such a powerful foe with no hope of defeating it. When no second strike came, the Imperial officers began marshaling the troops forward again, armor leading the way as they had learned was the most effective way to do an attack. They walked into a wall of gunfire just after the narrows unlike any other they had faced or even delivered unto existence before. The front was over two kilometers long but constricted by the gap they were pushing through, and they had no way to conduct a vertical or horizontal envelopment or flanking attack, they could only charge through and into the waiting sights of the invaders.

"This is Buster, I have a clear shot at this time," Pilot Tolle Koenig declares.

"Take the shot, Tolle," Athrun orders.

WRAAM, dust particulate and even a few small rocks skidded by Edgar's dugout from the blast coming from the combined weapons of the Buster. After a few moments the blunderbuss-like shot particulate came down in the area of the gap and immediately Edgar could see the body parts fly in several directions. Tolle waited the customary ten seconds to allow his guns to cool and ready again, then WRAAM, another shot went downrange but impacted a bit closer to the front where the shooting was already beginning to heat up.

"I hope this works," one of the Captains of the assault teams notes.

"If it does not, we are all dead regardless. Now shut up and shoot, Captain." the King gripes as he shoulders his rifle, flips up the elevator sight to center on a ranged target, dials it in for 500 meters, and aims.

CRACK. "Yes, sir," the Captain replies as he braces then shoulders his own rifle.

-x-x-x-

This is where it begins for us, Rayearth declares to Hikaru telepathically.

"Where do I begin?" Hikaru asks after a few moments of surveying the enemy lines.

There was all indication that the force her team had just bumped into was reinforcements heading west toward the invasion beach from Figaro. That being the case, she could not stand idly by as they moved to and killed the people that wanted to live in peace so desperately they would fice the issue upon the Empire. The Espers were part of that group as well, which meant taking down this force and the remainder of the Imperials in the open was simply another logical step to stopping the capture and slaughter of the Espers.

You will join the ranks on the ground. A Swordsman of the Raiden (2) shall bring you unto the battle as I move forward with the Ifirit. We will rejoin after the melee is done. The fact that Rayearth was leaving the life of his Magic Knight in the ward of another was less than comforting to him, and his mental tone declared it quite clearly.

"Still, it must be done," Hikaru replies. "We all must stop them, or none of us will live to tell the tale," she thinks aloud as she looks over Rayearth's right side at the masses of Espers, literally thousands of them, as they moved forward at a quickening pace.

Your escort is below and to the left. Vault toward and he shall take it from there. Be swift of mind and sure of sword, Magic Knight, and we shall continue the march on the other side of this battle.

"Good luck, Rayearth," Hikaru declares as she draws her blade before making a running leap from Rayearth's right shoulder to vault off his left shoulder to the awaiting forces below. Partway off the side, one of the mounted knights (Raiden) jumps up to catch her mid-air and settle her in for a continued charge. "Thank you, Swordsman," Hikaru declares as they resume their charge forward in a normal fashion.

"It is you we owe the thanks, Magic Knight," the Swordsman shouts over his shoulder. "Without the assistance and motivation of the Gods, it would be us waiting for the next invasion, never ready to counter their ambitions because we could never differentiate neutral from foe."

Phrased that way, the matter took on a different light than it had earlier in the day. Hikaru had assumed they would unquestioningly follow the orders of a superior being (A god), but now it appeared they were actually defending themselves with the assistance of the Gods. That changed the matter around enough that the battle took on a bit more of the mystique that Hikaru thought had been absent since she left Cephiro. Not that she lacked people to defend in the Inner Sphere, but something about fighting the cold mechanized units of the Clans made the operations there a totally different feeling.

The Espers continued to close with the left flank of the enemy, and Hikaru knew this was about to become a bloodbath of epic proportions. They were not prepared for an enemy attack of any type, and Hikaru's orders were quite clear on the matter: she came home alive, to her second home the Archangel. There would be no relent here as there was none earlier in the day.

The whole experience itself was surreal. The front lines, of which Hikaru was quite a bit behind, were the first to hammer into the side of the panicking enemy. From where she sat on the back of a steed charging into battle behind a literal wall of Ifirit, all Hikaru could see was bodies flying upwards or some variant thereof, though as the seconds passed and the front oblated into the side of the enemy her direction of travel changed from forward to left of forward, which put her heading to the enemy front.

"Brace yourself, Magic Knight. We're about to contact the enemy," the Raiden she was riding with shouts over the sound of rushing wind and battle. Hikaru did indeed brace herself, her sword came up and to the ready as she instinctively reached her left hand to a loop on his ancient armor that she could steady herself without the hazard of constricting him.

Contact was rapid and insanely violent. Hikaru had never trained nor even thought long about what a cavalry charge really was, and as the Raiden charged down in between the marching rows of the Imperial Infantry it was all she could do to hold her sword out on a proper angle to strike the Magitek Knights as she charged through their ranks almost unhindered. The report of an arquebus caught her attention as well as the sound of the bullet striking the armor on the side of the war steed, though they continued onward and into the main gap between the two halves of the Imperial Regiment, now galloping westbound with other Raiden abreast of her and with the majestic Volt beings gliding behind, discharging plasma bolts and lightning strikes at the enemy Magitek whenever they got close to them.

Ahead of her, the Raiden she was accompanying was using his massive Zanmato blade to slash through the Imperial Templar and the Magitek Knights, ducking back and forth to dodge the greater concentrations of enemy infantry and their hurried attempts to stall the cavalry with halberd and pike. Hikaru's efforts improved as they continued the charge, gaining her nerve back and even swinging into the charge against some of the Templar as they passed. It was amazing to her how effective her sword was in these conditions, as a single swing would cleave through shield, halberd, armor, man, and armor again without reserve, leaving the Templar or the Infantry she was targeting in literal pieces in her wake.

She saw it moments before it struck, and moments after she could have done anything about it. An Imperial Grunt ran from right to left and leveled his pike in the process, aiming not for riders but for the legs of the horse she was on. Though she got the luxury of seeing his head removed for his intransigence by another of the Raiden, the deed was done. The sickening sound of bone and haft breaking gave way to the flight forward and eventually to the ground; hers was not the only horse so stopped, though for the most part the remaining Raiden had ducked down the sides of the Imperial ranks to avoid trampling the downed riders, the remainder had jumped clear of the dismounted persons. Hikaru hit the ground, tumbled once, tumbled again, rolled for several meters, then finished by skidding for almost twenty meters, her inertia was that high at the point of dismount.

"Magic Knight!" the Raiden shouts as something immediately lifts her from the ground and to standing. It was all she could do to retain possession of her sword. "We must move! We are exposed here!"

Hikaru could never really claim to understand what came over her at that time, or how she did it, or how she managed to overcome her numerous injuries in so doing, but she wrenched herself free from the Raiden's grasp fast enough to drive her shoulder into the path of an oncoming pike. The armor she wore easily prevented the mithiril blade from penetrating, but the impact traveled all the way through her slender frame to the compound fractures in her left leg. Likewise, she could never remember the scream she loosed as her leg screamed pain and defiance throughout her nervous system, but she drove forward over the pain, first slashing upwards to remove three feet of the pike haft and the blade, then back down on the hapless pikeman with enough raw fury to completely cleave him in half from left shoulder to right waist, then reset and take a backhand swing on the sword-wielding trooper behind him, in this case chopping through both of his legs mid-thigh and bringing him to the ground in a shower of blood and bone fragments.

The advance stifled, she could look around and see that the area she was in rapidly degenerating into a melee. She watched as light flashed from the sky downward; the work of the Luna, summons of the moon and holy light that could fry anything not itself holy and pure. The enemy countered with a Magitek unit, a new and slightly larger one, as its claws came up and down on the hapless Lunar, chopping her in half on pure mechanical force. She lost track of her surroundings for several moments as she had to counter an enemy Templar team who were intent on cleaving her to bits with halberd and battle ax, though it was Hikaru that came out on top by removing one head and a left arm on the other. Immediately thereafter she had the luxury of watching a dozen infantry cooked in their armor as a Volt literally dove right over them, discharging into the ground through them and instantly killing them, only to watch the volt destroyed as a missile fired from a HeavyArmr slammed into the steel ball at the center of the Volt and exploded, shredding it to bits.

More than the enemy was fighting back, she recognized that the bulk of the enemy were in fact running away as fast as possible. Most were not getting far, as the ministrations of the Espers were not a power to be denied by simple men in armor. Those that were fighting were having limited success when they could get close enough to conduct the battle with melee weapons, but not always as the Carbuncle proved with their Ruby Shield skill that stopped magic and Magitek cold as well as resisted most physical forces. The Luna used a similar skill in a Lightwave Barrier, though its focus was more on the physical and not the magic. And some of the Espers were just plain scary in close, like the Raiden and their amazing swordcraft or the Ifirit that could easily pick up a human and crush him in hand, armor and all.

Hikaru pushed forward herself, moving between a Ramuh on one side and a Raiden on the other to take up the fight at the front. She could see Rayearth towering over the battlefield to her right, using flame attacks to cook the enemies alive and take down their armor forces. In close against the enemy, she could not muster the time necessary to call upon her own fire skills, lest she end up having to take a bad hit from a sword or pike that her armor would not stop. Her skills with the sword did her talking, as the magic sword that linked her to Rayearth chopped through enemy and armor with an ease she did not expect; after a few such happenstance, she was beginning to wonder if her power was increasing, or just her physical strength, or both.

All existence flashed white for a bare moment; when the color and visual sensation began coming back, she found herself airborne again but this time headed definitely for enemy territory as the forest of pikes and halberd declared of her destination. Something had thrown here meters forward of where she wanted, she suspected an explosion of some type, but on landing she did so on top of an Imperial Templar and had not the time to consider what went wrong. As quick as she could muster the strength she was on her feet, though on the other side of the three-meter gap in every direction around her was a wall of shocked and angered Imperials.

"It's just a farking girl!"

"Disarm her and tie her up!" One of the Imperials shouts as he drops an arquebus aside and draws a sword.

Use your power, Magic Knight, and you would bring this battle closer to the end, Rayearth orders telepathically from the far side of the battlefield.

As the wall of swords and firearms closes in on her, the ornate armor of the Magic Knight of Rayearth flashes red accompanied by a pulse of hot wind emanating from her in a circular arc, both of which brought their closing on her to a resounding halt. Instantly she knew the course of what must be done, and hesitated not a moment in doing so. "Inferno Shell!" Hikaru shouts as she inverts her sword and drives it into the ground in front of her. For a moment Hikaru felt immensely hot both inside and out, but it was the kind of warm heat that reminded one of a wood fire in your backyard; the sensation lasted a moment, then the expanding shell of flame and pressure shoved away those around her, incinerating them and slagging down their metal components into molten metals. The shell continued to expand for a distance, easily a hundred meters in every direction, though the magic fire never touched one of the Espers, only the Imperials.

Again the battle stifled, and Hikaru could look around at the hundreds of meters of scorched earth in every direction, with puddles of molten metal and remnants of enemy troops scattered here and there for good measure. And she was reminded of how horrible war really was.

-x-x-x-

In the skies south of Vector, much the same story played out with the exception of the actors.

Battle comes from the direction of our foes, Windam notes telepathically.

"Is it... the remnants of the IAF? Have they been in battle against the Archangel?" Fuu asks as she gets a clear sight of the enemy.

It would appear so, Windam concludes telepathically again. Some of the enemy's sky armor smoking slightly even at distance.

"How do we... I... I don't know how to fly a large aerial battle," Fuu admits.

Then we shall need to correct this, Windam replies to Fuu with a small hint of humor to his mental voice. We are in an optimal position right now, with the sun to our back. What we must do now is divide the forces, split off a second unit, and strike farther south as well as head on. We have every advantage we could want, this battle is simply removing a thorn in the rest of the forces' side. If Windam could sound any colder to Fuu, how was lost on her. You have a mastery of games and skills of the mind, Magic Knight, you need only unleash it when necessary. Draw upon your prior experience, you have the answer.

When phrased like that, Fuu was still unsure of what Windam meant. She did, however, take it on faith that a Rune God would understand that she understood these things. "Would it be prudent to use our heaviest forces in the head-on attack, and use our medium forces to strike them from the side?" Fuu guesses. It was a common tactic seen throughout her games and reading material, the combination main strike and attack from the side, commonly called a flanking maneuver.

This is the correct application, Windam replies. Five seconds pause; I have sent the Aska, Maxwell, Palidor, and Valefor around to the south. After we have met in battle, they will strike the enemy from the side, trapping them.

War is so cruel, Fuu thinks to herself. Long gone were the days where she would enjoy the solace, the heroic storyline of a longer RPG game, mainly on the thought that her life had become some very twisted role-playing game in and of itself. A game whose consequences resulted in lives lost in a cold, hard reality like no other she even thought possible. And to think in years past she reveled in trying to solve the role-playing games in a way that her friends sometimes called 'overkill', to completely humiliate the bad guy and wipe out his or her minions.

Even the flight of your fancy can be thine reality, in more ways than one, Magic Knight, Windam declares. Thine works of fiction are assuredly reality somewhere else in Existence, yet such fancy can be its own strength when considered properly. This shall be discussed at length, but not now. Brace yourself, Magic Knight, for the battle is about to begin.

Unlike her common works of fiction, the Bahamut to which the front of the Esper Air Forces were heaviest guarded did not breathe fire like the average dragon. Theirs was an energy beam that Fuu could only begin to guess what it was comprised of, but the power it contained was manifest: six Bahamut cut six tunnels through the enemy remnant, each tunnel a dozen meters wide, and the beams continued on to the mountain ranges. Far behind the enemy air force (and actually above the enemy ground forces) the beams struck the mountains that surrounded the major bend in the path to Vector, the frightening power of those beams tearing gouges into the living stone of the mountain without reserve. It was testament to their power that the holes had little spillage in the form of falling rocks due to the fact that the holes were mostly and in one case completely through the mountains in question.

After being blasted, the Imperials countered in kind with their own armaments. The Bahamut, smaller and more maneuverable than the Rune God Windam, maneuvered around the incoming fire for which they had time to do so (the missiles, mostly). Windam continued forward unconcerned with the trifle of weapons far too small to injure him, in one case flying through a swarm of missiles that struck and detonated on him. "Is there something I should do?" Fuu asks as they continue to close with the Imperials.

Observe the battle and apply your judgment, but do not manage it to the smallest detail. We will win, but you can make the victory more complete and less damaging by adjusting our methods as needed.

"Understood," Fuu replies shakily. "Erm," she grumbles as she examines what was happening. To her mind, things were advancing apace, except... "The Diablo and Sylphs do not have room to attack, should they loop around to the right?" Fuu asks.

It is relayed, Windam declares after a few moments. Brace yourself, he orders immediately thereafter. Gale Bomb, Fuu hears inside the confines of her mind moments before she sees a rippling in the skies nearby a cluster of the newer-version Sky Armor. It was a strtange thing, she figured, seeing air as it compressed and moved in a series of rippling waves that each was more powerful than the blade of a sword, and though far less massive each was far more powerful. The radially expanding blades of wind moved for several hundred meters, most encountering dead sky before dissipating, though some found other Sky Armors and chopped into them without reserve. The blast finally gave out before it would have approached her, though the moving winds gave Windam a buffet like few others. Fuu had to hold on for her life, since gravity was not a natural component she wanted to argue with right this minute.

To her left, Fuu could watch the Aska and Palidor as they brought in the attack from the side, the Maxwell leaping off the Palidor (3) to begin their attack run of Judgment, the ability to move about the skies enshelled in energy that took a lot of force to break. The Valefor swept through the farthest left of all, their Sonic Wings (4) smashing the rotors of the Sky Armor and Spitfire, causing their hapless pilots to lose control (or consciousness) and fly into the ground or the mountains over which the battle had gravitated. The most fearsome were the Aska, their lead bird being one of the immensely powerful Ray Guards, whose sweep of wings over a Magitek caused the pilot to disappear in an almost-blinding light flare.

To the right, the Magic Knight of Windam observed the movements of the Diablo, Sylphs and even some of the Siren as they moved in on the northern flank of the enemy, effectively trapping their remnant in a three-way box with nowhere to run. The small wind shifts of the Sylphs made piloting and maneuvering for the Imperials difficult, which made things easier for the Siren who moved in close and bewitched the enemy with their harps or drew blood with their swords (5). Fuu considered that their lack of (significant) attire had to be more of a cultural thing than anything else, or a battle strategy to make them more alluring to the enemy.

The Diablo were something else, though. Where on one hand you had the beauties in the Seraphim and the Siren, and you had the beings of light and life like Aska and Phoenix, you had the other hand as well: the Diablo. Even over the sound of the winds she could sense their evil cackling as they threw large spheres of dense jet-black material around and used their massively long arms to pull a pilot out of his armor and drop him over the side towards the ground. The sadism of such actions was quite a bit sickening to Fuu, but her discipline overcame her reservations and she continued without wretching. She even managed to hold her lunch in at the sight of a Diablos having his head blown clean off by a missile from one of the Sky Armor, only to see the Diablo continue flapping his wings, then moments later shake his shoulders and loose a new head, then 'expand' his ears, nose and jagged ornamentation by way of implanting its thumb in mouth and apparently blowing. The evil cackle she could sense after that chilled her spine nonetheless as it returned to menacing, harassing and killing the enemy..

She forced herself to change focus, and was otherwise pleased with what she saw. The forward operations were the most straightforward, obviously, as they had presented nothing but a wall of serious power to the enemy and saved the maneuver for the sides. The Bahamut where the real powerhouses of the operation, their immense size and magical skill presented deadly defiance to the enemy, though even they proved fallible as several Spitfire ganged up on one of the Bahamut and with repeated missile strikes on its back between the wings took it down. Windam was able to partially cushion its fall with some quick spells, but the impact as it hit the ground was still immense enough to throw up a dust cloud. The Phoenix filled the middle-weight among the forward ranks, though this really was misleading as the sweep of the wings of one Phoenix was larger than the Archangel was long. They were truly majestic birds in and of themselves, Fuu believed, and she wished she could take one or both home with her.

Be wary what you wish, Magic Knight, or it may become reality, Windam cautions with more than a bit of humor to tone.

"You would allow it?" Fuu asks, then grimaces as the swing of a Bahamut's claw tore down two Spitfires before they could line up on the downed Bahamut. There was something about killing these misguided soldiers in such quantity that dragged on her soul, but she had a mission to complete and failure meant she never made it home.

The battle is almost complete. Please issue the final orders, Magic Knight, Windam requests.

Fuu could naught but gasp. They had been fighting barely five minutes and things were already almost done. Still, she saw only one thing that really needed to be done: "Aska, Phoenix, Siren close in on the remaining enemy center from three directions, Bahamut up top attacking down. We drive them into the ground," she orders.

Thirty seconds later, her planning went into effect and the forces that were maintaining their distance began closing in on the center area of the melee. In less than a minute, Windam declared: It is done.

Fuu could not help but regret the empty feeling in her soul. "Have...the Seraphim see to the wounded," Fuu requests tiredly, wishing she could get past these horrid battles and headed toward home.

-x-x-x-

Even as Lord Cyan Garamonde began to have the sinking feeling that things were going too well, he continued his assault as was required of the plan.

Not that he had much time to feel anything except the numbness of his right arm after having fired over a hundred rounds of .303 British at enemy infantry in addition to close quarters combat and its own exigencies. His sword had been bathed several times over with the blood of Imperials. And the battle was less than half done.

More of his Infantry had surged forward to continue bringing the fight to the Imperials, allowing the 'Mechs and the first wave to take a breather, of which Cyan was one of those resting and reviewing the battle as it progressed. "We've routed out about 1600 of these can-head scumdogs," Lord Bezz notes as he reviews a map with Lord Garamonde. "Your men in the 'Mechs estimate about another three thousand, which we can probably finish off at the cost of maybe 800 to a thousand of ours."

"We would do far better had we the time and space to dig in," Lord Gahstmane notes sourly.

"Nary do we have time for entrenching, unfortunately. If we fail the pressure upon the whelps now, the Imperials escape unhindered. This must not come to pass," Lord Garamonde replies immediately.

"Sir!" One of the radio operators shouts. "The Omnimech Commander reports that they have unusual activity to the south, possibly something other than Magitek."

"Other than Magitek? Since whence has the Empire dabbled in anything but Magitek and Infantry?" Lord Bezz asks.

"To the south! They come!" Lord Gahstmane shouts, pointing with his own sword, an identical match to Lord Cyan's sword (though definitely not a match in its use).

"By the graces of all good Gods, what be those monsters? Some meld of Omnimech and Magitek?" Lord Cyan asks rhetorically, since it was fairly obvious that nobody around him would have a decent answer.

The machine in question was even more ungainly, bulky than the Warhawk, for all it walked in a similar fashion to the said Omnimech. It definitely lacked the motion grace of the Omnimechs, but what it lacked in grace it made up for in sheer menace. The squat, fat torso looked almost of a prehistoric monster in and of itself, though it brought forth the most mimicry of the Warhawk and Timber Wolf with the angles of the body frame. To its left arm was a large white dome of some kind, to the right a large cannon of some kind; there was no doubt that it was designed purpose-built for slaying other large armored targets in Cyan's mind. Yet, looking at it, he could naught but wonder how they would stop it, unless the Omnimechs could bring them down with ease?

"What can we do to fight such a monster?" Lord Bezz asks in almost a gasp.

"We do not," Lord Gahstmane replies immediately. "We are Infantry, that is armor. Unless it gets close to us, we have no hope of eliminating it. The Omnimechs would be the fellows to handle it."

"Come, comrades," Cyan notes. "Our leadership will be needed at the front in short order," he says as he picks up his rifle and a new bandoleer of ammunition. Once he had slung those two across his shoulders to free his hands, the Retainer To Doma stopped at a supply crate brought forth by the follow-on forces and slammed the lid to bust the seal on it. With little effort the aging swordsman stripped apart the remnant of the lid and reached inside, coming out with three M79 LAWS rockets. These first three he distributed two to Gahstmane and one to Bezz, as Gahstmane had proved himself the better shot over the preceding months of training. The other three in the box he removed and began carrying himself. Cyan maintained no illusions about what was about to happen, and he maintained no illusions about his arsenal: the Infantry would have to confront these metal monsters, and his sword was ill-suited to the task. Much as he disdained the requirement of having to settle the Empire with firearms instead of a duel of honor, Cyan was no fool: he expected he would have to do this, nor did he expect to survive it.

It was indication of how well the enemy was held in esteem that the two machines with the real long range firepower, the Timber Wolf and Mad Dog, braced, centered on the lead of the metal monsters, and both unleashed a hellish barrage of missile fire on them just under three kilometers away. At that range most of the missiles missed, though the handful of hits they could see caused visible rents in the armor of the unit in question, two of which were smoking. Some laser fire was aimed in its direction, as well as the particle cannons from the Warhawk, but hits were nonexistant.

A single shot was fired in response, the shockwave of the projectile was immense as it passed close to where Cyan was leading the other lords of the invasion forward to the front lines. There had to be shock in the ranks of the Omnimech pilots, for where they were being calm about the engagement against these metal monster before, they were maneuvering now, maneuvering hard and returning fire at range with their best weapons for the task, being the missiles prior fired as well as their heaviest, longest-ranged lasers.

In response to the continual fire from the Omnimechs, the first fired his main gun again, followed by a second among them firing at an even greater range. The second missed, the shockwave from the slug indicating it went well high over the unit it was aiming at, if it was aiming at the Stormcrow. The first did not miss, the cannon slug tore into the Mad Dog and completely ripped the left arm off the machine; Cyan watched in relative dread as the arm fell off the machine and down onto the infantry behind the Mad Dog. Cyan had little doubt that someone was dead courtesy of that, not to mention the pilot was probably spitting fury about losing that much of her machine in one shot.

The whip-crack sound of two particle cannons firing answered back for the wounded Mad Dog, and as the enemy machines were closing in on the Omnimechs that were more or less trapped in a small space, the closing ranges made getting hits easier. One of the cannons struck home, tearing a hellish rent in the armor of the side of the enemy monster machine, but even with the damage it appeared to continue coming, and Cyan could tell things were going to get worse for his allies before they got better: a fourth and fifth machine had come into sight.

"Move it up lads! We gotta support the 'Mechs!" Lord Bezz shouts as he waves the troops onward. Ahead of them, the Stormcrow fired three ruby-red lasers into the distance, adding even more damage to the enemy monstrosity but again failing to kill it off.

The enemy struck again, this time with far greater result than anyone (friend or foe) expected was even possible. One shot, one kill; the Stormcrow took a single chest hit that entered the front part of the torso and exited the rear in a massive rent, followed moments later as the pilot ejected from his clearly eviscerated machine, then the Stormcrow listed to one side and collapsed downward. The ground trembled as the Stormcrow landed and moved not a whit more.

"By the Gods, those are fearful weapons," Lord Gahstmane moans, looking at the back of the Stormcrow, then to the ejection pod as it began falling to the ground under a parachute. Already Doma's infantry had surged forward to collect the pilot when he landed, though things appeared that there would be a contest over it, as Imperial Infantry had surged forward with the same plan in mind.

"We move!" Cyan shouts as he passes his LAWS rockets to Lord Bezz and draws his sword, intending to cut the pilot out of the Imperial entanglement that he was about to land in. The pod settled down a mere thirty meters ahead of him, just where the two groups of Infantry were clashing.

Another wave of missiles went downrange from the Timber Wolf and the Mad Dog, and though a lot more struck this time it was still not enough to bring the first enemy down, much less his comrades. Cyan definitely did not see this ending well for the combined forces of the eastern invasion corridor. The Retainer to Doma shoved such thoughts out of his mind as he continued forward at the head of two platoons minimum of Infantry in what for all intents and purposes was a bayonet charge right at the Imperials, with sporadic gunfire thrown in for good measure.

Three seconds more charge at the Imperials, then catastrophe. A cannon round struck the Timber Wolf and knocked it backwards and down, but the greater problem was in the pair of such slugs that struck the Mad Dog. The first that hit sheared a leg off, then moments later a slug struck almost square to the cockpit, gouging out a massive chunk of the head and what would be the neck of the machine. The machine fell face first into the ground and moved not again. Cyan needed not ask, he could see the disgust and anger on the faces of his troops and those around him. The tide was now well in the favor of the Imperials, and they knew it by the sounds of the cheering from their ranks. Despite the Timber Wolf standing, things were definitely not pleasant and showed no sign of straightening out.

Cyan finished his charge into the Imperial ranks as the pilot of the Stormcrow kicked through the ejection pod hatch of his machine. He stood in a clear-zone between the two sides, though it did not take him long to realize where he was and afterwards he drew a double-bladed sword-staff from a magic glove on his left hand, similar to the Magic Knights that Cyan had seen in action with the Archangel crew. Immediately the enemy hesitated, some with outright fear on their faces that they were facing someone who appeared to know how to fight on the ground as well as in a massive machine.

Things only got worse for the Imperials as Cyan and his troops rushed past the pilot and began mercilessly chopping and bayoneting them down. Cyan himself led the charge in, past pike and bayonet with his sword and still carrying the rifle slung to his back, the only hesitation in his attack was finding the right combination of targets for his ministrations. His sword came around once, removing the head of a green-armored Imperial Officer, down and through the helmet of a blue soldier, around in a weak-side slash through a trooper, and a decapitating stroke against another in blue. His technique lasted mere seconds, far less than any of them could have decently guarded against (6)

Cyan never saw the killing stroke, but he heard the thunderous cry from his own men as the first of the monster machines went down from the ministrations of the Omnimechs. Powerful though they were, and very resistant to damage, they nonetheless were far from invulnerable as the two remaining machines proved. Their celebration was short-lived, though, as another barrage of fire tore off the left leg of the Timber Wolf, causing it to spill to the ground and never stand again. Again with the whip-crack sound of particle cannons, but this time the 'mechwarrior in the Warhawk did not shirk on aiming, focusing both to one location, the exposed leg of one of the machines. Two strokes of the immensely powerful Particle Cannons took down the second of the enemy machines as it detached the right lower leg at the knee.

The weapon of the enemy machines sounded like the Shiva mounted to the Duel, Cyan realized as one of them fired the gun within a kilometer of where he stood. The shockwave was intense for the brief moment it passed by him in route to the Warhawk, then the Warhawk staggered from the impact, followed by several missiles fired at the point of impact that was flayed clear to the innards of the machine. Three impacted on the surface, but the fourth entered and detonated inside the armor plate, and moments later the fourth of the Omnimechs punched out to resounding cheers from the Imperials, though the cheer was short-lived, replaced by a cry unheard on the planet for a millennia: "ESPERS COME! RUN AWAY!!!" Someone shouts in proximity to Cyan, which immediately stirred his heart.

"Hearken, Comrades! Stave the Imperials, the Espers shall help us crush them underfoot!" Cyan shouts immediately thereafter, stirring his men to harder exertions as the Imperial Mass attempted to crush into his lines and over them, escaping the death that was now consuming their rear lines.

Cyan watched in grave horror as first a three-headed massive dog tackled one of the enemy war machines, ripping clear its main gun and throwing it aside. A second was struck several times by lightning repeatedly, bringing it to the ground in a crumpled heap as the electricity scrambled its motive systems. The one remaining enemy machine had continued forward, firing on the ground with what could not be but the Browning M2 Machine Guns, as several had gone missing from the production lines it was theoretically possible they had picked some up. Cyan watched as heads, chests spilled onto the ground from the transit of the slugs through his ranks, but the answer of LAWS rockets was loud and profuse from his own troops. The enemy machine had closed to two hundred meters, and it was a very large target that attracted over fifty of the rockets from his men. From the various wounds delivered the machine began leaking vital fluids, though he wisely kept firing, launching a pair of rockets into the troops behind Cyan while continuing to rake the ground with machine gun fire, until he ran out of fluid and his machine collapsed from unusable machinery. A massive cheer came up from the survivors, even as some of them mounted the machine with their still-smoking LAWS tubes waving in the air.

A strange cackling sound drew Cyan's attention down to the ground, which drew everyone's attention there, and immediately the Imperials backed off their counterattack in unfeigned horror as small humanoid cacti milled around the Doma Troopers' feet. One of them steps forward, makes a strange squeaking sound, and begins waving its arms at the Imperials. The others followed suit, and Cyan was treated to as rare a sight as he could ever claim, the sight of Imperials running away, screaming like little schoolgirls, being chased by less-than-foot-tall cactus that were spraying needles all over the place. The absurdity of the situation was not lost on his men, either, many of whom broke out in sheer laughter at the sight.

The horsemen of the Espers were nothing short of amazing on Cyan's view, as they rode down the enemy ranks and chopped them to shreds with wicked swords that were obviously magicked. They did not move alone, as the long-legend Ifirit slammed their way through the Imperial Ranks, even to the point of picking troopers up and crushing them in hand, which was rather unsettling even to a battle-hardened Knight like Cyan. The most disturbing of these beings, however, was the massive Tritoch as they flew around the skies, their cries eliciting spellcraft upon the hapless Imperials below. Where they did not spoil to let their magic to the kill, they swept down from the skies and rent the Imperials apart, their claws easily shredding through the Imperial metal armors and destroyed their weapons. Yet even they were fallible, as a well-placed pike brought down one of the Tritoch, and a dozen soldiers collapsed in on it with sword and axe, shredding it to bloody pieces.

The final nail in the Imperial Coffin was also the most overly frightening of the beings: a massive, walking, flaming lion that moved around the battlefield, doing nothing more than apparently whipping the flames of the battlefield into various effects that it used on the Imperials, and lacking that used its own flame spellcraft to sort them out. Accompanied by that sight was a surge of Espers, many of them the dismounted rider types, as they shoved forward with a red-armored...Magic Knight? Even she cleaved her way through the Imperial ranks, her sword easily unmatched by Imperial arms, though her armor showed the unmistakable sign of abuse from enemy efforts she did not appear actually injured at all. Her efforts were rather clear as the unit she was in pushed a line for the downed Stormcrow pilot, the other Espers using their thrust to open new flanks and fronts against the Imperials, driving a wedge into their force almost perfectly halfway in between the two sides.

The pilot had not given up his effort, he refocused on driving through their ranks toward the Magic Knight, though was joined by Commander La Flaga and his halberd, and Cyan realized that the magic of their group ran quite deep if even one of their commanders was tied to a Magic Knight. Resistance was thin as Cyan joined them to finish punching the gap and thereby cleave the enemy ranks in two. The sounds of rifle and machine gun continued, the final death throes of the Imperials answering with scattered arquebus and cries of 'For The Emperor' as defiance against their fate.

It was both the Stormcrow pilot and the Magic Knight that brought down the final Templar between her forces and the front-line of Doma, the pilot's double-blade sinking into the Templar's left hip and straight in as the Magic Knight's sword came down on his right shoulder and traversed almost as far as the pilot's weapon. As both drew weapons out of the dead body, they looked around and saw that what the Espers had not begun slaughtering, Doma's infantry was doing the remainder; they would not be needed for the battle any further.

"I saw what happened," the Magic Knight notes, her voice betraying that she really might be a schoolgirl as her appearance suggested. The sword disappeared into the red-gem glove on her left hand, much as it did for the Stormcrow pilot and Commander La Flaga.

"Can't be helped. We never knew they had weapons like that," Commander La Flaga notes. "Still, we did kill two of them, the Infantry got a third, the Espers the remainder.

"It's almost over right now," The Magic Knight notes. "Umi should be in position to begin the assault against Vector any minute now."

"We did what we had to do," the Stormcrow pilot notes to the Magic Knight. Already the frontline had receded far enough that they could speak in something approaching a civil tone.

"Nary does a real soldier relish the battle, Magic Knight," Lord Cyan Garamonde notes. "Some days ye does as ye wishes, others, ye does what one must."

-x-x-x-

"Please begin," Umi requests in a calm tone.

The ratcheting sound of the armaments on the Alexander was a chilling sound in and of itself, but necessary nonetheless. After all, the Imperial Garrison was out in such force that an artillery barrage would be needed before the remainder of the Espers could attack.

Moments later, the six Alexander with her group began firing, the white beams arcing up, then down into the distant near edge of Vector. The impacts each caused a blast of pure white energy at the end of their transit, much as would fire from the Archangel were it here. A second barrage was called, and again dozens of the beams went downrange into concentrations of Imperial forces. No mercy whatsoever. On that, Umi retained no illusions of innocence, it was either them or the Espers, and Umi preferred them to take the hit.

"Why are...two of them causing more damage than the other four combined?" Umi asks, seeing that the attack from one of them was as powerful as the four weakest of them (though far from 'weak' by any definition).

Two of them are Holy Bastions, some of the best of the Alexander. They are not to be trifled with, Selesce notes. (7)

"Oh," she squeaks in reply. "Shall we begin?"

The ground attack begins now, Selesce declares, though Umi could tell that it was a broadcast order. Immediately the front ranks of smaller Espers surged forward for the outskirts of Vector itself, given that they had already entered the suburbs of Vector and taken out the sparse garrison there.

The Terrato led the way under the ground, followed close by the Gnomes, amorphous clay golems that could take on any shape they wanted and use it against the enemy; Umi had seen they had a preference for becoming some form of clay bomb, accelerating themselves to where they shot up out of the ground and then landing on the poor sod of a target they wanted to damage or destroy. The combination of earth Espers was in and of itself a massive force to be reckoned with, since gravity dictated everything not buoyant in air or water had to be on ground (or in orbit around the planet, which meant they were not in the fight). Seeing the great Serpent Striker of the Terrato (8) go above, then below the surface of the ground as the Gnome shot up several hundred feet to come back down on top of the waiting Imperials outside the main structure of Vector was an impressive sight in any fashion.

Leviathan provided a wonderful counterpoint to the Terrato, the large serpent of water easily capable of causing massive flooding and overpressure to those who were ensnared by the Leviathan. Pandemona joined in the battle on the left flank, well away from the Terrato since the two groups did not get along natively. The sight of the large Pandemona drawing in the enemy Magitek (and some older rickety structures) then spitting them back out to watch the enemy do rag-doll flips in the wind and their armor splinter all over the place was morbid to Umi, but another price she figured she had to play in this war. The massive Pandemona, easily as tall as an Omnimech, were guarded in close by some of the Carbuncle, the small green fairies that had some amazing defensive skills. Where the others attacked, the Carbuncle prevented most of the Imperial counterattack from succeeding.

The main wave of the assault on Vector was handled by three beings: Undine, Shiva, and Zoneseek. It was with these three groups that Selesce advanced, Umi herself was down among the Undine in formation with them, advancing through the inner suburbs and toward the main Imperial Garrison. The operational concept was brutally simple, something that Umi had learned was almost essential to military operations. While the main Imperial Army tried to stop the incoming invasion forces from the north, the Espers would hammer the Garrison at Vector, take the capital, and hopefully subdue or kill the Emperor and force the issue in their favor. In more direct terms, it could be called a double-feint, but in reality any of the attack vectors was its own threat to Vector, since leaving one unchecked was asking for that force to come in and assault your hometown.

The Zoneseek were an unusual entity in and of themselves. Umi had a feeling that they were some form of undead, like the Phantoms, but she did not complain outright about having to side with them. Their magic skills were topnotch, being defensive as well as having the ability to drain the power from anything they aimed their spells at, they could put down threats without killing them. Where they did not have the time to do that, the Shiva and Undine took over to handle the remainder. With this tag-team philosophy in play, the Imperial Commandos and their canine support tried but failed to bust the frontlines as they finished advancing through the suburbs and came to the main superstructure of Vector.

And then came to a halt. "What...are those things? Magitek?"

They are Magitek Guardians, Selesce informs everyone telepathically. Left alone they will do nothing, strike them and they will return the favor with their automatic grenade launchers and primary beam cannon. They are the ultimate defensive Magitek weapon, they do not even need a pilot.

"Guns without brains," Umi mutters disparagingly. "How do we take them out?"

I have a plan for this one already, Selesce replies with what Umi could have sworn was a hint of humor. That slightly worried her, since the Rune Gods were normally very serious beings.

Umi had not been sure of the Atomos, or what they really did for her team, but as one came in to hover over the low-rise military buildings outside the Vector superstructure, she was beginning to wonder... The Atomos in question opened its mouth, wide, wider, wider, until she feared they could drive the Archangel into its open maw. As it did this, it began inhaling at an insane rate, the speed and power with which it was sucking in things increased and kept increasing as they looked on, until it began ripping parts of the metal framework of the Imperial Capital out and drawing them in. At about the peak of its sucking power Umi watched as the Magitek units (including the hundred or so behind the three Guardians) came off the ground and tumbled into the sucking Atomos. First one, then another of the Guardians came off the ground, then the third, and Umi lost count of the individual smaller Magitek and Infantry that had been consumed by the Atomos.

And then, the totally unexpected. The Atomos had inflated to a massive size as it drew in the enemy units (as well as several metal structures in the area). Umi could distinctly hear some rumbling coming from it, though she thought it was just the final harrangue of the manned Magitek pulled in, until she heard a sound like the largest, most soggy-ass fart she had ever heard. The rumbling release was more than enough that she could feel the pressure waves from it in the same fashion that someone would feel the pressure from a jet engine nearby. This continued for well over a minute as the Atomos deflated quite rapidly. After that was over, a rather distinct and painful sound of crunching metal was heard from the Atomos as it chewed up the remnant, interspersed with some screaming from the poor sods it had just ate with the armor, though the latter did not last for too long. More to the point, Umi preferred it did not last long, listening to someone die by being chewed up in the innards of a biological vacuum cleaner was not high on her list of things she wanted to experience in her life.

It had taken some time, but the expelled air was inevitably going to drift her way. The first to notice were the Undine, though Umi was not far behind: "Oh, holy shit, that STINKS!" Umi gasps in complete shock as it almost causes her to retch. She mentally realized that she had lapsed on her own preaching on that one, but definitely was not going to begrudge herself the reaction to the foul odor of the area.

"Good Gods, I have never whiffed anything that foul," one of the Undine says as she outright chokes from the noxiousness. "What in the name of nine hells do they feed these Imperials?"

"I don't...want to know..." another of the Undine moans, herself having forfeited the remainder of her lunch in the gutter that ran along the road. And she was not the only one.

More crunching sounds, then a bit of a hocking sound from the Atomos. Moments later a jagged ball of metal detrius with brown oil and red blood thrown in for good measure was headed back towards the Imperial lines as the Espers watched on, and after it landed it deformed into something looking like a massive iron gummi jelly.

The Atomos says he has a piece of steel stuck between his teeth, Selesce notes whimsically to just about everyone in the area of Vector.

"I absolutely needed to know that," Umi declares sarcastically, which in turn caused her a hellish coughing fit courtesy of the stench still in the air around her.

The Imperials saw and heard this, took one good look at the smiling Atomos and its massive toothy evil shit-eater grin, and to a man dropped their weapons and surrendered. Brave though they were, they knew when it was their arses in the fire and they figured they might just get out alive if they quit while ahead. To confirm their hopes:

Espers, the Imperials have surrendered. Render disarmed, secure and detain. Do not kill them unless they resist, Selesce orders. We will need to break down and secure the individual facilities. A detachment each to the Magitek Research Facility, to the Imperial Armory, the Teleporter Facility, and the remainder into the Imperial Fortress itself.

As it was ordered, so they did immediately. Umi joined the battle-hardened ranks as they moved for the superstructure of the Imperial Palace, her own sword at the ready but standing as unused the whole day. Others nearby had the duty of cutting down Imperials or dispatching threatening civilians, but so far she had had to do nothing of the sort. She knew that would change inside the palace.

It did. "Halt!" An Imperial Templar shouts after Umi takes the first turn inside the superstructure. Since he was alone, she used her smaller stature and faster reaction time to get around the arc of his halberd, which she managed easily. Once on the wrong side of his weapon, and knowing his heavy-armored body wouldn't be able to get in on her with speed, she darted in, her rapier coming up to remove the Templar's forearm and then a thrust inward to his body to silence him. Just like that, the one guard in the entire visible fifty meters of hallway was dead.

More sound of action echoed from the side corridors, but even that was sparse and seemingly halfhearted to Umi. As her unit advanced it passed by multiple other units, some with freshly bloodied blades, others with clean blades, as they continued the search for the Emperor.

"Milady Magic Knight, we have secured the throne room and Emperor's Quarters. He is nowhere to be found," another of the Undine declares as Umi began to head up some stairs.

"Very well. Search Vector thoroughly, but be careful. There are probably more of the Imperials in here, do not take undue risks."

"As ordered, milady," the Undine replies as she moves to spread the word.

-x-x-x-

"Oh, I've seen better days, I've been star—" CRACK "—of many plays, I've seen better—" CRACK "—days," Edgar sings horridly off key over the sound of machine gun fire from the pits immediately ahead of himself.

"My liege," the Chancellor says as he brings his own rifle up, then fires a shot. "Don't make me frag you to preserve the remainder of our sanity," he says with an absolutely evil grin, taking the fang and threat out of it.

"Oh?" CRACK. "Would you prefer I sing an excerpt of a song about a war from the Archangel's homeland?" CRACK. None of them could hear but all of them saw as the King fed his rifle another strip-clip of ammunition.

"Sir no sir, you're damaging our morale faster than you are theirs," the Captain in the command hole with them says.

"King Edgar, the Buster is launching right now," the Radio Operator declares. Moments later the ground shook as Tolle Koenig landed the Buster

CRACK. "Oh man, what is that thing?" The King asks, his rifle pointing downrange at something.

"A Magitek Guardian...moving?" The Chancellor asks.

"Oh good God, that thing is going to shred us," King Edgar notes. "Operator, tell the Buster to target that thing, please," he requests. In the distance he watched as it began firing single shots of grenades from its rotating arms, and in so doing Edgar watched as parts of his frontline troops began flying courtesy of the explosions. It was less than amusing to the King.

"Good Gods, look at that thing," the enemy machine had continued its slow trudge forward, though now the arms were clearly spinning and dealing out massive amounts of grenade launcher rounds per minute. And... "Oh shit, sir, he's got a big brother."

"Did the Empire cross-breed a Battlemech with their Magitek whores?" King Edgar asks nobody in particular as the thing turned in on the forward positions, firing of all things a series of four M2 Heavy Machine Guns mounted in its upper torso. "How did we lose that many guns to them?"

"No telling, sir, maybe someone has a taste for treason in Doma," the Chancellor replies acidly. "What do we do now, o my Liege?"

"Archangel and the Gundams will have to take that thing down, we can't, just keep shooting the Infantry."

"Good idea, sir, 'cause here they come," the Captain notes.

The three got back to firing at the infantry as the Gundams vectored in to attack the enemy machines. The enemy Infantry had begun a massive push as the machines closed up on the forward ranks, making this a double-thrust that only got more dangerous with the realization that those enemy machines had a lot more power than anyone counted on. The first shot from the large walker completely knocked over the Duel from translated impact, but failed to kill it as Yzak began the arduous process of standing up.

"It's a cold day in hell again, sir," the Chancellor declares.

"Thank you for the weather report, Chancellor, now please shut up and shoot," King Edgar says as he recenters his sights and squeezes the trigger. His custom-built autocrossbow was cocked and at the ready in case he had to use it on an up-close enemy or group, the latter being what it excelled at.

-x-

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Yzak shouts as the Duel struggles to stand after the hit it took. "Damn that new weapon!"

"I got it," Tolle says as he centers his sniper weapon on the enemy. He squeezed the trigger as was proper of a sniper, smoothly and without jerking, and the beam charged, accelerated and fired. Moments later the beam struck the enemy torso and blew clean through, causing whatever power source it had (likely a Magitek reactor) to cook off spectacularly. The explosion consumed most of the enemy frontline in an acintic fireball, and scorched a lot more than just the ones it outright consumed. "One shot, one kill," Tolle declares fairly.

"Good shooting." Athrun replies drolly. "Now do it again." Another of the machines had crested a ridge that was shielding most of the Imperials from direct view of even the Mobile Suits.

"Guys, the front line is about to collapse," Yzak notes. "We need to move up and take an active defense, or they are screwed and so are we."

"Roger that," Athrun says as he sets his shield and begins marching forward, careful not to step on any of his own troops. Tolle fired again, this time missing the main body of the enemy large machine but tearing its radome off. Instantly the cockpit of the machine dropped open, revealing a two-pilot cockpit that looked about as advanced as normal for Magitek. Before Tolle could reset for another shot, the Gottfrieds of the Archangel spoke in defiance of the enemy machine. Only one of the 225-cm beams struck, the other three gouged into the infantry around it, but one was all that was needed to convert the lower half of the torso into a smoldering wreck, and that turned the whole machine inot a metal monument to the enemy's hopes of victory.

"Guys, the front line has had it, we need to take out those Magitek units right the hell now!" Yzak says as he aims down to the smaller units and starts shooting them one by one. Each could sustain not more than one hit of beam, but his rifle was already overheating nad he had to fire slow lest it burn out. Athrun was helping, as was Tolle's missile racks, but it still was not enough.

"This is about to get hairy fast," Athrun says as he racks his beam rifle and prepares a beam saber. With two short hops he was down among the enemy, and his slashing work was more than ample to bring down even the really heavy enemies, the ones with the rotary grenade launchers on their arms.

"Oh shit, we got enemies in the sky! A lot of them!" Tolle shouts as he reverses his weapons to convert from a sniper weapon to a shotgun.

"Those aren't enemies," Nicol declares. He had been grounded due to increasing damage to the Skygrasper's airframe, and was now working as another fire controller for the weapons on the Archangel. "The lead of their formation is Windam," he declares coldly.

"Windam? Hot damn! The air-cav has arrived!" Kuzzey shouts over the radio.

"Here they come," Athrun declares as he disables his beam saber and pulls the beam rifle again to continue firing at range. He had long ago exhausted his Vulcans to stem the Infantry, but did not return to the Archangel for a refit and refuel because he figured his main duty was to scratch armor, of which there had not been a shortage of.

Yzak grows an evil idea as he watched the Infantry force themselves into the wall of rifle fire. "Hey, Tolle, you have your MP3 player with you?"

"Huh?" was Tolle's immediate reaction to such an oddball question. "Yeah, I got it, why?"

"Plug it into your radio console, there should be a cable in one of the storage bins under it, and play the loudest, most evil metal you have, both on radio channel six and your speakers." Yzak orders. "We can bust their will easily, especially if those Espers get here soon. Athrun, set your loudspeaker to play out channel six, okay?"

"I hear that," Athrun replies.

Tolle fired a shotgun blast into the growing mass of enemies, then the Buster stopped moving for a few moments as he looked for that cable and rigged up his player. "Ready to all-out attack, guys?" Tolle asks.

"Do it," Yzak orders.

Athrun could not help but cackle when the opening strains of Got The Life by Korn began playing over all three Gundams' external speakers. It happened to be one of his favorite songs, though he did not completely approve of the lyrics he could see how it would be used as a psychological weapon in these circumstances.

The fear factor only increased as the Espers began their efforts. Another pair of the massive enemy walkers were utterly destroyed by directed fire from the Bahamut, the massive Esper dragons that without a doubt had enough raw power to turn any one of the Gundams into a pile of slag in one shot. The direct attacks from them did not stop there, however, as the other Bahamut used their beam weapon on the front-line Magitek and turned a nice chunk of real-estate (as well as its occupants) into smoking craters.

The main wave of the Espers struck to the cheering of the invasion force, with the Maxwell and Diablos leading the way on the right and the Aska and Palidor on the left. The Bahamut and Windam had the center, along with the Valefor and Sirens, with the remainder of the force bringing up the rear as an operational reserve. Trapped between Espers to the rear and the Invasion Force to the front, they knew they were about to be slaughtered, and there was little they could do about it.

In the case of the Maxwell, the Warriors of Judgment as most called them, they dropped to ground from their floating globes and were surrounded by balls of moving energy in atomic-style orbits, which as they moved these orbits varied out several meters, striking anything they wanted and causing horrid wounds even through the armor. Other Maxwell retained their heavy shell instead of going to ground, which the atomic shell they used was easily capable of causing material vaporization as they passed through a target. In this way several of them were launched a hellish distance as they vaporized part of a Magitek's reactor and took a flight in the ensuing explosion.

The Diablos found themselves even more at home here than in the air, as the Imperial Infantry had less chance of flight and almost no hope fo damaging any of them. The Diablos had many ways to kill the enemy off, spells of fire and gravity, their own unique black hole attack, they even would run the Infantry to ground and tear heads or limbs off with bared claws. In terms of pure fear, the sight of the Diablos was high on the list, what they mercilessly did to the Imperials was just as bad. The sound of their wretched cackling carried over the battlefield as they inflicted their misdeeds on the Imperials, which was the final nail in the coffin for some. Despite this, the Diablos were far from immune to abuse, as the Magitek with the missiles found themselves firing on the Diablo with quite a bit of effectiveness, as they did not get up from craters in their chests. Heads and arms were another story however, and the Infantry got a good look at a Diablo as it popped out a new head and continued fighting, cackling the whole time.

The Aska turned out to be both beautiful and frightening to the Imperials. Beautiful in that they had never seen a bird formed of pure white and surrounded by a glowing white or yellow light halo that was far larger than the Sky Armor they used. As they dove down to attack the Imperials, the halo of light they were surrounded by disintegrated the Imperial troopers one after the next after the next, not even slowing down the birds as they took a pass at the ground, to wing up to altitude with a Magitek armor in claw. The armor was dropped from altitude back on their own forces, cratering and usually exploding on impact, which made them something of a bomb in and of themselves. The Palidor, physically larger than the Aska, did the same with the Magitek but relied on wind-based spells to do the damage to the Infantry.

The center forces moved as a surge in and of themselves, the Espers driving into and through the enemy without hesitation, actually striking not just the rear but inland as well in a classic vertical envelopment. Valefor and Siren were smaller than the remainder of the Espers, but still powerful in their own right, and more than enough to cause outright panic in the Imperial ranks. They were joined in the vertical envelopment by the Phoenix, the large flaming birds that had a wingspan to match Windam but definitely did not themselves count as Gods. In this, just landing nearby was enough to cause casualties to the Imperials, though the allure of the Sirens made out a tactic similar to a bug-zapper: get drawn in and cooked off.

On the ground, three of the Bahamut had landed and hunched down to all four legs, walking along the ground at a lumbering pace to drive the enemy into the ranks of the force from Figaro, effectively trapping them without a way out. This they enforced with physical attacks, as the claw of the Bahamut was more than able to pick up one of the armless Magitek units and slam it down into the ground hard enough to destroy legs and weapons (much less crush the pilot). A swipe of the claw could take out whole squads of ingfantry by throwing them several hundred feet, and the mere act of stepping on one of the hapless ground-pounders was even fatal, and as it happens quite a bit messy. And then there was the fear factor: Bahamut was legend, one of the greatest and most terrible of the Espers from the legends of the War of the Magi a millennia ago, and these Bahamut were no less effective than their counterparts of years past.

The Esper's attack changed the happenstance at the frontline, something that caused the Archangel to shift their tactics. Using the last of their cluster missiles, a final missile wave was launched from all 32 missile tubes, with ten of them being the vaunted cluster munitions, the remainder high-explosive missiles aimed at command assets or Magitek units. This wipeout attack, combined with the infantry and machine guns, combined with the Gundams and their insane music preaching about God seeing the life to the sounds of very heavy metal riffs, all added up to a completely broken enemy force. Death rested in both directions, forward and back, and they were trapped between walls of mountains to either side. There was no escape and they knew it.

It was about the time that the song ended that Yzak realized that the bulk of the enemy was herding into the center of the kill zone, as far away from either force as possible, which meant they knew they were whipped and trying to survive as long as they could. "Commander, Yzak, permission to force a surrender?"

"If you can get the Espers to stop their attack, do so," Natarle orders.

"Nicol, see if you can request Windam bring the Espers to a halt, please," Yzak asks in a very civil tone.

Nicol pulls out his magical glove and touches the gem to his forhead. "Windam, the Imperials are defeated. We can force them to surrender if you can call off the attack," Nicol says.

It took three seconds. Espers, stay your hands. The enemy is defeated. Allow them to surrender, they have no more possible fight left to give.

The Figaro forces also checked their fire, though it was readily evident to the surviving Imperials in the area that they had plenty of fight left to dish out, and many of the machine gun teams simply used the pause in fire to link on more ammunition belts to their machine guns. The Espers stopped all their offensive, retreated as much as a hundred meters in some places, and stood their ground, staring at the Imperial forces as if daring them to try something stupid. Slowly the attempted exodus away from both sides came to a halt, the Imperials wondering collectively why they had stopped when they had the perfect opportunity to kill them all.

"Defeated Imperial infantry and Magitek Knights, I am Yzak Joule of the Archangel Team," Yzak says as his Gundam steps forward of the Figaro lines. "Your force has been trapped between two that want you dead, yet we are at the least more honorable than your bloody commanders. If you drop all your armaments now, dismount your Magitek; you will not be harmed further. Continue to resist, and you are all dead men. It is your choice."

Given the choice, there was not a huge amount of debate over the matter. Those two commanders that tried spurring their men into a suicide charge were themselves slain very quickly by their constituent troops. The remainder dropped their weapons and dismounted the Magitek as ordered.

"Duel reporting to command, Imperials appear to be surrendering—huh?" Yzak asks as the ground begins shaking violently. "Earthquake! Everybody down!" he shouts over radio and loudspeaker.

"Archangel, what the hell's going on? I feel something—"

"All forces, Archangel CIC, an island just took off and is now in the air due east of our position."

The power of the Gods has been used to raise that island, Windam declares telepathically.

The Emperor and his psychotic lackey intend to use the translated power of the sealed Gods to destroy any who would resist their rule. This was the distant but still clearly audible mental voice of Rayearth.

You must bring their plans to a halt, for if the power of those three divinities is unleashed as they intend, there shall be massive destruction and death upon this land from the backlash of their sealing, Selesce practically orders.

"Archangel reporting, we are going to deploy special operations assets on that island. All forces stand by, secure prisoners and await orders." Without another moment's hesitation the Archangel changed course with a graceful bank as the ship itself accelerated rapidly, the upgraded engines coming to full power in less than thirty seconds.

-x-x-x-

"All right, I'll spare the usual bullshit because time is short and the enemy is long on bad intentions. Lord Kefka and Emperor Gestahl are trying to awaken the Gods of the Espers. Our mission is to stop them at all costs. We deploy our best, we make damn sure we do this right because there will be no second chance if they win. We clear?"

"Aff, Chief Warrant Officer," Star Commander Natalya replies. The rest of the Commandos simply nodded, though the other four Elementals did not make any noise or movement.

"All right, Newman, you are on overwatch. You find a good place to stay and attempt to get an angle on them. If you get a shot, take it. Don't wait for my go-ahead, just kill the fuckers and be done with it. Clear?"

"Yes sir," Newman replies.

"Elementals, I want you guys out front and on the flank pertaining to the heaviest enemy resistance. The rest of the commando team will be behind you and will cover rear and the weak flank. Again, if you get a shot, take it, but make damn sure you don't shoot the Gods. Gods tend to get angry when shot at, and I don't want to find out what these are capable of. Follow?"

"Aff, sir," Natalya replies immediately.

"Commandos, eliminate all resistance. You know the drill," he says.

"SIR!" The Commando team shouts.

"Final gear check, people," he orders.

"All deploy teams, be advised we are approaching the island at this time and have spotted only a zip-line target. Repeat, insertion will be by zip-line at this time."

The Crazy Cook was prepared for this, and immediately they picked up their zip-line coils and tied them off to special mount points custom-made for the purpose of a fast-line deploy. The Archangel's mission had changed from the days of being chased around Earth by ZAFT, and the Commandos knew better than to sit idle about such changes.

The Crazy Cook picked up a growler phone and dialed the CIC. "CWO Ryback for Commander Badgiruel," he begins.

"Go ahead, Warrant," she replies.

"My teams are ready on the port-side forward personnel door, what are the landing site conditions?"

"Looks like two Magitek, we will try to take them out with laser fire before you are dropped. Barring that, you may have to fire on them before you can jump clean," Natarle orders. "Stand by, approaching deploy now," the sound of the Medium Pulse Lasers firing was a familiar one, but being closer to the actual laser batteries it sounded different, and a bit more welcome. "Landing zone has been cleared of all resistance, green light in ten seconds."

"Ten seconds! Everyone ready?"

"Aff!" The Elementals shout in chorus. It would be the five of them first out the door, since they could drop free and just jump-jet to land safely.

The green light popped on over the door, accompanied by a klaxon buzzer that brought their attention to the opened door. "Go!" The first Elemental jumped out. "Go!" Natalya went next. "Go!" The Elemental that was good at cards jumped next. "Go!" The fourth Elemental jumped clean. "Go!" The one in the purple armor went out the door. "Hook up!" he says after he kicks the zip-line out the door. The first guy locks in and went out the door without hesitation.

The rest of the team took about a minute to get on the ground, but nobody thus far had had a problem, including the less-than-sharpened Newman. "Archangel, Commandos, we are on the ground. No casualties. You are free to jump off," he declares.

"Good luck."

"Man, you definitely trained Mina well, kiddo," the Baker declares as the Archangel breaks away from the Island with a graceful starboard-side roll.

"I try," Newman replies, looking around the area. "That hill there, I'll set up and have command of virtually the whole island. You guys follow the outside track, in case I screw up and don't take them out you may be it."

"Gotcha," the CWO says. "Don't screw up, please."

Newman did not reply, instead moving to the indicated hill and began the climb to the summit. Behind him, he could hear the chatter of assault rifles as Imperial Troops and some form of winged wolf monster got in their way. The sniper shuddered as he stepped on the skull of a fossilized dragon, using it as a step to continue his climb, and went onward as the sound of a missile launcher was heard behind him, the detonating crack of it heard a moment later. Despite his very powerful fifty-caliber sniper rifle, Newman still did not want to tangle with an Elemental at any range, they were that scary.

"Sniper, what is your status?"

"Sniper reporting, I'm settling in right now," Newman says as he lays out his shooter's mat and binoculars, then sets and braces his sniper rifle. The first thing he did before actually looking through the scope, however, was pick up the binoculars and begin scanning the area. "Sniper up, I have eyes on the three sealed Gods...or make that one goddess and two gods. No enemy activity in the area yet."

"Roger that. Scan for targets, inform once found."

Newman began looking down the one discernible logical path to the Gods, and soon enough he found them. A lot of them. "Attention, I have eyes on the enemy. They are within two minutes march to the statues, but I do not have a clear shot once they reach the precipice with the statues. Move it up, people," he orders.

"Roger that, Newman, we're pinned down by some magic-using wench at your three-o'clock, can you give us some support?"

"Can do," Newman replies as he brings the rifle down off the crest of the hill and braces on the tail of the fossilized dragon. Once he had a clear sight picture of them, he could tell that this was the kind of lady that one did not kick out of bed unless she was better on the floor, but the whip turned out to be an instant turn-off to Newman. Still, she was harassing his team, so he had no option here...WRAAM, a weapon much more powerful than the Enfield rifles, the Barret 50-caliber rifle kicked into his smaller frame with a vengeance, belying his strength and discipline when behind it. The fifty-caliber slug missed over the intervening 850 meters, going high but definitely close enough to sprawl her out on the ground from translated shockwave. It took him a moment to get back on target, though it was only long enough to see as she clamored up to all fours in preparation to stand, one of the troopers had a sense of humor and shot her in the arse with a 12-gauge shotgun. Mistaking her screech of pain as it ripped across the winds of the island was next to impossible, but all Newman could do was look away as one of the other chef's crew finished her off with a close-range burst of Rorynex. "Sniper returning to overwatch," he notes, curtly reminding himself that he knew this would happen when he had to use his rifleman's skills instead of driving the ship.

"Roger that. We have eyes on the tangos, you should have a clear shot in the next fifteen seconds," the Chief Warrant replies.

"Sniper reporting sights on, awaiting target stabilizing before I shoot," he says as first Gestahl, then Kefka walks up the short staircase to the target location. He continued to observe as they slowed down when approaching the statues, then convened in the center of the precipice. "Sniper going live." WRAAM, the monster rifle spoke again, this time at targets that were less than half the distance than his prior shot. And still he missed. One of the troopers took the hit in the helmet, ripping it clear off and sending the helm in one direction while what was left of his head splattered all over his buddies.

Newman used the strike point as a gauge of winds between himself and the target, then WRAAM. This time, Newman did not miss his aimpoint. Kefka's head practically exploded when struck by the massive fifty-caliber round, spraying his brains and blood all over the persons nearby, one of them being the Emperor.

It was a strange thing, seeing the shock on Emperor Gestahl's face through the blood and head chunks of his subordinate, but that shock quickly turned to retching. Apparently this Emperor was less of a hands-on kind than some of the leaders from elsewhere in Existence, Newman figured. WRAAM, another clean shot as the Emperor turned away while puking, though it was his last action as the round struck him in the lower back and dug down as it transited up his back, eventually coming out the top of his skull in a spectacular rendition of a horror show head explosion.

Moments later the Commandos arrived at the precipice, and it was all but done except for the screaming. Newman watched, regardless, but did not fire again since the combination of automatic weapons and elite training with Elementals thrown in for good measure made the battle as one-sided as any. Only one minor injury was given to the Commandos, not including the one brought down by the wench, and that just a scratch for which the offending officer was given a thorough ventilation by no less than four assault rifles.

"Archangel, Commando lead, we have one wounded, one casualty. All tangos neutralized. This one is done."

-x-x-x-

The matter of the Floating Isle was not done, however. It would just be handled by the other Gods and their reporesentatives.

This is the final service to the Espers, Windam notes to clear any confusion among the three Magic Knights.

And it is a service to fellow divinities, who have paid their penance for their actions elsewhere. They have paid in full, but the being to which they answered for this crime no longer exists, so they could not be set free. Selesce sounded almost wistful about such actions.

Today they shall be released, Rayearth declares.

The Floating Isle was something of an oddity to the Magic Knights, but far from an impossibility. After all, they had saved Cephiro, fought across multiple inhabited planets of the Inner Sphere, utterly smashed an Empire using the help of Espers and the technological acumen of a Warship from a totally separate history from theirs. Fuu figured that, given what she had already gone through, very little surprised her any more.

"I think I'm over the continual shock of these things," Fuu declares.

"It is a totally different feeling, sometimes," Umi says. "Knowing we've done some completely insane things that nobody at home will believe were we to tell them."

"And knowing we've saved more worlds than we can count, and we still are not home, which means we will probably be doing this again...and again...until we do get home," Hikaru declares.

"Or die trying," Umi notes.

"No, we won't die, Umi," Hikaru replies, adding no justification to it.

"Hikaru, for once in your life, act like you're growing up. Yes, it is nice to believe that we'll be invincible for the rest of our lives after having done some of the things we have in the past year, but it is time to face reality. Our luck won't hold forever. We are riding the razor's edge, all it takes is one mistake and someone gets hurt. I don't want to see it, but I don't think we'll dodge it forever. Just be ready."

"Are you taking lessons in pessimism from the pilots or something?" Hikaru asks almost sharply.

Both Fuu and Hikaru could hear Umi's snort clearly. "Funny you mention the pilots, Hikaru. You do remember there is a memorial box outside the hot springs for one of them? Dearka Elsman?" Even Fuu thought she was being a bit too sharp on the matter, but remained silent. "He was a trained soldier, Hikaru, and a good one at that. He was a ZAFT Redcoat, one of their elite pilots. And...we all know what happened to him."

Lady Umi brings up a valid point, Magic Knights, Rayearth declares. The vagaries of battle cannot always be steered, even by the hands of the Gods or beings far greater than the Gods.

Be wary that you grow overconfident, even in our power; there are being out there that dwarf even our ranks, as hard as it be to imagine such, Windam declares coldly.

And should you cross those beings with intent that does injustice, they would not hesitate to stop you dead in your tracks. By far, it was Selesce that sounded coldest of all. To point, the three Gods that we shall today release did cross their ranks and failed to justify their transgressions. Let this stand as an example of things not to do with the power you hold.

And let they stand as an example of what arrogance can cost someone, even a God, Windam cautions.

"Message received," Hikaru replies, using a little bit of lingo she had picked from the mechanics.

"I never...really thought that things could be this bad for someone that millions would believe in," Fuu notes.

There is perception, and there is the reality, Windam notes. We have arrived, he adds as the Rune Gods slow their forward motion and move to land on various open expanses of the Island, since the precipice could only land one of the Rune Gods.

Hikaru and Umi had a significant hike from their landing places to get to the precipice, but there was no hazard since the commandos had clean-swept the Island earlier in the week. They had been kind enough to rid the island of the bodies of the fallen foes, by expedient of shoving them off the sides of the cliff edges to plummet to a watery final rest in the ocean below. Still, each of them could recognize the blood stains in the rock for what they were—the final resting place of those damned to an early end by the Archangel Team. Inevitably, they met up on the precipice where the three statues of the Gods stood.

As we three cannot be manifest on this resting place at once, we shall lend unto you our power, that you three shall awaken the divinities that rest here, Rayearth notes.

"Please tell us what to do, Rayearth, and we will do it," Hikaru says without hesitation.

A moment, Magic Knight, Windam declares. Lost Divinities, Braxas the Poltergeist, Doom the Grim Reaper, Jaide the Goddess, I am the Rune God Windam of Cephiro. As is required the covenant of your sealing eons ago, you have rested for a hundred thousand years entombed by spellcraft, and you have rested far longer than that. The day of your release is long since past, never executed by the entity that had sealed you due to her untimely demise. To complete the covenant, we Rune Gods of Cephiro can unseal you if you so wish it. The choise rests upon you.

A response was several minutes in the coming. The Rune Gods of Cephiro? It is good to see that at lease some divine ones survived the bloody blade of the Crystal Huntress, a wizened, older man declares telepathically, this one quite louder than the Rune Gods ever had been.

Has it truly been over a hundred thousand years that we have been sealed? Truly I did not believe us enshelled as long as you say it has been, this one also a guy, but younger and more energetic.

It has been more than three hundred thousand years that you have been sealed, Lost Divinities. Your penance is paid thrice over, of that you may rest assured. None would question your release, even the neophyte successors to the Crystal Huntress, Selesce declares.

Three hundred thousand years. It has been long since we have walked mortal lands. What say you, Doom, Poltergeist? I believe it is time we moved again, began the process of reconciliation with our lost subjects...and our victims of long ago, and this one could naught but be the Goddess, for her mental voice was authoritative female but young at the same time.

We have much time to make up for, lost to us and to our subjects. We shall begin anew, if the Rune Gods would allow us the chance.

The days of my scythe reaping the damned are long overdue. These scores of millennia have given me new perspective. I wonder if the Will Of Existence is hiring for more enforcers than just one?

Of this I cannot speak, nor shall I guess wildly at it. All we can do is remove the seal upon your forms, the remainder is up to you. Magic Knights, please approach one of the statues, Rayearth requests.

Each of the Knights approaches one of the sealed Gods. Fuu moved to the statue of Poltergeist, his unusual form caught her interest the minute she saw it; Umi to the statue of the Goddess, as something of her presence seemed noble, beautiful; Hikaru to the sealed Doom, his massive scythe rather scary even in stone but his mien not unkind.

As each stops, their magic gloves start glowing their respective colors. Magic Knights, place your gloved hands over the heart of the respective Divinity. We shall handle the rest, Windam declares.

Without hesitation, all three do as ordered. As their hands contact, the luminescence in the gem increases dramatically, then each of the statues begins glowing white. After four seconds, a bright flash is seen from all around each of the Knights and the Statues. It would fade, but not for thirty seconds more.

-x-

Doom threw his head back to release the tension in his stiff neck, then slowly lowered it to level and opened his eyes and drew his first breath of air in over thirty eons. "By all Existence, it is good to see and hear without the aid of magic," he declares.

"Indeed, yet it would appear that these three have not that luxury any longer," Poltergeist notes. Doom immediately looks to him, cradling a young lady in his arms, then realizes that he was holding one under his right arm, this one in red as opposed to the green of Poltergeist's savior.

"Was this exertion too much for even the Knights of the Rune Gods?" Doom asks as he slowly lowers her to the ground and checks her pulse.

"It would appear that all three could not handle the strain," Goddess declares as she shoulder-assists a limp third Magic Knight to where Poltergeist and Doom had congregated. "We cannot start our return to Existence by stepping over the deceased subordinates of our saviors. Can you correct this, Doom?" She asks as she lays the third down next to the other two.

"There is no can, Goddess. I shall correct this, regardless of who it offends," Doom says. "Please stand clear," and he waves the toehrs off, which they do. "As I am the God of Death, Grim Reaper, I can restore that which is taken just as easily as I can service the need for entities to die. I call upon the will of all Existence to live, that it may restore the natural life of these beings slain in the course of their duties," Doom chants, and as he does so each of the Magic Knights begins glowing blue, an unusual color for a spell which had always appeared yellow in uses long since past. "Life force of Existence, please grant upon these beings that which they are entitled, Full Life!" (9) he completes the chant, and the blue aura fades from each.

Nothing stirs among them for a few moments. "Did it work? I always thought it was a bit faster than—ah," Poltergeist interrupts his own protest as the blue Magic Knight's eyes come open with a bit of strain.

"Welcome upon your return to Existence, Magic Knights of Cephiro," Doom says as he assists the red one up from the ground. "For your part in unsealing us, you have our gratitude. As do your Rune Gods that you serve," he says.

"You three...are the Divinities? You look a bit different than you were in seal," Umi declares.

"Our stone forms likely weathered badly from the thousands of years of exposure," Poltergeist declares. "Regardless, it is we who owe you a debt for your unflinching willingness to unseal our physical forms. In what method may we repay this?"

It was Fuu with the answer: "You do not have to compensate us for this, Divinities. We did not do so with any expectation of repayment, we did it because we believe it right and the Espers wished you brought out of your seal."

"I'm with her on this one," Umi says as she jerks her thumb toward Fuu. Hikaru simply nods her head to complete her affirmation of what Fuu declared.

The sharp bark of laughter was unexpected, especially from the Goddess. "It would appear your title of Knight is not ceremonial, you truly do believe in honor and righteousness. More is the better for the lands you ward, Magic Knights. Very well, we will defer for now anything of that nature, but before you depart for new lands and quests we will see you off with something to compensate your honors. For today, let us return to our lands; where shall we deposit you?"

"The former Imperial Capital at Vector is where we are presently stationed, if that is what you are asking," Hikaru says without really considering it.

"Ah, the capital to the Empire of Magitek. Of the soldier that slain the Jester of the Empire, Lord Kefka, he has our thanks. We could sense the intent among them to drain us and use that power for ill. Please stand ready, I shall send you to your station, Magic Knights," Poltergeist declares. "We will be in touch with your ranks and your command structure in due time, once we have reconciled our affairs elsewhere."

And in a flash, the three Magic Knights were gone from the precipice that the Gods stood on.

"Such truly honorable people to be caught in such dire straits. Yet, we know not where their homes are, we cannot but cause more trouble for them should we interfere in their travels," Doom declares.

"Existence is just as cruel today as it was thirty Eons ago. All we can do is troy to do better than we did in the past, and maybe we might get around to helping people as they have," Poltergeist declares.

"That is, if anyone will tolerate three washed-up Divnities such as we," Goddess laments.

"We have naught but to try," Doom declares. "Let us reconcile the Espers, then we go looking for these Neophytes to the Will of Existence, but be wary we do not call them that, lest we are killed for a transgression of tongue, or worse are sealed again."

---

Author's Chapter Afterword:

Hot damn, this has been a long time in the coming. Almost three months since I posted my last chapter, and this one was one of the most painful to write ever. Long, involved, thick on battle and tactics and bloodshed, but well worth every minute of the writing. Seeing this stage done is its own reward to me at least, and if you enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed writing it, I have done my job for a day.

I think the annals of this chapter speak for themselves. Lots of battle, and the allies had to work their arses off for it. The loss of the Omnimechs (mostly) will definitely cut into the Archangel Team, but not all losses are permanent, especially with Murdoch and gang on the job. The bit with the Gods is a continuance of other theorem of mine, and you can rest assured the Gods are not through, yet. Especially the Rune Gods. Kristen Redmond is the only casualty in this one, and if that is the sum of what the Archangel paid today, it is a lucky break indeed.

The only thing outstanding is, can any of you name the monster mechanized unit that the Empire engineered to try and stop the Gundams, Omnis and the Archangel itself?

As to the rest, the antics in this dimension are far from through, as now that they have taken the Empire down someone has to do something about administration while the Archangel has to prepare the systems for their eventual departure from this world. Rest assured that things are far from done here.

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Review Replies:

Upon this chapter I had multiple reviews, and I think I replied to most, but I will still reply here as well, for seeing the thoughts evolve has given rise to new thoughts, plots that I work with still.

FraserMage: Thank you for the trivia surrounding the Mauler, I read through the original TRO for the Mauler and all things pointed to it being a Draconis-manufactured design. Since Miles Hawkins was a vet from the war of '39, that explains how he got his hands on one.

Knives91: The cat is still a pain in the arse, but he is cute and he smacks the dogs around so I keep him handy. And I hope this meets expectations as to the continuance of the invasion.

CHM01: Metal Gear, is it? An interesting thought. Give me a few to think on it.

Akasui: COD2 is a good game, try the movie Saving Private Ryan for a more viscereal showing of the battle at Normandy.

EtienneOfTheWestWind: You know, I completely forgot about that gag, thanks for the refresher :P Your ref about the cat stepping on the power switch and shutting the PC off is no joke, my kitten just started doing that to me. Caused more than a few setbacks in writing this one. I think I solved it by partially hiding the power strip under the computer case support frame. As to where they go, all such information is classified UFN, but be advised that those mentioned I have thought long and hard about, as I do any suggestions. Even the most off-the-wall location has its merits.

Bien Canonizado: Here is a partial list of calibers: Enfield Rifle uses .303 British, the Ma Deuce (M2 Heavy Machine Gun) uses the massive 50-caliber or .50 BMG, the standard assault rifle uses a modified 7.62 x 64 round, with considerably more power than the NATO .308 round, the sub-machine guns use unique ammo depending on the gun, and there are the usual assortment of explosives for grenades, anti-tank rockets and missiles.

Kelvin (Anon Review): Much thanks for the review, comrade. I am versed in Stargate, but not the SG-1 / Atlantis series, only the original movie, and that has been years since I watched it.

Barricade: *Pokes back* The arms race on this world has only begun, comrade, and the Archangel will definitely profit from it. Rest assured of that.

Much thank you all for the reviews and the patience you have shown in waiting for this long-overdue chapter. I hope my next couple chapters will be faster than this one came out.

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The Gripe Sheet:

Actually, the only complaints stemmed from my use of voice-recognition to type, which I cleared up as they were pointed out to me. This time around, I did most of my writing on the go, so the use of VR was minimal and it is better trained at this time than it was then.

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Footnotes:

(1): Dispatch is the name of Cyan's first special attack in the game Final Fantasy VI, and pretty much mirrors what I illustrated here.

(2): Under my Theorem of Summoning, the various Esper (Summon) groups each have their own rank structures and societies. Swordsmen of the Raiden are the elite warrior-summons of the Raiden, fast of mount and lethally competent in battle, easily capable of taking out enemy infantry and even some mechanized units. The leader and most powerful of the Raiden Faction is called the Battousai, though she does not appear in this story.

(3): This is the natural attack method of Summon Palidor, as it drops your team from the sky onto the enemy for major amounts of hurt.

(4): Sonic Wings is the heavy attack of the Valefor from Final Fantasy 10. It is both damaging and delaying to the target.

(5): This actually hearkens back to the mythology of Sirens, who were said to bewitch passing sailors with the sound of voice and instrument, to lead them to their deaths on craggy shorelines as the sailors attempted to get to such a beautiful songstress. After that, what was left of the ship's goods and crew was lunch for the Siren. Morbid, yes, but that is how people wrote the myths back then.

(6): This is Cyan's fourth sword technique, Quadra Slam. It is my mainstay when using Cyan, as it provides the best damage to charge time of any of his skills.

(7): Holy Bastion is the elite of the Alexander, their lead is called the Regal Fortress and is more than powerful enough to wipe all of Vector off the map. In this case, however, the Regal Fortress does not show in the story.

(8): Yup, you probably guessed it, this is the high ranking Terrato. Expect him to be able to cause a helluva lot of damage to anything he attacks.

(9): This is one of many possible theoretical chants to the spell Full Life (Life2 in Final Fantasy VI). Under my extended magic system, only Divinities or equivalent beings can use such spells without killing themselves in the process.