Assassin Drones: The original saga
Fuyuki's training Arc. De Arimasu!
By Alex Young
Keroro's A.R.M.P.I.T. base, 4:00 pm. May 09, 2003
"Unbelievable. I honestly didn't think that Jirara would side with the Pekoponians, and not simply destroy them all." Dororo sighed in his meditation garden. "But why? Why would he simply turn tail and run from Keron high command?" He spoke still not finished
{\Tell me. Does the word 'mind control' ring a bell anywhere? How would you feel about the fact that you've been repeatedly traumatized for the sake of torture? Do you remember anyone who died of highly aggressive, mysterious illnesses by any chance? Do you see now why I rebelled against them for it?/} The flashback repeated once more.
"Hey, Dororo. What's the matter?" Giroro quipped as he entered. "It's about my old master. I still don't get why he would simply turn against our own government? I mean, I only want to live and let live on Pekopon, but why him?" Dororo replied.
"Could it be that maybe this Jirara character feels the same way about the frog invasion as you do?" Giroro stated as a theory. "You could be right. We'll just have to wait and see, I suppose." Dororo mused once more as he went out for a stretch.
Suddenly, a letter appeared in front of him in his stretch, and he bent over to pick it up, open its envelope, and read it.
[Dear Zeroro. Go to that abandoned building complex so we can sit down and have a civil discussion, signed, Jirara. P.S.: Go alone.] The letter said, with Dororo taking his time to reflect upon what Jirara said to him back at that clearing in Operation: Diprotodon, and eventually go there alone.
Upon entry into the lifeless apartment complex, Dororo had already realized the X1 unit's customary greeting in trying to kill him was still used to this day as Jirara rapidly descended upon him.
Jirara slashed at Dororo, who blocked it with his ninjato in quickly drawing it seeing the coming danger.
"Hm, I see you're still familiar with our customary greeting!" Jirara stated citing the quality of Dororo's memory after all these years.
"Good, now let us begin." Jirara began. "Alright, tell me. Why exactly did you want nothing to do with our government by any chance?" Dororo questioned calmly.
"At first, I thought that I was doing the right thing for the government, and that the days of corruption will not befall it. Yet at the same time, I grew suspicious of them and they didn't want me knowing why." Jirara replied beginning his answer.
"So I decided to investigate, albeit keeping that a secret from you and the others so as not to risk getting killed in betrayal by my own comrades, and as I stated before, found some highly illegal things about the government. Such things didn't sit too well with me, so I along with X1 left their military for good and declared war on them." Jirara continued.
"Being branded an enemy of the state and a bloodthirsty terrorist for it, I wanted to fuck up their day as best I could, and upon learning that Pekopon was their latest invasion target, I decided to go there and sabotage their operations." He stated.
"That naturally lead me to my employment at the United Nations' EX.W.A.T.I. program, and from there on X1 received the formal designation X-ray Omega 001 and had mushroomed into a full blown paramilitary outfit complete with its own special variants of military equipment, most notably the AH-64X1 Assassin gunship and the F-22X1 Assassin Raptor, both of which have data links with my intercom." He continued.
"Now with the fullest backing of EX.W.A.T.I. and the U.N. itself, I can really begin to fuck with this damned panel of bureaucrats and oligarchs back at Keron, so they may one day learn the errors of their ways and disavow their disgusting corruption." Jirara declared.
"You know what? I feel much the same way about our invasion of Pekopon, too. Also, I hope that the Sergeant Keroro learns to appreciate the beauty of this planet without destroying the freedoms of its very people for it." Dororo replied expressing much the same sentiment.
"I bet you're also curious about my shadow doll technique. Let's just say that I developed and perfected that assassin magic technique whilst studying one assassin drone's knack for mind control." Jirara stated. "Wait! Assassin, drone!?" Dororo gasped in shock.
"Yes. Not much is known about any of them or where they have branched off from since we are all kept in the dark about their dirty work, and that they usually quickly dispose of any corpses from some of their own. This means finding anything out about any of them is an accomplishment unto itself." Jirara began once more.
"Therefore, since this information is so valuable, people are bound to be willing to pay a hefty sum just to find something out about them because they're so secretive." He said.
"What about that monster that attacked Momoka's mansion; the one Koyuki told me about?" Dororo inquired. "Yes. That, too was an assassin drone, and it's clearly not working alone." "How do you know?" Dororo further inquired.
"I should know because I've fought against one particular group of them for too long not to know. It goes by the designation 'Alpha 134' or something, and it belongs to that group." Jirara answered briefly.
"Their leader is very tall, about 7 foot, exceptionally strong, although not the fastest, and he manages to keep the group together often spitting in the face of adversity. He firmly believes that the only discipline his assassin drones ever need is failure during the mission itself, and they do not give up very easily in the broader goal." Jirara continued.
"That assassin drone you mentioned earlier, named 'Gial' was only his newest and youngest member. There are many other secrets that he dares keep even from all the other members in his crew. What exactly they are, only time will tell. For now we must keep our guard up at all times." Jirara finished ending the discussion at that upon vanishing into thin air, Dororo following suit shortly thereafter.
\Well, I gather that Zeroro feels the same way about the frog invasion as you do, cap'n./ One Ka-60 Kasatka pilot sounded as he descended his Russian built chopper on the roof escorted by two, smaller Kamov twin blade gunships called the Ka-40, N.A.T.O. (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) reporting name Halberd.
"You would be in the right, my friend." Jirara responded as he entered the transport. "Da, okay. Let's get out of here." The pilot replied as they all got swiftly and silently out of dodge in the dead of night.
"It looks like we've got another mission. This time is an escort mission across North America." The pilot conversed. "I hope it's of such import as Y2KW." "Hahaha." Both parties conversed on their way to their mission destination with Y2KW a codename substitute for Venator.
Aboard the Rapier, 9:00 am. The very next day
"Fuck me." Aoryuzen spat in disdain as he looked at the phony data key. "What's up boss?" Trokyushe queried in the engine bay.
"It's that fake data key, we've been had! However, I did pick up this one little tidbit that this Artificial Intelligence algorithm called Venator was designed and constructed with the help of one Myou Kaneami, damn what a mouthful." Aoryuzen hissed in reply.
"Attention all units, we'll put the hive mind on hold temporarily, because I want you all to dig up some information about this Myou Kaneami; codesigner of Venator." Aoryuzen ordered with all his units going down into Earth, himself and Trokyushe excluded.
The Pacific Ocean, 4:00 am. May 12, 2003
The Kasatka, still escorted by the Halberds, were being chased down at a distance by Kraank, Gial, Raikoume, Kamikase, Rotoran, and Taembraki.
Apparently the Kasatka has Myou herself on board, and she's on her way to oversee the initial stages of testing now that development is complete.
The principal reason they were chasing her at a distance as opposed to going up close and personal is to avoid being detected.
Baio and Oka were also on board, with the latter's wedding ring apparently being the final piece of the puzzle towards Venator's perfection.
Things were going rather smoothly for the assassin drones when all of a sudden, Gial had spotted a huge looking aircraft headed in their direction.
It was called the Lockheed Martin/AgustaWestland XAV-134 Tarantula mega bomber gunship, and it looked just as deadly as it's namesake.
It was even larger than the Blue Devil before it, about the size of three RVs, and the length of half a football field, and it's only a prototype.
Powering the Tarantula was not one, but six of the Z400T1 engine variants powering the aircraft, four for the two smaller fans up front at the sides each powered by a drive shaft, and another two for the larger rear fan also powered by a drive shaft.
This served to reduce the Tarantula's heat signature by blowing the hot exhaust through the channels and into the rear fan blowing it outwards, defeating any heat seekers.
Its armed with two turret mounted GAU-18G 3 barrel .50 caliber Gatling guns at each side of the cockpit, along with all the other armaments stashed in the central internal weapons bay.
All the rest of the armaments were contained in two, also side mounted weapons bays jutting out and front flanking the cockpit, along with one M256 tank gun to the left, and the same GAU-88 violator grenade launcher that the Dire Wolf uses to the right.
The side bays contained the missiles, whereas the central bay contains the bombs and other munitions.
All and all, the Tarantula is essentially a manned, and super-sized version of the Dire Wolf, but can also be escorted by a group of up to eight of them at once.
This made for the assassin drones one hell of an adversary to overcome as they all broke their chase save for Kraank and Gial, who still pursued Myou in the Kasatka.
Although, it would appear that the Dire Wolves that were with the Tarantula were sent in to deal with Kraank and Gial to chase them down.
Raikoume and Kamikase swerved and darted about whipping from left to right and back again as the Tarantula fired off its Violator grenade launcher at them, littering the landscape with deadly shrapnel.
The Pilot and Copilot, having studied the assassin drones' movements extensively, would not give any of them an inch.
Although, that being said, the two looking as though they were about to do so was actually an aerial maneuver to get the assassin drones to lower their guard, and leave themselves open for attack.
As with military aircraft, and any other weapons of war, even the most advanced of them all are still only as good as the people who use them, and the Pilots were very much capable of keeping pace with the assassin drones.
This rule of thumb was observed extensively as the Pilots fully exploited the Tarantula's many strengths while skillfully compensating for any of its weaknesses.
The result; the assassin drones deciding that it was much too dangerous today, decide to cut and run in retreat under Aoryuzen's orders, to pursue it later.
Nevertheless, the Tarantula would not give chase in order to conserve fuel for another mission if it pops up, lying in wait for now.
Somewhere near the Pacific Northwest nerve center, 6:40 pm.
In that very Wyoming prison where the moles Daikage helped capture were interrogated, any intel that could be gleaned from them were immediately put to good use in leading them to many other enemy spy rings, effectively shutting down most of them.
Then there were Xiu Wong's and the Don Viper's spy rings as they did not get shut down completely because their members were just that elusive in evading capture.
Also, if they ever did get shut down, then they could simply start over with the foundation they have.
Xiu Wong's spy ring did not get shut down because it has not yet gone directly after EX.W.A.T.I. itself.
All the while, the assassin drones remained completely untouched so far, sure, some of their larvae were captured, but they never harbored any valuable intel for EX.W.A.T.I. upon capture.
As a matter of fact, they use their larvae to gather intelligence because they can easily become invisible thermally and visually.
The larvae themselves do not emit much in the way of heat as their personality cores have not yet developed.
That can only take place during their pupal stage, which lasts for 50 long years no matter who's doing it.
In fact, most of their larvae develop into regular old soldier drones, that defend the Rapier 24/7, tech drones that operate the ship's controls, maintenance drones to handle any repairs, and medical drones that heal the wounded.
The Rapeir itself is so elusive not because it can move about from place to place, but rather, individual parts can jump in between dimensions while keeping together.
However, EX.W.A.T.I.'s Z intelligence unit would not give up easily in cleaning house of any dirty rats, with their credo being "They can run, but they can't hide."
They also so happened to use the Z intelligence model to study for the research and development of Project: Venator.
With the emergency protocol still in effect, any details about Venator will remain locked away as top secret until the time is right.
It was already agreed that only the administrators and the people involved with Venator would ever know about it, and they were not to discuss it openly until further notice.
Moreover, the Z intelligence unit have also become masterful in the art of deception, more specifically, in the arts of misdirection and misinformation, although they can't completely fool something as clever as an assassin drone.
This mastery of deception has been shown before, and shall thus be shown again as the suit case containing the real data key is placed somewhere within a train where any robbers would dare not think to look.
Another fake data key was also placed within an identical train that's going before the real train, although it's only slightly more obvious as to its location.
The train would still be guarded and escorted during transport nonetheless with EX.W.A.T.I. taking into account the worst case scenario possible.
\Alright. You are cleared to commence transport./ The Operator declared. "Roger." The Engineer on board the train replied as he warmed it up to speed.
The train itself was equipped with a land mine clearance system up front and around the engine cars, several box cars to house any guards, autonomous concealed turrets and drones, and a distress beacon for when things really go south.
With the likes of Kiruru ZX-1 and company taking interest in going to Wyoming, things may very well go south quickly and instantaneously.
Upon arriving at the train tracks, though. "Hm. Best look around." Nagigi mused aloud as she prepped a recon mortar drone with her android body.
*Pfoom!* The mortar launched and turned into a quad copter, nose mounted camera pointed down and with enough battery power to record the train as it passed by before it shut down sometime later.
Its loss was not in vain as the footage of the entire escort train in its journey was transferred to all the other members.
"Upon further analyzing the train, I say we get onboard and follow it through its journey, and I expect nothing less than the utmost cooperation from all of you on this mission. Any questions?" Kiruru declared boldly.
All his subordinates shook their heads left to right in reply. "Good, that's exactly what I want from all of you, now head 'em up and move 'em out." Kiruru then ordered coldly as he and his unit boarded the train as it streaked by.
"Remember, this train is heavily armored all around, and is bristling with all manner of defenses to counteract many threats." Moriri reminded as they all got on the train's roof.
A flight of OV-11 Mountain Lions, followed by a pair of KG-200 Cockatrices and a trio of EC-1A Whiplashes streaked by the train all none the wiser to the Keronians' presence.
Nagigi, of course, slipped in through the roof of one of the cars and dispatched a sleepier guard in the process.
Seeing that no one else was around at the time, she gave the rest of the unit the okay to proceed, and infiltrate the train they did.
However, not even getting very far into the train, they were all spotted by a passing guard.
"Holy fuck! Frog invaders!" He screeched as he bolted for the door mounted emergency switch, and thus the alarm was sounded.
Maroro pulled out his depleted uranium firing sniper blade, and took dead aim, killing one of them by a head shot, and getting shot at himself.
"Careful, that's depleted uranium he's firing from that gun." One of the guards advised as they all took cover one by one.
Maroro switched his weapon from sniper mode to machine gun mode upon going back up onto the roof, only to get shot at by several passing AH-64D Apache Longbows.
Maroro set up several portable anti-aircraft missile launchers, downing two of them, and causing the rest to scatter away.
The Apaches still maintained their goal in assisting the guards, even in the midst of all that anti aircraft fire.
Still, Kiruru made the decision for him and his platoon to plow right on through the many guards, killing them if they had to.
Maroro, not the most accurate Keronian around, kept shooting the guards clad in armor that's apparently rated against depleted uranium among other things.
Moriri had laid down several Hawking radiation proximity mines in his wake as he and Nagigi got up on the roof with Maroro and the rest still down below.
"The data key should just be up ahead, according to my readouts, but take great care lest we find ourselves in more trouble than we are in now." Bakuku forewarned.
Both groups met up at the rendezvous point, which was the location of the data key, heavily guarded at that.
"There's the signal." One guard hollered the moment Nagigi stole the data key.
That, of course, was exactly was EX.W.A.T.I. wanted them to take because it was yet another phony data key as they just found out first hand.
Therefore, the train began to slowly and surely grind to an insectile, screeching, and cringing halt.
Kiruru and company disembarked from the train up to the front, Maroro and Moriri taking up the rear.
Jirara stepped forth with his X1 platoon to face Kiruru, with Baio and Oka flanking the train engines in the back.
"Well, now. I see that you're the first imbeciles to have fallen prey to our ploy, Kiruru ZX-1 commando unit." Jirara mused with a sneer.
"Do you honestly think we're just going to sit idly by, allowing ourselves to be captured while we let a bloodthirsty traitor like you get away with this treachery?" Kiruru calmly threatened as he motioned his blood red sword towards Jirara's throat.
"You see, there is a train shipping the real Y2KW on this planet, but that the train you boarded is certainly not." Jirara stated.
Somewhere further away, along the Alcan highway, the real train containing Venator and the real data key had just completed its leg of the shipment, and transferred them both onto a semi truck trailer for the next leg.
Form there on, it trucked and trucked until the truck completed its part in going into an underground tunnel entrance to EX.W.A.T.I. R&D laboratory complex Alpha Gamma 188.
"Turns out that the ruse was a success, after all. I trust that Venator made it on time, right?" Paul Moriyama; the mastermind behind the ruse queried of the truck driver, who nodded "Yes."
"Good, I like the sound of progress. Now, let's get Venator moving to warm it up with some basic calculations first." Tzu Lin resounded as the Truck driver unloaded Venator onto the ground for shipment to many test cells throughout the lab.
As Myou herself joined the scientists to oversee the rigorous testing procedure, Tzu Lin brought up some footage from Jirara's battle with Kiruru ZX-1.
\*Phick!*/ \*Shikk!*/ \*Kafow!*/ \*Shakoom!*/ Blade and fingers clashed as Jirara and Kiruru duked it out as though having met before.
Several A-4 Skyhawk velociraptor and oviraptor reaver drones Kiruru recently bought streaked overhead crash landing on the train after getting shot down with its self deploying AA guns.
A flight of F-22X1 Assassin Raptors provided much needed assistance in dealing with the reaver drones.
"You will not get away with this latest act of treachery, Jirara." Kiruru snarled angrily in highly ruthless pursuit.
That very same flight of Assassin Raptors would prove even more ruthless in their pursuit of the retreating reaver drones, their leader a yellow on black Sukhoi Su-47 Berkut named "Yellow Tuna," even as they all hit the deck!
Suddenly, as they all continued streaking along the Alcan highway, Zane and his stinger squadron, after hearing the name Yellow Tuna, decided they wanted a piece of the action.
Thus, it was decided that the Reaver drones would be destroyed by the Assassin Raptors, and that the remainder, controlled by Yellow Tuna would be engaged by the stinger squadron.
It was from that very moment onward, that the reaver drone Yellow Tuna would become Zane's deadliest rival of all time, even as it retreated under Kiruru's orders.
[The results are rather promising by the looks of it during initial testing. However, further testing and upgrading will be required before Venator can be deployed in real time] That was what the letter from Myou to the administrators' board in the U.N. building said.
"Hmph, no matter. I'm sure that Venator will perform even better than it is now once the testing is complete." The North American Administrator declared to his companions writing the shipment operation up as yet another rousing success.
The Tendo dojo, 2:30 pm. May 14, 2003
A pair of EA-6B Prowlers just took off mere minutes ago from the USS Abraham Lincoln, following a flight of F/A-18E Super Hornets.
They were in search of Oka's wedding ring, which Kiruru had stolen during his scuffle with Jirara.
Kiruru and his unit are in their space craft near the dojo, studying the curious ring.
Miezoen and Fuhinga were out on search of a spot to set up their leader's next capture plan when they stumbled upon the ship that the ring was in.
"Gial. I think I may have found the wedding ring." She stated. "Yeah. It's in that ship. That's right. That ring is the very key to the completion of Venator. We don't want to find out what will happen if the humans were to find it back in their possession." She panicked citing the urgency of the situation.
\I know. I'm already on my way./ Gial stated with his electronic transponder still hoofing it.
Nagigi exited the space craft in her usual anticipation that something very dangerous is headed in her direction.
She began to draw her sword very quickly as she was trained to do under these circumstances.
Lo and behold, Gial sprang out from the bushes, fangs bared, and weapons deployed, lashing out at her.
Their respective blades clashed as the two combatants forced the fight inside the ship, with Gial and Miezoen snatching the ring in an instant.
The two blades continued to clash as Gial handed the ring over to Miezoen for her to carry.
Maroro, catching wind of this, intercepted Miezoen by shooting at her legs with his sniper rifle.
Miezoen was inevitably thrown off balance in dodging the shots, accidentally tossing the ring out of the ship and into the dojo grounds.
Kiruru immediately manned the controls, and took his ship into flight out of the area, Fuhinga hanging on to the hull by a single silken thread.
The ring was left behind in the chaos as the craft made its escape.
However, the assassin drones all bailed upon realizing the ring was nowhere to be found on the ship.
The Prowlers' electronic warfare strikes disabled the craft's antibarrier, warranting a hostile reaction with Moriri shooting explosive arrows from his crossbow.
\Hostile reaction! Weapons free!/ The admiral ordered as the Super Hornets moved in to cover the Prowlers.
The assassin drones began their search for the ring, which Fuyuki happened across during his break from training.
A JDAM was dropped from one of the war planes, disabled by Naozi's electronic warfare, free-falling towards one spot in particular; up Gial's Amblypygid ass!
"Tehehehe! I wanted to do dat." Naozi sniggered.
"Does lechery get you anywhere?" Fuhinga queried leering at Naozi.
"I does get me a good chuckle every once in a while." Naozi replied with a few snickers in between.
"Hey, Ranma. Get a load of this." Fuyuki piped up enthused about the Venator ring.
"What is it?" Ranma queried as though very curious.
"This ring. It could be the key to 'the big one.'" Fuyuki replied dramatically.
"'The big one,' huh?" Ranma inquired confused as the assassin drones began to sneak up behind Fuyuki, and fish the ring out from his hands, by Gial's fishing apparatus mounted up the latter's ass end.
The ring, was then fitted into an emotional amplifier, which was part of a hive mind extractor.
"At last, the hive mind is ours to take." Naozi purred as he operated the controls, using the ring contained therein to power up the machine.
Ranma felt his own depression climb to abnormal levels, and then the hive mind being slowly sucked out from him.
Fuyuki simply wouldn't have it, especially now that the next legend weapon has revealed itself; the Cougar multi blade.
"Not a chance in hell!" Fuyuki spat as he dashed up to Miezoen, and jumped from her carapace.
"Gotcha! Abare Hagane Arashi!"Fuyuki cried as he executed an athletic back flip, and unleashed a hail storm of kunai, shuriken, and senbon among other things onto the extractor's shields, enhanced by battle energy, Cougar multi blade included.
Taking cues from Kuno, Ryoga, and Mousse, the Abare Hagane Arashi or Rampaging Metal Storm involves a barrage of steel throwing weapons, followed by side stepping and slashing with bladed weapons, and then one energy laden X-slash bomb onto the target to finish it off, which Fuyuki performed in that exact order.
In the process, the assassin drones were all sent flying into the Earth's atmosphere, and the ring came out unharmed.
A smaller drone retrieved the ring from the ruined extractor, returning it to the Abraham Lincoln in shot order.
"Oh well, guess that means more research on the big one." Fuyuki shrugged as he and Ranma laughed the matter off, and resumed the formers rather uneventful training regimen.