The initial plan was just Max, Miria and Mylene. Then it was them and Emilia… And somehow, as I was about to start writing, I went for this. And next time, the Grand Finale for this first part of the project.

Take 12: Keith Is No Jenius

Chaos and the NUNS had just been forced to abandon the Brisingr Cluster when they had received a large unexpected visit: the 74th Army Group with the 42nd Fortress Group attached. That, while they helped repairing their Island class, had their commander make Mirage a proposal.

"That's just plain mean." Mirage told her aunt.

"True. But it's also going to be fun, it will end the war, help the idiots with their marriage problems, and with everyone around you won't need to overthink things." Komirya Jenius replied. "So, you in?"

"Of course! Hey, Hayate, prepare as much pop corn as you can, and remind everyone that the videodrama about the Protodeviln war actually toned things down on what really happened."


A few days had passed, and Roid was making his speech. He had just announced how the NUNS had dropped the fold bomb when he was interrupted by a voice shouting: "Bullshit!"

Instinctively he turned to the giant screen and saw a man apparently in his early thirties (not that it said much about the true age, not with the Zentraedi-based anti-aging treatment humans got), wearing glasses and with blue hair.

"Come on, you're saying that Reinhardt, on the verge of victory, dropped a fold bomb on his own head?! Even Kamjin's more aggressive subordinates knew better! And considering I fought them, I know what I'm talking about." the man said. "But where are my manners? I'm Maximilian Jenius, fleet captain and commander of the 37th Long-Distance Colonization Fleet, also known as the Macross 7. And considering all the dubious propaganda you've spewed in the last few months, I've decided you're getting a lesson on live galaxy-wide broadcast: I'm coming there to end this farce. With all my family."


In a pub on the Macross 11 fleet, Lynn Kaifun spit his drink.

"I hope they won't destroy the planet…" he whispered. But he made no move to get away from the pub's television. It was just as a train wreck, horrible to see but too fascinating to not see.


On the Macross Atomic Annie, flagship of the 13th Fortress Group, sky admiral Kabirov reacted to the announcement with an order.

"Distribute an extra ration of pop corn! This is going to be awesome!"


Somewhere in the galaxy, Basara Nekki started complaining he was missing on the fun.


"But-"

"We. Are. Leaving. Before those guys arrive." Berger said his subordinate. "And yes, they're going to arrive. Probably don't even need reinforced fold drives..."


"ETA is 10 minutes, and my fleet had the good but expensive equipment, not those Nightmare fillers. Be ready." Maximilian "The Awesome" Jenius concluded before cutting the transmission.

Surprised at what had just happened, and how his magnificent propaganda coup had been ruined, Roid took a few moments before ordering the general alert and preparing everyone to meet the enemy in orbit. Because, after all, he knew better than not preparing himself for someone with the Jenius' success record.


Almost ten minutes had passed since Jenius had given his announcement, and Roid was starting to hope that the fold fault had stopped him when his subordinates announced that something was punching a normal fold path in the fault.

"What."

Then everyone started hearing a singing duel between a woman singing "Power to the Dream" of the Fire Bombers and one singing "Heart & Soul" of Emilia Jenius. Coming to think, Emilia Jenius was the fifth daughter, and Mylene of the Fire Bombers was the seventh…

"Bad wind…" he said.

And then the entire Macross 7 fleet defolded. The entire fleet, not just the civilian component. With their vanguard, standing around or on the hull of the Guantanamo-class carrier NUNS Bogue (that Roid was pretty sure had brought with them from the 42nd Fortress Group just to piss their Bogue off. Successfully, judging from the cussing), composed mostly of variable fighters of the two Supernova models or more recent (IFF indicated even a SV-262, of all things), but also included a rather large shuttle, two destroids (destroids!) Warhammer, a SF-15 Rattlesnake non-variable aerospace fighter, and a Quaedlunn. That was wielding a guitar and was engaged in the song duel with the SV-262.

"You should jump him with a knife! Look at what it did for your grandfather and me!"

"Yes, but he's pants with knives!"

And, judging from what the non-singing part of the vanguard was broadcasting, they didn't care in the slightest that they were in a war zone.

Roid realized immediately why: because they were relying on the Battle 7 to tell them they were in-by firing their already trained main gun at the Sigur Valens.

"Maximum power to the shields!"

The shields held. Barely, but held. And then, as the singers went in a duet (an old pre-Space War song called "Princes of the Universe"), the enemy charged.


Keith was amazed at the enemy. He had heard of the Jenius family, everyone had, but from their member in Chaos he had thought it was exaggerated. And yet now they were swatting the Windermerean vanguard while outnumbered. Even the one from Chaos was flying much better now, and the two destroids (that he could now see were one red decorated with a painted mecha head smashed and dark blue with white and red stripes and bunny ears), now attached on the top and bottom of the large shuttle (that was showing itself much more manouverable than something that size had any right to) were using their heavier weapons with near-impossible accuracy.

He had to do something, and decided to engage the lead craft, a VF-22 with blue paintjob and red stripes on the legs-Maximilian Jenius himself. After all, no matter how good the old pilot was, his Windermerean physiology allowed him to take much sharper manouvers. He could do it.


Bogue had spotted her. The Delta Platoon Jenius. It was time to take down the bitch who defended the traitor. Flying through her fire he came close and turned into battloid, ready to take her down with the sword… And then his SV died, with him seeing that the enemy's Siegfried's bayonet had come up and hit his mecha from the crotch up to the reactor.

"I-I think I peed a little." he whispered when he recovered from the shock.


Qasim wanted to help the twins. They were engaged with the first generation Jenius twins, Muse and Therese, with VF-24s, and were losing to their superior coordination and experience-not to mention the superior fighter. But he couldn't help. Not with Miranda Jenius (VF-29) and Moaramia (VF-27) double-teaming him, with the former trying to bash him with the cockpit of a downed Draken.

"What did I even do you?!" he screamed in frustration.

"You and the other Windbags tried to kill my daughter." was Miranda's reply.

Qasim was stunned for a moment. Enough that the next cockpit swing got his wings and Moaramia's fire finished his fighter. He ejected just in time to avoid being captured when Miranda took his downed fighter's cockpit to replace the destroyed one.

"It was a war! She tried to kill me too!" he finally replied.


Keith was in trouble. Yes, he had a better tolerance for high-G manouvers, and he had equal reflexes. But his enemy was somehow able to anticipate all his moves, and shoot exactly where he would move. The only reason he was still alive was that his opponent was hindered by his VF-22 super parts, chosen for ship attack, and even then he had lost his drones and his pinpoint barriers were almost depleted.

Still, now he was close. Enough for the sword, that he produced-and saw grabbed by a red Sturmvogel. Mirya. Whose Sturmvogel was holding a piece of Hermann's fighter in the other hand.

"Oh, bad wind."


"Look at our children and nephews! They're having fun!" Komirya shouted from her rabbit-eared destroid.

"Where did I marry into?" her husband asked for the umpteenth time.

"The most awesome family in the universe, Seifriet!" the 'shuttle' pilot, Miracle Jenius, replied. "By the way, guys, prepare to jump. Ready? Now!"

At the call the two destroids jumped and landed on a Windermerean carrier close to the Sigur Valens while the 'shuttle' revealed its true form: a VB-6 König Monster. Right on the side the Valens' depleted barriers weren't protecting due the necessity to keep back the fire from Battle 7.

"Miracolator ready to show some divine wrath!"

A salvo later, six Windermerean ships had been destroyed by reaction missiles, and the Sigur Valens had suffered some damage. Enough that the song of the two sisters overwhelmed its systems and short-circuited its everything. While under fire from a super dimensional fortress.

"Come on, it was getting fun!" Seifriet complained.


On the Macross Elysion the Delta Platoon and Walkure were looking at what they had seen with stunned silence and hanging jaws.

"Well, they got more entertaining." Johnson commented. Then, as everyone turned at him, he added: "Already seen a few Jenius in action, they've always been like this. Insane, but they bring home results."

Author note: And as I wrote this, the impossible happened: I pitied the Windbags. And yes, Bogue is a legitimate carrier name: during WWII the United States built an entire class of escort carriers under the name Bogue-class, the lead ship named after Bogue Sound in North Carolina).