Godzilla E-war: The Return

[C S]

Jackson raised a brow. "Current state? You mean like some transformation...?" he trailed off, his interest piqued. He wouldn't drop the subject so easily.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Yes, the mystical transcended state of 'lacking a ******* arm'," Talon responded sarcastically, having himself a laugh at Jackson's expense. "I mean that the Concord might not be able to endure the **** while injured."

[C S]

"You know what I mean!" Jackson shot back, peeved but not deterred. "Endure what, exactly?"

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"I'm being cryptic for a reason," Talon explained, leaning back in the cockpit. The Concord mimicked the action, assuming a relaxed pose despite being maimed. "If I start explaining it to you, and you ask me to demonstrate, and my hokus pokus words fail, I'm the one who looks like an idiot."

[C S]

"...We may full well be the last two human beings in this god forsaken place... and you're worried about looking like an idiot. I guess pride is as timeless as war, eh?" Jackson said, goading Talon to carry on.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Alright, alright!" Talon conceded, throwing his hands up; the Concord imitated him as best it could, with only one arm. "Get ready to end the simulation if **** gets too intense for me. We're heading into uncharted territory, son."

Talon took a deep breath. By his calculations, what he was about to do would have no conceivable effect. But just the thought of it working...it wasn't a pleasant one.

"Experiment V682-A45, initiate override sequence six-dash-six-dash-six; Code: 'The Beast'."

Silence.

"Well that answers that question," Talon said with a sigh of relief, the Concord visibly relaxing as a result, mimicking its pilot's actions in the cockpit.

[C S]

For a time, there was a moment of dead air between the two men. That moment of silence ended when Jackson started to laugh, but not for the reasons Talon thought he would. It wasn't the apparent failure of the attempt.

"Six-Six-Six? The Beast?! What was Intuitive Generation doing with this biblical ****?!" he asked in between bouts of laughter, an arm held over his midsection.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Was probably just a joke by some ******* technician," Talon replied, leaning back once more. "You have no idea what I had to do to get that ****, probably because it wasn't actually a function to begin with."

[C S]

"Does Enterprise have something like that? Seven-Seven-Seven, code: Archangel!" Jackson said with a dramatic flair, holding his hands up and wiggling his fingers. For all the times Talon has mocked him over the course of their training, this was almost poetic retribution. In this way, he wasn't too different from his company. He too took matters of pride to heart.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

The Enterprise felt a sharp impact against its forehead, as the severed limb of the Concord was sent smashing into its face.

"Whoops! My hand slipped."

[C S]

"Both of them did," Jackson replied, his voice muffled. That was because he was holding his head, his hands cupped over his face. "Right. Probably deserved that."

[Doc 42]

First Officer Kang was overseeing the final testing of the new Net Blaster module, fitted to Titan's refurbished right arm. The weapon was a stub nosed barrel set along side one of the bunkers protruding from the mech's gauntlets. It was muzzle loaded; an iris like cap sealed the barrel of the weapon to keep the projectile from falling out, and to allow appropriate air pressure to build up inside it.

Titan was currently crouched in among the city's downtown district. Gunfire rattled in the distance, and the whooping of mortar shells was almost constant. The engineers had already removed most of their scaffolding, the only pieces remaining could be made mobile easily, in case they needed to move. Kang was walking through the rubble of the streets watching as they completed preparations for the test fire. A voice in his radio told him they were ready. He replied back "Klatz." Fire. A siren whaled briefly and suddenly the iris on the weapon bealched open, a shockwave raced out, propelling a cloud of rubble through one of the sky scrapers lining the streets, the concrete and metal smashing together and crashing apart. The retort of the weapon thundered loudly through the city, the few remaining window panes rattling violently. Kang was satisfied. "Glag gar. Drumpter don fus." They needed to load the net they'd prepared before setting off. With that order, engineers and able hands emerged from their bunkers and began scurrying over Titan's exterior once more, making the final preparations to get the mech back on it's march of destruction. He went to contact the officer of the ground troops but got no reply, the radios were malfunctioning. They'd been acting up the attack of that nightmarish cyborg. He considered sending a runner, but decided to visit the barricade himself. He retracted the purple headdress trailing from his suit, deciding if he was going to be moving around the front lines, he didn't want his rank to show.

His high quality powered armor made the trip an easy one, the suits computer aiding his movements, allowing him to bound across the ruined streets gracefully and quickly. It wasn't long before he was approaching the makeshift defensive perimeter. The grunts had piled up several decrepit vehicles and bits of rubble to form a barricade of sorts, and had snipers and gunners placed in defensive positions around it. This was the widest avenue leading towards Titan's repair site, making it a priority position. One of the watchmen spotted him, saluting and standing to attention. "Glag. Frip tu Draxos?" The soldier grunted and pointed him towards a small command post near the edge of the street, Draxos, the officer managing the ground teams was crouched down fiddling with some equipment. As Kang approached him one of the soldiers on watched shouted out a hurried contact report. The air immediately erupted with weapons fire. Bullets cracked through the air overhead, impacting with the barricade and buildings, sending sparks and small showers of concrete flying. The Dantan answered back with the plasma rifle, lightning fast bolts of green death flashing down the avenue smashing into the asphalt and obliterating whatever was unlucky enough to be in their path. A grenade exploded over the heads, showering the position with shrapnel. A few pieces plinked off Kangs armor harmlessly, some other pieces embedded themselves in it's surface. He swore and moved closer the barricade, deftly jumping up onto it and peaking through one of the murder holes.

The avenue seemed deserted. Occasionally a muzzle flash would jump out of some dark corner, or his enhanced visions would pick out the hurried movement of a human soldier scurrying into cover. He pulled back somewhat as more bullets pounded into the barricade, the humans heavy guns working hard to try suppress them. He leaned out again, observing one of the guns as it opened fire. A burst of green projectiles slammed into the ground around it, blowing up storms of dust and concrete and the firing stopped immediately. He couldn't tell if the shooter had been killed or had just dived into cover. Another grenade exploded over head, a nearby soldier fell heavily against the barricade, shouting out in pain. The many holes in it's armor indicating it hadn't fared as well against the fragmentation grenade as Kang had. A medic was called for quickly and one of the soldiers jumped down, slinging it's rifle and pulling it's comrade away from the fire fight.

The gunfire picked up again. Kang spotted another grenade being launched, the human stepping out from behind the street corner to fire. Kang shouldered his plasma rifle and opened fire. The man was thrown back violently. Almost instantly, rounds hammered into the barricade around Kang's position, forcing him to pull back, but he was still able to see a flurry of answering plasma fire lancing into the human shooter's positions. He saw a glimpse of movement as a soldier dashed into cover where the grenade launcher man had been, only for a plasma bolt to smash into the wall, completely destroying it and sending concrete flying. More bolts hammered into the side of the building, shearing away the walls like paper. He saw a particularly unfortunate human sliding into cover behind a vehicle, only for several bursts of plasma to punch right through it's entire length from front to rear. The Dantans took advantage of the moment of the disadvantage spreading through the human's ranks adding blaster shot to the humans misfortune, modified plasma rounds using specialized ammunition which burst into violent explosions, decimating the human's positions.

Draxos suddenly appeared next to him. "Kang! Do fazzle rindar brent!" F**king radios.
They both retreated off the barricade, and Draxos brought him up to speed with what had been going on on the ground. Human attacks had been probing at their defences all day. They had started with artillery and missile fire but that had fallen dramatically since Titan took cover inside the inner city. They had modified their fighter craft to operate within the Terran atmosphere and those had kept the human's own air power from being able to target or observe Titan directly. Mortar fire targeting their ground positions was still fairly regular. The Dantans had held up easily relatively little casualties, considering the amount of ordnance the humans were throwing at them. They had initially attempted to break their lines using armored vehicles, but the Dantan's blaster shot made short work of even the heaviest machines sent at them. Since then the humans had attacked determinedly on foot, where they had more success through sheer force of numbers and had managed to overwhelm two of the Dantan defensive lines. Forunately, the Dantan had been able to retreat to previously prepared depth positions, preventing the humans from closing in on Titan.

Still, Draxos was glad to hear they were ready to pull out, the Dantan had superior technology but there was no telling how many humans there was out there, for every one they killed there could be another 10 more ready to fill the gap. They were holding out well, but quite frankly, they weren't killing enough attackers for the amount of Dantan they were losing; while lacking the brute force of Dantan tech, the humans were sophisticated enough to be appreciably dangerous.

One half of the platoon fell back to the next level of defences, to cover the others as they pulled out. Kang went with them, while Draxos stayed behind to ensure the other defending squadrons recieved their orders and followed them correctly. As they moved, the booming whine of a servo motar followed by a heavy ground shaking footfall told them that the Steel Giant was almost ready to continue it's doom march.

Code: Select all

TL;DR: The Dantan replace Titan's damaged parts, shoot up some humans, and prepare to set out

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"I think that's enough for now. I'd really like to regain feeling in my arm," Talon said after a few moments of silence, his hands moving swiftly across the cockpit controls. The Concord, including its dismembered arm, faded out of view a moment later as the simulation, at least on Talon's end, was terminated.

The brilliant, almost seizure-inducing display of colors returned, as if the cockpit itself was falling through a psychedelic wormhole. Talon found it jarring, despite his continued exposure. It wasn't long after that the display ended, and he found himself surrounded by plain metal. A moment after that, a hatch above him opened up with a loud hiss, extending a small ladder down into the cockpit, which he climbed unsteadily.

The man found himself in a massive, partially lit chamber, not unlike those that housed Intuitive Generation's other mechs, with only two massive squares of metal to occupy the space within; one sat beneath his feet, and the other sat across the bay, almost identical in appearance to each other, with the exception of the words plastered across the sides. Cold metal walkways connected the two boxes to the rest of the facility, and it was on these that Talon made his way back into the crew quarters.

[C S]

If Talon's exit was merely unsteady, Jackson's was almost drunken in nature. Not by his own fault, he had adapted as best as one could expect to his role as a mech pilot. His demonstration in the simulation was proof of that. That did not change the fact that he was still feeling the lingering effects of analog dismemberment, which made climbing ladders and walking in general... difficult.

He stumbled about along the walkway, using the handrails on the far left as a crutch as he went until he finally regained his balance, as shaky as it was.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

By the time Jackson arrived in the crew quarters of the complex, Talon was already seated on one of the couches, a radio situated on a table next to him. The man had a number of papers scattered across the unoccupied region of the couch - which seemed to occupy most of his interest - while the radio chattered away beside him.

"The world's going to hell and we haven't even gotten started yet," Talon called with an absent shake of his head. "How about we finally get out there and make a difference?"

[C S]

"Wasn't that always the plan?" Jackson replied offhandedly. He braced against the door frame and shook his leg, the feeling of a void where his foot was nagging him still. "Geez that synch stuff is persistent..."

He looked over to Talon and raised a brow. "Just out of curiosity; how long ago did you get those newspapers and how many times have you read them since then?"

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Not just newspapers this time," Talon replied, as if ignorant to the nature of the man's comment. "Some stuff I drew up in my research. I'm busy removing that which is no longer needed!" he explained, tearing apart a particular piece of paper with considerable furiosity. "Waste of my god damn time."

[C S]

Jackson scanned the room cautiously before going on with his next statement. Nothing obvious within Talon's reach that he could throw... aside from the radio. Maybe a few wads of paper. All in all, seemingly safe enough. "We haven't even tried 888; Jehovashiva-Allah mode!" he said, then prepared himself to duck at Talon's first arm movement.

[Turbo Tyrannophonic]

"Did you know that Intuitive Generations was working on chemical solutions to take care of the monster problem?" Talon said, his voice dangerously sweet. "Rat poison. For animals over a hundred tons, the size of skyscrapers. You did say you like coffee, right?" he asked nonchalantly, giving Jackson an eerie smile. Immediately his little joke was interrupted by a garbled report from the radio, regaining the man's interest. After a few modifications, the sound coming from the device began to resemble human speech; in the Japanese tongue, at least.

[C S]

"A cup of Joe every morning to accompany the radiation cleansing. Personally I'd go for the mustard gas, but eh," Jackson responded jokingly with a shrug. He entered the room proper and took a seat on a chair opposite the couch Talon was on, the upholstery worn and beginning to crack and peel.

"... Been in this country for months longer than I should have been, and I still can't speak the language. Ain't that some ****," he added flatly.