Scars of the Past: Recollection (Nadesico, Verus, MK)

[Nemesis]

December 19th
Former Rayleonard Headquarters "Exavil"
8:00 AM (Mars time)



For the first time over thirty years, the skyline above Mars parted.

The sleek, white form of the Nadesico floated down, passing through clouds of acrid smoke belched from noxious, BETA-ridden spires. On the bridge, Faustine Blanchefleur watched the wracked and ravaged land rise up beneath them, but was silent even as gasps were solicited from the other crew. There was no time for wonderment in her schedule. Every second that passed, the danger they faced increased. She was not here to do the bidding of the League, nor any of its sycophants, no:

This was a long overdue rescue mission.

Any premature celebrations that they'd managed to make it this far intact would have to wait.

Isaac's team had already been dispatched during their descent to their other objective. The boy at least she knew, was reliable. Whatever was there... He'd bring it back to her in one piece, albeit whining and wailing the whole time.

She made her way to the hangar, still deep in thought. You never knew what you'd face - but she'd prepared as best as she could. Hopefully the Meltran would prove her own worth as well.

As the ship touched down on the outskirts of Exavil, Blanchefleur adjusted her pilot suit as she slipped into the cockpit of the waiting white Aestivalis. A prototype she'd procured at the last minute for herself, just in case - and just as well, she thought, as it turned out they had more able hands than she'd imagined. She tapped her helmet as the machine came to life, tilting its head up in the direction of the Meltran.

"Ready to go?" She asked, brightly.

"I'm counting on you."

 

[Tackle Jackie]

“Ready to roll out, Boss. Quilqua is fully stocked, some supplies for if I need to engage on foot-“

The Meltran woman flashed her the Aestivalis a nervous grin, looking torn between excitement and dread. The idea of stepping foot onto a planet for what was the first time in her life felt like it could be one of the greatest moments in her life. Or it could be her last. Instead of letting that stew in her head too long, Mak switched gears with a quick shake of her head. The look on her face was quickly replaced with determination, shooting Miss Blanchefleur a thumbs up as she began to seal up her own cockpit.

“So, what’s the plan after we launch- Radio any survivors?”

 

[MKR]

It had been a little over twelve hours since her awakening, and just over thirty years since she had last walked as a human. The hours since she had returned with Valentin had provided Otilia with plenty of insight in the current goings on of Mars and the state of hell it had been reduced to. The League, despite all their plans and weapons had lost the war against the Radam. Rayleonard had been nuked from orbit for supposedly instigating Alternative V, which few if any here seemed to think to be the truth of the matter.

No wonder when the heir to Rayleonard was the only thing between them and untimely, Beta related, demise. Still, she worried about one matter all the same. The Radam were a complete unknown here despite having been in orbit for thirty years they had done nothing to gain widespread notoriety unlike the Beta. A glance down, flesh that was for now actually flesh and clothes she had obtained after a surprise reveal when she ceased being a Tekkaman and returned to humanity.

Otilia exhaled slowly as she sat in the cafeteria, she had consumed many rations when she returned Gladius burned an absurd amount of calories it seemed. Since she hadn't felt hunger upon her waking up the monstrosities that kept her in stasis until then also must have kept her fed. The Tekkaman in human form leaned back in her chair, white hairs shaking backwards as she thought about everything presented to her so far. What would she have to do for he rest of her life? Hunt Tekkamen and Beta to help a meager population stay afloat, unless saviors descended from the heavens that seemed likely.

The rest of her life would be consigned to playing a dangerous tightrope with the various enemies and the bug within herself. Fantastic.

Then, murmuring around her, something had been spotted in the sky again. Her first thought went to a cradle but the radio operator reminded herself those were all gone now, reduced to rubble and ash.
"A ship?" She muttered as she heard the words across the people, but- who would come to this place. Now of all times? She rose from her seat as contemplation moved and swirled. The worries faded replaced by a new question that resounded: What was happening?

 

[Fenrir367]

Within the command center of Exavil, Valentin, along with the other staff of Rayleonard were observing the Nadesico and its descent from orbit into the Atmosphere of Mars, watching it with caution and suspicion. It certainly wasn’t anything of BETA origin, and it didn’t look like anything the League would’ve built, but exactly who in their right mind would come to Mars? For what purpose? At the very least, whatever it was, was something highly technological, which would make a great meal for the BETA, should they take notice of it.

“These idiots, they’re going to bring the BETA running to us.”

Valentin cursed under his breath as he moved to exit the room.

“I’m heading out, call Otilia as well, if she’s capable of deploying.”

Valentin ordered, before making his way to the hangar, where waiting for him was the black machine, half-covered in BETA guts, the short time since they arrived back to now not nearly enough time to fully restore the machine to its ideal condition. Nonetheless, there was little that could be done, so there was no choice but to go as is.

“The Ammo hasn’t fully be replenished, it-”

A hangar staff spoke to Valentin, but was interrupted.

“That’s fine, the situation is dire.”

Ignoring the man’s warnings, Valentin proceeded to the cockpit, and locked himself in, engaging the generator of the machine. Keeping the Primal armor disengaged until he made his way outside, he moved to the outskirts of Exavil, looking out at the newcomers.

“Otilia, be ready, I have a bad feeling about this.”

It was instinct that kept him alive until now, and his gut was what he had the most confidence in.

 

[Nemesis]

It wasn't long before the Nadesico descended from the skies, like some sort of enormous pearl-wrought ornament being gently deposited at the bottom of a shopping bag. It rested there a moment, gravely... before a sudden blast of sound and light emitted from its nose. A cheery, triumphant sounding tune blasted at maximum volume over the loudspeakers, accompanied with a holographic projection:

​

"Attention, any survivors! This is Faustine Blanchfleur, CEO of Nergal Industries and Captain of the Nadesico!

We're here to conduct a (privately funded) rescue mission, to return you safely to Earth under our protection! If you can hear us, please send some form of response!"​

In the hangar, Blanchefleur turned off the mic and pumped her fist. Nailed it! Beside her, Galvin Creed, the mechanic, heaved a heavy sigh as he consulted his tablet, having been drafted into the position of XO with the others now having gone.

"Any sign of the BETA?" She asked - yes, they had prepared for it.

A sure way to prove Nergal's power and their own trustworthiness - to turn the almighty Gravity Cannon upon the wretched space bugs! She could almost hear the accolades, so much that she could barely hear Creed as he spoke, hesitantly.

"Yes, but..."

He tapped his tablet, bringing up a map of the area. Clusters of Invaders and BETA were marked out, along with their projected movement patterns. He had carefully timed their descent at such a time that it would avoid any direct encounters, but the data he'd gathered during descent was... off.

"Their movements are... erratic. Them and the Invaders both, I mean. Look..."



He zoomed in on a picture of what had once been a ruined highway.

"They're actively avoiding this area right... here, not far South from us. If anything, it's almost like they're... running from it."

"Don't be ridiculous. The BETA don't retreat."

"I know, I know, but..." - Creed trailed off, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Maybe the ones on Mars were different?

"Keep an eye on it. Let me know if anything changes, alright?"

In the meantime, she turned to the Meltran, raising her megaphone:

"Alright Mak get out there and roll out the red carpet!

(...what? What is it? ...We couldn't find a big enough carpet? Really? Ugh, fine.)

Ok, just... fly around, try to find anyone who looks alive, and bring them here! You can handle that, right?"

 

[Tackle Jackie]

“Copy that. I’ll radio back first sign of life.”

BETA retreating on the surface? She wouldn’t let the idea hang too long in her mind, sealing up her suit, as she attempted to collect herself. Training, preparation, and whatever else she had endured to get here, she wouldn’t let it go to waste. This was still a humanitarian mission more than a business venture, a thought she kept in the back of her mind as she launched from the Nadesico’s hangar.

Entering the atmosphere filled her with a rush unlike anything she had experienced before, the Quilqua trailing moisture behind her briefly as she adjusted, keeping her eyes on her sensors, waiting for… Any response.

 

[MKR]

As music began blaring at maximum volume Otile went white as a sheet, the ship had become a harbinger for her all of a sudden. The dread arrival of what felt like but yesterday's commonality...

Morning meetings.

The blase cheerful tunes coming at obnoxiously loud volume as terror filled her, dreadful days where one could barely get their breakfast behind their teeth before their immediate superior was making a grand statement about corporate unity, and being like a family. Requested in turn by their superior to be done and so the chain went onwards and upwards.

It was when she was called for that her mind stopped worrying about whether she had done the appropriate vocal exercises yet. Which she certainly had not.
Now, however she was back to the present. Where the company whose spiel she had just received in her eardrums at a resonance none would dare call discreet was offering a way out. In a sense it seemed to be true, especially from a company who last she recalled was just some bit player on earth. Then again, her intel was a few decades off.

Her hand went to the item in her pocket, a crystal. Still there, right then.
What she fished out was an earpiece, putting it in moments before Valentin issued his warning.
"I assume attracting large bugs bad." She spoke, a thought creeping into her head much like a memory but only due to similarities in the scenes therein. The ship in the sky invaded by Radam, it made her squirm.
She hoped that her presence her just before the arrival of this ship was a coincidence, instead of her 'brethren' having made a ploy to initiate more into their ranks.

She had walked into the hangar, the door opened to let an armored core out. She fished the crystal out of her pocket and inhaled. Thirty minutes, no more than that.
Like a mechanism had been deployed it clicked apart into a T esque shape without shattering or cracking.
"Tek Setter!" She declared, instinctively as in a moment energy coated her, clothing rendered asunder in an unfortunate repeat of history as the green light coated her from sight, caressing her skin and then becoming it as armor replaced flesh. She flexed her lower arm as she once more took the form of Gladius and flew out after the Armored Core.

Hearing the music up close really did not make it any better, even if some would say louder was just that.
She knew exactly the tunes her voice had been laid over hundreds, if not thousands, of times and these notes were even more grating to her ears as she entered into the vast outside.
"So, I take it you greet them?" She spoke, aimed towards solely Valentin as her gaze climbed up into the sky and towards the gigantic white ship hovering over them all "Though, I would suggest leaving out the 'or be shot' this time."

 

[Fenrir367]

“I’ve never heard of a ‘Nergal’, but judging by the technology on their ship, that thing is a pot of gold to the BETA. That cradle was one thing, but this is something else.”

Valentin grew anxious at the coming encounter.

“To come rescue us or not, they were idiots for coming.”

He spoke to Otilla, before turning to the direction of where the Nadesico landed.

“This is Valentin McGregor, Representative of Rayleonard… Or what is left of it. Exactly what is your plan to ‘rescue’ us?”

The ship was little more than a magnet at the moment, pulling any and all BETA in the vicinity towards them, and while they might’ve been able to enter Mars’ atmosphere, he was doubtful the BETA would let them leave as easily. Perhaps usually one would be more gracious of being rescued, but at the moment he could only be skeptical of the situation and frankly wanted to call them idiots for coming.

“Valentin, Seismic sensors are picking up more movement, the BETA are moving to encircle both us and that ship!”

An update came from the command center.

“What are their numbers?”

“I’m detecting something of at least a Division, it's got to be the most we’ve detected this close to us.”

“You gotta be shitting me…”

His gut was proving right once again, the situation was getting out of hand.

“Look, I don’t know who you are or what you came here for, but that ship of yours is going to get us all killed.”

He spoke in a harsh tone, but his intentions were good for the most part. their so-called saviors looking more to be their destructors.

“That ship is pulling in every BETA to us, this place will be overrun shortly. Take your ship away from here; I won't let my people be killed by your idiocy.”

There was a threatening undertone to his words. While he didn’t mention shooting them, it wouldn’t be hard for one to make assumptions based on his tone of voice.

 

[Nemesis]

"We've come prepared. Allow me to demonstrate..."

Some might have felt slightly intimidated at the flow of red dots across the Nadesico's holographic HUD... but Blanchefleur merely smirked. They'd already factored in attracting some of the local wildlife - and the firing lines had already been drawn. With a hum of its thrusters, the vessell turned itself on the spot slowly, aiming itself towards the center of the oncoming mass.

"BETA, closing in."

Nergal's CEO paused dramatically for a moment, allowing the onboard AI to make the required announcement. Power surged through the vessel, she could feel it under her soles as turbines spun up, and particles began to gather at the heart of its frame. The barrel cover slid away, a bright light shining beneath as the vessel made a few final minute corrections.

"GRAVITY BLAST, STANDBY."

"Spank 'em."​

To say it would have been unlike anything ever before seen on Mars would have been an understatement. The wave of crackling, howling force that did not so much as project from the Nadesico as erupt from it, easily eclipsing the size of the ship itself as it surged forth. The ground before it shattered and atomized, pulverized into particulate by rolling gravity waves, the deadly Gravity Blast living up to its reputation.

Not even the League had dared to impede the Nadesico's path once it had launched - and for good reason: anything they could have mustered short of the Arms Fort Answerer itself would have failed miserably to even dent the vessel, let alone survive its counterattack. Better to look the other way as Nergal went off on their quixotic errand than risk potential humiliation.

The Nadesico turned gently on the spot, pivoting from right to left, sweeping the murderous wave across the oncoming Beta in a fashion not unlike some sort of enormous vacuum cleaner - for anything that stood in its line of fire very rapidly vanished from view.

As the smoke began to clear... a broad swathe of the Martian landscape had been flattened, as if a roller had been run across its semi-soft surface, still crackling with the after effects.

Blanchefleur took in the devastation, arms folded, with the appreciation of one who had signed many, many checks contributing to it... and after a silence long enough to allow the natives to appreciate the show, asked:

"Do I have your attention now?"​

 

[Tackle Jackie]

So this was the Nadesico’s power, laid bare. To say it was overwhelming was an understatement, and frankly, it was cutting a bit too close, considering the fact that she could have accidentally been caught in that blast.

“Ah’d say that was overkill, but… It got the job done-“

 

[MKR]

The words spoken by Valentin made her frown, to the extent her form could in this shape as it instead translated to her eyes becoming slits that squinted forth as the guests were received. Perhaps they were fools for coming to a hell of bugs, but they had come all the same and regardless of whether one found that foolish the aid was commendable.

Still, they had attracted the Beta. The Tekkaman prepared for battle until the CEO declared intent to demonstrate. She then turned to look at what this demonstration entailed only to see the front of the vessel for lack of a better word open up. She could feel the energy swelling in the air, bristling against her armor as it made it clear to her she needed to make distance and quickly. A weapon unlike any she had ever seen was being unsheathed and though she had bore witness to image of various Arms Forts for briefings and rival propaganda and they immediately came to mind.

The sight after was just as shocking as the one before, a tunnel carved through land and came out the other end with nothing left to show where it had stopped. Certainly not any Beta. From the ground Otilia watched the devastation. In this moment she could only formulate one sentence.
"What the hell."

 

[Fenrir367]

“Estimates showing 40% of BETA forces eliminated… Just what is that power?”

Valentin heard the comms as he too looked on in awe at the sight he just saw. Something that neither used kinetic force or beam energy to annihilate swathes of BETA. The hardness of a BETA’s shell really had no use before that ship. Even so, he could hardly relax in the current situation. The BETA were still approaching, and he was doubtful such a thing could be fired in rapid-succession. Maybe it’d be a different story if there were a few more of those ships, but that was but wishful thinking.

“Remaining BETA surface forces seem to be… retreating? Seismic scanners are still showing underground movement.”

Retreating? It was a first for Valentin. The BETA had a sheer numbers advantage so it was negligible for any losses they’d have in a full-assault; he didn’t quite understand why they’d retreat.

“...No, this is not a good thing by any means.”

Valentin spoke to himself. He likely knew the BETA better than anyone else. He’d seen their evolution and growth, becoming something more than a seemingly ‘mindless’ invading force. They were developing a strategic mindset.

“The firepower is impressive, admittedly, but what was your plan here? A simple snatch and grab? Liberate Mars from the BETA?”

Valentin shifted his attention to the newly-arrived ship and self-proclaimed saviors, deciding to worry about the present situation.

 

[Nemesis]

"Please. We'd need more than just one ship for that."

Blanchefleur scoffed, but stood her ground. Not that the idea of sweeping the surface of the planet clean wasn't without it's appeal... she'd have to put that one down for later. Maybe once the League was dead and buried.

"We're here to rescue those left behind... and clear the name of Rayleonard."

There was a curious glint in her eyes as she spoke. A sign that this was more than just business, more than just numbers on the spreadsheet. No - this was personal somehow.

"The League - the union formed by those who caused this mess - have escaped culpability for too long. I ask that you lend us your aid, and in return, we'll see to the safety of yourself and any others you can guide us to. Your testimony, your firsthand experience surviving in this environment, are of the utmost importance to us.

Of course, you can expect to be duly compensated-"

A distant boom interrupted her speech. A cloud of dust on the horizon, rising into the air.

"Hey, boss lady?"

Creed suddenly spoke up, insistently.

"What?"

"Remember that signal I mentioned? It's on the move now. Getting closer."

"Put it on screen."

The Nadesico's main monitor flickered, as a figure began to approach. Moving in long, striding bounds, yet with a certain inorganic stiffness. Its silhouette was a far cry the sleek, modern curvature of Nergal's compact Aestivalis, or the clean, industrial angles of an Armored Core.

No, the bulky joints, the rounded curvature, the sheer intimidating height of it... was more reminiscent of Mars' glory days.

Of an era that had long since passed.

Blanchefleur's lips curled back at the sight of the lumbering Super Robot bearing down on them.

"That is the ugliest robot I've ever seen in my entire life."

​