Super Robot Quest G

1350, November A.D. 2072
The Siege of the Yukimura Institute

To the human staff helping to operate the bridge of the Pegasus, it looked as if nothing was amiss from Diana. Commands were continuing to be routed to different stations. Readouts of the swarm of flying kaiju 'fighters' for lack of a better word were still being fed into the tactical displays through which the staff could still route directly to the Perseus and the Seekers of Chimera Flight. To their unaugmented senses, she even looked as if she were still fully in motion, not having stopped a moment.

That would be flattering to know, but incredibly far from the truth.

"-Chimera Twelve, incoming bogeys, watch six 'o clock low-"

"-forward prototype cannons are focusing fire on target designate K-1, minimal effect-!"

"-starboard PD defenses engaged! Security staff, standby-!"

Diana had thought she'd known combat. She'd dove through all of the engagements Lieutenant Callaghan and the rest of the DFRI had participated in. The defense against the Westphalian commander that attacked the DFRI grounds. The attack on New York City. She had even been there for the defense of San Francisco and the raid that saw the Kaus known as Bandit.

-the sounds of air being ripped apart as rapid fire rotary cannons tore through a pack of the shrieking, clawing monstrosities that tried to force their way to the bridge-

-the world was nothing but flashes of bright lights. Thunderous roars. Booming echoes as the sound barrier was breached by those around the ship-

-she winced as she felt the scrapes of the kaijus' claws as they scraped and grasped at her hull, only for her to reach out and force some of the point defense cannons to sweep the bits of the hull they were clawing against, like picking out a scab-

-the sight of the laughably outnumbered Seekers flying with a devil-may-care attitude, sometimes only visible beneath the swarms of scale and chitin by missile contrails and the flaring of their guns-

But she had never been directly involved. Never directly risked. And for the briefest of nanoseconds, too quick for the human staff to even realize, the Tactical Super AI known as Diana froze. Utterly transfixed by the beautifully horrible canvas being painted over and over again in front of her. Completely unable to even upload a single thought to the tactical database, a weakness that could have been fatal for someone of flesh and blood.

"-Fox Two, Fox Two-!"

"-guns, guns, kills confirmed-"

"-Chimera Ten, hurry up and frag these bogeys-!"

-Forward Ground Cannon-3: Offline…Forward Ground Cannon-5: Offli-

But just as quickly, Diana's subroutines kicked back into operation. She narrowed her eyes as she saw a particular cluster of the 'fighters' breaking off from the Seekers. Diana knew she had to use the gun batteries of the Pegasus sparingly - but this felt like one of those times.

She grouped that particular batch of targets and uploaded them into the targeting computer as a recommended firing solution. And then she turned her attention back to the battle - outside and inside of the Institute.

Diana sectioned off the part of herself that was terrified, and resolved to reconcile it later.

---

To the pilots of Chimera, this furball - and there was no other way to describe it - was an engagement that they could only dream of.

A Seeker frame shuddered as multiple claws forced its acceleration to a half - only for the frame to reconfigure into buggy form, slowed only by bits of kaiju having gotten crushed in between configuration hardpoints. Its tires were already screeching as they turned into impromptu buzzsaws against the relatively fragile kaiju trying to grapple it. Its flak cannon roared, coated in viscera and the occasional spray of acid, finding no shortage of targets around it.

Outnumbered, in some ways outgunned, and fighting for their lives in a Close Air Patrol. Engagements that were the stuff of traditions passed down to them from the proxy battles of the Unification Wars. From even the distant twentieth century.

"Chimera-One, be advised-crap!" The pilot reconfigured just at the last moment, the frame's wing just missing a spray of spikes from the pterodactyl-lites. "Bogeys have rocket pod analogues!" The mecha form fell into freeform for just a moment, before both forearms unveiled their gunpods. "Need a hand here!" As the pilot wrenched the controls, the frame spun about, feeling more of the spiked rockets slam into her frame as she aimed her forearms at the swarm bearing down on her, the Seeker's forearms shuddering as flak clouds erupted above her with each shot.

Were this engagement fought two years ago, they would have all died to the last pilot standing. But now they had something that could give them a fighting chance.

"Nine, punch out! Punch out!" Chimera-Nine's Seeker was in freefall, its thrusters gummed by acid and spiked rockets as it fell rapidly towards the Earth. Nine was not the first to meet such a fate - and more than likely, as distant smoking trails falling to the Earth could attest to, he wouldn't be the last.

"This is Nine! Punching out!" The Seeker's frame exploded as escape charges blasted apart the rest of the hull that held its pilot in place - and a smaller mecha form emerged from the clattering remains, spreading its arms and legs out in an impromptu imitation of a low altitude drop. Retrorockets fired downwards from its back mount, decelerating just enough for a parachute to unfurl, further slowing its descent to the ground below.

And they had far more tools than they could have ever hoped for.

"Pegasus, this is Chimera-One, Group Alpha is in the strike zone."

"Clear out, Chimera-One. Party gift's inbound."

The Pegasus dropship's turrets turned ominously towards one particular ball of fighters, their attention turned towards what the animalistic minds must have thought of as easier prey. With an echoing screech, they all barreled towards the dropship - a predator species that never once thought they could be herded like prey.

A brilliant pink blast of energy roared from the turrets and practically bleached the color of the world away from it, the energy blast blindingly bright and seemingly sucking all air around it out of its flight path as the balls of energy expanded. The cacophony of shrieks rose in volume and then abruptly cut off, only shadowy forms breaking into pieces visible even through polarized vision.

When the blast receded in the distance, only bits of bone and a cloud of falling ash could be seen, slowly descending to the ground like snow. "Chimera-One, confirm target impact."

"This is One - there's no target left to impact." Yet despite that congratulatory note, the ash cloud parted - only to reveal even more, bulging eyes and screeching mouths apparent even from this distance. "Don't think we're done yet."

---

And as above, so below.

A massive armored fist slammed into a shrieking mass of leather wings and now broken teeth, silenced only as the fist recoiled from the massive forward guns embedded above the wrist. In one smooth motion, the writhing corpse was then sent flying, a massive foot slamming into the twitching remains as it was hurled skywards into its oncoming fellows. More cannon fire was leveled to bear, yet the mass of flyers dispersed, spreading into different directions in order to seek some way into the Institute that didn't involve going around the massively armored giant on the ground.

The Perseus was disinclined to allow them this. Its eyes glowed a baleful green as its twin wills urged it forward, fresh shells already being racked into the firing chamber.

"Chimera-Nine, are you good?"

"This is Nine, just a little beaten up." The smaller entity's frame wearily rose to its feet. Perseus paid it no heed as one of the controlling wills was already sighting the great beasts' avenues of approach. "I can still fight-"

"Get inside the Institute," the first of the wills commanded. "Your weapons are infantry to light vehicle grade, and there's more enemies to take down inside. Link up with Four and Seven-"

Perseus turned its attention away from the lesser beings, its wills having the situation well in hand. It aimed its forearm slightly - then twitched to the right before firing, both wills indicating where the shot had to be led. A burst of flack erupted, shredding some of the more foolish creatures and rendering them nothing but dismembered limbs and impotent shrieking. More of the flying creatures had broken off from the flocks that swarmed the mother vessel fighting above, a sleek, metallic dagger piercing its way through even as Those-That-Seek were gradually being forced to retreat, one by one. Soon, even the flying horse would be forced to withdraw if things did not change.

And Perseus's eyes could only focus on the bigger prizes.

The emplaced defenses erupted in bursts of blinding blue cold as they fired upon the encroaching beasts - kaiju - running towards the Institute. Running towards Perseus. Rending claws cut apart the defensive cannons in clouds of circuitry and metal. Molten hot fire belched from their mouths as more metal and circuitry melted, the cold being forced to yield to the primordial flames as even the grass around them was set alight.

It was all too easy to see the divide, where the defenses lay and where the beasts prowled. A haze of blue, slowly giving way to a burning orange.

'You feel it too, don't you?' The second whispered.

'Yeah. Perseus wants to fight.' The first replied.

Its fists clenched at those words. A low rumbling snarl emanated from deep within its engines, circulating through its K-Circuits in a low building heat.

Perseus wanted to fight.

'Not yet, big man,' the second said. 'Let them soak up the damage. And the Institute has more tricks ready.' The various hidden infrastructure panels glowed alight in its tactical mind, tiny blips on its HUD.

'We'll get our chance. But we fight as a team.'

The Perseus backed down, begrudgingly. Another of the flying annoyances fell to its fists, stomped underneath its foot and its body left to the earth. It would hold.

But Perseus wanted to fight.

---

A shriek - and then an unhealthy sounding crunch echoed in the maintenance bay entrance as the infiltrator was mulched beneath the forklift's treads.

"C'mon, you overgrown lizard men!" The forklift slammed into the nearest group of overturned vending machines and shipping crates - and another trio of shrieks were soon followed by yet another crunch noise.

"This is my maintenance bay!"

The burly-looking man in the grease stained coveralls dove out of the forklift right as machine gun rounds pierced through the engine block, but that seemed to only make him more irate. Grabbing a nearby toolbox, he found a heft enough looking monkey wrench and rolled up his sleeves.

"I just had it set up the way I liked it! And you're messing it all up!"

From the corner of the man's eyes, he could see his team throwing themselves into the scrap too. Tenkawa, with a massive twenty pound fire extinguisher held with both hands over his head, was chasing after one unfortunate lizard man whose face was exposed from smacks to the face and its human face hanging off by a thread. Mikawa was cackling like a madman, the high pressure water hose he was controlling literally blasting more of the infiltrators back out of the maintenance bay and causing a slipping hazard to everyone involved. Even timid little Nijima was operating the huge maintenance crane, dropping the damaged components Mercury had come back with literally on top of their heads.

"Oi, old man." The radio crackled to life. "We're getting pushed back closer to the launch bay. Can you hold on your end?"

"What, you're saying ol' GSDF infantry can't hold the ground?"

"Yeah, screw you too, jarhead." Hamakawa's retort had no heat behind it - or that was the sound of assault rifle fire echoing in the radio. "Can you hold?"

Sendo Daichi grinned as his massive arm slammed down against one infiltrator trying to reach for a nearby pistol, knocking the thing unconscious with a vicious thwack. "Do your thing, Hamakawa. We'll hold and get Mercury fixed up right quick. Nobody messes with my maintenance bay but me!"

---

Even as literally most of Diana was left to keep things running on the Pegasus, she had enough processing power to split off and keep helping with the fight inside. She was still trying to figure out how to explain the whole 'I'm a Super AI, nice to meet you!' part, as only Dr. Yukimura really knew, and there just wasn't enough time in the day to explain that.

Problem for future Diana, not current Diana. Future Diana can cuss me out all she likes later.

"Keiko, you've got a good chokepoint behind you. Mind the vents above, they might try something there."

"Dr. Yukimura, you have one attempted breach in the-nevermind, your engineers got them."

"Forward Cannons Five through Nine just went offline. They'll be within targeting range of the midline defense soon." Diana grimaced. It was all she could do to keep the flyers from just overwhelming the whole Institute but she was already starting to lose more and more of the Seekers. There were literally more of them inside the Institute joining the gunline Keiko had set up - or if they weren't, there were almost enough of them that she could probably set them up as an impromptu quick reaction force.

Detonate fire extinguishers in Hallway 15B. A small group of infiltrators were immediately forced back, the explosion and the resulting foam likely tricking them into thinking the hallway was defended by a grenade launcher.

Overheat kitchen ovens. The kitchen erupted - Diana blinked at just how much cooking oil was being used, and the resulting infiltrators rallying for another push against the gunline were coated in fire, cooking oil that set on fire, and…a surprising amount of boiling hot miso soup that did nothing to put out the fire. Glad I can't smell.

As much as she could, Diana created as many small distractions as her mainframe access allowed in the Institute, while hoping Captain Sasaki - or Major Devin - wouldn't be too upset at how much property damage she was causing. But how did Dr. Sheol have this many converted infiltrators? Where were they coming from - and why weren't they suffering the usual effects of shock on morale that all of her databases were telling her should be taking effect by now? Small bits of shock were enough to force them back, but they would come back. They were proving they were always coming back. And without a good look at their numbers, or even a notable command and control unit, she had no clue what the actual balance of the battle was.

Only that at this rate, they would be reduced to scavenging for whatever slapdash blackmarket weaponry the enemy were holding to keep going on ammunition-

Her attention was wrenched back to…the Mercury launch bay!? How did they get in there!? Diana nearly panicked - until she saw that most of those who made it in there were already dealt with.

An irate Matsumoto Hiroki standing on the gantry leading to the Falcon Mobile, his fists already slightly bruised, easily explained why. "Get the hell away from Mercury!" Another infiltrator, its eyes doing nothing to hide their reptilian nature, found its face caving in as it was knocked over the safety railings and tumbling downwards to earth. Another found an armored foot slamming into its ribcage, Hiroki having managed to spin around mid swing to ringout this one as well-

-yet one distant kaiju convert was aiming a rifle straight at the swirling mass of fists and feet. We can't have that.

With a single thought, the section of gantry the rifleman was perched on simply collapsed in on itself - and so focused was the wouldbe assassin on aiming down sights it simply fell, joining its fellows in the rain of kaiju men making interesting splatter patterns down on the ground below. "You missed one," Diana commented over Hiroki's helmet.

"Uh, thanks?" With one final jab, the last of the attackers was sent below. Hiroki paused to catch his breath, noticing that the gantry that collapsed was resetting itself. "Who's this?"

"My name's Diana. I'm the…" Diana thought about evading the question about her nature. "...oh screw it. I'm an artificial intelligence sent by the DFRI to help out."

"Oh. Cool!"

Diana blinked at the straightforward response, even as her avatar superimposed itself over his helmet's visor. "You and Dr. Yukimura both are taking this pretty well."

"I've got a super robot that punches dinosaurs in the face, and I get to fight literal lizardmen. Honestly, an AI's not too far off if you think about it."

This was...not at all how she envisioned these conversations going. She raised a finger, as if to try and raise a counter point, but it just sort of fell to her side. "...y-you...you're supposed to-"

"Eh, life's too short to worry about details." Hiroki paused, and tilted his head. "Are there more coming?"

Diana glanced over. "Afraid so. Keiko and the others are dealing with them though."

"And I'm stuck here. Joy."

"I wouldn't worry about that too much." A moment passed as both iterations of Diana synched together and shared information - and this iteration frowned at what she was seeing. "Those things are getting closer."

---

---

Orders? Remember to vote by plan.

• [] Perseus
  • [] Send Perseus directly into the fray. There will be no point in keeping it held back if the kaiju manage to get within clawing distance of the Institute - and kaiju have been known to overly fixate on anything resembling a Super Robot.
  • [] Hold back and conduct a delaying action. The old infrastructure panels could be of use still in funneling these creatures.
  • [] Write-in
• [] Pegasus
  • [] Plunge straight into the Pterawing swarm. As suicidal as it sounds, it's guaranteed to put a really big dent in that swarm.
  • [] Continue to pull back, and maintain the Institute's air space. Even if they've got more Pterawings than we have energy cells and ammunition - we can't risk losing the Pegasus.
  • [] Write-in
• [] 25th Air Wing
  • [] Continue to fight a delaying action, even down to the last Seeker if need be, we need to buy Mercury V time!
  • [] Pull back, fighting only as Close Air Patrol support for the Perseus. We can't risk losing all of the Seekers.
  • [] Write-in

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