Super Robot Quest G

1800, 22 November A.D. 2072
Yukimura Institute

"What a mess."

Hiroki sighed, looking over the pockmarked ruins that were once nice, grassy, and green. Most of it was now cratered dirt, with the old underground infrastructure jutting outwards as if it had become unearthed ruins from a long time ago, if it weren't still sparking and sputtering out the odd bit of fire.

Most of the fires along the grass had burnt themselves out by now - maybe the ashes would help feed the growth of some new trees when they got around to planting them - but Dr. Yukimura's place wasn't going to be winning any tourist attraction awards anytime soon.

Shame. That one tonkatsu place was talking about opening up nearby too!

Hunger fixations now focused almost entirely on the tasty pork cutlet dish, Hiroki guided Mercury over to where the Pegasus was still crash landed at. He could see Sendo's team combing over the hull, doing their best to help out with some of the immediate repairs. The Seekers - and smaller versions of them, it looked like - were also all over, lifting heavy pieces of equipment to help the smaller human teams weld on unsightly patches of metal, more like bandaids rather than actual repair jobs.

And then there was Perseus. It had long since been disentangled from the mess of wires that had rigged it to the Pegasus and the cannon, which was laying off to the side. The EUDF robot was still perched right along the ground, where a mobile repair station had been stacked up and already had servo arms hard at work fixing…whatever was in it. Should ask the doctor if we could make something out of cannon again, he thought. Still, he guided Mercury to kneel next to the hull, and Hiroki popped the canopy open, letting him grab the tethering wire and lower himself to the ground level.

"Watch your step there," a voice called out. "Kinda crater-y here." Hiroki looked over, and saw two pilots wearing what looked to be really, really bulky suits. The voice in question had a clean cut, but now very sweaty, matted mess of brown hair. The woman next to him was similarly clad, with longer black hair tied back into a ponytail. Her left arm was being looked over by technicians and a medic - and Hiroki winced, seeing just how badly her arm had been dislocated.

The woman saw his gaze, and shook her head. "Don't worry," she said. "It-" She winced as the technicians pried the armored sleeve open, leaving just her pilot fatigues underneath. "It looks worse than it actually is," she assured him.

"Fair enough?" Hiroki had seen worse than this one years ago - a dumb fight instigated by some punk wearing dark glasses - but it wasn't by much. "You two the pilots?"

"Yeah," the man responded. He raised a hand, and Hiroki reached out to grab it. "Oscar Tellison. That's Xiu Yin Zhang." Any attempt for the woman to introduce herself or initiate a handshake herself was cut off by the medics wrenching her arm back into place - Zhang hissed, but didn't complain as they then began to set her arm for future treatment. "And the big guy back there, well, you know him."

"Yeah." The armored giant looked like it had gone a few rounds with kaiju all by itself - because it had. "You guys fight hard, you know that?"

"Yeah, we do," Xiu Yin said. A crooked grin crossed her face. "We took down two while you were focused on one."

"Hey now!" Hiroki shot back. "That thing was worth easily three of the ones you guys were dealing with!"

"And we still had to help you with the big one," Oscar replied with a similar grin, which only grew wider at the exasperated look on Hiroki's face. "Still, glad you were able to launch in one piece."

"I wouldn't have been able to if you hadn't tanked them all for me," Hiroki acknowledged. "I appreciate it."

"You damned well better!" a voice huffed from the repair station. Hiroki jerked his head, slightly startled. "I don't believe this! First Ichiro, now Perseus! Are all the pilots trying to make me annoyed!?"

"...that-that's Lana," Oscar said slowly, as if unsure of how to introduce her. "She's-"

"If she's anything like Diana, then I get it," Hiroki waved aside.

"I am, and that's not exactly right, but I'm a little busy here."

"Still." Hiroki decided to leave her to it. "Owe you guys. Anytime you need a hand, I'm down. Just let us know."

"Appreciate it." This time, Xiu Yin extended her right fist, which Hiroki bumped back. "But one thing…who the heck was in the kaiju?"

"I really wish I knew." Hiroki turned his attention back towards the direction where the 'pilot' flew off. "But it sounded like she had something to do with planning today's attack."

"If Sheol is developing intelligent officers," Oscar said slowly, "then things are going to get worse before they get better…"

---

"...well. Sounds like you all had a hell of an engagement."

Diana nodded from her segment of the Institute's mainframe. In realspace, her avatar had materialized on the center of the conference room table - still intact, somehow, incongruously so when you took into account all of the bullet pockmarks and burns from the previous room to room fighting. Dr. Yukimura was seated behind her, and Keiko Hamakawa to his left and Daichi Sendo to his right. Almost like our own team, Diana thought wryly. Research, military and engineering.

Her avatar stood at-ease, her arms clasped behind her back and her legs at shoulder width. "That's correct, sir," she replied smoothly. "To sum it up: the Yukimura Institute was subjected to a multi-pronged attack. Human-sized 'infiltrators' armed with crude melee weapons and small arms attacked in human wave style rushes, while the kaiju - designated 'Crocalisks' - attacked from the ground while carrying 'Pterawing' flying units."

Holo images of each kaiju and attacker displayed on the screen as she presented the information. "In addition, the command and control unit, dubbed 'Olympic,' had likely come in expecting to just conduct mop up operations. However, Perseus, the Twenty Fifth Air Wing, and-" She winced at this next part, "-the Pegasus itself were able to delay it long enough for Mercury V to launch. We then cooperated to enable Mercury the chance to kill it completely."

Major Devin nodded, sipping from a thermos that Diana was convinced was growing larger every time she saw it. Caffeine didn't seem to work on him anymore, but he drank it regardless. Yet this was also the man who wrangled together the talent and the minds who made the Perseus even possible. Clad in a United States Army uniform with EUDF insignia augmenting it, dirty blonde hair obscured green eyes that had deep shadows underneath it - likely not helped by the time difference involved. Major Devin wasn't that old by human standards, but it was likely this job was going to prematurely age him. Much the same way that it seemed to with Dr. Yukimura.

"They've never worked on this scale before," Devin pondered. A few fingers were drumming a beat on his desk. "Correct me if I'm wrong, Doctor, but normally Sheol sends out one kaiju, maybe a pair, to destroy infrastructure and military bases without any followup."

"Correct. Much of it seems to be for the purpose of luring Mercury V into a battlefield of their choosing so that they might destroy it." Dr. Yukimura grimaced. "Or perhaps it is in the vague hopes of destroying public support and…surrendering to him. Not that this has worked at all, thankfully."

"So we're dealing with an unprecedented change." Major Devin wrote something down on a notepad in front of him. "And the intelligent 'pilot…'"

"If I'm reading into what we recorded of her dialogue earlier right," Keiko chimed in, "She probably had a hand in planning out some of the attack. Almost like an officer or leader operating independently of Sheol except for resources."

"Them infiltrators were different from usual too," Sendo added. "The last few times they swung by, they knew just enough to sneak in and try to claw your face off. These bastards? They all knew how to use guns. Heck, they even were trying to override some of the machinery, but we put a stop to that."

"Which means that Sheol realized at some point his previous approach wasn't working."

"A paradigm shift, if you will," Dr. Yukimura sighed. "Additional resources, more complex planning, and independent leaders to organize them."

"But you all stopped it." Diana was then taken aback by the next words from his mouth. "Diana…excellent work." Diana blinked at the praise. "Don't beat yourself up over the Pegasus crash landing. You aggressively fought your dropship, kept the kaiju from destroying the Yukimura Institute, and helped land us the biggest victory over Sheol we've had in recent memory. You and all of the pilots and crew have something to be proud of."

"I-" Diana almost stammered, before she forced herself to calm down. "I-Thank you, sir!"

"Don't thank me too soon. You still have to help with cleanup after all." Ignoring the crestfallen look of panic on her face, Major Devin turned his attention to Dr. Yukimura. "And I appreciate your understanding, and your discretion, about Diana."

"She fought as hard as anyone else," Dr. Yukimura responded. "Her digital nature is of no trouble with me."

"Still kinda weird." Sendo scratched his head, but shrugged. "Not sayin' it's bad, just sayin' it's gonna take some time gettin' used to. But you're alright with me."

"I was thinking you were a machine when you were giving me tactical readouts," Keiko huffed. "Didn't expect to be right, but you're still ahead of some of the officers I've had to work with before." She offered Diana a grin. "You definitely helped make our situation better down there. Thank you."

"That said," Yukimura continued before Diana could die of embarrassment from the praise. "I understand your machines work off of…"

"Reverse engineered kaiju materials." Major Devin was rather matter of fact about it. "I understand your concern, but I can assure you that it is perfectly safe."

"So far," Dr. Yukimura countered mildly. "Are you certain it will stay that way?" His eyes glanced over to the viewport overseeing the battlefield remnants, where many of the Seekers and their Steed counterparts were collecting various pieces of the leftover kaiju. "Sheol's creations have a habit of subverting even the best of intentions."

"It involves nothing invasive," Major Devin replied. "Diana has also brought to my attention your concerns. I will need to clear it with higher, but if it gets approved, I'm more than happy to have you visit Dr. Carlson to answer any questions you might have."

"That…that would help, I think." Dr. Yukimura still looked unconvinced, but he was mollified for the moment. "Sendo's team will help get your dropship air worthy again. But…"

"Can we get some of those Steeds?" Keiko leaned forward, a glint in her eye. "I would've killed for those in my active duty days."

"Wouldn't mind having 'em for my team too," Sendo added. "Would make patch jobs a helluva lot easier."

Major Devin seemed to have a thoughtful look on his face. "Again, let me make some calls," he said. "But I personally don't see why not." He drained the thermos of coffee, set it aside out of view of the holocall…and pulled a fresh thermos right back in.

"Sir, your coffee intake-" Diana tried to say.

"Is my problem and my concern," he replied. Diana just sighed, knowing a losing battle when she saw one. "And thank you again for letting us take the battlefield samples. If I get that trip approved, you can get front row seats on how we reverse engineer these things so long as you don't openly talk about them."

"NDAs. I am aware."

Major Devin grinned at the dry response, then turned his attention back to Diana. "For the record then, Diana. What did we get our hands on?"

"As you can see, sir," Diana began as holographic images of the battlefield salvage appeared. "Thanks to both the Aeon Particles freezing some pieces, and our ability to send the Seekers and Steeds out with the freeze containment units, we were able to salvage the following before they could self destruct in time."

---

QM Note: due to how the battle played out, you all are going to get a lot of salvage from the kaiju regardless. But this is your chance to highlight what specific qualities you were able to identify from a glance. What did you all specifically salvage from each Kaiju? See the following, and vote by plan.

[] Olympic (Pick Three)
-[] Some of the organs that seemed responsible for the lightning breath were able to be salvaged. Even while being frozen, there is a lot of static charge building up...
-[] The 'cockpit' of the Olympic-class was detonated by its pilot, but bits of brain matter were still semi-frozen. Sam might be able to make some use of it - if nothing else, to study the command and control 'structure' of the kaiju.
-[] The entire hind leg of the Olympic was still miraculously intact. Who knows what monstrous new invention Sam could concoct out of a full analysis of the kaiju skeletal and muscular structure of a limb?
-[] Teeth. Lots and lots of teeth were knocked out, and there's enough that we might be able to salvage them. Diana isn't sure what Sam could do with these, but...

[] Crocalisks (Pick Two)
-[] The Arc Blade was still wedged in the Crocalisk's throat, and the acidic breakdown had eaten away at most of the blade before the head itself was somewhat severed. The brain looks to be a wash, but the throat - and the fire glands - seem intact.
-[] Chunks of the Crocalisk's hide and scales were mostly intact enough to contain into freeze containment units. Diana is convinced those hollowed sections were where the Pterawings were 'carried' on - she's pretty sure Sam wouldn't mind getting a look at it.
-[] Claws - not quite the whole thing but enough pieced together from the two of them - could be salvaged. If past patterns are anything, they might be able to work some weaponry out of it.

[] Pterawings (Pick One)
-[] There is very little of the Pterawings left. But there's enough samples of the wings available to collect and study. How could something so large be easily kept airborne?
-[] Grisly as it is, the rocket pod analogues - the 'spike launchers' based on the clawed feet - were salvaged. The Build Team might be able to fashion some projectiles out of this with some study...

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