Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Hastar goes by Bobptidou everywhere not the forums.
The Icon of Sin, Gundam Build Diver Re:Rise (and Fighter)/40k AU, Ft Nihilo
- Thread starter Hastar
- Start date
- Mature
Damn, Dozle Zabi wasn't kidding that it would be the end of the Federation if the Big Zam had been mass produced and fielded in battle.
Riku and his friends must be embarrassed for that but bygones be bygones as everyone enjoy having fun at GBNO anyway.
Galatea: "Commander Farsight? HE'S A CHAR!"
And that if she does join him, she can probably give the Farsight Enclaves some inspiration to make new mechas based off from her monoeye Gunpla's designs.
The Tau's own version of a Zaku.
Oh okay, but I can still imagine Sei and Reiji and their friends being adults and they use GBNO avatars to look like they're still kids.
Reliving a second childhood as Meijin Tatsuya Yuuki would say.
Am I like the one person who read the bit of post by Hastor(I think) about there isn't going to be any funky yoinking into 40k, just glorious Gdubs fucking up royally and GBNO getting a fun and exciting new way to fuel a plastic crack addiction?
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Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
No, but I figured it being in a spoiler tag meant we weren't supposed to discuss it yet.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Yeah, so you should put your comment in spoilers at minimum, since it was y'know explicitly marked as spoilers for the story.
Edit: ...Except apparently my coauthor forgot to mark it as such here and only did so on SB. Bob I swear to god. Anyways, sorry about the harsh words.
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Oh okay then although in GBNO, players' avatars don't suffer actual injuries as they respawn after being defeated in Gunpla Battle and their Gunpla remained intact. Ensuring that everyone is having fun and nothing bad happens.
It's gonna be scary when Galatea actually bleeds and her monoeye Gunpla sustain damage when in 40k where there's only war and death.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
I think in this AU they can suffer injuries. Because part of the AU is that Master Asia fans are eating good by being able to get up to superhuman nonsense with some setup (which I'm not clear on the details of), while also having a secret option in a Bandai mission vs Asia to step out of the mech and face him hand to hand.
Also, here Gunpla can 100% get damaged. And damage stays until you're back to the hangar, which auto-repairs everything. There IS a bit of game abstraction in that fuel is assumed as always being enough, though.
That's fair. And that GBNO ensures there will be no deaths of players for obvious reasons. Everyone is here to have fun with Gunpla Battle, not a death game ala Sword Art Online.
I assumed that in GBNO, there is unlimited fuel for everyone's Gunpla so that they won't be running out of power and they're free to unleash as many beam attacks and other powerful over-the-top techniques without worries. That's what I noticed in Build Divers and RE Rise.
Streamlining resource management like that is a good design choice, IMO. I think there's something special to be said about maximizing opportunities for Combat Breakdowns, as supers and weapons are expended one by one and the battle drags on just that little bit longer until both sides are running on little more than fumes... but no one likes actually running out of fuel.
I admit, I'm rather new to Gundam and Gunpla, and this forum is serving as a large degree of insight. Always meant to look into it, but... I'm bad at time management. And can't afford any brands of plastic crack. One thing I'm curious about is the viability of a Pure Unarmed build, with any and all addons n' the like focused on closing the distance to start throwing hands and ripping limbs. Knuckle Kaiser, for those who know it? Not sure how mainstream that quest is tbh.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
I hear 3D printing for warhammer shit is very economical once you get past the initial hurdle of getting the equipment for it.
Also, check out Rock Em Sock Em on SB, by Skibro.
As an aside, while this is set in 2020, we're fudging things and saying AC6 came out already.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
As a bonus, it doesn't give GW any money!
Ah, real life's version of digital gunpla.
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Hastar
procrastinator extraordinaire
- Location
- Fran*e
Holiday season f*cked me right up.
I am absolutely exhausted and want nothing more than lay in bed and become one with the Sleep Force.
Chapter should come tomorrow, Ni was putting on the last few touches. But due to crimbus going on, it might take a bit longer.
that being said: time for replies!
But am lazy.
no, thats the "Going Camping with the Zam Family" mission.
she apparently missed the internal memo.
all 23 of them (in her defence, she was operating on pure caffeine, spite, motherly instincts and 8 hours of sleep in the last week and a half.)
We see them eating plenty of parfaits, crepes and other sweets in the early episodes. So I extrapolated off of that, like Calavera said, it doesn't provide sustenance but it tastes just like the real thing should.
This is an anime robot simulation. Not a flight simulator, there are definitely options/campaigns were everything is a lot more gritty and down to the very last detail (GBNO is very good as a general gaming framework, as some characters will point out later) once the campaign update to the game comes out (its roughly a month or so away in universe, I can't remember if I mentioned it anywhere in the current chapters) but for the most part, it abstracts most things as best it can.
I am absolutely exhausted and want nothing more than lay in bed and become one with the Sleep Force.
Chapter should come tomorrow, Ni was putting on the last few touches. But due to crimbus going on, it might take a bit longer.
that being said: time for replies!
As mini-magnus once said- "it meeeeeeeeeeee!"
In all honesty, I should change my name here too. Just for the sake of simplicity and because 'hastar' is more of an OC of mine these days.
But am lazy.
no, thats the "Going Camping with the Zam Family" mission.
TThe federation seemed to think so too- I mean they retrofitted the carcass of the Big Zam into their Totally Orginal Mobile Armor donut steel.
they were. But miss Tori was the worst of them all.
she apparently missed the internal memo.
all 23 of them (in her defence, she was operating on pure caffeine, spite, motherly instincts and 8 hours of sleep in the last week and a half.)
honhonhonhinbio hilnhon
We see them eating plenty of parfaits, crepes and other sweets in the early episodes. So I extrapolated off of that, like Calavera said, it doesn't provide sustenance but it tastes just like the real thing should.
That was basically my thought process, yeah.
This is an anime robot simulation. Not a flight simulator, there are definitely options/campaigns were everything is a lot more gritty and down to the very last detail (GBNO is very good as a general gaming framework, as some characters will point out later) once the campaign update to the game comes out (its roughly a month or so away in universe, I can't remember if I mentioned it anywhere in the current chapters) but for the most part, it abstracts most things as best it can.
Oh. It is absolutely possible to just go full on brawler in GBNO. It's not easy since most people have ranged weapons, but the shining gundam only has (to my knowledge) the near ubiquitous 60mm vulcans as ranged weapons- disregarding any ki-blast it can fire donto Domon being Master Asia's disciple.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
It already came out. Manel mentions having waited for it since it made the sensory feedback better.
EDIT: Oh, nevermind, the quality of life update went first. Campaigns are popping up two weeks from Chapter 3.
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Given that ACVI:Fires of Rubicon came out early.. How many old/new armored core sets should we expect to see cameo'd in the background of the general GBNO shenanigans?
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
It's on Bob since I only know a few bits of 6 and it's mostly memes.
Also, currently working on finishing the edits for chapter 3. Christmas have fucked the both of us up. Bob's long since gone to sleep, but I'm going to try and finish this up and post it so he can threadmark it tomorrow.
chapter 3: Watchout Z-Fishbone! Facing the Army of death and the Grandzam!
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
Chapter 3:
After lunch, Calavera left to meet with a group of friends, saying that it was a 'fairly exclusive club'. He did make sure to show Galatea how to register a place for fast travel, though, in case she wanted to stuff her face some more in the future.
Which meant she had no reservations teleporting over to the hangar after all was said and done.
It was a fairly nondescript place. With nothing special or fancy to it. Only four giant docking stations, each with their set of catwalks, rails and industrial mechanical arms…
At least if you ignored the Z-Fishbone standing tall and proud in one of them, fuckoff huge machinegun in hand.
Standing before it, she could judge her work in a way that she'd never been able to while it was a mere model.
The paint was a bit dull, much like the deep abyssal seas, and unfortunately just a smidge too thick in a few spots, giving it a sort of unplanned and sloppy wavy effect that didn't look that great. The coral and bones both had issues, the sculpt had looked fine while it was model sized, but now that it was giant robot sized, she could make out all the little imperfections of the resin. Things like cuts that hadn't been smoothed out quite perfectly, an uneven surface, places where they weren't glued on quite right…
It irked like nothing else, but a mantra of it being her first project kept her from exiting the game and scrambling to try and fix everything. She was sticking with this guy at least until campaigns came out in two weeks.
Opening the performance menu that Erovan had mentioned showed that it at least had some relatively high stats in unique, general and luxury. With nimbleness and armour being at the base values of five and, sadly, power sitting at a somewhat lacking four.
Given what Bandai sold as Entry Grade kits apparently rocked at around 3-4 in all stats, she'd take it.
"Haro-Haro!" Her navigator popped up in front of her, doing a little twirl as its ear… wings… flap things fluttered happily, "Welcome to the Hangar! Here you can see the gunplas that you've scanned! Or, if you are currently in a party, your currently set gunpla, and the ones of your current party members! Use this unique occasion to look your gunpla under a different lens and perspective! You might be able to catch some flaw like a seam line, an ill-fitting peg, or a poorly glued accessory that you'd have missed otherwise!"
"Once you are done admiring your work, please enter your gunpla! To do so, use the console next to the dock of the gunpla you want to use, and select 'board'. Or use the drop down option in the hangar menu of your quick menu to do the same!"
"Aw, no fully immersive entry?" "The fully immersive entry is also an option! Either use the rope lift connected to your gunpla, or the mechanical lift of the dock to get on the cockpit's level and enter it!"
As the haro spoke, a loud, mechanical sound caught her attention, the cockpit moving into the open position by itself, a sturdy looking metallic rope, topped with a yellow triangle dropping to the ground as it did.
She stepped right in, tail swishing happily behind her.
The rope zipped up in an instant, wind rushing around her and in her ears until she was on the same level as the cockpit, letting her step inside of the dark space.
Once in, the canopy closed behind her, and the sound of electronics turning on and engines revving up filled her ears.
The same robotic voice as the one that had sounded off her login echoed in the closed space as lights filled the darkness. It wasn't exactly a cockpit like that of a jet, or from a MS from the few clips she'd seen of the show.
Instead of a bunch of apparatuses, computer screens and so on, everything seemed to be digital with a big floating screen appearing right in front of her. It displayed the Mobile Suit's sensory feed, while a control console similar to the shop's fulldive setup appeared right under it, giving her a screen filled with info like the gunpla's condition, ammo counts, the weapon currently selected, a radar map… It was honestly a bit crowded. But apparently thinking about closing one of them was enough to get it to go away until she thought about getting it back, which made it return.
And to complete everything, two large joysticks appeared next to her, held up in the air by rings of light.
"...Hey, Haro, is there an option to have an actual cockpit interior instead of this floaty cyberspace bullshit?" She asked plaintively, tail spines drooping as deep blue shimmered on her ridges.
"Haro-haro!" The little robot appeared right next to the console, a small bowl for him to rest into doing the same, "Advanced Cockpit options are available for a more authentic experience. However, they are locked until DIver Rank-D, and are not recommended due to their complexity."
"Haah, this will have to do until then." She grumbled, tentacle hair ruffling up in malcontent. Her poor immersion junky heart, crushed.
"Now that you are inside of your cockpit, please enter the MS catapult!" Off to the side, a large hangar door slid open, allowing her mech through, "It is right behind the door that has just opened!"
"Time for your shakedown run, buddy." Galatea whispered, red and yellow mingling as she gently tilted the joysticks forward.
Unlike her own body, the gunpla had no issues moving properly from the get go. Especially with the gentle pace she was setting to get the hang of the controls.
Going past the door, there was a set of 'footprints' for her to place the gunpla's feet on. It took a bit more finangling to get right, but once she did, they clamped her in place and the platform lowered. Soon enough the Fishbone was standing in a large tunnel, the light of day shining at the end of it.
"Haro-Haro! Your Mobile Suit is now in position inside of the catapult! Press both throttles forwards as hard as you can to activate it and fly out into the infinite possibilities of GBNO!"
Doing as the robot asked caused her boosters to turn on and the catapult to fling her at breakneck speeds. The speedometer screamed as it raced up as fast as she launched through the tunnel, until she reached the very end of it–
Launching high into the sky above the city, she was completely weightless as she escaped gravity's cruel embrace, her mech's boosters ensuring that she soared towards the horizon.
"WOOHOO!" She couldn't help the giddy holler, looking like a living flame as red and yellow blazed bright on every inch of her skin.
Even with her current speed, it took some time to reach the city's limits, where steel and concrete fell away into meadows, grassy plains and forests. Looking at the map, the mission area was some ways away, a minute or two at her current speed.
It was pretty weird that missions were in the open world instead of instanced. Although she supposed it made a bit of sense? Saved on resources if you just told a player to go to an already rendered area instead of making a little pocket dimension for them.
Wanting players to be able to see how detailed the world was might also be part of the equation, as she could see smaller towns and villages, each looking just as detailed as the city she'd left.
Some were completely pristine, but some were very much not: Bombed out wrecks, remnants of a past battle scaring them into ruins– in one case, she even saw the perpetrators of such destruction stomping about. A zoomed-in camera feed appeared off to the side of the main screen, revealing a group of fellow OG Zaku IIs, albeit with no frills or modifications.
One of them noticed her as she flew by, and looked up before giving her an awkward salute that the others joined in.
She only just barely managed to return the salute, her trajectory wavering a touch. Walking and flying was easy, but granular control of the hand? Less so. She really needed to check if there was a body mapping or MMI option for piloting this damn thing.
It didn't take long to reach the mission site after that. Which was a giant green, semi-transparent bubble? "Haro-Haro! This is the Mission Field! Since this is a mission that occurs on the open map, it will begin as soon as you enter the field! Other missions sometimes will take you to an instanced area, or have no Mission Field! If you have selected 'open battle' in your social menu, then other players are free to enter the field to aid or hinder you as they please! In order to avoid griefing of new players, it is turned off by default."
"When playing on an Open Map Mission, you are capable of sending out an S.O.S, allowing other players to enter the Mission Field to provide aid. If you are outmatched, don't hesitate to use this function!"
Oh, like the MHW flares. It'd be nice to engage in some jolly cooperation, but that was for later. Ideally when she had enough experience to join a squad in mowing down a good ol blanket of mooks. For now, into the breach she went.
She pushed through the dome with no resistance, the system voice helpfully announcing:
"MISSION START."
Thanks to being high in the air Galatea could see that the mission was taking place in a nice little rural village. Not too dissimilar from how people pictured Mediterranean hamlets. Small, low to the ground homes made from warm coloured stone, all centred around a church.
Critically she could also see two giant machines stomping about, their singular, sickly and disturbingly human looking eyeballs starting to focus on her.
Well, she had a gun and targets. The math wasn't difficult and she was making it even simpler by landing.
As she went down, the Death Army MSs began firing their club-rifles at her… in what was probably the most stormtrooper-y aim to have ever stormtroopered. A good three fourths of the shots went hilariously wide, while only a tenth of the beam shots that were somewhat on target even hit her, little icons appearing in the MS's status screen of where they had scratched her paint.
"Come on, I have seen Corpus Crewmen with fifth hand Deras land more shots than this!" She mocked over the speakers as she introduced them to Grineer reliability.
Her 90mm machine-gun boomed as the massive recoil shook her entire machine. Again and again the massive slugs of metal, more fitting for a battleship than anything human shaped, screamed towards the closest of the two enemy units.
As one of the huge bullet casings crushed a small car parked in the street, the DA was forced to stop in its tracks. The violent impacts stopped it cold by sheer force, ripping parts of its armour and punching through others. Falling to its knees, it used its club to try and stand up, only to slump down against it.
Yeah, the only difference between this and the Warframe tutorial was that there you at least got a dozen mooks to blend through. Anyways, she'd checked ranged, time for melee. She'd read on the wiki that the spiked pauldron was meant for tackles, sooo–
Turning towards the last Death Army, she rushed towards it, head down, shoulder forwards, thrusters roaring as they kicked in and added to her speed.
The machine tried to kill her by firing a few beams her way. But its accuracy was just as bad as before, and the few that hit splashed against her pauldron harmlessly.
The impact was bone-rattling, shaking and jerking her inside of her cockpit when she passed the buck of the momentum she'd accumulated to her foe. It was thrown back and into the church, demolishing most of it instantly.
…Well, the mission wasn't stopping, so time to take the lightsaber for a spin. Which meant unclipping it from her machine's waist and igniting it like Anakin in front of the kids.
Walking towards the robot, it destroyed the rest of the church when it tried to use the belfry to drag itself up, a huge (and conspicuously shoulder shaped) dent in its front armour causing the motion to be jerky and imprecise.
That was all the time she gave it before rushing it with another assault boost, beam sabre aimed squarely for its centre of mass.
As the beam pierced straight through the armour like it wasn't there, she had just enough time to see parts of the dent repair itself. Her whole body flashed orange. These motherfuckers had regen!?
She didn't have much time to react as she was thrown forward by something impacting her from behind, her heads up display telling her that she'd lost a good third of her armour value there. Her beam sabre was gone, too, jolted out of her hand.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw the first Death Army she'd shot up running at her, club-rifle raised high in order to bring it down on her head.
Green and yellow mingled in her tentacles as she grinned in her cockpit, tail spines twitching in eagerness. She outright laughed when her attempt to use the thrusters to flip to a seated position sent her into an ungainly tumble.
This was fun! She was fucking up from her own inexperience, not because the controls or hitboxes were janky. That meant she could actually learn and improve.
At least the tumble managed to turn the blow to the head into one that 'only' got her computer to shout at her about overloaded joints as it caught her shoulder-shield, pinning her to the ground semi-awkwardly. Adding its other hand to the club, it tried to press down onto her as much as it could.
Unfortunately for it, she was lefthanded, so the arm holding the 90mm was free to blast it in the mouth. The near point blank shots ripped through its head, both forcing it to stagger backwards, freeing her, and reducing it to a mass of mangled metal and gushing oil that splattered against her deep blue paint.
She wasn't taking chances anymore, forcing the right arm to grip it by the head stump as she made the Z-Fishbone get up. An MG jammed into its gut and three seconds of fire and she was confident it was out for the count.
Then she stomped it and its buddy like she was Isaac Clarke, just for good measure (and spite, purple lights blazing bright), until they vanished in a shower of cubic pixels.
"Haro-Haro! Congratulations on completing your quest! Let's take a good look at the rewards!" Under the completion banner three windows opened, two listing numbers, the other a bunch of words, "The first window indicates how many Build Coins you've earned! Build Coins are the non-premium currency of GBNO– what's the premium one you ask? It will be explained in a moment!"
"Build Coins are used throughout the whole of GBNO, have you visited the food court? You can spend it there to eat delicious meals! The crepe shop is especially good! And so is the paella restaurant!" The haro rattled off, instantly earning Galatea's undying hatred, "But it can also be used to pay other players for goods and services. 20 Build Coins can buy many peanuts for example. They can also be used to buy clothes, furniture, a personal home, a plot of land, and so much more!"
"The second informs you of how many Diver Points you have earned. Think of them as experience points from other videogames, such as Dragon Quest! Earn enough, and you will Rank Up!" The screens minimised themselves as a new one opened. On it was a pyramid made up of nine sections, going from F to SSS, a little cartoony head next to each. Hers was present, but outside of the diagram, while a second look revealed Calavera's at… D Rank. Weird, he came across as a veteran, "Ranks are divided as such: First, Easy, Dynamic, Courage, Brave, Ace, Special, Skilled Special, Super Skilled Special. You are currently at the lowest rank, rank First, or F."
As soon as it announced this, her head joined those at the bottom rung, "Don't worry about being there however. You'll graduate to rank E in no time! It only takes 200 DPs to do so, and this mission gave you 50!" The DP window came back just long enough to show that it wasn't running its mouth, before leaving again, "Ranks are a mark of a Diver's experience and talent in the game. But they also unlock certain features, at rank E, you are able to purchase a personal home in the lobby tower! This small space can then be remodelled how you want (at the cost of some BCs of course), at rank D you become able to join, or create a force, and at rank C, it is now possible for you to develop a special move! Past that rank, the only unlocks are cosmetics in the various shops, and more difficult missions."
Finishing its explanation on ranks, the window that had a bunch of text on it opened, "This final window contains the items you have earned by finishing the mission! They can vary from furniture, such as this [Flowerpot]! Cosmetics, like this [Master Asia Scarf]! Or equipment blueprint, like this [Club-rifles]! These are your premium currency! They can be sold or exchanged with both players and the system for other items or BCs! However, blueprints are special," A window opened, showing a large machine that she'd seen at the old man's shop. It had been tucked in or corner and out of view, next to the massive wall of gunplas he was selling, "By connecting your GP Base to an injection machine, you can download any earned, or bought, blueprints into it. And it will create a runner containing every part necessary for its creation! Just like GBNO, this is a free service provided by Bandai, if your local shop engages in any sort of monetisation of this aspect of the game, please inform the Bandai Branch in your home country."
"Note, Missions Rewards will not be claimed until players have returned to a safe zone. You may also wonder about the Super Moves mentioned earlier. They are not covered under this tutorial, this is to encourage new players like you to seek out the wisdom of their elders!"
"...Fair enough." Galatea said after a moment, skin stained a deep blue. Her opinion of the tutorial had just gone down by several notches, it was poor form to bury a player in data like this. Still, she got the broad strokes and Erovan would tell her the rest.
She needed to ask him where she could get that regen system anyways. Pity she couldn't fiddle with the menus while she flew this thing.
…
Unless.
"Computer, switch to autopilot and set course for the hangar." She tried, tentacles curling up in anticipation.
"Haro-haro! Setting course!" Flapping its wings, the haro took centre stage on the console while the controllers folded away. The suit's boosters activated quickly after, taking it into the air, where it lazily began to head back towards the city.
Now, where did Calavera say the send friend request button was…? Ah, there! Now she just had to send one to Erovan. He hadn't said anything about being online today, so it would probably take a whil–
"Damnit," A static-y voice sounded over the comms, "It got the boss, nothing we're doing even scratches it! Someone help! Please!"
She really should ignore this. She was green as grass and her mech was banged up.
"Switch to manual controls and try to hail the sender." Fuck her and her bleeding heart.
"Haro-Haro! You have control!" The two sticks returned to their position, letting her grasp them and turned towards the source of the call, "Calling hailer…"
"Wa‐" Over the call, she could hear the telltale sound of a beam rifle being fired, and an explosion, "Shit! Damn these guys!"
"I'm enroute." Galatea called, sharp and no-nonsense as she dialled up the throttle as high as she dared. She vaguely remembered hearing that just sounding like you were in control did a world of good for people's nerves. "Sitrep?"
"Uh? Uhm-uuh–!" Poor man tripped over his words as he spoke, "Me and my Force were doing a low level raid mission for some quick points, but–"
She almost asked how many were still on the fight, before thinking better of it. Instead she just swapped her 90mm for the bazooka and told him, "ETA ten seconds."
"Thank you!"
Pushing her machine to its limits, she quickly reached the source of the call, a mission field located in a rocky desert, Mobile Suits firing at something out of sight and taking cover as fire was returned.
But just as she reached it, a pop-up appeared in front of her:
"Computer, enable Open Battle."
Time to die gallantly.
As soon as she entered the field, her computer shouted warnings and alerts at her, a flurry of beams being sent her way.
Twitch reflex took over, shooting off a rocket before she had even processed what was happening. Then her brain got the memo on 'oh, that's a lot of lasers' and she was throwing the Fishbone behind one of the rock outcrops.
Her flight was a desperate and impressive one. Each yank of her controls saw two or three beams miss her by only a few inches, but even with a panic fueled adrenaline rush as her monkey brain screamed about imminent death, her machine took a few good hits on its way to a hiding spot, the lighting inside the cockpit turning yellow as her armour and structural values dropped by nearly half.
But even as she fought for her fucking life, luck, or perhaps skill, allowed her rocket to hit the thing that had just shot at her– causing it to redouble its barrage. But thankfully, by then she was already hidden behind something… Not that it felt like it'd last particularly long.
"Haro-haro! Enemy Raid Boss analysed!" The haro chirped, before displaying a picture of the 'raid boss' to her, giving her a chance to take a good look at it. It was a bizarre mashup of red parts, the upper body was sort of rhombus, or triangle shaped, a recessed monoeyed head sitting atop of it. From the glimpse she got, it was covered in vents and beam emitters, and had two sort of stumpy arms.
All in all, it sort of reminded her of a Big Zam, which she only knew by the memes.
The lower body though, was a serpentine tail, reminiscent of a naga's, made from a dozen or so segments, each equipped by at least three beam emitters, she could tell, because those were the parts of it that shot her.
It was also huge, each segment was about half as tall as the Fishbone was.
"Designation, Grand-Zamgarna."
"Hey! You alive?" The same voice as the one she'd heard over the SOS radio called out, coming in crystal clear this time.
"Somehow." She groaned as she caught her breath, thin lines of blue creeping into the brilliant red of her bioluminescence. "Did I at least leave a mark? That's the heaviest ordinance I'm packing."
"Uuuuh," There was a pregnant pause, "Yeah, I think I see some damage on it! Not a lot, but there's some! …You only have so many rockets, don't you?"
"Thirty nine." Galatea chuckled helplessly as the blue deepened. It sounded impressive, but she doubted it'd be enough unless she landed every shot in roughly the same spot.
"Hm… That could be enough, the main reason we can't kill it is the I-field– it negates beam weaponry. And that's basically all we have, see the antennas on its shoulders?"
"The tuning fork ones?" She asked, whispering at Haro to zoom in on the picture she'd been provided.
"Yeah, those things. They're the I-Field deployment points. If you can blow them up, we'd be able to use our weapons again… Hold on–," A different picture opened, showing a destroyed MS, "Look here. It's our Leader's GM Pridwen, it's a custom based on the Guard Custom, it got shot down near you. And we think the Guardian Shield it had should be salvageable? We can't get a good look at it."
"So you guys make a distraction, I snatch it and then get to properly aim for those field generators?" The cuttlefish asked, the red reduced to a lining around sky blue.
"Yeah, but it's kinda nimble too. So you might need to get closer. Emitters aren't armoured, thankfully, so one or two good shots should be enough? Ready when– shit! Funnels! Get out of there!"
As the man shouted, two small red drones poked past her hiding place, their front opening, beam emitters ready to fire as soon as they were charged.
Her thrusters kicked in the moment she heard 'funnel', her whole body flashing red, she had seen a video of how fucking mean those were. She just needed a second to grab her 90mm and they'd be scrap.
The beams crossed the space on the point where her head had been, narrowly missing her, and causing the funnels to rotate and aim back at her with mechanical precision– only for them to blow up when a burst of 90mm shredded their flimsy armour, "Go! Go! Go! Fire support! Get those things out of the sky!"
The sounds of bullets and beams filled the air beyond her hiding spot as the rest of the players moved into action, "The tail emitters were funnels!"
"They're going to be scrap in a hot minute!" Galatea jeered, orange joining the red as she grinned inhumanly wide, old instincts jumping to the fore. The controls may be different, but her eyes and trigger finger couldn't care less.
Each trigger pull turned a funnel or two into scrap as her shots found their marks, the few that were not, only escaping the trash heap thanks to the relative inaccuracy of her weapon. All the skills she'd forged over hundreds of hours of Warframe taking over her body as she boosted all over the place like the demented devil the neighbour's cat became the moment he got any sort of catnip.
Before she even knew it, she was over the Pridwen's wreck, swapping her 90mm for the shield.
Hefting it, she could hear her machine's joints groan in pain as they strained to hold the SLAB of metal that was the shield, but they managed, allowing her to get it in position. Just in time for three beams to slam into her newfound acquisition, dropping its defence value some.
Which didn't mean much, considering it had literally as much overall health as her MS. While she realised that, a notification came up, telling her that the shield's integrated 60mm vulcan guns were now linked to her triggers too.
Not important right now, but more gun was always nice.
Aiming around the shield was a bit awkward, but not the most difficult thing to do. Thankfully, most of the boss' attention was squarely on her temporary teammates, meaning that she only had to worry about the funnels for now.
Now behind the boss, she was free to line up the shot up. Her aiming reticles moved around on the screen, responding to any shift of her own eyes, whenever something distracted her even just a little– until she finally managed to line up a proper shot. Squeezing her 360mm Bazooka's trigger, its payload flew through the air, leaving a trail of fire and smoke as it flew true– only to be shot down by funnels moments before impacting the antenna.
Blessedly, 'close enough' applied to explosives as much as it did to horseshoes, bending it enough out of shape that something finished blowing it up a second later. The Grand-Zamgarna lurched forwards, its head almost hitting the sand before boosters on its front righted it.
"Hell yes! You've just done more in a minute than the rank C we brought along did after bragging about how good they were!"
"Would you believe I was on my way back from the tutorial mission?" Galatea laughed, as bright and clear as the gold on her eyes, even as she lined up a shot for the other tuning fork.
"Seriously!?" This time the boss was ready for the attack, using its tail to intercept the rocket, before turning towards her, monoeye blazing as funnels whizzed in her direction, "You don't look to be a beginner, that's for sure! Played other shooter games before?"
Her allie's beam assaults redoubled, The pink, green and yellow streaks of energy getting much closer to the giant mechanical beasts than before she destroyed the first I-Field generator, but not quite reaching the armour.
"MR26 on Warframe, so you could say that!" She said as she let loose with the shield's vulcans, clamping the bazooka to its inner face for a moment to toss in a cracker grenade and add her 90mm to the party.
The grenade arced through the air, landing in a cluster of funnels trying to avoid her hail of bullets.
Its explosion only damaged them, but it also knocked them out temporarily, making them perfect targets for her to blow up.
But just as she rejoiced at their destruction, her computer warned her of two more funnels, aiming directly at her back.
She twisted around, keeping her shield facing the fat fuck as she levelled her rifle at–
Her thrusters roared to full as she juked hard to the left, body lit up like a roadflare in fear.
She knew those funnels.
Her fear proved to be justified with the drones tracking her movements well enough to nail her left leg, severing it at the hip and turning the juke into an uncontrolled tumble– the light around the cockpit turning red as dozens of damage reports covered her machine's status icon.
Reangling themselves with small bursts of their thrusters, the brown funnels aimed at her once more as they charged up their shot. Only to back off when beams she couldn't see the source of nearly destroyed them.
She was dying alright. Just had to stick the landing with the gallant part. She still had her shield and her bazooka, time to get that tuning fork snapped like a wishbone.
She fired her weapon not a moment too soon– in the blink of an eye, the funnels were back. With a single volley, they carved both her arm and 360mm to pieces, which the eight missiles still in the mag reacted to as you'd expect. The explosion nearly took her out and ruined the right side of her Mobile Suit's head.
But it wasn't enough to keep her from seeing her rocket.
It screamed towards the antenna, funnels taking aim at it, only for them to get destroyed by a barrage of beams, "COME ON! HIIIIIT!" A scuffed looking gundam came in, screaming like a banshee and firing its beam rifle like a madman, causing the boss to shift its focus for just a single, critical moment.
Just as her shot hit, a quick beam straight through the back of the Fishbone's head finished the job, plunging her in complete darkness with the destruction of her main camera.
She fell limply, letting the adrenaline shakes bleed out together with the red staining her. It was up to them now.
"THE I-FIELD IS DOWN! TAKE THIS! EX-TREME MEGA BEEEEEEEAM!'' Thankfully, her secondary cameras turned back on. Just long enough to provide a static-y, grainy video feed of another gundam, this one better built, but barely holding together, firing a huge beam straight through the boss.
Galatea laughed, warm yellow light filling her cockpit as she basked in the joy of a job well done. Christ alive, GBNO owned her soul now. Nowhere else would she ever get to experience something like this.
With a mechanical shriek, the boss slumped in on itself, cutting itself almost in half on the beam that just kept going and going. Funnels flew around drunkenly, trying to get a good shot on the gundam.
But as the light left the boss's monoeye, they limply fell to the floor, staining the yellow sand red.
"We did it!" "Woooh!" "I can't believe I'm still alive!" "Why the hell does the Entry Grade not have fin funnels!?"
Her comms filled with joyful chatter as two more MS on the verge of exploding came out of hiding, while the first gundam to have come help her limped in her direction, "Hey. You still alive in there?" The pilot asked her, slowly kneeling his gundam to get a closer look at her.
"Haha, ye–" She chuckled through the speakers as she got up inside her cockpit, only for her eyes to explode with red as she spotted something amidst the grainy footage. "BEHIND YOU!"
Hovering right behind the gundam was a funnel, aiming right at its cockpit. The pilot reacted as fast as they could, trying to dodge, but they were just a bit too slow, the beam sure to hit them–
Only for a flaming axe to embed itself on the damn drone, the Fishbone's remaining arm sparking and smoking, a single message flashing on Galatea's screen: "PARTIAL MOBILITY RESTORED"
The gundam didn't thank her. Instead opting to aim at the boss and fire its rifle at it again and again and again, while screaming in rage.
Their three friends quickly joined in, not stopping until the "MISSION CLEAR" notification appeared on the screens of all involved.
"Uuugh," The gundam slumped to the ground, "I hate phase twos…"
"Amen!" The cuttlefish laughs wild and free, a few idle taps on the controls confirming that her cockpit can still open, "So who's still flight capable?"
A chorus of "Me"s answered her question.
"You wanna ride with us?" A… peculiar looking Mobile Suit asked as it stomped forwards, "You could just use the bug-out feature if you wanna get your MS repaired. It'd be faster."
"And miss out on the victory party?" Gala asked rhetorically in mock-outrage as she fired friend requests to everyone present.
"I'd say you're expecting a lot from people that haven't been playing for a while… but then there's our leader to consider," The last of the gunplas, a chonker beyond compare, said with a sigh. Its super deformed eye emoting as it did, "You're definitely getting dragged into the food court."
"Yeah, she is…," Kneeling down on the floor, the Entry Grade offered a hand, "Hop on, I'll fly you home."
"Haha, I like her already!" A mental command and the yank of a cord that dropped out of thin air, and she's climbing out of her cockpit, tentacles and tail waving happily in their rippling yellow lights, while her MS dematerialised behind her.
"...Pretty…" The pilot of the large gundam muttered, before the weird MS dope slapped them, "Ow! Oh come on, you're thinking it too!"
"No. Because unlike you, my mind is above the gutter."
"Oh no." The SD pilot whispered in horror as he stared at Gala's hair and tail, "She is doomed."
"Just finished the tutorial? Yeah right– oh, you're rank E… how the f- flick? Did you win a giveaway or something?"
"Hah! I don't mind being complimented, I did spend a whole month working on this." She chuckled as she climbed up the extended mech's hand, "Arts major wannabe that didn't have enough money for uni, you know how it is."
"Noooo?" "Nope." "Nuh-uh" "Wait, art schools exist?"
"Your parents want you to become a doctor dude," The large Gundam sighed, "Of course they'd tell you art schools are a lie."
"Become a pharmacist just to screw with them." The cuttlefish joked.
"I… don't think that's a good idea," The SD said with a wince, which was an impressive feat of piloting, "That sounds like a great way for him to get disowned. He basically had to beg his parents for that Entry Grade."
"Pharmacists earn as much as doctors and don't have to deal with the ungodly workplace stress of a hospital, though." Galatea said, blue bleeding into her lights as she remembered an interesting conversation with a marine doc. "But fair enough. Your life, not mine."
"Sure feels like it's my parents' sometimes," Her ride's pilot grumbled as it rose back up to full height with her in its hand.
Waddling up to his side, the SD smiled at him with its eye, "On the plus side, you'll be done with high-school this year, sempai."
"And hey, if push ever comes to shove, nowadays you can live alone off of an entry job so long as you have the mental stamina for it." Galatea told the kid, shifting fully to blue as she dispensed some advice. "Not saying you should just throw everything out the window and become self-sufficient, but if you find that you aren't satisfied doing what your parents want and can't find a compromise, it won't be the end of the world."
"Yeah. I'd rather not do what my bro did," Bringing its hand close to its chest, the mecha bent its legs; almost like it as about to–
The anemone's scream was swallowed by the wind, her entire body burning like a roadflare as she clung on for dear life.
Jump.
AN by Bob:
Alright. So this chapter was… a bit of a mess to write!
First, I had an idea, but Ni (rightly) called me out on it.
So changes were made, and a superior version was made.
The characterisation of the various teenagers also changed like three to four times in my head. Hopefully it won't again…
After lunch, Calavera left to meet with a group of friends, saying that it was a 'fairly exclusive club'. He did make sure to show Galatea how to register a place for fast travel, though, in case she wanted to stuff her face some more in the future.
Which meant she had no reservations teleporting over to the hangar after all was said and done.
It was a fairly nondescript place. With nothing special or fancy to it. Only four giant docking stations, each with their set of catwalks, rails and industrial mechanical arms…
At least if you ignored the Z-Fishbone standing tall and proud in one of them, fuckoff huge machinegun in hand.
Standing before it, she could judge her work in a way that she'd never been able to while it was a mere model.
The paint was a bit dull, much like the deep abyssal seas, and unfortunately just a smidge too thick in a few spots, giving it a sort of unplanned and sloppy wavy effect that didn't look that great. The coral and bones both had issues, the sculpt had looked fine while it was model sized, but now that it was giant robot sized, she could make out all the little imperfections of the resin. Things like cuts that hadn't been smoothed out quite perfectly, an uneven surface, places where they weren't glued on quite right…
It irked like nothing else, but a mantra of it being her first project kept her from exiting the game and scrambling to try and fix everything. She was sticking with this guy at least until campaigns came out in two weeks.
Opening the performance menu that Erovan had mentioned showed that it at least had some relatively high stats in unique, general and luxury. With nimbleness and armour being at the base values of five and, sadly, power sitting at a somewhat lacking four.
Given what Bandai sold as Entry Grade kits apparently rocked at around 3-4 in all stats, she'd take it.
"Haro-Haro!" Her navigator popped up in front of her, doing a little twirl as its ear… wings… flap things fluttered happily, "Welcome to the Hangar! Here you can see the gunplas that you've scanned! Or, if you are currently in a party, your currently set gunpla, and the ones of your current party members! Use this unique occasion to look your gunpla under a different lens and perspective! You might be able to catch some flaw like a seam line, an ill-fitting peg, or a poorly glued accessory that you'd have missed otherwise!"
"Once you are done admiring your work, please enter your gunpla! To do so, use the console next to the dock of the gunpla you want to use, and select 'board'. Or use the drop down option in the hangar menu of your quick menu to do the same!"
"Aw, no fully immersive entry?" "The fully immersive entry is also an option! Either use the rope lift connected to your gunpla, or the mechanical lift of the dock to get on the cockpit's level and enter it!"
As the haro spoke, a loud, mechanical sound caught her attention, the cockpit moving into the open position by itself, a sturdy looking metallic rope, topped with a yellow triangle dropping to the ground as it did.
She stepped right in, tail swishing happily behind her.
The rope zipped up in an instant, wind rushing around her and in her ears until she was on the same level as the cockpit, letting her step inside of the dark space.
Once in, the canopy closed behind her, and the sound of electronics turning on and engines revving up filled her ears.
"GUNPLA, ONLINE."
The same robotic voice as the one that had sounded off her login echoed in the closed space as lights filled the darkness. It wasn't exactly a cockpit like that of a jet, or from a MS from the few clips she'd seen of the show.
Instead of a bunch of apparatuses, computer screens and so on, everything seemed to be digital with a big floating screen appearing right in front of her. It displayed the Mobile Suit's sensory feed, while a control console similar to the shop's fulldive setup appeared right under it, giving her a screen filled with info like the gunpla's condition, ammo counts, the weapon currently selected, a radar map… It was honestly a bit crowded. But apparently thinking about closing one of them was enough to get it to go away until she thought about getting it back, which made it return.
And to complete everything, two large joysticks appeared next to her, held up in the air by rings of light.
"...Hey, Haro, is there an option to have an actual cockpit interior instead of this floaty cyberspace bullshit?" She asked plaintively, tail spines drooping as deep blue shimmered on her ridges.
"Haro-haro!" The little robot appeared right next to the console, a small bowl for him to rest into doing the same, "Advanced Cockpit options are available for a more authentic experience. However, they are locked until DIver Rank-D, and are not recommended due to their complexity."
"Haah, this will have to do until then." She grumbled, tentacle hair ruffling up in malcontent. Her poor immersion junky heart, crushed.
"Now that you are inside of your cockpit, please enter the MS catapult!" Off to the side, a large hangar door slid open, allowing her mech through, "It is right behind the door that has just opened!"
"Time for your shakedown run, buddy." Galatea whispered, red and yellow mingling as she gently tilted the joysticks forward.
Unlike her own body, the gunpla had no issues moving properly from the get go. Especially with the gentle pace she was setting to get the hang of the controls.
Going past the door, there was a set of 'footprints' for her to place the gunpla's feet on. It took a bit more finangling to get right, but once she did, they clamped her in place and the platform lowered. Soon enough the Fishbone was standing in a large tunnel, the light of day shining at the end of it.
"Haro-Haro! Your Mobile Suit is now in position inside of the catapult! Press both throttles forwards as hard as you can to activate it and fly out into the infinite possibilities of GBNO!"
Doing as the robot asked caused her boosters to turn on and the catapult to fling her at breakneck speeds. The speedometer screamed as it raced up as fast as she launched through the tunnel, until she reached the very end of it–
Launching high into the sky above the city, she was completely weightless as she escaped gravity's cruel embrace, her mech's boosters ensuring that she soared towards the horizon.
"WOOHOO!" She couldn't help the giddy holler, looking like a living flame as red and yellow blazed bright on every inch of her skin.
Even with her current speed, it took some time to reach the city's limits, where steel and concrete fell away into meadows, grassy plains and forests. Looking at the map, the mission area was some ways away, a minute or two at her current speed.
It was pretty weird that missions were in the open world instead of instanced. Although she supposed it made a bit of sense? Saved on resources if you just told a player to go to an already rendered area instead of making a little pocket dimension for them.
Wanting players to be able to see how detailed the world was might also be part of the equation, as she could see smaller towns and villages, each looking just as detailed as the city she'd left.
Some were completely pristine, but some were very much not: Bombed out wrecks, remnants of a past battle scaring them into ruins– in one case, she even saw the perpetrators of such destruction stomping about. A zoomed-in camera feed appeared off to the side of the main screen, revealing a group of fellow OG Zaku IIs, albeit with no frills or modifications.
One of them noticed her as she flew by, and looked up before giving her an awkward salute that the others joined in.
She only just barely managed to return the salute, her trajectory wavering a touch. Walking and flying was easy, but granular control of the hand? Less so. She really needed to check if there was a body mapping or MMI option for piloting this damn thing.
It didn't take long to reach the mission site after that. Which was a giant green, semi-transparent bubble? "Haro-Haro! This is the Mission Field! Since this is a mission that occurs on the open map, it will begin as soon as you enter the field! Other missions sometimes will take you to an instanced area, or have no Mission Field! If you have selected 'open battle' in your social menu, then other players are free to enter the field to aid or hinder you as they please! In order to avoid griefing of new players, it is turned off by default."
"When playing on an Open Map Mission, you are capable of sending out an S.O.S, allowing other players to enter the Mission Field to provide aid. If you are outmatched, don't hesitate to use this function!"
Oh, like the MHW flares. It'd be nice to engage in some jolly cooperation, but that was for later. Ideally when she had enough experience to join a squad in mowing down a good ol blanket of mooks. For now, into the breach she went.
She pushed through the dome with no resistance, the system voice helpfully announcing:
"MISSION START."
Thanks to being high in the air Galatea could see that the mission was taking place in a nice little rural village. Not too dissimilar from how people pictured Mediterranean hamlets. Small, low to the ground homes made from warm coloured stone, all centred around a church.
Critically she could also see two giant machines stomping about, their singular, sickly and disturbingly human looking eyeballs starting to focus on her.
Well, she had a gun and targets. The math wasn't difficult and she was making it even simpler by landing.
As she went down, the Death Army MSs began firing their club-rifles at her… in what was probably the most stormtrooper-y aim to have ever stormtroopered. A good three fourths of the shots went hilariously wide, while only a tenth of the beam shots that were somewhat on target even hit her, little icons appearing in the MS's status screen of where they had scratched her paint.
"Come on, I have seen Corpus Crewmen with fifth hand Deras land more shots than this!" She mocked over the speakers as she introduced them to Grineer reliability.
Her 90mm machine-gun boomed as the massive recoil shook her entire machine. Again and again the massive slugs of metal, more fitting for a battleship than anything human shaped, screamed towards the closest of the two enemy units.
As one of the huge bullet casings crushed a small car parked in the street, the DA was forced to stop in its tracks. The violent impacts stopped it cold by sheer force, ripping parts of its armour and punching through others. Falling to its knees, it used its club to try and stand up, only to slump down against it.
Yeah, the only difference between this and the Warframe tutorial was that there you at least got a dozen mooks to blend through. Anyways, she'd checked ranged, time for melee. She'd read on the wiki that the spiked pauldron was meant for tackles, sooo–
Turning towards the last Death Army, she rushed towards it, head down, shoulder forwards, thrusters roaring as they kicked in and added to her speed.
The machine tried to kill her by firing a few beams her way. But its accuracy was just as bad as before, and the few that hit splashed against her pauldron harmlessly.
The impact was bone-rattling, shaking and jerking her inside of her cockpit when she passed the buck of the momentum she'd accumulated to her foe. It was thrown back and into the church, demolishing most of it instantly.
…Well, the mission wasn't stopping, so time to take the lightsaber for a spin. Which meant unclipping it from her machine's waist and igniting it like Anakin in front of the kids.
Walking towards the robot, it destroyed the rest of the church when it tried to use the belfry to drag itself up, a huge (and conspicuously shoulder shaped) dent in its front armour causing the motion to be jerky and imprecise.
That was all the time she gave it before rushing it with another assault boost, beam sabre aimed squarely for its centre of mass.
As the beam pierced straight through the armour like it wasn't there, she had just enough time to see parts of the dent repair itself. Her whole body flashed orange. These motherfuckers had regen!?
She didn't have much time to react as she was thrown forward by something impacting her from behind, her heads up display telling her that she'd lost a good third of her armour value there. Her beam sabre was gone, too, jolted out of her hand.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw the first Death Army she'd shot up running at her, club-rifle raised high in order to bring it down on her head.
Green and yellow mingled in her tentacles as she grinned in her cockpit, tail spines twitching in eagerness. She outright laughed when her attempt to use the thrusters to flip to a seated position sent her into an ungainly tumble.
This was fun! She was fucking up from her own inexperience, not because the controls or hitboxes were janky. That meant she could actually learn and improve.
At least the tumble managed to turn the blow to the head into one that 'only' got her computer to shout at her about overloaded joints as it caught her shoulder-shield, pinning her to the ground semi-awkwardly. Adding its other hand to the club, it tried to press down onto her as much as it could.
Unfortunately for it, she was lefthanded, so the arm holding the 90mm was free to blast it in the mouth. The near point blank shots ripped through its head, both forcing it to stagger backwards, freeing her, and reducing it to a mass of mangled metal and gushing oil that splattered against her deep blue paint.
She wasn't taking chances anymore, forcing the right arm to grip it by the head stump as she made the Z-Fishbone get up. An MG jammed into its gut and three seconds of fire and she was confident it was out for the count.
"MISSION COMPLETE."
Then she stomped it and its buddy like she was Isaac Clarke, just for good measure (and spite, purple lights blazing bright), until they vanished in a shower of cubic pixels.
"Haro-Haro! Congratulations on completing your quest! Let's take a good look at the rewards!" Under the completion banner three windows opened, two listing numbers, the other a bunch of words, "The first window indicates how many Build Coins you've earned! Build Coins are the non-premium currency of GBNO– what's the premium one you ask? It will be explained in a moment!"
"Build Coins are used throughout the whole of GBNO, have you visited the food court? You can spend it there to eat delicious meals! The crepe shop is especially good! And so is the paella restaurant!" The haro rattled off, instantly earning Galatea's undying hatred, "But it can also be used to pay other players for goods and services. 20 Build Coins can buy many peanuts for example. They can also be used to buy clothes, furniture, a personal home, a plot of land, and so much more!"
"The second informs you of how many Diver Points you have earned. Think of them as experience points from other videogames, such as Dragon Quest! Earn enough, and you will Rank Up!" The screens minimised themselves as a new one opened. On it was a pyramid made up of nine sections, going from F to SSS, a little cartoony head next to each. Hers was present, but outside of the diagram, while a second look revealed Calavera's at… D Rank. Weird, he came across as a veteran, "Ranks are divided as such: First, Easy, Dynamic, Courage, Brave, Ace, Special, Skilled Special, Super Skilled Special. You are currently at the lowest rank, rank First, or F."
As soon as it announced this, her head joined those at the bottom rung, "Don't worry about being there however. You'll graduate to rank E in no time! It only takes 200 DPs to do so, and this mission gave you 50!" The DP window came back just long enough to show that it wasn't running its mouth, before leaving again, "Ranks are a mark of a Diver's experience and talent in the game. But they also unlock certain features, at rank E, you are able to purchase a personal home in the lobby tower! This small space can then be remodelled how you want (at the cost of some BCs of course), at rank D you become able to join, or create a force, and at rank C, it is now possible for you to develop a special move! Past that rank, the only unlocks are cosmetics in the various shops, and more difficult missions."
Finishing its explanation on ranks, the window that had a bunch of text on it opened, "This final window contains the items you have earned by finishing the mission! They can vary from furniture, such as this [Flowerpot]! Cosmetics, like this [Master Asia Scarf]! Or equipment blueprint, like this [Club-rifles]! These are your premium currency! They can be sold or exchanged with both players and the system for other items or BCs! However, blueprints are special," A window opened, showing a large machine that she'd seen at the old man's shop. It had been tucked in or corner and out of view, next to the massive wall of gunplas he was selling, "By connecting your GP Base to an injection machine, you can download any earned, or bought, blueprints into it. And it will create a runner containing every part necessary for its creation! Just like GBNO, this is a free service provided by Bandai, if your local shop engages in any sort of monetisation of this aspect of the game, please inform the Bandai Branch in your home country."
"Note, Missions Rewards will not be claimed until players have returned to a safe zone. You may also wonder about the Super Moves mentioned earlier. They are not covered under this tutorial, this is to encourage new players like you to seek out the wisdom of their elders!"
"...Fair enough." Galatea said after a moment, skin stained a deep blue. Her opinion of the tutorial had just gone down by several notches, it was poor form to bury a player in data like this. Still, she got the broad strokes and Erovan would tell her the rest.
She needed to ask him where she could get that regen system anyways. Pity she couldn't fiddle with the menus while she flew this thing.
…
Unless.
"Computer, switch to autopilot and set course for the hangar." She tried, tentacles curling up in anticipation.
"Haro-haro! Setting course!" Flapping its wings, the haro took centre stage on the console while the controllers folded away. The suit's boosters activated quickly after, taking it into the air, where it lazily began to head back towards the city.
Now, where did Calavera say the send friend request button was…? Ah, there! Now she just had to send one to Erovan. He hadn't said anything about being online today, so it would probably take a whil–
"S.O.S DETECTED"
"Damnit," A static-y voice sounded over the comms, "It got the boss, nothing we're doing even scratches it! Someone help! Please!"
She really should ignore this. She was green as grass and her mech was banged up.
"Switch to manual controls and try to hail the sender." Fuck her and her bleeding heart.
"Haro-Haro! You have control!" The two sticks returned to their position, letting her grasp them and turned towards the source of the call, "Calling hailer…"
"Wa‐" Over the call, she could hear the telltale sound of a beam rifle being fired, and an explosion, "Shit! Damn these guys!"
"I'm enroute." Galatea called, sharp and no-nonsense as she dialled up the throttle as high as she dared. She vaguely remembered hearing that just sounding like you were in control did a world of good for people's nerves. "Sitrep?"
"Uh? Uhm-uuh–!" Poor man tripped over his words as he spoke, "Me and my Force were doing a low level raid mission for some quick points, but–"
She almost asked how many were still on the fight, before thinking better of it. Instead she just swapped her 90mm for the bazooka and told him, "ETA ten seconds."
"Thank you!"
Pushing her machine to its limits, she quickly reached the source of the call, a mission field located in a rocky desert, Mobile Suits firing at something out of sight and taking cover as fire was returned.
But just as she reached it, a pop-up appeared in front of her:
"Cannot enter field. 'Open Battle' must be enabled."
"Computer, enable Open Battle."
Time to die gallantly.
"Open Battle Enabled."
As soon as she entered the field, her computer shouted warnings and alerts at her, a flurry of beams being sent her way.
Twitch reflex took over, shooting off a rocket before she had even processed what was happening. Then her brain got the memo on 'oh, that's a lot of lasers' and she was throwing the Fishbone behind one of the rock outcrops.
Her flight was a desperate and impressive one. Each yank of her controls saw two or three beams miss her by only a few inches, but even with a panic fueled adrenaline rush as her monkey brain screamed about imminent death, her machine took a few good hits on its way to a hiding spot, the lighting inside the cockpit turning yellow as her armour and structural values dropped by nearly half.
But even as she fought for her fucking life, luck, or perhaps skill, allowed her rocket to hit the thing that had just shot at her– causing it to redouble its barrage. But thankfully, by then she was already hidden behind something… Not that it felt like it'd last particularly long.
"Haro-haro! Enemy Raid Boss analysed!" The haro chirped, before displaying a picture of the 'raid boss' to her, giving her a chance to take a good look at it. It was a bizarre mashup of red parts, the upper body was sort of rhombus, or triangle shaped, a recessed monoeyed head sitting atop of it. From the glimpse she got, it was covered in vents and beam emitters, and had two sort of stumpy arms.
All in all, it sort of reminded her of a Big Zam, which she only knew by the memes.
The lower body though, was a serpentine tail, reminiscent of a naga's, made from a dozen or so segments, each equipped by at least three beam emitters, she could tell, because those were the parts of it that shot her.
It was also huge, each segment was about half as tall as the Fishbone was.
"Designation, Grand-Zamgarna."
"Hey! You alive?" The same voice as the one she'd heard over the SOS radio called out, coming in crystal clear this time.
"Somehow." She groaned as she caught her breath, thin lines of blue creeping into the brilliant red of her bioluminescence. "Did I at least leave a mark? That's the heaviest ordinance I'm packing."
"Uuuuh," There was a pregnant pause, "Yeah, I think I see some damage on it! Not a lot, but there's some! …You only have so many rockets, don't you?"
"Thirty nine." Galatea chuckled helplessly as the blue deepened. It sounded impressive, but she doubted it'd be enough unless she landed every shot in roughly the same spot.
"Hm… That could be enough, the main reason we can't kill it is the I-field– it negates beam weaponry. And that's basically all we have, see the antennas on its shoulders?"
"The tuning fork ones?" She asked, whispering at Haro to zoom in on the picture she'd been provided.
"Yeah, those things. They're the I-Field deployment points. If you can blow them up, we'd be able to use our weapons again… Hold on–," A different picture opened, showing a destroyed MS, "Look here. It's our Leader's GM Pridwen, it's a custom based on the Guard Custom, it got shot down near you. And we think the Guardian Shield it had should be salvageable? We can't get a good look at it."
"So you guys make a distraction, I snatch it and then get to properly aim for those field generators?" The cuttlefish asked, the red reduced to a lining around sky blue.
"Yeah, but it's kinda nimble too. So you might need to get closer. Emitters aren't armoured, thankfully, so one or two good shots should be enough? Ready when– shit! Funnels! Get out of there!"
As the man shouted, two small red drones poked past her hiding place, their front opening, beam emitters ready to fire as soon as they were charged.
Her thrusters kicked in the moment she heard 'funnel', her whole body flashing red, she had seen a video of how fucking mean those were. She just needed a second to grab her 90mm and they'd be scrap.
The beams crossed the space on the point where her head had been, narrowly missing her, and causing the funnels to rotate and aim back at her with mechanical precision– only for them to blow up when a burst of 90mm shredded their flimsy armour, "Go! Go! Go! Fire support! Get those things out of the sky!"
The sounds of bullets and beams filled the air beyond her hiding spot as the rest of the players moved into action, "The tail emitters were funnels!"
"They're going to be scrap in a hot minute!" Galatea jeered, orange joining the red as she grinned inhumanly wide, old instincts jumping to the fore. The controls may be different, but her eyes and trigger finger couldn't care less.
Each trigger pull turned a funnel or two into scrap as her shots found their marks, the few that were not, only escaping the trash heap thanks to the relative inaccuracy of her weapon. All the skills she'd forged over hundreds of hours of Warframe taking over her body as she boosted all over the place like the demented devil the neighbour's cat became the moment he got any sort of catnip.
Before she even knew it, she was over the Pridwen's wreck, swapping her 90mm for the shield.
Hefting it, she could hear her machine's joints groan in pain as they strained to hold the SLAB of metal that was the shield, but they managed, allowing her to get it in position. Just in time for three beams to slam into her newfound acquisition, dropping its defence value some.
Which didn't mean much, considering it had literally as much overall health as her MS. While she realised that, a notification came up, telling her that the shield's integrated 60mm vulcan guns were now linked to her triggers too.
Not important right now, but more gun was always nice.
Aiming around the shield was a bit awkward, but not the most difficult thing to do. Thankfully, most of the boss' attention was squarely on her temporary teammates, meaning that she only had to worry about the funnels for now.
Now behind the boss, she was free to line up the shot up. Her aiming reticles moved around on the screen, responding to any shift of her own eyes, whenever something distracted her even just a little– until she finally managed to line up a proper shot. Squeezing her 360mm Bazooka's trigger, its payload flew through the air, leaving a trail of fire and smoke as it flew true– only to be shot down by funnels moments before impacting the antenna.
Blessedly, 'close enough' applied to explosives as much as it did to horseshoes, bending it enough out of shape that something finished blowing it up a second later. The Grand-Zamgarna lurched forwards, its head almost hitting the sand before boosters on its front righted it.
"Hell yes! You've just done more in a minute than the rank C we brought along did after bragging about how good they were!"
"Would you believe I was on my way back from the tutorial mission?" Galatea laughed, as bright and clear as the gold on her eyes, even as she lined up a shot for the other tuning fork.
"Seriously!?" This time the boss was ready for the attack, using its tail to intercept the rocket, before turning towards her, monoeye blazing as funnels whizzed in her direction, "You don't look to be a beginner, that's for sure! Played other shooter games before?"
Her allie's beam assaults redoubled, The pink, green and yellow streaks of energy getting much closer to the giant mechanical beasts than before she destroyed the first I-Field generator, but not quite reaching the armour.
"MR26 on Warframe, so you could say that!" She said as she let loose with the shield's vulcans, clamping the bazooka to its inner face for a moment to toss in a cracker grenade and add her 90mm to the party.
The grenade arced through the air, landing in a cluster of funnels trying to avoid her hail of bullets.
Its explosion only damaged them, but it also knocked them out temporarily, making them perfect targets for her to blow up.
But just as she rejoiced at their destruction, her computer warned her of two more funnels, aiming directly at her back.
She twisted around, keeping her shield facing the fat fuck as she levelled her rifle at–
Her thrusters roared to full as she juked hard to the left, body lit up like a roadflare in fear.
She knew those funnels.
Her fear proved to be justified with the drones tracking her movements well enough to nail her left leg, severing it at the hip and turning the juke into an uncontrolled tumble– the light around the cockpit turning red as dozens of damage reports covered her machine's status icon.
Reangling themselves with small bursts of their thrusters, the brown funnels aimed at her once more as they charged up their shot. Only to back off when beams she couldn't see the source of nearly destroyed them.
She was dying alright. Just had to stick the landing with the gallant part. She still had her shield and her bazooka, time to get that tuning fork snapped like a wishbone.
She fired her weapon not a moment too soon– in the blink of an eye, the funnels were back. With a single volley, they carved both her arm and 360mm to pieces, which the eight missiles still in the mag reacted to as you'd expect. The explosion nearly took her out and ruined the right side of her Mobile Suit's head.
But it wasn't enough to keep her from seeing her rocket.
It screamed towards the antenna, funnels taking aim at it, only for them to get destroyed by a barrage of beams, "COME ON! HIIIIIT!" A scuffed looking gundam came in, screaming like a banshee and firing its beam rifle like a madman, causing the boss to shift its focus for just a single, critical moment.
Just as her shot hit, a quick beam straight through the back of the Fishbone's head finished the job, plunging her in complete darkness with the destruction of her main camera.
She fell limply, letting the adrenaline shakes bleed out together with the red staining her. It was up to them now.
"THE I-FIELD IS DOWN! TAKE THIS! EX-TREME MEGA BEEEEEEEAM!'' Thankfully, her secondary cameras turned back on. Just long enough to provide a static-y, grainy video feed of another gundam, this one better built, but barely holding together, firing a huge beam straight through the boss.
Galatea laughed, warm yellow light filling her cockpit as she basked in the joy of a job well done. Christ alive, GBNO owned her soul now. Nowhere else would she ever get to experience something like this.
With a mechanical shriek, the boss slumped in on itself, cutting itself almost in half on the beam that just kept going and going. Funnels flew around drunkenly, trying to get a good shot on the gundam.
But as the light left the boss's monoeye, they limply fell to the floor, staining the yellow sand red.
"We did it!" "Woooh!" "I can't believe I'm still alive!" "Why the hell does the Entry Grade not have fin funnels!?"
Her comms filled with joyful chatter as two more MS on the verge of exploding came out of hiding, while the first gundam to have come help her limped in her direction, "Hey. You still alive in there?" The pilot asked her, slowly kneeling his gundam to get a closer look at her.
"Haha, ye–" She chuckled through the speakers as she got up inside her cockpit, only for her eyes to explode with red as she spotted something amidst the grainy footage. "BEHIND YOU!"
Hovering right behind the gundam was a funnel, aiming right at its cockpit. The pilot reacted as fast as they could, trying to dodge, but they were just a bit too slow, the beam sure to hit them–
Only for a flaming axe to embed itself on the damn drone, the Fishbone's remaining arm sparking and smoking, a single message flashing on Galatea's screen: "PARTIAL MOBILITY RESTORED"
The gundam didn't thank her. Instead opting to aim at the boss and fire its rifle at it again and again and again, while screaming in rage.
Their three friends quickly joined in, not stopping until the "MISSION CLEAR" notification appeared on the screens of all involved.
"Uuugh," The gundam slumped to the ground, "I hate phase twos…"
"Amen!" The cuttlefish laughs wild and free, a few idle taps on the controls confirming that her cockpit can still open, "So who's still flight capable?"
A chorus of "Me"s answered her question.
"You wanna ride with us?" A… peculiar looking Mobile Suit asked as it stomped forwards, "You could just use the bug-out feature if you wanna get your MS repaired. It'd be faster."
"And miss out on the victory party?" Gala asked rhetorically in mock-outrage as she fired friend requests to everyone present.
"I'd say you're expecting a lot from people that haven't been playing for a while… but then there's our leader to consider," The last of the gunplas, a chonker beyond compare, said with a sigh. Its super deformed eye emoting as it did, "You're definitely getting dragged into the food court."
"Yeah, she is…," Kneeling down on the floor, the Entry Grade offered a hand, "Hop on, I'll fly you home."
"Haha, I like her already!" A mental command and the yank of a cord that dropped out of thin air, and she's climbing out of her cockpit, tentacles and tail waving happily in their rippling yellow lights, while her MS dematerialised behind her.
"...Pretty…" The pilot of the large gundam muttered, before the weird MS dope slapped them, "Ow! Oh come on, you're thinking it too!"
"No. Because unlike you, my mind is above the gutter."
"Oh no." The SD pilot whispered in horror as he stared at Gala's hair and tail, "She is doomed."
"Just finished the tutorial? Yeah right– oh, you're rank E… how the f- flick? Did you win a giveaway or something?"
"Hah! I don't mind being complimented, I did spend a whole month working on this." She chuckled as she climbed up the extended mech's hand, "Arts major wannabe that didn't have enough money for uni, you know how it is."
"Noooo?" "Nope." "Nuh-uh" "Wait, art schools exist?"
"Your parents want you to become a doctor dude," The large Gundam sighed, "Of course they'd tell you art schools are a lie."
"Become a pharmacist just to screw with them." The cuttlefish joked.
"I… don't think that's a good idea," The SD said with a wince, which was an impressive feat of piloting, "That sounds like a great way for him to get disowned. He basically had to beg his parents for that Entry Grade."
"Pharmacists earn as much as doctors and don't have to deal with the ungodly workplace stress of a hospital, though." Galatea said, blue bleeding into her lights as she remembered an interesting conversation with a marine doc. "But fair enough. Your life, not mine."
"Sure feels like it's my parents' sometimes," Her ride's pilot grumbled as it rose back up to full height with her in its hand.
Waddling up to his side, the SD smiled at him with its eye, "On the plus side, you'll be done with high-school this year, sempai."
"And hey, if push ever comes to shove, nowadays you can live alone off of an entry job so long as you have the mental stamina for it." Galatea told the kid, shifting fully to blue as she dispensed some advice. "Not saying you should just throw everything out the window and become self-sufficient, but if you find that you aren't satisfied doing what your parents want and can't find a compromise, it won't be the end of the world."
"Yeah. I'd rather not do what my bro did," Bringing its hand close to its chest, the mecha bent its legs; almost like it as about to–
The anemone's scream was swallowed by the wind, her entire body burning like a roadflare as she clung on for dear life.
Jump.
AN by Bob:
Alright. So this chapter was… a bit of a mess to write!
First, I had an idea, but Ni (rightly) called me out on it.
The mystery high rank player was supposed to be a griefer that faked dying and tried to kill the survivors… and then Captain Zeon shows up.
So changes were made, and a superior version was made.
The characterisation of the various teenagers also changed like three to four times in my head. Hopefully it won't again…
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Here we go and this is gonna be good.
By the way, you forgot to threadmark the chapter.
Nihilo
Authorial parasite
- Location
- Catalonia
I'm not the OP, so I can't threadmark it myself. Waiting on Bob to do it.
Grand-Zamgarna, one of the many Mobile Armors made by Zeon who overstrained their resources and supply lines in making one-time or limited production machines, which was their downfall in the One Year War.
And that it was a clever Deconstruction of the Villain Of The Week formula used by the antagonist faction that made different new machine after every battle with the main protagonist and allies.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Yeah, Zeon had a serious wunderwaffle addiction. To go with the fucking Nazi styling.
And the Titans made the same mistake as well in Zeta Gundam show.
In contrast to Zeon and also Titans, the OYW Federation focused on mass producing GMs even though they get shot down a lot but still get the job done nonetheless with sheer numbers, while AEUG is more on improving quality of their mobile suits and even if they're outdated and surpassed by newer models, the ace pilots behind the controls are what makes them a formidable force to be reckoned with.
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Also, Gundams are usually better wunderwaffles because its name is in the opening. 
True, the Federation made a lot of Gundams during the One Year War as shown in UC side stories and spin offs, lol.
Probably because they capitalized on Zeon being scared of the White Devil, which the Federation mobile suits have an appearance of a Gundam.