The Giant Robot Post

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

The Sensorium was dark around him, its empty, featureless state as the default.

Kira closed his eyes for a moment, a part of his mind telling him to not do this - it had been almost two years since he'd last flown, and why just accept war like that? But no, he shook that off. There were things worth fighting for, and this world was one worth protecting. He would need to keep his skills sharp.

All that was left was a proper test of the program he'd written. "Stacy," Kira said aloud, his voice quiet. "Please run program KI_YA_SIMU.01... Setting: Space, Earth Orbit; Craft: ZGMF-X10A Freedom."

As the words left his mouth, the room around him transformed, becoming a cavernous hangar bay that lay open to the star-speckled black of space and the small blue-white-and-green orb that was the Earth as viewed from one of the Lagrange points. His clothes, too, changed - the teal-and-white flightsuit that he had once worn, and it was remarkable how accurate it was to his memory.

He was standing on a walkway forty or so feet above the floor of the hangar bay, a walkway which led to an open cockpit in the chest of the machine standing sixty feet tall in front of him: His Freedom Gundam.

Kira stood there, looking at the familiar Mobile Suit, and felt... nostalgic, in a way. It had been almost a partner to him, hadn't it? And if what he'd been told was true... it would be his partner here, too.

He tightened the seals on the helmet of his flight suit as he walked forward, climbing into the cockpit and strapping himself in. The door slid shut, and the small chamber was dark for a split second before the viewscreens that surrounded him lit up, providing him with an unobstructed view of the hangar bay. For a moment, his breath caught in his throat as he reached to touch the ignition... and then he pressed it.

"Kira Yamato, Freedom. Heading out!"

(ooc: The door to the sensorium is programmed to open into a viewing chamber. Come bug Kira, talk about giant robots, or use your own!)

Comments

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Luly settles into a spot in the viewing chamber, sitting in a relaxed sieza position. For the moment, she doesn't say anything—she just watches.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Even though it's just a simulation, Kira feels the ten GINNs before they register as warning lights on his sensors. They're coming at him in two waves, five apiece, from both sides. He turns toward the group on his left, upping the throttle - they're in firing range now, yellow darts of energy filling the space between him and them.

Despite its size, the Freedom proves surprisingly agile as he weaves it through the lethal rain, and in one swift move, the railguns folded on the machine's hips unfold, spearing through the heads of two of the GINNs, leaving them adrift in space but otherwise unharmed.

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

Luly leans forward, watching more intently now that the show is really starting. The destruction of the heads—well, actually, that just confuses her. In her world, it would be hard to resync with something with such an unplanned structural change, but it doesn't seem like enough raw damage to really disable it. "...but it was nice gunwork," she murmurs.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Raw damage, no - but these GINNs have their main cameras located in the head, and taking them out renders all but the best pilots effectively blind.

One of the GINNs jets up, seeking to take Kira from the top - he keeps track of it as he jets toward the other two, dodging their attacks. The agile Freedom reaches down to grab and activate its glowing beam saber, and as the two enemies scatter, he suddenly jets to the side after one.

The energy sword comes up and around, slicing through the enemy MS's gun, hands, and lopping off its head - and in the same movement he brings the beam rifle around, snapping off a quick shot that eliminates the head of the other breakaway GINN.

A warning klaxon sounds as the fifth - the one that went above - fires down at him, but he's already turning before it goes off, raising the craft's shield to block the energy bolt, and returning fire with his rifle, demolishing this one's camera as easy as the others, and leaving just five to go.

[aworldnevermade.livejournal.com]

That would confuse Luly, too. She's used to being blinded enough—not often, but enough—that she's developed a fair skill in working entirely off secondary sensors.

And it's so precise. She's not at all used to that except from the really unbearable artillerists who like to style themselves as snipers.

"Just kill 'em already," she says to herself softly.

DID SOMEONE SAY "GIANT ROBOTS"?

[crazychanger.livejournal.com]

Blitzwing is up in the air as soon as the simulation starts, jet engines whining as he happily slaughters simulated enemies with a barrage of missiles, not caring for the fact that Kira is the one running the simulation.

He was never one to care about those minor details, anyway.
A shrieking laugh issues from seemingly nowhere as Blitzwing spins in a tight, dizzying loop to pursue something that's caught his optic.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Kira notices almost immediately that he's not alone in the simulation anymore, nor is he in complete control - there are more enemies spawned a ways away, and destroyed almost as quickly as they came.

He spins the Freedom around to watch this newcomer - it looks like a normal jet, but... here in space?

[crazychanger.livejournal.com]

The seemingly normal jet swoops low and then transforms-into a humanoid robot that looks somewhat like a Gundam, if you squint hard enough.
Unseen thrusters hold Blitzwing's weight as his cannons click into firing position-he then begins to target enemies with rapid-fire precision and turn them into frozen chunks of ice. He makes irritated clicking noises every time he misses a target; he has far from perfect aim, even with his modified optic.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

That's... new. He's seen Gundams with different forms before, like the Raider, but ... nothing as drastic a transformation as that. After a moment, he keys the comm. "Ah... sorry, did you want to use the sim program...?"

[crazychanger.livejournal.com]

"Hm?"
He stops shooting for a moment and swats several simulated enemies away absentmindedly to look at Kira.
Blitzwing then raises an optic ridge in an unmistakable '...what' expression.
Instead of answering the question, he asks one of his own.
"So, is zere an organic under all zat or not?"

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Lafiel watches with interest, face practically glued to the viewing window. He's enacting an old and familiar ballet. Silently she analyzes his tactics, noting how he always heads for the weakest point of the swarm. He's certainly skilled but somehow he's...hesitating. Something holds back the strange sword that seems made of plasma.

Well, only one way to find out. In the pause between waves, she asks the computer: "Stacy, provide me with a ponyu class (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJ3P9yZhhVQ&feature=PlayList&p=83130846C053F55E&index=23) light craft equipped with...two fourty-lengarth cohesive beam guns." She smiled. The corrupt baron's craft was one of these. Silently she thanked the first man she'd killed for the inspiration. "And a complement of mines, under my control.

Vooiiip!

There she was in the vastness. Her hand went into a gauntlet bolted to her chair, all blinking hectograms. Her tiara was plugged into the same device. From here, she could feel and control the little craft as if it were part of her own body, a post post post modern samurai on her black battlefield. With it she turns the Ponyu on and it opens the vertical swallowtail covering its engine. It looks like some sleek metal fish in its dark sea.

Around her little ship, great shadowy mines the size of schoolbuses float in a ring.

She feels immediately as if a weight has been lifted from her shoulders...Possibly because it has. The gravity here is lower, much closer to what she's used to.

Some of this enthusiasm probably comes through on the comm system, which shows her a rather surprised looking Kira Yamato. "How does some assistance sound?"

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

There's a chime - not from his instruments, but from the program itself - as he sees another craft pop into existence. It's not like his Mobile Suit... far more like a large Mobile Armor, or a smaller fighter of sorts. He's surprised to see Lafiel's face pop up on one of the viewscreens, but recovers quickly.

"Ah... I wouldn't mind it, but I'd probably have to turn the difficulty up if that's all right with you."

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Turn up the difficulty? Ohoho. Oh not at all. She grinned eager. "Not at all a problem. Bring on the first wave."

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"All right, if you're ready."

A shimmering holographic pad appears in the cockpit next to Kira, and his fingers quickly fly across it as he inputs the new instructions:

A powerful Nazca-class destroyer (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Nazca-class_destroyer), flanked by two Laurasia-class frigates (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/Laurasia-class_frigate)... and 15 GINNs (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/ZGMF-1017_GINN), in three groups of five, with white-colored GuAIZ (http://gundam.wikia.com/wiki/ZGMF-600_GuAIZ) suits leading each group.

"Watch out for the white ones," he says quietly over the communicator. "They're commander-class."

[not-prncss-tldr.livejournal.com]

Lafiel tries not to gape. They're going to take on three capitol ships and a compliment of fighters with two fighters of their own and a couple mines?!

Abh have never been known to back down from impossible battles though. She brings up her tactical overlay.

"Can you get those fighters to bunch up for me?" She says as she kicks the Ponyu up, trailed by the first group of mobile suits. Fire sprouts from the fishtail. All this is accomplished without the press of a single button, just the instantaneous thought to action of the almfac interface.

She's reffering to the MS of course. 'Fighter' is the closest word in her vocabulary for what they are and even that is somewhat archaic due to mines and plane space shifting the emphasis to capitol ship combat

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Vega notices one of the sensoriums is in use. Curious, he wanders in to see something that's vaguely familiar. It's a hangar of some kind, he's been in and out of those all his life and knows the feel of one.

But...

"Whoooaaahhh."

He walks up to the observation window and leans against it a bit, looking out at the... it's not a Zoid. It looks like a Zoid to him, but if it is it's a kind he's never seen before. There are no human-shaped Zoids...

This must be one of those Mobile Armor things people were telling him about! Awesome!

And then he notices the fact that this bay is open into space. SPACE. DUDE!

"This is awesome! Ha!" he says, giving his head a little shake. He watches the cool not-Zoid with intense curiosity.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

As with the others, the moment Vega enters the simulation, Kira's program notifies him of the presence - and he keys the communicator. "Ah... hi, Vega. Sorry, I was just practicing. Did you want to use the Sensorium?"

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

Vega looks up instinctively at the sound, but then turns back to the Gundam. That's where Kira is, right?

"Oh, no, I was just wondering what was going on in here," he says. His grin is almost audible. "This is what you pilot?! That is so cool!"

Yup, excited robot-loving kid over here.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"Oh, yes." He nods, even if Vega can't see him. "It's called the Freedom. I haven't flown for a while, so I thought I should start getting back to practice soon."

"...and thanks."

[obscura-prodigy.livejournal.com]

"Oh! Can I watch? I like to know about... stuff like this."

He kind of lacks an accurate word for Zoid-like-things-that-are-not-Zoids. This kid is like an encyclopedia, he has the standard specs by heart for just about every Zoid currently in production and a few that aren't.

[venominsilicon.livejournal.com]

Though he'd probably put it that way, Gauron's movements have been a little too systematic to call it "wandering"; consciously or not, he's been tracking the movements of the other crew members, figuring out the most and least visited sections of the ship. He's been avoiding actually going in the sensorium, though, ever since he learned what it was; at last, though, he'd decided it probably didn't matter. It might even prove beneficial: it'd help him learn to recognize and sort out anything Stacy might be putting into his head without his assent. And maybe it had been instinct rather than coincidence that brought him here today.

There was a certain predatory sense of appreciation in his grin as he took in what was outside the viewing chamber's broad bay windows. In his own world, space-based combat was still a long way off - his mecha was capable of doing battle underwater, but that was as close as it got - and it wasn't hard to tell how important it was going to be to have an understanding of it here. So he sat down, and watched closely.

It gives him a little pause when he realizes the Freedom Gundam's only targeting a very small area - mainly the heads - and he wonders if Kira isn't just artificially increasing the difficulty to sharpen his reflexes because it's a simulation.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

There are at least ten enemies, all in GINNs or CGUEs, shooting at him - for the moment, Kira just seems to be using this as a test of reflexes and coordination, weaving in and out of their fire without returning a shot.

Finally, he spins and blasts one's head off with his beam rifle, but now only seems to be limiting himself to that one gun, none of his other armament.

[venominsilicon.livejournal.com]

The Freedom Gundam's movements bore out his suspicions, and Gauron found himself wondering how his own mech would fare against those from Kira's world, aside from the obvious disadvantage of a lack of orbital capacity. He himself had been guilty of artificially increasing the difficulty of real battles with it before - little things like almost never using ranged weapons, sticking with his mech's monomolecular cutter instead - but then, back in his world, his Codarl's Lambda Driver could rip through any machine that didn't have one as though it was tinfoil. He wondered how it would stack up against the Freedom Gundam's defenses - against its weapons, too, for that matter.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Even in the midst of the hail of attacks, Kira's targeting computer pops up, with the plasma cannons in the Freedom's wings and the railguns on its hips folding out - it's his standard multi-foe dispatch, as he locks on to five of the enemies at once - and then turns, staying still for the split second it takes to fire, disabling a handful of foes in one volley. (0:25 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmgN4ALfQQk))

[venominsilicon.livejournal.com]

"Now that's a neat trick." He makes a mental note not to get hit by it, because he has no idea how much of the punch his Lambda Driver will take out of the attack - if he can even take his Codarl up against that thing. Inside the atmosphere, he might have a chance - his mech has over a thirty meter vertical jump, after all. Complicating the matter of forming a battle plan, though, is the fact that it's hard to get a sense of distance or scale in space, especially when he doesn't actually know how big any of the mechs on the field are - but judging from its reaction time, he's starting to suspect that the Freedom Gundam is also a good deal bigger than anything he's fought in the Codarl before.