trans_9 | The Day That Physics Mattered

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The Day That Physics Mattered

The last time Allenby had been snatched up by GLaDOS, she had quickly abandoned the AI's preferred agenda in favor of seeking her out to deliver a righteous beatdown. The second time, Allenby hadn't changed anything except to get started on that before hearing GLaDOS' instructions. She hopped walls and dodged flame-shooting floor panels in her quest to get to the computer and put a fist in her processors--her soul was attached to her just fine--and just as suddenly as before, she was in mid-air. Unlike before, she was in the Hangar and surrounded by hostile robots.

"Whoa!" Instinctively, she punched the first one in its banana-shaped head, wincing at the unexpected pain. The hell--bam! Whack! She grabbed another one and hurled it at some of its comrades, which were taking aim at her. It didn't go as far as she'd hoped... ducking and dodging between them and some nastier-looking big guys, she spotted what she was looking for. "Nobel Gundam! Let's go!" she yelled, and launched herself up towards the cockpit.

It became apparent about halfway up that, well, halfway was all the way this time. That made it certain. Something was wrong with her. Had GLaDOS done this? And what the hell were all these robots trying to kill her, anyway?!

It would be a lie to say that Allenby wasn't afraid as she started to drop. But she was too pissed off now to think about being scared. With a bloodcurdling roar, she slammed herself into a clump of battle-bots and went right back to work, trying to ignore the question of how long she'd be able to keep it up.

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"Allenby!" Who was that in the midst of punching out some robots? It was Zouichi, attempting to pick out another glimpse of his friend through the crowd. "You're not going to let a few robots keep you down, are you?"

Looked like someone had moved his fighter, maybe for repairs. It was further back in the Hangar for now.

Zouichi! If there was a list of people Allenby would want to see after getting spat out of a brain maze into a crowd of robots, he'd be at the top.

"No way!" She punctuated it by kicking another battle droid in the head and then ducked a laser blast. "But it woulda been nice to know--yah!--there was a party goin' on first!"

Zouichi aimed two shots at a small cluster of the droids, sending the broken robots staggering backward. It was too bad the Nightmare was too big to march along the corridors; else he would have boarded it and given their assailants some early shipwide Christmas presents. "I'd tend to agree. How are you going to get up to that cockpit?"

"Uh--!" Whoops, no time for 'uh.' Allenby grabbed a fallen blaster and fired a few experimental shots before hurling it at another robot (which turned out to be more accurate).

She spotted something on the ground that looked more useful: a ten-foot section of torn power cable. Snatching it up, she began employing it like a ribbon as she backed towards the shelter of Nobel Gundam's foot. "Guess we gotta clear a path to the catwalks!"

The catwalks? What, like a normal human being? Zouichi brought the coil rifle forward with his other hand, unleashing a bright burst of energy that cleared a brief gap in the robot rabble. He began wading his way over the the platform.

"All right, I think that's doable." In fact, Zouichi was already thinking about ways this was all the ship's fault. He could multi-task!

"Great!" Allenby was absolutely positive that it was Stacy's fault. She didn't know anything about what was going on right now, but that had to be a fact. She grinned as the rifle blasted a hole in the crowd and rushed right in, jumping over half-melted and scattered robot bits.

...Crap, there wasn't a quick way up around here. No ladders or anything. This had never been a problem! Well, Z was still Z...

"Hey, you still got all your synthetic human muscles?" she asked, lashing another battle droid and using it as a giant bludgeon on another one.

Zouichi paused for a split-second. Then he held out his hands, interlacing them together to form a jumping-off platform for Allenby.

"Ready when you are!"

Leap before you look, right?

RIGHT.

Allenby carefully put her foot onto his hands, steadying herself on his head. "Okay--now!" she yelled, springing off.

He hurled her upward into the air, high above the crowd of robots. WHO NEEDS PHYSICS.

NOT THESE TWO, THAT'S FOR SURE.

"YyyIPPEEEEE!"

With that mighty battle cry, Allenby soared upwards, grabbing onto the edge of her cockpit and hauling herself up, trying to ignore the fact that her muscles were sending serious 'will be sore tomorrow' signals. The door opened and she hopped in, gleefully suiting up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNvUzpGFRAw).

"Now this is more like it! Hey, Zouichi!" Carefully, she bent on one knee as blaster shots bounced off the Gundarium alloy, and held out one hand. "You wanna better view?"

"You don't even need to ask." Wow, stylish suit-up, Allenby.

Zouichi hopped on, shouldering his rifle and aiming his shots down at the crowd of robots. They didn't know what they were dealing with!

The most stylish, totally. Allenby looked at some of the big gray brutes and then brought down one hand on them flat. "What's the matter? Thought you guys liked an unfair fight!" she called down.

Yeah, this was way more like it. Careful to keep her left hand steady, she pressed the fingers of her right hand to her temple and aimed a spray of bullets from her vulcan guns.

Oh, maybe she shouldn't do that. Better not to have big holes in the floor. "I think I'll just keep flattening 'em and let you do the shooting!"

"Will do." Zouichi made his way up to Allenby's shoulder to leave her other hand free while he continued taking out robots one by one. "Let's get this place secured, shall we?"

Several of the Droidekas were now changing tactics, rolling toward the Gundam's feet and trying to knock Allenby over from the impacts; they hadn't yet coordinated their efforts, but they might soon.

"Good idea! Hey!" Allenby glared at the droidekas and lifted her foot. Right now it was like getting headbutted by ferrets, but she didn't know how smart these things were. She didn't want to risk getting pushed over when she had Zouichi sitting on her shoulder.

Unfortunately, the little bastards were not easy to stomp on. They were fast. "You know what these rolling pests are, Z?" she asked as she managed to crush a couple of them. To her dismay, one of them slipped out like a marble. "They got shields! Ugh!"

"I've seen a couple of them before," Zouichi said, still firing. "Don't worry about me, just knock them over if you can -- they can't use their shields when they're off balance!"

"Ouch," one of the Droidekas managed as it was crushed. Who the heck programmed a battle robot to say 'ouch'?

"Oh yeah?" Allenby grinned evilly. "Hang on tight, then!"

So saying she dropped into a crouch, scything her foot out to send them tumbling and following it up immediately with the Vulcan guns... because hell, the Hangar would be all shot to hell anyhow. Better to have damage from her than these bastards!

Bastards that said ow. Oh-kaaaay. "Whoever programmed these was a weirdo--so you sure you're just as awesome a fighter as you were yesterday, right? What about that regenerating thing you can do?"

"Not quite," he admitted. "I'm not as strong or fast now as I was. But even weakened, I'm not going to just sit back and be a burden."

He balanced expertly on the Gundam's shoulder as Allenby attacked the droids, following up her assault with a blast from his coil rifle. "Same with the regeneration. I guess I'll just have to be... careful." As weird as that was. When was he ever careful?

"Guess I'll have to be careful too. Hah, we'll both have to learn real quick!" If Zouichi did get hurt, though, she'd grab him and get him into the cockpit and... somehow figure out a way to get them to Medical while in a Gundam.

Well, she'd just do her best to make sure he didn't need to go. "So where'd all these guys come from? They don't look like somethin' the Ohm would sic on us."

"The story is when the ship took down GLaDOS for a little educational reprogramming, another AI took its place: SHODAN. That's when all this started. Apparently, it's going to 'teach us a lesson'." Zouichi's face pretty much conveyed what he thought of that.

"Apparently that consists of taking our abilities away and trying to kill us."

"A lesson?!" Allenby thought about that--around the same time that she decided that if the Hangar floor was going to be blasted to hell it ought to be with Gundam fire than evil robot fire and opened up with her vulcan guns again--and reached a quick conclusion. "I think SHODAN is the one who needs to be taught a thing or two!"

She glanced at Zouchi quickly to make sure he was okay and kicked away some more droidekas. "Lesson 1: YOU SHOULDA LOCKED DOWN THE GUNDAMS!"

Zouichi was still perched on the Gundam, though he was careful not to get in the way of Allenby's caring ministrations to the droids. "My thoughts exactly. Of course -- "

He paused, shooting another of the robots and knocking it back into the others. "Gundams can't fit everywhere on the ship. But it was a glaring error on her part to forget about all the heavy weaponry here." His expression darkened slightly. "And the minute we find out how she's dampening everyone's powers..."

"Oh yeah. Then? She's toast." Allenby caught herself in time to not slam her fist into her hand as punctuation, for fear of unbalancing Zouichi. "Now if we had idea of what these dampeners looked like, we could strike 'em. I wonder if there are any in the Hangar that we could deal with--wanna have a look around?"

Zouichi smiled. "Sure. But first, how about a ride to my VF?"

It was double giant robot fighting time.

"You got it!" Allenby gave Zouichi a thumbs-up with her other hand and started off in the appropriate direction. She considered just jetting over there with the leg thrusters, but that was too much of a risk with someone exposed on her shoulder and besides...

It was kinda fun to stomp on the robots like bugs. Allenby grinned a vindictively happy grin as she crunched her way across the floor towards the VF.

"Ow!" came the cry from one of the smashed Droidekas. "That hurt."

Apparently whoever had programmed these guys had had a questionable sense of humor.

In any case, once they were close enough, Zouichi launched himself off of the Gundam's shoulder and into the Variable Fighter's cockpit, closing the canopy behind him. Instantly, he was in Battroid mode, towering over the attacking robots and drawing its anti-tank knife. "Thanks. I owe you one."

The Day That Physics Mattered

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