Gurren-Lagann: Nemesis Wars (Always joinable)

[∞]

For the sign-ups, discussion and OOC thread, look here.

This is the story of a universe brimming with war and on the verge of death, and the efforts of its inhabitants to avoid ultimate and total destruction.

The Spiral Nemesis. A phenomenon brought about by a universe too full of matter that the entirety is sucked into a hypermassive black hole. In normal circumstances, such a thing is impossible, but Spiral power, for this is exactly what it does, made it possible. Not only possible, but made it go from nothing at all to now-fated-to-happen in the space of three hundred years.

It was those three hundred years ago that saw the avoidance of the Spiral Nemesis lose its guiding hand, and the birth of the Zeroes as well, beings who are the greatest opposites to the Spirals, while still using essentially the same power. Siding with the Spirals and Zeroes in the war that will determine the fate of the universe are the Spiral-lacking Beastmen and the now-returning Anti-Spirals, respectively.

Now, war wages desperately as the Spirals do what they always have, fight till the very end, while the Zeroes do their best to stop the Spiral Nemesis. Between these two extremes exist the Anti-Spirals and the Beastmen, who fight the enemy, and even amongst themselves.

They will not reach a compromise.

In the universe full of turmoil, such a balance is a luxury unaffordable when everything in the universe is at stake.

Only one side can win; the fate of all rests upon that victory.

==========

Spiral Re-Emergence Date: Year 0956
Beastman-Spiral base Gamma, planet Garron
470 000 light years from Galactic Core

As far as worlds went, which was the generally accepted term for any planet harbouring life, Garron was a hell-hole. It's surface was pitted with countless impact craters, and packed hard by an immense magnetic field pulling on the magnetised carbon the entire planet was made of. Its atmosphere was a dull-brown colour and always foggy, filled with chains of hydrocarbons poisonous to most known life forms. But its hostility also made it immensely value. The entire planet, for whatever reason, was almost ninety percent carbon. Beneath its surface, where pressure and temperatures were immense, was one of the largest diamonds in the world. Being made of so much carbon, the entire planet was used as an immense strip-mine, the surface pulled away and taken apart and remade into carbon nanotubes. Billions of these immensely light and immensely strong structures went into nearly every ship in the joint Spiral and Beastman armada. Anything that needed a tough hull and manoeuvrability was almost inevitably sourced from Garron.

The entire planet's surface was about two kilometres shallower since it had been originally found. A century of mining it saw to that. The value of diamonds fell to near-worthlessness when the planet was discovered and its nature revealed. Their only true value was to be melted down and reassembled into more carbon nanotubes. The ship making industry boomed like never before, and, all in all, the entire economy of the known universe improved. Scattered about the scars on the surface of Garron, were entire cities, contained in immense domes of diamond and on wheels. The ever-changing and deepening surface of Garron meant any city built onto it would need to be able to move. One of these cities was currently receiving an important guest.

The two greatest constituents of the universe's population were thus: Spirals and Beastmen. One had the power of their namesake, the other lacked it completely. Currently, this guest arriving was the Grand Admiral of the Beastmen, the highest military figure of the Beastmen. His power over wars and battles was so complete that not even the highest political figure was not allowed to question his judgement in battle. An unusual example of a Grand Admiral, the Beastman in question also very much enjoyed, and even insisted, he take part in the battles he led. He felt it helped troop moral, as important as he was, he was still putting his life on the line.

The Beastman Grand Admiral stepped off the ship that ferried him to the planet's surface. Across hyperspace, moving somewhere between the tenth and eleventh dimensions, it had left the Beastman Homeworld and come to Garron, being slowed down and caught in a space station in orbit. From there, he and his assistant, alone in their vehicle but accompanied by several remotely-controlled gunner probes, they came down in what was their own humanoid machine, known as a Ganmen. Currently it had a casing around it and was differently oriented. It looked more like a bulky plane than a metal man.

Behind Raedel, who was a seven-foot-tall, very-well-muscled faun with red tattoos over his bare skin, strutted a woman, shorter at six feet and two inches, and with a head of beautiful blonde hair, and on her back, two large and pure-white feathered wings. As beautiful as she was, she was also deadly. Some might see her as a secretary, or just an accessory of Raedel's, but she was his combat partner and an essential part of any battle he fought. Lydia was a Spiral where Raedel was a Beastman, albeit an unusual one, being infused with his own rare brand of Spiral Energy.

Several ships smaller than Raedel and Lydia's landed near to them, descending through the large airlock-roof of the city-dome. Out of them stepped a gathering of Spirals and Beastmen, who Raedel greeted with formalities, handshakes, and emotionless kisses on cheeks.

BOOM!

[Endgame]

Post Theme: YouTube - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann OST- Nikopol (Viral's Theme)

A sleek, red Ganmen dropped neatly through a still-smouldering hole in the roof of the city, crashing to the ground and levelling a city block in the process. The city's safeguards kicked in, and the hole sealed almost instantly behind it.

Crouching in a quickly dissapating cloud of dust, the Ganmen stood and thrust it's arms to the side. Two glowing red laser blades flared into life from it's wrists.

A flight core unfurled from it's back, and it rose slowly into the air, red lasers lancing from various points across it's body to track across the city, cutting down anything in their path and leaving trails of flame in their wake.

Gungnir: Personal Ganmen of Daikirai of Sigma Squad
Gurren Lagann-Class Mech

"Daikirai, what do you think you're doing?" A monotone voice inquired, the image of a long blue-haired, bored-looking man appearing on the heads-up display of the attacking Ganmen's cockpit. It's pilot, a young man with wild, spiked-back red hair, grinned as he hunched over the controls.

"Enjoying myelf immensly." Daikirai answered, continuing to wreak havoc across the cityscape.

"This is counter-productive to our mission, Daikirai. Intelligence indicates the Grand Admiral of the Beastmen forces is currently within this city. Our orders are to locate and eliminate him."

Taizen crossed his arms , his brow lowering, a rare moment of facial expression for him. Daikirai was powerful, yes, but he was also far too reckless and headstrong. His battle strategy was amazingly simple: Throw himself at the enemy and work out the rest from there.

"No need to waste time looking for him if I just lure the coward out, is there?" Daikirai snarled, pushing the control columns fowards. His Ganmen, Gungnir, shot across the sky directly into a formation of mass-production security Ganmen, mobilised to counter the threat. Tackling the closest Ganmen in mid-air, Daikirai locked Gungnir's legs around his victim's midsection, and began punching the mass-production model repeatedly in the head, releasing his vice-grip only when they began to plummet earthwards, the security Ganmen's head a tangled mess of warped metal plates.

"Nihilith, we've got a situation. Daikirai's gone berserk. Again."

A wheezing, soft voice, as if that of an elderly man, cut in over the radio.

"Taizen, make a door. The squad's mobilising now."

"The whole squad?"

"No. I will remain on the Mobile Fortress. This situations dosn't warrant my attentions."

Fire errupted from above Daikirai, the remainder of the squad trying to suppress him with a constant barrage of bullets, but Gungnir proved far too mobile, dodging left and right, moving at amazing speeds for a machine it's size, bullets pinging off the hull, all but ignored by it's pilot.

"C'mon, don't give me this weak shit!" Daikirai roared, slicing a security model cleanly from shoulder to hip with one of his swords: "Bring out the Grand Admiral! Where is Raedel?"

[∞]

What felt like an earthquake shook the city. Buildings toppled, streets cracked, pipes broke open, and a shockwave of dust shot out from where the intrusion landed. A second or so after the impact, a faint humming sound began, the backup shield to run in the event of a compromised city-dome. Raedel and Lydia immediately abandoned their guests, and moved towards the Adunatio. As they approached, what was formerly a ship began to transform, until it was standing upright. It ejected the main shell of its flight-mode, and the rest stood up from a mostly-lying-down position. It was done in less than ten seconds, by which time Raedel and Lydia, climing the Ganmen as it transformed, were able to see that which had so rudely interrupted them.

The Ganmen stood slightly taller than the Adunatio's head. It was sleek in design and red in colour, it appeared lthe rather than strong, Raedle and Lydia both formulated their own opinions of it as they entered their cockpits, in the head and abdomen, respectively. As screens and such flickered on in the cockpits, the Ganmen began tearing through mass-production Ganmen with a variety of laser weaponry. The Adunatio switched into full activity and stood up as the screens flickered on fully, hands were clasped onto control mountings.

The mech was the height of an eight-or-so story building. The proportions of its body were nearly perfect, save for its over-sized arms, which were also its primary weapons. Its overall colour was a pale grey, intersperced with some golds and browns. Massive shoulder pags began glowing green as an energy shield was erected around the Adunatio in an effort to protect against the undoubtedly incoming laser attacks. Turning on its heel, the Ganmen faced its enemy, and Raedel's voice boomed over a speaker while mechanised teeth and mouth emulated Raedel's own lip movements.

"C'mon, you bastard! You here for me? I'll fucking tear you apart!" Raedel yelled with his usual eccentric ferocity towards battles.

[Endgame]

The security Ganmen all but forgotten, Daikirai thrust the control columns as far fowards as they would go, then flipped the handles back towards him, a circular gauge in the center of Gungnir's command console beginning to fill with a red light in a spiral pattern, starting at the outside and moving a single revolution inwards. A low whine began to build as the Ganmen's Zero Point Generators kicked into action.

As the enemy had correctly guessed, Gungnir was built for a single purpose: Speed. It's tall, thin frame was made of lightweight, low-durability materials, and packed with as many generators as possible to power it's devestating laser weaponary and fast-paced combat style. This meant that Gungnir could literally fly rings around almost any other Ganmen, but as with any advantahe, this speed came with it's own disadvantage: the Gungnir was so packed with generators and weaponary that it had almost no armor at all, and what it did have was designed to protect the delicate internal systems from the strain of high-speed manuvers, not enemy attacks.

The cockpit began to vibrate at the throbbing generators reached the apex of their charge, and released it, in spectacular style, overloading the flight core with twenty times the operating capacity of energy, and blasting the mech across the sky like a shooting star, the Adunatio directly in it's path.



"Daikirai's engaging the target..." Taizen's monotone reported, standing atop the city-wide shield that allowed it's inhabitants breathable oxygen.

"Sigma two through five are prepared to deploy. Is the vector clear?" A calm female voice inquired. One of the pilots of their Mobile Fortress type Ganmen.

"No... I can't get through the secondary shield. It took a round from the Longsword's GMAC to punch a hole big enough for Daikirai to get in, with just my Ganmen's weapons, there's not a thing I can do."

"Roger that, Sigma Six. Abort Launch. GMAC is recharging. We'll be able to get you inside once it's at full capacity charge."

"How long?" Taizen asked disinterestedly, watching Daikirai shoot towards the target below him.

"Currently at 23.45% power. 100% will be reached in an estimated twelve minutes."

Twelve minutes. Gungnir isn't designed for extended periods of operations. By the time we're in, Daikirai's generators will be giving out under the strain. Taizen mused, drumming his fingers impaitently on the control columns: If only that fool had followed the plan!

The original plan had been for the Longsword to launch an orbital assault on the city, providing Daikirai and Taizen a distraction, so the pair could locate and capture Raedel in the confusion, hopefully before he reached his Ganmen. They didn't yet have any data on it's combat capabilities, and an unknown enemy was always one best avoided.

Taizen knew what his partner was capable of, and he also knew his weaknesses. That was why the two had been paired: Taizen's calculating, emotionless logic was the perfect balance for Daikirai's headstrong agression. Their combat styles and Ganmen complemented each other, as did the other two pairings. Indeed, the only member of the squad without a partner was Sigma Leader, Nihilith, a special operative under the direct command of the Zero-Spiral Grand Admiral. Taizen had never asked him why he worked alone, but he'd asked Daikirai once. He could remember the conversation perfectly.

"Daikirai, do you know why he dosn't have a partner?"

"Eh, figure it's for a couple reasons, man. One, because he's probably so powerful he dosn't need one."

"And the other?"

"Because any guy strong enough to do more then get in his way... would be too tempting for him to pass up."

"What's that mean?"

"Oh, you havn't seen his power yet? I forgot. Don't worry about it. You'll understand later, man."



Daikirai's heart pounded, his fingers gripping the controls so tight they were white-knuckled and shaking. His breath came in short, ragged gasps.

"So you're king of the gene-spliced fuck-ups?" he snarled, his amplified voice distorted by the speed he was travelling at. He slammed into the landing platform occupied by the enemy Ganmen, a Gurren-Lagann class by it's appearance, with twin cockpits. Two pilots usually meant twice as much Spiral power, but Daikirai knew he was fighting Beastmen, not Spirals, which gave him the advantage. Created through cloning and genetic experimentation, Beastmen couldn't even use Spiral energy, and besides, he had his own Zero Spiral power, his will to destroy, to use against them.

"Grand Admiral huh? Sounds like a desk job to me. The commander's meant to sit in an office and give orders, not fight on the frontlines! I bet you don't even know how to pilot that thing. So here, I'll give you a chance!"

The Gungnir straightened, it's arms dropping openly to it's sides, chest thrust fowards, inviting an attack.

"Go ahead. Let's see if you can even hit me."



Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Longsword, one of Sigma Squad's three Mobile Fortress type Ganmen, an elderly man reclined peacefully in a large, throne-like chair. Silver wisps of hair lined the side of his balding head and his chin, offset by a jet-black eyepatch over his left eye. A thick, high-collared cloak draped protectively around him, shielding his no-doubt frail body from view.

"Sir... we reported... J-j-j-just as you said, sir."

"Excellent. Fire the GMAC when ready. By the time we punch a hole for Taizen, Daikirai will already be dead."

"Sir...d-d-d-dead?" the quavering female pilot queried, glancing over her shoulder."

"But of course. One must know their enemy, and by watching the Beastman fight Daikirai, we'll gather enough data for me to begin developing a strategy. Taizen will fight afterwards, and his shifting tactics will force the Beastman Admiral to adapt, allowing me to see his versitility and gain a true measure of his abilities, if not his raw power."

"So... Daikirai and Taizen. You're just going to-"

"Sacrifice them? Not exactly. Their deaths will secure me a great deal of valuable information. And if they survive their defeat..."

The was a long moment of silence, Nihilith closing his single, blood-red eye.

"If they survive, my lord?"

He opened his eye, staring blankly into space ahead.

"I... hunger."

[∞]

"Lydia?" Raedel spoke in a concerned voice, as the enemy Ganmen shot towards him at phenomenal speeds. It was blurred around the edges, and the voice that came from it sounded utterly enraged, and distorted from its velocity. Raedel responded quickly to the piliot's insults. "Gene-spliced or not, in reality, it's the perfect way to make the most biologically-powerful beings." He spoke as the Ganmen came to a sudden halt near to the Adunatio. "Add in some Spiral Power, and it's bound to be devastating."

He could hear the enemy pilot let out a snicker. He clearly doubted the capacity of Beastmen, and it was something Raedel always enjoyed showing people up on. "It's Spiral Energy alone that makes Spirals superior to Beastmen. But what happens when a Beastman... Gains the Spiral?" The pilot seemed to be ignoring him for the last few words, and started talking midway through Raedel's own talking. He was offering Raedel a chance to strike. Raedel flicked a switch inside his cockpit, the majority of it hologrammed to give the impression he was sitting atop the Adunatio with a three-sixty degree view. External communications were switched off, and Raedel began talking very quickly to Lydia.

"With a Ganmen that fast, it'd be stupid to take a shot at him from this range. We're a powerful Ganmen, sure, but his speed gives him the upper hand, at least at this range. Set all engines to quiet charge, build the Spiral power to maximum as fast as possible, and mask it in the twelfth dimension. As soon as he moves to attack, as soon as he's definitely attacking, release it all in one sudden burst, such a flux of energy should momentarily shut him down. It doesn't look like it has a scrap of armour on it, with that time, we could probably cut him in half."

Lydia simply made an 'mmhmm' noise, and the comms were switch off once more. In her own cockit, she profusely began tapping away at keyboards and issuing verbal commands. A low humming started that quickly built in pitch, but was too quiet to be heard outside the Adunatio. For his own ears only to hear, Raedel spoke. "And now, we play the waiting game."

He wondered how long the enemy would wait, the sheer speed of his Ganmen seemed to dictate he would be impatient.

[Ashes Remnant]

Private Kan's face paled as a higher up gave him an order. He was still new to this particular place. But this order would mean meeting one of the highest ranking officers currently. That was exciting, and scary at the same time. Needless to say, he didn't hesitate. He ran to the nearest elevator. He was going to meet Lieutenant Shin Tozo! The "Heartbreaker of the Stars!" Behind his back, he was called Lieutenant Love Machine. But that didn't matter, he was actually going to meet him.

As the elevator reached the appropriate level, Private Kan made his way out. He had no idea which room was the Lieutenant's. He saw a panel on the wall. He walked over to it, and written on it were the names and room numbers of all the crew. He placed a finger on the panel, and moved it slowly down the list as he read them. There it was! Shin Tozo... That's odd. The numbers of the rooms skipped from 5 to 69 to 7. Oh well. Room number 69 was Shin's room, so that was were Kan was headed.

Kan slowly made his way down the hallway. The raging battle outside caused the hall to be nearly deserted. He counted the numbers on the doors aloud to pass the time. "3...4...5... Ah, here it is!" He moved forward to knock, then stopped short. Not only was the number on the door in red glitter, but there was a large "Do not disturb" sign hung up as well. Kan bit his lip, wondering if he should enter anyways. Then he heard something. It was like a loud crash. Then a woman screaming.

Kan looked up and down the hall, as if for help. No one was in sight. Moaning, and more yells could be heard coming from the lieutenant's room. What if he's being attacked? Kan closed his eyes, and knocked hard on the door. Everything went quiet. Then everything went dark.

A sword was now going through the door, and straight into Kan's forehead. The sword went back through the door. Grumbling could be heard for a moment before the door opened. When the door did finally open, the famed Lieutenant stood in the doorway, looking back into his room. It was a dirty place, with four cots, and right now the entire room smelled of sweat, and other bodily fluids. One bed however had glittery red bed sheets with two naked women under them. Another woman was behind Shin. She was only slightly more clothed.

Her name was Emilianne Clavet. She had purple hair, that was usually in a bun on top of her head. Right now, it was messy and all over the place. Her outfit was a purple and black jumpsuit, that right now was only half-way zipped. Her ruby red eyes looked into Shin's eyes. Her mouth opened, and the words seemed to dance off her lips as she spoke. "Was that really necessary?"

Shin just shrugged and started walking. Emilianne had to run to catch up, still getting herself clothed. He didn't wait on her as he took the lift up to the main bridge. As the doors opened up on the main bridge, all heads turned to see. Shin stepped forward, walking slowly towards his superior. "So boss, what do we got?"

[∞]

The balding man sat at the desk, of the very old and natural wooden varieties. He was dressed in the black suit and white long-sleeve shirt that was ambiguous, even these days, of any formal occasion, be it funeral, wedding, or just going to work. The man sat in his desk on the occasion of the last of those, and opposite him, hunched uncomfortably in a chair not meant for species so tall, was an angel-demon halfbreed. His hair and his wings were of matching black, with streaks of gold. His face seemed bored. Chances are he probably was. The current matter being discussed was one of the most mundane kinds of bounty hunter jobs. No killing. No interrogation. No torture. Just kidnapping someone and delivering them. No fun at all.

Then, a phone in the man's pocket rang, and he pulled out the circular device and placed it against his ear, where it momentarily was fixed in place. "Yes?" He said to the unit and the person on the other side. "Attack on Garron?... The Beastman Grand General's there? Well that's not exactly fortunate but any half-educated being knows he'll probably enjoy the whole experience.... Oh, so it's not him we're after? A shame, a high-profile job would have been nice.... Alright, so he was accompanied then, and we're to see to them? Alright.... Who've we got? We'll it's a slow day at the moment, only person here is the..." The man checked on a digitized notepad, "Anxo, 'Alta's Number One Bounty Hunter'. Will that do?... Perfect! Alright, I'll have him over... You'll be picking him up? Who can I expect?... Serafim? Wow... Okay, I'll have him prepped."

The man then put away the phone unit, and reached over the table to shake Anxo's hand. "Congratulations sir, we now have a job for you, and you might even be able to sneak in some fighting alongside the Beastman Grand General Raedel and Serafim's own squad. Not a bad few things to put on your hunter's resume, eh?" As Anxo receive the handshake, his brow was crossed with puzzlement. "Serafim?" He asked. "Oh," the man then said, "You'll see soon enough."

=======================

"Well shit. She's always with Raedel, and with the amount of combat he gets into, it's no wonder she's in trouble to!" The man said. He flapped his wings in the little space his personal quarters allowed, for chestnut brown feathery appendages flaring out before being stifled by the far walls. The man's hair was of a similar colour, long and flowing and slightly waving, he looked exceptionally healthy for his fifty or so years of age and all his combt experience. "No, no." He said to the person on the other side of the microphone in his room. "Raedel travels so much and Lydia goes everywhere with him, I hardly get to see her, and she's in my galaxy, so why should I not make use of the opportunity to catch up?" The woman on the other end of the phone sighed and gave up trying to convince the man to do otherwise.

Lydia's father, Serafim as he was called, was the commanding military entity of the galaxy he curently occupied. By convenience, Garron was also in the same galaxy. As already mentioned in his conversation, Serafim rarely got to see Lydia, and he also enjoyed meeting up every now and then with Raedel. I'll make a date of it, he thought to himself as he then pulled on his jacket, a large leather trenchcoat with slits for his wings to fit through. He then stepped out of his office, and moved down the narrow hallway, tapping on the four doors as he went. Each time, he yelled as he went by to the person inside, "C'mon soldiers. Attack on Garron. Raedel's there and I want to catch up with my daughter. Hustle up!"

Eventually, he came to the hangar of the ship he occupied. This hangar, a small one by most standards, only contained five Ganmen, which was what justified its size. The largest of them was Serafim's own, half rich-brown, and the other two quarters black and grey. The other four craft were different, but among the four of them, fairly similar, however still customised for each of the pilot's needs. There was going to be a sixth person on this mission, and he was making his way there now from the planet's surface. Garron was a few hundred thousand light years away, but they would be there in seconds through hyperspace. Once all of his pilots entered the hangar, over a shared communication unit, Serafim explained to them the situation, as well as the job of the sixth guy, and all the 'even though he's an outsider, be nice and polite' stuff. In two minutes, all five of the Ganmen were ready to move, and with heavily-thuding steps, the five of them lined up on an elevator unit, which then ascended to the deck of the ship.

On the main deck, which was like that of sea-going aircraft-carriers used hundreds of years earlier, was a single large obstruction to the flatness of it. It looked something like a cross between a crane and a canon, but was more like a slingshot than anything. Moving easily and elegantly in zero-gravity, the five Ganmen, with Serafim in front, each sat down onto the deck of the launcher, and each grabbed a prominent hand-grip on the slab they all sat on.

Now, where was that other guy, the bounty hunter?

[Cef]

Fuck yes, FUCK YES! he was thinking, grinning widely at the prospect of his job. Recently all of his jobs were of the boring kind. No fighting. THis one, however, promised of fame, fortune, fighting, and, perhaps, finally getting to pilot a Ganmen for his own. Sort of. Just thinking about hid made him laugh out loud, earning some strange looks from the people he passed on his way to the hangar.

Serafim... That guy seriously wants me, eh? I'll make sure he'll enjoy this as much as I would think I would. he thought wryly. He went in the hangar and spotted an Angel with chestnut hair and wings. That must be him.

He barely contained his excitement. He failed, though, and fairly dashed towards him.

[∞]

Poor Anxo, he entered the hangar only to be missed by Serafim and his squad as they left for the launcher. He promptly jumped onto followed after them on his own wings as well as he was able to. Moving out into the deck of the ship, he found, rather fortunately considering his haste, that the entire deck was contained within a field that kept in oxygen. Thus, he soon found himself in zero-gravity, but because of the air, was able to breathe and also flap his way towards the launcher where Serafim and his squad moved to.

Arriving there, he carefully tapped on the ribs of Serafim's Ganmen, the Seraph, to alert him to his presence. The chest-face of the Ganmen opened it's mouth, and a pilot cage extended outwards. In it, sat Serafim, who regarded Anxo with a brief look of bewilderment before linking him to being the bounty hunter they were waiting on. "You must be Anxo," Serafim voiced his opinion and reached his hand out in a handshake. Anxo took it happily, but didn't shake too vigorously, remembing who he was to be working with. "Indeed I am, sir." Anxo responded. "Good," Serafim nodded, "Now, am I going to have to ferry you to the surface of Garron from orbit - where we'll be arriving - or do you have your own craft to get there?"

"Uhm..." Anxo said. Serafim slapped a palm to his forehead, and clicked a button on the collar of his uniform, and a robotic drone came to him. He then spoke to it. "Get Anxo here a small Ganmen to travel in," At those words, Anxo's eyes lit up like a child's, possibly even brighter, as when the ice cream man comes down the street. "one that can survive hyperspace and can carry weapons, preferably two guns, maybe a missile launcher to." The drone wizzed away, and again, on the border of failing, but looking away to find just what he would be getting, Anxo tried to contain himself.

The miniature Ganmen in question wasn't hugely impressive, but it was a Ganmen nonetheless. It was bright yellow, the colour of any industrial vehicle. It didn't look very suited to combat, but nearly any Ganmen always was highly capable in combat. The face of it was partially transparent, and through it, Anxo could see where the pilot sat. The craft was around twelve feet tall, most of it in the pilot's pod, which would be a little bit cramped for Anxo, but he didn't really mind that. Branching out from there were stocky amrs and legs. Into a fixing on the back, Anxo could now see a small missile pod being mounted onto the back, which would poke over the top of the pilot's pod. Two identical rifles, looking like they struck a balance between rate of fire, accuracy and range, were being fitted into the hands. Once done, the drone, hovering near to the Ganmen, hovered it closer to Anxo. The front of the pod opened up wide, and with his extra height and wings and all, Anxo squeezed into it. As he did so, Serafim explained once more to the halfbreed his mission. "You're to take care of the delegates and other representatives that were with Raedel when he landed in the city-dome on Garron. You're to locate them, gather them, protect them, and guarantee their safety. Understood?" Anxo nearly didn't hear a thing in his excitement, but he did give a simple ,"Yeah."

Testing the controls momentarily, he then hovered into place in a smaller handgrip directly behind the Seraph. "You ready?" Serafim's voice came up over the comm screen. Anxo merely nodded, making the thankfully correct assumption that there comms also had video. "Alright," Serafim then said, "Grey Squad, the four of you prepped too?" Four 'hoo-rahs' then came up over the audio comms, "Good. Valiant Tower, we are prepped and ready for hyperspace jump. Give us our t-minus."

A synthesized female voice came up. "Affirmitive. Aligning main hyperspace launcher. Calibrating distances, space-time curvature, et cetera. Ready for launch. Five seconds. Four. Three. Two. One."

"Commence hyperspace launch."

All the pilots were promptly thrust into the backs of their seats, and the vision around their peripherals blurred as the world began to rush past. The slab on which they were all sitting, was shot off, quite literally like a slingshot, from the launcher at somewhere around the million-kilometres-an-hour mark. A safe distance, around an entire planet's diameter away from the ship, the slab began picking up speed rapidly. Vision was further blurred, pilots thrusted further back into their seats. Then, the blackness broken only by the white dots of stars disappeared into a rainbow of brilliant energies as they broke the speed of light, and hurtled towards Garron.

Throughout all this, the five soldiers all wore grim expressions as they usuallly did, but Anxo was baring an unhealthily-toothy grin though it all.

[Cef]

Even though Anxo was strictly on 'herding' duty, he still is too excited to care. As long as he gets an opportunity to kick ass and pilot a Ganmen, he'll be more than compliant. Even though he looks like just another reckless kid with no brains in him, he ain't called 'Number One Bounty Hunter' in his homeworld for nothing. And besides, all of those years he spent as a 'prince' taught him quite a few tricks. The anticipation alone was enough to make him grin his widest.

Time to show you guys why I'm Number one!