Seed a Barren Earth (Mech Crossover Crisis!)

[Endgame]

I love mechs. Massive robots fighting each other, I've gotta admit, I'm absolutly obsessed with them at the moment, thanks to Gurren Lagaan and Armored Core For Answer. So, it stands to reason I'm gonna write a mech fanfiction. This will be a crossover of almost every single mech fiction I can imagine. Gundam, CG, TTGL, AC, Mechwarrior, Metal Gear, the list goes on. If it vaugely resembles a mech, it's gonna be in this fiction at some point, as well as a few characters based off people on KHI, and their own original mechs.

Needless to say, it's gonna be a hell of a ride.

If you want to be in this, contact me, but don't expect me to just add you unless I got a place in the story for you. If I added you without asking, enjoy the read. I hope I've portrayed you in a way you enjoy.

Comments/Critique are not only welcome, but DEMANDED! I want to know what each and every one of you thinks about this.

Chapter One.

Yeah, the start of this chapter needs a lot of work. I'm gonna work on fleshing it out later. I also understand it appears, at this point, that I'm building myself up as the main protagonist. Actually, there's going to be several main protagonists, and each chapter, at the start, will focus on introducing one of them. Thus, this is just the first of many.





Seed a Barren Earth, Chapter One: The Spear of Odin


Josh sighed as he popped a disc in the tray, settling back onto the couch. This place... was boring. That was the only word for it.

He lived on a city in the cluster 006. Ten cities in all made up the cluster, each shaped like a sphere cut in half, floating a couple hundred miles up in the air, just within the atmosthere. One hundred million people, and all ten million in his city were boring as hell.

"Training to be a great mech pilot again?" A voice demanded, and Jett stomped into his room, a lit cigarette in his mouth, hands thrust in his pockets. One of his two best friends, many thought Jett and Josh were brothers because they looked so alike. Jett stood a few centimeters taller, and was slightly more muscular. They both had long hair, though Josh's was longer, reaching to his shoulderblades when Jett's was just above the shoulders. Josh's was dark brown, so thick it almost looked black, while Jett's was dyed black with a streak of red above his left eye. Josh had brown eyes, and Jett blue.

"Well I ain't gonna be a pilot if I don't train." Josh joked, dropping the controller and standing up. He spotted another shadow in the doorway, and Shawn, Jett's actual brother and Josh's other best friend, appeared through it.

"Hey man." He greeted, and Josh replied with a "Hey man." of his own. Shawn was perhaps the most different looking of the three, with short blonde hair he'd cut recently in hopes of joining the city's defence force. He stood slightly taller again then Jett, however, and likewise had blue eyes.

"So, what we gon-" Josh began, but he was cut off as the game he'd loaded cut out, replaced by the solem visage of a city official.

"This is a public announcement." The offical claimed, as his face vanished, replaced by footage of CDF evacuating citizens: "We have detected a well known renegade mechanised combat group en route to cluster 006. For your safety, all citizens are advised to move to their nearest evacuation point. Repeat..."

The message looped as their faces all turned white.



Half an hour later, they were stuck in a thong of people, moving slowly towards the evacuation point. There were whispers in the crowd around them that the attackers had already destroyed an entire battillion of CDF mechs, and the League were sending in a Collared team of mercenary pilots to fight the enemy. Collared were the League of Ruling Companies most skilled mech pilots. Ranked one to forty, each and every pilot in Collared was an indepandant mercenary and exceptionally skilled. For a whole team to be called in...

Josh's train of thought was cut off as a series of distant 'Wuuumph's' sounded. Explosions. Explosions on this city.

Instantly, the crowd panicked and started pushing fowards, struggling to get to the transport bays. Josh struggled not to get trampled, trying to stay with his friends, when a much nearer explosion sounded, and the corridor around them collapsed.



"Wake the fuck up!"

He came to with Jett's face inches from his. Looking around, he saw they were at the bottom of a collapsed section of corridor.

"What happened?" Josh asked, and he saw Shawn on the ground next to him, a large gash across his chest bandaged with his shirt. He also noticed Jett's hand wrapped and bent at an odd angle.

"They left without us, that's what the fuck happened. They ignored us down here and kept going. They wouldn't even help me get you and Shawn to the transports. You're fine, but he got cut pretty bad in the fall."

Josh rubbed his eyes and crawled to his feet. Jett picked up his brother, slinging him over his shoulder.

"We gotta find... wait. Is that what I think it is?"

He stood, awestruck, staring up at a massive being made from metal and light before him.

A mech.

"We fell into the bay. I didn't know it was here, apparently this is one of the secret prototypes the city was working on." Jett explained as they shuffled towards it. He'd already figured out what Josh was thinking as they started up the stairs they'd need to climb to reach the gangway allowing access to the head. "You want to fly it outta here? The transports are all gone, so we don't have much of a choice."

Josh remained silent, his eyes caressing the machine. It was beautiful. It stood half as tall as a building, and carried a giant, gleaming staff.

"Don't you see, man? This is destiny. It was our destiny to fall behind and find this hanger. We all agreed we were going to become great mech pilots, right? This is our chance, right here!" Josh exclaimed, throwing his arms out.

"But who's gonna fly it?" Jett asked. He threw a glance at his injured hand. He couldn't do it. Shawn was passed out from blood loss with the wound in his stomach. That left only one person.

A metallic clank sounded, and he looked up to see Josh had kicked the switch marked 'Cockpit open' on the side of the head. The face folded back upon itself, revealing a two-seat cockpit.

"So, you think you can fly this thing? Even if you can, where we gonna fly to? All the other cities are under attack. There's nowhere nearby to escape to."

"We're not going to escape." Josh said, clambering inside.

"What do you... you're not thinking?"

"You know how many people have died today, Jett?" Josh asked, his face set. "Those bastards are trying to blow up the whole cluster. Whole cities are probably destroyed. I'm not going to let them get away with it. Besides, we take down these guys before Collared show up..." He said, and let the words hang in the air. They both knew what that meant to him.

"Get Shawn into the back seat and try to strap his injury. This might get rough."

With that, he sank into the command chair, wrapping his hands around the triggers of the steering columns. He closed his eyes for a second, savouring the moment. At last, he sat in the cockpit of a mech, a mech he was about to blast off with into the middle of battle. He'd waited his whole life for this moment.

Jett scrambled past him, his semi-concious brother thrown over his shoulder. With a whirring, the cockpit slid back down, and sealed itself shut with a hiss of gasses.

Instantly, the radio came to life, snippets of voices crackling into the cockpit.

"The enemy leader is Old King, from the ORCA brigade!"
"The genocidal maniac?"
"I'm hit!"
"Leeron! We've got an unidentified mech launching from the city!"
"Unidentified? Put me through."

A small square appeared on the cockpit display in front of Josh, as he pushed fowards on the control levers, and the mech's boosters roared into life. Framed within it were the feminine features of a young blonde man.

"This is Leeron of the Great Gurren Brigade."

His face grew puzzled. Apparently he could see the three crammed into the cockpit in the same way they could see him.

"Who are you guys?"

"My name's Josh. These are my friends. We found this mech in the city, and we're going to use it to escape... and fight those guys."

Several people moved into partial view in the background.

"They're going to fight?"
"Are they crazy?"

Leeron waved a hand and cut them off.

"Much as I hate to say it..." he said in his odd, femenine voice: "We need all the help we can get. That is, if you know how to actually pilot a mech..."

"Well." Josh said, pushing his hair back out of his face: "I've never flown one before. But I can definatly pilot this thing!"

"You can? But how...?" Leeron asked, again looking puzzled.

"It's simple!" Josh replied, his mouth twisting into a grin: "I'm a gamer!" He stood up in his seat, his hands grapping the control columns tightly.

The mech broke free of the hanger as he eased the controls fowards, boosting out into the open air, mid-air explosions and lines of fire tracing their way through the battlefront ahead. He deftly hit a switch, and the cockpit retracted, the plating sliding back, leaving him standing in the open head of the mech, the wind rushing through his hair as he smiled.

"To a gamer like me... this whole cockpit is nothing more then one big control pad!"

An enthusiastic young man's voice crackled over the radio as a second square appeared beside Leeron's, this one showing a blue-haired man with a pair of angular sunglasses and a crazy grin.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" He shouted cheerfully. Josh clenched his fist, returned the grin, and shouted: "I'm Josh! And this game... is OVER!"

Josh's stolen mech burst into motion as it's boosters fired, rocketing towards the ongoing battle. Kamina slumped back in his seat, grin still plastered on his face.

"Simon, I like this guy's attitude! Now, Great Gurren Brigade! The enemy is right there! Those bastards won't destroy any more cities now the Gurren Brigade is on the scene! Forget caution, and LET'S GO!"



The Gurren Brigade's mechs took flight, shooting across the sky in ragtag formation, Gurren Lagaan at the head. The Dai-Gurren, their ship, however, was far futrher back from the enemy battlegroup then the city, and Josh quickly realised that it'd be a few minutes before he had any backup.

"Guess I'd better learn quickly then..." He muttered, fumbling around the cockpit. This mech, from what he'd gathered, had been the new, close-combat prototype the city had been developing. Specialising in firearm based mechs, the League had decided to develop a group of close-range models to counteract the enemy's melee superiority.

He keyed a button, and a siren sounded. For a second he wondered what he'd done, and then he was slammed back against his seat as the craft's speed tripled in seconds.

"Boosters. It's fitted with additional booster units." He realised as he watched the MPH display skyrocket. He hadn't seen any firearms fitted from the outside, so judging by that, his only weapon was the staff the giant robot clutched.

"Wait... it can't just be a staff. That's useless against a mech. There's gotta be a... there!"

He keyed a selection into the weaponary console on his left, took hold of the right column, and pulled the trigger. Instantly, a small laser blade flared into life on the end of the staff.

"Perfect. A laser spear. It won't be easy to handle, but..." He was cut off as the craft shuddered, a metallic pinging echoing through the hull. Two mechs had dropped into position behind him, firing as he pulled away from them with the additional speed of the booster units. A glow built up on their backs as they fired, and they burst into motion, a blue flame errupting from the rear of their mechs. Overboost. They were firing their main boosters at maximum capacity, draining their shield but letting them catch up to him.

"They're hitting us! They'll shoot us down if we don't do something!" Jett exclaimed.

"Wait for it..." Josh muttered as they closed in behind him, bullets rippling through the air all around them. How thick was that armor plating? At the moment, he'd rather not know the answer.

Abruptly, he cut the main boosters, and the left modules fired. He'd left the additional booster units on, throwing the mech into a near instant turn that brought it around to face the oncoming enemies. As they roared towards him, he slashed the staff to the right, directly into their path.

The enemy on the right flew headfirst into it, the glowing blue blade catching his mech in the shoulder. It cut into his armor cleanly, slicing neatly through componants, conduits, and a joint. The speed of his approach and the lack of any shields to soften the blow gave it tremendous power, and the left arm of his mech was sliced off, dropping into the clouds below. He continued on, managing to put some distance between himself and Josh, before the damaged shoulder burst into flame. An explosion lit up the sky, and his partner flew through it, debris from the destroyed enemy clanging against the armor of his ally.

"One down." Josh noted triumphantly as Jett shouted his approval from the rear seat.

Josh knew that from here on out, the fight was going to get tougher. That attack had been a fluke, a surprise. These were experienced pilots. They wern't going to fall for the same trick twice. The enemy wheeled around, cutting the overboost, and shot towards Josh, the two machine guns in his hands spitting fire. Bullets clanged against the hull, and they rocked slightly as a small explosion bloomed on the left leg.

"Dammit!" Josh swore, and fired the boosters, dashing to the side out of the line of fire. Boosting quickly left and right, he zigzagged towards the enemy, bringing the spear up ahead of him with both arms, levelled ahead. He fired the boosters fowards, dashing in, and thrust the spear fowards, trying to run the enemy through.

Instantly, in a flash of flame, the enemy mech vanished, dashing sideways to dodge the attack. Bullets began pinging off the hull again.

"Fuck!"

With another lightning-fast turn, Josh persued the enemy, dashing after it as it flew backwards, firing at him. Ignoring the slight shivers running through his craft, Josh thrust again, and again the enemy slipped away at the last second.

"Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!"

The air around the enemy shimmered as it repeated the manuvere, backing away while firing. Primal armor, a League mech's form of shielding. That's when an idea occured to Josh.

"Stupid! Stupid stupid stupid! Shields! This is a League mech. It's gotta have them"

He fumbled over the consoles, hit a switch, and the air around them shimmered. Ignoring the bullets which were now splattering uselessly against his sheilds, Josh stopped zigzagging, driving straight fowards, and swept his spear upwards, cutting a glowing line right up the middle of the enemy mech, from pelvis to head.

The shield took the blast as he shot straight through the explosion, the death of the other mech.

"Yes! YES!" Josh roared as they shot into a bank of clouds, standing up in his seat and opening the cockpit again. Throwing his head back, he shouted: "That's the power of a gamer! I told you all, I'd pick this up no problem! Send the rest of them at me, I'll tear them all apart right now!"

They broke through the clouds, and before them, twenty mechs, all identical to the two they'd just destroyed, floated waiting.

Josh's eyes bulged as he hurridly closed the cockpit, swearing as he dropped back into his seat. There were too many... way too many. There was no way he could...

A red streak shot past him, slamming into the nearest mech. Pulling an arm back, the Gurren Lagaan drove it's fist directly through the enemy mech's midsection.

Amazed, Josh fell silent as several other mechs passed him, each picking out and easily destroying a target. A window appeared on his HUD, and the blue-haired tattoed man's face from before stared at him from behind his spiky glasses, a smug smile on his face.

"Hah, not bad for your first time! But let us handle this now, man! The Great Gurren Brigade can't lose to the likes of these!"

Secretly, Josh let out a small sigh of relief. He knew he'd lucked out with those two, and against a force like this, he'd never make it alone.

The Gurren Brigade tore through the small force, and Josh dropped into the rear of their formation as they streaked towards the remaining enemy forces.

"That was half their force that we just took out." Leeron said as his face popped into view: "In total, there's twenty one mechs left. Twenty of those are the mass-production models we just encountered, armed with two handheld machine guns. They're medium class, not too fast, in other words, just shock troops. The one last one, however, is going to be the problem. It's the Old King, an agent of the renegade ORCA group. His mech, 'Lisa', is not much faster then his troops, but he's got a pair of repeating shotguns, and is an exceptionally skilled pilot. Taking him out won't be easy."

"RIGHT!" Kamina's voice replied: "The leaders should always meet each other on the field of battle! That's the only way to prove who's strongest, for the leaders to fight each other! Leave Old King to me and Simon!"

"Kamina, isn't it cheating if we both go? It's two against one then..." A timid voice broke in.

"Well then we'll let him have one of his men fight alongside him so it's a fair fight!" Kamina shouted enthusiastically.

"Kamina, that's not fair either. Then there'd be two mechs and you and Simon are in the same one!" A blonde-haired young man broke in angrily.

"Well then we tell him to make one of his pilots get in his mech with him! Just forget it!"

"Haha, fool. You think I need help to defeat you?" An arrogant, deep voice broke in over the radio. An image flickered onto the screen, but this one didn't show a face, merely the image of a young woman, chained and blindfolded.

"Let's see... if your mech is as capable as your mouth." The Old King said with a chuckle.

"You BASTARD!" Kamina shouted, and the Gurren Lagaan's boosters fired, blasting it across the sky towards the reverse-legged mech that drifted lazily beside the descending city. The Gurren Brigade followed suit, shooting off after Kamina one by one. Josh picked a target on the left, and thumbed a switch on the control columns.

"Brace yourself guys..." He said: "We're about to go a whole lot faster then something this big should go."

Keying the additional boosters, he grinned as the mech began to shake, a blue glow building up on it's back.

Abruptly, they were slammed back into their seats by the force as the mech exploded fowards, the MPH readout flying upwards as they accellerated. Overboost. The name didn't do it justice. Like a bolt of lightning, Josh shot straight past the brigade members, and pulled alongside Gurren Lagaan. Lowering the spear, he lined up the target...

The spear drove right through the enemy mech's midsection, and they kept going, the enemy impaled and carried along with them. It's systems tearing apart, they streaked into the wall of the city, the spear sinking in as Josh crushed the enemy between himself and the wall, and yanked it free with a shout.

An explosion lit the wall to his left, and Old King dropped into view, firing his shotguns into the smoke. Gurren Lagaan burst from amidst it, grabbing the enemy's shoulders and latching on. Lisa levelled a shotgun with the Lagaan, placing the barrel beneath it's chin, and fired.

Gurren Lagaan dropped from view into the hole that it had blasted in the side of the city, vanishing, and leaving only a trail of smoke behind it. Old King's laughter echoed as he followed it down.

Simon's voice broke in over the radio.

"Giga!"

"What do you think you're doing in there?" Old King chuckled.

"Drill!"

"Shit..." Josh muttered, firing the boosters on the front of the mech to blast himself backwards away from the gaping hole, as light began to shine from it.

"BREAKER!"

Something huge shot from the hole... a drill! It was a massive drill, easily four times the size of the Gurren Lagaan itself, and the Lagaan followed behind, the drill apparently attached to it's arm. There was no way something that big could have been inside the mech. Had they stashed it in the city before the battle?

"Spiral Energy..." Jett broke in: "I've heard about this. Using Spiral Energy, certain mech pilots can warp parts of their mech into massive spirals, like that drill."

"Impossible..." Josh gasped as the Gurren Lagaan drove directly at the Lisa, which fired uselessly at the drill.

There was a flash, and Gurren Lagaan froze, behind Lisa now. The drill collapsed and vanished, as Lisa's arm exploded, half it's body completly gone.

"I'm not finished!" Old King claimed over the radio, as Lisa exploded into overboost, shooting away from the battle trailing broken parts and componants. Spying one falling towards him, Josh thrust out his mech's arm, and grabbed Lisa's oversized shotgun as it dropped outta the sky.

By now, the Great Gurren Brigade had finished up the remaining enemies. The cities had been saved, well, what was left of them. They certainly weren't in any condition to live in after the battle.

"Nice job" Leeron's voice said, his picture appearing. "You're a natural pilot Josh. Tell me. Where do you boys plan to go now?"

"Well... we can't go home, can we Jett?" Josh said, looking at the city that had once been their home. It had sunk half beneath the clouds now, and it's engines damaged, was slowly falling back to Earth.

"Forget it! You're a real warrior, just like me! The Great Gurren Brigade accepts your humble application!" Kamina shouted.

"Well... we didn't really say..." Josh spluttered. "That's not what we..." Jett joined in at the same time.

"Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? I'm the Great Gurren Brigade's leader, the even Greater Kamina! And from now on, you're all part of my team!" He shouted. Josh supressed a laugh, and turned to look at Jett, raising an eyebrow.

"Well, like you said, we can't go home. Besides, they'll have a doctor, and Shawn needs one. His bleeding's stopped, but he needs to be patched up." Jett said with a grin.

"Well then, it's decided. Kamina, we'll join the Gurren Brigade!" Josh said with a wry smile.

"Idiot! You're already a member! And it's the GREAT Gurren Brigade!"



"We patched the systems up, and we're going to install some extra weapons and make a few modifications to give you even more speed. It's a work of art this thing, or it would be if they had built it as a unique mech instead of making it as a prototype for a mass production model, but we'll soon fix that. I'm putting in better generators, better booster units... once I'm through with it, this mech will be able to run rings around anything that comes up against it. You'll even beat the Gurren Lagaan in a race, without having to use overboost!"

The pride in Leeron's voice was obvious as he and Josh looked upon the mech Josh had stolen, which stood with it's spear at it's side. They'd started painting it blue, but Josh had requested they give it a coat of red and black, and it now gleamed bright red in the sunlight on the deck of the Dai-Gurren.

"Have you decided what you're going to call it?" Leeron asked, admiring his work.

"Yeah." Josh said in a low voice, his eyes half closed as he enjoyed the sensation, the freedom, standing on the deck of a gigantic floating battleship mech, the wind rushing past him as they drifted through the clouds.

"Yeah." He repeated, opening his eyes and looking up at the mech. "I gave it a name. I'm going to call it Gungnir."



'Connection established' The computer intoned, as a screen popped up listing the online members.

"So the Old King was defeated?" A female voice, who was listed as 'Julius Emery' intoned. The youth smiled as he tapped a key, activating his communication channels. The blue glow of the moniter bathed his dark skin as he brushed a lock of his black hair out of his face.

"Yeah." He said with a chuckle. "I saw them loading the Lisa onto a transport Eclipse. Thing was a wreck. Lost half the body and an arm."

"Well he's got nobody to blame but himself. Attacking a city cluster without orders, with only forty men." A deep, confident voice claimed. His name was listed as Malzel.

"Yeah, the old man needs to learn to pick his fights." The youth agreed, resting his head on his hand.

"I'll wipe that tone from your voice, boy." The Old King's voice interrupted. "You're a new recruit. I could ensure your mech was in worse shape then Lisa is."

"My, how rude." Malzel cut in: "I havn't introduced ORCA's newest member. I'll let him do so himself."

"Sure. It'd be a pleasure. I'm the guy that's gonna be cleaning up after you next time you fuck up, old man. Nice to meet you. The name's Caleb."

"Don't presume to address me like that, lapdog-" Old King began, but he was cut off by Malzel.

"Caleb, is the Alkimos battle-ready? I've got a mission for you to carry out."

"Hit me with it." Caleb replied with a grin.

"We've discovered a promising pair of mech pilots. Their names are Sarah and Lance. They're currently working for Line Ark, defending the infamous refugee city using their piloting skills. We want you to recruit them into ORCA."

"With all... due respect." Caleb said with a snicker: "Wouldn't this job be better suited to 'him'. You know he's so much better at smooth talking people then I am."

"If you're reffering to our Spiral Energy user, he's currently on another mission, unfortunatly. It's up to you, Caleb."

"Gotchya." He said, and cut the channel off. He'd have to go prep the Alkimos for launch. They had work to do... in Line Ark.

[Coldman9]

Wow this was cool. I can't wait for the next chapter.