Super Robot Taisen S-Zero

Hello to all my readers!

As I decided to overhaul SRW S and rewrite it in a way I find more satisfying, I thought it wouldn't hurt to do the same thing with its 'prequel' SRW S Zero, which will explain a few things that happened before the actual story of SRW S began... and will eventually tie in with the main story, therefore giving some background to the situation that the heroes are facing.

I hope this story will enjoy the same success as my previous one, or possibly even more, and I trust a few more authors will be encouraged to write something about this awesome saga of mecha crossovers soon! There are few authors around here, and it would be nice if the fandom could spread around here too!

Anyway, I need to do the disclaimer now: the Super Robot Taisen saga of games does not belong to me, but to Banpresto, and all the characters, robots and fictional places used in my fanfic are trademark of their respective authors. This story has been written for entertainment purpouses only, and this authoress does not make any money from it.

Okay, now that this is out of the way, let's go to the meat of the story! I wish you all a nice stay... and happy reading!

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Chapter 1 - Scouting Troubles

Japan, Space Century 138. An era of great change, great social tensions and, above all... terrible wars that have ravaged the new era in which humanity is reaching to outer space. Enmities between Earthnoids and Spacenoids, Naturals and Coordinators... and the numerous alien invaders threatening the peace following the estabilishment of the Earth Union, taking advantage of the reduction in military resources. In the larger cities, the neutral colonies and in few other places, people keep living trying not to think of the looming menace... but even then, the atmosphere of insecurity reigning supreme in the whole Earth Sphere is clearly felt. The destruction of the Titans, OZ and White Fang has done little to assuage the general fear.

However, in that particular early spring morning, under a warm April sun, the surroundings of the famous Science Lab Fortress, one of the most well-known research centers on Earth, where Professor Kenzo Kabuto was conducting his research and trying to contrast the alien invasions any way he could, were tranquil and peaceful... at least, until something unexpected came shuffling on the scene: a clumsy and awkward robot which seemed to have been assembled from random pieces of red, yellow and orange metal junk, all of which had been put together in a rather poor attempt at making it look threatening. Because of its baboon-like hydraulic arms and of its comical face, with rotund eyes and a mouth that was little more than a ventilator in a semispheric head of pinkish metal, such an attempt was falling flat.

Like a sumo wrestler, the strange semi-humanoid robot raised a leg and then stamped its foot on the ground, causing a miniature earthquake, before striking a perfect superhero pose, complete with sparkling and a red cape billowing in an imaginary wind behind it!

"Ta-daaaan! And here we are! No problems in sight! The sun is high in the sky, and this is just the perfect day for a reconnaisance mission!" the strange robot's pilot exclaimed, trying to sound heroic. He was an overweight and quite funny-looking young man, with an exaggeratedly protruding lower jaw and a rather silly grin on his face, and short black hair kept from falling in his forehead by a ridiculous-looking white headband with a red sun printed upon it! He wore an orange shirt that was barely big enough to cover his rotund stomach, black jeans and grey shoes... and at the moment, he was slightly protruding from the ventilator that made up his clumsy robot's mouth, enjoying the vista from his elevated position.

"Er... Boss, sir, I wouldn't want to sound petty, but..." a slightly calmer voice came from behind the rotund boy, belonging to a slimmer black-haired teen, seated at the pilot's place. "You shouldn't lean so much from there, it's kind of dangerous..."

"Yeah..." said a third boy, a short guy who looked quite a bit smarter than the other two, with messy brown hair and small black eyes. "Shouldn't you be going back to the pilot's seat and fasten your seat belt?"

The rotund boy named Boss turned to his "subordinates", still keeping that cocksure grin. "Heheheheee... oh, put a sock in it, you two worrywarts! And on that matter... Nuke, Mucha! Try not to make Boss Borot fall like you always do, alright? I want to look good today... after all, this is my date with the lovely Sayaka!" he exclaimed.

On a TV screen fixed to the makeshift cockpit's wall and acting (somehow) like a communicator, the image of a pretty girl of about seventeen, with long brown hair and wearing a yelow piloting suit and a white helmet with red highlights, appeared after a fair bit of noise and malfunctioning from the screen... and the girl began immediately verbally reigning in the boy's imagination. "What are you talking about, Boss? This is not a date, it's a recon mission... and we have to stay continuously on alert! If we lower our guard, we'll get taken out by a Machine Beast again, and we don't want that." said the girl - obviously Sayaka - in a slightly annoyed tone.

The boy named Boss, suddently becoming as meek as a lamb, lowered his head, still with a smile on his face, and rubbed the back of his head, as his face took on a bright red tone (which made his two 'underlings' snicker in amusement...). "Heheheee... Hi, Sayaka! Yeah, yeah, I know it's recon duty... er... but don't worrry your pretty little head! If one of those big hunks of metal comes, I'll make sure to send it back to the junkyard it came from with my Boss Borot Super Deluxe Punch!" he exclaimed, one of his robot's fist raised in the air for emphasis!

Sayaka rolled her eyes as her robot, the Aphrodite A, neared the clearing where the Boss Borot was busy striking heroic poses. The brown-haired girl's robot was female in shape, almost completely composed of yellow Chou Goukin Z metal with red highlights on its head, neck, the sides of the torso and the lower midsection. Its face was nothing more than a pair of blank almond-shaped eyes, and on top of its head, between a pair of short "horns", was a transparent dome which allowed to see the inner cockpit.

"Boss, guys... I'd like to remind you that we're not exactly here to fight... which my robot isn't exactly made for, anyway..." Sayaka added, thinking back with chagrin to all the times she had been defeated in battle by one of Dr. Hell's Machine Beasts. "It appears that recently, a strange object has been sighted falling in the proximities, out of seeming nowhere, and we're here to investigate this strange happening. Unfortunately, it seems that the Neo Zeon military has already gotten ahold of it, so there's the complication that we can't get sighted by them..."

Boss grumbled irritably as he went back to his pilot seat and grabbed the Boss Borot's commands (actually, little more than an old driving wheel and a somewhat rusty cloche). Yeah, he had heard about that as well - Neo Zeon seemed to have put up an operation base, one of their many spearheads in preparation for the occupation of the Earth... and just to top it off, the sightings of Neo Zeon Mobile Suits such as Dreissens or Zussas had been recently joined by sightings of Gebaye and Drau Metal Armors, belonging to the lunar Giganos Empire... and ZAFT's GINN Mobile Suits. Which all gave credibility to the rumors about Neo Zeon joining forces with these two factions...

"Yeah, that's a big problem..." the strange-looking boy admitted, as his two friends went back to the Boss Borot's other consoles. "If those weirdos got ahold of that meteorite thing, that could be trouble for us... but for all we know, it could be just that, a meteor. And anyway, shouldn't it have burned to ashes in the atmosphere?"

"If it was small enough, that would be the case..." the girl answered. "But, just like you said, it could be just a meteor. It's better not to dismiss any possibility, and... Huh? What's that?"

Boss widened his eyes and tried to stand up with a start... only to be painfully reminded that he had fastened his seat belt, much to Nuke and Mucha's costernation! "Owwwww! Darn, me and my seat belts, that hurt like Hell! Ugh... er... you... you said there's something on the radar, Sayaka?" he said, glancing at a blank screen on the somehow-functioning console. "Hmmm... how weird, I can see nothing... are you sure your radar is working?"

Sayaka sighed, as she glanced at a TV antenna on the Boss Borot's shoulder... Boss' attempt to mount something of a radar on his robot!

"The pot calls the kettle black... no, I'm sure my radar is working great! There's something closing in on our position, and we should be in eye contact with it in a few moments! It's possibly a bunch of Machine Beasts, or Neo Zeon Mobile Suits! Let's take cover, and try not to be discovered! There, among those trees! Let's hide there and activate the radar-jamming functions!" the Aphrodite A pilot said, pointing to a small grouping of trees no more than ten metres far from them. The female robot managed to reach the makeshift hiding place and make itself as scarce as it could... but the clumsier Boss Borot was having trouble catching up because of its slower gait.

"Hurry up, Boss! They're coming!" Sayaka exclaimed in worry. "They will be visible to the naked eye in no more than ten seconds!"

"Hanf... hanf... that's what I'm trying to do, Sayaka! If only these two goofballs were a little faster... Hey, you two! Don't just stand there like garden statues! Make yourselves useful and move those legs!" he exclaimed, first to the girl... and then to Nuke and Mucha who, a little behind him, were frantically trying to make the Boss Borot accelerate... by running on a pair of gym bicycles! Unfortunately, the two younger boys were already exhausted by the run...

"Huff... huff... we... we are.. phew... doing... our best..." Nuke, the taller and slimmer boy, exhaled, trying to push the pedals with all of his strength...

"But... hanf... we can't do... pant... more than this..." Mucha concluded. Boss grit his teeth in annoyance and grabbed his cloche, in an attempt to make his robot go faster...

It was too late. The unidentified objects, barely visible to the naked eye by then, unleashed a volley of missiles against the clumsy robot, who managed to barely avoid being struck dead center! A collective scream came from Boss and his underlings as some pf the projectiles exploded upon impact on the ground, and the Boss Borot flew a short distance before slamming dangerously close to Sayaka's hideout, some plasters somehow appearing on its surface!

"Boss! Guys!" the girl called out, coming out of her hiding place to see if her friends were alright. "Guys, please, answer me! You're not injured, are you?"

The Boss Borot's arm rose up from the smoking ground and made a thumbs-up gestures. "Owwww... it's... it's alright, Sayaka! Takes... more than that to knock off the brave Boss!" the older boy answered, as even the stunned Nuke and Mucha signaled that they were doing okay.

"Somehow... we're still alive!" the taller boy commented.

Sayaka sighed in relief, then turned her Aphrodite A to the approaching enemy: her worst fears were confirmed when she saw, only a few hundred meters away from them, a trio of terrifying mechanical monsters approaching her: a giant blueish-gray skeleton with red eyes and large hooked blades sprouting from its skull's sides; a two-headed dragon with shining eyes and small horns on both heads, whose chest was covered in purple armor, and with a bunch of missile launchers embedded in its stomach; and a strange quadruped with an hexagonal body, a vaguely humanoid head, and spikes coming out of its back! Accompanying the disquieting trio of Machine Beasts was a huge grey flying machine, bearing some sort of purple dorsal fin somehow resembling a shark's, short wings with mounted propellers, and a rotund tip with red eye-like components and a green jaw-like extention, all of which made it look like some sort of huge flying mechanical fish! The strange vehicle, casting a dark shadow upon the lively spring afternoon, quickly lowered its altitude... and its commander, a mysterious figure wrapped in a purple cloak, his hands holding some sort of golden staff, laughed in triumph!

"Hahahahaaaa! I cannot believe my luck!" the creature laughed, in a strange dual voice which resembled a male and a female voice speaking in perfect unison. In fact, even the mysterious individual's face, the only part of his body not hidden by the cloak, seemed to be evenly split in two vertical halves - a male one, with strong angular features, and a fair-skinned female one with a green eye and full ruby lips. "Here I was trying to find out something more about that mysterious... meteor, and what do I get? Mazinger Z's little friends handed to me on a silver platter! My lord, Dr. Hell, will be delighted with that!"

Yes, there was no doubt about it... Sayaka had seen that menacing flying ship too many times not to recognize the Flying Fortress Guul... and its commander Baron Ashura, one of Dr. Hell's servants, and sworn enemy of the Mazinger Team! And the Machine Beasts following the flying fortress were old faces as well: a Garada K7 (the skeleton), a Dabras M2 (the two-headed dragon) and a Toros D7 (the hexagon monster)! Not exactly the welcoming party anyone would have liked, especially not robots like Aphrodite A and the Boss Borot, who were not made for fighting!

Sayaka had her robot retreat, and pressed a red button on her console, while the Boss Borot picked itself up and the Machine Beasts kept advancing. "Ugh... just what we didn't need... Baron Ashura and his minions..." the girl muttered to herself, worried about the fact that even Dr. Hell was interested in the strange object that had fallen to Earth. If he had managed to get his hands on it, it would have been the same as if it had fallen in the clutches of Neo Zeon, ZAFT or Giganos Empire... it would have meant trouble to everyone!

Apparently, the evil baron had heard Sayaka's muttered words. "Heheheheee... what were you expecting, little girl?" he chuckled ferociously. Now the Guul was so low that its engines were beginning to kick up a terrifying dust storm from the ground, giving the Machine Beasts underneath it an even scarier look. "We had picked up something approaching the Earth's atmosphere long before your radars could sense it! The technologies of the Mycenean Empire far outstrip your backwards toys! My original mission was to investigate and possibly recover that unknown object, but I think destroying your little pieces of junk will score me quite a few points with my master Dr. Hell! Heheheee... and now, my mechanical beauties... destroy Aphrodite A and that sorry excuse for a robot!"

The obedient Machine Beast picked up the pace, the earth shaking under their steps as they advanced towards Aphrodite A... and the Boss Borot, whose pilot sounded like he was VERY angry at the previous insult to his robot!

"What did you say, you half-man?" Boss roared from his makeshift mecha's cockpit. "Just come down and say it to my face, if you dare! Boss Borot is my pride and joy! I won't let anyone make light of it!"

"Boss, don't get distracted! They're coming!" Sayaka warned, tightly gripping her female-looking robot's controls as the mechanical monsters approached. Under the bright April sun, the girl could see the Garada K7's skull blades and the Toros D7's dorsal spikes shining threateningly, while the Dabras M2's twin heads moved like angered snakes in frantic wait for a prey to devour. "Don't worry about me, I just sent a distress signal to Kouji, Tetsuya and Jun, and they should be here in a few minutes... meanwhile, you try and save yourself! I will hold these monsters off as much as I can!"

"Me? Retreat from a fight?" Boss roared, outraged at the idea. "Don't even think of that! This is a matter of honor, and running away now would stain my pride and that of the Boss Borot!"

Nuke and Mucha grimaced in horror behind him. "Ugh, I knew he'd say that..." the taller boy murmured. "Woe is me... we're done for..."

Sayaka shook her head as her Aphrodite A slipped into a fighting pose. "Alright, then... but be careful, Boss! Do not expose yourself too much, we just have to hold out until Kouji and the others come!" she answered, mentally preparing herself for the battle with the robotic beasts.

She could only hope that Kouji... er, the rest of the Mazinger Team... would come soon. Aphrodite A and Boss Borot couldn't hold out for long by themselves...

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"Hmm? What's this...? Sayaka and Boss! Looks like they found trouble, just like always!"

In another robot's cockpit, a teenage boy with messy black hair coming out in bangs from under his white helmet, immediately caught the distress call coming from Sayaka's Aphrodite A, and grabbed the cloche, causing his majestic machine to stop in mid-air: it was an enormous demonic-looking robot, a black color all over its torso with a pair of red armor plates on its chest, forming a shape similar to a flattened V, red groin and shoulder plates, white limbs with "gloves" and "boots" of polished blue-grey metal, and a menacing head with yellow pupilless eyes, a ventilator-shaped mouth and two golden spikes coming out of its temples. Its looks alone promised death and destruction to all its enemies...

...and it couldn't be otherwise, since that robot was none other than the mighty Mazinger Z, the robot created by the famous Dr. Juzo Kabuto as a defense weapon against Dr. Hell's ambitions! For quite a few months already, the demonic-looking warrior made of Chou Goukin Z league, and its even more powerful companion Great Mazinger, had been a thorn in the evil scientist's side and an obstacle to all invaders, and had destroyed countless mechanical monsters, triumphing in seemingly desperate conditions! And even today, it looked like their intervention was called for...

Not that Kouji Kabuto, Juzo's grandson and official Mazinger Z pilot, really minded... and in fact, a slightly arrogant smirk appeared on his young face.

"Alright then... Turn around, Mazinger Z! Looks like even today we're placing some Machine Beasts to the cleaners!"

With an elegant midair turn, Mazinger Z began flying at high speed in the direction of the distress call...

TO BE CONTINUED...