Ah well, won't the weirdest thing I've written.
Admiral (Worm/Super Robot Wars V)
Recon 1
/x/
Cracked, red earth that's lifeless and barren. A middle aged man in a pristine white uniform with the blue anchor ensign of the Earth Federation Space Force-North America adorned on the shirt piloted a helicopter over the arid ground, while a tall woman sat behind alone. She wore a black jacket with blue trimmed rank epaulets over a similar white uniform, with a grey helmet with earpiece while a peaked officer's cap rested on her lap. The pilot glanced back at his passenger as the officer leaned sideways to the windows and gazed down below, before he spoke into his mouthpiece.
"Admiral. Ma'am?"
The admiral kept her attention on a blocky, gray facility that stood out from the terrain that was more Martian than Terran, as the chopper slowly descended.
"Admiral Taylor Trois?"
"Heard you the first time, Master Chief."
Taylor sank back into her seat, and the pilot reverted to looking at the helipad that grew larger at their approach. The pilot felt his hair stand at the gaze he felt from his passenger.
"Kyushu, huh?"
"Ma'am?"
"Nothing," Taylor shook her head, before she dusted her cap. "just some residual delusions from my Planet Bomb Syndrome. Ignore me."
The pilot kept silent as the helicopter landed, and Taylor removed her helmet to allow long wavy hair to flow down her back before she redid her ponytail. As her transport departed, a massive steel door rumbled to reveal her escort of two armed marines in full combat webbing and one EFSF Japan lieutenant. All three saluted Taylor, who kept her gaze fixed at the desert that was once a beach.
"Keep thinking that Kyushu was beneath the sea," Taylor muttered as she put on her cap, the badge gleamed in the sun. "Silly me."
Taylor returned the salute, and gave another quick glance at the endless badlands before she followed the lieutenant underground.
"Earth has no oceans anymore. Not like the Endbringers will have much to destroy here."
"Ma'am?"
That's getting repetitive, Taylor thought as she paid more attention to her Japanese guide when he called her. His mane of curly brown hair stuck out from beneath his garrison cap, while his red ensign on the standard white was extremely vivid. Taylor narrowed her eyes as she focused on the sharply featured face and hazel brown eyes of her guide.
"Lieutenant Susumu Kodai?"
"You're well informed, Ma'am," Kodai smiled as they resumed walking and entered the elevator. "I was wearing my ensign blues only this morning."
"Speaking of well informed, Lieutenant. What do you know about me?"
Kodai's face tightened for a flash, before he resumed his business-like smile.
"Is that an order, Admiral?"
"I'm an Admiral without a fleet, Lieutenant. The chain of command above me in my entire continent is dead either due to Gamilas Planet Bomb attacks, general bombardment or Operation M."
Taylor leaned closer to Kodai and ran her gaze over his expression, studied the junior officer intently before backing off.
"I'm a political appointee, listed as Co-Captain on the ship's manifest. Meaning I'm an expandable civilian collaborator. Speak to me like one."
Kodai cleared his throat.
"By your leave. Taylor Rose Trois. Born June 12, NCC 2179. Graduated from the Earth Federation Space Forces North America Officer Cadet School Naval Logistics in 2194. Ranked twentieth out of a class of forty-nine."
"Okay," Taylor said with a wry smile. "So far, so inoffensive. Now hit me with the juicy parts."
"I'd rather decline. Even considering your unique circumstances, you're still a superior officer and newly posted to this base."
"Base, Lieutenant? In all likelihood I'll be spending a long time with you on a warship by the end of today."
Kodai looked lost, and his professional mask broke when he spoke to Taylor.
"But the Kirishima isn't due to dock on Earth for another three months."
"I wasn't speaking of the Kirishima. Don't give me that look, Lieutenant. Now, the juicy parts. Might as well know what kind of rumors are floating around."
Kodai's jaw tightened, before he hit a series of buttons and the elevator came to a halt. The warm soft lighting was replaced by the harsh red glare of emergency lighting, which buried Taylor's face under a shadow cast by her cap.
"For the sake of your privacy, Ma'am."
"How thoughtful. Continue please."
"At the same time when Operation M was launched, your supply convoy from the Moon to the fleet fighting in Pluto was intercepted by a Gamilas force that sallied from a previously unknown base on Titan, one of Jupiter's moons. The entire fleet was destroyed, bar yourself who was found on a lifepod that was picked up by Commander Juzo Okita. At that time, you were a junior grade Lieutenant who just got her bars."
"But after that, when I awoke in a North American med ward, I found myself promoted to Fleet Admiral, since I was the only personnel in the entire NA Earth Federation Forces who held a rank above the NCOs still alive," Taylor cut in. "But that's not the worse part floating around."
"You sure you wish for me to continue, Ma'am?"
"Make it quick. Or Fleet Security will get real mad."
"Aye-aye, " Kodai swallowed nervously. "For the first two weeks of your rehabilitation, you refused to see anyone and swung between yelling incoherently and uncontrolled bawling. The nurses and mental health professionals noted that your speech patterns were more suitable for a twelve year old girl, rather than an eighteen year old junior officer. You also spoke North American English rather than Earth Common almost exclusively, in a form which fell out of common use since the founding of the Earth Federation some hundred fifty years ago. "
"Earth Federation psychologists diagnosed me with PTSD alongside the general label of Planet Bomb Syndrome for anyone who survived the Gamilas bombardment but went cuckoo."
Kodai clenched his fist as it hovered above his sidearm, when he stared at Taylor who stood in the darkened parts of the elevator.
"I must make you uneasy, considering your reaction," Kodai immediately removed his hand away from his holster. "Thank you for going so far for me, Kodai."
"You're welcome, Admiral."
Kodai pressed the buttons again, and kept his gaze fixed on the wall as he spoke.
"After six months, you finally was deemed well enough to resume your duties under periodic supervision and medication to suppress your delusions. Though you did develop an unusual habit."
"That I decorate my office with superhero media and sketch?" Taylor chuckled. "It reminds me of home...well what I think home was."
Taylor dug into her jacket, before she removed a sketchbook and handed it over to Kodai. He took it with thanks, and his brows arched when he saw the drawings within.
"A superhero with a mobile suit? And he names himself Hero? Not very imaginative was he?"
"One of the first and greatest Tinkers ever! Hero died a martyr, but he and his robot Genesis saved Moscow from Behemoth and did the most damage to an Endbringer ever! Today on Red Square, there's-"
Taylor's eyes twinkled as she spoke, and Kodai found his smile reappeared this time with more genuine affection before the doors opened and Taylor shut her lips audibly.
"Regardless of our future postings, I'm sure we can speak more about these heroes you like so much about, Ma'am."
/x/
My eyes finally opened, and as I allowed my gaze to explore the room randomly my heart sank when I noticed the relatively ancient equipment in my ward.
I was no stranger to med wards, being a member of Earth Fleet Tenku. And since I was not in the afterlife presumably, I had expected to find myself in a ward. But not something quite so primitive however. I struggled to raise my arm, when I heard a chair being pushed behind and large warm hands grasp my own.
Wait? Did my hands shrink?
"Taylor?"
Dad? I'm on Earth Bet? Earth Bet is real? What the everloving fuck in going on?!
"Taylor, you're probably really confused right now. You're at an hospital. Twelve hours ago you were at a bank with your mom when a robbery happened. Things went sour, and-"
Dad paused, and I started to realize Mom was nowhere to be found.
"A bomb went off. We're still trying to locate Annette."
/x/
So, this was it. That fateful decision to blow off Emma and leave her clique two weeks after we entered high school led me here. To bleed out in a filthy locker, after a futile attempt to fight off someone stronger than me led her to show her teeth and cut me against the edges of the locker before shoving me in.
"I can use someone like you, Tay,"
Emma said to me, a year and half ago. All smug and self assured. Like so many adversaries that faced off against the arrayed might of three Earths, before they got blown up. Difference of course I wasn't playing a video game some Tinker made before he moved on to greater things, nor was I in a dream where I a lot older, and self-assured because I knew exactly what was coming, and had full confidence I had people who can handle it even if
Here on Earth Bet, in reality? I cannot tell my former bestie to take a hike just because people in Earth Fleet Tenku would be ashamed to learn I was part of a bullying clique, and get away with it.
Real life has consequences, and this time it meant I became the target of rumors and pranks instead of someone else. Life is a lot more complicated than a video game and dream, no matter how vivid or grand the scale.
On the other hand, there was some small satisfaction that the CQC lessons I've picked up here and there from Sosuke, Ryoma and the others worked. I lacked the height, mass and strength to actually pull Sophia's arm off her sockets when she tried to drag me into this damnable locker like Ryoma taught me, but she never saw that shoulder push coming. That look on her face when she almost lost her grip on me was so satisfying, and I almost believed I was someone important.
Until Sophia cut me against the rusted sides of the locker anyway. Helplessness. Thy name is Ta-
"Fumofu!"
I'm hearing the catchphrase of a stuffed animal mascot as I lay dying. Well, a stuffed bear in a flak jacket isn't too bad for my last thought.
"Fumo! Fumomomo. Fu!"
For the last time, Sosuke. Fix that speaker on the mech playing as a stuffed toy already. I don't want my last conversation to be-
"Gimme that," A feminine voice, authoritative and hard replaced the high-pitched catchphrases of the mascot in my imagination. "Hey Taylor! Still alive and kicking?"
Oh, of all the loose cannons in the entire fleet. Why did my dying hallucination have to be about her?
"Address me as Admiral, Ange."
"Still as prickly as ever," I could almost hear Ange's smile as she continued. " Y'know. Technically, I outrank you. Being royalty and in charge of my own faction and all."
I'm not getting into a shouting match with my imagination!
"You didn't imagine us, Admiral."
That soft-spoken tone that belies the sardonic heat of a beam rifle. The image of a pale-skinned girl with metal-grey hair in a brown lace dress flooded my vision.
Huh, this is a very vivid delusion. Well, no reason not to play along since I'm going to die. Time to enter character, Taylor. Like you always did in those dreams.
"Nine?"
"It's been four years since Commander Okita's memorial, hasn't it? When you disappeared without a trace?" I recalled Nine's pouting face as the smell of burning metal and sparks overwhelmed me. "We all missed you."
The rusted hinges of the locker screamed when the door was ripped out, and the vile contents I was buried in tumbled out along with me into the soft waiting arms of Bonta-kun. I stared at the plate sized eyes that adorned the face that was a cross between a teddy bear and mouse, and sighed as I recognized the Asian woman in black-white camouflage who brushed away the filth that clung to me before she sprayed some kind of foam onto the cuts on my shoulder and arms.
"Sergeant-Major Mao?" I croaked out, amazed at how hoarse I sound. Mao frowned through her camo paint as she gently poured some water from her canteen.
"I'm a second left now," Mao's frown deepened as she shone a flashlight over me. "Now that I've seen you up close, you're a lot tinier and younger than I remembered."
I snorted, and almost spoke before I gulped down sips of water when Bonta-kun poured some of his canteen to wash my face. I cracked open my eyes wider, and looked around at the familiar faces, in not so familiar surroundings. My gaze settled on a woman with deep purple hair in twin ponytails and a similar camouflage, distinguished from the Mithril soldiers by a cloth patch on her flak jacket that depicted an European dragon being run through by a sword.
"Salia," I said as I struggled to my feet. I was soaked as Sosuke pulled out yet more canteens of water from Bonta-kun, and I almost flinched when Salia glared at me.
"Salia," Mao warned." We're on a rescue mission-"
I held out a hand at Mao, as I returned Salia's glare despite my shaking knees. Damn the cold.
"What's with the death glare, Salia? Did you mistake me for Ange?"
"We were observing you for the past week, as Nine and Inez worked to confirm if you're really the person we've been looking for," Salia said. "Personally, I was worried if you had been broken by what you've undergone. I'd be so disappointed if you were."
"Am I broken, Salia?"
Salia swooped in to hold me as my knees finally gave way. A small smile lingered on her lips.
"Broken? Yes. Disappointed? No. You broke correctly, Taylor. Glad to have you back with us."
"So," I looked around and noticed a lack of angry blondes with red eyes despite having heard her voice, "where's Ange? I heard her just now."
I winced as I felt Salia's grip tightened, and I was reminded of the mutual grudges between Salia and Ange. And more importantly, how Salia was as violent as any person raised as a child soldier.
"Sorry," Salia muttered and relaxed her grip. "Ange's in the Vilkiss."
Okay Salia. There's being cheeky, and then there's this. But before I could ask where's the Vilkiss, my ears rang as the hiss of burning air followed by a red flash in my peripheral vision answered my question. Sosuke, ever the professional soldier, darted into the auditorium and up the walls. The large windows, filthy and cracked, still offered me a bird's eye view of the surroundings which allowed me to observe my target and then some. Up in the sky, I saw the Vilkiss. All twenty feet of white-gold frame with red lines running through it's sleek humanoid body, while rainbow exhaust burned brightly beneath the wings. The white mech hauled a black rifle with a bayonet to it's chest, before it fired off several blasts of red positron beams downwards that screamed across the night.
I looked downwards at Ange and Vilkiss' prey, and saw a bizzare halberd wielding machine that had a human upper half shaped like Armmaster's gunmetal suit complete with mouth and beard formed from some unknown synthetic hair. Beneath the waist, a motorbike with wheels that glowed like strobe lights. Strands of the beard detached as the red beam closed in, and a temporary forcefield halted the positron beam long enough for the hybrid mech to reverse out of harm's way when the red beams dug into the earth. Sosuke used Bonta-kun to shield me as the shockwave from the blast and the wheeled-mech's retreat shattered the dirty glass, but I pushed above the mascot's furry arms and saw the wrecked street. A pall of smoke and fire rose up from the trail left behind by the titanic wheels when they reversed, while a sludge of tar and cement was left behind where the Vilkiss' beam had struck.
"It's happening again," I muttered. "The hell left behind after the street fighting in both the AD and UC dimensions."
"And it's very real," I turned back to Bonta-kun and heard Nine's voice from a very familiar white rectangle stuffed into his flak-jacket. "Don't avert your eyes anymore."
"So I've triggered," I felt my sense of reality crumble, my words sounded hollow even to myself. "And I'm projecting stuff from my childhood to reality."
"It hurts, really." I'm just glad Nine wasn't here in the flesh-well, synthetic flesh. "If you think we're all products of your imagination."
The handheld console, that I've spent so many nights on before it's batteries died for good. I kept it as a memento of Mom after she disappeared during a botched robbery that ended with a bomb going off. The pocket that held the console twitched, and I instinctively reached out to grab it when it fell towards the floor.
"I'll prove we're very real," Nine huffed through the handheld. "Grip onto it with all your strength!"
I hissed in pain after I accepted Nine's dare, as small needles emerged from the sides and pricked my right hand. I opened my mouth to protest, then it was left agape when the console's pinpricks turned into legs and crawled up my arm to my face. I screamed before it broke into glowing, translucent pieces and swarmed my face. I shut my eyes, and the pieces felt like a cold drizzle against my face as they melted into me.
"Primary user identified."
I didn't listen to the rest of the preamble, or the welcome message from the voice in my head. It wasn't so much the content of the message as who was speaking it that got my attention.
"Mom?"
The stiff coldness melted from the voice, as I felt and heard Annette Hebert's awkward warmth speak to me.
"Hi there, Ace," Mom's little pet name for me after I got my Ace status in the "game". "You might want to open your eyes. Because you've got big trouble coming your way."
It was a whole new world I saw after I reopened my eyes again. Even obscured by the smoke, with the sirens blaring in my ears I saw Vilkiss and the half-bike robot it was facing off again. Their frames were clearly outlined to me, and numbers appeared in the corner of my vision when I focused on them. Instinctively, I knew all I need to know to keep Ange and her Vilkiss in the fight. I looked at the half-bike robot, and the word Defiant I appeared on the top right of my vision HUD. But as I tried to focus on the pilot's identity, I found the name obscured.
Well, not completely. Armsmaster appeared to me, bright as day. Oh shit, Ange's tangled with the lead hero of the Brockton Bay Protectorate!
"You can see all the details we've managed to gather. Also, Taylor,"
Mom's voice sharpened, and I felt a jolt in the back of my mind.
"Sector E8! Incoming!"
A particularly smoky corner of the street flickered, and I saw a black humanoid robot with a design that screamed Arm Slave turned its head towards me. The cowl it wore gave way, and it released a bolt from a crossbow hidden beneath.
/x/
Danny Hebert sat up from his desk at the Dockworker's Union office as he heard the distant rumbling, and he pushed his chair away as he saw the night sky lit up. He walked over to a drawer full of files that had a layer of dust over them, and blew away the dust before he ran his fingers diagonally over the numbers on the files. The drawer rumbled before it moved to the side, and Danny strode down the stairs revealed.
Just as you predicted, Annette. Just as you predicted.