Gisk

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

Calmly, quietly, Holly muted her microphone. Then, a good deal less calmly, she beat her fist against the side of the cockpit, screaming shrilly into her helmet.

She flipped the switch to open her comms back up and spoke, her voice only a little more hoarse than a moment ago.

"Alright, I have your back. Both of you. I reckon Fox will go along too, but if Kurt won't play, I'm not gonna fight him. And if we do this, there's no turning back. Break free or die trying."

Snowstar School [the actual one]

I am still interested, just hoping some others pop in!

Snowstar School

@Houndstar313

You might consider moving this over to Free. A three sentence minimum is a good deal less than what is typically expected in the "casual" section. Personally I'm after something light and low stress, but some people on this site are pretty gung-ho about post length.

Snowstar School

I might be interested.

Character concept:

Grungy, crust punk opposom. Upperclassmen who has a strong almost parental instinct and looks out for younger students.

Discontinued

@Mao Mao

Good to hear!

Hey, I don't know if you ever responded to my relationship post for your character?

Discontinued

Five formatting edits later, my post.

Short, but it solidifies his position(which was kind of nebulously alluded to in other people's posts) and gets him in on one of the conversations.

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WILLIAM BISHOP █ act one: way down we go p. johnson's ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

"Nah," he said to Freya, "I'll come with you." They walked to the bar together, and Billy had just pulled out his card to give to the bartender when Hanna spoke to him and Freya, "Well, well, if it isn't my favorite mistress of all time. We're having seconds—or thirds, I don't know—all around, so dig in here, get whatever you guys want, on me." "Hey!" Billy chided in mock anger, holding his card up, "That's my drunken bar move!" He favored her with a wink to assure her it was in jest, and ordered a white Russian, with an extra espresso shot. On reflection, he also asked for a shot of tequila, which he downed professionally when it arrived. He posed with her for her photo snapping spree, and asked her to tag him. It would honestly give them both a boost in social media visibility. Then the topic turned to the time capsule. "I genuinely can't remember," he spoke in an unusual undertone, "But I might have put a bong in there." ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

Unbeknownst to the pirates, the pilot of the Schwalbe responded over the Gjallarhorn line.

"Major! My suit is entangled in a line, but I don't think it's been damaged badly. One hostile has had the sensor array knocked out, but four are still active. I haven't seen the ship they launched from, but I believe it's close."

As if on que, a larger Ahab reaction began to rapidly increase. It had been on the sensors before, but blended in with all the junk out in the debris zone.

~~~

Meanwhile, Holly was exploring the controls and displays in her new mobile suit. Her Stolas. Martin had called it a Gundam, what did he know about it? And how? Or was he lying? It seemed farfetched, what he had told the Gjallarhorn officer. And now Holly realized. Only the Gjallarhorn officer and the two "Gundams" had heard that. They had a channel that the Witch couldn't hear.

~~~

As the Mercurial Witch approached through a corridor in the debris, the captain floated above her chair on the bridge.

"I'm not interested in Gjallarhorn interference. All weapons open fire."

Mick hesitated before relaying the command, "And... Familiar Squad?"

"Let them scurry. Rats are cheap."

The forward facing guns swiveled into position, and began to fill the void with shells.

Immediately, the ship that Holly and Martin had entered rocked with impact. Inside, Holly instinctively lifted Stolas's legs, so that the mobile suit floated independently of the wildly shaking ship. She didn't know what Martin was playing at, but she thought quickly and keyed the comm frequency that Familiar Squad used, relaying odd of the Big Boi's LCS.

"Thom, Kurt, Fox," in her haste and confusion, she forgot to use their callsigns, "Take shelter in this ship, bring the hostage in too. If the enemy tries to follow, they'll have to take the same entrance. So we'll be sheltered from friendly fire, and have the advantage in close quarters."

She had to make it reasonable, but what she really wanted was for them to enter the ship with the rest of the gundams.

She swapped channel to the one only Stolas and Ipos were using.

"I don't wanna work for Old Hilde either," the last space rat who had used that nickname for the Captain was given to the Bosun, Holly never saw them again, "But what the hell are you thinking? We can't fight the Witch with five mobile suits, no matter how fancy. If we turn them over we might get to pilot them though..." There was a note of panicked pleading in her voice. Things were going sideways fast, and she was looking for a way out.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

"Wait, did you get him?" Holly questioned over the comm as she heard some of the chatter coming from Fox. Her displays were down for good, it seemed, and she couldn't see any of what was happening. Her mapping was still partially functional, based on the last known images, but the Ahab wave ovelay seemed to still be operating in real time. Using this, Holly turned the Big Boi so that its back was to the fancy Graze, and hit the control to open her cockpit.

She heard the wirring of servos as the armor plates moved out of the way, then the hatch in front of her opened forth. She could see now that her sidelong tumble had been stopped by grabbing the edge of the hole in the old wrecked ship's hull. What she saw inside stopped her dead. "Uh, stand by, my system isn't working right..."

The rent in the bulkhead opened to the ship's hangar bay, and there were five mobile suits lined up. Each was unique, and Holly did not recognize any of them. She disconnected her AV and the harness that kept her secured in her seat, then kicked off from the cockpit and drifted into the bay.

It was dark, and she realized the only reason she could see is that there was a computer terminal that was still active after all this time. She drifted over and looked at the screen. It was cracked down the middle, and the only word she could make out was "Wake," which seemed to be part of a button or prompt. She reached a gloved hand out, her breath caught in her throat, and pressed it.

~~~

On the bridge of the Mercurial Witch, Brun was watching with a satisfied smile as her rats tangled the interloper up.

Her reverie was interupted by a bleeping from the console, and Mick spoke up.

"Uh... there's new Ahab waves... I don't even know where they came from! They're right on top of Familiar One, but I don't see anything..."

"Could it be an error? Maybe one of the old reactors shifted when the feral one flew through the debris."

"It's possible..." he sounded like he doubted it, "I don't recognzie the signatures, so it would make sense if they're from older reactors."

~~~

Holly gasped as new light came on in the vast dimness. Five pairs of eyes suddenly flared to life, glaring down at her. As one, their armor shifted, silent in the vacuum, revealing the opening cockpit hatches in their chests. It seemed incredible that any part of them could still work, but Holly chose the friendliest looking one, and kicked off the floor towards it. She pulled herself past the armor plating and into the cockpit. It was light up brightly from all the displays and controls. Unlike the computer terminal out in the hangar, nothing could get to these electronics to damage them.

The cockpit looked remarkably similar to what she was used to. The seat was cushier, but she noticed the Alaya Vijnana interface embedded in it. The controls were also comparable, though without the scratches, scuffs, burns, and other little marks from long, hard use.

Without thinking nearly as much as she should have, Holly plugged the interface in. She made a choked groaning sound as the man-machine interface connected, her body convulsing wildly in the plush seat. The feedback was worse even than her Rodi. As her body relaxed, she gasped out the word "Stolas..."

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Freedom of Devils

"What?" Holly barked shrilly as Martyn tried to give orders. The odds seemed stacked in their favor, and she wasn't worried, but if he kept taking charge like this he was going to sow confusion in their own ranks.

"Fine, but Ku- er, Familiar Three. Break off, destroy that boosters pod," she tapped her display, her hand moving nimbly so that it only left the controls for a bare moment. "That's prolly how he got out here all by his lonesome. Don't let him leave with it."

Fox, crazy as his namesake, was already following Martyn's orders, and dove into the weeds, breaking their contact briefly. Holly wasn't super concerned. He usually followed the spirit of his orders more than anything, and wasn't one to be micromanaged in the first place.

As they moved in, the fancy yellow Graze kicked off the lip of the hold in the wreck's hull, and boosted backwards. It moved in a serpentine pattern, dodging the bulk of bullets sprayed haphazardly in its direction, all the while clinging close to the decrepit Gjallarhorn ship. It raised a gun(it looked like an updated version of the 120 that her Graze piloting comrades used), and sprayed back as it retreated astern of the great wreck.

The Big Boi moved in with the rest of the pirates. Holly just barely got the idea that the Schwalbe's creepy sensor orb was focused on her when it corrected its wild fire. She finally heard the shots(silent in the void until they hit you), but she could only laugh. At this range, most of their ballistic weapons were little more a nuisance.

Holly set her LCS comm to an open channel and taunted. "You're all alone out here, rich boy! Come quiet and we might - Agh!"

There was a distinct popping sound, reverberating through the mobile suit from somewhere above the cockpit, and all of her visual feed went blank. Her comrades on the outside, however, could see as a very lucky(or perhaps incredibly skillful) shot pierced the head of Big Boi in the crack where the nanolaminate had been chipped away.

Holly was knocked off course, and felt herself hit something big(the side of the old ship, she realized). She tumbled along it briefly, but managed to catch onto part of it with her mobile suit's arm, a move that would be impossible without the spacial awareness granted by the AVS.

She cursed violent, but tested to ensure her comms were still up.

"Forget me, go get him. Martyn, I guess you're im charge after all."