Colony Drop

[thirdtimesthechar]

Who: Char, the forces of Zeon (any or all of you who want to contribute), whatever allies decided to show up on short notice, and Viridi's minions as NPCed by her mun
What: Defending Zeon from Viridi's Reset Bomb
When: Dawn on July 2
Where: The skies above Zeon and the sea to the west of Zeon
Warnings: It's a combat log

Aboard the Rewloola - and surrounding it with every airship Char could muster in an hour - Zeon's defense forces array themselves on the predicted course of the nature goddess's meteoric wrath. Higher than anyone normally travels, all guns, bows, arrows, and anything else they could conceivably throw at the incoming Reset Bomb were trained up and westward. Char himself is ready with rifle and Nightingale, as much as those would even help - at the very least he could defend his artillery from any breakaway rocks or defending nature spirits.

"All ships," Char says, his words transcribed into signal flags to communicate with the other airship commanders even as he speaks over his Crystal to his higher-ranking soldiers. "We've sighted the meteor approaching at high speed from the west. All units are to move toward it at full speed and come about once it is within one half mile. Attempt to match speeds with it or safely enter its wake to maintain fire for as long as possible. We have about five minutes on target to destroy it, starting in two from this point. You are to do everything in your ability to grind it into dust before it strikes our homeland. Sieg Zeon!"

That curt set of instructions finished, Char gives to command to his captain to begin the all-ahead-full charge toward the interception point, all the while glaring up at the falling star. Nothing like this will happen to Zeon on his watch, even if he has to create a miracle with his own hands. That's what people like Zeon's do.

((Subthreads finished, go ahead and post to them. Threads below happen in chronological order, though there may be overlap if needed.))

Comments

[forceofnature]

Somehow, despite it being quite likely that no one has the time to be staring into the depths of their crystals, Viridi's voice echoes loud and clear through the minds of all those on the ship.

"Forces of nature! Our long-awaited victory is almost at hand! They've taken so much from us already; let's show them the power of what they're dealing with!"

With this declaration, the airships of Zeon almost seem to cross some sort of individual boundary. One moment, nothing. The next, the skies are teeming with all sorts of fantastic creatures - flying acorns, giant chameleons, flying beetles, crystalline creatures exuding electricity, mushrooms sending wafts of toxic spores into the air. The most obvious threats, however, are the enormous, bony fish swimming calmly through the air.

All of these creatures, no matter how unusual it may be, seem to be capable of shooting projectile weapons and laser blasts.

"You should have stayed at home on the throne."

[thirdtimesthechar]

"Sorry, I should have been clearer. I'm a soldier first, and a ruler second," Char says aloud, then ignores the goddess's further words as he takes aim with his rifle and starts calmly and quickly putting bullets into flying mushrooms, handing empty rifles to a subordinate to reload and picking up new ones to keep his rate of fire up.

[forceofnature]

Char will find that his bullets make for a much less effective weapon against these troops than they do against humans. The moment a bullet strikes a Toxiecap, it will explode into a cloud of poison that scatters all over the decks of his ships. He may wish to avoid doing this in the future.

Overhead, a Lurchthorn begins to slowly descend. The bony fish-like creature seems unperturbed by everything that's going on, seeking only to swim by in peace. Unfortunately, that's its tail about to strike the mast of a ship there.

[thirdtimesthechar]

"Crystal!" Char yells, his caddy handing him a Crystal round to load into his breach for the next shot. Praying that these things affect pagan spirits that might or might not be undead as well as they work on everything else supernatual, he takes careful aim and fires a shot that should shatter the encroaching Lurchthorn's spine at the base of the tail.

[forceofnature]

The shot is accurate. The magical or otherwise supernatural basis of the crystal round is effective.

...The Lurchthorn, however, seems entirely unconcerned by the fact that it's just been severed in two. The head and majority of the body continue to undulate through the air while the tail end begins to plummet towards the ship. Hopefully, it won't land on top of the mast and destroy it, anyway.

[thirdtimesthechar]

At this point, Char ditches the rifle, charging forward with his saber. With a cry of "Fly, Nightingale!", and a slash of the sword, four beam-like blades of energy fly upward to cut apart the falling bone into lighter chunks before it can hit anything, more or less Char's whole strategy in microcosm.

[forceofnature]

"Have you ever even seen a nightingale? If you want fun words to use when you call your attacks, at least choose something appropriate."

Char may have ditched the rifle too soon. The head of the Lurchthorn has turned back around, and it appears to have given any strategy up in favor of ramming the ship at full speed. In the meantime, the falling pieces of fish tail land harmlessly.

[thirdtimesthechar]

Char knows better than to bother responding to the incessant, whiny banter - he's worked with and against young women before, after all. Apparently heedless of the consequences of a suicidal attack, Char spots the Lurchthorn charging and immediately charges across the deck himself, leaping from the gunwales to land on the skeletal fish's skull and jam down with his magical saber.

[forceofnature]

Whiny her sacred, dainty butt. That was a completely legitimate complaint. As Char performs his incredible aerial maneuvers, even Viridi can't help an impressed 'hm!' from slipping out. Sometimes, it's almost like she isn't taking this as seriously as she ought to be. The head of the fish explodes quite spectacularly.

...Although, Char's heroics don't do much to stop the fish's body from continuing its downward plunge. The suicide part of 'suicide attack' was taken care of; the attack part continues unabated.

They're just a few seconds from smashing into the ship...

[thirdtimesthechar]

"Ah, hell."

Char takes out his last resort in this instance - a relatively small black powder bomb attached to a wooden shaft, Amestrian-style, drops it on the remains of the fish, and takes a flying leap away from the ensuing explosion.

[forceofnature]

...Huh.

Just a fraction of a second before the remnants of the Lurchthorn strike the ship, the head finishes falling apart and the pieces vanish into a magenta smoke. The remnants of the fish tail already on board similarly dissolve, and the odd vanishing effect spreads to the rest of the Lurchthorn's body soon enough.

...The bomb goes off as it's falling harmlessly through the air.

There is the sound of muffled coughing from somewhere in the heavens that sounds suspiciously like stifled laughter.

"My troops are 100% eco-friendly. Nothing to clean up once it's fully destroyed. ...Where are you planning to land, by the way?"

[thirdtimesthechar]

Char will get back to that question just as soon as possible after seeing the side of his ship rise up past him, about two feet out of reach of his hands.

[forceofnature]

"...Huh. I feel kind of bad about this."

Char will find that his fall is momentarily halted by crashing into a single Nutski diligently and slowly trying to fly up to the ship. It will be enough to slow his fall maybe 0.1 m/s.

Viridi considers that her good deed for the day before turning her attention elsewhere.

[cecil_harvey]

BMG: The Red Wings

Flying in formation, seven airships break into view, emerging from the cloud cover.

"All hands, prepare to engage! Firing formation! Attack!"

Raising his sword and lowering it, all of the airships moved into a tight wedge formation and begin laying down cannon fire on the enemy creatures.

[forceofnature]

"Theme music? Look out, Char; someone's gunning for the position of lead protagonist."

As the ships fire, a group of creatures that look more at home in the ocean than floating in the air drop down from the sky. From their mouths surge forth a stream of bubbles, a rather futile gesture against cannonballs.

As the artillery passes through, it... -- Hold on. ...It doesn't pass through. Somehow, the cannonballs come screeching to a halt the moment they touch the bubbles, suspended in mid-air within the now-gigantic bubble shield.

"Nifty, isn't it? I spent half of my R+D budget on the Mahvas alone."

[cecil_harvey]

"Break!" Cecil shouted, as the airships immediately broke formation, some ascending and some descending and coming at the creatures from above and below.

"Fire!"