From the perspective of Commander McNair, the operation was going smoothly. Knowing their adversary, however, she had concerns that would turn upon their heads if the MFF regulars didn't keep on their toes. As much as she praised their accomplishments as of late, it was hard to blindly place her faith in soldiers she hadn't trained or worked alongside as of yet. She stilled her tongue, opting to watch them act rather then direct on a tactical level, a decision she could make easier knowing the highest authority in the MFF was directly supervising.
Thus she found herself immersed in the MFF beachhead upon the island, confidant that the triage center already established would be sufficient for handling the no doubt malnourished and tormented captives of a depraved slime. She had their requisitioned fleet blockading the island with depth charges aplenty if the slime had any notion of slinking away again, she'd find that there were very few things that could survive a bomb detonating underwater. Or in this case, several hundred very large bombs.
Yet while she thought of her humanitarian efforts, it was far too easy to direct her gaze to the cage where they kept their prize, Terrorkeat herself appearing rather more active and alert out here.
"I'm unable to tell if this is a reaction to being outdoors or if she's simply acclimated to captivity. Then again, this could be a reaction to another GMG. We'll need to run more tests to eliminate the extrenuous possibilities, but if the latter is correct we could have a means of detection."While the pink tyrant openly mused on the nature of titanic lifeforms, the one in question was trying her utmost not to shatter ear drums by screaming her alarm. There was no hiding the unconscious mannerisms, such as her puffed up plumage and the expression on her face, for there was indeed a GMG in the area and it wasn't goomie. Surrounded by MFF as she was, it took a great deal of concentration to curl the air in such a way as to carry her voice in a narrow cone.
"Setsu?"The rattling against Terrorkeat's cage paused briefly as the wind carried a frequency only GMGs could distinguish. Then it began again, a creature unseen as more rattling was carefully emphasized upon the steel holding the bird. It grated, low enough to remain hidden in plain sight as if something was trying to saw through the metal. Evidently, the owner couldn't much say anything without revealing herself and so she continued to work in silence despite the bird's concerns. Even now she worked just beyond McNair's sight and vision, a slight distortion against the air and backdrop, but otherwise completely invisible to the eye.
"What are you doing? If the cage falls apart they'll blast us before we can take off. Setsu, you can't...you were supposed to be enjoying your nap..." The bird whispered, expression seeming to fall as she settled her eyes on the distortion, knowing it for what it was. She ached to reach out for her, but the MFF weren't exactly being subtle around her about their plans and she couldn't stand the idea of this invisible GMG being hurt for her.
It was becoming difficult not to speak up and tell the bird to shut up. The scraping along the cage was clearly unfettered nor saw any reason to stop. After all, it wasn't like the new GMG had no plans in mind as soon as the cage was open. Though the bird brought up a point; even from the island's interior any present GMG could see the island was surrounded, be it by soldiers or decisive traps in place. Their only advantage was the fact no one detected the new monster yet. However, if Terrorkeat could easily fly them out of proximity...indeed, it was enough assurance for the scraping to keep going before some of the bars began to wear down and cut loose gingerly.
Down below the titanic girls, the Commander recieved a curious message from her own superior and turned to look towards the tents, finding not so much as a soft breeze to move those light canvas sheets. If it came from anyone in the general ranks she'd have taken it for idle chatter, but Kusanagi had immediately struck her as a painfully practical woman.
A snap of her crop had a serviceman at her side and she relied the orders under the guise of banal chatter between a bored officer and their put upon subordinate. It would pass as quickly as gossip does, an infection that had weapons armed with non-lethal measures and the seaward vassals ready to rain down quick drying foam canisters to carpet bomb an area in breathable containment foam. An invention she rather adored, but the MFF hadn't seen fit to stock given the sheer size of their foes.
Yeshua, on the other hand, was beginning to openly panic as the invisible kaiju ignored her warnings and continued cutting. It was a slow cut but it wouldn't take much progress for the humans to be alerted. Her heart dropped like a stone as the first bars cut and it would only be a matter of time before they fell entirely.
"Guh! I'm sorry, Setsu, but this is for your own good!"The covert wind tunnel dispersed and Terrorkeat began living up to her name, screeching and thrashing against her cage as she threw herself about, denting the metal with ease but not pushing hard enough to break free yet. More importantly she hurled herself forward, masking the invisible kaiju's work with her own body and making a wall of wind slam forward, upturning tents and toppling humans.
"Get out of here before they catch you!""You idiot!" If the humans didn't discover her before, they certainly would now. However, not all of Terrorkeat's panic was misgiven and indeed, the invisible Kaiju narrowed her sights. With the bird already squawking and moving about, it would have been easy now to fully commit. Commit she did, the flash of sharpened claws slicing effortlessly through the metal now that it had no electricity running through its bars. Large chunks of shrapnel fell to the earth with low thuds while the same glint was aimed at the bonds holding Terrorkeat now.
"As soon as you get out, fly us out of here," was the new GMG's response, making no effort to be subtle as she slashed. To the MFF, it was as if the air itself was tearing into Terrorkeat's restraints.
"What the- Fire at the cage!" The commander barked sharply, burying her amazement towards Kusanagi's instincts with the cold resolve of active combat, directing the MFF being buffeted by winds and having their eardrums burst to rally and strike back. Being prepared had helped, but a sudden blow was a sucker punch regardless once it hit you. Worse still was with the cage in the center of their encampment, they couldn't drop any heavy ordinance on Terrorkeat, or even use their most experienced operators as they were already out chasing down Goomie's hiding place.
Which just meant McNair herself would take all the satisfaction of bolting into the command tent and re-activating the electricity to the entire cage on it's highest setting. There was an immediate reaction and the screech turned into a strangled sound as more volts then would come out of a wind farm pumped into a giant bird...and oddly enough seemed to jump out towards something unseen latched onto the cage.
Indeed, Terrorkeat's screech was joined by another, the ground shaking as something was thrown back and landed away from the cage. Smoke emanated and rose from a large figure that shimmered against the air itself as if melted with it. But the camoflauge wore off soon enough, revealing to the MFF a newfound
GMG, one that was still groaning along the island's beach front and shaking her head to clear the daze.
"Ah crap, now you've gone and done it Yeshua," the feline GMG growled, though to the MFF it sounded more feral than it was. No one on the field was more excited about the prospect of a newly discovered monster than the one ironically not on it.
"Very fascinating," Professor Kusanagi mused from her position. Despite her nearly dead tone, anyone could see the shine of scientific inquiry in her gaze.
"A cat who can cloak itself. I can imagine the advantages that might have for you, no named cat, misdirecting attention, almost appearing in two places at once. I dub you Schrödinger." Kusanagi opened comm links with McNair once more.
"You know what to do. Stop standing around marveling at the thing; you can do so later up close, after you collar it," she reminded the commander.
"Understood." Was her clipped response, aware she was under a microscope here. So were the troops who took the reprieve from Terrorkeat to aim for the new and still unbound GMG, all so very eager to share in Akari's acclaim and capture a GMG themselves. Cable guns fired, launching barbed hooks that passed over Setsuna's groaning form and speared the ground or trees while the soldier anchored the weapon itself to the ground. On it's own? It had no chance of tripping a GMG up. Two dozen of them, thought? Four dozen? That got McNair's heart racing, especially when the troops with liquid nitrogen got within range and began hosing down Shrodinger's body.
"It was meant for Goomie, but few beasts can handle such extreme cold without succumbing. Now men, bring her down now!""You couldn't have picked a better vacation spot," Schrödinger continued to snark, glaring up at the bird that was usually the cause of their troubles and misfortune. Such was also the case now as the humans began firing upon her. What she expected to be bullets and explosives were instead tools of capture. The cat's eyes flickered immediately, body going limp for a split moment before the cables began passing over her and pinning her to the ground. Only Terrorkeat saw the illusion; an invisible force passed out of the cat's back like water, gathering up behind her, before reforming back into Schrödinger, albeit invisible once again. As the MFF continued their work handling and freezing the cat clone, the real Schrödinger slunk off to give herself distance, already moving about and settling in position to pounce like the predator she was. Her sights narrowed on McNair, hidden in plain sight, as her claws flashed. Unlike the bird, she had no qualms with ending human lives when need be.
The MFF worked efficiently and zealously to pin Schrodinger and, miraculously, that seemed enough to bring the feline down as she flopped back under the weight of cables of frozen aerosol. McNair was surprised, as it had been humanities experience that it wasn't this easy, even with the sudden shock from the cage to stun her. Even Terrorkeat had taken something of a beating over the day before succumbing.
Fitting then that Terrorkeat herself would save McNair as a rueful groan from the singed, quivering bird had her look to it, only to find it incredibly bizarre it's attention was not towards the downed Schrodinger, but another point of open air entirely.
"She could see the other GMG all along...All troops, we're targetting a decoy. The real GMG is over there!"She pivoted on her heel, crop snapped out in Setsuna's direction with a commanding presence that had troops snap to it and fire heavily without restraint in that direction. Even then McNair was glaring boldly at the space as she raised her comms to the naval blockade.
"Request saturation fire around the beachhead. Full encirclement with a narrow gap for inland ingress and seabound eggress. Fire!"The roar of thunder answered her call, distant streaks whistling to meet the pink tyrant's demands.
Schrödinger cursed, which sounded more like a monstrous roar instead to the humans. Regardless, Terrorkeat's movement proved to be too valuable for the MFF, especially when their command was suddenly more competent than what she expected or what was told. Her paw now lashed forward in efforts to swipe McNair dead on the point, either by slicing her apart or batting her away to be tossed like a ragdoll. But she didn't get to feel the human's corpse beneath her paws when she was suddenly lurched back, the MFF under McNair's command reacting in kind to her orders and opening all fire on Schrödinger. Gasping, the cat had little time to react and pull out another decoy before the cables were shot and sprung out. At once her attention was focused less on McNair and more on cutting herself loose and slicing apart the cables that were still being fired on it. The addition of the liquid nitrogen and now open fire from the sea was doing well in making her panic rise and attention disorientated.
There was a sudden gust of wind that tore the hat from Commander McNair's head and it didn't take a genius to know she just had a brush with death that wasn't even visible to her. Her arm snapped back, snatching the headwear by the brim and firmly re-affixing it, secure in the knowledge her troops would fight all the hard seeing their commanding officer in the thick of it with them. Morale was important, especially so when facing such an imposing foe. "This new GMG has made her last appearence as my enemy. Soldiers, stand clear and you! I need your cable gun!"
The trooper threw the weapon without even considering her rank, but she had no issue catching the cable gun. Her crop was held between her arm and her side as she aligned it with the invisible lump now enmeshed in wire and frost before firing directly over it. The barb fell short of Schrodinger's full bulk and struck it somewhere in the back but Mcnair was already tossing the cable gun behind her.
It made contact with the electrified cage and the current jumped from the one cable to the GMG and all the cables in contact with her, an electrified net to pin her in place for the bombardment to bury her with ease. "Don't underestimate the human spirit!"
Between being caught in a literal web of cables and her own panic, Schrödinger had little time or attention for McNair. Thus, she hardly felt the pinprick of a new cable strike her backside, latching onto her while the other was shot elsewhere. However, it also became clear she couldn't ignore McNair forever. Indeed, a sudden jolt of electricty, the same volts as before in fact, suddenly halted all her movement and cleared her mind of anything else but the striking pain. The cat cried out, her cloned double flickering out completely as the real GMG was revealed once more to human eyes. She spasmed and writhed about her wired net, the same electricity from the cage now surrounding her on all sides thanks to the wire. Never one for stamina, it wasn't long before she was left groaning and smoking anew, only this time with an exhausted finality about her voice. Then the cold came creeping up her legs, holding her in place further as something soft but sticky began to rain. If Schrödinger could think straight, she could have sworn she was being fired on by foam of all things.
McNair called the blockade, providing the exact coordinates for Schrodinger now that she was revealed in full. Quickly the feline disappeared, buried under a mountain of foam that deprived her of any and all leverage. Strength and size meant nothing without the leverage to use it, something that amused McNair to no end and brought a cheer of victory to the gathered troops. There was still the operation to secure Goomie's captives and eliminate that slimy threat but for the sake of keeping up the sky high morale, she raised her crop in a closed fist and joined the shouted cheer.
"MFF! MFF! MFF!"
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