Noah hoists himself onto the Commander’s chair and overlooks current operations. “Yuki, debrief me!”

“Two Advanced Units have been spotted approaching Dreamer Base from the left side. Cadet Volt has been sent to the hangar to launch in the Advanced Unit Dolphin. Rebecca Hawkeye is currently navigating Dreamer Base towards Kennedy Colony 5!” Mateo yells from above. 

Noah turns his head towards the front of the bridge, where a girl in a wheelchair sits at the wheel of the ship.

“Mateo, that’s a disabled girl…” 

Rebecca turns her head and winks at Noah. “Don’t underestimate me, sir; I can do a lot despite being a wheelie,” she states. “Sure, my dad’s military… so I know some things!”

He is definitely fascinated. If anything, could this girl become a pilot for the second Advanced Unit they have? They’re low on manpower, so anyone could do it by now. 

That was when the bulky Rex came into the bridge with Kaori in hand. “I know I shouldn’t be here, but let me help you.”

Noah was shocked. How did he know there was an emergency?

“What are you good at?” Noah asks.

“I’m a replidroid; I transform into a bike… But I’m athletic and was part of the local basketball team,” he replies, tugging his beanie over his eyes.

Was!

Westlin Town was gone now; the nuclear blast wiped out whatever population was left there. There was no school, meaning there was no basketball team anymore. In Noah’s mind, that poor kid probably just lost every friend he’s had.

Tragedy aside, he has an athlete; perhaps he can be assigned to ground forces, but for now, he needs a person with a good eye. 

“How good are you at guns?”

Rex smiles, “The very best, sir, when you’re Ryoji’s partner!” He slightly pulls open the inside of his jacket, showcasing various weapons.

Noah smirks back, “Good, I want you at the rear cannons supporting Volt!”

“Alright,”

Rex sprints away to the upper floors of Dreamer Base. They’ve got the combatants, but now they need a miracle to actually survive this.

“Yuki, Webbs, what’s the status of those Advanced Units?”

Carly Webbs, a blonde girl who sits to the backside of Mateo, answers. “Identified color as red and blue and a part of the Galactic Independence Army!” 

Two Advanced Units, both red and blue in appearance.

No!

No, it couldn’t be them!

“The Cobalt Angel and Red Spark!” Noah exclaimed, his heart caught in his throat.

They were all dead if that’s who they’re against!

“Sir, what are you talking about?” Rebecca asks, not looking away from the window.

Noah takes a deep breath. “They’re ace pilots belonging to the Galactics; one got their namesake for their skills and the trail of blood they left, making them an angel of death.”

“And the other?”

“They say he’s as fast as light itself; blink, and you’re dead… So they gave him a title belonging to such, Red Spark,” he says with a snap of his fingers.

Noah pulls at his own hair. What are they going to do? Sending Volt out is their Hail Mary, and if that doesn’t work, he’s going to be dealing with Volt dead, Jian Yu killing him, and then dozens of civilians dead.

Depending on how Volt does, he may have to consider negotiating for terms of surrender.

Especially if they have children on board….

Volt swings into the cockpit of his MS-89 Lapin, a shining red mech with, well, it’s hard to describe, but its head shape is like a hare’s. There are two plasma sabers mounted into the back engine with its thrusters, and it was capable of physical combat. 

Something he prefers, as the damage output is higher going by all the simulations he was trained on. It was also engineered to be a lightweight combat weapon, so it’s agile and speedy. 

All things he likes in fighting.

With a flick of a switch, he turns the Advanced Unit on, and soon the cockpit goes from a dark metal enclosure to a 360° view of the brightly lit hangar. 

In front of him was a computer screen, which was booting up. 

“AULC SYSTEM BOOTING UP” As the computer says, AULCS stands for Advanced Unit Link Communication System.

“AULC SYSTEM ONLINE, PLEASE INPUT NAME & ID.”

Volt inputs his name through the touch screen, ‘YU YU VOLT.’

“INVALID NAME”

Volt grumbles.

He types in ‘YU YU KUN | 030678.’

“ACCESS GRANTED, WELCOME PILOT YU YU.”

He thought he told Noah to change that, but he guessed that the old grump said otherwise.

Nevermind that.

“Yu Yu Volt, preparing to launch in the Lapin!” he yells.

Volt’s grip on the control sticks tightens as he impatiently waits for a response from the bridge. The seat he sits in is comfy, cushioned for any impacts that can happen in the cockpit.

While he waits for the bridge to respond, he quickly goes through every pre-launch check. Thrusters are operational, legs are operational, the nuclear core is stable… He can’t risk anything going unchecked.

It seems everything is fully functional and ready to go.

Except Volt notices he can’t even reach the gas pedals, so he quickly adjusts the chair to accommodate for his small height and also fastens the seat belt.

“Carly Webbs, approving launch for Advanced Unit Lapin!” Carly says over the intercom, her voice sounding raspy due to the speaker. “When all lights go blue, you can launch!”

Looking, Volt could see a screen mounted to the wall, just above the exit tunnel of the hangar. It said ‘Launch|Control|Systems’ and had three red lights.

Volt’s rabbit ears twitch as he watches the lights slowly turn blue until, finally, everyone turns blue and the hangar hatch opens.

“Lapin launching into battle!” he yells over the communicator as he pulls back on the control sticks and is sent throttling through the exit tunnel and into the vast blackness of space. His head slammed into the headrest of the cockpit.

If he weren’t wearing a helmet and his seat wasn’t cushioned, he could’ve had a serious head injury.

The great Volt can’t afford to have a head injury!

Now, to focus on the battle at hand, he taps on the screen to bring up the radar. Two Advanced Units approaching port side; they must be aiming for the wings or engines of Dreamer Base.

There’s no time to lose.

It’s time for the great Volt to save the day, he says to himself with a smile.

Volt presses down on the gas pedals and circles himself around the ship towards the port side, where their enemies were approaching. 

In the distance, he sees two Advanced Units; one was blue and the other red. 

“Volt, be warned, that’s the Red Spark and his Cobalt Angel you’re facing. I suggest trying to—”

 He’s heard of them before; he’s always wished to fight them himself. To him, their skills are all bark and no bite compared to his.

“Don’t worry, Nyx… I’ll take care of this easily; I can get the jump on them from here.”

Slamming the gas pedal, Volt propels himself towards the two mobile suits from behind and delivers a mighty kick with the Lapin from the side to the Cobalt Angel.

“Hey, Captain, look at this, a prototype Advanced Unit!” the blue one yells over the comms. Volt didn’t know she’s a girl. With all he heard about the Cobalt Angel, he assumed she was a guy.

Red Spark responds over comms, his voice as pompous as he expected. He definitely is someone of nobility going by the accent, but even the accent feels like it’s hiding something. 

“A prototype Advanced Unit? And here I thought that most of Dreamer Base’s crew was exterminated… What's your name?”

Volt scoffs; he already hates the pretentiousness of this guy, and he is definitely not giving him his real name.

“I’m the greatest pilot there is. I strike fear into the hearts of my enemies. My name is Shadow Exter—”

A cannon shot fires past them, interrupting his awesome introduction. Cobalt and he both dodge.

“His name is Volt,” Rex responds bluntly, sitting in the seat of the rear cannon. 

“Rex, get off my line!”

There’s a beep indicating Rex disconnecting from the comms.

“Like I said, my name is Shadow Exterminator,”

“I think we’ll just call you Bunny Bot,” Cobalt Angel giggles from the comms. “I’m Luna, by the way.”

Fine, he’ll just settle for Bunny Bot; it’s got a ring to it at least.

“Cadet, don’t be sharing your name with the enemy!”

He sounds blonde, and for some reason, he can only imagine the person in the red unit has blonde hair. He has the perfect name for him.

“I’m going to call you Captain Blondie,” he says, running in with another kick towards the red one.

Suddenly, though, Luna gets in the way, “Hey, I’m not letting you touch Captain!” and catches the leg of the Lapin, swinging it round and round. 

Inside, Volt is thrashing round and round; he’d be hitting the walls if it wasn’t for the seat belt, but he is getting motion sick. 

Eventually Luna releases him, and he is thrown across the emptiness of space. 

Volt quickly pulls back on the control sticks and slams the brakes to restabilize the Lapin with the jet boosters. He gags but manages to send whatever was trying to come up back down his insides. 

He takes a steady breath and focuses back on the battle; however, Luna is charging at him with a plasma saber. He quickly edges to the left.

With a deafening sizzle, Luna’s saber pierces the shoulder of the Lapin. 

He wasn’t dying here!

Volt quickly presses the button to disengage his own plasma saber from the Lapin's backpack; with a flick of the control stick, he grabs it.

“Get the hell off me!” he yells, slicing the hand off Luna’s Advanced Unit.

“I’m not trying to kill you, just trying to disable your unit,” Luna replies.

Pulling out the other’s plasma saber, Volt tosses it aside and gets into position to fight back against Luna.

“Cadet, allow me to assist you in disabling the prototype unit,” Captain Blondie responds.

Volt tries connecting Rex back onto the comms line; he needs backup here, but he couldn’t connect! They were too far from Dreamer Base.

Then there’s a small dot firing towards them; it’s Rex with the cannon!

A cannon shot is fired, and Volt smiles as it hits Captain Blondie’s unit, but that smile dissolves once the smoke clears and it leaves nothing but maybe a small dent in the shoulder armor. 

“I’d like no interruptions, please,” he says, firing a shot from his railgun, and with almost perfect precision, he sees a tiny explosion hit the rear of Dreamer Base. 

He can’t fight two on two like this, and it’s pissing him off.

With a sigh, Volt decides to do the sensible thing: “Can we negotiate a surrender? There’s a lot of refugees on there; I don’t want them getting hurt.”

Volt could hear the smirk crawling on Blondie’s face. “Why, of course, we have very simple terms and conditions for you and your captain to follow.”

“Alright…”

“Firstly, we need Dreamer—”

Bullets fire in their direction, and they all dodge.

“What in the galaxy?” he hears Luna mutter.

Turning around, Volt sees a fleet of Galactics coming through with their own Advanced Units. 

“Are they with you?” he questions the two.

“No, we’re not with them at all…”

This battle has gotten a lot more complicated.