[PSP] Guardian Sentai Roboman #15

[utsukushuu.dreamer]

>From PSP:
http://www.night-jaeger.net

---

GUARDIAN SENTAI ROBOMAN #15
"Girls' Day Out"
Component 05.3
March 15th, 2010
by Adrian J. Watts



New Orleans

"No!"

Kiko whirled around to face her brother. Tears still poured over her
cheeks but they were less visible against the bright red face of the
angry young woman than they had been on her pale skin just a few
seconds earlier.

"No no no!" she repeated. "Why... why would you say that? What makes
you think...! NO!"

Senshi stared at his feet.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I don't know what I was thinking."

He turned quickly and hurried to the edge of the dense foliage by the
side of the lake. Kiko was stunned. She had never seen her brother
react that way before and she had never expected to see him react that
way. He had always presented himself as so strong and so capable that
nothing could ever bother him and she knew from experience that her
opinions and comments had next to no influence over him; seeing him
all but fleeing from her confused her terribly.

"Senshi! Wait!"

Kiko's words came too late - Senshi had already disappeared into the
bushes. Kiko looked down at Cog who stared back at her from the palm
of her hand, her tiny mechanical head cocked to one side.

"What was that all about?" Kiko asked. "Why would he run like that?"

"Kiko!" Cog said. "Senshi and I talked for a long time. You know the
Earth Defence/Leadership Directorate has been destroyed, and so has
Science Island. Your brother is all alone!"

Kiko frowned.

"No he's not," she said. "You heard him. He's Doctor Brachis' deputy.
He can stick with her if he's feeling left out."

Cog scowled. She knew something that Kiko did not. When Cog first
arrived in New Orleans she told Sei that Doctor Brachis and Doctor
Nagura were safe and that they would contact the team as soon as they
had the chance; she had lied, on Doctor Brachis' orders. As far as Cog
knew, Doctor Brachis was inside Blizzard Base Zero when Sei used
Gattai Robo to teleport the giant Buki Robo inside the base moments
before it exploded.

Senshi had told Cog that he had had no contact with Doctor Brachis
since leaving Science Island a fortnight earlier. Even he did not seem
to know whether or not Doctor Brachis had managed to escape Blizzard
Base Zero in one piece.

"Kiko..." Cog said slowly. "What happened between you and Senshi?"

"I'm not going to talk about it," Kiko replied quickly. "It doesn't
matter anymore, as long as Senshi stays out of my life!"

"What if he doesn't?"

Beep-bip! Beep-bip!

Kiko glanced at the communicator attached to her left wrist and saw
that one of the red buttons was flashing. She pressed it firmly and
heard Ikku's voice come through the communicator's speaker.

"Miss Sato? Can you hear me?"

"Yes, Ikku," Kiko replied. "I have Cog." She smiled. "And why do I
have to call you Ikku when you won't call me Kiko?"

Kiko heard Ikku laugh.

"Okay, Kiko. We can't find that pixie of yours."

Kiko's communicator began to emit a regular beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
Beep.

"What's that?"

"I changed my communicator so it would find anyone using Eternity
energy," Kiko explained, "but Cog and I are the only ones - "

WHUMP!

Kiko felt the hairs on the spider-pixie's leg even through her
robosuit. She stumbled forward as the large limb struck her back, but
managed to keep holding on to Cog.

"Kiko? Kiko? What's going - "

"Let's go, Robo!" Kiko shouted.

Rather than emerge from within her robosuit, the jagged pieces of
metal that formed the stronger components of the Roboman armour came
hurtling over the trees and scrub, changing shape as they got closer.
As Kiko waited for the metal to fully reform and bond to the fabric of
her suit the spider-pixie attacked again, and then a third time,
knocking her off-balance but not causing her any real harm.

I'm not going to put Cog down again! Kiko thought. Senshi's around
here somewhere, and - ARGH!

One of the spider-pixie's extra limbs hit Kiko's armoured chest and
she staggered backwards. Cog clung tightly to the tiny grooves in
Kiko's metal glove, grooves that would have gone unnoticed by anyone
but the two-inch robot with her unique perspective. Quickly, Kiko
placed Cog in her left hand.

"Electro Blaster!" she said.

A dim blue glow surrounded her arm and the spider-pixie stopped moving
and stared as, slowly, the handgun-sized weapon materialised in Kiko's
right hand. Kiko stepped backwards as it formed, keen to put as much
distance between herself and the pixie as possible while the Electro
Blaster took shape.

Why is it taking so long? she wondered. Normally - ah.

Kiko felt the familiar weight of the Electro Blaster in her hand and
raised it hurriedly to aim point blank at the centre of the spider-
pixie's chest. She did not hesitate to pull the trigger and two bright
bolts of yellow energy arced from the end of the blaster and hit the
monster hard.

Without warning, the spider-pixie's extra arms began to flail wildly
and so quickly that Kiko found herself completely unable to keep track
of them. She took another step back and reached for her communicator.

"Ikku! Sei!" she shouted. "I'm at the lake, where we - !"

Kiko was cut off as the spider-pixie again struck her in the head, but
it did not just hit her once - it struck again and again, knocking
Kiko from side-to-side as well as back and forward. The blows were not
hard; she did not feel any pain, but she did feel dizzy.

Suddenly Kiko could no longer feel Cog holding on to her left hand.

"Cog!" she shouted as the spider-pixie continued to push her back and
forth.

"Kiko!" she heard the robot respond. "Raise your blaster now! Straight
ahead!"

Kiko did as she was told and saw, out of the corner of her eye, two
more yellow energy blasts race from the end of the Electro Blaster
aimed directly at the spider-pixie's head. One of the blasts missed
completely and disappeared into the undergrowth; the other hit the
centre of the monster's face... and it stopped moving.

Kiko fell to her knees and began to breathe heavily before she
realised what had happened. She turned her head slowly to examine the
Electro Blaster and saw Cog dangling from the weapon's trigger.

"Thank... you," Kiko panted.

"Don't rest yet!" Cog said. "The blaster's almost out of energy!"

"What?" Kiko asked. "I've hardly used it!"

Cog shook her head furiously and climbed from the Electro Blaster back
onto Kiko's hand.

"You use jera shards to create and power the Lightning Jet and Robo
Defender as well - and they take a lot of that power!" Cog explained.
"That thing won't stay frozen for long!"

Kiko nodded.

"What should I do?"

"Use your Alert Bracer to call Ikku and Sei again," Cog suggested.
"Make sure they know where you are and then you can destroy it with
the Robo Defender."

"Alert Bracer?" Kiko raised her left hand. "You mean my communicator?"

Cog nodded.

"Ikku? Sei? Can you hear me?"

"We're almost there!" Ikku's voice came through the Alert Bracer's
speaker clearly. "Just hold on a little longer!"

"I'm okay!" Kiko responded. "We managed to freeze it, but Cog says it
won't stay that way for very long. We need the Robo Defender."

"We can see you now."

Kiko turned her head and saw the blue-hulled Water Cutter speeding
across the lake. She sighed heavily, and neither she nor Cog noticed
the spider-pixie moving again.

It flashed it arms more quickly than ever, pummelling Kiko's chest,
arms and head. She fell onto her back and Cog rolled away from her
hand. The spider-pixie pounced and balanced itself over Kiko, using
its six arms and two legs to form a living cage around her. She tried
to scream but could only imagine a quick yelp as spinnerets poked
through the pixie's skin and bombarded her with thick, sticky webbing.
In a single moment Kiko was bonded to the soft ground - several
moments later, all but her head was wrapped in a coccoon of webbing.

"Chaos Sword!" she heard Ikku shout.

She smiled inside her helmet as she saw the translucent red blade of
the Chaos Sword pass cleanly through one of the spider-pixie's arms.
The pixie squealed in pain and scuttled several feet to the side.

Ikku slashed again, and again, and a moment later the webbing was
gone. Kiko quickly got onto her knees and searched the grass for Cog.

"I dropped Cog!" she shouted.

"I'm over here!" she heard Cog squeak beside her. She turned her head
quickly and found the tiny robot. She scooped her back into her left
hand and stood beside Ikku. "Kiko... does the pixie look a little
bigger to you?"

Kiko nodded.

"Yes, but I don't care!" she replied. "Sei, it's time for the Robo
Defender!"

"Vertex Shield," Sei said calmly as he stepped down from the Water
Cutter. There was a bright blue flash as the shield appeared and
attached itself to his right arm. He removed it and held it up in
front of Ikku.

As the Robomen moved, the spider-pixie moved from side-to-side, never
taking its eyes off Kiko. It did not see Ikku push his Chaos Sword
through the centre of the Vertex Shield, but it clearly saw Kiko slide
the barrel of the Electro Blaster over the sword's hilt.

"Robo Defender, Slash Containment Burst!"

Kikopulled the trigger on the Electro Blaster, sending a spark of
yellow energy along the length of the Chaos Blade, directly at the
centre of the spider-pixie's body. The area around the battle turned
pitch-black, the only light provided by the crackling energy that
struck the eight-legged creature. The pixie stumbled, fell... and
began to grow.

"It's the jera energy!" Cog said. "Kiko, when you shot it the first
time you must have increased the speed around it! Now it is growing
and evolving so quickly... it might not stop."

"No," Sei said. "It is slowing down."

"At five hundred feet..." Ikku muttered.

"We will need Gattai Robo again," Sei announced.

Ikku and Kiko glanced at each other. They did not need Sei to tell
them they needed a giant robot to fight a giant monster.

"Phase Three! Go Robo Vehicles!"

Once again the metal components separated from Kiko and Ikku's
armoured bodies and hovered in the air around them. They changed
shape, grew and fused together to form two large and powerful
machines; the rumbling red Flame Tank and the unyielding yellow
Lightning Jet.

The three Robomen hurried to the cockpits of their respective
vehicles. Kiko reached hers first and immediately took flight. She
flew in circles around the head of the massive spider-pixie and
narrowly avoided the meters-thick strands of webbing that it launched
to keep her contained. It was only when Ikku and Sei reached their own
vehicles that she heard Cog shout:

"Robo Fusion!"

"Robo Fusion! Gattai Robo!" they replied in unison.

>From her vantage point high in the air Kiko was able to watch the
reflection in the lake as the three Robo Vehicles combined to form the
enormous Gattai Robo. First, the Water Cutter split horinzontally down
the middle and folded apart to form a pair of black and blue legs and
a strong black 'pelvis'. Then the turret of the Flame Tank lifted off
as the rest of the tank split in half. The turret connected to the
Water Cutter 'pelvis' to form a red 'spin', and the two remaining
pieces of the Flame Tank became red and black arms.

Then the spider-pixie struck.

["What?!"] Kiko cried.

The process of forming Gattai Robo had taken less than five seconds
and still, as Kiko watched from the cockpit of the Lightning Jet, the
spider-pixie managed to strike the incomplete robot several times.
Before Kiko could do anything to help the stricken Ikku and Sei the
wings of the jet folded back, leaving the jet looking like a solid
rectangular block with a nosecone attached. The block settled on top
of Gattai Robo's 'pelvis' and in front of its 'spine' to form a yellow
torso and the nosecone folded backwards as though it were a hood,
revealing the black and grey head of the robot.

Kiko struggled to hold onto her controls as the Lightning Jet's
cockpit merged with those of the Flame Tank and the Water Cutter to
create a single control centre in Gattai Robo's chest. The spider-
pixie struck again and Gattai Robo fell into the water and was
completely submerged.

"That thing's fast!" Ikku shouted.

"Cog?" Kiko asked. "What should we do?"

Cog shook her head.

"You need to get Gattai Robo upright!" she said.

Kiko, Sei and Ikku pulled hard on the control sticks embedded in the
centre of their individual control panels and slowly Gattai Robo began
to right itself... until the spider-pixie pummeled it again, one hairy
fist after another.

"How did the pixie end up like that anyway?!" Ikku asked. "I thought
Miko actually cared - "

WHUMP!

The spider-pixie hit Gattai Robo hard with all eight fists at once. It
lifted its arms again.

WHUMP!

"We cannot last long against such powerful blows," Sei said. "Vertex
Shield."

Blue energy shimmered around Sei's right arm as the Vertex Shield once
again took shape and attached itself to Sei. Outside the cockpit, on
Gattai Robo's right arm, a much larger version of the shield
appeared.

"Vertex Cutter," Sei said calmly as he raised his right arm.

Gattai Robo lifted its right arm too quickly for even the spider-pixie
to react and the razor-edged Vertex Shield sliced through all three
arms on its left side.

"Vertex Field," Sei said.

To Ikku and Kiko the Vertex Shield seemed to disappear into Sei's arm
and the same blue energy rippled over his body and began to cascade
over his skin in regular torrents. Outside, the same thing happened to
Gattai Robo.

The spider-pixie raised the three arms on its right side and punched
Gattai Robo's chest; the lights inside the cockpit flashed off and on
as all of the power within Gattai Robo was channelled into the hull.
The spider-pixie pulled its hands away quickly and the blue cascade
around Gattai Robo - and Sei - quickly faded.

"Now!" Sei said. "Stand up!"

Ikku and Kiko pulled on their control sticks again and Gattai Robo
staggered to its feet. The spider-pixie hissed at it angrily and
rushed forward again.

"Chaos Sword!" Ikku shouted.

The black-and-silver hilted, red-bladed sword appeared in his right
hand amid a flash of blue and the same thing happened to Gattai Robo.
Ikku swung the sword forward and into the topmost of the spider-
pixie's four remaining arms. The spider-pixie pressed up with the same
arm while it punched out with the remaining two; Gattai Robo fell back
and the sword slashed through all three arms.

The spider-pixie slowed down. Blood started to slowly pour from its
severed arms. It screamed again - and the blood began to gush forth.

"What? I didn't mean to...!" Ikku said.

"It is the jera energy," Sei replied. "It has worn off. Time is now
moving normally for the creature and it can feel the pain we have
caused it."

"But it's just a spider, right?" Ikku asked.

The spider-pixie screamed again and Ikku and Kiko shivered. For a
brief moment both of them saw an image pass through their head; an
image of a red-skinned man looking down at a pixie as a spider sank
its teeth into the poor creature's flesh. They could not feel the
pain, but they felt what both the pixie and the spider thought at the
time - a revolting mixture of pleasure and terror.

"What was that?!" Kiko shrieked. "Cog?"

Cog shook her head. Sei shrugged.

"It's a pixie!" Ikku cried. "We have to help it!"

"It is too late for that," Sei said. "The best we can do is put it out
of its misery."

Cog nodded.

"Sei..." she said. She turned and showed her back to Sei. Kiko had not
noticed earlier, but the narrow slots on Cog's back had all fused
together. Only the topmost slot, which contained a raido shard,
remained undamaged.

"Cog!" Kiko cried. "Did he - "

"No!" Cog replied quickly. "I did this to myself trying to get away."

Outside the spider-pixie collapsed face-first into the lake. Blood
spilled into the water and died it dark red.

"Guys... we have to do something now," Ikku said. "I can't - "

Cog ran from Kiko's control panel to Sei's and looked up at him. He
knew exactly what she wanted to do.

"Vertex Shield," he said.

The shield quickly reappeared on his right arm even as its larger
counterpart attached itself to Gattai Robo. Cog slowly walked along
Sei's arm and, when she reached the shield, she closed her eyes and
jumped.

Her arms, legs and head disappeared into her body so that all that
remained was a two-inch long flat rectangle. Cog slipped into a narrow
slit at the center of the shield and it began to change, to lengthen,
until it resembled a long, thin gun barrel strapped to Sei's arm.

An identical transformation took place outside.

"Saikou Blaster: Vertex Mode," Cog and Sei said in unison.

They aimed the gun barrel at the fallen spider-pixie and a
concentrated burst of blue energy blasted forth and smothered its
dying body. It glowed brilliantly for several long moments, and when
the bright blue luminance finally faded, Ikku, Kiko and Sei saw the
spider-pixie's body as a solid lump of blue which seemed to shatter
into thousands of blue pieces and disappear into the lake.

With the threat gone, Gattai Robo began to fade away and the three
Robomen found themselves surrounded by the same blue energy, which
transported them safely to the soft shore of the lake.

Sei removed Cog from the centre of the Vertex Shield and it, too,
vanished; Kiko stared blankly into space; and Ikku, the closest to the
water's edge, collapsed. He fell, face-first, into the blood-filled
water and did not resurface.

"Ikku!" Kiko shouted.

She dived in without thinking and groped blindly in the murky water
for Ikku's body. She found him quickly and her arm wrapped around his
torso as she kicked her way back up to the surface. As soon as they
appeared above the water Sei reached down and pulled Ikku onto the
shore.

Ikku coughed once and bloody water spilled onto his chest, but he
breathed easily.

"Ikku!" Kiko cried again. She kneeled beside him and placed her hands
around one of his. "What's wrong?"

"We killed it," Ikku said. "We killed that pixie. I know we killed
others at Blizzard Base Zero... and when Sorceress Miko robbed the
bank... but we didn't know... we didn't know they were really alive.
We didn't know they could think and feel!"

"I knew," Sei said.

Kiko shot him an angry glare.

"Ikku..." she said softly. "You're right. We didn't know. That doesn't
make it okay... but we know now. The pixies have to be stopped, but we
can find a way to do it without making them suffer like that."

"H-how?" Ikku asked. He sat upright. "How else could we have stopped
that pixie? It was a monster! It was half-spider... why would Miko do
that...?"

"Sei knows," Kiko said. She stared up into Sei's eyes. "Obviously
these monster attacks haven't stopped. Sei is going to show us how to
use our powers properly. Aren't you, Sei?"

Sei closed his eyes.

"Miss Sato - " he began.

"I will!" Cog interrupted. "I will help you learn!"

"Thank you, Cog," Kiko said.

"Yeah..." Ikku wiped his wet hair off his face. "Thanks."


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New Orleans // March 16th, 2010

Kiko walked through the shopping centre carrying several shopping bags
in each hand. Her robosuit was concealed by a thick black coat over a
bright yellow t-shirt and a pair on black dress pants. Her feet were
slipped neatly into a pair of black high heels.

"Wow!" Cog called from her hiding place in Kiko's pocket. "This is
shopping? I like it!"

Kiko smiled.

"I can't wait to see how the boys react," Kiko responded.

She walked out of the shopping centre and hurried down the long
streets between it and 'Hey, Pizza!'. She was exhausted, not only from
the sleepless night that followed her team's destruction of the
monstrous spider-pixie but also from the effort of buying things...
and carrying things. She never thought shopping would be as hard as it
was.

She walked into 'Hey, Pizza!' and, for the first time, was not met
with stares from the store's customers. They barely even glanced at
her as she walked through the kitchen, past Trick and Kageki, and into
the back room she shared with Sei and Ikku.

"Wow," Ikku said as he saw her enter. "What happened to you?"

Kiko smiled. It was the first time either of the boys had responded
when she entered the room. She liked buying things. She liked having
things.

She liked having something to do other than thinking about monsters
and villains... and Senshi.

"Miss Sato," Sei said. "How could you afford all of this?"

Kiko smiled.

"Kiko got a job!" Cog cried.


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NEXT: On Guard!


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COG'S SPECIAL REPORT!

Hi! I'm Cog!

The Robomen use a lot of complicated technology, and sometimes it can
be a bit hard to get your head around it all - especially when you
can't
actually see what's going on! (Hey, if you can accept that a two-inch
tall
robot is talking to you, you better be able to accept that than they
can
break the fourth-wall and acknowledge they're a character in a work of
fiction!)


To help you out, I'm going to pop in from time to time to let you know
what I know about the technology - and that isn't as much as you might
think. Doctor Nagura told me a lot, but he's a world-famous
bioroboticist... and while I might have been one at one stage, I'm not
100% sure!

Today, we are going to talk about the Robo Defender. The Robomen
wrapped their heads around this one pretty quickly, but it isn't very
complicated... even the people on Science Island have a file on it!

After my big day out with Kiko today - can you believe they don't make
dresses in a size 0.0000000000000002? - I'm a little too tired to come
up with something new, so we might as well look at the same file
Senshi saw in Doctor Brachis' office!

http://www.night-jaeger.net/fiction/roboman/robodefcol.gif

That is a really simple image of the Robo Defender in what Doctor
Nagura called its 'Basic Rendition'. There's a good reason for that...
but you're not going to find out what it is just yet!

As you can see, the Basic Rendition Robo Defender has three parts: the
red Chaos Sword; the blue Vertex Shield; and the yellow Electro
Blaster. The design is very simple - the energy moves from the blaster
into the sword, and the shield works like a satellite dish, to keep
the energy focussed forward and not bouncing around at odd angles!

The Robomen haven't figured it out yet, but the Basic Rendition Robo
Defender can fire any sort of energy - raido, jera or kenez... or even
a combination of them!

In fact, it uses all three automatically and that's why everything
goes black - the raido energy teleports everything in the area away
while the kenez energy warps reality, which it can do instantly when
it is sped up by jera energy. So far though, the Robomen have just
used it to freeze their enemies, and that's good, but they could also
teleport them away or change reality around them!

Now that they have me to show them the ropes maybe they can learn how
all this works - as long as Kiko's job doesn't keep her too busy!

Next time I will let you see what Gattai Robo looks like and show you
how the Robo Vehicles actually combine together... but I don't think
Gattai Robo will be as useful against the team's next big enemy as it
was against the spider-pixie. He's not so big, but he's definitely
tough!

See you next time! ^_^