Do the robot!

I always like subtle robotic limps that can fit underneath clothing than large, bulking, car destroying with rocket launchers arms... yeah, I like things practical.

*Hums Inspector Gadget theme*

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What, no laser eyes? No built-in coffee dispenser? :(

Otherwise, nice abs. Did he get implants there, too?

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O, I like drawing Godot without the visor. I'll draw in the visor the next time ;D

His abs of steel can grate cheese

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sooo good.

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That is a sweet pic! I'm loving the arm!

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Godot looks so awesome there!

You get a cookie :D

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Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto~

Sorry. I couldn't help it.

I like that drawing of Godot thar', clickmon. I think my favourite part has to be the robotic arm... I love just how detailed it is.

And I was going to say that he looks calm, but his eyes tell me otherwise. He's just... not in his "ROARMUSTHAVEWRIGHTSBLOOD!" frenzy?

... >_>

I still haven't seen Yoda!Pearl yet. Too mentally scarring?

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I can't beleive I didn't check this out before... *is a busy idiot*
Surely GyakutenMECHA is the greatest invention known to man. That and the Catbus, natch.
Anyway, as I said in the fanfic thread, I would love to help out in anyway I can. My drawing skills aren't very good, (I'm at Makoto level skills at copying pictures though :P) but I'm off for the week now, so I can do anything you guys need doing. And maybe, despite my best interests, I'll have a go at Project Stargazer. Even though I know I'll end up spending four hours working on a picture that looks like a chicken staring at some dots, with Project Stargazer spelt wrong, and falling off the end of the page...

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*insert annoying-yet-important sound of your choice here*

You know what that means. Site update.

What's this? A site update without a new chapter? Oh my god! Run for the hills!

... XP

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I can't help but notice your advert for a lackey. What would these lackey tasks be? Please don't be drawing, writing or working with computers...

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Ace Attorney wouldn't exist... Maybe it would but without Nick.

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It's really just assisting the web monkey with the website.

I know it sounds daunting, but, well... let me put it this way: I'm not doing this with HTML at all.

*insert appropriate reaction here*

I'm just using a WYSIWYG webpage editor. (examples include Dreamweaver and Frontpage) In theory I could do the whole thing in HTML, but using the webpage editor is just so much quicker and easier.

So, really, a webpage editor like that would be all that a lackey would need.

...

...Maybe I shouldn't be asking for one lackey. >_>

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This may or may not be the complete Chapter Four. It's short, but short might be good, it's a good place to break, and I think the next parts would make it too long and are a better chapter in their own right.



The Ties That Bind

Chapter Four


I think I must have gone over what happened next a few hundred thousand times. While a couple dozen of those times were probably in debriefings, hearings, and the like about what actually happened in orbit around Yggdrasil that day, the rest were in my head, in my thoughts. I’d replay the events over and over as I closed my eyes, only to keep watching and rewatching in my dreams once I finally fell asleep.

At the moment, I was stunned. It didn’t seem like it could have possibly been real—even now, looking at the text of the announcement describing it in plain, simple letters… it still doesn’t. It didn’t seem real when they awarded Larry and me medals of heroism for our actions following the destruction of the Kurain—which never would have had to happen if I’d been just a little more heroic in the first place. Maybe it never will.

Really, I don’t know how long I sat in shocked silence for, looking at the gradually emptying space full of twisted steel and the remnants of the place I’d called home for months… finally, it was Larry who snapped me out of it. He’d been yelling for me over the comm for… however long it was, until I answered, still dazed. Larry asked me what we should do.

Right then, I wasn’t thinking too clearly, and snapped back at him, asking why I had to be the one to come up with the plan. There was a quiet sobriety in Larry’s voice that I’d never heard in over twenty years of knowing him right then, as he told me that I was the highest ranking officer. His AI had queried all the pods about their occupants, and the few personnel that outranked me were all either unconscious, injured, or both.

I was in charge.

Every muscle in my body froze for what felt like an hour. I was in charge? How… how was I supposed to know what to do? I didn’t have a plan, I wasn’t like the Captain! What could I do? Lives were depending on me, and to make no choice would have damned them all... but I couldn’t think.

Looking back on it, I wonder if that’s how the Captain felt. I guess it’s funny, in a way, how someone can look so calm and confident… but maybe she was just as uncertain and questioning of her choices as I was of mine.

Thankfully, after what had just happened, it seemed as though fate was finally giving us a break. The first bit of good luck was that Larry’s AI, THINKER, lived up to its name and told him (and me) about a concealed Fusegi emergency base on the moon of Elli that we were approaching. Later, in the debriefings, I’d find out that the base in question had been our goal in the first place, but at the moment none of that really occurred to me… nor did it even matter.

We relayed the data to the AIs of the various lifepods, and the survivors of the Kurain made their way to the large, gray, pockmarked surface of Elli… in a large crater, there was a concealed tunnel, a few kilometers long, that led down to a massive hidden hangar and the rest of the abandoned base. Apparently, the small Fed garrison on Yggdrasil had sent everything they’d had at us, because nobody came to interfere in the grueling rescue operation—though most of the lifepods had working engines, some had been knocked out of commission by the Kurain’s explosive end, and had to be manually towed there by Larry and myself.

Once in the base, we found a few more pieces of good luck coming our way. There was a large freighter sitting in the hangar gathering dust—it was older, but it still worked, and it still had fuel. What was even better, it could hold my and Larry’s mecha comfortably, and it was similar enough to the Kurain in operation that we had a crew to take us home.

There was also a functional medical bay, and by some stroke of fortune, our medical crew had all made it out alive. I wish I could say the same for their patients… though the doctors and their assistants tried their damnedest, there were some casualties that were simply too far gone—and they had to focus on saving the ones they could. There are times when I’m glad I’m not a doctor.

All in all, we were a sad little fraction of a crew. There had been just under two thousand people on the Kurain—and the survivors, injured, exhausted, and starving (there was no food in the base, not even a working synthesizer) numbered barely seven hundred. Everyone who wasn’t there… well, it had been a pretty big explosion, and people don’t just survive something like that.

The Captain wasn’t there. Nor was Kaminogi, nor any of their bridge staff. I was so busy frantically trying to make things work and somehow come up with a plan on how we’d get out of this mess that it didn’t hit me for a while—but I think subconsciously, it was on the back of my mind the entire time.

It was certainly on my mind when I saw Maya.

I saw her fairly early on, a momentary lull in the action that consisted mostly of me desperately making things up and hoping they’d work. She was sitting against the wall, nobody around to talk to—and the potted plant next to her didn’t exactly look conversational. Maya heard me as I approached, looked up, and smiled a tired smile.

At that moment, I was just so glad to see her alive and okay that I hadn’t really been expecting her to ask about her sister. The question hit like a punch from a prizefighter, right in the stomach.

Had I heard Mia’s last words? I’d been watching to see if the Captain’s Lifepod launched… but until the end, I hadn’t seen anything. Besides that, there had been something in her voice that sounded like she was trying to fight through an injury, and even though I wasn’t a Fey I had a hunch that it was fatal. All of that pointed to a very painful fact—Mia wasn’t there, and I didn’t think she’d be returning anytime soon. Or ever.

When Maya asked me about her sister’s fate, there was such a hope in her face that it made my heart stop for a moment. But I couldn’t lie to her like that. Still, I couldn’t have imagined ever having to tell anybody something this painful. I told Maya… the Captain’s Lifepod hadn’t launched. And that was that.

Still, the Captain’s younger sister remained optimistic—how, I still don’t have any idea. She reminded me that the lifepod meant for the Captain was special in that it had advanced medical technology as well as a Jump Drive. Maybe… she’d launched just at the end, and had Jumped to safety, which is why she wasn’t there? Even if she’d been unconscious, the AI was programmed to make a Jump automatically to friendly space, and to automatically make contact with HQ once it got there.

What she said was truth, to be sure. It was unlikely… but it was a chance.

When I’d talked to Mia in those last moments before the Kurain went up, she’d said something about Maya being alive—about Maya being okay. She was a Fey, yes, and had all of the strange powers that came with the heritage, and perhaps there was a stronger bond between the two due to their direct blood ties. She’d known that Maya would be all right… maybe Maya felt something of the same in regards to her sister?

Maybe she was just lying to herself. Still, as Maya smiled a forced but present smile at me, reminded me that there was still that hope and that she’d promised to take good care of her sister’s plant… and give it back to her… I couldn’t bring myself to tell her she was wrong. Besides, she still could have been right. We wouldn’t know for a while, after all.

After everyone was in as stable a condition as possible, we gathered up our tired, hungry, wounded and dead into the halls and cargo holds of the freighter, and left the shining crown of Yggdrasil with just a little more space debris in its orbit.

Once we arrived back on Persephone as a crew without a ship, there were endless hearings and debriefings on what had happened, with everybody from the ship’s janitors on up getting the full cross-examination. I probably answered the same questions over and over about fifty times in front of different tribunals and Intelligence committees. Larry and I were thanked for our actions after the battle and for thinking and acting quickly, and awarded the Golden Eagle for heroism in a hastily-arranged ceremony that was probably more to put a desperate positive spin on things than anything else.

We were all granted a long leave, and assigned to quarters in the main Fusegi base down on Odyssey in the meantime, since most of us didn’t exactly have a place to live anymore.

I’d been on Odyssey for about two weeks, finding that even the beautiful shores of the aqueous planet couldn’t quite soothe the restlessness I felt. I was called to the communications center one afternoon, because I, as everyone knew by then, was the heroic officer who saved the tragedy at Yggdrasil from becoming an unmitigated disaster, and it was information that concerned me.

It was also the information I’d been dreading hearing ever since we’d gotten back to friendly space. I’d told Command about the theory that perhaps Captain Fey’s lifepod had managed an emergency Jump, and they’d sent probes to the various points where she—or her pod’s AI—might have taken her. Even long after she should have arrived, they continued to search, perhaps looking to pick up a transmission of some sort.

But there wasn’t anything. With this, Mia Fey, Souryuu Kaminogi, and the rest of the Kurain’s bridge crew were officially and finally pronounced dead.

Back on Elli, I couldn’t have imagined telling someone as gentle and free-spirited as Maya anything more horrible than what I’d had to tell her then. But there had been hope… and as I walked through the halls to the temporary quarters she’d been assigned, I knew that I’d been wrong.

-----

Phoenix stood outside the cold gray door that led to Maya’s quarters, taking deep breath after deep breath and trying to finally muster the courage to ring the buzzer—he wasn’t doing too well on that front. It strike him that he would rather be any other place in the entire universe… cold vacuum, inside a blazing star, in a Federation prison on Elysium… rather than there.

His hand reached up to the buzzer, but paused. I can’t tell her this. I can’t tell her that her sister’s… that Mia is…

No, that was stupid. She needs to know, his exhausted conscience reminded him. And you need to tell her—nobody else. You owe it to her, and you owe it to her sister.

For a moment, the image of Maya wearing Mia’s Captain’s hat as she brought him lunch the other day popped into his mind, completely unbidden. Phoenix tried to push the picture away, trying to gather his strength. It was funny, wasn’t it? How he could risk his life in battle almost easily, but was terrified of what lay beyond the silent gray door…

The young pilot took a breath and pushed the buzzer. From inside, he could hear it ring, with a more ominous peal than he suspected its creators intended. “Come in,” Maya called from within.

If there were any other way, Phoenix would have gladly taken it. But Maya had to know. So, trying to fight the swelling lump in his throat, he stepped forward, the door slid open with barely a whisper, and entered Maya’s quarters. The lights were off, though the windows were open and she’d apparently been watching the sun begin to set. It was bare and Spartan—which made sense, since nearly everything they’d owned was now dust in orbit around Yggdrasil. The only ornamentation was the large potted plant off in a corner that it somehow hurt to look at.

When she saw it was him, her face brightened, and there was such an expression of hope on her features for the briefest of instants that it made Phoenix’s stomach twist. I... I can’t tell her this. Maya began to speak, to greet him, and then saw the look on her friend’s face… though she still bore the same optimistic smile, it suddenly seemed fragile, brittle.

“Maya…” began Phoenix, squeezing his eyes shut for an instant before opening them, forcing every word out like he was extracting a bullet from a wound. “I… just got word from Command about…”

Though he’d trailed off, it was clear that Maya knew what he was talking about. “…about Sis. Did they… did they find anything? Is she okay?” With the expression on his face and the somber tone in his voice, she had to have known what he was going to say—but she was trying fiercely to keep optimistic anyway.

For a long time, Phoenix didn’t say anything—he couldn’t. The words just wouldn’t come. At long last, he managed to squeeze every last syllable out from where they’d gotten caught behind his heart. “…they didn’t find anything. They… they looked, but there wasn’t anything, and so… they’re finally calling off the search.”

The young girl sat on the side of her bed, staring at the floor for a few long moments before looking up at Phoenix, the smile on her face now a pale ghost of its normal self, the corner of her mouth twitching once. “Well—just because they didn’t find anything… doesn’t mean she isn’t okay! She could have… she could have Jumped somewhere else for safety… or maybe her communications unit was damaged, or…”

“Maya.” Phoenix’s voice was hard, but he tried to make it as comforting as possible—but really, he’d never had to deal with something like this before, and every word he said just felt hollow and excruciatingly empty in his chest. “Maya,” he repeated, softer now. “I’m… I’m so sorry, Maya.”

Silence hung in the air in the small bedroom, and outside the window the sun began its daily descent down below the horizon. The young girl inclined her head for a moment, her long black hair spilling over her shoulder as she did so. “…I see,” she said at last, her voice dull and flat.

Really, Phoenix didn’t know what he’d been expecting from her. Maya was normally so perpetually cheery… he hadn’t known how she’d react to the news. Would she be angry? Would she break down in tears? Would she… would she accept it?

He hadn’t been expecting her to be this… blank, though. In some ways, it hurt Phoenix far more to see her like this than anything else.

Should I go? The young pilot stood there feeling awkward and completely helpless, more unsure what to do than he’d ever felt in orbit around Yggdrasil.

After what seemed like an eternity of silence, Maya stood up, though she continued looking at the floor, not coming anywhere near his gaze. Her voice was dull, flat, and excruciatingly empty as she practically whispered, “I need to water Charley.”

Phoenix continued to stand there feeling more and more useless by the moment as she walked—no, shuffled—over to the corner of the room, and grabbed a small white plastic watering can that had been lying next to the plant. Her motions were almost robotic as she crossed over to the small sink, turned on the water, and filled the can. Without saying a word, she returned to where her sister’s plant sat facing the setting sun, tilting the can and letting nourishing water drip onto its leaves and into its potted soil.

She stood, mechanically watering the large houseplant for what might have been a few seconds or might have been half an hour, not saying a word. Suddenly, Phoenix heard a different sound—a sniff—and upon closer inspection, she seemed to now be pouring the water into empty space beside the plant, but her attention was clearly elsewhere.

With a clatter, the watering can fell from her hand to the ground, and her knees buckled under her. Phoenix had already been moving as fast as he could, but he was still barely in time to catch her as she collapsed. He sunk to his knees, the spilled water spreading across the floor and soaking the legs of his pants, but he didn’t notice.

Maya’s small body was quaking now, trembling as she clung to him and finally let the tears flow—he could feel them, hot and wet against his shoulder as he held her simply because he didn’t know what else to do.

It wasn’t until then, as her body shook with each wracking sob in his arms, that he realized how small she was. How young she was—too young to be so alone.

Phoenix wrapped his arms around her as best as he could as Maya cried and the sun sank below the horizon, because there was nothing else for him to do.

-----

So... how's the first person part work at the beginnin?

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Grr double post

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~ desu no
It's vunderfull ~ That 1st person first bit made the whole thing more realistic.

GFIP, Urby's comic, gets its own page, because everyone wanted it to.
wait what


(At the other house so I'll be even less productive than usual dee dee-dee)

...And this would be a specimen of the very irritating double post desu no

Last edited by Urby on Sat May 26, 2007 4:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

*spontanious applause*
Very, very good CFTF. And I think the first-person worked well, it gave a more personal touch and showed what Nick was feeling better than third-person could, methinks.
*more applause*

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...test.

Did this thread break?

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Aaaah crap, I'm nearly crying. I TOLD myself I wouldn't, but goddamit, Maya's reaction was so sweet and just so heartbreakingly sad... gah.
God, I'm such a sap. >.>

Truly excellent work on the first-person narrative there; it was very Phoenix-ish and wasn't too angsty - which is what many people fall into the trap of doing when writing in FP.

But, God, the end of the chapter was brilliantly done; the emotions of poor Nick having to explain things - the way you described how difficult it was for him was amazing - and Maya's hopefulness turning to disblief and shock and then sadness... I knew you'd do a good job of this; I just wasn't expecting it to be this good.

I think this works as a whole chapter, with Phoenix having to tell Maya... (sniff)

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Ah... ah... AHH!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!
So much emotion, it's hard to hold back my tears. Poor Phoenix... poor Maya

I love it and wish for more!

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Three updates in two days. This has to be a record.

Um... yeah. I don't have anything else to say.

Oh, wait. Chapter Four.

That moved me to tears - and that just doesn't happen with writing. That just goes to show how well-written it was. Poor Maya...

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Part 4 uppp~!




My wrist started to hurt when I was drawing the last frame... I spent too much time drawing all those lines @_@...

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Oh snap, blood tears.

Clickmon, you are made of awesome and win and oh my GOD you're amazing, have a cookie please. I'm SO in your debt. If you want to keep drawing more comics of what happens... well, I'd love it, but I shan't impose on you like that.

I owe you like three Internets.

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Maybe this could be like one of those things where the series spawns multiple iterations that have slight variations between them (a la manga/anime, but in this case it's graphic novel vs text novel... wut?).

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Could be :P

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I can't believe this thing has almost 1000 replies.

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Well hey, I finally got over my GS3 spoilerophobia and read it (I just read all 4 chapters in one sitting XD) - dunno what I was worried about, there's no GS3 plotline spoilers at all and if there were I didn't identify them as such. You've managed to create a very convincing universe - the terms and descriptions flow so smoothly that it's like all these futuristic mechs, organisations and technology have been around for ages. It reminds me somewhat of Anne McCaffrey's writing. To design and write about such an alien universe that is yet so easy to integrate into as a reader, that is an amazing feat and you should be proud of yourself and your team. It's those little details that make such a drastically AU concept work really well. And don't listen to all those people accusing you of ripping off Gundam - this is a specialised fic for a specific fanbase, and because of that I think you have the right to include whatever works for the story. You've enough of your own touches to make it distinct, and for people like me who have never seen a Gundam series this story is thoroughly enjoyable.

Best of luck for future chapters - I look forward to reading them! Though stupid me just spoilered myself for what happens to Mia by reading the comics that were just posted ><; I thought I'd read through all the events that had happened so it was okay to click on them. Oh well!

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Aw, thanks for the kind words. Actually, though I'm taking a lot of VISUAL inspiration from various Gundam series... the only one I've ever actually seen more than ten episodes of is Wing, and I haven't actually even seen all of THAT. So... yeah :P

I'm really glad you're enjoying it, and yes, those comics, awesome as they are... should be under spoiler tags >.>

I mean, uh, they are, but you know what I meant. *cough*

Arcs Two and Three need more fleshing out. I'll probably do this at some point.

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I've been lurking since page 5...

And I created an account JUST to say that this project is amazing.

Seriously, words cannot express how much I enjoy this. Keep it up. I'm sure there are many people out there just like me who are amazed at what you guys are doing.

I'm really really really sorry I just seem to have dropped off of the face of the planet. I haven't. I could throw out excuses like 'I had no time' or 'I haven't drawn anything', but nothing should keep me away from the genius of Gyaku-MECHA!

I have been keeping up with TtB, though, thanks to Dannichu jumping me with it at every oppurtune moment (Which I'm not complaining about at all) and I would dance around, throw confetti and just generally fangirl to high heavens how much I love your writing, Funk, but no-one needs to hear my broken record of a spiel again. Though you can just say the word and I'll probably write a five page essay on how marvellous you are.

And WHOOOOOOO Clickmoooooooooooooooon~ I've been tempted many times to comic-ise scenes of Gyaku-MECHA, but I have no talent in that sort of area. I am impressed by your ability to draw Godot's hair. I find his harder that than a front view of Phoenix's, which is saying something.

And Thoroar, you are AWESOMESAUCE, 'cause you just gave me a huge morale boost. Thank you~

And in case I've missed anything-

ZOMG EVERYONE YOU'RE JUST SO WONDERFUL AND BRILLIANT AND GLORIOUS AND AND AND MY THEASARUS ISN'T ENOUGH TO FULLY DESCRIBE HOW GREAT YOU GUYS ARE

CAPSLOCK MAKES ME HAPPY

~Zizzo

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Essay. Now.

(Just kidding)

<3 Zizz

Thanks to everyone who commented :)

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Oh Zizzo, how you make me giggle with your fangirlishness.
[/hypocracy]

Anyways, since our scanner's gone, I'm now only able to upload pictures via our digital camera, which is a pain because you lose A LOT of the quality in the process.

Nevertheless, we DO have arts. Not sure if I'm supposed to post them here (haven't asked Zizzo yet...), but here we go anyways.

Profile pictures of Nick, Edgey, Mia and Maya. Drawn by Zizzo, coloured by me... and between us we never got around to finishing Mia's eyes O.o And I wasn't sure what colour Miles' flightsuit-thing is supposed to be... I was going to go with obvious pinkish-purple, but I wanted to check first.

Fran. Who apparently gets a page all to herself. :D I wasn't sure which colours to use on her, either...

Fran so you can see our weird messaging to each other. xD Zizzo's the one with super-awesome writing... I'm the one with the disjointed scrawl of a five-year-old.

So yeah, these aren't finished, but at least it's something. I'm feeling bad for not contributing anything for so long. >.>
'Specially since Clickmon's comics are 49483 shades of <3

what happened to the scanner D:

Good stuff :D

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Well, it still works, I just don't have anything to plug it into - we finally got rid of our old, crap desktop and got a new one. Except we can't make it work. >.> Hopefully it'll be up and running soon, though, so it's not a permanent thing. It's just a bit of a pain.

Unfortunate! D:

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It is... but at least I finally figured out how Macro works on the digicam so the pictures taken with it don't look too bad.

Which reminds me:

OMGWTF?

"... this seems like a bad rip-off of every Gundam ever made, somehow." - LazyCatfish27, in response to chapter 4 on FF.net.

O.O That... hurts. Really, really badly. So much I want to laugh... but also want to cry. It's actually quite an odd feeling.

well, looking at what HE puts out (and the fact that he seriously supports Matt/Adrian as a couple)... the fact that he doesn't like it actually seems like more of a compliment than anything to me >.>

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Hooray for awsome new chapters! And I'm alive, incase you were wondering. XD I'm thinking through my plans for World Domination my 'THINKER' short story and it made me think about canonicity and extended universe.

In the centre we have the G-Canon which the main novel written by Funk, Clickmons manga and any animé series that may be produced in the future (Heres hoping :3). Then we have the next layer of canon (S Canon) which is media comisioned or approved by Funky that either presents a side story that links to the plot (Like 'THINKER') or shows a part of the series from another angle (I wanted to make a story from the point of view of the Berry Experienced mechanics :) ). The rest is fan-art or fan fiction which is not canonically correct (Unless Funk decides it is, then it gets moved up to S Canon)

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I peeked at the reviews on FF.net. Oh lawd, I wouldn't be able to stomach that. I'd panic and hide in a hole.
Which is why I don't write fanfiction anymore. Comics are go ~ Heehee, giggles!

Is there any reason for the letters, Gerku? Forgive me if I'm overlooking something obvious...

Banners soon desu. I have one finished and I know a design for another. A third may come about if I'm lucky.


Also, we're approaching 1000 replies! We should celebrate ~