Title: Reality Check
Fandom: Magic Knight Rayearth
Rating: PG
Length: 1000 words
Content notes: Giant robot vs giant creature (mostly from a distance)
Author notes: Giant!Robot AU - first time the three girls are out to face a creature for real.
Summary: Umi finds the creature horribly real; Clef finds watching just horrible.

oOo

When Umi first faced a creature in real life, not the virtual one of the training sims of watching any of the scientific documentaries (or the horrible and horribly addictive dramas which even the general public could tell had nothing to do with reality – which was, in the end, rather the point of them…), all she could take in was the smell. Nothing so incorporeal should be able to reach her though the armour of Selece’s hull, and yet she could never have imagined something like this. It smelt like – rust. Rust and seaweed abandoned on the shore just long enough to be covered in flies, and then again it smelt of leather somehow. A leather chair dropped in the ocean and still dripping wet, but starting to go mouldy besides – and all the nails in it rusting.

Somehow that made it terribly, impossibly real. She watched through Selece’s view-panels as it reared up from the ocean, waterfalls crashing down from the ridged back. She could make out the serrated edges of the scales on its shoulders and legs even from at this distance. And it wasn’t unlike some of the creatures which had surfaced in the past – and yet, instead of planning how to approach, the only thought in her head was simply ‘what on earth are we doing here?’

They weren’t ready for this. How could they be? How could anyone ever be ready for this? The creature was something from a writer’s half-asleep mind at four in the morning with a deadline looming. It didn’t belong in this place, with them.

But here it was, and the smell which pervaded the air even in the con-pod made it undeniable. The impasse between reality and disbelief had her frozen, watching it, for the space of one long breath.

Selece’s engines thrummed louder, rattling her in the rig and snapping her limbs into action – or reaction, at least, the months of training kicking in. (And the way that it shifted and lowered the bulk of its weight before it charged – that she knew, and there was a very small voice in the back of her mind making note she owed Clef a thank you.)

Probably Selece had reacted to the tension which had held her immobile – now, he responded textbook-perfect to her cues, as she flung them forward to meet the charge, fighting the drag of the water and of her fear. Hikaru and Fuu were already moving, but she was closer, and as she moved the thing focused its attention on her: that was fine, that was what she wanted. If it faced her, then she had a good shot at the neck, where the scales looked smallest.

The most vulnerable.

She grit her teeth, and swung.

oOo

There was a smaller room set aside from the control room, meant for confidential video-calls and meetings with only two or three attendees: Clef had slipped into it as the control room grew more crowded with people waiting to see what happened. His own tension was bad enough, he wasn’t going to stew in the middle of a crowd.

He flinched when the door opened, Emeraude slipping inside; she nodded at the live feed he was watching, face splashed with the blue and grey of the scene. “Umi hesitated longest.”

Clef nodded, holding his breath a second longer as Selece struck – and then disengaged to let Rayearth slam through with another attack. They were working together just as they’d been taught – good. That was good. “She’s got the strongest survival instinct of the three, of course she paused longest. Her mind’s probably shouting about how nonsensical it is to be fighting a monster in a giant tin-can!”

His voice, at least, was steady. And it wasn’t like she could see his right arm, still hidden in a sling, so why care that his hand was in a fist tight enough to send an ache rattling up through the still-healing bones to his elbow? The view on the screen was a hundred times more important than his reactions to it. But he was uncomfortably certain he must look paler than he had since he came off the heavy painkillers a fortnight ago – Emeraude glanced at him more than once, and let the ‘monster’ comment pass unchallenged.

But she didn’t ask how he was, or anything as foolish, and focused on the screen as he was doing.

Windam – Fuu – was working her way about behind the creature, while Rayearth and Selece took turns aiming for the more vulnerable spots and keeping it distracted. He couldn’t see why. “She has to have a plan… the reading’s say the pulse on her right arm is almost fully charged, but what’s she going to do with it…”

“She won’t get through the armour on the back of it, not even with the upgraded systems on the Mark Nines.”

“They know that – if only it was giving Umi or Hikaru long enough to charge something, they’re getting blows to all the right places- oh!”

“What?” Emeraude looked at him, and therefore missed the moment when Windam thumped one arm into the creature’s spine – doing no damage, but causing it to turn right into the other one, glowing with a full charge, swung straight into its neck and detonated. “…Ah. That was the plan, I take it?”

“Spotted her angling herself for it.” Umi had charged her own weapons as the creature turned to Fuu; now, as it sunk down into the water, she got in two unimpeded shots to the chest. There wasn’t enough left for it to possibly be alive. “…Simple, and effective. I should have guessed that.”

Emeraude smiled, then. “You were worried about your trainees. Understandable, but adrenaline doesn’t help with on-the-spot analysis very much. Otherwise, though, you and Ferio were right – they’re ready to be out there. As much as anyone can be.”

“Well, that’s why we have so much training for facing them, I guess. Cuts the need for actual thinking when there’s adrenaline involved. Pity there’s nothing comparable to teach me how to stand about watching.”

“Practise.” Emeraude told him, patting him on the shoulder – the good one. “…Lots of practise, in your case.” She turned away, and slipped back out into the main room; Clef could hear people applauding through the open door.

(And logic had told every single one of them that the three girls should be more than capable of taking this creature down, quickly – logic had been right. But logic had very little to do with the dizziness which had settled low in his chest the moment Emeraude ordered the Mark Nines deployed.)

“…Let’s hope I don’t have to practise that often.” He muttered, reaching to switch off the screen before he followed her out.

oOo