Guns, fatigues, and space cards

            “Wait,” Makoto said, his eyes wide with shock, “you mean you’re in your combat uniforms now?”

            US Army Captain Cassidy Jackson, who had gone through this with every other member of Tokyo’s Century Typhoon (CEN-TY) anti-monster defense force, sighed.  “Yes, Corporal Makoto, our grey fatigues are our combat uniform.  We showed up in what we had.” She punctuated her sentence with a sharp look to her right, where the other two members of her squad were seated on the CEN-TY troop carrier’s bench, trying not to laugh as they watched their CO explain something so simple without yelling.  Nobody had cracked up yet, but Cassidy had resolved that whoever broke first was getting thrown out of the troop bay.  The entire squad could survive such a fall, equipped as they were with a full paratrooper’s kit, but no solution was perfect.

            “Wow, that’s strange,” Makoto said.  The veteran CEN-TY trooper, scarcely over fifteen years old and sporting long, flowing blue hair that rested on the shoulders of his all-black school uniform, unconsciously fiddled with his shiny card-reader belt buckle.  “We don’t suit up until the fighting starts.”

            “We noticed,” Private O’Leary said.  Cassidy whipped around to the grunt, her dark face red with rage and fixed in a wicked glare, but the greenhorn didn’t seem to notice his CO’s wrath.  He continued speaking in his Jersey accent, smirking.  “Where’s your gun, kid?”

            “Oh, no, no.  I’m Blue.  Yellow has a gun, Blue has a chakram.”  Makoto reached into his pocket, emerging with two small, silver rings.  He said something in Japanese and they suddenly flattened out, expanding into shining, razor-thin circles just too small to fit over his head.  Makoto started tossing them into the air, expertly catching the spinning blades between his fingertips.  If he touched the blades too early, they would slice through his fingers like a hot knife through hot butter.  Too late, and they would embed themselves in the bottom of the troop transport, and possibly cut all the way through.  O’Leary didn’t appreciate the skill on display, sniggering as one of the other CEN-TY troopers called Makoto over.  “I’ll be right back,” he said, the chakram shrinking as he jogged towards his friends.

            “He doesn’t even have a gun!” O’Leary whispered incredulously.  “He’s got fucking toys, but no gun! Can you guys believe that shit?”

            “They probably can believe that shit, O’Leary,” Cassidy snarled, “because they, unlike you, are not fucking morons.  Tell me, O’Leary, what was your first mission?”

            It started to sink in for O’Leary that he was no longer in boot camp, and that the professionalism expected during actual missions may exceed that expected during training missions.  “This is my first mission, sir,” he said.

            “How many giant monsters have you killed so far, O’Leary?”

            “None, sir.”

            “The trained professional over there you laughed at used those ‘toys’ of his to kill Space Garganturex, on his first mission.”  O’Leary was slack-jawed and deathly pale, and Cassidy didn’t hesitate to go for the killing blow.  “He was twelve years old.”

            “Jesus Christ, sir, I didn’t know,” O’Leary whispered.  “I swear I wouldn’t have said anything if I had known.”

            “You would have known if you had read the briefing, O’Leary,” Cassidy said.  “The briefing made it pretty clear that CEN-TY is not to be fucked with, even if you’re four hundred feet tall and can shoot atomic ray beams from your space crystals.  Sergeant Wong, how many space crystals does O’Leary have?”

            Wong scratched his bristly stubble and leaned over, so he could look past his captain and get a good look at O’Leary.  “I don’t think he has any, sir.”

            “Not a single one,” Cassidy agreed.  “O’Leary, if you keep your mouth shut for the rest of this mission, I might let you wash your toothbrush after you clean the latrines with it.”

            “Yes, sir,” O’Leary said glumly.  That was something that hadn’t changed from boot camp.

            Cassidy took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled.  It didn’t help her relax.  This situation was weird to her, as well, but orders were orders.  CEN-TY was a bunch of kids that looked like they sprinted through the eighties covered in glue and content to wear whatever stuck, but they were by far the planet’s best anti-monster fighting force, with fifteen confirmed kills and ten times that many nonlethal victories.  Even if Cassidy wanted to do more than simply observe the team as they fought Salamandro Sigma, and report what she saw to her superiors, her squad had neither the equipment nor training to be any significant help.  Being useless baggage by itself was new for Cassidy, but useless baggage to a bunch of kids was hard to wrap her head around.  Still, she did her best not to show it in front of the men.  And despite a rough first day, her boyfriend Mark had adapted to the diplomatic situation like a champ.  She just had to try harder.

            “Sir?” Cassidy snapped out of her inner thoughts; she had slumped over, her hands resting on her assault rifle and her head drooped down.

            “I’m fine.  What is it, Sergeant?”

            Wong pointed towards the back-end of the troop transport, which was starting to rumble as an armored latch started to slide open.  In an American troop carrier, this would have meant the inhabitants without the foresight to strap in would risk getting sucked out by the sudden change in air-pressure and the harsh winds.  But Japanese craft were surrounded by an energy shield, a yellow flickering amongst the clouds visible just outside of the door.  Cassidy had often wondered whether they could determine the color the energy shield would be, and if they coordinated it to match the bright purple color of the vehicle.

            “Oi, Captain.”  The leader of the CEN-TY, an older (so mid-twenties) man with a topknot and an eyepatch wearing black leather pants and a bright-red motorcycle jacket, walked over to Cassidy and gave a quick salute.  “We’re going to deploy now.  We’re not near a city, so if anything happens to us the pilot has been instructed to fly towards the sea and to dock at the military base there instead of returning to Tokyo.  Just so you know.”

            Cassidy returned the salute.  “Thank you for the heads-up, Commander Kazama.  Good luck.”

            Nodding, Kazama lined up with the rest of his team.  Suddenly, they moved as one, posing dramatically as he led them in their battle cry.  “Orphans, born without a past! Vagabonds, living without a future! Five chosen youths, brains aching with genius, hearts bursting with spirit, muscles brimming with vigor, spleens dripping with antibodies! Doomed to obscurity until chosen by the Space Energen Cards as the reincarnations of the chosen warriors, we are!”

            “CEN-TY!”

            “WE ARE!”

            “CEN-TY”

            “WE ARE!”

            “CEN-TY! DEPLOY!” With that, the teenagers all whipped out thin, shiny pieces of metal, each elaborately engraved with their color and weapons.  Kazama went first, sprinting towards the exit as he inserted his card into his belt buckle.

            “A crimson flame, erupting from the Earth and burning bright as youth! Century Typhoon Red!” Cassidy only caught a glimpse of his final transformation before he jumped—his broadsword on his back, shining, bright-red armor with a black stripe crossing from his right shoulder to his left hip, and a matching black visor in his otherwise smooth helmet—but then he was out of the plane, a trail of explosions following him.

            “Relax, O’Leary,” Cassidy said, as O’Leary jumped at the sudden booms, “they’re supposed to do that.  That’s why they jump before they fully transform.”

            Blue was next.  “An azure whirlpool, sucking darkness and evil to the bottom of the sea! Century Typhoon Blue!” He leapt out of the troop transport, chakram spinning in his hands as he fell, at the exact moment that Salamandro Sigma leapt into the air and tried to smash the flying craft.

            Everyone lurched as the rarely used vertical thrusters went online and shot the craft a mile above Salamandro Sigma’s massive, slimy brown hands.  The rest of the CEN-TY leapt out at the same time, choosing rapid deployment over dramatic entrances.  “Fuck it,” Cassidy growled, grabbing her rifle and standing out of her seat.  “If the monster is trying to swat us out of the sky I’m not planning on sitting back and observing shit.  Wong! O’Leary! Weapons ready!”

            Without hesitation her squadmates stood upright, readying their rifles as they followed their Captain towards the still-open troop drop-off.  Even from so high up, they could see that things weren’t going smoothly.  CEN-TY had already summoned their robomiliars and combined into their giant rainbow-colored CEN-TY ROBO-X form, but even their final form was struggling against Salamandro Sigma.  The slimy beast had some kind of sixth sense, and was able to either dodge or wriggle out of every attack the team threw at it.  “It doesn’t look like they can hit it,” Wong said.

            “No shit,” Cassidy replied.  “And we’re not going to do jack to it with our pea shooters.

            O’Leary didn’t say anything.  He suddenly aimed his rifle and started firing at the monster.  He was only shooting in bursts and would adjust his aim as the ship lurched to and fro; he was clearly going for accurate shots.

            “You fucking idiot,” Cassidy yelled, “are you actually trying to kill that thing?”

            “No, sir,” O’Leary responded, lining up another shot, “I’m trying to piss it off.”

            It only took a second for Cassidy to catch on.  “Not bad, O’Leary,” she said, resolving to let him scrub the latrines back at base with a sponge instead of his toothbrush, “but regular shots won’t do it.  Switch to incendiary.”  After a second of fumbling with their clips, the squad was soon firing flaming bursts at the monster below them.  At first it didn’t seem like it was having any effect on Salamandro Sigma, but Cassidy managed to tag it in its eyeball, and the slimy amphibian wasn’t happy about that.  Shrieking, it crouched and leapt back up at the troop carrier, trying to catch it again between its two hands…

            But, much to the monster’s confusion, it stopped just short of the craft, unable to reach it.  Cassidy peered down and whooped in delight; CEN-TY ROBO-X had caught the monster by either leg, holding it up in the air.  Salamandro Sigma squealed, trying to wriggle out of the robot’s grasp, but its grip was tight.  With a roar, CEN-TY ROBO-X pulled its arms apart, peeling the monster apart like a band-aid.  The squad cheered as bright green blood and massive chunks of viscera rained down to the Earth below.

            Kazama’s voice sounded over the transport’s intercom.  “CEN-TY owes you a debt of gratitude, Captain Jackson; that distraction maneuver was brilliant.  The next three alien trading cards we find are going right to you and your squad.”

            Cassidy, Wong, and O’Leary looked at each other nervously, but none of them were about to refuse.  They weren’t about to turn down the greatest technological advancement in the past half-century of the US Army, even if they all knew they couldn’t pull off a chant as well as CEN-TY could.