S4E18: Downpour

'''With The General's involvement with the Sayans all but confirmed, RAG begins searching for a way to deal with this grave new threat. ...But The General may have struck first. Many worlds have suddenly gone silent for unknown but well-suspected reasons, and the Sayan Squad is dispatched to seek out the truth. '''

What answers await them on planet Baur...?

Plot Summary
Several weeks after the Earth M573 mission, Terminos announces that Arachnos, Oneiros, and himself completed work on a new project. Taking Olyn and Kanako to the labs, the ex-spiders unveiled a specialized suit of armor for Kanako and Arachnos. This armor would grant its wearers a boost in power comparable (though not equal) to that of the Mimics, thus giving them a greater fighting chance when going against The General. The suits also contained a feature allowing the unlock of abilities previously lost, such as Arachnos' divine abilities that were sacrificed when his connection to Arachna was severed.

This unveiling was interrupted by the base going on red alert. All combat personnel were told to report to their immediate superiors for an emergency briefing, and in the case of the Sayan Squad, this meant Amadeus. They rushed to his office, were they found him panting and out of breath, himself from running. However, they discovered that the G Squadron members were missing, sans Ketsueki (who ran in late). Amadeus informed them that due to the new situation, Amadeus required G Squadron elsewhere. However, because he believed the Sayan Squad still required Mimic support, Ketsueki was kept on Yeshaida's recommendation.

Amadeus then explained the situation and their mission. Multiple important worlds with a RAG presence had suddenly gone silent, and with some audio recordings to back them up, High Command suspected Sayan involvement. Furthering this was that the worlds silenced coincided with several of The General's Head's recent travels. The Sayan Squad's mission was to take the Vulture to planet Baur, where until recently the Rebellion was engaged in a thick battle with The General's forces. They were to confirm a Sayan presence, and also to determine what exactly happened. It was noted that the sounds picked up by the recordings, while almost definitely containing Sayans, were not congruent with a successful Sayan "birth." Amadeus granted Arachnos and Kanako the green light for use of their suits, and told them to report to the hangar immediately for departure.

Even from orbit the Sayan Squad and the Vulture's crew could tell something was wrong with Baur. Large, unnatural red splotches were visible on the planet's surface. Amadeus ordered the Vulture to take a closer look. A red mist composed of a new breed of spores had covered the atmosphere. This spore was claimed to not have any specific genetic material encoded into it, but rather something designed to weaken the links between DNA strands and make the afflicted more vulnerable to mutation.

They found a city nearly completely covered in the terraformer, as well as smoke from the previous battle. However, no further fighting was seen, and the surface was uncomfortably still. Just then, Saiyo noticed a large red object on a collision course with the Vulture. Acting quickly, she slammed into the controls, forcing the Vulture into a dive. The ship's helmsman managed to level the ship off, however it was soon caught in a web of red material. The Anathemites could barely make a scratch in the tendrils, and nobody else could do anything. Stranded on a hostile world, Amadeus ordered a distress signal be sent out, and that the Anathemites continue to try and cut the ship loose, since they were the only ones to have any effect. Everyone else was sent to the ground to continue the mission.

Their investigation led them to the nearby city, where they found the bodies of The General's and the Rebellion's soldiers alike. At first, the bodies appeared to have died from wounds inflicted over the course of a battle. Blaster shot wounds, mangled pieces found by shrapnel, presumably destroyed by grenades. However, the closer to the city they got, the stranger the sights became. Bodies lying face down and pointing away from the ctiy, as if running from something. Bodies showing signs of being dragged and stabbed in the back. Further inward things took a turn for the disturbing as horribly mutated and malformed bodies that were scracely recognizable from their original forms they dead in unnatural contortions.

The Sayan Squad stumbled upon one of these that, though it seemed like it should have been dead, it was not. It begged and pleased for help with all the strength it could muster, somehow still alive and in pain unimaginable. Ultimately the Sayan Squad put the former man out of his misery, but this awake the sleeping horde. Sayans, hundreds of them, resembling the mangled corpses, descended from buildings or climbed out of alleys. Unwilling to face an entire Sayan horde, the Sayan Squad made a hasty retreat, with the horde hot on their tail. Saiyo was pulled down before they were clear of the city, and was about to be stabbed by a Sayan with a barbed tentacle. She was saved at the last moment by Ketsueki and Kanako, with the former taking her until Jack stole her away.

As they were fleeing the city, The General's Head arrived, and began to fire upon them. Pinned between it and the Sayan horde, Amadeus ordered them to regroup at the Vulture to try and hold the line while the Anathemties continued their efforts to free the suspended vessel. Arachnos objected, citing that they'll lead the Head to their ticket home. However, he was reminded that the Vulture had shields, weapons that could fight off the Sayans, and that in all liklihood the Head knew it was present already and would go for it first. Conceding the point, Arachnos joined the Sayan Squad in regrouping. Jack, Saiyo in his arms, decided not to. Jack tried to convince Saiyo to come with him, while they abandoned the rest of the team. Jack saw the battle as futile, and was planning to use their supposedly feeble efforts as a distraction while he and his sister fled to hide. Saiyo refused, belieivng herself responsible for stranding them on the planet in the first place. She threw herself out of Jack's arms, saying she'd die with them if that was the end. Jack, his only family taking the choice from his hands, had no choice but to fight with the rest of the Squad, though now he had gained the Squad's animosity for his attempts ot abandon them.

While the Anathemites furiously worked to break the Vulture free, the rest of the Squad desperately tried to hold off the Sayans whilst also dodging blasts from the Head as it pulled ever closer. Hood decided to taunt and play with the Rebels, purposely using less effective blasts to weaken them and the Vulture little by little. And then he took them by surprise, unleashing a violent barrage that nearly destroyed the Vulture. A particularly violent beam erupted from the Head to finish the job, forcing the Anathemites to try and repel it. Terminos and Oneiros made a portal that harnessed the beam, and used it to cut the remaining strands, setting the Vulture free. It began to rapidly ascent, forcing the Squad to scramble to board it.

However, the battle was not quite over yet. With the Vulture free and taking to the air, Hood decided that he had had enough fooling around and unleashed another barrage at the rebel carrier. The Vulture would not have survived the next salvo, but suddenly a white light stopped the barrage, summoned by a hazy figure. The figure, who had the same voice as the one who announced the Anathemites' Manifestations and Awakenings, claimed that it was "not yet time." The mysterious force was strong enough to repel the Head's assault, apparently with enough power to break the measuring scale seven times over. Once the air was clear, the figure vanished, and the Vulture had a second chance to escape. Amadeus hurriedly ordered that the helmsman divert all power to the engines and charge directly at the Head. As a result, this threw off the aim of the Head's follow-up attacks, and at the last moment the Vulture made a reverse-jump into the warp tunnel.

As a result of the desperate gambit, the Vulture lost an entire engine and its Warp Generator, forcing them to make another distress call. However, they were safe. While they waited, the Sayan Squad reported their findings to Amadeus. Amadeus noted that nothing they saw was in-line with a sueccesul Sayan "birth." Sayans tended to not have barbed tentacles, nor did their victims die upon being morphed. With this information, he concluded that the events on Baur and the other silenced worlds were all an experiment, testing out a new breed of Sayan that could mutate other creatures into Sayans without needing to breed. He went on to further claim that this incident and the incident on Earth M573 were all a prelude to invasion, and that it could only mean The General was getting ready to unleash his Sayan project on the Omniverse.

The subject of their mysterious savior was also brought up. Nobody had any idea who it was, and its power was on par with that of Anathemus. However, Anathemus hated the Anathemites, so they decided it could not have been them. The identiy of this "guardian angel" eluded them, but they believed it was watching over them, since the beginning and even now.

Soundtrack

 * 1) Opening Theme - Dream a Dream (Pop It Don't Drop It edit)
 * 2) Red Alert - Boss (Super Mario Land) (Arrangement)
 * 3) Briefing - Main Theme (Star Wars: Rogue Squadron)
 * 4) The Threat is Real - Environmental Sound (Intrigue)
 * 5) The Foundations of Belief - Nightmare (Nox Arcana)
 * 6) Baur - Robo-Creeping (Duke Nukem 3D)
 * 7) Carnage - The Forgotten (Nox Arcana)
 * 8) The Sayan Horde - Vs. Ridley (Metroid Prime 2: Echoes unused extension)
 * 9) Arrival of the Head - Gauntlet (Warhawk)
 * 10) Assault of the Head - Enginetica (The Enigma TNG)
 * 11) Hold Them Off! - Nazi Zombie Princess Kenny (South Park: The Stick of Truth)
 * 12) Desperate Gambit - Non Fieri Possum (Madoka Magica Portable)
 * 13) Shadow of the Dark One - $#^$@
 * 14) The Threat is Real - Pinwheel (Dark Souls)
 * 15) Ending Theme - Main Theme (Sonic: Time Attacked)

Trivia

 * This was the first episode to run after another long hiatus due to inactivity.
 * Consequently, this was the first episode to be completely run without Aurion's involvement.
 * SDM has confirmed that the figure that saved them is the same being as the one who announced their Manifestations and Awakenings, as well as the one who received Executor after his final death. This being is also the one responsible for revealing the "tail" during the events of Hellgate 2 Part I, for helping the "Hellgate Crew" break free of the Black Spawn's grip of despair in Hellgate 2 Part II, as well as the reason SDM reformed himself during the prologue for the Hellgate Gaiden.
 * SDM has also affirmed that he could have used other methods to save the Vulture, but decided it was better to re-introduce this being, teasing that this mysteirous figure will play a large role in revelaing the "truth" of the Anathemites.
 * This was the first episode of Season 4 to use Anathemus' theme.