Episode 1

[Opening Theme: “Violet Skies” by In This Moment] <https://youtu.be/WsS5yzkgui0>

“A Mecha Falls to Earth!
The Magical Girl Needs My Help!
Now She’s in My Bedroom?”

It was quite late, well after midnight, but Matt had to watch it just one more time before going to bed. He took his web browser back to the video and hit play.

“There’s been another remarkable incident in Bensonville today, our Debbie Woods is still in town there with the story. Debbie?”

“Thanks, Richard. Another attack, and another save by the hometown hero calling herself Cheer Raider. This time in broad daylight, in a shopping center parking lot. We have exclusive footage gathered by eyewitnesses.”

“Baton Twirl Blazing Shield!” the girl dressed as a cheerleader shouted in the smartphone video that had captured some of the action. Matt had spent the better part of the evening, after the report had first aired, learning more than he’d ever wanted to know about cheerleader uniforms in order to analyze what she was wearing. The sleeveless top or “shell” was primarily red, while the striped trim at the top and bottom, more properly called the braid, was arranged yellow-white-orange-white-yellow. It had a “sweetheart neck”, which meant a sort of crooked V shape rather than a straight V, and the bottom was also cut in a wide V shape, high enough to expose her midriff. It said “Cheer” on the front, in the typical all-caps serif block letters, colored white with a yellow border. He also couldn’t help but notice that she filled it out well, she definitely had a nice set of tits underneath.

The skirt was red as well, cut in a 16 pleat style generally known as “fly away”, which meant the individual pleats were not connected to each other and fast movement would cause them to rise up away from her legs due to centripetal force. This revealed that the undersides were colored in alternating orange and yellow, and showed her red briefs, also known variously as bloomers, spankies, or lollies. Each pleat ended with a V shape as well, known as “gladiator” style, decorated in the same braid scheme. At the other end of her long, sexy legs, her shoes were the typical plain white, but they resembled hiking boots more than they did athletic shoes.

Also, unusual for a cheerleader but prudent for battle, she wore a helmet. It had an open-faced style that didn’t cover her mouth or jaw. The yellow-tinted visor was chevron-shaped, coming to a point at her nose and sweeping back into pointed tips on either side of the helmet. The top of the helmet was white while the sides and back, below the visor, were red. A single braid of blonde hair came out from under the helmet in the rear and reached halfway down her back.

The shield she had called for formed in front of her twirling baton, glowing sparks shooting from its circumference, and protecting her from the long chains that a monstrous creature was flailing around. A voice-over from Debbie said, “This was the scene here earlier today, where this chain-wielding creature started attacking everything in sight, including these shoppers and their cars. Suddenly, a savior arrived. The mysterious Cheer Raider appeared and attacked, ultimately defeating the monster.” The video showed the girl impaling the creature with a spear- or pike-style weapon. “This is the second such attack to take place here in Bensonville. The first was less than a week ago, and I was able to speak with the local police officers that witnessed that event.”

“Damnedest thing I’ve ever seen, I can tell you that. We thought it was a guy in a costume at first, but it wrecked a power transformer with its big pincers like it was nothing. We got our of our car and shouted at it, but that just drew its attention to us.”

The second cop continued, “We shot at it, that didn’t do any good. We got back in the car, but it started tearing into it, ripped our engine completely apart.”

The first cop resumed, “Then she was there, hitting it with fireballs out of nowhere. Then she switched to a megaphone that send out a big blast wave, and the creature just exploded.”

The second cop finished, “We got back out of the car, we didn’t know what the hell we just saw, so we asked her. All she said was her name is Cheer Raider, then she took off running, did some flips, and vanished into mid-air.”

The video returned to the then-live shot of Debbie. “So far nothing further is known about the invading creatures or the mysterious defender, but officials here say there may very well be more attacks. Reporting live from Bensonville, Debbie Woods, KHNT 34 Action News. Back to you, Richard.” The video ended there.

It really was a real live magical girl. These things weren’t supposed to happen outside of comics and television. Yet it was happening, and not in Tokyo, not in any big western city either, but here in suburban Oklahoma. Matt was so excited at the prospect that he wasn’t sure he could sleep, even given the late hour. He needed to try anyway, and shut his bedroom lights off.

Before he had a chance to settle in and close his eyes, he noticed the unusual bright light outside. He went to the window to see, but his view was obstructed. He raised the window, undid the latches on the screen, and pulled it inside. His window was over the front porch roof, and he crawled outside onto it for a better look. He was just in time to see the fireball streak low across the sky with a roar, and land with an mighty crash in the forest preserve outside town. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed.

Monsters and magical girls were momentarily forgotten at the prospect of a fresh meteorite crater within easy reach. He would have to take his bicycle; if he took the car it would leave him on foot in the woods, plus it might wake his parents.

With flashlights tied down to his handlebars and using his smartphone’s GPS receiver to keep track of his search pattern, Matt rode through the trees looking for the second most incredible thing to happen in town since, well, ever. Even sooner than he’d hoped, he found the swath of damaged trees, their tops demolished, and followed it to the crash site.

He was amazed to find, rather than a space rock, a giant humanoid form sprawled out on its side against some intact trees, having apparently been thrown from the impact. It appeared to be composed completely from a black-colored metallic material. A green glow spilled out from various vents across its body, but shone most prominently from the angled eyes. Electrical sparks and fumes billowed out from several points of damage. It had been a hard landing. “Fucking shit, no way,” Matt said in amazement. He freed one of his flashlights and carefully crept closer. He estimated it was about thirty-five or forty feet tall. The head had a decidedly feline look to it, with pointed ears on top and a snout with pointed teeth around the mouth, though they appeared to be decorative only. Other than that, it was clearly designed for function over form, as the body was fairly plain and without ornamentation, no extraneous spikes, fins, giant shoulder guards, or anything of the sort. “Hello? Can any life form hear me?” Matt said nervously.

A section of armor was hanging forward off its belly area. Matt approached it slowly. The flashlight beam showed a seam in the metal there. He reached out and touched it, and the panels popped inward, then slid sideways in either direction, revealing the inside. It was a cockpit, and an empty one at that. “It’s a mecha. An extraterrestrial mecha,” Matt whispered with amazement. Rather than a seat with controls, the cockpit was a fully open space with a remote manipulation armature in the center, held in place by a support beam to the rear. Mechanical limbs attached to the pilot’s, and his movements would be copied by the larger robot. Potentially very user-friendly. The space required to allow the pilot a full range of motion also explained why the mecha had a bit of a potbellied appearance.

Everything was on its side, but Matt stepped in for a better look, walking on the cockpit wall. As he reached out to touch the armature, a sparkling mist sprayed onto him from the cockpit ceiling. He wondered what it was, and then he started screaming and fell to his knees, clutching his head.

“Aaaaaah! Stop! It’s too much, too fast! Stop! Stop! No more!” He was able to bring his hands down as the pain ebbed. “That’s better,” he said. “I can’t process that much at once, so you’re going to have to keep it closer to a need-to-know basis, okay? Right. So, neural interface nanites? That makes me the official pilot? Awesome. My very own space alien battle robot. Hey, that’s one letter off from a pretty sweet acronym. So then E is for ... exoframe. And your face looks like an animal we have here called a panther, so I’ll call you SABRE Panther.”

Matt pulled himself up into position in the armature, and it attached around him, automatically adjusting to his body size. He noted that there were only four fingers to the armature gloves, leaving his pinkies free. The species that built Panther must only have had four. “It’s a good thing you have self-repair nanites too, because I certainly wouldn’t know how to fix you. Alright, then let’s see how the mobility works,” he said. The cockpit hummed to life, and he could see the woods outside around him. He tested an arm. “Nice response. Smooth and instantaneous.” He got to his feet and looked around. He put his hand up onto one of the trees and pushed. It felt solid. “Force feedback to the armature, nice. What else can you show me, anything else online yet?”

He heard some mechanical movement from behind him and then a solid clunk as something latched into place. He reached an arm back behind his head and took hold of the handle that was there. He felt the thing release from Panther’s back and brought it forward. The handle had telescoped out from a round central core, which also held two semicircular blades. “An axe. Nice,” he said. He could see how the blades slid together into the core for the axe to stow compacted on Panther’s back. In his hand the core looked about nine inches across, and the blades a diameter of twelve inches or so. That meant the real blades outside were roughly six feet tall.

“This might be big enough to block some incoming fire, too,” Matt mused. “Yeah? No kidding.” He checked the axe, and could see the two attachment clamp points on the back face of the core. Then he looked at Panther’s forearms and saw matching clamp points on both of them. He placed his left arm against the axe and the clamps engaged. The handle retracted and the axe was now a shield. Matt chuckled. “Awesome, man. You are one sweet-ass ride. Damn, I really need to stash you somewhere to finish your repairs and get home though. I’m probably going to sleep through all my classes tomorrow now. Yeah? Oh, that will definitely be useful. It must be in the impact crater still, let’s go pull it out.”

Matt rushed into the family room when he heard the channel 34 nightly news theme music on the television. He hadn’t previously been so dedicated to it like his parents were, but since Cheer Raider showed up he never missed it. “We start out with breaking news from Bensonville, where a third monster is on a rampage. Debbie Woods is on the scene. Debbie?”

“Richard, it is a scene of horror here as the new creature has set fire to a series of homes. The fire department is out in force but they are being overwhelmed. Wait, what’s that?” Debbie turned and the camera panned off her and zoomed in on a figure in the distance. “And here she is, the heroine Cheer Raider! This is a live exclusive on KHNT, Cheer Raider in Bensonville fighting the fire monster!”