“This is interesting.” Gentleman Shadow said as data flashed from his watch to his eyes. “Ottimobots returns a brief registry entry and an even briefer history, but no schematics.”

 

“That’s because they don’t have any of their own.” Dreadnought explained. “They were built from excess parts Japan sold to Earth State in the early 80’s.”

 

“I see. Thank you.” Gentleman Shadow adjusted a knob on his watch. “Hm. They actually keep the schematics in the files of the various teams that sold Italy parts. Lack of organization represents a lack of care. Shoddy.”

 

Above them, a primary colored mountain gazed at one of the inert Guardian Giants seated on its maintenance throne. White light poured from the Ottimobot’s eyes, enveloped the Guardian Giant, and seeped into every joint.

 

The resting hand began to shake.

 

Gentleman Shadow looked up. “…That’s not in the files.”

 

–Mecha Madness

 

“No more scraps. No more spare parts. Now we get to play with the big toys.”

 

–Mario Colombo, Il Scintilla

 

Il Scintilla

 

 

The 70’s were the golden age of guardian giants. They were the years of Beyondion and Grailizer and Shogun Warrior. But every golden age leads to an excess and a tapering off. There inevitably comes a point where there are too many warriors and too few battles to be fought. American superteams reached this point in the 1950’s. The Worlds War of the 1940’s created a surge of superheroes to fight at home and abroad. With the war won, superheroes were left with a lot of time on their hands until supervillain organizations like Granfalloon, Shadowlight, and the BOL formed in the 1960’s.

 

In the late 70’s, Japan found herself with a lot of Guardian Giants–more than they truthfully needed. These excess robots, some of them not truly robots but cobbled together from spare parts, were sold to Earth State in what would be known as the spare parts deal.

 

Earth State was very interested in Guardian Giants. They liked the idea of superpowers in the form of weapons–weapons that could be regulated, given only to those deemed worthy of them, and then taken away and stored. Nearly overnight, several Earth State countries became home to brand-new Guardian Giant teams. England gained the Big Bens. Argentina gained the Paladins de la Justicia.

 

Italy gained the Ottimobots.

 

While some of these teams, particularly the Paladins de la Justicia, would see action, most would not. Most would parade around on holidays, maybe put in an appearance at a global crisis, but mostly gather dust in hangars.

 

This left many of the Guardian Giant pilots assigned to these teams angered and confused. From their perspective, it did not make sense. Earth State sold the plan to them as a way for young superhumans locked out of advancing to the highest social privilege levels obtained by older elite superhumans. Earth State had scaled back its superteams since its premiere superteam, the Exemplars of Earth, disbanded in the late seventies, not only because they basic majority Earth State wanted to limit the power of superhumans by making it harder for superhumans to gain full privileges, but also because the superhuman elite wanted to pull up the ladder after they had made it to the top. They suffered long and hard for their social privilege levels. They weren’t about to cheapen it with a flood of new blood.

 

The Ottimobots, Big Bens, and Paladins were meant to be a sop for young superhumans. It was meant to capture their vote by giving them hope.while certain Earth State elite, superhuman and basic, profited off arranging the spare parts deal. When the young superhumans complained that the outcome of the spare parts deal wasted everyone’s time, they were rebuked. It wasn’t Earth State’s fault the world ended up being more peaceful than they anticipated. What, did the young superhumans want there to be more giant monster attacks? They also had to compete with superteams from America and Japan. It didn’t work out. Plans changed. They had to just accept it.

 

During the next voting season, young superhumans voted to kick out the politicians that lied to them. It didn’t work. Earth State had always been a majority basic federation.

 

The Ottimobots became a museum attracting only the most niche of superhero scholars. It became a shrine to what could have been and what would never be. In the 2010’s, Earth State decided to stop spending money on the upkeep and sold the Ottimobots to Mario Columbo, a superhuman with electromagnetic powers who would have powered and piloted one of the Ottimobots. Mario was obsessed with the Ottimobots. Part of him was always back in the early 80’s waiting to take his robot out and fight. He worked long and hard over decades to earn the social credit needed for him to be a one-man power company, but he never forgot that he could have gotten to where he currently was just through a handful of years piloting an Ottimobot against evil. But beyond being held back by the Ottimobots never seriously being supported by Earth State, he hated that Italy didn’t have superheroes. They could have. He could have been one himself. But they never got the chance. Mario grew to resent not only Earth State but America and Japan for having the kind of superhero culture he wished for his own nation.

 

Mario took care of the Ottimobots until a man named Bright Idea contacted him. Bright Idea was a BOL agent offering “good ideas” free of charge, no strings attached. Of course, Mario believed in no such thing. But when Bright Idea produced for him certain powers foreign to the known multiverse and placed them on the ground at his feed, Mario couldn’t deny that he now had the power to accomplish what he always wanted to do deep down in his soul–take revenge.

 

They were weird powers from a weirder man, but they were real and they obeyed his commands. If there was a catch, Mario was willing to risk it. He knew that the power would probably stop working, or Bright Idea would return to take his soul, or the superheroes of the world would stop him, but before he would be taken down, oh the fun he would have.

 

Bright Idea gave him two powers. With one, he enhanced the dusty Ottimbots into the best shape they had ever been. Blue light seeped beneath warped and cracked metal plates and filled the Ottimobots with a protective endoskeleton that powered all their systems well beyond what their outdated construction should have been capable of. The Ottimbots were stronger than they ever were, stronger than anyone would have dared hope they would have become.

 

But the second power was even better.

 

It was a white light, like the first power, but unlike the first power, it didn’t create matter and energy. It created soul–raw, living, intelligent soul.

 

There was no need for pilots. He could command the Ottimobots by himself through a combination of his natural electric power and the white light. He gave orders, they obeyed.

 

And through is Ottimobots, Mario could give souls to other machines.

 

When Bright Idea told him that he could put souls into other giant robots and make them obey him, all doubt he had about accepting the powers evaporated.

 

He always knew Italy could have had the greatest Guardian Giant team on the planet if the had just been given the chance. Now he would prove it by taking away all the fancy toys and lucky breaks other countries had. He would steal away as many giant robots as he could. He would form the greatest army of Guardian Giants the world had ever seen–and it would be an Italian army.

 

In deference to tradition (Mario did run a museum after all), Mario took the name Il Scintilla, the spark, representing that he was the spark that would start a raging fire that would sweep across the Guardian Giants of the world and engulf them in his will.

 

And it also represented his electromagnetic powers.

 

It was when he was ready to lead the Ottimobots on their first mission, a raid on Ishikore-dome Shrine, one of the largest collections of decommissioned Guardian Giants on Earth, that Bright Idea appeared to him. Il Scintillo had just finished his supervillain costume and letter to the media explaining his intentions when Bright Idea appeared quite suddenly in the living room.

 

He asked Mario to join something he called “the Child Hunt.” Apparently, he and the BOL were hosting a kidnapping contest. Whoever captured the most superhuman kids won.

 

Mario couldn’t be any less interested in the Child Hunt, but he figured this was his veiled threat to pay what he owed.

 

Besides, participating in the Child Hunt wouldn’t be too far removed from his original plans. Plenty of kids had Guardian Giants of their own. The Red Prince, operator of the Red King, was a kid. The current Gentleman Shadow, who operated three Guardian Giants and a robot watch, was a child.

 

He’d capture them all, then on to Ishikore-Dome…

 

Ottimobot Types

 

 

Owing to being made from the spare parts of several Japanese Guardian Giants, Ottimobots can vary widely in their forms and even sizes, but in general there are three main types.

 

Pipistrello 

 

The Pipistrello, or Bat, is primarily made of parts from Metal Elf. The Japanese thought the sides on Metal Elf’s head looked like elf ears, the Italians bat ears. On Metal Elf, the sides were equipped with powerful sonic generators which were used in an attack called “Elf Song.” On the Pipistrellos, the generators were toned down. While still capable of being used as a weapon, they back far less of a punch than Elf Song. This was both a cost saving measure and to gear the Pipistrello more for teamwork. The lower powered generators can be used as a sensor system, much like the echolocation of a bat.

 

Pipistellos use missile equipped arms from Magic Box, a Guardian Giant composed of several paneled boxes that could open to reveal weapons. It’s gimmick was that it could move weapons around beneath the panels to prevent enemies from targeting certain weapons. One moment the laser weapon would be on the right arm, then it would be on the left leg. Unfortunately for the Pipistrello, they only got spare missile arms–and without any panels.

 

Pipistrello missiles are standard implosion models designed for use in crowded civilian areas. The missiles draw matter to a point, which makes them less risky for collateral damage than explosives.

 

Pipistrello arm blades are made from perkunite, and on Metal Elf were intended to be part of a rocket punch attack where the arms would fire off and slice opponents with the blades. Pipistrello don’t have rocket punches, so they’re stuck using their blades at close range.

 

Metal Elf used a floating weapons platform it could attach itself to called the magic circle. Several frames of the magic circle were given to the Optimobots, and without the extra armor and weapons attached to it looks remarkably like… a giant race car.

 

It doesn’t have a proper name. What would you call a giant race car piloted by a giant robot?

 

These giant race cars are equipped with fans. No one is sure why. It’s possible engineers got confused with parts from Air-Acer.

 

Demone

 

The Demone is primarily made of parts from Satellite God Satyear. Satyear was designed as a transformable, it could turn from a humanoid robot mode into a rocket mode. The Ottimobots didn’t have all the parts for a complete transformation, but they did have the head, and the head could close into the tip of a rocket capable of ramming through objects if fired with enough force.

 

Basically, Demones were designed to fire their heads at opponents and rip them apart with their horns. These horns are made of rhecite and are very flexible. On SGS, these horns were intended to act as grapples and snares and the same principle applies for the Demone. The Demone fires its head, pinches a target between its horns, and lets the head’s built-in photite laser do its job on the immobilized target.

 

On their arms, Demones are equipped with two additional photite lasers. The SGS was a machine bristling with photite lasers. It could fire off an entire lightshow of curving beams while staying highly mobile. Demones aren’t anywhere near as mobile as the SGS, but their raw firepower makes them the powerhouses of the Ottimobots.

 

Capo

 

The Capo is designed for commanders. Primarily made of parts from Super Electromagnetic Fiver, the Capo is able to channel electricity through the rods at the side of its head and manipulate them with its hands. Il Scintillo pilots a Capo himself with a blue head and orange body, his natural electrical powers adding to the machine’s own. As with all Ottimobots, Il Scintillo’s Capo has a soul, and its his favorite soul in all the Ottimobots. It’s the only one he’s had time to name—Leo, after a dog he once owned.

 

Capo are capable of firing off their hands which then can return to their arms, a classic staple of Japanese Guardian Giants. While fired, electrical energy can be passed from the head rods to the hands creating a wide electrical net. The hands can also grab opponents and guide the rods’ electricity into them. But the Capo’s true strength is in its tactical ability. It can magnetize fellow Ottimbotos and pull them away from danger or place them where they are needed most around a battlefield. The Capo is, in terms of a superteam, a supporthero staying in the back moving around Demone and Pipistrello.