Warning! Right Shoulder is Damaged!
Alert! MARK and YOSHIKO are Down!

Dis ain't gud, Came the Scotsman's train of thought, surprisingly apt for the situation at hand that was unfolding before him. He knew that if he strained his shoulder servos, they'd likely break under the pressures. He was fighting with his off hand.
"Meena, Shinji, go help Mark and Yoshiko with the tanks!" He made a quick command upon seeing the warning messages flash upon his screen, "I'll finish off this one myself!"

Fighting with one hand proved to be something of a new thing, and Lucien had to expend something he was keeping in reserve. He was very careful about firing missiles, and he usually reserved them for the big things that showed up when he thought it was supposed to be over - and there usually was a big thing that showed up when it was supposed to be over.

In the Scotsman's mind, the final Ashigaru before him was not one of these 'big things', but he did have to finish the fight as quickly as he could by launching a small barrage of missiles at its chest and following it up with an unwieldy stab to its midsection, hoping to impale it and finish it off with his armoured fists while not stretching the shoulder's servos too far.

Mark watched his new helmet go tumbling into Yoshiko's lap with a sort of tired frustration on his face. If he'd had the helmet up there with him, he might have allowed himself to vomit his new sandwich up along with the breakfast that had made it into his last helmet. At this point, the former journalist was just tired of digestive fluid. His arms dangled low, hanging just past Yoshiko's shoulders; gravity pulling him hard against the harness.

"This fuckin' day. This didn't happen when Kitty was drivin', baby." Mark said, watching his helmet roll around on the front of the cockpit. "No'fence, Yoshi, honey. I think I just got lucky when we was in space."

Markus twitched a bit in his seat and reached down to the controls for the CECS, idly toying with new and strange frequencies to broadcast into the remaining tanks; mostly out of spite.

The world lunged at Yoshiko as her harness suddenly strained - the girl violently coughed as they held fast . It had felt like her entire chest was suddenly crushed, and she fought hard for a few breaths! "Sorry I'm not a smooth ride Mark," she weakly replied from her position. Looking up from her seat, the spherical cockpit showed both of them quite a sight. Metal teared and groaned as Victoria pushed her frame to the limits, but the other tank was already pivot turning on the spot, bringing its turret and gun to bear on the Abwehran woman's frame!

Meanwhile, bursts of fire poured into the final enemy Ashigaru as Lucien squared off against it - metal plate and hull disintegrated under explosions, melted under blue flashes or became riddled with holes as everyone shot at whatever opportunity presented them. As Lucien lunged, what started out as a feeble attack quickly became the coup de grâce, the final punctuation to the staccato fire - with a sound of squealing metal, the melee weapon tore through the hull of the ragged final frame before it toppled over with a definitive thud.

As the tank turned to face Victoria, Yoshiko fought to bring her frame's autocannon to bear; with an arm, it leaned up from it's faceplant and hammered away one handed as the Abewehran woman's frame leaped to the sky with makeshift hammer in grasp. Though Mark's signalling did little, his drones still continued to fire, lancing out with their ultraviolet weapons. Beams splashed across the fields or disturbingly curved away as the shields defended the tank, but with that, the 75mm autocannon rounds found purchase and pushed through. The massive rounds struck across the tank's power pack and smashed it's sprocket wheel, tracking the vehicle.

At that moment, Victora's frame, Blitzkrieg, descended from the skies with turret-hammer in hand as the tank's turret traversed to face her. Swinging down with everything her frame had, the tank fired - the round smashed into the turret-hammer, but it continued on and bludgeoned the crippled tank and destroying the weapons. The sheer force of the blow caused it's suspension to give out as its whole hull came dropping to the asphalt. With weapons destroyed and power gone, it was 'dead' for all intents and purposes.

They had won this little skirmish.

"Everyone, take cover and cover Yoshiko, now!" Kelly barked over the comms. "And both teams! Status reports - anyone else down?" Kelly could still hear distant gunfire and explosions. He couldn't help but wonder at what was going on, and could only hope that wasn't what he thought it was.

*****

As the frame had rampaged, a final rocket streaked into the cockpit block from above and sent it crashing completely through and into the mall, sprawling over the plaza inside. The way it had fallen, it practically looked as though a chalk outline and CSI team would have fit the scene perfectly. "Oh fffff-get this thing off of me!" a man yelled over the comms in a panic.

"Aw crap! Man d- ..." Coffee paused for a moment, bewilderment quickly taking over and defining her tone. "Wait, how the hell are you even still alive man?"

"I don't know! But, Sarri's down here with me, and she's saying shit!"

Camellia came too with the crushing sensation that she was being crushed. God, she hated that feeling. "Coffee. Gather the others and continue the mission. I'll try and free myself and the other trooper caught under this dead weight and we'll try and catch up with you." Camellia told her apparent second in command over the comms.

Switching to the frequency of the other pinned armorer, she asked. "Where are you stuck at? I think I'm pinned under a shoulder."

Taela breathed heavily, her pulse finally settling and the adrenaline running low. The battle-fog that had clouded her vision was finally gone, and she felt exhausted.

"I. . . I believe I lost it for a minute there. . ." She mumbled over comms, advancing towards Yoshiko and Mark's position and taking a knee down next to her mech. "Do you require assistance getting up?"

Viktoria laughed maniacally for about a minute or so, standing above destroyed tank. She had her make-shift hammer sitting on her shoulder, as if it was supposed to be swinged again. She laughed and laughed still being full of adrenalin.

"Ja, ja...." She then said, trying to catch breath. "Das ist the life!" She added throwing the gun turret on the rest of the ground. She lost interest in it. Two man in the turret were most likely dead. Driver possibly survived. She turned away and walked to Yoshiko and Mark.

"Aless in ordnung?" She asked, high values of adrenalin in her veins making her speak her native language. "Ah enshuldigen Sire mir bitter. Are you okay? We make great team Yoshi!" She corrected herself, she still looked around for more targets sorry to not see anyone else she could battle.

Warning! Right Shoulder is Damaged!

"Shuddup, I know!" Lucien bit back at the AI for stating the plainly obvious. He moved away and reloaded his weaponry as he made his way back towards Yoshiko and Mark.

Non-Vital Warnings Disabled

"Thank ye," He replied before reporting in, "As ye can see, me shoulder's out, but I'd say the rest 'o me is in fightin' nick." He made a check of his ammo reserves and found that he'd chewed through two of the eight magazines after reloading previously. He also had three quarters of his missiles remaining. His Frame-Sized longsword was also somewhat battered but still sharp enough to make his point abundantly clear. All in all, not bad.

He decided to remain on watch while the others helped Yoshiko, looking about himself and scanning the area for any other incoming threats.

"Aww crap," Coffee moaned, kicking aside a concrete chunk. "Alright, you heard her," she spoke, turning to the others of the power armor team. "I want a minimum distance between team members of 5 meters - otherwise make sure you're in visual with someone else. Move it!" With that, Camellia was left alone with only the other squad member, both buried somewhere under the fallen frame.

"No idea ma'am - I'm guessing somewhere around it's chest or something," he explained to her. "I can't even see anything." As he paused briefly, Camellia could hear faint scraping filtering in over the connection. "I can't move much either - if you can manage to get out, maybe use your thrusters, maybe the cockpit is still intact enough to move this thing," the squadmate suggested to her.

*****

"Good to hear everyone's alright," the team leader spoke, glad that even their power armor escorts came out with nothing worse than bruises, scraped paint and perhaps dented plates.

'That's odd. The other set of weapon fire off in the distance stopped.' Kelly knew that could have meant any number of things, but right now, he had to focus - one of his frames had a possible mobility kill, and another just had its combat effectiveness reduced. But how was he supposed to deal with this? The Frame Team was originally meant to be just testers, not a real fighting force with support assets. At this rate, he might have to have Yoshiko and Mark bail out and -

"Hold on, I got it!" a familiar voice called over the comms. "Hang on Mark, I'm rolling over!" At that, Yoshiko's frame did just that, moving both its arms and legs to bring it about before sitting up. "Go ahead and dock the feathers please, they've been loitering," she asked him without so much as a hint of worry. Inside, Mark could see Yoshiko quickly access a smaller console off to the side; after opening the cover and flicking a switch, the Ex-Neko slammed her fist into the red button.

The others watched as the damaged leg ejected from the downed frame with a spurt of gas and steam, dropping into the street and sending bits of asphalt about. "Yoshiko, what are you doing?" Kelly asked, not quite following what the other pilot had in mind.

"We can just salvage parts from the knockoffs!" she replied. "It won't be perfect, and someone's gotta...get out of their cockpit to access the other frames...but it'll work!" Yoshiko explained, her voice quavering briefly as she mentioned that one of them would have to exit their place of safety. Mark could see her briefly bring a hand to the side of her helmet as she softly mewled.

"Alright - finding these parts shouldn't be too hard considering just what we went through. Lucien, stay with Yoshiko and Mark and eject that dead arm while you're at it. You two too Shinji, Meena," Kelly spoke, issuing orders. Time was of the essence, and this was going to be risky. "Victoria, Taela, you two are with me - we're going to go...shopping." At that last part, Kelly smiled.

The three of them needed to find frames with an intact right leg and a left arm. But what's more, the cockpit had to be in one piece as well - otherwise, it was going to be hell getting the limbs off properly.

Mark winced when his back met the seat again in the roll, but he was more comfortable than when they were hanging by their harnesses, so he let it go without a smarmy remark. As the feathers slid into place in the best way possible from such an awkward angle, Mark did some sliding of his own to adjust to his new seating arrangement.

"Yoshi, sweetheart?" Mark called up to her. The new up, that is. "Could you find my helmet up there, baby? I don't need it just yet, doll. I'd just like to be ready when the heavy stuff goes down, y'dig?"

Mark craned his neck over the back of Yoshiko's seat and peered around in the direction his helmet had fallen. After giving up the search on his own, he decided to apologize in the worst way possible.

"Oh, and Yoshi, baby, don't you worry your pretty head about that 'smooth ride' thang, baby." Mark didn't blink or flinch, looking dead serious as he added, "I get to where I complain, but at the end of the day, it's hard to not say 'this girl gave me a rough ride' without a big old smile on your face."

The Neko nodded to Kelly's orders, moving over to where she had her breakdown. The mech she wrecked appeared to have it's arms intact - it was just everything else that she went psycho on.

"Er. . . You don't think these are serviceable, do you?" She asked Kelly, gesturing to the effective scrap heap.