Lucien was about to take the last bite of his sandwich when the nuclear bomb flattened a good portion of the forest, he raised his eyebrows at his sandwich and said with a full mouth: "Today..." He let the shockwave pass him by, "...is a good day." All in all, the Scotsman seemed contented with his lot in life as the shockwave made his shields glitter and shimmer for a moment before stabilising.

He then pulled out his smaller twin Gauss Cannons and smiled as he boosted behind the Frame Team leader to provide him with a bit of covering fire as he made his charge forward. It was surprising how effective a pair of high-rate-of-fire, high capacity, low-calibre weapons could be used to make someone put their heads down, or fill them with lead.

Keeping the recoil in control was the interesting part, Lucien had turned his guns sideways to fan the blasts of gunfire laterally, stopping and turning them the other way, or even interlacing them once they'd reached the span of his arm.

Any sane man would've asked for a compensator to be put onto the weapon so its recoil could be more controllable. Lucien had found a different use for the recoil.
"Ae Kelly don't ye know real men wear pink?"

The dust hadn't even settled as the first shots were fired.

Despite the billowing veil, Victoria's rapid fire weapons scythed through the smoke as her sensors outlined silhouettes of the enemy frames and tanks. Flashes and flickers of light shown through the charred fog as they impacted against an Ashigaru to Kelly's left, weakening the already stressed shields before collapsing them with a brief 'pop!' - right then, a burst of 75mm rounds from her gun tore into its hull and stitched across its chest before damaging one of its arms.

With this harsh blow, the enemy Ashigaru was stirred into action, managing to bring its remaining arm to bear; its weapons spattered across the Abwehran woman's mecha with its own autocannon and point defenses, rapidly draining away her shields. As if on cue, this quickly roused the others into acting as well, but not before the rest of the Atuan frame team got their own blows in!

"Take them out quick before they recover! Don't draw this battle out!" Kelly bellowed. He had immediately dashed forward towards an Ashigaru directly in front of him while firing his own 75mm gun one handed - the long automatic burst stitched a path from groin to head against the shields and made craters in the hull without crippling it. The enemy mech quickly brought up a rifle and fired; rounds impacted against his shields, but a chain straight in his other hand came cleaving in. "Damn!" Instead of ending up sliced and diced, the HIGA mech barely managed to parry the blow with the rifle's body before drawing a bead on Kelly with its forearm gun!

Mark's lunch threatened to come bursting out of his mouth like an alien parasite as a blushing Yoshiko gunned the throttle. With Victoria's violent words of advice in mind, the Comm Jock was suddenly pushed into his seat as the bubbly girl in front of him went silent and leaped up into the air! The restraints crisscrossing across Mark's chest suddenly strained as Yoshiko brought the mech stomping down from above onto the shoulders of the mech Kelly was dueling, topping it over and stomping its head into the ground. "Mark! Hit the tanks in the back!" the Ex-Neko called out over her shoulder as she rushed the vehicles in the rear. The tanks' heavy cannons zeroed in on Yoshiko and fired, biting large chunks out of their defensive fields.

Taela's little dance of death paid off as a trio of bare metal Ashigaru turned to bring their weapons on the more frail frame in the Armor Team. With autocannons and lasers from the disorientated enemy pilots occasionally sparking across her shields, combined with her evasive moves, the Neko's aim was thrown off - heavy laser blasts and high explosive rounds tore holes into the ground or sailed past into suburbia and the city further back, quickly demolishing homes and buildings.

*****

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" the pilot's voice boomed. Camellia and Coffee and the rest of the spotted infiltration squad ran like mice - weaving in and out of storefronts, shops and markets, the Ashigaru got occasional opportunities to take shots at the retreating Impulses. As they were forced to quickly cross a street to get into a mall, autocannon fire and gamma-vulcans raked across the squad, hammering their shields. Leaping forward and ramming through the closed shutters, the squad broke into the mall and into relative safety.

Or so they thought, as a spotlight was brought to bear on them. Several men in body armor aimed their assault rifles at the motley squad while several others aimed RPG's. "Alright, the jig is up Ori-Pigs! We can do this the easy way or the hard way; just lay down your wea - " An explosion tore through the building as stray rounds from a not too distant battle impacted and burst through the building, blowing several of the men in the HIGA check and supply point right off their feet.

The squad automatically opened fire as one of Camellia's men dashed forward to grab a launcher and blow apart the crosswalk above, sending several people tumbling down to their deaths.

"What are you waiting for?!" Coffee shouted at Camellia.

*****

One of the three Ashigarus ganging up on Taela rushed forward as it tossed aside its rifle; a spear burst forth from its hands as it began to lunge at her, thrusters afire! The tip of the spear lanced out and brushed past her shields as objects were wont to do and continued forward - a swarm of mini-missiles splashed across the shields of Taela's attacker, the tip just slicing by the Neko's Frame's side, sending sparks about.

The Impulses traveling along with the frame team made their move and expended most of their missiles to do their job. Automatic gauss rifles chattered away as they fired. "On the bounce, now!" the apparent leader called out, the armors rapidly bounding across terrain to outflank the enemy. The entire surface of the Ashigaru lit up like a Christmas tree as sparks flew across the surface; seven millimeters worth of depleted uranium was shoved through durandium armor plate hundreds of times over, peppering it to buy Taela a breather.

Lucien meanwhile hosed down another trio of enemy mechs - with his fire spread out too thinly over them all, the Scotsman couldn't stop all three of them at once! The Ashigaru charged on foot, raising their forearms and firing as they did so like implacable automatons, battering his shields into submission. Meena kept her head cool and sighted in on the leading unit, hammering through its weakened shields with repeated blasts and leaving deep, glowing craters in the hull as the three began to draw their spears with their other hands.

An explosion marked the death of one of Shinji's Feathers as it rammed right into the knee of the leading Ashigaru, downing it. "You like dat? Huh? Huh?!" he hollered extra loud to make up for Meena's silence.

Viki tried to not pay attention to her shields. She had not time to worry about those, best thing to do would be defeating her enemy as fast as possible. She still fired her 75mm gun and drawn Chain-straight with her left hand. Abwehran woman boosted right at her enemy, never letting go of trigger.

"Ja, Ja. I am going to get through their line and deal with those tanks. Gutt?" She reported to Kelly and assaulted enemy at full speed.

Her goal was to boost next to enemy mecha, slashing at it with her sword but moving on to get on top of the tanks. Those tanks were not as mobile as frames, but they still had big guns which were more than able to make big holes.

Camellia looked around at the amassed munitions. An idea formed as she looked over her shoulder while the other Impulses finished mopping the supply depot team. "Everyone, grab what heavy munitions and launchers you can. We got a bit of an advantage now since we have something to deal with the guard dog chasing us." She said, avoiding some random fire as she moved to pick up another launcher.

Giving the weapon a quick check, she waited till the fire died down before continuing. "I want half the squad on the second floor and the rest down here. Everyone fan out to keep cluster fire to a minimum and then we open all salvos on the Frame. Got it?" She asked.

Taela sorely wanted to do something awesome. The urge to grab the arm of that Ashigaru that charged her and force it into a hold was almost too great. But that impulse* she stuffed down under cold- hard logic, instead unloading a full clip of Heat Rounds into it at point-blank range before it could respond and turn around. Her cannons still continued their work on the others, adjusting as needed to shoot her enemy.


*Derp!

With the enemies having closed the distance gap, Lucien had to rethink his strategy and play to his strength - that was, up-close and personal combat. With a practised hand, he quickly holstered his right 50mm gauss cannon and drew his sword swinging in an upwards lateral arc to deflect the spears. After deflecting the spears upwards, he made another swift lateral slice across one Ashigaru's midsection.

'Slash wham bam-bam-bam' was the Scotsman's general M.O, filling enemies further away with concentrated fire from his remaining Gauss Cannon, firing the occasional missile at them, and cutting down whoever got close while trying to make use of what little concealment remained.

The closer quarters were favouring the Scotsman's style of combat, and the grunts and yowls of excitement as he dodged and parried the spears of the Ashigaru were palpable to the others. Either he learned how to swordfight for a movie, or he learned how to swordfight because he could.

"Aww, Fawk..." Shinji muttered a few moments after he realized he had just wasted a Feather so close to the beginning of the battle. "Dat sammich must be messin' wit' mah head or som'tin..." To make up for it, Shinji launched all of his feathers, and had them rocket a few thousand feet up into the air, and begin raining fire at their enemies, while juking and dodging after each shot to keep themselves safe. "Dere we go, dat awtta work a bit bettah."

Meena only rolled her eyes at her copilot's oversight, and continued to press the attack from their Kirin's rearward position, making sure to take her time with each shot- they had to count.

"Yoshiko, baby, keep a man steady!" Marc grunted from the copilot's seat in the Kirin. His new helmet was a little loose, and threatening to come off on its own during the heavy maneuvers. Still, he kept his cool and directed the Feathers to follow them for a time before splitting off to pursue the tanks at a harsh angle, this time firing a missile from each feather instead of using the lasers.

A burst of plasma plumed out of the Ashigaru Victoria fired upon, followed by plentiful amounts of black smoke and fire as it sunk to its knees before toppling over. One of the remaining frames hounding Taela turned to engage the moving Abwehran, but Kelly quickly interposed himself after delivering a burst to finish off his own downed foe, "Go help Yoshiko on that then Vic!" he called out, autocannon rounds bouncing off his shields.

The leading frame quickly fell from her continuous barrage as Taela continued to retreat and dodge; the two remaining frame's continued to push their assault, firing away and quickly depleting the Nekos' already weaker shields. With one of the three fallen however, the frame trailing behind the spear wielderhad enough chasing after an unwilling cat. Using it's stab-happy ally as a distraction, it cut her off before dashing forward with its thrusters and tackled her frame down into the ground - though its shields gave way and large chunks of armor were blasted off to reveal the superstructure underneath in the process, it managed to get on top of and straddle the Neko. Autocannon fire continued to sound off a deadly beat as it tried to fire directly into her hull, but she'd barely manage to fend it off with a free hand.

Meanwhile, the second frame prepared to carefully skewer her with its spear. "Taela! Get back up!" Kelly had tackled the frame he was facing - welded seams burst open in the armored shoulder as the enemy toppled in shock, but the frame he knocked over was getting back up! "Someone help her out!" At that, the Impulses continued their assualt on the unshielded spear-wielder, opening fire with their gauss rifles and even leaping onto it's hull to fire directly into whatever chinks in the armor they could find, causing the pilot to panic and buying Taela more time.

Grinning, Kelly kicked and stomped his own enemy back down; despite this, the enemy's struggle prevented him from firing his rifle-analog directly into it as the frame tried attacking with mounted weapons, draining shields and ablating plate at every meager opportunity it got in their struggling.

*****

Coffee and the rest of the squad might as well have been crossing their fingers as they all burst into cheer, reinvigorated by Camellia's decision to make a stand. "You heard her! Get the launchers and fan out! Move it!" The small team of Impulses moved among the HiGA personnel strewn across the floor, quickly gathering their weapons and leaping into position; some of these people were crushed by debris while others had holes punched across their bodies. Amongst those, some were riddled like practice dummies, while others were neatly holed, trios carefully placed. And still, some moaned and feebly moved.

But that didn't matter - a hand came bursting through the mall's facade as the unpainted Ashigaru swept its limb across the wall before it fully came bursting through. RPG's streaked through the air and blossomed across the frame. But it didn't stop there. One of it's legs gave way mid stride in a cloud of smoke and flame as low quality hydraulic fluid caught on fire. The inexperienced pilot's frame toppled forward, shaking the earth upon it's impact.

Despite this, the dogged pilot had the frame push itself up on one damaged hand as its hull groaned with stress. From here it struck back, it's autocannon sending explosive rounds detonating over the team, draining their shields and causing several to take cover - a trio of rounds impacting Camellia's shields and knocking the woman back from the blunt force.

*****

The sword roared to life as Lucien parried the first stab out at him and immediately counterattacked! The enemy pilot was on his toes however, and leaped back as the blade sheared across the frontal plate, tearing across the bicep of one of its arms. Taking this opportunity, the second one started to stab at the Scottsman - the spear lanced out to impale, but he saw it coming and managed to dodge the worst of it; the spear tip embedded in the overly built shoulder of his frame!

Lasers suddenly rained down on the two enemy frames from above, cutting their concentration on Lucien apart as Shinji shook off the Sandwich Induced Rage (SIR) - shields flickered under the constant barrage, which Meena's sharpshooting took advantage of. Plasma lanced out and pierced through the weakened shields on its way into eating up the already damaged plate of the damaged Ashigaru. However, towards the back, the Ashigaru that was charging like everyone else until it took a feather to the knee was quickly took a bead on the woman's frame and opened up with autocannon and shoulder lasers, quickly pummeling hers down.

Yoshiko's frame traveled leaps and bounds forward as the enemy tanks hit it in reverse, "I can't take this!" she screamed - the tanks had very quickly smashed through her own shields and forced her to take cover behind a car dealership. The Ex-Neko proceeded to lay prone behind several vehicles, occasionally firing bursts at them in response as one car after another exploded from the HEAT shells they lobbed. Mark's feathers were raining missile fire down, but the autocannon turrets on the tanks shot a handful of them down, mitigating the damage to their shields before proceeding to try and shoot down the feathers themselves. "Mark, hit them with everything you got as soon as Victoria hits them!" she cried out over her shoulder.

Time. It was being drawn out.

Taela flipped the fuck out. That wasn't to say that she panicked and lost it, however. It was more to say that nothing would stand in her way at that particular moment. She had already shut her comms off at this point, with good reason.

"GetoffgetoffgetOFFGETOFF!" She shrieked, unleashing the entirety of her mini-missile pods into the Ashigaru above her while a hand trapped next to her waist began to unsheathe a sword and dig it into the groin of the enemy*. Her free hand immediately began repeatedly smashing into whatever it could of that machine,trying to do as much damage as possible.

*Apparently Chain Straights are a standard secondary thing for Garudas. Who knew?