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RP: YSS Kaiyō Pre-Mission Ten: Dominion from the Skies

Immortal Cyan

The Cyan Neko
YSS Kaiyō II
VR Room
Scenario: Air Supremacy
♫ 아웃사이더 / 외톨이


Two Mindy armors were flying in atmosphere roughly 45,000 feet above the ground of an Earth like planet. Although there were no hostile armors or craft within visual range, the AIES-linked sensors were red, indicating that engagement was imminent with hostiles from all sides. It was a dangerous situation, and the coming fight would demand skill, good reflexes, and situational awareness from both pilots if they hoped to survive. The weather was clear and the sky was bright. However, the armors passed through cloud layers frequently, which limited visual range in sporadic intervals. The nature of the engagement meant that the pilots would have to shoot at enemies that they couldn't see through the cloud layer, although the AIES provided plenty of assistance for situations just like this.

Kasumi's armor was outfitted for anti-armor potency. She carried a LASR in her hands, the shoulder hardpoints of her suit were mounted with 20mm gauss cannons, and the thigh hardpoints were mounted with countermeasures. On the other hand, Yoshida's armor was outfitted with her normal set up of an Aether gatling rifle, and a plasma blade on her right shoulder. Certainly not ideal for the mission at hand, but that was almost to be expected with her stubborn insistence that she use that unwieldy, flashy piece of hardware, with her only backup being built in abilities for the suit and yet another impractical weapon.

"Y'know I guess this isn't as hard as we are making it out to be if they can't see us either." Even as she said that, she knew right away using her Gatling rifle would surely attract fire in her direction- only a combination of luck and raw talent would allow one to evade return fire from every direction. Mostly luck of course, since dodging in mostly random directions surely wouldn't work that well when the enemy couldn't see you in the first place. Even so, Yoshida was eager to take the fight to them.

"I have countermeasures.", Kasumi answered. "Aether distortions and chaff, which should throw them off our course.", she continued. "I do not believe the goal is to emerge victorious, so much as it is to survive.", added the snowy Neko, in a tone not unlike that of a feminine artificial intelligence.

On their sensors, the pair would be able to tell that the three hostile armors were getting closer. Fortunately, there did not seem to be any mecha or fighter craft. "Has the simulation set either one of us as command?", she spoke once again, in an oddly submissive sounding tone. She was the lower ranking one of the pair, after all.

Just survive huh? The shorter, tailed neko thought. Maybe I should turn down the difficulty of my own simulations...Rather than dwell on this however, she noted the aproaching armors on her sensors. "Huh? command? Ah well, I didn't check!"

She grinned as she stared around, ready to dive into the cloud cover. "Guess I should pay more attention huh? Well, you want to have a go at command? I'll be honest I don't think i'm great at it, despite what my rank says."

The armors on the sensors were approaching fast, although they were still outside of visible range. Kasumi did not find the prospect of command to be enticing. However, she did not want to delay, she was supposed to be treating this as if it were a real combat situation after all. Her actions needed to be quick, decisive, and efficient.

Yoshida hesitated herself for a moment, before quite suddenly grabbing her compatriate with her free hand and sending a short communication through the contact of the two armors! something Yoshida still didn't quite get herself. 'think we should drop altitude on low power mode, or climb?' While Yoshida certainly saw both as viable options, an opinion from a relitively fresh perspective seemed like it would be interesting to behold. It helped that as a simulation, she didn't particularly care if they found themselves on the wrong end of the plasma.

"Stay at this altitude and utilize the cloud cover to our advantage.", Kasumi spoke decisively, without waiting for her to speak further. "In fifteen seconds, we will release countermeasures and split up. The extra heat discharge will confuse their sensors, and make our numbers appear stronger than they are. Upon that, maneuver on the offensive for a hit and run strike. Counting down from seven, six..."

Well. Yoshida supposed it was as good a plan as any. She wouldn't have neccesarily tried down that path, but that was the clear advantage of multiple perspectives! "Allright seems fair..." Of course, rather than countermeasures she had brought nodal support bits. An acceptable substitute, perhaps. And hit and run was certainly not her strong suit, neither her experience in battles nor her gear supported that method of attack. But that was what Kasumi wished to try, and as such, she readied herself- releasing her support bits and spinning up her gattling rifle as the count down neared zero.

"...three, two, one, initiate action!", Kasumi spoke as her armor suddenly dove downwards at a hard ninety-degree angle, released aetheric countermeasures, and shot backwards towards the rearward armor.

The sensors detected one armor to their front, one armor behind, and one on a paralell course to Yoshida and Kasumi's previous position.

Without waiting for the enemy armor to come into visual range, Kasumi unleashed an AIES assisted barrage of 20mm gauss cannon fire from both of her shoulder hardpoints. The snowy Neko flew in the erratic, fly like pattern that Yoshida had taught to her only a few simulations prior. Kasumi had immediately found it to be a skill worth learning, although it neccessitated that she utilize AIES more directly to aim her weapons, until she learned to predict her own flight pattern and to compensate flight and projectile trajectories on the fly. Her aim, or at least the aim of her onboard AIES proved true- at least with an accuracy of seventy percent- for the first few shots anyway before the suprised armor peeled off, sheilds depleted and one arm entirely losing function.

Yoshida took off giggling, rocketing upwards for a moment with her nodal support bits trailing behind her before she appeared to kick off the air like it was a solid surface- mostly just for show of course, in an effort to position herself over the armor that was flying along the altitude that yoshida had previously inhabited alongside Kasumi, flying in a familiar corkscrew pattern as she finally pulled the trigger and sprayed downwards- using her nodal support bits to triangulate the position of the armor with the help of her AIES. Rather than the precise 20mm shells that Kasumi fired, Yoshida intended to deny her opponent any paths to go through the sheer volume of firepower being hosed out of the gattling rifle. The barrage of wild suppressive fire immediately made the pilot of the enemy armor panick as they attempted to escape Yoshida's cone of fire. The enemy armor decelerated rapidly, escaping from Yoshida's barrage with moderate damage to the chest area. However, they were now vulnerable to a missile lock or even a direct charge with the plasma blade.

Kasumi continued her assault on the now heavily damaged rearward armor, although this time she stopped moving in the familar corkscrew pattern and instead flew directly forward in the same direction that the enemy armor was moving, for the sake of retaining accuracy and killing power. Disoriented, and unprepared, the enemy armor squeezed off a few shots at what it preceived to be the threat- heat signitures from Kasumi's emissions. Of course there was nothing there- the last thing it saw was a solid shell from a railgun penetrating its visor.

"Rendevous at these coordinates in twenty seconds, Kokoro-Hei. We are lowering altitude", she spoke monotonously, as two more armors appeared on their sensors, raising the number of active enemy armors to five. The coordinates were located just above a massive canyon. It seemed that Kasumi intended to utilize the cover of the canyon faces to even the odds.

As Kasumi finished her target off, Yoshida was dashing across the sky, ready to cleave her own foe in two even as it fired back at her- seemingly always an instant behind where she actually was. With the target pinned, she stopped firing her rifle the instant before she made contact- first throwing herself out of the line of sight of the armor and then crashing into it Blade first. After a very breif struggle she used all the might the suit had to force the blade upward, resulting in a molten, charred line originating from its side, up and out of its helmet.

"Haha! You've got it!" Yoshida's mind right away raced with the possibiities of collapsing stonr atop low flying enemies that dared to enter the canyon with them as she raced to follow her supposed subordinate. As she did she tossed a flash bang behind her to confuse and burn out sensors pointed her way- if any. Followed up by a smoke grenade to create her own artificial cloud... That latter action certainly wasn't quite as effective as she had hoped, as typically they release their contents slowly rather than all at once. "Oh well" She said with a shrug. As far as she knew the only evidence she had been there would be her heat signiture, and a gored body falling from the sky.

"You know I wonder how hard that is going to hit the ground- I'm sure if I bothered I could find out yeah?"

There were now three active enemy armors in the sky. Two appeared to be on course for Kasumi's position, while the last one was on course for Yoshida's position. "Taking evasive maneuvers, proceed to rendevous point and lose yourself in the canyons, Kokoro-Hei. Take individual action from there.", Kasumi spoke as she released two more rounds of aetheric flares and initiated defesive maneuvers, in an effort to lose the armors and to buy more time for Yoshida and herself to retreat into the canyons.

Just one? Yoshida mused as she too raced through the soup that was the atmosphere. She was sure she could handle one- and certainly the two of them together could handle three. The problem was then obviously, how fast would more enemies arrive? They also had the advantage of teleportation of course.

There was the chance that the simulation would be running with ace level pilots too though... "Let's see you dodge this" She muttered under her breathe before activating her charged teleport, and swinging her gattling rifle like a bat as she decelerated- right at the face of her pursuer with one hand while the other took aim, ready to unleash a spray of aether regardless of sucessful contact or not. If I can take this one down- or at least daze it long enough, I can give Kasumi a probably, much needed assist! She thought with glee. She could have teleported to saftey of course, and been largely undetectable- but she still had a charged capacitor just incase this plan didn't work out as hoped.

The sheer amount of force behind the blow was enough to turn the enemy pilot's brain to slush. Although the weapon made only a small visible dent on the armor itself, the enemy pilot was well and truly dead.

Meanwhile, Kasumi found that she wasn't having much success in evading the two armors through traditional means. Her condition report had shifted to yellow, indicating that she had sustained minor damage in the chest area. Fortunately, all systems were functional and it seemed safe enough for a teleport.

"Initiating a direct teleport to the coordinates now!", she spoke in an eerily calm tone. Suddenly, her Mindy appeared just above a small plateau in the canyon. Immediately, Kasumi flew deep into the rocky valleys and released aetheric flares at the relative position of the teleportation coordinates.

"Stay close, I am tracking their course and I intend to ambush them here. They will at least see heat signatures here, so they should follow.", she spoke softly.

"Sure I shouldn't lure them into it myself? Or should i just teleport over?" Even as she said that she rocketed backwards, recovering from the shock of the impact rather quickly, and once more unleashing a torrent of hot-pink lasers across the sky. It wasn't nearly as effective as it would have been, but boy was it noisy and hot- the aether generating massive amounts of heat as it burned itself off in atmosphere.

As she thought about it for a moment, she neglected to actually wait for a response and teleported in at the designated coordinates rather than run all the way back. She may be out of aces up her sleeve for the next thirty seconds, but an ambush where she wasn't actually being the bait sounded far more likely to result in a resounding succes. "Phew... Well, that was exciting. How long until they get here again? Can't be that long- these built in teleport models don't really have the range of the back pack ones!"

Of course in space that was true- but rocketing at a tenth the speed of light in atmosphere was a very poor idea. At least for Yamataian armors, their speed in atsmosphere was generally limited by what the suit, and the neko inside could take before falling apart from the friction. "Anyway look at you! All commanding and stuff!" Yoshida supplied Kasumi with a congradulatory pat on the back.

If anything, Kasumi was slightly embarrased by the compliment and she appeared to blush under the Yamataium faceplate.

"Thank you.", she managed to say in response to the compliment, as her mind quickly cycled through possibilities regarding stealth. For a moment, she considered utilizing the CFS for stealth, but she realized that it wasn't possible given the circumstances of the engagement. She would have to consider that option, after the simulation.

As the pair flew through the canyon, the two hostile armors arrived at the location where Kasumi had dropped the aetheric flares. They set course for the pair of Yamataian armors deep in the valleys of the canyon.

"Sensors read hostile activity in the canyon.", Kasumi spoke. "In fifteen seconds, we're going to elevate and initiate a vertical strike. If none of the targets are neutralized by the strike, we'll split up and head back into the canyon. On me, seven, six..."

"You're just so cute haha" Yoshida braced herself, mentally counting down along side Kasumi. She now considered it her mission to see just how much she could emberass the normally meek seeming neko fighting along side her against these very virtual opponents. She also considered, for an instant, the prospect of distracting her by 'counting' with her with uterly random numbers, but was sure that was not how a superior should behave. Simulations were serious bussiness! Usually!

"...two, one, initiate vertical climb!", she spoke. In a sudden diversion of her current course, Kasumi climbed upward at a hard, nearly ninety degree angle. "Targets marked!", she spoke as the hostile armors came into view. As soon as she was high enough, Kasumi dove back down towards the earth and the enemies inside of the canyon valleys, unleashing a precise barrage of 20mm fire at her target.

"Weeee-" Yoshida's voice resounded within her helmet as she shot up like the cork of a pressurized wine bottle, before throwing her arms out to stop herself as fast as her suit could handle. Just like that, she began falling back towards the surface just after Kasumi. "Hm. Wonder if we should use the AIES to coordinate next time, though i guess we're precise enough that it doesn't matter yeah?"

With that, to complement the more accurate nature of kasumi's rail gun fire, yoshida sprayed around the targets to coral them right back into the hot metal slugs. It was either they played along, and met their doom that way, or suffered the wrath of aether lasers. A slower death from this distance of course, in atmosphere attacks like this just quite didn't cut it. It still looked scary enough though- so it performed its duties as a supressive fire attack just fine. As Yoshida drew closer and closer, the lasers grew more precise and deadly- at optimal ranges they were famed for tearing through zesurium like anything else in its way.

Yoshida's nonstop barrage of suppressive fire and Kasumi's stream of accurate railgun fire worked in tandem to kill the two armors, which had just emerged from cover when the attack began. The timing of the strike was excellent, as the two armors had already committed themselves to moving outside of cover by the time the rain of fire started.

Just as quickly as it had begun, the two armors fell into the canyons, both pockmarked with projectile holes and aether burns.

"Targets down.", Kasumi spoke softly, as she hovered gently in the air.

Suddenly, the simulation ended and Kasumi woke up in the VR room, her entire body glistening with sweat from the virtual excursion. It was obvious that she had put forward maximum effort into the simulation. With a slow and deliberate manner, Kasumi turned towards Yoshida and looked into the Neko's eyes for a what seemed to be a prolonged moment.

"Thank you for the training, Kokoro-Hei.", she spoke calmly.

Yoshida of course, gave her the biggest grin she could manage, just like Kasumi she looked like she had been standing out in the rain. "No problem!" She then leaned over as far as she could, over the gap between them, and gave her a well deserved pat on the head. In the process, ruining the sweat soaked hair's look even further. "Now... To take showers so people don't complain about the smell later..." She then noticed they left enough sweat on their respective simulation pods that was not insignificant. "... And these two!"

"Of course, Kokoro-Hei.", Kasumi responded with a gracious smile.

 
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