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[1st XF] Site clearing

Kaida followed suit, taking up a defensive position as well. The doors soon burst open from a grenade, with small arms fire crashing into the truck, taking out its tires, windows, mirrors and scarring the side and front panels. They couldn't hit Tsuya, but now she was trapped behind the large vehicle and the loading gate, with two attackers in front of her and more possibly coming.
 
Tsuya grunted in irritation as she heard the important parts of the car being destroyed - she'd planned to use it as a ram or to block the hallway. She hunkered down behind the cargo area of the truck, facing it, and dipped a bit lower, ducking her head and arms to fire a few shots at the enemies still standing in the hall.
 
The gunfire exchange was in favor of Tsuya's attackers. The truck continued to be filled with holes, though none reached her. However, a shot clanged off the inside of one of the tire rims Tsuya was crouching near.

They were starting to take aim under the truck. Only the darkness was saving her.
 
The shot pinging off the inside of the rim, nearly hitting her, made Tsuya jump, though she kept a firm grip on her pistol. She flicked her eyes over the room again, until she realized that the truck was fully fueled... she fired a last few parting shots at her enemies, then retreated away towards the other side of the loading bay in an attempt to draw them nearer the vehicle.
 
Kaida provided some covering fire for Tsuya as the Neko tried to cross the large loading bay. The two attackers — both equipped with body armor and grenades — were casting flashes on the truck with their gunfire, but they seemed pretty content to hang near the double doors. One slowly crossed toward the truck, but instead stopped between it and the doors, crouching behind an orange, metal paper tray. The one by the door stopped to reload quickly.

Tsuya's only available cover was a similar metal paper tray on wheels, or a forklift.
 
Kaida's eyes followed their attackers, noting the one who was trying to hide behind a tray which truly was no protection against projectile weapons. Perhaps they though they still only had their pistols? Well she was about to show them how wrong they were.

Crouching low from her position, a couple of possibilities ran through her head on where exactly behind the tray the opponent was. After the split-second that took, she pulled up her newly acquired rifle and fired into the thin sheet that was hiding her teammate's assailant several times, adjusting the shots to cover all possible places behind it that he/she could be while expending the fewest amount of bullets. Afterword, she pulled back behind her cover, perking her ears up to listen if she made a hit. Hopefully, her shots would draw the enemy's fire away from Tsuya.
 
Kaida's cover was a short stack of newspaper shaped in a 4-foot thick square, with a thick wooden panel behind it. The stack was on wheels, but it seemed to barely absorb the rounds being hurled at her.

The fire from her own rifle was successful — the rounds penetrated the sheet metal enough to get one attacker to stop firing., though there was no dying cry. The other was reaching for a grenade.
 
Tsuya had begun to retreat towards the forklift to try and employ it for some vehicular carnage, keeping an eye on Kaida's efforts as she went, but the man readying his grenade gave her pause. She stopped and moved closer to Kaida to take cover behind the same stack of paper. Then, once she'd pinpointed the man's location, she flicked her pistol into grenade mode and fired a pulse at him.
 
The grenade shot from Tsuya's NSP wasn't perfectly on target — but it didn't have to be. Just as the attacker activated the grenade, the NSP shot blasted into the door he was using for cover. The scalar pulse from the blast slapped the grenade — and made it, along with the other grenade he had, explode in bursts of whitish fire and smoke.

Phosphorous grenades. The screams of pain came from the other attacker Kaida had subdued, and lasted only a second, quickly replaced by bloody, choking hacks. Little was left of the grenadier that was not chunky and red.

The radio of the now-dead riflewoman spoke calmly; the link to the earpiece must have been severed. "Confirm kill. ... Confirm kill, A4. ... Clear Demon. Back entrance. Loading bay."
 
Upon hearing the broadcast from the radio, Tsuya quickly took stock of the room they were in - truck, forklift, doors. ...forklift! The tank of propane on the back would make for an excellent trap. She hopped into the vehicle, turned the key, and drove it to a parked position next to the back door.
 
The forklift in position, Tsuya had to quickly beat a retreat. The stomping of a mechanical armor could be heard beyond the doors.

The right-hand door came down with a couple well-placed kicks to the hinges. The darkness made it hard to see, but the glint of a triple-barreled Gatling gun "rifle" was unmistakable. The tall armor — about 10 feet high — did not see the forklift as it took a couple steps out into the room, where a bit of light caught it.

It certainly looked menacing enough, painted entirely in blood-red.
 
Tsuya crouched behind the paper tray again, watching the Demon come out of the door. She gawked at it in delighted shock for a moment before she remembered that the armor was going to try and kill her with that marvelous gun. Then she loosed a pair of shots at her quickly-assembled propane tank trap.
 
Shot One missed, catching the area just below the tank. The Demon armor swirled its head down and bristled its slicing, armored "hands" toward Tsuya's direction.

That was as far as it got before the second shot caught the tank and made it explode.

The makeshift bomb shoved the armor into a wall and out of sight, the damage left unconfirmed. No return shots came back immediately, and the sounds of machinery struggling to complete its mechanical tasks were audible over the fire torching the cardboard boxes. Thankfully the walls were cinder block, and did not catch fire.
 
Tsuya's ears perked as they caught the sound of agonized machinery. Her body automatically started to move to silence it, and she raised her gun to fire off another grenade shot at where she presumed the damaged armor had been flung. After a quick, steadying breath, she squeezed the trigger.
 
The blast caught the armor in its damaged right side, hiding it briefly behind a blue-white orb of energy. The armor crashed into the corner, to the left of the double doors it'd come in through, and rested there with its front to Tsuya, not moving.

Still, what Tsuya saw was not inspiring.

The armor had the "rifle" pointing in Tsuya's general direction. It looked charred, and little flecks of fire burned on its metal skin, but she would have to turn on her pistol's light to fully ascertain the damage.

What she could see was a bladed arm missing from the side, and black scoring to all over the armor's right side. A couple sparks were tossed into the air, some electronic module's flags of surrender. The other arm was likely pinned between the wall and the armor's mass. Its shoulder cannons weren't moving, and there was no sign the armor's shields were working.

The head was blank; no life was reflected in its dead eyes. It did not twitch as Tsuya approached it. What she could not see, however, was the most crucial and vulnerable part of the armor — its hunched back.
 
Though the armor looked out of commission, Tsuya suspected that the sim still had some tricks up its sleeve. She wasn't going to get any closer to the damn thing than she needed to. She still had plenty of shots left in her gun if she used them wisely - so she double-tapped each of the armor's shoulder cannons and its faceplate.
 
The single blasts did not seem to do anything to the cannons except blacken the paint a bit. The same went for the head.
 
Tsuya made a small sound of frustration as her carefully-placed shots merely bubbled the paint. She strafed around to the armless side of the machine and started to creep closer to it.
 
The armor did not respond as she looked at it. The fires from the cardboard licked at her back, shining a bit of light on the armor. She had to watch for the blown-off mandible with its sharp vibroblades.

The armor appeared mostly fine from the blast, laying down weak and defenseless. Nothing on it was moving. She could see, in the fire light, that the hunch of the armor looked cracked.
 
Tsuya's ears flicked in contentment as she felt the warmth from the fire, however false it might be. She drew her knife in her free hand after a brief, longing look at the disabled power blades and began to slowly walk towards the cracked hump.
 
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