Suddenly, a loud clank of metal upon metal rang out around the two marine squads, quickly drowning out their words for the single second the sounded outwards. Another moment or so later, another loud metallic grinding sound emitted from somewhere beneath them, and the ground suddenly began to quiver and shake as a section of the kelp-y, mossy cliff top began to rise up. Rico, whom was on the edge of the quickly-elevating earth, leaped down from it and readied his rifle as he trailed a sight towards it, the surprise of the moment seizing his attention.
A moment later, it was revealed to the two squads that they had been standing on what appeared to be a massive hatch of some sort. It was definitely man-made, which became more apparent the higher the square hatch was raised, revealing a mass of hydraulic equipment and machinery beneath the 'lid'. A quick glance into the hole it left behind made it quite clear what it was; a tunnel system of some sort, painfully obvious the the sleek, metallic walls and pale lighting fixtures, complete with a tiny neon-orange exit sign on the side of the wall. The tunnel went straight downward, a complete submerged vertical drop, the depth of which could not be accurately ascertained due to the massive amounts of interference coming from the Red jamming arrays. All of this visual information had to be obtained visually through external camera systems, however...to each suits sensor systems, the tunnel and it's machinery weren't there at all.
"Whoa, what the flying fuck..." Kagura said, moving back a couple steps and used her visual field to try and figure out just what was going on. "It's probably an exit according to that sign."
Uso dropped down to her belly, pointing her integrated weapon systems at the entrance while backing up along the ocean floor. She deployed her remaining drone ahead of her and just barely above the ocean floor to get a better view of what was going on.
Autumn let out an impressed whistle after quickly slinging her canister rifle back into a firing position on her shoulder. "Looks like somebody wants us to come in... and we might be getting company.
"Holy-" Trey exclaimed, boosting backwards, out of the way of the door, pointing his FMD at the hole in case something came out. "Well isn't this lucky?" he called, a bit confused.
"Ugh... what the fuck!" Gyles barked as he boosted upwards and away from the hole and readied his lance. The thin outline of a grin traced his otherwise scowling face.
Mireille simply looked over to the rest of the squad and responded quietly. "It's a trap."
"Hrm, maybe, but we'll need to find out. I say we send a scout down, see if it really is a trap." Stromm grunted approvingly.
"They have enough guys out here to take us out, they don't need to lay a trap. IF they opened up an exit it is likely they are about to deploy combat units using that exit," Uso hurriedly said over the laser communication system, her heart racing from the excitement and surprise.
"I don't think we really have the manpower to do that. There's a chance we might not be able to open this again," Autumn murmured quietly into the comm.
"On it." Rico said with a smirk, SIAR aimed and ready as moved closer to the opening and peered down into the recesses of the tunnel. He didn't see anything noteworthy, nor did his sensor systems. "...they must have this thing lined with stealth systems or some shit. Sensors can't pick it up...all it sees is black."
"Then let's blow the shit out of it!" Kagura laughed. She then thought. "Though we can try to go down it..." She said, aiming her canister rifle down the tube.
"How bout a flare? Anyone got something to light it up for visuals?" Trey suggested.
"Well then, we don't exactly have very much of a choice." Mireille said as she shifted over to Rico. "Sergeant, we'll have to stick to visual detection if it is, indeed lined with Zanarium. An EMP might clarify things, but that would undoubtedly give us away."
"If we want their attention a grenade would be better," Autumn peered cautiously inside at the edge of the hatch. "Whatever we're doing, we better get to it before this damn thing closes or our blind dates arrive."
Gyles looked at the opening and grinned whirling his lance enthusiastically. "Tell you what. I'll boost in and record whatever is in there. Laser the rest of the gang if everything's cool. Rico?"
"Show off." Kagura said to Gyles.
"Hang on. Shit, we might not even have to scout. Doesn't look like there's anything down here." Rico said as he kicked a small rock at watched it float down the hole, his weapon still trained into the empty space down below.
Stromm edged towards the opening, looking down into it, then activated his low-light vision. The Sergeant stepped forward, drawing a Red round into his FMD, and dropped down. "Well, let's be sure." Stromm said as he sunk downward.
"... Ah fuck it," Uso said, getting up and jumping down the hole after the Stromminator, sending her single drone ahead to scout things out ahead of her.
"I'll stay up here and cover you." Kagura said.
"I motion we move in, as there doesn't seem to be very much to contend with. Time is of the essence." Mireille answered as she moved closer towards the opening, following after Steshlen.
"Meh.. whatever." Trey grunted, loading a black zanarium shell into his FMD and jumping down the hole, too.
Gyles looked over to Kagura. "Well, I suppose I can't just leave you here. Well, there's that and the fact that my machine can't really work in close quarters unless I disengage the booster pack." The tech sentry said, loading a string of 2 BLUE shells into his FMD.
Kagura walked over and pushed Gyles toward the hole. "It was your idea, so you should go down there." she said.
Autumn hesitated at the edge and looked towards the oddly silent Ian for a moment before looking towards Rico for their decision to press on or to wait.
Stromm and the drone didn't get far in until the seemingly empty tunnel before it literally exploded into life. Multiple flashes of light sensor reading erupted from the mouth of the tunnel, swallowing the Sergeant. Uso's drone was quickly lost in the fray as well. The ones who remained on the surface were lucky enough to witness this for only a second or so...but it wasn't long until the unknown assailants found their way to them. They were cloaked, fast, and apparently liked to get very close and personal. One of the had tackled Stromm and thrusted him harshly against the side of the tunnel, unable to clearly ascertain what his enemy was doing due to the cloaking field. Ian soon found himself on the ground as well, his arms locked in place and his suit reading a very heavy outside pressure slowly pushing its way into his powered armor.
"Fuuuck," Uso told herself as she backed out off the entrance of the tunnel, activating her plasma control systems at the ends of her armor to envelop herself in a big cloud of steam as she tried to move her power armor to cover.
"FUCK!" Ian yelled, straining to push whatever the hell was on top of him off. He attempted kicking the air above his legs, hoping to connect with something.
"SON OF A BITCH!" Stromm roared as he slammed against the wall, and looked up, trying to find his enemy. The Sarge drew his chainsword, and revved it up. He wildly slashed it forward and used his grav field push towards the force that pushed against him, hoping to detect it through touch. "I've got contact, cloaked hostiles!" Stromm grunted
As soon as the lights erupted around Stromm, Trey boosted backwards, pulling himself at the hatch-top with the PPG. "CRAP! ENEMIES!"
Gyles decidely fired his two BLUE shells into the tunnel, once again figuring that well built NDI designs would recover from the blast, whereas NRM technology tended to be more sensitive to EMP assault. He only hoped that Stromm wouldn't kick his ass for doing it.
Autumn pulled back away from the tunnel's entrance, inwardly cursing as she tried to find a location inside of the hole to fire upon without hitting any of her comrades. "There's that ass grab..."
Mireille launched a light spray of 15 DARTs to create chaff in the water, in the hopes she'd hit shields, or make enough chaff so the stealthed armors would be spotted.
Kagura did the same, but couldn't get a good line on one, the fire control system not letting her with the risk of friendly fire.
Autumn felt herself get jerked back and reacted by jerking her trigger of her canister rifle back. She felt her heart pounding and tried to pull back away from ever the fuck it was trying to take off her head, firing as many rounds as she possibly could in the few seconds she had before contact.
Shortly after his EMP Rounds were fired off, Gyles would find a strong, yet stealthed force ramming into his armor. His attacker grappled the Tech, and now, Gyles find himself flying towards the seafloor in what seemed like a sick rollercoaster ride.
Kagura swung on Autumn, pulling out her SIAR and fired off a few shots from the side, aiming so they'd pass in front of Autumn and hopefully hit whatever had her in the side.
Stromms struggling amounted to little to help his predicament, his vibroblade bouncing off an invisible barrier as his shields also began receiving the same kind of stress. Gyles's BLUE EMP shells collided with the Sergeant, exploding in a momentary flash of electricity that faded as quickly as it appeared. The sight it left behind was rather disturbing. A massive haunched powered armor, a Crooked Demon, had the sergeant pinned down...but it wasn't long before the cloaking field on the Red armor regenerated itself to full capacity. He largely ignored the blue shells, instead focusing on his trapped foe.
The DARTs fired by Mirielle had no visible effect on the invisible foes...they merely exploded in small patches of the ocean, making little more than patches of murky smokey water that garbled HUD's when they were passed through.
Kagura rolled over and tried to flip the thing off her and smash it's head in with the butt of the SIAR and her elbow. At least aiming at where it should be.
Stromm whipped out his FMD and quickly fired his Red round in the direction of the newly revealed-now stealthed foe. "God dammit!" Strom barked.
Autumn's rounds smashed into something behind her, detonating. What it hit would be the shield of another Crooked Demon. It let go of the armor, and stepped back, it's cloak deactivating. The monstrous armor pulled it's claw back again, and swung it once more, this time significantly faster.
With the momentary gap in the CD's stealth fields, the FIO bolted forwards and rammed the VCBS strapped bellow her Ion Arrays and tried to plunge it into the armor's back, before swinging around to the right and striking the armored Red with a "Push" blast to knock him off the sergeant. In the hopes she would at least give the Sergeant a chance to recover from the attack, she loaded 2 white shells and prepared to fire on it, should her RADAR pick up any collisions with the surface nearby.
Trey looked around from his spot on the hatch and shot downwards, the black shells ripping through the water. He dearly hoped it would hit something, even though he couldn't see. "Well Shit, what are these things?"
As the steam around her armor dissipated, Uso had some time to get a handle on what was going on. She checked her squad uplink, and used it to pull information from Stromm’s suit. Her AI grabbed a screenshot of the power armor that he was currently fighting and displayed that on her HUD. She spent only a few moments getting to the lip of the entrance as she settled back down to the ocean floor, her integrated rifle quickly drawing a bead on Stromm’s armor. Uso only squandered a second with the pesky process of aiming using the suit’s fire control system before firing the weapon’s beam very close to Stromm’s arm, looking to hit the cloaked armor pinning beefman down.
The cloaked crooked didn't have long to catch his breath as Mirielle attempted to bring her vibrosaw to bare against it. The Crooked Demon took a swing at her, the solid weapon bounced harmlessly off of the freshly regenerated forearm shield. Her attempt to repulse the armor away was futile as well: the Crooked Demon merely slid with his grappled foe farther down the tunnel. The Red armor unleashed a few blasts from his shoulder-mounted aether cannons at her retreating form, but was quickly knocked out of that as Uso's shots collided with his other forearm shield, knocking it loose from holding Stromm.
Autumn's grimace behind her Warhawk's mask quickly became a grin. She had never seen an armor like this or even been in hand to hand combat since her gang days. But it was to her advantage to try to keep the hell away from this Red Demon... but the dilemma of his location was thankfully resolved for now. She aimed at the demon's torso and quickly fired another 5 round burst with her canister rifle at the demon, strafing hard to the right in an attempt to avoid the demon's claw. Unfortunatly for her, the Demon was faster than her and its large monomolecular nerimium vibroblade grated hard against her left arm, shredding the metal of the armor and coming very close to filleting the warm flesh underneath.
Ian's struggling did little to affect the invisible foe crushing his armors. Rico Sanroma, however, quickly leaped into action in his defense. "Where the fuck is it?!" the Sergeant demanded as he trained his rifle across Ian's writhing form.
Trey now could figure out where some of the armors were, and fired at the one assaulting Autumn as it slashed at her arm. "DAMN AUTUMN! Get outta there!"
Shortly after Uso opened fire, yet another set of cloaked claws found their way around her rifle, and began to squeeze.
Uso quickly throttled up her power armor's engines and extended a ball of plasma out of her right arm to envelop the area near her arm and thrust the glowing ball of energy forward as the water instantly vaporized, creating a small shockwave from where she was standing.
The cloaked armor that had alerted Gyles with it's bodyslam, averted it's attention to Trey. The Green pilot would find a pair of Vibro-Clawed blades slashing at his arm and rifle. Kagura would feel the force of two claws slamming into her back as her assailant maneuvered and attacked at her from behind.
The explosive shell colliding with the front of the Crooked Demon's demanded the Reds attention once again, and he quickly thrusted his back back down towards the Sergeant, menacing claws extended.
Kagura thrust herself forward to avoid taking too much damage and just going with the force of it and fired her canister rifle directly behind her, tucking it under her arm, pointing backwards.
"THE HELL IF I KNOW, SERGEANT! THE GODDAMN THING IS INVISIBLE!" Ian yelled over his comm.
Stromm angrily grav fielded to the right as he pushed himself away from the left wall. The Sarge grunted as he slammed against the wall, and kicked his thrusters in and moved back towards the opening of the tunnel. With this time he loaded his EMP rounds into the FMD. "Come and get me, you bastard." Stromm growled as he moved.
That made it a somewhat easy target for a directed plasma discharge guided right into the armor from short range as Uso closed the distance to the armor with her suit's engines now that she had a sensor lock on where the suit was.
Trey moved his arm down and away, not wanting to lose it again, but the rifle strapped to his side was another matter, being ripped off immediately "Dammit you bastard! I was savin' that for later!" The Yamataian-bodied man spun around and pushed with his PPG as hard as his systems would, hoping to get some distance between him and the enemy before firing his FMD again.
The plasma charge connected with the Brickshitter's forearm shield, dissipating quickly away, with the damage being handily dealt with by the invisible energy field. The Crooked Demon retaliated with its two lethal shoulder-mounted aether cannons, firing them wildly towards the woman. However, the pilot was quite inaccurate.
Kagura's round would make contact with her enemy, but the cloaked Crooked Demon would take the hit through his shield. With that, CD quickly moved, and then thrusting towards Kagura, slamming into her and attempting to take her down into the tunnel.
Kagura would turn her legs and jump jets to spiral around and leap up over the enemy, going totally upside down and fired the canister shots directly downward as she did and kept firing when she landed behind it, facing it's "back" hopefully.
The Brickshitter going after Trey opened fire with his shoulder mounted aether cannons at the pilot as he attempted to escape the Crooked Demons wrath.
Rico growled a hasty sigh as he carefully aimed at where he believed the invisible enemy had the half ID-SOL pinned, rechecked the condition of his squad, and unleashed a single round of his SIAR. The shell glanced off a few feet away from Ian's armor, confirming at least a general area. The cloaked Crooked Demon apparently figured this out as well: Ian would feel the grip on him loosen slightly as the Reds attention turned.
The high explosive canisters collided with the shields. They worked. The energy field stuttered and failed, the shell fired finding itself colliding at a rather decreased speed with the CDs hull, the small explosion causing little damage. The armor boosted forward towards Autumn, claws stretched before it in a move no doubt meant to skewer the poor woman.
Uso was already within hand to hand range and simply moved her hand up to grab the armor's head as her suit leaned forward, aiming to smash into the demon's torso.
The Crooked Demon was much faster than the Stromms armor; it wasn't long before it had caught up, arm raised to glance another blow onto its foe.
"THANK YOU!" Ian pulled his arm from the grasp of the now-distracted armor, set his forearm down, and opened fire upwards with the disc launcher, hoping to get at least some hurt in.
"You're not getting me!" Trey yelled at the CD, though it probably couldn't hear him, grabbing a large rock with his PPG and both pulling himself to the side and flinging it at the offending Armor. With his other arm he let off another salvo of Zanarium sniper shells, just to be sure.
Kagura's target took fire, and attempted to move out of her angle of fire. The Brickshitter's shields slowly dissipated as he was hit, but he was able to dissappear once again. Out of it's stealthy cover, the Crooked Demon unleashed a hail of aether fire on Kagura from her right.
The explosive disk caught the Crooked Demon on the chin, dissipating his physical shields and jerking his head back a bit. However, it appeared to be relatively unharmed, despite this. The Red armor raised his right claw to strike Ian's prone body while the shoulder-mounted aether turrets attempted to distract Rico. Sergeant Sanroma couldn't do much other than attempt to dodge the blasts...Ian was on his own until something drastic happened.
Stromm, sensing his foe's approach, turned rapidly, and unloaded an EMP round into the armor. With that, he raised his PPG and fired the forearm shield at the pursuing Demon.
The armor staring down Uso, knowing now that it's aether cannons were useless at this range, instead opted to make a grab for her leg.
Noticing the motion of the water as it moved, Kagura followed it with the muzzle of her rifle and strafed to the left and tried to get another salvo of shots off at it. "Watch for how they move in the water!" Kagura said over the laser com to the others outside the tunnel.
Trey's rock was met with more Aether fire, as it was shot down and melted by the hot ammunition. The Crooked Demon continued to fire on the strafing armor pilot.
Uso held tightly to the armor's face, super-heated plasma jetting out of her hand and causing a steam explosion that strained her armor's artificial muscles as they tried to hold tight to the armor's helmet. She was sure this would end the armor and began searching through the squad uplink to find a new target.
While the attack did kill the pilot, it was not before his claw had clung itself around the woman's leg and begun to squeeze slightly. Luckily, the vibration function had stopped.
Autumn's grin widened as pain shot through her left arm and into her shoulder. She quickly swung her canister rifle in front of her with her left hand - meaning to try to slow the incoming claws; as she fired at the incoming CD with her disc launcher from her Warhawk's right forearm.
Trey's mind was racing, he HATED close quarters combat, and what did he get? CLOSE QUARTERS COMBAT. "Asswipe!" The pilot yelled, using a piece of ingenuity, he pulled himself straight at the ground, hoping the impact would crate a cloud of mud for him to hide in. Seeing that his zanarium shells weren't having much effect, Trey would take the time he'd hopefully buy to reload to a mix of blue and red shells
Uso blasted herself free from the claw using her armor's leg mounted PPG device. Her squad uplink found her the location of the armor firing its weapon systems at a strafing squadmate. She used her fortuitous location behind that particular armor to speed towards it, reaching out to grab it with her right had as the left one provided a screen of steam to block her off from sight.
The armor attacking Kagura was obviously startled as the rounds unsuspectingly panged off his shields, and dissipated them. He was stunned long enough for the hail of fire to strike true, one of the rounds pierced a hole in the man's chest armor, and in an instant, the man inside the armor was dead, crushed under the water's pressure.
The Crooked Demon raised its forearm shields to take the brunt of the determined blow...but the EMP shell was not expected. The surge of energy burst the shielding capacity, and the subsequent PPG blast sent the armor spinning backwards for a moment. It wasn't long before the Crooked Demon regained its balance and returned with his own stream of aether fire from his shoulder mounted cannons.
The Crooked Demon was about to enjoy a leading shot on on Trey, when he detecting Uso approaching on his side. The Red armor, raised his claws to bear, and brought them towards Uso as she approached, ignoring Trey now.
Uso simply aimed her hands at the armor's claws, focusing superheated plasma forward against the armor. She started searching for a second target over the squad uplink, thinking that all she needed to do was pop the enemy's claw and let the water pressure kill the pilot.
Kagura would turn on the CD going for Uso and would move to support her, opening fire with both the SIAR and her Canister rifle when she could.
The blades raked Ian's chest, the impact of the vibrations startlingly powerful against his chest. The cadet gasped, and then threw a punch into the things face, while at the same time using his left arm to latch onto the wrist of the attacking armor, trying to push the lethal claw away.
"Shit!" Stromm yelled, thinking that the Crooked Demon would have him when he respositioned himself. The Sarge, however, loaded a Red round in his FMD and fired it at the Brickshitter, hoping its shields were going to be weak enough to cause damage. He whipped out his chainsword, and blasted towards the Crooked Demon, aether diminishing his shields as he charged.
Autumn's disks worked quite well against the armor's shields, blasting them off in seconds. The Brickshitter pulled back, deciding to open up with its twin aether cannons.
The momentary cease in the Crooked Demon's action was all Rico needed to gain the advantage. The Sergeant boosted over towards the exposed Red armor and unleashed a hefty assault on its unshielded flank. Rico continued firing until he could see the red rising out of it's back. "You can get up any time now, baby!" Rico laughed in between bursts of his rifle.
The Crooked Demon tried to maneuver but he was caught by the fire from the other squad members. His shields dissipated and one of Uso's rounds burned into his armor. Not long after that, the pilot inside died from the water's pressure.
Trey now popped out of the mud cloud, and noted his enemy was already dead, then turned around to look for more "Leave some for me, will ya guys?" He joked, finding that the squads were gaining an advantage over these foes finally. He then unloaded a few blue shells at the nearest foe he could see.
Ian kicked the now-lifeless armor off of him, letting it land hard on the sand. A moment later, the dead armor was filled with Canister Rifle ammunition, blasting the corpse into shards of metal and scraps of flesh. "Bastard." Growled the cadet.
"Fucking Beefman, where did you run off to?" Uso asked more to herself as she wasn't expecting a response off of the squad channel. It took her a few moments to find her Sergeant as well as the CD armor he was fighting. Immediately afterwards she would charge towards them, aiming to grab the CD with her hand so that her PPG could burn it a new one.
The Crooked Demon intercepted the Red shell fired from Stromm's FMD with another Aether blast, and recovered from it just in time to catch the charging Sergeant's vibroknife in one of his clawed hands. The two high-vibration objects rattled erratically against each other as the Red armor raised it's other free claw to bring it down onto Stromms head.
"That was thoroughly crazy... For a moment I thought I was dead..." Kagura muttered.
"Ooh, baby, don't turn up the heat in here on my account, " Autumn cooed into the channel to the CD she was fighting. She activated her thrusters again and started to attempt to dodge the incoming aether blasts. She fired another barrage of explosive discs at the enemy armor again. "There are better ways to get into my armor than those sexy claws of yours."
"Autumn quit trying to get laid by the enemy!" Kagura laughed over the com and went to go try and help her friend out.
The strike, however, was cut short as the CD's grip on Stromm was interupted by Uso's grapple attempt. She caught the armor on the shoulder, but only for a brief moment before it spun around harshly and grabbed her wrist in return.
The CDs pilot reeled back again, once again stunned by the explosive impacts. It then pushed its gravitic drives into full and shot towards Autumn at the highest speed it could manage, determined to floor the smaller armor.
Uso dialed up the energy output from her suit's palm mounted IPP as her second hand reached out to grab the armor's helmet. Almost immediately she brought up her suit's squad uplink to search for a new target, thinking the plasma from the grapple would be enough to pop the armor and allow the water pressure to kill the pilot.
Stromm brought up his PPG and aimed it at the Crooked Demon's neck. With his aim steady, he fired the shield and the currently occupied attacker.
Trey noticed the CD streaming towards Autumn and turned and fired his FMD at it, using Red shells to hopefully blast it off course, if not kill it.
The shells missed, continuing past the armor and detonating a ways away. Trey received two shots from an aether cannon for his troubles, but still failed to distract the demon.
Kagura fired her rifles at the CD streaming toward Autumn, leading her on to try and snipe it.
The Crooked Demon was apparently wisened to Uso's move, quickly ducking its head out of the way and flipping itself up and over Uso's armor until it was upside-down, facing her back. It then attempted to take a slash at the back of her neck, probably hoping for a nice, clean decapitation.
Trey ducked as fast as he could, the Aether blasts hitting his shields and knocking them out. This only angered him more and so he PPG'd himself to the seafloor and then grabbed the CD with his other PPG, trying to slow it down so he could get a good bead on it.
Both attempts on the armor's life failed. Kaguras fire, with such a limited space to lead into, streamed more towards Autumn than the Demon itself, and Trey's PPG only served to slightly slow the armor due to the range.
Kagura shouted over the com to Autumn to dodge the incoming friendly fire. "I hate this thing..." She growled to herself.
Uso, temporarily distracted by her squad uplink, simply continued what she had been doing already. Now that she was standing still her armor's barrier field activated to protect her against a penetrating blow while her hand that was still being held by the demon expanded its ball of plasma, hoping to melt the demon's hand and arm that were close to the projector enough to kill the pilot. The problem of course being that expanding and bending the projection around towards the grab on her wrist was quite difficult.
Autumn continued her quick, bizarre retreat backwards trying to keep away from the enemy armor that was trying to bare down on her, she continued to fire the explosive discs from her right forearm launcher. She saw something coming at her from her side vision and tried to push her Warhawk's thrusters to go faster to dodge it. "I hate it when people try to cut in on my dance partners... now's not the time for a threesome!"
A problem that the Red knew very well to exploit. It's longer limbs allowed it to quickly sweep up the other wrist of Uso's armor and grasp it tightly. The Crooked Demon twisted around once more, keeping a hold of her wrists tightly as he haunched his knees up to his chest, placing the two feet of his armor against the back of Uso's armor. The Red soldier then began to pull at the two arms, using Uso as a platform as he attempted to rip her apart.
Stromm brought up his PPG and aimed it at the Crooked Demon's neck. With his aim steady, he fired the shield and the currently occupied attacker.
The CD added even more incentive for Kagura to back off by providing her with several bursts of aether.
Uso bent her knees, aiming the bottom of her feet up at the CD's crotch. She then used both plasma projectors on the underside of her armor's feet to try and burn through the demon before it was able to tear open her armor.
Uso's Crooked Demon foe wasn't expecting the attack from Stromm. The hefty blow against the back of its unshielded head did the job, most likely snapping the spinal cord. Uso's assault went relatively unchallenged as a result, and she would find herself released from the lifeless grip of the defeated Red soldier as it floated aimlessly back down the tunnel.
As the CD and Autumn moved further away, Trey knew he could do no more to help. He released his PPG grip and turned to see Uso in a bad way, he loaded some black shells and sent them at the CD that was trying to rip her up.
"Son of a bitch..." Stromm panted for a moment as his chainsword came free.
The shells would come close enough to pop Uso's barrier field and pass right over her shoulder. Sparing the soldier about friendly fire from that kinda distance she quickly moved toward her next target. So far the only demon remaining on her sensor system was the one fighting Autumn. Using the power armor's engines she again tried for the same grapple manuver, using a cloud of steam from her plasma weapons to cover her advance.
Kagura narrowly evaded the beams, getting the barrier shield broken by one and another grazing over the metal of the shoulder but not cutting through it. "That was way too close!" She shouted and instead got pissed off and tried to line up for another few shots.
After roughly half of their numbers were defeated, the remaining Crooked Demons suddenly became a little more apprehensive in their actions. After another moment of actions between them, the remaining Crooked Demons stepped back and cloaked themselves...and did not attempt another attack. The interference from the Red Jamming arrays was still quite in effect, making tailing the retreating armors difficult, if not impossible. It was uncertain just where the living Red armors had exactly retreated to, however.
Rico boosted up to the center of the area and assessed the outcome of the situation. It didn't last that long...but being caught by that ambush no doubt left a few scars. The Sergeant kept a look out as he sounded off through his short-range communication channel.
"Status, people, status."
"My skull is ringing a little bit, took a few hits in the shield. Otherwise, I'm 100%" Stromm reported.
Seeing that nothing he was doing did much to help in this environment, Trey was beginning to feel a bit downcast. All he wanted was to be helpful, and right now he wasn't. Everything he did either too late or too badly to help anyone, and besides, they didn't seem to need him, they did fine on their own. The next part of Trey's little mental fit was a shutdown. He just relaxed and floated downwards to the seabed. About the time he hit the bottom he heard Rico's query "Feelin' shitty Sir, I don't seem to be of much use"
"Pissed the fuck off." Kagura came back. "Makes me wish I had a good cleaver blade to take their heads off with."
"I'm minus one gun, three RPV drones and a barrier field," Uso replied quickly as her power armor began administering sedatives to help calm her down.
"Stop complaining slut." Kagura said to Uso. "Your field will regenerate given time and you'll survive without your drones."
"Kagura, shut the hell up, that's an order." Stromm responded to Kagura with a sort of strained calm in his voice.
"The bastard got my LBR, now i don't have a big gun if we go somewhere without water." Trey said, a bit of anger in his voice, still floating limply at the bottom.
"Did we get all of them?" Uso asked, "My suit isn't showing any on the HUD but that doesn't mean anything."
"I'm gonna need my arm looked at. I kinda can't feel my fingers; although, I know I'm still holding my canister rifle. Where's our dear medic?" Autumn replied out of breathe as she headed back towards the others.
"Hey I'm not the one in the hole now am I metal face." Kagura said. "What I said is true, her barrier will come back in time and she'll survive without the drones."
"Kagura, I gave you direct order, no extra chatter, that goes for the rest of you. From now on communication is for coordination only, any stupid shit, and I'll break your jaw." Stromm snarled over the squad-wide comm.
If Stromm could see it from the tunnel Kagura was giving him the finger.
"Right here." Adrian practically materialized from a small cloud of dust, his rifle raised. "You bastards moved around so fast I couldn't get a bead on jack shit. Anyway, who said they needed a medic?" Adrian took a look over at Kagura. Man, what a bitch.
"Just to let you know, Kagura." Stromm said with another snarl. "My low-light vision is on."
"Enough! Jeezamaneez." Rico shouted as he inspected each of his squadmates' readouts from his HUD. A few bumps and bruises, a few cuts and scrapes...but chances are they would have a lot more if they were going to argue about them then and there. "Alright. Sergeant...I'd say we found a way in," Rico said as he pointed precariously at the tunnel mouth, still open. "And right now, I'd say it's our best bet."
"DID WE GET ALL OF THEM OR NOT?" Uso snaped into the comm system.
"I need ya, Adrian," Autumn replied brightly. She seemed to be in a good mood despite her injury.
"Gah!" Kagura said and stopped it." I figure the rest of you hate me already so I'm not even gonna try to get you guys to like me." She said and turned to Uso. "Somehow I don't think so, IPG."
"Then lets get a fucking move on before one of them takes off one of our heads at range using their shoulder cannons." Uso said over the comm system as the drugs in her body started to equalize out somewhat.
"Right then, we operate-..." Stromm stopped for a moment as Uso blasted for the comm systems. "We operate on passive-modes for sensors and mono-eyes for the time being. No thrusters, nothing that can cause a sensor to go off." The Sergeant finished.
Adrian trotted to Autumn, eyeing the large gash in her armor. "Oi. Nasty scrape there. Those things using vibro-blades?"
"I doubt it, too, baby. Few of 'em ran off. But I'd rather get started towards our fuckin' objective than sittin' 'round here waitin' for 'em." Rico responded.
"Who'd have thought the reds had superior stuff compared to us." Kagura whistled.
"It obviously isn't superiour if we didn't lose anyone." Trey remarked with boredom apparent in his voice.
"Ok, you take an aether cannon to the face, boy." Kagura hissed.
"Good point, baby!" Rico said, shouldering his SIAR and slapping a hand agains the back of Trey's shoulder. "Hurry up an' get yourselve's patched up...we're headin' out in three, whether you're ready or not."
"I believe so, in a claw form. Think he crushed a nerve? My hand's still gripping but I can't feel my fingers or really loosen my hold on my canister rifle's grip," Autumn mentioned as she stood still for Adrian's examination. "I guess I'll have to switch to the SIAR now."
"Your grip on the rifle might be the suit locking up your fingers on it so you don't lose it." Kagura said to Autumn.
Uso stood near the ledge of the entrance, using her external audio pickups to check the entrance for any sounds that might be coming up.
Trey jumped at the hand on his shoulder. "The hell-" he said, standing back up "Sir, I'm almost out of FMD ammo, and unless you can find my LBR and it still works, I'm pretty much screwed" He said to Sergeant Rico.
Adrian grabbed Autumn's shoulder lightly and took a closer look. "Nah, probably didn't crush a nerve... You'd probably be in more pain if that had happened. I think the injury might be something more along the lines of a dislocated or broken arm. I can't tell for sure now." He looked back to her face. "I'll have to wait until we get somewhere dry to open you up."
OOC: I'll edit this into something more coherent when I'm not half asleep. Just posting now so we can still RP around it.
