RP: NSS Sledge Mama Ep. 5.5 - I Hear You Like Cats?

As Alexis sat there with her Whiskey, a single Super Militant casually entered the control room overlooking the hangar. Locking the door behind it, the war machine came to stand behind the counter like a bar tender as though nothing was wrong at all. With how Alexis killed the previous bar-bot, it was perhaps not entirely surprising a replacement was cued up. This oddity did little to lift the somber mood though.

Down below, Jerry lay limply in Richard's arms. The Cyber Neko, the thing that haunted and hurt them at every corner, was utterly pathetic and frail as the hulking marine held onto it. Unable to even cough, blood slowly leaked out of the holes in her thin, almost skeletal body like red hydraulic fluid from a burst line. Without a word, she blankly stared off into nowhere, her camera based eyes unmoving, unfocused. As Stripe found himself a trio of explosive packed Super Militants a dozen meters off, their remote trigger devices still active, Ylfa paced around, her eyes wide with sheer, utter horror as the others squabbled a bit. Hearing Sawyer and Jaime though, the two would get to watch one metric ton of powered armor shrugging.

"Yeah. You guys go to the command center slash bar up there and ask our sniper for some booze," Top offhandedly commented. "She's not going anywhere, is she?" Ylfa asked, finally settling her wide, perturbed eyes on the two. It was the look of someone genuinely worried about ending up shitcanned, all the hard work done simply flushed down the drain. She shook her head. "Whatever." Looking over them all, she spotted Stripe. "Just mark those things unless you're feeling brave enough for EOD - they look like remote dets anyways, so yanking should be safe." It was a mess. So much and so little to do, all at once. Walking over to Richard, she knelt and looked at the damage. Three small, neat holes had been punched clean through her chest, damaging whatever was inside. Worse, Richard found no pulse or sign of life from Jerry. She was dead. Taking a deep breath, Ylfa spoke, a hint of nervousness in her voice.

"Richard, hold her still for me. I got my own tools with me, so I'll be able to open her up. Whatever you do, don't move, or let her move. Got it?" the Master Sergeant looked at him, dead serious. Yuriko got that same stare from her next. "And Chink? I'm going to open myself up and hold the plates open. You. You're going to take my life support module out and hook it up to her. Got that?"

Fuck me. Thought the Sergeant. Since when did she have to play Doctor? She snorted more out of annoyance than the fit of pique now fogging her mind. Fuck it. Without responding, a metaled hand went up to her helmet; pulling it off to reveal the formerly anonymous Sergeant's countenance. Violet eyes seemed to be judging, and meticulously analyzing everyone and everything they appeared to come in contact with. And at the moment the hawkish stare was plastered on Ylfa. Apparently she'd not taken the nickname well due to the set of her jaw and firmness of her lips in a disapproving frown.

Her suit's chest soon splayed open in two neat halves, the legs next along with the arms. What hopped out was probably one of the smallest Marines ever to wear a Hostile. Uniform rumpled as it was from being in the suit of armor, her hair had been done up in a messy bun. Though probably the most noteworthy thing about the Geshrin was she seemed to be armed for all out war. For gracing each thigh was a HHG. One, the normal brushed steel and synth-wood polymer grip attributed to the 'standard' model known and beloved by Nepleslians everywhere. Stamped with the NSMC Insignia along with a rank, and name. 'Grand Admiral, Vladimirus Corcyra.' The other, from what bits of metal peeked from the holster was silvered in hue; with a genuine wood grip with a bloodied, braided grain running through it in whorls. Francian Hellwood. Only rare few weapons used the volatile wood. A custom model HHG that was bigger, badder, and a whole lot meaner than its older brother.

Tilting her head to a side, her neck popped audibly as her Hostile moved of its own accord. Or rather its free hand. Reaching behind it, it pulled a camouflaged capsule from the small of its back. A Medtec MED.

"Just in case." she remarked, the Yamataian accent she'd effected before replaced with the easy drawl of Los Apagos once more.

Jaime only nodded at Ylfa, "Aye, Top." He looked over at the Corporal and gave a half-smile of quiet grief before popping of his thrusters lifting himself a small distance from the ground to make sure he cleared the mines. He leaned forward, weapon half raised, and moved over the minefield while looking down to make sure he wasn't about to hit anything underneath him or a mine. By the time he reached the entrance to the command center, his eyes were irritated from moving without air at a sizable rate of speed. He blinked a few times and waited to see where Sawyer would move and land before entering.

He gave a quiet sigh as he raised his weapon towards the doorway, ready if something did move around the corner and into the doorway. He left his finger off the trigger and nearby on the guard, determined not to fuck anything else up.

Stripes eyes widened in surprise- what was going on that Ylfa would go to such desperate measures?! He quickly marked the IED Militant corpses and moved to watch the procedure- he might learn something about what was up. "Ma'am, you got Balls of Duranium." he said with respect, who wouldn't respect someone willing to go so far to accomplish their goals?

Richard looked to Yoriko and then back to Ylfa and then he lowered his arms to hold the Neko at a height she could be reacehd by the unarmored Yoriko, he had his suit constantly monitoring their position to keep his arms as straight as possible. "Can we really just rig up a life support system to them and it work? I know Neko are built pretty rugged...though I guess if it saves our asses it doesn't really matter much huh?"

"Nepleslian brains can survive for about six minutes should the heart stop," the Sergeant explained while motioning to the limp body Richard held, "Nekovalkyrja, well, they're tricky. I'd say maybe double that depending on whatever model she was." moving between Ylfa, and Jerry, she inspected the body and riddled holes. "But this chick? Well, I ain't ever seen a Neko with cybernetics. Rumor has it their bodies reject them because of those femtomachines that they use or some shit."

Yuriko rolled her shoulders in an attempt to work the kinks out. Running a Power Armor tended to make her cramp up. "I could probably gauge what model she was depending on what I'd find on her back." she turned Jerry's head from left, then to right. "Hold her steady, Private. If this works, chances are she can knock your block off. Some of them are crazy strong."

As Jaime and Sawyer landed on the catwalk, the two took position for a breach and clear, just in case. The moment the lighter blast doors slid open with a hiss however, they were greeted by the most unusual sight of the day. A lithe young woman with short, messy white hair sat at a bar, in her armor, knocking back a few fingers of whiskey as one of the Super Militants stood behind it. With another shot glass in one hand and a rag to clean with in another, the war machine was the splitting image of a bar tender.

"What took you guys so long?" A familiar voice streamed from its speakers at the two. It was Kelly. What was going on downstairs however, wasn't so happy.

"Nerimium Stripe. Nothing more Nepleslian than that," Ylfa replied, regaining some of her cheery color. Tossing him a large keyring of various tools, her Hostile opened up as she stepped out of its front. Where Yuriko was demure in body and loud in violence, Ylfa was just plain brassy. But that didn't matter. Not one bit. "Since you just finished marking those mines, it's faster if you open her up yourself. I got a good scan in. She might be 'Spacer made apparently, but I recognize the lock and seals - it's standardized. As un-Spacer as it gets." Seeing the tools in his hand, Stripe would see the small wondertool he'd need to pry off Jerry's recessed bolt covers, and the mini electric torque wrench he'd need to remove the bolts underneath.

"Yuriko, you're going to look for a small device the size of a golf ball that's hooked up to some clear tubes with blood in them," she explained, flicking back her blond hair before pulling her shirt up. Underneath was a black workout bra that held back a bust which could rival the NNN Newsgirl's. One that loomed over smooth but well toned abs. However, they didn't have time to look - pulling the bra up with one hand, she stabbed herself right under the sternum and began sawing through a thick layer of flesh until she could forcefully peel the thick and stretchy flesh back and hold it open, revealing bloody, shining metal underneath. An armored hatch suddenly popped forward, leaving just enough room for Yuriko to reach up and into where Ylfa's heart would be.

"Tthere. Just reach reach up and you'll feel it beating. Just yank it out, and the disconnect will seal the pipes automatically. No blood spraying or anything like that," she tried to smile. Looking at her, they could tell she didn't feel pain. But that didn't mean she wasn't scared.

As the Cyber Neko lay in Richard's arms, a hand twitched ever so slightly.

Sawyer would chuckle for a moment as he looked at the woman sitting in armor and taking a drink, hearing the sound of Kelly's voice coming out of the Super-Militant bartender made him take a second look before he shrugged and popped himself out of his Hostile to grab a seat for himself before he spoke.

"Ran into some explosive greetings and a whole gagglefuck of stupid, newbies, you know, they're "special". On the other hand, while I'm here, could I get a medium dry martini, lemon peel, and shaken not stirred?"

Jaime blinked in pure confusion, raising his rifle slightly once he saw the sniper but lowering it once he heard Kelly's voice. Still helmetless, his expression of confusion was quite obvious. He went to speak for a moment before Sawyer gave his sentence about the newbies, then hid his own expression of guilt by swallowing it for the moment. He instead gave a sigh before walking next to the Corporal's hostile and took a position at the bar, but standing and visibly edged.

"If you could, find me something to cure this damned shell shock." His left hand was a little shaky but his metal right was as still. His hand grew more shaky as he rubbed around his right shoulder idly. He was lightly bleeding out of his right ear from his attempt at his railgun and explosions, possibly why he was so shocked.

As Ylfa worked, the Sergeant pulled a toothpick from a pocket, soon she was rolling it too and fro between her lips. Far from squeamish, she'd seen her fair share of corpses, gore, viscera, and offal. War tended to make such occurrences common place. "Nice set of melon's you got there." she quipped before flexing her fingers. Without hesitation, Yuriko's hand dived into Ylfa's chest cavity. The wet, bloody sloshing sounds it made brought a grimace.

"Damn, woman, you full conversion,? Yuriko asked as she continued to feel around. Everything she touched seemed to be metal, plastics or composites, yet she was unable to tell the differences between them. The Geshrin just guessed. Fingertips brushed against something small, somewhat oblong and blocky. Bingo. Feeling her way around, Yuriko disconnected the tubes running to it and pulled it out. Hand bloody and holding an artificial heart. It was almost like that movie with some dark-skinned priest ripping hearts out of his sacrifices for some goddess of destruction. Well damn, now she was going to have it on her mind with trying to remember its name.

"Well. Just ripped your heart out. Literally. Can't say that this is a
first for me. Beating the shit out of a Fyunnen Princess comes a close second to this on the Weird Shit'o Meter. So, now what?"

The ringing didn't leave Alec's ear much. He could still barely hear much but at least if something big trudged by, he'd be able to hear it. He could see a few people trying to do something with the cyber neko and a few others fly off towards where he think the sniper was set up. He couldn't remember anymore. He simply walked over to the group with the dead neko, slide his medical kit over to them, before taking a seat outside of the circle and waited for his hearing to return. Or some sort of Militant to explode right next him. Both seemed pretty acceptable right now.

Richard nervously watched things unfold in front of him, he didn't really like this idea before and he liked it even less as Ylfa cut herself open. He was no expert on biology or mechanics though and he wasn't stupid enough to stop them without a solution to replace it, and he unfortunately had none. He had to watch as Ylfa's life support was then pulled out in front of him. He bit his lower lip and held the nekoe tighter as he felt them move in his arms. "This ain't right..."

The Freespacer's single light turned to Sawyer as he took a seat, and simply kept glowing an angry red at him.

"You're missing the tux by the way," Kelly replied, her new limbs moving quickly and deftly as his drink was put together and then shaken with mechanical precision. Turning her attention over to Jaime however, she seemed to peer at him with an almost mocking look. How that was even possible though, was hard to say. "Oh, poor baby!~" she teased him. "But you're still walking, aren't you? I've seen worse." Some hard whiskey on the rocks slid down the bar over to him to catch. "Huh. So that's why so many of you meatbags want to do that. It's really nifty," the Freespacer admitted. Playing the role of bartender to the hilt though, Kelly went back to polishing a glass. "You look like you've seen some hard times miss. What's your story?"

She poured Alexis some more whiskey as the others down below started to fumble.

"Heh, like what you see?" Ylfa joked, trying her best to lighten the mood. "It's the only way to get close to matching a Neko I think," she remarked. Even with the tensions far too high, she sounded proud of herself. Or, at least, the body she was in. "You'd know though. Ha. Never thought I'd have a war hero stick her whole fist in me," she awkwardly smiled. With a yank, the small, almost innocent looking little device was pulled out of her chest. Immediately, the Master Sergeant started to look pale as she closed herself up, but did her very best to keep up appearances. "You gotta tell us about the princess. After you install the module by - " Ylfa looked over to Richard and Stripe, her eyes widening she did so.

"Damn straight that isn't right!" She bit her lip. "Stripe, if you're not going to use those tools, help Richard hold her down while Alec opens her up. Or, Alec, you help hold her down! I don't care! She's starting to do something!" True to her words, the Cyber Neko jolted and stirred ever so slightly as her mouth began opening and closing, lifeless, cybernetic eyes rolling in their sockets.

With a snort, Yuriko wiped the device to reasonable cleanliness. "I'm no War Hero, blondie. Just a woman who's seen too damn much, done more, and somehow survived to tell the tale. Battle of Nepleslia, Rok'veru. And so on." remarking whilst inspecting the device. Everything seemed to be in order until something out of the ordinary caught her attention. The Cyber Neko, it appeared she was writhing in the Hostile's grip! The Sergeant almost scoffed.

Walking over to Jerry's corpse, she grimaced while looking into those dead eyes, then to the wounds inflicted. "Likely an autonomic response by the femtomachines trying to revive her. Or something, hell I don't know. These fuckin' Cats are unpredictable when shot down, only real way to know they're dead is to incinerate'em."

Jaime took the drink that he was slid, and held it in his hand. He looked to Kelly and gave a sarcastically annoyed look before downing his drink. He looked either a little easier, or just buzzed enough to cover his remaining shock. He shook his head as the whiskey went down his throat giving a sigh. He looked over to the sniper becoming quite patient against his Gung-Ho attitude. His ear's blood began to slow, bit almost covered his entire right ear. He was beginning to regain his hearing, though the blood didn't help the muffling.

Bar at the End of the World

"None of your business, really."

Alexis seriously considered blasting this one's head off, as well, but stopped herself before the thought came to fruition. Her black and red metal arm, bare from shoulder to elbow, didn't even twitch. She didn't really feel like shooting anything else today, and she didn't reach for the Lupara; prudently, since as it happened she had some other company who might have taken offense.

The bartender's voice wasn't familiar to her, but apparently it was familiar to the Marines that ended up flanking her at the bar. And that was fine. Game was over. They were always going to lose. They just hadn't counted on losing that badly.

She listened to their questions, to their conversation, silent for those moments, until finally there seemed to be a pause. The question that burned on her mind ended up coming out in a quieter voice than she had intended, and the troubled tone surprised even her.

"So. I suppose she's dead, then, isn't she?"

Jaime gave a shrug to the sniper, "I'm not a medic, but they were doing something." He was purposefully being evasive. To add to his lie he tapped the bar, "One more of those Kelly, if you would please." He gave a hollow smile to accent his exhaustion. He turned back to the sniper and crossed his arms while leaning up on the bar from his seat. He seemed attentive and looked to just want another drink to settle his own aches.

Sawyer would shrug as he looked at Kelly before replying. "Tuxedos are far too difficult to keep tidy in appearance inside of a power armor, especially when you have to change them three times in the middle of a damned mission. Also, as to whether on not Jerry is dead, I'm not sure, they were planning on doing some kind of shenanigans to maybe keep her alive, maybe before we came up here."

Alec quickly snapped out of his ear-rung daze as realized what he was doing now. He quickly knelt down and to prepare to work on a some sort of normal humanoid before noticing that this was more machine than organic. "Oh, uh... Oh..." He knew how to work with cybernetics, but this more than he could handle... Still, something had to be similar to a regular body. He tried looking at the all the components, trying figure what constituted as the circular system in this mess and where the heart would be. "Can you even classify her as a living being if she was mostly artificial?" the medic mumbled as he reached into the tool bag for some wrenches and screwdrivers.

"We-well, uh, right." He said as he handed everything over to Alec and held the Cyberneko down. While he had a fascination with tinkering, now was most certainly NOT the time.

"Ylfa, remind me to talk get some lessons from a munitions expert when we get out of this- I really think need to know when NOT to use the boomstick." Stripe said jokingly in an attempt to keep her talking, giving her a worried look. As long as she was talking, she was alive after all.