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

As some of the Militants broke through their barrage and charged in, Sawyer immediately zeroed in on the pair making a beeline straight for him. Both his miniguns opened up, the shots indistinguishable from the next, but one Super immediately hid behind the other as they flew in. Plasma rounds tore apart the leading enemy's corpse shield and splashed against its barriers before a massive boom announced his railgun's presence. The shot stopped it midair like it had hit an invisible wall, the energy barriers bursting with a flash and crackle of lightning, but the second rose over it, and kicked off its ally like a stepping stone. Plummeting down onto Sawyer from above, the marine barely managed to guard as the second Super Militant cleaved its plasma blade into his Aggressor sized shield.

Leaping off, it landed with a thunderous thud as the first did the very same further back. Despite the damage his shot had done, the round embedding itself deep in the armor plate, the two charged the veteran again. Before they could rush and overwhelm the squad's Nerimium giant, an invisible hand yanked the first away from him mid-charge, sending it sprawling on the ground. Ylfa's automatic rifle fire peppered it, but the Super Militant immediately rolled away and fired back with its plasma arm. Thrusters firing, the heavy machine zigged and zagged upwards, her tracer fire following it across the surface of several shuttles as it replied to her in kind.

"Squad! Focus on the toasters in here with us now! Sawyer, you cover the hall! There's one more on him right now!" she commanded them over the comms. True to her word, it closed in far faster than a human in a suit could, without regard for the absurd Gs it was pulling. The plasma blade slashed out at his legs, the massive Nerimium shield glowing a dull red whenever the marine blocked while his barriers sparked with light whenever he failed - it was whittling him down!

As Yuriko fired her underbarrel down into the approaching horde, the round was quickly followed by Alec's heavier rocket - the blast threw up even more smoke and debris into the air, but the outlines of the world stood out clear to them all. They both quickly joined Jaime's rifle fire with their own, but the machines were only briefly stopped by the heavy weapons they had brought to bear moments ago. The hallway was torn to shreds and was no longer recognizable as portions of it now showed bare asteroid. Several came closer and closer through the torn open side rooms and craters, and just as Jaime readied another shot, a Militant sprung up in front of Yuriko just barely a few meters away! Its plasma blade ignited as it charged her, but Jaime brought his shoulder railgun to bear. The snapshot's heavy slug smashed into the body off center, its entire torso section turning with the momentum before speeding up into a deadly blue plasma buzzsaw bearing down on Yuriko.

Stripe wasn't faring any better himself; the duo bearing down on him closed in fast as their thrusters fired, arm guns blazing away and pelting him with a barrage of plasma. His shields were quickly being brought down with the barrage, but supporting fire quickly came in and started hammering at the leading unit. Mark was back! However, they didn't care; as his rounds pounded through its energy barrier, his target landed just a few steps away from Stripe. Raising its left arm, the Super Militant used it like a small shield, sacrificing the limb as its other arm blazed with energy, the blade swinging in at its target. Jinking and juking, he couldn't aim for its head, and instead aimed lower, the round hammering into its chest and stopping its charge just for a heartbeat!

"Trash talk later marine!" Ylfa yelled at Mark, deftly yanking her foe down from above with her PPG before charging in with her bayonet to finish it off. At the same time, another minigun went off. Roaring away, Richard quickly found he couldn't keep both of his opponents in check. As one was hosed down and was literally forced back by the storm of rounds before seeking cover, the other closed in on him fast, pelting his Nerimium shield with plasma rounds before switching its weapon arm over to the blade to stab at him. An invisible force yanked it away from him by just a few meters as Kelly's rifle started hammering into it.

"DD4MN17, wHY M 1 Sc4VV1N' PHor jOO?!" she angrily yelled at him. "d0n'7 y0u h4v3 4 5w0rd 0r 50m37h1n6?" the Freespacer angrily struggled to modulate her voice. The Militant she fought quickly leaped to the side before its thrusters fired again, moving around Richard himself; with Richard in the way, it was impossible for her to finish that one off while he held back the other one!

The marines desperately needed to suppress the oncoming horde of machines in the hallway, but they also needed to deal with those in their face right now - if the machines pressing in didn't push this home already, Ylfa's orders made it all the more clear.

Sawyer's Aggressor would continue to unleash hell down the corridor, the twin chain guns unloading volley after volley of plasma fire down the corridor as he suddenly dropped his rail gun, drawing the hyper-induction sword that hadn't seen any use as of yet before slashing and stabbing in a precise motion at the Militant trying to stab at him. If he managed to take it down, he'd pull down the AOP on his back and unload a canister of mixed blue and red rounds down the corridor, aiming for a massive overpowering wall of destruction to suppress the oncoming enemies.

Jaime looked at the Marine who he was attempting to save. His railgun made contact with the charging Militant, but only aided it's attempt to kill. Something came over him, whether it was past thoughts or just too much adrenaline, he didn't know. He leveled his rifle with his right arm, and gripped it with his left. Hammering away at the spinning one, his railgun prepped another slug to literally move it off it's forward momentum and make it an easy target. His HPAR kept throwing hate-filled burst, one by one, towards the spinning one before his railgun shot then switched back to the hallway. He then cursed to himself before he stood up and began to aggressively attack other Militants in the room. They needed to push them back, and fast.

He keyed his mic and his voice sounded strained but calm, "We are going to need more oomph to get these shits down, unless we get really lucky damn quickly!"

The heavy weapons fire made for a brief, if spectacular show. Their fire however while appearing to have some effect, it was just not enough. That was to be expected of course, so many, even with a RED shell wouldn't cause nearly as much havoc. Just then her HUD flashed red in warning, the display showing an enemy machine bearing down her just a few meters distant. Incoming fire smacking it around, the Militant crept on, and her Hostile did not remain standing still to await it.

Removing the bracing foot upon her shield, Yuriko's Hostile gripped the Nerimium bulwark. Firing as he was at the thing, Jaime'd see the Sergeant's Hostile pivot on its hip, swinging around to both evade, and drive the weighty shield home behind the Super-Militant's back and head before resuming her stance.

Richard was glad to see the new model minigun was working well, but he found himself wishing it had more spread to keep both at bay. Fortunately Kelly was there to back him up. "It's just an induction sword. I don't think it'll be fast enough on thicker walls." He continued to suppress the other militant until the one Kelly was fighting got away from her. His targeting system alerting him to the positioning. He didn't want to just stand there and get shot up, so he quickly fired two missiles towards the super militant that was already hiding and then activated his own boosters and darted to the side towards Kelly, moving out of her line of fire and turning his minigun to face the second militant as he did, firing at him and trying to force him back.

Alec could tell his addition to the suppressing wasn't doing much to help convince the militants to go home. His spent the last few rounds in his magazine before ducking behind his shield to let his hands fumble with the reload. It was time to start getting more physical with bastards. As he chambered a round from the fresh magazine in his rifle, he affixed the hyper induction bayonet to the end of the barrel before picking up his shield and holding out the rifle like a spear with the other. With the new set-up, he decided to put this new idea to test and used his push/pull system to rocket towards the nearest hostile, bringing his bayonet down on the target while using the shield to protect himself.

Mark used his ppg to yank the super militant towards him and charged in an attempt to take some of the heat off of Stripe. Since he hadn't really planned this far ahead Mark's entire aim was to hack at its limbs like a crazed lumberjack with as much might as he could muster. "Wasn't trash talk top, I'm savin' that for when we win." Mark replied to Ylfa in a lighthearted tone of voice.

Stripe took advantage of the time his shot bought him to dodge and tried to chop its leg off, in hopes of throwing his foes balance off. "This had better be worth it." Stripe grumbled as he tried to not die yet again.

Like a terrifying iron giant, Sawyer's towering Aggressor sent a torrent of hellfire down into the hallway, which simply kept replying in kind. Sporadic bursts from multiple foes peppered against his defenses, but they were practically bugs in comparison to what he was contending with at his feet. Swinging out with his sword, the Militant hounding him terrifyingly dodged his sweeping slashes and piercing stabs. Its machine-mind saw the titanic marine draw the sword and projected his most likely attack, his own mass and momentum working against him to prevent the blows rapidly chaining together. But that was all the war machine needed to do. It didn't even need to lunge in and slice at his legs.

Their shields flickering under the Aggressor's half-hearted barrage, two more rose, and braving the fire, crossed the threshold to assault the others.

"FOCUS!" Explosions blossomed over the Militant doggedly trying to fell Sawyer like a tree, sending it sprawling on the ground. The marine's blade cleaved into it with a satisfying shower of sparks. Ylfa, pulling her bayonet out of her own foe, ordered him again. "Keep that hall suppressed!" At that moment, the machines sensed weakness, and Sawyer could see them act on it. Yet another pair were making their rapid approach down the ruined hall while three more leaped, and midair, transformed into their turret-mode, guns bearing down right on him!

Meanwhile, as a Militant charged down Yuriko, Jaime's railgun boomed again. The jinking, juking machine was knocked off balance, a deep crater appearing on its torso with an explosion of sparks from the impact. However, one of its outstretched arms hit the ground, the machine catching itself in time for several bursts of Jaime's rifle to cut into its armor. An arm was sent flailing through the air as it came off, its deadly spin finally stopped in time for Yuriko to shield bash it back like an Elysian Legionnaire on her toes. A line on the surface of her shield glowed a dull red from the blocked attack, but the machine itself was already recovering and charging her again, completely adamant that it wanted her to die. Seeing this, Jaime focused on it, his rifle battering it about, chewing into its shockingly thick, heavy armor before the woman finally put it down herself.

Collapsing onto the floor with a heavy thud, their small victory was cut short as one of the Super Militants that made it past Centurion's field of fire charged in at them. Footsteps thundering like another Hostile's, its arm gun hammered into Jaime. Right as Alec came in out of nowhere and impaled it with his bayonet! The two skidding to a stop, the Induction Blade embedded in the Militant's gut, a blue flare came to life and quickly cleaved across the young man's armor, draining his shields. And, with its own arms so light in comparison to his rifle and bayonet, did so again, boiling away armor from his shield and suit over his chest; the air inside his suit quickly grew hot as he could feel his skin slowly start to scream in pain.

Already, Alec instinctively pulled his bayonet out to possibly stab again and trade horrific blows with the unyielding machine.

The second Militant bearing down on Stripe was literally blocked by its own ally, but was soon yanked away by an invisible force, leaving the marine to face down against his one-armed foe. His blade arced through the air, and with a shower of sparks, hewed halfway into its thigh before the marine reflexively yanked it out along the cut. And just in time; the edge of his blade stopped the countering plasma as he wrenched it up and out of the liquid metal crusted wound. The Super Militant didn't care in the slightest and pressed forwards however, reading to swing at him again as Mark haphazardly cleaved away at his own foe with a sword.

Its energy shields collapsing as he struck at it, the machine quickly recovered just as he managed to get the perfect cleave right at its center of mass. Molten metal and sparks flew, but the machine was still standing. Like the other unit, it literally sacrificed its right arm to parry Mark's attack! Seeing the opportunity, Its right arm ignited into a plasma blade, and immediately swung back at the marine. Their swords clashed and collided with each other with bursts of crackling light as they found themselves in a duel, the machine aggressively, relentlessly pressing the attack despite being the one at the disadvantage!

Not far off, Richard was completely unaware of what would happen next. Bantering with Kelly, he didn't even get so much as a beep from her in response as he brought his minigun to bear on his foe. His thrusters sent him dashing to dodge its blue-white blade of plasma while giving Kelly an open window to fire on it. But her shots never came. He ripped into it with his minigun, the machine's own thrusters letting off short bursts to bring it closer in a zig-zag, but the torrent of tracers literally ripped its legs part in a shower of metal and fire. Its blade passed over him, draining his shields, but with its speed, couldn't cleave into him. Turning to track the hulk, he saw why Kelly didn't help him as he finished off his foe.

The moment his mini-missiles had detonated on the second Super Militant, bursting its weakened shields, it broke cover and rushed Kelly instead, refusing to be simply pummeled. She turned, smashed it with her PPG and opened up on it with her rifle, but Richard now watched as yet another one - the second Sawyer had let past - leap at her from the side, blade blazing with fury. Kelly leaped back and away, her thrusters flaring, but the thing was already on her, its cold, metallic hands clasping onto her legs as it swung and swung and swung at her.

And worse still, the other Militant was was bearing down on her as well, its armored feet stopping only long enough for its head to turn and face Richard.

Richard saw the events with Kelly unfold before him and he had to make a quick decision. He let go of the minigun with one hand and began to draw his sword as he hurled himself towards the second militant with his thrusters. He didn't have the element of surprise on his hand so he tossed the minigun it's way and put both hands on the blade and attempted to cleave the robot in two while it was distracted, or at least do some heavy damage with the induction edge. "You don't want everyone saying I was babysitting you do you Kelly?" He called out to her since he couldn't afford to look away from the militant, and wanted to make sure she could still respond.

Sawyer would let off a snarl in his armor as he set the Plasma chain guns on his shoulders to autotarget all the nearby militants as he grabbed up his AOP again and unleashed an entire canister of blue rounds down the corridor, hopefully knocking down all the shields of the turreted hostile units before unleashing a massive volley of ARROWs from his minimissile racks to hurl even more explosive fire into the enemy. His other thought would be to try to slave his former Hostile to his own systems so that he could make use of its shoulder mounted minigun to unleash even more firepower on the incoming militants.

Stripe decided to try the sensible thing. He used his shoulder mount to shoot it over and over as he tried to either cut it to bits or, if he could manage, get out of melee range. He sweated in exertion, desperate to get an opening. "By any chance," Stripe spit through gritted teeth as he held the thing off, "could someone shoot this thing in the back?"

Having never been one to back down Mark viciously hacked and slashed at the machine; periodically throwing knees and elbows in order to keep it guessing. His only aim to keep from losing ground he fought like a cornered animal, baring his teeth and grunting with exertion he hoped to tried to advance. "This is some party we've got here." Mark growled.

Having down the stubborn machine, her shield raised, the HPAR replaced with the longsword. The Hostile's arm arched back, the sword's point aimed directly ahead, the deadly weapon was primed to thrust into one of the Militants. And luckily for her, one had suddenly become the focus of her attention. Shield held in place; covering her, Yuriko's Hostile surged forward and delivered a thrust, flicking her armor's wrist to pull the weapon in a back swing from the thrust.

"Watch where you aim! If these things share any of the same design as the regular Militant-series, they'll have a Fission Reactor somewhere in them." warning the rest of the team, her Hostile started to use the shield as a bludgeoning weapon.

Jaime spun barely fast enough to see his newest adversary, he knew it was going to hurt. Though once Alec death-charged it, he felt a little better, but switched back into murder mode once he saw what it was doing to him. He used his jets to move for a flanking shot and put two shots towards it's back armor to grab it's attention. He then prepped his Push-Pull to attempt to destroy it if he got it to move towards him.

"Let's make it an even..." He spoke to himself mostly, saving the word 'fight' for when the moment was right.

The siring pain running across Alec's chest reminded him that what he was doing was probably a dumb idea. He brought the bayonet out of the militant before bring in down in a slashing motion, firing a couple of shots in the processes. Feeling his self-preservation kick-in right after, he quickly pulled back into cover, not content of waiting for another shot to splash across him.

All Richard could see was a mass of tangled limbs as the Militant tried to clamber over Kelly, the two now fighting over control of the blazing blue blade of plasma. As he dropped his minigun to the floor with a heavy thud, induction blade drawn in hand, electronic gibberish briefly streamed across his comms from Kelly as he started trying to cleave into the Militant. With how their limbs flailed, all he could do was chop at the enemy like he would an axe, carefully trying to pick the war machine apart with precision. Brief showers of sparks flew into the air at each hesitant attack, but shards of metal and hydraulic fluid spurted across them as one of the Militant's arms finally came clean off. A hand clear, Kelly kicked the machine at her legs and reached for her machine pistol; the muzzle flashed as the folded weapon was jammed into the collar and smoking, empty cases clattered to the ground in a stream.

Her suit scorched with deep, bright red-orange slash marks, she slumped, the enemy dead.

Yet, Stripe found himself pressed, and pressed hard. The machine, unable to both fire its gun and cut with its blade lunged at him, thrusters flaring as its plasma weapon cleaved at him, thwarting his attempts to get some space. However, he instinctively swatted at the oncoming blade, crudely parrying it with his own in hand. With barely a heartbeat of time earned, a cracking boom filled an ear as Stripe's shoulder mount opened fire. The rounds knocked it back with satisfying, heavy hammer blows, and seeing this, the Marine simply kept on firing. Craters walked up its chest, showering the two with molten metal and sparks before the blazing red eye staring at him vanished, a shot smashing into it square in the sensor. Even in his Hostile, he could just barely feel the heavy thud of the war machine collapsing onto the floor.

At the same time, Mark swung his sword like a brutal barbarian. With his savagery, the marine took numerous blows as his shields completely collapsed, the interior of his suit quickly growing hot as lines of molten metal were struck across his Hostile. However, his own sword cleaved into the Militant with weighty blows. His slashes cut deep, battering the heavy machine. Despite the warnings coming up on his screen, he kept on going like a berserker as more and more of his enemy literally started falling to the floor as his slashes and deep cuts intersected. Like a massive chunk, its own arm finally came free, the plasma blade dying as it hit the floor with a thump. Raising his sword high in triumph, Mark brought it swinging down on the unbalanced war machine, his sword lodging in its chest as hot fire and flames washed over him from within the machine.

Yuriko however, was an artist with the blade. As Alec struggled with his bayonet, her eyes quickly set themselves on it. Moving fast and hard, her sword lanced forward and stabbed into the machine as it set upon the marine, cleanly withdrawing the blade with a brief spurt of liquid metal splattering to the floor before swiftly chopping into it with the back of her blade, a deep, orange gash appearing on one side of its back. The other side had deep, glowing craters smashed into its armored hide as Jaimie's thrusters came to life. Moving fast to the side to aid the marine, he easily landed his shots into the other, further knocking about and hammering the machine as the marine caught his breath. With no time to lose, Alec freed his blade, and with the entire weight of his rifle behind it, brought it down on the battered Super with a heavy cleave, gun blazing.

The length of the blade sliced through the torso, splitting its chest open before lodging in the deck as stray rounds barely missed Yuriko. Fire and flame burst out and swept over the marines, but like Mark, only wreathed them in its glow.

As Ylfa stood by his side and watched his back, Sawyer finally let loose. His shoulder guns blazing, the massive marine brought his huge weapon to bear and emptied its entire canister into the ruined hallway in front of him. Bright, brilliant blasts lit the darkness in front of them and silhouetted what looked like a horde of black figures, their glowing red eyes piercing the darkness and light. But before any of them could even react, a storm erupted from the back of the Aggressor, the fingers of fire and smoke bending, curving and storming right into the breach. Explosions rippled across them all, engulfing them entirely. Just as they thought the storm wouldn't pass, the marines finally heard it.

Silence.

"That's how we do it! Fuck yeah!" Ylfa's voice spoke across the comms, crisp and clear like victory itself. But, they couldn't listen to the gold in her voice forever. "Now, status report! How many of you are hurt?"

"Still whole and in one piece." Stripe panted out, sore from the pounding he'd just undergone. He turned towards Ylfa, and asked "So, can we get moving before more of those things storm in on us?" in a mildly hopeful tone.

"I appear to be okay for the moment Top, going to reload while we have this breather though"

Sawyer would reply as he pulled another canister of rounds for the AOP out, this one a halfsie, 3 rounds of RED, and another 3 of BLUE, allowing for both pure destructive power as well as anti-electronic warfare. As he did that, his shoulder mounted guns would swivel from side to side, making sure that the corridor was clear for the moment.

Jaime exhaled, sweat dripping inside his helmet. "Holy Hell..." he was out of breath. He began to reload his HPAR while having his monoeye look at Top, "A-Okay, Top." He finished his reload and began to look around, surveying the massive amounts of hate and carnage thrown and burned into the room. To him, this was the high he had missed.