RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 1.2] Wazu’s Seven

Smoke and fire. Smoke and fire engulfed Matteo's world as Harm blasted off again! Right from his back no less! His hearing became a whitewash of noise as her thrusters drowned out the world around him in a small hellfire of fury. Vertigo seized him, forcing the hardened hitman turned marine to his knees. Even as blood oozed out of one ear, he yelled out to her in half jest, half anger; "Damnit Harm! Haven't you heard of clean burning fuels?!"

He coughed harshly as his feet staggered under the twirling, whirling world around him, waving a hand about to clear the smoke. Ire rose inside of him, besting his nature. "Geeze, it must be junk food you're eating or something that made your fuel this shitty!" He coughed once more, finally settling his eyes on something he didn't want to see, raising his handgun onto target.

"LOOK OUT WAZU! I DON'T HAVE A CLEAR SHOT AT HER!" Matteo shouted at the top of his smoke horse voice.

Harm wanted to yell back at Matteo, but all that came out was a bloody gurgle as she rocketed towards Fhion.

~I’m going to kill the shit out of you when this is over with,~ She thought, hoping that if she focused on it hard enough some amount of her current hatred for the marine would be translated through to Matteo.

While thinking hard on the killing of Matteo, she nearly missed Fhion entirely, coming in far too quickly, slamming into the hostile Neko and sending her flying through the wall, her body quickly phasing out so she could harmlessly pass through the obstacle.

Wazu and Avel were now knocked to the floor, both unable to move under their own power.

“Ok… I think I am ready to pass out” Wazu said,

“Gargll…” Harm replied, her throat still filled with blood.

“The Halftrack is waiting outside,” Drei said over the all hands channel, “It is time to leave.” Outside, as Fhion stood up, she’d find the turret on the cab of the halftrack turn towards her and fire a short burst. It would harmlessly pass through her, but it would keep her from unphasing while she was outside. At the same time a junker drone jumped out of the back of the halftrack, scurrying over to the hole in the casino wall to help carry the injured out. On the way out it had grabbed a medical bag from the cab and glued it to the top of its body.

"Yeah . . . sure." Cedric grinned at Laura's reply, "Just put it on my tab for me, will you Laura?"

With that, he leaned out from behind the slot machine, and fired a series of relatively close-range shots at the face of the closest guard. After that he broke out running, firing in the direction of the guards while heading to the opposite side of the casino from the hole he had made in the wall. He wanted to attract the attention of any and all guards that he possibly could: desperate for them to focus on the more apparent and immediate threat of a crazy guy with a gun, rather than his team-mates who were using the goons' smoke to escape to safety (hopefully). If he died, then . . . oh well. He trusted modern medical technology. He was sure he would be (relatively) fine.

"Come on, fuckers!" He yelled, still trying to draw attention.

After yelling that, he crouched low to the floor behind a poker table.

“The Halftrack is waiting outside, it is time to leave,” said Drei.

Hearing Drei's announcement, Phaedra manually loaded a Self Destruct Round into the weapon's chamber and then pulled the trigger.

Phaedra leapt up and retrieved the DSR with one hand and her parachute pack in the other. She relocated to the right side of the tower and while taking cover behind an air vent, Phaedra strapped herself into the parachute. As the W3301 began to be incinerated behind her, Phaedra strapped the DSR horizontally to her midsection.

She leapt off the tower, immediately deploying her parachute to slow her descent.

Now was a good time to make a move. Since Laura had kicked off those wretched high heeled torture devices long ago, she could move faster and easier. With the combat knife in hand, she moved swiftly across the room towards Fhion, who had her back to Laura.

Once in range, Laura thrust the knife towards the back of Fhion's head.

@Cedric

The first armored goon would stumble backwards, his shields and armored facemask absorbing the pistol fire poured into him by the marine.

The second soldier would quickly draw a bead on Cedric, getting off two shots before the marine would duck down behind cover. The second should would end up hitting his shoulder, superheating a hole right through his body before he was able to crouch down behind the poker table.

The first goon would tap the second on the shoulder, one moving right and the other moving left to circle around the poker table. Both had their weapons trained towards Cedric. They made sure to keep an eye on each other while they moved to take Cedric down, but for the time being their attention was not focused on the others.

Harm wasn’t going to waste the time Cedric was buying. Once Wazu and Avel were being pulled to the halftrack by the Junker drone, she ran through the hole in the wall, looking to grab a weapon from the halftrack outside to use on Fhion.

---

@ Phaedra and Laura

Phaedra would make it to the ground safely, short afterwards the door onto the roof of the building would be breached by a trio of armored guards who spread out, searching over the area for something to kill. They would only find the ruined rifle that was left behind, molten metal burning through the casing.

Below her Laura was charging at Fhion who remained phased. The halftrack’s machinegun would stop firing to avoid hitting Laura as Fhion let her pass through.

“You can’t hurt me,” Fhion laughed, “and now….” She would pause, looking up at the news chopper as its search light down into the casino. It was quickly sweeping over the casino floor, making its way over towards the halftrack.

“Times up. I’ll see you around!”

With that Fhion would phase out completely, disappearing just in time for the news chopper to catch a solid view of Wazu and a mixed group of marines in and out of uniform leaving a black syndicate casino after having shot the place up.

After Phaedra landed, she hit the quick-release on the parachute and slid out of the harness. She unstrapped the DSR and began sprint towards the halftrack. And that was when the news chopper decided to illuminate her squadmates trying to embark in the halftrack. Phaedra felt a pang of anger at the presence news chopper; the idiots were making her comrades a perfect target.

"Damn idiots!" thought Phaedra.

Dropping to a crouch, Phaedra leveled her rifle at the hovering chopper and aimed at the ball mounted on the chin of aircraft. She exhaled a breath to steady herself and pulled the trigger. She rapidly worked the bolt to eject the spent round, slammed it shut, then fired again to ensure the chopper's camera and searchlight were disabled.

Phaedra leapt up to her feet and continued on her way to the halftrack, working the bolt as she did so.

Missed! Laura cursed vehemently and with great skill. She lashed out at where the laughing Fhion had just been. Nothing.

She cursed again and threw the knife aside. "Hurry up, you big lummox! We need to get him out of here!" Laura threw Wazu's right arm around her left shoulder and lifted him off the ground. "Let's go, Admiral. Move those legs or I'll have to amputate!" She was taking his weight as well as her own and moving them both along. "This is Laura, need escort and transport for the boss!"

Cedric cried out in agony as the guard's shot burned through his jacket, then his shirt, and clean through his flesh and bone as it were all nothing more than weak paper. He held the pistol tightly in his good arm, with his back against the table. He could tell by the comm-traffic that the others from the squad were getting outside to the half-track. Right now he knew that he would have no real chance of getting there himself. He could hear the heavy foot-steps of the guards coming around either side of him, and even with the smoke they would shoot him down before he had even gotten halfway there. It didn't matter, though. Cedric had taken up this self-appointed holding position with the understanding that it would end up with them killing him.

"I just wish I could've taken a few of 'em with me!" Cedric gritted his teeth in pain and anger.

As they circled around, Cedric made his move. He lashed up from the ground, looking to shoulder one of the guards in the chest, and turn him around so that his back would be facing his friend. It would be his wounded shoulder (Why was that arm catching all the crap today?!), so it would hurt like a mother-fuck, but hopefully it would work. Doing that, he hoped to take down the first guard's shield with the second guard's firing in an attempt to take him out.

After that . . . he really didn't know.

"Never thought I'd put "Die" on my day planner." Cedric thought as he moved at the guard on his left to begin his plan.

Matteo had stumbled into cover as the world shifted and moved about on its own accord. His handgun was level at Fhion, but he couldn't do a thing; he didn't trust himself in this condition! The marine took cover and steadied himself, waiting for the world to slow down and right itself before sprinting for Wazu and Avel. "C'mon, not over - fat lady - don't see her." he panted out, grabbing Avel, who Laura didn't have extra arms for, dragging the incapacitated marine to the halftrack.

"Drei, where's Cedric? Can you give him covering fire? I can't aim for shit right now!"

“Cedric is staying behind,” Harm told Matteo, after all going back now would likely result in more casualties and she wasn’t going to waste the time that Cedric was buying for them.

Unlike Harm, Wazu was not in any condition to talk. He had already lost a lot of blood and was slipping out of consciousness as he was hauled into the back of the halftrack. The junker drone would lay Avel out beside him and start pulling medical supplies out of the bag glued to the top of its body to being basic treatment.

As Cedric got up, the two guards would start firing at him. One shot ended up hitting his shoulder yet again, while the one from behind passed through his stomach and brought down the second goon’s shield. He’d get his chance to fight the guard in hand to hand but ultimately he would end up going down and they would finish him off with a blast to the head.

With the news chopper suddenly blinded, and the black syndicate distracted with Cedric, the Half track would be able to make its escape from the area unharmed.