Summary said:
Luca hit the Crooked Demon!
A Challenger Appears! She is a badass!
The Soldiers Flee in terror!
John drops off the LEAF off on the Roof!
John and the Big Bird get hurt by an incoming ship!
The Challenger is in cahoots with the Crooked Demon, and together they are BOSS! Her name is ...
Joe's Sword Shatters, and he's injured!
Luca is shocked!
Naoko is a convenient device with which to dispose of goons!
The crew has bigger fish to fry!
Melissa blinked as she watched Naoko shimmer into view and tear that group of soldiers a new backside. She eased her head away from the scope to get a better view of what was going on. She shrugged and saw that Luca seemed to be okay with it, and thought it was all part of the plan, "Ace in the hole indeed..." She mumbled as she kept her back to the wall and watched the Crooked Demon below her.
As Luca was walking towards the Crooked Demon, he put his GP-1 back over his shoulder and focussed his attention on keeping the M'Cel in both hands. He knew that if he ever stayed still for a moment, he would be dead. Stop to pause? Dead. Trip over? Dead. Grabbed? Very much dead. To him, to move was to be alive, and he never felt more lively as another streak of Aether went in his direction, prompting him to drop and slide along the ground to avoid it. He fired another shot, this time he'd loaded the grenades with the plasma capacitors in them that exploded upon detonation.
The Crooked Demon took a step back to absorb the blow as Luca kipped up from his slide and resumed momentum. Once the cloud cleared he saw a lot of structural damage, but it was still moving, and that meant that the pilot was still alive, or it simply wasn't hit hard enough. Then he saw something strange behind the Crooked Demon, and between its legs, a humanoid figure standing out in the distance about a hundred or so yards away with something long and slender in its hands.
It then shifted its stance and moved towards Luca at an alarming sixty miles an hour - sliding along the ground as though propelled by an unseen force. He did not recognise the face at all: Orange hair, boyish haircut, dark blue eyes, nekovalkyrja ears and a stern face that once held trappings of youth, now twisted into an aged malice. All Luca could recognise was the katana in her hands that was heading towards his head.
The Ripper turned around and found itself taking another plasma grenade to the face from Yuki, handling the M'Cel with only one hand and her Katana in the other, she then lunged forward and made several strikes, punctuated with what appeared to be plasma adorning the blade.
The armour could not stand the harrying assault for long, as Luca watched the Ripper get dealt a final stab, killing the parasite pilot. The Zesuaium and Plasma-coasted katana was being handled like a surgeon's knife.
Luca leapt out of the way to one side and rolled, able to avoid the flaming hot katana. Whoever this was, was not Yuki. "Do I know you?" He asked as he stowed the M'Cel and pulled out his HHG, loaded with RED rounds.
She didn't reply. Instead, she simply flicked her Katana to one side, and sparks flew as she parried a hit from Joe effortlessly, who jumped back and shimmered into view with his sword back over his shoulder, having avoided the riposte. The two brothers stood at opposite ends of the room, but kept their focus on the new arrival, and its Crooked Demon servant.
"Kill them. No survivors." She commanded, voice clear and loud, flicking Yuki's Katana to one side. She maintained a calm and cool swagger as she looked at the two brothers, "Shame I couldn't nip you in the bud." She snorted derisively at either of them.
Luca decided that he'd had enough of this and fired a RED round at her, wishing to end the confusion. However, something
impossible happened. After the hammer fell and the gun fired, the mystery nekovalkyrja had her hands up, and between her index and middle fingers was the bullet. She flicked her wrist and sent it back the way it came, causing Luca to duck to avoid it.
The bullet exploded in the melee with Naoko and Zeta, taking out a few of the soldiers she'd probably hired. Luca just blinked, and then grinned.
"I
like you." He said, licking his lips as he saw a challenge before him, the likes of which he had never seen before. There was now -two- of them. A dual boss. Fortunately, the brothers Pavone seemed confident enough as they exchanged a nod.
-
The RED bullet had caused a pause in the action across the field. Naoko stopped killing people to glance towards where it came from - and what she saw gave her enough of a pause that the next couple of soldiers got a free shot or two with their solid ammunition before Naoko could bother with them.
Taskette onigashimasu, ne, an-chan? she mused, mentally.
Iie. Boku ga badass
da. Came a reply,
Demo, onee-san, er... nevermind. I think Joe and I have this under wraps. Did you see that?
Yes. I believe, probably, you are going to die now.
But who is
this person? Where are the wheelbarrows for her balls? I don't recognise her at all.
You expect me to? An-chan, I've been dead for years.
And I've been alive for about as long. That's -Yuki's- Katana she's got. I have the feeling-
Another shot impacted Naoko. This one she didn't ignore - an energy weapon had burned a hole in her chest. It took only a few seconds for her to cross the distance, and the body armour of the unfortunate soldier was no match for the bloody metal claws that Naoko had formed out of all those absorbed zesu-plated bullets.
Meanwhile, Luca levelled the HHG at the mystery woman and fired again. She caught it again, but Luca fired another shot. Realising this, she leaned to one side to avoid the bullet, "And you can dodge bullets!" He cried out joyously before firing at the ground while she recovered from her dodge, causing an upwards explosion. Luca, however, misjudged the distance that the mystery woman had closed in, and was thrown back a few steps by the blast. The mystery woman was still standing there, on fire, and appearing somewhat annoyed.
"...I guess we're both full of surprises." He mumbled, realising that this Nekovalkyrja as probably a cut above the rest, similar to Naoko.
Meanwhile, Joe and the Crooked Demon were trading blows, parrying and rolling under each of its claws and strikes with deft ease and surprising mobility with that huge sword.
Following the sickening crunch of another dead, Naoko cast the unfortunate aside and turned her attention back to Luca's fight. She had cleared an empty space for several meters around her; all the incoming soldiers, even the ones in abbreviated powered armour, were spreading out and reluctant. Naoko was naked, and shot, and burnt - but the bladed claws her hands had become were at least a dozen inches long, and looked like business. Her long hair was moving in hanks, of its own accord, bloodied and iron-tipped. It was the stuff of Yamataian horror fiction, realised in life.
I won't steal your thunder, An-chan. Just scream when you're about to die.
I don't think I'll be able to scream with my head cut off.
You're taking all the fun, though. These teme
are all scared, already.
I think we've made our point abundantly clear.
Tell her that.
"Hey, Lady, can you pull your troops back, I think we're getting sick of dealing with the chaff, we want wheat." She made her reply known by making a slash at Luca from a distance, and sending a wave of burning material at him in a crescent arc. He sidestepped and watched it eat away the machinery behind him.
In that case, I'm going to advance.
The bullets had begun to bounce off of Naoko instead of penetrating.
I can't help but feel sorry sometimes. Luca added.
Not all the time but sometimes.
-
Allison and Echelon had been assisted by Mr. Smith's IED. It gave them enough respite to make a tactical retreat, backpedalling and firing through the catwalk's grating as the elevated position started to become a liability against numbers. The small briefcase explosive had managed to send shards of reclaimed metal and high quality leather at almost supersonic speeds through the air, causing the less armoured soldiers to fall over, covered in shrapnel.
Allison eventually got down to ground level with Smith and Sebastian. Echelon had taken a few hits, and was moving a little slower, but still firing her Fingale's Revenge like there was no tomorrow, "How many of them are they?!"'
"I have no idea!" Sebastian yelled as he pulled the pin out of a grenade and hurled it into the crowd, "They just keep coming!" Echelon finally managed to meet them, one of her legs had sustained heavy damage from a grenade from the soldiers. Echelon pointed something out, tugging on the older Nepleslian's jacket, "What?"
"They are clones. All of them. Haven't you noticed?" She pointed out the corpses that had their helmets torn off, or no helmets at all. "Same facial structure and features. Only differences lie in the hairstyles."
"Maker be damned, how many did they bring?!" It was almost like being in a cheap Nepleslian arcade game with a limited budget, forcing all of the enemies to share animations, movesets and bodies, meanwhile Bosses were not subject to these limitations since they were infinitely more badass than the goons they commanded - and they were unique too. However, not many Nepleslian Arcade games allowed ten players to play at once, and the ISC Phoenix were happy to pump quarters in for continued play for
this deadly game.
-
Hear that? Hah! You know how I said I feel sorry? If telepathy had fluctuation, then Luca's mental voice as he used a nearby pipe wrench as a timely distraction seemed a bit sinister.
Yes. Naoko was already out of Luca's line of sight; she had passed on, and left Zeta to fill the gap of her presence. Though, arguably, there were markedly fewer soldiers making their way through to the gap itself, now. Distant screaming could be heard before the tinkle of melodic, if slightly deranged laughter cut it short.
Naoko had left the field almost entirely and had apparently found a more pure killing field nearer to the spawn point.
Zeta was also beginning to notice the horde thin out after firing more and more into her half of the melee, although the cloned wetworkers in general were more afraid of Naoko's unhinged rampage. Allison, Echelon, Sebastian and Mr. Smith had also started to notice the soldiers start to retreat.
"Now the real battle begins," The woman announced, "But I seriously doubt the nine of you could handle me alone."
"Can we at least get a name?" Luca asked, shrugging, taking an opportunity to get some more background in the lull of the combat. Another scream punctuated the lull; this time it was from somewhere more distant. The explosions were muffled. Luca rolled his eyes,
Pack it in. The real fun's about to start.
They have a ship, Naoko whined. The
Big Bird seemed to have disappeared from the skyline, but there was no explosion outside signalling an untimely demise. The singular dropship seemed to have been scared off by the
Big Bird, or maybe there was more in store.
You already said you would kill her yourself, ne? Can't I please destroy this? Onegai onegai onegai yo!
John's radio crackled to life, "Smith, I'll see if I can drop your package. I think I scared the dropship off." The Vampire Class cruiser hovered over the complex where the fighting was happening, "Are you prepared to have a leaf dropped on you?" He touched down on the roof, ramp open and deposited the package on the roof. As he was getting back up, something big came in from without. Something very big.
A corvette came in from space and started firing HEX beams without warning at the
Big Bird Its shields took a thumping and the interior shook as John tried to make his way back towards the pilot's controls and get out of there. Another volley made his shields fizzle, but he moved away. The roof of the warehouse was starting to crumple from the previous weight of the
Big Bird, and from the missed shots of the new ship that'd joined the fray up in the sky. The LEAF could not be seen where he was standing, but Smith was certain that it was still on the roof.
Smith's radio could be heard awash with John swearing loudly as he tried to keep the ship together and get out of dodge. The sounds of warning bells and alarms were also coming through, and interlacings of static meant that the communications were starting to fail.
Fun or not, we need to end this here and now. John can't take much more.
"I am Turtleback. Shimada Chisato, and you will have some respect for your superior, hei." The woman responded over the wanton destruction.
Where had he heard that name before? Where? It was so long ago...
"One life, she was Shimada Chisato-Chusa, instrumental member of the 3rd XF's logistics division. She had a soldier ID, paid for her meals, and she ... helped our young Shoi here." The image divided -- now Shimada's uniform was all in black, her scowl now an ugly, spiteful grin. "The other life was lived through SAINT, where she went by the alias 'Turtleback' and was guilty of breaking virtually every code of conduct we have. One of those lives had a future ... the other one did not. A pity."
"I'm a free man, I bow to nobody, much less the likes of
you. You know my name, you're going to learn to fear it if we spare you." He looked around to the other crew members, "And you can't learn if you're dead, can you?"
The Crooked Demon's shoulder mounted aether gun made a shot towards Joe, and he held up the massive flat of his blade in reflexive defence, but it shattered under the impact. All Joe had remaining was the hilt and a foot or two of blunt blade that wasn't heavy enough to hurt anything. He looked down and realised that one of the bolts of Aether had struck him in the midsection. His reflexive response was to disappear to lick his wounds. "An excellent observation!" Chisato replied, eerily chirpy and chipper.
Luca's eyes widened, and he looked back at Naoko appearing through the gap she'd left from, then to where his Brother was standing, then back at Chisato, who was suddenly up in his face. She kicked him in the chest and sent him across the room and out, landing in a heap by Naoko's feet. The Crooked Demon's loudspeaker produced a warped laughing noise.
"You said you had it, an-chan." Luca just blinked up in her direction in reply, clearly upset.
Naoko frowned down at him, an expression that was both petulant and terrible from the blood. Either she had been biting people, or someone had managed to sock her on the jaw. Judging from the rather fanglike qualities of her teeth when she smiled, tt was more likely the first option.
"Well, now you'll pay for it," Naoko stated, hooking a bare foot beneath Luca and kicking him back forward with ridiculous strength. "Handle this; the rest of the field is
mine."
Behind him the reinforcements discovered why it was better to show up early. Very shortly the screaming and gunfire started all over again.
It seemed now the only thing for the crew to worry about was the final boss.
Luca stood up uneasily, staggering for a moment before steadying and reaching behind himself to unmount his shotgun, then picking up his HHG and holstering it before moving forwards in a run to reunite with his team , "Have fun!" He yelled, trying to ignore the feeling in his ribs and focussing on the battle ahead of him and his team.
Sebastian stayed with his back to the wall, close to Smith, Allison and Echelon, "...maker help us." He mumbled as he saw the smashed, but worryingly functional Crooked Demon. Melissa was afraid to shoot at her, much less incur Shimada's wrath. Allison and Echelon were staying close together. Allison's rifle was shaking in her hands as she tried to comprehend what had happened.
