RP: YSS Kaiyō Mission 24: Chilled to the Bone

[BRindustries]

PNUgen Gardens
With a nod, Nerai'tha proceeded to open a comm link to the nearby vessels, requesting the direct scanner sweep on the strange woman's movements. "Affirmative." Given the eerie state of this complex, a person just strolling around like that just didn't fit the narrative. The dress didn't even fit her figure right either, what a shame. Unusual fashion aside, the snakes proceeded along with the rest of the team in an orderly fashion. The masive bramble bushes were a most impressive sight, even if they got in the way.

Being near the front of the group when the large beast attacked, Abart'huse's body reeled back to avoid that swipe, standing up half as high as the hulking beast. As per logical sense, the snake mostly aimed for the face and head from his elevated position. Wulf was right, if the group wanted to stay low, they would have to end this altercation as quickly as possible. He pondered the option of his rifle's over-barrel grenade launcher, as a strong concussive blast could smash away a lot of the hard armor, but the blast might just attract even more attention. "Ghhh... This thing's got a hella good nose to sniff us out so quickly, if more of them can do that then the cloak's not goin' to do much!"

 

[Noodlewerfer]

Chlorate took her mother's suggestion seriously and scanned around, but found herself unable to comply. "But mother... there are no pigs here whose backs could be ridden on," she indicated. She suddenly found herself in possession of the booties Hoshi pulled out of her booty pack. With her metal fingers she put them on, and miraculously they actually worked at stopping her feet from making noise, instead turning their stomps into muffled thuds. In a strange way she found them uncomfortable, it felt like something was grabbing her feet and she could feel an odd squish every time she stepped instead of the usual firm feeling of the ground against her noisy feet. Regardless, they wouldn't last long against the torrentuous stomping of her robotic feet, but they would work for long enough. Chlorate lagged behind, it took her a while to get used to the feeling of the booties encapsulating her feet. By the time she caught up, she saw the monstrous flesh-thing and heard Hoshi's order to attack.
She didn't even have time to say anything, it had already made its first move against her girlfriend. Inside her helmet, the metal android's hair turned redder than the blood this creature was oozing. She immediately scanned her opponent and targeted what she presumed to be the weakpoints, areas the armor did not cover. She fired at them with her submachine gun's heavy Scalar mode. The weapons operator's unusually heavy choice of weaponry was, evidently, the right choice of weaponry to operate for this mission after all.

 

[Blizzard]

Gravity did what most pilots do and took to the air, raining down with her shotgun, staying what she thought was a good distance. If the creature's main offensive capability was melee, and it couldn't fly, why stay on the ground?

"Granted, I don't think even my 85 year old blind mother could have missed our entry. Shuttles are not what you would call 'covert'."

 

[SirSkully]

As the creature made itself known once more Wyatt took one floaty step backwards before he touched down near one of the statue bases, swiftly dropping to one knee and moving to brace his LMG to its top before flicking the safety off with a deafeningly positive click.

"Engaging," Wyatt called out though it'd be fairly obvious as I-SLAP slugs 12.7mm across began flying out the end of his weapon, the Minkan's stream of projectiles initially aimed at the charging beast's lower body though the man calmly dragged his barrel higher towards the monster's chest as it got closer, preparing to dart backwards again if it looked like the thing wasn't going down.

 

[SageShooter]

Eyes were wide with fear as she first watched the creature stroll by, then after a short time attack. Saya could do little in regards of combat, she was still scared from the last mission and it showed as she ducked behind some cover as they began to get attacked. Suited and silent, she curled around her weapon as she did her best to stay back from the group and away from the main combat. After a moment of shaking, she decided to at least be useful and watch their backs should anything decide to try and circle around.

She was terrified, even if she didn't have the trauma from her recent capture and being a prisoner, she was always one to shy from combat, so better to be the eyes rather than the fist of the combat in her mind. Gun still held at her side as she stood, she made sure to glance over her shoulder every so often to make sure she wasn't about to get tangled up into the combat, but for now she stayed quiet and mindful of everything around them.

 

[Whisper]

Indira Vaikar

Indira had been walking - trudging, really - with the rest of the group. As always, she hated being pulled out of her lab. She was trying her best to look at the experience as an 'opportunity to do field work', but it wasn't entirely sticking. After Glimmergold, she had become fascinated with the massive Essai worlds and their capabilities. Modeling something of that scale and complexity was no small task, which meant that she had plenty to do for weeks or even months.

Now here she was, pulled out of her thoughts by a twenty foot tall ... thing.

All she could really think of at first was, "Who would design such a thing? The cube rule makes creatures of that size horribly inefficient-"

and then, hoping to be somewhat more useful, she tried to think of how it was managing its trick with the armor. Was it tech - nanites or something like that - and, if so, was it borrowing the minerals necessary from elsewhere in the body or did it store them for this purpose?

Storing them didn't really make sense, she decided. It seemed perfectly able to move with the plates on. '... and it probably weighs the same with or without its armor plating, so why does it need to work that way?' she thought as she regulated her fear response to be just barely noticeable. She had learned that negating it entirely was ... unproductive.

'What if,' she considered, doing her best to ignore the distracting sounds of gun fire around her, 'it's somehow borrowing the resources from the only other place that makes sense - its bones?' If she were right, then the armor was currently also a support system to make up for the reduced bone density. If not, well, it had to be shot at either way. It was charging for them now.

She opened a comm to the Captain, speaking in her usual dry, icy tone. "I think that what we saw was some sort of unusual conversion from endoskeleton to exoskeleton."

Indira raised her pistol and began to fire with the others. It seemed the right thing to do with the beast drawing nearer. "If we concentrate our fire on a joint, we may be able to bring it down. The head is likely too well defended for an easy take down from this angle."

 

[ajax228]

Delmira will move with the squad floating just because her suit was digging into her ass and would make it hard to move on foot. She didnt get to fire a shot off yet but know as it made itself known she fired though she will fall back and swap her assault rifle for her sniper rifle and take aim at a leg joint and fire at the beast. The shot will make Delmira drift back a bit in the air.

 

[Ametheliana]

With her back to the statue, Hoshi heard both Kiyo's and Indira's suggestions. The creature in question didn't seem to rely on its eyes. They were almost caked over with the hard packed, dusty armor it seemingly controlled. Hoshi looked at what her visuals had gotten, seeing that the joints of its limbs were indeed more exposed than the rest of its body. She ran through who on her team had taken shots at it, looking into their AIES. Wulf had opened fire on a hind leg's joint while Chlorate had done the same with her submachine gun while evidently picking at areas of the beast that were not fully covered. When the creature was hit by Wulf there, it had stopped charging and held its ground, possibly hurt in some way. When Chlorate had glanced the same area, the beast had lifted its leg momentarily- as if avoiding another strike there. Everyone else's attacks had done little to change the bestial attitude of the armored blood monster. The rounds that did pierce from Wyatt, Abart, and others threw chunks of grey material flying. Once exposed, the exposed meat of the creature spilled out with the same color of chalky dust that roiled until solidifying into a new armor.

"Direct your fire to the break in its armor there," Hoshi called out to her team while designating the back right leg join of the beast on their HUD. "Its back right ankle."

She herself took a few shots at the ankle as she looked over the information a nearby vessel had given them thanks to Nerai. It looked like whoever that wandering lady was, she was not alone. There were 25 bio signs in the vicinity of the path to the facility. They were so close, too, but seeing Gravity's position in the air made the captain resolute in her next decision. The lady they had seen had seemed to stay where she had been before, patrolling only a small patch of the gardens.

"If we can't down this creature, we'll stealth and take to the air the rest of the way. Same plan if taking out the joints works," she added to her orders.

She hadn't led a ground mission in a long time. She hoped she would make Eden proud.

 

[SchererSoban]

PNUgen Gardens
Ittô Hei Wulf Soban

As he got his orders he finished emptying his mag into the spot he had been firing at. Slapping in a fresh mag he acknowledged the order "Copy that Chusa". Just as he was getting ready to aim again he saw Saya at the corner of his eyes. Taking a quick glance he saw she was the only one not firing but instead looking around.

Though she out ranked him Saya was his friend and though didn't know what was going in her head he knew it must of been from the war. Opening up a private comm link to her "Heisho might be a good time to fire your weapon in anger, might put you more at ease". As in response he set his rifle to single shot and continued to pepper away at the spot he had been aiming at previously. Hoping this might get his friend to snap back into action before further trouble happened.

Letting that quick distraction fade he felt the thud thud of his rifle. He was ready to move at a moments notice, ready to fly with the crew if given the order.

 

[Blizzard]

PNUgen Gardens
The High Ground

With the order to focus on the back of the creature's back right ankle, Gravity elected to take on a support role.

"Check your background guys! I'm gonna be an annoying mosquito so you can get a clear shot!"

And so that's what she did, swooping quickly in and out of range and piling shots into the monster's face, all the while slowly trying to spin it around so its back, and thus it's Achilles heel (pun intended) faced the ground team. For good measure, she even tried mocking it.

"Ooo! You almost had it! You gotta be quicker than that!" She chided as she corkscrewed out of range again.

 

[raz]

PNUgen Gardens
The Low Ground

When Gravity began harassing their foe, Aiko pounced from her place in cover where she'd been silently poised and watching the skirmish unfold. Precisely now seemed like as good a chance as she'd get to try and fell the beast — or at least do something to disable it — as the Kaiyō's resident Dragon Whisperer gave it a face full of aether shot from the air.

Aiko dashed directly at the creature, crossing the ground between where she'd been waiting and its hulking form in a split second. The Princess' experience fighting against monstrosities like this told her there was no time for fear or hesitation now, only action, and so she took it. As her strong legs carried her toward the beast at breakneck speed, Aiko commanded her shibui's clothblades into action and formed them into a long, sturdy filament with a barbed tip that she spun out over her head as she ran.

And when Aiko grew close enough to the blood golem to smell its earthy fetor, she slung the clothblade to one of its rear legs and skipped off the ground herself. Although technically airborne now, she stayed close to the surface — only a few inches, no more than a foot — and sped circles about the creature to wrap its four limbs in her makeshift trip wire. As she went, she let her clothblade string get longer and thinner to accommodate the four laps she made around their bloody foe. She then stopped abruptly and dug her heels into the ground while she yanked the string taut with all of the strength she could muster.

 

[Gunhand4171]

PNUgen Gardens
The Low Ground

William nodded at Hoshi as she gave the order. "Understood." He replied, changing the target of his SMG to the indicated target. Placing a fresh magazine in the mag well, he began to fire another salvo at the creature. Seeing Aiko and Gravity charge the creature he did too.

Eyes glowing, his implant activated. The gods eye began analyzing the monster's movements and pathed the best course towards his target.

Drawing his sword, he sprinted forward dumping the mag's rounds in its direction. As he drew near, William stabbed out with the blade. Aiming for under the creature's arm he planned to quickly strike, then dive back out of arms reach.

 

[Charaa]

PNUgen Gardens
The Low Ground

Kiyo fired her rifle before she caught sight of her comrades charging with their other weapons so Silverlight was grabbed and then removed from its sheath. With the others firing, she knew that it would be distracting enough, especially with her elder sister there. She felt confident in her comrades and confident that they could take this monster down.

She couldn’t help but wonder how the creature got here. They were, after all, on Yamatai, at the very heart of the empire. She decided to put her thoughts behind her, there would be time to figure things out after.

 

[Whisper]

Indira had begun to line up her shot when the others charged in. Between the spinning princess and the two others charging with swords, she wasn't entirely sure - or confident - that she could get a good shot in.

Her brow furrowed. Their tactics were ... well, against a creature of this size, it likely was easier to attack exposed joints from up close. Assuming they had the mobility to dodge its attacks, which the princess' bindings would help with. It wasn't what she had in mind when she'd offered her advice, but she needed to learn to trust the rest of the team. They knew their stuff and had proven it to her more than once.

She did her best to line up her shots and, only when it was very safe to do so, took shots at the exposed joint that Hoshi had indicated.

 

[Ametheliana]

With the combined efforts of the crew, the hemosynthetic stone beast fell to the ground. Though this would not be its final resting place as it had only been felled momentarily, the brief interlude of its activity gave the Kaiyo crew the time they needed to escape to the air.

It was only a short flight to the facility, now- one they made quickly as the beasts under and below them lapped at their HUD's visual scanners. The SAINT and Rikugun crewmen scouted ahead, then gave the clear that the entrance was unguarded. The crew spent the better half of an hour within the battle-stricken facility. They found nothing and it was with a forlorn tone that Hoshi called the shuttle back and the crew flew back to the rendezvous point and boarded it, returning to Kyoto.