RP: NSS Acadia [Mission 4]: Heads of the Beast

A crash further down the street would make a few Marines jump, as the Ripper appeared at the opposite end of the street, where previously several technicals had engaged Ran's squad.

At their flank, the Ripper would send several of the damaged cars flying down the street towards the squad, making sure to lock onto them and fire a few gauss rounds at them, effectively turning them into two rocketing air-burst bombs.

Thankfully, the trajectory of both cars intersected, causing them to bounce off of each other and only manage to get clipped by a few 50mm rounds, causing (comparatively) light damage as one took out the corner of the building Morris and Sam were in, with the other harmlessly sailing into the glass mall.

With a shaking crash, the Ripper burst straight through the building Morris and Sam were situated in; rocketing further south in order to lead the Marines into another ambush.

====

"Morris! Shit!" Ran cursed at himself as the rest of the squad moved to pursue. The Chief completely forgot about Chad's status report. Ran steadied himself and calmed down, reopening a comm channel to Morris. "Morris, report our situation to the greenhorns. I want one of their armors down here helping us, ASAP! Get on the horn with any available shuttle in the area and bring 'em here!"

The Chief ended the order rather abruptly, seeing Mayhew stack up alongside the hole the Ripper made as it retreated. "Mayhew! Get the fuck back here and wait for us to stack up before you decide to br-" Ran's rant would be interrupted by the terrible sound of two large objects being struck by an even heavier one.

What constituted a few seconds was extended into what seemed like minutes. Ran saw the two cars rocketing down the street, and felt the presence of a Marine running to stack up with Mayhew, only recognizing the two thrown cars mid-stride. Grabbing the Marine by the belt, the Chief kicked his own feet from under himself, attempting to drag the Marine down with him in order to avoid the incoming cars.

A horrible whoosh of air announced the near-miss of the first car, and before the Chief could celebrate, he was knocked out by a piece of debris that was sent flying toward his left eye, as the second car impacted the corner of the building next to him. Would he have been conscious any longer, the Chief would have felt the spatter of blood on his face as the Marine he attempted to save was drilled through the head by a 50mm round.

Possibly, through some sort of mechanical failure, the Chief's cybernetic arm still maintained a grip on the Marine's belt, even as the Chief lay unconscious on the street.

"-...woah-" was all Anselm could say from his position at the Ripper-sized hole in the wall, as the pilot of the NMX armor exhibited an undue amount of forethough and planning in its ambush and flight from the squad.

With Chief Ran out of the picture, Anselm set his heavy weapon down to drag his commander out of the street and into the comparative saftey of the ruined mall, hauling Ran's failed rescue along for the ride, "Everybody hold your positions, I need a medic!"

"Leave the Ripper to air-support and armor, everyone. We can't keep up, and even if we could, it'll just keep hitting us. Lets get the chief fixed up, and keep working on what we were supposed to be doing already, clearing out that damn station. Hopefully, they don't have more of those fuckers hiding inside." Sean shouldered his panzerfaust, since it wasn't necessary or helpful at the moment. "And where the hell is that shuttle?"

"Sunburn is now in local airspace. I would deal with it, but seeing as there's lots of marines about and not to mention lots of buildings, I'm not going to start shooting at something that may or may not be a Ripper," El retorted into the radio. "I'd rather not have some friendly fire on my hands. Tell me when I can light it up."

The Sunburn was flying overhead, but with so many marines around, its weapons remained primed, but not streaking towards the Ripper's face quite yet. It did it's best to follow the trail of destruction though. Flying cars and debris weren't hard to see after all.

Alex was quite suprised when Kingston run by her into building. But it was probably a better to do since RIpper emerged on the street again somewhere else. "Fast bugger." said Alex and kneeled with shouldered panzerfaust. Only then she heard Chief Ran shouting on her to get back. Then the cars flew by. Alex jumped in the building just in casr lying down.

She coughed because of dust being everywhere after car impacted into corner of the building. She stood up and heard, "Everybody hold your positions, I need a medic!" It chalks voice, but important part was thah he needed medic. Alex ran out of building how crouched with her head down running towards the voice.

She found Anselm draggin chief into the mall. She quickly caught chief under the hand to help Anselm. Whil she ran she already was looking for what could happen to chief. He had a massive headwound, but luckily not caused by bullet. It looked like something hit his head hard. Chief held other marine tightly. But no one could help that marine with half of his head missing.

When they got here Alice said, "Chalk I need you to get that body off chief." She put Panzerfaust on ground and pulled out her field medkit and hypolathe. Chief was breathing,but knocked out. Being hit like that wouldn't give much chances for him to wake up any time soon. His left eye didn't look good being where impact point was. "Posibble skull fracture, not really much I could do now. I will pump him with hypolathe. But If there is no internal bleeding he will survive. Not sure about that left eye of his though." she was talking for herself. Then she looked at Anselm again. "Chalk take my panzerfaust. I have work now and it would be waste letting lie here. Also looks like you private first classes are running the show now." She then slided her panzerfaust toward him and attended to chief.

"Shit!" Anselm cussed, coaxing Chief ran's cybernetics to try and unlock the deathgrip they had on the dead marine's belt, unable to pry the fingers open, he grabbed the heavy panzerfaust and handed it over to the first marine he saw without a heavy weapon, "don't miss".

"Morris!" Anselm called out to the Tech Sentry, grabbing up his HPAR, "what's the status on those greenhorns? we need them to bait that fucker into the open so the gunships can have a go, and call in the nearest medevac, dammit!"

While barking out orders on instinct, the albino enlisted several marines loitering to guard Cheif Ran and PTC Mayhew, "you need to keep him alive until a medevac gets here," he growled at Alex, all but giving the order, "oh, get a tech sentry working on that hand, there must be a fault cause I can't pry it open."

"Morris!" Anselm yelled again, stalking through the rubble where he thought the Sentry had been before the brief engagement that had left the Chief wounded, "dammit, you didn't get taken out too, dij'ya?"

"Alrighty chief, I'll give the others your orders and then I will rendevous with your squad to assist. Skwigleff out." Chad then switched coms to Jack and Lucas. "Hey guys, I just got new orders from Ran. You two are to escort the senators with the Demons off world. You will probably need to go in and make sure they are ok then ask for a priorty 1 shuttle. Then you can get your asses off world as well. I'm gonna stay here and give the remaining squad extra support and make sure Kajiim gets back to the Acadia. Fairly simple. See ya fellas."

Chad sighed, which was something he was doing a lot of these days. He then took off out the doors, past the two Aggressors, and into the square in front of the Hospital. He fired his boosters and then took off in the general direction of where the Comm had indicated. He hoped he made it in time before the Greenhorns were all that were left.

Kingston abruptly stopped at the sound of twisting and crashing metal. Searching for the source, he instead caught a glimpse of the Chief going down. Bad news.

By the time he returned to the scene, Ran Rui was already being cared for. It was obvious, however, that they weren't going anywhere for a little while. "Alright. Let the medic do her work, and let's not forget our job as well. We're making sure the perimeter of the mall is secure, and advancing should they need our help. We might be going this one without the Chief." This last bit he muttered with a very solemn tone.

Phaedra pushed herself back up onto her feet; the car impacting with the mall sent glass shards flying everywhere. But luckily, she had the presence of mind to duck behind the nearest car to avoid being shredded by the flying glass. She collected her GSAR and headed over to the shattered building where the other car had impacted. She was stricken with a pang of despair when she saw the wounded form of Chief Ran being tended to by Mayhew.

"Chief..." she thought.

But the thought soon passed as Phaedra clamped her emotions down and knelt to pick up the Chief's unused Panzerfaust.

"Alright. Let the medic do her work, and let's not forget our job as well. We're making sure the perimeter of the mall is secure, and advancing should they need our help. We might be going this one without the Chief," said Viktor.

Resting the Panzerfaust on her shoulder, Phaedra knelt behind part of the destroyed wall. She peered down the street, searching for signs of the Ripper.

"Show yourself you bastard..." thought Phaedra.

Another crash off in the distance would signal the Ripper's next attack run, as well as the glass walls around the squad exploding as 50mm rounds streaked overhead. One such round would drill through the chest of a Marine close to Phaedra, spilling gore all over the sniper.

Clearly, the Ripper noticed the Sunburn in the area, and before attempting to escape into the cover of yet another building, would fire several missiles from the launchers on its hips at the Sunburn, while firing three more 50mm rounds at it should the missiles not meet their target.

Phaedra ducked back behind the ruined wall as the Ripper spat high-caliber rounds at the squad. Still concentrating on the current position of the Ripper, Phaedra suddenly felt herself splashed by something wet.
A familiar smell permeated the air, and she shut her eyes in an attempt to ignore what just happened nearby.

"Oh God, don't look; don't look," she thought franticly.

Risking another peek around the corner, Phaedra saw the Ripper now firing at the gunship above them. She switched the Panzerfaust to her other shoulder, and placed the eyepiece over her left eye. Phaedra inched her way out from behind the rubble and aimed the targeting reticle dead-center on the Ripper.

"Eat this you dammed Squid!" thought Phaedra. She waited for the display to read LOCKED ON before she pulled the trigger.

"The ripper is currently inside a building," Henry told El as calmly as he could - and he was starting to crack, "I can see why you aren't able to engage it."

He then heard the sounds of floors, walls and ceilings getting torn apart underneath him, "Furthermore," He stammered, his grip on the situation getting out of his hands, "It, appears to be - in the building I - am occupying. Excuse me one moment."

He needed an idea, fast. It was only then he started paying attention to Anslem's pleas for a response.

Anslem said:

"...we need them to bait that fucker into the open so the gunships can have a go, and call in the nearest medevac, dammit!"

Click to expand...

"Certainly, with haste!" Henry replied as he frantically started to check Marine profiles for the 'greenhorns' whilst getting a medevac to the Chief's position.

"This is Chief Rui's Squad. Have suffered heavy casualties and multiple injuries. Squad Leader is heavily wounded and unconscious," Henry made his distress call to the higher ups and hoped for a reply, "I repeat, squad leader is wounded. Send medevac to these safe coordinates."

Henry sent the required coordinates, but he still had the ripper below him to deal with. He hit a match with Skwigleff's profile fitting the bill. He opened a communication channel to him.

"Skwigleff, this is Morris, I need you and any other greenhorns you've got with you to rally to this point..." The coordinates were sent to his datapad, "I need you and your team alongside others to draw a Ripper out into the open from this building," He sent the coordinates for the building, "A gunship under my control will blast the bastard to Hell once it's out."

The smashing of the interior was starting to sound dangerously close, so Henry barked one last, very out-of-character line as his nerves were cracking and his blood felt like it was on fire, "FUCKIN' HURRY!"

"This is gonna turn into a goatfuck real damn quick," Anselm grumbled, finally deducing the location of his fellow First Classman, "...is it- under us?" he asked with a hushed whisper and maniacal grin.

Plans for an assault were already cartwheeling through the albino's battle-conditioned mind, "I might actually get to use some of these," he chuckled softly, pulling a scalar pulse grenade off of his combat webbing.

"Okay, FINE, if you want me to shoot the god damn squid with all you marines running around, possibly in the way of fire, then so be it!"

El growled as she quickly shot off a couple of grenades towards the hole the Ripper just made, before switching over to the chaingun to try and shoot some missiles out, as the actual pilot backed up to avoid said missiles.

Alex worked quickly and efficiently on chief. There was not she could anyway except for using hypolathe and letting nanobots do their jobs. At least she was sure she applicated it right. She knew her job after all.

She then grabbed a knife and cut dead marines belt to separate him from chief. Pulling chief deeper into the mall was easy then. SHe then said in the radio. "I think chief will be okay, but he will have to sit this one out. Bring anyone injured into the mall. It is hard to treat people with gauss roudn flying through me."

With she moved to the hole in the wall and looked for anyone injured. She ran to nearest hurt marine, grabbing him by vest and sliding him into the mall to treat him. "Bloody ripper, wish he would sod off already." She muttered for herself.

There were several explosions in the air as several micromissiles collided with the hail of bullets spewing forth from the chain gun of El's Sunburn, the rest streaking off course as their targeting systems were disrupted by the explosions in the air.

The Ripper's retreat inside of the building spared it the honor of being hit by Phaedra's missile, but before the Mishhu armor could retreat, it was soon pummeled by a barrage of grenades launched from the orbiting Sunburn. While not immediately dangerous, the grenades did have the effect of caving in the side of the building on the Ripper, as well as soften it up a bit more.

The hulking armor would immediately right itself, several pieces of building flowing off of it, as well as being blown off of it as the Ripper fired it's gauss rifle at the Sunburn, making sure that it would constantly keep its weapons trained off of it by taking evasive measures against it's gauss gun.
Keeping suppressive fire on the gunship, the Ripper would again crash through the building it was in, taking cover in yet another building.

As it was, the Ripper was heading in the direction of Skwigleff.

"Back, you idiot!" El yelled at the pilot who was actually controlling the flying, as she tried her best to blast the Ripper some more, but to no avail. At least they had shields to soak up at least some of the damage the Ripper could throw at them. "Now then, after that stupid thing!"

"I know that!"

"Hey, who's the one with the explodeys here? Listen to me and just go!"

The Sunburn took off in pursuit, El had the chaingun ready should she have a clear shot at the hideous squid armor.

Chad first saw the Sunburn before anything else. Its agile and menacing form was floating above the mess of explosions and bursts of rapid gunfire, and was seeming to add its own assortments into the mall area. This could be good because it would keep the Ripper in cover and could kill it if it did anything too stupid for too long. Unfourtunately, the Ripper wasn't dead, and was putting up a hell of a chase. The rain of Guass around the Sunburn gave that away.

He from that point, Chad picked out a spot close enough to the Ripper, but with enough cover for his Stealth Systems to give him a little bit of a suprise. Close enough I guess Chad thought, From here I can get behind the bastard and finish the job before he realizes I'm even in the area. This was a fairly good plan, considering it was simply placed around the fact that the Ripper would stay in a cover. It was a logical assumption regarding the supposed stupidity of the Ripper.

Chad smirked as he touched down. Fish in a barrel, Chad said to himself as he drew his RAPTOR. He went prone, and moved across the street towards the Ripper inhabitade building. It was at that point that the Ripper decided to burst from the wall, fireing Aether into the street at nothing in particular and charged in Chad's direction. Chad threw the Raptor and drew his broadsword, with the attempt of parrying the blow, side stepping, and taking a quick slice at the Ripper as he moved away to regain himself.

Unfortunately for Chad, this Ripper was not stupid.

Seeing that it's charge made the Nepleslian draw his broadsword and throw his weapon away in anticipation for close combat, the Ripper immediately changed it's course, boosting to the left side of Chad so as to keep itself in the direction of Chad's non-dominant hand.

If the Marine were to somehow try to throw his sword at the Ripper, he would either have to spend time switching hands and throw it, or would have to turn and expose the front of his body, as the Ripper would fire what was a full broadside at Chad, using it's Gauss Cannons and Aether cannons.

El just couldn't back a smile. The Ripper made his mistake and was about to be blown to bits. Of course a stupid marine might just be blown up along with it, but it's the idiotic jarhead's fault for being in the way. Way to ruin the moment. But only slightly. Again, it's just a marine.

A laugh erupted from the gunner's seat as a salvo of penetrator missiles were unleashed upon the Ripper's head, as well as shots from the chaingun. The actual pilot might have gave El a weird look, or was it a look of fright, but then El didn't notice if he did or not. It didn't matter, right? What did matter were all the fireworks.