RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 4-L] - My Head Explodes

[ShotJon]

The hilltop - HAVOC

Zeta did not wait and as soon as Makari fired another salvo, she reversed and hid the tank on top of the hill. With the angle the enemy drones should not be able to see and fire at the tank. Zeta checked her surroundings and then called up her co-tankist.

"I am gonna go forward a bit now, so you can fire." Zeta reported to the tank commander and gunner. "We should be showing only the turret to the enemy, make us smaller target. Give me a holler should you need more gun depression!"

With that Zeta drove forward a bit in a way that Makari and Luca should have a line of fire on the enemy.

 

[OsakanOne]

♫ Mad Max - Flamethrower Guitar

The drone in Makari's sights rolled - compensating as it slowly lowered befrore spluttering like a firework in a can before cracking in a split second, parts thrown in all directions by a spiderplant's leaf of black smoke and brilliant flashbulb photography across the ground.

Like magnetic knife-work, the newly emerging soldiers shifted in shape. What were like large brackets on shoulders becoming wing-like, revealing a trio of rocket-pods either side. Thin legs, equal parts knife to dinosaur. Wide curved brackets connecting flat surf-board sized arms. Flat faceplates into the chest. Neckless. Hand-less, ostensibly but those big boxy things still held, still loaded with fingers unseen.

Each marched, plasma engines spooling with a fuel injected ear-splitting roar of horsepower measured in the thousands of each of these feather-light person-sized unmanned frames marched: a glint of light before they bolted way up into the air, each turn angled precise and instant, leaving behind a trail of low-polygonal superheated air that thundered. They darted over the ground, low altitude now like attack helicopters. Swarming in number.

Other engines of similar design spooled, like a clicking tongue becoming periodic whistling: getting higher and higher as Rebeka's Winter skimmed the ground sparks flying. Each of its surf-board sized cannons dual wielded flipped beneath the arm, replaced in crisp clockwork with the second hand locking at the wrist with its own -- then that weapon was passed back onto a shoulder rack. The thing rotated firmly 180 degrees as she released the weapon, positioning the handle of the other: grabbing, decoupling. And then she kicked off the ground and kissed the beginnings of the sky. Lightning bolts chasing balls of superheated ionized gas, beaming trails that thundered only after striking the target then again as the speed of sound caught up. Weapons fire returned. Each seemingly moving as if lifted by the hand of some table-top player meters aside, skipping and side-stepping: their acceleration too much for the round velocities involved to keep up with as they drew nearer.

"The drones, that's Answer. No shields, shitty powerplant. Very fast but paper thin and cheaper than a bar-tab to make. Someone knocks on our doors, we Answer. Uploading specs."

A blueprint followed. Front, then side.

And the weapons? There was some hesitance now.

"Silva" Aiesu responded - her voice like speaking through cupped hands via the quantum radio. Two tones signalled this was a single line: Only Luca could hear this. Private channel. "Its a anti-exotics weapon. Anti-biologics. Warps metal, fries circuitry, splashes organics. Short range, though. Don't tell Rebeka, don't repeat the name. Will explain details later."

Click.

The electrical storm of jamming was now so intense that it bent light, lensing it with compression waves: beds of silver dancing across the ground in mirages turning the hills into tall specters in a tunnel of skewed nightmarish shape as light knew not what to do. Sparkles of radiation in the edge of the vision of those who walked the field unshielded like fairy lights. Colors shifting.

The floor, ripped open, revealed hard thick metal like that of an unpainted starship hull, scorched black by the explosives that had failed to penetrate over and over. A big sheet beneath them. The ground rumbled. And then again. Far beneath them, something had taken its first step.

In a universe full of forces so great and uncaring, the people behind what appeared to be a perfectly conventional facility had on some level mastered those forces: twisting them at the wrist, pinning their face down into the bar-room table with their head at gunpoint.

With the outer walls crumbling already with each metal clunk and then resulting explosion, it was quickly becoming clear that the entire complex's surface appearance was a formality.

The yellow spray and drums of anti-aircraft fire were now turned toward the ground. Cannons. Motar against the ground: spontaneous plumes of smoke appearing with deafening noise next to the tanks advancing on the complex as near misses becoming landscapes of fatal shrubbery.

Most of the drones trailed Rebeka specifically, those with the big heavy boxy weapons called Silva. Those more conventionally armed were dumping rockets at the tanks. Refocusing. Those that tailed off made a beeline for the tanks, as if they could hear their treads rolling against the ground.

 

[Moogle]

Seiren made the executive decision to aim for the flying drones shooting rockets first. After all, rocket units in any game were always the most annoying enemy, right? He cycled his HIPR's caps and finished his wiring, keying up his brand new set of boom for activation. "Powering up my big gun! Gonna try and knock out those drones in the meantime!"

Since his LEAF's refit, the pudgy Frame moved much better, especially now that it lacked the second, mostly pointless generator and the zesu plate piece was now serving as body armor, keeping the center of gravity low thanks to its weight. Seiren used this to his advantage by burst-hopping around to dodge the rockets while keeping very far away from the guys with the boxguns, and firing more heavy rounds at the floating guys.

"Really wish I invested in some kinda ranged EMP right about now!" he said, watching a meter tick up while he darted around.

 

[Eistheid]

Kennewes, Moonsong, Mesosphere

The peaceful lazy circuit around the mission site had lulled Tamamo into a contented, peaceful state. The idle joyride in the upper atmosphere so idyllic above the roiling clouds so pleasant that she almost doubted when her Captain's voice cut through the silence. A final systems check assured that everything was in an ideal state, a gentle bank taking her from her broad circuitous path until she was nearing a position roughly above the mission zone. The twin engines quieted to a soft purr for a moment as she nosed downward, pointing herself at the ground and then with a roar she leaped forward the lightened airframe thrown down toward the roiling storm clouds.

Crimson Clover - Dark Clouds

Blackness engulfed her, blinding sight, what had been an omnidirectional panorama was reduced to misty ambiguity, the water vapor struggling to cling to the warming airframe as it plummeted through the storm. The charge of the clouds danced the wash of electromagnetism a minor nuisance as the sensors began their active sweep of the battlefield below. Invisible fingers reached out faster than Moonsong could fall, even as her engines burned a channel in the impotent storm outrunning the thunderous wail of sound abandoned behind her. The gentle orange IFF notifications signifying the locations of her companions on the ground followed an instant later by the flurry of cyan pips, enemies, collectibles, points of interest, things to interact with.

An instant spent in the clouds, ended as suddenly as it had begun, and she was through the clouds leaving the storm a fleeting experience. Once again given the privilege unhindered sight already Tamamo could tell she wasn't well received. Electromagnetic signatures alerted her that some of the AAA had been left to greet her their interest conveyed faster than their mechanisms could direct them toward the plummeting craft. Impotent things they were, delivering death into the sky vainly, as Moonsong danced, floating spitefully outside of the baleful gaze of the emplacements.

Where grace provided by the rushing air proved too predictable, gravity that did not belong tugged, pulling the grey craft and its myriad of glittering eyes out of the path of those who tried to hunt it. Tragic the AAA's fruitless hunt was snuffed in its infancy, a contented chirp signifying the necessary lock on the offending emplacements, the twin beam weapons, relics of a past age discharging outside of their universe. Far below she knew the hearts of the emplacements wept, slag filling the space where the core components and intelligence of the AAA had previously existed, leaving the beauty of their exterior unmarred. First one, then with a minor adjustment, the second fell still, left to sit as cold as the uncaring rain continued to fall. Lifeless sensors unable to watch as Moonsong fell, as Tamamo fell, as the bombs fell.

She quieted the engines as the first bomb detached, aimed for the heart of the facility, it continued on as she slowed, air-brakes kissing the atmosphere as they flared ever so slightly, the second bomb sent on its journey to chase the first. She slowed even more, giving time for the first couple, united by their explosive love to continue on ahead. Then a final farewell, the hot-headed of the three bidding farewell as they descended to grace the facility with their spicy verve, and smothering embrace.

Moonsong's airframe shifted, engines shifting downward as they began to look like legs, gravitic systems working to keep the airframe in one piece as plasma roared rapidly levelling out as the downward momentum was killed and the grey craft shot out across the treetops a triplet of explosions following in her wake. The first two rending the surface of the facility, boring a hole deep, where the casing cradling Seiren's invention followed, plunging into the fiery aftermath to deliver its payload deep into the structure.

The first of her objectives was complete, the pyrotechnics a report enough back to her CO.

 

[Luca]

Kennewes, a sodden battlefield
The cylinder that held the Havoc's armament rotated as new cartridges loaded into place and lined them up with the barrel. Each cartridge full of giant scattershot, each pellet an inch in diameter to fly at the group of drones which had Answer'd the Phoenix's call for war. As soon as the salvo was out, Makari saw two drones fall into metal ribbons - unable to dodge the giant buckshot. The others were starting to spread out now, wary of similar retaliation. They were starting to learn from their attackers.

"The assault might have to wait, Makari!" Luca yelled as he undid his restraints and stood up through the porthole of the tank, manning the gun himself as a blockage had taken place. Manually cycling the bolt to clear the jam, he reached into his belt and pulled out his M'Cel, firing a curveball. Midway through flight, a laser pulsed from drone's eyes and the high-explosive grenade detonated in mid air.

"Not good. I think they're going to intercept our next shots." A barrage of shots from an overgrown SMG started dancing across the hull towards Luca - each bullet enormous as he ducked back into the tank to weather out the worst of it. "Bloody hell, they're not letting up!" Luca yelled as the damage reports came in - seems their attempt to use lasers was defeated by the Havoc's electrostatic shields, and armour piercing ammunition was used instead.

The tank had sustained some minor damage, but it was, for the most part, still operational. Some of the driver mechanisms on the left treads were beginning to play up, but the electrostatic shield had mitigated the worst of the damage. Worse still, the three drones were trying to do a charge and flank to force the tank into more open ground or away from the facility.

Luca then heard the direct line from Aiesu. He started aiming the gun on top of the Norris at the group of robots far away, trying to set up a Silva against Rebeka. Goddamn it, Consortium. Where do you get these wonderful toys? He couldn't help but wonder. The shots spread out, thinning their numbers and providing the sourcian with relief. For the main gun though, a little more depression was required if they wanted to lob a shot at that group, and back at the facility. The drones were well in attack - Grapeshot seemed to be working, but the Drone's strategy involved pushing the tank back.

When he couldn't get another shot at the northern robot group - he didn't want that thing on him or Rebeka - he begun focussing his fire at the drones again, aiming for the one trying to flank the tank - Zeta's use of hill cover limited its options thankfully. He couldn't hear the sound of the beast waking up over the sound of weapons fire he was making.


Meanwhile on the southern side of the facility, a bolt from Seiren's HIPR slammed into the side of one of the Answers and cut it in half - the legs flying in one direction as the torso fell into the mud. The inventor's frame danced despite the weather and slime. It was using its lowered centre of gravity to zip and weave past the worst of the shots thrown at it - including the barrage of rockets the automated point-defence intercepted.

"Answer me, Aiesu!" Allison yelled over the comms regarding the thing which was pointing at the Norris tank. "Oh fuck it - it dies I don't want to find out how you want!" She took no chances and fired at it, plasma bolt striking the tripod just underneath the boxy artillery piece. As it fell to the ground, and invisible to the - however, heat sensors on the thing spotted the ground and the grass in front of the muzzle of the artillery piece was red hot, all of the water there was being superheated into steam and the vegetation was withering immediately.

Echelon gave her gunner a pat on the foot. "WH3W!" she said over the comms as personnel-sized guns on the sides of the vehicle mopped up the rest of the robots, the cannons unable to get the vertical purchase to make good aim at the drones. "4C3 SH00T1NG! WH3R3'D Y0U L34RN T0 SH00T 4 T4NK?"

Something shot back at them, though, the Answer Drones were beginning to dodge the stream of bullets from the mounted machine gun and remaining spread out - if they had to die, only one of them at a time would - they were dividing the tank's firepower. Two of them were now weapon heckling the tank by moving erratically and pelting it with fire from what looked like an overgrown submachine gun with a drum magazine. Every bullet exploded against the Norris' hull, like autocannon fire. A lucky shot eliminated another drone. Two were left on Allison and Seiren's side, one on each. "Come on - keep this thing together!" Allison's less-mobile attack was getting pelted. The Norris had sustained significant damage.

A screaming came across the sky, louder than any thunderbolt and brighter than any lance a deity could wield. Screaming beneath Tamamo's fingertips was her airframe of retribution for a cause the Captain believed in. She didn't know all the details, all she had was a flightplan, three bombs and HEX beams. It was time to push back as her bombs came screaming down, the first two hammering as clumsy AAA fire lit up the night sky before being snuffed abruptly.

The first two bombs dropped, sending flashes and explosions into the night, ripping it in half with a split-second sunrise tearing the Lagrange-made production facilities apart. Just where did Karl get those from!? Finally, the third bomb made with spice (and love, but mostly spice) dropped and landed in the centre of the hole that'd been created. From above, some sort of underfacility seemed to have been revealed, as Aiesu had suspected.

If it weren't for the rain still blasting it down, a whole cloud of red would've burst out of the hole. It was difficult to tell exactly how effective it was from where the tanks were. Either of the fliers, Rebeka or Tamamo had to report. "Whoa! Damage report on that!" Luca called out over radio. "Seiren I think your spice bomb went off - I definitely felt four detonations there."

"Luca. Four?" Allison replied back over radio, incredulous. "I didn't install that many."

There was a fifth 'detonation'. Something was moving. It sounded heavy.

♫ Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops - RAXA ♫

"What was that?" Allison asked, the closest to the source of the vibration.

"Aiesu. What is that noise." Luca asked over the radio, cool and calm as he could be while the drones were trying to go for his tracks.

 

[OsakanOne]

"It isn't consistent with seizmic activity. I think maybe there was an explo--"

The round rumbled again. The metal box beneath them rumbled, like giant chains swinging, reverberating on the edge of their hearing as the vibrations cackled through the structure: another as the energy dissipated.

And again.

Metal like super hard glass as it reverberated again, after-shocks following: Like strumming a guitar, vibrating the structure: the resonance making the rock laid bare begin to slowly twist ad writhe like a water-bed or a snake in its dying moments, growing worse as the banging became louder.

"We...We need to get that roof off NOW!" Aiesu shouted, her voice peaking on the radio's speaker.

There was fear in her voice. Legitimate fear.

"Tamamo, target the middle! Strike the thinnest point. Maximum firepower, now!"

 

[Phe0n1x]

"Roger that, boss," Makari replied. He fired grapeshot continuously at the drones. "There's so damn many of them, do we have any other way to combat these things? There's only so much grapeshot." He could feel the cold sweat dripping down his temples. The team was not in a good place. What had started off as a fast smash and smas had turned into a frantic defense with inadequate weaponry.

 

[Moogle]

"Makari, just one. You might uh, want to cover your ears And eyes. And while you're at it, just don't look my way. I have no idea how big or loud this might be!"

Seiren watched his charge meter hit maximum on the LEAF, and he wasted no time in hitting the big "GO" button he made for the occasion.

And then, a sound.

Streams channeled from the speakerlike additions to the frame, into a central beam. it was thin and sloppy, like somebody had tried to bottle lightning and it was just spilling straight out of the case. But it shot in one direction, and that direction was straight at the drones still harassing the Norris. As the music played, a hemispherical barrier formed at the base of the beam, covering the LEAF's frontside in a pleasant green light.

"This isn't nearly as big as I expected. . ." Seiren dejectedly mumbled over comms, but kept his aim up.

 

[Eistheid]

Kennewes, Above a sodden battlefield

After the success of her bombing run Tamamo had intended to take a casual trip out over the forest tops and then loop back to the battlefield to begin the process of swatting the drones clustered around the tanks from the sky. It seemed the situation had changed.

Legs swung down and splayed out. Jets of plasma roared to life burning gaping wounds into the the rain drenched foilage. As her velocity dropped bringing Moonsong rapidly to a halt Tamamo cut the engines once more working instead with the gravitic systems to guide Moonsong about, twisting and turning the airframe to slice through the air efficiently reversing her present heading. The maneuver was one that would have made a traditional aircraft tumble from the sky, however judging by Dr. Kalopsia's tone there wasn't much time to play at being a jet fighter.

Once again returning the Hoplite to its fighter configuration after a brief instance in the hybrid configuration Tamamo engaged her engines, their roar announcing that she was returning to the heart of the action.

During her brief return trip Tamamo noted that locks on the swarms of drones proved relatively easy despite their minimal powerplants, in turn this meant that even during her return she could help somewhat, surgically placed beams firing on the ravenous swarms that were picking the heavier tanks apart. Not that she had much time to do so.

The speed of her Moonsong, the rebuild having made an already fast unit much more nimble and responsive, meant that she was arching over the smoldering hole in the facility within seconds. Tipping up the back end of her Moonsong, once again paying little heed to the proper aerodynamics of her craft, Tamamo discharged her weapons blindly into the yawning abyss, taking Aiesu's fear as reason to hold nothing back. Twin needles of white-gold death forged the way into the depths hopefully cutting into whatever it was that had caused the alarm. As the beams caused the smoke to billow outward fleeing the sudden heat that boiled the black away clearing a small channel through the smoke, Moonsong's small allotment of mini-missiles surged to life, the pods discharging their brood into the depths of the facility seeking an unidentified target as Moonsong arced over the hole her twin needles of light still piercing into the depths.

 

[OsakanOne]

Nothing. Ten seconds later, nothing. Thirty... And then it happened.

Something strange bombarded the comms, filling every standard radio frequency, with enough power to reach even high orbit. Bells. It sounded like what any Nepleslian would describe as an ice-cream truck. Then speaking. It was strange. Pre-recorded, the pronunciation of each word in some old dialect of trade recorded, played back in some sequence.

"Eight. Seven. Three. Six. Seven. Seven. One. Two. Seven. Four. Eight. Zero. Zero. One..."

The voice was familiar.

Then beeping, like a stopwatch.

Something sounded over the private channel Aiesu was using: thudding as she searched through heaps of items violently. The sound of a page turning, anxiously, lorath muttering. Something about a code-book. "Query recognized, challenge issued; priority one..." an awkward pause. "Challenge issued priority..." More page turning. And more. Each time becoming more aggressive. More dread filled.

♫ Mad Max 4 OST - "Storm is coming"

A long silence.

They could hear her blood running cold.

"GET OUT OF THERE!!" Aiesu screamed at the top of her lungs, ripping her vocal cords.

"GET OUUT!! GET OUT! GET--"

She was cut off with some loud deafening klaxxon, two angry sounding 8-bit tones. Like some sort of error tone.

A low buzzing rattled the metal of everything near: displays flickering. And then a great light, blinding white, racing way up into the sky: A brilliant column poured from beneath the complex in perfect silence, splitting the clouds effortlessly, turning them like water down a plughole: rolling and twisting them: the sky like a giant mobile, as if the ground itself were a baby's crib. It was perfectly silent.

It was only when the tail end of the column chased its front end up into the sky that it happened: what had been nearly half a mile of exposed metal ripped, pulled like rice-crackers in vast metal forms up into the sky, seemingly sucked up into it.

The very image itself was surreal, frozen for nearly a whole minute.

Then gravity caught up.

Equlibrium slowed the acceleration of the massive plates like hands reaching into the heavens before tumbling back down.

There was no sound from this great event: instead, a shockwave that buckled the weaker metal elements over the Phoenix's deployment, twisting and ripping bolts, sensor-pods, handles, flaps and antennae. Communications and sensors were almost completely dead, backups slowly coming online.

From a distance, it could be seen that the shockwave had ignited the forest with its sheer energy alone: like christmas lights in the distance, blue and orange fire before returning to normal as the jamming continued to warp the wavelengths of visible light.

Only now did the great panels, like a giant's surfboard, each sky-scraper like in size come back down: Like throwing knives, each vertically biting into the ground to form enormous great monoliths over the hole, shadowing its contents as smoke and dust billowed from the impact.

The beam was a distant miss for Tamamo: apparently not intended for her Hoplite -- superheated air chasing behind compacting to form plasma in the solid shot's wake, of what her sensors would assess to be some sort of mass-driver: Even so, the shock wave of that air throwing her into a hard spin, as if she were a chess-piece on a board that had just been flipped.

In the deep vacuum of high orbit, a solid lance of uranium borohydride - a material so dense that catching a silver dollar made of it would break your wrist with the sheer weight: Burning brilliant red from atmospheric friction in the opposite of re-entry narrowly missed the Kestrel: meters away from the hull the interior of the vessel met with an intense but brief gamma radiation surge, tripping every kind of safety alarm imaginable.

Beneath, the sound of heavy diamagnetic systems and pistons driving whatever had done this echoed, reverberating, spooling up in neutral. Superheated steam poured from the epicenter with intense hiss, blowing the dust and smoke away: The silhouette of something inside: An immense beast of boxy shapes resembling some enormous origami bastard child of a dinosaur and a tank, twelve meters in height or around four stories.

Two thick strong legs, seemingly lacking feet with a heel suspended from the rear of the calf: Reverse chicken legs stood tall, locked stiff -- talons upon its ankles biting into the ground, the thing having taken brief flight. Upon its right shoulder, pointed skyward was something resembling a massive sword, glimmering silvery as lightning arced over its surface, crackling hotly: The inner bars glowing hot as more steam poured.

The machine was locked stiff as a statue. Waiting for something that never happened.

Only now did it even begin to contemplate awareness of those around it, let alone issuing any kind of response

Again, that low moan of diagmagnetics throat-singing on the edge of hearing as it turned its head, strange thing like a tank turret as the rear cab shifted: the barrel of that immense sword lowering, glimmering with shiny chromic finish. The beast refocused its attention: joints locking with a hard "snap" as its heels left the ground, taking its first steps: Each pulling the ground up from beneath like a miniature seismic event: to make up for its poor displacement, the entire ground beneath it becoming a foot: Every step incredible slow motion.

From the machine's back as it steadied it stance, missiles rose up in sequence: each bursting like explosive egg-shells to become capsules, split by what resembled twin ceiling fans, each hovering effortlessly, positioning themselves in a large triangle about the beast. And then a fourth much larger, which rose way up into the air, much faster than the others oozing pale smoke from a brilliant twinkle of light: moving up and away, over the heads of those involved and far from their combat area.

Far far away, high up in the air, a second sun came into being: a glimmering point instantly becoming a fireball of anger and fury, wrapped in a thin wire halo of smoke as the sky was lit with burning orange, framed by red on the peripheral: decaying now into light so bright the sky was blackened: reds purple, everything ultraviolet as the frequencies shifted. Radiological alarms were signaling: nuclear.

There was no blast-wave. No fallout. No waste material. As a weapon, the detonation was pathetic: Far weaker than weapons used to defend the planet itself: It wasn't designed for that at all. What it was designed for was the radiological interference swept through the atmosphere like waves in water. Ripples in the ionosphere and magnetosphere. Strange colors, like a starless sunset.

And high above them, the Kestrel saw nothing: That sunset fingers over the Kestrel's eyes.

What came next was recognizable: Normally a soft hum on the edge of one's hearing, a deep intense and angry scream - SILVA units each the size of a small car over its body warming up and firing: Structures spontaneously exploding about the enormous battle frame. The resonances made a strange sound: air vibrating, clashing.

The resonance did a strange thing. Surely by design. Surely intentional.

It roared.

 

[Luca]

Kennewes, a hellish battlefield
When the blast wave came, everything was blown away or flattened. The drones were sent flying into the horizon, tumbling against the ground and shredding themselves apart. However, the same push lifted the Havoc off its treads and backwards, but the leeward side of the slope they were on as they went backwards proved its worth, shielding them from the rest of the blastwave and sending the whole thing crashing downwards on its treads as though the tank had just gotten some air.

The engine was still running, the over-built suspension was keeping everything safe, and the transmission was fine, but the occupants inside were tossed like a salad from their seats, heads hitting the ceilings - the tanks didn't have seatbelts in case there was an incident which required mobility to fix, like a fuel or ammo fire.

♫ Wolfenstein: The New Order - Deathshead ♫

That was the worst of it - Luca hoped as he finally got his senses together. "Damage report..." he groaned, feeling himself for bruises. If it weren't for all the armour and the helmet he was wearing, there could've been worse. The tank's computer reported that the shielding was out, completely. "Damn. Looks like we're all or nothing now."

Suddenly, follow up rumbles hit the ground as large chunks of building collided with the ground and a detonation could be heard. Luca held the ceiling and braced himself so he wasn't shaken about any further than he wanted to be. "What the fuck was that? Aiesu?"

The line was jammed with static. He didn't spot the radiological warnings yet. "Aiesu? Ech-Prime?" He finally spotted that everything was jammed due to EMP and... radiation? "Fuck's sake. Allison! You there?" Still no answer. Communications were completely out due to interference. "Zeta, get us closer, something's horribly fucking wrong." He stood up in his seat, grabbing his rifle and slipping a fresh grenade into the underbarrel and looking at the horizon, gaze levelling with the monstrosity in the middle of the facility, spotting the obelisks impaled into the planet and gritting his teeth. They were a solid smokescreen.

He didn't care what Aiesu was shrieking on the Kestrel, he couldn't hear her anyway, her shrill cries drowned out by the mayhem. "Drive me closer." Luca commanded. "I want to deal with that..." He wasn't even sure what it was - some bipedal monstrosity. Not the usual chemical threat he was used to dealing with - was there a chemical threat here at all, even? He couldn't give the bunny a verbal kick in the ass to find the answer.

He had to find his own answer the only way he knew how. He cracked his knuckles, fire burning in his eyes, brighter than the momentary sun above him.


On the other side of the battlefield, Seiren picked himself and his frame up off the ground, having made a sizeable divot into the dirt and against a tree when he was swept off his feet, he saw Allison's tank knocked back significantly from the sheer force of the blast, with her proximity and angle rolling the tank onto its side and crushing the left-side turret. The underside was exposed, and there was still no radio communications available.

The hatch at the front of the vehicle, lowest to the ground came open and Allison came crawling out, covered in bruises and welts as she was dragging Echelon with her, carrying the pawn in her arms. In the hellscape, she looked around, completely lost. The tank was on its side. She looked for Seiren, waving him down. "Flip this thing over!" She tried yelling over the roaring sound that thing was making. "Engine's still running!"

But she couldn't be heard. The body of Echelon she was holding in her hands couldn't hear what her master on the Crimson Kestrel above was doing. There truly was a communication blackout. All that could be done was act - even without coordination. Allison realised that may not have been heard, she continued to haul Echelon to a place away from where the tank could fall, and grabbed a grappling hook from her belt, circling around to the underbelly of the vehicle, and tossing the line to the top side and pulling with all her strength.

The tank started to teeter, and landed on its treads with a loud crash, engine still running. She ran back over to Echelon's unresponsive body and lifted her up, heading back for the hatch. A whine could be heard - an Answer drone, severely battered from being blown away had emerged from the bushes, scanning for targets. She sprinted into the tank, dunking Echelon back into the hatch headfirst, and leaping inside after her - the only problem was that the convenient secondary turret which could face and fire at this threat was snapped forward in the commotion, and needed a more thorough repair to get its turret rotation going again.

The drone started firing at the tank's crushed side, pummelling it and exploiting the softened side. The turret was trying to turn around and point the main gun at it as the treads were trying to get the frontal armour of the tank in the line of fire, but it was moving too slowly to line up a shot - the thing zipping about the tank and pelting it with more fire in the vulnerable areas. Allison couldn't do two things at once - she couldn't drive and man the gun at the same time - the Drone was going to destroy the tank if Seiren didn't intervene.




Kennewes Orbit, Crimson Kestrel, Aiesu's Hutch
The blinded rabbit was staring at the displays, watching static and listening to white noise. She didn't know what the fuck was going on down there.

The door slid open while her headphones were still on, the only thing betraying the presence of someone was the sound of heavy metal footsteps against the ground. They had just dodged a shot and Echelon wasn't keen to gamble on another shot, starting the Kestrel on a lap of the planet to get away from the instant sunrise - and hopefully restore communications. The sooner she got the ship away from that earth-shattering weapon which damn near grazed the Kestrel, the better.

"413SU." Echelon's robotic monotone sounded severe as a metal hand fell on the lmanel's shoulder, fingers wrapping about her neck in a firm grip. The eye in the centre of her head, usually bright red and vibrant with projected holograms was a low and smouldering entrance to a furnace of barely contained anger. "H0W MUCH D4NG3R 4R3 W3 1N."

 

[Moogle]

"Luca? Rebeka?" Seiren attempted calling over comms. Nothing but static greeted him. And a noise he'd never heard come from the cockpit of his LEAF before - the clicking of a Geiger counter. "Ooooohhhh this is very, very bad. Tolerable, but very, very bad. . ."

Allison flagged him down, and he was going to jump to help when that other Answer decided to make an appearance. "Nononono, alright, noisemaker go!"

He pressed the button again, nothing happened. One of the wires must have gotten crossed yet again - And his HIPR was thrown somewhere by the blast. So, he did what he could - he launched the LEAF towards the answer and used the Mancannon hand like he used to always use, coming in to the drone as close as possible to make sure that his shots hit as often as possible.

 

[Phe0n1x]

"Yeehaw!" he joked as they were tossed around like marbles in a pouch. Once things settled down and the world stopped floating and spinning, he managed to pull himself back into his seat and check the instruments. "I think the gun is ok, boss. I'll see if we can help the others once I get a decent line of sight." He began running the faster diagnostics on the weaponry to ensure it was at least mildly "okay". Makari didn't want the tank to explode on the next shot. That would be, well, counter productive.

 

[ShotJon]

"Moving!" Zeta shouted and as she picked herself up again. She shook her head and stepped on it., ignoring a trickle of blood running down from her forehead and over her face. Tracks rolled and Havoc started charging down the hill. "Bloody Nora! What the hell is that thing?" She yelled again and made sure her weaponry was close by. It won't do her much good against that thing. But beast like that had to be manned. Zeta hoped that not even La Grange would not be too insane to make this monstrosity of a frame run by some AI.

"Luca, I'll get us as close as close as possible. There might be a bloody way for us to get inside that thin or something. You don't happen to have small nuke down your trousers, do you?"

 

[OsakanOne]

Meanwhile, in orbit...

♫ Armored Core; Last Raven - "Closer"

The small l'manel swallowed weakly, feeling the metal against her warm skin. She was frozen to the spot, knowing not to turn her head -- silence boiling, broiling between her ears. Paralyzed as she began to hyperventilate. Her hand shot to the desk for an inhaler, jamming the thing between her lips. Three sharp wheezing intakes as she tried to get herself under control: stammering vocal chicken scratch before she felt Echelon's hand wring her, forcing her to compose herself.

"H0W MUCH. D4NG3R. 4R3 W3. 1N."

"I-I-I... Pffhhuugh...." Aiesu wiped her face with her palm, sweat gleaming. Another go from the inhaler as she started again.

"I DIDN'T KNOW IT WAS THERE. I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW IT EXISTED UNTIL THREE WEEKS AGO. ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FINISHED FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER YEAR."

"3XCUS3S. FR0M TH3 T0P, C0NSTRUCT."

"A-Alright..." "...E-E-Ever... play star-invader?" she winced, trying to smile.

"P4RD0N?" Echelon's hand tightened, thumb shifting on the mouthpiece of her headset.

"S-STAR-INVADER! ... T-The one with the little moving turret on the bottom and you shoot the rows of ships that come down fr-from above..." she trembled.

"1 KN0W WH4T ST4R1NV4D3R 1S."

"T-Try to imagine that... Only for real."

"WH4T?"

"AUGH-OUR-EX. It-it-it..." she took a deep breath. " Its a bipedal battle-tank. Nuclear equipped, designed for surface to orbit mobile defense platform, designed to prevent a full on invasion."

"G0 0N"

"Its totally unmanned but a closed-box system, so you'd need to be directly on the thing if you wanted to hack into it, so information warfare is totally out of the question: If you want to communicate, its all one-time-pads, same as we use for everything but the call/response codes have all been changed. I think its been stolen."

"F0CUS 0N TH3 M4TT3R 4T H4ND: Y0U S41D NUCL34R. WHY N0T ANTIM4TT3R?"

"That's the yield of its m-m-main weapon, the R-305 rail-cannon. Its developed from the R-88 Acesulfulzel the LSDF is currently testing for field deployment. Its designed to launch LSDF-classification medium, large and XL missiles out of the atmosphere without a delivery vehicle, puncturing the atmosphere to strike objects in orbit, using sheer velocity, the spin imparted on the shot itself to curve it and the ionosphere of a planet to make the shot itself harder to spot or evade. Like what Nepleslians used to call a curveball."

"GR3T. 4ND TH3 NUK3S?"

"The best source of radeological interference, across the board in known space, triggering a discharge from the magnetosphere of a planetoid using an EMP. Its designed specifically to knock out anything with a capacitor better than what's rated to drive a personal energy weapon that's currently charged and powered: shutting its own down during operation so it isn't fried in the blast. The blast-wave is also used to alter terrain to its advantage, making it harder to get near using conventional weapons and it has the lasting effect of knocking out telecommunications for an extended period of time, making it hard for ground forces and bombers to coordinate and attack it"

"H0W D1D 1T H1T U5?"

"Quantum modem, communicating with its onboard sensors to compensate for the interference. A kind of ultra low power very low bandwidth linkup with instantaneous communication over almost any distance designed to survive the blast, circumventing the interference. Its useless for anything more than basic text or a voice communication: The entire reason we're able to converse directly."

"S0 Y0U'R3 TH3 R34L TH1NG? 1M T4LK1NG D1R3CTLY W1TH..?"

"Its nice to meet you, Echelon."

"W1SH 1 C0ULD S4Y TH3 S4M3. Y0U W3R3 S4Y1NG?"

"Right. Its probably communicating with a satellite or something in our vicinity, given any computer so expensive would need to be packed up and moved easily to be cost effective. You won't find it without a starbase grade sensor. Given the shot missed, the next shot loaded is going to have a proximity fuse. Even if it misses, we'll be struck with shrapnel."

"S0 3V3N 1F 1T M1SS3S 1T5 5T1LL D4NG3R0U5."

"Exactly. The only reason we're still here is because the entire thing is unfinished and the software is setup for calibration and testing, not final operation."

"1NT3R3ST1NG. 4NyTH1NG W3 C4N T4K3 4DV4NT4G3 0F?"

"The composition of the production field unit's composite armor isn't finished so there'll be unprotected areas on the body. Neither is FROZENEYE and the rail-cannon isn't working at optimal effectiveness. A direct hit probably would have killed."

"FR0Z3N 3Y3?"

"Its a kind of scanner that uses the super-cooled electromagnetic receptor assembly fro one of our AURA type power plants that's used as a kind of quantum sensor."

"TH4T W0ULD N33D 4 L0T 0F PR0C3SS1NG P0W3R..."

"More than we could pack into the platform, yes. Again, a quantum modem. The computer is probably the same satellite that's providing basic sensor information... Sort of like a kind of triangulation or calibration, since FROZENEYE is notoriously finicky at the best of times. Its the spheric dome on the left shoulder. Given its still under testing, its probably unprotected."

"4ND TH3 R41L C4NN0N?"

"Right shoulder. At the moment, it has a serious design flaw: It can't fire consecutive shots without needing to cool down first. To do that, it relies on evaporative cooling: usually in the form of weather modification which we haven't figured out yet."

"S0 1T N33D5 4 L4RG3E B0DY 0F W4T3R?"

"Right! It needs to stand in water. It pumps in the legs which pull the water up. There's also big radiator plates, built into the ankles and knees of the legs, as well as the third leg, a kind of tripod it uses to stabilize itself when firing. If it can't cool down quickly enough and you can trick it into taking repeated shots, the entire thing will overheat."

"W0N'T 1T S3LF R3PA1R L1K3 TH3 W1NT3R ii T3ST-TYP3 Y0U G4V3 R3B3KA?"

"There is a type of field repair drone but it isn't completed yet. There's also another type of drone that generates a kind of defensive barrier that also isn't finished."

"WHY D03SN'T 1T S3LF R3P41R? S33MS L1K3 4 P00R D3S1GN CH01CE, T0 M3."

"That's what I thought too. We were given a black-list of things we're not allowed to put in it: Mainly structol and maesus, but a few other politically sensitive technologies too. I'm really glad this is a secure channel."

"WHY?"

"If they know I've told you this, I'll probably be killed. Don't repeat a word of it. Please."

"Y0U G3T 4LL TH4T, LUC4?"

The Battlefield

♫ Junkie XL - Brotherhood in Arms

Smoke oozed from the frame far above the battle-field, cracks pouring black dust. Armour, cracked and battered. Everything shut-down, dead.

Free-fall: a whistle of acceleration as she picked up speed toward the ground.

Rebeka could feel it.

A grin of remembrance.

How Seiren had explained the concept to her when he'd cooked the testing gear of a weapon he was working on but not the weapon itself: That when the singing of light was moving, what the others called EMP fried the channels it moved through. But if nothing moved? If nothing was live or charged? EMP was almost totally ineffective.

A slow deep breath. Rematerialized in the cockpit: Not a cobweb of snot and organs but herself as the others saw her, knowing she might have to ditch the frame soon: The value of skin was the chance of being a vehicle rescue than a frame's autopsy. Breath hazing up the display in darkness. The ground growing closer.

Confident, her finger met a switch.

From the nuclear womb of the beast, power poured through every inch of it: razorblades down the backs of its legs in thin strips warming, wings opening once more: plasma engines warming and then light that threw her forth into life once more.

Speed.

Gravity manipulation was mostly dead. Advanced sensors, a crisp. Release bolts, baked shut. She didn't switch everything off quickly enough, the small charge that remained an electrical embolism, charge dancing places it shouldn't go.

The high precision high altitude nuclear shot of the OUREX turning the planet's magnetosphere: a giant electrical machine driven by the planet's iron and copper deposits playing coil to the star's own emissions into a planetary scale EMP localized to a space the size of a goddamn city right on top of them.

An electrical avalanche.

Half the frame was dead. The same went for her: her natural nuanced sonar hearing of electrical force almost totally deafened.

She was half blind.

The mandible arms about the chest the frame unfurled: One thumb about the frame's chin, the other winding beneath the faceplate. Force ripped the face-plate of the helmet clean off, sparks flying as the metal was sucked away by the vacuum of air behind her left by the wake of thrust: the clear covering of the opening revealing a mach 1 eyeball of the vicinity.

Finally, she could see. It wasn't much but it was better than the near darkness she'd been trapped in.

Sensing the hand-weapons were fried, she extended her arms outwards, cooked metal flaking away like feathers revealing the bare electricals before discarding them, seemingly dissolving into the air. Reserves were dead too: the electrically activated jelly replacing gunpowder in the caseless rounds having gone off like firecrackers earlier. No missiles, either.

She took a long thought the long conversation she'd had in private with Tamamo. Then of Luca.

In her mind, he was the only card anything even close to playable in that game.

They couldn't die here. Not here.

"Re--ka to crew. G-ing to run in--rf-rence. Go f-r th- l-gs. W- can do th-s." the message came out, garbled and dirty with interference.

"W-sh m- luck."

Acceleration. Every ounce she could muster.

She darted sharply to one side: the flittering of refracted optics and light disorienting her as she tried to focus upon the giant walking mirage. Thunder's belly growling in the sky above it. Flashes of light as the planet's interrupted magnetosphere continued to grind like sparks in an oversized gaseous gearbox, teeth skipping hotly.

Tracers. The sound, familiar: L-Mark II, anti-starship guns. Converging with hyperkinetic rounds, tracers blinding white roaring toward her.

A flash of positrons dumped, another sidestepped quick boost throwing her to the left. The cockpit forces would have caused instantaneous blackout, probably internal bleeding if she'd been made like the others, not an ounce of inertial canceling stepping in: Suffice to say, she now knew that was broken too.

Reaching back, she took the reserve weapon of the Winter II: The concave interior of each quarter wing containing something like a curved knife: All four locked together into something resembling two wide frame-surfboard sized swords connected end to end, butt to butt in the middle, locked at the hips. Click.

They pushed apart down the length of the cutting edge: teeth like a Nepleslian Macuahuitl coming into place then driven with a whirr of motors: Each a giant chainsaw.

She half-sworded the massive thing: Skirting weapons-fire one moment, using the entire thing as a physical shield the next as she grazed the convergence of the weapons-fire from above, slowly crawling in with precise thrust as she looked for an opening.

The monster had eyes only for her, every step drawing it across the land as it walked backwards, inching toward the lake still boiling hot behind them.

This wasn't good enough.

Missiles rose up like fireworks out of the monster's back.

Capsule shaped helicopter drones scoring the landscape with lasers that melted rock leaving it moltern hot, glowing bronze.

Another nitroburst of positrons as she tried to trick the thing into mis-stepping, tried to get the lasers to sweep over the frame itself: shutting off with machine precision then the moment crosshairs passed live again pouring razorblade thin photons scoring through the thin smoke and angered lightning kissed dust.

Down. Way down. Where the thing couldn't take a clean shot: It was made for shooting things above it, not beneath it, she now knew this much.

She hit the deck. Sparks with feet against the ground, anxious not to roll the damn frame into an unrecoverable spin without the benefit of gravity control.

Breath in and out. Louder, tighter, firmer. Ruby watching.

Sensing her opening, she drew the double ended weapon back for a swing.

Search-lights across the walker's body converging... The air a wavering mirage. Steam rising across the right arm of the frame. Then the metal bubbling, same for the left leg. Like cheap microwave cheese or a child abusing milkshake.

Silva. Starship grade.

She knew that sound. She'd heard it so many times in controlled conditions she'd been paid to stand around in, practicing its effectiveness over and over and over and over again -- ostensibly for the safety of those she cared about.

A place she swore she'd never go back to.

And now it walked above her, blotting out the sun.

The aforementioned limbs exploded in a brilliant shower of molten metal: her body rolling and hitting the deck: dust kicked up into the air marking her trail before a deep resounding GONG as she struck one of the newly tombstone skyscrapers.

The gigantic bipedal walker turned in steps, the ground shaking with each to face her.

So close.

Get up.

Get. Up.

The Winter II forced itself up onto its legs: the left thigh exposed and torn apart, the entire right arm and associated intermediary nowhere to be seen, wing missing on the opposite side.

And she saw it above her.

David and Goliath was the only thought. She needed a stone.

The frame's arm tore into its torso, struggling with great effort to peel off its front half before finally the wiring to the explosive bolts remembered it existed and they fired sequentially, revealing Rebeka through the front of the frame, tossing it aside like an apron.

Next, she worked switches in the cockpit, switching over to reserve power then blowing the bolts to the covering to the powerplant -- watching with dread as it continued to advance on her position through the wall.

The panel didn't come off. Again frame hand, peeling the panel off: nearly blinded by the brilliance of the thing inside, a spherical ball covered in plugs and complex cables: An aetheric generator that fed on matter to produce its power, a source of all the antimatter she'd need and magnetic monopoles: mysterious particle force capable of with just a look in its direction whispering the old age and death of matter itself.

That would be her stone.

There was a shudder in the bicep of her frame as she ripped the thing from its housing with a sharp telescopic retraction, the cables stretching to match. Fairy-lights dancing between them and the frame, still connected.

Mandible arms extended telescopically handled the blade on one side as the one remaining frame-scale arm handled the other. Thrusters at either tip of the blade primed, good to go, compensating for the missing arm. The chainsaw starting up again, picking up speed.

The ball in the opposing hand.

"Ready".

 

[Luca]

Kennewes, a hellish battlefield
"I wish I thought of bringing one!" Luca yelled back to Zeta - truth be told, he could barely hear anything with the explosions and impacts still ringing in his ears. He only caught the last few words of what she said. Antimatter bomb, nuke, himself - he had to bring something. "We need to weaken that thing or we're not going to be able to get out of here!" No way over it, no way under it - Luca's idea was to punch through it. "Don't you love it when the mission parameters cha- wait. Hang on, I'm getting something from Echelon Prime..."

Then he heard something trickling into his ear as the tank was rolling towards the lumbering giant, rolling over the hill and amidst the obelisks. Dialogue. He could hear Echelon's digital voice crystal clear while Aiesu's was on the other side of the line. A grin came across his face, Zeta couldn't see it, but Makari could see that a ploy was bubbling in his head. "Echelon," he replied "run decoys, make that railgun fire while I coordinate everyone on the ground. Make some interference by blowing something up. One way or the other this thing is stopping."

He poked his head back down, into the tank, pulling a grenade out of his chest rig which was marked as a flare. "Zeta, Makari, see this?" Luca asked, holding the 40mm illuminating gel "I'm going to fire it where I want you to hit. I'll get closer and put it on." The operant word here was 'get closer'. "Hopefully the other tank and Seiren get the hint if you start shooting at the legs, I'm not sure when this EMP interference will clear up. I'm also going to fire another flare further up, but that's for Tamamo."

Thanks to Echelon's quantum cheekiness, he knew he had to put one beacon on a leg, and the other on the big circular thing next to its head, 'Frozen Eye' on the upper right - but he didn't see Rebeka when he gazed at the horizon. Where was the interference she ran? All he could hear were the sounds of that metal thing roaring, still. Where was she?


Crimson Kestrel, Aiesu's Hutch
With what looked like the most shit-eatingest of shit-eating grins a bare faceplate with a red eye could manage, Echelon managed to belt out a cheeky "TH4NK Y0U F0R Y0UR C0NT1NU3D C00P3R4T10N, 413SU K4L0PS14~" as she stepped backwards out of the room and towards the doorframe, standing just behind the door and pointing her thumbs at herself, "C4N'T S3LL M3 M0D3MS TH0UGH, M4D3 '3M MYS3LF!" The sliding door slammed shut in her face, but she didn't care at all.

She was happy that Aiesu would be contained for what Echelon had in mind next. She started heading back towards the bridge as the Crimson Kestrel's circumnavigation was beginning to head back to where it started, just over a reddened part of Kennewes. It spotted a commercial satellite. A quick IFF of it revealed that it belonged to a company called Shell Entertainment. Eh, whoever was watching could go without some TV for a few days, necessary casualty.

"F1RST S0M3 CH4FF..." The Kestrel fired a beam at the satellite from a distance, breaking it apart immediately. The spreading debris created a field of confusion above. "N0W TH3 D1STR4CT10N." Something fired out of the underside of the Crimson Kestrel, a countermeasure of decoy beacons, eleven of them. With any luck, it looked like the Phoenix had bought a fleet to bear. "LUC4, D1STR4CT10N 1S RUNN1NG! H0P3 TH3 L4ND1NG Z0N3 1S CL34R WH3N 1 C0M3 B4CK!"

The Crimson Kestrel itself, however, was doing a second loop of the planet. In its place were ten phantom cruisers, all with different, spoofed IFFs, all heading towards the OUREX's position in the wake of the satellite's chaff.


Kennewes, a hellish battlefield
♫ The sound of a burning forest ♫

Luca had his hand against his earpiece again inside the Havoc. "Great work. I wish I could see Aiesu's face. Zeta, you're in command of the tank now." He leapt up and out of the hatch, standing on the turret, surfing on it. He saw an obelisk on the road ahead, and powered up the Grapple Stunner as he loaded the marking grenade into his M'Cel launcher, mounted under his GP-1. He dropped the rifle and let the shoulder strap let it stay by his hip, whipping his right arm forward and launching the piton at the obelisk.

Alright, this thing's full of microwaves. This means I find out how TV dinner feels if I get close to it... Luca thought as the piton struck the surface of the obelisk and he started reeling in immediately. His angle of attack was straight up into the air, sending him rocketing above the obelisk and above the Ourex, giving him a vantage of the battlefield - and seeing Rebeka in a crushed state, holding something close, but he couldn't tell how bad the damage was at the distance he was. He had to get closer.

As he was on his way down, Luca knew he had to soften his fall, knowing that it'd hurt if he didn't apply any gravity manipulation. Or, he could use the Obelisk's angle of entry into the ground as a place to swing from - firing the piton at the point of the obelisk, and swinging himself forward. Zeta could see him zip across, a purple streak identified as a 'FRIENDLY'. He landed on an obelisk just out of reach of where everything was shimmering. And she could see he was wearing something all along - Phantom Blades!

Now that he was in position standing on the edge of a jagged metal spire, he lifted his rifle, quickly estimated distance with a folding iron sight for the launcher and intuiton, and fired the first marking grenade, a bright, fluorescent orange gel which released a 'ping', RF Tag Delivery. It was for the air support and tanks to fire at. He wasted no time in swapping grenades, letting the spent shell clatter down the angled surface of the obelisk. He fired the next slug at OUREX's knee, leaving another bright orange splotch. On everyone's radars, two markers appeared to 'STRIKE HERE', albeit garbled.

That was the easy part. The hard part was predicting how OUREX would react. Luca let another grenade casing clatter down the obelisk. He tried calling out to Rebeka over the noise of all the Silva microcannons, but his voice was drowned out. He had to shut it up - he took aim at one of the screaming pods - a shot from about two kilometres away with a 40mm, conventional explosive grenade had to account for a lot of things - at least the wind was still and Luca only had to worry about gravity - the marking gel slugs flew on a much straighter trajectory since they were much lighter, an explosive was going to be heavier.

Thoomp! As soon as Luca saw the grenade arcing downwards onto the OUREX (he was hoping to strike one of the pods but if he hit the flat top of the thing he'd take it) he leapt down the obelisk and used it as cover, hanging off the edge just a few metres down from the very top, looking to the left for his next point of attack while he emptied the grenade casing, putting the hot shell back where he got it from instead of letting it fall to the ground and giving away his position.

"Eve---ne, go f-- the legs," he reiterated what Rebeka said over radio, his voice drowned out by the residual EMP and the quality of his radio. "Ta--mo," he radioed as best as he could to the Hoplite pilot, "go f-- --e round th-ng -- -ts head." He continued his transmission with the whole team. "If us bl--in- it up, -- what Ec- --- plan--d doesn't ----, w-'re not g--ing -- l-ave." A burst of static filled everyone's comms for a moment. "-Kestrel --n't -- abl- to land."

Amidst the battlefield, everything was dry just from standing near this thing - as far fetched as its water cooling solution sounded, Seiren noticed steam rising from the river by his side, the water simmering gently, hot enough to bathe in if you wanted to be served with meat and two vegetables as he looked down from the sights of the Mancannon, his shots having hit true against the Answer, and earning Allison's gratitude.

The Norris saw the gel marker on the leg and looked over to Seiren. "S--ren! Sh-ot --e gel." She radioed to the inventor with laser communication as she started rotating the Norris' turret towards the OUREX, barrel lining up with where the gel was. "Sh-ot th- g-l! H-- leg-!" She was unable to fire a shot as immediately as she'd have liked - she had to figure out how to fire the thing, since she was doing the job of two people without Echelon - who was now in a groggy state, rebooting.

 

[OsakanOne]

The monster's sword on its right shoulder: the rail-cannon pointed skyward.. Legs locked into the ground as thick pikes bit into it. Heel extending.

The sphere on its left shoulder could be seen moving, slowly rotating as it computed the target trajectory.. A low hum of capacitor banks denser than those found in starships, magnetons spooling and engines roaring to life as the beast commanded lances of hell into the deflowered sky. Pole-arms rushed, lit by friction golden hot red with hate into the stratosphere. White spheres high above: proximity detonations as one by one like a marks-man it picked off the targets with unerring ease: One... Two three four... Five.. Six.. Seven... Eight nine ten....

And then fog-banks rolling at its feet: armored panels over its legs opening: glowing red hot metal as the thing desperately tried to cool. Legs moving... Steps: One at a time as it ripped itself from the ground and made a run for the water: The ground crying, weeping with each step. Then a flash of truly monstrous thrust: starship grade reactors screeching as a brilliant light about the beast's legs and hips threw it way up into the air in a jump: sailing through the air with all the grace of a brick toward the water.

Rebeka bit down into her teeth, penetrating as she lept up into the beast -- slowly turning back as she stood and pulled away, determined to sit behind the tank now: gliding on her feet like an ic-skater or rather, a cornered animal. A disc upon the ball she held lit up, spinning, hot about its equator and shaking in the grip of the frame's hand. The air about it stale, electrically charged and painful to her. She watched Luca. Put two and two together.

This could work.

 

[Eistheid]

Kennewes, Toward the Horizon

Anti-starship fire. Tamamo had not been expecting anti-starship fire to be the response from the hole that she had thoughtfully made at the request of Captain Pavone. The atmospheric wave that propagated in the wake of the projectile was simple enough to deal with she supposed, enough altitude and her angle relative to the forces had allowed her to catch the outward expansion and ride it up and away, her Moonsong tossed away like a leaf in the wind given the close encounter with the weapon she supposed it was fine.

A missile, something she normally would have liked to have shot down had streaked up into the sky chasing the wake of the accelerated payload, curiously nuclear according to sensors. A curiosity that had led to a panicked shutdown sequence as she determined its goal, and the result it would unleash. Helplessly blind and sitting in the darkness of her Moonsong's lifeless cockpit, Tamamo counted the slowing revolutions while computing the approximate trajectory and loss of altitude over a period of ten. She needed to over estimate the time to detonation, the EMP would be brief, but fatal likely burning out her unshielded Hoplite if she had been caught by it. This moment made Tamamo glad that she had unreasonably requested the warship grade sensor and AI suite and proceeded to spend days carefully working it into the air frame of a fighter. The accuracy and warning had saved her from having to worry about trying to pull herself from a twisted mess of durandium somewhere in the Kennewes growth.

Twenty revolutions and gently Moonsong returned to life.

A flood of light, warnings, and diagnostic readings gave the comforting knowledge that she was still half a kilometer above the ground, more than enough time for Moonsong's gravity drive to catch herself. More troubling was the list of blinded sensors leaving little aside from optics and LIDAR in the visual spectrum useful in any manner. A quick pulse of light cycling between emitters and sensors gave Tamamo a vague idea of the topography and how far she had come since the initial weapons fire had set her free.

Twelve kilometers out, presently sitting three hundred meters above the tree line safe from any inquisitive life below. Heaving a breath in the coffin like enclosure of Moonsong's cockpit Tamamo set herself in motion once more as data streamed into her craft.

Powerful engines thrust her lightened airframe forward eating distance and allowing for more accurate observation of the battlefield. It seemed that the Captain had managed to do something to get the hostile's attention, now visible as some sort of reverse jointed Frame. The small figure of none other than the Captain hopping about outside of his tank for some reason was followed by ten sequential shots into the sky, firing on what she couldn't tell in her blinded state. Far enough away to avoid more than minor turbulence from the detonations Moonsong's sensors looked past the atmospheric lensing picking up the weak signal of a pair of RF markers before being quickly drowned out by a flood of infrared as the Frame vented waste heat, spooled up thrusters and took to the air.

Still these were not what caught Tamamo's attention.

What caught the pilots attention were a swarm of small motes that had been hovering around the Frame, the drones that she did not wish to tolerate. From her position fiver kilometers away, a pair of lines, lances of light dancing from point to point scything through the overlooked support that had existed for the Frame. With its support cut down Tamamo's fire turned to punishing its mobility drawing her fire along the exposed heat sinks before focusing on the thrusters working to kill the behemoth's capacity to jump. Even if it made it safely to the ground she didn't intend on letting it move again, once it had been slowed she could turn her attention toward investigating the RF signals that had been washed out by the vehicle's activity.

 

[ShotJon]

Zeta looked back behind her shoulder only to catch Luca's legs exiting the hatch and getting out of the tank. That was typical of him. The blone woman frowned a bit, seeing him skate away on his Phantom Blades. At lest he was mobile.

"If he dies, I am gonna kill him." Zeta muttered to herself, so only Makari could hear. She shifted gears and stepped on it. Havoc's engine roared into more life.

"Oi, Makari, I am shiftin right!" Zeta called to the tanks gunner. "Turn the turret and shoot at the gel. We take out its leg, it won't go anywhere. Just keep firing and shout at me if we gets it attention proper. Now let's kill a giant robot!"

Zeta turned the tracks of her vehicle, heading north east and circling the beast. This way, it had to decide if it wanted to shoot her, Allyson, or Rebeka behind it. With Phoenix crew all around the monster mech, they could bring the thing down.

 

[Moogle]

Seiren almost missed the message - after he dispatched the drone, he was furiously trying to fix his wiring problem. And then the message came in to shoot.

"I'm trying to-" he started, but he looked down at the massive machine - and saw Rebeka. Badly injured. Well, badly injured was a bit of an understatement in this event. She looked like a thousand horrors had been visited on her and left her on her last legs- leg, singular.

He fumbled with the wires he was replacing, cutting out the old one and attatching the beginning of a fresh spool - but there was no time, so he shoved the whole coil into the access hatch and shoved it shut before restarting his sound weapon.

"Get away from her!"

Seiren triggered the weapon, and it emitted a horrible noise and a blinding light, at first directly at the machine's not-Rebeka-located leg, but then listing upwards as the force of the blast was beginning to tip the small Frame over. The inventor did everything he could to keep the thing stable, but would lose control fast if something didn't change.