RP: 4th Fleet (NSN) [Mission 5.51] The Watchful Minutemen

Henry and the NMX armour were briefly circling each other as though they were two caged animals trying to figure out who got the last scrap of meat in the bowl; evaluating each other as a storm brewed between them both. To Henry, the custom paint job could mean that the Brain Slave inside this Ripper had some degree of self-actualisation, perhaps signifying martial prowess or dumb luck and feeling the need to boast about it - with a paintjob.

The Brain Slave inside the Ripper was watching Henry. This wasn't one of the common Aggressor or Hostile armours, and the only damage it'd taken so far was scratch damage from debris, perhaps friendly fire and dust storms. Then there was the way the Nepleslian held himself when he was facing down: Less like a grunt who held his rifle like a second dick and more like a calculated man. He was putting it away and letting activating the condensed fusion cutter - Nepleslia's answer to the Aether blade.

This was all communicated with a pair of glances between the two combatants. Then they converged, blades up. Both combatants knew that their respective blades would never yield for any substance, and it became a fight less about crossing and parrying their respective blades, but dodging and manipulating each other.

Henry had weight on his side compared to the Ripper, and he was able to make strikes at the Ripper's higher centre of gravity, making higher strikes to make it move and dance, hoping to feint it and overbalance to create an opening where he could stab it through the chest.

However, the Ripper had ideas of its own. Henry's VOID was a much bigger target compared to the smaller Ripper, and it was able to leap and hop around Henry, who was turning and twisting to avoid its strikes with footwork and measured counter-feints.

After some unsuccessful altercations, the Ripper swung its Zesuaium-lined buckler at Henry in a sudden backhand sweep, causing him to back step and be put on the defensive. It then thrust its Zesuaium blade upwards to impale Henry as he was clamouring backwards, who twisted to avoid it, but didn't anticipate the buckler to make a return forearm swing, smacking him in the back of the head and knocking Henry down by the surprise of it.

Henry twirled as he fell to land on his back, and on the backs of the mortars. He could see the Ripper leaning in to move forward, but Henry made a sudden cut-and-thrust with his fusion blade, and used the VOID's thrusters to put him back on his feet and started moving forwards to continue his cutting and thrusting offensive.

In the heat of the fight, the Ripper crossed blades with Henry. The condensed fusion against the Zesuaium held against each other in a sea of sparks eating away at the condensed fusion before Henry kneed the Ripper and pushed it away with a slap of his spare hand, not willing for his blade to give against it.

This wasn't just a crunchie Ripper that lived and died on impulses. This one had the power of clarity and a wicked paintjob to show for it. "YOU FIGHT WELL FOR A NEPLESLIAN." It knew that if Henry cut him down, two more of his brothers would take his place.

A compliment. Quaint, Henry thought as he decided not to return the compliment with words, rather a flurry of increasingly violent and frantic attacks, apparently without rhythm or rhyme. However, Henry kept ducking under counters and sidestepping parries and ripostes from the better-armed Ripper.

And then the Ripper swept one of its legs into Henry's in an attempt to try and trip him up in mid step - but the sheer weight of Henry's armour meant that the Ripper was the one to trip up. In the process, Henry fell over too, and the two combatants were now on the ground to fight it out.

Henry couldn't grapple the Ripper, though. The thing's outer armour was covered in sharp edges and that meant turning his hands into mince meat. He had to create an opening as the Ripper raised its blades to try and decapitate the marine. It knew that the head was the important part of the assembly.

The Nepleslian marine did what they did best when they were outmatched: They cheated. The gatling laser cannons on his hips bent upwards and started firing into the Ripper's field of vision, temporarily blinding it in a flurry of red bolts as six shield drones drifted out from behind Henry and slammed into the Ripper to further knock it off balance.

And then Henry made a decisive thrust into the armour's mouth and ran it straight through. However, he'd missed the Brain Slave pilot inside - those things were located closer to the heavily armoured midsection.

"A FINE BLOW, BUT NO DOUGH NUT."

Though, Henry's attack had made a difference. Its vision was now flickering in and out of blindness. Henry was unsure of the inner workings of the Ripper in its entirety, but he knew that he'd knocked something out. Was it trying to throw Henry off guard by macho'ing up to conceal injury?

Henry went on the offensive and found himself parried and slammed by the flat of the Ripper's other blade in the midsection. Even the edges cut into the armour and left deep gashes and paint scratches. It then went on the offensive and started countering Henry more and more.

Henry had bought into what it said, making more and more dodges that were too close for comfort and peeling sections of his armour away, despite him firing his gatling laser cannons to try and blind it - the same trick didn't work twice.

Unless someone intervened, this dual bladed NMX armour would eventually wear down his defence and kill him.

Max charged headlong into the frey, sizing up one of the NMX Spiky Armor troopers as he advanced. He let out a few more bursts from his rifle as he closed with the trooper. He watched as the shots glanced off the spiky armor harmlessly as the NMX trooper charged him.

"Well that just pissed him off" thought Max as he stowed his rifle. Max knew that things were about to get dirty as he closed into close quarters range with the NMX. Max took another second to size up his target before they clashed. Having only a few seconds to decide what to do, Max ran through his options.

He thought about simply tackling the NMX trooper with the full weight of his armor. Max quickly made that thought go away as he was sure that those spikes on its armor weren't cosmetic. He was sure that if he screwed around he would certainly get impaled. He made a note to stay away from those.

With that plan out the window, max wasn't sure what to do. The NMX trooper made the decision for him. The NMX trooper closed with Max he lunged at him in an attempt to take him down. Max countered, grabbing the NMX trooper by the hands, locking his hands around him.

His suit groaned as Max grappled with the NMX trooper, trying to get leverage against him. Max had to admit that he was having a bit of a struggle with the trooper. The NMX troopers armor was powerful, perhaps as strong as his own. Max felt himself get pushed back slightly as the NMX trooper began to get the upper hand.

Max struggled to keep his footing as he pushed back. Operating in three times gravity meant that whoever got the upperhand would certainly own the day. Max knew that if he fell down and the NMX trooper got on top of him, it would be over. With the way things were going, it certainly looked like this was going to happen as Max received a stress warning in his legs. He found himself being forced down onto a kneeling position.

"This cannot happen" he thought as he frantically began to think of ways out of the situation. The NMX troopers armor was getting the better of him, it wasn't going to end well unless Max came up with a plan quick. He could practical hear the NMX breathing as he stared into the illuminated eyes of the armor. Max had struggled with crooks before, but nothing had prepared him for this. It was now or never and Max wasn't in a hurry to die.

Thinking quickly, Max decided that he needed some space from the NMX trooper. He quickly fired a burst from his PLA. Max knew that the PLA wouldn't do much to the armor but if might force the NMX trooper to back off. And with a bit of luck it did. While most of the energy deflected away from the NMX trooper, not causing damage to the armor, it did have the intended effect of driving him back.

This gave Max just enough room to go on the offensive. Max drew his VCS blade and swiped at the NMX trooper. The NMX trooper was stunned but still rather quick and grabbed Max's wrist with his one hand, pulling it away before attempting to deliver a punch to Max's face with his other spiked fist. Max moved his shield plating on his arm to absorb most of the blow.

Punching into the reinforced area of Max's armor caused the NMX trooper considerable pain. The NMX trooper reeled back, his arm hanging limp. Max guessed that he had probably broken it punching into his armor. This allowed Max a split second opportunity to strike. Max grabbed the NMX by one of his helmet spikes and head butted the thing. Stunned, Max pulled its head back and drove his VCS blade into its neck.

The NMX trooper was too stunned to react in time and he took the blade directly to the neck. This caused blood to fly everywhere as Max worked his blade. It didn't take long before the NMX went limp in Max's hand. Max let it go, allowing it to crumple to the ground as it fell.

Max did a quick armor check, his joints were stressed, but they were holding up. He was still in this. He quickly began to look around for any of his comrades that might need help.

While grappling with the NMX Ripper, Sawyer set his plasma Chainguns to attempt to fire into the head sensors to distract the enemy armor while he made best use of the massive superiority of weight that his armor granted him to force the NMX armor into the ground and pummel it with blows as he drew his VBCS and revved it to life before slashing at the armor to attempt to disable it.

The battle was far from over. Some overcame their opponents and other did not have such luck. NMX they fought were no cannon-fodder, but battle-hardened enemies. Especially the rippers.

Sawyer found himself in a bit of a pickle. Surely his aggressor was crushing the Ripper under it's weight, but not enough to stop him. The punches seemed to do very little against the hardened shell of NMX mecha, but it distracted him enough to give him chance to draw his VCBS.

His slash was stopped though as mecha caught his wrist by its left hand. The monster itself went and slashed with its other hand at Sawyer's head, missing and only hitting his shoulder. The zesaium blade hit the left shoulder turret, but the turret also stopped and saved Sawyer any critical damage. The turret was of course destroyed. Sawyer was still on top though.

___

Zyv and Aleksei were first to finish their opponents. After they struggled to their feet they could see the fighting around them. To the back on the ridge were destroyed tanks and Lisa guarding the surviving tankers against the waves of thralls, while nekoes took potshots at her from behind the boulders. They could see as Lisa's shield drones flickered and turned off. She quickly re-called them and placed new ones on the spot.

Closer to them was Henry though, who had bigger trouble. A coloured Ripper was on top of Henry's VOID armour and slashed at him. Henry defended himself as he could. Normally Ripper was quite light, only about 200 kilograms, but on this world it was 600 kilograms. Void would normally toss armour liked that off itself easily, but here in three times the gravity? Henry's suit had to carry itself and that was straining enough.

___

Max finished off his opponent and could hear its gurgling from the hole in the throat. If it was not dead it would be soon. At the moment Minutemen seemed to be without enemy to fight, except for few brawls.

Before him and other stood the refinery. A monstrous things with tanks and industrial looking building. Quite a thing to behold and quite precious to hold. Max suddenly noticed something flying the refinery. Sensors of his mono-eyes looked closer and he could see what it was.

It was a three Ripper units. Each being black coloured with a large thruster pack on its back allowing them to fly. They flew up at first and then rotated themselves to heard straight at Minutemen.

Sawyer would take the opportunity the ripper gave him by pushing down with all the force his armor could exert and aim to push the VBCS into and through the ripper's plate. All the while the surviving turret would be firing rounds to at least distract the ripper and possibly knock out a sensor that would give him more of an advantage in the hand to hand fight.

Glancing around him, he noticed the corporal's VOID armor was pinned to the ground by an exuberantly colored NMX armor. "Coming in, corporal!" Radioed the rookie as he hit the thrusters to close the gap hoping to at least be able to get the armor off of his squad leader and hold it log enough for the man to make the killing blow on the beast.

Henry was bracing for the worst - he was vulnerable, and his head wouldn't go far if he had to decap and hope that the medic found him before the NMX did and kept his head as a trophy. He deflected another flurry of blows by the Ripper and tried to keep his head above water.

There was a friendly dot on his radar wading through the crowd and coming towards him and he smirked beneath his armour. He buckled up and made a counter-riposte to an overhead blow by the Ripper, stabbing at the base of the jagged blade with his condensed fusion cutter and flicking upwards to send the Ripper's main arm upwards and superheat a portion of the armour into slag.

If only he could keep the offence going before help arrived to finish it off.

As Max finished his fight, he began to scan the area. There were still minor brawls going on but they seemed to be ending. As Max turned forward to look at the original objective, his mono-eye registered new signals approaching.

Focusing in on them, he looked to see three flight capable Ripper's headed their way. Max wasn't sure if he was the only one who saw them, but he knew that the others needed to know. He immediately got on the comms and let everyone know. "Notice to all units, we have three flight capable Ripper's headed our way. They don't look like standard rippers, they're painted black, probably elites or something!" Max stated, trying to hide the slight amount of excitement in his voice at the prospect of fighting these worthy adversaries.

Max wasn't stupid however and knew that his hostile couldn't possibly take on three rippers by himself. He began to look around for other Minutemen to help support his plight. It appeared that Sawyers aggressor was closer to him than the others, Max radioed him, "Sawyer, you need a hand with your buddy over there?" he said as he began to move towards his comrade.

"Not sure as of yet, possibly, I'll let you know in a few moments" Sawyer said calmly as he continued his fight with the ripper he was engaged with.

With others moving to assist Morris and Sawyer it seemed it was up to him to offer a hand Simmons a hand, which Zyv provided by delivering a few short bursts towards the sniping nekos, hoping to suppress them so Lisa could deal with those NMX in the open, before finishing the nekos off. And than the situation changed again.

The arrival of three rippers would be bad and, theoretically, they would be at their most vulnerable while airborne. Sighing Rakowski fired a last burst at the nekos before changing his positions. Moving closer to the trio of rippers he targeted them, double checked the aim, waited for them to get into range and delivered a short warning to his team.

- ‘Be advised, deploying high-ex.’

Before firing 20 DARTS quickly followed by 20 BOLTS. Optimistically what would follow would be the darts knocking out his targets shields followed by three NMX PA being vaporized by the bolts..

Taking what cover he could Zyv prepared for the more pessimistic assessment of the trio shrugging off his attack before moving in to rip out the marines intestines…

Henry Morris did go for a riposte, but when you are on your back and your enemy holds you down, your movements is slower and less agile. The painted Ripper stopped the slash by blockin Henry's hand with his own forearm, giving itself just enough time to stab. The Zesaium blade entered Henry's upper arm, going straight through the armour.

The corporal could feel pain and saw the damage report on his HUD. His VOID did not leave him hanging though and it quickly administered a shot of local anesthesy to the hurt upper arm.

Then the help came. Gigantic Aggressor suit slammed itself into the ripper, tossing him of the injured corporal. Both armours went tumbling, but the big Aggressor ended up victories holding the ripper in a dangerous bear-hug. The ripper strained and tried to get free, but it had little chance against massive nepleslian armour. Now all was left was for Henry to finish the joby while Aleksei held the thing.

__

Sawyer's hand was moving closer and closer to the red eyes on the Ripper. The ripper's hand held Sawyer's wrist trying to slow down the VCBS knife slowly nearing his body. Sawyer could almost see a fear in the ripper.

Then the blade touched the armour and slowly started going in. Inch after inch VCBS was going inside the armour. The ripper tossed itself around, but it was no help. Within few seconds it lied helpless, the blade cutting through the brain-slave operating it.

__

As shots started landing among the nekoes, few of them fell dead in puff or read blood. Zyv's rifle was made to kill armours and few nekoes in infantry armour had no chest. The rest of the nekoes did not wait a bit, they left the thralls where they were and made tactical retreat for the refinery. They had Lisa in front of them and Zvy in their back, there was no chance for them and professional soldiers, that nekovalkyrja are knew when battle was lost and it was time to move out.

Zyv had other things to worry about though. As he fired his missiles at the Jet-Rippers things started getting into move. The rippers did not stand where they were, they broke their formation.

The middle one flew straight at the missiles going for him, while his comrades flew down and to the side. The left one turned in flight and open fire of his point-defense weaponry at the missiles, flying his way, shooting few of them. That was not the right choice as blue light exploded on his shields, followed by green anti-matter explosion of bolts. It was not clear if the Ripper was dead, but he surely was falling down in a ball of smoke.

The second one, the ripper on the right was not so foolish, he flew low, almost hitting the ground and as missiles were on him he quickly flew up again. One Dart hit his shields, the rest of missiles both darts and bolt, only hit the ground.

The center one was very bold. Flying straight at the missiles he did not seem to flinch. Then suddenly he turned his jetpack off. The missiles were almost about to hit him, when he hit the thrusters of his own armour pushing him down to the ground and out of the way of the missiles. Missiles indeed flew by him and jsut head straight on, having no target anymore.

The ripper seemed to know who fired the missiles as he fired his jetpack against and flew straight at Zyv. A roar of engines could be heard as she flew at full power at the young medic.

Max watched for a second as the enemy stopped moving underneath Sawyer's VBCS. It was an impressive feat to say the least. While they had killed this set of enemies, Max remembered that there was more to be had. He turned when he heard the explosions from Zyv missiles. He quickly turned and attempted to get a visual on the jet rippers. He saw one heading towards Zyv and another one flying just to the side.

"Hey Sawyer, if you're done, sitting down, we've got fast movers to deal with!" he said jokingly, raising his rifle as he fired at the Jet Ripper headed towards Zyv. Max hoped to knock him off course or force him to move so he didn't plow through Zyv.

Zyv gritted his teeth at the rather poor performance of his mini-missile barrage. As if the add to his problems the armours interface declared that one of his teammates was injured.

Blast.

Zyv shot short bursts at the three rippers before setting off another barrage of mini-rockets. 5 DARTS followed by 5 BOLTS followed by a seconds pause before shooting another 5 DARTS followed by another 5 BOLTS. His reasoning was simple, the rippers might dodge the first batch but doing so would find dodging the second volley more difficult. If successful it would also give him time to withdraw unmolested.

- ‘Check your fire, I’m pulling back.’

Saying that he made his way back, still shooting short bursts in the hopes of keeping the NMX off of him. If Zyv managed to withdraw he would than move to check on the corporal.

If not he would have to dodge the attack best he could, the push/pull system could prove useful should any of them get too close.

Doing his best to maintain the deadly vice grip on the Ripper. Thanks to his suit's medical systems, he had been injected with some painkillers almost immediately after his fight with the two Ripper frames, and hence felt little to no pain in his arm. Though he would allow the doc to take a look at it if he made a fuss.

Continuing to struggle with the enemy armor, he attempted to tighten down on it further. He wasn't about to go for any weapon or make any other move that could give the Ripper the chance it needed to escape.

"Anytime you're ready, Corporal."

Click to expand...

Meanwhile all Aleksei could think was 'I could use a goddamned cigar.'

Sawyer simply shrugged before setting his AOP back onto his back and pulling out the AMP that was there. "Guess it's time for suppressive fire then" was all he said as an aside before looking at the Rippers that were inbound. He gave the weapon a moment to spin the barrels up to speed before targeting a number of precision aimed bursts of bullets at the inbound rippers while his one remaining shoulder plasma chaingun fired bursts as well. He was intending to succeed through volume of fire if accuracy was not enough.

The feel and 'taste' of anesthetics that were now flooding into Henry's upper arm were a welcome and familiar sensation. He paused for a moment to let the medicine do its work before picking himself up and shortening his condensed fusion cutter to only a foot long, making it as dense and powerful as he could. It was in a hull-cutting configuration.

And when he stood up, he moved forward and plunged the blade into the ripper, grabbing it with his other hand to hold it stead and carving it open as Aleksei tried to hold it fast. "I'LL BE BACK." The brain-slave pilot of the Ripper gurgled just before Henry cut the brain slave in half and the armour became limp and inert.

"Be seeing you." Henry replied casually as he withdrew the ultra-dense fusion cutter and depowering it. It had been running for almost ten minutes. Ten minutes well spent, according to Henry. He then motioned for Aleksei to drop the corpse. "Thank you - follow my lead!"

He drew his plasma weapon back out, relieved that it had time to recharge and cool down during the melee and started shooting at the incoming rippers. During which, he erected a barrier of shield drones around himself and Aleksei to set up a defensive position. They too had time to recharge.

The fire on incoming at the Jet-Rippers was turly fearsome, but those armours were hard targets to hit. The another part of combat has started. Sawyers plasma round were all over the place, now and then it hit one of the ripper, but only innocently flashing against their shields.

Max was more effective as his rifle made shields of the Ripper jetting it against Zyv flash with light. What both Max and Sawyer could see that one of the surviving Ripper who flew a bit to the side suddenly turned around and flew at them.

Zyv was a bit unfortunate, he seemed to attract attention of the leader of the Ripper-trio. A fearsome captain ripper. Zyv could see that the Ripper's armour was painted red and had spikes on several places. A fearsome 50mm gauss cannon was sitting on its shoulder.

The ripper did a barrel roll to the left to avoid Zyv's seconds barrage of missiles. It was only a semi-effective. If he would not also used his point-defense many missiles would connect. Like this he was only hit by two BOLTs. That was not enough though.

The ripper flew down low and rocketed towards Zyv. There was no cover for Zyv, only few boulders, which was not enough. He felt a shuttering hit as the Ripper flew straight into him.

The explosion of dust and sand went into air as the Ripper hit Zyv and they hit the ground. Henry and Aleksei could not see anything, until their mono-eyes re-focused. There was an outline of standing Ripper and Zyv about 20 yards in front of him, laying on the ground.

Zyv on the other hand could not see anything being faceplanted into the ground. His armour took as much of the hit as possible, but a 600 kilogram armour flying at you simply packs quite a punch. Still out side of cracked rib or two and being winder Zyv was fine.

Meanwhile about Fifty yards away from Henry, Ripper previously hit by Zyv's first missile barrage fell into the ground, making a dust cloud of its own.

Zyv had expected some sort of attack but the sight of an airborne powered armour throttling full speed towards him on a collision course was not what he expected. Trying to move the realization that he was too slow sank in with a blood chilling clarity.

“Oh shi…”

Was about as far as he got before he felt the impact. Next Rakowski knew he was down, occasional sharp jabs of pain sounding and a taste of copper in his mouth. The PA was blaring away about imminent danger, danger assessment and the fact that painkillers had been administered. The concept of resting was tempting but the marine forced himself to move, that fact that he hadn’t been finished off was nothing short of miraculous and he could not count on whatever fortunate circumstances saved him.

With a double check that his booster was working he moved away from his landing zone in the hopes of gaining some ground before setting himself right side up ready to fight as he figured out which of the weapons systems were still functioning.

At least that was the plan.

The diagnostics came back with a long list of problems for Zyv. His pulse laser array was knocked out, his left leg launcher had been disconnected and could no longer be operated remotely.

His frontal armor was dinged and pitted, reducing its effectiveness. The shields on his Hostile were wavering, and his thrusters kept sputtering intermittently.

Behind him, the Ripper was turning to line up its 50mm cannon at him. None of the other Marine squads were near enough to assist.

The cloud of dust caused him some irritation as he ran through the calibrations of his monoeye to attempt better target acquisition. Standing next to the corporal as he waited for the cloud to clear, he spun up his AMP along with his shoulder mounted plasma chainguns, looking for Thralls, or other NMX infantry to make their way toward them.

Completely prepared to cut them down as soon as the opportunity presented itself. Having no idea how much ammo he had left in the cylindrical magazine of his AMP as he glanced at the weapon status on his HUD, seeing it didn't look good. He had burned through half of his ammo from beginning of the combat to now. 'How long have we been fighting? 10 minutes? An hour?' thought the marine. Unfortunately time seemed to loose all importance in the combat.