Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate
Subspace detonator warheads exploded point-blank, encompassing both Mani and Kyou, whom were only a couple of meters distant.
For Kyou's M10 power armor, it meant little: she had no sublight propulsion and her barrier was still depleted from earlier. For Mani, it meant losing both STL and FTL propulsion, and collapsing her powerful dorsal-module generated barrier.
Mani flinched away too late as Kyou's struck, allowing blue-haired neko to strike at her arms and destroy her submachinegun. Mani was quick to back away as Kyou attempted to press her advantage, pulling out an aetheric saber-rifle from a shoulder rack as three ARMA countermeasure mini-missiles exploded around them.
Only, what the Black Mindy's AIES registered as a counter-measure warhead was actually Asher whom burst into being there, with Mani's open flank bared to him as the kuroneko parried Kyou's next overhead slice.
The Malifarian struck savaging open the Black Mindy's zesuaium armor on her right side. Plasma bolts ripped the spiked pauldron off, tore off the heat-resistant cloak, destroyed the dorsal shield module, nearly burned off the forearm holding the saber-rifle, bore in through the chestplate deeply enough to char black the hemosynthetic insert, continued down the abdomen to ripped through the thinner zesuaium mesh and yarvex to go so far as scorch Mani's hip bone, blasting off her right leg at the hip in the process.
"Watch out! The sword wielding one is going for your head!" Eve warned as Kyou overpowered Mani's wounded forearm and made ready to smash through her guard. Mani shied away just in time to avoid Kyou's attack entirely and then spun around - her saber-rifle switching hands - as she turned her unscathed left side toward Asher, her saber-rifle weaving left and right, high and low, catching his plasma bolts in its defensive field.
Mani was a split second away from flinging the stored energy toward Kyou to keep her at bay when a wave of aetheric energy - courtesy of
Surtur's miniature aether shock attack - swept over her, the attack eating through the greatly weakened armor on the Black Mindy's right side.
The dazzling column of white turned Mani into a black silhouette that quickly withered away to nothing: disintegrated entirely.
* * *
Got you! Kotori grit her teeth, having made to strike right after Eve's telepathic warning. Thankfully the timing had been just right. Still, that victory carried with it its toll.
Kotori said:
Gunshin, Westwood: Well done.
Unfortunately, you're both out of teleport charges and 30 000 kilometers away: you won't be able to come back anytime soon with a top speed of 100 kph. I've asked Mara to board a Mindy and get you two newly-charged shoulder capacitors to restore one charge each.
Until then, you'll have to sit tight.
Tom and Ichigo seemed to be doing well. As the Raltean predicted,
Vermillion still had a teleportation charge to spend, which it did to avoid its SDM missile volley. When it appeared point-blank to Tom, the mechanical devil intent on punishing him for his audacity, Ichigo's own attacks, including a pair of SDM warheads, prioritized for its attention. Eve had
Vermillion twist around to mow down the incoming missiles with a claw-discharged aether blast rather than attacking the Raltean.
Ichigo and Tom's plasma rifle attacks scored a handful of hits on
Vermillion's barrier, but the protection, despite all the hits it had taken thus far in the fight, still seemed to register at over 75% strength. Eve's insistence on not letting any SDM warheads hit her was likely well justified.
Kotori checked her situational displays: Nyton was safe and attempting to contribute with some electronic warfare, though his pleas to
Hoshi went unanswered. Kai had reached the relative safety of the public baths. Nimura was still unconscious. Masako's barrier had recovered, and the Juni had located both Meni's remaining custom saber-rifle inside the changing room and her own LASR (Masako could also pick up Nimura's plasma rifle instead).
Vermillion made a spin toward
Surtur that was almost serpentine in its fluidity before the large gargoyle-like mecha launched itself into a charge toward Kotori's crippled Akuma.
Eve was alone, under the growing pressure of many opponents, and if
Surtur was running hot, then Eve's
Vermillion was no doubt overheating. Even with prescience, there was only so much Eve could do at one time... which meant Eve's best chance for victory was either to survive until she took over
Hoshi's CIES, or destroy her Signaler nemesis by cleaving
Surtur's armored chest open.
Without the luxury of playing it safe, and not knowing how many seconds she had left before Eve defeated
Hoshi's resistance, Kotori grudgingly gave her soldiers their next orders.
Kurohoshi: Arm yourself and engage Vermillion.
Nakamura: Fire at Vermillion from cover.
Freeman: Find cover and continue attacking Vermillion.
Claymere: I need you mobile. Get ready to self-destruct your unit. On my mark, you will close in to Vermillion and trigger the self-destruct so to inflict maximum damage on its chest section.
The Taisa took in a shuddering breath after she telepathically broadcasted her orders to the Black Knights.
Nyton's armor is the only thing I have that can, on self-destruct, potentially one-shot kill Eve if the others manage to bring her shields down. She knew he would understand. She knew he wouldn't doubt her like Masako had. Even so, it did not make the order any less awful.
