RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Part 1: Amaya's Gate

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari saw the consoles and hung her head.

She shook her head, then lifted herself from her chair. She drew her revolver as she walked to the center of the room. Her eyes fell on the door that led out of the bridge, then she went back to her chair, standing behind it.

Eve likely had control of the ship's sensors, so she could see things inside the bridge if she wanted.

"The demon might come here, to complete her 'conquest'. We should be ready. The damage done to her before she took over Hoshi gives us an opportunity."

Her eyes went to Miyoko. "Keep your weapon ready, but do not fire before me. If she first kills me, she might spare you." She holstered her weapon, but the hammer was cocked.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Mantled in a haze of heat, Vermillion's head looked right and left to take note of her audience before she fixated back on the fallen Surtur.

"For those whom have killed my companions, I can think of few more fitting deaths than by asphyxiation," Eve told them. Vermillion raised its right claw, which burst into white fire. "Watch as I deliver you your last living memory - that of your last hope being turned into so much cinders."

The standing Akuma reared its claw in preparation for the deathblow, but Vermillion's forearms snapped open, heat rods and radiator fins jutting out. The stance of the machine became hesitant and it then sagged, dropping down to its knees with head and shoulders hanging loosely. The white fire over its metal talons died.

Eve had run out of time too. The overheating Vermillion had shut down.

"Tch!" Moments later, Vermillion's beak-like chest armor opened, allowing its pilot to step out and jump down. Dressed in black velvet and her chocolate hair stirring in the heat wafting out from her mecha, Eve set her dark eyes on Surtur's chest plate.

A battle between a NH-23 and a NH-29 was no contest. Kotori's only asset, her Signaler properties, was useless as long as Eve refrained from any outward manifestations. All Eve needed was to crack Kotori's last protection open and dispose of her - then Miharu's crew would be helpless before her mind's dominating pressure.

She methodically unhooked from her belt a zesuaium kama, which was one of a pair of chain-linked yamataian war sickles, and then bounded up to a prodigious height, her inertia control allowing her to land lightly over Surtur's chest module. There, she raised the sickle, intent on striking over the upper hinges of the chestplate - with those sliced, she could tear it off with ease.

Before she could make her first cut, Eve's precognition signaled danger with the vivid picture of an intangible threat being invisibly projected out from Surtur's cockpit - the discharge of a psionic grenade. Eve lost no time in bounding away from the danger zone, landing a few meters away from where Surtur lied.

"Really, Kotori!" Eve was amused. "Did you truly think you could stop me with a psionic grenade, of all things?"

* * *

"Ah, damn it!"

Mara tossed the capacitor over her shoulder in disgust. With Hoshi's AIES compromised, nothing was working for her - not even the power outlet. She couldn't even charge the capacitors and in-ship communication had been entirely cut off - she could guess why, though.

Frustrated, the sandy-haired sprite turned around to look at her battered Fox shuttle. She had half-a-mind to just grab it, blast through the shutters and then fly out to collect Asher and Kyou that way - the Fox wasn't running on an AIES so it wasn't like Eve could take it over.

She was about to start walking out of the power armor bay to board the shuttle when a series of quick snaps and clicks drew her attention. She stopped, looked around and her eyes settled in the armory, on a shelf where a stack of little-used ammunition rested.

Thirty psionic grenades the Taisa had decided to hoard on-board, and whom had been a giant waste of space ever since late YE 29 after they had salvaged them from the Meng Po.

Only, the stack of grenade had one missing. Someone must have taken one earlier, despite Hinoto's advice against using them.

Hey, hold on... The safety pins all been removed and the safety handles were all dislodged! Those were live!

"Eeee~eeek!" Shrieking, Mara bolted. Behind her, the twenty-nine psionic grenades discharged...

* * *

"The psionic grenade wasn't for you," came Kotori's disdainful reply.

Eve's sixth sense suddenly had a feeling of directionless foreboding hit her, making her chest feel tight... but she had nothing to go on - no insight as to what that nebulous danger was. Gritting her teeth, she backed away a step before her senses felt the peripheral explosions of the psionic grenades down in Hoshi's armory.

Eve was safe from them. The grenades' brute psionic emanations were powerful and potentially greatly debilitating, but a poor weapon against a trained psion whom could easily deflect them... and in her present case, she was well out of their effective area of effect.

But, as Kotori mentioned, they weren't made for her. The first psionic grenade Kotori had hoarded in her yukata's pocket was to artificially fuel her signaler reversal ability. Amaya had inadvertently taught her how to harness burst psionics such as these grenades, and Kotori transformed the first such bursts into telekinesis...

Telekinesis used to release the safeties of the 29 other psionic grenades in the armory. Twenty-nine grenades which erupted into succession, out of range to hinder Eve any, but all well within Kotori's own five kilometer Signaler range.

The sum of that gathered power hit Eve's mind like a sledgehammer, enough so to have her head and shoulder sag and hang almost akin to it being a physical hit.

"Release control and restore normal functions over all local PANTHEON nodes!"

Dry heaving and her precognition having her taste the sick taste of death on her tongue, Eve let out a tormented moan - Kotori was pouring the combined equivalent of 29 powerful psionic minds into the singleminded effort to dominate her with one command.

...and for a brief moment, the eyeblink-worth of time during which the psionic grenades discharged, Eve - the strongest psionic the nekovalkyrja race had ever known - could not resist it. Her will flagged and she caved in, obeying Kotori.

Moments like these were an eternity for quantum computers. In the second it took for Eve to withdraw her presence, Hoshi had already reasserted herself over her functions and the first thing she did was to reboot the attached AIES. The forcefields that impeded access throughout the ship went back down and the power armors restarted.

Eve raised her head, her expression one of shock. With her withdrawn to that extent, she'd have to start taking over the system all over again. It'd take a minute she did not have! Gritting her teeth, she turned to dash back into Vermillion's cockpit-

Only to smack herself facefirst into a forcefield barrier which now blocked the entry to Vermillion's cockpit. Knocked back with a nosebleed for her trouble, she yelled her frustration and dismay before another chillingly distinctive sound interrupted her cry.

The rebreather in the nearby Super Phalanx's helmet. It was working, its pilot's breathing audible. Mobile again, the NDI power armor struggled back to its feet. The same went for the rest of the Black Knights, whom had also regained the freedom they had lost.

Surtur was a wreck, but even in that state it deployed its psionic amplifier fins - a sure declaration that if Eve had the audacity to break her presently bad odds with her powers that she would dearly pay for it.

"Black Knights... defeat Eve!" Kotori commanded, her clear voice a rallying cry to have the Black Knights bring about the conclusion of Miharu's four-year-long hunt for Eve.

* * *

The Fox shuttle had zipped out its hangar, Hoshi sliding it unobstrusively open in time to allow Mara to inch out of the ship's confine, where she had her ride dart away at sublight speeds.

Mara's shuttle was a blur until it slowed to a stop a dozen meters away from Asher and Kyou, spinning around to show them its back as it drifted closer and opened its rear hatch.

"Hop on in!" Mara told them.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Yes! I love you Mara! Ha ha ha!" went Asher as his systems recovered and a their ride seemed to magically appear from the darkness of space. He gestured for Kyou to hurry up as he jet off for the hatch, savoring the feel of a fast moving space craft under his feet. He put his hand one of the stabilizing bars next to the hatch and looked back out to his once-stranded companion, waiting for her. "C'mon Gunny, we got killin' t'do!"

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

It felt as if a rebirth occurred. Upon reactivation of the PHALANX's rebreather systems Nyton's eyes popped open. The meditation had done the trick in calming him down. With a more focused mind and a few moments rest the Nepleslian had managed his pain. Still sore and burnt but now feeling a little less impeded the man could manage to stand up. The first thing he did was shut off any inclination for self-destruction in his suit while standing up.

"Black Knights... defeat Eve!" Kotori commanded, her clear voice a rallying cry to have the Black Knights bring about the conclusion of Miharu's four-year-long hunt for Eve.

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Analyzing Eve's body and the data regarding an unarmored NH-23 Nyton knew that she was still a dangerous opponent. Her two war sickles were made of zesuaium and also considerably threatening.

"Black Knights follow my lead and back me up. I am engaging Eve in close combat. Don't worry about hitting me just find an opening and take the shot. Form up and I will try to drive her closer to whoever manages to get into position. This is it! Give it everything you've got!" Nyton shouted over the comm to the other team members.

Nyton's barrier had been restored to full earlier and resumed operation at that level upon reactivation so he was not worried about taking any hits from allies. There was still enough charge left in the capacitor to allow gravimetric propulsion and plasma emitter function simultaneously. Using all four emitters Nyton flew in close to give Eve as little time to react to his plasma streams as possible. While he focused on evasion, countering, and mobility, Telemachus would lash out with streams from every emitter. Some streams wouldn't even aim directly for Eve but instead try to reach around her to close off her evasion routes. A timer was set to count down when the capacitor would no longer allow him to function at that level.

Nyton intended on finishing Eve before it even came close.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Miyoko watched the action on-screen anxiously, the feeling that she was powerless to help in the fight incredibly frustrating. When the consoles locked out, she sat back upright, spending a few moments trying futilely to get past Eve's barricade before Yukari's voice stopped her.

Doshii Jun said:

Her eyes went to Miyoko. "Keep your weapon ready, but do not fire before me. If she first kills me, she might spare you." She holstered her weapon, but the hammer was cocked.

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Miyoko nodded and drew her weapon with a slightly shaky hand, performing the familiar checks to make sure it was ready for a fight. She considered protesting Yukari's order--it didn't seem appropriate for her to let a ranking officer die before her... not that she wanted to die. Before she had a chance to speak, though, the consoles on the bridge all went back to displaying their normal graphics. It took Miyoko a moment to realize what was going on, then she pushed herself back to her console, hastily sitting her gun down and checking on the status of the Hoshi's AIES to make sure that no hint of Eve's intrusion remained.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Kyou followed Asher closely, wasting no time as soon as her systems came back online. She was grinning inside her helmet, albeit a bit shakily. Not only were they headed back into the fight, but they'd somehow escaped what had seemed like it was going to be a slow, painful death, an ignominious death for sure. She rapped on the hull, just to make sure Mara knew they were both ready to go, and responded, "Damn straight we do. Let's get back there and pull their asses out of another fire, shall we?"

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Kotori's rallying cry snapped Tom out of his depression. It didn't matter how; his systems were back online and he wasn't going to blow the gift of life he had received from the Taisa.

But Tom learned to temper his zeal in combat. He had seen too many people killed because of it, and a sloppy attack could backfire. Eve was still an incredibly powerful psionic, and the only thing stopping her from overwhelming them was Kotori's nullification abilities.

"Ichigo, with me!"

So, while Tom obeyed Nyton's orders, taking any potshots at Eve that presented themselves, he made it a point to slide around the ferocious battle between NH-23 and Phalanx, taking position near the Taisa's downed Akuma, prepared to protect it from potential counterattacks from Eve.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari was startled by the screens and consoles coming back under their control. She jumped back into her own seat and immediately tested her control. Finding it clean, she connected back to Hoshi.

"Hoshi, status report." She quickly was made aware of Nyton's status, as well as the other armors, without the computer's help. She wanted to know how Hoshi was from the computer's perspective.

If they lived, Yukari thought, she would ask how Kotori broke Eve's control.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Masako didn't quite understand how she had been released. All she knew was that the Taisa had something to do with it and that was good enough for her. Detaching the plasma rifle from Nimura's armor (confident that there would be enough in the rifle itself to function), Masako charged Eve from the side. Getting close enough to leave the enemy as small a reaction window as possible, the Raven-haired Neko began to unleash a torrent of plasma fire.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Suddenly, Kai felt his relaxed form slump over, and begin sliding down the bit of wreckage he had been leaning against. His Life support was back on, and his computer was suddenly responding. since the Yamataian's current mode of thought was 'relax', that's what the suit did.

Quickly, Kai realized that he was back in the game- probably thanks to the enigmatic Taisa- and did his best to get back into the fight as soon as he could. However- Cover was probably a good idea at this point, so the blonde Kept his, Rising up just enough to be capable of firing upon Eve from this distance- Hopefully she would be too distracted to notice.

"Hey, does anyone have a spare drone they could slave to my daisy?" Kai asked, hoping to get something to be his eyes so he didn't have to expose his head to the enemy.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Rin had been nervously looking about engineering this whole time, not knowing what she could really do with the limited resources available, and especially without guidance. People were busy being heroes and saving her, and pretty much the rest of the universe's collective rear ends. The only thing she could even fathom doing was fixing the giant gaping holes in the ship's hull, and getting more coolant so that they don't just overheat and explode on the way home. But then neither of those were easily possible. The sprite kept fretting and wondering what she could be doing.

Then... things changed. It wasn't entirely obvious since she wasn't in a Daisy or Mindy or whatever kind of power armor, but she just felt something go wrong in the ship when Eve took over. That sort of thing happens when it's the only place you really know, as well as being your home, and a sort of motherly unit to all the sprites. But things rather quickly became better, but it still left a chill running down Rin's spine. What in the world had she missed.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

With all the speed he could muster, Nyton bore in toward Eve, blasting plasma away from Telemachus' palms. As his opponent predictably ducked under the attack, he pressed on the offensive by hovering up a step and pumping out with his foot, plasma jetting out.

His attacks forced her to tumble sideways, exposing her flank and, to Nyton's mind, putting her in a poor position to go on the offensive. All he had to do was keep it up, keep an eye on the kamas and subsequent suppressive fire from the rest of the team ought to narrow down her options until they could finally take her down.

A flaw cropped up in those expectations though, as Nyton startingly realized he had just been impaled through the abdomen. While Eve had been dodging sideways, her left flank had erupted with a spontaneously-grown battle tentacle who'se sharp tip had speared through his Super Phalanx' midsection.

Eve did not linger, as Masako had closed in to start opening fire. She separated the battle tentacle from herself at the base and arrowed away from the path of Masako's shots. The abandoned appendage twisted and wrapped itself around Telemachus with a life of its own, forcing Nyton down. Worse, the part nanite-laden hemosynthetic weapon that was embedded into Nyton's flesh grew tendrils into the Nepleslian's body and - much like a miniature NH-18 - began the process of devouring, assimilating and reconstructing Nyton into... something else.

Eve landed atop of Surtur's headless torso, with her lefthand zesuaium kama having slicing through one of the two top hinges as she skid to a stop. She twisted around to strike at the other hinge with her righthand kama but was interrupted and forced to dodge attacks from Tom, Ichigo and Masako. The enemy NH-23 slipped down Surtur's back, using it as cover to cut off their offensive before she begun one of her own.

Darting around Surtur's left flank to retain cover against Masako, but also gain line-of-sight on Tom and Ichigo, she attacked; so fast it was uncanny, her righthand zesuaium kama was thrown at Tom, the weapon stabbing through Tom just under the his left collarbone, with the momentum behind the throw knocking him on his back. Just as he fell, Eve tugged on the kama's attached chain with practiced ease to withdraw it, the mono-molecular edge cutting even further into Tom's body before it returned into Eve's grasp.

It was around the time that Tom's back hit the floor that the long newly-made vertical slit across his upper torso jetted out blood - the exit cut had been too shallow to strike vitals like the lungs or the heart, but it had been deep enough to cleanly cut through two-thirds of Tom's left ribs as well as slice through the left subclavian artery.

Eve was already on the move by the time her right kama was back in her hand, running toward Tom to finish him off. Ichigo interposed herself, yelling as she fired her plasma rifle at the onrushing opponent, but Eve sidestepped out of harm's way as if it was child's play while she sent another kama spinning through the air, one that landed straight into Ichigo's helmet - right under the center of her visor.

By the time Ichigo limply fell to the floor, Eve was about to land from a pounce that was to end with a low cut that would scythe a deathblow right through Tom's helmet. Only, it never came: as soon as Eve's feet hit the floor she hurriedly bounced back, Kai's shots cutting through the position she had occupied the instant before.

With a frustrated growl she retreated back behind the cover that Surtur offered, drawing her right kama out of Ichigo's helmet as she did so. As she retreated, she flicked a nasty sidelong look toward Kai...

...and the HUD of Kai's Daisy suddenly went red, with a small window popping into existence:
* * *

Miyoko short inspection revealed that Hoshi seemed back under their control, but unfortunately Eve had reinitiated her attempt to take over the CIES.

"Eve has retreated from the system, restoring it back entirely to my independent control before making a new attempt to take over once again," Hoshi answered Yukari. "She presently has my undivided attention. Eve has thus far thwarted my attempts to corral her with forcefields."

Then came Eve's direct hacking attack against Kai's AIES. The quantum computer attempted to defend against it for two seconds until it warned: "I will not be able to counterhack in time!"

* * *

"Here we go!" Mara warned as she pointed the Fox's nose toward Miharu.

Kyou and Asher's surroundings around the shuttle (stars and the bluish streak of the Rift) blurred and shifted in their perception ever slightly, with the biggest change being Miharu suddenly surging up all around them as the T4 Shuttle sped through the atmospheric retention fields and drifted sideways to a stop.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Yukari already was losing control again of the CIES unit, and had no other answers. Ichigo was dead and Tom was unavailable. "Nakamura-Hei! Shut down your armor or escape! We cannot save you!"

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Another look of the mission control displays revealed that while Ichigo's helmet had been initially colored black on her armor condition diagram, brain activity of the wearer had not ceased. Miraculously, it seemed Ichigo's brain had survived Eve's attack.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Fucking bitch!" Nyton gasped as he coughed out blood. Forced to his knees by the appendage wrapping around him he struggled to escape. The nanite laden tentacle was consuming him at a rate he could feel and he grit his teeth in utter pain as his previous wounds conspired to overwhelm him with the new sensation of being impaled and eaten.

I will NOT let her use me like this. I am never going to be reprogrammed like this ever again! Nyton thought, remembering Melisson's prior invasion.

With much struggle Nyton sent a plasma coil out to trace over the hemosynth tentacle to burn away his bindings. Steeling himself for even more pain he followed the path of the tentacle into his body and through him. It was an attempt to purge the invasion from his body and cauterize the wound in a self mutilating move that he figured was just as likely to kill him as the tentacle.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Fred said:

Miyoko short inspection revealed that Hoshi seemed back under their control, but unfortunately Eve had reinitiated her attempt to take over the CIES.

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"At this rate, Eve will have the Hoshi under control again..." Miyoko warned Yukari as she frantically worked to stop the intruder. For the moment, she made the decision to let the CIES defend itself for now. She, meanwhile, did her best to monitor Eve's progress, trying to find how Eve was getting the system to hand over its reins. Finding that would hopefully let her do more than fight a stalling action against the woman.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

From previously dismantling his armor and rebuilding it, as well as generally knowing his armor, Kai knew that he had to disable the capacitor system. While the suit wasn't that much protection, it was all he had, so he couldn't get rid of it out here. Instead, the Yamataian quickly went about disabling the capacitor system- perhaps not in the best way, but definitely the most effective and quickest way he could. Dropping down behind his cover as best he could, Kai shot the units in each oh is legs off, followed quickly by the main capacitor in his back. Next, he shot the one from his left arm, and then switched hands for the rifle, which felt considerably heavier now, and shot the last one off. The capacitors gone, the suit could no longer self-destruct, but Kai could now feel the full 290 pounds of its bulk. He slowly retreated further into the Miharu, looking for a place to disembark the suit as safely as possible

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

"Y'know, y'think Yamatai would keep a leash on a nasty bitch like this." mused Asher as his AIES kept him up to date on the situation on the return back to the Miharu. Certainly, the situation was grim, people were either dying or on the verge of death. Not only that, it was yet again, another drastic, demoralizing turn-around that made him wonder if anyone they killed today was taking them seriously. Still, thinking about the situation wasn't his responsibility, so he got back to what he illegally cloned to do! Killing the enemy!

"Kyou, I'm gunna' circle around n'try to put down some fire on Eve. I ain't ya commandin' offica', but it'd be cool if you came around tha' otha' way in shot her from behind, in case she blows me t'bits wit' her brain or somethin'." suggested Asher as he blasted off to flank Eve. The Malifarian made a wide circle around the cover that Surtur provided, holding up his Plasma Gun to take aim on the first clear shot he had on their target.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

It was unreal. Eve moved with such destructive grace that any move Tom made was like a small leaf caught in the wind of a hurricane. He had raised his gun to take aim at Eve, there was a flash of movement and...

Slick.

The sharp blade of Eve's weapon ripped through his paper armor, scything through flesh, bone and sinew.

Tom fell backwards, dumbfounded until he felt the sudden jerk of the unwelcome protrusion exiting his body. He screamed in a mix of pain and horror as jets of blood burst from his wound. Tom had escaped serious injury for the most part during his tenure on the Miharu.

THIS, however, was pure agony, a violent stabbing in his side with every beat of his quickly-draining heart.

It dwarfed everything he had experienced before, trumping even his first experience on Bowhordia. There, he had been shot several times, but the lasers that had struck his body cauterized his wounds.

His Daisy display flared with alerts, the hemosynthetic fluids leaking onto the floor, but, more importantly, into his wound in a bid to save its pilot's life.

The loud thump of Ichigo's form nearby alerted him, through the pain, of what had happened to the Heisho. The sight of her apparent death caused Tom to grit his teeth, biting his lip as his survival instincts and training tried to focus him enough to function.

"NnnnnnnNGGH," he blared over the comm. "K-KotoRIGHHH! TAISA! Protect her! Tasiaaaa! YOyu have TO get to SHAFTEY MMmmmnnN!"

On some primal level, Tom still understood what the Taisa's survival meant to the mission. His mind flashed with images of Yukari. It was the mental anchor that kept him from sinking into unconsciousness. Winning the mission gave her the chance to live, even if he was gone.

He tried standing up. If he managed to stand, he would try to protect Kotori with what little energy he had left.

The Raltean knew he was injured prey. To turn his back on the predator would just hasten his death.

Re: Mission 5: Amaya's Gate

Kyou nodded in response to Asher's idea. With their luck thus far, she doubted it would work, but it was worth a shot. Maybe it would buy them enough time to get some of the others back up and moving, so why not, right? After all, at this point, anything they tried would probably have consequences, so it was a matter of hoping the benefits outweighed the repercussions at this point. That said, no time like the present, so she pushed off at the same time as Asher in the opposite direction, preparing to open fire as soon as she had a good chance.