@ vs. NH-18 Sharktopus:
"Do not let her touch you," Hinoto warned the Black Knights. "NH-18 nanomachines can invasively assimi-"
She never got to finish the phrase as a score of counter-measure mini-missiles fountained out of mid-air, wreathing their surroundings with blindingly bright explosions along with additional chaff and electrical interference rendering their sensors temporarily ineffective.
Dazzling lights, long stark shadows being cast in confused tangle, the buffets of roaring explosions and the loud hiss of static-overwhelmed sensors assaulted their senses.
Amidst that, the NH-18 pounced and fell over Tom's upper body, both railguns barking at point blank range. His barrier collapsed and one shot struck and punched deeply enough to damage the insert, the shot of the impact strong enough to jar at the tender injuries on the same side. Tom winced, a startled 'gah!' of pain coming out of his mouth, and that left him open for a finishing blow.
The rest of the Black Knights were in poor position to help. With the surroundings whitewashed, with sensors disabled as they were, there was no way for them to take beads on a target they would be positive was their opponent.
Only one, Rin, had a pretty good idea due to her being the closest. She saw a shadow in the light over where she thought Tom would've been, and she saw in more details the bladed tentacles unfurling from the monstrously-twisted Daisy's back. She saw the sinister cleaver arms raise to steal Tom's life.
...and next she rammed into them, half falling over Tom as she forced him away. She blocked one of the horrific cleavers with her shield and felt the strain of that impact up to her shoulder. She tried to fire the LASR in the general direction of the shadow but had no way to make sure she had actually hit it before a fizzling pop announced the death of both her shield and barrier system?
A subspace detonator missiles launched point-blank? Had to be. However, the other didn't seem to close on her immediately, and Rin felt the tentacle stab into her before actually managing to visually notice them. One stabbed through the front of her left thigh, another through her left hip joint and the last one just an inch left of her belly button - all spearing deeply enough to find the tender flesh of the nekovalkyrja the M6 Daisy was protecting.
Not content to just stabbing her through, the tentacles yanked her forward and into the waiting blades of her enemy. One of the lobster-shaped blades crashed through her Daisy's breastplate, slicing through armor so deeply that it cut cleanly though her left breast vertically. The other also struck from overheard, passing from the top of her right pauldron to her right armpit, cleanly severing the arm off.
As the debilitating light of the flares waned away, as the crackling of ineffectual sensors died away, the NH-18 heaved Rin away, sending her to slam backfirst into the blast door, the writhing and twisting tentacles she had been stabbed with having been discarded by the NH-18 to linger into her wounds. From those punctures, spiderwebs of grayish veins were spreading and each wound felt like fire - a spreading cancer that was turning her into something else.
The NH-18 itself was over the quivering Tom, her aspect changed into less an humanoid and more a mix of shark and octopus that was made of an amalgam of armor plates and glistening hemosynthetic tissues all cemented together with thick strands of silvery material not too unlike Arethusa.
@Decon Chamber:
Kotori mewled in pain, gritting her teeth as she squirmed. Miyoko was just close enough to see that under the layer of frost-defrosting moisture that slide down Kotori's skin, the cracks and lesions were closing up.
Despite the fact that Kotori had figured out how to heal herself, it didn't make the situation less dire. Even the Signaler's functions couldn't come freely, and the heat the Taisa radiated was indication enough of nutrients being consumed to exert effort. Such reserves, despite the NH-29's great stamina, were not infinite and Kotori was already very strained and exhausted.
Even if self-restoring psionics kept her together, she would still waste away. How long until she had no more to give and just dropped dead?
@Defense Line:
The zombies and thralls again become the least of the defenders' troubles as a new threat presented itself. New swarms of Mishhuvurthyar flew in, different from those from before. Their tentacles held larger weapon barrels better suited to being bazookas or grenade launchers and their bodies were sheathed in body armors.
The Mishhuvurthyar Elites, 24 in total and spread in more widely spaced groups of six, fired grenade-like projectiles between the dark wave of humanoids and the defenders' fortifications, thick clouds of smoke and electronic-interfering chaffs spreading.
The pall of smoke didn't stop the zombies to keep pouring blindly through. The Yamataian power armors fired as soon as they saw targets come out, but their perception range had been drastically reduced.
"Damn!" Mara fired a few shots at the still incoming enemies before she hid under cover. She addressed the techs she sent toward the starboard wingpod: "Nao, can I have my report yet? What have you found?"
