RP: YSS Miharu Mission 5, Part 2: The Fight For The Lost

The explosion was a welcome sight to Nyton and he grinned slightly at Tom's initiative for punching through it. Even if it did rattle him a bit. This is it!

"Nakamura, Nimura, flanking coverfire! Shosa, I know you can hear me so grab Rin on a non-contaminated section and pull her through the door and out of here! Freeman, Yuzuki, go through the opening and secure the other side! Westwood, Gunshin, form by the engineering team! Provide coverfire to allow the engineers and the Shosa to pass through the opening and then collapse to follow them through! The rest of us will follow as soon as we can!"

Nyton sent a private text message to Rin simultaneously with the massive telepathic one.

Kotori-C/Sharktopus/Sharturtlopus had also been shaken but to a lesser extent and was more or less still in the same area. If they could just keep her on the defensive long enough they could pull off a strategic withdrawal. Even if the door opened it would still work in their favor unless there were hordes of enemies on the other side that is. Nyton unloaded his LASR with the intent of emptying the nearly depleted magazine. Get ready Arethusa. We're going to do a little nodal warfare.

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Ayumu simply moved with Miyoko as escorted her carrying Kotori to the medical center. She wondered just how many of the patients she had abandoned were still alive if any. She pushed the thought away though, as fear gripped her while she attempted to provide some kind of 'cover' and stay alert for enemies. As soon as they arrived at the medical center she would rush to prep the hemosynth tank for the Taisa.

"Argh! Bitch!" growled Asher as he moved away from the Kotori-C. He quickly burned towards the Engineering group, avoiding being hit to allow his shields to recharge slowly. While he moved, he switched back to his Gauss Launcher. He blinked up the position he was going to take near the engineers to Kyou as he landed near by Yuzuki. He punched Yuzuki in the shoulder, and then shouldered the 50mm, firing frangible rounds at the Kotori-C.

"I gotcha' back, 'Zuki, you an'Free-boss get goin'!" said Asher, focusing on his target.

Yukari did not argue.

She carefully lifted Rin up in her arms, careful to avoid her damaged hands, and left her weapons behind. She left the ground and, clutching Rin, flew for the hole as fast as she safely could.

Kyou had switched over to her plasma rifle as soon as she'd realized (in a general way, at least) what exactly they were up against. She hadn't fired along with the rest of the group, not wanting to chance her aim on firing in that direction with as many friendlies as were over there. But as soon as Nyton gave his order, she coordinated her position based off of Asher's, and moved into position on the opposite side of the engineers, firing her plasma rifle as soon as she had a clean shot at the Kotori-C (or whatever current iteration it was in. If she got a clean enough shot, she'd launch a incendiary grenade to try and slow it down, but only if she got a good shot.

Masako chose to duck behind her embedded Shield as the Elites decided to make an appearance. As explosions and countermeasures filled the area, the Warrant Officer switched to her LASR-SLAG and chambered a few Airburst Grenades. "Damn it," she cursed softly before floating above the barricades long enough to fire her airbursts in the general direction of the thralls and launching several chaffs of her own to interfere with anything the Mishhu could be carrying.

Turning off her inertial flight, she allowed herself to drop down behind cover again.

Miyoko hurried as she carried Kotori toward the medlab. She didn't like the possibility of being caught nearly helpless as she carried the Taisa, but she didn't want to help her condition deteriorate too much by jostling her. It brought back unwelcome memories of when she'd had to do the same with Mara: Different stupid mistake, same outcome.

As they entered the medical center, Miyoko didn't waste any time. She laid Kotori on the closest free bed, then started using her armor's superhuman strength to rip her yukata--normally, she'd just pull or cut it off, but the armored gloves made both of those difficult. Fortunately, the wet and tattered cloth didn't put up much resistance. Once she was free of it, Miyoko carried her over and slid her into the hemosynth tank as gently as she could.

"Hai." Kai replied, swiftly, changing his tactic- it wasn't the best idea in terms of his own longevity but it was best in keeping the NH-18 off of his retreating comrades.

Kai kept up the randomized pattern and began firing the APR and his forearm plasma gun as quickly as he could manage without running them dry. He also began aiming his 50mm shoulder cannon to fire its armor-piercing rounds whenever a good opening presented itself. All this activity wouldn't garner him the greatest accuracy, the Yamataian knew, but he was going for volume of fire and distraction more than anything else.

Yuzuki gave Asher a look that, on a Daisy power armor, could only have ever appeared blank. Then she was through the gap, APR rifle leading, prepared to fire on anything behind the door that moved, and hoping - sincerely hoping - that the suddenness of the breech would give her the advantage that, momentarily alone, she would sorely need.

Over the course of the entire fight, Yuzuki had only used one of her grenades, and none of her 50mm rounds - after using all her spares for the explosive, what remained was only what was already loaded. Dashing through the hole in the bulkhead, she was prepared to use whatever was left, however little it was, if she couldn't put it down with Plasma.

At the worst, at least it wasn't someone important through the door first. If the Juni died, that would be the end of it. If the Taii died, or Yukari carrying Rin...

Relieved at the momentary reprieve given to him, Tom was back on his feet, ready to follow Nyton's orders.


As Tom replaced his LASR for his plasma rifle, he considered what was necessary to get everyone out in one piece. He knew the Kotori-C wouldn't just let them waltz out of the place, and they were grouping together for an extraction. If the enemy armor had any missiles left, it would have a good set of targets to blast, especially if everyone still had their shields down. The engineer realized that he had defensive missiles for this purpose.

As Yukari, Yuzuki, and Rin flew through the opening, he had his CIES ready a volley of countermeasure missiles upon should the enemy choose to act how he thought. He secretly hoped the enemy was too distracted by the others to act, however.

In any circumstance, he would have to be the next one out of the room.

Rin hardly noticed being shot by Nimura, what with her shield up again and the pain caused by the NH-18. But, she did instinctively curl up closer, as much as a power armor really allows, into whoever it was carrying her. The armors were all essentially the same, minus Nyton's, though it wasn't as if Rin particularly cared who it was that picked her up. It could be Melisson for all she cared as long as the pain stopped.

@ vs. NH-18 Kotori:

Some of the Black Knights retreated through the aperture Yuzuki created, some others kept fighting... and the fight no longer looked one-sided.

Their opponent was fearsome, yes, but she was no Meni or Mani, or Eve. Just a cheap knockoff copy of their Taisa at an earlier point in her life, given to a NH-18 template whom benefited from its cleverness. She was no match for those whom had defeated Eve once her tricks started to fail her.

The amount of firepower Kai sent her way monopolized most of the NH-18's attention and Kai's high speed kept him safe from the return fire, leaving Nimura to attack the armored NH-18 using her Daisy's pulse cannons in area burst mode - her objective wasn't to hurt her so much as keep her off balance, keep her from flying up and fighting while aloft - in addition, Nimura's fire ripped the mini-missiles packs off the warped Daisy's legs, eliminating that one worry.

With Kai and Nyton emptying their ammo into her, Asher's weapon was brandished, waiting, and waiting, until Kyou got a hit in with her plasma rifle that the NH-18 felt compelled to block with her left sword-clawed arm; he fired at that moment, his frangible round bursting into her side shotgun-like to then shred through the armor on the arm and crack apart the bladed appendage.

They could defeat her. The trick was doing it without her being able to hurt them back. As demonstrated with Rin and Yukari, the NH-18 poisonous nodal attacks could be deadly even on a non-fatal blow.

@Medlab:

Kotori felt frail held within Miyoko's armored limbs, and was easily eased into the hemosynthetic tank as if she had been but a mere child.

The Signaler nekovalkyrja sank to roughly the middle of the tank, her limb curling by reflex into a loose fetal position, her long black hair spreading like a dark cloud around her head.

Prepare to reload! Nyton ordered as the ammunition counter read 10 rounds. With high speed precision only possible by a powerful AI, Arethusa used a nodal arm and carefully seized a fresh 100 round magazine. The ammunition counter read 5. Position! The nodal arm set the magazine right next to the housing where the old magazine was. Reload!

The counter read 3 - 2 -

Nyton timed the final round to feed into the chamber right as AIES ejected the now empty magazine. The empty magazine fell and was immediately replaced by the nodal arm slamming in the new one.

Counter: 1 - EMPTY

Without altering his aim or sight picture Nyton kept the LASR pointed at Kotori-C while the nodal arm charged the weapon and fed it a new stream of ammunition. Only a half second elapsed in pause of his deadly stream of fire.

Sensing the shift in the initiative Nyton determined to press the attack.

"Westwood, Kyou, stay put and continue to fire! Collapse only if the engineers need help! Everyone, pour it on and don't let up! Keep the enemy unbalanced and overwhelmed! Watch out for her to desperately charge or run away! Whatever you do though, don't let her get close! Now lets finish her off!"



With a coded and telepathic message simultaneously sent out, Nyton readied himself for any sudden bursts of flight by Kotori-C. She may be on the defensive but he was not about to underestimate her or let anyone else do so either. Not like last time. They were cracking her shell and she could not repel firepower of the magnitude they were sending her. Right now he figured she may attempt to retreat, dive TOWARDS somebody and complicate matters, or maybe even have some bomb hidden on her which would detonate and take them with her. He was mostly prepared for her to either run away or charge in.

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As soon as Kotori was placed into the tank by Miyoko, Ayumu went over to the tank and began to check on the screens. She knew Miyoko was versed on how to operate the system so she mainly observed to analyze Kotori's vital signs. She was also concerned as to what effect the high temperature of Kotori's body would have on the hemosynth fluid. Hopefully the fluid would have more effect in cooling Kotori down, if even just a little bit. Without realizing it, Ayumu was nervously biting down on her bottom lip. It was the best way to shut out the remaining wounded patients in the medlab. She had not failed to notice there were more flatlines than earlier and quite a few new faces as well.

Nao paced about in her Daisy on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Even at the absolute lowest levels possible, it would have killed them all if they were still in normal space. Though they gambled it wouldn't, the thought of it all ending in a single white blink of light...what was she going to do now? It wasn't possible to repair the casing given the circumstances, even if they did salvage more of the material needed. Could they?

"Nao, can I have my report yet? What have you found?"

Click to expand...

"Ack!" The Sprite jumped up at the sudden intrusion on her brooding before hastily replying. "It's no good!" she meekly cried out. "The casing's damaged, and it's unsafe to use." Nao glanced at the infernal machine again. "If this place was normal, we would have blown ourselves to nothing just now!"

It was so tempting to end it all, right now. She hastily stomped on the thought as hard as she could.

Miyoko sighed with relief as Kotori slid into the hemosynth tank. One less thing to worry about. Still, her work here wasn't done yet. Miyoko glanced over her shoulder toward the doorway a little anxiously before she started programming the tube. Doing so was a bit awkward with the Daisy's armored gloves, but she managed. Her orders for the tube were simple: flood itself with as many nutrients and hemosynth as it could, while trying to keep Kotori's body temperature around normal. She was afraid it might not be able to deal with such an extreme temperature, but, well... it wasn't like there were many other options at this point.

When the tube was prepared, Miyoko turned back to watch the doorway, LASR in hand. "Maybe the worst of it is over," she said, half to herself and half to Ayumu. Judging by the tone of her voice, it wasn't so much a prediction as it was a fervent wish.

Kai ceased firing his shoulder cannon, deciding it best to save the Ammunition after getting his point across. He did, however, keep up his volume of Plasma fire, both from his forearm and from the APR.

The tactic of speed continued to work, and although he knew at this rate he would not deal any killing blows, keeping the NH-18 occupied would help the others make more effective hits, and so the Yamataian kept at it.

Kyou, less' keep up what we got goin', pin her wit' mo' gun if she regens r'shield! sent Asher to Kyou, linking up the trajectory of his weapon with hers. He squeezed off another frangible round at the beast. He'd hold his fire if her shields went back up, allowing Kyou to bring down more fire on the Kotori-C.

Yukari cut around the hole in the door as sharply as her armor let her. It was not a pretty turn; without touching the ground, she came into a slide by bringing her back legs around in a half circle, then backed up until she clunked her backside against a wall, sitting on her bottom. Her armor told her she was about two meters from the edge of the door's "hinges."

Cradling Rin with her shielded arm, she brought the other one up, taking short breaths as she scanned the room for enemies with her forearm weapon. Nothing made itself apparent, and her radar registered no hostiles. She heard more blasts and booms, but she kept Rin close to her and did not attempt to move.

Her armor updated its status. Yukari was in remarkable shape, considering the others, with green registering everywhere but her hands, which were black. She could tell, too.

She opened her left hand, her skin vision telling her all she needed to know. Greyish-pink flesh, with the occasional red blotch, took up most of the sight, with the remnants of a servo or wire cracking the surface, especially near her wrist. The hemosynth was active, furious; she could not tell if it was scarring or trying to reject the enemy nanomachines by bleeding. A little of both, maybe; her left middle finger, up to the second knuckle, had a bright red sheen to it.

The armor around her fingers just was visible, as if molded to only the top of her hand. It was attached, but without the armor helping her, it was heavy at the wrist and weighed on her knuckles. She would not be picking up any heavy weapons or even a LASR, let alone fire them. That left her with grenades and her revolver, which was back in the room being blown to pieces.

Yukari cursed. While she was thinking about herself, Rin was suffering. She recontributed her CIES to the battle and ordered Rin's armor to focus on repairs and combating the enemy nanomachines.

What I would not sacrifice for a starfighter.

A meter or so away from Yukari, Yuzuki phased into view, rifle at the ready. She had, during the whole affair with the explosives and the breech, been in thermoptics. Now she became visible, because although the coast seemed clear at the moment, if enemies appeared they would have to have something to shoot at that wasn't Rin and Yukari. Yuzuki would have to command their attention completely. That meant making herself a better target.

Through her armor's skin vision, she watched the two other armor pilots with steady discomfort. It looked so bad, she didn't want to give it much thought. There was enough disappointment here without considering the implications of Rin's injury.

"Seems clear," she reported over the group channel, "Holding."

Kyou nodded to herself when Asher told her his plan. Their biggest worry was letting NH-18 close in to close range again, so their big fear had to be keeping it's shields down, and it on the defensive. To that end, she readied herself to hit it hard if she needed to slow it down; after all, she did have a bit of gauss fire to spare, after all, even if she'd been trying to save it for Melisson if possible. For now, though, she just kept up the same amount of fire as she had been using.

Acknowledging the order, Tom quickly escaped through the opening to meet the others on the opposite end of the door. His scanner was active, and he took position near the Shosa, plasma rifle at the ready.

He was no medic; stabilizing Rin's injuries seemed impossible to him. The sprite wasn't something he could just fix with a wrench, especially with injuries caused by something as advanced and foreign as NH-18 tentacles. Rin would be better in the arms of a doctor or in a hemo tank.

But Nyton said that he may have found a way to heal her. He had to trust the Taii was right.

Looking at Rin's pitiful form wrenched at the Tom's heart. She didn't deserve this. In fact, it was he who should have been mutilated by the NH-18. Had it not been for her selfless action...

"Rin, I need you to hang on, ok?" He said gently. "We're going to find a way to get you better, but you've got to stay strong. Can you do that for me?"

He wanted to console the sprite with a touch, anything, to take some tiny bit of pain away from her, but he couldn't. It was impossible to even attempt so in such a dangerous place.

Instead, he turned away and kept vigilant for enemies, hating himself for it the entire time.