RP: ISC Phoenix [Mission 6] - The Trounce of Tami

The flying kick really didn't do much at all. It would take Plasma if Robert wanted to kick arse. The Mishhu in the suit was more confused rather than thinking about pressing the advantage. It raised its arm at Robert, preparing to fire something at it, when Luca put his shotgun to the side of the armour, at point blank and blasted a hole through it.

"Rob?!" Luca questioned the sanity of his co-worker as he picked him up, "You shoot them, these boots aren't made for kicking!"
There was one left, but whoever was in the Mindy took care of him, slicing him through the middle.

"Are you both mad?!" She asked over loudspeaker, "You were supposed to get out of here!"
"Well - too bad, there was a traffic jam," Luca shrugged, "Now we have to deal with it."

Robert shrugged, "I'll remember that." he picked up his grenade launcher and reloaded it. "Let's get moving."

Arin watched the fight on a volumetric screen wordlessly, she thought with the Dragonsbreath she could at least hurt the Mishus through their tough carapace, but if they were going to drag out Power Armors then the representative's work is definitely cut out for her. She puffed her cheeks at her apparent uselessness.

"Any of you good at repair? I need a hand."

Click to expand...

Now this was something she could do. It was pure coincidence and not her animosity for Valo that the closest tool she could get her hands on at that very moment was a power drill. "Where do you want this?" She asked, revving the machine.

Vincent, meanwhile, was busy tearing the Rippers a new one with his Deviance. A trio of the power armors was gathered in a pile in front of the stationary ORV he was using as a firing platform. While he was shooting, Arin's voice came over the intercom. He smiled a bit. So she actually was still alive out there!

"Hey, there's a voice I haven't heard in a while!" Vincent said over the radio as he continued to suppress an advancing Ripper with his chaingun, "How are you doing over there, Arin?"

Arin pressed her wireless deeper into her ear canal, is she hearing this guy right? There was also a lot of static... Or chaingun noises. "Don't you have more important things to worry about?"

"Not really." Vincent fired off another burst from his chaingun, levelling a Ripper. "A few squidlies in cans, nothing huge."

ON THE BIG BIRD...
"Right here, thanks," Allison said as she begun taking apart Valo. She was able to pinpoint what was broken, what wasn't supposed to be there, and what was, but was missing. She was able to, with a bit of collaboration, repair the whole lot, except for the extra power source, "Now, this fella should be able to move his limbs by himself, independent of any other power sources - but..." She sighed, "I just need a spare aether generator, so he can have his weapons back online, too."

BACK IN THE BUSH...
"Traffic... jam?!" The neko in the suit argued, "You had plenty of time to leave!"
"Yeah well when the octobuddies got atmosphere friendly," Sebastian tried to talk her down, "Things went south - so we're gonna cut a path outta here."
"Hey -" Luca piped up to his dad, "We're gonna cut a highway through the bastards, got it?" He turned around to the Neko, "Now ma'am, which way is the nearest civilisation?"

She pointed northwest, "There's a town that way. It's overrun - but if you want to have a go at wiping - by all means, try."

Luca thought of a plan. Enter town, remove major threats, have the Big Bird land there once threats are down, make any rescues possible, and leave by going FTL from the ground. A risky move, but it can be pulled off. He saw it in a movie.

"Thanks, you watch out for yourself, okay?" He replied.
"No worries, I -" Her sentence was cut short, "-hgnghk." A beam of white went through her head from Luca's right, and she toppled over lifeless.

"Company!" Luca said as he aimed his M'Cel into the bush, and fired, blasting the shrubbery and trees. Three armours were approaching, only one to the left got singed by the blast, messing with his shields somewhat. The middle and right ones were unharmed.

"HEU HEU HEU~" The distinct laughter of a Mishhu could be heard.

Two other beams crossed lazily into view, piercing the trees, one narrowly missed Robert.
Sebastian whirled his chaingun around, ordering Mel to drive forward a little so he could seriously lay the law down on them. Mel poked her head out the side window and fired a grenade into them, hitting the Middle armour square in the chest.

Mitch drove into a defensive position, moving and allowing Vincent to also let them have it.
Meanwhile, Luca was reloading his M'Cel and Robert fired, but only managed to catch the rightmost one in the explosion.

OOC: Hit Count said:

Splash Damage = 1 hit
Direct Hit/Concentrated Fire = 2 hits

Ripper, Left = 3/5
Ripper, Right = 2/5
Ripper, Middle = 3/5

Click to expand...

Valo sat forward "There is little need to rush such things." He stated with an almost monotone voice. His arms moved about in an almost systematic manner. "I would like to attempt to stand if you would allow it." He said as his eyes trailed back to Allison.

"I don't feel good, Nyezeh," the young yamataian technician complained, clutching his chest in the passenger seat of the GP-ORV.

"S'okay, We should be there soon enough, " the woman behind the wheel comforted in an almost monotone voice as she stared through her heavy sunglasses at the heavily forrested terrain in front of them. She shifted into a lower gear for traction as plowed through the underbrush. "Just hold on." She clicked her tongue as the battle raged in the sky above. Through breaks in the heavy canopy the explosions from NMX ships ramming into the 9th fleet could be seen quite clearly.

For nearly two years Jolokia "Wind" Nyezeh Fyunnen had worked for Origin as a test pilot of sorts. Test driving every weird contraption the Origin engineers could roll off and get running. That was Jake's job, to make sure they stayed together and would continue to run. It was a peaceful life, compared to before she had met with that crazy woman in a bar on Morant. Back when Jolokia decided that maybe it was better to lay low for a while, sign on with a more-- legitimate crew. She had no idea that she'd be pulling a regular paycheck for a respectable company. But, peaceful was boring, and the transmission she had seen from this L. Pavone character seemed like it would be right up her alley.

Of course, Jake wouldn't let her go alone and so there he was sitting beside her, arms wrapped around his stomach, doubled over from what seemed to be a bad lunch. "Geeze, pull yourself together," the Lorath commented harshly as she glanced over at her passenger. This was no time for weakness. She had hoped that at least he'd be able to man the GPS while he drove, but he was proving to be dead weight. "Damn it," she swore, her attention now back on the harsh forrest landscape, her hand off the shifter to grab the radio. "You'd better goddamn be out here," she said, pressing the button on the side of the reciever.

But there was nothing, not even static. "Jake! Check if it's on!" she ordered, letting the device fall to the seat as her hand returned to it's job. Jolokia was trying to keep the truck going as fast as possible. There was no doubt in her mind that the attackers had already landed and getting to Pavone's ship was the only way her and Jake were getting off this mudball. Especially with the Headquarters getting evacuated. Meanwhile, Jake fumbled with the buttons on the radio, trying to get some sort of signal. "I think-- we're being-- jammed," he said, finally, his voice cutting off with every bump and jump.

Jolokia opened her mouth to respond, but closed it quickly, gritting her teeth. Suddenly, her eyes went wide. What had looked like a small slope down was actually a fairly good ten foot drop, and right into some heavy brush. The truck hit the ground hard, and had they not been securely buckled to their seats, the two passengers would've likely sailed, flying from the vehicle. As it was, they were just a little shook up. Well, one more than the other. Jolokia just slammed the accelerator and kept on going. Jake, however, started hacking. "You gonna hurl?" she asked, and the whimpering, pathetic look she got from the technician told her that, yeah, dude was probably going to lose his lunch.

"Just-- Just try to aim it outside, okay?" she asked, her driving doing nothing to help an upset stomach. Finally, the hacking turned more serious, but when Jake's body jerked forward, it wasn't lunch that came out, but a large mass of tentacles that sprayed forth, stomach acid spattering on the inside of the windshield. "What the--" was all the Lorath woman managed to get out as she was distracted long enough that she missed an large root they were coming up on fast. She jerked the steering wheel to the side to try and miss the root, but they still slammed into the side of it with enough force to roll right on over it. Tumbling, the truck flipped over a good two and a half times before the internal balancer swung around, causing the GP-ORV to take the last half-roll and right itself again.

Furiously grasping at the latch to undo her safety restraints, Jolokia scrambled to reach the cargo that had spilled out of the back during the roll. Weapons. Whatever had happened to Jake, it was clear she'd need some of the merchandise she was hoping to barter with this Pavone guy. Kicking a box of Fatboys open, she quickly removed the stocks from two of the guns. The only personal encounter she had previously with the Mishhu was when they had been encased in some heavy powered armor and she was in a ship. However, she knew enough to know that when the tentacles came out, what she needed was firepower, and lots of it.

"Nyezeh--" she could here Jake from the truck, he had spent his sweet time getting out of the restraints and out of the truck. "Help me, Nyezeh," he pleaded in that whiny tone of his. "Goddamnit Jake, I don't want to shoot yo--," she started to say, but was cut off when a thick tentacle shot out in an attempt to crush her side. But she was ready for it, vaulting over and to the side, the tendril missing her by inches. "Nyezeh--" it repeated, a dead look in it's eyes as it stared at her, it's mouth open with the gross, wriggling mass just hanging out. Again, it attacked, this time wasting no effort, four tentacles coming to life all at once, trying to hit home on the woman. She didn't close her eyes as she pulled the triggers.

Luckily, only two tentacles hit home as the bloody mess that was once a Yamataian sumped over onto the ground. One had raked across her thigh, like a claw, it had shredded her pants some and tore the flesh underneath. The other had gotten in on her side and pricked her with a needle-like tip. "GodDAMN it," she swore again, stumbling as she scrambled back into the truck. Jolokia wasn't sure she had killed whatever it was, and she didn't want to stick around to find out. She had lost most of her cargo, her left leg was shredded and likely needed medical attention and she didn't even want to think what that creature had injected her with. "You better be there Mister Pavone," she thought to herself as she glanced over to the GPS, still wedged into the front seat. "You better be there or I'm going to find you, and I'm going to kill you."

Arin had been working on making the Aether Converter she ripped out from the spare Demon Power Armor smaller, but unfortunately she hasn't had the time to test the thing yet and secondly it was bad enough that the Custodian could walk around the ship now (Partly thanks to her too). It is going to take a little more trust for the Representative to hand her handiwork over.

She started returning the tools used in the operation back to their proper place. "Will some kind of battery do for now?"

Valo pondered the use of a temporary power supply as he stared at the wall ahead of him. "I believe I could function off a stored power supply, yes. However I would suggest against testing my weapon systems with a temporary supply of energy. That being stated I am more than capable of using conventional weaponry if needed for combat."

ON THE BIG BIRD...
"O'course!" Allison said, "Custodians can not only use their weapons - but use other weapons. They're built for war, yanno?"
The sound of something skittering could be heard in the cargo hold, and Valo was getting faint bio-signals which definitely were not human.
Allison looked around, to her left, above her, behind her, and to her right with a stolen NSP raised.
"Something is here..." She nervously said as she motioned for Arin to get any weapon she could get her hands on, "Looks like the fight might've come to us."

Over in the Pilot's compartment, John had been busy keeping an eye on the air and spaceways, looking for any cease in the invasion to get out with. But once he heard the skittering, he cautiously toed his way to the hold with his GP-12 raised.
"You hear something?" He asked the two technicians and looking around.
Anna, Crane and Hitori emerged from the other parts of the ship, asking similar questions, and were armed lightly.

IN THE THICK...
Vincent let out of a concentrated hail of bullets, and managed to make the leftmost Ripper fall over, full of holes. Robert, being the wily man he was, decided to stow the M'Cel, reach for the aether sabre on the ground by the dead Mindy pilot. He activated it quickly and attempted to cut through the Mishhu in the middle.

His strike hit true, cleaving the mishhu in half with a two-handed strike, just like the brains-outside-head pilot did earlier. However - he felt his hands burn up from being so close to the white-hot death, and it was very unwieldy.
The rightmost Mishhu fired at him and missed, but hit the tree behind him, bending towards him slowly. Robert charged into the Mishhu and stabbed straight through the armour, then released his grip on the weapon, standing back.

"Holy... Wicked!" Luca commented in awe of Robert's swordsmanship as he fired an explosive shot from his HHG into the rightmost armour, just to be sure. But he then heard something creaking, and looked behind Robert. The tree was about to come down on him, "Sh- Watch out!"

Robert had a moment to look behind himself to realise what was going on, then tried to move, but the tree came down, knocking him to the ground and pinning his left leg underneath a log roughly a foot and a half thick. He cried out in pain, trying to escape.
"Rob, don't move - Jim!" Luca called out for his medic as he rushed over to inspect the damage. He lifted the log off his leg without a problem, thanks to the strength-assist of the WIND suit, "Jim, get him back to the Big Bird, ASAP."

Jim and his hoverbike, who'd been following the crew, rolled up and picked up the wounded swordsman with care, seated him on the hoverbike with a splint on his leg. A cursory inspection from the medic revealed: "...probably a fracture or two, compound, probably. I'll get you back in no time."

Vincent watched in detatched horror as the tree collapsed on his little buddy Robert. "Ah, shit!" The merc shouted as he leapt down from the trailer of the ORV. Looking over at Robert as he ran forward, he rolled under a launched Mishhu tentacle, deftly ripping it off as he stood again. He quickly reached Robert's location, M'Cel in hand, and covered Jim as he carried the knife-fighter off to another location, firing once at an approaching Ripper. He hefted the sabre that Robert had dropped when the tree fell and smirked inwardly.

"Mind if I borrow this?" He shouted before charging off after another Ripper.

Arin readied her Dragonsbreath flamethrower. If it was anything Mishu related, the flames would be strong enough to burn through its tough carapace, and if it was non-Mishu? Well... Tough luck.

Though, Mishu or non-mishu, hostile or non-hostile, Arin is never prepared to pull the trigger. Tense, she leaned over to Allison. "Should we call it out or something first...?"

Valo was suddenly up on his feet. "Biological detected, engaging." The image of the room shifted to hues of saturation. The custodian's head turned scanning the thermal readings of the room attempting to pinpoint the location of whatever had entered the ship.

As a flash of heat against the cold metal of the ship came in site. Valo began walking quickly towards it's direction in the hold.

A GP-ORV truck in standard Origin green livery broke through the tree line and onto the scene. One side had a large wash of blood staining the side, with a spread of bullet holes around the center of the mess. Bits of branches and shrubbery were sticking out from where they had gotten stuck in the frame and body and the front windshield had a quite dedicated crack running through it.

The driver pulled on the brake and slid the vehicle to a stop. With a flick of her wrist, the restraints were removed and she stood up in her seat. A Lorath, if the small black wings peeking through slits cut in the back of her shirt were any indication. The tunic she had wore was now tied in strips around her leg, soaked in blood from her wound. The sleeves of her white dress shirt were rolled up, and the top buttons had been undone, showing off a nice sheen of sweat on her skin. Her blue tie had been pulled loose and hung limply around her neck.

She surveyed the situation and slid back into her seat, shifting the truck back into gear and jamming on the accelerator. "One of you better be a Mister Pavone," she announced, yelling as she steered towards the Ripper. "Because otherwise I am not going to be in a very good mood," she finished in a more normal tone, using her free hand to grab her bag beside her seat as she readied to leap from the vehicle before impact.

"What the fu-" Vincent ducked his head as some debris from the lorath's treeline party-crashing whizzed past his head. "Get your head down!" He shouted. "There are Rippers everywhere!"

He held tight to Robert's sabre as he made his way carefully over to the new arrival's GP-ORV. He pointed a thumb back towards Luca's position, and announced that "Luca was over that way last time I saw him."

A look of incredulous oblivion crossed through Luca's features as he noticed the lorath woman looking for him. He loaded a shot into the M'cel and took down another ripper with a direct hit. Holstering it without reloading and spraying down what he could with his shotgun before emptying the whole lot.

"Hi!" He said as he reloaded his shotgun in cover, while a white beam passed just over his head, "Good to see survivors here. We're fighting our way -" He was cut off as another white beam went through the tree, but missed him by three inches, "Son of a -" He cursed and stood up - blasting away another Ripper with Sebastian's chaingunning backing him up.

"North." He sighed with relief as he pointed in the direction. That Ripper he, Harrison and Sebastian were going nuts on? It appeared to be the last one, they had to keep advancing while there was time, "We gotta hurry - or we'll never get outta here alive!"

He signalled for Mel, Mitch, Seb and Vincent to keep moving, and for the lorath woman to follow. She'd be safe with these five.

BACK ON SHIP...
Valo took another step, and another, towards the heat signal on his infravision. There appeared to be nothing to the human eye, but something was there - and realising it'd been spotted - it uncloaked. A classic Type-1 Mishhuvurthyar was there, with tentacles writhing, and a screech that was gaining decibels could be heard in everyone's heads.

"SHIT!" Allison cried out as she fired a grenade shot at the ugly bastard, reducing it to a series of ugly stains on the walls. She clutched her ears - but the noise was much deeper in.Realising this, she let out a stream of Nepleslian profanities.

She looked around, and noticed five more uncloaking, surrounding the crew.

Anna, the matriarch of the family had put her hand under her coat, and produced a Novacorp Xaser pistol from apparently thin air. She held it with both hands and let one of them have it in a five-round burst. It was mostly doing damage to the shell.
If she gave it more punishment, it'd be melted through - but not before having to dodge a barrage of Tentacles, which Anna was able to do with surprising agility for her age. A tentacle managed to grab her gun ad throw it away, near Valo's feet.

"Die you motherfu-" John had his GP-12 on hand, and fired a stream of phased pulses and obscenities at another - letting the stream of electronic death take apart the Mishhu at a molecular level - melting a lovely through its head, "HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT - BITCH?!" He quipped with a grin.

Hitori wasn't having much luck with her .22 revolver, barely even denting the Mishhu's headplate. She dropped at and drew one of her knives, waving it at the Mishhu that was focusing on her. The mishhu attempted to stab her with a tentacle, but she evaded it, and cut it off in a lateral slash. The process repeated three times - but it still had more tentacles, and Hitori was losing balance - and she could only focus for so much longer with the screech in her ears...

The other two were going to focus their attention onto Arin and Allison, and things were hopefully going to get toasty as Allison nudged Arin, urging her to let them have it.

The floor shuddered as Valo ran through the bay like a derailed train. The android slammed it's large hands into the top of the two mishu's heads, clenched down and face planted them into the metal plating of the floor.

"AAAAAAH! Stay away!" Arin depressed the nozzle, eyes closed. Unlike the previous combat segments she had in the Luca Pavone Crew, her mind was a complete blank, unable to work her own gadgetry magic or properly prioritize targets. She waved the stream of plasma over the two Mishus, while doing little damage without sustained burning, at least the space octopi would think twice about coming any closer.

"Vincent, HELP!"