Ylfa was paid to keep an eye on the bigger picture, and what she saw made the Master Sergeant want to clench hard and guard her rear.
The moment Takahiro started shouting over the comms, she was shouting back. "DON'T YOU DARE GO FULL RETARD ON ME GREENHORN!" the tall woman's voice boomed in his ear. Hers wasn't the only one either. Ylfa immediately popped up out of cover as triple-round bursts started booming out of her cannons, the small rifle in her hands chattering away like there was no tomorrow. There really wasn't one for Takahiro if he was going to go through with what he said and and didn't get cover. The cannon bursts punched through shields far more easily than single shots, one round after the other following behind in the wake of the very first to smash directly into the sides of its armored hull, but it was nowhere near enough to put the cat-made war machine down. As the young marine made his move, thrusters firing to bring him from the Colosseum-like depression in the back of the room all the way to the front and near where they entered at, the Mech countered.
Again, one of its mounted autocannons quickly rounded on him like a twitchy psychopath and made to swat him down as he tried to fly past the left flank, or the machine's right side, and avoid it. Fat, hot brass cases and metal links came tumbling out of the side of the gun as the tracers chased after Takahiro. Protected by only a medium-light power armor made by Neko and for Neko, the heavy shells smacked and rattled him about despite the energy barriers, but the moment he got into its frontal firing arc where Briggs was under, it hit him even harder. Stopping in its tracks, the buzz sawing hail of aether beams pinning down Quentin, Tatiana and Rachael slashed upwards and cut across him in a punishing one-two punch as its rear legs crouched. The energy barrier crackled and burst as autocannons slammed into bare armor, white lances of unnatural energy boiling through armor plate.
Suddenly battered by the storm, Takahiro lost control, spiraling over and past Briggs. The suit stiffening to protect him, the marine smashed head first into the wall over the front entrance, briefly grinding against it like a bottle rocket before falling to the floor to the right of the room. Dazed and wounded, it was amazing that the giant Spider-Bot didn't finish him off. He would eventually see that the forearm shield took the brunt of the fire. But even then, Takahiro could feel the lower most left rib broken off and floating in his flesh where an autocannon round or two hit him in the sides. His thigh armor was pock marked by a half-dozen glowing, molten craters, and his skin was painfully burned from the sheer amount of heat radiating off the damage. Nearly penetrated, it wasn't going to take much more. Yet, somehow, his shield, despite looking like it jousted with a meteor storm, was still intact enough for use. More importantly, he could feel something moist and wet at his thighs. At first, the fluid was horrifying, but it soon flowed over his burns as another wet spot formed at his ribs, the pain slowly being soothed.
Just as the machine attacked the other marine, Mark started firing from the main observatory in the back. Jets of white blue-fire lifted him out of cover, and already facing its back, hardly had to move to get a good shot. As Mark's rifle started punching neat holes into but not through its hull, small pieces of armor were chipped away with showers of sparks. Right as a trio of mini-missiles shot out of his calves. Immediately, purple-white bolts of energy streaked out at the missiles from the TASHA, blowing up one as the other two followed through the smoke and fire of the first. The warheads' shaped charge burst over its rear-hull, leaving behind a pair of non-penetrating holes and melted splash-marks around them.
At the same time, Richard's missiles came in from the front left pit. Already off-center from the Spider-Walker's front, the arcing trajectory he set it to had the first pair come turning into its front, with the others going for its sides. Again, the purple-white shots lashed out. Two small explosions harmlessly burst over its front shields as its divided point defenses only managed to shoot down one of the missiles, only to do the same. Though the marine expected some sort of counter fire to counter, he didn't expect directed energy weapons and resorted to spraying it down with both wrist guns instead, the hail of shots splashing across its shields. Max and Kelly, both, firing alongside Richard, quickly found a few chinks in its defenses. With only a half-decent angle on its sides, several of their shots were stopped dead in their tracks by the powerful frontal arc of its shields. Plasma bolts and cannon rounds, it didn't matter. Even Kelly's aether fire just splashed across the field as garbled radio-chatter kept spilling out of her mouth in rage like some sort of censored profanity. However, Max managed to land a pair of good cannon shots into the rear right leg, leaving heavy dents over one of its joints.
When Takahiro had hit the back wall and finally came to a stop, the first autocannon brought itself to bear on the three to try and suppress them. Though battering and fearsome, it couldn't effectively keep all three marines down - Kelly hid behind her wrist field, while their shields drained. Still, they but held up to the barrage with it divided between the three of them. The moment Richard opened up with both his plasma projectors moments before however, Terrance had made his own move.
Flying as fast as his suit could without losing control or vision, his rifle's constant staccato stream washed over its shielded flank. The rounds barely punched through the barrier, denting its hull until he managed to get an angle on its rear, where the spray landed more cleanly. Autocannon rounds leaped up at him from its second gun, beating at his shields, but he held course long enough to the largest depression at the back of the room. There, he managed to easily find cover.
With the TASHA rapidly striding towards them like an unstoppable steamroller, both Quentin and Tatiana had the same idea as well. The idea of 'Ladies First' was thrown right out the window the moment the Aether Gatling was brought off of them and onto Takahiro as Quentin rushed forward. Guarding himself best he could with the shield on his left forearm, the rifle held in the right hand shook with every round fired. Tatiana was right after him, not bothering to fire as she focused on the prize - cover for both of them at the middle-right observatory depression! The TASHA's second autocannon spun off of Terrance and fell on them. Booming away, the fat and heavy rounds knocking them about and draining their shields; like Richard and Max however, they weathered the barrage and powered through to cover.
With all this happening at once, the TASHA made its own move. Having stopped in its tracks to smash down one of its enemies, the legged war machine was forced to stop as it noticed the rounds boring deep into its armor. Leaping to quickly twist around to its right at the source of its injury, it came to face Ylfa. Kneeling its front legs down, the one hundred and five millimeter cannon was brought to bear and boomed before the marine could do more than duck, vanishing as a brilliantly white-blue blast of plasma melted away a large portion of the floor near her. Loosing track of its target, the TASHA stood again as its aether gatling spun up and began sawing its way over towards Richard, Max and Kelly. With their shields weakened from the autocannon barrage, they couldn't just stand and take it!
However, Terrance and Mark could both see its right side turn to them. Scarred by Ylfa's attempts to grab its attention, the shots had went deep into its thick armor plating, nearly penetrating through and deforming the protective alloy. Finishing her work wasn't going to be easy however, as the TASHA's left side autocannon took itself off of the Front-Left astrometrics pit and turned on them both at the main unit in the back. Quentin and Tatiana were in a similar situation as well; though its back was turned on them, the autocannon on its left side had turned to belch out shells over their heads in an attempt to keep them down.
Meanwhile, Rachael was finishing up.
Though previously pinned down in the same astrometrics projector as Quentin and Tatiana, the moment it had went after Takahiro and then turned for Ylfa, she was able to get moving towards him and Briggs. Focusing hard on her prize, the woman shoved the massive cannon blast out of her mind as she reached the downed Marine. Anyone could tell right then and there that the only thing holding the marine together was the suit - Rachael could already see a few punctures and the glistening red behind them, but that wasn't her concern. The weapons were. With the bulk of the fire having landed at the unfortunate marine's front, they were intact! Ejecting them off the fallen and equipping them for herself, she could barely make out moaning as Briggs slipped into complete unconsciousness.
