RP: NSV Furi'ken [NSV-Furi'ken] Prologue - Into Darkness We Go!

NSV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Micalio lifted her hand off Olffa's shoulder and furrowed her brow, "You know, now that you mention it that is kinda strange. I'd have expected there to be a lot more people around, support staff not unlike myself and cooks and such..." The red haired fox raised her own pistol once more a little more on edge than she had been with the moth.

Micalio noticed the bared teeth as the security officer had begun trying to snap at the moth with way too much ferocity for the situation. "And, before we leave do you need some time to ah, calm down? You seem overly tense, do you not like moths?" Micalio inquired politely hoping she wouldn't get on her bad side for asking, she seemed pretty scary when she was agitated.

NSV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

"It... It insulted me!" Olffa made a sort of scowling face, narrowing those bright green eyes, and causing the dark blue arrow pattern on their forehead to sharpen as their brow furrowed... Weirdly, the position of their hands didn't look like they were actively trying to intimidate Micalio, though. It was more like a wild animal buck, posturing to fellow creature. Showing their strength. "That was the correct level of aggression for an intruder!"

As before, the height difference really did not help. Maybe the red-haired one's amenable attitude was just alien to their own rough-and-tumble upbringing.

Or, maybe, it was a backwater forest girl's first day on an advanced military starship, and they were internally freaking out.

A brief pause, regaining their composure just a little, before Olffa snapped open her communicator and dialled in the code for the stand-by bridge crew.

"Control, this is C'Baruce Klo'den. Are you reading me up there?" Not only did their voice become more cautious, but the fox seemed to actively stand straighter, and also suppress their accent whilst speaking into the ridiculous little pod. "Sorry to bother you, but are you picking up anything weird on internal sensors? Also.... Well, I'm supposed to contact C'Baruce Ylon'Bar here, but they aren't present for the hand-over..."

NSV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

The line was full of static, there were vague pieces of words that came through but it was garbled. Suddenly, the silence was broken when a group of three indivisuals clammered up the ramp - stopping just short of the top when they noticed Klo'den and Micalio, the members of this group - all dressed in various outfits but all of which were dirty, looked at one another; then suddenly turned toward the two foxes and opened fire. Plasma bolts wized by their heads - one coming within a few inches of Klo'den's head and another passing inbetween Micalio's legs. The group then scattered and took cover behind some crates, while another ran down the ramp.

Chi'ka's Office

After the group had their weapons, Chi'la lead them to teh stairwell, the lights were flickering on and off and the elevator showed that it was offline - a safety mesure to ensure that people don't use it during a potential power situation. "Down, we need to get to B6 and then take the A29 corridor to the ship."

Tapping her wristband, she sent a short-range message to Rozālija

communicator said:

C'Baruce Yoysa, get to your starfighter and get down to the city ASAP. We will need air support shortly.

Click to expand...

NSV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Had the situation not been as serious Micalio would have laughed at the prospect of a moth insulting the other fox but instead nodded and backed off a little as Olffa made some strange movements. Micalio had only known this girl for the best part of an hour and as much as she tried to figure her out the other fox remained a stranger, probably to do with their early life and residence or something but she was pretty funny. Micalio listened as Olffa attempted to reach the crew and request info with a sense of unease, some things were not adding up and she didn't like it one bit.

"Hey I just had a thought, assuming this is a worst case scenario and someone has tried to seize control of the ship, what is the first thing they'd try to disable? Micalio was of course referring to the engineering area of the ship as it was the main power output for the entire vessel, without it only emergency systems would be functioning and they'd be defenseless.

Just as the red haired fox was about to suggest they move to secure it, the three figures came into view followed by the onslaught of plasma rounds narrowly missing the pair. Without hesitating Micalio wrapped her arm around Olffa and pulled them to the ground behind a steel container, temporary cover at best. "I hope that wasn't too hard a fall, but I guess this is worst case scenario after all." She said peeking around the side and firing several shots of her own in retaliation.

Chi'ka's Office , Hallway

Pistol firmly in hand, the Agent was at the ready once she'd exited the office. Flickering lights welcomed her as she angled her ears about to listen. Her tail was no longer swaying and instead was straight and unmoving. If the elevator was out then that meant stairs. Close quarters. Her free hand found itself curling about the handle of her knife which came up in a reversed grip just below the barrel of the Needle pistol. The weapons were drooped a little, ready to snap up and fire. Glancing down the stairwell, and back up to the floor number emblazoned on the wall. It wasn't too far down.

NSV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Olffa made a befangled sneering grimace from her hands and knees, but then quickly reeled it back in again as the logic of the situation struck her. There was just no way that Micalio could still be an enemy or a spy at this point. In fact, the red-haired fox might have just saved their life...

"...It... It depends what they are after." An odd startled tone, but regaining composure as they rolled a little further into the shadow of the metal crates. "Sounded like radio was being jammed, but... Surely it would be easier to hold the bridge crew hostage? Engineering stuff is, like, secret, right?..."

A renewed frown. They really had no way of knowing who the enemy was, or what they were after. But Olffa did have access to her very own engineer.

"Let's... Let's just go to the main power source, like you said!"

CHA-KUNG~!

A scrambling sound, immediately followed by the scrape of dual swords being drawn. The fox hunter had pounced upwards and clung to the top edge of the pile of boxes like it was nothing, rolling up and onto them with a crouch, and making their way along the comparatively gloomy upper surface with their back dragging along the ceiling.

Micalio was already firing, which was good; It kept the enemy in cover. Kept the whole room noisy and distracted.

First enemy that Olffa drew sight upon was predictably too far to simply swing at. A gut reaction slipped her paw down to the pommel of their right-handed Zu'Rel blade, then whipped it forwards in a terrific arc, sending the black-metal boomerang barrelling forwards and toward the loathsome intruder's chest!

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Micalio nodded as the other fox scrambled away, they had a mission now which was to secure the engineering sectoion of the ship to prevent any members of this attacking group from scuttling the ship and leaving them all for dead. Watching briefly as the tail of the security officer swished and disappeared over the top of the crates she smiled, looks like they were quite the acrobat, not surprising after being told about the background of the other fox.

"Alright, lets deal with these ones and head to engineering then." Micalio said, almost cheerily firing a burst of pistol shots straight towards another target. Having noticed them peeking out of cover the opportunity had been siezed and she flicked her tail in excitement.

"And when this is all blown over we have to sit down and have a proper chat, I feel like I barely know you apart from how adorable that statement about sleeping was." Micalio said casually as she took cover and reloaded. As much as it was a serious situation she didn't feel too stressed about it, yet.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Gunfire wasn't a short and hollow slap in an enclosed space, no, it rolled and repeated itself like beckoning thunder. All Shukaren had improved senses which turned the muzzle flares into blinding green splotches of after-images, too, and that was why a great many chose to give up firearms completely and become sword masters... But not Olffa.

Dragged along by a raging heartbeat and deep primitive instincts that drove out all reason, their bounding advance was more like an attack dog than a professional soldier. The soldier whom they had thrown their blade at seconds before had actually blocked it with the stock of their plasma rifle, though the inertia of the great spinning blade embedding itself still left them stumbling backwards. The hunter fox closed the distance in a second, grasped the hilt of their makeshift boomerang once more, and cut a wide bloody gouge across the black-clad intruder's guts using their left-handed Seta'sis, all in one motion.

Closest of the two intruders shambled to get their energy bow ready to counter, but had been confined to the floor by the missing parts of their leg. Removed previously by Micalio's covering fire, Olffa mused for just a split pace, but backing up out of his firing arc anyway...

The third intruder was... A huge Laibe, leaping at the security fox from behind!

Sword hit the metal plating on the floor with a loud crash of sparks, only narrowly avoided by Olffa slamming her back into the container behind them.

They snarled, beaming red eyes from a arrow-head face masked in black camouflage soot.

Olffa snarled back instinctively, but it was a shrill whine in comparison, and immediately met with the larger man's arcing blade.

A sideways dive. Avoided it, but the enemy had such musculature the damn vibrations made Olffa bounce a second time.

Faster, she was. Compact enough to take a beating. But against this kind of enemy? She just didn't have the reach to strike back.

A roll, a kick, and the fox was back to her feet again. Met with a lunging jab, barely deflected by both her crossed blades.

Another slash, another roll.

Fangs bared. Getting tired. Too close to draw their needle pistol again, and the beast of a man made sure it stayed that way.

Olffa had bitten off more than she could chew.

Main Building

The stairwell was rather quiet, if not a little eerry; the dim emergency lights flickered on and off at a set interval. As the group continued down they would star to hear the tall tail signs of fighting, somewhere in the area, as much as Chi'ka wanted to stop and lend an assist to the security personnel they had to get to the base's generator.

After a couple minutes they were on the verge of arriving to the door, when suddenly it was thrown open and two Laibe wearing plain civilian clothing bust through and looked down the stairwell, then up at them. "Open fire!" Chi'ka shouted.

Main Building

As if on cue, the Needle Pistol clenched in the Agent's hand shifted position. The other holding the knife dipped as the almost silent hand-held projectile weapon cut loose even before the Sere'ta'kon shouted to fire. The dimmed red lighting lent a tell-tale sheen to the tiny steel shards. Ay'indri favored the weapon over the older laser pistol. While the weapon was capable of fire in the non-visible end of the EM spectrum it took time to charge then discharge a shot.

With this newer, somewhat bulky replacement the added bonus was what could be coated upon the tiny steel projectiles. In this case, it was a potent, engineered neurotoxin. Developed from some of the most potent strains of the deadly substances on Nesha Prime. And she had personally dipped each one of the three hundred needles in the substance herself. It was cruel, sadistic even, for such a thing caused weakness of the muscles in the arms, legs, and chest to the point of being unresponsive as the nerves also begin to degrade.

Burning in the chest follows the aforementioned effect caused by lack of oxygen as they lose the ability to breathe on their own. Weakness to paralysis and finally asphyxia set in with death soon to follow. If her target was lucky, they'd die from being struck in the vital organs to cause instant or nearly instant death. If not, it was a quick onset if lingering demise.

Micalio had given a silent cheer of joy as her initial volley brought one down the the ground while Olffa managed to finish off a second, it was short lived however as she watched her new friend get jumped from behind. While the security fox had moved out of the firing range of the downed enemy beforehand, she seemed dangerously close to getting back into it. "Olffa be careful!" She instinctively hollered before assessing her choice of proceedings, she could help gang up on the laibe or go finish the downed one who was trying to get a better angle.

With ears and tail twitching Micalio pulled put her knife and hurled it with adrenaline fuelled strength, and furious precision at the assailant on the floor. Moving towards them already to finish them off with the pistol should the knife not do its job and destroy their brain. "Get some distance, I've got you covered!" She called out to the security fox once more as she took a knee and sighted the laibe along the barrel, squeezing the trigger several times to minimise the risk of hitting her friend.

Stairwell

Chi'ka really couldn't hide her surprise when she noticed one of the Laibe crumple to the floor in pain, despite not even being hit in any vital area. Her eyes briefly darted toward the agent, then toward another Laibe that came through the doorway - only to be shot square in the head, resulting a spray of blood and brain matter against the floor and wall. "I don't know what you've done to your ammo," she remarked when she saw a shadow by the door and fired a few shots, causing the shadow to back off. "But whatever it is, it works, and that's all that matters," she grinned - although whether it was a grin of mischievousness or satisfaction was anyone's guess.

"Let's move, proceed carefully toward the door and clear out anyone inside," she gestured toward the Lexicon to watch their six.


SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Maybe it was the Daur's lucky day, or perhap's it wasn't, either way while the two fought against a monstrous of a Laibe, a group of soldiers from the ships security detail came through the door, they ignored the one they were fighting and instead proceeded toward the ramp and opened fire on a group of terrorists that occupied the lower area. "Suppress them!" one soldier shouted.

"Grenade!" another bellowed he pulled a grenade from his bandolla and tossed it.

"Finish that thing off and then join us in mopping up the rest!" another soldier yelled at Micalio and Olffa.

Elsewhere....

The ship that Chi'ka and the others had observed slowly made it's way through the cities tall buildings, then came to a hover over a park, where it landed.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Though the whirling sea of blades and bullets felt like an eternity to Olffa's raging mind, the next few series of motions lasted barely a few seconds. The larger Laibe was caught off guard by Micalio's spree of bullets, but managed to back off and get back behind one of the larger stacks of crates between them.

Finally given an opening to act offensively, the compact fox lept at the intruder. Grasped at the pommel, her straight ebony sword arced right over her shoulder and downwards at full force, hitting his blade on the side with such intensity that it sparked and vibrated loudly. The recoil would have been enough to knock Olffa backwards and kill her momentum, so she just dropped it mid-air and span on her feet...

Another turn, and another. Now she was inside the giant man's defences, spinning her curved sword downwards to throw the inertia of her pirouette into overdrive. Blood splattered from the Liabe's ankle. Olffa darted away again before a returning elbow smashed her head against one of the adjacent panels.

Didn't matter. Four or five paces away once more, and the enemy knew he couldn't catch the whirling kit. He took one shamble forwards with his sword still bared, and Olffa simply unholstered her needle pistol and shot him in the other leg.

"Stop squirming. You already lost your honour. I won." The short fox snarled, taking just a moment to catch her breath, then looking at the continuing firefight erupting deeper into the cargo hold. "If I kill you, I can't take your names for my list..."

They still didn't listen. So Olffa shot another needle into their leading hand, faced towards Micalio, and left worrying about it until later.

"Thank you for the assistance." A nod off appreciation was given to the red-haired one. "He... erm, nearly had me..."

Another spree of gunfire adjacent to them, reminding them of the absurdity of standing around talking. The small fox grabbed their second sword off of the floor, then scabbarded both of them, and hefted up the brass-metal curved blade of their large assailant in both of her hands.

"Come on, let's go..."

Moving down the ramp, she hammer-threw the sword into the first new enemy that emerged. Not quite as large or brave as the thing she had just dealt with, this man simply panicked as Olffa ran forward and sliced across an elbow and a knee.

It seemed like the grenade had already destroyed their hearing, so the next group of enemies turned out to be far easier pickings.

Around and at their flank already, darting from box to box, it was the same basic tactic of letting the engineer cover them. Just had to keep up the momentum and weed the rest out...

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Weeding out the rest might've been easy... had the enemy not brought along some additional firepower. Despite all of the weapons fire, there was a loud rumble as something loud and mechnical moved slowly through the bay, at first the group of soldiers thought it was reinforcements. "Hell yea!" one shouted and boosted their rifle in the air in celebration.... only for the vehicle to fire at them, tearing the top of the body clean off and sending what was left splattering to the ground.

"Holy shit," another soldier shouted and doze behind cover. "Those bastards brought in a A1-35!" the tank, which came to a stop one hundred feet from the group, moved sluggishly about - it's rear anti-gravity pod flaring every so often, the hull looked to be ramshackle but that didn't seem to matter as the main cannon apparently worked.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Olffa immediately skidded on her heels upon this sight, eyes as wide as moons as she dove back into the relative safety of some nearby crates. She was still isolated on the flank, but fortunately could at least see that most of her allies were alive.

-"How the heck did somebody not see that sneaking up to the ship!?"- The fox made a raspy squeak down her communicator. These guys were way more organised and brazen than she could have ever anticipated. -"Micalio, they've got a damn tank!"-

Stairwell

Hand-dipping her ammo ensured reliability and was just a quirk. But it did serve to keep her on her toes. Frankly, she was glad to see the toxin worked. Not that she doubted Or'ion. . . of course not! Ay'indri hadn't dared to take her eyes off the door even as the Sere'ta'kon remarked at the effectiveness of the specially tailored neurotoxin. She was not overly chatty, especially given the situation.

Her pistol was still up while inching toward the waiting door. The knife in her free hand just below the pistol's barrel was still firmly in her grip. Throwing the flashbang made more sense than possibly being ambushed. Quickly sheathing the blade, the Agent pulled the grenade free when she was close enough to the door. Looking to Def'leor, then Chi'ka. Pulling the pin, the grenade-toting Daur bobbed her head once, twice, three times signaling to them, then tossed the thing inside.

Her ears flattened themselves to her skull and waited for the disorienting flash of light and whistling bang from her cover just by the doorframe. Once it had detonated, the knife came back out, her pistol pointed directly ahead with her finger just caressing the trigger, ready to fire.

Stairwell

The moment hte grenade detonated, the door flew off it's hinges, this was followed by a series of secondary explosions that shook the area - there was a brief sound of people screaming but it was quickly silenced. Smoke rolled out of the now destroyed doorway and into the stairwell, as Chi'ka was about to motion them forward, an enemy soldier staggered through the doorway.

If it weren't for how tall they were, they'd never be able to recognize them as a Laibe, their face was mangled, their arms were a mess and their chest looked as if someone had taken a chainsaw to it. This soldier looked up at them for a brief moment before falling over dead, Chi'ka just watched and gestured toward the door. "I don't think that grenade was supposed to do that...." she muttered.

Just then, the group would suddenly hear a loud noise, something that was distinctive and different from what they had just heard.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

There was a loud bang as the tank fired toward one of the overhead walkways, sending a group of friendly soldiers crashing to the ground. One of the enemy soldiers yelled something at the tank, causing it to lower it's gun and aim it toward the ship instead.

A group of enemy soldiers hid behind the tank, using it as cover as they sporadically fired toward Olffa and the rest of the group.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Micalio gave a smile to the other fox as they overpowered the remaining enemies with the help of the newly arrived backup force, "Hey no worries, guess it was a good thing you found me earlier when you did huh. Now lets-" However the red haired fox was cut off as the nearby security member was cleaved in two by the tank shot. Her eyes widened a little as the appearance of the engine of warfare brought back memories of her days in the ground force, the days she had thought were now behind her.

"Oh well, guess the past catches up with all of us. Olffa! Don't bother trying to damage that thing with your weapons it's designed to resist that sort of firepower." With the battlefield adrenaline wearing off her mind was defogging and her engineer training kicked in slowly as her eyes squinted beneath her goggles, assessing the vehicle before them. "Hey! Any of you brought an explosive launcher? Do we have any mounted high caliber turrets around?" The fox asked the friendly team as her head flicker around searching for their instrument of victory.

She had worked with these tanks before, rubbish against anything powerful enough the punch holes in inch thick armour but the sloping meant small arms fire rarely did more than scratch it, and with the main cannon operating they didn't stand much of a chance. "We need to draw its attention away from the ship, and if possible get behind it to land some good shots... if we have a rocket or grenade launcher that is." Micalio took a leap of faith as the barrel was lowering itself and dove across to where Olffa had taken cover to try and form a plan with her and the others.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

"No kidding." Olffa grunted under her breath about the first comment. They didn't have any explosives, and even their needle pistol was anti-infantry.

When Micalio caught up with them, they found the small fox hunkered down in a prone position with their goggles on, only poking out from the bottom corner of some boxes by just a little bit. Having the red haired fox break their position made the woman immediately coil backwards, physically forcing the other woman down to the floor.

"Sleepy, keep your head down!" They might be from some backwater, but Olffa knew some random metal crates were not gonna stop a cannon that big. Crawling around and behind more of the containers, further hiding their position, was the only solution. "...This thing is... It's kinda funny looking... though..."

Complicated thoughts. Their claw-laden fingers were too big for the tiny little buttons on their scopes, so they could barely even get the vision modes working correctly, never mind sending the engineer a video of what they saw. But something about the big rolling box just looked... Kinda off?...

"The blue flames that keep him rolling, they are coming out the back on their own... Don't think it has those small guns like ours, neither?... Looks to me like they made this one themselves..."

Still crawling on their hands and knees. Looking back, encouraging Micalio to do the same. Gotta keep moving.

"We distract that thing, then get behind it and end those on-foot guys rightly... You think you can use their bombs to mess it up?"

It wasn't going to be easy. But they had more security officers around to make a racket for them, so that was at least something.

SNV Furi'Ken
Cargo Hold

Micalio squeaked as she was forced roughly to the floor, "Hey! Be a little more gen-" She started before being forced to keep moving further into the maze of boxes which was the difference between life and death for the pair. Hearing Olffa's observations piqued the engineer's mechanical senses, she hadn't gotten a good look at it earlier but if it was true that the design was acting differently then.

"For now we definitely need to get behind it, if those footmen have explosives they will be our best bet as you mentioned. If you can try to spot any other differences in this tank to the ones we use, if it is hand made like you think it may have a weakness. Well more of them that is." Micalio had risen into a low crouch and was moving further into the crates checking each corner with pistol in one hand and sword in the other as she moved.

The Daur had to fight to suppress a small smile hearing poor Olffa try to describe the tank, it was adorably similar to a child trying to explain it. Moving around through the boxes wouldn't trick them forever however, they needed a plan of action and soon before it simply started firing at random. "Olffa, if it doesn't have the anti-personnel mounts like ours then we stand a good chance of getting close to it if we go from the side, are you ready for this?"