RP: OIF Atuan [OIF Atuan] Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Yoshiko, now is not the time to talk about stupid mistakes." Taela coldly grumbled, staring at the back of the Freespacer's head in front of her. "As some would say, it is time to put our 'game faces' on."

The Nekovalkryja paused for a moment, thinking of something to pass the last few moments of the car ride with.

"I would much like to know how a Freespacer such as yourself managed to get a job here, sometime after this disaster is averted." She asked the driver, drumming her fingers on an arm rest.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

The Freespacer smiled back at Taela, not realizing the car had a rearview dashboard camera instead of a windshield-mounted mirror.

"Of course, anytime, perhaps over a drink? But I can tell you the short of it now, the answer is simple enough; I applied."

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Lucien, now finding that it was just him, Meena and Shinji, put his legs up on where Async was sitting, and stretched them out.
"Oy," He asked either of them, "Tell me 'bout yerselves, bein' tamers fer these big metal beasties."

He took a small flask from inside his jacket and took a swig, knowing that things were going to get interesting, "Meself, just a wonderin' mercenary, trained that way fr'm when I was able tae walk."

He breathed heavily, sniffing the air, "I didn't 'mount tae much. Ended up as an Actor on a sec'nd rate Yamataian soapie," He became surprisingly sombre, this was either practised, or genuine. It was both "then on th' final day 'o filming, whisked intae all this?" He paused for a moment, before sniffing again and burying his head, sounding like he was sobbing and breaking down into tears.

However, the sobbing quickly turned into laughter, still muffled, "Tell ya wot, though!" There were tears of joy on his face, "I feel useful again! Alive! And I owe it to ya! ... alas," He slowed his pace, "Poor 'Oyu', I suppose Oi'm a bit of a unwelcome shock to ye..."

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Hai, hai." Yoshiko replied. The Ex-Neko had been chewing on the last bit of steak she'd hurriedly picked up on the way out, but now she had another dilemma; there was a big piece of the food stuck between her teeth, and she just couldn't get rid of it. Plus, Yoshiko didn't want to reach into her mouth and get at it with a nail either...nails! Those were something new too. 'These are way better than not having nails in my old body! I can clip them, I can paint them and all sorts of stuff. And they help open up stuck containers and things. ' she absentmindedly thought. Speaking of nails, this lead to another topic that made her a little uneasy. 'What ever happened to the Zesuanium claws I brought back? I kinda left them there....'

Trying to ease the tension a bit, she turned over a little and asked the redheaded Freespacer something. "Async? What was your home like?"

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"My home?" she asked rhetorically, "my home was a ship... a fleet" she struggled to describe something that had been taken for granted over the years, yards of text spooled through her implants comparing her life to various texts and a dictionary, "it was... clean... warm... everyone knew each other, like one big family... I believe you would use the word 'cozy' ... I'm not sure how to properly describe it all, you'd have to visit sometime..." answering the question seemed to have sparked her own curiosity, "what was your fleet like, Tachibana Yoshiko? and why did you join Origin?"

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Yoshiko sat back into her seat and relaxed, letting the memories slowly come back to her. The ex-neko remembered the clean halls. The faces. The kind captain in particular. And then they came. She quickly quashed those ones away. 'The others are saying I shouldn't think about it. I shouldn't think about it. I shouldn't think about it...' And then there was the time after the ship.

"I remembered a clean, orderly ship where everyone was the size of giants. They could hold me in their hands like a little doll. And the dolls I played with were as big as me." She smiled. "The kind faces and smiles. And then....and after the ship, there was our new home on Yamatai proper. It was just a small house farther away from the city." Yoshiko looked up as though in thought, and leaned over to Async, "Psst, I know we're about to fight, but do you still have friends from your old home?"

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

It all happened so quickly. Before Yoshiko could even finish her question, the road in front of the first hovercar, which contained Meena, Shinji, and Lucien, exploded upwards in a bright eruption of superheated materials, the shockwave from the explosion knocking the caravan back a few meters, the first hovercar smashing into the second one which contained the two Nekos, the irradiated freespacer, and always unlucky Nepleslian. As the Hovercars skidded to a halt, two vaguely wedge shaped drones rose out from the hole, hovering down to where the vehicles had come to a halt. Following them out of the hole was something completely different.


It was tall, larger than the Ashigaru that the pilots had on Kennewes, with two wing like projections on its back; coupled with a long, rectangular tail-like binder in the center of its back. It was obviously similar to the Ashigaru, though it was slightly more streamlined, with the obnoxious shoulder pads replaced with a roomier pauldron, with inbuilt thrusters. The thing was painted green, black, and a light blue, and it seemed to have more than double the armament, with two gleaming auto cannon barrels on the forearms, both of them pointed at the Hovercars carrying the Atuan's Frame Team.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Lucien hardly expecting this sort of resistance on the way to the frames was in a bit of a tizzy, since he'd sustained a few bruises in the crash. However, he didn't have time to feel pain - for now at least. Explosions had primed him to get serious.

He booted his door open, jumped out and observed the towering Frame looming down on the team from behind the damaged vehicle. The Scotsman swallowed a lump in his throat.
"Aren't we suppose tae be ridin' in them?" Lucien observed as withdrew his 10mm Pistol, pulling the side back and priming it for fire.

"And why the fookin' hell are they shootin' at us?" He grumbled again as he looked at the drones floating towards him.

However, he needed something with a bit more kick than a dinky pistol if he wanted to fight this mean beastie - but the little drones looked easy enough to shoot if the others pitched in. He unloaded a magazine of ammo into one of them with reasonable accuracy, making ten shots connect.

He then pulled the car door open for Shinji and Meena to escape from. There was no use staying in one place if it was going to attack them.
"C'mon, no time tae waste! It's gonna blow us up!"

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Ya got it" Shinji responded to Lucien, idly watching Meena as she evacuated the vehicle herself.

"Oi, I got an Idear!" I he yelled, pulling out his RPB and tossing the gun to Meena, who seemed to understand what he meant by it, and she started shooting at weaker points such as joints and sensors. The explosions of the HE rounds were quite a bit more fantastic than the 10mm rounds Lucien had unloaded onto the Frame.

Meanwhile, Shinji started the Ocelot back up, and set the autopilot to crash the vehicle into the Kirin's chest, then he climbed up onto the hood, busily removing a few small pieces of plastic explosives and fuses from his pockets while the car accelerated.

Shinji realized that this had not been one of his better ideas when the Car managed to impact, throwing the Yamataian forward onto the Kirin's shoulder, where he landed with a dull thud and an "OOMPPF!" that knocked the wind from his lungs, stalling him momentarily.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Big explosion! Big enemy! Big guns!" the ex-neko nervously prattled that out as she tugged at the others to run away with her as well. She was bruised up from being tossed around like canned goods in the middle of a 'buy everything before the bombs fall' moment. Yoshiko's head was also cut somewhere, and a small stream of blood was snaking into her eye; it flinched and blinked rapidly in response to the small flow.

Before the frightened girl could do anything, the others were already ahead of her; Lucien, Meena and Shinji were already shooting at it and hitting even! 'Wait..the shield! It forgot the shield?!' Yoshiko was galvanized by her friends' courage, and quickly took cover off to the side and hammered back at the Frame's sensors with her own sidearm. Her pistol started to bark.

Bip. Bap. Bam!

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Shinji's crazy idea had surprisingly managed to work, the force of the hovercar's impact disrupting the Kirin's balance just as it began to fire. The unexperienced parasite pilot was unable to compensate for the sudden shift as the hail of rounds from both forearm weapons went wide, the wildly moving arms causing, through a stroke of sheer luck, a hail of autocannon rounds to impact both of the Kirin's accompanying drones, causing them to explode in a conflagration of color and flame.

The towering frame stumbled back, joints weakening as the withering fire from the pilots took their toll, the Kirin visibly appearing to have a harder time standing.

Off, in the distance, the pilots could hear the sounds of something big coming closer.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

As Yoshiko slapped her last magazine of 10mm into her pistol, she called out, "Something big's coming! Should we run already?" The young ex-neko took cover, and looked for the source of the sound, but couldn't immediately locate it over the prattle of their small arms. "Last mag, I hope we're not pushing our luck!" She popped up from cover again and continued to shoot at whatever optics she could find. Watching them get damaged and destroyed so easily, Yoshiko couldn't help but think to herself despite the life threatening situation she was in. 'Maybe, maybe I should finish the sensor modules I was working on...'

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Async placed her shots carefully, aiming the SEP like she was back home in a training simulator, taking a perfect stance next to the Ocelot she'd climbed out of, knowing full well a single round from the Kirin's autocannon would be her and everyone else's end. It didn't make much sense to run for cover when those shells could punch through everything she was within running distance of. The low-powered energy blasts flew at the Kirin's elbows, paying attention to the arm it seemed to be favoring.

"This pilot isn't too good, but if we run, we won't make it-" Tszap. The freespacer left out the last part of her statement, leaving it for her thoughts only 'and if this bastard has backup we won't make it standing here either.'

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Taela sat where she was, dazed a little. The car crash had given her a hard jolt to the head, nearly giving her a concussion. By the time she had fully recovered, the enemy Kirin was having a freakout. The Neko resolved to jump out of the vehicle, taking cover behind it while she drew her energy pistol.

"Of course I had to take the standard issue laser pisol. . ." She grumbled, before peering up and firing at the mecha. Taela then called out, "We've got to get moving! The more we hang around here, the less station we have to defend!"

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Som'ow," Lucien grumbled in Taela's direction whilst slapping a new magazine into his 10mm pistol, "Yer right. These Yammie types dinnae how t'keep a shotgun in their trousers, and not just 'yer' shotgun'. I mean handcannons, rockets 'n..."

He poked up out of cover as he was rambling to see Shinji on the frame, and watching the two wedge-shaped drones get smashed to pieces and thrown around. He then put his head back down, "... cripes, seems like Meena 'n Shinji are gettin' right stuck into it!" He poked back up and levelled his weapon with the Autocannon, "'n 'ooever's piloting that thing is inbred!"

He was aiming to mess up the cannon, and he had full metal jacket rounds loaded, and let his pistol do the talking - a few shots did go wide, but most of them hit home. However, he didn't exactly have a plan for whatever was around the corner.

"Now, I pray tae th' maker that 'ooever that is, is Kelly, 'er Backup," He mumbled to nobody in particular, "Otherwise, we run like fock."

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

Shinji shook his head, realizing just how bad an idea he had just had. SEP blasts were flying around him as people missed, and Ricocheted 10mm bullets were also whizzing past him. Not a good idea.

Quickly, the Demolitionist planted one small charge on the Frame's neck, and then another on one of the wings, before trying to find his way down the backside of the machine.

He succeeded in hopping down a couple of points as the machine flailed but eventually he was bucked off like it were a bronco, and the Yamatain was sent flying. To the ground. Which was metal. And Solid. The resulting snap of the man's leg was loud enough for the others to hear, even with an enemy in the way, and Shinji cried out in agony while hurriedly trying to pull himself away, hoping he wasn't too close when his bombs went off.

******

Meena fired until the RPB she had been given was out of ammunition, before pulling out her own 10mm pistol and flinging slugs at the enemy frame. Hopefully they would be able to hurt it. Whatever that loud noise was, she could ignore, lest the present enemy regain itself and kill her.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

As Meena's RPB fire ran out, it became increasingly apparent that the only thing actually doing any sort of meaningful damage to it was the RPB. Now, even with all the 10mm rounds on Dawn Station, the pilots of the Atuan couldn't do anything to even faze the Kirin.

And then Shinji's bombs went off, small explosions ripping into armor, shearing through connecting joints as one of the Wing Binders was roughly disconnected from the NMX controlled Kirin, dropping to the ground with a resounding THUNK that was overshadowed by the growing noise. By now, the noise was loud enough that someone would have to yell to be heard over it. And then the source of it came into view.

Well, it wasn't so much "Came into View" as it was "The Atuan just rammed itself into the Kirin, with Kelly's Asura surfing on top of the ship". The force of the impact, combined with the ship's shielding and the unsteady posture of the Kirin forced it into the air, leaving it open for Kelly's Asura to draw the long, straight blade at its side and jump into the air, the vibration and chainsaw enhanced cutting edge catching on the sizable hole made in the Kirin's neck by Shinji and cleaving down through the body of the frame, exiting the torso near the left hip. In one swoop, thanks to Shinji and Meena, the Kirin had ceased to be a threat. Not only was the NMX Zombie in the cockpit(along with the entire cockpit) now only recognizable as hamburger, but the IAPD had been damaged, causing it to explode as Kelly's Asura landed where the Kirin had formerly been menacing th- No, menacing HIS pilots, the sword safely back in it's scabbard. Smiling to himself, Kelly keyed up his frame's loudspeakers.

"Well, Looks like we got here just in time. How're you all holding up?"

The Atuan had landed, the bay doors opened to reveal new gear for the pilots: the three remaining Asura, and two of the same kind of frame that just attempted to kill them.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Haha! Awesome Shinji!" She giggled, her final shots stating to go wide. For Yoshiko, explosions were fun. Really, really fun. Oh, and taking things apart and putting them back together. Though, with the former, she learned when they weren't fun very quickly; it was namely when oneself was too close to the blast. Even though the Atuan had smashed the enemy frame away from them, even though the friendly frame looked really cool when it did all that, the following explosion was enough to knock Yoshiko on her fanny and then some. "Ohh...my head..." the Yamataian moaned, finally getting up on her wobbly legs.

She winced in pain as Kelly spoke over his frame's loudspeakers, the words hammering down on her head. 'Was it the explosion, or maybe ordering that drink? Maybe drinking the same stuff, even a little, that Mr. Greer did wasn't such a good idea.' Now that her booze cherry was popped by a single long gulp of vodka, Yoshiko could feel a bit of a blush on her face, as well as the most curious urge to...do things. She looked long and hard at the frame closest to her. Yoshiko pointed an accusing finger at one of the empty frames and opened her mouth again. "DIBS!"

Before anyone could stop her, she was already halfway up her Kirin.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

"Mother 'o-" Was all that was able to exit Lucien's piehole as the explosion of Shinji's demolition charges tore the Kirin a new one. He had kept steady from the blast by staying behind cover.

However, he noticed that the noise he'd originally planned as something around the corner was getting too close for comfort, and he poked his head up with pistol raised in curiosity.
"Oh mah giddy aunt," He swore as he watched Kelly's display of swordsmanship and reckless abandon, cutting the opposing Kirin in twain whilst riding on the Atuan. He summed up his thoughts succinctly, "That was fookin' ace."

The Atuan then landed, and invited the crew to plunder the goods inside to go forth tokick some arse. This was an offer the Scotsman couldn't refuse. He walked towards Shinji and lifted him up in a fireman's carry on the way there.

"C'mon Shinji, we got us some arse tae kick!" He brashly assured his team mate as he walked towards the Atuan in a carry, "And we're gonna do it in these wee metal beasties! I got dibs on one of those ones, tho',"

He pointed to an Asura which had his 'name' on it. He just had to paint it his native colours next time he got an opportunity to. Now wasn't the best time.

Re: Episode 3: The Terror Attacks at Dawn!

It was a miracle that the Kirin's 'wing' did not smash Shinji. it seemed he had managed to get far enough away to be safe from it. He didn't even notice the fact that it had been destroyed, so lost was he in the pain of his leg, until Lucien picked him up and he saw the Atuan. With a grunt of pain, the Yamataian answered the Nepleslian, a bit angrily "AUGH DAMMIT MAN, MY FOOKIN LEG'S CRONKED! DON'T YA KNOW HOW TA SPLINT OR SOMMAT?" He would have struggled, but that would have caused more pain.

******

Meena made her way to the Atuan once it opened up, Stopping in front of one of the Kirins. "Lucien, Bring Shinji over here, this one's a two-seater. I'll take care of him." the younger girl seemed to be more alive than normal with all the action going on. Part of her was terrified, but she felt more vibrant than when everything was going well.

******

Before she could do anything about Shinji, However, the Atuan's doctor rushed out, and started yelling at Lucien, to the same tune as Shinji was yelling. "Why did you move him! You're making the fracture worse! Put him down so we can stabilize his leg and let it heal properly!"

As soon as Lucien did so, the medic began working, ripping off shinji's pant leg (A few tears came from the Yamataian's eyes as this happened, but not from the pain) and then the doctor gave Shinji some local painkillers, and pulled out two short rods from their pocket, which they extended into a set of braces sized for Shinji's Leg. Next, the doctor straightened Shinji's leg out to a normal looking shape, and tied the braces to his leg to keep it stable.

"I Hope you don't think he's going with you guys." the Doc stated, as two more crewmembers came out with a stretcher. Shinji would have protested, but the local anesthesia wore off (damn Yamataian body!) and Shinji fainted from the pain. The man was transferred to the stretcher, and within moments, had disappeared into the bowels of the small ship.

******

Meena looked a bit stunned. "Well, I'll need a backseater for the Kirin. You will too, Yoshiko" the brown-skinned girl stated, somewhat dumbfounded.