RP: OIF Atuan III [OIF Atuan III] Episode 1: On the Edge

The Space Man was as he was, as he was before.

His frame kept up with the others, moving to close in, but was still roughly a few kilometers behind the bulk of them - enough to dodge and evade anything that started to come his way. This didn't mean the faceless pilot was doing nothing however. The dramatic pose he kept in his cockpit, arms crossed and stoic, was maintained...as he continued to fly the frame with just his feet. At the same time, he did keep an eye on the sensors, as well as how the fight was going. It didn't seem to pick up quiet yet though. As far as he was concerned, it would be an easy-win for the others. Unless of course, something came in to intervene.

He just wouldn't have that of course.

Viktoria frowned at the situation. These Ashigaru were just copes, but they were way better made coppies then clones Atuan team fought before. But Viki has a new machine as well, she felt the surge of speed, or rather imagined it, since acceleration was mitigated withing the cockpit. It was nice though. She fire two more shells and then charged forward at the closest Ashigaru, her gun moving to its waiting position on the back of her mecha. She drew a chainstraigh and opted to keep the other hand empty, hoping to get at the enemy, grab him and then cut him into pieces. Empty hand was a good advantage in close combat like that, she could use it to block and grapple with enemy, while her chain-straight would do its work.

Taela mentally kicked herself for not remembering that she wasn't using solid munitions.

"I miss my railgun. . ." she grumbled, kicking her thrusters into high gear. She kept a close eye on the radar, monitoring the distances precisely so she knew when to start shooting. And if any of them started shooting back? The 5 D's of mecha piloting. Dodge, duck, dip, dive, and. . .

Wait, what the hell am I thinking? she thought, confused as to the stray.

Keeping in mind a similar alliterative mnemonic about co-piloting, Mark had his eyes glued to his own sensors as Taela brought the two of them into what a famous Nepleslian rocker by the name of Benny Sluggins had dubbed 'The Danger Zone'. When they were finally close enough to do some real damage, Mark unleashed upon targets he'd been marking all the way up a blast from the space rocket pods. Full barrage, fired for effect.

Victoria's adversary, despite being blasted back by two well-placed shots, managed to recover from the attack quickly enough to draw its own Chain-Straight, the two moving-bladed weapons clashing in a shower of sparks and bits of metal as they gnashed against one another, but the Ashigaru knockoff had kept its gun at the ready, and, equipped with more built-in weapons than the Garuda, decided to alpha-strike from point blank range. Victoria's frame alerted her to the impending attack, boosting her forward shields and giving her the option to either flee or attempt to simply tough it out. Apparently the pilots of these knockoffs matched the quality of their machines.

Lucien's target also noticed the man drawing his melee weapon, and opted instead to back up, the pilot zigging and Zagging through space in reverse as Lucien slowly caught up with him. Weapons fire raked the Nepleslian's shields, causing warnings as sections began to collapse from repeated hits. the Actor's choice to keep his Carbine active helped him, and he was able to return fire on his target, keeping it from getting too accurate of an aim on him. The Gekido's HUD flashed a suggestion to Lucien, suddenly: Focus fire on the False Ashigaru's extremities, as they were more vulnerable than the enemy Frame's body.

"Heya, Bangarang, would you do something a little crazy for me?" Nora One-Three suddenly asked her frame, as she input a few commands, shuntng power from her shields to boost her thrusters temporarily, closing in for the kill. Unlike the other two who went into Melee, the Freespacer had simply kept her Gauss cannon at the ready, and, despite incoming fire, she charged straight for her enemy, the heavy anti-mecha shotgun firing repeated blasts ahead. The first hit the chest at a glancing angle, flying off but causing the enemy to spin, while the second caught it in the shoulder, and the third blast found a thruster, making it a whirling tilt-a-ride for the pilot who was now desperately tring to regain control of their Mecha.

Teala's boost forward had finally brought her to within firing range, but she now had a problem- all the enemies close enough to fire upon were engaged in fairly close combat with her team members. Victoria was locked in a struggle, while Lucien and his target were moving around at such a fast pace that a missed shot could easily down their ally, and Nora? Well, she was just in the way, directly between Taela and the spinning Pirate Mecha.

Mark, however, found something to do, as Nora's shots had damaged part of her target's communications arrays, destroying some of the anti-hacking equipment; The Backseater suddenly found himself an in which he could use to hack the Enemies' communications, or perhaps even more things, if he tried hard enough.

"Finally!"

Mark's palms just barely brushed the back of Taela's helmet as he interlocked his fingers and twisted his arms outwards to pop the stiffened joints. With the press of a button, a volumetric keyboard slid into view and the hood-rat-turned-journalist-turned-test-pilot-turned-DJ-and-then-back-into-a-test-pilot went to work tapping out a series of commands that brought a shared experience between enemies on both sides of the battle. The music he'd tried to shove down their throats before was no doubt blaring across their communications channels at far too high a volume now. On the other hand, he and his teammates would receive the music (volume lowered to a tasteful level) as mere background to whatever the enemy pilots were saying over it.

While he tried desperately to look up a command to manually eject all magazines from all weapons, Mark muttered giddily, "Alright, before my next trick; let's listen to the turkey's gobble. Sugoi, ne?"

Victoria grinned, this looked like a good fight. Not like mooks, they fought before, these guys actually knew what they were doing. Viki knew what she was doing too though. She kept pushing with her chain straight, she was completely okay with her sword being locked, since it also locked the sword of her opponent. Unlike he though, Viktoria had her other hand free. She balled her armour fist, going forward with good ol' punch in the face. She hoped to damage sensors of the enemy machines, from the punch she wanted to go down with the elbow strike at gun in her enemy's hand to at least knock it away.

Lucien heeded the advice of his tactical computer and stopped firing wildly to start lining up shots at vulnerable points identified. Places where there was a joint, pivot or a join. These places included the knees, hips, elbows, shoulders or and perhaps most protected: the back of the neck.
No matter how well designed the machine was, these areas required a minimum freedom of movement and articulation in order to be most effective on mobility, otherwise you might as well have been designing tanks. In armouring these areas, you lose mobility - which can protect better than any armour with the right pilot.

And the pilots in these armours right now were not those sorts of pilots. He lined up a shot with a retreating Fauxshigaru's right elbow and started firing at it. If he was close enough, he'd slice for the arms to see if he could disable the thing and let it flail and 'bleed out' rather than destroy it outright. If you couldn't fight effectively, you might as well have been dead on the field.

The swings of his sword and bursts of his Carbine at the highlighted vulnerabilities surged him forward as he weathered and tanked more hits. His was made to survive this sort of thing - waddling into melee and soaking the 'smallarms' fire.

"Ugh, you know what? Fine. Screw these guys!" Taela snarled as half the group engaged her friends. She packed away her plasma cannon and switched to the longsword, sizing up one of the remaining units that weren't already in combat. Her mech's thrusters went into full thrust as she charged straight at it. Or so it seemed. The moment she could see it attempting to line up a shot, the neko started zigging and zagging while she held the longsword pointed sideways behind the back of the large machine, as if it were the tail, almost.

Voice chatter suddenly lit up everyone's comms as Mark hacked into their enemy's network, along with the tastefully muted music. "Damn you lazy Satyr pilots!" one of them yelled, obviously aggravated, "Get your asses over here and help us Aries units before these guys kick our asses!" he complained, though there was no way to know which unit the communications were coming from just yet. Mark would have to do a bit more of his wizardry to positively identify individual units. What they did know, however, was that the two new unit types were called Satyr and Aries, respectively, with the Aries being the front-line units and the Satyrs being the ones hanging back by the stricken cargo craft.

For Victoria, the decision to simply stand and fight wasn't as good of one as she had hoped. Though her frame was in many ways superior, the rushed nature in which they had been fielded left her wanting in the weapons department- And while her punch made spectacular contact, smashing the enemy frame's head clean off, just before the Alpha strike landed on her shields. Immediately the frame's shield generators overcooked and began failing, the acrid smell of burning components filling the cockpit while the remainder of the energy and rounds from the strike began to ablate and partially obliterate her Gekido's frontal armor. She and her target were pushed away from one another by the sheer force of the blast, and Victoria was left in dire straights are her sensors began to reset themselves and her frame went through a diagnostic mode to figure out just what did and did not work. Red lights bathed the cockpit as it did this, and the Abwehran could do nothing but listen to the radio and wait until the frame kicked itself back online.

Lucien's targeted attack were producing positive results, however, as the Aries unit he fired upon suddenly lost half of its arm, and with it its main weapon. An enemy pilot swore over the comms, letting the Nepleslian know that his efforts had been noticed. With its target's offensive capabilities compromised (though not completely defeated) Lucien's frame's AI began pointing out the thrusters, suggesting that Lucien should try and restrict his enemy's mobility if he wanted to use the sword to land a decisive blow.

Taela's dash toward the back-line Satyr mecha produced the results she'd intended, bringing her to bear on the enemy frames and allowing her plasma rifle to target the enemies effectively, but, it seemed that the yelling of the pilot from earlier had riled them up, and now all three units began to converge on the frame. "Well it looks like the Aries aren't as good as you'd thought, eh?" one of them quipped to the other pilots, obviously unaware that their communications had been breached. "We got ourselves a little morsel over here to play with while you guys are busy, hehehe~" The three units suddenly went into action, showing off a mobility the Aries units, and even Teala's shiny new Gekido, couldn't match. Her shots, though in range, found themselves flying wild as she and her AI tried to keep up with the Satyr Mecha's wild and fast maneuvering.

"Umm, guys, I think Victoria and Taela might need some help..." Nora noted over the comms, apparently feeling sorry for her dizzy enemy, or perhaps simply distracted by the other goings-on of the battlefield. as if realizing this herself, the freespacer suddenly went into action, pursuing the still-spinning Aries unit (Which in retrospect was probably the pilot doing a lot of yelling earlier) and began firing upon it, her easily distracted mind suddenly remembering that unless she made sure it couldn't continue the fight, the enemy frame would likely come back and hurt them later. still, she had let it get pretty far away, and needed to hurry if she wanted to assist Taela or Victoria.

At this point, he was starting to feel rather awkward.

*****

Much, much earlier:

"So yes, that's what you're being offered for this new job, The Perky Secretary told him. "You've done really well in that vehicle show, doing stunts for the audience and with the silly narratives and stuff, which was really cool!" the Ex-Neko Brunette went on enthusiastically, "And you even got history of actual combat in frames and giant mecha too, so this should be no problem."

"This is all pretty sudden."

"Think of it - it's a lot like a live action Ori-V-Frame where you're getting paid to sit in a real cockpit and blow stuff up! Practically a good opportunity to get a bigger salary for only a little bit more work," she encouraged him. It didn't take much more to get him to sign up on it. After he left, Yoshiko looked over the volumetric papers that she liked. "Huh. That's odd. Did I mix some of them up?" One set was a job application for a live action giant-mecha series test, to see if the concept was workable and such. The other was for an actual field team. She sighed. "I'll figure this out sooner or later."

*****

Much, much later:

The Space Man sat in the cockpit wondering if he was going to get any instructions over the comms from the director. The way that things seemed to be going, it was as though this was more like a reality show rather than a show with a set script. As he watched, his suspicion crept along, a wave of uneasy realization washing over him; they were using real weapons. There was no way that they were somehow going to actually frag some real frames to make the show all the more realistic. Then again, this was Origin. They had the money to do it. "Think of it - it's a lot like a live action Ori-V-Frame where you're getting paid to sit in a real cockpit and blow stuff up!" the secretary's voice chimed in his mind. And not just that, but these guys did seem like they were acting way over the top. Like, as if some audience somewhere was going to be watching.

If that were the case...

"Eh, why not?" Bringing the throttle to full, the stark white suited pilot rapidly closed as he took aim with the rifle. "Fall back and help that Abwehran babe while I keep them busy, uh -" he quickly glanced at the HUD and the nametag of the one he was talking to, " - Taela. We got to focus on a few at a time or they'll overwhelm us." The resident Neko soon found streaks of autocannon fire lancing in to try and batter away the enemy frames on her. Doing his best to grab their attention and keep them busy, the pilot's frame kicked out its legs and fired its verniers to spin it about far faster in the zero-g they were fighting in, bringing his main thrusters around to suddenly dash in a different direction. The frame was moving in an erratic pattern, weaving in and out of the enemy's weapon range as the 75mm autocannon fired off short bursts at them.

Inside the cockpit, the harness strained as he was starting to get tossed back and forward in the pilot seat from the maneuvers.

Viktoria's fist hit against the screen as all went balck and reboot signals showed up. She snarled and then grinned as she realised that she was still alive and that there were no attacks coming against her for-now lifeless machine. She tried to help the systems with re-calibration as mcuh as she could, because she wanted to get back into the fight asap.

"So hey, good news," She voiced over the radio, which was pretty much only working system on Blitzkrieg. "I am still alive, and this new machine can take full barrage from Ashigarut. Anyway, my systems are rebooting, but I bet the guy that shot me is out of powers. Few shots in the cockpit should solve him, so if enyone has free hands, be my guest!"

Mark set an algorithm to do a man's job. Or rather, he just told the EWS on he and Taela's machine to isolate individual frequencies and make note of each one it found with a little symbol on the sensor display. Individual naming would be impossible, but at least the flashing blip on the map would be the talking one-- in theory. This was the kind of thing you did on the fly, improvising when long-term problem solving was best used on the rash of Aries encroaching upon the only thing between yourself and the vacuum.

Besides, it'd been a while since Markus had fired off one of those space missiles. Maybe, since he could control them independently, they might be just maneuverable enough to keep up with the wily high-speed frames. So, the Battle-DJ fired off a couple and sent them right for the nearest Satyr, still not ready to sweat over them.

"Damnit, damnit, damnit, damnit, DAMN IT!" Taela cursed as she tried to keep up.

This is one of those times where she wished she had the tech Shlock had so 'graciously' loaned her during her stay at Communion Base. Oh, the things she could do with black-market grade processors augmenting her thinking. Still, she had none of that, so it was time to resort to the next best thing.

Taela cracked open a small bottle she had stashed away in the cockpit and fished out a pill. She was quick to swallow it, her helmet on-and-off in mere seconds. It didn't take long for it to kick in, and the neko could feel the Panick expanding her consciousness.

"Alright you bastards, come and get me!" She snarled. Noting that one of her companions decided to join the fray, she turned her attention towards collaborative efforts. "Weirdo! Scissor attack! Cut them with fire from both sides!"

She didn't wait for a response, and instead shot at whatever he was aiming at.

Time to go in for the kill, Lucien thought as he closed the gap with his target. Thrusters were an ideal target, and with some deft slices and shots, he removed those either by shooting them apart at the legs, or on the shoulders and back. With nowhere else to go, he attempted to plunge the HEAT sword into the enemy frame's midsection. He remained rather quiet over the communications save for a grunt of exertion as he made the thrust.

Then there were cries for help on the Communications. Viki needed a hand. He made a note to move to assist the Abwehran once he had drawn his sword from the enemy frame. Mark was already moving to assist Taela after all. "Hang on a tick I got ye," he said as he tried thrusting away to draw his sword faster, and pointed the carbine at whatever was assailing Blitzkrieg.

Victoria's would be met with a few electronic whirrs for a moment or two as Blitzkrieg finally finished rebooting, the volumetric displays and screens suddenly flickering to life giving her a clear picture of what was going on, as well as the end of a diagnostic which showed all of her frontal armor having been ablated down to 20% of normal, but somehow motor functions had not been affected, meaning she could move freely now. Her enemy appeared just in front of her, and while it was apparently still active, the front of it was even more melted than Victoria's armor was. It was immobile, but the pilot was still alive.

Mark's algorithm worked quickly as the frame's computer set it in motion. Each enemy unit was flagged as a different color, and each little symbol started flashing as comm chatter went on (mostly it was the Aries pilots yelling at the Satyr pilots to stop messing around). All that was just background to the DJ-turned-backseater, as he concentrated on piloting the missile he had fired. The Nepleslian's guess had been correct, and the he found the missile capable of tracking the enemy, but he also found it very difficult to maneuver at the very edge of its envelope- More time would be needed before he could land the guided munition on a target.

Taela and the white-suited newcomer to the crew managed to somehow target the same enemy, landing some solid hits on the unit's shields before it slipped out of their firing solutions, boosting off in a different direction entirely with a bit of a "Whoops! almost got me!" over the comms followed by a much to unconcerned bit of laughter. "Hey, these two can almost shoot for something!" he joked over the comms before zigging and zagging his frame recklessly at the white-suited pilot's frame, coming in too close for comfort and slashing at the Origin mech with its oversize stabbing implement.

Lucien's charge, and his shots, sang home just as he'd desired, the enemy Aries unit starting to break apart at the joints as it was further immobilized, its pilot yelling for mercy over the comms, but with Lucien's HEAT sword plunged into the frame's midsection, those please turned into a shout of fear and pain which quickly subsided. Lucien's frame used its foot to comply with the pilot's desire to remove the sword, the Aries sliding off easily and laying still, lazily spinning off into space.

Nora's race to her target ended just as suddenly as it began, and the enemy pilot seemed to notice but couldn't seem to do much about it aside from call for help over the comms, with a very loud "Dammit you assholes are gonna pay for this when we get back to base! Quit loafing around and come get me!" Suddenly Nora one-three noticed a warning on her screen- one of the Satyrs had gotten away from the rest and actually had made a beeline to help his comrade, suddenly injecting itself between the Stricken Aries and its Gekido assailant. "Unh-unh!" they teasted the Freespacer, despite not knowing she could hear, and forcing her to abandon her previous objective and instead fire at the new enemy. "Uhh, guys, those things are a LOT faster than we thought!" she noted, quite obviously, realizing that she should probably prepare for Melee, but realizing she had forgotten to equip any Melee weapons.

"Uh-Oh..." she thought to herself, holding up her Gauss cannon and hoping it would be enough to stop the incoming blade.

"Ha ha ha," Viktoria laughed evily as her controls came back online. Blitzkrieg was not in best shape, but at least it could move, unlike its adversary. "Gutte nacht du shweinhund!" She added as she grabbed her chain-straight and charged at the enemy. She was ready for the enemy to come online, or only fake it so she went in at the angle. She wanted to take it out while keeping the pilot alive. Best for that was to get its power source out and she needed to use her sword for, so that is what she went for. Hopefully the power source would be similiar as original Ashigaru was. If not, she would have to hack the frame's limb off and there would be no time for that.

"Retreat back to us, don't engage alone!" Viki said over comms to Nora and sped up so she could go and help the freespacer as fast as she could.

"We know not from where his name came, but he naturally faces magnetic north." - Top Cog (Origin Vehicle Show)

After learning how to fight in a frame, certain things became instinct. People knew to watch out for this when they saw that, and so forth. It was that kind of thing. So when he saw the enemy frame with a bladed weapon, he already knew it was only sooner or later that it'd come right at him with it, and followed his guts. Pulling the autocannon rifle closer to himself, it was fired in short bursts one handed as the targeting computer started to help - the white pilot made to keep his enemy dodging and bleeding off speed as his own machine tilted back and fired its thrusters to buy time and further slow its approach. Flying in reverse this way for just a bit, the Space Man drew his chain-sword and waited for them to near. Slowing the enemy's approach this much, he only needed a mere touch to deflect the enemy blade while he dodged to the side.

And finally mag-dump the frame if he was lucky.

Markus took his tongue to a lip and tasted the sweat he wasn't sweating yet as he continued to press on controlling the missile manually. If it was going to take surgical precision, he might as well get used to it. Mark bopped his heat to the beat of the music as he tilted his head with the representation of the missile's view on his sensors. As he neared his target, the DJ took a moment to think about where he wanted that missile to land. After giving it a full moment's consideration, he began angling for the most annoying part of the agile enemy frame: the thrusters. After all, the most effective medicine is always taken rectally. And forcibly. And in combat.

In the moments following the enemy commentary on her own attacks, something inside of her snapped.

Taela had tried so desperately hard since she got back from working for Shlock to maintain her anger and keep her temper under control. So many times where she had to leave the room because it just wasn't worth continuing the conversation. She'd hoped having Mark fly with her would keep her in check, somehow his coolness able to rub off on her.

This was no longer the case.

"RrrrgghhhhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" She roared, unsheathing her sword in her frame's free hand and blasting full throttle towards the nearest enemy. Her frame's main gun and two smaller built-ins blasted fully as she charged them, blazing a firey trail while she hunted them down.