RP: 188604 [Star Wasp] 7: The Hate Machine

Underground Complex

The blast wave would easily overpower Uso's shields, picking up the impuse power armor and sending it flying backward. The neko righting herself with a few quick blasts from her maneuvering thrusters before coming to a skidding halt, kicking up dirt from the floor as she came to a standstill. In moments she was running back towards the front.

"Alex, take out the remaining tank and see if you can do it without bringing the whole complex down."

Uso would run past the T intersection where the first tank was, and stop short of exposing herself to the second tank. Instead she'd drop her datapad... which was toast... and then drop her rifle along side it, largely due to the toast-like-properties the weapon had.

"Vier, mind clogging that tank up with my drones?" Uso asked, not having a better way of setting up the command.

The few camera drones that were built into her backpack would detach and fly forward, rounding the corner and heading right towards the enemy tank. One would attempt to travel down the barrel of the cannon and jam itself inside, while the others would move to float right infront of the vehicle's optics, doing their best to blind it through body-blocking.

Akemi really didn't get why there needed to be so much violence on their part. "Why don't we choose a different pathway? It's not like it's chasing us and we've got one open passage, possibly the one Alex shot down and the one with the shut door. Maybe mech guy could have blasted that one open with his giga laser if he hadn't spent it on murdering a tank baby just doing what tanks do. Heck, how tough are these walls? Maybe we could make our own passage."

Underground Complex

Corgan covered his eyes and recoiled in pain as the light from the explosion hit his cybernetic eyes, which were in full night vision mode. He was in the very back so the explosion did minimal damage to his shield. If he knew how close Uso had come to slamming into him, he would have been even more pissed. "Shit, Alex, maybe a little warning before you turn on the damn sun?" He cursed angrily. If his eyes were real he probably would have been blinded for a few minutes."And try not to collapse the tunnel on top of us."

His eyes were already recovering from the sudden pyrotechnics. Corgan rolled his eyes at Akemi. "Murdering a baby tank? The fucking thing just tried to kill us, man! I don't respawn like you do, you know. To me dead is dead." He considered Akemi's idea of making their own passage. "Not sure putting any more holes in this place is such a good idea. I'm no engineer, but I think it looks a little unstable down here. Let's just kill the tank and get moving."

"Sorry!" Alex called out.
Disheartened by the incident, Alex decided to forgo ranged combat altogether. Dashing down the corridor, Alex sent the mecha into evasive patterns until he reached the tank. Upon doing so he brought the fists of his mecha down upon the barrel of the tank like a hammer, and then reached down to the treads in order to attempt to tear them out.

Meanwhile: Arccos makes Progress.

As battle raged ahead in the tunnels, Arccos was busy in two different areas. First was in the mop-up. Continuing to breach and take down each system she could find. Jumping from one ramshackle connection to another. It wasn't exactly hard, but the sheer number of systems taken down at this point was perhaps a little worrying. They needed every ounce of protection they could get right now. There was something odd that they were just shutting down everything and not rebooting and bringing it back online. Even this old kit could be completely reformatted in quick order. Still, not much of it was coming back online.

The portal escape had been a bluff, if this was the only portal down here. There was things they had on the surface maybe? But then, what were they doing... She needed to get in there.

Behind the group in the tunnels, the Codetalker unit behind them leading its small team of junkers took some steps back. Heading for one of the blast shutters down a side corridor. Clutching a cable from underneath its white dustcloth later, it jacked itself physically into the interface panel. A battery of security probes worming their way into the lockdown protocols and forcing the door to slide open to reveal one of the damaged elevator shafts.

"Back door." Arccos said through the Codetalker's flat sounding voice emulator.

Underground Complex

"BUSY!" Uso shouted, watching Alex dash past. She would wait a fraction of a second before giving chase, rocketing down the hallway, staying as far up off the ground as possible with long powered leaps,

"DAMNIT ALEX SHOOT THE FUCKING TANK!"

Meanwhile, their fighter escort had finally dislodged itself, and began moving down the large corridor, heading towards Alex and the final tank.

Dire Straights

The darkness disguised the true length of the corridor, but when Uso's drones finaly reached the target a full minute later, they recorded a distance of greater than 300 feet. Lumbering to pen down the tiny objects speeding towards it, the guidance laser twitched uncontrollably from the intruder's point of view. The machine ended up firing an anti-tank shell almost blindly as Alex's Gekido barged into the opening several hundred paces back, and ended up showering him with large shards of broken stone.

It had more than enough time to reload, and the corridor was only about 30 feet wide, giving Alex practically no room to dodge as he made his approach. He was running into the black.

Still a few seconds away, Uso's drones observed a shell half the size and thickness of a human leg depart the side of the unit, internals thumping mechanically as they prepared another shot.

Fire, everywhere. Wind blast was enough to buffet Uso backwards no matter how hard the impulses' engines resisted. The tunnel was turned bright orange by three dozen thermite bomblets, ejecting from the barrel as a specialized canister round, and colliding with the walls all around in a catastrophic funnel of death. Probably intended for the drones, but it was the Gekido who got it in the face, determined as they were to get into close combat.

Drones were toasted just by proximity to the inferno, but they certainly did their job of distracting it. Ammo choice was completely wrong. Alex slammed into the tank at full speed, his mecha's mono eye smashed, armor blackened in large streaks all over. But intact.

Hand to hand combat was challenging, seeing as the thing was basically the same size, but lying down. It attempted to back off, but one of his fists caught the end of the barrel. Probably for the best to throw it's aim off, but the heavily armoured beast was not giving up so easily...

Not to mention the fact Akemi's drones had confirmed Alex was now punching a walking nuclear reactor.

Sneaking Around The Back

Dilapidated as the freight elevator was, it was apparently still functional. There were dusty track marks everywhere. The codetalker's interface was so successful, however, it not only opened the doors, but managed to do it completely undetected.

Ninety feet wide, the massive hexagonal stone tube was lit up by two blue-glowing openings on the far side, albeit both blocked by corners that prevented the unit from seeing any deeper. That still meant there was power, through, and that meant they must be getting close.

Strange, through. No sign of manual controls or hoisting cables. The larger of the two openings was easily the right size for one of those enemy walking tanks, but they apparently weren't going to the center of the lift. Their imprints lead right up to a pair of metal strips that ran all the way up the side of the passage, on which the wear marks continued upwards, vertically...

Underground Complex

"Wow guys, just gotta murder everything ever eh?" Akemi said over the radio, not really caring about the explosion as it wasn't his problem. "It's got a giant nuclear reactor in back. Why can't we just leave it alone?" While the Neko spoke he snapped his mystery Spacer launcher to his suit and took out his sword to give the wall next to him a two handed swing to see just how sturdy it was.

A thought came to Akemi as he swung his Zesuaium katana. "If you guys get out of the way I could try firing a shot from my whatever launcher to see if it'll help. Maybe it's a super anti machine weapon. Maybe it'll let me control the thing."

"Ooh!" he exclaimed at the sound of the Codetalker's voice. "Never mind, we can just follow our Spacer guys."

Alex's monoeye had been hit. Switching over to his auxiliary sensors, He held the tank down with one hand and activated his remaining plasma pistol/saber, as the other one had been lost along with the original right arm of the craft when he had first woken up.
Now that he had a suitable weapon for the task, Alex targeted what looked like the tank's main control center, lashing out with the weapon.

Intersection

The front and top armor of the giant metal spider glanced the blade, resisting the initial slash, treads turning and almost throwing the Gekido off balance. Being a pure ground vehicle with lead shielding all over it meant it just plain weighed more than Alex's vehicle, and thus had more pushing power. Eventually, his saber found a place to puncture through the side mid-drag, causing a gout of pressurized water to suddenly explode out of the top of the spider.

Like a real arachnid, it seem to rapidly deflate and curl up as the hydraulics bled out. Unlike a real arachnid, it also started getting very hot. Glowing orange, in fact.

Rail Tunnel

Truffleclub was acting strange. Instead of following either Akemi or the Codetalker, they just seemed to be staring off into the black, down the tunnel that departed from the rear of their location. Explosions in the distance from the giant mecha fight were bad enough, but there was now also a rather distant rumbling sound bearing down on their location. From the main room ahead?... No, from behind... The twin tracks below their feet were beginning to vibrate.

"Akemi-cat... Automata friend... Mistewr Cor-gun." A low voice grated, just as a pair of headlights began to glare on their tall orange form. Their side-eyes took another look at the hacked doorway, judging that they would just about be able to fit through sideways. "Take this way briskly, should, is..."

Underground Complex

*BOOM*

Uso's power armor was flung backwards by the explosion, coming to rest against one of the side walls.

"...." Uso said, as her armor finally came to rest, the front mostly glowing slag now making it hard to move. "......! ..... ... ..... .. .. .... .. .. ..."

It was slow moving, but she managed to get to her feet, her body healing quickly... her armor not so much. It certainly didn't look like it was holding air too well and the faceplate was cracked. Even the backpack module looked like it had seen better days.

"..... .... .. .... .?"

Also, her radio was broke.



Alex's Mecha

With Uso no longer calling the shots, another voice would step up to co-ordinate.

"Alex, the tank infront of you is likely melting down. You will need to tear out the reactor by going through the less-armored rear of the tank and break apart the nuclear material as much as possible. Please Jab in your saber and make a sweeping motion." Vier explained, at the same time setting up communication with Hazel, who still had her fighter barely squeeking through the passageways.

"Alex, once you are finished here, please return to the passage way nearest the main room and prepare to delay incoming tanks."


The communication with Hazel was fairly short, and she didn't need much more instruction. She would spin her fighter in place, scratching the nose and the tail against the walls of the hallway. The jet black craft sliding along the ground on its anti-gravity engines until it was close to the tunnel behind them.

"One shot to our rear please." Vier asked, highlighting the tunnel on Hazel's hud. The pilot sliding her craft out from behind the bend for just a moment so she could fire a high-velocity anti-ship missile down the corridor blindly.

Nuclear disarmament rally
Alex reached into the area that seemed the hottest, grabbing the fissionable material and smashing it all across the the wall, spreading it out until it was no longer condensed enough to be unstable.

Underground Complex

"How about not touching it, fucking up the barrel's aim for a moment and rescuing Uso?" Why do these people want to die? Akemi wanted to fly over and rescue Uso but he didn't feel like getting caught in another super explosion that might kill or at least badly injure him.

No Sympathy For Metal Spiders Today

Hazel's missile could have hit the walls or ceiling, it didn't really matter. The explosion was tremendous, enough to shake the rock for miles around. Derailing a train caused secondary explosions which continued to rumble for quite some time. Given the scarcity of the newer dedicated tank type, one could only assume that the new forces were the modified maintenance drones who had been observed retreating underground at the high-radiation sector.

The corridor returned to black. It was unlikely that all of them had been destroyed, but either the ceiling had collapsed, or their high-speed cluster of chassis had blocked the tunnel. It didn't really mater, they had been halted.

Alex's attempts to permanently disable the tank he was in close combat with were a success. Of course, this meant dusting the entire area with a fine coating of enriched uranium shards, doing his geiger counter no small favors.

Not far left to go now. The right hand corridor was lit with a dull blue glow, and was still big enough for Alex to fit inside. The only problem was the large, active elevator shaft on the left.

Underground Complex

With the massive explosion not coming from the tunnel ahead Akemi shrugged and decided to risk flying into it to try to scoop up Uso and toss her over a shoulder to take her to Truffleclub and the Codetalker. Hopefully she wasn't dead or fatally injured and contaminated and wouldn't be pissed with him having sat out the fight. He really wanted to earn a little credit and respect but he doubted he'd get much for staying on the sidelines and criticizing her decisions even if he felt he was right. Being right might only make things worse. While he flew about he made sure to keep his eye out for any threats that might be facing his way.

Radiation Builds Character

Turning around to see that Uso was out cold and that Akemi was carrying her. Akemi seemed to have at least one weapon on him. Alex walked out of the irradiated zone before opening his cockpit and speaking over the radio.

"Akemi, put Uso in here. There's room enough for her. We need you to use that... Thing you have there."

Highway To Hell

Corgan didn't stick around to see if Uso was okay. He hauled ass out of there as soon as Truffleclub pointed out the other path. The explosions in the tunnel gave him pause. "Everything okay back there?" He said over the radio. "You guys need to get in this elevator. That tunnel is a death trap." With that taken care of, he had fulfilled his sense of duty to the group. He examined his surroundings carefully looking for a lever or button of some sort. Hopefully Truffleclub could help him figure out how to turn the thing on.

Underground Complex

"Well if she's going in with you we ought to take her irradiated armor off so neither of you die," Akemi said as he carried his fellow Neko further to the elevator before standing her up against him. "Mind me doing that Uso?" If their leader didn't quickly respond he would simply start taking it off and hand her over to Alex when he was done.

As Akemi handed Uso over, Alex had the mecha lift her close enough so that he could move her into place in the cockpit, and strap her in behind him. Closing the cockpit up, Alex looked around.
"Where to now?" He queried over the radio. "I see some sort of elevator shaft over there, should I check it out?"

Giant Robot

Uso wasn't knocked out, but she certainly was a bit disoriented, jumping out of her armor as fast as possible so she could get into Alex's mecha.

"Fucking damnit..." Uso said, getting in the seat behind Alex, and then getting back up out of the seat, pulling herself up over Alex's seat so she could see the controls, her boobs ending up right ontop of Alex's head, "Where's the radio? Can I just speak or do I need to grab a headset so they can hear me? Do you have headsets in this thing?" Uso asked, quickly studying the controls that Alex had infront of him.

The damage readout for his machine was showing extensive damage to the front armor, the head mounted sensors, and the hand he had just used to smear radiactive goodness all over the walls, the intense radiation was already burning out the electronics in his hand, turning the thing into a glorified paperweight at the end of an elbow joint.

"And that elevador is moving. Only bad things can come from that. We should break it then regroup with whoever is taking that side-path into the Syntelligence room.... VIER! SHOW US A MAP!"

...

"Alex, is this thing voice activated? Or seriously, do I need a headset?"