RP [Strays] SLUG WAR

Joanna is sitting in the cockpit of her mech, anxiously awaiting the order to engage.

Illayd materializes beside her face, "I just received data from an ally, you should check it out".

She looks at the data sent over by Artemis, surprised at the sheer density of the hordes of slugs. She analyzes the data, planning out the best route for her to take that would let her eliminate as much slugs as possible without running into the risk of close combat with the larger ones.

Wall

"So the skinny is this." Chips began, sitting now in the open cockpit of his Highwayman when the pilots assembled, the tone of the communications system in each mech clear as day by their proximity even if the sound of thrashing death and screaming men cut a slight undertone.

"Its a lot of bugs, I know. But..." He paused, unsure of how to continue for a moment as he rhythmically tapped a couple of fingers on the open cockpit.

"It just ain't enough- Know I know that there's a good number out there but we been hired to solve this problem in one fell swoop and right and propper! I think, in 'mah tactical advisory role that we should be waitin a bit longer; Maybe a day, three at the most for the maximum buildup o' bugs to get the propper response prepared and deal wit' em in a precise and professional manner."

Chips clear stalling was highlighted by looking constantly at the nuclear rocket slightly taller than he was bolted to a launched on his mech longingly much to the consternation of his fairy who immedietly made her thoughts known.

"You just wanna fire that nuke!" Snacks, Chips fairy accused, pointing a tiny comical finger at the device.

"Ah' mean, well, kinda." The old avian mutant admitted. looking down to a big, hastily installed big red button in his cockpit he wired just to launch the offending .5kt dirty-nuke he had been able to weasel into requisitioning from the small spacer-bought stockpile the corporation had. "How many folks in this day an' age can say they been able to nuke somethin! It's all Aether this and Antimatter that; No appreciation for the classics that made fightin stuff fun when you and ye mates could just pull some fissile material from a starship wreck with the lads and make dirty bombs to set off outside the city on a summers nights!"

"Ah just think we should wait for the optimal amount of enemies to fire it instead of just a few thousand of them that the locals is already managin'."

"Chips." The disembodies childlike voice of Clotho the fairy commander chimed in over their radios, clearly eavesdropping through one of her sisters they all had.

"Ya, Boss?"

"Am I correct in my assumption you want to wait until there are a hundred thousand, or more, enemies on this wall to fire a nuclear device?"

"I mean, ya, that about sums it up."

"And you would fire this nuke... At the bugs?"

"The bugs, aye."

"The bugs on the wall?"

"Well, yeah?"

"Chips..."

"Ya, Clo?"

"You want to fire the nuke. At the bug. The bugs that are at the wall. The bugs that are on the wall two hundred meters away."

"Oh."

"Yes, oh."

There was a long silence as chips several times opened his beak and closed it, flabbergasted.

"Then I can't use it?" He finished, defeated.

"You can fire the rocket at the enemies that are still miles away and have yet to arrive. They are still in a massive horde much larger than this from my outriding drones observing them. I can provide a firin-"

There was a backwash of fire and smoke at the massive rocket soared out as soon as Chips slammed his fist on the button with barely any thought after turning the dial to increase the range as it launched away at an arcing angle as it soared what appeared rather slowly as nothing more than a distant light.

"Heck yeah!" Chips shouted, pumping a fist that he recoiled after hitting the cockpit rather hard and wincing.

"Chips!" The voice of an exasperated young girl shouted as Clothos voice cracked despite being an AI who operated on nanosecond time to process, understand, and come to terms with what he had done before the missile ever left its tube.

"How far did you dial that missile to fire, chips?"

"Two kilometers. Nice and in the fat of the mass of em just like ye said"

There was little time for a follow up as the missile, arcing at first then started to tilt down and then violently at a steep angle until its path was blocked by the wall. Several seconds passed in tense silence as nothing happened until his fairy piped up

"Maybe its a du-"



In a near instant, a bright orange-yellow flash erupted as a dome of fire expanded and rose on a stem into a mushroom and just kept going higher as the Devils Deathbell grew brighter and hotter than any nucler device five times its yield as half the payload, replaced by the corporations Star Paint was thrown in all dirrections despite the low quantity it increased the reaction of the bloom to near-blinding proportions as on the force of the blast a wall of orange-yellow-red substance flew like a wall of water as thick as a sheet of paper and like a heavy painters brush expanded to cover everything from the blast, to the wall, and into the city as rooftops, not affected beyond the force of the pressure wave damaging them were instantly coated in a layer of the extremely radioactive material that was superheated to over a thousand degrees as it covered streets and houses, alleys and people and began to melt houses where it hit as the spunk-material they were made from hit its low forming point and houses began to sag in places like wax even as men, women, elderly, children, and all others ran screaming from intense beyond third degree burns as star-paint so hot it melted through skin glowed inside wounds to cast the shadows of bones from the intense glow as a third of the city was thrown into chaos and pandemonium.

"Now that what am' talkin about!" Chips shouted, covering his eyes from the intense light, not seeing any of this as he, and most of the other strays looking up failed to notice what was behind them or more importantly infront of them as those on the wall not instantly killed or were flung off blindly fell off in blind unseeing agony.

Their mechs as well shuddered and screens flickered and joysticks stiffened as every fairy winced or curled inwards before disappearing at the discomfort of the weak EMP as their nanites went inactive. Most of them reformed moments later, irritated, annoyed, or in clear but fading discomfort that while not actually present on Rogers World IV and inhabiting the Fae they were all connected to still experienced second-hand discomfort from the small disruption in their connections to the mechs and devices ther were connected to.


Finally looking away from the nuke to blink away the sunspots still present from the tower of fire that still wasnt disipating, however, the strays would note most of the army camp unnafected as the walls acts as a wave-break causing the blast and star paint to blow over the camp and not harm or kill the still present thousand of soldiers looking skywards in absolute horror and frozen in shock, and most importantly not having killed any of the pilots from a danger-close nuclear detonation.


Looking in that direction one might also note how the cities protective walls that had sheltered them from the blast immediately began to sag in places as the star-paint superheated coating on them began to soften and melt the spunkile material they were made of like a wall of birthday-candle wax they began to slump forward and dip even as men began trying to flee from the interior or jump off of it as it slowly sank on them.

"Oh." Chips choked as they stared at the wall for a long moment.

"Maybe it killed em all and it wont be a-"

The first slugs, glowing yellow-green from star paint climbed onto and then sank into the now soft wall only for scored of others to climb over them and into the mustering field as the eventually lethal star paint had yet to kill them from super-cancer or intense burns and those closest to the wall had more than likely just been blown against it with force that would kill a mortal man but not the resistant and single-minded drive of an insectoid.

A couple hundred meters ahead of them as they towered over the mustering camp, droves of slugs on their rather fast multiple legs managed to scale the fatally hot wall on the corpses of their brethren as they ran down the survivors of the nuke who had escaped from inside the wall as dozens, and then hundreds of septupersuperpedal alien xenos killing machines laid into them as the cap errupted into screams as the shocked soldiery, hardly ready for the sudden attack were caught off guard and out of formation.

"Oh..." Chips intoned again in the tone of a child who realized he had just done something incredibly stupid and was about to be caught.

The Slug War had begun.

Charlotte let out a low whistle as she watched the nuke fly off, if she was next to chips at the time she would have offered him a high five at his truly glorious decision making. It’s not every day you get to see the beauty of a true blue nuclear warhead going off after all. Meanwhile, Artemis let out a squeak of surprise above the audible range for humans, although not above Charlotte’s judging by how she winced slightly before going back to watching the nuke before it dipped below the level of the wall. “Haha nice one!” The black haired young pilot spoke over the radio as the flash of light filled the sky, before the EMP reduced her voice to crunchy static.

Even as Artemis began seating herself back into the systems of the squat scout mech following the EMP, Charlotte was already flipping switches ready to fire her own collection of cluster missiles. However the sudden slow breach in the wall, as well as a rather forceful shutdown of missile launch controls by Artemis to stop the wasteful use of all 14 missiles on the biggest slug that survived the blast, stopped the energetic mutant in her tracks. “Ah damn they got through! Well it was a neat idea at least, ey boss?” Charlotte said over a still static-y radio, although the grin on her face indicated she felt rather the opposite.

She first set off towards the wall at a diagonal angle, away from the main bulk of surviving soldiers, while she might have been eager to actually get into some action she wasn’t actually so careless as to trample the soldiers in the process; that and it might draw some of the slugs away from them. Charlotte then began backpedaling away from the wave of slugs coming through the wall, not looking where she was going and trusted Artemis to warn her of anything she was about to hit; as she tried to kite away from the slugs, while staying in optimal range of her close combat focused loadout.

As for that loadout, she set the LGL to scattershot mode and began plugging away, a low whine filling her cockpit as the mech sent power to the LGL and the underslung plasma breaker; to hopefully start work on the wave of slugs at their leisurely fire rate while the pair of fusion shotguns were also set to fire as fast as possible. In the mean-time, Artemis was working on a new set of firing solutions for the cluster munitions mounted to the mech; while at the same time she made constant adjustments to the rapid backwards movement of the scout mech to stop it from tripping or running into anything.

Luk blinked at the oncoming horde-mesmerized by the explosion, just as Wayfinder kicked the mech forward, the light mech zipping across the line as its guns blazed; the hyper lasers' beams lancing through the air as the plasma shotgun sent its deadly payload into the oncoming horde-the superheated plasma leaving vapor trails through the air as the tiny mech bounded across the debris-filled landscape.

Insider, the cockpit had become uncomfortably hot as the Dynamiteon struggled to shunt the waste heat from the mech's system; steam rose off its exterior as the residual water in the air was flashboiled. The big mutant struggled to direct the mech according to the Fairy's instructions even as she ran the calculations to see if they could prevent a potentially catastrophic munitions explosion from firing their weapons; or worse the battery exploding, or both-both would be bad...

Joanna raises her right arm in front of her eyes to shield them from the brightness of the explosion. Soon, the rattling sounds of metal banging into each other fill the cockpit as the ground below starts trembling from the nuclear weapon's impact.

The EMP effect from the nuke causes Illayd's body to flicker. "Ugh, I don't feel so good...." it says just before fading away. It reappears soon after with a visible expression of discomfort on its face, "That was not a good experience..."

The bunny chuckles at her Fairy's remark before grabbing the controls and readying herself for combat. She looks around at her surroundings and at the instrument panels, her gaze rapidly darts back and forth at the approaching horde in front of her and the data being displayed at the screens, planning ahead on where and what she should attack.

Her mech walks across the defense line, still maintaining her distance from any Slugs that get too close and possible collisions. The Plasma Breaker and Gamma Ray Vulcans fire parallel at the cluster of Slugs ahead, while the Hyper Laser beams at densely packed groups of Slugs further away.

Still spending every spare moment on learning her me h inside and out Emma hadn’t taken muchnotice of the ongoing conversation and instead had asked Onyx, her fair, to give her a condensed play by play of anything important. The saurian was dedicated to mastering her new profession but with the word ”nuke” suddenly being spoken to her she looked up in time to see the rocket shoot off into the distance, having plenty of experience with explosives the now ex-miner immediately closed the cockpit of her mech and turned her attention to tracking the ordinanc.

”Oi Onyx! How big isat there sparkler?”

A brief pause followed before her fairy appeared for a split second, “According to Chip’s unit half a ki-“

The blast was visible and felt even within her mech capsule and environmental suit, Onyx flickered and vanished before her as the pulse hit the craft and gave the AI a nasty headache, but half a kiloton was still way too big for the detonation distance, fucking amateur. Emma watched the wave of starpaint wash over the town and many of its occupants through gritted teeth, while she didn’t know these people it still didn’t sit right with her training to not even consider the collateral before firing off a dirty bomb of all things. Oh well, sentiment would have to come after, the slugs had now breached the wall as several of her companions seemed to have noticed.

”Miss Caver, please earn some decent bonuses and get this pile of shit shielded from EMP’s in future.” Muttered the fairy as she reappeared to assist the Delsaurian take off and get into a position to defend Chips who appeared to just now be realising the gravity of their situation, and if there was one thing a digger knew it was that without the boss no one wins.

Having their sour ramblings from minutes earlier ignored, Yamog had become introverted and blank-faced in the lead-up to Chips firing the rocket. The actual ignition shocked her back into the world of the living, however, observing the contrail fly into the air and then begin to arc downwards again, from basically the perfect sun-backed angle.

They didn't make single-lens sunglasses, so it occurred to the blue devil that she should close her cockpit canopy and let the auto-dimming glaze do it's thing. Stumbled backwards and hit the back of her head on the metal rebar surrounding her headrest, successfully upgrading their drunk cranium to punch-drunk.

Whilst the entire interior seemed to dim under the glare of a pocket supernova, there was an odd silent moment where they simply shared an dour, understanding glance with their already glitchy fairy AI.

Well, she didn't have to worry about getting false cult members anymore. The whole city probably hated them now...

"So... appearances would be... We are degenerate killers, then." The cyclops spoke flatly.

"Yes." The damn fairy spoke as if it was so perfectly obvious. "It would seem so."

Heavy, lumbering, the Pathfinder clambered over the rubble in front of it slowly, dazzle camouflage now flaked with burning pocks of orange-red. The extra-maneuverable ankles were very adept at showing just how unfamiliar with piloting this towering avian Yamog really was.

Followed Joanna into the opening of cobblestone path, kicking away burning wagons and bug corpses that spoke of impact damage, likely lifted up into the air and dropped again. Formed up into a firing line and peppered the enemy with their lasers for now, mostly saving their missiles for the inevitable short ranged melee that was bound to follow...

Mustering Fields

"How was I supposed to know the WALLS would MELT?!" Chips demanded, pointing accusingly at the deflating wax-like walls as they softened and pancaked ahead of them despite the fact nobody was actually looking at him.

AS the wall melted down they could see it now as well. The cloud from the nuke forming more into a fat rose than a mushroom as brown-black smoke struck with lightning and streaks of glowing fire even as the world seemed to become phosferecent as small particles of glowing star paint turned the very air to look as though it were full of green-yellow glitter falling in the wind.

It was beautiful even if everyone could be too bothered to appreciate the cancer rain as the xenos in some cases impaled themselves on the front lines of spearmen while in other cases overwhelmed them alltogether. Those that broke through snapped left and right and lashed about chaotically as the sheer mass of armsmen on the field half paniced to run and half looked for their weapons in the mayhem it could have been controlled at a trickle if it had not turned into a flood. Those who survived the blast only to be pushed up against the wall and not get crushed under it recovered as single slugs turned into half dozens and more as men pulled back or ran alltogether as entire groups of the enemies ran down the men.

One such group of six slugs was thrashing through a series of tents, the fabric wrapping around their faces to get stuck on fleshy nubs on their heads as they thrashed left and right trying to get free when a single lance of energy as thick as a mans arm passed through the target from face to rear as it instantaniously flash-boiled and popped into a mass of sickly blood from the laser guided laser.

Bugs popped left and right and in the cases where they didnt as lance would pass through them and flash-boil their very organs with anything but a near miss seeming practically lethal.

As Joanna and Yamog fire it becomes just a matter of differentiating live targets from the barely moving. Wherever one of the mechs looked, bugs would die in numbers; But the mechs held only the one zone of control and to either side of their area the wall was melted elswhere and slugs poured over to the north and south of the strays postion creating a teardrop shape with the strays holding the middle and all else falling.

Chips, well behind the rest focussed on some of these areas. His Highwayman mech over twenty five foot tall it could look north or south and fire a pressurewasher liek stream of his three rotary lasers at a distance.

And then, directly ahead of the strays where the wall had fallen a leg reached over the wall. A slug with a body easily the size of a schoolbus pulled itself over the wall; Its weight enough to squash the wax like spunk beneath it to almost create an easy path for those who would follow it as it dragged its heavy body into the mustering field, Spattering a pikeman with a leg too large to skewer the man when he got too close.

"Look at the size of that thing!" Chips shouted, turning and letting off with his heavy laser. The blue beam of heavy anti-armor laser power hit dead square on what would be the nose on the face of a normal man.

And left little more than a cigarette burn in comparison on the front of the slug as most of its face, head, and neck seemed a darker, chintin-like color and material where it had hardened. The slug reeled back slightly before smashing its face on the floor and, with a sudden burst of speed pushed itself with incredible force like a plow directly at the nearest large target; Joanna. The bugs face acting like an armored shield it drove its body directly at her like a battering ram going easily as fast as she was.

Charlotte kept at her, what had rapidly become over the course of the battle, her standard procedure. She moved along the line of advancing slugs, hosing them down with wide range blasts from the quartet of shotguns on her squat little scout mech as Artemis made sure they didn't walk backwards into anything. However, even to her... Distinct lack of any knowledge of military strategy, it was becoming clear the only part of the line not falling to the bugs was their little pocket of resistance. With a quiet 'thunk' she flicked a switch to fire a cannister of mirage system nanites, arcing high before landing in the area she can see most devoid of bugs and more importantly... The defending army.

"Artemis, make em' think there's some snacks over there, alright? Hopefully these things don't hunt by sense of smell..." She shouted to her fairy copilot over the muffled din of battle outside and the sound of the reactor shunting power around the mech inside. The fairy for her part just nodded a curt reply, too busy concentrating on communicating with her sisters, adjusting the mech's balance and movement and then willing the nanites to mimic a crowd of screaming and panicking civilians to reply verbally. If the plan worked and managed to gather up a bunch of the bugs around and within the dispersal radius of the nanites, Charlotte would fire a pair of the medium sized cluster missiles from the launcher atop her mech straight into whatever mass gathered to try and take out a bunch in one go.

Her attention was quickly diverted away by the arrival of the new beast however, before she'd even have the chance to witness the explosion from the cluster missiles. "You seeing this?" She asked, rather stupidly over the radio considering it's the biggest damn bug for miles. "Can't believe I talked myself outta bringing the anti armour missiles... Artemis handing over control of the LGL turret to ya." She flicked a switch and the previously locked facing forward turret with the LGL mounted began to swivel, reducing the firepower available to the black haired mutant; but it allowed Artemis to begin charging a more concentrated armour piercing shot from all four barrels targeted at the most vulnerable looking spot on the huge ugly bug. "Charlotte, ready to fire" The cowardly fairy let out an 'eep' of alarm as one bug almost got close enough to lunge at their scout mech before Charlotte dealt with it. As soon as the fox girl received the signal she pulled the trigger, trusting Artemis enough to not even check the targeting of the shot into the huge armoured bug; before she got back to sweeping across the smaller bugs with her shotguns.

The Breach

Despite Yamog trying to defend Joanna and keep the bugs at range, it seemed like the situation had rapidly become a scrum of bodies once the shock of the warhead and general panic set in. This new, giant creature was just the icing on the cake. Every time her light mech made a striding sidestep to avoid the thing, a hideous crunching noise came back up through the legs- Broken joints? Rubble? Bodies?

In the frantic rush to avoid being stepped on herself, the cyclops simply didn't have the time or optics to check.

<"Lagomorph mistress, you haven't the weapons to deal with this!"> The blue cyclops tried to warn the rabbit girl, as her mech was more visually struck by a smaller bug and flipped it over in stride. <"Where are it's eyes!? We need to blind this accursed thing! If I could just-">

Strafing, strafing- The world seemed to travel in slow motion and far too fast at the same time, as the target reticules rippled and vibrated.

Just a split second of a green lock on the right arm only- Yamog took the chance and fired off three Devil's Doorbell pyrophoric rocket-grenades, attempting to hit the monster directly up the backside with a detonation of superheated uranium shards....

"Chips, I really hope that big scrapheap on legs has something tougher, cause that there bug just shrugged off ya laser."

Emma stuck close by the highwayman spraying any slugs within range in an endless torrent of star-paint while firing off short bursts of her macro-laser at anything skirting the edge of it's effective range. The sight of this new type of enemy had shaken both her and the fairy Onyx and made the pair wish for a jetpack or other method to stay above the swarm and out of the way. Seeing as how the other two managed to push forward and fend off the bulk of the little ones, the Delsaurian focussed her efforts on the large creature posing the greatest threat, aiming to drench its body in the corrosive and toxic paint her fireant specialised in.

"Hey Onyx, those little wasp things you mentioned, they be any use here?"

"Unlikely, they're not designed for combat against this sort of a target and much too weak."

"Well, have em do something other than fight then I guess?"

The AI sighed internally, though it was a fair strategy to use all resources available, after some thinking she decided the SNS drones might be able to discern some sort of weak point, or at least run an annoying distraction with constant swarming and annoying attacks. Like a cloud the drones were released from their hive and sent to poke and prod the beast from every angle.

"Oh and by the way chips, if you say you have another nuke, just let us get out of range before you go blowin yaself up!"

Joanna is flabbergasted at the sudden increase of speed that the Slug is exhibiting, charging at her while its immense weight shakes the ground. In a panic, she yanks the controls and fires off the custom-made boosters to move away as quickly as possible, all while unloading every weapon her mech has onto the incoming Slug despite Yamog's prior warning of her weapons' ineffectiveness.

"Our weapons are barely affecting it! Its front is too thick!" the rabbit's Fairy shouted, "Try getting around and aim at its back!" to which she nods before pushing the mech ahead to orbit the Slug as dust, dirt, and even bits of organic material get blasted away from the booster's wake.

As the customized Dynamiteon glides around the armored Slug, narrowly avoiding any obstacle or Slug in its path, Joanna searches for a weak spot while explosions and smoke from her and the others' attacks envelop the Slug. She aims at different spots on the surface of its entire length, hoping that one would kill the Slug, or at the very least stop it in its tracks.

~~((This is a Char-sanctioned GM post whilst he's dealing with IRL stuff! He'll be back soon!))~~

Mustering Feilds

Flickering like green sparks in the descending fog, microscopic particles of star paint caused tiny static discharges- Which themselves cascaded into terrifying lightning strikes, that ripped open the iron sky, and stained the vision with great viridian arcs of poisonous emerald green.

As the rolling mass of inhuman carnage continued to batter the primitive human defenders, some regiments learned from their mistakes, and some didn't. The original wisdom was that they could simply part ranks and let the large bugs stream through, jabbing at them from the sides... It didn't work, not just because of the giant bomb shockwave breaking their phalanx, but because of the sheer inconsistency in enemy sizes. Lightfooted stragglers actually got jumped and murdered by the faster, smaller monsters instead.

Axes and halberds turned out to be better. One could chop at the abdomen of the smaller ones, and the knees of the bigger ones. Those with the disobedience to drop their spears, and grab their back-up weapons, actually survived longer.

Overall it was hardly what you could call 'a solid defense'...

Charlotte's nanite deployment worked strangely. The bugs in those areas actually stopped and vibrated their hides in a disturbing way, before moving in a slightly longer, arcing flow that suggested caution. Maybe they didn't perceive the nano-trickery in the same way that human eyes did? Either way, it did seem to confuse and slow them down.

In the thunderous reach of the behemoth that was rampaging after Joanna and Yamog, chaos reigned- Between the bunny girl's storm of jumpjet backwash and laser fire, and the more direct pounding nuclear blasts of the cyclop's rockets, dust and shrapnel turned the air to a blank obscuring sheet of ash. Only in the occasional flashing shadow could either of them tell of its injuries.

And then there was the big flash of Charlotte's support weapon cutting across the field, inaccurate due to movement at range, but still raking four long glowing lines of fused chitin directly down the thing's massive left flank. It didn't penetrate, but hey, they could track it through the fog and debris now!...

...Then it had a massive amount of star paint dumped on it from above, turning it from a gangly silhouette into a gigantic, fearsome dayglow art project. Emma's danger-close strike actually splattered Yamog's Pathfinder, too.

Nevertheless, the constant pounding shots to its torso and abdomen did almost nothing but create chipped, shallow pock-marks. Something about its ceramic nature was just ridiculously good at dissipating heat? The damn thing had armored flaps which blocked almost every vulnerable orifice... Except the absolute peak of its knees, where the overgrown joints were beginning to fracture and grind together when they closed, wearing down the monster's mobility.

<"...Y-Y-You... You t-t-think we can g-get underneath it, J-Joanna?"> Yamog sputtered, sidestepping, almost colliding with one of Emma's support drones too, keeping their distance. Conserving their ammo until they figured out what actually injured the damn abomination. <"...Emma D-Darling! D-d-don't run out of jump jet fuel!...">

If only the foxgirl wasn't being overwhelmed themselves, they might have had a chance to focus the monster down, given that they were the only one not enmeshed in melee now... But they had small bugs snapping at their hydraulic limbs instead, trying to do their best to latch on, in the moments between shotgun blasts when she was distracted...

<"C-CAW! IF I 'AD ME ANOTHER NUKE THEY WOULDN' BE IN RANGE! D'YA THINK A THAT!?"> Chips made a genuine rooster battle-warble over the radio. His machine was clearly overheating, visibly glowing orange around the gun barrels, and transmitted glitched tones bathed in engine noise. Wherever he walked was a rippling field of death towards the foul creatures, but it was still only one mech, stabbing at a horde of thousands. <"GIMME SOME BACKUP OVER HERE, MY GOOSE IS GETTING COOKED!~">

He’d thought they were kidding when they said they wanted him to pilot one of the mechs.

When they’d ‘certified’ him with some ‘training’, he figured it was just a re-run of that same joke. The training had been terrible, anyway; the seat was sticky, the complementary cookies were dry, and the video kept lagging through all the important parts.

He was certain it was just a prank when he’d been ordered to ‘suit up’. He’d laughed nervously, flicking the strap of his overalls and claiming he was already in his suit.

And when they’d told him to get into a Lancer Class, he’d brought a bucket of warm water, a bottle of soap, and a sponge. Because... they just wanted him to clean it, surely. Probably wipe out the gore of the last pilot dumb enough to get in. Some bloke whose head popped like a grape after getting hit with an anti-life ray, or a knucklehead whose bones were turned into mush by microwaves. He'd sprayed down guts before. Heroes and martyrs and cowards all looked the same when you were hosing their gooey remains into a gutter.

He wasn’t a damn pilot! Yeah, he had flown a few things and driven a few others, but he’d never walked a mech. He couldn’t fucking walk his own legs with help. And now, here he was, one foot in a bucket of warm water because there was no where else to put the goddamned thing. A countdown had begun, a deployment process had run its course, and his glum fairy AI had promised him that if he was going to die, at least the clean-up crew would already have some tools available.

So when Chip called out for backup, it came in the form of a twisted-bodied lupine mutant named ‘Part Time’ Prig Wilkins who didn't know what the fuck he was doing.

He heard the man's squawking call over the comms, and he winced, his dark eyes disappearing in a furrow of gray fur. He knew Chip, and Chip knew him, but not by his actual name. Chip kept calling him "Prickwilly" or "Princess" or "Pig Thickman", genuinely thinking those were his names. Thank the powers that none of them had stuck as nicknames. Whatever the case, the feathered fellow was in trouble, as was the wall, and the city, and the world and the universe beyond and space-time and all that shit. Somehow Prig was going to help. Apparently. He'd tried to monitor things as he'd approached in a hustle, hearing the battlefield reports and catching a little footage here and there that his fairy Gunk piped in to one of his cockpit monitors. These waves of monsters seemed unstoppable at first, oceanic tides of colors that might otherwise be beautiful if they weren't promising a ravenous live consumption.

But it was that desire to eat that was standing out to Prig as he'd trundled along the landscape to join the fight. These creatures weren't just out to eat two-legged humanoids, or to chew on metal. They ate each-other. Mid-fight, even. Whenever a big one went down, his many-legged comrades all swarmed in and scarfed him down without even taking a second to breathe. If they had a big enough meal, would it slow them down long enough for the team to get their defenses together?

Just saying "Shoot the big one" seemed kinda stupid, though. And obvious. But if a part-timer knew anything, it was that if you wanted to look like you did something, you did the most obvious goddamn thing right up front. Then you could sit on your ass and ride out the shift.

Prig got his mic hot and spoke out, working his wolf-like mouth around the words. "Try to get it to rear up! The big one!" he called out. "Like, jump up or something, whatever, get it on its hind legs!"

He didn't remember to give out his name, or to follow proper radio protocol. Instead, he stomped his mech into a half-way decent spot and started sighting things in as best he could. The Lancer had a big stupid gun that shot... drills, apparently? If his teammates could get the big bug to rear up, its back legs wouldn't be moving quite as much, because it's resting more weight on them. That meant they'd have a much better shot trying to de-knee the damned thing. And that might mean the cannibalistic bugs would take a lunch break to chew him down to his shell, which might take a while because he was big and tough, right?

Or it was a shit plan and he was going to end up bug chow. Either way, Prig did his thing, not knowing if he'd get blown off or listened to. He'd line up his lance, hoping for a clear shot if/when the big boy reared.

Mustering Field

The big bug was as big as a big bus-sized big bug. It thrashed and darted about rather slowly but inevitably even as laser weapons powerful enough to score tanks struck with the force of a wrecking ball but left little more than bubbling blisters as fat over thick muscle absorbed the powerful but short-lived force of the energy weapons.

Macromissiles had the same effect. Their concussion or explosive payloads being absorbed by loose skin under which fat absorbed the damage. A couple plasma-based Macromissiles had a more noticeable effect but were few and far between. By the time the big-bug made its full length and again more past the wall and just narrowly missed Joanna the thing looked like an angry brown and pink slab of fat on legs that were pock marked by hundreds of various sized angry red welts of damage even as Chips Highwayman and its three rotary lasers pumping out a concerning 9,000 energy bolts per minute in fire rate left little more than angry red trails of blisters.

Whats more the tide of irridiated and glowing creatures and the tens of thousands of scattering armsmen in the camp routing acted as a terrain hazzard most foul as, against her will or not Joannas burst out of the way and around the side of the several ton monster, her Dynamiteon slid and overcorrected as a combination of mud an a dozen men caught under her mechs moot caused the moment it touched ground for one foot to slide too far in a half-split and have no leverage to push back up and out again with her thrusters as in a single moment her cockpits transparent durrandium dented inwards and buckled slightly to open up as one of the slugs front most legs stabbed like a spear; The knobbed knuckle of the bottom of its foot stabbing into the cockpit and stopping only a foot from turning Joanna into pasteb before wrenching back out and turning her cockpit into an open-air affairas the entire assembly of glass and transparent durrandium came with it leave Joanna exposed in her mech.

What's more many of her instrument pannels that had hung over her head were simply gone leaving her without most of her critical displays but for a few on the center console telling her at least her power and energy cell readings for her weapons.

She was able, at least, to get out of the way of further attacks, however.

"You alright, Josie?" Chips voice cawed in her ear as her flightsuit was still on and her head assembly still on and undamaged with the built in comm unit. "Wait, hot-damn is that Piggly-Wiggly I hear? Joanna, Hate to put you in a jam any more but you gotta get that thing to turn your way and away from Petey. The rest of you-"

Chips was cut short as the first bugs who didnt get distracted or stopped by the human mass made it close to the first mechs position as a heavy laser from the Highwayman simply turned the slug and three men in the way into an evaporating mist.

"We gotta do somethin 'bout this tide. Soon as we will this thing get ready to go over the top of that wall and deal with the problem the old fashioned way."

"Ah shit, guess they see by smell or somethin'." Charlotte cursed under her breath as she watched the bugs, rather than falling into a feeding frenzy on the fake humans, instead slowly mill around for a bit. Still, she didn't waste the chance and fired another of her cluster warhead loaded mega macro missiles in a high arc over the largest density of bug before it burst open, raining it's payload down onto the horde. "N.. No effect. Maybe we should evacuate? Just to be safe!" Artemis stuttered out in her permanently terrified tone as the full force of the focused LGL blast did nothing but give the huge bug a slight scar in its armour.

"Need the big gun back, Artemis!" Charlotte shouted to her despondent fairy as she hit the button for the jump jets to launch the squat mech backwards, to avoid the encroaching horde that had been making headway on her position while Artemis was lining up the shot on the big bug. While she was still slowly moving backwards, the addition of the LGL back facing forward would at least make it a lot easier to keep up a more constant barrage on the bugs pushing towards her. The small reprieve also let her listen in on the radio chatter from the other newbie pilot.

"Heyo dog guy, reckon I can do that! Artemis, can you can configure the Super Megas' to go off without releasing the payload?" A few seconds later the fairy replied, having been focused on correcting a movement that would've had one of their legs stabbing itself into an area of especially soft soil. "Y...Yes but why?" She stammered, the projected image of the fairy winced as she replied, watching in horror as Charlotte used one of the front legs to stab into the "head" of a small bug that got hit by a glancing blow from one of the 4 shotguns mounted to the mech. "Well they got a whole load'a explosives in 'em right? But the problem is they go everywhere, can't knock the big bastard around with 'em." Artemis decided that then wasn't the best time to explain to her near suicidal pilot about how that's how cluster munitions are designed to work. "So if we set one off without sending the bombs everywhere, directly under the damn thing, no problemo! It just gets launched straight up and ol' wolfman can hit it with the big drill gun!"

Artemis's projection nodded slowly, sure she could probably reprogram the missiles to do that but who knows how much force would be required to lift that thing for even a split second? "So um, how many should I set up?" Artemis asked, although already knowing the answer... Subtly isn't really something Charlotte seems to do.

"All of 'em!"

Of course... With that, Artemis started running programs to configure the three super mega missiles on the scout mech to detonate without opening, alongside running calculations on how she'd have to fly them to get them under the big bastard, in the best spot to try and lift it on the concussive force of the huge explosion while avoiding having them hit anything on their way over. Alongside that, Artemis sent messages to the other fairies in the group; the more explosives they could pour into this one shot at killing the hulking thing the better after all.

Joanna is shocked and stunned by how close she was to losing her life, she lets out heavy breaths to try to calm herself down as outside air enters the cockpit from the newly formed opening of the canopy. She starts to feel lightheaded as a panic attack slowly sets in, her fingers and legs shaking despite her best efforts to slow them down. But she quickly wakes up from her panic attack upon hearing her comrades over the comms.

"What?! you want us to rush in again after nearly missing going KIA?!" Ilayd shouts in disbelief upon hearing Chip's command.

Joanna finally calms herself down enough to analyze her current situation. She is aware that her cockpit is wide exposed, and she is extremely vulnerable. But after a bit of thinking, she tightly grips the control sticks and sets her mech to the direction of the big slug. She takes a deep breath before firing off the custom-made boosters and blasting forward to get the big slug's attention with weapons fire.

“I’ll try not’ta Yamog, hope your holdin up ok over there.” The saurian replied through gritted teeth trying not to drown in the sea of monsters coming after them, her drones so far hadn’t found anything in the way of a chink in the armour and the whole team seemed to be scrambling to topple the beast.

“Do we have backup starpaint anywhere? I think my tanks are fine now but I aint sure how long’tll last.”

<"Only have the two uranium shells--- left, Charlotte!---"> A tense response. Yamog's spindly pathfinder was ducking and dodging, trying to get distance from the big creature, but running into rolling swarms of the smaller ones. <"Head still----on! Emma!--- I can cover you--- but--!"> <"Wolfman, don't get swamped! Your mech is- is!---">

The blue spider was now rolling with sweat, and the subtle haptic feedback of the controls had long since been telling her why- Deimos, her fairy, had been fighting them every step of the way. Where she would have lunged in decisive fury, it recoiled and preserved the mech. When she would have lined up a shot, it arced the cannon barrels to receive impacts lengthways.

She was on the verge of tears. Her love for the machine spirit was great, but it was becoming clear that the sheer lack of trust between the two of them was going to kill them both.

The black-and-yellow striped, lightfooted machine became almost lax for a minute, less aggressive, straying into a small opening within the squall of bodies.

Bending over in their harness, Yamog's bottom two arms kept the legs moving, whilst her top two made a motion of prayer.

"...Deimos... Deimos... They are going to get overrun... The rookie doesn't know what he's doing... The bunny is in the open air... Everybody else has big lasers and is going to cook themselves.... This... cleaning up the small ones is our job, don't you see?..."

Nothing. No response. It didn't even materialize.

"L-l-listen to me you little goblin! Do I you think I have anywhere to go either!?... Just... Just follow me on this! And I'll give you a little computer node that will be with me always! I'll never let you be alone again!... D-do you understand me!?..."

No response. But the joysticks felt lighter, less abbrasively pushing against their tired palms.

"...I... Just want to join with you... It's not all an act... I... I want to be something more, too..."

A popping sound like a broken hourglass, nantites trailing down the mech's legs and forming a sort of ethereal black, low-poly barb wire... And a long-taloned hand of sorts, erupting from the central mass of the robotic bird and mimicking her right upper hand rather grotesquely.

She felt the lampede's maddening contempt beating down on her psyche, and the one-eyed thing responded with broken, morbid, inhuman bliss.

Then... The abomination moved.

Pushed herself harder than before. Found herself bolstered, interpreted, energized, embraced by the dark fairy- And began using their molecular-edged claw to pull the bugs apart like a child making a mess of their dinner.

Four macro-lasers into a bit of ripped carapace never failed to make for a hissing, explosive pressure difference.

Pretty soon she was back in the division between Joanna and Prig, stomping, leaping, gouging-

Inside their rapidly smearing cockpit, laughing.

Prig was thrilled! “Oh shit, they’re doing the thing!” he muttered, his non-plussed Fairy shrugging her tiny shoulders. He’d known it was a long-shot, showing up in the midst of a mess and hoping any of them would give the idea a try. He hadn’t even been sure the radios were tuned to the same frequency… But there they were, Charlotte deploying all the bombs, Joanna trying to keep the big bug’s attention, Emmathyst holding the line, Yamog… Doing something… How, and what, was she doing? She was doing it to the enemy, so… Whoever they were, for Prig wasn’t sure of any of their names or callsigns, there was a kind of coordination happening here! They had a bit of a plan!

“Oh… shit… now I have to do the… fuckin’... thing!” he realized, reaching for buttons and leavers as he spoke, trying to remember what did what! He had to get stuck in, had to wade into the mess of slug-bugs both alive and dead, his Lancer’s digitigrade legs stomping and kicking as he went. The ground was slick with gut-sludge and shell-parts, transforming into an ugly swamp of reeking, vile stuff. Prig was glad the cockpit environment wasn’t venting the smell out there into his face; not that his dysfunctional and ruined-by-cancer nose would’ve been able to pick up the stink.

“You guys got it! You got it rearing up!” he called out over comms, seeing the massive thing (even larger up close!) rearing like a circus beast. With a long and extended groan of concentration, Prig squinted and aimed and eased off the first withering, mech-shaking launch of the Lancer’s big stupid gun. Within its sleek barrel, a rocket fired up, propelling itself down and out with a tremendous roar that was dwarfed by the sounds of buzzing and shooting and fighting. A sphere of light erupted at the end of the barrel, the bright rocket piercing out of that sphere like a nail shooting through an inflated balloon. In a streak that was just as bright as the muzzle flash, the rocket-drill flew forward, while Prig’s Lancer flew backward. An experienced Lancer pilot could manage the recoil of the Super Rocket Gun… Prig had been a pilot for all of forty-five minutes!

Would the drill do its thing? Would it power through the chitinous leg, maybe explode through a vital joint or shatter a bug-shin into a hundred pieces? Prig had no way of knowing as his mech flung head-over-ass, looking like a rather elegant dancer as it pitched back into the bug-muck.