RP [Strays] The Higaflan Mutant Crisis

Freehold - The Great Cerg
Tunnels - Tunnels

For a moment, Huthang was torn between smacking his face in disbelief, or the slightly more laborious option of getting out of his cockpit, crossing over to Joe's Crookback to drag it's pilot out for a well-deserved punch in the face. The latter was a lot more effort, but Huthang held out the vain hope that it might actually knock a few more of Joe's brain cells loose from whatever prison they were locked within. The mutant was so disillusioned with his current superior Stray that he had become increasingly sure that brain damage couldn't actually worsen Joe's personality or abilities in any way.

At any rate, such wishful thinking would have to wait. The emerging enemy mech was of much greater and immediate concern, even if it's initial movements implied that the pilot wasn't experienced with utilising his machine. Huthang had known battle-maniacs in the past who learned swiftest under the pressure of battle and he had no desire to make a blind wager that this opponent was not such a person. That meant there was exactly no time for Joe's particular brand of prevarication that might be considered cowardice under a certain light.

Deciding that he would have to take action, Huthang activated the lance's comm channel. "Titania, co-ordinate with the other faeries. Get our mirage nanites in the air. I want a one-way illusion projected two metres in front of us that shows the tunnel ahead as being empty for anyone looking at us from the barge's side." Sure, there was only twenty metres of tunnel around the corner, but the longer they could keep the enemy from noticing them, the better. "Once you're ready, kick on the jump jets and we'll glide around the corner a metre above the ground."

Huthang began slowly moving his Sun Scorpion forwards, positioning his machine best for the following swing around the bend in the tunnel once the faeries were ready. He also began preparing the glassmaker to fire, hoping the jury-rigged repairs would at least allow him a good shot or two before giving out. "I'm hitting him with my glassmaker. If you have any radioactive weaponry, use it. If we don't kill it outright, maybe we can fake the pilot into thinking he has a radiation leak and make him bail."

"Mirage is up, Huthang, bringing jump jets online." Nodding towards his faerie's display, Huthang acknowledged Titania with a nod towards the faerie's holoprojection. With a little shakiness that smoothed out after naught but a moment, the Sun Scorpion slowly rose off of the floor of the tunnel. With a light hand on the controls Huthang moved the mech forwards, applying greater yaw to the rear of the Scorpion as he did, causing it to smoothly drift around the corner. As soon as the turn was complete, he pulled his foot from the pedal controlling the jump jets, causing Titania to lower the Scorpion back onto its legs.

"Fire in the hole!" Carefully placing the targeting reticule over the centre of the squid-like mech, using the red pattern of lights as a crosshair, Huthang triggered the glassmaker to fire. The background hum of his mech feverishly increased in pitch before there was a loud crack of superheated and displaced air that Huthang could feel through the seat of his cockpit as much as he heard it. A bright golden beam of energy, the size of a tree trunk, shot forth from the Scorpion - five seconds of actinic glory that lanced towards the enemy.

Front of the Barge

Yamog wasted a lot of time getting it together, there was no sugar coating it- For a moment they contemplated having Deimos project some more convenient monitor readouts as holographic panels directly in front of her face, but the bleeding, ruined, faceplate staring at her mere inches away was more than just horrifying and undignified, it was a liability- Cyborgs like these could recover from the most ridiculous wounds, sometimes- She watched a whole internep video about it!- Sometimes they didn't even have real brains in their heads, just a remote chip puppeteering the body from somewhere else...

Joanna's mech thus left them behind after valiantly taking that shot for the spider girl, and Yamog was forced to waste even more time trying to angle the armor away from the line of fire, opening the canopy again, having Deimos temporarily take control of the lasers again, firing along the floor to dissuade further borders- and then kicking upwards like crazy, whilst trying not to expose their body directly to the lead-raining void-

Light and shadow flickered in a dizzying display of dust, whizzing tracers, angry hud alarms, and blind carnage-

The body was dislodged- Her headrest exploded- Another shot hit the curved underside of her canopy, and reflected down, directly puncturing her suit with a sickeningly audible pop-

Was she hit? Somewhere just below her left upper armpit? She couldn't feel anything? Was that adrenaline blunting the pain?

Hatch closed. Hatch closed. Close the fucking hatch again-

This wasn't logical, human thinking anymore- Her screaming animal instincts drove her to just move- drag herself out of this, fire freaking everything, as soon as possible-

In effect, they surged ahead at an angle, crossing paths underneath Joanna's metal frame as they boosted backwards through the void, overhead- A continuous staccato chain fire of macro-missiles, spraying out of their hexagonal left side pods- A cognition somewhere between the spider girl and her fairy, the shots went from exploding uselessly in the dirt, to hitting the lower skirts of armour, to panging in and around the assembly of that gigantic glowing barrel-

This wasn't aiming, this was being so overwhelmingly furious that the enemy wouldn't be allowed to focus either-

Was it enough to divert the impending blast away from her comrade?

Would the Proboscis' ammo last long enough to get lucky, or would she be left empty handed in the open, when this thing finally fired?