- RP Date
- Late YE 44
- RP Location
- Sirris
Late YE 44
Sanctum System - Sirris - Obsidian City Green Zone
In the years since the New Dusk Conclave had established itself in the Sanctum system, a saying had emerged among those living on Sirris. "Watch out for when the hills walk." To many of those who came to visit the planet, the saying often seemed like a turn of phrase or a euphemism for something else.
Today was one of the rare days that they could learn otherwise. The yearly megafauna migration had begun to take place, and its path was bringing it through the Green Zone, freshly expanded and developed with towns and outposts. Sirens rang out across the Obsidian City territory, sending settlers scrambling to shelter.
At the same time, a notification was sent out to any citizens or residents who had registered as members of the Home Guard, a civilian-based reservist force. The orders requested any qualified pilots to report to the largest settlement in the Green Zone, Stonehill, and help turn back the tide of megafauna.
Allie, the oldest daughter of the Johansson clan had finally convinced her papa she was old enough to pilot Bertha for this year's migration. Besides, the old man was getting old anyway. She clanked through the streets towards the muster point. She wanted to leave and join the Legion, but papa always said he needed hands on the farm. Maybe next year... or the year after that. For now, she'd have to settle with the Home Guard.
With the yearly migration coming up, Hunter, a local Default mining and construction worker convinced his boss with letting him borrow the worksite's Oxen. Colored in Default yellow with black stripes and a Default logo on the right breastplate. a mining laser and rivet gun would be tacked on, one to either arm, and a girder held in one hand.
"Hey, Hunter," Allie said, making the mech wave one arm at the construction worker.
"Howdy, Allie. your Pa finally letting you Pilot that old gal?" Hunter stated with a nod of his head.
"He shoulda a few years ago, but ya know how he is, 'We need you on the form, Allie. Why do you want to go off having adventures? We can't spare you,'" She said mimicking Papa's voice and making Bertha's hand a dismissive talking gesture.
"He's just worried about you darling. plus as much as he says he can't spare you I have to guess he's just really protective and not ready to be a grandpappy yet," he stated with a chuckle over the coms.
"I'm not trynna have kids any time soon, Hunter, I just want to pilot something bigger than a dang Oxen," she sighed. "I guess he's worried something'll happen to me, he'll never get those grandkids."
"I mean the Oxen ain't that bad, I got this nice version with mining and construction equipment and durable to do to what it's meant for." He stated flashing the various "weapons" on his mech.
"Yeah it does what it's supposed to do, but imagine flying a Possessor!" Alli said. She popped the hatch to get out and stretch for a bit before the action found them. "Want some water? I've got a few bottles in here. It was cold when I packed it."
The characteristic whine of aging hydraulics and motors announced the arrival of the group's third member: an old Ashigaru whose chipped and faded paint indicated that its owner - one of the city's newer arrivals, a reclusive 'spacer who went by "Zero Nine" and nothing else - cared little for aesthetics. "Nine, reporting" crackled over the comms; even without the distortion that came from a communications system several years past its intended lifespan, it was clear that the voice on the other end was mechanical or at least synthetic - clearly not its speaker's natural voice.
Amidst the group of old mecha and walkers, came a lone Tenshi II power armor piloted by a KAIMON Ascendant Android. Having been temporarily assigned to Yugumo Corporation's diplomatic outpost in Obsidian City, Yōsai Kozakura jumped at the opportunity to test her capabilities in the company's mainline power armor, especially against monsters! Flying into the meeting zone, the Consort landed next to one of the bigger machines—a towering Oxen that bore all the hallmarks of a work mecha.
Working on a new planet, there was still so much of NDC's culture for the Consort to take in, but for the time being...
She had monsters to kill!
Approaching the meeting zone is an Oxen in orange paint with purple markings with a large Axe its right hand, the markings denote that the pilot was Kirito, a local farmer from the outskirts.
Stortand Varg approached the group in his old battered Spartan. He kept it as maintained as one could in civilian life with beer and duct tape most days. The Spartan may have been a military machine but it served him well on the farm. He hefted his 50mm rotary assault rifle and made sure his weapons systems were functioning. He did have a very large wood-cutting ax strapped to the back of his mech. "Are you youngsters ready?" The grizzled vet said over the comms.
Seeing the battered Spartan approach and the pilot greet them and he said in response "Hey there grandpa that ole spartan not falling apart yet?" There is a small pause then says " Yep I am ready to go! I've been saving up ammo all year for this!"
Hunter opened his hatch "yeah I'll take one, would you like a rolly in return?" he said as he offered he rolled cigarette.
"Pa'll kill me... so yes," she said with a wicked grin. She traded the construction worker's water for a rolly. "Hey, y'all geezers grab water or my ma'll kill the lot of ya." She said pointing at the red cooler strapped to the back of Bertha.
Varg moved his Spartan over to Bertha and opened his cockpit to climb out on the hand of his mech. "Nope, she's good to go powered by duct tape and beer." He said and the mech moved its hand so he could get a couple of bottles of water before being moved back so he can get back into his Spartan. He would take out a cigarette and light it to smoke.
"Yeah it's just water, beers for after the fight," she said with a laugh.
Kirito moves his Oxen over to the other with the cooler and opens his cockpit to grab one and then asks, Can I get a smoke also?" Asking some as he opens the bottle and takes a drink of it.
"Sure," Varg says and will step back out to offer his pack of smokes to Kirito.
As the farmers, locals, and other pilots gathered at the muster point outside of Stonehill, a few Duskerian Legion units could be seen in the distance, approaching by thruster-hover as the leader of the unit hailed the assembled pilots. The leader was piloting a massive XM1 Possessor, and their five subordinates were in modified Super Spartans, equipped with shields, swords, and hip-mounted turrets.
Fixing his cowboy hat and aviators while he smoked and opened a bottle of water he tips his hat to the newcomers. "Howdy Yall, So what fun are ya'll bringing to this party?"
The black-coated mech cut a knight-like figure as it towered nearly half as tall as those of the civilians and the military Spartans. "We're bringing backup, this year's looking worse than normal. East to west this time." A woman's voice called out over the radio with an ID code popping up alongside the transmission reading O1WP, Hansen.
"We've only got a few minutes before the first wave gets here, we're going to need to keep them far enough from the town to avoid damage. We'll need to split up to cover every approach, but no groups smaller than three."
As a rumbling began to be felt in the ground, the assembled pilots found themselves sent a set of waypoints, one in each cardinal direction around the town. "Group up and move to the waypoints, my men'll cover whatever's left."
Kirito looks over toward the ole Spartan and says " what you say Grandpa wanna group up and take north together? " After getting his rolled smoke he closes his cockpit and gets ready to head northward.
"I guess we're moving out," Allie said, driving with her cockpit open so the cigarette smoke wouldn't fill the cockpit.
Varg will nod his head. "Lead the way kiddo." He said and got back in his mech closing the cockpit and following behind Kirito.
"I'll take the North," commented Zero as her Ashigaru lumbered into motion behind Varg's mech.
Closing the hatch after flicking his smoke out. "Alright, boys and girls let's deal with this year's migration."
Allie took a last pull on her cig and blew it out. "Groovie," she said like a character she'd seen in a movie before flicking the butt and shutting the hatch.
Kirito tosses out the butt after putting it out, as he moves to head northward as he makes sure that his desert wind was loaded and readies his axe.
Varg put out his cigarette in the ashtray he kept in his mecha and pulled out a well-loved cigar and lit it before taking a pull. "let's get started shall we?" He said and primed his 50mm rotary cannon.
"I'll group up with Allie and Hunter, if you'll have me!" Having lifted the faceplate of her helmet, Kozakura spoke up with a girlish cheer as she took in the scene of mecha pilots smoking. Of course, as a Consort, she didn't smoke and given Yugumo's Yamataian culture, smoking was seen as taboo, if not outright forbidden. Here, it was quite acceptable, to the point that the smell of tobacco and various other combustible plants filled her chemical sensors.
Surprisingly, it didn't actually smell that bad!
As each group moved towards their assigned waypoint, the towering Possessor gestured east and west, three Super Spartans peeling off to head to the western waypoint. As each group reached their destinations, the megafauna began to arrive, bear-like creatures, car-sized scorpions, and massive thick-skinned quadrupedal creatures that came up to the chest height of the Oxen and the waist of the Spartans. They were moving at a good clip, and it would take effort to stop them or divert their path.
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Group 1
Seeing the first wave start to head toward them Kirito says "Buckle up here they come!!" Kirito starts to fire his Desert wind at the approaching Scorpions and resorting to taking up his axe with both hands and swinging away if any get too close. Kirito takes to aiming mostly at the heads of the approaching fauna with his cannons and attempting to behead them in melee range.
"Hell, it's about time," Varg responds and opens with his 50mm when in range he will switch to his Hardsell coilcannons. He would work on the thick-skinned creatures first focusing his shots on point to breach the creatures' skin to kill them. When things came close he would pull out his massive woodcutting axe. "I keep this handy for close encounters."
"So it begins." After switching off the radio, Zero sighed, flipped the toggle for the mech's mind-machine interface with a trembling, shaking, and voidwalker suit-garbed hand - and bit back that all-too-familiar urge to scream as the memories of that dark, dark day tore through her mind like the snow-hued aether blade that... that...
The sound of gunfire was thankfully enough to tear the Type Three away from chasing the (proverbial) rabbit; with a shake of the head, Zero re-focused her attention and felt her mind fall into the well-worn grooves of piloting the metal shell around her - opening up with a series of salvos from her frame's handheld plasma carbine as she sent an armoire missile streaking into a particularly large cluster of beasts and felt herself skyrocketing upwards and backward with a surge from the nuclear-thermal plasma rockets on her back.
As Kirito's autocannon fire sailed into the horde of creatures charging at the group at the northern waypoint, the sabot rounds began to pierce holes through the chitinous exoskeletons of the creatures, sending nearly a third of the approaching wave crashing limply to the ground, left to be trampled by the other creatures.
Varg was less fortunate, maybe it was the coils in his aged firearm being worn out, maybe it was the warheads being past their best-by date, but his 50mm rifle was having less than the desired effect on the thick-skinned quadrupeds known as Ironskins to the locals. Several fell away, but one made it close enough to him to knock him flying backward a short distance before his woodcutting axe laid it low. Alarms blared out in the aged Spartan, alerting him to damage to its axe arm.
The last portion of this group was brought down by a combination of plasma fire and missiles from Zero, her frame's legs absorbing the shock of landing after her jump giving the camera in her frame's head a steady view of the last of the creatures falling limp, and the small crater her missile had left.
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Group 2
"Man It'd be nice if they sent one of the big dudes down here... or gave us some missiles, Allie said as she moved Bertha into position. "Well, anybody like "Durallium Damsel?" she asked before blasting music for her friends and bursts of tungsten shards towards the scorpions.
Immediately, Kozakura got the impression that she would be tasked with engaging the smallest creatures, while the heavy mecha would handle the car-sized scorpions and various other breeds of Sirrisian monstrosities. However, that didn't mean she would be entirely useless. Her task would be to free up the mecha so that they could focus their attention and firepower on the biggest, most dangerous enemies, without having to expend valuable ammunition on the smaller creatures!
"I have some missiles on my legs!" The Consort answered. "And I love Durallium Damsel!" She added, after taking a microsecond to listen to a number of the group's songs by overclocking her KAIMON systems to essentially slow down time within her perception.
Before long, the group had arrived at the southern area to defend against the charging horde of monsters! For her part, Kozakura took an aerial position over her allies, her shoulder-mounted interdiction rifles leveled toward the enemy! She immediately prioritized the smaller, faster creatures with her firepower, the likes of bears and similarly-sized monsters. If those weren't available, the Consort would contribute her firepower to the bigger monsters, utilizing the precision of her interdiction rifles to target weak points such as eyes, nasal orifices, and even genitalia or buttholes, if such things presented themselves!
While marching forward with his Oxen, he spoke over the comms. "So for the record given the situation and the lack of proper weapons on this thing. I'll mostly be a support or heavy weapons mecha this mining laser is capable of vaporizing rock and blowing rivets into rock and metal." Seeing the creatures charging toward them. He chuckled as the loud rock music starts playing from Allie.
"Right let's turn up the heat!" he states as he activates his mining laser to melt through the smaller creatures. Realizing the rivet gun would be a better option, he started pulling a tow cable from his side as he starts tieing it into a lasso. "As much as making a shield wall would be nice Allie that ain't my style, Imma try to rodeo that big'n over there."
Kozakura's efforts to keep her allies free of distractions paid off in spades, the power-armored Consort android's shoulder-mounted mass drivers and pistols tearing up the smaller creatures with lightning speed, and even helping to blind and disable some of the larger Ironskins and scorpions for her allies.
Unfortunately, the two farmers fared somewhat less well. Allie's Hardsell let out its signature series of cracks as it accelerated chunks of tungsten past the speed of sound at a rate of fifty rounds per second, bringing down ironskins and scorpions at their joints, but she was forced to resort to her pitchfork to bring down a particularly stubborn one.
While Hunter's rivet gun and mining laser seemed less effective than expected against his intended targets, his attempt to rodeo went off well, the durandium cable wrapping around an adult Ironskin. The heels of his Oxen dug into the orange soil of Sirris, and its 13-ton weight brought the creature to a halt as he tapped his jets to climb into the back of the creature, beginning to yank its head in the direction he wanted to make it move. The ironskins' bulk broke up the charge of the last of the creatures, making it easy to clean up the last of the wave.
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As the north and south groups cleared out the last stragglers, the Lieutenant from the Duskerian Legion radioed them to check in and report on the status of the area. "Alright, all groups check in. We're expecting at least one more wave before we're done."
The group from the west, composed of three of the woman's subordinates, were the first to answer her request. "Lance two is reporting all clear on the western front. We were mostly getting stragglers from you guys since the migration's moving east to west."
"I sustained damage to my mechs arm and these cheap ass rounds are duds but old faithful did the trick in chopping one down," Varg reported.
"North Cleared up for the most part at the moment, awaiting more incoming," reported Kirito.
"We'll compensate you for the repair costs, the same goes for ammunition so long as you're not using it against the town." The woman's voice said with a joking tone.
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Group 1
Varg will slam his axe into the corpse of a creature. He would reload his 50mm, hopefully, fresh ammunition would work. he would cycle additional power into the coils of his hardsell coilcannons hopefully this would charge the coils to full power.
Zero hated the pauses that always occurred in combat because they always brought that sickening sense of uncertainty with them, that feeling of never knowing how the tides of battle were turning, or if they'd already turned; sure, she and the others in her ad-hoc squad had survived the wave - but what about the rest of the oncoming Yamat-no, the 'spacer corrected herself, the oncoming creatures? What if one of the other teams failed? What if they let the enemy through again? What if...
" You ok over there Grandpa?" Kirito moved over to a critter that was down but struggling to get back up and slams his axe down to finish it off before regrouping with the others. " Seamed like that ole firearm was not hitting like it used to?"
"Cheap ammunition is all, I loaded fresh rounds so we should be good to go, and cycled power to my coils. The last course of action is my lasers but they won't do shit on the big guys." He shifted his rifle to his mech's bum arm and moved his axe to his good arm.
Kirito sighs some as he shakes some from the combat, "Ugh this is what I hate about combat even fighting these critters the adrenaline rush wears off and you feel like coming down off a sugar rush." Kirito laughs nervously and looks around " I think I see more coming our way but they look to be a ways off still.
"Worst-case scenario I got three fusion reactors I can pop if needed," Varg said and popped a bottle of water and took a swig. "You got this kid." He looked over at Zero. "You as well stranger."
"Should we press forward a bit?" He asked the two.
" I really hope that is not needed your suit is important and you would be missed, Grandpa." Pauses and looks out some " ok yep let's move up to meet the next one I'm still good on ammo so I'll try to take them out as they come toward us. "
"S-SSu-" began the Type Three, stuttering out of sheer panic for a moment before she caught herself; after a moment spent cursing herself out, she continued, "-sorry. Sure."
"Varg to O1WP, Hansen, north team is moving up a bit to cover more ground," Varg said over the comms to Lieutenant.
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Group 2
"Dangit!" Allie said as she wrenched her pitchfork out of the last beast. Her cockpit was getting stuffy so she turned on the fan Uncle Earl installed last season. She looked up to see Hunter who'd managed to mount one of the creatures. "What're you thinking?" she yelled over the comm at Hunter before moving to shoot any of the critters trying to surround him.
Immediately, Kozakura marked many of the bigger creatures she had disabled on her HUD for the mecha pilots to finish off. However, since most of them were no longer active threats and would likely bleed out or expire on their own, it went without saying that they tumbled down the target priority list.
"Marking wounded targets for tasking!" Kozakura transmitted over the radio as she blew open the skull of a bear with a lancing shot from one of her interdiction rifles, in what was already her eighth kill of the day! Naturally, it went without saying that she was having fun, especially with the music, but the next wave was already emerging over the horizon across the terrain. Taking advantage of the short reprieve, Kozakura slammed fresh magazines into her interdiction rifles, swiftly executing a pair of tactical reloads as her old magazines still had rounds in them. All the while, Kozakura let loose a girlish giggle at seeing Hunter in his Oxen rodeo one of the monsters!
"Gotcha, Miss!" Allie replied before caving in a writhing creature's skull with Bertha's foot.
"Oh don't worry bout it Allie, just having a bit 'o fun while we're out here. Besides I got some stories to tell back at work, seeing how I just rode a giant creature just now." putting a rivet into the back of the creature's head before hopping off of it. "This all being said, your folks still Having that BBQ this year?" he asked slightly hopeful.
"Boy, if you get hurt, I'm the one you're gonna have to worry bout," she shouted back over the comm before skewering another "bear". Opening her comm again, she muttered, "Yeah I got your little stunt on Bertha's camera... " Brightening, "Yeah but be careful, I think Ma's trying to fatten you up."
"I mean that's probably a given but I assumed they are just trying to get their daughter to be a little thicker." he joked. as he put a few more rivets into stragglers.
"Oh, I'm plenty thick," Allie snarked, firing the Hardsell at some approaching scorpions with her mech's hand on its hip. "But you wouldn't know anything bout that."
"Probably right, but if I did learn of something your dad would be angry so there's that," he stated before checking the ammo on the rivet gun.
"So I'll head off to the Legion and an I guess when I come back, who knows what'll happen," Allie said making Bertha give a playful salute.
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The farmers and other assorted pilots could once again the ground begin to rumble as another wave of creatures approached, this time composed primarily of adult Ironskins and the scorpions, with fewer of the bear-like creatures in the mix this time around. The locals would soon realize that this behavior was unusual, the Ironskins in this group were intermixed with the other creatures instead of in their own herd like with the first wave. Something was spooking them.
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Group 1
"Conserve your ammunition the beasts are acting strange as if spooked." Varg stowed his 50mm rotary cannon and grabbed his axe two-handed. "I'm switching to melee to save my 50mm for whatever is next."
Blinks some as he realized something as he hears Varg's voice on the coms, " yea your right the ironskins are not in their normal herds, and the rest seem to be moving east to west more than from the north or south. " Pauses looking around and then saying " I'll not fire at the longer ranges and more so that the ones that might turn in toward the settlement, That sound good grandpa?"
"Sounds good, what do you got for weapons, those ironskins will be a pain in the ass," Varg said to Kirito and Zero
"I just have my axe and this Desert wind with ADPS rounds, I really have not been able to afford anything else... But for now, the rounds seem to be working, But if something bigger comes along I might need to hit their sides more than taking 'em head on." Kirito would say over the coms to Varg.
"I'll take the bas-" - stop that, you blasted airhead! - "-beasts from above," said Zero, who was valiantly trying to ignore just how much her hands were shaking.
"Alright, let's hit the ironskins from the side and get the little bastards from the rear." Varg would power on his macro lasers now.
"All right sounds good to me, If I get into a bad spot I'll take to the air and shoot at them." Kirito moves forward his axe still on his back as he was mostly shooting with the forearm-mounted cannon. "If my count is right I've got maybe 50 more shots in this mag and two more on my belt. I have been trying to conserve my ammo."
"Copy, and watch out for those Mindys!" With that, Zero's Ashigaru took to the sky, keeping her altitude at a mere one hundred and fifty meters above the ground - the maximum range of her frame's chest-mounted weapons - as she swept the land below with a maelstrom of ultraviolet lasers, plasma, and missiles.
Varg readied his axe and powered his own thrusters to make a quick ascent if needed. He checked the power to his hardsells and lasers. "I only have 150 rounds left for my 50mm so I'm going to keep until the big nasty beast comes."
Blinks and then asks " What Mindys? Where?" Kirito asks over coms as the Ashigaru took to the air.
The Type Three's response was immediate - "More airheads? Where?"
Varg sighed and flew towards the beasts as they approached. "Come on kids it show time." He said went at the ironskins flanks with his axe while he used his hardsells and lasers on the lesser foes.
Kirito was mostly shooting the ironskins head-on that were heading into the settlement or nearby as he keeps trying to move the animal away from the settlement. Seeing he was now the only one that was on the ground at the moment. He did activate his hover mode just to have it on standby in case he needs to get out of the way of something charging at him.
Though Zero's array of weaponry was far beyond what either of the two locals could bring to bear, her distracted nature and seeming slip into a traumatic event in her past hampered her ability to land shots in the right places. The missiles, plasma fire, and laser beams crisscrossed the onrushing group of megafauna, disrupting their movements and taking out about a quarter of what was there but doing just as much damage to the surrounding landscape.
Varg's flanking maneuver to the right of the creatures put him in position to strike at the scorpions and ironskins from an unexpected angle, one that the Ironskins were more vulnerable from. His macro laser fused chitinous joints and his hardsells punched bleeding holes into the Ironskins, all the while his axe crunched and cleaved through hardened skin and chitin alike, laying out another third of the creatures.
Just under half of the megafauna on the northern side were left, and what remained to hold them off was Kirito, his autocannon, and his axe. The cannon barked out at a steady pace, nearly ten times a second, the field of fire scything across the charging horde. As the remainder trampled their fallen fellows in an attempted escape from whatever had spooked them, his axe left nearly all that still lived disabled or dead as a few stragglers ran west past the town.
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Group 2
Allie wiped the sweat from her brow as another wave began heading their way. She fired burst after burst at the things until they began to close and she was forced to pull her pitchfork.
Using the mining laser he would carve the I beam into a point at one end. "Shield wall now?" he states holding the pointed end out like a spear in an attempt to break the charge.
"You've got it," she said backing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with hunter. She jabbed her pitchfork through gaps in the shield.
This wave was behaving differently, that much was certain. Of course, Kozakura still had the option of holding position and firing on the monsters from a defensive aerial position as she had done before, but the Consort's intuition told her that something different might be needed in order to protect the town from the encroaching horde. Immediately, Kozakura connected to the local networks via her KAIMON AI, attempting to find as much information as possible on the creatures, specifically pertaining to things that they might be attracted to!
Before long, Kozakura got the idea to shape her volumetrics into something resembling a hyper-idealized female Ironkin specimen! However, rejecting her initial idea to lead the monsters on a chase, the Consort decided to position herself close to her allies, in the hopes of luring the creatures into the wall of firepower and armor presented by Allie and Hunter's mecha!
"What in the world is that girl doin'?" Allie muttered after seeing the power-armored lady turn into one of the Ironskins.
"Get ready to radio reinforcements! I have an idea and if this works, we might be able to funnel them into a killing zone, rather than the town!"
"I'm petty sure we are the reinforcements, but I might be able to get the LT to shoot some missiles over her if I ask all cute," Allie said over the comm. Part of her wanted to see what would come of this, but she didn't want her and Hunter to die while that power-armored outlander was getting mounted by Ironskins.
"Given that we are civilians voluntold to assist I'm going to go out on a limb and say if we're being pushed into service I want to assume were stretched pretty thin," he stated.
Hearing out Kozakura's idea, Hunter left the shield wall. "I'll be right back!" he stated as he began using his mining laser to create rough terrain to assist in the funneling of the creatures in a particular area.
"Jerk! You're not going off alone," Allie said, chasing after her friend to watch his back.
"I'll be the bait," Kozakura said, her tone determined, yet ready. To that end, she took position directly in front of the rough terrain, hoping that when she moved, the creatures would fall directly into it!
The sexual aspect of Kozakura's disguise seemed to be mostly ignored by the ironskins, though many did turn her way seemingly more out of a herd instinct to follow any fellow ironskin that was leading the way away from danger than any sort of sexual attraction to the volumetric projection. She was able to dodge out of the way of the charging beasts, the creatures stumbling on the trenches dug by Hunter and presenting their less protected flanks as easy targets for the Consort's and her ally's weapons.
Kozakura only just managed to launch herself out of the way of the horde, firing her interdiction rifles as she did. Nevertheless, the Consort's play seemed to have worked, as the Ironskins fell into the opening cut open by Hunter's mining laser, becoming mired in the rough terrain. For her part, the gynoid unleashed her firepower on the trapped creatures, targeting any weak points that she could find and as a result, managing to disable more than a few!
Meanwhile, Hunter and Allie found themselves fighting off the Ironskins and scorpions while beset from all sides. The shield wall might have been broken up, but the disc shield projectors on each of the arms of their Oxen were proving useful to the two farmers, preventing the scorpion's claws and the trampling feet of the Ironskins from making contact with their frames.
Between their improvised melee weaponry, the two soon found themselves deep in piles of megafauna bodies, but with the assistance of the foreign visitor, the tide had stemmed again.
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Full Cast
With the remainder of the second wave vanquished, the Legion soldiers and the locals came together to the east of Stonehill, their expected duties over. However, the ground continued to rumble, the vibrations growing into what were now clearly earthquake-like steps. Into view past a large hill in the distance came what appeared almost to be a moving piece of the landscape. The creature was almost like a six-legged tortoise with tusks across its strange face, and a group of megafauna fleeing the beast bigger than any of the waves the groups had faced before.
Varg sighed "Yeah it seems I was right sadly." he said and drew his 50mm rotary cannon.
After the last Ironskin dropped, Allie began attempting to patch up a coolant tube that had begun leaking during the fight. When the ground began to tremble, she almost dropped the roll of molecure tape. "Yo, Hunter, you seeing that?" She looked around for the black and orange mech, heart pounding. No time, she began to check for more damage on Bertha. Most of it was external, and she didn't think she had time to fix it.
Kirito blinks and then asks "Um did that Mountain over there just move???"
"That's all they sent to here, the Lighthouse? HA!" The Freespacer launched herself forwards, firing everything she had as she juked and weaved against the fire from the kaiju's defensive turrets. She didn't care that most of her weapons weren't in range or that she was dodging non-existent defensive fire, for she was fighting the Star Empire of Yamatai: the enemy who'd taken her home, her friends, her everything away from her - then humiliated her when she tried to exact the revenge that was so rightfully hers. But now...
Now, it was her turn. "DIE!"
Lighting a new cig off the sparks forming in the cockpit of his mech Hunter spoke up. "Yeah I see that but it's not like we can do anything about it right now being neck-deep in bodies." He said using a mining laser to carve a path in close quarters for the two of them.
"Hey, I think we need to regroup because it looks like there's either a creature moving a mountain or that mountain is a creature." He says over their comms.
"Yeah, let's form back up with Armor lady," Allie said. One of Bertha's speakers had been blown out in the fighting and the music only rattled out weakly. She didn't know how they'd manage to survive this thing. "Maybe, it's time I ask the LT for that missile strike huh?"
"I agree," Varg says and will put his cigar out to finish off his water bottle.
Her Tenshi covered in green blood from a brutal bout of close-quarters combat within the trench, Kozakura felt the ground rumble under her feet. As if on cue, her mass detectors registered something big approaching, and soon enough, the gynoid saw it with her own eyes! Once more, Kozakura connected to the local network in order to pull up any information she could pull up on it, specifically pertaining to its internal anatomy, if it was available.
Kozakura frowned, as her search yielded little of use.
Nevertheless, unlike an organic, Kozakura didn't need air or water to support her functions. She only needed power, which she had plenty of! And so, the gynoid launched herself up into the air, transmitting to the other pilots as she did. "Cover me! I'm gonna go get vored!" She called out, with no shortage of girlish, yet bloodthirsty excitement in her tone, as she soared off towards the (presumably) gaping nostrils of the great horned turtle!
"She couldn't'a just said 'get eaten'?" Allie asked.
Kirito says over the comms, "Well crap I don't know if I have much more ammo, I'm on my last mag now. So I might have to start taking on the little ones with my axe till that big thing gets here unless someone has some 25mm APDS that I can reload my empty mags with laying around. " Kirito looks around as he sighs off coms and looks for that bottle of water, he was getting a little parched and his belly was rumbling some as the fighting that he has been doing recently.
Edging her Bertha slightly in front of Hunter's mech, Allie opened a comm to the LT, "Can we get a missile strike or something? That thing's big enough to make my coil gun look like a pea shooter!"
"Negative, we've got something special incoming, we've just got to hold out for a minute or two until it gets here." Lieutenant Hansen responded to Allie's request.
"A Minute she says." Varg says and looks at Kozakura,
"So I got a stupid Idea Allie would you be interested in helping me with it.?" he says handing over a metal tow cable. "I wanna cut off a tusk with a mining laser as a trophy."
"If you get killed, I swear I'm gonna kill you, jerk," she said with a long-suffering sigh and took the cable. Swinging a lasso in a mech was a different set of skills, but she figured it out.
A veritable swarm of various flying monsters which had been roosting on the tusked turtle's shell flew to meet Kozakura and the others who were fighting their way towards the Kaiju. She had cover from her allies, but the swarm itself was so dense that the gynoid couldn’t pass through it without risking being ripped to shreds.
Nevertheless, if it meant saving the town, the gynoid was ready to confront the reality of her own "death" however that might manifest itself upon her synthetic "soul". And so, after initially taking cover behind Zero Nine's Ashigaru, Kozakura launched herself towards the swarm, fully expecting to be torn apart!
As Kozakura, Zero, Allie, and Hunter began to try to fight their way toward the giant Kaiju, the rest of the assembled civilians and the Duskerian Legionnaires held the line against the oncoming horde of smaller megafauna. Those attempting to reach the Kaiju found their flight paths disrupted by extremely irate flying creatures that appeared to have been roosting inside the forest atop the Kaiju's back and were now circling their home.
The creatures flew densely packed together, and progress was slow going, until beams began to pierce the creatures from above as the familiar shape of a U-1 variable fighter, albeit heavily modified from its original model, was silhouetted against the sun. It began to dive down toward the swarm of flying creatures, and as it passed by Kozakura and Zero its fuselage began to shift, transforming into a frame. The machine crossed its arms, pointing hands in either direction as beam repeaters on the arms opened fire and cleared a flight path for them.
Reaching the ground with an impact that kicked up a cloud of dust, the machine began to tear through the horde of creatures, decimating their numbers as it hovered, twisted, and dashed through the formation in what almost seemed to be a graceful dance, leaving less than a fifth of the original number to threaten the defenders.
For Kozakura, it was as if the seas had parted before her!
The unidentified U-1 variable fighter cut a swathe through the swarm of flying monsters, clearing the path for Kozakura to enter the gaping nostrils of the great horned turtle! Shunting power to her armor's turbo plasma engines, Kozakura accelerated straight forward, a power-armor grade katana held in one hand, with an armor service pistol in the other! As she closed in, Kozakura willed her armor to deaccelerate with as much Gs as her chassis' gravity manipulation systems could compensate for, in order to mitigate the force of the impact.
Then, in an explosion of snot, mucus, and various other disgusting fluids, Kozakura punched her way through!
Without hesitation, the gynoid set to work with burning and cutting her way through the monster's nasal mucus, then its cranial bone structure, forcing open a path to the turtle's brain through in a flurry of bone, viscera, and mucus!
"Damn," Varg said watching the display and would fly as well. "You kids save me some animal bits I'm going help keep the little bastards off you."
"Shit" Kirito would say as he takes off the axe on his back and starts to swing into action as he moved toward the smaller critters that are coming in closer as the three that took off flying toward the large turtle-like creature with flying animals on its back start to swam those heading toward it.
As the U-1 blasted its way through monsters, Allie let out a cheer and launched after it twirling the lasso. "It's now or never, boo," She yelled at Hunter before loosing the steel cable.
Once the lasso was in place he began using the mining laser to cut threw it after some time he yelled over his comms. "Now pull Allie!" pausing for a moment he looked back "w-wait boo?"
Allie was too busy kicking Bertha's motors into overdrive and tugging to respond. Most of her gauges were in the red, overload warnings blared in her ears, but she was gonna pull dammit.
The gynoid had managed cut an ugly hole into the lower part of the turtle's skull and now, she had direct access to the huge, ridged mass of meat that was the creature's brain. Presented with the organ that made up all and everything that composed the tusked turtle's life, Kozakura gave an exhilarated cry as she began to rip and tear her way through its brain, all while firing her forearm-mounted plasma guns into the fleshy, ridged masses. Feeling like a Nekoranger wielding an aether katana (which wasn't that far from her reality), while she wasn't created exclusively for combat or military purposes like a Nekovalkyrja, at that moment, the Consort felt like she was one! Naturally, she couldn't restrain herself from singing the theme of a particularly dark anime which she enjoyed, her voice carrying over the radio to meet the ears of the mecha pilots and anyone else fighting outside!
"Invaders surround us
Enraged by our lives and our loves
The world will erupt in flames"
From above there was a fireball as something large was entering the planet, From that fireball was a large gunship-looking craft. Dropping lower those that would look in its direction would spot that there were four large dual cannon turrets moving to take aim at the Kaiju. As the spaceship got closer the starship fires sending 8, 406mm by 1526 APCBC shells at the body of the Kaiju and slowed to hover the Turrets once more taking up aim at the remains if it needed to fire once more. Anyone nearby would hear the whine of several large jet engines holding up the craft, and see bursts of fire to adjust its position.
Zeck looked out the bridge window before sitting back down in her seat. "I'm glad we are up here and not down there."
Nikicon smiles and then says " Yea me too, um did I hit it?" she smiles looking at the console she knows that she hit it but will let Zeck tell her.
"Fall back," Varg called over the comms watching the Sobek unleash its barrage of weapons.
Kirito blinks as he spotted the spacecraft and then looked at where the turrets were pointed " Oh hell yeah!!!" he whooped as the craft fired and then moves to cleave another nearby critter with his axe. "Good thing that spacecraft showed up, I have no clue how we would have dealt with that larger thing."
Before long, Kozakura cut deep enough into the fleshy matter to reach its base, locating the KAIMON estimated to be the brainstem. Immediately, she opened up with what was left of her firepower at near-point-blank range. However, she couldn't stay forever, especially as her mass detectors registered high-powered rounds slamming into the turtle's armored hide. Having caused as much damage to the brainstem as she could feasibly accomplish, Kozakura began to cut her way out the same way she came in, and before long...
FWOOSH!
The power armor-clad gynoid shot out of the turtle's nostrils in a blast of viscera, blood, and brain matter. She landed not far away from the action, touching down in a clearing as she waited for the great tusked turtle to fall!
Zeck looked at the sensors and peeked out the windows. "Yep spot on seems my calibration was on the mark."
Nikicon smiles " YAY! You seen that Lenna?" Lenna would just sigh shaking her head some as she sits in the captain's chair, and then opens comms to the leader below. "LT Hansen, This is Lenna onboard the Sobek, looks like it was a good thing that we showed up when we did, Is everything all good down there? Nothing more we need to take care of?"
Allie slumped back in her seat, breathing heavily. Blood, guts, and ashes all but obscured Bertha's green paint job. As she managed to catch her breath she opened her comm, "Hey, Hunter, ya get your trophy? Hunter?" He'd been close to the blast, had he got hit? "You there? Hunter?" she asked again an edge of fear creeping into her voice.
As the gigantic kaiju slowly toppled, the tusks on its heads collided with the ground, the one that Hunter had been cutting with his mining laser snapping at the seam he'd cut, flying for a distance before cutting a furrow into the ground by Allie. The head had ended up coming to rest just next to Hunter's oxen, its glassy eyes rolling slightly from the impact, at head height compared to the construction frame standing next to it.
Hunter would walk around the side of the creature, "For the record that was a good time!" Hunter started making his way toward Allie.
"You jerk," Allie said as her fear gave way to laughter. "Ya know, Pa's been aging that new beer for months, he'd be pretty bummed if you couldn't try it. I'm gonna check on the others, try not to get eaten or something while I'm gone."
The Legionnaires who'd been holding the line with Kirito and Varg who'd let out a cheer, and the townsfolk of Stone Hill began to exit their homes and investigate the aftermath of the migration. The farmers and Legionnaires had managed to turn the megafauna away from the town, leaving it untouched save for a caked layer of orange dust that had settled atop most of the buildings, kicked up by the creatures.
As the townsfolk began to clean up the damage and collect what useful meat and materials they could from the megafauna. The Legionnaires' leader, Lieutenant Hansen, spoke over communications to the farmers and the Sobek's captain. "You've done well here today, I'll see to it that you're all compensated for any damages and paid for your time."
The Lieutenant's Possessor cast its gaze towards the broken-off tusk from the Kaiju, its tip buried in the ground and standing tall next to Allie. "Of course, you're all free to take trophies or meat from your kills too." The woman's voice was pure professionalism, with only a hint of amusement peeking through.
"Hey LT," Allie said with a wave. She sat on a wiped-down section of Bertha's shoulder as the mech stomped over on auto. "If your boys want, the family's throwing a barbeque down at the farm. Drag one of them beasts with you and we'll clean 'n grill it for ya. Or we could flash-freeze it for later. Whole town's gonna be there," she said, already picturing how the rest of the night would go. She'd pester the Legionnaires for stories. Pa would crack open that new beer he'd been aging in the shed. She'd eat her fill of meat grilled in the Johansson family's secret dry rub. And when she'd had enough she'd climb up to her favorite spot on the roof with a few beers and watch the party. Hunter would come to find her acting all surprised she was up there. He always did. She'd miss this town. She'd miss him, but if she didn't do any of the other things she wanted tonight, she'd talk Pa into letting her join the Legion.
The Possessor gave a short shake of its head before the Lieutenant answered. "I'm afraid not," She said, "I'm afraid that this incident's given me quite a long report to write. The creatures here were acting out of the ordinary, and to top it off there's the matter of the Kaiju."
One of the Spartans, standing just out of the field of view of the Lieutenant's main camera, gave a somewhat exaggerated sighing motion as over the radio a man's voice could be heard saying "That's Lieutenant Killjoy for you." The outburst was followed very shortly afterward by an exclamation of "Oh shi-" before the pilot closed off his radio channel, apparently not having realized he was still on the open channel.
The Lieutenant's mech turned back towards Allie from looking at the offending Legionaire, the chest splitting open to allow a cockpit block to extend and the pilot within to stand up, stretching and giving a wry smile towards Allie as she sat on her Oxen's shoulder. "While I don't have the luxury, it does seem like my men would rather stay and celebrate with you all. Be sure to put them to work in exchange for your hospitality, would you?"
"Yes, ma'am," Allie said giving her best salute. She began gesturing at the Legionnaires. "Grab a beastie and let's get going, today I'm gonna teach you how to clean a megafauna," she said, a grin splitting her face. Ma would love the extra help cleaning up and a squad of Legionaries would do just the trick. If they weren't too full of grilled meat to work.
Beneath the unreadable, blood and gore-caked mask of her helmet's face plate, a relieved smile manifested across Kozakura's features as the Kaiju collapsed to the cheers of Legionnaires, farmers, and mecha pilots. The gynoid only took her helmet off after the dust had settled, her cyan gaze taking in the scene as her vulpine-like ears twitched upon registering notes of conversation transpiring nearby.
A barbecue?
Of course, Kozakura didn't need to eat, but the idea of consuming something she had played a part in the killing was extremely seductive! Not to mention, her chassis was capable of extracting usable energy from organic substances and harnessing it to charge her capacitors. To say the least, she couldn't think of anything more satisfying!
As the farmers began to gather and collect the spoils of their victory, the Legionnaires were pressed into assisting, though the only protestations they offered were joking in tone. The sun began to set on Stonehill as Lieutenant Hansen and her Possessor began to return to Obsidian City. In the distance, visible just above the horizon, a fighter could be seen leaving the airspace around the town.
Sanctum System - Sirris - Obsidian City Green Zone
In the years since the New Dusk Conclave had established itself in the Sanctum system, a saying had emerged among those living on Sirris. "Watch out for when the hills walk." To many of those who came to visit the planet, the saying often seemed like a turn of phrase or a euphemism for something else.
Today was one of the rare days that they could learn otherwise. The yearly megafauna migration had begun to take place, and its path was bringing it through the Green Zone, freshly expanded and developed with towns and outposts. Sirens rang out across the Obsidian City territory, sending settlers scrambling to shelter.
At the same time, a notification was sent out to any citizens or residents who had registered as members of the Home Guard, a civilian-based reservist force. The orders requested any qualified pilots to report to the largest settlement in the Green Zone, Stonehill, and help turn back the tide of megafauna.
Allie, the oldest daughter of the Johansson clan had finally convinced her papa she was old enough to pilot Bertha for this year's migration. Besides, the old man was getting old anyway. She clanked through the streets towards the muster point. She wanted to leave and join the Legion, but papa always said he needed hands on the farm. Maybe next year... or the year after that. For now, she'd have to settle with the Home Guard.
With the yearly migration coming up, Hunter, a local Default mining and construction worker convinced his boss with letting him borrow the worksite's Oxen. Colored in Default yellow with black stripes and a Default logo on the right breastplate. a mining laser and rivet gun would be tacked on, one to either arm, and a girder held in one hand.
"Hey, Hunter," Allie said, making the mech wave one arm at the construction worker.
"Howdy, Allie. your Pa finally letting you Pilot that old gal?" Hunter stated with a nod of his head.
"He shoulda a few years ago, but ya know how he is, 'We need you on the form, Allie. Why do you want to go off having adventures? We can't spare you,'" She said mimicking Papa's voice and making Bertha's hand a dismissive talking gesture.
"He's just worried about you darling. plus as much as he says he can't spare you I have to guess he's just really protective and not ready to be a grandpappy yet," he stated with a chuckle over the coms.
"I'm not trynna have kids any time soon, Hunter, I just want to pilot something bigger than a dang Oxen," she sighed. "I guess he's worried something'll happen to me, he'll never get those grandkids."
"I mean the Oxen ain't that bad, I got this nice version with mining and construction equipment and durable to do to what it's meant for." He stated flashing the various "weapons" on his mech.
"Yeah it does what it's supposed to do, but imagine flying a Possessor!" Alli said. She popped the hatch to get out and stretch for a bit before the action found them. "Want some water? I've got a few bottles in here. It was cold when I packed it."
The characteristic whine of aging hydraulics and motors announced the arrival of the group's third member: an old Ashigaru whose chipped and faded paint indicated that its owner - one of the city's newer arrivals, a reclusive 'spacer who went by "Zero Nine" and nothing else - cared little for aesthetics. "Nine, reporting" crackled over the comms; even without the distortion that came from a communications system several years past its intended lifespan, it was clear that the voice on the other end was mechanical or at least synthetic - clearly not its speaker's natural voice.
Amidst the group of old mecha and walkers, came a lone Tenshi II power armor piloted by a KAIMON Ascendant Android. Having been temporarily assigned to Yugumo Corporation's diplomatic outpost in Obsidian City, Yōsai Kozakura jumped at the opportunity to test her capabilities in the company's mainline power armor, especially against monsters! Flying into the meeting zone, the Consort landed next to one of the bigger machines—a towering Oxen that bore all the hallmarks of a work mecha.
Working on a new planet, there was still so much of NDC's culture for the Consort to take in, but for the time being...
She had monsters to kill!
Approaching the meeting zone is an Oxen in orange paint with purple markings with a large Axe its right hand, the markings denote that the pilot was Kirito, a local farmer from the outskirts.
Stortand Varg approached the group in his old battered Spartan. He kept it as maintained as one could in civilian life with beer and duct tape most days. The Spartan may have been a military machine but it served him well on the farm. He hefted his 50mm rotary assault rifle and made sure his weapons systems were functioning. He did have a very large wood-cutting ax strapped to the back of his mech. "Are you youngsters ready?" The grizzled vet said over the comms.
Seeing the battered Spartan approach and the pilot greet them and he said in response "Hey there grandpa that ole spartan not falling apart yet?" There is a small pause then says " Yep I am ready to go! I've been saving up ammo all year for this!"
Hunter opened his hatch "yeah I'll take one, would you like a rolly in return?" he said as he offered he rolled cigarette.
"Pa'll kill me... so yes," she said with a wicked grin. She traded the construction worker's water for a rolly. "Hey, y'all geezers grab water or my ma'll kill the lot of ya." She said pointing at the red cooler strapped to the back of Bertha.
Varg moved his Spartan over to Bertha and opened his cockpit to climb out on the hand of his mech. "Nope, she's good to go powered by duct tape and beer." He said and the mech moved its hand so he could get a couple of bottles of water before being moved back so he can get back into his Spartan. He would take out a cigarette and light it to smoke.
"Yeah it's just water, beers for after the fight," she said with a laugh.
Kirito moves his Oxen over to the other with the cooler and opens his cockpit to grab one and then asks, Can I get a smoke also?" Asking some as he opens the bottle and takes a drink of it.
"Sure," Varg says and will step back out to offer his pack of smokes to Kirito.
As the farmers, locals, and other pilots gathered at the muster point outside of Stonehill, a few Duskerian Legion units could be seen in the distance, approaching by thruster-hover as the leader of the unit hailed the assembled pilots. The leader was piloting a massive XM1 Possessor, and their five subordinates were in modified Super Spartans, equipped with shields, swords, and hip-mounted turrets.
Fixing his cowboy hat and aviators while he smoked and opened a bottle of water he tips his hat to the newcomers. "Howdy Yall, So what fun are ya'll bringing to this party?"
The black-coated mech cut a knight-like figure as it towered nearly half as tall as those of the civilians and the military Spartans. "We're bringing backup, this year's looking worse than normal. East to west this time." A woman's voice called out over the radio with an ID code popping up alongside the transmission reading O1WP, Hansen.
"We've only got a few minutes before the first wave gets here, we're going to need to keep them far enough from the town to avoid damage. We'll need to split up to cover every approach, but no groups smaller than three."
As a rumbling began to be felt in the ground, the assembled pilots found themselves sent a set of waypoints, one in each cardinal direction around the town. "Group up and move to the waypoints, my men'll cover whatever's left."
Kirito looks over toward the ole Spartan and says " what you say Grandpa wanna group up and take north together? " After getting his rolled smoke he closes his cockpit and gets ready to head northward.
"I guess we're moving out," Allie said, driving with her cockpit open so the cigarette smoke wouldn't fill the cockpit.
Varg will nod his head. "Lead the way kiddo." He said and got back in his mech closing the cockpit and following behind Kirito.
"I'll take the North," commented Zero as her Ashigaru lumbered into motion behind Varg's mech.
Closing the hatch after flicking his smoke out. "Alright, boys and girls let's deal with this year's migration."
Allie took a last pull on her cig and blew it out. "Groovie," she said like a character she'd seen in a movie before flicking the butt and shutting the hatch.
Kirito tosses out the butt after putting it out, as he moves to head northward as he makes sure that his desert wind was loaded and readies his axe.
Varg put out his cigarette in the ashtray he kept in his mecha and pulled out a well-loved cigar and lit it before taking a pull. "let's get started shall we?" He said and primed his 50mm rotary cannon.
"I'll group up with Allie and Hunter, if you'll have me!" Having lifted the faceplate of her helmet, Kozakura spoke up with a girlish cheer as she took in the scene of mecha pilots smoking. Of course, as a Consort, she didn't smoke and given Yugumo's Yamataian culture, smoking was seen as taboo, if not outright forbidden. Here, it was quite acceptable, to the point that the smell of tobacco and various other combustible plants filled her chemical sensors.
Surprisingly, it didn't actually smell that bad!
As each group moved towards their assigned waypoint, the towering Possessor gestured east and west, three Super Spartans peeling off to head to the western waypoint. As each group reached their destinations, the megafauna began to arrive, bear-like creatures, car-sized scorpions, and massive thick-skinned quadrupedal creatures that came up to the chest height of the Oxen and the waist of the Spartans. They were moving at a good clip, and it would take effort to stop them or divert their path.
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Group 1
Seeing the first wave start to head toward them Kirito says "Buckle up here they come!!" Kirito starts to fire his Desert wind at the approaching Scorpions and resorting to taking up his axe with both hands and swinging away if any get too close. Kirito takes to aiming mostly at the heads of the approaching fauna with his cannons and attempting to behead them in melee range.
"Hell, it's about time," Varg responds and opens with his 50mm when in range he will switch to his Hardsell coilcannons. He would work on the thick-skinned creatures first focusing his shots on point to breach the creatures' skin to kill them. When things came close he would pull out his massive woodcutting axe. "I keep this handy for close encounters."
"So it begins." After switching off the radio, Zero sighed, flipped the toggle for the mech's mind-machine interface with a trembling, shaking, and voidwalker suit-garbed hand - and bit back that all-too-familiar urge to scream as the memories of that dark, dark day tore through her mind like the snow-hued aether blade that... that...
The sound of gunfire was thankfully enough to tear the Type Three away from chasing the (proverbial) rabbit; with a shake of the head, Zero re-focused her attention and felt her mind fall into the well-worn grooves of piloting the metal shell around her - opening up with a series of salvos from her frame's handheld plasma carbine as she sent an armoire missile streaking into a particularly large cluster of beasts and felt herself skyrocketing upwards and backward with a surge from the nuclear-thermal plasma rockets on her back.
As Kirito's autocannon fire sailed into the horde of creatures charging at the group at the northern waypoint, the sabot rounds began to pierce holes through the chitinous exoskeletons of the creatures, sending nearly a third of the approaching wave crashing limply to the ground, left to be trampled by the other creatures.
Varg was less fortunate, maybe it was the coils in his aged firearm being worn out, maybe it was the warheads being past their best-by date, but his 50mm rifle was having less than the desired effect on the thick-skinned quadrupeds known as Ironskins to the locals. Several fell away, but one made it close enough to him to knock him flying backward a short distance before his woodcutting axe laid it low. Alarms blared out in the aged Spartan, alerting him to damage to its axe arm.
The last portion of this group was brought down by a combination of plasma fire and missiles from Zero, her frame's legs absorbing the shock of landing after her jump giving the camera in her frame's head a steady view of the last of the creatures falling limp, and the small crater her missile had left.
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Group 2
"Man It'd be nice if they sent one of the big dudes down here... or gave us some missiles, Allie said as she moved Bertha into position. "Well, anybody like "Durallium Damsel?" she asked before blasting music for her friends and bursts of tungsten shards towards the scorpions.
Immediately, Kozakura got the impression that she would be tasked with engaging the smallest creatures, while the heavy mecha would handle the car-sized scorpions and various other breeds of Sirrisian monstrosities. However, that didn't mean she would be entirely useless. Her task would be to free up the mecha so that they could focus their attention and firepower on the biggest, most dangerous enemies, without having to expend valuable ammunition on the smaller creatures!
"I have some missiles on my legs!" The Consort answered. "And I love Durallium Damsel!" She added, after taking a microsecond to listen to a number of the group's songs by overclocking her KAIMON systems to essentially slow down time within her perception.
Before long, the group had arrived at the southern area to defend against the charging horde of monsters! For her part, Kozakura took an aerial position over her allies, her shoulder-mounted interdiction rifles leveled toward the enemy! She immediately prioritized the smaller, faster creatures with her firepower, the likes of bears and similarly-sized monsters. If those weren't available, the Consort would contribute her firepower to the bigger monsters, utilizing the precision of her interdiction rifles to target weak points such as eyes, nasal orifices, and even genitalia or buttholes, if such things presented themselves!
While marching forward with his Oxen, he spoke over the comms. "So for the record given the situation and the lack of proper weapons on this thing. I'll mostly be a support or heavy weapons mecha this mining laser is capable of vaporizing rock and blowing rivets into rock and metal." Seeing the creatures charging toward them. He chuckled as the loud rock music starts playing from Allie.
"Right let's turn up the heat!" he states as he activates his mining laser to melt through the smaller creatures. Realizing the rivet gun would be a better option, he started pulling a tow cable from his side as he starts tieing it into a lasso. "As much as making a shield wall would be nice Allie that ain't my style, Imma try to rodeo that big'n over there."
Kozakura's efforts to keep her allies free of distractions paid off in spades, the power-armored Consort android's shoulder-mounted mass drivers and pistols tearing up the smaller creatures with lightning speed, and even helping to blind and disable some of the larger Ironskins and scorpions for her allies.
Unfortunately, the two farmers fared somewhat less well. Allie's Hardsell let out its signature series of cracks as it accelerated chunks of tungsten past the speed of sound at a rate of fifty rounds per second, bringing down ironskins and scorpions at their joints, but she was forced to resort to her pitchfork to bring down a particularly stubborn one.
While Hunter's rivet gun and mining laser seemed less effective than expected against his intended targets, his attempt to rodeo went off well, the durandium cable wrapping around an adult Ironskin. The heels of his Oxen dug into the orange soil of Sirris, and its 13-ton weight brought the creature to a halt as he tapped his jets to climb into the back of the creature, beginning to yank its head in the direction he wanted to make it move. The ironskins' bulk broke up the charge of the last of the creatures, making it easy to clean up the last of the wave.
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As the north and south groups cleared out the last stragglers, the Lieutenant from the Duskerian Legion radioed them to check in and report on the status of the area. "Alright, all groups check in. We're expecting at least one more wave before we're done."
The group from the west, composed of three of the woman's subordinates, were the first to answer her request. "Lance two is reporting all clear on the western front. We were mostly getting stragglers from you guys since the migration's moving east to west."
"I sustained damage to my mechs arm and these cheap ass rounds are duds but old faithful did the trick in chopping one down," Varg reported.
"North Cleared up for the most part at the moment, awaiting more incoming," reported Kirito.
"We'll compensate you for the repair costs, the same goes for ammunition so long as you're not using it against the town." The woman's voice said with a joking tone.
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Group 1
Varg will slam his axe into the corpse of a creature. He would reload his 50mm, hopefully, fresh ammunition would work. he would cycle additional power into the coils of his hardsell coilcannons hopefully this would charge the coils to full power.
Zero hated the pauses that always occurred in combat because they always brought that sickening sense of uncertainty with them, that feeling of never knowing how the tides of battle were turning, or if they'd already turned; sure, she and the others in her ad-hoc squad had survived the wave - but what about the rest of the oncoming Yamat-no, the 'spacer corrected herself, the oncoming creatures? What if one of the other teams failed? What if they let the enemy through again? What if...
" You ok over there Grandpa?" Kirito moved over to a critter that was down but struggling to get back up and slams his axe down to finish it off before regrouping with the others. " Seamed like that ole firearm was not hitting like it used to?"
"Cheap ammunition is all, I loaded fresh rounds so we should be good to go, and cycled power to my coils. The last course of action is my lasers but they won't do shit on the big guys." He shifted his rifle to his mech's bum arm and moved his axe to his good arm.
Kirito sighs some as he shakes some from the combat, "Ugh this is what I hate about combat even fighting these critters the adrenaline rush wears off and you feel like coming down off a sugar rush." Kirito laughs nervously and looks around " I think I see more coming our way but they look to be a ways off still.
"Worst-case scenario I got three fusion reactors I can pop if needed," Varg said and popped a bottle of water and took a swig. "You got this kid." He looked over at Zero. "You as well stranger."
"Should we press forward a bit?" He asked the two.
" I really hope that is not needed your suit is important and you would be missed, Grandpa." Pauses and looks out some " ok yep let's move up to meet the next one I'm still good on ammo so I'll try to take them out as they come toward us. "
"S-SSu-" began the Type Three, stuttering out of sheer panic for a moment before she caught herself; after a moment spent cursing herself out, she continued, "-sorry. Sure."
"Varg to O1WP, Hansen, north team is moving up a bit to cover more ground," Varg said over the comms to Lieutenant.
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Group 2
"Dangit!" Allie said as she wrenched her pitchfork out of the last beast. Her cockpit was getting stuffy so she turned on the fan Uncle Earl installed last season. She looked up to see Hunter who'd managed to mount one of the creatures. "What're you thinking?" she yelled over the comm at Hunter before moving to shoot any of the critters trying to surround him.
Immediately, Kozakura marked many of the bigger creatures she had disabled on her HUD for the mecha pilots to finish off. However, since most of them were no longer active threats and would likely bleed out or expire on their own, it went without saying that they tumbled down the target priority list.
"Marking wounded targets for tasking!" Kozakura transmitted over the radio as she blew open the skull of a bear with a lancing shot from one of her interdiction rifles, in what was already her eighth kill of the day! Naturally, it went without saying that she was having fun, especially with the music, but the next wave was already emerging over the horizon across the terrain. Taking advantage of the short reprieve, Kozakura slammed fresh magazines into her interdiction rifles, swiftly executing a pair of tactical reloads as her old magazines still had rounds in them. All the while, Kozakura let loose a girlish giggle at seeing Hunter in his Oxen rodeo one of the monsters!
"Gotcha, Miss!" Allie replied before caving in a writhing creature's skull with Bertha's foot.
"Oh don't worry bout it Allie, just having a bit 'o fun while we're out here. Besides I got some stories to tell back at work, seeing how I just rode a giant creature just now." putting a rivet into the back of the creature's head before hopping off of it. "This all being said, your folks still Having that BBQ this year?" he asked slightly hopeful.
"Boy, if you get hurt, I'm the one you're gonna have to worry bout," she shouted back over the comm before skewering another "bear". Opening her comm again, she muttered, "Yeah I got your little stunt on Bertha's camera... " Brightening, "Yeah but be careful, I think Ma's trying to fatten you up."
"I mean that's probably a given but I assumed they are just trying to get their daughter to be a little thicker." he joked. as he put a few more rivets into stragglers.
"Oh, I'm plenty thick," Allie snarked, firing the Hardsell at some approaching scorpions with her mech's hand on its hip. "But you wouldn't know anything bout that."
"Probably right, but if I did learn of something your dad would be angry so there's that," he stated before checking the ammo on the rivet gun.
"So I'll head off to the Legion and an I guess when I come back, who knows what'll happen," Allie said making Bertha give a playful salute.
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The farmers and other assorted pilots could once again the ground begin to rumble as another wave of creatures approached, this time composed primarily of adult Ironskins and the scorpions, with fewer of the bear-like creatures in the mix this time around. The locals would soon realize that this behavior was unusual, the Ironskins in this group were intermixed with the other creatures instead of in their own herd like with the first wave. Something was spooking them.
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Group 1
"Conserve your ammunition the beasts are acting strange as if spooked." Varg stowed his 50mm rotary cannon and grabbed his axe two-handed. "I'm switching to melee to save my 50mm for whatever is next."
Blinks some as he realized something as he hears Varg's voice on the coms, " yea your right the ironskins are not in their normal herds, and the rest seem to be moving east to west more than from the north or south. " Pauses looking around and then saying " I'll not fire at the longer ranges and more so that the ones that might turn in toward the settlement, That sound good grandpa?"
"Sounds good, what do you got for weapons, those ironskins will be a pain in the ass," Varg said to Kirito and Zero
"I just have my axe and this Desert wind with ADPS rounds, I really have not been able to afford anything else... But for now, the rounds seem to be working, But if something bigger comes along I might need to hit their sides more than taking 'em head on." Kirito would say over the coms to Varg.
"I'll take the bas-" - stop that, you blasted airhead! - "-beasts from above," said Zero, who was valiantly trying to ignore just how much her hands were shaking.
"Alright, let's hit the ironskins from the side and get the little bastards from the rear." Varg would power on his macro lasers now.
"All right sounds good to me, If I get into a bad spot I'll take to the air and shoot at them." Kirito moves forward his axe still on his back as he was mostly shooting with the forearm-mounted cannon. "If my count is right I've got maybe 50 more shots in this mag and two more on my belt. I have been trying to conserve my ammo."
"Copy, and watch out for those Mindys!" With that, Zero's Ashigaru took to the sky, keeping her altitude at a mere one hundred and fifty meters above the ground - the maximum range of her frame's chest-mounted weapons - as she swept the land below with a maelstrom of ultraviolet lasers, plasma, and missiles.
Varg readied his axe and powered his own thrusters to make a quick ascent if needed. He checked the power to his hardsells and lasers. "I only have 150 rounds left for my 50mm so I'm going to keep until the big nasty beast comes."
Blinks and then asks " What Mindys? Where?" Kirito asks over coms as the Ashigaru took to the air.
The Type Three's response was immediate - "More airheads? Where?"
Varg sighed and flew towards the beasts as they approached. "Come on kids it show time." He said went at the ironskins flanks with his axe while he used his hardsells and lasers on the lesser foes.
Kirito was mostly shooting the ironskins head-on that were heading into the settlement or nearby as he keeps trying to move the animal away from the settlement. Seeing he was now the only one that was on the ground at the moment. He did activate his hover mode just to have it on standby in case he needs to get out of the way of something charging at him.
Though Zero's array of weaponry was far beyond what either of the two locals could bring to bear, her distracted nature and seeming slip into a traumatic event in her past hampered her ability to land shots in the right places. The missiles, plasma fire, and laser beams crisscrossed the onrushing group of megafauna, disrupting their movements and taking out about a quarter of what was there but doing just as much damage to the surrounding landscape.
Varg's flanking maneuver to the right of the creatures put him in position to strike at the scorpions and ironskins from an unexpected angle, one that the Ironskins were more vulnerable from. His macro laser fused chitinous joints and his hardsells punched bleeding holes into the Ironskins, all the while his axe crunched and cleaved through hardened skin and chitin alike, laying out another third of the creatures.
Just under half of the megafauna on the northern side were left, and what remained to hold them off was Kirito, his autocannon, and his axe. The cannon barked out at a steady pace, nearly ten times a second, the field of fire scything across the charging horde. As the remainder trampled their fallen fellows in an attempted escape from whatever had spooked them, his axe left nearly all that still lived disabled or dead as a few stragglers ran west past the town.
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Group 2
Allie wiped the sweat from her brow as another wave began heading their way. She fired burst after burst at the things until they began to close and she was forced to pull her pitchfork.
Using the mining laser he would carve the I beam into a point at one end. "Shield wall now?" he states holding the pointed end out like a spear in an attempt to break the charge.
"You've got it," she said backing to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with hunter. She jabbed her pitchfork through gaps in the shield.
This wave was behaving differently, that much was certain. Of course, Kozakura still had the option of holding position and firing on the monsters from a defensive aerial position as she had done before, but the Consort's intuition told her that something different might be needed in order to protect the town from the encroaching horde. Immediately, Kozakura connected to the local networks via her KAIMON AI, attempting to find as much information as possible on the creatures, specifically pertaining to things that they might be attracted to!
Before long, Kozakura got the idea to shape her volumetrics into something resembling a hyper-idealized female Ironkin specimen! However, rejecting her initial idea to lead the monsters on a chase, the Consort decided to position herself close to her allies, in the hopes of luring the creatures into the wall of firepower and armor presented by Allie and Hunter's mecha!
"What in the world is that girl doin'?" Allie muttered after seeing the power-armored lady turn into one of the Ironskins.
"Get ready to radio reinforcements! I have an idea and if this works, we might be able to funnel them into a killing zone, rather than the town!"
"I'm petty sure we are the reinforcements, but I might be able to get the LT to shoot some missiles over her if I ask all cute," Allie said over the comm. Part of her wanted to see what would come of this, but she didn't want her and Hunter to die while that power-armored outlander was getting mounted by Ironskins.
"Given that we are civilians voluntold to assist I'm going to go out on a limb and say if we're being pushed into service I want to assume were stretched pretty thin," he stated.
Hearing out Kozakura's idea, Hunter left the shield wall. "I'll be right back!" he stated as he began using his mining laser to create rough terrain to assist in the funneling of the creatures in a particular area.
"Jerk! You're not going off alone," Allie said, chasing after her friend to watch his back.
"I'll be the bait," Kozakura said, her tone determined, yet ready. To that end, she took position directly in front of the rough terrain, hoping that when she moved, the creatures would fall directly into it!
The sexual aspect of Kozakura's disguise seemed to be mostly ignored by the ironskins, though many did turn her way seemingly more out of a herd instinct to follow any fellow ironskin that was leading the way away from danger than any sort of sexual attraction to the volumetric projection. She was able to dodge out of the way of the charging beasts, the creatures stumbling on the trenches dug by Hunter and presenting their less protected flanks as easy targets for the Consort's and her ally's weapons.
Kozakura only just managed to launch herself out of the way of the horde, firing her interdiction rifles as she did. Nevertheless, the Consort's play seemed to have worked, as the Ironskins fell into the opening cut open by Hunter's mining laser, becoming mired in the rough terrain. For her part, the gynoid unleashed her firepower on the trapped creatures, targeting any weak points that she could find and as a result, managing to disable more than a few!
Meanwhile, Hunter and Allie found themselves fighting off the Ironskins and scorpions while beset from all sides. The shield wall might have been broken up, but the disc shield projectors on each of the arms of their Oxen were proving useful to the two farmers, preventing the scorpion's claws and the trampling feet of the Ironskins from making contact with their frames.
Between their improvised melee weaponry, the two soon found themselves deep in piles of megafauna bodies, but with the assistance of the foreign visitor, the tide had stemmed again.
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Full Cast
With the remainder of the second wave vanquished, the Legion soldiers and the locals came together to the east of Stonehill, their expected duties over. However, the ground continued to rumble, the vibrations growing into what were now clearly earthquake-like steps. Into view past a large hill in the distance came what appeared almost to be a moving piece of the landscape. The creature was almost like a six-legged tortoise with tusks across its strange face, and a group of megafauna fleeing the beast bigger than any of the waves the groups had faced before.
Varg sighed "Yeah it seems I was right sadly." he said and drew his 50mm rotary cannon.
After the last Ironskin dropped, Allie began attempting to patch up a coolant tube that had begun leaking during the fight. When the ground began to tremble, she almost dropped the roll of molecure tape. "Yo, Hunter, you seeing that?" She looked around for the black and orange mech, heart pounding. No time, she began to check for more damage on Bertha. Most of it was external, and she didn't think she had time to fix it.
Kirito blinks and then asks "Um did that Mountain over there just move???"
"That's all they sent to here, the Lighthouse? HA!" The Freespacer launched herself forwards, firing everything she had as she juked and weaved against the fire from the kaiju's defensive turrets. She didn't care that most of her weapons weren't in range or that she was dodging non-existent defensive fire, for she was fighting the Star Empire of Yamatai: the enemy who'd taken her home, her friends, her everything away from her - then humiliated her when she tried to exact the revenge that was so rightfully hers. But now...
Now, it was her turn. "DIE!"
Lighting a new cig off the sparks forming in the cockpit of his mech Hunter spoke up. "Yeah I see that but it's not like we can do anything about it right now being neck-deep in bodies." He said using a mining laser to carve a path in close quarters for the two of them.
"Hey, I think we need to regroup because it looks like there's either a creature moving a mountain or that mountain is a creature." He says over their comms.
"Yeah, let's form back up with Armor lady," Allie said. One of Bertha's speakers had been blown out in the fighting and the music only rattled out weakly. She didn't know how they'd manage to survive this thing. "Maybe, it's time I ask the LT for that missile strike huh?"
"I agree," Varg says and will put his cigar out to finish off his water bottle.
Her Tenshi covered in green blood from a brutal bout of close-quarters combat within the trench, Kozakura felt the ground rumble under her feet. As if on cue, her mass detectors registered something big approaching, and soon enough, the gynoid saw it with her own eyes! Once more, Kozakura connected to the local network in order to pull up any information she could pull up on it, specifically pertaining to its internal anatomy, if it was available.
Kozakura frowned, as her search yielded little of use.
Nevertheless, unlike an organic, Kozakura didn't need air or water to support her functions. She only needed power, which she had plenty of! And so, the gynoid launched herself up into the air, transmitting to the other pilots as she did. "Cover me! I'm gonna go get vored!" She called out, with no shortage of girlish, yet bloodthirsty excitement in her tone, as she soared off towards the (presumably) gaping nostrils of the great horned turtle!
"She couldn't'a just said 'get eaten'?" Allie asked.
Kirito says over the comms, "Well crap I don't know if I have much more ammo, I'm on my last mag now. So I might have to start taking on the little ones with my axe till that big thing gets here unless someone has some 25mm APDS that I can reload my empty mags with laying around. " Kirito looks around as he sighs off coms and looks for that bottle of water, he was getting a little parched and his belly was rumbling some as the fighting that he has been doing recently.
Edging her Bertha slightly in front of Hunter's mech, Allie opened a comm to the LT, "Can we get a missile strike or something? That thing's big enough to make my coil gun look like a pea shooter!"
"Negative, we've got something special incoming, we've just got to hold out for a minute or two until it gets here." Lieutenant Hansen responded to Allie's request.
"A Minute she says." Varg says and looks at Kozakura,
"So I got a stupid Idea Allie would you be interested in helping me with it.?" he says handing over a metal tow cable. "I wanna cut off a tusk with a mining laser as a trophy."
"If you get killed, I swear I'm gonna kill you, jerk," she said with a long-suffering sigh and took the cable. Swinging a lasso in a mech was a different set of skills, but she figured it out.
A veritable swarm of various flying monsters which had been roosting on the tusked turtle's shell flew to meet Kozakura and the others who were fighting their way towards the Kaiju. She had cover from her allies, but the swarm itself was so dense that the gynoid couldn’t pass through it without risking being ripped to shreds.
Nevertheless, if it meant saving the town, the gynoid was ready to confront the reality of her own "death" however that might manifest itself upon her synthetic "soul". And so, after initially taking cover behind Zero Nine's Ashigaru, Kozakura launched herself towards the swarm, fully expecting to be torn apart!
As Kozakura, Zero, Allie, and Hunter began to try to fight their way toward the giant Kaiju, the rest of the assembled civilians and the Duskerian Legionnaires held the line against the oncoming horde of smaller megafauna. Those attempting to reach the Kaiju found their flight paths disrupted by extremely irate flying creatures that appeared to have been roosting inside the forest atop the Kaiju's back and were now circling their home.
The creatures flew densely packed together, and progress was slow going, until beams began to pierce the creatures from above as the familiar shape of a U-1 variable fighter, albeit heavily modified from its original model, was silhouetted against the sun. It began to dive down toward the swarm of flying creatures, and as it passed by Kozakura and Zero its fuselage began to shift, transforming into a frame. The machine crossed its arms, pointing hands in either direction as beam repeaters on the arms opened fire and cleared a flight path for them.
Reaching the ground with an impact that kicked up a cloud of dust, the machine began to tear through the horde of creatures, decimating their numbers as it hovered, twisted, and dashed through the formation in what almost seemed to be a graceful dance, leaving less than a fifth of the original number to threaten the defenders.
For Kozakura, it was as if the seas had parted before her!
The unidentified U-1 variable fighter cut a swathe through the swarm of flying monsters, clearing the path for Kozakura to enter the gaping nostrils of the great horned turtle! Shunting power to her armor's turbo plasma engines, Kozakura accelerated straight forward, a power-armor grade katana held in one hand, with an armor service pistol in the other! As she closed in, Kozakura willed her armor to deaccelerate with as much Gs as her chassis' gravity manipulation systems could compensate for, in order to mitigate the force of the impact.
Then, in an explosion of snot, mucus, and various other disgusting fluids, Kozakura punched her way through!
Without hesitation, the gynoid set to work with burning and cutting her way through the monster's nasal mucus, then its cranial bone structure, forcing open a path to the turtle's brain through in a flurry of bone, viscera, and mucus!
"Damn," Varg said watching the display and would fly as well. "You kids save me some animal bits I'm going help keep the little bastards off you."
"Shit" Kirito would say as he takes off the axe on his back and starts to swing into action as he moved toward the smaller critters that are coming in closer as the three that took off flying toward the large turtle-like creature with flying animals on its back start to swam those heading toward it.
As the U-1 blasted its way through monsters, Allie let out a cheer and launched after it twirling the lasso. "It's now or never, boo," She yelled at Hunter before loosing the steel cable.
Once the lasso was in place he began using the mining laser to cut threw it after some time he yelled over his comms. "Now pull Allie!" pausing for a moment he looked back "w-wait boo?"
Allie was too busy kicking Bertha's motors into overdrive and tugging to respond. Most of her gauges were in the red, overload warnings blared in her ears, but she was gonna pull dammit.
The gynoid had managed cut an ugly hole into the lower part of the turtle's skull and now, she had direct access to the huge, ridged mass of meat that was the creature's brain. Presented with the organ that made up all and everything that composed the tusked turtle's life, Kozakura gave an exhilarated cry as she began to rip and tear her way through its brain, all while firing her forearm-mounted plasma guns into the fleshy, ridged masses. Feeling like a Nekoranger wielding an aether katana (which wasn't that far from her reality), while she wasn't created exclusively for combat or military purposes like a Nekovalkyrja, at that moment, the Consort felt like she was one! Naturally, she couldn't restrain herself from singing the theme of a particularly dark anime which she enjoyed, her voice carrying over the radio to meet the ears of the mecha pilots and anyone else fighting outside!
"Invaders surround us
Enraged by our lives and our loves
The world will erupt in flames"
From above there was a fireball as something large was entering the planet, From that fireball was a large gunship-looking craft. Dropping lower those that would look in its direction would spot that there were four large dual cannon turrets moving to take aim at the Kaiju. As the spaceship got closer the starship fires sending 8, 406mm by 1526 APCBC shells at the body of the Kaiju and slowed to hover the Turrets once more taking up aim at the remains if it needed to fire once more. Anyone nearby would hear the whine of several large jet engines holding up the craft, and see bursts of fire to adjust its position.
Zeck looked out the bridge window before sitting back down in her seat. "I'm glad we are up here and not down there."
Nikicon smiles and then says " Yea me too, um did I hit it?" she smiles looking at the console she knows that she hit it but will let Zeck tell her.
"Fall back," Varg called over the comms watching the Sobek unleash its barrage of weapons.
Kirito blinks as he spotted the spacecraft and then looked at where the turrets were pointed " Oh hell yeah!!!" he whooped as the craft fired and then moves to cleave another nearby critter with his axe. "Good thing that spacecraft showed up, I have no clue how we would have dealt with that larger thing."
Before long, Kozakura cut deep enough into the fleshy matter to reach its base, locating the KAIMON estimated to be the brainstem. Immediately, she opened up with what was left of her firepower at near-point-blank range. However, she couldn't stay forever, especially as her mass detectors registered high-powered rounds slamming into the turtle's armored hide. Having caused as much damage to the brainstem as she could feasibly accomplish, Kozakura began to cut her way out the same way she came in, and before long...
FWOOSH!
The power armor-clad gynoid shot out of the turtle's nostrils in a blast of viscera, blood, and brain matter. She landed not far away from the action, touching down in a clearing as she waited for the great tusked turtle to fall!
Zeck looked at the sensors and peeked out the windows. "Yep spot on seems my calibration was on the mark."
Nikicon smiles " YAY! You seen that Lenna?" Lenna would just sigh shaking her head some as she sits in the captain's chair, and then opens comms to the leader below. "LT Hansen, This is Lenna onboard the Sobek, looks like it was a good thing that we showed up when we did, Is everything all good down there? Nothing more we need to take care of?"
Allie slumped back in her seat, breathing heavily. Blood, guts, and ashes all but obscured Bertha's green paint job. As she managed to catch her breath she opened her comm, "Hey, Hunter, ya get your trophy? Hunter?" He'd been close to the blast, had he got hit? "You there? Hunter?" she asked again an edge of fear creeping into her voice.
As the gigantic kaiju slowly toppled, the tusks on its heads collided with the ground, the one that Hunter had been cutting with his mining laser snapping at the seam he'd cut, flying for a distance before cutting a furrow into the ground by Allie. The head had ended up coming to rest just next to Hunter's oxen, its glassy eyes rolling slightly from the impact, at head height compared to the construction frame standing next to it.
Hunter would walk around the side of the creature, "For the record that was a good time!" Hunter started making his way toward Allie.
"You jerk," Allie said as her fear gave way to laughter. "Ya know, Pa's been aging that new beer for months, he'd be pretty bummed if you couldn't try it. I'm gonna check on the others, try not to get eaten or something while I'm gone."
The Legionnaires who'd been holding the line with Kirito and Varg who'd let out a cheer, and the townsfolk of Stone Hill began to exit their homes and investigate the aftermath of the migration. The farmers and Legionnaires had managed to turn the megafauna away from the town, leaving it untouched save for a caked layer of orange dust that had settled atop most of the buildings, kicked up by the creatures.
As the townsfolk began to clean up the damage and collect what useful meat and materials they could from the megafauna. The Legionnaires' leader, Lieutenant Hansen, spoke over communications to the farmers and the Sobek's captain. "You've done well here today, I'll see to it that you're all compensated for any damages and paid for your time."
The Lieutenant's Possessor cast its gaze towards the broken-off tusk from the Kaiju, its tip buried in the ground and standing tall next to Allie. "Of course, you're all free to take trophies or meat from your kills too." The woman's voice was pure professionalism, with only a hint of amusement peeking through.
"Hey LT," Allie said with a wave. She sat on a wiped-down section of Bertha's shoulder as the mech stomped over on auto. "If your boys want, the family's throwing a barbeque down at the farm. Drag one of them beasts with you and we'll clean 'n grill it for ya. Or we could flash-freeze it for later. Whole town's gonna be there," she said, already picturing how the rest of the night would go. She'd pester the Legionnaires for stories. Pa would crack open that new beer he'd been aging in the shed. She'd eat her fill of meat grilled in the Johansson family's secret dry rub. And when she'd had enough she'd climb up to her favorite spot on the roof with a few beers and watch the party. Hunter would come to find her acting all surprised she was up there. He always did. She'd miss this town. She'd miss him, but if she didn't do any of the other things she wanted tonight, she'd talk Pa into letting her join the Legion.
The Possessor gave a short shake of its head before the Lieutenant answered. "I'm afraid not," She said, "I'm afraid that this incident's given me quite a long report to write. The creatures here were acting out of the ordinary, and to top it off there's the matter of the Kaiju."
One of the Spartans, standing just out of the field of view of the Lieutenant's main camera, gave a somewhat exaggerated sighing motion as over the radio a man's voice could be heard saying "That's Lieutenant Killjoy for you." The outburst was followed very shortly afterward by an exclamation of "Oh shi-" before the pilot closed off his radio channel, apparently not having realized he was still on the open channel.
The Lieutenant's mech turned back towards Allie from looking at the offending Legionaire, the chest splitting open to allow a cockpit block to extend and the pilot within to stand up, stretching and giving a wry smile towards Allie as she sat on her Oxen's shoulder. "While I don't have the luxury, it does seem like my men would rather stay and celebrate with you all. Be sure to put them to work in exchange for your hospitality, would you?"
"Yes, ma'am," Allie said giving her best salute. She began gesturing at the Legionnaires. "Grab a beastie and let's get going, today I'm gonna teach you how to clean a megafauna," she said, a grin splitting her face. Ma would love the extra help cleaning up and a squad of Legionaries would do just the trick. If they weren't too full of grilled meat to work.
Beneath the unreadable, blood and gore-caked mask of her helmet's face plate, a relieved smile manifested across Kozakura's features as the Kaiju collapsed to the cheers of Legionnaires, farmers, and mecha pilots. The gynoid only took her helmet off after the dust had settled, her cyan gaze taking in the scene as her vulpine-like ears twitched upon registering notes of conversation transpiring nearby.
A barbecue?
Of course, Kozakura didn't need to eat, but the idea of consuming something she had played a part in the killing was extremely seductive! Not to mention, her chassis was capable of extracting usable energy from organic substances and harnessing it to charge her capacitors. To say the least, she couldn't think of anything more satisfying!
As the farmers began to gather and collect the spoils of their victory, the Legionnaires were pressed into assisting, though the only protestations they offered were joking in tone. The sun began to set on Stonehill as Lieutenant Hansen and her Possessor began to return to Obsidian City. In the distance, visible just above the horizon, a fighter could be seen leaving the airspace around the town.
