Elevator Ruins - Second Barricade

The entire charge across No Mans Land took less than a few seconds. In those seconds, the Wardens of the 4th Order showed exactly why they were send out against the Zets. Even under withering enemy fire they expertly coordinated amonst each other, taking full advantage of moments of individual brilliance to fulfill their objectives.

When Vakaré crippled the Igor, it caused a ripple effect across the entire line. With the Warrior-Variant falling to its knees, as its ammo-hunchback was blown off, several Wardens took the chance and charged forward. Two COMET-suits rushed in and unloaded their dual-wielded shotguns left and right, blasting Imps apart and widening the gap that Vakaré had created.

Everywhere squads were pushing against the hastily erected secondary line of defense, forcing the Imps to concentrate on the immediate threat, rather than blasting away those still crossing the open ground. What had been a shooting gallery for them, had now turned into a vicious close quarters battle.

"Get over the barricade! Keep up the pressure!" Came it over comms from Captain Svenson, who himself was shield-bashing a Zet away as he shouted his orders.

Sgt. Peréz was closing up next to Viktor, Czes and Irae and the four of them picked off Imp after Imp. The veteran Warden made sure to hold his fire appropriately, only firing himself whenever Viktor and Czes had to reload their weapons, creating a rolling barrage.

Then the grenade hit them. Irae was blown off his feet, while Peréz had managed to brace just in time. Viktor had taken the brunt of it, his heavy-suit reeling briefly. Several alarms went off in his helmet, informing him about cracked plates and damaged stabilizers. Only Czes came out of it unscathed, having taken cover behind the wolf-hybrid.

The chattering of Imps clued them in who did it. A few feet in front of the Squad, over a dozen of them charged over their own barricade. They wielded chitin-pistols and blade-arms, a common close-quarters mutation, and were now rushing the squads position. Behind them a larger specimen stood, holding a bulbous grenade-launcher. The Imp was scarred and half a head taller than the rest, marking it out as a more experienced organism. It hissed, as it fired another grenade to support its brethrens charge.

Meanwhile, Vakaré had made it over the barricade alongside the stealthed-up Diana. Their position seemed largely quiet, with only the corpses of Zets around them that had tried to hold their ground. Just as well, as Diana's stealth module went into mandatory safety-mode, flickering until its finally shut off for the moment. Cloaking-modules generated a lot of heat, along with drawing tremendous amount of energy from the power-core, which meant that one had to periodically shut them off to avoid overcooking the suit.

Both the Wardens sensors then went off.

Stepping around the nearest corner, claws outstretched and muscles pumping underneath the smooth, blue-black armor, came the Igor. Blood seeped from its crippled back, but it seemed more angry than anything. Seeing Vakaré and Diana, it roared in rage and charged towards them, ready to tear both of them apart.

Diana

Diana's lips pressed into a thin line as the module shut off. Shit. She was practically a sitting duck now, the only thing standing between her and being smeared all over the ground being the other Wardens. For the hundredth time, she wished she'd been sent to any other Order, and not the one that involved charging headfirst into combat.

Then her sensors went off, and her eyes went wide. "Shit," she whispered out loud, seconds before the Igor appeared around the corner and charged them.

There wasn't time to dodge or get out of the way—the Igor smashed into her, sending her sprawling to the ground with a wheeze. She looked up to see the Igor about to bring its claws down on her, and acting on instinct, brought up her knife to defend herself.

Edited by LilyTheLitten on Apr 9th 2024 at 12:03:08 PM

"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."

Sabik - Second Barricade

There was a numbers game you could play when it came to scaling buildings. Data you could draw on to formulate plans of action with infinitesimal margins of error. It was the reason people didn’t die very often up there, at least not when they were looked after by the reputable companies. At the end of the day, everything was quantified and measured before you started the ascent. The safest people in that building were the people climbing it.

It was jarring, then, when Sabik’s glider went down. He had assumed the same certainty of the machine as he did of cable. Not to say the same measurements weren’t done for aircraft as climbing equipment, in fact the electrician mentally conceded that there were probably more precautions taken for this endeavor. The margin of error for proper function was about as low as it could get. The difference between combat and civilian life was the entropy that came with gunfire. It was the red on a roulette wheel.

Exhilarating, wasn’t it?

He pulled himself out of the wreckage to the harsh welcome of chitin and viscera. Disoriented by the crash, Sabik’s survival in the ensuing mad-dash to cover was borderline miraculous. Somewhere in the brain fog he found the cognizance necessary to kill a few stray imps, further coating himself in fluids and gristle as he inched from the death island of the downed glider and towards the greater fighting force storming the second barricade. Unable to stop under threat of instant dismemberment, consciousness returned to a man possessed. The time for instinctive survival was over. Now he was afforded the luxury of not being the only human alive in the immediate area, but he could tell his luck was wearing thin. It was time for measured actions, time to reel it back.

A quick glance across the field of battle and he noticed the imp charge. It wasn’t random, that much was appallingly obvious. But as far as he could tell, the little freaks didn’t organize like that on their own. Something had to be moving them along…something like that bigger one with the grenade launcher. Beneath the mask, teeth bared in a manic grin. The leader hadn’t seen him yet. But the window he had stumbled into wouldn't last long. No time to coordinate this. Hit hard, fast, and then get out of the way. He tapped his meat hand, bound within the gauntlet of the BB, against the exo-suit’s hip. It’s what this thing was made for. He shifted his weight, pivoting into a clumsy step and sloppy run.

Tunnel vision had its downsides.

It was the same problem you ran into when you tried to strategize mid fight. The same problem when you tried to fly a glider into enemy territory. Game theory didn’t work here, not enough, anyway. It didn’t take into account every part of the battlefield. Sabik was certain he could kill the Veteran, but he couldn’t account for what he couldn’t see. Just as he was reaching full stride, a stray Imp slammed into the electrician from the side, throwing him to the ground and sending both him and the attacking Zet directly into the path of Sabik’s mark.

Shit.

His mind faded back into a pure fight or flight response. Limbs thrashed, barrels raised. The imp running interference got mulched by the Stub RC mounted on the BB’s arm, and in the same motion Sabik decked the veteran in the faceplate, knocking the thing back but dealing little damage. The miniature Rail Cannon was still recovering, but staying in melee was inadvisable, even against an imp. The grin widened. Inadvisable. He liked those odds.

I am become dubstep, destroyer of taste

Vakare

As Vakare finished his vault over the barricade, right besides Diana (when did she get here), he took a quick moment to reload and check his rifle. Moments later, his sensors went off, the targeting computer fizzling out of operation.

"Well, THAT can't be good."

Big and ugly, the Igor whose back he'd blown out just a couple of minutes ago was back for seconds. His enhanced physiology and reflexes kicked in, diving to the side on some inborn instinct, avoiding its charge, unlike Diana, who was bowled over. Without a thought, he disregarded his rifle on the ground, rolling to his feet and unsheathing his own knife as the ring of metal against claw came from the clash of Diana defending herself from the Igor. Like a fox (hybrid) he pounced up onto the bare, bleeding back of the Igor, punching the blade through its exposed skin-chitin, eliciting a shrill shriek from the beast as he ripped and tore it around in a show of brutality to distract it from his comrade on the ground, holding onto his impromptu handhold for dear life as it flailed and writhed, getting knocked around like he was riding a wild horse. With only a moment before its fury turned to the passenger on its back, Vakare let one foot loose from the back, allowing it to fall the ground. He grunted, gritting his teeth and he poured his weight and the reflexive instinct to turn around of the Igor to leverage its own movement against it into a backwards fall. They swung in a heavy arc, Vakare using his one leg on the bug's back as a lever to heave its body over and send its head crashing into the pavement with a sickening SQUISH. And just to be certain, he fished his handgun from his waist, unloading a few rounds into it for good measure at point blank.

"Huff...huff...Never doing that again. How about you?" He was covered in blood, chest rising and falling with each deep pant, tilting his head to look at Diana as he rolled out from underneath it, tugging his knife out of its place in the Igor.

Irae

He saw the grenade a moment too late to do anything about it. Instinctively he backpedaled, but the blast still blew him off his feet. Irae rolled with the motion, forcing himself back upright as quickly as possible, dropping his now ruined corpse-shield.

Between the dead Zet and his comrade's heavy suit, he wasn't too damaged, thankfully. He made a mental note to get Viktor a gift if they both survived this.

His gun was hot in his hands as he opened fired at the incoming melee-Zet. While he was skilled in close combat, it was well known fact that bullets beat blades. No need to risk a swordfight if he didn't need to.

The grenade-launcher Zet fired another round, and Irae could see the trajectory in his mind's eye, sailing over the melee units towards them; covering fire, to protect the charge.

Without missing a beat, Irae took aim and shot the grenade mid-flight, before lowering his gun back to the charging hordes.

What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?

Czes: Second Barricade & Beyond

Viktor's suit acted as an excellent shield for Czes, as the grenade was effectively negated by him and left her unscathed. She was considering thanking him for existing, but soon they were being charged by more Imps, and a particularly nasty-looking Igor. She was tempted to leap out of her impromptu mobile cover when she saw the Igor charging, but it quickly went for Diana instead, only to be taken out by Vakare. Deciding to stick around after all, she leaned out from behind Viktor to take a few potshots at the charging Imps, still hanging onto him for dear life.

"I'm boosting morale! It's a big hug!" she called out to him over the chaos. "We can do this! Come on, big can! Show them who's boss!"

This was a terrible idea, because she was still on his back, but maybe if she tucked herself in enough she'd be okay. Plus, a sniper shot at point-blank range was still pretty nasty. She knew that if she was an Imp she wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of it, so she took comfort in that at least. Besides, they would probably be preoccupied by the heavy suit returning the charge more than the spindly straggler hiding on his back.

bork

Viktor

Plates cracking, alarms blaring, Viktor took a split-second to register what had happened as the grenade exploded in his face. Discipline, now. Calm. Or so he told himself, faintly, as the adrenaline flowed, reminding him of home. Focus on the mission, focus on the-

-impact, the feeling of pain as the other fighter's fist cracked against his jaw. Adrenaline roared through his system, but the pain was nothing, all there was was the fight, and the kill. With the swing, his foe was open, and Viktor slammed into him, wild-eyed as the servos of his scrap-rig roared, feeling the crunch of ribs under the weight of his body...

The next thing he knew, he was charging forward into the horde of imps, Czes still mounted on his back. There was no going back now. Momentum carried him forward as he slammed into the first imp in his line, suit-motors roaring to a hundred percent output as he lifted his foe off its feet from the impact and sent them tumbling back alive but displaced, scattering the momentum of the charge. The next imp in line wasn't so lucky - Viktor slammed his gun into the thing's face, knocking it down and pinning it with a leg on its chest as he filled the poor imp's head with a burst of fire from his weapon. He barely even registered, for a moment, a second imp of the charge dropping, Czes' sniper shot keeping him from being ambushed. At least, from that angle.

Another warning alerted him that the suit's right leg was failing, and a moment later, he almost stumbled as the metal limb's dexterity failed him. An imp's arm-blade was lodged through just below the knee, the complex hydraulics of the leg's recoil stabilizers now good for not much more than spilling their oily fluid onto the battlefield and the servos worse for wear. Still, Viktor wasn't dissuaded. Quite the opposite, he was furious still - before the imp could pull back, he'd released his weapon and was on it, the servos on one arm straining as he brought down his entire strength on the poor thing's humerus, separating its arm from the rest of its body. A moment later, they were reunited, as Viktor pulled the now-detached arm-blade from his leg to plunge it into the thing's chest.

Quickly, he grabbed hold of his briefly-discarded gun, stumbling to his full feet once again - unsteady, but ready to face the rest of the charge as it surely soon descended upon him...

Edited by QuirkyTurtle101 on Apr 24th 2024 at 6:19:48 PM

Czes: Big Boi Brotection Brotocol

She'd barely even kept track of what was going on. She just had to trust that Viktor knew what he was doing, and pull the trigger whenever an Imp tried latching onto her face. So long as she did her job covering him from this angle, she could keep them both from being overwhelmed. Soon, however, the majority of the horde had been stopped, and apparently Viktor's suit had been damaged, judging by how he had staggered once he had taken out that imp with its own arm-blade. Deciding that she should take some charge now, since she was unscathed so far, she popped out from over his right shoulder and started firing rapidly at the remaining Imps, giving Viktor a chance to recover as well as proving that she wasn't just a hanger-on.

"I need this thing on full-auto! Can we do that?!" she remarked, even as her rifle kicked back tremendously with each shot. She was firing as fast as she physically could, and she could already feel that she was going to be sore later from the rapid recoil against her awkward positioning. "I really should've brought a sidearm!"

She'd think about that later. This hadn't exactly gone to plan for her. She thought she would've only needed a long-range weapon, and never thought she'd be in the thick of it like she was now. But things got weird on the battlefield, apparently, so she would have to reconsider some things. She just hoped that the Imps gave out before her rifle did.

Edited by Enirboreh on Apr 24th 2024 at 5:28:11 PM

bork

Elevator Ruins - Second Barricade

The Imps now were everywhere. That other Warden had attacked the Imp-Veteran and Viktors sudden counter-charge had bought the squad a precious few seconds, but that was now over. The Imps swarmed past the Heavy now and towards the rest of the squad, chittering and screaming a fascimile of a war-cry, as they bared their chitin-blades.

Sgt. Peréz didn't even have time to curse, as he lowered his rifle and got a shot off. It was hastily aimed, ricocheting off an Imps headplate. The Zet snarled and jumped at him, hacking with its blades at him. The strikes came in fast, cutting into plates and penetrating the armor.

But Peréz remained calm, pushing the Zet away from him with one arm and then dropping his rifle and drawing his handcannon. Pulling the trigger, he blasted the Imps head off at point-blank range.

But he was the only one handling the attack quickly. Three Imps had charged at Irae and, although he managed to fell one of them, they now attacked him together. Alarms blared in the mutants helmet as a blade punched through his side. The second Imp tackled him, trying to tie up his limbs. Two shots rung out, as its shoulder and neck were blown wide open by high-calibre bullets fired by Sgt. Peréz. The veteran Warden turned his handcannon on the other Imp and three fist-sized bulletholes appeared, as he blasted into its back.

"Go and help the others!" He ordered, as he reloaded and then rushed towards the barricade to deal with the Imp-Veteran and his grenade-launcher.

Viktor himself was still surrounded. With one dead Zet flung to the side, he rose up to find himself with four of them stalking him from every angle. They coordinated, striking together and taking advantage of their numbers. With things now devolving into separate fights, they decided to whittle the Heavy Exo-Suit down. Viktor got reports of armor-damage on his back, his side, his shoulders, his head. The blades now came at him faster and faster.

Soon, one would penetrate again.

And Czes' rifle jammed.

She had fired the thing quicker than it was designed to do, trying to thin the horde of enemies as much as possible, before they ran past her and attacked the others. Now, with the barrel glowing red hot, one round had lodged itself in. Something that could be resolved in a matter of seconds.

She didn't have seconds, as an Imp rushed at her and swiped his blades at her. The black edge deflected off her helmet, leaving a paper-thin crack in her visor, and coming only millimeters of cutting her face. The Zet exhaled, its breath coming out like steam, before its faceless mask slammed into Czes' head and forced her back.

Then it pounced at her.

---

The Veteran-Imp was stronger than Sabik had anticipated. Grabbing him by the arm, it swung him around like a sack of Synth-Meat and flung him against the barricade. A fist went down, missing him by inches as he dodged and cracking the concrete. The Imp hissed and kicked him square in the chest.

It was trying to create distance. Throw him off, so it could use its grenades against him. Even getting just clipped by an explosion would be bad for him, as the BAREBONES was only slightly better armored than the infamously fragile BHOLGAR.

"Rail Cannon ready in 2.3 seconds." Came the cold, analytical voice of his UI-Assistant.

The Imps claws missed him, as he weaved to the side. Then the thing whirled around and grabbed one of the Shard-pistols from its fallen brethren and fired at him. Projectiles peppered him, deflecting only thanks to being low calibre. But it did force Sabik back and the Imp was now lowerings its grenade-launcher at him.

"Rail Cannon ready in 1.1 seconds."

Then it staggered forward, as rifle-shots peppered its armored back. One punched through, drawing blood and the Imp flinched.

Rail Cannon ready.

Edited by TheNohen on Apr 29th 2024 at 6:46:39 PM

Irae

He moved as though he felt no pain. Even when the blade glanced his side, Irae's only reaction was to move with the blow to minimize the deepness of the cut, using the butt of his rifle to knock another blade aside, before taking aim at them again.

The imp charged him, and Irae swiftly threw out his left arm and extended his blade, so when the thing ran into him it impaled itself with its own momentum. He dug his feet in and stayed standing at the impact, pushing it back just before Perez blew its head off and ordered him forward.

"Roger!" Irae responded.

With the headless imp still on his blade, Irae charged for the group assaulting Victor, using the corpse as a battering ram against one, before retracting his blade and snapping off shots at another, hoping to split their focus and give his ally room to recover.

What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?

Diana

Diana's eyes went wide as Vakare leapt onto the Igor's back and stabbed it through the chitin, then proceeded to kill it in a...rather brutal manner. 4th Order. What did I get myself into? "I— am fine," she said stiffly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her growing horror. "Thank you."

There was a lull in the chaos now, and Diana wouldn't let it go to waste. She grabbed her communicator and started clicking across the various channels, trying to get a signal. "7th Order! The 4th Order has arrived as backup! We are currently trying to fight through waves of Zet to get to you! I anyone can hear this, tell us where you are so we can meet up!"

"Kept me waiting, haven’t you? Tch. No matter. Dawdle all you’d like. In the end, your defeat remains inevitable."

Viktor

Still caught up in the flow of the battle, Viktor moved quickly - or, as quickly as his heavy armor would carry him - against the four imps. Quickly as can be, of course, was far from enough to avoid the harrying, and each swing of his was just short, each shot from his weapon failing to strike true. Yet he kept fighting, doing all he could to drive off the imps.

Suddenly, his armor blared with a warning, accompanied with a twang of pain - one of the imps had driven an armblade through his right arm. With a slight twist, it dug into his flesh, and blood began to flow from him ever so slowly. Still, his mind was not on the pain, but squarely on the imp who'd struck him. He knew that if the blade was pulled out, he would risk bleeding out within minutes, so thinking quickly, he grabbed his assailant by the arm and placed a full-force kick on its chest. With that, and a final little exertion, he severed the thing's blade and part of its arm from the rest of it, leaving him free to not carry a corpse about or pull the blade from the wound.

Not one to waste time or resource, of course, Viktor kept hold of the imp - and the next to try and approach him was not so lucky, barely managing to scrape his armor before it was introduced to the business end of its now one-armed compatriot, with enough force to shatter bone from the strength of the heavy suit swinging its body. Two down, two to go...