acts_of_gord | Assault on City 17: Team Destroy

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Assault on City 17: Team Destroy

The group of Milliways patrons earmarked for the pincer movement is ushered into City 17 without much ceremony. The streets here are cobbled, the buildings grey with age; the handful of cars in the street are old, old things, worn down with time and lack of care. They have the look of machines that were abandoned where their owners fell. This was a residential part of town, once. That was before the Combine- before the black thing on the horizon existed. In the distance it rises, visible down the eastward-facing streets: a tower of such immense size that its top pierces the low-lying clouds.

"Hey," calls a human voice- a Hispanic-looking woman, young of face but old of eye and attitude. She's dressed in dark blue and black, partially bulked up by the body armor of a fallen Civil Protection metrocop, and she carries a submachine gun. "Didn't see you guys show up. Are you part of the diversionary force?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It's a pity the Elites aren't human enough any more to feel real terror. The remaining ones would be running if that were the case. As it stands, they're just going to deploy the secondary fire mode, the dark energy orbs, in the Milliways contingent's direction.

Dora, for her part, had to drop her gun. She's using both hands to apply direct pressure as best she can- there's a really amazing amount of blood spreading through the visible part of her clothing. "All right, this stinks," she says weakly and tries to suppress a wince. "Anybody got a rescue pack on them?"

"I've got a vial of the bug juice. Will that work?"

There will be much cursing at the energy orbs when Annabelle has to dodge them. Getting hit by those is not an option.

Vaporization, such as it is, is definitely not an option for X. Not one she'll survive, anyway.

Which is why she seems to be staying fairly close to those Elites, three quarters of her attention on dodging the energy orbs.

The other quarter is devoted to taking out those weapons. And the Elite holding them.

X is very bad at defensive fighting. That's why she doesn't bother.

"It'll help," says Dora. "Ay. Is Boots still alive?- he's the medic," she notes, catching the look of incomprehension at the name. "I don't hear him..."

Now, it's a good thing to capture an enemy's weapons and use them yourself. X is making this no longer an option. On the other hand, a weapon destroyed is still a weapon denied the enemy.

It is a very, very bad day to be Elite.

Well. It was. Now it appears to be a good day to be a great many corpses....

(And away in the distance, the sound of fleeing dropship engines is overlaid with the sound of approaching dropship engines. There are three more of them. They are coming. And they are heavy-laden.)

There is inventive cursing at the sound of new dropships. Annabelle hands Dora the vial. "Where was Boots when you last saw him?"

Annabelle is afraid that Boots is dead and hoping that she's wrong.

X keeps one ear open to gauge the rate of the dropships' approach.

The rest of her attention is devoted to making sure that everyone who should be down is down.

And will stay that way.

Ryan's scowling. He can hear the dropships coming and as much as he would've liked to get his hands on one of the pulse rifles, he'll just have to make do with whatever ammo he can scrounge.

He's also looking for health packs. Whatever he finds is getting tossed Dora and Annabelle's way. Just because he doesn't care about her doesn't mean he's going to stand by and watch her die.

"With Sami and Ying Ying," Dora says, grimacing. She fumbles to get the top off the vial; it takes her several tries. And, alas, there will be no help from Boots, although Ying Ying (a narrow-faced young woman with a bloody bandage wrapped around one arm) comes to her feet and approaches the others. "Who needs ammo?" she says. "I've got more than I can carry..."

"I wouldn't say no to ammo, if you have any to spare." Annabelle will pass on any medical supplies to Dora and others who need them.

"More Elites?" Annabelle asks, gesturing in the direction of the sound of incoming drop ships.

Michael has opted to take to the air (sooner than he'd have liked) to avoid the dark energy orbs. He thinks he could survive one, but doesn't want to test the theory, let alone repeat the experiment. Besides, the vibes he gets from them remind him uncomfortably of visiting the ruins of Heartland, back in 2054, after Calvert Wycoff blew his stack. Remind him uncomfortably, as well, of how comfortable he, Divis Mal, was with the Terrible Glory of Taint™.

In a spirit of scientific inquiry, he hits one of the orbs with a small-scale version of his energy-suppression field*. If it causes the orb to fizzle, he'll try it again.

While he waits for that experiment's results to come in, he fires a nice big bolt at one of the approaching dropships, big enough to do some real damage.

* See the list of his powers in Aberrant: Worldwide Phase I.

Ying Ying starts passing out the ammunition magazines right away. Sami, an older man with an unplaceable accent and badly fractured English, does his best to get the medkits from Ryan and start applying them in earnest. At Annabelle's question Sami shakes his head. "This, no," he says. "Flying too low now. Here come Striders."

The orb fizzles swiftly, which must be a nice feeling, given that the dropships dive with weirdly fluid grace and release their cargo about thirty feet above the ground, some distance away. Vast brown masses suddenly unfold three legs each, the legs striking the ground in synchrony mere moments later. Then they begin to straighten.

Remember that heavy thudding sound from the pulse rifles of the Elites? Imagine that, times ten, and coming from thirty or forty feet up. That's the Strider's main gun for you- and the warp cannon hasn't even been deployed yet.

X looks up, and up, and up.

This will be problematic.

Her first priority is getting into an optimal position for an attack. Remaining at ground level does not seem like it will accomplish anything.

But is there anything around taller than the Striders?

Annabelle frowns at the unfolding Striders, thinking about how to kill the giant mechanical spider things.

Then she grins and says, "I think I have a plan."

There is fiddling with grenades, heavy twine, and duct tape.

Then Annabelle is attempting to lure a Strider over to where it won't kill anyone on her side if it explodes or falls over.

She's going to try that plan she mentioned to Barney of climbing up to the knee joint and planting a grenade...

Taller, no; but there are buildings still standing, not quite wrecked, whose roofs are about level with the mid-line of the monstrous Synths' bodies. The Combine does not build their assault weapons small.

Striders are unspeakably dangerous creations of a massively destructive alien empire. Any one of those legs could easily impale even an armored human without much effort on the Strider's part. And as for the guns- well, the lead Strider turns and takes utterly casual aim at the building nearest a straggling group of rebels.

zzzMMMCHHAAAAAAAA! goes the air as a ripple of pure spatial distortion like the plucking of a string streaks out from the curved cannon dangling from the thing's underbelly.

THOOOM! go the top two floors of the building.

And chuddachuddachudda goes the air on every side as the other two Striders start unleashing their pulse cannon fire. Lucky thing for Annabelle that the two rearward Striders are busier shooting at rebels than at the human near the forward Strider's leg, eh?

X can work with access to the Strider's body. And if her claws fail to penetrate, she'll survive the fall.

She probably won't survive the ensuing pulse cannon blast, but when has that ever stopped her?

If you guessed never, you'd be right.

Some things are not relevant in the middle of a mission.

Michael, on seeing the first orb fizzle, started stifling the others. Once he has that down to a reflex, he takes note of the general situation...

...just in time to feel a scraping sensation, like tinfoil on dental fillings, as the pulse cannons open fire. Don't point that thing at the girl, big boy, he thinks as he abandons the work of squelching orbs to charge up a fireball twice the size of your head and aim it straight at the "crotch" of the Strider nearest to X.

It is very lucky that they are not concentrating on Annabelle. It is however, understandable. No one would be crazy enough to try and climb one of those things, right?

Annabelle rolls near the leg of the strider and stows her guns for the moment. She's going to need both hands for this...

With a cinematic leap Annabelle is on the Striders leg and climbing as quickly as she can to the knee...

The forward Strider pauses, dipping on two of its legs for a moment as it tries to get a better understanding of why it suddenly has a weight on its leg. That kind of thing isn't in its programming or its instincts- these things aren't robots, they're cybernetically altered and controlled living organisms, and both sets of intrinsic instructions exist. Now if it can just turn towards a building and perhaps whack the human against a wall...

She'd better climb fast, that's all we're saying.

As for the other two Striders, the rearward one attempts to turn its cannons on Donighal's fireball, but its guns have little effect. The one nearest X thunders, whipping around to target the source as best it can- the underbelly gun may have to retract, but the ordinary cannons are mounted under the forward edge of the thing's carapace and haven't been touched yet, and they're fully charged and opening out in earnest.

"Okay then," says the Donighal, and flames crackle in his voice. Those forward cannons aren't likely to hurt him, but they're awfully damned annoying. A quick barrage of fireballs ought to fuck them up sufficiently for his purposes.

[OOC: And the mun leaves for work in 10-15 minutes, thereafter unable to spend adequate time online until tomorrow AM. He may have one more tag in him ere he goes, but he makes no promises.]

Since one of the Striders is now focused on someone that can easily take it out, X diverts her attention to the Strider Annabelle is not occupied with.

It doesn't take her long to take a running jump across one rooftop, clawing her way up to a spot she can leap from.

She doesn't scream as she launches herself at the Strider, claws catching and holding, legs swinging free for a moment. Then she swings herself sideways, digging in with a footclaw and clambering to the top of the creature.

It's kind of like the armored car, but taller. And more prone to whipping around.

Now, to find this thing's version of an engine. Or controls.

Annabelle climbs very fast indeed. When she reaches the knee she whips out the modified grenade and jams it into the joint. Securing it with duct tape, she makes sure she has a grip on the twine.

The idea is that the twine is long enough that the pin will pull out of the grenade shortly before she hits the ground, giving her time to get out of the way of the explosion and the Strider.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!"

Annabelle gets down from its leg even faster than she went up. Mostly because a portion of the descent is a controlled fall. Even with the body armor she's going to hurt when the adrenaline wears off.

When she hits the ground she quickly rolls out of the area, hoping that she won't have to climb another leg to take the Strider down.

At a time like this, things seem to happen all at once.

- X's Strider has no controls, and no engine, but it does have the body segmentation one would expect of an insect or crab. Abdomen, thorax, head. Head implies brain. Segmentation implies weak point.

- Donighal's Strider begins bobbling and weaving on all three legs in an effort not to get hit. This is... not as successful as it would like. The rebels have never had air support before, so there aren't many routines or instincts it can fall back on...

- Annabelle's Strider pauses, tries to lift its booby-trapped leg- and staggers violently at the explosion.

There's fifty feet of Synth hellspider about to fall into the street head-first. As for the other two Striders, neither one is what you'd call long for this world.

Annabelle cackles with glee at the explosion from behind the worn out remains of a Vespa.

Once the Strider hits the ground she'll go over and find a weak point in the head to make sure that it's dead.

Annabelle checks to see how her teammates and the other Resistance members are doing.

X, meanwhile, is trained to strike at weak points. Funny how this all works out.

She darts forward, body tensed to dig in not-so-metaphorical claws if she feels herself start to slip. And once she reaches the 'head'--

Then she really gets to work. It takes effort to dig beneath the carapace, but not more effort than X can muster. It helps that she's not interested in clean, surgical cuts.

The utter destruction of the brain, stem and all, is essentially her current objective.

Annabelle's Strider is still thrashing furiously, its sounds almost drowning out the rebels' screams of glee. Apparently, that kind of an attack isn't something they've had a lot of luck with in the past. The impact made the weak point between head and thorax much more obvious; if she's got any more grenades, one lodged in the right place could probably do the thing's head in.

As for X, her Strider is spasming and flailing frantically, trying to throw her off in some way. Synth body material is no match for adamantium, though. There's an incredible shower of blood and sparks in all directions as X hits home- again and again and again.

With a noise like a dying whale, the second Strider falls.

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