"They're like cockroachs, we could let the damned Crysalid scum nuke us and those bastards would still crawl out from under the rocks." -Marcus De'Leveyan, page 1.
North Bellsford, Super-Centre
The Sergeant's shot rips through the air at a blazing speed and easily penetrates the stationary, large target. Blood splatters about to its fellow, and as suppressing fire started ripping down the hall, the remainder began charging rather than scattering to the four winds. They didn't seem particularly bright, as the suppressing fire ends up taking out a second who simply ran straight into the storm of gunfire, yet the others continued their charge, not so much as even flinching at the death of their allies.
Phillipe's nanites find their mark, ripping through the flesh of one of the Hunter-Killers, causing it a great deal of pain. Frighteningly enough, even as its legs were torn asunder, it continued to try to charge forward, a deep seated blood thirst reflected in its eyes before they too were torn to shreds by the nanite swarm.
William McCormick's gunfire rained down the hallway, though it took a half a dozen rounds penetrating one of the creatures before it finally collapsed dead. One confirmed kill was definitely of use however: It was some fine shooting with an otherwise average rifle. Still, McCormick could feel his pulse pounding at this point, stress was rising.
There were three remaining hunter-killers, who moved with a great deal of speed and agility thanks to their muscular, four-legged forms. One closes the gap and leaps for Sergeant Max, only to be knocked aside by his mechanized strength. It falls to the ground, its head bouncing off the hard floor and causing it to become momentarily dazed. A second leaps up and manages to get its maw around his left wrist, clamping down hard on it. The mechanized suit is damaged under the sheer pressure, but a barrage of bullets come from behind the Sergeant, puncturing the creature several times. The pressure relents as it falls down, dead. Before the hunter-killer could pin the Sergeant, Morgan opened fire and covered him. Because it was momentarily stationary, it wasn't hard for her to hit it.
The third hunter-killer slipped around Sergeant Max in the chaos and bounded quickly for Libero and the girl. Bao screams in terror as the beast leaps for Libero, aiming to rip out his neck with its fangs. Libero manages to raise one of his limbs in time to prevent it, instead watching as the hunter-killer attempts to pierce his exoskeleton with its fangs. It does manage to puncture the armour, but the armour resists the pressure of its maw, preventing it from doing any severe damage. A simple, calculated, calm response from Libero with his free limb impaled the creature's neck with one of his martello. It twitches and struggles for a few moments before simply falling back against the ground, dead.
Without further delay, Morgan dashes over to Bao and scoops her up in her arms.
"Come on now, we're going on an adventure... Like in a cartoon!" This didn't seem to calm Bao much in the slightest, who remained wide eyed and panicked. Bao looks at Libero, and speaks with a shaken tone of voice.
"Th-thank you." Morgan runs to the rappel system, and looks to the rear admiral, nodding to confirm that she was ready. Looking at the rappel system, she manages a small, somewhat nervous smile.
"We should descend quickly on this." She looks back to the rest of the group, though more specifically Phillipe and William.
"When you take the rappel, don't land with your legs straight. Land with your knees bent, or you'll probably dislocate something. Good luck."
The rappel system was simple in construction. It went straight down and only required a single hooking component to allow safe travel down the line. At the bottom was one of the many entrances to the mall, and a long set of marble stairs. A hundred feet of outrageously fancy steps later, it broke out into a three-way intersection. There, in the distance, there was a fight going on. Morgan reads a large, overhead street sign on the roadway, and blinks with slight confusion.
"Zinc Road? I guess that intersection is where we're getting picked up." Still, she hooks herself to the line, glances back to the Sergeant and nods, then descends down the line, holding Bao in her arms. The group could hear Bao's screams of terror fading rapidly as they descended down one of the two lines.
Before the group could get even a moment of respite, however, four more approaching enemies could be spotted. They carried rifles and had humanoid shapes, though they appeared somewhat shorter than humans. They wore yellow-black patterned armour from head to toe, and immediately took cover around nearby shops. Their suits appeared damaged from previous fighting, but still functioning well enough to serve as body armour if nothing else.
North Bellsford, Zinc Road
Prosper opens fire once again, but fails to hit any targets. His bullets ricochet near them, and as he pulls away from the window, his auditory sensors would pick up on a high pitched whistling sound. The window he was sitting at only a few moments earlier is struck with a large amount of plasma, likely fired by the approaching vehicle in the distance, traveling down the right road. A simple glance around would confirm the worst: Some of the plasma had managed to go further than the window area, and struck one of the militia. The pure shock of being hit caused the militiaman to simply stare at his own flesh burning and bubbling away, before he fell backward, silently dead. Prosper was easily able to reposition to a new window.
The grenade thrown by Leonie bounces behind a vehicle, causing one of the stealth-scouts to bolt out from cover to avoid it.
"FIRE!" Martello shrieks loudly as the militia concentrate their fire on him, bathing the target in a sea of bullets and overkill that sends it floundering to the ground. Through her scope, Leonie would be able to see the helmet of one of the stealth-scouts poking out from behind cover: He appeared to be communicating through a radio, though beyond that she couldn't discern what. Still, it was a perfect shot, and a simple squeeze of the trigger sent a bullet racing through a vehicle's windows and into the target's head. It hesitates a moment, as though surprised that it was dead, before slumping aside.
Ariel's psionic volley's manage to hit one of the stealth-scouts as he pokes his head up to attack, causing him to grasp his helmet in excruciating pain. It was only momentary however, as he falls onto his knees, then slumps out of cover, unconscious.
Norb's plasma shot sails through the air and hits the vehicle the two remaining stealth-scouts are hiding behind, burning and melting its way through the hood and engine, but failing to hit its intended target. Nonetheless, the stealth-scouts seemed spooked, keeping their heads down. Norb was intelligent enough to clue in that they were likely panicking, and forcing their surrender might be possible. Killing them with a grenade however, would be much safer--as surrender might not be an option for them.
In the distance, the group could hear the sound of a little girl screaming. One glance at the mall would confirm that there were people using the emergency rappel system to escape the mall, and one of them was a little girl clinging desperately to a small woman. Still some distance away, but not long before the survivors within the mall would likely move to group up with them--a silver lining in the dark clouds of the day.
Martello crackles to life on the group's radios.
"Down the left road, six enemies moving in." Immediately after him, the radio comes to life once more. It was the Liaison Officer from earlier.
"This is liaison officer Davis! We've been tracking enemy activity in your area. There's at least six large vehicles and forty infantry, including a commanding officer. We're moving transports to your area right now. ETA is two minutes. They will have protection. All the advice we can offer right now is that their first wave of plasma tanks appear to have issue burning their way through heavy cover, such as buildings. Hang on a little while longer!"
Nikolai turns to engage the six enemies, only to watch as they set up two hundred feet from the intersection. Each one drops a device to the ground, causing a barrier to erupt from the ground.
"Pavise generators?" Nikolai mutters with confusion.
"If only I had some EMP on me..." He mutters quietly, before opening fire to try and suppress them.
"These ones are bigger, I'm going to wager a guess they're real soldiers! Don't go without cover!" Nikolai yells out to everyone, seeming to be a little more on edge than he was before.
"HELP!" The radio crackles to life once more with the sound of a militiaman. Nikolai snarls and grabs the radio.
"Now what?!" The militiaman, panicked sounding, replies.
"There's someone in here! Someone in yellow and black, and he's fast! Real fast! He's taken out Jenkins, and now-- GYAAAHH~" The militiaman screams. It's quickly followed by a radio transmission from a masculine sounding voice, though not quite human enough to be one of the militia.
"Two."
East Bellsford, Red Line
As the massive, lumbering creature finished crawling its way down the steps, the hail of bullets gave it momentary pause, especially the ones aimed for its eyes. Then, Kephart's heavy slug impacts it and rips through it, causing it to violently explode and send blood and guts splattering in every direction. The blood hisses and spits like acid with everything it comes into contact with, including one of the hapless militia, who screams in pain as it burns his face. It wasn't potent enough to quite kill, but was definitely potent enough to leave permanent facial scaring, and damage any equipment it came into contact with. Kephart, though splattered with a few bits of the acidic blood, was only damaged in a superficial manner. Meanwhile, the table that Finnergen was taking cover behind has a large chunk of it simply melted away by the acidic compound.
As everyone then peeks back out after taking cover from the acidic spray, three hunter-killers burst out from the large corpse. The shredded remains of a fourth could be seen, if one were perceptive enough to look for it amongst the bloated carnage. Laura, having smartly waited, manages to aim down her sights and riddle one with a barrage of bullets, sending it to the ground. The other two however, bound past cover and attack the militia, ripping out their throats in a crazed frenzy. One only five feet away from Marcus, and the other just a couple feet from Kephart.
Before Berry could adjust and immediately turn to attack the hunter-killers, he notices five enemies rapidly slide down the stairway entrance to the bottom of the steps. There, they each toss a device to the floor, that causes it to deploy a barrier shield.
"KEPHART, TAKE THOSE SHIELDS OUT WITH YOUR RAIL GUN!" Berry yells out his order as the enemy continues setting up their firearms. They appeared to be standard plasma weapons for the Chrysalids.
Suddenly, the emergency lights turn off and the regular lights snap back on: Power had been restored. Berry quickly grabs his radio.
"Good job Gilan! We've got enemies right outside your door, you should be able to open it on your own now! Flank those shield using bastards!" He puts his radio down and starts reloading his rifle, hoping to beat the enemies behind the barrier shield.
East Bellsford, Convoy #4
Quentin manages to easily lead the way through a series of buildings and windows, to the closest building adjacent to the monstrous looking creatures. Ralph takes a few deep breaths, and motions for Caitlin and Quentin to hold their position inside the building. He pulls out a small container of nanites, and slips around a side entrance. Throwing the container, he then slips back inside. He closes his eyes as the two creatures walk over to investigate the container. Ralph incidentally brushes against Caitlin's hand, and for that brief moment, she would be able to discern that his pulse was racing at over a hundred and eighty beats per minute, and there was something in his brain causing intense stimulation to his visual cortex.
From Quintin's position, he's able to see the two creatures hesitate for a second, then suddenly fall over, frothing at the mouth and twitching. This pain they seemed to be in lasted only a few seconds, and then they were simply dead. Ralph opens his eyes and takes a deep breath of relief.
"Done. We can move out now..." He then glances at Caitlin, sweat was on his brow and cheeks.
"As I said... Secrets, but you can trust me." The area was safe, and without further adieu, they were able to move out.
One of Quintin's drones is destroyed as they scout ahead, sniped out of the air by an unknown assailant. The other three, however, remained safe, and gathered all the information they needed as the group approached the only thing between them and the Red Line station entrance: A concrete wall. Going around the wall, it was only a fifty foot dash to reach the entrance and get inside. They could hear gunfire coming from within the subway station as well, though the sound was fairly faint from their position.
They were, from the subway station entrance perspective, to the left. Ahead of the subway station entrance, about seventy feet away, was a plasma tank and two guards embedded in a city street. Behind the tank was a building, and Quentin could tell that building likely contained the unknown sniper that took out his drone. They were likely waiting for reinforcements, and it wouldn't be long before those arrive and totally overrun the subway station. The tank commander stays silent, unsure of what to do, though Ralph once again pipes up, with yet another idea.
"If I could get close enough to the tank to throw a nanite container at it, I could at least disable it for a minute, maybe two. If I'm really lucky, maybe I could kill it." He glances at Tharvax, and grins.
"Think you could get me close enough by riding on your back, then divert and attack the two guards?" He glances at Quentin and Caitlin, and the tank crew.
"You guys could fire at the soldiers..." His eyes then move to Gwen.
"You lead the civilians down into the subway station. Maybe shout to them that we're friends, not enemies..." Still, Ralph seemed somewhat uncertain.
"Any other ideas?"