Darkened Skies IC

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Holliday clenched his M4 tightly to his chest as mortar fire landed all around them. "Fuck these fucking Scions!" he yelled to the squad as Glitter let out a string of equally as obscene if not more obscene then his words. To his flank the Carrion Queen let out a whine of guided missiles, devastating whatever they had been aimed at as Glitter began to issue orders. 'Push up, wipe out what's left. Easy enough' but things were never simply easy in combat.

Omnicron took Glitters words and ran with them. Almost literally. "You're going to get yourself killed!" Holliday yelled to Omni as he began a low crawl to a piece of less than desirable cover, if it could even be considered cover in its current state. Lockdowns' voice came through the comms, something about no line of sight on the enemy squad. Holliday moved around Glitter to get a better view on Omnicron. "Ready when you are Sarge" he said as he peered around the corner of the house and down the road toward the hospital.

"Whole lot of nada over here, we're good to cro-" Holliday was cut off as he took a face full of debris as a round impacted the building a few feet from his head and all hell broke loose once more. There was a huge explosion as something went up in a plume of orange flames and thick green smoke visible over the buildings. Holliday fell back behind cover, "The hell...?" he managed to get out as an RPG let loose from somewhere in Omnicrons direction, it streaked beautifully across the open field in front of the church, through the bell tower window, and impacted the far arch of the bell tower. A barely noticeable spray of red as well as what could only have been Lockdowns arm were ejected from the bell tower and out into the field.

"We just lost Lockdown! No way he survived through that and Omni looks like he's about to be in a shit tonne of trouble---" he said as he prepped a smoke grenade to throw in Omnicrons direction. He pulled the pin and reeled back to throw as suddenly the whole world went white and was devoid of all noise. He dropped the smoke grenade at his feet and put his hands to his eyes expecting to see them. He could feel them touching his face. But nothing else. He banged on his ears as a loud ringing became excruciatingly apparent. 'This is almost like that time I got flashed... Fuck.' Doc thought as he groped around on the ground for his now missing M4.
 
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Sten let out a grunt of dissatisfaction when the Humvee exploded in a gloud of gas. Getting a gasmask on around his implants was a pain, but not impossible. He took a deep breath before trying to get the mask over his face, holding it until it was firmly sealed. He heard his hallucinatory sister giggling about his mask. "You look like a bug, Marc."

Then they saw the A'lurks. This is... new. A'lurk mounted scions is not a good sign. I wonder if it's a shift in F'hatagar strategy, or if command knows about this. Psy-Ops worked closely with intelligence, but more often than not, they only recieved information from them on a need-to-know basis. If they did know he could understand the reason to keep this kind of intel under wraps. Knowing now that scions were being outfitted with F'hatagar 'equipment' was a bad sign.

He considered neurally overloading one of the A'lurks before they entered the cloud to help thin their ranks, but that would only tax him needlessly. He instead began pouring his power into his staff, in case, or rather when, they got too close. It began to hum and crackle and Sten drew his sidearm; when trying to stop a charging A'lurk, you needed everything you can thow at it.
 
Crouched behind the wall, Omicron didn't see the RPG being fired, but he heard the boom as it impacted the church, and heard the yells that Lockdown was gone. Damn it. It sounded like the southern approach was going to hell as well. Omicron's musings on how his position was comparatively nice were cut off by the blast of a flashbang. The flash reflected off the walls around him, but his back being turned spared them from any major impact. His ears, however, were left ringing and numb, rendering him temporarily deaf to all that was going on. Watching his surroundings carefully in case of any follow-up, he waited for the ringing to subside.

This was not a good position. The rest of the squad stranded on the road, with him pinned down behind a wall. There was only one thing for it - time to pull a Bazzoli.

Captain Bazzoli had been Omicron's direct superior during his early days in the war, and was revered by all those below him for his irreverent attitude and his...unorthodox methods. The Captain was extraordinarily well trained, and knew exactly how most reasonably well trained units thought. He was supremely proud of then doing the exact opposite of what they'd suspect. A master of misdirection and a champion of dirty tricks, Bazzoli had eventually retired from frontline service, and returned to his home country as a local commander.

Omicron pulled the pin from the first flashbang and threw it over the wall, making sure that the arc made it as obvious as possible. Given the fuse time of the average flashbang, they'd be covering their eyes and ears...now. Omicron threw the second flashbang over the wall in a low flat arc. Loading a frag into the Reaper, he set the shotgun against the ground like a mortar, angling it towards the direction the group had been in last time he looked. As the second flashbang detonated, Omicron fired the frag over the wall. He immediately hunkered right down, pulling a smoke and tossing it to his right. As the frag exploded, and the smoke went off, Omicron crawled along the ground to his left, hoping to make the cover of the house before they realised that he wasn't using the smoke for cover.
 
(Collab wtih @Goldmarble )

In one tenth the speed it took a person to blink the shot left the muzzle of the gun crashing into the tank with enough force to punch clear through the outer armor only stopping when it hit the thicker underside. Molten metal ignited anything that wasn't cold steel and the tank was reduced to a fiery hull. Seems the scions were at least some what prepared as the battlefield suddenly erupted into action. Plumes of dust and smoke were kicked up from mortar rounds, highlights of crimson were added to the grey streets, and from her vantage point Limbo watched as the blue ghosts of the 44th dodge about the ruins. Another shot was quickly loaded into the cannon and she scanned about, keeping an eye out for any stray vehicles trying to sneak out of town. At the same time she had to keep her ears open for called shots and her eyes trained to pick up the light of a designator beacon, and soon enough Commandant voice barked out an order. A few twitches from her hand switched Lefty into top priority for transmissions to the Hades.

"Alright Lefty on your mark. I need sights on all of them."

"On it!" Even as she stepped out to launch a 40mm shell through the chemical cloud at the Alurk force rounding the Hospital, set to gated prox so it wouldn't be tripped by anything close by, like the wreckage of the hummer, Lefty was busy. She checked the trajectory path of what was between Limbo and the targets for any friendly signatures, before mentally calculating the damage path that would rip through as many of the beasts as possible. She selected one, and triggered the pulsating laser designator, while also getting ranging data. Transmitting the data, she returned on comms, "Shot path clear, range sent, Lurkers painted. Fire!"

The wait was painful as Lefty maintained a concentrated silence as she prepared the shots, but for all the excitement Limbo managed to keep her heartbeat steady and her head level. That is until there was another loud boom and a soldier's outline blinked twice and then disappeared from her screen. Her nerves flinched as her stomach dropped.

"Lock?" Limbo asked her soft pleading voice lost among the chorus of cries. God damn them, these Scions, every last one of them so eager to doom mankind. Why didn't they just march to the unclaimed cities and let a Monarch fry their brains until it dribbled out of their ears.

"Lock?" Again she questioned the empty air and the only voice that answered her was Lefty calling the shots. With her mouth pressing into a firm line the rest of her moved robotically and with deadly precision her sites focused in on the marker.

"Go to hell." Another earth rattling boom sounded and once again her shot tore through the town. The Scions and their...mounts, wouldn't even register what hit them, the projectile so outpaced the sound wave that they would not even get a chance to react before it hit them. Armor or no the railgun was meant for heavy encampments, tanks, enforcement's that would rival some of their mechs' own armor, in short Limbo might have almost considered this overkill, might have if it wasn't for the shadow of Lockdown's outline haunting her screen. The first Alurk caught the shot head on, some nice designation by Lefty, and had the beast's rider had not been killed instantly by the shock wave the Scion would have gotten to see everything below his chest be reduced to a strawberry jam to be spread liberally across the pavement. The Alurk following closest behind the first was perhaps a bit more lucky, when the projectile passed it by the only souvenir it kept was one of it's front legs. For a fair distance after the projectile carried on, only stopping when it had taken a smaller chunk of the hospital's wall and embedded itself in the ground just beyond that.

"Who's next." There was a cold way in which Sarah stated those words that made it very obvious that she was beyond jokes at this point. As though to emphasis her point the heavy clink of another round being loaded was just audible, her eyes scanning her display for a new target, designated or otherwise.
 
Armand lifted himself up in time to see the streak of white smoke signaling that a rocket had been fired. Before he could turn his body to trace the shot the resounding explosions signaled the target. The tower of the church erupted in the explosion, a man somewhere in the midst of it following suit. Armand swore in anger. The waft of the explosion wasn't strong enough to reach him, but instincts told him to hug the wall anyway. Despite the construction of a home providing little cover from any substantial amount of gunfire, Armand thought it better than nothing. There was no time to pause and think of Lock. He was gone and dead so far as Armand knew, and at the moment his own ass was more important.

He called out to his squad. "Moving!" The surrounding area had fairly poor cover, other than the building he was pressed to. Across the small yard slightly nearer the gas cloud and to the North was a home that had been lit up by fire. Hopefully the occupants had been killed, if not Armand would ensure they were. He scanned the area, registering the surroundings and the dangers of moving, then moved. Across the small yard in an instant he came to the edge of the building and followed it around until he came to a window. Slowly he leaned away from the home, peering into the abode through the glass looking for the sign of any movement.

The first room was empty. Nonetheless Armand was quiet as he opened the door, slowly leaning in through. The inside of the home was dusty and had been in disrepair long before they had arrived. On the ceiling a patch of dry wall had fallen, likely due to one of the rounds that tore through the home. Armand made his way through the musty room, around an old dining room table flipped on its side, and closer towards a staircase. Faint footfalls resounded upstairs and Armand hunkered into a low position to peer up. Empty again. As a fresh set of pops and a loud bang echoed from across the street Armand heard the man shouting to himself and fumbling to take up a firing position.

Hurrying up the stairs while the opportunity presented itself Armand poked his rifle out from the rungs of the rail that ran alongside the upper floor and trained the sights on the living man. An instant later the man was dead and Armand continued to clear the home. Satisfied he called over the comms. "Armand, positioned in long two story building next to the street, eyes on the hospital."

Taking a better position than the dead man's, Armand found a chair and rested the back of it against an open window. The chair steadied the front of his rifle as he peered through the sites towards the hospital and anything set to come out of it and down the street.

[spoili]
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The smoke billowed over the field. Commandant growled in the com "Good shot Limbo. Lay it down on those fuckers."

"Armand. Don't aim at the fucking hospital. Go for the guys pinning Glitters boys down. We are pulling b-"

There was a noise like that of crackling, popping fruit in a microwave. And then Commandant was staring at Cobra. Here eyes were red, blood shot, while her nose dripped with blood. It came out her ears aswell as she slumped. "Cobra? Cobra!" The commondant bent over to turn her over when one of Cobras blades suddenly surged forward and pinned her trough the shoulder. She was actually carried back and pinned to the stone wall by the sheer force of it. Her eyes widened as she looked up to see the strange, glowing eyed corpse of Cobra stand to two legs. Yes, she was a corpse now, taken over by something else. Someone else. She had heard the stories. Astral Walkers suddenly collapsing dead and rise as some sort of puppet. The Psy-Ops called the beings that took them "Astral-Jackers"

"Shit Shit Shit." She fumbled for her hand gun with her good arm, watching the corpse sway and fixate its eyes on the other part of the squad. The spear piercing suddenly teared out of her, and she felt her left arm go limp. Nerve damage, shit was going downhill faster and faster. Then she realized what the former Psy-Op was doing.

"REAVER; INCOMING!" Commandant shouted as the revenant raised her hand, and then the spear shot across the battlefield with more precision and speed then Cobra had ever been capable of. Whatever was inside her now was far better at taming her powers. Commandant swore as she fired a round at her. The bullet stopped halfway.

"Oh now. This. This isn't fuckin' happening." She shot another bullet and the corpse jerked away last second, dancing away as it dissapeared in the smoke.

"Cobra is dead. Fucking possesed by... Something. Reaver, I need yout o do that thing to her her brain? Can you shut her down if I distract her?" She limped towards Blue and the others. "I need Blue here. I need a fucking medic. My arms shot." She winced as another supersonic railgun bullet flew past and created a scorched trail among the enemy reinforcements.

Cobra moved fast, telekinetic aided spring made her worlds fasted Zombie. Unfortunatly for her, Big flung up her Carl gustav "Stop this fucker" The rocket propelled grenade seemed to hit her square in the chest before exploding. Cobra was bent in a impossible angle but in one piece, and allready starting to try and correct herself.

"IT'S DISTRACTED: DO YOU THING REAVER!"

–

Limbo;

As limbo blasted enemy after enemy, her thunderous railgun cannonade suddenly reached a problem. Something was making her proxy sensors flip the fuck out. As the instruments autocorrected for the new disturbance, she came to realize soemthing. She had the position of the Radio Jammer in sight. Sure. It would let the last A'lurks get to close to blast, but it would open for better overview of the the battlefield, and help the guys in the fray.


Lefty:
Suddenly the there was a brief interval in the Railgun thunder, and this gave one of the remaining alurks enough courage to grab a wrecked car and toss it right in the path of the Artemis, making it stumble somewhat. Spurred on by this somewhat minor victory it charged straight for Lefty. The scion on the back was long dear, only a leg was still attached the mount. The A'lurk slammed into Artemis, its bulk rocking it further. It grabbed a lamp post and tried to bash the lightly armored mech in, but Artemis was still a bit to hardy for it, even if the sensors were far from ok with it.



Glitter squad;
As the bullets streaked across, there was always someting that could end up worse. And it appears from Commandants conundrum that they had. Omicron was pinned, and pulled a desperation move. Luckily for him and everyone else, his move had some effect, the grenade actuall bounced against a broken window frame and landed between two of the men pinning him. There was quite the hectic screaming and then a loud boom as two more bit the dust, one piece of jaw at a time.

As he crawled away, this bought him almost enough time to make it to better cover. Almost. Just as he pulled himself behind a wall, a stray bullet slammed into the side of his thigh.

Luckily, he was now back with the others and with them, Doc Holliday. With the Carrion Queen covering the squad, there was at the very least a wall of raw firepower between the enemy and the battered group. There was some half hearted fireing from the group that had flanked previusly. Apperently the lucky grenade had done a number on them. But, there was always something. Suddenly a lamp pole came flying and hitting Carrion Queen. Now, had it been artemis that would have been a killing blow. As it was, the metal pole slammed with enough force to destroy the missile pod it hit. It had come flying out from the thick green mist, tossed like a spear.

Commandant could be heard in the comradio "HOW THE FUCK IS SHE SO POWERFUL ALL OF THE SUDDEN!"
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Kerttu "Lefty", and the A-Lurk, Collab with Hellis​

Kerttu was distracted, witnessing the Commandant getting impaled was something that was easy to be distracted by. It was Cobra. "Paskainen," hissed from her clenched teeth as she stepped out into the road to try and bring the weapons of Corvus to bear on the hijacked Psycher. This move, unfortunately, caught the attention of the Alurk; by her fourth step, trying to get a lock on the swiftly moving serpent, she was obstructed by the mangled wreckage of the car, Corvus stumbling, before she caught their balance once more.

Too late. The A'Lurk was fast, and bowled right into the light mech, sending Corvus reeling backwards several meters, buying the alien monstrosity the time needed to grab the light post and swing it into the mech, her sensors flaring with false data, some damaged, and possibly destroyed. Still, she could see. Regaining control, she glared at the beast, and screamed into external speakers, "Un putero perkele!" As her stress rose, she had a habit of resorting to an odd pidgin of Mexican-Spanish, and Finnish languages that was hard for many to follow the exact translation of, but the emotion, and feeling were usually quite well conveyed. She was enraged that this filth had the audacity to damage Corvus. Fully aware of the beast now, she started the charge for the Heat cannon, while using the capacitive charged reserve on the jump jets to retreat from the beast momentarily, skimming back over the ground, some fifty meters, touching back down, the feet of the mech digging into the damaged asphalt, and kicking up dust before she got her target lock, and fired. The shoulder mounted gun recoiled, rocking Corvus back roughly. Before the mech even settled, several small panels opening up to help increase airflow over the heatsinks, dissipating the heat that the cannon produced.

The A'Lurk reaction was strangely logical, as soon as the heatgun charged, it grabbed a chunk of concrete and asphalt and lifted it like a shield. The heatgun melted part of it, and the plasma burned off its hands, but it wasn't down. It roared and charged with its burned stumps for hands raised.

Checking her surroundings, she called in her situation in comms, to the Commandant, and Reaver's squad, "Alurk broke through, taking it down," even as she used some of the remaining charge of her jump jets to try and keep out of the monster's reach. The Heat gun was charging again for another shot, but she did have other weapons. She snarled and switched back her comms to external speaker, and growled at the Lurker, "Hakka Päälle, bitch!" The 40mm cannon tracked the gorilla-like beast, aiming for its legs, and fired. Recoiling into its cradle, even as the jumpjets used thrust vectoring to keep her from twisting, mid air, too much, before she dropped back down to the surface, and brought the gatling to bear, looking to slow the beast down, with a withering barrage of fire towards its face. She kept back-pedalling the Corvus, now turning slightly away from where Limbo was, keeping the A'Lurk in the open, and away from the largest sources of rubble. Watching her thermal limits, she would fire when the shoulder cannon was charged again.

The mortar shells slowed it down, keeping it's charge from gaining momentum. By the time the heatgun was fully charge, the creature was limping.

She paused momentarily before switching control to the heat cannon, and firing once more, damn near point blank. Rocking the Artemis frame back once more, as the superheated plasma erupted on the A'Lurk's face, melting through the armour and thick hide, vaporizing most of it, while leaving a blackened wreck where the creature's head and face once were. Sneering, she switched the 40mm back to High explosive, and fired one more round into the weakened area. Punching through, the round detonated inside of the beast's corpse, erupting along a few seams into the armour, a viscous mess of internal blood and organs, steaming into the world.

Finally, she had time to take stock of the situation, while running a fast sensor test to determine what she still had, and what was damaged, she reported back to the Commandant, and Reaver; "Lurker down. Lefty returning to position. Sensors damaged, but otherwise operational." She made note to check her ammunition stores; 932 rounds left for the gatling, and 37/8 remained for the 40mm.
 
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Sten turned his head just as he heard he warning. He instinctively unleashed his lightning into the first E-Spear. The lightning arced directly into the Einbrium weapon diverting its course by the mere centimeters needed to miss and slagging it in mere moments. The second was following behind the first and slipped past the first to plunge into Sten's chest armor. The armor took most of the impact, but it still penetrated a few centimeters. He ripped the blade out of his chest, only to find it struggling against his grasp. He zapped it in his hand, turning it into charred slag before dropping it, lifeless.

There were many metaphors used to describe telepathic invasion, but the one Sten liked the most was that of breaking into a walled and fortified city. When telepathically interrogating a subject, the interrogator's goal is to secure a specific building (memory) inside the subject's city (mind). Most interrogators tend to use precision strikes to whittle down the subject's defences without destroying too much of his mind. Sten's technique was the opposite. He ravaged areas where the memories likely wouldn't be until the defenders were too weak to put up any serious fight, essentially a targeted campaign of scorched earth. Applying the strategy to the entire mind was simply a matter of mustering up the strength to do so. Against an alien mind occupying that of a comrade, the hatred to fuel such a purge was easy to find. Sten hardly knew her, but she was a comrade and defender of humanity, now twisted and distorted into a parody of what she once was; he could not let it stand.

Stunned from Big A's RPG, the alien presence wearing Cobra's skin felt Sten's telepathic claws grip into it's host's mind and begin to tighten. A roar built in Sten's throat as he poured his hate and pain through the psychic link. The alien lashed out mentally, but the wounds it caused only fueled Sten's rage. Sten tightened his grip on Rafaela's mind; he felt the heat of the burning metaphorical city, once familiar, now perverted with alien architecture and imagery. The Astral-Jacker's grasp shifted to pry Sten's claws free of his thrall's mind, too late. As his roar crescendoed, the fires reached the center of the city, reducing the eitirety to ash. In a fleeting glimpse into the mind before it darkened, he saw what remained of Rafaela's mind snuff out as the presence inhabiting it fled, wounded....

Sten collapsed to his knees, then to his side as he wimpered in psychostigmatic pain. He could hardly feel his chest wound next to the monstrous ache in his head. It would subside eventually, but for now, Sten was insensate, though conscious and alive.
 
Cursing at the Commandant Armand abandoned his rest at the window and retreated to where he'd shot the man. Across the street trails of smoke remained from Omicrons daring move. Sluggish shooting echoed from the other side of some cover Armand had no sight on; however, another man was near the edge of a building completely unaware that the sights of Armand's rifle were steadied on his chest. A shot rang out from the window and Armand waited for the man to fall. As he did so his body was obscured by the corner of the building he'd rounded. Armand couldn't be certain he was dead yet, so fired two more shots at the edge of the building in the hopes that they would pass through and strike the man.

Nearer him just across the street were two more shooters. The walls of the building would provide them with limited protection, but it would fail in the face of the onslaught Armand loosed at them. His remaining magazine emptied with a steady drum of explosions as he squeezed the trigger. Each shot was aimed and placed at what would have been chest level for any man. If Armand was lucky both shooters would have been killed, if not Queen Carrion always had bigger guns to light them up with.
 
Glitter Boy was blind.

First it was the flashbang, thrown by some damn crazy held up in one of the buildings. He really couldn't fault the poor bastard, hell, he survived a barrage of missiles then proceeded to assault a better armed, better trained enemy and pretty much damn won. If he was on the right side Keith would have suggested him for promotion right there and then, he was made of far better stuff then any of the Sergeant's crew. Of which, the Doc was the worst. The second blindness came as a direct result of Mr. Holiday's incompetence, dropping a smoke right on them. Maybe it saved them, Glitter was prepared to accept that possibility. It would at least provide a decent excuse when command asks why he didn't just beat the good doctor silly. Alas he was to busy dealing his third and most dangerous blindness: Anger.

It would be so easy, just to shoot his poor excuses for soldiers in the back and walk to the enemies position with open arms. Maybe the crazies just shoot him right there an he would accept it. Maybe he would be captured and tortured the limits of his sanity only to be put on the front lines against those he once called allies. And he would, without question or complaint. It's not like the mech pilots posed much of a threat.

Alas, such happy fantasies were just that, fantasies. The Sergeant picked himself up, spitting out bits of asphalt. A long, drawn out sigh escaped his lips and he turned on his comms, "Doctor," He spoke in a oddly passive tone, like one would greet a barely known co-worker, "Would you please pick up Omni and get him patched up. Bones, return fire. Omni, don't get yourself killed. Armand, Cov-" Keith stopped as he heard heavy rifle shots ring over the din of combat, "Oh, you're doing good. Keep on doing that. And Deadman." The words hung up in the air for a second, a tinge of malice tainting them, "Just shoot at what looks biggest, make sure you focus your fire. You might just be able to kill something."

He took in a deep breath and loaded his Reaper with an incendiary grenade, pointing it at the enemy position and casually sending it their way an inaudible 'thump'.
 
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Robert looked around in a bit of shock as he felt the pole smash his rocket pod into pieces. Thankfully the warheads were not active, and seemed not to have sustained proper damage to detonate. If they had the Carrion Queen would have likely lost its arm.

"Robert, please pay more attention. We can't afford to take any more damage to our weapon systems." The voice from the machine rang out inside Robert's head.

"Yeah, I know Queeny, but I couldn't have seen that one coming. The fucking Psy-op freaks were supposed to have that side locked down." He talked out loud, blissfully unaware that his comms were currently broadcasting to Glitter's squad.

The left arm of the mech raised and turned slightly to be pointed at the two Scions taking cover inside the building directly in front of him. He let loose a single 100 millimeter high-explosive round into the wall they were hiding behind. Hopefully either killing them, or stripping them of their cover. He followed up with a short burst in their direction with the minigun. The sound of his fire would have defend everyone around if their eardrums hadn't already had the shit kicked out of them. Even then, it probably made any ringing worse.

After laying down the blanket of fire he turned to the right and walked over towards Omnicron, waiting for any targets to pop out and make themselves easy targets. "Don't worry Omni baby. I got your back. "He let out a short burst of suppression fire from the minigun at the remains of the building in front of him, hoping to keep anyone who was in there's head down.
 
The bullets from Bones gun found a target as one of the reamaing cultists tried to run for it after Carrion began tearing up their cover. The wet "thud thud thud" of three bullets hitting a scions back followed by a short scream and grunt was the last of it. As the dust settled, it appeared that the frontal onslaught had died down. The a'lurk reinforcement having been severely minimized by railgun fire, with the stragglers retreating for now. As on cue, Limbos railgun smashed the jammer ontop of the hospital, taking part of the roof with it aswell. Sputtering and halfhearted gunfire cam from the rubble by the hospital entrence in response. Apparently, there was something worth protecting inside. Commandant had an idea as to what it may be. With the jammer down, Commandant though it was time to call in a little extra help.

"This is Commandant. We just took out a heavily armed and entrenched force. We lost two so far. Are there any Air in the area?"

"Positive Commandant. We have a Harpy heading towards you now, it lifted from carrier platform A-1 as soon as the jammer went down,." Commadant couldn't help but to pump her hand in a small victory gesture, then grimaced as her injury made her flinch. "Stay still" Blue admonished her, her drone running basic diagnostics on the spot. The womans face was stern and she did not seem very hopefull. "Your arm is shot. We need to get you back ASAP if we want to save it" She said finally, sighin.

The comm buzzed again."Alpha Wing is bringing you some new toys" A cocky female voice spoke.

Then there was the sound as if a small metoer crashed some distance away. Three heavily reinforced drop pods had landed right next to the hospital entrence. The sudden flank made the last of the huddled Scions scatter from there entrenched position by the doors and run. Only for the drop pods to burst open and three heavily armed and armored men to step out. The sound of gatling guns chainfed grenade launchers filled the air as the reinforcment made short work of the lightly armed rebels.

"Second run initiated, targeting the A'lurk. Stand by for fireworks." It crackled again as the Harpy came sweaping by again. Its engines leaving blue shimmering trails of heated exhaust.

"Release chem-2 war head." Seconds later the multicolored flames of chemical payloads turned into great, black billowing pillars of smoke. The rippling heat wave washed over them with a smell of burned ozone and charred flesh. Blue coughed a little at the rank combination.

"This is Harpy-1. We have a dozen uglies all charred and ready for takeout Commandant. Coming by for pick up" The large, wing formed plane swung around and were soon airborne but descendind towards them some distance back. The sleek, but none the less large plane had several v-tol enges burning fuel at a truly staggering rate as it landed.

Blue helped Commandant to her feet and led her towards it. Before they got all the way, Commandant stopped and tossed Glitter her comlink. "You're up Sarge.. Or should I say, Acting Captain." She then continued limping away, muttering curses that would make a sailor blush.
 
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Jonathan "Raider-1" Dusi
The Harpy rumbled as its engines lifted it from the carrier before rocketing it forward towards the frontlines at breakneck speeds, but within the confines of the drop pod all Jonathan felt were soft shakes. It couldn't have been much more than a few minutes before the comms in his helmet crackled to life and the pilot's voice came through. "Alright Raiders, get ready to drop. The area is hot, but there are no friendlies within the drop zone's vicinity so feel free to light everything up. We will be coming in for a strafing run so make sure to seal up tight boys. You drop in five." Her voice cut off after that and a sharp beep replaced it, acting as the trio's counter before their drop. As the last one sounded, a shrill cry that dragged on longer than before, the hatches beneath them fell open and their pods were released.

It was a pity that the pods were completely sealed as Jonathan imagined the sight would have been exhilarating. Despite their deprivation of vision, helldivers could still very much feel the forces that acted upon them as the pods plunged through the sky towards the ground. There was always the slight tinge of fear as the pod shook and rumbled while the wind howled outside, but it had long been mastered. "Brace for impact." A man's voice broke the isolation that each of the diver's experienced mere moments before their entire world rocked and shook.

Moment's later the pod's front blasted off and light washed over each of the armored individuals as they stepped out into the small craters their fall had created. As the battlefield was revealed on their HUDs and the sensor suites began to paint targets, a cloud of bullets were sent out and the Scions were scythed down mercilessly. "Seal them up!" The same voice came over the comms once more as the Harpy streaked past overhead, and mechanical hisses could be heard as the trio's armors closed up to protect them.

Unbothered by the visible shimmer of heat that washed over them nor the horrendous stench that the other friendlies probably had to cope with, Jonathan followed behind at the squad leader's gesture. The trio made it just as the Harpy descended nearby and he detached himself to stand sentry as the two continued on to talk with whoever was now in charge. He gave aa small wave to those nearby before his hand dropped back to the suit's weapon and his attention refocused on what his sensors picked up.

Meanwhile the two other heavy armors plodded their way over towards Commandant. At the realization that she was no longer in charge of the operation, a mechanical helmet shifted to regard the acting commander. "Raider Squad to attach itself to 44th for the remainder of this mission."
 
Kerttu "Lefty" Crighton​

The readout in the HUD from the diagnostic was, a little troubling. Right side jumpjets had apparently ingested some debris, damaging some of the inner workings, and knocking thrust capacity down by twenty percent. It wasn't crippling, but it could greatly reduce her mobility, especially when compounded by the damage to the right leg. That light pole had hit Corvus hard, and caused moderate damage to the primary servo cluster. The redundant systems we picking up the slack, but if anything else were to target the right leg, she'd be in serious trouble. The good news was, nothing else had taken any real damage, sensors were reporting clear, and all other systems were nominal, except for Corvus' thermal levels, which were elevated, but that was to be expected; the shuttered air scoop were open, and the blowers were ramming air through the heatsinks to return everything to normal.

As the jammer went down, the Artemis frame's sensors quickly began to clear up. On long range, she saw the rapidly approaching radar blip of the Harpy, it's IFF identifier active. She brought Corvus back into position, Kerttu signaled her arrival to Reaver's squad and the Commandant. Watching as the diver's dropped in, the Harpy flew overhead, and sending scorching fire over the Lurkers; she smiled at the thought of those alien gorillas, roasting like a hog over the fire, back at her grandfather's in what was, then, Mexico. Thermal images of course, were clipped out for the moment, the chemical fire just blanketing everything in infrared. However, as the air cooled, she noticed that something was not cooling down; the lower stories of the hospital. She ran a sweep of the building, and cringed, opening broad comms to all in the unit, "Sensors not detecting any nearby enemy movement, however a substantial biomass is being detected beneath the hospital." As she spoke, Lefty transmitted the data to the Commandant's datalink, "Can we just nuke it from orbit, and say whatever was under it, destroyed it while surfacing?"
​
 
As he crawled back towards the rest of his squadmates, Oskar was pleased to hear startled screams as the frag went off. Serves the bastards right - that one was for Lockdown. Hopefully one of the was the fucker with the RPG. As he neared the house, bullets started to ricochet off the buildings near his smoke grenade. The trick had worked...well, it did for a little while. A shout went out as one of the more observant ones noticed him, and the fire started hitting uncomfortably close. Redoubling his efforts Omicron scrambled as fast as he could to the house, bullets kicking up puffs of dirt and dust around him. Hurling himself through the window, Oskar thought himself home clear, but a heavy kick to his right leg told him otherwise. As he fell awkwardly onto the ground, the sight of his own blood coupled with the sensation of a burning lance shoved through his leg confirmed what he'd thought. Bullet wound. Damaged artery, judging from the bleeding. Thankfully it had missed the femoral artery, but still, not good.Gritting his teeth, he had a quick check of his injury. The armour had done a decent job of slowing the bullet down - there was no exit wound, so the bullet was still inside. Grabbing a basic dressing from his kit, he pressed down heavily on the wound. "Hey Doc, you got a minute? Could use a hand here."
 
A massive smile washed over Robert's face as he watched the Harpy reach its talons down and send his enemies' souls to Valhalla. He then watched the drop pods fall from the sky and strike the ground with a furious crack. With a glean in his eye he watched as Raider squad decimated the remaining forces. The rancid odor of burning Space Gorilla barely got to his nose as the sealed atmosphere of the Carrion Queen protected him.

Breathing heavily with excitement, he spoke into the comms system, "Its a gigant, isn't it? I bet you all a hundred dollars its a gigant!" The sheer excitement in his voice was more than evident as he forced the lumbering mech down the middle road towards Glitter and the new arrivals. "Hey, you suicidal nutjobs! You ready to kill something really big?" He said as he passed by Raider squad before stopping in the alley way next to Glitter and his men. "I need to get out and make sure that the rocket pod was the only thing that got busted. Can you lot make sure I don't get picked off by some random asshole with a rifle who fancies himself a sniper?"

Without waiting for an answer he opened up the cockpit of the massive piece of machinery and a soft hiss rang out as it depressurized. He set out climbing around the mech inspecting it for damage, making sure the exhaust vents were clear and the ammo belts were intact. He moved around every inch of the Carrion Queen and all without ever setting foot on the ground. It was quite the impressive view as he scampered around like a monkey on a massive war machine loaded up with enough ordnance to give anyone a bad day.
 
Everything after Rafaela's death was a blur of noise and agony. Sten hardly noticed the arrival of support, instead trying his hardest to deny his instinct to reach out to his allies telepathically. Telepaths, when in pain, often try to use their 6th​ sense to try to reach out for help, much like a blinded man might reach out for help. Novice telepaths had to have this instinct trained out of them, since sloppily made telepathic connections could result in psychic injuries for the psyker and their target. He didn't dare turn his psy-amp off, since doing so was tantamount to a soldier dumping the ammo from all his guns, then dissasembling them on the battlefield.

Sten got to his knees and crawaled towards the nearest piece of cover. He rolled over to sit against it and caught his breath. Only then did he feel his injury. He remembered the einbrium spear that stabbed him, and prodded the wound gently. It doesn't seem too serious. I think a rib stopped it. He activated his comm and grunted for a medic. The pain in his head was receding, slowly, but surely. Once I get patched up, I can reenter the fight, and then I'll slaughter these Scion son of bitches. Sten's grimace of pain briefly curled into a smile before he realized the noise from his comms were talking about gigants.

Shit.
 
Through the comms came Glitter and Omicron, one of which seemed notably off 'Something about his voice' Holliday thought. But they both had one thing in common, a call for the Docs handy work. Holliday shook off the daze the flashbang had given him and finally located his rifle hefting it from the dirt and asphalt. He took a kneeling position against the wall of the building that Glitters' squad currently called cover. "Moving to Omni" Holliday said as he moved back around the squad. 'Keep up the pace' he thought as the distant sound of a Harpy became evident, low at first but getting louder.

He spotted a broken window in the dwelling Omnicron was occupying, slinging his ruck off his back and through the window with an audible thud as it hit the floor the Doc hoisted himself through the window. As his boots hit the ground he flipped on the light on his M4A1, "Surprisingly dark in here ha Omni?" he said jokingly as he found Omni in the next room. Resting his M4 against the wall, the medic began his job, 'The psuedo-medic here has done a well enough job of not dying so far...' Holliday recollected as he grabbed his shears. His helmets HUD was already a light with warnings and information on the "Male; 24"

>BP: 98/67....
>PR: 120....
>R: 20....
>ºC: 36.2....

>Warning... Arterial Bleed: Immediate Attention Required....
>Take Proper Precautions....

'Sometimes I think this thing might be almost entirely worthless' he thought as he reached for his bag.

His hands moved quickly, cutting away the cloth around the wound and opening his bag quickly thereafter. Out came some gauze, a morphine auto-injector, and many shiny sterile looking tools. "Hey Omni, I'm not going to lie. Even with the morphine. This will probably hurt a lot." the medic moved his hand to a package of gauze tearing them open and placing pressure over the wound. With his other hand he grabbed the morphine injector and used his teeth to tear away the safety. "Alright man this won't be the worst part." the medic brought his hand down hard just inches from the bullet wound, "....And... Two... One... Alright, going to let that do it's thing for a few seconds more"

The building rocked as what could only be fire from the inbound Harpy sent the space gorillas to a new dimension. 'Fuck yeah, I should have been a pilot'

As he waited for the morphine to take effect, Holliday grabbed a nice blue looking velcro strap, no doubt Omni knew what it was but being the good medic he was trained to be he couldn't help but explain. "Omni I'm going to put a tourniquet on you, it'll hurt for a few minutes but then you'll lose feeling below it so don't fret it too much." he said as he slipped it under his thigh and back around the other side, 'Sorry.' Doc thought as he quickly twisted the windlass, and in just a few twists the bleeding had stopped.

>Warning: Blood Flow Ceased.....
>Make Sure Patient is Alive....

"Sometimes I don't know why the fuck I wear this helmet." he said in an attempt to take Omni's mind off the pain he had been causing him.

As the Doc dressed his wound and bandaged it, he couldn't help but hear over the comms something about a gigant. "Well that's just fucking fantastic huh?" he said as he turned his head back to the window he had come through. "Your leg will be fine for six hours, after that though, you need to be on an operating table, no way I'm getting that bullet out here." Holliday said as he lifted his ruck back onto his back, writing on his armor in a black marker, "17:43+6".
 
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Like an iron angel the harpy came and smote their enemies. The a'lurks burned under her fiery sword as gun-toting seraphs blew the crazies to oblivion. If Keith had been a more religious man he may have sat down and thanked god right there and then. Instead all he mustered was, "Oh fucking Jesus. Finally." Quickly inspecting himself to account for all of his limbs and equipment he was pleasantly surprised to find that it was all in order. With an exaggerated groan he stumbled over to the Commandant's position giving a nod to Doc and Omni as he passed. It was a true miracle the latter had lived at all, let alone with only relatively minor injuries. Aside for the unfortunate demise of Lockdowm, Glitter's squad had performed somewhat adequately. Only one injury counted, aside from the Sergeant's wounded sanity.

All and all, only the fifth worst day of his life.

He approached the Commandant, looking for new orders and instead being promoted to active Captain. He stood there in mild stupor as he was handed her comlink. It was heavy, not physically but the implications weighed down hard. The Acting Captain could only nod in acceptance before the Commandant was hauled off. Her nightmare was over for now, but Keith felt his was going to get much, much worse. Lefty was quick to reinforce this feeling with news of a living mass. He personally agreed very much with the idea of just nuking whatever lied beneath the hospital, however he knew better and decided to give a recap of their mission. "Lefty, remember we're here to capture Mike Rosnick. If High Command just wanted this place just blown up we wouldn't even be here." Deadman's excitement over the possibilities did little to soften Glitter's mood. He saw the pilot crawling all over his Hera with strange agility and unthinkingly started raising his mauler rifle. It would be so easy. But not now. If the guy survived the whole damn bit of madness Glitter would make sure high command knew his opinion on the wise-ass pilot. For now though it was his duty to somehow round up the heard of cats under his command. "Everyone, this is Captain Young, Commandant has been injured and evacuated. I am now acting commander of his mission." He paused a moment, to take in what needed to be done before continuing, "Everyone regroup with their assigned squads, Reaver you're now in charge of the Commandant's squad. LeBlanc, you'll be joining my squad. Raiders, just hold tight for now, I want no one entering that hospital until we have conformation on the nature of the biomass." He was hesitant of putting Reaver in any form of authority, let alone acting second-in-command, but the psycher was one of the most experienced, and somehow one of least crazy, members of the 44th remaining.

The Captain hoped he hadn't made a horrible mistake.
 
As soon as the Commandant was loaded onto the Harpy, Blue hurried back. She located the wounded psyker and grabbed something from her bag. The gun syringe contained a blue, clear liquid. She made him tilt his head back and inserted it into his neck. He would feel a little duller, stens psycic feedback would fade to a distant noise in the back of his head.

"Psi-Blockers. It will wear off quickly. I just don't want you to lash out when we remove the..." She looked at where there were still small pieces of Equilibrium stuck to his wound. "The spear. Damn. It appears to have fragmented a bit" Blue muttered as she began to quickly unfold a package with compressors, antibacterial spray and a few other tools. "Luckily. Those spears are sharp as a needle. The cut is clean, hell, even the embedded fragments should be fairly simple to remove in comparison to a shattered rifle round or buckshot. Your little lightning stunt kept you alive" She spoke as the droid fed her information. She kept glancing at the Hospital as she patched him up. The question on everyones mind was the same. What the hell had the Scions been defending? And how close were they to completing whatever it was. From Leftys comment about its size, to the lunatic ravings of their Heavy pilot. GIgant? She sure hoped not.

As if on que, the ground trembled and a human scream rippled trough the air. From the entrence to the Hospital, by the newly arrived Hercule soldiers. A man dressed in rags stumbled out. His face looked as if something had melted half of it, his arm was swollen with purle and green, alien tissue. Seveal insects eyes were clinging to his body in odd places, malformed and darting around staring at everything. He collapes a few meters from the exosuits. Dead.

And then there was another quake and from the entrence of the Hospital more of them came. Their eyes were blank, as if their souls had long parted. They dragged their feet like a bunch of zombies. All were swollen with alien tissue somewhere. Some had half a tendril snaking out the side of their mouth, some had malformed chitin plates jutting out their skin, causing severe exsema as their bodies fought the foreign tissue. One by one they collapsed, spasmed and lay still in the bleakness of the sky. A self constructing monument to all that was wrong in the world, all that the 44th fought against.

By the time they had stopped puring out, there was a no less seventy five corpses, all laying face down or on their side where they collapsed. Children, women, men. Old, young, of all walks of life. Dead. Their putrid, part alien, part human bodies allready smelling of rot and decay. Big A grit her teeth, Blue didn't dare look at the pile of forsaken humanity.

"Lockdown died for this?" Big A's voice trembled. "This!? What the fuck have the fucking scions been doing?" Her knuckles white around the grip of her rifle. Bones didn't look to phased in comparison. But there was something dull with his voice. The man kept a good facade, but he was sacrificing himself to do so. When he spoke, there was nothing but the mission.

"We going in Captain?" He asked. "We finishing this?" He looked to the Hospital entrence.

Another quake and A voice rang trough their minds. Alien, strange words that made no sense, held no semblence of earth-based syntax." The words carried trough everyones mind. And then there was only silence. But for the remaining psychic, he would feel HIS presence. Their target was down in the sublevels, he was making his psychic imprint known. This meant he had experience dealing with psychic powers. This meant he was not hiding at all. He was not alone, flickering, tortured minds assaulted him, forcing his brain to work against the Psi Blocker.

"I don't like this." Big A mumbled as she reloaded her recoiless rifle. "Not one bit. Acting Captain? Orders?." One by one, eyes leveled at Glitter. The com sparked to life in his ear. Command demanded answers.

All the worlds problems, seemingly on the shoulder of one man.
 
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