Shintaion: Resistance

Black Crow and the rest of the 91st had apparently made it just in time, at least according to Monsoon. Since comrades came first Black Crow went to cover Ramia and Monsoon.
"Attack plan Rise and Shine go!" Jericho yelled and he knelt having Cyrus step in his hands so Jericho could throw him on top of some shipping containers in the hallway. "Ramia! Monsoon! Get down and recover!" Cyrus yelled.

Only moments after, Estelle unleashed a barrage of plasma upon the dark beasts but didn't aim at their bodies but right above their heads as to effectively blind their sight. While the dark beasts were blinded for those few seconds Jericho rushed forward ducking low as to avoid the plasma fire, on his sprint he picked up a steel beam that had fallen from the hangar. Before the four dark beasts behind the supposed leader knew it Jericho popped up in front of their eyes and swung the beam connecting with the four into a wall.

As soon as their bodies made contact seven loud cracks were heard. As the Cyrus unloaded plasma rounds into the beasts. Two of them took a body and a head shot while the third took two in the chest and the last in the head.

"Just one more" Cyrus said to himself as he swung the rifle over to the last dark beast who had now recovered from Jericho's impact. At that moment there was a slight breeze above Cyrus that made him pause and look away. In that instant an orange blade, or so it seemed, swung at him. This caused Cyrus to fall off of the containers barely landing his fall. When he looked up he saw a girl with flaming red hair, blades that acted as wings as well, and most of her body covered in what seemed to be armour.
She gave Cyrus a mean glare and then dive bombed his position. He pulled out his side arm and let lose a couple rounds but they just pinged off her armour. In the moment before she struck all seemed lost when plasma rounds came from above his head and caused the girl to veer off.

"You ok there Cumulus?" Estelle asked hesitantly. "Yeah yeah I'm good" he replied as he stood up. "What was that thing?" "I don't know Gale but whatever she was she's gone now, lets get back and help Jericho!" The two then rushed to help Jericho out with the last two beasts.

(Girl appearance attached)
 
With all the coverage and help it became much easier for Ramia and Monsoon to fight safely. Most of the dark beasts began to spread out and gave up the chase on Monsoon and Ramia, knowing they'd just be walking towards the enemy and just walk into their shooting range. Some of them were also now focused on the others whom had attacked them as well.

"Humans! Do not underestimate them none the less! Destroying their machines and weapons will also all their hope! That's all they have! If we kill them first, these beasts and others will have no covering fire! It will be over for them!"The one eyed beast shouted with much anger behind her words. She also dissipated her one energy rifle and replaced it with two smaller rapid fire energy guns. She did not move any further either as she tried to fight from a range.

She had also noticed what Shi had done to some of the dark beasts and said, "That one! That human looking one who transformed! Do not take him lightly! That is something even I have not seen before!" She was of course, referring to the transformation and how he fought.

However, she did not mention the strange girl. She hadn't seen her so she had no idea of her prescience.

She looked around for Ramia and Monsoon of course, she rather let the grunts handle the biggest threats. She didn't care if they got killed, her life and survival was more important. She also seemed to have a reason for going after the two beasts. They both noticed she was staring at them soon enough and began to take evasive action.

"Why is she after us? How could she even know who are? Does she have some kind of psychic power?"Ramia said aloud as she and Monsoon found some cover in the form of debris. Energy bullets began to bombard the large chunk of debris they hid behind, piercing through it eventually. Monsoon managed to destroy some of the bullets by creating a large sharp edged throwing star and tossing it at them. It then headed straight for the One eyed beast's eye patch.

"How's that you damn cyclops bawd? You masked bitch! Give up yet! We're coming for you now! We both want answers!!!! Why the hell are you after us? The Dark Beasts don't who we are!"Monsoon yelled. But the throwing star was stopped right before it could pierce through the mask and the patch. The One eyed beast grabbed the star and broke it with her bare hands.

"Little Winged Boy....Girl of Fire...Let me tell you one thing. That eye is gone. It's not a magic eye, it's not special, it's GONE. I lost it. If you continue to joke about it, perhaps I'll remove yours once I get my hands on you!!! That would be far more funny. Let me tell you this, I follow my own orders, not just the ones from superiors! That's all I can tell you! There's no need to introduce myself to any of you! You haven't proven you can survive! You're lesser beings, I don't need to give my name to you! Why should the victims know their killer's name? What good will it do them? Heheheh." She spoke loudly but with less anger and more pride and glee. She seemed to have a grudge or a reason for wanting to target Ramia and Monsoon.

Quickly she charged up her energy guns, causing them to glow and give off an ominous light. She pointed one at an angle for Ramia's head, the other for Monsoon's head. She was ready to fire before they could even react. "Now..With this..It ends! Farewell! At the least, you two were a good warm up but you cannot handle WAR!"

Before she could fire however, Ramia created a weak fireball and hurled it at the one Eyed Beast, hitting her in the face and nearly breaking the mask. Ramia then moved in and surrounded her right hand with raw fire energy, she punched The one Eyed Beast right in the stomach. She quickly used more energy to create a fire claw on her left and she sliced the energy guns into pieces with it.

Before the One eyed Beast could react, Monsoon surprised her from behind and grabbed her, holding her still so Ramia could pummel her. "You misjudged us I'm afraid. Tell me just how you know me and Monsoon's father!"

The One eyed beast smilied as she broke free of Monsoon's grip and hurled him back. She then created a rifle of dark energy and hit Ramia with it, knocking her back. "My my my! Quite some power you have there. A very familiar power. It's a shame you are on the wrong side, you came from the Underworld just like me. You two may survive after all. You have done well. You may be useful to me if I can open your eyes to the truth."

She let both Monsoon and Ramia recover and she signaled Dark Beasts in the area to go after other targets instead of helping to defeat the two. "My real name is none of your concern. But you can address me as...Jade. A beauty among the dark beasts, I function as a killer, not a fighter. That is all I will tell you for now! We'll meet again if you two survive. So do that for me, please? I promise I won't die. I have an important date after this after all. But this is still war, mind you! I have a reputation to uphold!" She smilied wickedly as she readied her weapons again. A group of dark beasts also decided to help her kill Monsoon and Ramia.

Monsoon thought to himself,"What the hell? Useful to her? She thinks we'd join her? Why would the dark beasts let us join their forces? They want us dead! They hate us...And one second she wants us to join her the next she wants to kill us? What the hell?"Before he got lost in his thoughts, Monsoon created a medium strength gust of wind to blow the dark beasts heading towards him and Ramia into the wall. It did not kill them but it bought valuable time.

The gust did not phase Jade however. "That was cute. Such a very petite little attack. But you can't expect to live in a situation like this unless you go ALL THE WAY!". Jade laughed manically as she created an energy grenade in her hand and hurled it at Ramia and Monsoon. Monsoon grabbed Ramia and flew nearly to the other side of the room with immense speed, using his wind energy to help propel himself faster. They succeeded in avoiding the explosion of the grenade.

Monsoon quickly landed on the other side of the room. "Monsoon..We're wasting our time with her. She won't give us any answers today. She must be trying to divert our attention. Let's just deal with these other dark beasts! We're just burning up our energy on her..And I don't think we can kill her..She's too much for us to handle."Ramia whispered to Monsoon. Monsoon nodded in agreement. They decided to focus on the dark beasts closet to them instead.

Yet Jade was not done with them. She insisted on stalking and hunting them as she created another of her energy rifles. She hid behind some debris and prepared to fight Ramia and Monsoon from a further distance. "They think they can get away...Laughable. I won't waste my energy on the other targets...This is my duty! For the good of my plan. All these other dark beasts? Their lives mean nothing! Their blind loyalty disgusts me, they'd never have the brains to think up their own plan for winning the war!"She thought to herself.
 
Rae listened to General Svosk quietly. Rae nodded as she followed the other members of the brigade. She watched, waiting for a proper moment to strike. Rae wasn't going to just rush in, yet. She was still calculating, still thinking about what would be the smartest thing she could do in the situation. She joined Black Crow and the other members of the 91 brigade, but soon found herself looking at the Dark Beasts that were attacking.

They were spread out, but there was also particularly a masked lady among them that projected an aura of dominance above the dark beasts. Rae had little time to note this as she enacted her plan, taking out some throwing daggers and charging electricity into them as she backed away to get some distance. A few beasts noticing her started running towards her as she backed up a bit. A slight smirk appeared on Rae's mouth, but the Dark Beasts heading towards her were not distracted or even mindful of this in the slightest as Rae flicked her wrists, sending off about five throwing daggers aimed at their eyes. While the execution was quick and efficient, the results were hit and miss. Rae's smirk turned into a grimacing expression as only two of the daggers she through hit where she wanted them to, the other three either missing entirely or blocked by the dark beasts who were smart enough to cast barriers.

"Hmph, smarter than I thought," Rae thought aloud as she took advantage of the two that were hit and dashed towards them in a blur, dashing right behind them with her arms held out wide, her claws grazing their sides just to annoy them.

Rae span around, throwing daggers at the Dark Beasts she just passed, only to meet a Dark Beast that attempted to ambush her with an attack. She intercepted him, using her speed to maneuver around him before charging electricity in her claws and slashing him, leaving the weak electrical shock from her slash to jolt the barbaric creature as she took his temporary slowed state to trip him with a hard sideways kick to the Dark Beast's leg. With that motion she turned around and faced the small force of Dark Beasts that she had slowed down earlier. They were now much closer to her as she attempted to maneuver them into a place where they would be easy to be fired at.

Rae leaped over closer to coverage as she began charging electricity in her hands. Rae looked all around her, noting that a few more were joining the group that she was dealing with. Rae continued charging, moving slowly towards the Dark Beasts as she took out throwing daggers, which subsequently pulsed with electricity. The Dark Beasts soon commenced to attack Rae as she leaped back, flipping into the air and unleashing the electrically charged daggers upon them. Rae landed quickly where the others were as the daggers hit a few of the Dark Beasts in the group, injuring them slightly and angering them as the medium-low strength electrical shock coursed through them. Dark beasts are tough, but dang, these things won't give up, Rae thought to herself as she began recharging the electricity in her hands.
 
[DASH="#009999"][BG="#0099CC"]
☆.*´Lorietta Pearl`*.☆


Lorietta watched excitedly as the lady president sent them into battle. As her teammates rushed ahead, Lorietta pranced over to the nearest trash bin, pulled her long white dress over her head and dumped it in. Underneath she was wearing a fitting yellow t-shirt, a white half-sleeved shirt, a pleated yellow miniskirt, leggings, armsocks and her usual holster belt, its little gems glittering as she dashed after the fighter brigade, slipping her messenger bag around so that it was behind her, smacking against her butt as she ran. She could keep better track of it that way.

She had to reswap her guns. If they were fighting Dark Beasts, she'd have no use for her shotgun and would have to use the plasma weaponry her brother had gotten for her. She flipped the gun out of the holster strapped to her thigh and properly strapped the other gun into it. She loaded a set of ammunition and hopped off into the main scene. At first she had decided to observe, but the battle was intense. She could see everyone was on their toes and alert. It excited her to see them fighting like this. It wasn't that she liked blood or gore, but she liked determination, she liked fighting for a good cause. And this was one, if any.

After watching the others for a few moments, Lorietta's mind was already doing some strange calculations. I have to get closer! Without anyone getting distracted though She was at the back at the moment, and it wasn't helping her. She was best in close combat and she knew she would be useless from here. She dashed ahead from the side, somersaulting past where one of her female teammates was engaging a couple of Dark Beasts at once. A couple feet away from Rae, Lorietta, flipped back onto her feet, swiping her arms around in a sweeping circular motion. Two of the Dark Beasts lunged at her, but Lorietta was quicker and more agile than they might have expected. She bent backwards as if she were playing limbo as they attacks flew above her and then flipped over so that her legs kicked up in the air against one of their arms. Switching to balance on one hand, she twirled her gun in the other and consecutively shot 3 bullets. They made contact and the beast staggered backwards, enough to give her a chance to set her sights on the other one.

But Lorietta's reaction time was a little off. She fumbled with the plasma gun as she tried to slip it back into its holster. She hadn't considered her position and it wasn't the same as pushing a gun into a holster while standing up. The little clumsiness cost her a loss of advantage as the second raised its energy gun directly at her. In a haste to protect herself, Lorietta released the hand that held her backward table position and fell onto her back with a thud, she rolled her heels back to push herself forward, but the red-colored beam of light was already at the tip of it's gun. Then, everything went in slow motion. Lorietta's attempt to stand up was rendered futile by the second dark beast who had regained it's stamina to come for a kick to her legs, which she dodged, quickly, just in time to whirl around, ponytail flying to see the bright light of the second's energy ray coming towards her.

She held her arms over her face, a bright beam of light shooting from her palms towards the energy from the gun. It created an explosion that threw Lorietta backwards and the Dark Beast off balance. As she skid backwards, tossed like a rag doll, Lorietta was quick enough to shoot a beam of technomancer light energy at the first Dark Beast. One down, so many to go. This is gonna be tough... She thought, rolling over on the ground and pushing herself up with her arms. She could already feel a couple scratches on her calves, but was glad she worn decent wear-and-tear clothes. Her armsocks had survived the skid. She grinned.

Popping to her feet as though she'd never gone flying back, Lorietta dashed ahead again, straight towards the Dark Beast that had attacked her. She flipped her plasma gun into both hands and shot twice. The Dark Beast reeled forward to shoot at her again, but Lori wasn't going to fall for that twice. She jumped up just as the gun was raised at her and used one hand to grab the middle of the weapon and swing herself over it, into the air above the Dark Beast. Then she twirled around in mid-air and shot two more bullets into it's back, landing on her feet and barely ducking to dodge some kind of debris coming from behind her.

Two down. I'm glad I came.


[align="right"]*♪ Lori ♪ *[/align]
[/BG][/DASH]
 
Gilgamesh came in hard and fast, plowing straight through a tight formation of Dark Beasts. They had little time to react as the massive Armor Frame came tearing out of some shadowed corner of the maintenance deck, its 'hands' raised in front as if bracing for an impact. Instead, bright blue bolts of 3.9cm plasma bolts came tearing out of hidden recesses inside of the palms at a rate of 750 rounds a minute. For a moment, it seemed that nothing but a bright beam of blue hit the Dark Beasts, as if being illuminated by some light-- then they exploded into large pulps of gore, their stern physiology giving way to the relentless assault of plasma fire.

Whoops and hollers of cheering came out from behind crates as maintenance workers and soldiers took notice of the custom Armor, freshly-painted decals of the 91st Brigade across the front of both of its' shoulders. Allister reveled briefly in the moment and gave a salute to the cluster of men and women. Their morale boosted, they turned back to the vicious fight. Gilgamesh did the same.

Immediately the target-feed data began to come in, and Allister began running debug software on a small laptop crudely duct-taped to the inside chest of the Armor. He also began to record all the various feeds, including live-visual from the head-mounted camera and the various ping-return from the electronics package, on another laptop duct-taped on the opposite side. This was valuable test-data, all captured in real time under live events. Gilgamesh was, for all intents-and-purposes, untested. When Allister had fought his way out of FRAME WORKS labs, he barely had 100 rounds between the fore arm guns, and one jammed before he could put it to good use. Now, after several weeks of maintenance and a proper arming, Gilgamesh would see its' first major performance run in a trial-by-fire.

Allister couldn't think of a better way to test his baby.

The 5.9cm shoulder-mounted Auto-Cannons lit up on their own as targets were confirmed by the sophisticated 'brain' of the visual-based IFF targeting system. Dark Beasts had specific physiological markers that had been pre-set into the computer, and the Auto-Cannons were currently set to fire only after the computer confirmed target. So far, so good. At each loud 'bang' of the Auto-Cannons, a hail of large plasma erupted forth, effectively vaporizing targets.

Firing rate coming in at... less than 60 rounds a minute? I'm going to have to see about adjusting that, Allister thought casually as a Dark Beast slammed suddenly against the front of Gilgamesh, lightning sword at the ready. It began to sear into the left-flank of the front armour, burning a jagged pattern before Allister could even begin to react. Panic over-took him for a moment as breach-alarms began to screech into his ears, and suddenly the world turned black as Gilgamesh slammed hideously into one of the walls of the Alameda complex. The Dark Beast screeched in pain, but it wasn't dead. Not yet.

The lightning blade continuing to do its damage, Allister stepped back into control of his world. He allowed the Dark Beast only half-a-second longer to do its work before he slamming against the wall again, the Dark Beast this time falling to the earth, but still not dead. Allister stepped back and made as if to engage the Dark Beast at melee, but at the last second, opened the 'hands' of Gilgamesh and lit the 'Beast up with a quick burst.

Taking a moment to make sure it was dead, Allister activated maneuvering jets and began to sail across the massive workings of the Alameda complex. Suddenly his visual-based IFF took notice of two young girls fighting for their lives, both members of the 91st. The computer identified them as Lorietta Pearl and Rae Farfor. They were handling themselves well, but in a moment, they were going to be flanked by a group of four Dark Beasts. Taking the initiative, he aimed Gilgamesh for them and went full-throttle. The Auto-Cannons fixed on targets and--

Nothing happened. Just a grinding noise, followed by a series of numbers on the debugging laptop that could only mean bad things.

"Goddamnit!"

The 'Beasts now too close to shred without possibly hurting the girls, Allister braced himself to collide with them, his voice shouting over the loud-speaker,

"LOOK OUT!"




SUMMARY: Allister has found his custom Armor Gilgamesh and has engaged the enemy, all while testing the Armor Frame's performance-level and capability. While moving from fight to fight, he notices Lorietta Pearl and Rae Farfor being flanked by a group of Dark Beasts. Attempting to fire on them, the Gilgamesh's Auto-Cannons jam, forcing Allister to make a last-minute decision to engage in melee whilst warning the girls to take cover.
 
Shi was approaching the group again fully ready with his M21 back up and running. He noticed the Gilgamesh was in a full on assault with several dark beasts and decided to do some kind of kamikaze run toward the four flanking their teammates. In a matter of seconds the armour had collided with the group and luckily the girls managed to barely escape. On the flip side, one of the beasts had escaped from the collision as well. It was going to follow through until Shi fired all three of his bullets at the beast. Not enough damage was done but it did get the attention of the creature. “Bah foolish weaponry the lot of you.” In a matter of seconds the beast was in Shi’s face and took a punch towards him, claws extended. Shi blocked with the only thing he had on him, his weapon. The front of the barrel shattered into pieces leaving just a point at the end as the only guidance for the plasma bullet. He laughed a creepy and dark laugh. “Muh huh huh, you rely too much on technology.” His figure loomed over him as he stared at his victim. “Now you die little man.” He lifted his foot just in time to see the sapphire glow. Once again the orb had taken over and transformed Shi. He stopped the blow with his bare hands.
“Not today, bastard.” With enough force the vampire was able to push back the beast and trip him. “I will show you true strength if you so wish.” Before he could attack, the beast was back up on his feet and his fist in Shi’s face. Blood trickled down his lip from a cut in his mouth. “Brutish, just like the rest.” He picked up his chakrams and began a full assault on his opponent. The blows came in quick succession, horizontal, vertical, diagonal, all cut across his chest. Because of the speed between hits, there was a bit of power lost and the attacks barely broke through the skin.
“Har har, I do not bruise so easily.” He said after the attack was over. He backed up and lunged at Shi hoping to pin him to the ground. Instead, he took the M21 and pointed straight at the beast. The end of it was still blazing hot. With the additional force of his weight the barrel had no trouble of sticking directly into the beast’s skull and hitting its brain.
“Game set and match.” He pulled the trigger, the plasma bullet in an enclosed environment would spread like a shotgun blast. He used his foot to pry the rest of the creature off the gun. His brain had practically been vaporized, the escaping gases could be seen coming out of the hole in his head. Shi ditched the M21 as well as his transformation. “I may be out of ammo, but at least it looks like most of them are retreating. We’ll need to reclaim the hangar to secure victory though.”
“And you will need a new weapon. The sniper has been destroyed beyond feasible repair.” X38 commented. “Large heat signatures ahead suggest an armory. It is recommended you head there and restock before taking the hangar.”
“Very well. Is everyone alright?” Shi asked, before he and the rest would move onto the armory and then the hangar.


[SUMMARY: Shi takes on a beast that managed to escape the barrage from the Gilgamesh. He finds the battle harder to win than intended even when transformed. His gun is shattered and one final lethal bullet not only wins the battle but destroys the M21 beyond any feasible repair. The X38 then locates an armory right before the hangar as the Dark Beasts seem to retreat back to their entry point to reassess and mount more assaults in the hallways.]
 
Jade signaled the dark beasts to pull back. She thought to herself"My oh my. This resistance they have is fierce but oh so futile. Even if they could repel our assault today, we'd come back the next and overwhelm them with legions of the fiercest dark beasts! They are just delaying their inescapable destiny! They won't force us to make a full retreat easily!"

Ramia jumped right on the back of dark beast who attempted to run away. "Urghhhh! Get off me, you treacherous bitch, You damn Human lover!" The dark beast struggled to shake her off but she had her hands right around his neck, he however managed to knock her over. Before Ramia could get up, the beast turned around and charged at her.

She created her fire claws on both hands and slit the dark beast's throat, going very deep. He did not die immediately but he collapsed having lost too much blood. The Dark Beasts would of course, leave him to die in this type of situation. "Human lover, huh? I just don't see the point in all the death and destruction you've caused! You cannot begin to justify it. Just because we're all beasts, doesn't mean we should all blindly follow your blood thirsty rulers!"

Before Ramia could seek out a new target, a dark beast crept up behind her. Monsoon reacted quick to save her. He created two large throwing stars of wind energy, using a lot of his energy, he hurled them at the dark beast, the force of the wind energy allowed them to easily pierce through the dark beast's flesh. One was lodged straight into the dark beast's head, the other pierced through the beast's chest."I've got your back, Ramia! Just keep at it!"Monsoon smilied. Ramia smilied back giving him a thumbs up before seeking out any more dark beasts trying to escape.

Jade seemed amused despite the way the tide was turning. A grin grew on her face, she hated her own people so it did not sadden her to see this. She pulled out a pocket watch from her uniform and looked it, then closed it and put it away. "I mustn't be late. I do hope we can finish this soon. It'd be rude for me to show up a few minutes after the scheduled time." She muttered to herself aloud. She charged her energy and created a large cannon of dark energy that she held with both hands.

She looked over towards the Resistance forces and called out loudly, "This is beautiful! Targets that won't just die. I like it. Even though we lost dark beasts, they were weak, useless. This has cleansed our forces of the weak and useless, of the ignorant who underestimated you. You've freed me of a great burden! I have to reward you all!"

The cannon began to glow and it released a thick black smoke that effected the north end of the room, where all the dark beasts were escaping through into the other areas. This way, any ranged attacks would be neigh impossible to hit with and no one would try to follow them until it cleared. She then exclaimed one last remark, "Little Winged Boy. If only you could see the kiss I blew you. Catch me and I'll tell you all you want to know about your father. The Little Fire Girl should come too so she can learn of her true heritage. Maybe even more of what I am hiding from you! Follow me into the maw of death!!Your comrades and you are all invited! You're going to love what we've done with the place and love what we've got in store for you all!" Once again she talked down to the two of them and tempted them with answers to their questions, this angered Monsoon and Ramia but neither of them took the bait and followed her hastily.

The smoke cleared. The two heard Shi speak around this time. He answered consumed with overconfidence, "A little low on energy..A little cut up but..still able and willing to fight! We're gonna make that cyclops Jade and all her dark beasts friends retreat!"Ramia agreed, "Indeed but we must not get ahead of ourselves. While I am just amazed we made it, we have to be realistic and plan out our moves instead of rushing in thinking we're invincible."She and Monsoon took a small breather as the room was cleared out of Dark Beasts, before they began to head to the armory.
 
Rae's senses began to suddenly shift. Her ears twitched as her pupils became smaller for an instant. Something was telling her to run, to get out of the way, but she couldn't see what. Suddenly, she turned to her side and saw a person in an Armor. She stood for a few seconds, motionless.

Suddenly, her body was jolted by a loud warning from the armor. She reacted as fast as she could, leaping out of the way as if by instinct. She managed to escape, but only barely. Beforehand one of the beasts had managed to get away with grazing her back. Crap, I didn't realize all of those were about to flank me and that other girl, Rae thought to herself as she finished charging the electricity which was now sparking from her hands erratically.

Rae took out a few daggers from her holster. Soon, they sparked erratically with elecricity and she took aim quickly. After taking aim, she threw them all at a beast that grazed her back earlier. Two out of the three daggers hit the Dark Beast on the arm, making electricity surge through the beast and making it shake violently. The Dark Beast was now quite injured, but still standing.

"This is not a good day for me, now is it?" Rae muttered, thinking aloud as she nervously checked her surroundings once more.

The Dark Beasts appeared to be retreating out of the room now. Rae sighed with relief, but she knew that this wasn't the end of it. Rae took another suspicious look at her surroundings to make sure she wasn't being flanked again. Now realizing she could breathe for just a bit, she relaxed her body. She knew that she would probably end up in a similar situation in the armory, but she felt a bit uncertain about the one who seemed to be leading them.
 
By the time Estelle and Cyrus rounded the corner to join back with Monsoon, Ramia, and Jericho the dark beats including Jade began their retreat from the hangar. Turns out that the last dark beast near Jade had it's head stuck through a wall, courtesy of Jericho.
"Access to Alameda granted" Estelle's armour hummed as a display came up. "Finally" Estelle muttered as she explored Alameda's mainframe. "Hack into this and a little of that, and bingo! Looks like we have a secure line the that Class 7 cruiser now!" Estelle said triumphantly. "Now do we have here? Hmmm interesting..." she mumbled her breath.
Cyrus and Estelle had met up with Jericho and as usual he had a grin on his face and said "So to the armoury then?" Black Crow then dashed off towards the armory not wasting anymore time.
 
"I'm fine. Is everyone else alright?" Allister's voice responded from the inside of the Armor, his voice faintly digitized and amplified dramatically. He raised a hand as Gilgamesh's targeting computer fixated on a distant target, and a quick burst of plasma rounds surged forth in a tight blue lance, cutting down a distant Dark Beast.

He maneuvered Gilgamesh with the 'jets, and was pleasantly surprised by how accurate and responsive they were. They barely needed but gentlest urgings before responding. Nodding in a mechanics' delight, he put the Armor between the point of the Dark Beasts' retreat and the rest of the group.

"It looks like the 'Beasts are pulling back. Now's the time to press our attack. I can take point and give everyone cover, just keep them off my rear. Do we have any reasonable source of firepower to take down the cruiser?"
 
The door to the armory was half cracked open. Its original purpose was to store ammo for ships among the fleet and for the infantry in said ships. Luckily Shi found himself a new weapon. It was slightly heavier than what he was carrying but it did not break his back. The weapon was a G45 Plasma Assault Rifle capable of unloading forty five bullets in each clip. It looked close to the MP5 of old standards but was larger in design and had a bit more kick. He loaded himself up with several clips of ammo as he turned his attention to the last door before the hangar. This fight was almost over, the drop zone for nearly all the dark beast forces was just beyond there. Heather managed to find herself in the same hallway with Sether by her side. “Glad we found you guys, Svosk has claimed both the west and east side of the hangar, we’ll be launching our attack soon. Our hacker have a secure link to the ship yet?” Heather asked as she gave a small nod. “Good, then here is the plan, throw the back thrusters through a recursive ignition loop, that will deplete their fuel rather quickly. Once that has been initiated we got about two minutes before all the fuel is gone and that thing falls smack dab in the hangar. We need to re-establish control over the defense system before that happens. Unfortunately this is one of the largest parking spaces in the whole facility. Seven floors and the security station is on top. My bet is that it will be swarming with dark beasts. So are you all ready?” As she asked the group the question Svosk rang in over the Radio.
“This is General Svosk, all units converge on primary target. Breach in three…two…one…breach!”
 
[DASH="#009999"][BG="#0099CC"]
☆.*´Lorietta Pearl`*.☆


Shit Lorietta had just barely whirled around an attack when she'd seen the four Dark Beasts advancing on her. White light energy flickered on her fingertips. She wasn't sure how she could take four at once, but she was going to give it a try. That is, she was going to, but then, Allister, in his armour Gilgamesh, quickly intercepted them. She was about to thank him, but she realized, as he warned her and Rae, that something had gone wrong with his armour. She darted out of the way, throwing herself into a desperate somersault to escape.

She felt the sting of a laser beam in her left calf, but bit her lip and ignored the pain. As she scrambled to her feet, disheveled, but vibrant, she looked around in surprise. They had leveled the playing field. Only a few were left to go.

"I'm fine..." Lorietta huffed, breathing hard, her cheeks flushed with color. It was essential for her to be alert, able to quickly dart through her enemies to escape because a couple of hits could easily take her out with no actual armor to protect herself. She glanced over at Allister in Gilgamesh, twirling out her plasma gun in her left hand and waving her right hand, with its glowing fingertips in front of her to give him a thumbs up, "You can count on me!" She grinned. She would it give her all.

After all, it was this rush and excitement she lived for.

[align="right"]*♪ Lori ♪ *[/align]
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Knowing there was no time to sit back and relax, Ramia and Monsoon were two of the first to head into the area to attempt to reach the 7th floor's security station. This time however, they proceeded with more caution, being less reckless.

As soon as they entered, they saw first hand the area was swarming with dark beasts, some around many of the ladders. Flying wasn't a good idea in here, the dark beasts would definitely see Monsoon and try to shoot him down. The stairs weren't nearly as dark beast invested as it would limit their mobility if swarms of them were blocking the stairs. It seemed more of them were perhaps located at the seventh floor.

"We're going on the stairs! So if anyone wants to follow us that's fine. This should be one of the best ways up there...Safer than chancing one of those ladders." Monsoon shouted before he and Ramia made a dash for the first set of stairs.

A group of dark beasts gave chase. They were not aware of the how the cruiser was going to fall in the hangar soon enough as long as the hacking went smoothly.

Before they could progress too far, a beam of dark energy swept right past them and collided with the wall next to the stairs. It blew a hole in the wall but did not damage the stairs significantly. They heard Jade's voice ring out, "I'm so glad you could make it! But this is it! It's all or nothing. If you want me to explain it all to you. You have to reach the top alive. I'll be waiting." The beam was hers, she had been watching them from a higher floor.

They ignored her words for now, knowing she was trying to psyche them out and distract them. A pack of four dark beasts came from a higher level to block Ramia and Monsoon. The dark beasts from behind were also closing in, there were four of them as well.

"Trying to surround us...There's no choice. I have to use my energy on them now..." she thought. Ramia focused her energy and created a long spear of fire energy. She used it to strike one of the dark beast's with enough force to knock him over the stair's handles, causing him to fall. The beast still seemed to be alive, although in bad shape. The three other dark beasts backed off and instead began to charge their own energy.

This was not an easy situation. The dark beasts didn't really care if they destroyed or leveled the stairs, but Ramia and Monsoon did."Shit. We gotta save our energy here! It's time to do something gutsy!"He thought intently. He noticed the dark beasts from behind were too close as well.

He motioned for Ramia to be right next to him, he was going to use a technique of his that was useful when being surrounded. He let the dark beasts close in from behind and he put his hands in the air as if he was surrendering to them. The others stopped charging their energy and ran towards Monsoon as well.

"Hehahaha..We've got prisoners now...But we don't need him! Let's waste that scrawny ass wind beast and do whatever we want with the surface woman beast after we wipe em all out! I'll have a go at her first since I came up with the idea! Let's give em some last words before we kill em. Maybe he can beg for his pathetic life!" One of the dark beasts said, looking very amused.

Monsoon grinned and said, "You need to mind your manners. The way you insulted me, you don't even know how to treat a lady. Now, get a load of this you poor bastards and weep!"Monsoon created two simultaneous gusts, one from in front of him, blowing the dark beasts off the handles and causing them to fall and one behind him, blowing the other dark beasts down the stairs and eventually hurling them into a wall with the force of the wind.

"That was the perfect technique to use! Fire energy might destroy the stairs but that wind could not. Let's hurry up though..Some of them could have survived that..."Monsoon nodded as Ramia led. They were making good progress now, but there would have to be more dark beasts the further they climbed up the stairs.

They reached the third floor and saw no dark beasts in the surrounding area. It was eerily quiet now. "I don't like this...Not one bit Ramia. Sure it's not a good idea to fight on stairs but...There should be some dark beasts here."

That familiar voice mused loudly using the speakers in the base this time, "When at last, every gate to the Underworld opens, humanity shall draw it's last breathe. Cleanse this world of all evil and greed!The power to change the world is all I need!".More beams were fired off at Ramia and Monsoon, as they ducked and continued running.

"Twisted Poetry and beams of death...At least she gave herself away! She's a fool to toy with us like this...If she really wants to stop us, she could destroy the entire staircase or just kill us if she wanted to do what was best for her side...She wants us to reach her alive, that's why her aim is so off. She just wants us to get up there faster. She's just going to tell us nothing once we get up there. She's just leading us on to try and make us suffer!"Ramia commented quickly as she continued to run and duck with Monsoon.

"Dammit! You're right!As soon as we get up there, we're going to finish things with her! No more games, no more her toying with us! We're gonna secure the station and she's gonna tell us everything and we're gonna kill her after we get our answers! She's still firing...Urgh! Wish I was an earth beast sometimes....Then I could have some armor or something!" The two continued to make their way up the stairs, dodging and ducking from the nearly endless array of beams Jade was firing at them from above. Luckily they were all rather weak but they just kept coming.
 
"Loop set!" Estelle exclaimed shortly after Heather explained what to do. "I'll continue hacking into their systems to see what I can get."
Soon after Ramia and Monsoon left Black Crow followed.
Seeing the wake of awesome left by Ramia and Monsoon, Black Crow cleaned up what they could as they ran to catch up, as two people no matter how well versed in battle could be overrun, especially when weak, so they would provide what back up they could.
Estelle took point, Cyrus middle, and Jericho taking the rear. They began to make their way up the stairs when a dark beast fell from above then and crashed into the floor, so as to not have any returning foes Cyrus quickly sighted it and took him down.
Soon after a few dark beasts crumpled down the stairs and smacked into a wall. Without hesitation Estelle unleashed a barrage on them before they had time to react and finished them quickly.
Two more dark beasts fell down the floors and Estelle chuckled to herself "Seems Monsoon as things handled." "Don't get cocky now we still have a long way to go before this is over" Jericho stated as it what was everyone was thinking.
"Hmm what's this?" Estelle puzzled as she stopped pausing Black Crows advance. As they had been running she had her armour continue to download data from the cruiser. "Seems I gained access to their sensors as there is a whole lot of trouble in the higher levels!! Especially a reading I'm not quite sure of though it looks like that girl that attacked you earlier Cumulus!"
"Well then, I think it's time for a rematch." Cyrus grinned.
 
Rae stopped resting and got up to follow the others. She was nervous about what the conditions were going to be like, so she started charging electricity in her palms once again as she walked in. Rae, seeing that Dark Beasts were blocking the stairs, dug her claws into a nearby wall and began ascending it quickly. She continued to climb the walls, making sure there weren't other dark beasts around her.

Eventually, seeing a clear platform, she leaped agilely off the wall and landed on all fours before standing up and taking out her throwing daggers. As her hands made contact with them they sparked with electricity that flitted erratically from their tips. She quickly leaped up to catch up with the others. As she tried to go up a flight of stairs a rather large dark beast suddenly came in her way. Acting on her instinct she flung two daggers with a high voltage of electricity into the beast's chest, making him shake violently and fall down about a story to the ground.

Rae saw more noticing her and coming for her, so she leaped above them, raining them with electrically charged daggers. Most of her daggers hit, disabling two weaker Dark Beasts which shook much like the larger one did, electricity coursing through their veins as they fell down long enough for her to get away and continue climbing the stairs. Rae began charging electricity in her palms once more as she bounded up the stairs and caught up with Estelle, Cyrus, and Jericho.
 
People...other people were on their way up the stairs as well. Vanwa immediately sensed their presence and gave a quick sigh of relief as she shot another bolt from her crossbow to a dark beast. After the creature dropped dead she pulled out her bolt like she did with the others and quickly ran up the stairs to the fifth floor.

Her sprint came to a sudden halt when several Dark Beasts ran down the stairs towards her path. Two of them jumped over several flights provoking her to battle, some of them watched, others continued to go to the lower floors. She swung her crossbow behind her back and pulled out two knives; carefully aiming, she threw both the knives towards one beast. They both impaled the beast's throat, causing blood to gush outward. As it was an instant kill for one, Vanwa quickly got her crossbow out and shot several bolts into the other, just barely missing an attack from him. Just as the beast fell to the ground, she soon hit the floor after getting kicked on her side from another dark beast.

Her adrenaline began to slow down as she began gasping for air. The dark beast kicked her again, this time in the stomach. Letting out a grunt of pain, the beast placed its foot on her chest preventing her to move or even breathe. She looked at the beast, knowing very well he was gonna go for the final blow. Without hesitation, she pulled out her third knife and stabbed the dark beast in the foot. Of course that wasn't going to kill it, but it served well as an instant pain and distraction. As soon as the beast got his foot off, she rolled away before he countered attacked. She proceeded to grab her crossbow and fire the few remaining plasma bolts. As soon as it dropped dead, she grabbed her knives and bolts. She breathed heavily, noticing more enemies coming her away. "Ugh, great."
 
After the breach it was chaos. Bullets and blasts from dark energy were flying all through the air. It took awhile for Shi to get his bearings. Before he could race ahead and catch up with everyone he was bogged down by two dark beasts trying to flank them. He raised his G45 and took five shots at each of them. They went down and he continued on checking the red number on the side of his weapon. There were still thirty five bullets left. As a few dark beasts tumbled off the railings above Shi ducked under the scaffolding to avoid their crash. The second groups that had come in through the upper levels with General Svosk had made quick work of the grunt workers. With things now clear Shi made his way to the fourth level to catch up with everyone. He was walking across one of the service bridges when a large blast from the next floor came down and nearly ripped the thing off its support. The metal rattled completely unstable as Shi leapt for the next stable panel. He took aim at the beast that had took the shot at him missing the first three bullets and hitting him in the head with the fourth. It was hard to get his finger off the trigger and he lost two more. Now he only had twenty nine left in his clip. It was not long before he had to empty his clip as a group of dark beasts, five total, came stampeding down from the fifth level. The hail storm of plasma sprayed blood along the wall and that in turn messed with Shi’s head. Clearing it he avoided a transformation and instead focused on reloading.

The sixth floor was in sight as the last stair well went up two levels. The beasts were now on edge as they had advanced farther than they wanted them to. A group of dark beasts dressed in dark black and golden armor came at him. He took several shots with his G45 but the bullets glanced off their armor. “Damn it elite guards.” Shi had to roll to dodge their claws. The floor shook as part of the railing was razed off. Aiming his sights again he tried to get a few bullets in their head, but failed to do so. Lucky for him they only shoulder butted him together. He was tossed back into a corner far away from the stairs. Ten bullets were left in his second clip. There was only one chance as they would not allow him to reload. He stood up straight and let them charge at him again. The two got within arms length of Shi before he slipped underneath them by rolling again. He took aim at the back of their heads and shot a grand total of seven bullets in a straight line leading from the left to the right. Without thinking he reloaded his last clip he had on him. “Now for floor seven.” Shi said noticing the rest of the group was making their way to the stairs. Looking up he also noticed that the escape pods were being ejected from the ship obviously their plan was working and it would not be long before they would abandon the hangar.
 
Jade had stopped firing long ago as Monsoon and Ramia and others made their way to the seventh floor, witnessing Shi gun down some dark beasts in his way.

She now was within Monsoon and Ramia's sight, she glared at them and was surrounded by dark beasts. They had concentrated most of their forces on controlling the seventh floor.

"You've made it. Perhaps I owe you an explanation but first. Go ahead, my forces, kill anyone but the fire and wind beast. They're mine! We're not going to just let them take this floor without at least wasting some of these surface fools!"Jade shouted.

"Perhaps??? You do! But we're not here to talk!!!"Monsoon flew over to Jade and attempted to joke her with both his hands. "Start talking!Make it fast before I have to snap your neck. We're done with you, this is a war! We're not going to be toyed with any longer!"

Ramia was not as rash as Monsoon. But she understood his anger and realized this was the best way to do things as opposed to giving Jade a chance to survive and escape."We're either going to kill you or take you a prisoner. Those are your choices..Just talk with us here and maybe you won't have to die. There's no need for senseless bloodshed."

Jade smilied as she elbowed Monsoon in the stomach and broke free of his grip. "Oh poor little winged boy. You need raw physical strength, not just speed in this war to survive! You couldn't have snapped my neck if you tried!" She back flipped and charged up her energy.

"This is the way you treat a woman friend of yours? Not at all! I'm a goddess compared to weaklings like YOU! I'll be making the threats and deciding who lives or dies here. But before I wipe you out for your rudeness...Allow me to at least tell you one thing that shall lift your spirits."

"This wolf mask. A symbol of Garm. An elite division of the Underworld. The most powerful dark beasts, gifted with unique abilities, descended from the Underworld's finest. We take orders from those who rule the Underworld but we can act independently as well so long as it helps us conquer the surface. You see, life is a game of luck and nothing more. The race you are born into, whether your body is born with impairments or if you inherit a disease, the amount of money your family has, it's reputation. That's all that matters. You can never rise above what you are! You are either damned or blessed!"

She concluded,"Whether this operation fails or succeeds..It changes little. But either way, I win. If you do somehow defeat us or force us to retreat, the rulers of the Underworld might take you surface beings more seriously. Maybe I'll be able to command Garm forces instead of this fodder. But fodder, oh this fodder has gotten us so far. That is how powerful we are....If you have issues beating the weakest of us...How will you stand a chance aganist the most powerful? You poor fools were born on the wrong side, the side of the surface dwellers!!"

Monsoon and Ramia had enough of her talking. Before they could do anything Jade created a huge energy cannon that she held in her hands. In addition, she created two energy turrets that attached to her shoulders.

"Infernal Purge!", the huge cannon began to charge as the turrets unloaded large dark energy bullets at a rapid speed. Ramia and Monsoon struggled to find cover on the seventh floor.

Finally the cannon was charged. Monsoon noticed a few dark beast corpses and had an idea. "Ramia!We've got no choice but to improvise with cover!At least these poor bastards have some tough hides!" Monsoon held up one of the corpses using it as a shield, it handled the bullets with relative ease as the tough skin was hard to break through. Ramia did the same.

Jade grinned as she released the charged energy in the form of tremendous energy beam that headed straight for Ramia and Monsoon. They ducked to try and avoid it. It narrowly missed them and instead burst through a wall in the hangar, creating a large hole through the wall and all the other rooms past it leading all the way to outside the building.

Looking exhausted. Jade glanced on and saw Ramia and Monsoon had survived. She dissipated all her weapons. "Hahahaha...I knew you were something special-" Immediately she was interrupted as Ramia punched her in the face and punched her mask.

"You need to tell us everything! We're not letting you casually stroll off the battlefield! You've killed people and you will continue to, we have no reason to let you go!"Ramia stated with ferocity.

The wolf mask began to crumble, Jade removed it covering her face and turning away from Ramia and Monsoon. "Hehehe. That's a grave insult..This mask is to what shows those lesser beasts that I'm in charge. To break it and to aim for my face...That's an insult!!!!!!I'll tell you nothing until next time,you immature little fire girl!"Jade made a temporarily mask using her energy before Ramia or Monsoon could turn around to see her face.

She acted swiftly in order to avoid being attacked by Ramia or Monsoon. She created a smoke of darkness again. "Again and again I must tell you, your efforts are pointless. Win here and what good is it? We'll come back again and again. How many people do you have left to fight us? How will you guess where or when we'll attack next? Keep surviving aganist us and all it'll lead to is more despair, stronger enemies to oppose you, no hope. You have to realize that."

She continued,"Let's meet again when I have more time. I'll kill you both myself then. I cannot keep a fellow Garm member waiting. We can talk about Monsoon's poor old father and Ramia's origin some other time, my good moving target friends!"She jumped to the nearest ladder and climbed down. Monsoon and Ramia couldn't even see her do it. As soon as the smoke cleared, she was out of their sight.

"Shit! That cyclops escaped us....And I'm too low on energy to catch up...We have to forget her and focus on this mission! Let's mop up these dark beasts! We have to get stronger if we're gonna be able to kill or capture her.."Ramia nodded.

The dark beasts noticed Jade was gone and some began to focus their attention on Monsoon and Ramia, thinking they killed or forced their commander to retreat. "Monsoon! Let's secure this floor, there's no one to hold us back now!"Monsoon agreed as he and Ramia prepared to finish off all the dark beasts they could with their remaining energy.
 
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☆.*´Lorietta Pearl`*.☆


Kyaaa~ This is harder than I thought! Lorietta dashed up the stairs towards the fifth level, dodging incoming debris that was making it very difficult to get up in a small amount of time. Dark Beast clamored up and down the stairs, some half dead, others alive and fighting. Lorietta had to keep her guard up. Each time she felt like her concentration was slipping, she twirl her plasma gun in her hand, flipping it over and under her wrist, a complicated movement that had taken her months to master, but easily replenished her state of mind. She put both hands on the gun and shot three rounds at the staggering Dark Beast that had shot an energy beam at her and lept onto the hand railing of the staircase, in a one-hand hand-stand as she shot at the other two that came stumbling after the first. Their bodies went tumbling down the stairs and Lorietta quickly dashed up to the fifth level, her boots clacking against the ground as she pushed herself to full capacity.

Reaching the sixth floor, Lorietta stopped to catch her breath. She was starting to grow tired; her hair was a mess, her cheeks were flushed red, and she hated being sweaty, but sliding her plasma gun into it's holster, she ran through the floor, attempting to bypass many of the Dark Beasts before twirling around in a flip in mid-air and using her Light to shoot energy beams with precision. She always preferred using her technomancer abilities over actual weaponry. It was more reliable, she told herself. Then, as she saw the others coming up as well, she decided to move on, dashing up another flight of stairs, this time, she could see one of the guys from earlier already on his way up. She kept running, shooting light beams at any of the Dark Beasts that came her way, stunning them enough to give her a chance to shoot a couple of bullets. Halfway up the stairs, she had to stop to reload her gun, leaning against the banister to keep an eye on both up and down, Lorietta cautiously reloaded the plasma liquid into her holster. Her eyes were starting to blur as she locked the hatch and put away the extra ammunition. She blinked away tears just as a Dark Beast came charging at her with a beam of energy. She could've screamed if she hadn't been so preoccupied, but instead, she flipped backwards over the banister and clutched it as it shattered. Moments before it could give way, she threw herself onto the Dark Beast and then over it's head so that she clattered onto the stairs behind it. She cringed in pain. Fumbling for her gun, she shot the thing four times before pulling herself up and then onto her feet. There was a incessant stinging in her right leg that she was just beginning to feel and a cut across her other arm from the sharp remains of the banister. She bit her lip and let out a long breath.

I'm still alive and that's what counts! I came here to fight so I have to bear with the pain! Yeah, Lorietta, you can't give up now!" Her little peptalks with herself were probably the one thing that kept her going. That, and the memory of her brother's courage in the face of being a technomancer even when it was nothing more than an experimental thing for humans at the time. She liked to think it was something in their blood, some kind of courage or valiant characteristic that made her brothers such heroes. She wanted to be the same as them. She wanted to be the same as her eldest brother who had died for Abscus. She wanted to fight for peace, for stability and for happiness. Lorietta pulled herself up off the steps and started to run up the stairs again. Two flights up, she reminded herself, two flights up to the seventh floor. She held her plasma gun in her hand, twirling it around her wrist. Her eyes hardened as she ran through another group of Dark Beasts, shooting at those that were in range. She followed up each shot with a Light beam, hoping it might help kill them faster. Then, with a fleeting glance down at the stairs, she hurried upwards.

[align="right"]*♪ Lori ♪ *[/align]
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With the Dark Beasts now retreating it was a lot easier to reclaim the security station. The room itself was heavily armored to withstand intense blows but only time would tell if it could withstand a crash from a cruiser. The engines finally burned out as everyone got to the station. In the lower sections everyone retreated to the hallways and shut the doors. The large ship smashed into the hole in the ground taking out one of the hatch doors with it. It proceeded to pass by all seven floors rather quickly destroying the western wall and flipping onto its side. It now rested diagonally in the hanger with several fires surrounding it. Shi pushed the button for the intercom. “Is everyone alright? General Svosk, Sether you there?” He was shortly answered by the radio in the room that had been left on.
“Hey kid, nice work.” Sether said over the radio. “Get the team back to the main control, my group will take out any survivors in the crash. Sether out.” Shi sighed and put the safety back on his weapon. Heather now was sitting in the back looking exhausted but still alive.
“Good work everyone. I think you really shown off to Svosk. We probably won’t see another battle like that. This stuff is more for the front lines.” Heather took a moment to breath. “We should go back to Primary Command like Sether said. I’m sure we are already needed again.”

~Primary Command

“Glad you all made it and I’m generally impressed.” Svosk said with a smile on his face. “We managed to subdue the threat but even a greater one has been revealed. The beasts now know how to at least control a ship like that, it must be the information at Exor. We cannot be sure if they now have scouts out so I’m sorry to say but you will need to go on foot to the east coast of Shrivisk. This will delay things greatly but it is the only way we can be sure you get there. I should warn you though, that the east side of Shrivisk is nearly no man’s land and the only things that we still have contact with out there are the refueling bases for the navy. You can leave in the morning, for now rest.” The General saluted them and walked out of the room. At least now they had time to relax.