EmptyArmor

FRAMEs (Mech combat, political intrigue & corporate struggles)

I'll try to get a post up tonight, I'll have Bernard rely on Kat

FRAMEs (Mech combat, political intrigue & corporate struggles)

@Aristo
Haha that'll do!

What's the chance of Kat's Zaruga picking up the pending explosion of the Barghest, either through the system or expectation,

Not thinking she can stop it, but offer a drive by to catch Bern and get a bit of distance or slightly shield him before the blast.

@Dark Light

Anything helps! Cheers!

FRAMEs (Mech combat, political intrigue & corporate struggles)

Bern's in the Barghest about to blow, since he hijacked it, and our adversaries sure aren't going to leave evidence!

@Aristo

Ooof, looks like you've got me. I'll take the hit, hopefully the timing isn't so close that the old guy gets gibbed XD

Aldrian VS Tanya (Spar_

There. C'mon then, let's see what you're made of. As soon as this bloodhound seemed to catch her scent, Tanya made a beeline for the alleyway between the two bars. She stepped quickly and carefully into cover, blending in with the crowd to bait the new kid into the bad part of town, except...

Is he..? No, shit, no!

Tanya dove to the ground as an arrow whizzed overhead and buried itself in the wall ahead of her. Okay, this guy wasn't just determined, he was actually insane! Tanya scrambled to her feet, pulling scattering bystanders into the line of fire as ahe ducked low and ran for dear life. Okay, so this bounty hunter could see in the dark, no big deal. This just meant that Tanya had to move. Fast.

Tanya ducked low and pressed her hand to her chest, the Feather of Innocence sprouting behind her. As the ranger had proven earlier, he was willing and able to shoot through the crowd. At this point, Tanya was desperately weaving through and between other fleeing citizens, trying to keep the heat off by keeping as many between her and the bow as possible. All she needed to do was get to the end of the alley. There was a fire escape to the right that could serve as the first steps of an escape.

Sbe wasn't gonna make it. That is, not without taking the chance on another two or three arrows with her name on it-- pretty good odds between professionals really. There wasn't much hope for jumping up between the walls if the hunter could lead his targets, so she did what anybody else would do and snagged a little beggar passing by! She wrinkled her nose at the street urchin as the kid struggled and bit, its long, matted hair making it impossible to tell its sex. In any case, Tanya's wrapped her arm around its neck and pressed her Quill meaningfully against the small of its back, dragging it back. This way, most of Tanya's vitals were covered as she peeked over the kid's shoulder. It wasn't a sure thing, but her chances getting to the end of the alleyway were a lot better, especially with the boost of speed her Feather would provide. She prayed to the gods it'd be enough.

FRAMEs (Mech combat, political intrigue & corporate struggles)

Not too peaceful, since the Sorrow's following you the whole time :d

FRAMEs (Mech combat, political intrigue & corporate struggles)

"I see 'em Bern. Harold, eyes on the intersection at my left. I've got a feeling they'll try to pry at our sides. The rest of you, stick to the buildings and advance on the Cradle building. We'll cover you. We need to lift this siege!"

"Damn!"

Bernard had taken only a few minutes to wait for a response from the comms guy, but even time to catch your breath was long enough on the battlefield that it was like all the time in the world. Thankfully the other members of the Panther squad had made it into the streets, but things were looking bad, and everybody was running out of time. Ryder's Zaruga zoomed past Snake Eater's hiding spot at the corner into the street behind him, pulling heat back from up ahead towards the Cradle base and back towards the main body of Panthers. The countryman engaged not one, but two of the enemy FRAMEs-- The third one split from the main detachment to harass Cecilia and the others on the other side of the building. These two were smart, locking Ryder in a pincer between Pembroke and Mulberry, but they'd get punished hard for focusing too heavily on their target. One of them had swiveled around the corner to catch Ryder in a hail of gunfire, but didn't register the FRAME waiting at his flank. It's time for some TACTICAL ESPIONAGE ACTION. Like driving a well trained sled dog, Snake Eater's engine barked to full capacity. The Handou moved with a boost of speed uncharacteristic of its bulky FRAME, but it was close enough that the enemy soldier wouldn't have a chance to react. Click, click, click, click, up down up down left right left right aaand cut the engine. Bernard's hands moved with that same unexpected burst of speed. The rough old soldier's grip moved through the cockpit almost as a blur in the little glow from the cigarette. This was something that you didn't see in this day and age. An ancient gamer's trick: Dysynchronize.

"RYDER!" Bernard yelled, as he kicked open the Snake Eater's front hatch, "LOOKS LIKE.."

Man and machine are one as the heavy mech brings its GPR-21 autocannon to bear, its thrusters gunning hard even while its pilot draws his pistol and loads it. It lines up its barrel in the crook between a crude finger and thumb, guiding the flash hider in a rough estimation of CQC. A deafening crash, and the Snake Eater comes up from behind, uses its rifle to punch through the cockpit hatch of the Barghest!

"I'VE GOT YOUR BACK!"

The roar of metal on metal, the grind of steel is almost loud enough to cover the sound of Bernard's bullets, his cyborg body absorbing the shock of the crash as readily as it eats the recoil of his pistol. One, two, three, four-- clang, clang, clang, clang. The old soldier aims carefully and fires, ricocheting bullets off the top ceiling of the enemy cockpit, putting a third of a clip into Shāyú-Sān's head, chest, and stomach while the Handou peels the cockpit door away with the front sight of its rifle. Twelve shots, enough to kill anything that moves. At this, the Snake Eater follows the last of the commands that B.F.F. had been able to input before getting out of his comfy chair, lines up the rifle with its center of mass, ducking a giant robot's inch to angle the barrel of the autocannon right underneath the cockpit before starting the slow process of system shutdown. At the same time, Bernard himself calmly walks forward onto the moving cannon, deftly keeping his balance as he makes his way to the other mecha. He tossed a cigarette butt away and drew his kabar as he reminisced; FRAMEs used to be as expensive as an entire Arsenal, so it wasn't too uncommon to get out of your craft and end that shit right then and there if things got hairy enough. The Old Snake ducked down into the cockpit, cut the seatbelt, grunted as he realized that the dead pilot's grip kept the main guns firing. He pushed the helmet forward and dealt a quick slash to the base of the neck, severing the nerves like it was just yesterday that he'd done that. He almost grinned, feeling young again as he hoisted the corpse out of the Barghest, dragged it back to the Snake Eater, and tossed it into his own cockpit. Bernard then tromped forward, his heavy boots rattling the sleeping barrel of the giant rifle, and slipped into the Barghest's cockpit himself.

All told, he was pretty comfy here too, even if a bit of blood was getting on his coat. That's life, right? The whole exchange had taken no more than a couple of minutes, but the old man swallowed his bit of pride and got to work. A Barghest huh? Wonder what a Perizian machine was doing in Sodroyan groundspace. It didn't really matter all that much to Bernard though. He'd been around the Ur FRAMEs, back when they'd been called different things by different countries. Cores, Wanzers, Landmates, Gears. They were all fundamentally the same, and frankly, convergent evolution over the years was going to make what he was about to do even easier. First and foremost, Bernard manipulated his firing cone so that it wouldn't be doing too much damage to Ryder. It was important to keep up appearances just long enough to catch the other pilots by surprise-- without comms, everybody was just dots on a radar after all. He flicked on his Codec, a direct line to the kitten's communications suite. It was situations like this that justified lower tech stuff, and even in the middle of a firefight, Bernie wanted every reason he could get to not have to fuck around with that touchscreen crap.

"Cecilia, I'm in a Barghest. I was just looking at it and suddenly I got this irresistible urge to get inside." He communicated, reading the radar quickly. He wasn't sure how long the other hostiles would expect silence from one of their own, but he was determined for it to be long enough to relate troop movements to his CO. "Looks like there's two caught in a line at this street, with a third pinning you and the others, I saw a friendly just went dark. It looks like another of ours has caught the one across from me out in the open, but another two are sweeping back behind us. If you push past your guy, we'll cover your team, and the rest of us will mop up back here while you get Bentz."

As soon as he finished relating what he saw through the enemy's eyes, Bernard squinted and forced the Barghest to reload. The pause in fire would give Ryder an opening to move; he'd left the Snake Eater open to lend if she wanted to get back into the fight. Bernard pushed forward with his new craft, aiming carefully to pin Shāyú-Yī between his own bullets and that of the incoming Kat, in her Snow Leopard. This battle wouldn't be over all that soon, but hopefully this was enough to swing things in the home team's favor.

Knight and Dragon: A Clash of Wills (EmptyArmor vs. Takashi)

The Knight of Columbia gritted his teeth as he pulled the trigger again, pivoting with the dragon's pull to keep his shield well between himself and the blast he was about to make. Pain lanced through his side as he still felt the weight of one of those damned swords lodged in his armor-- so that was the kind of game it wanted to play. He got a brief chance to glimpse the evil beast's eyes, watched them widen in surprise as he dared blow up another charge. Daniel almost smiled. His grit was brought to bear--

"AAARRRGH!"

Two explosions rocked the world around him, and Daniel went spinning. He slammed against the ground hard enough to shatter a normal human's bones, once, twice, three times before he skidded to a stop in the dirt some thirty meters away from that painful exchange. Silence tightened around Daniel's mind like steel wool, keeping the world at bay for a moment as he lay sprawled on his stomach. With shaky arms and shaky vision, the knight rose slowly onto his knees. His breaths came, pained, but steadily. So the dragon had some explosives at the ready as well. The knight's expression hardened under his visor, he couldn't treat this like some kind of cruel joke, or else he'd probably lose more blood. Yea, that one had punched harder than most of the things Daniel had met so far, the sanguine pool in front of him was a testament to that. Still. He had to be grateful that the blast hadn't separated his ribs, considering that the explosion was pretty much in between them. Daniel was more or less at fifty percent, and had weaker chances of winning this one. Still. This was his reason to live.

DETERMINATION: 0

Daniel pushed the lip of his Destiny into the gravel as he rose to one knee, then the other, and stood tall again. He looked stronger than he felt, human and dragon blood painted in a chaotic spray against his shield. His left side was bleeding profusely, dripping through a fist sized gap in his armor. The wound wouldn't be enough to kill him like it would a normal human, but it did mean a little something more in the dragon's favor. He drew a flask of medicine from his kit as the dust began to clear, the knight and the dragon having collected their bearings.

Talon shook his head to make the ringing stop, sending a few drops of blood splattering this way and that. "Anyone ever tell you you're a crazy son of a bitch?"

Its voice was as harsh as this graveyard's air, but this time the words seemed to carry some note of respect. Daniel responded in kind. Clearly this wasn't just some animal to be exterminated. ... Well, it wasn't just an animal, at least.

"Indeed." Daniel brought his shield in front as he planted his sword in the ground, easy enough to draw in half a blink of an eye. He pushed his visor up to reveal a weathered, sun browned face, his chin dusted with travel and the beginnings of a beard. He took a long swig of medicine, enough to dull the pain, slow the bleeding some, "Thou art a dangerous foe. Prithee, give me thy name, that I may carve it into one of these arcane towers afore I leave this place."

At this, the wind began to scream, perhaps attracted by the weird hum of the monolith graveyard. The chorus of stones was met by the crazed soprano of the wind, and a storm began to brew overhead. Flickers of lightning played high in the darkening sky, though if either fighter looked long enough to catch one, they'd probably be already dead. It was as if the monoliths themselves sensed a change in the pace, and they began to rise, floating with magical energies on clouds of dust. The shadows lengthened as the knight stood, proud.

"I am Daniel of Columbia. Write mine name on yon tower, afore I write it on thy bones."

DETERMINATION: 1

Storm of Blood

Kirian moved deadly fast and with killer intent; the one-eyed warrior simply couldn't respond in time. The bloody sunlight cut harsh shadows across the scene of this brutal exchange, the last of a broken shield. Kirian pulled his arms outward and his shoulder in, slamming his opponent to the wood of the carriage hard enough to force out a cloud of splinters. The Witch Knight registered her gag against him, the air forced out of her body by his successful assault, and he released the grip on his sword as soon as he'd stretched her grip out to the maximum. He moved as swiftly as a practiced surgeon when he pivoted again, still leading with his right leg, to draw the dagger from its scabbard at the small of his back with his right hand and press his left palm into the lady knight's shoulder. He quickly jammed the point up under her chin, thrusting the knife well into her brain. Blood leaked out warmly against his glove-- that's what you get for not wearing a helmet. Kirian wrapped his arm under her shoulder and around her back, exhaling in grim satisfaction as he waited for her twitching corpse to still. In the moment, he heard another would-be warrior lumber up behind him; he decided not to let the opportunity for another cruel tactic go to waste.

He waited until he could feel the other warrior's presence right behind him, and stepped forward as he roughly pulled his weight around. Like a grim fandango, he turned and swung his left leg back around his center, and used his knife to guide the body around by the head to use as a shield. Instead of cracking Kirian's skull through his chainmail hood, the new warrior's vicious strike landed right on top of his comrade's skull, burying the hammer in a splash of gore. Kirian blinked as gray matter wet the wood of the carriage behind him, and pushed again with his left leg as he slid his right in between both sets in front of him. He further thrust his knife up and back, tipping the corpse up against his opponent, and snapped his left hand snakelike from underneath the corpses right elbow to wrap around the other target's left wrist. A surprise like that, there was no way that any normal human would have the presence of mind to dodge the grapple, and there wasn't so much a glint in Kirian's eye as he unsheathed his dagger from what remained of the lady knight's jaw. All that was important was that the dagger would put a lot of work in today.

FRAMEs (Mech combat, political intrigue & corporate struggles)

Post incoming

Storm of Blood

Hey everybody, working on a post now