Red-Oni and Fubuki made themselves known on sensors as well, activating thrusters and going into ‘combat mode’, four MP-NC’s guarding the dig’s perimeter stood their ground. Red-Oni waited patiently to speak to this newcomer, first. He may be devious, but he has ‘honor’. That’s what he told himself, at any rate.

When the NCs disconnected, Jan had a brief moment of confusion, had he fallen asleep during the trip? He wasn’t quite sure, but there were more pressing matters, such as the actual mission. He quite quickly noticed the open radio wavelength, great, it seemed he would have to endure some madman’s japping again. He opened both channels but didn’t say anything, He always liked to pretend he was listening. Gave his enemies one more thing to lose focus about.

Red-Oni blurted out nonsense almost immediately on the comms when it was obvious Jan was listening. On the horizon was the NC itself, and for some strange reason, Jan felt like the Red-Oni was locking eyes with his own NC’s visage. “WHAT FINE SHEEP YOU ARE, The BOTH of you! Coming straight to this wolf’s den for SLAAAUGHTER!”.

Well, that was subtle.

“Yeah! What he said!”, Fubuki sarcastically backed her friend up.

Jan sighed. “Great, another set of nutcases” he whispered to himself. Those tended to be dangerously unpredictable. He didn’t dwell on the thought too long, standing still was an invitation to get wrecked. 

“I… RED-ONI, one-half of the scourge of the east, shall defeat you! I hope you’re ready, for I’m about to crank up the heat! Don’t sweat it, you’ll be slag in no-time! I’m very good at striking while the iron’s hot!”. Seems like he certainly wasn’t taking this seriously.

Jan thought back to the mission briefing. Oni was acting particularly obnoxious, even for the typical nutcase… Hadn’t Sophia mentioned his specialty was something to do with false-flags… And then he realized he had been fixated on what was standing right in front of him and had forgotten about his back. “Heh…  making noise so your friend can leisurely snipe my back while I’m distracted?” He finally responded.

“I, Red-Oni, am above petty tricks such as that! Now, face the might of my… NAAAAPAAAALM!”. The red-oni was in combat range, and Jan could make out its’ specific armaments. A two-handed napalm-thrower, a back-mounted incendiary rocket launcher, and another back-mounted grenade cannon. It seemed he had a sword, likely a plasma blade or some other heat-based melee weapon, on his NC’s hip. 

Jan soon detected another sig, higher in the sky. Fubuki was ‘close’ behind her ally. Almost immediately, a high-velocity sniper shell descended from the sky and hit the Goldenspur right in the left knee, making it lose some stability.

Fubuki could be heard whispering, “...see a shot, damn well take it...”

“You act like I wouldn’t.” Jan retorted… And here he was, getting carried away just like they wanted. Well, it was time to get right up in their grill… and in the current situation, it seemed best to focus on Fubuki. With a whine, Goldenspur’s thrusters revved up, and with a whir, the autocannons showered the skirmisher with hot lead.

Fubuki’s light frame tried to dodge out of the way, but a good majority of the bullets still hit, shredding many of her outer layers of armor near instantly. She quick-boosted backwards in the air, losing height and moving closer to her compatriot. “Th-that hurts! You can’t just shoot girls...”. Red-Oni moved in closer himself, using his four spider-like legs instead of his boosters to conserve energy for something else, apparently. In the mean-time, he fired two incendiary dumbfire rockets, paying no heed that they may hit Fubuki. One flew straight past the two mingling in the atmosphere, while the second impacted the Goldenspur, but deflected, spraying its’ gaseous fuel in the air before igniting it, making a short-lived yet intense fireball.

“Bloody hell the nutcase bit ain’t an act!” Jan shouted to no one in particular.

“I’m not insane!”, Red-Oni ‘reassured’, “I’M MERELY ALIGHT WITH THE PASSION FOR BATTLE!”

Jan didn’t need any more reassurance than that. “Listen up princess, nothing personal, but you’re going between a rock and a hard place.”.

“Look who’s talking!”, she responded, immediately disengaging thrusters as another three rockets were fired by Red, aimed dead-on for the Goldenspur. The reverse-jointed NC began plummeting towards the earth quite quickly, before resuming control straight after impact.

Disengaged thrusters… that meant heat seeking missiles. Goldenspur rolled around and disengaged autoguns, diverting power to the engines. He blasted off with missiles hot on his tail… Adrenaline shot through Jan, The repetitive beeping warning him of the missiles, Red-oni’s ranting and taunting.. It all became nothing more than background noise. Experience and muscle memory took the wheel, backseating  his mind. Jink to the side, pitch downwards to the ground. Roll around all the way to keep the missiles from getting a straight path. Disengage thrusters at just the right moment. Reorient back to his target. And finally blast the thrusters full-force just before hitting the ground. Jan vaguely heard the sound of missiles uselessly burning the ground, but he was already moving to re-engage Fubuki.

Red-Oni was snapped ‘out of character’, muttering a ‘holy fuck’. Fubuki went silent as well, apparently equally as worried. She put her heavy sniper-rifle on her NC’s back, and took out an SMG and a shotgun from her NC’s hips. The duo then mutually began taking this a bit more sincerely.