Slowly, as the retreating Wireforts had disappeared behind the cover of their brick front gate, fire was shifted from them to the remaining targets; that of End's party bus, End herself, and the darting Blitz. The fire power from the left side was heavily dampened as Warthog's suppressing volley forced enemy combatants to run for cover or spontaneously explode over the streets. Together with Advent's bioweapons, Warthog, Blitz, End, and Runner's firepower, the forces on the street had been cut down severely within mere minutes. A dozen or so remained as Echo pulled up from behind on the left side, squaring him up against the 6 or so hiding behind the trucks that protected them from Warthog.

On the right side, as each armored vehicle had been rendered inert by Blitz's pinpoint eradication of their engines, the remaining fighters turned and ran, well aware of the clearly turned tides. All that was left, then, were the six sandwiched between Echo and Warthog. Gunfire subsided for a moment as vision between the parties was lost. The final crack of a bullet exiting Warthog's weapon rang out alone in the crisp cold air.

Silence was interrupted by a loudspeaker booming across the city block.

"Citizens. Lay down your weapons or face immediate execution." The message was simple, direct, and stern. To Echo's left, and perhaps within sight of End from her vantage point, a big rig lurched to a halt on the street. Where sonar had revealed only the size and shape of the vehicle to Echo, seeing it in person revealed far more.

A yellow and black symbol across the side of the big rig revealed its origin; a Policus vehicle. The armor too revealed that the big rig was beyond their firepower. The thickness of even the tires looked as if they were built to withstand salvos from main battle tanks. Despite the warning, the vehicle seemed uninterested in actually granting [i]mercy[/i]. Like claws, the body of the rig's cargo split aside to form virtual ramps onto the street below. Contained inside were a uniform line of machines that promptly shuddered into life. Four-legged robots with long, slender rifles situated atop stirred and began to file down onto the streets. Though they were only 6 in number, their formidably was made immediately aware to Echo.

With little more warning than a quick swivel of the turret and millisecond pause, one of the robots fired a shell at Echo and pelted his helmet dead-on. Their accuracy was, for all tends and purposes, perfectly accurate. The armor forming his helmet instantly shattered to reveal a portion of his face, though he was left unharmed. Where the bullet wasn't powerful enough to penetrate his armor, the rifle of the robot was of the smaller variety; two of the six featured far larger weapons, clearly meant to penetrate armor.