[h1][center][color=tomato]Krista Reynolds[/color][/center][/h1]

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Krista watched with satisfaction as her shot hit true, wiping out the squad of CWM in a ball of light. She pumped her fist in excitement of her first kill. Her first [i]real[/i] kill on an enemy unit. The mini-Mists didn't feel like they counted. Thus, she was distracted and barely had time to register the destruction of the crystal before the shards impacted the Hou-Yi. Crying out in surprise, she felt the loco-motors in the turret jam as the Hou-Yi was knocked for a loop. It took her longer than she liked to stabilize herself, still unused to space flight. Some slow swings of her cannon confirmed what the diagnostics were telling her: the turret could not turn to cover an area from about seven to ten o'clock. 

[color=tomato] "What was that?"[/color] Looking back she quickly spotted her allies. The Paladin was visibly wounded, looking almost like a voodoo doll with all the shards sticking out of it. The sight of the heaviest unit in the squad so wounded shook her, and her eyes darted around the battlefield until she spotted the source of the damage. She could only wonder what her Frame looked like from the outside. 

However the newly armed mini-mist caught her focus. Her new orders told her to do what she planned on doing. [color=tomato] "This is Hou-Yi, roger that. My turret's rotation is compromised but my cannon's still good to fire." [/color] She'd trained in simulations as what to do in case her turret's traverse was compromised; that is use the Frame's entire maneuvering system to swing her around to bear on the mini-mist. What the simulations hadn't accounted for was the ominous creaking that came from her Frame, the Hou-Yi sounding like a wounded animal. Still, she got no more mechanical complaints as she brought her gun to bear. She could see the cloud of crystal shards orbiting the target, the alien entity neatly lining up into her sights.  [color=tomato] "I have the target in my sight. Firing."[/color] Her gun finished charging, and after taking the extra moment to line up the shot the best she could, she fired upon the target. The shot streaked through the void, so fast it only registered as a streak of light on her view.


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- Firing upon the mini-Mist