As the main body of the response team vectored in on Ducaelia, a smaller portion broke off and came to deal with Cyne. Knowing this, Cyne leaped forward, scrambling for the nearest archway as a hail of fire enveloped him. Due in part of his keen judgement and timing, he avoided much of projectiles that screamed over head. Adrenaline pumping through his veins, Cyne quickly peered out from his narrow cover, only a few times, wary of the lethal threat glaring back at him. Seeing him isolated the four thugs cautiously advanced forwards while keeping his sights trained on their prey's position. Little did they know however, was that they were being watched. Fed with the visual and targeting data from Pathfinder, Cyne brought his shotgun around cover and made the few necessary positioning correction until he had an accurate shot lined up. The thugs saw this but with such a small profile to take aim at, their responsive weapon discharges would either fall low, too high, and off to either side. Cyne squeezed the trigger of his weapon, resulting and a loud report. The slug flew true and struck the closest of the thugs in their unarmored abdomen. The heavy impact slammed him back0first into the floor, but not before painting the surfaces in blood and gore. His comrades looked in shock as they overserved their ally's stomach torn open. Cyne fired again and one once more succeeded in another impact. While not succumbing to a gruesome end, the shotgun slug Cyne had discharged defragmented at it's programmed ranges and pelted the thug from head to toe. The trauma of multiple shrapnel impacts was then death of him. The other two finally assumed cover, know fully appraised of their foe's deadly accuracy, unaware of what loomed over them. Cyne brainstormed his next plan of attack about eliminating the other thugs. He knew they were in cover and would fire upon anything that came into their killzone, the corridor where two of their number had died in. Cyne knew better than to charge them and fall to his same strategy. He momentarily gave the idea of cloaking and approaching a thought but ultimately, he concluded to allow Pathfinder two more kills to its name. With swipe of a quick communique, Pathfinder materialized from the shadows and appeared before the tow thugs. Hearing, the drone's engine, one of them looked to the rear but was too late to signal their partner about the danger before them. Pathfinder opened up with sub-machine gun fire, riddling the two thugs until the collapsed into bloody heaps. Cyne emerged from cover now that he was no longer under any direct threat. As he looked to Ducaelia, he found that she had dealt with her problems as well. Six thugs laid dead on the floor, nearly shot to bloody pieces. For now, the balcony remained theirs. Cyne quickly withdrew back to his rifle and took it into his grasps. The fighting had only lasted a few minutes but that was certainly enough time for anything to have gone wrong for Silas's advance. He and Pathfinder scanned the battlefield, designating friend and foe alike. Apparently, a large group of powered armor troops had engaged them. Luckily, the troopers were being whittled down and were losing the advantage. Still, there was the matter of the fortifications to deal with. It was then Cyne spotted the Sven's Chimera and Silas being swarmed by half of the powered armor brigade. Cyne redirected the sights of his rifle and took aim. --- Silas braced himself as the main element armored troopers made their attack. While the majority had broken off and engaged his squad members, he and Sven were now left with the task of fending off the others. There were perhaps ten in total if had the numbers figured correctly, all them were circling the Chimera while a few began strafe the wounded and lumbering machine. Sven had initiated the tank's defensive barriers which had intercepted much of the assaulting machine gun and lance fire. But amount of barriers available to them had were halved during their initial engagement of the vehicle before it had been repurposed for their needs. As a result, the armor had absorbed the damage the barriers couldn't. But Silas knew that the tank couldn't keep up such punishment for long, especially since they still had a defending tank to compete against. One of the suits made a daring maneuver, boosting past the Chimera's barriers and mounted atop it while had plasma lance was aimed at the roof; the weakest of the tank's armored plating. Silas grimaced and scrambled to intercepted. Augmented by his Shade's Skin and boost-assisted, Silas was on the lone suit in no time. Just before the trooper could bore into the tank, Silas slammed into the powered armor full force, throwing it off balance. The suit's plasma projector discharged just it became off target, causing the beam to go off course. As luck would have it, a nearby suit still encircling the lone tank was caught unaware of the mishap and was neatly bisected by the lance. The downed suit fell into two blood-spouting pieces. The trooper Silas had tagged desperately tried to push Silas off of him but after a sharp scraping sound resonated from the chest section of his carapace, he instantly went limb. Silas stood up and yanked out his plasma knife he had embedded and twisted into the trooper's chest plate. Two suits were down and only eight remained. With one fifth of their number down, the powered armor squad had shifted their aggressive behavior to a more cautious stance, only moving against the Chimeras when they saw an opening. Silas looked at his surroundings and gauged how the battle was progressing. Lito and Gerad had reduced the number of suits that were attacking them. Sergey on the other hand had one in his grasps but another sit was flanking him. Silas didn't know if Sergey was aware of the flanker and proceeded to alert him of the incoming danger. Suddenly, the trooper careened off its attack vectors and eventually crashed into earth, hard. Dirt and debris flew in all directions as a result. Silas gaped in confusion, trying to piece together what had happened. Sure enough, three trooper that chose that moment to attack, met similar fates. Although this time, Silas knew what was going on. The lead trooper of the trooper of the trio violently jerked as projectile moving at hypervelocity speeds struck it's chest whilst sparks ignited from the impact. The trooper was very quickly thrusted into ground. The two flanking trooper's peeled off but they too were hit and collapsed. Based on the behavior projectiles and how hard and quick they struck, Silas quickly concluded that Cyne was now providing overwatch. Five of the suits were now lest and their movements were now erratic. With incoming fire from an unseen location bearing down upon them, the troopers had no choice but to take evasive maneuvers. However, by committing into such movements, the troopers had temporarily given up their assault on the Sven's Chimera and swerved around the tank like annoying flies. But even with their best efforts in avoiding being hit by Cyne's magnetic accelerated high-power rifle, they ended up falling under fire by Silas and the Chimera's static defenses. One trooper hastily brought their suit up along side the Chimera, though briefly. Still, they were there long enough and in range of Silas's hand cannon. Death's Grasp discharged three times, sending three high-caliber rounds slamming into the trooper. The shots penetrated, resulting in the suit crashing down. Another suit peeled away but stuck to its path for too long, and fell beneath a torrent of fire from the Chimera's auto guns. Finally, one of the troopers, perhaps getting desperate as their situation deteriorated, had jumped on top of the tank and engaged, only to find the long barrel of the Chimera's main cannon, swerving into the scene from no where, smacking the suit right in the head. Silas's couldn't tell if this had been a lethal blow to the pilot or had simply knocked them out. Regardless, the suit had gone limp as it was thrown off the tank with no visible effort to correct itself. At least, only two troopers remained and seeing as their efforts to destroy the Chimera had gone horribly wrong, the survivors had decided to abandon their attack and made a beeline back to the tower fortifications at the fasted speeds they could muster up. Unfortunately, their path was predictable and Sven was able to calculate a firing solution just before they could reach their defensive line. The Chimera's plasma cannon turned and positioned just a few meters in front of the retreating suits. Within seconds, the cannon was fully charged and gave its explosive report. The round screamed in, reaching the troopers within lest than a second and then detonated only a few feet ahead of them. While not a direct hit, the explosion radius was lethal enough to warp the armor of the troopers while the concussive wave was powerful enough to violently manipulate the atoms of the pilots. Such trauma had killed both of them immediately. With a whole brigade now vanquished, there was very little the towers' defenders stopping Silas's advance, save for their own Chimera which was now committing itself to the battle. Silas brought new orders into the comms, [color=00a651][b]"Greats work guys but we're not done yet. We still need to capture the enemy's fort and there plenty of heavy guns and a tank standing in our way. Lito and Gerad, you're with Sven. Sven, while you take on the enemy Chimera head on-[/b][/color] [color=fff200][b]"I really don't like this idea."[/b][/color] Sven interrupted. [color=00a651][b]"Cram it. While you engage that tank, Lito and Gerad, I want to provide support and flank it. Much of its defensive barriers will be primarily focused up front. I've no doubt it will try to intercept incoming fire from our Chimera's main gun. Sven, you'll do the same thing too. Once you guys are in position, hit it with everything you got."[/b][/color] Silas then turned his attention to the fortifications before him. Heavy machine gun fire had already begun to open up. While the oncoming fire was inaccurate, any direct contact with anyone under armored would be prove fatal, [color=00a651][b]"Cyne, I want you to take out any emplacements you see. That will make things easier when we finally assault their tranches. Ducaelia and Sergey, you'll join me in the assault after Cyne has removed the gun emplacements. Let's get the job done quickly, I don't doubt that the enemy's attacking element will be back here soon. We don't want them to find our pant down. Let's go!"[/b][/color] --- [color=00746b]"Acknowledged,"[/color] Cyne replied and took aim. Cyne spotted a machine gunner beneath him laying suppressive fire upon the rebels and Silas's team. With one trigger pull, the machine gunner disappeared into a haze of dirt and blood; no doubt that the accelerated round had crushed the poor man to death. In the span of a minute, the emplacements fell one by one, each of the gunners dying in the same fashion as the rest. The defending troops that observed this were quick to duck their heads and bodies into cover, unsure of where the heavy fire was coming from. Because of this, this took many of their guns out of the fight and made it that much easier for Silas and his group on the ground and make their move. Cyne eyed Ducaelia as he continued his suppressive fire, [color=00746b]"go join the others downstairs. I have everything here covered."[/color] --- [@Jamesyco][@Dealdric] Silas was genuinely surprised how quickly Cyne responded. About a minute or so, the all emplacements were silenced. Getting his head back into the game, he rallied Sergey and Ducaelia to him, along with the rest of the rebels in the assault. With many of the defenders freighted by their defenses being picked apart, their approach was hardly challenged and took no longer than a minute before he and the rest of his group were now upon the defenders. As he jumped in firing, Silas was able to estimate their being fifty thugs defending the place. However, the were spread thin within the tranches and the fortifications and were evidently unable to direct their fire as a horde of resistance fighters assault their positions. It was now close quarters chaos. --- [@Arthanus][@Athol] Sven maintained his Chimera's attack vector but he genuinely couldn't consider it a charge. Gerad had did an excellent job it patching up the bruised tank and enhancing some of its features too. Still, it performance was still reduced and many of its countermeasures were wither disabled or partially working. But what truly mattered to him was the functionality of the tank's defensive barriers. This became quickly apparent as the enemy Chimera, about a hundred meters away was now attacking him. Missiles fired by the enemy tank screamed into the air, only to then arc down into a deadly dive toward Sven's Chimera. Thankfully, the remaining autoguns perceived the threat and fired wildly into the air. The incoming missiles were downed one by one by point defense fire but the main threat was revealed by the every so familiar glow of the enemy's tanks plasma cannon which had reached the height of its charging cycle. Sven quickly directed all barriers forward and braced for impact. As Sven had foreseen, the impact was heavy and violent, shaking the entire tank. The shaking was so bad in fact that he could make out the hull creaking as if revealing the true wounds they had caused to the vehicle when they first fought it. Alarms blared and multiple hull punctures were pointed out to him on the tank's tactical HUD. Even more alarming was that the barriers had been instantaneously drained from having to repel such a destructive blow. But it didn't matter; this was probably a one-way trip for this tank any how. All he had to do was to continue his advance and return fire. Sven didn't waste any time has he prepared his Chimera's main gun. Seconds past as the plasma cannon was charged. Within that moment, he immediately returned fire. The shot flew like lightning and struck the enemy Chimera, though as Silas had protected, its defensive took the brunt of the blast. But like Sven's own Chimera, the barriers had been depleted too though not has harshly as they were flickering weakly as the projectiles attempted to recharge and rebuild. It was now Lito and Gerad's chance to attack.