[Center] [hider=Battle BDM: Axis of Advance - Annihilation] [Youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9suOBHYgS4&pp=ygUgIkF4aXMgb2YgQWR2YW5jZSIgIkFubmloaWxhdGlvbiI%3D[/Youtube] [/hider] [/Center] The reaper spat and its rounds flew, shattering the tatters of structure the hefty machine was silhouetted against before biting into armor. Ballistic padding met 10mm mullets, sputtering dust-like fragments as metal bit into layered protect and bit into the metal beneath. The machine shuddered and shook from the impact, it steel body lacking blood, flesh, and nerves as it swung its mag-accelerator gun and fired another burst, ignoring the human for the massive unztadtlige. Bolts of light and flashing sparks pinged off of a glowing dome of light, flating up as glass would reflecting the rays of the sun. Echo's shield manifested in full sight as multiple rifles joined in, heavy duty armour piercing rounds shrouded in veils of energy slamming into it, sparking as they expended their power and shattered against it. The powerful device was holding but the cyberngetic organism was wise not to test it against the globule of ethereal power descending towards them. Salvator had blinked away before the crushing impact, the unztadtlige slamming through multiple walls, Ilshar hunkering down; just in time for the angry globule to make landfall. For a flash of a moment the realspace blurring fields that contained it bulged and strained before they finally erupted open. The wild colours it contain expanded like gase and flame, space distorting momentarily as the laws of reality consumed those of beyond, transforming the burst of power partially into an blossom of force and matter-ripping ether. The entire front of the house, the stairs, most of its frontal wall, and a chunk of its roof were devoured. The force of the blast washed the area in smoke and scan-jamming interference, momentarily turning most of the rifle fire into inaccurate sprays at last known locations. Kleo vanished first behind the voidfire then the smoke and debris in its wake, her cover shaking and trembling as a blast-wave rocked it to the core. The feeling of little chittering sounds, not heard via ears but against her thoughts, momentarily swarmed over her as realspace quivered in the wake of the hefty blast and the strange currents that flowed beyond it skirted the edge of mortal perception. This artillery strike turned out to be a blessing. The gunner-automata swivelled its head just in time for its camera and vertically-mounted PDW-barrels to see space itself morph and warp and a whole voidhanger trooper emerge. The magnum spoke a second faster than the twin barrels did, two bullets rupturing a camera on their flight path through vital systems and causing the machine to stagger. Its heavy weapons swung horizontally but its makeshift cudgel was no match for the trained movement of its opponent. Where Kleo's bullets had peppered his monofilament knife now dug, easily going through armor and feasting deep into the vital electronics beneath. The newly made cavity erupted sparks as its arms twitched and head-guns spat wildly, peppering the house opposite of them. A shaky but resolute fist raised like a hammer, aiming to slam down on Salvator's skull. Brutish machine force that wielded its normally mounted heavy machine gun with ease now prepared to reduce the operative's braincase to pulp. The microform however could detect that it was not alone; there was movement down the street where the close-quarter fight was ongoing. Three bipeds, humanoid, armored, too distant to make out if they were more automata or organic, but it was clear they were hesitant to fire upon their ally. Off in the treeline, more high-power automatic weapon fire shot out from a crossfire position; the same kind of machine gun wielded by the gunner-automata. Armor piercing rounds slammed against the warform's body, cutting through trees with ease as they focused on the bigger, lumbering threat. Rounds that might wound vrexul however pinged off its armor, burning it at best as AP rounds jacketed with energy sparked and burnt out. A flare of ethereal power kicked up as the yet unseen etherealist on the other side of the treeline, at the other side of the village, began to condense ambient ether around itself in response to sighting the walking tank. In the meantime, their allies fired upon the now revealed enemy heavy gunners in the treeline, momentarily silencing them. Their allies were 3/4 of the distance to the threat, tying up any additional suppressing fire. They might have been guerillas but they were no less tenacious than the Envenomed squad. With the sole heavy duty suppressing weapon taken out of commission, that left an even heavier weapon on the battlefield, one wielded in the endoform of Echo's massive arms. One that spoke with greater clarity and power than a mere mag-accelerator HMG, the very force of its firing shuddering the already damaged structure they stood in. Where had once been a trio of houses to the south soon became impressionist ruins. The first house's side-wall vanished into eruptions of smoke, shattered biomatter, and plasteel. A few loud sparking pings demonstrated where heavy duty rounds hammered against infantry armor, crushing through protection rated at best for rifles, not cannonfire. A body was visible, dancing in twitching and convulsing motions, human by way of form, bisected in a flash as its tattered torso disconnected from its lower one, a rifle wildly spraying in its single grasp as a spray of bluish-purple nutrient-fluid gushed out of two wounds. The centre and then leftmost house were next as their rifles silenced to welcome the hellish cannnon tearing them open. The former house half collapsed, its bulk slouching towards the collapsing window as heavy duty rounds vaporized walls and supports, crushing whoever was unfortuante enough to be beneath. The latter house was a little more lucky as the soldier within tossed himself out of a side door, crashing through it hard enough to toss the hinges off and slamming into the mud with a practiced roll. He stayed prone but crawled quickly, yelling something out back as his allies finally made it to the battlezone. [hider=Visual of Hostiles] [img]https://i.ibb.co/tqNy9hT/inmersion-2039-by-bossveteran-dbv9o5p.png[/img] [/hider] CivSec soldiers, at least eight of them in total, clad in a mixture of synthetic-ballistic biomesh layered over with what looked like recent generation UCL surplus armor. It was a far cry from the scavenged, lighter, mishmashed look of their rebel compatriots and based on their movement, they were hardly demoralized by the hellish display Echo had demonstrated. Many of them were already sliding into cover, target sensors scanning Echo and the others; any counter-electronic warfare suites the squad possessed would detect multiple waves washing over them. Echo was obviously made but they lacked a coherent read on the others. The leftovers of the ether-artillery blast affected them just as much, but the smoke and heat-like blur was diminishing. As it did so, rifles firing energy jacketed rounds spat in staccato bursts as one of them began to unload his grenade launcher, sliding in a blue-tipped 40mm of some sort. The big autocannon bastard was the threat and the armour piercer was going to do the trick. In their focus on the hulking unztadtlige however, they did not feel the shimmering in the air like fleshy mass sliding down a wet throat. The tingling on the flesh of augmented bodies from the ether-residue was diminishing but it was enough for them not to notice Ilshar summoning something foul and creeping from beyond the mortal plane. As rifles fired, the annelid entity snaked through the air amidst the smoke and the bullets. It was easy to find its prey; Echo's warform might have seen it and most of the others probably felt it. Yet the worm itself would see the very area where space was now bleeding and gushing out ethereal power as a luminescent shield manifested dome-like around a tall, ominous figure lurking in the treeline. They were smart; they'd sucked out the very light such a barrier might manifest but to the worm it was little more than slightly dimming a flashlight, turning the dial down just a little. And with the bullets and grenade-blasts this dome was resisting, it was hardly hidden. It was a strong barrier, one that was taking a large part of its users power but what specifically behind it was hard to detect. Yet it clearly wasn't human; its body was large, tall, lanky almost yet rough and almost made of coiling, overlapping sinewy muscle and bark-like material. Its arms were quite long and ending in long almost tendril like figures, its legs digitigrade and with pointed hip-bones that stuck upwards past its waist. It looked almost skinny if only from that distance; it was not fully standing, its body seemingly covered in some kind of stretched, thin, yet glowing veiny membrane. Its head was like a pair of wide, flattened shovels inserted into one another to form a symmetrical "X". Like those of a planarian, bending backwards as little dots glowed alongside them; eyes perhaps. It was hard to tell where it was looking from a glance but seeing as it was pulling backwards slowly (even if not leaving the battlefield), it was clearly not on the worm. The annelid itself could feel just how densely concentrated the ether was around it; the sort of power possessed by a veteran etherealist. The guerilla team was likely the only reason it wasn't concentrating that power on more offensive means at the moment.