"I already don't like this. Too much ground to cover...Plus...Who the hell knows what's out there..." --Kai "Lupus" Aevephasa, Page 1.
Central Apartments
Jenive merely shook her head at the display that Kiku had with Matthew, and quickly turned on her heels and sped down the stairs after everyone... To see a giant, recently made hole on the opposite end of the hallway. She could barely see Kiku attempting to sneak over to Kai, which meant that she was in the hallway... Same as herself, though what was most distressing was seeing a pair of grappling hooks with steel cables attached moving back and forth. Just before Kiku could reach Kai's position, a large LMG was tossed out onto the hallway floor. Within a second it "hops" up, deploying a tripod and a small speaker which begins playing
a patriotic song.
Then, came the rain of bullets whose noise could only be rivaled by that of the song. At over two hundred rounds per minute, the bullets utterly shredded the two doorways closest to itself. Half a dozen rounds ramshackle their way through Kiku's left side: Three through her arm, rendering it into an entirely useless hunk of shredded flesh and tissue. One into her left ankle, which reduced her to a limp, and two more into her gut and shoulder each respectively, causing internal organ damage and making her immediately vomit blood. Perhaps by a miracle or by God's good graces, she managed to drag her bloody form into the same room Kai was in, to safety, instead of succumbing to shock. One quick examination over herself would reveal, however, that God's good graces also had their twisted humour: While she could stabilize herself with her medkit to survive the mission, her left arm was too far gone to be saved. After the mission, it would have to be
removed and replaced with a prosthetic.
Jenive, on the other hand, had just enough warning to try to take cover. Even then, one bullet ricocheted into her right leg, causing her to scream in pain and slide down the wall. She immediately pulls out her med kit and with shaking hands attempts to bandage the wound closed, as it was at least a clean shot through the thigh. Her uses would be limited from this position, that's for sure.
As Kiku drags herself into the same room Kai was in, and Jenive was bandaging her leg, one man peeks over the edge of the hole and then waves up his compatriot.
"The Anthem Turret did its job, lets move! GO GO GO!" He reaches the top and attempts to cover for any potential trouble, seeing the blood trail lead to the room Kai was in he aims his assault rifle in that direction. His helmet was painted with a bald eagle, his assault rifle red white and blue, it was unmistakable: This man in medium armour was a Grunt of U-ARM, and the man coming up behind him with a shotgun in heavy armour, also of U-ARM, and perhaps a hell of a lot meaner.
Alyss uses hand motions with Kai, telling him to wait for her to open fire, then throw the grenade, before pulling out two pistols and using
Full American Unload around the corner without revealing herself to harm. Her accuracy would be garbage, but it was meant to be suppressing fire. The grenade would do the rest, one would hope.
Abimael looks at the severely wounded Kiku with curious, unemphatic eyes. Blinking he crawls over to her, and looks at the blood trail that had been left behind. Placing his palm on the floor, closed his eyes, and the blood seeped into his hand before he opened them and looked at her again, smiling a little.
"Kiku. You." He points at her.
"Abimael, me." He points at himself.
"You, like water, too."As for Junko, her shots into the fog she would find did not land their marks. The scope did not work properly in helping her aim the long distance shots due to the properties of the fog, though they were near hits, she did have the capacity to incidentally hit a friendly at this range as well without the support of her scope's software. She then hears through her radio Jenive's voice.
"Junko! I don't know where you are right now, but we got a pair of U-ARM on the ninth floor in the main hall. Kiku is down. I'm wounded. We could use your firepower!"
South West
Fire swept up and about the biomass, but proved entirely ineffective as its outer layers tightened upon the incoming flame, then were immediately replaced. He could, optimistically, slow it down at best like this. As for the wolves climbing down from the top of the tower, one evaded a long distance sniper shot only to be hit by the blue beam, which did indeed travel at the speed of light... Because it
is a light. A big, toasty light, that disintegrated the wolf's torso and left its rear end, front legs, and head spiraling off in different directions, unmoving. Whether that meant it was truly dead or not was another story.
Three more descended from the top, one taking advantage of Brucey's compromised position to jump onto him from above. Using its surprisingly considerable weight, it manages to tip the mech over onto its back, causing it to fall off the APC, in the direction from whence he came. It chews into one of the ammo lines on his arm, but thanks to the
reinforced armour there, it didn't manage to do any real damage as covering fire comes spraying from Grillod's position. While it took several rounds from his rifle to ultimately knock the wolf off, it worked. Albeit it still wasn't dead as it twitched and convulsed, attempting to push the bullets out from its skin. Brucey could get back onto his feet, though his mech was warning him at the exterior cabin had been compromised. He would need to put on his gas mask to survive if he hadn't already.
Thankfully, however, thanks to his
emergency life support system, his wallaby, Jacko, became separated from him by shields of airtight, bulletproof glass. He would have enough oxygen to last a couple hours, though his expression showed anything but happiness with the predicament of being trapped in what was essentially an egg-shaped glass jar.
Daniel manages to tear the door off of the APC, and just as he does, the biologist comes flying out with the door. Inside the APC several tendrils had almost reached the biologist, who had been slamming on the door trying to get out. Despite flying several feet through the air in an almost comical fashion, he manages to roll dexterously on landing, gas mask on as he looked back at the group. He taps his radio.
"Is this damnable piece of machinery finally working?!... Oh, oh, yes it is!" The thick accent came through, Russian.
"We need to go! Now!" He was wearing a backpack, which looked loaded to the brim, as well as in his hands was a small USB drive, likely full of data.
"If I am to die, take the USB drive. Others can understand partial information, not total waste." He looks at Nathaniel and tilts his head.
"We need to go. Now!" A wolf lands atop the APC and growls at the trio, seemingly ready to attack them, yet it hesitated, perhaps out of fear or uncertainty of who to attack first.
"... Sh-Shit..."The last wolf descended from the top, though this one looked different. It had a reddish-orange tinge to its fur, and it vanished from sight as it hit the ground. It was likely some kind of alpha of the pack, judging by how it was the size of a small bear. Whoever it would target would be in big trouble, especially if they were alone...
South East
James and Peter would find that Carolyn had already quickly cleared the four floors on her own, knowing that time was of the essence in securing an additional exit. The survivors had also followed her to help her with handing over whatever remaining grenades and so forth they had on them, so that, using her technician's kit, she could make an impromptu explosive. She radios the group.
"The explosive will be ready in about a minute. We can blow a way into the roof that way and hopefully get picked up there instead of on the ground where the behemoth monster is." Morai nods in approval, then looks at the bruised pilot, who was sticking with Peter.
"You should be up with the others." He remarked as Captain Derek shook his head.
"No sergeant. I'm staying here. I'm a ranking officer, I know what to do." He looked at Morai's leg, which was still badly injured.
"You shouldn't be walking." Morai shrugs.
"I have had worse." He then looks back down at where the puddle was supposed to be. It had vanished. His eyes narrow in suspicion as he slowly creeps up the various floors and searches the rooms himself.
It was then that both Peter and James would see it. The Goleyeith moved back to the apartment they were hiding in, and was waiting at the entrance. It was slowly molding itself, sharping smaller pieces of itself out. White, humanoid figures, with large gaping mouths, and otherwise no discernable facial features or bodily features, slowly climbing out of its mass. On their radios they heard groaning and moaning, though it was localized to their area alone, meaning that Central did not pick up on any of it... The voices of the damned.
"Caarolyn... You were supposed to keeep us saafe... Wheeere are you?... Moraaaiii?... We want to welcome you..." Captain Derek shudders as he watches a pair of them enter in the ground floor, shambling and dragging themselves around, almost aimlessly. He whispers to Peter.
"I don't think we should be here, caballero."James would then hear his radio squawk.
"This is Archangel 4 and 5. We're two chinooks in your area. We see what's happening. We can land on the roof to get you and the survivors out, but a quick piece of advice. Stay away from the street. It's about to be 3,000 degrees down there. Big daddy is coming with his barbeque sauce, over." Derek whispers back into his radio, the ghastly beings hadn't noticed them yet.
"Roger, Achilles Heel's gonna get a funeral pyre at least."Just as it seemed as though everything were going according to plan, they hear their radios come to life once more. It was Morai's voice. In the background they could hear a chainsword revving.
"THIRD FLOOR, SECOND ROOM, WHERE DID IT GET THAT CHAINSW--" The radio cuts out suddenly. It had likely been damaged or destroyed. Captain Derek's eyes open widely, and he gave no orders. From the looks of it the 'crack pilot' had almost cracked at the notion that something that had fallen ten floors was not only still alive, but fully able to kill already... And had gotten its hands on another weapon.
South East: Opposition Territory!
The man didn't need to be told twice to move out as he continued moving quickly away from the sound, which clearly became that of dragging metal against concrete.
"I don't know, it's big, and it wears a metal suit, and it stopped my fifty calibre bullets from getting through." He managed to keep his cool, not revealing his emotional state too much, though hints of fear showed on through anyway.
"My name is Adam Gaville, by the way. I was with Carolyn's squad when it was hit. After ejecting from my mech I recovered the black box in hers and took off as fast as I could... What are your names anyway?" Just before they could answer, they would all hear through their radios the transmission from Archangels 4 & 5. The cavalry had arrived, but it refused to land on the street... As well as passing along the warning about Big Daddy's payload.
"... Oh. Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit." Caville says through his radio.
A quick look around would reveal two paths that didn't involve streets. One was a four floor tall apartment building on their right. They could climb it to the top, but they would be closer to the fog, and thus, whatever was pursuing Caville. On the flip side, there was a sewer grate just a few feet from them which they could likely use to get away from the combat zone and then get to safety by simply radioing for it, however, there was no telling what was inside the sewers, and Eira would have to abandon her heavily damaged mech, whereas she could use jump jets to get to the roof of the apartment... Assuming it would sustain her weight, which was another potential risk, but could they risk abandoning their main source of firepower against whatever was pursuing them?
Choices, choices...
