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Holiday hiatus coming to a close, updates for all soon!
5
likes
2 yrs ago
Stop being passive aggressive. Just be aggressive.
7
likes
3 yrs ago
It is certainly not 'optimal', but it *is* doable, depending on what you want to do with it. You could go swords or valor bard and play them more like a warrior with some magical ability
2
likes
3 yrs ago
One might say your villain arc has begun. Embrace it.
Ultima crashed over them- as did the flagship. Only the many layers of protection the party had managed to pull out stopped them from all dying at once. Bright flashes of light and heat surrounded them, and before Galahad even realized what was happening- they were freefalling. Bits and pieces of the ship they were just standing on whipped past his head as the Kirins plummeted downwards- Reisa in her armor, somehow still alive. Galahad cursed as he immediately began to slow his own descent- angling towards a particularly large chunk of falling airship that he could hopefully use to jump off of.
Thankfully, such a thing wasn't needed- as Eve and Neve arrived, bringing magic platforms and magic healing to the party. The platforms didn't grant them flight, but it at least seemed to slow their descent enough to focus on the bigger picture at hand. Galahad pulled himself to his feet, feeling his own aches and injuries dull in pain. "Eve, Neve." Galahad managed to breath out, before managing a small, crooked grin, hidden by the visor of his helmet. "We may live through this after all, thanks to you."
They might not have contributed directly in the fight- but Galahad wasn't going to complain about a magic platform stopping them from falling to their deaths. They were still Kirins after all.
Their moment of reprieve didn't last long however, and the war machine was quick to rear its ugly head again. Galahad threw himself back into the fight- using the conjured platform to propel himself high into the air- punching through wreckage as he rose. Materia glowed and crackled as Galahad collected all the energy he could muster into a single point. Wyrmfang erupted with electricity, coating the entirety of the weapon, haft and blade with crackling arcs of light.
"Incoming above!" Galahad bellowed at the top of his lungs, his warning to his fellow Kirins as he hung in the air for a scant second longer, giving them just enough time to at least clear the impact point. Twisting in midair, Galahad reared back and launched his halberd straight down towards Reisa's damaged war machine with all his might. He fell down after his halberd a few seconds later, chasing the first impact with a second.
It was almost enough- armor and mobility had been severely damaged on the accursed machine, and yet it almost was still not enough. Galahad couldn't get deep enough into the internals with his halberd as he'd had liked, not before the massive claws of the war machine forced him to step back, blocking the blow with the wide blade of his halberd. They'd reduced its mobility, destroyed its leg, damaged its thrusters, and yet Reisa still had fight left in her. As impact with the airship seemed imminent, Reisa seemed ready to take the rest of the Kirins down with her.
That baleful light bathed them, distorting the deck and reality itself. Decking cracked and deformed beneath his feet, as Galahad began to move for safety. It was tempting to jump- but he didn't know if he'd be able to clear the blast radius in time. For as well and high as he could reach, he would always have to go back down to the ground- and he didn't fancy his chances of landing safely in the water should he be knocked off course by any shockwave from Reisa's attack.
Izayoi, for her part seemed to have no compunction against just running into the jaws of likely death. A near suicidal move that brought them precious few seconds. "Izayoi!" Galahad bellowed as he slid in behind Rudolf's shield spell, throwing his halberd to embed itself into the armor by Izayoi- not to add further damage to the warmachine, but to give the insane mystrel a way out once she was done being suicidal.
"Grab it!" He shouted as his Materia began to glow, already preparing to draw the weapon back to his grasp- hopefully with Izayoi in tow, to the relative safety of behind Rudolf's shield spell.
Slowly but surely, they seemed to be making breaking apart this infernal armor. Though perhaps not necessarily as fast as Galahad would have preferred- it seemed their weapons did little to the heavy armor plating. Or at least some of their weapons were doing little. Chisato's explosives seemed to hit their mark, and Rudolf's powerful swing had made a meaningful cut. They were making progress. Reisa would respond with using her claws as mobile weapons. Thankfully, as he was behind her, he suffered fairly little from these weapons- they couldn't fly directly at him, having to angle and turn to get at him, giving him enough time to dodge or deflect them as they came in.
Glancing behind him, Galahad saw an entire ship heading their way- ready to crush Reisa- and probably them as well should it hit. The Kirins would probably have enough time to bail to another ship or otherwise find their way safely down, but this could be the killing blow on Reisa if it landed. They just needed to make sure the Skaellers hit. Which meant they needed to kill this abomination's mobility.
"Break its legs!" Galahad bellowed as he ran at the armor, staying behind it as he readied his halberd. "Chisato! Explosives! Hit the right side!"
Lunging forward and leaping, Galahad swung upwards with his halberd, aiming for the left shoulder, underneath the armor where the thruster met the shoulder. He used the momentum from his leap and the inside curve of his halberd blade to attempt to wrench and tear the thing off the shoulder- or at least damage it enough to render it inoperable.
Skogsrå, Gelcastre Woods, 7th Supply Camp_ 101st Special Forces Legion. Local Time: 2130_
"R-right! Breathing. That is something I know how to-" Ensign Dole forced himself to breathe deep- as though he had a paper bag in front of his face. "Do. Breathing. Uh, right."
"Pounding dirt? Uhh no thanks." Sabine snarked, sticking her tongue out at the former infantrywoman. The pink haired french woman was currently draping herself over the top of an empty desk, feet kicking idly as she looked at the scrolling requests upside down. "Imagine what it would do to my complexion."
"If we need a tie breaker between Op 1 and 3, I choose 3." Sabine added, "Not that it matters I guess, wouldn't want to be accused of being democratic, here would we?"
Turning his attention to Sagan, Dole pressed a few buttons on the holodisplay, and presented a rough estimation of the current force tracking- though with a relatively significant margin of error as units failed to report on time or went missing. "M-most air assets are avoiding East-Gelcastre in general. Its one of those objectives that sort of fall, uh, under the umbrella of 'needs to be done' but also, 'n-not enough manpower'. Closest is a few squads of the 233rd Armored Cav, b-but they're bogged down. Something about an enemy ace in the area."
"I-infantry assets are a bit of a mess right now too. There are plenty of marine platoons out and about, b-but as far as SOF goes, we have the Ghost that found the comm relay in the outer district, and I think there's one more Ghost team around the Gelcastre, but I couldn't say for sure. They are uh, maybe unsurprisingly, very reluctant to relay their exact position over radio."
"If-if you're sure on the blackout raid, I can send word to the techs to start getting your machines s-setup for laser based communications, and I can get an updated threat map pushed to you in.... 10 minutes." Dole paused, and glanced over at Commie. "A-and to answer your question, the power relay itself isn't going anywhere, but the cover attack on the nearby areas won't last forever. The Helldogs are spread almost as thin as y-you guys."
"Shit." Galahad cursed as Valon backed off and was replaced with something surely worse. It was bad enough that Valon had the strength of a dragon flowing through his veins, now they had Reisa piloting what could only be considered living armor. Something powerful enough to make both Eidolon and Psuedolon seem less like serpents and more like wriggling snakes in its grasp. Strangely enough, Galahad wasn't even surprised at this point- it felt like the entire journey as Kirins had been facing an escalating trial of horrific beasts and things. They'd fought Pseudolons, Eidolons, Tomtema, now it was only fitting that they fought something even stronger.
Izayoi at the very least had no reservations about fighting it, diving on in headfirst like a berserker. What truly surprised Galahad was Rudolf drawing his greatsword to actually attack with it- to his memory that was a first, but now was hardly the time to comment on it.
Miina had the right idea- probably. Reisa was inside this thing somewhere. Underneath this mass of terrifying bone and metal, there was a much softer, easier to kill person. They just had to get at it. Galahad leaped into the air, guiding himself above and over the armor and landing behind it to further split Reisa's attention from Rudolf and Izayoi. Rudolf went for the ankles, Galahad went for the arm, swinging his halberd down to interfere with Reisa's attack, using the wide blade and spike to hook and restrict its movement long enough for Izayoi to strike.
Izayoi was right. Valon was stronger than last time they'd fought him- and not the type of natural improvement one would expect from training either, not this quickly. Whatever it was, it made him strong- stronger than Galahad expected as Valon broke through his guard and grabbed him by the throat. Maybe it was the strange color with which the veins on his face pulsed- maybe it was the glint and flare of rage in his eyes, but Galahad couldn't help but feel a familiarity with Valon as he was choke slammed through the deck of the ship. As he hit the bottom of the hold, perhaps the impact finally jogged Galahad's memory- though he didn't know why. It was the subtle but noticeable shift in his fighting style, it felt less disciplined, less controlled, more bestial, with a greater focus on instinct and raw strength than technique and skill. It felt less like he was fighting a dragoon... This feeling that Galahad felt-
It was like what fighting a dragon felt like.
"What have they done to you, Valon?" Galahad murmured in horror. The man that Galahad had known in the years past was gone- Valon, while always a bit stuck up, was a loyal, dedicated warrior of Edren. Now he felt twisted, changed- corrupted even.
Whatever it was though, Galahad didn't have time to figure it out- he had to fight. He heard the clang of steel and Izayoi's barked command, switching in Rudolf. Galahad shook himself off as he stood up finding himself staring into the bewildered faces of a half dozen deck crew in the midst of ferrying ammunition to the airship's weapons. Men scattered as Galahad swung his halberd in a wide circle, one man cut down as the others dove out of the way. Looking up, Galahad saw the shifting shadows- the lance that belonged to Valon.
Reaching down, Galahad grabbed the ammunition- a cannon shell, threw it up at the shadow, followed by his electrically charged halberd. From his position down below, he couldn't tell what Rudolf was doing, but the dull roar of flame gave him an idea. Galahad waited exactly one more second before he leaped back up through the hole Valon had made with his body, shooting up past the deck before returning to the ground with a powerful kick aimed at the fallen dragoon.
As it turned out, the owl was not pulling Cormag's leg, as he found himself face to face with a woman. She was a small thing- though Cormag supposed everyone looked small in comparison to he. White hair, like snow and pointed ears. An elven woman then? She explained her presence before Cormag had a chance to ask- she seemed nice enough, interested in crossing over the wall like he was. He'd no reason to doubt her words, and thus took it at face value. "Ah, no need for that," He chuckled, waving his hand at the elven woman's raised hands. "I ain't gonna hurtya. Just habit's all." He leaned the fusilaxe back against the wooden post where Gomie and Ferrus sat- either confident that the woman truly did not intend to harm him, or merely sure of the fact that she wouldn't be able to easily use his large weapon against him.
"You too, aye?" Cormag chuckled. "Well, I reckon there’s no use'n tryin’ to head on in tonight- well, not sayin' you couldn't, but the place is dark as- well, night- and dark's when things like to skulk about."
"I figure it'd be safer in the morn', let the sun chase the shadows off. Least', that's what I figure- But I won't stop ya if you're dead set on heading on in." Cormag shrugged, though before he could continue his attention was once again drawn away. Perhaps due to his ingrained training, but he immediately began reaching for his fusilaxe again- though stopped as he heard the newcomer speak. Another woman, this one on horseback- with a gryphon of all creatures following her. Silent road indeed- Cormag shot his owl friend an almost accusatory look, seemed the owl only cared to hoot when it wanted to.
"If'n yer friendly, you can share my fire if ye like- both of ye." Cormag greeted the the newcomer. "Name's Cormag.", he introduced himself to the two women, before pointing at the Ox, and metallic dog respectively. "That'n there's Gomie, and that's Ferrus."
He gave a look at the gryphon that was less suspicion, and more confused interest. "Not seen a gryphon this close before- or in person at all, come ta think of it. s'he yer friend?"
It seemed the old adage remained correct: The best laid plans never survived first contact with the enemy- and this was hardly what Galahad would've considered a well laid plan. Leviathan was attacked by Siren almost instantly. Galahad probably should've expected the Psuedolon to have made a return, but it was nonetheless frustrating. Valon's taunting did little to improve Galahad's mood. The traitor Dragoon with his fancy gunlance hardly looked anything like an Edreni Dragoon anymore. Without any fancy flowery speeches, he challenged the Kirins. Perhaps, out of bloodlust or just spite, many of the Kirins collapsed on him as one- Miina with her magic, Eliane with her rifle and Rudolf with his Materia. Galahad in particular was feeling perhaps just a bit less than honorable today- or at least he cared little to show any semblance of it to a traitor.
Galahad for his own part joined in as well, waiting for the others' attacks, and the raking fire of Esben's commandeered aetherskimmer to clear before he lunged, coming down with his own halberd, axe blade aiming to split the traitor's skull in two. "You'll have to forgive us, Valon." He snorted as he choked up on the shaft of his halberd and began to spin his weapon in tight repeated strikes with both ends at the traitor dragoon. Horizontal cut with the axe blade, reverse swipe with the spike, stab with the spearpoint- flourish and bash with the end. "We might have misplaced that lance you were so fond of in the sea. Maybe I'll throw you down there so you can search for it."
Valon was a talented fighter, but Galahad doubted he could protect himself from all angles for too long- combined with Rudolf's gravity materia grounding his reinforcements, all he had to do was keep the traitor dragoon's attention focused on him so the others could lay onto him with their own attacks- though Galahad had no intention of passing up on any opening in his Valon's defense he could find.
Skogsrå, Gelcastre Woods, 7th Supply Camp_ 101st Special Forces Legion. Local Time: 1915_
'They'll still do it if I flutter my eyes at them a little bit', is what Sabine was about to say before Sagan took a shit all over her planned fun. No gambling? For a whole month? The point wasn't even to take their Rip-Gel away from the support staff because they needed it, the point was to do it for the sport of it. Sabine gasped as though Sagan had just slapped her across the face and called her mother a whore in front of the entire crew.
"Boss! You didn't!" Sabine's french lilt was somehow even stronger as she dramatically sighed and fell to her seat. "A whole month?! We're only supposed to be here a month!" Sabine tried to fake a weep, but she was never a particularly good actress. Reluctantly, Sabine snatched the coffee pot as it was set down and poured herself a cup, caffeine that wasn't won off the tears of their support crew didn't feel nearly as good, but it was still necessary.
"Sparrowhawk should be good to go in a few hours," Sabine muttered, defeated, "The shifting servos got pretty banged up when I crashed into the apartment, but they should be done replacing them in a few hours- the wingtip is going to be harder to replace, so I'll have to be careful with my cruising speeds, but combat speeds should be unaffected." Sabine pointed out the tent window in nearly perfect timing as a several bursts of distant AA fire streaked up into the darkening sky, tracers visible from some miles away. "Not that I think we'll be doing a whole lot of flying any time soon. Gelcastre's got more AA batteries than a porcupine has spines. There's enough shit flying through the sky that getting dinged is more of a 'when' than an 'if'."
"No fucking around for a whole month." Sabine sulked into her coffee, "Can you believe that Rhino? A whole month. Shoot me now."
Preparations
Skogsrå, Gelcastre Woods, 7th Supply Camp_ 101st Special Forces Legion. Local Time: 2100_
Sabine's bitching and moaning would eventually come to an end as the team was slowly filtered into one of the emptied supply vehicles for a planning meeting. Now that they were on their own, without Sarret watching over their every move, they were free to pick and choose their targets as necessary, their Comms officer patched into both allied and enemy communications. The result was an almost overwhelming deluge of information for them to sift through: unending calls for air support and casevac, fire missions and requests for reinforcements- from both sides. The 7th's goal remained the same: Find and secure the nanoforge, but that didn't stop the local 5th fleet commanders from requesting assistance from their attached special forces units.
"Uh, Commander Kodos," their comms officer, Ensign Dole spoke up, "I, uh, hope you don't mind, I took the liberty of compiling what I thought to be the most high priority requests coming in."
The kid was a nervous, sweaty mess- this was probably his first time this close to the front, but he steeled his nerves as best he could. "We're getting a lot of requests every which way- but I tried to filter it out to requests that would actively help us- er- you guys in finding the nanoforge."
"uh- right, okay... so, first up on the shortlist is, um... a strike mission by East Gelcastre. This request came in from the 111st Helldogs. They, uh, say eastern Gelcastre is bristling with anti-air sites. You know... SAM sites... and flak cannons... laser batteries... the like.
These batteries have been chewing up 5th fleet gunships and landing pods making any kind of low-altitude pass over the city basically... well... suicidal. Most of the emplacements are heavily guarded, and the request is for you to take your MAS in and, um, knock those sites out. Loud, fast, and thorough.
While you're in the area, there's also a Coalie supply convoy due to pass through- lots of heavy ordnance according to intel reports. If you can... deal with it, that'd be, uh, appreciated. But it's secondary to the AA sites.
Now, um, this won’t... really get us- you- closer to finding the Nanoforge, at least, not directly- but if those guns are gone, you’ll be able to move and fly over that part of the city without... without having to worry about, uh... sudden unscheduled landings. Which should make it easier to run deeper ops later without, you know, becoming shrapnel."
"Uh, okay, so option two is a bit outside your usual MO. This one came in from a recon force- a UEE Ghost that's been, uh, ghost-ing around, in Gelcastre's outer districts for a couple of weeks now. He's identified a Coalition communications relay it's in a smaller district, not the main urban core and he thinks it's handling secure military movements. The Ghost is bugging out for some other objectives- he wouldn't tell us what, but that's a Ghost for you, so the relay is kind of just sitting there.
5th fleet Command still sees it as important, so the mission would be for a small team infiltration- no MAS, little to no support, and, um, preferably as little gunfire as can be helped. You'd be going in on foot, tap into their network, and pull whatever files you can without tripping alarms. Command is looking for updated troop deployments, artillery positions, supply routes- that sort of stuff. Oh! and uh, there's been some encrypted chatter flagged with the codename Project Forge. Its a bit, uh, on the nose, so it might just be bait, but uh, but given our mission, I thought you might want to see it.
Coalition foot patrols in that district are present and as alert as you might expect a city under siege to be, but nothing overly conspicuous. If things go loud, extraction might be... difficult, but doable. But uh... quiet is p-probably best."
"I uh, thought Hex would like this one because, you know, 'blackout', like her... uh... yeah nevermind. Okay, so this one's going to be an attack on a power relay station in Gelcastre's industrial district- its the biggest one in the city. If we take it out, it'll cause uh, well, a blackout. Uh, the idea is to force the Coalies to reroute their power to critical sites, like the Nanoforge.
The Helldogs are launching an attack on a nearby garrison and will be deploying multi-spectrum jamming to cover the whole zone, which we can use as cover throughout. That means sensors- radar, thermal, electronic, won’t work here, ours included, so we'll have to equip each machine with short-wave directed energy communications- you'll basically be shooting lasers at each other to communicate. This also means uh, that the Coalies'll have to rely on visual detection only. So, uh, that gives you some cover to sneak in, but also means comms will be a bit... sparse.
Coalition forces should be distracted by the Helldogs, but they'll still be in the area, so using shadows, buildings, and the like to avoid enemy patrols and drone cameras- or just shoot them down, maybe they'll think its more Helldogs.
Uh, the relay station itself is fairly well guarded: turrets, infantry, and Coalition MAS guarding the place, but uh, you guys are used to that, right? Once you're in, you just gotta find the core and overload it- or blow it up. We have demo charges you can bring, but missiles and plasma weapons should do the trick too.
Once the blackout happens, expect reinforcements to come rushing in fast, so you'll have to fight your way back out... and that's uh, yeah."
"But uh, yeah, that's my short list," Dole stuttered, "H-hope that works for you guys."
"These Psuedo-Dragoons don't have the same speed of Edreni Dragoons," Galahad added, tacking himself onto Rudolf's point, and though it pained him to admit it, he grit his teeth and continued, "But they have more equal to- or even more mobility, especially while in the air. Add the fact that their weapons are both easier to maneuver in close quarters- and are fitted with firearms for ranged fighting means you should pay especially close attention to them. While their performance against our team was perhaps less than stellar, they could still prove to be a threat to Drana's forces if unprepared."
"Their leader was a Edreni traitor- Valon, an experienced veteran of the Edren-Osprey conflict- and as much as I hate to admit it- talented Dragoon. If he's trained his men the way I would have, you can expect them to target your command structures and supply points. I suspect at least one, likely two full squads will dedicate themselves to seeking out your head specifically, Grovemaster." Galahad grimaced, "That's what I would've ordered. Luckily, Valheim doesn't appear to have a natural population of dragons with which to take scales to create armor from. Their armor is lesser than your own paladins, so that their propulsion devices can still carry them."
Galahad glanced around at the Kirins, it'd be them versus the head of Valheim leadership- though admittedly, Galahad preferred his chances in a surgical operation than on the frontline. Ironically, being the spearpoint of an attack was often times safer than being the shield that bulwarked an enemy advance. Attrition would and could kill anyone, no matter their individual skill and strength.
"I suppose we'll have to improvise our own way off of the Valheim airship after we've completed our mission. Part of me wishes we could take some men with us to commandeer the thing." Galahad chuckled, though he doubted they'd last long- if they took control of an enemy airship in the middle of their fleet, they were likely to just be gunned down.
Miina, and Rudolf laid out a good point about potentially being a chance that even the Kirins might be infiltrated. "I'm familiar with challenge and response phrases- we used them sparingly during the war." Galahad chimed in, "But with Valheim's radio system, I fear it wouldn't be much trouble for Valheim to discover that information, even in the middle of a fight and relay it to those who need to know- like this Loki character." Rudolf then looked to Esben to speak, so Galahad didn't bother going any further with his own conjecture- Esben was far more skilled in this area than he.
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