Lancers and sterling brocades,
The Blood rushed down with the wind,
Upon the vanguard of Menn,
Whom rac'd down path that did wind,
T'wards certain doom.For a moment the air was still, as jump ships and corporate yachts began to lift off landing pads, the two opposing sides assessing each other in that briefest instant. Before anyone else could move, Skyldig rained a hail of bullets down on an unfortunate guard at the toe of her platform, literally blowing him away, sending the limp body streaking across the ground. As the rag doll came to a stop, holes pumping sterling blood, the guards simultaneously opened fire at Skyldig. She fell backwards, purposefully lying as flat as she could against the platform, hiding in the middle of the flat plane where bullets couldn't find her. To her left feet were rattling up the metal steps to the top of the platform, perhaps one or two security guards making their way up with their guns drawn. Scrambling towards the opposite lip of the landing pad, she dragged herself off, falling through a haze of bullets and behind a metal container she had spied on her way down.
As the security guards crested the steps to find her gone, they crossed the platform with speed, reaching the end that Sky rolled off of just in time for a metallic yellow orb to rise up to meet them. One of them had an instant to look down to the ground, where Skyldig was lying in the fetal position, back pointing to the air as the grenade's fuse ran its course and detonated in mid air. The pair of guess were blown off the landing pad, across its surface and off the side of the skyscraper. A sudden and violent shower of shrapnel slammed into Skyldig, plinking against her armor and stinging as all the metal segments rattlers against one another. Certainly her back would be horribly bruised. There was no time to worry about future Skyldig's pain however. Like a terrible arachnid, She scurried across the metal asphalt rooftop, rapidly taking cover by a crate closer to the center of the roof.
Popping her head over the top of the crate, bracing her body against it, she fired off a burst at a small group of guards crossing the roof, not hitting any of them but causing them to drop for cover. Leaping over the metal container, she advanced on an autonomous rocket battery, slaloming through cover. The Mz-677 was an X-Ray guided middle system, comprised of two batteries of rocket pods, each containing a dozen hollow charge missiles.
Taking cover behind the armored installment, Skyldig extracted a rocket from the back of the turret, lying back against it as it took fire from quick approaching soldiers. Producing a combat knife, she pried the warhead's cap off of the top of the rocket and reached in, fiddling with the timer on the explosive device to delay the detonation. Rescrewing the fuse housing, she stood up, picking up the rocket in both hands and raising it over her shoulder. She slammed it against it's nose, hearing the timer beginning to start before returning it to the rocket pod.
Slipping her fingers through the rings of three grenades, she extracted them from her belt, yanking them free by the pins. There's a common myth abound, that it takes little force to pry the safety pin out of a hand grenade, that would be incorrect, it could take up to 30 pounds of force to dislodge a ring from its captive slot. Leaning to the left, exposing herself from behind the battery, she swung her arm ferociously, painfully whipping it, had it not been for the painkillers flooding her system. Against the friction of springs and the capture hole, the grenades slipped off of their pins from the sheer force of the swing, flying out in all directions and causing a lull in shooting as the guards swarmed for cover.
Skyldig ran in the direction of the thrown grenades, away from the battery and towards the ducking soldiers. Her weight carried her forwards as she hopped momentarily onto a crate, her forward momentum pulling her off the box and into the air as the grenades exploded behind her. The flame radiated behind her, heat licking at the back of her armor, as the explosive force carried her forwards. Aiming down as she tumbled through the air, she emptied her magazine into the helmet of a crouched soldier, drilling through it with ease. The moment her bolt locked back, the magazine empty, the rocket detonated behind her, exploding violently and chain detonating the rest of the battery around it.
A second shockwave, much more powerful than the first flung Skydig forwards, sending the armored figure cascading against the doors of an elevator. The metal peeled away around her, she she slammed into the back wall of the lift, her body crashing into the buttons of the cabin. Lurching hard, the machinery in the elevator spluttered and shuddered as metal ground on metal. The elevator plunged downwards, screaming towards the ground as the brake pads failed. Quickly, with clarity and focus, the bloods still crackling through her system, Skyldig punched through a grate in the ceiling, and clambered out, reaching for a flailing cable that wasn't plummeting down with the cabin. She gripped on to it, the elevator descending down away from it, gravity and her residual speed pulling her down for a few more cubits, whiplash rattling her brain in her skull. Had it not been for the narcotics she would have passed out. Sky swung there for a few moments, her heart pounding in her ears so hard it felt like she was vibrating. Cool air rushed up the elevator shaft as the cabin crashed to the bottom, providing a moment of respite before she started to climb back up, arduously. As she reached the top, the remaining SAM turrets, which were few following the explosion, continued to fire at the circling Molotov, though with no where near enough range to actually reach it.
A large chunk of the building had broken off and rained down on to the street, the sheer strength of the explosion gouging a scar that ran a few stories down. The roof was ribbed with cracks, and from where she stood at the entrance to the elevator shaft, it seemed like the explosion had either killed or maimed everyone on the roof. No one picked through the wounded, ran to their aid, they would no doubt die there lying under a dying star. She dropped her magazine and began going around, loading a fresh one and blasting the straggling soldiers clinging on to dear life. Perhaps it was more merciful, or perhaps it was the drugs in her system driving her. Or maybe it was just her. She began to shut down the SAMs, one by one, limping about in a painless haze as each one fell silent. As she approached the last one shots rang out. The first one slammed into the back of her armor, square in the middle, the next few ricocheting off of her plates.
The wounded straggler clung on to her side with one hand, feebly retaining her insides, the other hand firing wildly at Skyldig with an automatic pistol. She rushed the guard, closing the distance as the builds spiked against her armor, slamming into her ribs with only the ballistic weave between her and certain death. Swinging the stock of her rifle, she knocked the guard down and let the momentum of the swing bring her down on to the woman. They squirmed and wrestled on the ground, the woman firing blindly into Skyldig's abdomen, breaching through the painkillers. Sky grabbed the gun by the muzzle pulling it from between them, ramming her head against the damaged guard's with fervor. Suddenly, the gun fired its last round, ripping through flesh and bone of the finger over the muzzle. Her finger second from her pinkie sailed through the air, but Skyldig was too engrossed killing the guard to worry about it.
An ache slowly start to set in, as Skyldig clutched her side, holding on to her mangled finger in the same hand. She brought the mouth piece of the radio set to her lips, the helmet's rebreather hanging over.
"
Did.. I.. Break my record?" She said breathlessly as her vision began to recede around the edges. There was silence for a few moments before Computer replied.
"
Previous Record: four minutes, 22 seconds. Current Time: five minutes, 56 seconds. Record not beaten." She contemplated for a few moments, her finger off the communication button, before holding it down to speak.
"
Take away the time it took to climb up the elevator shaft."
"
New Time: four minutes, three seconds. New Record Set."
"
Tell the Molotov this approach is safe, and have Ross waiting to receive me." As she finished her sentence she began to slump to the ground, first sitting, propping herself up with her free arm, before slipping and lying down. She took a few shallow breaths, before falling unconscious.
ArsenicBronze,
CosmicDeep,
DELETED08741,
Vampiretwilight,
Little Bill,
mattmanganon,
Crimson Flame,
cosmiccowgirl,
Star Light,
KrystalKleo
