Nerrone's Rangers IC

Aww crap.... was the first thing that went through IO's mind. Dodging an energy beam was easier than dodging a ten foot tall mech. He tried to jump out of the way as best he could, but avoiding all of the attack was impossible. One of the brute's arms connected with his chest. Hard. IO was thrown back several feet across the courtyard. IF it weren't for his shields, he would have been at the least unconscious, maybe dead. well, at least the plan worked. Good thing we have those health packs. he thought, as he noted what appeared to be a small dent in his chest. He thought of throwing an EMP grenade, but assumed he would have worse luck than Grecsh with his aim from this angle. Instead, he fired his rocket at the mech, which now seemed to be a far enough distance from the Lacuna to avoid accidentally damaging the ship. Might as well try. Who knows? His shields may be wearing down already. Not likely at all, but still worth a chance...
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Celdryc had had a similar idea to Naboo's just moments ago, and had slowly approached the mech when its back was turned. Of course he was stealthed, but with mechs it was always safe to assume they could still detect you.

"Well, lets get this show on the road!"

Grey stood up quickly, after about 3 or 4 long hours of waiting, he was looking forward to finally getting off this rock and back into the relative safety of the galactic black market. Grey followed the insect out into a shuttle bay, where a small single-man craft was waiting.

"Sadly they were some... Complications. The Lacuna is in docked in Santa Ferraro, the city that is being sacked by a capital ship."

Grey looked at the small craft and thought about what the insect was going to suggest. Had everyone in the damn galaxy lost their mind?

"So let me guess. You want me to crash land this little thing into the middle of a Warzone, jump into the Lacuna and fly off as a heavily armed Capital ship is laying waste to everything within a 5 mile radius?"

"Correct."

"Shut up and give me the keys."

Grey quickly strapped himself in, and flew off as the insect walked back into the Bazaar. Within hours, he was nearing Santa Ferraro. He could see the jet black ship hovering above the city, blasting anything it could. It looked like the city was retaliating, but with little success. The insect told him that the transit authority might give him trouble, but at this point, it looks like everyone was too busy to deal with the small craft rushing in to the city. He put a marker on the Lacuna's coordinates, and veered off to a large military complex. Grey Switched the craft to autopilot, unbuckled himself from the seat, and got ready to jump off into the building.

Before he could, a small turret on the capital ship open fired on his craft.

The small ship immediately began taking heavy damage, it's hull not built to withstand head on impacts from superheated plasma. The ship rocked violently, throwing him off.

Grey tried his best to position himself properly to land on the building, but the shock of the impact left him dazed. Any attempt to maneuver himself was met with heavy pains in his entire body. He must have broken a few ribs. If he didn't do anything, he would slam against the building, killing him instantly.

At the last possible seconds, he hit his jump jets. They were very low grade, mainly used for softening an otherwise hard impact, but at this point, it's all he had left. Two streams of hot air shot out of his boots, moving him into a position where he could maneuver himself sufficiently. As he looked around in the air, he saw the Lacuna docked on a lone landing pad. He quickly made a dive for the pad, and used his jump jets to stabilize him as he got closer.

Another explosion.

3 Seconds later, the shock wave hit. Throwing him off again, and launching him into the hull of the Lacuna. Before Grey blacked out, he saw a group fighting what looked like a giant war mech, all of them too busy trying to avoid being crushed to notice the strange man who just slammed against their ship. He was nestled in a relatively safe corner between the Lacuna's hull and a couple of crates, keeping him out of sight. But if anyone heard him hit the hull like that, and decided to investigate, they would most likely find him very quickly. Grey closed his eyes, and lost consciousness.

(At this point Grey will be unconscious until you're all finished at Sapphire point. Have fun)

Having just been knocked halfway across the courtyard, IO's aim was not at its best. The rocket flew wide and incinerated a small bush some distance away. The mech moved in to finish him off, swinging its right arm with its heavy fist at IO's body.

Kwa, currently in the process of equipping her side-arm and moonblade in her cabin, replied to Naboo: "This is no time to discuss tactics! If you have an idea, we can put the committee on hold unless you plan to blow up the city."

Bor jumped over the heat ray as it cut through the air underneath him. It was fortunate he had used the rapid-healing device, or he wouldn't have been able to do it.

Bor circled around the mech, looking for weaknesses. As the robot moved to finish IO off, Bor spotted the external power module on its back. He took a moment to take aim, then fired a single pulse at the power module.

Celdryc noticed the danger IO was in, and sped up his pace. Just as the mech raised its arm to strike him, he reached being about a foot away from it and hurled one of his daggers with as much precision as he could at what appeared to be the shield generator.
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Well what do ya know, things can get worse than flamethrower happy giants attacking you IO thought as the mech once again moved in on him. He rolled as best he could away from the brute when it raised its arm.

"I don't see anyone around here coming up with any better ideas, if we can't organize in a pinch we're good as dead!" Naboo hissed into the communicator. He loaded a clip of energized bullets into his rifle. By Spode I hope this will work." he thought. Naboo took aim at the external power module on the robot and fired, hoping the bullet's energy would disrupted the shield enough to let the bullet pass through as he pulled the trigger. As soon as he fired he put the rifle in it's holster and made a break for the nearest cover.

Xol darted away from the charging mech. He swore under his breath, "Dammit, this is where I can't come in handy. Unless," His heart skipped a beat. Wasting no time, he jumped up, over, and took cover behind the metal crate that had housed the medical devices, pulling the Zeafly capsule out of his backpack, along with the remote control. Flicking the RC on, he twiddled with a switch on the back of it, and a small panel was released, producing a small packet of what looked to be cards. Xol opened the packet, and with a flick of his wrist, produced six individual holo-screens. He hooked these onto the controller via clips that extended from its sides, producing a fully enveloping holo-monitoring system.

With speed that would put a teenaged Neotharian to shame (known for their three pairs of arms and addictive texting habits), Xol's four fingers flew across the remote control, programming each of the screens individually to display what he wanted from the Zeafly. Within moments, the system was ready. He flicked the Zeafly on, then peered over the crate, waiting for the absolute opportune moment to strike at the mech.

From his new found advantage of stealth and assumed death, Flank had become a ghost, in the figurative sense. He silently observed the battle take place. Nothing was getting to the machine at all, apart from Gresch's EMP, which stopped the heat ray.

Electromagnetic... Thought Flank. The ETRs! They're full of electromagnetic energy!
They aren't weapons, though, was his reply, they aren't designed to mess up everything electrical.
But they are designed to release the energy to achieve a specific purpose. If it has nothing to work with, the devise will just exude energy without direction. That's bound to mess up the shields.

Flank had made up his mind. He slowly drifted back to the Lacuna.

Bor's aim was true, but the power of his blast was still insufficient to penetrate the mech's shields. His pulse fizzled out an inch from the power module, and the mech ignored him.

The ground beneath IO trembled as the mech's fist poundeed into the ground less than a meter away, showering him in displaced lumps of dirt. The movement was enough to throw off Celdryc's aim, but not completely: his blade moved at a low enough velocity to pass through the shield unchallenged, and its tip scored a glancing hit on the power module on the guardian's back. The shield flared visibly, and flickered intermittently as its power output became unstable.

Naboo's shot was lucky: it made impact in a momentary lapse in shielding, and finished what Celdryc had begun. Its shields were now disabled, leaving its armour-plating as its only line of defense — but this was still far from an insignificant obstacle.

The mech was not idle, however, and IO's squirming had not deterred it. Though its beam weapon was disabled, it still had enough control to use both arms as nasty bludgeoning weapons — it raked both its arms rapidly across the ground, attempting to catch IO as he rolled.

Celdryc silently cheered at the success of the manouver. Seeing little else he could do, he tried something stupid. He jumped onto the mech's back and stabbed his other dagger into a small gap in its plating.
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Who knew a few minor plasma bursts got mechs so mad? IO thought. He kept rolling for a few feet, then attempted to flip backward onto his feet. Unfortunatly due to his weight and poor acrobatic ability, all he managed to do was flip backward so that he was still laying on the ground, but out of the current range of the mech's arms. He took the opportunity to push himself into a crouch and fire his rocket launcher at it, hoping he had better aim this time. He was, of course, unaware of his ally who was currently on the back of the mech.

Celdryc's dagger wormed into a crack between the mech's back and shoulder, throwing up sparks, but didn't have enough reach to penetrate any important electronics. His weapon stuck fast in the gap, and the mech shook itself violently in an attempt to dislodge him.

IO, meanwhile, managed this time to hit the mech full in the chest with his missile — unfortunately, this was exactly where its armour was thickest. The mech stumbled backwards half a step amidst its attempts to shake off Celdryc, and IO was caught in the blast from his own missile, having fired it at such close range.

Xol ducked back into his cover. The mech seemed obviously distracted by IO, so he began his plan. The Zeafly sprung into action, responding to even the most minute twitching of Xol's fingers. Homing in on the mech, the bug passed through the shields unharmed, latching onto the back of the mech when it slowed down after a strike.

Summoning all his concentration, Xol engaged the perma-grab feature, fastening the bug to the automaton in between chunks of its armor. He flicked a few switches, and on the primary screen, the two buzzblades appeared. He pressed a button and they whirred to life, spinning incredibly fast, too fast for the naked eye. Targeting what looked to be a thin portion of casing, he began cutting out a square wide enough for the bug to reach into. As the square fell away, Xol was greeted with a large wire bundle that looked fairly important.

Bingo.

He jerked the controls forward, sending the Zeafly's buzzblades into the newly opened cavity. Sparks flew as one by one, the wires were severed. The whole thing snapped seconds later, and not wanting to put his creation into any more harm, Xol piloted the Zeafly back to his position, watching for the results of his work.

Xol's Zeafly had penetrated a small section of the outer casing, and the circuits he had severed were linked to the operation of the mech's left arm. Previously relieved of its ability to unleash a heat-beam, the arm was now little more than a free-hanging dead weight, unresponsive to commands from its operator in the upper reaches of Sapphire Point.

Celdryc didn't hesitate and kicked off the brute just as it tried to get rid of him, kicking his dagger in as far as it would go as he did. He got blown back a ways by IO's rocket, but was reletivly unharmed by it due to the barrier the mech had made between him and the blast. he moved in close, just to where his other dagger had landed. He grabbed the dagger he had thrown and readied himself, hoping he had annoyed it enough to make himself the target instead of IO. He would be much better at surviving while distracting it.
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IO was once again blown back, this time by his own weapon. BUt this blow he was expecting. He had hoped to be shot back to a better postion with little injury, but sadly it was not so. As he skidded back, his burned arm raked against the ground. He stifled a cry of pain and started to get up, but stopped as his chest wound flared with pain. He slowly got ihmself fully on his feet, with more than a bit of pain.

"Rrr..."
Flank heaved on the ETR for one last time before the mech came back into view. He was feeling apprehensive and excited at the same time, but that all drained away when he saw that the machine was without shields. Swearing silently, he kicked the ETR he had dragged over. It didn't even roll onto one of the adjacent sides.

Abandoning the idea, he broke again into a run, only this time toward the mech. When he was close, he skirted around it to avoid being hit or seen. Once he was behind it, he leaped up onto its back with a powerful flap of his wings and a minute burst from his jet boots. He alighted upon its shoulders and immediately grabbed them to keep his balance. His feet slid down the behemoth's back due to a lack of grip, but suddenly and unexpectedly, his left foot slipped into a small, square hole cut into it. Lacking the means to inspect it, Flank put it out of his thoughts.

Maintaining a firm grip on the mech's back, he pointed his cannon into a rift between the plates of armour close to the power module and fired once, twice, three times.

Kwa arrived on the scene and took cover next to Dagon by one of a number of mid-sized ornamental rocks that sat on the lawns — hardly perfect cover, but it kept them mostly out of their adversary's line of sight.

Dagon, leaning out over his boulder to aim down the sights of his rifle, snatched a glance at her: "Darn thing's armoured like a tank — can't get a bead on it while it's flailing about with one of our guys on its back Spode-darnit!"

Kwa frowned and nodded. Her own side-arm would be all but useless in this situation. She resolved to wait for now — this was not the ideal time to move in close with the moonblade.


The mech swiped at IO with its left foot, attempting to put him out of action before he moved out of reach. A moment later, it shook as Flank fired his cannon into its back. The disabled power module was now just another piece of scrap metal, disintegrating by the second blast in a shower of sparks.

Flank's third blow struck deeper, and a hiss of compressed gas vented from the wound as internal pneumatics were decompressed. Its movements were not quite so smooth now, but Flank had still placed himself in a very dangerous position: the mech's right arm swept out at him, a massive length of metal steaming towards him — he was a larger target than Celdryc, especially with his shoulder-cannon.

Flank anticipated a response — he would have been foolish not to — but he had not been prepared for such a quick rebuttal. He managed to lean his lower body away from the automaton's arm before it struck him, but in doing so he moved his head closer to it.

Flank bellowed an exultant howl as the robot's arm clipped is head — jolting it back at such speed he was sure that the tendons in his neck would snap — and tore his helmet off. Immediately, the stealth field ceased to exist, and somehow, the song that had embarrassed him hours ago on Las Thaddas resumed playing as the helmet spiraled away.

Flank groaned, mostly out of the pain the blow provided; it was like having two simultaneous headaches. He pulled himself closer to the machine's back and rested his head against it, trying to overcome the pain. Once the ache had subsided a little, he tried to shoot the robot in the same spot again.

Celdryc was irritated at flank. the mech was now more obsessed with the thing on its back than him. he tried to get its attention by firing his rifle at the nearest gap in its armor he could find,careful to try and avoid flank.
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IO managed to be out of range before the robots attack.He was now a fair distance away from the brute, and was about to fire another rocket at it when he noticed flank. "Damn it, get off it Flank!" he shouted. For now he decided to shoot a few small plasma bursts at what appeared to be its eye.

Unfortunately for Flank, the mech he was so precariously perched upon was not simply going to wait for him to recover: as he readied his weapon once more, the whole world tilted around him as, without warning, the mech curled itself into a ball and executed a backwards roll — attempting to crush him beneath its own weight.

Needless to say, this maneuver put IO's aim off by a significant margin, and both his shots and Celdryc's impacted harmlessly on the mech's thick plating.

((If you want to target a particular spot on the mech, try to be more specific than "a gap in the armour", it's just a niggling thing, but think about where there would logically be gaps so that it can move easily, so I don't have to choose a spot for you.))

Rhak had been at a distant because of his leg. Now he fired five shots towards the mech with his pistol.
The slugs had the kinetic energy to blow of a limb, yet Rhak didn't expect any damage on the armor. The slugs were made for organic beings, not mechs.
He did this only to distract the mech or the mech's operator.
Rhak switched to Flank's rifle and went to the side, sending bursts towards the mech along the way.

Grecsh grabbed another grenade from his belt. Though traditional in the damage it did, the grenade was outfitted with a magnet, and a very powerful magnet at that. There was zero likely-hood that it would not latch onto the automaton, provided the O'onthos' aim was true. He shouted, "Off the mech, now! Grenade incoming!" pulled the fuse, and chucked the grenade at the mech.

(This is what happens when you all post to quick! ><)

Everything happend too fast for both Bianca and Chalen. First everyone agreed to do this thing and the next moment, they were in a middle of a fight. The two went their seperate ways whilst struggling to ctach up to their chosen groups.
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Bianca (Hacker Group). Running at a fast pace, she could see the Ravis Flank fighting against something that looked liked an automation and at first it was winning. She didn't dare stop to think what would happen next. Bianca kept going until at last she finally caught up with him. Flank is already reciving new injuries right where the old ones are. Bianca spoke softly with a hint of concern. "Are you alright Flank? Are you sure you don't need medical help right now?"
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Chalen (Strike Group). The Space Sprite flew fast just to keep up with Dagon and the others. Every four minutes, the dust would blind him thus having to slow down, quickly wiping it off and then resume from where he left off.

Celdryc looked for an opening,but the mech in its current ball state would be difficult to hit. It also may go back to its original position at any moment, throwing his shot off again. He readied his rifle to shoot at a gap in its armor he had noticed between its arm and body as soon as it returned to a standing position.
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IO was having difficulty finding a good place to shoot as well, and instead took the opportunity to slowly manouver himself to a better position. For now he waited till the mech had returned to a standing position and his allies weren't on its back.

((Princess, I'll assume your post about Bianca happened after this))

Flank didn't get to utter a sound as the robot rolled backwards, he only panicked. When he was halfway to the ground, he twisted about, activated his jet boots with a twist of his feet and thrust himself out from under the robot. His back faced the ground, so without wings to support him, he approached the ground at speed.

Flank's back struck the stone path, bruising it under the armour, and he rolled backwards over his neck and onto his chest. He lay there for a few seconds, before stirring again, groaning. After spitting up burned dirt he checked that his neck was still intact. It very well seemed to be, so he got up again, slowly. He couldn't hear Bianca talking to him.

Even as Flank rose to his feet once more, the mech turned and raised its gigantic right arm again, preparing to pummel Flank into the dirt. At that moment, Grecsh's grenade arced through the air and latched itself onto its front — just to the right of its head. The detonation sent the automaton stumbling back two steps, and the casing on its ocular sensor was torn to pieces on one side, sending flurries of bright yellow sparks in all directions.

At the top of Sapphire Point the video feed from the mech flickered and warped, flashing to black and losing focus intermittently. Its operator glared through the interference, and renewed the attack.

The grenade had granted Flank a moment's reprieve, and he was on his feet once more before he found the enemy bearing down on him again, charging and flailing — clumsy and imprecise in its movements now, but no less huge and heavy.