Nerrone's Rangers IC

Azure, catching sight of the sticky bomb and the countdown prominently displayed on its face, disengaged with all due haste. The mallium leapt in the opposite direction to Grecsh, vaulting onto the leftmost bank of computers to escape the ensuing blast. He produced and let fly a balanced throwing dagger towards Grecsh as a parting gift, before jumping from the computer bank to the side of the lower left pillar — gripping one of the indentations near the top, at an angle that was, for now, out of the Rangers' direct line of sight.

The bomb detonated. Needless to say, there were now several more computer terminals in the room that would no longer function. Fortunately, they were all on the opposite side of the room to where Flank and Bor were at work.

"This is pointless!" Flank growled, although through the hoarseness of his voice the statement would have only made sense to someone who could speak the language of gravel in a blender.

There was a heavy explosion. That caught the Ravis's attention. He turned just in time to see a black-skinned Mallium leap onto one of the pillars, and it occurred to him that if anybody knew what the password was, it would be him. He was the only servant of the Kingdom in the room, so if the countdown had to be averted, he would be required to know the password.

He twirled the dagger in his hands and charged up his electric claw attack. He could never understand how the damn thing worked — it had something to do with the metal frames around the bones in his arms, and it caused his hands to gain a net charge, but there was something preventing it from electrocuting him — although he knew that the charge would carry over to the dagger.

He brought his cannon over his shoulder and rushed to meet the pillar's acquaintance. He cleared his throat as best he could and spoke as loud as he deemed necessary, although he couldn't see the Mallium behind the pillar.
"Let's just imagine that that timer," he pointed to the countdown with his charged dagger, "is hooked up to my cannon. Unless someone stops it, I'll start shooting at you. And let me tell you something: the chances of you worming your way out of that are very slim. What's it going to be? Do you like having a head?"

He held the dagger up in case the assassin tried anything funny. He was in no laughing mood.

((D*mn you time zones! Now Rhak have been overly arrogant and have just stayed in the same place ))
Rhak noticed the flashbang(?), and did a somersault backwards, and only got a minor disorientation. He soon came back to his full senses and watched the mallium battle Gresch and Xol. The following explosion almost knocked him out, and he could feel how one of his ribs had been damaged. But he forced himself up, feeling like a dagger had been jammed through one of his lungs.
"D*mn you arrogance." Rhak thought as he ran towards the mallium, or where he had seen it go. With a jump did he follow the mallium's path, his cybernetics working overtime as he finally came to the pillar.
He saw Flank, talking to the mallium.
"Gresch and Xol have soften him up. So let's take that son of-"

Azure was not one for conversation. In the time Rhak and Flank had wasted talking, he had dismounted the pillar, as yet unseen and unheard, and exchanged his stiletto for a different weapon.

While Flank and Rhak's attention was focused on the top of the pillar, Azure suddenly moved around it — leaping out on Flank's left side, swinging a silver streak of metal; his former comrade's malli moonblade.

Vermillion, left spilling her blood across the floor of a police station halfway across the city, had had no further use for the sword, and certainly the officials who had summarily arrested Azure hadn't known what to do with it. During his brief time in custody, he had retrieved it from their evidence locker, and given them what he considered a textbook demonstration. In appearance, it was remarkably similar to the blade Kwa even now had strapped to her back.

This was the weapon now sweeping rapidly out at Flank's midriff, cleaving the air before it in twain to make way for its deadly cutting edge.

Bor knew he wasn't doing any good at the console, so he turned around and aimed his guns at Azure to supplement Flank's cannon.

As Rhak addressed Fnak, the Mallium assassin suddenly dove out from behind the pillar bearing a weapon Bor remembered well - the moonblade Vermillion had tried to impale him with only hours earlier. Azure struck at Flank before Bor could fire, and now he couldn't shoot without risking Flank as well. He maintained his aim and waited for Azure to disengage.

Rhak noticed the larger blade the mallium now wielded. Seems he had abandoned the stealth approach.
Rhak ran to the mallium and made a redirectional move against the moonblade. If it succeded, Flank would go unharmed, and Rhak would have an opening.

Unfortunately the moonblade was already moving towards Flank when Rhak noticed it — by the time he had moved into position to make any kind of parry, Azure had already struck.

Even if Rhak hadn't come to Flank's aid in time, this was a chans to take the mallium off balance.
Rhak did a slicing movement from the bottom left to the upper right(in reverse for the mallium Left=right) with his dagger. Following up with a sweeping kick against the malliums left leg.

Flank spun on his heel, turning his back towards the Mallium. The blade bounced hopelessly off the curved metal plate on his back, but before Azure could counter, Flank continued his spin and lashed out with a hammer fist to his head with the same hand that held the electrically charged dagger.

Like Rhak, he followed through with a sweeping kick with his left leg, but then he stepped up and aimed a side kick to the assassin's knee. Should it hit, Azure would find out that Flank had his left jet boot on minimal thrust, by way of a burned knee.

By the time Flank put his foot back down — after deactivating his jet boot, of course — his cannon was already up to speed. He took aim, while checking to see if there was nobody behind Azure, and let fly with a supersonic bullet. He repeated the process, each time checking if there was no one and nothing behind his target that could accidentally receive one of his bullets.

Azure's head was the most well-armoured part of his body: the full visor worn by most Silent was the one piece of truly state-of-the-art technology they took on field missions The plating rivalled most armoured vehicles for strength, on top of its various hidden tricks, and could significantly disperse the force of most blunt impacts.

Azure allowed himself to turn with Flank's first strike, dancing backwards out of reach of the Ravis' kicks and Rhak's swipe — Flank had more armour and upper-body strength, but his opponent had reactions and agility as sharp as his blades, and a lot more reach with the moonblade in play.

The round from Flank's cannon flew wide, taking a significant chunk out of the wall some distance behind Azure, and the assassin moved in again with his sword in a backhanded sweep at waist level — with anything more than a glancing hit, even armour plating would have a hard time resisting the attack.

Flank wasn't fast enough to leap backwards out of the blade's reach, so he did what he deemed best in the situation: he parried.

The logic behind parrying a two handed swinging blade with a dagger lay in the fact that his dagger was still yet to find anything to vent its charge into. He braced his arm for the shock of the collision and brought the blade of the dagger forward to intercept the the moonblade.

They made contact, and louder than the clash of the two blades meeting was the CRACK of several dozen volts of electricity flowing from one into the other. The ensuing reflex action on Azure's part was enough to disrupt the swing of his moonblade, although the momentum wasn't affected. Flank's arm swung wildly in the direction of Azure's swing, but he wasn't hurt as far as he knew. He immediately took two, long, backwards steps out of Azure's reach and sent another two bullets bellowing at him.

He continued to back-pedal until he came to his rifle, which lay on the ground where he dropped it after being shocked by the dagger himself. He quickly exchanged weapons and brought the gun to bear on Azure.

There was a fleeting flash of white light as the two blades met — electricity arcing directly from the blade of Azure's sword into his arm, and the assassin stumbled as Flank stepped back. It was fortunate for him that the FLAK cannon was still not terribly precise at close range: the first round sent shards of a nearby pillar flying in all directions, and the second hit the floor just to Azure's right. Broken pieces of the floor exploded out from the point of impact, cutting the mallium's right leg badly.

Azure, however, was far from giving up with an opponent still standing: he stepped forwards on his left leg and swung again, the curved blade striking at a diagonal now, lower left to upper right, the adrenaline kicking in. He could ignore the pain of his wounds for a little longer. Longer, he imagined, than the Ravis could weather his continued onslaught.

"Damn it!" Flank croaked, "Hold still!"
His tolerance for Azure's evasiveness was at a bare minimum, and he wasn't feeling in control while the Mallium kept swinging his blade. What was more, his low blood pressure was taking effect again. He had to find a way to hurt the assassin before he exhausted Flank.

He aimed his cannon down at the floor as the moonblade came whistling through the air at him. The steel-carbon-kevlar alloy barrel deflected the hit, singing with the contact. Through his scope he could see that it left no serious mark, but he also caught sight of Azure's right leg. It was cut from the area of effect of his cannon.

He fired his rifle three times. At close range, the rifle would be a lot more accurate, so it effectively got Azure to back away. When he was far away enough, Flank aimed his cannon at the floor behind the Mallium and fired. Unlike Azure himself, the floor was an extremely hard to miss target. The loud bullet flew straight past the Mallium's leg and impacted exactly where it was intended to.

A host of floor shards splashed outwards at the impact zone, several striking the Mallium from behind. He fired with both his guns repeatedly; the rifle to keep Azure at distance and the cannon at the floor around and between his feet. Despite the urgency of the situation, Flank couldn't help but think one word: Dance. He began to circle his target.

((Am I to assume that we were never going to be able to stop that timer? Less than 10 seconds to extract a code from an aggressive assassin that is remarkable famous for being 'Silent'.))

Azure cottoned on to Flank's tactic as another round hit the floor behind him, shards of the broken floor cutting and bludgeoning the assassin's back as he moved to the side. He made for the pillar opposite, on the right near the doors, the FLAK cannon's blasts inflicting further damage on his body. It was mostly minor cuts and bruises, but by the time Azure reached the safety of the next pillar he had accrued quite the collection and was losing blood.

As soon as he had time to return the moonblade to its sheathe, he retaliated: a flashbang grenade flew out at Flank — aimed and cooked to detonate immediately at his feet — followed rapidly by a black throwing dagger, arcing out towards the Ravis at chest level.

_______________________


On the main screen, the countdown hit zero.

High above the surface of Ariid, Santa Frerraro's orbital beam cannon finally aligned with its pre-programmed target, and began excecuting the orders given to it by the Kingdom's agent.

On the skyline of Santa Frerraro, visible through the broken window, the sun was outshone. A massive beam of coruscating yellow light erupted from the sky, striking the Engineering District. The sound, thunderous and terrible, was beyond description. At the top of Sapphire Point, the walls groaned and the floor shook worryingly beneath the group's feet. Governor Dier was shouting something into the comms, but it was difficult to hear, and as of yet no-one was paying attention.

Flank did his best to kick the grenade that landed near his feet, but like the EMP grenade in Las Thaddas, it was already cooked to perfection. The detonation lived up to the name in both aspects, but neither were really designed for military Ravises. Having a FlaK cannon constantly fire less than two feet away from his aural sensors really gave him some sort of immunity to sound-based attacks, so he was left with a faint ringing that failed to completely drown out the sound of his own ragged breathing.

Also, lacking retinas, Flank wasn't susceptible to the otherwise blinding flash that flared up from his feet. Both of his visual inputs went white for a fleeting second before they resumed their usual optical feed. The flash was, however, enough to prevent Flank from noticing the dagger in time.

Because of Flank's sideways motion, the dagger didn't hit its mark on his chest. Rather, with a dull shuck, it buried itself between two of his ribs. Had it not glanced of the metal frame on one of the ribs, it would have found his heart.

Flank roared with pain, but with his poisoned voice and partial deafness he couldn't be sure if it was him at all. He just yelled at the ground as he clutched the dagger, but he made an effort to keep the thrower in his cannon's sights. Slowly, he righted himself, taking a step back to remain stable. With a slow, deliberate movement, he pulled the dagger out of his ribcage. Bleeding.

"You're dead!" he spat. He charged up his hand, wound his arm up and flung the dagger as hard as he could back at its owner. Thick, crimson blood pinwheeled off the blade as it gyrated through the air, and bright blue arcs flashed between the flecks. With one hand on his wound, he stood up as straight as he could. He took aim with his cannon — not at Azure but at the pillar he sheltered behind — and fired at it. The sound was strangely muffled, and he felt he could relax a little. He was positive he would have an empty clip very soon, so he wanted to spend his remaining bullets on something he was sure he could hit.

The steel round collided beautifully with the middle of the pillar, and a chunk of it exploded into a geyser of dust and a halo of sharp rocks. He stopped, took a shuddering breath, a step to the left, and shot the pillar again, garnering similar results. He took a step backwards and to the right and took another shot. Soon, he hoped, he could rip the Mallium apart with stone shrapnel, score a direct hit, or collapse the roof on top of him. Either way he resolved to be the death of that assassin. He kept taking steps in random directions, hoping that his ballroom dance would be enough to avoid being hit again.

"You're dead!" Flank screamed towards the mallium.
Rhak had again left himself out of most of the fight. Now he came back, moving fast towards the mallium. He had switched his dagger to his left hand and held his pistol in his right.
He reached out towards the mallium neck with his left arm, while closing in with his pistol at point-blanc distance.
At the same time did he do a sweeping kick against the malliums injured right leg.
Suddenly the ravis started shooting around the room. He was to prone to anger, Rhak thought.
Patience is a virtue.

Azure now had both his hands free, and used them to his advantage: Rhak's knife was stopped in its tracks as his arm was gripped by the wrist. A blaster bolt grazed the assassin's side, but it was only a split second before Azure reacted; pushing the pistol away from his body with his left arm, the fore-limb sheathed in a smooth metal bracer.

The mallium's counter was to twist around as Flank began to demolish the pillar behind him — Rhak became a fully-functioning meat shield as a cascade of broken pieces of pillar exploded outwards; many of them sharp, but all impacting with significant force, peppering Rhak's back.


Governor Dier, meanwhile, continued to try and contact the Rangers through the comms. He sounded desperate.

The drone was pleased with itself in its own robotic way. It sent over one mech to check Grey's vital signs, and fell for the fake flatline the suit was projecting. It began powering itself down, along with the remainder of the mechs, however, the people who infiltrated sapphire point also made some modifications to the mechs in order to cover their tracks, the command drone, along with all the other mechs, began exploding in a systematic fashion, one after the other, componets and circuitry flew and bored holes into the surrounding floor and staircase, and eventually everything fell silent. The mechs were gone for good.

----

Grey began slowly waking up, his eyes only allowing narrow spits of light to enter his pupils, he groaned and began looking around, and saw that the floor was covered in mech parts.

"What happened here..." he lazily slurred. He began trying to stand up, but quickly recceded down when the pain in his abdomen and shoulder bit back.

"Oh... Right." He got on his legs and began trying to stand up.

"How long have I been under?" Grey asked himself.

"Approxamately thirty seconds. The anesthetic used was tainted and relatively impotent." His suit chimed in.

Grey swore to himself and began limping to the door. Only to have his focus broken again by a man screaming into the Ranger's channel. Grey switched on his commlink and responded to the desperate voice.

"This is Grey, one of the newer members. It looks like my comerades are too busy to answer you, but luckily they left me to die in this nice quiet spot. What do you need?" Grey slurred, he hoped the guy on the other end could understand him. He sounded like he had way too much to drink.

"Oh thank Spode!" Governor Dier sighed in relief, "Everything's going to hell here: The Kingdom are using our defence satellite to burn a hole right through the city as we speak. When that beam weapon breaks through the upper layers it'll hit the engine's drive cores — if someone can't stop it, reprogram the satellite, there won't be a city left to save!"

The debris that hit Rhak, despite the best effort to cause him harm, didn't. Even if the sharpness would have cause severe damage on himself unshielded, now it only cause bruises. It also added to the broken rib Rhak had gotten from the explosion.
Rhak didn't wait for the debris to finish raining, and through his pain caused dizzines he lay all his weight down, forcing the mallium that still had a grab on him to follow with him as Rhak fell to the ground.

As Rhak used his body weight to shove Azure onto his back, the mallium braced one knee against his opponent's chest, attempting to flip him over with his own momentum and regain his own footing. Azure did not plan to waste time grappling with his opponent on the ground.

Rhak responded to the mallium's action with a unusual line of conversation. By headbutting the mallium followed up by kicking its right leg.
Rhak also did a roll with his left wrist, making the hand fall under the mallium's grip. He now could swing the dagger back and forth, even though the distance was limited.

The assassin jolted as if hit by an electric shock as Rhak lashed out at the injured limb. Azure released his opponent's wrist, rolling sideways across the floor, out of reach, and back to his feet — now noticeably keeping his weight off the damaged leg, but even more noticeably holding another two blades. In his left was a curved, serrated knife designed for slashing and in his right another throwing dagger drawn from a bandolier across his chest — the second of five.

This second blade spent only a fraction of a second in his hand, however; Azure wasted no time in sending it spinning across the room to snag Rhak's legs.

Through the explosive FWAK-KA!s of his cannon, and through his muffled hearing, Flank could here a vaguely familiar voice. He stopped firing and strained his hearing sense to try and recognise the owner of the voice. He could.

"Grey!" Flank croaked, "Shoot, man, you're alive! Look, I know this looks bad, but that's mainly because it is. We've been holed up in here trying to take care of this absolute blister who's really good at not dying. I hate people like that. I'd be down there already, but this guy won't hold still and he's hell bent on killing us as well. I'll try and get you a souvenir."

Azure and Rhak emerged from behind the pillar. To continue shooting with Rhak in the line of fire would be very irresponsible. He set down the rifle and picked up the dagger again, charging it as he did so. Already the assassin was hurling another dagger, this was no time to waste.

He checked his left wing quickly. While it was still weak and would probably rip through the stitches if he tried to use it to its full extent, Grey's stem cell serum had healed it a little bit, speeding up the healing process. It wouldn't rip if he used it infrequently.

He took two, bounding steps, jumped into the air, spread his wings and activated his jet boots. They roared to life and sent Flank shooting through the air towards Azure. He held the charged dagger out in front of him as he homed in on the Mallium, prepared to stab, tackle, or counter him.

"Well, I hate to say it, but I have no have no clue what the hell you're talking about. But let me drag myself upstairs and ask someone who does know the current situation. And for the love of spode, stop screaming into your microphone, you're giving me a headache."

Grey began making his way up the stairs, clutching his pistol. He looked down to see that his abdomen was still wet with blood, his species had a defensive measure that automatically clots any veins that are opened during injury, and can partially clot arteries, but blood was still slowly seeping out of his wound. He would have to do something about that soon, but he wanted to get to the top of sapphire point and tell the others about what the nice mortified man on the comms had told him.

After several flights of stairs full of pain and swearing, he eventually made his way to the peak of sapphire point, only to see several of the Rangers in combat with a shadowy figure, who was currently throwing around Rhak like a rag doll. He knew he couldn't do anything to help him, so he made his way over to Dagon.

"Hey, boss. You wouldn't believe what this guy on the other sides of the comm is telling me. It may involve this city spontaneously falling from the sky."

((And yes, I know it would take more than a few seconds to get Grey up the staircase, but screw logic. I have information.))