Nerrone's Rangers IC

((This is why we have comlinks. ))

Dagon, too, had been giving the fight a wide berth thus far: until he could get a clear shot at their assailant without risking the lives of any of the Rangers he could only watch, combat rifle at the ready, while beyond Sapphire Point Santa Frerraro quaked from the sustained impact of its own orbital cannon.


He registered surprise at Grey's sudden appearance, but chose to hold back any questions in that vein, at least for now. He instead turned his attention to the comms, and Governor Dier swiftly relayed the same message Grey had received.

"...But we can do bugger all here!" He protested, "The terminals are all in lockdown, we're getting nowhere without the access code."

There was a pause on the line and the sound of computer keys being pressed frantically.

"Aha!"

"You have something!?" Dagon was more than a little surprised.

"Yes! The protocols are all laid out here: Report from the head tech say the code is... 8-512-317!" The governor was almost ecstatic at this development. He had a good view of the devastation being wrought by the orbital beam. He sincerely wished that he did not. Where the beam met the city, in the centre of the Engineering District, a whirling vortex of molten metal and searing heat pummelled Santa Frerraro. He could even see people, inhabitants of the sparse slum-like tenements dotting the district, fleeing in all directions away from the white-hot column of energy. Anarchy reigned in the streets of his city.

((Anyone listening to their comms can hear this exchange.))

Rhak saw the thrown dagger and took a step back with his right leg, doing a piruette like movement, letting the dagger fly past him.
He continued by shooting a few shots towards the mallium, then with a fluid movement taking away the pistol into its holster while switching his dagger from the left to the right arm.
Rhak then started to run towards the mallium.

By the time Rhak reached him, Azure had switched back to the moonblade, reacting to his opponent's foolhardy rush by equipping the weapon best suited for keeping him out of reach. As Rhak approached, the mallium took a step forwards and swung his blade in a semicircular arc, sword cutting through the air like a streak of silver lightning, aiming for Rhak's chest.

Rhak responded by gliding against the floor again aiming towards the mallium's right leg. He then did a sommersault to kick away the moonblade.
"You're not the only one with reflexes."

((This is my last post for the week. Potato, you're taking over.))

Azure dodged aside as Rhak slid past him, stepping back out of reach again as his opponent attemped to disarm him, before bringing the moonblade back around and making another swipe: a diagonal cut, lower left to upper right.

Flank had almost homed in on Azure when the assassin brought both hands back to make a swipe at Rhak.
"Oh, no you don't." he mumbled, ending his flight. He veered upward to get his feet beneath himself and hit the ground running. Before the Mallium could put any forward momentum into his strike, Flank tapped the moonblade with the charged dagger.

Azure jolted as several volts of electricity ran up his arms, through his narrow body, down both legs and into the ground. It wasn't enough to cause serious electrocution, but it halted his swing and hurt his injured leg.

Rhak jumped forward into arm's reach of the Mallium as soon as he saw the Ravis foil Azure's attack. With both his arms — and his moonblade — held behind him to the left, Azure was wide open to attacks on his right. Rhak knew that the assassin wouldn't be able to hit him at such close range. It would boil down to small knives again.

Flank hooked the blade of the dagger through the handle of the moonblade and pulled it back, negating Azure's ability to bring it forward again. Without the option of moving it, Azure would have to drop it to be able to attack. Flank settled into a low stance with his legs slightly back and his left hand held up, anticipating an attack from the assassin.

Rhak blocked the Mallium's right arm with his right hand so that he wouldn't be able to bring that arm forward. With his left, he took a swipe at the bandolier with his dagger in the hope of removing it.

Azure pulled back out of the pincer maneuver rapidly encircling him, the moonblade clattering against the ground as he released it. His bandolier survived. The assassin back-pedalled, vaulting clumsily over the right-side bank of computers to temporarily cover himself from further attacks by troublesome firearms. He was injured, burned, cut and bloody, but he was not out of tricks yet.

Taking a moment to interface with his visor's neural command system, a small panel opened on the mask, from which the mallium drew a slender hypodermic needle. Wasting no more time, he plunged the needle into his chest, releasing into his bloodstream the volatile chemical cocktail within. This all took no more than five seconds to transpire.
____________________________

"...It's not working!" Dagon's heart fell as the code Dier had supplied failed to move the lock-down.

"Dammit, dammit DAMMIT," Governor Dier was not feeling much better about the situation than Dagon, "They changed the code!" There was silence on the line as the governor racked his brains, looking for a way out.

"They must have their own computer," he said, "A laptop, a portable field computer, a smart phone, ANYTHING that could contain the code. Is there anything — can you access their—"

"Governor Dier!" This was a new voice, coming from somewhere in the background on Dier's side of the line — the tones were authoritative, and the speaker seemed less than pleased. There was a sudden noise on the comms as Dier's headset was hastily put down. The transmission cut.
____________________________

"Ah, Commander! You surprised me, I—"

"We heard everything, Dier."

The governor paled, and the Coalition's chosen representative, flanked by a pair of officers from Frerraro's own security force, glowered: "Do you have any idea what you are doing!"

Dier squirmed under the heat of the officer's glare, but rallied valiantly, his experience as a diplomat coming through to back him up: "What no-one else was willing to do! I'm the only one here getting things done!"

"My squad is out there right now: those men are risking their lives on board that cruiser trying to safeguard your populace," the Coalition Commander replied, "and what have you accomplished? Putting classified information into the hands of unknown third parties? Stealing prototype technology and supplying it to dangerous criminals? That beam tearing a hole in your precious city: are you certain they didn't cause it?"

"You don't understand! If you'd just—"

"Enough. You are under arrest, governor. Men: please escort mister Dier to his quarters. Ensure he remains there until this situation has been resolved, and justice can be served. I'm going up there — to the tower."

Dier submitted to the pair of cuffs profferred to him by the police officer, but turned and gave his discoverer one last exasperated look.

"You are insane!"

"...We shall see about that."

Grey continued watching from the sidelines, keeping his pistol ready in case the fight came over to him. He was next To Dagon at one of the computer banks, listening in their conversation and making sure that Dagon didn't get ambushed with his back turned. He tried his best to not look out into the city, the things that were happening in the Engineering district were the sort of things that would keep you awake at night, and he already had more than a few bad memories already.

Grey snapped back to attention, from what he could hear, the code didn't work, and the governor sounded like a teenager trying to explain himself to his parents when they catch him or her looking at less than appropriate content on the extranet. Grey figured that they wouldn't be getting any help from the governor from that point forward.

They were back to square one, and people were still dying.

Then it hit him.

He limped over to Dagon, and gave him a serious look. He needed to assure that Dagon wouldn't write off what he would say next as a joke.

"Do you think Flanks cannon could be capable of firing at a target in orbit with the right modifications? I may have an idea."

Dagon shook his head, "That'd be like trying to kill someone a kilometer away with a peashooter — no gun that can be carried is gonna have the range or power to knock out a satellite in orbit, even if you knew where to aim."

Flank slumped to the ground with a hand on his stab wound as Azure dashed away. "Almost had him."
"He's a skittish one," agreed Rhak, "but at least we've disarmed him. It looks like we really hurt him, too."
"Yeah well," Flank said, checking his wound, "an eye for an eye. That's the expression, right?"
"Pretty much." Rhak said, walking away.
"Where are you going?" Flank asked, following the Acheen with his cannon.

Rhak returned holding the rifle they shared, the second stiletto dagger and the throwing daggers they dodged and got stabbed with respectively. He put them on the floor next to the moonblade.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm collecting the weapons so that he can't use them." Rhak said flatly. "We should be using these instead of a frigging cannon, Flank!"
"Fair enough." Flank said, picking up the stiletto.

"Speaking of which," Rhak said, equipping the throwing knives, "Grey was talking about you."
"Probably about the way I left him for dead, right?"
"No, it was something about your cannon. Your cannon and modifying it." He picked up the rifle and replaced the clip.

Flank sat up. "Modifying my cannon?"
"Yeah. As if you weren't doing enough damage already."
"Fair point." Flank groaned, rolling onto his side. "Could you help me up?"
"No thanks. You're not light. Anybody can see that."
"I'm only a quarter-ton, give me a break." Flank used his cannon as a stilt to prop himself up, before he lumbered over to Dagon and Grey. He was just in time to hear the Arthinnil dismiss the idea of his cannon taking out the orbital weapon.

"Fun-killer," he said, taking note of Grey's abdomen. It was stained with silver blood.
Ah, crap. Flank thought, I'm in for it deep.
"Besides, what do you know about my cannon, anyway? What do you suggest we do instead? Wait until it gets bored of shooting cities?"

"I remember that thing being capable of firing anti-air rounds, if we can tinker with the round itself, we could probably increase its effective range and explosive radius. Accuracy isn't the idea here, if we can get the blast to his the far side of that orbital cannon, we can probably manuallly redirect it, if you know what I mean. It should at least buy us some time to get this all sorted out."

Grey took a deep breath, and cringed. It hurt to breathe, not a very good sign. He would have to seal this wound up pretty soon. But he had some more important things to do. He was about to check to see how the fight was going until he saw flank standing right next to him. Grey remembered what happened minutes ago, and frowned.

"We're going to need to talk after this is all said and done, Flank. But right now we have work to do. How much ammo do you have left? We need to make one of your rounds a couple hundred times more powerful, and break about every intergalactic gun law in exsistance."

"I dunno what we're going to do," Dagon said to Flank, "Dier mentioned something about a computer belonging to the enemy before he lost contact — but I don't see one, and our man doesn't look like a smart-phone kinda guy."

Kwa, still keeping vigil with her own blade at the ready, called back to the group: "Dagon's right. You aren't going to be able to hit a geosynchronous satellite, no matter what you cobble together in the next two minutes — it's tens of thousands of miles above the surface of the planet. If nothing else, that beam would have time to finish its job, move to a new location and maybe grab lunch along the way before you could hit it."

Spode, how long has it been since I've eaten?

((Science! —Assuming Ariid is of similar size to Earth, given the lack of notably stronger or weaker gravity.))

"Then we'll settle for the next best target." Grey gestured towards the Kingdom's ship.

"For all we know, they could be controlling this thing remotely themselves. There may be a computer around here, but we could force them to flee if we hit them hard enough." Grey then gave the group a grim smile.

"Or we could take out the Engines and get rid of the problem for good. Either way, we're going to need to turn these things into minerature ballisitic warheads. I doubt they would have their shields on at this point, we just need to find a weak spot to exploit."

"They wouldn't have their shields up?" Dagon replied, "What makes you so certain of that?"

"If they could control it remotely," Kwa said, "They wouldn't have needed to keep their man here once they got access to the hub."

"Do you see anyone trying to fight back? It seems like a waste of perfectly good energy to have shields up over a city that you've completely decimated. And two, they probably have a remote link to this facility, that guy was probably here to keep it up and away from intruders. Does he look like a computer expert to you?"

Grey looked over to the Assassin's location, and became nervous.

"Has anyone finished that guy off? I'd rather not take the chance." Grey snapped back to attention.

"Anyway, even if they had shields up, I don't think they could protect against a shockwave, we can't destroy it, but we could probably knock it to its side and force it down, we just need to find a way to produce a big enough shockwave."

"Crap, guys," Flank said, "you're supposed to be shooting down that weapon, not our ideas. You know Dagon, when we were in Las Thaddas, I left you lot to sort something out in the city? I was giving my closest — and only — friend a heads up to get off the city before you could send it to the ground. I wish I could say he's still on Las Thaddas, Dagon. But that's not at all likely. He's on this city, that I sent him to to start a better life than the one in a pest-ridden apartment the two of us used to live!"

He gestured out the window at the light beam. "I would rather not read about him in the frigging obituaries, Dagon! I would rather read about a mysterious black Mallium who took a FlaK bullet to the head after reading an article about how somebody shot down the orbital weapon. You think I'm not close enough? Fine! Take me closer! Let's get in the ship, where I keep all of my powerful ammunition, and get me into the stratosphere!"

He took a deep breath. "Honestly, what are you waiting for?"

Rhak appeared by his side, holding the moonblade in addition to the rifle.
"Are you talking about shooting down the orbital weapon with Flank's cannon?"

"Dammit Flank, I want this nightmare to end as much as you do," Dagon replied, managing to keep his tone level, "Just — this is just crazy, alright? How could we even—" He paused and took a deep breath.

"I've seen people get desperate and do crazy things before. Things get real ugly real fast. We need to keep it cool here — time isn't on our side." He grimaced.

"Movement!" Kwa called. Several meters away, standing on top of the right-side computer bank, was the assassin. He was no longer standing like someone with wounds all over his body, though blood still seeped from his injured leg and chest. In fact he was completely still, frozen in a low stance. Most of the sheaths at his belt were empty, though his bandolier still hosted three more throwing knives, and the only protection remaining to him was his left shoulder guard, metal bracers and visor. In each hand he wielded a wicked-looking curved, serrated blade.

"Well you'd better have a good plan then," Flank said gruffly, turning around, "because things are already ugly."
He took aim at the still figure on the computer banks with his cannon, but he wondered why Azure had chosen to stand absolutely motionless when he was still in the evident danger of being shot to pieces. He held the stiletto daggers up in both hands in case it was a trick.

Rhak had the same thought process, because he held his dagger and the barrel of the rifle in the same hand, in case he needed to use a close ranged weapon in a hurry. He had dropped the moonblade by Dagon's feet.

The two shared a glance, before they looked back at the Mallium and fired.

Azure was no longer there.

When Rhak and Flank's shots passed over the bank of computers, Azure had already closed the distance. Coming in on Flank's right, the ravis now between him and Rhak, the assassin struck. Both serrated blades lashed out in unison at Flank.

Something had changed. Where before his attacks had held a sort of elegance, they were now brutal, almost mechanical — and fast. Faster than they had ever been. It was a challenge, now, even to properly perceive his movement.

Behind the expressionless visor of the Silent One, Azure's mind screamed bloodlust.

Grey had already pulled out his pistol and took aim at Azure as he charged Flank, but he was moving too fast. He couldn't get an accurate shot.

"God damn it! Why didn't you finish this guy off?!"

He was rushing Flank with two blades that could cut anyone in two, Grey decided that it would be too risky to shoot Azure, and he would be cut to pieces if he tried hand-to-hand combat, so he settled for the next best thing. He grabbed his pistol and connected it to his suit's heat sinks, he only did this when he had to fire shots in rapid succession, it would normally harmlessly absorb any heat the pistol created and vented it into the surrounding air, but that wasn't Grey's idea. He switched off his heatsinks, moved behind a desk, and began firing into the roof. The heat level in his suit quickly began to climb to critical levels. His suit would have to vent the excess heat soon.

He was about to turn himself into a walking flamethrower, he just hoped Azure didn't notice.

Flank managed to catch both blades with the dagger in his right hand, but Azure was quick in engaging Flank's left hand with one of the knives. They stood there, pressing the blades of their knives against each other, trying to gain the upper ground. Flank was on the inside, while Azure pressed in on him, trying to overpower him.
He remembered the use of tension work, applied when two combatants engaged their hands and either one had to ensure that the other did not gain the upper hand. This was done by paying attention to the opponent's hands and negating the movement. It was usually done by locking wrists together, so Flank didn't really have a reference point as he braved Azure with only two daggers.

The problem was, he couldn't charge up his hands to get the Mallium to back down. The attack was triggered by a wrist movement that his battery registered before applying a net charge to his hands through insulated conductors in his arms. Since Azure was pressing so hard against his hands, trying to trigger the attack would give him the upper hand before a volt could get into his knives.

Their strengths matched as they fought their stalemate: Azure, a physically refined assassin trained in almost every kind of combat and stealth versus Flank, an experienced Ravis Ex-Admiral who endured months of body building before receiving FlaK hybrid implants that would weigh him down for years to come, and had lived under their weight for almost fifteen years.

Flank's position prohibited the use of most of his limbs to attack. His legs were the only thing keeping him up, his arms were both heavily engaged, and he couldn't reach around them with his cannon or wings. But he could still out-limb the Mallium any day. He released a low snarl before lashing out with his claw-like head, of all things. His two foot long neck was sufficient to reach his clamp-like mouth across the gap between him and Azure and jab harshly at his visor.

He drew his head back and pecked again, aiming at a different spot on the assassin's mask. He began to attack faster, but he remained wary of the Mallium's obvious intent of bringing one of the daggers out of the stalemate and slice his neck. He countered the possibility by shifting his own knives away and hooking them around Azure's wrists, so that they were trapped between Flank's daggers and wrists.

With Azure's hands held away from his body, he could nip at him with impunity, although he still had to donate a large portion of his remaining stamina to keeping the Silent One from bringing his knives down onto his collarbone.

It had taken Rhak two precious seconds to fully register that Azure had pulled a fast one on them, but since he couldn't get close to Flank without risking a knife to the collarbone, he decided to get behind the Mallium. He gave the two a wide birth as he jogged sideways around them, but once he got fully behind the assassin he didn't know what to do.

Anyone could expect the lithe creature to expertly shift its thin body to dodge incoming fire, only for it to strike its enemy, and since they could lash their tails out like horrible, organic maces, nobody could get close behind it to shove a knife between its vertebrae.

Rhak figured that Azure wouldn't be able to move his feet, so he took a careful, patient aim and fired at the Silent One's left foot.

Grey's skin began getting quite warm as his suit began overheating. Several flashing red alerts started showing up on his visor, and he could feel his skin begin to burn. It was now or never, he had to vent the heat now or risk extensive bodily injury. He vaulted over the desk and began limping to the fight scene. Grey brought up both wrists, where two of his four heat sinks were located, and pointed them at Azure. He locked up the Hydraulics in his shoulder and legs to prevent further injury and to keep him from falling back from the blowback the heat sinks venting suddenly would produce.

"Flank! Get clear! It's about to get really hot over there!."

Grey engaged his heatsinks, and two focused beams of superheated gas shot out of his wrists towards Azure and flank

((I'm back! And I'm... Assuming Direct Control))
Rhak had concentrated hardly as he shot against the mallium. It had apprarently lost all rational thought and now went on a berserk craving blood. Their, blood.
The moonblade would sink Rhak down if he had to get into close-combat again. But he didn't plan to let the mallium get close.

"I... can't... really... move... Grey!" Flank struggled to get the words out as he struggled to keep Azure from knifing him in the collarbone. If he so much as lifted a leg the Mallium would overbalance him and finish him. He had to resist the Silent One's push to stay relatively safe. That is, until he remembered the principal of rock and water.

Rock and water is a way of thinking that promotes the idea that one should resist others as much as one should go along with them, like rock or water respectively. As Flank stood there, locked with Azure, he planned his movements.

First, he would give in to the right, and move to the left. That would make Azure pass by his right. He would let go of Azure's left hand, but not his right, because it was still close enough to attack with. With his free right hand, Flank would hook onto Azure's right hand, thus freeing his left. As he moved his right foot, he would perform the short movement of the heel which would activate his jet boot on that side.

He did it. He leaned back and to the left, ceasing to resist Azure's pressure. The Mallium fell to Flank's right. He moved his right foot back, out of the way of the Silent One, tapping the inside of the boot's heel with his foot. He let go of Azure's left hand and used it to trap his right, freeing his own left hand. His boot roared to life, and he pushed Azure's hand away as he zoomed away from the assassin.

"Now!"

As Flank disengaged from him, Azure turned to see Grey advancing, suit venting a stream of searing gas directly at him. The mallium staggered backwards a step and fell to one knee as the wall of heat hit him, taking as much to his visor and left shoulder guard as possible. It wasn't enough. The cloud of gas enveloped him, inflicting terrible burns to the flesh on his torso and upper arms. When Grey's suit ended its cooldown cycle and the stream of gas died down, the creature kneeling on the ground was not a pretty sight to behold.

Azure shuddered in place, large sections of his upper body now a mess of peeling skin and cauterised flesh. His hands still gripped the two serrated blades. What remained of his bloodstream yet flowed with the potent chemical cocktail that had sustained him despite his previous wounds. Slowly, like some undead creature compelled by arcane forces to move against the will of nature, Azure returned to his feet. He lifted his two knives, the weapons looking heavier in his hands by the minute, and took up an attacking stance, now angled towards Grey.