"Has it occurred to you that we may be doomed? Well... it's occurred to me."
Well... maybe not. Use Memento Mori!
The entire cubicle gains an outline labelled "Probable Situational Death". Additional paths go up and the walls of the cubicles, or through them accompanied with a downwards arrow presumably indicating that the wall needs to be lowered first. Those paths are labelled "Acceptable Possibility of Death".
You aren't as screwed as you think you are.
We've altered your reflexes, amongst other things.
Should the shrapnel-lined maw of death seek to consume you, you could always slap that bitch and haul ass away.
Or you know, just deflect their grenade away.
"..Well, damn uh... We could try opening the blast doors and running. Really fast." He watched the soldiers for a moment, before muttering under his breath, '22 01'.
One of the soldiers move over above your cubicle and waves.
"You know the drill. Surrender and give us any Alcubierre Drives you have, or a grenade goes down there."[COMP: 5/3] You get a sleek digital wristwatch, it's quite light thanks to its thin design. It lacks any indicator as to it's model, brand or manufacturer.
"What was that?"The soldier draws their rifle and points it at you, visibly shaken, presumably because you just conjured a watch from thin air.
"Now that's new. I finally get to shoot something during a patrol."
Engage the PUPPETs. Rip them apart with my chaingun.
It seems that these are the derpy variety of System League frames seeing as they don't even move as you open fire on their tightly packed formation, rounds tearing into the armor. All except one. The one in the center does not fall.
Indeed, as the broken PUPPET frames fall, it becomes clear that the survivor is different. It looked like a PUPPET when positioned in their midst thanks having the head component of one, but the rest of it is quite different.
Its arms are immediately recognizable as being from a LUPUS frame, even possessing the integrated chaingun on one of them. Though judging by the scorch marks and nonstandard armor, they weren't installed, rather they look like they've been taken from a fallen frame and somehow attached to the core. It's a wonder they are even functional. Behind both of its shoulders are strange formations which appear to be twin computer clusters, albeit bent in circular arcs with peculiar protrusions facing inwards with no discernible purpose. The legs are stranger still, bearing the hallmark streamlined design and thruster bulges of a larger frame. It really shouldn't be able to maintain balance, or really withstand the weight of the rest of the frame.
The core is of a rather sharp, angular design, presumably designed so that attacks either glance off the slants or are forced to penetrate further in order to cause any real damage. Oddly, at where it's limbs are attached, there seems to be some sort of oily black goo slowly leaking from it, it seems to be leaking from the joints as well albeit at an even slower rate and in lesser quantities.
"What the hell is that thing?"Electricity begins arcing from the regions where the arms, legs, and clusters are attached, discharging at irregular though definitely shortening intervals. In the center of the broken circle formed by the clusters, a pinpoint hole appears, filled with radiant light. It expands growing in size until it becomes a shifting region of twisted space with indistinct boundaries, vaguely spherical with diameter roughly half that of the cluster array, it baths the frame with a green glow. Seeing as it isn't moving yet, it's probably to be powering up and, if it's anything like an NEE frame, you still have a bit of time before it becomes fully operational.
"Well aren't you an adorable little bugger. I'll call yeh 'Jack'. OH SHET! Quick Jack, THE BAR'S UNDER ATTACK"
Check through the door of the damage. Aim rifle.
As you approach the door with Jack in tow, Wallace dives out through the window and scrambles to his feet.
Entering the door, the sickly sweet scent envelops you once more. Though now, it is not so much a whiff as much as it's a pervasive, intoxicating stench. Drawing your rifle, you take aim at, the odd liquid figure and the quadcopter behind it.
"Oh hey look at that, time to go!"
Grab the mace and duck out the back way! If there's no back way, just the nearest available exit. Get away from that drone.
If it attacks me, scream 1e 34 at it.
As a sickly sweet scent fills the room, you find that the mace has unfortunately been shattered upon impacting against a wall, though you still do manage to scoop up some of the larger shards of it as you run in search for another exit. Turns out there isn't any other than the window. The shattered window lined with broken glass. Welp.
People normally don't look at that and decide that they like the odds. Nor would they actually then attempt to do so with utmost confidence that they will succeed. Yet seemingly from instinct, you do. Leaping off of a table, you dive straight though the window with uncharacteristic agility, easily clearing the glass and coming to a stop on the footpath outside. Huh, you're completely unharmed, not even a graze.
I see that you've familiarized yourself with your new capabilities.
Ao Shi
"You just keep impressing me..." Ao says with admiration when witnessing her wallsitting technique.
As for enemy soldiers he says "Yeah, don't worry. No killing is gonna happen around here and hopefully not outside either, but that's not entirely in my hands. I'm not soldier, just an engineer who knows how to drive this thing. And judging from that explosion it's probably more like 'foes one minute, friends now', don't you think? Because while I'm not a strategist I'm fairly sure your side wouldn't start bombing the colony while having your own guys inside so it is probably third party trying to screw over us all.
So how about this; we team up and get the fuck out of here, preferrably all alive and let hotheads above decide later what was supposed to happen?"
Persuade.
If succesful, then figure out a way to get LATRANS out of the assembly chamber without having power to do so normally. ((Although I kinda want rest of the missing stuff installed, but I probably won't have time for that.)) If I can't get my frame out then see if it is possible to break it out by its own force. If not, then might as well abandon it.
If I get my frame out then retreat to center while carrying a whole lot of people and recommend soldiers to order the auto frame stay behind. I'm not trusting it if it can be remote controlled.
If not, then do same but simply without it.
If persuasion is not succesfull, then say "Well, we have a problem then. Any suggestions? Anyone?"
With no source of power for the chamber, you have little choice but to smash your way through the rear wall which, as it turns out, is quite easy to do thanks to the size and strength of the LATRANS.
"Shit, I was kinda hoping that whatever made that noise was your side's doing. Okay, yeah, teaming up sounds great, where we will be headed?"The squad of soldiers cautiously begins to pick their equipment back up and proceed to help the engineers climb onto, and anchor themselves to the frame.
"Not sure if the PUPPET is going to stay there if it's orders are overriden, but, it's probably gonna have a hell of a time trying to get outta the building without manual guidance."Exiting the chamber, you see the storm for the first time. Perhaps, it is even the first time you've seen one with you own two eyes, after all the only rain inside this colony is from vapor condensing and falling back down in sparse quantities. This however is different, this is a blanketing mass of grey clouds covering the ceiling. Lightning flashing endlessly, either arcing amidst the tempest, or crashing down from it. It's still a few kilometers away thankfully, but it seems to be growing, slowly expanding to cover more and more.
You run across the facility lateral to the storm seemingly at speeds somewhat higher than what the LATRANS should be capable of. Oddly, even if you factor in the lower weightload it is carrying, it is still running a bit
too fast. As you race towards the colonial center, Red apparently levitating just outside the cockpit, you pass by the entrance of the main facility, which has turned into a battleground of sorts between 6 (which soon fell to 3) Auto Frames, 3 LUPUS units, and an inexplicably wall-running PHAROAH.
"Is this what your pilots normally do? Or were they just showing off?"You end up just outside the facility on the side facing the colonial center. There don't seem to be any hostiles nearby, at least, not yet.
"Roger, I'm back. Looks like the curse is real, which I assume you were aware of. Fan-fucking-tastic. How the hell did Dead Hand make this, magic? Anyway, I'm going to restrain the arms. Also, it seems there's a storm up here. Any idea what caused it?" Beirus reports to command.
"Jus, you have any information on the construction of the Pharoah? How it was made or why it's cursed? Seems like magic to me, but I've never actually seen or heard of any real magic before. Also, you know anything about that anomalous storm?" Beirus asks Jus as he goes through the arm restraint procedures.
He heads into the main area of the facility. If he runs into any System League infantry, he offers them a chance to surrender. "This is Pilot Beirus O'Greenahan of the NEE. Cease all hostile actions and surrender, or I will use this autocannon to blow you into so many tiny pieces that they'll use a pill capsule as the coffin at your funeral. If you surrender, you will not be harmed. Also, the wonderful weather that just sprang up might warrant a bit of consideration in the time you take deciding whether or not you really want to refuse to surrender."
Restrain the arms. Check if the two pilots with damaged frames want to continue the mission. If not, send them back to HQ. Head into the facility with my squad and offer any System League infantry we meet the chance to surrender. If they attack, fire on them with the autocannon.
The restraint systems are not fully repaired yet, they're presently at 47% integrity and the console is refusing to let you reactivate them at anywhere below 90%.
"No damn clue, all we know is that it's expanding and there's some sort of structure in the middle of it that shouldn't be there. As far as we're concerned, it just appeared out of thin air. We're getting similar reports on Floor 1 about unidentified enemy units, we're hoping that it's just the System League flanking with new units or something."Well, it isn't 'real' magic. But it's about as close as you'll get to it. It's made using the same kind of reality distortion effect we've given you.
AF01-PHAROH units are primarily based upon the AF01-LUPUS frame, their main point of difference is in their integrated weapons, which
unsurprisingly, are also where the supernatural effects come into play. They very much are prototypes.
Those arms are bewitched, not too strongly, but enough that their users become a bit bloodthirsty and able to use them better
than if they had not been augmented that way. Depending on their mental attributes, however this may instead twist a pilot's
thoughts to the point that they are possessed by those arms without even realizing it. There have been reports of some pilots
even being driven to killing themselves because they could not satisfy the bloodlust of these weapons, things like biting off
their own tongues and choking to death on the blood during training, all while laughing madly. Or gurgling. Let's just say
the first few days were very eventful for the councilors.
Those chains bind them, weaken their effects. But they also build up the power within them, causing a surge when they are released,
proportional to the time spent bound, up to a certain limit of course. I would wager that it is one of the reasons why the PUPPET crash
didn't cause too much structural damage - the energy pulse unleashed with the arms would have struck it and counteracted some of its
impact force.
The auto-cannon's properties should more obvious: it doesn't carry any ammo. If it did, you'd have trouble keeping balance in
between the bound arms and the weight of the rounds. Plus, they would've run the risk of detonating in the case of an electrical failure.
Instead, it summons a round into existence just as its needed. No need to cycle in new rounds, no risk of jamming. Very reliable.
By itself.
Issues start happening around its electronic firing system. It's basically trying to interface something magical with something that
was never really designed with that in mind. Plus, they had to make sure that the arms themselves couldn't access them either.
So the electronics aren't too reliable. Sometimes they might fail to start firing. Or they might fair to start firing. Or have an
inconsistent rate of fire.
That storm is, something else entirely. It is the first of many, more metaphorical storms. It is why we contacted you.
"I can still fight, sir. Besides, if I need to retreat, I'll probably have to go through a few of those autos anyway.""I'll be fine. Didn't sign up expecting to live forever or anything. Anyway, better to die now from a gunshot than to wither away in a nursing home somewhere decades from now.""Uh, am I the only one here who isn't too keen on throwing myself into combat? My frame's fine anyway, so I got no excuses. Plus, gotta get paid somehow."Ah yes, that payment incentive. Each System League frame has a bounty of sorts on it, more dangerous, larger sized, or just manned units are of course worth more. Destruction, disabling, doesn't matter too much, as long as it's rendered inoperable. And according to those bounties, each squad gets a nice bonus for all their kills.
No infantry encountered yet, guess they've holed up inside the facility. Or all dead, though you have a feeling that the way your luck's going, that probably isn't the case. What you do end up seeing as you approach the main facility is another group of 6 PUPPET frames, hovering a few meters off the ground in front of the main facility. These ones armed with what appear to be some kind of rifle.
[TRANS: 3/5] Welp. Back to mechanical arm possession with you.
[LTAR vs. MDEF: 0++ vs. 0] [UTAR vs. MDEF: 9++ vs. 3] I am beginning to think that the RNG doesn't want you dead, it just wants you as an eternal slave to the arms. Okay, now it's all a bit of a haze seeing as the murderous arms are clouding your senses to only really feel what they need you to feel, but you do get the general idea of what follows. First, you run, you run at the building building and leap forwards, the PHAROAH impacting feet-first. Before the debris even hits the ground, you run, you charge along the wall, rising to the top and leaping off. Finally, your prey is in range. Damned pathetic fools, thinking that being airborne would save them. A barrage of strikes, half-punching, half-impaling descend upon the closest PUPPET quite literally ripping it apart before hurling its shredded carcass with enough force to slam a second auto frame out of the air. You descend heavily, the frame's legs having surely been damaged by the fall judging by the terminal's warnings and the horrid mechanical groans it made on impact.
[UTAR vs. MDEF: 2 vs. 3] [UTAR vs. MDEF: 5 vs. 3] [UTAR vs. MDEF: 1 vs. 5] The rest of your squad opens fire during the commotion managing to down a third PUPPET.
The remaining three frames scatter into the air, flying towards cover and open fire on what they deem to be the greatest threats and most vulnerable frames. Categories which as it turns out, you fill quite well. Oh joy, three volleys of bullets aimed at your face, is it your birthday?
((Chain integrity is now at 63% because this has been a rather long turn for you. Integrity is regained significantly slower in combat since turns are shorter.))
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Topic: Perplexicon - Down the Foxhole - Raining Mecha (Read 179865 times)