Archangel Protocols: Revival IC

Casper anticipated her first attack might be with the sword. Such archaeic weapons were, for some reason, highly reguarded among organic Protocol units, even some of the not-so-organic cyborgs. Casper saw the usefulness of a bladed weapon, but a sword seemed a little superfilous. When the strike came, Casper simply pivoted to the right, avoiding the blade and the less expected right hand followthrough. Kindle jumped back, but Casper was not keen to giving her any kind of range on him. She had much more powerful weapons in her body than the .45 pistol that came out next.

He kept close as she moved back, swatting the pistol as she leveled it at him. Her mechanical grip didn't release the weapon, but the shots were deflected nonetheless. Continuing his foreward momentum, Casper thrust his palm into Kindle's chest with all the force he could muster. She was dfinately a sturdy cyborg, and other andriod might just punch a hole through her, but Casper was unsure of wether he could generate the force necessary to damage her armor.

A grunt! Something connected. Retracting his blade as the dirt flew through the air, Masraik strained to hear where his assailant would come from next. He never heard it. The impact from behind Masraik caused him to stumble forward. <What the hell was that?!> Masraik spun his head and caught a glimpse of Azrael tumbling. <Opportunity!> He tried to spin around and fell sideways as he attempted to take a swing in Azrael's direction with his right blade. Throwing his right foot forward he caught himself and looked back to his left leg to see what was pinning him down.

He saw what had hit him. Azrael had taken a slice at the back of his leg, and the thin glowing hot metal ribbing behind his knee had been fused into one smashed plate. He wasn't pinned down, just stiff. <Oh thank you kevlar.>

Masraik jerked his attention back to Azrael in frustration and growled. "ARRGGGGG!" <I'm getting tired of this little cricket hoping around!> He gave a hard grunt and ripped his leg into a straight position, popping a couple of the ribs off the armor all together. With that he charged full speed into the direction of Azrael, leaping full bodied with both blades in front of himself in a large X pattern in an attempt to scissor Azrael in half if he were lucky enough to land on him.

Kindle watched the androids choice of actions. {hmm, more nimble than powerful}

As the android deflected her bullets {he knows what advantages to not give his opponent}, she prepared herself for the retaliation. Focusing her energy on her frontal body, nanite swarmed to her chest, stomach, and shoulders hardening as a wall of skin-fitting armor. The attack ended up going for her chest.

Kindle felt the impact like a sudden jolt, and while her armor kept her safe from any penetration, she felt a burning sensation through her lungs. {I'm not done yet!}.

She smiled, an unusual thing for her to do in combat, which she considered a serious thing, but sparring was fun and enjoyable. Kindle dropped the gun, and grabbed Casper's arm, concentrating a burst of energy in her left arm (her left side being the most heavily technologically implanted side) directly onto Casper's.

The drain from using energy twice so fast caused her to let out a "Aaaaa" as she attacked. Her lungs still stinging, she did not maintain her grip on Casper's arm, rolling on the ground to go with her momentum, switching her weight from her right side dominant (offsensive) to her left (defensive).

OOC: I'm using a weapon that while I never mentioned I completely intended to have, I cleared it with Mas first, and I promise to try and be more clear on my armaments and abilities in the future, I know I was really lazy with my char sheet.

IC:
Azrael shook his head, trying to get his breath back and clear his thoughts. A wenching mettallic sound snapped him out of his momentary stupedfaction, as he pushed himself to his feet and turned. As the thundering giant charged Azrael clicked his heels together, feeling his dorothy system catch he set his feet about hips width apart and felt the carbon nanotube wire spool loose and the draw back tight. < Only one chance at this...NOW!> As Masraik took his dive, surging forward, shield blades out in fron of him, Azrael jumped as well, towards Masraik.

As he jumped he rotated so that he and his foe passed back to back, his head and feet barely clearing the top of the shield. As his feet passed the shield edge he dropped them down slightly, and braced himself. With a jerking snapping impact his dorothy system caught Masraik around the throat, sheerign through the marginally lighter armor around his throat with the aid of their combined momentums. From the fact that the red force shielding indicating a fatal injury hadn't popped up around them Azrael could only assume that some of the armor had held at least.

The pain in his ankle roared to life, if it hadn't been seriously injured before it was now. Pulling furiously with all his might he pushed the wire into Masraiks throat. He pulled himself up into an almost sitting postion and grabbed at the helmet, seeking to rip it off. He kept pressure on the garrote even as he sought to rip the helmet free before they hit the gorund.

<Bloody jackrabbit! Quit hop-> Masraik couldn't finish his thought as Azrael sailed over him. Something had snapped around his throat, hard. It didn't feel like his armor stopped it. As he neared the ground, he thrust his blades into the ground lower than he had them aimed initially so that he could roll forward on impact. "You could hold s!" Masraik's words caught in his throat as his face shield flew off and he started to gag.

Mas rolled forward and head first, hitting the ground hard on the back of his neck, almost standing upright on his shoulders. <I have to get him off fast! He won't cut through all of my armor, but he's cut off my air.>

Falling backwards with Azrael strangling him with all his might, Mas could feel himself blacking out. He ripped his left arm up out of the ground, and blasted at his feet at a 45 degree angle into the air. This sent Masraik backwards with so much force, that it cracked his left collarbone and compacting the bottom three cervical vertebrae across the top of his back. With the angle and force, Masraik slammed backwards full force in an attempt to crush Azrael with his full body weight.

ooc: You're welcome to end this, it looks like a melee mangle and tangle and it would end pretty much anyways with my mask off.

Azrael felt the roll starting and threw the helm away as he let himself fall back, plastering himself to Masraik's back and turning his head to the side to prevent it being smashed in the roll. His shins felt a crushing agony, threatening to snap as most of masraiks weight pressed down on them, and then the pressure was spread over his body with a devestating impact as Masraik used his shield to shove himself into the ground. The impact borke several of Azraels ribs, driving the wind out of him and making him dizzy with pain. He managed to hold onto himself just enough to keep up the steady pull of the wire.


He continued to pull grimly thinking, <Well, at least... we ... go.. down... together> The weight of the monstrosity was crushing him. He could feel it, with is legs under him he could have rolled the weight off of him, but with his feet still corded around the bull neck of Masraik, there was no way he could hope to lift that much weight unaided. Finally he felt the weight above him slack, but there was no way for him to get loose. <Damn.> Then just before the blackness claimed him he managed to mutter "Computer, full safety, erase injury punishment. Azrael, Masraik."

Instantly he felt better, the sharp pains of illusory broken ribs dissappeared, the fire in hsi ankle disappeared. And he was able to breath thanks to the cushioning effect of the safety force shields. There was still the matter of the weight on him. Squirming he managed to click his heals together in front of Masraiks nose, releasing the Dorothy wire and said "Get off of me please."

It was a good thing that Abaddon had quick reflexes. If she hadn't been amped up with the genetic engineering, the speed and precision of the flying knives would've killed her, with the knives ending up, most likely, on the ground behind her after bashing through her body. However, because she had been altered, when she sank into her crouch, the Asterael going into a defensive position in front of her with the bottom tip in the ground, angled back up over her head, and angled again so that she sharp part of the blade was more towards her right shoulder than in front, she would've gotten more than bruised hands and a gash on her waist. The blade that had been aimed at her thigh had done that little bit of damage. The one that had been aimed for her shoulder, however, had been the force that nearly bruised her hands, as it was blocked in the first part of the maneuver by the Asterael.

She angled the Asterael just a bit more before leaning back slightly, to take the brunt of the blow from the katana. The force on the top of the Asterael shoved her back, and with just a bit more of a push from her own legs, Abaddon executed an untucked somersault, Asterael staying in her right hand and being swung out by the force of the swing. She used her left arm to shove herself into a standing position again as soon as it was safe to, and prepared her own strike.

As she sprang up, Abaddon started to run to the side. It wasn't the easiest maneuver, taking the momentum you had going in one direction and changing that force to make it easier to get speed going in another. She feinted to the left for two steps, then switched to the right quickly, her cut stinging her side at she torqued her torso around to perform the feints. Asterael, having the longer reach, was flung out in Abaddon's right hand again, aiming for Matthias' chest and left arm. As she did this, she reached down for one of the flash-bang grenades strapped to her waist. She jumped backwards as soon as she pulled the grenade, not caring if her strike had hit, and she threw the device at Matthias. Covering her sensitive ears with her hands, she averted her face as the two seconds for the grenade's detonation expired...

OOC:...and then it's Matt's turn to post. ^_^

He blacked out, but it felt like only for a moment. Next thing he knew Azrael was asking him to get off. <HA! I pinned the bloody hopping bandicoot!> He grunted as he rolled off of Azrael, then slapped his shield halves together and pinned them on his back as he pushed himself up. Then he walked over and grabbed his face guard, slid it back into its grooves and snapped it back into position. Doing so reconnected the biometric net holding it in place to the kevlar armor.

He looked over at Azrael, he had to admit he was impressed to be beaten by a half frozen relic. "Well that was barrels of fun! Ya got me fair and square monkey man." Mas walked over to Azrael with a hand extended with a friendly grin on his face, hoping for a hand shake.

Winking he said, "Ya know, had you not been sitting on my back plates, that little strangle move wouldn't have worked." With that, Masraik demonstrated his with a nudge to his nervous system which popped out the plates on his back. He gave the same grunt he had given when showing his tricep gills, and the kevlar separated and showed pulsating gills between his ribs, which seemed to be connected directly to his lungs. "I don't have just one air passage."

Mas chuckled to himself, and turned his head to look at the simulated damage they had done to the sim, and to watch what remained of the other continuing battles.

ooc: lol Mire, this is fun :D

IC: 'She hasn't lost much throughout the sleep' He thought as she was manuevering for her attack. Reacting quickly, he brought the katana up parallel with his right arm and managed to block the majority of the blow but still have some of it dig into his arm...well illusionarily but it still hurt like hell. Watching as she jumped back, he tried to think of what she would do or how to counter. But he knew what to do almost instantly, that is until she continued.

He saw the grenade heading towards him. He muttered into his mask "Noise dampener max and visual eliminated." The mask slid a black screen over his eyes to shield as best as it could and a second ear piece fitted into his other ear and began to dampen noise. Bringing both arms up in a cross in front of his face, he prepped in case it wasn't a flash bang. Hoping to cover all bases. The loud bang and the instant flash told him his instinct was correct in it being a flash bang. "Visual normal, noise dampener remove." He spoke quickly again, however the flash bang had a good effect still. He had a slight glare going from everything that would probably last only about 10-15 seconds and his ears were ringing also. He couldn't activate the precautions quick enough to fully prevent it.

Returning his hands to his sides, he brought his right up in front of him with the katana, holding a defensive stance as he backed up a few feet. He hoped to gain enough distance to have enough time to recover completely. Pulling 2 more knives out with his left, he acted like he was about to attack. Taking a step forward before bringing his right back and throwing the 2 knives towards her. But immediately after, he brought the katana up defensively again. 'Well I may've just bought enough time' He thought as the knives soared towards her.

Her ears, though still ringing through the protection of her hands, could still pick up the external ringing of metal against skin as Matthias threw more knives. Again, she preformed a block where the flat of the weapon is facing the enemy along her body, this time knocking both knives away. Her vision was also slightly blurry. She felt a mental tap on her shoulder, and Apollyon saying, <Alright little peacekeeper. It's my turn. You said that I could practice on him, so please don't force me to fight for control.>

Sighing, Abaddon mentally stepped back and Apollyon took over just as the knives chimed against the Asterael.

Apollyon grinned maliciously. Aloud, she said, "All right. Time to get serious." And she charged. Asterael was a blur in the air, not all of its movements for show. The point was to be moving the heavy implement so quickly, that most people wouldn't be able to predict fast enough where the blade landed. <I suppose it's a good thing you ate as much as you did...otherwise we wouldn't have enough energy to keep this up for much longer,> Apollyon said to Abaddon, who just shrugged mentally.

With the flashing of the blade, holding on to it with two hands since the flash-bang, she aimed rapid strikes against his defensive katana first, going for his torso and arms. Suddenly, after five rapid attacks, she went for his leg. And a few more, his head. After a little longer, she shoved the blade down quickly towards his feet, hoping that the surprise from the movement would protect the opening in her own defense that she made by letting the bladed implement get so far away from her body. She could feel her arms tiring from the rapid movements, and she knew that since her own symptoms of the flash-bang were gone, his was too, but she kept up the pace, kept trying to push him back little by little, trying to create micks here and there to either enrage him, make him loose hope, or to just simply wear him down from trying to keep up with her own odd assortment of maneuvers.

OOC: Matt, I'll leave it to you for where exactly she aims each time. ^_- And I'm glad that you think it's fun, battling Abaddon/Apollyon and all. ^_^ I'm sure that she/they enjoy(s) it as well. ^-^

The edit was for spelling and punctuation....tho I am sure there are still issues in here, it was the ones that even *I* noticed. ^_-

Casper's palm strike was met with a rather considerable amount of resistance. Her armor was nanite-enhanced, but her file didnt mention it could focus those micromachines to specific parts. They probably didn't think the team would be fighting itself. Casper's srike would have stopped the heart of an organic being with soft armor. Considering her age, Kindle was far more heavily modified than most. She was apparantly very wealthy.

Following his attack, she latched on to his arm with a grip stronger than his own. Seeing a change in her body's power flows, Casper latched his free arm onto her other wrist. The jolt of energy coursed through his electron-fiber muscles as a power surge. His central core was well protected against such things, but his muscles were locked and contracted as the fibers tensed under the charge. As he was not grounded for the attack, the jolt flowed through his arms, across his chest, and out his other arm where it continued into his opponent's wrist. Her feet were metal, and likely served as a grounding device for her electrical parts, but she would definately feel the jolt, however briefly.

Next, because his muscles held their tension even after Kindle released his arm, he was dragged to the ground with her as she ducked into a roll. Releasing her wrist, Casper landed on his knees and rolled foreward, drawing his combat knife. Maintaining his need to keep close to her, he sprinted at Kindle as she rose, slashing the knife at her less modified right shoulder area, finishing off the assault with an upward swipe across her midsection. If he could land a hit, the nanites would have to concentrate thier efforts on repairing the gash, lest she bleed to heavily.

ooc: Detailed information in her files, as Casper has access to them all: Kindles In order to support high speed and the ability to output high amounts of strength, she obtained nanite enchancements along with 100% joint replacement to handle the strain. Her skull has been completely replaced to prevent a crushing blow to the head however the skin on top is real. Her eyes and ears are cybernetic. Her left side, with the exception of particular organs is nearly all replaced and can output more energy, it also provides extensive protection to her heart. Her right side has an equivalent amount of muscles/joint enchancements, however the upper right side has alot more visible flesh. Kindle has not yet requested lung or heart replacements, though she does have a system in place that can "pump" her chest (simple rhythmic energy dispersal to the appropriate muscles). Her file demonstrates that her right side is weakest to physical attacks, and her body structure overall is weakest to EM attacks.


IC: Kindle felt the jolt cycle back to herself {This is why I love fighting other techies!} right before she dropped her grip and rolled away. Casper, however did not relinquish his grip, and was pulled to the ground with her.

{He's alot more clever than I am, and he has more spunk than the usual androids...he and I will probably work well together on the field}.

In the time it took her to switch her stance (and energy priorities) to a defensive one, Kindle felt a searing pain across her right shoulder. The force shield replicated the wound of, unluckily, a deep slash. She instantly reacted spinning in the other direction of the incoming midsection slash to dodge it and set her body to prevent blood trauma, close the wound, and protect it from other harm. Her hormone level rose while reacting to pain, Kindle's eyes blazed up focusing on Casper's actions.

Immediately, she dropped the restraint on her speed, but not to put range between her and Casper. She kept her current speed, allowing Casper to close the distance, when he was a stride away, she lunged, using all her concentration and speed to pin him down.

Azrael dusted himself off and got to his feet. He took Masraik's offered hand and shook it saying "You didn't do so poorly yourself. The Protocols Armor has gotten better... Should have taken your head off with the Dorothy wire, or melted that armor straight off between the plasma and the nades. Well... I think we can work together, You're a living wall and I'm a living weapon. Between the two of us I think we can do some serious damage. Let's see how the others are doing."

With that he settled back to watch for the moment. Trying to decide when exactly to hurl them into the scenario he had planned.

OOC: If you've ever seen the more recent production of I, Robot, the robots in that are what i basically envisioned for the way Casper looks and moves, though with very real-looking skin and facial features rather than the semi transparant stuff on Sonny.

IC:
Casper landed a hit on Kindle's shoulder, but the potentially more grievous blow to her midsection was avoided. She broke away and began backing away. Casper, maintaining his so far effective tactics, went after her only a few steps behind. He noticed she was faster, and realized she'd been holding back. No sooner did that process make its way to his central computer did she suddenly reverse her momentum and charge at him.

His own momentum prevented him from being able to react in time to fully avoid the impending impact, so he took it head on, holding the knife like a stake in front of his chest. The blade was forced between himself and Kindle. The active force fields shattered the leathal edge, but Casper wouldn't know if Kindle was "injured" until they recovered. He did know that his damage assessment was sending him signals that the handle of the blade had been forced into his lower chest. His armor absorbed what impact it could withstand, but his internal plating, however light it was, took a fracture and compromised its integrity. Another powerful blow to the same spot could penetrate into his internal mechanics.

The duo hit the ground and slid a ways with Kindle on top.

OOC: I have to stop here so you can decide how much, if any, damage the knife caused. I didn't say before but they're probably made of some kind of highly durable alloy, but if her armor is strong enough, it could cause the blade to break.

ooc: lol well my character is a honorable fighter and enjoys himself a good challenging match. What better match than fighting the person you were created in the mold of? :)

IC: "Alright. It's time to get serious." He heard through the ringing. The voice seemed different somehow. His delay tactic knives did little but bounce off of her weapon as she deflected them. She charged then, through the blurred sight he had he could make her out pretty well btu not the very specifics he needed. Guessing as to which direction the blur was obscuring her towards, he defended accordingly. Luckily he had guessed right, parrying the first couple blows before one got in past him and sliced his left forearm.

Finally regaining his senses, he noticed she obviously had too as her swings and strikes became more precise and targeted. Parrying as quick as he could, none of the rest struck home before he saw the split second opening she had left him. As she was striking downwards he struck forwards. Not manuevering away from her attack at all and simultaneously jamming his katana into her stomach where the ribs meet. (I don't remember what that bone is called but that's where he aimed.) Groaning in pain as her blade was jammed into his foot. He let go of the katana for a split second while he grabbed another pair of throwing knives with his left hand, stabbing them into her chest and pulling his pistol out with his right hand at the same time, putting it directly to her left shoulder and pulling the trigger.

After quickly stabbing the knives in he regripped the katana with his left while his right pulled the trigger of his pistol a few more times. Groaning silently, he noticed that her speed of movement had apparently given him a few more gashes than he had initially noticed. A slice on his left forearm, and slashes to his right arm and chest were known to him; but the gash at his right ribs and across his stomach he hadn't noticed. The adrenaline was keeping him out of reacting to those minor injuries, but combined they were starting to tire him out. If his move didn't end it...he had only one other that could against an opponent as skilled as she.

Longview paused a few seconds for neutral battle-time to take place and decided to make the first move. Suddenly and quickly he threw the assault rifle up with one arm and fired on the conventional projectile setting. Instantly Longview also pulled out a pistol with his left hand. Cocking the pistol against his hip to get the first bullet in the chamber, and pull back the hammer, he flung his hand up and fired for Bryan's head. His piercingly sharp eyes, coupled with the enhanced nervous system that played two roles, made for an accurate machine of death. The hand eye co-ordination skills of Longview were among some of the best the Protocol had seen. It wasn't an accidents. When he was conceived, the Protocol didn't make accidents anymore. That's what the Pure ones were for. The experiment. The first. He was refined. The assault rifle would do all the nasty body-damage while he could focus his aim on his left hand. It's 'handy' to be ambidexterous, he thought with glee.

Masraik looked over at Azrael and back up at the continuing fights. "Ya know, why wait for the little group get together you have scheduled for us, why not shake things up a bit now eh?" Mas nodded down at the remaining grenades attached to Azrael.

He leaned forward and whispered, "ya know, toss in a grenade or two to those battles over yonder." Hahaha, he was trying to stir up trouble, and it felt good for a change.

Kindle's stomach pulsed with pain. Her armor had again protected her from any penetration, however the impact, twice now, on her chest made the intake of air difficult and thus made Kindle overall lightheaded. {...and this is why I fight from a distance heh}.

She realized she was still on top of Casper, and she still managed to keep her normal personality, thinking {kinda loses the humor when its cyborg female on android male}. "You're too clever for me Cas" <takes a deep breath, and slows her speech down, allowing herself to slide to the side of him> "Casper, I really don't do to well in the close up" <breathe> "department...I knew that" <exhale...inhale> "most my missions would be with those who" <closes eyes and yawns to force her lungs to fill up> "well, don't have quite as finite a life as me" <breathes easier> "but times like these make me glad that I made the newest in defenses my priority".

{oh duh, why am I breathing hard...} "End paired combat mode, Kindle" <The force field dropped, and Kindle took a wonderfully relaxing deep breathe, as if she was inhaling all of Spring>

"It looks like Az and Mas are done, if ya wanna go find out the next challenge with me" ((feel free to walk with me))

Kindle approaches the Pure One Beasts upbeat and cheerie. "How'd it go Mas? Nice to see you all in one piece <giggle, then continue talking without allowing herself to be interrupted> I was inspired and I tried to fight all face-to-face as well, totally not doin' that again if i can help it"

OOC: Matt, there are a few things about your post that even GE didn't like, so I am going to edit a few of your movements in a minor way. Hope you don't mind, but I got GE's permission to do this...

IC:

Apollyon almost felt rather than saw Matt's body move and, using the blade that was buried deeply in his foot, showed herself away just enough that the katana went between her arm and body, creating a shallow slice on her side and the side of her breast. Cursing heavily with the pain of it showing in her voice, she lept back just as he, unknowing to her, pulled out a gun.

As she lept back, she jerked the Asterael out of his foot, and hit the gun up before he could fire. The shots went into the air, missing Apollyon. It was then, as she tried to force Asterael up high into the air with her left arm, that she noticed the knives sticking out of her bicep. Understanding flitted through her brain the second that she saw the knives, and she immediately switched her grasp on the weapon to her other hand, using her mouth to pull the blades from her arm. It hurt like hell, but there was nothign she could do about it now. She couldn't leave the blades in her arm to do more damage to the muscles, but using her mouth to remove the blades while also trying to keep an eye on Matt was a challenge.

The sounds around the room were dieing down, so she knew that they were one of the last groups to finish. But Apollyon, in the full spirit of things, wouldn't back down until she was dead.

Using her right hand as the bottom hand, supporting most of the weight of Asterael, she grabbed the other handhold with her injured left, and went for a full-blown attack, swiping with her blade downwards towards his head, then sideways towards his neck. For the neck blow, she could only use her right hand, so with her left she pulled out the nearly forgotten hand gun from its holster, and held it up in Matt's face after the neck stroke, in case she had missed. She pulled the trigger.

ooc: Alrighty, moving us along... you can make a last post to finish up your duels, but try and end them to go along with my post...

IC:
Reclaiming his sword he listened as Masraik suggested that he "shake things up", Azrael smiled and touched his grenades. "What with these? No... I have a better idea in mind." Smiling mischievously he watched as Kindle approached. Her stream of words didn't allow for Azrael to break in, but when she finished he said "You may have too. If they keep this team together you may want to consider some melee upgrades or maybe some hand to hand training. A lot of our fights get down to that eventually. They have nearly unlimited troops, and it seems we almost always run out of ammo before they run out of soldiers."

Then looking at the group with him (in case Casper decides to follow Kindle) he says "You might want to get ready." Then he issued his commands "Computer, full safeties on all parties, Reset Injury Punishment settings, Reload and restore all weapons." (Since any damage/ammo is virtual). "Load preloaded Scenario."

Then a whooping siren loaded and the scenery began to change. The ground became the sear burnt out lanndscape of lands deep within corponation control, the dark roiling clouds of pollution seeming to hang low over head. Around them rose the decrepit tenements and jagged towers of a corponation megacity. THe ground underneath their feet was the pocked black pavement of a street, filth and refuse lining its gutters. The real horror though was moving down the street towards them. A teeming horde of enemies, many armored and fitted with Pre Collapse tech. There were even tanks and other armored targets interspersed amongst the troops. It was an impossible scenario. But it should give them a good test of how well they worked together, especially under pressure. He would never attempt this one without full safety, but he figured, what the hell. They could go for a new high score.

"Everyone form up! I want my snipers hitting any targets of opportunity, that means pilots of armored vehicles, obvious officers, and anything else that catches your eye. Otherwise provide support for those of us on the front lines. Everyone else, I want you to form a line on me and start unleashing hell. Heavy weapons first! We do NOT go to melee until the enemy has left us no choice. Kindle, Check that building" He pointed to a particularly tall tenement behind them. "If we need to retreat, I want a clear line, and the sim is programmed for full intelligence on this so they will more than likely be circling behind us."

"Everyone get ready!" With that he let loose his first volley, pulling the pin on two of his remainging frag grenades and tossing them the distance to the front ranks of the enemy. He only had two left but he was saving those for an emergency. The hard little orbs sailed with incredible speed over the 150 yards separating the two groups, Exploding within the front ranks, shredding unarmored enemy combatants. "Fire!" Then he swung his rifle up and began firing, letting round after round of regular ammunition pump out of the chamber and tear into the enemy. They started dropping like flies, but inexorably the next line moved closer.

<Hmmm, well that doesn't leave us much time to plan anything out.> Masraik looked around himself, and saw two snipers, one instructed to find a building to snipe from. He also saw his leader, two individuals focused specifically on melee capabilities, a heavy firepower android, and himself.

<Well, looks like I'll do what I excel in.> With that, Masraik quickly ripped the shield from his back, pulled it into its two pieces, and slammed each piece into the ground at an angle. One he shoved into the ground about two foot into the ground in front of Longview, the other he put into the ground in front of Casper, offering the two heavy firepower the best defenses he could. "Cover for our snipers!" After that, Mas looked around for any other possible cover that could withstand a tank blast... it was looking bleak. These buildings weren't built for war, they were commercial.

"Kindle, I think you can handle getting into position by yourself correct? Maybe someone should go with you, but I'm best left on the front line. Any volunteers to protect our firepower?" Mas looked between Matt and Abaddon in hopes of a volunteer. They would probably be the best bet for secondary defense, but he doubted he could get Abaddon to volunteer. She seemed more the type that wanted to be the center of carnage. Azrael seemed the same way, but not because he enjoyed the slaughter, but more enjoyed the rush.

"Whatever you decide, I'm here to defend the front lines and take the hits intended for you all." With that, Masraik stood out front and waited for the rounds to start flying towards them. He braced himself, making himself as wide as possible at the same time covering his companions until they could get into safer positions. <Ya know... just like always, I get to use it in the Sims without repercussions... it is all simulated after all. Just like healing my ear, it was fake. Berserking will be no different.>

Mas kept telling himself that, but he always dreaded using it around allies, even if the damage was simulated, and the enemies were fake. But there was always that chance that it would get out of hand, he'd disable the computer sim again, and actually do some harm to the friendlies... again...

Holstering the pistol quickly to be more available for movement, he stood for a moment waiting for her next move. It didn't take long for her to make it though as she made what would probably be the last few moves of this duel. Pulling his katana quickly over his head, he sidestepped just enough to parry her blade away from him. Leaning backwards he avoided the neck swing, standing back quickly to counter-attack. But he didn't have the chance. There was a pistol to his face and the trigger was pulled. (OOC: I'm not sure how that works when you'd actually get like K.O'ed in the sim so I'm just gonna keep on going)

Staggering back a few steps with a SPLITTING headahce, he shook it off as the simulator was reset. Nodding to Abaddon "Good match." He said smiling as he sheathed his katana and retrieved his knives. Glancing around, he noticed the particular setting taking as many mental notes as he could before the action started. Azrael kicked it off with his orders being shouted, grenades being thrown and the volley of weapons fire. Masraik put some defensive measures in place for the heavier firepower. "Any volunteers to protect our firepower?" Noticing Masraik look between him and Abaddon, he gave a little hand gesture that resembled a raised hand. "I'll take care of it."

Crouch walking, to stay low and behind the cover that was there, to Kindle. "Alright. Where ever you go, I'll be there to lend a hand."

OOC: Asvar go ahead and PRP me going with you

Casper dashed behind the nearest car with his back to the frame, and loaded his rifle with explosive bolts. Best thing about plamsa weapons was their capacty. A single clip held over a hundred rounds, since all they were bascially just small pellets in the canister. It was the electrical charge and super high velocity that made them glow and burn. The only real drawback were the overheating possibilities from sustained fire. Casper began targeting the nearest tank. His rifle was not as powerful as Longview's, but at this range, the difference between the two wasn't significant. Casper linked his tac helm with those of his squadmates in a single action (a quick press to the temple).

"Longview, APC Bearing North 32 degrees West," Casper knew a sniper's most valuable asset was a spotter. If Casper could give him targets, they could disable and destroy targets with much higher efficiency. Casper fired two rounds at the APC's front left wheel, blowing the ancient tech to bits, and causing the vehicle to grind to the left, exposing the dirver through the small window, and creating a nice obstacle on the road for the tank behind it.

"Infantry, left flank," he said to the squad. With fluid precision, Casper swapped his explosive plasma for incendiary, and fired several rounds into the walls and fronline units of a stream of enemies emerging from an office building. The doorway caught fire, as well as the bodies hit by the rounds. "Commander, suggest moving Longview and myself to higher vantage in the building behind us."

ooc: i actually drew this weapon layout out to make sure it would work

ic:
Kindle nodded wordlessly at Az. Pushing a com button on her left arm "Field Arsenal, Kindle -2472 Heavy" Picking up the produced additions to her weaponry she thought through quickly through the bigger parts of her arsenal:
{ Concentrated Energy dispersal built in to her cybernetic design,
{ utility belt with 8 grenades - the left 4 non fragmenting blasts and the right 4 chemical smoke,
{ S.J.3 Plasma Rifle - link established in left hand,
{ Short Range Energy Blaster - in calf holster,
{ .577 Pistol - loosely strapped in thigh holster,
{ Jackal - attached left to right tilt ways on her back,
{ and the defining weaponry to her heavy arsenal Kinetic Energy Weapon with 16 high explosive rounds (can alternately be used as an over powered grenade launcher)- carrying strap over her right shoulder, rounds snuggied in pigeon holes on the front of the strap}

Before the group was completely assembled, the scenario was in full swing, Azrael threw 2 grenades at the groups 450 feet away. Kindle had just shouldered her KE pipe when Mas had urged accompaniment of herself and Longview. Kindle was happy when the Gelf, Matt, quickly stepped up to be the guard.

In a soft voice, "Matt, as soon as we reach the building I'm switching vision to infrared ((winks her left eye))and EM fields ((winks her right eye)) for priority targeting, I'll need you to be my physical eyes."

Kindle and Matt crouched from cover to cover on their way to the building behind, Kindle filled the gelf in on Az's instructions unsure if he had heard them "Don't shoot any in the direction as our party yet, we are looking for circling parties and need to clear this building in case a retreat is needed, we don't want to give away our destination till its secure."

Kindle let Matt lead the way, his speed and superior senses allowing for more stealth and a more efficient path. About 20 feet from the base of the building, Matt stopped, pushing Kindle back down under cover, he motioned '2 snipers, 2nd and 5th floors'. {totally wasn't kidding about full intelligence, what is this scenario, us versus the troops of an entire corp}

She motioned back that she could take them out from here. Her plasma rifle was already linked. When she glanced around the ruined stone, {statue maybe?}, that was providing cover she realized that a clear shot on one would mean making her open to the other. "Cover me from the 5th"

Kindle thrust her rifle barrel on the right side, it took 720 milliseconds for her linked sighting to steady the SJ3 on the exact angle. She upped the power by 1/20th to compensate for the thickly polluted air, and fired. The SJ3 is an exceptional rifle because it operates on the different velocity but harmonic pulses. The first pulse being the slowest and the third pulse being the fastest. Instead of providing a 'spread', the pulses act like pool balls, the third merges its energy to the second, which in turn transfers its energy to the first. By the time the the first pulse has received a second acceleration its concentrated plasma makes a clean through & through shot.

Head shot, cheek through upper back skull. Kindle pulled back to cover, looking over to the gelf {His name is Matt, not The Gelf, Kindle}, grateful for such a speedy partner.

As she set her rifle for a high intensity charge, all she could think was {If we are going to provide cover for the team, we need to clear the snipers and any 'guards' asap}

ooc: Matt, feel free to tweak any particulars on your actions, and pp getting us into the building.

He apparently was a faster shot than Bryan was on his feet. Their duel ended quite quickly and suddenly, giving way instead to the all-too-familiar landscape of the North American urban wastes. Orders were issued and he pulled the goggles down over his eyes. His eyes were excellent as it was, but with the goggles, he saw everything his gun saw in a PIP sort of way too. Handy dandy any way you look at it. "Longview, APC transport North..." Casper reported.

Mas threw down a shield in front of he and Casper. "10-4 Casper," he responded. "Masraik, thanks for the cover but uneccessary. We won't be here for long." Casper shot out the tires in the APC that he spotted; good man, thing, that Andy. Reacting instantaneously and in fluid motion Quantas tossed the pistol still in his left hand into the air, steadied the rifle with his now free hand and fired with a lead on the barreling target. He could have sworn the driver looked at him just before he ate the bullet. Dropping the front of the weapon from his left hand, he caught the pistol as it landed and holstered it.

Casper mentioned something about moving to higher ground behind them. Turning, he checked his surroundings. "I second that, Casper. If I remember, Az likes his soldiers to take initiative. Let's move," he responded. Swinging the rifle around to his back, he cinched the body strap and took a full sprint for the building. "Let's not waste time, now, Casper. Take your time finding targets on your ascent if you can't follow as quickly."

Longview ran up a car who's paint was seared off by some former battle and took a flying leap from the hood up to a broken down concrete wall. Grabbing with his hands, he had a foot against a rough edge, lifted himself up and ran atop it. Jumping up and wall kicking off, he grabbed a ledge on the next floor up, again pulling himself up with almost as much ease as walking it seemed.

A tank apparently fired at his position as he ascended because ahead of him the wall exploded, tossing concrete dust and particulate against his exposed skin in a stinging spray. "Someone take out that tank!" he commanded anyone with the ability. "I don't have enough firepower for that." Sticking his head out of the hole, he looked up. There was a piece of rebar sticking out about six feet up and bent at a downward angle. Quantas swung his body out of the hole and leapt straight up, catching the rebar and pulled himself up using the wall for something to push against before finally balancing on the rod. The tank fired again, but hit where Longview used to be on that rebar piece. A matter of a second earlier he had jumped from there to an outcropping some distance away, and rolled to his feet. Finally, a usable staircase that hasn't collapsed, he thought to himself, relieved. He ran up, taking long strides and covered as much ground as he could. Going a couple floors up, he exited the stairwell and entered a mostly unscathed portion of the injured seven story building. From this distance, the tank wouldn't have been able to detect his movements accurately anyway, but he'd rather be safe than sorry. An explosion one floor up in the stairwell proved his caution valid, as the tank gunner guessed. Using the rifle camera, he peeked outside and around. "Good view from here," he said. "In position, but I'm not staying here long. Report in Casper, any good targets?"

OOC: Sorry about the length. I felt it may be appropriate with my current schedule to get in what I could, when I could.

IC: Looking around at Casper and Longview, Mas mentally kicked himself. <Of course they can provide their own cover... I guess stealth is better than durability at times.> As he turned around to rip his shields from the ground, Masraik took several rounds to his backside. Most of them mere lead balls, some heavier 'armor piercing' rounds. He just laughed at those. But after pulling his right shield from the ground, and as he went to retrieve his left half, he took a heavy artillery round to the back of the head. The force smashed him face forward into the front of the car hood directly in front of him.

Muffled in the fiberglass and steel of the car, Mas was growling. He tore his head out of the metal and retrieved his other shield half without even turning around. When he did, his face was hot. The round had not been incredibly ineffective. It had mildly dented the ribbing, but had turned the metal a warm orange color, cracked his mask with the impact of the car's engine to his face, and had broken his nose with the whiplash impact against his face mask. "That was uncalled for!" He yelled at the swarm of bodies coming towards them.

Mas heard Longview yell down for someone to take care of the tank. <Wait, tank? If the tank was firing at him, what the hell just took a pot shot at me?> "Casper, Kindle, high artillery power from unknown location targeting front lines. Find it. Quintas, I've got your tank. Azrael, I can't sit back and WAIT to give them melee range when we don't even know where all the firepower is coming from!"

With that, Mas slapped his shield together and rotated it around so that the long end covered his lower legs, giving him full cover. He took a quick glance around the side of his shield as he bolted forward, staying along the left side of the street, using the buildings to grand cover from surprise attacks on his left side. He counted. <A small battalion, more soldiers than he could count due to mass and lack of line of sight.>

"Eight soldier transport vehicles. One visible tank, one potential other in the rear. Oh, SPGs (Self propelled guns, light armored tanks essentially), maybe that's what nailed me. Looks like a handful of m110s, upgraded, and what looked like a few Paladins, but with better technology than he's encountered before. Seriously? Did I just run by an anti aircraft Vulcan Azrael? What the hell? There's too much to count." <The best thing for me in all these enemies is to put myself in the thick of it all, they won't likely risk shooting each other.>

Masraik felt his shield pelted with explosion after explosion, artillery and lead, and a few energy pulses and plasma blasts. <Not good!> Mas ducked low, and spun his shield halves back around to the proper hands. The tank was front line, right dead center. Taking the punishment, Mas was turned and twisted and knocked back from round after round. But still he raised his right blade and leapt onto the cannon of the tank, slicing down the center of the shaft. He ripped his blade free, twisted around, and slammed his left fist into the side of the cannon where it was cut, bending it inward clogging it before any other rounds could be released.

Twisting around, Masraik was prepared for the infantry that would come around to get him away from the tank. But none came. Where were they? Wham! Again, Mas found himself face first into something solid. This time, it was the asphalt, and before he could jump up, he was pelted again in the lower back, holding him down into the ground. Thankfully, the asphalt was soft enough to absorb most of the blow, but each round hit him in a vital location, and these were by no means light rounds. "Snipers damn it, snipers, get rid ..."

Once again, he couldn't finish his thought. The sniper rounds had pinned him in place long enough for the tank to begin running over him. It started with his left hand, pinning the shield on top of his left arm, preventing him from making a counter attack with his blaster to knock the tank back away from him. The scales in his armor helped redistribute the weight around his body like an exoskeleton, preventing his arm from being crushed by the 70 ton war machine, but it was about to start crawling over his head, and his face shield was already shattered. "Sorry guys, I have no choice..."

Mas brought his right arm around fast, stabbing the blade tip into the tank treads and angling it downward so that it stuck into the pavement and slowed the tank long enough for the transformation. He reached up, and punched his index and middle finger into his right rib cage, between the scales, where he kept his emergency vial tucked into his gills. Almost instantly, he felt the liquid pour into his lungs, choking him at first, as it always did. The protein enhanced formula worked fast, pumping nutrients into his bloodstream via aveoli. His body rippled and tore itself apart, starting from the tendons and ligaments... the body parts that got blood last. The rest of his body outgrew the connective parts of his body, temporarily turning him into a fleshy bag of overgrown muscle and bone. It was unbearably painful, and anyone near bye could tell due to the wailing pain he showed with screams of agony and gasps for breath. When he finally stopped twitching, over the course of only fives seconds, Mas blacked out.

He became the beast he hated to become. But in his attempt of immortal grandeur, he had been imprisoned by his own pride. Now, he would have to unleash the primal creature that he was not meant to be. Growing a monstrous eight and a half foot tall, and approximately six foot wide, he had become what could be described as an abomination; a black scaled gorilla with an intelligence level beyond any human, but the uncontrollable restraint of a bear whose cub was endangered.

Mas flexed his left bicep under the tank with enough force to break solid steel bangles. He simultaneously pulled the trigger on his downward faced left shield and knocked the tank off the ground with enough force to rip his arm from underneath it. Abandoning all reason, and the right half of his shield, Masraik rolled to the side of the tank, sliced the armor plating on the side; the plating that allowed a soldier to look out from the inside and fire his turrets. With his left hand covering his face, he reached out and ripped the sliced panel away from the tank and held it up to his head. His face was vulnerable...
With both hands, he bent the 2 inch thick plating around his head only enough to allow full range of movement, but let him see through the slit in the metal, and still provide his shattered mask protection. The soldier inside cried for help... Masraik reached through the hole and grabbed the first soft object he could find. He ripped backwards. Something broke, and he saw red spray past his new mask. Good.

Looking to his right he saw another soldier poorly attempting to effect him with an energy blaster. Ha, electricity. He reached forward and grabbed it by its head, squeezed, crushed, and flung it into the ranks. Several more showed up. He roared and his frontal scales blasted open at an angle small enough that ammunition from in front or from above would not reach into. He blasted the immediate area with his poison, reaching out to probably only the nearest 10 or more soldiers. That was fine.

Mas was slammed from behind. He must have been ignoring sounds. Sounds didn't matter, nothing could touch him now. Let them approach unheeded. He attempted to turn, but realized he was in cable restraints. A flick of the wrist severed the cables wrapped around him with his bladed protection. Upon turning, he saw the mecha. Some sorry pre-collapse attempt at large androids. Mas took one quick step forward, slashed out at the knee joint of the mecha and severed it in half with ease. Before it could fall, he placed his blaster directly beneath the tilting body and pulled the trigger causing it collapsed in on itself.

Left and right Masraik tore through weak soldier after weak soldier. Where was the real fight? He couldn't even tell if the blasts that had taken him down earlier were even hitting him anymore. It felt great! With another roar, Masraik coiled his legs taunt, and leapt into the air on top of one of the troop transport vehicles probably 15 feet away. Coming down, blade swinging with the momentum of 800 something pounds behind it, he easily sliced halfway through the vehicle as if it were flesh. Oh wait, that was flesh too. He laughed inwardly as he removed his blade.

Three panther like androids were leaping from vehicle to vehicle, coming at him fast. Before he had time to react, two leapt by, nanowire net attached between their two tails, sweeping across Masraik's knees. He laughed, until the ever elusive mystery artillery round connected with the back of his head again, nailing his face once more into the solid surface in which he stood. The third panther then pounced, tearing the shield from Masraik's left hand. Fearless yet pinned, still, he laughed.

Matthias nodded as she told him to cover the 5th. Well cover weren't be enough. Turning his head quickly back towards the others, he saw the chaos ensueing as everything was basically becoming overrun. However this is when they best fought, as he saw several head towards buildings and better cover. Only allowing several soldiers at a clip to approach each one would turn the tide towards them, even with the overwhelming numbers.

Pulling his modified gun of his right thigh, he held it up ready to aim as he crouched behind his cover. As soon as Kindle popped herself out to fire, he did the same. Aiming slightly next to the sniper on the 5th and firing over each shoulder and hitting the walls on either side once. Making the sniper think it was random spray from the battle but still making him duck for a moment as his friend's head was blasted through. Grinning slightly, he aimed for the kill shot and took it. A small sight on his gun acted like a scope as he lined it up on the scope of the sniper. Pulling the trigger let his shot run through the sniper's scope, through his eye and out the back of his head. 'One down.' He thought as he tapped Kindle on the shoulder motioning that he'd take the lead again towards the building and tapping the side of his mask. "Synch team speech, specific target: Kindle." He said, having his mask synch up with the team's frequency of comms but then targeting Kindle solely to speak with her directly without the extra chatter.

Putting his gun up in firing position, he sprinted to the entrance of the building. Peeking at the angle he had, he didn't see anyone on that side. He quickly switched to the other side of the door frame and peeked in again. "Kindle. Clear, move up and get those visions up. Your eyes are ready to go." Sliding into the building and taking the left side wall, he did a small sweep of the immediate area. It was a relatively large opened lobby looking area with a staircase on the far wall leading up and what used to be an elevator shaft towards the right side of the lobby.

Kindle entered the building not too long after he said he was ready. She surveyed the area as he noticed she must've changed her modes of vision. He spoke as he approached her "It's only 6 stories, so clearing most of it shouldn't take too long. As long as the lowest few floors are clear, the rest can be cleared as they get here and we need to clear them." Walking towards the staircase after taking a look and determing the lobby clear, he motioned to Kindle to follow. "You lead the way with those visions while I keep an eye out normally."

ooc: Your turn to prp clearin the next floor if you want or however far you wanna go with me :)

With Longview's rather ambitious climb up the face of the building, and Masraik's rather deadly antics among the enemy ranks, Casper found himself to be quite inconspicuous. He shouldered his rifle and rounded the building away from the fighting. Leaping up to a windowsill ledge, Casper gained a foothold and begen scaling the wall quite easily. The damage inflicted on it along with the evenly spaced windows made for a simple climb. He climbed all the way to the top, and peeked over the edge. He could hear the loud bangs of pre collapse sniper weapons and smoothly slid behind an AC unit while drawing his laser pistols.

"Report in Casper, any good targets?" Longview's update came over his comm.

Quietly, Casper responded, "Standby for target painting. Sixty seconds."

Casper dashed from the AC unit silent as a ghost and discharged his left hand pistol into the head of one sniper and the right hand pistol into the heart of the other. Both men fell from the roof. Noticing only a single door emptying onto the roof, Casper ran over to it adn grasped the steel door frame with both hands. Bending the metal and melting the door to the frame with his pistol, the door was secure. He returned to the ledge in a prone position.

His optics were designed to discount the need for binoculars, and his systems had built-in laser painting software. By this time, Longview hopefully had his helmet calibrated to see the otherwise invisible laser Casper would shoot from his rifle. Sweeping the area, he first noticed a static mortar crew deployed at the end fo the street. They were invisible at eye level, but were getting good hits on Masraik. Pulling the trigger on his rifle, his central computer gained the distance and windspeed via the link in his hand connected to the rifle and transmitted it to Longview, as well as sending a laser into a box off mortar shells next to the crew.

"Mark," Casper said, confirming the current read was his target.

OOC: Feel free to have Casper paint more targets for you Rensha.

Azrael was busy picking targets off, trying to sow disruption in the ranks where he could. Dodging from cover to cover, working his way towards the advancing enemy. Where he could really disrupt their movements. They were starting to get hit with some heavy artillery, but the snipers were keeping it under control. The team seemed to be working well, following the plan such that it was. Azrael watched as one tank gorund to a halt, blocking the tanks behind it, and squashing several troops. Before him was death and chaos.

This was what he was created for. He let out a burst with his assault rifle, each bullet taking a different individual in the temple. A man in power armor surged out of the crowd, rushing towards him, It looked like a strange industrial machine with a human pilot, it stood twelve feet tall, and the pilot was encased in steel and a screen of high density bulletproof glass. It surged forward, a minigun coming to bear on him. A spray of bullets tore towards him, chewing up earth and pavement. He grabbed one of his throwing knives and with superhuman precision, threw it, wedging it between the rotating barrels, stopping the gun cold. With a mettallic whine servos overheated, and jammed. The pilot shook his controls angrily, but it was already over. With a sprint that would have left many fleet footed animals in the dust Azrael was upon him, before the clumsy armor could react he had already reached tits body. Pulling the releases the cockpit swung open. A few psistol rounds later and the machine was useless and the rider even more so.

The encounter had taken only a few seconds but when he looked back up he cursed. Mas was barrelling into the enemy troops. Attacking them head on. He needed to retrieve him, they were going to need to get into that building and try and hold down the fort as long as possible. No matter how hardy Masraik was he wasn't going to last long in that horde.

Using his radio he broadcast "Snipers I want you trying to keep anything particularly nasty off of Me, Abaddon, and Masraik. Use your best judgment." One of the reasons Azrael loved working with Archangels was because they never needed too much instruction. Human soldiers wanted everything ordered one way or another. "Abbadon, with me, I think we'll need to extract our living wall from the mess he's going to get himself into."

With that he began hurtling towards the massed enemy troops. From this point he could see groups breaking off, heading around the other buildings in order to flank them, close them in. He hoped the others had found a secure spot to hide, something at least moderately stable and without too many entrances. They could hold a building indefinantly if the enemy didn't just knock it down or have too many holes to crawl through.

He hit the first rank running, losing sight of the massive Masraik, he fired his rifle point blank into the ranks, sheering down all in his path. He moved through them like a scythe through wheat. These were soft targets though. The general masses of the Corponations forces, barely trained conscripts with old or worn tech and no armor to speak of. He heard explosions nearby, and saw the large form of Masraik go down, near a tank. He cursed. "Someone do something about that tank now!" He yelled into the comm." Before the sentence was out of his mouth though he heard the unbelievable screams of pain. "Damn thing must be running him over. Damn it all!" He tried rushing forward, hoping to save his compatriot still. Then the yells stopped. He fought on out of reflex, but was already preparing to give himself and Abaddon the command to retreat.

Then the tank bucked. Then Masraik, literally began ripping the tank apart with his hands. "By Deus..." He knew the uncontrallable nature of the transformation, but the sheer power of it... <If they ever get that under controll his pool will be huge... literally and numerically. Such raw power...> He followed gaurding Masraik's back for what it was worth. Killing and soldier that came near him. It was almost all autonomic, his thoughts focused entirely on what Masraik was doing, waiting to see if he would turn.

FInally some old Hunter droids managed to snag him in a durasteel net, that probably owuldn't have been enough to hold him except for the artillery strike on his head. <Damn... Guess its time to come to the rescue.>

Over the com he said "Someone see if you can take out an artillery encampment, they have Mas pinned and me and Abaddon need to get some hunter droids off of him. Abbbadon Help me get these droids off of him." With that he sprinted forward, literally leaping over a row of soldeirs between him and the closest hunter droid. He fired a splatter of plasma sheels onto its back, badly damaging one of its legs. The thing had limited intelligence but was ferocious in close quarters. He could take one maybe two, but not all three." THe one he had fired upon whirled away from Masraik, snarling. It was designed to imitate one of the feral predators of Pre collapse society, in order to induce fear into the hearts of its victims. It's organic compliment was part of his genome.

He growled back, and fired a burst of plasma, splashing it across the units head, the growl dieing in its throat. THe other two began converging he fired a blast of plasma, but already they had adapted, dodging it easily. They closed and he drew his sword, hoping Abaddon would have his back, he still called out "Mas if you can hear me snap out of it, we have to retreat."

They were already too deep in enemy lines. Too deep to extricate themselves probably. Then thought was washed away as the first droid engaged, claws swiping, teeth biting. THe other lurked at the edge of his vision, searching for an opening, waiting for a weakness, he would not give it to them. And even while he focused on the fight at hand bullets flew and troops closed in.

ooc: more later. feel free to pwp me a little Mir.

Masraik took one blow after another in the same spot between his shoulders, smashing him further and further into the transport vehicles roof that he had nearly sliced in two. <One of the feral androids were broken? This is my battle!>

Masraik tried to push himself up against the steady stream of blasts that kept him on his stomach. He grabbed hold of the sides of the vehicle as he tried to pull himself up, taking the blows. With each blow, Masraik held his ground, but the roof of the vehicle began to split in half, forced apart by Mas's hands as if they were jaws of life. One of the panthers swiped his left hand out from under him, and with the next two rounds from the unknown assailant he was crushed into the vehicle through the crack.

<Wonderful.> Masraik was being pelted by small arms fire from the soldiers that had run out of the vehicle when he landed on it. He reached up, grabbed each side of the rift in the vehicle and crushed it back together, giving the outside combatants nothing to shoot at. Then he grabbed the net wrapped around his legs and ripped. Each cable snapped with a solid crack and whipped through the air eating into the interior of the vehicle. <Humans? They are nothing!>

He ripped the exit ramp asunder pulling his frame through the opening for normal sized troops. He reached out and swiped. One, two, three, four soldiers he grabbed with both arms. Two died from the impact with fellow soldiers, snapping neck and spine. The other two Mas held around the ribs and slowly squeezed, ignoring the constant rain of firepower upon his head. Snapping ribs and ejecting bowels from their mouths he was satisfied. He dropped the four soldiers from the bear hug and looked for the hunter droids.

They look familiar, a green man and a frosty white woman. The green one was taking his prey... Mas leapt again from his location, towards the green one and the animal he tangled with. He snatched it from mid air as it leapt at the green one and crushed it at the neck, grabbed its tail and swung it full might into a close civilian vehicle. The vehicle crumbled like paper, wrapping is frame around the droid and careened into the side of the weak concrete building, plowing through its wall. A look, that's all he gave the green one, that's all he needed to give.

OOC: ACK!!! I accidentally refreshed the page and...bye-bye post. I forgot that THAT was the reason why I almost always did posts in word...go laziness....

IC:

When the scenery changed, Apollyon let go of their body. Not prepared for it, Abaddon quickly stepped in, but she still staggered. It was slightly embarrassing. <Dang it, Apollyon. Warn me before you do that next time.> she thought, glaring mentally at a mentally laughing Apollyon.

<You better watch your surroundings, dearie. Your man just gave you orders.> Apollyon was still full of irritating mirth. Growling, she took up a position near Azra, pulling out her hand gun to take aim for the vital points of several soldiers. Her speed wouldn't be useful unless it was for dodging at the moment, and her senses were kaput with all the explosions, dust, and gunpowder. Growling, she fired off a could of rounds, changing out clips as needed.

She must not have been paying very much attention, because as she turned to see how Azrael was doing, he talked to her over her comm unit. Sneering at Mas, she said, "Yes, sir," and ran to catch up with the fleeing form that was Azra. She caught up quickly, dodging when needed and managing to avoid any wounds on her white body or rips in her black clothing. She ripped the Asterael off the back harness that she wore, not remembering ever putting it away, and holstered her hand gun. This was her forte, what she reveled in and was born for. Several stupid solders thought that, becasue she was a woman, that she would be like a human woman: weaker than her male counterpart. She actually let out a laugh as she decapitated a hapless soldier.

<Abaddon...be careful. Here, let me take over again,> Abaddon snarled, mentally and out loud, startling a few soldiers enough that her speed was able to get past their meager defenses. She noticed the tank out from the corner of her eye, but wasn't too worried about it. It was when it was suddenly...dismembered that she did a double-take on it, worried about what it was that was able to do that.

It was that jerk, Masraik.

Abaddon suddenly found that she had a lot more respect for the Pure one.

As the giant came towards Azrael, she became afraid, much like that day that they had saved each others lives. She screamed, "Azrael!! Look out!" a moment before Masraik grabbed a 'droid out of midair and made an android on car sandwich. He then looked at Azra, and Anger with a capital A surged through her, causing her to work faster and stronger than she had in years.

There was a circle of carnage around her already, but she still jumped over it to be literally back-to-back with Azra, keeping one eye on the monster that Masraik had become. Growling, she tried again what Azra had tried earlier. "C'mon you jerk, recognize us. Or I SWEAR on my next 4 bodies that I will NEVER even CONSIDER taking that damned antidote. Ever. And if it's your poisons fault that two or more of them are used up...I'll blame it all on you and your stupidity."

Longview was hastily please when a signal popped onto his HUD. His goggles caught the laser like an oasis in a desert. Unmistakable. Problem is, chances were that someone else would see it too. "Don't paint. We have too many variables on enemy targets. Just give me the bearings and watch my back," Quantas suggested. He relaxed his muscles and waited for the next round to get ready to load before he fired. It wasn't a sniper rifle, but it would have to do. How he missed his "Sling" in this mission. But it wouldn't be a snipe-fest for long, he could tell.

The opportunity presented itself and Quantas fired, just as Azreal asked someone to take care of artillery. He grinned and pulled the trigger, hitting the mortar as the loader tossed it in. The mortar flew wildly as the round grazed it, and exploded a moment later. The loaded explosive didn't leave the muzzle at a very high velocity, or angle for that matter, and just blew away the area like a frag. "Hmph," Longview grunted and fired at the flinching loaders, trying to hit their stash of explosive rounds.

"Mas, if you can hear me, snap out of it! We have to retreat," he heard in his earpiece. He scanned the field and didn't take long to spot the behemoth. Protocols be blessed, I knew he was an animal, he thought surprised. But that's a little different. Even tales of Michael... Suddenly his thoughts stopped as he ripped the panther-bot apart and looked at Azreal. His finger put pressure on the trigger, and Masraik in the sights. He didn't fire yet, but his stance was looking threatening... His eyes went wide and he rolled to the side. There was a lightly cyber-enhanced human. "The Ol' Cruncher" type of modification he had seen in other sims involving pre-collapse tech. He had heard that the arm enhancements had the consequences of never really healing all the way. It was too much modification for the time-period though, nasty nasty immune-system doping drugs to keep rejection at a minimum.

That was close, he thought, as the ground exploded next to him, the metal arms crushing concrete. He fired into the face-plate, which sparked a half dozen times as bullets plowed into it. It wouldn't kill him, though; no that was what it was made for... He kicked the legs out from under the cyborg and popped up. Quantas slid his knife out of the holder on his thigh and dug it quite unceremoniously under the chin and up into his skull. The cyborg twitched as he wrenched it out. Grabbing his armor, Quantas flung him out of the window he was previously sniping from and took another look at the situation, sliding his knife back into it's sheath.

It had only been three or four seconds, but things change instantaneously. He was standing now, but pulled his weapon up to his shoulder regardless. He scanned the area around Azreal and fired at targets around him, but noticed that Abbaddon was there now too. There wasn't anything he could really do against heavily armored targets at this range with this weapon, but it was enough. Three soldiers dropped that were aiming for Azreal only a few feet away while he was busy with Masraik. "Beware, my friendly ghost. I just had a visitor on my level. Cover Azreal and Abbaddon's exit if you can. Make a hole for them to go to. It's getting thick in there." A few shots later, and he called out Azreal. "Time to get out. You've got two Metal-heads coming in by the way," he said. Power armor of a different kind. Smaller units that gave a small boost to strength. They were bulky in their own right, about as fast as a normal human, but a little restricted. Intended to go where tanks couldn't, they were self-enclosed and sealed off from the outside world; air and all.

These two particular ones had 50 cals with grenade launchers. Currently, all he could to was pester. At this range, his bullets would just shatter against their half-inch thick armor. Switching to plasma, he'd give his position away again, but he wasn't exactly worried about it. He fired rounds ahead of the Metal-heads, the slower plasma rounds hitting also a large spread. It distracted them enough when one of them got hit and nudged by the round. Taking a high arc on the launcher the Metal-head stopped and fired the grenade at Longview's position.

Quantas hopped from the window and grabbed the next floor's window beneath him. His body snapped to a halt as he dangled. Grunting in annoyance, he lifted himself up and comm'd to Casper, "I think I'm going to get a little closer. Do some spotting for me, and I'll see if I can hit the targets on the move. I can't do anything with this gun from here. Consider Masraik a neutral player. T'm going to moderate assault role to help out our lonely compatriots."

An explosion in the distance. No more explosions nailing him to the ground. <Another has taken my prey!> Not giving the green or white ones another look, Masraik turned. The last android did not matter, let them toy with it. He wished for bigger things. Worthier opponents. Retreat? There was no meaning to the word. Who was Masraik, why must i listen to this?

Masraik reached up and slammed his fist into the side of his own head to shut up the communicator. He'd forgotten that he had plate wrapping around his head. He couldn't shut it off unless he exposed himself. It did not matter, give the enemy an advantage of stealth under the noise of this ear piece. He reached down and picked up his right blade, and looked upon the ground where his second blade had been tossed by the droid. He went to retrieve it.

Masraik did not receive anymore tormenting blows to the back of the head for the time being. He went to pick up his left blade. Was that one of his scales on the ground? It mattered not, he was invincible. <I will show these god forsaken creatures what being god blessed really means!>

Left and right the monstrosity that was Masraik was pelted with heavy artillery, sniper rounds and mini-tank explosives. None of that seemed to phase him. His armor glowed red hot all over at this point. Some scales bent outward from the impact of high powered newer tech rifles. It was yet to be determined what smashed so hard into Mas, but it probably wasn't the mortars that had just exploded down the street. He was in fact missing several scaled plates where the high impact rounds had connected with him, and in one location they had pierced his kevlar through the left shoulder. Mas ignored it. He was oblivious to the pain, but he was wounded, and vulnerable to a shot in the same location again.

Mas picked up his left blade and attached them both to himself. He cared not for the blaster or the whip in these weapons, they were a weak mans toy. His real love was the extension of his power, the blades that extended past his fists. These allowed him to see his dying foe, they showed him the true fear of man versus god. He smiled behind his plate face shield. He took a deep breath.

Masraik bellowed a roar across the battlefield before him and crouched like the god animal he had become. He leapt back over the transport vehicle where he had mutilated its soldiers. He landed between several regular soldiers and another mech. It took little to cleave them from neck to knee, slicing them in irregular halves. The mech fell with just as much ease, as if made of air. These were small meaningless mechas, useless in design, and piloted by fleshy mortals. He did not even need to focus on the controlling flesh. One swing brought down man and machine in one fell swoop.

Once again, the ghost rounds found Masraik. First plowing into his left shield mid swing at a human trooper. The second round found Mas in the back of his right knee. <I knew it, those aren't mortars, and there is not just one of them.> Mas kneeled in place, waiting for the next round, for he knew it came, and it did.

The next round found him in the same location in the back of the head, this time protected a bit better by the new plating he had formed for himself. But again, the rounds were precise, they found their mark, and continued to pin the goliath where he once stood. This time, he was before two more A.I. mechs, and this time, he recognized the impact from the rest. "Rail gun snipers, must destroy all cover to find them." Again, Masraik laughed. This time, so did his mechanical enemy.

Now that the 2 snipers were taken care of, Kindle felt they could cover their companions. “Sight switched over.” Using her modified sight, she surveyed the building {Az made a good call sending us to the building first, we got here before any of the main force could circle around}. “No powered equipment or AI in the building and no unusual heat patterns, however I can't see a person's natural heat through body armor and floors”.

Kindle walked up the stairs in the lead, second floor was clear. {I need to provide cover NOW...} “Matt, I'm going to set up here and take out some of the heavy units, if you can make sure its clear up to 4th floor, then come back we'll both move up and clear to 6th .” She wasn't trying to order Matt, so she smiled at him hoping he knew that she knew the best way for her to provide fire power.

Moving into the same room as the dead sniper's body, she kicked it aside and unlinked from her SJ3. {I wonder if the Pure Ones that have been frozen for a while got a chance to see what a portable tank weaponry can do?} Kindle quickly and confidently unslung the EM Pipe and loaded it with one of the 16 HEAT rounds.

The speech over the com link began to disturb her {Mas is berserk...those others are gonna talk themselves to death trying to get him out of it, but I'm sure he don't know them enough yet to come back for'em}. Kindle saw strong EM emitters, each operated by 1 person, who in turn was being guarded by 9 others. Chuckling quietly to herself, “Well, now don't he look mighty important” Surveying the body movements around him, and making sure none of the friendlies heat sigs were in the radius of the blast, she timed her shot. Extreme distances were child's play for her, a simple matter of 'power vs gravity'.

She was confident: distance, wind, pollution, and angle...all of these factors were accounted for, centering the shot on what she bet was the source of the heavy artillery being shot at Mas earlier. Kindle's body was in a defensive stance, her body firmly planted and prepared against the soon to come force, “One”...and EXPLOSION! The center of the blast completely annihilated the stationary artillery camp, main operators, and guards. The tanks to the side took heavy irreparable damage, and the infantry that had marched up behind them had most of its troop killed and the rest severely injured. As for herself, as there was no permanent structure to actually brace herself with, she was pushed back to the other side of the room. A normal person would have had their arm torn off and been thrown into the wall.

She spoke over her communicator “One camp down, I can only take out the further away ones otherwise I'd risk heavy injury to ya'll” Still worried about Masraik, Kindle paused for a moment, unsure if her efforts would make a difference {Guess I should atleast try to, he's about the closest person I have to a continuous friend} “Mas, it's Kindle! I totally don't want to pick up body parts <she giggles> particularly not in a sim! If your not fully gone, then regroup with the other Pure Ones”.

While speaking, Kindle had moved back to the window, cleaned the barrel of any trace, and reloaded with another HEAT round. {I need to get some smaller artillery for the ARC, maybe seeking missles} Spotting another camp, she smiled, checked for the absence of friendlies, calculated, aimed, and spoke “Two”...and EXPLOSION. Kindle called herself a sniper, but truly this was her calling 'Heavy Ranged'.

Her family had invested a large portion of their time and wealth into making tank/anti-tank weaponry smaller. Kindle was, and still is, honored at being the jewel of their investments. She hoped she was doing what Az would want her to do {I don't want him to think bombardment is all I can do}. However, all she said over the communicator was “2 camps down”. She wanted to ask how Masraik was coming around when she heard "Rail gun snipers..." {I don't think he's gonna come out of this till all of them are dead}

Then, privately through communicator “Matt, status report, how's your end, and do you need me to move up?”. {The sooner we get to the top floor, the sooner I can plan and create an escpape route for everyone}

ooc: editted bc masraik ninja posted right before i did, to add "rail gun sinpers"

Azrael didn't exactly feel fear, not true fear, he hadn't felt that in a long time, when Masraik looked at him after destorying the droid like it was a childs plaything. What he felt instead was wariness and battle tension, mixed with a spike of extreme annoyance. Mas wasn't in there, he'd seen that look before seen it in the eyes of madmen and monsters. Seen it in his eyes... whose eyes? Pain behind his eyes and he stopped thinking about it. <Stupid... he knew this was a sim and went ahead and used that stuff? Deus Almighty I'm going to rip him a new orifice when we're done with this sim!> Then Abaddon was with him, yelling at Masraik as well. "Forget it," he said to her not broadcasting. "He's not in there, and I don't think he's coming back yet. I do think we'll need to hold this sim until he comes out of it though."

Masraik was gone, but one bot remained. Not to mention the surging field of regular troops. Getting back was going to be a serious problem. Back to back with Abaddon, he wielded his rifle, sticking to high velocity flechets this round. The bot was wary now, without its partners is was less of a threat, but it was still dangerous. Finally it made its move, leaping for him. A normal man would have been shredded before he had time to aim. Azrael put so many rounds into the thing before it was mid leap that it fell backwards, its momentum, and head, completely gone. Just then he heard Quantas over the com "Time to get out. You've got two Metal-heads coming in by the way"

Quietly he cursed under his breath, metal heads were some of the more durable armors left from the pre collapse era... They wouldn't be a problem on their own in the open, but here with enemy topps surrounding them, they would be difficult to say the least. Suddenly pain lanced his left side, a bullet had pierced his side striking below the major armor and making a shallow wound, nothing vital hit that he could feel. He whirled returning fire with his rifle. "Let's move!" He yelled to Abaddon. He then threw one of his last greandes, the resulting explosion bought them room to start moving. He sprinted forward, sword drawn, side bleeding and aching, trying to conserve ammo as he moved through the ranks of regulars. A massive explosion nearly shook him from his feet, he looked back to see a smoking ruin in the illusory distance and heard Kindle's voice chirping over the radio.

"One camp down, I can only take out the further away ones otherwise I'd risk heavy injury to ya'll." Then after a pause "Mas, it's Kindle! I totally don't want to pick up body parts <she giggles> particularly not in a sim! If your not fully gone, then regroup with the other Pure Ones”.

Azrael was impressed by the firepower she carried as a second explosion told him she'd hit another artillery site. "Forget, Mas, Abaddon and me are coming out, Mas has made his bed. Cover us as best you can. We're coming." Then they were upon the troops that had been moving to encircle them and Masraik. He forced himself to move normally, slicing through soldier after soldier, feeling the illusory bullet dig deeper into his side.

Behind him he heard the tell tale clanking of the metal heads approaching. "Keep moving! We fight them, we lose our momentum, we lose our momentum, we die! Get to the building!" It was close now, just a hundred yards or so. He was breathing heavily though, the pain was slowing him some and the bullet was moving, he felt where it was and flexed his muscles on the run, moving them in order, working the bullet out, despite the incredible pain of doing so. Finally with a last excruciating movement, he forced the bullet out of his body with a spurt of blood. The bleeding would stop shortly though, his clotting agents working to plug a wound that would have bled most men out in short order. He kept going, fighting off shock, drawing deep breaths, and continueing on his path, there were still a lot of troops between here and the building. He wished he had an endorphine/eppinefrin patch to slap though.

ooc: This is my only day off from my 7-12 shifts for this outage, so I'm gonna go ahead and post ahead again. I also give Abaddon and Azrael the go ahead to power play my character a bit with themselves, if you feel so inclined to interact with me.

IC: Mas did not bother looking up at those surrounding himself. He pushed himself up, ignoring the consistent firepower from the playthings. He also barely dodged a large mechanical foot from stomping on his head. He stood and took a defiant stance before the enemy. <Metal heads huh? Whatever.> Mas looked at his assailants, not bothering to dodge anything hitting him. He cracked his neck from one side to the next, then reached out and did the same with his knuckles using the backside edge of his shields to perform the action.

He inspected his new enemies, swinging out with his whip blade... once. He cut down the soldiers dumb enough to show their faces as he looked unflinching upon the mechanical hosts approaching him. Mas stood his ground and sliced at a hard downward left angle with his left arm as his right retracted its claw. Mas clanged into the solid mech's left side, knocking it sideways more than he did any slicing. <Ooh, same alloy as me? Or are these pathetic blades dull from bone and blast shields?>

Masraik felt a twang, as if something physical had leapt through his essential blood flow system. <Electricity? Maybe. Excitement? I've been excited, that is not it.> He didn't have time to fight off whatever it was, this that felt like a physical emotion. The second mech that had been standing back watching fired off a short ranged missile from one of its many shoulder compartments and connected square in Mas's right ribcage. The blast blew him straight into the same building he had tossed the droid into. The wall easily crumbled away as he was blown straight across the battlefield, punching a bigger hole into the wall, and the wall behind it.

His scales had gathered to take the blast and redistribute it so there was less chance of bones being broken, but the blast had sent his right shield in the complete opposite direction, in a similar fashion, carving through the walls of the opposite building's walls. He tried too stand, and had some difficulty doing so as he pushed the blocks of concrete from off his head. <Something is broken, I do not move correctly. Mend it now!> In his accelerated state, the mending was quick, but it couldn't be done twice. The ribs that had managed to be broken drew themselves out of his vital internal organs and mended enough that they would not wound himself further. His lungs and liver did the same, closing the small puncture's they had received from his bones.

Satisfied he could move enough, he rolled over and lifted himself up. He was hot, on fire. Why was it so warm? He looked down at his right side and saw the missing scales, the kevlar that had melted away in small patches, but continued to melt, and his flesh that also melted. "Thermite incendiary rounds!" Again, Mas was hit with that twang, but this time he recognized it as fear. <I don't fear this! I fear nothing! Begone pest!>

Although an animal, Mas was wise enough to hide himself out of open view before another of these rounds found him. He reached down and ripped off one of his scales around his stomach and quickly used it to carve out any thermite in his flesh that was progressing downward further into his body. The kevlar he quickly scraped off and flung it against the wall. He scrapped what he could off of his armor, reluctantly having to remove two more scales or else it would have just spread further. Mas used his mind to attempt to heal the scalding burns, but it wouldn't work, and he knew it wouldn't. His one weakness, and they had hit him dead center with it.

It was painful, even in his current state. He focused his mind to have the liquid kevlar skin to re-mesh itself over the burned holes. After that, he redistributed what he could of the scales on his left side. There was barely enough to cover it all. It wasn't pretty, but there was only one or two tiny holes left, barely big enough for a knife to slide through. He couldn't afford to take anymore hits from that. <That is not my opponent, let the others handle it.> Others? What others? He was alone in this battle, this was his fight! But there were others...

Masraik rushed up the stairs he had seen, having to run up them sideways to fit through the building. Everything shook and creaked when his feet landed. He made it up about two flights of stairs and came out on what looked like a concrete field, open and expansive, with many vehicles strewn about. <Parking garage. Sniper playground.> There were snipers there, he didn't have to be intelligent to know it. He made a quick sweep of the territory and spotted one rail gun bolted to a wall, and upon further inspection of the area saw no signs of life. <Must have scared him off ha ha.>

Mas made his way to the rail gun as safely as he could, using the vehicles and stone pillars to hide his rush across the open floor. When he reached it, he got what he expected. A nice sharp concussive round to the chest. Luckily, his hand was already on the weapon and he ripped it from the concrete. Twisting hard from the impact, and turning to get back to cover, Mas stomped back to cover. There he bent the stock and barrel of the weapon and tossed it to the side. Looking around, he looked for the best place to leap off the ledge, back towards where he had come, to the buildings he knew didn't house snipers. If he could get back, he could cleave his way inward from the front lines once more.

Masraik's poor attempt to leap through the concrete openings between floors was thwarted by the concrete barrier around the outside of the floors. Smashing through the concrete, and barely able to reach the 2nd floor of the next building over, Masraik noticed the green one and white one chased and nearly surrounded down below.

He allowed himself to miss the ledge he needed to grasp to not fall to the street below. The shear bulk and momentum of the fall crushed the nearest two soldiers, and cratered the asphalt in the alley. He sent one blast towards the remaining soldiers, flinging them into the street beyond, possibly killing one, but mostly to sweep away the trash.

Oblivious to his allies around him, and not caring which way he went, he had taken the green one's kills in return for him stealing his droid. It was even.

“Matt, I'm going to set up here and take out some of the heavy units, if you can make sure its clear up to 4th floor, then come back we'll both move up and clear to 6th .”

He nodded, holding his weapon as he headed to the staircase. Preparing himself for whatever he might encounter, which Kindle already ruled out AI and other unsuals, he proceeded up the stairs. Carefully aiming around the room, this level seemed to be clear also. 'That's odd. Why would 2 snipers be here but nobody else?' He thought as he went up to the 4th floor and it was the same way. 'Something's not right. Ambushes don't consist of 2 snipers...they must've been decoys to make us think this building didn't have many in it while the main force pushed us here.' His mind was racing, trying to figure out what was really happening and what he would do if he were them.

Ignoring what Kindle said, he went up to the 5th floor...again clear. 'Where?' He thought as he quickly ascended to the 6th floor. 'Only the roof's left.' Speaking into the comm "Building's clear all the way up to the 6th. Heading onto roof to make finally verification if it's fully safe for now or not." Leaning against the door frame that held the stairs leading to the roof, he opened it slightly and proceeded up cautiously. Opening the final door onto the roof, and finally getting onto the roof, he glanced around. 'Still nothi...' His thought was cut off by a sniper's shot that glanced his shoulder. Ducking around the side of the door, more unfriendly sounds came from the sides. Mechanical whirring being the most frequently heard. 'Great' He thought as a couple teams of armed men climbed onto the roof with several android companions leading them.

Matthias raised his weapon and opened fire, quickly taking out one of the teams of 5 before the fire from the rest of them forced him back onto the stairs leading into the building. "We got..." He started to speak into the comms but the door he just closed and was walking away from lodged itself into the wall next to him. It was bent almost in half, turning around he saw one of the androids standing there. The other 3 androids walked up behind the apparent leader and they all sprung forward, wanting to fight Matthias. Diving backwards through the door, he shot at them to slow them down...exhausting the clip completely and reloading as he rolled back to his feet.

Matthias could hear the sounds of many more men arriving on the roof and heading towards the door leading down to here. He needed to hold them off until the rest of the team got here to help. "Multiple hostiles on 6th floor, flooding in from rooftop." He managed to spit out into the comm before having to roll to his side to avoid an android fist. Reattaching his weapon to his right thigh, Matthias unsheathed his katana once he stood up. Drawing a throwing knife with his left hand, he held it so the blade was along his forearm.

Another android pounced at him, aiming to punch his head off. Matthias spun using his forearm to slightly redirect the blow away as his knife sliced it's throat. Then he kindly removed his head with his katana. Frontkicking hard, he sent the body back into the door frame, trying to make a blockade of sorts with the bodies of these androids. The second one and third rushed him together. Swinging, kicking and trying to coordinate against him. Matthias was barely avoiding and redirecting most of their attacks, taking glancing blows here and there as the troops started down the stairs. Stabbing the second android in it's right bicep with his katana, he spun closer to it and lodged a knife into his throat and out the back of it's skull. Throwing that android ontop of it's other defeated android to further slow down the troops. Unfortunately for a few of them, they had gotten to the bottom just as Matthias threw the body of the android, and were crushed by it, adding themselves to the little blockade.

The third android flung him down the stairs to the next level down. Rolling as best as he could, he managed to not break anything but it still hurt a bit. "They've taken the 6th floor back, I'm holding on the 5th now." He updated the rest of the team on his status. Redrawing his MP5 as a couple soldiers started to get into sight, Matthias opened up on them. Easily taking out the first few that got there before the android made itself seen again. It manuevered right above Matthias and punched a hole in the ground, landing directly next to him. As soon as he heard the impact, he placed the gun back into place as he sheathed his katana also. Rolling, he avoided the slamming punch of the android but not it's kick as he stood up. Hitting the near wall, he bounced off and sprinted forward. Ducking under it's punch, he bench tackled it directly onto the spot it had landed on.

The two of them crashed through the floor and kept going, gaining speed and crashing through every level. Matthias counted...hoping this would work. Once the android hit the second floor, he jumped off it's chest straight up. Grabbing ahold of the hole it just created in the second floor, jerking himself to a stop. Pulling himself up, he drew his MP5 again and shot the android just to be sure. "They've got the 5th...I'm going to hold them at the 4th now." Leaping back up through the holes to the 4th floor, Matthias positioned himself at the staircase after pushing some of the desks, chairs and anything else useful into the way at the bottom to create a bunker line effect. Crouching behind it, he fired up taking some of the soldiers out and haulting their progress.

Quantas spotted his allies running, and the Metal-heads only a half-dozen paces behind. They were faster than the Metal-heads, but slowed by the swath of enemies. The Metal-heads just followed in their wake. He fired at the current position of his allies, the plasma rounds hitting behind them and stopping a Metal-head in his tracks. One shot pelted him again and made him stumble, still unharmed really. Quantas could see the small red dot where it had hit him though. He jumped from the third floor and landed on a slanted slab of concrete. He slid the distance of about a floor on it and jumped off, somersaulting the last floor's distance and rolled to his feet. Not stopping, he ran in Azreal and Abbaddon's direction.

Two explosions rocked the battlefield, one after another. He heard over the com that it was Kindle and twitched an eyebrow in surprise. These newfangled angels aren't so bad, he thought. They can come in handy after all, heh. There was a field of troops closing in on the few buildings around them, moving past the three archangels that tore through their ranks initially to get the snipers and covers that entered the buildings. It was a seek and destroy and they would overwhelm by attrition. The only way they knew how.

Longview switched to flechette rounds to go through the fleshies and get to his allies. Make a path of death to lead to their salvation. Rounds flew around him as those on the ground saw a new opponent. The inaccuracy and poor training of the corps were stuff of legend. It was like the battles of the old 1800's, except the problem then was technology. The problem now was mindless humanity. Oh there were people every now and then that would have a decent IQ level and ability on the field of battle, but those became the Metal-heads and drivers and mechanics and what not. They went up in the world.

That being thought, Longview wasted no time or rounds on pitiful scummy dross. He allowed one shot each, if it didn't kill, it maimed. Before he knew it, his clip was empty. He could see Azreal not too far ahead, bobbing up and down from time to time. The Astereal of Abbaddon could be seen as well, flailing this way and that way through the sea of her enemies. They were only a few dozen yards away by now. He had no heavy ordinance or explosives to speak of, but it wasn't much of a problem. He ejected the ammo pack of flechette rounds, and switched again to conventional 5.56mm so-called "NATO" rounds. Quantas reached into a cargo pocket for a new pack and slapped it into the weapon before firing into the last group of humans in his friends' way. He could see them fully now, and mostly unharmed. There was a bloody trail on Azreal's side, but it wasn't bad.

A round hit Longview in the gut and he grunted, looking down at it. It wasn't much but it was something. He quickly switched to plasma and fired behind Azreal and Abbaddon at the expectation of the Metal-head behind them. He was there alright, and thrown onto his back from the concussive force of it. The armor would hold, undoubtedly, but from this range would have a few pocks to show for it. "I opened up a clear path for you. Get to safety and assess yourselves. I'll cover you," he suggested before watching Masraik try and fly; unsuccessfully. He chuckled a little, at the humorous sight of it. The Metal-head was getting up, obviously shaken but alright. It's weak spot was behind it, the power-pack on their back. It was armored, but had vents for heat dissipation that were vulnerable. Every Achilles had his tendon.

Kindle heard Matt over the comm, "They've taken the 6th floor back, I'm holding on the 5th now." Her mind raced {I need to clear a path, Matt needs help, focus..focus} She dropped her KE Pipe, grabbed the SJ3 and fired 4 rounds at the enemies between her teammates and the building.

"I'm coming up Matt!" She raced for the door, switching her sight to normal, lest she be caught in a physical attack. Third floor was empty, "How could I have been so stupid, there's never just 'a couple of' snipers..." She found a room in the direction of the retreating angels, {a few more shots to help clear, and up to Matt} Her anger showed on her face as she reached the stairs.

Over the comm she heard Matt's voice again, "They've got the 5th...I'm going to hold them at the 4th now."

"Damn!" then over the comm "Hold on, Matt!". Reaching the top of the stairs Kindle used her energy to focus nanites on her chest. As soon as her body appeared at the top of the stairs she became a target. 2 of the enemies coming down shot at her, bad shots if they were going for a kill, but a good shot considering her right arm was unarmored. The bullet pierced her bicep, causing her to lower her weapon and make her own retaliation shot too low.

Dunking behind the bunker, she focused on stopping the bleeding, but she would need more professional medical attention later. {They are too close for the rifle} She tossed it behind her on the stairs, drawing her blaster while swearing. If her right arm wasn't pulsing, she could fire the blaster in one hand and the pistol in the other.

Hit. Hit. Duck. "Matt, did you see how many of them there were?" {I need a spread gun for these situations, I need to equip with one before the mission}. Hit. Duck. "Live or androids?" Hit. Hit. Duck.

ooc: Alright, brain still fuzzy, gonna still crank one out here we gotta keep moving. I think this has about played out.

Mas... for the sake of story telling, I think it'd be best if you edit the post to leave out the creation of an exit. That way your character has somewhere to develop (ie the gain of control of the berserker state) but isn't starting too early on that path, you're supposed to be a mindless killing machine right now. You aren't entirely... gaining control of that can be part of your char development, but I think what you went ahead and did is just a little too much too soon. If you don't want to do that, its fine, your char can react to us not trusting him with the exit or whatever.

IC:
Azrael pushed through the pain in his side. The system had really come a long way, not too long ago the pain would have been just that, pain, none of the side effects of an injury would obvious. Now he was feeling all the side effects of being wounded. He was starting to run low on ammo. He heard the crackle of voices over his radio, the enemy was in the building working their way down. Must have been an arial insertion. That was strange, there were almost no aircraft in the corponations. Those few there were were so closely gaurded and used so rarely that they might as well not exist.

He was getting fuzzy, wandering down lines of thought that didn't matter, the wound shouldn't be affecting him like this, letting himself get distracted... he felt light headed and dizzy. He'd taken far more serious wounds with far less physical response. He felt several rounds thud against his body armor making him staggering. Even so his sword moved as though it had a life of its own. It was slowing though, moving less unnerringly... what was going on?

Poison... some of the more elite corponation troops always used poisoned bullets, knowing that Archangels usually would survive most normal hits they used bullets impregnated with a harsh neurotoxin. He'd been hit by it before. It wouldn't kill him, his immune system was too strong, but it would slow him, and in a fight like this, that was as good as killing him. A normal man would have been dead almost as soon as the toxin hit is blood. The metal heads were close, too close. A grenade from one of their launchers hit near them. He would go back, kill the metal heads, probably be "killed" in the effort, but the team could keep going.

Then the soldiers in front of them were dropping. Longview had opened a corridor for them, but it wouldn't stay open long. Sheathing his sword he said "Let's go." to Abaddon. He pressed against his side, the burst of pain and adrenaline momentarily clearing his mind. HE took off then running faster that any human could sprint, firing rounds off at the same time. The were nearing the building when a round took him square between the shoulders. Weakened as he was, running at the speed he was running at he couldn't save himself, he tumbled, rolling end over end, the butt of his gun digging into him painfully.

His side exploded in pain. He managed to turn his tumble into a roll and came to his feet. His armor had stopped the bullet, but the tumble had sent him rolling out of the cleared corridor and into a thick patch of enemies. They began immediately to pile on him, jumping onto him, kicking and punching holding him down with the sheer press of bodies. He killed many of them, but as soon he was left only with corpses within his range, but still more piled on. This wasn't a tactic real people would ever use, the computer was improvising... they really had done some work on the sim since the last time he had used it. He was having trouble breathing now. His head ached, his mind fuzzed.

ooc: Alright everyone, if you haven't noticed as we've lasted the difficulty has been getting exponentially harder, things are about to pass the tipping point so feel free to start taking damage, even fatal damage, the sim is just gonna keep going till we're all down anyway, or until I stop it. Either way, feel free to play out the end game.

When you "die" in sim, you freeze up, your "wound punishment" dissappears, and you are sort of encased in a visibly red, unmoving force shield.