GRAKKEN PRISON
—Evening, Exterior—
With a burst of rose-colored flames, the iX blasted his way for the tree line, knowing he could pull some of the Banished attention with him. Before he reached the tree line, Copen let loose a pulsating globule of emerald plasma. At this distance, however, the shot was both too slow and too obvious. The skirmisher it had seared for stopped and darted to the side, its claws digging into the earth.
The plasma flew past it and sputtered out against the wall, leaving a black scorch against the thick metal. The second skirmisher, now ahead of its partner, continued forward. Copen’s dash was a little faster than the skirmisher’s running speed, but it didn’t last forever and the skirmishers were right on his tail.
The two lumbering brutes emerged through the gate, glimpsing Copen’s escape into the forest with his pursuers right behind him. The major growled, scratching at his nose for a moment, clearing deciding on his next course of action, though evidently uncertain of it. Reaching a paw up to his helmet, he activated a call to his higher-ups. “Nurtius, give me a line to Mae Kraa.”
His warrior underling stood attentive beside him, ready to defend his major, and eager to spill blood.
Kazaaak was forced to move again, his position too hot to maintain. Firing his needler at the aggressing skirmisher, he forced it to duck back into cover and miss its shot. The needles slid over the edge and honed in the creature, but it avoided most with a nimble dodge. Still, a couple managed to impact its arm. A second later and the crystals burst, their shards spattering beneath the alien’s armor and making it hiss in pain and aggravation. Unable to hold its weapon now, it dropped the particle beam rifle and procured a plasma pistol from its waist to carry one-handed as it held its wounded arm to its chest.
The mantis was running low on ammunition by this point. It was easy to tell visually, as the needler’s crystals stuck out of the top of the weapon. The less needles he could see, the lower the ammo. He had enough for a burst, maybe two, before the weapon would need to be reloaded with another slab.
As he expected, the two brute warriors rounded the corner with their weapons raised, and Kazaaak opened fire upon them. The crystals all converged to impact dead-center on his chest, sticking into the armor. Enough for a supercombine.
The brute knew that as well, letting out a roar as he threw aside his weapon and charged forward without a second thought, barreling toward Kazaaak with the intent to catch the mantis in the pink mist of death, which quickly came as the crystals erupted in unison, the supercomine ripping the brute open as he tried to get as close to Kazaaak.
The other brute snarled at the death of his comrade and fired several orbs of plasma into the pink mist, evident in his intent to catch a possibly stunned and possibly survived Kazaaak with shots before he could recover or retaliate, though the momentary pink cloud made determining the exact position of the mantis moot, even if somewhat counteracted by the pulse carbine’s limited tracking capabilities.
“ACTIVATING FULL POWER!”
The burst of nova, focused primarily on the major, was effective. The brute raised his gauntlets in surprise and confusion, not having expected an attack of that magnitude. He was blown backward with a shout, his gravity gauntlets falling apart as his fur singed and cooked. He partially collided with the edge of the Orsigil, causing him to spin through the air before landing in a pained heap.
The rooftop hostiles winced back, taking cover over the ledge to avoid most of the damage, and when they refocused their attention—JULIAN had disappeared, for the moment.
As they were left scratching their heads, JULIAN rounded about the Orsigil to find a new problem. The EMP blast that had deactivated one of the Shade Turrets had ceased in effect, and the turret was quick to focus fire on the SPARK body. JULIAN was quick to move, avoiding the primary flurry of projectiles to the next side of the Orsigil, finding line-of-sight with the two cowering grunts he’d already claimed, as well as the smoldering heap that was the brute major lying nearby.
The two skirmishers atop the charging station caught sight of JULIAN and squawked, returning the attention of the others to the automaton, who moved quickly to the proper side of the rooftop. JULIAN was moving as quickly as he could, and when Ripnip and Yappin caught sight of the multi-top tower of machinery barreling breakneck toward them. Ripnip was frozen to the spot, evacuating his bowels rapidly as Yappin cried out in fear and turned with his arms up to begin attempting to flee.
JULIAN grasped the both of them in either arm and continued to move, skidding to a stop when he caught sight of the other major and the warrior guarding him as he made his call to command. “Don’t kill meeeeee!!” Yappin cried in utter terror as Ripnip, seemingly traumatized, continued to remain rigid and shaking. JULIAN ignored them, setting them down and bringing up his weapon to take out the last tower skirmisher while those focused on him directed their weapons for the SPARK unit. He fired, scoring a kill as the skirmisher’s head jerked to the side as the beam tore through its helmet and skull, and the alien collapsed.
Nobody noticed the rapidly gyrating orb of white-blue light that sailed through the air toward the banished phantom, empowered with energy not of this world. Dumbface had launched himself skyward, as high as he could from the platform of a skirmisher’s face. Keyes moved quickly behind the cover of the building.
The orb struck the side of the phantom—and erupted.
BOOOOOOOM!!!
For a brief moment, it seemed as though the sky had been engulfed with a second sun. White hot energy emblazoned the sky, casting a wave of intense heat over the prison and its surroundings. Then the shockwave followed, expelling force and radiation over the vicinity.
Dumbface was thrown backward through the air, barely clearing the top of the wall as he was thrown into the rocky hillside beside the prison, out of the way and hopefully not too terribly injured.
The shockwave had an immediate effect as it ka-thoomed down upon the exposed Banished forces with prejudice. Those on the rooftops were knocked off their feet, falling to the ground below with shouts, bellows, and yelps. The shade turrets were fairly close to the phantom, and the rightmost one was uprooted to throw its pilot out. The second held firm, rattling the brute within, while the warrior between them was flung backward into the building interior.
The surrounding woodline was buffetted by the shockwave, which had mostly died into a gust of wind. Branches swayed with verve but held firm, leaving David, Copen, and the two skirmishers unaffected outside of some minor discomfort with a thundering in their ear drums.
The phantom itself, caught in the epicenter of the hyper-explosion, swerved through the air as smoke and volatile plasma hissed from its shell. The unfortunate grunt who’d been right beside the explosion seemed to be vaporized, while the other had been thrown wildly out of the vehicle to splat onto the ground in a splash of bioluminescent blood. The phantom, despite its damage, remained operation as it quickly regained itself, though it seemed to be hovering at an amost lopsided angle.
The dropship decided to keep its distance now, the pilot hovering beyond the eastern wall as its nose turret swiveled about in search of others to focus on moving sluggish as it did so, the vehicles systems having taken a mighty blow.
“What the hell was that?” Private Bisenti called out, stepping from the cover of the building for a moment to glance about. Most of the banished had survived the blast, and disorientation was quickly beginning to pass as they were already struggling back to their feet.
“Whatever it was, it’s an opening!” Lorens replied, rushing past her fellow marine to lead the charge toward the exit, the other two quickly following her. The major and warrior had suffered the least amount of damage, snarling as they got to their feet.
“Reinforcements! They have enhanced explosives!” The major snarled out to his earpiece. “Send blisterbacks!”
The marines fired on the brutes as they passed, the warrior taking the brunt of it as he raised his arms to protect his face, the plasma scoring against him.
The skirmisher who’d been used as a stepping stool by Dumbface blinked as it laid on its back. As its vision slowly began to clear, it suddenly realized there was a charged plasma pistol pointing to its face. It let out a short-lived screech as Captain Keyes released the blast, green plasma reducing the skirmisher’s entire head into atomized particles.
The pistol let out a sad fizzling sound, and Keyes cast it aside with a grunt, the weapon out of ammunition. He’d seen Dumbface go flying over the top of the wall. Hopefully he was alive, and hopefully Jacob could reach him quickly. Gritting his teeth through the pain of it, Keyes stooped down and picked up the skirmisher’s particle beam, biting back the pain of using his wounded hand. He went around the back of the building to find the brute warrior who was harassing Kazaaak. He fired into the jiralhanae’s back, forcing it to stumble forward and drop its weapon in shock. It turned with a snarl. It and Kazaaak had been almost entirely unaffected by the blast, in their position.
Keyes fired a second blast between its eyes to put it down and moved to make sure Kazaaak was alive. “You still with me, mantis?”
Grunt Conscripts: (2)
Jackal Raiders: 10
Brute Warriors: 6
Brute Majors: 2 (1 critically wounded)
Banished Phantom: 1 (heavily damaged)
