Post by Twin on Jun 23, 2008 18:48:07 GMT -5
First Encounter[/b][/u]
Adrian struggled for control over his medium mech, Backbreaker, as it stumbled backwards from the blast. The missiles had struck him hard on the left side, and his secondary weapon, Dom’s Revenge, was not responding. He pressed a few buttons and a small robot, tastefully painted in the same bright blue as the mech itself, stirred to life on the outside. It shuffled towards the damaged joints and barrels to try and fix it. Meanwhile Adrian surveyed the battlefield before him to try and locate what had hit him. He couldn't see much, so he manouvered the Backbreaker to a small ridge to the right, where he could get a better view of what was happening. As he reached the ledge, he stared straight into the final light of the faint mini-sun Lunis as it set on the horizon. The radioactive gasses in the area filtered the light to a sickly greenish blue, and the waste in puddles around him frothed and bubbled towards him.
Down below him Adrian saw Johan and Sirq unleash all of their firepower towards something behind a ruined, tall factory. Johan’s heavy mech, Painkiller, let rip with all three of its massive assault cannons mounted on its right arm. A literal rain of blazing hot cases sprouted from the triple ejectors as the Shamrock battery emptied its storage of killing pain into whatever was lurking behind the factory. Sirq, and her medium mech Stingray , focused two continuous beams from her laser weapons, searing a white line on Adrian’s vision as he stared at the field. The mechs stood far away from the factory, and a vast open field littered with wreckage lay between them and whatever they were shooting at. Still, the two mechs were backing away slowly, shuffling backwards one pedal at a time as they kept firing, and Adrian got an unnerving feeling in his stomach. A feeling that told him that the three of them would’ve probably been better off if they had not embarked on this border surveillance mission tonight.
Suddenly, Adrian’s vision was drawn towards the edge of the factory, where a gigantic machine was now striding forth on slender feet. Running, in fact; despite its enormous size, it moved with a grace and ease surpassing any of the gangers it was bearing down on. It was almost double Sirq’s size, and even Johan would have trouble reaching much taller than its waist socket. In front of where Adrian thought the cokcpit had to be, there was a pale, blue and shapeshifting mask, which moved almost naturally. Right now it showed a concentrated smile as the mech approached the gangers. The rest of the mech was coloured a strange green hue, almost like the air, with intricate patterns and schemes tattooed all over it. It was probably an optical illusion, but Adrian thought he could see the patterns shift and slither across the huge mech as the occasional bullet or beam broke through the shield. And the shield! Adrian had never seen anything like it, and from what he was seeing, he’d gladly give the remainders of his left leg for it. A bubbled, bluish field surrounded the mech where the bullets and laser beams would’ve struck it. The promethium-core bullets exploded on impact with the fluid matter, creating a consistent firestorm outside the bubble. The laser beams seemed to deviate or simply dissipate as they passed through the field, and the mech strode on unscathed. Straight for Adrian’s gang members. And from the two impossibly long, curved blades it was wielding, it didn’t have good intentions.
Suddenly, the strange mech had apparantly had enough firepower blasted onto it for one day. Or just got into firing range. It lifted its arms, revealing two utterly alien mounted guns, one mounted on top of each wrist. Adrian could hear a faint humming all the way from where he was standing, as the weapons charged. The mech didn’t slow down at all as it crossed the vast, open space between the factory and Adrian’s gangmembers. Instead it fired the blasters with deadly precision on the move, as small boosters around its leg kept it stable during the recoil. A hail of alien, pulsating projectiles of plasma or light strafed into Sirq, blowing up one of her lasers, most of her upper torso and hamstringing one of her feet. Sirq’s laser beams snuffed out. She lowered her remaining laser and focused all the power of her damaged mech into stumbling away as swiftly as possible, all the while watching the approaching monstrosity.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going Sirq?” Johan yelled into the comm system. But Sirq didn’t answer, she just limped slowly away from them. Johan could see most of the communication and computer equipment dangling from the open hole that was the bottom of Sirq’s cokcpit. He could make out faint screaming through the sparkling on the comm. And see the tattered flesh and blood drippling from the raggedy hole.
The alien mech gazed after her with a meticulous smile. Then two sleek missiles slid out of their batteries. They just sat there for a second as Adrian and Johan realised what was about to happen. Then they shot out of the launchers, spinning graciously through the air past Johan and straight into the rear engines of the Stingray. The soft, yellow mech went sky high. The explosion showered Johan and the surrounding area in bits and pieces of what had once been their fellow ganger.
“Sirq! No way man, no way! You’re in for it now, maskboy!” Johan growled over the comm; anger, frustration, despair and sorrow dripping from his voice. But mostly anger. Now it was personal.
“Adrian, lend me a hand, will ya?” he barfed into the comm, as he changed his pose and started powering up his huge powerfist. As the massive knuckles stirred to life and sparkled with electricity, the Shamrock gradually lost power, and the boiling hot, hissing barrels got a well deserved time-out.
“On my mark, give it all yer got! Make me proud lad!” Johan said through gritted teeth as he braced himself for the impact. Adrian flipped down his blast visor, grabbed both sticks tight and locked onto the ravening mech.
“NOW! Blast it!” Johan yelled at the top of his lungs as he kneeled down and prepared to go toe to toe with the thing if need be. Adrian did not hesitate; he let loose everything he had. His right arm rippled ten feet backwards and the whole mech slid a few yards as his ordnance weapon, New Earth-shaker, launched a 255mm, Thor pattern high-explosive shell hurtling forwards, followed by six Demolisher strategic missiles, which flew high into the air before locking on and zooming towards their target. Adrian held his breath as his deadly payload flew silently through the choked air towards its target. The destructive bombardment hit the alien mech spot on. A gigantic explosion flashed before Adrian, blinding him for a fraction of a second. Then the shockwave rippled through his mech, making the spirit necklace hanging above him clatter in the assuring way that usually meant that whatever he had hit had gone to wonderland. The missile barrage joined in on the mayhem, shattering the crust around the mechs feet and wrapping the enemy in blazing blossoms of fire. For a moment, the strange mech seemed to halt, and both Adrian and Johan stretched in their seats to see if they had finally brought it down. A moment passed, and then another.
“Good job lad!” Johan bawled into the comm. “We showed that hi-tech freak what it really takes to be a pilot, we-“ he snapped shut as the smoke dissipated, revealing the mech hunched down in the midst of a horrendous crater. Its right arm were shredded to pieces; its weapons dangling in shreds from its wires. Or so it seemed at first. Before Adrian’s eyes, the very fabric of the mech, steel or whatever this thing was made of started to knit itself back together, crackling and hissing, fusing joints and powering up the damaged arm. The alien mech flexed his fingers before him; its wicked mask fluttering into an evil grin as the repaired gun sucked light and smoke into it, sparkling more by the second. With the blink of an eye, it levelled the gun, supported it with the other arm, and unleashed a pulsating light-projectile at Johan’s Painkiller. It impacted in his legs, melting the joints and sending the Painkiller to its broken knees.
“Coward! D’you want to come over here and do that?!” Johan yelled in his speakers, slamming his powerfist into the ground. The alien mech looked up with a meticulous smile, got to its feet and advanced slowly on Johan.
“Adi! Bring it down! Now...” Adrian could sense a tingling fear in the fearless Johan’s voice.
As the Backbreaker changed stance and Adrian prepared to let rip with the damaged Dom’s Revenge as a last ditch effort, something slammed into the window five inches from Adrian’s face. He startled and leapt backwards in his seat, smashing his head into some computer. He swore and blinked. The thing was gone, but he heard a gnawing and screeching sounds from somewhere outside the mech. In the corner of his eye he saw a tiny, mechanized bug slam into Joe, the repair robot, flinging him of Dom’s Revenge and shredding the poor tinman to scrapmetal with razorsharp fangs. Another two of the crawling things were rapidly burrowing their way into the mechs arm. Adrian forced himself to concentrate on his beleaguered clansman first.
“This is for Sirq you freak!” he heard Johan yell in his loudspeakers, as the alien mech reached him. Adrian could only look on, as the grinning mech dodged Johan’s first blow with ease. The hamstrung Painkiller looked like it was pleading for mercy as it kneeled before the gigantic alien machinery. The strange mech thrust one of its lanced blades straight through Johan’s arm and a foot into the earth, with the ease of a knife slicing through butter. Except that this was something like three feet of steel and glassfibre, and rockhard crust. With the powerfist pinned to the ground, Johan could do nothing but watch as the alien lifted its other weapon high above its wicked head.
“Let go you cheap pile of rust!” Johan screamed as he tried to loosen the powerfist. The alien mech grinned at him from way above, and brought its blade crushing down towards Painkiller’s cokcpit.
“Oh no you don’t!” Johan yelled and hit the big, red, shiny button.
Boom!
Adrian was blinded for the second time in just as many minutes, and staggered backwards as the shockwave hit Backbreaker flat in the front. Adrian could feel anger grow inside him. First Sirq, with such brutal arrogance, and now Johan; the infallible knight of their gang. Adrian blinked and stared at where Johan had been a second ago. A smouldering crater lay at the feet of the enemy mech, who had been thrown on its back by the explosion. It stirred to life, took a moment to analyze damage and rose steadily to its feet. It turned towards Adrian, and he could see that this time they had at least managed to piss it off big time. Half its shifting mask had been scraped away, along with a lot of its left side. But even as Adrian got back in his seat, the damage had started to knit back together, twisting and crackling until the evil face could smile at him once again. Adrian decided that that smile was the scariest thing he had ever seen, and that the sooner he could blast it to scrapmatal-land, the better. He pulled back the sticks to level his guns, but nothing happened. A drop of sweat ran down his cheek as he tried the pedals, but found himself standing dead still.
“Not good...” he mumbled to himself. He looked over to the foreboding messages littering the script screen, which he had completely missed for the past few minutes;
:-{[143:26:75]Hull Damage Critical}-:
:-{[143:26:98]Hull Breach Imminent }-:
:-{[143:27:09]Hull Breached}-:
:-{[143:27:17]Hostiles on the premises}-:
:-{[143:27:35]Spinal Core Damage Critical // Secondary Function Shutdowns Engaged}-:
:-{[134//27^/7&6: Com p UTER damage CRIT ical – advi c aution // ]]}
::-+{67[6/7^76x_0://cokcpit brEAch im inent =?.error. -} ;.
:,,,-+=()+1=;{{//9:;//Host iles 1n cOkcpit/+: eJect(?), ]y/n[+:+>
Adrian flailed around, only to stare into the eyes, or rather spectacles, of three of the scuttling mechanical bugs. Two of them stabbed their long jaw extensions into his two arms and slammed him into the window, crucifying him with his feet dangling above the cokcpit floor. As the slender alien mech paced up the hill towards him, he could hear a faint noise or disturbance slowly filling up his ears until it was the only thing he could hear. The noise screeched and tore at him, blurring his vision and making the alien mask look more alive than ever. The bugs were screeching too now, magnifying the signal of their master. He tried to bend away, but they held him tight. He could barely breathe for the pain in his skewered arms.
He could do nothing but stare at the alien figure as it strode up the hill towards him with that loving smile plastered on its face. He could do nothing but tremble as it neatly snipped of the trusty Backbreakers limbs one by one. He could do nothing at all as it lifted the cokcpit high into the air. And he could do nothing but scream, all the way down to the ground which rose rapidly upwards to greet him.
Adrian struggled for control over his medium mech, Backbreaker, as it stumbled backwards from the blast. The missiles had struck him hard on the left side, and his secondary weapon, Dom’s Revenge, was not responding. He pressed a few buttons and a small robot, tastefully painted in the same bright blue as the mech itself, stirred to life on the outside. It shuffled towards the damaged joints and barrels to try and fix it. Meanwhile Adrian surveyed the battlefield before him to try and locate what had hit him. He couldn't see much, so he manouvered the Backbreaker to a small ridge to the right, where he could get a better view of what was happening. As he reached the ledge, he stared straight into the final light of the faint mini-sun Lunis as it set on the horizon. The radioactive gasses in the area filtered the light to a sickly greenish blue, and the waste in puddles around him frothed and bubbled towards him.
Down below him Adrian saw Johan and Sirq unleash all of their firepower towards something behind a ruined, tall factory. Johan’s heavy mech, Painkiller, let rip with all three of its massive assault cannons mounted on its right arm. A literal rain of blazing hot cases sprouted from the triple ejectors as the Shamrock battery emptied its storage of killing pain into whatever was lurking behind the factory. Sirq, and her medium mech Stingray , focused two continuous beams from her laser weapons, searing a white line on Adrian’s vision as he stared at the field. The mechs stood far away from the factory, and a vast open field littered with wreckage lay between them and whatever they were shooting at. Still, the two mechs were backing away slowly, shuffling backwards one pedal at a time as they kept firing, and Adrian got an unnerving feeling in his stomach. A feeling that told him that the three of them would’ve probably been better off if they had not embarked on this border surveillance mission tonight.
Suddenly, Adrian’s vision was drawn towards the edge of the factory, where a gigantic machine was now striding forth on slender feet. Running, in fact; despite its enormous size, it moved with a grace and ease surpassing any of the gangers it was bearing down on. It was almost double Sirq’s size, and even Johan would have trouble reaching much taller than its waist socket. In front of where Adrian thought the cokcpit had to be, there was a pale, blue and shapeshifting mask, which moved almost naturally. Right now it showed a concentrated smile as the mech approached the gangers. The rest of the mech was coloured a strange green hue, almost like the air, with intricate patterns and schemes tattooed all over it. It was probably an optical illusion, but Adrian thought he could see the patterns shift and slither across the huge mech as the occasional bullet or beam broke through the shield. And the shield! Adrian had never seen anything like it, and from what he was seeing, he’d gladly give the remainders of his left leg for it. A bubbled, bluish field surrounded the mech where the bullets and laser beams would’ve struck it. The promethium-core bullets exploded on impact with the fluid matter, creating a consistent firestorm outside the bubble. The laser beams seemed to deviate or simply dissipate as they passed through the field, and the mech strode on unscathed. Straight for Adrian’s gang members. And from the two impossibly long, curved blades it was wielding, it didn’t have good intentions.
Suddenly, the strange mech had apparantly had enough firepower blasted onto it for one day. Or just got into firing range. It lifted its arms, revealing two utterly alien mounted guns, one mounted on top of each wrist. Adrian could hear a faint humming all the way from where he was standing, as the weapons charged. The mech didn’t slow down at all as it crossed the vast, open space between the factory and Adrian’s gangmembers. Instead it fired the blasters with deadly precision on the move, as small boosters around its leg kept it stable during the recoil. A hail of alien, pulsating projectiles of plasma or light strafed into Sirq, blowing up one of her lasers, most of her upper torso and hamstringing one of her feet. Sirq’s laser beams snuffed out. She lowered her remaining laser and focused all the power of her damaged mech into stumbling away as swiftly as possible, all the while watching the approaching monstrosity.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going Sirq?” Johan yelled into the comm system. But Sirq didn’t answer, she just limped slowly away from them. Johan could see most of the communication and computer equipment dangling from the open hole that was the bottom of Sirq’s cokcpit. He could make out faint screaming through the sparkling on the comm. And see the tattered flesh and blood drippling from the raggedy hole.
The alien mech gazed after her with a meticulous smile. Then two sleek missiles slid out of their batteries. They just sat there for a second as Adrian and Johan realised what was about to happen. Then they shot out of the launchers, spinning graciously through the air past Johan and straight into the rear engines of the Stingray. The soft, yellow mech went sky high. The explosion showered Johan and the surrounding area in bits and pieces of what had once been their fellow ganger.
“Sirq! No way man, no way! You’re in for it now, maskboy!” Johan growled over the comm; anger, frustration, despair and sorrow dripping from his voice. But mostly anger. Now it was personal.
“Adrian, lend me a hand, will ya?” he barfed into the comm, as he changed his pose and started powering up his huge powerfist. As the massive knuckles stirred to life and sparkled with electricity, the Shamrock gradually lost power, and the boiling hot, hissing barrels got a well deserved time-out.
“On my mark, give it all yer got! Make me proud lad!” Johan said through gritted teeth as he braced himself for the impact. Adrian flipped down his blast visor, grabbed both sticks tight and locked onto the ravening mech.
“NOW! Blast it!” Johan yelled at the top of his lungs as he kneeled down and prepared to go toe to toe with the thing if need be. Adrian did not hesitate; he let loose everything he had. His right arm rippled ten feet backwards and the whole mech slid a few yards as his ordnance weapon, New Earth-shaker, launched a 255mm, Thor pattern high-explosive shell hurtling forwards, followed by six Demolisher strategic missiles, which flew high into the air before locking on and zooming towards their target. Adrian held his breath as his deadly payload flew silently through the choked air towards its target. The destructive bombardment hit the alien mech spot on. A gigantic explosion flashed before Adrian, blinding him for a fraction of a second. Then the shockwave rippled through his mech, making the spirit necklace hanging above him clatter in the assuring way that usually meant that whatever he had hit had gone to wonderland. The missile barrage joined in on the mayhem, shattering the crust around the mechs feet and wrapping the enemy in blazing blossoms of fire. For a moment, the strange mech seemed to halt, and both Adrian and Johan stretched in their seats to see if they had finally brought it down. A moment passed, and then another.
“Good job lad!” Johan bawled into the comm. “We showed that hi-tech freak what it really takes to be a pilot, we-“ he snapped shut as the smoke dissipated, revealing the mech hunched down in the midst of a horrendous crater. Its right arm were shredded to pieces; its weapons dangling in shreds from its wires. Or so it seemed at first. Before Adrian’s eyes, the very fabric of the mech, steel or whatever this thing was made of started to knit itself back together, crackling and hissing, fusing joints and powering up the damaged arm. The alien mech flexed his fingers before him; its wicked mask fluttering into an evil grin as the repaired gun sucked light and smoke into it, sparkling more by the second. With the blink of an eye, it levelled the gun, supported it with the other arm, and unleashed a pulsating light-projectile at Johan’s Painkiller. It impacted in his legs, melting the joints and sending the Painkiller to its broken knees.
“Coward! D’you want to come over here and do that?!” Johan yelled in his speakers, slamming his powerfist into the ground. The alien mech looked up with a meticulous smile, got to its feet and advanced slowly on Johan.
“Adi! Bring it down! Now...” Adrian could sense a tingling fear in the fearless Johan’s voice.
As the Backbreaker changed stance and Adrian prepared to let rip with the damaged Dom’s Revenge as a last ditch effort, something slammed into the window five inches from Adrian’s face. He startled and leapt backwards in his seat, smashing his head into some computer. He swore and blinked. The thing was gone, but he heard a gnawing and screeching sounds from somewhere outside the mech. In the corner of his eye he saw a tiny, mechanized bug slam into Joe, the repair robot, flinging him of Dom’s Revenge and shredding the poor tinman to scrapmetal with razorsharp fangs. Another two of the crawling things were rapidly burrowing their way into the mechs arm. Adrian forced himself to concentrate on his beleaguered clansman first.
“This is for Sirq you freak!” he heard Johan yell in his loudspeakers, as the alien mech reached him. Adrian could only look on, as the grinning mech dodged Johan’s first blow with ease. The hamstrung Painkiller looked like it was pleading for mercy as it kneeled before the gigantic alien machinery. The strange mech thrust one of its lanced blades straight through Johan’s arm and a foot into the earth, with the ease of a knife slicing through butter. Except that this was something like three feet of steel and glassfibre, and rockhard crust. With the powerfist pinned to the ground, Johan could do nothing but watch as the alien lifted its other weapon high above its wicked head.
“Let go you cheap pile of rust!” Johan screamed as he tried to loosen the powerfist. The alien mech grinned at him from way above, and brought its blade crushing down towards Painkiller’s cokcpit.
“Oh no you don’t!” Johan yelled and hit the big, red, shiny button.
Boom!
Adrian was blinded for the second time in just as many minutes, and staggered backwards as the shockwave hit Backbreaker flat in the front. Adrian could feel anger grow inside him. First Sirq, with such brutal arrogance, and now Johan; the infallible knight of their gang. Adrian blinked and stared at where Johan had been a second ago. A smouldering crater lay at the feet of the enemy mech, who had been thrown on its back by the explosion. It stirred to life, took a moment to analyze damage and rose steadily to its feet. It turned towards Adrian, and he could see that this time they had at least managed to piss it off big time. Half its shifting mask had been scraped away, along with a lot of its left side. But even as Adrian got back in his seat, the damage had started to knit back together, twisting and crackling until the evil face could smile at him once again. Adrian decided that that smile was the scariest thing he had ever seen, and that the sooner he could blast it to scrapmatal-land, the better. He pulled back the sticks to level his guns, but nothing happened. A drop of sweat ran down his cheek as he tried the pedals, but found himself standing dead still.
“Not good...” he mumbled to himself. He looked over to the foreboding messages littering the script screen, which he had completely missed for the past few minutes;
:-{[143:26:75]Hull Damage Critical}-:
:-{[143:26:98]Hull Breach Imminent }-:
:-{[143:27:09]Hull Breached}-:
:-{[143:27:17]Hostiles on the premises}-:
:-{[143:27:35]Spinal Core Damage Critical // Secondary Function Shutdowns Engaged}-:
:-{[134//27^/7&6: Com p UTER damage CRIT ical – advi c aution // ]]}
::-+{67[6/7^76x_0://cokcpit brEAch im inent =?.error. -} ;.
:,,,-+=()+1=;{{//9:;//Host iles 1n cOkcpit/+: eJect(?), ]y/n[+:+>
Adrian flailed around, only to stare into the eyes, or rather spectacles, of three of the scuttling mechanical bugs. Two of them stabbed their long jaw extensions into his two arms and slammed him into the window, crucifying him with his feet dangling above the cokcpit floor. As the slender alien mech paced up the hill towards him, he could hear a faint noise or disturbance slowly filling up his ears until it was the only thing he could hear. The noise screeched and tore at him, blurring his vision and making the alien mask look more alive than ever. The bugs were screeching too now, magnifying the signal of their master. He tried to bend away, but they held him tight. He could barely breathe for the pain in his skewered arms.
He could do nothing but stare at the alien figure as it strode up the hill towards him with that loving smile plastered on its face. He could do nothing but tremble as it neatly snipped of the trusty Backbreakers limbs one by one. He could do nothing at all as it lifted the cokcpit high into the air. And he could do nothing but scream, all the way down to the ground which rose rapidly upwards to greet him.