The squad got settled back into the base, and things normalized after the most crucial repairs of the Mad-E were finished, and Madison was apparently stabilized, at the very least.

When Percy got himself unplugged and out of the NC, he was immediately halted by a mechanic - the same one he told to watch over Ana. Percy's brows furrowed, ready to start screaming at him if he dared to say anything about how he let her run off or something similar, but all that came out of the mechanic's mouth was, "D'you know a Zach Young?"

"Yes." Percy replied shortly.

"Well uh, he came to get your kid and took her to his place."

"Did he now?"

"Uh.. Yes. He did. And he told me to tell you he did."

Percy just nodded, then headed to his 'on site-dormatory'. He kicked off his shoes and just plopped himself down on the bed. He is exhausted. He didn't even get much time to reflect on how tired he was, because before he could finish the thought, he was out like a light. Probably for an hour. Maybe half an hour.

Eli returned to her room, whereupon Vera attached herself to the older girl for a good few minutes or so. When the younger was satisfied with Elizabeth's present living status, she decided to meander out of the room, and she did so alone. Eli refused to visit Madison, and claimed she wasn't hungry.

Vera was not phased, and decided that before she would head to the medical wing, she would grab something to eat in the cafeteria again. She'd met friends there last time, so the place had a pretty decent streak going for it.

For various reasons, few of the regulars were present, and Ana's absence was especially noted. As well, it appears they were actually out of food for the moment, having ran dry 20 minutes ago and cooking up the next batch of everything. "Sorry kid, food production hasn't adjusted to all the hanger-ons. You'll have to wait a bit."

"S'all good, mister. Come here for the company anyway," Vera said, glancing around again before looking back to the man. "Not that your food is bad!" The staffmember chuckled in response.

Joe Verona had just finished his meal, and was about to leave, heading for his room. But he would not escape so easily. Vera recognized him from the dossiers in Eli's folder, even though she'd only browsed the pictures.

"Ayoo!" she called, scurrying after Joe. "You're a pilot, yeah?"

Joe was rather confused by the sudden unexpected greeting: "Err...Yes? Can I help you with something?"

"I dunno, maybe. What's your name?"

"Joe, Joe Verona. May I ask why you wish to know it?"

"May I ask why you wish to know it?" Vera fumbled back, mimicking a tone as low as she could go. Then, snapping back to her own voice: "'Cause pilots are cool, duh! What's your giant robot like? Do you fly? Lizzy's gets to fly, I think.""

"Most NCs we have here at Smith's Rest can either hover or fly, mine is in the latter category. As for how it is in general: its main purpose is artillery." Joe's answers were short, as he generally wasn't too talkative in general.

Vera had to think over the word for a moment. "So you...like...you shoot stuff, right? You shoot stuff with other stuff that blows up."

"Depends. In general, artillery refers to long-range weapons, that are not very easy to move. Most of them fire explosive projectiles, yes, but not all of them do. There are even some artillery weapons, that can shoot beyond the horizon, provided the pilot is capable of aiming that far away."

"Like snipers," Vera said, miming what she imagined a sniper would look like, taking aim down some imaginary scope. "That's pretty cool."

"Not quite, snipers usually fire nonexplosive rounds, and are usually easy to move, but must be set up after moving again. In general."

"Aw that's less cool. Can you imagine a sniper that shot bombs? All the bad guys--" she made a wide, sweeping motion, then dropped her hands. "Dead. Done."

Joe chuckled, a sniper throwing a bomb not as a last measure was kinda hilarious. "You know, snipers are usually used for precise strikes against a single small target, like a single person. A bomb, or any explosive in general, would cause too much collateral damage to be used with precision. Some bad guys hide amongst crowds of good people after all."

"I guess that makes sense," Vera said, and there seemed to be a geniune consideration in her voice. At least, as much consideration as a ten-year-old could muster. And in the same vein, her focus immediately jumped to a new topic.

"Hey so how'd that mission go today? Lizzy won't talk to me about it, I think someone got hurt."

"T.b.h, I don't know yet. The mission was a success, but there were unforseen enemies, and probably as you thought, someone, Madison in particular, might have gotten hurt. At least her NC was completely taken down. As for team B's part, I have no clue about details, but apparently they were fine."

Vera didn't have much trouble putting the name to a face, seeing as Madison was the only other girl in the pilot's list aside from Lizzy. She had looked nice enough, and her giant robot had also been pretty awesome.

"Think Madison's got company? Maybe we could go an' say hi!"

"Let me do something else before that though, let's meet up at Madison's room within the hospital ward?"

Hospital ward. Hospital ward. Had she passed by that at some point? It sounded familiar, like she'd seen it on a sign. Vera elected to just nod and figure her own way there, a little exploration never hurt anyone.

"You got it, Joe."

Joe nodded, and then walked away to his room, where he would look through the online-shop and make a purchase.

Vera made her way out of the cafeteria and proceeded to wander. As it turned out, no, she had not seen "Hospital Ward" on a sign anywhere, and at the risk of getting too lost, she returned to Lizzy's room to find the girl also making a purchase.

"Ayoo," she said, giving the older girl a prod on the shoulder. "How do I get to the hospital ward?"

Eli's focus quickly switched to Vera, scanning the girl over. "Are you hurt?"

Vera rolled her eyes and shook her head. "No, imma go visit Madison."

"Oh. Sure," Eli somewhat begrudgingly gave Vera the directions, then sent the girl on her way. It didn't take too long for her to arrive.

Joe arrived about a minute later, he didn't know the exact directions beforehand either, but his brain had the uncanny ability of a GPS. So long as he wasn't blindfolded on his way from A to B, he would always find back to A.
Seeing as Vera was already there, he knocked on the door.

A staff-member noted that Joe was knocking, and came up to him. "Are you concerned about Madison? We promise she'll be fine. Of course, for safety concerns and some... mild therapy we'll be keeping her out of the pilot seat for a few days. I personally believe she's not exactly fit for visitors, yet.."

"In that case, will she have access to a terminal once her state is stable enough?" Joe inquired.
"Of course, of course."

Vera wasn't sure she believed that anyone could stand being cooped up in a room alone for days, especially someone who drove a giant robot for a living. Still, she'd been taught not to argue with adults, so she supposed she'd just have to sneak back in some time when there were less of them around.

"I guess we weren't lucky." Joe commented on the predicament.

"Well we're not unlucky. We could be Madison."

"How can two people be one?" Joe drifted off into philosophy, somehow.

Vera blinked, looking at Joe as though he'd just sprouted a third eye. "I dunno, there's probably a surgery or something."

"I think that wouldn't be pleasant, for both the body and the mind. You know, the immune system, that protects you from getting ill, also protects you from other foreign objects, including other humans, should they ever be within you." Joe was absent in his ramble.

"I don't think I want to talk about people being in each other with you, no offense Joe."

Joe snapped out of it, he himself was confused as to how he got into the state he was in, and how to even call it. "I think I need some sleep, good afternoon, err... what's your name?" Joe squinted. He was so used to chats, he actually checked whether or not there was a nametag floating above Vera.

"Vera," she said, then remembering how'd he'd introduced himself earlier, she stood up straight and proud. "Vera Voloshyna, assisstant to NC pilot Elizabeth Jackspar."

"Good afternoon, Vera, it was nice meeting you." Joe completed his sentence.

Vera smiled. "Good afternoon to you too, have fun sleeping!"

As Joe walked away, he fell into a ramble again: "How can one have fun while sleeping? In dreams, I guess, but why not wish 'good dreams' instead?....." He was so absent, that he tripped over a doorstopper embedded in the ground, and fell on his face. Joe was so tired, he didn't notice the pain, used his arm as a pillow and immedeatly fell asleep.

Vera wasn't sure what to make of what she saw, or heard. The guy didn't seem like he was in any danger, so she figured it best to leave him be. But wow, pilots could be weird.

She gave his head a soft pat as she passed. "Have a nice nap, Joe," she whispered, and then made her way once again to the cafeteria. Two for two so far for being a neato place to hang out.

Sophia, alone in the briefing room and with her thoughts, wondered if she should just continue telling Elizabeth 'certain things'. Sophia had mixed feelings about her past, perhaps conversing with someone would give her a new perspective? Of course it would, right? A new perspective could perhaps point her in the right direction. She was so aimless these days; no real goal.

She was a woman of action, dammit. She really did need something to strive for, that she actually believed in... Not for anyone else. To her, this wasn't a 'Fight for Home', she needed something more. Something she could care about personally.

Away from Smith's Rest, a certain group was beginning to get interested in the town... One of their contacts informed them of an interesting development regarding it. The group decided to send a team, 'oh so secretly'.

The siege of Smith's Rest would begin.

The following post has been removed for Lore reasons

Duncan Brown

Duncan sat on the edge of the Mad-e, looking over the machine with his laptop plugged into the machine. He wasn't happy, he was somewhat upset at what Madison had done. Clearly she blew it this time and as a result put herself into the hospital.

"Bloody Hell Madison. Why'd you have to go and do this to yourself?" he spoke in a disheartened tone as he poured over the data. While looking he came across a section of code that didn't quite make sense, specifically in the Cerebral Link. "That's odd... I never added this!" He studied it for a little longer, trying to read the language that it was written in, "It almost looks like a virus."

Madison Cole

"GHAHHHHH!!!"

A chair was slung across the medical ward at a door that was locked from the outside. There was a violent crack as the metal rebounded off the hard surface and fell onto the ground. Stumbling over to the doorway was Madison, dressed in a patient's gown and bare foot as she landed her fist on the door and began to thump against the reinforced, opaque glass.

"Let me out! Let me out!!!" Madison screamed at the top of her lungs, "Please..." She tried to pick up the chair for another swing but fumbled it and fell to the ground, landing on her side. Her head started to ache. She was exhausted at how she exerted so much energy after the ordeal that she put herself through out on the field. "I don't understand what I've done."

Since the reboot Madison's memory was completely shot. She couldn't put together the events that happened since trying to restart her NC after the system reboot. A few small scenes were able to play out in her mind but whenever she tried to think hard about them her head would split open into a migraine and her nose would start dripping with blood. The worse part was that when her nose started bleeding her anger levels would drastically rise up to a dangerous level, as proven when she knocked out one of the medical assistants.

Madison shuffled over to the corner of the room and curled herself up into a fetal position, placing her head in between her knees and there she began to weep. "I don't want to be left alone again..." she tearily whispered.

The day continued, and Madison was re-assured that this was absolutely necessary by another assistant that came in to try and 'pacify' her. "Please, calm down! This is required, your skull was nearly fractured, and we need time to prepare for the procedure. Do you want your head to crack open in a combat scenario?"

Duncan's superior also overheard the apparent virus that was in Mad-E's systems, and the engineers in charge of the Wessex also notified the engineer in question that the Wessex would need to be demobilized for a short period of time. It appears that one of its' leg motors was on the verge of breaking, and it was plenty obvious that would've been horrible in a battle zone.

The 'lead engineer' decided to notify Sophia of these developments, knocking on the Briefing room's door and telling her through it.

Night, eventually fell, and the soft rain from before came back, with a vengeance. A torrential downpour of rainfall was a relatively welcome sight, even if it annoyed the citizens of Smith's-Rest proper. Of course, when the clock turned to 12:53, something a lot worse happened.

A trio of very large cargo-aircraft were 40 klicks away from Smith's rest, and were followed by a squad of black helicopters, each carrying either a tank or plenty of troops. A half-dozen MBT's and a full brigade of infantrymen were dedicated to this operation, not to mention what the three planes were ferrying. 30 kilometers away from Smith's Rest, and they revealed their cargo: Equally black-painted NC's. 27 klicks away, and the doors fully opened, allowing the three NC's to fly out under their own power and come in first. Each cargo-jet had two non-neural walkers inside as well, quadruped designs fitted with some sort of gaseous weapon, and plenty of cargo space. They apparently wanted the people of SR alive... but for what purpose?

The 'aerial fleet' that encroached upon Smith's Rest began unloading their cargo, the squads of infantrymen using small jetpacks to slow their fall and jump over obstacles as they entered SR's perimeter individually, and rugged tanks simply impacting the ground and driving into the outskirts, large walkers in tow and readying themselves to catch some prey. The NC's headed for their equals and opposites' hangar, and began firing.

Obviously, this was noted. Percy, Madison, Joe, Jingo, and Elizabeth (alongside the entirety of Smith's Rest, if even a little) heard a large blast, and then a second one as one of the thick walls of the hangar exploded, shrapnel entering the hangar-bay proper and impacting a few engineers. Gunfire soon followed, security guards outside getting a handle on the situation and firing at the three NC's. Of course, in the dead of night, and even with the assistance of gun-mounted flashlights, the enemy NC's most fragile areas were barely even hit or properly targeted. It did buy some time, however, and the NC's were far away enough. As this began to happen, Sophia used the intercomms; "NC Pilots! Get in your units and go! We're being attacked!"

The non-NC's entered the perimeter of the town and started their mission, Armed men following large quadrupeds picking up civilians and putting them into large cargo-holds on their 'backs', and tanks providing fear and gunning down anyone that looked like they had a gun. The west side of the town, as it was being attacked, began utterly freaking out, and the east soon followed as people woke up and realized what was going on. People in the streets were trying to find safe places to hide, occasionally only to be found and either shot in the head, or in the legs to be scooped up for something worse.

This wasn't going to end good at all.

Percy's immediate thoughts were of his daughter. He was close to screaming fuck you to the captain and bolting out to make sure Ana was safe and sound, but.. at the same time, there were way, way more people that needed to be helped here. He was torn...

Meanwhile, Zach was in his home with Ana, his rifle at the ready just in case whoever these fucks were decided to barge into his door. He's not gonna let Ana get taken away if it kills him. Nobody seemed to come for Zach and Ana for a long while.. Maybe they thought nobody was home? Before Zach could breathe a sigh of relief, they heard footsteps outside.

"Shit," Zach muttered under his breath, ducking behind the window so maybe they wouldn't see him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Ana trying to poke her head out of the basement she was hiding in. Zach furiously shook his head, mouthing, "No, stay put." Ana meekly nodded and ducked her head back inside. Zach carefully shuffled over to hide the trapdoor with the rug, then decided he'd keep cover behind the couch, close to where Ana was.

Zach could hear two voices talking, a man and a woman. "37, check that house." "Roger, 52, breaching household.". Zach could see his door's lock get shot out, and wooden splinters entering his household just a second afterwards. More footsteps, and he could just tell a foot was ready to kick it down.

Zach readied his rifle, flicking the safety off. Thank God he bought the firearm. However... "..52, my, uh.. My firearm's out of ammo." "...Roger, abort. We have bigger fish to catch anyway. We're only here for irregulars." "Affirmative, aborting.'

Zach tried to think of what that could possibly mean, irregulars. People that are just visiting, maybe? The two's footsteps got quieter and quieter, but a different noise could be heard, one of a tracked vehicle. They brought fucking tanks?

Zach almost felt like puking. What in the fuck was this? ... Call Percy. Surely he knows by now, but it'd be good to make damn sure he knows shit's going down.

Percy never got that call, though. He was already in his NC and he was trying to push the other guys back, much like (hopefully) Elizabeth and Verona. Sophia got on the radio, "Do you really need my permission? Get out there, guns blazing! They're on your left. Shoot through the damn hangar walls if you have to!"

Percy was already aware of where the NCs were, considering he was fighting them right now. He turned on his comms to Sophia, "If you're able to in this moment, please make sure my daughter's safe. Contact Zach Young, that's where she ought to be right now. Please."

"Affirmative, just handle the enemy!'. Sophia tore open her own phone and speed-dialed Zach.

It took Zach a moment to even notice his phone was ringing, he was busy checking to make sure Ana wasn't in shock or crying. He answered the phone on Sophia's third attempt. "Shit, sorry, hey. Who's-" "This is 'Captain' Sophia of the Smith's Rest Independent NC squadron. Is Ana fine? Do you need assistance?"

"We're both fine. I think she's just a little shaken up, it's not a problem.. I'm staying with her with a weapon on the ready, just in case some asshole tries to get in here," Zach's voice fades a little bit, like he moved the phone away from his mouth, "Sorry, Ana."

A small laugh could be heard over the phone, "S'okay."

Zach's voice normalized after that, "Is that all you needed, ma'am?" "Pretty much. Oh, one more thing. If Ana dies, you do too.", she then hangs up.

Zach was put off slightly by what she had said, and prayed that Ana didn't hear that threat.. but she was blissfully unaware. Maybe not 'blissfully', but.. Still unaware. At the worst possible time, an explosion was heard closeby, and the door was knocked off its' hinges. Fuck. A soldier was walking past and noticed the open doorframe, and Zach inside. He began aiming. Fuck.

Zach scrambled to shut the trap door and get back behind the couch before the soldier could get a round off. Sure, the couch isn't great cover, but it works well enough. The grunt fired off a few rounds, all of them missing but making Zach - and possibly Ana - likely trash their pants.

Zach peeked his head from behind the couch just to get a bead on where the soldier is - in the doorframe, couldn't tell if it was to the left or to the right. Before he could fire, the armed trooper rushed in, and Zach could see he had a bayonet on his rifle. He fired off some 'covering fire' for himself, a round penetrating the couch and into Zach's arm. When the soldier was close enough, he kicked the couch apart and tried to lunge at Zach.

Despite the agony Zach's arm was in, he fought the trooper especially hard - fear for himself and another, smaller person is a pretty powerful thing. A fight against fist and knife ensued, the armored, masked man went for a quick stab with his bayonet. Zach shoved the soldier aside with all of his might - and that's pretty hard - and went to get on top and pummel his face in. This fuck is not taking Ana away to do God knows what to her. He kicked Zach off with the same ferocity and clawed his knife away from his gun. "Surrender or die!" the foot soldier yelled, shooting Zach in the chest again and going to stab him in the jugular.

Zach managed to grab the soldier's hand before he could get stabbed in the neck, and did his damnedest to turn the knife around and stab the assailant in the throat. But then he felt something knock him in the head and everything went black.

"Target down." the assailant's friend noted, a smart-ass little grin on his face. "The feisty ones are the most efficient test-subjects. I'll drag him out, you check the door."

"Roger 83.", and 76 soon went to the trap-door. 76 peered down.

Ana shrieked when she saw the strange man looking at her from above. Tears started streaking down her face, and she backed up as far as she could into the furthest corner. She regretted shrieking, because it's likely she wouldn't have been spotted, but she did.

"Child spotted, let's get her to the walkers.", he then went to grab her, being a fully grown military man, she obviously couldn't do shit. Doesn't mean she didn't try to, though. She screamed as loud as she could, hit the man in the arm, kicked him.. even went to bite him a couple times. "83, put him down. He's shot twice, isn't he? He's probably gonna bleed out in the hour, forget him. This one's being.. un-cooperative."

And soon, Ana was put with a few other then-unconscious people into one of the Walker's cargo-holds.

The noises of the fight in Smith's Rest awoke Joe, they were so unusual, too many to just be an escalated dispute between some armed drunks. The almost instantly released adrenaline eradicated whatever tiredness was left in him, and his brain analyzed the sounds and flashes of gunshots. West, they were attacking the west side and proceeding to the east, getting closer to the base.

Whatever the conflict was, at this point it couldn't be resolved without force, so Joe got up and sprinted towards the hangar, if he found a fuse-box on the way, he would remove all fuses to use the darkness to hide, as a side effect most electronically locked doors would unlock automatically.

As he arrived at the hangar he was lucky, the hangar's fusebox was right next to the doorway he was in right now. Joe removed the fuses for the hangar's illumination, and it got dark within the hangar in the snip of a finger. He knew exactly where his NC was, so he could get to it from his current location while blind, and so he ran. Even if the enemy had flashlights pointed inside the hangar, it was unlikely he was caught by one randomly and recognized as a target.

After his NC had booted, Joe pointed the aiming-laser of his missiles at a random enemy he could see through the hangar door, and fired the missiles. Their exhaust should be foggy enough to allow him to exit unnoticed, which he did.

The three NC's outside continued their barrage of attacks, another wave of bullets and energy beams impacting the hangar and making new holes in the bloody walls. Elizabeth and Percy could get a good look at them though, it appears they're all very streamlined units and built with the same basic design, aside from the legs. Two are simple bipeds, and the 'leader' in the middle is a quad instead. Although what they're doing is honorless, he seems to at least chat, as is simply customary. He opens a comms, "Don't fret. We're not going to kill everyone, we just need more data. Don't fret."

Percy was already on high alert, but this just made it even worse. He pushed the button that allowed him to speak, "What are you talking about, more data? For what?"

"Perhaps I already said too much. Surrender and you might see another day."

"Not a chance," Percy held his ground. "You'll tell me what you're referring to or you'll be-" "You really think you're in the position to make demands? That's cute. Men, fire at him, in particular." The leader of the enemy laughed, "Maybe you'll learn humility in the next life."

Each NC revealed their particular weapons. The leader had some sort of 'gatling-laser' on its' left arm, a machine-cannon on its' right, and missiles on the back. The one to his right had two rifles and a back-mounted laser, and the third one to his left had what appears to be a 'sheathed' sword on its back, a pistol, and a scatter-laser.

Percy regretted thinking that he might be able to scare them into submission. It worked before, he thought maybe it'd work again. Percy cleared his throat, cutting comms with the enemy, and he manages to choke out to the captain, "Do you have any information on these guys?"

"Yes. They're charging weapons! DODGE, DAMN IT!"

Percy cursed out loud, dodging out of the way when he realized that they were about ready to fire and blow him into a red mist.

Eli was all but bolting down the halls when the attacks began. She wasn't heading for the hangar, but the Hospital Ward, and upon finding Vera absent, went to the next-best place, and found the girl hiding beneath one of the long tables.

"Come on!" Eli grabbed Vera's arm, and though the girl mumbled something under her breath, she followed, latched onto the elder girl's side.

The choice was tough to make, if she left Vera in her room, there was a chance ground units would push in and find her. But then, what other option was there? She wasn't taking the girl with her in Blur, and they were too far away from Smith's Rest to try and get there under the assault.

Eli pulled a small case from under her bed, flinging it open and rifling through the few spare clothes and odds-n-ends within until she found what she was looking for: an old handgun, belonging to her mother. She checked it over, made sure it was loaded, then went back to Vera. The girl looked on the verge of tears, but damned was she holding it together.

"Vi--hey, Vi, listen to me. You're gonna stay here, right here, you got it? If anyone comes through that door that isn't me, you take this--" she put the gun in Vera's hands. "You point it at them, okay? I know mom's shown you how to use these, just a bit. Just do what she told you. You got it?"

Vera nodded, rapid but sure, and clutched the shoddy old gun in her hands. Eli cupped the girl's face and gave her a light peck on the forehead, though it couldn't assuage all of the worry.

"You're gonna be fine, you're my assistant. I'll be back, hold down the fort."

And with that, Eli locked and sealed the door behind her, then bolted once again, this time to the hangar. The barrage made it tough to get to Blur, and she found she had to climb that last few feet on the elevator, but at length she was settled into the cockpit, and the snowy NC was firing up.

Blur rocketed out of the hangar, blade drawn and ignited. She didn't want to risk drawing her shotgun so close to the base, the risk of the large, spread-shells hitting something they weren't supposed to was too great. Her attention turned to Percy, the only other teammate she could see out in the field at the moment, and a moment later she was rushing in to aid him.

A huge barrage of shells, energy beams, and missiles rocketed out, aiming for Percy's NC, with munitions coming from the left, right, and dead ahead. He managed to dodge the worst of it by boosting up into the air and going above the NC's heads; primarily the laser weaponry, but he definitely didn't come out narry a scratch. The three enemy NC's divided and began operating (and firing) independent of eachother. They didn't notice Blur coming in, ready to rip at least one to shreds more then likely.

Percy quickly picked out one to focus fire on - the one with the pistol. That one ought to be easiest to deal with.. surely. He glanced to the radar to figure out which dot that one was, then quickly marked it with an X so he doesn't lose track of it.

Blur came from aside, scanning over the three NC's as they honed in on Percy. He had his focus set on the side-arm-weilding enemy, so she looked to the one with the heaviest looking equipment. Backmounted laser and two rifles? The guy was going to cause damage if he stayed in the fight for too long.

Either she'd missed the opening communications, or there had been none. Regardless, she wasn't about to wait to chat with the fuckers bombarding her home. Locked on to the laser-wielding NC, she closed the distance and prepared a wide swing for their middle. The black-knight of an NC side-stepped the attack, but it still cut off its left arm, getting at least one of its rifles out of the fight. However, he took an equal toll; his back-mounted laser fired a massive particle beam, the blue light igniting the air around it into plasma, and impacting at the speed of light at the Blur's right shoulder, blowing it and the arm off.

However, it didn't hurt. She could still feel... hope. But why? Percy could too. Maybe they weren't alone?

Percy went in to stab the NC with his blade - he was doing circles with the pistol-wielding NC, dodging the bullets he attempted to fire at him. The pilot he was attacking cackled. "So, you wanna fight? Blade against blade? Very well.", and grabbed his NC's own greatsword from his NC's back, holstering its' kinetic and laser pistol to two-hand the monstrosity. He twirled it around his right hand and boosted towards PM, ready to slice him in half.

Percy quickly glanced down at his own blade - it was not nearly big enough to do much - if anything - to this guy. Before he could really let that sink in, he was forced to dash to the right to dodge the NC, then he takes the blade with his NC's bare metallic hands and shoves him to the side so Percy can go in to stab him in the back of the head. Thank God he's not being forced to do this in an actual swordfight.. or grabbing a real sword with his real bare hands. He'd be dead by now.

"Hahahahahah!" the sword-wielding pilot laughed, "Good one!"

"Damn straight," Percy quickly retorted, a shit-eating grin on his face.

He then did a backflip so instead HE was now behind Percy, assisted by his NC's thruster jets.

"BUT NOT GOOD ENOUGH!"

Percy's grin is wiped off his face when he realizes he was just a little too slow. He soon felt as if he was being stabbed straight through the gut... as that's what just happened to his NC. It felt way too real. He actually coughed a little bit and was surprised he didn't cough up blood. "Aaauugh, what the fuck.." Percy muttered shakily.

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̶̵̴͡G̸͝È͢Ǹ̕͢͜͞E̢̨͟Ŗ͘͘A̛͢͟͜͡T̸͜͜Ớ͏̷R̸͝:̧̛̛H͏͝E͏͢͠A̶̷͟͡V҉̵̷Y̧ ͢͟D̀͜͟͠A͜͢͞M̶҉̴́́A̵̴̢͡G̵̶̵͟͡E̴̶̛͜҉
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҉̶̡S̷̷̢̢̕W̸Ì̴͞T̸̛C̕̕͏͏͞H̶̕I̴̸̧̕͞Ǹ̶̸̡̢G̶̵̀ ͘͜͢T̴̸̨͟Ò̧̧͟͜ ̴҉̷͡͞B̴̀͜͟͝Ą̕͞͡T̸̵͘͟͝T̶͘E͘͟͟͡R͘͝҉̷̧Ỳ̧̛

"Damn it."

The enemy NC then kicked him while pulling his sword out. "Normals.. Heh."

Percy checked to make sure he wasn't actually fucking stabbed in the stomach briefly before he made an attempt to get up and keep fighting.. but the fact the pain lingered made it worse.

The captain of the enemy scoffed over the comm's and told them the reaity of the situation; "You people don't have a snowballs' chance in hell to drive us back, just accept your fate."

Percy didn't even attempt to come up with a comeback. He just went right back to fighting, no more mercy.. or rules. He brought up his rifle and blasted the sword-wielding NC with as many bullets as he could get to hit. It took all the shots, a few making noticeable holes but most simply bouncing off, his armor was well-made, and well-angled... Maybe they're correct. But just because they're 'correct' doesn't mean they're right morally, does it?

Perhaps it was the fact that she watched her NC's arm hit the ground that made the lack of sensation so unsettling. It felt like her entire being rippled, but at the same time the numbness that accompanied the neural link left her unsure of exactly what she felt.

So in the absence of any known feeling, she decided to substitute anger. The blade on her wrist ignited, and she whirled around, not to slash, but to stab, and not even with the aim of destroying the NC. Instead, she aimed for the enemy's remaining shoulder, hoping to drive the blade far enough to lock its arm from moving. If that succeeded, she'd follow through and plant her own shoulder into the NC's middle, and then, firing all engines, attempt to take off into the air with it, hopefully angled in such a way as to avoid the cannon on its back.

Sadly, she couldn't do much. The blade impacted into the NC's last shoulder, but he simply boosted up first! She couldn't hold on too long, as he started evasive maneuvers almost immediately, kicking her off too. The leader of the enemy fired his gatling laser as Blur fell down, blowing off one of her thruster 'wings'. "And so the angel fell."

In the meantime, Joe had already taken off, and was amidst the clouds looking down at what was going on on the ground, flying in circles. He attempted to use what he did in his last battle accidentally, surround one enemy singlehandedly. He fired off a volley of missiles while rotating around his own axis. The missiles were in dumb-launch mode again, so he could surprise the enemy again, hopefully. He aimed for the enemy NC with the lasers, and right before he switched the missiles back to aimed mode, he sent that specific enemy a voice message: "Give up, you're surrounded!". But it was no use, he laughed in return, "Surrounded by one? perhaps you should be paying attention.", and the leader began shooting down each missile one by one before they could impact, managing to do so very efficiently. Fuck.. Who were these people? "You have a great snapshot." Joe complimented the enemy.

Blur hit the ground hard, another wave of numbness, another wave of anger to fill the void. She pulled back to her feet, engines flared, and began her own maneuvers in turn. She took to the skies, having to pay far closer attention to what she was doing now that there were fewer thrusters to support her.

She scanned around, trying to find the one-armed NC now that Swarm had the quad-NC preoccupied.

Percy could see behind his opponent that Blur hit the ground. He winced sympathetically, giving his opponent an opprotuinity to smack him around.. But he didn't let them. He dodged out of the way, semi-circling around to shoot a single volley of missles into his back - ba-ba-bam. Miraculously, the sword-NC did something that honestly should be impossible: he simply started to cut the missiles in half. In-the-air, before they even impacted.

"How in the fuck are you doing that?!" Percy shouted. "YOU SHOULDN'T EVEN BE ABLE TO DO THAT!" Just goes to show how uneducated Percy is about NCs.

"Captain, I believe we've had enough fun." "Agreed, I've had my jollies too." "Very well, initiating plan B."

And before they knew it, the fight was over. Percy's, Joe's, and Elizabeth's NC's all locked up. The Swarm, The Blur, and the Papa-Mike fell to earth, or simply stopped functioning. It was over.

Blur's engines died, and Eli felt the breath rush from her lungs. "No--no! No!" The denial did nothing, she stopped ascending, stopped moving of her own accord, and all of the sudden her anger was replaced by something even worse: terror.

She looked down, saw har far up she was, and then fell. There was nothing over comms, even in the pilot's seat Eli didn't scream, she couldn't. Blur hit the ground in a veritable explosion of dirt and dust.

Inside, from a window in Eli's room, Vera watched and did the screaming for her.

Percy gasped as well - not because it felt breathless, but because, again, he didn't even know this shit was possible. He tried to get his communications on, but they wouldn't work, or were static. His thoughts went back to Ana. She's going to be fatherless. The stress of this whole situation finally hit him like a hovertrain. He felt his chest tighten up and he started crying.

"Well, that was cute." the leader of the enemy forces mocked.

Joe wasn't done yet, and killed the comms by ripping out the wires connecting the computer with the comm-transmitter, and forcing the computer to reboot by killing its power. But, it was too late anyway. He could smell a burning smell, and he could see his systems were literally fried. "Huh, darn these military-developers. That's why I prefer lowtech!" he shouted in rage.

The captain laughed at them a final time, using instead his NC's 'speakers'. "It was nice fighting you people. I'm feeling charitable, so I'll allow some final-"

He stopped.

"...What, there's six of you?"

Looking out the portholes of their NC's, everyone could see a light in the distance, a fire. It looked like it could be a rocket, or something similar.

"Hmm... that one looks different. I'll cash in reinforcements, just in case..." and with that, some of the heli's that sticked around revealed additional troops... specifically, additional NC's, walking out of their cargo holds. At least these ones seemed to be mass-produced types, unlike the fully customs that the three leading ones were "You know what to do.". The appropiately camouflaged MP-NC's started to maneuver, setting up a perimeter against this new enemy. Ten of them total, they prepped their weapons: A laser and kinetic rifle each.

The light grew in size more and more, lighting up the droplets of water falling from the sky. Before it became clear what it was, an object detached from the light. The light revealed itself to be some kind of detacheable NC rocket pack. The rocket pack smashed into the first 5 and tore them apart, outright exploding into a giant fireball as it hit a sixth one.

The other’s turned around and face the direction from which the rocket pack came from. Nothing. Behind the last out thin air, a black NC revealed itself.
“You’re looking in the wrong direction.” A figure grinned inside the mech. “I’ll have your guts incinerated!” The individual yelled through the comms.

The NC grabbed something from it’s back and threw it at the closest one. It turned out to be a three bladed shuriken. It struck the other NC causing it to panic for a moment. A moment later it exploded into pieces.

As the other's turned around to face the assailant it vanished in thin air. A cloak of some sort. The black 'friendly' NC reappeared in front of a central MP-NC and kicked its' assault rifle with a leg to the side while grabbing the laser rifle under his NC's arm. With his other free hand he reached towards a lower part of the laser rifle. Whatever he did it caused it to fire, hitting one of the hostiles that was positioned right behind him, disabling it. after a few hits to it's chest. The remaining three NC's turned and fired on the black NC.

With incredible reaction time he turned to face them while using the hostile NC in front of him as a shield. The laser fire and kinetic rounds shredded it. The black NC then kicked it away towards the other three. And just like that he was gone again. A mere few seconds reappearing behind another, this time he had deployed some sort of weapon. Before anyone knew what happened the hostile NC's middle section was gone.

"Just not satisfying enough. I want to see you burn." The person inside the black NC commented.

The kinetic force of the rifle he used was enough to tear the whole lower torso away with two shots. He then grabbed the MP-NC by it's head. The two shots hit just below the cockpit causing the pilot to literally hang off his MP-NC as the upper part was lifted up. The black NC merely chucked the remaining part of the MP-NC away, causing the pilot to loose grip. He didn't even have the chance to hit the ground as the NC revealed another weapon in his arsenal. A blade deployed from his left arm.

The hostile pilot was shrouded in a mist of his own blood as he was cleanly cut in half. The remaining two MP-NC's opened fire. This time he was heading straight for them, no cover, no cloak, yet he somehow elegantly managed to dodge all the shots, somehow predicting their trajectories impeccably.

Moments later he was stood in front of the nearest MP-NC. He used his blade to cleanly cut through the lower torso of the MP-NC. He then simply kicked the upper part off it's legs and proceeded to throw one of his explosive shuriken right in the now cut area that lead to the cockpit.

"I promised I'll burn your guts." And with that the remaining part of the MP-NC exploded in a sizeable fireball.

Obscured by the fireball the last hostile began blindly firing in all directions. All except the one from which the black NC emerged. His main weapon now holstered again on it's back, it deployed a second blade from it's right arm and stabbed the MP-NC in it's right shoulder while with the other arm he simply grabbed for it's left arm, ripping it off.

With it's own arm, the black NC struck the other one a few times with enough force to flip around so that it would face it with it's back. A kick to the back later and the MP-NC was lying face first in the dirt. The black NC approached the other and stepped on it's back. The metal underneath it's leg slowly creaked and bent as it was being pushed down.

"Slowly now. We wouldn't you to die too quickly." He broadcasted.

"Or maybe not!" He yelled and suddenly the slow squeeze turned into a brutal crush.

"How interesting...", the ring-leader of the attacking forces commented to this new arrival, over the comms. "Are you the ace-in-the-hole of Smith's Rest? It appears so... Your abilities eclipse the other's by a very large margin."

Sophia, inside the hangar and watching through a hole in one of the walls, could only stare wide-eyed at what she was seeing. Another NC entered the combat zone, and just annihilated eight or ten Mass-Produced NC's. MP-NC's were shit in comparison to the real deal, but that was insane... so quickly.. "Out of the pan.. into the fire..?"

The three NC's rocketed towards the new arrival, they were damaged, but they had the advantage. The three NC's still had their weapons; The first had its' gatling and laser equivelant alongside its' missiles, the second still had a rifle and its' massive laser-cannon, and the last still had its' pistol, scatter-laser and greatsword.

The leader rocketed in front of the others, firing a small horde of missiles, a constant laser beam sweeped over the new ones' position, and NC-grade gatling rounds were fired. The other two weren't far behind; the melee-oriented one had its' blade in one hand ready to swing and firing its' pistol with the other, and the one with the giant laser on its' back began charging, firing a few rounds with its' assault rifle as well.

They began to spread out while moving towards the new one as well, trying to make it as difficult for him to dodge as possible.

The black NC took out another one of his explosive shuriken and threw it towards the NC that fired the rockets. It barely covered any distance before detonating most of the missiles approaching him, while obscuring himself from the three. From his perspective he had plenty of time to dodge the rounds and beam too, and so he did, while also removing his railgun from his back once more. It didn't leave him unscathed though. Even with his inhuman reaction time, a burning red streak was left on his NC's chest after a short exposure to the laser beam. The smoke from his shuriken was starting to clear up so he took aim and fired the front most NC.

"This one's good, Boss!" the melee-oriented attacker-NC laughed, "Real good! Don't shoot, I want to see what he can do." With that, he set his thrusters to max power and soon found himself right next to the new-arrival. "What's your name, pal?", he asked while swinging for the NC's cockpit.

"If you survive, I'll tell you. Promise."

Mid swing the black NC grabbed his sword with his left hand and twisted it out of his grasp. He then threw it to the ground and pulled out another shuriken and shoved it into the shoulder of the arm that was holding the sword. He allowed it to explode in his face leaving burn marks all over the black armor. The explosion spun the, now, 'weaponless' NC falling to it's knees. The black NC approached and aimed it's railgun at it's back, pausing for an execution style kill..

"No name for you." The executioned pitifully tried to unholster its' laser pistol to fire back and shot off a few rounds with its' 'revolver', but to no avail.
Two shots were fired, and the NC dropped to the ground and remained motionless.

Right after the act, the Artillery NC's primary weapon finished charging and fired, a relatively thin, but severely focused and energetic beam made itself known with a mighty *KRAK*, and hit the 'saviour' of an NC in the head, blowing off a sensor, and blinding the rest for a few seconds.

The black NC ducked and covered it's head with an arm.

"That's what I get for trying to add some flavor to my kills." He commented angrily.

"You...You fight familiarly...", the captain of the enemy forces stated, inquisitvely. "You can't be...?". The captain seemed to postpone his next attack for a second to think. "....Nine... You're the one that got away, aren't you?"

"I'm so glad you actually remember. This will make killing you oh-so-more sweet. Don't worry. I'll make it slow . . . " He then vanished, activating his cloak. ". . . just . . . for . . ."
He then suddenly reappeared, right in front of the leader NC. "You!" He yelled as he stabbed his left arm-blade in the NC's head while simultanously firing his railgun at one of his legs, ripping it off from the knee.

The artillery NC then gave his commander some mercy, prematurely firing his energy-cannon directly at the cockpit of his leader. "Too bad, nine.", he said as the NC exploded, but not hitting 'Nine's' at all, having boosted away in time. "At least fight someone your own size... oh. wait. There isn't.. how sad."

As he landed from his quick dodge he spun on seeming his heel, turning to face the last remaining NC with incredible speed.

[color=00FF00]"You! No one denies me my kills! Mine! I'll tear you apart, motherfucker! Come here!"

Finally showcasing what seemed like a custom built propulsion system, he boosted towards the artilery NC. He had him in his sights and closely observed where his laser cannon was pointing. The few shots he managed to fire at the black NC were easily dodged. In less than a second they were face to face. The black NC literally used its railgun to smack the other one in the face and then followed it by a tackle to the ground. As the black one lay on top of him, he began stabbing violently at the other one while still somehow taking great care not to hit the cockpit itself. Soon enough the artilery NC was disabled and the cockpit nearly cut open.
The black NC looked like it was about to finish the other off when it merely stood up and backed off. A front hatch opened as a figure jumped out of the black NC and headed over to the other lying on it's back. He climbed on top of it and pulled the pilot out, throwing him off his NC and into the dirt below before jumping down himself.

"Big mistake, stealing my kill." He said in a low fierce tone. As he walked towards the pilot he grabbed a piece of shrapnel from the ground.

The pilot of the artillery NC in full garb, face hidden, taunted the other. "I don't fear death... You really should've killed yourself a long time ago.". He obviously wanted to spit, but decided not to. "Doesn't matter either way. Give me your best shot."

"You don't fear death? I'll teach you!" He told him with maniacal grin on his face. He then flipped the pilot over and stabbed him his spine just high enough to paralyze him but not high enough of to kill of his vital bodily functions. He had obviously done this before. A few glances around, he quickly spotted a large body of water that formed from the heavy downpour. He grabbed the pilot by one of his arms and began dragging towards said body of water.

"Now, I know I told you I'll burn you all alive . . . and your guts. But all things considered . . ." He reached the pool of water, dragging the other pilot face first through the mud. ". . . this is the best I can do for you. I'll see you in hell. Cause let's be honest. We both know we're going there. Consider this a favor, I'm sending you there early . . . so you can avoid the rush." With that final sentence he chucked the pilot face first in the pool of water.

"1852. Maybe I should start keeping track of the time my enemies spent drowing too, not just the number of kills." He let out an amused huff at his coment. "That'd be fun."
He then headed back to his black NC.

The dust settled after that event, and the man currently only known as 'Nine' got back into his NC. Sophia, seeing that the coast is as clear as it's going to get, rocketed out of the small hole she was sneakily peeking through, and climbed on Percy's NC, opening the hatch manually from the outside. "You okay in there? As far as I can tell he just... fried everything NC-grade. I have no idea who that... wizard-pilot is."

Percy had pulled himself together during that insanity Nine pulled. "Yeah. I'm.. ...Fine.. Nothing feels broken."

"Well, get out, let's get the others out of their NC's... We have to do something about the other hostiles. Fucking tanks..."

"...Think you can drive one?"

Percy just looked at her, shocked. "I, uh.. I don't.. I don't think I can, Captain."

Before Sophia could insist, her phone started to ring. When she answered it, Zach's voice was on the other end.

"Damn it, t-tell Percy I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I couldn't do anything. I'm so sorry." His voice was weak and slightly shaky, sounding like he was struggling to hold it together. "...You did your best, we'll be there ASAP."

Zach's voice was more firm this time. "Tell Percy I'm sorry." "I will."

Percy just ignored her, and decided the best thing to do was to get the heck out of there.. Make sure his daughter was ok. He scrambled out of the NC and before Sophia could call out to him, he was halting a vehicle that was going into Smith's Rest - probably what little militia they have. "Just let me hitch a ride, I have a kid, please-"

Sophia yelled, "Militia, don't let him. Percy, you get back here and assist us, or I'll kill you. I don't want you getting killed by anything else and getting your kid killed too."

"I have to protect my daughter. I have no idea if she's ok! Just please let me do this! Please!" "If you ditch us now, she'll absolutely die, alongside dozens of others. You want to be responsible for not just your kid probably dying, but everyone elses' too?"

Percy looked at her, very obviously torn.. But he makes his decision quickly. "You win.. but if me helping you people gets my daughter killed, you're going to regret ever letting me get familiar with those things." Percy then gestures to the fallen NC. "Fair trade, now grab some shovels."

There were no lights in Blur's cockpit, but inside Eli was very much alive, and after blinking out of the daze the fall had put her in, realized she was, for the most part, unharmed. Seatbelts save lives. Didn't do much for her temper, though. She didn't need to see outside to know Blur was in shambles: a missing arm, some busted engines, and whatever the hell the fall had done to it.

She released the straps keeping her to the seat, dropping a few feet to the opposite side of the cockpit. Blur had fallen onto its front, great, she wasn't going to be opening the hatch the normal way. Just another fucking bump.

Her fist cracked down against one of the screens, she muffled an angry shout, then searched under the seat for the crowbar Sophia had told them was there. Great, still didn't help her figuring out how to crawl her way out. No comms, no lights, no anything. Fuck. Thankfully, soon afterwards, Sophia could be heard climbing up the Blur and standing above the cockpit, opening it from the outside. "We still got a job to do, think you can man a tank-cannon?"

Eli's attention shot up to the captain, eyes angry and teeth grated together. She clambered up out of Blur and tossed the crowbar aside at the mention of the tank-cannon. She gave Sophie a nod, then made her way to the ground. "You get Joe out of his NC, I'm going to get some guns.", and with that, Sophia went to enter the building, apparently to retrieve a secret stash of firearms.

Swarm's cockpit was out of power, however, while the fight had raged outside, he was stuck inside it, as the hatch was jammed shut, so out of boredom, he bypassed the computer control for the cockpit's illumination, connecting it directly to some backup batteries, that were left in the NC and accessible from the cockpit. "Let there be light." Joe said before connecting the last wire.
His second repair attempt was to get the cockpit's hatch to somehow unlock. The electronically controlled lock got stuck while locked when the power went out as the NC's systems were fried. It would be harder, but should still be possible, to at least get the lock to switch to 'open', and then have it stuck there.
Overall, Swarm was one of the least damaged NCs, although the impact had quite malformed the armor.
Once he got to speak either the captain or the chief engineer, he would give them a lecture on how low-tech would have prevented the enemies' "plan B" from succeeding.

After some time, Joe managed to get the lock to remove stud, that held the hatch shut, from the hatch, causing it to fling open. Alas, he was free. Eli, returning from grabbing some person-sized dakka, noticed he was out and gave him his order.

"Joe, you're going to handle operating a tank's sensor systems. Yes, we have a tank I forgot to mention" "Where do I find the tank?" "We have to go to the outskirts of town, and dig it up. It's in a box."

Nine climbed back into his black NC. It's armor looked far worse than the actual damage it had taken, mainly to due close up explosion that partially incinerated the paint.

He merely stood there for a moment, possibly doing some system checks before turning towards the remaining five on the battlefield. Or rather what now looked like a graveyard more than anything.

Nine then enabled the external speakers his NC was equipped with.

"So. Are you people wish to join the already dead? Your fate is in your hands."

"Who the hell is this guy?" Eli growled, glancing to the captain in case she had the answer. Doubtful, if they had help they knew about, chances are it would have been brought up.

Joe, overhearing what Nine said through the external speakers, took the crowbar from Swarm's cockpit and hid behind what was left of Swarm. He was angry, both at his and the engineers failure to spot the intrusion in time. Out of frustration, he threw the crowbar like a javelin at where he thought Nine's NC was, on a parabolic path over his cover.

A crowbar hardly does something against armor if thrown, but if it hits a weak-spot, and punctures a hydraulics-pipe, the damage by the leak would be crippling to whatever the pipe went to, but that was VERY unlikely.

Nine merely rose his arm and struck the crowbar sending it flying back exactly where it came from. Once again, Nine's inhuman precision and reaction time were displayed, How did he constantly do that? Joe would be lucky to not get outright hit by the crowbar he threw.

"Wow, I mean, atleast procure an NC. Killing you like this won't be any fun."

The crowbar struck the ground behind Joe, as he had walked away from both Nine and Swarm's wreckage while the crowbar was in the air.

"Joe, you suicidal idio-... What do you want, unknown NC?"

Nine pointed at the graveyard behind him, mainly at one of the shredded NC's.

"I want everyone related to them . . . dead." His voice no longer had that amused tone. He was dead serious.

"That makes two of us." "...Three, to be honest. At minimum."

"Now I know this isn't all they came with. Where . . . are the rest?"

"Also, captain, if you have a moment, I think I know what would have prevented their plan B from working." "Shut the fuck up Joe, I'll have your lecture about vacuum tubes later." "Nah, no need to go that far back, relays will suffice."

"Do we have time to chat with this pilot, Captain? Smith's Rest is still under attack," Eli said, looking back to Nine. "It's clear he's not hostile, at least to us."

"Not yet." He said and then promptly laughed out loud. "Especially after that crowbar assault. You nearly scratched off the burn marks. I've already grown fond of them."

"I think we'll get along well then, at least us two." Joe responded.
"Uhh.. Unknown, we'd be in your debt for a while if you'd continue helping us out. About six main-battle tanks, six non-NC quadrupeds, and maybe a full battalion of paratroopers are still capturing, and killing, our people."

"Can you.. do your thing and kill them? It'd help in the quad's case if you aimed for anything but that container on their back. They're full of civvies."

"Same people I assume?" He asked, gesturing once again towards the pile of NC wreckages.

"Same group, yes. I'd send out our NC's to help but...", she pointed at Blur, the Papa-Mike, and the Swarm. "They're sort of fried."

"Just point me in the right direction." Nine said gleefully."No promises on the civilians." He then let out another chuckle.

"...Go on, then. We have to acquire a tank, we'll try to help you out."

Nine boosted away towards Smith's Rest, railgun at the ready.

Sophia, watching Nine get lost, rounded up the 'Pluggers' and led them to the outskirts of the town. She stopped and pointed groundwards. "Start digging. Fast as possible." After a while, working together, they made a decent dent into the sand. Eventually, they hit metal, and Sophia reassured them to continue. "That... Unknown may be destroying the others to the point we probably don't need to assist.. but we still should. Let's show him what we can do 'on a budget', huh? Hah."

Nine, meanwhile deactivated his boosters once he had made his way into the outskirts of the town. The streets of the town were filled with what looked like soldiers ransacking most houses on both sides of the street, with alot more of them on the road itself.
Nine smiled at the sight.
"I can't decide whether this is going to be boring or fun." He said to himself as he leapt in the air.
A second later he landed amidst the sea of soldiers on the street. The sound of cracking bones resonated from under the legs of his black NC as he crushed at least four of them on impact.

The group of infantrymen, for obvious reasons, instantly panicked at the change of pace. They began firing on the NC, trying to shoot sensors into submission or damage hydraulics, but to no avail. Even if they did hit anything, their rifles weren't designed for this. A few of them, fuel still in their paratroopers' jetpacks, hopped and flew away from Nine's NC. One, the leader of this batch, talked to his compatriots. "Tank Commander 3, 5, 6, please assist, Sixth enemy NC operating and attacking us." "Roger, IC 2, TC 3 and 5 coming in to assist. 6 is already there."

With that, a tank drove up and began targeting, letting out a shell towards Nine, alongside a barrage from its' HMG, which obviously didn't do much, aside from take out a few of its' allies in friendly fire.

Nine laughed at the petty attempt. "Is that what you're bringing to the table against an NC ?!"
The shells from the HMG merely hit the side of his now deployed left arm blade as he side-stepped the assault, crushing atleast a dozen more men in the process. He then boosted straight towards the enemy tank.

It continued 'laying down the firepower' with its' HMG, but to no avail, for reasons obvious. Its' main gun autoloader readied another shell and fired, this one was a Sabot round, specially designed against an NC.

Compared to NC's which raised their weapons before firing, Nine had no way of predicting when the tank would fire. The time it took for the shell to reach him allowed him just enough time to partially side-step out of the way of the shell. However, while doing so, he rose his blade up just in the path of the shell. The blade skid across the side of the shell closer to him, leaving a trail of sparks as it was deflected to the side, barely missing his NC's head.

By now, Nine was close enough to the tank for it to not be able to retaliate effectively, more curshed men were left in his wake as he approached it. He boosted to the side of the tank, his railgun still at the ready in his right hand. Three shots and the tank flipped upside down, almost crushing a house on the side of the road, as it partially disintegrated. More men were cut to pieces by the shrapnell from the tank.

Shortly afterwards, as that group of men was pretty much eradicated, two more tanks came into view to Nine's right at a roundabout, these ones seemed to have missile pods strapped onto their turrets, a total of two on each vehicle. In addition, Nine could notice two walkers the other way, seemingly grabbing random people they found and putting them in their cargo-pods.

"This is getting tedious. I'm done playing around." Nine remarked, his tone darker than ever.
He then turned to his right and aimed straight for the barrel of the left most tank. The slug fired by him entered through the barrel of the tank without even scratching the sides of it, causing a sizable fireball as the turret blew apart.

TC 6, the commander of the tank remaining, could be faintly heard barking orders and status updates. "This is TC-6, All forces-All forces on my position! Fire those damn rockets, shoot everything! Th-this is insane!"

Seven infantrymen flew to the general area, uniquely, these ones had rocket-propelled grenades. They landed on one of the buildings, crouched, took aim, and fired as the tank began doing the same, firing off one of its' own missiles. Seven RPG's to his left, and one tank-grade anti-armor missile in front of him.

Nine boosted forwards towards the tank to avoid the rockets fired by the infantry, heading straight for the missile fired by the tank. Mere meters away from the missile he once again pulled off something that seemed impossible. He grabbed the back of the missile and flung it around, directing it towards the infantry. The roof of the building some of them were stood on blew apart as the missile hit in their vicinity. Nine's boost continued on towards the tank itself, his railgun aimed at it's barrel in case it fired.

Just as plotted, it did fire, another Sabot round, as the last tank did. While aiming at the barrel after it fired was a chore in the case of the first tank, this time that problem was out of the way and simply firing took only a split of a second. Shrapnel flew in all directions as the shell and the slug smashed into each other, some of them lodging themselves in the armor of Nine's NC. Nine then boosted upwards and landed right on top of the tank. He straight up ripped the remaining missile off it's turret and then smashed the hand that was holding the missile through the top of the turret, following it with a boost upwards and a shot aimed right at the missile itself. The missile detonated inside the turret causing a massive explosion, ripping the entire tank apart, while also sending debris into nearby buildings.

"Oh maaan. I just can't stop figuring out creative ways to destroy stuff." Nine exclaimed in utter joy, in an almost childish tone.

(ooc list of enemies: 55 infantrymen, 3 tanks, 6 quads)

The 'tank plan' was futile. After digging it up enough to get inside, its' main turret system was trashed. Sophia, remarking about how this was a retarded idea anyway, assured the SR squad that they'd just scrap the tank and use its' materials to repair and upgrade the SR NC's when all of this was said and done. The squadmembers went back to their NC's, and after some quick and frantic in-combat jury-rigging (after feverishly raiding the NC hangar for parts), the NC's were mostly back in action. At the minimum, they were ready to maneuver again.

"Let Unknown handle the majority, just clean up after him, yeah? I'll get back inside the control room and try to help out from there, rally any militia."

The NC's, coming back to life, could see that the aforementioned militia were starting their efforts themselves; one particular squad, the largest available, were quickly making rounds in the west-most street, finishing off enemy troopers and managing to 'liberate' one of the enemy's walkers from, 'having to follow the orders of the enemy'.

The NC's, with their more advanced sensor systems (even if they were currently cobbled back together), could detect and listen into a transmission, apparently from the leader of the overall enemy forces, away from the fighting. After some static, "-his is shameful... You know what to do, leave none of yourselves alive. Armor, do the same, walkers, retreat.". The remaining enemy infantrymen tried to go down fighting, many of the more injured ones turned their own weapons on themselves, leaving splatters of blood and grey matter over walls and covering shrubberies. The abduction walkers were the first of the armored units to be routed, smashing over smaller housings to make a beeline straight out of the town, the more burdened and damaged ones ejecting their 'prisoner pods' to try and lose weight, the two who had prisoners still aboard followed suit, all of them heading north-west.

The three remaining tanks bumrushed towards Nine's NC, one knocking over small trees that were planted in SR, until he had two coming from behind and one from the front. They all fired their weapons at nearly the same time, a trio of sabot rounds and two anti-armor missiles coming in at an overall Y formation, the missiles coming from behind.

(ooc list of enemies: 30 infantrymen, 3 tanks, 5 quads)

Joe hadn't made any effort to fix the recievers of Swarm's comms, however, he did fix the transmitters, so he would be able to mock the enemy. He quickly took off, looking for an enemy to strike.
Joe was looking for one of the walkers, who had dropped their cargo-pods, preferably, the one who had escaped the most already. He decided to divekick it, and then send missiles at the other walkers.
"Death to all, who oppose me!"
He was aiming for the legs on those walkers, that still had their cargo pods on, to not accidentally explode the cargo pods with civilians inside.

Joe, uncharacteristically, was the first to attack. As the walkers were 'only' comparable to MBT's at best, and the munitions were NC grade, they were all more or less disabled, if technically still operating. The three that still could initiated self-destruct sequences, leaving little data to be analyzed, but a decent amount of scrap each. The 'unknown' NC pilot, Nine, destroyed his tank assailants quickly and efficiently, dodging their shots with extreme skill and causing them to fire on each other, annihilating them. He stuck around and patrolled for remaining enemy infantrymen, found a couple, then executed them.

Blur and PM tried to assist wherever they could, confirming the destruction of those walkers and making sure each units 'prisoner pod' was sound, bringing the lot of them closer towards SR proper so they can be opened, and occupants can be medically checked. Sophia ordered Blur and PM to patrol the area while the towns' militia could begin damage control... and counting casualties.

When the situation 'normalized', as much as it could, people began to notice it was early morning.

SR survived for another day. At least, there's that.