---

---

Lights.

Like some metallic Christmas, explosions and sparks swam around King Gizzard as the shell tore the top of the transport ship asunder. Letting loose a volley of occasional shotgun fire at any drone or jet that came too close for comfort. The timing was tricky, but they'd swoop in close enough that a direct hit from the blast would all but delete them from existence. It provided the shell with breathing room and gave Hachidori a chance to conserve energy in any case.

The shells departed, eviscerated circuitry and a rapidly descending dropship providing them with a climactic exit. Gizzard was quick to begin swooping in and out the second it hit the floor, giving an erratic pattern to evade the squad of fighter jets responding to their carnage. It slid into the dark embrace of an undestroyed flush of trees, emerging only once given confirmation that the jets were history. Surrounded by continued fighting and the arrival Kingfisher, Gizzard ran his finger across the strings.

"Put some funk on for me, Gizzard!"

"Sure, how 'bou-" He winced, the sound of God's kick drum and a wave of blue engulfed King Gizzard in its light. He knew. He just knew before Ava's nails on fuckin' chalkboard voice rung in his cockpit.

"... Ossifrage-80 down. The good news is that you all will get her share of the payment for this mission."

He frowned, deeply. Expression shifting only when he realised he was close to snapping the metallic strings clean off Old Boy with how white his knuckles had turned. He hadn't been particularly nice to Ossifrage, much the same as he'd been equally unpleasant to everyone else. Even still, the suddenness of her death and the casualness of its dismissal fucking angered him. He could already feel it was going to be a long night when he hit town.

"I want Gizzard and Hachidori to rip the thing to shreds with their weapons. Copy?"

"Yeah, loud an' fuckin' clear." He said, flipping her off like a petulant teenager. His direct feed might have been off but he was eighty percent sure Ava could see him regardless.

A downstroke, King Gizzard sprung to life - eager to rejoin the fight.



Repeated strokes, faster and faster, turning into a menacing line as the shell began moving towards the big bastard of an auto-shell. Rage filled the pilot's heart, but focused, familiar. His eyes narrowed, ignoring the scrambler placed on its FCS. You didn't need to be accurate with Gizzard's weaponry to make it hurt.

"Gizzard, let's hit it at the same time. I'm going at it from behind. Over,"

"Ok! Keep your finger on the trigger, I'm gonna keep this fucker entertained while I get in close!" A red blur emerged on the open. Letting out a single shot from its gun to herald its arrival and keeping the other in reserve. King Gizzard moved like rusty kissed water, making sure to weave through every bit of Ushi-Oni return fire - as well as ensuring enough room to avoid another big-ass laser blast.

The performance within the shell rang out across the beach. Crescendoing with the revving buzzsaw on King Gizzard's arm as it approached its quarry. Closer and closer.

"Rip it!" Gizzard yelled, swinging for the fences while expecting a stream of blue energy from Hachidori's blades to pierce through the glorified robot.

---

Owl had come into a moment of relative peace; moving with Crow slowly but surely meant that every piece of technology within the area was unlikely to make its way in the direction of or get anywhere close to the combo of Shells now terrorizing the lowland of the battle. Jets headed their way crumbled under Crow's massive battery of weapons, and any drone that tried to rush up on their position was like a clay pigeon that the massive grape shots coming from Owl's shotgun would turn into instant electronic scrap. Occasionally he pushed on one, or it pushed on him, without him being noticed on account of the lack of thermal signature. These small jumpscares ended in flicking out with the blade of the weapon, practically batting the metal gnats like they're baseballs into the sides of buildings or directly into the pavement.
It was an easy, low intensity job that let him observe their surroundings a bit more calmly and intentionally than some of the others who were in the deep thick of it. He could see Isvogel as they joined in, and King Gizzard going to town in the far distance. He pulled up the localized data feed, checking over the list of participating Vultures and their current vital signs: Greens across the board, few elevated heart rates. They were doing well, and he smiled proudly to himself at the prospect of the younger generation being able to push past this little hurtle.

The vibration of the giant particle beam can opener rocked so hard it rattled Barn Owl's chassis and waggled Owl's head inside the core. It took him a long second to realize what had happened, finally hearing Ava's voice over the comms.

"Ossifrage-80 down. The good news is that you all will get her share of the payment for this mission."

You are my sunshine...
Owl's eyes widened. He used them to scroll down on the list of vitals to Ossifrage-80. Flatline.

"Crow and Barn Owl draw its attention and keep on the move."

Owl almost didn't hear the order. Autonomous Shells... There wasn't even a fucking pilot to kill in retaliation. The sides of his vision began to darken and fade, tunnel vision setting onto the form of the machine that had slain one of their own. Most people worked a little harder after a death: it was expected that the slack would be picked up. But Ossi was a support Shell. Her systems weren't exactly "pickup the slack" kinds of things, she was very intentionally built for a purpose to serve on the team. But, moreso, it was another young life snuffed out. He wished deeply in his soul that she had gotten to stay around longer. He would've traded places in a heartbeat.

The automatic nervous response from his implants prevented him from acting with great deals of impulse, countering the flood of naturally produced chemicals with a replaceable injection that he slotted into his neck. The tunnel vision faded, leaking out as tears falling from his face. Owl snapped a lever on his left side, and the latches holding the pinyons of the Shell's cloak snapped open with a loud metallic clack. The cape fell to the ground, revealing the Shell in its entirety.
The thick digitigrade legs looked like industrial machines, the hydraulic systems slowly dropping into themselves as they pressurized toward maximum thrust. The set of eight jump-jets between the thing's feet and back began to spool up, air ramming through forced systems that already started to put a strain on the rechargeable power array. Owl knew he'd have to balance mechanical movement with maximum forward thrust to keep the balance of charge and not bottom out trying to fight this thing. His weapon's auto-loader was retracting the static shells, slotting them back into their magazine before swapping to secondary munitions. AP slugs, sabot style rounds meant more for a rifled barrel than his own smoothbore, slid back into the weapon's loading tube.

"Crow... I'm going to become a fucking problem now. Watch your own back."
In a fleeting instant, the top-heavy frame of Barn Owl took off like a scramjet. Eighty-eight percent power dump, the kinetic energy transfer from the legs pushing off the ground overcharged the system enough to give him some extra oomph as he let his jumpers rip. The heat and backblast from the machine taking off turned a section of sand and dust to glass like a runway trail as he took off at full speed toward the real problem.
Fuck Ava. Fuck the formation. If everything needed to die, he would be the Angel of Death that he had always been. He would deliver them all to their own Hell, and not a single Vulture more would worry about their demise... Seeking his heat, a trail of drones converged on the Shell's ass and began to fire off their payloads; Owl let the Shell's left leg kick up off the ground, his low and straight arc keeping him mere feet from the ground below him. Replenished five percent power, which he immediately dumped into his right hand adjustment thruster. This sent the Shell into a mid-air spiral that caused the automated drones to spin in turn, converging onto one another in a flaming ball of scrap that hit the ground with serious impact.
"For Ossifrage, and for the Vultures!" Owl shouted as he made the mad charge toward the new threat.

Ava had told him and Crow to keep it distracted, hadn't she? Well, get ready machine...

---

---

Crow felt her heart skip a beat as she saw Ossifrage disappear from the readout. She didn’t even see it happen… but she knew what it meant just as well.

A moment later, though, she was back in the game. She’d seen people die before. Allies she’d never really talked to, comrades, partners, all shot down or left for dead. She’d been fighting for most of her life, and if you couldn’t process seeing a dozen infantrymen get turned into paste right in front of your eyes in time to respond, you ended up joining them. None of that bullshit heroics they liked to feed Shell pilots, either.

"Crow... I'm going to become a fucking problem now. Watch your own back."

Case in fucking point.

“God damnit…” Crow hissed under her breath. She’d smack the old man upside the head, if she could. Better both of them than her, but that didn’t mean she wanted him potentially throwing his life away either. Even if he had this one Shell, people make big mistakes when they lose their cool.

Crow assessed the situation.

“Ava,” She said. “I don’t think I can make a shot on that thing while it’s got ECM and three friendlies tearing it up. I’m gonna help Magpie clear the fighters.” Her Shell strafed along the ground, boosters lighting up like flares in the rain. She moved erratically, carefully tuning and intensifying her boosters for occasional short hops of vertical movement. It was a trick she’d learned from an older pilot before they bit the dust; less energy-intensive than spamming quickboosts, but still great at fooling automated tracking. Especially when it came to long-range battles, and especially when it came to fighting unmanned Murakumo units. She picked off a couple fighters when they poked their noses above the canopy, but made sure to keep the majority of her attention locked on the Ushi-oni.

“Also…” Crow toggled the settings on her comms, voice cautiously hushed. This was something she wanted to keep between her and Ava, for now. “Not giving up yet, but it’s looking like shit could go south pretty damn fast. Is Shayton gonna be able to pull us out if we need it?”

The skies burned and exploded above as Shrike prowled about the downed Carrier. Every few steps brought the Susanoo rifle up, and after a moment of charged deliberance the catastrophic beam of energy would erupt and blaze through a Drone that entered his field of view. The chaos of the battlefield and the prowling nature of his Shell's movements, for a few precious moments, brought him relative peace as he prepared himself for his anticipated close quarters engageme-

Fire rained down as the remaining aerial support forces consolidated their formations. Fire surged along the treeline, his squad's movements became a chaos of telemetry data on the archaic readout interface of his neural-helm, and Shrike was forced to back against the framework of the Carrier and lower his rifle. The left arm rose, the shield blazed to life, and he calmly bided his time as the temperature within his Shell steadily climbed. Torrent after torren of cannon fire rained against the energy barrier as Shrike silently listened to the comms chatter and observed movements. Sweat began to form along his arms, his palms growing moist, his forehead beading with the rising temperatures within the machine. As their strafing runs meandered back into strike positions, eventually the squad managed to eke out enough skyward damage for Shrike to have breathing room again.

As he lowered the barrier and emerged from a Shell-shaped silhouette blasted into the side of the downed carrier, Ijsvogel's advanced recon data hit his sensory overlay and Shrike, as was typical, sent a singular ping of acknowledgement to the data received. It meant there were no other surprises than this group waiting for them. But, alas, Shrike being pinned in position was a fateful situation indeed. Before he could continue circling the Carrier, the Ushi-Oni emerged unassailed. Shrike witnessed the eruption of that colossal beam on the far side of the ship and began to trigger a boost as Ava's orders came in over the combat channel. In the blink of an eye Shrike's own vengeful wrath was redirected; Ava said to link up with Ijsvogel, and the chain of command is a chain that binds.

"Moving to acquire your weapon, Ijsvogel. Prepare for assault."

The Shrike rounded the carrier, made direct visual contact on the Ushi-Oni-- and activated his boosters to leap up and over the damn thing and disregard it. He had to trust the others to do what they felt was best; a disarmed Ijsvogel was his duty now. The Susanoo rifle was slung onto his back as both arms locked into their reinforced talons, and when Shrike landed upon the ground it was right as Hachidori, Gizzard, and...Barn Owl collapsed towards it.

He couldn't help but chuckle privately, bitterly, to himself at witnessing Barn Owl's own passions become public.

The rain fell heavy upon the thick smoke of the burning jungle, but Shrike was ever the observant and tactically apprised individual; Following Ijsvogel's tracking data the Shrike plunged across the earth in a frenzied blur of lashing arms, throwing burning trees and massive gouts of earth into the air as the ancient Shell blazed a trail through the hellfire of the jungle until its hand unfuzed and came down upon the mighty machine gun of Ijsvogel. The heat of the flames and the straining of his radiator made him wary about triggering his boosters so frequently, thus the Shrike emerged from the flaming forest with heavy footfalls like a smoke-streaked demon of metal with the lost weapon in its right hand. He began a sprint back towards the carrier, left arm still poised for its lethal and brutal close combat intentions, before throwing the rifle to Ijsvogel when they were close enough to link up.

If all went well, Shrike would open that carrier like a tin can and they would tear through it before the other Shells turned on.

Mentions: Gizzard, Ava

Hachidori stayed under the radar, getting closer and closer to the Shell. He didn't have to see Gizzard to know he kept it distracted. He heard the shot he let off in the distance. He double checked his energy read outs: 79%. He activated his energy blades, just meters away from the Shell. Gizzard's saw loud and getting closer. He glanced at the radar for his conrad's positioning. He counted down from...

5

4

3

2

1

He sprang into the action, charging the Shell, blades in front of him. He slid through the brush the last two meters, keeping low in case the Shell had a reaction, and pierced right through the back and chest cavity from below right before Gizzard came with his saw. Sparks flew. The harsh scrape of metal on metal pierced his ears, barely a distraction from the music. He twisted the blades, the sharp ends facing upward. He tore through the Shell, slicing clean through its arm and shoulder. He jumped back from it, getting out of the way of the mild explosion that came from destroying a machine.

"Objective completed. I'm at 78%," he said into the comms.