Haruka noticed Roman moving swiftly across the mountains taking out all AA turrets he came across. She grinned to herself and continued to lay waste to the troops on the ground, every now and then looking at the mountains just to make sure nobody tried to flank Roman on his path of destruction.
Haruka's only concern at this point was the fact that the others were still nowhere to be seen. The battle was going well, they had managed to keep the entire forces busy on the front. She could only see that only a couple of men where still watching the back but by the time the others arrived, these pitiful soldiers would be able to do nothing at all.
"Where are they?", she asked mostly to herself as she looked at the gps on her hud and noticing the three dots on the mountains moving closer to the fortress. "Hurry up guys".
"Five enemy battle suit's incoming. The fifth battle suit has a strange energy signiture and seems to be more heavily armed then the others. Be cautious."
"We'll have to ignore them for now," Zhao said, realizing that this strategy added an unneccesary risk. "We have to get into the fort quickly now, and we can't get distracted. Also, I'm going to to use my jetpack to get to the fort immediately. We really have to step on it."
Zhao activated his jetpack's thrusters and flew forward past Katsu and Xavier. He realized what he was doing could come off as arrogance - as it often did to his previous commanders - and was probably not exactly smart, but he believed he was being as logical as one possibly could under the given circumstances. He soon came up to the fort wall. He could still see Katsu's and Xavier's mechs behind him, albeit as vaguely shaped silouhettes.
Zhao took out a high explosive bomb, armed it, and then threw it, just before the enmy started firing at him.
"[Eat this, bast***s!]" Zhao yelled out in Mandarin as he threw his bomb, hoping to add a fear factor to his currently one man assault, and possibly cause a little confusion. Though he preferred his Taiwanese dialect, learning Mandarin was pretty much mandatory for anyone who lived near China, and that included Taiwan.
The bomb Zhao threw caused a huge, brilliant explosion - big enough he was sure every one of his comrades could see it. When the smoke cleared, a huge chunk of the wall was gone, with rubble in its place. Zhao then took out his assault rifle and began laying down suppressing fire, waiting for Xavier and Katsu to catch up.
"I can't keep this up forever. Hurry guys," he thought to himself.
"We have to get into the fort quickly now, and we can't get distracted. Also, I'm going to to use my jetpack to get to the fort immediately. We really have to step on it."
He's right. But the power readings on that one battle suit are nearly off the scale. If that thing managed to catch up with us we're going to be in trouble.
"Your right of course. We should get the fort as soon as possible."
Katsu shifted his battle suit so that it faced forward and ran after Zhao, making sure to keep an eye on the one battle suit that had the high power readings.
He could see Zhao's battle suit up ahead.
Targeting Jericho missle...Target aquired and firing.
One of the jericho missles launched from his battle suit and flew directly past Zhao's battle suit and slammed into one of the enemy battle suits which then exploded.
"We'll have to ignore them for now," Zhao said, realizing that this strategy added an unneccesary risk. "We have to get into the fort quickly now, and we can't get distracted. Also, I'm going to to use my jetpack to get to the fort immediately. We really have to step on it."
Xavier started to follow Zhao and Katsu when he suddenly got a "brilliant" idea. He spotted one of the five battle suits scouting ahead of the others. Xavier charged the battle suit and kicked the head clean off. He took the battle suit with him and placed it down on where he was standing. He saw the massive explosion Zhao had created and also noticed there was now a large hole in the wall. He smiled as he switched his music from Techno to Rock. He tossed the body on the ground and it began to slide down. He chased after it and jumped on the battle suit. He began weaving in and out of the trees while riding the battle suit. The wall was now only a few yards ahead of him now. He leaned forward and at the last second he leaped off the battle suit and activated his boosters to send him into the air.
"Banzai!" he yelled.
He pulled out both of his SMGs and began firing at the large group of battle suits. He managed to take out two suits before he touched the ground. He put his SMGs away and pulled out both swords. He continued charging the suits slicing anything in his path.
"I hope I'm not too late to the party."
Zhao continued to take potshots at the various mechs in the fort when he more heard rather then saw Katsu's missle fly past and slam into a nearby mech, briefly surprising him. Wow, better stay on his good side. That was one precise shot, he thought. Zhao then noticed Xavier quite literally jumping into the fray, screaming like an Apache.
"I hope I'm not too late to the party."
"Late? You're just in time!" Zhao replied, trying and completely failing to hide the eagerness in his voice. Zhao briefly noticed Xavier's SMGs before he took out both swords.
"SMGs? You need to upgrade 'em to these babies!" Zhao exclaimed, putting away his assault rifle and taking out both of his full sized MGs, and, while firing both from the hip, began a literal bullet spam on two enemy mechs, and continued shooting at them after they had collapsed on the ground, reducing the frames to almost scrap metal.
"Let's move on and save some for Katsu," Zhao recommended, hoping they wouldn't have to deal with the squad Katsu and picked up on his radar.
((If it's alright with you Shana, I'd like to get my nemesis out of the way right away.))
"Let's move on and save some for Katsu,"
Katsu looked down at one of his controls which was flashing red. The enemy mobile suits from earlier were much closer now. But the one that was ahead of the others was the one with the higher power levels.
"I reallly don't mean to bother you two but that mobile suit with the higher power levels is approaching quickly. I want you two to go on ahead and meet up with Phyxius and Hydra. I'll stay behind and take care of the battle suits. I trust that you two can deal with any enemy battle suits you encounter?"
Without waiting for an answer, Katsu turned around and began running toward the enemy mobile suit which was just coming over a hill around half a mile back.
((Moving it along.))
"I reallly don't mean to bother you two but that mobile suit with the higher power levels is approaching quickly. I want you two to go on ahead and meet up with Phyxius and Hydra. I'll stay behind and take care of the battle suits. I trust that you two can deal with any enemy battle suits you encounter?"
"Oh, yes, we can deal with what ever is in here," Zhao said, dispatching another mech with his MGs. He then decided to switch his weapon to his energy pike - it was much less bulky then holding two MGs. Zhao then used the pike to impale another mech.
"Oh, and Katsu, good luck out there." Zhao wondered why he was all of a sudden wishing another person good luck. He had never cared much for people, and yet here he was hoping another human lived. They must be growing on me, Zhao thought of his crew members. Only natural I suppose.
"Oh, and Katsu, good luck out there."
Katsu didn't respond. There was always the possible issue that the enemy had actually broken through the communication lines between the battle suits. Best to stay quiet.
The battle suit with the high energy readings ran directly at him and stopped infront of him and stood completley still. But as Katsu looked it over he realized that it was powering up it's weapons systems.
katsu quickly activated his enery sword and stepped into a battle stance.
"Same old Katsu. Never the one to make the first move." A mechanical voice commented from inside the battle suit. The voice was being broadcast over a speaker next to the head.
That voice...it sounds so familiar. It can't possibly be him. What are the chances that we would run into him on our first mission?
"What's the matter Katsu? Are you afraid? You should be afraid." The mechanical voice began laughing hysterically.
Torv...it looks like I finally found you. Katsu thought darkly as Torv's battle suit charged.
In her scanners, Haruka was able to see that Katsu had engaged a high powered battle suit, much different from the ones they were facing right now that seemed more like cannon fodder. As she noticed the others were keeping to their mission, she suddenly realized that it was maybe the enemy that Katsu had long been waiting to face once more and so she decided to leave him alone.
"Lets clean up this place and go home", Haruka said as she began wiping out the rest of them with relative ease. There was something odd about the battle but she expected it. The foes were all too easy, nothing so big as to represent a threat that they needed the elite team go in an blast everything to hell.
She kept flying in the air occasionally destroying targets moving in for her teammates and began noticing how the fire from both factions began to quiet down. Only Katsu was engaged in combat still. But she knew he had to finish this on his own. She would only fall back and just step in if it was entirely necesary, after all, she didn't want to lose an ally.
Torv's battle suit slammed directly into Katsu's, driving him backward into a rockface. Torv's battle suit began to punch him repeatedly as Torv himself continued laughing hysterically.
"They offered me a challenge Katsu!" Torv laughed. "They heard of my skills and got me to join up! Got a new battle suit and everything."
I don't think he knows what happened. And I'm starting to think that he's insane. Katsu thought as he tried to fight back against the larger battle suit.
"If you joined the enemy then you must know of the alliance." Katsu said quietly as he managed to duck under one of the punches and slash it across the chest with his energy sword.
"Of course I know! It was the first thing they told me about!" Torv said still laughing.
Katsu ducked under one of the fists and punched the other mobile suit across the face, sending it backwards. "Enough of this! Why did you kill the squad?"
Torv suddenly stopped laughing as he thought for a moment. "Because they were holding me back Katsu. Because I should have been squad commander but I wasn't. Look at me now!" He began laughing again. "I have my own squad to command!"
Torv's battle suit turned around and motioned for the other battle suits to him. They quickly surrounded Katsu and raised their weapons even as Torv raised his rifle and pointed it at the head of katsu's battle suit.
"You always were second to me Katsu. Time for you to die."
Katsu quickly began sending out a distress call, knowing that this was a battle that he couldn't possibly win alone.
"This is Vega. I...require assistance." He transmitted the message to the others even as he brought up one of his arms and knocked the rifle out of Torv's hands and then slammed his fist into the head of Torv's battle suit.
Xavier watched as Katsu moved on and shook his head. He didn't know what he was trying to prove out there, but he didn't want to interfere. He continued cutting down any enemy battle suit that got near him as he continued advancing towards Haruka and Roman. He watched as she took down more opponents in the air and smirked. This mission was much easier then he thought it was going to be. He didn't mind these kinds of missions but he was expecting more of a challenge.
"This is Vega. I...require assistance."
He turned Nova around and headed for where he had last saw Katsu run off to. Luckily Katsu wasn't too far ahead of him and he watched as he punched a very menacing looking battle suit right in the head. He activated his boosters and leaped into the air only to bring his swords down on one of the other battle suits.
"So you're the scumbags messing with my teammate. Well in that case let me show you what happens when you think you can get away with that."
He charged at the remaining battle suit forcing them to focus on him and allow Katsu to finish fighting the guy he was fighting.
"This is Vega. I...require assistance."
Zhao looked towards the direction of Katsu after impaling one last mech with his pike and stomping on its head. He was about to boost towards the squad with his jetpack, when Zhao saw Xavier advance and start to destroy the squad, while Katsu focused on a rather powerful looking mech.
Show off, he didn't leave any for me, Zhao thought, but he still couldn't help but smirk at Xavier's boldness. It was at this moment that he noticed Xavier was charging towards the last mech.
He' probably going to hate me for this later, but this is just too good of an opportunity. That was Zhao's thought as he activated his jetpack and boosted forward at a very fast speed, hitting the enemy mech on the side with his pike, and kept boosting forward until his pike, still with the mech impaled on it, hit a crumbling wall from the fort, stopping Zhao's charge. Zhao then took out his MGs and fired point blank, eventually reducing the mech to a couple of broken parts. He removed his pike from the wall, causing what was left of the enemy to crumble on to the ground.
"I couldn't let you have all the fun, could I, Psycho?" Zhao said, with a mischevious grin on his face.
Xavier stabbed one of the mechs in the chest and then moved the sword up all the way past the head splitting the upper torso in half. He thrusted the sword in his left hand behind him to get the mech he had gotten the jump on beforehand. He landed on a kick on the mech's chest to make sure it stayed down. Nova's sensors detected on of the mechs was attacking with an energy sword. Xavier quickly rolled under the mech and backhand slashed the mech from behind to take the head off. He saw another mech bring down its sword which he caught with his left hand. With his right hand free he stabbed the mech in the chest. Xavier pulled the sword out and saluted the mech with his left hand before taking its head off as well.
Xavier looked back to for a few seconds to make sure Katsu was still okay. Even though Katsu didn't seem to trust any of them, he would still feel guilty if he had intentionally left him here to die. Xavier got ready to charge the last battle suit when he watched Zhao take him down.
"I couldn't let you have all the fun, could I, Psycho?"
"Its about time you showed up, I was worried my badassery had scared you."
Xavier turned back around to support Katsu now that the fighting was done.
"We took care of the lackies Vega, now show this coward who he's messing with."
Haruka smiled to herself, her teammates had effectively helped Katsu in a situation that would have had him cornered. They had shown her that they were dependable. Her faith in them had not been misplaced. She then noticed a few battle suits headed their way and she blasted them to pieces with her jericho missiles.
"You're home free guys, come on Katsu, show Torv who's boss", Haruka said to his comlink with a wink. She knew Katsu's abilities were way beyond Torv's, all he needed was to show it and he seemed pretty determined to do just that.
"We took care of the lackies Vega, now show this coward who he's messing with."
"You're home free guys, come on Katsu, show Torv who's boss",
Katsu's battle suit was lifted up and then slammed into the ground before Torv lifted it up again.
"Whats the matter Katsu? Can't you even fight back?!" Torv continued laughing.
"What happened to you Torv? It's like you've gone insane!" Katsu shouted as warning lights flashed on and then off randomly.
Torv's laughing died down as he pondered Katsu's question. "I think I was always insane Katsu. I don't think anyone was able to recognize the signs though. You should have seen the way they died from where I was standing...It was amazin-"
Torv was cut off as both of Katsu's fists slammed directly into the front of Torv's battle suit and sent it flying backward. Katsu then followed up the attack with a slice from his energy sword that cut through the legs of Torv's battle suit.
"One last question." He growled. "Why was everyone acting so strange in the days before you killed everyone?"
"Because they thought that you knew about the alliance Katsu! Funny huh?" Torv began laughing again even as Katsu ran at him and sliced the battle suit across the chest with his energy sword and watched as small fires started all over the enemy battle suit.
"Good bye Torv. I'm glad we were able to clear this all up." Katsu snarled as he launched one of his missles which hit Torv's battle suit directly in the chest and then exploded. Torv's battle suit was blown backward by the force of the explosion and landed in a heap a few feet away.
Katsu took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He had expected to feel better after confronting Torv but instead...he felt guilty.
Haruka witnessed as Katsu tore apart Torv's battlesuit, finally coming to terms with the past. But as she looked into her live feed, she could see Katsu's expression was not that of comfort, it wasn't anything near that. She figured the only thing she could do was talk to her teammate and support him.
"Katsu, it's finally resolved. You both chose your paths, he chose his fate. Only you can decide to move on", Haruka said as she started to hear comm chatter from the MDN.
"Gound team, operation successful, prepare for extraction. Recovery teams are on route to your position", a man said over the radio.
"Copy that, moving to extraction point", Haruka said. "Come on guys. It's time to go".
Haruka moved over to a larger part of the desert and looked up as the massive ship began releasing the grappling hooks for them to attach to their battle suits.
"Phyxious ready for extraction", Haruka said into her comm as she was pulled up to the ship.
Katsu, it's finally resolved. You both chose your paths, he chose his fate. Only you can decide to move on",
True. But I honestly thought that he knew of the alliance. I had hoped that I could turn him. Katsu thought darkly.
Katsu followed Haruka's battle suit and watched as she was pulled up into the ship.
He opened a small compartment in the command area of the Vegas and pulled a pistol out of the compartment and then strapped it to his waist. If the MDN did know what Miss Haruka had told him then she would become a target and Katsu would do his best to protect her.
"Vega standing by for extraction." He said calmly over the radio as he made sure that everything was working properly.
Xavier watched as Katsu finished off this Torv guy, who apparently had done something to him in the past. He hoped that Katsu would be more trusting with the group now, and they could really function as a team. He couldn't help but let out a small grin as Haruka spoke to Katsu. She really was a nice person and would have raised his spirit's had he been in Katsu's shoes.
"Come on guys. It's time to go".
"Aw already? I was just getting started," he replied as he followed Haruka and Katsu.
He watched as Haruka took one of the hooks and was pulled up onto the ship that was waiting. He took one as well and looked over at Zhao.
"Don't take too long," he said to him. "Psycho standing by for extraction," he added in.
Before being taken up into the air, Xavier had Nova salute Zhao with two fingers and then point at him with them. Xavier enjoyed the quick little ride he got from the grappling hook.
"So Phyxious, on a scale of 1 to 10 how awesome of a job did we do?" he asked using her pilot name still as he was unsure if it was okay to use their regular names or not yet.
Zhao watched Katsu take down Torv with amazement. He did have to admit, Katsu impressed him - taking down somebody who was more psychopathic than Xavier and himself combined was definitely something.
"Don't take too long,"
Zhao smirked. "I won't take any longer than you. Demon standing by for extraction." And with that, Zhao was pulled up to the ship.
"So, exactly what did we accomplish?" Zhao asked. While he did enjoy cracking a few heads, he was smart enough to realize that all's they had done was just blast a fort to hell.
Edit: ((Come now Shana, we're all still in this, let's not let this die.))
One grapple left, dangling in the air for the last member, unintentionally forgotten.
From the smoke and dust kicked up from the assault materialized the Lævateinn 2, scarred in a few places, and with some of it's surface plating torn or blown off in a few places also, it hovered up to the hook, it's thrusters finally turning off for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, the suit lading with a moderate 'thud', even though it was only a few feet from the ground. The heavily armed and armored suit lumbered up to the grapple slowly, hooking/grabbing on; barreling waves of heat rolling off of the suit's high-end thrusters.
"Hydra, last one in, ready for dust-off," Roman said through the comm channel for the first time since he'd begun his diversionary tactics, which had ended up with him doing clean up duty for the others as they played with Katsu's friend Torv.
As the suit was pulled up Roman said surprisingly wearily, "let's get out of here." His face finally appeared on the channels, revealing his scuffed appearance, a small stream of blood trailing from a cut in his lower lip where he'd slammed his face into his suit's console during his evasions and skirmishes when an explosion had caught him from behind and sent the Lævateinn 2 barreling into the side of a mountain face, the impact jarring him forward into the console, thus the bleeding/cut lip. The other scrapes and scuffs were due to the less powerful hits he'd taken during the fighting, his suit's older design being his own worst enemy when it came down to cockpit injury and safety.
"I hope I didn't disappoint, Phyxius," he said with a crooked and bloody smile, but still a classic Roman smile, so as to keep spirits high, and reassure everyone that he was fine, only tired from the effort of piloting his Early-Type Battle Suit.