Holt quickly scans the birdlike creatures. Not wanting the Mylthani to get caught in the crossfire, she says "Nearby Mylthani, cluster with us." She doesn't know if they understand, but she had to try.
Adrenaline helping to deaden the pain in her shoulder, Holt takes aim at the nearest creature and takes another shot.
She didn't see them. Her mind was wandering, just taking in the strange scenery. Then gunshots. And a sharp sting of pain from her leg! With a surprised grunt she looked down, only to find something chewing on her. What the?!
Swearing loudly, Victoria flails and kicks at the creature, trying to stop it from using her leg as a chew-toy. This sort of close combat was nothing she had ever trained for! Her closest experience would be her aunts vicious poodle. Still cursing and shaking her leg furiously she managed to grab a hold of her smg and grinned. Take that Fluffy! Invigorated by the thought of extracting harsh vengeance for her chewed up leg, she squeezed the trigger of the gun.
Ziirkaa fumbles for his gun and draws it. Shooting at the flying thing attacking him.
listens to the fight over the commss, but can do little, she trusts her team to deal with it.
Round 1
Vathan focuses on another target and squeezes off another round.
Mylthani 1 moves back defensively, then attacks the sluggish creature with two darts in it.
The Mylthani barely catches it, but does some decent damage to the woozy animal.
The other two Mylthani move back and fire their air powered rifles at the creature beyond the one they hit the first time, the one closest to the isolated Mylthani.
Only one hits, but it seems a solid hit, right in the neck, and the second creature begins bobbing as it moves, it's coordination seriously damaged.
The isolated Mylthani moves back, slowly and defensively, making himself a harder target.
The one that had been opening the door also moves back, toward Holt. The third one fires it's rifle as it moves back, at the closest bird.
Immediately after the dart hits, the second Mylthani turns it's flaming cutter on the bird creature.
The bird screeches in agony as the thermal device burns through it's body, severing two wings. The body lands on the snow with a thump, smoking and thrashing in agony as it dies. The nearby birds hiss unpleasantly at the smell of smoke and the sounds of death.
Holt fires a single assault rifle round through the nearby bird, shattering several of it's bones and sending a spray of blue blood over the ice.
Following Holt's lead, the two marines adjust smoothly with almost as good a coordination as the Mylthani. The woman moves forward, and the man moves to where she was, so they can both open fire on the bird that Holt damaged.
Bullets scream around the wounded bird, more blood splattering the ice, but it's wild thrashing from Holt's hit seems to have pulled it slightly out of the line of fire the marines had expected.
The remaining birds, unnerved by the fire and smoke, and by the unusual weapons and sounds and sudden death and blood of their own, screech warnings and flap up and away, retreating.
Ziirkaa fires at the lizard creature attacking him from the ground, missing it, and also leaving himself open to attack.
Viktoria looks around to take a step back to shoot her target, but realizes that no matter where she moves to, she'll provoke (see map).
Vathan fires, hitting his target, but also provoking an attack.
The mylthani that was surrounded scampers back carefully again, and again reaches out to swipe a claw at the most wounded creature it can reach.
Blue blood splatters the snow as the Mylthani rips open the snow lizard again.
The other two Mylthani move in timed sequence, firing at the lizard attacking Vathan.
One of the two darts sticks into the lizard's side, the other skitters off it's scales. The lizard immediately begins to look wobbly.
Squeeling like a small child and hopping wildly Ziirkaa again fires at the creature attacking him. His noble battle cry rings out across the coms, "GET OFF! GET OFF!! GET OFF!!!"
The lizard Zirkaa attacks bites at him when he fires his pistol, again missing the lizard as it dances in the snow.
The lizards begin to attack again.
Vathan grimaces when the lizard draws some of his blood. He reverses his rifle and swings it two-handed at the lizard in front of him.
"We need to clear some room - now!"
She points her blocky smg at one of the hostile creatures cutting off their access to the west. She knew that she would be leaving herself open to attack when she lined up the shots - but she had to do something And I just need a second...! For a split second her mind wandered to that stupid sword still hanging in her apartment, the one she thought she would never need, and she exhaled in a long sigh. And pulled the trigger all the way back.
"Ziirka! On me!"
Viktoria sticks her SMG under Vathan's arm, and triggers it just as the creature opens it's mouth to hiss at Vathan, and the creature's head vanishes in a puff of blue gore, the body spins backwards splattering the environment (and Vathan!) with blue blood and bits of bone and brain.
However, concentrating opens her up to an attack from the creature behind her.
But the creature misses it's attack, it's teeth scraping off her armor.
Seeing the creatures scatter, Holt dakes a deep breath. But she realizes she can't rest when she hears Ziirkaa's voice over the comms. Turning to the others, she says "Let's go!" as she takes off towards the north.
As Holt moves to run north, the Mylthani hiss at her, and one fires it's weapon about 10 feet in front of her. The other two scan the sky uneasily, watching for something.
Viktoria fires her SMG into the closer animal as it hisses at her, and the head vanishes in a puff of blood and gore, spraying Viktoria with a fine blue mist and leaving gobbets of gore dripping from her armor.
She then moves east, past the snapping creature that is biting at Ziirkaa.
As she takes off running, the Mylthani hiss.
Holt barely gets a step before the shot lands in front of her. She turns to the creature, weapon down but in hand, taking a moment to judge it's intentions.
After deciding it isn't hostile, Holt begins to scan the sky with it, wondering what has it so concerned. Still, she activates her comms to ask the others "What's going on? Is anyone hurt?"
The mylthani, now unable to fire without provoking, return to more savage ways. In a move that looks like ballet, they tumble past each other and surround the creature attacking Vathan. Then the trio all attack that creature.
The trio savage the lizard, ripping it apart.
Holt delays, watching everything.
There is a sudden hiss that makes Holt and the Marine's spines vibrate, and a piercing pain strikes through their heads.
The small tower on top of the warehouse clangs loudly as the hiss spreads out, and a creature that is three times larger than the flying creatures climbs out. It looks like the smaller creatures, but it's wings are more like legs, and seems to be too large to fly.
The wing tip claws in the smaller creatures have grown large in this thing, but the feathers are the same size. This makes the limbs look like they have smaller feathers though, as the wing muscles have bulked up. The creature looks around, sees a smouldering smaller one, and a second in bloody ribbons, and hisses angrily at the group of Mylthani and humans.
Holt's head snaps towards the source of the sound, watching as the large creature shows itself and hisses with hate.
What IS that... thing?
Holt is now acutely aware of the small wound in her shoulder, and shudders when she thinks of what this creature could do. She can feel her knees go weak and she unconsciously takes a step back, her breathing going ragged.
She raises her rifle and tries to take site of the thing, but her hands are shaking, rattling the barrel around her target. Finally, she thinks she has it and squeezes the trigger.
"Ziirka, can you give me a shot at that *thing*?!"
Free to aim and shoot without distraction the Captain points her gun at the other creature assailing Ziirka, intent extracting him too from the melee.
"Hang in there Vathan - we're coming! We'll clear this flank then roll 'em up!"
She wanted so much to get on the radio and bark orders, tell the ATHV to open up over suppressive fire over Vathan's location, and thing to keep others of the wing things from coming down. The city was empty, and the round would go well over target. She wanted to tell them to set off some flash banks, precaution grenades even close would shock the attackers. Things should would do if there, but she was no there, Vathan was and he knew what he was doing. But the feeling was still there tugging at her. Her place was her and it was not acting as a soldier. This is where they would see what he Aliens where like. Cold blooded killers when they had to be. She would have to be here and help them understand.
Vathan swings his rifle two-handed at the lizard in front of him.
waits to see of there is any more radio chatter.
post
5' step moved to put his back to a wall, rams the in one of the things mouth, Yes he will be bit but shoots point blank.
Ziirkaa puts his back to Vathan and attempts to fire his snub pistol as he was trained once.
Viktoria blows a creature to bloody shreds with her burst of energy.
Ziirkaa tries to shoot the closer one, but misses horribly.
Vathan, however, slams it in the head with the butt of his rifle.
Holt manages to hit a small bit of the creature that has appeared near her.
The lizards attack...
The three lizards miss horribly, thanks to Mylthani 2 dodging.
The large creature crawls to the edge of the building and drops to the street with a whump of snow. It then drives it's large beak toward the female marine.
However, it's beak just misses the ducking marine.
The marines in turn open up on full auto with their machine guns.
The female marine's armor keeps the wickedly curved beak from impaling her, while the male marine manages to duck under the beak as it spins and snaps at him.
The lizards attack...
The large creature drives it's beak toward the female marine.
The beak gets a solid hit, and slices through her body armor like it was paper.
The marines goes down in a spray of black blood*.
The male marine opens fire on the creature again.
The bird's beak neatly slices the male marine's head off, sending the helmet bouncing down the snowy alleyway.
Red sun, dim light, red looks black.
The northern mylthani all attack the two creatures who aren't hit with darts.
The trio damage the lizards, sending blue blood to the snow.
Holt had just managed to steady her nerves when the creature ripped into Montinegro. Her eyes widened as the beak tore through the woman's armor, and again she takes a step back, her breathing ragged.
She snaps the rifle up and takes aim, trying to steady her nerves for her shot while she reports over the comms "Montinegro is down!" Her barrel still shaking, she takes her shot.
The creature turns and in a flash the other marines head is gone, a spray of blood splashing across Holt's face and chest.
Comms still open, Holt curses in a loud, trembling voice "%#^$! %#^$! Rolverna's dead!" as she stumbles backwards, keeping her rifle trained on the creature.
Ziirkaa withdraws to the captain.
Not surrounded any more, Vathan steps back and puts the black (red) laser dot on the creature and fires his accelerator rifle. He grimly digests the falling of his marines, due to them following Holt.
Things were looking better - they had mostly extracted themselves from the grasps of the clawing aliens and regained some composure. Now all that remain was to orderly roll-em up. Ceres afforded herself a small sigh of relief.
Then her comm cracked to life with Holt's voice and her grim report. Ceres grimaced as her stomach turned to ice. Quickly she blinked away the first tear of frustration and sorrow. Luckily, endless drills had prepared her for a moment like this. Conceal, don't feel... With a calm neutral voice she responded over the comms:
"Affirmative. What is Montinegro's status?"
They can't be far... She had heard the blaze of their guns just a moment before. But they couldn't just rush off either - putting themselves up for a third ambush wouldn't do.
"Ziirkaa! Vathan! You heard her - we're on a clock. Finish these critter asap!"
Unwilling and unable to express her feelings in any other way, the Captain let her submachinegun speak for her as she let loose another burst. Trigger discipline had dialed it down from full auto to burst, but she was too aware of the rapidly depleting ammo supply currently loaded.
The Southern mylthani all attack the big creature.
The Mylthani with the cutting torch drives the torch into the large creature's chest, burning feathers and flesh and eliciting a steamwhistle scream of agony. Then it's forelegs both flash out and open up the creature's belly, sending more blue blood splashing to the ground. It backs up, holding the flaming torch up toward the bird creature.
The other two back up five feet and fire darts at the creature, one hitting solidly in the chest and making it sag and it's head sway drunkenly.
The fire seems to have seriously unnerved the creature (especially the massive burn in it's chest).
It begins sluggishly flapping it's wings and running down the street away from the fire.
The lizards attack...
But again, miss because the focus of their attack is dodging as hard as it can.
The northern mylthani all attack the two creatures who aren't hit with darts, again.
The trio damage the lizards again, sending more blue blood to the snow.