trans_9 | Lirath - Ground Battle

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Lirath - Ground Battle

After dropping off some of the crew at Balisair, it was time for the crew to set course for Lirath. The situation greeting them wasn't the most promising.

The cracked surface of the moon called Lirath was one of its most unmistakeable features. One of the three moons of the planet Kehoe, it had been terraformed and served as a settlement for a hundreds of different species, some humanoid, some not. Despite occasional class struggles, environmental issues, and speciesism blocking their way, the darker parts of Lirath's past were largely left behind, and an era of peace and tolerance had reigned for quite some time. The only problems they'd had recently were with a terrorist group whose cause for their actions had been a mystery, but they weren't tied to any particular species or social group and had been likened to a cult and had largely gone quiet in recent years.

Now the peace on the moon of Lirath had been shattered by the invasion of the Ohm.

The capital city had been destroyed. Now, all that was left of the peoples of Lirath was evacuating from one of its smaller cities, one known as Smyteval. A desert city, existing in a valley in between a rocky range of canyons and mountains, even though it was in the low ground, the natural channels of rock served as bottlenecks for any Ohm attacking from the ground.

GIA squadrons patrolled in space, locked in explosive warfare, protecting the Bleed-gate that had been activated to see the evacuated ships to the refugee world, and a shield created by massively-powerful shield generators extended around the city and up into the atmosphere, creating a shielded tunnel so ships could escape.

Word had come that there was a vital weapon to be deployed on Lirath, one that needed to be destroyed, hence why the Transmigration 9 had been called in. Given the diverse crew, and the ships that were in its hangar, there was at least someone or something on board that could blow the weapon up if it did show.

There was no sign of it yet. Right now, there was just chaos, streams of evacuees boarding ships, armies of Ohm engaged with GIA soldiers outside the shields, and forcefields that everyone hoped would hold out just a little bit longer.

The crew would be following Leon's orders but finding themselves fighting side-by-side with GIA platoons, full of various species that were currently all getting their asses kicked severely.

[ooc: STAGE 1 is now open! ~~Please do not tage STAGE 2 until it's announced as open as well.~~]

[ooc: STAGE 2 is now open!]

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Seeing Homura appear seemingly out of thin air, a trail of explosions in her wake, was nearly enough to make Mami falter. It was one thing for her to show up out of nowhere outside of battle, lurking in the shadows. But in the midst of battle? Yep, she was not expecting that.

Sadly, there was no time to talk, even as Sayaka flew in to join them. She fell back a bit, trying to keep a decent distance between herself and the oncoming horde. She fought with less flourish now, focusing everything on her accuracy and making sure her target was dead before moving on to the next one. Darn witch familiars, being so easy to kill...

But what she lacked in grace now, she made up for in enthusiasm! She knew the consequences of getting distracted by her Feelings, but she couldn't help that small rising feeling inside of her when she saw others fighting with her.

Homura rolls out of the way of the flying acid, not hesitating a beat even as the acid burns through the ground. The Bombardiers move too quickly and it's dangerous to fire into the air with Sayaka there. So she just worries about avoiding them rather than taking them down.

She swings around to direct her machine gun's fire towards the Guard; it's the obvious wall between them and the ground soldiers. But that doesn't do much. In fact it very nearly does nothing; there isn't any sort of reaction to her bullets. If the information on her omnicomm is correct, there should be even more fearsome enemies behind this wall-- but they won't get anywhere with it still standing. They have to kill as many as possible, and this one will be the next to go as far as Homura is concerned.

So she stops time to swap her weapons. Beforehand she'd snagged three heavy duty weapons, and now she unveils one of them. The AT4; it's lightweight but it sure as hell packs a punch. She's not sure exactly what to expect, but it should do more than a gun.

Unfreezing time, she gives ample warning to the other girls. "Out of the way! Don't get behind me!"

Shifting the weaponry over her shoulder, Homura lets the anti-tank missile fly. The backblast is significant, as is the recoil. But she stands rooted to the spot, her magic helping to brace her legs.

Sayaka's eyes widened as she saw that shot of acid shoot past her, along with more bursts of acid. She ducked and weaved through the, fingers tightening a bit more around her swords hilt as she flew up as fast as she could. She actually managed to fly up above the Bombardiers before she flung her sword at the nearest one.

And then made more and more swords, each time she did so throwing it at group of Ohm, switching to another target as soon as one was dead. She barely even heard Homura, but she did manage to hear that blast, which stopped her assault for the moment. Where the heck did Homura get all of that stuff anyway?

Mami's firing downed many an Ohm - Grunts and Grenadiers falling, though they were simply replaced by more of them. More that pushed their way forward - more than struck and spat. But they were the ones that were visible. While the blonde focused on them, an Assassin was creeping up by her side, cloaked and silent. It waited for the right moment, when Mami was taking aim and firing on another Grenadier to attack because of the noise of the guns - dropping its cloak ability to do so. Venom-coated claws lashed out at her.

The Guard toppled over from Homura's fire. And while it tried to move again, the Grunts leapt forward while the Grenadier fired acid at her from a distance. The Grunts were spread out, looking to strike at her from all sides because they couldn't aim for the girl in the air. But that was where the Bombardiers focused instead, one of them specifically shooting toward her at full speed, it didn't stop for explosions.

For all of Mami's experience fighting crazy monsters, even her keen senses couldn't pick up the approach of a cloaked and silent enemy. In that brief moment after she squeezed the trigger, pain exploded somewhere in her chest, as bad as that brief moment before everything went black when she could feel Charlotte's teeth tearing into her neck and oh god--

If Homura and Sayaka were able to pause long enough to turn back and wonder why their support fire has ceased, they'll notice Mami lying prone in a still-spreading puddle of blood, several puncture wounds clearly visible: the Assassin, now either long gone or re-cloaked, speared her straight through her heart and lung.

Homura stays calm. Her breath comes evenly, her hands do not shake. Calm is vital to staying alive; if she panics, it's over and she will never see Madoka again.

She is quick to dodge the acid coming her way, though it's a narrow one. A spray of acid burns through the fabric of her tights and eats at the skin underneath. She doesn't spare a moment to wince, and instead slows time once again. At this point the Assassin after Mami has yet to make itself known; in the greyscale world around her, she's just stuck in the position of firing a rifle.

These ones are obviously made of tough stuff, but not as tough as the Guard. So she swaps her weapons again, safe for the moment, and takes out the Minimi again. It's a lighter machine gun but it's served her well over the various timelines she's faced. Color flows back into the surroundings and Homura wastes no time firing away, spinning on her heel to attack the ones attempting to surround her. But it might be too much for her-- all of these coming at her at once...

She can't see Mami, not with the tall Ohm blocking the way.

It takes Sayaka a while to realize that Mami's been down, but once she realizes that her eyes widen a bit and she ends up flying right over to her. "Mami-san!" she shouts, throwing her swords at anyone near her so that she can actually get to her friend.

But doing that leaves her wide open for quite a few attacks from the Ohm, to say the least.

And the Ohm do not give up a chance to strike, Sayaka. With Mami out of commission for the time being, most of the Ohm don't focus on her. Though the ground beneath both Mami and Saya begins to shake, and before there's a chance to really respond, two Devourer Worms break through the terrain. And they both lunge for Sayaka, mouths dripping. Their backs were being 'watched' in a manner of speaking, from Homura, as the Grunts that flanked her kept their positions even though some of them fell to her weapons.

Oh, and there was also the case of the Tank. The one that just literally burst through the remains of a building nearby.

As quick as you can blink, Homura is tossing out a grenade. And quicker than you can blink, she's hidden behind some rubble. They're ruthless and far more than Homura can handle in a group. After the grenade goes off, she peeks up and braces her machine gun against that same rubble.

She slots in another belt of ammunition but in that short burst of time the Tank is flying out next to her. It happens faster than she can react. Concrete and stone and metal is knocked in her direction. She can't even manage to scream as it hits her gun away and pins her against the ground.

A metal support beam, narrow and sharp from being broken, has pierced her side. It's not gone all the way through, but it's in there deep. Blood pumps out of the gaping wound and tears streak down her face.

It hurts. Oh, it hurts. It hurts like nothing she's ever felt before. Moving makes it hurt worse, so Homura stays still. Pain has rendered her completely incoherent, and completely void of any logic or rational thought.

And then the shock sets in. With the shock comes thought, thought of Madoka, thought of death. Any of the Grunts surviving the explosion and the Tank itself should be able to easily notice her struggling to stand, readying herself to fight again.

Well, crap. This definitely wasn't good.

Sayaka ducked down, lunging out of the way of the two giant worm's lunges as she headed towards Mami, moving to grab her before trying to fly up into the air again. First things first. She needed to get Mami out of here. There wasn't any way that she could really take care of these things.

She hasn't noticed what happened to Homura just yet though. If she did she might've been panicking a bit more.

Once Sayaka was air-borne, a small team of Bombardiers followed suit. The Assassins that tried to jump after her, claws flailing were just a little too slow, just missing her and her companion.

The Bombardiers weren't very bulky, though. So while they did try to swoop by her and cut her down, they tended to stick more to flinging more of their acid in Sayaka's direction. Something that was bulky, however, was a Tank that made its way over to the explosions and the movement. And though the way they look betrayed it, they could actually jump quite high. So in an attempt to ram into it, one of them sprung from the ground.

Next to Homura, she might be able to pick up a faint noise closer to her than she thinks. The quick click of a set of claws - similar to the one that had stabbed Mami - an Assassin crept its way over to try and finish the job once the girl began to the move again.

She doesn't even hear that faint sound. The pain is nearly too much. But she has to press on. If she lays down and gives up, her soul gem will eventually be crushed by whatever comes to finish her off. So she has to stand up. She has to continue on. There's no other choice.

She can see Sayaka in the air now, carrying the bloodied Mami. When did that happen? When did Mami get hurt like that? Homura realizes that she may really be out of her depth here. She might really die.

And as if summoned by that thought, the Assassin makes its move. It's the kind of thing she never could have predicted; maybe if she had been uninjured she could have dodged, just maybe. But as she is she's a complete sitting duck. So it slices her easily and she collapses once again. It's pierced her through her belly, and that hurts so much worse than the pole did. Her entire world is hurt and pain and a fevered thought, a desperate chant.

I don't want to die.

Sayaka managed to look down just at the right moment to realize that HOLYCRAPBIGOHMJUMPING and she flew out of the way of it's jump... only to have one of her hands get sprayed by the other Ohm's acid.

She let out a hiss of pain as she kept flying, dropping her sword as the acid start to burn away the skin covering her hand.

And she notices that Homura is down as well, and not wanting her to die, no matter what she did to Mami in her timeline (since not even Mami seemed to care), Sayaka flew down, hoping that she'd be able to actually hold both Mami and Homura in her arms and get the heck out of here. Maybe get that acid off of her hand so that her healing could kick in too, but right now she needed to get the other two out of there.

The Assassin that sent Homura down for the count wasn't so willing to just let Sayaka swoop in and save her. Standing right next to the downed girl, its claws readied to stop her just as the Tank that had leapt landed on the ground nearby. The Assassins that had jumped for Sayaka and missed didn't exactly leave, either, and the Bombardiers chasing her were hot on her tail.

"HA!"

The jumping Tank had got her attention initially (even from a street over), but those other specialist units on the ground caught Signum's trained eye immediately, and thus, crashing down like a bolt of heavenly fire, the magically-nine-feet-tall knight comes down on the Assassin standing over Homura, blade carving the thing's entire height in one gravity-assisted blow as she lands.

She stops, looks around, recognizes the situation's seriousness and doesn't even bother making a quip. Instead, she slashes down to cut the support beam impaling Homura, picks her up in one arm, offending metal shard and all, and turns to Sayaka. "Run!" is all she says before trying to fly off herself.

Well... okay, despite what had happened with Madoka, now really wasn't the time to be picky about allies. And hey, now she only needed to carry one person. So back into the sky Sayaka went, trying to avoid more of those blasts of acid from the Ohm.

A couple of the Bombardiers didn't pull up in time, hitting the ground hard and delaying their attack. Some of them did, however, and now they and their swiping claws were on both of the able girls, not to keen on their new plan of action.

Just as Sayaka's foot kicked off of the ground, another worm burst through the ground right below her. Teeth trying to clamp around her leg, it missed her by a hair. And in a desperate move to hit her, a jet of its acid sprayed forth and up - at least if the worm couldn't kill her, it might have been able to finish off her blonde companion.

Sayaka's eyes widened as she noticed the worm coming up out of the ground, willing herself to fly faster. She let out a scream when she felt the acid splatter on her back though, but thankfully she was able to keep Mami from being hit by it.

But now she needed to focus and keep from getting scratched by the Bombardiers and get Mami out of here, since she couldn't attack while holding her.

Signum, on the other hand, can just about keep the girl she's carrying in one arm thanks to her current enchantment (well, Transmutation). It's risky with her torso injury, but the fact is that Signum needs Laevatein to ward off the claws of those Bombardiers, slashing away with the enlarged sword blade as she tries to gain altitude and protect Sayaka's back from any further acid spit, with her own armor and body if necessary.

Better do that fast, Signum. The Bombardiers were losing limbs at her slashing, but for what they could not do with their arms, they made up with with not only their acidic spitting, but their speed as they then tried to knock themselves into both girls.

Sayaka just kept trying to fly faster and faster, making sure those things didn't knock into her.

Speed? The Ohm were relying on speed? These clumsy bugs could never compare to Signum's most respected sparring partners - even enlarged and holding an injured ally, Signum defends herself from charges with flashing blade and kicking foot as she rises higher, not stopping to kill, but preventing the enemies from making contact with their attacks.

The acid, however, is a bit more of a problem when she's focused on protecting her charge and Sayaka both, and the acid projectiles hit her in several places, eating through her magically-projected armor towards her skin. She grunts and shrugs off the pain as she spirals upward, thankful that the magical protection covers her legs even if the image of it doesn't.

They were high enough then to avoid any jumping Tanks, so the ground troubles were over. But aside from the Bombardiers, their sky problems would get a little more challenging. A group of Shrikes appeared, faster than the Bombardiers - and along with the acidic attacks, the Shrikes lent them powerful blasts, psychic lances projectiling at top-speed. They spread out, not keen on being taken out by one huge attack, and then they swept in, aiming their psychic blasts at close range as well.

Well... crap. That definitely wasn't good.

Especially when one of those blasts hit her in the chest and nearly sends her spiraling down into the ground and dropping Mami. Sayaka's not even sure how she's managing to do it, but she's still airborne and still holding Mami.

But after this she was definitely figuring out how to do more than just use swords. That's for sure. Maybe she could have an energy slash thingy. That'd be useful right now.

Signum continues moving, sticking close to Sayaka. She wasn't abandoning either of those girls - she owed the two of them far more than that much. However, these Ohm were getting pretty seriously.

Twirling her blade to work the pump-action of its Cartridge System one-handed, Signum expends a casing of stored magic to ignite the blade in flames. With another flick of the wrist, she sends it slashing out in a wide arc in chain-whip form, trying to burn away some of those fast Shrikes. They're too spread out and Signum's movement too hampered for her to simply wipe all of them out, but she clips several of their wings before she's smacked in the back with a psychic blast, throwing off her rhythm. She recovers and focuses on defense, spiraling Laevatein around herself and Sayaka to at least keep the monsters at range. She aims herself toward where she thinks the Transmigration 9 crew's deployment site was from here. They need to get the injured girls somewhere where they could get medical care.

Lirath - Ground Battle

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