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Chapter Three: All In

Toph feels the impact on her side with a wince, with little time to do much else as she struggled to get control of her damaged mecha. Countless hours of training drilled into her kept her alive and not slamming into the deck. Reminder to me: send a 'thank-you' note to Lt. Marcus Edison. His endless drilling probably saved my bacon. Now its payback.

Ignoring the taunting of the Meltrandi, Toph cooly works her controls to shift into her Battloid mode. "I took a solid hit, but my armor is holding. I just don't want to deal with another shot like that. Lets see if I can clear out my target." Maneuvering around to face her opponent, she maneuvers in closer to keep the Zentraedi from having as much time to react to her attack. She locks on with six of her plasma/heat mini missiles and pulls the trigger. "Missiles away!" She feels her mecha shudder briefly as the missiles ripple away from the launcher. Take that, you asshole!
 
Wild Cards - T.A.S.C. Team

With the collision-alarm klaxon still blaring in her cockpit, Muppet took to the controls that made this aircraft a veritech. With a touch, the entire machine shifted and changed its entire shape. Gone were the giant whirling blades replaced by humanoid arms and legs. And that is when it hit her - her training told her that if her machine were heavily damaged, it might not transform at all or worse, get stuck in mid-transformation. This sort of thing hardly ever happened thanks to the beauty of protoculture, but when it did, it often spelled disaster for anyone riding in such an unlucky veritech's cockpit.

Yet now, Muppet had decided the only disaster she had was going to visit her sharpshooting Bandit.

Whooooosh!

Muppet saw her sextet of missiles come away from her smoking and battered Ajax. Six trails of hot miniature engines shot toward the fresh alien mecha. Once again, sprays of tiny metal bits filled the air along with flares, orange and starlike in their beauty. Though it was not possible to dodge them all, the Zeki-Zentraedi pilot tried to put as much distance as possible between himself and the missiles.

It did not matter.

Muppet's missiles struck full force as the flares and chaff failed to defeat her oncoming volley. Five out of the six missiles hit, exploding violently and crippling the mecha while the last missile seemed to aim itself toward a flare.

"D-Damn you, Microniaaaaan!" the pilot yelled at Toph over his loudspeakers.

The arm of the badly smoking and burning Male Power Armor swung in an effort to aim the pistol at the streaking projectile but this pilot's time was up. The last missile struck in the center of the mecha and detonated. A moment later, the Male Power Armor blew up brilliantly with pieces of fiery debris scattering in every direction.

KABOOOOOOM!!

Mack sounded proud over the squadron channel. "Bandit One is down. Good shooting, Muppet!"

* * *​

Taniya followed her flight of missiles in but paused. "What is this?! Perhaps this is Dull Blade's very first kill! Oh glorious day! Shall we all jump out of our mecha and dance on the hull of the starship in celebration for her highness? Ha ha!" Taniya could not help but be pleased. The half-thing had actually killed something! All on her own, too! Taniya wondered if it had happened by accident.

She cupped her mecha's free hand near where her ear would be. "I don't hear your bragging tongue now, Toph Kirin! Could it be you feel your blood stirring for the first time in your heretofore worthless existence? You have but one down, Dull Blade! Only thirty-one more to go! HA HA HAAA!"

Toph may have tried to ignore this sharp berating, but there was only so much Miss Shirley Sharon Mackenzie of Surf City, California could take. Over the squadron channel, the surfer girl came out and growled, her voice full of irritation. "What a bitch! Where does she get off treating you like that?! Muppet, you want me to teach that blue-skinned hosebag a lesson?"

* * *​

Behind cover and angry, the four Zeki-Zentraedi soldiers did the only thing they could against Taniya's barrage of twenty missiles - they fired at them with their particle beam rifles. Two of the four shots missed, but two were straight on target. Two explosions caused many of them to detonate and before anyone knew it, there was a flaming smokescreen that went out for hundreds of feet in every direction. Zeki-Zentraedi soldiers coughed and tried to put out the flames...

They never saw the Female Power Armor, blue-bladed sword in hand, come speeding into melee with them using the smoke as cover...

* * *​

It was now Elinor's turn to act. What does she do?
 
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So far, Elinor didn't think much of Taniya. Sure, she was a skilled fighter and all, but she was rude, mocking, and didn't seem to think anyone was "worthy" of her favor unless they were a skilled fighter, which was pretty small-minded of her. Elinor wasn't sure which, if any, of those traits were specifically Meltrandi ones. She'd never met even a part-Zentraedi/Meltrandi growing up (small-town farms in Georgia didn't seem to be on their vacation lists) and neither Toph nor the just-met Neqel were like that. Not that Elinor or any of her family had anything particularly against them; the Halls were prone to judging on what you did, not what you looked like, and those aliens that had chosen to join Earth's cultures had pretty well proved to the Halls that they ought to have the same chance as any human did. However, by the same token, Elinor figured they ought to get the good and the bad based on their behavior just like any human would, and this particular Meltrandi hadn't impressed her with her social skills.

On the other hand, Mack had made it pretty clear this was Toph's call, and Elinor was willing to go along with that for now. As long as that stuck-up giantess stuck to mouthing off, at least. And so she willingly took her place in the trio's formation as they darted along the Zentraedi ship corridors, right up to the point where suddenly they were in a large space, in touch with the enemy, and in combat. Well then. Elinor didn't mind a bit, having something she could shoot at, after the frustrations of the day! Especially when one of them gave her squadmate a hard knock like that. It took her a few extra moments to make sure she had a full grasp of the situation*, but once she did, and had heard Mack's target designation, that was all this farm-girl needed. For all that she'd never entered actual combat before, any more than Toph had, Elinor found it wasn't so hard to shoot at someone who was shooting at you (or your squad, which for her was pretty much the same thing). She targeted the remaining bandit and fired. "Fox one times six."

*Well, she did roll a 1...
 
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When Herc fires up at the air vent, Mario damn near jumps out of his skin in surprise. He spins around, weapon raised, looking for possible targets. "What?! What are you targeting?" He then sees the smoking body of the monster in the air vent and frowns, the loss of Cpl. Booty still touching a raw spot in his mind. "Watch out for others! I have a feeling that these things work in packs. And next time, give me a bit of a warning! You almost stopped my heart with that!"
 
“Sorry”, Hercules replied in a deadpan voice, “but I’d rather have you suffer the shock of my weapon firing than the shock of being pounced by one of those kathármata.”
He popped out the weapon’s power pack and replaced it with a fresh one.
“I refuse, utterly refuse, to lose another friend today.”
 
Wild Cards - T.A.S.C. Team

Kaerri said:
For all that she'd never entered actual combat before, any more than Toph had, Elinor found it wasn't so hard to shoot at someone who was shooting at you (or your squad, which for her was pretty much the same thing). She targeted the remaining bandit and fired. "Fox one times six."
Click to expand...

Her safeties were off. Her munitions were live, not mere practice ordnance. This was the real thing.

Acquiring a target lock at a mere 1,200 feet even against a giant moving target while oneself was in motion was not a hard thing to do, even for a new fighter pilot like Elinor. Not hitting anything else with her missiles or Valkyrie during this fast and frantic furball* was another issue altogether! In a matter of seconds, two of the three Zentraedi bandits had gone down in flames with their smoke and debris adding to the crazed, chaotic mess the Gnerl fighter bay had become. Now, Elinor had found herself tilting and swerving lest she fly nose-first into one of the titanic pillars and her fellow fighter pilots in their own dodging machines. With the help of her targeting computer and that wonderful beeeep! that told her she had a missile lock, the farm girl-turned-fighter pilot, let fly her mini-missile salvo.

*(Game Master note for all)
"Furball" = Aviator lingo for a confusing and dangerous aerial combat engagement involving multiple aircraft (more than two). It implies there is a lot going on at once.

The giant alien pilot did not need his own early warning system to tell him live missiles were headed his way to destroy him. But this was not one of Dolza's pilots. Most of Dolza's troops basically wanted to kill and live to hear their glories. Having seen both his flight lead and his wingman blown to smithereens in a matter of seconds, this pilot did something odd even by most Zentraedi standards - he fired back, not at the missiles, but at Elinor's Valkyrie. His chaff and flares flew and ten rounds from the grenade-launching cannon in his chest boomed out in rapid succession too - straight at Bruce Leanne's Valkyrie.**

**(Game Master note for all)
See Fat Gandalf's for OOC details, Kaerri especially.

Orange flares added more bright light to the immediate area while packets of chaff flew out in metallic clouds. This time, the system worked. Elinor's six-pack of mini-missiles were fooled enough to head into the bright mixture of shining clouds and loudly detonate leaving the Nousjadeul-Ger unharmed.

Elinor saw the Zeki-Zentraedi's chest-gun report. She knew she had to do something or get hit.

What does Elinor do?
 
Wild Cards - A.T.A.C. Team

"MMmmmeeeeww!" cried MechaKitten. Once again, Hercules and Mario saw words, not with their eyes, but with their mind's eye. They read:

Feeesh-friend killed evil doggie! Feeesh-friend iz greaaaat!

The metal feline continued to affectionately lick Hercules's helmet. But Spaceman Sam continued silently to monitor the massive computer screens, quite unlike anyone who suddenly saw words appear in their minds.

It seemed clear to both Traversers that Sam had very likely seen nothing unusual in his mind. MechaKitten's words had only been "heard" by the tankers.

What do Mario and Hercules do now?
 
Doing his best to try and keep watch for more Wargoths, Mario is also trying to come up with a series of commands to enter into the computer to get some useable info from it. "Alright Sam, lets try accessing internal cameras. Maybe we can see where our tanks are at, and get an idea on where we are in relation to them."
 
Almost before she really felt it, Elinor's frustration at her missile's failure to reach their target was overcome by surprise at the immediate counterattack. Instinctively she moved her Valkyrie in an evasive action, trying to dodge the incoming grenades.
 
Wild Cards - T.A.S.C. Team

Kaerri said:
Almost before she really felt it, Elinor's frustration at her missile's failure to reach their target was overcome by surprise at the immediate counterattack. Instinctively she moved her Valkyrie in an evasive action, trying to dodge the incoming grenades.
Click to expand...

With an exacting execution that only a T.A.S.C. test pilot could have performed, Elinor pulled her Valkyrie into a beautifully-timed barrel roll...

...in the wrong direction.

WHAA-A-A-A-AM!!

The burst of grenades jarred her Valkyrie so hard, Elinor bounced around her cockpit. A series of mega-damage explosions right outside her cockpit, loud and bright, blinded her for a split-second. Only her mega-suit saved her from bruises to her shoulders and head. Collision alerts blared in her helmet as her incredible war machine attempted to assess the damage as best it could. Still, to an average pilot it would have been a shocking and perhaps frightening moment to so gracefully attempt a dodge only to suddenly feel as if King Kong himself had grabbed her vehicle and throttled it with both hands.

A moment later, as if nothing had happened, Elinor was in full control of her veritech once more.

* * *​

Dannigan said:
Toph may have tried to ignore this sharp berating, but there was only so much Miss Shirley Sharon Mackenzie of Surf City, California could take. Over the squadron channel, the surfer girl came out and growled, her voice full of irritation. "What a bitch! Where does she get off treating you like that?! Muppet, you want me to teach that blue-skinned hosebag a lesson?"
Click to expand...

"Hey, Muppet! You gonna come back to me or what?"

Mack didn't know precisely how the half-human, half-Meltrandi was handling what seemed to be her first time getting hit in live combat. Muppet hadn't responded to Taniya, now she wasn't responding to her flight leader. The latter was especially not a good sign.

Using her superior agility, Mack floored the throttle. The thrusters in her Valkyrie's legs roared and carried her toward the ceiling and above the Male Power Armor. Then, from above, she chased him. Mack took her opportunity to attack to swivel her GU-11 Gun Pod about, bringing the triple-barreled cannons of the iconic weapon to bear.

BBBBRRRRRRR!!

At Mack's command, ten rounds exited the weapon in precise formation, but this was apparently not the first time her Zeki-Zentraedi Male Power Armor pilot had been shot at. With a deft burst from his thrusters, the giant warrior zoomed out of the path of Mack's rounds. In the distance, something fiery erupted along a wall. Liquid, pouring and burning, fell from a blasted canister sitting on a wall in the bay. Below it, two Zeki-Zentraedi saw this falling danger and ran for their lives. Some hazards could only be run from.

Immediately following this miss, Neqel used the Red Baroness's head cannons to open up on her enemy, but this too was evaded swiftly.

Still, Muppet and Bruce Leanne could see what Mack's Red Baroness was up to - with her oncoming fire from above him, she was herding the Male Power Armor toward Muppet...

It came time for Muppet to act.

What does Toph do?

* * *​

Dannigan said:
They never saw the Female Power Armor, blue-bladed sword in hand, come speeding into melee with them using the smoke as cover...
Click to expand...

More explosions followed more smoke as most of the rest of the Zeki-Zentraedi foot soldiers saw their chance. They hurled smoke grenades into the melee where Taniya fought her four opponents. But it became a different story when twelve more Zeki-Zentraedi came barreling in with rifle butts, maces, tools, and fists raised high.

Inside the smoke, all was chaos. Zentraedi shouted. A dismembered arm spiraled out of the melee followed by a terrible male scream. Though the smoke was thick, Taniya was outnumbered some fifteen... to one.
 
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Wild Cards - A.T.A.C. Team

Sherwood said:
Doing his best to try and keep watch for more Wargoths, Mario is also trying to come up with a series of commands to enter into the computer to get some useable info from it. "Alright Sam, lets try accessing internal cameras. Maybe we can see where our tanks are at, and get an idea on where we are in relation to them."
Click to expand...

Spaceman Sam nodded dutifully and went to work. Jumping on buttons, the command was inserted as quickly as people your size could make it happen. But the reply from the Zeki-Zentraedi starship was probably not at all what the A.T.A.C. team and Sam might have been expecting.

YOU HONORLESS BAG OF WARTHOG DROPPINGS! YOU WERE ORDERED TO REPORT IMMEDIATELY TO BATTLE-BAY 13C9-ALPHA FOR RECYCLING! REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE TO BE ESCORTED TO THE RECYCLING PIT!

ONLY IN THIS MANNER CAN YOU BE OF ANY USE TO THE ZEKI-ZENTRAEDI EMPIRE!
SINCE YOU ARE TOO INFERIOR TO ACCOMPLISH THIS SIMPLE TASK YOURSELF, A HOST WILL ARRIVE SOON TO ESCORT YOU!
FULFILL YOUR DUTY! REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE!
 
In response to Mack's question, Toph laughs. "No, lets not try to get on the wrong side of this darling lady. If we can salvage an alliance with her, I'm wiling to put up with some bitchyness. Lets take out the last of these MPAs and go from there!" Seeing how expertly that Neqel and Mack are maneuvering the enemy into position, it would be rude of her not to take advantage of the situation. Toph eyes the powered armor suit with a critical look. Taniya said that there was . . . what? Thirty more? Lets try and save some ammo. She switches to her arm mounted pulse ion blaster, and fires a burst from it at the chest of the Zentraedi unit. Lets see how long he can keep up the dodging. "Chew on that, ya bastard!"
 
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Mario frowns. "This doesn't make sense. The computer is not responding the way a computer should. Almost like I'm dealing with another user, typing these responses." He raises his voice to make sure that Hercules can hear him. "Heads up! According to this, we are about to get a 'host' of Zentraedi in here to escort us to the recycling center. I suggest we find some cover before we are overrun and either taken prisoner or killed."

He takes a long look around the room, hoping for some epiphany of what direction to go. "I guess its back up into the air ducts. Unless anyone has a better plan, you'd better speak up now 'cause we're running out of time."
 
Wild Cards - T.A.S.C. Team

Muppet guided her still-smoking Ajax through the chaos. Having to line up one's shot with a beam of light was noticeably less difficult than when firing projectiles of any kind. Muppet did her best to place her pipper (targeting reticle) on the giant mobile mecha's main body and let him have it with her ion pulse cannon.

With a satisfying series of jolts, the cannon loosed its blasts straight into the main body of the Male Power Armor. The impact from the blasts knocked the alien war machine sideways and blackened its hull in three spots where its paint was once red. Now it was his turn to smoke a little!

It was Elinor's turn.

What does she do?
 
Once her Valkyrie was under her control again, Elinor shook her head like a dog shaking off water and steadied her voice. "Well, I'll be feelin' that one in the mornin,' but I'm good to go for now, Mack." That dripping fire down the wall made for a good object lesson; Elinor reminded herself to keep where her misses wouldn't hit her friends. Or potential allies, like the one dancing through the smoke somewhere over yonder.

"Nice shot, Muppet!" she called, watching the ion blasts slam into the one remaining Male Power Armor. She grinned in satisfaction to see his paint marred. Now to see if she could finish him off. Like Toph (not that she knew it), Elinor was concerned about ammunition, or at least her missile supply. She switched to her GU-11, made sure no friendlies were in her line of fire, and let loose a burst when the GU-11's laser targeting system showed a clear shot. "Fox Five!"
 
Wild Cards - T.A.S.C. Team

All of the T.A.S.C. pilots could feel their sweat and adrenaline moving despite the climate controls in their mega-suits. With pinpoint precision, Elinor lined up her own pipper on the GU-11 Gun Pod and blasted away at the Male Power Armor.

BRRRRRRR!

However, either out of sheer coincidence or enormous luck, the pilot swerved himself and his power armor out and away from her blast as if he had known it were coming. It was a dodge worthy of an ace.

Elinor had taken great pains not to hit anything friendly, but her GU-11 burst hit someone anyway. One of the dozen Zeki-Zentraedi racing toward the smoking melee with Taniya never knew what hit him. He wielded a nasty-looking machine pistol in one hand and a mace that crackled with energy in the other. His heavy armor clanked along until the mega-damage shells struck him. He flew sideways and upside down all at once though because of his forward momentum, he still managed to make it into the melee - albeit face-first on the floor in a suit of badly-smoking ruined armor. With a surprised groan, he disappeared into the fog of smoke grenades and was gone.

* * *​

Hungry for a kill, the Nousjadeul-Ger opened up his engines and soared underneath and past Bruce Leanne in an attempt to put her veritech between him and the pursuing Red Baroness. Once again, he fired on Bruce Leanne with his triple-barrelled chest-mounted grenade launcher.

THOO-THOO-THOOM!

Again, ten grenades sped with frightening speed forth from the alien machine and at Elinor's canopy.

How does Elinor choose to defend herself from this attack?
 
What was this guy, some kind of Zentraedi hero? Elinor did take a bit of grim amusement in the fact that at least her rounds had hit someone, even if it wasn't her intended target. She didn't have much time to smile, though. That damned Zentraedi was sending another batch of grenades at her. This time she put a little more thought into her evasion. Making sure she knew where everyone was (at this point in time, at least) she flew her Valkyrie up at a diagonal, perpendicular to the paths of both the now-flown-past-her Zentraedi and the incoming grenades, and into a position where she wasn't between her squadmates and the enemy.
 
(Have some exciting electronic mood music everybody!)
"Burns Attack" by Paul Oakenfold from the Appleseed Original Motion Picture Soundtrack


Wild Cards - A.T.A.C. and T.A.S.C. Teams! Surprise!

Using the powerful thrusters in the legs of her Guardian-shaped VF-1S, Bruce Leanne poured on the speed and cut sharply upward. It was a valiant effort that paid off beautifully. The speeding trail of explosives zipped past Elinor's aircraft and struck a door on the ground level with such force that it blew the lower half of it away and set the upper half on fire...

KABOOOOM!!

If Hercules's sudden cannon fire on the Wargoth was not enough to make Mario and Spaceman Sam leap in fright, the exploding volley of grenades ruining one of the only two Zentraedi-sized doors leading out of the corridor was certainly enough to surprise just about anyone. Fiery pieces of debris, many of them human-sized, bounced and clanged dangerous down the hall, luckily harming no one.

From the top of the console where Spaceman Sam typed, Mario and Sam could easily see the end of the corridor some 800 feet away. The end of the corridor had a door to the left remaining; the door to the right was now a twisted pile of scrap from the middle section down and the upper 30 feet of the door crackled and burned brightly from the mega-damage fires eating into it.

Directly outside, Hercules, Mario, MechaKitten, and Spaceman Sam could hear jet engines screaming, alarm klaxons ringing, fires raging, missiles and cannons roaring, explosions echoing, males yelling, and more. Through that door way all hell was breaking loose!

"MEEEEW!!" MechaKitten cried out in alarm and took up his defensive position behind Herc's shoulder. Sam just stood there and appeared as shocked as a figure in a glassy space helmet and high-tech mega-suit could.

What do Mario and Hercules do?

(Game Master note to all)
Yes, the A.T.A.C. team are in a room adjoined to the Gnerl fighter bay! Remember that the T.A.S.C. team has no way of knowing where the A.T.A.C. team is (and is far too busy in this furball anyway!).

* * *​

Psychie said:
In response to Mack's question, Toph laughs. "No, lets not try to get on the wrong side of this darling lady. If we can salvage an alliance with her, I'm wiling to put up with some bitchyness. Lets take out the last of these MPAs and go from there!"
Click to expand...

Shirley could only reply, "'Wrong side?' I'm not sure that big blue chick has a right side! Looks to me that racking up a high kill count is the only way to find out."

Oblivious to anything outside of the Space Fighter Bay they were warring in, Shirley gritted her teeth and dog-tailed the evading Nousjadel-Ger. Sure, the bastard was having a lucky day, but in war, luck was a commodity only fools bet their lives on. The Red Baroness flashed past Elinor and rolled to keep its head/turret aimed at the enemy power armor.

"Guns, guns, guns!" Shirley used the alternative to the code for "Fox Five" and let loose with another burst from the crimson bird's GU-11.

"BRRRRRRR!!" The weapon roared sending a neat trail of shells straight at the Male Power Armor, but with an excellently-timed aerial somersault, the Male Power Armor evaded the blasts.

"You gotta be kidding!" Shirley snarled. "Who's in that suit?! Super-Zentraedi-Spider-Man?!"

Neqel, not to be denied, fired the VF-1S's quartet of head lasers. The pilot poured on a burst of speed that got him out of the deadly path of blazing light, but the Meltrandi seemed to expect this. Her lasers stitched small scars of damage across the mecha's chest.

* * *​

More smoke grenades detonated. Inside the growing clouds of black and green, over a dozen Zeki-Zentraedi fought and grabbed, yelled and attacked, all vying for one opponent. The smoke moved like a living thing. The battered lightning in that section sputtered on and off creating a visually-psychedelic scene of chaos and violence. Plumes rose in the half-light, half-darkness. Zeki-Zentraedi pushed through the fog, brawling and fighting, a wispy cloud shot upward, the yelling and crashing continued in a mass of bloodthirsty madness only born warriors could create. Machine pistols fired, clubs swung, males reached and wrestled with a vengeance.

Then there was a shout over the din. A male shout.

"I HAVE HER!"

This caused the rest to pause. Then like one organized team, angrily they stormed in on the sound. Through the smoke, a single power armor, a Queadlunn-Rau was struggling against five Zeki-Zentraedi in light armor. They all held on as the figure thrashed, curved blue sword in hand. The other ten rushed in with crazed grins and weapons at the ready.

"HERE!"

"VICTORY!"

"OPEN THE ARMOR AND KILL HER!"

Mack saw this and cringed. The Wild Cards could hear her surprise over the squadron radio. "Muppet? Looks like the bitch got herself in serious trouble. I don't think Iris is gonna be able to get her outta this!"

As the Male Power Armor dodged and blasted away at the Wild Cards, once again, it became time for Toph to take action.

What does she do?
 
Mario's instincts have him hitting the deck almost before he is even aware of just what the hell is going on over there. The first thought that goes through his mind is, When they say they are sending a host of Zentraedi to come and get us, they ain't kidding! Wait. That is one hell of a firefight. I wonder if the scavengers up top have made their way into the ship? Using his radio, he calls out, "Wild Cards, be advised that we are witnessing a serious firefight inside the ship. We may have company from the scavs up top, trying to secure some gear for themselves. I'm going to investigate and report ASAP. Wait one."

Looking over at Sam and Hercules, Mario says, "I need to get some idea of numbers involved out there. Sit tight and keep under cover until I check back in with everyone, ok?" He then gets back to his feet, slaps in a fresh power cell into his rifle, then jumps down from the desk top using the jet pack to break his fall. Moving at a run, he moves to the opening in the door and tries to look in.
 
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Toph can feel her mind racing, but everything seems to be moving at a slow motion pace. The doctor in her knows its due to an influx of adrenaline in her system, but the pilot just doesn't seem to care. Lets try a bit of teamwork here, and hope this works! Using her external speakers, she calls out, "Taniya! Boost straight up!" A flicker of doubt almost keeps her from pulling the trigger, but now is not the time to second guess herself. Toph puts the cross hairs of her targeting lock down at knee level of the attacking troops, hoping that she's not just about to blow the legs off of the Meltrandi.
 
Wild Cards - T.A.S.C. Team

Psychie said:
A flicker of doubt almost keeps her from pulling the trigger, but now is not the time to second guess herself. Toph puts the cross hairs of her targeting lock down at knee level of the attacking troops, hoping that she's not just about to blow the legs off of the Meltrandi.
Click to expand...

A couple of things happen in a very short period of time...

With great focus, Muppet's Ajax looses her volley of five fragmentation mini-missiles. They streak toward the nearly-huddled group of giant warriors on Muppet's left and some of them see it coming and shout out a warning. Then the Zeki-Zentraedi do something Lord Dolza's Zentraedi have never been known for.

(In Zentraedi) "Look out!"

"Cover! Take cover!"

Of the five in the group, two of them are wearing mega-damage armor. The other three are wearing mega-damage uniforms. In an act of pure sacrifice, the armor-wearing Zeki-Zentraedi leap in front of their unarmored teammates to shield them from the missile blasts.

KABOOM!!

Crates rock and burst open unleashing small chemical fires all around the area. All five Zeki-Zentraedi are struck by the shrapnel from Muppet's volley but the two armored warriors took the worst of it, leaving their uniformed tank-mates wounded, but still quite alive. In another ferocious display that differs from Lord Dolza's Zentraedi, none of the five warriors cry out from their injuries. They shout from surprise perhaps, but not from their bleeding wounds. Though lacerated and concussed, they each clench their teeth and take the pain. Then, with a hot new vengeance in their eyes, they stumble, crawl, or run as able straight at the Meltrandi Power Armor before them. Armed with melee weapons, they might not have been able to attack the Micronian veritech from afar, but they could smash that female and her armor until nothing was left but blood and twisted metal.

* * *​

Taniya's Power Armor, laden down as it was with five Zeki-Zentraedi warriors grabbing onto it could not do as Muppet requested. Able to tear apart mecha with their bare hands, the physical of the Zentraedi was legendary and if the Queadlunn-Rau could have suddenly boosted out of this, it likely already would have. The struggling, thrusting Queadlunn-Rau went nowhere.

In what appeared to be a last act of defiance, the sword-arm of the Queadlunn-Rau mechanically swung forward, launching Taniya's blue blade gracelessly through the air at one of the oncoming Zeki-Zentraedi. The intended target moved his head out of the way and barked a mocking laugh. The sword clattered uselessly against the floor near a pillar some three hundred feet away. The lights flickered and flashed, the smoke rose and billowed, but there was still enough light for the Zentraedi to see their most hated foe there in their grasp.

* * *​

It becomes Bruce Leanne's turn to act. What does she do?

(EDIT: Changed present tense in one paragraph to past.)
 
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Hercules dropped into a ready stance as the door exploded, weapon raised, but otherwise unstirred. His warrior instincts were fully aflame now and his rage was a banked fire waitingfor more fuel to return it to its blazing might. He issued a terse "Understood." to Mario's instructions, then returned his attention to monitoring the rest of the room. No more of those hellish beasts would be getting the drop on his team.
 
Wild Cards - A.T.A.C. Team

BBRRRRRRR!!

As Mario charandged down the corridor, his ears began to tell him more than his eyes could. He heard the distinct report of a GU-11 rotary cannon coming from the next room. Mario did not have to be a veritech pilot to know what caused that sound.

He also knew that Lord Dolza's Zentraedi, untrained in their use, did not use such weapons except under the most extreme of circumstances.

Then his ears picked up the powerful whines and roars of Valkyrie engines and he knew what those were too. Mario did not have enough experience around the Ajax Veritech to know it by sound alone.

As Mario reached the blasted remnants of the smoking door, Hercules's sense of sound also informed him of the same. With MechaKitten quietly growling in one ear, the big-hearted tanker had his teammate fully covered against threats from the the corridor.

Spaceman Sam kept pressing keys on the Zentraedi keyboard. He looked up to the gigantic monitors as if able to read them clearly.

Meanwhile, at the end of the corridor, Mario saw the entire fight between his fellow Wild Cards and the alien Invaders inside the enormous aerospace fighter hangar bay. The tremendous loudness and sheer amount of smoke, flames, yelling, sputtering lights, and weapons fire was an overload to any human beings's senses.

There was too much violence happening both on the ground and in the air to understand the entire situation, but the young Italian knew who his friends were.

And the Wild Cards were here and busy!

What do Mario and Hercules do?
 
Mario calls out to Hercules. "Its the ladies! They are in the middle of a furball in the next room!" Using his radio on the squad channel, he signals, "Wild Cards air team. Be advised that I have eyes on you from the next room over, through the hole in the door, and Hercules is not far behind me. I'd offer a hand, but when faced with a metric shit-ton of Zentraedi, my little pop gun will only draw attention to me, and I can't last long in a fire fight of that magnitude."
 
Elinor didn't like Taniya, but that didn't much matter when they had a common enemy like this. Ally or no, though, she couldn't think of a way to get rid of the Zentradi holding the Meltrandi down without also getting rid of the Meltrandi - not exactly an optimum solution. So she turned her weapons on a target closer to home, as it were: the still-not-dead, way-too-lucky guy in the Male Power Armor that was still bearing down on them. "Fox Five," she called over the radio, letting loose another burst from her GU-11.
 
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